* * * * *

He spoke with great animation of the advantage of classical study, Greek especially.  ‘Where,’ said he, ’would one look for a greater orator than Demosthenes; or finer dramatic poetry, next to Shakspeare, than that of Aeschylus and Sophocles, not to speak of Euripides?’ Herodotus he thought ’the most interesting and instructive book, next to the Bible, which had ever been written.’  Modern discoveries had only tended to confirm the general truth of his narrative.  Thucydides he thought less of.

* * * * *

France was our next subject, and one which seemed very near his heart.  He had been much in that country at the out-break of the Revolution, and afterwards during its wildest excesses.  At the time of the September massacres he was at Orleans.  Addressing Mrs. W. he said, ’I wonder how I came to stay there so long, and at a period so exciting.’  He had known many of the abbes and other ecclesiastics, and thought highly of them as a class; they were earnest, faithful men:  being unmarried, he must say, they were the better able to fulfil their sacred duties; they were married to their flocks.  In the towns there seemed, he admitted, very little religion; but in the country there had always been a great deal.  ‘I should like to spend another month in France,’ he said, ’before I close my eyes.’  He seemed to feel deep commiseration for the sorrows of that unhappy country.  It was evidently the remembrance of hopes which in his youth he had ardently cherished, and which had been blighted, on which his mind was dwelling.  I alluded to Henry the Fifth, to whom many eyes were, I thought, beginning to turn.  With him, he remarked, there would be a principle for which men could contend—­legitimacy.  The advantage of this he stated finely.

There was tenderness, I thought, in the tones of his voice, when speaking with his wife; and I could not but look with deep interest and admiration on the woman for whom this illustrious man had for so many years cherished feelings of reverential love.

    ‘Peace settles where the intellect is meek,’

is a line which you will recall from one of the beautiful poems Wordsworth has addressed to her; and this seemed peculiarly the temper of her spirit—­peace, the holy calmness of a heart to whom love had been an ‘unerring light.’  Surely we may pray, my friend, that in the brief season of separation which she has now to pass, she may be strengthened with divine consolation.

I cannot forbear to quote here that beautiful passage, near the end of the great poem, ‘The Prelude,’ as an utterance by the author of tender feelings in his own matchless way.  After speaking of his sister in tones of deepest thankfulness, he adds,