Past and present at the English lakes . eside, she heard Hartley inThe Merchant of Venice declaim the part ofShylock. How did he talk ? I said, for I believe heinherited something of his fathers volubility andpower of impassioned discourse. Well, of course, she replied, I was tooyoung to enter into the conversation, but I canwell remember how at the dinner table he wouldwork himself up almost into a passion as he spoke,and forgetting all about his dinner would suddenlyjump up, leave his seat, and seem to run round thetable swaying his arms and pouring out torrents oftalk till he sat down to fi
Past and present at the English lakes . eside, she heard Hartley inThe Merchant of Venice declaim the part ofShylock. How did he talk ? I said, for I believe heinherited something of his fathers volubility andpower of impassioned discourse. Well, of course, she replied, I was tooyoung to enter into the conversation, but I canwell remember how at the dinner table he wouldwork himself up almost into a passion as he spoke,and forgetting all about his dinner would suddenlyjump up, leave his seat, and seem to run round thetable swaying his arms and pouring out torrents oftalk till he sat down to find we had finishedthe course, and must wait till he had finishedalso. As I told you before, the piano was a greatattraction to him. He would sit by me time aftertime when I was practising, simply for the pleasurethat the sound of music gave him. I know he was fond of music, I said, forthere is a poem called Hidden Music I remem-ber his lines written impromptu in 1835 ^^^^^hearing a lady sing, and his poem The Solace ofSong, which HARTLEY COLERIDGE 17 And should I live to be an old, An old forgotten thing,Yet never may my heart be cold When holy maidens sing. And the sonnet to Music, No. XXVIIL in the Posthumous Poems, and To a Lady, on hersinging a sweet old air ; and again the XXXthsonnet, which begins, I w^ould, my friend, indeed, thou hadst been hereLast night, beneath the shadow^y hear the lines, to me well known before,Embalmd in music so translucent clear. Can you tell me anything about the origin ofthe poem Hidden Music, which was written inJune, 1843, °^ those sonnets XXIX. and XXX.,for I once picked up a volume of the Poems withthe words Abby Hutchinson sung the MayQueen in the garden at Greenbank written inclear hand above that sonnet XXX. ? Yes, said my friend, there was a famousviolinist, I think a foreigner, his name I have for-gotten, who lived at Hawkshead, and I believeHartley Coleridge heard him practising in a wood,and was inspired by it to
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