Footnotes:
[1] Richard Sharp, 1759-1835, known as “Conversation Sharp,” a banker, Member of Parliament, and distinguished critic. He was a friend of Wordsworth’s, and on intimate terms with Coleridge and Southey. Life of W. Wordsworth, i. 377; Letters of R. Southey, i. 279, et passim.
[2] Jean Victor Moreau, 1763-1813. The “retreat” took place in October, 1796, after his defeat of the Archduke Charles at Neresheim, in the preceding August. Biographical Dictionary.
[3] This phrase reappears in the first issue (1808) of the Prospectus of The Friend. Jeffrey, to whom the Prospectus was submitted, objected to the wording, and it was changed, in the first instance, to “mental gloom” and finally to “dejection of mind.” See letter to F. Jeffrey, December 14, 1808, published in the Illustrated London News, June 10, 1893. Letter CLXXI.
[4] See concluding paragraph of Introductory Address of Conciones ad Populum (February, 1795); The Friend, Section I., Essay xvi.; Coleridge’s Works, 1853, ii. 307. For recantation of Necessitarianism, see footnote (1797) to lines “To a Friend, together with an Unfinished Poem.” Poetical Works, p. 38.
[5] Stuart is responsible for a story that Coleridge’s dislike and distrust of the “fellow from Aberdeen,” the hero of The Two Round Spaces on a Tombstone, dated from a visit to the Wedgwoods at Cote House, when Mackintosh outtalked and outshone his fellow protégé, and drove him in dudgeon from the party. But in 1838, when he contributed his articles to the Gentleman’s Magazine, Stuart had forgotten much and looked at all things from a different point of view. For instance, he says that the verses attacking Mackintosh were never published, whereas they appeared in the Morning Post of December 4, 1800. A more probable explanation is that Stuart, who was not on good terms with his brother-in-law, was in the habit of confiding his grievances, and that Coleridge, more suo, espoused his friend’s cause with unnecessary vehemence. Gentleman’s Magazine, May, 1838, p. 485.
[6] The Pantheon. By Andrew Tooke. Revised, etc., for the use of schools. London: 1791.
“Tooke was a prodigious favourite with us (at Christ’s Hospital). I see before me, as vividly now as ever, his Mars and Apollo, his Venus and Aurora—the Mars coming on furiously in his car; Apollo, with his radiant head, in the midst of shades and fountains; Aurora with hers, a golden dawn; and Venus, very handsome, we thought, and not looking too modest in ‘a slight cymar.’” Autobiography of Leigh Hunt, p. 75.
[7] See note infra.