reader will but imperfectly appreciate Mr. C.'s discourse, without the
previous information that this year (1796) was a year of great scarcity,
and consequent privation, amongst the poor; on which subject the sermon
was designed impressively to bear. And now the long-expected service
commenced.

The prayer, without being intended, was formal, unimpressive, and
undevotional; the singing was languid; but we expected that the sermon
would arouse the inattentive, and invigorate the dull. The moment for
announcing the text arrived. Our curiosity was excited. With little less
than famine in the land, our hearts were appalled at hearing the words,
"When they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, and curse their
king, and their God, and look upward." (Isaiah viii. 21.) Mr.
Winterbotham, a little before, had been thrown into prison for the
freedom of his political remarks in a sermon at Plymouth, and we were
half fearful whether in his impetuous current of feeling, some stray
expressions might not subject our friend to a like visitation. Our fears
were groundless. Strange as it may appear in Mr. Coleridge's vigorous
mind, the whole discourse consisted of little more than a Lecture on the
Corn Laws! which some time before he had delivered in Bristol, at the
Assembly Boom.

Returning from our edifying discourse to a tavern dinner, we were
privileged with more luminous remarks on this inexhaustible subject: but
something better (or worse, as the reader's taste may be) is still in
reserve. After dinner, Mr. Coleridge remarked that he should have no
objection to preach another sermon that afternoon. In the hope that
something redeeming might still appear, and the best be retained for the
last, we encouraged his proposal, when he rang the bell, and on the
waiter appearing, he was sent, with Mr. Coleridge's compliments, to the