Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Thomas Berger, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. [Illustration: Portrait.] * * * * * REMINISCENCES OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE AND ROBERT SOUTHEY by JOSEPH COTTLE * * * * * INTRODUCTION. It is with a solemnized feeling that I enter on these Reminiscences. Except one, I have survived all the associates of my earlier days. The young, with a long life in perspective, (if any life can be called long, in so brief an existence) are unable to realize the impressions of a man, nearer eighty than seventy, when the shadows of evening are gathering around, and, in a retrospective glance, the whole field of past vision appears, in all its complexities, like the indistinct tumults of a dream. The acute reasoner--the fiery politician--the eager polemic--the emulous aspirant after fame; and many such have I known, where are they? and how mournful, if any one of them should be found, at last, to have directed his solicitudes, alone, to material objects;--should have neglected to cultivate his own little plot of earth, more valuable than mines! and have sown no seeds for eternity. It is not a light motive which could have prompted me, when this world of "Eye and Ear" is fast receding, while grander scenes are opening, and so near! to call up almost long-forgotten associations, and to dwell on the stirring, by-gone occurrences that tend, in some measure, to interfere with that calm which is most desirable, and best accords with the feelings of one who holds life by such slender ties. Yet through the goodness of the Almighty, being at the present moment exempt from many of the common infirmities of age, I am willing, as a last act, to make some sacrifice to obtain the good which I hope this recurrence to the past is calculated to produce.