stricken with fright, when I first saw him? and why should I be in such
a tremble all the while he talked? And, moreover, he had a particular
sort of a kind of a lock, and when I groaned and said, upon every
question he asked me, Lord have mercy upon me! or, Christ have mercy
upon me! it was plain enough that he did not like it, and so he left
me!"--The man was quite sober when he related this story; but as it
happened to him on his return from market, it is probable that he was
then muddled. As for myself, I was actually seen in Newgate in the
winter of 1798;--the person who saw me there, said he had asked my name
of Mr. A. B. a known acquaintance of mine, who told him that it was
young Coleridge, who had married the eldest Miss----. "Will you go to
Newgate, Sir?" said my friend; "for I assure you that Mr. C. is now in
Germany." "Very willingly," replied the other, and away they went to
Newgate, and sent for A. B. "Coleridge," cried he, "in Newgate! God
forbid!" I said, "young Col ---- who married the eldest Miss ----." The
names were something similar. And yet this person had himself really
seen me at one of my lectures.

I remember, upon the occasion of my inhaling the nitrous oxide at the
Royal Institution, about five minutes afterwards, a gentleman came from
the other side of the theatre and said to me,--"Was it not ravishingly
delightful, Sir?"--"It was highly pleasurable, no doubt."--"Was it not
very like sweet music?"--"I cannot say I perceived any analogy to
it."--"Did you not say it was very like Mrs. Billington singing by your
ear?"--"No, Sir, I said that while I was breathing the gas, there was a
singing in my ears."

To return, however, to dreams, I not only believe, for the reasons
given, but have more than once actually experienced that the most
fearful forms, when produced simply by association, instead of causing