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he was at one time fond of returning to it, but either my mind was not "in the right temper," or from some defect or other, I could not fully appreciate the mysteries of the Albatross.

I have often read it since, and I think I may venture to say, that the pleasure with which its re-perusals have been attended, was not the less from my being able to enter, unattended by the author and his bewildering metaphysics,

"Into that silent sea."

I do not remember that he ever dwelt upon his "Religious Musings," which he has termed "A desultory Poem," and which, exceedingly fine as many of its parts are, is so indicative of the tempestuous current of his thoughts, at the time he wrote it-the thoughts of a mind essentially poetical, but distracted by vague religious feelings, and unsettled political opinions, that he may have been glad to let these "Musings" rest, and so find rest himself.

His "Fears in Solitude," written in 1798, only four years after the former, were often upon his lips. He not only recited this beautiful poem to us, but gave us copies of it; and much as I admired it then, it has lost nothing in my estimation since. When he wrote it, the trammels of pantisocracy were falling from him, and he was struggling to devise an outlet from the

storm, which had already gathered around the nations, and was overwhelming, with still increasing darkness, the visions of Utopian felicity with which the drama of the French revolution opened, and of which he had himself drunk so deeply. Still his fluctuations at this period appear to have been pretty considerable ; and it was not until the year 1809, that, speaking of the horrors of systematic wickedness, "when all the natural and artificial powers of a populous and wicked nation are directed to evil by a single villain, such as then deviled it over France," he asks how its career is to be checked, "if giant and united vices are opposed only by mixed and scattered virtues? Even in the present hour of peril, do we not," he continues, "too often hear even good men declaiming on the horrors and crimes of war, and softening or staggering the minds of their brethren by details of individual wretchedness? Thus, under pretence of avoiding blood, withdrawing the will from the defence of the very source of those blessings, without which the blood would flow idly in our veins! Thus, lest a few should fall on the bulwarks in glory, preparing to give up the whole state to baseness, and the children of free ancestors to become slaves and the fathers of slaves!" What will the Society of Friends say to this?

A few years prior to his going to Germany, Coleridge was engaged by Sheridan to write a tragedy for the

stage, to which he gave the name of Osorio ; but before the task was completed, he got weary of it, insomuch that it became, I have heard him say, a work of pain and grief to him, and proved, in the end, a sort of "enfant perdu," for which he nevertheless felt a strong paternal affection. He had "Osorio” with him at Göttingen, and I have in my possession a copy from his own manuscript, but as I have not yet had an opportunity of comparing it with "Remorse," a tragedy of his which was brought out in 1813, I am unable to say whether this is the same play, mutato nomine; or to what alterations the original play may have been subjected, with a view to its better adaptation to the stage.

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In this manuscript preface to Osorio, he says, this sketch of a tragedy, all is imperfect, and much obscure. Among other equally great defects (millstones round the slender neck of its merits) it presupposes a long story; and this long story, which yet is necessary to the complete understanding of the play, is not half told. Albert had sent a letter informing his family that he should arrive about such a time by ship; he was shipwrecked; and wrote a private letter to Osorio, informing him alone of this accident, that he might not shock Maria. Osorio destroyed the letter, and sent assassins to meet Albert Worse than all,

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the growth of Osorio's character is nowhere explained -and yet I had most clear and psychologically accurate

ideas of the whole of it

A man who, from constitutional calmness of appetites, is seduced into pride and the love of power, by these into misanthropism, or rather a contempt for mankind; and from thence, by the co-operation of envy, and a curiously modified love for a beautiful female (which is nowhere developed in the play), into a most atrocious guilt. A man who is in truth a weak man, yet always duping himself into the belief that he has a soul of iron. Such were some of my leading ideas.

"In short, the thing is but an embryo, and whilst it remains in manuscript, which it is destined to do, the critic would judge unjustly who should call it a miscarriage. It furnished me with a most important lesson, namely, that to have conceived strongly, does not always imply the power of successful execution.S.T.C."

The time of the tragedy is in the reign of Philip II., shortly after the Moorish rebellion, and during the persecution of the Moors.

He seldom recited any of the beautiful passages with which Osorio abounds, without a visible interruption of the usual perfect composure of his mind; he contrasted the pleasure which attended his original conception of the plot, with the throes that accompanied its progress, and particularly the conclusion of the work, such as it was; and he mentioned with great emotion, Sheridan's inexcusable treatment

of him. He had written the play for him, an dat his request, and placed the manuscript in his hands. But after having been kept in suspense day after day, and month after month, as to whether it was to be brought forward on the stage or not, he discovered that it had been bandied about from one hand to another, and was not a little surprised at hearing Miss De Camp, in some party where they chanced to meet, recite a passage from it, with much commendation from the company. Still he was himself aware that it stood in need of considerable alteration to fit it for the stage; and so it appears thought Sheridan, who, amidst a profusion of compliments on its general merits, gave him to understand at last, that with the exception of the first two acts, which were admirably adapted to theatrical representation, it was fitter for the closet than the stage; and thus ended the negociation between them.

Coleridge was too conversant with the workings of the human heart, not to perceive the strings which are usually drawn in the production of duels; but I am unable to say, whether the following anecdote, which he related to us, was invented by him for the purpose of illustration, or was founded on fact:

"Colonel A. was playing at chess with Captain B. They had been friends from their earliest years, and were sincerely attached to each other. Captain B.,

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