contra-distinguishes the HUMAN from the animal; of its sympathy and coalescence with the cultivation of the faculties, affections, and fruitions, which God hath made _peculiar_ to _man_, either wholly or in their ordained _combination_ with what is peculiar to humanity, the blurred, but not obliterated signatures of our original title deed, (and God said, man will we make in our own image.) What?--shall Christianity exclude or alienate us from those powers, acquisitions, and attainments, which Christianity is so preeminently calculated to elevate and enliven and sanctify? Far, very far, am I from suspecting in you, my dear sir, any participation in these prejudices of a shrivelled proselyting and censorious religionist. But a numerous and stirring faction there is, in the so-called Religious Public, whose actual and actuating principles, with whatever vehemence they may disclaim it in words, is, that redemption is a something not yet effected--that there is neither sense nor force in our baptism--and that instead of the Apostolic command, _Rejoice, and again I say unto you, rejoice_; baptized Christians are to put on sackcloth and ashes, and try, by torturing themselves and others, to procure a rescue from the devil. Again, let me thank you for your remembrance of me, and believe me from the hour we first met at Bristol, with esteem and regard, Your sincere friend, S. T. COLERIDGE. * * * * * In 1816 an attempt was made to revive _Remorse_ at Drury Lane, and Coleridge had some intercourse with Byron regarding it and another tragedy he was proposing to write for the theatre (_Westminster Review_, 94 (1874), p. 2). He wrote the following fragment on Byron probably about this time: LETTER 169. TO---- (--1816?) If you had seen Lord Byron, you could scarcely disbelieve him--so beautiful a countenance I scarcely ever saw--his teeth so many stationary smiles--his eyes the open portals of the sun--things of light and for light--and his forehead so ample, and yet so flexible, passing from marble smoothness into a hundred wreathes and lines and dimples correspondent to the feelings and sentiments he is uttering.[97]] FOOTNOTES: [94] This is too strong an expression. It was not idleness, it was not sensual indulgence, that led Coleridge to contract this habit. No, it was latent disease, of which sufficient proof is given in this memoir.--[Note by Gillman.] [95] [Letter CCVIII is our 166.] [96] [Cottle or Estlin.] [97] [Letters CCIX-CCXVIII follow 169.] CHAPTER XXIII THOMAS ALLSOP