Alas! the circulation of such anecdotes as have been here related of Coleridge when at College, and his inattention to some of the minor forms of discipline, were sufficient for illnatured persons to transform into serious offences, particularly when coupled with the disappointed hopes of zealous friends. At this period, in which all men who were not senseless, or so indifferent as nearly to be senseless, particularly the young men of our Universities, all embraced a party, and arranged themselves under their different banners. When I now look around me, and see men who have risen to the highest offices of the different professions, in the church, the law, or in physic, formerly only known by the name of Citizen John, &c. &c., _now_ my Lord so and so, or your Grace the----, it seems like a dream, or at least a world of fleeting shadows. Sir James Mackintosh, in a letter to Mr. Sharp, states what he conceived to be the errors of both parties, so far as they arose from errors of judgment: "The opposition mistook the moral character of the revolution; the ministers mistook its force: and both parties, from pique, resentment, pride, habit, and obstinacy, persisted in acting on these mistakes after they were disabused by experience. Mr. Burke alone avoided both these fatal mistakes. He saw both the malignity and the strength of the revolution. But where there was wisdom to discover the truth, there was not power, and perhaps there was not practical skill, to make that wisdom available for the salvation of Europe.--'Diis aliter visum!' My fortune has been in some respects very singular. I have lately read the lives and private correspondence of some of the most memorable men in different countries of Europe, who are lately dead. [4] Klopstock, Kant, Lavater, Alfieri, they were all filled with joy and hope by the French revolution--they clung to it for a longer or a shorter time--they were compelled to relinquish their illusions. The disappointment of all was bitter, but it showed itself in various modes, according to the variety of their characters. The series of passions growing out of that disappointment, was the not very remote cause of the death of Lavater. In the midst of society, Alfieri buried himself in misanthropic solitude; and the shock, which awakened him from the dreams of enthusiasm, darkened and shortened his days. In the mean time the multitude, comprehending not only those who have neither ardour of sensibility, nor compass of understanding to give weight to their suffrage, but those also whom accident had not brought into close and perpetual contact with the events, were insensibly detached from the revolution; and, before they were well aware that they had quitted their old 'position', they found themselves at the antipodes."