He was connected with the Coleridges through the Yonge family, and the young people were all on familiar cousinly terms.  Coley was much liked by him; and often joined in the rides through the lanes and to the hills with him and his daughters, when there were many conversations of much interest, as there could not fail to be with a man who had never held a government without doing his utmost to promote God’s work in the Church and for education; who had, moreover, strong opinions derived from experience of the Red Indians in Upper Canada—­namely, that to reclaim the young, and educate them was the only hope of making Christianity take root in any fresh nation.

It was at Deerpark, at a dinner in the late autumn of this year 1853, that I saw Coley Patteson for the second and last time.  I had seen him before in a visit of three days that I made at Feniton with my parents in the September of 1844, when he was an Eton boy, full of high spirits and merriment.  I remember then, on the Sunday, that he and I accompanied our two fathers on a walk to the afternoon service at Ottery, and that on the way he began to show something of his inner self, and talked of his mother and her pleasure in Feniton; but it began to rain, and I stayed for the night at Heaths Court, so that our acquaintance ceased for that time.  It was not a formal party at Deerpark, and the evening was chiefly spent in playing at games, thread paper verses and the like, in which Coley took his part with spirit.  If I had guessed what he was to be, I should have observed him more; but though, in after years, our intercourse in letters makes us feel intimate with one another, these two brief meetings comprise the whole of my personal acquaintance with one in whom I then only saw a young clergyman with his heart in his work.

Perhaps this is the best place to mention his personal appearance, as the portrait at the beginning of this volume was taken not more than a year later.

He was tall and of a large powerful frame, broad in the chest and shoulders, and with small neat hands and feet, with more of sheer muscular strength and power of endurance than of healthiness, so that though seldom breaking down and capable of undergoing a great deal of fatigue and exertion, he was often slightly ailing, and was very sensitive to cold.  His complexion was very dark, and there was a strongly marked line between the cheeks and mouth, the corners of which drooped when at rest, so that it was a countenance peculiarly difficult to photograph successfully.  The most striking feature was his eyes, which were of a very dark clear blue, full of an unusually deep earnest, and so to speak, inward, yet far away expression.  His smile was remarkably bright, sweet and affectionate, like a gleam of sunshine, and was one element of his great attractiveness.  So was his voice, which had the rich full sweetness inherited from his mother’s family, and which always excited a winning influence