exhibition. Mr. C.'s play was, as is well known, brought forward several years after, through the kindness of Mr. Sheridan. In conclusion, I may observe, that while I was composing this play, I wrote a short essay, illustrative of that constitution and those tendencies of human nature, which make the apparently motiveless actions of bad men intelligible to careful observers. This was partly done with reference to the character of Oswald, and his persevering endeavour to lead the man he disliked into so heinous a crime; but still more to preserve in my distinct remembrance what I had observed of transitions in character, and the reflections I had been led to make, during the time I was a witness of the changes through which the French Revolution passed."

It was in the month of June, 1797, that SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE first came to Racedown.

He was two years and a half younger than Wordsworth. He was admitted at Jesus College, Cambridge, in February, 1791, and quitted it at the close of 1794. On the 4th October of the following year he was married at Bristol, and went to reside at Clevedon. On the 1st March, 1796, he commenced the publication of "The Watchman," which continued to appear periodically till the 13th May following. His first volume of poems was published by Mr. Cottle, at Bristol, in the beginning of April, 1796.

The first impression made by the appearance of Mr. Coleridge is thus described by Miss Wordsworth, in a letter to a friend who had left Racedown early in 1797:

"You had a great loss in not seeing Coleridge.

He is a wonderful man. His conversation teems with soul, mind, and spirit. Then he is so benevolent, so good-tempered and cheerful, and, like William, interests himself so much about every little trifle. At first I thought him very plain, that is, for about three minutes: he is pale, thin, has a wide mouth, thick lips, and not very good teeth, longish, loose-growing, half-curling, rough, black hair" (in both these respects a striking contrast to his friend Wordsworth, who in his youth had beautiful teeth and light brown hair). " But, if you hear him speak for five minutes you think no more of them. His eye is large and full, and not very dark, but grey, such an eye as would receive from a heavy soul the dullest expression; but it speaks every emotion of his animated mind: it has more of the poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling' than I ever witnessed. He has fine dark eyebrows, and an overhanging forehead.

"The first thing that was read after he came was William's new poem, 'Ruined Cottage,' with which he was much delighted; and after tea he repeated to us two acts and a half of his tragedy, 'Osorio.' The next morning, William read his tragedy, 'The Borderers.'" 1

With this description of Coleridge may be compared the picture drawn by Wordsworth of his friend in the poem entitled "Stanzas written in my Pocket Copy of Thomson's Castle of Indolence;" where, after the Poet has delineated himself, his brother bard is thus portrayed: —

1 For another description of Coleridge's personal appearance, and for an account of the best portrait of him that by Alston, painted at Rome for Mr. Josiah Wade, in 1806, - see Biog. Lit. vol. ii. p. 386. edit. 1847.

"With him there often walked in friendly guise,
Or lay upon the moss by brook or tree,
A noticeable man, with large grey eyes,
And a pale face that seemed undoubtedly
As if a blooming face it ought to be;
Heavy his low-hung lip did oft appear,
Deprest by weight of musing Phantasy;
Profound his forehead was, though not severe.'

*

He would entice that other man to hear
His music, and to view his imagery.

And, sooth, these two were to each other dear,
No livelier love in such a place could be."

Coleridge, writing at the time of this visit, to his friend Cottle2 (June, 1797), thus speaks:-"I am sojourning for a few days at Racedown, Dorset, the mansion of our friend Wordsworth. He admires my tragedy, which gives me great hopes: he has written a tragedy himself. I speak with heartfelt sincerity, and I think unblinded judgment, when I tell you that I feel a little man by his side." And (March, 1798), "When I speak in the terms of admiration due to his intellect, I fear lest those terms should keep out of sight the amiableness of his manners. He has written near twelve hundred lines of blank verse, superior, I hesitate not to aver, to any thing in our language which in any way resembles it."

Coleridge, in 1797, at Stowey, thus describes Miss Wordsworth, in a letter to the same friend. "Wordsworth and his exquisite sister are with me. She is a woman indeed, in mind I mean, and in heart; for her person is such that if you expected to see a pretty

1 Vol. i. p. 212, 213.

? See Cottle's, Early Recollections of Coleridge, vol. i. p. 250-2.

woman, you would think her ordinary; if you expected to see an ordinary woman you would think her pretty, but her manners are simple, ardent, impressive. In every motion her innocent soul out-beams so brightly, that who saw her would say 'Guilt was a thing impossible with her.' Her information various; her eye watchful in minutest observation of Nature; and her taste a perfect electrometer."

The occasional intercourse which the two poets enjoyed at Racedown made them desirous of nearer intimacy; and, in the following month, Wordsworth and his sister moved to another abode, near the village of Nether-Stowey, in Somersetshire, where Coleridge then lived.

CHAPTER XI.

ALFOXDEN.

"Alfoxden near Nether-Stowey, Somersetshire, August 14. 1797.

"HERE we are," says Miss Wordsworth, in a letter to a friend, bearing the above date, "in a large mansion, in a large park, with seventy head of deer around us. But I must begin with the day of leaving Racedown to pay Coleridge a visit. You know how much we were delighted with the neighbourhood of Stowey." "There is every thing there," she says in a previous letter, 4th July, 1797, "sea, woods wild as fancy ever painted, brooks clear and pebbly as in Cumberland, villages so romantic; and William and I, in a wander by ourselves, found out a sequestered waterfall in a dell formed by steep hills covered with full-grown timber trees. The woods are as fine as those at Lowther, and the country more romantic; it has the character of the less grand parts of the neighbourhood of the lakes." In her next letter (of August 14.), Miss Wordsworth continues: evening that I wrote to you, William and I had rambled as far as this house, and pryed into the recesses of our little brook, but without any more fixed thoughts upon it than some dreams of happiness in a little cottage, and passing wishes that such a place might be found out. We spent a fortnight at Coleridge's: in the course of that time we heard that

"The