Note 211 — CANTO THE THIRD.[169]

{175}[In The Friend, 1818, ii. 38, Coleridge refers to "a plan ... of trying the experiment of human perfectibility on the banks of the Susquehanna;" and Southey, in his Letter to William Smith, Esq. (1817), (Essays Moral and Political, by Robert Southey, 1832, ii. 17), speaks of his "purpose to retire with a few friends into the wilds of America, and there lay the foundations of a community," etc.; but the word "Pantisocracy" is not mentioned. It occurs, perhaps, for the first time in print, in George Dyer's biographical sketch of Southey, which he contributed to Public Characters of 1799-1800, p. 225, "Coleridge, no less than Southey, possessed a strong passion for poetry. They commenced, like two young poets, an enthusiastic friendship, and in connection with others, struck out a plan for settling in America, and for having all things in common. This scheme they called Pantisocracy." Hence, the phrase must have "caught on," for, in a footnote to his review of Coleridge's Literary Life (Edin. Rev., August, 1817, vol. xxviii. p. 501), Jeffrey speaks of "the Pantisocratic or Lake School."]