"hums and hahs, abandoned the cause to his client; and I commenced an harangue of half an hour to Phileleutheros, the tallow-chandler, "varying my notes through the whole gamut of eloquence, from the ratiocinative to the de"clamatory, and, in the latter, from the pathetic "to the indignant. My taper man of lights "listened with perseverant and praiseworthy patience, though (as I was afterwards told, in "complaining of certain gales that were not altogether ambrosial,) it was a melting day with "him. And what, sir! (he said, after a short "pause,) might the cost be? only FOURPENCE,

tainly not manifest itself, without talents, I would advise every scholar, who feels the genial power working within him, so far to make a division between the two, as that he should devote his talents to the acquirement of competence in some known trade or profession, and his genius to objects of his tranquil and unbiassed choice; while the consciousness of being actuated in both alike by the sincere desire to perform his duty, will alike ennoble both. My dear young friend," (I would say), "suppose yourself established in any honourable occupation. From the manufactory or counting-house, from the law-court, or from having visited your last patient, you return at evening,

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'Dear tranquil time, when the sweet sense of home
Is sweetest.'-

to your family, prepared for its social enjoyments, with the very countenances of your wife and children brightened, and their voice of welcome made doubly welcome by the knowledge that, as far as they are concerned, you have satisfied the demands of the day, by the labour of the day. Then, when you retire into your study, in the books on your shelves, you revisit so many venerable friends

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"(O! how I felt the anti-climax, the abysmal "bathos of that FOURPENCE!) only fourpence, sir, “each number, to be published on every eighth day. "That comes to a deal of money at the end of a year; and how much did you say there was "to be for the money? Thirty-two pages, sir! "large octavo, closely printed. Thirty and two "pages? Bless me, why except what I does in a family way on the sabbath, that's more than I ever reads, sir! all the year round. I am as "great a one as any man in Brummagem, sir! "for liberty and truth, and all them sort of things, but as to this, (no offence, I hope, sir !) "I must beg to be excused.

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with whom you can converse. Your own spirit scarcely less free from personal anxieties than the great minds, that in those books are still living for you! Even your writing-desk, with its blank paper and all its other implements, will appear as a chain of flowers, capable of linking your feelings, as well as thoughts to events, and characters, past or to come: not a chain of iron which binds you down to think of the future and the remote, by recalling the claims and feelings of the peremptory present: but why should I say retire? The habits of active life and daily intercourse with the stir of the world, will tend to give you such self command, that the presence of your family will be no interruption. Nay, the social silence, or undisturbing voices of a wife or sister will be like a restorative atmosphere, or soft music which moulds a dream without becoming its object. If facts are required to prove the possibility of combining weighty performances in literature with full and independent employment, the works of Cicero and Xenophon among the ancients; of Sir Thomas Moore, Bacon, Baxter, or, to refer at once to later and cotemporary instances, Darwin and Roscoe, are at once decisive of the question."—Biog. Lit.

"So ended my first canvass." Much the same indifference was shewn him at Manchester, &c., but he adds:-" From this rememberable "tour, I returned nearly a thousand names on "the subscription list of the Watchman;' yet more than half convinced that prudence dic“tated the abandonment of the scheme; but for "this very reason I persevered in it; for I was "at that period of my life so completely hag"ridden by the fear of being influenced by

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selfish motives, that to know a mode of conduct "to be the dictate of prudence, was a sort of pre"sumptive proof to my feelings, that the contrary "was the dictate of duty. Accordingly, I com"menced the work, which was announced in "London by long bills in letters larger than "had ever been seen before, and which (I have "been informed, for I did not see them myself)

eclipsed the glories even of the lottery puffs; but, "alas! the publication of the very first number "was delayed beyond the day announced for its appearance. In the second number, an essay

against fast days, with a most censurable application of a text from Isaiah, for its motto, "lost me near five hundred of my subscribers at

one blow. In the two following numbers, I "made enemies of all my Jacobin and demo“cratic patrons; for, disgusted by their infide"lity and their adoption of French morals, and "French philosophy, and, perhaps, thinking

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"that charity ought to begin nearest home, in"stead of abusing the government and the aris"tocrats chiefly or entirely, as had been ex"pected of me, I levelled my attacks at 'modern patriotism, and even ventured to declare my "belief, that whatever the motives of ministers 'might have been for the sedition (or as it was "then the fashion to call them) the gagging "bills, yet the bills themselves would produce "an effect to be desired by all the true friends of freedom, as far they should contribute to deter "men from openly declaiming on subjects, the principles of which they had never bottomed, and "from 'pleading to the poor and ignorant, in"stead of pleading for them.' At the same "time I avowed my conviction, that national "education, and a concurring spread of the

፡፡

gospel were the indispensable condition of any "true political amelioration. Thus, by the time "the seventh number was published, I had the "mortification (but why should I say this, when, "in truth, I cared too little for any thing that "concerned my worldly interests, to be at all "mortified about it?) of seeing the preceding "numbers exposed in sundry old iron shops "for a penny a piece. At the ninth number I dropped the work." He never recovered the

money of his London publisher, and but little from his subscribers, and as he goes on to

say

"Must have been thrown into jail by

my printer, for a sum between eighty and "ninety pounds, if the money had not been paid "for me by a man, by no means affluent, a dear "friend who attached himself to me from my “first arrival at Bristol, who continued my friend "with a fidelity unconquered by time, or even by my own apparent neglect; a friend from "whom I never received an advice that was not "gentle and affectionate." p. 177.

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Coleridge's reputation from boyhood quietly increased, not through the favor, but the censure of reviewers. It was this which, contrary to their wishes, diffused his name as poet and philosopher. So long as there are readers to be gratified by calumny, there will always be found writers eager to furnish a supply; and he had other enemies, unacquainted with the critical profession, yet morbidly vain, and because disappointed in their literary hopes, no less malignant.

Alas! how painful it is to witness at times the operation of some of the human passions.Should envy take the lead, her twin sisters, hatred and malice, follow as auxiliaries in her train,and, in the struggles for ascendancy and extension of her power, she subverts those principles which might impede her path, and then speedily effects the destruction of all the kindly feelings most honourable to man.

Coleridge was conscientiously an opponent of