SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 135 



Having failed in an attempt to establish a periodical, called 

 <'The Friend," Coleridge was persuaded by some Philanthropists 

 and Antipolemists to set on foot another, " The Watchman ;" but 

 this only reached the 9th number, though he travelled through 

 Birmingham, Manchester, Derby, Nottingham, and Sheffield, to 

 procure subscribers : his first attempt will be best described in 

 his own words. 



"My campaign commenced at Birmingham; and my first 

 attack was on a rigid Calvanist, a tallow chandler by trade. He 

 was a tall, dingy man, in whom length was so predominant over 

 breadth, that he might almost have been borrowed for a foundry 

 poker. O that face ! 1 have it before me at this moment. The 

 lank, black, twine-like hair, pingvi nitescent, cut in a strait line 

 along the black stubble of his thin gunpowder eye brows, that 

 looked like a scorched after-inath from a last week's shaving. 

 His coat collar behind in perfect unison, both of colour and lustre 

 with the coarse yet glib cordage, that 1 suppose he called his hair, 

 and which with a hend inward at the nape of the neck (the only 

 approach to flexure in his whole figure) slunk in behind his waist- 

 coat ; while the countenance lank, dark, very hard, and with strong 

 perpendicular furrows, gave me a dim notion of some one look- 

 ing at me through a u^d gridiron, all soot, grease, and iron ! But 

 lie was one of the thorough-bredy a true lover of liberty, and (I 

 was informed) had proved to the satisfaction of many, that Mr. 

 Pitt was one of the horns of the second beast in tlje Revelations, 

 thdt spoJ^e like a dragon. A person, to whom one of my letters 

 of recommendation had been addressed, was my introducer. It 

 was a new event in my life, my first stroke in the new business I 

 had 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 haas 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. I argued, I described, 

 I promised, I prophecied ; and beginning with the captivity of 

 nations 1 ended with the near approach of the millenium, finish- 

 ing the whole with some of my own verses describing that glorious 

 state out of the lielfgiona Musings : 



- Such delights, 



As float to earth, permitted visitants ! 

 When in some hour of solemn jubilee 

 The massive gates of Paradise are thrown 

 Wide open : and forth come in fragrance wild 

 Sweet echoes of imearthly melodies. 

 And odors snatch'd from beds of Amaranth, 

 And they tliat from the chrystal river of life 

 Spring up on freshen'd wings, ambroi^ial gales! 



Religions Musings. 1. 3^6. 



