After reading many painfully conclusive proofs of this passion, I confess that I think it less remarkable that his demoralisation in this respect seemed to be complete about 1814, than that he succeeded, under Gillman's care, in so far breaking off the habit as to make a certain salvage from the wreck. I simply take note of these facts, and leave anybody who pleases to do the moralising; but I am forced to add a few words upon another topic, to which his apologists have resorted in order to extenuate the opium-eating. Briefly, it has been attempted to save his character by abusing his wife. Undoubtedly, as the recently published Coleorton papers prove, there was a complete want of sympathy. The same documents show that it was not, as had been generally supposed, a case of gradual drifting apart. Proposals for a regular separation had been made by the time of Coleridge's return from Malta. Coleridge's apologists have said that Mrs. Coleridge was one of Iago's women, born 'to suckle fools and chronicle small beer,' and quite unable to appreciate Kantian metaphysics, or even 'Christabel.' A very doubtful legend has been put about, that she once said, 'Get oop, Coleridge' (a remark for which one can conceive a sufficient justification), and no man can be expected to care for a woman who says 'Get oop,' or for her children. From letters of hers which I have seen, I am inclined to think that Mrs. Coleridge must really have been a very sensible woman, who worked hard to educate her own children and the children of her sister, Mrs. Southey, in French and Italian, and who could express herself in remarkably good English. She was no doubt inappreciative of a genius which could not be set to bread-winning. And moreover, when a man has an ecstatic admiration for another woman, it is not likely to make his relations to his wife more pleasant. To speak of all this as a moral excuse for Coleridge is to my mind unmanly. If a man of genius condescends to marry a woman, and be the father of her children, he must incur responsibilities. The fact that he leaves her, as Coleridge did, his small fixed income, the balance of her expenses to be made up by his brother-in-law and other connections, is so far to his credit, but does not excuse him for a neglect of those duties, not to be measured in pounds, shillings, and pence, which a husband and father owes to an innocent woman and three small children. Coleridge's position was no doubt difficult, but the mode in which he solved the difficulty is a proof that opium-eating is inconsistent with certain homely duties. An experienced person has said, 'Do not marry a man of genius.' I have no personal interest in that question, nor will I express any opinion upon it, but one is inclined to say, Don't be his brother-in-law, or his publisher, or his editor, or anything that is his if you care twopence—it is probably an excessive valuation—for the opinion of posthumous critics.