Coleridge was deeply stung that Wordsworth should have said such a thing to Montagu. Professor Knight in his _Life of Wordsworth_ gives a pretty full narrative of the event, and believes that Wordsworth, though he said he had no hope of Coleridge, did not utter the more offensive assertion about Coleridge being a nuisance in his family. Henry Crabb Robinson effected a formal reconciliation between the two poets, in which both figure to some disadvantage. Wordsworth's proposal to confront Coleridge, his best and closest friend, with Montagu, a comparative stranger to both of them, for cross-examination, and thus sift out the actual expression used by the latter to the former, seems like very hard dealing; and Coleridge's vehemence of protestation to believe whatever Wordsworth asserted to be the true version, in contradistinction to anything that Montagu might say, savours of unreality. Wordsworth's taking offence at Coleridge not going to Grasmere on the death of his child at a juncture when it was impossible for him to leave London while _Remorse_ was being put on the stage, does not redound to the credit of the Bard of Rydal; and Coleridge's failure to call on his old friend while in the Lake District for the last time is equally against the poet of Stowey. The estrangement died down rather than was reconciled; but the irritation against Wordsworth remained long in Coleridge's heart, and it is more than probable that after the excitement of the reconciliation made by Crabb Robinson was over, Coleridge believed Montagu's rather than Wordsworth's version of what had occurred. This is endorsed by the fact that Montagu was again taken into favour, and he and his wife were regular guests at the Highgate Thursdays in after times.[26]
During 1811, while in London, Coleridge again met Godwin, to whom he softened in his opinion. The following two letters indicate that he did not occupy the same attitude to the author of _Political Justice_ as he did when he wrote _The Watchman_.
Mr. Grattan did me the honour of calling on me, and leaving his card, on Sunday afternoon, unfortunately a few minutes after I had gone out--and I am so unwell, that I fear I shall not be able to return the call to-day, as I had intended, though it is a grief even for a brace of days to appear insensible of so much kindness and condescension. But what need has Grattan of pride?
