in-law again gave him assistance; his advances were afterwards repaid.
De Quincey made the acquaintance of Stewart at Bath in 1798–9, when he frequented the Pump Room and all public places, walking up and down persistently and distributing to the right and left papers containing his philosophical opinions. Details of his appearance about 1802 and of his opinions are set out in Mrs. Bray's ‘Devonshire bordering on the Tamar and the Tavy’ (1836, iii. 210–14, 304). In March 1803 he announced his intention of giving a course of twelve lectures on ‘the human mind and the study of man’ for two guineas at 40 Brewer Street, Golden Square. Somewhere about this time he obtained from the French government a settlement restoring to him a part of his property. De Quincey came up to London about 1808 and sought for Stewart at a coffee-house in Piccadilly, where he read his papers every day. He was still in comparative poverty, and lodged in Sherrard Street, Golden Square. A few years later, probably about 1813, the East India Company paid 10,000l. in satisfaction of his claims against the nabob of Arcot. He purchased an annuity and went to lodge in more luxurious rooms in Cockspur Street, for he loved to be ‘in the full tide of human existence.’
In these ‘Epicurean apartments,’ brilliantly decorated with mirrors and Chinese pictures, Stewart gave dinners every Sunday to a few select friends, such as Colton, Robert Owen, Thomas ‘Clio’ Rickman, and John Taylor, and before the wine was removed lectured on his own doctrines. These discourses were not appreciated, and evening parties of both sexes, with music and whist, were substituted for them. He was, says De Quincey, ‘a man of great genius, and, with reference to his conversation, of great eloquence.’ His language was remarkable for the aptness and variety of his illustrations; he possessed much humour, and he showed great skill in imitating ‘the tone and manner of foreigners.’ So frequently was he to be seen in the thoroughfares of London that more than one observer has pronounced him ubiquitous. On fine mornings he would seat himself on Westminster Bridge to contemplate the passers-by. At other times he reposed in ‘trance-like reverie among the cows of St. James's Park, inhaling their balmy breath and pursuing his philosophical speculations’ (De Quincey).
Stewart was much troubled by the riots in connection with Queen Caroline, and meditated a flight to America. In 1821 his health declined, and a visit to Margate proved of small avail. In January 1822 he became worse, and on the morning of 20 Feb. 1822 he was found dead in his rooms in Northumberland Street, London. He always carried with him a sufficient quantity of poison to put an end to his existence if he tired of it, and a bottle which had contained laudanum was found in the room; but he probably did not commit suicide. He is said to have left 1,000l. to the university of Edinburgh, and the rest of his property to James Maitland Dods of Lincoln's Inn. He stood fully six feet in height; was handsome, with Roman features, and of great strength. A portrait of him by T. T. C. Kendrick was engraved by E. Wheatley.
Learned himself, Stewart boasted of being a ‘man of nature,’ and argued against over-learning and excessive training of the memory. He contended, amid much that was beyond comprehension, for such wholesome practices as temperance, cleanliness, and exercise in fresh air. In the middle of his disquisitions in the ‘Roll of a Tennis Ball through the Moral World’ he inserts a page on the dangers of damp beds and sheets, and to the ‘moral or intellectual last will and testament’ he appends a codicil lauding ‘earth-bathing, or a warm mud-bath.’ He was a good-hearted man, and all his doctrines aimed at inducing men to promote the happiness of their fellows.
Henry George Bohn, who used in company with Thomas Taylor, the Platonist, to attend the soirées of Stewart, inserted in his edition of Lowndes's ‘Bibliographer's Manual’ (ii. 2515–17) a good list of Stewart's writings, many of which were anonymous and were printed for private distribution. A set of those printed before 1810 was published in that year in three volumes. The chief pieces included were:
- ‘Travels to discover the Source of Moral Motion’ [1789?].
- ‘Opus Maximum, or the great essay to reduce the World from Contingency to System’ [1803].
- ‘The Apocalypse of Human Perfectibility’ [1808].
Fearing lest these important volumes might perish, he wished his friends to bury some copies of them and to transmit to posterity the particulars of their resting places; while in order to provide against the extinction of the English tongue, he asked De Quincey to translate them into Latin.
