CHAPTER XIII

DE QUINCEY

[Cottle tells us that in the spring of 1807 a lady of his acquaintance introduced to him a Mr. De Quincey. On the 26th July, Cottle wrote to Poole (_T. Poole and his Friends_, ii, 190) a note of introduction and sent it with "the bearer Mr. De Quincey, a Gentleman of Oxford, a scholar and a man of genius." Coleridge had gone to Bridgwater on a visit to a friend, Mr. Chubb; but Poole entertained De Quincey and invited him to stay till Coleridge should return. De Quincey, however, preferred to go in quest of the poet, and proceeded to Bridgwater and there found Coleridge as he has depicted him in his description already given in