he does die without doing his work, it would half break my heart, for
no human being has had more talents allotted." Such being his closest
friend's account of him, and knowing, as we now do (what Southey
perhaps had no suspicion of at the time), the chief if not the sole or
original cause of his morally nerveless condition, it is impossible not
to feel that he did the worst possible thing for himself in taking this
journey to Malta. In quitting England he cut himself off from those
last possibilities of self-conquest which the society and counsels of
his friends might otherwise have afforded him, and the consequences
were, it is to be feared, disastrous. After De Quincey's incredibly
cool assertion that it was "notorious that Coleridge began the use of
opium, not as a relief from any bodily pain or nervous irritations,
since his constitution was strong and excellent(!), but as a source of
luxurious sensations," we must receive anything which he has to say on
this particular point with the utmost caution; but there is only too
much plausibility in his statement that, Coleridge being necessarily
thrown, while at Malta, "a good deal upon his own resources in the
narrow society of a garrison, he there confirmed and cherished ... his
habit of taking opium in large quantities." Contrary to his
expectations, moreover, the Maltese climate failed to benefit him. At
first, indeed, he did experience some feeling of relief, but
afterwards, according to Mr. Gillman, he spoke of his rheumatic limbs
as "lifeless tools," and of the "violent pains in his bowels, which
neither opium, ether, nor peppermint combined could relieve."

Occupation, however, was not wanting to him, if occupation
could have availed in the then advanced stage of his case. He early
made the acquaintance of the governor of the island, Sir Alexander
Ball, who, having just lost his secretary by death, requested Cole-
ridge to undertake that official's duties until his successor should be