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 EDITED UY 
 
 ERIC S. ROBERTSON, M.A., 
 
 PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE AND I'HILOSOl'HY IN THE 
 UNIVERSITY OF THE PUNJAB, LAHORE. 
 
 LIFE OF COLERIDGE.
 
 LIFE 
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 
 
 HALL CAINE 
 
 LONDON 
 WALTER' SCOTT 
 
 24 WARWICK LANE. PATERNOSTER ROW 
 1887
 
 2254.
 
 PR 
 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 THIS short Ijio^raphy lias been compiled from many 
 sources that cannot be mentioned here — table-talk, 
 letters, diaries, memoirs, reminiscences, magazine articles, 
 newspaper reports, and a few documents which have not 
 hitherto been employed by any biographer of Coleridge. 
 To two living Coleridgeans I must more particularly 
 acknowledge my indebtedness — Mr. T. Ashe, and Mr. 
 H. D. Traill. I have, however, been compelled to' 
 depart from these excellent authorities in my rendering 
 of certain incidents of the first importance, and in my 
 general reading of Coleridge's character as a maa ^
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CIlAl'TKR I. 
 
 I'ACB 
 
 Testimonies to Coleridge's greatness ; he is born October 
 31, 1773, at Ottcry St. Mary, where his father is vicar and 
 schoolmaster ; his mother's character ; leaves Ottcry on his 
 father's death, and is admitted to Christ's Hospital July, 
 17S2 ; not happy at school ; has thoughts of bcconiing a 
 shoemaker, and then of entering the medical profession ; is 
 a solitary lad ; reads poetry and nietaphysics ; is flogged for 
 infidelity ; greatly influenced by Howies' poetry ; begins to 
 write himself; leaves Christ's Hospital in the autumn of 
 1790; Charles I^mb, his schoolfellow, describes him as 
 he then was . .It 
 
 CIIArTKR n. 
 
 Coleridge goes to Cambridge, February, 1 791 ; talks much and 
 is a democrat ; falls into debt ; runs away from Cambridge 
 and enlists in Dragoons, December, 1793; is discharged, 
 April, 1794 ; relations with his family much strained . 27 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Coleridge returns to Cambridge ; greatly imprcssetl with Words- 
 worth's first book ; risits Oxford, and makes friends with 
 Southey ; visits IJristol (1794) and falls in love with Sarah 
 Fricker, to whose sister Southey is engage<l ; literary 
 society of Bristol ; Coleridge, Souihey, and Allen project 
 new social system, to be known as " Pantisocrasy," and 
 determine to go to America and establish it there ; mean- 
 while Coleridge stays in London in society of Lamb, and 
 frequents " Salutation and Cat " ; is married October 4, 
 '795 » Pantisocrasy abandoned . . . . '34
 
 8 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 PACB 
 
 Married life al Clevedon ; Coleriil^je writes for the press ; pro- 
 jects Watchiiiiin ; first number appears March I, '796; 
 his first vohime of poems ajipears in April ; thinks of 
 becoming a Unitarian minister ; Lamb's home sorrows ; 
 Coleridge writes to him in his dark hour . . . '47 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Coleridge meets Wordsworth ; sketch of latter's early career ; 
 description of Coleridge by Dorothy Wordsworth ; Cole- 
 ridge and Wordsworth discuss poetry, and write " Lyrical 
 Ballads"; origin of "Ancient Mariner," autumn 1797; 
 Coleridge writes "Ancient Mariner," " Dark Ladie," first 
 part of " Christabel," "Osorio," " Three Graves," " Fears 
 in Solitude," " France, an Ode"; how "Kubla Khan" 
 came to be written ; " Lyrical Ballads" published in 1798, 
 and proves a failure ; temporary (juarrel with Lamb . . 59 
 
 CHAPTER VL 
 
 Material position not prosperous in 179S; Coleridge thinks 
 again of Unitarian puljiit ; makes acquaintance of Hazlitt 
 at Shrewsbury; Hazlitt describes him; eloquence as a 
 speaker ; the brothers Wedgewood give Coleridge ^^150 
 a year, and he goes to Germany with Wordsworth in 
 summer of 1798 to learn German ; returns to England in 
 June, 1799, and translates " Wallenstein " ; writes for 
 Morning Post ; is offered share in Post and Courier, but 
 declines; goes in summer of 1800 to live at Greta Hall, 
 near Keswick ....,,... 70 
 
 CHAPTER VH. 
 
 Situation of Greta Hall ; second j^art of " Christabel " ; Cole- 
 ridge lives in content ; visited by Lamb and his sister ; 
 repartee, animal spirits, and exercise ; goes to Scotland, in 
 summer of 1S03, with Wordsworth and his sister; returns 
 home alone in bad health and spirits ... .80 
 
 CHAPTER VHL 
 
 Coleridge physics himself, and unconscioasly takes to opium ; 
 goes to NLilta (Ainil, i8o4)chiefly for his health; appointed 
 secretary to the governor ; visits Rome ; leaves Rome for 
 England August, 1806 ; a bad correspondent while away, 
 and on bad terms with Southey and his own family on his
 
 CONTENTS. 9 
 
 VACV. 
 
 return ; opium ihc cause ; returns to Keswick ; misundcr- 
 stanilings with liis wife; takes refuge with Word.sworih ; 
 note on " noticeable man with large grey eyes " . . 92 ' 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 De Quincey ; his relations with the Colcridges ; takes Mrs. 
 Coleridge and children to Keswick ; where they lodge with 
 Southey ; want of sympathy between Southey and Cole- 
 ridge ; in winter 1806 Coleridge comes to London and 
 resumes journalism ; lectures at Royal Institution ; goes 
 to live with Wordsworth at Crasmcre in summer 1S08 ; 
 position of Ediiil'iirgh Kevinv towards Lake poets ; early in 
 1809 Coleridge starts the Friend ; mismanaged and not .1 
 success; more misunderstandings with liis wife ; leaves her 
 finally October, 1810 ; comes to London penniless ; writes 
 for Courier and lives miserably ; lectures again on Shake- 
 speare and Milton ; " Remorse" brouglit out at Drury Lane 
 1813 ; lectures at Krisiol ; more than ever a slave looiiium ; 
 writes '* liiographia Literaria " ; jilaces himself under care 
 of Dr. Gillman at llighgate early in 1S16 . . , 105 
 
 CILVrTER X. 
 
 Means taken for his cure ; " Christabcl " published, and un- 
 favourably received; " Hiographia Literaria" published, 
 and also unfavourably received ; "Zapolya"; "Sibylline 
 Leaves"; ])ocm of "The Three Graves"; poems again 
 unfavourably received ; Coleridge deeply injured ; growing 
 spirituality of his character ...... 127 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 Coleridge lectures again in iSiS on Shakespeare and literature ; 
 again in pecuniary difficulties ; always a worker ; does hack 
 work ; feels that his power is going from him ; tide of ad- 
 versity turns somewhat ; in 1825 publishes "Aids to Re- 
 flection," which is well received ; and obtains a pension 
 from George IV. ; the house of the Gilimans a place of 
 literary resort through presence of Coleridge ; names of men 
 who gathered about him ; Thomas Allsop ; Coleridge's 
 power as a talker ; Talfourd's description of him ; Carlyle's 
 famous description ; works on in failing health ; writes his 
 own epitaph ; writes to the Lambs from his death-bed ; dies 
 July 25, 1834 ; is buried at llighgate .... 138
 
 LIFE OF SAMUEL TAYLOR 
 COLERIDGE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 " T AM grieved," said Southey, "that you never met 
 J- Coleridge. All other men whom I have ever known 
 arc mere children to him, and yet all is palsied by a 
 total want of moral strength." "He is like a lump of 
 coal rich with gas," said Scott, " which lies exi)ending 
 itself in puffs and gleams, unless some shrewd body will 
 clap it into a cast-iron box, and compel the compressed 
 element to do itself justice." " He is the only ])erson I 
 ever knew, who answered to the idea of a man of genius," 
 said Hazlitt ; " he is the only person from whom I ever 
 learnt anything. His genius had . . . angelic wings, and 
 fed on manna. He talked on for ever ; and you wished 
 him to talk on for ever." "He is," .said De Quincey, 
 "the largest and most spacious intellect, the subtlest and 
 most comi)rehensive that has yet existed among men." 
 "Impiety to Shakespeare I " cried I-indor; "treason to 
 Milton ! I give up all the rest, even Bacon. Certainly, 
 since their day we have had nothing at all comparable 
 with him. Byron and Scott were but as gun-flints to a
 
 12 LIPE OF 
 
 granite mountain ; Wordsworth has one angle of resemb- 
 lance." 
 
 Samuel Taylor Coleridge wa'j born on October 21, 
 1772, at Ottery St. Mar)', in Devonshire. His father 
 combined the functions of vicar and schoolmaster of 
 his native parish. The vicar had been twice married, 
 and Samuel was the youngest of thirteen children. His 
 mother is described as a homely, house-minding, un- 
 imaginative woman, uneducated, out of sympathy with 
 the accomplishments that were fashionable among ladies, 
 resembling Martha in being over careful in many things. 
 Her husband appears to have been a man of simple 
 manners and amiable character, a little eccentric, a little 
 ])edantic, a little unmindful of immediate interests. 
 Coleridge used to tell a story which he considered 
 characteristic of both his parents. On one occasion the 
 old gentleman had to take a journey which would keep 
 bim from home three or four days. His wife packed his 
 little trunk, and impressed upon him the necessity of 
 putting on a clean shirt every day. He gave the required 
 promise, and set out. On his return it was observed that 
 he had not lost flesh during his absence. In due course 
 his trunk was unpacked, and then it was discovered that 
 all the linen had disappeared. The good man had strictly 
 obeyed his wife's instructions by putting on a clean shirt 
 every day, but had alwavr forgotten to take off the old 
 one. It seems to have been a constant habit of this 
 rural clergyman to diversify his discourses with liberal 
 quotations from the Hebrew, which he described as " the 
 immediate language of the Holy dhost." His rustic 
 ilock appear to have acquired a mysterious reverence for
 
 SAM I III. TAYI.OK COl.ERlDGi:. l.'J 
 
 this kind of teaching, and vhcn the old vicar was gone, 
 they thought lightly of a successor from whom no 
 " immediate language " was ever heard. Recalling the 
 half-conscious pedantry, and lessj than half-conscious 
 eccentricity, of thi- gentle, learned, simple-hearted father, 
 Coleridge would compare him with Parson Adams. The 
 comparison was meant in reverence and deep love, and it 
 serves as a key to one side of the poet's own character. 
 In gentleness, in unselfishness in " othcr-worldlincss," 
 and even in an amusing indifference to some of the plain 
 issues of life, the vicar and schoolmaster of Ottery St. 
 Mary was not more like Fielding's immortal character 
 than he was like his own famous' .son. 
 
 " I was the last child," says Coleridge, " the youngest 
 of ten by the same mother, that is to say, John, 'William 
 (who died in infancy), James, William, Edward, C.corgc, 
 Luke, Ann, Francis, and myself, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 
 beneficially abridged Estee.se (Effn/irf), />., S.T.C., and the 
 thirteenth, taking in three sisters by my dear father's first 
 wife — Mary, aftcnvards Mrs. Bradley ; Sarah, who married 
 a seaman, and is lately dead ; and Elizabeth, after^vards 
 Mrs. Phillips, who alone was bred up with us after my 
 birth, and whom alone of the three I was wont to think 
 of as a sister, though not exactly, yet I did not know 
 why, the .same sort of sister as my sister Nancy." iJeforc 
 Coleridge came of age, death had made n;any gaps in this 
 list — five ijrothers and one sister (llic only daughter of 
 his mother) were lost to him. He was delicate as a child, 
 self-absorbed and even morbidly imaginative. There is a 
 story that in his fifth or sixth year, having quarrelled witii 
 his brother, and being in dread of a whipping, he stole
 
 14 LIFE OF 
 
 away from home and spent the whole of an October night 
 of rain and wind on the banks of the Otter, where lie was 
 found at daybreak perished with cold, and without the 
 power of using his limbs. Thrice in later life he disap- 
 peared as mysteriously, and in each case he seems to have 
 been under the same morbid impulse. " Alas ! I had," 
 he says, "all the simplicity, all the docility of the little 
 child, but none of the child's habits. I never thought as 
 a child ; never had the language of a child." He was first 
 educated under his father at the Free Grammar School, 
 and displayed some precocity. Before he had completed 
 his ninth year the old vicar died. " My most dear, my 
 most revered father died suddenly," he says. "O that I 
 might so pass away if I, like him, were an Israelite with- 
 out guile." A few months after the vicar's death, 
 Coleridge was removed, his widowed mother being poor, 
 to the house of a maternal uncle in London. His con- 
 nection with his native place was tiien practically at an 
 end. He returned to it in manhood on short visits to 
 one of his brothers, but his interests from his tenth year 
 onwards lay elsewhere. His memory continued to revolve 
 about it very fondly, but his native county had taken 
 more hold of his imagination than of his affections. In 
 one place, he speaks of himself as " transplanted " before 
 his " soul had fixed its first domestic love.s," and as a 
 stranger in his own home and birth-place. In another 
 place, he describes his home-sickness when at school in 
 after years ; his day-dreams of the old church tower, 
 whose bells haunted him even under the preceptor's stern 
 gaze, when his eyes were fixed in mock study on his 
 swimming book. And in yet another place, he says that
 
 SAMUEL TA YLOR COLERIDGE. 15 
 
 so deeply impressed upon his mind are the scenes of his 
 childhood that he can never close his eyes in the sun 
 without seeing afresh the waters of the Otter, its willowy 
 banks, the plank that crossed it, and the sand of varied 
 tints that lay in its bed. 
 
 " Visions of childhood ! oft have ye beguiled 
 Lone manhood's cares, yet waking fondest sighs ; 
 Ah ! that once more I were a careless child." 
 
 That his affections were not very closely bound up with 
 his birth-place is sufficiently seen in the fact tiiat, though 
 " most a stranger, most with naked heart," at Ottery St. 
 Mar)', his mother continued to reside there, having made 
 her home in the family of his brother George, who 
 succeeded his father in the double office of vicar and 
 schoolmaster. It is curious that Coleridge alludes to his 
 mother but rarely. I cannot recall an instance of his active 
 interest in her welfare. He seems to have been content 
 to envy his brother the joy of seeing his tottering little 
 ones embracing the aged knees, and climbing the lap at 
 which he lisped his first brief prayer. It is barely con- 
 ceivable that a boy removed from home in his tenth year 
 is " transplanted " too early to allow his soul to fix the first 
 of all domestic loves. 
 
 Coleridge remained three months at the house of his , 
 uncle in London, and was then admitted, through the 
 influence of one of his father's old pupils, to Christ's 
 Hospital. A vivid picture of the great charity school 
 as it existed at this period, July, 1782, has been drawn by 
 one of its most famous pupils. The hardships which the 
 boys underwent must have been grievous enough. At all
 
 10 LIFE OF 
 
 events, Coleridge indulged in later life many pathetic 
 reminiscences of the wretchedness of his school-days. 
 He thought himself ill-conditioned as to material comforts, 
 arid quite out of the range of that sympathy of which a 
 shy, sensitive child of an affectionate disposition stands 
 in need. It was one of the regulations of the school 
 that an entire holiday, or leave-day, should be given at 
 intervals. This was a privilege to such of the hoys as uad 
 friends living in London ; but it was often a punishment 
 to such as had no friends there. Whatever the weather 
 might be on the periodical leave-day, the gates of the 
 school were closed on every pupil from early morning 
 until sunset. Coleridge was homeless, and, according to 
 his own account, friendless in London, and these holidays 
 were not unmixed blessings to him. In fine weather he 
 would indulge the one athletic pleasure in which he had 
 any skill, that of swimming, in the New River. In wet 
 weather he would tramp round and round the Newgate 
 market, waiting for the school gates to re-ppen. There is 
 reason to think that at tiiis time lie had somewhat outgrown 
 the delicate health of his very early boyhood, but he was 
 still a child, and entirely cut off from home associations. It 
 would be folly to suppose that when in after-life he spoke 
 of his wretchedness at Christ's Hospital as a shy, shrinking 
 boy, exposed to many discomforts and out of the range of 
 solace, he drew a fancy picture. Pleasures of many kinds 
 he no doubt enjoyed. His temperament was naturally 
 joyous, and above all else it was affectionate. He was a 
 creature made to love and to be beloved. Though 
 distinctly the reverse of a boyish boy, though fonder of 
 books than of play, though prone to indulge the medita-
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 17 
 
 tendency to a degree that boys do not usually con- 
 cr heroic, Coleridge must have been a boy that other 
 oys would like. He was fond of solitude, but he was 
 sociable too. There was healthy humour, and, in a less 
 dubious sense than that of the friend who said so, there 
 was a good deal of fun in Coleridge. He must have 
 been a likeable lad, and that implies that he must have 
 been to some extent a happy one. But there ought to be 
 no hesitation in accepting his assurance that, on the whole, 
 Christ's Hospital was a sufficiently stern home for an 
 ■orphan boy of ten. 
 
 He remained between eight and nine years at school, and 
 during that period he never entirely conquered his loneli- 
 ness, and his yearning for some sort of home. Five years 
 after leaving Ottcry, he made the acquaintance, while ram- 
 bling through the city on his enforced leave-day, of a shoe- 
 maker and his wife, and the good people showed the boy 
 some kindness. This suggested to him the idea of being 
 apprenticed to shoemaking, and so fixed was the lad"s 
 intention that the honest shoemaker called on the master 
 to make the necessary arrangements. It is probable that 
 Coleridge was willing to desert Christ's Hospital in favour 
 of the shoemaker's home without any sanction from autho- 
 rity. Although it was customary to put the boys to tradgs 
 as opportunities arose, Coleridge's request was not granted. 
 The master got into a great rage, kno'-.Vcd the lad down, 
 nnd pushed the shoemaker out of the room. In reference 
 to the circumstance the poet afterwards said, " I lost the 
 opportunity of supplying safeguards to the understandings 
 • of those who, perhaps, will never thank me for what I 
 am aiming to do in exercising their reason." Curiously 
 
 2
 
 18 LIFE OF 
 
 enough, his mind reverted to this idea years afterw;. 
 when, thanking (lod for His dispensations, and behev. 
 them to he the best j^ossible, he ventured the co> 
 jecturc tliat he might have been yet more thankful ii 
 it had pleased Providence to make him a journeyman 
 shoemaker instead of an author by trade. During the 
 closing years of his life at school the craving for domestic 
 love was no less strong. He made the acquaintance of a 
 widow lady whose son he, as an upper boy, had protected, 
 and he speaks of her with affection as one who taught 
 him what it was to have a mother. He loved her as 
 a son. Slic had three daughters, and perhaps it would 
 be a little rash to say that the same desire to escape 
 from his solitariness prompted him to fall in love with 
 the eldest, 'i'he calf-love was nut without ardour and 
 the qualities tliat last. " Oh, from sixteen to nineteen," 
 he says, "what hours of Paradise had Allen and I in 
 escorting the Miss Evanses home on a Saturday, who were 
 then at a milliner's, whom we used to think, and who I 
 believe really was, such a nice lady ;— and we useil to 
 carry thither, of a summer morning, the pillage of the 
 flower gardens within six miles from town, with sonnet 
 or love rhymes wrapped round the nosegay." He met 
 his young milliner some years afterwards in Wrexham. 
 "She gave a short, sharp cry," he says, "almost a shriek ; 
 . . . sickened and well-nigh fainted. . . . C,od bless 
 her!" Thus Coleridge's friendlessness in London was 
 not entirely unbroken by strange attachments, and it is 
 sufficiently obvious that his timidity and sensitiveness were 
 not so acute that they forbade on occasion even the 
 pillage of the flower gardens.
 
 SAMUEL TA VLOR COLERIDGE. 10 
 
 His brother Luke came up to London to walk the 
 hospitals, and it would appear that the young surgeon did 
 not neglect him. Every Saturday that the boy could 
 obtain leave from school he trudged away witli his 
 brother to the London Hospital. The result was tliat 
 he l)eramc wild to be apprenticed to a surgeon. " Oh 
 the bliss," he say.s, " if I was permitted to hold tlie 
 l)lasters or attend the dressings, . . , ICngllsh, Latin, yea, 
 dreek books of medicine read I incessantly. Jllan- 
 chard's ' Latin Medical Dictionary ' I had nearly by 
 heart." "It was a wild dream," he says later, but the 
 friend who knew him best in his early manhood took a 
 more serious view of the possibilities. " Nature, who 
 seems to have meant you for half-a-dozen different things 
 when she made you," says Soulhey in a letter to Coleridge, 
 " meant you for a physician among the rest." Coleridge 
 formed ardent friendships at Christ's Hospital. Middle- 
 ton, afterwards liishop of Calcutta, was his first " patron 
 and protector," being some years his senior; and a life- 
 long friendship, riveted by many ties of sympathy, was 
 there begun with another boy who was three years hisjunior. 
 This was Charles Lamb, a weakly but pretty boy, with 
 curling black hair, and a Jewish cast of features, thoughtful, 
 timid, sensitive, the son of a barrister's clerk who lived 
 in Crown Office Row. Lamb liad a sister ten years older 
 than himself, and she became an important agent not 
 only in his own life, but in that of his friend also. 
 
 No schemes, however, for material comfort such as 
 prompted Coleridge to offer himself as apprentice to the 
 shoemaker, no casual dreams of a profession such as 
 suggested surgery as an outlet for his energy, no ardour of
 
 20 LIFE OF 
 
 comradeship such as Lamb and Middlcton appear to 
 have excited, could cure a nature hkc Coleridj^e's of its 
 tendency to soHtariness. If he liad been more fuvouraljly 
 conditioned as to immediate surroundings, this tendency 
 might have been fostered with less danger to the 
 sweetness, the amiability and joyousncss of his natural 
 temperament. 15ut in the lap of home he must have 
 been a solitary lad still. The most illustrious of his 
 friends describes it in The Prelude as a constant habit of 
 his life, to lie on the leaded roof of the .school and look 
 up at the sky and dream of the trees, the meadows and 
 the rivers of his native place. The " shaping spirit of 
 imagination '' was strong upon him in the years of his 
 long exile as a boy in the streets of the city. It had 
 taken hold of him while he was even yet at home, where, 
 according to his own account, he never played except 
 by himself, and then only at acting over what he had 
 been reading or fiincying. He was a poet born. At 
 Ottery St. Mary, while still a child, with the docility of 
 a child, but few of a child's habits, he would prance 
 along the roads, swinging a stick in his hands, and 
 imagining himself to be one of the seven champions of 
 Christendom as he cut down the weeds and nettles that 
 lay in his path. When he came up to London, the 
 poetic impulse was not less strong upon him because the 
 scene was less romantic. He read Shakespeare and 
 Homer and much poetry besides. As often from poetic 
 prompting as from the physical impulses natural to a 
 boy, he swam in the New River. It must have been at the 
 demand of some conception of romance, in imitation 
 perhaps of a feat recorded in poetry, that one day he
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 21 
 
 swam the river in his clothes. The clothes were allowed 
 to dry on his l)ack, with tiie inevitable consetiuenres to 
 his health. Jaundice and rheumatic fever kept him fully 
 half the time from seventeen to eighteen years of a^'e in 
 the sick-ward, and it is possible that chronic effects, 
 attended by a far graver tragedy, ensued. One day 
 in the street, wholly .self-absorbed, alone among crowds, 
 deaf to the turmoil about him, he fancied himself 
 Leander swimming the Hellespont, and thrust out his 
 arms while buffeting the waves. In doing so, he 
 unwittingly tugged at the coat-tails of a gentleman, who 
 at first supposed that the boy was a clumsy young thief 
 with designs upon his pocket. On learning the truth the 
 gentleman was so well disposed to encourage Coleridge's 
 taste for reading that he paid his subscri[)tion to a cir- 
 culating library in Cheapside. This was a high privilege 
 to the lonely lad. He read voraciously, devouring 
 literature, it is said, at the rate of two volumes a day. 
 
 It was natural that poetry should not be his sole 
 intellectual food. He read Voltaire and blossomed into 
 an atheist. When the master of Christ's Hospital refused 
 to countenance the project of apprenticing Coleridge to 
 a shoemaker, he advanced the plan of sending him to 
 the University as the first step towards Holy Orders. 
 But Coleridge declined to become a clergyman, and in 
 answer to an inquiry as to his reasons for objecting, he 
 boldly announced himself as an infidel. The master 
 was the Rev. James Bow7er, a very sensible, but a very 
 severe man, who believed in the efficacy of the birch, and 
 had the courage of his convictions. " So, sirrah, you 
 are an infidel are you ? " he said ; " then I'll flog your
 
 22 LIFE OF 
 
 infidelity out of you ! " And without more ado he pro- 
 ceeded to exterminate Voltaire by force of a flogging, 
 which Coleridge feelingly described as sound if not salu- 
 tary. The study of theology gave way to a rage for 
 metaphysics, occasioned in the first instance by the 
 essays on Liberty and Necessity in Cato's " Letters." 
 " Even before my fifteenth year," he says, alluding to the 
 period of the shocmaking project, " I had bewildered 
 myself in metaphysics. Nothing else pleased mc. His- 
 tory . . . lost all interest in my mind. Poetry itself, 
 yea, novels and romances, became insipid to me." In 
 .his friendless wanderings through London on leave-days 
 he was delighted if any passenger, "especially if he were 
 dressed in black," would enter into conversation with 
 him. Then he would soon find the means of directing 
 the talk to his favourite subjects. The craze for meta- 
 physics lasted some two or three years, and then left "a 
 blessed interval " of some twelve years. When no longer 
 tortured by al)struse researches, his natural faculty, his 
 imagination, was allowed to expand, and his natural 
 tendency, his love of nature and the sense of beauty, to 
 develop itself without restraint. 
 
 The severe teacher who flogged him out of his infi- 
 delity ridiculed him out of false taste in poetrj-. In the 
 English compositions of his pupils, the Rev. Mr. Bowyer 
 showed no mercy to phrase, metaphor, or image, un- 
 supported by sound sense. " Harp ? harp ? lyre ? Pen 
 and ink, boy, you mean! Muse, boy, muse? Your 
 nurse's daughter you mean 1 Pierian springs ? Oh aye, 
 the cloister-pump, I suppose ! " The sense of obligation 
 to this master seems never to have grown dim in Cole-
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 23 
 
 ridge's mind ; but the sense of his severities appears to 
 have been no less vivid. Long afterwards llie painful 
 sensations of his rigid rule had left impressions that were 
 deep enough to give his i)upil many a distempered slcej) 
 furnished by dreams of the stern days of boyhood. It 
 shows the nature of Coleridge's feelings towards the 
 master of Christ's Hospital, that, when Bowyer died, as 
 late as 1814, Charles Lamb wrote: "Old Jimmy Bowyer 
 dead at last. Lay thy animosity against Jimmy in the 
 grave. Do not entail it on posterity." Among other 
 intellectual obligations which Coleridge lay under to his 
 master must certainly be counted that of preparing him for 
 the appreciation of poetry that was both natural and full 
 of nature. To such poetry his mind had, as we have 
 seen, a congenial tendency. His passion for romance 
 ■was deep, but his love of simple nature was even deeper. 
 The boy who lay on the leaded roof of the s( hoolhouso 
 to gaze at the clouds and dream of the beauty of Ottery 
 St. Mary, was hardly likely to be content with " that 
 school of French poetr)', condensed and invigorated by 
 English understanding," in which the highest merit was 
 "just and acute observations on men and manners in an 
 artificial state of society . . . conveyed in smooth and 
 strong epigrammatic couplets." Mr. Bowyer favoured 
 the natural tendency toward nature, and then a more 
 potent influence finally determined it. In 1789, when 
 Coleridge was eighteen, a little pamphlet of fourteen 
 sonnets was published by William Lisle Bowles. The 
 booklet was sent to Coleridge by his old schoolfellow, 
 Middleton, then at Cambridge. It came to him as a 
 revelation of real, dignified and harmonious poetry. He
 
 24 LIFE OF 
 
 was not then acquainted with what Cowpcr had done 
 in the same direction, and it is jiossible that Ikirns's 
 transcripts from nature were equally unknown to him. 
 Recognizing in Dowles's poetry rebellion against estab- 
 lished canons of poetry, he laboured to make prose- 
 lytes to the improved taste and judgment, of all with 
 whom he conversed. Too poor to purchase copies of 
 the pamphlet, he made within a year no fewer than forty 
 manuscript transcripts, as the best presents he could offer 
 to those who had won his regard. When he came to write 
 his literary life a quarter of a century later, he adopted a 
 somewhat apologetic tone as to this boyish enthusiasm. 
 "The reader," he says, "must make himself acquainted 
 with the general style of composition that was at that time 
 deemed poetry, in order to understand and account for the 
 effect produced upon me by the sonnets, 'The Monody at 
 Matlock 'and the'Hoj)e' of Mr. Bowles ; for it is peculiar 
 to original genius to become less and less striking, in 
 proportion to its success in improving the taste and 
 judgment of its contemporaries." The apology is un- 
 ncccssar)'. Bowles was not a great poet, but he was a 
 true one. The young poet at Christ's Hospital recog- 
 nized the genuine note when he heard it, though the 
 voice that sounded it was the reverse of strong or of good 
 compass. By and by another voice of higlier quality 
 sounded the same harmonious note, and then Coleridge 
 w*as justified of his enthusiasm. 
 
 The "blessed interval" produced fruit after its kind, 
 and Coleridge wrote poctr)*. Some of it was wliimsical, 
 such as the song of " The Nose ; " some of it very senti- 
 mental, such as " Genevieve " and the " First Advent of
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. . 25 
 
 Love ; " some of it purely scholastic, such as the two 
 translations from Catullus ; none of it was of the 
 smallest consequence. Probably much of his early 
 verse has deservedly perished. Coleridge remained at 
 Christ's Hospital until the autumn of 1790, having lived 
 there a little more than eight years, and being tlien 
 almost eighteen years of age. His friend I amb, though 
 three years his junior, was already a year gone from 
 school, and was now a clerk in the South Sea House. 
 Coleridge's personal appearance as a schoolboy has been 
 repeatedly described. In one account he is presented 
 as "tall and striking, and with long black hair;" in 
 another account we see him as he appeared in play hours 
 walking to and fro with a book in hand, or sitting on a 
 doorstep, his breeches unbuttoned at the knees, and his 
 shoes down at the heels. It is hardly conceivable that he 
 was a comely lad. Flabby cheeks and heavy lips would 
 sufficiently disturb the effect of large and beautiful eyes, 
 and a winning smile. There is a tradition that Bowycr 
 sometimes g.ave him an extra stripe of the birch "because 
 he was so ugly." Tlie one vital portrait which wc possess 
 is by Lamb, and, familiar as it is, must be quoted here : 
 "Come back into memory, like as thou wcrt in the day- 
 spring of thy fancies, with hope like a fiery column before 
 thee — the dark pillar not yet turned — Samuel Taylor 
 Coleridge — Logician, Metaphysician, Bard ! — How have 
 I seen the casual passer through the cloisters stand still, 
 entranced with admiration (while he weighed the dispro- 
 portion between the s/gfc/i and the gard of the young 
 Mirandula) to hear thee unfold in thy deep and sweet 
 intonations, the mysteries of Jamblichus, or Plotinus (for
 
 '2G LIFE OF SAMUEL TA YLOR COLERIDGE. 
 
 even in those years thou waxedst not jialc at such philo- 
 sophic draughts), or reciting Homer in his Greek, or 
 Pindar — while the walls of the old Grey Friars re-echoed 
 to the accents of the inspired charity-boy P' 
 
 In quoting this apostrophy it is only necessary to say 
 that there must indeed have been a good deal of fun in 
 the young Mirandula, or else in the casual passer through 
 the cloisters, in Lamb or in his schoolfellows.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ON leaving Christ's Hospital Coleridge appears to 
 have taken the natural step of running down to 
 Devonshire to see his mother and brothers. ^Vhat 
 occurred there is not yet known, but there seems to ijc 
 reason to believe that the family relations were afterwards 
 somewhat strained. He must have been quite penniless, 
 and he was probably without any clear designs as to his 
 future ; but after six or seven months he was entered 
 at Jesus College, Cambridge, as a student sent up by 
 Christ's Hospital. This was in February, 1791. 
 Whether he had Holy Orders or college honours and 
 a college life in view is uncertain. His University 
 career is almost a blank. Wc know that at Cambridge 
 he rejoined his schoolfellow Middleton, and read with 
 him, and that in 1792 he gained the gold medal for a 
 Greek ode. This argues some assiduity at the outset, 
 but it would appear that after the new broom had grown 
 old it ceased to sweep clean. Middleton left Cambridge 
 in due course, and then Coleridge's studies became 
 desultory and intermittent. We gather that the compara- 
 tive freedom of life at the University was not entirely 
 favourable to the strictly academical studies of such a 
 young man as Coleridge. He was, as we have seen, a
 
 28 LIFE OF 
 
 great talker, and as such he most of all loved social con- 
 verse. His rooms at college became a centre of attraction. 
 He was an enthusiast, and other enthusiasts found in 
 him a rallying point. They talked religion, poetry, 
 philosophy, and, above all, politics. The air was full of 
 many noises just then, and there were subjects enough, 
 from Mirabeau to Priestley, and from Pitt to Robespierre, 
 to content the hearts of the politicians and theologians in 
 embryo. Coleridge's feelings and imagination could not 
 remain unkindled. His sympathies were with the demo- 
 cracy in the great struggle for political regeneration that 
 was going on in Europe. He was enthusiastic for France 
 and the Revolution ; but he was never a Jacobin. His 
 brother James used to say, " No, Samuel is no Jacobin ; 
 he is a hot-headed Moravian." There is a tradition that 
 on one occasion he i)lanned with an undergraduate, whcv 
 afterwards became a Lord Chancellor, the democratic 
 trick of laying on one of the college lawns a train of 
 gunpowder, which, when fireil, exhibited in the singed 
 grass the words "Liberty and I'.cpiality." The story is. 
 the reverse of Coleridgean ; but more in harmony with 
 his character is the anecdote of his behaviour at the trial 
 of Frend, a fellow of Jesus College, for defamation of the- 
 Church of England in printing certain opinions founded 
 on Unitarian doctrine. At some obser\ation made b)"- 
 one of Frend's defenders, Coleridge is said to have 
 clapped his hands, and this indecorum was immediately 
 challenged by a proctor who charged it upon a student 
 sitting next to Coleridge. *' 'Twas you, sir," said the 
 proctor in a loud voice. "Would, sir, that I had the 
 power," answered the student, and he held up the stump-
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 2'.) 
 
 of a right arm. Afterwards Coleridge went to the 
 proctor and confessed that it was he who had clapped !iis 
 hands. " I know that well. You have had a narrow 
 escape," was the answer. Coleridge appears to have 
 liad distinct leanings towards Unitarian doctrine in these 
 early years at Cambridge, and tiiis circumstance suf- 
 ficiently shows that the idea of going into the Cliurch ditl 
 not enter largely into his calculations. 
 
 The vacation of 1793 was spent by Coleridge in his 
 native place. He seems to have been reasonably happy 
 there, and to have made some excursions in pleasant 
 company. It would not be true to say that the strained 
 relations with his own people were at all modified by 
 this visit. Rarely in later years did he show an active 
 interest in his family ; rarely did he exchange a letter with 
 any of his relatives. He spoke of himself as grievously 
 wounded. His sensibilities had l)ccn outraged — how or 
 why may presently be explained. A poem which he 
 addressed to his brother three years aflerwarils was 
 something less than a spontaneous tribute of affection, 
 but its reflections on his own domestic isolation were 
 none the less sincere. To touch this old wound is 
 hardly necessary, especially as we are unable to do so 
 with any certainty of hand. But a little light in this 
 dark place would help us to understand Coleridge belter 
 than we do. Perhaps his family contributed some little to 
 the expense of sending him to the University, and perhaps 
 he seemed guilty of the ingratitude of throwing away in 
 Unitarianism the substantial rewards for which they had 
 sacrificed themselves. There was a more obvious 
 breach, and this shall soon appear.
 
 80 LIFE OF 
 
 Notwithstanding' the delights of htcrary reunions at his 
 rooms, despite tlic ardour ol' political partisanship and 
 the enthusiasm of poetic idolatry, with all that these 
 bring when life is young and hope is strong, and the 
 dark pillar has not yet turned, Coleridge's life at Cam- 
 bridge was not a happy one. He was in debt, and no 
 doubt this preyed \\\wi\ him. At one time he spoke of 
 his debts as something less than .n hundred pounds. 
 'J'he sum was not prodigious, but it was enough, and 
 tradition tells how he contracted the obligation. When 
 he took possession of his rooms an upholsterer waited 
 upon him and offered to furnish them. Coleridge mis- 
 took him for an official of the college, and when asked 
 how he should like the furnishing done, answered, "Just 
 as you please, sir." Perhaps this was an act of astound- 
 ing unwisdom in a young gentlemen of eighteen years 
 and a half, i'erhajis it was a pardonable misadventure. 
 -■\t all events, it involved Coleridge in a debt of something 
 like the sum mentioned. The story is not necessary to 
 account for the circumstance that the orphan son of a 
 poor clergyman was tormented by monetary difficulties. 
 Whether debt was Coleridge's sole trouble, or whetlier 
 his affectionate nature was ill at case from the family 
 estrangement already referred to, or whether, in truth, his 
 affections were yet more deci)ly involved in painful 
 memories of the young milliner or any other person likely 
 to give rise to chagrin at disappointment in love, the end 
 of many " viper thoughts " was something unexpected. In 
 December, 1793, Coleridge was missing from Cambridge, 
 and all inquiries as to his whereabouts were for a time 
 quite fruitless. This was the second of several myste-
 
 SAMUET: TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 81 
 
 rioiis (lisnppcaranccs wlii( li it will he necessary to ( :lirf)ni( Ic 
 in traversing his hfe. \S\\\\. had now l)ec:onie of (Joleridge? 
 He had fled to London. With Httlc money in his purse, 
 and in no mood to indulge ordinary comforts, he began 
 liis career there by spending a whole night on a door- 
 stej) in Chancery Lane. To the beggars who accosted 
 even him in his desolation he emptied his slender purse. 
 Next morning he enli^itcd in a regiment of dragoons. 
 He gave the name of Silas 'I'itus Comberbac h, wlii( h 
 rejiresented at least his own initials. Probably lie made 
 the most awkward member of the awkward squad. His 
 horsemanship was so bad that ho thought his horse 
 would sympathize with his cognomen. He made a j)oor 
 dragoon, but a good messmate. At cleaning his horse 
 and accoutrements his abilities were not conspicuous, 
 but he was a past-master at telling stories in the mess- 
 room, at writing love-letters for his illiterate comrades, 
 and at nursing the sick in the hospital. Hence lie was 
 a favourite in the regiment. Four months passed, the 
 regiment was stationed at Reading, and the missing 
 undergraduate remained a tolerably happy dragoon. 
 ]Uit the thought of wasted opportunities and of hopes 
 defeated was not to be put away. \\'ith a jiiece of chalk 
 Coleridge wrote on his stall a I^tin legend which, means 
 that he is doubly wretched who has once been happy. 
 This bit of scholarship betrayed him. An orticer chanced 
 to see the legend, and learning that Coleridge was the 
 writer he made him his orderly. It was part of Cole- 
 ridge's new function to walk behind his officer in the 
 streets. At this duty he was one day recognized by a 
 student from the University, and the end of it all was that
 
 82 LIFE OF 
 
 Coleridge's friends procured his discharge. Me liad 
 joined the regiment at Reading on December 3, 1793; 
 he left it at Hounslow on April 4, 1794. 
 
 Stories are current to show that this rather silly episode 
 was the result of a period of dissipation. The idea of 
 enlistment is said to have been suggested to Coleridge 
 by the casual sight of a poster announcing that a " few 
 smart lads" were wanted for the " isth Elliot's Light 
 Dragoons;" and the impulse to enlistment is said to have 
 been nothing more serious than the reflection that he had 
 all his life had "a violent antipathy to soldiers and horses," 
 and that " the sooner he cured himself of these absurd 
 prejudices the better." This is needless, and perhaps 
 offensive trifling. The episode is an exhibition of weak- 
 ness and folly at the best ; let us not go out of our way 
 to make it an exhibition of debauchery and idiocy also. 
 It may be that in certain poems Coleridge ajjpears to 
 fixvour the notion that dissipation played a part in the 
 unaccountable misadventure, and it is certain that the 
 incident could be intelligible to the minds of some of his 
 acquaintances only in the light of excess. But in solemn 
 moods Coleridge was wont to repudiate the immoralities 
 that his family, among others, laid to his charge in this 
 connection. " Were I," he says, " to fix on that wx-k 
 of my existence on which my moral being would have 
 presented to a pitying guardian angel the most interesting 
 spectacle, it would be that very week in London in which 
 I was believed by my family to have abandoned myself 
 to debauchery of all kinds, and thus to have involved 
 myself in disreputable pecuniary embarrassments." Ob- 
 viously the debts were at the root of the family difference,
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. CT 
 
 and the groundless accusations of the folk at Ottcry St. 
 Mary were calculated to widen the breach. Coleridge's 
 spirit never humbled itself in this regard. His sensibili- 
 ties had indeed lieen grievously wounded. He may 
 liave known "just so much of folly " as made maturer 
 years "more wise." More probably he was of a nature 
 untroubled by sensual temptations. He never entirely 
 forgave the mistake of his family. No importunities 
 could prevail with him to go back and join hands. He 
 •stood aside proudly, letting his heart bleed at the thouglu 
 that he was most a stranger in his native place, where 
 his brother's children climbed his mother's knee. It 
 has been worth while to dwell on this estrangement. 
 Without a proper sense of its importance in the record of 
 Coleridge's early manhood, much of his subsequent de- 
 pression of .soul seems to be no better than a conscious 
 attempt to suck the eggs of melancholy.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 COLERIDGE returned to Cambridge. He docs 
 not appear to have borne liimsclf after his kidicrous 
 misadventure hke a creature with its tail between its legs. 
 A poet who would have been grateful if rrovidcnce had 
 made him a shoemaker, could not be humbled by the 
 reflection that fiite had nearly made him a soldier. Save 
 for the wound it brought to his affections, his brief career 
 as a dragoon was almost as much lost to his conscious- 
 ness as if it had never been. On the life of such a man 
 as Bunyan or Burns it must have left an impression that 
 nothing could remove. The sympathies of Coleridge 
 were all but untouched by it. Coleridge lived in a world 
 apart wherein such an incident was little more than a 
 passing accident. The realities of life were at all times 
 less real to him than the workings of the mind. He 
 was soon immersed in fresh forms of intellectual activity. 
 Towards the middle of 1793 Coleridge met with 
 Wordsworth's first publication, "Descriptive Sketches," 
 then newly issued. The old admiration of Bowles was 
 now in large part transferred to AVordsworth. *' Seldom, 
 if ever," says Coleridge, " was the emergence of an 
 original poetic genius above the literary horizon more
 
 LIFE OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 35 
 
 evidently announced." This ardour of disciplcship was 
 to bear fruit in the future, but meantime another acci- 
 dent was to lead to immediate issues. It will be remem- 
 bered that the schoolfellow with whom Coleridge at 
 sixteen spent the "hours of Paradise" in escorting the 
 young milliners home on Saturday nights, after "pillaging 
 the flower gardens within six miles from town," was a 
 kindred sad soul named Allen. Now when Allen left 
 Christ's Hospital he went to Oxford, and thither Cole- 
 ridge, in his last year at Cambridge, made his way on 
 a visit to the companion of former days. One of Allen's 
 friends at Oxford was Southey, and naturally enough 
 Coleridge and Southey met. Robert Southey was a 
 Bristol man two years Coleridge's junior. Ho was a 
 notable person at the University. His views were 
 heterodox as to theology, and republican as to politics,, 
 and he was a poet with sympathies at one with the now 
 school of Cowper. He had been expelled from AN'cst- 
 minster for writing in The Flagellant an article against 
 flogging, and by reason of that disgrace he had been 
 refused admission at Christ's Church. I'alliol had takca 
 him, and when Coleridge and he came together he 
 was an undergraduate who dared to appear in hall with 
 unpowdered wig. The meeting was auspicious. It was 
 like the magnet to the steel, or, say, tinder to the match. 
 These inflamed spirits lost no time in setting each other 
 ;ifirc. "Allen is with us daily," writes Southey, "and 
 his friend from Cambridge, Coleridge. ... lie is of 
 most uncommon merit — of the strongest genius, the 
 clearest judgment, the best heart." This is sufliciently 
 indicative of the way the wind blew, but a bigger straw
 
 80 LIFE OF 
 
 was soon sent adrift from the other side Coleridge 
 started with a party of friends on a pleasure tour in Wales, 
 and on the way he wrote thif first letter to Southey at 
 Oxford : " Vou are averse to gratitudinarian flourishes, 
 else would I talk, about hospitality, attention, etc., etc. ; 
 however, as I must not thank you, I will thank my stars. 
 Verily, Southey, I like not Oxford, nor the inhabitants 
 of it. I would say thou art a nightingale among owls ; 
 but thou art so songlcss and heavy towards night that I 
 will rather liken thee to the matin lark ; thy nest is in a 
 blighted cornfield, where the sleepy poppy nods its red- 
 cowlcd head, and the weak-eyed mole plies his dark 
 vwork; but thy soaring is even unto heaven. Or let me 
 ,;add (my appetite for similes is truly canine at this 
 •moment) that as the Italian nobles their new-fashioned 
 doors, so thou must make the adamantine gate of 
 >iDemocracy turn on its golden hinges to most sweet 
 tnusic." Southey loved the blighted cornfield of Oxford 
 as little as Coleridge ; that matin lark thought so ill of 
 Oxford's cowl-headed poppies and weak-eyed moles that 
 it did not trouble to sing to them. Southey left abruptly 
 without waiting for his degree. The long vacation com- 
 menced soon after Coleridge's departure for Wales, and 
 Southey went down to visit an aunt at Bath. Coleridge 
 returned by Bristol, and there the new friends clasped 
 /"raternal hands again. 
 
 There were many persons at Bristol with whom the 
 ^oung poets found themselves in sympathy. Foremost 
 .among these were a family of young ladies, the daughters 
 X)f Stephen Fricker, lately dead, who had carried on a 
 4Tianufactory of sugar-pans at Westbury, and had fallen
 
 SAMUEL TA YLOR COLERIDGi:. 37 
 
 into difficulties, and left a widow and six children wholly 
 unprovided for. Southey was engaged to one of the 
 Misses Fricker, and a young friend named Robert 
 Lovell was already married to another of them. The 
 eldest of the young ladies was Sarah, then twenty-three 
 years of ago, and hitherto unappropri..'.cd. Coleridge 
 promptly fell in love with her. The ladies were ail 
 comely and all religious, and one of them, the fitting 
 one, appears to ha\e been in trouble for the unorthodo.\ 
 soul of Southey. Robert Lovell was a Quaker, a poet, 
 and a thoroughly good fellow. He attached himself to 
 Coleridge as he had previously attached himself to 
 Southey, but for a short time a cloud hung over their 
 friendship. This was when Coleridge conceived the 
 idea that Lovell was not promoting his union with Sarah. 
 Then they met without speaking, and passed as strangers. 
 ^Lattcrs came to a crisis, and Coleridge exclaimed, 
 " Lovell ! you are a villain ! " "Oh, you are quite mLs- 
 taken," said a friend, a bookseller, " Lovell is proud in the 
 hope of having you for a brother-in-law, and only wishes 
 you from prudential motives to delay your union." This_ 
 was a possibility which had escaped Coleridge's obser- 
 vation, but it commended itself to his intelligence, and 
 in a few days he and Lovell were as sociable as ever. 
 The bookseller was Joseph Cottle, a year older than 
 Coleridge, in business in Bristol, having a taste for litera- 
 ture, and some manuscript poems lying snugly in the 
 drawer. Cottle turned out a useful acquaintance, and 
 he was so far a man of reading and culture that the 
 relation between him and the young poets from the 
 universities was that of valued friendship. Southey had
 
 88 LIFE OF 
 
 brouglit with him from Oxford a young man of twenty, 
 of fair abiUtics and amiable disposition, the son of a 
 Somersetshire farmer, who intended him for the Church. 
 This was George Burnet, destined to play a subordinate 
 part in a forthcoming farce, and not altogether to play it 
 with acceptance. Burnet followed the lead of Lovell, 
 Southcy, and Coleridge by proposing for Martha, a fourth 
 daughter of tiie house of the Frickcrs ; but the lady 
 rejected him on the ground that, unlike her sisters, she 
 did not choose to bcr made a wife in a hurr)-. She was 
 permitted to abide by her resolution, and died a maid 
 at seventy-three. VThc circle of literary people who found 
 ii rallyingpoint at Bristol, when Coleridge and Southey 
 iirrived there in 1794, included some notable names. 
 There were Hannah More, whom Southey saw at Barley 
 "Wood ; Robert Hall, the Baptist preacher ; Ann Yearsley, 
 the literary milkwoman ; and AVilliam Gilbert, the inspired 
 and deranged author of the " Hurricane," a poem which 
 contains some exquisite passages of poctr)' accompanied 
 by yet more noble passages of prose. The group was a 
 goodly one of men and women living the intellectual life. 
 Coleridge and Southey found the atmosphere congenial. 
 Their presence in Bristol was a subject of interest. 
 I^vell, being a Bristol man, introduced his friends to 
 the Bristol people. " Never," says Cottle, " will the 
 effect be effaced produced on me by Southey. Tall, 
 dignified, possessing great suavity of manners ; an eye 
 piercing, with a countenance full of genius, kindliness, 
 and intelligence.'' Coleridge produced an impression no 
 less favourable. " I instantly descried his intellectual 
 character," says the bookseller, "exhibiting as he did an
 
 SAMUEL TA YLOR COLERIDGE. C9 
 
 eye, a brow, and a forehead indicative of commanding 
 genius." 
 
 The poets wrote a poem together, "The I'all of 
 Robespierre;" but even poetry paled in interest before a 
 socialist scheme which they now set afoot. Souihey and 
 Burnet at Oxford had talked over the tyrannical wicked- 
 ness of the existing order of society, until they had con- 
 ceived of a plan by which the coil of injustice was to be 
 unravelled.' This was the rather simple device of a 
 community of persons settling in America on some spot 
 that should be quite outside the range of governments, 
 and therefore untroubled by laws and taxes. Wl.en 
 Coleridge came up on his visit to Allen, he embraced the 
 scheme of Southey and Allen, and gave it the help of his 
 philosophic mind in formulating it into a political system. 
 Forthwith the .system came to be known as I'antisocrasy, 
 and its aim as Aspheterism. Pantisocrasy meant the 
 equal government of all ; and Aspheterism meant the 
 generalization of individual property. These two were to 
 do the civilized world .some general service, but they were 
 especially welcome for the particular service they were to 
 do the persons who discovered them. Southey writes to 
 his brother, "You are unpleasantly situated, so is my 
 mother ; so were we all until this grand scheme of i'anti- 
 socrasy flashed upon our minds, and now all is perfectly 
 delightful." Coleridge could have expressed himself in 
 similar language. The vexed question of a profession 
 was now finally set at rest. Unitarianism had banished 
 
 ' In 1836 Soulhcy made a#f efTort to repudiate his sliarc in the 
 ♦'vain visions." He protested that the scheme of ranlisocra->y 
 was introduced by Coleridge and his friend Ilucks.
 
 40 LIFE OF 
 
 .ill idea of the Church ; the dragoon regiment had im- 
 perilled the chances of college honours and a college life ; 
 authorship was a refuge for which none of the young men 
 were yet sufficiently destitute ; so colonization on a fresh 
 principle, akin to that of the early apostles, who had all 
 things in common, supplied the motive power for a great 
 start in life. But Pantisocrasy was something more 
 serious than the crutch that was to help a lame dog over 
 a stile. It was to be the nucleus of a great socialistic . 
 regeneration. 
 
 The scheme was incomplete when the young men 
 arrived at Bristol, and there it made notal)le strides. It 
 was decided that a ship must be chartered to take the 
 party to the New World, that land must be purchased 
 cither before they set out or on their arrival in America ; 
 that a body of farming implements must be bought and 
 taken with them. But, above all, it was agreed and 
 settled that for the future welfare of the colony, as well 
 as for its immediate comfort and harmony, it would be 
 necessary that each male colonist should be accompanied 
 by a wife. This final condition was not a barrier. One 
 of the Pantisocritans was already provided with a wife, 
 two were about to be so provided, and it was not antici- 
 pated that the rest would fail in this regard. The more 
 material conditions were a deal more troublesome. 
 Chartering a ship and buying implements and land were 
 processes involving the expenditure of money, and the 
 Pantisocritans were penniless. They were, however, rich 
 in hope, and looked confidently to a near future in which 
 they should be rich enough in money also to realize their 
 Uieam. At Bristol they talked over their plans, discussed
 
 SAMUEL TA YLOR COLERIDGE. 41 
 
 them, made proselytes, made enemies, were admired, and 
 were laughed at. Coleridge was too much alone in the 
 world now for any one to care what practicable future 
 he relinquished for a vain and visionary scheme. But 
 Southey had a rich aunt who turned her back upon him, 
 and the Somersetshire father of Burnet was not so well 
 content with farming as to approve of it in its newest 
 disguise. The positions and prospects of certain of the 
 proselytes are not ascertainable, but we know that a man- 
 servant of Southey's angry aunt belonged to the little 
 band. This leal fellow, Shadrack by name, had " a prime 
 hot berth " of it after his apostasy had become known, and 
 when one night Southey was turned out of doors in the 
 wet, he said : " Why, sir, you bc'nt goin' to Bath at this 
 time o' night, and in this weather ! " The trusty soul was 
 rewarded with true Pantisocratic fraternity. In a very 
 large hand, Coleridge — Logician, Metaphysician, Bard — 
 wrote these touching words : " Shad goks with us : 
 He is mv hrother !" One cannot resist the conclusion 
 that in the fiery furnace of their enthusiasm, there some- 
 times flickered a tiny jet of conscious travesty. 
 
 Coleridge returned to Cambridge to keep the 
 Michaelmas Term. Back in his rooms at college he 
 writes : *' Since I quitted this room what and how im- 
 portant events have been evolved I America I Southey 1 
 Miss Fricker I . . . Bantisocrasy I Oh, I shall have such 
 a scheme of it 1 My head, my heart, are all alive." 
 During the remainder of the term his head was not only 
 alive, but as sore as that of a bear in its cage. He left 
 Cambridge towards December, and went up to London 
 There he met Dyer, author of " Complaints of the Poor,"
 
 42 LIFE OF 
 
 and found him an eager partizan. Dyer was enraptured 
 with the system, pronounced it impregnable, and believed 
 that his friend, Dr. Priestley, would join the Pantiso- 
 critans. He does not appear to have mentioned a desire 
 to join them himself One great stride was now made — 
 the place of settlement in the New World was decided 
 upon. " Every night," wrote Coleridge, " I meet a most 
 intelligent young man, who has spent the last five years 
 of his life in America, and is lately come from thence as 
 an agent to sell land. He was of our school. I had 
 been kind to him ; he remembers it, and comes regularly 
 every evening to ' benefit by my conversation,' he says. 
 He says ^2,000 will do ; that he doubts not we can 
 contract for our passage under j[,i,oo ; that we shall buy 
 the land a great deal cheaper when we arrive in America 
 than wc could in England ; or ' why,' he adds, ' am I 
 sent over here ? ' That twelve men vaz^^ easily clear three 
 hundred acres in four or five months ; and that for six 
 hundred dollars a thousand acres may be cleared, and 
 houses built on them. He recommends the Susquehanna 
 from its excessive beauty and security from hostile 
 Indians. . . . That literary characters may make vwnty 
 there, etc, etc. The mosquitos there are not so bad as 
 our gnats, and after you have been there a little while 
 they don't trouble you." 
 
 It was all so beautifully clear and simple. Two thou- 
 sand pounds would do ; the Susquehanna was free from 
 hostile Indians, although it had so recently been desolated 
 by them ; literary characters could even make money 
 there, and the mosquitos in a little while did not bite. 
 The place of resort at which Coleridge met every night
 
 SAMUEL TA YLOR COLERIDGE. 43 
 
 the Intelligent young man from America was a smoky 
 little room in a pot-house in Newgate Street, known 
 as the " Salutation and Cat." There in an odour of 
 tobacco, egg-hot, and welsh rabbit, Coleridge discoursed 
 nightly on poetry and metaphysics as well as on I'anli- 
 socrasy. The intelligent young man was not the only 
 person who came every evening to benefit by Coleridge's 
 conversation. Tradition says that when the time came 
 for Coleriilge to go to llristol to be married, the landlord 
 ofTercd him free quarters if he would stay and talk. 
 Long years afterwards the same offer was made to the 
 poet's son, poor " laal Hartley," by the landlord of a 
 certain " Red Lion" far away north among the mountains. 
 In the smoky room of the "Salutation," Coleridge 
 renewed his friendship with his old schoolfellow, Charles 
 I^nib. Charles was now nineteen years old to Coleridge's 
 two and twenty. When his friend went up to the University, 
 Lamb had been apprenticed to the " desk's dry wood," 
 and he was now a clerk in the India House. Looking 
 longingly towards the career of learning which he was 
 never to enjoy, he went on patiently writing the " books " 
 that were never, never to be read. His father v.as falling 
 into dotage ; his mother was sickly ; his sister was a 
 brave, stricken soul, fighting the batUc of life at awful 
 odds. As needs must be, Charles plodded on in his 
 beaten round with the docility of a mill horse, and some 
 of its slumbering strength as well. Hut there were secret 
 ambitions nesding deep down in hidden places, and when 
 ColeTidge came back to London full of glorious schemes, 
 the dark pillar of hope just turning its face of fire— what 
 a time it was for Lamb ! Amid the associations of j^ipes
 
 44 LIFE OF 
 
 and oronokoo, in that de.ir little dirty pot-house in New- 
 gate Street, how they talked and laughed and drank ! 
 And were ever friends more unlike — Coleridge, the 
 eloquent madcap of genius, the dreamer of high 
 dreams; I^imb with a dismal vo J in his heart, with 
 his lisp and his half-playful, halfmclancholy smile I In 
 that smoky room Coleridge recited his newest poems in 
 his deep intonation, and Lamb — cheated of his grief — 
 applauded them in his sweet, broken accents. What 
 I^amb thought of I'antisocrasy is not known. Coleridge 
 had too deep a sense of the tragedy in the life of his 
 friend to tempt him from his post of duty. What a 
 friendship it was that really began in that odour of egg- 
 hot and oronokoo ! In loyalty, in beauty, in love, does 
 the like of it appear elsewhere? 
 
 Whether Coleridge availed himself of the landlord's 
 offer is not stated, but it is certain that he " stayed " and 
 " talked." There is an idea that he stayed too long. In 
 the judgment of the young lady who was waiting for him 
 at Bristol. It is even said that the scrupulous Southey 
 felt constrained to point out to his friend that he had 
 gone too far in his attentions to Miss Fricker for any 
 honourable retreat But the poet was busy with poetry. 
 He was printing his first sonnets in The Morning Chronicle, 
 and finishing his " Religious Musings." ' 
 
 » Writing to Coltlc (March 6, 1S36), Southey s.-»ys : " Coleridge 
 did not come back ag.iin to Uristol till Januarj*, 1795, nor would he, 
 I believe, have come back at all, if I had not gone to London to look 
 for him, for having got there from Cambridge at the beginninf of 
 the winter, there he remained, without writing a line cither to Miss 
 Fricker or myself." The punctilious Southey searched for Coleridge 
 at the smoky tavern in Newgate Street, but found him at the "Angel 
 Inn," Butcher Hall Street, and carried him off to be married. 
 
 I
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 45 
 
 It was a mistake to think, tluit he was not ardently in 
 love. He returned to Miss Fricker, and to Pantisocrasy, 
 early in 1795. These two, the lady and the system, 
 sailed in one boat. Two thousand pounds would do to 
 make everything " perfectly delightful " ; but then it 
 began to appear tlial " money " was " a huge evil," which 
 the Tantisocritans would long have to contend witii. In 
 this older hemisj^here the literary characters could make 
 anything easier than money, and the gnats of the literary 
 world were worse than the mosquitos of Susquehanna. 
 A publisher in London offered Coleridge six guineas for 
 a volume of poetry. The poets lectured at Bristol with 
 only moderate success. Things were beginning to wear 
 a grave aspect, when one day Cottle, the Bristol book- 
 seller, said to Coleridge, " To encourage you, I will give 
 you thirty guineas for your poems, and to make you easy 
 you shall have the money as your occasions require." 
 Silence and the grasped hand showed that the poet was 
 happy. He then lost no time in getting married ; and 
 Southey, to whom a similar offer had been made, soon 
 followed suit, Coleridge was married Oct. 4th ; and 
 Southey Nov. 14, 1795, both at St. Mary's, Redcliffe, the 
 church in which Chatterton, twenty-seven years before, 
 pretended to find his Rowley forgeries. Marriage had 
 always been regarded as a condition of harmony in the 
 ^rand system, but nevertheless it introduced the first 
 note of discord. The visionary Southey, who had sacri- 
 ficea a rich aunt to Pantisocrasy, began to sober down 
 into a person of practical mind at the near approach of 
 his wedding-day. An uncle offered him a trip to Lisbon ; 
 he saw money in the offer, and accepted. Coleridge is 
 
 \
 
 40 LIFE OF SAMUEL TA YLOR COLERIDGE. 
 
 described as wralh beyond words, though a reasonable, 
 or unreasonable, supply of words appears to have been 
 forthcoming. But Coleridge was himself married by this 
 time, and wc may suspect that his anger (if he felt 
 any, which Southcy denied) was .akin to that on Hamlet 
 when he finds his uncle prayinaH^ colourable qover for 
 a personal exit. Poor Robert- Lovell took -a fever at 
 Salisbury, and died ; and George Burnet, and the intelli- 
 gent young man from America, dropped as surely out of 
 the history. So did I'antisocrasy go to the wall ; and 
 twenty-six adventurers, who were to have regenerated 
 society, went quietly back to the world.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 COLERIDGE took a cottage at Clcvcdon, near 
 Bristol. It was a pretty little place, one storey 
 high, with a rose-tree peeping in at the chamber window. 
 The parlour was whitewashed, but then the rent was only 
 five pounds a year. A young couple who had made uj:! 
 their minds to a hut in the clearing of a forest, where 
 the bison and the Red Indian were not unknown, 
 could hardly be unhappy in a primitive little cabin oh 
 the banks of the Severn. Coleridge was fully content, 
 and took a practical view of his environment. " Send 
 me," he writes to Cottle, "a riddle slice, a candle- 
 box, two glasses for the wash-hand stand, one dustpan, 
 one small tin tea-kettle, one pair of candlesticks, a 
 IJible, a keg of porter," etc., etc. The bookseller sent 
 the poet everything, not forgetting the Bible, in whicli 
 Coleridge duly entered the date of his marriage, 
 leaving spaces for the cntr>', in due time, of the births 
 of his children. Mrs. Coleridge was a happy young wife 
 in these early days. Coleridge used to say that, like 
 his mother, she had no meretricious accomplislimcnts'. 
 She was *' an honest, simple, lively-minded, affectionate 
 woman." Pretty and agreeable, able to sing a little, and
 
 48 LIFE OF 
 
 even to write poetry tliat was far from contemptible, she 
 was a comfortable and a practical wife for a man of some- 
 what changeable temper. Coleridge had now drifted into 
 literature as a profession. His two inexorable task- 
 masters, bread and cheese, made no terms with any 
 less material deities, and even poetry had to make way 
 for a pursuit that, should be something more than its 
 " own exceeding great reward." While passing his 
 volume of poems through the press, he was writing for 
 The Morning Chronicle and The Critical Reviexv. His 
 prospects were doubtful, his earnings uncertain, and he 
 had many projects. Not long after settling at Clevedon 
 he was ofTercd a school at Derby. About the same time 
 he had the chance of a Unitarian pulpit. at Nottingham. 
 A tutorship at Bristol came his way, and Roscoe invited 
 him to pitch his tent in Liverpool. The editor of The 
 Morning Chronicle offered a sort of joint-editorship, and 
 he was tempted to remove to London. " I am forced to 
 write for my bread 1 " he says ; " write the flights of 
 poetic enthusiasm, when every minute I am hearing a 
 groan from my wife ! Groans and complaints and sick- 
 ness ! . . . The future is cloud and darkness 1 Poverty, 
 perhaps, and the thin faces of them that want bread, 
 looking up at me ! " This was written in a passing fit 
 of despondency, but the general sense conveyed of un- 
 certainty and anxiety was sufficiently abiding. Coleridge 
 thought he had solved the problem of livelihood neces- 
 sity, when one day he conceived the idea of a weekly 
 journal. It was to be a newspaper, review, and annual 
 register combined. The title was to be The Watchman^ 
 and the miscellany was to " cry the state of the political
 
 SAMUEL TA YLOR COLERIDGE. 49 
 
 atmosphere." It was to be published every eij^hih day, 
 Coleridge first called a meeting of friends in Bristol, to 
 discuss the project, and then set out on a canvassing tour 
 for subscribers through the Midland and Northern 
 counties, armed with many copies of a flaming pros- 
 pectus. Surely no such canvasser ever before " took 
 the road ; " and the story of the canvass is probably the 
 most humorous narrative that ever came from Coleridge's 
 pen. His campaign began at Birmingham, and his first 
 attack was on a rigid Calvinist, a tallow-chandler by trade. 
 With plentiful lack of worldly wisdom, the young author,, 
 trading on his own account, commenced an harangue of 
 half-an-hour, varying his notes through the whole gamut 
 of eloquence, from the ratiocinative to the declamatory. . 
 He argued, he promised, he prophesied, and beginning 
 with the captivity of nations, he ended with the near 
 approach of the millennium. The man of tallow listened 
 with noble patience, and then said, after a pause, "And 
 what, sir, might the cost be ? " " Only fourpcncc I " Oh, 
 the bathos of that fourpcnce 1 There was another pause, 
 and then the man of lights said, " That comes to a deal 
 of money at the end of the year. How much did you. 
 say there would be for the money ? Thirty-two pages ? 
 Bless me I Why, except what I does in a family way on 
 the Sabbath, that's more than I ever reads, sir, all the 
 year round. I am as great a one as any man in Brum- 
 magen, sir, for liberty and truth, and all them sort of 
 things, but as to this, no offence, I hope, sir, I must beg 
 to be excused." 
 
 So ended Coleridge's first canvass. On the opening 
 night of the tour he was to meet a number of political 
 4
 
 50 UFEOF 
 
 friends and discuss the projected miscellany. After 
 dinner, his host importuned him to smoke a pipe. The 
 poet declined, chiefly on the ground that he had never 
 smoked since the nights at the " Salutation," and then it 
 had been herb tobacco, mixed with oronokoo. Assured 
 that the tobacco in this instance was equally mild, and 
 being of a disposition that made it hard to say no, 
 Coleridge took half a pipe ; but giddiness ensued, and 
 the pipe was soon abandoned. Then he sallied forth 
 to meet his friends at the house of a Birmingham 
 minister. The walk and the fresh air intensified the un- 
 pleasant symptoms of sickness, and he had scarcely 
 entered the minister's drawing-room, when he sank back 
 on the sofa in a swoon. There he lay, with a face like 
 a wall that is whitewashed, deadly pale, and with cold 
 drops of perspiration running down from his forehead, 
 when one by one the gentlemen dropped in who had 
 been invited to meet and spend the evening with him. 
 The effects of the tobacco wore off, and the poet looked 
 round on the party, his bleared eyes blinking in the 
 candle-light. To relieve the embarrassment, one of the 
 patriots said, " Have you seen a paper to-day, Mr. 
 Coleridge ? " Coleridge raised himself, and rubbed his 
 eyes. " Sir," he said, in a solemn tone, " I am far from 
 convinced that a Christian is permitted to read either 
 newspapers or any other works of merely political and 
 temporal interest." The ludicrous incongruity of the 
 remark was too much for the risibility of the Birmingham 
 gentlemen, and there was an involuntary burst of 
 laughter, in which, after a moment's reflection, the 
 poet joined.
 
 SAMUEL TA YLOR COLERIDGE. 51 
 
 The eloquence which failed to impress the tallow- 
 chandler inspired admiration and astonishment in more 
 sympathetic minds, and Coleridge's canvass was a brilliant 
 success. He returned to Bristol with about a thousand 
 subscribers, and issued his first number of The Watch- 
 man on the ist of March, 1796. He worked hard at 
 tasks that were the reverse of congenial — condensing 
 parliamentary reports, arranging foreign and domestic 
 intelligence, and the like. It would not do. Dissatis- 
 faction began to show itself among the subscribers at an 
 early stage. One man thought he did not get enough for 
 his fourpencc ; another was of opinion that his boys did 
 not profit under the publication ; a third wanted more 
 reviews ; a fourth demanded more politics ; some of the 
 subscribers gave up the paper because it did not conLiin 
 sufificient original composition, and a far larger number 
 abandoned it because it contained too much. And of all 
 men on earth Coleridge was the most likely to be fretted 
 by such perplexities. The Watchman went on to May 
 14th, having passed through ten numbers, and then it 
 ceased to cr}* the state of the political atmosphere. "The 
 reason for relinquishing it," said the editor, " is short and 
 simple — the work does not pay for its expenses." Back 
 numbers of the miscellany were more than plentiful at the 
 house of the proprietor. One morning Coleridge found 
 the servant girl lighting the fire with some copies. " What 
 have you there?" he asked. "La, sir, it's only Watch- 
 tnans," the girl answered. 
 
 Iri April, 1796, Coleridge's first volume of poems ap- 
 peared. It attracted no special attention. The Monthly 
 Review obscn'cd that though poets had been called
 
 62 LIFE OF 
 
 maniacs, and their writings too frequently justified the 
 application of the degrading epithet, yet as it was time to 
 enthrone reason on the summit of Parnassus, Mr. Coleridge 
 seemed solicitous to consecrate his noble lyre to truth, 
 virtue, and humanity. Poor fustian as this may be, it 
 seems to be all that the critical press had to put forth. 
 I^atcr in the year Coleridge printed privately an anthology 
 of twenty-four sonnets ; and later still he published his 
 "Ode to the Departing Year." In 1796 Southcy's 
 "Joan of Arc " appeared, and in that poem there were 
 about four hundred lines by Coleridge. Thus was Cole- 
 ridge fairly launched as a poet. 
 
 The poet and his wife had grown wear}' of Clevcdon ; 
 it was too far from the city library ; it was difficult of 
 access to friends, and the neighbours were tattling and 
 inquisitive. Moreover, Mrs. Coleridge was looking for- 
 ward to her first confinement. So they returned to 
 Bristol. There is reason to think that at this period 
 Coleridge paid another visit to his native place, and that 
 the family unpleasantness was thereby much modified. 
 The poet had previously made some concessions in the 
 pathetic epistle to his brother George. With the failure 
 of The Watchman the old embarrassments began to press 
 heavily. There was always an idea that a Unitarian 
 pulpit might be found for Coleridge. He preached 
 twice in Bath, when he dressed for the pulpit in a blue 
 coat and white waistcoat, and on several occasions during 
 his canvass, when he permitted his garments of various 
 hue to be enveloped in the sable gown. He was not an 
 impressive preacher. His first sermon was delivered to 
 a congregation of seventeen persons. The discourse
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. M 
 
 •was on the Hair Powder Tax, and before it was half 
 done one of the seventeen opened his pew silently and 
 stole quietly out of the chapel. In a few minutes more 
 a second auditor did the same; then a third, and a fourth. 
 Matters looked ominous. It seemed as if in a short 
 time every pew would be empty. Still the preacher 
 went on without any consciousness of what was happen- 
 ing, and finished with great self-content. There is a 
 fable which says that beside Coleridge's personal friends 
 there was one elderly lady who sat out the sermon quite 
 stoically ; but then she was asleep. The pulpit was not 
 destined to hold Coleridge's wings ; the idea of making 
 the poet a Unitarian minister came to nothing. The 
 twin taskmasters, bread and cheese, were again inexo- 
 rable, when a new friend, Thomas Poole, invited the poet 
 to Nether Stowcy, Somersetshire, where a comfortable 
 cottage at seven pounds a year was to be rented near to 
 his own home. Poole was a prosperous tanner, a cul- 
 tured man who had travelled extensively. He had a 
 luxurious house and a good library, and was anxious to 
 secure Coleridge as a neighbour. TTie poet saw in the 
 proposal a chance of retrenching domestic expenses. 
 About the same time one of the gentlemen whom 
 Coleridge met in Birmingham, on the memorable occa- 
 sion of his essay in smoking, suggested that his son 
 should lodge with the poet for the benefit of that society 
 which was in itself a liberal education. Both proposals 
 were accepted. Thus did Coleridge temporize with his 
 necessities. His first child, Hartley, was born in Bristol 
 in September, 1796, and soon afterwards the Coleridge 
 household, including Charles Lloyd, a young man of
 
 64 LIFE OF 
 
 litcrar)' tnstcs and some literary pretensions, was settled 
 at Nether Stowcy. 
 
 The twin taskmasters were temporarily appeased, and 
 the poet wrote more at leisure than before. He had 
 carried on a correspondence with Lamb since the nights 
 at the "Salutation and Cat." The interval had witnessed 
 many changes in the life of his schoolfellow. Lamb's 
 father had fallen into dotage, and been pensioned ofi" by 
 his employer. His mother was now deprived of the use 
 of her limbs. These two had been pleasure-loving 
 people in their time, and now they were exacting 
 invalids. The burden of their sickness and society had 
 fallen upon Charles and his sister ^L■\r}•, whose elder 
 brother, a selfish, unamiablc soul, had carried himself off 
 to a more comfortable home. The resources of the 
 household were limiled. They had removed from their 
 rooms in the Temple to poorer lodgings in Little Queen 
 Street, Holborn. Charles's salary was hardly more than 
 a hundred pounds a year, and his father's pension was 
 not material. A querulous old aunt lived with the family, 
 and cent ibuted towards the general maintenance. ALary 
 became a needlewoman, and had a young girl for 
 apprentice. It was a straitened sort of existence, but 
 Charles and his sister bore up under it as well as they 
 could. Not long after Coleridge's return to Bristol, at 
 the beginning of 1795, Lamb's reason gave way. He was 
 six weeks in a mad-house. When he recovered his reason, 
 his heart was a void ; hope was not easily regained. He 
 toiled on, and was stimulated by his correspondence with 
 Coleridge. The old schoolfellows discussed poetry and 
 religion. But there was not much time for such indul-
 
 SAMUEL TA VLOR COLERIDGE. C5 
 
 genres. The day was given to the " desk's dry wood," 
 and the nights to crihl)age with his poor crazy fallicr. 
 *' If you will not play with me, you might as well not 
 come home," said the old man one night when his son 
 had taken up pen and paper. " There is nothing to say 
 to that," Lamb thought, and so he took up the cards. 
 It was a paralysing situation. And Charles was not 
 more deeply involved than Mary. That pure soul had 
 no touch of selfishness. Night and day she toiled for 
 her helpless mother, without even the reward of grati- 
 tude. 'I'he mother was a woman of a dilTcrent mould, and 
 the daughter's very caresses were often met by coldness 
 and repulsion. Still she held on until reason became 
 unsettled. " Polly, what are those poor crazy moythcrcd 
 brains of yours thinking of always ? " the grandmother 
 used to say. The tragedy reached a catastrophe at 
 length. One day, about the middle of Sejjtcmber, 1796, 
 the " poor crazy moythered brains " led Mary to snatchi 
 up a knife and make a sudden attack upon her apprentice.. 
 The girl escaped, but the invalid mother interposed, and 
 Mar)''s frenzy was then directed towards her. Charles, 
 was near, but he was only in time to snatch the knife out 
 of his sister's hand when its dreadful work was donc- 
 Mary had killed her mother. Her father had also been 
 wounded in the forehead. Mary was removed. That 
 night while the body of the mother lay in their little 
 lodging, the old aunt lay insensible, like one dying. 
 Charles was very calm, though brought down to the 
 depths of nervous misery. He dared not give way, for he 
 had his own reason to hold in command. An inquest 
 brought in a verdict of insanity, and Mary was removed
 
 60 LIFE OF 
 
 to the asylum at Islington. While the coroner was 
 sitting, Charles was required to play cards with his f;ither. 
 On the second day" after the day of horrors some twenty 
 people came to the lodgings to talk and cat and " make 
 merry." Then the tension could be borne no longer. 
 In an agony of indignation, rage, and something like 
 remorse, Charles found his way mechanically to the room 
 where his dead mother lay, and fell on his knees by the 
 .side of her coffin. Alone in his awful misery he poured 
 • out his heart in letters to Coleridge, his only friend, and 
 ••Coleridge answered him in these noble words : — 
 
 "' Your letter, my friend, struck mc with a mighty 
 horror. It rushed upon me and stupefied my feelings. 
 You bid me write you a religious letter. I am not a man 
 who would attempt to insult the greatness of your anguish 
 by any other consolation. Heaven knows that in the 
 easiest fortunes there is much dissatisfaction and weari- 
 ness of spirit ; much that calls for the exercise of patience 
 and resignation ; but in storms like these that shake the 
 dwelling and make the heart tremble, there is no middle 
 way between despair and the yielding up of the whole 
 spirit to the guidance of faith. And surely it is a matter 
 of joy that your faith in Jesus has been preserved; the 
 Comforter that should relieve you is not far from you. 
 But as you are a Christian, in the name of that Saviour 
 who was filled with bitterness and made drunken with 
 wormwood, I conjure you to have recourse in frequent 
 prayer to ' His God and your God,' the God of mercies 
 and Father of all comfort. Your poor father is, I hope, 
 almost senseless to the calamity ; the unconscious instru-
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. C7 
 
 nicnt of Divine Providence knows it not; and your mother 
 is in Heaven. It is sweet to be roused from a friglitful 
 dream by the song of birds, and the gladsome rays of the 
 morning. Ah, how infinitely more sweet to be awakened 
 from the blackness and amazement of a sudden horror 
 by the glories of God manifest, and the hallelujahs of 
 angels. 
 
 " As to what regards yourself, I approve altogether of 
 your abandoning what you justly call vanities. I look 
 upon you as a man called by sorrow and anguish, and a 
 strange desolation of hopes, into quietness, and a soul set 
 apart and made peculiar to God ; we cannot arrive at 
 any portion of heavenly bliss without, in some measure, 
 imitating Christ. And they arrive at the largest in- 
 heritance who imitate the most difficult parts of His cha- 
 racter, and, bowed down and crushed under foot, cry, in 
 fulness of faith, ' Father, Thy will be done.' 
 
 " I wish above measure to have you for a little while 
 here ; no visitants shall blow on the nakedness of your 
 feelings ; you shall be quiet, that your spirit may be 
 healed. I see no possible objection, unless your father's 
 helplessness prevent you, and unless you are necessary 
 to him. If this be not the case, I charge you write me 
 that you will come. 
 
 " I charge you, my dearest friend, not to dare to 
 encourage gloom or despair ; you are a temporary sharer 
 in human miseries, that you may be an eternal partaker 
 of the Divine nature. I charge you, if by any means it 
 be possible, come to mc." 
 
 Lamb rose above his great sorrow. In the first hours 
 of his trial he had tried to cut himself away from every
 
 68 UFE OF SAMUEL TA YLOR COLERIDGE. 
 
 pursuit that was not directly sanctified by religion. 
 •' Mention nothing of poetry,** he wrote. " I have 
 destroyed every vestige of past vanities of that kind. . . . 
 I charge you, don't think of coming to see me. Write. 
 I will not see you if you come. God Almighty love you 
 and all of us.'' He begged Coleridge to be reconciled 
 to his family. For his own jiart he intended to put by 
 all thought of love and marriage, and give up his life, 
 while reason and strength remained to him, to the 
 afflicted of his desolated household. But stage by stage he 
 returned to the things of the world. Mary came back to 
 reason and to a quiet and touching consciousness of 
 what had happened, and death took their father from his 
 imbecility. Then the sun beg.an to shine with a subdued 
 radiance on the lives of brother and sister. Charles 
 wrote poetry as before, and when a second edition of 
 Coleridge's poems appeared in 1797 the little volume 
 included poems both by Lamb and Lloyd. Let us reflect 
 on the ennobling effects of noble pain, and we may be 
 pardoned for wondering that after passing through this 
 furnace of affliction Charles Lamb did not grow to a yet 
 loftier stature of manhood. The marvel is not so much 
 that he was great, as that he was not greater.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 AT Stowey, affairs went on satisfactorily. " We arc 
 all — wife, bantling, and self, remarkably well." 
 Coleridge wrote : " Mrs. Coleridge loves Stowey, and 
 loves Thomas Poole and his mother, who love her. . . . Our 
 house is better than we expected — there is a comfortable 
 bedroom and sitting-room for C. Lloyd, and another for 
 us, a room for Nanny, a kitchen and out-house. . . . ^^'c 
 have a pretty garden, . . . and I am already an expert 
 gardener, and both my hands can exhibit a callum as 
 testimonials of their industry. ... A communication has 
 been made from our orchard into T. Poole's garden, and 
 from thence to Cruikshank's, a friend of mine, and a 
 young married man, whose wife is very amiable, , . . and 
 from all this you will conclude we are happy." Succeeding 
 letters give hint of a less favourable condition. Il turned 
 out that Charles Lloyd was subject to fits, and ihc 
 domestic quiet of Coleridge'w home was thereby seriously 
 disturbed. Immediately before the removal from Bristol, 
 Coleridge met for the first time William Wordsworth, the 
 author of " Descriptive Sketches," the !x)ok which in his 
 judgment had signalized the advent of a great jvoctic 
 genius. Wordsworth, the son of an attorney, was bora
 
 CO LIFE OF 
 
 in Cockermouth, Cumljcrland, about two years before 
 Coleridge's birth in Devonshire. At seventeen he went 
 up to Cambridge, and in 1791, wlien Coleridge was 
 preparing to enter the University, Wordsworth was 
 preparing to l(Jave it. They had not met at Cambridge, 
 and Coleridge's first knowledge of Wordsworth was 
 gathered from the poems published in 1 793. Wordsworth 
 went from Cambridge to London, stayed there some 
 time, and then visited North Wales on a pedestrian tour 
 with a friend. Coleridge took the same course three 
 years later. In the autumn of 1791, Wordsworth went 
 to Paris, and from thence to Orleans and Blois, remain* 
 ing abroad some thirteen months. Between the beginning 
 of 1793, when Coleridge was being enmeshed in the debts 
 which led to his career as a dragoon, and the beginning of 
 1 796, Wordsworth lived among friends in London and else- 
 where. He had been counselled to take orders, and was 
 olTcred a curacy at Harwich, but his sympathies were, at 
 least temporarily, estranged from the Church. He tried 
 to establish a newspaper. 'Jhc scheme came to nothing, 
 and a good deal of political enthusiasm on the side of 
 the democracy found no immediate outlet. A friend 
 named Calvert, left him a legacy of ;^9oo, and on the 
 interest of this sum he contrived to live. His volume 
 of poetry had no special success. The Monthly Revinu 
 (' 793)1 a recognized authority, reviewed the book in 
 these terms : " More descriptive poetry 1 Have we not 
 yet enough? Must eternal changes be rung on upland 
 and lowland, and nodding forests, and brooding clouds, 
 and cells, and dells, and dingles ? Yes ; more and yet 
 more : so it is decreed." The critic quoted the familiar
 
 SAMUEL TA VLOR COLERIDGE. Gl 
 
 simile about the purple morning falling over the mountain- 
 side in flakes of light, and expressed sorrow at seeing the 
 purple morning confined so like a maniac in a strait- 
 waistcoat. Such was Wordsworth's reception. In 1797, 
 he held no i)ositi()n as a poet. Ucfore this time Coleridge 
 was beginning to be talked about. Wordsworth had 
 heard of him, and he went over to Bristol to see him. 
 He was then settled with his sister, Dorothy Wordswortli, 
 a woman of education and refined feeling, at Racedown 
 in Dorsetshire. Rather later Coleridge visited Words 
 worth, and was much stimulated by his conversation. 
 They h.id a good deal in common. Their political 
 sympathies were akin, and their poetic taste was similiar. 
 Both were at work on tragedies, Coleridge's tragedy 
 " Osorio," having been begun in the hope — not without 
 grounds of assurance — that Sheridan would consider it 
 for Drury Lane. Wordsworth's tragedy, "The Borderers," 
 was to be introduced to the manager of Covent Garden. 
 *' I am sojourning for a few days at Racedown, Dorset, 
 the mansion of our friend Wordsworth ; who presents his 
 kindest regards to you," writes Coleridge to Collie. 
 '• Wordsworth admires my tragedy, which gives mc great 
 hopes. Wordsworth has written a tragedy himself. I 
 speak with heart-felt sincerity, and, I think, unl>linded 
 judgment, when I tell you that I feel myself a little man 
 by his side, and yet I do not think myself a less man 
 than I formerly thought myself. His drama is absolutely 
 wonderful." At a later date Coleridge writes with yet 
 more emphasis : " The giant Wordsworth — Cod love 
 him I When I speak in the terms of admiration due to 
 his intellect, I fear lest these terms should keep out of
 
 62 LIFE OF 
 
 sight the aniiablcness of his manners. He has written 
 near twelve hundred hncs of blank verse, superior, I 
 hesitate not to aver, to anything in our language which 
 any way resembles it." Wordsworth's impressions of 
 Coleridge can hardly have been less favourable than 
 language like this implies. When Coleridge removed to 
 Stowey, Wordsworth removed to Alfoxden, to be near 
 enough to enjoy Coleridge's society. It is from Dorothy 
 Wordsworth that we get the record of the early days of the 
 friendship now begun. " Coleridge is a wonderful man," 
 she writes, "his face teems with mind, soul, and spirit. 
 Then he is so benevolent, so good-tempered and cheerful. 
 ... At first I thought him plain — that is, for about three 
 minutes : he is pale, thin, has a wide mouth, thick lips, 
 and not very good teeth, longish, loose-growing, half- 
 curling, rough black hair. , . . His eye is large and full, 
 and not very dark, but grey, such an eye as would receive 
 from a heavy soul the dullest expression ; but it speaks 
 every emotion of his animated mind : it has more of 'the 
 poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling,' than I have ever 
 witnessed. He has fine dark eyebrows, and over-hanging 
 forehead." Of Wordsworth's sister, Coleridge has left an 
 equally graphic picture. " She is a woman indeed ! " he 
 said, " in mind, I mean, and heart ; for her person is 
 such, that if you expected to see a pretty woman you 
 would think her rather ordinary ; if you expected to see 
 an ordinary woman you would think her pretty ! " 
 There is a suspicion that Coleridge's wife was not altogether 
 so well pleased with her new neighbours. Miss Words- 
 worth is said to have angered Mrs. Coleridge by making 
 free with her shawls, and by taking long walks with her
 
 SAMUEL TA YLOR COLERIDGE. G8 
 
 husband. Such were the beginnings of one of the most 
 memorable of hterary friendships. It resulted in a poetic 
 movement of the highest importance in the history of 
 English letters ; and it was beautiful, and pathetic, and 
 lasting in itself. No doubt each of these vigorous and 
 original minds influenced the other ; but it would be 
 vain to try to estimate the reciprocation of influence. 
 
 The friends met often, and their conversation turned 
 contantly on two cardinal points of poetry, " the power of 
 exciting the sympathy of the reader by a faithful adherence 
 to the truth of nature, and the power of giving the interest 
 of novelty by the modifying colours of the im.igiiiiilion." 
 They thought of the sudden charm wliich moonlight or 
 sunset gives to a familiar landscape, and this combina- 
 tion of the actual and familiar with the glamour of the 
 supernatural appeared to say that the two cardinal points 
 of poctiy — reality and imagination — might be united. 
 The thought then suggested itself, that on this basis a 
 scries of poems could be composed of two sorts. In the 
 one the incidents and agents were to be in part super- 
 natural ; in the other, the characters and incidents were 
 to be chosen from ordinary village life. Coleridge was 
 to direct himself to the romantic element, and to give to 
 supernatural incidents the reality of human interest. 
 Wordsworth, on the other hand, was to propose to him- 
 self a series of realistic themes, and to give a charm 
 analogous to that of the supernatural to things of every- 
 day life. The result of this idea was the poems known 
 as the " Lyrical Ballads." Coleridge wrote for his share 
 •• The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," " The Dark 
 Ladie," and the first part of "Christabel." Wordsworth
 
 C4 LIFE OF 
 
 ■wrote a much larger body of poetry in pursuance of the 
 scheme. 
 
 This account of the origin of the " Lyrical Ballads" is 
 practically Coleridge's. But Wordsworth's statement, 
 though not irreconcilable with that of his brother poet, is 
 distinctly more prosaic. Wordsworth says that in the 
 autumn of 1797 he started from Alfoxdcn with his sister 
 and Coleridge, with a view to visit Linton and the 
 Valley of Rocks. The united funds were very small, 
 and they agreed to defray the expenses of the tour by 
 writing a poem to be sent to The Afont/ily Magazine. 
 Accordingly, in the course of their walk, they planned 
 the poem of the " Ancient Mariner," founded on a dream 
 of a friend of Coleridge, the Mr. Cruikshank who was his 
 neighbour at Stowcy. Much the greater part of the story 
 was Coleridge's invention, but certain parts Wordsworth 
 suggested. "For example," says Wordsworth, "some 
 crime to be committed which would bring upon the Old 
 Navigator, as Coleridge afterwards delighted to call him, 
 the spectral persecution, as a consequence of that crime 
 and his own wanderings. I had been reading in Shcl- 
 vocke's 'Voyages,' a day or two before, that, while 
 doubling Cape Horn, they frequently saw albatrosses in 
 that latitude, the largest sort of sea-fowl, some extending 
 their wings twelve or thirteen feet. 'Suppose,' said I, 
 • you represent him as having killed one of these birds on 
 entering the South Sea, and that the tutelary spirits of 
 these regions take upon them to avenge the crime ? ' 
 The incident was thought fit for the purpose, and adopted 
 accordingly." The poets began the composition together 
 on that evening, but their respective manners proved so
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. G5 
 
 ^\-iclcly different, that ^^'ordsworth withdrew from the 
 undertaking. In Coleridge's hands the poem grew until 
 it became too important for their first object, whicli 
 was limited to the earning of five pounds, and they began 
 to think of a volume which was to consist of poems 
 chiefly on supernatural subjects. 
 
 It is certain that Coleridge's poetic genius was much 
 stimulated by Wordsworth's conversation. IJesides 
 writing the " Ancient Mariner," " The Dark Ladie," and 
 the first part of " Christabel " — poems that were intended 
 to realize the preconceived ideal — Coleridge finished his 
 tragedy " Osorio," and wrote " The Three Graves," 
 " Fears in Solitude," " France, an Ode," and " Ku])Ia 
 Khan,"' during the period in which he and Wordsworth 
 
 ' The circvimstrinccs .iUcn<ling the composition of " KuI)Li Klian " 
 nrc sufficiently curious to merit a scp.irate statement. This is Cole- 
 ridge's account : " In the summer of the year 1797, the author, then 
 ill ill health, had retired to a lonely farmhouse between Porlock and 
 Lynton, on the Exmoor confines of Somerset and Devonshire. In 
 consequence of a slight intlisposition, an anodyne had been pre- 
 scribed, from the effect of which he fell asleep in his chair at the 
 moment that he was reading the following sentence, or words of the 
 same substance, in ' Purchas's Pilgrimage ' : 'Here the Khan 
 Kubla commanded a palace to be built, and a stately garden there- 
 unto : and thus ten miles of fertile ground were inclosed with a 
 wall.' The author continued for about three hours in a profound 
 sleep, at least of the external senses, during which time he has the 
 most vivid confidence, that he could not have composed less than 
 from two to three hundred lines ; if that indeed can be called com- 
 position in which all the images rose up before him as things, with 
 a parallel pro<luction of the corresiwndent expressions, without any 
 sensation or consciousness of effort. On awaking he ajipeareil to 
 himself to have a distinct recollection of the whole, and taking his 
 pen, ink, and paper, instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines that 
 
 5
 
 CO LIFE OF 
 
 were near neighbours. That period was probably the 
 happiest in his hfe. Free from pecuniary embarrass- 
 ments, Coleridge was no longer singing like the nightin- 
 gale with his breast against a thorn. His earnings must 
 have been inconsiderable. He was probably writing for 
 The Morning C/tronicU, Tlic Critical Revira<^ and occa- 
 sionally for The Monthly Magazine. His exi)enses were 
 small, and Charles Lloyd was there to share them. 
 That domestic partnership must have had its humiliating 
 side ; it certainly had its vexatious accompaniment ; but 
 Coleridge does not seem to have complained. With 
 small earnings and small necessities, and the work and the 
 society he loved, he appears to have lived a life of more 
 thorough content than had fallen to his lot before. 
 Charles I>amb and his sister visited him at Stowey, and 
 made the acquaintance of Lloyd. Cottle was with him 
 also. Wordsworth, his sister, Coleridge, and Cottle made 
 one memorable excursion of pleasure. The party set 
 out from JJristol in a gig, well laden with philosophers' 
 viands, a bottle of brandy, a loaf, a piece of cheese, and 
 a bunch of lettuces. On the road they gave something 
 to a beggar, and the sturdy ingrate is suspected of having 
 extracted their cheese while they were gazing at the 
 clouds. They realized their loss at the moment when 
 
 arc here preserved. At this moment he was unfortunately called 
 out by a person on business from I'orlock, and detained by him 
 above an hour, and on his return to his room, found, to his no small 
 surprise and mortification, tliat though he still retained some vague 
 and dim rccolleclion of the general purport of the vision, yet with 
 the exception of some eight or ten scattered lines and images, all the 
 rest had passed away like the images on the surface of a stream into 
 which a stone had been cast."
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 07 
 
 they drove into the courtyard of the house wherein ihcy 
 intended to dine ; and there a more unwonted adventure 
 iiwaited them. The horse was taken out of tlic gig 
 and led to the stable. 01)viously the harness had to be 
 taken off, but to remove the collar proved to be a per- 
 plexing difficulty. Cottle and Wordsworth attempted 
 the task, and both relincpiished it as impracticable. Then 
 Coleridge, the ex-dragoon, tried his hand, and soon 
 showed such grooming skill tliat he almost twisted the 
 horse's neck to strangulation, affirming that it must have 
 grown by dropsy or gout since the collar was put on. At 
 their utmost point of despair, a servant girl came up 
 and said, " La, master, you do not go about the work in 
 the right way ; you should do like this," and then she 
 turned the collar upside down, and slipped it off in a 
 moment. 
 
 Wordsworth and Coleridge made many excursions 
 over the Quantock Hills. Their occupations being 
 unknown to the peasantry, the rumour became current 
 that they were conspirators meditating an outrage. This 
 blunder went so far that a si)y was sent down to watch 
 their movements. One night the fellow got drunk at the 
 inn, and told his errand and history. 
 
 In 1798 Cottle published at Bristol the first volume of 
 the " Lyrical Ballads," containing, as Coleridge's contri- 
 bution, " The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," " The 
 Foster Mother's Tale," "The Nightingale," and "The. 
 Dungeon." The book was put forth anonymously, 
 and produced no special imi)rcssion. It was alluded 
 to in The Monthly Review, and in The Critical Ra'iao 
 — in the latter by Southey in all probability — but
 
 68 LIFE OF 
 
 the chief organs of critical opinion ignored it. The 
 publisher lost by the transaction, and when in the course 
 of the year he disposed of his business to Longmans, of 
 London, he set down the copyright of the joint book at 
 nil. If the poets had been supported by the hope of 
 pecuniary benefit they were of course disappointed. To 
 Coleridge the earnings of a successful book would have 
 been a very material thing. His old embarrassments 
 were beginning to reappear. Charles Lloyd had left his 
 house. The rupture between Lloyd and Coleridge seems 
 to have arisen out of three playful sonnets satirical of 
 the poems of Lloyd, Lamb, and Coleridge, which had 
 appeared in an early number of The Monthly MiV^azi/te. 
 The sonnets published pseudonymously were written by 
 Coleridge, and they were undoubtedly intended to ridicule 
 the peculiarities of the three authors who contributed to the 
 "Poems " published in 1797. To satirize himself anony- 
 mously was one of Coleridge's best pleasures. He did 
 it again and again. But on this occasion he included 
 two of his friends in his satire, and the result was a 
 breach of friendship. Lloyd took early occasion to leave 
 Coleridge's house, and Lamb, professing to have anothci 
 cause of anger, addressed to Coleridge a most bitter 
 letter of masked good-will on general topics, not directly 
 dealing with their private relations. The separation from 
 Lloyd must have led to material difficulties. I^imb's 
 letter was, in truth, no less than an atrocious outrage 
 inflicted in punishment of such a playful offence. Cole- 
 ridge was greatly hurt, and handed the letter to Cottle, 
 saying, •' These young visionaries will do each other no 
 good." Just at that time Lamb went on a visit to Lloyd
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. C9 
 
 at his father's home, and wc arc told that ho had never 
 appeared more cheerful. This was the only cstranj^o- 
 ment that ever divided Coleridge and Lamb. rrobai)Iy 
 it did not last long. No doubt both suffered from it. 
 In one notable place Lamb touches with the bitterness 
 of remorse on the freak of passion that had imperilled 
 the love of a lifetime ; and it may be gathered that Cote- 
 ridge's self-reproach was no less hard to bear. We know- 
 that the first part of " Christabel" was written in 1797. 
 Is it possible that the noble passage on divided friends, 
 which occurs in the second part of that poem, was written 
 about 1798, and had a separate existence? The joining 
 up of the allusion to Sir Leolinc and Roland is certainly 
 clumsy, and suggests interpolation. Is it not probable 
 that the passage had a personal significance, and that 
 Lamb guessed its bearing ? We know that when the 
 wise critics were unanimous in the opinion that " Christa- 
 bel " was the " best nonsense-poetry ever written," Laiivlj 
 was wont to say that the passage in question was enough 
 to redeem it. In later years Lamb attributed the tem- 
 porary estrangement to Lloyd's tattling. " He (Lloyd) is 
 a sad tattler," he writes to Coleridge in 1820, " but this 
 is under the rose. Twenty years ago he estranged one 
 friend from me quite, whom I have been regretting, but 
 never could regain since. He almost alienated you also' 
 from me, or me from you, I don't know which ; but that 
 breach is closed. The ' dreary sea ' is filled up."
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ^ J /'"^OLERIDGE'S material condition had never been 
 ^-—^ worse than it was in the summer of 1798. He 
 was twenty-seven years of age, and had now two cliildrcn. 
 In his first winter at Bristol his prospects had been 
 brighter. He had tried many experiments towards a 
 livelihood, and all had ended in failure. Lectures, 
 poems, T/ic U'akJiiiiaii, the critical reviews, — the result of 
 every attempt had been the same. He was nothing loth 
 to engage in very small literary enterprises, pocketing 
 meantime his pride as a writer. His friend Cottle was 
 no longer in business as a bookseller, and his reputation 
 was not large enough to interest publishers with whom he 
 had no bond of friendship. The tragedy on which he 
 had built some hope of substantial gains had been 
 ignored by Sheridan, and rejected by the manager at 
 Covent Garden. Charles Lloyd had ceased to contribute 
 to the expenses of the household, having set up his 
 childish vanity against the abstract advantages of Cole- 
 ridge's conversation as a philosopher, and the material 
 advantages of his company as a nurse. Small debts, 
 more humbling than larger embarrassments, debts to his 
 shoemaker, his grocer, to his motheri-n-law, and even to
 
 LIFE OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 71 
 
 his scnant girl, were constantly arising to vex him. He 
 had no fixed sources of income, or none that rcprcscnicd 
 greater earnings than a guinea a week. Never was a 
 man of great mental activity and adequate physical 
 energy, a man with a larger capacity, and a keener 
 anxiety for work, more hopelessly adrift in casual and 
 unremunerative enterprises. Yet he had never lost a 
 chance. He had never really had a chance. If in the 
 early days of his career at Bristol some practical person 
 had offered him a clerkship at a hundred a year, and he 
 had rejected it, there would be more reason than there is 
 to suspect Coleridge of deficiency in worldly wisdom. 
 The earnings from the poems Avere a calculable quantity, 
 and — Cottle's story notwithstanding — we have Colo- 
 ridge's authority for saying that only fifteen of the thirty 
 pounds were received. An offer made by the bookseller 
 of a guinea and a half for every additional hundred lines 
 of verse was an indefinite commission such as rarely 
 stimulates the energy of a man who writes for his bread. 
 It is doubtful if Coleridge ever availed himself of it. 
 The lectures at Bristol were not highly remunerative, 
 and the only accusation against Coleridge's practical 
 spirit in that regard is that, for reasons not given, he 
 broke one of his engagements. That the subscribers 
 withdrew from The Watchman in such numbers as to 
 make the journal an unprofitable speculation may be a 
 charge against Coleridge's ability as a journalist, but it 
 is certainly not an impeachment of his common sense. 
 And if he engaged in the composition of a tragedy with- 
 out sufficient knowledge of the mechanism of the stage, 
 he did not do so without the advice and encouragement
 
 72 LIFE OF 
 
 of one whose practical knowledge was beyond question. 
 In short, liic fact is clear that down to the autumn of 
 1798, Coleridge struggled on bravely at enormous odds, 
 exhibiting throughout a sufficient equipment for life's 
 battle. If moral weakness showed itself at a later period, 
 the cause of the degeneration also became apparent. 
 Meantime let it be said, with whatever emphasis the plain 
 facts may justify, that vain and visionary as the youthful 
 system called I'antisocrasy may appear, and mucli as \vc 
 are wont to glance down at it with something of Mal- 
 volio's "demure travel of regard," the idea of betaking 
 himself to America to farm tlie untouched j)rairie was as 
 reasonable and practical a scheme as any other in which 
 for four years afterwards Coleridge was permitted to 
 engage. I'antisocrasy was not a wliit less feasilile, 
 honourable, dignified, or hopeful than lecturing on French 
 politics, and condensing English parliamentary reports, 
 scribbling occasional verses, and talking philosophy and 
 poetry for the benefit of the well-to-do young Birmingham 
 gentleman of literary tastes, who paid for the poet's con- 
 versation, plus the use of his parlour and best bedroom. 
 
 Vexed by debts, and harassed by other troubles, 
 Coleridge's mind seems to have reverted to the pulpit as 
 •.a means of livelihood. A Unitarian chapel at Shrews- 
 bury made him an offer, and he went down to that town 
 early in 1798, to fulfil the ministerial duties. There he 
 met a youth, William Hazlitt, who was to play an im- 
 portant part in his career as a public man. Hazlitt's 
 father was a Dissenting Minister about ten miles from 
 Shrewsbury, and he had himself been brought up with a 
 view to the ministry, but had already abandoned that
 
 SAMUEL TA YLOR COLERIDGE. T.\ 
 
 profession in favour of art. Coleridge lodged wiih ilic 
 Hazlitts during his stay in Shrewsbury, and Ha/!ilt 
 has left a vivid i>ortrait of the poet as he appeared 
 at this time. " His complexion," hc says, "was at that 
 time clear and even bright. . . . His forehead was broad 
 and high, light as if built of ivory, with large projecting 
 eyebrows, and his eyes rolled beneath them like a sea 
 with darkening lustre. . . . His mouth was gross, volup- 
 tuous, open, eloquent ; his chin good-humoured and 
 round ; but his nose, the rudder of the face, the index of 
 the will, was small, feeble, nothing — like what he has 
 done. . . . Coleridge in his person was rather above the 
 common size, inclining to be coq^ulent. . . , His hair 
 {now, alas ! grey) was then black and glossy as the 
 raven's, and fell in smooth masses over his forehead." 
 More interesting still is Hazlilt's account of Coleridge's 
 extraordinary powers of extempore .speech in the pulpiL 
 The effect produced by the poet on the young art 
 aspirant was that of a man whose insight amounletl to 
 inspiration, whose gifts were the summit of genius. 
 
 Coleridge did not retain the Shrewsbury pulpit. Trom 
 that fresh form of intellectual slavery he was saved by 
 the brotherly liberality of the brothers Wcdgewood. 
 Two of this notable fiamily of potters, Thomas and Josiah, 
 sons of the first Josiah, who originated the art of ]:^nglish 
 pottery, had become friends of Coleridge in the time of 
 The Watchman. They were rich men, and they were 
 lionestly interested both in their friend and in his pursuits. 
 Regarding with dismay the probability that the duties of 
 the pulpit might endanger the development of Coleridge's 
 genius as a poet, they made him the ofler of a pension of
 
 74 LIFE OF 
 
 p/^150 a year (^75 to come from each), on condition that 
 he would devote himself to the work for which nature 
 had given him his best equipment. The ofler reached 
 the poet while he was staying with the Hazlitts, and 
 Hazlitt tells us that he seemed to make up his mind to 
 close with the proposal in the act of tying on one of his 
 shoes. 'I'o learn the Cicrman langu.ngc as a step towards 
 the practical work of translation had been for some time 
 a plan that Coleridge had cherished, and the Wedge- 
 woods appear to have added to the pension the tender 
 of the expenses that would be incurred in a tour into 
 Germany. 
 
 Coleridge came to a decision with reasonable prompti- 
 tude. He abandoned both the Unitarian pulpit and the 
 Unitarian belief. Settling his pension on his wife and 
 family, he set out from Stowey for Germany in the com- 
 pany of Wordsworth and his sister, whose expenses were 
 probably defrayed by the friends who had provided for his 
 own. This was in September, 1798. The party sailed 
 to Hamburgh. There the poets visited Klopstock — 
 Klubstick as Coleridge nicknamed him — who was then 
 an old man. The friends then separated. Wordsworth 
 and his sister spent a bitter winter at Goslar. Coleridge 
 went on to Rat/.eburg, and established \\\\\\^c\{ en pension 
 with the parson. " You have two things against you," 
 Coleridge wrote to Wordsworth after they had parted : 
 " your not loving smoke, and your sister. If the manners of 
 Goslar resemble those of Ratzeburg, it is almost necessary 
 to be able to bear smoke. Can Dorothy endure smoke ? 
 Here, when my friends come to see me, the candle nearly 
 goes out, the air is so thick." From this it would appear
 
 SAMUEL TA YLOR COLERIDGE. 75 
 
 that Coleridge's memorable experiences at tiie liousc of 
 the Hirmingham patriot were not without their good 
 effects, that he was already under weigh as a student of 
 the language, and that the brilliant volubility which had 
 distinguished him in England was producing its familiar 
 eflccts in Germany also. He spent four months at Ratze- 
 burg, and went on to Gottingen, where, during a five 
 months' residence, he attended lectures on physiology and 
 natural histof}'. Then he made a tour into the Hartz 
 Mountains in the company of three or four men whose 
 names became somewhat famous. His companions 
 descril)c him as ill-dressed and slovenly. He was the soul 
 of the party. Rhyming and poetizing, singing and punning, 
 and discoursing in eloquent monologue, as was his wont, 
 on ever)' subject, from the captivity of nations to the near 
 approach of the millennium. He wrote home a series of 
 letters on his German tour, and they were published 
 many years later, 'i'hesc letters, entitled " .Satyrane'.s 
 Letters," exhibit Coleridge's powers in a new direction. 
 Brilliant in style, full of suggestion, showing rare powers 
 of observation, keen sense of character, and a fine, racy 
 humour, they prove conclusively that Coleridge was not 
 dependent on his much-abused metaphysics for whatever 
 distinction he achieved as a prose writer. He remained 
 abroad rather less than a year, and had then acquired a 
 mastery of the German language. In June, 1799, he 
 bade farewell to Germany, and received a farewell supper 
 at the house of Professor Blumenbach, at Gottingen. 
 His health was proposed — of course amid thick air — and 
 he replied to the toast in fluent German, but with an 
 execrable accent. He arrived in England sometime in
 
 7G LIFE OF 
 
 July, proceeded at once toStowcy, and remained at home 
 with his wife and children until the end of August. Then 
 he made a tour into Westmoreland with Wordsworth, 
 who was beginning to think of settling there ; and in 
 November he came up to London, took lodgings in 
 Buckingham Street, Strand, and set himself to translate 
 Schiller's " Wallenstein" from a manuscript which had 
 been lent him. In the short space of six weeks the trans- 
 lation was complete. " It is a specimen of my happiest 
 attempt," says Coleridge, " during the prime manhood of 
 my intellect, before I had been buffeted by adversity or 
 crossed by fatality." The translation is unquestionably a 
 noble production — perhaps the finest example extant of 
 poetry translated into poetry. It is an amusing fact that 
 one of the best passages in the translation had no counter- 
 part in the original. Under the impulse of strong feeling 
 the translator had interpolated the passage where the 
 poet's ardour seemed to wane, and so strongly did Schiller 
 feel its beauty and its fitness, that when he came to print 
 his trilogy in Germany, he translated Coleridge's passage 
 into German. Neither poet nor translator made any note 
 of the liberties taken with each other. Longmans pub- 
 lished Coleridge's "Wallenstein" in 1800, but the book 
 fell quite dead in the market. Schiller had no vogue in 
 England then, and Coleridge was only beginning to be 
 known. 
 
 The guinea a week which represented Coleridge's only 
 reliable income in the summer of 1798 came from Daniel 
 Stuart, proprietor of The Morning Post, with whom he 
 had agreed to supply occasional verses for that small 
 fixed sum. The poetry which Coleridge published in
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 77 
 
 The ^roriiin^ Chronicle in the days of the "Salutation anii 
 Cat," liad attracted attention, and even more success of 
 its kind attached to the poetry printed in The Watchman, 
 These were days when serious literature was a factor to 
 be counted with in the columns of a daily newspaper, 
 and when occasional poetry had a vocation which even 
 the leaders of pul)lic opinion could not ignore. Long 
 afterwards Stuart tried to pass it off that he took Coleridge 
 at the request of Mackintosh out of charity, merely to 
 keep him from starvation. This statement is of a piece 
 with certain other statements from the same dubious 
 quarter. Coleridge contributed anonymously to Tlic 
 Alorning Post a number of light pieces and some serious 
 efforts, and certain of them created nothing short of a 
 furore. Before going to Germany he had printed his 
 •' lire. Famine, and Slaughter." After returning home 
 he resumed his journalistic poetizing, and printed "The 
 Devil's Walk." The former piece provoked a good deal 
 of hostile feeling. It represented the deities of the title 
 meeting in conference to describe their triumphs, and 
 answering to the question of who unchained them, with 
 a mysterious allusion to the name of Pitt. Its sentiment 
 was said by some critics to be no less than diabolical. 
 The question, " Could the writer have been other than a 
 devil? "was di.scussed at a London dinner-table in the 
 presence of the author. 
 
 Coleridge's connection with The Morning Post soon 
 became a matter of consequence. Towards the end of 
 1799 he undertook the literary and political departments 
 of the paper, had Wordsworth, Lamb, and Southcy 
 among his contributors, and effected such changes in its
 
 78 LIFE OF 
 
 policy and in its popularity, that in a short time it more 
 than doubled its circulation. Such at least was his own, 
 if not Stuart's, account. Here at last was his first real 
 chance in life. How did he deal with it? He developed 
 into a journalist of extraordinary fecundity and resource. 
 Stuart tried to prove the contrary, but the clear facts 
 were all against him. Coleridge had, in a remarkable 
 degree, the assimilative faculty which every successful 
 journalist must possess. He wrote on a great variety of 
 subjects with infinite allusiveness, as well as thoroughness 
 of research. There is no reason to think that he ex- 
 aggerated the eflects of his labours. We have the mate- 
 rial evidence of his employer's satisfaction. In March, 
 1800, after Coleridge had been four months at work, Stuart, 
 according to Coleridge's account, offered him half-shares 
 in his two papers, the Post and the Courier. In a letter 
 to Poole of Stowey, Coleridge says, that if he had the least 
 love of money he "could make sure of ;^2,ooo a year," 
 if he would devote himself to the two papers in conjunction 
 with the proprietor. But Coleridge's heart was already set 
 on a different kind of life. " I told him," he says, " that I 
 could not give up the country and the lazy reading of old 
 folios for two thousand times two thousand pounds — in 
 short, that beyond ;^35o a year, I considered money as 
 a real evil." In the summer of 1800 Coleridge quitted 
 London and went up to the Lake Country. Wordsworth 
 was already settled there, having rented and furnished 
 a tiny cottage at Town End, Grasmere. Coleridge took 
 half of Greta Hall, near Keswick, at twenty-five pounds 
 a year. Like the Ancient Mariner, the old folios had 
 their will.
 
 SAMUEL TA YLOR COLERIDGE. 79 
 
 Coleridge continued for two years more to write for 
 The Morning Post, but his one great chance of material 
 advantage had been permitted to go by without producing 
 the temptation of a moment. It is easy to see that 
 such an offer might have changed the whole current of 
 his life. He might have become a man of substance as 
 wc say, but he deliberately elected to run his risk of being 
 "buffeted by adversity." Does this show a deficiency in 
 worldly w isdom ? It is not for us to say so, who know 
 what Coleridge's powers were, how much they might 
 have put forth under favourable conditions, and how 
 surely they must have been paralysed by the daily demands 
 of journalism. If in the sequel those powers disappointed 
 his own hopes, his judgment at this juncture i.s not 
 chargeable with a fatality which he could not foresee. ■ 
 Literature has lost little by the circumstance that Cole- 
 ridge did not continue to write leaders to the day of his 
 death. The only serious loss was the material one, and 
 that was his own, and, if any one shall say that it was his 
 children's loss also, the answer must be that in denying , 
 himself ;^2, GOO a year by leaving London for Keswick, 
 Coleridge did not cut off the possibility of the jC7,S° ^ 
 year, beyond which all money was considered an evil.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 GRETA HALL stands on the banks of the beautiful 
 (Ircta, over against Latrigg, a hill at the foot of 
 Skiddaw. In 1800 it was divided into two tenements, 
 separated by a wall. Coleridge occupied one tenement, 
 and the owner, Mr, Jackson, a waggoner, occupied the 
 other. The house is on a site which for picturesqueness 
 has few equals in England. Below lies a valley about 
 as large as the basin of Windermere. In this valley 
 there are two lakes, Derwent water to the south, Eas- 
 senlhwaite to the north, connected by a winding 
 river, the Derwent. Between these sheets of water, 
 the little town of Keswick stands. From Greta Hall 
 the range of view is infinite in its variety of colour and 
 form. To the right, you look past Castle Head and 
 I^dore to the mouth of Borrowdalc, with Scaw Fell over 
 the tops of many peaks. In front, you look into 
 Newlands ; beyond Cat Bells to the Eel Crags and 
 Hindsgarth. Behind you is Skiddaw with its great 
 chasms and bald crown. " A fairer scene," said Cole- 
 ridge, "you have not seen in all your wanderings." It 
 was natural that the poet's romantic work should grow 
 amid such surroundings. Soon after settling there in
 
 LIFE OF SAMUEL TA YLOR COLERIDGE. 81 
 
 1800 he wrote the second part of " Christabcl." There 
 is little or no attempt at what is called local colour in 
 this poem, but some Lake-country-place names arc intro- 
 duced. 
 
 '.' Christabcl" was never finished. In later years Cole- 
 ridge was wont to say that if a genial recurrence of the 
 ray divine should occur for a few weeks he would attempt 
 the completion of the poem. "If I should finisli' 
 "Christabcl," he said on one occasion, " I shall certainly 
 extend it and give new characters, and a greater number. 
 ... I had the whole of the two cantos in my mind 
 before I began it ; certainly the first canto is more perfect, 
 has more of the true wild weird spirit than the last." 
 Wordsworth had no idea how the poem was to finish, 
 and did not think that the author had ever conceived 
 a definite plan. Coleridge's first biographer, however, 
 supplies from the poet's conversation a sketch of the 
 jiroposed conclusion. The incidents are few as far as 
 the poem goes. Christabcl is surprised in a wood by 
 a supernatural being, who personates the dauglUer, 
 Geraldine, of an estranged friend of her lather, Sir Lcolinc. 
 This being tells Sir Leohnc a tale of outrage and abandon- 
 ment, and he determines to restore her to his old friend 
 her father. He is about to despatch his Bard Bracy with 
 good tidings and a message of reconciliation to Lord 
 Roland de Vaux, when his own daughter, Christabcl, 
 betrays a strange and inexplicable repugnance to the 
 being known as Geraldine, and prays that she may be 
 sent away. With this posture of affairs the fragment 
 ends. " The following relation was," says Mr. Gillman, 
 "to have occupied a third and fourth canto, and to have 
 6
 
 82 LIFE OF 
 
 closed the tale. Over the mountains, the Bard, as 
 directed by Sir Leolinc, hastes with his disciple ; but in 
 consequence of one of those inundations supposed to be 
 common to this country, the spot only where the castle once 
 stood is discovered — the edifice itself being washed away. 
 He determines to return. Gcraldinc being acquainted 
 with all that is passing, like the weird sisters in Macbeth, 
 vanishes. Re-appearing, however, she awaits the return 
 of the Bard, exciting in the meantime, by her wily arts, 
 all the anger she could rouse in the Baron's breast, as 
 well as that jealousy of which he is described to have 
 been susceptible. The old Bard and the youth at length 
 arrive, and therefore- she can no logger personate the 
 character of Geraldine, the daughter of Lord Roland de 
 Vaux, but changes her appearance to that of the accepted 
 though absent lover of Christabcl. Now ensues a court- 
 ship most distressing to Christabel, who feels, she knows 
 not why, great disgust for her once favoured knight. This 
 coldness is very painful to the Baron, who has no more 
 conception than herself of the supernatural transformation. 
 She at last yields to her father's entreaties, and consents 
 to approach the altar with this hated suitor. The real 
 lover returning, enters at this moment, and produces the 
 ring which she had once given him in sign of her betroth- 
 ment. Thus defeated, the supernatural being, Geraldine, 
 disappears. As predicted, the castle bell tolls, the 
 mother's voice is heard, and to the exceeding great joy 
 of the parties, the rightful marriage takes place, after 
 which follows a reconciliation and explanation between 
 the father and daughter." 
 
 Grasmere is twelve miles from Keswick, and though
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 83 
 
 the highroad is now good, the journey must have been 
 toilsome at the l^cginning of the century. No doubt the 
 customary path was the pack-horse road inside (ioldcn 
 Howe, and along the western bank of Thirlnicre, to 
 Wythburn, and across the Dunniail Raise. Hence with 
 Coleridge at Greta Hall, and AN'ordsworth at Town End,. 
 Grasmere, it is not likely that the poets met very fre- 
 quently. With fair health, and sufficient work and ade- 
 quate remuneration, Coleridge appears to have passed 
 two years at Keswick with content. " I am at present 
 in better health than I have been," he writes, "though 
 by no means strong and well — and at home all is Peace 
 and Love." It would not appear that he concerned 
 himself with the dales-people about him. The strength 
 and ruggedness of these northern folk made no impression 
 upon his work. He on his part made no impression 
 upon them. Not a stor)' of Coleridge the elder scorns 
 to survive among the many traditions that gather about 
 Greta Hall. But Coleridge learned the legends of 
 Cumberland, and used some of them with great effect. 
 The only instance of his interest in local affairs is 
 that of his exertions in the case of Hatfield, the forger, 
 who betrayed the well-known " Beauty of Buttcmiere." 
 Coleridge helped to exixjse the scoundrel. 
 
 He continued to write for The Aforning Post, and at 
 the same time wrote some poetry. He kept up a corres- 
 pondence with Lamb. Th.it old friend was rising above 
 his early sorrow, and treading down at the same time 
 some of his early weaknesses. " My sentiment is long 
 since vanished. I hope my virtues have done sucking," 
 he writes. But the one was not so well banished, or the
 
 84 LIFE OF 
 
 other so well weaned, as to prevent an occasional out- 
 burst of agony at a return of the old pain. " I almost 
 wish Mary were dead," he writes, when the sense is keenest 
 of the awful tragedy that makes him a marked man. But 
 in writing to Coleridge he was generally in a sportive vein. 
 *'\Vhat do you think of smoking?" he says. "I want your 
 sober, average, noon opinion on it. . . . Morning is a 
 girl, and can't smoke — she's no evidence one way or the 
 other J and Night is so evidently bought over that lie 
 can't be a very upright judge. May be the truth is, that 
 Oiie pii)e is wholesome ; two toothsome ; tJiree pipes 
 noisome ; four pipes fulsome ; five pipes quarrelsome, 
 and that's the sum on't. . . . Bless you, old sophist, who 
 next to human nature taught me all the corruption I was 
 capable of knowing, . . . when shall we two smoke 
 ^gain ? " Can it be that much of this, and such as this, 
 was but the motley in which his great sorrow was pleased 
 to masquerade ? I^mb and his sister visited Coleridge 
 at Greta Ilall in the summer of 1S02. "Coleridge had 
 :got a blazing fire in his study," writes Lamb in August, 
 ^' which is a large, antique, ill-shaped room with an old- 
 fashioned organ never played upon, big enough for a 
 church, shelves of scattered folios, an Eolian harp, and 
 an. old sofa, half bed." The Lambs seem to have 
 enjoyed themselves greatly. The old schoolfellows 
 added to their other accomplishments that of inimitable 
 punsters. Lamb's puns got some additional effect froia 
 the impediment in his speech ; Coleridge's were more 
 humorous than witty. For three weeks these old cronies 
 of the " Salutation and Cat " punned and smoked. 
 Lamb had grown pot-valiant in the art of smoking since
 
 SAMUEL TA 1 1J)R COLERIDGE. 85 
 
 they smoked herbs mildly mixed with oronokoo in the 
 smoky tavern in Newj^'atc Street, and Coleridge had 
 gone through the memorable ordeal at Birmingliam, and 
 the smoky process of learning German in Germany. 
 Lamb and his sister went home early in September. 
 •' Mar)' is a good deal fatigued," I^amb writes, " and finds 
 the difTerence in going to a place, and coming /r^w it. I 
 feel that I shall remember your mountains to the last 
 day I live. 'I'hey haunt mc perpetually. I am like a 
 man who has been falling in love unknown to himself, 
 which he finds out when he leaves the lady." 
 
 Coleridge's health and spirits seem to have been mode- 
 rately good during these early years at Keswick. There 
 is a story which shows both his readiness in repartee and 
 his high animal spirits about this period. He was staying 
 a few days with two friends at a farmhouse, when it was 
 agreed to go to a horse race in the neighbourhood. The 
 farmer provided horses for the party — good ones for the 
 poet's two friends, and for Coleridge, whose shortcomings 
 as a horseman were known, a small, bony, angular, slow, 
 spiritless creature in a dirty bridle and with rusty stirrups. 
 The three mounted and set off. Coleridge was soon 
 left far behind. He was dressed that day in a bl.ick 
 coat with black breeches, black silk stockings, and shoes. 
 In this suit of woe he and his cuddy nicknamed a horse 
 went jogging along until they were met by a long-nosed 
 gentleman in a sporting costume. The sportsman's nose 
 quivered, and he stopped. " I'ray, sir," he said, with a 
 mighty knowing twinkle, "did you meet a tailor along 
 the road ? " "A tailor ? " " Yes, a tailor ; do you see, 
 sir, he rode just such a horse as you ride, and for all the
 
 80 LIFE OF 
 
 world was just like you!" "Oh, oh," said Coleridge, 
 " I did meet a person answering such a description, who 
 told me that he had dropped his goose, that if I rode a 
 little farther I should find it ; and I guess by the arch- 
 fellow's looks, he must have meant you ! " " Caught a 
 tartar," said the long-nosed sportsman, and he rode o(T 
 smartly. So Coleridge jogged on again, like Parson 
 Adams on a donkey, until he came to the racecourse, 
 and there he drew up by a barouche and four, containing 
 a baronet (a member of I'arliament), and several smart 
 ladies, and sundry gorgeous flunkeys. "A pretty piece 
 of blood, sir, you have there," said the baronet, with a 
 curl of the upper lip. " Yes," said Coleridge. " Rare 
 paces, I have no doubt." " Yes, he brought me here a 
 matter of four miles an hour." " Will you sell him ? " 
 •' Yes." " Name your price — rider and all." The ladies 
 began to titter. " My price for the /torse, sir, is one 
 hundred guineas — as to the rider, never having been in 
 parliament, his price is not yet fixed." The baronet had 
 enough. 
 
 Coleridge at this period was a man of great animal 
 spirits, and (strange as it may sound) of extraordinary 
 physical energy. Writing to Wedgewood, January 9, 1803, 
 he gives a most interesting and surprising picture of his 
 vigour as a mountaineer. " I write," he says, " with 
 difficulty, with all the fingers but one of my right hand 
 very much swollen. Before I was half up the Kirkstone 
 mountain, the storm had wetted me through and through, 
 and before I reached the top it was so wild and out- 
 rageous, that it would have been unmanly to have suffered 
 the poor woman (guide) to continue pushing on, up
 
 SAMUEL TA VLOR COLERIDGE. 87 
 
 ngainst such a torrent of wind and rain : so I dismounted 
 and sent her home witli the storm in her back. I am 
 no novice in mountain mischiefs, but such a storm as 
 this was, I never witnessed, combining the intensity of 
 the cold with the violence of the wind and rain. The 
 rain drops were pelted or slung against my face by the 
 gusts, just like splinters of flint, and I felt as if every 
 drop cut my flesh. My hands were all shrivelled up like 
 a washerwoman's, and so benumbed that I was obliged 
 to carry my stick under my arm. O, it was a wild 
 business ! Such hurry skurry of clouds, such volleys 
 of sound ! In spite of the wet and the cold, I should 
 have had some pleasure in it, but for two vexations ; 
 first, an almost intolerable pain came into my right eye, 
 a smarting and burning pain ; and secondly, in conse- 
 (juencc of riding with such cold water under my seat, 
 extremely uneasy and burthensomc feelings attacked my 
 groin, so that, what with the pain from die one md the 
 alarm from the other, I had no enjoy mail at all I Just 
 at the brow of the hill I met a man dismounted, 
 who could not sit on horse-back. He seemed (juito 
 scared by the uproar, and said to me, with much feeling, 
 ' O sir, it is a perilous bufleting, but it is worse for you 
 than for me, for I have it at my back.' However I got 
 safely over, and immediately all was calm and brcathle.ss, 
 as if it was some mighty fountain put on the summit of 
 Kirkstone, that shot forth its volcano of air, and precipi- 
 tated huge streams of invisible lava down the road to 
 Patterdale. I went on to Grasmcrc." 
 
 Again (Jan. 14, 1803), he writes, "You ask me ' Why, 
 in the name of goodness, I did not return when I saw
 
 88 LIFE OF 
 
 the state of the weather ? ' The true reason is simple, 
 though it may be somewliat strange. The thought never 
 once entered my head. The cause of this I suppose to 
 be, that (I do not remember it at least) I never once in 
 my whole life turned back in fear of the weather. Pru- 
 dence is a plant of which I no doubt possess some 
 valuable specimens, but they are always in my hothouse, 
 never out of the glasses, and least of all things would 
 endure the climate of the mountains. In simple earnest- 
 ness, I never find myself alone, within the embracement 
 of rocks and hills, a traveller up an alpine road, but my 
 spirit careers, drives, and eddies, like a leaf in autumn ; 
 a wild activity of thoughts, imaginations, feelings, and 
 impulses of motion rises up from within me ; a sort of 
 bottom wind, that blows to no point of the compass, 
 comes from I know not whence, but agitates the whole 
 of me ; my whole being is filled with waves that roll and 
 stumble, one this way, and one that way, like things that 
 have no common master. I think that my soul must 
 have pre-existed in the body of a chamois chaser. The 
 simple image of the old object has been obliterated, but 
 the feelings, and impulsive habits, and incipient actions, 
 are in me, and the old scenery awakens them." 
 
 The Coleridge depicted in these letters is not the 
 Coleridge of much biography and criticism, but it is 
 unquestionably the Coleridge of reality. Here is a 
 companion portrait by Wordswonh : 
 
 " Within our happy Castle there dwelt one 
 
 \Vhom without blame I may not overlook ; 
 For never sun on living creature shone 
 Who more devout enjoyment with us took :
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 80 
 
 Here on his hours he himg as on a book ; 
 On his own lime here woalil he float away, 
 
 As doth a fly ujwn a summer brook ; 
 lUit go to-morrow — or, belike, to-day — 
 Seek for him, — he is fled ; and whitlier none can say. 
 
 Thus often would he leave our peaceful home. 
 And find elsewhere his business or delight ; 
 
 Out of our volley's limits did he roam : 
 Full many a time ujion a stormy ni;ht 
 His voice came to us from the neighbouring height : 
 
 Oft did we see him driving full in view, 
 
 At midday, when the sun was shining bright ; 
 
 What ill was on him, what he had to do, 
 
 A mighty wonder bred among our quiet crew." 
 
 Towards the end of 1802 Coleridge made a tour in 
 Wales with Thomas AVedgewood, whose health was 
 failing. In 1803 he was much from home. He visited 
 the Wedgewoods in London, Poole at Stowcy, and 
 Southey at Bristol. Southcy's wife lost her only child 
 in the summer of this year, and in her sorrow she went off 
 to her sister at Keswick. Southey accompanied her, and 
 forthwith pitched his tent there, sharing Greta Hall with 
 Coleridge and their landlady. During the same summer 
 Coleridge made a tour into Scotland with Wordsworth 
 and his sister. Wordsworth had married, in the previous 
 October, an old playfellow from Penrith, Mary Hutchinson. 
 Early in his residence at Grasmere he had published, 
 with his own name only, a second series of the " Lyrical 
 Ballads," through Longmans, who paid ;^ioo for the 
 two volumes. It does not appear that Coleridge shared 
 this sum, though the " Ancient Mariner " and some four
 
 00 LIFE OF 
 
 of his other poems were still included.' The party were 
 not long together in Scotland. They visited IJurns's 
 grave, the Clyde, Loch Katrine, and the Trossachs. 
 Rogers met them in the course of the tour, " in a vehicle 
 that looked very like a cart." The weather was wet and 
 dull, and Coleridge began to suffer from rheumatism. 
 Before long, he left the Wordsworths, and returned home 
 rather hastily. " Poor Coleridge," Wordsworth wrote, 
 "was at that time in bad spirits, and somewhat too much 
 in love with his own dejection, and he departed from us." 
 Wordsworth was not often so much ruffled beneath his 
 calm exterior. He loved Coleridge as a brother, and 
 generally spoke of him with brotherly affection. 
 
 And now we are at a point of the highest importance 
 in the record of Coleridge's life. From the date of his 
 return from Scotland to Keswick, to nurse his rheumatism 
 and suppressed gout with the "Kendal Black Drop," the 
 current of his life takes a change. He had hitherto been 
 a man of enormous mental activity and sufficient physical 
 energy. His personal character had been sweet and 
 aflectionate. He was a man made to love, and to be 
 bclcvcd. His friends had been bound to him by hooks 
 of steel. As husband and father he had shown infinite 
 love and tenderness, and even more anxiety for the 
 material welfare of his wife and children than the 
 vicissitudes of his career had justified. All was peace 
 and love in his home. He had worked hard and con- 
 tinuously, and produced an enormous body of work. 
 Some of it was the very highest of its order, and a little 
 
 ' A year later Wordsworth oflTercd Coleridge j^ioo to enable him 
 to go to Madeira in scarcli of heallh.
 
 SAMUEL TA YLOR COLERIDGE. 91 
 
 of it was entirely alone of its kind. He had written and 
 published two volumes of poetry, and had a third volume 
 in manuscript. He had produced as much journalistic 
 work as would fill four good-sized volumes. lie had 
 lectured frecjuently, and preached times without number. 
 He had spent a year in continental travel, had learned a 
 new language, and translated a great play. He had 
 written a noble tragedy. At thirty-one years of age he 
 had attained to a distinct reputation. Who shall say that 
 thus far he had shown any deficiency in mor.al force, or 
 Avorldly wisdom, or common-sense ? He had done the 
 long day's work of a giant, and never lost a chance that 
 any of his best friends would have valued. Let no one 
 talk of him as if he were an inspired imbecile, on any 
 evidence that these first thirty-one years supply ! Down 
 to this period he was a strong man, strongly equipped, 
 working well against great odds, and moderately suc- 
 cessful.
 
 CHArXER VIII. 
 
 COLERIDGE parted from the Wordsworths at 
 Tarbct late in August, 1803, and reluming by 
 Edinburgh, he reached Keswick about the ist of Sep- 
 tember. He seems to have taken to his bed immediately, 
 and lo have been confined to it, with intervals of 
 convalescence, during the following six months. His 
 complaint was rheumatism and gout, complicated by 
 other disorders. Ho attributed his condition partly 
 to the chronic clTects of the boyish indiscretion from- 
 which he had suffered while at school — that of 
 swimming the New River in his clothes — partly to the 
 constant rains and his frequent drenchings in Scotland, 
 and partly to the prevailing humidity of the climate in 
 which he had made his permanent abode. While he lay 
 in bed he formed various designs of going abroad, some- 
 times to the West Indies, sometimes to the Canary 
 Islands, sometimes to Italy. Meantime he was his own 
 doctor. In youth he had read numerous books on 
 medicine, and now in the library of his neighbour and 
 landlord at Greta Hall there were, unhappily, many 
 medical reviews and magazines to which in his extremity 
 he resorted. "I had always," he says, "a fondness (a
 
 LIFE OF SAMUEL TA YLOR COLERIDGE. 93 
 
 common case, but most mischievous turn with reading 
 men who arc at all dyspeptic) for dabbling in medical 
 writings ; and in one of these reviews I met a case which 
 I fancied very like my own, in which a cure had been 
 effected by the ' Kendal Black Drop.' In an evil hour 
 I procured it : it worked miracles — the swellings dis- 
 appeared, the pains vanished ; I was all alive, and all 
 around me being as ignorant as myself, nothing could 
 exceed my triumph. I talked of nothing else, prescribed 
 the newly-discovered panacea for all comi)laints, and 
 carried a bottle about with me, not to lose any oppor- 
 tunity of administering 'instant relief and speedy cure' to 
 all complainers, stranger or friend, gentle or simple." 
 The illness had been a very real thing. In November, 
 Southey, now resident at Greta Hall, wrote : " Coleridge 
 is now in bed with the lumbago. Never was poor fellow 
 tormented with such pantomimic complaints ; his dis- 
 orders are perpetually shifting, and he is never a week 
 together without some one or other." Again, a month 
 or two later, Souihcy wrote, " Coleridge is quacking 
 himself for complaints that would tease anybody into 
 quackery." The , panacea was not so real. "Need I 
 say," says Coleridge, " that my own apparent con- 
 valescence was of no longer continuance ; but what 
 then? — the renjedy was at hand and infallible. Alas! 
 it is with a bitter^ smile, a laugh of gall and bitterness, 
 that I recall this- period of unsuspecting delusion, and 
 how I first becaiiie aware of the maelstrom, the l;;tal 
 whirlpool, to whidh I was drawing just when the current 
 was already beyonp my strength to stem." The infallible 
 *' Kendal Black Prop " turned out to be little else than
 
 94 LIFE OF 
 
 the very fallible opium, and it was thus, as a relief from 
 pain, in ignorance, and as a victim of medical solecism, 
 that Coleridge first came under the dreadful yoke of 
 opium-eating. At what period the " Kendal Black Drop " 
 was superseded by laudanum does not appear. That 
 date, if it could be ascertained, would at least possess the 
 melancholy interest of fixing the Utpe at which the plea 
 of error was fully overthrown, and the withering vice 
 became chargeable to infirmity of purpose. Before this, 
 the daily indulgence in narcotics had probably ceased 
 to be entirely an act of free will and intention, but the 
 full moral responsibility only began when the veil of 
 ignorance was removed. 
 
 Coleridge had recovered from physical prostration early 
 in 1804, and in April of that year a friend, John Stoddart, 
 invited him to Malta. It was the opportunity he had 
 longed for, and he accepted the offer. He insured his 
 life, and set out early in April, going by way of London, 
 where he " dined and punched " with Lamb. He ar- 
 rived at Malta on April 18th, and C'n the 22nd he had a 
 ■partial relapse. " I was reading when I was taken ill, 
 and felt an oppression of my breathing, and convulsive 
 snatching in my stomach and limbs." In this relapse 
 there was, of course, but one resource — opium — and 
 Coleridge resorted to it. He rallied, and found himself 
 relieved by the climate and the stimulus of change ; but 
 the summer came quickly, and then the dead summer 
 heat, and the monotonous blue sky : acted as a sedative, 
 and he began to realize that his health did not improve. 
 His limbs were "as lifeless tools," a'nd the pains in his 
 stomach became yet more violent alnd convulsive. To
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 05 
 
 opium again and again he turned for relief from suffer- 
 ing. He had travelled chiefly in the interests of health ; 
 but when the Governor of the island, Sir Alexander Ball, 
 offered him a temporary post as public secretary, he 
 accepted it. The duties were light and by no mean dis- 
 agreeable, but the condition of his health often made them 
 irksome. There appears to have been some poin[) 
 attaching to the office, and Coleridge prayed to be 
 relieved from tlie unnecessary parade and dignity. 
 The simplicity of his manners is said to have made him 
 an object of curiosity in Malta, and to have given rise 
 to whimsical .stories. He did not find much to admire 
 in the Maltese. "What can Sir Francis Head mean," 
 he says, " by talking of the musical turn of the Maltese ? 
 Why, when I was at Malta all nature was discordant. 
 The very cats caterwauled more horribly and pertina- 
 ciously there than I ever heard elsewhere. The children 
 will stand and scream inarticulately at each other for an 
 hour together, out of pure love of dissonance. The dogs 
 are deafening, — and so throughout. Musical, indeed ! I 
 have hardly gotten rid of the noise yet ! " He describes 
 the moral corruption of the Maltese when the island was 
 surrendered. A marquis of an ancient family applied 
 to the Governor to be appointed his valet. The marquis 
 explained that he hoped that in the desired capacity he 
 might have the honour of presenting petitions to his 
 Excellency. " Oh, that is it, is it ? " said the Governor. 
 •' My valet, sir, brushes my clothes and brings them to 
 me. If he dared to meddle with matters of public 
 business, I should kick him downstairs." Coleridge did 
 not make the best of business men, but he is said to have
 
 90 LIFE OF 
 
 been an able diplomatic writer in the department of corre- 
 spondence. He gives us some amusing accounts of how 
 he figured as a magistrate. Towards September, 1805, 
 Coleridge resigned his public secretaryship. His friends 
 were then anxiously looking out for his return. " \Vc 
 have lately built on our little rocky orchard," writes Words- 
 worth, "a little circular hut, lined with nioss like a wren's 
 nest, and Coleridge has never seen it. ^Vhat a hapi)i- 
 ness it would be to see him here ! " During this summer 
 Thomas Wedgewood had died, but from fear of its effects 
 on her husband's health, Mrs. Coleridge kept back the 
 announcement. When Coleridge left Malta he did not 
 return to England, but went on a Government commis- 
 sion to Sicily. Later in the year he visited Rome, and 
 there made the acquaintance of Allston, the American 
 painter; Tieck, the Cerman poet; and Humboldt, the 
 Prussian mini.stcr at liic i'apal Court. He was in Rome 
 about eight months, and left rather suddenly in August, 
 1806. He had intended to pass through Switzerland and 
 Germany to England, but from this route he was dis- 
 suaded by Humboldt, who told him that he was a marked 
 man ; that unless he took care to keep himself unknown 
 while within the reach of Buonaparte, he might end his 
 career in the Temple at Paris. It leaked out that Cole- 
 ridge had made himself obnoxious to the First Consul 
 by an article written for The Morning Post. In this 
 predicament he had a visit one morning from a Bene- 
 dictine," who brought a passport signed by the Pope, 
 left a carriage, and admonished him to take to instant 
 flight. Coleridge obeyed. Reaching Leghorn he found 
 ' Said to be Cardinal I-cscli.
 
 SAMUEL TA YLOR COLERIDGE. 97 
 
 an American vessel ready to set sail for England. It is 
 said that on the voyage they were chased by a French 
 vessel, and that Coleridge was compelled to throw his 
 papers overboard. The statement is a little doubtful. 
 "After a most miserable passage from Leghorn of fifty- 
 five days," he writes, "during which my life was twice 
 given over, I found myself again in my native country, 
 ill, penniless, and worse than homeless." 
 
 Worse than homeless ! The startling words bear but 
 one interpretation. They cannot mean that by reason of 
 poverty he and his family were practically without a home. 
 His wife and children were still at Greta Hall, living on 
 his Wedgewood pension of £,1^0 a year. He meant 
 now what he had meant eleven years before, when he 
 said that he was most a stranger in his native place. He 
 pointed to an estrangement which made him worse than 
 homelcs.s, because in name he still liad a home. What 
 was the cause of this estrangement, and when did it 
 arise ? The entire subject is enshrouded in mystery, 
 and we can only draw our inferences as to what the facts 
 must have been. Coleridge had been more than two 
 years out of I-Ingland. He left home on good terms 
 with his wife and his wife's relations. He was tlien ill 
 in body and depressed in mind. On the day after he 
 sailed Southey wrote, " Coleridge is gone for Malta, and 
 his departure affects me more than I let be seen." Could 
 words indicate with more certainty the love and sympathy 
 which was felt for Coleridge by those whom he left at 
 home? Southey felc it a duty to support the sinking 
 spirits of wife and sister by concealing the emotion that 
 •came of Coleridge's departure under melancholy condi- 
 7
 
 98 LIFE OF 
 
 lions. An idc.i of a sad and speedy end was constantly 
 present to the minds of the people at dreta Mall. " 'I'hc 
 tidings of his death," says Southey, " would come upon 
 me more like a stroke of lightning than any evil I have 
 yet endured." So they waited eagerly at Keswick for the 
 first news that should give hint of an im[)roved condition. 
 A letter came saying that he was worse rather than better. 
 Then, after an interval, another letter described his 
 official appointment. This intelligence must have been 
 of the nature of a baflling difficulty. How Coleridge 
 could undertake the duties of a public office, and yet be 
 as ill as he described, was more than wife and family 
 could comprehend at a distance of thousands of miles 
 from the scene. At longer intervals other letters were 
 received, all unsatisfactory as to matters of (;ict, all in- 
 definite as to ultimate intentions. At length there came 
 the announcement that the secretar)'ship had been 
 resigned. Wife, family, and friends were then looking 
 out for Coleridge's return. Probably he led them to 
 expect it. But instead of returning he went yet farther 
 afield, and then amid bewildering uncertainty all corres- 
 pondence was stopped. From August, 1805, when he 
 was on the point of leaving Malta, to IMay, 1806, 
 Coleridge did not write one letter home. " No news 
 from Coleridge of a later date than August." "No 
 news from Coleridge," Wordsworth writes more than 
 once. There is great anxiety as to his safety. Is he 
 alive ? Or has that sudden death which Southey foresaw 
 overtaken him in a strange country ? Letters written 
 from Keswick do not reach him ; but this fact is not yet 
 known. Then it is heard indirectly that Coleridge is living
 
 SAMUEL TA YLOR COLERIDGE. 99 
 
 in Rome. At that point the wliolo current of fcding at 
 Greta Hall undergoes a change. Coleridge is indifferent 
 to their suspense. They are wasting anxiety on one who 
 troubles himself little, or not at all, to relieve them. " I 
 have no doubt whatever," says Southey, " that the reason 
 why we receive no letters is that he writes none ; when 
 he comes he will probably tell a different story, and it 
 will be proper to admit his excuse without believing it." 
 The inference has been a bitter pill to the family at 
 Keswick, but they have felt compelled to swallow it. 
 
 So much for the posture of affairs at (ireta Hall. What 
 about Coleridge's position ? ]5efore he left home in 
 April, 1804, he was a shattered man. His bodily health 
 had been reduced by six months' confinement to bed, and 
 his mental health had suffered a more .serious overthrow. 
 He had realized that his free will had been safipcd away, 
 and that he had lost the government of the commonest 
 acts of life. Too late, as he believed, to regain self- 
 command, he had come to know that he was under the 
 yoke of opium. It was a sordid slavery, and his great 
 soul learned its fullest bitterness. " I have never been 
 capable of saying No,'' he wrote at one period. Now he 
 found to his great horror that he could least of all say 
 " No " to himself. His friends wished him to try the 
 effects of a foreign climate, and he was willing to go 
 abroad ; but he left home with the secret certainty that 
 whatever good the stimulus of change might do to. his 
 bodily health under fair conditions, his moral strength 
 and intellectual spontaneity were already reduced below 
 the power of recuperation. Coleridge did not bid farewell 
 to his wife and children with that sad pleasure which comes
 
 100 LIFE OF 
 
 to the man who, parting from his dear ones in sickness 
 and depression, looks through a mist of tears to that day 
 in the near future when he shall rejoin them in health 
 and spirits. It was a half-hopeless errand, and the man 
 who undertook it was brought very low in his own esteem. 
 He loved wife and children with a passionate love, but 
 he could no longer think of them with pride, for the 
 source of pride was dry. In his own eyes he was an 
 abject thing. He could not write now to wife and child 
 as he wrote in the brave days of the jaunt in Germany, 
 ** My dear, dear love ! and my Hartley ! my blessed 
 Hartley ! " No longer had he a right to such words of 
 proud endearment. A slave, a sordid slave, groaning 
 daily and hourly under a yoke that he had himself 
 hung about his neck — what a thing he was in his 
 own eyes ! And what if they who loved him in the 
 ignorance of compassion only knew the truth ! How 
 their hearts would turn from him ! How their adora- 
 tion would change to contempt, and their sympathy 
 to loathing ! And so in an agony of self-reproach 
 Coleridge was silent. Every letter brought pain in the 
 degree in which it showed trust and love. 
 
 Then came the lime when he was free to return to 
 England. But why should he go back ? He was not 
 better in bodily health, but worse, and his moral slavery 
 was yet more abject than before. Still he must move, 
 for the restless spirit of discontent had to be appeased. 
 Let it be anywhere, anywhere but home, where the eyes 
 of love would surely peer into his secret and read his 
 shame. So Coleridge took the first chance of removing 
 to Rome. With that step his humiliation reached its
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 101 
 
 climax. Had he not confessed to himself by a deliberate 
 act that he was the victim of a sinful infirmity ? It was 
 an infirmity that made the father childless. Seif-prido 
 could bear up no longer, and Coleridge cut off all con- 
 nection with his home. Better that he should die 
 unknown in a strange country than that he should live to 
 hide his weakness in duplicity, or reveal his miserable 
 sufferings to those whose eyes looked up to him. An 
 accident hastened his departure from Rome, and-thfe' 
 uncertain feet of the wanderer turned towartls England. 
 " I found myself again in my native country, ill, penniless, 
 and worse than homeless." 
 
 He went back to Keswick. There he encountered 
 many anxious looks, and perhaps some expostulations, 
 and he could bear neither the one nor the other. "Wliy 
 had he not written during the whole period of a year ? 
 Had he no thought for wife and children ? Nay, why had 
 he gone on to Rome to live for nine or ten months on 
 the earnings of a previous year ? Coleridge could find 
 no peace in his home. He was not understood there. 
 What remained to him of proper pride was now as much 
 wounded by the misrepresentation of his wife as formerly 
 by the misrepresentation of his mother and brothers. 
 Mrs. Coleridge was a worthy, practical-minded woman, 
 without much intellectual insight.' Perhaps she realized 
 that her husband was a man of large gifts and attain- 
 ments. More probably she took this knowledge in trust 
 from others, who paid Coleridge obvious homage. In any 
 case such superiority could only have value in her eyes if 
 
 ' A lady who knew Mrs. Coleri<!sc tells me that she was " a fine 
 woman, but a rather fidgety body."
 
 102 LIFE OF 
 
 it led to material results. It did not lead to material 
 results, and her wifely pride was humiliated by constant 
 observation of Southey"s substantial success. Coleridge, 
 on his part, must leave his home. He was distressed by 
 his wife's misunderstanding, and rebuked by his own 
 accusing conscience. In the presence of daily evidence of 
 Southey's growing fame he was protiably as unhappy in 
 his own way as his wife would be in hers. He had ties 
 to bind him to home. There were four of his children 
 now at Greta Hall, and many a sweet idyll of childhood 
 held the tender-hearted man with hooks of steel ; his 
 little Sara plucking plums from trees in their dotage in a 
 worn-out orchard, and her little cousin Edith swinging 
 from a bough of an apple-tree ; his little Derwent 
 announcing that he had been made by James I^wson, 
 the Keswick carpenter, out of " the stuff he makes wood 
 of," and that James had " sawed him off,'' and that " he 
 didn't like it." But Coleridge could not bear cither mis- 
 directed reproaches, or the sight of the happiness which 
 he had forfeited the right to claim. 
 
 In his misery he turned to the friend who was dearest 
 of all men to him — the friend to whom he was dearest. 
 Wordsworth had gone to Coleorton, the seat of their new 
 friend. Sir George Beaumont, a painter, better known as 
 the friend and patron of painters. So Coleridge went 
 down to Coleorton, and was received with a pathetic 
 warmth of sympathy, but even there a new form of 
 suffering awaited him. Wordsworth read the poem now 
 called "The Prelude," and Coleridge listened to it in 
 raptures. But the second sense was one of pain. What 
 had he himself been doing while his friend had accom-
 
 SAMUEL TA YLOR COLERIDGE. 103 
 
 plished work like this? Nearly ten years had passed 
 since they rambled together over the Quantock Hills and 
 discussed the new school of poetry which was to vivify 
 common incidents with the light of imagination, and do 
 for the events of daily life what a sudden gleam of moon- 
 light does for a familiar landscape. Since then he had 
 done little or nothing that was worthy of his great powers. 
 Seven of those ten years had been filled with the 
 drudger)' of journalism ; three had been utterly thrown 
 away. If he had felt himself to be "a little man " beside 
 Wordsworth in those old days, he had not felt that he 
 was therefore any the less in relation to other men. But 
 now even this poor unction was gone. He u<as a little 
 man beside other men, because he was one who of weak- 
 ness and wantonness had stunted his own faculties. The 
 dark column of hope which in those days was not yet 
 fully turned had turned again, and now all was hopeless 
 darkness. The night after the reading of " The Prelude " 
 Coleridge wrote these lines : 
 
 •' O great Banl ! 
 Ere yet that last strain (ly'^K awed the air, 
 With steadfast eye I vicwM thee in the clioir 
 Of ever-enduring men. . . . 
 Ah ! as I listened with a heart forlorn, 
 The pulses of my being beat anew." 
 
 What did Wordsworth think of the change in Coleridge? 
 If we turn to the "Stanzas written in my pocket copy of 
 Thomson's ' Castle of Indolence,' " we may see how that 
 change affected him. The poem has a touch of mystery 
 which was probably introduced as a cover for the hard 
 facts j but there can scarcely be a doubt that Coleridge,
 
 104 LIFE OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 
 
 the man and the poet, Coleridge in his days of hope and 
 of depression, is in the eye of the poet. 
 
 " Ah ! piteous si^ht it was to see this m.in 
 ^Vhen he c.iniL' hrxck to us a withered llowcr, 
 Or, like a sinful creature, pale and wan. 
 Down would he sit ; and without strength or power 
 Look at the conimon grass from hour to hour."' 
 
 ' Mr. Dowden, in his " Life of Shelley," itlentifies William 
 Calvert, the friend of Coleridge and .Shelley, as the second of the 
 two dwellers in Wordsworth's " Castle of Indolence." A liallling 
 difliculty in accepting Mr. Dowden's theory comes to me from my 
 friend Mr. Ivlwin Jackson (Hawthorns, Keswick), who has dis- 
 covered tiiat Calvert could nut have been the " nnlieenMc man with 
 lnr(je t;rey eyes," (i) because l)i:« eye.s were not yrcy, but very ilark { 
 (2) because the poem says that the people of the valley wondered 
 what business the noticeable man could have among Ihem, whereas 
 Calvert had the ver)' obvious business of one who came of a family 
 that had for two centuries occupied a position of almost the liighest 
 local interest. In the families of the Wordsworths, tlie Coleridges, 
 and the Calverls, the iilca has always had a silent acceptance that 
 Coleridge alone was meant ; but that any reader of the sixth and 
 seventh stanzas of Wordsworth's poem could apply them to Cole- 
 ridge is at le.ist sufi'icienily surprisiiig. It must be allowed, how- 
 ever, that the description in the fifth stanza is a close parallel to 
 Dorothy Wordsworth's description of Coleridge. I find it no less 
 tlifticult to accept the theory favoured by Mr. W, Knight and Mr. 
 F. -W, II. Myers, that Wordsworth was describing himself in the 
 lines I have quoted. So far as it concerns Coleridge, the riuestion 
 is open to an easy solution. If Wordsworth's i>oem was written in 
 1802, exactly as published in 1815, then Coleridge cannot be identified 
 OS either of the two men. It was not until 1S06 that Coleridge 
 returned to England as a shattereil man.
 
 CHAPTER IX'. 
 
 WHEN Wordsworth and Coleridge puhlislicd the 
 first scries of " Lyrical IJallnds " at Bristol, there 
 was a lad of foiirlei-n at school in Hath who was fast inatid 
 by "The Ancient Mariner." Four years later, wiicn the 
 poets were making their tour in Scotland, the lad was 
 living the life of an outcast in London, having escaped 
 from school and the tyranny of his guardians. He was 
 Thomas I)c Quinccy, son of a merchant who had died 
 when Thomas was a child. From the poverty of his 
 lodgings in .Soho he was rescued by his friends, and 
 sent at eighteen as a student to Oxford. 1"his was 
 in 1803, and he remained at the University down 
 to 1808. In the meantime he had made frequent 
 visits to London, and there he had contracted the 
 friendship of Charles I^-anib. His admiration of Cole- 
 ridge had increased since his schoolboy days, and ins 
 interest in the poet was crowned when he learned in 
 1804 that the author of the "Ancient Mariner" was 
 applying his mind to the student's own pursuits — meta- 
 physics and psychology. Above all things he wished for 
 personal knowledge of so original a genius, and on hear-
 
 100 LIFE OF 
 
 ing in 1S05 that Coleridge was residing in Malta as 
 Secretary to the Governor, he began to inquire about the 
 best route to the island. But the times were turbulent, 
 and any route promised the young enthusiast an inside 
 place in a French prison. So he was reconciled to wait- 
 ing, until, in 1S07, he heard that Coleridge was not only 
 in England, but within measurable distance of the place 
 at which he was then visiting. Without losing an hour 
 he bent his steps towards Nether Stowey, where Cole- 
 ridge was understood to be staying with his friend 
 Thomas Poole. At length he encountered the poet in 
 the street at liridgewater. 
 
 Coleridge took the young man to the house of his 
 host, and there, in the midst of conversation, the door 
 opened, and a lady entered. " She was in person full, 
 and rather below the middle height," says l)e Quincey, 
 "while her face showed, to my eye, some prettiness of 
 rather a commonplace order." Coleridge paused on the 
 lady's entrance, and turning to his visitor, said in a frigid 
 tone, " Mrs. Coleridge." De Quincey bowed, the lady 
 acknowledged the introduction, and immediately retired. 
 The scene was short and ungenial, and De Quincey 
 learned from it that Coleridge's marriage was not a 
 happy one. It is neither necessary nor desirable to enter 
 into his subsequent explanations of the causes of the 
 supposed mesalliance. His record of facts is obviously 
 untrustworthy, and the inferences he draws from it 
 sufficiently prove that this man of extraordinary genius 
 was deficient in knowledge of human nature. When he 
 sets aside his poor tattle about Mrs. Coleridge's jealousy 
 of Miss Wordsworth, and comes to the clear fact of Cole-
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 107 
 
 ridge's personal wretchedness, and to the explanation that 
 Coleridge gave of the unhapiiy overclouding of his life, we 
 have a strong sense of the truthfulness of the narrative. 
 Dc Quinccy remarked accidentally that he ha<l been 
 obliged to take a few drops of laudanum for toothache, 
 and thereupon Coleridge made confession of his own habit 
 of opium eating, and warned him with all the cmpliasis 
 of horror against forming a habit of the same kind. 
 Coleridge gave De Quinccy the impression that he never 
 hoped to liberate himself from the bondage. " My 
 belief is that he never did" says De Quincey. Many 
 years afterwards Coleridge made a note of the same con- 
 versation. " Oh, may the God to whom I look for mere y 
 through Christ," he writes, " show mercy on the author 
 of the ' Confessions of an Opium Eater,' if, as I have too 
 strong reason to believe, his book has been the occasion 
 of seducing others into the withering vice through 
 wantonness. From this aggravation I have, I humbly 
 trust, been free, as far as acts of my free will and inten- 
 tion are concerned ; even to the author of that work I 
 pleaded with flowing tears and with an agony of fore- 
 warning. He utterly denied it, but I fear that I had 
 even then to deter, perhaps not to forewarn." We know 
 now that Coleridge and De Quincey were both in error 
 as to the facts. 
 
 When De Quincey met Mrs. Coleridge at Bridgewater, 
 she with three of her children had left Keswick in the 
 hope of settling with her husband at Bristol. In Fcbruar)-, 
 1807, Southey writes : " Mrs. Coleridge and her children 
 are to join Coleridge early in April, and go into Devon- 
 shire, where the longer they stay the better. Perhaps, if
 
 108 LIFE OF 
 
 Wordsworth settles in the South, they will not return 
 at all, which is what I wish, as it would tempt me 
 hugely to fix here." AVhatever the scheme was that had 
 suggested Bristol, it came to nothing. De Quincey did 
 Coleridge a two-fold service at this juncture. Con- 
 ceiving that his depression arose in part from pecuniary 
 embarrassments, he presented him secretly, through 
 Cottle, with three hundred pounds ; " and on the final 
 abandonment of the intention to settle at Bristol, he 
 took Mrs. Coleridge and her children back to Keswick. 
 Some time later Southey writes : *' Mrs. Coleridge takes 
 on herself poor Jackson's house," a portion of Greta Hall, 
 " in expectation that Coleridge will one day come back ; 
 and still more because he will have a place to which he 
 may come whenever he likes, as if it were his own house 
 — a thing which cannot be with my establishment, ought 
 not and shall not." " How cold he is," as Wordsworth 
 said of Southey. His words are bitterly cruel. AVhat 
 do they mean ? Are 'e to understand that Southey, a 
 heavily burdened man, . '1 all these years been bearing 
 the burdens of Colerid"" n' o ? If that is a fair inference, 
 the words are not onl^ cruel, but false. (Ireta Hall had 
 
 » Wriling to Cottlo from C.ilnc, M.irch 7, 1815, Coleridge says, 
 •' Heaven knows, of llie /^joo rcceivcil lliroiit;li you, wliat went to 
 myself." Cottle llicreiipon refers the disappearance of so large a. 
 sum to opium debts. " Mr. C. lived with his friends, and he could 
 contract few other debts." There is no sufficient evidence that 
 Coleridge ever " lived " at the expense of any friend. At the time 
 alluded to by Cottle, he was living rent free at the ofiicc of The 
 Courur, but he was paying for his own board. At Morgan's, 
 from 1811 to 1814, and at Gillman's, from 1816 to 1834, he paid 
 for board and lodgings.
 
 SAMUEL TA YLOR COLERIDGE. 109 
 
 been rented by Coleridge in 1800. Three years afler- 
 wards Southey joined him and shared the rent. In 1S07 
 Southcy undertook the whole of that part of the house 
 which was not occupied by the landlord. From April, 
 1807, to January, 1810, Mrs. Coleridge and her children 
 lodged with Southey, paying for their maintenance out of 
 the permanent Wedgewood i)cnsion of £,1^0^ every i)enny 
 of which was appropriated to their sole use.' 'I'hen, the 
 landlord being dead, Mrs. Coleridge took his sliare of 
 Greta Hall, mainly in order that her husband might have 
 a home of his own to come to, and not be deterred from 
 returning to his wife and children by any thought of tiie 
 cheerless lodgings let out to him by the dear brother-in- 
 law who had superseded him. Let us l)c quite just to 
 Southcy. No doubt he was often sorely tried by those 
 weaknesses of Coleridge, which, as we now see, he never 
 . for one instant understood. No man who came so close 
 to Coleridge, so frequently and so painfully misunderstood 
 him. The two men were cast in entirely different moulds, 
 and had not one angle of reseml)lance. In character, in 
 habits, in morals and mind, they were completely unlike. 
 An accident brought them together ; a kindred cnllui- 
 siasm made them friends ; marriage made them relatives, 
 and brought them beneath one roof. In early years they 
 bore one another a sincere affection, for each had (lualilies 
 the other could admire. But when the days of sorrow 
 came, and the sufferer was silent as to the worst of his 
 sufferings, the casual friend, made relative and housemace, 
 
 ' There arc several authorities for this important statement. The 
 best to cite is the most hostile : Southey, writing to Cottle, Ai)ril 
 17, 1814.
 
 110 LIFE OF 
 
 had no plummet wherewith to sound the deep places of 
 the heart.' 
 
 On leaving the Wordsworlhs at Coleorton in the winter 
 of 1806, Coleridge had come U[) to i.ondon and resumed 
 jou.-nalism. His friend Stuait had sold The Morniii}^ Post, 
 but still retained a i)art proprietorship of T/ie Courier, his 
 partner being a journalist named Street. Stuart found 
 Coleridge penniless, and, to save expense, gave him 
 apartments at the offices of T/ie Courier in the Strand. 
 Years afterwards Stuart altogether denied that Coleridge 
 at this period rendered services to the paper by way of 
 equivalent, and certainly the accommodation was hardly 
 worth any return. 'J'he single room — an attic which 
 answered for bed and sitting-room — was in immediate 
 proximity to theprinting establishment,and muchdisturbed 
 as a consequence. Coleridge appears to have been with- 
 out any regular attendance, except such as could be given 
 by a certain Mrs. Brainbridgc, probably the keeper of the 
 house, wholived down three flights of stairs. In 1807 or 
 jSoS, De Quincey called upon him daily in these quarters. 
 
 • Tlicre is abundant cviilcncc that from 1S06 onwards there was 
 no love lost between Coleridj^c and Soulhey. ^Vritin(; to Coltle, in 
 1836, Southcy said, " I know that Coleridge, at difTcrcnt times of 
 his life, never let an opportunity pass of speaking ill of me." This 
 is how Southcy returned good for evil : " Can you tell me anything 
 of Coleridge ? " he writes, in October, 1S14 ; " we know that he is 
 with the Morgans, at Calnc. What is to become of him? lie may 
 fmd men who will give him board and lodgings for the sake of his 
 conversation, but who will pay his other expenses. He leaves his 
 family to chance and charity." Coleridge was at this time p.aying 
 two pounds ten shillings per week for board and lodgings, and was 
 working daily at his " Diographia Lileraria,"
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. Ill 
 
 "There did I often sec the pliilosopher," he says, " witli 
 the most lugubrious of Hiccs, invoking with all his might 
 this uncouth name of ' Brainhridgc,' each syllable cf 
 which he intoned [from the head of the stairs] wiih long- 
 drawn emphasis, in order to overpower the iiostile iiubbulj 
 coming down from the creaking i)ress and the ruar from 
 the Strand, which entered at all the front windows, 
 ' Mistress Brainbridge ! I say, Mistress Brainbridge 1 ' 
 was the perpetual cry." It was a forlorn condition. 
 With no society to sustain his cheerfulness, Coleridge's 
 sjiirits flagged, and he sank more than ever under the 
 
 • dominion of opium. . 
 
 In the winter of 1806 he undertook, through the oflkos 
 of Sir Humphry Davy, to deliver at the Royal Institution 
 two courses of eight lectures on the fine arts. He was 
 to receive ;^i2o, and the sum appears to represent his 
 sole earnings at this period. The lectures were success- 
 ful, and in the winter following he was engaged to deliver 
 a further course on the ICnglish Poets, the fee to be about 
 the same as before. The second course of lectures 
 failed most painfully. In the interval Coleridge had in- 
 dulged his weakness yet more deeply, so that he was at 
 least y<;//r times unable to fulfil his engagements. Then 
 came the dismissal of audience after audience. J^Jdyi^- 
 many of his lecture days," says De Quincey, " I have 
 seen all Albemarle Street closed by a • lock ' of carriages 
 filled with women of distinction, until the servants of the 
 Institution or their own footmen advanced to the carriage 
 
 > door with the intelligence that Mr. Coleridge had been 
 
 ' taken suddenly ill." The plea was at first received witli 
 
 concern, then with incredulity, and finally with disgust.
 
 112 LIFE OF 
 
 But when the lecturer appeared, he iustified by only too 
 painful evidences his excuse of illness. "His lips were 
 baked with feverish heat," says De Quinccy, "and often . 
 black in colour ; and in spite of the water which he con- 
 tinued drinking through the whole course of his lecture, 
 he often seemed to labour under an almost paralytic 
 inability to raise the upper jaw from the lower." It was 
 natural that the lectures should reflect the lecturer's ex- 
 haustion. They were discontinued, perhaps at Coleridge's 
 request, probably at the instance of the Committee of the ' 
 Institution, and Coleridge received a reduced honorarium 
 of^ioo. 
 
 He occupied off and on his forlorn attic in the premises 
 of The Courier down to the summer of iSo8, and then 
 returned to the Lake country and settled, not with his 
 family at Greta Hall, but with the Wordsworths at Gras- 
 mcrc. By this distinct and overt act, Coleridge expressed 
 an unmistakable intention of living apart from his wife. 
 While he was in London his purposes in that regard 
 were uncertain, but with less than thirteen miles between 
 them, and no requirements of work to keep them asunder, 
 his wife could not mistake his intentions. Nevertheless 
 there was a strange intercourse between the households 
 at Allan Bank and Greta Hall. With Wordsworth, 
 Coleridge paid a visit to Keswick in September. " Cole- 
 ridge is arrived at last," Southey writes, "about half as 
 big as the house. He came over with Wordsworth on 
 Monday, and returned with him on AVednesday. His 
 present scheme is to put the boys to school at Ambleside, , 
 and reside at Grasmere himself." It is pleasant to turn \ 
 from Southey's acrid account of affairs at Greta Hall,
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLE K IDG E. 113 
 
 to the sketch made by Coleridge's daughter Sara of a 
 month she spent with her father at Allan Bank in the 
 same autumn. She was then a child of six. " I slept 
 with him," she says, "and he would tell me fairytales 
 when he came to bed at twelve or one o'cUjck." But 
 she mars the idyl with this addition : " I think my dear 
 father was anxious that I should learn to love him, and 
 the Wordsworths and their children, and not cling so 
 exclusively to my mother, and all around me at home. 
 He was, therefore, much annoyed when on my mother's 
 coming to Allan Bank, I flew to her and wished not to 
 be separated from her any more." 
 
 There Was abundant literary society in the Lake country 
 at this period — Professor Wilson, at Ellcray ; diaries 
 IJoyd, at Brathay ; Soiithey, at Keswick ; Wordsworth, 
 Coleridge, and Dc Quincey at Grasmere ; and, among 
 lesser men, Y)r. Watson, the Bishop of Llandafl* at 
 Windermere. To these came Scott, I^amb, and Ila/litt 
 at intervals. During one of his visits, Ua/Jitt i)ainlcd 
 the portraits of Coleridge and Wordsworth. The portrait 
 of Coleridge was a fine picture, but that of Wordsworth 
 represented a physiognomy so dismal, that one of the 
 poet's friends exclaimed on seeing it — " At the gallow.s, 
 deeply affected by his deserved fate, yet delermined to 
 die like a man." Hazlitt disappointed himself as a 
 painter, and revenged his vanity by becoming a critic of 
 the fine arts. This was the period when Edinburgh was 
 making its great effort to break the literary supremac)- 
 of London. The young men who met in that ' ninth ' flat 
 in Buccleugh Place, which was the elevated residence of 
 Mr. Jeffrey, maintained opinions a little too liberal for 
 8
 
 114 LIFE OF 
 
 the dynasty of Mr. Dundas, but the political rebellion 
 was not their object when they started The Edinburgh 
 Kci'Uw in 1802. Their sole aim was literary; Jeflrey 
 and his coadjutors, Brougham and Sydney Smith, meant 
 to dispute the ground with Aiken and his coadjutors, 
 Coleridge, Southey, and others who are now forgotten. 
 They were not long in making it apparent that the maga- 
 zine. The Rfonthly, represented by Aiken, was what Colo- 
 ridge called it, an aikcn-void ; and then it began to appear 
 that their utmost energy must be put forth in resisting the 
 little band of writers that had found a rallying-point in 
 the I«ikc country. We know that they went to work 
 with a will. Beginning with Southey, and going on to 
 Wordsworth, they did their best to discredit the " whining 
 and hypocritical writers," who were " known to haunt the 
 lakes of Cumberland." "In so far as we know," said 
 the northern crilics, "there are but few persons of soI)er 
 taste and cultivated judgment in their train." They 
 came even closer home than this, and saw that " the 
 greater part of men of improved and delicate taslo " 
 treated the " l.akists" " witii contempt and derision." It 
 does not appear that the poets were seriously perturbed. 
 Probably they realized that the critics were doing them 
 important services unawares. At all events, they went on 
 with their work. Southey wrote "Kehama " and "Madoc"; 
 Wordsworth wrote many noble sonnets, and kept a strong 
 hand for his great poem, "The Excursion"; Coleridge 
 was for the time lost to poctrj', but he worked even 
 harder now than before. Coleridge's habits were curious ; 
 he transformed the night into day, and lived chiefly by 
 candle-light, He rose from two to four in the afternoon,
 
 SAMUEL TA YLOR COLERIDGE. 115 
 
 and long after all other Iij;hts had disappeared in the 
 cottages of the secluded vale, Coleridge's lani[> was still 
 burning. When the dales-men from the Wythhurn valley 
 were coming over the Dunmail Raise to their work in 
 the early morning, Coleridge was retiring to bed. This 
 irregularity probably means that he was still under the 
 dominion of opfum. Nevertheless, he gives some hint 
 of improvement. " I have been enabled," he writes, 
 " to reduce the dose to one sixth part of what I formerly 
 took, and my general health and mental activity arc 
 greater than I have known them for years past." 
 
 At what was Coleridge working during this period 
 of residence at Cirasmere ? ICarly in 1809 — some six or 
 seven months ai'ter he had removed from London — he 
 ■conceived the idea of starting a literary miscellany to 
 be called The Friend. This periodical was to be quite 
 imlike The M'otchiiian in scheme and character. The. 
 /'/•/(•//(/was to be an original journal of politics, piiiloso])hy, 
 Jiterature, and the fine arts, and not in any sense a 
 register or record of passing events. The plan of Cole- 
 ridge's miscellany differed as mu( h from tiie plan of The 
 Edinliirgh I\ciira\ then seven years old, and the plan of 
 the rival review,' The Quarterly, then newly started, as 
 from that of The JVatchinatt. Arrangements were made 
 for the printing ; a subscription list was obtained, and on 
 June I, 1809, The Friend was started. It ran through 
 twenty-seven numbers, and came to an end early in iSio. 
 " Never was anything so grievously mismanaged," says 
 Southcy ; and De Quinccy gives a woful account of the 
 general bcmuddlement into whi( h the affairs of the 
 publication fell. It would ccrl;tinly appear that the busi
 
 110 LIFE OF 
 
 ncss arrangements wore deficient in despatch, and it is 
 conceivable that Coleridge, wlio was never a proficient 
 in monetary concerns, was even more than ordinarily 
 handicai)ped in this regard when the double duty of 
 editor and business manager devolved upon him. But 
 it would be folly to follow De Quincey in his picturesque 
 but not very accurate account of the causes that con- 
 tributed to the failure. If it were allowed — it certainly 
 ought not to be on such dubious evidence — that Cole- 
 ridge was an utter child in all financial affairs, the fact 
 would remain that he was living in hourly intercourse 
 with ^Vordsworth, who was at least above suspicion of 
 complete artlessness where money was in question. 
 Wordsworth had a personal interest in The Friend ; he 
 contributed to it with his pen, and the friend whose sole 
 hope of earning a livelihood was centred in its success 
 was then domesticated under his roof. The simple truth 
 is that Coleridge was harassed by the dedications of 
 subscribers, and the lukcwarmness of friends, and that 
 these causes of anxiety acting on the inevitable worries, 
 risks, and losses of publishing cntcrjirisc, led to a speedy 
 collapse. There is, therefore, no reason to go far in 
 search of reasons why The Friend should have failed. 
 Its rivals were numerous, powerful, and the reverse of 
 poor, Coleridge was possessed of a hundred pounds at 
 the utmost computation, his literary coadjutors were men 
 who could not help him, and his rich admirers from 
 Albemarle Street and elsewhere would not. Stuart, alone, 
 seems to have done anything to keep The Friend :A\\c. 
 
 Disappointed, depressed, more than before under the 
 dominion of opium, Coleridge went back to his wife
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 117 
 
 and children at Keswick in the summer of iSio. Tlicrc 
 lie remained about five months, with distinct benefit to 
 his health. "Coleridge has been with us for some lime 
 past," writes Mrs. Coleridge, " in good licalth, spirits, and 
 humour, but The Friend, for some unaccountable reasf)n, 
 or for no reason at all, is utterly silent. This, you will 
 easily believe, is matter of perpetual grief to me, but I 
 am obliged to be silent on the subject, although ever 
 uppermost in my thoughts ; but I am obliged to !)ear 
 about a cheerful countenance, knowing as I do by sad 
 exjierience that to e\[)ostuIale, or even hazard one 
 anxious look, would soon drive him hence." I'rom this 
 letter it is sufficiently clear, that Coleridge shared De 
 Quinccy's opinion that his wife was wanting in cordial 
 appreciation, or indeed comprehension, of her husband's 
 intellectual powers, and was, therefore, not a person with 
 whom he could share the anxieties in which every friend 
 was made to participate. The letter makes it no less 
 obvious that, whatever the depth of her affection for her 
 liusband, Mrs. Coleridge was wishful to live at peace 
 with him, and was willing to undergo in silence much 
 suffering, and to support with patience a constrained 
 cheerfulness, in order to keep him at her side. That her 
 efforts failed was not a mark of cruelty on the part of 
 Coleridge. Once for all, for good or for ill, the idea had 
 fixed itself upon his mind that it was no longer possible 
 for him to hope for domestic happiness ; that the vision 
 of a happy home had sunk for ever ; and — 
 
 " That names but seldom meet with Love, 
 And Love wants cour.ngc without a name."
 
 118 LIFE OF ' 
 
 When and how this idea was engendered, in what 
 degree it was a hallucination, and how far it came of a 
 morbid reality, we have already vaguely conjectured. If 
 it were needful to say in a word or two to what the idea 
 was due, we should promptly attribute it, not to the 
 incompatibility pointed to by De Quinccy, not to faults 
 of intellect or temper on Mrs. Coleridge's part, and not 
 to any lack of the domestic temperament in Coleridge 
 himself, but to the drug—" the accursed drug." 
 
 Coleridge left his home early in October, 1810, and 
 never again returned to it. 
 
 " He loved no other pl.icc, and yet 
 Home was no home to liinj." 
 
 His immediate purpose seems to have been that of 
 consulting Abernethy. He came up to London with 
 Basil Montagu, having accepted the invitation of the 
 Chancery barrister to live in his house. The connection 
 soon terminated in a rupture, brought about by a rather 
 trivial incident in which Coleridge had exercised with 
 some freedom the privileges of gucstship. He removed 
 to the house of his friends, the Morgans, at Hammersmith, 
 and remained there from November to the following 
 Januar)'. Then he took lodgings in Southampton Build- 
 ings. To be cast back upon himself was a condition 
 always full of temptation to Coleridge, and in his cheer- 
 less lodgings he took more than ordinary doses of the drug. 
 "I am a little, and only a little better at present," he 
 writes; " if it is possible, I .shall put myself in the Hammer- 
 smith stage this evening, as I am not fit to be in lodgings 
 by myself. In truth, I have had such a scries of anxieties,
 
 SAMUEL TA YLOR COLERIDGE. 110 
 
 cruel disappointments, and sudden shocks from the first 
 week of my arrival in London, that any new calamity 
 suffices to overset nic." \\<i returned to the Morgans 
 on February ii, 1811, and spent the three years follow- 
 ing at their house. The anxieties, disappointments, and 
 shocks alluded to in this letter were very real and by no 
 means imaginar)'. He had earned absolutely nothing 
 since the beginning of 1808, when he received one 
 hundred guineas for his second series of lectures at the 
 Royal Institution. Every farthing of this sum must have 
 been sunk in The Friend, and debts were still arising out 
 of that ill-fated venture. It was now Februar}', 181 1, and 
 after three profitless years, the unlucky man found him- 
 self confronted by two grievous misfortunes. The first 
 of these was a bill, which in equity was as much another 
 man's debt as his own. The second, was the withdrawal 
 by Josiah Wedgewood of his half of the pension of ^^150 
 a year. Some amount of mystery enshrouds the former 
 of these difficulties ; the latter is said to have been 
 Wedgewood's protest against Coleridge's neglect of his 
 family. It is more than probable that the two difficulties 
 are in effect one difficulty, involving one set of persons 
 only, and that Wedgewood was prompted rather by pique 
 at what he thought "benefits forgot," than by any im- 
 pulse so illogical as that of punishing a man for neglecting 
 his wife and children by taking the bread out of their 
 mouths. If the alleged reason for Wedgewood's conduct 
 is the true one, he cancelled every obligation due to him 
 for his liberality in the past. There is now no sort of 
 doubt that Mrs. Coleridge and her children enjoyed the 
 full benefit of the Wedgewood pension from the first. That
 
 120 LIFE OF 
 
 Coleridge did not fulfil his half of their agreement was 
 no sufficient ground on which Wedgewood could repudiate 
 a responsibility voluntarily undertaken, on his part, and 
 accepted with a distinct sacrifice of other permanent 
 emolument on the part of Coleridge. 
 
 Penniless, broken-spirited, and now at forty a grey- 
 haired man, Coleridge, the dreamer of great dreams, the 
 author of " The Ancient Mariner " and of " Christabel," 
 betook himself once more to his friend Stuart, the part- 
 proprietor of The Courier. Stuart knew nothing about 
 literature, and very little about journalism, except what 
 he could learn at tlie publishing counter. He had bought 
 The Mornini; Post \x\ 1790, for ;^6oo, and sold it in 1803, 
 for something like ;i£"25,ooo. Coleridge was the chief 
 writer, if not the editor, during the short crucial period of 
 the paper's prosperity, and he always claimed to have 
 made its fortune. AVhcn he came to write his life he 
 .said this with sufficient emphasis. Stuart was tlien very 
 angry, and remonstrated privately, but Coleridge did not 
 yield. The newspaper proprietor submitted to the grave 
 imputation of having earned money by an editor's brains, 
 believing in his generous soul that perhaps Coleridge 
 wished to excuse liimsclf to his friends for having done so 
 little, by saying that the prime of his manhood had been 
 wasted in journalism, or else that he wished to establish 
 a claim against Government for a pension. But when 
 long years afterwards Coleridge's biographer repeated 
 the charge, Stuart wrote in wrathful protest a series of 
 letters which were meant to show that Coleridge had done 
 little or nothing for either of his papers, and that he had 
 paid the poet no less a sum than ;^7oo for his slender
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 121 
 
 services. Stuart was a dundcrlicaded person, hut he had 
 the faculty of perceiving on which side his bread was 
 buttered. Coleridge thought him a generous friend, and 
 often applied to him in his extremity. He applied to 
 him at this crisis of 18 ii. Stuart's partner, Street, was 
 editor of The Courier at this time. Street was an incai)a- 
 blc journalist who made up for professional shortcomings 
 by the skill he had at catching a nod from lord this and 
 lord that In his hands The Courier degenerated to a 
 very tool of ministers, and lick-spittle of people in power. 
 The paper was odious to the people, and odious to Cole- 
 ridge, but, nevertheless, the poor bankrupt journalist — who 
 might have been at tlie head of The Aforniu\:; Post, the 
 leading paper of the hour, if his lust of money had been a 
 match for his love of letters— went meekly to Stuart and 
 his partner, and begged employment. Street had no belief 
 in Coleridge ; i)erhaps he was too stupid to rccogni/e his 
 abilities, probably he was too .shrewd not to be jealous 
 of any footing that might be gained by a man who was 
 infinitely his superior. But Coleridge's ambition Ayas 
 modest enough and to spare. What did he ask ? Ho 
 asked to be allowed to attend at The Courier office from 
 nine o'clock in the morning until two in the afternoon, to 
 condcn.sc the police,, parliamentary, and similiar reports 
 that had appeared in the other newspapers, and to write 
 an occasional Note on the affairs of the day. By much 
 artful show of modesty — there is nothing like the jiinch 
 of poverty for making the most artless nature artful — 
 Coleridge induced Street to consent. He was too eager 
 for employment to make any stipulation as to terms, and 
 he began his work forthwith. Rising about six every
 
 122 LIFE OF 
 
 morning, he breakfasted, and got into the stage at 
 Ilammersiiiilh at twenty minutes past seven, arriving in 
 the Strand at half-past eight. This daily coaching to and 
 fro involved a grievous outlay of eighteen shillings a week 
 and Coleridge's earnings were probably about as large as 
 those of a third-rate clerk. To save nine shillings a week 
 he walked home every night from the Strand to Hammer- 
 smith. His wages were received in irregular sums of 
 jQ^t Jind >^io, as his necessities required. He worked 
 on ; he was so poor that he begged Stuart to let him 
 have his old copies of the day's papers when he had done 
 with them. But his cup of humiliation was still not full. 
 Street, like the nincompoop he was, filled the paper with 
 any trivial news of the day to the exclusion of the articles 
 that Coleridge's spirit, not yet wholly crushed, prompted 
 him to write. These articles fell day after day into a 
 chaos of other papers that lay buried beyond resurrection 
 in the editor's drawer. Coleridge could be beaten down 
 no longer. A rupture arose out of an article that had 
 been so altered at the bidding of a minister that it was 
 scarcely recognizable to its author as his own. Cole- 
 ridge left The Courier, but not until his poverty had 
 compelled him to undergo a long period of torture.' 
 
 In 1811-12 Coleridge delivered before the London 
 Philosophical Society a series of seventeen lectures on 
 Shakespeare and Milton. These lectures were in part 
 preserved by the shorthand notes — long lost, and re- 
 covered after forty years — of Payne Collier. They 
 
 ' The story of Coleridge's connection with The Courier is now 
 told for the first time. (For authorities sec Coleridge's letters to 
 Stuart.)
 
 SAMUEL TA YLOR COLERIDGE. I'i:} 
 
 were prcatly successful. There were usually about 
 a hundred and fifly hearers, and anion},' them were 
 ]}yron, Lamb, Rogers, and CrabI) Robinson. Cole- 
 ridge possessed nearly ever}' (jualification that ensures 
 success on the platform — a deep voice, deliberation, 
 and extraordinary powers of extemporaneous speech. 
 He had his vices as a lecturer, and chief of these was 
 the vice of digression. When lie was announced 
 to lecture on the Nurse in "Romeo and Juliet," he 
 discoursed with infinite circumlocution on parental 
 love, and provoked from Lamb this pertinent comment : 
 " Not so bad — he was to give us a lecture on the 
 Nurse, and he has given us one in the manner of 
 the Nurse." The course ended with hlat on January 
 27, 181 2, the hall being crowded, and the lecture 
 brilliant. Coleridge must have earned a substantial 
 sum by these lectures. He recjuired all he got to eke 
 out the wages of his appointment as condenser of 
 reports. 
 
 In 1813 better luck came to him. The play "Osorio," 
 written at Sheridan's suggestion in 1797, lay for ten years 
 at J)rury Lane. The manager gave it no better attention 
 than to make it the subject of a stupid joke. " Cole- 
 ridge sent me a play, and in one scene (a cavern) the 
 water was said to drip, drip; drip — in fact it was all 
 dripping" Sheridan's regime at the national theatre 
 was succeeded by that of a committee, of which Lord 
 Byron, the reigning poetic favourite, was a member. 
 Byron induced the new management to accept Cole- 
 ridge's play, and it was brought out under the title of 
 *' Remorse." The play was warmly received, and had a
 
 121 LIFE OF 
 
 long run of twenty nights. Coleridge's earnings were 
 large for those times, probably two or three hundred 
 pounds. Encouraged by this success, and prompted by 
 Byron's advice,' Coleridge tried his hand at drama once 
 more. He wrote "Zapolya," in 1814-15, but it was 
 declined !)oth at Dryry I^anc and at Covcnt Garden. It 
 had no parts for Miss O'Neil or Mr. Kean. 
 
 In this year, 1813, Coleridge went down to Bristol 
 with the intention of re-delivering, under the manage- 
 ment of his old friend, Joseph Cottle, the series of 
 lectures which had been given with such acceptance 
 before the London Thilosopliiral Society. He did not 
 repeat his success. Remaining at Bristol until the middle 
 of 1814, he made more than one attempt at a course of 
 lectures. It is not recorded that he broke faith with his 
 audiences, except in the case of an opening lecture, of 
 which Cottle tells a silly and incredible story on hearsay. 
 His health was utterly broken. So shattered were his 
 nerves that he could not take up a glass of water 
 without spilling it, though one hand supported the 
 other. It was a relapse to the condition of the 
 winter 1S07-8, and it was due to the same cause 
 — the drug, the drug, always the accursed drug ! He 
 was in the toils of his temptation, and his genial and 
 generous nature grew suspicious and morose. He set 
 traps to defeat his weakness. A man was engaged to 
 follow him about the streets of Bristol in order to 
 prevent him from buying laudanum at any chemist's 
 shop that he might pass. He despised himself for his 
 
 ' Byron's advice was accompanied by the substantial benefit of 
 the loan, early in 1815, of a hundred jwunds.
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. \'2J> 
 
 infirmity ; he spent long nights in agonizing prayer foi* 
 forgiveness in respect of the talents he abused. Theli 
 came the craving of the appetite to defeat remorse and 
 overcome fortitude. "Before (iod," he cries, "I have 
 but one voice — Mercy, mercy I woe is me. Pray for mc 
 that I may not pass such another niglu as the last. 
 While I am awake and retain my reasoning powers the 
 pang is gnawing, but I am, except for a fitful moment or 
 two, tranquil ; it is the howling wilderness of sleep that I 
 dread." It was a terrible conflicL No struggle more 
 awful ever played a part in the life of any man. 
 That fearful conflict day by day, night by night, be- 
 tween remorse and appetite — the heartrending appeals 
 for mercy and forgiveness for genius wasted, the anguish 
 of powerlessncss, the sense of extinguished vigour, the 
 thought of what might have been, and is not, and 
 never can be — these are depths of suffering that we 
 may not and should not sound. In such an awful crisis 
 of all that is best in it and all that is worst, the naked 
 soul should stand before (lod alone. 
 
 " Life's ocean, breaking round thy senses' sliorc, 
 Struck golden song as from the strand of day." 
 
 TiiEOUuKE \Vatts. 
 
 In 1 814 Coleridge went to Calne, where his friend 
 Morgan was now living in reduced circumstances. 
 He was to pay two pounds ten shillings a week for 
 lx)ard, lodgings, and etceteras. At Calne he wrote the 
 " Biographia Litcraria." lie came back to Londoii 
 in 1816, and took lodgings at a chemist's laboratory 
 in Norfolk Street. "Nature who conducts every 
 creature, by instinct, to its end," says Lamb, "might
 
 12G LIFE OF SAMUEL TA YLOR COLERIDGE. 
 
 .IS well have sent a helliio librorum for cure to the 
 Vatican. God keep him inviolate among the traps 
 and pitfalls ! " Coleridge sank lower and lower. " Had 
 I but a few hundred pounds, but j[^20o" he had written, 
 *' half to send to Mrs. Coleridge, and half to place myself 
 in a private madhouse, where I could procure nothing but 
 what a physician thought proper, . . . then there might 
 be hope. Now there is none."' But there was hope, 
 and the hope came, whence it might have been least 
 expected, from the slave himself. Early in iSi6 Cole- 
 ridge put himself under the care of Dr. Clillman, of the 
 Grove, Highgate, and took up his residence in the 
 doctor's house. From that time dated the beginnings of 
 his emancipation. It was a slow and gradual liberation, 
 but it was complete at length. Long, painful, and toil- 
 some years had passed before the slave threw off his 
 slavery, but his face was always toward the dark pillar of 
 hope now turning once again. 
 
 »•» \Vlicn Coleriilfjc left Bristol .iftcrhis iinsucccssful lecturing tour 
 of 1S13-14, a strong efTort w.is ni.idc by Cottle, at Southcy's sugges- 
 tion, to induce hiin to return to Keswick. The Southey-Cottlc corre- 
 spondence of 1S14 is interesling, as showing how ignorant of the 
 facts of Coleridge's life it was possible for his friends to be. Cottle 
 had newly learned lliat Coleridge was under thjdon»inion of opium. 
 Coleridge had then been an habitual opium-eater at least ten years. 
 Soulhey believed that Coleridge had "sources of direct emolument 
 open to him in The Courier, and in The Eclectic Kroira:" "No 
 advanl.age," says Cottle, " would arise from recording dialogues with 
 Mr. Coleridge ; it is sufficient to stale that Mr. C.'s repugnance to 
 visit Greta Hall, and to apply his talents in the way suggested b 
 Mr. Southey, was invincible." My strong conviction is that the chief 
 bugbear for Coleridge at Greta Hall was none other than Southey 
 himself.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 A FEW days before Coleridge settled at Iligligatc he 
 wrote .1 letter to Mr. Ciillman, in which he detailed 
 with frankness the temptations to which his besetting 
 weakness exposed him of acting a deception which prior 
 habits of rigid truthfulness made it impossible for him to 
 speak. "I have full belief," he wrote, "that your 
 anxiety need not be extended beyond the first week, and 
 for the first week I shall not, I must not, be permitted to 
 leave the house, except with you. Delicately or indeli- 
 cately, this must be done, and both your serv-ants and 
 the assistant must receive absolute commands from you." 
 A more resolute determination could not have been 
 made by a man whose will had never been sapped by 
 disease. We have no reason to doubt its sincerity, and 
 only the idlest gossip to question its faithful obsenancc. 
 It is true that De Quincey said that Coleridge never 
 conquered his evil habit ; true, too, that irresponsiI)le 
 persons have alleged that down to his death Coleridge 
 continued to obtain supplies of laudanum surreptitiously 
 from a chemist in the Tottenham Court Road. lUit the 
 burden of proof is in favour' of Mr. Gillman's clear assur- 
 ance that the habit was eventually overcome.
 
 128 LIFE OF 
 
 In that first letter to Mr. Gillman, Coleridge stated in 
 these terms the conditions on which he became an 
 inmate of his house : " With respect to pecuniary remu- 
 neration, allow me to say, I must not at least be suffered 
 to make any addition to your family expenses, though I 
 cannot offer anything that would be in any way adeejuate 
 to my sense of the service ; for that indeed there could 
 not be a compensation, as it must be returned in kind by 
 esteem and grateful affection." We have no good reason 
 to fear that Coleridge ever ceased, during the eighteen 
 years in which he remained under Mr. Gillman's roof, to 
 regard his domesticity in the same light of pecuniary 
 independence. 
 
 ^Vhen he arrived at Highgate he brought with him the 
 proof sheets of as much as was written of his " Christa- 
 bel." The poem was published towards June of the 
 same year, 1816, and met with a curious reception. 
 Since its production in the years 1797 and 1800, it had 
 enjoyed an extraordinary celebrity in manuscript among 
 Coleridge's private friends. Almost every leading poet 
 of the age had read it or heard it read. Two poets 
 had given it a kind of public recognition. Byron had 
 cjuoted from it, and Scott had adopted its metrical pecu- 
 liarity, the substitution of accentual for syllabic scansion. 
 Most of the leading critics were familiar with it. Hazlitt 
 knew it intimately, and Leigh Hunt remembered it so 
 well that in its printed form he was able to point out the 
 omission of a line. Many copies had existed in manu- 
 script, and Coleridge had been repeatedly importuned, at 
 gatherings of literary people, to read it or recite from it. 
 The verdict of his auditors on occasions when he yielded
 
 SAMUEL TA YLOR COLERIDGE. vn 
 
 to the solicitation had, so far as he knew, been more 
 than favourable ; it had been enthusiastic. Thus when 
 Coleridge printed his poem, it was natural that he should 
 look for a public reception from his friends correspond- 
 ing, if not commensurate, with their private comments. 
 In this he was grievously disappointed. Hardly a good 
 word was said for " Christabel " by any leading review 
 in 1816-17. The Edinburgh Rri'iao said that the poem 
 was " the most notable piece of impertinence of which 
 the press had lately been guilty," and " one of the boldest 
 experiments" that had yet been tried on "the patience 
 and understanding of the public." This review was 
 written by Hazlitt, and The Anti-Jacobin Revietv, Black- 
 ivooiTs Magazint, and The Examiner, among others, were 
 no less virulent in their censures. The public verdict 
 seems to have been more favourable. At least two 
 editions of the volume containing " Christabel " were 
 published in the first year. The satisfactory evidences 
 of sale may, however, have indicated no more than that 
 public interest which is always excited in a book that 
 is intemperately condemned. 
 
 Coleridge felt the material as well as the critical injury 
 inflicted upon him. But less than the avowed enmity of 
 his outspoken critics he felt the utter silence and dctnic- 
 tivc compliments of other writers. The Quarterly Rau'ac, 
 of which Southey was the main support, did not notice 
 "Christabel" even at the moment when its influenlial 
 rivals were attacking the poem, and its author, with equal 
 injury and injustice. Not wholly discouraged, and now 
 once again actively at work, Coleridge published two I-ay 
 Sermons in 1816 and 181 7, and in the latter year he 
 9
 
 180 LIFE OF 
 
 brought out his " Biographia Literaria." Tliis book was 
 written mainly at Calne, in 1815, a period in which, 
 according to the letters of certain of his friends, he was 
 wholly given up to the sensual indulgence of opium, and 
 the idle talk that was supposed to pay for his board. The 
 '* Biographia Literaria " was, as its title indicates, designed 
 to be a record of his literary career. It fulfils its avowed 
 function very indifferently. A narrative more inconse- 
 quential was perhaps never put forth. It is not a matter 
 for surprise that a mind like Coleridge's, having charged 
 itself with the task of narrating material incidents, should 
 find itself engrossed in such spiritual issues as arise out 
 of them. And yet Coleridge had in a high degree the 
 faculty of direct and vigorous narrative. The letters that 
 he wrote from Germany afford abundant evidence of his 
 art as a narrator, and indeed the " Biographia Literaria " 
 contains passages — such as the account of the canvassing 
 tour in the interests of The Watclitnan — which show that 
 Coleridge had nearly every natural quality of the story- 
 teller. Nevertheless, the "Biographia Literaria" is in- 
 conclusive as a record of the author's literary life. It 
 gives few facts, and omits many leading incidents. Not 
 a word docs it contain that relates to the important first 
 period at Bristol ; and of the journalistic career in London 
 it affords only a general account. Instead of such matters 
 of fact, it gives exhaustive explanations of the workings 
 of the author's mind. Naturally enough these explana- 
 tions are often germane to the first business of the book, 
 as where the principles are expounded on which the 
 •' Lyrical Ballads " were written. Less proper to such a 
 work arc certain philosophical expositions of the Hart-
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 131 
 
 Ician theory, of Kant's and Fichtc's writings, and sundry 
 digressions on the nature of the imagination or plastic 
 power. The book as a whole is, however, a thing of 
 great price, and where it touches the principles of poetic 
 composition it is hardly less than priceless. The chapters 
 of just criticism and noble praise of ^Vo^dsworth were 
 written at a time when Wordsworth held no real position 
 as a poet. Such was Coleridge's insight and such his 
 loyally. An author's friends usually find it very easy to 
 belaud him after the public has pronounced in his favour, 
 but grievously difficult to their courage and loyalty to 
 speak up for him while he is struggling his way to recog- 
 nition. Coleridge, at least, found matters so. The 
 reception of the " Biographia Literaria " on its i)ubli- 
 cation in 1817 was as unfavourable as the recei)tion 
 of " Christabel " had been the year before. Black- 
 7vood's Magazine pronounced its opinions to be "wild 
 ravings," and likened the vanity of the author to the 
 deplorable deception of Joanna Southcote, who mistook 
 a complaint in the bowels for the divine afflatus. The 
 "grasp of Hazlitt's powerful hand" in The Edinburgh 
 Jieviac, which had previously "crumpled up the poet's 
 verses like so much waste paper," was now put forth to 
 reveal "the cant of Morality," which, like "the cant of 
 Methodism," came to close the scene of Coleridge's 
 literary life. "Our disappointed demagogue," said Haz- 
 litt, "keeps up that 'pleasurable poetic fervour' which 
 has been the cordial and banc of his existence, by in- 
 dulging his maudlin egotism and his mawkish si)leen in 
 fulsome eulogies of his own virtues and nauseous abuse 
 of his contemporaries, in making excuses for doing
 
 132 LIFE OF 
 
 nothing himself, and assigning l)ad motives for what 
 others liave done." In 1S17 Coleridge published his 
 "Zapolya" also. This play was written, as wc have 
 seen, in 1815, though it seems probable that it was 
 designed a year earlier. Coleridge appears to have hinted 
 to Byron his desire to follow up his success with " Re- 
 morse," and 15yron, still possessing influence at Drury 
 I^ne, gave him cordial encouragement The play was 
 rejected at the theatres for the reason assigned on an 
 earlier page of this biography, and towards the end of 
 1817, about two years after its production, it was pub- 
 lished as a Christmas talc. In form the dramatic poem 
 was intended to imitate the " Winter's Tale '* of Shake- 
 speare, except that the subdivision into two parts, corre- 
 sponding to the interval between the first and second 
 acts, gave it the appearance of two plays on different 
 periods of the same tale. The effect of the whole work 
 was not, however, much disturbed by this subdivision, 
 which, as Coleridge said, did not render the imagination 
 less disposed to take up the required position. As a 
 drama " Zapolya " was clearly deficient in qualities 
 essential to success on the boards, even in days when 
 •' Remorse " and " IJertram " were not too undramatic to 
 hold the stage. As a Christmas tale it proved popular at 
 a time when such Yule-tide literature as the " Christmas 
 Carol " was unknown. " Zapolya " sold to the extent of 
 two thousand copies in six weeks, and Coleridge's earn- 
 ings thereby would have been no less substantial than 
 timely but for an accident that has yet to be recorded. 
 The prolific year of 181 7 witnessed yet another publica- 
 tion, a volume entitled " Sibylline Leaves." This was a
 
 SAMUEL TA YLOR COLERIDGE. 133 
 
 collection of all Coleridge's jioetical compositions from 
 1793 to the date of issue, with the addition of about 
 twelve new poems, and with the exception of the dramatic 
 writings, of " Christabel," and of the contents of the 
 volume of 1796, whereof the copyright had been bought 
 by Cottle. The collection had been made in lSjj. at" 
 Calne, and was probably suggested by the circumstance 
 that in that year Wordsworth had omitted Coleridge's 
 four poems in reprinting his " Lyrical Ballads." In the 
 same year the "Sibylline Leaves" was put into type by 
 Longmans, but publication was delayed owing to vexa- 
 tious causes, to which the author refers in a preface. 
 
 The book embodied the choicest of Coleridge's 
 poetry. In addition to "The Ancient Mariner" and 
 "Love," it contained "The Three Graves," a poem 
 reprinted from The Friend of 18 10. This poem, which 
 was assigned by Coleridge to the period of his residence 
 at Stowey, 1796-97, is quite the most interesting psycho- 
 logical study that he has given us. It was suggested by 
 study of the Oba traditions, and by the curious supersti- 
 tions of the Copper Indians, described by Samuel Ilearnc, 
 a servant of the Hudson's Bay Company, in liis account 
 of a search for the copper rivers of North America. 
 The book was probably read by Coleridge and AVords- 
 worth together, for Wordsworth's poem, " The Forsaken 
 Indian Woman," depicts with great fervour and pic- 
 turcsqucness a scene which Hearnc describes in his i)lain 
 homespun. What Coleridge borrowed from the rude 
 sailor's narrative is even more important than Words- 
 worth's splendid appropriation. The intention was to 
 show that the overwhelming power of an idea on health
 
 134 LIFE OP 
 
 and life is not an cfToct to be seen in savage peoples 
 only. 
 
 " Sibylline Leaves" was no more favourably received 
 than " Christabel " had been. One of its critics, Black- 
 woo(Vs Afa^aziut, said that the public accepted it as they 
 would accept a " lying lottery j)ufr, or a quack advertise- 
 ment." It is hardly necessary to go farther in order to show 
 that in i8 17, after the production of nearly all his poetic 
 work by which the world now sets store — " The Ancient 
 Mariner," " Christabel," " Kubla Khan," " The Three 
 Graves," '* France, an Ode," " Fears in Solitude," " The 
 Hymn before Sunrise in the Vale of Chamouni," " Frost 
 at Midnight," and " Remorse " — Coleridge's acceptance 
 at the hands of the professional guides to literature was 
 hardly more than might have been due to a literary 
 impostor and charlatan. We must realize this sure fact 
 in all the fulness of its significance if we would rightly 
 understand the disastrous eflect of the world's neglect on 
 Coleridge's later work, on his mind, and perhaps on his 
 character and habits. Coleridge was deeply injured in 
 pride and in purse, and though he did not proclaim his 
 wrongs from the housetops, he made no effort to conceal 
 them. In the torture of pride, of debased and material 
 prospects marred, he probably made some unjust accusa- 
 tions of which he had aftenvards to repent and which he 
 had to retract. Scott found it necessary to protest that if 
 he had appropriated from Coleridge a metrical peculiarity, if 
 he had anticipated the author of " Christabel " with stories 
 written in octosyllabics with anapxstic variations, he had 
 penned no single line in his disparagement. Byron, too, 
 was not slow to repeat a cordial eulogy whereof Coleridge
 
 SAMUEL TA YLOR COLERIDGE. 13o 
 
 had never had cause to question the sincerity. Still the 
 poet siifTored under the ojicn assaults of declared enemies, 
 and the hidden enmity of silent friends. If at this crisis 
 of his hopes — the close of 1817 — he doubted the fricnd- 
 shij) of Southcy, shall we char;,'e him willi disloyalty in 
 view of the fact that 77/<? Quarlerly Ra'iav (by Cole- 
 ridge's own statement) had not a word to say for 
 " Christabel," for the " Biographia I.iteraria," " Zapolya," 
 " Sibylline Leaves," and The Friend? Let us not forget 
 that Southcy was the " chief support " of the review at 
 that period, and, by his oii'n account, a person of great 
 influence vith its editor. Then let us remember that 
 this was no ordinary crisis in his brother-in-law's fortunes. 
 The attacks of Coleridge's enemies were now as false and 
 virulent as those of Southcy's own enemies had been 
 bitter, merciless, and injurious, four years earlier, when 
 Coleridge spoke up unfalteringly for his friend. Even 
 granting the best defence of Southcy's silence, that he 
 did not admire Coleridge and his work, and could not 
 conscientiously champion either the one or other when 
 assailed, there remains the yet more painful fact that 
 malice had made free with Coleridge's personal character 
 in a way that rendered it imperative on his brother-in-law 
 to assure himself that he deserved his unpopularity or was 
 cruelly injured by it. 
 
 Not content with denying to Coleridge any honourable 
 place as a poet, the press affixed to what it called his 
 "cant of morality," and "cant of Methodism," a distinct 
 charge of corrupt life. There can be no sort of doubt as 
 to what was meant by many innuendoes of hypocrisy ; 
 it was clearly the common talk of the criticasters of the
 
 13G LIFE OF 
 
 period, and even of some writers who merit a less dis- 
 honouring name, tliat Coleridge was guilty in respect to 
 the wife of his host. The charge was shameful, and 
 •worse than false. Though Coleridge lived more than 
 twenty years apart from his wife, the breath of scandal 
 <lid not touch him otherwise than in this regard. Men 
 like Stuart who had no desire to extol Coleridge's virtues, 
 iind other witnesses quite as hostile, to whom a moral 
 dereliction could hardly be a mortal offence, were loud 
 in praise of the purity of his walk, in life. Coleridge was 
 naturally a man of bounding animal spirits, but, as wc 
 sec in the records of Dr. Carlyon, his companion during 
 the German tour, his animal spirits were those of a 
 healthy boy. Even those suspicions of excess at the 
 time of enlistment which his family entertained and some 
 hostile critics have perpetuated, are seen to be groundless. 
 If Coleridge was at any period guilty of offence against the 
 moral law it must have been in those early days when, as 
 he says, he knew "just so much of folly" as "made 
 maturcr years more wise." In later years his walk 
 became, more than ever, that of a man who had never so 
 much as a temptation to such offence. It is a curious 
 fact^ which any careful reader of his letters may verify, tliat 
 when he became a slave to opium, his spiritual conscious- 
 ness became more active, and his watchfulness of the 
 encroachments of the baser impulses of his nature more 
 keen. If his excesses in this regard were what Southey 
 described them, guilty animal indulgences, it is a strange 
 problem in psychology why the whole spiritual nature of 
 the man should undergo a manifest exaltation. Every 
 one who was brought into contact with Coleridge in the
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. i:J7 
 
 darkest days of his subjection to opium, observed this 
 extraordinary moral transfiguration. Cottle noticed it ; 
 Wordsworth described it in words that few of us who 
 love Coleridge can read without tears ; even Stuart in his 
 dunderheaded way remarked that from 1808 to 18 14 he 
 never once heard Coleridge use a sentence that would 
 have dishonoured " a clergyman." Southey did not 
 observe this curious change, but that was because he saw 
 next to nothing of Coleridge after January, 1804, except 
 during a few months of 1806 and of 1810.
 
 • CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE story of this broken life is all hut told. Dis- 
 appointed in his hopes as an author, depressed by 
 his debts for board and lodgings, harassed by anxieties 
 about his son who was now at Oxford,' conscious that 
 the allowance made to his wife — the moiety of the 
 Wcdgewood pension — was barely sufficient for her needs, 
 Coleridge's health and spirits flagged. Towards Decem- 
 ber, 1817, Wordsworth wrote to John Payne Collier to 
 solicit his interest in a new course of lectures projected 
 by Coleridge. *' He is now far from well in body or 
 spirits," Wordsworth writes, " the former is suffering from 
 various causes, and the latter from depression." Charles 
 I^mb warmly seconded Wordsworth's efforts on Cole- 
 ridge's behalf " He is in bad health," wrote Lamb, 
 "and worse mind, and unless something is done to 
 lighten his heart, he will soon be reduced to extremities ; 
 and even these," the inveterate punster added, "are not in 
 
 ' His first son was sent up to the University in 1S15, nnd at this, 
 the darkest period of Coleridge's slavery to opium, Southey gene- 
 rously got together a subscription to defray the necessary expenses. 
 When it became necessary to make provision for the residence of the 
 younger son at Cambridge, CoLridgc found himself equal lo a. 
 father's duty in that regard.
 
 LIFE OF SAMUEL TA YLOR COLERIDGE. 130 
 
 the best condition." Tiie result of the cITorts put forth, 
 partly by Collier, but mainly by Coleridge, was that a 
 course of fourteen lectures was delivered in Fleur dc 
 Luce Court, Fetter I^anc, in i8i8, beginning the 27th of 
 January and ending in ^^arch. Shakespeare was the 
 subject of three of these lectures, and the remaining 
 lectures of the course were devoted to a wide range of 
 literature. Coleridge was not in his best condition, but 
 the lectures were by much the most successful he ever 
 delivered, both as to the r .iber of his auditors and the 
 extent of his earnings. He appears to have kept his 
 engagements at this period as faithfully as in 1S06, and 
 in 181 1-12. 
 
 It seems probable that his earnings from these lectures 
 of 18 1 8 were about one hundred and fifty pounds. Such 
 a sum would have been of material service at this junc- 
 ture but for an untoward circumstance already alluded to 
 in general terms. This was the failure of his publishers 
 early in 18 19. The disaster was of vital consequence to 
 Coleridge. It is difficult to realize what the precise rela- 
 tions may have been in which Coleridge stood to his 
 publishers. The firm in question had published every- 
 thing put forth by Coleridge later than " Christabcl " in 
 18 16, and that was published by Murray. Thus they 
 held the " Biographia Literaria," " Sibylline Leaves," 
 "Zapolya," and a remodelled edition of The Friend. 
 If they bargained for the copyright, or, as seems pro- 
 bable, for the half-copyright, it is clear that they had not 
 paid the price ; if they were responsible to the author for 
 royalties, it is no less clear that an imporLint sum was 
 still due from them. The puzzling fact is the sequel.
 
 140 l,//r£ OF 
 
 In order to recover possession of his works Colcrid^ ,- 
 paid into the bankrupt estate the whole sum of his can 
 ings from the lectures delivered in Fleur de Luce Cou. 
 and in addition to this payment he became chargeab. 
 with a debt of something like fifty pounds. Coleridge 
 letters on this subject are inconclusive ; only the recover 
 of original documents would make the circumstance 
 clear. What is abundantly evident is that, after the rapi< 
 exaltation of his hopes, which came of the undoubtei 
 success of a strong effort, Coleridge was as suddenly cas 
 back into pecuniary difficulties and the depression o 
 soul that accompanied them. It was as though th( 
 Nemesis of disaster dogged his steps. Again and agaii 
 he protested in his letters that whatever the measure o 
 his responsibility for talents wasted, he had never beet 
 free from anxiety for his material welfare. He said nc 
 more than any impartial view of his life will prove to bt 
 true. In the darkest hour of his subjection to opium, ir 
 the lowest depths of what his friends knew by the nanu 
 of indulgence, he worked as few men can work even 
 under conditions the most favourable to their tempera- 
 ments. The silly cuckoo-cry that Coleridge abandoned 
 himself to idle dreams, and took single pounds in charity 
 when he might have earned hundreds by vigorous effort, 
 has come to us in part from the lips of a man who was 
 so far from labouring under the long odds of physical 
 health and monetar}- failure by which Coleridge's life was 
 constantly hampered, that he could not do his daily 
 work if a cock crew in the street, or if a dog barked in 
 the next garden. 
 
 What little remains to be told of Coleridge's life is as
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 141 
 
 sad a story of noble lal)our si)urnccl, and of mighty talents 
 underprized, as tlie annals of literature contains. It is a 
 story of work without honour, and work without hope. 
 Embarrassed by many immediate debts, to which it was 
 now no longer possible that debts incurred for opium 
 could contribute, Coleridge returned to the hack labours 
 that had already eaten up the prime years of his man- 
 hood. To pay board and lodgings, and to do some 
 little for his son Hartley, at Oxford, Coleridge engaged 
 himself, " to obtain an honourable sufliciency, by writing 
 school books." Not even with this was the cup of 
 his humiliation full ; but one thinks it must have 
 run over and down the sides when, a little later, it 
 l)erame necessary to " write sermons for lazy clergymen," 
 who sti[)ulated that the composition should be " more 
 than respectable." The "dark pillar" of hope had 
 turned and turned again, and Coleridge, the most " won- 
 derful " man ever known to Wordsworth, the only i)erson 
 that answered to Hazlitt's idea of a man of genius, the 
 largest and most spacious intellect that Dc Quincey had 
 yet found among men ; Coleridge, the dreamer of great 
 dreams, was toiling at fifty years of age each day and 
 hour of his writing power, to pay some two pounds ten 
 shillings a week for board and lodgings. The Cillmans 
 were attached to him by every tic of esteem and love, 
 and the day must have been dark for them in which they 
 could have beclouded Coleridge's life with one thought 
 of his pecuniary indebtedness ; but none the less, but all 
 the more, for the affection that would not exact its mate- 
 rial dues, Coleridge — if he was a truthful man — felt in 
 honour bound to discharge them. In January, 1821, he
 
 142 LIFE OF 
 
 writes that he is working five to six hours a day ; and in 
 December, 1822, he writes that he is working every day 
 and nearly every hour of waking time. Like humbler 
 slaves of the pen, Coleridge had no thought of quarrelling 
 with his bread and butter. He knew, with a pang only 
 too poignant, that Blackicood's Magazine had laughed at 
 his " Christabel,"and ridiculed those "wild ravings" of the 
 " Biographia I.iteraria," which it likened to the deplorable 
 delusion of the woman who had the pain in her stomach ; 
 he knew that the same authority had told the world that 
 the volume containing "The Ancient Mariner," and 
 "The Three Graves," was being received like a "lying 
 lotter)* puff, or a quack advertisement." Nevertheless, 
 he was compelled, in 1S21, to go to JSlachvood \\\\.\\ his 
 hat in his hand, and ask to be allowed to write little 
 articles for little pay, just as he had gone to The Courier 
 ten years before, and prayed to be allowed to condense 
 reports from the other newspapers for a wage that he did 
 not dare to stipulate. 
 
 But Coleridge's material condition was not worse than 
 his intellectual prospect. To write schoolbooks for " an 
 honourable sufficiency," and sermons for a bare pittance 
 that was perhaps something less than honourable, was a 
 bad business in itself; but it threatened consequences 
 that were more to be feared than its own immediate 
 abasement. The sense of extinguished power was grow- 
 ing upon Coleridge daily amid this humiliating toil. 
 Life was slipping away, and though the number and 
 extent of his published works showed that he had not 
 been idle in his generation, the works that had been 
 wholly or mainly carried to their completion bore only a
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 143 
 
 small proportion to those that he had designed. The 
 grain he had housed was harvest enough for a smaller man, 
 but Coleridge was a giant, and more than half of all that 
 he had meant to carry still lay on the field. " From cir- 
 cumstances," he writes in January, 182 1, "the main 
 portion of my harvest is still on the ground, ripe indeed, 
 and only waiting, a few for the sickle, but a large part 
 only for the sheaving, and carting, and housing ; but from 
 all this I must turn away, must let them rot as ihcy lie, 
 and be as though they had never been, for I must go and 
 gather blackberries and earth-nuts, or pick mushrooms 
 and gild oak-apples for the palates and fancies of chance 
 customers." The lack of opportunity was much, but the 
 lack of wonted power was more. Such agony as came of 
 the consciousness of extinguished vigour was not easy to 
 express ; but Coleridge has expressed it in words as 
 pathetic and beautiful, perhaps, as ever came from any 
 man : — 
 
 " All Nature seems at work, .Slugs leave their larc — 
 The bees are stirring — birds are on the wing — 
 
 And \Yinter, slumbering in the open air, , 
 
 Wears on his smiling face a. dream of Spring I " 
 
 And I, the while, the sole unbusy thing, 
 
 Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing. 
 
 Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow, 
 Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flowi 
 IJloom, O ye amaranths 1 bloom for whom ye may, 
 I'or me ye bloom not 1 Glide, rich streams, away ! 
 ^Vith lips unbrightcncd, wrcathless.brow, I stroll ; 
 And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul ? 
 Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve. 
 And Hope without an object cannot live."
 
 144 LIFE OF 
 
 In 1S20 Coleridge had his sons with Iiim at Highgate, 
 and two years later his daiigliter visited him. Hartley, 
 after an Oxford career that terminated unfortunately, was 
 then poetizing a little and thinking about keeping school at 
 Aml)leside. Sara had just published her first book. In 
 1S25 Coleridge read before the Royal Society of Litera- 
 ture an essay on " The Prometheus of ^schylus," and 
 in the same year he published his philosophical work 
 entitled, " Aids to Reflection." The production of this 
 book had a good effect on his spirits ; its reception was 
 more than favourable ; the tide of Coleridge's fame had 
 at length begun to flow. In this year, 1825, Coleridge 
 received a pension of a hundred guineas from the private 
 purse of the king, George IV, For accepting this timely 
 help in his hour of need, he was called a " Tory pen- 
 sioner," "a pufl'ed-up partizan," and the public was told 
 that " trampling on the labouring classes " was " the 
 religion at the bottom of his heart, for the simple reason 
 that he was himself supported out of that last resource of 
 the enemies of the people, the Pension List." The " last 
 resource of the enemies of the people " failed Coleridge, 
 however, in his hour of still greater need. In 1830 the 
 king died, and the pension stopped. Coleridge, think- 
 ing he had a claim, appealed to Lord Grey, who ofl'ered 
 him a sum equal to two years' pension ; but these tem- 
 porizing terms the poet declined. He then wrote to 
 Brougham, who in the old days had professed to admire 
 him as a journalist, but Brougham appears to have done 
 nothing. Thus, on the verge of sixty, Coleridge was once 
 again entirely without calculable resources. He wrote a 
 little for Blackwood, and continued to earn small sums
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 14.3 
 
 by various labours equivalent in usefulness and dignity 
 to the aforesaid gilding of oak-apples. 
 
 From 1820 onwards the house of Mr. Gillman had 
 gradually acquired a unique distinction as a rallying-point 
 for intellectual activity. The residence of Coleridge 
 with the Gillmans drew to Highgate many men and 
 women who were celebrated in their several walks. One 
 day a week or oftcner there gathered about Coleridge a 
 select band of young men who looked up to him as to 
 a master. Among them were Edward Irving, Frederick 
 Denison Maurice, Arthur 11. Ilallam, Josepli Henry 
 Green, Julius Hare, and Coleridge's nephew, H. N. 
 Coleridge. Men of an older generation often joined 
 this weekly gathering, and of these there were Basil 
 Montagu, whose estrangement from Coleridge in 181 1 
 did not forbid a genial social intercourse.' Charles 
 Lamb was often of the circle, and, on the rare occasions 
 of their visits to London, Wordsworth and John Wilson 
 were at Highgate. It does not appear that Shelley ever 
 met Coleridge at Mr. Gillman's or elsewhere, and this 
 was probably due, not to any lack of appreciation on 
 Shelley's part — he described him as "a hooded e.igle 
 among blinking owls" — but to the circumstance th.-it 
 Shelley's circle among poets was that of Leigh Hunt; 
 and after 1817 the editor of The Examiner could hardly 
 
 • My conjecture would be that the estrangement from Basil Mon- 
 t.igu (involving in the course of years a still deeper cause of griev- 
 ance), must lie at the basis of any satisfactory explanation of tho 
 first part of the mysterious letter (from Coleridge to Allsop, dated 
 Ramsg.ite, Oct. 8, 1822), which has been a puzzle to all biographers. 
 My further inference is, that the second part of the Ramsgatc letter 
 has references to the writer's sons, Hartley and Dcrwcnt. 
 10
 
 HQ LIFE OF 
 
 be a welcome guest or sincere disciple where Coleridge 
 was practically in the position of the honoured host and 
 prophet. It is conceivable that the same cause operated 
 to keep Keats from the weekly gatherings ; but walking 
 one day, towards iSiS, in a lane near Highgate, Coleridge 
 met " a loose, slack, not well-dressed youth." It was 
 Keats. " Let me carry away the memory, Coleridge, of 
 having pressed your hand," he said. It was Keats indeed : 
 I can think of no other man who could have said just that. 
 Rather later than this he said, " I can humble myself to 
 nothing . . . but the memory of great men." Keats's 
 occasional utterances arc hardly to be matched in depth 
 of human feeling. At this time, iSi8, Blackn'ooiTs Maga- 
 zine was styling him "Johnny Keats." "He was as 
 little like 'Johnny Keats,'" said his brother, "as the 
 Holy Ghost." 
 
 Among those who were constant, if not prominent, 
 iit the gatherings of Coleridge's disciples was a young 
 man named Thomas Allsop. Coleridge met this extra- 
 ordinary friend during the lectures of 1818, when he 
 introduced himself to the lecturer by a letter left at the 
 door of the hall in Fleur de Luce Court. It is abun- 
 dantly clear that Coleridge cultivated the friendship, 
 though it is hard to realize that there can have been a 
 strong intellectual bond. A sufficient idea of the gentle- 
 man's mental equipment will be obtained from the fact 
 that, finding his propriety disturbed by the couplet in 
 " Christabel "— 
 
 " Sir Leoline, the baron rich, 
 Hath a toothless mastiff bitch,"
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 147 
 
 Mr. Allsop suggested to the poet this delicate and 
 euphonious emendation — 
 
 " Sir Leolinc, the bnron roun<l, 
 Had a toothless mastiff hound." 
 
 He tells us that Coleridge for sonic reason did not adopt the 
 change. If any reader should still be curious to cstimrito 
 the intellectual calibre of this last of the friends llutt 
 Coleridge annexed in a pilgrimage that brought many 
 strange companions, let him read this graphic account of 
 Charles Lamb and his "double." "I never knew any 
 one who at all approached or resembled our delightful 
 housemate (Lamb). I am wrong; I once met a man 
 ■with his smile, — his smile. There is nothing like it 
 upon earth ; unless, perchance, this man survives. . . . 
 He was, I believe, a stockbroker, and had been with his 
 son to traverse the haunts of his childhood, near Lyming- 
 ton ; un'lh his son, afflicted with a sudden and complete 
 deafness ; hence, perchance, these sweet smiles springing 
 from, and compounded of, love and pain. Yet this man 
 had never known Lamb ; still his smile was the same. 
 ... To those who wish to see the only thing left on 
 earth, //// is still left, of I^mb, his best and most beauti- 
 ful remain, — his smile, I indicate its possessor — Mr. 
 Harman, of Throgmorton Street." To grasp the full 
 significance of this beautiful " situation," it is only neces- 
 sary to imagine a lover of Lamb traversing Throg- 
 morton Street in search of a stockbroker named Mr. 
 Harman, and then waiting, or "perchance" asking, for 
 his — smile. It is not an inference that dishonours Mr. 
 Allsop to say that his friendship with Coleridge had
 
 148 LIFE OF 
 
 probably a basis of material benefits conferred and 
 received. Whatever the bond that knit together two 
 such men, it is a fact that Coleridge wrote to Allsop a 
 scries of important letters. These letters Allsop pub- 
 lished in due course, apparently to the discomfiture of 
 Southey and a few other friends, and certainly at the cost 
 of his personal peace. 
 
 Coleridge's attractions as a talker were great, as we 
 have seen, in the days of the "Salutation and Cat," of 
 the canvass in the interests of The JVatihman, and of the 
 German tour ; but in the days at Highgatc they were 
 probably at their best. The only satisfying record of 
 Coleridge's powers in conversation is the volume of 
 ^' Table Talk," collected by H. N. Coleridge, from the 
 end of 1822 to the middle of July, 1834. This book 
 carries the sure proof of education that is almost without 
 parallel, and of reading, thought, and observation, that . 
 outslrides, I think, the intellectual equipment of every 
 Englishman since Bacon, But here we have the essence 
 of what Coleridge said, and to other records we must 
 turn for accounts of how he said it. We shall take two 
 witnesses only, and they shall be sufficiently unlike. 
 First, T. N. Talfourd :— 
 
 " He has yet completed no adequate memorials of his 
 genius, yet it is most unjust to assert that he has done 
 little or nothing. To refute this assertion, there arc his 
 • Wallenstein ; ' his love poems of intcnsest beauty; his 
 "Ancient Mariner,' with its touches of profoundcst 
 tenderness amidst the wildest and most bewildering 
 terrors; his holy and sweet tale of ' Christabel,' with its
 
 SAMUEL TA YLOR COLERIDGE. 149 
 
 rich enchantments and richer humanities ; the depths, 
 the subhmities, and the pensive sweetness of his ' Tra- 
 gedy ; ' the heart-dilating sentiments scattered through 
 his ' Friend ' ; and the stately imagery which breaks 
 upon us at every turn of the golden paths of his meta- 
 physical labyrinths. And if he had a power within him 
 mightier than that which even these glorious creations 
 indicate, shall he be censured because he has deviated 
 from the ordinary course of the age in its development, 
 and instead of committing his imaginative wisdom to the 
 press has delivered it from liis living lips? He has gone 
 about in the true spirit of an old Greek bard, with a 
 noble carelessness of self, giving fit utterance to the 
 Divine spirit within him. Who that has ever heard can 
 forget him ? his mild benignity, the unbounded variety of 
 his knowledge, the fast-succeeding products of his ima- 
 gination, the child-like simplicity with which he rises 
 from the driest and commonest theme into the wildest 
 magnificence of thought, pouring on the soul a stream of 
 beauty and of wisdom to mellow and enrich it for ever ? 
 The seeds of poetry, the materials for thinking, which he 
 has thus scattered will not perish. The records of his 
 fame arc not in books only, but on the fleshly tablets of 
 young hearts, who will not suffer it to die even in the 
 general ear, however base and unfeeling criticism may 
 deride their gratitude." 
 
 Our second witness shall be Carlyle. This is the 
 famous description in •' The Life of Sterling : " — 
 
 "The good man — he was now getting old, to\nirds
 
 160 LIFE OF 
 
 sixty perhaps, and gave you the idea of a hfe tliat had 
 been full of sufferings ; a life heavy-laden, half-vanquished, 
 still swimming painfully in seas of manifold physical and 
 other bewilderment. LJrow and head were round and of 
 massive weight, but the face was flabby and irresolute. 
 The deep eyes, of a light hazel, were as full of sorrow as 
 of inspiration ; confused pain looked mildly from them, 
 as in a kind of mild astonishment. The whole figure 
 and air, good and amiable otherwise, might be called 
 flabby and irresolute ; expressive of weakness under 
 possibility of strength. He hung loosely on his limbs, 
 with knees bent, and stooping attitude; in walking he 
 rather shuflled than decisively stept ; and a lady once 
 remarked he never could fix which side of the garden- 
 walk would suit him best, but continually shifted, cork- 
 screw fashion, and kept trying both ; a heavy-laden, high- 
 aspiring, and surely much-suffering man. His voice, 
 naturally soft and good, had contracted itself into a 
 plaintive snuffle and sing-song ; he spoke as if preaching 
 — you could have said preaching earnestly and almost 
 hopelessly the weightiest things. I still recollect his 
 ' object ' and ' subject,' terms of continual recurrence in 
 the Kantcan province ; and how he sang and snuffled 
 them into 'om-m-ject' and 'sum-m-mject,' with a kind of 
 solemn shake or quaver as he rolled along. No talk in 
 his century or in any other could be more surprising." 
 
 In the summer of 1S28 Coleridge made a tour into 
 Flanders with Wordsworth and his daughter Dora. On 
 his return he brought out a collected edition of his 
 poetical works. Late in 1829 Coleridge's daughter Sara
 
 SAMUEL TA YLOR COLERIDGE. 151 
 
 married her cousin, Henry Nelson Coleridge, and re- 
 moved from Keswick to Hanipstcad, taking her mother 
 with her. Thus Coleridge and his wife were near neigh- 
 bours during the last years of his life, but it is not stated 
 that they ever met again. After living apart for nineteen 
 years it was hardly likely that they could ever come 
 together on terms of amity, or meet on terms equivalent 
 to armed neutrality. 
 
 Coleridge continued to work amid many indications of 
 breaking health. His constant assurance that he pos- 
 sessed a vast harvest ready for the sheaving did not prove 
 to be fallacious. Four large volumes were but a part of 
 the work which he had been doing in the dark through- 
 out many silent years. In 1831 his health continued to 
 fail. A year later Wordsworth wrote that Coleridge and 
 his sister Dorothy were " going, pari passu, along the 
 path of sickness, towards a blessed immortality." In that 
 year Coleridge printed the last part of his beautiful 
 " Youth and Age " — 
 
 ** Dew-drops arc the gems of morning 
 
 But the tears of mournful eve ! 
 Where no hope is, life's a warning 
 That only serves to make us grieve,. . .. 
 
 When we arc okl ; 
 That only serves to make us grieve 
 With oft and tedious taking-leave, 
 Like some poor nigh-related guest, . . — 
 That may not rudely be dismisst ; 
 Yet hath outstay 'd his welcome while, .... 
 And tells the jest without the smile.".. 
 
 This great man was dying with the clear consciousness
 
 152 LIFE OF 
 
 that the world denied him his due. Long ago life had 
 lost its charm of hope for him, and where no hope was, 
 life was no better than the stern lamp of a ship that lights 
 only the path that is past. The time had been when he had 
 fretted under the sense of work without hope, and talents 
 that he was compelled to waste. Eut that time was now 
 gone by. The fiery column that rose before his youth 
 was the dark pillar that stood behind his age. He was 
 reconciled to his dismissal ; he had told the jest without 
 the smile. Towards the end of 1833 he wrote his 
 epitaph — • 
 
 " .Slop, Christian p.isser-by : — Stop, child of God 
 And read, with gentle breast. 15encath this sod 
 A poet lies, or that wlilch once seemed he — 
 O, lift one thought in prayer for S. T. C. — 
 That he who many a year with toil of breath 
 Found death in life may here find life in death ! 
 rMercy for praise, — to be forgiven for fame, — 
 lie asked, and hoped, through Christ. Do thou the same." 
 
 Towards the end he grew anxious as to not having 
 seen much of Charles Lamb latterly, and he wrote a 
 touching letter hinting at his faults as a friend. But 
 Lamb had never ceased to love him. "Not an unkind 
 thought has passed in my brain about you," Lamb 
 writes; "if ever you thought an offence, much less wrote 
 it against me, it must have been in the times of Noah, 
 and the great waters swept it away. Mary's most kind 
 love, . . . here she is crying for mere love over your 
 letter." The beautiful friendship was to end as it had 
 begun. Early in 1834, Coleridge, in memory of the days 
 of that visit of the "gentle Charles " to Stowey in 1797,
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 153 
 
 wrote these words under the poem beginning, "Tliis 
 Lime-tree Bower my Prison : " " Charles and Mary 
 Lamb, dear to my heart, yea, as it were my heart.'' In a 
 copy of Beaumont and Fletcher he wrote — 
 
 ''Midnight. 
 " God bless you, dear Charles I^imb ; I am dying : I 
 feel I have not many weeks left. 
 " Mr. Gillman's, Highgatc." 
 
 Death came suddenly to Coleridge as to every man. 
 No matter how long it may be waited for, when it comes 
 it comes as a surprise. He died on Friday, the 25th of 
 July, 1S34. 
 
 Coleridge's son-in-law sent the tidings to Wordsworth 
 in Westmoreland, and when the old poet read the news 
 aloud to his family his voice faltered and broke. "He 
 has long been dead to me,'' said Southey, " but his 
 decease has naturally wakened up old recollections." 
 "Coleridge is dead," Lamb muttered to himself con- 
 tinually. " Coleridge is dead, Coleridge is dead 1 " To 
 the woman who had nursed his friend, I^mb gave five 
 guineas when he went to Highgate for the first time after 
 the funeral. " His great and dear spirit haunts me," 
 Lamb wrote a little later. " He was my fifty-year-old 
 friend without a dissension. Never saw I his likeness, 
 nor probably the world can see it again." Lamb himself 
 died before the end of the year. 
 
 They buried Coleridge in Highgate churchyard, and 
 now under the crj'pt of the new school chapel — 
 
 " The rapt one of the godlike forehead. 
 The heaven-eyed creature sleeps in earth." ~~ ~~~-^
 
 154 LIFE OF SAMUEL TA YLOIi COLERIDGE. . 
 
 The grave had hardly closed on him when the world 
 echoed with his praise. " Coleridge," said Blackwood 
 (1834) "alone perhaps of all men that ever lived was 
 always a poet — in all his moods, and they were many, 
 inspired." 
 
 THE END.
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 BV ' 
 
 JOHN P. ANDERSON 
 (British Museum). 
 
 I. WonKS. 
 II. Smaller Collections. 
 
 III. Poems. 
 
 IV. DnAMATic WonKS. 
 V. Lettkrs. 
 
 VI. MiSCELLANEOCS WORKS. 
 
 VII. Books Covjwsiya MS. 
 
 Notes nv CiiLKiiiuoK. 
 VIII. Ajtkndix— 
 
 l}io;;r»iiliy, Criticidin.ttc. 
 M.itiniino Article). 
 IX. CiiB()N()ix)aicAL LiaT oy 
 WonKS. 
 
 I. W0RK3. 
 
 The Complote Works of S. T. Cok- 
 riilf:c. With an introJuctory 
 essay upon his philo30))liical and 
 tliL'olo^'ical opinions. EJiteJ by 
 Professor Shcd<l. In ieven 
 volumes. New York, 1853, 8vo. 
 A reissue of thi» edition wa» pub- 
 lislietl at New York in 1684. 
 
 The Works of S. T. C. Prose 
 and Verso. Complete, etc. 
 Philadelphia [1684 t], 8vo. 
 
 II. SMALLER COLLECTIONS. 
 
 The Poetical and Dramatic Works 
 of S. T. C, with numerous 
 aihlitional poems, now first 
 collected, and revised by the 
 anihor. S vols. London, 1828, 
 8vo. 
 
 (A re-lxone of thi* edition ap- 
 peared in 1b2UL 
 
 The Poetical Works of S. T. C. 
 3 vols. London, 1334, 12nio. 
 
 The Poetical and Drnmatic Works 
 of S. T. C. With a life of the 
 author. London, 1336, 12ino. 
 
 Another Edition. With a 
 
 memoir. [Kdiud by Soni and 
 1). Colcrid;;.']. 3 vols. IJostoii 
 [U.S.], 1854, 8vo. 
 
 Anotlier Edition. Founded 
 
 on the anthoi's latest edition of 
 1834, with many additional 
 jiiecea now fust included, an I 
 witlt a colliTtion of varioun 
 readings. [Edilid by U. 11. 
 Shepherd.] i vols. Loudon, 
 1877, 8vo. 
 
 [Another Edition] Poetical and 
 Dramatic Works. 4 vols. Lou- 
 don, 1880, 8vo. 
 
 Tills is a reissue of the preredinp:, 
 publislietl l>y .MaimiUuu, witb nup- 
 pleuient to vol. IL
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 The Literary Remains of S. T. C, 
 collected and edited by H. N. 
 Colcridjji'. 4 vols. Londou, 
 1836-39, 8vo. 
 
 I. On tlie constitution of the 
 Ciiurch ami Stale, accordinjj to 
 tlie idea of tacli. (Ttiird edi- 
 tion.) 11. Lay Soruiona. 
 (Second edition.) E<lit«d from 
 the aiUlior's corrected nopicn, 
 with notes hy 11. N. Coleridge, 
 Loudon, 1339, 8vo. 
 
 Aids to lullcciion and the Con- 
 fessions of an IiKjuiriiig Spirit. 
 l{y S. T. C. To which are 
 added his E.shqj« on Faith 
 and the Hook of Common 
 I'laycr. New edition, reTised. 
 [With the " preliminary essay " 
 by J. Mursh.] {L'ohn's Hhind- 
 ard Lilrary.) Loudon, 16i>4, 
 8vo. 
 
 TaUe-T.iIk [edited hy H. N. C, 
 i.*., Henry NbIbou Coleriilx«] 
 . . . and the Kime of tliu 
 Ancient Mariner, Chriitahol, 
 etc. (M(.>rlf!/'t Universal Lib- 
 rary.) Loudon, lS8i, 8vo. 
 
 Miscellanies, irsthotio and liter- 
 ary: to wliich is ailded the 
 Thvory of Life . . . Collected 
 and arranged by T. Ashe. 
 (JIuhn's Standard Library.) 
 Loudou, 1885, 8vo. 
 
 in. POEMS. 
 
 The Poetical M'orka of Coleridga, 
 Shelley, and Keata. Complete 
 in one vol. 3 partA. I'aria, 
 1829, 8vo. 
 
 The Poems of S. T. a London, 
 1844, 8vo. 
 
 The Poetna of S. T. C. London. 
 1848, 8vo. 
 
 The Poetical AVorks of T. Camp- 
 boll and S. T. C. Ediuburgh 
 [1859], 8vo. 
 
 The Poems of S. T. C. Edited by 
 D. and S. Coleridge. Loudon, 
 18i2, 12mo. 
 
 Another Edition. London, 
 
 1S57, ISrao. 
 
 The Poems of S. T. C. Edited by 
 J), and S. Cijlerid;^o, with a 
 bioj^'rapliical nioinoir by F. 
 Frpilix'ruth. [Ta\ichniU edition, 
 vol 612.] Lcip;«ig, 1860, 16mo. 
 
 T!i9 Poems of S. T. C. London, 
 1862, 16ino. 
 
 ()ii» of "Boll and Daldy's Pocket 
 Voluojea." 
 
 [Another copy.] London, 1SG4, 
 
 A duplicAtoof tlio preco'llnff with 
 B new tillepuae. I'art of " liell ami 
 Dalily't EUerir Sorieu of Standard 
 Authors." 
 
 The Poems of S. T. C. Edited by 
 Derweut and Sara Coleridge. 
 Witlt an ap]iendu. A now edi- 
 tion. London, 18G3, 8vo. 
 
 The Poetical Works of S. T. C. 
 Kilited, with a critical memoir, 
 by W. M. Kossctti. Illustrated 
 by T. Seccouibc. London [1872], 
 8vo. 
 
 The Poetical Works of S. T. C. 
 Edited, with an introductory 
 memoir antl illustrations, by W. 
 B. Scott. Loudon, [1874], 8vo. 
 
 Tlie Poetical Works of S. T. C. 
 Loudon, [1878], 8vo. 
 
 The Poetical Works of Coleridge 
 and Keats ; with a memoir of 
 each. 2 vols. New York, 
 1878, 8vo. 
 
 Part of a iories of " BritUh Po«ta. 
 Rirerslde editiun."
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY, 
 
 The Pocticnl "Works of S. T. C. 
 Edited, with on introJurtory 
 iiieinnir, liy W. 15. Scott. Lon- 
 don [1880], 8vn. 
 Part of the " Kxrelslor SoHps." 
 Tlio Poetical Works of S. T. C. 
 Edited, with a critical memoir, 
 bv W. M. RoRSetti. etc [ JAi.ron's 
 Fopular I'orCs.] Londou [1830J, 
 8vo. 
 Tlio Poetienl AVorks of S. T. C. 
 With Life, etc. Edinburgh, 
 London [ISSl], 8rn. 
 
 Pnrt of " ITie LAmlsMvpe Series of 
 Poets." 
 The Poems of S. T. C. With a 
 prefatory nolico ... by J. 
 Skipsey. London, 1884, 16mo. 
 One of a f erifn, entitled " The 
 Canterbury Poota." 
 The Poetical Works of S. T. C. 
 Edited, with introduction and 
 notes, by T. Aslie. (/fWi'iir 
 ediiion of (he Brilifh J'oels.) 
 2 vols. Lon<ion, 1SS5, 8vo. 
 Poems on various subjects. Lon- 
 don, 1706, 12ir.o. 
 
 ContaiTis thrue or four sonnets by 
 CharU-s l.atiib. 
 
 • Second edition. To which 
 
 are now added Poems by C. 
 Lnnib and C. Lloyd. Bristol, 
 17U7, 12mo. 
 Poems. London [1800 1], 8vo. 
 ——Third edition. Loudon, 1803, 
 
 12mo. 
 Lyrical Pallads, etc. [By Cole- 
 ridge and Wordsworth.] Lon- 
 don, 1798, 8vo. 
 
 Includes "The Ancient M.iriner," 
 "The Foster-Motlier's Tale," "'Ihe 
 Kigbtingole," ami "The Dunficon." 
 
 . Second Edition. By William 
 
 Wordsworth. 2 vols. London, 
 1800, 8vo. 
 
 Includes the Kime poems by 
 Coleridce as In the prec«<Un(r, with 
 Uic aadition of the poem o» " Lot*." 
 
 Lyrical Ballads, etc. Tliird Edi- 
 tion. By William Wordsworth. 
 2 vols. London, 1S02, 8vo. 
 
 Include* the paino poems by 
 Cnloriil(je as in the Sfcomt Kiliiion, 
 with the cxceptii'U i>f "'Iha 
 Dungeon," which is oinittcrl. 
 
 Select Poetical Works, etc. Lon- 
 don, 1852, 12iiio. 
 
 Cliristabel, and the lyrical and 
 imaginative Poems of S. T. t-. 
 Arrftii;,'i'd and iDtrodiiccd by A. 
 C. Swinburne. Lomlon, ISOD, 
 IGmo. 
 P.irt of "The Bayaril Scries." 
 
 Favorite Poems. Boston [U.S.], 
 
 1877, 16mo. 
 Fears in Solitude, written in 
 1793, durin:; tlio alarm of an 
 invasion. To whii-h arc addoii, 
 France, an Ldc ; and Fmst at 
 Midiii>;ht. London, I'Vi, 4to. 
 Christabel; Kubla KImn, a vision; 
 The Pains of Sleep. London, 
 181C, 8vo. 
 
 Second Edition. London, 
 
 1816, 8vo. 
 Ode on the dcfartin;; year. 
 
 Bristol, 1790, 4to. 
 Prospect of Peace. London, 
 1796, 4to. 
 
 Mentioned In Watt's " Uili. I'.rit." 
 and in Lowndos; but thero u no 
 copy known. 
 
 The lUvcn, a Christmas talc — 
 Illustrated in oi^lit phtcs. I'.y 
 en old Traveller. London, 
 [1848 T], obL 4to. 
 
 The Rime of the Ancient JIariiicr. 
 Illustrated by twenty-five poctii: 
 and dramatic scenes, dciivrued 
 and etched by D. Scott. Edin- 
 burgh. 1837, foL 
 
 The Ancient Jlariner, and other 
 poems. London, 1844, ICmo. 
 Fait of " Clarke's Cabinet Suriea.*
 
 ir 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 The Rime of the Ancient Mai'ncr. 
 Illustroted [by E. H. Wohnort, 
 15. Foster, aud others]. London, 
 1857, 8vo. 
 
 The Ancient ^lariner, etc Lon- 
 don, 1858. 32nio. 
 
 I'art of the "Miiiiaturo Clajisicnl 
 I.ilirary." 
 
 Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, nnd 
 other poems. London, 1872, 
 8vo. 
 
 I'art of " Clianibers's English 
 Cla.Hsics," etc. 
 
 'I'lio Uimo of the Anrinit Jlariner. 
 Illustrated. Loudon, [1875], 
 8vo. 
 Part of " The Choice Series." 
 
 Another edition. Illustrated by 
 Dore. London, 1876, fol. 
 
 Another edition. Illustrated. 
 IJoston [U.S.], ]S7r., 24 mo. 
 
 Part nf tha " Vi'ttl'ocket scries 
 of Ktiindard uiul jxipular authors." 
 
 The Kimo of the Ancient Jlariner. 
 {AnrwlaUd IWms of Emjluh 
 Authors. RiiUd by E. T. 
 SUvtns and I). Morru.) Lon- 
 don, 1878, lOmo. 
 
 Another edition. Illustrated by 
 D. Scott, etc London, 1883, 
 IGtiio. 
 
 The Ancient Jlariner, Christabel, 
 and Miscellaneous Poems. 
 ( H-'ard «t Lock's Popular 
 Library oj LiUrnry Treasures.) 
 London. 18S6, 8vo. 
 
 Sibylline Leaves. A collection of 
 poems. (The whole, with the 
 exception of a ftw from 1796, of 
 the author's poetical composi- 
 tions from 17y3 to the present 
 date.) I^ndon, 1817, 8vo. 
 
 The Devil's Walk : a poem by 
 a T. C. and R. Southey [or 
 rather by Southey, with a few 
 stanzas added by Coleridge]. 
 Edited, with k biographical 
 
 memoir (of Professor Porson) 
 and notoH, by II. W. Montagu. 
 Second edition. (Facdur, etc. 
 2 Hunt ra led by Robert Cr u ikxh a n k, 
 vol. ii.) London, 1831, 12mo. 
 
 Ten Etcliines illustrative of 
 
 the Devil's Walk [a poem by IL 
 Soutlicy and S. T. C] Loudon, 
 1831, toL 
 
 IV. DRAMATIC WORKS. 
 
 The Dramatic Works of S. T. C. 
 Edited by Derwent Coluridfjo. 
 A new edition. London, 1852, 
 8to. 
 
 The Fall of Robespierre. An 
 hiktoric drama [in tliico acta and 
 in verse. The first act by S. T. 
 C, the second and third by R. 
 Southey]. Cambridge, 1794, 
 8vo. 
 
 Osorio, a tracredy, as originally 
 wi it tea in 1797, now first pi in ted 
 from a copy recently discovered 
 . . . with the varioiuni readings 
 of " Remorse," and a nionograpli 
 on the history of the ]>lay in its 
 earlier and Inter form, by the 
 author of "Tcunvsoniana " [R. 
 II. S., i.e., R. il. Shepherd]. 
 London, 1873, 8vo. 
 
 Remorse ; a tragedy in five acta 
 [and in verse]. London, 1813, 
 8vo. 
 
 The two foUowinir edittnns of 
 Ilomnrse differ cousiderably from 
 tliu above, 
 
 Second edition. London, 
 
 1813, 8vo. 
 
 Third edition. London, 1813, 
 
 8vo. 
 
 Za[>olya : A Christmas Tale, ia 
 two parts : The prelude en- 
 titled "The Usurper's For- 
 tune ;" and the sequel entitled 
 " The Usurper's Fate." London, 
 1817, 8yo.
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 V. LETTERS. 
 
 Letters, conversations, onil recollec- 
 tions of S. T. C, Edited by 
 T. All>op. 2 vols. London, 
 1830, 12mo. 
 
 Second edition. [With n rre- 
 faco by li. A., if., Ivodert 
 Allsop?] London, 1858, 8vo. 
 
 • Third edition. Loudon, 1864, 
 
 8vo. 
 
 A (lupllrate of tlio serond edition, 
 with a nuw tltlciir\j;o ami preface. 
 
 Unpublislicd Lftteis from S. T. C. 
 to tho Ker, John Prior Elstlin. 
 Communicated by Henry A. 
 Bri^'hL {I'hilohiblon Hociety.) 
 [London, 1884], 4to. 
 
 VL MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 
 
 Aids to Reflection in tho formntion 
 of a manly iharartcr on tlio 
 several proiinds of priidenee, 
 morality, and reli^;ion : illustra- 
 ted by select passages from our 
 elder divines, es|iecially from 
 Archbishop Lcighton. London, 
 1825, Svo. 
 
 • [Another edition.] Ai<ls to 
 
 Rellcction. London, 1830, Svo. 
 Another edition. \Vitli a 
 preliminary essay by J. Alarsh. 
 From the fourth London edition, 
 with the author's last correc- 
 tions, edited by H. N. Colo- 
 ridge. Burlington [U.S.], 1840, 
 Svo. 
 
 • Fifth edition, enlarged. 
 
 Edited by H. N. Coleridj;e. 
 2 vols. London, 1843, Svo. 
 
 ——Sixth edition, enlarged. 2 vols. 
 London, 1848, lOmo. 
 
 Seventh edition (with several 
 notes by the author). Eiiited 
 by D. Coleridge. London, 1864, 
 6ro. 
 
 Aids to Rcdortion. — Another 
 edition. Lonclun, 18'Jl, K'liio. 
 
 New edition, revised. Wiih 
 
 index and translations of the 
 Greek and Latin quotations by 
 T. Fcnhy. LiverpO(d, 187:!, 'Svo. 
 
 Anotlicr edition. J^ondon, 
 
 1883, 12rno. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 1SS4, 12mo. 
 
 Biof,'rapliia Litcraria ; or, T>io- 
 f^raphiral sketches of my literary 
 life and opinions. l>y S. T. C. 
 2 vols. London, 1817, Svo. 
 
 Second e<iition, prepared in 
 
 part by H. N. Colerid>;e, com- 
 pleted by his widow (Sara 
 Coleiidfje). 2 vols. Loudon, 
 1847, ICmo. 
 
 New edition. From tho 
 
 second London edition, etc 
 2 vols. New York, 184S, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. Loudon, 
 
 ISGO, 12nio. 
 
 Blessed are ye that sow beside all 
 waters. A lay sermon, aildrcsscd 
 to the hi^'licr and middle classes, 
 on tlio eIi^ting distresses and 
 discontents. London, 1817, Svo. 
 
 Conciones ad I'upuluni ; or, Ad- 
 dresses to the I'eoide, liriatol, 
 1795, 8vo. 
 
 Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit. 
 By S. T. C. Edited from the 
 author's MS. by H. N. Coleridge. 
 London, 1840, Svo. 
 
 Another edition. Confessions 
 
 of an Inquiring Spirit, and some 
 niirtccllaneous pieces. Edited 
 from tho author s MS. by H. N. 
 Colcridfje. [With an introduc- 
 tion by J. H. Green.] London, 
 1849, IGrao. 
 
 Third edition. London, 1853, 
 
 12mo. 
 
 Fourth edition. Loudon, 
 
 1863, 12mo.
 
 vl 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Tho Fripnd. A ^Ties of essays. 
 Ix>ti(loii, 1S12, 8vo, 
 
 \^. Thl« work wAn piilili'hed In 27 nns. 
 Initu June 1, 1,-00, to M.irch 15, 
 1810, nnil orieiii.-\llT oiititlo I, 
 "The Friend; a literary, nioriil, 
 ivnd political weekly piper." It 
 WHS nminiy written by C'ulerid^re. 
 
 New riiifion, 3 vols. Lon- 
 
 •loii, 1818, 8vo. 
 
 Third ciiition, with tho 
 author's li»»t ccirrortioiH, atnl 
 an oiipeiulix, etc. [Kdited] \<j 
 II. N. Coleriilj^e. 3 vols. 
 London, 1S37, linio. 
 
 • Fonrth cdiiinn. 3 vols. 
 
 London, 1844, 12iiio. 
 
 Another editinn. London, 
 1850, 12ino. 
 
 Nfw edition, reri^ied [hy D. 
 Colcridye]. 2 vols. LoiiJou, 
 18G3, 8vo. 
 
 — Another edition. [Jlchn's 
 iitafulard Library. \ London, 
 18CG, 8vo. 
 
 Essa)'8 on his own times ; form- 
 ing a second scries of " Tho 
 Friend." By S. T. C. Edited 
 hy his daughter (Sara Colo- 
 ridfjc). 3 vol.H. Ixindon, 16.10, 8vo. 
 Oon«i«t« mainly of .S. T. C.'» con- 
 tributions t<i the newspapcra. 
 
 General Introduction to the 
 Encyclopredia Jlctropolitana ; 
 or, A jireliminary treatise on 
 Method. London, 1845, 4to. 
 
 Treatise on Method, reprinted 
 from the Fncycloji.-rdia Metro- 
 politana. London, 1849, 8ro. 
 
 5«me work ai th«» preceding. The 
 eAMy Iteolf iiidatod '* Jnniiary ISIU." 
 
 A Hebrew Dirpe by H, llurwitr, 
 on the funeral of the Princess 
 Charlotte, with a translation in 
 English verse, by S. T. C. 
 LouduD, 1817, 8vo. 
 
 Ilinti towards tlie formation of 
 a nioro coiiiprehenHivo theory 
 of Life. Editf.I by S. 15. 
 ■\V'atM)n. Loudon, 1843, 12mo, 
 
 Lay Sornions, edited with tlio 
 author's last corrections and 
 notes, by D. Coleridtin. Third 
 edition. London, 1852, 8vo. 
 
 Lecturen and notrs on Sliakspero 
 and other English Toets. No* 
 fir-t coUucted, by T. As'ie. 
 {/Juhn't SUirulnrd Lilrary.) 
 London, 1SS3, 8vo. 
 
 The Life of Wesley ; and rise and 
 jTogrois of iletliodisin. Thinl 
 edition ; by Kobrrt Soiillicy ; 
 with nofBH, by S. T. C, etc. 
 
 2 vols. London, 1*^40, 8vo. 
 Nww edition : with notes bj 
 
 S. T. C, etc. 2 vols. Loudon, 
 1SS8, 8vo. 
 Lives of Northern Worthies ; by 
 Hartley C"I«ridge, edited by 
 his brother (Durweiit Coloridge), 
 A nuw odiliou, with tho correc- 
 tions of the author, atid tho 
 niarginul obscrTationa of S. T. G. 
 
 3 vols. London, 18j2, 8vo. 
 
 A moral and political lecture 
 [on the ]>iinci|iles of froedorn') 
 delivered at JJriatol. Bristol, 
 [ll'i'o], 8vo. 
 
 This is in sub-itAnre tho same as 
 thu tirst of thu (Joticxonet. 
 
 Notes and Lectures upon Shake- 
 speare and nonie of tlie old I'oets 
 and Dramatists; with other 
 Literary Remains, Edited by 
 Mrs. II, N. Coleridge. 2. vols. 
 London, 1549, l«mo. 
 
 This work, the Sotfi on Kn^tUnh 
 Dxvtuft, and Sftet, th'nUi'rieul, etc, 
 are HuliNtnntially reprints of the 
 four vols, of " Literal y Keuiuins." 
 
 Notes on English Divines. Edited 
 by the Rev. D.Coleridge. 2vola» 
 liondou, 1803, Svo.
 
 Dir.UOGRAPIIY. 
 
 vil 
 
 Notes on St.illlri;:ni'et [writfcn 
 in a ropv of liis " < •riu'iiK-H 
 Sacrnp"l by S. T. C. [K.litc.l 
 by Iv. Gariiett Rniirintfid 
 from 'I'lio AtlicuiuutD.] Gldagowr, 
 1875, 8vo. 
 Printed fur private circulatlou. 
 
 Note's, tln'ol(>;^icil, jHilitical, Rtid 
 iiii^coIl:iiiri)uj. E'Jited by I)cr- 
 wfiit Coleridge. LondDii, 1^53, 
 8vo, 
 
 Oiiiiiiina ; or Tlorne Otiosiores. 
 [liy li. Sout'uy and S. T. C.J 
 London, 1S12, Tinio. 
 
 On tlie Constitution of tlio Church 
 and State, accurdint; to the iilea 
 lit i-ach : with aids towarilt a 
 riu'l't judsnicnt on tlio l«to 
 Citliolic Dill. Loudon, 1830, 
 Svo. 
 
 Fourth edition. Edited, with 
 
 ii"te3, l>v 11. N. Cokriiljje. Lon- 
 don, 18:.2, Svo. 
 
 Tho I'lot Disrovored ; or an nd- 
 dri'MS to the |'((i[>lo 9t:^in>*t 
 jTMtiisterial treason. Ijriitol, 
 17'J5, Svo. 
 
 rii'si'Pctns of a course of Lectures. 
 Ky S. T. C. [Lon.lon, 1818J. 4to. 
 
 Si'^'en T.'-ctiirts on filiakcsiioaro 
 and Milton. ... A List of all 
 tlio JIS. eniendiilinns in Jlr. 
 Collier's folio, 1G32 ; atiil nn 
 introductory j^refaco hy J. 1'. 
 Collier. London, l.S.IO, 8ro. 
 
 Tlicre in a o.py In tliH I.ilir.iry of 
 the liritiiali .Mii'..'iiiii, witli niiiiicniiM 
 lu'wsiiripiT i-iiuin(,'» and otiicr ex- 
 tracts iiinurttil. 
 
 8|>eciinens of tho Tah'o T«lk of . . . 
 S. T. C. [Edited by II. N. C, 
 I.e., Henry Nt^lson ('oleridge.] 
 2 vols. London, 1835, 12mo. 
 
 —Third edition. London, 1S51| 
 
 870. 
 
 II 
 
 Specimens of the T.ihh-Ta^kcf . . 
 S. T. C. Ari.itlior edition. 
 London, [1S7-JJ 8vo. 
 
 I'lirt of " Uoutle(Ij;j'» .Stand.ird 
 SeriuH." 
 
 Tho Table Talk frej.rintcd fio-n 
 
 tilfi second fditiutl nf II. X. 
 
 ('oleridi,'u'* " .Siirciui'tis"] anl 
 Oinniana of S. T. C. With 
 a.MHional Tthlo Talk from All- 
 «i)|i'h " KecoUcction.s," and 
 iiunuscript matter not bi'foro 
 yriiited. Arranged and ed.t'd 
 I'V T. Ashe. {BoUiin S!<nil..Z 
 Library.) London, 1S34, 8vo. 
 Tlio StatcHniin's Minual ; or tho 
 Itibio the boht ;;iiido to politicul 
 skill and fore.Hi;,'lit ; a lay-scinwui 
 [' n I'sal. lnviii. 5-71. With 
 an a|'|iendix, containin;; cmn- 
 mentinnd esways conni'cti'il wiih 
 the study of the in>pirud writ* 
 in;4s, London, ISlli, Svo. 
 
 The Tcnijilo; sacred jioinn.i and 
 jirivato ejacul.ilion.s, hy (icorL,'!) 
 llorbc.t. [With notiM by 
 S. T. C] London, 1S.'.7, Svo. 
 
 The Piccolomini, or tlio first .part 
 of Wdllenstein; a drama, oto., 
 by J. C. F. Von .Sohiller. 
 'J'ranslated by S. T. C. Lou- 
 don, 1800, 8vo. 
 
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 tra;,'i;dy in fivo a^'ts. Trans- 
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 1800, 8vo. 
 
 Tho Works of F. Schilh-r.^ Tho 
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 ftrin, Trantdated by S. T. C. 
 V(d. iL {Jlohii'i SbiHilard 
 Library.) London, ISIU, etc., 
 8vo. 
 
 Schiller's Tragedies t Tho Picco. 
 loniini ; and the Death of 
 Wallenstoiu. Translated from
 
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 XI 
 
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 niiirli intircstint; inattor relatii'K 
 
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 .Samuel Tavlor Coleridge, 1772- 
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 Samuel Taylor Col.rii.ive, by 
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 ISJI. 
 
 Colerid;,'e, Hartley. — Poems by 
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 (,'onlain* iiAny partirtilars relat- 
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 tjainuel Taylor. — Coleridv'e on 
 
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 An OHsay on ttie arj^nnnpnt of 
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 Sara. — Mmioir auj Letter.s 
 
 of S. C. 2 vols. London, 
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 Containi a nnmber of Important 
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 especially iu tuI. i. 
 
 Collier, Jobn Payne. — Collier, 
 Coleridge, and Sbakcjpcare A- 
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 pap«ri ol the lata Mortimer
 
 x(i 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Collins. K.litod bv Tom Taylor. 
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 Coloridte'* romitry, np. 103-120. 
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 1870. 
 
 Col(}uhoiin,Jolni Campbell. — Scnt- 
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 Lifo of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 
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 Cottnrill, »,. ji. — An Introduction 
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 Tlio copy in tlio Uritish Miiipiitn 
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 — — Ucmiiiisrcnces of S. T. Cole- 
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 Courtliopo, Willi.im John. — Tlio 
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 Poetry, Mu'ir, and I'ainting : 
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 Croik, Geort'o L.— A Manual of 
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 Coleridge, pp. 474-431. 
 A Conipeniliou3 History of 
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 Lomlon. 18(51, Svo. 
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 Davy, Sir Humphry. — Fra^'niBnt- 
 ary Remains of Sir Humphry 
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 Contains a niinrhcr of early letters 
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 Dennis, John. — Heroes of Litera- 
 ture. — English Poets. Loudon, 
 18S3, 8vo. 
 Hamuel Taylor Coleridge, pp. 322- 
 
 De Quincey, Thomas. — Do Qnin- 
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 Rccollertionn of tlio Lakes and 
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 Deshler, Charles D. — Afternoons 
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 1879, 4to. 
 Ci)lcri<lse, pp. ^Ll 220. 
 
 Dctcoiive. — Literary Cookery, 
 with rcfercnco to matter attri- 
 buteil [hy J. P. Collier] to 
 Colerid^'O and .Shake<;pcare. A 
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 Devey, J. — A Comparative Esti- 
 mate of .Moilcrii English Poets. 
 Loudon, 1S7.3, Svo. 
 
 Tho Lake I'octs. — Coleridso, pp. 
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 Dowden, Edward. — Studies in 
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 Tlio Transrendonlal Movement 
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 Enijland. — Tiio l.ivin'.r Pouts of 
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 S. T. Coleridge, vol. I., pp. 413-4CO. 
 
 Essay. — Tlie relation of iildhi.sophy 
 to theology, and of tiieology to 
 religion. Reprinted from tho 
 Eclectic Review. Revised and 
 enlarged. London, 1851. ICmo. 
 The he.ad title re.ads— " .S. T. Cole- 
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 Essays. — Cambridge Essays, contri- 
 buted by members of tlie Univer- 
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 Coleridge, by F. J. A. Uort, pp. 
 202-3il. 
 
 Fitzgerald, Pcrcjr. — Charles Lamb; 
 his friends, his haunts, and Lia 
 books. Loudon, 1866, Svo.
 
 BILLIOCRArilY. 
 
 Xtll 
 
 Fowler, Fniik. — T/H't r.leatiinRs, 
 by tlin Into Frniik Fowler. Lou- 
 don, 18C4, 8vn. 
 Lectures.— Coleridge, pp. 107-200. 
 
 Fox, Caroline. — MemoiioH of Olil 
 Friciiils, being txtriiefs froTn 
 tlie Journala ami Letters of 
 C. F., from 1S35 to 1S7L 
 Editp.l by Horace N. rym. 
 Lonilon, 1SS2, 8vo. 
 
 Contains a niinilier of Interestin? 
 referenees to Samuel Taylor 
 Coleriilge. 
 
 Gilfillan, Ceor;^? — A Osillery of 
 Literary Portraits. Etlilil)ur^;li, 
 1S4.''), 8vo. 
 Samuel Taylor Coleri.lco.pp Cu.'-iss. 
 ^Gillman, Jntnes. — 'Ww Lilo of S. 
 T. Coleriil^'e. [With rniiioiis 
 extrat'ta from liii works]. Vol. i. 
 London, 1S3.S, Svo. 
 No more piililished. 
 
 Oralinm, J. Mnnay. — An liifstori- 
 cal view of Literature and Ait 
 in Great liritain. Serond edi- 
 tion. liOndon, 187'2, Svo. 
 Coleri.lce n..tice.I, pp. 120130. 
 
 Grattan, Tlioinas C. — Beaten 
 Paths ; and thoso who trod 
 tlicin. 2 vols. Lundoi), 1SG2, 
 Svo. 
 
 " A Thren Payii" Trmr with Colo- 
 rilU'e Riid WoriUworlli," vol. ii., pp. 
 107-n:.. 
 
 Green, Joseph Henry. — Spiritna' 
 Pliilosophv: founded on tho 
 teaching t>f S. T. C. Kdited, 
 with a .Memoir of the Author's 
 Life, by .1. Simon. 2 vols. 
 London, l5^lj5, Svo. 
 
 Grinstoil, T. P.--Ii.dic9 of Genius: 
 Visits to tho Last Ilotnes of 
 Poets, Painters, etc AVith illus- 
 trations. London, 1859, Svo. 
 
 llichcato.— Samuel Taylor Cole- 
 rlilgu, pp. 101-103. 
 
 Hall. S. C— A IJook of Memories 
 of Great Men aud Woniuu of the 
 
 A;<n, from person'»1 aequuint- 
 anep. Ijoiiilon, 1871. 4to. 
 
 Samuel Taylor Colcridgo, pp. CT- 
 4S, Willi illu.itratiiins. 
 
 Si'fond edition. Lotulon, 
 
 1877, 4to. 
 
 S.iniiiel Taylor Coleridge, pp. 27- 
 4S, with illiHtratidiH. 
 HHziitt, William.— Tlio Spirit of 
 lh« A'.,'o; or cont^'mporHiy 
 jioi traits. London, l.S-2j, Svo. 
 Mr. C(ilori(l-e, pp. 01 7:). 
 
 Memoirsof W. I[.,ctc. 2 vols. 
 
 London, 18C7, Svo. 
 
 ("••ntalns important referenci-s to 
 S. T. CuK.ri.l«o. 
 
 Political Ks-iays, withSk'tclp'i 
 
 of Public Characters. Londuii, 
 181f, Svo. 
 
 .Mr. Coli^ridce's Tny Sermon, p>». 
 lls-r.U; (jtutcbuiaii'd Manual, pp. 
 IJJ-iaO. 
 
 Literary Remains of tho Inte 
 
 W. H. 2 vols. London, ISatJ, 
 Svo. 
 i>-<ay iIt., vol. II., pp. am noc— 
 
 My llrrit niiinalntaiico wjili piu-ta. 
 
 W. Carcw. — Oirspriii? of 
 
 Tlioujiht in Soiitiido. .Modern 
 Esi;«vs. T,ondon, IS'^f, Svo. 
 " Ci>lerlil;;o Ahnwiil," pp. \-ll. 
 
 Ilcraiid, John Ahralinm. — .\n Ori- 
 tion on tho death of S. T. Col"- 
 )id>;e, delivered at tho Uu-'S'-U 
 Listitution, etc Loutlun, 1831, 
 Svo. 
 
 Holl'iiiann, Frederick A. — Poetry, 
 its ori;.;in, nature and history : 
 beiii(( a jjeneral sketch of poi'Mo 
 and dramatic literature. Lou- 
 don, 188-1, Svo. 
 Coleriiljju, pp. 37.'i-391. 
 
 Hop;?, James. — Tiio Poetic Afirrop, 
 or the Living Hards of Hiiiaiii. 
 [By James Hogg]. Londou, 
 1816, Svo. 
 
 ('ontniiiit two raroille.* on S. T. C. 
 entltltd "liutbvllu" aiiU "TU« 
 Cheruli."
 
 XIV 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Uowitt, 'Williim. — Tlio Northern 
 Heights of Lon.loii ; or, liijtorical 
 a-R(iciations of llatiipsteMl, 
 ]Iit;hj,'ate, etc. Lomlon, 18C9. 
 8vo. 
 Coleridge at nishpt\to, pp. 810-317. 
 
 Ilomr^ anil Hniints of the 
 most EininfTit liriti'^h Poets. 
 Third eiiitiou. London, 1S57, 
 8vo. 
 S.iiniicl TA>lor Coif riiiye, pp. 3nS-418. 
 
 Jerilan, Willism. — Mrn I hare 
 ktinwn. I/OMiloi), ISflf!, 8to. 
 Samufl Taylor Cnlcriil^je, pp. 1I9-1X1. 
 
 Johnson, Clisrlrs F. — Thrcn 
 Americans and Thr^n p'nijlixh- 
 incn. L-ctures r»*d before t)ie 
 Students of Trinity Colle;;^, 
 llnrtford. New Ynrk, 188G, 8vo. 
 Ciilcri.l-o, I'p. <I-S7. 
 
 Lertiircs. — I^fctures dolivrrcd 
 before fli8 Voiinf^ Men's Chris- 
 tian Assoriation in Eicter ilail. 
 London, 1853, Sro. 
 
 Col»riil;o ari'l Iiis fnllnwers, a 
 lertnro l.j the Rot. WIUiAm M. 
 l!otlii'rint;ton, Feb. Sth, 1^3, pp. 
 40T-44S. 
 
 Le dice, Charles V.— C. Hege Re- 
 miniscences of Colerid«e. Ke- 
 Iirinted from tlio C, rnllerrutn s 
 Mi^jatinf. IVn^ance [18'12],?to. 
 
 Leslie, Charl's Robert. — Antobio- 
 pranliicsl Urcollcctioiis. Edited 
 by Toin Taylor. 2 vols. Lou- 
 don, TSCO, 8ro. 
 
 Contains miirli Interesting ■latler 
 Telatinj to s. T. Colrrlilge. 
 
 Lester, John W . — Critirisms. 
 Tiiird edition. London, 1853, 
 evo. 
 
 CoIoridRe, pp. ISO 19?. 
 
 Literary fciieciilnm. — Tho L. S. 
 2 vols. London [1821-2; 12mo. 
 On the I'oetry of Coleridge, with 
 portrait, toI. il., pp. 145161. 
 
 Lowell, Jaraes R — Democracy and 
 other addresses. Loudon, 1887, 
 8ta 
 
 Coleridje. Ad<lre<:a on nnvelling 
 thel»u»lof Colcritl^'uin Wesliuiimter 
 Abbey, 7th .May lS55, pp. 91-103. 
 Mnrtincnn, James. — E.ssays, phi- 
 losophical and theological. Now 
 York, 1879, 8vo. 
 
 I'crson.il inflni'iices on onr present 
 tlieolocy : NeMiiiiin, Coieridgo, 
 Carlylo, vol. i., pp. 3.^:1-405. 
 
 Maurice, Frcdciick D. — Modern 
 I'ldlosopliy ; or, a Treatise of 
 Moral and MHtapUy!<i'a) I'liilo- 
 nopliy, etc. London, l.STr?, 8vo. 
 Mii.irt, r.enlh.^iu, Colori'l^e, pp. 
 0M-07I. 
 
 Mctevanl, Eliza. — A Group of 
 EiicHnhmen (1705 to I'^ID), 
 bciiij; records of tho Wod^jwooda 
 and tlieir Fricuds. Loudon, 
 1871, 8vo. 
 
 Mill, John Ptu-irt — Disqrrtstions 
 and Discussions, jiolitical, phi- 
 losoj'hical, and hi-'torical, etc. 
 * Tols. L<mdon, lS.-,i)-7.'., 8vo. 
 Colori.Icc, Tol. i., pp. .W-J-Jfl't. Re- 
 printed from the Lnwlnit and ICc^l- 
 mintte.r lUinm, Marcli 1840. 
 
 Moir, D. M.— .Sketches of the 
 |>oetical literature or' the past 
 iialf-century. Edinburgh, 1851, 
 8to. 
 
 The ori-rin, proare's. and tenets 
 of Ibe l/k'»e .School, pp. :iU-115. 
 
 Notes ard Queries. • — General 
 Iniiei to Notes and Quories. 5 
 Series. Lou'lon, 1S.'(J18,"^(), 4fo. 
 Numerous refirimc cs to S. T. C. 
 
 Od.ls— Odds and Ends. 2 vols. 
 Edinburffh, 1857, I'^nio. 
 
 No. 10, Tol. li., entitled ■• Pdhllo- 
 mania," contains " .M:in:inalirt— . 
 Colerid3« on s,,uthey, and on the 
 'Joan of Arc.'" 
 
 0'Has;an, Lord. — Occasional 
 Papers and Addresses. Lon- 
 don, 188<. Sro. 
 
 Samuel Taylor Coleridrje, pp. 20i>. 
 2t0. (Thii p.a|)iT was one of a ^oi ies 
 of " Afternoon HeadinL's on Liter.!- 
 tnre and Art" at tlit» .Miixcuro, 
 {Stepbmi'a fJ'wen, Dublin, in ISWi.]
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Olipb.'^nt, Mrx. — Tlie Literory His- 
 tory of Entrlanil, etc, 3 vols. 
 iKMnlnn, 1SS2, 8vo, 
 S. T. CV.lori.lRe. vol. 1., p;i. 210342. 
 
 Paris, John A. — Tlio Lilo of Sir 
 lliiinjiliry Davy. 2 vols. Lon- 
 don, 1831, 8vo. 
 ContAins ninny roforences to S. T. C. 
 
 PauI,C. Kegan. — William tloilwin : 
 liis friends and contemporaries. 
 2 vols. London, 1876, Svo. 
 
 Contains many references to and 
 letters of .S. T, Coleridge. 
 
 riiillip.s, Samuel. — Kss.nys from 
 " Tho Times." New edition. 2 
 vols. London, 1871, Svo. 
 
 Itcminiscenoos of ColeridRB and 
 Snuthey, by Joneph Cottlo, toL i., 
 pp. 237-251. 
 
 Tiocter, r.ryan ^Vallcr.— B. ^\^ V. 
 (Harry Cornvrali). An Aufobio- 
 pra[diiral Fracniont.ptc. [Edited 
 l.y C. r., t.«. C. K. D. ratmorc] 
 Lnndon. 1877, 8vo. 
 
 Wdfilswnrth, Southey, ColeridRO, 
 ip. loTlli 
 
 Charles Lamb: a Llcrnoir. 
 
 I'y Harry Cornwall. London : 
 
 18t:0, 8vo. 
 ("ontninn R niimher of notices of 
 
 Pnniuel ■laj-h)r Oileridge. 
 Eccd, Henry. — Lectures on the 
 
 I5ritish rocta. 2 vols, i'hila- 
 
 delphia. 1858. 8vo. 
 Coleridge, toI. IL, pp. 8S 120. 
 Rliynie. — The Rinio of the new 
 
 made Tiaccalere. [A parody of 
 
 tlie " Ancient Mariner " of 
 
 S. T. C] Oxford, 1841, 8to. 
 Ricliardson, David Lester. — Liter- 
 ary Chit-Chat, etc. Calcntta, 
 
 1848, Svo. 
 Shelley, Eeata, BJid Coleridge, pp. 
 
 271-2al. 
 ■ Literary Recreations ; or 
 
 essny.i, criticisms, and poems. 
 
 London, 1852, Svo. 
 Samuel Taylor Coloridg»— bom 
 
 1772, died IS.'U— pp. ViHAAl, 
 
 Rip.?, James IL — llndcrn Angli- 
 can Theology ; chapters on C(do- 
 riilsjo, etc. London, 1857, Svo. 
 
 Second r<lition, n-vifiod and 
 
 cnlarped. London, 1859, Svo. 
 
 Third edition, revised. Lou- 
 don [1S80], Svo. 
 
 Robliord.s, J. W. — A Memoir of 
 the Life and AVritiiiL's of tho 
 late William Taylor of Norwich, 
 etc. 2 vols. " London, 1813, 
 Svo. 
 Numerous refprenres to .S, T. C. 
 
 RoliitiHon, Henry Cralih. — Diary, 
 RoiniiiisrenccB, ami Corresi>ond- 
 encc of H. C. II. 3 voLs. Lon- 
 don, 1809, Svo. 
 
 Ciiiit.tins a tnans of Interentini? 
 rmlter r"«pectin;; .S. T. Coloridi^e, 
 and well indexed. 
 Rossr.tti, William .Michael. — Lives 
 of ranious Toots. London, 
 1878, Svo. 
 Samuel Taylor Colorid;;e, pp. 237- 
 
 Royal Society of Literature. — 
 Transactions of tlio Koyil So- 
 ciety of Literature, vol. ix., 2nd 
 Kcries. London, 1870, Svo. 
 Contaiiis two paprrn liy ( ). M. Incle- 
 l.v, M.n., "On the Viiimlili.ihe.l 
 >i\nuHiriptJ« of .s, T. i:.,'" pp. Id-J- 
 l.ll ; (ind "On »onio points con- 
 nePted with tlio rhilnsopliy of 
 ColeridiTO " (in refori-ncB to tUti 
 procediiiK paper), pp. UJO-I'JJ. 
 
 Seward, Anna. — Letters of A. S., 
 written bciween tho rears 17HI 
 and 1807. 6 vols. Edinburgh, 
 1811, 8»o. 
 
 Contains numerous references to 
 8. T. Coleridge, in Tnls. iv., t., ti. 
 Shairn, J. C. — Studies in I'oetry 
 and Philosophy. Edinburgb, 
 1868, Svo. 
 C<dcrld«e, pp. 110-2C<1. 
 Shedd, William G. T.— Literary 
 ils.savi. New York, [l.''7!>], Svo. 
 CoforidKe as a philosopbur and 
 theologian, pp. 271-314,
 
 XVI 
 
 niBLIOGRAPin. 
 
 Sketchea. — Pen and Ink Sketches 
 of Poets, rreacliers, and Poli. 
 ticians. [By Jolin Dix, otlier- 
 wise J. D. lioss], Loudon, 
 1846, 8vo. 
 
 IleminiscPTicos of Wordsworth, 
 Cnleriilge, ainl (^liarU'i I.niiili, pp. 
 122-139. A portniil (after Wasliin;,'- 
 ton AUstoii) of Culoriilge forius the 
 fronti.spicco. 
 
 Soutlicy, Rubcit. — The Life and 
 Correspoiiilence of R. S. Edited 
 by C. C. Soathey. 6 vol.s. Lon- 
 don, 1849-50, 8vo. 
 
 NuniordiiH rifiT^ncos and lottors 
 to H. T. Colori.lKO. 
 
 ■ Selections trom tlio Lettcr.'i of 
 K. S. Kditcd by John W. 
 AVarter. 4 vols. London, 1856, 
 8vo. 
 
 Contains numberlcsn references to 
 S. T. Coleridge. 
 
 Sterling, John. — Essays and Talcs, 
 by J. S. Collected and edited, 
 with ft nirnioir of his life, by 
 Julius Charles Ilaro. 2 vols., 
 London, IS IS, 8vo. 
 
 On Colcrid-e's " Christabcl " 
 (from the Alhenceum lor 18^), pp. 
 101-110. 
 Stirling, James Hutchison. — 
 Jorrold, Tennyson, and Ma- 
 caulay, with otlicr critical 
 essay.s. Edinlnirjrh, 18G3, 8vo. 
 De (Juinrey and Coleridgo upon 
 Kant, pp. 17^-224. 
 
 Swoetser, M. F. — Artist Bio^jra- 
 pliies: Allston. Boston [U.S.], 
 1879, 12nio. 
 
 Contains biojrraphlcal notes re- 
 pirdinj? W. Allstnirs acquaintAnce 
 with a. T. Colcriilfe-e. 
 
 Swinburne, Alfjcrnon Charles. — 
 Essays and Studies. London, 
 1876, 8vo. 
 Coleridge, pp. 2&a-275. 
 
 Talfourd, Tliomas N. — Final 
 iUmoriala of Charles Lamb, 
 consistin;;r of bis letters, not 
 before ^'ublishcd, with sketches 
 
 of some of his companions. 
 
 2 vols. London, 1848, 8vo. 
 Traill, H. D.— Coleri.l^'e, by H. 
 
 ]). Traill. (Eii'/lish Men of 
 
 Lellcrs Series), London, 1884, 
 
 8vo. 
 Tuckerman, Henry T. — Thoiifrhts 
 
 on the Pouts. London, [18J2], 
 
 Svo. 
 Coleridse, pp. 199-211. 
 "Ward, Tliomas II.— Tho English 
 
 Poets, etc. Edited by T. IL 
 
 Ward. 4 vols. London, 1833, 
 
 Svo. 
 S.iniiiel Tiiylor Colerlik'O. by 
 
 Walter 11. I'ati-r, vol. iv., pp. 1U2-1.'.J. 
 Wliiiiplo, Edwin P. — Essays and 
 
 Keviows. Third edition. 2 vols. 
 
 Boston, 1856, 8vo. 
 Vol. i. — Knclish poets of the 
 
 Nineteenth Century, — Coleridge, 
 
 t>r>. 328-Xl.T ; and Coleridi.'o as a 
 
 J'liilo.so|ihio;il Critic, (reprinted 
 
 from tlie American Uoviuw, June 
 
 1840), pp. 405-421. 
 
 Wilson, Professor. — E^says, criti- 
 cal and imajjinaiive. Edin- 
 burgh, 1SG6, Svo. 
 
 Coloridpo's Poetical Works (Octo- 
 ber li)34), pp. £93-313. 
 
 ■Wordsworth, Dorotliy, — Recollec- 
 tions of a Tour made in Scotland, 
 A.D.,1S03. ByD. \y. Edited 
 bv J. C. Sliairp. Edinburgh, 
 1874, Svo. 
 
 .Samuel Taylor Coleridge formed 
 one of tlie party. 
 
 , William. — Memoirs of W, 
 
 W. By Christoplier Words- 
 worth. 2 vols. Loudon, 1851, 
 Svo, 
 
 Contains numerous important re- 
 (oreucus to 6. X. Coluridgo. 
 
 Magazine Articles. 
 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. — Fr(U 
 ser'a Mogmint, with portrait, 
 vol. 8, 1S33, p. 64 — Colburn's
 
 UJDLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. 
 
 New Monthly Mii'jnzinf, vol. 
 42, 1834, i.p. h:>-Ci.—I)uhlin 
 University Majazinr^ vol, 6, July 
 1835. pp. 1-16, 2:-0-'Jt37.— A'oW/t 
 American Jlcvirw, h\ G. 15. 
 Chcevor, vol. 40, Ajiril 1S35, 
 pp. 2D9-351. — American Quar- 
 terly Iteview, vol. 19, ]S3tJ, pp. 
 1-23. — Congrrqiitional Ma'inzine, 
 vol. l.N.S., 1887, PI). 6-J0-5-_'8. 
 — Tail's Edinhur<jh Ma;iaziiie, l)y 
 T. Do Quincev, vol. 1, N.S., pp. 
 
 r>09-.".2o, r)S8-r.D<), gs.'.coo, vol. 2, 
 
 pp. 3-10. — Chri.itian Quarterly 
 iSpedator, by L. Wiiliitigton, 
 vol. C, pp. G17. — Lundon and 
 Wcdmiiistcr Ilevieiv, by J. S. 
 Mill, vol. 33, 1840, j.p. 257-302. 
 — Southern Literary ^fesscnyer, 
 by II. T. Tiickcniian, vol. 7, 
 1841, pp. \71 -ISO. — J'rincetoini 
 Jleview, liy L. 11. Atwatcr, vol. 
 20, April 1843, pp. 1-43-18G.— 
 Uoijfj's Weekly JtiMruetnr, with 
 portrait, vol. 9, N.S., 1852, pp. 
 129-133an(l 152-1 57. — Vethodi.4 
 Quartsrly Jieview, by D. Curry, 
 voL 36, 1854, pp. 34-56. — 
 Evangelical Jleview, by M 
 Valentine, vol. 7, July 1355, 
 pp. Sj-l02.—nent!ey't Miscel- 
 lany, vol. 40, 185*5, pp. 202- 
 220; name article, EcleclieMnya- 
 ■ zine, vol. 39, 1856, pp. 394-402. 
 — Lei-sure Hour, 1862, pp. 
 €79-680.— ^r« Journal by S. 
 C. Hall, illustrated, vol. 4, 
 N.S., 1865, pp. 49-55 ; same 
 article, Eclectic Magatine, 
 June 1865, pp. 657-669.— A'oW^ 
 JJrilish Review, vol. 43, 1865, 
 pp. 251-322 ; same article, 
 JJtU/rt Living Age, vol. 
 88, 1866, pp. 81-99 and 161- 
 182. — JJlackwood't Edinburgh 
 Magcuim, voL 110, Nor. 18?1, 
 
 Coleridge, Samuel Ta/lor. 
 
 ]ip. 652-576 ; same article, 
 JCchctie Magazine, vol. 15, 
 N.S., 1872, pp. 138-157, an.l 
 LitlcU's Living Age, vol. Ill, 
 1871, pp. C43-Ci>l. — Canadian, 
 Monthly, vol. 13, 1S78, pp. 
 ZVl-Zdi.— National Magazine, 
 vol. 1, p. 289, etc. — Argosn, 
 by Alice King, vol. 40, 1SS5, 
 pp. 116-122.- Tew;//* Lar, by 
 Chas. J. Jolin.'^on, Sept. 1880, 
 pp. 35-54. — Ija Revue J'olitigin 
 et Liltiraire, by Leo (,Juc.'<nrl, 
 1S77, I'p. 2\\)-2i\. — London 
 Magaiine, vol. 7, 1323, pp. 
 85-90. 
 
 Aiila to Reflection. Xcio 
 
 York Peview, vol. 6, p. 477, 
 etc. ; Jllackwood's Edinburgh 
 Magazine, vol. 4 4, 1838, pp. 
 135-140. 
 
 Ancient Jlariner. Journal 
 
 of Speculative J hilosojihy, by 
 G. Garrit'ucs, vol. 14, 1S80, 
 pp. 327-333. 
 
 And hit American disciples. 
 
 JSibliollieca Sacra, by Ucv. 
 
 Noah Porter, vol. 4, 1847, pp. 
 
 117-171. 
 And Opium Eating. I'.lack- 
 
 wood't Edinburgh Magazine, liy 
 
 T. Do y-iiucey, vol. 57, 1845, 
 
 pp. 117-132. 
 
 And Soutliey. Edinburgh 
 
 Jieview, vol. 87, 1848, pp. 
 308-392; same article. Eclectic 
 Magazine, vol, 14, 1848, 
 jip. 195-203 ; same n.ticle, 
 Liltell's Living Age, vol. 17, 
 1848, pp. 310-320.— CVimY/.trt 
 ruview, vol. 15, 1850, pp. 321- 
 353.— /;V/M uicr [by W. 1 laz'il t], 
 April 6, 1817, p. 211.— AV«7n- 
 iner, April 13, 1817, pp. 236, 237.
 
 zviii 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY, 
 
 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. 
 — -Aaocdotrs, Newspaper Writ- 
 inc;? and Letters of. Urnllfinan* 
 Marjiizinr, by D. Stuart, vol. 9, 
 N.S., 1838, pp. 485-'0'2 and 
 677-nOO; vol. lO, N.S., pp. 
 24-27 and 124-128. 
 
 . letters from II. N. Colo- 
 
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 jircccding. (tcnUenutn's Maqn- 
 iinr, vol. 10, N.6., lbii8, 
 1>. 22. 
 
 As a Port. Ainerican Prtshy- 
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 Qnnrtfrly A>in>w, vol. 125, 
 18(jS, pp. 78-106; s^mo article, 
 I.i-l'eU's Liriii'j Aje, vol. 08, 
 18r>8, pp. 515f.29. 
 — — A'* a Thinker. Chriiiinn 
 Ji'n'inr, by ]L Tiirnbull, vol. 
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 — — ARarootnnd Man. Atlantic 
 M>'nUily. bv liror^ja 1'. I,nllirop, 
 vol. 4ri, 1880, pj.. 4S3-4y8. 
 
 As a I'oetieal Critii% A'ation, 
 vol. 59, 1831, pp. 420-421. 
 — — I!io(,'rA;>tiia l,iterHriv JJilin- 
 IniT'jk JUvuw, by W. If«rlitt, 
 vol. 28, 1817. pp. 483-515.— 
 ilinUhlij lievU^o, vol. 88, 1819, 
 pp.124-138.— y//n<->iw(xr«y&/i>i- 
 Imrjk Maicuinf. vol. 2, 1817, 
 pp. 3-18, 285-233 ; vol. 3, 1318, 
 pp. 653-657. 
 
 • Cliristsbrl. Edinlurgh Re- 
 
 ^-ifw, vol. 27, 1816, pp. 58rt7.— 
 Monlhly lUview, vol. 82, 1817, 
 I'p. 22-25. 
 — ■Colrriilt'oiana. Fra/w't Mn'ja- 
 zinc, vol. 11, 1835, pp. 50-5?. — 
 LiiUiri Muttutn i^ Fijrfii/ix 
 LiU.ralurc, vol. 2(5, pp. 359, etc. 
 — ^— Concionei ad ropuluni. Ana- 
 hlical JUvUiv, vol. 23, 1790, jpp. 
 0001. 
 
 ^oiifosaioDi of an Inquiring 
 
 Coloridjje, Samuel Taylor. 
 
 Spirit. Vhrvtlifin Observer, vol, 
 60, 1850, pp. 2:?4-250. 
 
 Cottlc'n llecipUt-ctinns of. 
 
 Congregational Magazine, vol. 
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 Observer, vol. 37, 1837, ]ip. 
 501-01 1 and f.32-G38 ; vol. 
 59, 1859, I'p. 374-335.— ZifcZa-Oc 
 Jicviiw, by J. Foster, vol. V, 
 N.S.,1837,pp. 137-164.— TatVs 
 Juiinbur'/h Magaziiw, vol. 4, 
 N.S., 1837, pp. 341-348. 
 
 Country ol'. Belgravui, by 
 
 MoriiniLT Colliiii, vol. 2, 
 Second Soric.t, 1670, pp. 107- 
 203. 
 
 Death of. Alhfnaum, 183 J, 
 
 p. 574. 
 
 Iviriy Ikocolleetions of. 
 
 IwleeLiC lie vie ic, vol. 2, N.S., 
 
 18;i7, PI.. 137-16.3. 
 
 Ktliical Works of. Xeio 
 
 York Ji'eview, vi<\. 2, j). 9(5. — 
 
 Amerieein Qiittrl'rli/ Jlfvinr, 
 
 vol. 19, 1856, pp. 1-28.— L('m/n;» 
 
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 S. .Mill, vol. 33, 1840, pp. 257- 
 
 302. 
 Fall of Robe.spierre. AnnJi/- 
 
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 590-592. 
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 — — Lectured of. Taller, vol. 2, 
 
 18;n, pp. 893. 894 and 897. 893. 
 — ^Lellura from. lilackwoodi
 
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 ColiTid^e, iSaimicl Taylor. 
 
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 Coleriilfje, Samuel Taylor, 
 
 — — ['oenis on varinua subjects. 
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 —Recollections of. Southern 
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 Reminiscences of. Frascr't 
 
 M'l'jnzine, vol. 10, 1S34, pp. 
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 ■—Sibylline Leaves. Monthly 
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 Skefcli of a Conversation be- 
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 xxi 
 
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 With Socinians and AthciMta. 
 
 Coloriil;:;e, Samuel Taylor. 
 
 Cm'jrf'ittionAl Mnjidne, vol., 
 18. 183j, pp. 48G-4HO. 
 
 Works of. London, Weekly 
 
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 by A. N. Littlfjolin, vol. 6, p. 
 4v80. — I ^'exl minster Jl^view, voL 
 
 • 29, N.S., 180(3, pp. 10iM32. 
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL 
 
 LIST OF WORKS. ^ 
 
 t 
 
 Kobespicrro . . ; 
 
 1704 
 
 Piio;;r.ip1iia Litcraria . 
 
 1817 
 
 Moral and Political Lecture 
 
 np.-; 
 
 Rihylliiie Leaves . , 
 
 1817 
 
 Conrioiios ad Topuluin 
 
 1705 
 
 Zapolya .... 
 
 1817 
 
 Plot (lisrovcrcil . • 
 
 1705 
 
 Treatise on Method . 
 
 1818 
 
 The Watclmian . 
 
 1796 
 
 Aids to Rellcction 
 
 1825 
 
 Pociiis en Various Subjects 
 
 1796 
 
 Poetical and DramaticWork 
 
 1 1828 
 
 Ode on tlie Depart in;j Year 
 
 1796 
 
 On the Constitution of tlio 
 
 Kinio of the Anrient Mar- 
 
 
 Church and State . 
 
 1330 
 
 iner (in Lyrical Ballads). 
 
 1798 
 1798 
 
 
 ___— — 
 
 Fears in Solitude 
 
 
 
 Translation of Wallcnstcin. 
 
 ISOO 
 
 Table Talk . . . 
 
 1835 
 
 The Fiicud . . _ 1809-10 
 
 Confessions of an Inquiring 
 
 
 ,, Second Series . 
 
 1850 
 
 Spirit .... 
 
 1S40 
 
 Omniana . . . 
 
 18.12 
 
 Hints towards tho forma- 
 
 
 Remorse .... 
 
 1813 
 
 tion of a more compro- 
 
 
 Christabel. 
 
 1816 
 
 hensivo Theory of Lifts . 
 Notes upon Shakespeare . 
 
 16(8 
 
 A Lay Sermon . . . 
 
 1816 
 
 1849 
 
 Anotber Lay Sennon . 
 
 1817 
 
 Notes on Engiish Divines . 
 
 186S
 
 WNWIN BROTHERS, 
 
 THB r.RBSHAM PRESS, 
 
 CHILWORTH AND LONDON
 
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