LITICAL, SOCIAL, AND RELIGIOUS.-THE LANGUAGE OF MADOC MR. COLERIDGE. MR. STATE OF NATURE COMBATED. CHANGES. -LITERARY LABOURS. CONGRATULATIONS TO MR. WYNN ON THE BIRTH OF A CHILD. -REMARKS ON THE EFFECTS OF TIME.-BRISTOL RECOLLEC TIONS.-BEAUSOBRE'S HISTORY OF MANICHEISM.-GOES TO NORWICH.-THE ANNUAL REVIEW. JESUITISM IN ENGLAND. -BRIEF VISIT TO LONDON AND RETURN.- QUAINT THEORY OF THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGES. THALABA. URGES MR. LAND. PAPERS CONCERNING SOUTH AMERICA. -MEMOIRS OF COLONEL HUTCHINSON. - 1806. My father was now a settled dweller among the mountains of Cumberland; and although for some years he again and again refers to Lisbon, as a place he earnestly desired to revisit, still this was a project which would probably have assumed a very different aspect, had it come more immediately before him: he would never have removed his family abroad, and he was far too much attached to, and indeed too dependent upon, home comforts and domestic relations, to have made up his mind to leave them even for the furtherance of his chief literary pursuits. A more thoroughly domestic man, or one more simple in his mode of living, it would be difficult to picture; and the habits into which he settled himself about this time continued through life, unbroken regularity and unwearied industry being their chief characteristics. Habitually an early riser, he never encroached upon the hours of the night; and finding his highest pleasure and his recreation in the very pursuits necessary for earning his daily bread, he was, probably, more continually employed, than any other writer of his generation. "My actions," he writes about this time to a friend," are as regular as those of St. Dunstan's quarter-boys. Three pages of history after breakfast (equivalent to five in small quarto printing); then to transcribe and copy for the press, or to make my selections and biographies, or what else suits my humour, till dinner time; from dinner till tea I read, write letters, see the newspaper, and very often indulge in a siesta,-for sleep agrees with me, and I have a good, substantial theory to prove that it must; for as a man who walks much requires to sit down and rest himself, so does the brain, if it be the part most worked, require its repose. Well, after tea, I go to poetry, and correct and re-write and copy till I am tired, and then turn to anything else till supper; and this is my life, which, if it be not a very merry one, is yet as happy as heart could wish. At least I should think so if I had not once been happier; and I do think so, except when that recollection comes upon me. And then, when I cease to be cheerful, it is only to become contemplative, to feel at times a wish that I was in that state of existence which passes not away; and this always ends in a new impulse to proceed, that I may leave some durable monument and some efficient good behind me.' The place of abode which he had chosen for himself, or rather, which a variety of circumstances had combined to fix him in, was, in most respects, well suited to his wishes and pursuits. Surrounded by scenery which combines in a rare degree both beauty ́and grandeur, the varied and singularly striking views which he could command from the windows of his study, were of themselves a recreation to the mind, as well as a feast to the eye, and there was a perpetual inducement to exercise which drew him oftener from his books than any other cause would have done, though not so often as was advisable for due relaxation both of mind and body, Uninterrupted leisure for a large portion of the year was absolutely essential; and that the long winter of our northern clime, which may be said generally to include half the autumnal and nearly all the spring months, was well calculated to afford him. With the swallows the tourists began to come, and among them many friends and acquaintances, and so many strangers bearing letters of introduction, that his stores of the latter were being continually increased, and sometimes pleasing and valuable additions made to the former class. During several years his brother Henry, while a student of medicine at Edinburgh, spent his vacations at Keswick, and occasionally some of his more intimate friends came down for a few weeks. These were his golden days; and on such occasions he indulged himself in a more complete holiday, and extended his rambles to those parts of the mountain country which were beyond the circle lying immediately within reach of his own home. These happy times left a permanent memory behind them, and the remembrance of them formed many anecdotes for his later years. The society thus obtained, while occasionally it was a heavy tax upon his time (to whom time was all his wealth), was, on the whole, more suited to his habits than constant intercourse with the world would have been, and more wholesome than complete seclusion. "London," he writes at this time to his friend Mr. Rickman, who was urging him to make a longer visit than usual, " disorders me by over stimulation. I dislike its society more from reflection than from feeling. Company, to a certain extent, intoxicates me. I do not often commit the fault of talking too much, but very often say what would be better unsaid, and that too in a manner not to be easily forgotten. People go away and repeat single sentences, dropping all that led to them, and all that explains them; and very often, in my hearty hatred of assenta |