m
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ON
YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY
-ft£CCP.VE BOO!'. RftftM
LETTERS
OF
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
EDITED BY
ERNEST HARTLEY COLERIDGE
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. I
LONDON
WILLIAM HEINEMANN
1895
[All rights reserved.]
The Riverside Press, Cambridge, ]\1ass.,U. S. A.
Printed by H. O. Houghton and Company.
INTRODUCTION
Hitherto no attempt has been made to publish a
collection of Coleridge's Letters. A few specimens were
published in his lifetime, both in his own works and in
magazines, and, shortly after his death in 1834, a large
number appeared in print. Allsop's " Letters, Conversa¬
tions, and Recollections of S. T. Coleridge," which was
issued in 1836, contains forty-five letters or parts of let¬
ters ; Cottle in his " Early Recollections " (1837) prints,
for the most part incorrectly, and in piecemeal, some sixty
in all, and Gillman, in his "Life of Coleridge" (1838),
contributes, among others, some letters addressed to him¬
self, and one, of the greatest interest, to Charles Lamb.
In 1847, a series of early letters to Thomas Poole ap¬
peared for the first time in the Biographical Supplement
to the " Biographia Literaria," and in 1848, when Cottle
reprinted his " Early Recollections," under the title of
" Reminiscences of Coleridge and Southey," he included
sixteen letters to Thomas and Josiah Wedgwood. In
Southey's jxjstliumous " Life of Dr. Bell," five letters
of Coleridge lie imbedded, and in " Southey's Life and
Correspondence " (1849-50), four of his letters find an
appropriate place. An interesting series was published in
1858 in the " Fragmentary Remains of Sir II. Davy,"
edited by his brother, Dr. Davy ; and in the " Diary of
II. C. Robinson," published in 18G9, a few letters from
Coleridge are interspersed. In 1870, the late Mr. W.
Mark W. Call printed in the " Westminster Review "
eleven letters from Coleridge to Dr. Brabant of Devizes,
iv
INTRODUCTION
dated 1815 and 1816; and a series of early letters to
Godwin, 1800-1811 (some of which had appeared in
"Macmillan's Magazine" in 1864), was included by Mr.
Kegan Paul in his "William Godwin" (1876). In 1874,
a correspondence between Coleridge (1816-1818) and his
publishers, Gale & Curtis, was contributed to " Lippin-
cott's Magazine," and in 1878, a few letters to Matilda
Betliam were published in " Fraser's Magazine." During
the last six years the vast store which still remained un¬
published has been drawn upon for various memoirs and
biographies. The following works containing new letters
are given in order of publication: Ilerr Brandl's " Samuel
T. Coleridge and the English Romantic School," 1887;
" Memorials of Coleorton," edited by Professor Kniglit,
1887; "Thomas Poole and his Friends," by Mrs. H. Sand-
ford, 1888 ; " Life of Wordsworth," by Professor Knight,
1889; "Memoirs of John Murray," by Samuel Smiles,
LL. D., 1891; " De Quincey Memorials," by Alex. Japp,
LL. D., 1891; " Life of Washington Allston," 1893.
Notwithstanding these heavy draughts, more than half
of the letters which have come under my notice remain
unpublished. Of more than forty which Coleridge wrote
to his wife, only one has been published. Of ninety letters
to Soutliey which are extant, barely a tenth have seen the
light. Of nineteen addressed to W. Sotheby, poet and
patron of poets, fourteen to Lamb's friend John Rick-
man, and four to Coleridge's old college friend, Arch¬
deacon Wrangham, none have been published. Of more
than forty letters addressed to the Morgan family, which
belong for the most part to the least known period of
Coleridge's life, — the years which intervened between his
residence in Grasmere and his final settlement at Hio*h-
o
gate, — only two or three, preserved in the MSS. Depart¬
ment of the British Museum, have been published. Of
numerous letters written in later life to his friend and
amanuensis, Joseph Henry Green; to Charles Augustus
INTRODUCTION
v
Tulk, M. P. for Sudbury; to his friends and hosts, the
Gillmans ; to Cary, the translator of Dante, only a few
have found their way into print. Of more than forty to
his brother, the Rev. George Coleridge, which were acci¬
dentally discovered in 1876, only five have been printed.
Of some fourscore letters addressed to his nephews, Wil¬
liam Hart Coleridge, John Taylor Coleridge, Henry Nel¬
son Coleridge, Edward Coleridge, and to his son Derwent,
all but two, or at most three, remain in manuscript. Of
the youthful letters to the Evans family, one letter has
recently appeared in the " Illustrated London News," and
of the many addressed to John Thelwall, but one was
printed in the same series.
The letters to Poole, of which more than a hundred
have been preserved, those addressed to his Bristol friend,
Josiah Wade, and the letters to Wordsworth, which, though
few in number, are of great length, have been largely used
for biographical purposes, but much, of the highest inter¬
est, remains unpublished. Of smaller groups of letters,
published and unpublished, I make no detailed mention,
but in the latter category are two to Charles Lamb, one
to John Sterling, five to George Cattermole, one to John
Kenyon, and many others to more obscure correspondents.
Some important letters to Lord Jeffrey, to Jolin Murray,
to De Quincey, to Hugh James Rose, and to J. H. B.
Williams, have, in the last few years, been placed in my
hands for transcription.
A series of letters written between the years 1796 and
1814 to the Rev. John Prior Estlin, minister of the
Unitarian Chapel at Lewin's Mead, Bristol, was printed
some years ago for the Pliilobiblon Society, with an in¬
troduction by Mr. Henry A. Bright. One other series of
letters has also been printed for private circulation. In
1889, the late Miss Stuart placed in my hands transcrip¬
tions of eighty-seven letters addressed by Coleridge to her
father, Daniel Stuart,editor of "The Morning Post" and
vi
INTRODUCTION
" Courier," and these, together with letters from Words¬
worth and Southey, were printed in a single volume bear¬
ing the title, " Letters from the Lake Poets." Miss
O 7
Stuart contributed a short account of her father's life,
and also a reminiscence of Coleridge, headed " A Fare¬
well."
Coleridge's biographers, both of the past and present
generations, have met with a generous response to their
appeal for letters to be placed in their hands for reference
and for publication, but it is probable that many are in
existence which have been withheld, sometimes no doubt
intentionally, but more often from inadvertence. From
his boyhood the poet was a voluminous if an irregular
correspondent, and many letters which he is known to
have addressed to his earliest friends — to Middleton, to
Robert Allen, to Valentine and Sam Le Grice, to Charles
Lloyd, to his Stowey neighbour, John Cruikshank, to Dr.
Beddoes, and others — may yet be forthcoming. It is
certain that he corresponded with Mrs. Clarkson, but if
any letters have been preserved they have not come under
my notice. It is strange, too, that among the letters of
the Ilighgate period, which were sent to Henry Nelson
Coleridge for transcription, none to John Hookham Frere,
to Blanco White, or to Edward Irving appear to have
been forthcoming.
The foregoing summary of published and unpublished
letters, though necessarily imperfect, will enable the
reader to form some idea of the mass of material from
which the present selection has been made. A complete
edition of Coleridge's Letters must await the "coming
of the milder day," a renewed long-suffering on the part
of his old enemy, the " literary public." In the mean¬
while, a selection from some of the more important is
here offered in the belief that many, if not all, will find
a place in permanent literature. The letters are arranged
in chronological order, and are intended rather to illus-
INTRODUCTION
vii
trate tlie story of the writer's life than to embody his
critical opinions, or to record the development of his phi¬
losophical and theological speculations. But letters of
a purely literary character have not been excluded, and
in selecting- or rejecting a letter, the sole criterion has
been, Is it interesting ? is it readable ?
In letter-writing perfection of style is its own recom¬
mendation, and long after the substance of a letter has
lost its savour, the form retains its original or, it may be,
an added charm. Or if the author be the founder of a
sect or a school, his writings, in whatever form, are re¬
ceived by the initiated with unquestioning and insatiable
delight. But Coleridge's letters lack style. The fastidi¬
ous critic who touched and retouched his exquisite lyrics,
and always for the better, was at no pains to polish his
letters. He writes to his friends as if he were talking to
them, and he lets his periods take care of themselves.
Nor is there any longer a school of reverent disciples to
receive what the master gives and because he gives it.
His influence as a teacher has passed into other channels,
and he is no longer regarded as the oracular sage " ques¬
tionable " concerning all mysteries. But as a poet, as a
great literary critic, and as a " master of sentences," he
holds his own and appeals to the general ear; and though,
since his death, in 1834, a second generation has all but
passed away, an unwonted interest in the man himself
survives and must always survive. For not only, as
Wordsworth declared, was he " a wonderful man," but
the story of his life was a strange one, and as he tells it,
we " cannot choose but hear." Coleridge, often to his
own detriment, " wore his heart on his sleeve," and, now
to one friend, now to another, sometimes to two or three
friends on the same day, he would seek to unburthen
himself of his hopes and fears, his thoughts and fancies,
his bodily sufferings, and the keener pangs of the soul.
It is, to quote his own words, these " profound touches of
viii
INTRODUCTION
the human heart " which command our interest in Cole¬
ridge's Letters, and invest them with their peculiar
charm.
At what period after death, and to what extent the pri¬
vate letters of a celebrated person should be given to the
world, must always remain an open question both of taste
and of morals. So far as Coleridge is concerned, the
question was decided long ago. Within a few years of
his death, letters of the most private and even painful
character were published without the sanction and in spite
of the repeated remonstrances of his literary executor, and
of all who had a right to be heard on the subject. Thence¬
forth, as the published writings of his immediate descend¬
ants testify, a fuller and therefore a fairer revelation wras
steadily contemplated. Letters collected for this purpose
find a place in the present volume, but the selection lias
been made without reference to previous works or to any
final presentation of the material at the editor's disposal.
My acknowledgments are due to many still living, and
to others who have passed away, for their generous per¬
mission to print unpublished letters, which remained in
their possession or had passed into their hands.
For the continued use of the long series of letters which
Poole entrusted to Coleridge's literary executor in 1836,
I have to thank Mrs. Henry Sandford and the Bishop of
Gibraltar. For those addressed to the Evans family I am
indebted to Mr. Alfred Morrison of Fon thill. The let¬
ters to Thelwall were placed in my hands by the late Mr.
F. W. Cosens, who afforded me every facility for their
transcription. For those to Wordsworth my thanks are
due to the poet's grandsons, Mr. William and Mr. Gor¬
don Wordsworth. Those addressed to the Gillmans I
owe to the great kindness of their granddaughter, Mrs.
Henry Watson, who placed in my hands all the materials
at her disposal. For the right to publish the letters to
H. F. Cary I am indebted to my friend the Rev. Offley
INTRODUCTION
IX
Cary, the grandson of the translator of Dante. My ac¬
knowledgments are further due to the late Mr. John
Murray for the right to republish letters which appeared
in the "Memoirs of John Murray," and two others which
were not included in that work ; and to Mrs. Watt, the
daughter of John Hunter of Craigcrook, for letters ad¬
dressed to Lord Jeffrey. From the late Lord Houghton
I received permission to publish the letters to the Rev.
J. P. Estlin, which were privately printed for the Philo-
biblon Society. I have already mentioned my obligations
to the late Miss Stuart of Harley Street.
For the use of letters addressed to his father and grand¬
father, and for constant and unwearying advice and as¬
sistance in this work I am indebted, more than I can well
express, to the late Lord Coleridge. Alas! I can only
record my gratitude.
To Mr. William Rennell Coleridge of Salston, Ottery
St. Mary, my especial thanks are due for the interesting
collection of unpublished letters, many of them relating to
the " Army Episode," which the poet wrote to his brother,
the Rev. George Coleridge.
I have also to thank Miss Edith Coleridge for the use
of letters addressed to her father, Henry Nelson Cole¬
ridge ; my cousin, Mrs. Thomas W. Martyn of Torquay,
for Coleridge's letter to his mother, the earliest known
to exist; and Mr. Arthur Duke Coleridge for one of the
latest he ever wrote, that to Mrs. Aders.
During the preparation of this work I have received
valuable assistance from men of letters and others. I
trust that I may be permitted to mention the names of
Mr. Leslie Stephen, Professor Knight, Mrs. Henry Sand-
ford, Dr. Garnett of the British Museum, Professor Emile
Legouis of Lyons, Mrs. Henry Watson, the Librarians of
the Oxford and Cambridge Club, and of the Kensington
Public Library, and Mrs. George Boyce of Cliertsey.
Of my friend, Mr. Dykes Campbell, I can only say that
x INTRODUCTION
he lias spared neither time nor trouble in my behalf. Not
only during the progress of the work has he been ready
to give me the benefit of his unrivalled knowledge of the
correspondence and history of Coleridge and of his con¬
temporaries, but he has largely assisted me in seeing the
work through the press. For the selection of the letters,
or for the composition or accuracy of the notes, he must
not be held in any way responsible; but without his aid,
and without his counsel, much, which I hope has been ac¬
complished, could never have been attempted at all. Of
the invaluable assistance which I have received from his
published works, the numerous references to his edition
of Coleridge's " Poetical Works " (Macmillan, 1893), and
his " Samuel Taylor Coleridge, A Narrative " (1894), are
sufficient evidence. Of my gratitude he needs no assur¬
ance.
ERNEST HARTLEY COLERIDGE.
PRINCIPAL EVENTS IN THE LIFE OF S. T. COLERIDGE
Born, October 21, 1772.
Death of liis father, October 4, 1781.
Entered at Christ's Hospital, July 18, 1782.
Elected a " Grecian," 1788.
Discharged from Christ's Hospital, September 7, 1791.
Went into residence at Jesus College, Cambridge, October, 1791.
Enlisted in King's Regiment of Light Dragoons, December 2, 1793.
Discharged from the army, April 10, 1794.
Visit to Oxford and introduction to Southey, June, 1794.
Proposal to emigrate to America — Pantisocracy — Autumn, 1794.
Final departure from Cambridge, December, 1794.
Settled at Bristol as public lecturer, January, 1795.
Married to Sarah Fricker, October 4, 1795.
Publication of " Condones ad Populum," Clevedon, November 16, 1795.
Pantisocrats dissolve — Rupture with Southey — November, 1795.
Publication of first edition of Poems, April, 1796.
Issue of "The Watchman," March 1-May 13, 1796.
Birth of Hartley Coleridge, September 19, 1796.
Settled at Netlier-Stowey, December 31, 1796.
Publication of second edition of Poems, June, 1797.
Settlement of Wordsworth at Alfoxden, July 14, 1797.
The " Ancient Mariner" begun, November 13, 1797.
First part of " Christabel," begun, 1797.
Acceptance of annuity of £150 from J. and T. Wedgwood, January, 1798.
Went to Germany, September 16, 1798.
Returned from Germany, July, 1799.
First visit to Lake Country, October-November, 1799.
Began to write for "Morning Post," December, 1799.
Translation of Schiller's " Wallenstein," Spring, 1800.
Settled at Greta Hall, Keswick, July 24, 1800.
Birth of Derwent Coleridge, September 14, 1800.
Wrote second part of " Christabel," Autumn, 1800.
Began study of German metaphysics, 1801.
Birth of Sara Coleridge, December 23, 1802.
Publication of third edition of Poems, Summer, 1803.
Set out on Scotch tour, August 14, 1803.
Settlement of Southey at Greta Hall, September, 1803.
Sailed for Malta in the Speedwell, April 9, 1804.
Arrived at Malta, May 18, 1804.
First tour in Sicily, August-November, 1804.
Left Malta for Syracuse, September 21, 1805.
xii PRINCIPAL EVENTS
Residence in Rome, January-May, 1806.
Returned to England, August, 1806.
Visit to Wordsworth at Coleorton, December 21, 1806.
Met De Quineey at Bridgwater, July, 1807.
First lecture at Royal Institution, January 12, 1808.
Settled at Allan Bank, Grasmere, September, 1808.
First number of " Tlie Friend," June 1, 1809.
Last number of " The Friend," March 15, 1810.
Left Greta Hall for London, October 10, 1810.
Settled at Hammersmith with the Morgans, November 3, 1810.
First lecture at London Philosophical Society, November 18, 1811.
Last visit to Greta Hall, February-March, 1812.
First lecture at Willis's Rooms, May 12, 1812.
First lecture at Surrey Institution, November 3, 1812.
Production of " Remorse " at Drury Lane, January 23, 1813.
Left London for Bristol, October, 1813.
First course of Bristol lectures, October-November, 1813.
Second course of Bristol lectures, December 30, 1813.
Third course of Bristol lectures, April, 1814.
Residence with Josiali Wade at Bristol, Summer, 1814.
Rejoined the Morgans at Ashley, September, 1814.
Accompanied the Morgans to Calne, November, 1814.
Settles with Mr. Gillman at Highgate, April 16, 1816.
Publication of " Christabel," June, 1816.
Publication of the " Statesman's Manual," December, 1816.
Publication of second " Lay Sermon," 1817.
Publication of " Biograpliia Literaria " and " Sibylline Leaves," 1817.
First acquaintance with Joseph Henry Green, 1817.
Publication of " Zapolya," Autumn, 1817.
First lecture at " Flower-de-Luce Court," January 27, 1818.
Publication of "Essay on Method," January, 1818.
Revised edition of "The Friend," Spring, 1818.
Introduction to Thomas Allsop, 1818.
First lecture on "History of Philosophy," December 14, 1818.
First lecture on "Shakespeare " (last course), December 17, 1818.
Last public lecture, "History of Philosophy," March 29, 1819.
Nominated " Royal Associate " of Royal Society of Literature, May,
1824.
Read paper to Royal Society on "Prometheus of iEschylus," May 15,
1825.
Publication of "Aids to Reflection," May-June, 1825.
Publication of "Poetical Works," in three volumes, 1828.
Tour on the Rhine with Wordsworth, June-July, 1S28.
Revised issue of " Poetical Works," in three volumes, 1829.
Marriage of Sara Coleridge to Henry Nelson Coleridge, September 3,1829.
Publication of " Church and State," 1830.
Visit to Cambridge, June, 1833.
Death, July 25, 1834.
PRINCIPAL AUTHORITIES REFERRED TO IN THESE
VOLUMES
1. The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. New York:
Harper and Brothers. 7 vols. 1853.
2. Biographia Literaria [etc.]. By S. T. Coleridge. Second edition,
prepared for publication in part by the late H. N. Coleridge: completed
and published by his widow. 2 vols. 1847.
3. Essays on Ilis Own Times. By Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Edited by
his daughter. London : William Pickering. 3 vols. 1850.
4. The Table Talk and Omniana of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Edited
by T. Ashe. George Bell and Sons. 1884.
5. Letters, Conversations, and Recollections of S. T. Coleridge. [Edited
by Thomas Allsop. First edition published anonymously.] Moxon. 2
vols. 1830. ,
0. The Life of S. T. Coleridge, by James Gillman. In 2 vols. (Vol.
I. only was published.) 1838.
7. Memorials of Coleorton : being Letters from Coleridge, Wordsworth
and his sister, Southey, and Sir Walter Scott, to Sir George and Lady
Beaumont of Coleorton, Leicestershire, 1803-1834. Edited by William
Knight, University of St. Andrews. 2 vols. Edinburgh. 1887.
8. Unpublished Letters from S. T. Coleridge to the Rev. John Rrior
Estlin. Communicated by Henry A. Bright (to the Philobiblon Society),
n. d.
9. Letters from the Lake Poets — S. T. Coleridge, William Wordsworth,
Robert Southey—to Daniel Stuart, editor of The Morning Post and The
Courier. 1800-1838. Printed for private circulation. 1889. [Edited by
Mr. Ernest Hartley Coleridge, in whom the copyright of the letters of S. T.
Coleridge is vested.]
10. The Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Edited, with a
Biographical Introduction, by James Dykes Campbell. London and New
York : Macmillan and Co. 1893.
11. Samuel Taylor Coleridge. A Narrative of the Events of His Life.
By James Dykes Campbell. London and New York: Macmillan and Co.
1894.
12. Early Recollections: chiefly relating to the late S. T. Coleridge,
during his long residence in Bristol. 2 vols. By Joseph Cottle. 1837.
13. Reminiscences of S. T. Coleridge and R. Southey. By Joseph
Cottle. 1847.
14. Fragmentary Remains, literary and scientific, of Sir Humphry Davy,
Bart. Edited by his brother, John Davy, M. D. 1858.
15. The Autobiography of Leigh Hunt. London. 1860.
xiv
AUTHORITIES REFERRED TO
16. Diary, Reminiscences, and Correspondence of Henry Crabb Robin¬
son. Selected and Edited by Thomas Sadler, Ph. D. London. 1869.
17. A Group of Englishmen (1795-1815) : being records of the younger
Wedgwoods and their Friends. By Eliza Meteyard. 1871.
IS. Memoir and Letters of Sara Coleridge [Mrs. H. N. Coleridge].
Edited by her daughter. 2 vols. 1873.
19. Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the English Romantic School. By
Alois Brandl. English Edition by Lady Eastlake. London. 1887.
20. The Letters of Charles Lamb. Edited by Alfred Ainger. 2 vols.
1888.
21. Thomas Poole and his Friends. By Mrs. Henry Sandford. 2 vols.
1888.
22. The Life and Correspondence of R. Southey. Edited by his son, the
Rev. Charles Cutlibert Southey. 6 vols. 1849-50.
23. Selections from the Letters of R Southey. Edited by his son-in-
law, John Wood Warter, B. D. 4 vols. 1856.
24. The Poetical Works of Robert Southey, Esq., LL. D. 9 vols.
London. 1837.
25. Memoirs of William Wordsworth. By Christopher Wordsworth,
D. I)., Canon of Westminster [afterwards Bishop of Lincoln]. 2 vols.
1851.
26. The Life of William Wordsworth. By William Knight, LL. D.
3 vols. 1889.
27. The Complete Poetical Works of William Wordsworth. With an
Introduction by John Morley. London and New York: Macmillan and
Co. 1889.
CONTENTS OF VOLUME I
Note. Where a letter lias been printed previously to its appearance in
tliis work, the name of the hook or periodical containing' it is added in
parenthesis.
CHAPTER I. STUDENT LIFE, 1785-1794.
Page
I. Thomas Poole, February, 1797. (Biograpliia Literaria, 1847,
ii. 313) 4
II. Thomas Poole, March, 1797. (Biograpliia Literaria, 1847,
ii. 315) 6
III. Thomas Poole, October 9, 1797. (Biograpliia Literaria,
1847, ii. 319) 10
IV. Thomas Poole, October 1(3, 1797. (Biograpliia Literaria,
1847. ii. 322) 13
V. Tiro mas Poole, February 19, 1798. (Biograpliia Literaria,
.1847, ii. 32(>) ....... 18
YI. Mrs. Coleridge, Senior, February 4, 1785. (Illustrated
London News, April 1, 1893) 21
VII. Rev. George Coleridge, undated, before 1790. (Illus¬
trated London News, April 1, 1893) ..... 22
VIII. Rev. George Coleridge, October 1(>, 1791. (Illustrated
London News, April 8, 1893) ...... 22
IX. Rev. George Coleridge, January 24, 1792 . . .23
X. Mrs. Evans, February 13, 1792 26
XI. Mary Evans, February 13, 1792 ...... 30
XII. Anne Evans, February li), 1792 37
XIII. Mrs. Evans, February 22 [1792] 39
XIV. Mary Evans, February 22 [1792] 41
XV. Rev. George Coleridge, April [1792]. (Illustrated Lon¬
don News, April 8, 1893) 42
XVI. Mrs. Evans, February 5, 1793 45
XVII. Mary Evans, February 7, 1793. (Illustrated London
News, April 8, 1893) 47
XVIII. Anne Evans, February 10, 1793 52
XIX. Rev. George Coleridge, July 28, 1793 .... 53
XX. Rev. George Coleridge [Postmark, August 5, 1793] . 55
XXI. G. L. Tuckett, February (> [1794]. (Illustrated London
News, April 15, 1893) ....... 57
xvi
CONTENTS
XXII. Rev. George Coleridge, February 8, 1704 ... 59
XXIII. Rev. George Coleridge, February 11, 1704 . . 00
XXIY. Capt. James Coleridge, February 20, 1794. (Brandl's
Life of Coleridge, 1887. p. 05) ..... 01
XXV. Rev. George Coleridge, March 12, 1704. (Illustrated
London News, April 15, 1803) ..... 02
XXVI. Rev. George Coleridge, March 21, 1794 ... 04
XXVII. Rev. George Coleridge, end of March, 1794 . . 00
XXVIII. Rev. George Coleridge, March 27, 1704 ... GO
XXIX. Rev. George Coleridge, March 30, 1794 ... 08
XXX. Rev. George Coleridge, April 7, 1704 ... 09
XXXI. Rev. George Coleridge, May 1, 1704 ... 70
XXXII. Robert Southey, July 0, 1704. (Sixteen lines pub¬
lished, Southey's Life and Correspondence, 1840, i. 212) 72
XXXIII. Robert Southey, July 15, 1704. (Portions published
in Letter to H. Martin, July 22, 1704, Biograpliia Lit-
eraria, 1847, ii. 338) ....... 74
XXXIV. Robert Southey, September 18,1704. (Eighteen lines
published, Southey's Life and Correspondence, 1840, i.
218) 81
XXXV. Robert Southey, September 10, 1704 .... 84
XXXVI. Robert Southey, September 20, 1704 .... 80
XXXVII. Robert Southey, October 21, 1704 . . . .87
XXXVIII. Robert Southey, November, 1794 .... 95
XXXIX. Robert Southey, Autumn, 1704. (Illustrated London
News, April 15, 1803) ....... 101
XL. Rev. George Coleridge, November 0, 1704 . . 103
XLI. Robert Southey, December 11, 1704 .... 100
XLII. Robert Southey, December 17, 1704 .... 114
XLIII. Robert Southey, December, 1704. (Eighteen lines pub¬
lished, Soutliey's Life and Correspondence, 1840, i. 227) 121
XLIV. Mary Evans, (?) December, 1704. (Samuel Taylor Cole¬
ridge, A Narrative, 1804, p. 38) 122
XLV. Mary Evans, December 24,1704. (Samuel Taylor Cole¬
ridge, A Narrative, 1894, p. 40) 124
XLVI. Robert Southey, December, 1794 .... 125
CHAPTER II. EARLY PUBLIC LIFE, 1705-1796.
XLVII. Joseph Cottle, Spring, 1705. (Early Recollections,
1837, i. Hi) 133
XLVIII. Joseph Cottle. July 31, 1795. (Early Recollections,
1837, i. 52) 133
XLIX. Joseph Cottle, 1795. (Early Recollections, 1837, i. 55) 134
L. Robert Southey, October, 1705 134
LI. Thomas Poole, October 7, 1705. (Biograpliia Lite-
raria, 1847, ii- -547) 136
LII. Robert Southey, November 13, 1705 .... 137
CONTENTS
xvii
LIII. Josiah Wade, January 27,179G. (Biographia Literaria,
1847, ii. 850) 151
LIV. Joseph Cottle, February 22, 179G. (Early Recollec¬
tions, 1837, i. 141; Biograpliia Literaria, 1847, ii. 35G) 154
LV. Thomas Poole, March. 30, 1790. (Biographia Lite¬
raria, 1847, ii. 357) ....... 155
LYI. Thomas Poole, May 12, 179G. (Biograpliia Literaria,
1847, ii. 3GG; Thomas Poole and his Friends, 1887, i.
144) 158
LVII. John Thelwall, May 13, 1790 159
LVIII. Thomas Poole, May 29, 1790. (Biographia Literaria,
1847, ii. 308) ....... . 104
LIX. John Thelwall, June 22, 1790 106
LX. Thomas Poole, September 24, 1790. (Biographia Lite¬
raria, 1847, ii. 373 ; Thomas Poole and his Friends,
1887, i. 155) . 108
LXI. Charles Lamb [September 28, 1790]. (Gillman's Life
of Coleridge, 1838, pp. 338-340) . . . . .171
LXII. Thomas Poole, November 5, 1790. (Biographia Lite¬
raria, 1847, ii. 379; Thomas Poole and his Friends,
1887, i. 175) 172
LXIII. Thomas Poole, November 7, 1790 .... 170
LXIY. John Thelwall, November 19 [1790], (Twenty-six
lines published, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, A Narrative,
1894, p. 58) 178
LXY. Thomas Poole, December 11, 1790. (Thomas Poole
and his Friends, 1887, i. 182) 183
LXYI. Thomas Poole, December 12, 1790. (Thomas Poole
and his Friends, 1887, i. 184) ..... 184
LXVII. Thomas Poole, December 13, 1790. (Thomas Poole
and his Friends, 1887, i. 180) ..... 187
LXVIII. John Thelwall, December 17, 1796 .... 193
LXIX. Thomas Poole [? December 18,179G]. (Thomas Poole
and his Friends, 1887, i. 195) 208
LXX. John Thelwall, December 31, 1790 .... 210
CHAPTER III. THE STOWEY PERIOD, 1797-1798.
LXXI. Rev. J. P. Estlin [1797]. (Privately printed, Pliilo-
biblon Society) 213
LXXII. John Thelwall, February G, 1797- .... 214
LXXIII. Joseph Cottle, June, 1797. (Early Recollections, 1837,
i. 250) 220
LXXIV. Robert Southey, July, 1797 221
LXXV. John Thelwall [October 10], 1797 .... 228
LXXYI. John Thelwall [Autumn, 1797] ..... 231
LXXVII. John Thelwall [Autumn, 1797] 232
xviii
CONTENTS
LXXVIII. William Wordsworth, January, 1708. (Ten lines
published, Life of Wordsworth, 1889, i. 128) . . 234
LXXIX. Joseph Cottle, March 8, 1*798. (Part published in¬
correctly, Early Recollections. 1837, i. 251) . . 238
LXXX. Rev. George Coleridge, April, 1708 . . . 239
LXXXI. Rev. J. P. Estlin, May ['? 1798]. (Privately printed,
Pliilobiblon Society) ....... 245
LXXXII. Rev. J. P. Estlin, May 14, 1798. (Privately printed,
Pliilobiblon Society) ....... 246
LXXXIII. Thomas Poole, May 14,1708. (Thirty-one lines pub¬
lished, Thomas Poole and his Friends, 1887, i. 208). 248
LXXXIV. Thomas Poole [May 20, 170S]. (Eleven lines pub¬
lished, Thomas Poole and his Friends, 1887, i. 200) . 249
LXXXV. Charles Lamb [spring- of 1708] .... 249
CHAPTER IV. A VISIT TO GERMANY, 1798-1790.
LXXXVI. Thomas Poole, September 15, 1798. (Thomas Poole
and his Friends, 1887, i. 273) 258
LXXXYII. Mrs. S. T. Coleridge, September 19, 1798 . . 250
LXXXVI11. Mrs. S. T. Coleridge, October 20, 1708 . . . 202
LXXXIX. Mrs. S. T. Coleridge, November 20, 1708 . . . 205
XC. Mrs. S. T. Coleridge, December 2, 1708 . . . 200
XCI. Rev. Mr. Roskilly, December 3, 1708 . . . 207
XCII. Thomas Poole, January 4, 1700 207 •
XCII1. Mrs. S. T. Coleridge, January 14, 1700 . . . 271
XC1V. Mrs. S. T. Coleridge, March 12, 1700. (Illustrated
London News, April 20, 1893) ..... 277
XCY. Thomas Poole, April 0, 1790 . 282 *
XCYI. Mrs. S. T. Coleridge, April 8,1700. (Thirty lines pub¬
lished, Thomas Poole and his Friends, 1887, i. 205) . 284
XCVII. Mrs. S. T. Coleridge, April 23, 1700 . . . 288
XCV1II. Thomas Poole. May 0, 1700. (Thomas Poole and his
Friends, 1887, i. 207) 205 .
CHAPTER A7. FROM SOUTH TO NORTH, 1700-1800.
XCIX. Robert Southey, July 20, 1709 .... 303
C. Thomas Poole, September 10, 1799 .... 305
CI. Robert Southey, October 15, 1799 .... 307
CII. Robert Southey', November 10, 1799 . . . 312
CIII. Robert Southey-, December 9 [1799] . . . 314
CIY. Robert Southey" [December 24], 1799 . . . 319
CV. Robert Southey, January 25, 1800 .... 322
CYI. Robert Southey [early in 1800] .... 324
CVII. Robert Southey [Postmark, February 18], 1800 . 320
CVIII. Robert Southey [early in 1800] .... 328
CIX. Robert Southey, February 28, 1800 .... 331
CONTENTS
xix
CHAPTER VI. A LAKE POET, 1800-1803.
CX. Thomas Poole, August 14, 1800. (Illustrated Lon¬
don News, May 2T, 1893) ...... 335
CXI. Sir H. Davy, October 9, 1800. (Fragmentary Re¬
mains, 1S58, p. 80) ....... 330
CXII. Sir II. Davy, October 18, 1800. (Fragmentary Re¬
mains, 1858, p. 79) ....... 339
CXIII. Sir II. Davy, December 2, 1800. (Fragmentary Re¬
mains, 1858, p. 83) ....... 341
CXIV. Thomas Poole, December 5, 1800. (Eight lines pub¬
lished. Thomas Poole and his Friends, 1887, ii. 21) . 343
CXY. Sir H. Davy, February 3, 1801. (Fragmentary Re¬
mains, 1858, p. 8(5) ....... 345
CXVI. Thomas Poole, March 10, 1801 348
CXVII. Thomas Poole, March 23, 1801 350
CXVIII. Robert Southey [May <>, 1801] .... 354
CX1X. Robert Southey, July 22, 1801 .... 350
CXX. Robert Southey, July 25, 1801 .... 359
CXXI. Robert Southey, August 1, 1801 .... 301
CXXII. Thomas Poole, September 19, 1801. (Thomas Poole
and his Friends, 1887, ii. 05) ..... 304
CXXIII. Robert Southey, December 31, 1801 . . . 3(55
CXXIV. Mrs. S. T. Coleridge [February 24, 1802] . . . 3(57
CXXY. W. Sotheby, July 13, 1802 309
CXXYI. W. Sotheby, July 19, 1802 370
CXXVII. Robert Southey, July 29, 1802 .... 384
CXXVIII. Robert Southey, August 9, 1802 .... 393
CXXIX. W. Sotheby, August 2(5, 1802 390
CXXX. W. Sotheby, September 10, 1802 .... 401
CXXXI. W. Sotheby, September 27, 1802 .... 408
CXXXII. Mrs. S. T. Coleridge, November 10, 1802 . . . 410
CXXXIII. Rev. J. P. Estlin, December 7, 1802. (Privately
printed, Philobiblon Society) ..... 414
CXXXIV. Robert Southey, December 25, 1802 . . . 415
CXXXV. Thomas Wedgwood, January 9, 1803 . . .417
CXXXYI. Mrs. S. T. Coleridge, April 4, 1803 . . . .420
CXXXYII. Robert Southey, July 2, 1803 422
CXXXVIII. Robert Southey, July, 1803 425
CXXXIX. Robert Southey, August 7, 1803 .... 427
CXL. Mrs. S. T. Coleridge, September 1, 1803 . . . 431
CXLI. Robert Southey, September 10, 1803 . . . 434
CXLII. Robert Southey, September 13, 1803 . . . 437
CXLIII. Matthew Coates. December 5, 1803 . . . 441
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Page
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, aged forty-seven. From a pencil-
sketch by C. R. Leslie, R. A., now in tlie possession of the editor.
Frontispiece
Colonel James Coleridge, of Heath's Court, Ottery St. Mary.
From a pastel drawing now in the possession of the Eight Honour¬
able Lord Coleridge 00
The Cottage at Clevedon, occupied by S. T. Coleridge, October-
November, 1795. From a photograph 130
The Cottage at Nether Stowey, occupied by S. T. Coleridge,
1797-1800. From a photograph taken by the Honourable Stephen
Coleridge 214
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, aged twenty-six. From a pastel sketch
taken in Germany, now in the possession of Miss Ward of Marsh-
mills, Over Stowey 262
Robert Southey, aged forty-one. From an etching on copper. Pri¬
vate plate 304
Greta IIall, Keswick. From a photograph 330
Mrs. S. T. Coleridge, aged tliirty-nine. From a miniature by Ma¬
tilda Betham, now in the possession of the editor 308
Sara Coleridge, aged six. From a miniature by Matilda Betham,
now in the possession of the editor 416
CHAPTER I
STUDENT LIFE
1785-1794
LETTERS
OF
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
CHAPTER I
student life
1785-1794
The five autobiographical letters addressed to Thomas
Poole were written at Nether Stowey, at irregular inter¬
vals during the years 1797-98. They are included in
the first chapter of the " Biographical Supplement" to
the " Biographia Literaria." The larger portion of this
so-called Biographical Supplement was prepared for the
press by Henry Nelson Coleridge, and consists of the
opening chapters of a proposed " biographical sketch,"
and a selection from the correspondence of S. T. Coleridge.
His widow, Sara Coleridge, when she brought out the
second edition of the "Biographia Literaria" in 1847,
published this fragment and added some matter of her
own. This edition has never been reprinted in England,
but is included in the American edition of Coleridge's
Works, which was issued by Harper & Brothers in 1853.
The letters may be compared with an autobiographical
note dated March 9, 1832, which was written at Gillman's
request, and forms part of the first chapter of his " Life of
Coleridge." 1 The text of the present issue of the auto¬
biographical letters is taken from the original MSS., and
differs in many important particulars from that of 1847.
1 Pickering, 1838.
4
STUDENT LIFE
i. to thomas poole.
Monday, February, 1797.
My dear Poole, — I could inform tlie dullest author
how he might write an interesting book. Let him relate
the events of his own life with honesty, not disguising the
feelings that accompanied them. I never yet read even a
Methodist's Experience in the " Gospel Magazine " with¬
out receiving instruction and amusement; and I should
almost despair of that man who could peruse the Life of
John Woolman 1 without an amelioration of heart. As to
my Life, it has all the charms of variety, — high life and
low life, vices and virtues, great folly and some wisdom.
However, what I am depends on what I have been ; and
you, my best Friend ! have a right to the narration. To
me the task will be a useful one. It will renew and
deepen my reflections on the past; and it will perhaps
make you behold with no unforgiving or impatient eye
those weaknesses and defects in my character, which so
many untoward circumstances have concurred to plant
there.
My family on my mother's side can be traced up, I
know not how far. The Bowdons inherited a small farm
in the Exmoor country, in the reign of Elizabeth, as I
have been told, and, to my own knowledge, they have inher¬
ited nothing better since that time. On my father's side
I can rise no higher than my grandfather, who was born
in the Hundred of Coleridge2 in the county of Devon,
1 The Journal of John Woolman, pare, too, Essays of Elia, "A Qua-
the Quaker abolitionist, was pub- kers1 Meeting." " Get the writings
lislied in Philadelphia in 1774, and of John Woolman by heart; and
in London in 1775. From a letter love the early Quakers." Letters of
of Charles Lamb, dated January 5, Charles Lamb, 188S, i. 61 ; Prose
1797, we may conclude that Charles IT orA's, 1836, ii. 106.
Lloyd had, in the first instance, 2 I have been unable to trace any
drawn Coleridge's attention to the connection between the family of
writings of John Woolman. Com- Coleridge and the Parish or Hun-
TO THOMAS POOLE
5
christened, educated, and apprenticed to the parish. He
afterwards became a respectable woollen - draper in the
town of South Molton.1 (I have mentioned these par¬
ticulars, as the time may come in which it will be useful
to be able to prove myself a genuine sans-culotte, my
veins uncontaminated with one drop of gentility.) My
father received a better education than the others of his
family, in consequence of his own exertions, not of his
superior advantages. When he was not quite sixteen
years old, my grandfather became bankrupt, and by a
series of misfortunes was reduced to extreme poverty.
My father received the half of his last crown and his
blessing, and walked off to seek his fortune. After he
had proceeded a few miles, he sat him down on the side of
the road, so overwhelmed with painful thoughts that he
wept audibly. A gentleman passed by, who knew him, and,
inquiring into his distresses, took my father with him,
and settled him in a neighbouring town as a schoolmas¬
ter. Ilis school increased and he got money and know¬
ledge : for he commenced a severe and ardent student.
Here, too, he married his first wife, by whom he had three
daughters, all now alive. While his first wife lived, hav¬
ing scraped up money enough at the age of twenty2 he
dred of Coleridge in North Devon.
Coldridges or Coleridges have been
settled for more than two hundred
years in Doddiscombsleigli, Ashton,
and other villages of the Upper
Teign, and to the southwest of
Exeter the name is not uncommon.
It is probahle that at some period
before the days of parish registers,
strangers from Coleridge who had
settled farther south were named
after their birthplace.
1 Probably a mistake for Crediton.
It was at Crediton that John Cole¬
ridge, the poet's father, was born
(Feb. 21, 1718) and educated; and
here, if anywhere, it must have been
that the elder John Coleridge " be¬
came a respectable woollen-draper."
2 John Coleridge, the younger,
was in his thirty-first year when he
was matriculated as sizar at Sidney
Sussex College, Cambridge, March
IS, 1T4S. He is entered in the col¬
lege books as Jilius Johannis textoris.
On the loth of June, 1740, he was
appointed to the mastership of
Squire's Endowed Grammar School
at South Molton. It is strange that
Coleridge forgot or failed to record
this incident in his father's life. Ilis
mother came from the neighbour-
6
STUDENT LIFE
walked to Cambridge, entered at Sidney College, distin¬
guished himself for Hebrew and Mathematics, and might
have had a fellowship if he had not been married. He
returned — his wife died. Judge Buller's father gave
him the living of Ottery St. Mary, and put the present
judge to school with him. He married my mother, by
whom he had ten children, of whom I am the youngest,
born October 20, 1772.
These sketches I received from my mother and aunt,
but I am utterly unable to fill them up by any particu¬
larity of times, or places, or names. Here I shall con¬
clude my first letter, because I cannot pledge myself for
the accuracy of the accounts, and I will not therefore
mingle them with those for the accuracy of which in the
minutest parts I shall hold myself amenable to the Tri¬
bunal of Truth. You must regard this letter as the first
chapter of an history which is devoted to dim traditions
of times too remote to be pierced by the eye of investi¬
gation. Yours affectionately,
S. T. Coleridge.
ii. to the same.
Sunday, March, 1797.
My pear Poole, — My father (Vicar of, and School¬
master at, Ottery St. Mary, Devon) was a profound
mathematician, and well versed in the Latin, Greek, and
Oriental Languages. He published, or rather attempted
to publish, several works ; 1st, Miscellaneous Disserta¬
tions arising from the 17th and 18th Chapters of the
Book of Judges ; 2d, Sent entice excerptce, for the use of
his own school; and 3d, his best work, a Critical Latin
Grammar; in the preface to which he proposes a bold
innovation in the names of the cases. My father's new
hood, and several of his father's judge, followed him from South
scholars, among them Francis Bui- Molton to Ottery St. Mary,
ler, afterwards the well - known
TO THOMAS POOLE
7
nomenclature was not likely to become popular, although
it must be allowed to be both sonorous and expressive.
Exempli gratia, he calls the ablative the quippe-quare-
quale-quia-quidditive case ! My father made the world
his confidant with respect to his learning and ingenuity,
and the world seems to have kept the secret very faith¬
fully. His various works, uncut, unthumbed, have been
preserved free from all pollution. This piece of good luck
promises to be hereditary; for all my compositions have
the same amiable home-studying propensity. The truth
is, my father was not a first-rate genius ; he was, how¬
ever, a first-rate Christian. I need not detain you with
his character. In learning, good-hearteclness, absentness
of mind, and excessive ignorance of the world, he was a
perfect Parson Adams.
My mother was an admirable economist, and managed
exclusively. My eldest brother's name was John. He
went over to the East Indies in the Company's service ;
he was a successful officer and a brave one, I have heard,
lie died of a consumption there about eight years ago.
My second brother was called William. He went to
Pembroke College, Oxford, and afterwards was assistant
to Mr. Newcome's School, at Hackney. He died of a
putrid fever the year before my father's death, and just
as he was on the eve of marriage with Miss Jane Hart,
the eldest daughter of a very wealthy citizen of Exeter.
My third brother, James, has been in the army since the
age of sixteen, has married a woman of fortune, and now
lives at Ottery St. Mary, a respectable man. My brother
Edward, the wit of the family, went to Pembroke College,
and afterwards to Salisbury, as assistant to Dr. Skinner.
He married a woman twenty years older than his mother.
She is dead, and he now lives at Ottery St. Mary. My
fifth brother, George, was educated at Pembroke College,
Oxford, and from there went to Mr. Newcome's, Hackney,
on the death of William. He stayed there fourteen years,
8
STUDENT LIFE
when the living of Ottery St. Mary1 was given him. There
he has now a fine school, and has lately married Miss
Jane Hart, who with beauty and wealth had remained a
faithful widow to the memory of William for sixteen
years. My brother George is a man of reflective mind
and elegant genius. He possesses learning in a greater
degree than any of the family, excepting myself. His
manners are grave and liued over with a tender sadness.
In his moral character he approaches every way nearer to
perfection than any man I ever yet knew ; indeed, he is
worth the whole family in a lump. My sixth brother,
Luke (indeed, the seventh, for one brother, the second,
died in his infancy, and I had forgot to mention him), was
bred as a medical man. He married Miss Sara Hart, and
died at the age of twenty-two, leaving one child, a lovely
boy, still alive. My brother Luke was a man of uncom¬
mon genius, a severe student, and a good man. The
eighth child was a sister, Anne.2 She died a little after
my brother Luke, aged twenty-one ;
Rest, gentle Shade ! and wait thy Maker's will;
Then rise uncliancf d, and be an Angel still!
The ninth child was called Francis. He went out as a
midshipman, under Admiral Graves. His ship lay on
the Bengal coast, and he accidentally met his brother
John, who took him to land, and procured him a commis¬
sion in the Army. He died from the effects of a delirious
fever brought on by his excessive exertions at the siege of
Seringapatam, at which his conduct had been so gallant,
that Lord Cornwallis paid him a high compliment in
the presence of the army, and presented him with a val-
1 George Coleridge was Chaplain and early death form the subject of
Priest, and Master of the King's two of Coleridge's early sonnets.
School, hut never Vicar of Ottery Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor
St. Mary. Coleridge, Macmillan, 1893, p. 13.
2 Anne (" Nancy ") Coleridge died See, also, " Lines to a Friend," p. 37,
in her twenty-fifth year. Her illness and "Frost at Midnight," p. 127.
TO THOMAS POOLE
9
uable gold watch, which my mother now has. All my
brothers are remarkably handsome ; but they were as in¬
ferior to Francis as I am to them. He went by the name
of "the handsome Coleridge." The tenth and last child
was S. T. Coleridge, the subject of these epistles, born
(as I told you in my last) October 20,1 1772.
From October 20, 1772, to October 20, 1773. Chris¬
tened Samuel Taylor Coleridge — my godfather's name
being Samuel Taylor, Esq. I had another godfather
(his name was Evans), and two godmothers, both called
"Monday."2 From October 20, 1773, to October 20,
1774. In this year I was carelessly left by my nurse,
ran to the fire, and pulled out a live coal — burnt my¬
self dreadfully. While my hand was being dressed by
a Mr. Young, I spoke for the first time (so my mother
informs me) and said, "nasty Doctor Young!" The
snatching at fire, and the circumstance of my first words
expressing hatred to professional men — are they at all
ominous ? This year I went to school. My schoolmistress,
1 A mistake for October 21st. she had the barbarity to revenge by
2 Compare some doggerel verses striking me out of her "Will."
" On Mrs. Monday's Beard " which The epigram is not worth quoting,
Coleridge wrote on a copy of but it is curious to observe that,
Southey's Omniana, under the head- even when scribbling for his own
ing of "Beards" (Omniana, 1S12, amusement, and without any view
ii. 54). Southey records the legend to publication, Coleridge could not
of a female saint, St. Yuilgefortis, resist the temptation of devising an
who in answer to her prayers was " apologetic preface."
rewarded with a beard as a mark of The verses, etc., are printed in
divine favour. The story is told in Table Talk and Omniana, Bell, 1888,
some Latin elegiacs from the Annus p. 391. The editor, the late Thomas
Sacer Poeticus of the Jesuit Sautel Ashe, transcribed them from Gill-
wliich Southey quotes at length, man's copy of the Omniana, now in
Coleridge comments thus, " Pereant the British Museum. I have fol-
qui ante nos nostra dixere ! What! lowed a transcript of the marginal
can nothing be one's own ? This is note made by Mrs. II. N. Coleridge
the more vexatious, for at the age of before the volume was cut in bind-
eigliteen I lost a legacy of Fifty ing. Iler version supplies one or
pounds for the following Epigram two omissions,
on my Godmother's Beard, which
10
STUDENT LIFE
the very image of Shenstone's, was named Old Dame Key.
Slie was nearly related to Sir Joshua Reynolds.
From October 20, 1774, to October 20, 1775. I was
inoculated ; which I mention because I distinctly remem¬
ber it, and that my eyes were bound ; at which I mani¬
fested so much obstinate indignation, that at last they
removed the bandage, and unaffriglited I looked at the
lancet, and suffered the scratch. At the close of the year
I could read a chapter in the Bible.
Here I shall end, because the remaining years of my
life all assisted to form my particular mind ; — the three
first years had nothing in them that seems to relate to it.
(Signature cut out.)
iii. to the same.
October 9, 179?.
My dearest Poole, — From March to October — a
long silence ! But [as] it is possible that I may have been
preparing materials for future letters,1 the time cannot
be considered as altogether subtracted from you.
From October, 1775, to October, 1778. These three
years I continued at the Reading School, because I was
too little to be trusted among my father's schoolboys.
After breakfast I had a halfpenny given me, with which
I bought three cakes at the baker's close by the school
of my old mistress ; and these were my dinner on every
day except Saturday and Sunday, when I used to dine at
home, and wallowed in a beef and pudding dinner. I am
remarkably fond of beans and bacon; and this fondness
I attribute to my father having given me a penny for
1 The meaning- is that the events Dorothy at Alfoxden, would hereaf-
wliich had taken place between ter be recorded in his autobiography.
March and October, 1797, the com- He had failed to complete the rec-
position, for instance, of his tragedy, ord of the past, only because he had
Osorio, the visit of Charles Lamb to been too much occupied with the
the cottage at Nether Stowey, the present,
settling of Wordsworth and his sister
TO THOMAS POOLE 11
having eat a large quantity of beans on Saturday. For
the other boys did not like them, and as it was an eco¬
nomic food, my father thought that my attachment and
penchant for it ought to be encouraged. My father was
very fond of me, and I was my mother's darling : in con¬
sequence I was very miserable. For Molly, who had
nursed my brother Francis, and was immoderately fond
of him, hated me because my mother took more notice
of me than of Frank, and Frank hated me because my
mother gave me now and then a bit of cake, when he had
none, — quite forgetting that for one bit of cake which I
had and he had not, he had twenty sops in the pan, and
pieces of bread and butter with sugar on them from Molly,
from whom I received only thumps and ill names.
So I became fretful and timorous, and a tell-tale ; and
the schoolboys drove me from play, and were always
tormenting me, and hence I took no pleasure in boyish
sports, but read incessantly. My father's sister kept an
everything shop at Crediton, and there I read through
all the gilt-cover little books1 that could be had at that
time, and likewise all the uncovered tales of Tom Hicka-
thrift, Jack the Giant-killer, etc., etc., etc., etc. And I
1 lie records his timorous passion
for fairy stories in a note to The
Friend (ed. 1S50, i. 192). Another
version of the same story is to be
found in some MS. notes (taken by
J. Tomalin) of the Lectures of 1811,
the only record of this and other
lectures : —
Lecture 5th, 1811. " Give me,"
cried Coleridge, with enthusiasm,
'' the works which delighted my
youth ! Give me the History of St.
George, and the Seven Champions of
Christendom, which at every leisure
moment I used to hide myself in a
corner to read ! Give me the Ara¬
bian Nights' Entertainments, which I
used to watch, till the sun shining
on the bookcase approached, and,
glowing full upon it, gave me the
courage to take it from the shelf. I
heard of no little Billies, and sought
no praise for giving to beggars, and
I trust that my heart is not the
worse, or the less inclined to feel
sympathy for all men, because I
first learnt the powers of my nature,
and to reverence that nature — for
who can feel and reverence the na¬
ture of man and not feel deeply for
the affliction of others possessing
like powers and like nature ? "
Tomalin's Shorthand Report of Lec¬
ture V.
12
STUDENT LIFE
used to lie by the wall and mope, and my spirits used to
come upon me suddenly ; and in a flood of them I was
accustomed to race up and down the churchyard, and act
over all I had been reading, on the docks, the nettles, and
the rank grass. At six years old I remember to have read
Belisarius, Robinson Crusoe, and Philip Quarles ; and then
I found the Arabian Nights' Entertainments, one tale of
which (the tale of a man who was compelled to seek for
a pure virgin) made so deep an impression on me (I had
read it in the evening while my mother was mending
stockings), that I was haunted by spectres, whenever I
was in the dark: and I distinctly remember the anxious
and fearful eagerness with which I used to watch the
window in which the books lay, and whenever the sun lay
upon them, I would seize it, carry it by the wall, and bask
and read. My father found out the effect which these
books had produced, and burnt them.
So I became a dreamer, and acquired an indisposition
to all bodily activity ; and I was fretful, and inordinately
passionate, and as I could not play at anything, and was
slothful, I was despised and hated by the boys ; and be¬
cause I could read and spell and had, I may truly say, a
memory and understanding forced into almost an unnat¬
ural ripeness, I was flattered and wondered at by all the
old women. And so I became very vain, and despised
most of the boys that were at all near my own age, and
before I was eight years old I was a character. Sensi¬
bility, imagination, vanity, sloth, and feelings of deep and
bitter contempt for all who traversed the orbit of my un¬
derstanding, were even then prominent and manifest.
From October, 1778, to 1779. That which I began to
be from three to six I continued from six to nine. In this
year [1778] I was admitted into the Grammar School, and
soon outstripped all of my age. I had a dangerous putrid
fever this year. My brother George lay ill of the same
fever in the next room. My poor brother Francis, I
TO THOMAS POOLE
13
remember, stole up in spite of orders to tlie contrary, and
sat by my bedside and read Pope's Homer to me. Frank
had a violent love of beating- me ; but whenever that
was superseded by any humour or circumstances, he was
always very fond of me, and used to regard me with a
strange mixture of admiration and contempt. Strange
it was not, for he hated books, and loved climbing,
fighting, playing and robbing orchards, to distraction.
My mother relates a story of me, which I repeat here,
because it must be regarded as my first piece of wit.
During my fever, I asked why Lady Northcote (our
neighbour) did not come and see me. My mother said
she was afraid of catching the fever. I was piqued, and
answered, " Ah, Mamma! the four Angels round my bed
an't afraid of catching it! " I suppose you know the
prayer: —
" Matthew ! Mark ! Luke and John!
God bless the bed which I lie on.
Four angels round me spread,
Two at my foot, and two at my head."
This prayer I said nightly, and most firmly believed the
truth of it. Frequently have I (half-awake and lialf-
asleep, my body diseased and fevered by my imagination),
seen armies of ugly things bursting in upon me, and these
four angels keeping them off. In my next I shall carry
on my life to my father's death.
God bless you, my dear Poole, and your affectionate
S. T. Coleridge.
iv. to the same.
October 16, 1797.
Dear Poole,—From October, 1779, to October, 1781.
I had asked my mother one evening to cut my cheese
entire, so that I might toast it. This was no easy matter,
it being a crumbly cheese. My mother, however, did it.
I went into the garden for something or other, and in
14
STUDENT LIFE
tlie mean time my brother Frank minced my cheese "to
disappoint the favorite." I returned, saw the exploit,
and in an agony of passion flew at Frank. lie pretended
to have been seriously hurt by my blow, flung himself on
the ground, and there lay with outstretched limbs. I
hung over him moaning, and in a great fright; he leaped
up, and with a horse-laugh gave me a severe blow in the
face. I seized a knife, and was running at him, when
my mother came in and took me by the arm. I expected
a flogging, and struggling from her I ran away to a hill
at the bottom of which the Otter flows, about one mile
from Ottery. There I stayed; my rage died away, but
my obstinacy vanquished my fears, and taking out a
little shilling book which had, at the end, morning and
evening prayers, I very devoutly repeated them — think¬
ing at the same time with inward and gloomy satisfaction
how miserable my mother must be ! I distinctly remem¬
ber my feelings when I saw a Mr. Vaughan pass over the
bridge, at about a furlong's distance, and how I watched
the calves in the fields1 beyond the river. It grew dark
and I fell asleep. It was towards the latter end of Oc¬
tober, and it proved a dreadful stormy night. I felt the
cold in my sleep, and dreamt that I was pulling the blan¬
ket over me, and actually pulled over me a dry thorn bush
which lay on the hill. In my sleep I had rolled from the
top of the hill to within three yards of the river, which
flowed by the unfenced edge at the bottom. I awoke
several times, and finding myself wet and stiff and cold,
closed my eyes again that I might forget it.
In the mean time my mother waited about half an hour,
1 Compare a MS. note dated July calf bellowing. Instantly came on
19, 1803. " Intensely hot day, left my mind that night I slept out at
off a waistcoat, and for yarn wore Ottery, and the calf in the field
silk stockings. Before nine o'clock across the river whose lowing so
had unpleasant chillness, heard a deeply impressed me. Chill and
noise which I thought Derwent's in child and calf lowing."
sleep; listened and found it was a
TO THOMAS POOLE
15
expecting my return when tlie sulks had evaporated. I
not returning, she sent into the churchyard and round
the town. Not found ! Several men and all the boys
were sent to ramble about and seek me. In vain ! My
mother was almost distracted; and at ten o'clock at night
I was cried by the crier in Ottery, and in two villages
near it, with a reward offered for me. No one went to
bed ; indeed, I believe half the town were up all the
night. To return to myself. About five in the morning,
or a little after, I was broad awake, and attempted to get
up and walk ; but I could not move. I saw the shepherds
and workmen at a distance, and cried, but so faintly that
it was impossible to hear me thirty yards off. And there
I might have lain and died; for I was now almost given
over, the ponds and even the river, near where I was
lying, having been dragged. But by good luck, Sir
Stafford Northcote,1 who had been out all night, resolved
to make one other trial, and came so near that he heard
me crying. He carried me in his arms for near a quarter
of a mile, when we met my father and Sir Stafford's
servants. I remember and never shall forget my father's
face as he looked upon me while I lay in the servant's
arms — so calm, and the tears stealing down his face ; for
I was the child of his old age. My mother, as you may
suppose, was outrageous with joy. [Meantime] in rushed
a young lady, crying out, "I hope you'll whip him,
Mrs. Coleridge ! " This woman still lives in Ottery; and
neither philosophy or religion have been able to conquer
the antipathy which I feel towards her whenever I see
her. I was put to bed and recovered in a day or so, but
I was certainly injured. For I was weakly and subject to
the ague for many years after.
1 Sir Stafford, the seventh baro- the list of scholars who were sub¬
net, grandfather of the first Lord scribers to the second edition of the
Iddesleigh, was at that time a youth Critical Latin Grammar.
of eighteen. His name occurs among
16
STUDENT LIFE
My father (who hacl so little of parental ambition in
him, that he had destined his children to be blacksmiths,
etc., and had accomplished his intention but for my mo¬
ther's pride and spirit of aggrandizing her family) — my
father had, however, resolved that I should be a parson.
I read every book that came in my way without distinc¬
tion ; and my father was fond of me, and used to take
me 011 his knee and hold long conversations with me. I
remember that at eight years old I walked with liim one
winter evening from a farmer's house, a mile from Ottery,
and he told me the names of the stars and how Jupiter
was a thousand times larger than our world, and that the
other twinkling stars were suns that had worlds rolling
round them ; and when I came home he shewed me how
they rolled round. I heard him with a profound delight
and admiration : but without the least mixture of wonder
or incredulity. For from my early reading of fairy tales
and genii, etc., etc., my mind had been habituated to the
Vast, and I never regarded my senses in any way as the
criteria of my belief. I regulated all my creeds by my
conceptions, not by my sight, even at that age. Should
children be permitted to read romances, and relations of
giants and magicians and genii? I know all that has
been said against it; but I have formed my faith in the
affirmative. I know no other way of giving the mind a
love of the Great and the Whole. Those who have been
led to the same truths step by step, through the constant
testimony of their senses, seem to me to want a sense which
I possess. They contemplate nothing but parts, and all
parts are necessarily little. And the universe to them is
but a mass of little things. It is true, that the mind may
become credulous and prone to superstition by the former
method; but are not the experimentalists credulous even
to madness in believing any absurdity, rather than believe
the grandest truths, if they have not the testimony of their
own senses in their favour? I have known some who have
TO THOMAS POOLE
17
been rationally educated, as it is styled. Tliey were
marked by a microscopic acuteness, but wlien they looked
at great tilings, all became a blank and they saw no¬
thing, and denied (very illogically) that anything could
be seen, and uniformly put the negation of a power for the
possession of a power, and called the want of imagination
judgment and the never being moved to rapture philo-
sojihy !
Towards the latter end of September, 1781, my father
went to Plymouth with my brother Francis, who was to go
as midshipman under Admiral Graves, who was a friend
of my father's. My father settled my brother, and re¬
turned October 4, 1781. He arrived at Exeter about six
o'clock, and was pressed to take a bed there at the Harts',
but he refused, and, to avoid their entreaties, he told them,
that he had never been superstitious, but that the night
before he had had a dream which had made a deep im¬
pression. He dreamt that Death had appeared to him as
he is commonly painted, and touched him with his dart.
Well, he returned home, and all his family, I excepted,
were up. He told my mother his dream ;1 but he was in
high health and good spirits, and there was a bowl of
punch made, and my father gave a long and particular
account of his travel, and that he had placed Frank under
a religious captain, etc. At length he went to bed, very
well and in high spirits. A short time after he had lain
down he complained of a pain in his bowels. My mother
got him some peppermint water, and, after a pause, he
said, " I am much better now, my dear! " and lay down
again. In a minute my mother heard a noise in his throat,
and spoke to him, but he did not answer; and she spoke
repeatedly in vain. Her shriek awaked me, and I said,
" Papa is dead! " I did not know of my father's return,
1 Compare a ISIS, note dated March cause of the coincidence of dreams
5, 1818. " Memory counterfeited with the event — r] fJ-rjT'rjp e/x-q."
by present impressions. One great
18
STUDENT LIFE
but I knew that lie was expected. How I came to tliink of
his death I cannot tell; but so it was. Dead he was. Some
said it was the gout in the heart; — probably it was a fit of
apoplexy. lie was an Israelite without guile, simple, gen¬
erous, and taking some Scripture texts in their literal sense,
he was conscientiously indifferent to the good and the evil
of this world.
God love you and S. T. Coleridge.
v. to the same.
February 19, 1798.
From October, 1781, to October, 1782.
After the death of my father, we of course changed
houses, and I remained with my mother till the spring
of 1782, and was a day-scholar to Parson Warren, my
father's successor. He was not very deep, I believe ; and
I used to delight my mother by relating little instances of
his deficiency in grammar knowledge, — every detraction
from his merits seemed an oblation to the memory of my
father, especially as Parson Warren did certainly pulpit-
ize much better. Somewhere I think about April, 1782,
Judge Buller, who had been educated by my father, sent
for me, having procured a Christ's Hospital Presentation.
I accordingly went to London, and was received by my
mother's brother, Mr. Bowdon, a tobacconist and (at the
same time) clerk to an underwriter. My uncle lived at
the corner of the Stock Exchange and carried on his shop
by means of a confidential servant, who, I suppose, fleeced
him most unmercifully. He was a widower and had one
daughter who lived with a Miss Cabriere, an old maid of
great sensibilities and a taste for literature. Betsy Bow¬
don had obtained an unlimited influence over her mind,
which she still retains. Mrs. Ilolt (for this is her name
now) was not the kindest of daughters — but, indeed, my
poor uncle would have wearied the patience and affection
of an Euphrasia. He received me with great affection,
TO THOMAS TOOLE
19
and I stayed ten weeks at his liouse, during which time I
went occasionally to Judge Buller^. My uncle was very
proud of me, and used to carry me from coffee-house to
coffee-house and tavern to tavern, where I drank and
talked and disputed, as if I had been a man. Nothing was
more common than for a large party to exclaim in my
hearing that I was a prodigy, etc., etc., etc., so that while
I remained at my uncle's I was most completely spoiled
and pampered, both mind and body.
At length the time came, and I donned the blue coat1
and yellow stockings and was sent down into Hertford, a
town twenty miles from London, where there are about
three hundred of the younger Blue-Coat boys. At Hert¬
ford I was very happy, 011 the whole, for I had plenty to
eat and drink, and pudding and vegetables almost every
day. I stayed there six weeks, and then was drafted up
to the great school at London, where I arrived in Septem¬
ber, 1782, and was placed in the second ward, then called
Jefferies' AVard, and in the under Grammar School. There
are twelve wards or dormitories of unequal sizes, beside
the sick ward, in the great school, and they contained all
together seven hundred boys, of whom I think nearly one
third were the sons of clergymen. There are five schools,
— a mathematical, a grammar, a drawing, a reading and
a writing school, — all very large buildings. When a boy
is admitted, if he reads very badly, he is either sent to
Hertford or the reading school. (N. B. Boys are admis¬
sible from seven to twelve years old.) If he learns to read
tolerably well before nine, he is drafted into the Lower
Grammar School; if not, into the Writing School, as hav¬
ing given proof of unfitness for classical attainments. If
before he is eleven he climbs up to the first form of the
Lower Grammar School, he is drafted into the head
Grammar School; if not, at eleven years old, he is sent
1 The date of admission to Ilert- later, September 12, lie was sent up
ford was July 18, 1782. Eiglit weeks to London to the great school.
20
STUDENT LIFE
into the Writing School, where he continues till fourteen
or fifteen, and is then either apprenticed and articled as
clerk, or whatever else his turn of mind or of fortune shall
have provided for him. Two or three times a year the
Mathematical Master beats up for recruits for the King's
boys, as they are called; and all who like the Navy are
drafted into the Mathematical and Drawing Schools, where
they continue till sixteen or seventeen, and go out as mid¬
shipmen and schoolmasters in the Navy. The boys, who
are drafted into the Head Grammar School remain there
till thirteen, and then, if not chosen for the University, go
into the Writing School.
Each dormitory has a nurse, or matron, and there is a
head matron to superintend all these nurses. The boys
were, when I was admitted, under excessive subordination
to each other, according to rank in school; and every ward
was governed by four Monitors (appointed by the Steward,
who was the supreme Governor out of school, — our tem¬
poral lord), and by four Markers, who wore silver medals
and were appointed by the Head Grammar Master, who
was our supreme spiritual lord. The same boys were com¬
monly both monitors and markers. We read in classes on
Sundays to our Markers, and were catechized by them,
and under their sole authority during prayers, etc. All
other authority was in the monitors; but, as I said, the
same boys were ordinarily both the one and the other.
Our diet was very scanty.1 Every morning, a bit of dry
1 Compare tlie autobiographical
note of 1832. " I was in a continual
low fever. My whole being was,
with eyes closed to every object of
present sense, to crumple myself up
in a sunny corner and read, read,
read; fixing myself on Robinson
Crusoe's Island, finding a mountain
of plumb cake, and eating a room
for myself, and then eating it into
the shapes of tables and chairs —
hunger and fancy." Lamb in his
Christ's Hospital Five and Thirty
Years Ago, and Leigh Hunt in his
Autobiography, are in the same tale
as to the insufficient and ill-cooked
meals of their Bluecoat days. Life
of Coleridge, by James Gillman,
1838, p. 20; Lamb's Prose Worlcs,
1836, ii. 27 ; Autobiography of Leigh
Hunt, 1860, p. 60.
TO HIS MOTHER
21
bread and some bad small beer. Every evening, a larger
piece of bread and clieese or butter, whichever we liked.
For dinner, — 011 Sunday, boiled beef and broth ; Monday,
bread and butter, and milk and water; on Tuesday, roast
mutton; Wednesday, bread and butter, and rice milk;
Thursday, boiled beef and broth; Saturday, bread and
butter, and pease-porritch. Our food was portioned; and,
excepting on Wednesdays, I never had a belly full. Our
appetites were damped, never satisfied; and we had no
vegetables.
S. T. Coleridge.
yi. to his mother.
February 4, 1785 [London, Christ's Hospital],
Dear Mother,1 — I received your letter with pleasure
on the second instant, and should have had it sooner, but
that we had not a holiday before last Tuesday, when my
brother delivered it me. I also with gratitude received
the two handkerchiefs and the half-a-crown from Mr. Bad-
cock, to whom I would be glad if you would give my thanks.
I shall be more careful of the sonnne, as I now consider
that were it not for my kind friends I should be as destitute
of many little necessaries as some of my schoolfellows are ;
and Thank God and my relations for them! My brother
Luke saw Mr. James Sorrel, who gave my brother a half-
a-crown from Mrs. Smerdon, but mentioned not a word
of the plumb cake, and said he would call again. Return
my most respectful thanks to Mrs. Smerdon for her kind
favour. My aunt was so kind as to accommodate me with
a box. I suppose my sister Anna's beauty has many ad-
1 Coleridge's " letters home " were exception, preserve his letters. It
almost invariably addressed to his was, indeed, a sorrowful consequence
brother George. It may be gatli- of his " long- exile " at Christ's Hos-
ered from his correspondence that at pital, that he seems to have passed
rare intervals he wrote to his mother out of his mother's ken, that absence
as well, but, contrary to her usual led to something like indifference on
practice, she did not, with this one both sides.
22
STUDENT LIFE
[Jan.
mirers. My brother Luke says that Burke's Art of Speak¬
ing would be of great use to me. If Master Sam and
Harry Badcock are not gone out of (Ottery), give my
kindest love to them. Give my compliments to Mr. Blake
and Miss Atkinson, Mr. and Mrs. Smerdon, Mr. and Mrs.
Clapp, and all other friends in the country. My uncle,
aunt, and cousins join with myself and Brother in love to
my sisters, and hope they are well, as I, your dutiful son,
S. Coleridge, am at present.
P. S. Give my kind love to Molly.
vii. to the rev. george coleridge.
Undated, from Christ's Hospital, before 1T90.
Dear Brother, — Yon will excuse me for reminding
you that, as our holidays commence next week, and I
shall go out a good deal, a good pair of breeches will be no
inconsiderable accession to my appearance. For though
my present pair are excellent for the purposes of draw¬
ing mathematical figures on them, and though a walking
thought, sonnet, or epigram would appear on them in
very splendid type, yet they are not altogether so well
adapted for a female eye — not to mention that I should
have the charge of vanity brought against me for wearing
a looking-glass. I hope you have got rid of your cold —
and I am your affectionate brother,
Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
P. S. Can you let me have them time enough for re-
adaptation before Whitsunday ? I mean that they may
be made up for me before that time.
viii. to the same.
October 16, 1791.
Dear Brother, — Here I am, videlicet, Jesus College.
I had a tolerable journey, went by a night coach packed
1792]
TO GEORGE COLERIDGE
23
up with five more, one of whom had a long, broad, red-
hot face, four feet by three. I very luckily found Middle-
ton at Pembroke College, who (after breakfast, etc.) con¬
ducted me to Jesus. Dr. Pearce is in Cornwall and not
expected to return to Cambridge till the summer, and
what is still more extraordinary (and, n. b., rather shame¬
ful) neither of the tutors are here. I keep (as the phrase
is) in an absent member's rooms till one of the aforesaid
duetto return to appoint me my own. Neither Lectures,
Chapel, or anything is begun. The College is very thin,
and Middleton has not the least acquaintance with any
of Jesus except a very blackguardly fellow whose physiog.
I did not like. So I sit down to dinner in the Hall in
silence, except the noise of suction which accompanies my
eating, and rise up ditto. I then walk to Pembroke and
sit with my friend Middleton. Pray let me hear from
you. Le Grice will send a parcel in two or three days.
Believe me, with sincere affection and gratitude, yours
ever,
S. T. Coleridge.
ix. to the same.
January 24,1792.
Dear Brother, — Happy am I, that the country air
and exercise have operated with due effect on your health
and spirits — and happy, too, that I can inform you, that
my own corporealities are in a state of better health, than
I ever recollect them to be. This indeed I owe in great
measure to the care of Mrs. Evans,1 with whom I spent a
fortnight at Christmas: the relaxation from study coop¬
erating with the cheerfulness and attention, which I met
1 Compare the autobiographical to me, and taught me what it was to
note of 1832 as quoted by Gillman. have a mother. I loved her as such.
About this time he became acquaint- She had three daughters, and of
ed with a widow lady, " whose son," course I fell in love with the eldest."
says he, " I, as upper boy, had pro- Life of Coleridge, p. 28.
tected, and who therefore looked up
24
STUDENT LIFE
[Jan.
there, proved very potently medicinal. I have indeed
experienced from her a tenderness scarcely inferior to the
solicitude of maternal affection. I wish, my dear brother,
that some time, when yon walk into town, you would call
at Yilliers Street, and take a dinner or dish of tea there.
Mrs. Evans has repeatedly expressed her wish, and I too
have made a half promise that you would. I assure you,
you will find them not only a very amiable, but a very
sensible family.
I send a parcel to Le Grice on Friday morning, which
(you may depend on it asi a certainty) will contain your
sermon. I hope you will like it.
I am sincerely concerned at the state of Mr. Sparrow's
health. Are his complaints consumptive? Present my
respects to him and Mrs. Sparrow.
When the Scholarship falls, I do not know. It must
be in the course of two or three months. I do not relax
in my exertions, neither do I find it any impediment to my
mental acquirements that prudence has obliged me to re¬
linquish the mediae pallescere nocti. We are examined
as Rustats,1 on the Thursday in Easter Week. The ex¬
amination for my year is " the last book of Homer and
Horace's De Arte Poetical The Master (i. e. Dr. Pearce)
told me that he would do me a service by pushing my
examination as deep as he possibly could. If ever liogs-
lard is pleasing, it is when our superiors trowel it on.
Mr. Frend's company2 is by no means invidious. On the
contrary, Pearce himself is very intimate with him. No!
1 Scholarship of Jesus College, alarm. He was deprived of his Fel-
Cambridge, for sons of clergymen. lowsliip, April 17, and banished from
2 At this time Frend was still a the University, May 30,1793. Cole-
Fellow of Jesus College. Five years ridge's demeanour in the Senate
had elapsed since he had resigned House on the occasion of Frend's-trial
from conscientious motives the living before the Vice-Chancellor forms the
of Madingley in Cambridgeshire, but subject of various contradictory an-
it was not until after the publication ecdotes. See Life of Coleridge, 1838,
of his pamphlet Teaee and Union, p. 55; Reminiscences of Cambridge,
in 1793, that the authorities took Henry Gunning, 1855, i. 272-275.
1792]
TO GEORGE COLERIDGE
25
Though I am not an Alderman, I have yet 'prudence
enough to respect that gluttony of faith waggishly yclept
orthodoxy.
Philanthropy generally keeps pace with health — my
acquaintance becomes more general. I am intimate with
an undergraduate of our College, his name Caldwell,1 who
is pursuing the same line of study (nearly) as myself.
Though a man of fortune, he is prudent; nor does he lay
claim to that right, which wealth confers on its possessor,
of being a fool. Middleton is fourth senior optimate —
an honourable place, but by no means so high as the whole
University exjjected, or (I believe) his merits deserved,
lie desires his love to Stevens:2 to which you will add
mine.
At what time am I to receive my pecuniary assistance ?
Quarterly or half yearly ? The Hospital issue their money
half yearly, and we receive the products of our scholar¬
ship at once, a little after Easter. Whatever additional
supply you and my brother may have thought necessary
would be therefore more conducive to my comfort, if I
received it quarterly ■— as there are a number of little
things which require us to have some ready money in our
pockets — particularly if we happen to be unwell. But
this as well as everything of the pecuniary kind I leave
entirely ad arbitrium tuum.
I have written my mother, of whose health I am rejoiced
to hear. God send that she may long continue to recede
1 The Rev. George Caldwell was He was at this time Senior-Assistant
afterwards Fellow and Tutor of Master at Newcome's Academy at
Jesus College. His name occurs Clapton near Hackney, and a col-
among the list of subscribers to the league of George Coleridge. The
original issue of The Friend. Let- school, which belonged to three gen¬
ders o f the Lake Poets, 1889, p. 452. erations of Newcomes, was of high
2 " First Grecian of my time was repute as a private academy, and
Launcelot PepysStevens [Stephens], commanded the services of clever
kindest of boys and men. since the young schoolmasters as assistants or
Co - Grammar Master, and insepa- ushers. Mr. Sparrow, whose name
rable companion of Dr. T[rollop]e." is mentioned in the letter, was liead-
Lamb's Prose Works, 1835, ii. 45. master.
26
STUDENT LIFE
[Feb.
from old age, while she advances towards it! Pray write
me very soon.
Yours with gratitude and affection,
S. T. Coleridge.
x. to mrs. evans.
February 13, 1792.
My very Dear, — What word shall I add sufficiently
expressive of the warmth which I feel ? You covet to he
near my heart. Believe me, that you and my sister have
the very first row in the front box of my heart's little
theatre — and — God knows ! you are not crowded.
There, my dear spectators! you shall see what you shall
see — Farce, Comedy, and Tragedy — my laughter, my
cheerfulness, and my melancholy. A thousand figures
pass before you, shifting in perpetual succession ; these
are my joys and my sorrows, my hopes and my fears, my
good tempers and my peevishness: you will, however, ob¬
serve two that remain unalterably fixed, and these are love
and gratitude. In short, my dear Mrs. Evans, my whole
heart shall be laid open like any sheep's heart; my virtues,
if I have any, shall not be more exposed to your view than
my weaknesses. Indeed, I am of opinion that foibles are
the cement of affection, and that, however we may admire
a perfect character, we are seldom inclined to love and
praise those whom we cannot sometimes blame. Come,
ladies! will you take your seats in this play-house? Fool
that I am ! Are you not already there ? Believe me,
you are!
I am extremely anxious to be informed concerning your
health. Have you not felt the kindly influence of this
more than vernal weather, as well as the good effects of
your own recommenced regularity ? I would I could trans¬
mit you a little of my superfluous good health ! I am
indeed at present most wonderfully well, and if I continue
so, I may soon be mistaken for one of your very children:
1792]
TO MRS. EVANS
27
at least, in clearness of complexion and rosiness of cheek
I am no contemptible likeness of tliem, though that
ugly arrangement of features with which nature has dis¬
tinguished me will, I fear, long stand in the way of such
honorable assimilation. You accuse me of evading the
bet, and imagine that my silence proceeded from a con¬
sciousness of the charge. But you are mistaken. I not
only read your letter first, but, on my sincerity ! I felt
no inclination to do otherwise; and I am confident, that
if Mary had happened to have stood by me and had seen
me take up her letter in preference to her mother s, with
all that ease and energy which she can so gracefully exert
upon proper occasions, she would have lifted up her beau¬
tiful little leg, and kicked me round the room. Had Anne
indeed favoured me with a few lines, I confess I should
have seized hold of them before either of your letters;
but then this would have arisen from my love of novelty,
and not from any deficiency in filial respect. So much
for your bet!
You can scarcely conceive what uneasiness poor Tom's
accident has occasioned me ; in everything that relates
to him I feel solicitude truly fraternal. Be particular
concerning him in your next. I was going to write him
an half angry letter for the long intermission of his cor¬
respondence ; but I must change it to a consolatory one.
You mention not a word of Bessy. Think you I do not
love her ?
• And so, my dear Mrs. Evans, you are to take your
Welsh journey in May ? Now may the Goddess of
Health, the rosy-clieeked goddess that blows the breeze
from the Cambrian mountains, renovate that dear old
lady, and make her young again ! I always loved that
old lady's looks. Yet do not flatter yourselves, that you
shall take this journey tete-a-tete. You will have an un¬
seen companion at your side, one who will attend you in
your jaunt, who will be present at your arrival; one whose
28
STUDENT LIFE
[Feb.
heart will melt with unutterable tenderness at your ma¬
ternal transports, who will climb the Welsh hills with you,
who will feel himself happy in knowing you to be so. In
short, as St. Paul says, though absent in body, I shall be
present in mind. Disappointment? You must not, you
shall not be disappointed ; and if a poetical invocation can
help you to drive off that ugly foe to happiness here it is
for you.
TO DISAPPOINTMENT.
Hence ! tliou fiend of gloomy sway,
Thou lov'st on withering blast to ride
O'er fond Illusion's air-built pride.
Sullen Spirit! Hence ! Away !
Where Avarice lurks in sordid cell,
Or mad Ambition builds the dream,
Or Pleasure plots tli' unholy scheme
There with Guilt and Folly dwell!
But oh ! when Hope on Wisdom's wing
Prophetic whispers pure delight,
Be distant far thy cank'rous blight,
Demon of envenom'd sting.
Then haste thee, Nymph of balmy gales!
Thy poet's prayer, sweet May ! attend !
Oh ! place my parent and my friend
'Mid her lovely native vales.
Peace, that lists the woodlark's strains,
Health, that breathes divinest treasures,
Laughing Hours, and Social Pleasures
Wait my friend in Cambria's plains.
Affection there with mingled ray
Shall pour at once the raptures high
1792]
TO MRS. EVANS.
29
Of filial and maternal Joy ;
Haste thee then, delightful May!
And oh! may Spring's fair flowerets fade,
May Summer cease her limbs to lave
In cooling stream, may Autumn grave
Yellow o'er the corn-cloath'd glade ;
Ere, from sweet retirement torn,
She seek again the crowded mart:
Nor thou, my selfish, selfish heart
Dare her slow return to mourn !
In what part of the country is my dear Anne to be ?
Mary must and shall be with you. I want to know all
your summer residences, that I may be on that very spot
with all of you. It is not improbable that I may steal
down from Cambridge about the beginning of April just
to look at you, that when I see you again in autumn I
may know how many years younger the Welsh air lias
made you. I shall go into Devonshire on the 21st of
May, unless my good fortune in a particular affair should
detain me till the 4th of June.
I lately received the thanks of the College for a decla¬
mation 1 I spoke in public ; indeed, I meet with the most
pointed marks of respect, which, as I neither flatter nor
fiddle, I suppose to be sincere. I write these things not
from vanity, but because I know they will please you.
I intend to leave off suppers, and two or three other
little unnecessaries, and in conjunction with Caldwell hire
a garden for the summer. It will be nice exercise — your
advice. La ! it will be so charming to walk out in one's
own garding, and sit and drink tea in an arbour, and
1 A Latin essay on Posthumous served at Jesus College, Cambridge.
Fame, described as a declamation Some extracts were printed in the
and stated to have been composed by College magazine, The Chanticleer,
S. T. Coleridge, March, 1792, is pre- Lent Term, 188G.
30
STUDENT LIFE
[Feb.
pick pretty nosegays. To plant and transplant, and be
dirty and amused ! Then to look with contempt on your
Londoners with your mock gardens and your smoky
windows, making a beggarly show of withered flowers
stuck in pint pots, and quart pots, menacing the heads of
the passengers below.
Now suppose I conclude something in the manner with
which Mary concludes all her letters to me, " Believe,
me your sincere friend," and dutiful humble servant to
command !
* Now I do hate that way of concluding a letter. T is
as dry as a stick, as stiff as a poker, and as cold as a
cucumber. It is not half so good as my old
God bless you
and
Your affectionately grateful
S. T. Coleridge.
xi. to mary evans.
February 13, 11 o'clock.
Ten of the most talkative young ladies now in London !
Now by the most accurate calculation of the specific
quantities of sounds, a female tongue, when it exerts itself
to the utmost, equals the noise of eighteen sign-posts,
which the wind swings backwards and forwards in full
creak. If then one equals eighteen, ten must equal one
hundred and eighty ; consequently, the circle at Jermyn
Street unitedly must have produced a noise equal to
that of one hundred and eighty old crazy sign - posts,
inharmoniously agitated as aforesaid. Well! to be sure,
there are few disagreeables for which the pleasure of
Mary and Anne Evans' company would not amply com¬
pensate ; but faith! I feel myself half inclined to thank
God that I was fifty-two miles off during this clattering
clapperation of tongues. Do you keep ale at Jermyn
Street ? If so, I hope it is not soured.
1792]
TO MARY EVANS
81
Such, my dear Mary, were the reflections that instantly
suggested themselves to me on reading the former part
of your letter. Believe me, however, that my gratitude
keeps pace with my sense of your exertions, as I can most
feelingly conceive the difficulty of writing amid that
second edition of Babel with additions. That your health
is restored gives me sincere delight. May the giver of
all pleasure and pain preserve it so ! I am likewise glad
to hear that your hand is re-whiten'd, though I cannot
help smiling at a certain young lady's effrontery in having
boxed a young gentleman's ears till her own hand became
black and blue, and attributing those unseemly marks to
the poor unfortunate object of her resentment. You are
at liberty, certainly, to say what you please.
It has been confidently affirmed by most excellent
judges (tlio' the best may be mistaken) that I have grown
very handsome lately. Pray that I may have grace not
to be vain. Yet, ah! who can read the stories of Pamela,
or Joseph Andrews, or Susannah and the three Elders,
and not perceive what a dangerous snare beauty is ?
Beauty is like the grass, that groweth up in the morning
and is withered before night. Mary ! Anne ! Do not be
vain of your beauty!! !!!
I keep a cat. Amid the strange collection of strange
animals with which I am surrounded, I think it necessary
to have some meek well-looking being, that I may keep
my social affections alive. Puss, like her master, is a
very gentle brute, and I behave to her with all possible
politeness. Indeed, a cat is a very worthy animal. To
be sure, I have known some very malicious cats in my
lifetime, but then they were old — and besides, they had
not nearly so many legs as you, my sweet Pussy. I wish,
Puss ! I could break you of that indecorous habit of
turning your back front to the fire. It is not frosty
weather now.
N. B. — If ever, Mary, you should feel yourself inclined
82
STUDENT LIFE
[Feb.
to visit me at Cambridge, pray do not suffer tlie consid¬
eration of my having a cat to deter you. Indeed, I will
keep her chained up all the while you stay.
I was in company the other day with a very dashing
literary lady. After my departure, a friend of mine
asked her her opinion of me. She answered: " The best
I can say of him is, that lie is a very gentle bear." What
think you of this character ?
What a lovely anticipation of spring the last three or
four days have afforded! Nature has not been very profuse
of her ornaments to the country about Cambridge; yet
the clear rivulet that runs through the grove adjacent to
our College, and the numberless little birds (particularly
robins) that are singing away, and above all, the little
lambs, each by the side of its mother, recall the most
pleasing ideas of pastoral simplicity, and almost soothe
one's soul into congenial innocence. Amid these delight-
fid scenes, of which the uncommon flow of health I at
present possess permits me the full enjoyment, I should
not deign to think of London, were it not for a little
family, whom I trust I need not name. What bird of
the air whispers me that you too will soon enjoy the same
and more delightful pleasures in a much more delightful
country? What we strongly wish we are very apt to
believe. At present, my presentiments on that head
amount to confidence.
Last Sunday, Middleton and I set off at one o'clock on
a ramble. We sauntered on, chatting and contemplating,
till to our great surprise we came to a village seven miles
from Cambridge. And here at a farmhouse we drank
tea. The rusticity of the habitation and the inhabitants
was charming; we had cream to our tea, which though
not brought in a lordly dish, Sisera would have jumped at.
Being here informed that we could return to Cambridge
another way, over a common, for the sake of diversifying
our walk, we chose this road, " if road it might be called,
1792]
TO MARY EVANS
33
where road was none," though we were not unapprized of
its difficulties. The fine weather deceived us. We fora'ot
that it was a summer day in warmth only, and not in
length ; but we were soon reminded of it. For on the
pathless solitude of this common, the night overtook us —
Ave must have been four miles distant from Cambridge —
the night, though calm, was as dark as the place was
dreary: here steering our course by our imperfect con¬
ceptions of the point in which tee conjectured Cambridge
to lie, we wandered 011 " with cautious steps and slow."
We feared the bog, the stump, and the fen : we feared
the ghosts of the night — at least, those material and
knock-me-down ghosts, the apprehension of which causes
you, Mary (valorous girl that you are !), always to peep
under your bed of a night. As we were thus creeping
forward like the two children in the wood, we spyVl
something white moving across the common. This we
made up to, though contrary to our supposed destination.
It proved to be a man with a white bundle. We enquired
our way, and luckily he was going to Cambridge. lie
informed us that we had gone half a mile out of our way,
and that in five minutes more we must have arrived at a
deep quagmire grassed over. What an escape ! The man
was as glad of our company as we of his — for, it seemed,
the poor fellow was afraid of Jack o' Lantliorns — the
superstition of this county attributing a kind of fascina-
' tion to those wandering vapours, so that whoever fixes his
eyes 011 them is forced by some irresistible impulse to
follow them. lie entertained us with many a dreadful
tale. By nine o'clock we arrived at Cambridge, betired
and bemudded. I never recollect to have been so much
fatigued.
Do you spell the word sccirsely ? When Momus, the
fault-finding God, endeavoured to discover some imper¬
fection in Venus, he could only censure the creaking of
her slipper. I, too, Monmslike, can only fall foul 011 a
34
STUDENT LIFE
[Feb.
single s. Yet will not my dear Mary be angry with me,
or think the remark trivial, when she considers that half
a grain is of consequence in the weight of a diamond.
I had entertained hopes that you would really have
sent me a piece of sticking plaister, which would have
been very convenient at that time, I having cut my finger.
I had to buy sticking plaister, etc. What is the use of a
man's knowing you girls, if he cannot chouse you out of
such little things as that ? Do not your fingers, Mary,
feel an odd kind of titillation to be about my ears for my
impudence ?
On Saturday night, as I was sitting by myself all alone,
I heard a creaking sound, something like the noise which
a crazy chair would make, if pressed by the tremendous
weight of Mr. Barlow's extremities. I cast my eyes
around, and what should I behold but a Ghost rising out
of the floor ! A deadly paleness instantly overspread my
body, which retained no other symptom of life but its
violent trembling. My hair (as is usual in frights of this
nature) stood upright by many degrees stiffer than the
oaks of the mountains, yea, stiffer than Mr. ; yet
was it rendered oily-pliant by the profuse perspiration
that burst from every pore. This spirit advanced with a
book in his hand, and having first dissipated my terrors,
said as follows : " I am the Ghost of Gray. There lives
a young lady " (then he mentioned your name), " of whose
judgment I entertain so high an opinion, that her appro¬
bation of my works would make the turf lie lighter on
me ; present her with this book, and transmit it to her as
soon as possible, adding my love to her. And, as for you,
O young man!" (now he addressed himself to me) " write
no more verses. In the first place your poetry is vile
stuff; and secondly " (here he sighed almost to bursting),
" all poets go to —11; we are so intolerably addicted to the
vice of lying !" He vanished, and convinced me of the
truth of his last dismal account by the sulphurous stink
which he left behind him.
1792]
TO MARY EVANS
35
His first mandate I have obeyed, and, I hope yon will
receive safe your ghostly admirer's present. But so far
have I been from obeying his second injunction, that I
never had the scribble-mania stronger on me than for these
last three or four days : nay, not content with suffering it
myself, I must pester those I love best with the blessed
effects of my disorder.
Besides two things, which you will find in the next
sheet, I cannot forbear filling the remainder of this
sheet with an Odeling, though I know and approve your
aversion to mere prettiness, and though my tiny love
ode possesses no other property in the world. Let then
its shortness recommend it to your perusal — by the by,
the only thing in which it resembles you, for wit, sense,
elegance, or beauty it has none.
AN ODE IN THE MANNER OF ANACREON.1
As late in wreaths gay flowers I bound,
Beneath some roses Love I found,
And by his little frolic pinion
As quick as thought I seiz'd the minion,
Then in my cup the prisoner threw,
And drank him in its sparkling dew:
And sure I feel my angry guest
Flutt'ring his wings within my breast!
Are you quite asleep, dear Mary ? Sleep on ; but when
you awake, read the following productions, and then, I '11
be bound, you will sleep again sounder than ever.
A WISH WRITTEN IN JESUS WOOD, FEBRUARY 10,
1792.2
Lo ! through the dusky silence of the groves,
Thro' vales irriguous, and thro' green retreats,
With languid murmur creeps the placid stream
And works its secret way.
1 Poetical TForZrs, p. 19. 2 Ibid. p. 19.
36
STUDENT LIFE
[Feb.
Awhile meand'ring round its native fields,
It rolls tlie playful wave and winds its flight:
Then downward flowing with awaken'd speed
Embosoms in the Deep !
Thus thro' its silent tenor may my Life
Smooth its meek stream by sordid wealth unclogg'd,
Alike unconscious of forensic storms,
And Glory's blood-stain'd palm !
And when dark Age shall close Life's little day,
Satiate of sport, and weary of its toils,
E'en thus may slumb'rous Death my decent limbs
Compose with icy hand !
A LOVER'S COMPLAINT TO HIS MISTRESS
WHO DESERTED HIM IN QUEST OF A MORE WEALTHY HUSBAND IN
THE EAST INDIES.1
The dubious light sad glimmers o'er the sky:
'T is silence all. By lonely anguish torn,
With wandering feet to gloomy groves I fly,
And wakeful Love still tracks my course forlorn.
And will you, cruel Julia ? will you go ?
And trust you to the Ocean's dark dismay ?
Shall the wide, wat'ry world between us flow ?
And winds unpitying snatch my Hopes away ?
Thus could you sport with my too easy heart ?
Yet tremble, lest not unaveng'd I grieve !
The winds may learn your own delusive art,
And faithless Ocean smile — but to deceive!
I have written too long a letter. Give me a hint, and
I will avoid a repetition of tlie offence.
It's a compensation for tlie above - written rhymes
1 Poetical Works, p. 20.
1792]
TO ANNE EVANS
87
(which if you ever condescend to read a second time, pray
let it be by the light of their own flames) in my next let¬
ter I will send some delicious poetry lately published by
the exquisite Bowles.
To-morrow morning I fill the rest of this sheet with a
letter to Anne. And now, good-niglit, dear sister ! and
peaceful slumbers await us both !
S. T. Coleridge.
xii. to anne evans.
February 10, 1702.
Dear Anne, — To be sure I felt myself rather disap¬
pointed at my not receiving a few lines from you ; but I
am nevertheless greatly rejoiced at your amicable dispo¬
sitions towards me. Please to accept two kisses, as the
seals of reconciliation — you will find them on the word
" Anne " at the beginning of the letter — at least, there I
left them. I must, however, give you warning, that the
next time you are affronted with Brother Coly, and show
your resentment by that most cruel of all punishments,
silence, I shall address a letter to you as long and as sor¬
rowful as Jeremiah's Lamentations, and somewhat in the
style of your sister's favourite lover, beginning with, —
to the irascible miss.
Dear Miss, &c.
My dear Anne, you are my Valentine. I dreamt of
you this morning, and I have seen no female in the whole
course of the day, except an old bedmaker belonging to
the College, and I don't count her one, as the bristle of
her beard makes me suspect her to be of the masculine
gender. Some one of the genii must have conveyed your
image to me so opportunely, nor will you think this im¬
possible, if you will read the little volumes which contain
their exploits, and crave the honour of your acceptance.
38
STUDENT LIFE
[Feb.
If I could draw, I would liave sent a pretty lieart stuck
through with arrows, with some such sweet posy under¬
neath it as this : —
" The rose is red, the violet blue ;
The pink is sweet, and so are you."
But as the Gods have not made me a drawer (of anything
but corks), you must accept the will for the deed.
You never wrote or desired your sister to write concern¬
ing the bodily health of the Barlowites, though you know
my affection for that family. Do not forget this in your
next.
Is Mr. Caleb Barlow recovered of the rheumatism ?
The quiet ugliness of Cambridge supplies me with very
few communicables in the news way. The most important
is, that Mr. Tim Grubskin, of this town, citizen, is dead.
Poor man ! he loved fish too well. A violent commotion
in his bowels carried him off. They say he made a very
good end. There is his epitaph : —
" A loving friend and tender parent dear,
Just in all actions, and he the Lord did fear,
Hoping-, that, when the day of Resurrection come,
He shall arise in glory like the Sun."
It was composed by a Mr. Thistlewait, the town crier,
and is much admired. We are all mortal ! !
His wife carries on the business. It is whispered about
the town that a match between her and Mr. Coe, the shoe¬
maker, is not improbable. He certainly seems very assid¬
uous in con soling her, but as to anything matrimonial I
do not write it as a well authenticated fact.
I went the other evening to the concert, and spent the
time there much to my heart's content in cursing Mr.
Hague, who played on the violin most piggishly, and a
Miss (I forget her name) — Miss Humstrum, who sung
most sowishly. O the Billington ! That I should be ab¬
sent during the oratorios ! The prince unable to conceal
his pain ! Oh ! oh ! oh ! oh ! oh! oh ! oh ! oh ! oh !
1792]
TO MRS. EVANS
39
To which house is Mrs. B. engaged this season ?
The mutton and winter cabbage are confoundedly tough
here, though very venerable for their old age. Were you
ever at Cambridge, Anne ? The river Cam is a handsome
stream of a muddy complexion, somewhat like Miss Yates,
to whom you will present my love (if you like).
In Cambridge there are sixteen colleges, that look like
workhouses, and fourteen churches that look like little
houses. The town is very fertile in alleys, and mud, and
cats, and dogs, besides men, women, ravens, clergy, proc¬
tors, tutors, owls, and other two-legged cattle. It like¬
wise — but here I must interrupt my description to hurry
to Mr. Costobadie's lectures on Euclid, who is as mathe¬
matical an author, my dear Anne, as you would wish to
read 011 a long summer's day. Addio ! God bless you,
ma chere soeur, and your affectionate frere,
S. T. Coleridge.
P. S. I add a postscript on purpose to communicate a
joke to you. A party of us had been drinking wine to¬
gether, and three or four freshmen were most deplorably
intoxicated. (I have too great a respect for delicacy to
say drunk.) As we were returning homewards, two of
them fell into the gutter (or kennel). We ran to assist
one of them, who very generously stuttered out, as he lay
sprawling in the mud : " N-n-n-no — n-n-no ! — save my
f-fr-fr-friend there ; n-never mind me, I can swim."
Won't you write me a long letter now, Anne ?
P. S. Give my respectful compliments to Betty, and
say that I enquired after her health with the most em¬
phatic energy of impassioned avidity.
xiii. to mrs. evans.
February 22 [? 1792].
Dear Madam, — The incongruity of the dates in these
letters you will immediately perceive. The truth is that
40
STUDENT LIFE
[Feb.
I had written the foregoing heap of nothingness six or
seven clays ago, but I was prevented from sending it by a
variety of disagreeable little impediments.
Mr. Massy must be arrived in Cambridge by this time ;
but to call on an utter stranger just arrived with so trivial
a message as yours and his uncle's love to him, when I
myself had been in Cambridge five or six weeks, would
appear rather awkward, not to say ludicrous. If, however,
I meet him at any wine party (which is by no means im¬
probable) I shall take the opportunity of mentioning it
en passant. As to Mr. M.'s debts, the most intimate
friends in college are perfect strangers to each other's
affairs ; consequently it is little likely that I should pro¬
cure any information of this kind.
I hope and trust that neither yourself nor my sisters have
experienced any ill effects from this wonderful change of
weather. A very slight cold is the only favour with which
it has honoured me. I feel myself apprehensive for all of
you, but more particularly for Anne, whose frame I think
most susceptible of cold.
Yesterday a Frenchman came dancing into my room,
of which he made but three steps, and presented me with
a card. I had scarcely collected, by glancing my eye over
it, that he was a tooth-monger, before he seized hold of
my muzzle, and, baring my teeth (as they do a horse's,
in order to know his age), he exclaimed, as if in violent
agitation : " Mon Dieu ! Monsieur, all your teeth will fall
out in a day or two, unless you permit me the honour of
scaling them! " This ineffable piece of assurance discov¬
ered such a genius for impudence, that I could not suffer
it to go unrewarded. So, after a hearty laugh, I sat
down, and let the rascal chouse me out of half a guinea by
scraping my grinders — the more readily, indeed, as I
recollected the great penchant which all your family have
for delicate teeth.
1792] TO MARY EVANS 41
So (I hear) Allen1 will be most precipitately emanci¬
pated. Good luck have tlion of thy emancipation, Bob-
bee ! Tell him from me that if he does not kick Richards'2
fame out of doors by the superiority of his own, I will
never forgive him.
If you will send me a box of Mr. Stringer's tooth
powder, mamma! we will accept of it.
And now, Right Reverend Mother in God, let me claim
your permission to subscribe myself with all observance
and gratitude, your most obedient humble servant, and
lowly slave,
Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
Reverend in the future tense, and scholar of Jesus Col¬
lege in the present time.
xiv. to mary evans.
Jesus College, Cambridge, February 22 [1792].
Dear Mary,—Writing long letters is not the fault
into which I am most apt to fall, but whenever I do, by
1 Robert Allen, Coleridge's ear¬
liest friencl, and almost liis exact
contemporary (born October 18,
17 72), was admitted to University
College, Oxford, as an exhibitioner,
in the spring- of 1792. lie enter¬
tained Coleridge and his compagnon
de voyage, Joseph Ilucks, on the oc¬
casion of the memorable visit to Ox¬
ford in June, 1794, and introduced
them to his friend, Robert Soutliey
of Balliol. He is mentioned in let¬
ters of Lamb to Coleridge, June 10,
179(1, and October 11, 1802. In both
instances his name is connected with
that of Stoddart, and it is proba¬
ble that it was through Allen that
Coleridge and Stoddart became ac¬
quainted. For anecdotes concerning-
Allen, see Lamb's Essay, "Christ's
Hospital," etc., Prose 11 orks, 18-30,
ii. 47, and Leigh Hunt's Autobiogra-
phy, 1860, p. 74. See, also. Letters to
Allsop, 1804, p. 170.
2 George Richards, a contempo¬
rary of Stephens, and, though some¬
what senior, of Middleton, was a
University prize-man and Fellow of
Oriel. He was " author," says Lamb,
"of the 'Aboriginal Britons,' the
most spirited of Oxford prize poems."
In after life he made Lis mark as
a clergyman, as Bampton Lecturer
(in 1800). and as Yicar of St. Martin-
in-tlie-Fields. He was appointed
Governor of Christ's Hospital in
1822, and founded an annual prize,
the " Richards' Gold Medal," for
the best copy of Latin hexameters.-
Christ's Hospital. List of Exhibi¬
tioners, from 1506-1885, compiled by
A. M. Lockliart.
42
STUDENT LIFE
[April
some inexplicable ill luck, my prolixity is always directed
to those whom I would yet least of all wish to torment.
You think, and think rightly, that I had no occasion to
increase the preceding accumulations of wearisomeness,
but I wished to inform you that I have sent the poem of
Bowles, which I mentioned in a former sheet; though I
dare say you would have discovered this without my infor¬
mation. If the pleasure which you receive from the peru¬
sal of it prove equal to that which I have received, it will
make you some small return for the exertions of friend¬
ship, which you must have found necessary in order to
travel through my long, long, long letter.
Though it may be a little effrontery to point out beau¬
ties, which would be obvious to a far less sensible heart
than yours, yet I cannot forbear the self-indulgence of
remarking to you the exquisite description of Hope in the
third page and of Fortitude in the sixth ; but the poem
" On leaving a place of residence " appears to me to be
almost superior to any of Bowles's compositions.
I hope that the Jermyn Street ledgers are well. How
can they be otherwise in such lovely keeping ?
Your Jessamine Pomatum, I trust, is as strong and as
odorous as ever, and the roasted turkeys at Villiers Street
honoured, as usual, with a thick crust of your Mille (what
do you call it ?) powder.
I had a variety of other interesting inquiries to make,
but time and memory fail me.
Without a swanskin waistcoat, what is man ? I have got
a swanskin waistcoat, — a most attractive external.
Yours with sincerity of friendship,
Samuel Taylor C.
xv. to the rev. george coleridge.
Monday niglit, April [1792].
Dear Brother, — You would have heard from me
long since had I not been entangled in such various busi-
1792]
TO GEORGE COLERIDGE
43
nesses as liave occupied my whole time. Besides my ordi¬
nary business, wliicli, as I look forward to a smart contest
some time this year, is not an indolent one, I have been
writing- for all the prizes, namely, the Greek Ode, the
Latin Ode, and the Epigrams. I have little or no expec¬
tation of success, as a Mr. Smith,1 a man of immense gen¬
ius, author of some papers in the " Microcosm," is among
my numerous competitors. The prize medals will he ad¬
judged about the beginning of June. If you can think of
a good thought for the beginning of the Latin Ode upon
the miseries of the W. India slaves, communicate. My
Greek Ode 2 is, I think, my chef d'oeuvre in poetical com¬
position. I have sent you a sermon metamorphosed from
an obscure publication by vamping, transposition, etc. If
you like it, I can send you two more of the same kidney.
Our examination as Rustats comes [off] on the Thursday
1 Robert Percy (Bobus) Smith,
1770-1845, the younger brother of
Sydney Smith, was Browne Medalist
in 1791. His Eton and Cambridge
prize poems, in Lucretian metre, are
among the most finished specimens
of modern Latinity. The principal
contributors to the Microcosm -were
George Canning, John and Robert
Smith, Hookham Frere, and Charles
Ellis. Gentleman's Magazine, N. S.,
xxiii. 440.
2 For complete text of the Greek
Sapphic Ode, " Oa the Slave Trade,"
which obtained the Browne gold
medal for 1702, see Appendix B, p.
470, to Coleridge's Poetical Works,
Macmillan, 18i)3. See, also, Mr.
Dykes Campbell's note 011 the style
and composition of the ode, p. 653.
I possess a transcript of the Ode,
taken, I believe, by Sara Coleridge
in 1823, 011 the occasion of her visit
to Ottery St. Mary. The following
note is appended: —
" Upon the receipt of the above
poem, Mr. George Coleridge, being
vastly pleased by the composition,
thinking it would be a sort of com¬
pliment to the superior genius of his
brother the author, composed the
following lines: —
IBI HJ5C INCONDITA SOLUS.
Say Holy Genius — Heaven - descended
Beam,
Why interdicted is the sacred Fire
That flows spontaneous from thy golden
Lyre ?
Why Genius like the emanative Ray
That issuing from the dazzling Fount of
Light
Wakes all creative Nature into Day,
Art thou not all-diffusive, all benign ?
Thy partial hand I blame. For Pity oft
In Supplication's Vest—a weeping child
That meets me pensive 011 the barren wild,
And pours into my soul Compassion soft,
The never-dying strain commands to flow —
Man sure is vain, nor sacred Genius hears,
Now speak in melody — now weep in Tears.
G. C."
44
STUDENT LIFE
[Feb.
in Easter week. After it a man of our college has offered
to take me to town in liis gig, ancl, if lie can bring me
back, I tliink I shall accept his offer, as the expense, at all
events, will not be more than 12 shillings, and my very
commons, and tea, etc., would amount to more than that
in the week which I intend to stay in town. Almost all
the men are out of college, and I am most villainously
vapoured. I wrote the following the other day under the
title of " A Fragment found in a Lecture-Room : " —
Where deep in mud Cam rolls his slumbrous stream,
And bog and desolation reign supreme;
Where all Bceotia clouds the misty brain,
The owl Mathesis pipes her loathsome strain.
Far, far aloof the frighted Muses fly,
Indignant Genius scowls and passes by:
The frolic Pleasures start amid their dance,
And Wit congealed stands fix'd in wintry trance.
But to the sounds with duteous haste repair
Cold Industry, and wary-footed Care;
And Dulness, dosing on a couch of lead,
Pleas'd with the song uplifts her heavy head,
The sympathetic numbers lists awhile,
Then yawns propitiously a frosty smile. . . .
[Caitera desunt.]
This morning I went for the first time with a party on
the river. The clumsy dog to whom we had entrusted the
sail was fool enough to fasten it. A gust of wind em¬
braced the opportunity of turning over the boat, and bap¬
tizing all that were in it. We swam to shore, and walked
dripping home, like so many river gods. Thank God!
I do not feel as if I should be the worse for it.
I was matriculated on Saturday.1 Oath-taking is very
healthy in spring, I should suppose. I am grown very
fat. We have two men at our college, great cronies,
1 He was matriculated as pen- been in residence since September,
sioner March 31, 1792. He bad 1791.
1793]
TO MRS. EVANS
45
tlieir names Head and Bones; tlie first an unlicked cub of
a Yorkshireman, tlie second a very fierce buck. I call
them Haw Ilead and Bloody Bones.
As soon as you can make it convenient I should feel
thankful if you could transmit me ten or five pounds, as I
am at present cashless.
Pray, was the bible clerk's place accounted a disrep¬
utable one at Oxford in your time ? Poor Allen, who is
just settled there, complains of the great distance with
which the men treat him. 'T is a childish University!
Thank God! I am at Cambridge. Pray let me hear from
you soon, and whether your health has held out this long
campaign. I hope, however, soon to see you, till when
believe me, with gratitude and affection, yours ever,
S. T. Coleridge.
xvi. to mrs. evans.
February 5, 1793.
My dear Mrs. Evans, — This is the third day of my
resurrection from the couch, or rather, the sofa of sick¬
ness. About a fortnight ago, a quantity of matter took
it into its head to form in my left gum, and was attended
with such violent pain, inflammation, and swelling, that it
threw me into a fever. However, God be praised, my
gum has at last been opened, a villainous tooth extracted,
and all is well. I am still very weak, as well I may, since
for seven days together I was incapable of swallowing
anything but spoon meat, so that in point of spirits I am
but the dregs of my former self — a decaying flame ago¬
nizing in the snuff of a tallow candle — a kind of hobgob¬
lin, clouted and bagged up in the most contemptible
shreds, rags, and yellow relics of threadbare mortality.
The event of our examination1 was such as surpassed
1 For tlie Craven Scholarship. In portions of which are printed in Gill-
an article contributed to tlie Gentle- man's Life of Coleridge. C. V. Le
mans Magazine of December, 1834, Grice, a co-Grecian with Coleridge
46
STUDENT LIFE
[Feb.
my expectations, ancl perfectly accorded with my wishes.
After a very severe trial of six days' continuance, the
number of the competitors was reduced from seventeen
to four, and after a further process of ordeal we, the sur¬
vivors, were declared equal each to the other, and the
Scholarship, according to the will of its founder, awarded
to the youngest of us, who was found to be a Mr. Butler
of St. John's College. I am just two months older than
he is, and though I would doubtless have rather had it
myself, I am yet not at all sorry at his success ; for he is
sensible and unassuming, and besides, from his circum¬
stances, such an accession to his annual income must have
been very acceptable to him. So much for myself.
I am greatly rejoiced at your brother's recovery; in
proportion, indeed, to the anxiety and fears I felt on your
account during his illness. I recollected, my most dear
Mrs. Evans, that you are frequently troubled with a
strange forgetfulness of yourself, and too apt to go far
beyond your strength, if by any means you may alle¬
viate the sufferings of others. Ah ! how different from
the majority of others whom we courteously dignify with
the name of human — a vile herd, who sit still in the
severest distresses of their friends, and cry out, There
is a lion in the way ! animals, who walk with leaden
sandals in the paths of charity, yet to gratify their own
inclinations will run a mile in a breath. Oh ! I do know
a set of little, dirty, pimping, petty-fogging, ambidextrous
fellows, who would set your house 011 fire, though it were
but to roast an egg for themselves ! Yet surely, consider¬
ing it were a selfish view, the pleasures that arise from
whispering peace to those who are in trouble, and healing
the broken in heart, are far superior to all the unfeeling
can enjoy.
and Allen, gives tlie names of the wards Head Master of Shrewsbury
four competitors. The successful and Bishop of Lichfield. Life of
candidate was Samuel Butler, after- Coleridge, 1838, p. 50.
1793]
TO MARY EVANS
47
I have inclosed a little work of that great and good man
Archdeacon Paley; it is entitled Motives of Contentment,
addressed to the poorer part of onr fellow men. The
twelfth page I particularly admire, and the twentieth. The
reasoning has been of some service to me, who am of the
race of the Grumbletonians. My dear friend Allen has a
resource against most misfortunes in the natural gaiety of
his temper, whereas my hypochondriac, gloomy spirit amid
blessings too frequently warbles out the hoarse gruntings
of discontent! Nor have all the lectures that divines and
philosophers have given us for these three thousand years
past, 011 the vanity of riches, and the cares of greatness,
etc., prevented me from sincerely regretting that Nature
had not put it into the head of some rich man to beget
vie for his /jrs^-born, whereas now I am likely to get bread
just when I shall have no teeth left to chew it. Cheer
up, my little one (thus I answer I) ! better late than
never. Hath literature been thy choice, and hast thou
food and raiment ? Be thankful, be amazed at thy good
fortune ! Art thou dissatisfied and desirous of other
things ? Go, and make twelve votes at an election ; it
shall do thee more service and procure thee greater pre¬
ferment than to have made twelve commentaries on the
twelve prophets. My dear Mrs. Evans ! excuse the wan¬
derings of my castle building imagination. I have not a
thought which I conceal from you. I write to others, but
my pen talks to you. Convey my softest affections to
Betty, and believe me,
Your grateful and affectionate boy,
S. T. Coleridge.
xvii. to mary evans.
Jesus College, Cambridge, February 7, 1703.
I would to Heaven, my dear Miss Evans, that the god of
wit, or news, or politics would whisper in my ear something
that might be worth sending fifty-four miles — but alas ! I
48
STUDENT LIFE
[Feb.
am so closely blocked by an army of misfortunes that really
there is 110 passage left open for mirth or anything else.
Now, just to give you a few articles in the large inventory
of my calamities. Imprimis, a gloomy, uncomfortable
morning. Item, my head aches. Item, the Dean has set
me a swinging imposition for missing morning chapel.
Item, of the two only coats which I am worth in the world,
both have holes in the elbows. Item, Mr. Newton, our
mathematical lecturer, has recovered from an illness. But
the story is rather a laughable one, so I must tell it you.
Mr. Newton (a tall, thin man with a little, tiny, blushing
face) is a great botanist. Last Sunday, as he was stroll¬
ing out with a friend of his, some curious plant suddenly
caught his eye. lie turned round his head with great
eagerness to call his companion to a participation of dis-
covery, and unfortunately continuing to walk forward he
fell into a pool, deep, muddy, and full of cliickweed. I
was lucky enough to meet him as he was entering the col¬
lege gates 011 his return (a sight I would not have lost for
the Indies), his best black clothes all green with duck¬
weed, he shivering and dripping, in short a perfect river
god. I went up to him (you must understand we hate
each other most cordially) and sympathized with him in
all the tenderness of condolence. The consequence of his
misadventure was a violent cold attended with fever, which
confined him to his room, prevented him from giving lec¬
tures, and freed me from the necessity of attending them;
but this misfortune I supported with truly Christian for¬
titude. However, I constantly asked after his health with
filial anxiety, and this morning, making my usual inquir¬
ies, I was informed, to my infinite astonishment and vexa¬
tion, that he was perfectly recovered and intended to give
lectures this very day!!! Verily, I swear that six of his
duteous pupils — myself as their general — sallied forth
to the apothecary's house with a fixed determination to
thrash him for having performed so speedy a cure, but,
1793]
TO MARY EVANS
49
luckily for himself, the rascal was not at home. But here
comes my fiddling master, for (but this is a secret) I am
learning- to play on the violin. Twit, twat, twat, twit!
" Pray, M. de la Penche, do you think I shall ever make
anything of this violin ? Do you think I have an ear for
music?" " Un magnifique ! Un superbe ! Par honneur,
sir, you be a ver great genius in de music. Good morn¬
ing, monsieur ! " This M. de la Penche is a better judge
than I thought for.
This new whim of mine is partly a scheme of self-
defence. Three neighbours have run music-mad lately —
two of them fiddle-scrapers, the third a flute-tooter — and
are perpetually annoying me with their vile performances,
compared with which the gruntings of a whole herd of
sows would be seraphic melody. Now I hope, by fre¬
quently playing myself, to render my ear callous. Be¬
sides, the evils of life are crowding upon me, and music
is "the sweetest assuager of cares." It helps to relieve
and soothe the mind, and is a sort of refuge from calamity,
from slights and neglects and censures and insults and dis¬
appointments ; from the warmth of real enemies and the
coldness of pretended friends; from your ice.Il wishers
(as they are justly called, in opposition, I suppose, to well
cloers), men whose inclinations to serve you always de¬
crease in a most mathematical proportion as their oppor¬
tunities to do it increase; from the
" Proud man's contumely, and the spurns
Which patient merit of th' unworthy takes; "
from grievances that are the growth of all times and
places and not peculiar to this cuge, which authors call this
critical age, and divines this sinful age, and politicians
this age of revolutions. An acquaintance of mine calls
it this learned age in due reverence to his own abilities,
and like Monsieur Wliatd'yecallliim, who used to pull off
his hat when he spoke of himself. The poet laureate calls
it " this golden age" and with good reason, —
50
STUDENT LIFE
[Feb.
For him the fountains with Canary flow,
And, best of fruit, spontaneous guineas grow.
Pope, in his " Dunciad," makes it this leaden age, but I
choose to call it without an epithet, this age. Many things
we must expect to meet with which it would be hard to
bear, if a compensation were not found in honest en¬
deavours to do well, in virtuous affections and connections,
and in harmless and reasonable amusements. And why
should not a man amuse himself sometimes? Vive la
bagatelle !
I received a letter this morning from my friend Allen.
He is up to his ears in business, and I sincerely congratu¬
late him upon it — occupation, I am convinced, being the
great secret of happiness. " Nothing makes the temper
so fretful as indolence," said a young lady who, beneath
the soft surface of feminine delicacy, possesses a mind acute
by nature, and strengthened by habits of reflection. 'Pon
my word, Miss Evans, I beg your pardon a thousand times
for bepraising you to your face, but, really, I have written
so long that I had forgot to whom I was writing.
Have you read Mr. Fox's letter to the Westminster
electors ? It is quite the political go at Cambridge, and
has converted many souls to the Foxite faith.
Have you seen the Siddons this season ? or the Jordan ?
An acquaintance of mine has a tragedy coming out early
in the next season, the principal character of which Mrs.
Siddons will act. He has importuned me to write the pro¬
logue and epilogue, but, conscious of my inability, I have
excused myself with a jest, and told him I was too good
a Christian to be accessory to the damnation of anything.
There is an old proverb of a river of words and a spoon¬
ful of sense, and I think this letter has been a pretty good
proof of it. But as nonsense is better than blank paper,
I will fill this side with a song I wrote lately. My friend,
Charles Hague 1 the composer, will set it to wild music.
1 Musical glee composer, 1769-1821. Biographical Dictionary.
1793]
TO MARY EVANS
51
I shall sing it, and accompany myself on the violin. (Ja
ira !
Cathloma, who reigned in the Highlands of Scotland
about two hundred years after the birth of our Saviour,
was defeated and killed in a war with a neighbouring
prince, and Nina Tlioma his daughter (according to the
custom of those times and that country) was imprisoned
in a cave by the seaside. This is supposed to be her com¬
plaint : —
How long will ye round me be swelling,
O ye blue-tumbling waves of the sea ?
Not always in caves was my dwelling,
Nor beneath the cold blast of the Tree;
Thro' the high sounding Hall of Cathloma
In the steps of my beauty I strayed,
The warriors beheld Nina Tlioma,
And they blessed the dark-tressed Maid!
By my Friends, by my Lovers discarded,
Like the Flower of the Rock now I waste,
That lifts its fair head unregarded,
And scatters its leaves on the blast.
A Ghost! by my cavern it darted !
In moonbeams the spirit was drest —
For lovely appear the Departed,
When they visit the dreams of my rest!
But dispersed by the tempest's commotion,
Fleet the shadowy forms of Delight;
Ah ! cease, thou shrill blast of the Ocean !
To howl thro' my Cavern by night.1
Are you asleep, my dear Mary? I have administered
rather a strong dose of opium; however, if in the course
1 Toetieal Works, p. 20.
52
STUDENT LIFE
[Feb.
of your nap you should chance to dream that I am, with
ardor of eternal friendship, your affectionate
S. T. Coleridge,
you will never have dreamt a truer dream in all your days.
xviii. to anne evans.
Jesus College, Cambridge, February 10, 1793.
My dear Anne, — A little before I had received your
mamma's letter, a bird of the air had informed me of
your illness — and sure never did owl or night-raven
(" those mournful messengers of heavy things ") pipe a
more loathsome song. But I flatter myself that ere you
have received this scrawl of mine, by care and attention
you will have lured back the rosy-lipped fugitive, Health.
I know of no misfortune so little susceptible of consolation
as sickness: it is indeed easy to offer comfort, when we
ourselves are well; then we can be full of grave saws
upon the duty of resignation, etc.; but alas ! when the
sore visitations of pain come Aome, all our philosophy
vanishes, and nothing remains to be seen. I speak of
myself, but a mere sensitive animal, with little wisdom
and no patience. Yet if anything can throw a melancholy
smile over the pale, wan face of illness, it must be the
sight and attentions of those we love. There are one or
two beings, in this planet of ours, whom God has formed
in so kindly a mould that I could almost consent to be ill
in order to be nursed by them.
0 turtle-eyed affection!
If thou be present — who can be distrest. ?
Pain seems to smile, and sorrow is at rest:
No more the thoughts in wild repining\s roll,
And tender murmurs hush the soften'd soul.
But I will not proceed at this rate, for I am writing
and thinking myself fast into the spleen, and feel very
obligingly disposed to communicate the same doleful fit
to you, my dear sister. Yet permit me to say, it is almost
1793]
TO GEORGE COLERIDGE
53
your own fault. You were half angry at my writing
laughing nonsense to you, and see what you have got in
exchange — pale-faced, solemn, stiff-starclied stupidity. I
must confess, indeed, that the latter is rather more in
unison with my present feelings, which from one untoward
freak of fortune or other are not of the most comfortable
kind. Within this last month I have lost a brother1 and
a friend ! But I struggle for cheerfulness — and some¬
times, when the sun shines out, I succeed in the effort.
This at least I endeavour, not to infect the cheerfulness
of others, and not to write my vexations upon my fore¬
head. I read a story lately of an old Greek philosopher,
who once harangued so movingly on the miseries of life,
that his audience went home and hanged themselves ; but
he himself (my author adds) lived many years afterwards
in very sleek condition.
God love you, my dear Anne ! and receive as from a
brother the warmest affections of your
S. T. Coleridge.
xix. to the rev. george coleridge.
Wednesday morning, July 28, 1793.
My dear Brother, — I left Salisbury on Tuesday
morning — should have stayed there longer, but that Ned,
ignorant of my coming, had preengaged himself on a
journey to Portsmouth with Skinner. I left Ned well and
merry, as likewise his wife, who, by all the Cupids, is a
very worthy old lady.2
Monday afternoon, Ned, Tatum, and myself sat from
four till ten drinking ! and then arose as cool as three
undressed cucumbers. Edward and I (O! the wonders
1 Francis Syndercombe Coleridge, Salisbury. His marriage with an
who died shortly after the fall of elderly widow who was supposed to
Seringapatam, February 6, 1792. have a large income was a source of
2 Edward Coleridge, the Yicar of perennial amusement to his family.
Ottery's fourth son, was then assist- Some years after her death he mar-
ant master in Dr. Skinner's school at ried his first cousin, Anne Bowdon.
54
STUDENT LIFE
[Aug.
of tliis life) disputed with great coolness and forbearance
tlie wliole time. We neither of us were convinced,
though now and then Ned was convicted. Tatum umpire
sat,
And by decision more embroiled the fray.
I found all well in Exeter, to which place I proceeded
directly, as my mother might have been unprepared from
the supposition I meant to stay longer in Salisbury. I
shall dine with James to-day at brother Phillips'.1
My ideas are so discomposed by the jolting of the
coach that I can write no more at present.
A piece of gallantry !
I presented a moss rose to a lady. Dick Hart2 asked
her if she was not afraid to put it in her bosom, as per¬
haps there might be love in it. I immediately wrote the
following little ode or song or what you please to call it.3
It is of the namby-pamby genus.
THE ROSE.
As late each flower tliat sweetest blows
I plucked, the Garden's pride !
Within the petals of a Rose
A sleeping Love I spied.
Around his brows a beaming wreath
Of many a lucent hue ;
All purple glowed his cheek beneath,
Inebriate with dew.
1 The husband of Coleridge's half
sister Elizabeth, the youngest of the
vicar's first family, " who alone was
bred up with us after my birth, and
who alone of the three I was wont to
think of as a sister." See Autobio¬
graphical Notes of 1832. Life of
Coleridge, 1838, p. 9.
~ The brother of Mrs. Luke and
of Mrs. George Coleridge.
3 A note to the Poems of Samuel
Taylor Coleridge, Moxon, 1852, gives
a somewhat different version of the
origin of this poem, first printed in
the edition of 1796 as Effusion 27,
and of the lines included in Letter
XX., there headed " Cupid turned
Cliymist," but afterwards known as
" Kisses."
1793]
TO GEORGE COLERIDGE
55
I softly seized the unguarded Power,
Nor scared his balmy rest;
And placed him, caged within the flower,
On Angelina's breast.
But when unweeting of the guile
Awoke the prisoner sweet,
He struggled to escape awhile
And stamped his faery feet.
Ah ! soon the soul-entrancing sight
Subdued the impatient boy !
He gazed ! he thrilled with deep delight!
Then clapped his wings for joy.
" And 0 ! " he cried, " of magic kind
What charms this Throne endear !
Some other Love let Venus find —
I '11 fix my empire here."
An extempore! Ned during tlie dispute, thinking lie
had got me down, said, " Ah! Sam ! you blush ! " " Sir,"
answered I,
Ten thousand Blushes
Flutter round me drest like little Loves,
And veil my visage with their crimson wings.
There is no meaning in the lines, but we both agreed they
were very pretty. If you see Mr. Ilussy, you will not
forget to present my respects to him, and to his accom¬
plished daughter, who certes is a very sweet young lady.
God bless you and your grateful and affectionate
S. T. Coleridge.
xx. to the same.
[Postmark, August 5, 1793.]
My dear Brother, — Since my arrival in the country
I have been anxiously expecting a letter from you, nor
can I divine the reason of your silence. From the letter
56
STUDENT LIFE
[Feb.
to my brother James, a few lines of which he read to me,
I am fearful that your silence proceeds from displeasure.
If so, what is left for me to do but to grieve ? The past
is not in my power. For the follies of which I may have
been guilty, I have been greatly disgusted; and I trust
the memory of them will operate to future consistency of
conduct.
My mother is very well, — indeed, better for her illness.
Her complexion and eye, the truest indications of health,
are much clearer. Little William and his mother are
well. My brother James is at Sidmoutli. I was there
yesterday. He, his wife, and children are well. Freder¬
ick is a charming child. Little James had a most provi¬
dential escape the day before yesterday. As my brother
was in the field contiguous to his place he heard two men
scream, and turning round saw a horse leap over little
James, and then kick at him. He ran up ; found him un¬
hurt. The men said that the horse was feeding with his
tail toward the child, and looking round ran at him open-
mouthed, pushed him down and leaped over him, and then
kicked back at him. Their screaming, my brother sup¬
poses, prevented the horse from repeating the blow.
Brother was greatly agitated, as you may suppose. I
stayed at Tiverton about ten days, and got no small kudos
among the young belles by complimentary effusions in the
poetic way.
A specimen : —
CUPID TURNED CHYMIST.
Cupid, if storying Legends tell aright,
Once framed a rich Elixir of Delight.
A clialice o'er love-kindled flames he fix'd,
And in it Nectar and Ambrosia mix'd :
With these the magic dews which Evening brings,
Brush'd from the Idalian star by faery wings :
Each tender pledge of sacred Faith he join'd,
Each gentler Pleasure of th' unspotted mind —
1794]
TO G. L. TUCKETT
57
Day-dreams, whose tints with sportive brightness glow,
And Hope, the blameless parasite of Woe.
The eyeless Chymist heard the process rise,
The steamy chalice bubbled up in sighs ;
Sweet sounds transpired, as when the enamor'd dove
Pours the soft murmuring of responsive Love.
The finished work might Envy vainly blame,
And " Kisses " was the precious Compound's name.
With half the God his Cyprian Mother blest,
And breath'd on Nesbitt's lovelier lips the rest.
Do you know Fanny Nesbitt ? Slic was my fellow-trav¬
eler in the Tiverton diligence from Exeter. [Slxe is], I
think, a very pretty girl. The orders for tea are: Impri¬
mis, five pounds of ten shillings green ; Item, four pounds
of eight shillings green; in all nine pounds of tea.
God bless you and your obliged
S. T. Coleridge.
xxi. to g. l. tuckett.
IIenley, Thursday niglit, February 6 [1794].
Dear Tuckett, — I have this moment received your
long letter ! The Tuesday before last, an accident of the
Heading Fair, our regiment was disposed of for the week
in and about the towns within ten miles of Reading, and,
as it was not known before we set off to what places we
1 G. L. Tuckett, to whom this let¬
ter was addressed, was the first to
disclose to Coleridge's family tlie un¬
welcome fact that he had enlisted in
the army. He seems to have guessed
that the runaway would take his old
schoolfellows into his confidence, and
that they might he induced to reveal
the secret. He was, I presume, a
college acquaintance, — possibly an
old Blue, who had left the Univer¬
sity and was reading for the bar.
In an unpublished letter from Rob¬
ert Allen to Coleridge, dated Febru¬
ary, 1700, there is an amusing refer¬
ence to this kindly J)eus ex Machina.
" I called upon Tuckett, who thus
prophesied : ' You know bow subject
Coleridge is to fits of idleness. Now,
I '11 lay any wager, Allen, that after
three or four numbers (of the Watch¬
man) the sheets will contain nothing
but parliamentary debates, and
Coleridge will add a note at the bot¬
tom of the page : "I should think
myself deficient in my duty to the
Public if I did not give these inter¬
esting debates at full length." ' "
58
STUDENT LIFE
[Feb.
would go, my letters were kept at tlie Reading post-office
till our return. I was conveyed to Henley-upon-Tliames,
which place our regiment left last Tuesday; but I am
ordered to remain on account of these dreadfully trouble¬
some eruptions, and that I might nurse my comrade, who
last Friday sickened of the confluent smallpox. So here
I am, videlicet the Henley workhouse.1 It is a little house
of one apartment situated in the midst of a large garden,
about a hundred yards from the house. It is four strides
in length and three in breadth; has four windows, which
look to all the winds. The almost total want of sleep, the
putrid smell, and the fatiguing struggles with my poor
comrade during his delirium are nearly too much for me
in my present state. In return I enjoy external peace,
and kind and respectful behaviour from the people of the
workhouse. Tuckett, your motives must have been excel¬
lent ones; how could they be otherwise! As an agent,
therefore, you are blameless, but your efforts in my behalf
demand my gratitude — that my heart will pay you, into
whatever depth of horror your mistaken activity may
eventually have precipitated me. As an agent, you stand
acquitted, but the action was morally base. In an hour of
extreme anguish, under the most solemn imposition of
secrecy, I entrusted my place and residence to the young
men at Christ's Hospital; the intelligence which you ex¬
torted from their imbecility should have remained sacred
with you. It lost not the obligation of secrecy by the
transfer. But your motives justify you? To the eye of
your friendship the divulging might have appeared neces¬
sary, but what shadow of necessity is there to excuse you in
showing my letters — to stab the very heart of confidence.
1 It would seem tliat there were si nce, the " Domus quadrata horten-
alleviations to the misery and dis- sis, at Henley-on-Tliames," and " the
comfort of this direful experience, beautiful girl" who, it would seem,
In a MS. note dated January, 1S05, soothed the captivity of the forlorn
he recalls as a suitable incident for trooper,
a projected work, The Soother in Ab-
1794]
TO GEORGE COLERIDGE
59
You have acted, Tuekett, so uniformly well that reproof
must be new to you. I doubtless shall have offended you.
I would to God that I, too, possessed the tender irritable-
ness of unhandled sensibility. Mine is a sensibility gan¬
grened with inward corruption and the keen searching of
the air from without. Your gossip with the commanding
officer seems so totally useless and unmotived that I al¬
most find a difficulty in believing it.
A letter from my brother George! I feel a kind of
pleasure that it is not directed — it lies unopened — am I
not already sufficiently miserable ? The anguish of those
who love me, of him beneath the shadow of whose protec¬
tion I grew up — does it not plant the pillow with thorns
and make my dreams full of terrors ? Yet I dare not burn
the letter — it seems as if there were a horror in the ac¬
tion. One pang, however acute, is better than long-con¬
tinued solicitude. My brother George possessed the cheer¬
ing consolation of conscience — but I am talking I know
not what — yet there is a pleasure, doubtless an exquisite
pleasure, mingled up in the most painful of our virtuous
emotions. Alas ! my poor mother ! What an intolerable
weight of guilt is suspended over my head by a hair on
one hand; and if I endure to live — the look ever down¬
ward — insult, pity, hell! God or Chaos, preserve me !
What but infinite Wisdom or infinite Confusion can do
it?
XXII. TO THE REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE.
February S, 1704.
My more than brother! What shall I say ? What
shall I write to you ? Shall I profess an abhorrence of my
past conduct ? Ah me ! too well do I know its iniquity !
But to abhor! this feeble and exhausted heart supplies
not so strong an emotion. O my wayward soul! I have
been a fool even to madness. What shall I dare to prom¬
ise ? My mind is illegible to myself. I am lost in the
60
STUDENT LIFE
[Feb.
labyrinth, the trackless wilderness of my own bosom.
Truly may I say, "I am wearied of being saved." My
frame is chill and torpid. The ebb and flow of my hopes
and fears has stagnated into recklessness. One wish only
can I read distinctly in my heart, that it were possible for
me to be forgotten as though I had never been ! The
shame and sorrow of those who loved me! The anguish
o
of him who protected me from my childhood upwards, the
sore travail of her who bore me! Intolerable images of
horror ! They haunt my sleep, they enfever my dreams !
0 that the shadow of Death were on my eyelids, that I
were like the loathsome form by which I now sit! O that
without guilt I might ask of my Maker annihilation! My
brother, my brother ! pray for me, comfort me, my brother!
1 am very wretched, and, though my complaint be bitter,
my stroke is heavier than my groaning.
S. T. Coleridge.
xxiii. to the same.
Tuesday night, February 11, 1794.
I am indeed oppressed, oppressed with the greatness of
your love! Mine eyes gush out with tears, my heart is
sick and languid with the weight of unmerited kindness.
I had intended to have given you a minute history of my
thoughts and actions for the last two years of my life. A
most severe and faithful history of the heart would it
have been — the Omniscient knows it. But I am so uni¬
versally unwell, and the hour so late, that I must defer it
till to-morrow. To-night I shall have a bed in a separate
room from my comrade, and, I trust, shall have repaired
my strength by sleep ere the morning. For eight days
and nights I have not had my clothes off. My comrade
is not dead; there is every hope of his escaping death.
Closely has he been pursued by the mighty hunter ! Un¬
doubtedly, my brother, I could wish to return to College;
I know what I must suffer there, but deeply do I feel
1794]
TO JAMES COLERIDGE
61
what I ought to suffer. Is my brother James still at
Salisbury ? I will write to him, to all.
Concerning my emancipation, it appears to me that my
discharge can be easily procured by interest, with great
difficulty by negotiation ; but of this is not my brother
James a more competent judge ?
What my future life may produce I dare not anticipate.
Pray for me, my brother. I will pray nightly to the
Almighty dispenser of good and evil, that his chastise¬
ment may not have harrowed my heart in vain. Scepti¬
cism has mildewed my hope in the Saviour. I was far
from disbelieving the truth of revealed religion, but still
far from a steady faith — the " Comforter that should
have relieved my soul " was far from me.
Farewell! to-morrow I will resume my pen. Mr.
Boyer ! indeed, indeed, my heart thanks him; how often
in the petulance of satire, how ungratefully have I injured
that man!
S. T. Coleridge.
xxiv. to captain james coleridge.
February 20, 1794.
In a mind which vice has not utterly divested of sensi¬
bility, few occurrences can inflict a more acute pang than
the receiving proofs of tenderness and love where only re¬
sentment and reproach were expected and deserved. The
gentle voice of conscience which had incessantly murmured
within the soul then raises its tone and speaks with a
tongue of thunder. My conduct towards you, and towards
my other brothers, has displayed a strange combination
of madness, ingratitude, and dishonesty. But you forgive
me. May my Maker forgive me ! May the time arrive
when I shall have forgiven myself!
With regard to my emancipation, every inquiry I have
made, every piece of intelligence I could collect, alike
tend to assure me that it may be done by interest, but
62
STUDENT LIFE
[March
not by negotiation without an expense which I should
tremble to write. Forty guineas were offered for a dis¬
charge the day after a young man was sworn in, and were
refused. His friends made interest, and his discharge
came down from the War Office. If, however, negotiation
must be first attempted, it will be expedient to write to
our colonel — his name is Gwynne — he holds the rank
of general in the army. His address is General Gwynne,
K. L. D., King's Mews, London.
My assumed name is Silas Tomkyn Comberbacke,
15tli, or King's Regiment of Light Dragoons, G Troop.
My number I do not know. It is of no import. The
bounty I received was six guineas and a half; but a light
horseman's bounty is a mere lure; it is expended for him
in things which he must have had without a bounty —
gaiters, a pair of leather breeches, stable jacket, and shell;
horse cloth, surcingle, watering bridle, brushes, and the
long etc. of military accoutrement. I enlisted the 2d of
December, 17 93, was attested and sworn the 4tli. I am at
present nurse to a sick man, and shall, I believe, stay at
Henley another week. There will be a large draught
from our regiment to complete our troops abroad. The
men were picked out to-day. I suppose I am not one,
being a very indocile equestrian. Farewell.
S. T. CoLEEIDGE.
Our regiment is at Reading, and Hounslow, and Maid¬
enhead, and Kensington; our headquarters, Reading,
Berks. The commanding officer there, Lieutenant Iiop-
kinson, our adjutant.
To Captain James Coleridge, Tiverton, Devonshire.
xxv. to the rev. geoege coleridge.
The Compasses, High Wycombe, March 12, 1794.
My dear Brother, — Accept my poor thanks for the
day's enclosed, which I received safely. I explained the
1794]
TO GEORGE COLERIDGE
G3
whole matter to tlie adjutant, who laughed and said I
had been used scurvily ; he deferred settling the bill till
Thursday morning. A Captain Ogle,1 of our regiment,
who is returned from abroad, has taken great notice of
me. When he visits the stables at night he always enters
into conversation with me, and to-day, finding from the
corporal's report that I was unwell, he sent me a couple of
bottles of wine. These things demand my gratitude. I
wrote last week — currente calcimo — a declamation for
my friend Allen on the comparative good and evil of
novels. The credit which he got for it I should almost
blush to tell you. All the fellows have got copies, and
they meditate having it printed, and dispersing it through
the University. The best part of it I built on a sentence
in a la ,t letter of yours, and indeed, I wrote most part of
it feelingly.
I met yesterday, smoking in the recess, a chimney
corner of the pot-house 2 at which I am quartered, a man
of the greatest information and most original genius I
ever lit upon. His philosophical theories of heaven and
hell would have both amused you and given you hints for
much speculation. He solemnly assured me that he be¬
lieved himself divinely inspired. He slept in the same
room with me, and kept me awake till three in the morn¬
ing with his ontological disquisitions. Some of the ideas
i In the various and varying rem¬
iniscences of his soldier days, which
fell " from Coleridge's own month,"
and were repeated by his delighted
and credulous hearers, this officer
plays an important part. Whatever
foundation of fact there may he
for the touching anecdote that the
Latin sentence, " Elieu ! quam irfor-
tunii miserrimum est fuissefelirem
scribbled on the walls of the stable
at Reading, caught the attention of
Captain Ogle, " himself a scholar,"
and led to Comberbacke's detection,
he was not, as the poet Bowles and
Miss Mitford maintained, the sole
instrument in procuring the dis¬
charge. He may have exerted him¬
self privately, but his name does not
occur in the formal correspondence
which passed between Coleridge's
brothers and the military author¬
ities.
2 The Compasses, now The
Chequers, High Wycombe, where
Coleridge was billeted just a hun¬
dred years ago, appears to have pre¬
served its original aspect.
64
STUDENT LIFE
[March
would have made you shudder from their daring impiety,
others would have astounded with their sublimity. My
memory, tenacious and systematizing, would enable [me]
to write an octavo from his conversation. " I find [says
he] from the intellectual atmosphere that emanes from,
and envelops you, that you are in a state of recipiency."
lie was deceived. I have little faith, yet am wonderfully
fond of speculating on mystical schemes. Wisdom may
be gathered from the maddest flights of imagination, as
medicines were stumbled upon in the wild processes of
alchemy. God bless you. Your ever grateful
S. T. Coleridge.
Tuesday evening. — I leave this place [High Wy¬
combe] on Thursday, 10 o'clock, for Heading. A letter
will arrive in time before I go.
xxvi. to the same.
Sunday night, Marcli 21, 1794.
I have endeavoured to feel what I ought to feel. Affili¬
ated to you from my childhood, what must be my present
situation ? But I know you, my dear brother; and I
entertain a humble confidence that my efforts in well¬
doing shall in some measure repay you. There is a vis
inertice in the human mind — I am convinced that a man
once corrupted will ever remain so, unless some sudden
revolution, some unexpected change of place or station,
shall have utterly altered his connection. When these
shocks of adversity have electrified his moral frame, he
feels a convalescence of soul, and becomes like a being
recently formed from the hands of nature.
The last letter I received from you at High Wycombe
was that almost blank letter which enclosed the guinea.
I have written to the postmaster. I have breeches and
waistcoats at Cambridge, three or four shirts, and some
neckcloths, and a few pairs of stockings; the clothes,
1794]
TO GEORGE COLERIDGE
65
which, rather from the order of the regiment than the
impulse of my necessities, I parted with in Reading on
my first arrival at the regiment, I disposed of for a mere
trifle, comparatively, and at a small expense can recover
them all but my coat and hat. They are gone irrevo¬
cably. My shirts, which I have with me, are, all but one,
worn to rags — mere rags ; their texture was ill-adapted
to the labour of the stables.
Shall I confess to you my weakness, my more than
brother? I am afraid to meet you. When I call to
mind the toil and wearisomeness of your avocations, and
think how you sacrifice your amusements and your
health ; when I recollect your habitual and self-forgetting
economy, how generously severe, my soul sickens at its
own guilt. A thousand reflections crowd in my mind ;
they are almost too much for me. Yet you, my brother,
would comfort me, not reproach me, and extend the hand
of forgiveness to one whose purposes were virtuous,
though infirm, and whose energies vigorous, though desul¬
tory. Indeed, I long to see you, although I cannot help
dreading it.
I mean to write to Dr. Pearce. The letter I will enclose
to you. Perhaps it may not be proper to write, perhaps it
may be necessary. You will best judge. The discharge
should, I think, be sent down to the adjutant — yet I
don't know ; it would be more comfortable to me to
receive my dismission in London, were it not for the
appearing in these clothes.
By to-morrow I shall be enabled to tell the exact ex¬
penses of equipping, etc.
I must conclude abruptly. God bless you, and your
ever grateful
S. T. Coleridge.
66
STUDENT LIFE
[March
xxvii. to the same.
End of March, 1794.
My dear Brother, — I have been rather uneasy, that
I have not lieard from you since my departure from High
"Wycombe. Your letters are a comfort to me in the
comfortless hour — they are manna in the wilderness.
I should have written you long ere this, but in truth I
have been blockaded by a whole army of petty vexations,
bad quarters, etc., and within this week I have been thrown
three times from my horse and run away with to the no
small perturbation of my nervous system almost every day.
I ride a horse, young, and as undisciplined as myself.
After tumult and agitation of any kind the mind and all
its affections seem to doze for a while, and we sit shiver¬
ing with chilly feverishness wrapped up in the ragged and
threadbare cloak of mere animal enjoyment.
On Sunday last I was surprised, or rather confounded,
with a visit from Mr. Cornish, so confounded that for
more than a minute I could not speak to him. He be¬
haved with great delicacy and much apparent solicitude
of friendship. He passed through Reading with his sister
Lady Shore. I have received several letters from my
friends at Cambridge, of most soothing contents. Tliey
write me, that with " undiminished esteem and increased
affection, the Jesuitcs look forward to my return as to
that of a lost brother! "
My present address is the White Hart, Reading, Berks.
Adieu, most dear brother !
S. T. Coleridge,
xxyiii. to the same.
March 27, 1794.
My dear Brother, — I find that I was too sanguine
in my expectations of recovering all my clothes. My coat,
which I had supposed gone, and all the stockings, viz.,
1791]
TO GEORGE COLERIDGE
G7
four pairs of almost new silk stockings, and two pairs of
new silk and cotton, I can get again for twenty-three shil¬
lings. I have ordered, therefore, a pair of breeches, which
will be nineteen shillings, a waistcoat at twelve shillings,
a pair of shoes at seven shillings and four pence. Besides
these I must have a hat, which will be eighteen shillings,
and two neckcloths, which will be five or six shillings.
These things I have ordered. My travelling expenses will
be about half a guinea. Have I done wrong in ordering
these things ? Or did you mean me to do it by desiring me
to arrange what was necessary for my personal appear¬
ance at Cambridge ? I have so seldom acted right, that
in every step I take of my own accord I tremble lest I
should be wrong. I forgot in the above account to men¬
tion a flannel waistcoat; it will be six shillings. The
military dress is almost oppressively warm, and so very ill
as I am at present I think it imprudent to hazard cold.
I will see you at London, or rather at Ilackney. There
will be two or three trifling expenses 011 my leaving the
army; I know not their exact amount. The adjutant dis¬
missed me from all duty yesterday. My head throbs so,
and I am so sick at stomach that it is with difficulty I can
write. One thing more I wished to mention. There are
three books, which I parted with at Reading. The book¬
seller, whom I have occasionally obliged by composing
advertisements for his newspaper, has offered them me at
the same price he bought them. They are a very valuable
edition of Casimir1 by Barbou,2 a Synesius3 by Canterus
1 See Notes to Poetical of " In the course of the Work will
Coleridge (1890), p. 5(58. The " in- be introduced a copious selection
tended translation " was advertised from the Lyrics of Casimir, and a
in the Cambridge Intelligencer for new Translation of the Basia of Je¬
june 14 and June 10, 17'.>4 : " Pro- cundus."
posals for publishing by subscrip- One ode, " Ad Lyram," was print-
tion Imitations from the Modern ed in The IT atchman, No. 11, March
Latin Poets, with a Critical and lii- 9, 179(>, p. 49.
ographical Essay on the Restoration 2 The Barbou Casimir, published
of Literature. By S. T. Coleridge, at Paris in 1 7o9.
of Jesus College, Cambridge. ... 3 Compare the note to chapter
68
STUDENT LIFE
[April
and Bentley's Quarto Edition. Tliey are wortli thirty
shillings, at least, and I sold them for fourteen. The two
first I mean to translate. I have finished two or three
Odes of Casimir, and shall on my return to College send
them to Dodsley as a specimen of an intended translation.
Barbou's edition is the only one that contains all the
works of Casimir. God bless you. Your grateful
S. T. C.
xxix. to the same.
Sunday niglit, March 30, 1794.
My dear Brother, — I received your enclosed. I am
fearful, that as you advise me to go immediately to Cam¬
bridge after my discharge, that the utmost contrivances
of economy will not enable [me] to make it adequate to
all the expenses of my clothes and travelling. I shall go
across the country on many accounts. The expense (I
have examined) will be as nearly equal as well can be.
The fare from Heading to High Wycombe on the outside
is four shillings, from High Wycombe to Cambridge (for
there is a coach that passes through Cambridge from Wy¬
combe) I suppose about twelve shillings, perhaps a trifle
more. I shall be two days and a half on the road, two
ni<jhts. Can I calculate the expense at less than half a
guinea, including all things ? An additional guinea would
perhaps be sufficient. Surely, my brother, I am not so
utterly abandoned as not to feel the meaning and duty of
economy. Oh me ! I wish to God I were happy; but it
would be strange indeed if I were so.
I long ago theoretically and in a less degree experi¬
mentally knew the necessity of faith in order to regulate
xii. of the Biographia Literaria: before my fifteenth year." The
" In the Biographical Sketch of my edition referred to may be that
Literary Life I may be excused if published at Basle in 15(57. Inter-
I mention here that I had translated prete G. Cantero. Bentley's Quarto
the eight Hymns of Synesius from Edition -was probably the Quarto
the Greek into English Anacreontics Edition of Horace, published in 1711.
1794]
TO GEORGE COLERIDGE
69
virtue, nor did I even seriously disbelieve the existence of
a future state. In short, my religious creed bore and,
perhaps, bears a correspondence with my mind and heart.
I had too much vanity to be altogether a Christian, too
much tenderness of nature to be utterly an infidel. Fond
of the dazzle of wit, fond of subtlety of argument, I could
not read without some degree of pleasure the levities of
Voltaire or the reasonings of Helvetius ; but, tremblingly
alive to the feelings of humanity, and susceptible to the
charms of truth, my heart forced me to admire the " beauty
of holiness" in the Gospel, forced me to love the Jesus,
whom my reason (or perhaps my reasonings) would not
permit me to worship, — my faith, therefore, was made up
of the Evangelists and the deistic philosophy — a kind of
religious twilight. I said, "perhaps bears" — yes! my
brother, for who can say, " Now I '11 be a Christian " ?
Faith is neither altogether voluntary ; we cannot believe
what we choose, but we can certainly cultivate such habits
of thinking and acting as will give force and effective
energy to the arguments on either side.
If I receive my discharge by Thursday, I will be, God
pleased, in Cambridge on Sunday. Farewell, my brother!
Believe me your severities only wound me as they awake
the voice within to speak, ah ! how more harshly ! I feel
gratitude and love towards you, even when I shrink and
shiver. Your affectionate
S. T. Coleridge.
xxx. to the same.
April 7, 1704.
My dear Brother, — The last three days I have
spent at Bray, near Maidenhead, at the house of a gen¬
tleman who has behaved with particular attention to me.
I accepted his invitation as it was in my power in some
measure to repay his kindness by the revisal of a per¬
formance lie is about to publish, and by writing him a
70
STUDENT LIFE
[May
dedication and preface. At my return I found two let¬
ters from you, tlie one containing the two guineas, wliicli
will l>e perfectly adequate to my expenses, and, my brother,
what some part of your letter made me feel, I am ill able
to express; hut of this at another time. I have signed
the certificate of my expenses, Imt not my discharge.
The moment I receive it I shall set off for Cambridge im¬
mediately, most probably through London, as the gentle¬
man, whose house I was at at Bray, has pressed me to take
his horse, and accompany him 011 Wednesday morning, as
he himself intends to ride to town that day. If my dis¬
charge comes down 011 Tuesday morning I shall embrace
his offer, particularly as I shall be introduced to his book¬
seller, a thing of some consequence to my present views.
Clagget1lias set four songs of mine most divinely, for
two violins and a pianoforte. I have done him some ser¬
vices, and he wishes me to write a serious opera, which he
will set, and have introduced. It is to be a joint work. I
think of it. The rules for adaptable composition which
he has given me are excellent, and I feel my powers
greatly strengthened, owing, I believe, to my having read
little or nothing for these last four months.
xxxi. to tiie same.
May 1, 1794.
My dear Brother, — I have been convened before the
fellows.2 Dr. Pearce behaved with great asperity, Mr.
Plampin 3 with exceeding and most delicate kindness. My
1 Charles Clagget, a musical com- 2 Tlie entry in tlie College Regis-
poser and inventor of musical instru- ter of Jesus College is brief and to
ments, flourished towards tlie close the point: " 171)4 Apr. : Coleridge
of the eighteenth century. I have admonitus est jper mcigistrum in prce-
been unable to ascertain whether sentia sociorum."
the songs in question were ever pub- 3 A letter to George Coleridge
lislied. Dictionary of Music and Mu- dated April 16, 1794, and signed J.
sicians, edited by George Grove, Plampin, has been preserved. The
D. C. L., 1S79, article "Clagget," pains and penalties to which Cole-
i. 359. ridge had subjected himself are
1794]
TO GEORGE COLERIDGE
71
sentence is a reprimand (not a public one, but implied in
the sentence), a month's confinement to tlio precincts of
the College, and to translate the works of Demetrius Plia-
lareus into English. It is a thin quarto of about ninety
Greek pages. All the fellows tried to persuade the Mas¬
ter to greater leniency, but in vain. Without the least
affectation I applaud his conduct, and think nothing of it.
The confinement is nothing. I have the fields and grove
of the College to walk in, and what can I wish more ?
What do I wish more ? Nothing. The Demetrius is dry,
and utterly untransferable to modern use, and yet from
the Doctor's words I suspect that he wishes it to be a
publication, as he has more than once sent to know how I
go on, and pressed me to exert erudition in some notes,
and to write a preface. Besides this, I have had a decla¬
mation to write in the routine of college business, and
the liustat examination, at which I got credit. I get up
every morning at five o'clock.
Every one of my acquaintance I have dropped solemnly
and forever, except those of my College with whom be¬
fore my departure I had been least of all connected —
who had always remonstrated against my imprudences,
yet have treated me with almost fraternal affection, Mr.
Caldwell particularly. I thought the most decent way
of dropping acquaintances was to express my intention,
openly and irrevocably.
I find I must either go out at a by-term or degrade to
the Christmas after next; but more of this to-morrow. I
have been engaged in finishing a Greek ode. I mean to
write for all the prizes. I have had no time upon my
hands. I shall aim at correctness and perspicuity, not
genius. My last ode was so sublime that nobody could
stated in full, l>ut tlie kindly nature proper; and I beg' to assure you that
of the writer is shown in the eon- it will give me much pleasure to see
eluding sentence : " I am happy in him take such an advantage of his
adding that I thought your brother's experience as his own good sense will
conduct on his return extremely dictate."
72
STUDENT LIFE
[July
understand it. Jf I should be so very lucky as to win
one of tlie prizes, I could comfortably ask the Doctor
advice concerning the time of my degree. I will write
to-morrow.
God bless you, my brother ! my father!
S. T. Coleridge.
xxxii. to robert southey.
Gloucester, Sunday morning, July 6, 1794.
S. T. Coleridge to II. Southey, Health and Kepublican-^
ism_ to be! When you write, direct to me, " To be kept at
the Post Office, Wrexham, Denbighshire, N. Wales." I
mention this circumstance now, lest carried away by a
flood of confluent ideas I should forget it. You are averse
to gratitudinarian flourishes, else would I talk about hos¬
pitality, attentions, 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 songless 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-cowled head, and the weak-
eyed mole plies his dark work ; but thy soaring is even
unto heaven. Or let me add (for my appetite for sim¬
iles is truly canine at this moment) that as the Italian
nobles their new-fashioned doors, so thou dost make the
adamantine gate of (democracy turn on its golden hinges to
most sweet music. Our journeying has been intolerably
fatiguing from the heat and whiteness of the roads, and
the unhedged country presents nothing but stone fences,
dreary to the eye and scorching to the touch. But we
shall soon be in Wales.
Gloucester is a nothing-to-be-said-about town. The
women have almost all of them sharp noses.
It is wrong, Southey! for a little girl with a half-
1794]
TO ROBERT SOUTIIEY
73
famished sickly baby in lier arms to put lier head in at
the window of an inn—" Pray give me a bit of bread
and meat! " from a party dining on lamb, green peas,
and salad. Why ? Because it is impertinent and obtru¬
sive ! " I am a gentleman ! and wherefore the clamorous
voice of woe intrude upon mine ear? " My companion is
a man of cultivated, though not vigorous understanding ;
liis feelings are all on the side of humanity; yet such are
the unfeeling remarks, which the lingering remains of
aristocracy occasionally prompt. When the pure system
of f'pantisocracj^ shall have aspheterizecl — from d, 11011,
and cr^eVepos, proprius (we really wanted such a word), in¬
stead of travelling along the circuitous, dusty, beaten
highroad of diction, you thus cut across the soft, green,
pathless field of noveltyjj' Similes for ever! Ilurrali! I
have bought a little blank book, and portable ink horn ;
[and] as I journey onward, I ever and anon pluck the
wild flowers of poesy, " inhale their odours awhile," then
throw them away and think no more of them. I will not
do so ! Two lines of mine : —
And o'er the sky's unclouded blue
The sultry heat sujjus'd a brassy hue.
The cockatrice is a foul dragon with a crown on its head.
The Eastern nations believe it to be hatched by a viper
011 a cock's egg. Southey, dost thou not see wisdom
in her Coan vest of allegory? The cockatrice is emblem¬
atic of monarchy, a monster generated by ingratitude
or absurdity. When serpents sting, the only remedy is
to kill the serpent, and besmear the wound with the fat.
Would you desire better sympathy ?
Description of heat from a poem I am manufacturing,
the title : " Perspiration. A Travelling Eclogue."
The dust flies smothering, as on clatt'ring wheel
Loath'd aristocracy careers along;
74
STUDENT LIFE
[July
The distant track quick vibrates to the eye,
And white and dazzling undulates with heat,
Where scorching to the unwary travellers' touch,
The stone fence flings its narrow slip of shade ;
Or, where the worn sides of the chalky road
Yield their scant excavations (sultry grots !),
Emblem of languid patience, we behold
The fleecy files faint-ruminating lie.
Farewell, sturdy Republican ! Write me concerning
Burnett and thyself, and concerning etc., etc. My next
shall be a more sober and chastened epistle ; but, you see,
I was in the humour for metaphors, and, to tell thee the
truth, I have so often serious reasons to quarrel with my
inclination, that I do not choose to contradict it for trifles.
To Lovell, fraternity and civic remembrances ! Plucks'
compliments.
S. T. Coleridge.
Addressed to " Robert Soutliey. Miss Tyler's, Bristol."
xxxiii. to the same.
Wrexham, Sunday, July 15, 1794.1
Your letter, Soutliey ! made me melancholy. Man is a
bundle of habits, but of all habits the habit of despond¬
ence is the most pernicious to virtue and happiness. I
once shipwrecked my frail bark on that rock ; a friendly
plank was vouchsafed me. Be you wise by my experience,
Coleridge's letters from for-
1 A week later, July -2, in a let¬
ter addressed to II. Martin, of Jesus
College, to whom, in the following-
September, he dedicated "The Fall
of Robespierre,1' Coleridge repeated
almost verbatim large portions of this
lettre de voyage. The incident of the
sentiment and the Welsh clergyman
takes a somewhat different shape,
and both versions differ from the re¬
port of the same occurrence con¬
tained in Hucks' account of the tour,
which was published in the following-
year.
eign parts were written with a view
to literary effect, and often with the
half-formed intention of sending
them to the " booksellers." They
are to be compared with " letters
from our own correspondent," and in
respect of picturesque adventure,
dramatic dialogue, and so forth, must
be judged solely by a literary stand¬
ard. Biogrciphia Liter aria, 1847,
ii. :>38-343 ; J. Hucks' Tour in North
Wales, 1795, p. 25.
1794]
TO ROBERT SOUTIIEY
75
and receive unhurt the flower, whieli I have climbed preci¬
pices to pluck. Consider the high advantages which you
possess in so eminent a degree — health, strength of mind,
and confirmed habits of strict morality. Beyond all doubt,
by the creative powers of your genius, you might supply
whatever the stern simplicity of republican wants could
require. Is there no possibility of procuring the office of
clerk in a compting-liouse ? A month's application would
qualify you for it. For God's sake, Southey! enter not
into the church. Concerning Allen I say little, but I feel
anguish at times. This earnestness of remonstrance! I
will not offend you by asking your pardon for it.J' The
following is a fact. A friend of Hucks' after long strug¬
gles between principle, and inter eat, as it is improperly
called, accepted a place under government. lie took the
oaths, shuddered, went home and threw himself in an
agony out of a two-pair of stairs window ! These dreams
of despair are most soothing to the imagination. I well
know it. We shroud ourselves in the mantle of distress,
and tell our poor hearts, "This is happiness/" There
is a dignity in all these solitary emotions that flatters the
pride of our nature. Enough of sermonizing. As I was
meditating 011 the capability of pleasure in a mind like
yours, I unwarily fell into poetry :1 —
'T is thine with fairy forms to talk,
And thine the philosophic walk ;
And what to thee the sweetest are —
The setting snn, the Evening Star —
The tints, that live along the sky,
The Moon, that meets thy raptured eye,
Where grateful oft the big drops start,
Dear silent pleasures of the Heart!
But if thou pour one votive lay,
For humble independence pray ;
1 The lines are from " Happiness," See Ttxiical IFor^s, p. 17. See, too,
au early poem first published in 1S34. Editor s Note, p. 5G4.
76
STUDENT LIFE
[July
Whom (sages say) in days of yore
Meek Competence to Wisdom bore.
So shall thy little vessel glide
With a fair breeze adown the tide,
Till Death shall close thy tranquil eye
While Faith exclaims : " Thou slialt not die ! "
" The heart-smile glowing' on his aged cheek
Mild as decaying light of summer's eve,"
are lines eminently beautiful. Tlie whole is pleasing.
For a motto ! Surely my memory lias suffered an epileptic
fit. A Greek motto would be pedantic. Tliese lines will
perliaps do: —
All mournful to the pensive sages' eye,1
The monuments of human glory lie ;
Fall'n palaces crush'd by the ruthless haste
Of Time, and many an empire's silent waste —
But where a sight, shall shuddering sorrow find
Sad as the ruins of the human mind, —
Bowles.
A better will soon occur to me. Poor Poland ! They
go on sadly there. Warmth of particular friendship does
not imply absorption. Tlie nearer you approach, the sun,
the more intense are liis rays. Yet what distant corner of
the system do they not clieer and vivify ? Tlie ardour of
private attachments 111 akesjiliilalitliropy a necessary habit
of tlie soul. I love my friend. Such as lie is, all mankind
are or might be. The deduction is evident. Philanthropy
(and indeed every other virtue) is a thing of concretion.
Some liome-born feeling is the centre of the ball, that
rolling on through life collects and assimilates every con¬
genial affection. What did you mean by II. has " my
1 Quoted from a poem by Bowles
entitled, " Verses inscribed to His
Grace the Duke of Leeds, and other
Promoters of the Philanthropic Soci¬
ety." Soutliey adopted the last two
lines of the quotation as a motto for
his "Botany Bay Eclogues." Poet¬
ical Works of Milrnan, Bouies, etc.,
Paris, 1S29, p. 117 ; Soutliey's Poeti¬
cal Works, 1837, ii. 71.
1794]
TO ROBERT SOUTIIEY
77
understanding " ? I have puzzled myself in vain to dis¬
cover the import of the sentence. The only sense it
seemed to bear was so like rnoek-humility, that I scolded
myself for the momentary supposition.1 My heart is so
heavy at present, that I will defer the finishing of this
letter till to-morrow.
I saw a face in Wrexham Church this morning, which
recalled " Thoughts full of bitterness and images" too
dearly loved! now past and but " Remembered like sweet
sounds of yesterday! " At Ross (sixteen miles from
Gloucester) we took up our quarters at the King's Arms,
once the house of Kyrle, the Man of Ross. I gave the
window-shutter the following effusion :2 —
Richer than Misers o'er their countless hoards,
Nobler than Kings, or king-polluted Lords,
Here dwelt the Man of Ross ! O Traveller, hear!
Departed Merit claims the glistening tear.
Friend to the friendless, to the sick man health,
"With generous joy he viewed his modest wealth;
He heard the widow's lieaven-breathed prayer of praise,
He mark'd the sheltered orphan's tearful gaze;
And o'er the dowried maiden's glowing cheek
Bade bridal love suffuse its blushes meek.
If 'neath this roof thy wine-cheer'd moments pass,
Fill to the good man's name one grateful glass !
To higher zest shall Memory wake thy soul,
And Virtue mingle in the sparkling bowl.
But if, like me, thro' life's distressful scene,
Lonely and sad thy pilgrimage hath been,
And if thy breast witli lieart-sick anguish fraught,
Thou journeyest onward tempest-tost in thought,
Here cheat thy cares, —in generous visions melt,
And dream of Goodness thou hast never felt!
I will resume the pen to-morrow.
1 Sonthey, we may suppose, liad 2 Poetical Works, p. 33. See, too,
contrasted Ilucks with Coleridge. Editor's Note, p. 570.
" H. is on my level, not yours."
78
STUDENT LIFE
[July
Monday, 11 o'clock. Well, praised be God ! lie re I
am. Videlicet, Ruthin, sixteen miles from Wrexham. At
Wrexham Church I glanced upon the face of a Miss E.
Evans, a young- lady with [whom] I had been in habits of
fraternal correspondence. She turned excessively pale ;
she thought it my ghost, I suppose. I retreated with all
possible speed to our inn. There, as I was standing at the
window, passed by Eliza Evans, and with her to my utter
surprise her sister, Mary Evans, quam efflictim et perdite
amcibam. I apprehend she is come from London on a
visit to her grandmother, with whom Eliza lives. I turned
sick, and all but fainted away ! The two sisters, as H.
informs me, passed by the window anxiously several times
afterwards ; but I had retired.
Vivit, seel mild non vivit — nova forte marita,
Ah elolor! alter!its cara a cervice pejienelit.
Dos, malefida valete aceensee insomnia, mentis,
Littora amata valete ! Vale, ah ! formosa Maria !
My fortitude would not have supported me, had I recog¬
nized her — I mean appeared to do it! I neither ate nor
slept yesterday. But love is a local anguish ; I am six¬
teen miles distant, and am not half so miserable. I must
endeavour to forget it amid the terrible graces of the wild
wood scenery that surround me. I never durst even in a
whisper avow my passion, though I knew she loved me.
Where were my fortunes? and why should I make her
miserable! Almighty God bless her! Her image is in
the sanctuary of my heart, and never can it be torn away
but with the strings that grapple it to life. Southey !
there are few men of whose delicacy I think so highly as
to have written all this. I am glad I have so deemed of
you. We are soothed by communications. —
Denbigh (eight miles from Ruthin).
And now to give you some little account of our journey.
From Oxford to Gloucester, to Ross, to Hereford, to
1794]
TO ROBERT SOUTIIEY
79
Leominster, to Bishop's Castle, to "Welsh Pool, to Llanfyl-
lin, nothing occurred worthy notice except that at the last
place I preached pantisocracy and asplieterism with so
much success that two great huge fellows of butclier-like
appearance danced about the room in enthusiastic agita¬
tion. And one of tliem of his own accord called for a
large glass of brandy, and drank it off to this his own
toast, " God save the King ! And may he be the last."'
Soutliey ! Such men may be of use. They would kill the
golden calf secundum art cm. From Llanfyllin we pene¬
trated into the interior of the country to Llangunnog, a
village most romantically situated. We dined there 011
hashed mutton, cucumber, bread and cheese, and beer, and
had two pots of ale — the sum total of the expense being
sixteen pence for both of us ! From Llangunnog we walked
over the mountains to Bala — most sublimely terrible ! It
was scorchingly hot. I applied my mouth ever and anon to
the side of the rocks and sucked in draughts of water cold
as ice, and clear as infant diamonds in their embryo dew !
The rugged and stony clefts are stupendous, and in winter
must form cataracts most astonishing. At this time of
the year there is just water enough dashed down over
them to " soothe, not disturb the pensive traveller's ear."
I slept by the side of one an hour or more. As we
descended the mountain, the sun was reflected in the
river, that winded through the valley with insufferable
brightness ; it rivalled the sky. At Bala is nothing re¬
markable except a lake of eleven miles in circumference.
At the inn I was sore afraid that I had caught the itch
from a Welsh democrat, who was charmed with 1113'- senti¬
ments : he grasped my hand with flesh-bruising ardor, and
I trembled lest some disappointed citizens of the animal-
culur republic should have emigrated.
Shortly after, into the same room, came a well-dressed
clergyman and four others, among whom (the landlady
whispers me) was a justice of the peace and the doctor of
80
STUDENT LIFE
[Sept.
tlie parish. I was asked for a gentleman. I gave General
Washington. Tlie parson said in a low voice, "Republi¬
cans !" After which, the medical man said, " Damn
toasts ! I gives a sentiment: May all republicans be guil¬
lotined ! " Up starts the Welsh democrat. " May all
fools be gulloteen'd — and then you will be the first."
Thereon rogue, villain, traitor flew thick in each other's
faces as a hailstorm. This is nothing in Wales. They
maize calling one another liars, etc., necessary vent-holes
to the superfluous fumes of the temper. At last I endeav¬
oured to articulate by observing that, whatever might be
our opinions in politics, the appearance of a clergyman in
the company assured me we were all Christians ; " though,"
continued I, " it is rather difficult to reconcile the last sen¬
timent with the spirit of Christianity." " Plio ! " quoth
the parson, " Christianity! Why, we are not at church
now, are we ? The gemman's sentiment was a very good
one ; it showed he was sincere in his principles." Welsh
politics could not prevail over Welsh hospitality. They
all, except the parson, shook me by the hand, and said I
was an open-hearted, honest-speaking fellow, though I was
a bit of a democrat.
From Bala we travelled onward to Llangollen, a most
beautiful village in a most beautiful situation. On the
road we met two Cantabs of my college, Brookes and Berd-
more. These rival pedestrians — perfect Powells — were
vigorously pursuing their tour in a post-chaise! We
laughed famously. Their only excuse was that Berdmore
had been ill. From Llangollen to Wrexham, from Wrex¬
ham to Ruthin, to Denbigh. At Denbigh is a ruined cas¬
tle ; it surpasses everything I could have conceived. I
wandered there an hour and a half last evening (this is
Tuesday morning). Two well-dressed young men were
walking there. "Come," says one, "I'll play my flute;
'twill be romantic." "Bless thee for the thought, man of
genius and sensibility ! " I exclaimed, and preattuned my
1794]
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
81
lieartstring to tremulous emotion. lie sat adown (tlie
moon just peering) amid the awful part of tlie ruins, and
tlie romantic youth struck up the affecting tune of " Mrs.
Carey." 1 'T is fact, upon my honour.
God bless you, Southey! We shall be at Aberystwith 2
this day week. When will you come out to meet us ?
There you must direct your letter. Hucks' compliments.
I anticipate much accession of republicanism from Lovell.
I have positively done nothing but dream of the system of
no property every step of the way since I left you, till last
Sunday. Ileiglio!
Robert Soutiiey, No. 8 Westcott Buildings, Batli.
XXXIV. TO THE SAME.
10 o'clock, Thursday morning, September 18, 1704.
Well, my dear Southey! I am at last arrived at Jesus.
My God! how tumultuous are the movements of my heart.
Since I quitted this room what and how important events
have been evolved ! America ! Southey ! Miss Fricker I
Yes, Southey, you are right. Even Love is the creature
of strong motive. I certainly love her. I think of her
incessantly and with unspeakable tenderness, — with that
inward melting away of soul that symptomatizes it.
Pantisocracy! Oh, I shall have such a scheme of
it! My head, my heart, are all alive. I have drawn up
my arguments in battle array; they shall have the tocti-
1 Hucks records the incident in
much the same words, but gives the
name of the tune as " Corporal Ca¬
sey."
2 The letter to Martin gives further
particulars of the tour, including
the ascent of Penmaen Mawr in com¬
pany with Brookes and Berdmore.
Compare Table Talk for May 31,
1830 : "I took tlie thought of grin¬
ning for joy in that poem (The An¬
cient Mariner) from my companion's
remark to me, when we had climbed
to the top of Plinlimmon, and were
nearly dead with thirst. We could
not speak from the constriction till
we found a little puddle under a
stone. He said to me,' You grinned
like an idiot.' He had done the
same." Tlie parching thirst of the
pedestrians, and their excessive joy
at the discovery of a spring of water,
are recorded by Hucks. Tour in
North Wales, 1705, p. 62.
82
STUDENT LIFE
[Sept.
cian excellence of tlie mathematician with the enthusiasm
of the poet. The head shall be the mass; the heart the
fiery spirit that fills, informs, and agitates the whole. Ilar-
wood — pish ! I say nothing of him.
SHAD GOES WITH US. HE IS MY BROTHER!
I am longing to be with you. Make Edith my sister.
Surely, Sou they, we shall b efrendotatoi metafrendous—
most friendly where all are friends. She must, therefore,
be more emphatically my sister.
Brookes and Berdmore, as I suspected, have spread my
opinions in mangled forms at Cambridge. Caldwell, the
most pantisocratic of aristocrats, has been laughing at
me. Up I arose, terrible in reasoning. He fled from me,
because " he could not answer for his own sanity, sitting
so near a madman of genius." He told me that the
strength of my imagination had intoxicated my reason,
and that the acuteness of my reason had given a directing
influence to my imagination. Four months ago the re¬
mark would not have been more elegant than just. Now
it is nothing.
I like your sonnets exceedingly — the best of any I
have yet seen.1 " Though to the eye fair is the extended
vale " should be " to the eye though fair the extended vale."
I by no means disapprove of discord introduced to produce
effect, nor is my ear so fastidious as to be angry with it
where it could not have been avoided without weakening
the sense. But discord for discord's sake is rather too
licentious.
" Wild wind " has no other but alliterative beauty; it
applies to a storm, not to the autumnal breeze that makes
the trees rustle mournfully. Alter it to " That rustle to
the sad wind moaningly."
" 'T was a long way and tedious," and the three last
lines are marked beauties — unlaboured strains poured
soothingly along from the feeling simplicity of heart. The
1 Soutliey's Poetical Works, 1837, ii. 93.
1794]
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
83
next sonnet is altogether exquisite, — the circumstance
common yet new to poetry, the moral accurate and full of
soul.1 " I never saw," etc., is most exquisite. I am almost
ashamed to write the following', it is so inferior. Ashamed?
No, Southey! God knows my heart! I am delighted to
feel you superior to me in genius as in virtue.
No more my visionary soul sliall dwell
On joys that were; no more endure to weigh
The shame and anguish of the evil day.
Wisely forgetful! O'er the ocean swell
Sublime of Hope, I seek the cottag'd dell
Where Virtue calm with careless step may stray,
And, dancing to the moonlight roundelay,
The wizard Passions weave an holy spell.
Eyes that have ach'd with sorrow! ye shall weep
Tears of doubt-mingled joy, like theirs who start
From precipices of distemper'd sleep,
On which the fierce-eyed fiends their revels keep,
And see the rising sun, and feel it dart
New rays of pleasance trembling to the heart.2
I have heard from Allen, and write the third letter to
him. Yours is the second. Perhaps you would like two
sonnets I have written to my Sally. When I have re¬
ceived an answer from Allen I will tell you the contents
of his first letter.
My compliments to Heath.
I will write you a huge, big letter next week. At pres¬
ent I have to transact the tragedy business, to wait on the
Master, to write to Mrs. Southey, Lovell, etc., etc.
God love you, and
S. T. Coleridge.
1 Southey's Poetical Works, 1837, 2 See Letter XLI. p. 110, note 1.
ii. 94.
84
STUDENT LIFE
[Sept.
XXXY. TO THE SAME.
Friday morning-, September 19, 1794.
My fire was blazing cheerfully — the tea-kettle even
now boiled over on it. Now sudden sad it looks. But,
see, it blazes up again as cheerily as ever. Such, dear
Soutliey, was the effect of your this morning's letter on
my heart. Angry, no ! I esteem and confide in you the
more ; but it did make me sorrowful. I was blameless;
it was therefore only a passing cloud empictured on the
breast. Surely had I written to you t\\Q first letter you
directed to me at Cambridge, I icould not have believed
that you could have received it without answering it.
Still less that you could have given a momentary pain to
her that loved you. If I could have imagined no
rational excuse for you, I would have peopled the vacancy
with events of impossibility !
On Wednesday, September 17,1 arrived at Cambridge.
Perhaps the very hour you were writing in the severity of
offended friendship, was I pouring forth the heart to
Sarah Fricker. I did not call on Caldwell; I saw no one.
On the moment of my arrival I shut my door, and wrote
to her. But why not before ?
In the first place Miss F. did not authorize me to
direct immediately to her. It was settled that through
you in our weekly parcels were the letters to be conveyed.
The moment I arrived at Cambridge, and all yesterday,
wras I writing letters to you, to your mother, to Lovell,
etc., to complete a parcel.
In London I wrote twice to you, intending daily to go
to Cambridge ; of course I deferred the parcel till then.
I was taken ill, very ill. I exhausted my finances, and
ill as I was, I sat down and scrawled a few guineas' worth
of nonsense for the booksellers, which Dyer disposed of
for me. Languid, sick at heart, in the back room of an
inn I Lofty conjunction of circumstances for me to write
1794]
TO ROBERT SOUTIIEY
85
to Miss F. Besides, I told lier I should write the moment
I arrived at Cambridge. I have fulfilled the promise.
Recollect, Southey, that when you mean to go to a place
to-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, the time that
intervenes is lost. Had I meant at first to stay in Lon¬
don, a fortnight should not have elapsed without my
writing to her. If you are satisfied, tell Miss F. that
you are so, but assign no reasons — I ought not to have
been suspected.
The tragedy 1 will be printed in less than a week. I
shall put my name, because it will sell at least a hundred
copies in Cambridge. It would appear ridiculous to put
two names to such a work. But, if you choose it, mention
it and it shall be done. To every man who praises it, of
course I give the true biography of it; to those who
laugh at it, I laugh again, and I am too well known at
Cambridge to be thought the less of, even though I had
published James Jennings' Satire.
Southey ! Precipitance is wrong. There may be too
high a state of health, perhaps even virtue is liable to a
plethora. I have been the slave of impulse, the child
of imbecility. But my inconsistencies have given me a
tarditude and reluctance to think ill of any one. Having
been often suspected of wrong when I was altogether
right, from fellow-feeling I judge not too hastily, and
from appearances. Your undeviating simplicity of recti¬
tude has made you rapid in decision. Having never
erred, you feel more indignation at error than pity for it.
There is phlogiston in your heart. Yet am I grateful
for it. You would not have written so angrily but for
the greatness of your esteem and affection. The more
highly we have been wont to think of a character, the
1 " A tragedy, of which the first in the text of "An Address on the
act was written by S. T. Coleridge." Present War.1' Condones ad Popu-
ISee footnote to quotation from The lum, 1705, p. GO.
Fall of Robespierre," which occurs
86
STUDENT LIFE
[Oct.
more pain and irritation we suffer from the discovery of
its imperfections. My heart is very heavy, much more
so than when I began to write.
Yours most fraternally.
S. T. Coleridge.
xxxvi. to the same.
Friday night, September 2G, 1794.
My dear, dear Soutiiey, — I am beyond measure
distressed and agitated by your letter to Favell. On the
evening of the Wednesday before last, I arrived in Cam¬
bridge ; that night and the next day I dedicated to
writing to you, to Miss F., etc. On the Friday I received
your letter of phlogistic rebuke. I answered it immedi¬
ately, wrote a second letter to Miss F., inclosed them in
the aforesaid parcel, and sent them off by the mail directed
to Mrs. Southey, No. 8 Westcott Buildings, Bath. They
should have arrived on Sunday morning. Perhaps you
have not heard from Bath; perhaps — damn perhapses!
My God, my God! what a deal of pain you must have
suffered before you wrote that letter to Favell. It is an
Ipswich Fair time, and the Norwich company ai\e theat¬
ricalizing. They are the first provincial actors in the
kingdom. Much against my will, I am engaged to drink
tea and go to the play with Miss Brunton1 (Mrs. Merry's
1 One of six sisters, daughters of
John Brunton of Norwich. Eliza¬
beth, the eldest of the family, was
married in 1791 to Ilobert Merry
the dramatist, the founder of the
so-called Delia Cruscan school of
poetry. Louisa Brunton, the young¬
est sister, afterwards Countess of
Craven, made her first appearance at
Covent Garden Theatre on October
5, 1803, and at most could not have
been more than twelve or thirteen
years of age in the autumn of 1794.
Coleridge's Miss Brunton, to whom
he sent a poem on the French Revo¬
lution, that is, " The Fall of Robes¬
pierre," must have been an inter¬
mediate sister less known to fame.
It is curious to note that " The Right
Hon. Lady Craven" was a subscrib¬
er to the original issue of The Friend
in 1809. National Dictionary of
Biography, articles "Craven" and
" Merry." Letters of the Lake Poets,
1885, p. 455.
1794]
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
87
sister). The young lady, and indeed the whole family,
have taken it into their heads to be very much attached
to me, though I have known them only six days. The
father (who is the manager and proprietor of the theatre)
inclosed in a very polite note a free ticket for the season.
The young lady is said to be the most literary of the
beautiful, and the most beautiful of the literata;. It may
be so; my faculties and discernments are so completely
jaundiced by vexation that the Virgin Mary and Mary
Flanders, alias Moll, would appear in the same hues.
All last night, I was obliged to listen to the damned
chatter of our mayor, a fellow that would certainly be a
pantisocrat, were his head and heart as highly illuminated
as his face. At present he is a High Churchman, and a
Pittite, and is guilty (with a very large fortune) of so
many rascalities in his public character, that he is obliged
to drink three bottles of claret a day in order to acquire
a stationary rubor, and prevent him from the trouble of
running backwards and forwards for a blush once every
five minutes. In the tropical latitudes of this fellow's
nose was I obliged to fry. I wish you would write a
lampoon upon him — in me it would be unchristian re¬
venge.
Our tragedy is printed, all but the title-page. It will
be complete by Saturday night.
God love you. I am in the queerest humour in the
world, and am out of love with everybody.
S. T. COLEKIDGE.
XXXVII. TO THE SAME.
October 21, 1704.
To you alone, Southey, I write the first part of this
letter. To yourself confine it.
" Is this handwriting altogether erased from your
memory ? To whom am I addressing myself ? For
whom am I now violating the rules of female delicacy ?
88
STUDENT LIFE
[Oct.
Is it for tlie same Coleridge, whom I once regarded as a
sister her best-beloved Brother? Or for one who will
ridicule that advice from me, which he has rejected as
offered by his family ? I will hazard the attempt. I
have 110 right, nor do I feel myself inclined to reproach
you for the Past. God forbid ! You have already suf¬
fered too much from self-accusation. But I conjure you,
Coleridge, earnestly and solemnly conjure you to consider
long and deeply, before you enter into any rash schemes.
There is an Eagerness in your Nature, which is ever hurry¬
ing- you in the sad Extreme. I have heard that you mean
to leave England, and 011 a Plan so absurd and extrava¬
gant that were I for a moment to imagine it true, I should
be obliged to listen with a more patient Ear to sugges¬
tions, which I have rejected a thousand times with scorn
and anger. Yes! whatever Pain I might suffer, I should
be forced to exclaim, ' O what a noble mind is here o'er-
thrown, Blasted with ecstacy.' You have a country, does
it demand nothing of you? You have doting Friends!
Will you break their Hearts ! There is a God — Cole¬
ridge ! Though I have been told (indeed I do not believe
it) that you doubt of his existence and disbelieve a here¬
after. No ! you have too much sensibility to be an Infidel.
You know I never was rigid in my opinions concerning
Religion — and have always thought Faith to be only
Reason applied to a particular subject. In short, I am
the same Being as when you used to say, ' We thought
in all things alike.' I often reflect 011 the happy hours
we spent together and regret the Loss of your Society. I
cannot easily forget those whom I once loved — nor can
I easily form new Friendships. I find women in general
vain — all of the same Trifle, and therefore little and
envious, and (I am afraid) without sincerity ; and of the
other sex those who are offered and held up to my esteem
are very prudent, and very worldly. If you value my
peace of mind, you must on no account answer this let-
1794]
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
89
ter, or take the least notice of it. I would not for the
world any part of my Family should suspect that I have
written to you. My mind is sadly tempered by being
perpetually obliged to resist the solicitations of those
whom I love. I need not explain myself. Farewell,
Coleridge ! I shall always feel that I have been your
Sister"
No name was signed, — it was from Mary Evans. I
received it about three weeks ago. I loved her, Southey,
almost to madness. Her image was never absent from
me for three years, for more than three years. My reso¬
lution has not faltered, but I want a comforter. I have
done nothing, I have gone into company, I was constantly
at the theatre here till they left us, I endeavoured to be
perpetually with Miss Brunton, I even hoped that her
exquisite beauty and uncommon accomplishments might
have cured one passion by another. The latter I could
easily have dissipated in her absence, and so have restored
my affections to her whom I do not love, but whom by
every tie of reason and honour I ought to love. I am
resolved, but wretched! But time shall do much. You
will easily believe that with such feelings I should have
found it no easy task to write to . I should have de¬
tested myself, if after my first letter I had written coldly
— how could I write as warmly? I was vexed too and
alarmed by your letter concerning Mr. and Mrs. Roberts,
Shad, and little Sally. I was wrong, very wrong, in the
affair of Shad, and have given you reason to suppose that
I should assent to the innovation. I will most assuredly go
with you to America, 011 this plan, but remember, Southey,
this is not our plan, nor can I defend it. " Shad's chil¬
dren will be educated as ours, and the education we shall
give them will be such as to render them incapable of
blushing at the want of it in their parents " — Perhaps !
With this one word would every Lilliputian reasoner de¬
molish the system. Wherever men can be vicious, some
90
STUDENT LIFE
[Oct.
will be. The leading idea of pantisocracy is to make men
necessarily virtuous by removing all motives to evil — all
possible temptation. " Let tliem dine with us and be
treated with as much equality as they would wish, but per¬
form that part of labour for which their education has
fitted them." Sou they should not have written this sen¬
tence. My friend, my noble and liigh-souled friend should
have said to his dependents, " Be my slaves, and ye shall
be my equals ; " to his wife and sister, " Resign the name
of Ladyship and ye shall retain the thing." Again. Is
every family to possess one of these unequal equals,
these Helot Egalites? Or are the few you have men¬
tioned, " with more toil than the peasantry of England
undergo," to do for all of us " that part of labour which
their education has fitted them for " ? If your remarks
011 the other side are just, the inference is that the scheme
of pantisocracy is impracticable, but I hope and believe
that it is not a necessary inference. Your remark of the
physical evil in the long infancy of men would indeed
puzzle a Pangloss — puzzle him to account for the wish
of a benevolent heart like yours to discover malignancy
in its Creator. Surely every eye but an eye jaundiced
by habit of peevish scepticism must have seen that the
mothers' cares are repaid even to rapture by the mothers'
endearments, and that the long helplessness of the babe
is the means of our superiority in the filial and maternal
affection and duties to the same feelings in the brute crea¬
tion. It is likewise among other causes the means of
society, that thing which makes them a little lower than
the angels. If Mrs. S. and Mrs. F. go with us, they can
at least prepare the food of simplicity for us. Let the
married women do only what is absolutely convenient
and customary for pregnant women or nurses. Let the
husband do all the rest, and what will that all be ? Wash¬
ing with a machine and cleaning the house. One hour's
addition to our daily labor, and pantisocracy in its most
1794]
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
91
perfect sense is practicable. That the greater part of our
female companions should have the task of maternal ex¬
ertion at the same time is very improbable; but, though
it were to happen, an infant is almost always sleeping,
and during its slumbers the mother may in the same room
perform the little offices of ironing clothes or making
shirts. But the hearts of the women are not all with us.
I do believe that Edith and Sarah are exceptions, but do
even they know the bill of fare for the day, every duty
that will be incumbent upon them?
All necessary knowledge in the branch of ethics is
comprised in the word justice : that the good of the whole
is the good of each individual, that, of course, it is each
individual's duty to be just, because it is his interest. To
perceive this and to assent to it as an abstract proposition
is easy, but it requires the most wakeful attentions of the
most reflective mind in all moments to bring it into prac¬
tice. It is not enough that we have once swallowed it.
The h eart should have fed upon the truth, as insects 011 a
leaf, till it be tinged with the colour, and show its food in
every the minutest fibre. In the book of pantisocracy I
hope to have comprised all that is good in Godwin, of
whom and of whose book I will write more fully in my
next letter (I think not so highly of him as you do, and I
have read him with the greatest attention). This will
be an advantage to the minds of our women.
What have been your feelings concerning the War with
America, which is now inevitable ? To go from Ham¬
burg will not only be a heavy additional expense, but
dangerous and uncertain, as nations at war are in the
habit of examining neutral vessels to prevent the impor¬
tation of arms and seize subjects of the hostile govern¬
ments. It is said that one cause of the ministers having
been so cool 011 the business is that it will prevent emi¬
gration, which it seems would be treasonable to a hostile
country. Tell me all you think on these subjects. What
92
STUDENT LIFE
[Oct.
think you of the difference in the prices of land as stated
by Cowper from those given by the American agents?
By all means read, ponder on Cowper, and when I hear
your thoughts I will give you the result of my own.
Thou bleedest, my poor Heart! and thy distress
Doth Reason ponder with an anguished smile,
Probing thy sore wound sternly, tho' the while
Her eye be swollen and dim with heaviness.
Why didst thou listen to Hope's whisper bland ?
Or, listening, why forget its healing tale,
When Jealousy with feverish fancies pale
Jarr'd thy fine fibres with a maniac's hand P
Faint was that Hope, and rayless. Yet't was fair
And sooth'd with many a dream the hour of rest:
Thou should'st have loved it most, when most opprest,
And nursed it with an agony of care,
E'en as a mother her sweet infant heir
That pale and sickly droops upon her breast! 1
When a man is unhappy he writes damned bad poetry, I
find. My Imitations too depress my spirits — the task is
arduous, and grows upon me. Instead of two octavo vol¬
umes, to do all I hoped to do two quartos would hardly
be sufficient.
Of your poetry I will send you a minute critique, when
I send you my proposed alterations. The sonnets are ex¬
quisite.2 Banquo is not what it deserves to be. Towards
the end it grows very flat, wants variety of imagery —
you dwell too long on Mary, yet have made less of her
than I expected. The other figures are not sufficiently
distinct; indeed, the plan of the ode (after the first forty
lines which are most truly sublime) is so evident an imi¬
tation of Gray's Descent of Odin, that I would rather
1 This sonnet, afterwards headed, Poetical JJ'or&s, p. 34. See, too, Ed-
" On a Discovery made too late," was itor's Note, p. 571.
"first printed in Poems, 1796, as 2 "The Race of Banquo." Sou-
Effusion XIX., hut in the Contents they's Poetical Works, 1837, ii. 155.
it was called, 1 To my own Heart.' "
1794]
TO ROBERT SOUTIIEY
93
adopt Shakespeare's mode of introducing tlie figures them¬
selves, and making the description now the Witches' and
now Fleance's. I detest monodramas, but I never wished
to establish my judgment 011 the throne of critical despot¬
ism. Send me up the Elegy on the Exiled Patriots and
the Scripture Sonnets. I have promised them to Flower.1
The first will do good, and more good in a paper than in
any other vehicle.
My thoughts are floating about in a most chaotic state.
I had almost determined to go down to Bath, and stay
two days, that I might say everything I wished. You
mean to acquaint your aunt with the scheme ? As she
knows it, and knows that you know that she knows it,
justice cannot require it, but if your own comfort makes
it necessary, by all means do it, with all possible gentle¬
ness. She has loved you tenderly; be firm, therefore, as
a rock, mild as the lamb. I sent a hundred " Robes-
pierres " to Bath ten days ago and more.
Five hundred copies of " Robespierre " were printed. A
hundred [went] to Bath ; a hundred to Kearsley, in Lon¬
don ; twenty-five to March, at Norwich; thirty I have sold
privately (twenty-five of these thirty to Dyer, who found
it inconvenient to take fifty). The rest are dispersed
among the Cambridge booksellers ; the delicacies of aca¬
demic gentlemanship prevented me from disposing of more
than the five propria persona. Of course we only get
ninepence for each copy from the booksellers. I expected
that Mr. Field would have sent for fifty, but have heard
nothing of it. I sent a copy to him, with my respects,
and have made presents of six more. IIow they sell in
London, I know not. All that are in Cambridge will
sell—a great many are sold. I have been blamed for
publishing it, considering the more important work I have
offered to the public. N'importe. 'T is thought a very
aristocratic performance; you may suppose how liyper-
1 The Editor of the Cambridge Intelligencer.
94
STUDENT LIFE
[Nov.
democratic my character must liave been. The expenses
of paper, printing, and advertisements are nearly nine
pounds. We ought to have charged one shilling and six¬
pence a copy.
I presented a copy to Miss Brunton with these verses
in the blank leaf :1 —
Much on my early youth I love to dwell,
Ere yet I hade that guardian dome farewell,
Where first beneath the echoing cloisters pale,
I heard of guilt and wondered at the tale !
Yet though the hours flew by on careless wing
Full heavily of Sorrow would I sing.
Aye, as the star of evening flung its beam
In broken radiance on the wavy stream,
My pensive soul amid the tivilight gloom
Mourned with the breeze, 0 Lee Boo! o'er thy tomb.
Whene'er I wander'd, Pity still was near,
Breath'd from the heart, and glitter'd in the tear :
No knell, that toll'd, but fill'd my anguish'd eye,
" And suffering Nature wept that one should die ! "
Thus to sad sympathies I sooth'd my breast,
Calm as the rainbow in the weeping West:
When slumb'ring Freedom rous'd by high Disdain
With giant fury burst her triple chain!
Fierce on her front the blasting Dog star glow'd;
Her banners, like a midnight meteor, flow'd ;
Amid the yelling of the storm-rent skies
She came, and scatter'd battles from her eyes!
Then Exultation woke the patriot fire
And swept with wilder hand tlx' empassioned lyre;
Red from the Tyrants' wounds I shook the lance,
And strode in joy the reeking plains of France!
In ghastly horror lie tli' oppressors low,
And my Heart akes tlio' Mercy struck the blow!
With wearied thought I seek the amaranth Shade
1 " To a Young Lady, with a Poem on the French Revolution." Poet¬
ical Works, p. 6.
1794]
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
95
Where peaceful Virtue weaves her myrtle braid.
And 0! if Eyes, whose holy glances roll
The eloquent Messengers of the pure soul;
If Smiles more cunning and a gentler Mien,
Than the love-wilder'd Maniac's brain hath seen
Shaping celestial forms in vacant air,
If these demand the wond'ring Poets' care —
If Mirth and soften'd Sense, and Wit refin'd,
The blameless features of a lovely mind;
Then haply shall my trembling hand assign
No fading flowers to Beauty's saintly shrine.
Nor, Brunton! thou the blushing Wreath refuse,
Though harsh her notes, yet guileless is my Muse.
Unwont at Flattery's Voice to plume her wings.
A child of Nature, as she feels, she sings.
S. T. C.
Jes. Coll., Cambridge.
Till I dated tliis letter I never recollected tliat yesterday-
was my birthday — twenty-two years old.
I have heard from my brothers — from him particularly
wlio has been friend, brother, father. 'T was all remon¬
strance and anguish, and suggestions that I am deranged!
Let me receive from you a letter of consolation; for,
believe me, I am completely wretched.
Yours most affectionately,
S. T. Coleridge.
xxxviii. to robert southey.
November, 1794.
My feeble and exhausted heart regards with a criminal
indifference the introduction of servitude into our society;
but my judgment is not asleep, nor can I suffer your rea¬
son, Southey, to be entangled in the web which your feel¬
ings have woven. Oxen and horses possess not intellec¬
tual appetites, nor the powers of acquiring them. We are
therefore justified in employing their labour to our own
benefit: mind hath a divine right of sovereignty over body.
96
STUDENT LIFE
[Nov.
But wlio shall dare to transfer " from man to brute " to
" from man to man " ? To be employed in the toil of the
field, while we are pursuing philosophical studies — can
earldoms or emperorships boast so huge an inequality ? Is
there a human being of so torpid a nature as that placed
in our society he would not feel it ? A willing slave is
the worst of slaves! His soul is a slave. Besides, I must
own myself incapable of perceiving even the temporary
convenience of the proposed innovation. The men do not
want assistance, at least none that Shad can particularly
give; and to the women, what assistance can little Sally,
the wife of Shad, give more than any other of our married
women ? Is she to have no domestic cares of her own ?
No house? No husband to provide for? No children?
Because Mr. and Mrs. Roberts are not likely to have
children, I see less objection to their accompanying us.
Indeed, indeed, Southey, I am fearful that Lusliington's
prophecy may not be altogether vain. "Your system,
Coleridge, appears strong to the head and lovely to the
heart; but depend upon it, you will never give your women
sufficient strength of mind, liberality of heart, or vigilance
of attention. They will spoil it."
I am extremely unwell; have run a nail into my heel,
and before me stand " Embrocation for the throbbing of
the head," " To be shaked up well that the ether may
mix," " A wineglass full to be taken when faint." 'Sdeath!
how I hate the labels of apothecary's bottles. Ill as I
am, I must go out to supper. Farewell for a few hours.
'T is past one o'clock in the morning. I sat down at
twelve o'clock to read the "Robbers" of Schiller.1 I had
read, chill and trembling, when I came to the part where
the Moor fixes a pistol over the robbers who are asleep.
I could read no more. My God, Southey, who is this
Schiller, this convulser of the heart? Did he write his
tragedy amid the yelling of fiends ? I should not like to be
1 Compare " Sonnet to the Author of The Robbers." Poetical Works,
p. 34.
1794]
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
97
able to describe such characters. I tremble like an aspen
leaf. Upon my soul, I write to you because I am fright¬
ened. I had better go to bed. Why have we ever called
Milton sublime ? that Count de Moor horrible wielder
of heart-withering virtues? Satan is scarcely qualified to
attend his execution as gallows chaplain.
Tuesday morning. — I have received your letter. Pot¬
ter of Emanuel1 drives me up to town in his phaeton on
Saturday morning. I hope to be with you by Wednesday
week. Potter is a " Son of Soul " — a poet of liberal sen¬
timents in politics — yet (would you believe it ?) possesses
six thousand a year independent.
I feel grateful to you for your sympathy. There is a
feverish distemperature of brain, during which some hor¬
rible phantom threatens our eyes in every corner, until,
emboldened by terror, we rush on it, and then — why then
we return, the heart indignant at its own palpitation!
Even so will the greater part of our mental miseries van¬
ish before an effort. Whatever of mind we will to do, we
can do ! What, then, palsies the will ? The joy of grief.
A mysterious pleasure broods with dusky wings over the
tumultuous mind, " and the Spirit of God moveth on the
darkness of the waters." She teas very lovely, Soutliey!
Wre formed each other's minds; our ideas were blended.
Heaven bless her ! I cannot forget her. Every day her
memory sinks deeper into my heart.
1 The date of this letter is fixed to Mary Evans, which must have
by that of Thursday, November 6, been written a day or two later, he
to George Coleridge. Both letters says, " I return to Cambridge to-
speak of a journey to town with Pot- morrow." From the date of the let¬
ter of Emanuel, but in writing to his ter to George Coleridge of Novem-
brother he says nothing of a pro- ber 0 to December 11 there is a
jected visit to Bath. There is no break in the correspondence with
hint in either letter that he had Soutliey, but from a statement in
made up his mind to leave the Uni- Letter XLIII. it appears plain that
versity for good and all. In a letter a visit was paid to the West in De-
to Soutliey dated December 17, he cember, 17D4. But whether he re-
says that " they are making a row turned to Cambridge November 8,
about bim at Jesus," and in a letter and for how long, is uncertain.
98
STUDENT LIFE
[Nov.
Nutrito vulnere tabens
Impatiensque mei feror imdique, solus et excors,
Et desideriis pascor!
I wish, Soutliey, in tlie stern severity of judgment, that
the two mothers were not to go, and that the children
stayed with them. Are you wounded by my want of feel¬
ing? No ! how highly must I think of your rectitude of
soul, that I should dare to say this to so affectionate a son !
That Mrs. Fricker! We shall have her teaching the in¬
fants Christianity, — I mean, that mongrel whelp that
goes under its name, — teaching them by stealth in some
ague fit of superstition.
There is little danger of my being confined. Advice
offered with respect from a brother; affected coldness, an
assumed alienation mixed with involuntary bursts of an¬
guish and disappointed affection; questions concerning
the mode in which I would have it mentioned to my aged
mother — these are the daggers which are plunged into
my peace. Enough! I should rather be offering conso¬
lation to your sorrows than be wasting my feelings in ego¬
tistic complaints. " Verily my complaint is bitter, yet my
stroke is heavier than my groaning."
God love you, my dear Soutliey!
S. T. Coleridge.
A friend of mine hath lately departed this life in a
frenzy fever induced by anxiety. Poor fellow, a child
of frailty like me! Yet he was amiable. I poured forth
these incondite lines1 in a moment of melancholy dissatis¬
faction : —
! thy grave with aching eye I scan,
And inly groan for Heaven's poor outcast — Man !
'T is tempest all, or gloom ! In earliest youth
1 "Lines on a Friend who died poem was sent on November 6 to
of a Frenzy Fever," etc. Poetical George Coleridge.
Works, p. 35. A copy of the same
1794]
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
99
If gifted with th' Ithuriel lance of Truth
He force to start amid the feign'd caress
Yice, siren-hag, in native ugliness;
A brother's fate shall haply rouse the tear,
And on he goes in heaviness and fear !
But if his fond heart call to Pleasure's bower
Some pigmy Folly in a careless hour,
The faithless Guest quick stamps th' enchanted ground,
And mingled forms of Misery threaten round:
Heart-fretting Fear, with pallid look aghast,
That courts the future woe to hide the past;
Remorse, the poison'd arrow in his side,
And loud lewd Mirth to Anguish close allied;
Till Frenzy, frantic child of moping Pain,
Darts her hot lightning-flash athwart the brain !
Rest, injur'd Shade! shall Slander, squatting near,
Spit her cold venom in a dead man's ear ?
'T was thine to feel the sympathetic glow
In Merit's joy and Poverty's meek woe :
Thine all that cheer the moment as it flies,
The zoneless Cares and smiling Courtesies.
Nurs'd in thy heart the generous Virtues grew,
And in thy heart they wither'd! such chill dew
Wan Indolence on each young blossom shed ;
And Vanity her filmy network spread,
With eye that prowl'd around in asking gaze,
And tongue that trafficked in the trade of praise !
Thy follies such the hard world mark'd them well.
Were they more wise, the proud who never fell?
Rest, injur'd Shade ! the poor man's grateful prayer,
On heavenward wing, thy wounded soul shall bear!
As oft in Fancy's thought thy grave I pass,
And sit me down upon its recent grass,
With introverted eye I contemplate
Similitude of soul — perhaps of fate !
To me hath Heaven with liberal hand assign'd
Energic reason and a shaping mind,
100
STUDENT LIFE
[Nov.
The daring soul of Truth, the patriot's part,
And Pity's sigh, that breathes the gentle heart —
Slotli-jaundiced all ! and from my graspless hand
Drop Friendship's precious pearls, like hour-glass sand.
I weep, yet stoop not! the faint anguish flows,
A dreamy pang in Morning's fev'rish doze!
Is that pil'd earth our Being's passless mound ?
Tell me, cold Grave ! is Death with poppies crown'd ?
Tir'd Sentinel! with fitful starts I nod,
And fain would sleep, though pillow'd on a clod !
SONG.
When Youth his fairy reign began 1
Ere Sorrow had proclaim'd me Man ;
While Peace the present hour beguil'd,
And all the lovely Prospect smil'd ;
Then, Mary, mid my lightsome glee
I lieav'd the painless Sigh for thee !
And when, along the wilds of woe
My harass'd Heart was doom'd to know
The frantic burst of Outrage keen,
And the slow Pang that gnaws unseen;
Then sliipwreck'd on Life's stormy sea
I heav'd an "anguish'd Sigh for thee !
But soon Reflection's hand imprest
A stiller sadness on my breast;
And sickly Hope with waning eye
Was well content to droop and die :
I yielded to the stern decree,
Yet heav'd the languid Sigh for thee!
And though in distant climes to roam,
A wanderer from my native home,
I fain would woo a gentle Fair
1 " The Sigh." Poetical Works, p. 29.
1794]
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
101
To soothe the aching sense of care,
Thy Image may not banish'd be —
Still, Mary! still I sigh for thee!
S. T. C.
God love you.
XXXIX. TO THE SAME.
Autumn, 1794.
Last night, dear Soutliey, I received a special invitation
from Dr. Edwards 1 (the great Grecian of Cambridge and
heterodox divine) to drink tea and spend the evening. I
there met a councillor whose name is Lusliington, a dem¬
ocrat, and a man of the most powerful and Briarean intel¬
lect. I was challenged on the subject of pantisocracy,
which is, indeed, the universal tonic at the University. A
discussion began and continued for six hours. In conclu¬
sion, Lusliington and Edwards declared the system im¬
pregnable, supposing the assigned quantum of virtue and
genius in the first individuals. I came home at one o'clock
this morning in the honest consciousness of having exhib¬
ited closer argument in more elegant and appropriate lan¬
guage than I had ever conceived myself capable of. Then
my heart smote me, for I saw your letter on the propriety
of taking servants with us. I had answered that letter,
and feel conviction that you will perceive the error into
which the tenderness of your nature had led you. But
other queries obtruded themselves on my understanding.
The more perfect our system is, supposing the necessary
premises, the more eager in anxiety am I that the neces¬
sary premises exist. O for that Lyncean eye that can dis¬
cover in the acorn of Error the rooted and widely spread¬
ing oak of Misery ! Quaere : should not all who mean to
1 Probably Thomas Edwards, on the Limits and Importance of Free
LL. I)., a Fellow of Jesus College, Inquiry in Matters of Religion."
Cambridge, editor of Plutarch, J)e 1792. Natural Dictionary of Bio-
Educatione Libcrorum, with notes, graphy, xvii. 130.
1791, and author of " A Discourse
102
STUDENT LIFE
[Nov.
become members of our community be incessantly melior¬
ating tlieir temper and elevating tlieir understandings ?
Qu.: whether a very respectable quantity of acquired
knowledge (History, Politics, above all, Metaphysics, with¬
out which 110 man can reason but with women and chil¬
dren) be not a prerequisite to the improvement of the head
and heart ? Qu.: whether our Women have not been
taught by us habitually to contemplate the littleness of
individual comforts and a passion for the novelty of the
scheme rather than a generous enthusiasm of Benevolence ?
Are they saturated with the Divinity of Truth sufficiently
to be always wakeful ? In the present state of their minds,
whether it is not probable that the Mothers will tinge the
minds of the infants with prejudication ? The questions
are meant merely as motives to you, Southey, to the
strengthening the minds of the Women, and stimulating
them to literary acquirements. But, Southey, there are
Children going with us. Why did I never dare in my
disputations with the unconvinced to hint at this circum¬
stance ? Was it not because I knew, even to certainty of
conviction, that it is subversive of rational hopes of a per¬
manent system ? These children, — the little Flickers, for
instance, and your brothers, — are they not already deeply
tinged with the prejudices and errors of society ? Have
they not learned from their schoolfellowsand Self¬
ishness, of which the necessary offsprings are Deceit and
desultory Hatred ? IIow are we to prevent them from in¬
fecting the minds of our children ? By reforming their
judgments? At so early an age, can they have felt the
ill consequences of their errors in a manner sufficiently
vivid to make this reformation practicable ? IIow can we
insure their silence concerning God, etc.? Is it possible
they should enter into our motives for this silence ? If not,
we must produce their Obedience by Terror. Obedience ?
Terror ? The repetition is sufficient. I need not inform
you that they are as inadequate as inapplicable. I have told
1794]
TO GEORGE COLERIDGE
103
you, Southey, tliat I will accompany you on an imperfect
system. But must our system be tlms necessarily imper¬
fect ? I ask the question that I may know whether or not
I should write the Book of Pantisocracy.
I received your letter of Oyez; it brought a smile on a
countenance that for these three weeks has been cloudy
and stern in its solitary hours. In company, wit and
laughter are Duties. Slovenly ? I could mention a lady
of fashionable rank, and most fashionable ideas, who de¬
clared to Caldwell that I (S. T. Coleridge) was a man of
the most courtly and polished manners, of the most gen¬
tlemanly address she had ever met with. But I will hot
croio ! Slovenly, indeed!
xl. to the rev. george coleridge.
Thursday, November G, 1194.
My dear Brother, — Your letter of this morning
gave me inexpressible consolation. I thought that I
perceived in your last the cold and freezing features of
alienated affection. Surely, said I, I have trifled with
the spirit of love, and it has passed away from me!
There is a vice of such powerful venom, that one grain of
it will poison the overflowing goblet of a thousand virtues.
This vice constitution seems to have implanted in me, and
habit has made it almost Omnipotent. It is indolence 11
Hence, whatever web of friendship my presence may have
woven, my absence has seldom failed to unravel. Anxie¬
ties that stimulate others infuse an additional narcotic
into my mind. The appeal of duty to my judgment, and
the pleadings of affection at my heart, have been heard
indeed, and heard with deep regard. Ah ! that they had
1 Compare " Lines on a Friend,"
... ■ , ,r , „ Sloth-jaundiced all ! and from my grasp-
etc., wlncli accompanied this letter. J
To me hath Heaven with liberal hand VvoV Friendship's precious pearls, like
. hour-glass sand,
assigned 6 .
Energic reason and a shaping mind, J- oetical M orks, p. •->•>.
104
STUDENT LIFE
[Nov.
been as constantly obeyed. But so it lias been. Like
some poor labourer, whose night's sleep has but imperfectly
refreshed his overwearied frame, I have sate in drowsy
uneasiness, and doing nothing have thought what a deal
I had to do. But I trust that the kingdom of reason is
at hand, and even now cometli!
IIow often and how unkindly are the ebullitions of
youthful disputations mistaken for the result of fixed
principles. People have resolved that I am a democrat,
and accordingly look at everything I do through the
spectacles of prejudication. In the feverish distempera-
ture of a bigoted aristocrat's brain, some phantom of
Democracy threatens him in every corner of my writings.
And Hebert's atheist crew, whose maddening hand
Hurl'd down the altars of the living God
With all the infidel intolerance.1
" Are these lines in character," observed a sensible
friend of mine, " in a speech 011 the death of the man
whom it just became the fashion to style ' The ambitious
Theocrat' ? " " I fear not" wras my answer, " I gave way
to my feelings." The first speech of Adelaide,2 whose
Automaton is this character ? Who spoke through Le
Gendre's mouth,3 when he says, " Oh, what a precious
name is Liberty To scare or cheat the simple into
slaves " ? But in several parts I have, it seems, in the
strongest language boasted the impossibility of subdu¬
ing France. Is not this sentiment highly characteristic ?
Is it forced into the mouths of the speakers ? Could I
1 The lines occur in Barr&re's
speech, which concludes the third
act of the "Fall of Robespierre."
Poetical Works, p. i!25.
2 " Fall of Robespierre," Act I.
1. 198.
O this new freedom ! at liow dear a price
We 've bought the seeming good ! The
peaceful virtues
And every blandishment of private life,
The father's care, the mother's fond en¬
dearment
All sacrificed to Liberty's wild riot.
Poetical Works, p. 215.
3 See " Fall of Robespierre," Act
I. 1. 40. Poetical Works, p. 212.
1794]
TO GEORGE COLERIDGE
105
have even omitted it without evident absurdity ? But,
granted that it is my own opinion, is it an anti-pacific one?
I should have classed it among the anti-polemics. Again,
are cdl who entertain and express this opinion democrats?
God forbid ! They would be a formidable party indeed!
I know many violent anti-reformists, who are as violent
against the war on the ground that it may introduce that
reform, which they (perhaps not unwisely) imagine would
chant the dirge of our constitution. Solemnly, my brother,
I tell you, I am not a democrat. I see, evidently, that the
present is not the highest state of society of which we are
capable. And after a diligent, I may say an intense, study
of Locke, Hartley, and others who have written most wisely
on the nature of man, I appear to myself to see the point
of possible perfection, at which the world may perhaps be
destined to arrive. But how to lead mankind from one
point to the other is a process of such infinite complex¬
ity, that in deep-felt humility I resign it to that Being
" Who shaketh the Earth out of her place, and the pillars
thereof tremble," " Who purifieth with Whirlwinds, and
maketh the Pestilence his Besom," Who hath said, " that
violence shall 110 more be heard of ; the people shall not
build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and
another eat; " " the wolf and the lamb shall feed together."
I have been asked what is the best conceivable mode of
meliorating society. My answer has been this : " Slavery
is an abomination to my feeling of the head and the heart.
Did Jesus teach the abolition of it? No! lie taught
those principles of which the necessary effect was to
abolish all slavery. He prepared the mind for the recep¬
tion before he poured the blessing." You ask me what
the friend of universal equality should do. I answer :
"Talk not politics. Preach the Gospel ! "
Yea, my brother! I have at all times in all places ex¬
erted my power in the defence of the Holy One of Nazareth
against the learning of the historian, the libertinism of
O °
106
STUDENT LIFE
[Dec.
tlie wit, and (liis worst enemy) the mystery of the bigot!
But I am an infidel, because I cannot thrust my head
into a mud gutter, and say, "How deep I am !" And
I am a democrat, because I will not join in the male¬
dictions of the despotist — because I will bless edl men
and curse no one ! I have been a fool even to madness ;
and I am, therefore, an excellent hit for calumny to aim
her poisoned probabilities at! As the poor flutterer,
who by hard struggling has escaped from the bird-limed
tliornbush, still bears the clammy incumbrance on his feet
and wings, so I am doomed to carry about with me the
sad mementos of past imprudence and anguish from
which I have been imperfectly released.
Mr. Potter of Emanuel drives me up to town in his
phaeton, 011 Saturday morning. Of course I shall see you
on Sunday. Poor Smerdon! the reports concerning his
literary plagiarism (as far as concerns my assistance) are
falsehoods. I have felt much for him, and on the morn¬
ing I received your letter I poured forth these incondite
rhymes. Of course they are meant for a brother's eye.
Smerdon! tliy grave with aching eye I scan, etc.1
God love you, dear brother, and your affectionate and
grateful
S. T. Coleridge.
xli. to robert southey.
December 11, 1794.
My dear Southey, — I sit down to write to you, not
that I have anything particular to say, but it is a relief,
and forms a very respectable part in my theory of " Es¬
capes from the Folly of Melancholy." I am so habituated
to philosophizing that I cannot divest myself of it, even
when my own wretchedness is the subject. I appear to
1 For full text of tlie " Lines on ver," See Letter XXXVIII, See,
a Friend who died of a Frenzy Fe- too, Poetical Works, p. 35.
1794]
TO 110BERT SOUTHEY
107
myself like a sick physician, feeling the pang acutely, yet
deriving a wonted pleasure from examining its progress
and developing its causes.
Your poems and Bowles' are my only morning com¬
panions. " The Retrospect! " 1 Quod qui non yv'orsus
amat et deperit, ilium omnes et virtutes et veneres odere !
It is a most lovely poem, and in the next edition of your
works shall be a perfect one. The " Ode to Romance " 2
1 Soutliey's Poetical Works, 1837,
ii. 263.
2 See Poems by Robert Lovell, and
Robert Soutliey of Balliol College.
Bath. Printed by A. Cruttwell, 1795,
p. 17. " Ode to Lycon," p. 77.
The last stanza runs thus : —
Wilt thou float careless down the stream
of time,
Iu sadness borne to dull oblivious shore,
Or shake off grief, and " build the lofty
rhyme,"
And live till time shall be no more ?
If thy light bark have met the storms,
If threatening cloud the sky deforms,
Let honest truth be vain ; look back on
me,
Have I been " sailing on a Summer sea " ?
Have only zephyrs fill'd my swelling sails,
As smooth the gentle vessel glides
along ?
Lycon ! I met unscar'd the wintry gales,
And sooth'dthe dangers with the song:
So shall the vessel sail sublime,
And reach the port of fame adown the
stream of time.
Bion" [i. e. R. S.].
Compare the following unpub¬
lished letter from Soutliey to Miss
Sarah Fricker: —
October IS, 1704.
" Amid the pelting- of the pitiless
stosm " did I, Robert Soutliey, the
Apostle of Pantisocracy, depart
from the city of Bristol, my natal
place — at the hour of five in a wet
windy evening on the 17th of October,
1794, wrapped up in my father's old
great coat and my own cogitations.
Like old Lear I did not call the ele¬
ments unkind, — and on I passed,
musing on the lamentable effects of
pride and prejudice — retracing all
the events of my past life — and
looking forward to the days to come
with pleasure.
Three miles from Bristol, an old
man of sixty, most royally drunk,
laid hold of my arm, and begged we
might join company, as he was
going to Bath. I consented, for he
wanted assistance, and dragged this
foul animal through the dirt, wind,
and rain ! . . .
Think of me, with a mind so
fully occupied, leading this man
nine miles, and had I not led him
he would have lain down under a
hedge and probably perished.
I reached not Bath till nine
o'clock, when the rain pelted me
most unmercifully in the face. I re¬
joiced that my friends at Bath knew
not where I was, and was once
vexed at thinking that you would
hear it drive against the window
and be sorry for the way-worn trav¬
eller. Here I am, well, and satisfied
with my own conduct. . . .
My clothes are arrived. " I will
never see his face again [writes Miss
108
STUDENT LIFE
[ Dec.
is the best of the odes. I dislike that to Lycon, except¬
ing' the last stanza, which is superlatively fine. The
phrase of "let honest truth be vain" is obscure. Of
your blank verse odes, " The Death of Mattatliias " 1 is by
far the best. That you should ever write another, Pul-
clier Apollo veta! Musca prohibete venustce ! They
are to poetry what dumb-bells are to music; they can be
read only for exercise, or to make a man tired that he
may be sleepy. The sonnets are wonderfully inferior to
those which I possess of yours, of which that "To Valen¬
tine"2 ("If long and lingering seem one little day The
motley crew of travellers among") ; that on " The Fire " 3
(not your last, a very so-so one) ; on " The Rainbow " 4
(particularly the four last lines), and two or three others,
are all divine and fully equal to Bowles. Some parts of
"Miss Rosamund " 5 are beautiful—the worhing scene,
and that line with which the poem ought to have con¬
cluded, "And think who lies so cold and pale below."
Of the " Pauper's Funeral," 6 that part in which you have
done me the honour to imitate me is by far the worst; the
Tyler], and, if he writes, will return
his letters unopened; " to comment
on this would he useless. I feel
that strong conviction of rectitude
which would make me smile 011 the
rack. . . . The crisis is over—thing's
are as they should he; my mother
vexes herself much, yet feels she is
right. Hostilities are commenced
with America! so we must go to
some neutral fort — Ilambro' or
Venice.
Your sister is well, and sends her
love to all; on AYednesday I hope
to see you. Till then farewell,
Robert Southey.
Bath, Sunday morning.
Compare, also, letter to Thomas
Southey, dated October 10, 1794.
Southey's Life and Correspondence,
i. 222.
1 Poems, 1795, p. 123.
2 See Southey's Poetical Works,
1837, ii. 91: —
" If heavily creep on one little day,
The medley crew of travellers among."
3 Poems, 1795, p. 67.
4 Poetical U'or£s, 1837, ii. 92.
5 " Rosamund to Henry ; written
after she had taken the veil."
Poems, 1795, p. 85.
6 Poetical Works, 1837, ii- 21G.
Southey appears to have accepted
Coleridge's emendations. The varia¬
tions between the text of the Pau¬
per's Funeral" and the editio pur-
gata of the letter are slight and
unimportant.
179-i]
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
109
thought has been so much better expressed by Gray. On
the whole (like many of yours), it wants compactness
and totality; the same thought is repeated too frequently
in different words. That all these faults may be reme¬
died by compression, my editio purguta of the poem
shall show you.
What! and not one to heave the pious sigh ?
Not one whose sorrow-swoln and aching eye,
For social scenes, for life's endearments fled,
Shall drop a tear and dwell upon the dead ?
Poor wretched Outcast! I will sigh for thee,
And sorrow for forlorn humanity !
Yes, I will sigh! hut not that thou art come
To the stern Sabbath of the silent tomb :
For squalid Want and the black scorpion Care,
(Heart-withering fiends) shall never enter there.
I sorrow for the ills thy life has known,
As through the world's long pilgrimage, alone,
Haunted by Poverty and woe-begone,
Unloved, unfriended, thou didst journey on ;
Thy youth in ignorance and labour past,
And thy old age all barrenness and blast!
Hard was thy fate, which, while it doom'd to woe,
Denied thee wisdom to support the blow ;
And robb'd of all its energy thy mind,
Ere yet it cast thee on thy fellow-kind,
Abject of thought, the victim of distress,
To wander in the world's wide wilderness.
Poor Outcast! sleep in peace ! The winter's storm
Blows bleak no more on thy unsheltered form !
Thy woes are past; thou restest in the tomb ; —-
I pause . . . and ponder on the days to come.
Now ! Is it not a beautiful poem ? Of the sonnet,
" No more the visionary soul shall dwell," 1 I wrote the
1 In a letter from Soutliey to his our emigration " is attributed to Fa-
brother Thomas, dated October 21, veil, a convert to pantisocracy who
1794, this sonnet " on the subject of was still at Christ's Hospital. The
110
STUDENT LIFE
[Dec.
whole but the second and third lines. Of the " Old Man
in the Snow," 1 ten last lines entirely, and part of the
four first. Those ten lines are, perhaps, the best I ever
did write.
Lovell has 110 taste or simplicity of feeling. I remarked
that when a man read Lo veil's poems he rnus ens (that is
a rapid way of pronouncing " must curse "), but when he
thought of Southey's, he 'd " buy 011! " For God's sake
let us have 110 more Bions or Gracchus's. I abominate
them ! Southey is a name much more proper and hand¬
some, and, I venture to prophesy, will be more famous.
Your " Chapel Bell" 2 I love, and have made it, by a few
alterations and the omission of one stanza (which, though
beautiful quoad se, interrupted the run of the thought
" I love to see the aged spirit soar "), a perfect poem. As
it followed the " Exiled Patriots," I altered the second
and fourth lines to, " So freedom taught, in high-voiced
minstrel's weed;" " For cap and gown to leave the pa¬
triot's meed."
The last verse now runs thus : —
" But thou, Memorial of monastic gall!
What fancy sad or lightsome hast thou given ?
Thy vision-scaring sounds alone recall
The prayer that trembles on a yawn to Heaven,
And this Dean's gape, and that Dean's nasal tone."
Would not this be a fine subject for a wild ode?
St. With old footed thrice the Oulds,
He met the nightmare and her nine foals;
He bade her alight and her troth plight,
And, " Aroynt thee, Witch ! " he said.
first eight lines are included in the he acknowledges that he was "in-
" Monody on Chatterton." See Po- dehted to Mr. Favell for the rough
etical Works, p. 03, and Editor's sketch." See Poetical Works, p. 45,
Note, p. 563. and Editor's Note, p. 576.
1 Printed as Effusion XVI. in 2 Southey's Poetical Works, ii. 143.
Poems, 1796. It was afterwards In this instance Coleridge's correc-
headed " Charity." In the preface tions were not adopted.
1794]
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
111
I shall set about one wlien I am in a humour to abandon
myself to all the diableries that ever met the eye of a
Fuseli!
Le Grice has jumbled together all the quaint stupidity
he ever wrote, amounting to about thirty pages, and pub¬
lished it in a book about the size and dimensions of chil¬
dren's twopenny books. The dedication is pretty. lie
calls the publication " Tineum; " 1 for what reason or
with what meaning would give Madame Sphinx a com¬
plete victory over GEdipus.
A wag has handed about, I hear, an obtuse angle of
wit, under the name of " An Epigram." 'T is almost as
bad as the subject.
" A tiny man of tiny wit
A tiny book lias published.
But not alas ! one tiny bit
His tiny fame established."
TO BOWLES.2
My heart has thank'd tliee, Bowles ! for those soft strains,
That, on the still air floating, tremblingly
"Woke in me Fancy, Love, and Sympathy !
For hence, not callous to a Brother's pains
Thro' Youth's gay prime and thornless paths I went;
And when the darker day of life began,
And I did roam, a thouglit-hewildered man !
Thy kindred Lays an healing solace lent,
Each lonely pang with dreamy joys combin'd,
And stole from vain Regret her scorpion stings ;
While shadowy Pleasure, with mysterious wings,
Brooded the wavy and tumultuous mind,
Like that great Spirit, who with plastic sweep
Mov'd on the darkness of the formless Deep!
Of the following sonnet, the four last lines were writ¬
ten by Lamb, a man of uncommon genius. Have you
1 Published in 1794. ing Chronicle, December 20, 1794.
2 First version, printed in Morn- See Poetical ]Torts, p. 40.
112
STUDENT LIFE
[Dec.
seen liis divine sonnet of " 0! I could laugh to hear the
winter winds," etc. ?
SONNET.1
0 gentle look, that didst my soul beguile,
Why hast thou left me ? Still in some fond dream
Revisit my sad heart, auspicious smile !
As falls on closing flowers the lunar beam;
What time in sickly mood, at parting day
1 lay me down and think of happier years;
Of joys, that glimmered in Hope's twilight ray,
Then left me darkling in a vale of tears.
O pleasant days of Hope — for ever flown !
Could I recall one ! — But that thought is vain.
Availeth not Persuasion's sweetest tone
To lure the fleet-winged travellers back again:
Anon, they haste to everlasting night,
Nor can a giant's arm arrest them in their flight.
The four last lines are beautiful, but they have no par¬
ticular meaning- which " that thought is vain " does not
convey. And I cannot write without a body of thought.
Hence my poetry is crowded and sweats beneath a heavy
burden of ideas and imagery ! It has seldom ease. The
little song ending with " I heav'd the painless sigh for
thee! " is an exception, and, accordingly, I like it the
best of all I ever wrote. My sonnets to eminent con¬
temporaries are among the better things I have written.
That to Erskine is a bad specimen. 1 have written ten,
and mean to write six more. In " Fayette" I unwittingly
(for I did not know it at the time) borrowed a thought
from you.
I will conclude with a little song of mine,2 which has
no other merit than a pretty simplicity of silliness.
1 First printed as Effusion XIY. which occurs in more than one of his
in Poems, 1796. Of the four lines early poems. See Poetical Works,
said to have been written by Lamb, p. 23, and Editor's Note, p. 5G6.
Coleridge discarded lines 13 and 14, 2 Imitated from the Welsh. See
and substituted a favourite couplet, Poetical Works, p. 33.
1794]
TO ROBERT SOUTIIEY
113
If while my passion I impart,
You deem my words untrue,
O place your hand upon my heart —•
Feel how it throbs for you !
Ah no ! reject the thoughtless claim
In pity to your Lover !
That thrilling touch would aid the flame
It wishes to discover !
I am a complete necessitarian, and understand tlie sub¬
ject as well almost as Hartley himself, but I go farther
than Hartley, and believe the corporeality of thought,
namely, that it is motion. Boyer thrashed Favell most
cruelly the day before yesterday, and I sent liim tlie fol¬
lowing note of consolation: " I condole with you on tlie
unpleasant motions, to which a certain uncouth automa¬
ton has been mechanized; and am anxious to know tlie
motives that impinged 011 its optic or auditory nerves so
as to be communicated in such rude vibrations through
tlie medullary substance of its brain, thence rolling tlieir
stormy surges into the capillaments of its tongue, and the
muscles of its arm. The diseased violence of its think¬
ing corporealities will, depend upon it, cure itself by
exhaustion. In the mean time I trust that you have not
been assimilated in degradation by losing the ataxy of
your temper, and that necessity which dignified you by a
sentience of the pain lias not lowered you by the acces¬
sion of anger or resentment."
God love you, Southey! My love to your mother !
S. T. Coleridge,
114
STUDENT LIFE
[Dec.
XLII. TO THE SAME.
Wednesday, December 17, 1794.
Wlien I am unhappy a sigh or a groan does not feel
sufficient to relieve the oppression of my heart. I give
a long whistle. This by way of a detached truth.
" How infinitely more to be valued is integrity of heart
than effulgence of intellect! " A noble sentiment, and
would have come home to me, if for " integrity " you had
substituted " energy.'' The skirmishes of sensibility are
indeed contemptible when compared with the well-dis¬
ciplined phalanx of right-onward feelings. O ye invin¬
cible soldiers of virtue, who arrange yourselves under the
generalship of fixed principles, that you would throw up
your fortifications around my heart! I pronounce this a
very sensible, apostropliical, metaphorical rant.
I dined yesterday with Perry and Grey (the proprietor
and editor of the " Morning Chronicle ") at their house,
and met Holeroft. He either misunderstood Lovell, or
Lovell misunderstood him. I know not which, but it is
very clear to me that neither of them understands nor
enters into the views of our system. Holeroft opposes it
violently and thinks it not virtuous. His arguments were
such as Nugent and twenty others have used to us before
him ; they were nothing. There is a fierceness and dog¬
matism of conversation in Holeroft for which you receive
little compensation either from the veracity of his informa¬
tion, the closeness of his reasoning, or the splendour of his
language. He talks incessantly of metaphysics, of which
he appears to me to know nothing, to have read nothing.
He is ignorant as a scholar, and neglectful of the smaller
humanities as a man. Compare him with Porson! My
God ! to hear Porson crush Godwin, Holeroft, etc. They
absolutely tremble before him ! I had the honour of work¬
ing H. a little, and by my great coolness and command of
impressive language certainly did him over. " Sir! " said
1794]
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
115
lie," I never knew so much real wisdom ancl so much rank
error meet in one mind before ! " " Which," answered I,
" means, I suppose, that in some things, sir, I agree with
you, and in others I do not." lie absolutely infests you
with atheism; and his arguments are such that the
nonentities of Nugent consolidate into oak or ironwood
by comparison ! As to his taste in poetry, he thinks
lightly, or rather contemptuously, of Bowles' sonnets ; the
language flat and prosaic and inharmonious, and the sen¬
timents only fit for girls ! Come, come, Mr. Holcroft, as
much unintelligible metaphysics and as much bad criticism
as you please, but no blasphemy against the divinity of a
Boiclcs ! Porson idolizes the sonnets. However it hap¬
pened, I am higher in his good graces than he in mine.
If I am in town I dine with him and Godwin, etc., at
his house on Sunday.
I am astonished at your preference of the " Elegy." I
think it the worst thing you ever wrote.
" Qui Gratio non odit, amet tua carmina, Avaro!" 1
Why, 't is almost as bad as Lovell's " Farmhouse," and
that would be at least a thousand fathoms deep in the
dead sea of pessimism.
" The hard world scoff'd my woes, the chaste one's pride,
Mimic of virtue, mock'd my keen distress,
* And Vice alone would shelter wretchedness.
Even life is loathsome now," etc.
These two stanzas are exquisite, but the lovely thought of
the " hot sun," etc., as pitiless as proud prosperity loses
part of its beauty by the time being night. It is among
the chief excellences of Bowles that his imagery appears
almost always prompted by surrounding scenery.
Before you write a poem you should say to yourself,
" What do I intend to be the character of this poem ;
1 A parody of " Qui Bavium non Southey and Lovell in their joint
odit, amet tua carmina, Mujvi." volume of poems published at Bris-
Yirgil, Eel. iii. 00. Gratio and tol in 1795.
Avaro were signatures adopted by
♦Implied in
the second
line.
116
STUDENT LIFE
[Dec.
which feature is to be predominant in it ?" So you
make it unique. But in this poem now Charlotte speaks
and now the Poet. Assuredly the stanzas of Memory,
"three worst of fiends," etc., and "gay fancy fond and
frolic" are altogether poetical. You have repeated the
same rhymes ungracefully, and the thought on which you
harp so long recalls too forcibly the EtJSeis /3/je<£os of Si-
monides. Unfortunately the " Adventurer " has made this
sweet fragment an object of popular admiration. On the
whole, I think it unworthy of your other "■ Botany Bay
Eclogues," yet deem the two stanzas above selected su¬
perior almost to anything you ever wrote ; quod est magna
res dicere, a great thing to say.
SONNET.1
Though king-bred rage with lawless Tumult rude
Have driv'n our Priestley o'er the ocean swell;
Though Superstition and her wolfish brood
Bay his mild radiance, impotent and fell;
Calm in his halls of brightness he shall dwell!
For lo ! Religion at his strong behest
Disdainful rouses from the Papal spell,
And flings to Earth her tinsel-glittering vest,
Her mitred state and cumbrous pomp unholy;
And Justice wakes to bid th' oppression wail,
That ground th' ensnared soul of patient Folly;
And from her dark retreat by Wisdom won,
Meek Nature slowly lifts her matron veil,
To smile with fondness on her gazing son!
1 Of the six sonnets included in The sonnets to Godwin, Soutliey,
this letter, those to Burke, Priestley, and Sheridan were published on the
and Kosciusko had already appeared 10th, 14tli, and 29th of January,
in the Morning Chronicle on the 9th, 1795. See Poetical Works, pp. 38,
11th, and lGth of December, 1794. 39, 41, 42.
1794]
TO ROBERT SOUTIIEY
117
SONNET.
0 what a loud and fearful shriek was there,
As though a thousand souls one death-groan poured !
Great Kosciusko 'neath an hireling's sword
The warriors view'd ! Hark ! through the list'ning air
(When pauses the tir'd Cossack's barbarous yell
Of triumph) on the chill and midnight gale
Rises with frantic burst or sadder swell
The " Dirge of Murder'd Hope ! " while Freedom pale
Bends in such anguish o'er her destined bier,
As if from eldest time some Spirit meek
Had gathered in a mystic urn each tear
That ever furrowed a sad Patriot's cheek,
And she had drench'd the sorrows of the bowl
Ev'n till she reel'd, intoxicate of soul!
Tell me which you like the best of the above two. I
have written one to Godwin, but the mediocrity of the
eight first lines is most miserably magazinish! I have
plucked, therefore, these scentless road-flowers from the
chaplet, and entreat thee, thou river god of Pieria, to
weave into it the gorgeous water-lily from thy stream, or
the far-smelling violets on thy bank. The last six lines
are these: —
Nor will I not tliy holy guidance bless
And hymn thee, Godwin ! with an ardent lay ;
For that thy voice, in Passion's stormy day,
When wild I roain'd the bleak Heath of Distress,
Bade the bright form of Justice meet my way, —
And told me that her name was Happiness.
Give me your minutest opinion concerning the follow¬
ing sonnet, whether or no I shall admit it into the num-
her. The move of bepraising a man by enumerating the
beauties of his polygraph is at least an original one ; so
much so that I fear it will be somewhat unintelligible to
118
STUDENT LIFE
[Dec.
tliose whose 1 >rains are not rov ajuewovos 7rrjXov. (You have
read S.'s poetry and know that the fancy displayed in it is
sweet and delicate to the highest degree.)
TO E. B. SHERIDAN, ESQ.
Some winged Genius, Sheridan ! imbreath'd
His various influence on thy natal hour:
My fancy bodies forth the Guardian Power,
His temples with Hymettian flowerets wreath'd;
And sweet his voice, as when o'er Laura's bier
Sad music trembled through Vauclusa's glade ;
Sweet, as at dawn the lovelorn serenade
That bears soft dreams to Slumber's listening ear!
Now patriot Zeal and Indignation high
Swell the full tones ! and now his eye-beams dance
Meanings of Scorn and Wit's quaint revelry !
Th' Apostate by the brainless rout adored,
Writhes inly from the bosom-probing glance,
As erst that nobler Fiend beneath great Michael's sword!
I will give the second number as deeming that it pos¬
sesses m ind: —
As late I roamed through Fancy's shadowy vale,
With wetted cheek and in a mourner's guise,
I saw the sainted form of Freedom rise :
He spake : — not sadder moans th' autumnal gale —
" Great Son of Genius ! sweet to me thy name,
Ere in an evil hour with altered voice
Thou badst Oppression's hireling crew rejoice,
Blasting with wizard spell my laurell'd fame.
Yet never, Burke! thou drank'st Corruption's bowl!
Thee stormy Pity and the cherish'd lure
Of Pomp and proud precipitance of soul
Urged on with wild'ring fires. Ah, spirit pure !
That Error's mist had left thy purged eye;
So might I clasp thee with a Mother's joy."
1794]
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
119
ADDRESS TO A YOUNG JACKASS AND ITS TETHERED
MOTHER.1
Poor little foal of an oppressed race!
I love the languid patience of thy face:
And oft with friendly hand I give thee bread,
And clap thy ragged coat and pat thy head.
But what thy dulled spirit hath dismay'd,
That never thou dost sport upon the glade ?
And (most unlike the nature of things young)
That still to earth thy moping head is hung ?
Do thy prophetic tears anticipate,
Meek Child of Misery, thy future fate ?
The starving meal and all the thousand aches
That " patient Merit of the Unworthy takes " ?
Or is thy sad heart thrill'd with filial pain
To see thy wretched mother's lengthened chain ?
And truly, very piteous is her lot.
Chained to a log upon a narrow spot,
Where the close-eaten grass is scarcely seen,
While sweet around her waves the tempting green!
Poor Ass! thy master should have learnt to show
Pity best taught by fellowship of Woe !
For much I fear me that He lives like thee
Half-famish'd in a land of Luxury !
How askingly its steps towards me bend!
It seems to say, " And have I then one friend ? "
Innocent foal! thou poor, despis'd forlorn !
I hail thee Brother, spite of the fool's scorn !
And fain I'd take thee with me in the Dell
Of high-souled Pantisocracy to dwell;
Where Toil shall call the charmer Health his bride,
And Laughter tickle Plenty's ribless side !
How thou wouldst toss thy heels in gamesome play,
And frisk about, as lamb or kitten gay.
1 First published in the Morning Jackass in Jesus Piece. Its Mother
Chronicle, December 30, 1704. An near it, chained to a Log-." See Po-
earlier draft, dated October 24,1794, etical 11 'orfcs, Appendix C, p. 477,
was headed " Monologue to a Young' and Editor's Note, p. 57o.
120
STUDENT LIFE
[Dec.
Yea, and more musically sweet to me
Thy dissonant harsh bray of joy would be,
Than Bantis warbled airs, that soothe to rest
The tumult of a scoundrel Monarch's breast!
How do you like it ?
I took tlie liberty — Gracious God ! pardon me for the
aristocratic frigidity of that expression — I indulged my
feelings by sending this among my Contemporary Sonnets:
Southey! Thy melodies steal o'er mine ear
Like far-off joyance, or the murmuring
Of wild bees in the sunny showers of Spring —
Sounds of such mingled import as may cheer
The lonely breast, yet rouse a mindful tear:
Waked by the song doth Hope-born Fancy fling
Rich showers of dewy fragrance from her wing,
Till sickly Passion's drooping Myrtles sear
Blossom anew ! But O ! more thrill'd I prize
Thy sadder strains, that bid in Memory's Dream
The faded forms of past Delight arise;
Then soft on Love's pale cheek the tearful gleam
Of Pleasure smiles as faint yet beauteous lies
The imaged Rainbow on a willowy stream.
God love you and your mother and Edith and Sara
and Mary and little Eliza, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., and
S. T. Coleridge.
[Tlie following lines in Southey's handwriting are at¬
tached to this letter: —
What though oppression's blood-cemented force
Stands proudly threatening- arrogant in state,
Not thine his savage priests to immolate
Or hurl the fabric on the eneumber'd plain
As with a whirlwind's fury. It is thine
When dark Revenge masked in the form adored
Of Justice lifts on high the murderer's sword
To save the erring victims from her shrine.
To Godwin.]
1794]
TO ROBERT SOUTIIEY
121
xliii. to the same.
Monday morning, December, 1794.
My dear Soutiiey, — I will not say that you treat
me coolly or mysteriously, yet assuredly you seem to look
upon me as a man whom vanity, or some other inexpli¬
cable cause, has alienated from the system, or what could
build so injurious a suspicion ? Wherein, when roused
to the recollection of my duty, have I shrunk from the
performance of it ? I hold my life and my feeble feel¬
ings as ready sacrifices to justice — Kavi«lw viropas ydp. I
dismiss a subject so painful to me as self-vindication ;
painful to me only as addressing you on whose esteem
and affection I have rested with the whole weight of my
soul.
Soutiiey! I must tell you that you appear to me to write
as a man who is aweary of the world because it accords
not with his ideas of perfection. Your sentiments look
like the sickly offspring of disgusted pride. It flies not
away from the couches of imperfection because the patients
are fretful and loathsome.
Why, my dear, very dear Southey, do you wrap your¬
self in the mantle of self-centring resolve, and refuse to
us your bounden quota of intellect ? Why do you say,
" /, 7,1 will do so and so," instead of saying, as you were
wont to do, "It is all our duty to do so and so, for such
and such reasons " ?
For God's sake, my dear fellow, tell me what we are to
gain by taking a Welsh farm. Kemember the principles
and proposed consequences of pantisocracy, and reflect in
what degree they are attainable by Coleridge, Southey,
Lovell, Burnett, and Co., some five men going partners
together? In the next place, supposing that we have
proved the preponderating utility of our aspheterizing in
Wales, let us by our speedy and united inquiries discover
the sum of money necessary, whether such a farm with so
122
STUDENT LIFE
[Dec.
very large a house is to be procured without launching
our frail and unpiloted bark on a rough sea of anxieties.
How much is necessary for the maintenance of so large a
family—eighteen people for a year at least ?
I have read my objections to Lovell. If he has not an¬
swered them altogether to my fullest conviction, he has
however shown me the wretchedness that would fall on
the majority of our party from any delay in so forcible a
light, that if three hundred pounds be adequate to the
commencement of the system (which I very much doubt),
I am most willing to give up all my views and embark
immediately with you.
If it be determined that we shall go to Wales (for which
I now give my vote), in what time ? Mrs. Lovell thinks it
impossible that we should go in less than three months. If
this be the case, I will accept of the reporter's place to the
" Telegraph," live upon a guinea a week, and transmit the
[?balance], finishing in the same time my "Imitations."
However, I will walk to Bath to-morrow morning and
return in the evening.
Mr. and Mrs. Lovell, Sarah, Edith, all desire their best
love to you, and are anxious concerning your health.
May God love you and your affectionate
S. T. Coleridge.
xliv. to mary evans.
(?) December, 1794.
Too long has my heart been the torture house of sus¬
pense. After infinite struggles of irresolution, I will at
last dare to request of you, Mary, that you will commu¬
nicate to me whether or no you are engaged to Mr. .
I conjure you not to consider this request as presumptuous
indelicacy. Upon mine honour, I have made it with no
other design or expectation than that of arming my forti¬
tude by total hopelessness. Read this letter with benev¬
olence — and consign it to oblivion.
1794]
TO MARY EVANS
123
For four years I have endeavoured to smother a very
ardent attachment; in what degree I have succeeded you
must know better than I can. With quick perceptions
of moral beauty, it was impossible for me not to admire
in you your sensibility regulated by judgment, your gaiety
proceeding from a cheerful heart acting on the stores of a
strong understanding. At first I voluntarily invited the
recollection of these qualities into my mind. I made them
the perpetual object of my reveries, yet I entertained no
one sentiment beyond that of the immediate pleasure an¬
nexed to the thinking of you. At length it became a
habit. I awoke from the delusion, and found that I had
unwittingly harboured a passion which I felt neither the
power nor the courage to subdue. My associations were
irrevocably formed, and your image was blended with every
idea. I thought of you incessantly; yet that spirit (if
spirit there be that condescends to record the lonely beat¬
ings of my heart), that spirit knows that I thought of you
with the purity of a brother. Happy were I, had it been
with no more than a brother's ardour!
The man of dependent fortunes, while he fosters an at¬
tachment, commits an act of suicide 011 his happiness. I
possessed no establishment. My views were very distant;
I saw that you regarded me merely with the kindness of a
sister. What expectations could I form ? I formed no
expectations. I was ever resolving to subdue the dis-
quieting passion; still some inexplicable suggestion pal¬
sied my efforts, and I clung with desperate fondness to
this phantom of love, its mysterious attractions and hope¬
less prospects. It was a faint and rayless hope !1 Yet it
soothed my solitude with many a delightful day-dream.
It was a faint and rayless hope ! Yet I nursed it in my
bosom with an agony of affection, even as a mother her
1 Compare the last six lines of a dated October 21, 1704. (Letter
sonnet, " On a Discovery made too XXXVII.) ,See Poetical TLor/rs, p.
late," sent in a letter to Soutliey, .'34, and Editor's Note, p. 571.
124
STUDENT LIFE
[Dec.
sickly infant. But these are the poisoned luxuries of a
diseased fancy. Indulge, Mary, this my first, my last
request, and restore me to reality, however gloomy. Sad
and full of heaviness will the intelligence be ; my heart
will die within me. I shall, however, receive it with stead¬
ier resignation from yourself, than were it announced to
me (haply on your marriage day !) by a stranger. In¬
dulge my request; I will not disturb your peace by even
a look of discontent, still less will I offend your ear by the
whine of selfish sensibility. In a few months I shall enter
at the Temple and there seek forgetful calmness, where
only it can be found, in incessant and useful activity.
Were you not possessed of a mind and of a heart above
the usual lot of women, I should not have written you
sentiments that would be unintelligible to three fourths
of your sex. But our feelings are congenial, though our
attachment is doomed not to be reciprocal. You will not
deem so meanly of me as to believe that I shall regard
Mr. with the jaundiced eye of disappointed passion.
God forbid ! lie whom you honour with your affections
becomes sacred to me. I shall love him for your sake;
the time may perhaps come when I shall be philosopher
enough not to envy him for his own.
S. T. COLEKIDGE.
I return to Cambridge to-morrow morning.
Miss Evans, No. 11 Sackville Street, Piccadilly.
XLV. TO THE SAME.
December 24, 1794.
I have this moment received your letter, Mary Evans.
Its firmness does honour to your understanding, its gen¬
tleness to your humanity. You condescend to accuse
yourself — most unjustly! You have been altogether
blameless. In my wildest day-dream of vanity, I never
supposed that you entertained for me any other than a
common friendship.
1794]
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
125
To love you, habit has made unalterable. This passion,
however, divested as it now is of all shadow of hope, will
lose its disquieting- power. Far distant from you I shall
journey through the vale of men in calmness, lie cannot
long be wretched, who dares be actively virtuous.
I have burnt your letters — forget mine; and that I
have pained you, forgive me !
May God infinitely love you!
S. T. Coleridge.
xlvi. to robert southey.
December, 1704.
I am calm, dear Southey ! as an autumnal day, when
the sky is covered with gray moveless clouds. To love
her, habit has made unalterable. I had placed her in the
sanctuary of my heart, nor can she be torn from thence
but with the strings that grapple it to life. This passion,
however, divested as it now is of all shadow of hope,
seems to lose its disquieting power. Far distant, and
never more to behold or hear of her, I shall sojourn in
the vale of men, sad and in loneliness, yet not unhappy.
He cannot be long wretched who dares be actively vir¬
tuous. I am well assured that she loves me as a favourite
brother. When she was present, she was to me only as a
very dear sister; it was in absence that I felt those gnaw-
ings of suspense, and that dreaminess of mind, which
evidence an affection more restless, yet scarcely less pure
than the fraternal. The struggle has been well nigli too
much for me ; but, praised be the All-Merciful! the fee¬
bleness of exhausted feelings has produced a calm, and
my heart stagnates into peace.
Southey ! my ideal standard of female excellence rises
not above that woman. But all things work together
for good. Had I been united to her, the excess of my
affection would have effeminated my intellect. I should
have fed on her looks as she entered into the room, I
126
STUDENT LIFE
[Dec.
should have gazed on her footsteps when she went out
from me.
To lose her ! I can rise above that selfish pang. But
to marry another. O Soutliey ! bear with my weakness.
Love makes all things pure and heavenly like itself, —
but to marry a woman whom I do not love, to degrade
her whom I call my wife by making her the instrument
of low desire, and on the removal of a desultory appetite
to be perhaps not displeased with her absence! Enough!
These refinements are the wildering fires that lead me
into vice. Mark you, Soutliey ! I will do my duty.
I have this moment received your letter. My friend,
you want but one quality of mind to be a perfect charac¬
ter. Your sensibilities are tempestuous ; you feel indig¬
nation at weakness. Now Indignation is the handsome
brother of Anger and Hatred. His looks are " lovely in
terror," yet still remember who are his relations. I
would ardently that you were a necessitarian, and (be¬
lieving in an all-loving Omnipotence) an optimist. That
puny imp of darkness yclept scepticism, how could it dare
to approach the hallowed fires that burn so brightly on
the altar of your heart ?
Think you I wish to stay in town? I am all eager¬
ness to leave it; and am resolved, whatever be the conse¬
quence, to be at Bath by Saturday. I thought of walk¬
ing down.
I have written to Bristol and said I coidd not assign a
particular time for my leaving town. I spoke indefinitely
that I might not disappoint.
I am not, I presume, to attribute some verses addressed
to S. T. C., in the " Morning Chronicle," to you. To
whom ? My dear Allen ! wherein has he offended ? He
did never promise to form one of our party. But of all
this when we meet. Would a pistol preserve integrity?
So concentrate guilt ? no very philosophical mode of pre¬
venting it. I will write of indifferent subjects. Your
1794]
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
127
sonnet,1 " Hold your macl hands ! " is a noble burst of
poetry; and — but my mind is weakened and I turn with
selfishness of thought to those wilder songs that develop
my lonely feelings. Sonnets are scarcely fit for the hard
gaze of the public. I read, with heart and taste equally
delighted, your prefatory sonnet.2 I transcribe it, not so
much to give you my corrections, as for the pleasure it
gives me.
Witli wayworn feet, a pilgrim woe-begone,
Life's upland steep I journeyed many a day,
And hymning many a sad yet soothing lay,
Beguiled my wandering with the charms of song.
Lonely my heart and rugged was my way,
Yet often plucked I, as I passed along,
The wild and simple flowers of poesy :
And, as beseemed the wayward Fancy's child,
Entwined each random weed that pleased mine eye.
Accept the wreath, Beloved ! it is wild
And rudely garlanded ; yet scorn not thou
The humble offering, when the sad rue weaves
With gayer flowers its intermingled leaves,
And I have twin'd the myrtle for thy brow!
It is a lovely sonnet. Lamb likes it with tears in his
eyes. His sister has lately been very unwell, confined to
her bed, dangerously. She is all his comfort, he hers.
They dote on each other. Her mind is elegantly stored ;
her heart feeling. Her illness preyed a good deal on his
spirits, though he bore it with an apparent equanimity as
beseemed him who, like me, is a Unitarian Christian, and
an advocate for the automatism of man.
1 The first of six sonnets on the Bristol, 1706. Southey's Poetical
Slave Trade. Southey's Poetical Tror/rs, 1837, vol. ii. The text of
IT 'oris, 1837, ii- 55. 1837 differs considerably from the
2 Prefixed as a dedication to Jn- earlier version. Possibly in tran-
venile and Minor Poems. It is ad- scribing Coleridge altered the origi-
dressed to Edith Soutliey, and dated nal to suit his own taste.
128
STUDENT LIFE
[Dec.
I was writing a poem, which when finished yon shall
see, and wished him to describe the character and doc¬
trines of Jesns Christ for me; but his low spirits pre¬
vented liim. The poem is in blank verse on the Nativity.
I sent him these careless lines, which flowed from my pen
extemporaneously: —
TO C. LAMB.1
Thus far my sterile brain liatli framed the song
Elaborate and swelling ; but the heart
Not owns it. From thy spirit-breathing power
I ask not now, my friend ! the aiding verse,
Tedious to thee, and from thy anxious thought
Of dissonant mood. In fancy (well I know)
Thou creepest round a dear-loved Sister's bed
With noiseless step, and watchest the faint look,
Soothing each pang with fond solicitude,
And tenderest tones, medicinal of love.
I too a Sister had, an only Sister —-
She loved me dearly, and I doted on her !
On her soft bosom I reposed my cares
And gained for every wound a healing scar.
To her I pour'd forth all my puny sorrows,
(As a sick Patient in his Nurse's arms),
And of the heart those hidden maladies
That shrink ashamed from even Friendship's eye.
O ! I have woke at midnight and have wept
Because she was not ! Cheerily, dear Charles !
Thou thy best friend slialt cherish many a year :
Such high presages feel I of warm hope !
For not uninterested, the dear Maid
I've view'd — her Soul affectionate yet wise,
Her polish'd wit as mild as lambent glories
That play around a holy infant's head.
He knows (the Spirit who in secret sees,
Of whose omniscient and all-spreading Love
1 To a Friend [Charles Lamb], ["Religious Musings"]. Poetical
together with an Unfinished Poem Works, p. 37.
1794]
TO ROBERT SOUTIIEY
129
Auglxt to implore were Impotence of mind)
That my mute thoughts are sad before his throne,
Prepar'd, when he his healing pay vouchsafes,
To pour forth thanksgiving with lifted heart,
And praise Him Gracious with a Brother's Joy !
Wynne is indeed a noble fellow. More when we meet.
Your S. T. Coleridge.
CHAPTER II
EARLY PUBLIC LIFE
1795-1796
CHAPTER II
early public life
1795-1796
xlvii. to joseph cottle.
Spring, 1795.
My dear Sir, — Can you conveniently lend me five
pounds, as we want a little more than four pounds to
make up our lodging bill, wliicli is indeed much liiglier
than we expected; seven weeks and Burnett's lodging for
twelve weeks, amounting to eleven pounds ?
Yours affectionately,
S. T. Coleridge.
xlviii. to the same.
July 31,1795.
Dear Cottle, — By the thick smokes that precede
the volcanic eruptions of Etna, Vesuvius, and Hecla, I
feel an impulse to fumigate, at 25 College Street, one pair
of stairs' room; yea, with our Oronoco, and, if thou wilt
send me by the bearer four pipes, I will write a panegyr¬
ical epic poem upon thee, with as many books as there are
letters in thy name. Moreover, if thou wilt send me
"the copy-book," I hereby bind myself, by to-morrow
morning, to write out enough copy for a sheet and a half.
God bless you. £>• T. C.
134
EARLY PUBLIC LIFE
[Oct.
xlix. to the same.
1795.
Dear Cottle, — Sliall I trouble you (I being over
the mouth and nose, in doing something of importance,
at 's) to send your servant into the market and buy
a pound of bacon, and two quarts of broad beans; and
when he carries it down to College Street, to desire the
maid to dress it for dinner, and tell her I shall be home
by three o'clock ? Will you come and drink tea with me ?
and I will endeavour to get the etc. ready for you.
Yours affectionately,
S. T. C.
l. to robert southey.
October, 1795.
My dear Southey, — It would argue imbecility and
a latent wickedness in myself, if for a moment I doubted
concerning your purposes and final determination. I
write, because it is possible that I may suggest some idea
to you which should find a place in your answer to your
uncle, and I write, because in a letter I can express
myself more connectedly than in conversation.
The former part of Mr. Hill's reasonings is reducible
to this. It may not be vicious to entertain pure and
virtuous sentiments ; their criminality is confined to the
promulgation (if we believe democracy to be pure and
virtuous, to us it is so). Southey! Pantisocracy is not
the question : its realization is distant — perhaps a mirac¬
ulous millennium. What you have seen, or think that
you have seen of the human heart, may render the
formation even of a pantisocratic seminary improbable to
you, but this is not the question. Were <£300 a year
offered to you as a man of the world, as one indifferent to
absolute equality, but still on the supposition that you
were commonly honest, I suppose it possible that doubts
1795]
TO ROBERT SOUTIIEY
135
might arise; your mother, your brother, your Edith,
would all crowd upon you, and certain misery might be
weighed against distant, and perhaps unattainable happi¬
ness. But the point is, whether or no you can perjure
yourself. There are men who hold the necessity and
moral optimism of our religious establishment. Its pecul¬
iar dogmas they may disapprove, but of innovation they
see dreadful and unhealable consequence; and they will
not quit the Church for a few follies and absurdities,
any more than for the same reason they would desert a
valued friend. Such men I do not condemn. Whatever I
may deem of their reasoning, their hearts and consciences
I include not in the anathema. But you disapprove of
an establishment altogether; you believe it iniquitous, a
mother of crimes. It is impossible that you could uphold
it by assuming the badge of affiliation.
My prospects are not bright, but to the eye of reason as
bright as when we first formed our plan ; nor is there any
opposite inducement offered, of which you were not then
apprized, or had cause to expect. Domestic happiness is
the greatest of things sublunary, and of things celestial
it is impossible, perhaps, for unassisted man to believe
anything greater ; but it is not strange that those things,
which, in a pure form of society, will constitute our first
blessings, should in its present morbid state be our most
perilous temptations. " lie that doth not love mother
or wife less than me, is not worthy of me ! "
This have I written, Southey, altogether disinterestedly.
Your desertion or adhesion will in no wise affect my feel¬
ings, opinions, or conduct, and in a very inconsiderable
degree my fortunes ! That Being who is " in will, in
deed, Impulse of all to all," whichever be your determi¬
nation, will make it ultimately the best.
God love you, my dear Southey !
S. T. Coleridge.
136
EARLY PUBLIC LIFE
[Nov.
li. to thomas poole.
Wednesday evening-, October 7, 1705.
My dear Sir, -— God bless you ; or rather, God be
praised for tliat he has blessed you !
On Sunday morning I was married at St. Mary's Red-
cliff, poor Chatterton's church! The thought gave a
tinge of melancholy to the solemn joy which I felt, united
to the woman whom I love best of all created beings.
We are settled, nay, quite domesticated, at Clevedon, our
comfortable cot!
Mrs. Coleridge! I like to write the name. Well,
as I was saying, Mrs. Coleridge desires her affectionate
regards to you. I talked of you on my wedding night.
God bless you! I hope that some ten years hence you
will believe and know of my affection towards you what I
will not now profess.
The prospect around is perhaps more various than any
in the kingdom. Mine eye gluttonizes the sea, the dis¬
tant islands, the opposite coast! I shall assuredly write
rhymes, let the nine Muses prevent it if they can. Cruik-
shank, I find, is married to Miss Bucle. I am happy to
hear it. He will surely, I hope, make a good husband to
a woman, to whom he would be a villain who should make
a bad one.
I have given up all thoughts of the magazine, for
various reasons. Imprimis, I must be connected with R.
Southey in it, which I could not be with comfort to my
feelings. Secundo, It is a thing of monthly anxiety and
quotidian bustle. Tertio, It would cost Cottle an hundred
pounds in buying paper, etc. — all on an uncertainty.
Quarto, To publish a magazine for one year would be
nonsense, and if I pursue what I mean to pursue, my
school plan, I could not publish it for more than a year,
Quinto, Cottle has entered into an engagement to give
me a guinea and a half for every hundred lines of poetry
1795]
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
137
I write, which will be perfectly sufficient for my main¬
tenance, I only amusing- myself 011 mornings ; and all
my prose works he is eager to purchase. Sexto, In the
course of half a year I mean to return to Cambridge
(having previously taken my name off from the University
control) and taking lodgings there for myself and wife,
finish my great work of " Imitations," in two volumes.
My former works may, I hope, prove somewhat of genius
and of erudition. This will be better; it will show great
industry and manly consistency; at the end of it I shall
publish proposals for school, etc. Cottle has spent a day
with me, and takes this letter to Bristol. My next will be
long, and full of something. This is inanity and egotism.
Pray let me hear from you, directing the letter to Mr.
Cottle, who will forward it. My respectful and grateful
remembrance to your mother, and believe me, dear Poole,
your affectionate and mindful friend, shall I so soon dare
to say? Believe me, my heart prompts it.
S. T. Coleridge.
lii. to robert southey.1
Friday morning, November 13, 1795.
Southey, I h ave lost friends — friends who still cherish
for me sentiments of high esteem and unextinguished ten¬
derness. For the sum total of my misbehaviour, the Alpha
and Omega of their accusations, is epistolary neglect. I
never speak of them without affection, I never think of
them without reverence. Not " to this catalogue," Sou¬
they, have I "added your name." You are lost to me,
because you are lost to Virtue. As this will probably be
the last time I shall have occasion to address yon, I will
begin at the beginning and regularly retrace your conduct
1 This farewell letter of apology original MS. is written on small fools-
ancl remonstrance was not sent by cap. A first draft, or copy, of the
post, but must have reached Sou- letter was sent to Coleridge's friend,
tliey's hand on the loth of Novem- Josiali Wade,
ber, the eve of his wedding day. The
138
EARLY PUBLIC LIFE
[Nov.
and my own. In tlie month of June, 1794,1 first became
acquainted with your person and character. Before I
quitted Oxford, we had struck out the leading features of
a pantisocracy. While on my journey through Wales you
invited me to Bristol with the full hopes of realising it.
During my abode at Bristol the plan was matured, and I re¬
turned to Cambridge hot in the anticipation of that happy
season when we should remove the selfish principle from
ourselves, and prevent it in our children, by an abolition
of property ; or, in whatever respects this might be im¬
practicable, by such similarity of property as would amount
to a moral sameness, and answer all the purposes of abo¬
lition. Nor were you less zealous, and thought and ex¬
pressed your opinion, that if any man embraced our sys¬
tem he must comparatively disregard " liis father and
mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters,
yea, and his own life also, or he could not be our disciple."
In one of your letters, alluding to your mother's low spir¬
its and situation, you tell me that " I cannot suppose any
individual feelings will have an undue weight with you,"
and in the same letter you observe (alas ! your recent
conduct has made it a prophecy!), "God forbid that the
ebullience of schematism should be over. It is the Pro¬
methean fire that animates my soul, and when that is gone
all will be darkness. I have devoted myself ! "
Previously to my departure from Jesus College, and
during my melancholy detention in London, what convul¬
sive struggles of feeling I underwent, and what sacrifices
I made, you know. The liberal proposal from my family
affected me no further than as it pained me to wound a
revered brother by the positive and immediate refusal
which duty compelled me to return. But there was a —
I need not be particular; you remember what a fetter I
burst, and that it snapt as if it had been a sinew of my
heart. However, I returned to Bristol, and my addresses
to Sara, which I at first paid from principle, not feeling,
1795]
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
139
from feeling- and from principle I renewed; and I met a
reward more tlian proportionate to the greatness of the
effort. I love and I am beloved, and I am happy!
Your letter to Lovell (two or three days after my arri¬
val at Bristol), in answer to some objections of mine to
the Welsh scheme, was the first thing that alarmed me.
Instead of " It is our duty," " Such and such are the rea¬
sons,*' it was "I and I" and " will and will," — sentences
of gloomy and self-centering" resolve. I wrote you a
friendly reproof, and in my own mind attributed this un¬
wonted style to your earnest desires of realising our plan,
and the angry pain which you felt when any appeared to
oppose or defer its execution. However, I came over to
your opinions of the utility, and, in course, the duty of
rehearsing our scheme in Wales, and, so, rejected the offer
of being established in the Earl of Buchan's family. To
this period of our connection I call your more particular
attention and remembrance, as I shall revert to it at the
close of my letter.
We commenced lecturing. Shortly after, you began to
recede in your conversation from those broad principles in
which pantisocracy originated. I opposed you with vehe¬
mence, for I well knew that no notion of morality or its
motives conld be without consequences. And once (it was
just before we went to bed) you confessed to me that you
had acted wrong. But you relapsed ; your manner be¬
came cold and gloomy, and pleaded with increased perti¬
nacity for the wisdom of making Self an undiverging Cen¬
ter. At Mr. Jardine's 1 your language was strong indeed.
Recollect it. You had left the table, and we were stand¬
ing at the window. Then darted into my mind the dread
that you were meditating a separation. At Chepstow*
1 The Rev. David Jardine, Uiiita- ered in a blue coat and white waist-
rian minister at Bath. Cottle lays coat, in Mr. Jardine's chapel at Bath,
the scene of the "inaugural ser- Early Recollections, i. 17!).
mons" on the corn laws and hair - If we may believe Cottle, the
powder tax, which Coleridge deliv- dispute began by Southey attacking
140 EARLY PUBLIC LIFE [Nov.
your conduct renewed my suspicion, and I was greatly
agitated, even to many tears. But in Peircefield Walks1
you assured me that my suspicions were altogether un¬
founded, that our differences were merely speculative, and
that you would certainly go into Wales. I was glad and
satisfied. For my heart was never bent from you but by
violent strength, and heaven knows how it leapt back to
esteem and love you. But alas ! a short time passed ere
your departure from our first principles became too fla¬
grant. Remember when we went to Ashton2 on the straw¬
berry party. Your conversation with George Burnett on
the day following he detailed to me. It scorched my
throat. Your private resources were to remain your indi¬
vidual property, and everything to be separate except a
farm of five or six acres. In short, we were to commence
partners in a petty farming trade. This was the mouse
of which the mountain Pantisocracy was at last safely de¬
livered. I received the account with indignation and
loathings of unutterable contempt. Such opinions were
indeed unassailable, — the javelin of argument and the
arrows of ridicule would have been equally misapplied; a
straw would have wounded them mortally. I did not con¬
descend to waste my intellect upon them; but in the most
express terms I declared to George Burnett my opinion
(and, Soutliey, next to my own existence, there is scarce
any fact of which at this moment I entertain less doubt),
to Burnett I declared it to be my opinion " that you had
long laid a plot of separation, and were now developing
it by proposing such a vile mutilation of our scheme as
Coleridge for lxis non-appearance at pleasure," and was, no doubt, ren-
a lecture which he had undertaken dered doubly sore by his partner's
to deliver in his stead. The scene delinquency. See Early liecollec-
of the quarrel is laid at Chepstow, on tions, i. 40, 41. See, also, letter from
the first day of the memorable ex- Soutliey to Bedford, dated May 28,
cursion to Tintern Abbey, which 1795. Life and Correspondence, i.
Cottle had planned to " gratify his 239.
two young friends." Soutliey had 1 At Chepstow,
been "dragged," much against the 2 A village three miles W. S. W.
grain, into this " detestable party of of Bristol.
1795]
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
141
you must have been conscious I should reject decisively
and with scorn." George Burnett was your most affec¬
tionate friend; I knew his unbounded veneration for you,
his personal attachment; I knew likewise his gentle dis¬
like of me. Yet him I bade be the judge. I bade him
choose his associate. I would adopt the full system or de¬
part. George, I presume, detailed of this my conversa¬
tion what part he chose; from him, however, I received
your sentiments, viz.: that you would go into Wales, or
what place I liked. Thus your system of prudentials and
your apostasy were not sudden; these constant nibblings
had sloped your descent from virtue. " You received your
uncle's letter," I said — " what answer have you re¬
turned?" For to think with almost superstitious venera¬
tion of you had been such a deep-rooted habit of my soul
that even then I did not dream you could hesitate concern¬
ing so infamous a proposal. " None," you replied, " nor
do I know what answer I shall return." You went to
bed. George sat half-petrified, gaping at the pigmy vir¬
tue of his supposed giant. I performed the office of still-
struggling friendship by writing you my free sentiments
concerning the enormous guilt of that which your uncle's
doughty sophistry recommended.
On the next morning I walked with you towards Bath;
again I insisted on its criminality. You told me that you
had "little notion of guilt," and that "you had a pretty
sort of lullaby faith of your own." Finding you invulner¬
able in conscience, for the sake of mankind I did not, how¬
ever, quit the field, but pressed you 011 the difficulties of
your system. Your uncle's intimacy with the bishop, and
the hush in which you would lie for the two years previous
to your ordination, were the arguments (variously urged
in a long and desultory conversation) by which you solved
those difficulties. " But your ' Joan of Arc' — the senti¬
ments in it are of the boldest order. What if the suspi¬
cions of the Bishop be raised, and he particularly questions
142
EARLY PUBLIC LIFE
[Nov.
you concerning your opinions of tlie Trinity and tlie Re¬
demption ? " " Oli," you replied, " I am pretty well up to
their jargon, and shall answer them accordingly." In fine,
you left me fully persuaded that you would enter into Holy
Orders. And, after a week's interval or more, you desired
George Burnett to act independently of you, and gave him
an invitation to Oxford. Of course, we both concluded
that the matter was absolutely determined. Southey! I
am not besotted that I should not know, nor hypocrite
enough not to tell you, that you were diverted from being
a Priest only by the weight of infamy which you perceived
coming towards you like a rush of waters.
Then with good reason I considered you as one fallen
bach into the ranks ; as a man admirable for liis abilities
only, strict, indeed, in the lesser honesties, but, like the
majority of men, unable to resist a strong temptation.
Friend is a very sacred appellation. You were become
an acquaintance, yet one for whom I felt no common
tenderness. I could not forget what you had been. Your
sun was set; your sky was clouded; but those clouds and
that sky were yet tinged with the recent sun. As I con¬
sidered you, so I treated you. I studiously avoided all
particular subjects. I acquainted you with nothing rela¬
tive to myself. Literary topics engrossed our conversation.
You were too quick-sighted not to perceive it. I received
a letter from you. "You have withdrawn your confidence
from me, Coleridge. Preserving still the face of friend¬
ship when we meet, you yet avoid me and carry on your
plans in secrecy." If by "the face of friendship " you
meant that kindliness which I show to all because I feel
it for all, your statement was perfectly accurate. If you
meant more, you contradict yourself; for you evidently
perceived from my manners that you were a " weight upon
me " in company — an intruder, unwished and unwelcome.
I pained you by " cold civility, the shadow which friend¬
ship leaves behind him." Since that letter I altered my
1795]
TO ROBERT SOUTIIEY
143
conduct no otherwise tlian by avoiding you more. I still
generalised, and spoke not of myself, except my proposed
literary works. In short, I spoke to you as I should have
done to any other man of genius who had happened to be
my acquaintance. Without the farce and tumult of a rup¬
ture I wished you to sink into that class. u Face to face
you never changed your manners to me." And yet I pained
you by "cold civility." Egregious contradiction ! Doubt¬
less I always treated you with urbanity, and meant to do so ;
but I locked up my heart from you, and you perceived it,
and I intended you to perceive it. " I planned works in
conjunction with you." Most certainly; the magazine
which, long before this, you had planned equally with me,
and, if it had been carried into execution, would of course
have returned you a third share of the profits. What had
you done that should make you an unfit literary associate
to me ? Nothing. My opinion of you as a man was al¬
tered, not as a writer. Our Muses had not quarrelled. I
should have read your poetry with equal delight, and cor¬
rected it with equal zeal if correction it needed. " I re¬
ceived you 011 my return from Sliurton with my usual
shake of the hand." You gave me your hand, and dread¬
ful must have been my feelings if I had refused to take it.
Indeed, so long had I known you, so highly venerated, so
dearly loved you, that my hand would have taken yours
mechanically. But is shaking the hand a mark oi friend¬
ship t Heaven forbid ! I should then be a hypocrite
many days in the week. It is assuredly the pledge of ac¬
quaintance, and nothing more. But after this did I not
with most scrupulous care avoid you? You know I did.
In your former letters you say that I made use of these
words to you: "You will be retrograde that you may
spring the farther forward." You have misquoted,
Soutliey! You had talked of rejoining pantisocracy in
about fourteen years. I exploded this probability, but as I
saw you determined to leave it, hoped and wished it might
144
EARLY PUBLIC LIFE
[Nov.
be so — hoped that we miglit run backwards only to leap
forward. Not to mention that during that conversation
I had taken the weight and pressing urgency of your
motives as truths granted; but when, 011 examination, I
found them a show and mockery of unreal things, doubt¬
less, my opinion of you must have become far less re¬
spectful. You quoted likewise the last sentence of my
letter to you, as a proof that I approved of your design ;
you knew that sentence to imply 110 more than the pious
confidence of optimism — however wickedly you might
act, God would make it ultimately the best. You knew
this was the meaning of it — I could find twenty parallel
passages in the lectures. Indeed, such expressions applied
to bad actions had become a habit of my conversation. You
had named, not unwittingly, Dr. Pangloss. And Heaven
forbid that I should not now have faith that however
foul your stream may run here, yet that it will filtrate
and become pure in its subterraneous passage to the Ocean
of Universal Redemption.
Thus far had I written when the necessities of literary
occupation crowded upon me, and I met you in Redcliff,
and, unsaluted and unsaluting, passed by the man to
whom for almost a year I had told my last thoughts when
I closed my eyes, and the first when I awoke. But " ere
this I have felt sorrow ! "
I shall proceed to answer your letters, and first ex-
criminate myself, and then examine your conduct. You
charge me with having industriously trumpeted your
uncle's letter. When I mentioned my intended journey
to Clevedon with Burnett, and was asked by my immedi¬
ate friends why you were not with us, should I have been
silent and implied something mysterious, or have told an
open untruth and made myself your accomplice ? I could
do neither ; I answered that you were quite undetermined,
but had some thoughts of returning to Oxford. To Dan-
vers, indeed, and to Cottle I spoke more particularly, for
1795]
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
145
I knew tlieir prudence and tlieir love for you — and my
heart was very full. But to Mrs. Morgan I did not
mention it. She met me in the streets, and said: " So !
Soutliey is going into the Church ! 'T is all concluded,'t is
in vain to deny it!" I answered: "You are mistaken;
you must contradict; Soutliey has received a splendid
offer, but he has not determined." This, I have some
faint recollection, was my answer, but of this particular
conversation my recollection is very faint. By what
means she received the intelligence I know not; probably
from Mrs. Richardson, who might have been told it by
Mr. Wade. A considerable time after, the subject was
renewed at Mrs. Morgan's, Burnett and my Sara being-
present. Mrs. M. told me that you had asserted to her,
that with regard to the Church you had barely hesitated,
that you might consider your uncle's arguments, that
you had given up no one principle — and that I was
more your friend than ever. I own I was roused to an
agony of passion; nor was George Burnett undisturbed.
Whatever I said that afternoon (and since that time I
have but often repeated what I said, in gentler language)
George Burnett did give his decided Amen to. And I
said, Soutliey, that you had given up every principle —
that confessedly you were going into the law, more oppo¬
site to your avowed principles, if possible, than even the
Church — and that I had in my pocket a letter in which
you charged me with having withdrawn my friendship ;
and as to your barely hesitating about your uncle's pro¬
posal, I was obliged in my own defence to relate all that
passed between us, all on which I had founded a convic¬
tion so directly opposite.
I have, you say, distorted your conversation by " gross
misrepresentation and wicked and calumnious falsehoods.
It has been told me by Mrs. Morgan that I said: 11 have
seen my error! I have been drunk with principle!'"
Just over the bridge, at the bottom of the High Street,
146
EARLr PUBLIC LIFE
[Nov.
returning one night from Redcliff Hill, in answer to my
pressing contrast of your then opinions of the selfish
kind with what you had formerly professed, you said: " I
was intoxicated with the novelty of a system! " That you
said, " I have seen my error," I never asserted. It is
doubtless implied in the sentence which you did say^ but
I never charged it to you as your expression. As to your
reserving bank bills, etc., to yourself, the charge would
have been so palpable a lie that I must have been mad¬
man as well as villain to have been guilty of it. If I
had, George Burnett and Sara would have contradicted
it. I said that your conduct in little things had appeared
to me tinged with selfishness, and George Burnett at¬
tributed, and still does attribute, your defection to your
unwillingness to share your expected annuity with us.
As to the long catalogue of other lies, they not being
particularised, I, of course, can say nothing about them.
Tales may have been fetched and carried with embellish¬
ments calculated to improve them in everything but the
truth. I spoke " the plain and simple truth " alone.
And now for your conduct and motives. My hand
trembles when I think what a series of falsehood and
duplicity I am about to bring before the conscience of
a man who has dared to write me that " his conduct has
been uniformly open." I must revert to your first letter,
and here you say : —
" The plan you are going upon is not of sufficient im¬
portance to justify me to myself in abandoning a family,
who have none to support them but me." The plan you
are going upon! What plan was I meditating, save to
retire into the country with George Burnett and yourself,
and taking by degrees a small farm, there be learning
to get my own bread by my bodily labour — and then to
have all things in common — thus disciplining my body
and mind for the successful practice of the same thing
in America with more numerous associates ? And even if
1795]
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
147
this should never be the ease, ourselves and our children
would form a society sufficiently large. And was not
this your own plan — the plan for the realising of which
you invited ine to Bristol; the plan for which I abandoned
my friends, and every prospect, and every certainty, and
the woman whom I loved to an excess which you in your
warmest dream of fancy could never shadow out ? When
I returned from London, when you deemed pantisocracy
a duty — duty unaltered by numbers — when you said,
that, if others left it, you and George Burnett and your
brother would stand firm to the post of virtue — what then
were our circumstances? Saving Lovell, our number
was the same, yourself and Burnett and I. Our pros¬
pects were only an uncertain hope of getting thirty shil¬
lings a week between us by writing for some London
paper — for the remainder we were to rely on our agri¬
cultural exertions. And as to your family you stood
precisely in the same situation as you now stand. You
meant to take your mother with you, and your brother.
And where, indeed, would have been the difficulty ? She
would have earned her maintenance by her management
and savings — considering the matter even in this cold-
hearted way. But when you broke from us our prospects
were brightening; by the magazine or by poetry we might
and should have got ten guineas a month.
But if you are acting right, I should be acting right in
imitating you. What, then, would George Burnett do—•
he " whom you seduced
" With other promises and other vaunts
Than to repent, boasting ijou could subdue
Temptation! "
lie cannot go into the Church, for you did " give him
principles " ! and I wish that you had indeed " learnt
from him how infinitely more to be valued is integrity of
heart than effulgence of intellect." Nor can he go into
the law, for the same j>rinciplcs declare against it, and he
148
EARLY PUBLIC LIFE
[Nov.
is not calculated for it. And liis father will not support
any expense of consequence relative to his further educa¬
tion — for Law or Physic he could not take his degree in,
or be called to, without sinking of many hundred pounds.
What, Southey, was George Burnett to do ?
Then, even if you had persisted in your design of taking
Orders, your motives would have been weak and shadowy
and vile ; but when you changed your ground for the Law
they were annihilated. No man dreams of getting bread
in the Law, till six or eight years after his first entrance
at the Temple. And how very few even then? Before
this time your brothers would have been put out, and the
money which you must of necessity have sunk in a wicked
profession would have given your brother an education,
and provided a premium fit for the first compting-liouse in
the world. But I hear that you have again changed your
ground. You do not now mean to study the Law, but to
maintain yourself by your writings and on your promised
annuity, which, you told Mrs. Morgan, would be more
than a hundred a year. Could you not have done the
same with us . I neither have nor could deign to have a
hundred a year. Yet by my own exertions I will struggle
hard to maintain myself, and my wife, and my wife's
mother and my associate. Or what if you dedicated this
hundred a year to your family ? Would you not be pre¬
cisely as I am? Is not George Burnett accurate when he
undoubtedly ascribes your conduct to an unparticipating
propensity — to a total want of the boasted flocci-nauci-
nihili-pilificating sense? O selfish, money-loving man!
What principle have you not given up ? Though death had
been the consequence, I would have spat in that man's
face and called him liar, who should have spoken that last
sentence concerning you nine months ago. For blindly
did I esteem you. O God! that such a mind should fall
in love with that low, dirty, gutter-grubbing trull, World!y
Prudence !
1795]
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
149
Curse on all pride! 'T is a harlot that buckrams her¬
self up in virtue only that she may fetch a higher price.
'T is a rock where virtue may be planted, but cannot
strike root.
Last of all, perceiving that your motives vanished at
the first ray of examination, and that those accounts of
your mother and family which had drawn easy tears
down wrinkled cheeks had no effect on keener minds,
your last resource has been to calumniate me. If there be
in nature a situation perilous to honesty, it is this, when a
man has not heart to be, yet lusts to seem virtuous. My
indolence you assigned to Lovell as the reason for your
quitting pantisocracy. Supposing it true, it might in¬
deed be a reason for rejecting me from the system. But
how does this affect pantisocracy, that you should reject
it ? And what has Burnett done, that he should not be
a worthy associate ? He who leaned on you with all his
head and with all his heart; he who gave his all for
pantisocracy, and expected that pantisocracy would be at
least bread and cheese to him. But neither is the charge
a true one. My own lectures I wrote for myself, eleven
in number, excepting a very few pages which most reluc¬
tantly you eked out for me. And such pages! I would
not have suffered them to have stood in a lecture of yours.
To your lectures I dedicated my whole mind and heart,
and wrote one half in quantity ; but in quality you must
be conscious that all the tug of brain was mine, and that
your share was little more than transcription. I wrote
with vast exertion of all my intellect the parts in the
" Joan of Arc," and I corrected that and other poems
with greater interest than I should have felt for my own.
Then my own poems, and the recomposing of my lectures,
besides a sermon, and the correction of some poems for a
friend. I could have written them in half the time and
with less expense of thought. I write not these things
boastfully, but to excriminate myself. The truth is, you
150
EARLY PUBLIC LIFE
[Jan.
sat down and wrote; I used to saunter about and think
what I should write. And we ought to appreciate our
comparative industry by the quantum of mental exertion,
not the particular mode of it — by the number of thoughts
collected, not by the number of lines through which these
thoughts are diffused. But I will suppose myself guilty
of the charge. How would an honest man have reasoned
in your letter and how acted ? Thus : " Here is a man
who has abandoned all for what I believe to be virtue.
But he professed himself an imperfect being when he
offered himself an associate to me. He confessed that all
his valuable qualities were 1 slotli-jaundiced,' and in his
letters is a bitter self-accuser. This man did not deceive
me. I accepted of him in the hopes of curing him, but I
half despair of it. How shall I act ? I will tell him
fully and firmly, that much as I love him I love pantiso-
cracy more, and if in a certain time I do not see this dis¬
qualifying propensity subdued, I must and will reject
him." Such would have been an honest man's reasoning,
such his conduct. Did you act so ? Did you even men¬
tion to me, " face to face," my indolence as a motive for
your recent conduct ? Did you ever mention it in Peirce-
field Walks ? and some time after, that night when you
scattered some heart-cliilling sentiments, and in great
agitation I did ask you solemnly whether you disapproved
of anything in my conduct, and you answered, "Nothing.
I like you better now than at the commencement of our
friendship! " an answer which so startled Sara, that she
affronted you into angry silence by exclaiming, " What
a story ! " George Burnett, I believe, was present. This
happened after all our lectures, after every one of those
proofs of indolence on which you must found your charge.
A charge which with what indignation did you receive
when brought against me by Lovell! Yet then there was
some shew for it. I had been criminally indolent. But
since then I have exerted myself more than I could have
179G]
TO JO SI AH WADE
151
supposed myself capable. Enough! I heard for the
first time on Thursday that you were to set off for Lisbon
011 Saturday morning. It gives me great pain oil many
accounts, but principally that those moments which should
be sacred to your affections may be disturbed by this
long letter.
Southey, as far as happiness will be conducive to your
virtue, which alone is final happiness, may you possess it!
You have left a large void in my heart. I know 110 man
big enough to fill it. Others I may love equally, and
esteem equally, and some perhaps I may admire as much.
But never do I expect to meet another man, who will
make me unite attachment for his person with reverence
for his heart and admiration of his genius. I did not
only venerate you for your own virtues, I prized you as
the slieet-anclior of mine ; and even as a poet my vanity
knew no keener gratification than your praise. But these
things are passed by like as when a hungry man dreams,
and lo! he feastetli, but he awakes and his soul is empty.
May God Almighty bless and preserve you ! and may
you live to know and feel and acknowledge that unless
we accustom, ourselves to meditate adoringly on Ilim, the
source of all virtue, 110 virtue can be permanent.
Be assured that G. Burnett still loves you better than
he can love any other man, and Sara would have you
accept her love and blessing; accept it as the future hus¬
band of her best loved sister. Farewell!
S. T. Coleridge.
liii. to josiah wade.1
Nottingham, Wednesday morning, January 27, 1700.
My dear Friend, — You will perceive by this letter
that I have changed my route. From Birmingham, which
1 During tlio course of liis tour ridge wrote seven times to Josiah
(January-February, 17(.'<>) to procure Wade. Portions of these letters
subscribers for the Watchman, Cole- have been published in Cottle's Early
152 EARLY PUBLIC LIFE [Jan.
I quitted on Friday last (four o'clock in the morning), I
proceeded to Derby, stayed there till Monday morning, and
am now at Nottingham. From Nottingham I go to Shef¬
field ; from Sheffield to Manchester ; from Manchester to
Liverpool; from Liverpool to London; from London to
Bristol. Ah, what a weary way ! My poor crazy ark has
been tossed to and fro on an ocean of business, and I long
for the Mount Ararat on which it is to rest. At Bir¬
mingham I was extremely unwell. . . . Business succeeded
very well there ; about an hundred subscribers, I think.
At Derby tolerably well. Mr. Strutt (the successor to
Sir Richard Arkwright) tells me I may count on forty or
fifty in Derby and round about.
Derby is full of curiosities, the cotton, the silk mills,
Wright,1 the painter, and Dr. Darwin, the everything, ex¬
cept the Christian !2 Dr. Darwin possesses, perhaps, a
greater range of knowledge than any other man in Europe,
and is the most inventive of philosophical men. Pie thinks
in a new train on all subjects except religion. He ban¬
tered me on the subject of religion. I heard all his argu¬
ments, and told him that it was infinitely consoling to
me, to find that the arguments which so great a man ad¬
duced against the existence of a God and the evidences
of revealed religion were such as had startled me at fif¬
teen, but had become the objects of my smile at twenty.
Not one new objection — not even an ingenious one.
Recollections, i. 104-170, and in the periment with the Air Pump, was pre-
" Biographical Supplement " to the sentecl to the National Gallery in
Bioyrajthia Literaria, ii. 849-354. 1803.
It is probable that Wade supplied 2 Compare Biorjraphia Literaria,
funds for the journey, and that Cole- eh. i. " During my first Cambridge
ridge felt himself bound to give an vacation I assisted a friend in a con-
account of his progress and success. tribution for a literary society in
1 Joseph Wright, A 11. A., known Devonshire, and in that I remember
as Wright of Derby, 1730-171)7. to have compared Darwin's works to
Two of his most celebrated pictures the Russian palace of ice, glittering,
were The Head of Ulleswater, and cold, and transitory." Coleridge's
The Dead Soldier. An excellent Works, Harper & Bros., 1853, iii.
specimen of Wright's work, An Ex- 155.
1796]
TO JO SI All WADE
153
He boasted tliat he had never read one book in defence
of such stuff, but he had read all the works of infidels!
What should you think, Mr. Wade, of a man, who, hav¬
ing- abused and ridiculed you, should openly declare that
he had heard all that your enemies had to say against
you, but had scorned to enquire the truth from any of
your own friends ? Would you think liim an honest
man? I am sure you would not. Yet of such are all
the infidels with whom I have met. They talk of a sub¬
ject infinitely important, yet are proud to confess them¬
selves profoundly ignorant of it. Dr. Darwin would have
been ashamed to have rejected Hutton's theory of the
earth1 without having minutely examined it; yet what
is it to us how the earth was made, a thing impossible
to be known, and useless if known? This system the
doctor did not reject without having severely studied it;
but all at once he makes up his mind on such impor¬
tant subjects, as whether we be the outcasts of a blind
idiot called Nature, or the children of an all-wise and
infinitely good God; whether we spend a few miserable
years on this earth, and then sink into a clod of the val¬
ley, or only endure the anxieties of mortal life in order
to fit us for the enjoyment of immortal happiness. These
subjects are unworthy a philosopher's investigation. He
deems that there is a certain self-evidence in infidelity,
and becomes an atheist by intuition. Well did St. Paul
say: "Ye have an evil heart of unbelief." I had an
introductory letter from Mr. Strutt to a Mr. Fellowes of
Nottingham. On Monday evening when I arrived I found
there was a public dinner in honour of Mr. Fox's birthday,
and that Mr. Fellowes was present. It was a piece of
famous good luck, and I seized it, waited on Mr. Fel¬
lowes, and was introduced to the company. On the right
hand of the president whom should I see but an old Col-
1 Dr. James Uuttoii, the author of the Earth was published at Edin-
the Plutonian theory. His Theory of burgh in 1705.
154
EARLY PUBLIC LIFE
[March
lege acquaintance ? He hallooed out: " Coleridge, by
God/" Mr. Wright, the president of the day, was his
relation — a man of immense fortune. I dined at his
house yesterday, and underwent the intolerable slavery of
a dinner of three courses. We sat down at four o'clock,
and it was six before the cloth was removed.
What lovely children Mr. Barr at Worcester has!
After church, in the evening, they sat round and sang
hymns so sweetly that they overwhelmed me. It was
with great difficulty I abstained from weeping aloud —
and the infant in Mrs. Barr's arms leaned forwards,
and stretched his little arms, and stared and smiled. It
seemed a picture of Heaven, where the different orders of
the blessed join different voices in one melodious allelu-
jali; and the baby looked like a young spirit just that
moment arrived in Heaven, startling at the seraphic songs,
and seized at once with wonder and rapture.
My kindest remembrances to Mrs. Wade, and believe
me, with gratitude and unfeigned friendship, your
S. T. Coleridge.
liv. to joseph cottle.
Redcliff Hill, February 22, 1796.
My dear Sir, — It is my duty and business to thank
God for all his dispensations, and to believe them the best
possible; but, indeed, I think I should have been more
thankful, if he had made me a journeyman shoemaker,
instead of an author by trade. I have left my friends ; I
have left plenty; I have left that ease which would have
secured a literary immortality, and have enabled me to
give the public works conceived in moments of inspira¬
tion, and polished with leisurely solicitude; and alas ! for
what have I left tliem ? for who deserted me in the
hour of distress, and for a scheme of virtue impracticable
and romantic! So I am forced to write for bread ; write
the flights of poetic enthusiasm, when evexy minute I am
179G]
TO THOMAS POOLE
155
hearing a groan from my wife. Groans, and complaints,
and sickness! Tlie present hour I am in a quick-set
hedge of embarrassment, and whichever way I turn a
thorn runs into me ! The future is cloud and thick dark¬
ness ! Poverty, perhaps, and the thin faces of them that
want bread, looking up to me! Nor is this all. My hap¬
piest moments for composition are broken in upon by the
reflection that I must make haste. I am too late ! I am
already months behind! I have received my pay before¬
hand ! Oh, wayward and desultory spirit of genius ! Ill
canst thou brook a taskmaster ! The tenderest touch
from the hand of obligation wounds thee like a scourge
of scorpions.
I have been composing in the fields this morning, and
came home to write down the first rude sheet of my pref¬
ace, when I heard that your man had brought a note
from you. I have not seen it, but I guess its contents.
I am writing as fast as I can. Depend on it you shall
not be out of pocket for me ! I feel what I owe you, and
independently of this I love you as a friend ; indeed, so
much, that I regret, seriously regret, that you have been
my copyholder.
If I have written petulantly, forgive me. God knows
I am sore all over. God bless you, and believe me that,
setting gratitude aside, I love and esteem you, and have
your interest at heart full as much as my own.
S. T. Coleridge.
lv. to thomas poole.
March 30, 1796.
My dear Poole, — For the neglect in the transmis¬
sion of u The Watchman,'" you must blame George Bur¬
nett, who undertook the business. I however will myself
see it sent this week with the preceding numbers. I am
greatly obliged to you for your communication (on the
Slave Trade in No. V.) ; it appears in this number, and
156
EARLY PUBLIC LIFE
[March
I am anxious to receive more from you, and likewise to
know what you dislike in " The Watchman," and what
you like; but particularly the former. You have not
given me your opinion of " The Plot Discovered." 1
Since last you saw me I have been well nigh distracted.
The repeated and most injurious blunders of my printer
out-of-doors, and Mrs. Coleridge's increasing danger at
home, added to the gloomy prospect of so many mouths
to open and shut like puppets, as I move the string in the
eating and drinking way —but why complain to you?
Misery is an article with which every market is so glutted,
that it can answer no one's purpose to export it. Alas !
Alas ! oh ! ah ! oh ! oh ! etc.
I have received many abusive letters, post-paid, thanks
to the friendly malignants! But I am perfectly callous
to disapprobation, except when it tends to lessen profit.
There, indeed, I am all one tremble of sensibility, mar¬
riage having taught me the wonderful uses of that vulgar
commodity, yclept bread. " The Watchman " succeeds
so as to yield a bread-and-cheesish profit. Mrs. Coleridge
is recovering apace, and deeply regrets that she was de¬
prived of seeing [you]. We are in our new house, where
there is a bed at your service whenever you will please to
delight us with a visit. Surely in spring you might force
a few days into a sojourning with me.
Dear Poole, you have borne yourself towards me most
kindly with respect to my epistolary ingratitude. But I
know that you forbade yourself to feel resentment towards
me because you had previously made my neglect ingrati¬
tude. A generous temper endures a great deal from one
whom it has obliged deeply.
My poems are finished. I will send you two copies the
1 The title of this pamphlet, which It had an outer wrapper with this
was published shortly after the Con- half-title : " A Protest against Cer-
ciones ad Populum, was " The Plot tain Wills. Bristol: Printed for the
Discovered; or, an Address to the Author, November 28, 1795." It is
People against Ministerial Treason, reprinted in Essays on Ilis Own
By S. T. Coleridge. Bristol, 1795." Times, i. 5G-9S.
1796]
TO THOMAS POOLE
157
moment tliey are published. In tlie third number of
" The Watchman " there are a few lines entitled u The
Hour when we shall meet again," " Dim hour that sleeps
on pillowy clouds cfar" which I think you will like. I
have received two or three letters from different anonymi,
requesting me to give more poetry. One of them writes : —
" Sir! I detest your principles; your prose I think
very so-so ; but your poetry is so exquisitely beautiful, so
gorgeously sublime, that I take in your 'Watchman'
solely 011 account of it. In justice therefore to me and
some others of my stamp, I intreat you to give us more
verse and less democratic scurrility. Your admirer, —
not esteemer."
Have you read over Dr. Lardner on the Logos ? It is,
I think, scarcely possible to read it and not be convinced.
I find that " The Watchman" conies more easy to me,
so that I shall begin about my Christian Lectures. I will
immediately order for you, unless you immediately coun¬
termand it, Count Rumford's Essays; in No. V. of " The
Watchman " you will see why. I have enclosed Dr. Bed-
does's late pamphlets, neither of them as yet published.
The doctor sent them to me. I can get no one but the
doctor to agree with me in my opinion that Burke's " Let¬
ter to a Noble Lord " 1 is as contemptible in style as in
matter — it is sad stuff.
My dutiful love to your excellent mother, whom, believe
me, I think of frequently and with a pang of affection.
God bless you. I '11 try and venture to scribble a line
and a half every time the man goes with " The Watch¬
man " to you.
N. B. The " Essay on Fasting " 2 I am ashamed of ;
but it is one of my misfortunes that I am obliged to pub¬
lish extempore as well as compose. God bless you,
and S. T. Coleridge.
1 Tlie review of " Burke's Letter man. is reprinted in Essays on Ilis
to a Noble Lord," which appeared (Jim Times, i. 107-119.
in the first number of The Watch- 2 Ibid. 120-120.
158
EARLY PUBLIC LIFE
[May
LVI. TO THE SAME.
12tli May, 1796.
Poole! The Spirit, wlio counts the throbbings of the
solitary heart, knows that what my feelings ought to be,
such they are. If it were in my power to give you any¬
thing wliieh I have not already given, I should be op¬
pressed by the letter now before me.1 But no! I feel
myself rich in being poor; and because I have nothing to
bestow, I know how much I have bestowed. Perhaps I
shall not make myself intelligible; but the strong and
unmixed affection which I bear to you seems to exclude
all emotions of gratitude, and renders even the principle
of esteem latent and inert. Its presence is not percepti¬
ble, though its absence could not be endured.
Concerning the scheme itself, I am undetermined. Not
that I am ashamed to receive — God forbid ! I will make
every possible exertion ; my industry shall be at least com¬
mensurate with my learning and talents ; — if these do not
procure for me and mine the necessary comforts of life, I
can receive as I would bestow, and, in either case — receiv¬
ing or bestowing — be equally grateful to my Almighty
Benefactor. I am undetermined, therefore — not because
I receive with pain and reluctance, but — because I sus¬
pect that you attribute to others your own enthusiasm of
benevolence : as if the sun should say, " With how rich a
purple those opposite windows are burning ! " But with
God's permission I shall talk with you on this subject. By
the last page of No. X. you will perceive that I have this
day dropped "The Watchman." On Monday morning I
1 The occasion of this " burst of ton," as " a trifling1 mark of their
affectionate feeling-" was a eommu- esteem, gratitude, and affection."
nication from Poole that seven or The subscriptions were paid in 1796-
eig-ht friends had undertaken to sub- 97, but afterwards discontinued on
scribe a sum of £35 or £40 to be the receipt of the Wedgwood annu-
paid annually to the " author of the ity. See Thomas Poole and his
monody on the death of Chatter- Friends, i. 142.
179G]
TO JOHN THELWALL
159
will go per caravan to Briclgewater, where, if you have a
liorse of tolerable meekness unemployed, you will let him
meet me.
I should hlame you for the exaggerated terms in which
you have spoken of me in the Proposal, did I not per¬
ceive the motive. You wished to make it appear an offer¬
ing— not a favour — and in excess of delicacy have, I
fear, fallen into some grossness of flattery.
God bless you, my dear, very dear Friend. The widow1
is calm, and amused with her beautiful infant. We are
all become more religious than we were. God be ever
praised for all things ! Mrs. Coleridge begs her kind love
to you. To your dear mother my filial respects.
S. T. Coleridge.
lvii. to john thelwall.
May 13, 1796.
My dear Thelwall, — You have given me the affec¬
tion of a brother, and I repay you in kind. Your let¬
ters demand my friendship and deserve my esteem; the
zeal with which you have attacked my supposed delusions
proves that you are deeply interested for me, and inter¬
ested even to agitation for what you believe to be truth.
You deem that I have treated " systems and opinions with
the furious prejudices of the conventicle, and the illiberal
dogmatism of the cynic; " that I have " layed about me
on this side and on that with the sledge hammer of abuse."
I have, you think, imitated the " old sect in politics and
morals" in their " outrageous violence," and have sunk
into the " clownish fierceness of intolerant prejudice." I
have " branded " the presumptuous children of scepticism
" with vile epithets and hunted them down with abuse."
"These be hard'.words, Citizen! and I will be bold to
say they are not to be justified" by the unfortunate page
1 Mrs. Robert Lovell, whose hus- about two years after liis marriage
band had been carried off by a fever with my aunt. — S. C.
1G0
EARLY PUBLIC LIFE
[May
which lias occasioned them. The only passage in it which
appears offensive (I am not now inquiring concerning the
truth or falsehood of this or the remaining passages) is
the following: "You have studied Mr. G.'s Essay on
Political] Jus[tice]—but to think filial affection folly,
gratitude a crime, marriage injustice, and the promiscuous
intercourse of the sexes right and wise, may class you
among the despisers of vulgar prejudices, but cannot in¬
crease the probability that you are a patriot. But you
act up to your principles — so much the worse. Your
principles are villainous ones. I would not entrust my wife
or sister to you ; think you I would entrust my coun¬
try?" My dear Thelwall! how are these opinions con¬
nected with the conventicle more than with the Stoa, the
Lyceum, or the grove of Academus ? I do not perceive
that to attack adultery is more characteristic of Christian
prejudices than of the prejudices of the disciples of Aris¬
totle, Zeno, or Socrates. In truth, the offensive sentence,
"Your principles are villainous," was suggested by the
Peripatetic Sage who divides bad men into two classes.
The first he calls " wet or intemperate sinners " — men
who are hurried into vice by their appetites, but acknow¬
ledge their actions to be vicious; these are reclaimable.
The second class he names dry villains — men who are not
only vicious but who (the steams from the polluted heart
rising up and gathering round the head) have brought
themselves and others to believe that vice is virtue. We
mean these men when we say men of bad 'principles —
guilt is out of the question. I am a necessarian, and of
course deny the possibility of it. However, a letter is not
the place for reasoning. In some form or other, or by
some channel or other, I shall publish my critique on the
New Philosophy, and, I trust, shall demean myself not un-
gently, and disappoint your auguries. . . . "But, you can¬
not be a patriot unless you are a Christian." Yes, Thel¬
wall, the disciples of Lord Shaftesbury and Rousseau as
179G]
TO JOIIX THELWALL
161
well as of Jesus—but the man who suffers not his hopes
to wander beyond the objects of sense will in general be
sensual, and I again assert that a sensualist is not likely
to be a patriot. Have I tried these opinions by the double
test of argument and example ? I think so. The first
would be too large a field, the second some following sen¬
tences of your letter forced me to. . . . Gerraid1 you in¬
sinuate is an atheist. Was he so, when he offered those
solemn prayers to God Almighty at the Scotch conventi¬
cle, and was this sincerity ? But Dr. Darwin and (I sup¬
pose from his actions) Gerraid think sincerity a folly and
therefore vicious. Your atheistic brethren square their
moral systems exactly according to their inclinations.
Gerraid and Dr. Darwin are polite and good-natured men,
and willing to attain at good by attainable roads. They
deem insincerity a necessary virtue in the present imper¬
fect state of our nature. Godwin, whose very heart is
cankered by the love of singularity, and who feels no dis-
1 Compare Condones ad Topulum,
1795, p. 22. " Such is Joseph Ger¬
raid ! Withering in the sickly and
tainted gales of a prison, his health¬
ful soul looks down from the citadel
of his integrity on his impotent per¬
secutors. I saw him in the foul and
naked room of a jail; his cheek was
sallow with confinement, his body
was emaciated; yet his eye spake
the invincible purpose of his soul,
and he still sounded with rapture the
successes of Freedom, forgetful of
his own lingering martyrdom."
Together with four others, Gerraid
was tried for sedition at Edinburgh
in March, 1794. He delivered an
eloquent speech in his own defence,
but with the other prisoners was
convicted and sentenced to be trans¬
ported for fifteen years. " In April
Gerraid was removed to London,
and committed to Newgate, where
Godwin and his other friends were
allowed to visit him. ... In May,
1795, he was suddenly taken from
his prison and placed on board the
hulks, and soon afterwards sailed.
He survived his arrival in New
South Wales only five months. A
few hours before he died, he said to
the friends around him, ' I die in the
best of causes, and, as you witness,
without repining.' " Mrs. Shelley's
Notes, as quoted by Mr. C. Kegan
Paul in his William Godwin, i. 125.
See, too, "the very noble letter"
(January 23, 1794) addressed by
Godwin to Gerraid relative to his
defence. Ibid. i. 125. Lords Cock-
burn and Jeffrey considered the
conviction of these men a gross mis¬
carriage of justice, and in 1844 a
monument was erected at the foot
of the Calton Hill, Edinburgh, to
their memory.
162
EARLY PUBLIC LIFE
[May
inclination to wound by abrupt harshness, pleads for abso¬
lute sincerity, because such a system gives him a frequent
opportunity of indulging his misanthropy. Poor Wil¬
liams,1 the Welsh bard (a very meek man), brought the
tear into my eye by a simple narration of the manner in
which Godwin insulted him under the pretence of reproof,
and Thomas Walker of Manchester told me that his in¬
dignation and contempt were never more powerfully ex¬
cited than by an unfeeling and insolent speech of the said
Godwin to the poor Welsh bard. Scott told me some
shocking stories of Godwin. His base and anonymous at¬
tack on you is enough for me. At that time I had pre¬
pared a letter to him, which I was about to have sent to
the " Morning Chronicle," and I convinced Dr. Beddoes
by passages from the " Tribune " of the calumnious nature
of the attack. I was once and only once in company
with Godwin. lie appeared to me to possess neither the
strength of intellect that discovers truth, nor the powers
of imagination that decorate falsehood; he talked sophisms
in jejune language. I like Ilolcroft a thousand times bet¬
ter, and think him a man of much greater ability. Fierce,
hot, petulant, the very high priest of atheism, he hates
God " with all his heart, with all his mind, with all his
soul, and with all his strength." Every man not an athe¬
ist is only not a fool. " Dr. Priestley? there is apetitesse
in his mind. Hartley? pshaw! Godwin, sir, is a thou¬
sand times a better metaphysician ! " But this intolerance
1 Edward Williams (lolo Mor- " The three principal considerations
gangw), 1T47-I8l'(). His poems in of poetical description: what is
two volumes were published by snb- obvious, what instantly engages the
scription in 1704. Coleridge pos- affections, and what is strikingly
sessed a copy presented to him " by characteristic." The comment is as
the author," and on the last page of follows : " I suppose, rather what we
the second volume he has scrawled recollect to have frequently seen in
a single but characteristic marginal nature, though not in the description
note. It is affixed to a translation of it."
of one of the " Poetic Triades."
1796]
TO JOHN THELWALL
163
is founded on benevolence. (I had almost forgotten that
horrible story about his son.)
On the subject of using- sugar, etc., I will write you a
long and serious letter. This grieves me more than you
[imagine]. I hope I shall be able by severe and un¬
adorned reasoning to convince you you are wrong.
Your remarks on my poems are, I think, just in gen¬
eral ; there is a rage and affectation of double epithets.
" Unshuddered, unaghasted " is, indeed, truly ridiculous.
But why so violent against metaphysics in poetry ? Is not
Akenside's a metaphysical poem ? Perhaps you do not
like Akenside? Well, but I do, and so do a great many
others. Why pass an act of uniformity against poets? I
received a letter from a very sensible friend abusing love
verses ; another blaming the introduction of politics, " as
wider from true poetry than the equator from the poles."
" Some for each " is my motto. That poetry pleases which
interests. My religious poetry interests the religious,
who read it with rapture. Why ? Because it awakes in
them all the associations connected with a love of future
existence, etc. A very dear friend of mine,1 who is, in
1 Tlie allusion must be to Words¬
worth, but there is a difficulty as to
dates. Iu a MS. note to the second
edition of his poems (L797) Cole¬
ridge distinctly states that he had no
personal acquaintance with Words¬
worth as early as March, 17U(>.
Again, in a letter (Letter LXXXI.)
to Estlin dated ''May [? 1797],"
but certainly written in May, 1798,
Coleridge says that he has known
Wordsworth for a year and some
months. On the other hand, there is
Mrs. Wordsworth's report of her hus¬
band's "impression" that he first
met Coleridge, Soutliey, Sara, and
Edith Flicker " in a lodging' in Bris¬
tol in 1795," — an imperfect recol¬
lection very difficult to reconcile with
other known facts. Secondly, there is
Sara Coleridge's statement that" Mr.
Coleridge and Mr. Wordsworth first
met in the house of Mr. Pinney," in
the spring' or summer of 1795 ; and,
thirdly, it would appear from a let¬
ter of Lamb to Coleridge, which be¬
longs to the summer of 1790, that
"the personal acquaintance" with
Wordsworth had already begun. The
probable conclusion is that there was
a first meeting in 1795, and occa¬
sional intercourse in 179(5, but that
intimacy and friendship date from
the visit to Ilacedown in June, 1797.
164
EARLY PUBLIC LIFE
[May
my opinion, the best poet of the age (I will send yon his
poem when published), thinks that the lines from 364 to
375 and from 403 to 428 the best in the volume, — indeed,
worth all the rest. And this man is a republican, and, at
least, a semi-atheist. Why do you object to " shadowy of
truth " ? It is, I acknowledge, a Grecism, but, I think,
an elegant one. Your remarks on the della-crusca place
of emphasis are just in part. Where we wish to point out
the thing, and the quality is mentioned merely as a deco¬
ration, this mode of emphasis is indeed absurd; therefore,
I very patiently give up to critical vengeance " high tree,"
"sore wounds," and "rough rock;" but when you wish
to dwell chiefly on the quality rather than the thing,
then this mode is proper, and, indeed, is used in common
conversation. Who says good man ? Therefore, " big
soul," " cold earth," "dark womb," and "flamy child" are
all right,.and introduce a variety into the versification,
[which is] an advantage where you can attain it without
any sacrifice of sense. As to harmony, it is all associa¬
tion. Milton is harmonious to me, and I absolutely nau¬
seate Darwin's poems.
Yours affectionately,
S. T. Coleridge.
John Thelwall,
Beaufort Buildings, Strand, London.
lviii. to thomas poole.
May 20, 1796.
My dear Poole, — This said caravan does not leave
Bridgewater till nine. In the market place stands the
Coleridge quotes Wordsworth in his only have been "his very dear
"Lines from Shurton Bars," dated friend" sensu poetico. Life of W.
September, 1795, but the first trace Wordsworth, i. Ill ; Biographical
of Wordsworth's influence on style Supplement to Biographia Liter aria,
and thought appears in " This Lime- chapter ii.; Letters of Charles Lamb,
Tree Bower my Prison," July, 1797. Macmillan, 18S8, i. 6.
In May, 179G, Wordsworth could
1796]
TO THOMAS POOLE
165
hustings. I mounted it, and, pacing the boards, mused
on bribery, false swearing, and other foibles of election
times. I have wandered, too, by the river Parret, which
looks as filthy as if all the parrots of the House of
Commons had been washing their consciences therein.
Dear gutter of Stowey !1 Were I transported to Italian
plains, and lay by the side of the streamlet that mur¬
mured through an orange grove, I would think of thee,
dear gutter of Stowey, and wish that I were poring on
thee !
So much by way of rant. I have eaten three eggs,
swallowed sundries of tea and bread and butter, purely for
the purpose of amusing myself! I have seen the horse
fed. When at Cross, where I shall dine, I shall think of
your happy dinner, celebrated under the auspices of hum¬
ble independence, supported by brotherly love ! I am
writing, you understand, for no worldly purpose but that
of avoiding anxious thoughts. Apropos of honey-pie,
Caligula or Elagabalus (I forget which) had a dish of
nightingales' tongues served up. What think you of the
stings of bees ? God bless you! My filial love to your
mother, and fraternity to your sister. Tell Ellen Cruik-
shank that in my next parcel to you I will send my
Haleswood poem to her. Heaven protect her and you
and Sara and your mother and, like a bad shilling passed
off between a handful of guineas,
Your affectionate friend and brother,
S. T. Coleridge.
P. S. — Don't forget to send by Milton [carrier] my
old clothes, and linen that once was clean, etcetera. A
pretty periphrasis that!
1 On the side of the roacl, oppo- through which a stream passes. See
site to Poole's house in Castle Street, Thomas Poole and his Friends, i.
Nether Stowey, is a straight gutter 147.
166
EARLY PUBLIC LIFE
[June
lix. to john thelwall.
Wednesday, June 22, 1796.
Dear Thelwall, — That I have not written you lias
been an act of self-denial, not indolence. I heard that
you were electioneering, and would not be the occasion
that any of your thoughts should diverge from that focus.
I wish very much to see you. Have you given up the
idea of spending a few weeks or month at Bristol? You
might be making •way in your review of Burke's life and
writings, and give us once or twice a week a lecture, which
I doubt not would be crowded. We have a large and
every way excellent library, to which I could make you a
temporary subscriber, that is, I would get a subscription
ticket transferred to you.
You are certainly well calculated for the review you
meditate. Your answer to Burke is, I will not say, the
best, for that would be no praise ; it is certainly the only
good one, and it is a very good one. In style and in
reflectiveness it is, I think, your chef cVoenvre. Yet the
" Peripatetic " 1 — for which accept my thanks — pleased
me more because it let me into your heart; the poetry is
frequently sweet and possesses the Jive of feeling, but not
enough (I think) of the light of fancy. I am sorry that
you should entertain so degrading an opinion of me as to
imagine that I industriously collected anecdotes unfavour¬
able to the characters of great men. No, Thelwall, but I
cannot shut my ears, and I have never given a moment's
belief to any one of those stories unless when they were
related to me at different times by professed democrats.
My vice is of the opposite class, a precipitance in praise ;
witness my panegyric on Gerrald and that black gentle¬
man Margarot in the " Conciones," and my foolish verses
1 The Peripatetic, or Sketches of a miscellany of prose and verse is-
the Heart, of Nature, and of Society, sued by John Thelwall, in 1793.
1796]
TO JOHN THELWALL
167
to Godwin in the " Morning Chronicle." 1 At the same
time, Thelwall, do not suppose that I admit your pallia¬
tions. Doubtless I could fill a hook with slanderous sto¬
ries of professed Christians, but those very men would
allow they were acting contrary to Christianity; but, I
am afraid, an atheistic bad man manufactures his system
of principles with an eye to his peculiar propensities, and
makes his actions the criterion of what is virtuous, not
virtue the criterion of his actions. Where the disposition
is not amiable, an acute understanding I deem no bless¬
ing. To the last sentence in your letter I subscribe fully
and with all my inmost affections. " He who thinks and
feels will be virtuous; and he who is absorbed in self
will be vicious, whatever maybe his speculative opinions."
Believe me, Thelwall, it is not his atheism that has pre¬
judiced me against Godwin, but Godwin who has, per¬
haps, prejudiced me against atheism. Let me see you —
I already know a deist, and Calviuists, and Moravians
whom I love and reverence — and I shall leap forwards to
realise my principles by feeling love and honour for an
atlieist. By the bye, are you an atheist ? For I was told
that Ilutton was an atheist, and procured his three massy
quartos on the principle of knowledge in the hopes of
finding some arguments in favor of atheism, but lo ! I
discovered him to be a profoundly pious deist, — "inde¬
pendent of fortune, satisfied with himself, pleased with his
species, confident in his Creator."
God bless you, my dear Thelwall! Believe me with
high esteem and anticipated tenderness,
Yours sincerely, S. T. Coleridge.
P. S. We have a hundred lovely scenes about Bristol,
which would make you exclaim, O admirable Nature!
and me, O Gracious God !
January 10, 1795. See Poetical one of those tried and transported
Works, p. 41, and Editor's Note, p. with Gerrald.
575. Margarot, a West Indian, was
168
EARLY PUBLIC LIFE
[Sept.
lx. to thomas poole.
Saturday, September 24, 1796.
My dear, very dear Poole, — Tlie heart thoroughly
penetrated with the flame of virtuous friendship is in a
state of glory; but lest it should be exalted above meas¬
ure there is given it a thorn in the flesh. I mean that
when the friendship of any person forms an essential
part of a man's happiness, he will at times be pestered
by the little jealousies and solicitudes of imbecile hu¬
manity. Since we last parted I have been gloomily
dreaming that you did not leave me so affectionately as
you were wont to do. Pardon this littleness of heart, and
do not think the worse of me for it. Indeed, my soul
seems so mantled and wrapped around by your love and
esteem, that even a dream of losing but the smallest
fragment of it makes me shiver, jis though some tender
part of my nature were left uncovered in nakedness.
Last week I received a letter from Lloyd, informing
me that his parents had given their joyful concurrence to
his residence with me; but that, if it were possible that
I could be absent for three or four days, his father wished
particularly to see me. I consulted Mrs. Coleridge, who
advised me to go. . . . Accordingly on Saturday night I
went by the mail to Birmingham and was introduced to
the father, who is a mild man, very liberal in his ideas,
and in religion an allegorizing Quaker. I mean that all
the apparently irrational path of his sect he allegorizes
into significations, which for the most part you or I might
assent to. We became well acquainted, and he ex¬
pressed himself " thankful to heaven that his son was
about to be with me." He said he would write to me
concerning money matters after his son had been some
time under my roof.
On Tuesday morning I was surprised by a letter from
Mr. Maurice, our medical attendant, informing me that
1796]
TO THOMAS POOLE
169
Mrs. Coleridge was delivered on Monday, September 19,
1796, lialf past two in the morning, of a SON, and that
both she and the child were uncommonly well. I was
quite annihilated with the suddenness of the informa¬
tion, and retired to my own room to address myself to
my Maker, but I could only offer up to Him the silence
of stupefied feelings. I hastened home, and Charles
Lloyd returned with me. When I first saw the child,1 I
did not feel that thrill and overflowing of affection which
I expected. I looked on it with a melancholy gaze; my
mind was intensely contemplative and my heart only sad.
But when two hours after I saw it at the bosom of its
mother, on her arm, and her eye tearful and watching
its little features, then I was thrilled and melted, and
gave it the kiss of a father. . . . The baby seems
strong, and the old nurse has over-persuaded my wife to
discover a likeness of me in its face — no great compli¬
ment to me, for, in truth, I have seen handsomer babies
in my lifetime. Its name is David Hartley Coleridge.
I hope that ere he be a man, if God destines him for con¬
tinuance in this life, his head will be convinced of, and
his heart saturated with, the truths so ably supported by
that great master of Christian Philosophy.
Charles Lloyd wins upon me hourly; his heart is un¬
commonly pure, his affection delicate, and his benevo¬
lence enlivened but not sicklied by sensibility. lie is
assuredly a man of great genius ; but it must be in tete-
a-tete with one whom he loves and esteems that his collo¬
quial powers open ; and this arises not from reserve or
want of simplicity, but from having been placed in situa¬
tions where for years together he met with no congenial
minds, and where the contrariety of his thoughts and
notions to the thoughts and notions of those around him
induced the necessity of habitually suppressing his feel¬
ings. His joy and gratitude to Heaven for the circum-
1 See Poetical Tl'orts, p. GG.
170
EARLY PUBLIC LIFE
[Sept.
stance of his domestication with me I can scarcely de¬
scribe to you; and I believe that his fixed plans are of
being always with me. His father told me that if he
saw that his son had formed habits of severe economy he
should not insist upon his adopting any profession; as
then his fair share of his (the father's) wealth would be
sufficient for him.
My dearest Poole, can you conveniently receive us in
the course of a week ? We can both sleep in one bed,
which we do now. And I have much, very much to say
to you and consult with you about, for my heart is heavy
respecting Derby,1 and my feelings are so dim and hud¬
dled that though I can, I am sure, communicate them to
you by my looks and broken sentences, I scarce know
how to convey them in a letter. And Charles Lloyd
wishes much to know you personally. I shall write 011
the other side of the paper two of Charles Lloyd's son¬
nets, which he wrote in one evening at Birmingham. The
latter of them alludes to the conviction of the truth of
Christianity, which he had received from me, for he had
been, if not a deist, yet quite a sceptic.
Let me hear from you by post immediately ; and give
my kind love to that young man with the soul-beaming
face,2 which I recollect much better than I do his name.
God bless you, my dear friend.
Believe me, with deep affection, your
S. T. Coleridge.
1 Early in the autumn of 1790, a 2 Thomas Ward, at first the arti-
proposal had been made to Coleridge cled clerk, and afterwards partner
that he should start a day school in in business and in good works, of
Derby. Poole dissuaded him from Thomas Poole. He it was who tran-
accepting this offer, or rather, per- scribed in " Poole's Copying Book "
haps, Coleridge succeeded in procur- Coleridge's letters from Germany,
ing Poole's disapproval of a plan and much of his correspondence be-
whicli he himself dreaded and dis- sides. See Thomas Poole and his
liked. Friends, i. 159, 100, 304, 305, etc.
179G]
TO CHARLES LAMB
171
LXI. TO CHARLES LAMB.1
[September 28, 179G.]
Your letter, my friend, struck me 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 weariness 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 unto the guidance of faith. And surely it is a
matter of joy that your faith in Jesus has been pre¬
served ; 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 of the calamity; the unconscious
1 This letter, first printed in Gill-
man's Life, pp. 338-840, and since
reprinted in the notes to Canon
Amber's edition of Lamb's Letters
(i. 314, 315), was written in response
to a request of Charles Lamb in his
letter of September 27, 1700, an¬
nouncing- the " terrible calamities "
■which had befallen his family.
" Write me,"' said Lamb, " as re¬
ligious a letter as possible." In his
next letter, October 3, he says,Your
letter is an inestimable treasure."
But a few weeks later, October 24,
he takes exception to the sentence,
" You are a temporary sharer in
human miseries that you may be an
eternal partaker of the Divine na¬
ture." Lamb thought that the
expression savoured too much of
theological subtlety, and outstepped
the modesty of weak and suffering'
humanity. Coleridge's " religious
letter " came from his heart, but he
was a born preacher, and naturally
clothes his thoughts in rhetorical
language. I have seen a note writ¬
ten b}r him within a few hours of
his death, when he could scarcely
direct his pen. It breathes the ten-
derest loving-kindness, but the ex¬
pressions are elaborate and formal.
It was only in poetry that he at¬
tained to simplicity.
172
EARLY PUBLIC LIFE
[Nov.
instrument of Divine Providence knows it not, and your
mother is in heaven. It is sweet to be roused from a
frightful 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 inherit¬
ance who imitate the most difficult parts of his character,
and, bowed down and crushed underfoot, 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, and 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 en¬
courage 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 me.
I remain your affectionate
S. T. Coleridge
lxii. to thomas poole.
Saturday niglit, November 5, 1796.
Thanks, my heart's warm thanks to you, my beloved
friend, for your tender letter ! Indeed, I did not deserve
179G]
TO THOMAS POOLE
173
so kind a one ; but by this time you have received my
last.
To live in a beautiful country, and to enure myself as
mucli as possible to the labour of the field, have been for
this year past my dream of the day, my sigh at midnight.
But to enjoy these blessings near you, to see you daily,
to tell you all my thoughts in their first birth, and to
hear yours, to be mingling identities with you as it were,
— the vision-wearing fancy has indeed often pictured such
things, but hope never dared whisper a promise. Disap¬
pointment ! Disappointment! dash not from my trem¬
bling hand the bowl which almost touches my lips. Envy
me not this immortal draught, and I will forgive thee all
thy persecutions. Forgive thee ! Impious ! I will bless
thee, black-vested minister of optimism, stern pioneer of
happiness ! Thou hast been " the eloud " before me from
the day that I left the flesh-pots of Egypt, and was led
through the way of a wilderness — the cloud that hast
been guiding me to a land flowing with milk and honey
— the milk of innocence, the honey of friendship !
I wanted such a letter as yours, for I am very unwell.
On Wednesday night I was seized with an intolerable
pain from my right temple to the tip of my right shoulder,
including my right eye, cheek, jaw, and that side of the
throat. I was nearly frantic, and ran about the house
naked, endeavouring by every means to excite sensations
in different parts of my body, and so to weaken the enemy
by creating division. It continued from one in the morn¬
ing till half past five, and left me pale and fainting. It
came on fitfully, but not so violently, several times on
Thursday, and began severer threats towards night; but
I took between sixty and seventy drops of laudanum,1
1 Coleridge must liave resorted ber 21,1791, he says, " Opium never
occasionally to opiates long before used to have any disagreeable effects
this. In an unpublished letter to on me." Most likely it w;is given
his brother George, dated Novem- to him at Christ's Hospital, when he
174
EARLY PUBLIC LIFE
[Nov.
and sopped tlie Cerberus, just as his mouth began to open.
On Friday it only niggled, as if the chief had departed
from a conquered place, and merely left a small garri¬
son behind, or as if he had evacuated the Corsica,1 and a
was suffering from rheumatic fever.
In tlie sonnet 011 " Pain," which
belongs to the summer of 1790, he
speaks of '' frequent pangs,'' of
" seas of pain," and in the natural
course of things opiates would have
been prescribed by the doctors. Tes¬
timony of this nature appears at first
sight to be inconsistent with state¬
ments made by Coleridge in later
life to the effect that he began to
take opium in the second year of his
residence at Keswick, in consequence
of rheumatic pains brought on by
the damp climate. It was, how¬
ever, the first commencement of the
secret and habitual resort to nar¬
cotics which weighed on memory
and conscience, and there is abundant
evidence that it was not till tlie late
spring of 1801 that he could be said
to be under the dominion of opium.
To these earlier indulgences in the
" accursed drug," which probably
left no "disagreeable effects," and
of which, it is to be remarked, he
speaks openly, he seems to have at¬
tached but little significance.
Since the above note was written,
Mr. W. Aldis Wright has printed
in the Academy, February 24, 1894,
an extract from an unpublished let¬
ter from Coleridge to the Rev. Mr.
Edwards of Birmingham, recently
found in the Library of Trinity
College, Cambridge. It is dated
Bristol, "12 March, 1795" (read
" 1796 "), and runs as follows : —
" Since I last wrote you, I have
been tottering on the verge of mad¬
ness — my mind overbalanced on tlie
e contra side of happiness — the blun¬
ders of my associate [in the editing
of the Watchman, G. Burnett], etc.,
etc., abroad, and, at home, Mrs.
Coleridge dangerously ill. . . . Such
has been my situation for the last
fortnight — I have been obliged to
take laudanum almost every night."
1 The news of the evacuation of
Corsica by the British troops, which
took place on October 21, 1796, must
have reached Coleridge a few days
before the date of this letter. Cor¬
sica was ceded to the British, June
18, 1794. A declaration of war on
the part of Spain (August 19, 1796)
and a threatened invasion of Ire¬
land compelled the home govern¬
ment to withdraw their troops from
Corsica. In a footnote to chapter
xxv. of his Life of Napoleon Bona¬
parte, Sir Walter Scott quotes from
Napoleon's memoirs compiled at St.
Helena the " odd observation " that
" the crown of Corsica must, on the
temporary annexation of the island
to Great Britain, have been sur¬
prised at finding itself appertaining
to the successor of Fingal." Sir
Walter's patriotism constrained him
to add the following comment : " Not
more, we should think, than the dia¬
dem of France and the iron crown
of Lombardy marvelled at meeting
on the brow of a Corsican soldier of
fortune."
In tlie Biographia Liter aria, 1847,
ii. 380, the word is misprinted Cor-
rica, but there is no doubt as to the
reading of the MS. letter, or to the
allusion to contemporary history.
1196]
TO THOMAS POOLE
175
few straggling' pains only remained. But this morning
he returned in full force, and liis name is Legion. Giant-
fiend of a hundred hands, with a shower of arrowy death-
pangs he transpierced me, and then he became a wolf,
and lay a-gnawing at my bones ! I am not mad, most
noble Festus, but in sober sadness I have suffered this
day more bodily pain than I had before a conception of.
My right cheek has certainly been placed with admirable
exactness under the focus of some invisible burning-glass,
which concentrated all the rays of a Tartarean sun. My
medical attendant decides it to be altogether nervous, and
that it originates either in severe application, or excessive
anxiety. My beloved Poole ! in excessive anxiety, I be¬
lieve it might originate. I have a blister under my right
ear, and I take twenty-five drops of laudanum every five
hours, the ease and spirits gained by which have enabled
me to write you this flighty but not exaggerated account.
With a gloomy wantonness of imagination I had been
coquetting with the hideous possibles of disappointment.
I drank fears like wormwood, yea, made myself drunken
with bitterness; for my ever - shaping and distrustful
mind still mingled gall-drops, till out of the cup of hope
I almost poisoned myself with despair.
Your letter is dated November 2d ; I wrote to you
November 1st. Your sister was married on that day ;
and on that day several times I felt my heart overflowed
with such tenderness for her as made me repeatedly ejac¬
ulate prayers in her behalf. Such things are strange.
It may be superstitious to think about such correspond¬
ences ; but it is a superstition which softens the heart and
leads to no evil. We will call on your dear sister as soon
as I am quite well, and in the mean time I will write a few
lines to her.
I am anxious beyond measure to be in the country as
soon as possible. I would it were possible to get a tem¬
porary residence till Adscombe is ready for us. I would
176
EARLY PUBLIC LIFE
[Nov.
tliat it could be that we could have three rooms in Bill
Poole's large house for the winter. Will you try to look
out for a fit servant for us — simple of heart, pliysiognom-
ically handsome, and scientific in vaccimulgence ? That
last word is a new one, but soft in sound and full of ex¬
pression. Vaccimulgence ! I am pleased with the word.
Write to me all things about yourself. Where I cannot
advise I can condole and communicate, which doubles
joy, halves sorrow.
Tell me whether you think it at all possible to make
any terms with William Poole. You know I would not
wish to touch with the edge of the nail of my great toe
the line which should be but half a barley-corn out of the
niche of the most trembling delicacy. I will write Cruik-
shank to-morrow, if God permit me.
God bless and protect you, friend, brother, beloved !
S. T. Coleridge.
Sara's best love, and Lloyd's. David Hartley is well,
saving that he is sometimes inspired by the god iEolus,
and like Isaiah, " his bowels sound like an harp." My
filial love to your dear mother. Love to Ward. Little
Tommy, I often think of thee.
lxiii. to the same.
Monday niglit, November 7, 1796.
My dearest Poole, — I wrote you on Saturday night
under the immediate inspiration of laudanum, and wrote
you a flighty letter, but yet one most accurately descriptive
both of facts and feelings. Since then my pains have
been lessening, and the greater part of this day I have
enjoyed perfect ease, only I am totally inappetent of food,
and languid, even to an inward perishing.
I wrote John Cruiksliank this morning, and this mo¬
ment I have received a letter from him. My letter written
before the receipt of his contains everything I would
179G]
TO THOMAS POOLE
177
write in answer to it, and I do not like to write to him
superfluously, lest I should break in on his domestic
terrors and solitary broodings with regard to Anna Cruik-
sliank.1 May the Father and lover of the meek preserve
that meek woman, and give her a safe and joyful deliver¬
ance !
I wrote this morning a short note of congratulatory
kindliness to your sister, and shall be eager to call 011 her,
when Legion has been thoroughly exorcised from my
temple and cheeks. Tell Cruiksliank that I have received
his letter, and thank him for it.
A few lines in your last letter betokened, I thought,
a wounded spirit. Let me know the particulars, my
beloved friend. I shall forget and lose my own anxieties
while I am healing yours with clieerings of sympathy.
I met with the following sonnet in some very dull
poems, among which it shone like a solitary star when
the night is dark, and one little space of blue uninvaded
by the floating blackness, or, if a terrestrial simile be re¬
quired, like a red carbuncle on a negro's nose. From the
languor and exhaustion to which pain and my frequent
doses of laudanum have reduced me, it suited the feeble
temper of [my] mind, and I have transcribed it on the
other page. I amused myself the other day (having
some paper at the printer's which I could employ no
other way) in selecting twenty-eight sonnets,2 to bind up
with Bowles's. I charge sixpence for them, and have sent
you five to dispose of. I have only printed two hundred,
as my paper held out to no more; and dispose of them
privately, just enough to pay the printing. The essay
which I have written at the beginning I like. ... I have
likewise sent you Burke's pamphlet which was given to
me; it has all his excellences without any of his faults.
1 It, was to this lady that the lines Child " were addressed. Poetical
"On the Christening of n Friend's TLor&s, p. 83.
~ See Letter LXVHI., p. 20G, note.
178
EARLY PUBLIC LIFE
[Nov.
This parcel I send to-morrow morning, enclosed in a
parcel to Bill Poole of Thurston.
God love you, my affectionate brother, and your affec¬
tionate
S. T. Coleridge.
SONNET.
With passive joy the moment I survey
When welcome Death shall set my spirit free.
My soul ! the prospect brings no fear to thee,
But soothing Fancy rises to pourtray
The dear antl parting words my Friends will say :
With secret Pride their heaving Breast I see,
And count the sorrows that will flow for me.
And now I hear my lingering knell decay
And mark the Hearse ! Methinks, with moisten'd eye,
Clara beholds the sad Procession move
That bears me to the Resting-place of Care,
And sighs, " Poor youth ! thy Bosom well could love,
And well thy Numbers picture Love's despair."
Vain Dreams! yet such as make it sweet to die.
lxiv. to john thelwall.
Saturday, November 19, [1796].
Oxford Street, Bristol.
My dear Thelwall, — Ah me ! literary adventure
is but bread and cheese by chance. I keenly sympathise
with you. Sympathy, the only poor consolation I can
offer you. Can no plan be suggested ? ... Of course you
have read the " Joan of Arc." 1 Homer is the poet for
the warrior, Milton for the religionist, Tasso for women,
Robert Southey for the patriot. The first and fourth
1 The preface to the quarto edi- from the second (1797) and subse-
tion of Southey's Joan of Arc is quent editions. It was afterwards
dated Bristol, November, 1795, but republished, with additions, in Sibyl-
the volume did not appear till the line Leaves (1817) as "The Destiny
following spring'. Coleridge's con- of Nations."
tribution to Book II. was omitted
1796]
TO JOHN TIIELWALL
179
books of tlie " Joan of Arc " are to me more interesting
than the same number of lines in any poem whatever. But
you and I, my dear Thelwall, hold different creeds in
poetry as well as religion. N'importe ! By the bye, of
your works I have now all, except your " Essay on Ani¬
mal Vitality " which I never had, and your Poems, which
I bought on their first publication, and lost them. From
these poems I should have supposed our poetical tastes
more nearly alike than, I find, they are. The poem on the
Sols [?] flashes genius through Strophe I, Antistrophe I,
and Epode I. The rest I do not perhaps understand,
only I love these two lines : —
" Yet sure the verse that shews the friendly mind
To Friendship's ear not harshly flows."
Your larger narrative affected me greatly. It is admira¬
bly written, and displays strong sense animated by feel¬
ing, and illumined by imagination, and neither in the
thoughts nor rhythm does it encroach on poetry.
There have been two poems of mine in the new
" Monthly Magazine," 1 with my name ; indeed, I make it
a scruple of conscience never to publish anything, how¬
ever trifling, without it. Did you like them ? The first
was written at the desire of a beautiful little aristocrat;
consider it therefore as a lady's poem. Bowles (the bard
of my idolatry) has written a poem lately without plan
or meaning, but the component parts are divine. It is
entitled " Hope, an Allegorical Sketch." I will copy
two of the stanzas, which must be peculiarly interesting
to you, virtuous higli-treasonist, and your friends the
democrats.
1 The lines " On a late Connu- appeared in the following number,
bial Rapture " were printed in the It was headed, " Reflections on en-
Monthly Magazine for September, tering into active Life. A Poem
17(J(>. The well-known poem be- which affects not to be Poetry."
ginning "Low was our pretty Cot"
180
EARLY PUBLIC LIFE
[Nov.
" But see, as one awaked from deadly trance,
With hollow and dim eyes, and stony stare,
Captivity with faltering step advance !
Dripping and knotted was her coal-black hair:
For she had long been hid, as in the grave ;
No sounds the silence of her prison broke,
Nor one companion had she in her cave
Save Terror's dismal shape, that no word spoke,
But to a stony coffin on the floor
With lean and hideous finger pointed evermore.
" The lark's shrill song, the early village chime,
The upland echo of the winding horn,
The far-heard clock that spoke the passing time,
Had never pierced her solitude forlorn:
At length released from the deep dungeon's gloom
She feels the fragrance of the vernal gale,
She sees more sweet the living landscape bloom,
And while she listens to Hope's tender tale,
She thinks her long-lost friends shall bless her sight,
And almost faints for joy amidst the broad daylight."
The last line is exquisite.
Your portrait of yourself interested me. As to me, my
face, unless when animated by immediate eloquence, ex¬
presses great sloth, and great, indeed, almost idiotic good¬
nature. 'T is a mere carcass of a face ;1 fat, flabby, and
expressive chiefly of inexpression. Yet I am told that
my eyes, eyebrows, and forehead are physiognomic ally
good ; but of this the deponent knoweth not. As to my
shape, 't is a good shape enough if measured, but my gait
is awkward, and the walk of the whole man indicates in¬
dolence capable of energies. I am, and ever have been, a
great reader, and have read almost everything — a library
1 Compare the following lines seventeen, remarkable for a plump
from an early transcript of " Happi- face."
ness " now in my possession : — The " Reminiscences of an Octo-
" Ah ! doubly blest if Love supply genarian " (The Kev. Leapidge
Lustre to the now heavy eye, Smith), contributed to the Leisure
And with unwonted spirit grace Hour, convey a different impression :
That fat vacuity of face." u jn person ]le was a fall, dark, liand-
Tlie transcriber adds in a footnote, some young man, with long, black,
"The author was at this time, at flowing hair ; eyes not merely dark,
179G]
TO JOHN THELWALL
181
cormorant. I am deep in all out of tlie way books,
whether of the monkish times, or of the puritanical era.
I have read and digested most of the historical writers ;
but I do not like history. Metaphysics and poetry and
" facts of mind," that is, accounts of all the strange phan¬
tasms that ever possessed " your philosophy ; " dreamers,
from Tlioth the Egyptian to Taylor the English pagan,
are my darling studies. In short, I seldom read except to
amuse myself, and I am almost always reading. Of use¬
ful knowledge, I am a so-so chemist, and 1 love chemistry.
All else is blank; but I will be (please God) an horticul-
turalist and a farmer. I compose very little, and I abso¬
lutely hate composition, and such is my dislike that even
a sense of duty is sometimes too weak to overpower it.
I cannot breathe through my nose, so my mouth, with
sensual thick lips, is almost always open. In conversa¬
tion I am impassioned, and oppose what I deem error
with an eagerness which is often mistaken for personal
asperity; but I am ever so swallowed up in the thing
that I perfectly forget my opponent. Such am I. I am
just going to read Dupuis' twelve octavos,1 which I have
got from London. I shall read only one octavo a week,
for I cannot speak French at all and I read it slowly.
My wife is well and desires to be remembered to you
and your Stella and little ones. N. B. Stella (among
the Romans) was a man's name. All the classics are
against you ; but our Swift, I suppose, is authority for
this unsexing.
Write on the receipt of this, and believe me as ever,
with affectionate esteem, Your sincere friend,
S. T. Coleridge.
but, black, and keenly penetrating'; and, added to all these, exhibiting
a fine forehead, a deep-toned, liar- the elements of his future great-
monious voice ; a manner never to ness. I^eisuve Hour, 18 <0, p. G51.
be forgotten, full of life, vivacity, 1 Oriyine de tous les Cultes, ou
mid kindness ; dignified in person Helicjion universclla.
182
EARLY PUBLIC LIFE
[Dec.
P. S. I have enclosed a five-guinea note. The five
shillings over please to lay out for me thus. In White's
(of Fleet Street or the Strand, I forget which — O ! the
Strand I believe, but I don't know which), well, in
White's catalogue are the following books: —
4674. Iambliclius,1 Proclus, Porphyrius, etc., one shil¬
ling and sixpence, one little volume.
4686. Juliani Opera, three shillings: which two books
you will be so kind as to purchase for me, and send down
with the twenty-five pamphlets. But if they should un¬
fortunately be sold, in the same catalogue are: —
2109. Juliani Opera, 12s. Gd.
676. Iambliclius de Mysteriis, 10s. 6d.
2681. Sidonius Apollinaris, Gs.
And in the catalogue of Robson, the bookseller in New
Bond Street, Plotini Opera, a Ficino, <£1.1.0, making
altogether <£2.10.0.
If you can get the two former little books, costing only
four and sixpence, I will rest content with them; if they
are gone, be so kind as to purchase for me the others 1
mentioned to you, amounting to two pounds, ten shillings ;
and, as in the course of next week I shall send a small par¬
cel of books and manuscripts to my very dear Charles
Lamb of the India House, I shall be enabled to convey
the money to you in a letter, which he will leave at your
house. I make no apology for this commission, because
1 feel (to use a vulgar phrase) that I would do as much
for you. P. P. S. Can you buy them time enough to send
down with your pamphlets ? If not, make a parcel per se.
I hope your hurts from the fall are not serious ; you have
given a proof now that you are no Ijrpohrite, but I forgot
that you are not a Greekist, and perchance you hate puns;
but, in Greek, Krites signifies a judge and liippos a
1 Thelwall executed his commis- Coleridg-e to his son Derwent. They
sion. The Iambliclius and the Ju- are still in the possession of the
lian were afterwards presented by family.
179G]
TO THOMAS POOLE
183
horse. Hippocrite, therefore, may mean & judge of horses.
My dear fellow, I laugh more and talk more nonsense in
a week than [most] other people do in a year. Farewell.
John Thelwall,
Beaufort Buildings, Strand, London.
lxy. to thomas poole.1
Sunday morning-, December 11, 1796.
My beloved Poole, — The sight of your villainous
liand-scrawl was a great comfort to me. How have you
been diverted in London ? What of the theatres ? And
how found you your old friends ? I dined with Mr. King
yesterday week. He is quantum suff: a pleasant man,
and (my wife says) very handsome. Hymen lies in the
arms of Hygeia, if one may judge by your sister; she
looks remarkably well! But has she not caught some
complaint in the head ? Some scurfy disorder ? For her
hair was filled with an odious white Dandruff. ("N. B.
Nothing but powder," Mrs. King.) About myself, I
have so much to say that I really can say nothing. I
mean to work very hard — as Cook, Butler, Scullion,
Shoe-cleaner, occasional Nurse, Gardener, Ilind, Pig-pro¬
tector, Chaplain, Secretary, Poet, Reviewer, and omnium-
botherum shilling-Scavenger. In other words, I shall
keep no servant, and will cultivate my land-acre and my
wise-acres, as well as I can. The motives which led to
. this determination are numerous and weighty; I have
1 The three letters to Poole, dated account or his own it was among
December 11, 12, and 13, relative the few papers retained by Poole
to Coleridge's residence at Stowey, when, to qiiote Mrs. Sandford, " in
were published for the first time in 1836 he placed the greater num-
Thomas Poole and his Friends. The ber of the letters which he had re-
long letter of expostulation, dated ceived from S. T. Coleridge at the
December 13, which is in fact a disposal of his literary executors
continuation of that dated Decern- for biographical purposes." Thomas
ber 12, is endorsed by Poole: '"An Poole and his Friends, i. 182-193.
angry letter, but the breach was Mrs. Sandford has kindly permitted
soon healed." Either on Coleridge's me to reprint it in extenso.
184
EARLY PUBLIC LIFE
[Dec.
thought much and calmly, and calculated time and money
with unexceptionable accuracy; and at length determined
not to take the charge of Charles Lloyd's mind on me.
Poor fellow! he still hopes to live with me — is now at
Birmingham. I wish that little cottage by the roadside
were gettable ? That with about two or three rooms — it
would quite do for us, as we shall occupy only two rooms.
I will write more fully on the receipt of yours. God love
you and
S. T. Coleridge.
lxvi. to the same.
December 12, 1T96.
You tell me, my dear Poole, that my residence near
you would give you great pleasure, and I am sure that if
you had any objections on your own account to my set¬
tling near Stowey you would have mentioned them to me.
Relying on this, I assure you that a disappointment would
try my philosophy. Your letter did indeed give me un¬
expected and most acute pain. I will make the cottage
do. We want but three rooms. If Cruikshank have
promised more than his circumstances enable him to per¬
form, I am sure that I can get the other purchased by my
friends in Bristol. I mean, the place at Adscombe. I
wrote him pressingly on this head some ten days ago;
but he has returned me no answer. Lloyd has obtained
his father's permission and will return to me. He is will¬
ing to be his own servant. As to Acton, 't is out of the
question. In Bristol I have Cottle and Estlin (for Mr.
Wade is going away) willing and eager to serve me; but
how they can serve me more effectually at Acton than at
Stowey, I cannot divine. If I live at Stowey, you indeed
can serve me effectually, by assisting me in the acquire¬
ment of agricultural practice. If you can instruct me to
manage an acre and a half of land, and to raise in it, with
my own hands, all kinds of vegetables and grain, enough
179G]
TO THOMAS POOLE
185
for myself and my wife ancl sufficient to feed a pig or
two with the refuse, I hope that you will have served me
most effectually by placing me out of the necessity of
being served. I receive about forty guineas yearly from
the " Critical Review " and the new " Monthly Magazine."
It is hard if by my greater works I do not get twenty more.
I know how little the human mind requires when it is
tranquil, and in proportion as I should find it difficult to
simplify my wants it becomes my duty to simplify them.
For there must be a vice in my nature, which woe be to
me if I do not cure. The less meat I eat the more
healthy I am; and strong liquors of any kind always and
perceptibly injure me. Sixteen shillings would cover all
the weekly expenses of my wife, infant, and myself. This
I say from my wife's own calculation.
But whence this sudden revolution in your opinions,
my dear Poole ? You saw the cottage that was to be our
temporary residence, and thought we might be happy in
it, and now you hurry to tell me that we shall not even be
comfortable in it. You tell me I shall be " too far from my
friends,'' that is, Cottle and Estlin, for I have no other in
Bristol. In the name of Heaven, what can Cottle or Est¬
lin [do] for me ? They do nothing who do not teach me
how to be independent of any except the Almighty Dis¬
penser of sickness and health. And " too far from the
press." AVitli the printing of the review and the magazine
I have 110 concern; and, if I publish any work 011 my own
account, I will send a fair and faultless copy, and Cottle
promises to correct the press for me. Mr. King's family
may be very worthy sort of people, for aught I know; but
assuredly I can employ my time wiselier than to gabble
with my tongue to beings with whom neither my head
nor heart can commune. My habits and feelings have suf¬
fered a total alteration. I hate company except of my
dearest friends, and systematically avoid it; and when in
it keep silence as far as social humanity will permit me.
186
EARLY PUBLIC LIFE
[Dec.
Lloyd's father, in a letter to me yesterday, enquired how
I should live without any companions. I answered him
not an hour before I received your letter: —
" I shall have six companions : My Sara, my babe, my
own shaping and disquisitive mind, my books, my beloved
friend Thomas Poole, and lastly, Nature looking at me
with a thousand looks of beauty, and speaking to me in
a thousand melodies of love. If I were capable of being
tired with all these, I should then detect a vice in my
nature, and would fly to habitual solitude to eradicate it."
Yes, my friend, while I opened your letter my heart
was glowing with enthusiasm towards you. How little
did I expect that I should find you earnestly and vehe¬
mently persuading me to prefer Acton to Stowey, and in
return for the loss of your society recommending Mr.
I£in(/s family as " very pleasant neighbours." Neigh¬
bours ! Can mere juxtaposition form a neighbourhood ?
As well should the louse in my head call himself my
friend, and the flea in my bosom style herself my love!
On Wednesday week we must leave our house, so that
if you continue to dissuade me from settling near Stowey
I scarcely know what I shall do. Surely, my beloved
friend, there must be some reason which you have not yet
told me, which urged you to send this hasty and lieart-
cliilling letter. 1 suspect that something has passed
between your sister and dear mother (in whose illness I
sincerely sympathise with you).
I have never considered my settlement at Stowey in
any other relation than its advantages to myself, and they
would be great indeed. My objects (assuredly wise ones)
were to learn agriculture (and where should I get in¬
structed except at Stowey ?) and to be where I can com¬
municate in a literary way. I must conclude. I pray you
let me hear from you immediately. God bless you and
S. T. Coleridge.
1796]
TO THOMAS POOLE
187
LXVII. TO THE SAME.
Monday night.
I wrote the former letter immediately on receipt of
yours, in the first flutter of agitation. The tumult of my
spirits has now subsided, but the Damp struck into my
very heart; and there I feel it. O my God ! my God !
where am I to find rest ? Disappointment follows disap¬
pointment, and Hope seems given me merely to prevent
my becoming callous to Misery. Now I know not where
to turn myself. I was on my way to the City Library,
and wrote an answer to it there. Since I have returned
I have been poring into a book, as a shew for not look¬
ing at my wife and the baby. By God, I dare not look
at them. Acton ! The very name makes me grind my
teeth ! What am I to do there ?
" You will have a good garden ; you may, I doubt not,
have ground." But am I not ignorant as a child of every¬
thing that concerns the garden and the ground ? and shall
I have one human being there who will instruct me ?
The House too -— what should I do with it ? We want
but two rooms, or three at the furthest. And the country
around is intolerably flat. I would as soon live on the
banks of a Dutch canal! And no one human being near
me for whom I should, or could, care a rush ! No one
walk where the beauties of nature might endear solitude to
me ! There is one Ghost that I am afraid of ; with that I
should be perpetually haunted in this same cursed Acton —
the hideous Ghost of departed Hope. O Poole ! how could
you make such a proposal to me? I have compelled
myself to reperuse your letter, if by any means I may be
able to penetrate into your motives. I find three reasons
assigned for my not settling at Stowey. The first, the
distance from my friends and tlio Press. This I answered
in the former letter. As to my friends, what can they do
for me ? And as to the Press, even if Cottle had not
188
EARLY PUBLIC LIFE
[Dec.
promised to correct it for me, yet I might as well be fifty
miles from it as twelve, for any purpose of correcting.
Secondly, tlie expense of moving. Well, but I must
move to Acton, and wliat will the difference be ? Per¬
haps three guineas. ... I would give three guineas that
you had not assigned this reason. Thirdly, the wretch¬
edness of that cottage, which alone we can get. But
surely, in the house which I saw, two rooms may be
found, which, by a little green list and a carpet, and a
slight alteration in the fireplace, may be made to exclude
the cold : and this is all we want. Besides, it will be but
for a while. If Cruikshank cannot buy and repair
Adscombe, I have no doubt that my friends here and at
Birmingham would, some of them, purchase it. So much
for the reasons : but these cannot be the real reasons.
I was with you for a week, and then we talked over the
whole scheme, and you approved of it, and I gave up
Derby. More than nine weeks have elapsed since then,
and you saw and examined the cottage, and you knew
every other of these reasons, if reasons they can be called.
Surely, surely, my friend, something has occurred which
you have not mentioned to me. Your mother has mani¬
fested a strong dislike to our living near you — or some¬
thing or other ; for the reasons you have assigned tell
me nothing except that there are reasons which you have
not assigned.
Pardon, if I write vehemently. I meant to have writ¬
ten calmly; but bitterness of soul came upon me. Mrs.
Coleridge has observed the workings of my face while I
have been writing, and is entreating to know what is the
matter. I dread to show her your letter. I dread it.
My God ! my God! What if she should dare to think
that my most beloved friend has grown cold towards me !
Tuesday morning, 11 o'clock. — After an unquiet and
almost sleepless night, I resume my pen. As the senti¬
ments over leaf came into my heart, I will not suppress
1790]
TO THOMAS POOLE
189
tliem. I would keep a letter by me which I wrote to a
mere acquaintance, lest anything' unwise should be found
in it; but my friend ought to know not only what my
sentiments are, but what my feelings were.
I am, indeed, perplexed and cast down. My first plan,
you know, was this — My family was to have consisted of
Charles Lloyd, my wife and wife's mother, my infant, the
servant, and myself.
My means of maintaining them — Eighty pounds a year
from Charles Lloyd, and forty from the Review and Mag¬
azine. My time was to have been divided into four parts:
1. Three hours after breakfast to studies with C. L. 2.
The remaining hours till dinner to our garden. 3. From
after dinner till tea, to letter-writing and domestic quiet¬
ness. 4. From tea till prayer-time to the reviews, maga¬
zines, and other literary labours.
In this plan I calculated nothing on my garden but
amusement. In the mean time I heard from Birmingham
that Lloyd's father had declared that he should insist on
his son's returning to him at the close of a twelvemonth.
What am I to do then? I shall be again afloat on the
wide sea, unpiloted and unprovisioned. I determined to
devote my whole day to the acquirement of practical
horticulture, to part with Lloyd immediately, and live
without a servant. Lloyd intreated me to give up the
Review and Magazine, and devote the evenings to him,
but this would be to give up a permanent for a temporary
situation, and after subtracting <£40 from C. Ll.'s <£80 in
return for the Review business, and then calculating the
expense of a servant, a less severe mode of general living,
and Lloyd's own board and lodging, the remaining £40
would make but a poor figure. And what was I to do
at the end of a twelvemonth? In the mean time Mrs.
Flicker's son could not be got out as an apprentice — he
was too young, and premiumless, and no one would take
him ; and the old lady herself manifested a great aversion
190
EARLY PUBLIC LIFE
[Dec.
to leaving Bristol. I recurred therefore to my first prom¬
ise of allowing her ,£20 a year ; but all her furniture
must of course be returned, and enough only remains to
furnish one bedroom and a kitchen-parlour.
If Charles Lloyd and the servant went with me I must
have bought new furniture to the amount of X40 or X50,
which, if not Impossibility in person, was Impossibility's
first cousin. We determined to live by ourselves. We
arranged our time, money, and employments. We found
it not only practicable but easy; and Mrs. Coleridge
entered with enthusiasm into the scheme.
To Mrs. Coleridge the nursing and sewing only would
have belonged ; the rest I took upon myself, and since
our resolution have been learning the practice. With
only two rooms and two people — their wants severely
simple — no great labour can there be in their waiting upon
themselves. Our washing we should put out. I should
have devoted my whole head, heart, and body to my acre
and a half of garden land, and my evenings to literature.
Mr. and Mrs. Estlin approved, admired, and applauded
the scheme, and thought it not only highly virtuous, but
highly prudent. In the course of a year and a half, I
doubt not that I should feel myself independent, for my
bodily strength would have increased, and I should have
been weaned from animal food, so as never to touch it
but once a week ; and there can be no shadow of a doubt
that an acre and a half of land, divided properly, and
managed properly, would maintain a small family in
everything but clothes and rent. What had I to ask of
my friends ? Not money; for a temporary relief of my
want is nothing, removes no gnawing of anxiety, and de¬
bases the dignity of man. Not their interest. What
could their interest (supposing they had any) do for me?
I can accept no place in state, church, or dissenting meet¬
ing. Nothing remains possible but a school, or writer to a
newspaper, or my present plan. I could not love the man
1796]
TO THOMAS POOLE
191
who advised me to keep a school, or write for a newspaper,
lie must have a hard heart. What then could I ask of
my friends? What of Mr. Wade? Nothing. What of
Mr. Cottle ? Nothing. . . . What of Thomas Poole ? O !
a great deal. Instruction, daily advice, society — every¬
thing necessary to my feelings and the realization of my
innocent independence. You know it would be impos¬
sible for me to learn everything myself. To pass across
my garden once or twice a day, for five minutes, to set
me right, and cheer me with the sight of a friend's face,
would be more to me than hundreds. Your letter was
not a kind one. One week only and I must leave my
house, and yet in one week you advise me to alter the
plan which I had been three months framing, and in
which you must have known by the letters I wrote you,
during my illness, that I was interested even to an excess
and violence of Hope. And to abandon this plan for dark¬
ness and a renewal of anxieties which might be fatal to
me! Not one word have you mentioned how I am to
live, or even exist, supposing I were to go to Acton.
Surely, surely, you do not advise me to lean with the
whole weight of my necessities 011 the Press ? Ghosts
indeed ! I should be haunted with ghosts enough — the
ghosts of Otway and Chatterton, and the phantasms of a
wife broken-hearted, and a hunger-bitten baby ! O Thomas
Poole! Thomas Poole ! if you did but know what a
Father and a Husband must feel who toils with his brain
for uncertain bread! I dare not think of it. The evil
face of Frenzy looks at me. The husbandman puts his
seed in the ground, and the goodness, power, and wisdom
of God have pledged themselves that he shall have bread,
and health, and quietness in return for industry, and
simplicity of wants and innocence. The author scatters
his seed — with aching head, and wasted health, and all
the heart-leapings of anxiety; and the follies, the vices,
and the fickleness of man promise him printers' bills and
192
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[Dec.
the Debtors' Side of Newgate as full and sufficient pay¬
ment.
Charles Lloyd is at Birmingham. I hear from him
daily. In his yesterday's letter he says: " My dearest
friend, everything seems clearing around me. My
friends enter fully into my views. They seem altogether
to have abandoned any ambitious views on my account.
My health has been very good since I left you; and I
own I look forward with more pleasure than ever to a
permanent connection with you. Hitherto I could only
look forward to the pleasures of a year. All beyond was
dark and uncertain. My father now completely acqui¬
esces in my abandoning the prospect of any profession or
trade. If God grant me health, there now remains no
obstacle to a completion of my most sanguine wishes."
Charles Lloyd will furnish his own room, and feels it his
duty to be in all things his own servant. He will put up
a press-bed, so that one room will be his bedchamber and
parlour ; and I shall settle with him the hours and seasons
of our being together, and the hours and seasons of our
being apart. But I shall rely 011 him for nothing except
his own maintenance.
As to the poems, they are Cottle's property, not mine.
There is no obstacle from me — no new poems intended to
be put in the volume, except the " Visions of the Maid of
Orleans." . . . But literature, though I shall never aban¬
don it, will always be a secondary object with me. My
poetic vanity and my political furor have been exhaled;
and I would rather be an expert, self-maintaining gar¬
dener than a Milton, if I could not unite both.
My friend, wherein I have written impetuously, par¬
don me ! and consider what I have suffered, and still am
suffering, in consequence of your letter. . . .
Finally, my Friend ! if your opinion of me and your
attachment to me remain unaltered, and if you have as¬
signed the true reasons wliich urged you to dissuade me
from a settlement at Stowey, and if indeed (provided
1796]
TO JOHN THELWALL
193
such settlement were consistent with my good and happi¬
ness), it would give you unmixed pleasure, I adhere to
Stoicey, and consider the time from last evening as a dis¬
tempered dream. But if any circumstances have occurred
that have lessened your love or esteem or confidence ; or
if there be objections to my settling in Stowey on your
own account, or any other objections than what you have
urged, I doubt not you will declare them openly and un¬
reservedly to me, in your answer to this, which I shall
expect with a total incapability of doing or thinking of
anything, till I have received it. Indeed, indeed, I am
very miserable. God bless you and your affectionate
S. T. Coleridge.
Tuesday, December 13, 1796.
lxviii. to john thelwall.
December 17, 1796.
My dear Thelwall, — I should have written you long
ere this, had not the settlement of my affairs previous to
my leaving Bristol and the organization of my new plan
occupied me with bulky anxieties that almost excluded
everything but self from my thoughts. And, besides,
my health has been very bad, and remains so. A nervous
affection from my right temple to the extremity of my right
shoulder almost distracted me, and made the frequent use
of laudanum absolutely necessary. And, since I have sub¬
dued this, a rheumatic complaint in the back of my head
and shoulders, accompanied with sore throat and depres¬
sion of the animal spirits, has convinced me that a man
may change bad lodgers without bettering himself. I
write these things, not so much to apologise for my silence,
or for the pleasure of complaining, as that you may
know the reason why I have not given you a " strict ac¬
count " how I have disposed of your books. This I will
shortly do, with all the veracity which that solemn incan¬
tation, " upon your honour," must necessarily have con¬
jured up.
Your second and third part promise great things. I
194
EARLY PUBLIC LIFE
[Dec.
have counted tlie subjects, and by a nice calculation find
that eighteen Scotch doctors would write fifty-four quarto
volumes, each choosing his thesis out of your syllabus.
May you do good by them, and moreover enable yourself to
do more good, I should say, to continue to do good. My
j\irm will be a garden of one acre and a half, in which
I mean to raise vegetables and corn enough for myself
and wife, and feed a couple of snouted and grunting
cousins from the refuse. My evenings I shall devote to
literature; and, by reviews, the magazine, and the other
shilling - scavenger employments, shall probably gain
forty pounds a year ; which economy and self - denial,
gold-beaters, shall hammer till it cover my annual ex¬
penses. Now, in favour of this scheme, I shall say nothing,
for the more vehement my ratiocinations were, previous
to the experiment, the more ridiculous my failure woidd
appear; and if the scheme deserve the said ratiocinations
I shall live down all your objections. I doubt not that
the time will come when all our utilities will be directed
in one simple path. That time, however, is not come ; and
imperious circumstances point out to each one his particu¬
lar road. Much good may be done in all. I am not Jit
for public life; yet the light shall stream to a far dis¬
tance from my cottage window. Meantime, do you uplift
the torch dreadlessly, and show to mankind the face of
that idol which they have worshipped in darkness! And
now, my dear fellow, for a little sparring about poetry.
My first sonnet1 is obscure ; but you ought to distinguish
between obscurity residing in the uncommonness of the
thought, and that which proceeds from thoughts uncon¬
nected and language not adapted to the expression of
1 " Sonnet composed on a journey lislied in 1797, and again from a
homeward, tlie author having1 re- copy of the same sonnet sent in a
ceived intelligence of the birth of a letter to Poole, dated November 1,
son. September 20, 1796." 179(5. See Poetical Works, p. 66, and
The opening lilies, as quoted in Editor's Note, p. 582.
the letter, differ from those pub-
179G]
TO JOHN TIIELWALL
195
them. Where you do find out the meaning of my poetry,
can you (in general, I mean) alter the language so as to
make it more perspicuous — the thought remaining the
same? By "dreamy semblance" I did mean semblance
of some unknown past, like to a dream, and not " a sem¬
blance presented in a dream." I meant to express that
ofttimes, for a second or two, it flashed upon my mind
that the then company, conversation, and everything, had
occurred before with all the precise circumstances; so as
to make reality appear a semblance, and the present like
a dream in sleep. Now this thought is obscure ; because
few persons have experienced the same feeling. Yet
several have; and they were proportionably delighted
with the lines, as expressing some strange sensations,
which they themselves had never ventured to communi¬
cate, much less had ever seen developed in poetry. The
lines I have altered to, —
Oft o'er my brain does that strange rapture roll
Which makes the present (while its brief fit last)
Seem a mere semblance of some unknown past,
Mixed with such feelings as distress the soul
When dreaming that she dreams.1
Next as to "mystical." Now that the thinking part of
man, that is, the soul, existed previously to its appearance
in its present body may be very wild philosophy, but it is
very intelligible poetry ; inasmuch as " soul" is an ortho¬
dox word in all our poets, they meaning by " soid " a being
inhabiting our body, and playing upon it, like a musician
enclosed in an organ whose keys were placed inwards.
Now this opinion I do not hold ; not that I am a materi¬
alist, but because I am a Berkleyan. Yet as you, who are
not a Christian, wished you were, that we might meet in
heaven, so I, who did not believe in this descending and
incarcerated soul, yet said if my baby had died before I
1 Coleridge's Poetical p. GG.
196
EARLY PUBLIC LIFE
[Dec.
had seen him I should have struggled to believe it. Bless
me! a commentary of thirty-five lines in defence of a son¬
net ! and I do not like the sonnet much myself. In some
(indeed, in many of my poems) there is a garishness and
swell of diction which I hope that my poems in future, if
I write any, will be clean of, but seldom, I think, any con-
celts. In the second edition, now printing, I have swept
the book with the expurgation-besom to a fine tune, having
omitted nearly one third. As to Bowles, I affirm that the
manner of his accentuation in the words " broad day¬
light " (three long syllables) is a beauty, as it admirably
expresses the captive's dwelling 011 the sight of noon with
rapture and a kind of wonder.
The common sun, the air, the skies
To him are opening paradise.
Gkay.
But supposing my defence not tenable ; yet how a blunder
in metre stamps a man Italian or Delia Cruscan I can¬
not perceive. As to my own poetry, I do confess that it
frequently, both in thought and language, deviates from
" nature and simplicity." But that Bowles, the most
tender, and, with the exception of Burns, the only always
natural in our language, that lie should not escape the
charge of Delia Cruseanism, — this cuts the skin and sur¬
face of my heart. u Poetry to have its highest relish must
bo impassioned." True. But, firstly, poetry ought not
always to have its highest relish ; and, secondly, judging of
the cause from its effect, poetry, though treating on lofty
and abstract truths, ought to be deemed impassioned by
him who reads it with impassioned feelings. Now Col-
lins's " Ode on the Poetical Character," — that part of it,
I should say, beginning with " The band (as faery legends
say ) Was wove 011 that creating day," —has inspired and
whirled me along with greater agitations of enthusiasm
than any the most impassioned scene in Schiller or Shake-
179G]
TO JOHN TIIELWALL
197
speare, using " impassioned" in its confined sense, for
writing in which the human passions of pity, fear, anger,
revenge, jealousy, or love are brought into view with their
workings. Yet I consider the latter poetry as more valu¬
able, because it gives more general pleasure, and I judge
of all things by their utility. I feel strongly and I think
strongly, but I seldom feel without thinking or think with¬
out feeling Hence, though my poetry has in general a
hue of tenderness or passion over it, yet it seldom exhib¬
its unmixed and simple tenderness or passion. My philo¬
sophical opinions are blended with or deduced from my
feelings, and this, I think, peculiarises my style of writing,
and, like everything else, it is sometimes a beauty and
sometimes a fault. But do not let us introduce an Act of
Uniformity against Poets. I have room enough in my
brain to admire, aye, and almost equally, the head and
fancy of Akenside, and the heart and fancy of Bowles, the
solemn lordliness of Milton, and the divine chit-chat of
Cowper.1 And whatever a man's excellence is, that will
be likewise his fault.
There were some verses of yours in the last " Monthly
Magazine " with which I was much pleased — calm good
sense combined with feeling, and conveyed in harmonious
verse and a chaste and pleasing imagery. I wish much,
very much, to see your other poem. As to your Poems
which you informed me in the accompanying letter that
you had sent in the same parcel with the pamphlets,
whether or no your verses had more than their proper
number of feet I cannot say; but certain it is, that some¬
how or other they marched of. No " Poems by John
Thelwall" could I find. AVlien I charged you with anti-
1 Compare Lamb's letter to Cole- the ' divine cliit-ehat of Cowper.' "
ridge, December 5, 17%. "I am Compare, too, letter of December
glad you love Cowper. I could for- 10, lT'.HS, in which the origin of the
give a man for not enjoying Milton, phrase is attributed to Coleridge,
but 1 would not call that man my Letters of Charles Lamb, i. 52, 54.
friend who should be offended with See, too, Canon Ainger's note, i. o!6.
198
EARLY PUBLIC LIFE
[Dec.
religious bigotry, I did not allude to your pamphlet, but
to passages in your letters to mc, and to a circumstance
which Southey, I think, once mentioned, that you had as¬
serted that the name of God ought never to be produced
in poetry.1 Which, to be sure, was carrying hatred to
your Creator very far indeed.
My dear Thelwall! " It is the principal felicity of life
and the chief glory of manhood to speak out fully on all
subjects." I will avail myself of it. I will express edl
my feelings, but will previously take care to make my feel¬
ings benevolent. Contempt is hatred without fear; an¬
ger, hatred accompanied with apprehension. But because
hatred is always evil, contempt must be always evil, and a
good man ought to speak contemptuously of nothing. I
am sure a wise man will not of opinions which have been
held by men, in other respects at least, confessed of more
powerful intellect than himself. 'T is an assumption of
infallibility ; for if a man were wakefully mindful that
what he now thinks foolish he may himself hereafter think
wise, it is not in nature that he should despise those who
now believe what it is possible he may himself hereafter
believe ; and if he deny the possibility he must on that
point deem himself infallible and immutable. Now, in
your letter of yesterday, you speak with contempt of two
things: old age and the Christian religion; though reli¬
gion was believed by Newton, Locke, and Hartley, after
intense investigation, which in each had been preceded by
unbelief. This does not prove its truth, but it should save
its followers from contempt, even though through the in¬
firmities of mortality they should have lost their teeth. I
call that man a bigot, Thelwall, whose intemperate zeal,
for or against any opinions, leads him to contradict himself
in the space of half a dozen lines. Now this you appear
1 " Southey misrepresented me.
My maxim was and is that the name
of God should not be introduced into
Love SonnetsMS. Note by John
Thelwall.
1790]
TO JOHN THELWALL
199
to me to liavc done. I will write fully to you now, be¬
cause I shall never renew the subject. I shall not be idle
in defence of the religion I profess, and my books will be
the place, not my letters. You say the Christian is a mean
religion. Now the religion which Christ taught is simply,
first, that there is an omnipresent Father of infinite
power, wisdom, and goodness, in whom we all of us move
and have our being; and, secondly, that when we appear
to men to die we do not utterly perish, but after this life
shall continue to enjoy or suffer the consequences and nat¬
ural effects of the habits we have formed here, whether
good or evil. This is the Christian religion, and all of
the Christian religion. That there is no fancy in it I
readily grant, but that it is mean and deficient in mind
and energy it were impossible for me to admit, unless I
admitted that there could be no dignity, intellect, or force
in anything but atheism. But though it appeal not itself
to the fancy, the truths which it teaches admit the highest
exercise of it. Are the " innumerable multitude of angels
and archangels " less splendid beings than the countless
gods and goddesses of Home and Greece ? And can you
seriously think that Mercury from Jove equals in poetic
sublimity " the mighty angel that came down from heaven,
whose face was as it were the sun and his feet as pillars
of fire: who set his right foot on the sea, and his left foot
on the earth. And he sent forth a loud voice ; and when
lie had sent it forth, seven thunders uttered their voices:
and when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, the
mighty Angel1 lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by
Ilim that liveth for ever and ever that Time was no more "?
Is not Milton a sublimer poet than Homer or Virgil ? Are
not his personages more sublimely clothed, and do you not
know that there is not perhaps one page in Milton's Par-
1 Revelation x. l-(i. Some words ity, or to heighten the dramatic ef-
and sentences of the original are feet,
omitted, either for the sake of brev-
200
EARLY PUBLIC LIFE
[Dec.
aclise Lost in wliicli lie has not borrowed liis imagery from
the Scriptures ? I allow and rejoice that Christ appealed
only to the understanding and the affections ; hut I affirm
that after reading Isaiah, or St. Paul's " Epistle to the
Hebrews," Homer and Virgil are disgustingly tame to me,
and Milton himself barely tolerable. You and I are very
differently organized if you think that the following (put¬
ting serious belief out of the question) is a mean flight of
impassioned eloquence in which the Apostle marks the dif¬
ference between the Mosaic and Christian Dispensation :
" For ye are not come unto the mount that might be
touched" (that is, a material and earthly place) " and
that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and tempest,
and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which
voice they that heard entreated that the word should not
be spoken to them any more. But ye are come unto
Mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, to an
innumerable company of angels, to God the Judge of all,
and to the spirits of just men made perfect." 1 You may
prefer to all this the quarrels of Jupiter and Juno, the
whimpering of wounded Venus, and the jokes of the celes¬
tials on the lameness of Vulcan. Be it so (the difference
in our tastes it would not be difficult to account for from
the different feelings which we have associated with these
ideas) ; I shall continue with Milton to say that
'• Zion Hill
Delights me more, and Siloa's brook that flow'd
Fast by the oracle of God ! "
" Visions fit for slobberers ! " If infidelity do not lead
to sensuality, which in every case except yours I have ob¬
served it to do, it always takes away all respect for those
who become unpleasant from the infirmities of disease or
decaying nature. Exempli gratia, " the aged are slob¬
ber ers." 2 The only vision which Christianity holds forth
1 Hebrews xii. 18, 19, 22, 23. terval of twenty-three years I was
2 " In reading- over this after an in- wondering what I conld have said
179G]
TO JOHN THELWALL
201
is indeed peculiarly adapted to these slobber era. Yes, to
tliese lowly and despised and perishing slobberers it pro¬
claims that their " corruptible shall put on incorrujition,
and their mortal put on immortality
" Morals to the Magdalen and Botany Bay." Now,
Thelwall, I presume that to preach morals to the virtu¬
ous is not quite so requisite as to preach them to the
vicious. " The sick need a physician." Are morals
which would make a prostitute a wife and a sister,
which would restore her to inward peace and purity ; are
morals which would make drunkards sober, the ferocious
benevolent, and thieves honest, mean morals f Is it a
despicable trait in our religion, that its professed object
is to heal the broken-hearted and give wisdom to the
poor man ? It preaches repentance. What repentance ?
Tears and sorrow and a repetition of the same crimes ?
No, a " repentance unto good works ; " a repentance that
completely does away all superstitious terrors by teaching
that the past is nothing in itself, that, if the mind is good,
that it was bad imports nothing. " It is a religion for
democrats." It certainly teaches in the most explicit terms
the rights of man, his right to wisdom, his right to an equal
share in all the blessings of nature ; it commands its dis¬
ciples to go everywhere, and everywhere to preach these
rights ; it commands them never to use the arm of flesh, to
be perfectly non-resistant; yet to hold the promulgation
of truth to be a law above law, and in the performance of
this office to defy " wickedness in high places," and cheer¬
fully to endure ignominy, and wretchedness, and torments,
and death, rather than intermit the performance of it; yet,
while enduring ignominy, and wretchedness, and torments,
and death, to feel nothing but sorrow, and pity, and love
tliat looked like contempt of age. ill guide in matters of understanding1
May not slobberers have referred not and consequently of faith?" MS.
to age but to the drivelling- of de- Note by John Thelwall, 1819.
cayed intellect, which is surely an
202
EARLY PUBLIC LIFE
[Dec.
for tliosc who inflicted them; wishing their oppressors to
be altogether sncli as they, " excepting these bonds."
Here is truth in theory and in practice, a union of energetic
action and more energetic suffering. For activity amuses ;
but he who can endure calmly must possess the seeds of
true greatness. For all his animal spirits will of necessity
fail him; and he has only his mind to trust to. These
doubtless are morals for all the lovers of mankind, who
wish to act as well as speculate; and that you should
allow this, and yet, not three lines before call the same
morals mean, appears to me a gross self-contradiction
symptomatic of bigotry. I write freely, Thelwall; for,
though personally unknown, I really love you, and can
count but few human beings whose hand I would welcome
with a more hearty grasp of friendship. I suspect, Thel¬
wall, that you never read your Testament, since your un¬
derstanding was matured, without carelessness, and previ¬
ous contempt, and a somewhat like hatred. Christianity
regards morality as a process. It finds a man vicious and
unsusceptible of noble motives and gradually leads him, at
least desires to lead him, to the height of disinterested
virtue ; till, in relation and proportion to his faculties and
power, he is perfect " even as our Father in heaven is
perfect." There is no resting-place for morality. Now I
will make one other appeal, and have done forever with
the subject. There is a passage in Scripture which com¬
prises the whole process, and each component part, of
Christian morals. Previously let me explain the word
faith. By faith I understand, first, a deduction from
experiments in favour of the existence of something not
experienced, and, secondly, the motives which attend such
a deduction. Now motives, being selfish, are only the
beginning and tliq foundation, necessary and of first-rate
importance, yet made of vile materials, and hidden be¬
neath the splendid superstructure.
" Now giving all diligence, add to your faith fortitude,
179G]
TO JOHN THELWALL
203
and to fortitude knowledge,
to purity patience,1 and to
1 Patience — permit me as a defi¬
nition of the word to quote one sen¬
tence from my first Address, p. 1?0.
"Accustomed to regard all the af¬
fairs of man as a process, they
never hurry and they never pause."
In his not possessing this virtue, all
the horrible excesses of Robespierre
did, I believe, originate. — MS. note
to text of letter by S. T. Coleridge.
2 Godliness — the belief, the ha¬
bitual and efficient belief, that we are
always in the presence of our uni¬
versal Parent. I will translate liter¬
ally a passage [the passage is from
Voss's Luise. I am enabled by the
courtesy of Dr. Garnett, of the Brit¬
ish Museum, to give an exact refer¬
ence : Luise, ein landliches Gedicht
in drei Idyllen, von Johann Hein-
rich Yoss, Konigsberg, mdccxcv.
Erste Idylle, pp. 41-45, lines 303-
339. — E. H. C.] from a German
hexameter poem. It is the speech
of a country clergyman on the birth¬
day of his daughter. The latter part
fully expresses the spirit of godli¬
ness, and its connection with bro¬
therly-kindness. (Pardon the harsh¬
ness of the language, for it is trans¬
lated totidem verbis.)
Yes! my beloved daughter, I
am cheerful, cheerful as the birds
singing in the wood here, or the
squirrel that hops among the airy
branches around its young in their
nest. To-day it is eighteen years
since God gave me my beloved, now
my only child, so intelligent, so
pious, and so dutiful. How the
time flies away ! Eighteen years to
come — how far the space extends
itself before us! and how does it
vanish when we look back upon
md to knowledge purity, and
patience godliness,2 and to
it! It was but yesterday, it seems
to me, that as I was plucking flow¬
ers here, and offering praise, on a
sudden the joyful message came,
' A daughter is born to us.' Much
since that time lias the Almighty
imparted to us of good and evil.
But the evil itself was good ; for
his loving-kindness is infinite. Do
you recollect [to his wife] as it once
had rained after a long drought, and
I (Louisa in my arms) was walking
with thee in the freshness of the
garden, how the child snatched at
the rainbow, and kissed me, and
said : ' Papa ! there it rains flowers
from heaven ! Does the blessed
God strew these that we children
may gather them up ? ' ' Yes ! ' I
answered, ' full-blowing and heav¬
enly blessings does the Father strew
who stretched out the bow of his
favour; flowers and fruits that we
may gather them with thankfulness
and joy. Whenever I think of that
great Father then my heart lifts itself
up and swells with active impulse to¬
wards all his children, our brothers
who inhabit the earth around us; dif¬
fering indeed from one another in
powers and understanding, yet all
dear children of the same parent, nour¬
ished by the same Spirit of animation,
and ere long to fall asleep. and again
to wake in the common morning of the
Resurrection ; all who have loved their
fellow-creatures, all shall rejoice with
Peter, and Moses, and Confucius, and
Homer, and Zoroaster, with Socrates
who died for truth, and also with the
noble Mendelssohn who teaches that the
divine one was never crucijicd.'' "
Mendelssohn is a German Jew by
parentage, and deist by election.
204
EARLY PUBLIC LIFE
[Dec.
godliness brotherly-kindness, and to brotherly-kindness
universal love." 1
I hope, whatever you may think of godliness, you will
like the note on it. I need not tell you, that godliness is
God-///mess, and is paraphrased by Peter " that ye may
be partakers of the divine nature," that is, act from a
love of order and happiness, not from any self-respecting
motive; from the excellency into which you have exalted
your nature, not from the keenness of mere prudence.
" Add to your faith fortitude, and to fortitude knowledge,
and to knowledge purity, and to purity patience, and to
patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly-kindness,
and to brotherly-kindness universal love." Now, Thel-
wall, putting faith out of the question (which, by the
bye, is not mentioned as a virtue, but as the leader to
them), can you mention a virtue which is not here en¬
joined? and supposing the precepts embodied in the
practice of any one human being, would not perfection be
personified ? I write these things not with any expecta¬
tion of making you a Christian. I should smile at my
own folly, if I conceived it even in a friendly day-dream.
" The ardour of undisciplined benevolence seduces us
into malignity," and, while you accustom yourself to
speak so contemjrtuoashj of doctrines you do not accede
to, and persons with whom you do not accord, I must
doubt whether even your brotherly-kindness might not be
made more perfect. That is surely ft for a man which
his mind after sincere examination approves, which ani¬
mates his conduct, soothes his sorrows, and heightens his
pleasures. Every good and earnest Christian declares
that all this is true of the visions (as you please to style
lie lias written some of the most most unintelligible Immanuel Kant,
acute books possible in favour of — MS. note to text of letter by S. T.
natural immortality, and Germany Coleridge,
deems him her profoundest meta- 1 2 Peter i. 5-7.
physician, with the exception of the
1796]
TO JOHN TIIELWALL
205
tliem, God knows why) of Christianity. Every earnest
Christian, therefore, is on a level with slobberers. Do not
charge me with dwelling on one expression. These ex¬
pressions are always indicative of the habit of feeling-.
Yon possess fortitude and purity, and a large portion of
brotherly-kindness and universal love ; drink with un¬
quenchable thirst of the two latter virtues, and acquire
'patience; and then, Tlielwall, should your system be
true, all that can be said is that (if both our systems
should be found to increase our own and our fellow-crea¬
tures' happiness), " Here lie and did lie the all of John
Tlielwall and S. T. Coleridge. They were both humane,
and happy, but the former was the more knowing ; " and
if my system should prove true, we, I doubt not, shall
both meet in the kingdom of heaven, and I, with trans¬
port in my eye, shall say, " I told you so, my dear fellow."
But seriously, the faulty habit of feeling, which I have
endeavoured to point out in you, I have detected in at
least as great degree in my own practice, and am strug¬
gling to subdue it. I rejoice that the bankrupt honesty
of the public has paid even the small dividend you men¬
tioned. As to your second part, I will write you about
it in a day or two, when I give you an account how I
have disposed of your first. My dear little baby ! and
my wife thinks that he already begins to flutter the
callow wings of his intellect. Oh, the wise heart and
foolish head of a mother ! Kiss your little girl for me,
and tell her if I knew her I would love her; and then I
hope in your next letter you will convey her love to me
and my Sara. Your dear boy, I trust, will return with
rosy cheeks. Don't you suspect, Tlielwall, that the little
atheist Madam Stella has an abominable Christian kind
of h cart ? My Sara is much interested about her ; and I
should not wonder if they were to be sworn sister-seraphs
in the heavenly Jerusalem. Give my love to her.
I have sent you some loose sheets which Charles Lloyd
206
EARLY PUBLIC LIFE
[Dec.
and I printed together, intending to make a volume, but
I gave it up and cancelled them.1 Item, Joan of Arc,
with only the passage of my writing cut out for the print¬
ers, as I am printing it in my second edition, with very
great alterations and an addition of four hundred lines, so
as to make it a complete and independent poem, entitled,
" The Progress of Liberty," or " The Visions of the Maid
of Orleans." Item, a sheet of sonnets2 collected by me for
the use of a few friends, who paid the printing. There
you will see my opinion of sonnets. Item, Poem by C.
Lloyd3 on the death of one of your " slobberers," a very
venerable old lady, and a Quaker. The book is dressed
like a rich Quaker, in costly raiment but unornamented.
The loss of her almost killed my poor young friend ; for
he doted on her from his infancy. Item, a poem of
mine on Burns 4 which was printed to be dispersed among
1 They were criticised by Lamb
in his letter to Coleridge Dec. 10,
1790 (xxxi. of Canon Ainger's edi¬
tion), but in a passage first, printed
in the Atlantic Monthly tor February,
1801. The explanatory notes there
printed were founded on a miscon¬
ception, but the matter is cleared up
in the Athenaeum for June 13, 1891,
in the article, "A Letter of Charles
Lamb."
2 The reference is to a pamphlet
of sixteen pages containing twenty-
eight sonnets by Coleridge, Southey,
Lloyd, Lamb, and others, which was
printed for private circulation to¬
wards the close of 1790, and distrib¬
uted among a few friends. Of this
selection of sonnets, which was made
" for the purpose of binding them up
with the sonnets of the Rev. W. L.
Bowles," the sole surviving copy is
now in the Dyce Collection of the
South Kensington Museum. On the
fly-leaf, in Coleridge's handwriting,
is a " presentation note " to Mrs.
Thelwall. For a full account of this
curious and interesting volume, see
Coleridge's Poetical and Dramatic
Works, 4 vols., 1877-1880, ii. 377-
379; also, Poetical Works (1893),
542-544.
3 A folio edition of " Poems on
the Death of Priscilla Farmer, by
her grandson Charles Lloyd," was
printed at Bristol in 179(3. The vol¬
ume was prefaced by Coleridge's son¬
net, " The piteous sobs which choke
the virgin's breast," and contained
Lamb's " Grandame." As Mr. Dykes
Campbell has pointed out, it is to
this " magnificent folio " that Charles
Lamb alludes in his letter of Decem¬
ber 10, 1796 (incorrectly dated 1797),
when he speaks of " my granny so
gaily decked," and records " the odd
coincidence of two young men in one
age carolling their grandmothers."
Poetical Works, note 99, p. 583.
4 " To a friend (C. Lamb) who had
179G]
TO JOHN THELWALL
207
friends. It was addressed to Cliarles Lamb. Item,
(Shall I give it thee, blasphemer? No ! I won't, but) to
thy Stella I do present the poems of my youth for a keep¬
sake. Of this parcel I do entreat thy acceptance. I have
another Joan of Arc, so you have a right to the one en¬
closed. Postscript. Item, a humorous u Droll " 011 S. Ire¬
land, of which I have likewise another. Item, a strange
poem written by an astrologer here, who was a man of
fine genius, which, at intervals, he still discovers. But,
ah me ! Madness smote with her hand and stamped with
her feet and swore that he should be hers, and hers he is.
He is a man of fluent eloquence and general knowledge,
gentle in his manners, warm in his affections; but unfor¬
tunately he has received a few rays of supernatural light
through a crack in his upper story. I express myself un¬
feelingly ; but indeed my heart always aches when I think
of him. Item, some verses of Robert Southey to a col¬
lege cat.1 And, finally, the following lines by thy affec¬
tionate friend,
S. T. Coleridge.
TO A YOUNG MAN
WHO ABANDONED HIMSELF TO A CAUSELESS AND INDOLENT MEL¬
ANCHOLY.2
Hence that fantastic wantonness of woe,
0 youth to partial Fortune vainly dear!
To plunder'd Want's half-sheltered hovel go,
Go, and some hunger-bitten infant hear
Moan haply in a dying mother's ear.
declared liis intention of writing no causeless melancholy," may have
more poetry." Poetical Works, p. been addressed to Charles Lloyd.
69. See, too, Editor's Note, p. 583. The last line, " A prey to the
1 Printed in the Annual Anthology throned murderess of mankind," was
for 179!). afterwards changed to "A prey to
2 These lines, which were pub- tyrants, murderers of mankind."
lislied with the enlarged title " To The reference is, doubtless, to Cath-
a Young Man of Fortune who had erine of Russia. Her death had
abandoned himself to an indolent and taken place a month before the date
208
EARLY PUBLIC LIFE
[Dec.
Or seek some widoiv's grave ; whose clearer part
Was slaughtered, where o'er his uncoffin'd limits
The flocking flesli-hirds scream'd ! Then, while thy heart
Groans, and thine eyes a fiercer sorrow dims,
Know (and the truth shall kindle thy young mind),
What Nature makes thee mourn she bids thee heal.
O abject! if, to sickly dreams resign'd,
All effortless thou leave Earth's common weal
A prey to the thron'd Murderess of Mankind!
After the first five lines these two followed: —
Or when the cold and dismal fog-damps brood
O'er the rank church-yard with sere elm-leaves strew'd,
Pace round some ■widow's grave, etc.
These they rightly omitted. I love sonnets ; but upon
my honour I do not love my sonnets.
N. B. — Direct your letters, S. T. Coleridge, Mr. Cot¬
tle's, High Street, Bristol.
lxix. to thomas poole.
Sunday morning [? December 18, 1796.]
My dear Poole, — I wrote to you with improper im¬
petuosity ; but I had been dwelling so long on the circum¬
stance of living near you, that my mind was thrown by
your letter into the feelings of those distressful dreams 1
where we imagine ourselves falling from precipices. I
of this letter, but possibly -when Cole-
ridge wrote the lines the news had
not reached England. It is not a
little strange that Coleridge should
write and print so stern and uncom¬
promising a rebuke to his intimate
and disciple before there had been
time for coolness and alienation on
either side. Very possibly the re¬
proof was aimed in the first instance
against himself, and afterwards he
permitted it to apply to Lloyd.
1 Compare the line, " From preci¬
pices of distressful sleep," which oc¬
curs in the sonnet, "No more my
visionary soul shall dwell," which is
attributed to Favell in a letter of Sou-
they's to his brother Thomas, dated
October 24,17!'5. Southey's Life and
Correspondence, i. 224. See, also, Ed¬
itor's Note to Monody on the Death
of Chatterton," Poetical Works, p.
563.
179G] TO THOMAS POOLE ^
seemed falling from the summit of my fondest desires,
whirled from the height just as I had reached it.
We shall want none of the Woman's furniture; we
have enough for ourselves. What with boxes of books,
and chests of drawers, and kitchen furniture, and chairs,
and our bed and bed-linen, etc., we shall have enough to
fill a small waggon, and to-day I shall make enquiry among
my trading acquaintance, whether it would be cheaper to
hire a waggon to take them straight to Stowey, than to
put them in the Bridgwater waggon. Taking in the
double trouble and expense of putting them in the drays
to carry them to the public waggon, and then seeing them
packed again, and again to be unpacked and packed at
Bridgwater, I much question whether our goods would
be good for anything. I am very poorly, not to say ill.
My face monstrously swollen — my recondite eye sits
distent quaintly, behind the flesh-hill, and looks as little as
a tomtit's. And I have a sore throat that prevents my
eating aught but spoon-meat without great pain. And I
have a rheumatic complaint in the back part of my head
and shoulders. Now all this demands a small portion of
Christian patience, taking in our present circumstances.
My apothecary says it will be madness for me to walk to
Stowey on Tuesday, as, in the furious zeal of a new con¬
vert to economy, I had resolved to do. My wife will stay
a week or fortnight after me ; I think it not improbable
that the weather may break up by that time. However,
if I do not get worse, I will be with you by Wednesday
or Thursday at the furthest, so as to be there before the
waggon. Is there any grate in the house ? I should
think we might Tvumfordize one of the chimneys. I shall
bring down with me a dozen yards of green list. I can
endure cold, but not a cold room. If we can but con¬
trive to make two rooms warm and wholesome, we will
laugh in the faces of gloom and ill-lookingness.
I shall lose the post if I say a word more. You thor-
210
EARLY PUBLIC LIFE
[Dec.
ouglily and in every nook and corner of your heart forgive
me for my letters ? Indeed, indeed, Poole, I know no
one whom I esteem more —110 one friend whom I love so
much. But bear with my infirmities! God bless you,
and your grateful and affectionate
S. T. Coleridge.
lxx. to john thelwall.
December 31, 1796.
Enough, my dear Thelwall, of theology. In my book on
Godwin, I compare the two systems, his and Jesus', and
that book I am sure you will read with attention. I entirely
accord with your opinion of Southey's " Joan." The ninth
book is execrable, and the poem, though it frequently reach
the sentimental, does not display the poetical-sublime.
In language at once natural, perspicuous, and dignified
in manly pathos, in soothing and sonnet-like description,
and, above all, in character and dramatic dialogue,
Soutliey is unrivalled ; but as certainly he does not pos¬
sess opulence of imaginative lofty-paced harmony, or that
toil of thinking which is necessary in order to plan a
'whole. Dismissing mock humility, and hanging your
mind as a looking-glass over my idea-pot, so as to image
on the said mind all the bubbles that boil in the said idea-
pot (there 's a damned long-winded metaphor for you), I
think that an admirable poet might be made by amalga¬
mating him and me. I think too much for a poet, he too
little for a great poet. But he abjures feeling. Now (as
you say) they must go together. Between ourselves the
enthusiasm of friendship is not with S. and me. We
quarrelled and the quarrel lasted for a twelvemonth. We
are now reconciled ; but the cause of the difference was
solemn, and " the blasted oak puts not forth its buds
anew." We are acquaintances, and feel kindliness to¬
wards each other, but I do not esteem or love Soutliey,
as I must esteem and love the man whom I dared call by
1796]
TO JOHN THELWALL.
211
the lioly name of friend: and vice versa Soutliey of me.
I say no more. It is a painful subject, and do you say
nothing. I mention this for obvious reasons, but let it
go no farther. It is a painful subject. Soutliey's direc¬
tion at present is II. Southey, No. 8 West-gate Buildings,
Bath, but he leaves Bath for London in the course of a
week. You imagine that I know Bowles personally. I
never saw him but once, and when I was a boy and in
Salisbury market-place.
The passage in your letter respecting your mother
affected me greatly. Well, true or false, heaven is a less
gloomy idea than annihilation. Dr. Beddoes and Dr.
Darwin think that Life is utterly inexplicable, writing as
materialists. You, I understand, have adopted the idea
that it is the result of organised matter acted on by ex¬
ternal stimuli. As likely as any other system, but you
assume the thing to be proved. The " capability of being
stimulated into sensation"... is my definition of
animal life. Monro believes in a plastic, immaterial
nature, all-pervading.
And what if all of animated nature
Be but organic harps diversely framed,
That tremble into thought, as o'er them sweeps
Plastic and vast, etc.
(By the bye, that is the favourite of my poems; do you
like it?) Hunter says that the blood is the life, which is
saying nothing at all; for, if the blood were life, it could
never be otherwise than life, and to say it is alive is
saying nothing ; and Ferriar believes in a soul, like an
orthodox churchman. So much for physicians and sur¬
geons ! Now as to the metaphysicians. Plato says it is
harmony. lie might as well have said a fiddlestick's end ;
but I love Plato, his dear, gore/eons nonsense ; and I,
though last not least, I do not know what to think about
it. On the whole, I have rather made up my mind that I
212
EARLY PUBLIC LIFE
[Jan.
am a more apparition, a naked spirit, and tliat life is,
I myself I; which is a mighty clear account of it. Now I
have written all this, not to express my ignorance (that is
an accidental effect, not the final cause), but to shew you
that I want to see your essay on " Animal Vitality," of
which Bowles the surgeon spoke in high terms. Yet he
believes in a body and a soul. Any book may be left at
Robinson's for me, " to be put into the next parcel, to be
sent to ' Joseph Cottle, bookseller, Bristol.'" Have you
received an u Ode "1 of mine from Parsons ? In your
next letter tell me what you think of the scattered poems
I sent you. Send me any poems, and I will be minute in
criticism. For, O Thelwall, even a long-winded abuse is
more consolatory to an author s feelings than a short-
breathed, asthma - lunged panegyric. Joking apart, I
would to God we could sit by a fireside and joke viva
voce, face to face — Stella and Sara, Jack Thelwall and
I. As I once wrote to my dear friend, T. Poole, " re¬
peating —
' Such verse as Bowles, heart-honour'd poet, sang,
That wakes the Tear, yet steals away the Pang,
Then, or with Berkeley or with Hobbes romance it,
Dissecting Truth with metaphysic lancet.
Or, drawn from up those dark unfathom'd wells,
In wiser folly clink the Cap and Bells.
How many tales we told ! what jokes we made !
Conundrum, Crambo, Rebus, or Charade ;
iEnigmas that had driven the Theban 2 mad,
And Puns, then best when exquisitely bad;
And I, if aught of archer vein I hit
"With my own laughter stifled my own wit.' " 8
1 The Ode on the Departing Year. 3 Poetical Works, p. 459.
2 CEdipus.
CHAPTER III
THE STOWEY PERIOD
1797-1798
CHAPTER III
the stowey period
1797-1798
lxxi. to rev. j. p. estlin.
[Stowey, 1797.]
My dear Friend, — I was indeed greatly rejoiced at
tlie first sight of a letter from you ; but its contents were
painful. Dear, dear Mrs. Estlin ! Sara burst into an
agony of tears that she had been so ill. Indeed, indeed,
we hover about her, and think and talk of her, with
many an interjection of prayer. I do not wonder that
you have acquired a distaste to London — your associa¬
tions must be painful indeed. But God be praised ! you
shall look back 011 those sufferings as the vexations of a
dream! Our friend, T. Poole, particularly requests me
to mention how deeply he condoles with you in Mrs. Est-
lin's illness, how fervently he thanks God for her recov¬
ery. I assure you he was extremely affected. We are
all remarkably well, and the child grows fat and strong.
Our house is better than we expected — there is a com¬
fortable bedroom and sitting-room for C. Lloyd, and
another for us, a room for Nanny, a kitchen, and out¬
house. Before our door a clear brook runs of very soft
water; and in the back yard is a nice well of fiue spring
water. We have a very pretty garden, and large enough
to find us vegetables and employment, and I am already
an expert gardener, and both my hands can exhibit a cal-
lum as testimonials of their industry. We have like¬
wise a sweet orchard, and at the end of it T. Poole has
214
THE STOWEY PERIOD
[Feb.
made a gate, which leads into his garden, and from
thence either through the tan yard into his house, or else
through his orchard over a fine meadow into the garden
of a Mrs. Cruikshank, an old acquaintance, who married
on the same day as I, and has got a little girl a little
younger than David Hartley. Mrs. Cruikshank is a
sweet little woman, of the same size as my Sara, and they
are extremely cordial. T. Poole's mother behaves to us
as a kind and tender mother. She is very fond indeed of
my wife, so that, you see, I ought to be happy, and, thank
God, I am so. . . .
LXXII. TO JOHN THELWALL.
Stowey near Bkidgewateb, Somerset.
February C, 1797.
I thank you, my dear Thelwall, for the parcel, and
your letters. Of the contents I shall speak in the order
of their importance. First, then, of your scheme of a
school, I approve it; and fervently wish, that you may
find it more easy of accomplishment than my fears sug¬
gest. But try, by all means, try. Have hopes without
expectations to hazard disappointment. Most of our
patriots are tavern and parlour patriots, that will not
avow their principles by any decisive action ; and of the
few who would wish to do so, the larger part are unable,
from their children's expectancies on rich relations, etc.,
etc. May these remain enough for your Stella to employ
herself on! Try, by all means, try. For your comfort,
for your progressiveness in literary excellence, in the
name of everything that is happy, and in the name of
everything that is miserable, I would have you do any¬
thing honest rather than lean with the whole weight of
your necessities on the Press. Get bread and cheese,
clothing and housing independently of it; and you may
then safely trust to it for beef and strong beer. You
will find a country life a happy one ; and you might live
1797]
TO JOHN THELWALL
215
comfortably with an hundred a year. Fifty pounds you
might, I doubt not, gain by reviewing and furnishing
miscellanies for the different magazines; you might safely
speculate on twenty pounds a year or more from your com¬
positions published separately—50-(-20 = c£70 ; and by
severe economy, a little garden labour, and a pigstye, this
would do. And, if the education scheme did not succeed,
and I could get engaged by any one of the Reviews and
the new " Monthly Magazine," I would try it, and begin
to farm by little and slow degrees. You perceive that by
the Press I mean merely writing without a certainty.
The other is as secure as anything else could be to you.
With health and spirits it would stand; and without
health and spirits every other mode of maintenance, as
well as reviewing, would be impracticable. You are going
to Derby ! I shall be with you in spirit. Derby is no
common place; but where you will find citizens enough
to fill your lecture-room puzzles me. Dr. Darwin will no
doubt excite your respectful curiosity. On the whole, I
think, he is the first literary character in Europe, and the
most original-minded man. Mrs. Crompton is an angel;
and Dr. Crompton a truly honest and benevolent man,
possessing good sense and a large portion of humour. I
never think of him without respect and tenderness ; never
(for, thank Heaven ! I abominate Godwinism) without
gratitude. William Strutt1 is a man of stern aspect, but
1 William ancl Joseph Strutt were
the sons of Jedediah Strutt, of
Derby. The eldest, William, was
the father of Edward Strutt, cre¬
ated Lord Belper in 1856. Their
sister, Elizabeth, who had married
William Evans of Darley Hall, was
at this time a widow. She had been
struck by Coleridge's writings, or
perhaps had heard him preach when
he visited Derby 011 his Watchman
tour, and was anxious to engage him
as tutor to her children. The offer
was actually made, but the relations
on both sides intervened, and she
was reluctantly compelled to with¬
draw her proposal. By way of con¬
solation, she entertained Coleridge
and his wife at Darley Hall, and be¬
fore he left presented him with a
handsome sum of money and a store
of baby-linen, worth, if one may ac¬
cept Coleridge's valuation, a matter
of forty pounds. Thomas Poole and
his Friends, 1. 152-154 ; Estlin Let-
ters, p. 13.
216
THE STOWEY PERIOD
[Feb.
strong, very strong abilities. Joseph Strutt every way
amiable. lie deserves liis wife — which is saying- a great
deal — for she is a sweet-minded woman, and one that
you would be apt to recollect whenever you met or used
the words lovely, handsome, beautiful, etc. " While
smiling Loves the shaft display, And lift the playful torch
elate." Perhaps you may be so fortunate as to meet
with a Mrs. Evans whose seat is at Darley, about a mile
from Derby. Blessings descend on her ! emotions crowd
on me at the sight of her name. We spent five weeks at
her house, a sunny spot in our life. My Sara sits and
thinks and thinks of her and bursts into tears, and when
I turn to her says, " I was thinking, my dear, of Mrs.
Evans and Bessy" (that is, her daughter). I mention
this to you, because things are characterized by their
effects. She is 110 common being who could create so
warm and lasting an interest in our hearts ; for we are
no common people. Indeed, indeed, Thelwall, she is with¬
out exception the greatest woman I have been fortunate
enough to meet with in my brief pilgrimage through life.
At Nottingham you will surely be more likely to obtain
audiences; and, I doubt not, you will find a hospitable
reception there. I was treated by many families with
kindliness, by some with a zeal of affection. Write me
if you go and when you go. Now for your pamphlet. It
is well written, and the doctrine sound, although some¬
times, I think, deduced falsely. For instance (p. iii.) :
It is true that all a man's children, " liowevor begotten,
whether in marriage or out," are his heirs in nature, and
ought to be so in true policy ; but, instead of tacitly allow¬
ing that I meant by it to encourage what Mr. B.1 and the
1 Probably Jacob Bryant, 1*715- 1792; The Sentiments of Philo-Ju-
1804, autlior of An Address to Dr. dir.us concerning the Logos or Word
Priestley upon his Doctrine of Philo- of God, 1797, etc. Allibone's Die-
sophical Necessity, 1780; Treatise on tionary, i. 270,
the Authenticity of the Scriptures,
1797]
TO JOHN THELWALL
217
priests would call licentiousness (and which surely, Tliel-
wall, in the present state of society you must allow to be
injustice, inasmuch as it deprives the woman of her re¬
spectability in the opinions of her neighbours), I would
have shown that such a law would of all others operate
most powerfully in favour of marriage ; by which word I
mean not the effect of spells uttered by conjurers, but
permanent cohabitation useful to society as the best con¬
ceivable means (in the present state of society, at least)
of ensuring1 nurture and systematic education to infants
and children. We are but frail beings at present, and
want such motives to the practice of our duties. Un-
chastity may be 110 vice, — I think it is, — but it may
be no vice, abstractly speaking ; yet from a variety of
causes unchaste women are almost without exception
careless mothers. Wife is a solemn name to me because
of its influence on the more solemn duties of mother.
Such passages (p. 30 is another of them) are offensive.
They are mere assertions, and of course can convince no
person who thinks differently; and they give pain and
irritate. I write so frequently to you on this subject,
because I have reason to knoiv that passages of this order
did give very general offence in your first part, and have
operated to retard the sale of the second. If they had
been arguments or necessarily connected with your main
argument, I am not the man, Thelwall, who would op¬
pose the filth of prudentials merely to have it swept
away by the indignant torrent of your honesty. But as I
said before, they are mere assertions ; and certainly their
truth is not self-evident. With the exception of these
passages, the pamphlet is the best I have read since the
commencement of the war ; warm, not fiery, well-seasoned
without being dry, the periods harmonious yet avoiding
metrical harmony, and the ornaments so dispersed as to
set off the features of truth without turning the attention
on themselves. I account for its slow sale partly from
218
THE STOWEY PERIOD
[Feb.
your having compared yourself to Christ in the first
(which gave great offence, to my knowledge, although
very foolishly, I confess), and partly from the sore and
fatigued state of men's minds, which disqualifies them for
works of principle that exert the intellect without agita¬
ting the passions. But it has not been reviewed yet, has
it? I read your narrative and was almost sorry I had
read it, for I had become much interested, and the abrupt
" no more " jarred me. I never heard before of your
variance with Ilorne Tooke. Of the poems, the two
Odes are the best. Of the two Odes, the last, I think ;
it is in the best style of Akenside's best Odes. Several
of the sonnets are pleasing, and whenever I was pleased
I paused, and imaged you in my mind in your captivity.
. . . My Ode 1 by this time you are conscious that you
have praised too highly. With the exception of " I un-
partaking of the evil thing," which line I do not think
injudiciously weak, I accede to all your remarks, and
shall alter accordingly. Your remark that the line 011
the Empress had more of Juvenal than Pindar flashed
itself on my mind. I had admired the line before, but
I became immediately of your opinion, and that criticism
has convinced me that your nerves are exquisite electro¬
meters'2 of taste. You forgot to point out to me that the
1 " Ode to the Departing Year,"
published in the Cambridge Intelli¬
gencer, December 24, 179'!. The
lines on the " Empress," to which
Thelwall objected, are in the first
epode:—
No more on Murder's lurid face
The insatiate Hag shall gloat with drunken
eye.
Poetical Works, p. 70.
2 Compare the well-known de¬
scription of Dorothy Wordsworth,
in a letter to Cottle of July, 1707 :
" W. and his exquisite sister are
with me. She is a woman, indeed,
— in mind I mean, and heart. Her
information various. Her eye watch¬
ful in minutest observation of nature;
and her taste a perfect electrometer.
It bends, protrudes, and draws in, at
subtlest beauties and most recondite
faults."
Bennett's, or the gold leaf electro¬
scope, is an instrument for " detect¬
ing the presence, and determining
the kind of electricity in any body."
Two narrow strips of gold leaf are
attached to a metal rod, terminating
in a small brass plate above, con¬
tained in a glass shade, and these
1797]
TO JOHN THELWALL
219
whole childbirth of Nature is at once ludicrous and dis¬
gusting, an epigram smart yet bombastic. The review
of Bryant's pamphlet is good — the sauce is better than
the fish. Speaking of Lewis's death, surely you forget
that the legislature of France were to act by laws and
not by general morals ; and that they violated the law
which they themselves had made. I will take in the " Cor¬
responding Society Magazine." That good man, James
Losh, has just published an admirable treatise trans¬
lated from the French of Benjamin Constant,1 entitled,
" Consideration on the Strength of the Present Govern¬
ment of France." " Woe to that country when crimes
are punished by crimes, and where men murder in the
name of justice." I apply this to the death of the mis¬
taken but well-meaning Lewis.2 I never go to Bristol.
From seven till half past eight I work in my garden ;
from breakfast till twelve I read and compose, then read
again, feed the pigs, poultry, etc., till two o'clock; after
dinner work again till tea ; from tea till supper, review.
So jogs the day, and I am happy. I have society— my
friend T. Poole, and as many acquaintances as I can dis¬
pense with. There are a number of very pretty young
under certain conditions of the ap- settled at Jesmond, Newcastle. His
plication of positive and negative name occurs among' the subscribers
electricity diverge or collapse. to The Friend. Letters from the Lake
The gold leaf electroscope was Poets, p. 453.
invented by Abraham Bennett in 2 Compare stanzas eight and nine
178(5. Cottle's Early Recollections, of " The Mad Ox : " —
i. 252; Ganot's Physics, 1870, p.
631.
1 His tract On the Strength of
the Existing Government (the Direc¬
tory) of France, and the Necessity
of supporting it, was published in
1700.
The translator, James Losh, de¬
scribed by Southey as "a provincial
counsel," was at one time resident in
Cumberland, and visited Coleridge
at Greta Hall. At a later period he
Old Lewis ('t was his evil day)
Stood trembling in his shoes;
The ox was his — what could he say?
His legs were stiffened with dismay,
The ox ran o'er him mid the fray,
And gave him his death's bruise.
The baited ox drove on (but here,
The Gospel scarce more true is,
My muse stops short in mid career —
Nay, gentle reader, do not sneer !
I could chuse but drop a tear,
A tear for good old Lewis !)
Poetical Works, p. 134.
220
THE STOWEY PERIOD
[July
women in Stowey, all musical, and I am an immense
favourite : for I pun, conundrumize, listen, and dance.
The last is a recent acquirement. We are very liappy,
and my little David Hartley grows a sweet boy and lias
high health; he laughs at us till he makes us weep for
very fondness. You would smile to see my eye rolling
up to the ceiling in a lyric fury, and on my knee a diaper
pinned to warm. I send and receive to and from Bristol
every week, and will transcribe that part of your last
letter and send it to Reed.
I raise potatoes and all manner of vegetables, have an
orchard, and shall raise corn with the spade, enough for
my family. We have two pigs, and ducks and geese. A
cow would not answer the keep: for we have whatever
milk we want from T. Poole. God bless you and your
affectionate
S. T. Coleridge.
lxxiii. to joseph cottle.1
June, 1797.
My dear Cottle,—I am sojourning for a few days
at Racedown, the mansion of our friend Wordsworth,
who has received Fox's " Achmed." He returns you his
acknowledgments, and presents his kindliest respects to
1 The probable date of this let¬
ter is Thursday, June 8, 1797. On
Monday, June 5, Coleridge break¬
fasted with Dr. Toulmin, the Unita¬
rian minister at Taunton, and on the
evening of that or the next day he
arrived on foot at Racedown, some
forty miles distant. Mrs. Words¬
worth, in a letter to Sara Coleridge,
dated November 7, 1845, conveys
her husband's recollections of this
first visit in the following words:
"Your father," she says, "came
afterwards to visit us at Racedown,
where I was living with my sister.
We have both a distinct remem¬
brance of his arrival. He did not
keep to the high road, but leaped
over a high gate and bounded down
the pathless field, by which he cut
off an angle. We both retain the
liveliest possible image of his ap¬
pearance at that moment. My poor
sister has just been speaking of it to
me with much feeling and tender¬
ness." A portion of this letter, of
which I possess the original MS., was
printed by Professor Knight in his
L/e of Wordsworth, i. 111.
1797]
TO ROBERT SOUTIIEY
221
you. I shall be lioinc l>y Friday — not to-morrow — but
the next Friday. If the " Ode on the Departing Year "
be not reprinted, please to omit the lines from " W hen
shall scepter'd slaughter cease," to " For still does Mad¬
ness roam on Guilt's bleak dizzy height," inclusive.1 The
first epode is to end at the words "murderer's fate."
"Wordsworth admires my tragedy, which gives me great
hopes. Wordsworth has written a tragedy himself. I
speak with heartfelt sincerity, and (I think) unblinded
judgment, when I tell you that I feel myself a little man
by //is side, and yet do not think myself the less man than
I formerly thought myself. His drama is absolutely
wonderful. You know I do not commonly speak in such
abrupt and unmingled phrases, and therefore will the
more readily believe me. There are in the piece those
profound touches of the human heart which I find three
or four times in " The Robbers " of Schiller, and often
in Shakespeare, but in Wordsworth there are no inequal¬
ities. T. Poole's opinion of Wordsworth is that he is the
greatest man he ever knew ; I coincide.
It is not impossible, that in the course of two or three
months I may see you. God bless you, and
S. T. Coleridge.
Thursday. — Of course, with the lines you omit the
notes that relate to them.
Mil. Cottle, Bookseller, Iligli Street, Bristol.
lxxiv. to robert soutiiey.
July, 1707.
Dear Soutiiey, — You are acting kindly in your ex¬
ertions for Chatterton's sister; but I doubt the success.
Chatterton's or Rowley's poems were never popular. The
very circumstance which made them so much talked of,
1 This passage, which for some the poems had not appeared by the
reason Cottle chose to omit, seems beginning of June,
to imply that the second edition of
222
THE STOWEY PERIOD
[July
their ancientncss, prevented tliem from being generally
read, in the degree, I mean, that Goldsmith's poems or
even Eogers' thing upon memory has been. The sale was
never very great. Secondly, the London Edition and the
Cambridge Edition, which are now both of them the
property of London booksellers, are still in hand, and
these booksellers will " hardly exert their interest for a
rival." Thirdly, these are bad times. Fourthly, all who
are sincerely zealous for Chatterton, or who from know¬
ledge of her are interested in poor Mrs. Newton, will come
forwards first, and if others should drop in but slowly,
Mrs. Newton will either receive 110 benefit at all from
those her friends, or one so long procrastinated, from the
necessity of waiting for the complement of subscribers,
that it may at last come too late. For these reasons I am
almost inclined to think a subscription simply would be
better. It is unpleasant to cast a damp on anything;
but that benevolence alone is likely to be beneficent which
calculate.s. If, however, you continue to entertain higher
hopes than I, believe me, I will shake off my sloth, and
use my best muscles in gaining subscribers. I will cer¬
tainly write a preliminary essay, and I will attempt to
write a poem 011 the life and death of Chatterton, but the
Monody must not be reprinted. Neither this nor the
Pixies' Parlour would have been in the second edition, but
for dear Cottle's solicitous importunity. Excepting the
last eighteen lines of the Monody, which, though deficient
in cliasteness and severity of diction, breathe a pleasing
spirit of romantic feeling, there are not five lines in either
poem which might not have been written by a man who
had lived and died in the self-same St. Giles' cellar, in
which he had been first suckled by a drab with milk
and gin. The Pixies is the least disgusting, because the
subject leads you to expect nothing, but on a life and
death so full of heart-going realities as poor Cliatterton's,
to find such shadowy nobodies as clierub-winged Death,
1797]
TO ROBERT SOUTIIEY
223
Trees of Hope, bare-bosomed Affection and simpering
Peace, makes one's blood circulate like ipecacuanha. But
so it is. A young man by strong feelings is impelled
to write on a particular subject, and tliis is all his feel¬
ings do for him. They set him upon the business and
then they leave him. lie has such a high idea of what
poetry ought to be, that he cannot conceive tluit such
things as his natural emotions may be allowed to find a
place in it; his learning therefore, his fancy, or rather
conceit, and all his powers of buckram are put 011 the
stretch. It appears to me that strong feeling is not so
requisite to an author's being profoundly pathetic as taste
and good sense.
Poor old Whag! his mother died of a dish of clotted
cream, which my mother sent her as a present.
I rejoice that your poems are all sold. In the ballad of
" Mary the Maid of the Inn," you have properly enough
made the diction colloquial, but " engages the eye," ap¬
plied to a gibbet, strikes me as slipshoppish from the
unfortunate meaning of the word " engaging." Your
praise of my Dedication 1 gave me great pleasure. From
the ninth to the fourteenth the five lines are flat and
prosish, and the versification ever and anon has too much
of the rhyme couplet cadence, and the metaphor2 on
1 . . . Sucli, O my earliest friend !
Thy lot, and such thy brothers too enjoy.
At distance (lid ye climb life's upland road,
Yet cheered and cheering: now fraternal
love
Hath drawn you to one centre.
Poetical TForA-.s, p. SI, 1. 9-14.
2 . . . and some most false,
False, an«l fair-foliaged as the Manchineel,
Have tempted me to slumber in tlieir shade
E'en mid the storm ; then breathing sub¬
tlest damp
Mixed their own venom with the rain from
Heaven,
That I woke poisoned.
Poetical FIVES', p. 82, 1. 2-Vol).
Compare Lamb's humorous re¬
proach in a letter to Coleridge, Sep¬
tember, 1797 : " For myself I must
spoil a little passage of Beaumont
and Fletcher's to adapt it to my
feeling's: —
... I am prouder
That I was once your friend, tlio' now for¬
got,
Than to have had another true to me.
" If you don't write to me now,
as I told Lloyd, I shall get angry,
and call you hard names — Manchi¬
neel, and I don't know what else."
Letters of Charles Lamb, i. So.
224
THE STOWEY PERIOD
[July
the diverse sorts of friendship is hunted clown, but the
poem is dear to me, and in point of taste I place it next
to u Low was our pretty Cot," which I think the best of
my poems.
I am as much a Pangloss as ever, only less contemptu¬
ous than I used to be, when I argue how unwise it is to
feel contempt for anything.
I had been on a visit to Wordsworth's at Racedown,
near Crewkerne, and I brought him and his sister back
with me, and here I have settled them. By a combina¬
tion of curious circumstances a gentleman's seat, with
a park and woods, elegantly and completely furnished,
with nine lodging rooms, three parlours, and a lxall, in the
most beautiful and romantic situation by the seaside, four
miles from Stowey, — this we have got for "Wordsworth at
the rent of twenty-three pounds a year, taxes included!
The park and woods are his for all purposes he wants
them, and the large gardens are altogether and entirely
his. Wordsworth is a very great man, the only man to
whom at all times and in all modes of excellence I feel
myself inferior, the only one, I mean, whom I have yet
met with, for the London literati appear to me to be
very much like little potatoes, that is, no great things, a
compost of nullity and dullity.
Charles Lamb has been with me for a week.1 He left
me Friday morning. The second day after Wordsworth
came to me, dear Sara accidentally emptied a skillet of
boiling milk 011 my foot, which confined me during the
whole time of C. Lamb's stay and still prevents me from
all walks longer than a furlong. While Wordsworth, his
sister, and Charles Lamb were out one evening, sitting in
the arbour of T. Poole's garden 2 which communicates with
1 Charles Lamb's visit to tlie cot- 2 According to local tradition, the
tage of Nether Stowey lasted from lime-tree bower was at the back of
Friday, July 7, to Friday, July 14, the cottage, but according to this
1797. letter it was in Poole's garden.
1797]
TO ROBERT SOUTIIEY
225
mine I wrote these lines, with which I am pleased. (I
heard from C. Lamb of Favell and Le Griee.1 Poor
Allen ! I knew nothing of it.2 As to Rough,3 he is a
wonderful fellow ; and when I returned from the army,
cut me for a month, till he saw that other people were as
much attached as before.)
Well, they are gone, and here must I remain,
Lam'd by the scathe of fire, lonely and faint,
This lime-tree bower my prison ! They, meantime
My Friends,4 whom I may never meet again,
From either spot the green ram¬
parts of Stowey Castle and the
'■ airy ridge " of Dowseborough are
full in view.
1 " lie [Le Grice] and Favell . . .
wrote to the Duke of York, when
they were at college, for commis¬
sions in the army. The Duke good-
naturedly sent them." Autobiogra¬
phy of Leigh Hunt, p. 72.
2 Possibly'he alludes to his ap¬
pointment as deputy-surgeon to the
Second Royals, then stationed in
Portugal.
His farewell letter to Coleridge
(undated) has been preserved and
will be read with interest.
Portsmouth.
My Beloved Fbiend,—Fare¬
well ! I shall never think of you
but with tears of the tenderest af¬
fection. Our routes in life have
been so opposite, that for a long
time past there has not been that
intercourse between us which our
mutual affection would have other-
Avise occasioned. But at this seri¬
ous moment, all your kindness and
love for me press upon my memory
with a weight of sensation I can
scarcely endure.
You have heard of my destination,
I suppose. I am going to Portugal
to join the Second Royals, to which
I have been appointed Deputy-Sur¬
geon. What fate is in reserve for
me I know not. I should be more
indifferent to my future lot, if it
were not for the hope of passing
many pleasant hours, in times to
come, in your society.
Adieu! my dearest fellow. My
love to Mrs. C. Health and frater¬
nity to young David.
Yours most affectionate,
It. Allen.
3 A friend and fellow-collegian
of Christopher Wordsworth at Trin¬
ity College, Cambridge, lie was a
member of the " Literary Society "
to which Coleridge, C. Wordsworth,
Le Grice, and others belonged. lie
afterwards became a sergeant-at-
law. lie was an intimate friend of
II. Crabb Robinson. See II. C.
Robinson's Diary, passim. See, too,
Social Life at the English Universi¬
ties, by Christopher Wordsworth,
M. A., Fellow of Peterhouse, Cam¬
bridge, 1874, Appendix.
4 Not, as has been supposed,
226 THE STOWEY PERIOD [July
On springy 1 heatli, along the hill-top edge
Wander delighted, and look down, perchance,
On that same rifted Dell, where many an ash
Twists its wild limbs beside the ferny 2 rock
Whose plumy ferns forever nod and drip,
Spray'd by the waterfall. But chiefly thou
My gentle-hearted Charles ! thou who had pin'd
And hunger'd after Nature many a year,
In the great City pent, winning thy way
With sad yet bowed soul, through evil and pain
And strange calamity ! Ah ! slowly sink
Behind the western ridge, thou glorious Sun !
Shine in the slant heaven of the sinking orb,
Ye purple lieath-flowers ! richlier burn, ye clouds
Live in the yellow Light, ye distant groves!
Struck with joy's deepest calm, and gazing round
On 3 the wide view, may gaze till all doth seem
Less gross than bodily ; a living thing
That acts upon the mind, and with such hues
As clothe the Almighty Spirit, when He makes
Spirits perceive His presence !
A delight
Comes sudden on my heart, and I am glad
As I myself were there! nor in the bower
Charles and Mary Lamb, but Words- " My sister," but in forming1 friend-
worth and his sister Dorothy. Mary ships Coleridge did not " keep to
Lamb was not and could not have the high road, but leaped over a
been at that time one of the party, gate and bounded" from acquaint-
The version sent to Southey differs ance to intimacy. Poetical Works,
both from that printed in the Annual p. 92. For version of " This Lime-
Anthology of 1800, and from a copy Tree Bower my Prison," sent to C.
in a contemporary letter sent to C. Lloyd, see Ibid., Editor's Note, p.
Lloyd. It is interesting to note 591.
that the words, " My sister, and my 1 " Elastic, I mean." — S. T. C.
friends," 11. 47 and 53, which gave 2 " The ferns that grow in moist
place in the Anthology to the thrice- places grow five or six together, and
repeated, "My gentle - hearted form a complete ' Prince of Wales's
Charles," appear, in a copy sent Feathers,'—that is, plumy." — S.
to Lloyd, as " My Sara and my T. C.
friend." It was early days for him 3 " You remember I am a Berk-
to address Dorothy Wordsworth as leian." — S. T. C.
1797]
TO ROBERT SOUTIIEY
227
Want I sweet sounds or pleasing shapes. I watch d
The sunshine of each broad transparent leaf
Broke by the shadows of the leaf or stem
Which hung above it: and that walnut-tree
Was richly ting'd, and a deep radiance lay
Full on the ancient ivy, which usurps
Those fronting elms, and now with blackest mass
Makes their dark foliage gleam a lighter hue
Through the late twilight: and though the rapid bat
Wheels silent by, and not a swallow titters,
Yet still the solitary humble bee
Sings in the bean-flower! Henceforth I shall know
That Nature ne'er deserts the wise and pure ;
No scene so narrow, but may well employ
Each faculty of sense, and keep the heart
Awake to Love and Beauty! and sometimes
'T is well to be bereav'd of promised good,
That we may lift the soul and contemplate
With lively joy the joys we cannot share.
My Sister and my Friends ! when the last rook
Beat its straight path along the dusky air
Homewards, I bless'd it! deeming its black wing
Cross'd like a speck the blaze of setting day
While ye stood gazing; or when all was still,
Flew creaking o'er your heads, and had a charm
For you, my Sister and my Friends, to whom
No sound is dissonant which tells of Life.
I would make a shift by some means or other to visit
you, if I thought that you and Editli Southey would re¬
turn witli me. I think — indeed, I am almost certain —
that I could get a one-horse cliaise free of all expense. I
have driven back Miss Wordsworth over forty miles of
execrable roads, and have been always very cautious, and
am now no inexpert whip. And Wordsworth, at whose
house I now am for change of air, has commissioned me
to offer you a suite of rooms at this place, which is called
" All-foxen ; " and so divine and wild is the country that
228
THE STOWEY PERIOD
[Oct.
I am sure it would increase your stock of images, and
three weeks' absence from Christcliurch will endear it to
you; and Edith Southey and Sara may not have another
opportunity of seeing one another, and Wordsworth is
very solicitous to know you, and Miss Wordsworth is a
most exquisite young woman in her mind and heart. I
pray you write me immediately, directing Stowey, near
Bridgewater, as before.
God bless you and your affectionate
S. T. Coleridge.
lxxv. to john thelwall.
Saturday morning [October 16], 1797.
My dear Thelwall, — I have just received your let¬
ter, having been absent a day or two, and have already,
before I write to you, written to Dr. Beddoes. I would
to Ileaven it were in my power to serve you; but alas! I
have neither money or influence, and I suppose that at last
I must become a Unitarian minister, as a less evil than
starvation. For I get nothing by literature. ... You
have my wishes and, what is very liberal in me for such an
atheist reprobate, my prayers. I can at times feel strongly
the beauties you describe, in themselves and for them¬
selves ; but more frequently all things appear little, all
the knowledge that can be acquired child's play; the
universe itself ! what but an immense heap of little things ?
I can contemplate nothing but parts, and parts are all
little ! My mind feels as if it ached to behold and know
something great, something one and indivisible. And it is
only in the faith of that that rocks or waterfalls, moun¬
tains or caverns, give me the sense of sublimity or ma¬
jesty ! But in this faith all things counterfeit infinity.
" Struck with the deepest calm of joy," 1 I stand
Silent, with swimming sense; and gazing round
1 " This Lime-Tree Bower," 1. 38. Poetical Works, p. 93.
1797]
TO JOHN THELWALL
229
On the wide landscape, gaze till all doth seem
Less gross than hodily, a living Thing
Which acts upon the mind and with such hues
As clothe th' Almighty Spirit, where lie makes
Spirits perceive Ilis presence ! . . .
It is but seldom that I raise and spiritualize my intel¬
lect to this height; and at other times I adopt tlie Brah¬
min creed, and say, " It is better to sit than to stand, it is
better to lie than to sit, it is better to sleep than to wake,
but Death is the best of all! " I should much wish, like
the Indian Vishnu, to float about along- an infinite ocean
cradled in the flower of the Lotus, and wake'once in a mil¬
lion years for a few minutes just to know that I was going
to sleep a million years more. I have put this feeling in
the mouth of Alhadra, my Moorish Woman. She is going
by moonlight to the house of Yelez, where the band turn
off to wreak their vengeance on Francesco, but
She moved steadily on,
Unswerving from the path of her resolve.
A Moorish priest, who has been with her and then left
her to seek the men, had just mentioned the owl, " Its
note comes dreariest in the fall of the year." This dwells
on her mind, and she bursts into this soliloquy: —
The 1 hanging woods, that toucli'd by autumn seem'd
As they were blossoming lines of fire and gold, —-
The hanging woods, most lovely in decay,
The many clouds, the sea, the rock, the sands,
Lay in the silent moonshine; and the owl,
(Strange ! very strange !) the scritch owl only waked,
Sole voice, sole eye of all that world of beauty!
Why such a thing am I ? Where are these men ?
I need the sympathy of human faces
To beat away this deep contempt for all things,
Which quenches my revenge. Oh ! would to Alia
1 " Osorio," Act V., Sc. 1, 1. 89. Poetical IFor&s, p. 507.
230
THE STOWEY PERIOD
[Oct.
The raven and the sea-mew were appointed
To bring me food, or rather that my soul
Could drink in life from universal air!
It were a lot divine in some small skiff,
Along some ocean's boundless solitude,
To float for ever with a careless course,
And think myself the only being alive !
I do not wonder that your poem procured you kisses
and hospitality. It is indeed a very sweet one, and I have
not only admired your genius more, but I have loved you
better since I have read it. Your sonnet (as you call it,
and, being a freeborn Briton, who sliall prevent you from
calling twenty-five blank verse lines a sonnet, if you have
taken a bloody resolution so to do) — your sonnet I am
much pleased with ; but the epithet " downy " is probably
more applicable to Susan's upper lip than to lier bosom,
and a mother is so holy and divine a being that I cannot
endure any corporcalizing epithets to be applied to her
or any body of her — besides, damn epithets ! The last
line and a half I suppose to be miswritten. What can
be the meaning of " Or scarce one leaf to cheer," etc. ?
" Cornelian virtues " — pedantry! The " melancholy
fiend," villainous in itself, and inaccurate; it ought to
be the "fiend that makes melancholy." I should have
written it thus (or perhaps something better), " but with
matron cares drives (/way heaviness ; " and in your similes,
etc., etc., a little compression would make it a beautiful
poem. Study compression !
I presume you mean decorum by Ilarum Dick. An
affected fellow at Bridgwater called truces " trusses." I
told him I admired his pronunciation, for that lately they
had been found " to suspend ruptures without curing
them."
There appeared in the " Courier " the day before yes¬
terday a very sensible vindication of the conduct of the
Directory. Did you see it ?
1797] TO JOHN THELWALL 231
Your news respecting Mrs. E. clicl not surprise me. I
saw it even from tlie first week I was at Darley. As to
the other event, our non-settlement at Darley, I suspect,
had little or nothing to do with it — but the cause of our
non-settlement there might perhaps — O God! OGod!
I wish (but what is the use of wishing ?) — I wish that
Walter Evans may have talent enough to appreciate Mrs.
Evans, but I suspect his intellect is not tall enough even
to measure hers.
Hartley is well, and will not walk or run, having dis¬
covered the art of crawling with wonderful ease and ra¬
pidity. Wordsworth and his sister are well. I want to
see your wife. God bless her! . . .
Oh, my Tragedy! it is finished, transcribed, and to be
sent off to-day; but I have 110 hope of its success, or even
of its being acted.
God bless, etc.,
s. T. coleridge.
Mr. Joiin Thelwall, Derby.
lxxvi. to the same.
Saturday morning. Bridgwater.
[Autumn, 1797.]
My dear Thelwall, — Yesterday morning I miss'd
the coach, and was ill and could not walk. This morning
the coach was completely full, but I was not ill, and so
did walk; and here I am, footsore very, and weary some¬
what. With regard to the business, I mentioned it at
Howell's ; but I perceive he is absolutely powerless.
Chubb I would have called on, but there are the Assizes,
and I find he is surrounded in his own house by a mob of
visitors whom it is scarcely possible for him to leave, long
enough at least for the conversation I want with him. I
will write him to-morrow morning, and shall have an an¬
swer the same day, which I will transmit to you on Mon¬
day, but you cannot receive it till Tuesday night. If,
232
THE STOWEY PERIOD
[Oct.
therefore, you leave Swansea before that time, or, in case
of accident, before Wednesday night, leave directions with
the postmaster to have your letter forwarded.
I go for Stowey immediately, which will make my walk
forty-one miles. The Howells desire to be remembered to
you kindly.
I am sad at heart about you on many accounts, but
chiefly anxious for this present business. The aristocrats
seem to persecute even Wordsworth.1 But we will at least
not yield without a struggle ; and if I cannot get you near
me, it shall not be for want of a trial on my part. But
perhaps I am passing the worn-out spirits of a /"«</-walk
for the real aspect of the business.
God love you, and believe me affectionately your
friend,
S. T. Coleridge.
Mr. Thelwall,
To be left at the Post Office, Swansea,
Glamorganshire.
lxxvii. to the same.
[Autumn, 1T97-]
Dear Thelwall, — This is the first hour that I could
write to you anything decisive. I have received an an¬
swer from Chubb, intimating that he will undertake the
office of procuring you a cottage, provided it was thought
right that you should settle here ; but this (that is the whole
difficulty) he left for T. Poole and me to settle, and he
acquainted Poole with this determination. Consequently,
1 Thelwall's visit brought Cole- tenant for having sublet the house
ridge and Wordsworth into trouble, to Wordsworth. See letter of ex-
At the instance of a "titled Dog- planation and remonstrance from
berry," Sir Philip Hale of Canning- Poole to Mrs. St. Albyn, September
ton, a government spy Avas sent to 10, 1707. Thomas Poole and his
watch the movements of the sup- Friends, i. 240. See, too, Cottle's
posed conspirators, and, a more seri- Early Recollect ions, i. 319, and for
ous matter, Mrs. St. Albyn, the owner apocryphal anecdotes about the spy,
of Alfoxden. severely censured her etc., Biographia Liter aria, cap. x.
1797]
TO JOHN THELWALL
233
the whole returns to its former situation; and the hope
which I had entertained, that you could have settled with¬
out any the remotest interference of Poole, has vanished.
To such interference on his part there are insuperable
difficulties : the whole malignity of the aristocrats will
converge to him as to the one point; his tranquillity will
be perpetually interrupted, his business and his credit
hampered and distressed by vexatious calumnies, the ties
of relationship weakened, perhaps broken ; and, lastly, his
poor old mother made miserable — the pain of the stone
aggravated by domestic calamity and quarrels betwixt her
son and those neighbours with whom and herself there
have been peace and love for these fifty years. Very
great odium T. Poole incurred by bringing me here. My
peaceable manners and known attachment to Christian¬
ity had almost worn it away when Wordsworth came,
and he, likewise by T. Poole's agency, settled here. You
cannot conceive the tumult, calumnies, and apparatus of
threatened persecutions which this event has occasioned
round about us. If you, too, should come, I am afraid
that even riots, and dangerous riots, might be the conse¬
quence. Either of us separately would perhaps be toler¬
ated, but all three together, what can it be less than plot
and damned conspiracy — a school for the propagation of
Demagogy and Atheism ? And it deserves examination,
whether or 110 as moralists we should be justified in haz¬
arding the certain evil of calling forth malignant passions
for the contingent good, that might result from our living
in the same neighbourhood ? Add to which, that in point
of the public interest, we must take into the balance the
Stowey Benefit Club. Of the present utility of this T.
Poole thinks highly ; of its possible utility, very, very highly
indeed ; but the interests, nay, perhaps the existence of
this club, is interwoven with his character as a peaceable
and vnde signing man; certainly, any future and greater
excellence which he hopes to realize in and through the
234
THE STOWEY PERIOD
[Jan.
society will vanish like a dream of tlie morning. If, there¬
fore, yon can get the land and cottage near Bath of which
yon spoke to me, I would advise it on many accounts ; but
if you still see the arguments on the other side in a
stronger light than those which I have stated, come, but
not yet. Come in two or three months — take lodgings
at Bridgwater — familiarise the people to your name and
appearance, and, when the monstrosity of the thing is
gone off, and the people shall have begun to consider you
as a man whose mouth won't eat them, and whose pocket
is better adapted for a bundle of sonnets than the trans¬
portation or ambush place of a French army, then you
may take a house; but indeed (I say it with a very sad
but a very clear conviction), at present I see that much
evil and little good would result from your settling here.
I am unwell. This business has, indeed, preyed much
on my spirits, and I have suffered for you more than I hope
and trust you will suffer yourself.
God love you and yours.
S. T. Coleridge.
Mr. Tiielwall,
To be left at the Post Office, Swansea, Glamorganshire.
lxxviii. to william wordsworth.
Tuesday morning, January, 1798.
My dear Wordsworth,—You know, of course, that
I have accepted the magnificent liberality of Josiali and
Thomas Wedgwood.1 I accepted it on the presumption
1 Their proposal was to settle on
Coleridge " an annuity for life of
£150, to be regularly paid by us, no
condition whatever being' annexed to
it." See letter of Josiali Wedgwood
to Coleridge, dated January 10,170>S.
Thomas Poole and his Friends, i.
258. An unpublished letter from
Thelwall to Dr. Crompton dated
Llyswen, March 3,1708, contains one
of several announcements of "his
good fortune," made by Coleridge at
tlie time to his numerous friends.
To Dr. Crompton, Eton House, Nr. Liver¬
pool.
Llyswen, 3d March, 1798.
I am surprised you have not heard
the particulars of Coleridge's good
1798]
TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
235
that I had talents, honesty, and propensities to perse-
verant effort. If I have hoped wisely concerning myself,
I have acted justly. But dismissing severer thoughts,
believe me, my dear fellow ! that of the pleasant ideas
which accompanied this unexpected event, it was not the
least pleasant, nor did it pass through my mind the last
in the procession, that I should at least be able to trace
the spring and early summer at Alfoxden with you, and
that wherever your after residence may be, it is probable
that you will be within the reach of my tether, length¬
ened as it now is. The country round Shrewsbury is
rather tame. My imagination has clothed it with all its
summer attributes; but I still can see in it 110 possibility
beyond that of beauty. The Society here were sufficiently
eager to have me as their minister, and, I think, would
fortune. It is not a legacy, but a
gift. The circumstances are thus
expressed by himself in a letter of
the .'10th January : " I received an in¬
vitation from Shrewsbury to be the
Unitarian minister, and at the same
time an order for £100 from Thomas
and Josiah Wedgwood. I accepted
the former and returned the latter
in a long letter explanatory of my
motive, and went off to Shrewsbury,
where they were on the point of
electing me unanimously and with
unusual marks of affection, where I
received an offer from T. and J.
Wedgwood of an annuity of £l."i0
to be legally settled 011 me. Aston¬
ished, agitated, and feeling as I
could not help feeling, I accepted
the offer in the same worthy spirit,
I hope, in which it was made, and
this morning 1 have returned from
Shrewsbury.1' This letter was writ¬
ten in a great hurry in Cottle's shop
in Bristol, in answer to one which a
friend of mine had left for him there,
oil his way from Llyswen to Gosport,
and you will perceive that it has a
dash of the obscure not uncommon
to the rapid genius of C. Whether
he did or did not accept the cure of
Unitarian .Souls, it is difficult from
the account to make out. I suppose
he did not, for I know his aversion
to preaching God's holy word for
hire, which is seconded not a little, I
expect, by his repugnance to all reg¬
ular routine and application. I also
hope he did not, for I know he can¬
not, preach very often without travel¬
ling from the pulpit to the Tower.
Mount him but upon his darling
hobby-horse, " the republic of God's
own making," and away he goes like
liey-go-niad, spattering and splash¬
ing through thick and thin and scat¬
tering more levelling sedition and
constructive treason than poor Gilly
or myself ever dreamt of. lie
promised to write to me again in a
few days ; but, though I answered his
letter directly, I have not heard from
him since.
236
THE STOWEY PERIOD
[Jan.
have behaved kindly and respectfully, but I perceive
clearly that without great courage and perseverance in the
use of the monosyllable iVo / I should have been plunged in
a very Maelstrom of visiting — whirled round, and round,
and round, never changing yet always moving. Visiting
with all its pomp and vanities is the mania of the place ;
and many of the congregation are both rich and expensive.
I met a young man, a Cambridge undergraduate. Talk¬
ing of plays, etc., he told me that an acquaintance of his
was printing a translation of one of Kotzebue's tragedies,
entitled, " JBenyowski." 1 The name startled me, and upon
examination I found that the story of my " Siberian
Exiles " has been already dramatized. If Kotzebue has
exhibited 110 greater genius in it than in his negro slaves,
I shall consider this as an unlucky circumstance; but the
young man speaks enthusiastically of its merits. I have
just read the " Castle Spectre," and shall bring it home
with me. I will begin with its defects, in order that my
" But" may have a charitable transition. 1. Language ;
2. Character; 3. Passion; 4. Sentiment; 5. Conduct.
(1.) Of styles, some are pleasing durably and on reflec¬
tion, some only in transition, and some are not pleasing at
all; and to this latter class belongs the " Castle Spectre." 2
There are no felicities in the humorous passages ; and in
the serious ones it is Schiller Lewis-ized, that is, a flat,
flabby, unimaginative bombast oddly sprinkled with col¬
loquialisms. (2.) No character at all. The author in a
postscript lays claim to novelty in one of his characters,
that of Hassan. Now Hassan is a negro, who had a
warm and benevolent heart; but having been kidnapped
from his country and barbarously used by the Christians,
becomes a misanthrope. This is all!! (3.) Passion —
1 Count Benyowsky, or the Con- versity of Cambridge. Cambridge,
spiracy of Kamtschatka, a Tragi- 171)8.
comedy. Translated from the Ger- 2 Coleridge's copy of Monk Lewis'
man by the Rev. W. Render, teacher play is dated January 20, 1798.
of the German Language in the Uni-
1798]
TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
287
horror ! agonizing pangs of conscience ! Dreams full of
hell, serpents, and skeletons ; starts and attempted mur¬
ders, etc., but positively, not one line that marks even a
superficial knowledge of human feelings could I discover.
(4.) Sentiments are moral and humorous. There is a
book called the " Frisky Songster," at the end of which
are two chapters : the first containing frisky toasts and
sentiments, the second, " Moral Toasts," and from these
chapters I suspect Mr. Lewis has stolen all his sentimen¬
tality, moral and humorous. A very fat friar, renowned
for gluttony and lubricity, furnishes abundance of jokes
(all of them abdominal vel si quid infra), jokes that would
have stunk, had they been fresh, and alas ! they have the
very sccva mephitis of antiquity on them. But (5.) the
Conduct of the Piece is, I think, good ; except that the
first act is wholly taken up with explanation and narra¬
tion. This play proves how accurately you conjectured
concerning theatric merit. The merit of the u Castle
Spectre " consists wholly in its situations. These are all
borrowed and all absolutely pcintomimical; but they are
admirably managed for stage effect. There is not much
bustle, but situations for ever. The whole plot, machinery,
and incident are borrowed. The play is a mere patch¬
work of plagiarisms ; but they are very well worked up,
and for stage effect make an excellent whole. There is a
pretty little ballad-song introduced, and Lewis, I think has
great and peculiar excellence in these compositions. The
simplicity and naturalness is his own, and not imitated ;
for it is made to subsist in congruity with a language
perfectly modern, the language of his own times, in the
same way that the language of the writer of " Sir
Cauline " was the language of his times. This, I think,
a rare merit: at least, I find, I cannot attain this inno¬
cent nakedness, except by assumption. I resemble the
Duchess of Kingston, who masqueraded in the character
of " Eve before the Fall," in flesh-coloured Silk. This
238
THE STOWEY PERIOD
[April
play struck me with utter hopelessness. It would [be
easy] to produce these situations, but not in a play so
[constructed] as to admit the permanent and closest
beauties of style, passion, and character. To admit panto¬
mimic tricks, the plot itself must be pantomimic. Harle¬
quin cannot be had unaccompanied by the Fool.
I hope to be with you by the middle of next week. I
must stay over next Sunday, as Mr. Row is obliged to go
to Bristol to seek a house. He and his family are honest,
sensible, pleasant people. My kind love to Dorothy, and
believe me, with affectionate esteem, yours sincerely,
S. T. COLERIDGE.1
lxxix. to joseph cottle.
Stowey, March 8, 1798.
My dear Cottle, — I have been confined to my bed
for some days through a fever occasioned by the stump of
a tooth. ... I thank you, my dear friend, for your late
kindness, and in a few weeks will either repay you in
money or by verses, as you like. With regard to Lloyd's
verses, it is curious that I should be applied to to be " per¬
suaded to resign, and in hope that I might" consent to give
up a number of poems which were published at the earnest
request of the author, who assured me that the circum¬
stance was " of no trivial import to his happiness." Times
change and people change; but let us keep our souls in
quietness! I have no objection to any disposal of C.
Lloyd's poems, except that of their being republished with
mine. The motto which I had prefixed, " Duplex," etc.,2
from Groscollius, has placed me in a ridiculous situation;
but it was a foolish and presumptuous start of affection-
1 The following' memoranda, pre- " The sun's course is short, but
sumably in Wordsworth's liandwrit- clear and blue the sky."
ing, have been scribbled on the 2 " Duplex nobis vinculum, et ami-
outside sheet of the letter : " Tea cituB et similium junctarumque Ca-
— Thread fine — needles Silks — moenarum; quod utinam lieque mors
Strainer for starch — Mustard — Ba- solvat, neque temporis longinquitas."
sil's shoes — Shoe horn.
1798]
TO GEORGE COLERIDGE
239
ateness, and I am not unwilling- to incur punishments due
to my folly. By past experiences we build up our moral
being. How conies it tliat I have never heard from dear
Mr. Estlin, my fatherly and brotherly friend ? This idea
haunted me through my sleepless nights, till my sides were
sore in turning from one to the other, as if I were hoping
to turn from the idea. The Giant Wordsworth — God
love him ! Even when I speak in the terms of admira¬
tion due to his intellect, I fear lest those terms should
keep out of sight the amiableness of his manners. . . .
He has written more than 1,200 lines of a blank verse,
superior, I hesitate not to aver, to anything in our lan¬
guage which any way resembles it. Poole (whom I feel
so consolidated with myself that I seem to have no occa¬
sion to speak of him out of myself) thinks of it as likely
to benefit mankind much more than anything Wordsworth
has yet written. With regard to my poems, I shall pre¬
fix the " Maid of Orleans," 1,000 lines, and three blank
verse poems, making all three about 200, and I shall ut¬
terly leave out perhaps a larger quantity of lines; and I
should think it would answer to you in a pecuniary way to
print the third edition humbly and cheaply. My altera¬
tions in the " Religious Musings " will be considerable, and
will lengthen the poem. Oh, Poole desires you not to
mention his house to any one unless you hear from him
again, as since I have been writing a thought has struck
us of letting it to an inhabitant of the village, which we
should prefer, as we should be certain that his manners
would be severe, inasmuch as he would be a Stow-ic.
God bless you and
S. T. C.
lxxx. to the rev. george coleridge.
April, 1798.
My dear Brother, — An illness, which confined me
to my bed, prevented me from returning an immediate
240
THE STOWEY PERIOD
[April
answer to your kind and interesting letter. My indispo¬
sition originated in the stump of a tootli over which some
matter liad formed; this affected my eye, my eye my
stomach, my stomach my head, and the consequence was
a general fever, and the sum of pain was considerably in¬
creased by the vain attempts of our surgeon to extract the
offending member. Laudanum gave me repose, not sleep;
but you, I believe, know how divine that repose is, what a
spot of enchantment, a green spot of fountain and flowers
and trees in the very heart of a waste of sands! God be
praised, the matter has been absorbed; and I am now re¬
covering apace, and enjoy that newness of sensation from
the fields, the air, and the sun which makes convalescence
almost repay one for disease. I collect from your letter
that our opinions and feelings on political subjects are
more nearly alike than you imagine them to be. Equally
with you (and perhaps with a deeper conviction, for my
belief is founded on actual experience), equally with you I
deprecate the moral and intellectual habits of those men,
both in England and France, who have modestly assumed
to themselves the exclusive title of Philosophers and
Friends of Freedom. I think them at least as distant from
greatness as from goodness. If I know my own opinions,
they are utterly untainted with French metaphysics, French
politics, French ethics, and French theology. As to the
Rulers of France, I see in their views, speeches, and ac¬
tions nothing that distinguishes them to their advantage
from other animals of the same species. History has
taught me that rulers are much the same in all ages, and
under all forms of government; they are as bad as they
dare to be. The vanity of ruin and the curse of blindness
have clung to them like an hereditary leprosy. Of the
French Revolution I can give my thoughts most ade¬
quately in the words of Scripture: " A great and strong
wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks
before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind; and
1798]
TO GEORGE COLERIDGE
241
after the wind an earthquake; and after the earthquake a
lire ; and the Lord was not in the five ; 11 and now (believ¬
ing- that no calamities are permitted but as the means of
good) I wrap my face in my mantle and wait, with a sub¬
dued and patient thought, expecting to hear " the still
small voice" which is of God. In America (I have re¬
ceived my information from unquestionable authority) the
morals and domestic habits of the people are daily deteri¬
orating ; and one good consequence which I expect from
revolution is that individuals will see the necessity of indi¬
vidual effort; that they will act as good Christians, rather
than as citizens and electors ; and so by degrees will purge
off that error, which to me appears as wild and more per¬
nicious than the -dy^pvcrov and panacea of the alchemists,
the error of attributing to governments a talismanic influ¬
ence over our virtues and our happiness, as if governments
were not rather effects than causes. It is true that all ef¬
fects react and become causes, and so it must be in some
degree with governments ; but there are other agents which
act more powerfully because by a niglier and more contin¬
uous agency, and it remains true that governments are
more the effect than the cause of that which we are. Do
not therefore, my brother, consider me as an enemy to
government and its rulers, or as one who says they are
evil. I do not say so. In my opinion it were a species of
blasphemy ! Shall a nation of drunkards presume to bab¬
ble against sickness and the headache ? I regard govern¬
ments as I regard the abscesses produced by certain fevers
— they are necessary consequences of the disease, and by
their pain they increase the disease; but yet they are in
the wisdom and goodness of Nature, and not only are they
physically necessary as effects, but also as causes they are
morally necessary in order to prevent the utter dissolution
of the patient. But what should we think of a man who
expected an absolute cure from an ulcer that only pre¬
vented his dying. Of guilt I say nothing, but I believe
242
THE STOWEY PERIOD
[April
most steadfastly in original sin ; that from our mothers'
wombs our understandings are darkened; and even where
our understandings are in the light, that our organization
is depraved and our volitions imperfect; and we some¬
times see the good without wishing to attain it, and of-
tener wish it without the energy that wills and performs.
And for this inherent depravity I believe that the spirit
of the Gospel is the sole cure ; but permit me to add, that
I look for the spirit of the Gospel " neither in the moun¬
tain, nor at Jerusalem."
You think, my brother, that there can be but two par¬
ties at present, for the Government and against the Gov¬
ernment. It may be so. I am of no party. It is true I
think the present Ministry weak and unprincipled men ;
but I would not with a safe conscience vote for their
removal; I could point out no substitutes. I think very
seldom on the subject; but as far as I have thought, I am
inclined to consider the aristocrats as the most respec¬
table of our three factions, because they are more decorous.
The Opposition and the Democrats are not only vicious,
they wear thq filthy garments of vice.
He that takes
Deep in his soft credulity the stamp
Design'd by loud declaimers on the part
Of liberty, themselves the slaves of lust,
Incurs derision for his easy faith
And lack of knowledge, and with cause enough:
For when was public virtue to be found
Where private was not ? Can he love the whole
Who loves no part ? He be a nation's friend,
Who is, in truth, the friend of no man there ?
Can he be strenuous in his country's cause
Who slights the charities, for whose dear sake
That country, if at all, must be belov'd ?
Cowper.1
I am prepared to suffer without discontent the conse¬
quences of my follies and mistakes; and unable to con-
1 The Task, Book V., " A Winter's Morning Walk."
1798]
TO GEORGE COLERIDGE
243
ceive how that which I am of Good could have been
without that which I have been of evil, it is withheld from
me to regret anything. I therefore consent to be deemed
a Democrat and a Seditionist. A man's character follows
him long after he has ceased to deserve it; but I have
snapped my squeaking baby-trumpet of sedition, and the
fragments lie scattered in the lumber-room of penitence.
I wish to be a good man and a Christian, but I am 110
Whig, 110 Reformist, no Republican, and because of the
multitude of fiery and undisciplined spirits that lie in
wait against the public quiet under these titles, because
of them I chiefly accuse the present ministers, to whose
folly I attribute, in a great measure, their increased and
increasing numbers. You think differently, and if I were
called upon by you to prove my assertions, although I
imagine I could make them appear plausible, yet I should
feel the insufficiency of my data. The Ministers may
have had in their possession facts which alter the whole
state of the argument, and make my syllogisms fall as
flat as a baby's card-house. And feeling this, my brother !
I have for some time past withdrawn myself totally from
the consideration of immediate causes, which are infi¬
nitely complex and uncertain, to muse on fundamental
and general causes the " causae causarum." I devote
myself to such works as encroach not on the anti-social
passions — in poetry, to elevate the imagination and set
the affections in right tune by the beauty of the inani¬
mate impregnated as with a living soul by the presence of
life — in prose to the seeking with patience and a slow,
very slow mind, " Quid sumus, et quidnam victuri gigni-
mus," — what our faculties are and what they are capable
of becoming. I love fields and woods and mountains
with almost a visionary fondness. And because I have
found benevolence and quietness growing within me as
that fondness has increased, therefore I should wish to be
the means of implanting it in others, and to destroy the
244
THE STOWEY PERIOD
[May
bad passions not by combating tliem but by keeping tliem
in inaction.
Not useless do I deem
These shadowy sympathies with things that hold
An inarticulate Language ; for the Man —
Once taught to love such objects as excite
No morbid passions, 110 disquietude,
No vengeance, and 110 hatred —needs must feel
The joy of that pure principle of love
So deeply, that, unsatisfied with aught
Less pure and exquisite, he cannot choose
But seek for objects of a kindred love
In fellow-nature and a kindred joy.
Accordingly he by degrees perceives
Ilis feelings of aversion softened down ;
A holy tenderness pervade his frame !
His sanity of reason not impair'd,
Say, rather, that his thoughts now flowing clear
From a clear fountain flowing, he looks round,
He seeks for good ; and finds the good lie seeks.
Wordsworth.1
I have laid down for myself two maxims, and, what is
more I am in the habit of regulating myself by them.
With regard to others, I never controvert opinions except
after some intimacy, and when alone with the person, and
at the happy time when we both seem awake to our own
fallibility, and then I rather state my reasons than argue
against his. In general conversation to find out the
opinions common to us, or at least the subjects on which
difference of opinion creates no uneasiness, such as
novels, poetry, natural scenery, local anecdotes, and (in a
serious mood and with serious men) the general evidences
of our religion. With regard to myself, it is my habit,
on whatever subject I think, to endeavour to discover all
the good that has resulted from it, that does result, or
that can result. To this I bind down my mind, and after
long meditation in this tract slowly and gradually make
1 A later version of these lines is fourth book of " The Excursion."
to be found at the close of the Works of Wordsworth, 1889, p. 467.
1798]
TO J. P. ESTLIN
245
up my opinions on the quantity and nature of the evil. I
consider this as the most important rule for the regulation
of the intellect and the affections, as the only means of
preventing the passions from turning reason into a hired
advocate. I thank you for your kindness, and propose in
a short time to walk down to you : but my wife must forego
the thought, as she is within five or six weeks of lying-in.
She and my child, whose name is David Hartley, are
remarkably well. You will give my duty to my mother,
and love to my brothers, to Mrs. S. and G. Coleridge.
Excuse my desultory style and illegible scrawl, for I
have written you a long letter, you see, and am in truth
too weary to write a fair copy of it, or rearrange my
ideas, and I am anxious you should know me as I am.
God bless you, from your affectionate brother,
S. T. Coleridge.
lxxxi. to rev. j. p. estlin.1
May [? 1798].
My dear Friend, — I write from Cross, to which place
I accompanied Mr. Wordsworth, who will give you this
1 In tlie series of letters to Dr.
Estlin, contributed to the privately
printed volumes of the Philobi-
blon Society, the editor, Mr. Henry
A. Bright, dates this letter May
(? 1797). A comparison with a second
letter to Estlin. dated May 14. 1798
(Letter LXXXII.). with a letter to
Poole, dated May 28, 1798 (Letter
LXXXIV.), with a letter to Charles
Lamb belonging to the spring of
1798 (Letter LXXXV.), and with an
entry in Dorothy Wordsworth's jour¬
nal for May 1G, 1798, affords convin¬
cing' proof that the date of the letter
should be May, 1798.
The MS. note of November 10,
1810, to which a previous reference
has been made, connects a serious
quarrel with Lloyd, and consequent
distress of mind, with the retirement
to "the lonely farm-house," and a
first recourse to opium. If, as the
letters intimate, these events must
be assigned to May, 1798, it follows
that " Kubla Khan " was written at
the same time, and not, as Coleridge
maintained in the Preface of 181(5,
"in the summer of 1797."
It would, indeed, have been alto¬
gether miraculous if, before he had
written a line of u Cliristabel," or
'' The Ancient Mariner," either in an
actual dream, or a dreamlike reverie,
it had been "given to him " to divine
the enchanting images of " Kubla
Khan," or attune his mysterious vis¬
ion to consummate melody.
246
THE STOWEY PERIOD
[May
letter. We visited Cheddar, but liis main business was to
bring back poor Lloyd, whose infirmities have been made
the instruments of another man's darker passions. But
Lloyd (as we found by a letter that met us in the road)
is off for Birmingham. Wordsworth proceeds, lest possi¬
bly Lloyd may not be gone, and likewise to see his own
Bristol friends, as he is so near them. I have now known
him a year and some months, and my admiration, I might
say my awe, of his intellectual powers has increased even
to this hour, and (what is of more importance) he is a
tried good man. On one subject we are habitually silent;
we found our data dissimilar, and never renewed the sub¬
ject. It is his practice and almost his nature to convey
all the truth he knows without any attack 011 what he sup¬
poses falsehood, if that falsehood be interwoven with vir¬
tues or happiness. He loves and venerates Christ and
Christianity. I wish he did more, but it were wrong in¬
deed if an incoincidence with one of our wishes altered
our respect and affection to a man of whom we are, as it
were, instructed by one great Master to say that not being
against us he is for us. Ilis genius is most apparent in
poetry, and rarely, except to me in tete-a-tete, breaks forth
in conversational eloquence. My best and most affection¬
ate wishes attend Mrs. Estlin and your little ones, and be¬
lieve me, with filial and fraternal friendship, your grateful
S. T. Coleridge.
Rev. J. P. Estlin,
St. Michael's Hill, Bristol.
lxxxii. to the same.
Monday, May 14, 1798.
My dear Friend, — I ought to have written to you
before ; and have done very wrong in not writing. But I
have had many sorrows and some that bite deep; calumny
and ingratitude from men who have been fostered in the
bosom of my confidence! I pray God that I may sanctify
1798]
TO J. P. ESTLIN
247
these events by forgiveness and a peaceful spirit full of
love. This morning, lialf-past one, my wife was safely
delivered of a fine boy ;1 she had a remarkably good time,
better if possible than her last, and both she and the child
are as well as can be. By the by, it is only three in the
morning now. I walked in to Taunton and back again,
and performed the divine services for Dr. Toulmin. I
suppose you must have heard that his daughter, in a mel¬
ancholy derangement, suffered herself to be swallowed up
by the tide on the sea-coast between Sidmouth and Bere.
These events cut cruelly into the hearts of old men; but
the good Dr. Toulmin bears it like the true practical
Christian, — there is indeed a tear in his eye, but that eye
is lifted up to the Heavenly Father. I have been too neg¬
lectful of practical religion — I mean, actual and stated
prayer, and a regular perusal of scripture as a morning
and evening duty. May God grant me grace to amend
this error, for it is a grievous one! Conscious of frailty I
almost wish (I say it confidentially to you) that I had be¬
come a stated minister, for indeed I find true joy after a
sincere prayer; but for want of habit my mind wanders,
and I cannot pray as often as I ought. Thanksgiving is
pleasant in the performance; but prayer and distinct con¬
fession I find most serviceable to my spiritual health when
I can do it. But though all my doubts are done away,
though Christianity is my passion, it is too much my
intellectual passion, and therefore will do me but little
good in the hour of temptation and calamity.
My love to Mrs. E. and the dear little ones, and ever,
O ever, believe me, with true affection and gratitude,
Your filial friend, S. T. Coleridge.
1 Berkeley Coleridge, born May 14, 17U8, died February 10, 1799.
248
THE STOWEY PERIOD
[May
lxxxiii. to thomas poole.
Monday, May 14, 1798.
Morning, 10 o'clock.
My dearest Friend, — I have been sitting many
minutes with my pen in my hand, full of prayers and
wishes for you, and the house of affliction in which you
have so trying a part to sustain — but I know not what
to write. May God support you ! May he restore your
brother — but above all, I pray that he will make us able
to cry out with a fervent sincerity : Thy will be done !
I have had lately some sorrows that have cut more deeply
into my heart than they ought to have done, and I have
found religion, and commonplace religion too, my re¬
storer and my comfort, giving me gentleness and calm¬
ness and dignity ! Again and again, may God be with
you, my best, dear friend ! and believe me, my Poole !
dearer, to my understanding and affections unitedly, than
all else in the world !
It is almost painful and a thing of fear to tell you that
I have another boy ; it will bring upon your mind the too
affecting circumstance of poor Mrs. Richard Poole ! The
prayers which I have offered for her have been a relief
to my own mind; I would that they could have been a
consolation to her. Scripture seems to teach us that our
fervent prayers are not without efficacy, even for others ;
and though my reason is perplexed, yet my internal feel¬
ings impel me to a humble faith, that it is possible and
consistent with the divine attributes.
Poor Dr. Toulmin ! lie bears his calamity like one in
whom a faith through Jesus is the Ilabit of the whole
man, of his affections still more than of his convictions.
The loss of a dear child in so frightful a way cuts cruelly
with an old man, but though there is a tear and an
anguish in his eye, that eye is raised to heaven.
Sara was safely delivered at half past one this morning
1898]
TO CHARLES LAMB
249
— tlie boy is already almost as large as Hartley. She
had an astonishingly good time, better if possible than
her last; and excepting her weakness, is as well as ever.
The child is strong and shapely, and has the paternal
beauty in his upper lip. God be praised for all things.
Your affectionate and entire friend,
S. T. Coleridge.
lxxxiy. to the same.
Sunday evening [May 20, 1798].
My dearest Poole, — I was all day yesterday in a
distressing perplexity whether or no it would be wise or
consolatory for me to call at your house, or whether I
should write to your mother, as a Christian friend, or
whether it would not be better to wait for the exhaustion
of that grief which must have its way.
So many unpleasant and shocking circumstances have
happened to me in my immediate knowledge within the
last fortnight, that I am in a nervous state, and the most
trifling thing makes me weep. Poor Richard! May
Providence heal the wounds which it hath seen good to
inflict!
Do you wish me to see you to-day ? Shall I call 011
you ? Shall I stay with you ? or had I better leave you
uninterrupted? I11 all your sorrows as in your joys, I
am, indeed, my dearest Poole, a true and faithful sharer!
May God bless and comfort you all!
S. T. Coleridge.
lxxxv. to charles lamb.1
[Spring of 1798.]
Dear Lamb, — Lloyd has informed me through Miss
Wor dsworth that you intend no longer to correspond with
1 The original MS. of this letter, post. Besides this, only three of Cole-
"vvhicli was preserved by Coleridge, ridge's letters to Lamb have been
is, doubtless, a copy of that sent by preserved, — the " religious letter "
250
THE STOWEY PERIOD
[May
me. This lias given me little pain; not that I do not love
and esteem you, but on the contrary because I am confi¬
dent that your intentions are pure. You are performing
what you deem a duty, and humanly speaking have that
merit which can be derived from the performance of a
painful duty. Painful, for you would not without strug¬
gles abandon me in behalf of a man1 who, wholly ignorant
of all but your name, became attached to you in conse¬
quence of my attachment, caught Ms from my enthusiasm,
and learned to love you at my fireside, when often while I
have been sitting and talking of your sorrows and afflic¬
tions I have stopped my conversations and lifted up wet
eyes and prayed for you. No ! I am confident that
although you do not think as a wise man, you feel as a
good man.
From you I have received little pain, because for you
I suffer little alarm. I cannot say this for your friend;
it appears to me evident that his feelings are vitiated,
and that his ideas are in their combination merely the
creatures of those feelings. I have received letters from
him, and the best and kindest wish which, as a Christian,
I can offer in return is that he may feel remorse.
Some brief resentments rose in my mind, but they did
not remain there; for I began to think almost immedi¬
ately, and my resentments vanished. There has resulted
only a sort of fantastic scepticism concerning my own
consciousness of my own rectitude. As dreams have im¬
pressed on him the sense of reality, my sense of reality
may be but a dream. From his letters it is plain that
he has mistaken the heat and bustle and swell of self-
justification for the approbation of his conscience. I am
certain that this is not the case with me, but the human
heart is so wily and inventive that possibly it may be
of 179G, a letter concerning the quar¬
rel with Wordsworth, of May, 1812
[Letter CLXXXIV.], and one writ¬
ten in later life (undated, on the par¬
ticulars of Hood's Odes to Great
People).
1 Charles Lloyd.
1798]
TO CHARLES LAMB
251
cheating me, who am an older warrior, with some newer
stratagem. When I wrote to you that my Sonnet to Sim¬
plicity 1 was not composed with reference to Southey,
you answered me (I believe these were the words):
" It was a lie too gross for the grossest ignorance to be¬
lieve ; " and I was not angry with you, because the asser-
1 The three sonnets of " Nehemiah
Higginbottom" were published in
the Monthly Magazine iov November,
17!)7. Compare his letter to Cottle
(E. B. i. 289) which Mr. Dykes
Campbell takes to have been written
at the same time.
" I sent to the Monthly Magazine,
three mock sonnets in ridicule of
my own Poems, and Charles Lloyd's
and Charles Lamb's, etc., etc., expos¬
ing' that affectation of unaffected-
ness, of jumping and misplaced ac¬
cent, in commonplace epithets, flat
lines forced into poetry by italics
(signifying how well and moutliishly
the author would read them), puny
pathos, etc., etc. The instances were
all taken from myself and Lloyd
and Lamb. I signed them ' Nehe¬
miah Iligginbottom.' I hope they
may do good to our young bards."
The publication of these sonnets
in November, 1797, cannot, as Mr.
Dykes Campbell points out (Poetical
Works, p. 59D), have been the imme¬
diate cause of the breach between
Coleridge and Lamb which took
place in the spring or early summer
of 1798, but it seems that during the
rise and progress of this quarrel the
Sonnet on Simplicity was the occa¬
sion of bitter and angry words. As
Lamb and Lloyd and Southey drew
together, they drew away from Cole¬
ridge, and Southey, who had only
been formally reconciled with his
brother-in-law, seems to have re¬
garded this sonnet as an ill-natured
parody of his earlier poems. In a
letter toWynn, dated November 20,
1797, he says, " I am aware of the
danger of studying simplicity of
language," and he proceeds to quote
some lines of blank verse to prove
that he could employ the " grand
style " when he chose.
A note from Coleridge to Southey,
posted December 8,1797, deals with
the question, and would, if it had
not been for Lloyd's " tittle-tattle,"
have convinced both Southey and
Lamb that in the matter they were
entirely mistaken.
I am sorry, Southey! very sorry
that I wrote or published those son¬
nets — but ' sorry ' would be a tame
word to express my feelings, if I had
written them with the motives which
you have attributed to me. I have
not been in the habit of treating our
separation with levity — nor ever
since the first moment thought of it
without deep emotion — and how
could you apply to yourself a sonnet
written to ridicule infantine simpli¬
city, vulgar colloquialisms, and lady¬
like friendships ? I have no con¬
ception, neither I believe could a
passage in your writings have sug¬
gested to me or any man the no¬
tion of your ' plainting plaintively.'
I am sorry that I wrote thus, be¬
cause I am sorry to perceive a dis¬
position in you to believe evil of me,
252
THE STOWEY PERIOD
[May
tion which the grossest ignorance would believe a lie the
Omniscient knew to be truth. This, however, makes me
cautious not too hastily to affirm the falsehood of an
assertion of Lloyd's that in Edmund Oliver's 1 love-fit,
leaving college, and going into the army he had no sort
of allusion to or recollection of my love-fit, leaving college,
and going into the army, and that he never thought of my
person in the description of Oliver's person in the first
letter of the second volume. This cannot appear stranger
to me than my assertion did to you, and therefore I will
suspend my absolute faith.
of which your remark to Charles
Lloyd was a painful instance. I say
this to you, because I shall say it
to no other being. I feel myself
wounded and hurt and write as such.
I believe in my letter to Lloyd I
forgot to mention that the Editor of
the Homing Post is called Stuart,
and that he is the brother-in-law of
Mackintosh. Yours sincerely,
S. T. Coleridge.
Thursday morning.
Post-mark, Dec. 8, 1797-
Mr. Sotjthey, No. 2:] East Street,
Red Lion Square, London.
1 Charles Lloyd's novel, Edmund
Oliver, was published at Bristol in
1708. It is dedicated to " His friend
Charles Lamb of the India House."
He says in the Preface : " The inci¬
dents relative to the army were
given me by an intimate friend who
was himself eye-witness of one of
them." The general resemblance
between the events of Coleridge's
earlier history and the story of Ed¬
mund Oliver is not very striking, but
apart from the description of " his
person " in the first letter of the sec¬
ond volume, which is close enough,
a single sentence from Edmund Oli¬
ver's journal, i. 2-iij, betrays the
malignant nature of the attack. " I
have at all times a strange dream¬
iness about me which makes me in¬
different to the future, if I can by
any means fill the present with sen¬
sations, — with that dreaminess I
have gone on here from day to day ;
if at any time thought-troubled, I
have swallowed some spirits, or had
recourse to my laudanum." In the
same letter, the account which Ed¬
mund Oliver gives of his sensations
as a recruit in a regiment of light
horse, and the vivid but repulsive
picture which he draws of his squalid
surroundings in " a pot-house in the
Borough," leaves a like impression
that Coleridge confided too much,
and that Lloyd remembered " not
wisely but too well." IIow Cole¬
ridge regarded Lloyd's malfeasance
may be guessed from one of his so-
called epigrams.
TO ONE WHO PUBLISHED IN PRINT WHAT HAD
BEEN INTRUSTED TO HIM BY MY FIRESIDE.
Two tilings liast tliou made known to half
the nation,
My secrets and my want of penetration :
For oh ! far more than all which thou hast
penned,
It shames me to have called a wretch, like
thee, my friend !
Poetical Works, p. 448.
1798]
TO CHARLES LAMB
253
I wrote to you not that I wish to hear from you, but
that I wish you to write to Lloyd and press upon him the
propriety, nay the necessity, of his giving me a meeting
either tete-a-tete or in the presence of all whose esteem I
value. This I owe to my own character ; I owe it to him if
by any means he may even yet be extricated. lie assigned
as reasons for his rupture my vices ; and he is either right
or wrong. If right, it is fit that others should know it
and follow his example ; if wrong, he has acted very
wrong. At present, I may expect everything from his
heated mind rather than continence of language, and his
assertions will be the more readily believed on account of
his former enthusiastic attachment, though with wise men
this would cast a hue of suspicion over the whole affair ;
but the number of wise men in the kingdom would not
puzzle a savage's arithmetic — you may tell them in every
[community] on your fingers. I have been unfortunate
in my connections. Both you and Lloyd became ac¬
quainted with me when your minds were far from being
in a composed or natural state, and you clothed my image
with a suit of notions and feelings which could belong to
o O
nothing human. You are restored to comparative sane-
ness, and are merely wondering what is become of the
Coleridge with whom you were so passionately in love,;
Charles Lloyd's mind has only changed his disease, and
he is now arraying his ci-devant Angel in a flaming San
Benito — the whole ground of the garment a dark brim¬
stone and plenty of little devils flourished out in black.
Oh, me ! Lamb, " even in laughter the heart is sad ! " My
kindness, my affectionateness, he deems wheedling; but, if
after reading all my letters to yourself and to him, you
can suppose him wise in his treatment and correct in his
accusations of me, you think worse of human nature than
poor human nature, bad as it is, deserves to be thought of.
God bless you and S. T. Coleridge.
CHAPTER IV
A VISIT TO GERMANY
1798-1799
CHAPTER IV
a visit to germany
1798-1799
The letters which Coleridge wrote from Germany were,
with few exceptions, addressed either to his wife or to
Poole. They have never been published in full, but dur¬
ing his life and since his death various extracts have
appeared in print. The earlier letters descriptive of his
voyage, his two visits to Hamburg, his interviews with
Klopstock, and his settlement at Ratzeburg were published
as " Satyrane's Letters," first in November-December,
1809, in Nos. 14, 16, and 18 of "The Friend," and again,
in 1817, in the " Biographia Literaria" (ii. 183-253).
Two extracts from letters to his wife, dated respectively
January 14 and April 8, 1799, appeared in No. 19 of
"The Friend," December 28, 1809, as "Christmas In¬
doors in North Germany," and " Christmas Out of Doors."
In 1828, Coleridge placed a selection of unpublished let¬
ters from Germany in the hands of the late S. C. Hall,
who printed portions of two (dated " Clausthal, May 17,
1799") in the "Amulet" of 1829, under the title of
" Fragments of a Journal of a Tour over the Brocken,
by S. T. Coleridge." The same extract is included in Gill-
man's " Life of Coleridge," pp. 125, 138.
After Coleridge's death, Mr. Hall published in the
"New Monthly Magazine" (1835, No. 45, pp. 211-226)
the three last letters from Germany, dated May 17, 18,
and 19, which include the " Tour over the Brocken."
Selections from Coleridge's letters to Poole of April 8
258
A VISIT TO GERMANY
[Sept.
and May G, 1799, were published by Mrs. Sandford in
" Thomas Poole and his Friends " (i. 295-299), and four
letters from Poole to Coleridge are included in the same
volume (pp. 277-294). A hitherto unpublished letter
from Coleridge to his wife, dated January 14, 1799, ap¬
peared in " The Illustrated London News," April 29,
1893. For further particulars relative to Coleridge's life
in Germany, see Carlyon's " Early Years," etc., 1856,
i. 2G-198, passim, and Brandl's "Life of Coleridge,"
1887, pp. 230-252.
lxxxvi. to thomas poole.
September 15, 1798.
My very dear Poole, —We have arrived at Yar¬
mouth just in time to be hurried into the packet — and
four or five letters of recommendation have been taken
away from me, owing to their being wafered. Wedg¬
wood's luckily were not.
I am at the point of leaving my native country for the
first time — a country which God Almighty knows is dear
to me above all things for the love I bear to you. Of
many friends whom I love and esteem, my head and heart
have ever chosen you as the friend — as the one being in
whom is involved the full and whole meaning of that
sacred title. God love you, my dear Poole ! and your
faithful and most affectionate
S. T. Coleridge.
P. S. We may be only two days, we may be a fort¬
night going. The same of the packet that returns. So do
not let my poor Sara be alarmed if she do not hear from
me. I will write alternately to you and her, twice every
week during my absence. May God preserve us, and make
us continue to be joy, and comfort, and wisdom, and vir¬
tue to each other, my dear, dear Poole!
1798]
TO HIS WIFE
259
LXXXYII. TO HIS WIFE.
Hamburg, September 19, 1798.
Over what place does tlie moon hang to your eye, my
dearest Sara ? To me it hangs over the left bank of the
Elbe, and a long trembling road of moonlight reaches from
thence up to the stern of our vessel, and there it ends. We
have dropped anchor in the middle of the stream, thirty
miles from Cuxliaven, where we arrived this morning at
eleven o'clock, after an unusually fine passage of only
forty-eight hours. The Captain agreed to take all the
passengers up to Hamburg for ten guineas; my share
amounted only to half a guinea. We shall be there, if no
fogs intervene, to-morrow morning. Chester was ill the
whole voyage ; Wordsworth shockingly ill; his sister worst
of all, and I neither sick nor giddy, but gay as a lark.
The sea rolled rather high, but the motion was pleasant to
me. The stink of a sea cabin in a packet (what with the
bilge-water, and what from the crowd of sick passengers)
is horrible. I remained chiefly on deck. We left Yar¬
mouth Sunday morning, September 1G, at eleven o'clock.
Chester and Wordsworth ill immediately. Our passen¬
gers were: J Wordsworth, * Chester, S. T. Coleridge , a
Dane, second Dane, third Dane, a Prussian, a Hanove¬
rian and * his servant, a German tailor and his * wife, a
French J emigrant and * French servant, * two English
gentlemen, and £ a Jew. All these with the prefix * were
sick, those marked £ horribly sick. The view of Yar¬
mouth from the sea is interesting; besides, it was Eng¬
lish ground that was flying away from me. When we
lost sight of land, the moment that we quite lost sight of
it and the heavens all round me rested upon the waters,
my dear babes came upon me like a flash of lightning ; I
saw their faces1 so distinctly ! This day enriched me with
1 In a letter dated November 1, husband with the danger and the
1798, Mrs. Coleridge acquaints her disfigurement from small-pox which
260
A VISIT TO GERMANY
[Sept.
characters, and I passed it merrily. Each of those char¬
acters I will delineate to you in my journal, which you and
Poole alternately will receive regularly as soon as I arrive
at any settled place, which will be in a week. Till then I
can do little more than give you notice of my safety and
my faithful affection to you (but the journal will com¬
mence from the day of my arrival at London, and give
every day's occurrence, etc.). I have it written, but I
have neither paper or time to transcribe it. I trust no¬
thing to memory. The Ocean is a noble thing by night ;
a beautiful white cloud of foam at momentary intervals
roars and rushes by the side of the vessel, and stars of
flame dance and sparkle and go out in it, and every now
and then light detachments of foam dart away from the
vessel's side with their galaxies of stars and scour out of
sight like a Tartar troop over a wilderness. What these
stars are I cannot say ; the sailors say they are fish spawn,
which is phosphorescent. The noisy passengers swear in
all their languages, with drunken hiccups, that I shall
write no more, and I must join them. Indeed, they pre¬
sent a rich feast for a dramatist. My kind love to Mrs.
Poole (with what wings of swiftness would I fly home if
I could find something in Germany to do her good !). Re¬
member me affectionately to Ward, and my love to the
Chesters (Bessy, Susan, and Julia) and to Cruickshank,
etc., etc., Ellen and Mary when you see them, and to
Lavinia Poole and Harriet and Sophy, and be sure to give
my kind love to Nanny. I associate so much of Hartley's
infancy with her, so many of his figures, looks, words, and
antics with her form, that I shall never cease to think of
her, poor girl! without interest. Tell my best good friend,
my dear Poole! that all his manuscripts, with Words¬
worth's Tragedy, are safe in Josiah Wedgwood's hands;
had befallen her little Berkeley, faces of your children crossed you
" The dear child," she writes, " is like a flash of lightning',' you saw
getting strength every hour ; hut that face for the last time."
' when you lost sight of land, and the
1798]
TO HIS WIFE
261
and they will be returned to him together. Good-night,
my dear, dear Sara ! —-" every night when I go to bed,
and every morning when I rise," I will think with yearn¬
ing love of you and of my blessed babies! Once more,
my dear Sara ! good-night.
Wednesday afternoon, four o'clock. — We are safe in
Hamburg — an ugly city that stinks in every corner,
house, and room worse than cabins, sea-sickness, or bilge-
water ! The hotels are all crowded. With great diffi¬
culty we have procured a very filthy room at a large ex¬
pense ; but we shall move to-morrow. We get very excel¬
lent claret for a trifle — a guinea sells at present for more
than twenty-three shillings here. But for all particulars
I must refer your patience to my journal, and I must get
some proper paper — I shall have to pay a shilling or
eighteenpence with every letter. N. B. Johnson the
bookseller, without any poems sold to him, but purely out
of affection conceived for me, and as part of anything I
might do for him, gave me an order on Remnant at Ham¬
burg for thirty pounds. The " Epea Pteroenta," an Essay
on Population, and a " History of Paraguay," will come
down for me directed to Poole, and for Poole's reading.
Likewise I have desired Johnson to print in quarto1 a little
poem of mine, one of which quartos must be sent to my
brother, Rev. G. C., Ottery St. Mary, carriage paid. Did
you receive my letter directed in a different hand, with
the 30/. banknote ? The " Morning Post " and Magazine
will come to you as before. If not regularly, Stuart de¬
sires that you will write to him. I pray you, my dear
love ! read Edgewortli's " Essay on Education " — read it
heart and soul, and if you approve of the mode, teach
Hartley his letters. I am very desirous that you should
teach him to read; and they point out some easy modes.
1 "Fears in Solitude, written in Coleridge. London: Printed for J.
1708, during the alarm of an invasion. Johnson, in St. Paul's Churchyard.
To which are added, France, an Ode ; 1798."
and Frost at Midnight. I3y S. T.
262
A VISIT TO GERMANY
[Oct.
J. Wedgwood informed me that the Edgeworths were
most miserable when children; and yet the father in his
book is ever vapouring about their happiness. However,
there are very good things in the work — and some non¬
sense.
Kiss my Hartley and Bercoo baby brodder (kiss them
for their dear father, whose heart will never be absent
from them many hours together). My dear Sara ! I think
of you with affection and a desire to be home, and in the
full and noblest sense of the word, and after the antique
principles of Religion, unsophisticated by Philosophy, will
be, I trust, your husband faithful unto death,
S. T. Coleridge.
Wednesday night, eleven o'clock. — The sky and col¬
ours of the clouds are quite English, just as if I were com¬
ing out of T. Poole's homeward with you in my arm.
lxxxviii. to the same.
[Ratzeburg], October 20, 1798.
. . . But I must check these feelings and write more col¬
lectedly. I am well, my dear Love! very well, and my
situation is in all respects comfortable. My room is large
and healthy; the house commands an enchanting prospect.
The pastor is worthy and a learned man — a widower with
eight children, five of whom are at home. The German
language is spoken here in the utmost purity. The chil¬
dren often stand round my sofa and chatter away; and
the little one of all corrects my pronunciation with a pretty
pert lisp and self-sufficient tone, while the others laugh
with no little joyance. The Gentry and Nobility here pay
me almost an adulatory attention. There is a very beauti¬
ful little woman — less, I think, than you — a Countess
Kilmansig;1 her father is our Lord Howe's cousin. She
1 According to Burke's Peerage, Howe, and father of the Admiral,
Emanuel Scoope, second Viscount " Our Lord Howe," married, in 1719,
1798]
TO HIS WIFE
263
is the wife of a very handsome man, and has two fine lit¬
tle children. I have quite won her heart by a German
poem which I wrote. It is that sonnet, " Charles ! my
slow heart was only sad when first," and considerably di¬
lated with new images, and much superior in the German
to its former dress. It has excited no small wonder here
for its purity and harmony. I mention this as a proof of
my progress in the language — indeed, it has surprised
myself; but I want to be home, and I work hard, very
hard, to shorten the time of absence. The little Countess
said to me, " Oh! Englishmen be always selir gut fathers
and husbands. I hope dat you will come and lofe my lit¬
tle babies, and I will sing to you and play on the guitar
and the pianoforte ; and my dear huspan he sprachs selir
gut English, and he lofes England better than all the
world." (Selir gut is very good; sprach, speaks or talks.)
She is a sweet little woman, and, what is very rare in Ger¬
many, she has perfectly white, regular, French teeth. I
could give you many instances of the ridiculous partiality,
or rather madness, for the English. One of the first
things which strikes an Englishman is the German cards.
They are very different from ours; the court cards have
two heads, a very convenient thing, as it prevents the
necessity of turning the cards and betraying your hand,
and are smaller and cost only a penny; yet the envelope
in which they are sold has " Wahrlich Englisclie Karten,"
that is, genuine English cards. I bought some sticking-
plaister yesterday; it cost twopence a very large piece,
but it was three-halfpence farthing too dear — for indeed
it looked like a nasty rag of black silk which cat or mouse
M:iry Sophia, (laughter of Baron Kiel- language, and that you are so gay
mansegge, Master of the Horse to with the ladies. You may give my
George I. Coleridge's countess must respects to them, and say that I am
have been a great-granddaughter of not at all jealous, for I know my
the baron. In her reply to this letter, dear Samuel in her affliction will
dated December 13, 1798, Mrs. Cole- not forget entirely his most affec-
ridge writes: " I am very proud to tionate wife, Sara Coleridge."
hear that you are so forward in the
264
A VISIT TO GERMANY
[Nov.
dung had stained and spotted — but this was " Konigl. Pat.
Engl. Im. Pflaster," that is, Royal Patent English Orna¬
ment Plaister. They affect to write English over their
doors. One house has " English Lodgement and Caffee
Hous ! " But the most amusing of all is an advertisement
of a quack medicine of the same class with Dr. Solomon's
and Brody's, for the spirits and all weakness of mind and
body. What, think you ? " A wonderful and secret
Essence extracted with patience and God's blessing from
the English Oaks, and from that part thereof which the
heroic sailors of that Great Nation call the Heart of Oak.
This invaluable and infallible Medicine has been godlily
extracted therefrom by the slow processes of the Sun and
mao'netical Influences of the Planets and fixed Stars."
o
This is a literal translation. At the concert, when I en¬
tered, the band played " Britannia rule the waves," and at
the dinner which was given in honour of Nelson's victory,
twenty-one guns were fired by order of the military Gov¬
ernor, and between each firing the military band played
an English tune. I never saw such enthusiasm, or heard
such tumultuous shouting, as when the Governor gave as
a toast, " The Great Nation." By this name they always
designate England, in opposition to the same title self-
assumed by France. The military Governor is a pleas¬
ant man, and both he and the Amtmann (i. e. the civil
regent) are particularly attentive to me. I am quite do¬
mesticated in the house of the latter ; his first wife was an
English woman, and his partiality for England is without
bounds. God bless you, my Love! Write me a very,
very long letter ; write me all that can cheer me ; all that
will make my eyes swim and my heart melt with tender¬
ness ! Your faithful and affectionate husband,
S. T. Coleridge.
P. S. A dinner lasts not uncommonly three hours!
1798]
TO HIS WIFE
265
LXXXIX. TO THE SAME.
Ratzeburg, November 26, 1798.
Another and another and yet another post day; and
still Chester greets me with, " No letters from England! "
A knell, that strikes out regularly four times a week.
How is this, my Love ? Why do you not write to me ? Do
you think to shorten my absence by making it insupporta¬
ble to me ? Or perhaps you anticipate that if I received
a letter I should idly turn away from my German to dream
of you — of you and my beloved babies ! Oh, yes ! I
should indeed dream of you for hours and hours ; of you,
and of beloved Poole, and of the infant that sucks at your
breast, and of my dear, dear Hartley. You would be
present, you would be with me in the air that I breathe ;
and I should cease to see you only when the tears rolled
out of my eyes, and this naked, undomestic room became
again visible. But oh, with what leaping and exhilarated
faculties should I return to the objects and realities of my
mission. But now — nay, I cannot describe to you the
gloominess of thought, the burthen and sickness of heart,
which I experience every post day. Through the whole
remaining day I am incapable of everything but anxious
imaginations, of sore and fretful feelings. The Hamburg
newspapers arrive here four times a week; and almost
every newspaper commences with, " Sehreiben aus Lon¬
don — They write from London." This day's, with
sclireiben aus London, vom November 13. But I am cer¬
tain that you have written more than once; and I stum¬
ble about in dark and idle conjectures, how and by what
means it can have happened that I have not received your
letters. I recommence my journal, but with feelings that
approach to disgust — for in very truth I have nothing
interesting to relate.
266
A VISIT TO GERMANY
[Jan.
xc. to the same.
December 2, 1798.
Sunday Evening. — God, the Infinite, be praised tliat
my babes are alive. His mercy will forgive me tliat late
and all too slowly I raised up my lieart in thanksgiving.
At first and for a time I wept as passionately as if tliey
had been dead; and for the whole day the weight was
heavy upon me, relieved only by fits of weeping. I had
long expected, I had passionately expected, a letter; I re¬
ceived it, and my frame trembled. I saw your hand, and
all feelings of mind and body crowded together. Had the
news been cheerful and only " We are as you left us," I
must have wept to have delivered myself of the stress and
tumult of my animal sensibility. But when I read the
danger and the agony — My dear Sara! my love ! my wife !
— God bless you and preserve us. I am well; but a stye, or
something of that kind, has come upon and enormously
swelled my eyelids, so that it is painful and improper for
me to read or write. In a few days it will now disappear,
and I will write at length (now it forces me to cease). To¬
morrow I will write a line or two on the other side of the
page to Mr. Roskilly.
I received your letter Friday, November 31. I cannot
well account for the slowness. Oh, my babies! Absence
makes it painful to be a father.
My life, believe and know that I pant to be home and
with you.
S. T. Coleridge.
December 3. — My eyes are painful, but there is no
doubt but they will be well in two or three days. I have
taken physic, eat very little flesh, and drink only water,
but it grieves me that I cannot read. I need not have
troubled my poor eyes with a superfluous love to my dear
Poole.
1799]
TO THOMAS POOLE
267
xci. to the rev. mr. roskilly.1
Ratzeburg, Germany, December 3, 1798.
My dear Sir, — There is an honest heart out of Great
Britain that enters into your good fortune with a sin¬
cere and lively joy. May you enjoy life and health —
all else you have, — a good wife, a good conscience, a good
temper, sweet children, and competence ! The first glass
of wine I drink shall be a bumper — not to you, no ! but
to the Bishop of Gloucester! God bless him !
Sincerely your friend,
S. T. Coleridge.
xcii. to thomas poole.
January 4, 1799 — Morning, 11 o'clock.
My friend, my dear friend! Two hours have past since
I received your letter. It was so frightfully long since I
received one! ! My body is weak and faint with the
beating of my heart. But everything affects me more than
it ought to do in a foreign country. I cried myself blind
about Berkeley, when I ought to have been on my knees
in the joy of thanksgiving. The waywardness of the
pacquets is wonderful. On December the seventh Ches¬
ter received a letter from his sister dated November 27.
Yours is dated November 22, and I received it only this
morning. I am quite well, calm and industrious. I now
read German as English, — that is, without any mental
translation as I read. I likewise understand all that is
said to me, and a good deal of what they say to each other.
1 The " Rev. Mr. Roskilly " had ley] left him [S. T. C.] in London,
been cnrate-in-cliarge of the parish and proceeded to Kempsford in
of Nether Stowey, and the occasion Gloucestershire, the Rectory of Mr.
of the letter was his promotion to the Roskilly ; remained there a month.
Rectory of Kempsford in Glouces- Papa was to have joined us there,
tershire. Mrs. 8. T. Coleridge, in a but did not." See Thomas Poole and
late letter (probably lS4.'i) to her his Friends, i. 25-27, and Letters
sister, Mrs. Lovell, writes : " In from the Lake Poets, p. 6.
March [1800] I and the child [Ilart-
268
A VISIT TO GERMANY
[Jan.
On very trivial and on metaphysical subjects I can talk
tolerably — so, so ! — but in that conversation, which is
between both, I bungle most ridiculously. I owe it to my
industry that I can read old German, and even the old
low German, better than most of even the educated na¬
tives. It has greatly enlarged my knowledge of the Eng¬
lish language. It is a great bar to the amelioration of
Germany, that through at least half of it, and that half
composed almost wholly of Protestant States, from whence
alone amelioration can proceed, the agriculturists and a
great part of the artizans talk a language as different from
the language of the higher classes (in which all books are
written) as the Latin is from the Greek. The differences
are greater than the affinities, and the affinities are dark¬
ened by the differences of pronunciation and spelling. I
have written twice to Mr. Josiali "Wedgwood,1 and in a
few days will follow a most voluminous letter, or rather
series of letters, which will comprise a history of the bauers
or peasants collected, not so much from books as from oral
communications from the Amtmann here — (an Amtmann
is a sort of perpetual Lord Mayor, uniting in himself
Judge and Justice of Peace over the bauers of a cer¬
tain district). I have enjoyed great advantages in this
place, but I have paid dear for them. Including all
expenses, I have not lived at less than two pounds a week.
Wordsworth (from whom I receive long and affectionate
letters) has enjoyed scarcely one advantage, but his ex¬
penses have been considerably less than they were in Eng¬
land. Here I shall stay till the last week in January,
when I shall proceed to Gottingen, where, all expenses
included, I can live for 15 shillings a week. For these
last two months I have drunk nothing but water, and I
1 In his letter of January 20,1700, hand. A third letter, dated Gottin-
Josiah Wedgwood acknowledges the gen, May 21, 1700, was printed by
receipt of a letter dated November Cottle in hia Reminiscences, 1848, p.
20,1708, but adds that an earlier let- 425.
ter from Hamburg had not come to
1799] TO THOMAS POOLE 269
eat but little animal food. At Gottingen I shall hire lodg¬
ing for two months, buy my own cold beef at an eating-
house, and dine in my chamber, which I can have at a dol¬
lar a week. And here at Gottingen I must endeavour to
unite the advantages of advancing in German and doing
something to repay myself. My dear Poole ! I am afraid
that, supposing I return in the first week of May, my
whole expenses1 from Stowey to Stowey, including books
and clothes, will not have been less than 90 pounds ! and
if I buy ten pounds' worth more of books it will have been
a hundred. I despair not but with intense application and
regular use of time, to which I have now almost accus¬
tomed myself, that by three months' residence at Gottingen
1 Miss Meteyard, in her Group of
Englishmen, 1871, p. 99, gives extracts
from the account-current of Messrs.
P. and 0. Yon Axen, the Hamburg
agents of the Wedgwoods. Accord¬
ing to her figures, Coleridge drew
£125 from October 20 to March 29,
1799, and, " conjointly with Words¬
worth," £ IOC) 10s. on JulyS, 1799.
Mr. Dykes Campbell, in a footnote
to his Memoir, p. xliv., combats Miss
Meteyard's assertion that these sums
were advanced by the Wedgwoods
to Coleridge and Wordsworth, and
argues that Wordsworth merely drew
on the Von Axens for sums already
paid in from his own resources.
Coleridge, he thinks, had only his
annuity to look to, but probably an¬
ticipated his income. In a MS. note¬
book of 1798-99, Coleridge inserted
some concise but not very business¬
like entries as to expenditures and
present resources, but says nothing
as to receipts.
"March 25th, being Easter Mon¬
day, Chester and S. T. C., in a
damn'd dirty hole in the Burg Strasse
at Gottingen, possessed at that mo¬
ment eleven Louis d'ors and two dol¬
lars. When the money is spent in
common expenses S. T. Coleridge will
owe Chester 5 pounds 12 shillings.
"Note. — From September 8 to
April 8 I shall have spent £90, of
which £15 was in Books; and
Cloathes, mending and making, £ 10.
" May 10. We have 17 Louis d'or,
of which, as far as I can at present
calculate, 10 belong to Chester."
The most probable conclusion is
that both Coleridge and Chester were
fairly well supplied with money
when they left England, and that
the £178 10s. which Coleridge re¬
ceived from the Von Axens covered
some portion of Chester's expenses
in addition to his own. I may add
that a recent collation of the auto¬
graph letter of Coleridge to Josiah
Wedgwood dated May 21,1799, Got¬
tingen, with the published version
in Cottle's Reminiscences, pp. 425-
429, fully bears out Mr. Campbell's
contention, that though Coleridge
anticipated his annuity, he was not
the recipient of large sums over and
above what was guaranteed to him.
270
A VISIT TO GERMANY
[Jan.
I shall have on paper at least all the materials if not the
whole structure of a work that will repay me. The work
I have planned, and I have imperiously excluded all
waverings about other works. That is the disease of my
mind — it is comprehensive in its conceptions, and wastes
itself in the contemplations of the many things which it
might do. I am aware of the disease, and for the next
three months (if I cannot cure it) I will at least suspend
its operation. This book is a life of Lessing, and inter-
weaved with it a true state of German literature in its rise
and present state. I have already written a little life from
three different biographies, divided it into years, and at
Gottingen I will read his works regularly according to the
years in which they were written, and the controversies,
religious and literary, which they occasioned. But of this
say nothing to any one. The journey to Germany has cer¬
tainly done me good. My habits are less irregular and
my mind more in my own power. But I have much still
to do! I did, indeed, receive great joy from Roskilly's
good fortune, and in a little note to my dear Sara I joined
a note of congratulation to Roskilly. O Poole ! you are a
noble heart as ever God made ! Poor ! he is pass¬
ing through a fiery discipline, and I would fain believe
that it will end in his peace and utility. Wordsworth is
divided in his mind, — unquietly divided between the
neighbourhood of Stowey and the North of England. He
cannot think of settling at a distance from me, and I have
told him that I cannot leave the vicinity of Stowey. His
chief objection to Stowey is the want of books. The Bris¬
tol Library is a hum, and will do us little service; and he
thinks that he can procure a house near Sir Gilford Law-
son's by the Lakes, and have free access to his immense
library. I think it better once in a year to walk to Cam¬
bridge, in the summer vacation — perhaps I may be able
to get rooms for nothing, and there for a couple of months
read like a Turk on a given plan, and return home with a
1799]
TO HIS WIFE
271
mass of materials which, with clear, independent Poetry,
will fully employ the remaining year. But this is idle
prating- about a future. But indeed, it is time to be look¬
ing out for a house for me — it is not possible I can be
either comfortable or useful in so small a house as that in
Lime Street. If Woodlands can be gotten at a reason¬
able price, I would have it. I will now finish my long-
neglected journal.
Sara, I suppose, is at Bristol — on Monday I shall write
to her. The frost here has been uncommonly severe.
For two days it was 20 degrees under the freezing point.
Wordsworth has left Goslar, and is on his road into higher
Saxony to cruise for a pleasanter place ; he has made but
little progress in the language. I am interrupted, and if
I do not conclude shall lose the post. Give my kind love
to your dear mother. Oh, that I could but find her com¬
fortable on my return. To Ward remember me affection¬
ately— likewise remember to James Cole; and my grate¬
ful remembrances to Mrs. Cole for her kindness during
my wife's domestic troubles. To Harriet, Sophia, and
Lavinia Poole — to the Chesters — to Mary and Ellen
Cruicksliank — in short, to all to whom it will give pleas¬
ure remember me affectionately.
My dear, dear Poole, God bless us !
S. T. Coleridge.
P. S. The Amtmann, who is almost an Englishman
and an idolizer of our nation, desires to be kindly remem¬
bered to you. lie told me yesterday that he had dreamt
of you the night before.
XCIII. TO HIS WIFE.
Ratzeburg, Monday, January 14, 1799.
My dearest Love, — Since the wind changed, and it
became possible for me to have letters, I lost all my tran¬
quillity. Last evening I was absent in company, and when
272
A VISIT TO GERMANY
[Jan.
I returned to solitude, restless in every fibre, a novel wliich
I attempted to read seemed to interest me so extravagantly
that I threw it down, and when it was out of my hands I
knew nothing of what I had been reading. This morning
I awoke long before light, feverish and unquiet. I was
certain in my mind that I should have a letter from you,
but before it arrived my restlessness and the irregular pul¬
sation of my heart had quite wearied me down, and I held
the letter in my hand like as if I was stupid, without at¬
tempting to open it. "Why don't you read the letter?"
said Chester, and I read it. Ah, little Berkeley — I have
misgivings, but my duty is rather to comfort you, my dear,
dear Sara! I am so exhausted that I could sleep. I am
well, but my spirits have left me. I am completely home¬
sick. I must walk half an hour, for my mind is too scat¬
tered to continue writing. I entreat and entreat you,
Sara! take care of yourself. If you are well, I think I
could frame my thoughts so that I should not sink under
other losses. You do right in writing me the truth. Poole
is kind, but you do right, my dear ! In a sense of reality
there is always comfort. The workings of one's imagina¬
tion ever go beyond the worst that nature afflicts us with;
they have the terror of a superstitious circumstance. I
express myself unintelligibly. Enough that you write me
always the whole truth. Direct your next letter thus:
An den Ilerrn Coleridge, a la Poste Kestante, Gottingen,
Germany. If God permit I shall be there before this day
three weeks, and I hope on May-day to be once more at
Stowey. My motives for going to Gottingen I have writ¬
ten to Poole. I hear as often from Wordsworth as letters
can go backward and forward in a country where fifty
miles in a day and night is expeditious travelling! He
seems to have employed more time in writing English than
in studying German. No wonder! for he might as well
have been in England as at Goslar, in the situation which
he chose and with his unseeking manners. He has now left
1799]
TO IIIS WIFE
273
it, and is on his journey to Nordliausen. His taking liis
sister with him was a wrong step ; it is next but impossi¬
ble for any but married women, or in the suit of married
women, to be introduced to any company in Germany. Sis¬
ter here is considered as only a name for mistress. Still,
however, male acquaintance he might have had, and had I
been at Goslar I would have had them; but \\\, God love
him! seems to have lost his spirits and almost his inclina¬
tion for it. In the mean time his expenses have been al¬
most less than they [would have been] in England; mine
have been very great, but I do not despair of returning to
England with somewhat to pay the whole. O God! 1 do
languish to be at home.
I will endeavour to give you some idea of Katzeburg,
but I am a wretched describer. First you must imagine
a lake, running from south to north about nine miles in
length, and of very various breadths — the broadest part
may be, perhaps, two or three miles, the narrowest scarce
more than half a mile. About a mile from the southern¬
most point of the lake, that is, from the beginning of the
lake, is the island-town of Katzeburg.
'eg-
• is Ratzeburg; is our house on the hill; from the
bottom of the hill there lies on the lake a slip of land,
scarcely two stone-throws wide, at the end of which is a
little bridge with a superb military
gate, and this bridge joins Katze-
burg to the slip of land — you pass
through Katzeburg up a little hill,
and down the hill, and this brings you to another bridge,
narrow, but of an immense length, which communicates
with the other shore.
274
A VISIT TO GERMANY
[Jan.
The water to tlie south of Ratzeburg is called the little
lake and the other the large lake, though they are hut one
piece of water. This little lake is very beautiful, the
shores just often enough green and hare to give the proper
effect to the magnificent groves which mostly fringe them.
The views vary almost every ten steps, such and so beau¬
tiful are the turnings and windings of the shore — they
unite beauty and magnitude, and can be but expressed by
feminine grandeur ! At the north of the great lake, and
peering over, you see the seven cliurch-towers of Lubec,
which is twelve or fourteen miles from Ratzeburg. Yet
you see them as distinctly as if they were not three miles
from you. The worse thing is that Ratzeburg is built en¬
tirely of bricks and tiles, and is therefore all red — a clump
of brick-dust red — it gives you a strong idea of perfect
neatness, but it is not beautiful.1 In the beginning or
middle of October, I forget which, we went to Lubec in
a boat. For about two miles the shores of the lake are
exquisitely beautiful, the woods now running into the
water, now retiring in all angles. After this the left
shore retreats, — the lake acquires its utmost breadth,
and ceases to be beautiful. At the end of the lake is
the river, about as large as the river at Bristol, but
winding in infinite serpentines through a dead flat, with
willows and reeds, till you reach Lubec, an old fantastic
town. We visited the churches at Lubec — they were
crowded with gaudy gilded figures, and a profusion of
pictures, among which were always the portraits of the
popular pastors who had served the church. The pas¬
tors here wear white ruffs exactly like the pictures of
Queen Elizabeth. There were in the Lubec churches
a very large attendance, but almost all women. The
genteeler people dressed precisely as the English; but
1 A portion of this description of lished in No. 10 of The Friend, De-
Ratzeburg is included in No. III. eember 21. 1809.
of Satyrane's Letters, originally pub-
1799]
TO HIS WIFE
275
behind every lady sat her maid, —the caps with gold
and silver combs. Altogether, a Lubec church is an
amusing sight. In the evening I wished myself a painter,
just to draw a German Party at cards. One man's long-
pipe rested on the table, by the fish-dish; another who
was shuffling, and of course had both hands employed,
held his pipe in his teeth, and it hung down between
his thighs even to his ankles, and the distortion which
the attitude and effort occasioned made him a most
ludicrous phiz. . . . [If it] had been possible I would
have loitered a week in those churches, and found inces¬
sant amusement. Every picture, every legend cut out in
gilded wood-work, was a history of the manners and feel¬
ings of the ages in which such works were admired and
executed.
As the sun both rises and sets over the little lake by
us, both rising and setting present most lovely specta¬
cles.1 In October Ratzeburg used at sunset to appear
completely beautiful. A deep red light spread over all,
in complete harmony with the red town, the brown-red
woods, and the yellow-red reeds on the skirts of the lake
and on the slip of land. A few boats, paddled by single
persons, used generally to be floating up and down in the
rich light. But when first the ice fell on the lake, and the
whole lake was frozen one large piece of thick transparent
glass — O my God ! what sublime scenery I have beheld.
Of a morning I have seen the little lake covered with mist;
when the sun peeped over the hills the mist broke in the
middle, and at last stood as the waters of the lied Sea are
said to have done when the Israelites passed ; and between
these two walls of mist the sunlight burst upon the ice in
a straight road of golden fire, all across the lake, intolera¬
bly bright, and the walls of mist partaking of the light in
1 The following description of the The Friend, December 28, 1809, as
frozen lake was thrown into a literary " Christmas Indoors in North Ger-
shape and published in No. 19 of many."
276
A VISIT TO GERMANY
[March
a multitude of colours. About a month ago tlie vehe¬
mence of the wind had shattered the ice; part of it, quite
shattered, was driven to shore and had frozen anew; this
was of a deep blue, and represented an agitated sea — the
water that ran up between the great islands of ice shone of
a yellow-green (it was at sunset), and all the scattered
islands of smooth ice were blood, intensely bright blood;
on some of the largest islands the fishermen were pulling
out their immense nets through the holes made in the ice
for this purpose, and the fishermen, the net-poles, and the
huge nets made a part of the glory! O my God ! how I
wished you to be with me ! In skating there are three
pleasing circumstances — firstly, the infinitely subtle par¬
ticles of ice which the skate cuts up, and which creep and
run before the skater like a low mist, and in sunrise or
sunset become coloured; second, the shadow of the skater
in the water seen through the transparent ice ; and thirdly,
the melancholy undulating sound from the skate, not with¬
out variety; and, when very many are skating together,
the sounds give an impulse to the icy trees, and the woods
all round the lake tinkle. It is a pleasant amusement to
sit in an ice stool (as they are called) and be driven along
by two skaters, faster than most horses can gallop. As
to the customs here, they are nearly the same as in Eng¬
land, except that [the men] never sit after dinner [and
only] drink at dinner, which often lasts three or four hours,
and in noble families is divided into three gangs, that is,
walks. When you have sat about an hour, you rise up,
each lady takes a gentleman's arm, and you walk about
for a quarter of an hour — in the mean time another course
is put upon the table; and, this in great dinners, is re¬
peated three times. A man here seldom sees his wife till
dinner, — they take their coffee in separate rooms, and
never eat at breakfast; only as soon as they are up they
take their coffee, and about eleven o'clock eat a bit of bread
and butter with the coffee. The men at least take a pipe.
1799]
TO HIS WIFE
277
Indeed, a pipe at breakfast is a great addition to the com¬
fort of life. I shall [smoke at] no other time in England.
Here I smoke four times a day — 1 at breakfast, 1 half an
hour before dinner, 1 in the afternoon at tea, and 1 just
before bed-time — but I shall give it all up, unless, as be¬
fore observed, you should happen to like the smoke of a
pipe at breakfast. Once when I first came here I smoked
a pipe immediately after dinner; the pastor expressed his
surprise: I expressed mine that he could smoke before
breakfast. " O Herr Gott! " (that is, Lord God) cpxotli
he, " it is delightful; it invigorates the frame and it dears
out the month so." A common amusement at the German
Universities is for a number of young men to smoke out a
candle ! that is, to fill a room with tobacco smoke till the
candle goes out. Pipes are quite the rage — a pipe of a
particular kind, that has been smoked for a year or so,
will sell here for twenty guineas — the same pipe when
new costs four or five. They are called Meerschaum.
God bless you, my dear Love ! I will soon write again.
S. T. COLERIDGE.
Postscript. Perhaps you are in Bristol. However, I
had better direct it to Stowey. My love to Martha and
your mother and your other sisters. Once more, my dear¬
est Love, God love and preserve us through this long
absence ! O my dear Babies ! my Babies !
xciv. to the same.
Bei dem Radermaclier Gohring, in der Bergstrasse, Gottingen,
March 12, 1799. Sunday Niglit.
My dearest Love, — It has been a frightfully long
time since we have heard from each other. I have not
written, simply because my letters could have gone no
further than Cuxhaven, and would have stayed there to
the [no] small hazard of their being lost. Even now the
mouth of the Elbe is so much choked with ice that the
278
A VISIT TO GERMANY
[March
English Pacquets cannot set off. Why need I say how
anxious this long interval of silence has made nie ! I have
thought and thought of you, and pictured you and the
little ones so often and so often that my imagination is
tired down, flat and powerless, and I languish after home
for hours together in vacancy, my feelings almost wholly
unqualified by thoughts. I have at times experienced such
an extinction of light in my mind — I have been so for¬
saken by all the forms and colourings of existence, as if
the organs of life had been dried up; as if only simply
Being remained, blind and stagnant. After I have re¬
covered from this strange state and reflected upon it, I
have thought of a man who should lose his companion in
a desart of sand, where his weary IXalloos drop down
in the air without an echo. I am deeply convinced that if
I were to remain a few years among objects for whom I
had no affection I should wholly lose the powers of intel¬
lect. Love is the vital air of my genius, and I have not
seen one human being in Germany whom I can conceive
it possible for me to love, no, not one ; in my mind they
are an unlovely race, these Germans.
We left Ratzeburg, Feb. 6, in the Stage Coach. This
was not the coldest night of the century, because the
night following was two degrees colder — the oldest man
living remembers not such a night as Thursday, Feb. 7.
This whole winter I have heard incessant complaints of
the unusual cold, but I have felt very little of it. But
that night! My God! Now I know what the pain of
cold is, and what the danger. The pious care of the
German Governments that none of their loving subjects
should be suffocated is admirable ! On Friday morning
when the light dawned, the Coach looked like a shapeless
idol of suspicion with an hundred eyes, for there were at
least so many holes in it. And as to rapidity ! We left
Ratzeburg at 7 o'clock Wednesday evening, and arrived
at Liineburg—■%. e., 35 English miles—at 3 o'clock on
1799]
TO IIIS WIFE
279
Thursday afternoon. This is a fair specimen ! In Eng¬
land I used to laugh at the " flying waggons ; " but, com¬
pared with a German Post Coach, the metaphor is per¬
fectly justifiable, and for the future I shall never meet a
flying waggon without thinking respectfully of its speed.
The whole country from Ratzeburg almost to Einbeck —
i. e., 155 English miles.— is a flat, objectless, hungry
heath, bearing no marks of cultivation, except close by
the towns, and the only remarks which suggested them¬
selves to me were that it was cold — very cold — shock¬
ing cold — never felt it so cold in my life ! Hanover is
115 miles from Ratzeburg. We arrived there Saturday
evening.
The Ilerr von Doring, a nobleman who resides at Ratze¬
burg, gave me letters to his brother-in-law at Ilanover, and
by the manner in which he received me I found that they
were not ordinary letters of recommendation. He pressed
me exceedingly to stay a week in Ilanover, but I refused,
and left it on Monday noon. In the mean time, however,
he had introduced me to all the great people and presented
me " as an English gentleman of first-rate character and
talents " to Baron Steinburg, the Minister of State, and
to Yon Brandes, the Secretary of State and Governor of
Gottingen University. The first was amazingly perpen¬
dicular, but civil and polite, and gave me letters to Ileyne,
the head Librarian, and, in truth, the real Governor of
Gottingen. Brandes likewise gave me letters to Ileyne
and Blumenbach, who are his brothers-in-law. Baron
Steinburg offered to present me to the Prince (Adolphus),
who is now in Hanover; but I deferred the honour till my
return. I shall make Poole laugh when I return with the
visiting-card which the Baron left at my inn.
The two things worth seeing in Ilanover are (1) the
conduit representing Mount Parnassus, with statues of
Apollo, the Muses, and a great many others; flying
horses, rhinoceroses, and elephants, etc.; and (2) a bust
280
A VISIT-TO GERMANY
[March
of Leibnitz — the first for its excessive absurdity, ugli¬
ness, and indecency — (absolutely I could write tlie most
humorous octavo volume containing tlie description of it
with a commentary) — the second — i. e. the bust of
Leibnitz — impressed 011 my soul a sensation which has
ennobled it. It is the face of a god! and Leibnitz was
almost more than a man in the wonderful capaciousness of
his judgment and imagination! Well, we left Hanover
on Monday 110011, after having paid a most extravagant
bill. Wv lived with Spartan frugality, and paid with
Persian pomp ! But I was an Englishman, and visited
by half a dozen noblemen and the Minister of State. The
landlord could not dream of affronting me by anything
like a reasonable charge ! On the road we stopped with
the postillion always, and our expenses were nothing.
Chester and I made a very hearty dinner of cold beef,
etc., and both together paid only fourpence, and for coffee
and biscuits only threepence each. I11 short, a man may
travel cheap in Germany, but he must avoid great towns
and not be visited by Ministers of State.
In a village some four miles from Einbeck we stopped
about 4 o'clock in the morning. It was pitch dark, and
the postillion led us into a room where there was not a
ray of light — we could not see our hand — but it felt ex¬
tremely warm. At length and suddenly the lamp came,
and we saw ourselves in a room thirteen strides in length,
strew'd with straw, and lying by the side of each other
on the straw twelve Jews. I assure you it was curious.
Their dogs lay at their feet. There was one very beauti¬
ful boy among them, fast asleep, with the softest conceiv¬
able opening of the mouth, with the white beard of his
grandfather upon his cheek — a fair, rosy cheek.
This day I called with my letters on the Professor
Ileyne, a little, hopping, over-civil sort of a thing, who
talks very fast and with fragments of coughing between
every ten words. However, he behaved very courteously
1799]
TO HIS WIFE
281
to me. The next day I took out my matricula, and com¬
menced student of the University of Gottingen. Ileyne
has honoured me so far that he has given me the right,
which properly only professors have, of sending to the
Library for an indefinite number of books in my own
name.
On Saturday evening I went to the concert. Here the
other Englishmen introduced themselves. After the con¬
cert Hamilton, a Cambridge man, took me as his guest to
the Saturday Club, icliere what is called the first class of
students meet and sup once a week. Here were all the
nobility and three Englishmen. Such an evening I never
passed before — roaring, kissing, embracing, fighting,
smashing bottles and glasses against the wall, singing —
in short, such a scene of uproar I never witnessed before,
no, not even at Cambridge. I drank nothing, but all ex¬
cept two of the Englishmen were drunk, and the party
broke up a little after one o'clock in the morning. I
thought of what I had been at Cambridge and of what I
was, of the wild bacchanalian sympathy with which I had
formerly joined similar parties, and of my total inability
now to do aught but meditate, and the feeling of the deep
alteration in my moral being gave the scene a melancholy
interest to me.
We are quite well. Chester will write soon to his
family; in the mean time he sends duty, love, and remem¬
brance to all to whom they are due. I have drunk no
wine or fermented liquor for more than three months, in
consequence of which I am apt to be wakeful; but then I
never feel any oppression after dinner, and my spirits are
much more equable, blessings which I esteem inestimable !
My dear Hartley — my Berkeley — how intensely do I
long for you ! My Sara, O my dear Sara ! To Poole,
God bless him ! to dear Mrs. Poole and Ward, kindest
love, and to all love and remembrance.
S. T. Coleridge.
282
A VISIT TO GERMANY
[April
xcy. to thomas poole.
April 6, 1799.
My dearest Poole, — Your two letters, dated Janu¬
ary 24 and March 15,1 followed close on each other. 1
was still enjoying " the livelier impulse and the dance of
thought" which the first had given me when I received
the second. At the time, in which I read Sara's lively
account of the miseries which herself and the infant had
undergone, all was over and well — there was nothing to
think of — only a mass of pain was brought suddenly and
closely within the sphere of my perception, and I was
made to suffer it over again. For this bodily frame is an
imitative thing, and touched by the imagination gives the
hour which is past as faithfully as a repeating watch. But
Death — the death of an infant — of one's own infant! I
read your letter in calmness, and walked out into the open
fields, oppressed, not by my feelings, but by the riddles
which the thought so easily proposes, and solves — never!
1 A letter from Mrs. Coleridge to
her husband, dated March 25, 1799,
followed Poole's letter of March 15.
(Thomas Poole and his Friends, i.
290.) She writes : —
" My dearest Love, — I hope
you will not attribute my long si¬
lence to want of affection. If you
have received Mr. Poole's letter you
will know the reason and acquit me.
My darling infant left his wretched
mother on the 10th of February,
and though the leisure that followed
was intolerable to me, yet I could
not employ myself in reading or
writing, or in any way that pre¬
vented my thoughts from resting on
him. This parting was the severest
trial that I have ever yet under¬
gone, and I pray to God that I may
never live to behold the death of
another child. For, O my dear
Samuel, it is a suffering beyond your
conception! You will feel and la¬
ment the death of your child, but
you will only recollect him a baby
of fourteen weeks, but I am his
mother and have carried him in my
arms and have fed him at my bosom,
and have watched over him by day
and by night for nine months. I
have seen him twice at the brink of
the grave, but he has returned and
recovered and smiled upon me like
an angel,— and now I am lamenting
that he is gone ! "
In her old age, when her daughter
was collecting materials for a life of
her father, Mrs. Coleridge wrote on
the back of the letter: —
" No secrets herein. I will not
burn it for the sake of my sweet
Berkeley."
1799]
TO THOMAS POOLE
283
A parent — in the strict and exclusive sense a parent! —
to me it is a fable wholly without meaning except in the
moral which it suggests — a fable of which the moral is
God. Be it so — my dear, dear friend ! Oh let it be so !
La Nature (says Pascal) " La Nature confond les Pyr-
rlioniens, et la Kaison confond les Dogmatistes. Nous
avons une impuissance a prouver invincible a tout le Dog-
matisme. Nous avons une idee de la verite invincible
a tout le Pyrrhonisme." I find it wise and human to
believe, even on slight evidence, opinions, the contrary of
which cannot be proved, and which promote our happiness
without hampering our intellect. My baby has not lived
in vain — this life has been to him what it is to all of us
— education and development! Fling yourself forward
into your immortality only a few thousand years, and how
small will not the difference between one year old and
sixty years appear! Consciousness ! -— it is no otherwise
necessary to our conceptions of future continuance than as
connecting the present link of our being with the one im¬
mediately preceding it; and that degree of consciousness,
that small portion of memory, it would not only be arro¬
gant, but in the highest degree absurd, to deny even to a
much younger infant. 'T is a strange assertion that the
essence of identity lies in recollective consciousness.
'T were scarcely less ridiculous to affirm that the eight
miles from Stowey to Bridgwater consist in the eight mile¬
stones. Death in a doting old age falls upon my feelings
ever as a more hopeless phenomenon than death in infancy;
but nothing is hopeless. What if the vital force which I
sent from my arm into the stone as I flung it in the air
and skimmed it upon the water — what if even that did
not perish ! It was life ! — it was a particle of being ! —
it was power! and how could it perish? Life, Power,
Being ! Organization may and probably is their effect —
their cause it cannot be ! I have indulged very curious
fancies concerning that force, that swarm of motive powers
284
A VISIT TO GERMANY
[April
which I sent out of my body into that stone, and which,
one by one, left the untractable or already possessed mass,
and — but the German Ocean lies between us. It is all
too far to send you such fancies as these ! Grief, in¬
deed, —
Doth love to dally with fantastic thoughts,
And smiling like a sickly Moralist,
Finds some resemblance to her own concern
In the straws of chance, and things inanimate.1
But I cannot truly say that I grieve — I am perplexed
— I am sad — and a little thing — a very trifle — would
make me weep — but for the death of the baby I have
not wept! Oh this strange, strange, strange scene-shifter
Death ! — that giddies one with insecurity and so unsub-
stantiates the living things that one has grasped and han¬
dled ! Some months ago Wordsworth transmitted me a
most sublime epitaph. Whether it had any reality I can¬
not say. Most probably, in some gloomier moment he had
fancied the moment in which his sister might die.
EPITAPH.
A slumber did my spirit seal,
I had no human fears ;
She seemed a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.
No motion has she now, 110 force,
She neither hears nor sees :
Mov'd round in Earth's diurnal course
With rocks, and stones, and trees!
XCVI. TO HIS WIFE.
G&ttingen, in der Wondestrasse, April 8, 1799.
It is one of the discomforts of my absence, my dearest
Love! that we feel the same calamities at different times —
I would fain write words of consolation to you; yet I
know that I shall only fan into new activity the pang
which was growing dead and dull in your heart. Dear
1 From " Osorio," Act Y. Sc. 1. Poetical Works, p. 506.
1799]
TO HIS WIFE
285
little Being ! lie had existed to me for so many months
only in dreams and reveries, hut in them existed and still
exists so livelily, so like a real thing, that although I know
of his death, yet when I am alone and have been long
silent, it seems to me as if I did not understand it. Me-
tliinks there is something awful in the thought, what an
unknown being one's own infant is to one — a fit of
sound—a flash of light — a summer gust that is as it were
created in the bosom of the calm air, that rises up we
know not how, and goes we know not whither! But we
say well; it goes ! it is gone! and only in states of society
in which the revealing voice of our most inward and
abiding nature is 110 longer listened to (when we sport
and juggle with abstract phrases, instead of representing
our feelings and ideas), only then we say it ceases ! I
will not believe that it ceases — in this moving, stirring,
and harmonious universe—I cannot believe it! Can
cold and darkness come from the sun ? where the sun is
not, there is cold and darkness ! But the living God is
everywhere, and works everywhere — and where is there
room for death ? To look back on the life of my baby,
how short it seems ! but consider it referently to non¬
existence, and what a manifold and majestic Thing does
it not become? What a multitude of admirable actions,
what a multitude of habits of actions it learnt even before
it saw the light! and who shall count or conceive the
infinity of its thoughts and feelings, its hopes, and fears,
and joys, and pains, and desires, and presentiments, from
the moment of its birth to the moment when the glass,
through which we saw him darkly, was broken — and he
became suddenly invisible to us ? Out of the Mount that
might not be touched, and that burnt with fire, out of
darkness, and blackness, and tempest, and with his own
Voice, which they who heard entreated that they might
not hear it again, tin1 most high God forbade us to use his
name vainly. And shall we who are Christians, shall we
286
A VISIT TO GERMANY
[April
believe that he himself uses his own power vainly ? That
like a child he builds palaces of mud and clay in the
common road, and then he destroys them, as weary of his
j)astinie, or leaves them to be trod under by the hoof of
Accident? That God works by general laws are to me
words without meaning or worse than meaningless —
O
ignorance, and imbecility, and limitation must wish in
generals. What and who are these horrible shadows
necessity and general law, to which God himself must
offer sacrifices—hecatombs of sacrifices? I feel a deep
conviction that these shadows exist not — tliey are only the
dreams of reasoning pride, that would fain find solutions
for all difficulties without faith — that would make the
discoveries which lie thick sown in the path of the eternal
Future unnecessary; and so conceiting that there is suffi¬
ciency and completeness in the narrow present, weakens
the presentiment of our wide and ever widening immor¬
tality. God works in each for all — most true — but
more comprehensively true is it, that he works in all for
each. I confess that the more I think, the more I am dis¬
contented with the doctrines of Priestley. He builds the
whole and sole hope of future existence on the words and
miracles of Jesus — yet doubts or denies the future exist¬
ence of infants — only because according to his own sys¬
tem of materialism he has not discovered how they can be
made conscious. But Jesus has declared that all who
are in the grave shall arise — and that those who should
arise to perceptible progression must be ever as the infant
which lie held in his arms and blessed. And although
the Man Jesus had never appeared in the world, yet I am
Quaker enough to believe, that in the heart of every man
the Christ would have revealed himself, the Power of the
Word, that was even in the wilderness. To me who am
absent this faith is a real consolation, — and the few, the
slow, the quiet tears which I shed, are the accompani¬
ments of high and solemn thought, not the workings of
1799]
TO HIS WIFE
287
pain or sorrow. When I return indeed, and see tlie
vacancy that has been made — when nowhere anything
corresponds to the form which will perhaps for ever dwell
on my mind, then it is possible that a keener pang will
come upon me. Yet I trust, my love ! I trust, my dear
Sara! that this event which has forced us to think of the
death of what is most dear to us, as at all times probable,
will in many and various ways be good for us. To have
shared — nay, I should say — to have divided with any
human being any one deep sensation of joy or of sorrow,
sinks deep the foundations of a lasting love. When in
moments of fretfulness and imbecility I am disposed to
anger or reproach, it will, I trust, be always a restoring
thought — "We have wept over the same little one," —
and with whom I am angry? With her who so patiently
and unweariedly sustained my poor and sickly infant
through his long pains — with her, who, if I too should
be called away, would stay in the deep anguish over my
deatli-pillow! who would never forget me! " Ah, my
poor Berkeley! A few weeks ago an Englishman desired
me to write an epitaph on an infant who had died before
its christening. While I wrote it, my heart with a deep
misgiving turned my thoughts homewards.
ON AN INFANT, WHO DIED BEFORE ITS CHRISTENING.
Be rather than he calVd a Child of God !
Death wliisper'd. With assenting Nod
Its head upon the Mother's breast
The baby bow'd, and went without demur,
Of the kingdom of the blest
Possessor, not Inheritor.
It refers to the second question in the Church Catechism.
We are well, my dear Sara. I hope to be home at the
end of ten or eleven weeks. If you should be in Bristol,
you will probably be shewn by Mr. Estlin three letters
which I have written to him altogether — and one to
288
A VISIT TO GERMANY
[April
Mr. Wade. Mr. Estlin will permit you to take the let¬
ters to Stowey that Poole may see tliem, and Poole will
return them. I have no doubt but I shall repay myself
by the work which I am writing, to such an amount, that
I shall have spent out of my income only fifty pounds at
the end of August. My love to your sisters — and love
and duty to your mother. God bless you, my love! and
shield us from deeper afflictions, or make us resigned unto
them (and perhaps the latter blessedness is greater than
the former).
Your affectionate and faithful husband,
S. T. Coleridge.
xcvii. to the same.
April 23, 1799.
My dear Sara, — Surely it is unnecessary for me to
say how infinitely I languish to be in my native country,
and with how many struggles I have remained even so
long in Germany! I received your affecting letter, dated
Easter Sunday ; and, had I followed my impulses, I should
have packed up and gone with Wordsworth and his sister,
who passed through (and only passed through) this place
two or three days ago. If they burn with such impatience
to return to their native country, they who are all to each
other, what must I feel with everything pleasant and
everything valuable and everything dear to me at a dis¬
tance — here, where I may truly say my only amusement
is — to labour ! But it is, in the strictest sense of the
word, impossible to collect what I have to collect in less
than six weeks from this day; yet I read and transcribe
from eight to ten hours every day. Nothing could sup¬
port me but the knowledge that if I return now we shall
be embarrassed and in debt; and the moral certainty that
having done what I am doing we shall be more than
cleared — not to add that so large a work with so great a
quantity and variety of information from sources so scat-
1799]
TO HIS WIFE
289
terecl and so little known, even in Germany, will of course
establish my character for industry and erudition cer¬
tainly ; and, I would fain hope, for reflection and genius.
This day in June I hope and trust that I shall be in Eng¬
land. Oh that the vessel could but land at Shurton Bars !
Not that I should wish to see you and Poole immediately
on my landing. No! — the sight, the touch of my native
country, were sufficient for one ichole feeling, the most
dee}) unmingled emotion — but then and after a lonely walk
of three miles — then, first of all, whom I knew, to see
you and my Friend ! It lessens the delight of the thought
of my return that I must get at you through a tribe of
acquaintances, damping the freshness of one's joy ! My
poor little baby! At this time I see the corner of the
room where his cradle stood — and his cradle too — and
I cannot help seeing him in the cradle. Little lamb!
and the snow would not melt on his limbs ! I have some
faint recollections that he had that difficulty of breathing
once before I left England — or was it Hartley ? " A
child, a child is born, and the fond heart dances; and yet
the childless are the most happy." At Christmas11 saw a
custom which pleased and interested me here. The chil¬
dren make little presents to their parents, and to one an¬
other, and the parents to the children. For three or four
months before Christmas the girls are all busy, and the
boys save up their pocket-money, to make or purchase
these presents. What the present is to be is cautiously
kept secret, and the girls have a world of contrivances to
conceal it, such as working when they are at a visit, and
the others are not with them, and getting up in the morn¬
ing long before light, etc. Then on the evening before
Christmas Day, one of the parlours is lighted up by the
children, into which the parents must not go. A great yew
1 The following- description of the verbatim, in No. 19 of the original
Christmas-tree, and of Kneclit Ru- issue of The Friend, December -8,
pert, was originally published, almost 1809.
290
A VISIT TO GERMANY [April
bough is fastened 011 tlie table at a little distance from tlie
wall, a multitude of little tapers are fastened in tlie bougli,
but not so as to burn it, till they are nearly burnt out, and
coloured paper, etc., hangs and flutters from the twigs.
Under this bough the children lay out in great neatness
tlie presents they mean for their parents, still concealing
in their pockets what they intend for each other. Then
the parents are introduced, and each presents his little
gift — and then they bring out the others, and present
them to each other with kisses and embraces. Where I saw
the scene there were eight or nine children of different
ages; and the eldest daughter and the mother wept aloud
for joy and tenderness, and the tears ran down the cheek
of the father, and he clasped all his children so tight to
his heart, as if he did it to stifle the sob that was rising
within him. I was very much affected, and the shadow of
the bough oil the wall, and arching over on the ceiling,
made a pretty picture — and then the raptures of the
very little ones, when at last the twigs and thread-leaves
began to catch fire and snap ! Oh that was a delight for
them! On the next day in the great parlour the parents
lay out 011 the tables the presents for the children ; a scene
of more sober joy succeeds, as, oil this day, after an old
custom, the mother says privately to each of her daughters,
and the father to each of his sons, that which he has ob¬
served most praiseworthy, and that which he has observed
most faulty in their conduct. Formerly, and still in all
the little towns and villages through the whole of North
Germany, these presents were sent by all the parents of the
village to some one fellow, who, in high buskins, a white
robe, a mask, and an enormous flax wig, personates Knecht
Rupert, that is, the servant Rupert. On Christmas night
he goes round to every house and says that Jesus Christ
his Master sent him there ; the parents and older children
receive him with great pomp of reverence, while the little
ones are most terribly frightened. He then enquires for
1799]
TO HIS WIFE
291
the children, and according to the character which he hears
from the parent he gives them the intended presents, as if
they came out of Ileaven from Jesus Christ; or, if they
should have been bad children, he gives the parents a rod,
and, in the name of his Master Jesus, recommends them
to use it frequently. About eight or nine years old, the
children are let into the secret; and it is curious, how
faithfully they all keep it. There are a multitude of
strange superstitions among the bauers ; — these still sur¬
vive in spite of the efforts of the Clergy, who in the north
of Germany, that is, in the Hanoverian, Saxon, and Prus¬
sian dominions, are almost all Deists. But they make lit¬
tle or 110 impressions on the bauers, who are wonderfully
religious and fantastically superstitious, but not in the
least priest-rid. But in the Catholic countries of Ger¬
many the difference is vast indeed ! I met lately an intel¬
ligent and calm-minded man who had spent a considerable
time at Marburg in the Bishopric of Paderborn in West¬
phalia. He told me that bead-prayers to the Holy Virgin
are universal, and universally, too, are magical powers
attributed to one particular formula of words which are
absolutely jargons; at least, the words are to be found in
no known language. The peasants believe it, however, to
be a prayer to the Virgin, and happy is the man among
them who is made confident by a priest that he can repeat
it perfectly; for heaven knows what terrible calamity
might not happen if any one should venture to repeat it
and blunder. Vows and pilgrimages to particular images
are still common among the bauers. If any one dies be¬
fore the performance of his vow, they believe that he hov¬
ers between heaven and earth, and at times hobgoblins his
relations till they perform it for him. Particular saints
are believed to be eminently favourable to particular
prayers, and he assured me solemnly that a little before
he left Marburg a lady of Marburg had prayed and given
money to have the public prayers at St. Erasmus's Chapel
292
A VISIT TO GERMANY
[April
to St. Erasmus — £01* what, think you ? — that the baby,
with which she was then pregnant, might be a boy with
light hair and rosy cheeks. When their cows, pigs, or
horses are sick they take them to the Dominican monks,
who transcribe texts out of the holy books, and perform
exorcisms. When men or women are sick they give largely
to the Convent, who 011 good conditions dress them in
Church robes, and lay a particular and highly venerated
Crucifix on their breast, and perform a multitude of antic
ceremonies. I11 general, my informer confessed that they
cured the persons, which he seemed to think extraordinary,
but which I think very natural. Yearly on St. Blasius's
Day unusual multitudes go to receive the Lord's Supper;
and while they are receiving it the monks hold a Blasius's
Taper (as it is called) before the forehead of the kneeling
person, and then pray to St. Blasius to drive away all
headaches for the ensuing year. Their wishes are often
expressed in this form : " Mary, Mother of God, make her
Son do so and so." Yet with all this, from every infor¬
mation which I can collect (and I have had many oppor¬
tunities of collecting various accounts), the peasants in
the Catholic countries of Germany, but especially in Aus¬
tria, are far better off, and a far happier and livelier race,
than those in the Protestant lands. ... I fill up the sheet
with scattered customs put down in the order in which I
happened to see them. The peasant children, wherever I
have been, are dressed warm and tight, but very ugly;
the dress looks a frock coat, some of coarse blue cloth,
some of plaid, buttoned behind — the row of buttons run¬
ning down the back, and the seamless, buttonless fore-part
has an odd look. When the peasants marry, if the girl is of
a good character, the clergyman gives her a Virgin Crown
(a tawdry, ugly thing made of gold and silver tinsel, like
the royal crowns in shape). This they wear with cropped,
powdered, and pomatumed hair — in short, the bride looks
ugliness personified. While I was at Ratzeburg a girl
1799]
TO IIIS WIFE
293
came to beg the pastor to let her be married in this crown,
and she had had two bastards ! The pastor refused, of
course. I wondered that a reputable farmer should marry
her ; but the pastor told me that where a female bauer is
the heiress, her having- had a bastard does not much stand
in her way; and yet, though little or no infamy attaches to
it, the number of bastards is but small — two in seventy
has been the average of Ratzeburg among the peasants.
By the bye, the bells in Germany are not rung as ours,
with ropes, but two men stand, one 011 each side of the bell,
and each pushes the bell away from him with his foot. In
the churches, what is a baptismal font in our churches is a
great Angel with a bason in his hand ; he draws up and
down with a chain like a lamp. I11 a particular part of
the ceremony down comes the great stone Angel with the
bason, presenting it to the pastor, who, having taken quant,
svff., up flies my Angel to his old place in the ceiling
— you cannot conceive how droll it looked. The graves
in the little village churchyards are in square or paral-
lelogrammic wooden cases — they look like boxes without
lids — and thorns and briars are woven over them, as is
done in some parts of England. Perhaps you recollect
that beautiful passage in Jeremy Taylor's Holy Dying,
"and the Summer brings briers to bud on our graves."
The shepherds with iron soled boots walk before the sheep,
as in the East — you know our Saviour says — "^ly
Slice]) follow me." So it is here. The dog and the shep¬
herd walk first, the shepherd with his romantic fur, and
generally knitting a pair of white worsted gloves — he
walks 011 and his dog by him, and then follow the slice])
winding along the roads in a beautiful stream ! In the
fields I observed a multitude of poles with bands and
trusses of straw tied round the higher part and the top —
011 enquiry we found that they were put there for the owls
to perch upon. And the owls ? They catch the field
mice, who do amazing damage in the light soil all through-
294
A VISIT TO GERMANY
[May
out the north of Germany. The gallows near Gottingen,
like that near Ratzeburg, is three great stone pillars, square,
like huge tall chimneys, and connected with each other at
the top by three iron bars with hooks to them — and near
them is a wooden pillar with a wheel on the top of it on
which the head is exposed, if the person instead of being
hung is beheaded. I was frightened at first to see such a
multitude of bones and skeletons of sheep, oxen, and
horses, and bones as I imagined of men for many, many
yards all round the gallows. I found that in Germany the
hangman is by the laws of the Empire infamous — these
hangmen form a caste, and their families marry with each
other, etc. — and that all dead cattle, who have died, belong
to them, and are carried by the owners to the gallows and
left there. When their cattle are bewitched, or otherwise
desperately sick, the peasants take them and tie them to
the gallows — drowned dogs and kittens, etc., are thrown
there — in short, the grass grows rank, and yet the bones
overtop it (the fancy of human bones must, I suppose,
have arisen in my ignorance of comparative anatomy).
God bless you, my Love! I will write again speedily.
When I was at Ratzeburg I wrote one wintry night in
bed, but never sent you, three stanzas which, I dare say,
you will think very silly, and so they are: and yet they
were not written without a yearning, yearning, yearning
Inside — for my yearning affects more than my heart.
I feel it all within me.
i.
If I had but two little wings,
And were a little featli'ry bird,
To you I'd fly, my dear !
But thoughts like these are idle things —
And I stay here.
II.
But in my sleep to you I fly:
I'm always with you in my sleep —
1799]
TO THOMAS POOLE
295
The World is all one's own.
But then one wakes — And where am I ? —
All, all alone!
iii-
Sleep stays not, though a monarch bids :
So I love to wake ere break of day:
For though my sleep be gone,
Yet while't is dark, one shuts one's lids,
And still dreams on !1
If Mrs. Southey be with you, remember me with all
kindness and thankfulness for their attention to you and
Hartley. To dear Mrs. Poole give my filial love. My
love to Ward. Why should I write the name of Tom
Poole, except for the pleasure of writing it ? It grieves
me to the heart that Nanny is not with you—I cannot
bear changes — Death makes enough !
God bless you, my dear, dear wife, and believe me with
eagerness to clasp you to my heart, your ever faithful
husband,
S. T. Coleridge.
xcviii. to thomas poole.
May G, 1799, Monday morn.
My dear Poole, my dear Poole ! — I am homesick. So¬
ciety is a burden to me ; and I find relief only in labour.
So I read and transcribe from morning till night, and
never in my life have I worked so hard as this last
month, for indeed I must sail over an ocean of matter
with almost spiritual speed, to do what I have to do in
the time in which I will do it or leave it undone ! O
my God, how I long to be at home ! My whole Being
so yearns after you, that when I think of the moment of
our meeting, I catch the fashion of German joy, rush into
1 First published in Annual An- Cordomi. See Poetical Works, p.
tholoyy of 1800, under the signature 140, and Editor's Note, p. 021.
296
A VISIT TO GERMANY
[May
your arms, and embrace you. Methinks my hand would
swell if tlie wliole force of my feeling were crowded there.
Now the Spring comes, the vital sap of my affections
rises as in a tree! And what a gloomy Spring ! But a
few days ago all the new buds were covered with snow ;
and everything yet looks so brown and wintry, that yes¬
terday the roses (which the ladies carried on the ram¬
parts, their promenade), beautiful as they were, so little
harmonized with the general face of nature, that they
looked to me like silk and made roses. But these leaf¬
less Spring Woods ! Oh, how I long to hear you whistle
to the Rippers !1 There are a multitude of nightingales
here (poor things! they sang in the snow). I thought
of my own2 verses 011 the nightingale, only because I
thought of Hartley, my only Child. Dear lamb! I
hope he won't be dead before I get home. There are
moments in which I have such a power of life within me,
such a conceit of it, I mean, that I lay the blame of my
child's death to my absence. Not intellectually; but I
have a strange sort of sensation, as if, while I was present,
none could die whom I entirely loved, and doubtless it
was 110 absurd idea of yours that there may be unions and
connections out of the visible world.
Wordsworth and his sister passed through here, as I
have informed you. I walked on with them five English
miles, and spent a day with them. They were melancholy
and hypped. W. was affected to tears at the thought
of not being near me — wished me of course to live in
the North of England near Sir Frederick Vane's great
library.3 I told him that, independent of the expense of
removing, and the impropriety of taking Mrs. Coleridge
1 The men who rip the oak hark His little hand, the small forefinger up,
from the log's for tanning. AnJ bicl us listen-
2 My dear babe,
— "The Nightingale, a Conversa¬
tion Poem," written in April, 1798.
Poetical Worlcs, p. 133.
Who capable of no articulate sound,
Mars all tilings with his imitative lisp,
How he would place his hand beside his
ear,
3 Hutton Hall, near Penrith.
1799]
TO THOMAS POOLE
297
to a place where she would have 110 acquaintance, two
insurmountable objections, the library was no inducement
to me — for I wanted old books chiefly, such as could be
procured anywhere better than in a gentleman's new
fashionable collection. Finally I told him plainly that
you had been the man in whom first and in whom alone
I had felt an anchor ! "With all my other connections I
felt a dim sense of insecurity and uncertainty, terribly
incompatible. W. was affected to tears, very much af¬
fected ; but he deemed the vicinity of a library absolutely
necessary to his health, nay to his existence. It is pain¬
ful to me, too, to think of not living near him ; for he is
a good and hind man, and the only one whom in all
things I feel my superior — and you will believe me when
I say that I have few feelings more pleasurable than to
find myself, in intellectual faculties, an inferior.
But my resolve is fixed, not to leave you till you leave
me ! I still think that Wordsworth will be disappointed
in his expectation of relief from reading without society;
and I think it highly probable that where I live, there he
will live ; unless he should find in the North any person
or persons, who can feel and understand him, and recip¬
rocate and react on him. My many weaknesses are of
some advantage to me ; they unite me more with the
great mass of my fellow-beings — but dear Wordsworth
appears to me to have hurtfully segregated and isolated
his being. Doubtless his delights are more deep and
sublime; but he has likewise more hours that prey upon
the flesh and blood. With regard to Hancock's house, if
I can get no place within a mile or two of Stowey I must
try to get that; but I confess I like it not — not to say
that it is not altogether pleasant to live directly opposite
to a person who had behaved so rudely to Mrs. Coleridge.
But these are in the eye of reason trifles, and if no other
house can be got — in my eye, too, they shall be trifles.
208
A VISIT TO GERMANY
[May
O Poole ! I am homesick. Yesterday, or rather yes¬
ternight, I clittiecl the following horrible ditty ; but my
poor Muse is quite gone — perhaps she may return and
meet me at Stowey.
'T is sweet to liim wlio all the week
Through city-crowds must push his way,
To stroll aloue through fields and woods,
And hallow thus the Sabbath-day.
And sweet it is, in summer bower,
Sincere, affectionate, and gay,
One's own dear children feasting round,
To celebrate one's marriage day.
But what is all to his delight,
Who having long been doomed to roam,
Throws off the bundle from his back,
Before the door of his own home ?
Home-sickness is no baby pang —
This feel I hourly more and more:
There's only musick in thy wings,
Thou breeze that play'st 011 Albion's Shore.1
The Professors here are exceedingly kind to all the
Englishmen, hut to me they pay the most flattering atten¬
tions, especially Blumenbaeh and Eicliliorn. Nothing can
be conceived more delightful than Blumenbach's lectures,
and, in conversation, he is, indeed, a most interesting
man. The learned Orientalist Tychsen 2 lias given me
instruction in the Gothic and Tlieotuscan languages,
which I can now read pretty well; and hope in the course
1 First published in the Annual " Stammbuch " of the Wernigerode
Anthology of 1800. See Poetical Inn. Early Years, i. GO.
Works, p. 140, and Editor's Note, p. 2 Olans Tychsen, 1734-1815, was
621. According to Carlyon the lines "Professor of Oriental Tongues "at
were dictated by Coleridge and in- Rostock, in Mecklenburg-Schwerin.
scribed by one of the party in the
1799]
TO TIIOMAS POOLE
299
of a year to be thoroughly acquainted with all the lan¬
guages of the North, both German and Celtic. I find
being learned is a mighty easy thing, compared with any
study else. My God ! a miserable poet must he be, and
a despicable metaphysician, whose acquirements have not
cost him more trouble and reflection than all the learning
of Tooke, Porson, and Parr united. With the advantage
of a great library, learning is nothing — methinks, merely
a sad excuse for being idle. Yet a man gets reputation
by it, and reputation gets money; and for reputation I
don't care a damn, but money — yes — money I must get
by all honest ways. Therefore at the end of two or three
years, if God grant me life, expect to see me come out
with some horribly learned book, full of manuscript quota¬
tions from Laplandisli and Patagonian authors, possibly,
on the striking resemblance of the Sweogothian and San¬
scrit languages, and so on ! N. B. Whether a sort of
parchment might not be made of old shoes ; and whether
apples should not be grafted on oak saplings, as the fruit
would be the same as now, but the wood far more valu¬
able ? Two ideas of mine. — To extract aqua fort is from
cucumbers is a discovery not yet made, but sugar from
bete, oh! all Germany is mad about it. I have seen the
sugar sent to Blumenbach from Acliard 1 the great chem¬
ist, and it is good enough. They say that an hundred
pounds weight of bete will make twelve pounds of sugar,
and that there is no expense in the preparation. It is the
Beta altissima, belongs to the Beta vulgaris, and in Ger¬
many is called Hunkelriibe. Its leaves resemble those of
the common red bete. It is in shape like a clumsy nine
pin and about the size of a middling turnip. The flesh
is white but has rings of a reddish cast. I will bring over
a quantity of the seed.
1 F. C. Achard, born in 1754, was sugar, molasses, and virions spirit
author of an " Instruction for making from Beet-root."
300
A VISIT TO GERMANY
[May
A stupid letter! — I believe my late proficiency in
learning lias somewhat stupified me, but live in hopes of
one better worth postage. In the last week of June, I
trust, you will see me. Chester is well and desires love
and duty to his family. To your dear Mother and to
Ward give my kind love, and to all who ask after me.
My dear Poole ! don't let little Hartley die before I
come home. That's silly — true — and I burst into tears
as I wrote it. Yours
S. T. Coleridge.
CHAPTER Y
FROM SOUTH TO NORTH
1799-1800
CHAPTER V
from south to north
1799-1800
xcix. to robert southey.
Nether Stowey, July 29, 1799.
I am doubtful, Southey, whether the circumstances
which impel me to write to you ought not to keep me
silent, and, if it were only a feeling of delicacy, I should
remain silent, for it is good to do all things in faith.
But I have been absent, Southey! ten months, and if you
knew that domestic affection was hard upon me, and that
my own health was declining, would you not have shoot¬
ings within you of an affection which (" though fallen,
though changed ") has played too important a part in the
event of our lives and the formation of our character,
ever to be forgotten ? I am perplexed what to write, or
how to state the object of my writing. Any participation
in each other's moral being I do not wish, simply because
I know enough of the mind of man to know that [it] is
impossible. But, Southey, we have similar talents, senti¬
ments nearly similar, and kindred pursuits; we have like¬
wise, in more than one instance, common objects of our
esteem and love. I pray and intreat you, if we should
meet at any time, let us not withhold from each other the
outward expressions of daily kindliness ; and if it be no
longer in your power to soften your opinions, make your
feelings at least more tolerant towards me — (a debt of
humility which assuredly we all of us owe to our most
feeble, imperfect, and self-deceiving nature). We are
304
FROM SOUTH TO NORTH
[Sept.
few of us good enough to know our own hearts, and as to
the hearts of others, let us struggle to hope that they are
better than we think them, and resign the rest to our
common Maker. God bless you and yours.
S. T. Coleridge.
[Southey's answer to this appeal has not been preserved,
but its tenor was that Coleridge had slandered him to
others. In his reply Coleridge " avers 011 his honour as a
man and a gentleman" that he never charged Southey
with " aught but deep and implacable enmity towards him¬
self," and that his authorities for this accusation were
those on whom Southey relied, that is, doubtless, Lloyd
and Lamb. He appeals to Poole, the " repository " of
his every thought, and to Wordsworth, "with whom he
had been for more than one whole year almost daily and
frequently for weeks together," to bear him out in this
statement. A letter from Poole to Southey dated August
8, and forwarded to Minehead by " special messenger,"
bears ample testimony to Coleridge's disavowal. " With¬
out entering into particulars," he writes, " I will say gen¬
erally, that in the many conversations I have had with
Coleridge concerning yourself, he has never discovered
the least personal enmity against, but, on the contrary,
the strongest affection for you stifled only by the unto¬
ward events of your separation." Poole's intervention
was successful, and once again the cottage opened its
doors to a distinguished guest. The Soutlieys remained
as visitors at Stowey until, in company with their host,
they set out for Devonshire.]
1799]
TO THOMAS POOLE
305
c. to thomas toole.
Exeter, Soutliey's Lodgings, Mr. Tucker's, Fore Street Hill,
September 16, 179'J.1
My dear Poole, — Here I am just returned from a
little tour2 of five days, having seen rocks and waterfalls,
and a pretty river or two; some wide landscapes, and a
multitude of asli-tree dells, and the blue waters of the
" roaring sea," as little Hartley says, who on Friday fell
down stairs and injured his arm. 'T is swelled and
sprained, but, God be praised, not broken. The views of
Totness and Dartmouth are among the most impressive
things I have ever seen ; but in general what of Devon¬
shire I have lately seen is tame to Quantock, Porlock,
Culbone, and Linton. So much for the country! Now
as to the inhabitants thereof, they are bigots, unalphabeted
in the first feelings of liberality; of course in all they speak
and all they do not speak, they give good reasons for the
opinions which they hold, viz. they hold the propriety of
slavery, an opinion which, being generally assented to by
Englishmen, makes Pitt and Paul the first among the
moral fitnesses of things. I have three brothers, that is
to say, relations by gore. Two are parsons and one is a
1 Tlie Coleridges were absent from
Stowey for about a month. For
the first fortnight they were guests
of George Coleridge at Ottery. The
latter part of the time was spent with
the Southeys in their lodgings at
Exeter. It was during this second
■visit that Coleridge accompanied
Southey on a walking tour through
part of Dartmoor and as far as Dart¬
mouth.
2 Coleridge took but few notes
during this tour. In 1803 he re trail-
scribed his fragmentary jottings and
regrets that he possessed no more,
" though we were at the interest¬
ing Bovey waterfall [Becky Fall],
through that wild dell of ashes
which leads to Asliburton, most like
the approach to upper Matterdale."
" I have," he adds, " at this moment
very distinct visual impressions of
the tour, namely of Torbay, the
village of Paignton with the Cas¬
tle." Southey was disappointed in
South Devon, which he contrasts
unfavourably with the North of
Somersetshire, but for " the dell of
ashes" he has a word of praise.
Selections from Letters of Robert Sou¬
they, i. 84.
BOG
FROM SOUTH TO NORTH
[Oct.
colonel. George and tlie colonel, good men as times go —-
very good men — "but alas ! we have neither tastes nor
feelings in common. This I wisely learnt from their con¬
versation, and did not suffer them to learn it from mine.
What occasion for it ? Hunger and thirst — roast fowls,
mealy potatoes, pies, and clouted cream ! bless the inven¬
tors of them ! An honest philosopher may find therewith
preoccupation for his mouth, keeping his heart and brain,
the latter in his scull, the former in the pericardium
some live or six inches from the roots of his tongue!
Church and King! Why I drink Church and King, mere
cutaneous scabs of loyalty which only ape the king's evil,
but affect not the interior of one's health. Mendicant
sores ! it requires some little caution to keep them open,
but they heal of their own accord. Who (such a friend
as I am to the system of fraternity) could refuse such a
toast at the table of a clergyman and a colonel, his bro¬
ther ? So, my dear Poole ! I live in peace. Of the other
party, I have dined with a Mr. Northmore, a pupil of
Wakefield, who possesses a fine house half a mile from
Exeter. In his boyhood he was at my father's school.
. . . But Southey and self called upon him as authors —
he having edited a Trypliiodorus and part of Plutarch,
and being1 a notorious anti-ministerialist and free-thinker.
He welcomed us as he ought, and we met at dinner Hucks
(at whose house I dine Wednesday), the man who toured
with me in Wales and afterwards published his "Tour,"
Kendall, a poet, who really looks like a man of genius,
pale and gnostic, has the merit of being a Jacobin or so,
but is a sliallowist— and finally a Mr. Banfill, a man of
sense, information, and various literature, and most per¬
fectly a gentleman — in short a pleasant man. At his
house we dine to-morrow. Northmore himself is an hon¬
est, vehement sort of a fellow who splutters out all his
opinions like a fiz gig, made of gunpowder not thoroughly
dry, sudden and explosive, yet ever with a certain adhe-
1799]
TO ROBERT SOUTIIEY
307
sive blubberliness of elocution. Shallow ! shallow! A
man who can read Greek well, but shallow! Yet honest,
too, and who ardently wishes the well-being of his fellow-
men, and believes that without more liberty and more
equality this well-being is not possible. lie possesses a
most noble library. The victory at Novi!1 If I were a
good caricaturist I would sketch off Suwarrow in a car of
conquest drawn by huge crabs!! With what retrograde
majesty the vehicle advances! He may truly say he
came off with eclat, that is, a claw! I shall be back at
Stowey in less than three weeks. . . .
We hope your dear mother remains well. Give my
filial love to her. God bless her! I beg my kind love to
Ward. God bless you and
S. T. Coleridge.
Monday night.
ci. to robert southet.
Stowey, Tuesday evening, October 15, 1799.
It is fashionable among our pliilosophizers to assert the
existence of a surplus of misery in the world, which, in
my opinion, is no proof that either systematic thinking
or unaffected self-observation is fashionable among them.
But Hume wrote, and the French imitated him, and we
the French, and the French us ; and so philosophisms fly
to and fro, in series of imitated imitations — shadows of
shadows of shadows of a fartliing-candle placed between
two looking-glasses. For in truth, my dear Southey! I
am harassed with the rheumatism in my head and shoul¬
ders, not without arm-and-thigh-twitches — but when the
pain intermits it leaves my sensitive frame so sensitive!
My enjoyments are so deep, of the fire, of the candle, of
the thought I am thinking, of the old folio I am reading,
1 Suwarrow, at, the head of the Alessandria, in North Italy, August
Austro-Russian troops, defeated the 15, 1799.
French under Joubert at Novi near
308
FROM SOUTH TO NORTH
[Oct.
and the silence of the silent house is so most and very
delightful, that upon my soul! the rheumatism is no such
bad thing as people make for. And yet I have, and do
suffer from it, in much pain and sleeplessness and often
sick at stomach through indigestion of the food, which I
eat from compulsion. Since I received your former let¬
ter, I have spent a few days at Upcott;1 but was too
unwell to be comfortable, so I returned yesterday. Poor
Tom !2 he has an adventurous calling. I have so wholly
forgotten my geography that I don't know where Ferrol
is, whether in France or Spain. Your dear mother must
be very anxious indeed. If he return safe, it will have
been good. God grant he may!
Massena ! 3 and what say you of the resurrection and
glorification of the Saviour of the East after his trials in
the wilderness ? (I am afraid that this is a piece of blas¬
phemy ; but it was in simple verity such an infusion of
animal spirits into me.) Buonaparte! Buonaparte! dear,
dear, dear Buonaparte ! It would be no bad fun to hear
the clerk of the Privy Council read this paragraph before
Pitt, etc. " You ill-looking frog-voiced reptile ! mind you
lay the proper emphasis on the third dear, or I '11 split
your clerkship's skull for you ! " Poole ordered a paper,
lie has found out, he says, why the newspapers had be¬
come so indifferent to him. Inventive Genius ! lie begs
his kind remembrances to you. In consequence of the
news he burns like Greek Fire, under all the wets and
waters of this health-and-harvest destroying weather. He
flames while his barley smokes. " See ! " he says, " how it
1 A temporary residence of Josiah A report had reached England that
Wedgwood, who had taken it on lease the Sylph had been captured and
in order to be near his newly pur- brought to Ferrol. Southefs Life
chased property at Combe Florev, and Correspondence, ii. 30.
in Somersetshire. Meteyard's Group 3 Marshal Massena defeated the
of Englishmen, 1871, p. 107. Russians under Prince Korsikov at
2 Southey's brother, a midship- Zurich, September 25, 1799.
man on board the Sylph gun-brig.
1799]
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
309
grows out again, ruining the prospects of tliose who had
cut it down ! " You are harvest-man enough, I suppose, to
understand the metaphor. Jackson1 is, I believe, out of
all doubt a bad man. Why is it, if it be, and I fear it is,
why is it that the studies of music and painting are so un¬
favourable to the human heart ? Painters have been com¬
monly very clever men, which is not so generally the case
with musicians, but both alike are almost uniformly de¬
bauchees. It is superfluous to say how much your account
of Bampfylde2 interested me. Predisposition to mad¬
ness gave him a cast of originality, and he had a species
of taste which only genius could give; but his genius
does not appear a powerful or ebullient faculty (nearer to
Lamb's than to the Gebir-man [Landor], so I judge from
the few specimens / have seen). If you think otherwise,
you are right I doubt not. I shall be glad to give Mr.
and Mrs. Keenan3 the right hand of welcome with looks
and tones in Jit accompaniment. For the wife of a man
1 William Jackson, organist of
Exeter Cathedral, 1730-1803, a
musical composer and artist. lie
published, among other works, The
Four Ages with Essays, 1708. See
letter of Southey to S. T. Coleridge,
October 3, 1700, Southey''s Life and
Correspondence, ii. 2(i.
2 John Codrington Warwick
Bampfylde, second son of Richard
Bampfylde, of Poltimore, was the
author of Sixteen Sonnets, pub¬
lished in 1770. In the letter of
October 3 (see above) Southey gives
an interesting account of his eccen¬
tric habits and melancholy history.
In a prefatory note to four of Bamp-
fylde's sonnets, included by Southey
in his Specimens of the Later Eng¬
lish Poets, he explains how he came
to possess the copies of some hitherto
unpublished poems.
" Jackson of Exeter, a man whose
various talents made all who knew
him remember him with regret, de¬
signed to republish the little collec¬
tion of Bampfylde's Sonnets, with
what few of his pieces were still un¬
edited.
" Those poems which are here first
printed were transcribed from the
originals in his possession."
" Bampfylde published his Sonnets
at a very early age; they are some
of the most original in our language.
He died in a private mad-house, after
twenty years' confinement." Speci¬
mens of the Later English Poets, 1808,
iii. 434.
3 " A sister of General McKinnon,
who was killed at Ciudad Rodrigo."
In the same letter to Coleridge (see
above) Southey says that he looked
up to her with more respect because
the light of Buonaparte's counte¬
nance had shone upon her.
310
FROM SOUTH TO NORTH
[Oct.
of genius who sympathises effectively with her husband in
his habits and feelings is a vara avis with me; though a
vast majority of her own sex and too many of ours will
scout her for a vara pixels. If I am well enough, Sara
and I go to Bristol in a few days. I hope they will not
come in the mean time. It is singularly unpleasant to me
that I cannot renew our late acquaintances in Exeter
without creating very serious uneasinesses at Ottery,
Nortlmiore is so preeminently an offensive character to
the aristocrats. He sent Paine's books as a present to a
clergyman of my brother's acquaintance, a Mr. Markes.
This was silly enough. . . .
I will set about " Christabel " with all speed ; but I do
not think it a fit opening poem. What I think would be
a fit opener, and what I would humbly lay before you as
the best plan of the next Anthologia, I will communicate
shortly in another letter entirely on this subject. Mo¬
hammed I will not forsake ; but my money-book I must
write first. In the last, or at least in a late "Monthly
Magazine " was an Essay 011 a Jesuitic conspiracy and
about the Ivussians. There was so much genius in it
that I suspected William Taylor for the author; but the
style was so nauseously affected, so absurdly pedantic,
that I was half-angry with myself for the suspicion.
Have you seen Bishop Prettyman's book? I hear it is a
curiosity. You remember Scott the attorney, who held
such a disquisition on my simile of property resembling
matter rather than blood ? and eke of St. John ? and you
remember, too, that I shewed him in my face that there
was no room for him in my heart ? Well, sir ! this man
has taken a most deadly hatred to me, and how do you
think he revenges himself ? He imagines that I write for
the "Morning Post," and he goes regularly to the coffee¬
houses, calls for the paper, and reading it he observes
aloud, " What damn'd stuff of poetry is always crammed
in this paper ! such damn'd silly nonsense! I wonder
1799]
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
311
what coxcomb it is that writes it! I wish the paper was
kicked out of the coffee-house." Now, but for Cruik-
shank, I could play Scott a precious trick by sending to
Stuart, " The Angry Attorney, a True Tale," and I know
more than enough of Scott's most singular parti-coloured
rascalities to make a most humorous and biting satire of it.
I have heard of a young Quaker who went to the Lobby,
with a monstrous military cock-liat on his head, with a
scarlet coat and up to his mouth in flower'd muslin, swear¬
ing too most bloodily — all " that he might not be unlike
other people ! " A Quaker's son getting himself christen'd
to avoid being remarkable is as improbable a lie as ever
self-delusion permitted the heart to impose on the under¬
standing, or the understanding to invent without the con¬
sent of the heart. But so it is. Soon after Lloyd's arri¬
val at Cambridge I understand Christopher Wordsworth
wrote his uncle, Mr. Cookson,1 that Lloyd was going to
read Greek with him. Cookson wrote back recommending
caution, and whether or no an intimacy with so marked a
character might not be prejudicial to his academical inter¬
ests. (This is his usual mild manner.) Christopher
Wordsworth returned for answer that Lloyd was by 110
means a democrat, and as a proof of it, transcribed the
most favourable passages from the " Edmund Oliver," and
here the affair ended. You remember Lloyd's own
account of this story, of course, more accurately than I,
and can therefore best judge how far my suspicions of
falsehood and exaggeration were well-founded. My dear
Soutliey! the having a bad heart and not having a good
one are different things. That Charles Lloyd has a bad
heart, I do not even think; but I venture to say, and that
openly, that he lias not a good one. He is unfit to be any
man's friend, and to all but a very guarded man he is a
1 Dr. Cookson, Canon of Windsor of lier time under his roof before
.and Rector of Forncett, Norfolk, she finally threw in her lot with her
Dorothy Wordsworth passed much brother William in 1795.
312
FROM SOUTH TO NORTH
[Nov.
perilous acquaintance. Your conduct towards him, while
it is wise, will, I doubt not, be gentle. Of confidence he
is not worthy; but social kindness and communicativeness
purely intellectual can do you no harm, and may be the
means of benefiting- his character essentially. Aut am,a
me quia sum Dei, aut ut sun Dei, said St. Augustin, and
in the laxer sense of the word " Ama " there is wisdom in
the expression notwithstanding its wit. Besides, it is the
way of peace. From Bristol perhaps I go to London, but
I will write you where I am. Yours affectionately,
S. T. Coleridge.
I have great affection for Lamb, but I have likewise
a perfect Lloyd-and-Lambophobia! Independent of tlie
irritation attending an epistolary controversy with them,
their prose comes so damn'd dear! Lloyd especially
writes with a woman's fluency in a large rambling hand,
most dull though profuse of feeling. I received from
them in last quarter letters so many, that with the post¬
age I might have bought Birch's Milton. — Sara will write
soon. Our love to Edith and your mother.
cii. to the same.
Keswick,1 Sunday, November 10, 1799.
My dear Southey, — I am anxious lest so long
silence should seem unaffectionate, or I would not, hav-
1 The journal, or notes for a jour¬
nal, of tliis first tour in the Lake
Country, leaves a doubt whether
Coleridge and Wordsworth slept at
Keswick on Sunday, November 10,
1799, or whether they returned to
Cockermoutli. It is certain that
they passed through Keswick again
on Friday, November 15, as the fol¬
lowing entry testifies: —
" 1 mile and 1 from Keswick, a
Druidical circle. On the right the
road and Saddleback; on the left a
fine but unwatered vale, walled by
grassy hills and a fine black crag
standing single at the terminus as
sentry. Before me, that is, towards
Keswick, the mountains stand, one
behind the other, in orderly array,
as if evoked by and attentive to the
white-vested wizards." It was from
almost the same point of view that,
thirty years afterwards, his wife, on
her journey south after her daugh-
1799]
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
313
ing so little to say, write to you from sucli a distant
corner of the kingdom. I was called up to the North by
alarming accounts of Wordsworth's health, which, thank
God! are but little more than alarms. Since I have
visited the Lakes and in a pecuniary way have made the
trip answer to me. From hence I go to London, having
had (by accident here) a sort of offer made to me of a
pleasant kind, which, if it turn out well, will enable me
and Sara to reside in London for the next four or five
months — a thing I wish extremely on many and impor¬
tant accounts. So much for myself. In my last letter I
said I would give you my reasons for thinking " Chris-
tabel," were it finished, and finished as spiritedly as it com¬
mences, yet still an improper opening poem. My reason
is it cannot be expected to please all. Those who dislike
it will deem it extravagant ravings, and go on through the
rest of the collection with the feeling of disgust, and it is
not impossible that were it liked by any it would still not
harmonise with the real - life poems that follow. It
ought, I think, to be the last. The first ought me juclice
to be a poem in couplets, didactic or satirical, such a one
as the lovers of genuine poetry would call sensible and
entertaining, such as the ignoramuses and Pope-admirers
would deem genuine poetry. I had planned such a one,
and, but for the absolute necessity of scribbling prose, I
should have written it. The great and master fault of
the last "Anthology" was the want of arrangement. It
is called a collection, and meant to be continued annually;
yet was distinguished in nothing from any other single
volume of poems equally good. Yours ought to have been
a cabinet with proper compartments, and papers in them,
whereas it was only the papers. Some such arrangement
as this should have been adopted : First. Satirical and
Didactic. 2. Lyrical. 3. Narrative. 4. Levities.
ter's marriage, took a solemn fare- strange, but then so dear and so
well of tlie Yale of Keswick once so familiar.
814
FROM SOUTH TO NORTH
[Dec.
" Sic positi quoniam suaves miscetis odores,
Neve inter vites corylum sere " —
is, I am convinced, excellent advice of Master Virgil's.
N. B. A good motto ! 'T is from Virgil's seventh Ec¬
logue.
" Populus Alcidse gratissima, vitis Iacclio,
Formosa; myrtus Veneri, sua laurea Pliuebo;
Phyllis amat corylos."'
But still, my dear Soutliey! it goes grievously against
the grain with me, that you should be editing antholo¬
gies. I would to Heaven that you could afford to write
nothing, or at least to publish nothing, till the completion
and publication of the " Madoc." I feel as certain, as my
mind dare feel on any subject, that it would lift you with
a spring into a reputation that would give immediate sale
to your after compositions and a license of writing more
at ease. Whereas " Thalaba " would gain you (for a time
at least) more ridiculers than admirers, and the "Madoc "
might in consequence be welcomed with an ecce iterum.
Do, do, my dear Soutliey! publish the " Madoc " quum
citissime, not hastily, but yet speedily. I will instantly
publish an Essay on Epic Poetry in reference to it. I
have been reading the JEneid, and there you will be all
victorious, excepting the importance of iEneas and his
connection with events existing in Virgil's time. This
cannot be said of " Madoc." There are other faults in
the construction of your poem, but nothing compared to
those in the ^Eneid. Homer I shall read too.
(No signature.)
ciii. to the same.
December 9, [1799].
My dear Southey, — I pray you in your next give
me the particulars of your health. I hear accounts so
contradictory that I know only enough to be a good deal
frightened. You will surely think it your duty to sus-
1799]
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
315
pend all intellectual exertion ; as to money, you will get
it easily enough. You may easily make twice the money
you receive from Stuart by the use of the scissors; for
your name is prodigiously high among the London pub¬
lishers. I would to God your health permitted you to
come to London. You might have lodgings in the same
house with us. And this I am certain of, that not even
Kingsdown is a more healthy or airy place. I have
enough for us to do that would be mere child's work to
us, and in which the women might assist us essentially,
by the doing of which we might easily get a hundred and
fifty pounds each before the first of April. This I speak,
not from guess but from absolute conditions with book¬
sellers. The principal work to which I allude would be
likewise a great source of amusement and profit to us in
the execution, and assuredly we should be a mutual com¬
fort to each other. This I should press on you were not
Davy at Bristol, but he is indeed an admirable young
man; not only must he be of comfort to you, but in
whom can you place such reliance as a medical man ?
But for Davy, I should advise your coming to London ;
the difference of expense for three months could not be
above fifty pounds. I do not see how it could be half as
much. But I pray you write me all particulars, how
you have been, how you are, and what you think the par¬
ticular nature of your disease.
Now for poor George.1 Assuredly I am ready and
willing to become his bondsman for five hundred pounds
if, on the whole, you think the scheme a good one. I see
enough of the boy to be fully convinced of his goodness
and well-intentionedness; of his present or probable
talents I know little. To remain all bis life an under
clerk, as many have done, and earn fifty pounds a year in
his old age with a trembling hand — alas! that were a
dreary prospect. No creature under the sun is so helpless,
1 George Fricker, Mrs. Coleridge's younger brother.
316 FROM SOUTH TO NORTH [Dec.
so unfitted, I should think, for any other mode of life as a
clerk, a mere clerk. Yet still many have begun so and
risen into wealth and importance, and it is not impossible
that before his term closed we might be able, if nought
better offered, perhaps to procure him a place in a public
office. We might between us keep him neat in clothes
from our own wardrobes, I should think, and I am ready
to allow five guineas this year, in addition to Mr. Savary's
twelve pounds. More I am not justified to promise. Yet
still I think it matter of much reflection with you. The
commercial prospects of this country are, in my opinion,
gloomy ; our present commerce is enormous : that it must
diminish after a peace is certain, and should any accident
injure the West India trade, and give to France a para-
mountship in the American affections, that diminution
would be vast indeed, and, of course, great would be the
number of clerks, etc., wholly out of employment. This is
no visionary speculation; for we are consulting concerning
a Iife, for probably fifty years. I should have given a more
intense conviction to the goodness of the former scheme
of apprenticing him to a printer, and would make every
exertion to raise my share of the money wanting. How¬
ever, all this is talk at random. I leave it to you to
decide. What does Charles Danvers think? lie has
been very kind to George. But to whom is he not kind,
that body — blood — bone — muscle — nerve —heart and
head — good man! I lay final stress on his opinion in
almost everything except verses; those I know more
about than he does — " God bless him, to use a vulgar
phrase." This is a quotation from Godwin, who used
these words in conversation with me and Davy. The
pedantry of atheism tickled me hugely. Godwin is no
great things in intellect; but in heart and manner he is
all the better for having been the husband of Mary Woll-
stonecraft. Why did not George Dyer (who, by the bye,
1799]
TO ROBERT SOUTIIEY
31T
has written a silly milk-and-water life of you,1 in which
your talents for pastoral and rural imagery are extolled,
and in which you are asserted to be a republican), why
did not George Dyer send to the " Anthology " that poem
in the last " Monthly Magazine ?" It is so very far
superior to anything I have ever seen of his, and might
have made some atonement for his former transgressions.
God love him, he is a very good man; but he ought not
to degrade himself by writing lives of living characters
for Phillips ; and all his friends make wry faces, peeping
out of the pillory of his advertisemental notes. I hold to
my former opinion concerning the arrangement of the
" Anthology," and the booksellers with whom / have
talked coincide with me. On this I am decided, that all
the light pieces should be put together under one title with
a motto 2 thus : " JYos here novimus esse nihil — Phillis
amat Carylos." I am afraid that I have scarce poetic
enthusiasm enough to finish " Christabel;" but the poem,
with which Davy is so much delighted, I probably may
finish time enough. I shall probably not publish my
letters, and if I do so, I shall most certainly not publish
any verses in them. Of course, I expect to see them in
the " Anthology." As to title, I should wish a fictitious
1 A gossiping account of the early
history and writings of " Mr. Robert
Soutliey " appeared in Public Char¬
acters for 17! >9-1800, a humble fore¬
runner of Men of the Time, pub¬
lished by Richard Phillips, the
founder of the Monthly Magazine,
and afterwards knighted as a sheriff
of the city of London. Possibly
Coleridge was displeased at the
mention of his name in connection
with Pantisocracy, and still more by
the following sentence : " The three
young poetical friends, Lovel, Sou¬
tliey, and Coleridge, married three
sisters. Soutliey is attached to do¬
mestic life, and, fortunately, was
very happy in his matrimonial con¬
nection." It was Sir Richard Phil¬
lips, the "knight" of Coleridge's
anecdote, who told Mrs. Barbauld
that he would have given " nine
guineas a sheet for the last hour
and a half of his conversation."
Letters, Conversations, etc., 1836, ii.
131, 132.
2 " These various pieces were rear¬
ranged in three volumes under the
title of Minor Poems, in 1815, with
this motto, Nos hiec novimus esse
nihil." Poetical Works of liobert
Southey, 1837, ii., xii.
318
FROM SOUTH TO NORTH
[Dec.
one or none ; were I sure that I could finish the poem I
spoke of. I do not know how to get the conclusion of
Mrs. Robinson's poem for you. Perhaps it were better
omitted, and I mean to put the thoughts of that concert
poem into smoother metre. Our " Devil's Thoughts "
have been admired far and wide, most enthusiastically
admired. I wish to have my name in the collection at all
events ; but I should better like it to better poems than
these I have been hitherto able to give you. But I will
write again on Saturday. Supposing that Johnson should
mean to do nothing more with the " Fears in Solitude "
and the two accompanying poems, would they be excluded
from the plan of your " Anthology ? " There were not
above two hundred sold, and what is that to a newspaper
circulation ? Collins's Odes were thus reprinted in Dods-
ley's Collection. As to my future residence, I can say
nothing — only this, that to be near you would be a
strong motive with me for my wife's sake as well as my¬
self. I think it not impossible that a number might be
found to go with you and settle in a warmer climate.
My kind love to yonr wife. Sara and Hartley arrived
safe, and here they are, No. 21 Buckingham Street,
Strand. God bless you, and your affectionate
S. T. Coleridge.
Thursday evening.
P. S. Mary Hayes1 is writing the " Lives of Famous
Women," and is now about your friend Joan. She begs
you to tell her what books to consult, or to communicate
something to her. This from Tobin, who sends his love.
1 Mary Hayes, a friend of Mary moirs of Emma Courtney, and Fe-
Wollstonecraft, whose opinions she male Biography, or Memoirs of Illus-
advocated with great zeal, and trious and Celebrated Women. Six
whose death she witnessed. Among volumes. London : R. Phillips,
other works, she wrote a novel, Me- 1803.
1799]
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
319
civ. to the same.
Tuesday night, 12 o'clock [December 24], 1799.
My dear Southey, — My Spinosism (if Spinosism it
be, and i' faith't is very like it) disposed me to consider
tliis big city as that part of tlie supreme One which the
prophet Moses was allowed to see — I should be more dis¬
posed to pull off my shoes, beholding Him in a Bush, than
while I am forcing my reason to believe that even in the¬
atres lie is, yea! even in the Opera House. Your " Tlxal-
aba " will beyond all doubt bring you two hundred pounds,
if you will sell it at once; but do not print at a venture,
under the notion of selling the edition. I assure you that
Longman regretted the bargain he made with Cottle con-
o O O
cerning the second edition of the " Joan of Arc," and is
indisposed to similar negotiations ; but most and very eager
to have the property of your works at almost any price.
If you have not heard it from Cottle, why, you may hear
it from me, that is, the arrangement of Cottle's affairs in
London. The whole and total copyright of your "Joan,"
and the first volume of your poems (exclusive of what
Longman had before given), was taken by him at three
hundred and seventy pounds. You are a strong swimmer,
and have borne up poor Joey with all his leaden weights
about him, his own and other people's! Nothing has an¬
swered to him but your works. By me he has lost some¬
what — by Fox, Amos, and himself very much. I can sell
your " Thalaba " quite as well in your absence as in your
presence. I am employed from I-rise to I-set1 (that is,
from nine in the morning to twelve at night), a pure scrib¬
bler. My mornings to booksellers' compilations, after din¬
ner to Stuart, who pays all my expenses here, let them be
what they will; the earnings of the morning go to make
up an hundred and fifty pounds for my year's expendi¬
ture ; for, supposing all clear my year's (1800) allowance
1 He used the same words in a 1799. Thomas Poole and his Friends,
letter to Poole dated December 31, i. 1.
320 FROM SOUTH TO NORTH [Dec.
is anticipated. But this I can do by the first of April (at
which time I leave London). For Stuart I write often
his leading paragraphs on Secession, Peace, Essay on the
new French Constitution,1 Advice to Friends of Freedom,
Critiques 011 Sir W. Anderson's Nose, Odes to Georgiana
D.of D. (horribly misprinted), Christmas Carols, etc., etc.,
— anything not bad in the paper, that is not yours, is
mine. So if any verses there strike you as worthy the
" Anthology," " do me the honour, sir ! " However, in the
course of a week I clo mean to conduct a series of essays
in that paper which may be of public utility. So much
for myself, except that I long to be out of London; and
that my Xstmas Carol is a quaint performance, and, in as
strict a sense as is possible, an Impromptu, and, had I done
all I had planned, that " Ode to the Duchess " 2 would have
been a better thing than it is — it being somewhat dull¬
ish, etc. I have bought the " Beauties of the Anti-jaco¬
bin," and attorneys and counsellors advise me to prosecute,
and offer to undertake it, so as that I shall have neither
trouble or expense. They say it is a clear case, etc.3 I
1 " Essay on the New French Con¬
stitution," Essays on His Own Times,
i. 183-189.
2 The Ode appeared in the Morn¬
ing Post, December 24, 1799. The
stanzas in which the Duchess com¬
memorated her passage over Mount
St. Gothard appeared in the Morn¬
ing Post, December 21. They were
inscribed to her children, and it was
the last stanza, in which she antici¬
pates her return, which suggested to
Coleridge the far-fetched conceit
that maternal affection enabled the
Duchess to overcome her aristocratic
prejudices, and "hail Tell's chapel
and the platform wild." It runs
thus:—
Hope of my life ! dear children of my heart!
That anxious heart to each fond feeling
true,
To you still pants each pleasure to impart,
And soon — oh transport — reach its home
and you.
From a transcript in my possession
of which the opening lines are in the
handwriting of Mrs. II. N. Cole¬
ridge.
3 The libel of which Coleridge
justly complained was contained in
these words : " Since this time (that
is, since leaving Cambridge) he has
left his native country, commenced
citizen of the world, left his poor
children fatherless and his wife des¬
titute. Ex his disce his friends
Lamb and Soutliey." Biographia
Literaria, 1817, vol. i. chapter i. p.
70, n.
1799]
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
321
will speak to Johnson about the " Fears in Solitude." If
he gives them up they are yours. That dull ode has been
printed often enough, and may now be allowed to " sink
with dead swoop, and to the bottom go," to quote an ad¬
mired author; but the two others will do with a little
trimming.
My dear Soutliey! I have said nothing concerning that
which most oppresses me. Immediately on my leaving
London I fall to the " Life of Lessing; " till that is done,
till I have given the Wedgwoods some proof that I am
endeavouring to do well for my fellow-creatures, I cannot
stir. That bemg done, I would accompany you, and see
no impossibility of forming a pleasant little colony for a
few years in Italy or the South of France. Peace will
soon come. God love you, my dear Soutliey! I would
write to Stuart, and give up his paper immediately. You
should do nothing that did not absolutely please you. Be
idle, be very idle ! The habits of your mind are such that
you will necessarily do much; but be as idle as you can.
Our love to dear Edith. If you see Mary, tell her that
we have received our trunk. Hartley is quite well, and
my talkativeness is his, without diminution on my side.
'T is strange, but certainly many things go in the blood,
beside gout and scropliula. Yesterday I dined at Long¬
man's and met Pratt, and that honest piece of prolix dull-
ity and nullity, young Towers, who desired to be remem¬
bered to you. To-morrow Sara and I dine at Mister
Gobwin's, as Hartley calls him, who gave the philosopher
such a rap on the shins with a ninepin that Gobwin in
huge pain lectured Sara on his boisterousness. I was not
at home. Est modus in rebus. Moshes is somewhat too
rough and noisy, but the cadaverous silence of Godwin's
children is to me quite catacombish, and, thinking of Mary
Wollstonecraft, I was oppressed by it the day Davy and I
dined there.
God love you and S. T. Coleridge.
322
FROM SOUTH TO NORTH
[Jan.
cv. to the same.
Saturday, January 25, 1800.
My dear Southey, — No day passes in which I do not
as it were yearn after you, but in truth my occupations
have lately swoln above smothering point. I am over
mouth and nostrils. I have inclosed a poem which Mrs.
Robinson gave me for your " Anthology." She is a wo¬
man of undoubted genius. There was a poem of hers in
this morning's paper which both in metre and matter
pleased me much. She overloads everything; but I never
knew a human being with so full a mind-—bad, good,
and indifferent, I grant you, but full and overflowing.
This poem I ashed for you, because I thought the metre
stimulating and some of the stanzas really good. The
first line of the twelfth would of itself redeem a worse
poem.1 I think you will agree with me, but should you
not, yet still put it in, my dear fellow! for my sake, and
out of respect to a woman-poet's feelings. Miss Hayes I
have seen. Charles Lloyd's conduct has been atrocious
beyond what you stated. Lamb himself confessed to me
that during the time in which he kept up his ranting, sen¬
timental correspondence with Miss Hayes, he frecpiently
read her letters in company, as a subject for laughter, and
then sate down and answered tliem quite a la Housseau !
Poor Lloyd ! Every hour new-creates him ; he is his own
posterity in a perpetually flowing series, and his body un¬
fortunately retaining an external identity, their mutual
contradictions and disagreeing^ are united under one name,
and of course are called lies, treachery, and rascality! I
would not give him up, but that the same circumstances
which have wrenched his morals prevent in him any salu-
1 Mrs. Robinson (" Perdita ") con- cauglit Coleridge's fancy, the first of
tributed two poems to the Annual An- the twelfth stanza, runs thus : —
thology of 1800, " Jasper " and " The " Pale Moon ! thou Spectre of the Sky."
Haunted Beach." The line which Annual Anthology, 1800, p. 108.
1800]
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
323
tary exercise of genius. And therefore he is not worth to
the world that I should embroil and embrangle myself in
his interests.
Of Miss Hayes' intellect I do not think so highly as you,
or rather, to speak sincerely, I think not contemptuously
but certainly despeciively thereof. Yet I think you likely
in this case to have judged better than I; for to hear a
thing, ugly and petticoated, ex-syllogize a God with cold¬
blooded precision, and attempt to run religion through the
body with an icicle, an icicle from a Scotch Ilog-trough !
I do not endure it; my eye beholds phantoms, and " no¬
thing is, but what is not."
By your last I could not find whether or no you still
are willing to execute the " History of the Levelling Prin¬
ciple." Let me hear. Tom Wedgwood is going to the
Isle of St. Nevis. As to myself, Lessing out of the ques¬
tion ; I must stay in England. . . . Dear Hartley is well,
and in high force ; he sported of his own accord a theolo-
gico-astronomical hypothesis. Having so perpetually heard
of good boys being put up into the sky when they are dead,
and being now beyond measure enamoured of the lamps in
the streets, he said one night coming through the streets,
" Stars are dead lamps, they be'nt naughty, they are put
up in the sky." Two or three weeks ago he was talking
to himself while I was writing, and I took down his solilo¬
quy. It would make a most original poem.
You say, I illuminize. I think that property will some
time or other be modified by the predominance of intellect,
even as rank and superstition are now modified by and
subordinated to property, that much is to be hoped of the
future ; but first those particular modes of property which
more particularly stop the diffusion must be done away, as
injurious to property itself; these are priesthood and the
too great patronage of Government. Therefore, if to act
on the belief that all things are the process, and that inap¬
plicable truths are moral falsehoods, be to illuminize, why
324
FROM SOUTH TO NORTH
[Jan.
then I illuminize! I know that I have been obliged to
illuminize so late at night, or rather mornings, that eyes
have smarted as if I had allum in eyes ! I believe I have
misspelt the word, and ought to have written Alum; that
aside, 'tis a humorous pun f
Tell Davy that I will soon write. God love him! You
and I, Soutliey! know a good and great man or two in this
world of ours.
God love you, my dear Soutliey, and your affectionate
S. T. Coleridge.
My kind love to Edith. Let me hear from you, and do
not be angry with me that I don't answer your letters
regularly.
cvi. to the same.
(Early in 1800.)
My dear Soutiiey, — I shall give up this Newspaper
business; it is too, too fatiguing. I have attended the
Debates twice, and the first time I was twenty-five hours
in activity, and that of a very unpleasant kind; and the
second time, from ten in the morning till four o'clock the
next morning. I am sure that you will excuse my silence,
though indeed after two such letters from you I cannot
scarcely excuse it myself. First of the book business. I
find a resistance which I did not expect to the cinonymous-
ness of the publication. Longman seems confident that
a work on such a subject without a name would not do.
Translations and perhaps Satires are, he says, the only
works that booksellers now venture on without a name.
He is very solicitous to have your "Thalaba," and wonders
(most wonderful!) that you do not write a novel. That
would be the thing ! and truly, if by no more pains than a
" St. Leon" 1 requires you coidd get four hundred pounds !!
1 St. Leon was published in 1799. William, Godwin, his Friends and
Contemporaries, i. 830.
1800]
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
325
or half the money, I say so too ! If we were together we
might easily toss up a novel, to be published in the name
of one of us, or two, if that were all, and then christen 'em
by lots. As sure as ink flows in my pen, by help of an
amanuensis I could write a volume a week — and Godwin
got four hundred pounds ! for it -— think of that, Master
Brooks. I hope that some time or other you will write a
novel on that subject of yours! I mean the " Iiise and
Progress of a Laugher " — Le Grice in your eye — the
effect of Laughing on taste, manners, morals, and happi¬
ness ! But as to the Jacobin Book, I must wait till I hear
from you. Phillips would be very glad to engage you to
write a school book for him, the History of Poetry in all
nations, about 400 pages; but this, too, must have your
name. Pie would give sixty pounds. If poor dear Bur¬
nett were with you, he might do it under your eye and
with your instructions as well as you or I could do it, but
it is the name. Longman remarked acutely enough, " The
booksellers scarcely pretend to judge the merits of the
booh, but we know the saleableness of the name ! and as
they continue to buy most books on the calculation of a
first edition of a thousand copies, they are seldom much
mistaken; for the name gives them the excuse for sending
it to all the Gemmen in Great Britain and the Colonies,
from whom they have standing orders for new books of
reputation." This is the secret why books published by
country booksellers, or by authors on their own account, so
seldom succeed.
As to my schemes of residence, I am as unfixed as your¬
self, only that we are under the absolute necessity of fixing
somewhere, and that somewhere will, I suppose, be Stowey.
There are all my books and all our furniture. In May I
am under a kind of engagement to go with Sara to Ottery.
My family wish me to fix there, but that I must decline in
the names of public liberty and individual free-agency.
Elder brothers, not senior in intellect, and not sympathis-
326
FROM SOUTH TO NORTH
[Feb.
ing in main opinions, are subjects of occasional visits, not
temptations to a co-townsliip. But if you go to Burton,
Sara and I will waive tlie Ottery plan, if possible, and
spend May and June with you, and perhaps July ; but she
must bo settled in a house by the latter end of July, or the
first week in August. Till we are with you, Sara means
to spend five weeks with the lloskillies, and a week or two
at Bristol, where I shall join her. She will leave London
in three weeks at least, perhaps a fortnight; and I shall
give up lodgings and billet myself free of expense at my
friend Purkis's, at Brentford. This is my present plan.
O my dear Southey! I would to God that your health
did not enforce you to migrate — we might most assuredly
continue to fix a residence somewhere, which might pos¬
sess a sort of centrality. Alfoxden would make two houses
sufficiently divided for unimpinging independence.
Tell Davy that I have not forgotten him, because with¬
out an epilepsy I cannot forget him; and if I wrote to
him as often as I think of him, Lord have mercy on his
pocket!
God bless you again and again.
S. T. Coleridge.
I pass this evening with Charlotte Smith at her house.
cvii. to the same.
[Postmark February 18], 1800.
My dear Southey, — What do you mean by the
words, "it is indeed by expectation " ? speaking of your
state of health. I cannot bear to think of your going to
a strange country without any one who loves and under¬
stands you. But we will talk of all this. I have not a
moment's time, and my head aches. I was up till five
o'clock this morning. My brain is so overworked that I
could doze troublously and with cold limbs, so affected
was my circulation. I shall do no more for Stuart.
1800]
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
327
Read Pitt's speech1 in tlie " Morning Post" of to-day
(February 18, Tuesday). I reported the whole with
notes so scanty, that — Mr. Pitt is much obliged to me.
For, by Heaven, he never talked half as eloquently in his
life-time. He is a stupid, insipid charlatan, that Pitt.
Indeed, except Fox, I, you, or anybody might learn to
speak better than any man in the House. For the next
fortnight I expect to be so busy, that I shall go out of
London a mile or so to be wholly uninterrupted. I do
not understand the Beguin-nings 2 of Holland. Phillips is
a good-for-nothing fellow, but what of that ? He will
give you sixty pounds, and advance half the money now
for a book you can do in a fortnight, or three weeks at
farthest. I would advise }^ou not to give it up so hastily.
Phillips eats 110 flesh. I observe, wittily enough, that
whatever might be thought of innate ideas, there could be
no doubt to a man who had seen Phillips of the existence
of innate beef. Let my " Mad Ox " keep my name.
" Fire and Famine" do just what you like with. I have
1 See " Mr. Coleridge's Report of
Mr. Pitt's Speech in Parliament of
February 17, 1800, On the contin¬
uance of the War with France."
Morning Post, February 18, 1800;
Essays on His Own Times, ii. 293.
See, too, Mrs. H. N. Coleridge's
note, and the report of the speech
in The Times. Ibid. iii. 1009-1019.
The original notes, which Coleridge
took in pencil, have been preserved
in one of his note-books. They
consist, for the most part, of skele¬
ton sentences and fragmentary jot¬
tings. How far Coleridge may have
reconstructed Pitt's speech as he
went along, it is impossible to say,
but the speech as reported follows
pretty closely the outlines in the
note-book. The remarkable de¬
scription of Buonaparte as the " child
and champion of Jacobinism," which
is not to be found in The Times
report, appears in the notes as " the
nursling and champion of Jacobin¬
ism," and, if these were the words
which Pitt used, in this instance,
Coleridge altered for the worse.
2 "The Beguines I had looked
upon as a religious establishment,
and the only good one of its kind.
When my brother was a prisoner at
Brest, the sick and wounded were
attended by nurses, and these women
had made themselves greatly be¬
loved and respected." Soutliey to
Rickman, January 9, 1S0O. Life
and Correspondence, ii. 4(5. It is well
known that Soutliey advocated the
establishment of Protestant orders
of Sisters of Mercy.
328
FROM SOUTH TO NORTH
[Feb.
no wish either way. The " Fears in Solitude," I fear,
is not my property, and I have no encouragement to
think it will be given up, but if I hear otherwise I will
let you know speedily ; in the mean time, do not rely on
it. Your review-plan1 cannot answer for this reason.
It could exist only as long as the ononymous anti-anony-
mists remained in life, health, and the humour, and no
publisher would undertake a periodical publication on so
gossamery a tie. Besides, it really would not be right
for any man to make so many people have strange and
uncomfortable feelings towards him ; which must be the
case, however kind the reviews might be — and what but
nonsense is published ? The author of " Gebir " I can¬
not find out. There are none of his books in town. You
have made a sect of Gebirites by your review, but it was
not a fair, though a very kind review. I have sent a
letter to Mrs. Fricker, which Sara directed to you. I
hope it has come safe. Let me see, are there any other
questions ?
So, my dear Southey, God love you, and never, never
cease to believe that I am affectionately yours,
S. T. Coleridge.
Love to Edith.
cviii. to the same.
No. 21 Buckingham Street [early in 1800].
My dear Southey, — I will see Longman on Tues¬
day, at the farthest, but I pray you send me up what you
have done, if you can, as I will read it to him, unless he
will take my word for it. But we cannot expect that he
will treat finally without seeing a considerable specimen.
Send it by the coach, and be assured that it will be as
1 In a letter from Southey to the Levelling' Principle," which
Coleridge, dated February 15, 1800 Coleridge had suggested as a joint
(unpublished), he proposes the es- work, he would only publish anony-
tablisliment of a Magazine with mously.
signed articles. But a " History of
1800]
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
329
safe as in your own escritoire, and I will remit it the
very day Longman or any bookseller has treated for it
satisfactorily. Less than two hundred pounds I would
not take. Ilave you tried warm bathing in a high tem¬
perature ? As to your travelling, your first business
must, of course, be to settle. The Greek Islands 1 and
Turkey in general are one continued Hounslow Heath,
only that the highwaymen there have an awkward habit
of murdering people. As to Poland and Hungary, the
detestable roads and inns of them both, and the severity
of the climate in the former, render travelling there little
suited to your state of health. Oh ! for peace and the
South of France ! What a detestable villainy is not the
new Constitution.2 I have written all that relates to it
which has appeared in the " Morning Post;" and not
without strength or elegance. But the French are chil¬
dren.3 'T is an infirmity to hope or fear concerning
them. I wish they had a king again, if it were only that
Sieyes and Bonaparte might be hung. Guillotining is
too republican a death for such reptiles! You '11 write
another quarter for Mr. Stuart? You will torture your-
1 See Letter from Southey to and inflexible, who should have lev-
Coleridge, December 27, 1799. Life elled the property of France, and
and Correspondence, ii. 35. then would the Republic have been
2 " Concerning the French, I wish immortal — and the world must
Bonaparte had staid in Egypt and have been revolutionized by exam-
that Robespierre had guilloteened pie." From an unpublished letter
Siey&s. These cursed complex gov- from Southey to Coleridge, dated
ernments are good for nothing, and December 23, 1799.
will ever be in the hands of in- 3 " Alas, poor human nature ! Or
triguers : the Jacobins were the men, rather, indeed, alas, poor Gallic na-
and one house of representatives, ture! For rpaToi del iralSes the
lodging the executive in committees, French are always children, and it
the plain and common system of is an infirmity of benevolence to
government. The cause of repub- wish, or dread, aught concerning
licanism is over, and it is now only them." S. T. C., Morning Post,
a struggle for dominion. There December 31, 1797; Essays on His
wants a Lycurgus after Robespierre, Own Times, i. 184.
a man loved for his virtue, and bold
330
FROM SOUTH TO NORTH
[Feb.
self for twelve or thirteen guineas ? I pray you do not
do so ! You might get without the exertion, and with but
little more expenditure of time, from fifty to an hundred
pounds. Thus, for instance, bring together on your table,
or skim over successively Briicker, Lardner's " History
of Heretics," Russell's "Modern Europe," and Andrews'
" History of England," and write a history of levellers
and the levelling principle under some goodly title, nei¬
ther praising or abusing them. Lacedannoii, Crete, and
the attempts at agrarian laws in Rome -— all these you
have by heart. . . . Plato and Zeno are, I believe, nearly
all that relates to the purpose in Briicker. Lardner's
is a most amusing book to read. Write only a sheet
of letter paper a day, which you can easily do in an
hour, and in twelve weeks you will have produced (with¬
out any toil of brains, observing none but chronological
arrangement, and giving you little more than the trouble
of transcription) twenty - four sheets octavo. I will
gladly write a philosophical introduction that shall en¬
lighten without offending, and therein state the rise of
property, etc. For this you might secure sixty or seventy
guineas, and receive half the money on producing the first
eight sheets, in a mouth from your first commencement of
the work. Many other works occur to me, but I mention
this because it might be doing great good, inasmuch as
boys and youths would read it with far different impres¬
sions from their fathers and godfathers, and yet the latter
find nothing alarming in the nature of the work, it being
purely historical. If I am not deceived by the recency
of their date, my " Ode to the Duchess " and my " Xmas
Carol " will do for your " Anthology." I have therefore
transcribed them for you. But I need not ask you, for
God's sake, to use your own judgment without spare.
(No signature.)
1800]
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
331
CIX. TO THE SAME.
February 28, 1800.
It goes to my heart, my dear Southey! to sit down and
write to you, knowing that I can scarcely fill half a side
— the postage lies on my conscience. I am translating
manuscript plays of Schiller.1 They are poems, full of
long speeches, in very polisli'd blank verse. The theatre!
the theatre ! my dear Southey! it will never, never, never
do ! If you go to Portugal, your History thereof ivill do,
but, for present money, novels or translations. I do not
see that a book said by you in the preface to have been
written merely as a book for young persons could injure
your reputation more than Milton's " Accidence " injured
his. I would do it, because you can do it so easily. It
is not necessary that you should say much about French
or German Literature. Do it so. Poetry of savage na¬
tions — Poetry of rudely civilized — Homer and the He¬
brew Poetry, etc. — Poetry of civilized nations under
Republics and Polytheism, State of Poetry under the Ro¬
man and Greek Empires — Revival of it in Italy, in Spain,
and England — then go steadily on with England to the
end, except one chapter about German Poetry to conclude
with, which I can write for you.
In the " Morning Post" was a poem of fascinating
metre by Mary Robinson; 'twas on Wednesday, Feb.
26, and entitled the " Haunted Beach." 2 I was so struck
with it that I sent to her to desire that [it] might be pre¬
served in the "Anthology." She was extremely flattered
by the idea of its being there, as she idolizes you and your
doings. So, if it be not too late, I pray you let it be in. If
you should not have received that day's paper, write im-
1 See Poetical Works, Appendix K, And mark'd his Murderer wash his hand
pp. 544, 545. Editor's Note, pp. Where thn gn'mi billows Pliiyed ! "
G4(5-()4<). Annual Anthology, 181)0: "The
2 " The winter Moon upon the sand Haunted 13each, ' sixth stanza, p.
A silvery Carpet made, 25G.
And mark'd the sailor reach the land —
332
FROM SOUTH TO NORTH
[Feb.
mediately tliat I may transcribe it. It falls off sadly to
the last, wants tale and interest; but the images are new
and very distinct — that " silvery carpet " is so just that
it is unfortunate it should seem so bad, for it is really
good; but the metre, ay ! that woman has an ear. Wil¬
liam Taylor, from whom I have received a couple of let¬
ters full of thought and information, says what astounded
me, that double rhymes in our language have always a
ludicrous association. Mercy on the man ! where are his
ears and feelings? His taste cannot be quite right, from
this observation ; but he is a famous fellow — that is not
to be denied.
Sara is poorly still. Hartley rampant, and emperorizes
with your pictures. Harry is a fine boy. Hartley told a
gentleman, " Metinks you are like Southey," and he was
not wholly unlike you — but the chick calling you simple
" Southey," so pompously!
God love you and your Edith.
S. T. Coleridge.
CHAPTER VI
A LAKE POET
1800-1803
CHAPTER VI
a lake poet
1800-1803
cx. to thomas poole.
August 14, 1800.
My dear Poole, —Your two letters1 I received exactly
four days ago — some days they must have been lying at
Ambleside before tliey were sent to Grasmere, and some
days at Grasmere before tliey moved to Keswick. ... It
grieved me that you had felt so much from my silence.
Believe me, I have been harassed with business, and shall
remain so for the remainder of this year. Our house is a
delightful residence, something less than half a mile from
the lake of Keswick and something more than a furlong
from the town. It commands both that lake and the lake
of Bassenthwaite. Skiddaw is behind us ; to the left, the
right, and in front mountains of all shapes and sizes. The
waterfall of Lodore is distinctly visible. In garden, etc.,
we are uncommonly well off, and our landlord, who re¬
sides next door in this twofold house, is already much
attached to us. He is a quiet, sensible man, with as large
a library as yours, — and perhaps rather larger, — well
stored with encyclopaedias, dictionaries, and histories, etc.,
all modern. The gentry of the country, titled and unti¬
tled, have all called or are about to call on me, and I shall
1 These letters, under tlie title of tion to No. III. of " Farmers," "In
" Monopolists " and " Farmers," ap- what manner they are affected by
peared in the Morning Post, Oeto- the War " Essays on His Own Times,
her 3-!), 1800. Coleridge wrote the ii. 413—450; Thomas Poole and his
first of the series, and the introduc- Friends, ii. 15, 10.
336
A LAKE POET
[Oct.
have free access to the magnificent library of Sir Gilfrid
Lawson. I wish you could come here in October after
your harvesting, and stand godfather at the christening
of my child. In October the country is in all its blaze of
beauty.
We are well and the Wordsworths are well. The two
volumes of the " Lyrical Ballads " will appear in about a
fortnight or three weeks. Sara sends her best kind love
to your mother. IIow much we rejoice in lier health I
need not say. Love to Ward, and to Chester, to whom I
shall write as soon as I am at leisure. I was standing- at
the very top of Skiddaw, by a little shed of slate stones
011 which I had scribbled with a bit of slate my name
among the other names. A lean-expression-faced man
came up the hill, stood beside me a little while, then, on
running over the names, exclaimed, " Coleridge ! I lay my
life that is the poet Coleridge ! "
God bless you, and for God's sake never doubt that I
am attached to you beyond all other men.
S. T. Coleridge.
cxi. to sir ii. davy.
Thursday night, October 9, 1800.
My dear Davy, — I was right glad, glad with a stag¬
ger of the heart, to see your writing again. Many a mo¬
ment have I had all my France and England curiosity
suspended and lost, looking in the advertisement front
column of the " Morning Post Gazeteer " for Mr. Davy s
Galvanic habitudes of charcoal. — Upon my soul I be¬
lieve there is not a letter in those words round which a
world of imagery does not circumvolve ; your room, the
garden, the cold bath, the moonlight rocks, Barristed,
Moore, and simple-looking Frere, and dreams of wonderful
things attached to your name, — and Skiddaw, and Glara-
mara, and Eagle Crag, and you, and Wordsworth, and me,
on the top of them! I pray you do write to me imme-
1800]
TO SIR H. DAVY
337
diately, and tell me what you mean by the possibility of
your assuming a new occupation. Have you been suc¬
cessful to the extent of your expectations in your late
chemical inquiries ?
As to myself, I am doing little worthy the relation.
I write for Stuart in the " Morning Post," and I am
compelled by the god Pecunia — which was one name of
the supreme Jupiter — to give a volume of letters from
Germany, which will be a decent lounge book, and not
an atom more. The " Christabel " was running up to
1,300 lines,1 and was so much admired by TTordsworth,
that he thought it indelicate to print two volumes with
his name, in which so much of another man's was in¬
cluded ; and, which was of more consequence, the poem
was in direct oj)positioii to the very purpose for which
the lyrical ballads were published, viz., an experiment to
see how far those passions which alone give any value to
extraordinary incidents were capable of interesting, in and
for themselves, in the incidents of common life. We
mean to publish the " Christabel," therefore, with a long
blank-verse poem of Wordsworth's, entitled " The Ped¬
lar." 2 I assure you I think very differently of " Christa¬
bel." I would rather have written " Ruth," and " Nature's
Lady," than a million such poems. But why do I calum¬
niate my own spirit by saying " I would rather " ? God
knows it is as delightful to me that they are written.
I know that at present, and I hope that it will be so;
my mind has disciplined itself into a willing exertion of
its powers, without any reference to their comparative
value.
1 It is impossible to explain tliis it ever existed, lias never come to
statement, which was repeated in a light. See Mr. Dykes Campbell's
letter to Josiali Wedgwood, dated valuable and exhaustive note on
November 1, 1800. The printed "Christabel," Poetical IForta, pp.
" Christabel," even including the con- 601-607.
elusion to Part II., makes only 677 2 A former title of " The Excur-
lines, and the discarded portion, if sion."
338
A LAKE POET
[Oct.
I cannot speak favourably of W.'s health, but, indeed,
he has not done common justice to Dr. Beddoes's kind
prescriptions. I saw his countenance darken, and all his
hopes vanish, when he saw the prescriptions — his scepti¬
cism concerning medicines ! nay, it is not enough scep¬
ticism ! Yet, now that peas and beans are over, I have
hopes that he will in good earnest make a fair and full
trial. I rejoice with sincere joy at Beddoes's recovery.
Wordsworth is fearful you have been much teased by
the printers on his account, but you can sympathise with
him. The works which I gird myself up to attack as
soon as money concerns will permit me are the Life of
Lessing, and the Essay on Poetry. The latter is still
more at my heart than the former: its title would be an
essay on the elements of poetry, — it would be in reality
a disguised system of morals and politics. When you
write, — and do write soon, — tell me how I can get your
essay on the nitrous oxide. If you desired Johnson to
have one sent to Lackington's, to be placed in Mr. Cros-
tliwaite's monthly parcel for Keswick, I should receive it.
Are your galvanic discoveries important ? What do
they lead to ? All this is ultra-crepidation, but would to
Heaven I had as much knowledge as I have sympathy!
My wife and children are well; the baby was dying
some weeks ago, so the good people would have it bap¬
tized ; his name is Derwent Coleridge,1 so called from the
1 " Sunday night, half past ten, sion here recorded," he writes, " I
September 14, 1800, a boy born had eleven convulsion fits. At last
(Bracy). my father took my mother gently
"September 27, 1S00. The child out of the room, and told her that
being very ill was baptized by the she must make up her mind to lose
name of Derwent. The child, hour this child. By and by she heard
after hour, made a noise exactly like the nurse lulling me, and said she
the creaking of a door which is be- would try once more to give me the
ing shut very slowly to prevent its breast." She did so; and from that
creaking." (MS.) S. T. C. time all went well, and the child
My father's life was saved by his recovered,
mother's devotion. " On the occa-
1800]
TO SIR H. DAVY
339
river, for, fronting our liouse, the Greta runs into the Der-
went. Had it been a girl the name should have been
Greta. By the bye, Greta, or rather Grieta, is exactly
the Cocytus of the Greeks. The word, literally rendered
in modern English, is "the loud lamenter;" to griet in
the Cambrian dialect, signifying to roar aloud for grief or
pain, and it does roar with a vengeance! I will say
nothing about spring — a thirsty man tries to think of
anything but the stream when he knows it to be ten miles
off ! God bless you!
Your most affectionate S. T. Coleridge.
cxii. to the same.
October 18, 1800.
My dear Davy, — Our mountains northward end in
the mountain Carrock, — one huge, steep, enormous bulk
of stones, desolately variegated with the heath plant; at
its foot runs the river Calder, and a narrow vale between it
and the mountain Bowscale, so narrow, that in its greatest
width it is not more than a furlong. But that narrow vale
is so green, so beautiful, there are moods in which a man
might weep to look at it. On this mountain Carrock,
at the summit of which are the remains of a vast Druid
circle of stones, I was wandering, when a thick cloud
came on, and wrapped me in such darkness that I could
not see ten yards before me, and with the cloud a storm
of wind and hail, the like of which I had never before
seen and felt. At the very summit is a cone of stones,
built by the shepherds, and called the Carrock Man.
Such cones are on the tops of almost all our mountains,
and they are all called men. At the bottom of the Carrock
Man I seated myself for shelter, but the wind became so
fearful and tyrannous, that I was apprehensive some of
the stones might topple down upon me, so I groped my
way farther down and came to three rocks, placed on
this wise, /C^, each one supported by the other like a
340
A LAKE POET
[Dec.
child's house of cards, and in the hollow and screen which
they made I sate for a long while sheltered, as if I had
been in my own study in which I am now writing: there
I sate with a total feeling worshipping the power and
" eternal link " of energy. The darkness vanished as Toy
enchantment; far off, far, far off to the south, the moun¬
tains of Glaramara and Great Gable and their family
appeared distinct, in deepest, sablest blue. I rose, and
behind me was a rainbow bright as the brightest. I de¬
scended by the side of a torrent, and passed, or rather
crawled (for I was forced to descend on all fours), by
many a naked waterfall, till, fatigued and hungry (and
with a finger almost broken, and which remains swelled
to the size of two fingers), I reached the narrow vale, and
the single house nestled in ash and sycamores. I entered
to claim the universal hospitality of this country ; but
instead of the life and comfort usual in these lonely
houses, I saw dirt, and every appearance of misery—a
pale woman sitting by a peat fire. I asked her for bread
and milk, and she sent a small child to fetch it, but did
not rise herself. I eat very heartily of the black, sour
bread, and drank a bowl of milk, and asked her to per¬
mit me to pay her. "Nay," says she, "we are not so
scant as that — you are right welcome ; but do you know
any help for the rheumatics, for I have been so long ail¬
ing that I am almost fain to die?" So I advised her to
eat a great deal of mustard, having seen in an advertise¬
ment something about essence of mustard curing the
most obstinate cases of rheumatism. But do write me,
and tell me some cure for the rheumatism; it is in her
shoulders, and the small of her back chiefly. I wish
much to go off with some bottles of stuff to the poor
creature. I should walk the ten miles as ten yards.
With love and honour, my dear Davy,
Yours, S. T. Coleridge.
1800]
TO SIR H. DAVY
341
cxiii. to the same.
Gketa Hall, Tuesday night, December 2, 1800.
My dear Davy, — By an accident I did not receive
your letter till tliis evening. I would tliat you liad added
to the account of your indisposition the probable causes
of it. It has left me anxious whether or no you have not
exposed yourself to unwholesome influences in your chem¬
ical pursuits. There are few beings both of hope and
performance, but few who combine the " are " and the
"will be." For God's sake, therefore, my dear fellow,
do not rip open the bird that lays the golden eggs. I
have not received your book. I read yesterday a sort of
medical review about it. I suppose Longman will send
it to me when he sends down the " Lyrical Ballads " to
Wordsworth. I am solicitous to read the latter part.
Did there appear to you any remote analogy between the
case I translated from the German Magazine and tjie
effects produced by your gas ? Did Carlisle 1 ever com¬
municate to you, or has he in any way published his facts
concerning pain which he mentioned when we were with
him ? It is a subject which exceedingly interests me. I
want to read something by somebody expressly on pain,
if only to give an arrangement to my own thoughts,
though if it were well treated I have little doubt it would
revolutionize them. For the last month I have been
trembling on through sands and swamps of evil and
bodily grievance. My eyes have been inflamed to a de¬
gree that rendered reading and writing scarcely possible ;
and, strange as it seems, the act of metre composition, as
I lay in bed, perceptibly affected them, and my voluntary
ideas were every minute passing, more or less transformed
into vivid spectra. I had leeches repeatedly applied to
my temples, and a blister behind my ear — and my eyes
are now my own, but in the place where the blister was,
1 Afterwards Sir Anthony, the distinguished surgeon, 17GS-1840.
342
A LAKE POET
[Dec.
six small but excruciating boils have appeared, and harass
me almost beyond endurance. In tlie mean time my dar¬
ling Hartley lias been taken with a stomach illness, which
has ended in the yellow jaundice; and this greatly alarms
me. So much for the doleful! Amid all these changes,
and humiliations, and fears, the sense of the Eternal
abides in me, and preserves unsubdued my cheerful faith,
that all I endure is full of blessings!
At times, indeed, I would fain be somewhat of a more
tangible utility than I am; but so I suppose it is with all
of us — one while cheerful, stirring, feeling in resistance
nothing but a joy and a stimulus ; another while drowsy,
self-distrusting, prone to rest, loathing our own self-
promises, withering our own hopes — our hopes, the
vitality and cohesion of our being !
I purpose to have " Christabel " published by itself —
this I publish with confidence — but my travels in Ger¬
many come from me now with mortal pangs. Nothing
but the most pressing necessity could have induced me —
and even now I hesitate and tremble. Be so good as to
have all that is printed of " Christabel" sent to me per
post.
Wordsworth has nearly finished the concluding poem.
It is of a mild, unimposing character, but full of beauties
to those sliort-necked men who have their hearts suffi¬
ciently near their heads — the relative distance of which
(according to citizen Tourdes, the French translator of
Spallanzani) determines the sagacity or stupidity of all
bipeds and quadrupeds.
There is a deep blue cloud over the heavens; the lake,
and the vale, and the mountains are all in darkness;
only the summits of all the mountains in long ridges,
covered with snow, are bright to a dazzling excess. A
glorious scene ! Hartley was in my arms the other even¬
ing, looking at the sky; he saw the moon glide into a
large cloud. Shortly after, at another part of the cloud,
1800]
TO THOMAS POOLE
843
several stars sailed in. Says he, " Pretty creatures!
they are going in to see after their mother 1110011."
Remember me kindly to King. Write as often as you
can; but above all things, my loved and honoured dear
fellow, do not give up the idea of letting me and Skiddaw
see you. God love you !
S. T. Coleridge.
Tobin writes me that Thompson 1 has made some lucra¬
tive discovery. Do you know aught about it ? Have
you seen T. Wedgwood since his return ?
cxiv. to thomas poole.
Gketa Hall, Keswick, Saturday night, December 5, 1800.
My dearest Friend, — I have been prevented from
answering your last letter entirely by the state of my
eyes, and my wish to write more fully to you than their
weakness would permit. For the last month and more I
have indeed been a very crazy machine. . . . That con¬
sequence of this long-continued ill-health which I most
regret is, that it has thrown me so sadly behindhand in
the performance of my engagements with the bookseller,
that I almost fear I shall not be able to raise money
enough by Christmas to make it prudent for me to jour¬
ney southward. I shall, however, try hard for it. My
plan was to go to London, and make a faint trial whether
or 110 I could get a sort of dramatic romance, which I
had more than half finished, upon the stage, and from
London to visit Stowey and Gunville. Dear little Hart¬
ley has been ill in a stomach complaint which ended in
the yellow jaundice, and frightened me sorely, as you may
well believe. But, praise be to God, he is recovered and
begins to look like himself. He is a very extraordinary
1 According to Dr. Davy, the ed- ence is to the late Mr. James Thomp-
itor of Fragmentary Remains of Sir son of Clitlieroe.
II. Davy, London, 1858, the refer-
344
A LAKE POET
[Feb.
creature, and if lie live will, I doubt not, prove a great
genius. Derwent is a fat, pretty child, healthy and hun¬
gry. I deliberated long whether I should not call him
Thomas Poole Coleridge, and at last gave up the idea
only because your nephew is called Thomas Poole, and
because if ever it should be my destiny once again to live
near you, I believed that such a name would give pain to
some branches of your family. You will scarcely exact
a very severe account of what a man has been doing who
has been obliged for days and days together to keep his
bed. Yet I have not been altogether idle, having in my
own conceit gained great light into several parts of the
human mind which have hitherto remained either wholly
unexplained or most falsely explained. To one resolution
I am wholly made up, to wit, that as soon as I am a free¬
man in the world of money I will never write a line for
the express purpose of money (but only as believing it
good and useful, in some way or other). Although I am
certain that I have been greatly improving both in know¬
ledge and power in these last twelve mouths, yet still at
times it presses upon me with a painful weight that I have
not evidenced a more tangible utility. I have too much
trifled with my reputation. You have conversed much
with Davy ; he is delighted with you. What do you think
of him ? Is he not a great man, think you ? . . . I and
my wife were beyond measure delighted by your account
of your mother's health. Give our best, kindest loves to
her. Charles Lloyd has settled at Ambleside, sixteen
miles from Keswick. I shall not see him. If I cannot
come, I will write you a very, very long letter, contain¬
ing the most important of the many thoughts and feel¬
ings which I want to communicate to you, but hope to do
it face to face.
Give my love to Ward, and to J. Chester. IIow is
poor old Mr. Rich and his wife ?
God have you ever in his keeping, making life tranquil
1801]
TO SIR H. DAVY
345
to you. Believe me to be what I have been ever, and am,
attached to you one degree more at least than to any other
living man.
S. T. Coleridge.
cxy. to sir h. davy.
February 3, 1801.
My dear Davy, — I can scarcely reconcile it to my
conscience to make you pay postage for another letter.
Oh, what a fine unveiling of modern politics it would be
if there were published a minute detail of all the sums
received by government from the post establishment, and
of all the outlets in which the sums so received flowed out
again! and, on the other hand, all the domestic affections
which had been stifled, all the intellectual progress that
would have been, but is not, on account of the heavy tax,
etc., etc. The letters of a nation ought to be paid for as
an article of national expense. Well! but I did not take
up this paper to flourish away in splenetic politics. A
gentleman resident here, his name Calvert,1 an idle, good-
hearted, and ingenious man, has a great desire to com¬
mence fellow-student with me and Wordsworth in cliem-
1 William, the elder brother of
Raisley Calvert, who left "Words¬
worth a legacy of nine hundred
pounds. In that mysterious poem,
" Stanzas written in my Pocket Copy
of Thomson's Castle of Indolence," it
would seem that Wordsworth begins
witli a blended portrait of himself
and Coleridge, and ends with a blend¬
ed portrait of Coleridge and William
Calvert. Mrs. Joshua Stanger (Mary
Calvert) maintained that " the large
gray eyes " and 11 low-hung lip "
were certainly descriptive of Cole¬
ridge and could not apply to her
father; but she admitted that, in
other parts of the poem, Words¬
worth may have had her father in
his mind. Of this we may be sure,
that neither Coleridge nor Words¬
worth had " inventions rare," or dis¬
played beetles under a microscope.
It is evident that Hartley Coleridge,
who said " that his father's charac¬
ter and habits are here [that is, in
these stanzas] preserved in a livelier
way than in anything that has been
written about him," regarded the
first and not the second half of the
poem as a description of S. T. C.
" The Last of the Calverts," Corn-
hill Magazine, May, 1890, pp. 494-
520.
346
A LAKE POET
[Feb.
istry. He is an intimate friend of Wordsworth's, and lie
has proposed to W. to take a house which he (Calvert)
has nearly built, called Windy Brow, in a delicious situa¬
tion, scarce half a mile from Greta Hall, the residence of
S. T. Coleridge, Esq., and so for him (Calvert) to live
with them, that is, Wordsworth and his sister. In this
case he means to build a little laboratory, etc. Words¬
worth has not quite decided, but is strongly inclined to
adopt the scheme, because he and his sister have before
lived with Calvert on the same footing, and are much
attached to him; because my health is so precarious and
so much injured by wet, and his health, too, is like little
potatoes, 110 great things, and therefore Grasmere (thir¬
teen miles from Keswick) is too great a distance for us
to enjoy each other's society without inconvenience, as
much as it would be profitable for us both ; and, likewise,
because he feels it more necessary for him to have some
intellectual pursuit less closely connected with deep pas¬
sion than poetry, and is of course desirous, too, not to be so
wholly ignorant of knowledge so exceedingly important.
However, whether Wordsworth come or 110, Calvert and
I have determined to begin and go on. Calvert is a man
of sense and some originality, and is, besides, what is well
called a handy man. lie is a good practical mechanic,
etc., and is desirous to lay out any sum of money that is
necessary. You know how long, how ardently I have
wished to initiate myself in chemical science, both for its
own sake and in no small degree likewise, my beloved
friend, that I may be able to sympathise with all that you
do and think. Sympathise blindly with it all I do even
noir, God knows! from the very middle of my heart's
heart, but I would fain sympathise with you in the light
of knowledge. This opportunity is exceedingly precious
to me, as on my own account I could not afford the least
additional expense, having been already, by long and suc¬
cessive illnesses, thrown behindhand so much that for the
1801]
TO SIR H. DAVY
347
next four or five months I fear, let me work as hard as I
can, I shall not be able to do what my heart within me
bums to do, that is, to concentre my free mind to the affin¬
ities of the feelings with words and ideas under the title
of " Concerning Poetry, and the nature of the Pleasures
derived from it." I have faith that I do understand the
subject, and I am sure that if I write what I ought to
do 011 it, the work would supersede all the books of meta¬
physics, and all the books of morals too. To whom shall
a young man utter his pride, if not to a young man
whom he loves ?
I beg you, therefore, my dear Davy, to write me a long-
letter when you are at leisure, informing me : Firstly,
What books it will be well for me and Calvert to pur¬
chase. Secondly, Directions for a convenient little lab¬
oratory. Thirdly, To what amount apparatus would run
in expense, and whether or no you would be so good as
to superintend its making at Bristol. Fourthly, Give
me your advice how to begin. And, fifthly, and lastly,
and mostly, do send a drop of hope to my parched tongue,
that you will, if you can, come and visit me in the spring.
Indeed, indeed, you ought to see this country, this beau¬
tiful country, and then the joy you would send into me !
The shape of this paper will convince you with what
eagerness I began this letter ; I really did not see that it
was not a sheet.
I have been thinking vigorously during my illness, so
that I cannot say that my long, long wakeful nights
have been all lost to me. The subject of my meditations
has been the relations of thoughts to things ; in the lan¬
guage of Hume, of ideas to impressions. I may be truly
described in the words of Descartes: I have been " res
cogitans, id est, dubitans, affirmans, negans, pauca intelli-
gens, multa ignorans, volens, nolens, imaginans etiam, et
sentiens." I please myself with believing that you will re¬
ceive no small pleasure from the result of these broodings,
348
A LAKE POET
[March
although I expect in you (in some points) a determined
opponent, but I say of my mind in this respect: " Manet
imperterritus ille liostem magnanimum opperiens, et mole
sua stat." Every poor fellow lias his proud hour some¬
times, and this I suppose is mine.
I am better in every respect than I was, but am still
very feeble. The weather has been woefully against me
for the last fortnight, having rained here almost inces¬
santly. I take quantities of bark, but the effect is (to ex¬
press myself with the dignity of science) x = 0000000, and
I shall not gather strength, or that little suffusion of bloom
which belongs to my healthy state, till I can walk out.
God bless you, my dear Davy ! and your ever affection¬
ate friend,
S. T. Coleridge.
P. S. An electrical machine, and a number of little
knickknacks connected with it, Mr. Calvert has. — Write.
cxvi. to thomas poole.
Monday, March 16, 1801.
My dear Friend, — The interval since my last letter
has been filled up by me in the most intense study. If I
do not greatly delude myself, I have not only completely
extricated the notions of time and space, but have over¬
thrown the doctrine of association, as taught by Hartley,
and with it all the irreligious metaphysics of modern infi¬
dels — especially the doctrine of necessity. This I have
done ; but I trust that I am about to do more — namely,
that I shall be able to evolve all the five senses, that is,
to deduce them from one sense, and to state their growth
and the causes of their difference, and in this evolvement
to solve the process of life and consciousness. I write
this to you only, and I pray you, mention what I have
written to no one. At Wordsworth's advice, or rather
fervent entreaty, I have intermitted the pursuit. The
1801] TO THOMAS POOLE 349
intensity of thought, ancl the number of minute experi¬
ments with light and figure, have made me so nervous
and feverish that I cannot sleep as long as I ought and
have been used to do ; and the sleep which I have is made j
up of ideas so connected, and so little different from the
operations of reason, that it does not afford me the due
refreshment. I shall therefore take a week's respite, and
make " Christabel " ready for the press ; which I shall
publish by itself, in order to get rid of all my engagements
with Longman. My German Book I have suffered to
remain suspended chiefly because the thoughts which had
employed my sleepless nights during my illness were im¬
perious over me ; and though poverty was staring me in
the face, yet I dared behold my image miniatured in the
pupil of her hollow eye, so steadily did I look her in the
face ; for it seemed to me a suicide of my very soul to
divert my attention from truths so important, which came
to me almost as a revelation. Likewise, I cannot express
to you, dear Friend of my heart! the loathing which I
once or twice felt when I attempted to write, merely for
the bookseller, without any sense of the moral utility of
what I was writing. I shall therefore, as I said, immedi¬
ately publish my " Cliristabel," with two essays annexed to
it, on the "Preternatural" and on "Metre."—This done, I
shall propose to Longman, instead of my Travels (which,
though nearly done, I am exceedingly anxious not to pub¬
lish, because it brings me forward in a personal way, as
a man who relates little adventures of himself to amuse
people, and thereby exposes me to sarcasm and the malig¬
nity of anonymous critics, and is, besides, beneath me, . . .)
I shall propose to Longman to accept instead of these
Travels a work on the originality and merits of Locke,
Ilobbes, and Hume, which work I mean as a pioneer to
my greater work, and as exhibiting a proof that I have
not formed opinions without an attentive perusal of the
works of my predecessors, from Aristotle to Kant.
350
A LAKE POET
[March
I am confident that I can prove that the reputation of
these three men has been wholly unmerited, and I have in
what I have already written traced the whole history of
the causes that effected this reputation entirely to Words¬
worth's satisfaction.
You have seen, I hope, the " Lyrical Ballads." In the
divine poem called "Michael," by an infamous blunder1
of the printer, near twenty lines are omitted in page 210,
which makes it nearly unintelligible. Wordsworth means
to write to you and to send them together with a list of
the numerous errata. The character of the " Lyrical Bal¬
lads " is very great, and will increase daily. They have
extolled them in the " British Critic." Ask Chester (to
whom I shall write in a week or so concerning his German
books) for Greenough's address, and be so kind as to send
it immediately. Indeed, I hope for a long letter from
you, your opinion of the L. B., the preface, etc. You
know, I presume, that Davy is appointed Director of the
Laboratory, and Professor at the Royal Institution ? I
received a very affectionate letter from him on the occa¬
sion. Love to all. We are all well, except, perhaps, my¬
self. Write ! God love you and
S. T. Coleridge.
cxvii. to the same.
Monday, March 23, 1801.
My dear Friend, — I received your kind letter of the
14th. I was agreeably disappointed in finding that you
had been interested in the letter respecting Locke. Those
which follow are abundantly more entertaining and impor¬
tant ; but I have no one to transcribe them. Nay, three
letters are written which have not been sent to Mr. Wedg-
1 On page 210 of vol. ii. of the
second edition of the Lyrical Bal¬
lads (1800), there is a blank space.
The omitted passage, fifteen lines in
all, began with the words, " Though
nought was left undone." Works
of Wordsworth, p. lot, 11. 4—18.
1801]
TO THOMAS POOLE
351
wood,1 because I have no one to transcribe tliem for me,
and I do not wish to be without copies. Of that letter
which you have 1 have no copy. It is somewhat unpleas¬
ant to me that Mr. Wedgwood has never answered my
letter requesting his opinion of the utility of such a work,
nor acknowledged the receipt of the long letter containing
the evidences that the whole of Locke's system, as far as
it was a system, and with the exclusion of those parts only
which have been given up as absurdities by his warmest
admirers, preexisted in the writings of Descartes, in a
far more pure, elegant, and delightful form. Be not
afraid that I shall join the party of the Little-ists. I be¬
lieve that I shall delight you by the detection of their
artifices. JSfoio Mr. Locke was the founder of this sect,
himself a perfect Little-ist.
My opinion is thus : that deep thinking is attainable only
by a man of deep feeling, and that all truth is a species of
1 During tlie preceding month
Coleridge liad busied himself with
instituting a comparison between
the philosophical systems of Locke
and Descartes. Three letters of
prodigious length, dated February
18, 24 (a double letter), and ad¬
dressed to Josiah Wedgwood, em¬
bodied the result of his studies.
They would serve, he thought, as
a preliminary excursus to a larger
work, and would convince the Wedg¬
woods that his wanderjahr had not
been altogether misspent. Mr. Leslie
Stephen, to whom this correspond¬
ence has been submitted, is good
enough to allow me to print the fol¬
lowing extract from a letter which
he wrote at my request: " Coleridge
writes as though he had as yet read
no German philosophy. I knew that
he began a serious study of Kant at
Keswick ; but I fancied that he had
brought back some knowledge of
Kant from Germany. This letter
seems to prove the contrary. There
is certainly none of the transcenden¬
talism of the Schelling kind. One
point is, that he still sticks to Hart¬
ley and to the Association doctrine,
which he afterwards denounced so
frequently. Thus he is dissatisfied
with Locke, but has not broken with
tlie philosophy generally supposed
to be on the Locke line. In short,
he seems to be at the point where
a study of Kant would be ready to
launch him in his later direction,
but is not at all conscious of the
change. When he wrote the Friend
[1809-10] lie had become a Kantian.
Therefore we must, I think, date his
conversion later than I should have
supposed, and assume that it was
the study of Kant just after this
letter was written which brought
about the change."
352
A LAKE POET
[March
revelation. The more I understand of Sir Isaac Newton's
works, the more boldly I dare utter to my own mind, and
therefore to you, that I believe the souls of five hundred
Sir Isaac Newtons would go to the making up of a Shake¬
speare or a Milton. But if it please the Almighty to grant
me health, hope, and a steady mind {always the three clauses
of my hourly prayers), before my thirtieth year I will
thoroughly understand the whole of Newton's works. At
present I must content myself with endeavouring to make
myself entire master of liis easier work, that 011 Optics.
I am exceedingly delighted with the beauty and neatness
of his experiments, and with the accuracy of his immedi¬
ate deductions from them ; but the opinions founded on
these deductions, and indeed his whole theory is, I am
persuaded, so exceedingly superficial as without impropri¬
ety to be deemed false. Newton was a mere materialist.
Mind, in his system, is always passive, ■— a lazy Looker-
on on an external world. If the mind be wot passive, if
it be indeed made in God's Image, and that, too, in the
sublimest sense, the Image of the Creator, there is ground
for suspicion that any system built 011 the passiveness of
the mind must be false, as a system. I need not observe,
my dear friend, how unutterably silly and contemptible
these opinions would be if written to any but to another
self. I assure you, solemnly assure you, that you and
Wordsworth are the only men on earth to whom I would
have uttered a word on this subject.
It is a rule, by which I hope to direct all my literary
efforts, to let my opinions and my proofs go together. It
is insolent to differ from the public opinion in opinion, if
it be only opinion. It is sticking up little i by itself, i
against the whole alphabet. But one word with meaning
in it is worth the whole alphabet togeiner. Such is a
sound argument, an incontrovertible fact.
Oh, for a Lodge in a land where human life was an
end to which labour was only a means, instead of being,
1801]
TO THOMAS POOLE
353
as it is here, a mere means of carrying on labour. I am
oppressed at times with a true heart-gnawing melancholy
when I contemplate the state of my poor oppressed coun¬
try. God knows, it is as much as I can do to put meat
and bread on my own table, and hourly some poor starving
wretch comes to my door to put in his claim for part of it.
It fills me with indignation to hear the croaking account
which the English emigrants send home of America.
O O
" The society so bad, the manners so vulgar, the servants
so insolent! " Why, then, do they not seek out one another
and make a society ? It is arrant ingratitude to talk so of
a land in which tliei*e is 110 poverty but as a consequence
of absolute idleness ; and to talk of it, too, with abuse com¬
paratively with England, with a place where the laborious
poor are dying with grass in their bellies. It is idle to
talk of the seasons, as if that country must not needs be
miserably governed in which an unfavourable season in¬
troduces a famine. No ! 110 ! dear Poole, it is our pesti¬
lent commerce, our unnatural crowding together of men
in cities, and our government by rich men, that are bring¬
ing about the manifestations of offended Deity. I am
assured that such is the depravity of the public mind, that
no literary man can find bread in England except by mis¬
employing and debasing his talents ; that nothing of real
excellence would be either felt or understood. The annu¬
ity which I liold,|jer/f«/>s by a very precarious tenure, will
shortly from the decreasing value of money become less
than one half what it was when first allowed to me. If I
were allowed to retain it, I would go and settle near
Priestley, in America. I shall, no doubt, get a certain
price for the two or three works which I shall next pub¬
lish, but I foresee they will not sell. The booksellers,
finding this, will treat me as an unsuccessful author, that
is, they will employ me only as an anonymous translator
at a guinea a sheet. I have no doubt that I could make
.£500 a year if I liked. But then I must forego all desire
354
A LAKE POET
[May
of trutli and excellence. I say I would go to America if
Wordsworth would go with me, and we could persuade
two or three farmers of this country, who are exceedingly
attached to us, to accompany us. I would go, if the diffi¬
culty of procuring sustenance in this country remain in
the state and degree in which it is at present; not on any
romantic scheme, hut merely because society has become a
matter of great indifference to me. I grow daily more
and more attached to solitude ; but it is a matter of the
utmost importance to be removed from seeing and suffer¬
ing want.
God love you, my dear friend.
S. T. Coleridge.
cxviii. to robert southey.
Greta Hall, Keswick, [May G, 1801].
My dear Southey, — I wrote you a very, very gloomy
letter; and I have taken blame to myself for inflicting
so much pain 011 you without any adequate motive. Not
that I exaggerated anything, as far as the immediate
present is concerned; but had I been in better health
and a more genial state of sensation, I should assuredly
have looked out upon a more cheerful future. Since I
wrote you, I have had another and more severe fit of ill¬
ness, which has left me weak, very weak, but with so calm
a mind that I am determined to believe that this fit was
bona fide the last. Whether I shall be able to pass the
next winter in this country is doubtful; nor is it possible
I should know till the fall of the leaf. At all events, you
will (I hope and trust, and if need were, entreat) spend
as much of the summer and autumn with us as will be in
your power, and if our healths should permit it, I am
confident there will be no other solid objection to our
living together in the same house, divided. We have
ample room, — room enough, and more than enough, and
I am willing to believe that the blessed dreams we dreamt
1801]
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
355
some six years ago may be auguries of something really
noble whieli we may yet perform together.
We wait impatiently, anxiously, for a letter announcing
your arrival. Indeed, the article Falmouth has taken pre¬
cedence of the Leading Paragraph with me for the last
three weeks. Our best love to Edith. Derwent is the
boast of the county; the little river god is as beautiful as
if he had been the child of Venus Anaduomene previous
to her emersion. Dear Hartley ! we are at times alarmed
by the state of his health, but at present he is well. If I
were to lose him, I am afraid it would exceedingly deaden
my affection for any other children I may have.
A little child, a limber elf
Singing, dancing to itself ;
A faery thing with red round cheeks
That always finds, and never seeks,
5 Doth make a vision to the sight,
Which fills a father's eyes with light!
And pleasures flow in so thick and fast
Upon his heart that he at last
Must needs express his love's excess
10 In words of wrong and bitterness.
Perhaps it is pretty to force together
Thoughts so all unlike each other ;
To mutter and mock a broken charm ;
To dally with wrong that does no harm.
15 Perhaps 't is tender, too, and pretty,
At each wild word to feel within
A sweet recoil of love and pity ;
And what if in a world of sin
(Oh sorrow and shame ! should this be true)
20 Such giddiness of heart and brain
Comes seldom, save from rage and pain,
So talks as it's most used to do.1
1 Nothing- is known of these lines to Part II." of Christabel." It is
beyond the fact that in 181(5 Cole- possible that they were intended to
ridge printed them as " Conclusion form part of a distinct poem in the
356
A LAKE POET
[July
A very metaphysical account of fathers calling their
children rogues, rascals, ancl little varlets, etc.
God bless you, my dear Southey! I need not say,
AY rite. S. T. Coleridge.
P. S. AYe shall have peas, beans, turnips (with boiled
leg of mutton), cauliflowers, French beans, etc., etc., end¬
less ! We have a noble garden.
cxix. to the same.
Wednesday, July 22, 1801.
My dear Southey, —Yesterday evening I met a boy
on an ass, winding down (/s picturisk a glen as eye ever
looked at, he and his beast 110 mean part of the picture.
I had taken a liking to the little blackguard at a distance,
and I could have downright hugged him when he gave
me a letter in your handwriting. Well, God be praised !
I shall surely see you once more, somewhere or other. If
it be really impracticable for you to come to me, I will
doubtless do anything rather than not see you, though, in
simple truth, travelling in chaises, or coaches even, for one
day is sure to lay me up for a week. But do, do, for
heaven's sake, come and go the shortest way, however
dreary it be ; for there is enough to be seen when you
get to our house. If you did but know what a flutter the
old moveable at my left breast has been in since I read
your letter. I have not had such a fillip for many months.
My dear Edith; how glad you were to see old Bristol
again!
I am again climbing up that rock of convalescence
from which I have been so often washed off and hurried
metre of " Cliristabel," or, it may be, little cliild, the limber elf," is the
they are the sole survival of an at- four-year-old Hartley, hardly as yet
tempted third part of the ballad " fitting to unutterable thought,
itself. It is plain, however, that the The breeze-like motion, and the self-
picture is from the life, that "the born carol."
1801]
TO ROBERT SOUTIIEY
357
back ; but I have been so unusually well these last two days
that I should begin to look the damsel Hope full in the
face, instead of slieep's-eyeing her, were it not that the
weather has been so unusually hot, and that is my joy.
Yes, sir! we will go to Constantinople; but as it rains
there, which my gout loves as the devil does holy water,
the Grand Turk shall shew the exceeding attachment he
will no doubt form towards us by appointing us his vice¬
roys in Egypt. I will be Supreme Bey of that shower¬
less district, and you shall be my supervisor. But for
God's sake make haste and come to me, and let us talk
of the sands of Arabia while we are floating in our lazy
boat 011 Keswick Lake, with our eyes on massy Skiddaw,
so green and high. Perhaps Davy might accompany you.
Davy will remain unvitiated ; his deepest and most recol-
lectable delights have been in solitude, and the next to
those with one or two whom he loved. He is placed, no
doubt, in a perilous desert of good things ; but he is con¬
nected with the present race of men by a very awful tie,
that of being able to confer immediate benefit on them ;
and the cold-blooded, venom-tootlied snake that winds
around him shall be only his coat of arms, as God of
Healing.
I exceedingly long to see " Tlialaba," and perhaps still
more to read " Madoc " over again. I never heard of any
third edition of my poems. I think you must have con¬
fused it with the L. B. Longman could not surely be so
juncoutlily ill-mannered as not to write to me to know if I
wished to make any corrections or additions. If I am
well enough, I mean to alter, with a devilish sweep of
revolution, my Tragedy, and publish it in a little volume
by itself, with a new name, as a poem. But I have no
heart for poetry. Alas! alas! how should I ? who have
passed nine months with giddy head, sick stomach, and
swoln knees. My dear Soutliey ! it is said that long sick¬
ness makes us all grow selfish, by the necessity which it
358
A LAKE POET
[July
imposes of continuously thinking about ourselves. But
long and sleepless nights are a fine antidote.
Oh, how I have dreamt about you! Times that have
been, and never can return, have been with me on my bed
of pain, and how I yearned towards you in those moments.
I myself can know only by feeling it over again. But
come " strengthen the weak hands, and confirm the feeble
knees. Then shall the lame man leap as a hart, and sor¬
row and sighing shall flee away."
I am here, in the vicinity of Durham, for the purpose of
reading from the Dean and Chapter's Library an ancient
of whom you may have heard, Duns Scotus ! I mean to
set the poor old Gemman on his feet again ; and in order
to wake him out of his present lethargy, I am burning
Locke, Hume, and Ilobbes under his nose. They stink
worse than feather or assafcetida. Poor Joseph ! [Cottle]
he has scribbled away both head and heart. What an af¬
fecting essay I could write 011 that man's character! Had
he gone in his quiet way 011 a little pony, looking about
him with a slieep's-eye cast now and then at a short poem,
I do verily think from many parts of the " Malvern Hill,"
that he would at last have become a poet better than many
who have had much fame, but he would be an Epic, and so
Victorious o'er tlie Danes, I Alfred, preach,
Of my own forces, Chaplain-General! "
. . . Write immediately, directing Mr. Coleridge, Mr.
George Hutchinson's,1 Bishop's Middleliam, Rushiford,
1 George Hutchinson, the fourth probably as agent on the estate of
son of John Hutchinson of Penrith, the " Champion." His first resi-
-was at this time in occupation of land dence after migration was at New
at Bishop's Middleliam, the original Radnor, where he married Margaret
home of the family. He migrated Roberts of Curnellan, but he subse-
into Radnorshire in 1815, being then quently removed into Herefordshire,
about the age of thirty-seven ; but where he resided in many places,
between that date and his leaving latterly at Kingston. He died at
Bishop's Middleliam he had resided his son's house, The Vinery, Here-
for some time in Lincolnshire, at ford, in 1866. It would seem from
Scrivelsby, where he was engaged a letter dated July 25, 1801 (Letter
1801] TO ROBERT SOUTHEY 359
Durham, and tell me when you set off, and I will con¬
trive and meet you at Liverpool, where, if you are jaded
with the journey, we can stay a day or two at Dr. Cromp-
ton's, and cliat a bit with Roscoe and Curry,1 whom you
will like as men far, far better than as writers. O Edith ;
how happy Sara will be, and little Hartley, who uses the
air of the breezes as skipping-ropes, and fat Derwent, so
beautiful, and so proud of his three teeth, that there 's
110 bearing of him !
God bless you, dear Southey, and
S. T. Coleridge.
P. S. Remember me kindly to Danvers and Mrs. Dan-
vers.
[Care of] Mrs. Danvers,
Kingsdown Parade, Bristol.
cxx. to the same.
Durham, Saturday, July 25,1801.
My dear Southey, — I do loathe cities, that's cer¬
tain. I am in Durham, at an inn, — and that, too, I do
not like, and have dined with a large parcel of priests all
belonging to the cathedral, thoroughly ignorant and hard¬
hearted. I have had no small trouble in gaining permis¬
sion to have a few books sent to me eight miles from the
place, which nobody has ever read in the memory of man.
CXX.), that at this time Sarah as " Miss Mary Hutchinson of Wyke-
Hutcliinson kept house for her bro- ham," an adjoining parish,
tlier George, and that Mary (Mrs. [From information kindly sup-
Wordsworth) and Joanna Hutchin- plied to me by Mr. John Hutchinson,
son lived with their elder brother the keeper of the Library of the Mid-
Tom at Gallow Hill, in the parish of die Temple.]
Brompton, near Scarborough. The 1 The historian William Roscoe
register of Brompton Church records (afterwards M. P. for Liverpool),
the marriage of \\ illiam Wordsworth and the physician James Currie, the
and Mary Hutchinson, on October 4, editor and biographer of Burns,
1802 ; but in the notices of marriages were at this time settled at Liver-
in the Gentleman's Magazine, of Oc- pool and on terms of intimacy with
tober, 1802, the latter is described Dr. Peter Crompton of Eaton Hall.
360
A LAKE POET
[Aug.
Now you will think what follows a lie, and it is not. I
asked a stupid haughty fool, who is the Librarian of the
Dean and Chapter's Library in this city, if it had Leib¬
nitz. He answered, " We have 110 Museum in this Li¬
brary for natural curiosities ; but there is a Mathematical
Instrument setter in the town, who shews such animalcula
through a glass of great magnifying powers." Heaven
and earth ! he understood the word " live nits." Well,
I return early to-morrow to Middleham; to a quiet good
family that love me dearly — a young farmer and his
sister, and he makes very droll verses in the northern dia¬
lects and in the metre of Burns, and is a great humourist,
and the woman is so very good a woman that I have
seldom indeed seen the like of her. Death! that every¬
where there should be one or two good and excellent peo¬
ple like these, and that they should not have the power
given 'em ... to whirl away the rest to Hell!
I do not approve the Palermo and Constantinople
scheme, to be secretary to a fellow that would poison you
for being a poet, while he is only a lame verse-maker.
But verily, dear Soutliey! it will not suit you to be under
any man's control, or biddances. What if you were a
consul ? 'T would fix you to one place, as bad as if you
were a parson. It won't do. Now mark my scheme !
St. Nevis is the most lovely as well as the most healthy
island in the W. Indies. Pinney's1 estate is there, and
he has a country-house situated in a most heavenly way,
a very large mansion. Now between you and me I have
reason to believe that not only this house is at my ser¬
vice, but many advantages in a family way that would
go one half to lessen the expenses of living there, and
perhaps Pinney would appoint us sinecure negro-drivers,
at a hundred a year each, or some other snug and repu¬
table office, and, perhaps, too, we might get some office in
1 The Bristol merchant who lent the manor-house of Racedown to Words¬
worth in 1TU5.
1801]
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
3G1
which there is quite nothing- to do under the Governor.
Now I and my family, and you and Edith, and Words¬
worth and his sister might all go there, and make the
Island more illustrious than Cos or Lesbos ! A heavenly
climate, a heavenly country, and a good house. The sea¬
shore so near us, dells and rocks and streams. Do now
think of this. But say nothing about it on account of
old Pinney. Wordsworth would certainly go if I went.
By the living God, it is my opinion that we should not
leave three such men behind us. N. B. I have every
reason to believe Keswick (and Cumberland and West¬
moreland in general) full as dry a climate as Bristol.
Our rains fall more certainly in certain months, but we
have fewer rainy days, taking the year through. As to
cold, I do not believe the difference perceptible by the
human body. But I feel that there is 110 relief for me
in any part of England. Very hot weather brings me
about in an instant, and I relapse as soon as it coldens.
You say nothing of your voyage homeward, or the cir¬
cumstances that preceded it. This, however, I far rather
hear from your mouth than your letters. Come! and
come quickly. My love to Edith, and remember me
kindly to Mary and Martha and Eliza and Mrs. Flicker.
My kind respects to Charles and Mrs. Danvers. Is
Davy with you ? If he is, I am sure he speaks affec¬
tionately of me. God bless you ! Write.
S. T. Coleridge.
cxxi. to the same.
Scarborough, August 1, 1801.
My dear Southey, — On my return from Durham
(I foolishly walked back), I was taken ill, and my left
knee swelled " pregnant with agony," as Mr. Dodsley
says in one of his poems. Dr. Fenwick1 has earnestly
1 In the well-known lines " On re- made to this "mild physician," who
visiting the Sea-shore," allusion is vainly dissuaded him from bathing
362 A LAKE POET [Aug.
persuaded me to try horse-exercise and warm sea-batliing,
and I took the opportunity of riding with Sara Hutchin¬
son to her brother Tom, who lives near the place, where
I can ride to and fro, and bathe with no other expense
there than that of the bath. The fit comes on me either at
nine at night, or two in the morning. In the former case
it continues nine hours, in the latter five. I am often liter¬
ally sicJc with pain. In the daytime, however, I am well,
surprisingly so indeed, considering how very little sleep I
am able to snatch. Your letter was sent after me, and
arrived here this morning, and but that my letter can
reach you on the 5th of this month, I would immediately
set off again, though I arrived here only last night. But
I am unwilling not to try the baths for one week. If,
therefore, you have not made the immediate preparation
you may stay one week longer at Bristol. But if you
have, you must look at the lake, and play with my babies
three or four days, though this grieves me. I do not
like it. I want to be with you, and to meet you even to
the very verge of the Lake Country. I would far rather
that you would stay a week at Grasmere (which is on the
road, fourteen miles from Keswick), with Wordsworth,
than go on to Keswick, and I not there. Oh, how you
will love Grasmere!
All I ever wish of you with regard to wintering at
Keswick is to stay with me till you find the climate in¬
jurious. When I read that cheerful sentence, " We will
climb Skiddaw this year and scale Etna the next," with
a right piteous and humorous smile did I ogle my poor
knee, which at this present moment is larger than the
thickest part of my thigh.
A little Quaker girl (the daughter of the great Quaker
in the open sea. Sea-bathing was to a late period of his life and long
at all times an irresistible pleasure after he had become a confirmed
to Coleridge, and he continued the invalid. Poetical Works, p. 159.
practice, greatly to his benefit, down
1801]
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
363
mathematician Slee, a friend of anti-negro-trade Clarkson,
who has a house at the foot of Ulleswater, which Slee
AVordsworth dined with, a pretty parenthesis !), this little
girl, four years old, happened after a very hearty meal to
eructate, while Wordsworth was there. Her mother
looked at her, and the little creature immediately and/or-
mally observed : " Yan belks when yan's fu, and when
yan's empty." That is, " One belches when one's full
and when one 's empty." Since that time this is a favour¬
ite piece of slang at Grasmere and Greta Hall, whenever
we talk of poor Joey, George Dyer, and other persever-
ants in the noble trade of scribbleism.
Wrangham,1 who lives near here, one of your anthology
friends, has married again, a lady of a neat <£700 a year.
His living by the Inclosure [Act] will be something bet¬
ter than £600, besides what little fortune he had with his
last wife, who died in the first year. His present wife's
cousin observed, " Mr. W. is a lucJcy man : his present
lady is very weakly and delicate." I like the idea of a
man's speculating in sickly wives. It would be no bad
character for a farce.
That letter £ was a kind-hearted, honest, well-spoken
citizen. The three strokes which did for him were, as I
1 Francis Wrangham, whom Cole- He was afterwards appointed to a
ridge once described as " admirer Canonry of York, to the Archdea-
of me and a pitier of my political conry of Cleveland, and finally to a
principles" (Letter to Cottle [April], prebendalstall at Chester. He pub-
1700), was his senior by a few years, lished a volume of Poems (London,
On failing to obtain, it is said on 1795), in which are included Cole-
account of his advanced political ridge's Translation of the "Hende-
views, a fellowship at Trinity Hall, casyllabli ad Bruntonam e Granta
he started taking pupils at Cobham exituram," and some " Verses to Miss
in Surrey in partnership with Basil Brunton with the preceding Trans-
Montagu. The scheme was of short lation." He died in 1842. Poetical
duration, for Montagu deserted tui- JlTorts, p. 30. See, too, Editor's
tion for the bar, and Wrangham, Note, p. 509; Reminiscences of Cam-
early in life, was preferred to the bridge, by Henry Gunning, London,
benefices of Hemmanby and Folkton, 1855, ii. 12 seq.
in the neighborhood of Scarborough.
304 A LAKE POET [Dec.
take it, (1), the Ictus Cardiacus, which devitalized his
moral heart; (2ondly) the stroke of the apoplexy in his
head; and (thirdly) a stroke of the palsy in his right
hand, which produces a terrible shaking and impotence in
the very attempt to reach his breeches pocket. O dear
Southey ! what incalculable blessings, worthy of thanks¬
giving in Heaven, do we not owe to our being and having
been poor! No man's heart can wholly stand up against
property. My love to Edith.
S. T. Coleridge.
cxxii. to thomas toole.
Keswick, September 19, 1801.
By a letter from Davy I have learnt, Poole, that your
mother is with the Blessed. I have given her the tears
and the pang which belong to her departure, and now she
will remain to me forever, what she had long been — a
dear and venerable image, often gazed at by me in imagi¬
nation, and always with affection and iilial piety. She
was the only being whom I ever felt in the relation of
Mother ; and she is with God ! We are all with God !
Wh at shall I say to you ! I can only offer a prayer of
thanksgiving for you, that you are one who has habitu¬
ally connected the act of thought with that of feeling; and
that your natural sorrow is so mingled up with a sense
of the omnipresence of the Good Agent, that I cannot
wish it to be other than what I know it is. The frail
and the too painful will gradually pass away from you,
and there will abide in your spirit a great and sacred
accession to those solemn Remembrances and faithful
Hopes in which, and by which, the Almighty lays deep
the foundations of our continuous Life, and distinguishes
us from the Brutes that perish. As all things pass away,
and those habits are broken up which constituted our own
and particular Self, our nature by a moral instinct cher¬
ishes the desire of an unchangeable Something, and
1801]
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
865
thereby awakens or stirs up anew the passion to promote
permanent good, ancl facilitates that grand business of
our existence —- still further, and further still, to general¬
ise our affections, till Existence itself is swallowed up in
Being, and we are in Christ even as He is in the Father.
It is among the advantages of these events that they
learn us to associate a keen and deep feeling with all the
old good phrases, all the reverend sayings of comfort and
sympathy, that belong, as it were, to the whole human race.
I felt this, dear Poole ! as I was about to write my old
God bless you, and love you for ever and ever !
Your affectionate friend,
S. T. Coleridge.
Would it not be well if you were to change the scene
awhile! Come to me, Poole! No — no — no. You have
none that love you so well as I. I write with tears that
prevent my seeing what I am writing.
cxxiii. to robert southey.
Nether Stowey, Bridgewater, December 31, 1801.
Dear Southey, — On Xmas Day I breakfasted with
Davy, with the intention of dining with you; but I re¬
turned very unwell, and in very truth in so utter a dejec¬
tion of spirits as both made it improper for me to go
anywhitlier, and a most unfit man to be with you. I left
London on Saturday morning, 4 o'clock, and for three
hours was in such a storm as I was never before out in,
for I was atop of the coach — rain, and hail, and violent
wind, with vivid flashes of lightning, that seemed almost
to alternate with the flash-like re-emersions of the waning
moon, from the ever-shattered, ever-closing clouds. How¬
ever, I was armed cap-a-pie in a complete panoply, namely,
in a huge, most huge, roquelaure, which had cost the gov¬
ernment seven guineas, and was provided for the emi¬
grants in the Quiberon expedition, one of whom, falling
866
A LAKE POET
[Feb.
sick, stayed behind and parted with his cloak to Mr.
Ilowel,1 who lent it me. I dipped my head down, shoved
it up — and it proved a complete tent to me. I was as
dry as if I had been sitting by the fire. I arrived at Bath
at eleven o'clock at night, and spent the next day with
Warren, who has gotten a very sweet woman to wife and
a most beautiful house and situation at Whitcomb on the
Hill over the bridge. On Monday afternoon I arrived at
Stowey. I am a good deal better ; but my bowels are by
no means de-revolutionized. So much for me. I do not
know what I am to say to you of your dear mother. Life
passes away from us in all modes and ways, in our friends,
in ourselves. We all " die daily." Heaven knows that
many and many a time I have regarded my talents and
requirements as a porter's burthen, imposing on me the
capital duty of going on to the end of the journey, when
I would gladly lie down by the side of the road, and be¬
come the country for a mighty nation of maggots. For
what is life, gangrened, as it is with me, in its very vitals,
domestic tranquillity ? These things being so, I confess
that I feel for you, but not for the event, as for the event
only by an act of thought, and not by any immediate
shock from the like feeling within myself. When I return
to town I can scarcely tell. I have not yet made up my
mind whether or no I shall move Devon ward. My rela¬
tions wish to see me, and I wish to avoid the uneasy feeling
I shall have, if I remain so near them without gratifying
the wish. No very brotherly mood of mind, I must con¬
fess— but it is, nine tenths of it at least, a work of their
own doing. Poole desires to be remembered to you. Re¬
member me to your wife and Mrs. Lovell.
God bless you and
S. T. Coleridge.
1 " I took a first floor for him in who I knew would nurse Coleridge
King Street, Covent Garden, at my as kindly as if he were her son." D.
tailor's, Howell's, whose wife is a Stuart, Gent. May, 1838. See,
cheerful housewife of middle age, too, Letters from the Lake Poets, p. 7-
1802]
TO HIS WIFE
367
cxxiv. to his wife.
King Street, Covent Garden, [February 24, 1802.]
My dear Love, — I am sure it will make you happy
to hear that both my health and spirits have greatly im¬
proved, and I have small doubts that a residence of two
years in a mild and even climate will, with God's bless¬
ing, give me a new lease in a better constitution. You
may be well assured that I shall do nothing rashly, but
our journey thither I shall defray by letters to Poole and
the \V edgwoods, or more probably addressed to Mawman,
the bookseller, who will honour my drafts in return. Of
course I shall not go till I have earned all the money
necessary for the journey that I can. The plan will be
this, unless you can think of any better. Wordsworth
will marry soon after my return, and he, Mary, and Dor¬
othy will be our companions and neighbours. Southey
means, if it is in his power, to pass into Spain that way.
About July we shall all set sail from Liverpool to Bor¬
deaux. Wordsworth has not yet settled whether he shall
be married from Gallow Ilill or at Grasmere. But they
will of course make a point that either Sarah shall be
with Mary or Mary with Sarah previous to so long a
parting. If it be decided that Sarah is to come to Gras¬
mere, I shall return by York, which will be but a few
miles out of the way, and bring her. At all events, I
shall stay a few days at Derby, — for whom, think you,
should I meet in Davy's lecture-room but Josepli Strutt ?
He behaved most affectionately to me, and pressed me
with great earnestness to pass through Darley (which is
on the road to Derby) and stay a few days at his house
among my old friends. I assure you I was much affected
by his kind and affectionate invitation (though I felt a
little awkward, not knowing ivhovi I might venture to
ask after). I could not bring out the word " Mrs. Evans,"
and so said, " Your sister, sir ? I hope she is well! "
368
A LAKE POET
[July
On Sunday I dined at Sir William Rush's, and on
Monday likewise, and went with them to Mrs. Billing-
ton's Benefit. 'T was the " Beggar's Opera ; " it was
perfection! I seem to have acquired a new sense by
hearing her. I wished you to have been there. I assure
you I am quite a man of fashion; so many titled ac¬
quaintances and handsome carriages stopping at my door,
and fine cards. And then I am such an exquisite judge of
music and painting, and pass criticisms on furniture and
chandeliers, and pay such very handsome compliments to
all women of fashion, that I do verily believe that if I were
to stay three months in town and have tolerable health
and spirits, I should be a Thing in vogue, — the very ton-
is, It poet and Jemmy-Jessamy-fine-talker in town. If you
were only to see the tender smiles that I occasionally
receive from the Honourable Mrs. Damer ! you would
scratch her eyes out for jealousy ! And then there's the
street (N. B. musky) Lady Charlotte ! Nay, but I
won't tell you her name, — you might perhaps take it into
your head to write an anonymous letter to her, and dis¬
trust our little innocent amour.
Oh that I were at Keswick with my darlings ! My
Hartley and my fat Derwent! God bless you, my dear
Sarah! I shall return in love and cheerfulness, and
therefore in pleasurable convalescence, if not in health.
We shall try to get poor dear little Robert into Christ's
Hospital; that wretch of a Quaker will do nothing. The
skulking rogue ! just to lay hold of the time when Mrs.
Lovell was on a visit to Southey; there was such low
cunning in the thought.
Remember me most kindly to Mr. and Mrs. Wilkinson,
and tell Mr. Jackson that I have not shaken a hand since
I quitted him with more esteem and glad feeling than I
shall soon, I trust, shake his with. God bless you, and
your affectionate and faithful husband (notwithstanding
the Honourable Mrs. D. and Lady Charlotte !),
S. T. Coleridge.
1802]
TO W. SOTIIEBY
369
cxxv. TO w. sotiteby.
Greta Hall, Keswick, Tuesday, July 13, 1802.
My dear Sir,—I had written you a letter and was about
to have walked to the post with it when I received yours
from Luff.1 It gave me such lively pleasure that I threw
my letter into the fire, for it related chiefly to the " Erste
Seliiffer " of Gesner, and I could not endure that my first
letter to you should begin with a subject so little interest¬
ing to my heart or understanding. I trust that you are
before this at the end of your journey, and that Mrs. and
Miss Sotheby have so completely recovered themselves as
to have almost forgotten all the fatigue except such in¬
stances of it as it may be pleasant to them to remember.
Why need I say how often I have thought of you since
your departure, and with what hope and pleasurable emo¬
tion ? I will acknowledge to you that your very, very
kind letter was not only a pleasure to me, but a relief to
my mind ; for, after I had left you on the road between
Ambleside and Grasmere, I was dejected by the appre¬
hension that I had been unpardonably loquacious, and
had oppressed you, and still more Mrs. Sotheby, with my
many words so impetuously uttered! But in simple truth,
you were yourselves, in part, the innocent causes of it.
For the meeting with you, the manner of the meeting,
your kind attentions to me, the deep and healthful delight
which every impressive and beautiful object seemed to
pour out upon you ; kindred opinions, kindred pursuits,
kindred feelings in persons whose habits, and, as it were,
walk of life, have been so different from my own, — these
and more than these, which I would but cannot say, all
1 Captain Luff, for many years a were frequent visitors at liis house,
resident, at Patterdale, near Ulleswa- For his account of the death of
ter, was held in esteem for the energy Charles (lough, on Helvellyn, and
with which he procured the enrol- the fidelity of the famous spaniel,
ment of large companies of volun- see Coleorton Letters, i. 97. Letters
teers. Wordsworth and Coleridge from the Lake Poets, p. 131.
370
A LAKE POET
[July
flowed in upon me with unusually strong impulses of
pleasure, — and pleasure in a body and soul such as I
happen to possess " intoxicates more than strong wine."
However, 1 promise to be a much more subdued creature
when you next meet me, for I had but just recovered
from a state of extreme dejection, brought on in part by
ill health, partly by other circumstances; and solitude
and solitary musings do of themselves impregnate our
thoughts, perhaps, with more life and sensation than will
leave the balance quite even. But you, my dear sir !
looked at a brother poet with a brother's eyes. Oh that
you were now in my study and saw, what is now before
the window at which I am writing, — that rich mulberry-
purple which a floating cloud has thrown on the lake,
and that quiet boat making its way through it to the
shore !
We have had little else but rain and squally weather
since you left us till within the last three days. But
showery weather is no evil to us ; and even that most op¬
pressive of all weathers, hot, small drizzle, exhibits the
mountains the best of any. It produced such new com¬
binations of ridges in the Lodore and Borrowdale moun¬
tains on Saturday morning that I declare, had I been
blindfolded and so brought to the prospect, I should
scarcely have known them again. It was a dream such as
lovers have, — a wild and transfiguring, yet enchantingly
lovely dream, of an object lying by the side of the slee^ter.
Wordsworth, who has walked through Switzerland, de¬
clared that he never saw anything superior, perhaps no¬
thing equal, in the Alps.
The latter part of your letter made me truly happy.
Uriel himself should not be half as welcome; and indeed
he, I must admit, was never any great favourite of mine.
I always thought him a bantling of zoneless Italian muses,
which Milton heard cry at the door of his imagination
and took in out of charity. However, come as you may,
1802]
TO W. SOTIIEBY
371
earns mild expectatusque vcnies.1 De coeteris rebus si
quid agendum est, et quicquid sit agendum, ut quam ree-
tissime agantur omni mea curd, opera, diligentia, gratia
providebo?
On my return to Keswick, I reperused the " Erste
Seliiffer " with great attention, and the result was an in¬
creasing disinclination to the business of translating it;
though my fancy was not a little flattered by the idea of
seeing my rhymes in such a gay livery. — As poor Gior¬
dano Bruno 3 says in his strange, yet noble poem, " De
Immenso et Innumerabili," —
" Quam Garymedeo cultu, grapliiceque venustus !
Narcissis referam, peramarunt me quoque Nymphas."
But the poem was too silly. The first conception is
noble, so very good that I am spiteful enough to hope
that I shall discover it not to have been original in Gesner,
— he has so abominably maltreated it. First, the story
is very inartificially constructed. We should have been
let into the existence of the girl by her mother, through
the young man, and after his appearance. This, how¬
ever, is comparatively a trifle. But the machinery is
so superlatively contemptible and commonplace ; as if a
young man could not dream of a tale which had deeply
impressed him without Cupid, or have a fair wind all the
way to an island without iEolus. iEolus himself is a god
devoted and dedicated, I should have thought, to the Muse
of Travestie. His speech in Gesner is not deficient in
fancy, but it is a girlish fancy, and the god of the wind,
exceedingly disquieted with animal love, makes a very
ridiculous figure in my imagination. Besides, it was ill
taste to introduce Cupid and iEolus at a time which we
positively know to have been anterior to the invention
1 Ciceronis Epist. ad Fam. iv. 10. his long philosophical poem, Jor-
2 lb- i- -• dani Brum Xulani de Innumerabili-
3 The lines are taken, with some bus Immenso et Infigurabili; seu de
alterations, from a kind of Venvoy Universe) et Mundis libri octo. Fran-
or epilogue which Bruno affixed to cofurti, 1591, p. 054.
372
A LAKE POET
[July
and establishment of the Grecian Mythology ; and the
speech of xFolus reminds me perpetually of little engrav¬
ing's from the cut stones of the ancients, — seals, and
whatever else they call them. Again, the girl's yearnings
and conversations with him are something between the
nursery and the Veneris volgivagce tempi a, et libhlinem
spirat et subsusurrat, dum innoccntice loquillam, et Vir¬
ginia' cogitationis dulciter offensantis luctamina simulcit.
It is not the thought that a lonely girl could have; but
exactly such as a boarding-school miss, whose imagination,
to say no worse, had been somewhat stirred and heated
by the perusal of French or German pastorals, would sup¬
pose her to say. But this is, indeed, general in the Ger¬
man and French poets. It is easy to clothe imaginary
beings with our own thoughts and feelings ; but to send
ourselves out of ourselves, to think ourselves into the
thoughts and feelings of beings in circumstances wholly
and strangely different from our own, hie labor hoc opus ;
and who has achieved it ? Perhaps only Shakespeare.
Metaphysics is a word that you, my dear sir, are no great
friend to, but yet you will agree with me that a great
poet must be implicite, if not explicite, a profound meta¬
physician. He may not have it in logical coherence in
his brain and tongue, but he must have the ear of a wild
Arab listening in the silent desert, the eye of a North
American Indian tracing the footsteps of an enemy upon
the leaves that strew the forest, the touch of a blind man
feeling the face of a darling child. And do not think me
a bigot if I say that I have read no French or German
writer who appears to me to have a heart sufficiently pure
and simple to be capable of this or anything like it. I
could say a great deal more in abuse of poor Gesner's
poems, but I have said more than I fear will be creditable
in your opinion to my good nature. I must, though, tell
you the malicious motto which I have written in the first
part of Klopstock's " Messias : " —
1802]
TO W. SOTHEBY
373
" Tale tuum carmen nobis, divine poeta !
Quale sopor! "
Only I would have the words divine poeta translated
" verse-making divine." I have read a great deal of Ger¬
man ; but I do dearly, dearly, dearly love my own coun¬
trymen of old times, and those of my contemporaries who
write in their spirit.
William Wordsworth and his sister left me yesterday
on their way to Yorkshire. They walked yesterday to the
foot of Ulleswater, from thence they go to Penrith, and
take the coach. I accompanied them as far as the seventh
milestone. Among the last things which he said to me
was, " Do not forget to remember me to Mr. Sotheby
with whatever affectionate terms so slight an intercourse
may permit; and how glad we shall all be to see him
again! "
I was much pleased with your description of Words¬
worth's character as it appeared to you. It is in a few
words, in half a dozen strokes, like one of Mortimer's1
figures, a fine portrait. The word " homogeneous " gave
me great pleasure, as most accurately and happily ex¬
pressing him. I must set you right with regard to my
perfect coincidence with his poetic creed. It is most cer¬
tain that the heads of our mutual conversations, etc., and
the passages, were indeed partly taken from note of mine ;
for it was at first intended that the preface should be
written by me. And it is likewise true that I warmly
accord with Wordsworth in his abhorrence of these poetic
licenses, as they are called, which are indeed mere tricks
of convenience and laziness. Ex. gr. Drayton has these
lines: —
" Ouse having Ouleney past, as she were waxed mad
From her first stayder course immediately doth gad,
1 John Hamilton Mortimer, 1741- Agincourt, the Conversion of the
177'.». lie painted King John (/rant- Britons, and other historical sub-
ing Magna Charta, the Battle of jects.
374
A LAKE POET
[July
And in meandered gyres doth whirl herself about,
That, this way, here and there, backward in and out.
And like a wanton gill oft doubling in her gait
In labyrinthiau turns and twinings intricate," etc.1
Tlie first poets, observing such a stream as this, would
say with truth and beauty, u it strays /" and now every
stream shall stray, wherever it prattles 011 its pebbled way,
instead of its bed or channel. And I have taken the in¬
stance from a poet from whom as few instances of this
vile, commonplace, trashy style could be taken as from
any writer [namely], from Bowies' execrable translation 2
of that lovely poem of Dean Ogle's (vol. ii. p. 27). I am
confident that Bowles good-naturedly translated it in a
hurry, merely to give him an excuse for printing the
admirable original. In my opinion, every phrase, every
metaphor, every personification, should have its justify¬
ing clause in some passion, either of the poet's mind or of
the characters described by the poet. But metre itself
implies a passion, that is, a state of excitement both in the
poet's mind, and is expected, in part, of the reader; and,
though I stated this to Wordsworth, and he has in some
sort stated it in his preface, yet he has not done justice to
it, nor has he, in my opinion, sufficiently answered it. In
my opinion, poetry justifies as poetry, independent of any
other passion, some new combinations of language and
1 Drayton's Poly-Olbion, Song 22,
1-17.
2 The Latin Iambics, in which
Dean Ogle celebrated the little
Blyth, which ran through his fa¬
ther's park at Ivirkley, near Ponte-
land, deserve the highest praise ;
but Bowles's translation is far from
being execrable. He may not have
caught the peculiar tones of the
Northumbrian burn which awoke
the memories of the scholarly Dean,
but his irregular lines are not with¬
out their own pathos and melody.
Bowles was a Winchester boy, and
Dr. Newton Ogle, then Dean of
Winchester, was one of his earliest
patrons. It was from the Dean's
son, his old schoolfellow, Lieutenant
Ogle, that he claimed to have gath¬
ered the particulars of Coleridge's
discovery at Reading and discharge
from the army. " Poems of William
Lisle Bowles," Galignani, 1829, p. 131 ;
" The Late Mr. Coleridge a Common
Soldier," Times, August 13, 1834.
1802]
TO W. SOTHEBY
375
commands tlie omission of many others allowable in otlier
compositions. Now Wordsworth, me saltern judice, has
in his system not sufficiently admitted the former, and in
his practice has too frequently sinned against the latter.
Indeed, we have had lately some little controversy 011 the
subject, and we begin to suspect that there is somewhere
or other a radical difference in our opinions. Dulce est
inter amicos rarissima dissensionc condere plurimas eon-
sentiones, saitli St. Augustine, who said more good things
than any saint or sinner that I ever read in Latin.
Bless me ! what a letter ! And I have yet to make a
request to you. I have read your Georgics at a friend's
house in the neighbourhood, and in sending for the book,
I find that it belonged to a book-club, and has been re¬
turned. If you have a copy interleaved, or could procure
one for me and will send it to me per coach, with a copy
of your original poems, I will return them to you with
many thanks in the autumn, and will endeavour to im¬
prove my own taste by writing on the blank leaves my
feelings both of the original and your translation. Your
poems I want for another purpose, of which hereafter.
Mrs. Coleridge and my children are well. She desires
to be respectfully remembered to Mrs. and Miss Sotlieby.
Tell Miss Sotlieby that I will endeavour to send her soon
the completion of the " Dark Ladie," as she was good-
natured enough to be pleased with the first part.
Let me hear from you soon, my dear sir ! and believe
me with heartfelt wishes for you and yours, in every-day
phrase, but, indeed, indeed, not with every-day feeling.
Yours most sincerely,
S. T. Coleridge.
I long to lead Mrs. Sotlieby to a scene that has the
grandeur without the toil or danger of Scale Force. It
is called the White Water Dash.1
1 One of a series of falls made by the Dasli Beck, which divides the
376
A LAKE POET
[July
cxxyi. to the same.
Keswick, July 19, 1802.
My dear Sir, — I trouble you with another letter to
inform you that I have finished the First Book1 of the
" Erste Scliiffer." It consists of 530 lines ; the Second
Book will be a hundred lines less. I can transcribe both
legibly in three single-sheet letters ; you will only be so
good as to inform me whither and whether I am to send
them. If they are likely to be of any use to Tomkins he
is welcome to them ; if not, I shall send them to the
" Morning Post." I have given a faithful translation in
blank verse. To have decorated Gesner would have been,
indeed, " to spice the spices; " to have lopped and pruned
someivhat would have only produced incongruity; to have
done it sufficiently would have been to have published a
poem of my own, not Gesner's. I have aimed at nothing
more than purity and elegance of English, a keeping and
harmony in the colour of the style, a smoothness without
parishes of Caldbeck and Skiddaw
Forest, and flows into Bassentlivaite
Lake.
The following- minute description
is from an entry in a note-hook dated
October 10, 1800: —
" The Dash itself is by no means
equal to the Churnmilk (sic) at East-
dale (sic) or the Wytlieburn Fall.
This I wrote standing under and
seeing the whole Dash ; but when I
went over and descended to the bot¬
tom, then I only saw the real Fall
and the curve of the steep slope, and
retracted. It is, indeed, so seen, a
fine thing. It falls parallel with a
fine black rock thirty feet, and is
more shattered, more completely
atomized and white, than any I have
ever seen. . . . The Fall of the Dash
is in a liorse-slioe basin of its own,
wildly peopled with small ashes
standing out of the rocks. Crossed
the beck close by the white pool,
and stood on the other side in a com¬
plete spray -rain. Here it assumes,
1 think, a still finer appearance. You
see the vast rugged net and angular
points and upright cones of the black
rock; the Fall assumes a variety
and complexity, parts rushing in
wheels, other parts perpendicular,
some in white horse-tails, while to¬
wards the right edge of the black
[rock] two or three leisurely fillets
have escaped out of the turmoil."
1 I have been unable to discover
any trace of the MS. of this transla¬
tion.
1802]
TO AY. SOTHEBY
377
monotony in tlie versification. If I liave succeeded, as I
trust I have, in these respects, my translation will be just
so much better than the original as metre is better than
prose, in their judgment, at least, who prefer blank verse
to prose. I was probably too severe on the morals of the
poem, uncharitable perhaps. But I am a downright En¬
glishman, and tolerate downright grossness more patiently
than this coy and distant dallying with the appetites.
" Die pflanzen entstelien aus dem saamen, gewisse thiere
gelien aus dem hervor andre so, andre anders, icli liab es
allcs bemerkt, was liab ich zu thun." Now I apprehend it
will occur to nineteen readers out of twenty, that a maiden
so very curious, so exceedingly inflamed and harassed by
a difficulty, and so subtle in the discovery of even com¬
paratively distant analogies, would necessarily have seen
the difference of sex in her flocks and herds, and the mari¬
tal as well as maternal character could not have escaped
her. Now I avow that the grossness and vulgar plain
sense of Theocritus' shepherd lads, bad as it is, is in my
opinion less objectionable than Gesner's refinement, which
necessarily leads the imagination to ideas without express¬
ing them. Shaped and clothed, the mind of a pure being
would turn away from them from natural delicacy of taste,
but in that shadowy lialf-being, that state of nascent ex¬
istence in the twilight of imagination and just on the
vestibule of consciousness, they are far more incendiary,
stir up a more lasting commotion, and leave a deeper
stain. The suppression and obscurity arrays a simple
truth in a veil of something like guilt, that is altogether
meretricious, as opposed to the matronly majesty of our
Scripture, for instance; and the conceptions as they
recede from distinctness of idea approximate to the nature
of feeling, and gain thereby a closer and more imme¬
diate affinity with the appetites. But, independently of
this, the whole passage, consisting of precisely one fourth
of the whole poem, has not the least influence on the
378
A LAKE POET
[July
action of the poem, and it is scarcely too much to say that
it has nothing to do with the main subject, except indeed
it be pleaded that Love is induced by compassion for this
maiden to make a young man dream of her, which young
man had been, without any influence of the said Cupid,
deeply interested in the story, and, therefore, did not need
the interference of Cupid at all; any more than he did the
assistance of iEolus for a fair wind all the way to an island
that was within sight of shore.
I translated the poem, partly because I could not en¬
dure to appear irresolute and capricious to you in the first
undertaking which I had connected in any way with your
person ; in an undertaking which I connect with our jour¬
ney from Keswick to Grasmere, the carriage in which
were your son, your daughter, and your wife (all of whom
may God Almighty bless! a prayer not the less fervent,
my dear sir! for being a little out of place here) ; and,
partly, too, because I wished to force myself out of meta¬
physical trains of thought, which, when I wished to write
a poem, beat up game of far other kind. Instead of a
covey of poetic partridges with whirring wings of music,
or wild ducks shaping their rapid flight in forms always
regular (a still better image of verse), up came a meta¬
physical bustard, urging its slow, heavy, laborious, earth-
skimming flight over dreary and level wastes. To have
done with poetical prose (which is a very vile Olio), sick¬
ness and some other and worse afflictions first forced me
into downright metaphysics. For I believe that by nature
I have more of the poet in me. In a poem written during
that dejection, to Wordsworth, and the greater part of a
private nature, I thus expressed the thought in language
more forcible than harmonious :1 —
1 The "Ode to Dejection," of tlie Morning Post of October 4,1802.
which this is the earliest version, was It was reprinted in the Sibylline
composed on Sunday evening', April Leaves, 1817. A comparison of the
4, and published six months later, in Ode, as sent to Sotheby, with the
1802] to w. sotheby 379
Yes, clearest poet, yes !
There was a time when tlio' my path was rough,
The joy within me dallied with distress,
And all misfortunes were but as the stuff
Whence fancy made me dreams of happiness :
first printed version (Poetical Works,
Appendix G, pp. 522-524) shows that
it underwent many changes before
it was permitted to see the " light
of common day " in the columns of
the Morning I'ost. The Ode was
begun some three weeks after Cole¬
ridge returned to Keswick, after an
absence of four months. He had
visited Soutliey in London, he had
been a fellow guest with Tom
Wedgwood for a month at Stowey,
he had returned to London and at¬
tended Davy's lectures at the Royal
Institution, and 011 his way home he
had stayed for a fortnight with his
friend T. Hutchinson, Wordsworth's
brother-in-law, at Gallow Hill.
He left Gallow Hill " on March 13
in a violent storm of snow, wind, and
rain," and must have reached Kes¬
wick on Sunday the 14th or Monday
the 15th of March. On the follow¬
ing Friday he walked over to Dove
Cottage, and once more found him¬
self in the presence of his friends,
and, once again, their presence and
companionship drove him into song.
The Ode is at once a confession and
a contrast, a confession that he had
fled from the conflict with his soul
into the fastnesses of metaphysics,
and a contrast of his own hopeless¬
ness with the glad assurance of in¬
ward peace and outward happiness
which attended the pure and manly
spirit of his friend.
But verse was what he had been wedded
to,
And his own mind did like a tempest
strong
Come thus to him, and drove the weary
wight along.
A MS. note-book of 1801-2,
which has helped to date his move¬
ments at the time, contains, among
other hints and jottings, the follow¬
ing almost illegible fragment: " The
larches in spring push out their sepa¬
rate bundles of . . . into green
brushes or pencils which . . . small
tassels ; " — and with the note may
be compared the following lines in¬
cluded in the version contained in
the letter, but afterwards omitted: —
In this heartless mood,
To other thoughts by yonder throstle
woo'd,
That pipes vithin the larch-tree, not vnseen
The larch that pushes out in tussds green
Its bunt/If / Unfits — iroo'it to miht (/flights,
By all the tender sounds and gentle sights
Of this sweet primrost-monlh, and vainly
woo'd !
0 dearest Poet, in this heartless mood —
Another jotting in the same note¬
book : " A Poem on the endeavour
to emancipate the mind from day¬
dreams, with the different attempts
and the vain ones,'' perhaps found
expression in the lines which follow
" My shaping spirit of Imagination,"
which appeared for the first time in
print in Sibylline Leaves, 1817, but
which, as Mr. Dykes Campbell lias
rightly divined, belonged to the ori¬
ginal draft of the Ode. Poetical
Works, p. 159. Appendix G, pp. 522-
524. Editor's Note, pp. 020-028.
380
A LAKE POET
[July
For Hope grew round me, like the climbing vine,
And fruit, and foliage, not my own, seemed mine.
But now afflictions bow me down to earth :
Nor care I, that they rob me of my mirth,
But oh ! each visitation
Suspends what nature gave me at my birth,
My shaping spirit of Imagination.
For not to think of what I needs must feel,
But to be still and patient, all I can ;
And haply by abstruse research to steal
From my own nature all the natural man —
This was my sole resource, my wisest plan :
And that which suits a part infects the whole,
And now is almost grown the temper of my soul.
Thank heaven ! my better mind has returned to me,
and I trust I shall go on rejoicing. As I have nothing
better to fill the blank space of this sheet with, I will
transcribe the introduction of that poem to you, that being
of a sufficiently general nature to be interesting to you.
The first lines allude to a stanza in the Ballad of Sir Pat¬
rick Spence: " Late, late yestreen I saw the new moon
witli the old one in her arms, and I fear, I fear, my master
dear, there will be a deadly storm."
Letter, written Sunday evening, April 4.
Well! if the Bard was weatherwise, who made
The dear old Ballad of Sir Patrick Spence,
This night, so tranquil now, will not go hence
Unrous'd by winds, that ply a busier trade
Than that, which moulds yon clouds in lazy flakes,
Or the dull sobbing draft, that drones and rakes
Upon the strings of this Eolian lute,
Which better far were mute.
For lo ! the New Moon, winter-bright!
And overspread with phantom light
1802]
TO W. SOTIIEBY
381
(With swimming phantom light o'erspread,
Bat rimmed and circled with a silver thread)
I see the Old Moon in her lap foretelling
The coming on of rain and squally blast!
And O ! that even now the gust were swelling,
And the slant night-shower driving loud and fast.
A grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear !
A stifling, drowsy, unimpassioned grief,
That finds no natural outlet, no relief,
In word, or sigh, or tear !
This, "William, well thou know'st,
Is that sore evil which I dread the most,
And oftnest suffer. In this heartless mood,
To other thoughts by yonder throstle woo'd,
That pipes within the larch-tree, not unseen,
The larch, that pushes out in tassels green
Its bundled leafits, woo'd to mild delights,
By all the tender sounds and gentle sights
Of this sweet primrose-month, and vainly woo'd!
0 dearest Poet, in this heartless mood,
All this long eve, so balmy and serene,
Have I been gazing on the Western sky,
And its peculiar tint of yellow-green :
And still I gaze — and with how blank an eye !
And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars,
That give away their motion to the stars ;
Those stars, that glide behind them, or between,
Now sparkling, now bedimmed, but always seen ;
Yon crescent moon, as fix'd as if it grew
In its own cloudless, starless lake of blue,
A boat becalm'd ! thy own sweet sky-canoe !1
1 see them all, so exquisitely fair !
I see, not feel! how beautiful they are !
1 " A lovely skye-canoe." Morn¬
ing Post. The reference is to the
Prologue to "Peter Bell." Com¬
pare stanza 22,
" My little vagrant Form of light,
My gay and beautiful Canoe."
Wordsworth's Poetical Works, p.
100.
382
A LAKE POET
[July
My genial spirits fail;
And what can these avail,
To lift the smoth'ring weight from off my breast ?
It were a vain endeavour,
Though I should gaze for ever
On that green light that lingers in the west;
I may not hope from outward forms to win
The passion and the life, whose fountains are within.
O Wordsworth ! we receive but what we give,
And in our life alone does Nature live ;
Ours is her wedding garment, ours her shroud!
And would we aught behold, of higher worth,
Than that inanimate, cold world, allow d
To the poor, loveless, ever-anxious crowd,
Ah ! from the soul itself must issue forth,
A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud
Enveloping the earth !
And from the soul itself must there be sent
A sweet and powerful voice, of its own birth,
Of all sweet sounds the life and element !
O pure of heart! thou need'st not ask of me
What this strong music in the soul may be ?
What and wherein it doth exist,
This light, this glory, this fair luminous mist,
This beautiful and beauty-making Power.
Joy, blameless poet! Joy that ne'er was given
Save to the pure, and in their purest hour,
Joy, William, is the spirit and the power
That wedding Nature to us gives in dower,
A new Earth and new Heaven,
Undream'd of by the sensual and proud —
We, we ourselves rejoice !
And thence comes all that charms or ear or sight,
All melodies an echo of that voice !
All colours a suffusion from that light!
Calm, steadfast spirit, guided from above,
O Wordsworth ! friend of my devoutest choice,
Great son of genius ! full of light and love,
1802]
TO W. SOTIIEBY
383
Thus, thus, dost thou rejoice.
To thee do all things live, from pole to pole,
Their life the eddying of thy living Soul!
Brother and friend of my devoutest choice,
Thus inayst thou ever, ever more rejoice !
I have selected from the poem, which was a very long
one and truly written only for the solace of sweet song1,
all that could be interesting or even pleasing to you, ex¬
cept, indeed, perhaps I may annex as a fragment a few
lines 011 the " zEolian Lute," it having been introduced in
its droniiiffs in the first stanza. I have used Yule for
Christmas.
Nay, wherefore did I let it haunt my mind,
This dark, distressful dream ?
I turn from it and listen to the wind
Which long has rav'd unnotic'd! What a scream
Of agony by torture lengthened out,
That lute sent out! O thou wild storm without,
Bare crag, or Mountain Tairn, or blasted tree,
Or pine-grove whither woodman never clomb,
Or lonely house, long held the witches' home,
Methinks were fitter instruments for thee
Mad Lutanist! that, in this month of showers,
Of dark-brown gardens, and of peeping flowers,
Mak'st devil's Yule, with worse than wintry song,
The blossoms, buds, and timorous leaves anion <r!
} O
Thou Actor, perfect in all tragic sounds !
Thou mighty Poet, even to frenzy bold!
What tell'st thou now about ?
'T is of the rushing of an host in rout,
With many groans from men, with smarting wounds —
At once they groan with pain, and shudder with the cold!
But hush ! there is a pause of deeper silence!
Again ! but all that noise, as of a rushing crowd,
With groans, and tremulous shudderings — all is over !
And it has other sounds, less fearful and less loud —■
384
A LAKE POET
[July
A tale of less affriglit,
And tempered with delight,
As thou thyself had'st fram'd the tender lay —
'T is of a little child,
Upon a heath wild,
Not far from home, but she has lost her way —
And now moans low in utter grief and fear ;
And now screams loud, and hopes to make her mother hear.
My dear sir! ouglit I to make an apology for troubling
you with such a long, verse-cramm'tl letter ? Oh, that in¬
stead of it, I could but send to you the image now before
my eyes, over Bassentliwaite. The sun is setting in a
glorious, rich, brassy light, on the top of Skiddaw, and
one third adown it is a huge, enormous mountain of cloud,
with the outlines of a mountain. This is of a starchy
grey, but floating past along it, and upon it, are various
patches of sack-like clouds, bags and woolsacks, of a shade
lighter than the brassy light. Of the clouds that hide the
setting sun, — a fine yellow-red, somewhat more than
sandy light, and these, the farthest from the sun, are suf¬
fused with the darkness of a stormy colour. Marvellous
creatures ! how they pass along! Remember me with
most respectful kindness to Mrs. and Miss Sotlieby, and
the Captains Sotlieby. Truly yours,
S. T. Coleridge.
cxxvii. to robert soutiiey.1
Greta Hall, Keswick. July 29, 1802.
My dear Southey, — Nothing has given me half the
pleasure, these many, many months, as last week did
Edith's heralding to us of a minor Robert; for that it will
be a boy, one always takes for granted. From the bottom
of my heart I say it, I never knew a man that better
1 For Southey's reply, dated Bristol, August 4, 1802, see Life and Cor¬
respondence, ii. 189-192.
1S02]
TO ROBERT SOUTIIEY
385
deserved to be a father by rig-lit of virtues tliat eminently
belonged to liim, than yourself ; but beside this I have
cheering hopes that Edith will be born again, and be a
healthy woman. When I said, nothing had given me
half the pleasure, I spoke truly, and yet said more than
you are perhaps aware of, for, by Lord Lonsdale's death,
there are excellent reasons for believing that the Words-
worths will gain <£5,000, the share of which (and no doubt
Dorothy will have more than a mere share) will render
William Wordsworth and his sister quite independent.
They are now in Yorkshire, and he returns in about a
month one of us. . . . Estlin's Sermons, I fear, are mere
moral discourses. If so, there is but small chance of
their sale. But if he had published a volume of sermons,
of the same kind with those which he has published
singly, i. e. apologetical and ecclesiastico-historical, I am
almost confident, they would have a respectable circula¬
tion. To publish single sermons is almost always a foolish
thing, like single sheet quarto poems. Estlin's sermon
on the Sabbath really surprised me. It was well written
in style, I mean, and the reasoning throughout is not
only sound, but has a cast of novelty in it. A superior
sermon altogether it appeared to me. I am myself a little
theological, and if any bookseller will take the risque, I
shall in a few weeks, possibly, send to the press a small
volume under the title of " Letters to the British Critic
concerning Granville Sharp's Remarks on the uses of
the Definitive article in the Greek Text of the New
Testament, and the Revd C. Wordsworth's Six Letters,
to G. Sharp Esqr, in confirmation of the same, together
with a Review of the Controversy between Ilorsley and
Priestley respecting the faith of the Primitive Christians."
This is no mere dream, like my " Hymns to the Ele¬
ments," for I have written more than half the work. I
purpose afterwards to publish a book concerning Tythes
and Church Establishment, for I conceit that I can throw
386
A LAKE POET
[July
great light on tlie subject. You are not apt to be much
surprised at any change in my mind, active as it is, but it
will perhaps please you to know that I am become very
fond of History, and that I have read much with very
great attention. I exceedingly like the job of Amadis
de Gaul. I wish you may half as well like the job, in
which I shall very shortly appear. Of its sale I have no
doubt; but of its prudence? There's the rub. "Con¬
cerning Poetry and the characteristic merits of the Poets,
our contemporaries." One volume Essays, the second
Selections. — The Essays are 011 Bloomfield, Burns,
Bowles, Cowper, Campbell, Darwin, Ilayley, Rogers, C.
Smith, Southey, Woolcot, Wordswortli — the Selections
from every one who has written at all, any being above
the rank of mere scribblers—Pye and his Dative Case
Plural, Pybus, Cottle, etc., etc. The object is not to ex¬
amine what is good in each writer, but what has ipso facto
pleased, and to what faculties, or passions, or habits of the
mind they may be supposed to have given pleasure. Of
course Darwin and Wordsworth having given each a
defence of their mode of poetry, and a disquisition on the
nature and essence of poetry in general, I shall neces¬
sarily be led rather deeper, and these I shall treat of
either first or last. But I will apprise you of one thing,
that although Wordsworth's Preface is half a child of my
own brain, and arose out of conversations so frequent that,
with few exceptions, we could scarcely either of us, per¬
haps, positively say which first started any particular
thought (I am speaking of the Preface as it stood in the
second volume), yet I am far from going all lengths with
Wordsworth. lie has written lately a number of Poems
(thirty-two in all), some of them of considerable length
(the longest one hundred and sixty lines), the greater
number of these, to my feelings, very excellent composi¬
tions, but here and there a daring humbleness of language
and versification, and a strict adherence to matter of fact,
1802]
TO ROBERT SOUTIIEY
887
even to prolixity, that startled me. His alterations, like¬
wise, in '• Ruth" perplexed me, and I have thought and
thought again, and have not had my doubts solved by
Wordsworth. Oil the contrary, I rather suspect that
somewhere or other there is a radical difference in our
theoretical opinions respecting poetry; this I shall endeav¬
our to go to the bottom of, and, acting the arbitrator be¬
tween the old school and the new school, hope to lay down
some plain and perspicuous, though not superficial canons
of criticism respecting poetry. What an admirable defi¬
nition Milton gives, quite in an " obiter " way, when he
says of poetry, that it is " simple, sensuous, passionate ! "
It truly comprises the whole that can be said on the sub¬
ject. In the new edition of the L. Ballads there is a valu¬
able appendix, which. I am sure you must like, and in the
Preface itself considerable additions; one 011 the dignity
and nature of the office and character of a Poet, that is
very grand, and of a sort of Verulamian power and
majesty, but it is, in parts (and this is the fault, me
judice, of all the latter half of that Preface), obscure
beyond any necessity, and the extreme elaboration and
almost constrainedness of the diction contrasted (to my
feelings) somewhat harshly with the general style of the
Poems, to which the Preface is an introduction. Sara
(why, dear Soutliey ! will you write it always Sarah ?
Sara, methinks, is associated with times that you and I
cannot and do not wish ever to forget), Sara said, with
some acuteness, that she wished all that part of the Pre¬
face to have been in blank verse, and vice versa, etc. How¬
ever, I need not say, that any diversity of opinion on the
subject between you and myself, or Wordsworth and my¬
self, can only be small, taken in a practical point of view.
I rejoice that your History marches on so victoriously.
It is a noble subject, and I have the fullest confidence of
your success in it. The influence of the Catholic Reli¬
gion — the influence of national glory on the individual
888
A LAKE POET
[JULY
morals of a people, especially in tlie downfall of the
nobility of Portugal, — the strange fact (which seems to
be admitted as with one voice by all travellers) of the
vileness of the Portuguese nobles compared with the
Spanish, and of the superiority of the Portuguese com¬
monalty to the same class in Spain ; the effects of colo¬
nization on a small and not very fruitful country; the
effects important, and too often forgotten of absolute acci¬
dents, such as the particular character of a race of Princes
on a nation — Oh what awful subjects these are ! I long-
to hear you read a few chapters to me. But I conjure you
do not let " Madoc " go to sleep. Oh that without words
I could cause you to know all that I think, all that I feel,
all that I hope concerning that Poem ! As to myself, all
my poetic genius (if ever I really possessed any genius,
and it was not rather a mere general aptitude of talent,
and quickness in imitation) is gone, and I have been fool
enough to suffer deejxly in my mind, regretting the loss,
which I attribute to my long and exceedingly severe
metaphysical investigations, and these partly to ill-health,
and partly to private afflictions which rendered any sub¬
jects, immediately connected with feeling, a source of pain
and disquiet to me.
There was a Time when tho' my Path was rough,
I had a heart that dallied with distress ;
And all misfortunes were hut as the stuff
Whence Fancy made me dreams of Happiness;
For Hope grew round me like the climbing Vine,
And Fruits and Foliage, not my own, seemed mine!
But now afflictions bow me down to earth,
Nor car'd I that they robb'd me of my mirth.
But oh ! each visitation
Suspends what Nature gave me at my Birth,
My shaping Spirit of Imagination!
Here follow a dozen lines that would give you no pleas¬
ure, and then what follows : —
1802]
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
889
For not to think of what I needs must feel,
But to be still and patient, all I can;
And haply by abstruse Research to steal
From my own Nature all the Natural Man,
This was my sole Resource, my wisest Plan!
And that which suits a part, infects the whole,
And now is almost grown the Temper of my Soul.
Having' written tliese lines, I rejoice for yon as well as
for myself, tliat I am able to inform you, that now for a
long- time there has been more love and concord in my
house than I have known for years before. I had made
up my mind to a very awful step, though the struggles of
my mind were so violent, that my sleep became the valley
of the shadows of Death and my health was in a state truly
alarming-. It did alarm Mrs. Coleridge. The thought of
separation wounded her pride, — she was fully persuaded
that deprived of the society of my children and living
abroad without any friends I should pine away, and the
fears of widowhood came upon her, and though these feel¬
ings were wholly selfish, yet they made her serious, and that
was a great point gained. For Mrs. Coleridge's mind has
very little that is bad in it; it is an innocent mind ; but
it is light and nn impressible, warm in anger, cold in sym¬
pathy, and in all disputes uniformly projects itself forth
to recriminate, instead of turning- itself inward with a
silent self-questioning. Our virtues and our vices are
exact antitheses. I so attentively watch my own nature
that my worst self-delusion is a complete self-knowledge
so mixed with intellectual complacency, that my quick¬
ness to see and readiness to acknowledge my faults is too
often frustrated by the small pain which the sight of
them gives me, and the consequent slowness to amend
them. Mrs. C. is so stung with the very first thought of
being in the wrong, because she never endures to look at
her own mind in all its faulty parts, but shelters herself
from painful self-inquiry by angry recrimination. Never,
390
A LAKE POET
[July
I suppose, did tlie stern match-maker bring together two
minds so utterly contrariant in tlieir primary and organ-
ieal constitution. Alas! I liave suffered more, I think,
from the amiable propensities of my nature than from
my worst faults and most erroneous habits, and I have
suffered much from both. But, as I said, Mrs. Coleridge
was made serious, and for the first time since our mar¬
riage she felt and acted as beseemed a wife and a mother
to a husband and the father of her children. She prom¬
ised to set about an alteration in her external manners
and looks and language, and to fight against her invet¬
erate habits of puny thwarting and unintermitting dyspa-
tliy, this immediately, and to do her best endeavours to
cherish other feelings. I, on my part, promised to be
more attentive to all her feelings of pride, etc., etc., and
to try to correct my habits of impetuous censure. We
have both kept our promises, and she has found herself
so much more happy than she had been for years before,
that I have the most confident hopes that this happy
revolution in our domestic affairs will be permanent, and
that this external conformity will gradually generate a
greater inward likeness of thoughts and attachments than
has hitherto existed between us. Believe me, if you were
here, it would give you a deep delight to observe the dif¬
ference of our minutely conduct towards each other, from
that which, I fear, could not but have disturbed your
comfort when you were here last. Enough. But I am
sure you have not felt it tedious.
So Corry1 and you are off ? I suspected it, but Edith
never mentioned an iota of the business to her sister. It
is well. It was not your destiny. Wherever you are,
God bless you! My health is weak enough, but it is so
far amended that it is far less dependent on the influ¬
ences of the weather. The mountains are better friends
1 The Right Hon. Isaac Corry, land, to whom Southey acted as
Chancellor of the Exchequer for Ire- secretary for a short time.
1802]
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
391
in this respect. Would that I could flatter myself that
the same would be the case with you. The only objec¬
tion 011 my part is now, — God be praised ! — done away.
The services and benefits I should receive from your
society and the spur of your example would be incalcu¬
lable. The house consists — the first floor (or rather
ground floor) of a kitchen and a back kitchen, a large
parlour and two nice small parlours; the second floor of
three bedrooms, one a large one, and one large drawing-
room ; the third floor or floors of three bedrooms — in
all twelve rooms. Besides these, Mr. Jackson offers to
make that nice outhouse or workshop either two rooms
or one noble large one for a study if I wish it. If it
suited you, you might have one kitchen, or (if Edith and
Sara thought it would answer) we might have the two
kitchens in common. You might have, I say, the whole
ground floor, consisting of two sweet wing-rooms, com¬
manding that loveliest view of Borrowdale, and the great
parlour ; and supposing we each were forced to have two
servants, a nursemaid and a housemaid, the two house¬
maids would sleep together in one of the upper rooms,
and the nursemaids have each a room to herself, and the
long room on the ground floor must be yours and
Edith's room, and if Mary be with you, the other hers.
We should have the whole second floor, consisting of the
drawing-room, which would be Mrs. Coleridge's parlour,
two bedrooms, which (as I am so often ill, and when ill
cannot rest at all, unless I have a bed to myself) is ab¬
solutely necessary for me, and one room for you if occa¬
sion should l)e, or any friend of yours or mine. The
highest room in the house is a very large one intended
for two, but suffered to remain one by my desire. It
would be a capital healthy nursery. The outhouse would
become my study, and I have a couch-bed on which I am
now sitting (in bed) and writing to you. It is now in the
study; of course it would be removed to the outhouse
892
A LAKE POET
[Aug.
wlien that became my study, and would he a second spare
hed. I have no doubt but that Mr. Jackson would will¬
ingly let us retain my present study, which might be your
library and study room. My dear Soutliey, I merely
state these things to you. All our lot on earth is com¬
promise. Blessings obtained by blessings foregone, or by
evils undergone. I should be glad, 110 doubt, if you
thought that your health and happiness would find a
home under the same roof with me; and I am sure you
will not accuse me as indelicate or obtrusive in mention¬
ing things as they are ; but if you decline it altogether, I
shall know that you have good reasons for doing so, and
be perfectly satisfied, for if it detracted from your com¬
fort it could, of course, be nothing but the contrary of
all advantage to me. You would have access to four or
five libraries : Sir W. Lawson's, a most magnificent one,
but chiefly in Natural History, Travels, etc. ; Carlton
House (I am a prodigious favourite of Mrs. Wallis, the
owner and resident, mother of the Privy Counsellor
Wallis); Carlisle, Dean and Chapter; the Library at
Hawkshead School, and another (of what value I know
not) at St. Bees, whither I mean to walk to-morrow
to spend five or six days for bathing. It is four miles
from Whitehaven by the seaside. Mrs. Coleridge is but
poorly, children well. Love to Edith and May, and to
whom I am at all interested. God love you. If you let
me hear from you, it is among my firmest resolves — God
ha' mercy on 'em! — to be a regular correspondent of
yours.
S. T. Coleridge.
P. S. Mrs. C. must have one room on the ground floor,
but this is only putting one of your rooms on the second
floor.
1802]
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
393
cxxviii. to the same.
Monday nig-lit, August 9, 1802.
My dear Soutiiey, — Derwent can say his letters,
and if you could but see his darling mouth when he shouts
out Q ! This is a digression.
On Sunday, August 1st,1 after morning church, I left
Greta Ilall, crossed the fields to Portinscale, went through
Newlands, where " Great Robinson looks down upon Mar-
den's Bower," and drank tea at Buttermere, crossed the
mountains to Ennerdale, and slept at a farm-house a little
below the foot of the lake, spent the greater part of the
next day mountaineering, and went in the evening through
Egremont to St. Bees, and slept there ; returned next
day to Egremont, and slept there ; went by the sea-coast
as far as Gosforth, then turned off and went up Was-
dale, and slept at T. Tyson's at the head of the vale.
Thursday morning crossed the mountains and ascended
Scafell, which is more than a hundred yards higher than
either Ilelvellyn or Skiddaw ; spent the whole day among
clouds, and one of them a frightening thunder-cloud;
slipped down into Eskdale, and there slept, and spent a
good part of the next day ; proceeded that evening to
Devock Lake, and slept at Ulpha Kirk; on Saturday
passed through the Dunnerdale Mountains to Broughton
1 " On Sunday, August 1st, A after
12, I had a shirt, cravat, 2 pairs of
stockings, a little paper, and half
dozen pens, a German book (Voss's
Poems), and a little tea and sugar,
with my night cap, packed up in my
natty green oil-skin, neatly squared,
and put into my net knapsack, and
the knapsack on my back and the
besom stick in my hand, which for
want of a better, and in spite of
Mrs. C. and Mary, who both raised
their voices against it, especially as
I left the besom scattered on the
kitchen floor, off I sallied over the
bridge, through the hop - field,
through the Prospect Bridge, at
Portinscale, so on by the tall birch
that grows out of the centre of the
huge oak, along into Newlands."
MS. Journal of tour in the Lake
District, August 1-9, 1802, sent in
the form of a letter to the Words-
worths and transcribed by Miss Sa¬
rah Hutchinson.
894
A LAKE POET
[Aug.
Vale, Tarver Yale, and in upon Coniston. On Sunday I
surveyed the lake, etc., of Coniston, and proceeded to
Bratlia, and slept at Lloyd's house ; this morning walked
from Bratlia to Grasmere, and from Grasmere to Greta
Ilall, where I now am, quite sweet and ablute, and have
not even now read through your letter, which I will an¬
swer by the night's post, and therefore must defer all ac¬
count of my very interesting tour, saying only that of all
earthly things which I have beheld, the view of Scafell
and from Scafell (both views from its own summit) is the
most lieart-exciting.
And now for business. The rent of the whole house,
including taxes and the furniture wre have, will not be
under forty, and not above forty-two, pounds a year. You
will have half the house and half the furniture, and of
course your share will be either twenty pounds or twenty
guineas. As to furniture, the house certainly will not be
wholly, that is, completely furnished by Jackson. Two
rooms we must somehow or other furnish between us, but
not immediately; you may pass the winter without it, and
it is hard if wre cannot raise thirty pounds in the course
of the winter between us. And whatever we buy may be
disposed of any Saturday, to a moral certainty, at its full
value, or Mr. Jackson, who is uncommonly desirous that
you should come, will take it. But we can get on for the
winter well enough.
Your books may come all the way from Bristol either
to Whitehaven, Maryport, or Workington ; sometimes di¬
rectly, always by means of Liverpool. In the latter case,
they must be sent to Whitehaven, from whence waggons
come to Keswick twice a week. You will have twenty or
thirty shillings to lay out in tin and crockery, and you
must bring with you, or buy here (which you may do at
eight months' credit), knives and forks, etc., and all your
linen, from the diaper sub vestments of the young jacobin 1
1 " The following month, September (1802), was marked by the birth
1802]
TO ROBERT SOUTIIEY
395
to diaper table clotlies, sheets, napkins, etc. But tliese, I
suppose, you already have.
What else I have to say I cannot tell, and indeed shall
be too late for the post. But I will write soon again. I
was exceedingly amused with the Cottelism ; but I have
not time to speak of this or of other parts of your letter.
I believe that I can execute the criticisms with no offence
to Ilayley, and in a manner highly satisfactory to the ad¬
mirers of the poet Bloomfield, and to the friends of the
man Bloomfield. But there are certainly other objections
of great weight.
Sara is well, and the children pretty well. Hartley is
almost ill with transport at my Scafell expedition. That
child is a poet, spite of the forehead, " villainously Zoio,"
which his mother smuggled into his face. Derwent is
more beautiful than ever, but very backward with his
tongue, although he can say all his letters. — N. B. Not
out of the book. God bless you and yours!
S. T. Coleridge.
If you are able to determine, you will of course let me
know it without waiting for a second letter from me ; as
if you determine in the affirmative1 of the scheme, it will
be a great motive with Jackson, indeed, a most infallible
one, to get immediately to work so as to have the whole
perfectly furnished six weeks at least before your arrival.
Another reason for your writing immediately is, that we
may lay you in a stock of coals during the summer, which is
a saving of some pounds ; when I say determine, of course
I mean such determination as the thousand contingencies,
black and white, permit a wise man to make, and which
would be enough for me to act on.
of his first child, a daughter, named 1 Southey's reply, which was not
after her paternal grandmother, in the affirmative, has not been pre-
Margaret." Southey's Life and Cor- served. The joint-residence at Greta
respondence, ii. IK-!. Hall began in September, 1803.
396
A LAKE POET
[Aug.
Sara will write to Edith soon.
I have just received a letter from Poole ; but I liave
found so many letters that I have opened yours only.
cxxix. to w. sotiieby.
Thursday, August 26, 1802.
My dear Sir, — I was absent 011 a little excursion
when your letter arrived, and since my return I have been
waiting and making- every enquiry in the hopes of an¬
nouncing the receipt of your u Orestes " and its compan¬
ions, with my sincere thanks for your kindness. But I can
hear nothing of them. Mr. Lamb,1 however, goes to Pen¬
rith next week, and will make strict scrutiny. I am not
to find the " Welsh Tour " among them; and yet I think
1 am correct in referring the ode " Netley Abbey " to that
collection, — a poem which I believe I can very nearly
repeat by heart, though it must have been four or five
years since I last read it. I well remember that, after
reading your " Welsh Tour," Soutliey observed to me that
you, I, and himself had all done ourselves harm by suffer¬
ing an admiration of Bowles to bubble up too often on
the surface of our poems. In perusing the second volume
of Bowles, which I owe to your kindness, I met a line of
my own which gave me great pleasure, from the thought
what a pride and joy I should have had at the time of
writing it if I had supposed it possible that Bowles would
have adopted it. The line is, —
Had melancholy mus'd lierself to sleep.2
1 Charles and Mary Lamb's visit Watching the mind with tender cozenage
to Greta Hall, which lasted three And shaping things that are not."
full weeks, must have extended from
(about) August 12 to September 2, " Coombe-Ellen, written in Rad-
1802. Letters of Charles Lamb, i. norsliire, September, 1798." " Poems
180-184. of William Lisle Bowles," Gali-
„ ,, TT 7 7, 17 , , ., qriani, p. 139. For " Melancholy, a
2 11 Here melancholy, on the pale cragslaia, " ' 1 J
Might muse herself to sleep; or Fancy Fragment, see Poetical orkSj
come, p. 34.
1802]
TO W. SOTHEBY
897
I wrote the lines at nineteen, and published them many
years ago in the " Morning Post" as a fragment, and as
they are but twelve lines, I will transcribe them: —
Upon a mouldering abbey's broadest wall,
Where ruining ivies prop the ruins steep—-
Her folded arms wrapping her tatter'd pall
Had Melancholy mused herself to sleep.
The fern was press'd beneath her hair,
The dark green Adder's Tongue was there ;
And still as came the flagging sea gales weak,
Her long lank leaf bow'd fluttering o'er her cheek.
Her pallid cheek was flusli'd ; her eager look
Beam'd eloquent in slumber! Inly wrought,
Imperfect sounds her moving lij^s forsook,
And her bent forehead work'd with troubled thought.
I met these lines yesterday by accident, and ill as they
are written there seemed to me a force and distinctness
of image in them that were buds of promise in a school¬
boy performance, though I am giving them perhaps more
than their deserts in thus assuring them a reading from
you. I have finished the " First Navigator," and Mr.
Tomkins1 may have it whenever he wishes. It would be
gratifying to me if you would look it over and alter any¬
thing you like. My whole wish and purpose is to serve
Mr. Tomkins, and you are not only much more in the
habit of writing verse than I am, but must needs have a
better tact of what will offend that class of readers into
whose hands a showy publication is likely to fall. I do
not mean, my dear sir, to impose on you ten minutes'
thought, but often currente oculo a better phrase or posi¬
tion of words will suggest itself. As to the ten pounds,
it is more than the thing is worth, either in German or
English. Mr. Tomkins will better give the true value of
it by kindly accepting what is given with kindness. Two
1 I have not been able to verify this reference.
398
A LAKE POET
[Aug.
or three copies presented in my name, one to eacli of tlie
two or tliree friends of mine who are likely to be pleased
with a fine book, — this is the utmost I desire or will
receive. I shall for the ensuing quarter send occasional
verses, etc., to the " Morning Post," under the signature
"EcTTr/cre, and I mention this to you because I have some
intention of translating Voss's " Idylls " in English hex¬
ameter, with a little prefatory essay 011 modern hexame¬
ters. I have discovered that the poetical parts of the
Bible and the best parts of Ossian are little more than
slovenly hexameters, and the rhythmical prose of Gesner
is still more so, and reads exactly like that metre in Boe-
thius' and Seneca's tragedies, which consists of the latter
half of the hexameter. The thing is worth an experi¬
ment, and I wish it to be considered merely as an experi¬
ment. I need not say that the greater number of the
verses signed "Ecrr^o-e will be such as were never meant
for anything else but the peritura charta of the " Morn¬
ing Post."
I had written thus far when your letter of the 16th
arrived, franked 011 the 23d from Weymouth, with a po¬
lite apology from Mr. Bedingfell (if I have rightly deci¬
phered the name) for its detention. I am vexed I did not
write immediately 011 my return home, but I waited, day
after day, in hopes of the " Orestes," etc. It is an old
proverb that " extremes meet," and I have often regretted
that I had not noted down as they incurred the inter¬
esting instances in which the proverb is verified. The
newest subject, though brought from the planets (or as¬
teroids) Ceres and Pallas, could not excite my curiosity
more than " Orestes." I will write immediately to Mr.
Clarkson, who resides at the foot of Ulleswater, and beg
him to walk into Penrith, and ask at all the inns if any
parcel have arrived ; if not, I will myself write to Mr.
Faulder and inform him of the failure. There is a sub¬
ject of great merit in the ancient mythology hitherto un-
1802]
TO W. SOTHEBY
399
touched — I believe so, at least. But for the mode of the
death, which mingles the ludicrous and terrible, but which
might be easily altered, it is one of the finest subjects for
tragedy that I am acquainted with. Medea, after the
murder of her children [having] fled to the court of the
old King Pelias, was regarded with superstitious horror,
and shunned or insulted by the daughters of Pelias, till,
hearing of her miraculous restoration of 2Eson, they con¬
ceived the idea of recalling by her means the youth of their
own father. She avails herself of their credulity, and so
works them up by pretended magical rites that they
consent to kill their father in his sleep and throw him
into the magic cauldron. Which done, Medea leaves them
with bitter taunts of triumph. The daughters are called
Asteropaea, Autonoe, and Alcestis. Ovid alludes briefly
to this story in the couplet, —
" Quid referam Pelias natas pietate nocentes,
Caesaque virginea membra paterna manu ? "
Ovid, Epist. XII. 129, 130.
What a thing to have seen a tragedy raised on this fable
by Milton, in rivalry of the " Macbeth " of Shakespeare !
The character of Medea, wandering and fierce, and in¬
vested with impunity by the strangeness and excess of her
guilt, and truly an injured woman on the other hand and
possessed of supernatural powers ! The same story is told
in a very different way by some authors, and out of their
narrations matter might be culled that would very well
coincide with and fill up the main incidents — her impos¬
ing the sacred image of Diana on the priesthood of Iolcus,
and persuading them to join with her in inducing the
daughters of Pelias to kill their father; the daughters
under the persuasion "that their father's youth would be
restored, the priests under the faith that the goddess re¬
quired the death of the old king, and that the safety of
the country depended on it. In this way Medea might be
suffered to escape under the direct protection of the priest-
400
A LAKE POET
[Aug.
hood, who may afterwards discover the delusion. The
moral of the piece would be a very fine one.
Wordsworth wrote a very animated account of his dif¬
ficulties and his joyous meeting with you, which he calls
the happy rencontre or fortunate rainstorm. Oh! that
you had been with me during a thunder-storm 1 on Thurs¬
day, August the 3d ! I was sheltered (in the phrase of
the country, lownded') in a sort of natural porch on the
summit of Sea Fell, the central mountain of our Giants,
said to be higher than Skiddaw or Ilelvellyn, and in
chasm, naked crag, bursting springs, and waterfall the
most interesting, without a rival. When the cloud passed
away, to my right and left, and behind me, stood a great
national convention of mountains which our ancestors
most descriptively called Copland, that is, the Land of
Heads. Before me the mountains died away down to the
sea in eleven parallel ridges ; close under my feet, as it
1 " O my God! what enormous
mountains there are close by me,
and yet below the hill I stand on.
. . . And here I am, lounded [i. e.,
sheltered], — so fully lounded, —
that though the wind is strong and
the clouds are hastening hither from
the sea, and the whole air seaward
has a lurid look, and we shall cer¬
tainly have thunder, — yet here (hut
that I am hungered and provision-
less). here I could he warm and wait,
methinks, for to-morrow's sun —
and on a nice stone table am I now
at this moment writing to you — be¬
tween 2 and 3 o'clock, as I guess.
Surely the first letter ever written
from the top of Sea Fell."
'' After the thunder - storm I
shouted out all your names in the
sheep-fold — where echo came upon
echo, and then Hartley and Der-
went, and then I laughed and
shouted Joanna. It leaves all the
echoes I ever heard far, far behind,
in number, distinctness and human-
ness of voice ; and then, not to for¬
get an old friend, I made them all
say Dr. Dodd etc." MS. Journal,
August 6, 1802. Compare Lamb's
Latin letter of October 9, 1802 : —
" Ista tua Carmina Chamouniana
satis grandia esse mihi constat; sed
hoc mihi nonniliil displicet, quod in
iis illag montium Grisosonum inter
se responsiones totidem reboant an-
glic£, God, God, haud aliter atque
temet audivi tuas [sic] montes Cum-
brianas [sic] resonare docentes, Tod,
Tod, nempe Doctorem infelicem:
vocem certe haud Deum sonantem."
Letters of Charles Lamb, i. 185. See,
too, Carfon Ainger's translation and
note, ibid. p. 331. See, also. Soutliey's
Letter to Grosvenor Bedford, Janu¬
ary 9, 1804. Life and Correspond¬
ence, ii. 248.
1802]
TO W. SOTIIEBY
401
were, were three vales : Wastclale, with its lake ; Miter-
dale and Eskdale, with the rivers Irt, Mite, and Esk seen
from their very fountains to their fall into the sea at Ra-
venglass Bay, which, with these rivers, form to the eye
a perfect trident.
Turning round, I looked through Borrowdale out upon
the Derwentwater and the Vale of Keswick, even to my
own house, where my own children were. Indeed, I had
altogether a most interesting walk through Newlands to
Buttermere, over the fells to Ennerdale, to St. Bees ; up
Wastdale to Sea Fell, down Eskdale to Devock Lake,
Ulpha Kirk, Broughton Mills, Tarver, Coniston, Winder¬
mere, Grasmere, Keswick. If it would entertain you, I
would transcribe my notes and send them you by the first
opportunity. I have scarce left room for my best wishes
to Mrs. and Miss Sotheby, and affectionate wishes for
your happiness and all who constitute it.
With unfeigned esteem, dear sir,
Yours, etc., S. T. Coleridge.
P. S. I am ashamed to send you a scrawl so like in
form to a servant wench's first letter. You will see that
the first half was written before I received your last letter.
cxxx. to the same.
Greta Hall, Keswick, September 10, 1802.
My dear Sir, — The books have not yet arrived, and
I am wholly unable to account for the delay. I suspect
that the cause of it may be Mr. Faulder's mistake in send¬
ing them by the Carlisle waggon. A person is going to
Carlisle on Monday from this place, and will make dili¬
gent inquiry, and, if he succeed, still I cannot have them
in less than a week, as they must return to Penrith and
there wait for the next Tuesday's carrier. I ought, per¬
haps, to be ashamed of my weakness, but I must confess I
have been downright vexed by the business. Every cart,
402
A LAKE POET
[Sept.
every return-chaise from Penrith lias renewed my hopes,
till I began to play tricks with my own impatience, and say,
" Well, I take it for granted that I shan't get them for
these seven days," etc., — with other of those half-lies that
fear begets on hope. You have imposed a pleasing task
on me in requesting the minutiae of my opinions concern-
ing your " Orestes." Whatever these opinions may be,
the disclosure of them will be a sort of map of my mind,
as a poet and reasoner, and my curiosity is strongly ex¬
cited. I feel you a man of genius in the choice of the
subject. It is my faith that the genus irritabile is a
phrase applicable only to bad poets. Men of great genius
have, indeed, as an essential of their composition, great
sensibility, but they have likewise great confidence in their
own powers, and fear must always precede anger in the
human mind. I can with truth say that, from those I
love, mere general praise of anything I have written is as
far from giving me pleasure as mere general censure ; in
anything, I mean, to which I have devoted much time or
effort. " Be minute, and assign your reasons often, and
your first impressions always, and then blame or praise.
I care not which, I shall be gratified." These are my
sentiments, and I assuredly believe that they are the senti¬
ments of all who have indeed felt a true call to the min¬
istry of song. Of course, I, too, will act on the golden rule
of doing to others what I wish others to do unto me. But,
while I think of it, let me say that I should be much con¬
cerned if you applied this to the " First Navigator." It
would absolutely mortify me if you did more than look
over it, and when a correction suggested itself to you, take
your pen and make it, and let the copy go to Tomkins.
What they have been, I shall know when I see the thing
in print; for it must please the present times if it please
any, and you have been far more in the fashionable world
than I, and must needs have a finer and surer tact of that
which will offend or disgust in the higher circles of life.
1802]
TO W. SOTHEBY
403
Yet it is not what I should have advised Tomkins to do,
and that is one reason why I cannot and will not accept
more than a brace of copies from him. I do not like to
be associated in a man's mind with his losses. If he have
the translation gratis, he must take it on his own judg¬
ment ; but when a man pays for a thing, and he loses by
it, the idea will creep in, spite of himself, that the failure
was in part owing to the badness of the translation.
While I was translating the " Wallenstein," I told Long¬
man it would never answer; when I had finished it I
wrote to him and foretold that it would be waste paper
on his shelves, and the dullness charitably laid upon my
shoulders. Longman lost two hundred and fifty pounds
by the work, fifty pounds of which had been paid to me,
— poor pay, Heaven knows ! for a thick octavo volume of
blank verse ; and yet I am sure that Longman never
thinks of me but " Wallenstein " and the ghosts of his
departed guineas dance an ugly waltz round my idea.
This would not disturb me a tittle, if I thought well of
the work myself. I should feel a confidence that it would
win its way at last; but this is not the case with Gesner's
" Der erste Schiffer." It may as well lie here till Tom-
kins wants it. Let him only give me a week's notice, and
I will transmit it to you with a large margin. Bowles's
stanzas on " Navigation " 1 are among the best in that sec¬
ond volume, but the whole volume is wofully inferior to
its predecessor. There reigns through all the blank verse
poems such a perpetual trick of moralizing everything,
which is very well, occasionally, but never to see or de¬
scribe any interesting appearance in nature without con¬
necting it, by dim analogies, with the moral world proves
faintness of impression. Nature has her proper interest,
and he will know what it is who believes and feels that
everything has a life of its own, and that we are all One
1 "The Spirit of Navigation and Discovery." "Bowles's Poetical
Works," Galignani, p. 142.
404
A LAKE POET
[Sept.
Life. A poet's lieart and intellect should be combined,
intimately combined and unified with the great appear¬
ances of nature, and not merely held in solution and loose
mixture with them, in the shape of formal similes. I do
not mean to exclude these formal similes; there are moods
of mind in which they are natural, pleasing moods of
mind, and such as a poet will often have, and sometimes
express ; but they are not his highest and most appropri¬
ate moods. They are " sermoni propriora," which I once
translated " properer for a sermon." The truth is,
Bowles has indeed the sensibility of a poet, but he has not
the passioti of a great poet. His latter writings all want
native passion. Milton here and there supplies him with
an appearance of it, but he has 110 native passion because
he is not a thinker, and has probably weakened his in¬
tellect by the haunting fear of becoming extravagant.
Young, somewhere in one of his prose works, remarks
that there is as profound a logic in the most daring and
ditliyrambic parts of Pindar as in the " Organon " of
Aristotle. The remark is a valuable one.
Poetic feelings, like the flexuous boughs
Of mighty oaks! yield homage to the gale,
Toss in the strong winds, drive before the gust,
Themselves one giddy storm of fluttering leaves;
Yet, all the while, self-limited, remain
Equally near the fix'd and parent trunk
Of truth in nature — in the howling blast,
As in the calm that stills the aspen grove.1
That this is deep in our nature, I felt when I was on
Scafell. I involuntarily poured forth a hymn 2 in the man-
1 These lines form part of the 2 The " Hymn before Sunrise in
poem addressed "To Matilda Be- the Yale of Cliamouni" was first
tham. From a Stranger." The date printed in the Morning Post, Septem-
of composition was September 9, ber 11, 1802. It was reprinted in
1802, the day before they were the original issue of The Friend, No.
quoted in the letter to Sotheby. xi. (October 16, 1800, pp. 174-176),
Poetical Works, p. 168. and again in Sibylline Leaves, 1817.
1802]
TO W. SOTHEBY
405
ner of tlie Psalms, though afterwards I thought the ideas,
etc., disproportionate to our humble mountains. . . . You
will soon see it in the " Morning Post," and I should be
glad to know whether and how far it pleased you. It
has struck me with great force lately that the Psalms
afford a most complete answer to those who state the
Jehovah of the Jews, as a personal and national God, and
the Jews as differing from the Greeks only in calling the
minor Gods Cherubim and Seraphim, and confining the
word " God " only to their Jupiter. It must occur to
every reader that the Greeks in their religious poems
address always the Numina Loci, the Genii, the Dryads,
the Naiads, etc., etc. All natural objects were deadmere
hollow statues, but there was a Godkin or Goddessling
included in each. In the Hebrew poetry you find nothing
of this poor stuff, as poor in genuine imagination as it is
mean in intellect. At best, it is but fancy, or the aggre¬
gating faculty of the mind, not imagination or the modi¬
fying and coadunating faculty. This the Hebrew poets
appear to me to have possessed beyond all others, and
As De Quincey was tlie first to point
out, Coleridge was indebted to tlie
Swiss poetess, Frederica Brun, for
the framework of the poem and for
many admirable lines and images,
but it was his solitary walk on Sea-
fell, and the consequent uplifting of
spirit, which enabled him '' to create
the dry bones of the German out¬
line into the fulness of life."
Coleridge will never lose his title
of a Lake Poet, but of the ten years
during which he was nominally resi¬
dent in the Lake District, he was ab¬
sent at least half the time. Of his
greater poems there are but four, the
second part of " Christabel," the
"Dejection: an Ode," the "Pic¬
ture," and the " Hymn before Sun¬
rise," which take their colouring
from the scenery of Westmoreland
and Cumberland.
He was but twenty-six when he
visited Ottery for the last time. It
was in his thirty-fifth year that he
bade farewell to Stowey and the
Quantocks, and after he was turned
forty he never saw Grasmere or Kes¬
wick again. Ill health and the res
angusta domi are stern gaolers, but,
if he had been so minded, he would
have found a way to revisit the pleas¬
ant places in which he had passed
his youth and early manhood. In
truth, he was well content to be a
dweller in " the depths of the huge
city'' or its outskirts, and, like
Lamb, he " could not live in Skid-
daw." Poetical Works, p. 105, and
Editor's Note, pp. 029, 030.
406
A LAKE POET
[Sept.
next to tliem the English. In the Hebrew poets each
thing- has a life of its own, and yet they are all our life.
In God they move and live and have their being ; not had,
as the cold system of Newtonian Theology represents, but
have. Great pleasure indeed, my dear sir, did I receive
from the latter part of your letter. If there be any two
subjects which have in the very depths of my nature
interested me, it has been the Hebrew and Christian
Theology, and the Theology of Plato. Last winter I
read the Parmenides and the Timseus with great care, and
oh, that you were here — even in this howling rainstorm
that dashes itself against my windows — on the other
side of my blazing fire, in that great armchair there! I
guess we should encroach on the morning ere we parted.
How little the commentators of Milton have availed
themselves of the writings of Plato, Milton's darling!
But alas, commentators only hunt out verbal parallelisms
— numen abest. I was much impressed with this in all
the many notes on that beautiful passage in " Comus "
from 1. 629 to 641. All the puzzle is to find out what
plant Iltemony is ; which they discover to be the English
spleenwort, and decked out as a mere play and licence of
poetic fancy with all the strange properties suited to the
purpose of the drama. They thought little of Milton's
platonizing spirit, who wrote nothing without an interior
meaning. " Where more is meant than meets the ear,"
is true of himself beyond all writers. He was so great a
man that he seems to have considered fiction as profane
unless where it is consecrated by being emblematic of
some truth. What an unthinking and ignorant man we
must have supposed Milton to be, if, without any hidden
meaning, he had described it as growing in such abun¬
dance that the didl swain treads on it daily, and yet as
never flowering. Such blunders Milton of all others was
least likely to commit. Do look at the passage. Apply
it as an allegory of Christianity, or, to speak more pre-
1802] TO W. SOTHEBY 407
cisely, of the Redemption by the Cross, every syllable is
full of light! " A small unsightly root." — " To the
Greeks folly, to the Jews a stumbling-block " — " The leaf
was darkish and had prickles on it"— " If in this life
only we have hope, we are of all men the most miserable,"
and a score of other texts. " But in another country, as
he said, Bore a bright golden flower " — " The exceeding
weight of glory prepared for us hereafter " — " But not in
this soil; Unknoion and like esteemed and the dull swain
Treads on it daily with his clouted shoon "— The prom¬
ises of Redemption offered daily and hourly, and to all,
but accepted scarcely by any — " He called it Hoemonyr
Now what is Ilaemony ? af/xa oTvos, Blood-wine. " And
he took the wine and blessed it and said, ' This is my
Blood,' " — the great symbol of the Death on the Cross.
There is a general ridicule cast on all allegorising of
poets. Read Milton's prose works, and observe whether
he was one of those who joined in this ridicule. There is
a very curious passage in Josephus [De Bello Jud. 6, 7,
cap. 25 (vi. § 3)] which is, in its literal meaning, more
wild and fantastically absurd than the passage in Milton ;
so much so, that Lardner quotes it in exultation and says
triumphantly, " Can any man who reads it think it any
disparagement to the Christian Religion that it was not
embraced by a man who would believe such stuff as this ?
God forbid that it should affect Christianity, that it is not
believed by the learned of this world! " But the passage
in Josephus, I have no doubt, is wholly allegorical.
"Eerr^cre signifies " He hath stood,"1 which, in these
1 Coleridge must have presumed in proclaiming- his unswerving alle-
on the ignorance of Sotheby and of giance to fixed principles. The in-
his friends generally. He could itials S. T. C., Grecised and mis-
hardly have passed out of Boyer's translated, expressed this pleasing
hands without having learned that delusion, and the Greek, " Punic
"Earriffe signifies, " He hath placed," [sc. punnic] Greek," as he elsewhere
not " He hath stood." But, like calls it, might run the risk of de-
most people who have changed their tection.
opinions, lie took an especial pride
408
A LAKE POET
[Sept.
times of apostasy from the principles of freedom or of
religion in this country, and from both by the same per¬
sons in France, is no unmeaning signature, if subscribed
with humility, and in the remembrance of " Let him that
stands take heed lest he fall! " However, it is, in truth,
no more than S. T. C. written in Greek — Es tee see.
Pocklington will not sell his house, but he is ill, and
perhaps it may be to be sold, but it is sunless all winter.
God bless you, and S. T. Coleridge.
cxxxi. to tiie same.
Greta Hall, Keswick, Tuesday, September 27, 1802.
My dear Sir, — The river is full, and Lodore is full,
and silver-fillets come out of clouds and glitter in every
ravine of all the mountains ; and the hail lies like snow,
upon their tops, and the impetuous gusts from Borrow-
dale snatch the water up high, and continually at the
bottom of the lake it is not distinguishable from snow
slanting before the wind — and under this seeming snow¬
drift the sunshine gleams, and over all the nether half of
the Lake it is bright and dazzles, a cauldron of melted
silver boiling! It is in very truth a sunny, misty, cloudy,
dazzling, howling, omniform day, and I have been look¬
ing at as pretty a sight as a father's eyes could well see —
Hartley and little Derwent running in the green where
the gusts blow most madly, both with their hair floating
and tossing, a miniature of the agitated trees, below
which they were playing, inebriate both with the pleas¬
ure — Hartley whirling round for joy, Derwent eddying,
half-willingly, half by the force of the gust, — driven
backward, struggling forward, and shouting his little
hymn of joy. I can write thus to you, my dear sir, with
a confident spirit; for when I received your letter on the
22nd, and had read the " family history," I laid down
the sheet upon my desk, and sate for half an hour think¬
ing of you, dreaming of you, till the tear grown cold
1802]
TO W. SOTHEBY
409
upon my clieek awoke me from my reverie. May you
live long, long, thus blessed in your family, and often,
often may you all sit around one fireside. Oh happy
should I be now and then to sit among you — your pilot
and guide in some of your summer walks !
" Frigidus ut sylvis Aquilo si inereverit, aut si
Hiberni pluviis dependent nubibus iiubres,
Nos liabeat domus, et multo Lar luceat igne.
Ante foeum mihi parvus erit, qui ludat, lulus,
Blanditias ferat, et nondum eonstantia verba;
Ipse legam magni tecum monumenta Platonis ! "
Or, what would be still better, I could talk to you (and, if
if you were here now, to an accompaniment of winds that
would well suit the subject) instead of writing to you con¬
cerning your " Orestes." When we talk we are our own
living commentary, and there are so many running notes
of look, tone, and gesture, that there is small danger of
being misunderstood, and less danger of being imperfectly
understood — in writing; but no ! it is foolish to abuse a
good substitute because it is not all that the original is, —
so I will do my best and, believe me, I consider this letter
which I am about to write as merely an exercise of my
own judgment—a something that may make you better
acquainted, perhaps, with the architecture and furniture of
my mind, though it will probably convey to you little or
nothing that had not occurred to you before respecting
your own tragedy. One thing I beg solicitously of you,
that, if anywhere I appear to speak positively, you will
acquit me of any correspondent feeling. I hope that it is
not a frequent feeling with me in any case, and, that if it
appear so, I am belied by my own warmth of manner.
In the present instance it is impossible. I have been too
deeply impressed by the work, and I am now about to
give you, not criticisms nor decisions, but a history of my
impressions, and, for the greater part, of my first impres¬
sions, and if anywhere there seem anything like a tone
410
A LAKE POET
[Nov.
of warmth or dogmatism, do, my dear sir, be kind enough
to regard it as no more than a way of conveying to you
the whole of my meaning; or, for I am writing too seri¬
ously, as the dexterous toss, necessary to turn an idea out
of its pudding-bag, round and unbroken.
[No signature.]
Several pages of minute criticisms on Sotheby's
" Orestes" form part of the original transcript of the
letter.
cxxxii. to his wife.
St. Clear, Caermarthen, Tuesday, November 16, 1802.
My dear Love, — I write to you from the New
Passage, Saturday morning, November 13. We had a fa¬
vourable passage, dined on the other side, and proceeded
in a post-chaise to Usk, and from thence to Abergavenny,
where we supped and slept and breakfasted — a vile
supper, vile beds, and vile breakfast. From Abergavenny
to Brecon, through the vale of Usk, I believe, nine¬
teen miles of most delightful country. It is not indeed
comparable with the meanest part of our Lake Country,
but hills, vale, and river, cottages and woods are nobly
blended, and, thank Heaven, I seldom permit my past
greater pleasures to lessen my enjoyment of present
charms. Of the things which this nineteen miles has in
common with our whole vale of Keswick (which is about
nineteen miles long), I may say that the two vales and
the two rivers are equal to each other, that the Keswick
vale beats the Welsh one all hollow in cottages, but is as
much surpassed by it in woods and timber trees. I am
persuaded that every tree in the south of England has
three times the number of leaves that a tree of the same
sort and size has in Cumberland or Westmoreland, and
there is an incomparably larger number of very large
trees. Even the Scotch firs luxuriate into beauty and
pluminess, and the larches are magnificent creatures in-
1802]
TO HIS WIFE
411
deed, in S. Wales. I must not deceive you, however,
with all the advantages. S. Wales, if you came into it
with the very pictures of Keswick, Ulleswater, Grasmere,
etc., in your fancy, and were determined to hold them,
and S. Wales together with all its richer fields, woods,
and ancient trees, would needs appear flat and tame as
ditchwater. I have no firmer persuasion than this, that
there is no place in our island (and, saving- Switzer¬
land, none in Europe perhaps), which really equals the
vale of Keswick, including Borrowdale, Newlands, and
Bassenthwaite. O Heaven! that it had but a more
genial climate ! It is now going on for the eighteenth
week since they have had any rain here, more than a few
casual refreshing showers, and we have monopolized the
rain of the whole kingdom. From Brecon to Trecastle —
a churchyard, two or three miles from Brecon, is belted
by a circle of the largest and noblest yews I ever saw —
in a belt, to wit; they are not so large as the yew in
Borrowdale or that in Lorton, but so many, so large and
noble, I never saw before — and quite glowing with those
heavenly - coloured, silky - pink - scarlet berries. From
Trecastle to Llandovery, where we found a nice inn, an
excellent supper, and good beds. From Llandovery to
Llandilo — from Llandilo to Caermarthen, a large town all
whitewashed — the roofs of the houses all whitewashed!
a great town in a confectioner's shop, on Twelfth-cake-
Day, or a huge snowpiece at a distance. It is nobly
situated along a hill among hills, at the head of a very
extensive vale. From Caermarthen after dinner to St.
Clear, a little hamlet nine miles from Caermarthen, three
miles from the sea (the nearest seaport being Llangan,
pronounced Lame, on Caermarthen Bay — look in the
map), and not quite a hundred miles from Bristol. The
country immediately round is exceedingly bleak and
dreary — just the sort of country that there is around
Shurton, etc. But the inn, the Blue Boar, is the most
412
A LAKE POET
comfortable little public-house I was ever in. Miss S.
Wedgwood left us this morning (we arrived here at half
past four yesterday evening) for Crescelly, Mr. Allen s
seat (the Mrs. Wedgwood's father), fifteen miles from
this place, and T. Wedgwood is gone out cock-shooting,
in high glee and spirits. He is very much better than I
expected to have found him — he says, the thought of my
coming, and my really coming so immediately, lias sent a
new life into him. He will be out all the mornings.
The evenings we chat, discuss, or I read to him. To me
he is a delightful and instructive companion. He pos¬
sesses the finest, the subtlest mind and taste I have ever
yet met with. His mind resembles that miniature in my
" Three Graves : " 1 —
A small blue sun ! and it has got
A perfect glory too !
Ten thousand hairs of colour'd light,
Make up a glory gay and bright,
Round that small orb so blue!
I continue in excellent health, compared with my state
at Keswick. ... I have now left off beer too, and will
persevere in it. I take no tea; in the morning coffee,
with a teaspoonful of ginger in the last cup; in the after¬
noon a large cup of ginger-tea, and I take ginger at twelve
o'clock at noon, and a glass after supper. I find not the
least inconvenience from any quantity, however large. I
dare say I take a large table-spoonful in the course of the
twenty-four hours, and once in the twenty-four hours (but
not always at the same time) I take half a grain of puri-
1 Parts III. and IV. of the " Three " A small blue sun " became '1A tiny
Graves" were first published in The sun," and for "Ten thousand hairs
Friend, No. vi. Sept. 21,1809. Parts of colour'd light" Coleridge sub-
I.and II. were published for the first stituted "Ten thousand hairs and
time in ThePoetical Works of Samuel threads of light." See Poetical
Taylor Coleridge, Macmillan, 1893. Works, p. 92, and Editor's Note, pp.
The final version of this stanza (11. 589-591.
509-513) differs from that in the text.
1802]
TO HIS WIFE
413
fied opium, equal to twelve drops of laudanum, which is
not more than an eighth part of what I took at Keswick,
exclusively of beer, brandy, and tea, which last is un¬
doubtedly a pernicious thing — all which I have left off,
and will give this regimen a fair, complete trial of one
month, with no other deviation than that I shall some¬
times lessen the opiate, and sometimes miss a day. But
I am fully convinced, and so is T. Wedgwood, that to
a person with such a stomach and bowels as mine, if any
stimulus is needful, opium in the small quantities I now
take it is incomparably better in every respect than beer,
wine, spirits, or any fermented liquor, nay, far less per¬
nicious than even tea. It is my particular ivish that
Hartley and Derwent should have as little tea as possi¬
ble, and always very weak, with more than half milk.
Read this sentence to Mary, and to Mrs. Wilson. I
should think that ginger-tea, with a good deal of milk
in it, would be an excellent thing for Hartley. A tea-
spoonful piled up of ginger would make a potful of tea,
that would serve him for two days. And let him drink
it half milk. I dare say that he would like it very well,
for it is pleasant with sugar, and tell him that his dear
father takes it instead of tea, and believes that it will
make his dear Hartley grow. The whole kingdom is
getting ginger-mad. My dear love ! I have said nothing
of Italy, for I am as much in the dark as when I left
Keswick, indeed much more. For I now doubt very
much whether we shall go or no. Against our going you
must place T. W.'s improved state of health, and his ex¬
ceeding dislike to continental travelling, and horror of
the sea, and his exceeding attachment to his family; for
our going, you must place his past experience, the tran¬
siency of his enjoyments, the craving after change, and
the effect of a cold winter, especially if it should come on
wet or sleety. His determinations are made so rapidly,
that two or three days of wet weather with a raw cold air
414
A LAKE POET
[Dec.
might liave such an effect on his spirits, that he might
go off immediately to Naples, or perhaps for Teneriffe,
which latter place he is always talking about. Look out
for it in the Encyclopaedia. Again, these latter causes
make it not impossible that the pleasure he has in me as
a companion may languish. I must subscribe myself in
haste,
Your dear husband, S. T. Coleridge.
The mail is waiting.
cxxxiii. to the rev. j. p. estlin.
Crescelly, near Narbarth, Pembrokeshire,
December 7, 1802.
My dear Friend, — I took the liberty of desiring
Mrs. Coleridge to direct a letter for me to you, fully
expecting to have seen you ; but I passed rapidly through
Bristol, and left it with Mr. Wedgwood immediately —
I literally had no time to see any one. I hope, however,
to see you on my return, for I wish very much to have
some hours' conversation with you on a subject that will
not cease to interest either of us while we live at least,
and I trust that is a synonym of " for ever ! " . . . Have
you seen my different essays in the "Morning Post"?1 —
the comparison of Imperial Rome and France, the " Once
a Jacobin, always a Jacobin," and the two letters to Mr.
Fox? Are my politics yours?
Have you heard lately from America ? A gentleman
informed me that the progress of religious Deism in the
middle Provinces is exceedingly rapid, that there are
numerous congregations of Deists, etc., etc. Would to
Heaven this were the case in France ! Surely, religious
Deism is infinitely nearer the religion of our Saviour than
the gross idolatry of Popery, or the more decorous, but
not less genuine, idolatry of a vast majority of Protest-
1 The six essays to which he calls Essays on His Own Times, ii. 478—
Estlin's attention are reprinted in 585.
1802]
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
415
ants. If there be meaning in words, it appears to me
that the Quakers and Unitarians are the only Christians,
altogether pure from Idolatry, and even of these I am
sometimes jealous, that some of the Unitarians make too
much an Idol of their one God. Even the worship of
one God becomes Idolatry in my convictions, when, in¬
stead of the Eternal and Omnipresent, in whom we live
and move and have our Being, we set up a distinct Jeho¬
vah, tricked- out in the anthropomorphic attributes of
Time and successive Thoughts, and think of him as a
jPerson, from whom we had our Being. The tendency
to Idolatry seems to me to lie at the root of all our
human vices — it is our original Sin. When we dismiss
three Persons in the Deity, only by subtracting two, we
talk more intelligibly, but, I fear, do not feel more reli¬
giously — for God is a Spirit, and must be worshipped in
spirit.
O my dear sir! it is long since we have seen each
other — believe me, my esteem and grateful affection for
you and Mrs. Estlin has suffered no abatement or inter¬
mission — nor can I persuade myself that my opinions,
fully stated and fully understood, would appear to you
to differ essentially from your own. My creed is very
simple — my confession of Faith very brief. I approve
altogether and embrace entirely the Religion of the
Quakers, but exceedingly dislike the sect, and their own
notions of their own Religion. By Quakerism I under¬
stand the opinions of George Fox rather than those of
Barclay — who was the St. Paul of Quakerism. — I pray
for you and yours!
S. T. Coleridge.
cxxxiv. to robert southey.
Christmas Day, 1802.
My dear Southey, — I arrived at Keswick with T.
Wedgwood on Friday afternoon, that is to say, yester-
416
A LAKE POET
[Jan.
(lay, and bad tlie comfort to find that Sara was safely
brought to bed, the morning before, that is on Thursday,
half-past six, of a healthy Girl. I had never thought
of a girl as a possible event; the words child and man-
child were perfect synonyms in my feelings. However, I
bore the sex with great fortitude, and she shall be called
Sara. Both Mrs. Coleridge and the Coleridgiella are as
well as can be. I left the little one sucking at a great
rate. Derwent and Hartley are both well.
I was at Cote 1 in the beginning of November, and of
course had calculated on seeing you, and, above all, on
seeing little Edith's physiognomy, among the certain
things of my expedition, but I had no sooner arrived at
Cote than I was forced to quit it, T. Wedgwood having
enraged to <ro into Wales with his sister. I arrived at
o o o
Cote in the afternoon, and till late evening did not know or
conjecture that we were to go off early in the next morn¬
ing. I do not say this for you, — you must know how
earnestly I yearn to see you, — but for Mr. Estlin, who
expressed himself wounded by the circumstance. When
you see him, therefore, be so good as to mention this to
him. I was much affected by Mrs. Coleridge's account
of your health and eyes. God have mercy on us! We
are all sick, all mad, all slaves! It is a theory of mine
that virtue and genius are diseases of the hypochondriacal
and scrofulous genera, and exist in a peculiar state of the
nerves and diseased digestion, analogous to the beautiful
diseases that colour and variegate certain trees. How¬
ever, I add, by way of comfort, that it is my faith that
the virtue and genius produce the disease, not the disease
the virtue, etc., though when present it fosters them.
Heaven knows, there are fellows who have more vices
than scabs, and scabs countless, with fewer ideas than
plaisters. As to my own health it is very indifferent. I
am exceedingly temperate in everything, abstain wholly
1 The residence of Josiali Wedgwood.
1803] TO THOMAS WEDGWOOD
417
from wine, spirits, or fermented liquors, almost wholly
from tea, abjure all fermentable and vegetable food, bread
excepted, and use that sparingly; live almost entirely on
eggs, fish, flesh, and fowl, and thus contrive not to be ill.
But well I am not, and in this climate never shall be. A
deeply ingrained though mild scrofula is diffused through
me, and is a very Proteus. I am fully determined to try
Teneriffe or Gran Canaria, influenced to prefer them to
Madeira solely by the superior cheapness of living. The
climate and country are heavenly, the inhabitants Pa-
pislies, all of whom I would burn with fire and faggot,
for what did n't they do to us Christians under bloody
Queen Mary ? Oh the Devil sulphur-roast them! I
would have no mercy on them, unless they drowned all
their priests, and then, spite of the itch (which they have
in an inveterate degree, rich and poor, gentle and simple,
old and young, male and female), would shake hands
with them ungloved.
By way of one impudent half line in this meek and
mild letter — will you go with me? " I" and "you"
mean mine and yours, of course. Remember you are to
give me Thomas Aquinas and Scotus Erigena.
God bless you and S. T. Coleridge.
I can have the best letters and recommendation. My
love and their sisters to Mary and Edith, and if you see
Mrs. Fricker, be so good as to tell her that she will hear
from me or Sara in the course of ten days.
cxxxv. to thomas wedgwood.
[The text of this letter, which was first published in
Cottle's "Reminiscences," 1849, p. 450, has been collated
with that of the original.]
Keswick, January 9, 1803.
My dear "Wedgwood, — I send you two letters,
one from your dear sister, the second from Sharp, by
418
A LAKE POET
[Jan.
wliicli you will see at what short notice I must be off, if I
go to the Canaries. If your last plan continue in full
force in your mind, of course I have not even the phantom
of a wish thitherward struggling, but if aught have hap¬
pened to you, in the things without, or in the world within,
to induce you to change the plan in itself, or the plan
relatively to me, I think I could raise the money, at all
events, and go and see. But I would a thousand-fold
rather go with you whithersoever you go. I shall be
anxious to hear how you have gone on since I left you.
Should you decide in favour of a better climate some¬
where or other, the best scheme I can think of is that in
some part of Italy or Sicily which we both liked. I
would look out for two houses. Wordsworth and his
family would take the one, and I the other, and then you
might have a home either with me, or, if you thought of
Mr. and Mrs. Luff, under this modification, one of your
own ; and in either case you would have neighbours, and
so return to England when the homesickness pressed
heavy upon you, and back to Italy when it was abated,
and the climate of England began to poison your com¬
forts. So you would have abroad, in a genial climate, cer¬
tain comforts of society among simple and enlightened
men and women; and I should be an alleviation of the
pang which you will necessarily feel, always, as often as
you quit your own family.
I know no better plan: for travelling in search of
objects is, at best, a dreary business, and whatever excite¬
ment it might have had, you must have exhausted it.
God bless you, my dear friend. I write with dim eyes,
for indeed, indeed, my heart is very full of affectionate
sorrowful thoughts toward you.
I found Mrs. Coleridge not so well as I expected, but
she is better to-day — and I, myself, write with difficulty,
with all the fingers but one of my right hand very much
swollen. Before I was half up Kirkstone the storm had
1803]
TO THOMAS WEDGWOOD
419
wetted me through and through, and before I reached the
top it was so wild and outrageous, that it would have been
unmanly to have suffered the poor woman (guide) to con¬
tinue pushing on, up against such a torrent of wind and
rain; so I dismounted and sent her home with the storm
to 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, rather, 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. Oh, 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 smart¬
ing and burning pain; and secondly, in consequence of
riding with such cold water under my seat, extremely un¬
easy and burthensome feelings attacked my groin, so that,
what with the pain from the one, and the alarm from the
other, I had no enjoyment at all!
Just at the brow of the hill I met a man dismounted,
who could not sit on horseback. He seemed quite
scared by the uproar, and said to me, with much feeling,
" Oh, sir, it is a perilous buffeting, 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 breath¬
less, as if it was some mighty fountain just on the summit
of Kirkstone, that shot forth its volcano of air, and pre¬
cipitated huge streams of invisible lava down the road to
Patterdale.
I went on to Grasmere. I was not at all unwell when
I arrived there, though wet of course to the skin. My
right eye had nothing the matter with it, either to the sight
of others, or to my own feelings, but I had a bad night,
420
A LAKE POET
[April
witli distressful dreams, chiefly about my eye ; and awaking
often in tlie dark I thought it was the effect of mere recol¬
lection, but it appeared in the morning that my right eye
was bloodshot, and the lid swollen. That morning, how¬
ever, I walked home, and before I reached Keswick my
eye was quite well, but I felt unwell all over. Yesterday
I continued unusually unwell all over me till eight o'clock
in the evening. I took no laudanum or opium, but at
eight o'clock, unable to bear the stomach uneasiness and
aching of my limbs, I took two large teaspoonsfull of
ether in a wine-glass of camphorated gum water, and a
third teaspoonfull at ten o'clock, and I received complete
relief, — my body calmed, my sleep placid, — but when I
awoke in the morning my right hand, with three of the
fingers, was swollen and inflamed. . . . This lias been a
very rough attack, but though I am much weakened by
it, and look sickly and haggard, yet I am not out of heart.
Such a bout, such a " perilous buffeting," was enough to
have hurt the health of a strong man. Few constitutions
can bear to be long wet through in intense cold. I fear
it will tire you to death to read this prolix scrawled
story, but my health, I know, interests you. Do continue
to send me a few lines by the market people on Friday —
I shall receive it on Tuesday morning.
Affectionately, dear friend, yours ever,
S. T. Coleridge.
[Addressed " T. Wedgwood, Esq., C. Luff's Esq., Glenridding1,
Ulleswater.]
cxxxvi. to his wife.
[London], Monday, April 4, 1803.
My dear Sara, — I have taken my place for Wednes¬
day night, and, barring accidents, shall arrive at Penrith
on Friday noon. If Friday be a fine morning, that is,
if it do not rain, you will get Mr. Jackson to send a lad
with a horse or pony to Penruddock. The boy ought to
1803]
TO HIS WIFE
421
be at Penruddock by twelve o'clock that liis horse may
bait and have a feed of corn. But if it be rain, there is
no choice but that I must take a chaise. At all events, if
it please God, I shall be with you by Friday, five o'clock,
at the latest. You had better dine early. I shall take
an egg or two at Penrith and drink tea at home. For
more than a fortnight we have had burning July weather.
The effect on my health was manifest, but Lamb ob¬
jected, very sensibly, " How do you know what part may
not be owing to the excitement of bustle and company ? "
On Friday night I was unwell and restless, and uneasy in
limbs and stomach, though I had been extremely regular.
I told Lamb on Saturday morning that I guessed the
weather had changed. But there was no mark of it; it
was hotter than ever. On Saturday evening my right
knee and both my ankles swelled and were very painful;
and within an hour after there came a storm of wind and
rain. It continued raining the whole night. Yesterday
it was a fine day, but cold; to-day the same, but I am a
great deal better, and the swelling in my ankle is gone
down and that in my right knee much decreased. Lamb
observed that he was glad he had seen all this with his
own eyes ; he now knew that my illness was truly linked
with the weather, and no whim or restlessness of disposi¬
tion in me. It is curious, but I have found that the
weather-glass changed on Friday night, the very hour
that I found myself unwell. I will try to bring down
something for Hartley, though toys are so outrageously
dear, and I so short of money, that I shall be puzzled.
To-day I dine again with Sotlieby. lie had informed
me that ten gentlemen who have met me at his house
desired him to solicit me to finish the " Cliristabel," and
to permit them to publish it for me; and they engaged
that it should be in paper, printing, and decorations the
most magnificent thing that had hitherto appeared. Of
course I declined it. The lovely lady shan't come to
422
A LAKE POET
[July
that pass! Many times rather would I have it printed at
Soulby's on the true ballad paper. However, it was
civil, and Sotheby is very civil to me.
I had purposed not to speak of Mary Lamb, but I had
better write it than tell it. The Thursday before last she
met at Rickman's a Mr. Babb, an old friend and admirer
of her mother. The next day she smiled in an ominous
way; on Sunday she told her brother that she was get¬
ting bad, with great agony. On Tuesday morning she
laid hold of me with violent agitation and talked wildly
about George Dyer. I told Charles there was not a
moment to lose; and I did not lose a moment, but went
for a hackney-coach and took her to the private mad¬
house at Hugsden. She was quite calm, and said it was
the best to do so. But she wept bitterly two or three
times, yet all in a calm way. Charles is cut to the heart.
You will send this note to Grasmere or the contents of it,
though, if I have time, I shall probably write myself to
them to-day or to-morrow.
Yours affectionately, S. T. Coleridge.
cxxxvii. to robert southey.
Keswick, Wednesday, July 2, 1803.
My dear Southey, — You have had much illness as
well as I, but I thank God for you, you have never been
equally diseased in voluntary power with me. I knew
a lady who was seized with a sort of asthma which she
knew would be instantly relieved by a dose of ether.
She had the full use of her limbs, and was not an arm's-
length from the bell, yet could not command voluntary
power sufficient to pull it, and might have died but for
the accidental coming in of her daughter. From such as
these the doctrines of materialism and mechanical neces¬
sity have been deduced; and it is some small argument
against the truth of these doctrines that I have perhaps
had a more various experience, a more intuitive know-
1803]
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
423
ledge of such facts tlian most men, and yet I do not
believe these doctrines. My health is middling. If this
hot weather continue, I hope to go on endurably, and oh,
for peace ! for I forbode a miserable winter in this coun¬
try. Indeed, I am rather induced to determine on win¬
tering in Madeira, rather than staying at home. I have
enclosed ten pounds for Mrs. Flicker. Tell her I wish it
were in my power to increase this poor half year's mite ;
but ill health keeps me poor. Bella is with us, and
seems likely to recover. I have not seen the " Edinburgh
Review." The truth is that Edinburgh is a place of lit¬
erary gossip, and even I have had my portion of puff there,
and of course my portion of hatred and envy. One man
puffs me up — he has seen and talked with me ; another
hears him, goes and reads my poems, written when almost
a boy, and candidly and logically hates me, because he does
not admire my poems, in the proportion in which one of
his acquaintance had admired me. It is difficult to say
whether these reviewers do you harm or good.
You read me at Bristol a very interesting piece of
casuistry from Father Somebody, the author, I believe, of
the " Theatre Critic," respecting a double infant. If you
do not immediately want it, or if my using it in a book
of logic, with proper acknowledgment, will not interfere
with your use of it, I should be extremely obliged to you
if you would send it me without delay. I rejoice to
hear of the progress of your History. The only thing I
dread is the division of the European and Colonial His¬
tory. In style you have only to beware of short, biblical,
and pointed periods. Your general style is delightfully
natural and yet striking.
You may expect certain explosions in the " Morning
Post," Coleridge versus Fox, in about a week. It grieved
me to hear (for I have a sort of affection for the man)
from Sharp, that Fox had not read my two letters, but
had heard of them, and that they were mine, and had
424
A LAKE POET
[July
expressed himself more wounded by the circumstance
than anything that had happened since Burke's business.
Sharp told this to Wordsworth, and told Wordsworth
that he had been so affected by Fox's manner, that he
himself had declined reading the two letters. Yet Sharp
himself thinks my opinions right and true; but Fox is
not to be attacked, and why? Because he is an amiable
man; and not by me, because he had thought highly of
me, etc., etc. O Christ! this is a pretty age in the arti¬
cle morality! When I cease to love Truth best of all
things, and Liberty the next best, may I cease to live :
nay, it is my creed that I should thereby cease to live, for
as far as anything can be called probable in a subject so
dark, it seems to me most probable that our immortality
is to be a work of our own hands.
All the children are well, and love to hear Bella talk
of Margaret. Love to Edith and to Mary and
S. T. Coleridge.
I have received great delight and instruction from
Scotus JErijena. He is clearly the modern founder of
the school of Pantheism; indeed he expressly defines the
divine nature as quae fit et facit, et creat et creatur ; and
repeatedly declares creation to be manifestation, the
epiphany of philosophers. The eloquence with which he
writes astonished me, but he had read more Greek than
Latin, and was a Platonist rather than an Aristotelian.
There is a good deal of omne mens oculus in the notion
of the dark ages, etc., taken intensively ; in extension it
might be true. They had wells: we are flooded ankle
high: and what comes of it but grass rank or rotten ?
Our age eats from that poison-tree of knowledge yclept
" Too-Mucli and Too-Little." Have you read Paley's last
book?1 Have you it to review? I could make a dashing
review of it.
1 Paley's last work, " Natural Theology; or, Evidences of the Existence
1803]
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
425
cxxxyiii. to the same.
Keswick, July, 1803.
My dear Soutiiey, — ... I write now to propose a
scheme,1 or rather a rude outline of a scheme, of your grand
work. What harm can a proposal do ? If it be no pain
to you to reject it, it will be none to me to have it rejected.
I would have the work entitled Bibliotheca Britannica, or
an History of British Literature, bibliographical, biograph¬
ical, and critical. The two last volumes I would have to
be a chronological catalogue of all noticeable or extant
books; the others, be the number six or eight, to consist
entirely of separate treatises, each giving a critical biblio-
biographical history of some one subject. I will, with
great pleasure, join you in learning Welsh and Erse ; and
you, I, Turner, and Owen,2 might dedicate ourselves for
the first half-year to a complete history of all Welsh,
Saxon, and Erse books that are not translations that are
the native growth of Britain. If the Spanish neutrality
continues, I will go in October or November to Biscay,
and throw light on the Basque.
Let the next volume contain the history of English
poetry and poets, in which I would include all prose truly
poetical. The first half of the second volume should be
dedicated to great single names, Chaucer and Spenser,
Shakespeare, Milton and Taylor, Dryden and Poj^e ; the
poetry of witty logic, — Swift, Fielding, Richardson,
Sterne; I write par ha sard, but I mean to say all great
names as have either formed epochs in our taste, or such,
at least, as are representative ; and the great object to be
and Attributes of A Deity, col- 2 Soutliey's correspondence con-
lected from the Appearances of Na- tains numerous references to the
ture," was published in 1802. historian Sharon Turner [17(38—
1 For Soutliey's well known re- 1847], and to William Owen, the
joinder to this " ebullience of sche- translator of the Mabinogion and
matism " see Life and Correspond- author of the Welsh Paradise Lost,
ence, ii. 220-223.
426
A LAKE POET
[Aug.
in each instance to determine, first, the true merits and
demerits of the boohs ; secondly, what of these belong to
the age — what to the author quasi peculinm. The second
half of the second volume should be a history of poetry
and romances, everywhere interspersed with biography,
but more flowing, more consecutive, more bibliographical,
chronological, and complete. The third volume I would
have dedicated to English prose, considered as to style, as
to eloquence, as to general impressiveness; a history of
styles and manners, their causes, their birth-places and
parentage, their analysis. . . .
These three volumes would be so generally interesting,
so exceedingly entertaining, that you might bid fair for
a sale of the work at large. Then let the fourth volume
take up the history of metaphysics, theology, medicine,
alchemy, common canon, and Roman law, from Alfred to
Henry VII.; in other words, a history of the dark ages in
Great Britain : the fifth volume — carry on metaphysics
and ethics to the present day in the first half; the second
half, comprise the theology of all the reformers. In the
fourth volume there would be a grand article on the
philosophy of the theology of the Roman Catholic reli¬
gion ; in this (fifth volume), under different names, —
Hooker, Baxter, Biddle, and Fox, — the spirit of the the¬
ology of all the other parts of Christianity. The sixth and
seventh volumes must comprise all the articles you can
get, on all the separate arts and sciences that have been
treated of in books since the Reformation; and, by this
time, the book, if it answered at all, would have gained so
high a reputation that you need not fear having whom you
liked to write the different articles — medicine, surgery,
chemistry, etc., etc., navigation, travellers, voyagers, etc.,
etc. If I go into Scotland, shall I engage Walter Scott
to write the history of Scottish poets ? Tell me, however,
what you think of the plan. It would have one prodigious
advantage: whatever accident stopped the work, would
1803]
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
427
only prevent the future good, not mar the past; each vol¬
ume would be a great and valuable work per se. Then
each volume would awaken a new interest, a new set of
readers, who would buy the past volumes of course; then
it would allow you ample time and opportunities for the
slavery of the catalogue volumes, which should be at the
same time an index to the work, which would be in very
truth a pandect of knowledge, alive and swarming with
human life, feeling, incident. By the bye, what a strange
abuse has been made of the word encyclopaedia! It sig¬
nifies properly, grammar, logic, rhetoric, and ethics, and
metaphysics, which last, explaining the ultimate principle
of grammar— log. — rhet., and eth. — formed a circle of
knowledge. ... To call a huge unconnected miscellany
of the omne scibile, in an arrangement determined by the
accident of initial letters, an encyclopaedia is the impudent
ignorance of your Presbyterian book-makers. Good night!
God bless you! S. T. C.
cxxxix. to the same.
Keswick, Sunday, August 7, 1803.
(Read the last lines first; I send you this letter merely
to show you how anxious I have been about your work.)
My dear Soutiiey, — The last three days I have
been fighting up against a restless wish to write to you.
I am afraid lest I should infect you with my fears rather
than furnish you with any new arguments, give you im¬
pulses rather than motives, and prick you with xjyurs that
had been dipped in the vaccine matter of my own coward¬
liness. While I wrote that last sentence, I had a vivid rec¬
ollection, indeed an ocular spectrum, of our room in College
Street, a curious instance of association. You remember
how incessantly in that room I used to be compounding
these half-verbal, half-visual metaphors. It argues, I am
persuaded, a particular state of general feeling, and I
428
A LAKE POET
[Aug.
hold that association depends in a much greater degree on
the recurrence of resembling states of feeling than on
trains of ideas, that the recollection of early childhood in
latest old age depends on and is explicable by this, and if
this be true, Hartley's system totters. If I were asked
how it is that very old people remember visually only the
events of early childhood, and remember the intervening
spaces either not at all or only verbally, I should think it
a perfectly philosophical answer that old age remembers
childhood by becoming " a second childhood ! " This
explanation will derive some additional value if you would
look into Hartley's solution of the phenomena — how flat,
how wretched ! Believe me, Soutliey ! a metaphysical so¬
lution, that does not instantly tell you something in the
heart is grievously to be suspected as apocryphal. I al¬
most think that ideas never recall ideas, as far as they are
ideas, any more than leaves in a forest create each other's
motion. The breeze it is that runs through them — it is
the soul, the state of feeling. If I had said no one
idea ever recalls another, I am confident that I could sup¬
port the assertion. And this is a digression.—My dear
Soutliey, again and again I say, that whatever your plan
may be, I will contrive to work for you with equal zeal
if not with equal pleasure. But the arguments against
your plan weigh upon me the more heavily, the more I
reflect; and it could not be otherwise than that I should
feel a confirmation of them from Wordsworth's complete
coincidence — I having requested his deliberate opinion
without having communicated an iota of my own. You
seem to me, dear friend, to hold the dearness of a scarce
work for a proof that the work would have a general sale,
if not scarce. Nothing can be more fallacious than this.
Burton's Anatomy used to sell for a guinea to two guineas.
It was republished. Has it paid the expense of reprint¬
ing? Scarcely. Literary history informs us that most
of those great continental bibliographies, etc., were pub-
1803]
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
429
lished by the munificence of princes, or nobles, or great
monasteries. A book from having liad little or no sale,
except among great libraries, may become so scarce that
the number of competitors for it, though few, may be
proportionally very great. I have observed that great
works are nowadays bought, not for curiosity or the
amor proprius, but under the notion that they contain all
the knowledge a man may ever want, and if he has it on
his shelf why there it is, as snug as if it were in his brain.
This has carried off the encyclopaedia, and will continue
to do so. I have weighed most patiently what you said
respecting the persons and classes likely to purchase a
catalogue of all British books. I have endeavoured to
make some rude calculation of their numbers according
to your own numeration table, and it falls very short of
an adequate number. Your scheme appears to be in
short faulty, (1) because, everywhere, the generally unin¬
teresting, the catalogue part will overlay the interesting
parts; (2) because the first volume will have nothing in
it tempting or deeply valuable, for there is not time or
room for it; (B) because it is impossible that any one of
the volumes can be executed as well as they would other¬
wise be from the to-and-fro, now here, now there motion
of the mind, and employment of the industry. Oh how I
wish to be talking, not writing, for my mind is so full
that my thoughts stifle and jam each other. And I have
presented them as shapeless jellies, so that I am ashamed
of what I have written — it so imperfectly expresses what
I meant to have said. My advice certainly would be,
that at all events you should make some classification.
Let all the law books form a catalogue per se, and so
forth; otherwise it is not a book of reference, without an
index half as large as the work itself. I see no well-
founded objection to the plan which I first sent. The
two main advantages are that, stop where you will, you
are in harbour, you sail in an archipelago so thickly
430
A LAKE POET
[Sept.
clustered, (that) at each island you take in a completely
new cargo, and the former cargo is in safe housage; and
(2dly) that each labourer working by the piece, and not
by the day, can give an undivided attention in some in¬
stances for three or four years, and bring to the work the
whole weight of his interest and reputation. . . . An
encyclopaedia appears to me a worthless monster. What
surgeon, or physician, professed student of pure or mixed
mathematics, what chemist or architect, would go to an
encyclopaedia for his books? If valuable treatises exist
011 these subjects in an encyclopaedia, they are out of their
place — an equal hardship on the general reader, who pays
for whole volumes which he cannot read, and on the pro¬
fessed student of that particular subject, who must buy a
great work which he does not want in order to possess a
valuable treatise, which he might otherwise have had for
six or seven shillings. You omit those things only from
your encyclopaedia which are excrescences — each volume
will set vp the reader, give him at once connected trains of
thought and facts, and a delightful miscellany for lounge-
reading. Your treatises will be long in exact proportion
to their general interest. Think what a strange confusion
it will make, if you speak of each book, according to its
date, passing from an Epic Poem to a treatise on the
treatment of sore legs ? Nobody can become an enthu¬
siast in favour of the work. ... A great change of weather
has come on, heavy rain and wind, and I have been very
ill, and still I am in uncomfortable restless health. I am
not even certain whether I shall not be forced to put off
my Scotch tour; but if I go, I go on Tuesday. I shall
not send off this letter till this is decided.
God bless you and S. T. C.
1803]
TO HIS WIFE
431
cxl. to his wife.
Friday afternoon, 4 o'clock, Sept. (1), [1803].
My dear Sara, — I write from the Ferry of Ballater.
. . . This is the first post since the day I left Glasgow.
We went thence to Dumbarton (look at Stoddart's tour,
where there is a very good view of Dumbarton Rock and
Tower), thence to Loch Lomond, and a single house called
Luss — horrible inhospitality and a fiend of a landlady!
Thence eight miles up the Lake to E. Tarbet, where the
lake is so like Ulleswater that I could scarcely see the
difference ; crossed over the lake and by a desolate moor¬
land walked to another lake, Loch Katrine, up to a place
called Trossachs, the Borrowdale of Scotland, and the
only thing which really beats us. You must conceive the
Lake of Keswick pushing itself up a mile or two into
Borrowdale, winding round Castle Crag, and in and out
among all the nooks and promontories, and you must im¬
agine all the mountains more detachedly built up, a gen¬
eral dislocation; every rock its own precipice, with trees
young and old. This will give you some faint idea of the
place, of which the character is extreme intricacy of effect
produced by very simple means. One rocky, high island,
four or five promontories, and a Castle Crag, just like that
in the gorge of Borrowdale, but not so large. It rained all
the way, all the long, long day. We slept in a hay-loft, —
that is, Wordsworth, I, and a young man who came in at
the Trossachs and joined us. Dorothy had a bed in the
hovel, which was varnished so rich with peat smoke an
apartment of highly polished [oak] would have been poor
to it — it would have wanted the metallic lustre of the
smoke-varnished rafters. This was [the pleasantest]
evening I had spent since my tour; for Wordsworth's
hypochondriacal feelings keep him silent and self-centred.
The next day it still was rain and rain ; the ferry-boat
was out for the preaching, and we stayed all day in the
432
A LAKE POET
[Sept.
ferry wet to the skin. Oh, such a wretched hovel! But
two Highland lassies,1 who kej)t house in the absence of
the ferryman and his wife, were very kind, and one of
them was beautiful as a vision, and put both Dorothy and
me in mind of the Highland girl in William's "Peter
Bell."'2 We returned to E. Tarbet, I with the rheumatism
in my head. And now William proposed to me to leave
them and make my way on foot to Loch Katrine, the
Trossaclis, whence it is only twenty miles to Stirling,
where the coach runs through to Edinburgh. He and
Dorothy resolved to fight it out. I eagerly caught at the
proposal; for the sitting in an open carriage in the rain
is death to me, and somehow or other I had not been quite
comfortable. So on Monday I accompanied them to Ar-
rocliar, on purpose to see the Cobbler which had impressed
1 It may be interesting- to com¬
pare the following unpublished note
from Coleridge's Scotch Journal
with the well known passage in
Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal of
lier tour in the Highlands (Memoir of
Wordsworth, i. 235) : " Next morn¬
ing- we went in the boat to the end of
the lake, and so on by the old path
to the Garrison to the Ferry House
by Loch Lomond, where now the Fall
was in all its fury, and formed with
the Ferry cottage, and the sweet
Highland lass, a nice picture. The
boat gone to the preaching we stayed
all day in the comfortless hovel,
comfortless, but the two little lassies
did everything with such sweetness,
and one of them, 14, with such na¬
tive elegance. Oil! she was a divine
creature! The sight of the boat,
full of Highland men and women
and children from the preaching, ex¬
quisitely fine. We soon reached E.
Tarbet — all the while rain. Never,
never let me forget that small herd-
boy in liis tartan-plaid, dim-seen on
the hilly field, and long heard ere
seen, a melancholy voice calling to
his cattle ! nor the beautiful har¬
mony of the heath, and the dancing
fern, and the ever-moving birches.
That of itself enough to make Scot¬
land visitable, its fields of heather
giving a sort of shot silk finery in
the apotheosis of finery. On Mon¬
day we went to Arrocliar. Here I
left W. and D. and returned myself
to E. Tarbet, slept there, and now,
Tuesday, Aug. 30, 1803, am to make
my own way to Edinburgh."
Many years after he added the
words : " 0 Esteese, that thou liadst
from thy 22nd year indeed made thy
own way and alone !"
2 A sweet and playful Highland girl,
As light and beauteous as a squirrel,
As beauteous and as wild !
Her dwelling was a lonely house,
A cottage in a heathy dell;
And she put on her gown of green
And left her mother at sixteen,
And followed Peter Bell.
Peter Bell, Part III.
1803]
TO HIS WIFE
433
me so much in Mr. Wilkinson's drawings; and there I
parted with them, having' previously sent on all my things
to Edinburgh by a Glasgow carrier who happened to be
at E. Tarbet. The worst thing was the money. They
took twenty-nine guineas, and I six — all our remaining
cash. I returned to E. Tarbet; slept there that night;
the next day walked to the very head of Loch Lomond to
Glen Falloch, where I slept at a cottage-inn, two degrees
below John Stanley's (but the good people were very
kind), — meaning from hence to go over the mountains to
the head of Loch Katrine again; but hearing from the
gude man of the house that it was 40 miles to Glencoe
(of which I had formed an idea from Wilkinson's draw¬
ings), and having found myself so happy alone (such
blessing is there in perfect liberty !) I walked off. I have
walked forty-five miles since then, and, except during the
last mile, I am sure I may say I have not met with ten
houses. For eighteen miles there are but two habitations !
and all that way I met no sheep, no cattle, only one goat!
All through moorlands with huge mountains, some craggy
and bare, but the most green, with deep pinky channels
worn by torrents. Glencoe interested me, but rather dis¬
appointed me. There was no superincumbency of crag,
and the crags not so bare or precipitous as I had expected.
I am now going to cross the ferry for Fort William, for I
have resolved to eke out my cash by all sorts of self-denial,
and to walk along the whole line of the Forts. I am un¬
fortunately shoeless; there is no town where I can get a
pair, and I have no money to spare to buy them, so I ex¬
pect to enter Perth barefooted. I burnt my shoes in drying
them at the boatman's hovel oil Loch Katrine, and I have
by this means hurt my heel. Likewise my left leg is a
little inflamed, and the rheumatism in the right of my
head afflicts me sorely when I begin to grow warm in my
bed, chiefly my right eye, ear, cheek, and the three teeth;
but, nevertheless, I am enjoying myself, having Nature
434
A LAKE POET
[Sept.
with solitude and liberty — tlie liberty natural and solitary,
the solitude natural and free ! But you must contrive some¬
how or other to borrow ten pounds, or, if that cannot be,
five pounds, for me, and send it without delay, directed
to me at tlie Post Office, Perth. I guess I shall be there
in seven days or eight at the furthest; and your letter will
be two days getting thither (counting the day you put it
into the office at Keswick as nothing) ; so you must calcu¬
late, and if this letter does not reach you in time, that is,
within five days from the date hereof, you must then direct
to Edinburgh. I will make five pounds do (you must
borrow of Mr. Jackson), and I must beg my way for the
last three or four days! It is useless repining, but if I
had set off myself in the Mail for Glasgow or Stirling,
and so gone by foot, as I am now doing, I should have
saved twenty-five pounds; but then Wordsworth would
have lost it.
I have said nothing of you or my dear children. God
bless us all! I have but one untried misery to go through,
the loss of Hartley or Derwent, ay, or dear little Sara!
In my health I am middling. While I can walk twenty-
four miles a day, with the excitement of new objects, I
can support myself; but still my sleep and dreams are dis¬
tressful, and I am hopeless. I take no opiates . . . nor
have I any temptation; for since my disorder has taken
this asthmatic turn opiates produce none but positively
unpl [easant effects].
[No signature.]
Mrs. Coleridge,
Greta Hall, Keswick, Cumberland, S. Britain.
cxli. to robert southey.
[Edinburgh], Sunday night, 9 o'clock, September 10, 1803.
My dearest Southey, — I arrived here half an hour
ago, and have only read your letters — scarce read them.
— O dear friend! it is idle to talk of what I feel — I am
1803]
TO ROBERT SOUTIIEY
435
stunned at present by this beginning to write, making a
beginning of living feeling within me. Whatever com¬
fort I can be to you I will — I have no aversions, no
dislikes that interfere with you — whatever is necessary
or proper for you becomes ipso facto agreeable to me.
I will not stay a day in Edinburgh — or only one to hunt
out my clothes. I cannot chitchat with Scotchmen while
you are at Keswick, childless!1 Bless you, my dear
Southey ! I will knit myself far closer to you than I
have hitherto done, and my children shall be yours till
it please God to send you another.
I have been a wild journey, taken up for a spy and
clapped into Fort Augustus, and I am afraid they may
[have] frightened poor Sara by sending her off a scrap
of a letter I was writing to her. I have walked 2G3 miles
in eight days, so I must have strength somewhere, but my
spirits are dreadful, owing entirely to the horrors of every
night — I truly dread to sleep. It is no shadow with
me, but substantial misery foot-thick, that makes me
sit by my bedside of a morning and cry. — I have aban¬
doned all opiates, except ether be one . . . And when
you see me drink a glass of spirit-and-water, except by
prescription of a physician, you shall despise me, — but
still I cannot get quiet rest.
When on my bed my limbs I lay,
It hath not been my use to pray
With moving lips or bended knees ;
But silently, by slow degrees,
5 My spirit I to Love compose,
In humble trust my eyelids close,
With reverential resignation,
No wish conceiv'd, no thought exprest,
Only a Sense of supplication,
io A Sense o'er all my soul imprest
1 Margaret Southey, who was born in September, 1802, died in the latter
part of August, 1803.
436
A LAKE POET
[Sept.
That I am weak, yet not unblest,
Since round me, in me, everywhere
Eternal strength and Goodness are ! —
But yester-night I pray'd aloud
15 In anguish and in agony.
Awaking from the fiendish crowd
Of shapes and thoughts that tortur'd me !
Desire with loathing strangely mixt,
Oil wild or hateful objects fixt.
20 Sense of revenge, the powerless will,
Still baffled and consuming still;
Sense of intolerable wrong,
And men whom I despis'd made strong !
Vain glorious threats, unmanly vaunting,
25 Bad men my boasts and fury taunting;
Rage, sensual passion, mad'ning Brawl,
And shame and terror over all!
Deeds to be hid that were not hid,
Which all confus'd I might not know,
so Whether I suffer'd or I did :
For all was Horror, Guilt, and Woe,
My own or others still the same,
Life-stifling Fear, soul-stifling Shame!
Thus two nights pass'd: the night's dismay
35 Sadden'd and stunn'd the boding day.
I fear'd to sleep: Sleep seemed to be
Disease's worst malignity.
The third night, when my own loud scream
Had freed me from the fiendish dream,
40 O'ercome by sufferings dark and wild,
I wept as I had been a child ;
And having thus by Tears subdued
My Trouble to a milder mood,
Such punishments, I thought, were due
45 To Natures, deepliest stain'd with Sin;
Still to be stirring up anew
The self-created Hell within,
1803]
TO ROBERT SOUTIIEY
437
The Horror of the crimes to view,
To know and loathe, yet wish to do !
so With such let fiends make mockery —
But I — Oh, wherefore this on vie ?
Frail is my soul, yea, strengthless wholly,
Unequal, restless, melancholy;
But free from Hate and sensual Folly!
55 To live belov'd is all I need,
And whom I love, I love indeed,
And etc., etc., etc., etc.1
I do not know liow I came to scribble down tliese
verses to you — my heart was aching, my head all con¬
fused — but they are, doggerel as they may be, a true
portrait of my nights. What to do, I am at a loss; for
it is hard thus to be withered, having the faculties and
attainments which I have. We will soon meet, and I
will do all I can to console poor Edith. — O dear, dear
Southey! my head is sadly confused. After a rapid
walk of thirty-three miles your letters have had the effect
of perfect intoxication in my head and eyes. Change!
change ! change ! O God of Eternity! When shall we be
at rest in thee ?
S. T. Coleridge.
cxlii. to the same.
Edinburgh, Tuesday morning, September 13, 1S03.
My dear Southey, — I wrote you a strange letter, I
fear. But, in truth, yours affected my wretched stomach,
and my head, in such a way that I wrote mechanically in
the wake of the first vivid idea. No conveyance left or
leaves this place for Carlisle earlier than to-morrow morn-
1 The " Pains of Sleep " was pub- not materially differ from the pub¬
lished for the first time, together with lished version. A transcript of the
" Christabel " and " Kubla Klian." in same poem was sent to Poole in a
1810. With the exception of the letter dated October 3,1803. Poetical
insertion of the remarkable lines 52- Works, p. 170, and Editor's Note, pp.
51, the first draft of the poem does 031, 632.
438
A LAKE POET
[Sept.
ing, for which I have taken my place. If the coachman
do not turn Panaceist, and cure all my ills by breaking my
neck, I shall be at Carlisle 011 Wednesday, midnight, and
whether I shall go on in the coach to Penrith, and walk
from thence, or walk off from Carlisle at once, depends on
two circumstances, first, whether the coach goes 011 with
110 other than a common bait to Penrith, and secondly,
whether, if it should not do so, I can trust my clothes,
etc., to the coachman safely, to be left at Penrith. There
is but eight miles difference in the walk, and eight or nine
shillings difference in the expense. At all events, I trust
that I shall be with you 011 Thursday by dinner time, if you
dine at half-past two or three o'clock. God bless you! I will
go and call on Elmsley.1 What a wonderful city Edin¬
burgh 2 is! What alternation of height and depth! A
city looked at in the polisli'd back of a Brobdingnag spoon
held lengthways, so enormously stretched-np are the houses!
When I first looked down on it, as the coach drove up 011
the higher street, I cannot express what I felt — such a
section of wasps' nests striking you with a sort of bastard
sublimity from the enormity and infinity of its littleness —
the infinity swelling out the mind, the enormity striking
it with wonder. I think I have seen an old plate of Mont-
serrat that struck me with the same feeling, and I am sure
I have seen huge quarries of lime and free stone in which
the shafts or strata stood perpendicularly instead of hori-
1 The Rev. Peter Elmsley, tlie
-well known scholar, who had been
a school and college friend of
Southey's, was at this time resident
at Edinburgh. The Edinburgh lie-
view had been founded the year be¬
fore, and Elmsley was among the
earliest contributors. His name fre¬
quently recurs in Southey's corre¬
spondence.
2 Compare Southey's first impres¬
sions of Edinburgh, contained in a
letter to Wynn, dated October 20,
1805: "You cross a valley (once a
loch) by a high bridge, and the back
of the old city appears 011 the edge
of this depth — so vast, so irregular
— with such an outline of roofs and
chimneys, that it looks like the ruins
of a giant's palace. I never saw any¬
thing so impressive as the first sight
of this ; there was a wild red sunset
slanting along it." Selections from
the Letters of Ii. Southey, i. 342.
1803]
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
439
zontally with the same high thin slices and corresponding
interstices. I climbed last night to the crags just below
Arthur's Seat — itself a rude triangle-shaped-base cliff, and
looked down 011 the whole city and firth — the sun then
setting behind the magnificent rock, crested by the cas¬
tle. The firth was full of ships, and I counted fifty-four
heads of mountains, of which at least forty-four were cones
or pyramids. The smoke was rising from ten thousand
houses, each smoke from some one family. It was an
affecting sight to me ! I stood gazing at the setting sun,
so tranquil to a passing look, and so restless and vibrating
to one who looked stedfast; and then, all at once, turning
my eyes down upon the city, it and all its smokes and fig¬
ures became all at once dipped in the brightest blue-purple :
such a sight that I almost grieved when my eyes recovered
their natural tone! Meantime, Arthur's Crag, close be¬
hind me, was in dark blood-like crimson, and the sharp¬
shooters were behind exercising minutely, and had chosen
that place on account of the fine thunder echo which, in¬
deed, it would be scarcely possible for the ear to distin¬
guish from thunder. The passing a day or two, quite
unknown, in a strange city, does a man's heart good. He
rises " a sadder and a wiser man."
I had not read that part in your second requesting me
to call on Elmsley, else perhaps I should have been talk¬
ing instead of learning and feeling.
Walter Scott is at Lasswade, five or six miles from
Edinburgh. His house in Edinburgh is divinely situated.
It looks up a street, a new magnificent street, full upon
the rock and the castle, with its zigzag walls like painters'
lightning — the other way down upon cultivated fields, a
fine expanse of water, either a lake or not to be distin¬
guished from one, and low pleasing hills beyond — the
country well wooded and cheerful. I" faith," I exclaimed,
" the monks formerly, but the poets now, know where to
fix their habitations." There are about four things worth
440
A LAKE POET
[Dec.
going into Scotland for,1 to one who has been in Cumber¬
land and Westmoreland: First, the views of all the
islands at the foot of Loch Lomond from the top of the
highest island called Inch devanna (sic); secondly, the
Trossachs at the foot of Loch Katrine; third, the chamber
and ante-chamber of the Falls of Foyers (the fall itself is
very fine, and so, after rain, is White-Water Dash, seven
miles below Keswick and very like it); and how little dif¬
ference a height makes, you know as well as I. No fall
of itself, perhaps, can be worth giving a long journey to
see, to him who has seen any fall of water, but the pool
and whole rent of the mountain is truly magnificent.
Fourthly and lastly, the City of Edinburgh. Perhaps I
might add Glencoe. It is at all events a good make¬
weight and very well worth going to see, if a man be a
Tory and hate the memory of William the Third, which I
am very willing to do ; for the more of these fellows dead
and living one hates, the less spleen and gall there remains
for those with whom one is likely to have anything to do
in real life. . . .
I am tolerably well, meaning the day. My last night
was not such a noisy night of horrors as three nights out
of four are with me.2 O God! when a man blesses the
loud screams of agony that awake him night after night,
night after night, and when a man's repeated night
screams have made him a nuisance in his own house, it is
better to die than to live. I have a joy in life that passeth
all understanding; but it is not in its present Epiphany
and Incarnation. Bodily torture! All who have been
with me can bear witness that I can bear it like an Indian.
It is constitutional with me to sit still, and look earnestly
upon it and ask it what it is? Yea, often and often, the
1 Compare Table Talk, for Sep- 2 The same sentence occurs in a
tember 2(>, 1830, where a similar letter to Sir G. Beaumont, dated
statement is made in almost the September 22, 1803. Coleorton Let'
same words. ters, i. 6.
1803]
TO MATTHEW COATES
441
seeds of Rabelaisism germinating in me, I have laughed
aloud at my own poor metaphysical soul. But these burrs
by day of the will and the reason, these total eclipses by
night! Oh, it is hard to bear them. I am complaining
bitterly to others, I should be administrating comfort;
but even this is one way of comfort. There are states of
mind in which even distraction is still a diversion ; we
must none of us brood ; we are not made to be brooders.
God bless you, dear friend, and
S. T. Coleridge.
Mrs. C. will get clean flannels ready for me.
cxliii. to matthew coates.1
Gketa IIall, Keswick, December 5, 1803.
Dear Sir, — After a time of sufferings, great as mere
bodily sufferings can well be conceived to be, and which
the horrors of my sleep and night screams (so loud and
so frequent as to make me almost a nuisance in my own
house) seemed to carry beyond mere body, counterfeiting
as it were the tortures of guilt, and what we are told of
the punishment of a spiritual world, I am at length a
convalescent, but dreading such another bout as much as
I dare dread a thing which has no immediate connection
with my conscience. My left hand is swollen and in¬
flamed, and the least attempt to bend the fingers very
painful, though not half as much so as I could wish ; for
if I could but fix this Jack-o'-lanthorn of a disease in my
hand or foot, I should expect complete recovery in a year
or two! But though I have no hope of this, I have a
persuasion strong as fate, that from twelve to eighteen
months' residence in a genial climate would send me back
to dear old England a sample of the first resurrection.
Mr. Wordsworth, who has seen me in all my illnesses for
1 The MS. of this letter was given to whom it was addressed, except
to my father by the Rev. Dr. Wre- that he was "Matthew Coates, Esq.,
ford. I know nothing of the person of Bristol."
442
A LAKE POET
[Dec.
nearly four years, and noticed this strange dependence
on the state of my moral feeling-s and the state of the
atmosphere conjointly, is decidedly of the same opinion.
Accordingly, after many sore struggles of mind from
reluctance to quit my children for so long a time, I have
arranged my affairs fully and finally, and hope to set sail
for Madeira in the first vessel that clears out from Liver¬
pool for that place. Robert Southey, who lives with us,
informed me that Mrs. Matthew Coates had a near relative
(a brother, I believe) in that island, the Dr. Adams1 who
wrote a very nice little pamphlet on Madeira, relative to
the different sorts of consumption, and which I have now
011 my desk. I need not say that it would be a great
comfort to me to be introduced to liim by a letter from
you or Mrs. Coates, entreating him to put me in a way of
living as cheaply as possible. I have no appetites, pas¬
sions, or vanities which lead to expense ; it is now absolute
habit to me, indeed, to consider my eating and drinking
as a course of medicine. In books only am I intemperate
— they have been both bane and blessing to me. For
the last three years I have not read less than eight hours
a day whenever I have been well enough to be out of bed,
or even to sit up in it. Quiet, therefore, a comfortable
bed and bedroom, and still better than that, the comfort
of kind faces, English tongues, and English hearts now
and then, — this is the sum total of my wants, as it is a
thine: which I need. I am far too contented with solitude.
o
The same fullness of mind, the same crowding of thoughts
and constitutional vivacity of feeling which makes me
sometimes the first fiddle, and too often a watchman's
rattle in society, renders me likewise independent of its
excitements. However, I am wondrously calmed down
since you saw me — perhaps through this unremitting
disease, affliction, and self-discipline.
1 I)r. Joseph Adams, tlie biogra- mended Coleridge to the care of
pher of Hunter, who in 1810 recom- Mr. James Gillman.
1803]
TO MATTHEW COATES
443
Mrs. Coleridge desires me to remember lier with re¬
spectful regards to Mrs. Coates, and to enquire into the
history of your little family. I have three children,
Hartley, seven years old, Derioent, three years, and
Sara, one year on the 23d of this month. Hartley is
considered a genius by Wordsworth and Southey ; indeed
by every one who has seen much of him. But what is of
much more consequence and much less doubtful, he has
the sweetest temper and most awakened moral feelings of
any child I ever saw. Pie is very backward in his book-
learning, cannot write at all, and a very lame reader.
We have never been anxious about it, taking it for
granted that loving me, and seeing how I love books, he
would come to it of his own accord, and so it has proved,
for in the last month he has made more progress than in
all his former life. Having learnt everything almost
from the mouths of people whom he loves, he has con¬
nected with his words and notions a passion and a feeling
which would appear strange to those who had seen no
children but such as had been taught almost everything
in books. Derwent is a large, fat, beautiful child, quite
the pride of the village, as Hartley is the darling.
Southey says wickedly that " all Hartley's guts are in
his brains, and all Derwent's brains are in his guts."
Verily the constitutional differences in the children are
great indeed. From earliest infancy Hartley was absent,
a mere dreamer at his meals, put the food into his mouth
by one effort, and made a second effort to remember it
was there and swallow it. With little Derwent it is a
time of rapture and jubilee, and any story that has not
j)ie or cake in it comes very flat to him. Yet he is but a
baby. Our girl is a darling little thing, with large blue
eyes, a quiet creature that, as I have often said, seems to
bask in a sunshine as mild as moonlight, of her own hap¬
piness. Oh! bless them! Next to the Bible, Shake¬
speare, and Milton, tliey are the three books from which I
444
A LAKE POET
[Dec.
have learned the most, and the most important and with
the greatest delight.
I have been tlins prolix about me and mine purposely,
to induce you to tell me something of yourself and yours.
Believe me, I have never ceased to think of you with
respect and a sort of yearning. You were the first man
from whom I heard that article of my faith enunciated
which is the nearest to my heart, — the pure fountain of
all my moral and religious feelings and comforts, — I
mean the absolute Impersonality of the Deity.
I remain, my dear sir, with unfeigned esteem and with
good wishes, ever yours,
S. T. Coleridge.
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