know, (quoth she) that that vile jacobin villain drew away a young man from our parish, one Burnet, &c. and in this strain did the woman continue for near an hour; heaping on me every name of abuse that the parish of Billingsgate could supply. I listened very particularly; appeared to approve all she said, exclaiming, 'dear me!' two or three times, and, in fine, so completely won the woman's heart by my civilities, that I had not the courage to undeceive her.

S. T. COLERIDGE.

P.S. You are a good prophet. Oh, into what a state have the scoundrels brought this devoted kingdom.

If the House of Commons would but melt down their faces, it would greatly assist the copper currency-we should have brass enough.

CCLIII.

Mr. Cottle was proud to remember in his old age that he, a provincial bookseller, had been the publisher of the first volumes of three such poets as Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Southey. The transaction discussed in the following letter is a no less momentous one than the publication of the famous Lyrical Ballads.' The poets were then living at Allfoxden, near Stowey, and the caballing against Wordsworth to which Coleridge refers was the result of the intense terror caused in the village by Wordsworth's habit of roaming over the hills at night, like a partridge. At last the skeleton of a child, as it was supposed, was discovered close to Allfoxden, and they were about to march Wordsworth off on suspicion of murder, when the bones were most vexatiously proved to be those of a dog.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge to Joseph Cottle.

May, 1798.

My dear Cottle,-Neither Wordsworth nor myself could have been otherwise than uncomfortable, if any but yourself had received from us the first offer of our Tragedies, and of the volume of Wordsworth's Poems. At the same time, we did not expect that you could with prudence and propriety, advance such a sum as we should want at the time we specified. In short, we both regard the publication of our Tragedies as an evil. It is not impossible but that in happier times, they may be brought on the stage and to throw away this chance for a mere trifle, would be

to make the present moment act fraudulently and usuriously towards the future time.

My Tragedy employed and strained all my thoughts and faculties for six or seven months; Wordsworth consumed far more time, and far more thought, and far more genius. We consider the publication of them an evil on any terms; but our thoughts were bent on a plan for the accomplishment of which a certain sum was necessary, (the whole) at that particular time, and in order to this we resolved, although reluctantly, to part with our Tragedies that is, if we could obtain thirty guineas for each, and at less than thirty guineas Wordsworth will not part with the copy-right of his volume of Poems. We shall offer the Tragedies to no one, for we have determined to procure the money some other way. If you choose the volume of poems, at the price mentioned, to be paid at the time specified, i.e. thirty guineas, to be paid sometime in the last fortnight of July, you may have them; but remember, my dear fellow! I write to you now merely as a bookseller, and entreat you, in your answer, to consider yourself only; as to us, although money is necessary to our plan, that of visiting Germany, yet the plan is not necessary to our happiness; and if it were, Wordsworth could sell his Poems for that sum to some one else or we could procure the money without selling the Poems. So I entreat you, again and again, in your answer, which must be immediate, consider yourself only.

Wordsworth has been caballed against so long and so loudly, that he has found it impossible to prevail on the tenant of the Allfoxden estate, to let him the house, after their first agreement is expired, so he must quit it at Midsummer: whether we shall be able to procure him a house and furniture near Stowey, we know not, and yet we must for the hills, and the woods, and the streams, and the sea, and the shores, would break forth into reproaches against us, if we did not strain every nerve, to keep their poet among them. Without joking, and in serious sadness, Poole and I cannot endure to think of losing him.

At all events, come down, Cottle, as soon as you can, but before Midsummer, and we will procure a horse easy as thy own soul, and we will go on a roam to Linton and Limouth, which, if thou comest in May, will be in all their pride of woods and waterfalls, not to speak of its august cliffs, and the green ocean,

and the vast Valley of Stones, all which live disdainful of the seasons, or accept new honours only from the winter's snow.

At all events come down, and cease not to believe me much and affectionately your friend

S. T. COLERIDGE.

CCLIV.

This humorously naïve confession exactly hits off Coleridge's peculiar weakness. It suited the indolent temperament of the day-dreamer to expound, for hours at a time, his views on philosophy and culture to spell-bound throngs of fashionable listeners. But the world at large had been the gainer if this profoundly learned man, this most suggestive of poets, this representative of German metaphysics, had talked less and written more.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge to William Godwin.

At Mr. Lamb's, 36, Chapel Street:

March 3, 1800.

Dear Godwin,-The punch, after the wine, made me tipsy last night. This I mention, not that my head aches, or that I felt, after I quitted you, any unpleasantness or titubancy; but because tipsiness has, and has always, one unpleasant effect-that of making me talk very extravagantly; and as, when sober, I talk extravagantly enough for any common tipsiness, it becomes a matter of nicety in discrimination to know when I am or am not affected. An idea starts up in my head,-away I follow through thick and thin, wood and marsh, brake and briar, with all the apparent interest of a man who was defending one of his old and long-established principles. Exactly of this kind was the conversation with which I quitted you. I do not believe it possible for a human being to have a greater horror of the feelings that usually accompany such principles as I then supposed, or a deeper conviction of their irrationality, than myself; but the whole thinking of my life will not bear me up against the accidental crowd and press of my mind, when it is elevated beyond its natural pitch. We shall talk wiselier with the ladies on Tuesday. God bless you, and give your dear little ones a kiss apiece from me. Yours with affectionate esteem,

S. T. COLERIDGE.

CCLV.

Although the 'Ettrick Shepherd' ascertained in due season that poetry and literary work were more profitable to him than sheep-farming in Scotland, he preferred sport on the moors in the middle of August to what he called the 'disadvantage' of indoor enjoyment at that period of the year among learned companions.

James Hogg (the Ettrick Shepherd) to Professor John Wilson. Mount Benger: August 1829.

My Dear and Honoured John,-I never thought you had been so unconscionable as to desire a sportsman on the 11th or even the 13th of August to leave Ettrick Forest for the bare scraggy hills of Westmoreland !-Ettrick Forest, where the black cocks and white cocks, brown cocks and grey cocks, ducks, plovers and peaseweeps and whilly-whaups are as thick as the flocks that cover her mountains, and come to the hills of Westmoreland that can nourish nothing better than a castril or stonechat! To leave the great yellow-fin of Yarrow, or the still larger grey-locher for the degenerate fry of Troutbeck, Esthwaite, or even Wastwater! No, no, the request will not do; it is an unreasonable one, and therefore not unlike yourself, for besides, what would become of Old North and Blackwood, and all our friends for game, were I to come to Elleray just now? I know of no home of man where I could be so happy within doors with so many lovely and joyous faces around me ; but this is not the season for in-door enjoyments; they must be reaped on the wastes among the blooming heath, by the silver spring, or swathed in the delicious breeze of the wilderness. Elleray, with all its sweets, could never have been my choice for a habitation, and perhaps you are the only Scottish gentleman who ever made such a choice, and still persists in maintaining it, in spite of every disadvantage. Happy days to you and a safe return! Yours most respectfully,

JAMES HOGG.

19*

CCLVI.

The first 'Edinburgh Review' was published in 1755, and disappeared within twelve months. This letter announces the successful launching of the present review, which was projected by Sydney Smith in Jeffrey's lodgings. Brougham, Horner, and Allen joined in the first consultations.

Jeffrey, now in his twenty-ninth year, and hesitating on the cross-roads of law and literature, little thought he would excel in both-that the industrious advocate would attain eminence as a judge; and that the young reviewer of Southey's 'Thalaba' would advance to be the chief and, most versatile critic of his generation.

Francis Jeffrey, to his brother, John Jeffrey.

-

Edinburgh: July 2, 1803.

My dear John, It will be a sad thing if your reformation be the cause of my falling off; yet it is certain that since you have begun to write oftener, my letters have begun to be more irregular.

I am glad you have got our Review, and that you like it. Your partiality to my articles is a singular proof of your judgment. In No. 3, I do Gentz, Hayley's Cowper, Sir J. Sinclair, and Thelwall. In No. 4, which is now printing, I have Miss Baillie's Plays, Comparative View of Geology, Lady Mary Wortley, and some little ones. I do not think you know any of my associates. There is the sage Horner however, whom you have seen, and who has gone to the English bar with the resolution of being Lord Chancellor; Brougham, a great mathematician, who has just published a book upon the Colonial Policy of Europe,' which all you Americans should read; Revd. Sydney Smith, and P. Elmsley, two learned Oxonian priests, full of jokes and erudition: my excellent little Sanscrit Hamilton, who is also in the hands of Bonaparte at Fontainebleau; Thomas Thomson and John Murray, two ingenious advocates; and some dozen of occasional contributors, among whom, the most illustrious, I think, are young Watt of Birmingham, and Davy of the Royal Institution. We sell 2,500 copies already, and hope to do double that in six months, if we are puffed enough. I wish you could try if you can répandre us upon your continent, and use what interest you can with the literati, or rather with the booksellers of New York and Philadelphia. I believe I have