do, he attacked his own Party; so that in seven weeks, before the shoes were old in which he travelled to Sheffield, the Watchman went the way of all flesh, and his remains were scattered "through sundry old iron shops," where for one penny could be purchased each precious relic. To crown all, "his London Publisher was a —;" and Mr Coleridge very narrowly escaped being thrown into jail for this his heroic attempt to shed over the manufacturing towns the illumination of knowledge. We refrain from making any comments on this deplorable story.
This Philosopher, and Theologian, and Patriot, now retired to a village in Somersetshire, and, after having sought to enlighten the whole world, discovered that he himself was in utter darkness.
"Doubts rushed in, broke upon me from the fountains of the great deep, and fell from the windows of heaven. The fontal truths of natural Religion, and the book of Revelation, alike contributed to the flood; and it was long ere my Ark touched upon Ararat, and rested. My head was with Spinoza, though my heart was with Paul and John."
At this time, "by a gracious Providence, for which I can never be sufficiently grateful, the generous and munificent patronage of Mr Josiah and Mr Thomas Wedgewood enabled me to finish my education in Germany." All this is very well; but what Mr Coleridge learnt in Germany we know not, and seek in vain to discover through these volumes. He tells us that the Antijacobin wits accused him of abandoning his wife and children, and implicated in that charge his friends Mr Robert Southey and Mr Charles Lamb. This was very unjust; for Mr Southey is, and always was, a most exemplary Family-man, and Mr Lamb, we believe, is still a Bachelor. But Mr Coleridge assumes a higher tone than the nature of the case demands or justifies, and his language is not quite explicit. A man who abandons his wife and children is undoubtedly both a wicked and pernicious member of society; and Mr Coleridge ought not to deal in general and vague terms of indignation, but boldly affirm, if he dare, that the charge was false then, and would be false now, if repeated against himself. Be this as it may, Mr Coleridge has never received any apology from those by whom he was insulted and accused, of disgraceful crime; and yet has he, with a humility most unmanly, joined their ranks, and become one of their most slavish Sycophants.
On his return from Germany, he became the principal writer of the political and literary departments of the Morning Post. This, though unquestionably a useful, respectable, and laborious employment, does not appear to us at all sublime; but Mr Coleridge thinks otherwise—compares himself, the Writer of the leading Article, to Edmund Burke—and, for the effect which his writings produced on Britain, refers us to the pages of the Morning Chronicle. In this situation, he tells us that "he wasted the prime and manhood of his intellect," but "added nothing to his reputation or fortune, the industry of the week supplying the necessities of the week." Yet the effects of his labours were wonderful and glorious. He seems to think that he was the cause of the late War; and that, in consequence of his Essays in the Morning Post, he was, during his subsequent residence in Italy, the specified object of Bonaparte's resentment. Of this he was warned by Baron Von Humboldt and Cardinal Fesch; and he was saved from arrest by a Noble Benedictine, and the "gracious connivance of that good old man the Pope!" We know of no parallel to such insane vanity as this, but the case of the celebrated John Dennis, who, when walking one day on the sea-beach, imagined a large ship sailing by to have been sent by Ministry to capture him; and who, on another occasion, waited on the Duke of Marlborough, when the congress for the peace of Utrecht was in agitation, to entreat his interest with the plenipotentiaries, that they should not consent to his being given up. The Duke replied, that he had not got himself excepted in the articles of peace, yet he could not help thinking that he had done the French almost as much damage as even Mr Dennis.
We have no room here to expose, as it deserves to be exposed, the multitudinous political inconsistence of Mr Coleridge, but we beg leave to state one single fact: He abhorred, hated, and despised Mr Pitt,—and he now loves and reveres his memory. By far the most spirited and powerful of his poetical writings, is the War Ec-
