cause that had contributed to its creation. The two poets were at Bristol, the place chosen as their port of embarkation. Cottle, the publisher, who had formed their acquaintance, and looked up to them with affectionate pride, made himself wretched by harping upon the day that was to bear them beyond the broad Atlantic. A laconic epistle from Coleridge opened his eyes and dispelled his fears. It consisted of a single sentence, but the commencement was pointedly significant. "My dear Sir," wrote the reformer, "can you conveniently lend me five pounds? as we want a little more than four pounds to make up our lodging bill." Cottle sent off the money with tears of joy. Oh ye publishers! has ever your craft produced his fellow?
He had been invited to join their society, but had modestly excused himself on the plea of unworthiness. He introduced, however, his new friends to several persons in the neighbourhood, and they repaid him to the best of their ability. "Each of them," says he, "read me his productions, each accepted my invitations;" and we learn without surprise that these regenerators of the human race thought Bristol a "very pleasant residence."
Various schemes were devised to provide for current expenses; they proposed a magazine, but such a work was not to be "undertaken without a certainty of indemnification," and such a certainty could not be ensured, notwithstanding Southey's confidence of being able "to make it the best thing of the kind ever published." They obtained a small, though timely supply, by delivering each a course of lectures, Southey on History, and Coleridge on Politics; while Cottle offered them thirty guineas each for their poems, Coleridge having in vain attempted to find a publisher for his in London. Meanwhile the emigration movement stood still. Southey, who was the first to awake to a perception of its absurdity, pro-
