Mr.Leslie and I are applying our whole attention to him, and we have so far succeeded as to see him more composed." This was a terrible grief to all the little coterie of friends, for whom the Allston house had been a home.

One of them, Mr.J.J.Morgan, in a long letter to Morse written from Wiltshire, thus expresses himself:-- "Gracious God! unsearchable, indeed, are thy ways! The insensible, the brutish, the wicked are powerful and everywhere, in everything successful; while Allston, who is everything that is amiable, kind, and good, has been bruised, blow after blow, and now, indeed, his cup is full.

I am too unwell, too little recovered from the effect of your letter, to write much.

Coleridge intends writing to-day; I hope he will.
Allston may derive some little relief from knowing how much his friends partake of his grief." This was a time of great discouragement to the young artist.

Through the failure of some of his letters to reach his parents in time, he had not received their permission to go to France until it was too late for him to go.