It was then recollected by some of his anxious and importunate friends,
that Bath was near, and that a good judge of requisite qualifications was
to be found therein in the person of the Rev. David Jardine, with whom
some of Mr. C.'s friends were on terms of intimacy; so that it was
determined that Mr. Coleridge, as the commencement of his brilliant
career, should be respectfully requested to preach his inaugural
discourse in the Unitarian chapel at Bath.

The invitation having been given and accepted, I felt some curiosity to
witness the firmness with which he would face a large and enlightened
audience, and, in the intellectual sense, grace his canonical robes. No
conveyance having been provided, and wishing the young ecclesiastic to
proceed to the place of his exhibition with some decent respectability, I
agreed with a common friend, the late Mr. Charles Danvers, to take Mr. C.
over to Bath in a chaise.

The morning of the important day unfolded, and in due time we arrived at
the place of our destination. When on the way to the chapel, a man
stopped Charles Danvers, and asked him if he could tell where the Rev.
Mr. Coleridge preached. "Follow the crowd," said Danvers, and walked on.
Mr. C. wore his blue coat and white waistcoat; but what was Mr. Jardine's
surprise, when he found that his young probationer peremptorily refused
to wear the hide-all sable gown! Expostulation was unavailing, and the
minister ascended to the pulpit in his coloured clothes!

Considering that it had been announced on the preceding Sunday, that "the
Rev. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, from Cambridge University" would preach
there on this day, we naturally calculated on an overflowing audience,
but it proved to be the most meagre congregation I had ever seen. The