[214] [Coleridge was married to Sarah Fricker, October 5; Southey to her younger sister Edith, November 15, 1795. Their father, Stephen Fricker, who had been an innkeeper, and afterwards a potter at Bristol, migrated to Bath about the year 1780. For the last six years of his life he was owner and manager of a coal wharf. He had inherited a small fortune, and his wife brought him money, but he died bankrupt, and left his family destitute. His widow returned to Bristol, and kept a school. In a letter to Murray, dated September 11, 1822 (_Letters_, 1901, vi. 113), Byron quotes the authority of "Luttrell," and "his friend Mr. Nugent," for the statement that Mrs. Southey and "Coleridge's Sara ... before they were married ... were milliner's or dressmaker's apprentices." The story rests upon their evidence. It is certain that in 1794, when Coleridge appeared upon the scene, the sisters earned their living by going out to work in the houses of friends, and were not, at that time, "milliners of Bath."] {176}[215] [For Joanna Southcott (1750-1814), see _Letters_, 1899, iii. 128-130, note 2.] [216] [Here follows, in the original MS.-- "Time has approved Ennui to be the best Of friends, and opiate draughts; your love and wine, Which shake so much the human brain and breast, Must end in languor;--men must sleep like swine: The happy lover and the welcome guest Both sink at last into a swoon divine; Full of deep raptures and of bumpers, they Are somewhat sick and sorry the next day."] {177}[217] ["Quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus."--Hor., _Epist. Ad Pisones_, line 359.] [218] [Wordsworth's _Benjamin the Waggoner_, was written in 1805, but was not published till 1819. "Benjamin" was servant to William Jackson, a Keswick carrier, who built Greta Hall, and let off part of the house to Coleridge.] [219] ["There's something in a flying horse, There's something in a huge balloon; But through the clouds I'll never float Until I have a little Boat, Shaped like the crescent-moon." Wordsworth's _Peter Bell_, stanza i.] [220] [For Medea's escape from the wrath of Jason, "Titaniacis ablata draconibus," see Ovid., _Met._, vii. 398.]