He
seemed no ways surprised at this himself, but explained to me that
somewhere or other in the neighborhood of Tottenham-court-road there was a
little theatre, at which there was dancing and occasionally good singing,
between which and a neighboring coffee-house he sometimes divided his
evenings. Singing, it seems, he could hear in spite of his deafness. In
this street I took my final leave of him; it turned out such; and,
anticipating at the time that it would be so, I looked after his white hat
at the moment it was disappearing and exclaimed--'Farewell, thou half-
crazy and most eloquent man! I shall never see thy face again.' I did not
intend, at that moment, to visit London again for some years: as it
happened, I was there for a short time in 1814: and then I heard, to my
great satisfaction, that Walking Stewart had recovered a considerable sum
(about 14,000 pounds I believe) from the East India Company; and from the
abstract given in the London Magazine of the Memoir by his relation, I
have since learned that he applied this money most wisely to the purchase
of an annuity, and that he 'persisted in living' too long for the peace of
an annuity office. So fare all companies East and West, and all annuity
offices, that stand opposed in interest to philosophers! In 1814, however,
to my great regret, I did not see him; for I was then taking a great deal
of opium, and never could contrive to issue to the light of day soon
enough for a morning call upon a philosopher of such early hours; and in
the evening I concluded that he would be generally abroad, from what he
had formerly communicated to me of his own habits.
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