upon his own head the ashes of disgrace—­and with his own blundering hands, so stained his character as a man of honour and high principles, that the mark can never be effaced.  All the most offensive attacks on the writings of Wordsworth and Southey, had been made by Mr. Jeffrey before his visit to Keswick.  Yet, does Coleridge receive him with open arms, according to his own account—­listen, well-pleased, to all his compliments—­talk to him for hours on his Literary Projects—­dine with him as his guest at an Inn—­tell him that he knew Mr. Wordsworth would be most happy to see him—­and in all respects behave to him with a politeness bordering on servility.  And after all this, merely because his own vile verses were crumpled up like so much waste paper, by the grasp of a powerful hand in the Edinburgh Review, he accuses Mr. Jeffrey of abusing hospitality which he never received, and forgets, that instead of being the Host, he himself was the smiling and obsequious Guest of the man he pretends to have despised.  With all this miserable forgetfulness of dignity and self-respect, he mounts the high horse, from which he instantly is tumbled into the dirt; and in his angry ravings collects together all the foul trash of literary gossip to fling at his adversary, but which is blown stifling back upon himself with odium and infamy.  But let him call to mind his own conduct, and talk not of Mr. Jeffrey.  Many witnesses are yet living of his own egotism and malignity; and often has he heaped upon his “beloved Friend, the laurel-honouring Laureate,” epithets of contempt, and pity, and disgust, though now it may suit his paltry purposes to worship and idolize.  Of Mr. Southey we at all times think, and shall speak, with respect and admiration; but his open adversaries are, like Mr. Jeffrey, less formidable than his unprincipled Friends.  When Greek and Trojan meet on the plain, there is an interest in the combat; but it is hateful and painful to think, that a hero should be wounded behind his back, and by a poisoned stiletto in the hand of a false Friend.

The concluding chapter of this Biography is perhaps the most pitiful of the whole, and contains a most surprising mixture of the pathetic and the ludicrous.

“Strange,” says he, “as the delusion may appear, yet it is most true, that three years ago I did not know or believe that I had an enemy in the world; and now even my strongest consolations of gratitude are mingled with fear, and I reproach myself for being too often disposed to ask,—­Have I one friend?”

We are thus prepared for the narration of some grievous cruelty, or ingratitude, or malice—­some violation of his peace, or robbery of his reputation; but our readers will start when they are informed, that this melancholy lament is occasioned solely by the cruel treatment which his poem of Christabel received from the Edinburgh Review and other periodical Journals!  It was, he tells us, universally admired in manuscript—­he