ness-he returned after several weeks' absence not in undertaken of an author; yea, and of an author trading on his own account. My companion after some imperfect sentences, and a multitude of hums and hahs, abandoned the cause to his client; and I commenced an harangue of half an hour to Phileleutheros, the tallow-chandler, varying my notes through the whole gamut of eloquence, from the ratiocinative to the declamatory, and, in the latter, from the pathetic to the indignant.... My taper man of lights listened with perseverant and praiseworthy patience, though (as I was afterwards told, in complaining of certain gales that were not altogether ambrosial) it was a melting-day with him. "And what, sir!" he said, after a short pause, "might the cost be?" 66. Only FOURPENCE," (O! how I felt the anti-climax, the abysmal bathos of that FOURPENCE!) "only four pence, sir, each number, to be published on every eighth day." "That comes to a deal of money at the end of a year. And how much did you say there was to be for the money ? 99 66 Thirty-two pages, sir, large octavo, closely printed." "Thirty and two pages? Bless me, why except what I does in a family way on the Sabbath, that's more than I ever reads, sir! all the year round. I am as great a one as any man in Brummagem, sir, for liberty and truth, and all them sort of things, but as to this, (no offence, I hope, sir!) I must beg to be excused."... "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 completely hagridden 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 eclipsed the glories even of the lottery puffs. But, alas ! the publication of the main unsuccessful. During this tour, it may be 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, and French philosophy, 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 of me, I levelled my attacks at 'modern patriotism,' and even ventured to declare my belief, that whatever the motives of ministers might have been for the sedition (or as it was then the fashion to call them the gagging) bills, yet the bills themselves would produce an effect to be desired by all the true friends of freedom, as far as they should contribute to deter men from openly declaiming on subjects, the principles of which they had never bottomed, and from 'pleading to the poor and ignorant, instead of pleading for them.' At the same time I avowed my conviction, that national education, and a concurring spread of the gospel were the indispensable condition of any true political amelioration. Thus, by the time the seventh number was published, I had the mortification of seeing the preceding numbers exposed in sundry old iron shops for a penny a piece. At the tenth number I dropped the work, and I should have been inevitably thrown into jail by my printer, 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.... Of the unsaleable nature * "Wherefore my bowels shall sound like an harp." ISAIAH XVI. II. remarked, he wrote, while near Sheffield, the lines "On observing a blossom on the first of February."* The first number of The Watchman appeared on March 1, and the tenth and last on May 14, 1796. The venture proved a pecuniary loss both to the Editor and to his friend Cottle, who had helped him by supplying the paper and otherwise. The money in many cases was not forthcoming from the agents in London and other places, and was frequently not paid by private subscribers. In the meantime, early in April, a more promising venture, viz. Coleridge's first volume of Poems, had appeared at Bristol† under the First Volume auspices of his friend Cottle, who had generously given the author thirty guineas for the copy of Poems. of my writings I had an amusing memento one morning from our 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 !" raria, Lond. 1817, Vol. 1. pp. 168-178.) * infrà, p. 56. (Biographia Lite + Poems on various Subjects, by S. T. Coleridge, late of Jesus College, Cambridge. [Motto from STAT. Silv. liv. iv. 4.] London: printed for G. G. and J. Robinsons, and J. Cottle, bookseller, Bristol, 1796, pp. xvi. 188 (and two leaves of Errata and Advertisements). Joseph Cottle was a bookseller and publisher in Bristol from 1791 to 1798: he retired from business in the latter year shortly after the publication of Lyrical Ballads, the joint production of Coleridge and Wordsworth. right, and advanced him the money as his occasions required. In this volume were printed three or four sonnets of Charles Lamb's. "The effusions signed C. L.," says Coleridge, at the end of the Preface, were written by Mr. Charles Lamb, of the India House-independently of the signature their superior merit would have sufficiently distinguished them.” 66 The Contents of this volume were as follows (the page being indicated after each piece at which it appears in the present edition) : Page in orig. ed. : I Monody on the Death of Chatterton Page in present edition. 55 109 50 12 To the Rev. W. J. H., while teaching a young lady some song-tunes on his flute 15 Songs of the Pixies 26 Lines written at the King's Arms, Ross, for- 32 Lines on a Friend who died of a frenzy fever induced by calumnious reports 36 To a Young Lady with a Poem on the French Revolution 1. "My heart has thank'd thee, Bowles, 45 46 II. 47 48 III. "Not always should the tear's am- 139 134 IV. "Tho' roused by that dark Vizir Riot Page in present edition. v. "When British Freedom for an hap- vi. "It was some spirit, Sheridan, that VII. "As when a child on some long win- VIII. IX. 66 are heard " X. Not, Stanhope! with the Patriot's XI. "Was it some sweet device of faery land" XII. “Methinks how dainty sweet it were, 145 144 140 136 135 (C. L.) 57 * Signed C. L., but retained in the edition of 1803, from which Lamb's other contributions were eliminated. Vide in loco. + This Sonnet of Lamb's was much altered by Coleridge, not to the satisfaction of the former. In the edition of 1797 it was restored by Lamb's wish to its original form, as he wrote it. "The wand of Merlin," he writes to Coleridge (Jan. 10, 1797), "looks so like Mr. Merlin, the ingenious successor of the immortal Merlin, now living in good health and spirits, and flourishing in magical reputation in Oxford Street," &c. Coleridge altered the last two lines thus: "How Reason reel'd! What gloomy transports rose! Till the rude dashings rock'd them to repose." Lamb writes (June 11, 1796) that "these are good lines, but |