In London I met him often, and remember he lodged in a little
house with a Miss Bundy, at the corner of King's-square-court,
Soho, now a warehouse, for a long time together. When poverty
overtook him, poor man, he had too much sensibility of temper to
bear with misfortunes, and so fell into a most deplorable state of
mind. How he got down to Oxford, I do not know; but I myself saw
him under Merton wall, in a very affecting situation, struggling,
and conveyed by force, in the arms of two or three men, towards
the parish of St. Clement, in which was a house that took in such
unhappy objects: and I always understood, that not long after he
died in confinement; but when, or where, or where he was buried, I
never knew.

"Thus was lost to the world this unfortunate person, in the prime
of life, without availing himself of fine abilities, which,
properly improved, must have raised him to the top of any
profession, and have rendered him a blessing to his friends, and
an ornament to his country.

"Without books, or steadiness and resolution to consult them if he
had been possessed of any, he was always planning schemes for
elaborate publications, which were carried no further than the
drawing up proposals for subscriptions, some of which were
published; and in particular, as far as I remember, one for 'a
History of the Darker Ages.'

"He was passionately fond of music; good-natured and affable; warm
in his friendships, and visionary in his pursuits; and, as long as
I knew him, very temperate in his eating and drinking. He was of
moderate stature, of a light and clear complexion, with gray eyes,
so very weak at times as hardly to bear a candle in the room; and
often raising within him apprehensions of blindness.

"With an anecdote respecting him, while he was at Magdalen
College, I shall close my letter. It happened one afternoon, at a
tea visit, that several intelligent friends were assembled at his
rooms to enjoy each other's conversation, when in comes a member
of a certain college,[6] as remarkable at that time for his brutal
disposition as for his good scholarship; who, though he met with a
circle of the most peaceable people in the world, was determined
to quarrel; and, though no man said a word, lifted up his foot and
kicked the tea-table, and all its contents, to the other side of
the room. Our poet, though of a warm temper, was so confou