Note 266 — Front matter (continued 6)

The English people were at this time generally in sympathy with the Revolution. The aristocratic government of England was in deadly hostility to it. In 1792, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, then head scholar in Jesus College, Cambridge, wrote an Ode to France, commencing with the words,

"When France, in wrath, her giant limbs upreared, And, with that oath which smote air, earth, and sea, Stamped her strong foot, and said she would be free, Bear witness for me how I hoped and feared."

In consequence of this ode, and his avowed attachment to the principles of the Revolution, he became so obnoxious to his superiors that he was constrained to leave the college abruptly, without a degree.—Cyclopædia of English Literature, Article S.T. Coleridge.