[Footnote 1: The origin and authorship of "The Fall of Robespierre" will be best explained by the following extract from a letter from Mr. Southey to the Editor: "This is the history of The Fall of Robespierre. It originated in sportive conversation at poor Lovell's, and we agreed each to produce an act by the next evening;--S. T. C. the first, I the second, and Lovell the third. S. T. C. brought part of his, I and Lovell the whole of ours; but L.'s was not in keeping, and therefore I undertook to supply the third also by the following day. By that time, S. T. C. had filled up his. A dedication to Mrs. Hannah More was concocted, and the notable performance was offered for sale to a bookseller in Bristol, who was too wise to buy it. Your Uncle took the MSS. with him to Cambridge, and there rewrote the first act at leisure, and published it. My portion I never saw from the time it was written till the whole was before the world. It was written with newspapers before me, as fast as newspaper could be put into blank verse. I have no desire to claim it now, or hereafter; but neither am I ashamed of it; and if you think proper to print the whole, so be it."-- "The Fall of Robespierre, a tragedy, of which the first act was written by S. T. Coleridge." Mr. C.'s note in the Conciones ad Populum, 1795. Ed.] ACT I. SCENE--'The Tuilleries'. BARRERE. The tempest gathers--be it mine to seek A friendly shelter, ere it bursts upon him. But where? and how? I fear the tyrant's soul-- Sudden in action, fertile in resource, And rising awful 'mid impending ruins; In splendour gloomy, as the midnight meteor, That fearless thwarts the elemental war. When last in secret conference we met, He scowl'd upon me with suspicious rage, Making his eye the inmate of my bosom. I know he scorns me--and I feel, I hate him-- Yet there is in him that which makes me tremble! [Exit.] [Enter TALLIEN and LEGENDRE.] TALLIEN. It was Barrere, Legendre! didst thou mark him? Abrupt he turn'd, yet linger'd as he went, And tow'rds us cast a look of doubtful meaning. LEGENDRE. I mark'd him well. I met his eye's last glance; It menac'd not so proudly as of yore. Methought he would have spoke--but that he dar'd not-- Such agitation darken'd on his brow. TALLIEN. 'Twas all-distrusting guilt that kept from bursting Th'imprison'd secret struggling in the face: E'en as the sudden breeze upstarting onwards Hurries the thunder cloud, that pois'd awhile Hung in mid air, red with its mutinous burthen. LEGENDRE. Perfidious traitor!--still afraid to bask In the full blaze of power, the rustling serpent Lurks in the thicket of the tyrant's greatness, Ever prepar'd to sting who shelters him. Each thought, each action in himself converges; And love and friendship on his coward heart Shine like the powerless sun on polar ice: To all attach'd, by turns deserting all, Cunning and dark--a necessary villain!