wound carried off in pain and mortification. This scheme of Pantisocracy excited a smile among the kind-hearted and thinking part of mankind; but, among the vain and restless ignorant wouldbe-political economists, it met with more attention; and they, with their microscopic eyes, fancied they beheld in it what was not quite so visible to the common observer. Though the plan was soon abandoned, it was thought sufficient for the subject of a lecture, and afforded some mirth when the minds of the parties concerned in it arrived at manhood. Coleridge saw, soon after it was broached, that no scheme of colonizing that was not based on religion could be permanent.-Left to the disturbing forces of the human passions to which it would be exposed, it would soon perish; for all government to be permanent should be influenced by reason, and guided by religion.

In the year 1795 Coleridge, residing then at Clevedon, a short distance from Bristol, published his first prose work, with some additions by Mr. Southey, the "Conciones ad Populum." In a short preface he observes, "The two following ad"dresses were delivered in the month of February, "1795, and were followed by six others in defence "of natural and revealed religion. There is a "time to keep silence,' saith King Solomon ;→→ "but when I proceeded to the first verse of the

fourth chapter of the Ecclesiastes, and con"sidered all the oppressions that are done under "the sun and behold the tears of such as were

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oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on "the side of their oppressors there was power,' I "concluded this was not the time to keep silence;' for truth should be spoken at all times, "but more especially at those times when to speak truth is dangerous."

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In these addresses he showed that the example of France was a warning to Great Britain; but, because he did not hold opinions equally violent with the Jacobin party of that day, he was put down as an anti-Jacobin; for, he says, "the "annals of the French revolution have been re"corded in letters of blood, that the knowledge of "the few cannot counteract the ignorance of the

many; that the light of philosophy, when it is "confined to a small minority, points out its pos"sessors as the victims, rather than the illumina"tors of the multitude. The patriots of France "either hastened into the dangerous and gigantic

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error of making certain evils the means of con

tingent good, or were sacrificed by the mob, with "whose prejudices and ferocity their unbending "virtue forbade them to assimilate. Like Sam"son, the people were strong, like Samson, they "were also blind:" and he admonishes them at the end of the third lecture to do all things in the spirit of love.

"It is worthy of remark," says he, in a MS. note, "that we may possess a thing in such ful

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ness as to prevent its possession from being an object of distinct consciousness. Only as it les"sens or dims, we reflect on it, and learn to value "it. This is one main cause why young men of high and ardent minds find nothing repulsive "in the doctrines of necessity, which, in after years, they (as I have) recoil from. Thus, too, "the faces of friends dearly beloved become dis"tinct in memory or dream only after long ab"sence." Of the work itself he says, "Except "the two or three pages involving the doctrine of philosophical necessity and Unitarianism, I see little or nothing in these outbursts of my youthful zeal to retract, and with the exception "of some flame-coloured epithets applied to persons, as to Mr. Pitt and others, or rather to per"sonifications (for such they really were to me) as "little to regret. Qualis ab initio sarnan S.T.C.* When a rifacimento of the Friend took place, [1818] at vol. ii. p. 240, he states his reasons for reprinting the lecture referred to, one of the series delivered at Bristol in the year 1794-95, because, says he, "this very lecture, vide p. "10, has been referred to in an infamous libel "in proof of the author's Jacobinism."

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* This note was written at Highgate, in a copy of the Conciones ad Populum.

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When the mind of Coleridge was more matured he did not omit this truth, which has never been refuted, that the aristocratic system "had “ its golden side, for the noblest minds; but I "should," continues he, "act the part of a coward "if I disguised my conviction that the errors of "the aristocratic party were as gross, and far less "excusable than those of the Jacobin. "of contenting themselves with opposing the real "blessing of English law to the splendid pro"mises of untried theory, too large a part of those "who called themselves anti-Jacobins, did all in "their power to suspend those blessings; and 'they furnished new arguments to the advocates “of innovation, when they should have been an"swering the old ones!" But, whatever were his opinions, they were founded on principle, and with the exception of the two above alluded to, he ought never to be accused of changing. Some years since, the late Charles Matthews, the comedian, (or rather, as Coleridge used to observe, "the comic poet acting his own poems,") showed me an autograph letter from Mr. Wordsworth to Matthews' brother, (who was at that time educating for the bar) and with whom he corresponded. In this letter he made the following observation, "To-morrow I am going to Bristol to see those two extraordinary young men, Southey and Coleridge," Mr. Wordsworth then resid

ing at Allfoxden. They soon afterwards formed an intimacy, which continued (though not without some little interruption) during his life, as his "Biographia Literaria" and his will attest.

Mr. Coleridge's next work was the "Watchman" in numbers-a miscellany to be published every eighth day. The first number appeared on the 5th of February, 1796. This work was a report of the state of the political atmosphere, to be interspersed with sketches of character and verse. It reached the 10th number, and was then dropped; the editor taking leave of his readers in the following address: "This is the last number "of the Watchman. Henceforward I shall cease "to cry the state of the political atmosphere. "While I express my gratitude to those friends "who exerted themselves so liberally in the estab"lishment of this miscellany, I may reasonably "be expected to assign some reason for relinquishing it thus abruptly. The reason is short "and satisfactory. The work does not pay its expences. Part of my subscribers have relinquished it because it did not contain sufficient original composition, and a still larger because "it contained too much. I have endeavoured to "do well; and it must be attributed to defect "of ability, not of inclination or effort, if the "words of the prophet be altogether applicable "to me, O watchman! thou hast watched in