By the way, speaking of Mr. Southey's court laurels, of which I have luckily said enough in another publication, people have not forgotten what he said formerly of " the degraded title of epic," and of his objections to write accordingly under such degradation. How is it, that he has not expressed a similar horror at the degraded title of Poet Laureat? He cannot pretend to say that it is not so, for setting aside the remaining reasons, one of the very persons who helped to degrade the one, contributed to do as much for the other. Would it not be better in some future edition of his works, to alter that word “ degraded" into some more convenient epithet, such as worthless for instance, that is to say, valueless,pennyless, something that does not give one a pension ?

16 For Coleridge had vex'd him long since, I suppose, By his idling, and gabbling, and muddling in prose;→→→→

Mr. Coleridge is a man of great natural talents, as they who most lament his waste of them, are the readiest to acknowledge. Indeed it is their convie

tion in this respect, which induces them to feel the waste as they do; and if Apollo shews him no quarter, it is evidently because he looks upon him as a deserter. Of his poetical defects enough will be said in speaking of those of Mr. Wordsworth; and if as much cannot be said of his kindred beauties, it is rather perhaps because he has written less and is a man of less industry, than because he does not equal the latter in genius. The allusion in the text is to his strange periodical publication, called the Friend. See Note 18.

There was an idle report, it seems, on the first appearance of Mr. Coleridge's tragedy, that I was the instigator of a party to condemn it. The play, as it happened, was not condemned, nor does any such party appear to have existed ;-the criticism also, which was written upon it in the Examiner, by a friend, must have removed, I should think, all doubts on that head. It is very certain, that at the time of it's appearance I was too ill to be out of doors, nor is it less so, that regarding myself as a reporter of the public judgment in these matters,

I never thought myself justified in being a party on either side viva voce. Mr. Coleridge should do more credit to his own notions of opposition, than to suppose me capable of these idle tricks. If he still persists however in thinking it extraordinary that I should exhibit a more lively regret than others at seeing him throw away his fine genius as he has done, he may attribute it, if he pleases, to a cause from which he seems to have expected a reverse kind of treatment,-to my having been bred up, as well as himself, in the humble but not unlettered school, over which his memory might have thrown a lustre*.

* The Grammar-school of Christ's Hospital. Of this institution, which is of a truly English description, and a sort of medium betwixt the high breeding of the more celebrated foundations and the conscious humility of the charity-school, see a very interesting account in some late numbers of the Gentleman's Magazine by my friend Charles Lamb, who was contemporary there with Coleridge, and of whose powers of wit and observation I should delight to say more, if he had not confined those chief talents of his to the fireside. Mr. Coleridge, I believe, helped to give a new stimulus to the literary ambition of his school-fellows. We cannot boast of many great names; but of such as we have, we are fond in proportion to their fewness. It was here that the celebrated Camden received the rudiments of his learning; and I recollect, it used

17 And Wordsworth, one day, made his very hairs bristle, By going and changing his harp for a whistle.

The allusion here scarcely needs a remark; but in revising my verses, and endeavouring to do justice to Mr. Wordsworth, I was anxious, whenever I mentioned him, to shew myself sensible of the great powers he possesses, and with what sort of gift he has consented to trifle.

18 When one began spouting the cream of orations In praise of bombarding one's friends and relations;

Mr. Coleridge, in his Friend, ventured upon a studious and even cordial defence (at least so his readers understood it) of the attack on Copenhagen,

-one of those lawless outrages, done in the insolence and impatience of power, which at first brought infamy, and have at last brought down retribution, upon the head of Bonaparte. The imitation of such

to be a proud enjoyment to us to witness the grateful inscriptions in gold letters with which Joshua Barnes had adorned the books that he presented to the library. As to college honours, at least in the Belles Lettres, it may be truly said that the school has of late years grown familiar with them.

actions proves how little the contest against him was understood at the time, either in it's moral or political point of view, or rather in it's only proper point of view, which comprises both ;-but the world appears to have learnt better since.-The above parenthesis is used in speaking of the general acceptation of Mr. Coleridge's meaning, because he himself, it appears, has astounded some people by deprecat→ ing such a construction.

19 And t'other some lines he had made on a straw, Shewing how he had found it, and what is was for, &c. &c.

I am told, on very good authority, that this parody upon Mr. Wordsworth's worst style of writing has been taken for a serious extract from him, and panegyrized accordingly, with much grave wonderment how I could find it ridiculous!-See the next note.

20 The bard, like a second Æneas, went home in't, And lives underneath it, it seems, at this moment.

If Mr. Wordsworth is at present under a cloud, it