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where we arrived at five in the afternoon, having dined and taken a glass of schnapps at a little inn on the road. After enjoying a refreshing cup of coffee, finding that we could all be accommodated with beds in the same room, we took possession of them at the early hour of eight for the sake of a conversazione in the recumbent posture. How long we were in talking ourselves to sleep, or rather in being talked to sleep by Coleridge, my journal does not mention.

We decided on remaining at Wolfenbuttel the whole of the following day, partly that we might have sufficient time for visiting the celebrated library, and making inquiries respecting Lessing, and partly on

-'s account, as he still continued languid, and not in good order for travelling, particularly on foot.

The Wolfenbuttel library, which is singularly rich in manuscripts, is, in its interior appearance and arrangements, not unlike Lackington's. Here we saw an original portrait of Hans Sachs; and, in answer to Coleridge's inquiries about Lessing, who had been attached for many years to the library as secretary, we were informed that he made great use of the opportunity which this situation afforded him, to consult and arrange the manuscripts, and that, if his life had been further prolonged, he would, it is supposed, have made himself acquainted with the contents of all of them. We were told that, in addition to his

great learning, he was a most disinterested and benevolent man. Coleridge has informed us, in one of the letters he wrote from Ratzeburg, that at the house of the celebrated Klopstock's brother, near Hamburg, he had seen a very fine portrait of Lessing. He describes the impression this portrait made upon him, which, we may suppose, was not the less vivid from the circumstance that the eyes were, he says, uncommonly like his own; if any thing, rather larger and more prominent. There were likewise strong indica

tions of talent for metaphysics.

In the Wolfenbuttel library, we were shown a Bible in which the word "not" was omitted in the seventh commandment.

We dined at a very inexpensive table d'hôte, where, as well as in our walks on the ramparts of the town, we fell into conversation with a number of French emigrès, who were in high spirits at having received accounts of fresh disturbances which had just then broken out at Paris. Except the library, there was nothing very attractive at Wolfenbuttel, which we accordingly voted to be a dull place-neither town nor country; but a lifeless combination of both.

June the 30th, we walked leisurely, through a charming country, to Brunswick, and making rather a queer appearance on our arrival there at the chief inn, we were more amused than mortified by the attentive survey which the landlord took of us before he

*

ventured to inform the Garçon to what apartment we were to be conducted by him; but discovering that ;* we were Englishmen, we had good quarters allotted to us, of which we had scarcely possession when the door of the room in which we were sitting was suddenly opened, and in burst the two Parrys and Turk.

It had happened a short time after our return to Göttingen from the Harz, when we were spending an evening with the Parrys, that Coleridge proposed to

* Almost every one is acquainted with Shenstone's lines

"He that has travelled life's dull round,

Whate'er his varied course has been,

Must sigh, to think he oft has found

His warmest welcome at an inn."

But many years ago I read on a pane of glass at the first and last inn in England (viz. at the Land's-end, Cornwall), the following parody:

"He that has travelled much about

Must very often sigh to think

That every inn would turn him out,

Unless he 's furnished with the chink."

Which embodies quite as just a sentiment as the former: if indeed it be not the very same sentiment differently expressed. For if the warm reception of an inn may at all be dignified with the name of hospitality, it can derive its claim to that distinction from no higher source than the sociability of selflove (or self-interest), a principle which, to say the best of it, is fraught, as most of Pope's paradoxical truisms are, whatever learned commentators may have said to the contrary, with very ambiguous morality.

"For forms of faith let erring mortals fight,

His can't be wrong whose life is in the right."

But is not his life most likely to be right whose form of faith is most pure? "For forms of government let fools contest,

The one that's best administer'd is best."

But what government is most likely to be well-administered: one founded on justice and equity, or one left to the caprice of many or of one?

This

us to make a pedestrian tour together through parts of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway; to which we so far acceded as to give Parry three weeks for consulting his father, upon whose answer the tour was to depend. But, no letter arriving within the stipulated period, the thoughts of the tour were given up; and Coleridge had in the meantime lost all inclination for such an excursion. Home sickness was, in fact, gaining fast upon him, and he declared it to be no longer possible for him to accompany us. He promised, however, to return and make the projected northern tour with us the ensuing spring. afforded some consolation to the Parrys, who, after hastening, immediately on the receipt of their father's answer, from Göttingen to overtake us, were naturally not a little disappointed at the thought of returning thither with and myself their object unaccomplished. Coleridge never rejoined us; but, the following summer, my friend, Charles Parry, and myself made the tour of a great part of Scandinavia, and had abundant reason for being convinced that our pedestrian project would have turned out a complete. failure.

In our saunter from Wolfenbuttel to Brunswick, there was again some conversation respecting Coleridge's unfortunate tragedy, Osorio. He told us, with more particularity, that prior to the evening

when he heard Miss De Camp recite one of the scenes in a public company, he had ascertained that after Sheridan had received the manuscript from Linley, in whose hands it was first placed, it had been passed on, to use C.'s own familiar nomenclature, to Grey— from him to Whitbread-from Whitbread to Sir F. Burdett, &c. during all which transition period he could get no audience, nor even an answer from Sheridan.

From this, which was by no means an agreeable subject, our conversation took a more congenial turn, and he discoursed, with considerable animation, on the endearments of virtuous love. He had expe

rienced, he said, no happiness at all to be compared with his state of mind during the blissful period which intervened between consent and marriage.

"In tender accents, faint and low,

Well pleased I hear the whisper'd No.
The whisper'd No, how little meant !
'Twas coyness that endears consent."

Nor did it by any means appear that, as some have asserted, love had been driven out of the window shortly after his wedding-day; for never, during our intercourse of many months, did I hear him drop an expression which would have led me to suppose that he was not most affectionately attached to the lady to whom he was wedded, of whom, and of his children,

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