MRS. BEGG furnishes an account of a scene that took place by their father’s bedside shortly before the old man’s death, when she and Robert were in the room together:-
“Seeing her crying bitterly at the thought of parting with her dear father, he endeavoured to speak, but could only murmur a few words of comfort, such as might be suitable to a child, concluding with an injunction to her, ‘to walk in virtue’s paths and shun every vice.’ After a pause, he said there was one of his family for whose future conduct he feared. He repeated the same expression, when the young poet came up and said, ‘O, father, is it me you mean?’ The old man said it was. Robert turned to the window with tears streaming down his manly cheeks, and his bosom swelling as if it would burst from the very restraint he put upon himself.”