Coming up to London from Oxford about
1807 or 1808 I made inquiries about him; and found that he usually read
the papers at a coffee-room in Piccadilly: understanding that he was poor,
it struck me that he might not wish to receive visits at his lodgings, and
therefore I sought him at the coffee-room. Here I took the liberty of
introducing myself to him. He received me courteously, and invited me to
his rooms--which at that time were in Sherrard-street, Golden-square--a
street already memorable to me. I was much struck with the eloquence of
his conversation; and afterwards I found that Mr. Wordsworth, himself the
most eloquent of men in conversation, had been equally struck when he had
met him at Paris between the years 1790 and 1792, during the early storms
of the French revolution. In Sherrard-street I visited him repeatedly, and
took notes of the conversations I had with him on various subjects. These
I must have somewhere or other; and I wish I could introduce them here, as
they would interest the reader. Occasionally in these conversations, as in
his books, he introduced a few notices of his private history: in
particular I remember his telling me that in the East Indies he had been a
prisoner of Hyder's: that he had escaped with some difficulty; and that,
in the service of one of the native princes as secretary or interpreter,
he had accumulated a small fortune.
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