accepted for Drury Lane; he was working again for Stuart. The winter lectures opened badly and closed brilliantly; the poet was happy in having sympathetic audiences. Then came rehearsals of _Remorse_, which proved remarkably tedious to the gifted author, who for once in his life found a substantial reward for his work. _Remorse_ appealed sufficiently to the patrons of Drury Lane to yield over four hundred pounds to Coleridge in acting and publishing rights. The money came at an opportune moment, for Josiah Wedgwood had reduced his pension to the poet by one half. He has been very freely blamed for this, but who can say that Coleridge had kept to his promise to devote himself to poetry and philosophy or that he had justified to any reasonable extent the hopes that prompted the generous gift? Naturally, he resented the reduction of his allowance, but it did not stir him to any further effort. On the proceeds of his play he would seem to have lived in comparative idleness until the autumn of the year, when, finding the financial strain no longer bearable, he set out in October for Bristol, to deliver an extended series of lectures. The summer had been spent in formulating good resolutions and talking of the books he proposed to write as soon as his mind was sufficiently tranquil and he had no more worries. On the whole, the Bristol lectures were a great success. It may be said with all respect that Coleridge was always lecturing; even in private life, he had succeeded in keeping the brilliant Madame de Stäel a contented listener by the hour, and it was quite an easy matter for him to stand on a platform and discuss any matter in which he was interested, in a fashion safe to hold an educated audience. There is evidence that while Coleridge was at Bristol doing good work in a desultory fashion he was indulging immoderately in opium. Cottle, his old publisher, remonstrated with him, and some effort was made to raise the money to put him in a doctor's home; but Southey, who was approached, opposed the suggestion firmly and, with a certain brutal frankness that is not hard to condone, declared that nothing but a return to Greta Hall and hard, regular work, would minister effectively to his brother-in-law's complaint. This of course availed to keep Coleridge from the Lake Country, and still further to embitter his relations with the family at Keswick.