inimitable fashion, namely, that it was in the nature of an elaborate
hoax, played off at the poet's expense. [3] The malice of the piece is,
as De Quincey puts it, quite obviously a "malice of the understanding
and fancy," and not of the heart. There is significance in the mere
fact that the poem was deliberately published by Coleridge two years
after its composition, when the vehemence of his political animosities
had much abated. Written in 1796, it did not appear in the _Morning
Post_ till January 1798.

He was now, however, about to draw closer his connection with the
newspaper press. Soon after his return from Germany he was solicited
to "undertake the literary and political department in the _Morning
Post_," and acceded to the proposal "on condition that the paper
should thenceforward be conducted on certain fixed and announced
principles, and that he should be neither obliged nor requested to
deviate from them in favour of any party or any event." Accordingly,
from December 1799 until about midsummer of 1800, Coleridge became a
regular contributor of political articles to this journal, sometimes
to the number of two or three in one week. At the end of the period
of six months he quitted London, and his contributions became
necessarily less frequent, but they were continued (though with two
apparent breaks of many months in duration) [4] until the close of
the year 1802. It would seem, however, that nothing but Coleridge's
own disinclination prevented this connection from taking a
form in which it would have profoundly modified his whole future
career. In a letter to Mr. Poole, dated March 1800, he informs his
friend that if he "had the least love of money" he could "make sure of
L2000 a year, for that Stuart had offered him half shares in his two
papers, the _Morning Post_ and the _Courier_, if he would devote
himself to them in conjunction with their proprietor. But I told