[182] A collection of casts of antique gems, once, no doubt, the property of S. T. C., is now in the possession of Alexander Gillman, Esq., of Sussex Square, Brighton.
[183] Edward Dubois, satirist, 1775-1850, was the author of The Wreath, a Translation of Boccaccio’s Decameron, 1804, and other works besides those mentioned in the text. Biographical Dictionary.
[184] A late note-book of the Highgate period contains the following doggerel:—
To the most veracious Anecdotist and
Small-Talk Man, Thomas Hill, Esq.
Tom Hill who laughs at cares and woes,
As nanci—nili—pili—
What is he like as I suppose?
Why to be sure, a Rose, a Rose.
At least no soul that Tom Hill knows,
Could e’er recall a Li-ly.
S. T. C.
“The first time,” writes Miss Stuart, in a personal remembrance of Coleridge, headed “A Farewell, 1834,” “I dined in company at my father’s table, I sat between Coleridge and Mr. Hill (known as ‘Little Tommy Hill’) of the Adelphi, and Ezekiel then formed the theme of Coleridge’s eloquence. I well remember his citing the chapter of the Dead Bones, and his sepulchral voice as he asked, ‘Can these bones live?’ Then, his observation that nothing in the range of human thought was more sublime than Ezekiel’s reply, ‘Lord, thou knowest,’ in deepest humility, not presuming to doubt the omnipotence of the Most High.” Letters from the Lake Poets, p. 322. See, too, Letters from Hill to Stuart, Ibid. p. 435.
[185] William Elford Leach, 1790-1836, a physician and naturalist, was at this time Curator of the Natural History Department at the British Museum.
By Lawrencian, Coleridge means a disciple of the eminent surgeon William Lawrence, whose “Lectures on the Physiology, Zoölogy, and Natural History of Man,” which were delivered in 1816, are alluded to more than once in his “Theory of Life.” “Theory of Life” in Miscellanies, Æsthetic and Literary, Bohn’s Standard Library, pp. 377, 385.
[186] Included in the Omniana of 1809-1816. Table Talk, etc., Bell & Sons, 1884, p. 400.
[187] Compare a letter of Coleridge to Allsop, dated October 8, 1822, in which he details “the four griping and grasping sorrows, each of which seemed to have my very heart in its hands, compressing or wringing.”