Yet, even in these, there is a fervour of adoration
mingled with his defiance of creeds, through which the piety implanted
in his nature (as it is deeply in all poetic natures) unequivocally
shows itself; and had he then fallen within the reach of such guidance
and example as would have seconded and fostered these natural
dispositions, the licence of opinion into which he afterwards broke
loose might have been averted. His scepticism, if not wholly removed,
might have been softened down into that humble doubt, which, so far
from being inconsistent with a religious spirit, is, perhaps, its best
guard against presumption and uncharitableness; and, at all events,
even if his own views of religion had not been brightened or elevated,
he would have learned not wantonly to cloud or disturb those of
others. But there was no such monitor near him. After his departure
from Southwell, he had not a single friend or relative to whom he
could look up with respect; but was thrown alone on the world, with
his passions and his pride, to revel in the fatal discovery which he
imagined himself to have made of the nothingness of the future, and
the all-paramount claims of the present. By singular ill fortune, too,
the individual who, among all his college friends, had taken the
strongest hold on his admiration and affection, and whose loss he
afterwards lamented with brotherly tenderness, was, to the same extent
as himself, if not more strongly, a sceptic.
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