That in no after moment aught less vast
        Might stamp me mortal!  A triumphant shout
        Black Horror scream’d, and all her goblin rout
      From the more with’ring scene diminish’d pass’d.

      Ah!  Bard tremendous in sublimity! 
        Could I behold thee in thy loftier mood,
      Wand’ring at eve, with finely frenzied eye,
        Beneath some vast old tempest-swinging wood! 
        Awhile, with mute awe gazing, I would brood,
      Then weep aloud in a wild ecstacy!”—­

His Conciones ad Populum, Watchman, &c. are dreary trash.  Of his Friend, I have spoken the truth elsewhere.  But I may say of him here, that he is the only person I ever knew who answered to the idea of a man of genius.  He is the only person from whom I ever learnt any thing.  There is only one thing he could learn from me in return, but that he has not.  He was the first poet I ever knew.  His genius at that time had angelic wings, and fed on manna.  He talked on for ever; and you wished him to talk on for ever.  His thoughts did not seem to come with labour and effort; but as if borne on the gusts of genius, and as if the wings of his imagination lifted him from off his feet.  His voice rolled on the ear like the pealing organ, and its sound alone was the music of thought.  His mind was clothed with wings; and raised on them, he lifted philosophy to heaven.  In his descriptions, you then saw the progress of human happiness and liberty in bright and never-ending succession, like the steps of Jacob’s ladder, with airy shapes ascending and descending, and with the voice of God at the top of the ladder.  And shall I, who heard him then, listen to him now?  Not I! . . .  That spell is broke; that time is gone for ever; that voice is heard no more:  but still the recollection comes rushing by with thoughts of long-past years, and rings in my ears with never-dying sound.

        “What though the radiance which was once so bright,
      Be now for ever taken from my sight,
      Though nothing can bring back the hour
      Of glory in the grass, of splendour in the flow’r;
        I do not grieve, but rather find
        Strength in what remains behind;
        In the primal sympathy,
        Which having been, must ever be;
        In the soothing thoughts that spring
        Out of human suffering;
      In years that bring the philosophic mind!”—­

I have thus gone through the task I intended, and have come at last to the level ground.  I have felt my subject gradually sinking from under me as I advanced, and have been afraid of ending in nothing.  The interest has unavoidably decreased at almost every successive step of the progress, like a play that has its catastrophe in the first or second act.  This, however, I could not help.  I have done as well as I could.