[The literary association of LAMB with COLERIDGE and SOUTHEY [says SIR T. N. TALFOURD, in his life of LAMB,] drew upon him the hostility of the young scorners of _The Anti-Jacobin_, who, luxuriating in boyish pride and aristocratic patronage, tossed the arrows of their wit against all charged with innovation, whether in politics or poetry, and cared little whom they wounded. No one could be more innocent than LAMB of political heresy; no one more strongly opposed to new theories in morality—which he always regarded with disgust. The very first number of _The Anti-Jacobin Review and Magazine_ [this was, however, a new work, by different hands, but imbued with the same spirit as _The Anti-Jacobin_] was adorned by a caricature of GILLRAY’S, in which COLERIDGE and SOUTHEY were introduced with asses’ heads, and LLOYD and LAMB as toad and frog. In the number of July, 1798 [of the original _Anti-Jacobin_] appeared the well-known poem of _New Morality_, in which all the prominent objects of the hatred of these champions of religion and order were introduced as offering homage to LEPAUX, a French charlatan,—of whose existence LAMB had never even heard. Not content with thus confounding persons of the most opposite opinions and the most various characters in one common libel, the party returned to the charge in their number for September [of _The Anti-Jacobin Review_], and denounced the young poets in a parody on the _Ode to the Passions_, under the title of _The Anarchists_. They are reprinted in the present volume.—ED.] [The cause of Coleridge, Southey, Lloyd, and Lamb, being thus satirized as persons of the same politics, was the conjoint publication of their works. In the spring of 1796, COLERIDGE published vol. i. of his _Juvenile Poems_, including three Sonnets by LAMB; in May, 1797, there appeared a new edition, with many poems by LLOYD and LAMB. _The Fall of Robespierre_, an historic drama, was published Sept. 22, 1794: the first act written by COLERIDGE, the second and third by SOUTHEY. It is not difficult to understand why COLERIDGE was so severely attacked by the Government writers. In 1795, at the early age of 23, he delivered, at Bristol, some public lectures, reflecting in warm terms on the measures of PITT. Three of them were published at Bristol at the end of 1795—the first two together, with the title of _Conciones ad Populum_; the third as _The Plot Discovered_. The eloquent passage in conclusion of the first of these addresses was written by SOUTHEY. That he was considered by ministers a dangerous character is proved by his having been for some months watched by a Government spy while residing at Stowey, providing for his scanty maintenance by writing verses for _The Morning Post_. It was his fortune also to excite the ire of BUONAPARTE, by his anti-gallican writings in the same paper; and a benevolent intimation of his danger by Baron von Humboldt and Cardinal Fesch alone prevented his being arrested while in Italy. (See p. 284.)