Our readers all remember the well-known story of Coleridge falling asleep over Purchas's 'Pilgrims'; how the poem of 'Kubla Khan' came rushing from dreamland upon his soul; and how, when awakened, he wrote it down, and found it to be, if not sense, something better--a glorious piece of fantastic imagination. We knew a gentleman who, slumbering while in a state of bad health, produced, in the course of a few hours, one or two thousand rhymed lines, some of which he repeated in our hearing afterwards, and which were full of point and poetry. We cannot see that Caedmon's lines betray any weird inspiration; but when rehearsed the next day to the Abbess Hilda, to whom the town-bailiff of Whitby conducted him, she and a circle of learned men pronounced that he had received the gift of song direct from heaven! They, after one or two other trials of his powers, persuaded him to become a monk in the house of the Abbess, who commanded him to transfer to verse the whole of the Scripture history. It is said that he was constantly employed in repeating to himself what he had heard; or, as one of his old biographers has it, 'like a clean animal ruminating it, he turned it into most sweet verse.' In this way he wrote or rather improvised a vast quantity of poetry, chiefly on religious subjects. Thorpe, in his edition of this author, has preserved a speech of Satan, bearing a striking resemblance to some parts of Milton:-- 'Boiled within him His thought about his heart, Hot was without him, His due punishment. "This narrow place is most unlike That other that we formerly knew High in heaven's kingdom, Which my master bestowed on me, Though we it, for the All-Powerful, May not possess. * * * * * That is to me of sorrows the greatest, That Adam, Who was wrought of earth, Shall possess My strong seat; That it shall be to him in delight, And we endure this torment, Misery in this hell. * * * * * Here is a vast fire, Above and underneath. Never did I see A loathlier landscape. The flame abateth not Hot over hell. Me hath the clasping of these rings, This hard-polished band, Impeded in my course, Debarred me from my way. My feet are bound, My hands manacled; Of these hell-doors are The ways obstructed, So that with aught I cannot From these limb-bonds escape. About me lie Huge gratings Of hard iron, Forged with heat, With which me God Hath fastened by the neck. Thus perceive I that he knoweth my mind, And that he knew also, The Lord of hosts, That should us through Adam Evil befall, About the realm of heaven, Where I had power of my hands."'