Letter 212. To Allsop. 14 April, 1824 274 213. " 27 April, 1824 274 CHAPTER XXVIII. THE NEW ACADEME 278 Letter 214. To Allsop. 20 Mch. 1825 284 215. " 30 April, 1825 286 216. " 2 May, 1825 287 217. " 10 May, 1825 287 218. " -- 1825 290 CHAPTER XXIX. ALARIC WATTS 292 CHAPTER XXX. THE RHINE TOUR, AND LAST COLLECTED EDITIONS OF THE POEMS 296 Letter 219. To Adam S. Kennard. 13 July, 1834 302 CHAPTER XXXI. CONCLUSION 305 APPENDIX AND ADDITIONAL NOTES 313 INDEX 327 BIOGRAPHIA EPISTOLARIS CHAPTER XI MALTA AND ITALY [Coleridge set sail from Portsmouth in the "Speedwell" on 9th or 10th April 1804. He wrote to J. Tobin on the 10th (_Anima Poetae_, p. 68): LETTER 130. TO J. TOBIN April 10, 1804. Men who habitually enjoy robust health have, too generally, the trick, and a very cruel one it is, of imagining that they discover the secret of all their acquaintances' ill health in some malpractice or other; and, sometimes, by gravely asserting this, here, there, and everywhere (as who likes his penetration hid under a bushel?), they not only do all they can, without intending it, to deprive the poor sufferer of that sympathy which is always a comfort and, in some degree, a support to human nature, but, likewise, too often implant serious alarm and uneasiness in the minds of the person's relatives and his nearest and dearest connections. Indeed (but that I have known its inutility, that I should be ridiculously sinning against my own law which I was propounding, and that those who are most fond of advising are the least able to hear advice from others, as the passion to command makes men disobedient) I should often have been on the point of advising you against the two-fold rage of advising and of discussing character, both the one and the other of which infallibly generates presumption and blindness to our own faults. Nay! more particularly where, from whatever cause, there exists a slowness to understand or an aptitude to mishear and consequently misunderstand what has been said, it too often renders an otherwise truly good man a mischief-maker to an extent of which he is but little aware. Our friends' reputation should be a religion to us, and when it is lightly sacrificed to what self-adulation calls a love of telling the truth (in reality a lust of talking something seasoned with