ritative tone, "Whose rusty gun is this?" "Is it very rusty, Sir?" asked Coleridge. "Yes, Comberbatch, it is," said the officer, sternly. Then, Sir," replied Coleridge, "it must be mine!" The oddity of the reply disarmed the officer, and the "poor scholar" escaped without punishment.

There are various anecdotes abroad, at once illustrative of Coleridge's queer horsemanship and happy knack at repartee, of which a specimen or two may be given here, before we dismiss him as a trooper.

His awkwardness on horseback was so marked that it attracted general notice. Once riding along the turnpike road in the county of Durham, a wag approaching him, noticed his peculiarity, and thought the rider a fine subject for a little fun. Drawing near, be thus accosted Coleridge, "I say, young man, did you meet a tailor on the road?" "Yes," replied Coleridge, "I did, and he told me if I went a little further I should meet a goose." The goose trotted on, quite satisfied with what he had got.

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Coleridge is represented as being at this time on his way to a neighbouring race-course; that a farmer, at whose house he was staying, knowing his sorry horsemanship, had put him on the least and poorest animal he had, with old saddle and bridle, and rusty stirrups. On this Rosinante, Coleridge went in a black dress coat, with black breeches, black silk stockings, and shoes. Two other friends, as better horsemen, were entrusted with better steeds, and soon left him on the road. At length, reaching the race-ground, and thrusting his way through the crowd, he arrived at the spot of attraction to which all were hastening. Here he confronted a barouche and four, filled with smart ladies and attendant gentlemen. In it was also seated a baronet of sporting celebrity, steward of the course, and member of the House of Commons; well known as having been bought and sold in several parliaments. The baronet eyed the figure of Coleridge, as he slowly passed the door of the barouche, and thus accosted him: "A pretty piece of blood, Sir, you have there." "Yes!" answered Coleridge. "Rare paces, have no doubt, Sir!" "Yes," answered Coleridge," he brought me here a matter of four miles an hour." He was at no loss to perceive the honourable baronet's drift, who wished to show off before the ladies so he quietly waited the opportunity of a suitable reply. "What a free hand he has!" continued Nimrod; "how finely he carries his tail! Bridle and saddle well suited, and appropriately appointed!" "Yes," said Coleridge. "Will you sell him ?" asked the sporting baronet. "Yes," was the answer, "if I can have my price." "Name your price, then, putting the rider into the bargain!" My price," replied Coleridge," for the horse, Sir, if I sell him, is one hundred guineas; as to the rider, never having been in parliament, and never intending to go, his price is not yet fixed." The baronet sat down more suddenly than he had risen -the ladies began to titter-while Coleridge quietly now moved on. Coleridge returned to Cambridge, but only for a very short time. The French Revolution, in its early promise, had raised the spirit

The

of enthusiasm for liberty in the bosom of all generous-natured young men. This had brought together Coleridge, Southey, and others of the like temperament. Coleridge now went to visit Southey, at Oxford, where they hit upon the Pantisocracy scheme, an offshoot from the root of Rousseau's visions of primitive life. Coleridge is said first to have broached it, and that it was eagerly adopted by Southey, and a college friend of his, George Burnet. These young men, soon after, set off to Bristol, Southey's native place, where they were soon joined by Coleridge. Here Southey, Coleridge, and Burnet occupied the same lodging; Robert Lovell, a young quaker, had adopted this scheme, and they all concluded to embark for America, where, on the banks of the Susquehannah, they were to found their colony of peace and perfection, to follow their own ploughs, harvest their own corn, and show forth to the world the union of a patriarchal life of labour, with the highest exercise of intellect and virtue. Luckily for them, the mainspring was wanting. Without the root of all evil, they could not rear this tree of all good fruits. They were obliged to borrow cash of Cottle even to pay for their lodgings; and the shrewd bookseller, while he listened to their animated descriptions of their future transatlantic Eden, chuckled to himself on the impossibility of their ever carrying it out. dream gradually came to an end. Lovell died unexpectedly, being carried off by a fever, brought on through a cold, caught on a journey to Salisbury. Symptoms of jarring had shown themselves amongst the friends, which were rather ominous for the permanence of a pantisocracy. Coleridge had quarrelled with Lovell before he died, because Lovell, who was married to a Miss Fricker, opposed Coleridge's marriage with her sister till he had better prospects. Coleridge and Southey quarrelled about the pantisocracy afterwards. The most important results to Southey and Coleridge of this pantisocratic coalition were, that they eventually married the two sisters of Lovell's wife. Both these young poets, with their minds now fermenting with new schemes of politics and doctrines of religion, commenced at Bristol as lecturers and authors. The profits of the lectures were to pay for the voyage to America; they did not even pay the rent. Coleridge lectured on the English Rebellion and Charles I., the French Revolution, and on Religion and Philosophy; Southey, on General History: both displaying their peculiar talents and characters-Coleridge all imagination, absence of mind, and impracticability; Southey, with less genius, but more order, prudence, and worldly tact. Both of those remarkable men began by proclaiming the most ultra-liberalism in politics and theologyboth came gradually back to the opinions which early associations and education had riveted on them unknown to themselves, but with very different degrees of rapidity, and finally with a very different tone. Coleridge ran through infidelity, unitarianism, the philosophy of Berkeley, Spinoza, Hartley, and Kant; and came back finally to good old Church-of-Englandism, but full of love and tolerance. Southey, more prudent, and notoriously timid, startled at once by the horrors which the French committed in the name of

liberty, saw that the way of worldly prosperity was closed for life to him who was not orthodox, and became at once orthodox. But the consciousness of that sudden change hung for ever upon him. He knew that reproach would always pursue the suspicious reconversion, and on that consciousness grew bitterness and intolerance. Coleridge, having wandered through all opinions himself, was afraid to condemn too harshly those who differed from him. He contented himself with loving God, and preaching the true principles of Christianity :

"He prayeth best who loreth best
All things, both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us
He made and loveth all."

Southey, on the contrary, stalked into the fearful regions of bigotry, assumed in imagination the throne and thunderbolts of Deity, and

"Dealt damnation round the land

On all he deemed his foes."

But this was the worst view of Southey's character. He had that lower class of virtues which Coleridge had not; and out of his prudence and timidity sprung that worldly substance which Coleridge was never likely to acquire, and by which he kindly made up for some of Coleridge's deficiencies. Coleridge could not provide properly for his family; Southey helped to provide for them, and invited Coleridge's wife and daughter to his house, where for many years they had a home. In all domestic relations Southey was admirable; he failed only in those which would have given him a name, perhaps, little short of Milton for glorious patriotism, had he proceeded to the end as he began.

Of the literary life of Southey, Coleridge, and Wordsworth, who soon after joined them in the west, I have yet to speak. We must now follow Coleridge.

The circumstances which had brought Coleridge to Bristol, though they did not end in pantisocracy, ended in marriage, which for some years fixed him in that part of the country. Cottle, who, a poet of some merit himself, saw the great talent of these young men, offered Southey fifty guineas for his Joan of Arc, and became its publisher. He also offered Coleridge thirty guineas for a volume of poems, the cash to be advanced when he pleased from time to time. On this slender foundation Coleridge began the world. He took a cottage at Clevedon, some miles from Bristol, and thither he took his bride. It appears truly to have been the poetic idea-love in a cottage, for there was love and little more. Cottle says it had walls, and doors, and windows; but as for furniture, only such as became a philosopher. This was not enough even for poetic lovers. Two days after the wedding, the poet wrote to Cottle to send him the following unpoetical, but very essential articles:-" A riddle-slice; a candle-box; two ventilators; two glasses for the wash-hand stand; one tin dust-pan; one small tin tea-kettle; one pair of candlesticks; one carpet brush; one flourdredge; three tin extinguishers; two mats; a pair of slippers; a cheese-toaster; two large tin spoons; a Bible; a keg of porter;

coffee, raisins, currants, catsup, nutmegs, allspice, rice, ginger, and

mace.

So Coleridge began the world. Cottle, having sent these articles, hastened after them to congratulate the young couple. This is his account of their residence. "The situation of the cottage was peculiarly eligible. It was in the extremity, not in the centre of the village. It had the benefit of being but one story high; and, as the rent was only five pounds per annum, and the taxes nought, Mr. Coleridge had the satisfaction of knowing that, by fairly mounting his Pegasus, he could make as many verses in a week as would pay his rent for a year. There was also a small garden, with several pretty flowers, and the tallest tree-rose' did not fail to be pointed out, which peeped at the chamber window,' and has been honoured with some beautiful lines."

The cottage is there yet in its garden; but Coleridge did not long inhabit it. He soon found that even Clevedon was too far out of the world for books and intellect; and returning to Bristol, took lodgings on Redcliff-hill. From this abode he soon again departed, being invited by his friend, Mr. Thomas Poole, of Nether Stowey, to visit him there. During this visit, he wrote some of his first volume of poems, including the Religious Musings; he then returned to Bristol, and started the idea of his Watchman, and made that journey through the principal manufacturing towns, to obtain subscribers for it, which he so amusingly describes in his Biographia Literaria. This was a failure; but about this time, Charles Lloyd, the eldest son of Charles Lloyd, the banker, of Birmingham, whom Byron has commemorated in the alliterative line of

Lovell, Lamb, and Lloyd,"

was smitten with admiration of Coleridge's genius, and offered to come and reside with him. He, therefore, took a larger house on Kingsdown, where Lloyd was his inmate. Mr. Poole, of Stowey, however, was not easy to be without the society of Coleridge; he sent him word that there was a nice cottage there at liberty, of only seven pounds per annum rent, and pressed him to come and fix there. Thither Coleridge went, Lloyd also agreeing to accompany them. Unfortunately, Lloyd had the germs of insanity as well as poetry in him. He was subject to fits, which agitated and alarmed Coleridge. They eventually disagreed, and Lloyd left, but was afterwards reconciled, well perceiving that his morbid nervousness had had much to do with the difference.

This place became for two years Coleridge's home. Here he wrote some of his most beautiful poetry. "The manhood of Coleridge's true poetical life," has been observed by a cotemporary," was in the year 1797." He was yet only twenty-five years of age, but his poetical faculty had now acquired a wide grasp and a deep power. Here he wrote his Tragedy of Remorse, Christabel, the Dark Ladie, the Ancient Mariner (which was published in the Lyrical Ballads jointly with Wordsworth's first poenis), his Ode on the Departing Year, and his Fears in Solitude. These works are at once imbued with the

highest spirit of his poetry, and the noblest sentiments of humanity. Here he was visited by Charles Lamb, Charles Lloyd, Southey, Hazlitt, De Quincey (who had previously presented him generously with 300%), the two great potters, the Wedgwoods, and other eminent men. Wordsworth lived near him at Allfoxden, and was in almost daily intercourse with him. The foot of Quantock was to Coleridge, says one of his biographers, a memorable spot. Here his studies were serious and deep. They were directed not only to poetry, but into the great bulk of theological philosophy. Here, with his friend Thomas Poole, a man sympathising in all his tastes, and with Wordsworth, he roamed over the Quantock hills, drinking in at every step new knowledge and impressions of nature. In his Biographia Literaria, he says, "My walks were almost daily on the top of Quantock, and amongst its sloping coombs." He had got an idea of writing a poem called THE BROOK, tracing a stream which he had found, from its source in the hills amongst the yellow-red moss and conical glass-shaped tufts of bent, to the first break, or fall, where its drops become audible, and it begins to form a channel; thence to the peat and turf barn, itself built of the same dark masses as it sheltered; to the sheepfold; to the first cultivated spot of ground; to the lonely cottage, and its bleak garden won from the heath; to the hamlets, the market towns, the manufactories, and the sea-port. It will be seen that this was not quite on so fine a scale as Childe Harold, and that Wordsworth has carried out the idea in the Sonnets on the river Duddon, not quite so amply as the original idea itself. He says, when strolling alone he was always with book, paper, and pencil in hand, making studies from nature, whence his striking and accurate transcripts of such things. It will be noticed in the article on Wordsworth, that these rambles, in the ignorant minds of the country people, converted him and Coleridge into suspicious characters. Coleridge was so open and simple, that they said, "As to Coleridge, he is a whirlbrain, that talks whatever comes uppermost; but that Wordsworth! he is a dark traitor. You never hear him say a syllable on the subject!"

Coleridge himself, in his Biographia Literaria, tells us, that a certain baronet in the neighbourhood got Government to send down a spy to watch them. That this spy was a very honest fellow, for a wonder. That he heard them, he said, at first, talking a deal of Spy Nosey (Spinoza), and thought they were up to him, as his nose was none of the smallest ; but he soon found that it was all about books. Coleridge also gives the amusing dialogue between the innkeeper and the baronet, the innkeeper having been ordered to entertain the spy, but, like the spy, soon found that the strange gentlemen were only poets, and going to put Quantock into verse.

Many are the testimonies of attachment to this neighbourhood and the wild Quantock hills, to be found in the poems of Coleridge; and in the third book of the Excursion, Wordsworth describes the Quantock and their rambles with all the gusto of a fond memory.

In Coleridge's poem of Fears in Solitude, a noble-hearted poem,