o,
In a dark hint--distinct and low."

Upon which the playful Miss Slaughter replies:--

"Letters _four_ do form his name.
* * * *
He came by stealth and unlock'd my den;
And I have drunk the blood since then
Of thrice three hundred thousand men."

Good: But the sting of the hornet lies in the conclusion. If this
quadril_i_teral man had done so much for _them_, (though really, we
think, 6s. 8d. might have settled his claim,) what, says Fire, setting
her arms a-kimbo, would they do for _him_? Slaughter replies, rather
crustily, that, as far as a good kicking would go--or (says Famine) a
little matter of tearing to pieces by the mob--they would be glad to
take tickets at his benefit. "How, you bitches!" says Fire, "is that
all?

"I alone am faithful; I
_Cling to him everlastingly_."

The sentiment is diabolical. And the question argued at the London
dinner-table was--Could the writer have been other than a devil? The
dinner was at the late excellent Mr Sotheby's, known advantageously in
those days as the translator of Wieland's _Oberon_. Several of the
great guns amongst the literary body were present; in particular, Sir
Walter Scott; and he, we believe, with his usual good-nature, took the
apologetic side of the dispute. In fact, he was in the secret. Nobody
else, barring the author, knew at first whose good name was at stake.
The scene must have been high. The company kicked about the poor
diabolic writer's head as if it had been a tennis-ball. Coleridge, the
yet unknown criminal, absolutely perspired and fumed in pleading for
the defendant; the company demurred; the orator grew urgent; wits
began to _smoke_ the case, as active verbs; the advocate to _smoke_,
as a neuter verb; the "fun grew fast and furious;" until at length
_delinquent arose_, burning tears in his eyes, and confessed to an
audience, (now bursting with stifled laughter, but whom he supposed to
be bursting with fiery indignation,) "Lo! I am he that wrote it."

For our own parts, we side with Coleridge. Malice is not always of the
heart. There is a malice of the understanding and the fancy. Neither
do we think the worse of a man for having invented the most horrible
and old-woman-troubling curse that demons ever listened to. We are too
apt to swear horribly ourselves; and often have we frightened the cat,
to say nothing of the kettle, by our shocking [far too shocking!]
oaths.

There were other celebrated