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150 "A fitting compliment for one whose mind is the most singular mixture of pun, poetry, conceits, simplicity, that ever mingled the mime and the minstrel. But I hold that he is rather the cause of mirth in others than merry himself. He is pale, silent, serious; and I never heard an instance of laughter recorded against him. In his most comic vein, the idea of death seems ever present. His favourite imagery is death's heads, coffins, skeletons: even his merriest ballads turn upon the death of their subject. His faculty of perversion outdoes any temper in the world. One of the oddest applications of a quotation was in a preface, where, speaking of his own sketches, he says, 'Like the tape-tied curtains of the poet, I was never meant to draw.' With this is mingled a gift of the most touching poetry. I doubt whether the whole of 'our British poets,' drawn up in battle array, could send forth specimens more calculated to touch even a critical Coriolanus than some of his short and beautiful pieces." "There is something," said Emily, "that interests me in the face of that gentleman. Who is he?" "One of the very few persons of whom I