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From this rememberable tour I returned with nearly a thousand names on the subscription list of the Watchman; yet more than half convinced, that prudence dictated the abandonment of the scheme. But for this very reason I persevered in it; for I was at that period of my life so compleatly hag-ridden by the fear of being influenced by selfish motives that to know a mode of conduct to be the dictate of prudence was a sort of presumptive proof to my feelings, that the contrary was the dictate of duty. Accordingly, I commenced 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 Democratic Patrons; for disgusted by their infidelity, and their adoption of French morals with French psilosophy; and perhaps thinking, that charity ought to begin nearest home; instead of abusing the Government and the Aristocrats chiefly or entirely, as had been expected

triotism", and even ventured to declare m lief that whatever the motives of ministers have been for the sedition (or as it was the fashion to call them, the gagging) bills, ye bills themselves would produce an effect desired by all the true friends of freedon far as they should contribute to deter men openly declaiming on subjects, the princ of which they had never bottomed, and f

pleading to the poor and ignorant, instea pleading for them." At the same time I avo my conviction, that national education an concurring spread of the gospel were the in pensable condition of any true political ame ration. Thus by the time the seventh num was published, I had the mortification why should I say this, when in truth I ca too little for any thing that concerned my wo ly interests to be at all mortified about i of seeing the preceding numbers exposed sundry old iron shops for a penny a piece. the ninth number I dropt the work. But fr the London publisher I could not obtain a sl ling; he was a and set me at defian From other places I procured but little, a after such delays as rendered that little wor nothing and I should have been inevitab thrown into jail by my Bristol printer, whor fused to wait even for a month, for a sum b

tween 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 has 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 wise, or a remonstrance that was not gentle and affectionate.

Conscientiously an opponent of the first revolutionary war, yet with my eyes thoroughly opened to the true character and impotence of the favorers of revolutionary principles in England, principles which I held in abhorrence (for it was part of my political creed, that whoever ceased to act as an individual by making himself a member of any society not sanctioned by his Government, forfeited the rights of a citizen)-a vehement anti-ministerialist, but after the invasion of Switzerland a more vehement anti-gallican, and still more intensely an antijacobin, I retired to a cottage at Stowey, and provided for my scanty maintenance by writing verses for a London Morning Paper. I saw plainly, that literature was not a profession, by which I could expect to live; for I could not disguise from myself, that whatever my talents might or might not be in other respects, yet they were not of the sort that could enable me to become a popular writer; and that whatever

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my opinions might be in themselves, they were almost equi-distant from all the three prominent parties, the Pittites, the Foxites, and the Democrats. Of the unsaleable nature of my writings I had an amusing memento one morning from our own servant girl. For happening to rise at an earlier hour than usual, I observed her putting an extravagant quantity of paper into the grate in order to light the fire, and mildly checked her for her wastefulness; la, Sir! (replied poor Nanny) why, it is only "WATCHMEN."

I now devoted myself to poetry and to the study of ethics and psychology; and so profound was my admiration at this time of Hartley's Essay on Man, that I gave his name to my first born. In addition to the gentleman, my neighbour, whose garden joined on to my little orchard, and the cultivation of whose friendship had been my sole motive, in choosing Stowey for my residence, I was so fortunate as to acquire, shortly after my settlement there, an invaluable blessing in the society and neigh. bourhood of one, to whom I could look up with equal reverence, whether I regarded him as a poet, a philosopher, or a man. His conversation extended to almost all subjects, except. physics and politics; with the latter he never troubled himself. Yet neither my retirement nor my utter abstraction from all the disputes

of the day could secure me in those jealous times from suspicion and obloquy, which did not stop at me, but extended to my excellent friend, whose perfect innocence was even adduced as a proof of his guilt. One of the mauy busy sycophants* of that day (I here use the word sycophant, in its original sense, as a wretch who flatters the prevailing party by informing against his neighbours, under pretence that they are exporters of prohibited figs or fancies! for the moral application of the term it matters not which)-one of these sycophantic law-mongrels, discoursing on the politics of the neighbourhood, uttered the following deep remark: "As to Coleridge, there is not so much harm in him, for he is a whirl-brain that talks whatever comes uppermost; but that! he is the dark traitor. You never hear HIM say a syllable on the subject."

Now that the hand of providence has disciplined all Europe into sobriety, as men tame wild elephants, by alternate blows and caresses; now that Englishmen of all classes are restored to their old English notions and feelings; it will with difficulty be credited, how great an influence was at that time possessed and exerted by the spirit of secret defamation (the too constant attendant on party-zeal!)

*Zunes Qaww, to shew or detect figs, the exportation of which from Attica was forbidden by the laws.

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