present to an English grand jury, when the party never could be more than twenty-three, he would infallibly order a service of twenty-four, though he must, in his own conscience, be aware that the twenty-fourth cup and saucer was a mere Irish bull, and a disgusting pleonasm; a twenty-fourth grand-jury man being as entirely a chimera as the "abstract lord mayor" of Scriblerus on a 30th of February. Not only without a reason therefore, but even against reason, people have a superstitious regard to certain numbers; and Mr. Constable has a right to his superstition, which, after all, may be the classical that three happens to be the number of the one Graces.' This compliment, by the way, was delicate enough to merit an acknowledgment from the Constable press. So much then being settled-that, as a primâ facie step towards sustaining the hoax, three must be the number of the volumes-I then went on to say: But what if there was not time to complete so many volumes so as to appear at the Leipsic fair? In that case, two men must do what one could not. Yet, as the second man could not possibly know what his leader was about, he must, of necessity, produce his under stratum without the least earthly reference to the upper; his thorough bass without relation to the melodies in the treble. This was awkward; and, to meet the difficulty, it appears to me, that the upper man said to the lower, "Write me a huge heap of speeches upon politics and Welsh genealogy, write me loads of rubbish, astrological, cosmological "and diabolical," (as Mrs. Malaprop has it :) have these ready. I, meantime, have two characters (Sir Morgan and Mr. Dulberry the Radical) upon whom I can hang all that you write. You make hooks enough—I'll make eyes; and, what between my men and your speeches, my eyes and and " your hooks, it's odds but we make a very pretty novel." Such I conceive to have been the pleasant arrangement upon which the machinery was worked, so as to fetch up the way before the Michaelmas Fair began. And thus were two (perhaps three) men's labors dovetailed into one German romance. Aliter non fit, Avite, liber. When the rest of the rigging was complete, the politics, genealogy, astrology, &c., were mounted as "royals" sky-scrapers," the ship weighed, and soon after made Leipsic and London under a press of sail.' Then, having protested that this trash was absolutely beyond hope, and that I should have made myself a party to the author's folly or his knavery by translating it, I offered, however, in the case of my reader's complaining of these large retrenchments, to translate the whole for a consideration; to cast it upon the complainant's premises, and to shovel it into the coal-cellar, or any more appropriate place. But thus, I explained, did in fact arise the difference in size, as well as quality, between the German and the English Walladmor.' And henceforwards I shall think the better of the German author as well as myself so long as I live of him for an unrivalled artist of sows' ears, and of myself for a very respectable manufacturer of silk purses. Thus much to account for my omissions; which, however, some readers may facetiously regard, far from needing apology, as my only merits; and that would be as cruel as Lessing's suggestion to an author for his table of errata 6 Apropos of errata, suppose you were to put your whole book into the list of errata.' More candid readers, I am inclined to hope, will blame me for not having made even larger alterations in the book; and that would be a flattering critique, as it must presume that I could have improved it; and compliment never wears so delightful an aspect as when it takes the shape of blame. The truth is, I have altered; yes, altered and altered, until I became alarmed. The ghost of Sir John Cutler, of Sir John's stockings, of Sir Francis Drake's ship—nay, of Jason's ship, and older ghosts even than these all illustrating the same perplexing question, began to haunt me. Metaphysical doubts fell upon me, and I came to fear that, if to a new beginning and a new catastrophe, I were to add a new middle, possibly there might came some evil-minded person who might say that I also was a hoaxer, an English hoaxer building upon a German hoaxer. Then I paused. But still I have gone too far; for it is a most delicate operation to take work out of another man's loom and put work in; joinings and sections will sometimes appear; colors will not always match. In general I would request the reader to consider himself indebted to me for anything he may find particularly good; and, in any case, to load my unhappy principal with the blame of everything that is wrong. Coming upon any passage which he thinks superlatively bad, let him be assured that I had no hand in it. Should he change his opinion upon it, I may be disposed to reconsider whether I had not some hand in it. This will be the more reasonable in him, as the critics will feel it their duty' (oh! of course, 'their duty') to take the very opposite course. However, if he reads German, my German Walladmor' is at his service, and he can judge for himself. Not reading German, let him take my word, when I apply to the English Walladmor' the spirit of the old bull: 6 6 6 'Had you seen but these roads before they were made, Here closed my explanations; but, as a l'envoy or quod bene vortat to the whole concern, I added something – a valediction and an ave in the same breath - which, for the sake of the Spenserian allusion, many people will relish; and even yet I pique myself upon it as a felicitous passage. It began with a quotation; and this quotation, as pretty broadly I hinted, was from myself-myself as the reviewer in the London Magazine. Thus it was : 'A friend of mine' (so we all say when we are looking out for some masquerade dress under which to praise ourselves, or to abuse some dear friend,) ‘a friend of mine has written a very long review (or analysis rather) of the German "Walladmor," in a literary journal of the metropolis. He concludes with the following passage, which I choose to quote on account of the graceful allusion it contains, partly also because it gives me an opportunity for trying my hand at an allusion to the same romantic legend: "Now, turning back from the hoaxer to the hoax," we shall conclude with this proposition:· All readers of Spenser must know that the true Florimel lost her girdle, which, they will remember, was found by Sir Satyrane, and was adjudged by a whole assemblage of knights to the false Florimel, although it did not quite fit her. She - viz., the snowy or false Florimel 'exceedingly did fret ; And, snatching from his hand half angrily Faery Queene, b. iv. c. 5. chav. of 4772, S.T.C. in Biog. lib. CHAPTER VI. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. Ir was, I think, in the month of August, but certainly s 406: in the summer season, and certainly in the year 1807,sia to that I first saw this illustrious man, the largest and most spacious intellect, the subtlest and the most compre-lin hensive, in my judgment, that has yet existed amongst men. My knowledge of him as a man of most original genius began about the year 1799. A little before that time Mr. Wordsworth had published the first edition (in a single volume) of the Lyrical Ballads,' at the end or the beginning of which was placed Mr. Coleridge's poem of the Ancient Mariner, as the contribution of an anonymous friend. It would be directing the reader's attention too much to myself, if I were to linger upon this, the greatest event in the unfolding of my own mind. Let me say in one word, that, at a period when neither the one nor the other writer was valued by the public, — both having a long warfare to accomplish of contumely and ridicule before they could rise into their present estimation, I found in these poems 'the ray of a new morning,' and an absolute revelation of untrodden worlds, teeming with power and beauty, as yet unsuspected amongst men. I may here mention that, precisely at the same time, Professor Wilson, about the same age as myself, received the same startling and profound impres |