Coleridge when at College, and his inattention to some of the minor
forms of discipline, were sufficient for illnatured persons to transform
into serious offences, particularly when coupled with the disappointed
hopes of zealous friends. At this period, in which all men who were not
senseless, or so indifferent as nearly to be senseless, particularly the
young men of our Universities, all embraced a party, and arranged
themselves under their different banners. When I now look around me, and
see men who have risen to the highest offices of the different
professions, in the church, the law, or in physic, formerly only known
by the name of Citizen John, &c. &c., _now_ my Lord so and so, or your
Grace the----, it seems like a dream, or at least a world of fleeting
shadows. Sir James Mackintosh, in a letter to Mr. Sharp, states what he
conceived to be the errors of both parties, so far as they arose from
errors of judgment:

"The opposition mistook the moral character of the revolution; the
ministers mistook its force: and both parties, from pique, resentment,
pride, habit, and obstinacy, persisted in acting on these mistakes
after they were disabused by experience. Mr. Burke alone avoided both
these fatal mistakes. He saw both the malignity and the strength of
the revolution. But where there was wisdom to discover the truth,
there was not power, and perhaps there was not practical skill, to
make that wisdom available for the salvation of Europe.--'Diis aliter
visum!' My fortune has been in some respects very singular. I have
lately read the lives and private correspondence of some of the most
memorable men in different countries of Europe, who are lately dead.
[4] Klopstock, Kant, Lavater, Alfieri, they were all filled with joy
and hope by the French revolution--they clung to it for a longer or a
shorter time--they were compelled to relinquish their illusions. The
disappointment of all was bitter, but it showed itself in various