[The literary association of Lamb with Coleridge and Southey [says Sir T. N. Talfourd, in his life of Lamb,] drew upon him the hostility of the young scorners of The Anti-Jacobin, who, luxuriating in boyish pride and aristocratic patronage, tossed the arrows of their wit against all charged with innovation, whether in politics or poetry, and cared little whom they wounded. No one could be more innocent than Lamb of political heresy; no one more strongly opposed to new theories in morality—which he always regarded with disgust. The very first number of The Anti-Jacobin Review and Magazine [this was, however, a new work, by different hands, but imbued with the same spirit as The Anti-Jacobin] was adorned by a caricature of Gillray’s, in which Coleridge and Southey were introduced with asses’ heads, and Lloyd and Lamb as toad and frog. In the number of July, 1798 [of the original Anti-Jacobin] appeared the well-known poem of New Morality, in which all the prominent objects of the hatred of these champions of religion and order were introduced as offering homage to Lepaux, a French charlatan,—of whose existence Lamb had never even heard. Not content with thus confounding persons of the most opposite opinions and the most various characters in one common libel, the party returned to the charge in their number for September [of The Anti-Jacobin Review], and denounced the young poets in a parody on the Ode to the Passions, under the title of The Anarchists. They are reprinted in the present volume.—Ed.]
[The cause of Coleridge, Southey, Lloyd, and Lamb, being thus satirized as persons of the same politics, was the conjoint publication of their works. In the spring of 1796, Coleridge published vol. i. of his Juvenile Poems, including three Sonnets by Lamb; in May, 1797, there appeared a new edition, with many poems by Lloyd and Lamb. The Fall of Robespierre, an historic drama, was published Sept. 22, 1794: the first act written by Coleridge, the second and third by Southey. It is not difficult to understand why Coleridge was so severely attacked by the Government writers. In 1795, at the early age of 23, he delivered, at Bristol, some public lectures, reflecting in warm terms on the measures of Pitt. Three of them were published at Bristol at the end of 1795—the first two together, with the title of Conciones ad Populum; the third as The Plot Discovered. The eloquent passage in conclusion of the first of these addresses was written by Southey. That he was considered by ministers a dangerous character is proved by his having been for some months watched by a Government spy while residing at Stowey, providing for his scanty maintenance by writing verses for The Morning Post. It was his fortune also to excite the ire of Buonaparte, by his anti-gallican writings in the same paper; and a benevolent intimation of his danger by Baron von Humboldt and Cardinal Fesch alone prevented his being arrested while in Italy. (See p. [284].)
Southey thus alludes to the attack upon him (by Gillray, in his famous caricature), in a letter addressed to C. W. W. Wynn, dated Hereford, August 15, 1798:—“I have seen myself Bedfordized, and it has been a subject of much amusement. Holcroft’s likeness is admirably preserved. I know not what poor Lamb has done to be croaking there. What I think the worst part of The Anti-Jacobin abuse is the lumping together men of such opposite principles; this was stupid. We should have all been welcoming the Director, not the Theophilanthrope. The conductors of The Anti-Jacobin will have much to answer for in thus inflaming the animosities of this country. They are labouring to produce the deadly hatred of Irish faction; perhaps to produce the same end. Such an address as you mention might probably be of great use; that I could assist you in it is less certain. I do not feel myself at all calculated for anything that requires methodical reasoning; and though you and I should agree in the main object of the pamphlet, our opinions are at root different. The old systems of government, I think, must fall; but in this country the immediate danger is on the other hand,—from an unconstitutional and unlimited power. Burleigh saw how a Parliament might be employed against the people, and Montesquieu prophesied the fall of English liberty when the Legislature should become corrupt. You will not agree with me in thinking his prophecy fulfilled. Violent men there undoubtedly are among the democrats, as they are always called; but is there any one among them whom the ministerialists will allow to be moderate?” The Anti-Jacobin certainly speaks the sentiments of Government.’—Ed.]
Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey (page [284]).
[“The passionate verdicts given, both pro and con, in reference to Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey, may now be looked back upon with some wonder, but all three had made themselves obnoxious to the charge of renegadism. Wordsworth had accepted the office of stamp-distributor from Lord Lonsdale; Southey, after attempting to suppress his demagogical drama of Wat Tyler, became a violent Tory, bringing a hot partisanship into the ranks to which he fled; and Coleridge, a Tom-Paineite in politics and a preaching Unitarian, ended by adopting all the doctrines of orthodoxy.”—Sir John Bowring.—Ed.]
Edmund Burke (page [286]).
“Adair told me a great many things about Burke, and Fox, and Fitzpatrick, and all the eminent men of that time with whom he lived when he was young. He said ... that Fitzpatrick was the most agreeable of them all, but Hare the most brilliant. Burke’s conversation was delightful, so luminous and instructive. He was very passionate; and Adair said that the first time he ever saw him he unluckily asked him some question about the wild parts of Ireland, when Burke broke out: ‘You are a fool and a blockhead. There are no wild parts in Ireland.’ ... There was an attempt to bring about a reconciliation between him and Fox, and a meeting for that purpose took place of all the leading men, at Burlington House. Burke was on the point of yielding when his son suddenly made his appearance unbidden, and, on being told what was going on, he said: ‘My father shall be no party to such a compromise,’ took Burke aside, and persuaded him to reject the overtures. That son Adair described as the most disagreeable, violent, and wrong-headed of men, but the idol of his father, who used to say that he united all his own talents and acquirements with those of Fox and everybody else, &c.”—See The Greville Memoirs, i. 136–7.—[Ed.]