profoundly expresses it, "the only possible reflex, or image of eternity." The immortal finite is the contracted shadow of the eternal Infinite. Therefore nothingness, or death, to which we move, as we recede from God and from the Word, cannot be nothing; but that tremendous medium between nothing and true being, which Scripture and inmost reason present as most, most horrible! Affectionately, S. T. C.] FOOTNOTES: [5] [Stoddart had retained his MSS. in Malta (for some unaccountable reason), which had disconcerted Coleridge.] [6] [Staying at the farmhouse near the mansion of Coleorton.] [7] _T. Poole and his Friends_, ii, 174-184. [8] _Religious Musings_ was at first called _The Nativity_, and sent to Charles Lamb in December 1794 as an unfinished poem. Coleridge wrote to Cottle in one of his short notes, while his first volume of _Poems_ was being put through the press: "_The Nativity_ is not quite three hundred lines. It has cost me much labour in polishing; more than any poem I ever wrote, and I believe it deserves it:" Cottle's _Reminiscences_, p. 66. The first 158 lines, down to "This is the Messiah's destined victory!" were probably written in the spring of 1796. Their spirit is diametrically opposed to the remainder of the poem, in which the Messiah's victory is to be a political one. [9] ["Even they will be necessitated to admit, completely exonerated the Jews."--_Early Recollections._] [10] ["Voluntary actions."--_Early Recollections._] [11] ["Over all our."--_Early Recollections._] CHAPTER XIII DE QUINCEY [Cottle tells us that in the spring of 1807 a lady of his acquaintance introduced to him a Mr. De Quincey. On the 26th July, Cottle wrote to Poole (_T. Poole and his Friends_, ii, 190) a note of introduction and sent it with "the bearer Mr. De Quincey, a Gentleman of Oxford, a scholar and a man of genius." Coleridge had gone to Bridgwater on a visit to a friend, Mr. Chubb; but Poole entertained De Quincey and invited him to stay till Coleridge should return. De Quincey, however, preferred to go in quest of the poet, and proceeded to Bridgwater and there found Coleridge as he has depicted him in his description already given in Chapter IV.