to dwell on the praise of which you are so eminently
deserving. He was a being formed in the “very
poetry of nature.” His wild and enthusiastic
imagination was chastened by the sensibility of his
heart. His soul overflowed with ardent affections,
and his friendship was of that devoted and wondrous
nature that the world-minded teach us to look for
only in the imagination. But even human sympathies
were not sufficient to satisfy his eager mind.
The scenery of external nature, which others regard
only with admiration, he loved with ardour:—
-----The sounding cataract
Haunted him like a passion: the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colours and their forms, were then to him
An appetite; a feeling, and a love,
That had no need of a remoter charm,
By thought supplied, or any interest
Unborrow’d from the eye.
[Wordsworth’s
“Tintern Abbey".]
And where does he now exist? Is this gentle
and lovely being lost forever? Has this mind,
so replete with ideas, imaginations fanciful and magnificent,
which formed a world, whose existence depended on the
life of its creator;—has this mind perished?
Does it now only exist in my memory? No, it
is not thus; your form so divinely wrought, and beaming
with beauty, has decayed, but your spirit still visits
and consoles your unhappy friend.
Pardon this gush of sorrow; these ineffectual words
are but a slight tribute to the unexampled worth of
Henry, but they soothe my heart, overflowing with
the anguish which his remembrance creates. I
will proceed with my tale.
Beyond Cologne we descended to the plains of Holland;
and we resolved to post the remainder of our way,
for the wind was contrary and the stream of the river
was too gentle to aid us. Our journey here lost
the interest arising from beautiful scenery, but we
arrived in a few days at Rotterdam, whence we proceeded
by sea to England. It was on a clear morning,
in the latter days of December, that I first saw the
white cliffs of Britain. The banks of the Thames
presented a new scene; they were flat but fertile,
and almost every town was marked by the remembrance
of some story. We saw Tilbury Fort and remembered
the Spanish Armada, Gravesend, Woolwich, and Greenwich—places
which I had heard of even in my country.
At length we saw the numerous steeples of London,
St. Paul’s towering above all, and the Tower
famed in English history.
London was our present point of rest; we determined
to remain several months in this wonderful and celebrated
city. Clerval desired the intercourse of the
men of genius and talent who flourished at this time,
but this was with me a secondary object; I was principally
occupied with the means of obtaining the information
necessary for the completion of my promise and quickly
availed myself of the letters of introduction that
I had brought with me, addressed to the most distinguished
natural philosophers.
