This Captain Blake was a member of the Bristol Corporation, and a
pleasant man, but his sword, worn by a short man, appeared
prodigious!--Mr. C. said, "The sight of it was enough to set half a dozen
poets scampering up Parnassus, as though hunted by a wild mastodon."

In examining my old papers I found this identical note in Mr. Coleridge's
hand writing, and which is here given to the reader; suggesting that this
note, like the Sonnet to Lord Stanhope, was written in that portion of
C.'s life, when it must be confessed, he really was hot with the French
Revolution. Thus he begins:

By far the best poem on the subject of Chatterton, is, "Neglected
Genius, or Tributary Stanzas to the memory of the unfortunate
Chatterton." Written by Rushton, a blind sailor.

Walpole writes thus. "All the House of Forgery are relations,
although it be but just to Chatterton's memory to say, that his
poverty never made him claim kindred with the more enriching
branches; yet he who could so ingeniously counterfeit styles, and the
writer believes, hands, might easily have been led to the more facile
imitation of Prose Promissory Notes!" O, ye who honor the name of
man, rejoice that this Walpole is called a Lord! Milles, too, the
editor of Rowley's Poem's, a priest; who (though only a Dean, in
dulness and malignity was most episcopally eminent) foully
calumniated him.--An Owl mangling a poor dead nightingale! Most
injured Bard!

"To him alone in this benighted age
Was that diviner inspiration given
Which glows in Milton's, and in Shakspeare's page,