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354 a preliminary trial in Wales, to which Coleridge instinctively objected; and when at last the head of the Pantisocratists announced to their philosophic defender the fatal tidings of his secession from the "aspheterising" society, the indignation of the thwarted colonizer shook for a while the equanimity of the friend.

Southey's "Joan of Arc," written in 1793, had been announced for publication by subscription, but subscribers were slow to come forward. He happened to read a portion of it to Cottle, who, with characteristic generosity, immediately offered him fifty guineas for the copyright, together with fifty copies for his subscribers. Southey was too rejoiced to hesitate, and set himself diligently to work, correcting and recomposing. He studied as models, the Bible, Homer, and Ossian, and, with an unexpected bathos, we are told, that his style was "much ameliorated by Bowles." During the fervour of the scheme of Pantisocracy, he had fallen in love with Miss Fricker, one of whose sisters was the wife of Lovell, and another, Coleridge shortly afterwards married. The design of the emigration and the intended marriage had been entrusted to his mother, who was to have accompanied the colonists; but the cautious enthusiast had been most careful to prevent any rumour of these grave matters reaching the ears of Miss Tyler. But great revolutions in society will indicate their approach. Officious gossip whispered the astounding intelligence, and the storm burst upon his poor head with a fury as violent as it was sudden. He was turned out of doors, penniless, on a stormy night (Friday, Oct. 18th, 1794), and, after having walked from Bath that morning, had to retrace his journey on foot, through wind and pelting rain; and the aunt and nephew were never afterwards reconciled.

He had quitted Oxford, partly because his religious views would have been a bar to his entrance into the Church,