the room was to be paid. The receiver of the money on the alert ascended
the stairs and informed Coleridge of the man's insolence and his
determination not to pay for his admission. In the midst of the lecture
Coleridge stopped, and said loud enough to be heard by the individual,
that before the intruder "kicked up a dust, he would surely down with
the dust," and desired the man to admit him. The individual had not long
been in the room before he began hissing, this was succeeded by loud
claps from Coleridge's party, which continued for a few minutes, but at
last they grew so warm that they began to vociferate, "Turn him
out!"--"Turn him out!"--"Put him out of the window!" Fearing the
consequences of this increasing clamour, the lecturer was compelled to
request silence, and addressed them as follows: "Gentlemen, ours is the
cause of liberty! that gentleman has as much right to hiss as you to
clap, and you to clap as he to hiss; but what is to be expected,
gentlemen, when the cool waters of reason come in contact with red hot
aristocracy but a hiss?" When the loud laugh ended, silence ensued, and
the rebuke was treasured and related. [14]

The terms aristocrat, democrat, and jacobin, were the fashionable
opprobrious epithets of the day; and well do I remember, the man who had
earned by his politics the prefix of jacobin to his name, was completely
shunned in society, whatever might be his moral character: but, as might
be expected, this was merely ephemeral, when parties ran high, and were
guided and governed more by impulses and passion than by principle.

"Truth I pursued, as Fancy sketch'd the way,
And wiser men than I went worse astray."

Men of the greatest sense and judgment possessing good hearts are, on
the review of the past, more disposed to think 'well' of the young men