undertake; and I have little doubt but that it will be well executed if his health does not fail him; but on that score (though he is well at present) I have many fears.

My brother is deeply engaged writing a pamphlet upon the Convention of Cintra, an event which has interested him more than words can express. His first and his last thoughts are of Spain and Portugal."

Details as to Coleridge's residence at Allan Bank and the publication of The Friend will doubtless be given more fully in the forthcoming Memoir of him by his grandson than they can be in these pages. It may suffice to mention the fact that the work was written (or rather composed and dictated by him) during the years 1809-10, Miss Sarah Hutchinson being the scribe the "Lady" to whom Dejection; an Ode, and other poems, were afterwards inscribed. It was printed at Penrith. The first number appeared on the 1st of June 1809; and the last on the 25th of March 1810. The exact date of Coleridge's arrival at Allan Bank I have not been able to discover;* but, on the 17th December 1808, he wrote to Sir George Beaumont that if his health and spirits continued what they had been since his return to Grasmere, he should not have said unmeaningly to his friends, "Decide on my moral and intellectual character from the products of the year 1809." In the same letter he goes on to give an account of his new project.

“I have received promises of contributions from writers of high reputation; and for myself, I consider The Friend as the main pipe, from which I shall play off the whole accumulation and reservoir of my head and heart. And truly, as I said to a correspondent, it is high time. Hitherto I have laid my eggs with ostrich carefulness, and ostrich-like

* He was with the Wordsworths at the beginning of September 1808. He certainly spent the month of January 1809 at Keswick, but he continued to live at Allan Bank until the stoppage of The Friend.

oblivion.

The greater part have been crushed under foot: but some have crawled into light to furnish feathers for other men's caps, and not a few to plume the shafts in the quivers of calumny. Henceforward—

'Et nos tela, pater, ferrum que haud debile dextra

Spargimus: et nostro sequitur de vulnere sanguis.””

The Friend was foredoomed to failure, just as The Watchman had been, and as were the subsequent London lectures of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. From the first, both Wordsworth and Southey were against its publication. "For the literary news of these mountains," wrote Southey, in July 1809, "Heaven knows when you will see another number of The Friend. To me and Wordsworth it is a sore grief, and earnestly did we wish that you might never see the first." In December, however, Southey wrote, "Coleridge has pliantly refuted my expectations regarding The Friend." The work lingered on till its twenty-eighth number. Wordsworth contributed to Nos. 17, 20, and 25. To the last of these (which appeared on the 22nd February 1810) he gave two Epitaphs, which he had translated from Chiabrera, and followed them by an "Essay upon Epitaphs." Of this essay Dorothy Wordsworth wrote:

The essay of this week is by my brother. He did not intend it to be published now; but Coleridge was in such bad spirits that when the time came he was utterly unprovided, and besides had been put out of his regular course by waiting for books to consult respecting Duty; so my brother's essay, being ready, was sent off. William requested Coleridge to proffer an apology for the breach of his promise; but he was, I believe, too languid even to make this exertion; . . . and here I must observe that we have often cautioned Coleridge against making promises, which, even if performed, are of no service, and if broken must be of great dis-service."

A letter of Southey's to John Rickman, written five years before this date, casts so much light on Coleridge's character, that it may precede a somewhat similar one from Wordsworth to Poole, written in 1809.

"KESWICK, March 30, 1804. You are in great measure

"MY DEAR RICKMAN,-. right about Coleridge; he is worse in body than you seem to believe, but the main cause lies in his own management of himself, or rather want of management. His mind is in a perpetual St Vitus's dance eternal activity without action. At times he feels mortified that he should have done so little; but this feeling never produces any exertion. I will begin to-morrow, he says, and thus he has been all his life long, letting to-day slip. He has had no heavy calamities in life, and so contrives to be miserable about trifles. Poor fellow! there is no one thing which gives me so much pain as the witnessing such a waste of unequalled power. I knew but one man resembling him, save that with equal genius, he was actually a vicious man. This will not be the case with Coleridge; the disjecta membra will be found if he does not die early: but having so much to do, so many errors to weed out of the world which he is capable of eradicating, if he does die without doing his work, it would half break my heart, for no human being has had more talents allotted.

Wordsworth will do better, and leave behind him a name unique in his way; he will rank among the very first poets, and probably possesses a mass of merits superior to all, except only Shakespeare. This is doing much, yet would he be a happier man if he did more.

-Vale! R. S."*

* The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, vol. ii. pp. 277-278.

Wordsworth's letter to Poole of Nether Stowey shows a very remarkable insight into, and power of analysis of character. It is an admirable letter, and there is in it a consciousness of strength and inner rectitude, free from the slightest taint of Pharisaism. It was written sometime in

May 1809.*

"... I have yet another and far more important reason for writing to you; connected, as no doubt you will guess, with Coleridge. I am sorry to say that nothing appears to me more desirable than that his periodical Essay should never commence. It is, in fact, impossible, utterly impossible, that he should carry it on; and, therefore, better never begin it, far better, and if begun, the sooner it stops, also the better-the less will be the loss and not greater the disgrace. You will consider me as speaking to you now under a strong sense of duty, from a wish to save you from anxiety and disappointment; and from a further and still stronger wish that, as one of Coleridge's nearest and dearest friends, you should take into most serious consideration his condition, above all with reference to his children. I give it to you as my deliberate opinion, founded upon proofs which have been strengthening for years, that he neither will nor can execute anything of important benefit either to himself, his family, or mankind. Neither his talents nor his genius, mighty as they are, nor his vast information will avail him anything; they are all frustrated by a derangement in his intellectual and moral constitution. In fact, he has no voluntary power of mind whatsoever, nor is he capable of acting under any constraint of duty or moral obligation. Do not suppose that I mean to say from this that The Friend may not appear. It may, but it cannot go on for any length of time. I am sure it

* The postmark shows that the letter was sent from Keswick.

The

cannot. C., I understand, has been three weeks at Penrith, whither he went to superintend the publication, and has since never been heard of (save once, on his first arrival), though frequently written to. I shall say no more at present, but I do earnestly wish that you would come down hither this summer in order that something may be arranged respecting his children, in case of his death, and also during his lifetime. I must add, however, that it answers no purpose to advise or to remonstrate with him, or to represent to him the propriety of going on or desisting. disease of his mind is that he perpetually looks out of himself for those obstacles to his utility which exist only in himself. I am sure that if any friend whom he values were, in consequence of such a conviction as I have expressed, to advise him to drop his work, he would immediately ascribe the failure to the damp thrown upon his spirits by this interference. Therefore in this way nothing can be done, nor by encouraging him to attempt anything else he would catch eagerly, perhaps, at the advice—and would be involved in new plans, new procrastination, and new expenses.-I am, dear Poole, most sincerely yours,

W. WORDSWORTH."