startling information that Coleridge, "while in Rome, was actively
employed in visiting the great works of art, statues, pictures,
buildings, palaces, etc. etc., observations on which he minuted down
for publication." It is somewhat more interesting to learn that he made
the acquaintance of many literary and artistic notabilities at that
time congregated there, including Tieck, the German poet and novelist,
and the American painter Alston, to whose skill we owe what is reputed
to be the best of his many not easily reconcilable portraits. The loss
of his Roman memoranda was indirectly brought about by a singular
incident, his account of which has met with some undeserved ridicule at
the hands of Tory criticism. When about to quit Rome for England
_via_ Switzerland and Germany he took the precaution of inquiring
of Baron von Humboldt, brother of the traveller, and then Prussian
Minister at the Court of Rome, whether the proposed route was safe, and
was by him informed that he would do well to keep out of the reach of
Bonaparte, who was meditating the seizure of his person. According to
Coleridge, indeed, an order for his arrest had actually been
transmitted to Rome, and he was only saved from its execution by the
connivance of the "good old Pope," Pius VII., who sent him a passport
and counselled his immediate flight. Hastening to Leghorn, he
discovered an American vessel ready to sail for England, on board of
which he embarked. On the voyage she was chased by a French vessel,
which so alarmed the captain that he compelled Coleridge to throw his
papers, including these precious MSS., overboard. The wrath of the
First Consul against him was supposed to have been excited by his
contributions to the _Morning Post_, an hypothesis which De
Quincey reasonably finds by no means so ridiculous as it appeared to a
certain writer in _Blackwood_, who treated it as the "very
consummation of moonstruck vanity," and compared it to "John Dennis's
frenzy in retreating from the sea-coast under the belief that Louis