neither horns nor claws; quite a tame creature, I assure you a middle-sized man, both in stature and in understanding; whereas, from his noisy fame, you would expect to find a Briareus Centimanus, or a Tityus tall enough to pull Jupiter from his heavens. I begin to think you atheists not quite so tall a species! Coleridge inquires after you pretty often. I wish to be the Pandar to bring you together again once before I die. When we die, you and I must part; the sheep, you know, take the right-hand signpost, and the goats the left. Stript of its allegory, you must know the sheep are-I, the Apostles, and the martyrs, and the Popes, and Bishop Taylor, and Bishop Horsley, and Coleridge, &c. &c. The goats are the atheists, and adulterers, and fornicators, and dumb dogs, and Godwin, and Mg, and that Thyestaan crew! Egad, how my saintship sickens at the idea! You shall have my play and the Falstaff's Letters in a day or two. I will write to Lloyd] by this day's Post.

Pray, is it a part of your sincerity to show my letters to Lloyd? for, really, gentlemen ought to explain their virtues upon a first acquaintance, to prevent mistakes.

God bless you, Manning. Take my trifling as trifling; and believe me, seriously and deeply,

Your well-wisher and friend,

C.L.

XLIX.

TO THE SAME

[March 1, 1800.]

I hope by this time you are prepared to say, the "Falstaff's letters are a bundle of the sharpest, queerest, profoundest humours, of any these juicedrained latter times have spawned. I should have advertised you, that the meaning is frequently hard to be got at ; and so are the future guineas, that now

lie ripening and aurifying in the womb of some undiscovered Potosi; but dig, dig, dig, dig, Manning! I set to, with an unconquerable propulsion to write, with a lamentable want of what to write. My private goings on are orderly as the movements of the spheres, and stale as their music to angels' ears. Public affairs-except as they touch upon me, and so turn into private,-I cannot whip up my mind to feel any interest in. I grieve, indeed, that War, and Nature, and Mr Pitt, that hangs up in Lloyd's best parlour, should have conspired to call up three necessaries, simple commoners as our father's knew them, into the upper house of luxuries; bread, and beer, and coals, Manning. But as to France and Frenchmen, and the Abbé Sièyes and his constitutions, I cannot make these present times present to me. I read histories of the past, and I live in them; although, to abstract senses, they are far less momentous than the noises which keep Europe awake. I am reading Burnet's History of his own Times. Did you ever read that garrulous, pleasant history? He tells his story like an old man past political service, bragging to his sons on winter evenings of the part he took in public transactions when his "old cap was new." Full of scandal, which all true history is. No palliatives; but all the stark wickedness, that actually gives the momentum national actors. Quite the prattle of age, and outlived importance. Truth and sincerity staring out upon you perpetually in alto relievo. Himself a party man-he makes you a party man. None of the cursed philosophical Humeian indifference, so cold, and unnatural, and inhuman! None of the cursed Gibbonian fine writing, so fine and composite! None of Dr Robertson's periods with three members. None of Mr Roscoe's sage remarks, all so apposite, and coming in so clever, lest the reader should have had the trouble of drawing an inference. Burnet's

to

good old prattle I can bring present to my mind ; I can make the revolution present to me: the French revolution, by a converse perversity in my nature, I fling as far from me. To quit this tiresome subject, and to relieve you from two or three dismal yawns, which I hear in spirit, I here conclude my more than commonly obtuse letter; dull, up to the dulness of a Dutch commentator on Shakspeare.

My love to Lloyd and to Sophia.

L.

TO THE SAME

C. L.

March 17th, 1800.

Dear Manning,-I am living in a continuous feast. Coleridge has been with me now for nigh three weeks, and the more I see of him in the quotidian undress and relaxation of his mind, the more cause I see to love him, and believe him a very good man, and all those foolish impressions to the contrary fly off like morning slumbers. He is engaged in translations, which I hope will keep him this month to come. He is uncommonly kind and friendly to me. He ferrets me day and night to do something. He tends me, amidst all his own worrying and heartoppressing occupations, as a gardener tends his young tulip. Marry come up; what a pretty similitude, and how like your humble servant! He has lugged me to the brink of engaging to a newspaper, and has suggested to me, for a first plan, the forgery of a supposed manuscript of Burton, the anatomist of melancholy. I have even written the introductory letter; and, if I can pick up a few guineas this way, I feel they will be most refreshing, bread being so dear. If I go on with it, I will apprise you of it, as you may like to see my things! and the tulip, of all flowers, loves to be admired most.

Pray pardon me, if my letters do not come very

thick. I am so taken up with one thing or other, that I cannot pick out (I will not say time, but) fitting times to write to you. My dear love to Lloyd and Sophia, and pray split this thin letter into three parts, and present them with the two biggest in my name.

They are my oldest friends; but, ever the new friend driveth out the old, as the ballad sings! God bless you all three ! I would hear from Lloyd] if I could.

Flour has just fallen nine shillings a sack: we shall be all too rich.

Tell Charles I have seen his mamma, and have almost fallen in love with her, since I mayn't with Olivia. She is so fine and graceful, a complete matron-lady-quaker. She has given me two little books. Olivia grows a charming girl-full of feeling, and thinner than she was; but I have not time to fall in love.

Mary presents her general compliments. She keeps

in fine health.

Huzza boys! and down with the Atheists!

LI.

TO SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

May 12th, 1800.

My dear Coleridge,-I don't know why I write, except from the propensity which misery has to tell her griefs. Hetty died on Friday night, about eleven o'clock, after eight days' illness. Mary, in consequence of fatigue and anxiety, is fallen ill again, and I was obliged to remove her yesterday. I am left alone in a house with nothing but Hetty's dead body to keep me company. To-morrow I bury her, and then I shall be quite alone, with nothing but a cat, to remind me that the house has been full of living beings like myself. My heart is quite sunk, and I don't know where to look for relief. Mary will get