[176] My impression is that this letter was written to Mrs. Aders, the beautiful and accomplished daughter of the engraver Raphael Smith, but the address is wanting and I cannot speak with any certainty.
[177] Compare lines 16-20 of _The Two Founts_:--
"As on the driving cloud the shiny bow, That gracious thing made up of tears and light."
The poem as a whole was composed in 1826, and, as I am assured by Mrs. Henry Watson (on the authority of her grandmother, Mrs. Gillman), addressed to Mrs. Aders; but the fifth and a preceding stanza, which Coleridge marked for interpolation, in an annotated copy of _Poetical Works_, 1828 (kindly lent me by Mrs. Watson), must have been written before that date, and were, as I gather from an insertion in a note-book, originally addressed to Mrs. Gillman. _Poetical Works_, p. 196. See, too, for unprinted stanza, _Ibid._ Editor's Note, p. 642.
[178] "To Two Sisters." _Poetical Works_, p. 179.
[179] The so-called "Manchester Massacre," nicknamed Peterloo, took place August 16, 1819. Towards the middle of October dangerous riots broke out at North Shields. Cries of "Blood for blood," "Manchester over again," were heard in the streets, and "so daring have the mob been that they actually threatened to burn or destroy the ships of war." _Annual Register_, October 15-23, 1819.
[180] "Fears in Solitude." _Poetical Works_, p. 127.
[182] A collection of casts of antique gems, once, no doubt, the property of S. T. C., is now in the possession of Alexander Gillman, Esq., of Sussex Square, Brighton.
[183] Edward Dubois, satirist, 1775-1850, was the author of _The Wreath_, a _Translation of Boccaccio's Decameron_, 1804, and other works besides those mentioned in the text. _Biographical Dictionary._
[184] A late note-book of the Highgate period contains the following doggerel:--
TO THE MOST VERACIOUS ANECDOTIST AND SMALL-TALK MAN, THOMAS HILL, ESQ.
Tom Hill who laughs at cares and woes, As nanci--nili--pili-- What is _he_ like as I suppose? Why to be sure, a Rose, a Rose. At least no soul that Tom Hill knows, Could e'er recall a Li-ly. S. T. C.
"The first time," writes Miss Stuart, in a personal remembrance of Coleridge, headed "A Farewell, 1834," "I dined in company at my father's table, I sat between Coleridge and Mr. Hill (known as 'Little Tommy Hill') of the Adelphi, and Ezekiel then formed the theme of Coleridge's eloquence. I well remember his citing the chapter of the Dead Bones, and his sepulchral voice as he asked, 'Can these bones live?' Then, his observation that nothing in the range of human thought was more sublime than Ezekiel's reply, 'Lord, thou knowest,' in deepest humility, not presuming to doubt the omnipotence of the Most High." _Letters from the Lake Poets_, p. 322. See, too, Letters from Hill to Stuart, _Ibid._ p. 435.