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diff --git a/44553-0.txt b/44553-0.txt index 4d970a4..99421f7 100644 --- a/44553-0.txt +++ b/44553-0.txt @@ -1,39 +1,4 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook, Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Vol. I -(of 2), by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Edited by Ernest Hartley Coleridge - - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - - - - -Title: Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Vol. I (of 2) - - -Author: Samuel Taylor Coleridge - -Editor: Ernest Hartley Coleridge - -Release Date: January 1, 2014 [eBook #44553] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - - -***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LETTERS OF SAMUEL TAYLOR -COLERIDGE, VOL. I (OF 2)*** - - -E-text prepared by the Online Distributed Proofreading Team -(http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by -Internet Archive (https://archive.org) - - +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44553 *** Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. @@ -20566,363 +20531,4 @@ that he was “Matthew Coates, Esq., of Bristol.” [290] Dr. Joseph Adams, the biographer of Hunter, who in 1816 recommended Coleridge to the care of Mr. James Gillman. - - -***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LETTERS OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, -VOL. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - - - - -Title: Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Vol. I (of 2) - - -Author: Samuel Taylor Coleridge - -Editor: Ernest Hartley Coleridge - -Release Date: January 1, 2014 [eBook #44553] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - - -***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LETTERS OF SAMUEL TAYLOR -COLERIDGE, VOL. I (OF 2)*** - - -E-text prepared by the Online Distributed Proofreading Team -(http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by -Internet Archive (https://archive.org) - - - -Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this - file which includes the original illustrations. - See 44553-h.htm or 44553-h.zip: - (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/44553/44553-h/44553-h.htm) - or - (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/44553/44553-h.zip) - - - Images of the original pages are available through - Internet Archive. See - https://archive.org/details/lettersofsamuelt01coleuoft - - - Project Gutenberg has the other volume of this work. - Volume II: see http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44554 - - -Transcriber's note: - - Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). - - The original text contains letters with diacritical marks - that are not represented in this text-file version. - - The original text includes Greek characters that have been - replaced with transliterations in this text-file version. - - - - - -LETTERS OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE - - -[Illustration] - - -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, Mass., 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, Conversations, and -Recollections of S. T. Coleridge," which was issued in 1836, contains -forty-five letters or parts of letters; 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 himself, and -one, of the greatest interest, to Charles Lamb. In 1847, a series of early -letters to Thomas Poole appeared 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 posthumous "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 H. Davy," -edited by his brother, Dr. Davy; and in the "Diary of H. C. Robinson," -published in 1869, 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, 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 "Lippincott's Magazine," and in 1878, a few letters to Matilda Betham -were published in "Fraser's Magazine." During the last six years the vast -store which still remained unpublished has been drawn upon for various -memoirs and biographies. The following works containing new letters are -given in order of publication: Herr Brandl's "Samuel T. Coleridge and the -English Romantic School," 1887; "Memorials of Coleorton," edited by -Professor Knight, 1887; "Thomas Poole and his Friends," by Mrs. H. -Sandford, 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 Southey 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 Rickman, and four to Coleridge's old college friend, -Archdeacon 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 -Highgate,--only two or three, preserved in the MSS. Department 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 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 accidentally discovered in 1876, only five have been printed. Of some -fourscore letters addressed to his nephews, William Hart Coleridge, John -Taylor Coleridge, Henry Nelson 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 interest, -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 John 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 Philobiblon Society, with an -introduction 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 transcriptions of eighty-seven letters addressed by Coleridge -to her father, Daniel Stuart, editor of "The Morning Post" and "Courier," -and these, together with letters from Wordsworth and Southey, were printed -in a single volume bearing the title, "Letters from the Lake Poets." Miss -Stuart contributed a short account of her father's life, and also a -reminiscence of Coleridge, headed "A Farewell." - -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 Highgate 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 meanwhile, 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 illustrate the story of the writer's -life than to embody his critical opinions, or to record the development of -his philosophical 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 recommendation, 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 received by the -initiated with unquestioning and insatiable delight. But Coleridge's -letters lack style. The fastidious 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 "questionable" 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 the human heart" which command our interest in -Coleridge's Letters, and invest them with their peculiar charm. - -At what period after death, and to what extent the private 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 age. 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. -Thenceforth, as the published writings of his immediate descendants -testify, a fuller and therefore a fairer revelation was steadily -contemplated. Letters collected for this purpose find a place in the -present volume, but the selection has 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 permission 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 Fonthill. The letters 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. -Gordon 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 Cary, the grandson -of the translator of Dante. My acknowledgments 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 addressed 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 Philobiblon 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 grandfather, and for -constant and unwearying advice and assistance 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 Coleridge; 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 Sandford, -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 Chertsey. - -Of my friend, Mr. Dykes Campbell, I can only say that he has 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 contemporaries, -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 accomplished, 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 assurance. - - ERNEST HARTLEY COLERIDGE. - - - - -PRINCIPAL EVENTS IN THE LIFE OF S. T. COLERIDGE - - -Born, October 21, 1772. - -Death of his 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 "Conciones 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 Nether-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. - -Residence in Rome, January-May, 1806. - -Returned to England, August, 1806. - -Visit to Wordsworth at Coleorton, December 21, 1806. - -Met De Quincey at Bridgwater, July, 1807. - -First lecture at Royal Institution, January 12, 1808. - -Settled at Allan Bank, Grasmere, September, 1808. - -First number of "The 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 Josiah 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 "Biographia 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 schylus," 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, 1828. - -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 His 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. -1836. - -6. 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 Prior 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. 1838. - -15. The Autobiography of Leigh Hunt. London. 1860. - -16. Diary, Reminiscences, and Correspondence of Henry Crabb Robinson. -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. - -18. 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 Cuthbert 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. D., 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 has been printed previously to its appearance in this -work, the name of the book or periodical containing it is added in -parenthesis. - - - PAGE - - CHAPTER I. STUDENT LIFE, 1785-1794. - - I. THOMAS POOLE, February, 1797. (Biographia Literaria, 1847, - ii. 313) 4 - - II. THOMAS POOLE, March, 1797. (Biographia Literaria, 1847, - ii. 315) 6 - - III. THOMAS POOLE, October 9, 1797. (Biographia Literaria, - 1847, ii. 319) 10 - - IV. THOMAS POOLE, October 16, 1797. (Biographia Literaria, - 1847, ii. 322) 13 - - V. THOMAS POOLE, February 19, 1798. (Biographia Literaria, - 1847, ii. 326) 18 - - VI. MRS. COLERIDGE, Senior, February 4, 1785. (Illustrated - London News, April 1, 1893) 21 - - VII. REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE, undated, before 1790. (Illustrated - London News, April 1, 1893) 22 - - VIII. REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE, October 16, 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 19, 1792 37 - - XIII. MRS. EVANS, February 22 [1792] 39 - - XIV. MARY EVANS, February 22 [1792] 41 - - XV. REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE, April [1792]. (Illustrated London - 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 6 [1794], (Illustrated London - News, April 15, 1893) 57 - - XXII. REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE, February 8, 1794 59 - - XXIII. REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE, February 11, 1794 60 - - XXIV. CAPT. JAMES COLERIDGE, February 20, 1794. (Brandl's Life - of Coleridge, 1887, p. 65) 61 - - XXV. REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE, March 12, 1794. (Illustrated - London News, April 15, 1893) 62 - - XXVI. REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE, March 21, 1794 64 - - XXVII. REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE, end of March, 1794 66 - - XXVIII. REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE, March 27, 1794 66 - - XXIX. REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE, March 30, 1794 68 - - XXX. REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE, April 7, 1794 69 - - XXXI. REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE, May 1, 1794 70 - - XXXII. ROBERT SOUTHEY, July 6, 1794. (Sixteen lines published, - Southey's Life and Correspondence, 1849, i. 212) 72 - - XXXIII. ROBERT SOUTHEY, July 15, 1794. (Portions published in - Letter to H. Martin, July 22, 1794, Biographia Literaria, - 1847, ii. 338) 74 - - XXXIV. ROBERT SOUTHEY, September 18, 1794. (Eighteen lines - published, Southey's Life and Correspondence, 1849, i. 218) 81 - - XXXV. ROBERT SOUTHEY, September 19, 1794 84 - - XXXVI. ROBERT SOUTHEY, September 26, 1794 86 - - XXXVII. ROBERT SOUTHEY, October 21, 1794 87 - - XXXVIII. ROBERT SOUTHEY, November, 1794 95 - - XXXIX. ROBERT SOUTHEY, Autumn, 1794. (Illustrated London News, - April 15, 1893) 101 - - XL. REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE, November 6, 1794 103 - - XLI. ROBERT SOUTHEY, December 11, 1794 106 - - XLII. ROBERT SOUTHEY, December 17, 1794 114 - - XLIII. ROBERT SOUTHEY, December, 1794. (Eighteen lines - published, Southey's Life and Correspondence, 1849, i. 227) 121 - - XLIV. MARY EVANS, (?) December, 1794. (Samuel Taylor Coleridge, - A Narrative, 1894, p. 38) 122 - - XLV. MARY EVANS, December 24, 1794. (Samuel Taylor Coleridge, - A Narrative, 1894, p. 40) 124 - - XLVI. ROBERT SOUTHEY, December, 1794 125 - - - CHAPTER II. EARLY PUBLIC LIFE, 1795-1796. - - XLVII. JOSEPH COTTLE, Spring, 1795. (Early Recollections, - 1837, i. 16) 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, 1795 134 - - LI. THOMAS POOLE, October 7, 1795. (Biographia Literaria, - 1847, ii. 347) 136 - - LII. ROBERT SOUTHEY, November 13, 1795 137 - - LIII. JOSIAH WADE, January 27, 1796. (Biographia Literaria, - 1847, ii. 350) 151 - - LIV. JOSEPH COTTLE, February 22, 1796. (Early Recollections, - 1837, i. 141; Biographia Literaria, 1847, ii. 356) 154 - - LV. THOMAS POOLE, March 30, 1796. (Biographia Literaria, - 1847, ii. 357) 155 - - LVI. THOMAS POOLE, May 12, 1796. (Biographia Literaria, - 1847, ii. 366; Thomas Poole and his Friends, 1887, i. 144) 158 - - LVII. JOHN THELWALL, May 13, 1796 159 - - LVIII. THOMAS POOLE, May 29, 1796. (Biographia Literaria, - 1847, ii. 368) 164 - - LIX. JOHN THELWALL, June 22, 1796 166 - - LX. THOMAS POOLE, September 24, 1796. (Biographia Literaria, - 1847, ii. 373; Thomas Poole and his Friends, 1887, i. 155) 168 - - LXI. CHARLES LAMB [September 28, 1796]. (Gillman's Life of - Coleridge, 1838, pp. 338-340) 171 - - LXII. THOMAS POOLE, November 5, 1796. (Biographia Literaria, - 1847, ii. 379; Thomas Poole and his Friends, 1887, i. 175) 172 - - LXIII. THOMAS POOLE, November 7, 1796 176 - - LXIV. JOHN THELWALL, November 19 [1796]. (Twenty-six lines - published, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, A Narrative, 1894, p. 58) 178 - - LXV. THOMAS POOLE, December 11, 1796. (Thomas Poole and his - Friends, 1887, i. 182) 183 - - LXVI. THOMAS POOLE, December 12, 1796. (Thomas Poole and his - Friends, 1887, i. 184) 184 - - LXVII. THOMAS POOLE, December 13, 1796. (Thomas Poole and his - Friends, 1887, i. 186) 187 - - LXVIII. JOHN THELWALL, December 17, 1796 193 - - LXIX. THOMAS POOLE [? December 18, 1796]. (Thomas Poole and his - Friends, 1887, i. 195) 208 - - LXX. JOHN THELWALL, December 31, 1796 210 - - - CHAPTER III. THE STOWEY PERIOD, 1797-1798. - - LXXI. REV. J. P. ESTLIN [1797]. (Privately printed, - Philobiblon Society) 213 - - LXXII. JOHN THELWALL, February 6, 1797 214 - - LXXIII. JOSEPH COTTLE, June, 1797. (Early Recollections, 1837, - i. 250) 220 - - LXXIV. ROBERT SOUTHEY, July, 1797 221 - - LXXV. JOHN THELWALL [October 16], 1797 228 - - LXXVI. JOHN THELWALL [Autumn, 1797] 231 - - LXXVII. JOHN THELWALL [Autumn, 1797] 232 - - LXXVIII. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, January, 1798. (Ten lines - published, Life of Wordsworth, 1889, i. 128) 234 - - LXXIX. JOSEPH COTTLE, March 8, 1798. (Part published - incorrectly, Early Recollections, 1837, i. 251) 238 - - LXXX. REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE, April, 1798 239 - - LXXXI. REV. J. P. ESTLIN, May [? 1798]. (Privately printed, - Philobiblon Society) 245 - - LXXXII. REV. J. P. ESTLIN, May 14, 1798. (Privately printed, - Philobiblon Society) 246 - - LXXXIII. THOMAS POOLE, May 14, 1798. (Thirty-one lines - published, Thomas Poole and his Friends, 1887, i. 268) 248 - - LXXXIV. THOMAS POOLE [May 20, 1798]. (Eleven lines published, - Thomas Poole and his Friends, 1887, i. 269) 249 - - LXXXV. CHARLES LAMB [spring of 1798] 249 - - - CHAPTER IV. A VISIT TO GERMANY, 1798-1799. - - LXXXVI. THOMAS POOLE, September 15, 1798. (Thomas Poole and - his Friends, 1887, i. 273) 258 - - LXXXVII. MRS. S. T. COLERIDGE, September 19, 1798 259 - - LXXXVIII. MRS. S. T. COLERIDGE, October 20, 1798 262 - - LXXXIX. MRS. S. T. COLERIDGE, November 26, 1798 265 - - XC. MRS. S. T. COLERIDGE, December 2, 1798 266 - - XCI. REV. MR. ROSKILLY, December 3, 1798 267 - - XCII. THOMAS POOLE, January 4, 1799 267 - - XCIII. MRS. S. T. COLERIDGE, January 14, 1799 271 - - XCIV. MRS. S. T. COLERIDGE, March 12, 1799. (Illustrated - London News, April 29, 1893) 277 - - XCV. THOMAS POOLE, April 6, 1799 282 - - XCVI. MRS. S. T. COLERIDGE, April 8, 1799. (Thirty lines - published, Thomas Poole and his Friends, 1887, i. 295) 284 - - XCVII. MRS. S. T. COLERIDGE, April 23, 1799 288 - - XCVIII. THOMAS POOLE, May 6, 1799. (Thomas Poole and his - Friends, 1887, i. 297) 295 - - - CHAPTER V. FROM SOUTH TO NORTH, 1799-1800. - - XCIX. ROBERT SOUTHEY, July 29, 1799 303 - - C. THOMAS POOLE, September 16, 1799 305 - - CI. ROBERT SOUTHEY, October 15, 1799 307 - - CII. ROBERT SOUTHEY, November 10, 1799 312 - - CIII. ROBERT SOUTHEY, December 9 [1799] 314 - - CIV. ROBERT SOUTHEY [December 24], 1799 319 - - CV. ROBERT SOUTHEY, January 25, 1800 322 - - CVI. ROBERT SOUTHEY [early in 1800] 324 - - CVII. ROBERT SOUTHEY [Postmark, February 18], 1800 326 - - CVIII. ROBERT SOUTHEY [early in 1800] 328 - - CIX. ROBERT SOUTHEY, February 28, 1800 331 - - - CHAPTER VI. A LAKE POET, 1800-1803. - - CX. THOMAS POOLE, August 14, 1800. (Illustrated London News, - May 27, 1893) 335 - - CXI. SIR H. DAVY, October 9, 1800. (Fragmentary Remains, - 1858, p. 80) 336 - - CXII. SIR H. DAVY, October 18, 1800. (Fragmentary Remains, - 1858, p. 79) 339 - - CXIII. SIR H. DAVY, December 2, 1800. (Fragmentary Remains, - 1858, p. 83) 341 - - CXIV. THOMAS POOLE, December 5, 1800. (Eight lines published, - Thomas Poole and his Friends, 1887, ii. 21) 343 - - CXV. SIR H. DAVY, February 3, 1801. (Fragmentary Remains, - 1858, p. 86) 345 - - CXVI. THOMAS POOLE, March 16, 1801 348 - - CXVII. THOMAS POOLE, March 23, 1801 350 - - CXVIII. ROBERT SOUTHEY [May 6, 1801] 354 - - CXIX. ROBERT SOUTHEY, July 22, 1801 356 - - CXX. ROBERT SOUTHEY, July 25, 1801 359 - - CXXI. ROBERT SOUTHEY, August 1, 1801 361 - - CXXII. THOMAS POOLE, September 19, 1801. (Thomas Poole and - his Friends, 1887, ii. 65) 364 - - CXXIII. ROBERT SOUTHEY, December 31, 1801 365 - - CXXIV. MRS. S. T. COLERIDGE [February 24, 1802] 367 - - CXXV. W. SOTHEBY, July 13, 1802 369 - - CXXVI. W. SOTHEBY, July 19, 1802 376 - - CXXVII. ROBERT SOUTHEY, July 29, 1802 384 - - CXXVIII. ROBERT SOUTHEY, August 9, 1802 393 - - CXXIX. W. SOTHEBY, August 26, 1802 396 - - CXXX. W. SOTHEBY, September 10, 1802 401 - - CXXXI. W. SOTHEBY, September 27, 1802 408 - - CXXXII. MRS. S. T. COLERIDGE, November 16, 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 - - CXXXVI. MRS. S. T. COLERIDGE, April 4, 1803 420 - - CXXXVII. 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 the - 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 Right - Honourable Lord Coleridge 60 - - THE COTTAGE AT CLEVEDON, occupied by S. T. Coleridge, - October-November, 1795. From a photograph 136 - - 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 Marshmills, Over Stowey 262 - - ROBERT SOUTHEY, aged forty-one. From an etching on copper. - Private plate 304 - - GRETA HALL, KESWICK. From a photograph 336 - - MRS. S. T. COLERIDGE, aged thirty-nine. From a miniature by - Matilda Betham, now in the possession of the editor 368 - - 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 intervals 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 autobiographical letters is taken from the original MSS., and differs -in many important particulars from that of 1847. - - -I. TO THOMAS POOLE. - -Monday, February, 1797. - -MY DEAR POOLE,--I could inform the 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" without receiving -instruction and amusement; and I should almost despair of that man who -could peruse the Life of John Woolman[2] 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 -inherited 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 Coleridge[3] -in the county of Devon, christened, educated, and apprenticed to the -parish. He afterwards became a respectable woollen-draper in the town of -South Molton.[4] (I have mentioned these particulars, 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 -schoolmaster. His school increased and he got money and knowledge: 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, having scraped up money enough at the age of twenty[5] he walked -to Cambridge, entered at Sidney College, distinguished 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 particularity of times, or places, or names. Here I -shall conclude 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 Tribunal 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 investigation. - - Yours affectionately, - S. T. COLERIDGE. - - -II. TO THE SAME. - -Sunday, March, 1797. - -MY DEAR POOLE,--My father (Vicar of, and Schoolmaster 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 Dissertations arising from the 17th and -18th Chapters of the Book of Judges; 2d, _Sententi excerpt_, 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 nomenclature was not likely to become popular, although -it must be allowed to be both sonorous and expressive. _Exempli grati_, -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 faithfully. -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, however, a first-rate -Christian. I need not detain you with his character. In learning, -good-heartedness, 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. He -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, when the living of Ottery St. Mary[6] 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 hued 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 uncommon genius, a severe student, and a good -man. The eighth child was a sister, Anne.[7] She died a little after my -brother Luke, aged twenty-one; - - Rest, gentle Shade! and wait thy Maker's will; - Then rise _unchang'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 commission 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 valuable gold watch, which -my mother now has. All my brothers are remarkably handsome; but they were -as inferior 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,[8] -1772. - -From October 20, 1772, to October 20, 1773. Christened 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."[9] 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 myself 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, the very image -of Shenstone's, was named Old Dame Key. She was nearly related to Sir -Joshua Reynolds. - -From October 20, 1774, to October 20, 1775. I was inoculated; which I -mention because I distinctly remember it, and that my eyes were bound; at -which I manifested so much obstinate indignation, that at last they -removed the bandage, and unaffrighted 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, 1797. - -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,[10] -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 having eat a large quantity of beans -on Saturday. For the other boys did not like them, and as it was an -economic 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 consequence 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 books[11] that could be had at that time, and likewise -all the uncovered tales of Tom Hickathrift, Jack the Giant-killer, etc., -etc., etc., etc. And I 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 because I could read and spell and had, I may truly say, a -memory and understanding forced into almost an unnatural 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_. Sensibility, imagination, -vanity, sloth, and feelings of deep and bitter contempt for all who -traversed the orbit of my understanding, 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 remember, stole up in spite of -orders to the 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 half-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 the 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. He 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--thinking at -the _same time_ with inward and gloomy satisfaction how miserable my -mother must be! I distinctly remember 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 fields[12] beyond the river. It grew dark and I fell asleep. -It was towards the latter end of October, and it proved a dreadful stormy -night. I felt the cold in my sleep, and dreamt that I was pulling the -blanket 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, expecting my return -when the _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,[13] 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. - -My father (who had 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 mother'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 distinction; and my father was -fond of me, and used to take me on his knee and hold long conversations -with me. I remember that at eight years old I walked with him 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 been _rationally_ educated, as it is styled. They were -marked by a microscopic acuteness, but when they looked at great things, -all became a blank and they saw nothing, 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 philosophy! - -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 returned -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 impression. 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;[14] 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, but I -knew that he was expected. How I came to think 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. He was an Israelite without -guile, simple, generous, 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 -_pulpitize_ 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 Bowdon had obtained an -unlimited influence over her mind, which she still retains. Mrs. Holt (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, and I stayed ten weeks at his house, -during which time I went occasionally to Judge Buller's. 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_ coat[15] 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 Hertford I was very happy, on 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 September, 1782, and was placed in the second ward, then called -Jefferies' Ward, 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 admissible 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 having 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 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 midshipmen 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 temporal 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 commonly -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.[16] Every morning, a bit of dry bread and some bad small beer. -Every evening, a larger piece of bread and cheese or butter, whichever we -liked. For dinner,--on 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. - - -VI. TO HIS MOTHER. - -February 4, 1785 [London, Christ's Hospital]. - -DEAR MOTHER,[17]--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. -Badcock, to whom I would be glad if you would give my thanks. I shall be -more careful of the somme, 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 admirers. My brother Luke says that Burke's -Art of Speaking 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 1790. - -DEAR BROTHER,--You 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 drawing 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 up with five more, one of whom had -a long, broad, red-hot face, four feet by three. I very luckily found -Middleton at Pembroke College, who (after breakfast, etc.) conducted 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 -shameful) 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,[18] with whom I spent a fortnight at Christmas: -the relaxation from study coperating with the cheerfulness and attention, -which I met 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 you walk -into town, you would call at Villiers 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 as 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 -relinquish the _medi pallescere nocti_. We are examined as Rustats,[19] -on the Thursday in Easter Week. The examination for my year is "the last -book of Homer and Horace's _De Arte Poetica_." 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 hogs-lard is pleasing, it is when our -superiors trowel it on. Mr. Frend's company[20] is by no means invidious. -On the contrary, Pearce himself is very intimate with him. No! 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,[21] 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 expected, or (I believe) his merits deserved. He -desires his love to Stevens:[22] 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 scholarship 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 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 be 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, -observe 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 transmit -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: at least, in clearness of complexion and rosiness -of cheek I am no contemptible likeness of them, though that ugly -arrangement of features with which nature has distinguished 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 -consciousness 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 beautiful 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 correspondence; -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-cheeked 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 _tte--tte_. You will have -an unseen companion at your side, one who will attend you in your jaunt, -who will be present at your arrival; one whose heart will melt with -unutterable tenderness at your maternal 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! thou 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 th' 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 - 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 -has made you. If 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 declamation[23] 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 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. 'Tis 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 compensate; 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_. - -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 (tho' 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 to visit me at -Cambridge, pray do not suffer the consideration 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 he 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 delightful 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, -where road was none," though we were not unapprized of its difficulties. -The fine weather deceived us. We forgot 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--we 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 -conceptions of the point in which _we conjectured Cambridge_ to lie, we -wandered on "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 -spy'd 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. He -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' Lanthorns--the superstition of this -county attributing a kind of fascination to those wandering vapours, so -that whoever fixes his eyes on them is forced by some irresistible impulse -to follow them. He 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 _scarsely_? When Momus, the fault-finding God, -endeavoured to discover some imperfection in Venus, he could only censure -the creaking of her slipper. I, too, Momuslike, can only fall foul on a -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_ approbation 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 --ll; 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. - -His first mandate I have obeyed, and, I hope you 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.[24] - - 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'll be bound, you will sleep again -sounder than ever. - -A WISH WRITTEN IN JESUS WOOD, FEBRUARY 10, 1792.[25] - - 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. - - Awhile meand'ring round its native fields, - It rolls the 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.[26] - - The dubious light sad glimmers o'er the sky: - 'Tis 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 the offence. - -It's a compensation for the above-written rhymes (which if you ever -condescend to read a second time, pray let it be by the light of their own -flames) in my next letter 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-night, dear sister! and peaceful slumbers await us both! - - S. T. COLERIDGE. - - -XII. TO ANNE EVANS. - -February 19, 1792. - -DEAR ANNE,--To be sure I felt myself rather disappointed at my not -receiving a few lines from you; but I am nevertheless greatly rejoiced at -your amicable dispositions 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 sorrowful 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 impossible, if you will read the little volumes which contain -their exploits, and crave the honour of your acceptance. - -If I could draw, I would have sent a pretty heart stuck through with -arrows, with some such sweet posy underneath 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 concerning 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 shoemaker, is not improbable. He -certainly seems very assiduous 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 absent during the oratorios! -The prince unable to conceal his pain! Oh! oh! oh! oh! oh! oh! oh! oh! -oh! - -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, proctors, tutors, owls, and other two-legged cattle. It -likewise--but here I must interrupt my description to hurry to Mr. -Costobadie's lectures on Euclid, who is as mathematical an author, my dear -Anne, as you would wish to read on a long summer's day. Addio! God bless -you, ma chre soeur, and your affectionate frre, - - 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 together, 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 emphatic 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 I had written the foregoing heap -of nothingness six or seven days 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 improbable) 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 procure 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 discovered -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. - -So (I hear) Allen[27] will be most precipitately emancipated. Good luck -have thou of thy emancipation, Bob-bee! Tell him from me that if he does -not kick Richards'[28] 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 College 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 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 -information. If the pleasure which you receive from the perusal of it -prove equal to that which I have received, it will make you some small -return for the exertions of friendship, 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 beauties, 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 night, April [1792]. - -DEAR BROTHER,--You would have heard from me long since had I not been -entangled in such various businesses as have occupied my whole time. -Besides my ordinary business, which, 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 expectation of success, as a Mr. Smith,[29] a man of immense -genius, author of some papers in the "Microcosm," is among my numerous -competitors. The prize medals will be adjudged 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[30] is, I think, my _chef d'oeuvre_ in poetical composition. 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 in Easter -week. After it a man of our college has offered to take me to town in his -gig, and, if he can bring me back, I think 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 Boeotia 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.... - [Ctera 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 embraced the opportunity of turning over the boat, and -baptizing 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.[31] Oath-taking is very healthy in spring, -I should suppose. I am grown very fat. We have two men at our college, -great cronies, their names Head and Bones; the first an unlicked cub of a -Yorkshireman, the second a very fierce buck. I call them _Raw Head_ 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 disreputable one at Oxford -in your time? Poor Allen, who is just settled there, complains of the -great distance with which the men treat him. 'Tis 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 sickness. 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 agonizing in the snuff of a tallow -candle--a kind of hobgoblin, clouted and bagged up in the most -contemptible shreds, rags, and yellow relics of threadbare mortality. The -event of our examination[32] was such as surpassed my expectations, and -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 survivors, 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 circumstances, 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 alleviate 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 on fire, though it were but to roast an egg for -themselves! Yet surely, considering 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. - -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 -our 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, on 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 _me_ for his _first_-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 preferment than to have made twelve commentaries -on the twelve prophets. My dear Mrs. Evans! excuse the wanderings 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, 1793. - -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 am so closely blocked by an army of -misfortunes that really there is no 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 strolling out -with a friend of his, some curious plant suddenly caught his eye. He -turned round his head with great eagerness to call his companion to a -participation of discovery, and unfortunately continuing to walk forward -he fell into a pool, deep, muddy, and full of chickweed. I was lucky -enough to meet him as he was entering the college gates on his return (a -sight I would not have lost for the Indies), his best black clothes all -green with duckweed, 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 lectures, -and freed me from the necessity of attending them; but this misfortune I -supported with truly Christian fortitude. However, I constantly asked -after his health with filial anxiety, and this morning, making my usual -inquiries, I was informed, to my infinite astonishment and vexation, 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, -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 morning, 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 frequently playing myself, to -render my ear callous. Besides, 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 disappointments; from the warmth of -real enemies and the coldness of pretended friends; from your _well -wishers_ (as they are justly called, in opposition, I suppose, to _well -doers_), men whose inclinations to serve you always decrease in a most -mathematical proportion as their opportunities 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 age_, 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 Whatd'yecallhim, who used to pull off his -hat when he spoke of himself. The poet laureate calls it "_this golden -age_," and with good reason,-- - - 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 -endeavours 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 congratulate 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 prologue 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 spoonful 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[33] the composer, will set it to wild music. I -shall sing it, and accompany myself on the violin. _a 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-Thoma 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 complaint:-- - - 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-Thoma, - 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.[34] - -Are you asleep, my dear Mary? I have administered rather a strong dose of -opium; however, if in the course 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 _home_, 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. - - O 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 repinings 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 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-starched 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 brother[35] and a friend! But I struggle for -cheerfulness--and sometimes, 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 forehead. 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 prengaged 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.[36] - -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 of this life) disputed with great coolness and forbearance the -whole 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'.[37] - -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 Hart[38] asked her if she was not -afraid to put it in her bosom, as perhaps there might be love in it. I -immediately wrote the following little ode or song or what you please to -call it.[39] It is of the namby-pamby genus. - -THE ROSE. - - As late each flower that 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. - - 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 O!" he cried, "of magic kind - What charms this Throne endear! - Some other Love let Venus find-- - I'll fix _my_ empire here." - -An extempore! Ned during the dispute, thinking he 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. Hussy, you will not forget to present my respects -to him, and to his accomplished 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 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 Sidmouth. I was -there yesterday. He, his wife, and children are well. Frederick is a -charming child. Little James had a most providential 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 unhurt. 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 supposes, 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 chalice 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-- - 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? She was my fellow-traveler in the Tiverton -diligence from Exeter. [She is], I think, a very pretty girl. The orders -for tea are: Imprimis, 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.[40] - -HENLEY, Thursday night, February 6 [1794]. - -DEAR TUCKETT,--I have this moment received your long letter! The Tuesday -before last, an accident of the Reading 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 would go, my letters -were kept at the Reading post-office till our return. I was conveyed to -Henley-upon-Thames, which place our regiment left last Tuesday; but I am -ordered to remain on account of these dreadfully troublesome eruptions, -and that I might nurse my comrade, who last Friday sickened of the -confluent smallpox. So here I am, _videlicet_ the Henley workhouse.[41] 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 excellent 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 extorted 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 _necessary_, but what shadow of _necessity_ -is there to excuse you in showing my letters--to stab the very heart of -confidence. You have acted, Tuckett, 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 irritableness of unhandled sensibility. Mine is -a sensibility gangrened 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 almost 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 -protection 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 action. One pang, however acute, is better than -long-continued solicitude. My brother George possessed the cheering -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 downward--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 8, 1794. - -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 promise? My mind is illegible to myself. I am lost in -the 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 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! O 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! I 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 universally 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! Undoubtedly, my brother, I could -wish to return to College; I know what I _must suffer_ there, but deeply -do I feel what I _ought_ to suffer. Is my brother James still at -Salisbury? I will write to him, to all. - -[Illustration] - -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 chastisement may not have harrowed my heart in vain. Scepticism -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 sensibility, few -occurrences can inflict a more acute pang than the receiving proofs of -tenderness and love where only resentment 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 not by negotiation without an expense which I should -tremble to write. Forty guineas were offered for a discharge 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, 15th, 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, 1793, was -attested and sworn the 4th. 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. COLERIDGE. - -Our regiment is at Reading, and Hounslow, and Maidenhead, and Kensington; -our headquarters, Reading, Berks. The commanding officer there, Lieutenant -Hopkinson, our adjutant. - -TO CAPTAIN JAMES COLERIDGE, Tiverton, Devonshire. - - -XXV. TO THE REV. GEORGE 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 whole matter to the adjutant, who -laughed and said I had been used scurvily; he deferred settling the bill -till Thursday morning. A Captain Ogle,[42] 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 calamo_--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 last 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[43] 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 believed himself divinely -inspired. He slept in the same room with me, and kept me awake till three -in the morning with his ontological disquisitions. Some of the ideas -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." He 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 Wycombe] on Thursday, 10 -o'clock, for Reading. A letter will arrive in time before I go. - - -XXVI. TO THE SAME. - -Sunday night, March 21, 1794. - -I have endeavoured to feel what I ought to feel. Affiliated 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 inerti_ 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, 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 irrevocably. 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 desultory. 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 expenses of equipping, -etc. - -I must conclude abruptly. God bless you, and your ever grateful - - S. T. COLERIDGE. - - -XXVII. TO THE SAME. - -End of March, 1794. - -MY DEAR BROTHER,--I have been rather uneasy, that I have not heard 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 -shivering 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 behaved 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. They write me, that with "undiminished esteem and increased -affection, the _Jesuites_ 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. - - -XXVIII. 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., four pairs of almost new silk stockings, and two pairs -of new silk and cotton, I can get again for twenty-three shillings. 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 appearance 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 mention 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 -Hackney. There will be two or three trifling expenses on my leaving the -army; I know not their exact amount. The adjutant dismissed 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 bookseller, 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 Casimir[44] by Barbou,[45] a Synesius[46] by Canterus and -Bentley's Quarto Edition. They are worth 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 night, March 30, 1794. - -MY DEAR BROTHER,--I received your enclosed. I am fearful, that as you -advise me to go immediately to Cambridge 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 Reading to High Wycombe on the -outside is four shillings, from High Wycombe to Cambridge (for _there is_ -a coach that passes through Cambridge from Wycombe) I suppose about twelve -shillings, perhaps a trifle more. I shall be two days and a half on the -road, _two nights_. 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 experimentally knew the -necessity of faith in order to regulate 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'll 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, 1794. - -MY DEAR BROTHER,--The last three days I have spent at Bray, near -Maidenhead, at the house of a gentleman 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 performance he is about -to publish, and by writing him a dedication and preface. At my return I -found two letters from you, the one containing the two guineas, which will -be perfectly adequate to my expenses, and, my brother, what some part of -your letter made me feel, I am ill able to express; but of this at another -time. I have signed the certificate of my expenses, but not my discharge. -The moment I receive it I shall set off for Cambridge immediately, most -probably through London, as the gentleman, whose house I was at at Bray, -has pressed me to take his horse, and accompany him on Wednesday morning, -as he himself intends to ride to town that day. If my discharge comes down -on Tuesday morning I shall embrace his offer, particularly as I shall be -introduced to his bookseller, a thing of some consequence to my present -views. - -Clagget[47] has set four songs of mine most divinely, for two violins and -a pianoforte. I have done him some services, 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 THE SAME. - -May 1, 1794. - -MY DEAR BROTHER,--I have been convened before the fellows.[48] Dr. Pearce -behaved with great asperity, Mr. Plampin[49] with exceeding and most -delicate kindness. My sentence is a reprimand (not a public one, but -_implied_ in the sentence), a month's confinement to the precincts of the -College, and to translate the works of Demetrius Phalareus into English. -It is a thin quarto of about ninety Greek pages. All the fellows tried to -persuade the Master 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 -declamation to write in the routine of college business, and the Rustat -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 before 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 understand it. _If_ I should be so _very -lucky_ as to win one of the 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 R. Southey, Health and Republicanism 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 hospitality, -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 similes 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-famished sickly -baby in her arms to put her 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 _obtrusive_! "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; his 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 pantisocracy shall have -_aspheterized_--from [Greek: a], non, and [Greek: spheteros], proprius (we -really _wanted_ such a word), instead of travelling along the circuitous, -dusty, beaten highroad of diction, you thus cut across the soft, green, -pathless field of novelty! Similes for ever! Hurrah! 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 _suffus'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 on a cock's egg. Southey, dost -thou not see wisdom in her _Coan_ vest of allegory? The cockatrice is -emblematic 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; - 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! Hucks' compliments. - - S. T. COLERIDGE. - -Addressed to "Robert Southey. Miss Tyler's, Bristol." - - -XXXIII. TO THE SAME. - -WREXHAM, Sunday, July 15, 1794.[50] - -Your letter, Southey! made me melancholy. Man is a bundle of habits, but -of all habits the habit of despondence 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, and receive unhurt -the flower, which I have climbed precipices 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-house? 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. The following is a _fact_. A friend of Hucks' after long struggles -between principle and _interest_, as it is improperly called, accepted a -place under government. He 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 on the capability of pleasure in a mind like yours, I unwarily -fell into poetry:[51]-- - - 'Tis thine with fairy forms to talk, - And thine the philosophic walk; - And what to thee the sweetest are-- - The setting sun, 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; - 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 shalt not die!" - - "The heart-smile glowing on his aged cheek - Mild as decaying light of summer's eve," - -are lines eminently beautiful. The whole is pleasing. For a motto! Surely -my memory has suffered an epileptic fit. A Greek motto would be pedantic. -These lines will perhaps do:-- - - All mournful to the pensive sages' eye,[52] - 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. The nearer you -approach the sun, the more intense are his rays. Yet what distant corner -of the system do they not cheer and vivify? The ardour of private -attachments makes philanthropy a necessary _habit_ of the soul. I love my -friend. Such as _he_ is, all mankind are or might be. The deduction is -evident. Philanthropy (and indeed every other virtue) is a thing of -_concretion_. Some home-born feeling is the centre of the ball, that -rolling on through life collects and assimilates every congenial -affection. What did you mean by _H._ has "my understanding"? I have -puzzled myself in vain to discover the import of the sentence. The only -sense it _seemed_ to bear was so like _mock-humility_, that I scolded -myself for the momentary supposition.[53] 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:[54]-- - - 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 heaven-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 with heart-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. - -Monday, 11 o'clock. Well, praised be God! here 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 amabam_. 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, sed mihi non vivit--nova forte marita, - Ah dolor! alterius car, a cervice pependit. - Vos, malefida valete accens insomnia mentis, - Littora amata valete! Vale, ah! formosa Maria!_ - -My fortitude would not have supported me, had I _recognized_ her--I mean -_appeared_ to do it! I neither ate nor slept yesterday. But love is a -local anguish; I am sixteen 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 Leominster, to Bishop's Castle, to -Welsh Pool, to Llanfyllin, nothing occurred worthy notice except that at -the last place I preached pantisocracy and aspheterism with so much -success that two great huge fellows of butcher-like appearance danced -about the room in enthusiastic agitation. And one of them 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." Southey! Such men -may be of use. They would kill the golden calf _secundum artem_. From -Llanfyllin we penetrated into the interior of the country to Llangunnog, a -village most romantically situated. We dined there on 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 remarkable 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 my sentiments: he grasped my -hand with flesh-bruising ardor, and I trembled lest some disappointed -citizens of the _animalcular_ 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 the parish. I was asked for a gentleman. I gave General -Washington. The parson said in a low voice, "Republicans!" After which, -the medical man said, "Damn toasts! I gives a sentiment: May all -republicans be guillotined!" 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 _make calling one another liars_, etc., necessary -vent-holes to the superfluous fumes of the temper. At last I endeavoured -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 sentiment with the spirit of Christianity." "Pho!" -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 Berdmore. 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 Wrexham to Ruthin, to Denbigh. At Denbigh is a ruined -castle; 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 heartstring to tremulous -emotion. He sat adown (the moon just peering) amid the awful part of the -ruins, and the romantic youth struck up the affecting tune of "Mrs. -Carey."[55] 'Tis fact, upon my honour. - -God bless you, Southey! We shall be at Aberystwith[56] 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. Heigho! - -ROBERT SOUTHEY, No. 8 Westcott Buildings, Bath. - - -XXXIV. TO THE SAME. - -10 o'clock, Thursday morning, September 18, 1794. - -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! 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 _tactician_ excellence of the 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. Harwood--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, Southey, we shall be _frendotatoi meta -frendous_--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 remark 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.[57] -"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." - -"'Twas 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 next sonnet is altogether exquisite,--the -circumstance common yet new to poetry, the moral accurate and full of -soul.[58] "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 shall 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.[59] - -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 received 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 present 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. - - -XXXV. 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 Southey, 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 the _first_ letter -you directed to _me_ at Cambridge, I _would_ 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, I 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, was 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! Lofty conjunction -of circumstances for me to write to Miss F. Besides, I told her 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 London, 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[60] 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 rectitude 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 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 26, 1794. - -MY DEAR, DEAR SOUTHEY,--I am beyond measure distressed and agitated by -your letter to Favell. On the evening of the Wednesday before last, I -arrived in Cambridge; 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 immediately, 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 are theatricalizing. 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 Brunton[61] (Mrs. Merry's 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 literat. 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 revenge. - -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. COLERIDGE. - - -XXXVII. TO THE SAME. - -October 21, 1794. - -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? Is it for the 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 no right, nor do I feel myself inclined to reproach you -for the Past. God forbid! You have already suffered 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 hurrying you -in the sad Extreme. I have heard that you mean to leave England, and on a -Plan so absurd and extravagant that were I for a moment to imagine it -_true_, I should be obliged to listen with a more patient Ear to -suggestions, 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'erthrown_, 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--Coleridge! Though I have been told -(_indeed_ I do not believe it) that you doubt of his existence and -disbelieve a hereafter. 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 on 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 letter, 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 resolution -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 detested 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, on this plan, but remember, Southey, this is _not our plan_, nor -can I defend it. "Shad's children 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 demolish the system. Wherever men -_can_ be vicious, some _will_ be. The leading idea of pantisocracy is to -make men _necessarily_ virtuous by removing all motives to evil--all -possible temptation. "Let them dine with us and be treated with as much -equality as they would wish, but perform that part of labour for which -their education has fitted them." _Southey_ should not have written this -sentence. My friend, my noble and high-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 -Egalits? Or are the few you have mentioned, "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 on 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 creation. 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? Washing with a machine -and cleaning the house. One hour's addition to our daily labor, and -_pantisocracy_ in its most perfect sense is practicable. That the greater -part of our female companions should have the task of maternal exertion 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 practice. It is not -enough that we have once swallowed it. The _heart_ should have _fed_ upon -the _truth_, as insects on 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 Hamburg 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 importation of arms and seize -subjects of the hostile governments. It is said that one cause of the -ministers having been so cool on the business is that it will prevent -emigration, which it seems would be treasonable to a hostile country. Tell -me all you think on these subjects. What 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? - Faint was that Hope, and rayless. Yet 'twas 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![62] - -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 volumes, 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 exquisite.[63] 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 imitation of Gray's Descent of Odin, that I would rather -adopt Shakespeare's mode of introducing the figures themselves, and making -the description now the Witches' and now Fleance's. I detest monodramas, -but I never wished to establish my judgment on the throne of critical -despotism. Send me up the Elegy on the Exiled Patriots and the Scripture -Sonnets. I have promised them to Flower.[64] 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 gentleness. She has loved you tenderly; be firm, -therefore, as a rock, mild as the lamb. I sent a hundred "Robespierres" to -Bath ten days ago and more. - -Five hundred copies of "Robespierre" were printed. A hundred [went] to -Bath; a hundred to Kearsley, in London; 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 academic gentlemanship prevented -me from disposing of more than the five _propri person_. 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. How -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._ 'Tis -thought a very _aristocratic_ performance; you may suppose how -hyper-democratic my character must have been. The expenses of paper, -printing, and advertisements are nearly nine pounds. We ought to have -charged one shilling and sixpence a copy. - -I presented a copy to Miss Brunton with these verses in the blank -leaf:[65]-- - - Much on my early youth I love to dwell, - Ere yet I bade 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 _twilight_ gloom - Mourned with the breeze, O 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 th' empassioned lyre; - Red from the Tyrants' wounds I shook the lance, - And strode in joy the reeking plains of France! - In ghastly horror lie th' oppressors low, - And my Heart akes tho' Mercy struck the blow! - With wearied thought I seek the amaranth Shade - Where peaceful Virtue weaves her _myrtle_ braid. - And O! 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 this letter I never recollected that yesterday was my -birthday--twenty-two years old. - -I have heard from my brothers--from him particularly who has been friend, -brother, father. 'Twas all remonstrance 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 reason, Southey, to be entangled in the web which -your feelings have woven. Oxen and horses possess not intellectual -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. But who 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 Lushington'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. - -'Tis past one o'clock in the morning. I sat down at twelve o'clock to read -the "Robbers" of Schiller.[66] 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 able to describe such characters. I -tremble like an aspen leaf. Upon my soul, I write to you because I am -frightened. 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. Potter of Emanuel[67] -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 -sentiments 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 horrible 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 vanish 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 _was very_ lovely, Southey! We 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. - - Nutrito vulnere tabens - Impatiensque mei feror undique, solus et excors, - Et desideriis pascor! - -I wish, Southey, in the 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 feeling? 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 infants _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 _anguish_ 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 consolation to your sorrows than be -wasting my feelings in egotistic complaints. "Verily my complaint is -bitter, yet my stroke is heavier than my groaning." - -God love you, my dear Southey! - - 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 lines[68] in a moment of melancholy -dissatisfaction:-- - - ----! thy grave with aching eye I scan, - And inly groan for Heaven's poor outcast--Man! - 'Tis tempest all, or gloom! In earliest youth - If gifted with th' Ithuriel lance of Truth - He force to start amid the feign'd caress - Vice, 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? - 'Twas 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, - The daring soul of Truth, the patriot's part, - And Pity's sigh, that breathes the gentle heart-- - Sloth-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[69] - 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 heav'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 shipwreck'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 - 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 Southey, I received a special invitation from Dr. -Edwards[70] (the great Grecian of Cambridge and heterodox divine) to drink -tea and spend the evening. I there met a councillor whose name is -Lushington, a democrat, and a man of the most powerful and Briarean -intellect. I was challenged on the subject of pantisocracy, which is, -indeed, the universal topic at the University. A discussion began and -continued for six hours. In conclusion, Lushington and Edwards declared -the system impregnable, 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 exhibited closer argument in more -elegant and appropriate language 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 necessary premises -exist. O for that Lyncean eye that can discover in the acorn of Error the -rooted and widely spreading oak of Misery! Qure: should not all who mean -to become members of our community be incessantly meliorating their -temper and elevating their understandings? Qu.: whether a very respectable -quantity of _acquired_ knowledge (History, Politics, above all, -_Metaphysics_, without which no man _can_ reason but with women and -children) 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 -circumstance? Was it not because I knew, even to certainty of conviction, -that it is subversive of _rational_ hopes of a permanent system? These -children,--the little Frickers, for instance, and your brothers,--are they -not already deeply tinged with the prejudices and errors of society? Have -they not learned from their schoolfellows _Fear_ and _Selfishness_, of -which the necessary offsprings are Deceit and desultory Hatred? How are we -to prevent them from infecting 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? How 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 you, Southey, -that I will accompany you on an _imperfect_ system. But must our system be -thus necessarily imperfect? 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 declared to Caldwell -that I (S. T. Coleridge) was a man of the most _courtly_ and polished -manners, of the most _gentlemanly_ address she had ever met with. But I -will not _crow_! Slovenly, indeed! - - -XL. TO THE REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE. - -Thursday, November 6, 1794. - -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_![71] Hence, -whatever web of friendship my presence may have woven, my absence has -seldom failed to unravel. Anxieties 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 been as constantly obeyed. But so it -has 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 cometh! - -How often and how unkindly are the ebullitions of youthful disputations -mistaken for the result of fixed principles. People have resolved that I -am a d[Greek:]mocrat, and accordingly look at everything I do through the -spectacles of prejudication. In the feverish distemperature of a _bigoted_ -aristocrat's brain, some phantom of D[Greek:]mocracy threatens him in -every corner of my writings. - - And Hbert's atheist crew, whose maddening hand - Hurl'd down the altars of the living God - With all the infidel intolerance.[72] - -"Are these lines in _character_," observed a sensible friend of mine, "in -a speech on the death of the man whom it just became the fashion to style -'The ambitious _Theocrat_'?" "I fear _not_," was my answer, "I gave way to -my feelings." The first speech of Adelaide,[73] whose _Automaton_ is this -character? Who spoke through Le Gendre's mouth,[74] 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 subduing France. Is not this sentiment highly -characteristic? Is it _forced_ into the mouths of the speakers? Could I -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 _all_ who entertain and express this opinion -d[Greek: ]mocrats? 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 d[Greek: ]mocrat. 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 complexity, 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 no 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! He taught those principles of which the necessary -_effect_ was to abolish all slavery. He prepared the _mind_ for the -reception 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 exerted my power in the -defence of the Holy One of Nazareth against the learning of the historian, -the libertinism of the wit, and (his 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 d[Greek: ]mocrat, because -I will not join in the maledictions of the despotist--because I will -_bless all_ 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 thornbush, 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, on 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 morning I received -your letter I poured forth these incondite rhymes. Of course they are -meant for a brother's eye. - - Smerdon! thy grave with aching eye I scan, etc.[75] - -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 "Escapes 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 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 companions. "The -Retrospect!"[76] _Quod qui non prorsus amat et deperit, illum 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"[77] -is the best of the odes. I dislike that to Lycon, excepting 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 Mattathias"[78] -is by far the best. That you should ever write another, _Pulcher Apollo -veta! Mus prohibete venust!_ 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 Valentine"[79] ("If long and lingering -seem one little day The motley crew of travellers among"); that on "The -Fire"[80] (not your last, a very so-so one); on "The Rainbow"[81] -(particularly the four last lines), and two or three others, are all -divine and fully equal to Bowles. Some parts of "Miss Rosamund"[82] are -beautiful--the _working_ scene, and that line with which the poem ought to -have concluded, "And think who lies so cold and pale below." Of the -"Pauper's Funeral,"[83] that part in which you have done me the honour to -imitate me is by far the worst; the 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 remedied by compression, my _editio -purgata_ 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! but 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,"[84] I wrote the whole but the second and third lines. -Of the "Old Man in the Snow,"[85] ten last lines _entirely_, and part of -the four first. Those ten lines are, perhaps, the best I ever did write. - -Lovell has no taste or simplicity of feeling. I remarked that when a man -read Lovell's poems he _mus cus_ (that is a rapid way of pronouncing "must -curse"), but when he thought of Southey's, he'd "buy on!" For God's sake -let us have no more Bions or Gracchus's. I abominate them! _Southey_ is a -name much more proper and handsome, and, I venture to prophesy, will be -more _famous_. Your "Chapel Bell"[86] 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 patriot'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. Withold 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. - -I shall set about one when 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 published it in a book about the size -and dimensions of children's twopenny books. The dedication is pretty. He -calls the publication "Tineum;"[87] for what reason or with what meaning -would give Madame Sphinx a complete victory over Oedipus. - -A wag has handed about, I hear, an obtuse angle of wit, under the name of -"An Epigram." 'Tis almost as bad as the subject. - - "A tiny man of tiny wit - A tiny book has published. - But not alas! one tiny bit - His tiny fame established." - -TO BOWLES.[88] - - My heart has thank'd thee, 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 thought-bewildered 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 written by Lamb, a man -of uncommon genius. Have you seen his divine sonnet of "O! I could -_laugh_ to hear the winter winds," etc.? - -SONNET.[89] - - O 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 - I 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 particular 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 -contemporaries are among the better things I have written. That to Erskine -is a bad specimen. I 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,[90] which has no other merit -than a pretty simplicity of silliness. - - 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 the subject 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 him the following -note of consolation: "I condole with you on the unpleasant motions, to -which a certain uncouth automaton has been mechanized; and am anxious to -know the motives that impinged on its optic or auditory nerves so as to be -communicated in such rude vibrations through the medullary substance of -its brain, thence rolling their stormy surges into the capillaments of its -tongue, and the muscles of its arm. The diseased violence of its thinking -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 has not lowered you by the accession of anger or -resentment." - -God love you, Southey! My love to your mother! - - S. T. COLERIDGE. - - -XLII. TO THE SAME. - -Wednesday, December 17, 1794. - -When 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-disciplined phalanx of -right-onward feelings. O ye invincible 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, -apostrophical, metaphorical rant. - -I dined yesterday with Perry and Grey (the proprietor and editor of the -"Morning Chronicle") at their house, and met Holcroft. 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. Holcroft 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 dogmatism -of conversation in Holcroft for which you receive little compensation -either from the veracity of his information, 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, Holcroft, etc. They absolutely tremble before him! I had -the honour of working H. a little, and by my great _coolness_ and command -of impressive language certainly _did him over_. "Sir!" said he, "I never -knew so much real wisdom and 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." He 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 sentiments 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 Bowles_! Porson idolizes the sonnets. However it happened, -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!_"[91] - -Why, 'tis 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, - [92]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; 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 [Greek: Heudeis brephos] of Simonides. -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 superior -almost to anything you ever wrote; _quod est magna res dicere_, a great -thing to say. - -SONNET.[93] - - 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! - -SONNET. - - O 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 thy holy guidance bless - And hymn thee, Godwin! with an ardent lay; - For that thy voice, in Passion's stormy day, - When wild I roam'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 following sonnet, whether or -no I shall admit it into the number. 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 those whose -brains are not [Greek: tou ameinonos plou]. (You have read S.'s poetry -and know that the fancy displayed in it is sweet and delicate to the -highest degree.) - -TO R. 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 possesses _mind_:-- - - 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." - -ADDRESS TO A YOUNG JACKASS AND ITS TETHERED MOTHER.[94] - - 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. - Yea, and more musically sweet to me - Thy dissonant harsh bray of joy would be, - Than _Banti's_ warbled airs, that soothe to rest - The tumult of a scoundrel Monarch's breast! - -How do you like it? - -I took the 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. - -[The following lines in Southey's handwriting are attached 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 encumber'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.] - - -XLIII. TO THE SAME. - -Monday morning, December, 1794. - -MY DEAR SOUTHEY,--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 -inexplicable 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 feelings as ready sacrifices to justice--[Greek: kauka hyporas -gar]. 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. - -Southey! 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 yourself in the mantle of -self-centring resolve, and refuse to us your bounden quota of intellect? -Why do you say, "_I, I, I_ 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. Remember 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 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 answered 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 suspense. After infinite -struggles of irresolution, I will at last dare to request of you, Mary, -that you will communicate 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 fortitude by total hopelessness. Read this letter with -benevolence--and consign it to oblivion. - -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 annexed 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 -beatings 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 attachment, commits an -act of suicide on 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 disquieting passion; still some inexplicable -suggestion palsied my efforts, and I clung with desperate fondness to this -phantom of love, its mysterious attractions and hopeless prospects. It was -a faint and rayless hope![95] 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 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 steadier resignation from -yourself, than were it announced to me (haply on your marriage day!) by a -stranger. Indulge 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! He 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. COLERIDGE. - -I return to Cambridge to-morrow morning. - -MISS EVANS, No. 17 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 gentleness 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. - -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. He -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, 1794. - -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 virtuous. 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 -gnawings 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 nigh too much for me; but, praised be the -All-Merciful! the feebleness 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 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 -Southey! 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, Southey! _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 character. Your sensibilities are -tempestuous; you feel _indignation_ 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 (believing 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 eagerness to leave it; and am -resolved, whatever be the consequence, to be at Bath by Saturday. I -thought of walking down. - -I have written to Bristol and said I could 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 preventing it. I will write of indifferent -subjects. Your sonnet,[96] "Hold your mad 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.[97] I transcribe it, not so much -to give you my corrections, as for the pleasure it gives me. - - With 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. - -I was writing a poem, which when finished you shall see, and wished him to -describe the character and doctrines of Jesus Christ for me; but his low -spirits prevented him. The poem is in blank verse on the Nativity. I sent -him these careless lines, which flowed from my pen extemporaneously:-- - -TO C. LAMB.[98] - - Thus far my sterile brain hath 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 shalt 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 - Aught 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, which is indeed -much higher 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 panegyrical 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. - - S. T. C. - - -XLIX. TO THE SAME. - -1795. - -DEAR COTTLE,--Shall 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 miraculous 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 might arise; your mother, your brother, your Edith, would all -crowd upon you, and certain misery might be weighed against distant, and -perhaps unattainable happiness. 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 peculiar 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. "He 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 feelings, 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 determination, will -make it ultimately the best. - -God love you, my dear Southey! - - S. T. COLERIDGE. - - -LI. TO THOMAS POOLE. - -Wednesday evening, October 7, 1795. - -MY DEAR SIR,--God bless you; or rather, God be praised for that he _has_ -blessed you! - -On Sunday morning I was _married_ at St. Mary's Redcliff, 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 distant islands, the opposite coast! I -shall assuredly write rhymes, let the nine Muses prevent it if they can. -Cruikshank, I find, is married to Miss Bucl. 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. - -[Illustration] - -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 I write, which will be perfectly -sufficient for my maintenance, I only amusing myself on 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.[99] - -Friday morning, November 13, 1795. - -Southey, I _have_ lost friends--friends who still cherish for me -sentiments of high esteem and unextinguished tenderness. 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," Southey, 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 you, -I will begin at the beginning and regularly retrace your conduct and my -own. In the month of June, 1794, I 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 returned 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 impracticable, by such -similarity of property as would amount to a _moral_ sameness, and answer -all the purposes of _abolition_. Nor were you less zealous, and thought -and expressed your opinion, that if any man embraced our system he must -comparatively disregard "his 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 spirits -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 Promethean -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 convulsive 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, from feeling and from principle I renewed; and I -met a reward more than 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 arrival 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 -reasons," 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 unwonted 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 vehemence, for I well knew that no notion of morality -or its motives could 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 became cold and gloomy, and pleaded with increased -pertinacity for the wisdom of making Self an undiverging Center. At Mr. -Jardine's[100] your language was _strong indeed_. Recollect it. You had -left the table, and we were standing at the window. Then darted into my -mind the dread that you were meditating a separation. At _Chepstow_[101] -your conduct renewed my suspicion, and I was greatly agitated, even to -many tears. But in Peircefield Walks[102] you assured me that my -suspicions were altogether unfounded, 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 -flagrant. Remember when we went to Ashton[103] on the strawberry 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 -individual 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 delivered. 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 condescend to waste my -intellect upon them; but in the most express terms I declared to George -Burnett my opinion (and, Southey, 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 you must have been conscious I should reject decisively -and with scorn." George Burnett was your most affectionate friend; I knew -his unbounded veneration for you, his personal attachment; I knew likewise -his gentle dislike of _me_. Yet him I bade be the judge. I bade him choose -his associate. I would adopt the full system or depart. George, I presume, -detailed of this my conversation 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 returned?" -For to think with almost superstitious veneration of you had been such a -deep-rooted habit of my soul that even then I did not dream you could -hesitate concerning 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 virtue 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 -invulnerable in conscience, for the sake of mankind I did not, however, -quit the field, but pressed you on 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 sentiments in it are of the -boldest order. What if the suspicions of the Bishop be raised, and he -particularly questions you concerning your opinions of the Trinity and -the Redemption?" "Oh," 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 back into the -ranks_; as a man admirable for his 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 -considered you, so I treated you. I studiously avoided all particular -subjects. I acquainted you with nothing relative 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 friendship -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 friendship -leaves behind him." Since that letter I altered my conduct no otherwise -than 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 rupture I wished you to -sink into that class. "Face to face you never changed your manners to me." -And yet I pained you by "cold civility." Egregious contradiction! -Doubtless 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 altered, not as a writer. Our Muses had not quarrelled. I should have -read your poetry with equal delight, and corrected it with equal zeal if -correction it needed. "I received you on my return from Shurton with my -usual shake of the hand." You gave me your hand, and dreadful 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 of -_friendship_? Heaven forbid! I should then be a hypocrite many days in the -week. It is assuredly the pledge of acquaintance, 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, Southey! 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 be so--_hoped_ that we might 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, on examination, I found them a show and -mockery of unreal things, doubtless, my opinion of you _must_ have become -far less respectful. 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 no 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 excriminate 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 immediate 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 Danvers, indeed, and to Cottle I -spoke more particularly, for I knew their prudence and their 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! Southey is going into the -Church! 'Tis all concluded, 'tis in vain to deny it!" I answered: "You are -mistaken; you must contradict; Southey 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, Southey, that you had -given up every principle--that confessedly you were going into the law, -more opposite 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 proposal, I was obliged in my own defence to relate all that -passed between us, all on which I had founded a conviction 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: 'I have seen my error! I have been drunk with principle!'" -Just over the bridge, at the bottom of the High Street, 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 madman 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 attributed, 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 embellishments 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 importance 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 this should never be the case, -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 me 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 _prospects_ were only an -uncertain hope of getting thirty shillings a week between us by writing -for some London paper--for the remainder we were to rely on our -agricultural 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 _you_ could subdue - Temptation!" - -He 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 _principles_ declare against it, and he is not -calculated for it. And his father will not support any expense of -consequence relative to his further education--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-house 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 -precisely 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, _Worldly -Prudence_! - -Curse on all _pride_! 'Tis a harlot that buckrams herself up in virtue -only that she may fetch a higher price. 'Tis 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 indeed -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 reluctantly 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 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 'sloth-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 pantisocracy -more, and if in a certain time I do not see this disqualifying 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 mention to me, -"face to face," my indolence as a motive for your recent conduct? Did you -ever mention it in Peircefield Walks? and some time after, that night when -you scattered some heart-chilling 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 -supposed myself capable. Enough! I heard for the first time on Thursday -that you were to set off for Lisbon on Saturday morning. It gives me great -pain on 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 no 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 -sheet-anchor 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 feasteth, 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 -Him, the source of all virtue, no 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 husband of her best loved sister. Farewell! - - S. T. COLERIDGE. - - -LIII. TO JOSIAH WADE.[104] - -NOTTINGHAM, Wednesday morning, January 27, 1796. - -MY DEAR FRIEND,--You will perceive by this letter that I have changed my -route. From Birmingham, which 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 Sheffield; 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 Birmingham 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,[105] the -painter, and Dr. Darwin, the everything, except the Christian![106] Dr. -Darwin possesses, perhaps, a greater range of knowledge than any other man -in Europe, and is the most inventive of philosophical men. He thinks in a -_new_ train on all subjects except religion. He bantered me on the subject -of religion. I heard all his arguments, and told him that it was -infinitely consoling to me, to find that the arguments which so great a -man adduced against the existence of a God and the evidences of revealed -religion were such as had startled me at fifteen, but had become the -objects of my smile at twenty. Not one new objection--not even an -ingenious one. He boasted that 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, having 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 him 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 subject -infinitely important, yet are proud to confess themselves profoundly -ignorant of it. Dr. Darwin would have been ashamed to have rejected -Hutton's theory of the earth[107] 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 -important 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 valley, 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. Fellowes, and was -introduced to the company. On the right hand of the president whom should -I see but an old College 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 allelujah; -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 inspiration, and polished with leisurely solicitude; and alas! -for what have I left them? 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 -every minute I am hearing a groan from my wife. Groans, and complaints, -and sickness! The 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 darkness! Poverty, perhaps, and the thin faces of them that want -bread, looking up to me! Nor is this all. My happiest 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 -beforehand! 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 preface, 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 transmission of "The Watchman," you -must blame George Burnett, 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 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."[108] - -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, marriage 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 deprived 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 -ingratitude. 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 moment they are -published. In the third number of "The Watchman" there are a few lines -entitled "The Hour when we shall meet again," "_Dim hour that sleeps on -pillowy clouds afar_," 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 on 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" comes more easy to me, so that I shall begin -about my Christian Lectures. I will immediately order for you, unless you -immediately countermand it, Count Rumford's Essays; in No. V. of "The -Watchman" you will see why. I have enclosed Dr. Beddoes'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 "Letter to -a Noble Lord"[109] 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'll try and -venture to scribble a line and a half every time the man goes with "The -Watchman" to you. - -N. B. The "Essay on Fasting"[110] I am ashamed of; but it is one of my -misfortunes that I am obliged to publish _extempore_ as well as compose. -God bless you, - - and S. T. COLERIDGE. - - -LVI. TO THE SAME. - -12th May, 1796. - -Poole! The Spirit, who 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 anything which I have not already given, I should be oppressed -by the letter now before me.[111] 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 perceptible, 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 commensurate 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--receiving or bestowing--be equally -grateful to my Almighty Benefactor. I am undetermined, therefore--not -because I receive with pain and reluctance, but--because I suspect 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 will go _per_ caravan to Bridgewater, -where, if you have a horse of tolerable meekness unemployed, you will let -him meet me. - -I should blame you for the exaggerated terms in which you have spoken of -me in the Proposal, did I not perceive the motive. You wished to make it -appear an offering--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 widow[112] 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 affection of a brother, and I -repay you in kind. Your letters 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 interested 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 which has 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 Politi[cal] 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 increase 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 country?" My dear Thelwall! -how are these opinions connected 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 Aristotle, 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 _acknowledge_ 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 _ungently_, and disappoint your auguries.... "But, you cannot -be a patriot unless you are a Christian." Yes, Thelwall, the disciples of -Lord Shaftesbury and Rousseau as 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 sentences of your letter forced me to.... -_Gerrald_[113] you insinuate is an _atheist_. Was he so, when he offered -those solemn prayers to God Almighty at the Scotch conventicle, and was -this sincerity? But Dr. Darwin and (I suppose from his actions) Gerrald -think sincerity a folly and therefore vicious. Your atheistic brethren -square their moral systems exactly according to their inclinations. -Gerrald 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 imperfect state of our nature. Godwin, whose very -heart is cankered by the love of singularity, and who feels no -disinclination to wound by abrupt harshness, pleads for absolute -sincerity, because such a system gives him a frequent opportunity of -indulging his misanthropy. Poor Williams,[114] 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 indignation and contempt were never more -powerfully excited 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 attack on you is enough for me. At that -time I had prepared 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. He 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 Holcroft -a thousand times better, 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 atheist is only not a fool. "Dr. Priestley? -there is a _petitesse_ in his mind. Hartley? pshaw! _Godwin_, sir, is a -thousand times a better metaphysician!" But this intolerance 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 unadorned reasoning to convince you you are wrong. - -Your remarks on my poems are, I think, just in general; 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,[115] who is, in my opinion, -the best poet of the age (I will send you 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 decoration, -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 -_association_. Milton is _harmonious_ to me, and I absolutely nauseate -Darwin's poems. - - Yours affectionately, - S. T. COLERIDGE. - - JOHN THELWALL, - Beaufort Buildings, Strand, London. - - -LVIII. TO THOMAS POOLE. - -May 29, 1796. - -MY DEAR POOLE,--This said caravan does not leave Bridgewater till nine. In -the market place stands the 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![116] Were I transported to -Italian plains, and lay by the side of the streamlet that murmured 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 humble 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 -Cruikshank 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! - - -LIX. TO JOHN THELWALL. - -Wednesday, June 22, 1796. - -DEAR THELWALL,--That I have not written you has 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 d'oeuvre_. Yet the -"Peripatetic"[117]--for which accept my thanks--pleased me more because it -let me into your heart; the poetry is frequently _sweet_ and possesses the -_fire_ 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 unfavourable 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_ gentleman Margarot in the "Conciones," and my -foolish verses to Godwin in the "Morning Chronicle."[118] At the same -time, Thelwall, do not suppose that I admit your palliations. Doubtless I -could fill a book with slanderous stories 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 -blessing. 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 prejudiced -me against Godwin, but Godwin who has, perhaps, _prejudiced_ me against -atheism. Let me see you--I already know a deist, and Calvinists, and -Moravians whom I love and reverence--and I shall leap forwards to realise -my _principles_ by _feeling_ love and honour for an atheist. By the bye, -are you an atheist? For I was told that Hutton 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,--"independent 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_! - - -LX. TO THOMAS POOLE. - -Saturday, September 24, 1796. - -MY DEAR, VERY DEAR POOLE,--The heart thoroughly penetrated with the flame -of virtuous friendship is in a state of glory; but lest it should be -exalted above measure 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 humanity. 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, as 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 expressed 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 Mrs. Coleridge was delivered on -Monday, September 19, 1796, half 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 information, 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,[119] 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 compliment 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 -continuance 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 uncommonly pure, his -affection delicate, and his benevolence enlivened but not sicklied by -sensibility. He is assuredly a man of great genius; but it must be in -_tte--tte_ with one whom he loves and esteems that his colloquial -powers open; and this arises not from reserve or want of simplicity, but -from having been placed in situations 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 feelings. His joy and gratitude to Heaven for -the circumstance of his domestication with me I can scarcely describe 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,[120] and my feelings are so dim and huddled 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 on the other side of the paper two of -Charles Lloyd's sonnets, 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,[121] 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. - - -LXI. TO CHARLES LAMB.[122] - -[September 28, 1796.] - -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 -preserved; the Comforter that should relieve you is not far from you. But -as you are a Christian, in the name of that Saviour, who was filled with -bitterness and made drunken with wormwood, I conjure you to have recourse -in frequent prayer to "his God and your God;" the God of mercies, and -father of all comfort. Your poor father is, I hope, almost senseless of -the calamity; the unconscious 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 inheritance 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 encourage gloom or -despair. You are a temporary sharer in human miseries that you may be an -eternal partaker of the Divine nature. I charge you, if by any means it be -possible, come to me. - - I remain your affectionate - S. T. COLERIDGE. - - -LXII. TO THOMAS POOLE. - -Saturday night, November 5, 1796. - -Thanks, my heart's warm thanks to you, my beloved friend, for your tender -letter! Indeed, I did not deserve so kind a one; but by this time you -have received my last. - -To live in a beautiful country, and to enure myself as much 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. Disappointment! Disappointment! dash not from my -trembling 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 cloud_" 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 morning 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,[123] and _sopped_ the 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 garrison behind, or as if -he had evacuated the Corsica,[124] and a few straggling pains only -remained. But _this morning_ he returned in full force, and his 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 believe 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 ejaculate -prayers in her behalf. Such things are strange. It may be superstitious to -think about such correspondences; 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 temporary residence till Adscombe is ready -for us. I would that 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, physiognomically handsome, and scientific -in vaccimulgence? That last word is a new one, but soft in sound and full -of expression. 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 Cruikshank -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 olus, 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 night, 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 Cruikshank this morning, and this moment I have received a -letter from him. My letter written before the receipt of his contains -everything I would 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 Cruikshank.[125] May the Father and -lover of the meek preserve that meek woman, and give her a safe and joyful -deliverance! - -I wrote this morning a short note of congratulatory kindliness to your -sister, and shall be eager to call on her, when _Legion_ has been -thoroughly exorcised from my temple and cheeks. Tell Cruikshank 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 cheerings 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 required, 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,[126] 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. This parcel I send -to-morrow morning, enclosed in a parcel to Bill Poole of Thurston. - -God love you, my affectionate brother, and your affectionate - - 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 and 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."[127] Homer is the poet for the warrior, Milton for the -religionist, Tasso for women, Robert Southey for the patriot. The first -and fourth books of the "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 Animal 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 admirably written, and -displays strong sense animated by feeling, 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,"[128] with -my name; indeed, I make it a scruple of conscience never to publish -anything, however 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 -high-treasonist, and your friends the democrats. - - "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, expresses great sloth, and great, indeed, -almost idiotic good-nature. 'Tis a mere carcass of a face;[129] fat, -flabby, and expressive chiefly of inexpression. Yet I am told that my -eyes, eyebrows, and forehead are physiognomically good; but of this the -deponent knoweth not. As to my shape, 'tis a good shape enough if -measured, but my gait is awkward, and the walk of the whole man indicates -_indolence capable of energies_. I am, and ever have been, a great reader, -and have read almost everything--a library cormorant. I am _deep_ in all -out of the 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 phantasms that ever possessed "your -philosophy;" dreamers, from Thoth 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 useful knowledge, I am a so-so -chemist, and I love chemistry. All else is _blank_; but I _will_ be -(please God) an horticulturalist and a farmer. I compose very little, and -I absolutely 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 conversation 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,[130] 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. - -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. Iamblichus,[131] Proclus, Porphyrius, etc., one shilling 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 unfortunately be sold, in the same catalogue are:-- - -2109. Juliani Opera, 12s. 6d. - -676. Iamblichus de Mysteriis, 10s. 6d. - -2681. Sidonius Apollinaris, 6s. - -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 I mentioned to you, amounting to two pounds, -ten shillings; and, as in the course of next week I shall send a small -parcel 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 I -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 _Ippokrite_, but I forgot -that you are not a Greekist, and perchance you hate puns; but, in Greek, -_Krites_ signifies a judge and _hippos_ a horse. Hippocrite, therefore, -may mean a _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. - - -LXV. TO THOMAS POOLE.[132] - -Sunday morning, December 11, 1796. - -MY BELOVED POOLE,--The sight of your villainous hand-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, Hind, Pig-protector, 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 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, 1796. - -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 settling 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 unexpected 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 perform, 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 willing to be his own servant. As to Acton, 'tis -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 acquirement -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 for myself and my wife and 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 Estlin [do] for me? They do nothing who do -not teach me how to be independent of any except the Almighty Dispenser of -sickness and health. And "too far from the press." With the printing of -the review and the magazine I have no concern; and, if I publish any work -on 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 suffered 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. 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 vehemently persuading me to prefer Acton to Stowey, and in -return for the loss of your society recommending _Mr. King's_ family as -"very pleasant neighbours." Neighbours! 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 heart-chilling letter. -I 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 -instructed except at Stowey?) and to be where I can communicate in a -literary way. I must conclude. I pray you let me hear from you -immediately. God bless you and - - S. T. COLERIDGE. - - -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 disappointment, 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 looking 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 everything 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 the 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 promised to correct it for me, yet I might as well be fifty miles -from it as twelve, for any purpose of correcting. Secondly, the expense of -moving. Well, but I must move to Acton, and what will the difference be? -Perhaps three guineas.... I would give three guineas that you had not -assigned this reason. Thirdly, the wretchedness 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 manifested a strong dislike to our -living near you--or something 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 written 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 sentiments over leaf came into my heart, I will -not suppress them. 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 Magazine. 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 quietness. 4. From tea till prayer-time to -the reviews, magazines, 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. -Fricker'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 to leaving Bristol. I recurred therefore to -my first promise 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 40 or 50, 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 -debases 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 meeting. Nothing remains possible but a school, or -writer to a newspaper, or my present plan. I could not love the man who -advised me to keep a school, or write for a newspaper. He 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--everything necessary to my feelings -and the realization of my innocent independence. You know it would be -impossible 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 darkness 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 on 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 the Debtors' -Side of Newgate as full and sufficient payment. - -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 acquiesces 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 on 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 abandon 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 gardener than a Milton, if I could not unite -both. - -My _friend_, wherein I have written impetuously, pardon 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 assigned the true reasons which urged -you to dissuade me from a settlement at Stowey, and if indeed (provided -such settlement were consistent with my good and happiness), it would give -you unmixed pleasure, I adhere to Stowey, and consider the time from last -evening as a distempered 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 unreservedly 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 subdued -this, a rheumatic complaint in the back of my head and shoulders, -accompanied with sore throat and depression 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 account" how I have disposed of your books. This I -will shortly do, with all the veracity which that solemn incantation, -"_upon your honour_," must necessarily have conjured up. - -Your second and third part promise great things. I have counted the -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 farm_ 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 expenses. 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 would 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 particular road. Much good may be done in all. I am not _fit_ for -_public_ life; yet the light shall stream to a far distance 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 _sonnet[133] is obscure_; but you ought to distinguish between -obscurity residing in the uncommonness of the thought, and that which -proceeds from thoughts unconnected and language not adapted to the -expression of 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 semblance -_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 communicate, 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.[134] - -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 orthodox word in all our poets, they meaning by "soul" 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 materialist, 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 had seen him I should have _struggled_ to believe -it. Bless me! a commentary of thirty-five lines in defence of a sonnet! -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 _conceits_. 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 daylight" (three long syllables) is a beauty, as it admirably -expresses the captive's dwelling on the sight of noon with rapture and a -kind of wonder. - - The common sun, the air, the skies - To him are opening paradise. - GRAY. - -But supposing my defence not tenable; yet how a blunder in metre stamps a -man Italian or Della Cruscan I cannot 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 _he_ -should not escape the charge of Della Cruscanism,--this cuts the skin and -surface of my heart. "Poetry to have its highest relish must be -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 Collins's -"Ode on the Poetical Character,"--that part of it, I should say, beginning -with "The band (as faery legends say) Was wove on that creating day,"--has -inspired and whirled _me_ along with greater agitations of enthusiasm than -any the most _impassioned_ scene in Schiller or Shakespeare, 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 -valuable, 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 without feeling. Hence, though my -poetry has in general a hue of tenderness or passion over it, yet it -seldom exhibits unmixed and simple tenderness or passion. My philosophical -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.[135] 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 somehow or other they _marched -off_. No "Poems by John Thelwall" could I find. When I charged you with -anti-religious bigotry, I did not allude to your pamphlet, but to passages -in your letters to me, and to a circumstance which Southey, I _think_, -once mentioned, that you had asserted that the name of _God_ ought never -to be produced in poetry.[136] 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 _all_ my feelings, but will previously take care to -make my feelings benevolent. Contempt is hatred without fear; anger, -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. 'Tis 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 religion 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 infirmities 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 to me to -have done. I will write fully to you now, because 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 natural 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 Rome 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 he had sent it forth, seven thunders uttered -their voices: and when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, the -mighty Angel[137] lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by Him 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_ Paradise Lost in which he has not borrowed his imagery from -the _Scriptures_? I allow and rejoice that _Christ_ appealed only to the -understanding and the affections; but 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 (putting serious -belief out of the question) is a mean flight of impassioned eloquence in -which the Apostle marks the difference 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."[138] _You_ may -prefer to all this the quarrels of Jupiter and Juno, the whimpering of -wounded Venus, and the jokes of the celestials 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 observed it to do, it always takes -away all respect for those who become unpleasant from the infirmities of -disease or decaying nature. _Exempli grati_, "the aged are -_slobberers_."[139] The only vision which Christianity holds forth is -indeed peculiarly adapted to these _slobberers_. Yes, to these lowly and -despised and perishing slobberers it proclaims that their "corruptible -shall put on _incorruption_, and their mortal put on _immortality_." - -"Morals to the Magdalen and Botany Bay." Now, Thelwall, I presume that to -preach morals to the virtuous 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_? 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 disciples 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 cheerfully 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 for those who inflicted them; -wishing their oppressors to be altogether such 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, Thelwall, that you never read your Testament, since -your understanding was matured, without carelessness, and previous -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 -comprises 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 the _foundation_, -necessary and of first-rate importance, yet made of vile materials, and -hidden beneath the splendid superstructure. - -"Now giving all diligence, add to your faith _fortitude_, and to -_fortitude knowledge_, and to knowledge purity, and to purity -patience,[140] and to patience godliness,[141] and to godliness -brotherly-kindness, and to brotherly-kindness universal love."[142] - -I hope, whatever you may think of godliness, you will like the _note_ on -it. I need not tell you, that godliness is God-_like_ness, 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, Thelwall, 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 enjoined? 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 -expectation 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 _contemptuously_ 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 _fit_ for a man which his mind after sincere examination -approves, which animates 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 them, 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 -expressions are always indicative of the habit of feeling. You possess -fortitude and purity, and a large portion of brotherly-kindness and -universal love; drink with unquenchable thirst of the two latter virtues, -and acquire _patience_; and then, Thelwall, 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-creatures' happiness), "Here lie and did -lie the _all_ of John Thelwall 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 transport 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 struggling to subdue it. I rejoice that -the bankrupt honesty of the public has paid even the small dividend you -mentioned. 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, Thelwall, that the little atheist Madam Stella has an -abominable _Christian_ kind of _heart_? 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 and I printed -together, intending to make a volume, but I gave it up and cancelled -them.[143] Item, Joan of Arc, with only the passage of my writing cut out -for the printers, 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 sonnets[144] -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. Lloyd[145] 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[146] which -was printed to be dispersed among friends. It was addressed to Charles -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 keepsake. Of this parcel I -do entreat thy acceptance. I have another Joan of Arc, so you have a -_right_ to the one enclosed. Postscript. Item, a humorous "Droll" on S. -Ireland, 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 unfortunately he has received a few rays of -supernatural light through a crack in his upper story. I _express_ myself -unfeelingly; but indeed my heart always aches when I think of him. Item, -some verses of Robert Southey to a college cat.[147] And, finally, the -following lines by thy affectionate friend, - - S. T. COLERIDGE. - -TO A YOUNG MAN - -WHO ABANDONED HIMSELF TO A CAUSELESS AND INDOLENT MELANCHOLY.[148] - - Hence that fantastic wantonness of woe, - O 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. - - Or seek some _widow's_ grave; whose dearer part - Was slaughtered, where o'er his uncoffin'd limbs - The flocking flesh-birds 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. Cottle's, High Street, -Bristol. - - -LXIX. TO THOMAS POOLE. - -Sunday morning [? December 18, 1796.] - -MY DEAR POOLE,--I wrote to you with improper impetuosity; but I had been -dwelling so long on the circumstance of living near you, that my mind was -thrown by your letter into the feelings of those distressful dreams[149] -where we imagine ourselves falling from precipices. I 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 convert 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 Rumfordize 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 contrive 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 thoroughly 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--no 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, Southey is unrivalled; but as certainly he does not possess -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 _amalgamating 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_ towards each other, but I do not -_esteem_ or _love_ Southey, as I must esteem and love the man whom I dared -call by the holy name of _friend_: and vice vers Southey 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. -Southey's direction at present is R. 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 external 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 surgeons! Now as to the -metaphysicians. Plato says it is _harmony_. He might as well have said a -fiddlestick's end; but I love Plato, his dear, _gorgeous_ 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 am a mere _apparition_, a -naked spirit, and that 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 -"Ode"[150] 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 _viv voce_, face to face--Stella and Sara, Jack Thelwall and I. As I -once wrote to my dear friend, T. Poole, "repeating-- - - '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; - nigmas that had driven the Theban[151] 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.'"[152] - - - - -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 the 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 associations must be painful indeed. But God be praised! -you shall look back on 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. Estlin's illness, how fervently he thanks God -for her recovery. 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 comfortable bedroom and sitting-room for C. -Lloyd, and another for us, a room for Nanny, a kitchen, and outhouse. -Before our door a clear brook runs of very soft water; and in the back -yard is a nice _well_ of fine 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 callum as testimonials of -their industry. We have likewise a sweet orchard, and at the end of it T. -Poole has 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 BRIDGEWATER, SOMERSET. - February 6, 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 suggest. 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 anything 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 -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 compositions published separately--50 + 20 = 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 Strutt[153] is a man of stern -aspect, but strong, very strong abilities. Joseph Strutt every way -amiable. He deserves his 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 no 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 without exception the greatest -_woman_ I have been fortunate enough to meet with in my brief pilgrimage -through life. - -[Illustration] - -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 sometimes, I think, deduced falsely. For -instance (p. iii.): It is _true_ that all a man's children, "however -begotten, whether in marriage or out," are his heirs in nature, and ought -to be so in true policy; but, instead of tacitly allowing that I meant by -it to encourage what Mr. B.[154] and the priests would call -licentiousness (and which surely, Thelwall, in the _present state of -society_ you must allow to be injustice, inasmuch as it deprives the woman -of her respectability 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 conceivable means (in the present state of society, at least) of -ensuring 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. Unchastity may be no 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 _know_ 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 -oppose 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 -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 agitating 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 -Horne 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_[155] by this time you are -conscious that you have praised too highly. With the exception of "I -unpartaking 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 on 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 _electrometers_[156] of taste. You forgot to point -out to me that the whole childbirth of Nature is at once ludicrous and -disgusting, 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 "Corresponding Society -Magazine." That good man, James Losh, has just published an admirable -treatise translated from the French of Benjamin Constant,[157] entitled, -"Consideration on the Strength of the Present Government 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 mistaken but -well-meaning Lewis.[158] 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 dispense with. There are a number of very pretty -young 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 happy, and my little David Hartley grows a sweet boy and has -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.[159] - -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 you. I shall -be home by Friday--not to-morrow--but the next Friday. If the "Ode on the -Departing Year" be not reprinted, please to _omit_ the lines from "When -shall scepter'd slaughter cease," to "For still does Madness roam on -Guilt's bleak dizzy height," inclusive.[160] 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 his 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 _inequalities_. 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. - -MR. COTTLE, Bookseller, High Street, Bristol. - - -LXXIV. TO ROBERT SOUTHEY. - -July, 1797. - -DEAR SOUTHEY,--You are acting kindly in your exertions 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, their -_ancientness_, prevented them from being generally read, in the degree, I -mean, that Goldsmith's poems or even Rogers' 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 knowledge 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 no 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 -_calculates_. 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 certainly write a preliminary essay, and I will -_attempt_ to write a poem on 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 chasteness 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 Chatterton's, to find such shadowy -nobodies as cherub-winged _Death_, 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 this is all his feelings do for him. -They set him upon the business and then they leave him. He has such a high -idea of what poetry ought to be, that he cannot conceive that 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 on 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," applied to a gibbet, strikes me as _slipshoppish_ -from the unfortunate meaning of the word "engaging." Your praise of my -Dedication[161] 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 metaphor[162] on the -diverse sorts of friendship is _hunted down_, but the poem is dear to me, -and in point of taste I place it next to "Low was our pretty Cot," which I -think the best of my poems. - -I am as much a Pangloss as ever, only less contemptuous 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 combination of curious circumstances a gentleman's seat, with a park -and woods, elegantly and completely furnished, with nine lodging rooms, -three parlours, and a hall, 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.[163] He left me Friday morning. -The second day after Wordsworth came to me, dear Sara accidentally emptied -a skillet of boiling milk on 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[164] which -communicates with mine I wrote these lines, with which I am pleased. (I -heard from C. Lamb of Favell and Le Grice.[165] Poor Allen! I knew nothing -of it.[166] As to Rough,[167] 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,[168] whom I may never meet again, - On springy[169] heath, 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[170] 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 heath-flowers! richlier burn, ye clouds - Live in the yellow Light, ye distant groves! - Struck with joy's deepest calm, and gazing round - On[171] 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 - 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 - 'Tis 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 Edith Southey would return with me. I think--indeed, I am -almost certain--that I could get a one-horse chaise 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 I am sure it would increase -your stock of images, and three weeks' absence from Christchurch 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 letter, having been absent a -day or two, and have already, before I write to you, written to Dr. -Beddoes. I would to Heaven 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 themselves; 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, mountains or caverns, give me the sense of -sublimity or majesty! But in this faith _all things_ counterfeit infinity. - - "Struck with the deepest calm of joy,"[172] I stand - Silent, with swimming sense; and gazing round - On the wide landscape, gaze till all doth seem - Less gross than bodily, a living Thing - Which acts upon the mind and with such hues - As clothe th' Almighty Spirit, where He makes - Spirits perceive His presence!... - -It is but seldom that I raise and spiritualize my intellect to this -height; and at other times I adopt the Brahmin 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 million 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 Velez, 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[173] hanging woods, that touch'd by autumn seem'd - As they were blossoming hues 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 Alla - 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 shall 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 her -bosom, and a mother is so holy and divine a being that I cannot endure any -_corporealizing_ 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 away heaviness_;" and in your similes, etc., etc., a -little _compression_ would make it a beautiful poem. _Study compression!_ - -I presume you mean decorum by _Harum_ 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 yesterday a very sensible -vindication of the conduct of the Directory. Did you see it? - -Your news respecting Mrs. E. did not surprise me. I saw it even from the -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! O God! 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 discovered the art of -crawling with wonderful ease and rapidity. 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 no hope of its success, or even of its being acted. - -God bless, etc., - - S. T. COLERIDGE. - -MR. JOHN 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 somewhat. -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 answer the same day, which I will transmit to you on Monday, -but you _cannot_ receive it till Tuesday night. If, 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_.[174] 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 _fag_-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, 1797.] - -DEAR THELWALL,--This is the first hour that I could write to you anything -decisive. I have received an answer 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, the whole returns to its former -situation; and the hope which I had entertained, that you could have -settled without 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 Christianity 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 consequence. -Either of us separately would perhaps be tolerated, 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 no as moralists we should be justified in hazarding 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 _undesigning_ man; certainly, any future and -greater excellence which he hopes to realize in and through the society -will vanish like a dream of the morning. If, therefore, you can get the -land and cottage near Bath of which you 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 transportation 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. THELWALL, - 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 Josiah and Thomas Wedgwood.[175] I accepted it -on the presumption that I had talents, honesty, and propensities to -perseverant 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, -lengthened 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 no possibility beyond that of _beauty_. The Society here were -sufficiently eager to have me as their minister, and, I think, would have -behaved kindly and respectfully, but I perceive clearly that without great -courage and perseverance in the use of the monosyllabic _No!_ 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. -Talking of plays, etc., he told me that an acquaintance of his was -printing a translation of one of Kotzebue's tragedies, entitled, -"Benyowski."[176] The name startled me, and upon examination I found that -the story of my "Siberian Exiles" has been already dramatized. If Kotzebue -has exhibited no 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 reflection, some only in transition, and some are not -pleasing at all; and to this latter class belongs the "Castle -Spectre."[177] 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 colloquialisms. (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--horror! agonizing pangs of conscience! Dreams full of -hell, serpents, and skeletons; starts and attempted murders, 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 sentimentality, 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 _sva 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 narration. This -play proves how accurately you conjectured concerning _theatric_ merit. -The merit of the "Castle Spectre" consists wholly in its _situations_. -These are all borrowed and all absolutely _pantomimical_; 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 patchwork 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 innocent 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 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 pantomimic tricks, the plot itself -must be pantomimic. Harlequin 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.[178] - - -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 "persuaded 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 circumstance -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.,[179] from -Groscollius, has placed me in a ridiculous situation; but it was a foolish -and presumptuous start of affectionateness, and I am not unwilling to -incur punishments due to my folly. By past experiences we build up our -moral being. How comes it that 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 admiration 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 language which any -way resembles it. Poole (whom I feel so consolidated with myself that I -seem to have no occasion 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 prefix the "Maid of Orleans," -1,000 lines, and three blank verse poems, making all three about 200, and -I shall utterly 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 alterations 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 answer to your kind and interesting letter. -My indisposition originated in the stump of a tooth over which some matter -had 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 increased 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 recovering -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 actions 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 -adequately 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 after the wind an earthquake; and after the -earthquake a fire; and the Lord was not in the fire;" and now (believing -that no calamities are permitted but as the means of good) I wrap my face -in my mantle and wait, with a subdued and patient thought, expecting to -hear "the still small voice" which is of God. In America (I have received -my information from unquestionable authority) the morals and domestic -habits of the people are daily deteriorating; and one good consequence -which I expect from revolution is that individuals will see the necessity -of individual 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 pernicious than the [Greek: -pagchryson] and panacea of the alchemists, the error of attributing to -governments a talismanic influence over our virtues and our happiness, as -if governments were not rather effects than causes. It is true that all -effects 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 nigher and more continuous 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 -babble against sickness and the headache? I regard governments 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 -prevented his dying. Of guilt I say nothing, but I believe 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 sometimes see the good without wishing to attain it, and oftener _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 -mountain, nor at Jerusalem." - -You think, my brother, that there can be but two _parties_ at present, for -the Government and against the Government. 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 respectable -of our three factions, because they are more decorous. The Opposition and -the Democrats are not only vicious, they wear the _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.[180] - -I am prepared to suffer without discontent the consequences of my follies -and mistakes; and unable to conceive 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 no Whig, no 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 infinitely complex and -uncertain, to muse on fundamental and general causes the "caus 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 inanimate 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 gignimus,"--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 bad passions not by combating them but by -keeping them 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, no disquietude, - No vengeance, and no 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 - His 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 he seeks. - WORDSWORTH.[181] - -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 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.[182] - -May [? 1798]. - -MY DEAR FRIEND,--I write from Cross, to which place I accompanied Mr. -Wordsworth, who will give you this letter. We visited Cheddar, but his -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 possibly 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 subject. It is -his practice and almost his nature to convey all the truth he knows -without any attack on what he supposes falsehood, if that falsehood be -interwoven with virtues or happiness. He loves and venerates Christ and -Christianity. I wish he did more, but it were wrong indeed 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. His genius is most _apparent_ in -poetry, and rarely, except to me in _tte--tte_, breaks forth in -conversational eloquence. My best and most affectionate wishes attend Mrs. -Estlin and your little ones, and believe 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 these events by forgiveness -and a peaceful spirit full of love. This morning, half-past one, my wife -was safely delivered of a fine boy;[183] 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 melancholy -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 neglectful 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 become 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 confession 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. - - -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 restorer and my comfort, giving me -gentleness and calmness 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 feelings impel me to a humble faith, that it is possible and -consistent with the divine attributes. - -Poor Dr. Toulmin! he bears his calamity like one in whom a faith through -Jesus is the _Habit_ 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--the 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. - - -LXXXIV. 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 on you? Shall I stay with -you? or had I better leave you uninterrupted? In 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.[184] - -[Spring of 1798.] - -DEAR LAMB,--Lloyd has informed me through Miss Wordsworth that you intend -no longer to correspond with me. This has given me little pain; not that -I do not love and esteem you, but on the contrary because I am confident -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 -struggles abandon me in behalf of a man[185] who, wholly ignorant of all -but your name, became attached to you in consequence of my attachment, -caught _his_ from _my_ enthusiasm, and learned to love you at my fireside, -when often while I have been sitting and talking of your sorrows and -afflictions 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 immediately, and my resentments vanished. There -has resulted only a sort of fantastic scepticism concerning my own -consciousness of my own rectitude. As dreams have impressed 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 cheating me, who am an older warrior, -with some newer stratagem. When I wrote to you that my Sonnet to -Simplicity[186] 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 believe;" and I was not angry with you, because the -assertion 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[187] 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. - -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 _tte--tte_ 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. He 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 acquainted -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 nothing human. You are restored to comparative saneness, -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 brimstone 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 during 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 -Indoors in North Germany," and "Christmas Out of Doors." In 1828, -Coleridge placed a selection of unpublished letters 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 Gillman'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 and May 6, 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, appeared 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. 26-198, _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 Yarmouth 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. Wedgwood'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 fortnight 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 virtue to each other, my dear, dear -Poole! - - -LXXXVII. TO HIS WIFE. - -HAMBURG, September 19, 1798. - -Over what place does the 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 Cuxhaven, 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 -Yarmouth Sunday morning, September 16, at eleven o'clock. Chester and -Wordsworth ill immediately. Our passengers were: +Wordsworth, *Chester, S. -T. Coleridge, a Dane, second Dane, third Dane, a Prussian, a Hanoverian -and *his servant, a German tailor and his *wife, a French +emigrant and -*French servant, *two English gentlemen, and +a Jew. All these with the -prefix * were sick, those marked + horribly sick. The view of Yarmouth -from the sea is interesting; besides, it was English 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 faces[188] -so distinctly! This day enriched me with characters, and I passed it -merrily. Each of those characters 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 commence 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 nothing 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 present 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!). Remember 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 Wordsworth's Tragedy, are safe in -Josiah Wedgwood's hands; 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 yearning 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 -difficulty we have procured a very filthy room at a large expense; but we -shall move to-morrow. We get very excellent 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 Hamburg 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 quarto[189] 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_l._ banknote? The "Morning Post" and Magazine will come to you -as before. If not regularly, Stuart desires that you will write to him. I -pray you, my dear love! read Edgeworth'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. 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 nonsense. - -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 colours of the clouds are -quite English, just as if I were coming out of T. Poole's homeward with -you in my arm. - -[Illustration] - - -LXXXVIII. TO THE SAME. - -[RATZEBURG], October 20, 1798. - -... But I must check these feelings and write more collectedly. 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 children 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 beautiful little woman--less, I think, than you--a Countess -Kilmansig;[190] her father is our Lord Howe's cousin. She is the wife -of a very handsome man, and has two fine little 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 dilated 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 sehr -gut fathers and husbands. I hope dat you will come and lofe my little -babies, and I will sing to you and play on the guitar and the pianoforte; -and my dear huspan he sprachs sehr gut English, and he lofes England -better than all the world." (Sehr gut is very good; sprach, speaks or -talks.) She is a sweet little woman, and, what is very rare in Germany, -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 Englische 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 dung had stained and spotted--but this was "Knigl. Pat. Engl. Im. -Pflaster," that is, Royal Patent _English Ornament_ 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 -magnetical Influences of the Planets and fixed Stars." This is a literal -translation. At the concert, when I entered, 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 Governor, 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 pleasant man, and both he and the Amtmann (_i. e._ -the civil regent) are particularly attentive to me. I am quite -domesticated 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 tenderness! Your -faithful and affectionate husband, - - S. T. COLERIDGE. - -P. S. A dinner lasts not uncommonly three hours! - - -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 insupportable 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, "_Schreiben aus London_--They write from -London." This day's, with schreiben aus London, vom November 13. But I am -certain that you have written more than once; and I stumble 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. - - -XC. TO THE SAME. - -December 2, 1798. - -Sunday Evening.--God, the Infinite, be praised that my babes are alive. -His mercy will forgive me that late and all too slowly I raised up my -heart in thanksgiving. At first and for a time I wept as passionately as -if they 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 received 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. - - -XCI. TO THE REV. MR. ROSKILLY.[191] - -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 sincere 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 Chester 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. 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 natives. It has greatly -enlarged my knowledge of the English 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 -darkened by the differences of pronunciation and spelling. I have written -twice to Mr. Josiah Wedgwood,[192] 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 certain 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 -expenses have been considerably less than they were in England. Here I -shall stay till the last week in January, when I shall proceed to -Gttingen, 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 -eat but little animal food. At Gttingen I shall hire lodging for two -months, buy my own cold beef at an eating-house, and dine in my chamber, -which I can have at a dollar a week. And here at Gttingen 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 expenses[193] 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 accustomed myself, that by three months' -residence at Gttingen 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 interweaved 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 -Gttingen 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 certainly _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 passing 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 Bristol Library is a hum, and will do us little service; and he -thinks that he can procure a house near Sir Gilford Lawson's by the Lakes, -and have free access to his immense library. I think it better once in a -year to walk to Cambridge, 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 mass of materials which, -with dear, _independent_ Poetry, will fully employ the remaining year. But -this is idle prating about a future. But indeed, it is time to be looking -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 reasonable 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 -comfortable on my return. To Ward remember me affectionately--likewise -remember to James Cole; and my grateful 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 Cruickshank--in short, -to all to whom it will give pleasure 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 remembered to you. He 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 tranquillity. Last evening I was absent in -company, and when I returned to solitude, restless in every fibre, a -novel which 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 pulsation of -my heart had quite wearied me down, and I held the letter in my hand like -as if I was stupid, without attempting 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 homesick, I must walk half an hour, for my mind is too -scattered 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 imagination 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 Herrn -Coleridge, la Poste Restante, Gttingen, 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 Gttingen I have written 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 it, and is on his journey to Nordhausen. His taking his sister with -him was a wrong step; it is next but impossible for any but married women, -or in the suit of married women, to be introduced to any company in -Germany. Sister 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 W., God love him! seems to have lost his spirits -and almost his inclination for it. In the mean time his expenses have been -almost 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! I do languish to be at home. - -I will endeavour to give you some idea of Ratzeburg, 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 southernmost point of the lake, that -is, from the beginning of the lake, is the island-town of Ratzeburg. - -[Illustration] - -[Symbol] is Ratzeburg; [Symbol] 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 Ratzeburg to the slip of land--you -pass through Ratzeburg 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. - -[Illustration] - -The water to the south of Ratzeburg is called the little lake and the -other the large lake, though they are but one piece of water. This little -lake is very beautiful, the shores just often enough green and bare to -give the proper effect to the magnificent _groves_ which mostly fringe -them. The views vary almost every ten steps, such and so beautiful 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 church-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 entirely 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.[194] 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 pastors 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 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 incessant amusement. Every picture, every -legend cut out in gilded wood-work, was a history of the manners and -feelings 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 spectacles.[195] 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 Red 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, intolerably bright, and the walls of mist partaking -of the light in a _multitude_ of colours. About a month ago the vehemence -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 particles 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 without 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 England, 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 repeated 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. Indeed, a pipe at -breakfast is a great addition to the comfort 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 before 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) quoth he, "it is delightful; it -invigorates the frame and _it clears out the mouth 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 dearest Love, God love and preserve us through this long absence! -O my dear Babies! my Babies! - - -XCIV. TO THE SAME. - - Bei dem Radermacher Gohring, in der Bergstrasse, Gttingen, - March 12, 1799. Sunday Night. - -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 English Pacquets cannot set off. Why need I -say how anxious this long interval of silence has made me! 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 forsaken 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 recovered 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 Halloos 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 intellect. 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 Lneburg--_i. e._, 35 English -miles--at 3 o'clock on Thursday afternoon. This is a fair specimen! In -England I used to laugh at the "flying waggons;" but, compared with a -German Post Coach, the metaphor is perfectly 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 themselves to me were that it was cold--very cold--shocking -cold--never felt it so cold in my life! Hanover is 115 miles from -Ratzeburg. We arrived there Saturday evening. - -The Herr von Dring, a nobleman who resides at Ratzeburg, gave me letters -to his brother-in-law at Hanover, 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 Hanover, 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 -Von Brandes, the Secretary of State and Governor of Gttingen University. -The first was amazingly _perpendicular_, but civil and polite, and gave me -letters to Heyne, the head Librarian, and, in truth, the real _Governor_ -of Gttingen. Brandes likewise gave me letters to Heyne 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 Hanover 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 -of Leibnitz--the first for its excessive absurdity, ugliness, and -indecency--(absolutely I could write the most humorous octavo volume -containing the description of it with a commentary)--the second--_i. e._ -the bust of Leibnitz--impressed on 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 noon, after having paid a most extravagant bill. We -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. In 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 -extremely 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 beautiful boy among them, -fast asleep, with the softest conceivable 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 Heyne, 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 to me. The next day I took out my matricula, and commenced -student of the University of Gttingen. Heyne 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 concert Hamilton, a Cambridge man, took -me as his guest to the Saturday Club, _where 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 except 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 remembrance 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. - - -XCV. TO THOMAS POOLE. - -April 6, 1799. - -MY DEAREST POOLE,--Your two letters, dated January 24 and March 15,[196] -followed close on each other. I 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! 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 -Pyrrhoniens, et la Raison confond les Dogmatistes. Nous avons une -impuissance prouver invincible tout le Dogmatisme. Nous avons une ide -de la verit invincible 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 immediately -preceding it; and _that_ degree of consciousness, _that_ small portion of -_memory_, it would not only be arrogant, but in the highest degree absurd, -to deny even to a much younger infant. 'Tis a strange assertion that the -essence of identity lies in _recollective_ consciousness. 'Twere scarcely -less ridiculous to affirm that the eight miles from Stowey to Bridgwater -consist in the eight milestones. 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 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, indeed,-- - - 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.[197] - -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 unsubstantiates the living -things that one has grasped and handled! Some months ago Wordsworth -transmitted me a most sublime epitaph. Whether it had any reality I cannot -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, no force, - She neither hears nor sees: - Mov'd round in Earth's diurnal course - With rocks, and stones, and trees! - - -XCVI. TO HIS WIFE. - -GTTINGEN, 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 little Being! he -had existed to me for so many months only in dreams and reveries, but 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. Methinks 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 no 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 nonexistence, 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, the most high God forbade us to use his _name vainly_. And -shall we who are Christians, shall we 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 _pastime_, 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--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--they -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 sufficiency and completeness in the narrow -present, weakens the presentiment of our wide and ever widening -immortality. 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 discontented 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 existence of -infants--only because according to his own system 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 He 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 -accompaniments of high and solemn thought, not the workings of pain or -sorrow. When I return indeed, and see the 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 death-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 be _call'd_ a Child of God! - Death whisper'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 Mr. Wade. Mr. -Estlin will permit you to take the letters to Stowey that Poole may see -them, 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 distance--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 support 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 scattered and so little known, even in Germany, will of course -establish my character for industry and erudition certainly; and, I would -fain hope, for reflection and genius. This day in June I hope and trust -that I shall be in England. 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 _whole_ feeling, the most deep 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 Christmas[198] I saw a custom which pleased and -interested me here. The children make little presents to their parents, -and to one another, 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 morning 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 bough -is fastened on the table at a little distance from the wall, a multitude -of little tapers are fastened in the bough, 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 -the 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 on 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 on the tables the presents -for the children; a scene of more sober joy succeeds, as, on 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 observed 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 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 Heaven 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 survive in spite of the -efforts of the Clergy, who in the north of Germany, that is, in the -Hanoverian, Saxon, and Prussian dominions, are almost all Deists. But they -make little or no impressions on the bauers, who are wonderfully religious -and fantastically superstitious, but not in the least priest-rid. But in -the Catholic countries of Germany the difference is vast indeed! I met -lately an intelligent and calm-minded man who had spent a considerable -time at Marburg in the Bishopric of Paderborn in Westphalia. 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 before the performance of his vow, they believe that he hovers -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 to St. Erasmus--for 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 on 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. In 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 information which I can collect (and I have had many -opportunities of collecting various accounts), the peasants in the -Catholic countries of Germany, but especially in Austria, 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 running 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 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 on 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. In a particular part of the ceremony -down comes the great stone Angel with the bason, presenting it to the -pastor, who, having taken _quant. suff._, 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 parallelogrammic 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--"My Sheep -follow me." So it is here. The dog and the shepherd walk first, the -shepherd with his romantic fur, and generally knitting a pair of white -worsted gloves--he walks on and his dog by him, and then follow the sheep -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--on 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 throughout the north of Germany. The -gallows near Gttingen, 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 feath'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-- - 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 'tis dark, one shuts one's lids, - And still dreams on![199] - -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 6, 1799, Monday morn. - -My dear Poole, my dear Poole!--I am homesick. Society 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 your arms, and embrace you. Methinks -my hand would swell if the whole 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 yesterday -the roses (which the ladies carried on the ramparts, 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 -leafless Spring Woods! Oh, how I long to hear you whistle to the -Rippers![200] There are a multitude of nightingales here (poor things! -they sang in the snow). I thought of my own[201] verses on 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 no -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.[202] I told him that, independent of -the expense of removing, and the impropriety of taking Mrs. Coleridge to -a place where she would have no 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 affected; but -he deemed the vicinity of a library absolutely _necessary_ to his health, -nay to his existence. It is painful to me, too, to think of not living -near him; for he is a _good_ and _kind_ 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 reciprocate 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. - - * * * * * - -O Poole! I am homesick. Yesterday, or rather yesternight, I dittied the -following horrible ditty; but my poor Muse is quite gone--perhaps she may -return and meet me at Stowey. - - 'Tis sweet to him who all the week - Through city-crowds must push his way, - To stroll alone 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 on Albion's Shore.[203] - -The Professors here are exceedingly kind to all the Englishmen, but to me -they pay the most flattering attentions, especially Blumenbach and -Eichhorn. Nothing can be conceived more delightful than Blumenbach's -lectures, and, in conversation, he is, indeed, a most interesting man. The -learned Orientalist Tychsen[204] has given me instruction in the Gothic -and Theotuscan languages, which I can now read pretty well; and hope in -the course of a year to be thoroughly acquainted with all the languages -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 -quotations from Laplandish and Patagonian authors, possibly, on the -striking resemblance of the Sweogothian and Sanscrit 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 valuable? _Two ideas of -mine._--To extract _aqua fortis_ 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 Achard[205] the great chemist, 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 Germany -is called _Runkelrbe_. 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. - - * * * * * - -A stupid letter!--I believe my late proficiency in learning has 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 V - -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 shootings 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, sentiments nearly similar, and kindred -pursuits; we have likewise, 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 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 -on his honour as a man and a gentleman" that he never charged Southey with -"aught but deep and implacable enmity towards himself," 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. "Without entering into particulars," he writes, "I -will say generally, 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 untoward events of your separation." Poole's -intervention was successful, and once again the cottage opened its doors -to a distinguished guest. The Southeys remained as visitors at Stowey -until, in company with their host, they set out for Devonshire.] - -[Illustration] - - -C. TO THOMAS POOLE. - - EXETER, Southey's Lodgings, Mr. Tucker's, Fore Street Hill, - September 16, 1799.[206] - -MY DEAR POOLE,--Here I am just returned from a little tour[207] of five -days, having seen rocks and waterfalls, and a pretty river or two; some -wide landscapes, and a multitude of ash-tree dells, and the blue waters of -the "roaring sea," as little Hartley says, who on Friday fell down stairs -and injured his arm. 'Tis 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 Devonshire 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 colonel. George and the -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 -conversation, 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 inventors 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 five 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 brother? 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 Tryphiodorus and -part of Plutarch, and being 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 shallowist--and finally a Mr. Banfill, a man of sense, -information, and various literature, and most perfectly a gentleman--in -short a pleasant man. At his house we dine to-morrow. Northmore himself is -an honest, 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 adhesive 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 fellowmen, and believes -that without more liberty and more equality this well-being is not -possible. He possesses a most noble library. The victory at Novi![208] 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 _clat_, 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 SOUTHEY. - -STOWEY, Tuesday evening, October 15, 1799. - -It is fashionable among our philosophizers 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 farthing-candle -placed between two looking-glasses. For in truth, my dear Southey! I am -harassed with the rheumatism in my head and shoulders, 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, 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 letter, I have spent a few days -at Upcott;[209] but was too unwell to be comfortable, so I returned -yesterday. Poor Tom![210] 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!_[211] 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 blasphemy; 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'll -split your clerkship's skull for you!" Poole ordered a paper. He has -_found out_, he says, why the _newspapers_ had become so indifferent to -him. _Inventive_ Genius! He 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 _grows out again_, ruining the -prospects of those who had cut it down!" You are harvest-man enough, I -suppose, to understand the metaphor. Jackson[212] 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 unfavourable to the human heart? -Painters have been commonly very clever men, which is not so generally the -case with musicians, but both alike are almost uniformly debauchees. It is -superfluous to say how much your account of Bampfylde[213] interested me. -Predisposition to madness 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 _I_ have seen). If -you think otherwise, you are right I doubt not. I shall be glad to give -Mr. and Mrs. Keenan[214] the right hand of welcome with looks and tones in -_fit_ accompaniment. For the wife of a man of genius who sympathises -effectively with her husband in his habits and feelings is a _rara avis_ -with me; though a vast majority of her own sex and too many of ours will -scout her for a _rara piscis_. 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, Northmore is -so preminently 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. Mohammed 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 on a Jesuitic conspiracy and about -the Russians. 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 what -coxcomb it is that writes it! I wish the paper was kicked out of the -coffee-house." Now, but for Cruikshank, 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-hat on his head, with a scarlet coat and up to his mouth in -flower'd muslin, swearing 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 understanding, or the understanding to invent -without the consent of the heart. But so it is. Soon after Lloyd's arrival -at Cambridge I understand Christopher Wordsworth wrote his uncle, Mr. -Cookson,[215] 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 interests. (This is -his usual mild manner.) Christopher Wordsworth returned for answer that -Lloyd was by no 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 Southey! 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 has not a good one. He is unfit to be any man's friend, -and to all but a very guarded man he is a 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 ama me quia sum Dei, aut ut sim 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 the 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 postage I might have bought Birch's -Milton.--Sara will write soon. Our love to Edith and your mother. - - -CII. TO THE SAME. - -KESWICK,[216] Sunday, November 10, 1799. - -MY DEAR SOUTHEY,--I am anxious lest so long silence should seem -unaffectionate, or I would not, having so little to say, write to you -from such 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 important -accounts. So much for myself. In my last letter I said I would give you my -reasons for thinking "Christabel," _were_ it finished, and finished as -spiritedly as it commences, 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 judice_ 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. - - "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! 'Tis from Virgil's seventh Eclogue. - - "Populus Alcid gratissima, vitis Iaccho, - Formos myrtus Veneri, sua laurea Phoebo; - Phyllis amat corylos." - -But still, my dear Southey! it goes grievously against the grain with me, -that _you_ should be editing anthologies. 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 Southey! -publish the "Madoc" _quam citissime_, not hastily, but yet speedily. I -will instantly publish an Essay on Epic Poetry in reference to it. I have -been reading the neid, and there you will be all victorious, excepting -the importance of neas 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 neid. -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 suspend 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 publishers. -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 booksellers. 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 comfort 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 particular nature of your disease. - -Now for poor George.[217] 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 his 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, 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 paramountship 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 _life_, -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. However, -all this is talk at random. I leave it to you to decide. What does Charles -Danvers think? He 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 Wollstonecraft. Why did not George Dyer -(who, by the bye, has written a silly milk-and-water life of you,[218] 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 _I_ 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[219] -thus: "_Nos hc novimus esse nihil--Phillis amat Corylos_." 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 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 Dodsley'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 myself. 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 your 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 Hayes[220] 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. - - -CIV. TO THE SAME. - -Tuesday night, 12 o'clock [December 24], 1799. - -MY DEAR SOUTHEY,--My Spinosism (if Spinosism it be, and i' faith 'tis very -like it) disposed me to consider this big city as that part of the supreme -One which the prophet Moses was allowed to see--I should be more disposed -to pull off my shoes, beholding Him in a _Bush_, than while I am forcing -my reason to believe that even in theatres _He_ is, yea! even in the Opera -House. Your "Thalaba" 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 concerning 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 answered -to him but your works. By me he has lost somewhat--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-set[221] (that -is, from nine in the morning to twelve at night), a pure scribbler. My -mornings to booksellers' compilations, after dinner 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 -expenditure; for, supposing _all clear_ my year's (1800) allowance 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,[222] Advice to -Friends of Freedom, Critiques on 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 _do 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"[223] would -have been a better thing than it is--it being somewhat dullish, etc. I -have bought the "Beauties of the Anti-jacobin," 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.[224] I 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 admired author; but the two others will do with a little -trimming. - -My dear Southey! 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 -being 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 Southey! 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. 'Tis strange, but certainly many things go in the -blood, beside gout and scrophula. Yesterday I dined at Longman's and met -Pratt, and that honest piece of prolix dullity and nullity, young Towers, -who desired to be remembered 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. - - -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 woman 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 _asked_ 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.[225] 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, sentimental correspondence with Miss Hayes, he frequently read -her letters in company, as a subject for _laughter_, and then sate down -and answered them quite _ la Rousseau_! Poor Lloyd! Every hour -new-creates him; he is his own posterity in a perpetually flowing series, -and his body unfortunately retaining an external identity, _their_ mutual -contradictions and disagreeings 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 salutary 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 _despectively_ -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 Hog-trough! _I_ do not endure it; my -eye beholds phantoms, and "nothing 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 Principle." Let me hear. Tom -Wedgwood is going to the Isle of St. Nevis. As to myself, Lessing out of -the question; I must stay in England.... Dear Hartley is well, and in high -force; he sported of his own accord a theologico-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 -soliloquy. 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 inapplicable truths are moral falsehoods, be to -illuminize, why 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_! - -Tell Davy that I will soon write. God love him! You and I, Southey! know a -good and great man or two in this world of ours. - -God love you, my dear Southey, 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 SOUTHEY,--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 -_anonymousness_ 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"[226] requires you -could get four hundred pounds!! 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 "Rise and Progress of a -_Laugher_"--Le Grice in your eye--the effect of Laughing on taste, -manners, morals, and happiness! 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. He would give sixty pounds. -If poor dear Burnett 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 _book_, 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 yourself, 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 sympathising in main opinions, are subjects of -occasional visits; not temptations to a co-township. But if you go to -Burton, Sara and I will waive the Ottery plan, if possible, and spend May -and June with you, and perhaps July; but she must be 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 Roskillies, 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 possess a sort of centrality. Alfoxden would make -two houses sufficiently divided for unimpinging independence. - -Tell Davy that I have not forgotten him, because without 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 understands -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. Read Pitt's speech[227] in -the "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[228] 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 you not to give it up so hastily. Phillips eats no 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 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-plan[229] _cannot_ answer for -this reason. It could exist only as long as the ononymous anti-anonymists -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 cannot 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 Tuesday, 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 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. Have you -tried warm bathing in a high temperature? As to your travelling, your -first business must, of course, be to _settle_. The Greek Islands[230] 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.[231] 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 children.[232] 'Tis an -infirmity to hope or fear concerning them. I wish they had a king again, -if it were only that Sieys and Bonaparte might be _hung_. Guillotining is -too republican a death for such reptiles! You'll write another quarter for -Mr. Stuart? You will torture yourself 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 -Brcker, 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, neither praising or abusing -them. Lacedmon, 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 Brcker. 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 (without 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 enlighten -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 month 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 impressions 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.) - - -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.[233] They are -_poems_, full of long speeches, in very polish'd blank verse. The theatre! -the theatre! my dear Southey! it will never, never, never do! If you go to -Portugal, your History thereof _will_ 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 -nations--Poetry of rudely civilized--Homer and the Hebrew Poetry, -etc.--Poetry of civilized nations under Republics and Polytheism, State of -Poetry under the Roman 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."[234] I was -so struck with it that I sent to her to desire that [it] might be -preserved 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 immediately that 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. William Taylor, from whom I have received a couple of -letters 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 letters[235] I received exactly four days -ago--some days they must have been lying at Ambleside before they were -sent to Grasmere, and some days at Grasmere before they 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 resides 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 encyclopdias, dictionaries, and -histories, etc., all modern. The gentry of the country, titled and -untitled, have all called or are about to call on me, and I shall 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. How much we rejoice in her 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 on 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 H. DAVY. - -Thursday night, October 9, 1800. - -MY DEAR DAVY,--I was right glad, glad with a _stagger_ of the heart, to -see your writing again. Many a moment 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 believe 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 Glaramara, and Eagle Crag, and you, and -Wordsworth, and me, on the top of them! I pray you do write to me -immediately, and tell me what you mean by the possibility of your -assuming a new occupation. Have you been successful to the extent of your -expectations in your late chemical inquiries? - -[Illustration] - -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,[236] and was so much admired -by Wordsworth, that he thought it indelicate to print two volumes with his -name, in which so much of another man's was included; and, which was of -more consequence, the poem was in direct opposition 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 Pedlar."[237] -I assure you I think very differently of "Christabel." I would rather have -written "Ruth," and "Nature's Lady," than a million such poems. But why do -I calumniate 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. - -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 -_scepticism_ concerning medicines! nay, it is not enough _scepticism_! -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. Crosthwaite'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 baptized; his name is Derwent Coleridge,[238] so -called from the river, for, fronting our house, the Greta runs into the -Derwent. 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 -[Symbol], each one supported by the other like a 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 by enchantment; far off, far, far off -to the south, the mountains 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 descended 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 permit 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 ailing that I am -almost fain to die?" So I advised her to eat a great deal of mustard, -having seen in an advertisement 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. - - -CXIII. TO THE SAME. - -GRETA HALL, Tuesday night, December 2, 1800. - -MY DEAR DAVY,--By an accident I did not receive your letter till this -evening. I would that you had 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 chemical 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 the effects produced by your gas? Did Carlisle[239] ever -communicate 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 degree 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, six small but excruciating boils have appeared, and -harass me almost beyond endurance. In the mean time my darling Hartley has -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 Germany 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 short-necked men who -have their hearts sufficiently 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 evening, looking at the -sky; he saw the moon glide into a large cloud. Shortly after, at another -part of the cloud, several stars sailed in. Says he, "Pretty creatures! -they are going in to see after their mother moon." - -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[240] has made some lucrative discovery. Do -you know aught about it? Have you seen T. Wedgwood since his return? - - -CXIV. TO THOMAS POOLE. - -GRETA 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_ consequence 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 journey southward. I shall, however, try hard -for it. My plan was to go to London, and make a faint trial whether or no -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 Hartley 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 creature, and if he live will, I doubt not, prove a -great genius. Derwent is a fat, pretty child, healthy and hungry. 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 freeman 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 knowledge and power in -these last twelve months, 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, -containing the most important of the many thoughts and feelings which I -want to communicate to you, but hope to do it face to face. - -Give my love to Ward, and to J. Chester. How is poor old Mr. Rich and his -wife? - -God have you ever in his keeping, making life tranquil 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. - - -CXV. 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,[241] an idle, good-hearted, and ingenious man, has a great desire -to commence fellow-student with me and Wordsworth in chemistry. He is an -intimate friend of Wordsworth's, and he has proposed to W. to take a house -which he (Calvert) has nearly built, called Windy Brow, in a delicious -situation, 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. Wordsworth 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, no great things, and therefore Grasmere (thirteen -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 passion than -poetry, and is of course desirous, too, not to be so wholly ignorant of -knowledge so exceedingly important. However, whether Wordsworth come or -no, 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. He 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 _now_, 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 -successive illnesses, thrown behindhand so much that for the 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 _burns_ to do, that is, to _concentre_ my free -mind to the affinities 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 on it, the work would supersede all the books -of metaphysics, 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 purchase. Secondly, Directions for a convenient little -laboratory. 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 beautiful 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 -language 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 intelligens, multa ignorans, volens, nolens, -imaginans etiam, et sentiens." I please myself with believing that you -will receive no small pleasure from the result of these broodings, -although I expect in you (in some points) a determined opponent, but I say -of my mind in this respect: "Manet imperterritus ille hostem magnanimum -opperiens, et mole su stat." Every poor fellow has his proud hour -sometimes, 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 incessantly. I take quantities of bark, but the effect is (to -express 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 affectionate 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 -overthrown the doctrine of association, as taught by Hartley, and with it -all the irreligious metaphysics of modern infidels--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 intensity of thought, and -the number of minute experiments 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 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 imperious -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, immediately publish my -"Christabel," 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 publish, -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 malignity 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, Hobbes, 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. - -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 -Wordsworth's satisfaction. - -You have seen, I hope, the "Lyrical Ballads." In the divine poem called -"Michael," by an infamous blunder[242] 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 Ballads" 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 occasion. Love to all. We are all -well, except, perhaps, myself. 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 -important; but I have no one to transcribe them. Nay, three letters are -written which have not been sent to Mr. Wedgwood,[243] because I have no -one to transcribe them for me, and I do not wish to be without copies. Of -that letter which you have I have no copy. It is somewhat unpleasant 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, prexisted 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 believe -that I shall delight you by the detection of their artifices. _Now 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 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 Shakespeare 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 his -easier work, that on Optics. I am exceedingly delighted with the beauty -and neatness of his experiments, and with the accuracy of his _immediate_ -deductions from them; but the opinions founded on these deductions, and -indeed his whole theory is, I am persuaded, so exceedingly superficial as -without impropriety 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 not _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 on 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 together. 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, 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 country. 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. "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 there is no poverty but as a consequence of -absolute idleness; and to talk of it, too, with abuse comparatively 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 introduces -a famine. No! no! dear Poole, it is our pestilent commerce, our unnatural -crowding together of men in cities, and our government by rich men, that -are bringing 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 annuity -which I hold, _perhaps 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 publish, 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 of truth 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 difficulty of procuring sustenance in -this country remain in the state and degree in which it is at present; not -on any romantic scheme, but 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 -suffering want. - -God love you, my dear friend. - - S. T. COLERIDGE. - - -CXVIII. TO ROBERT SOUTHEY. - -GRETA HALL, KESWICK, [May 6, 1801]. - -MY DEAR SOUTHEY,--I wrote you a very, very gloomy letter; and I have taken -blame to myself for inflicting so much pain on 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 illness, -which has left me weak, very weak, but with so calm a mind that I am -determined to believe that this fit was _bon 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 some six years ago may be auguries of something really -noble which we may yet perform together. - -We wait impatiently, anxiously, for a letter announcing your arrival. -Indeed, the article _Falmouth_ has taken precedence 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_, - Doth make a vision to the sight, 5 - 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 - In words of wrong and bitterness. 10 - 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. - Perhaps 'tis tender, too, and pretty, 15 - 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) - Such giddiness of heart and brain 20 - Comes seldom, save from rage and pain, - So talks as it's most used to do.[244] - -A very metaphysical account of fathers calling their children rogues, -rascals, and little varlets, etc. - -God bless you, my dear Southey! I need not say, Write. - - S. T. COLERIDGE. - -P. S. We shall have peas, beans, turnips (with boiled leg of mutton), -cauliflowers, French beans, etc., etc., endless! 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 -_as picturisk a glen_ as eye ever looked at, he and his beast no 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 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 sheep'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 viceroys in Egypt. I -will be Supreme Bey of that showerless 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 on 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 -recollectable 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 connected 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-toothed snake that winds around him shall be only his -coat of arms, as God of Healing. - -I exceedingly long to see "Thalaba," and perhaps still more to read -"Madoc" over again. I never heard of any third edition of my poems. I -think you must have confused it with the L. B. Longman could not surely be -so uncouthly 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 Southey! it is said -that long sickness makes us all grow selfish, by the necessity which it -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 sorrow 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 -Hobbes under his nose. They stink worse than feather or assafoetida. Poor -Joseph! [Cottle] he has scribbled away both head and heart. What an -affecting essay I could write on that man's character! Had he gone in his -quiet way on a little pony, looking about him with a sheep'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 the Danes, I Alfred, preach, - Of my own forces, Chaplain-General!" - -... Write immediately, directing Mr. Coleridge, Mr. George -Hutchinson's,[245] Bishop's Middleham, Rushiford, Durham, and tell me -when you set off, and I will contrive and meet you at Liverpool, where, if -you are jaded with the journey, we can stay a day or two at Dr. -Crompton's, and chat a bit with Roscoe and Curry,[246] 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 -no bearing of him! - -God bless you, dear Southey, and - - S. T. COLERIDGE. - -P. S. Remember me kindly to Danvers and Mrs. Danvers. - - [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 certain. 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 permission to have a -few books sent to me eight miles from the place, which nobody has ever -read in the memory of man. 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 Leibnitz. He answered, "We -have no Museum in this Library 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 dialects 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 -everywhere there should be one or two good and excellent people 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 Southey! it will not suit you to be under -any man's control, or biddances. What if you were a consul? 'Twould 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's[247] 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 service, 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 reputable -office, and, perhaps, too, we might get some office in which there is -quite nothing to do under the Governor. Now I and my family, and you and -Edith, and Wordsworth 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 seashore 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 Westmoreland 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 no 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 circumstances 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. Fricker. My kind respects to Charles -and Mrs. Danvers. Is Davy with you? If he is, I am sure he speaks -affectionately 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. Fenwick[248] has earnestly -persuaded me to try horse-exercise and warm sea-bathing, and I took the -opportunity of riding with Sara Hutchinson 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 literally _sick_ 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 injurious. 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 mathematician -Slee, a friend of anti-negro-trade Clarkson, who has a house at the foot -of Ulleswater, which Slee Wordsworth 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 _formally_ 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 favourite piece of slang at -Grasmere and Greta Hall, whenever we talk of poor Joey, George Dyer, and -other perseverants in the noble trade of scribbleism. - -Wrangham,[249] 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 better 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 _lucky_ 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 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 -thanksgiving 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 POOLE. - -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 imagination, and -always with affection and filial 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! - -What shall I say to _you_! I can only offer a prayer of thanksgiving for -you, that you are one who has habitually 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 cherishes the desire of an unchangeable -Something, and thereby awakens or stirs up anew the passion to promote -_permanent_ good, and facilitates that grand business of our -existence--still further, and further still, to generalise 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 returned very unwell, and in very truth in so utter -a dejection of spirits as both made it improper for me to go anywhither, -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. However, I was armed cap-a-pie in a complete panoply, -namely, in a huge, most huge, roquelaure, which had cost the government -seven guineas, and was provided for the emigrants in the Quiberon -expedition, one of whom, falling sick, stayed behind and parted with his -cloak to Mr. Howel,[250] 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 become 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 Devonward. My relations 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 -confess--but it is, nine tenths of it at least, a work of their own doing. -Poole desires to be remembered to you. Remember me to your wife and Mrs. -Lovell. - -God bless you and - - S. T. COLERIDGE. - - -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 improved, and I have small doubts that a -residence of two years in a mild and even climate will, with God's -blessing, 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 Wedgwoods, 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 Dorothy 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 Bordeaux. Wordsworth has not yet settled whether he shall be married -from Gallow Hill 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 Grasmere, 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 Joseph 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 -_whom_ 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!" - -On Sunday I dined at Sir William Rush's, and on Monday likewise, and went -with them to Mrs. Billington's Benefit. 'Twas 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 acquaintances 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 _tonish_ 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 _sweet_ (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 distrust 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. - - -[Illustration] - - -CXXV. TO W. SOTHEBY. - -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.[251] It gave me such -lively pleasure that I threw my letter into the fire, for it related -chiefly to the "Erste Schiffer" of Gesner, and I could not endure that my -first letter to you should _begin_ with a subject so little interesting 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 -instances 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 emotion? 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 apprehension 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 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, -_I 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 oppressive of all weathers, hot, small _drizzle_, exhibits -the mountains the best of any. It produced such new combinations of ridges -in the Lodore and Borrowdale mountains 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 sleeper. Wordsworth, who has walked through Switzerland, -declared that he never saw anything superior, perhaps nothing 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, _carus mihi expectatusque -venies_.[252] _De coeteris rebus si quid agendum est, et quicquid sit -agendum, ut quam rectissime agantur omni me cur, oper, diligenti, -grati providebo._[253] - -On my return to Keswick, I reperused the "Erste Schiffer" with great -attention, and the result was an increasing 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 Giordano Bruno[254] -says in his strange, yet noble poem, "De Immenso et Innumerabili,"-- - - "Quam Garymedeo cultu, graphiceque venustus! - Narcissis referam, peramarunt me quoque Nymph." - -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, however, 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 olus. olus -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 olus at a time which we positively know -to have been anterior to the invention and establishment of the Grecian -Mythology; and the speech of olus reminds me perpetually of little -engravings 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 volgivag templa, et -libidinem spirat et subsusurrat, dum innocenti loquillam, et virgini -cogitationis dulciter offensantis luctamina simulat_. - -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 suppose her to say. But this is, indeed, general in the German 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, _hic 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 _implicit_, if not _explicit_, a profound -metaphysician. 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:"-- - - "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 German; but I do dearly, dearly, -dearly love my own countrymen 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 Wordsworth's character as it -appeared to you. It is in a few words, in half a dozen strokes, like one -of Mortimer's[255] figures, a fine portrait. The word "homogeneous" gave -me great pleasure, as most accurately and happily expressing him. I must -set you right with regard to my perfect coincidence with his poetic creed. -It is most certain 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, - And in meandered gyres doth whirl herself about, - _That, this_ way, here and there, backward in and out. - And like a wanton girl oft doubling in her gait - In labyrinthian turns and twinings intricate," etc.[256] - -The first poets, observing such a stream as this, would say with truth and -beauty, "it _strays_;" and now every stream shall _stray_, wherever it -prattles on its _pebbled way_, instead of its bed or channel. And I have -taken the instance from a poet from whom as few instances of this vile, -commonplace, trashy style could be taken as from any writer [namely], from -Bowles' execrable translation[257] 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 justifying 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 _commands_ the -omission of many others allowable in other compositions. Now Wordsworth, -_me saltem 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 on the subject, and we -begin to suspect that there is somewhere or other a radical difference in -our opinions. _Dulce est inter amicos rarissim dissensione condere -plurimas consentiones_, saith 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 -returned. 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 -improve 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 Sotheby. Tell Miss Sotheby 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. Sotheby to a scene that has the grandeur without the -toil or danger of Scale Force. It is called the White Water Dash.[258] - - -CXXVI. 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 Book[259] of the "Erste Schiffer." 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 _somewhat_ 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 monotony in the versification. If I have 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 Englishman, and -tolerate downright grossness more patiently than this coy and distant -dallying with the appetites. "Die pflanzen entstehen aus dem saamen, -gewisse thiere gehen aus dem hervor andre so, andre anders, ich hab es -alles bemerkt, was hab 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 comparatively _distant_ analogies, would necessarily -have seen the difference of sex in her flocks and herds, and the marital -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 _expressing them_. -Shaped and clothed, the mind of a pure being would turn away from them -from natural delicacy of taste, but in that shadowy half-being, that state -of nascent existence 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 immediate 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 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 olus 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 endure 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 journey 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 -metaphysical 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 -metaphysical 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), sickness 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:[260]-- - - Yes, dearest poet, yes! - There was a time when tho' 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: - 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 Patrick Spence: "Late, late -yestreen I saw the new moon with 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 - (With swimming phantom light o'erspread, - But 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! - O 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![261] - I see them all, so exquisitely fair! - I see, not _feel_! how beautiful they are! - 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, - 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 mayst 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 song, all that could be interesting or even -pleasing to you, except, indeed, perhaps I may annex as a fragment a few -lines on the "olian Lute," it having been introduced in its dronings 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 among! - Thou Actor, perfect in all tragic sounds! - Thou mighty Poet, even to frenzy bold! - What tell'st thou now about? - 'Tis 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-- - A tale of less affright, - And tempered with delight, - As thou thyself had'st fram'd the tender lay-- - 'Tis 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! ought I to make an apology for troubling you with such a -long, verse-cramm'd letter? Oh, that instead of it, I could but send to -you the image now before my eyes, over Bassenthwaite. 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 suffused with the darkness of a stormy colour. -Marvellous creatures! how they pass along! Remember me with most -respectful kindness to Mrs. and Miss Sotheby, and the Captains Sotheby. - - Truly yours, - S. T. COLERIDGE. - - -CXXVII. TO ROBERT SOUTHEY.[262] - -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 deserved to be a father by -right of virtues that eminently belonged to him, 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 Wordsworths 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 circulation. 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 Horsley and Priestley respecting the faith of the -Primitive Christians." This is no mere dream, like my "Hymns to the -Elements," 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 great light on the 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. "Concerning Poetry and the characteristic -merits of the Poets, our contemporaries." One volume Essays, the second -Selections.--The Essays are on Bloomfield, Burns, Bowles, Cowper, -Campbell, Darwin, Hayley, Rogers, C. Smith, Southey, Woolcot, -Wordsworth--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 examine 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 necessarily 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, perhaps, 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. He 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 compositions, but here and -there a daring humbleness of language and versification, and a strict -adherence to matter of fact, even to prolixity, that startled me. His -alterations, likewise, in "Ruth" perplexed me, and I have thought and -thought again, and have not had my doubts solved by Wordsworth. On the -contrary, I rather suspect that somewhere or other there is a radical -difference in our theoretical opinions respecting poetry; this I shall -endeavour to go to the bottom of, and, acting the arbitrator between 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 definition 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 subject. In the new edition of -the L. Ballads there is a valuable appendix, which I am sure you must -like, and in the Preface itself considerable additions; one on 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 Southey! will you write it always Sarah? -Sar_a_, 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 Preface to have been in blank verse, and _vice -vers_, etc. However, I need not say, that any diversity of opinion on the -subject between you and myself, or Wordsworth and myself, 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 Religion--the influence of national glory on the -individual morals of a people, especially in the 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 commonalty to -the same class in Spain; the effects of colonization on a small and not -very fruitful country; the effects important, and too often forgotten of -absolute accidents, 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 deeply 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 subjects, 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 but 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 pleasure, and then what -follows:-- - - 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 these lines, I rejoice for you as well as for myself, that -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 feelings 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 -_unimpressible_, warm in anger, cold in sympathy, 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 quickness 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, I -suppose, did the stern match-maker bring together two minds so utterly -contrariant in their primary and organical constitution. Alas! I have -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 marriage she felt and acted as beseemed a wife and a -mother to a husband and the father of her children. She promised to set -about an alteration in her external manners and looks and language, and to -fight against her inveterate habits of puny thwarting and unintermitting -dyspathy, 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 difference 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 Corry[263] 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 influences of the -weather. The mountains are better friends in this respect. Would that I -could flatter myself that the same would be the case with you. The only -objection on 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 incalculable. 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, commanding 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 housemaids 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 absolutely necessary for me, and -one room for you if occasion should be, 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 when that became my -study, and would be a second spare bed. I have no doubt but that Mr. -Jackson would willingly let us retain my present study, which might be -your library and study room. My dear Southey, I merely state these things -to you. All our lot on earth is compromise. Blessings obtained by -blessings foregone, or by evils undergone. I should be glad, no 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 mentioning 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 comfort 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. - - -CXXVIII. TO THE SAME. - -Monday night, August 9, 1802. - -MY DEAR SOUTHEY,--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,[264] after morning church, I left Greta Hall, -crossed the fields to Portinscale, went through Newlands, where "Great -Robinson looks down upon Marden'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 Wasdale, 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 Helvellyn 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 Vale, Tarver Vale, and in upon -Coniston. On Sunday I surveyed the lake, etc., of Coniston, and proceeded -to Bratha, and slept at Lloyd's house; this morning walked from Bratha to -Grasmere, and from Grasmere to Greta Hall, where I now am, quite sweet and -ablute, and have not even now read through your letter, which I will -answer by the night's post, and therefore must defer all account 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 heart-exciting. - -And now for business. The rent of the whole house, including taxes and the -furniture we 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 we 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 directly, 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 subvestments of the young jacobin[265] to -diaper table clothes, sheets, napkins, etc. But these, 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 -Hayley, and in a manner highly satisfactory to the admirers 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 _low_," 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 -affirmative[266] 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. - -Sara will write to Edith soon. - -I have just received a letter from Poole; but I have found so many letters -that I have opened yours only. - - -CXXIX. TO W. SOTHEBY. - -Thursday, August 26, 1802. - -MY DEAR SIR,--I was absent on a little excursion when your letter arrived, -and since my return I have been waiting and making every enquiry in the -hopes of announcing the receipt of your "Orestes" and its companions, with -my sincere thanks for your kindness. But I can hear nothing of them. Mr. -Lamb,[267] however, goes to Penrith next week, and will make strict -scrutiny. I am not to find the "Welsh Tour" among them; and yet I think I -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," Southey observed to me that you, I, and himself -had all done ourselves harm by suffering 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 herself to sleep.[268] - -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 flush'd; her eager look - Beam'd eloquent in slumber! Inly wrought, - Imperfect sounds her moving lips 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 schoolboy 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. Tomkins[269] may have it whenever -he wishes. It would be gratifying to me if you would look it over and -alter anything 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 position 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 or three copies presented in -my name, one to each of the two or three 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 [Greek: Estse], and I mention this to -you because I have some intention of translating Voss's "Idylls" in -English hexameter, with a little prefatory essay on modern hexameters. 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 Boethius' -and Seneca's tragedies, which consists of the latter half of the -hexameter. The thing is worth an experiment, and I wish it to be -considered merely as an experiment. I need not say that the greater number -of the verses signed [Greek: Estse] be such as were never meant for -anything else but the _peritura charta_ of the "Morning Post." - -I had written thus far when your letter of the 16th arrived, franked on -the 23d from Weymouth, with a polite apology from Mr. Bedingfell (if I -have rightly deciphered the name) for its detention. I am vexed I did not -write immediately on 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 _in_curred the -interesting instances in which the proverb is verified. The newest -subject, though brought from the planets (or asteroids) 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 subject of great merit in the ancient mythology -hitherto untouched--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 son, they conceived 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 Asteropa, Autonoe, and Alcestis. Ovid alludes -briefly to this story in the couplet,-- - - "Quid referam Peli natas pietate nocentes, - Csaque virgine 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 invested 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 imposing -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 required 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 priesthood, 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 difficulties 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[270] on -Thursday, August the 3d! I was sheltered (in the phrase of the country, -_lownded_) in a sort of natural porch on the summit of Sca Fell, the -central mountain of our Giants, said to be higher than Skiddaw or -Helvellyn, 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 were, were three vales: -Wastdale, with its lake; Miterdale and Eskdale, with the rivers Irt, Mite, -and Esk seen from their very fountains to their fall into the sea at -Ravenglass 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 Sca -Fell, down Eskdale to Devock Lake, Ulpha Kirk, Broughton Mills, Tarver, -Coniston, Windermere, 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 sending them by the Carlisle waggon. A person is going to -Carlisle on Monday from this place, and will make diligent 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, -perhaps, to be ashamed of my weakness, but I must confess I have been -downright vexed by the business. Every cart, every return-chaise from -Penrith has 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 -minuti of my opinions concerning 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 excited. 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 sentiments of all -who have indeed felt a _true call_ to the ministry 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 -concerned 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. 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 -judgment; 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 Longman 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 Tomkins -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"[271] are among -the best in that second 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 describe any interesting appearance in -nature without connecting 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 Life_. A poet's heart and intellect -should be _combined_, intimately combined and unified with the great -appearances 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 appropriate 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 _passion_ 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 no native passion because he is not a thinker, and has probably -weakened his intellect 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 dithyrambic 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.[272] - -That this is deep in our nature, I felt when I was on Scafell. I -involuntarily poured forth a hymn[273] in the manner of the 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 _dead_, mere 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 aggregating faculty of -the mind, not imagination or the _modifying_ and coadunating faculty. This -the Hebrew poets appear to me to have possessed beyond all others, and -next to them 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 Timus 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 l. 629 to 641. All -the puzzle is to find out what plant Hmony 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 abundance that the dull 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 precisely, 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; Unknown and like esteemed and the dull swain Treads on it daily with -his clouted shoon_"--The promises of Redemption offered daily and hourly, -and to all, but accepted scarcely by any--"_He called it Hmony_." Now -what is Hmony? [Greek: haima oinos], 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. - -[Greek: Estse] signifies "He hath stood,"[274] which, in these times of -apostasy from the principles of freedom or of religion in this country, -and from both by the same persons 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 THE 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 -Borrowdale 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 looking 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 pleasure--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 thinking of you, dreaming of -you, till the tear grown cold upon my cheek 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 increverit, aut si - Hiberni pluviis dependent nubibus imbres, - Nos habeat domus, et multo Lar luceat igne. - Ante focum mihi parvus erit, qui ludat, Iulus, - Blanditias ferat, et nondum constantia verba; - Ipse legam magni tecum monumenta Platonis!" - -Or, what would be still better, I could talk to you (and, if you were here -now, to an accompaniment of winds that would well suit the subject) -instead of writing to you concerning 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 impressions, and if -anywhere there seem anything like a tone 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 seriously, 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 favourable 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, -nineteen 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 indeed, 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 Switzerland, 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 _Larne_, 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 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, has 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 possesses the _finest_, the -_subtlest_ mind and taste I have ever yet met with. His mind resembles -that miniature in my "Three Graves:"[275]-- - - 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 -afternoon 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 purified 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 undoubtedly 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 sometimes 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 pernicious than even tea. It _is my particular wish -that Hartley and Derwent should have as little tea as possible, 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 teaspoonful 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 exceeding -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 transiency 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 might have 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 Encyclopdia. 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"?[276]--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 -Protestants. 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, instead of the Eternal -and Omnipresent, in whom we live and move and _have_ our Being, we set up -a distinct Jehovah, tricked out in the _anthropomorphic_ attributes of -Time and _successive_ Thoughts, and think of him as a _Person_, _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 religiously--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 intermission--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 understand 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, yesterday, and had the 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. - -[Illustration] - -I was at Cote[277] 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 -engaged to go into Wales with his sister. I arrived at Cote in the -afternoon, and till late evening did not know or conjecture that we were -to go off early in the next morning. 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. However, 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 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 Papishes, all of whom I would burn with fire and faggot, -for what didn'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 which 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 happened 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 somewhere 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 comforts. So you would have abroad, in a genial climate, certain -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 excitement 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 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 continue 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 _smarting_ and _burning_ pain; and -secondly, in consequence of riding with such cold water under my seat, -extremely uneasy 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 breathless, as if it was some mighty -fountain just on the summit of Kirkstone, that shot forth its volcano of -air, and precipitated 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, with distressful dreams, chiefly about my eye; and awaking often -in the dark I thought it was the effect of mere recollection, but it -appeared in the morning that my right eye was bloodshot, and the lid -swollen. That morning, however, 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 has 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., Glenridding, Ulleswater."] - - -CXXXVI. TO HIS WIFE. - -[LONDON], Monday, April 4, 1803. - -MY DEAR SARA,--I have taken my place for Wednesday 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 be at Penruddock -by twelve o'clock that his 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 -objected, 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 -disposition 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 Sotheby. He had informed me that ten gentlemen -who have met me at his house desired him to solicit me to finish the -"Christabel," 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 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 getting 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 necessity 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 knowledge of such facts than 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 country. Indeed, I am rather -induced to determine on wintering in Madeira, rather than staying at home. -I have enclosed ten pounds for Mrs. Fricker. 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 literary -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 History. 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 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 article _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 Erigena_. He is -clearly the modern founder of the school of Pantheism; indeed he expressly -defines the divine nature as _qu 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 meus 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-Much and Too-Little." Have you read Paley's last book?[278] -Have you it to review? I could make a dashing review of it. - - -CXXXVIII. TO THE SAME. - -KESWICK, July, 1803. - -MY DEAR SOUTHEY,--... I write now to propose a scheme,[279] 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, biographical, 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,[280] 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 Pope; the poetry of -witty logic,--Swift, Fielding, Richardson, Sterne; I write _par hasard_, -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 in each instance to determine, first, the true merits and demerits of -the _books_; secondly, what of these belong to the age--what to the author -_quasi peculium_. 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 religion; in this (fifth volume), under -different names,--Hooker, Baxter, Biddle, and Fox,--the spirit of the -theology 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 only prevent the -future good, not mar the past; each volume 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 encyclopdia! It signifies 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 encyclopdia 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 SOUTHEY,--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 impulses -rather than motives, and prick you with _spurs_ that had been dipped in -the vaccine matter of my own cowardliness. While I wrote that last -sentence, I had a vivid recollection, 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 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, Southey! a metaphysical -solution, that does not instantly _tell_ you something in the heart is -grievously to be suspected as apocryphal. I almost 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 support the assertion. -And this is a digression.--My dear Southey, 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 reprinting? Scarcely. Literary history informs us -that most of those great continental bibliographies, etc., were published -by the munificence of princes, or nobles, or great monasteries. A book -from having had 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 encyclopdia, 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 uninteresting, 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; (3) because it is -impossible that any one of the volumes can be executed as well as they -would otherwise 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 -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 instances for three or four years, and bring to the work the whole -weight of his interest and reputation.... An encyclopdia 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 -encyclopdia for _his_ books? If valuable treatises exist on these -subjects in an encyclopdia, 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 professed 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 encyclopdia which are -excrescences--each volume will _set up_ 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 enthusiast 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. - - -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 moorland 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 imagine all the mountains more _detachedly_ -built up, a general 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 ferry wet to the skin. Oh, such a -wretched hovel! But two Highland lassies,[281] who kept 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."[282] 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 Trossachs, 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 Arrochar, on purpose to see the _Cobbler_ which had -impressed 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 -drawings), 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 -disappointed 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 unfortunately shoeless; there is no town where I can get a pair, and I -have no money to spare to buy them, so I expect to enter Perth barefooted. -I burnt my shoes in drying them at the boatman's hovel on 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 -with solitude and liberty--the liberty natural and solitary, the solitude -natural and free! But you must contrive somehow or other to borrow ten -pounds, or, if that cannot be, five pounds, for me, and send it without -delay, directed to me at the 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 calculate, 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 distressful, 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 stunned at present by this beginning to write, making a -beginning of living feeling within me. Whatever comfort 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![283] -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 263 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 abandoned 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, - My spirit I to Love compose, 5 - In humble trust my eyelids close, - With reverential resignation, - No wish conceiv'd, no thought exprest, - Only a _Sense_ of supplication, - A _Sense_ o'er all my soul imprest 10 - 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 - In anguish and in agony, 15 - Awaking from the fiendish crowd - Of shapes and thoughts that tortur'd me! - Desire with loathing strangely mixt, - On wild or hateful objects fixt. - Sense of revenge, the powerless will, 20 - Still baffled and consuming still; - Sense of intolerable wrong, - And men whom I despis'd made strong! - Vain glorious threats, unmanly vaunting, - Bad men my boasts and fury taunting; 25 - 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, - Whether I suffer'd or I did: 30 - 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 - Sadden'd and stunn'd the boding day. 35 - 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, - O'ercome by sufferings dark and wild, 40 - 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 - To Natures, deepliest stain'd with Sin; 45 - Still to be stirring up anew - The self-created Hell within, - The Horror of the crimes to view, - To know and loathe, yet wish to do! - With such let fiends make mockery-- 50 - But I--Oh, wherefore this _on me_? - Frail is my soul, yea, strengthless wholly, - Unequal, restless, melancholy; - But free from Hate and sensual Folly! - To live belov'd is all I need, 55 - And whom I love, I love indeed, - And etc., etc., etc., etc.[284] - -I do not know how I came to scribble down these verses to you--my heart -was aching, my head all confused--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, 1803. - -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 morning, -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 on -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 on with no 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 on 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.[285] What a -wonderful city Edinburgh[286] is! What alternation of height and depth! A -city looked at in the polish'd back of a Brobdingnag spoon held -lengthways, so enormously _stretched-up_ are the houses! When I first -looked down on it, as the coach drove up on 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 Montserrat 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 -horizontally 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 on the whole city and -firth--the sun then setting behind the magnificent rock, crested by the -castle. 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 figures 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 behind me, -was in dark blood-like crimson, and the sharpshooters were behind -exercising minutely, and had chosen that place on account of the fine -thunder echo which, indeed, it would be scarcely possible for the ear to -distinguish 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 talking 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 distinguished 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 going into -Scotland for,[287] to one who has been in Cumberland 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 difference 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.[288] 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 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.[289] - -GRETA HALL, 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 inflamed, 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 nearly four years, and noticed this -strange dependence on the state of my moral feelings 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 Liverpool -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. Adams[290] who wrote a very nice little pamphlet on Madeira, -relative to the different sorts of consumption, and which I have now on my -desk. I need not say that it would be a great comfort to me to be -introduced to him 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, -passions, 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 thing which I -_need_. I am far too contented with solitude. 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. - -Mrs. Coleridge desires me to remember her with respectful regards to Mrs. -Coates, and to enquire into the history of your little family. I have -three children, _Hartley_, seven years old, _Derwent_, 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. He 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 connected 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 _pie_ 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 happiness. -Oh! bless them! Next to the Bible, Shakespeare, and Milton, _they_ are the -three books from which I have learned the most, and the most important -and with the greatest delight. - -I have been thus 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. - - - - -INDEX - - - Abergavenny, 410. - - Abergavenny, Earl of, wreck of the, 494 n.; - 495 n. - - Abernethy, Dr. John, 525; - C. determines to place himself under the care of, 564, 565. - - Achard, F. C., 299 and note. - - Acland, Sir John, 523 and note. - - Acting, 621-623. - - Acton, 184, 186-188, 191. - - Adams, Dr. Joseph, 442 and note. - - Addison's _Spectator_, studied by C. in connection with _The Friend_, - 557, 558. - - _Address on the Present War, An_, 85 n. - - _Address to a Young Jackass and its Tethered Mother_, 119 and note, 120. - - Aders, Mrs., 701 n., 702 n., 752; - letters from C., 701, 769. - - Adscombe, 175, 184, 188. - - Advising, the rage of, 474, 475. - - Adye, Major, 493. - - _schylus, Essay on the Prometheus of_, 740 and note. - - _Aids to Reflection_, 688 n.; - preparation and publication of, 734 n., 738; - C. calls Stuart's attention to certain passages in, 741; - favourable opinions of, 741; - 756 n. - - Ainger, Rev. Alfred, 400 n. - - Akenside, Mark, 197. - - Albuera, the Battle of, C.'s articles on, 567 and note. - - Alfoxden, 10 n.; - Wordsworth settles at, 224, 227; - 326, 515. - - Alison's _History of Europe_, 628 n. - - Allen, Robert, 41 and note, 45, 47, 50; - extract from a letter from him to C., 57 n.; - 63, 75, 83, 126; - appointed deputy-surgeon to the Second Royals, 225 and note; - letter to C., 225 n. - - Allsop, Mrs., 733 n. - - Allsop, Thomas, friendship and correspondence with C., 695, 696; - publishes C.'s letters after his death, 696; - his _Letters, Conversations, and Recollections of S. T. Coleridge_, - 41 n., 527 n., 675 n., 696 and note, 698 n., 721 n.; - 711; - C.'s letter of Oct. 8, 1822, 721 n.; - letter from C., 696. - - Allston, Washington, 523; - his bust of C., 570 n., 571; - his portraits of C., 572 and note; - his art and moral character, 573, 574; - 581, 633; - his genius and his misfortunes, 650; - 695 and notes; - letter from C., 498. - - Ambleside, 335; - Lloyd settles at, 344; - 577, 578. - - America, proposed emigration of C. and other pantisocrats to, 81, 88-91, - 98, 101-103, 146; - prospects of war with England, 91; - 241; - progress of religious deism in, 414; - C.'s letter concerning the inevitableness of a war with, 629. - - Amtmann of Ratzeburg, the, 264, 268, 271. - - _Amulet, The_, 257. - - _Ancient Mariner, The_, 81 n.; - written in a dream or dreamlike reverie, 245 n.; - 696. - - _Animal Vitality, Essay on_, by Thelwall, 179, 212. - - _Annual Anthology_, the, edited by Southey, 207 n., 226 n., 295 n., - 298 n.; - C. suggests a classification of poems in, 313, 314, 317; - 318, 320, 322 and note, 330, 331, 748 n. - - _Annual Review_, 488, 489, 522. - - _Anti-Jacobin, The Beauties of the_, its libel on C., 320 and note. - - _Antiquary, The_, by Scott, C.'s portrait introduced into an - illustration for, 736 and note. - - _Ants, Treatise on_, by Huber, 712. - - _Ardinghello_, by Heinse, 683 and note. - - Arnold, Mr., 602, 603. - - Arrochar, 432 and note. - - Arthur's Crag, 439. - - A-seity, 688 and note. - - Asgill, John, and his Treatises, 761 and note. - - Ashburton, 305 n. - - Ashe, Thomas, his _Miscellanies, sthetic and Literary_, 633 n. - - Ashley, C. with the Morgans at, 631. - - Ashley, Lord, and the Ten Hours Bills, 689 n. - - Ashton, 140 and note. - - _As late I roamed through Fancy's shadowy vale_, a sonnet, 116 n., 118. - - Atheism, 161, 162, 167, 199, 200. - - _Athenum, The_, 206 n., 536 n., 753 n. - - _Atlantic Monthly_, 206 n. - - Autobiographical letters from C. to Thomas Poole, 3-21. - - - Baader, Franz Xavier von, 683 and note. - - Babb, Mr., 422. - - Bacon, Lord, his _Novum Organum_, 735. - - Badcock, Mr., 21. - - Badcock, Harry, 22. - - Badcock, Sam, 22. - - Bala, 79. - - Ball, Lady, 494 n., 497. - - Ball, Sir Alexander John, 484, 487, 496, 497; - mutual regard of C. and, 508 n.; - 524, 554; - C.'s narrative of his life, 579 n.; - his opinions of Lady Nelson and Lady Hamilton, 637. - - _Ballad of the Dark Ladie, The_, 375. - - Bampfylde, John Codrington Warwick, his genius, originality, and - subsequent lunacy, 309 and note; - his _Sixteen Sonnets_, 309 n. - - Banfill, Mr., 306. - - Barbauld, Anna Ltitia, 317 n. - - _Barbou Casimir, The_, 67 and notes, 68. - - Barlow, Caleb, 38. - - Barr, Mr., his children, 154. - - Barrington, Hon. and Rt. Rev. John Shute, Bishop of Durham, 582 and note. - - Bassenthwaite Lake, 335, 376 n.; - sunset over, 384. - - _Beard, On Mrs. Monday's_, 9 n. - - Beaumont, Lady, 459, 573, 580, 592, 593; - procures subscribers to C.'s lectures, 599; - 644, 645, 739, 741; - letter from C., 641. - - Beaumont, Sir George, 440 n., 462; - his affection for C. preceded by dislike, 468; - 493; - extract from a letter from Wordsworth on John Wordsworth's death, - 494 n.; - 496; - lends the Wordsworths his farmhouse near Coleorton, 509 n.; - 579-581; - C. explains the nature of his quarrel with Wordsworth to, 592, 593; - 595 n., 629; - on Allston as an historical painter, 633; - 739, 741; - letter from C., 570. - - _Beauties of the Anti-Jacobin, The_, its libel on C., 320 and note. - - Becky Fall, 305 n. - - Beddoes, Dr. Thomas, 157, 211, 338; - C.'s grief at his death, 543 and note, 544 and note; - his advice and sympathy in response to C.'s confession, 543 n.; - his character. 544. - - Bedford, Grosvenor, 400 n. - - Beet sugar, 299 and note. - - Beguines, the, 327 n. - - Bell, Rev. Andrew, D. D., 575, 582 and note, 605; - his _Origin, Nature, and Object of the New System of Education_, 581 - and note, 582. - - _Bell, Rev. Andrew, Life of_, by R. and C. C. Southey, 581 n. - - Bellingham, John, 598 n. - - Bell-ringing in Germany, 293. - - Belper, Lord (Edward Strutt), 215 n. - - Bennett, Abraham, his electroscope, 218 n., 219 n. - - Bentley's Quarto Edition of Horace, 68 and note. - - Benvenuti, 498, 499. - - _Benyowski, Count, or the Conspiracy of Kamtschatka, a Tragi-comedy_, by - Kotzebue, 236 and note. - - Berdmore, Mr., 80, 82. - - Bernard, Sir Thomas, 579 and notes, 580, 582, 585, 595 n., 599. - - _Betham, Matilda, To. From a Stranger_, 404 n. - - _Bible, The_, as literature, C.'s opinion of, 200; - slovenly hexameters in, 398. - - Bibliography, Southey's proposed work, 428-430. - - _Bibliotheca Britannica, or an History of British Literature_, a - proposed work, 425-427, 429, 430. - - Bigotry, 198. - - Billington, Mrs. Elizabeth Weichsel, 368. - - Bingen, 751. - - _Biographia Literaria_, 3, 68 n., 74 n., 152 n., 164 n., 174 n., 232 n., - 257, 320 n., 498 n., 607 n., 669 n., 670 n.; - C. ill-used by the printer of, 673, 674; - 679, 756 n. - - Birmingham, 151, 152. - - Bishop's Middleham, 358 and note, 360. - - _Blackwood's Magazine_, 756. - - Blake, William, as poet, painter, and engraver, 685 n., 686 n.; - C.'s criticism of his poems and their accompanying illustrations, - 686-688; - his _Songs of Innocence and Experience_, 686 n. - - Bloomfield, Robert, 395. - - Blumenbach, Prof., 279, 298. - - _Book of the Church, The_, 724. - - Books, C.'s early taste in, 11 and note, 12; - in later life, 180, 181. - - Booksellers, C.'s horror of, 548. - - Borrowdale, 431. - - Borrowdale mountains, the, 370. - - _Botany Bay Eclogues_, by Robert Southey, 76 n., 116. - - Bourbons, C.'s Essay on the restoration of the, 629 and note. - - Bourne, Sturges, 542. - - Bovey waterfall, 305 n. - - Bowdon, Anne, marries Edward Coleridge, 53 n. - - Bowdon, Betsy, 18. - - Bowdon, John (C.'s uncle), C. goes to live with, 18, 19. - - Bowdons, the, C.'s mother's family, 4. - - Bowles, the surgeon, 212. - - _Bowles, To_, 111. - - Bowles, Rev. William Lisle, C.'s admiration for his poems, 37, 42, 179; - 63 n., 76 and note; - C.'s sonnet to, 111 and note; - 115; - his sonnets, 177; - his _Hope, an Allegorical Sketch_, 179, 180; - 196, 197, 211; - his translation of Dean Ogle's Latin Iambics, 374 and note; - school life at Winchester, 374 n.; - C.'s, Southey's, and Sotheby's admiration of, and its effect on their - poems, 396; - borrows a line from a poem of C.'s, 396; - his second volume of poems, 403, 404; - 637, 638, 650-652. - - Bowscale, the mountain, 339. - - Box, 631. - - Boyce, Anne Ogden, her _Records of a Quaker Family_, 538 n. - - Boyer, Rev. James, 61, 113, 768 n. - - Brahmin creed, the, 229. - - Brandes, Herr von, 279. - - Brandl's _Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the English Romantic School_, 258, - 674 n., 740 n. - - Bratha, 394, 535. - - Bray, near Maidenhead, 69, 70. - - Brazil, Emperor of, an enthusiastic student and admirer of C., 696. - - Bread-riots, 643 n. - - Brecon, 410, 411. - - Bremhill, 650. - - Brent, Mr., 598, 599. - - Brent, Miss Charlotte, 520, 524-526; - C.'s affection for, 565; - 577, 585, 600, 618, 643, 722 n.; - letter from C., 722. - _See_ Morgan family, the. - - Brentford, 326, 673 n. - - Bridgewater, 164. - - Bright, Henry A., 245 n. - - Bristol, C.'s bachelor life in, 133-135; - 138, 139, 163 n., 166, 167, 184, 326, 414, 520, 572 n., 621, 623, 624. - - _Bristol Journal_, 633 n. - - _British Critic_, the, 350. - - Brookes, Mr., 80, 82. - - _Brothers, The_, by Wordsworth, the original of Leonard in, 494 n.; - C. accused of borrowing a line from, 609 n. - - Brown, John, printer and publisher of _The Friend_, 542 n. - - Brun, Frederica, C.'s indebtedness to her for the framework of the _Hymn - before Sunrise in the Vale of Chamouni_, 405 n. - - Bruno, Giordano, 371. - - Brunton, Miss, 86 and note, 87, 89; - verses to, 94. - - Brunton, Elizabeth, 86 n. - - Brunton, John, 86 n., 87. - - Brunton, Louisa, 86 n. - - Bryant, Jacob, 216 n., 219. - - Buchan, Earl of, 139. - - Bucl, Miss, 136. - _See_ Cruikshank, Mrs. John. - - Buller, Sir Francis (Judge), 6 n.; - obtains a Christ's Hospital Presentation for C., 18. - - Buonaparte, 308, 327 n., 329 and note; - his animosity against C., 498 n.; - 530 n.; - C.'s cartoon and lines on, 642. - - Burdett, Sir Francis, 598. - - Burke, Edmund, C.'s sonnet to, 116 n., 118; - his _Letter to a Noble Lord_, 157 and note; - Thelwall on, 166; - 177. - - Burnett, George, 74, 121, 140-142, 144-151, 174 n., 325, 467. - - Burns, Robert, 196; - C.'s poem on, 206 and note, 207. - - Burton, 326. - - Burton's _Anatomy of Melancholy_, 428. - - Busts of C., 570 n., 571, 695 n. - - Butler, Samuel (afterwards Head Master of Shrewsbury and Bishop of - Lichfield), 46 and note. - - Buttermere, 393. - - Byron, Lord, his _Childe Harold_, 583; - 666, 694, 726. - - _Byron, Lord, Conversations of_, by Capt. Thomas Medwin, 735 and note. - - - Cabriere, Miss, 18. - - Caermarthen, 411. - - Caldbeck, 376 n., 724. - - Calder, the river, 339. - - Caldwell, Rev. George, 25 and note, 29, 71, 82. - - Calne, Wiltshire, C.'s life at, 641-653. - - Calvert, Raisley, 345 n. - - Calvert, William, proposes to study chemistry with C. and Wordsworth, - 345; - his portrait in a poem of Wordsworth's, 345 n.; - proposes to share his new house near Greta Hall with Wordsworth and - his sister, 346; - his sense and ability, 346; - 347, 348. - - Cambridge, description of, 39; - 137, 270. - - _Cambridge, Reminiscences of_, by Henry Gunning, 24 n., 363 n. - - _Cambridge Intelligencer, The_, 93 n., 218 n. - - Cambridge University, C.'s life at, 22-57, 70-72, 81-129; - C. thinks of leaving, 97 n.; - 137. - - Cameos and intaglios, casts of, 703 and note. - - Campbell, James Dykes, 251 n., 337 n.; - his _Samuel Taylor Coleridge_, 269 n., 527 n., 572 n., 600 n., 631 n., - 653 n., 666 n., 667 n., 674 n., 681 n., 684 n., 698 n., 752 n., - 753 n., 772 n. - - Canary Islands, 417, 418. - - Canning, George, 542, 674. - - Canova, Antonio, on Allston's modelling, 573. - - Cape Esperichel, 473. - - Carlisle, Sir Anthony, 341 and note. - - Carlton House, 392. - - Carlyle, Thomas, his portrait of C. in the _Life of Sterling_, 771 n. - - Carlyon, Clement, M. D., his _Early Years and Late Recollections_, 258, - 298 n. - - Carnosity, Mrs., 472. - - Carrock, the mountain, a tempest on, 339, 340. - - Carrock man, the, 339. - - Cartwright, Major John, 635 and note. - - Cary, Rev. Henry, his _Memoir of H. F. Cary_, 676 n. - - _Cary, H. F., Memoir of_, by Henry Cary, 676 n. - - Cary, Rev. H. F., his translation of the _Divina Commedia_, 676, 677 and - note, 678, 679; - C. introduces himself to, 676 n.; - 685, 699; - letters from C., 676, 677, 731, 760. - - _Casimir, the Barbou_, 67 and notes, 68. - - Castlereagh, Lord, 662. - - _Castle Spectre, The_, a play by Monk Lewis, C.'s criticism of, 236 and - note, 237, 238; - 626. - - Catania, 458. - - Cat-serenades in Malta, 483 n., 484 n. - - Catherine II., Empress of Russia, 207 n. - - Cathloma, 51. - - Catholic Emancipation, C.'s Letters to Judge Fletcher on, 629 and note, - 634 and note, 635, 636, 642. - - Catholicism in Germany, 291, 292. - - Catholic question, the, letters in the _Courier_ on, 567 and note; - C. proposes to again write for the _Courier_ on, 660, 662; - arrangements for the proposed articles on, 664, 665. - - Cattermole, George, 750 n.; - letter from C., 750. - - Cattermole, Richard, 750 n. - - Cattle, disposal of dead and sick, in Germany, 294. - - Chalmers, Rev. Thomas, D. D., calls on C., 752 and note. - - Chantrey, Mr. (afterwards Sir) Francis, R. A., C.'s impressions of, 699; - 727. - - Chapman, Mr., appointed Public Secretary of Malta, 491, 496. - - _Character, A_, 631 n. - - _Charity_, 110 n. - - _Chatterton, Monody on the Death of_, 110 n., 158 n.; - C.'s opinion of it in 1797, 222, 223; - 620 n. - - Chatterton, Thomas, unpopularity of his poems, 221, 222; - Southey's exertions in aid of his sister, 221, 222. - - Chemistry, C. proposes to study, 345-347. - - Chepstow, 139, 140 n. - - Chester, John, accompanies C. to Germany, 259; - 265, 267, 269 n., 272, 280, 281, 300. - - _Childe Harold_, by Byron, 583. - - Childhood, memory of, in old age, 428. - - Children in cotton factories, legislation as to the employment of, 689 - and note. - - Christ, both God and man, 710. - - _Christabel_, written in a dream or dreamlike reverie, 245 n.; - 310, 313, 317, 337 and note, 342, 349; - Conclusion to Part II., 355 and note, 356 n.; - Part II., 405 n.; - a fine edition proposed, 421, 422; - 437 n., 523; - C. quotes from, 609, 610; - the broken friendship commemorated in, 609 n.; - the copyright of, 669; - the _Edinburgh Review's_ unkind criticism of, 669 and note, 670; - Mr. Frere advises C. to finish, 674; - 696. - - _Christianity, the one true Philosophy_ (C.'s _magnum opus_), outline - of, 632, 633; - fragmentary remains of, 632 n.; - the sole motive for C.'s wish to live, 668; - J. H. Green helps to lay the foundations of, 679 n.; - 694, 753; - plans for, 772, 773. - - _Christian Observer_, 653 n. - - _Christmas Carol, A_, 330. - - _Christmas Indoors in North Germany_, 257, 275 n. - - _Christmas Out of Doors_, 257. - - Christmas-tree, the German, 289, 290. - - Christ's Hospital, C.'s life at, 18-22; - 173 n. - - _Christ's Hospital Five and Thirty Years Ago_, by Charles Lamb, 20 n. - - _Christ's Hospital, List of Exhibitioners, from 1566-1885_, 41 n. - - _Chronicle, Morning_, 111 n., 114, 116 n., 119 n., 126, 162, 167, 505, - 506, 606 n., 615, 616. - - Chubb, Mr., of Bridgwater, 231. - - _Church, The Book of the_, by Southey, 724. - - Church, the English, 135, 306, 651-653, 676, 757. - - Church, the Scottish, in a state of ossification, 744, 745. - - Church, the Wesleyan, 769. - - Cibber, Colley, and his son, Theophilus, 693. - - Cibber, Theophilus, his reply to his father, 693. - - Cintra, Wordsworth's pamphlet on the Convention of, 534 and note, 543 - and note; - C.'s criticism of, 548-550. - - Clagget, Charles, 70 and note. - - Clare, Lord, 638. - - Clarke, Mrs., the notorious, 543 n. - - Clarkson, Mrs., 592. - - Clarkson, Thomas, 363, 398; - his _History of the Abolition of the Slave Trade_, 527 and note, - 528-530; - his character, 529, 530; - C.'s review of his book, 535, 536; - 538 n., 547, 548; - on the second rupture between C. and Wordsworth, 599 n. - - Clement, Mr., a bookseller, 548. - - Clergyman, an earnest young, 691. - - Clevedon, C.'s honeymoon at, 136. - - Clock, a motto for a market, 553 and note, 554 n. - - Coates, Matthew, 441 n.; - his belief in the impersonality of the deity, 444; - letter from C., 441. - - Coates, Mrs. Matthew, 442, 443. - - Cobham, 673 n. - - Cole, Mrs., 271. - - _Coleorton, Memorials of_, 369 n., 440. - - Coleorton Farmhouse, C.'s visit to the Wordsworths at, 509-514. - - Coleridge, Anne (sister--usually called "Nancy"), 8 and note, 21, 26. - - Coleridge, Berkeley (son), birth of, 247 and note, 248, 249; - taken with smallpox, 259 n., 260 n.; - 262, 267, 272; - death of, 247 n., 282-287, 289. - - Coleridge, David Hartley (son--usually called "Hartley"), birth of, 169; - 176, 205, 213, 220, 231, 245, 260-262, 267 n., 289, 296, 305, 318; - his talkativeness and boisterousness at the age of three, 321; - his theologico-astronomical hypothesis as to stars, 323; - a pompous remark by, 332; - illness, 342, 343; - early astronomical observations, 342, 343; - an extraordinary creature, 343, 344; - 345 n., 355, 356 n., 359; - a poet in spite of his low forehead, 395; - 408, 413, 416, 421; - at seven years, 443; - plans for his education, 461, 462; - 468, 508; - visits the Wordsworths at Coleorton Farmhouse with his father, 509-514; - as a traveller, 509; - his character at ten years, 510, 512; - 511; - under his father's sole care for four or five months, 511 n.; - spends five or six weeks with his father and the Wordsworths at Basil - Montagu's house in London, 511 n.; - portraits of, 511 n.; - 521; - his appearance, behavior, and mental acuteness at the age of thirteen, - 564; - at fifteen, 576, 577; - at Mr. Dawes's school, 576 and note, 577; - 583 n.; - friendly relations with his cousins, 675 and note; - C. asks Poole to invite him to Stowey, 675; - visits Stowey, 675 n.; - 684, 721, 726; - letter of advice from S. T. C., 511. - - Coleridge, Derwent (son of S. T. C. and father of the editor), birth - baptism of, 338 and note; - 344, and 355, 359; - learns his letters, 393, 395; - 408, 413, 416; - at three years, 443; - 462, 468, 521; - at nine years, 564; - at eleven years, 576, 577; - at Mr. Dawes's school, 576 and note, 577; - 580, 605 n., 671 n.; - John Hookham Frere's assistance in sending him to Cambridge, 675 and - note; - 707, 711. - - Coleridge, Miss Edith, 670 n. - - Coleridge, Edward (brother), 7, 53-55, 699 n. - - Coleridge, Rev. Edward (nephew), 724 n.; - letters from C., 724, 738, 744. - - Coleridge, Frances Duke (niece), 726 and note, 740. - - Coleridge, Francis Syndercombe (brother), 8, 9, 11, 12, 13; - his boyish quarrel with S. T. C., 13, 14; - becomes a midshipman, 17; - dies, 53 and note. - - Coleridge, Frederick (nephew), 56. - - Coleridge, Rev. George (brother), 7, 8; - his character and ability, 8; - 12, 21 n., 25 n.; - his lines to Genius, _Ibi Hc Incondita Solus_, 43 n.; - 59; - his self-forgetting economy, 65; - extract from a letter from J. Plampin, 70 n.; - 95, 97 n., 98 and note, 261; - visit from S. T. C. and his wife, 305 n., 306; - 467, 498 n., 512; - disapproves of S. T. C.'s intended separation from his wife and refuses - to receive him and his family into his house, 523 and note; - 699 n.; - approaching death of, 746-748; - S. T. C.'s relations with, 747, 748; - letters from S. T. C., 22, 23, 42, 53, 55, 59, 60, 62-70, 103, 239. - - _Coleridge, the Rev. George, To_, a dedication, 223 and note. - - Coleridge, Rev. George May (nephew), his friendly relations with Hartley - C., 675 and note; - letter from C., 746. - - _Coleridge, Hartley, Poems of_, 511 n. - - Coleridge, Henry Nelson (nephew and son-in-law), 3, 553 n., 570 n., 579 - n., 744-746; - sketch of his life, 756 n.; - letter from S. T. C., 756. - - Coleridge, Mrs. Henry Nelson (Sara Coleridge), 9 n., 163 n.; - extract from a letter from Mrs. Wordsworth, 220 n.; - 320 n., 327 n., 572 n. - - Coleridge, James, the younger, (nephew), his narrow escape, 56. - - Coleridge, Colonel James (brother), 7, 54, 56, 61, 306, 724 n., 726 n.; - letter from S. T. C., 61. - - Coleridge, Mrs. James (sister-in-law), 740. - - Coleridge, John (brother), 7. - - Coleridge, John (grandfather), 4, 5. - - Coleridge, Mrs. John (mother), 5 n., 7, 13-17, 21 n., 25, 56; - letter from S. T. C., 21. - - Coleridge, Rev. John (father), 5 and note, 6, 7, 10-12, 15, 16; - dies, 17, 18; - his character, 18. - - Coleridge, John Duke, Lord Chief-Justice (great-nephew), 572 n., 699 n., - 745 n. - - Coleridge, Sir John Taylor (nephew), his friendly relations with Hartley - C., 675 and note; - editor of _The Quarterly Review_, 736 and note, 737; - his judgment and knowledge of the world, 739; - delighted with _Aids to Reflection_, 739; - 740 n., 744, 745; - letter from S. T. C., 734. - - Coleridge, Luke Herman (brother), 8, 21, 22. - - COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR, his autobiographical letters to Thomas Poole, - 3-18; - ancestry and parentage, 4-7; - birth, 6, 9 and note; - his brothers and sister, 7-9; - christened, 9; - infancy and childhood, 9-12; - learns to read, 10; - early taste in books, 11 and note, 12; - his dreaminess and indisposition to bodily activity in childhood, 12; - boyhood, 12-21; - has a dangerous fever, 12-13; - quarrels with his brother Frank, runs away, and is found and brought - back, 13-15; - his imagination developed early by the reading of fairy tales, 16; - a Christ's Hospital Presentation procured for him by Judge Buller, 18; - visits his maternal uncle, Mr. John Bowdon, in London, 18, 19; - becomes a Blue-Coat boy, 19; - his life at Christ's Hospital, 20-22; - enters Jesus College, Cambridge, 22, 23; - becomes acquainted with the Evans family, 23 and note, 24; - writes a Greek Ode, for which he obtains the Browne gold medal for - 1792, 43 and note; - is matriculated as pensioner, 44 and note; - his examination for the Craven Scholarship, 45 and note, 46; - his temperament, 47; - takes violin lessons, 49; - enlists in the army, 57 and note; - nurses a comrade who is ill of smallpox in the Henley workhouse, 58 - and note; - his enlistment disclosed to his family, 57 n., 58, 59; - remorse, 59-61, 64, 65; - arrangements resulting in his discharge, 61-70; - his religious beliefs at twenty-one, 68, 69; - returns to the university and is punished, 70, 71; - drops his gay acquaintances and settles down to hard work, 71; - makes a tour of North Wales with Mr. J. Hucks, 72-81; - falls in love with Miss Sarah Fricker, 81; - proposes to go to America with a colony of pantisocrats, 81, 88-91, - 101-103; - his interest in Miss Fricker cools and his old love for Mary Evans - revives, 89; - his indolence, 103, 104; - on his own poetry, 112; - considers going to Wales with Southey and others to found a colony of - pantisocrats, 121, 122; - his love for Mary Evans proves hopeless, 122-126; - in lodgings in Bristol after having left Cambridge without taking his - degree, 133-135; - marries Miss Sarah Fricker and spends the honeymoon in a cottage at - Clevedon, 136; - breaks with Southey, 136-151; - happiness in early married life, 139; - his tour to procure subscribers for the _Watchman_, 151 and note, - 152-154; - poverty, 154, 155; - receives a communication from Mr. Thomas Poole that seven or eight - friends have undertaken to subscribe a certain sum to be paid - annually to him as the author of the monody on Chatterton, 158 n.; - discontinues the _Watchman_, 158; - takes Charles Lloyd into his home, 168-170; - birth of his first child, David Hartley, 169; - considers starting a day school at Derby, 170 and note; - has a severe attack of neuralgia for which he takes laudanum, 173-176; - early use of opium and beginning of the habit, 173 n., 174 n.; - selects twenty-eight sonnets by himself, Southey, Lloyd, Lamb, and - others and has them privately printed, to be bound up with - Bowles's sonnets, 177, 206 and note; - his description of himself in 1796, 180, 181; - his personal appearance as described by another, 180 n., 181 n.; - anxious to take a cottage at Nether Stowey and support himself by - gardening, 184-194; - makes arrangements to carry out this plan, 209; - his partial reconciliation with Southey, 210, 211; - in the cottage at Nether Stowey, 213; - his engagement as tutor to the children of Mrs. Evans of Darley Hall - breaks down, 215 n.; - his visit at Mrs. Evans's house, 216; - daily life at Nether Stowey, 219, 220; - visits Wordsworth at Racedown, 220 and note, 221; - secures a house (Alfoxden) for Wordsworth near Stowey, 224; - visits him there, 227; - finishes his tragedy, _Osorio_, 231; - suspected of conspiracy with Wordsworth and Thelwall against the - government, 232 n.; - accepts an annuity of 150 for life from Josiah and Thomas Wedgwood, - 234 and note, 235 and note; - declines an offer of the Unitarian pastorate at Shrewsbury, 235 and - note, 236; - writes Joseph Cottle in regard to a third edition of his poems, 239; - rupture with Lloyd, 238, 245 n., 246; - first recourse to opium to relieve distress of mind, 245 n.; - birth of a second child, Berkeley, 247; - temporary estrangement from Lamb caused by Lloyd, 249-253; - goes to Germany with William Wordsworth, Dorothy Wordsworth, and John - Chester, for the purpose of study and observation, 258-262; - life _en pension_ with Chester in the family of a German pastor at - Ratzeburg, after parting from the Wordsworths at Hamburg, 262-278; - learning the German language, 262, 263, 267, 268; - writes a poem in German, 263; - proposes to proceed to Gttingen, 268-270; - proposes to write a life of Lessing, 270; - travels by coach from Ratzeburg to Gttingen, passing through Hanover, - 278-280; - enters the University, 281; - receives word of the death of his little son, Berkeley, 282-287; - learns the Gothic and Theotuscan languages, 298; - reconciliation with Southey, after the return from Germany, 303, 304; - with his wife and child he visits the Southeys at Exeter, 305 and note; - accompanies Southey on a walking-tour in Dartmoor, 305 and note; - makes a tour of the Lake Country, 312 n., 313; - in London, writing for the _Morning Post_, 315-332; - life at Greta Hall, near Keswick, 335-444; - proposes to write an essay on the elements of poetry, 338, 347; - proposes to study chemistry with William Calvert as a fellow-student, - 345-347; - proposes to write a book on the originality and merits of Locke, - Hobbes, and Hume, 349, 350; - spends a week at Scarborough, riding and bathing for his health, - 361-363; - divides the winter of 1801-1802 between London and Nether Stowey, - 365-368; - domestic unhappiness, 366; - writes the _Ode to Dejection_, addressing it to Wordsworth, 378-384; - discouraged about his poetic faculty, 388; - a separation from his wife considered and harmony restored, 389, 390; - makes a walking-tour of the Lake Country, 393 and note, 394; - makes a tour of South Wales with Thomas and Sarah Wedgwood, 410-414; - his regimen at this time, 412, 413, 416, 417; - birth of his daughter Sara, 416; - with Charles and Mary Lamb in London, 421, 422; - takes Mary Lamb to the private madhouse at Hugsden, 422; - his tour in Scotland, 431-441; - love for and delight in his children, 443; - visits Wordsworth at Grasmere and is taken ill there, 447, 448; - his rapid recovery, 451; - plans and preparations for going abroad, 447-469; - his mental attitude towards his wife, 468; - voyage to Malta, 469-481; - dislike of his own first name, 470, 471; - life in Malta, 481-484; - a Sicilian tour, 485 and note, 486 and note, 487; - in Malta again, 487-497; - his duties as Acting Public Secretary at Malta, 487, 491, 493, 494 and - note, 495-497; - his grief at Captain John Wordsworth's death, 494 and note, 495 and - note, 497; - in Italy, 498-502; - returns to England, 501; - remains in and about London, writing political articles for the - _Courier_, 505-509; - invited to deliver a course of lectures at the Royal Institution, 507; - visits the Wordsworths at Coleorton Farmhouse with his son Hartley, - 509-514; - spends five or six weeks with Hartley in the company of the Wordsworths - at Basil Montagu's house in London, 511 n.; - outlines his course of lectures at the Royal Institution, 515, 516, - 522; - begins his lectures, 525; - a change for the better in health, habits, and spirits, the result of - his placing himself under the care of a physician, 533 and note, - 543 n.; - with the Wordsworths at Grasmere, devoting himself to the publication - of _The Friend_, 533-559; - in London, 564; - determines to place himself under the care of Dr. John Abernethy, 564, - 565; - visits the Morgans in Portland Place, Hammersmith, 566-575; - life-masks, death-mask, busts, and portraits, 570 and note, 572 and - notes; - last visit to Greta Hall and the Lake Country, 575-578; - misunderstanding with Wordsworth, 576 n., 577, 578, 586-588; - visits the Morgans at No. 71 Berners Street, 579-612; - preparations for another course of lectures, 579, 580, 582, 585; - writes Wordsworth letters of explanation, 588-595; - his Lectures on the Drama at Willis's Rooms, 595 and notes, 596, 597, - 599; - reconciled with Wordsworth, 596, 597, 599; - second rupture with Wordsworth, 599 n., 600 n.; - Josiah's half of the Wedgwood annuity withdrawn on account of C.'s - abuse of opium, 602, 611 and note; - successful production of his tragedy, _Remorse_ (_Osorio_ rewritten), - at Drury Lane Theatre, 602-611; - sells a part of his library, 616 and note; - anguish and remorse from the abuse of opium, 616-621, 623, 624; - at Bristol, 621-626; - proposes to translate _Faust_ for John Murray, 624 and note, 625, 626; - convalescent, 631; - with the Morgans at Ashley, near Box, 631; - writing at his projected great work, _Christianity, the one true - Philosophy_, 632 and note, 633; - with the Morgans at Mr. Page's, Calne, Wilts, 641-653; - resolves to free himself from his opium habit and arranges to enter - the house of James Gillman, Esq., a surgeon, in Highgate (an - arrangement which ends only with his life), 657-659; - submits his drama _Zapolya_ to the Drury Lane Committee, and, after - its rejection, publishes it in book form, 666 and note, 667-669; - publishes _Sibylline Leaves_ and _Biographia Literaria_, 673; - disputes with his publishers, Fenner and Curtis, 673, 674 and note; - proposes a new Encyclopdia, 674; - his reputation as a critic, 677 n.; - visits Joseph Henry Green, Esq., at St. Lawrence, near Maldon, 690-693; - his snuff-taking habits, 691, 692 and note; - his friendship and correspondence with Thomas Allsop, 695, 696; - delivers a course of Lectures on the History of Philosophy at the - Crown and Anchor, Strand, 698 and note; - criticises his portrait by Thomas Phillips, 699, 700; - at the seashore, 700, 701; - a candidate for associateship in the Royal Society of Literature, 726, - 727; - elected as a Royal Associate, 728; - at Ramsgate, 729-731; - prepares and publishes _Aids to Reflection_, 734 n., 738; - reads an _Essay on the Prometheus of schylus_ before the Royal - Society of Literature, 739, 740; - another visit to Ramsgate, 742-744; - takes a seven weeks' continental tour with Wordsworth and his - daughter, 751; - illness, 754-756, 758; - convalescence, 760, 761; - begins to see a new edition of his poetical works through the press, - 769 n.; - writes a letter to his godchild from his deathbed, 775, 776. - - _Coleridge, Early Recollections of_, by Joseph Cottle, 139 n., 140 n., - 151 n., 219 n., 232 n., 251 n., 616 n., 617 n., 633 n. - - _Coleridge, Life of_, by James Gillman, 3, 20 n., 23 n., 24 n., 45 n., - 46 n., 171 n., 257, 680 n., 761 n. - - _Coleridge, Samuel Taylor_, by James Dykes Campbell, 269 n., 527 n., - 572 n., 600 n., 631 n., 653 n., 666 n., 667 n., 674 n., 681 n., - 684 n., 698 n., 752 n., 753 n., 772 n. - - _Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, and the English Romantic School_, by Alois - Brandl, 258, 674 n., 740 n. - - _Coleridge, S. T., Letters, Conversations, and Recollections of_, by - Thomas Allsop, 41 n., 527 n., 675 n.; - the publication of, regarded by C.'s friends as an act of bad faith, - 696 and note, 721 n.; - 698 n. - - _Coleridge, S. T., Spiritual Philosophy, founded on the Teaching of_, by - J. H. Green, 680 n. - - _Coleridge's Logic_, article in _The Athenum_, 753 n. - - _Coleridge and Southey, Reminiscences of_, by Joseph Cottle, 268 n., 269 - n., 417, 456 n., 617 n. - - Coleridge, Mrs. Samuel Taylor (Sarah Fricker, afterwards called "Sara"), - edits the second edition of _Biographia Literaria_, 3; - 136, 145, 146, 150, 151; - illness and recovery of, 155, 156; - 168; - birth of her first child, David Hartley, 169; - 174 n., 181, 188-190, 205, 213, 214, 216, 224, 245; - birth of her second child, Berkeley, 247-249; - 257, 258, 259 n.; - extract from a letter to S. T. C., 263 n.; - extract from a letter to Mrs. Lovell, 267 n.; - 271, 297, 312 n., 313, 318, 321, 325, 326, 332; - birth and baptism of her third child, Derwent, 338 and note; - her devotion saves his life, 338 n.; - 387; - fears of a separation from her husband operate to restore harmony, - 389, 390; - her faults as detailed by S. T. C., 389, 390; - 392, 393 n., 395, 396; - birth of a daughter, Sara, 416; - 418, 443, 457, 467, 490, 491, 521; - extract from a letter to Poole, 576 n.; - 578; - John Kenyon a kind friend to, 639 n.; - letters from S. T. C., 259-266, 271, 277, 284, 288, 367, 410, 420, 431, - 460, 467, 480, 496, 507, 509, 563, 579, 583, 602; - letter to S. T. C. after her little Berkeley's death, 282 n. - - Coleridge, Sara (daughter), her birth, 416; - in infancy, 443; - at the age of nine, 575, 576; - 580, 724; - marries her cousin, Henry Nelson C., 756 n. - _See_ Coleridge, Mrs. Henry Nelson. - - _Coleridge, Sara, Memoir and Letters of_, 461 n., 758 n. - - Coleridge, the Hundred of, in North Devon, 4 and note. - - Coleridge, the Parish of, 4 n. - - Coleridge, William (brother), 7. - - Coleridge, William Hart (nephew, afterwards Bishop of Barbadoes), - befriends Hartley C., 675 n.; - 707; - his portrait by Thomas Phillips, R. A., 740 and note. - - Coleridge, William Rennell, 699 n. - - Coleridge family, origin of, 4 n. - - Collier, John Payne, 575 n. - - Collins, William, his _Ode on the Poetical Character_, 196; - his _Odes_, 318. - - Collins, William, A. R. A. (afterward, R. A.), letter from C., 693. - - Colman, George, the younger, genius of, 621; - his _Who wants a Guinea?_, 621 n. - - Columbus, the, a vessel, 730. - - Combe Florey, 308 n. - - Comberbacke, Silas Tomkyn, C.'s assumed name, 62. - - Comic Drama, the downfall of the, 616. - - _Complaint of Ninathoma, The_, 51. - - _Concerning Poetry_, a proposed book, 347, 386, 387. - - _Conciones ad Populum_, 85 n., 161 n., 166, 454 n., 527 n. - - _Confessions of an Enquiring Spirit_, originally addressed to Rev. - Edward Coleridge, 724 n.; - 756 n. - - Coniston, 394. - - _Connubial Rupture, On a late_, 179 n. - - Consciousness of infants, 283. - - Conservative Party in 1832, the, 757. - - Consolation, a note of, 113. - - _Consolations and Comforts, etc._, a projected book, 452, 453. - - Constant, Benjamin, his tract _On the Strength of the Existing - Government of France, and the Necessity of supporting it_, 219 and - note. - - Contempt, C.'s definition of, 198. - - _Contentment, Motives of_, by Archdeacon Paley, 47. - - Conversation, C.'s, 181, 752 and note; - C.'s maxims of, 244. - - Conversation evenings at the Gillmans', 740, 741, 774. - - Cookson, Dr., Canon of Windsor and Rector of Forncett, Norfolk, 311 and - note. - - Copland, 400. - - Cordomi, a pseudonym of C.'s, 295 n. - - _Cornhill Magazine_, 345 n. - - Cornish, Mr., 66. - - Corry, Right Hon. Isaac, 390 and note. - - Corsham, 650, 652 n. - - Corsica, 174 n. - - Corsican Rangers, 554. - - Cote House, Josiah Wedgwood's residence, C. visits, 416; - 455 n. - - Cottle, Joseph, agrees to pay C. a fixed sum for his poetry, 136; - 137; - his _Early Recollections of Coleridge_, 139 n., 140 n., 151 n., 219 - n., 232 n., 251 n., 616 n., 617 n., 633 n.; - 144, 184, 185, 191, 192, 212; - his _Reminiscences of Coleridge and Southey_, 268 n., 269 n., 417, 456 - n., 617 n.; - his financial difficulties, 319; - 358; - his _Malvern Hill_, 358; - his publication of C.'s letters of confession and remorse deeply - resented by C.'s family and friends, 616 n., 617 n.; - convalescent after a dangerous illness, 619; - letters from C., 133, 134, 154, 218 n., 220, 238, 251 n., 616, 619. - - _Courier_, the, 230; - C. writes for, 505, 506, 507 n., 520; - 534 and note, 543; - its conduct during the investigation of the charges against the Duke - of York universally extolled, 545; - articles and recommendations for, 567 and notes, 568; - C. as a candidate for the place of auxiliary to, 568-570; - 568 n.; - C. breaks with, 574; - 598, 629 and notes, 634 and note; - change in the character of, 660-662, 664; - C. proposes to write on the Catholic question for, 660, 662; - arrangements for the proposed articles, 664, 665. - - _Courier_ office, C. lodges at the, 505, 520. - - Cowper, William, "the divine chit-chat of," 197 and note; - his _Task_, 242 n. - - Craven, Countess of, 86 n. - - Craven Scholarship, C.'s examination for the, 45 and note, 46. - - Crediton, 5 n., 11. - - _Critical Review_, 185, 489. - - Criticism welcome to true poets, 402. - - Crompton, Dr., of Derby, 215; - letter from Thelwall on the Wedgwood annuity, 234 n. - - Crompton, Mrs., of Derby, 215. - - Crompton, Mrs., of Eaton Hall, 758. - - Crompton, Dr. Peter, of Eaton Hall, 359 and note, 758 n. - - Cruikshank, Ellen, 165. - - Cruikshank, John, 136, 177, 184, 188. - - Cruikshank, Mrs. John (Anna), 177; - lines to, 177 n.; - 213. - _See_ Bucl, Miss. - - Cryptogram, C.'s, 597 n. - - Cunningham, Rev. J. W., his _Velvet Cushion_, 651 and note. - - _Cupid turned Chymist_, 54 n., 56. - - Currie, James, 359 and note. - - _Curse of Kehama, The_, by Southey, 684. - - Curtis, Rev. T., partner of Fenner, C.'s publisher, his ill-usage of C., - 674. - - Cuxhaven, 259. - - - Dalton, John, 457 and note. - - Damer, Hon. Mrs., 368. - - Dana, Miss R. Charlotte, 572 n. - - Dante and his _Divina Commedia_, 676, 677 and note, 678, 679, 731 n., - 732. - - Danvers, Charles, his kindness of heart, 316. - - _Dark Ladie, The Ballad of the_, 375. - - Darnley, Earl, 629. - - Dartmoor, a walking-tour in, 305 and note. - - Dartmouth, 305 and note. - - Darwin, Dr. Erasmus, C.'s conversation with, 152, 153; - his philosophy of insincerity, 161; - C.'s opinion of his poems, 164; - 211; - the first literary character in Europe, and the most original-minded - man, 215; - 386, 648. - - Dash Beck, 375 n., 376 n. - - Davy, Sir Humphry, 315-317, 321, 324, 326, 344, 350, 357, 365, 379 n., - 448; - a Theo-mammonist, 455; - 456; - C. attends his lectures, 462 and note, 463; - C.'s esteem and admiration for, 514; - his successful efforts to induce C. to give a course of lectures at - the Royal Institution, 515, 516; - seriously ill, 520, 521; - hears from C. of his improvement in health and habits, 533 n.; - 673 n.; - letters from C., 336-341, 345, 514. - - _Davy, Sir Humphry, Fragmentary Remains of_, edited by Dr. Davy, 343 n., - 533 n. - - Dawe, George, R. A., his life-mask and portrait of C., 572 and note; - his funeral and C.'s epigram thereon, 572 n.; - immortalized by Lamb, 572 n.; - engaged on a picture to illustrate C.'s poem, _Love_, 573; - his admiration for Allston's modelling, 573; - his character and manners, 581; - a fortunate grub, 605. - - Dawes, Rev. John, teacher of Hartley and Derwent C., 576 and note, 577. - - Death, fear of, responsible for many virtues, 744; - the nature of, 762, 763. - - Death and life, meditations on, 283-287. - - Death-mask of C., a, 570 n. - - _Death of Mattathias, The_, by Robert Southey, 108 and note. - - Deism, religious, 414. - - _Dejection: An Ode_, 378 and note, 379 and note, 380-384, 405 n. - - Della Cruscanism, 196. - - Democracy, C. disavows belief in, 104-105; - 134, 243. - _See_ Republicanism _and_ Pantisocracy. - - Denbigh, 80, 81. - - Denman, Miss, 769, 770. - - Dentist, a French, 40. - - De Quincey, Thomas, 405 n., 525; - revises the proofs and writes an appendix for Wordsworth's pamphlet - _On the Convention of Cintra_, 549, 550 n.; - 563, 601, 772 n. - - Derby, 152; - proposal to start a school in, 170 and note; - 188; - the people of, 215 and note, 216. - - Derwent, the river, 339. - - Descartes, Ren, 351 and note. - - _Destiny of Nations, The_, 278 n., 178 n. - - _Deutschland in seiner tiefsten Erniedrigung_, by John Philip Palm, C.'s - translation of, 530. - - De Vere, Aubrey, extract from a letter from Sir William Rowan Hamilton - to, 759 n. - - _Devil's Thoughts, The_, by Coleridge and Southey, 318. - - Devock Lake, 393. - - Devonshire, 305 and note. - - _Devonshire, Georgiana, Duchess of, Ode to_, 320 and note, 330. - - Dibdin, Mr., stage-manager at Drury Lane Theatre, 666. - - _Disappointment, To_, 28. - - _Dissuasion from Popery_, by Jeremy Taylor, 639. - - _Divina Commedia_, C. praises the Rev. H. F. Cary's translation of, 676, - 677 and note, 678, 679; - Gabriele Rossetti's essay on the mechanism and interpretation of, 732. - - _Doctor, The_, 583 n., 584 n. - - Dring, Herr von, 279. - - Dove, Dr. Daniel, 583 and note, 584. - - Dove Cottage, Grasmere, 379 n. - _See_ Grasmere. - - Dowseborough, 225 n. - - Drakard, John, 567 and note. - - Drayton, Michael, his _Poly-Olbion_, 374 n. - - Dreams, the state of mind in, 663. - - Drury Lane Theatre, C.'s _Zapolya_ before the committee of, 666 and - note, 667. - - Dryden, John, his slovenly verses, 672. - - Dubois, Edward, 705 and note. - - _Duchess, Ode to the_, 320 and note, 330. - - Dunmow, Essex, 456, 459. - - Duns Scotus, 358. - - Dupuis, Charles Franois, his _Origine de tous les Cultes, ou Religion - Universelle_, 181 and note. - - Durham, Bishop of, 582 and note. - - Durham, C. reading Duns Scotus at, 358-361. - - Duty, 495 n. - - Dyer, George, 84, 93, 316, 317; - his article on Southey in _Public Characters for 1799-1800_, 317 and - note; - 363, 422; - sketch of his life, 748 n.; - C.'s esteem and affection for, 748, 749; - his benevolence and beneficence, 749; - letter from C., 748. - - - Earl of Abergavenny, the wreck of, 494 n.; - 495 n. - - _Early Recollections of Coleridge_, by Joseph Cottle, 139 n., 140 n., - 151 n., 219 n., 232 n., 251 n., 616 n., 617 n., 633 n. - - _Early Years and Late Recollections_, by Clement Carlyon, M. D., 258, - 298 n. - - East Tarbet, 431, 432 and note, 433. - - Echoes, 400 n. - - Edgeworth, Maria, her _Helen_, 773, 774. - - Edgeworth, Richard Lovell, 262. - - Edgeworth's _Essay on Education_, 261. - - Edgeworths, the, very miserable when children, 262. - - Edinburgh, a place of literary gossip, 423; - C.'s visit to, 434-440; - Southey's first impressions of, 438 n. - - _Edinburgh Review, The_, 438 n.; - Southey declines Scott's offer to secure him a place on, 521 and note, - 522; - its attitude towards C., 527; - C.'s review of Clarkson's book in, 527 and note, 528-530; - 636, 637; - severe review of _Christabel_ in, 669 and note, 670; - Jeffrey's reply to C. in, 669 n.; - re-echoes C.'s praise of Cary's _Dante_, 677 n.; - its broad, predetermined abuse of C., 697, 723; - its influence on the sale of Wordsworth's books in Scotland, 741, 742. - - _Edmund Oliver_, by Charles Lloyd, drawn from C.'s life, 252 and note; - 311. - - _Education, Practical_, by Richard Lovell Edgeworth and Maria Edgeworth, - 261. - - Education through the imagination preferable to that which makes the - senses the only criteria of belief, 16, 17. - - Edwards, Rev. Mr., of Birmingham, extract from a letter from C. to, 174 - n. - - Edwards, Thomas, LL. D., 101 and note. - - Egremont, 393. - - _Egypt, Observations on_, 486 n. - - Egypt, political relations of, 492. - - Eichhorn, Prof., of Gttingen, 298, 564, 707, 773. - - Einbeck, 279, 280. - - Elbe, the, 259, 277. - - Electrometers of taste, 218 and note. - - _Elegy_, by Robert Southey, 115. - - Elleray, 535. - - Elliot, H., Minister at the Court of Naples, 508 and note. - - Elliston, Mr., an actor, 611. - - Elmsley, Rev. Peter, 438 and note, 439. - - _Encyclopdia Metropolitana_, a work projected by C., 674, 681. - - Encyclopdias, 427, 429, 430. - - Ennerdale, 393. - - Epitaph, by C., 769 and note, 770, 771. - - _Epitaph_, by Wordsworth, 284. - - Erigena, Joannes Scotus, 417; - the modern founder of the school of pantheism, 424. - - Erskine, Lord, his Bill for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, 635 - and note. - - _Erste Schiffer, Der_ (The First Navigator), by Gesner, 369, 371, 372, - 376-378, 397, 402, 403. - - Eskdale, 393, 401. - - _Essay on Animal Vitality_, by Thelwall, 179, 212. - - _Essay on Fasting_, 157. - - _Essay on the New French Constitution_, 320 and note. - - _Essay on the Prometheus of schylus_, 740 and note. - - _Essay on the Science of Method_, 681 and note. - - _Essays on His Own Times_, 156 n., 157 n., 320 n., 327 n., 329 n., 335 - n., 414 n., 498 n., 567 n., 629 n., 634 n. - - _Essay on the Fine Arts_, 633 and note, 634. - - _Essays upon Epitaphs_, by Wordsworth, 585 and note. - - Estlin, Mrs. J. P., 190, 213, 214. - - Estlin, Rev. J. P., 184, 185, 190, 239, 287, 288; - his sermons, 385; - 416; - letters from C., 213, 245, 246, 414. - - Ether, 420, 435. - - Etna, 458, 485 n., 486 n. - - Evans, Mrs., C. spends a fortnight with, 23 and note; - 24; - C.'s filial regard for, 26, 27; - her unselfishness, 46; - letters from C., 26, 39, 45. - - Evans, Anne, 27, 29-31; - letters from C., 37, 52. - - Evans, Eliza, 78. - - Evans, Mrs. Elizabeth, of Darley Hall, her proposal to engage C. as - tutor to her children, 215 n.; - her kindness to C. and Mrs. C., 215 n., 210; - 231, 367. - - Evans, Mary, 23 n., 27, 30; - an acute mind beneath a soft surface of feminine delicacy, 50; - C. sees her at Wrexham and confesses to Southey his love for her, 78; - 97 and note; - song addressed to, 100; - C.'s unrequited love for, 123-125; - letters from C., 30, 41, 47, 122, 124; - letter to C., 87-89. - - Evans, Walter, 231. - - Evans, William, of Darley Hall, 215 n. - - Evolution, 648. - - _Examiner, The_, its notice of C.'s tragedy, _Remorse_, 606. - - _Excursion, The_, by Wordsworth, 244 n., 337 n., 585 n.; - C.'s opinion of, 641; - the _Edinburgh Review's_ criticism of, 642; - C. discusses it in the light of his previous expectations, 645-650. - - Exeter, 305 and note. - - Ezekiel, 705 n. - - - Faith, C.'s definition of, 202; - 204. - - _Fall of Robespierre, The_, 85 and note, 87, 93, 104 and notes. - - Falls of Foyers, the, 440. - - _Farmer, Priscilla, Poems on the Death of_, by Charles Lloyd, 206 and - note. - - _Farmers_, 335 n. - - _Farmhouse_, by Robert Lovell, 115. - - _Fasting, Essay on_, 157. - - _Faulkner: a Tragedy_, by William Godwin, 524 and note. - - Fauntleroy's trial, 730. - - _Faust_, C.'s proposal to translate, 624 and note, 625, 626. - - Favell, Robert, 86, 109 n., 110 n., 113, 225 and note. - - _Fayette_, 112. - - _Fears in Solitude_, published, 261 n.; - 318, 321, 328, 552, 703 and note. - - Fellowes, Mr., of Nottingham, 153. - - _Female Biography, or Memoirs of Illustrious and Celebrated Women_, by - Mary Hayes, 318 and note. - - Fenner, Rest, publishes _Zapolya_ for C., 666 n.; - his ill-usage of C. in regard to _Sibylline Leaves_, _Biographia - Literaria_, and the projected _Encyclopdia Metropolitana_, 673, - 674 and note. - - Fenwick, Dr., 361 and note. - - Fenwick, Mrs. E., 465 and note. - - Fernier, John, 211. - - Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, the philosophy of, 682, 683, 735. - - Field, Mr., 93. - - _Fine Arts, Essays on the_, 633 and note, 634. - - _Fire, The_, by Robert Southey, 108 and note. - - _Fire and Famine_, 327. - - _First Landing Place, The_, 684 n. - - _First Navigator, The_, translation of Gesner's _Der Erste Schiffer_, - 369, 371, 372, 376-378, 397, 402, 403. - - Fitzgibbon, John, 638. - - Fletcher, Judge, C.'s _Courier_ Letters to, 629 and note, 634 and note, - 635, 636, 642. - - Florence, 499 n. - - Flower, Benjamin, editor of the _Cambridge Intelligencer_, 93 and note. - - _Flower, The_, by George Herbert, 695. - - Flowers, 745, 746. - - Fort Augustus, 435. - - _Foster-Mother's Tale, The_, 510 n. - - Fox, Charles James, his _Letter to the Westminster Electors_, 50; - 327; - Coleridge _versus_, 423, 424; - proposed articles on, 505; - 506; - death of, 507 and note; - 629 and note. - - Fox, Dr., 619. - - Foyers, the Falls of, 440. - - _Fragment found in a Lecture Room, A_, 44. - - _Fragments of a Journal of a Tour over the Brocken_, 257. - - France, political condition of, in 1800, 329 and note. - - _France, an Ode_, 261 n., 552. - - Freeling, Sir Francis, 751. - - French, C. not proficient in, 181. - - _French Constitution, Essay on the New_, 320 and note. - - French Empire under Buonaparte, C.'s essays on the, 629 and note. - - French Revolution, the, 219, 240. - - Frend, William, 24 and note. - - Frere, George, 672. - - Frere, Right Hon. John Hookham, 672 and note; - advice and friendly assistance to C. from, 674, 675 and note; - 698, 731, 732, 737. - - Fricker, Mrs., 98, 189; - C. proposes to allow her an annuity of 20, 190; - 423, 458. - - Fricker, Edith (afterwards Mrs. Robert Southey), 82; - marries Southey, 137 n.; - 163 n. - _See_ Southey, Mrs. Robert. - - Fricker, George, 315, 316. - - Fricker, Martha, 600. - - Fricker, Sarah, C. falls in love with, 81; - 83-86; - C.'s love cools, 89; - marries C., 136; - 138, 163 n.; - letter from Southey, 107 n. - _See_ Coleridge, Mrs. Samuel Taylor. - - _Friend, The_, 11 n., 25 n., 86 n., 257, 274 n., 275 n., 351 n., 404 n., - 412 n., 453 n., 454 n.; - preliminary prospectus of, and its revision, 533, 536 and note, - 537-541, 542 n.; - arrangements for the publication of, 541, 542 and note, 544, 546, 547; - its vicissitudes during its first eight months, 547, 548, 551, 552, - 554-559; - Addison's _Spectator_ compared with, 557, 558; - the reprint of, 575, 579 and note, 580 n., 585 and note; - 606, 611, 629 and note, 630, 667 n.; - J. H. Frere's advice in regard to, 674; - the object of the third volume of, 676; - 684 n.; - 697, 756 n., 768 and note. - - Friends, C. complains of lack of sympathy on the part of his, 696, 697. - - _Friend's Quarterly Examiner, The_, 536 n., 538 n. - - _Frisky Songster, The_, 237. - - _Frost at Midnight_, 8 n., 261 n. - - - Gale and Curtis, 579 and note, 580 n. - - Gallow Hill, 359 n., 362, 379 n. - - Gallows and hangman in Germany, 294. - - Gardening, C. proposes to undertake, 183-194; - C. begins it at Nether Stowey, 213; - recommended to Thelwall, 215; - at Nether Stowey, 219, 220. - - _Gebir_, 328. - - _Gentleman's Magazine, The_, 455 n. - - _Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, Ode to_, 320 and note, 330. - - German language, the, C. learning, 262, 263, 267, 268. - - German philosophers, C.'s opinions of, 681-683, 735. - - German playing-cards, 263. - - Germans, their partiality for England and the English, 263, 264; - their eating and smoking customs, 276, 277; - an unlovely race, 278; - their Christmas-tree and other religious customs, 289-292; - superstitions of the bauers, 291, 292, 294; - marriage customs of the bauers, 292, 293. - - Germany, 257, 258; - C.'s sojourn in, 259-300; - post coaches in, 278, 279; - the clergy of, 291; - Protestants and Catholics of, 291, 292; - bell-ringing in, 293; - churches in, 293; - shepherds in, 293; - care of owls in, 293; - gallows and hangman in, 294; - disposal of dead and sick cattle in, 294; - beet sugar in, 299. - - Gerrald, Joseph, 161 and note, 166, 167 n. - - Gesenius, Friedrich Heinrich Wilhelm, 773. - - Gesner, his _Erste Schiffer_ (The First Navigator), 369, 371, 372, - 376-378, 397, 402, 403; - his rhythmical prose, 398. - - Ghosts, 684. - - Gibraltar, 469, 473, 474; - description of, 475-479; - 480, 493. - - Gifford, William, his criticism of C.'s tragedy, _Remorse_, 605, 606; - 669, 737. - - Gillman, Alexander, 703 n. - - Gillman, Henry, 693 n. - - Gillman, James, his _Life of Coleridge_, 3, 20 n., 23 n., 24 n., 45 n., - 46 n., 171 n., 257; - 442 n., 680 n., 761 n.; - his faithful friendship for C., 657; - C. arranges to enter his household as a patient, 657-659; - C.'s pecuniary obligations to, 658 n.; - character and intellect of, 665; - 670 n., 679, 685, 692, 704; - C.'s gratitude to and affection for, 721, 722; - on C.'s opium habit, 761 n.; - 768; - extracts from a letter from John Sterling to, 772 n.; - letters from C., 657, 700, 721, 729, 742. - - Gillman, James, the younger, passes his examination for ordination with - great credit, 755. - - Gillman, Mrs. James (Anne), her faithful friendship for C., 657; - character of, 665; - 679, 684, 685, 702 n., 705, 721, 722, 729, 733; - illness of, 738; - C.'s attachment to, 746; - C.'s gratitude to and affection for, 754; - 764, 774; - letters from C., 690, 745, 754. - - Ginger-tea, 412, 413. - - Glencoe, 413, 440. - - Glen Falloch, 433. - - Gloucester, 72. - - Gnats, 692. - - Godliness, C.'s definition of, 203 n., 204; - St. Peter's paraphrase of, 204. - - Godwin, William, 91, 114; - C.'s sonnet to, 116 n., 117; - lines by Southey to, 120; - his misanthropy, 161, 162; - 161 n., 167; - C.'s book on, 210; - 316, 321; - his _St. Leon_, 324, 325; - a quarrel and reconciliation with C., 457, 464-466; - his _Faulkner: a Tragedy_, 524 and note; - C. accepts his invitation to meet Grattan, 565, 566; - letter from C., 565. - - _Godwin, William: His Friends and Contemporaries_, by Charles Kegan - Paul, 161 n., 324 n., 465 n. - - Godwin, Mrs. William, 465, 466, 566. - - Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, his _Faust_, C.'s proposal to translate, - 624 and note, 625, 626; - his _Zur Farbenlehre_, 699. - - Gosforth, 393. - - Goslar, 272, 273. - - Gttingen, C. proposes to visit, 268-270, 272; - 268 n., 269 n.; - C. calls on Professor Heyne at, 280; - C. enters the University of, 281; - the Saturday Club at, 281; - the gallows near, 294; - C.'s stay at, 281-300. - - Gough, Charles, 369 n. - - Governments as effects and causes, 241. - - Grasmere, 335, 346, 362, 379 n., 394, 405 n., 419, 420; - C. visits and is taken ill there, 447, 448; - C. visits, 533-569. - _See_ Kendal. - - Grattan, Henry, C.'s admiration for, 566. - - Greek Islands, the, 329. - - Greek poetry contrasted with Hebrew poetry, 405, 406. - - Greek Sapphic Ode, _On the Slave Trade_, 43 and note. - - Green, Mr., clerk of the _Courier_, 568 and note. - - Green, Joseph Henry, 605, 632 n.; - his eminence in the surgical profession, 679 n.; - C.'s amanuensis and collaborateur, 679 n.; - C. appoints him his literary executor, 679 n.; - his published works, 679 n., 680 n.; - his character and intellect, 680 n.; - his faithful friendship for C., 680 n.; - his _Spiritual Philosophy, founded on the Teaching of S. T. - Coleridge_, 680 n.; - receives a visit from C. at St. Lawrence, near Maldon, 690-693; - 753 n.; - letters from C., 669, 680, 688, 699, 704, 706, 726, 728, 751, 754, - 767. - - Green, Mrs. Joseph Henry, 691, 692, 699, 705. - - Greenough, Mr., 458 and note. - - Greta, the river, 339. - - Greta Hall, near Keswick, C.'s life at, 335-444; - situation of, 335; - description of 391, 392; - C. urges Southey to make it his home, 391, 392, 394, 395; - Southey at first declines but subsequently accepts C.'s invitation to - settle there, 395 n.; - Southey makes a visit there which proves permanent, 435; - 460 n.; - sold by its owner in C.'s absence, 490, 491; - C.'s last visit to, 575 and note, 576-578; - 724, 725. - _See_ Keswick. - - Grey, Mr., editor of the _Morning Chronicle_, 114. - - "Grinning for joy," 81 n. - - Grisedale Tarn, 547. - - Grose, Judge, 567 and note. - - Grossness _versus_ suggestiveness, 377. - - _Group of Englishmen, A_, by Eliza Meteyard, 269 n., 308 n. - - _Growth of the Individual Mind, On the_, C.'s extempore lecture, 680 and - note, 681. - - Gunning, Henry, his _Reminiscences of Cambridge_, 24 n. - - Gwynne, General, K. L. D., 62. - - - Hmony, Milton's allegorical flower, 406, 407. - - Hague, Charles, 50. - - Hale, Sir Philip, a "titled Dogberry," 232 n. - - Hall, S. C., 257, 745 n. - - Hamburg, 257, 259; - C.'s arrival at, 261; - 268 n. - - Hamilton, a Cambridge man at Gttingen, 281. - - Hamilton, Lady, 637 and note. - - Hamilton, Sir William Rowan, 759 and note, 760. - - _Hamlet, Notes on_, 684 n. - - Hancock's house, 297. - - Hangman and gallows in Germany, 294. - - Hanover, 279, 280. - - _Happiness_, 75 n. - - _Happy Warrior, The_, by Wordsworth, the original of, 494 n. - - Harding, Miss, sister of Mrs. Gillman, 703. - - _Harper's Magazine_, 570 n., 571 n. - - Harris, Mr., 666. - - Hart, Dick, 54. - - Hart, Miss Jane, 7, 8. - - Hart, Miss Sara, 8. - - Hartley, David, 113, 169, 348, 351 n., 428. - - _Haunted Beach, The_, by Mrs. Robinson, 322 n.; - C. struck with, 331, 332. - - Hayes, Mary, 318 and note; - her _Female Biography_, 318 and note; - her correspondence with Lloyd, 322; - C.'s opinion of her intellect, 323. - - Hazlitt, William, supposed to have written the _Edinburgh Review_ - criticism of _Christabel_, 669 and note. - - Hebrew poetry richer in imagination than the Greek, 405, 406. - - Heinse's _Ardinghello_, 683 and note. - - _Helen_, by Maria Edgeworth, 773, 774. - - Helvellyn, 547. - - Henley workhouse, C. nurses a fellow-dragoon in the, 58 and note. - - _Herald, Morning_, its notice of C.'s tragedy, _Remorse_, 603. - - Herbert, George, C.'s love for his poems, 694, 695; - his _Temple_, 694; - his _Flower_, 695. - - _Heretics of the first two Centuries after Christ, History of the_, by - Nathaniel Lardner, D. D., 330. - - Herodotus, 738. - - Hertford, C. a Blue-Coat boy at, 19 and note. - - Hess, Jonas Lewis von, 555 and note. - - Hessey, Mr., of Taylor and Hessey, publishers, 739. - - Hexameters, parts of the Bible and Ossian written in slovenly, 398. - - Heyne, Christian Gottlob, 279; - C. calls on, 280; - 281. - - Higginbottom, Nehemiah, a pseudonym of C.'s, 251 n. - - _Highgate, History of_, by Lloyd, 572 n. - - _Highland Girl, To a_, by Wordsworth, 549. - - Highland lass, a beautiful, 432 and note, 459. - - High Wycombe, 62-64. - - Hill, Mrs. Herbert. _See_ Southey, Bertha. - - Hill, Thomas, 705 and note. - - _History of Highgate_, by Lloyd, 572 n. - - _History of the Abolition of the Slave Trade_, by Thomas Clarkson, C.'s - review of, 527 and note, 528-530, 535, 536. - - _History of the Heretics of the first two Centuries after Christ_, by - Nathaniel Lardner, D. D., 330. - - _History of the Levelling Principle_, proposed, 323, 328 n., 330. - - Hobbes, Thomas, 349, 350. - - Holcroft, Mr., C.'s conversation on Pantisocracy with, 114, 115; - the high priest of atheism, 162. - - _Hold your mad hands!_, a sonnet by Southey, 127 and note. - - Holland, 751. - - Holt, Mrs., 18. - - _Home-Sick, Written in Germany_, quoted, 298. - - Homesickness of C. in Germany, 265, 266, 272, 273, 278, 288, 289, 295, - 296, 298. - - Hood, Thomas, his _Odes to Great People_, 250 n. - - _Hope, an Allegorical Sketch_, by Bowles, 179, 180. - - Hopkinson, Lieutenant, 62. - - Horace, Bentley's Quarto Edition of, 68 and note. - - Hospitality in poverty, 340. - - _Hour when we shall meet again, The_, 157. - - Howe, Admiral Lord, 262 and note. - - Howe, Emanuel Scoope, second Viscount, 262 n. - - Howell, Mr., of Covent Garden, 366 and note. - - Howick, Lord, 507. - - Howley, Miss, 739. - - Huber's _Treatise on Ants_, 712. - - Hucks, J., accompanies C. on a tour in Wales, 74-81; - his _Tour in North Wales_, 74 n., 81 n.; - 76, 77 and note, 81 and note, 306. - - Hume, David, 307, 349, 350. - - Hume, Joseph, M. P., a fermentive virus, 757. - - Hungary, 329. - - _Hunt, Leigh, Autobiography of_, 20 n., 41 n., 225 n., 455 n. - - Hunter, John, 211. - - Hurwitz, Hyman, 667 n.; - his _Israel's Lament_, 681 n. - - Hutchinson, George, 358 and note, 359 n., 360. - - Hutchinson, Joanna, 359 n. - - Hutchinson, John, of Penrith, 358 n. - - Hutchinson, John, of the Middle Temple, 359 n. - - Hutchinson, Mary, marries William Wordsworth, 359 n.; - 367. - - Hutchinson, Sarah, 359 n., 360, 362, 367, 393 n.; - her motherly care of Hartley C., 510; - 511; - C.'s amanuensis, 536 n., 542 n.; - 582, 587, 590 n. - - Hutchinson, Thomas, of Gallow Hill, 359 n., 362. - - Hutton, James, M. D., 153 and note; - his _Investigation of the Principles of Knowledge_, 167. - - Hutton, Lawrence, 570 n. - - Hutton Hall, near Penrith, 296. - - _Hymn before Sunrise in the Vale of Chamouni_, origin of, 404 and 405 - and note. - - - _Ibi Hc Incondita Solus_, by George Coleridge, 43 n. - - Idolatry of modern religion, the, 414, 415. - - Illuminizing, 323, 324. - - _Illustrated London News, The_, 258, 453 n., 497 n., 768 n. - - Imagination, education of the, 16, 17. - - _Imitated from the Welsh_ (a song), 112 and note, 113. - - _Imitations from the Modern Latin Poets_, 67 n., 122. - - Impersonality of the Deity, 444. - - Indolence, a vice of powerful venom, 103, 104. - - Infant, the death of an, 282-287. - - _Infant, who died before its Christening, On an_, 287. - - Ingratitude, C. complains of, 627-631. - - Insincerity, a virtue, 161. - - Instinct, definition of, 712. - - _In the Pass of Killicranky_, by Wordsworth, 458. - - _Ireland, Account of_, by Edward Wakefield, 638. - - _Ireland, View of the State of_, by Edmund Spenser, 638 n. - - Irving, Rev. Edward, 723; - a great orator, 726; - on Southey and Byron, 726; - 741, 742, 744, 748, 752. - - Isaiah, 200. - - _Israel's Lament_, by Hyman Hurwitz, C. translates, 681 and note. - - - Jackson, Mr., owner of Greta Hall, 335, 368, 391, 392, 394, 395, 434, - 460 and note, 461; - godfather to Hartley C., 461 n.; - sells Greta Hall, 491; - Hartley C.'s attachment for, 510. - - Jackson, William, 309 and notes. - - Jackstraws, 462, 468. - - Jacobi, Heinrich Freidrich, 683. - - Jacobinism in England, 642. - - Jardine, Rev. David, 139 and note. - - _Jasper_, by Mrs. Robinson, 322 n. - - Jeffrey, Francis (afterwards Lord), 453 n., 521 n.; - C. accuses him of being unwarrantably severe on him, 527; - 536 n., 538 n.; - C.'s accusation of personal and ungenerous animosity against himself - and his reply thereto, 669 and note, 670; - 735; - his attitude toward Wordsworth's poetry, 742; - letters from C., 527, 528, 534. - See _Edinburgh Review_. - - Jerdan, Mr., of Michael's Grove, Brompton, 727. - - Jesus College, C.'s life at, 22-57, 70-72, 81-129. - - Jews in a German inn, 280. - - _Joan of Arc_, by Southey, 141, 149, 178 and note, 179; - Cottle sells the copyright to Longman, 319. - - John of Milan, 566 n. - - Johnson, J., the bookseller, lends C. 30, 261; - publishes _Fears in Solitude_, for C., 261 and notes, 318; - 321. - - Johnson, Dr. Samuel, on the condition of the mind during stage - representations, 663. - - Johnston, Lady, 731. - - Johnston, Sir Alexander, 730 and note; - C.'s impressions of, 731. - - Josephus, 407. - - - Kant, Immanuel, 204 n., 351 n.; - C.'s opinion of the philosophy of, 681, 682; - his _Kritik der praktischen Vernunft_, 681, 682 and note; - his _Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft_, 682; - valued by C. more as a logician than as a metaphysician, 735; - his _Critique of the Pure Reason_, 735. - - Keats, John, 764 n. - - Keenan, Mr., 309. - - Keenan, Mrs., 309 and note. - - _Kehama, The Curse of_, by Southey, 684. - - Kempsford, Gloucestershire, 267 n. - - Kendal, 447, 451, 452, 535, 575. - _See_ Grasmere. - - Kendall, Mr., a poet, 306. - - Kennard, Adam Steinmetz, 762 n.; - letter from C., 775. - - Kennard, John Peirse, 762 n.; - letter from C., 772. - - Kenyon, Mrs., 639, 640. - - Kenyon, John, 639 n.; - letter from C., 639. - - Keswick, 174 n.; - C. passes through, during his first tour in the Lake Country, 312 n.; - a Druidical circle near, 312 n.; - C.'s house at, 335; - climate of, 361; - 405 n., 530, 535, 724, 725. - _See_ Greta Hall. - - Keswick, the lake of, 335. - - Keswick, the vale of, 312 n., 313 n.; - its beauties, 410, 411. - - Kielmansegge, Baron, and his daughter, Mary Sophia, 263 n. - - Kilmansig, Countess, C. becomes acquainted with, 262, 263. - - King, Mr., 183, 185, 186. - - King, Mrs., 183. - - Kingsley, Rev. Charles, 771 n. - - Kingston, Duchess of, her masquerade costume, 237. - - Kinnaird, Douglas, 666, 667. - - Kirkstone Pass, a storm in, 418-420. - - _Kisses_, 54 n. - - Klopstock, Friedrich Gottlieb, 257; - his _Messias_, 372, 373. - - Knecht, Rupert, 289 n., 290, 291. - - Knight, Rev. William Angus, LL.D., his _Life of William Wordsworth_, - 164 n., 220 n., 447 n., 585 n., 591 n., 596 n., 599 n., 600 n., - 733 n., 759 n. - - Kosciusko, C.'s sonnet to, 116 n., 117. - - Kotzebue's _Count Benyowski, or the Conspiracy of Kamtschatka, a - Tragi-comedy_, 236 and note. - - _Kubla Khan_, when written, 245 n.; - 437 n. - - Kyle, John, the Man of Ross, 77, 651 n. - - - Lake Bassenthwaite, 335, 376 n.; - sunset over, 384. - - Lake Country, the, C. makes a tour of, 312 n., 313; - another tour of, 393 and note, 394; - C.'s last visit to, 575 n. - _See_ Grasmere, Greta Hall, Kendal, Keswick. - - _Lalla Rookh_, by Moore, 672. - - _Lamb, C., To_, 128 and note. - - Lamb, Charles, love of Woolman's Journal, 4 n.; - visit to Nether Stowey, 10 n.; - his _Christ's Hospital Five and Thirty Years Ago_, 20 n.; - a man of uncommon genius, 111; - writes four lines of a sonnet for C., 111, 112 and note; - and his sister, 127, 128; - C.'s lines to, 128 and note; - 163 n.; - correspondence with C. after his (Lamb's) mother's tragic death, 171 - and note; - 182; - extract from a letter to C., 197 n.; - 206 n.; - his _Grandame_, 206 n.; - C.'s poem on Burns addressed to, 206 and note, 207; - extract from a letter to C., 223 n.; - visits C. at Nether Stowey, 224 and note, 225-227; - temporary estrangement from C., 249-253; - his relations to the quarrel between C. and Southey, 304, 312, 320 n.; - visits C. at Greta Hall with his sister, 396 n.; - a Latin letter from, 400 n.; - 405 n., 421, 422, 460 n., 474; - his _Recollections of a Late Royal Academician_, 572 n.; - his connection with the reconciliation of C. and Wordsworth, 586-588, - 594; - on William Blake's paintings, engravings, and poems, 686 n.; - 704; - his _Superannuated Man_, 740; - 744; - his acquaintance with George Dyer, 748 n.; - 751 n., 760; - letter of condolence from C., 171; - other letters from C., 249, 586. - - _Lamb, Charles, Letters of_, 164 n., 171 n., 197 n., 396 n., 400 n., 465 - n., 466 n., 686 n., 748 n. - - _Lamb's Prose Works_, 4 n., 20 n., 25 n., 41 n. - - Lamb, Mary, 127, 128, 226 n.; - visits the Coleridges at Greta Hall with her brother Charles, 396 n.; - becomes worse and is taken to a private madhouse, 422; - 465; - learns from C. of his quarrel with Wordsworth, 590, 591; - endeavors to bring about a reconciliation between C. and Wordsworth, - 594; - 704. - - Lampedusa, island, essay on, 495 and note. - - Landlord at Keswick, C.'s, 335. - _See_ Jackson, Mr. - - Lardner, Nathaniel, D. D., his _Letter on the Logos_, 157; - his _History of the Heretics of the first two Centuries after Christ_, - 330; - on a passage in Josephus, 407. - - Latin essay by C., 29 n. - - Laudanum, used by C. in an attack of neuralgia, 173 and note, 174 and - note, 175-177; - 193, 240, 617, 659. - _See_ Opium. - - Lauderdale, James Maitland, Earl of, 689 and note. - - Law, human as distinguished from divine, 635, 636. - - Lawrence, Miss, governess in the family of Dr. Peter Crompton, 758 n.; - letter from C., 758. - - Lawrence, William, 711 n. - - Lawson, Sir Gilford, 270; - C. has free access to his library, 336; - 392. - - _Lay of the Last Minstrel, The_, by Scott, 523. - - _Lay Sermon_, the second, 669. - - Leach, William Elford, C. meets, 711 and note. - - Lecky, G. F., British Consul at Syracuse, 458; - C. entertained by, 485 n. - - Lectures, C.'s at the Royal Institution, 506 n., 507, 508, 511, 515, - 516, 522, 525; - at the rooms of the London Philosophical Society, 574 and note, 575 - and note; - a proposed course at Liverpool, 578; - preparations for another course in London, 579, 580, 582, 585; - at Willis's Rooms on the Drama, 595 and note, 596, 597, 599; - 602, 604; - an extempore lecture _On the Growth of the Individual Mind_, at the - rooms of the London Philosophical Society, 680 and note, 681; - regarded as a means of livelihood, 694; - on the History of Philosophy, delivered at the Crown and Anchor, - Strand, 698 and note. - - _Lectures on Shakespeare_, 575 n. - - _Lectures on Shakespeare and Other Dramatists_, 756 n. - - Leghorn, 498, 499 and note, 500. - - Le Grice, Charles Valentine, 23, 24; - his _Tineum_, 111 and note; - 225 and note, 325. - - Leibnitz, Gottfried Wilhelm, Baron von, 280, 360, 735. - - Leighton, Robert, Archbishop of Glasgow, his genius and character, 717, - 718; - his orthodoxy, 719; - C. proposes to compile a volume of selections from his writings, 719, - 720; - C. at work on the compilation, which, together with his own comment - and corollaries, is finally published as _Aids to Reflection_, 734 - and note. - - Leslie, Charles Robert, 695 and note; - his pencil sketch of C., 695 n.; - introduces a portrait of C. into an illustration for _The Antiquary_, - 736 and note. - - _Lessing, Life of_, C. proposes to write, 270; - 321, 323, 338. - - Letters, C.'s reluctance to open and answer, 534. - - _Letters from the Lake Poets_, 25 n., 86 n., 267 n., 366 n., 369 n., 527 - n., 534 n., 542 n., 543 n., 705 n. - - Letter smuggling, 459. - - _Letters on the Spaniards_, 629 and note. - - _Letter to a Noble Lord_, by Edmund Burke, 157 and note. - - Leviathan, the man-of-war, 467; - a majestic and beautiful creature, 471, 472; - 477. - - Lewis Monk, his play, _Castle Spectre_, 236 and note, 237, 238, 626. - - _Liberty, the Progress of_, 206. - - Life and death, meditations on, 283-287. - - Life-masks of C., 570 and note. - - _Lime-Tree Bower my Prison, this_, 225 and note, 226 and notes, 227, 228 - n. - - _Lines on a Friend who died of a Frenzy Fever_, 98 and note, 103 n., 106 - and note. - - _Lines to a Friend_, 8 n. - - _Lippincott's Magazine_, 674 n. - - Lisbon, the Rock of, 473. - - _Literary Life._ See _Biographia Literaria_. - - _Literary Remains_, 684 n., 740 n., 756 n., 761 n. - - Literature, a proposed History of British, 425-427, 429, 430. - - Literature as a profession, C.'s opinion of, 191, 192. - - Live nits, 360. - - Liverpool, 578. - - Liverpool, Lord, 665, 674. - - Llandovery, 411. - - Llanfyllin, 79. - - Llangollen, 80. - - Llangunnog, 79. - - Lloyd, Mr., father of Charles, 168, 186. - - Lloyd, Charles, and Woolman's Journal, 4 n.; - goes to live with C., 168-170; - character and genius of, 169, 170; - 184, 189, 190, 192, 205, 206; - his _Poems on the Death of Priscilla Farmer_, 206 n.; - 207 n., 208 n.; - with C. at Nether Stowey, 213; - 238; - a serious quarrel with C., 238, 245 n., 246, 249-253; - his _Edmund Oliver_ drawn from C.'s life, 252 and note; - his relations to the quarrel between C. and Southey, 304; - reading Greek with Christopher Wordsworth, 311; - unworthy of confidence, 311, 312; - his _Edmund Oliver_, 311; - his moral sense warped, 322, 323; - settles at Ambleside, 344; - C. spends a night with him at Bratha, 394; - 563; - his _History of Highgate_, 572 n., 578. - - Llyswen, 234 n., 235 n. - - Loch Katrine, 431, 432 and note, 433. - - Loch Lomond, 431, 432 n., 433, 440. - - Locke, John, C.'s opinion of his philosophy, 349-351, 648; - 713. - - Lockhart, Mr., 756. - - Lodore, the waterfall of, 335, 408. - - Lodore mountains, the, 370. - - _Logic, The Elements of_, 753 n. - - _Logic, The History of_, 753 n. - - _Logos, Letter on the_, by Dr. Nathaniel Lardner, 157. - - London, Bishop of, 739; - his favourable opinion of _Aids to Reflection_, 741. - - London Philosophical Society, C.'s lectures at the rooms of, 574 and - note, 575 and note, 680 n. - - Longman, Mr., the publisher, 319, 321; - on anonymous publications, 324, 325; - 328, 329, 341, 349, 357; - loses money on C.'s translation of _Wallenstein_, 403; - 593. - - Lonsdale, Lord, 538 n., 550, 733 n. - - Losh, James, 219 and note. - - Louis XVI., the death of, 219 and note. - - _Love_, George Dawe engaged on a picture to illustrate C.'s poem, 573. - - _Love and the Female Character_, C.'s lecture, 574 n., 575 and note. - - Lovell, Robert, 75; - C.'s opinion of his poems, 110; - 114; - his _Farmhouse_, 115, 121, 122, 139, 147, 150; - dies, 159 n.; - 317 n. - - _Lovell, Robert, and Robert Southey of Balliol College, Bath, Poems by_, - 107 n. - - Lovell, Mrs. Robert (Mary Fricker), 122, 159 and note, 485. - - _Lover's Complaint to his Mistress, A_, 36. - - _Low was our pretty Cot_, C.'s opinion of, 224. - - Lubec, 274, 275. - - Lucretius, his philosophy and his poetry, 648. - - Luff, Captain, 369 and note, 547. - - _Luise, ein lndliches Gedicht in drei Idyllen_, by Johann Heinrich - Voss, quotation from, 203 n.; - an emphatically original poem, 625; - 627. - - Lneburg, 278. - - Lushington, Mr., 101. - - Luss, 431. - - _Lycon, Ode to_, by Robert Southey, 107 n., 108. - - _Lyrical Ballads_, by Coleridge and Wordsworth, 336, 337, 341, 350 and - note, 387, 607, 678. - - - Macaulay, Alexander, death of, 491. - - Mackintosh, Sir James, his rejected offer to procure a place for C. - under himself in India, 454, 455; - C.'s dislike and distrust of, 454 n., 455 n.; - 596. - - Macklin, Harriet, 751 and note, 764. - - Madeira, 442, 451, 452. - - _Madoc_, by Southey, C. urges its completion and publication, 314, 467; - 357; - C.'s enthusiasm for, 388, 489, 490; - a divine passage of, 463 and note. - - _Mad Ox, The_, 219 n., 327. - - Magee, William, D. D., 761 n. - - _Magnum Opus._ See _Christianity, the one true Philosophy_. - - _Maid of Orleans_, 239. - - Malta, C. plans a trip to, 457, 458; - the voyage to, 469-481; - sojourn at, 481-484, 487-497; - army affairs at, 554, 555. - - Maltese, the, 483 and note, 484 and note. - - Maltese, Regiment, the, 554, 555. - - _Malvern Hills_, by Joseph Cottle, 358. - - Manchester Massacre, the, 702 n. - - Manchineel, 223 n. - - Marburg, 291. - - Margarot, 166, 167 n. - - Markes, Rev. Mr., 310. - - Marriage as a means of ensuring the nature and education of children, - 216, 217. - - Marsh, Herbert, Bishop of Peterborough, his lecture on the authenticity - and credibility of the books collected in the New Testament, 707, - 708. - - Martin, Rev. H., 74 n., 81 n. - - _Mary, the Maid of the Inn_, by Southey, 223. - - Massena, Marshal, defeats the Russians at Zurich, 308 and note. - - Masy, Mr., 40. - - Mathews, Charles, C. hears and sees his entertainment, _At Home_, 704, - 705; - letter from C., 621. - - _Mattathias, The Death of_, by Robert Southey, 108 and note. - - Maurice, Rev. John Frederick Dennison, 771 n. - - Maxwell, Captain, of the Royal Artillery, 493, 495, 496. - - McKinnon, General, 309 n. - - Medea, a subject for a tragedy, 399. - - Meditation, C.'s habits of, 658. - - Medwin, Capt. Thomas, his _Conversations of Lord Byron_, 735 and note. - - Meerschaum pipes, 277. - - _Melancholy, a Fragment_, 396 and note, 397. - - Memory of childhood in old age, 428. - - Mendelssohn, Moses, 203 n., 204 n. - - _Men of the Time_, 317 n. - - Merry, Robert, 86 n. - - Messina, 485, 486. - - Metaphysics, 102, 347-352; - C. proposes to write a book on Locke, Hobbes, and Hume, 349, 350; - in poetry, 372; - effect of the study of, 388; - C.'s projected great work on, 632 and note, 633; - of the German philosophers, 681-683, 735; - 712, 713. - See _Christianity, the One True Philosophy_, Philosophy, Religion. - - Meteyard, Eliza, her _Group of Englishmen_, 269 n., 308 n. - - _Method, Essay on the Science of_, 681 and note. - - Methuen, Rev. T. A., 652 and note. - - _Microcosm_, 43 and note. - - Middleton, H. F. (afterwards Bishop of Calcutta), 23, 25, 32, 33. - - Milman, Henry Hart, 737 and note. - - Milton, John, 164, 197 and note; - a sublimer poet than Homer or Virgil, 199, 200; - the imagery in _Paradise Lost_ borrowed from the Scriptures, 199, 200; - his _Accidence_, 331; - on poetry, 387; - his platonizing spirit, 406, 407; - 678, 734. - - Milton, Lord, 567 and note. - - Mind _versus_ Nature, in youth and later life, 742, 743. - - _Minor Poems_, 317 n. - - _Miscellanies, sthetic and Literary_, 711 n. - - _Miss Rosamond_, by Southey, 108 and note. - - Mitford, Mary Russell, 63 n. - - Molly, 11. - - Monarchy likened to a cockatrice, 73. - - _Monday's Beard, On Mrs._, 9 n. - - Money, Rev. William, 651 n.; - letter from C., 651. - - _Monody on the Death of Chatterton_, 110 n., 158 n., 620 n. - - _Monologue to a Young Jackass in Jesus Piece_, 119 n. - - _Monopolists_, 335 n. - - Montagu, Basil, 363 n., 511 n.; - causes a misunderstanding between C. and Wordsworth, 578, 586-591, - 593, 599, 612; - endeavours to have an associateship of the Royal Society of Literature - conferred on C., 726, 727; - his efforts successful, 728; - 749. - - Montagu, Mrs. Basil, her connection with the quarrel between C. and - Wordsworth, 588, 589, 591, 599. - - _Monthly Magazine_, the, 179 and note, 185, 197, 215, 251 n., 310, 317. - - Moore, Thomas, his _Lalla Rookh_, 672; - his misuse of the possessive case, 672. - - Moors, C.'s opinion of, 478. - - Morality and religion, 676. - - Moreau, Jean Victor, 449 and note. - - Morgan, Mrs., 145, 148. - - Morgan, John James, 524, 526; - a faithful and zealous friend, 580; - C. confides the news of his quarrel with Wordsworth to, 591, 592; - 596, 650, 665; - letter from C., 575. - - Morgan, Mrs. John James, C.'s affection for, 565; - 578, 600, 618, 650, 722 n.; - letter from C., 524. - - Morgan family, the (J. J. Morgan, his wife, and his wife's sister, Miss - Charlotte Brent), C.'s feelings of affection, esteem, and - gratitude towards, 519, 520, 524-526, 565; - C. visits, 566-575 and note, 579-622; - 585; - C. confides the news of his quarrel with Wordsworth to, 591, 592; - C. regards as his saviours, 592; - 600 n.; - with C. at Calne, 641-653; - their faithful devotion to C., 657, 722 n.; - letters from C., 519, 524, 564. - - Mortimer, John Hamilton, 373 and note. - - _Motion of Contentment_, by Archdeacon Paley, 47. - - Motley, J. C., 467-469, 475. - - Mountains, of Portugal, 470, 473; - about Gibraltar, 478. - - Mumps, the, 545 and note. - - Murray, John, 581; - proposes to publish a translation of _Faust_, 624-626; - his connection with the publication of _Zapolya_, 666 and note, - 667-669; - offers C. two hundred guineas for a volume of specimens of Rabbinical - wisdom, 667 n.; - 699 n.; - proposal from C. to compile a volume of selections from Archbishop - Leighton, 717-720; - 723; - his proposal to publish an edition of C.'s poems, 787; - letters from C., 624, 665, 717. - - _Murray, John, Memoirs of_, 624 n., 666 n. - - Music, 49. - - Myrtle, praise of the, 745, 746. - - Mythology, Greek and Roman, contrasted with Christianity, 199, 200. - - - Nanny, 260, 295. - - Naples, 486, 502. - - Napoleon, 308, 327 n., 329 and note; - his animosity against C., 498 n.; - 530 n.; - C.'s cartoon and lines on, 642. - - _Napoleon Bonaparte, Life of_, by Sir Walter Scott, 174 n. - - _Natural Theology_, by William Paley, 424 n., 425 n. - - Nature, her influence on the passions, 243, 244; - Mind and, two rival artists, 742, 743. - - _Natur-philosophen_, C. on the, 682, 683. - - _Navigation and Discovery, The Spirit of_, by William Lisle Bowles, 403 - and note. - - Necessitarianism, the sophistry of, 454. - - Neighbours, 186. - - Nelson, Lady, 637. - - Nelson, Lord, 637 and note. - - Nesbitt, Fanny, C.'s poem to, 56, 57. - - Netherlands, the, 751. - - Nether Stowey, 165 and note; - C. proposes to move to, 184-194; - arrangements for moving to, 209; - settled at, 213; - C.'s description of his place at, 213; - Thelwall urged not to settle at, 232-234; - the curate-in-charge of, 267 n.; - 297, 325, 366; - C.'s last visit to, 405 n.; - 497 n. - - Neuralgia, a severe attack of, 173-177. - - Newcome's (Mr.) School, 7, 25 n. - - Newlands, 393 and note, 411, 725. - - _New Monthly Magazine_, 257. - - Newspapers, freshness necessary for, 568. - - New Testament, the, Bishop March's lecture on the authenticity and - credibility of the books collected in, 707, 708. - - Newton, Mr., 48. - - Newton, Mrs., sister of Thomas Chatterton, 221, 222. - - Newton, Sir Isaac, 352. - - _Nightingale, The, a Conversational Poem_, 296 n. - - _Ninathoma, The Complaint of_, 51. - - Nixon, Miss Eliza, unpublished lines of C. to, 773 n., 774 n.; - letter from C., 773. - - Nobs, Dr. Daniel Dove's horse, in _The Doctor_, 583 and note, 584. - - _No more the visionary soul shall dwell_, 109 and note, 208 n. - - Nordhausen, 273. - - Northcote, Sir Stafford, 15 and note. - - Northmore, Thomas, C. dines with, 306, 307; - an offensive character to the aristocrats, 310. - - North Wales, C.'s tour of, 72-81. - - _Notes on Hamlet_, 684 n. - - _Notes on Noble's Appeal_, 684 n. - - _Notes Theological and Political_, 684 n., 761 n. - - Nottingham, 153, 154, 216. - - Novi, Suwarrow's victory at, 307 and note. - - Nuremberg, 555. - - - Objective, different meanings of the term, 755. - - _Observations on Egypt_, 486 n. - - Ocean, the, by night, 260. - - _Ode in the manner of Anacreon, An_, 35. - - _Ode on the Poetical Character_, by William Collins, 196. - - _Odes to Great People_, by Thomas Hood, 250 n. - - _Ode to Dejection_, 378 and note, 379 and note, 380-384, 405 n. - - _Ode to Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire_, 320 and note, 330. - - _Ode to Lycon_, by Robert Southey, 107 n., 108. - - _Ode to Romance_, by Robert Southey, 107 and note. - - _Ode to the Departing Year_, 212 n.; - C.'s reply to Thelwall's criticisms on, 218 and note; - 221. - - _Ode to the Duchess_, 320 and note, 330. - - _O gentle look, that didst my soul beguile_, a sonnet, 111, 112 and note. - - Ogle, Captain, 63 and note. - - Ogle, Lieutenant, 374 n. - - Ogle, Dr. Newton, Dean of Westminster, his Latin Iambics, 374 and note. - - Oken, Lorenz, his _Natural History_, 736. - - _Old Man in the Snow_, 110 and note. - - _Omniana_, by C. and Southey, 9 n., 554 n., 718 n. - - _On a Discovery made too late_, 92 and note, 123 n. - - _On a late Connubial Rupture_, 179 n. - - _On an Infant who died before its Christening_, 287. - - _Once a Jacobin, always a Jacobin_, 414. - - _On Revisiting the Sea-Shore_, 361 n. - - Onstel, 97 n. - - _On the Slave Trade_, 43 and note. - - Opium, C.'s early use of, and beginning of the habit, 173 and note, 174 - and note, 175; - first recourse to it for the relief of mental distress, 245 n.; - daily quantity reduced, 413; - regarded as less harmful than other stimulants, 413; - 420; - its use discontinued for a time, 434, 435; - anguish and remorse from its abuse, 616-621, 623, 624; - in order to free himself from the slavery, C. arranges to live with - Mr. James Gillman as a patient, 657-659; - a final effort to give up the use of it altogether, 760 and note; - the habit regulated and brought under control, but never entirely done - away with, 760 n., 761 n. - - Oporto, seen from the sea, 469, 470. - - _Orestes_, by William Sotheby, 402, 409, 410. - - Original Sin, C. a believer in, 242. - - _Original Sin, Letter on_, by Jeremy Taylor, 640. - - _Origine de tous les Cultes, ou Religion universelle_, by Charles - Franois Dupuis, 181 and note. - - _Origin, Nature, and Object of the New System of Education_, by Andrew - Bell, D. D., 581 and note, 582. - - _Osorio_, a tragedy, 10 n., 229 and note, 231, 284 n., 603 n. - See _Remorse_. - - Ossian, hexameters in, 398. - - Otter, the river, 14, 15. - - Ottery St. Mary, 6-8, 305 n.; - C. wished by his family to settle at, 325; - C.'s last visit to, 405 n.; - a proposed visit to, 512, 513; - 745 n. - - Owen, William, 425 n. - - _O what a loud and fearful shriek was there_, a sonnet, 116 n., 117. - - Owls, care of, in Germany, 293. - - Oxford University, C.'s feeling towards, 45, 72. - - - Paignton, 305 n. - - _Pain_, a sonnet, 174 n. - - Pain, C. interested in, 341. - - _Pains of Sleep, The_, 435-437 and note. - - Paley, William, Archdeacon of Carlisle, his _Motives of Contentment_, 47; - his _Natural Theology_, 424 and note; - 713. - - Palm, John Philip, his pamphlet reflecting on Napoleon leads to his - trial and execution, 530 and note; - C. translates his pamphlet, 530. - - Pantisocracy, 73, 79, 81, 82, 88-91, 101-103, 109 n., 121, 122, 134, - 135, 138-141, 143-147, 149, 317 n., 748 n. - - _Paradise Lost_, by Milton, its imagery borrowed from the Scriptures, - 199, 200. - - Parasite, a, 705. - - Parliamentary Reform, essay on, 567. - - Parndon House, 506 n., 507, 508. - - Parret, the river, 165. - - Parties, political, in England, 242. - - Pasquin, Antony, 603 and note. - - Patience, 203 and note. - - Patteson, Hon. Mr. Justice, 726 n. - - Paul, Charles Kegan, his _William Godwin: His Friends and - Contemporaries_, 161 n., 324 n., 465 n. - - _Pauper's Funeral_, by Robert Southey, 108 and note, 109. - - _Peace and Union_, by William Friend, 24 n. - - Pearce, Dr., Master of Jesus College, 23, 24, 65, 70-72. - - _Pedlar, The_, former title of Wordsworth's _Excursion_, 337 and note. - - Peel, Sir Robert, 689 n. - - Penche, M. de la, 49. - - Penmaen Mawr, C.'s ascent of, 81 n. - - Penn, William, 539. - - Pennington, W., 541, 542 n., 544. - - Penrith, 420, 421, 547, 548, 575 n. - - Penruddock, 420, 421. - - Perceval, Rt. Hon. Spencer, assassination of, 597, 598 and note. - - Perdita, _see_ Robinson, Mrs. Mary. - - _Peripatetic, The, or Sketches of the Heart, of Nature, and of Society_, - by John Thelwall, 166 and note. - - Perry, James, 114. - - _Perspiration. A Travelling Eclogue_, 73. - - Peterloo, 702 n. - - _Philip Van Artevelde_, by Sir Henry Taylor, 774 and note. - - Phillips, Elizabeth (C.'s half sister), 54 n. - - Phillips, Sir Richard, 317 and note, 325, 327. - - Phillips, Thomas, R. A., 699; - his two portraits of C., 699 and note, 700, 740; - his portrait of William Hart Coleridge, Bishop of Barbadoes and the - Leeward Islands, 740 and note. - - _Philological Museum_, 733 n. - - Philosophy, 648-650; - German, 681-683; - C.'s lectures on the History of, 698 and note. - _See_ Metaphysics _and_ Religion. - - Pickering, W., 579 n. - - _Picture, The: or The Lover's Resolution_, 405 n., 620 n. - - Pinney, Mr., of Bristol, 163 n.; - his estate in the West Indies, 360, 361. - - Pipes, meerschaum, 277. - - Pisa, C.'s stay at, 499 n., 500 n.; - his account of, 500 n. - - Pitt, Rt. Hon. William, C.'s report in the _Morning Post_ of his speech - on the continuance of the war with France, 327 and note; - proposed articles on, 505; - C.'s detestation of, 535 and note; - 629 and note. - - _Pixies' Parlour, The_, 222. - - Plampin, J., 70 and note. - - Plato, his _gorgeous_ nonsense, 211; - his theology, 406. - - Playing-cards, German, 263. - - Pleasure, intoxicating power of, 370. - - Plinlimmon, C.'s ascent of, 81 n. - - _Plot Discovered, The_, 156 and note. - - _Poems by Robert Lovell and Robert Southey of Balliol College, Bath_, - 107 n. - - Poems and fragments of poems introduced by C. into his letters, 28, 35, - 36, 51, 52, 54, 56, 73, 75, 77, 83, 92, 94, 98, 100, 111-113, 207, - 212, 225, 355, 379-384, 388, 389, 397, 404, 412, 435-437, 553, - 609, 620, 642, 646, 702, 770, 771. - - _Poems on the Death of Priscilla Farmer_, by Charles Lloyd, 206 and note. - - _Poetical Character, Ode on the_, by Collins, 196. - - _Poetry, Concerning_, a proposed book, 347, 386, 387. - - Poetry, C. proposes to write an essay on, 338, 347, 386, 387; - Greek and Hebrew, 405, 406. - - Poetry, C.'s, not obscure or mystical, 194, 195. - - Poland, 329. - - Political parties in England, 242. - - Politics, 240-243, 546, 550, 553, 574, 702, 712, 713, 757. - _See_ Democracy, Pantisocracy, Republicanism. - - Poole, Richard, 249. - - Poole, Mrs. Richard, 248. - - Poole, Thomas, contributes to _The Watchman_, 155; - collects a testimonial in the form of an annuity of 35 or 40 for C., - 158 n.; - C.'s gratitude, 158, 159; - C. proposes to visit, 159; - C.'s affection for, 168, 210, 258, 609, 610, 753; - C. proposes to visit him with Charles Lloyd, 170; - C.'s happiness at the prospect of living near, 173; - his connection with C.'s removal to Nether Stowey, 183-193, 208-210; - 213, 219, 220; - his opinion of Wordsworth, 221; - 232 and note, 233, 239, 257, 258, 260, 282 n., 289; - effects a reconciliation between C. and Southey, 390; - 308, 319; - C.'s reasons for not naming his third son after, 344; - death of his mother, 364; - 396, 437 n.; - nobly employed, 453; - his rectitude and simplicity of heart, 454; - 456 n.; - his forgetfulness, 460; - 515, 523; - extract from a letter from C., 533 n.; - a visit to Grasmere proposed, 545; - his narrative of John Walford, 553 and note; - C. complains of unkindness from, 609, 610; - 639 n., 657; - meets C. at Samuel Purkis's, Brentford, 673; - extract from a letter from C. about Samuel Purkis, 673 n.; - autobiographical letters from C., 3-18; - other letters from C., 136, 155, 158, 168, 172, 176, 183-187, 208, - 248, 249, 258, 267, 282, 305, 335, 343, 348, 350, 364, 452, 454, - 541, 544, 550, 556, 609, 673, 753. - - _Poole, Thomas, and his Friends_, by Mrs. Henry Sandford, 158 n., 165 - n., 170 n., 183 n., 232 n., 234 n., 258, 267 n., 282 n., 391 n., - 335 n., 456 n., 533 n., 553 n., 673 n., 676 n. - - Poole, William, 176. - - Pope, the, C. leaves Rome at a warning from, 498 n. - - Pope, Alexander, his _Essay on Man_, 648; - a favorite walk of, 671. - - Pople, Mr., publisher of C.'s tragedy, _Remorse_, 602. - - Porson, Mr., 114, 115. - - Portinscale, 393 and note. - - Portraits of C., crayon sketch by Dawe, 572 and note; - full-length portrait by Allston begun at Rome, 572 and note; - portrait by Allston taken at Bristol, 572 n.; - pencil sketch by Leslie, 695 n.; - two portraits by Thomas Phillips, 699 and note, 700, 740; - Wyville's proofs, 770. - - Portugal, C. on Southey's proposed history of, 387, 388, 423; - the coast of, 469-471, 473. - - Possessive case, Moore's misuse of the, 672. - - _Post, Morning_, 310; - C. writing for, 320 and note, 324, 326, 327 and note, 329 and note; - 331, 335 n., 337, 376, 378 n., 379 n., 398, 404 n., 405, 414, 423, - 455 n.; - Napoleon's animosity aroused by C.'s articles in, 498 n.; - its notice of C.'s tragedy, _Remorse_, 603 n. - - Postage, rates too high, 345. - - _Posthumous Fame_, 29 n. - - Potter, Mr., 97 and note, 106. - - Poverty, in England, 353, 354; - blessings of, 364. - - Pratt, 321. - - _Prelude, The_, by Wordsworth, a reference to C. in, 486 n.; - C.'s lines _To William Wordsworth_ after hearing him recite, 641, 644, - 646, 647 and note; - C.'s admiration of, 645, 647 n. - - Pride, 149. - - Priestley, Joseph, C.'s sonnet to, 116 and note; - his doctrine as to the future existence of infants, 286. - - _Progress of Liberty, The_, 296. - - _Prometheus of schylus, Essay on the_, 740 and note. - - Property, to be modified by the predominance of intellect, 323. - - Pseudonym, [Greek: Estse], 398; - its meaning, 407 and note, 408. - - _Public Characters for 1799-1800_, published by Richard Phillips, 317 n. - - _Puff and Slander_, projected satires, 630 and notes, 631 n. - - Purkis, Samuel, 326, 673 n. - - - Quack medicine, a German, 264. - - _Quaker Family, Records of a_, by Anne Ogden Boyce, 538 n. - - Quaker girl, inelegant remark of a little, 362, 368. - - Quakerism, 415; - C.'s belief in the essentials of, 539-541; - C.'s definition of, 556. - - Quakers, as subscribers to _The Friend_, 556, 557. - - Quakers and Unitarians, the only Christians, 415. - - Quantocks, the, 405 n. - - _Quarterly Review, The_, 606; - its review of _The Letters of Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton_, 637 and - note, 667; - rechoes C.'s praise of Cary's Dante, 677 n.; - its attitude towards C., 697, 723; - John Taylor Coleridge editor of, 736 and notes, 737. - - - _Rabbinical Tales_, 667 and note, 669. - - Racedown, C.'s visit to Wordsworth at, 163 n., 220 and note, 221. - - _Race of Banquo, The_, by Southey, 92 and note. - - Rae, Mr., an actor, 611, 667. - - _Rainbow, The_, by Southey, 108 and note. - - Ramsgate, 700, 722, 729-731, 742-744. - - Ratzeburg, 257; - C.'s stay in, 262-278; - the Amtmann of, 264, 268, 271; - description of, 273-277; - C. leaves, 278; - 292-294. - - "Raw Head" and "Bloody Bones," 45. - - Reading, _see_ Books. - - Reading, Berkshire, 66, 67. - - Reason and understanding, the distinction between, 712, 713. - - _Recluse, The_, a projected poem by Wordsworth of which _The Excursion_ - (q. v.) was to form the second part and to which _The Prelude_ (q. - v.) was to be an introduction, C.'s hopes for, 646, 647 and note, - 648-650. - - _Recollections of a Late Royal Academician_, by Charles Lamb, 572 n. - - _Records of a Quaker Family_, by Anne Ogden Boyce, 538 n. - - Redcliff, 144. - - Redcliff Hill, 154. - - _Reflection, Aids to_, 688 n. - - _Reflections on having left a Place of Retirement_, 606 n. - - Reform Bill, 760, 762. - - Reich, Dr., 734, 736. - - _Rejected Addresses_, by Horace and James Smith, 606. - - Religion, beliefs and doubts of C. in regard to, 64, 68, 69, 88, 105, - 106, 127, 135, 152, 153, 159-161, 167, 171, 172, 198-205, 210, - 211, 228, 229, 235 n., 242, 247, 248, 285, 286, 342, 364, 365, - 407, 414, 415, 444, 538-541, 617-620, 624, 676, 688, 694, 706-712, - 746-748, 750, 754, 758-760, 762, 763, 771, 775, 776. - - _Religious Musings_, 239. - - _Reminiscences of Cambridge_, by Henry Gunning, 24 n., 363 n. - - _Reminiscences of Coleridge and Southey_, by Cottle, 268 n., 269 n., - 417, 456 n., 617 n. - - Remorse, C.'s definition of, 607. - - _Remorse, A Tragedy_ (_Osorio_ rewritten), rehearsal of, 600; - has a brief spell of success, 600 n., 602, 604, 610, 611; - business arrangements as to its publication, 602; - press notices of, 603 and note, 604; - William Gifford's criticism of, 605; - the underlying principle of the plot of, 607, 608; - wretchedly acted, 608, 611; - metres of, 608; - lack of pathos in, 608; - plagiarisms in, 608; - labors occasioned to C. by its production and success, 610; - financial success of, 611; - _Quarterly Review's_ criticism of, 630; - 696. - - Repentance preached by the Christian religion, 201. - - Reporting the debates for the _Morning Post_, 324, 326, 327. - - Republicanism, 72, 79-81, 243. - _See_ Democracy, Pantisocracy. - - _Retrospect, The_, by Robert Southey, 107 and note. - - Revelation, 676. - - Reynell, Richard, 497 and note. - - Rheumatism, C.'s sufferings from, 174 n., 193, 209, 307, 308, 432, 433. - - Rhine, the, 751. - - Richards, George, 41 and note. - - Richardson, Mrs., 145. - - Richter, Jean Paul, his _Vorschule der Aisthetik_, 683 and note. - - Rickman, John, 456 n., 459, 462, 542, 599. - - Ridgeway and Symonds, publishers, 638 n. - - _Robbers, The_, by Schiller, 96 and note, 97, 221. - - Roberts, Margaret, 358 n. - - Robespierre, Maximilian Marie Isidore, 203 n., 329 n. - - _Robespierre, The Fall of_, 85 and note, 87, 93, 104 and notes. - - Robinson, Frederick John (afterwards Earl of Ripon), his Corn Bill, 643 - and note. - - Robinson, Henry Crabb, 225 n., 593, 599, 670 n.; - in old age, 671 n.; - reads William Blake's poems to Wordsworth, 686 n.; - extract from a letter from C. to, 689 n.; - his _Diary_, 225 n., 575 n., 591 n., 595 n., 686 n., 689 n.; - letter from C., 671. - - Robinson, Mrs. Mary ("Perdita"), contributes poems to the _Annual - Anthology_, 322 and note; - her _Haunted Beach_, 331, 332; - her ear for metre, 332. - - Roman Catholicism in Germany, 291, 292. - - _Romance, Ode to_, by Southey, 107 and note. - - Rome, C.'s flight from, 498 n.; - 501, 502. - - _Rosamund, Miss_, by Southey, 108 and note. - - _Rosamund to Henry; written after she had taken the veil_, by Southey, - 108 n. - - Roscoe, William, 359 and note. - - Rose, Sir George, 456 and note. - - _Rose, The_, 54 and note. - - Rose, W., 542. - - Roskilly, Rev. Mr., 267 n., 270; - letter from C., 267. - - Ross, 77. - - Ross, the Man of, 77, 651 n. - - Rossetti, Gabriele, 731 and note, 732, 733. - - Rough, Sergeant, 225 and note. - - Royal Institution, C. obtains a lectureship at the, 506 n., 507, 508, - 511; - an outline of proposed lectures at the, 515, 516, 522; - C.'s lectures at the, 525. - - Royal Society of Literature, the, Basil Montagu's endeavors to secure - for C. an associateship of, 726, 727; - C. an associate of, 728; - 731; - an essay for, 737, 738; - C. reads an _Essay on the Prometheus of schylus_ before, 739, 740. - - Rulers, always as bad as they dare to be, 240. - - Rush, Sir William, 368. - - Rushiford, 358. - - Russell, Mr., of Exeter, C.'s fellow-traveller, 498 n., 500 and note. - - Rustats, 24, 43. - - _Ruth_, by Wordsworth, 387. - - Ruthin, 78. - - - St. Albyn, Mrs., the owner of Alfoxden, 232 n. - - St. Augustine, 375. - - St. Bees, 392, 393. - - St. Blasius, 292. - - St. Clear, 411, 412. - - St. Lawrence, near Maldon, description of, 690-692. - - _St. Leon_, by Godwin, the copyright sold for 400, 324, 325. - - St. Nevis, 360, 361. - - St. Paul's _Epistle to the Hebrews_, 200. - - Salernitanus, 566 and note. - - Salisbury, 53-55. - - Samuel, C.'s dislike of the name, 470, 471. - - Sandford, Mrs. Henry, 183 n.; - her _Thomas Poole and his Friends_, 158 n., 165 n., 170 n., 183 n., - 232 n., 234 n., 258, 267 n., 282 n., 319 n., 335 n., 456 n., 533 - n., 553 n., 673 n., 676 n. - - Saturday Club, the, at Gttingen, 281. - - _Satyrane's Letters_, 257, 274 n., 558. - - Savage, Mr., 534. - - Savory, Mr., 316. - - Scafell, 393, 394; - in a thunderstorm on, 400 and note; - view from the summit of, 400, 401; - suggests the _Hymn before Sunrise in the Vale of Chamouni_, 404 and - note, 405 and note. - - Scale Force, 375. - - Scarborough, 361-363. - - Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von, the philosophy of, 683, 735. - - Schiller, his _Robbers_, 96 and note, 97, 221; - C. translates manuscript plays of, 331; - C.'s translation of his _Wallenstein_, 403, 608. - - Scholarship examinations, 24, 43, 45 and note, 46. - - Schning, Maria Eleanora, the story of, 555 and note, 556. - - Scoope, Emanuel, second Viscount Howe, 262 n. - - Scotland, C.'s tour in, 431-441; - the four most wonderful sights in, 439, 440. - - Scott, an attorney, his manner of revenging himself on C., 310, 311. - - Scott, Sir Walter, his _Life of Napoleon Bonaparte_, 174 n.; - his house in Edinburgh, 439; - takes Hartley C. to the Tower, 511 n.; - his offer to use his influence to get a place for Southey on the staff - of the _Edinburgh Review_, 522 and note, 522; - his _Lay of the Last Minstrel_, 523; - 605, 694; - his _Antiquary_, 736 and note. - - Sea-bathing, 361 n., 362 and note. - - Seasickness, no sympathy for, 743, 744. - - _Sermoni propriora_, 606 and note. - - Shad, 82, 89, 96. - - Shaftesbury, Lord, 689 n. - - _Shakespeare, Lectures on_, 557 n. - - _Shakespeare and other Dramatists, Lectures on_, 756 n. - - Sharp, Richard, 447 n.; - letter from C., 447. - - Shepherds, German, 293. - - _Sheridan, R. B., Esq., To_, 116 n., 118. - - Shrewsbury, C. offered the Unitarian pastorate at, 235 and note, 236. - - _Sibylline Leaves_, 178 n., 378 n., 379 n., 404 n.; - C. ill-used by the printer of, 673, 674; - 678, 770. - - Sicily, C. plans to visit, 457, 458; - C.'s first tour in, 485 and note, 486 and note, 487; - 523. - - Siddons, Mrs., 50. - - Sieys, Abb, 329 and note. - - _Sigh, The_, 100 and note. - - _Simplicity, Sonnet to_, 251 and note. - - Sin, original, C. a believer in, 242. - - Sincerity, regarded by Dr. Darwin as vicious, 161. - - _Sixteen Sonnets_, by Bampfylde, 369 n. - - Skiddaw, 335, 336; - sunset over, 384. - - Skiddaw Forest, 376 n. - - Slavery, question of its introduction into the proposed pantisocratic - colony, 89, 90, 95, 96. - - _Slave Trade, History of the Abolition of the_, by Thomas Clarkson, C.'s - review of, 527 and note, 528-530, 535, 536. - - _Slave Trade, On the_, 43 and note. - - Slee, Miss, 362, 363. - - Sleep, C.'s sufferings in, 435, 440, 441, 447. - - Smerdon, Mrs., 21, 22. - - Smerdon, Rev. Mr., Vicar of Ottery, 22, 106 and note. - - Smith, Charlotte, 326. - - Smith, Horace and James, their _Rejected Addresses_, 606. - - Smith, James, 704. - - Smith, Raphael, 701 n. - - Smith, Robert Percy (Bobus), 43 and note. - - Smith, William, M. P., 506 n., 507 and note. - - Snuff, 691, 692 and note. - - _Social Life at the English Universities_, by Christopher Wordsworth, - 225 n. - - _Something Childish, but Very Natural_, quoted, 294. - - _Song_, 100. - - _Songs of the Pixies_, 222. - - _Sonnet_, an anonymous, 177, 178. - - _Sonnet composed on a journey homeward, the author having received - intelligence of the birth of a son_, 194 and note, 195. - - Sonnets, 111, 112, and note; - to Priestley, 116 and note; - to Kosciusko, 116 n., 117; - to Godwin, 116 n., 117; - to Sheridan, 116 n., 117, 118; - to Burke, 116 n., 118; - to Southey, 116 n., 120; - a selection of, privately printed by C., 177, 206 and note; - by "Nehemiah Higginbottom," 251 n. - - _Sonnets, Sixteen_, by Bampfylde, 309 n. - - _Sonnet to Simplicity_, 251 and note. - - _Sonnet to the Author of the Robbers_, 96 n. - - Sorrel, James, 21. - - Sotheby, William, C. translates Gesner's _Erste Schiffer_ at his - instance, 369, 371, 372, 376-378, 397, 402, 403; - his translation of the Georgics of Virgil, 375; - his _Poems_, 375; - his _Netley Abbey_, 396; - his _Welsh Tour_, 396; - his _Orestes_, 402, 409, 410; - proposes a fine edition of _Christabel_, 421, 422; - 492, 579, 595 n., 604, 605; - letters from C., 369, 376, 396-408. - - Sotheby, Mrs. William, 369, 375, 378. - - Soul and body, 708, 709. - - South Devon, 305 n. - - Southey, Lieutenant, 563. - - Southey, Bertha, daughter of Robert S., born, 546, 547 and note, 578. - - Southey, Catharine, daughter of Robert S., 578. - - Southey, Rev. Charles Cuthbert, his _Life and Correspondence of Robert - Southey_, 308 n., 309 n., 327 n., 329 n., 384 n., 395 n., 400 n., - 425 n., 488 n., 521 n., 584 n., 748 n.; - on the date of composition of _The Doctor_, 583 n. - - Southey, Edith, daughter of Robert S., 578. - - Southey, Dr. Henry, 615 and note. - - Southey, Herbert, son of Robert S., 578; - his nicknames, 583 n. - - Southey, Margaret, daughter of Robert S., born, 394 n., 395 n.; - dies, 435 n. - - Southey, Mrs. Margaret, mother of Robert S., 138, 147. - - Southey, Robert, his and C.'s _Omniana_, 9 n., 554 n., 718 n.; - his _Botany Bay Eclogues_, 76 n., 116; - proposed emigration to America with a colony of pantisocrats, 81, 82, - 89-91, 95, 96, 98, 101-103; - his sonnets, 82, 83, 92, 108; - his connection with C.'s engagement to Miss Sarah Fricker, 84-86, 126; - his _Race of Banquo_, 92 and note; - 97 n.; - his _Retrospect_, 107 and note; - his _Ode to Romance_, 107 and note; - his _Ode to Lycon_, 107 n., 108; - his _Death of Mattathias_, 108 and note; - his sonnets, _To Valentine_, _The Fire_, _The Rainbow_, 108 and notes; - his _Rosamund to Henry_, 108 and notes; - his _Pauper's Funeral_, 108 and note, 109; - his _Chapel Bell_, 110 and note; - C. prophesies fame for, 110; - his _Elegy_, 115; - C.'s sonnet to, 116 n., 120; - lines to Godwin, 120; - suggestion that the proposed colony of pantisocrats be founded in - Wales, 121, 122; - his sonnet, _Hold your mad hands!_, 127 and note; - his abandonment of pantisocracy causes a serious rupture with C., - 134-151; - marries Edith Fricker, 137 n.; - his _Joan of Arc_, 141, 149, 178 and note, 210, 319; - 163 n.; - the poet for the patriot, 178; - 198 and note; - his verses to a college cat, 207; - C. compares his poetry with his own, 210; - personal relations with C. after the partial reconciliation, 210, 211; - his exertions in aid of Chatterton's sister, 221, 222; - his _Mary the Maid of the Inn_, 223; - C.'s _Sonnet to Simplicity_ not written with reference to, 251 and - note; - a more complete reconciliation with C., 303, 304; - visits C. at Stowey with his wife, 304; - C., with his wife and child, visits him at Exeter, 305 and note; - accompanies C. on a walking tour in Dartmoor, 305 and note; - his _Specimens of the Later English Poets_, 309 n.; - his _Madoc_, 314, 357, 388, 463 and note, 467, 489, 490; - his _Thalaba the Destroyer_, 314, 319, 324, 357, 684; - out of health, 314; - C. suggests his removing to London, 315; - George Dyer's article on, 317 and note; - _The Devil's Thoughts_, written in collaboration with C., 318; - 320 n.; - thinks of going abroad for his health, 326, 329, 360, 361; - an advocate of the establishment of Protestant orders of Sisters of - Mercy, 327 n.; - proposes the establishment of a magazine with signed articles, 328 n.; - extract from a letter to C. on the condition of France, 329 n.; - C. begs him to make his home at Greta Hall, 354-356, 362, 391, 392, - 394, 395; - 367, 379 n.; - his proposed history of Portugal, 387, 388, 423; - secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequer for Ireland for a short - time, 390 and note; - birth of his first child, Margaret, 394 n., 395 n.; - his admiration of Bowles and its effect on his poems, 396; - 400 n.; - his prose style, 423; - his proposed bibliographical work, 428-430; - makes a visit to Greta Hall which proves permanent, 435; - death of his little daughter, Margaret, 435 and note, 437; - his first impressions of Edinburgh, 438 n.; - 442; - on Hartley and Derwent Coleridge, 443; - 460, 463, 468, 484, 488 n.; - poverty, 490; - his _Wat Tyler_, 507 n.; - declines an offer from Scott to secure him a place on the staff of the - _Edinburgh Review_, 521 and note; - 542 n.; - extract from a letter to J. N. White, 545 n.; - on the mumps, 545 n.; - 546; - birth of his daughter Bertha, 546, 547 and note; - 548; - corrects proofs of _The Friend_, 551 and note; - 575; - C.'s love and esteem for, 578; - his family in 1812, 578; - C.'s estimate of, 581; - on the authorship of _The Doctor_, 583 n., 584 n.; - 585; - C. states his side of the quarrel with Wordsworth in conversation - with, 592; - 604, 609 n., 615, 617 n.; - writes of his friend John Kenyon, 639 n.; - his protection of C.'s family, 657; - C.'s letter introducing Mr. Ludwig Tieck, 670; - his _Curse of Kehama_, 684; - 694, 718, 724; - his _Book of the Church_, 724; - 726; - his acquaintance with George Dyer, 748 n.; - letters from C., 72-101, 106-121, 125, 134, 137, 221, 251 n., 303, - 307-332, 354-361, 365, 384, 393, 415, 422-430, 434, 437, 464, - 469, 487, 520, 554, 597, 605, 670; - letter to Miss Sarah Fricker, 107 n. - See _Annual Anthology_, the, edited by Southey. - - _Southey, Robert, Life and Correspondence of_, by Rev. Charles Cuthbert - Southey, 108 n., 308 n., 309 n., 327 n., 329 n., 384 n., 395 n., - 400 n., 425 n., 488 n., 521 n., 584 n., 736 n., 748 n. - - _Southey, Robert, Selections from Letters of_, 305 n., 438 n., 447 n., - 543 n., 545 n., 583 n., 584 n., 736 n. - - _Southey, Robert, of Balliol College, Bath, Poems by Robert Lovell and_, - 107 n. - - Southey, Mrs. Robert (Edith Fricker), Southey's sonnet to, 127 and note; - 384, 385, 390-392; - birth of her first child, Margaret, 394 n., 395 n.; - 484; - birth of her daughter Bertha, 546, 547 and note; - 592. - - Southey, Thomas, 108 n., 109 n., 147; - a midshipman on the Sylph at the time of her capture, 308 and note. - - South Molton, 5. - - _Spade of a Friend (an Agriculturist), To the_, by Wordsworth, in honor - of Thomas Wilkinson, 538 n. - - Spaniards, C.'s opinion of, 478. - - _Spaniards, Letters on the_, 629 and note. - - Sparrow, Mr., head-master of Newcome's Academy, 24, 25 n. - - _Specimens of the Later English Poets_, by Southey, 309 n. - - _Spectator_, Addison's, studied by C. in connection with _The Friend_, - 557, 558. - - Speedwell, the brig, 467; - on board, 469-481. - - Spenser, Edmund, his _View of the State of Ireland_, 638 and note; - quotation from, 694. - - Spillekins, 462, 468. - - Spinoza, Benedict, 632. - - _Spirit of Navigation and Discovery, The_, by William Lisle Bowles, 403 - and note. - - _Spiritual Philosophy, founded on the Teaching of S. T. Coleridge_, by - J. H. Green, with memoir of the author's life, by Sir John Simon, - 680 n. - - Spurzheim, Johann Kaspar, his life-mask and bust of C., 570 n. - - Stage, illusion of the, 663. - - _Stamford News_, 567 n. - - Stanger, Mrs. Joshua (Mary Calvert), 345 n. - - _Stanzas written in my Pocket Copy of Thomson's Castle of Indolence_, by - Wordsworth, 345 n. - - Steam vessels, 730 and note, 743. - - Steffens, Heinrich, 683. - - Steinburg, Baron, 279. - - Steinmetz, Adam, C.'s letter to his friend, John Peirse Kennard, after - his death, 762; - his character and amiable qualities, 763, 764, 775. - - Steinmetz, John Henry, 762 n. - - Stephen, Leslie, on C.'s study of Kant, 351 n. - - Stephens (Stevens), Launcelot Pepys, 25 and note. - - _Sterling, Life of_, by Carlyle, 771 n., 772 n. - - Sterling, John, his admiration for C., 771 n., 772 n.; - letter from C., 771. - - _Sternbald's Wanderungen_, by Ludwig Tieck, 683 and note. - - Stevens (Stephens), Launcelot Pepys, 25 and note. - - Stoddart, Dr. (afterwards Sir) John, 477 and note, 481, 508; - detains C.'s books and MSS., 523; - 524. - - Stoke House, C. visits the Wedgwoods at, 673 n. - - Storm, on a mountain-top, 339, 340; - with lightning in December, 365, 366; - on Scafell, 400 and note; - in Kirkstone Pass, 418-420. - - Stowey, _see_ Nether Stowey. - - Stowey Benefit Club, 233. - - Stowey Castle, 225 n. - - Street, Mr., editor of the _Courier_, 506, 533, 567, 568, 570, 616, 629, - 634; - his unsatisfactory conduct of the _Courier_, 661, 662. - - Strutt, Mr., 152, 153. - - Strutt, Edward (Lord Belper), 215 n. - - Strutt, Joseph, 215 n., 216, 367. - - Strutt, Mrs. Joseph, 216. - - Strutt, William, 215 and note. - - Stuart, Miss, a personal reminiscence of C. by, 705 n. - - Stuart, Daniel, proprietor and editor of the _Morning Post_ and - _Courier_, 311, 315; - engages C. for the _Morning Post_, 319, 320; - 321, 329; - engages lodgings in Covent Garden for C., 366 n.; - on C.'s dislike of Sir James Mackintosh, 454 n., 455 n.; - 458, 468, 474, 486 n., 507, 508, 519, 520, 542, 543 n.; - a friend of Dr. Henry Southey, 615 n.; - his steadiness and independence of character, 660; - his public services, 660; - his knowledge of men, 660; - letters from C., 475, 485, 493, 501, 505, 533, 545, 547, 566, 595, - 615, 627, 634, 660, 663, 740. - See _Courier_ and _Post, Morning_. - - Stutfield, Mr., amanuensis and disciple of C., 753 and note. - - Sugar, beet, 299 and note. - - _Sun, The_, 633. - - Sunset in the Lake Country, a, 384. - - Supernatural, C.'s essay on the, 684. - - Superstitions of the German bauers, 291, 292, 294. - - Suwarrow, Alexander Vasilievitch, 307 and note. - - Swedenborg, Emanuel, his _De Cultu et Amore Dei_, 684 n.; - his _De Coelo et Inferno_, 684 n.; - 688, 729, 730. - - Swedenborgianism, C. and, 684 n. - - Swift, Jonathan, his _Drapier_ Letters, 638 and note. - - Sylph, the gun-brig, capture of, 308 n. - - Sympathy, C.'s craving for, 696, 697. - - _Synesius_, by Canterus, 67 and note, 68. - - Syracuse, Sicily, 458; - C.'s visit to, 485 n., 486 n. - - - _Table Talk_, 81 n., 440 n., 624 n., 633 n., 684 n., 699 n., 756 n., - 763 n., 764 n. - - _Table Talk and Omniana_, 9 n., 554 n., 571 n., 718 n., 764 n. - - Tatum, 53, 54. - - Taunton, 220 n.; - C. preaches for Dr. Toulmin in, 247. - - Taxation, C.'s Essay on, 629 and note. - - Taxes, 757. - - Taylor, Sir Henry, his _Philip Van Artevelde_, 774 and note. - - Taylor, Jeremy, his _Dissuasion from Popery_, 639; - his _Letter on Original Sin_, 640; - a complete man, 640, 641. - - Taylor, Samuel, 9. - - Taylor, William, 310; - on double rhymes in English, 332; - 488, 489. - - Tea, 412, 413, 417. - - Temperance, suggestions as to the furtherance of the cause of, 767-769. - - _Temple, The_, by George Herbert, 694. - - Teneriffe, 414, 417. - - Terminology, C. wishes to form a better, 755. - - _Thalaba the Destroyer_, by Southey, 414; - C.'s advice as to publishing, 319; - 324, 357, 684. - - _The Hour when we shall meet again_, 157. - - Thelwall, John, his radicalism, 159, 160; - his criticisms of C.'s poetry, 163, 164, 194-197, 218; - on Burke, 166; - his _Peripatetic, or Sketches of the Heart, of Nature, and of - Society_, 166 and note; - his _Essay on Animal Vitality_, 179, 212; - his _Poems_, 179, 197; - his contemptuous attitude towards the Christian Religion, 198-205; - two odes by, 218; - C. criticises a poem and a so-called sonnet by, 230; - C. advises him not to settle at Stowey, 232-234; - letter to Dr. Crompton on the Wedgwood annuity, 234 n.; - extract from a letter from C. on the Wedgwood annuity, 235 n.; - letters from C., 159, 166, 178, 193, 210, 214, 228-232. - - Thelwall, Mrs. John (Stella, first wife of preceding), 181, 205, 206 n., - 207, 214. - - Theology, C.'s great interest in, 406; - C.'s projected great work on, 632 and note, 633. - - _Theory of Life_, 711 n. - - _The piteous sobs which choke the virgin's breast_, a sonnet by C., 206 - n. - - _This Lime-Tree Bower my Prison_, 225 and note, 226 and notes, 227, 228 - n. - - Thompson, James, 343 and note. - - Thornycroft, Hamo, R. A., 570 n.; - his bust of C., 695 n. - - _Thou gentle look, that didst my soul beguile_, see _O gentle look_, etc. - - _Though king-bred rage with lawless tumult rude_, a sonnet, 116 and note. - - Thought, a rule for the regulation of, 244, 245. - - _Three Graves, The_, 412 and note, 551, 606. - - Thunder-storm, in December, 365, 366; - on Scafell, 400 and note. - - Tieck, Ludwig, a letter of introduction from C. to Southey, 670; - two letters to C. from, 670 n.; - 671, 672, 680; - his _Sternbald's Wanderungen_, 663 and note; - 699. - - _Times, The_, 327 n.; - its notice of C.'s tragedy _Remorse_, 603 and note. - - _Tineum_, by C. Valentine Le Grice, 111 and note. - - Tiverton, 56. - - _To a Friend, together with an Unfinished Poem_, 128 n., 454 n. - - _To a friend who had declared his intention of writing no more poetry_, - 206 n. - - _To a Gentleman_, 647 n. - See _To William Wordsworth_. - - _To a Highland Girl_, by Wordsworth, 459. - - _To a Young Ass; its mother being tethered near it_, 119 and note, 120, - 606 and note. - - _To a Young Lady, with a Poem on the French Revolution_, 94 and note. - - _To a Young Man of Fortune who had abandoned himself to an indolent and - causeless melancholy_, 207 and note, 208 and note. - - Tobin, Mr., his habit of advising 474, 475. - - Tobin, James, 460 n. - - Tobin, John, 460 n. - - _To Bowles_, 111 and note. - - _To Disappointment_, 28. - - Tomalin, J., his _Shorthand Report of Lectures_, 11 n., 575 n. - - _To Matilda Betham. From a Stranger_, 404 n. - - Tomkins, Mr., 397, 402, 403. - - _To my own Heart_, 92 n. - - Tooke, Andrew, 455 n.; - his _Pantheon_, 455 and note. - - Tooke, Horne, 218. - - _To one who published in print what had been intrusted to him by my - fireside_, 252 n. - - Torbay, 305 n. - - _To R. B. Sheridan, Esq._, 116 n., 118. - - _To the Spade of a Friend (an Agriculturist)_, by Wordsworth, in honor - of Thomas Wilkinson, 538 n. - - Totness, 305. - - Toulmin, Rev. Dr., 220 n.; - tragic death of his daughter, 247, 248. - - _Tour in North Wales_, by J. Hucks, 74 n., 81 n. - - _Tour over the Brocken_, 257. - - _Tour through Parts of Wales_, by William Sotheby, 396. - - _To Valentine_, by Southey, 108 and note. - - Towers, 321. - - _To William Wordsworth_, 641, 644; - C. quotes from, 646, 647; - 647 n. - - Treaty of Vienna, 615 and note. - - Trossachs, the, 431, 432, 440. - - Tuckett, G. L., 57 n.; - letter from C., 57. - - Tulk, Charles Augustus, 684 n.; - letters from C., 684, 712. - - Turkey, 329. - - Turner, Sharon, 425 n., 593. - - _Two Founts, The_, 702 n. - - _Two Round Spaces on a Tombstone, The_, the hero of, 455. - - _Two Sisters, To_, 702 n. - - Tychsen, Olaus, 398 and note. - - Tyson, T., 393. - - - Ulpha Kirk, 393. - - Understanding, as distinguished from reason, 712, 713. - - Unitarianism, 415, 758, 759. - - Upcott, C. visits Josiah Wedgwood at, 308. - - Usk, the vale of, 410. - - - _Valentine, To_, by Southey, 108 and note. - - Valetta, Malta, C.'s visit to, 481-484, 487-497. - - Valette, General, 484; - given command of the Maltese Regiment, 554, 555. - - Vane, Sir Frederick, his library, 296. - - _Velvet Cushion, The_, by Rev. J. W. Cunningham, 651 and note. - - Vienna, Treaty of, 615 and note. - - Violin-teacher, C.'s, 49. - - Virgil's _neid_, Wordsworth's unfinished translation of, 733 and note, - 734. - - Virgil's _Georgics_, William Sotheby's translation, 375. - - _Visions of the Maid of Orleans, The_, 192, 206. - - Vital power, definition of, 712. - - Vogelstein, Karl Christian Vogel von, a letter of introduction from - Ludwig Tieck to C., 670 n. - - Von Axen, Messrs. P. and O., 269 n. - - Voss, Johann Heinrich, his _Luise_, 203 n., 625, 627; - his _Idylls_, 398. - - Voyage to Malta, C.'s, 469-481. - - - Wade, Josiah, 137 n., 145, 151 n., 152 n., 191, 288; - publication by Cottle of Coleridge's letter of June 26, 1814, to, 616 - n., 617 n.; - letters from C., 151, 623. - - Waithman, a politician, 598. - - Wakefield, Edward, his _Account of Ireland_, 638. - - Wales, proposed colony of pantisocrats in, 121, 122, 140, 141. - - _Wales, Tour through Parts of_, by William Sotheby, 396. - - Wales, North, C.'s tour of, 72-81. - - Wales, South, C.'s tour of, 410-414. - - Walford, John, Poole's narrative of, 553 and note. - - Walker, Thomas, 162. - - Walk into the country, a, 32, 33. - - _Wallenstein_, by Schiller, C.'s translation of, 403, 608. - - Wallis, Mr., 498-500, 523. - - Wallis, Mrs., 392. - - _Wanderer's Farewell to Two Sisters, The_, 722 n. - - Ward, C. A., 763 n. - - Ward, Thomas, 170 n. - - Wardle, Colonel, leads the attack on the Duke of York in the House of - Commons, 543 and note. - - Warren, Parson, 18. - - Wastdale, 393, 401. - - _Watchman, The_, 57 n.; - C.'s tour to procure subscribers for, 151 and note, 152-154; - 155-157; - discontinued, 158; - 174 n., 611. - - Watson, Mrs. Henry, 698 n., 702 n. - - _Wat Tyler_, by Southey, 506 n. - - Wedgwood, Josiah, 260, 261, 268, 269 n.; - visit from C. at Upcott, 308; - his temporary residence at Upcott, 308 n.; - 337 n., 350, 351 and note, 416 n.; - withdraws his half of the Wedgwood annuity from C., 602, 611 and note; - C.'s regard and love for, 611, 612. - - Wedgwood, Josiah and Thomas, settle on C. an annuity for life of 150, - 234 and note, 235 and note; - 269 n., 321. - - Wedgwood, Miss Sarah, 412, 416, 417. - - Wedgwood, Thomas, 323, 379 n.; - with C. in South Wales, 412, 413; - his fine and subtle mind, 412; - proposes to pass the winter in Italy with C., 413, 414, 418; - 415, 416; - a genuine philosopher, 448, 449; - C.'s gratitude towards, 451; - 456 n., 493; - C.'s love for, mingled with fear, 612; - letter from C., 417. - - Welles, A., 462. - - Wellesley, Marquis of, 674. - - Welsh clergyman, a, 79, 80. - - Wensley, Miss, an actress, and her father, 704. - - Wernigerode Inn, 298 n. - - West, Mr., 633. - - Whitbread, Samuel, 598. - - White, Blanco, 741, 744. - - White, J. N., extract from a letter from Southey, 545 n. - - White Water Dash, 375 and note, 376 n. - - Wilberforce, William, 535. - - Wilkie, Sir David, his portraits of Hartley C., 511 n.; - his _Blind Fiddler_, 511 n. - - Wilkinson, Thomas, 538 n.; - letter from C., 538. - - Will, lunacy or idiocy of the, 768. - - Williams, Edward (Iolo Morgangw), 162 and note. - - Williams, John ("Antony Pasquin"), 603 n. - - Wilson, Mrs., housekeeper for Mr. Jackson of Greta Hall, 461 and note, - 491; - Hartley C.'s attachment for, 510. - - Wilson, Professor, 756. - - Windy Brow, 346. - - _Wish written in Jesus Wood, February 10, 1792, A_, 35. - - _With passive joy the moment I survey_, an anonymous sonnet, 177, 178. - - _With wayworn feet, a pilgrim woe-begone_, a sonnet by Southey, 127 and - note. - - Wolf, Freiherr Johann Christian von, 735. - - Wollstonecraft, Mary, 316, 318 n., 321. - - Woodlands, 271. - - Woolman, John, 540. - - _Woolman, John, the Journal of_, 4 and note. - - Worcester, 154. - - Wordsworth, Catherine, 563. - - Wordsworth, Rev. Christopher, D. D., 225 n.; - Charles Lloyd reads Greek with, 311. - - Wordsworth, Rev. Christopher, M. A., his _Social Life at the English - Universities in the Eighteenth Century_, 225 n. - - Wordsworth, Rt. Rev. Christopher, D. D., his _Memoirs of William - Wordsworth_, 432 n., 585 n. - - Wordsworth, Dorothy, 10 n.; - C.'s description of, 218 n.; - visits C. with her brother, 224-227; - 228, 231, 245 n., 249; - goes to Germany with William Wordsworth, Coleridge, and John Chester, - 259; - with her brother at Goslar, 272, 273; - returns with him to England, 288, 296; - 311 n., 346, 367, 373, 385; - accompanies her brother and C. on a tour in Scotland, 431, 432 and - note; - 577, 599 n. - - Wordsworth, John, son of William W., 545. - - Wordsworth, Captain John, and the effect of his death on C.'s spirits, - 494 and note, 495 and note, 497. - - Wordsworth, Thomas, death of, 599 n.; - C.'s love of, 600. - - Wordsworth, William, 10 n., 163 and note, 164 and note, 218 n.; - visit from C. at Racedown, 220 and note, 221; - greatness of, 221, 224; - settles at Alfoxden, near Stowey, 224; - at C.'s cottage, 224-227; - C. visits him at Alfoxden, 227; - 228, 231, 232; - suspected of conspiracy against the government, 232 n., 233; - memoranda scribbled on the outside sheet of a letter from C., 238 n.; - his greatness and amiability, 239; - his _Excursion_, 244 n., 337 n., 585 n., 641, 642, 645-650; - 245; - C.'s admiration for, 246; - 250 n.; - accompanies C. to Germany, 259; - 268, 269 n.; - considers settling near the Lakes, 270; - 271; - at Goslar with his sister, 272, 273; - an _Epitaph_ by, 284; - returns to England, 288, 296; - wishes C. to live near him in the North of England, 296; - his grief at C.'s refusal, 296, 297; - 304, 313; - his and C.'s _Lyrical Ballads_, 336, 337, 341, 350 and note, 387; - his admiration for _Christabel_, 337; - 338, 342; - proposal from William Calvert in regard to sharing his house and - studying chemistry with him, 345, 346; - his _Stanzas written in my Pocket Copy of Thomson's Castle of - Indolence_, 345 n.; - 348, 350; - marries Miss Mary Hutchinson, 359 n.; - 363, 367, 370, 373; - his opinion of poetic license, 373-375; - C. addresses his _Ode to Dejection_ to, 378 and note, 379 and note, - 380-384; - 385-387; - his _Ruth_, 387; - 400, 418, 428; - with C. on a Scotch tour, 431-434; - his _Peter Bell_, 432 and note; - 441, 443; - receives a visit at Grasmere from C., who is taken ill there, 447; - his hypochondria, 448; - his happiness and philosophy, 449, 450; - a most original poet, 450; - 451; - his _To a Highland Girl_, 459; - 464, 468; - his reference to C. in _The Prelude_, 386 n.; - 452; - his _Brothers_, 494 n., 609 n.; - his _Happy Warrior_, 494 n.; - extract from a letter to Sir George Beaumont on John Wordsworth's - death, 494 n.; - 511 and note, 522; - his essays on the Convention of Cintra, 534 and note, 543 and note, - 548-550; - 535; - his _To the Spade of a Friend_, 558 n.; - 543 and note, 546, 522, 553 n., 556; - C.'s misunderstanding with, 576 n., 577, 578, 586-588, 612; - his _Essays upon Epitaphs_, 585 and note; - a long-delayed explanation from C., 588-595; - reconciled with C., 596, 597, 599, 612; - death of his son Thomas, 599 n.; - second rupture with C., 599 n., 600 n.; - his projected poem, _The Recluse_, 646, 647 and note, 648-650; - 678; - on William Blake as a poet, 686 n.; - his unfinished translation of the _neid_, 733 and note, 734; - felicities and unforgettable lines and stanzas in his poems, 734; - influence of the _Edinburgh Review_ on the sale of his works in - Scotland, 741, 742; - 759 n.; - letters from C., 234, 588, 596, 599, 643, 733. - - _Wordsworth, William, Life of_, by Rev. William Angus Knight, LL. D., - 164 n., 220 n., 447 n., 585 n., 591 n., 596 n., 599 n., 600 n., - 733 n., 759 n. - - _Wordsworth, William, Memoirs of_, by Christopher Wordsworth, 432 n., - 550 n., 585 n. - - _Wordsworth, William, To_, 641, 644; - C. quotes from, 646, 647; - 647 n. - - Wordsworth, Mrs. William, extract from a letter to Sara Coleridge, 220; - 525. - _See_ Hutchinson, Mary. - - Wordsworths, the, visit from C. and his son Hartley at Coleorton - Farmhouse, 509-514; - 545; - letter from C., 456. - - Wrangham, Francis, 363 and note. - - Wrexham, 77, 78. - - Wright, Joseph, A. R. A. (Wright of Derby), 152 and note. - - Wright, W. Aldis, 174 n. - - Wynne, Mr., an old friend of Southey's, 639 n. - - Wyville's proofs of C.'s portrait, 770. - - - Yarmouth, 258, 259. - - Yates, Miss, 39. - - Yews near Brecon, 411. - - York, Duke of, 543 n., 555 n., 567 and note. - - Young, Edward, 404. - - _Youth and Age_, 730 n. - - - _Zapolya: A Christmas Tale, in two Parts_, its publication in book form - after rejection by the Drury Lane Committee, 666 and note, 667-669. - - - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[1] Pickering, 1838. - -[2] The Journal of John Woolman, the Quaker abolitionist, was published in -Philadelphia in 1774, and in London in 1775. From a letter of Charles -Lamb, dated January 5, 1797, we may conclude that Charles Lloyd had, in -the first instance, drawn Coleridge's attention to the writings of John -Woolman. Compare, too, _Essays of Elia_, "A Quakers' Meeting." "Get the -writings of John Woolman by heart; and love the early Quakers." _Letters -of Charles Lamb_, 1888, i. 61; _Prose Works_, 1836, ii. 106. - -[3] I have been unable to trace any connection between the family of -Coleridge and the Parish or Hundred of Coleridge in North Devon. -Coldridges or Coleridges have been settled for more than two hundred years -in Doddiscombsleigh, Ashton, and other villages of the Upper Teign, and to -the southwest of Exeter the name is not uncommon. It is probable that at -some period before the days of parish registers, strangers from Coleridge -who had settled farther south were named after their birthplace. - -[4] Probably a mistake for Crediton. It was at Crediton that John -Coleridge, the poet's father, was born (Feb. 21, 1718) and educated; and -here, if anywhere, it must have been that the elder John Coleridge "became -a respectable woollen-draper." - -[5] John Coleridge, the younger, was in his thirty-first year when he was -matriculated as sizar at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, March 18, 1748. -He is entered in the college books as _filius Johannis textoris_. On the -13th of June, 1749, 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. His mother came from -the neighbourhood, and several of his father's scholars, among them -Francis Buller, afterwards the well-known judge, followed him from South -Molton to Ottery St. Mary. - -[6] George Coleridge was Chaplain Priest, and Master of the King's School, -but never Vicar of Ottery St. Mary. - -[7] Anne ("Nancy") Coleridge died in her twenty-fifth year. Her illness -and early death form the subject of two of Coleridge's early sonnets. -_Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge_, Macmillan, 1893, p. 13. See, -also, "Lines to a Friend," p. 37, and "Frost at Midnight," p. 127. - -[8] A mistake for October 21st. - -[9] Compare some doggerel verses "On Mrs. Monday's Beard" which Coleridge -wrote on a copy of Southey's _Omniana_, under the heading of "Beards" -(_Omniana_, 1812, ii. 54). Southey records the legend of a female saint, -St. Vuilgefortis, who in answer to her prayers was rewarded with a beard -as a mark of divine favour. The story is told in some Latin elegiacs from -the _Annus Sacer Poeticus_ of the Jesuit Sautel which Southey quotes at -length. Coleridge comments thus, "_Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixere!_ -What! can nothing be one's own? This is the more vexatious, for at the age -of eighteen I lost a legacy of Fifty pounds for the following Epigram on -my Godmother's Beard, which she had the _barbarity_ to revenge by striking -me out of her Will." - -The epigram is not worth quoting, but it is curious to observe that, even -when scribbling for his own amusement, and without any view to -publication, Coleridge could not resist the temptation of devising an -"apologetic preface." - -The verses, etc., are printed in _Table Talk and Omniana_, Bell, 1888, p. -391. The editor, the late Thomas Ashe, transcribed them from Gillman's -copy of the _Omniana_, now in the British Museum. I have followed a -transcript of the marginal note made by Mrs. H. N. Coleridge before the -volume was cut in binding. Her version supplies one or two omissions. - -[10] The meaning is that the events which had taken place between March -and October, 1797, the composition, for instance, of his tragedy, -_Osorio_, the visit of Charles Lamb to the cottage at Nether Stowey, the -settling of Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy at Alfoxden, would hereafter -be recorded in his autobiography. He had failed to complete the record of -the past, only because he had been too much occupied with the present. - -[11] He records his timorous passion for fairy stories in a note to _The -Friend_ (ed. 1850, 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 _Arabian 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 nature of man and not feel deeply for the affliction of -others possessing like powers and like nature?" Tomalin's _Shorthand -Report of Lecture V._ - -[12] Compare a MS. note dated July 19, 1803. "Intensely hot day, left off -a waistcoat, and for yarn wore silk stockings. Before nine o'clock had -unpleasant chillness, heard a noise which I thought Derwent's in sleep; -listened and found it was a calf bellowing. Instantly came on my mind that -night I slept out at Ottery, and the calf in the field across the river -whose lowing so deeply impressed me. Chill and child and calf lowing." - -[13] Sir Stafford, the seventh baronet, grandfather of the first Lord -Iddesleigh, was at that time a youth of eighteen. His name occurs among -the list of scholars who were subscribers to the second edition of the -_Critical Latin Grammar_. - -[14] Compare a MS. note dated March 5, 1818. "Memory counterfeited by -present impressions. One great cause of the coincidence of dreams with the -event--[Greek: h mtr em]." - -[15] The date of admission to Hertford was July 18, 1782. Eight weeks -later, September 12, he was sent up to London to the great school. - -[16] Compare the 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 Works_, 1836, ii. -27; _Autobiography of Leigh Hunt_, 1860, p. 60. - -[17] Coleridge's "letters home" were almost invariably addressed to his -brother George. It may be gathered from his correspondence that at rare -intervals he wrote to his mother as well, but, contrary to her usual -practice, she did not, with this one exception, preserve his letters. It -was, indeed, a sorrowful consequence of his "long exile" at Christ's -Hospital, that he seems to have passed out of his mother's ken, that -absence led to something like indifference on both sides. - -[18] Compare the autobiographical note of 1832 as quoted by Gillman. About -this time he became acquainted with a widow lady, "whose son," says he, -"I, as upper boy, had protected, and who therefore looked up to me, and -taught me what it was to have a mother. I loved her as such. She had three -daughters, and of course I fell in love with the eldest." _Life of -Coleridge_, p. 28. - -[19] Scholarship of Jesus College, Cambridge, for sons of clergymen. - -[20] At this time Frend was still a Fellow of Jesus College. Five years -had elapsed since he had resigned from conscientious motives the living of -Madingley in Cambridgeshire, but it was not until after the publication of -his pamphlet _Peace and Union_, in 1793, that the authorities took alarm. -He was deprived of his Fellowship, April 17, and banished from the -University, May 30, 1793. Coleridge's demeanour in the Senate House on the -occasion of Frend's trial before the Vice-Chancellor forms the subject of -various contradictory anecdotes. See _Life of Coleridge_, 1838, p. 55; -_Reminiscences of Cambridge_, Henry Gunning, 1855, i. 272-275. - -[21] The Rev. George Caldwell was afterwards Fellow and Tutor of Jesus -College. His name occurs among the list of subscribers to the original -issue of _The Friend_. _Letters of the Lake Poets_, 1889, p. 452. - -[22] "First Grecian of my time was Launcelot Pepys Stevens [Stephens], -kindest of boys and men, since the Co-Grammar Master, and inseparable -companion of Dr. T[rollop]e." _Lamb's Prose Works_, 1835, ii. 45. He was -at this time Senior-Assistant Master at Newcome's Academy at Clapton near -Hackney, and a colleague of George Coleridge. The school, which belonged -to three generations of Newcomes, was of high repute as a private academy, -and commanded the services of clever young schoolmasters as assistants or -ushers. Mr. Sparrow, whose name is mentioned in the letter, was -headmaster. - -[23] A Latin essay on _Posthumous Fame_, described as a declamation and -stated to have been composed by S. T. Coleridge, March, 1792, is preserved -at Jesus College, Cambridge. Some extracts were printed in the College -magazine, _The Chanticleer_, Lent Term, 1886. - -[24] _Poetical Works_, p. 19. - -[25] _Ibid._ p. 19. - -[26] _Poetical Works_, p. 20. - -[27] Robert Allen, Coleridge's earliest friend, and almost his exact -contemporary (born October 18, 1772), was admitted to University College, -Oxford, as an exhibitioner, in the spring of 1792. He entertained -Coleridge and his _compagnon de voyage_, Joseph Hucks, on the occasion of -the memorable visit to Oxford in June, 1794, and introduced them to his -friend, Robert Southey of Balliol. He is mentioned in letters of Lamb to -Coleridge, June 10, 1796, and October 11, 1802. In both instances his name -is connected with that of Stoddart, and it is probable that it was through -Allen that Coleridge and Stoddart became acquainted. For anecdotes -concerning Allen, see Lamb's Essay, "Christ's Hospital," etc., _Prose -Works_, 1836, ii. 47, and _Leigh Hunt's Autobiography_, 1860, p. 74. See, -also, _Letters to Allsop_, 1864, p. 170. - -[28] George Richards, a contemporary of Stephens, and, though somewhat -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 his mark as a clergyman, as -Bampton Lecturer (in 1800), and as Vicar of St. Martin-in-the-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 Exhibitioners, from 1566-1885_, compiled by -A. M. Lockhart. - -[29] 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. - -[30] For complete text of the Greek Sapphic Ode, "On the Slave Trade," -which obtained the Browne gold medal for 1792, see Appendix B, p. 476, to -Coleridge's _Poetical Works_, Macmillan, 1893. See, also, Mr. Dykes -Campbell's note on the style and composition of the ode, p. 653. I possess -a transcript of the Ode, taken, I believe, by Sara Coleridge in 1823, on -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 compliment to -the superior genius of his brother the author, composed the following -lines:-- - -IBI HC 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 on 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." - -[31] He was matriculated as pensioner March 31, 1792. He had been in -residence since September, 1791. - -[32] For the Craven Scholarship. In an article contributed to the -_Gentleman's Magazine_ of December, 1834, portions of which are printed in -Gillman's _Life of Coleridge_, C. V. Le Grice, a co-Grecian with Coleridge -and Allen, gives the names of the four competitors. The successful -candidate was Samuel Butler, afterwards Head Master of Shrewsbury and -Bishop of Lichfield. _Life of Coleridge_, 1838, p. 50. - -[33] Musical glee composer, 1769-1821. _Biographical Dictionary._ - -[34] _Poetical Works_, p. 20. - -[35] Francis Syndercombe Coleridge, who died shortly after the fall of -Seringapatam, February 6, 1792. - -[36] Edward Coleridge, the Vicar of Ottery's fourth son, was then -assistant master in Dr. Skinner's school at Salisbury. His marriage with -an elderly widow who was supposed to have a large income was a source of -perennial amusement to his family. Some years after her death he married -his first cousin, Anne Bowdon. - -[37] 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 -Autobiographical Notes of 1832. _Life of Coleridge_, 1838, p. 9. - -[38] The brother of Mrs. Luke and of Mrs. George Coleridge. - -[39] 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 Chymist," but afterwards known as -"Kisses." - -[40] G. L. Tuckett, to whom this letter was addressed, was the first to -disclose to Coleridge's family the unwelcome 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 be induced to -reveal the secret. He was, I presume, a college acquaintance,--possibly an -old Blue, who had left the University and was reading for the bar. In an -unpublished letter from Robert Allen to Coleridge, dated February, 1796, -there is an amusing reference to this kindly _Deus ex Machina_. "I called -upon Tuckett, who thus prophesied: 'You know how subject Coleridge is to -fits of idleness. Now, I'll lay any wager, Allen, that after three or four -numbers (of the _Watchman_) the sheets will contain nothing but -parliamentary debates, and Coleridge will add a note at the bottom of the -page: "I should think myself deficient in my duty to the Public if I did -not give these interesting debates at _full_ length."'" - -[41] It would seem that there were alleviations to the misery and -discomfort of this direful experience. In a MS. note dated January, 1805, -he recalls as a suitable incident for a projected work, _The Soother in -Absence_, the "_Domus quadrata hortensis_, at Henley-on-Thames," and "the -beautiful girl" who, it would seem, soothed the captivity of the forlorn -trooper. - -[42] In the various and varying reminiscences of his soldier days, which -fell "from Coleridge's own mouth," and were repeated by his delighted and -credulous hearers, this officer plays an important part. Whatever -foundation of fact there may be for the touching anecdote that the Latin -sentence, "_Eheu! quam infortunii miserrimum est fuisse felicem_," -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 discharge. He may have exerted himself -privately, but his name does not occur in the formal correspondence which -passed between Coleridge's brothers and the military authorities. - -[43] The Compasses, now The Chequers, High Wycombe, where Coleridge was -billeted just a hundred years ago, appears to have preserved its original -aspect. - -[44] See Notes to _Poetical Works of Coleridge_ (1893), p. 568. The -"intended translation" was advertised in the _Cambridge Intelligencer_ for -June 14 and June 16, 1794: "Proposals for publishing by subscription -_Imitations from the Modern Latin Poets, with a Critical and Biographical -Essay on the Restoration of Literature_. By S. T. Coleridge, of Jesus -College, Cambridge.... - -"In the course of the Work will be introduced a copious selection from the -Lyrics of Casimir, and a new Translation of the Basia of Secundus." - -One ode, "Ad Lyram," was printed in _The Watchman_, No. 11, March 9, 1796, -p. 49. - -[45] The _Barbou Casimir_, published at Paris in 1759. - -[46] Compare the note to chapter xii. of the _Biographia Literaria_: "In -the Biographical Sketch of my Literary Life I may be excused if I mention -here that I had translated the eight Hymns of Synesius from the Greek into -English Anacreontics before my fifteenth year." The edition referred to -may be that published at Basle in 1567. _Interprete G. Cantero._ Bentley's -Quarto Edition was probably the Quarto Edition of Horace, published in -1711. - -[47] Charles Clagget, a musical composer and inventor of musical -instruments, flourished towards the close of the eighteenth century. I -have been unable to ascertain whether the songs in question were ever -published. _Dictionary of Music and Musicians_, edited by George Grove, D. -C. L., 1879, article "Clagget," i. 359. - -[48] The entry in the College Register of Jesus College is brief and to -the point: "1794 Apr.: _Coleridge admonitus est per magistrum in prsenti -sociorum_." - -[49] A letter to George Coleridge dated April 16, 1794, and signed J. -Plampin, has been preserved. The pains and penalties to which Coleridge -had subjected himself are stated in full, but the kindly nature of the -writer is shown in the concluding sentence: "I am happy in adding that I -thought your brother's conduct on his return extremely proper; and I beg -to assure you that it will give me much pleasure to see him take such an -advantage of his experience as his own good sense will dictate." - -[50] A week later, July 22, in a letter addressed to H. Martin, of Jesus -College, to whom, in the following September, he dedicated "The Fall of -Robespierre," 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 report -of the same occurrence contained in Hucks' account of the tour, which was -published in the following year. Coleridge's letters from foreign 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 standard. _Biographia Literaria_, 1847, ii. 338-343; -J. Hucks' _Tour in North Wales_, 1795, p. 25. - -[51] The lines are from "Happiness," an early poem first published in -1834. See _Poetical Works_, p. 17. See, too, Editor's Note, p. 564. - -[52] Quoted from a poem by Bowles entitled, "Verses inscribed to His Grace -the Duke of Leeds, and other Promoters of the Philanthropic Society." -Southey adopted the last two lines of the quotation as a motto for his -"Botany Bay Eclogues." _Poetical Works of Milman, Bowles, etc._, Paris, -1829, p. 117; Southey's _Poetical Works_, 1837, ii. 71. - -[53] Southey, we may suppose, had contrasted Hucks with Coleridge. "H. is -on my level, not yours." - -[54] _Poetical Works_, p. 33. See, too, Editor's Note, p. 570. - -[55] Hucks records the incident in much the same words, but gives the name -of the tune as "Corporal Casey." - -[56] The letter to Martin gives further particulars of the tour, including -the ascent of Penmaen Mawr in company with Brookes and Berdmore. Compare -_Table Talk_ for May 31, 1830: "I took the thought of _grinning for joy_ -in that poem (_The Ancient 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." The 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_, 1795, p. 62. - -[57] Southey's _Poetical Works_, 1837, ii. 93. - -[58] Southey's _Poetical Works_, 1837, ii. 94. - -[59] See Letter XLI. p. 110, note 1. - -[60] "A tragedy, of which the first act was written by S. T. Coleridge." -See footnote to quotation from "The Fall of Robespierre," which occurs in -the text of "An Address on the Present War." _Conciones ad Populum_, 1795, -p. 66. - -[61] One of six sisters, daughters of John Brunton of Norwich. Elizabeth, -the eldest of the family, was married in 1791 to Robert Merry the -dramatist, the founder of the so-called Della Cruscan school of poetry. -Louisa Brunton, the youngest 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 Revolution, that is, "The Fall of Robespierre," must have been an -intermediate sister less known to fame. It is curious to note that "The -Right Hon. Lady Craven" was a subscriber 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. - -[62] This sonnet, afterwards headed, "On a Discovery made too late," was -"first printed in _Poems_, 1796, as Effusion XIX., but in the Contents it -was called, 'To my own Heart.'" _Poetical Works_, p. 34. See, too, -Editor's Note, p. 571. - -[63] "The Race of Banquo." Southey's _Poetical Works_, 1837, ii. 155. - -[64] The Editor of the _Cambridge Intelligencer_. - -[65] "To a Young Lady, with a Poem on the French Revolution." _Poetical -Works_, p. 6. - -[66] Compare "Sonnet to the Author of The Robbers." _Poetical Works_, p. -34. - -[67] The date of this letter is fixed by that of Thursday, November 6, to -George Coleridge. Both letters speak of a journey to town with Potter of -Emanuel, but in writing to his brother he says nothing of a projected -visit to Bath. There is no hint in either letter that he had made up his -mind to leave the University for good and all. In a letter to Southey -dated December 17, he says that "they are making a row about him at -Jesus," and in a letter to Mary Evans, which must have been written a day -or two later, he says, "I return to Cambridge to-morrow." From the date of -the letter to George Coleridge of November 6 to December 11 there is a -break in the correspondence with Southey, but from a statement in Letter -XLIII. it appears plain that a visit was paid to the West in December, -1794. But whether he returned to Cambridge November 8, and for how long, -is uncertain. - -[68] "Lines on a Friend who died of a Frenzy Fever," etc. _Poetical -Works_, p. 35. A copy of the same poem was sent on November 6 to George -Coleridge. - -[69] "The Sigh." _Poetical Works_, p. 29. - -[70] Probably Thomas Edwards, LL. D., a Fellow of Jesus College, -Cambridge, editor of Plutarch, _De Educatione Liberorum_, with notes, -1791, and author of "A Discourse on the Limits and Importance of Free -Inquiry in Matters of Religion," 1792. _Natural Dictionary of Biography_, -xvii. 130. - -[71] Compare "Lines on a Friend," etc., which accompanied this letter. - - To me hath Heaven with liberal hand assigned - Energic reason and a shaping mind, - - * * * * * - - Sloth-jaundiced all! and from my graspless hand - Drop Friendship's precious pearls, like hour-glass sand. - -_Poetical Works_, p. 35. - -[72] The lines occur in Barrre's speech, which concludes the third act of -the "Fall of Robespierre." _Poetical Works_, p. 225. - -[73] "Fall of Robespierre," Act I. l. 198. - - O this new freedom! at how 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 endearment - All sacrificed to Liberty's wild riot. - -_Poetical Works_, p. 215. - -[74] See "Fall of Robespierre," Act I. l. 40. _Poetical Works_, p. 212. - -[75] For full text of the "Lines on a Friend who died of a Frenzy Fever," -see Letter XXXVIII. See, too, _Poetical Works_, p. 35. - -[76] Southey's _Poetical Works_, 1837, ii. 263. - -[77] See _Poems by Robert Lovell, and Robert Southey 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, - In 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'd the 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 unpublished letter from Southey to Miss Sarah -Fricker:-- - - October 18, 1794. - - "Amid the pelting of the pitiless storm" did I, Robert Southey, 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 elements 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 rejoiced 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 traveller. Here - I am, well, and satisfied with my own conduct.... - - My clothes are arrived. "I will never see his face again [writes Miss - Tyler], and, if he writes, will return his letters unopened;" to - comment on this would be useless. I feel that strong conviction of - rectitude which would make me smile on the rack.... The crisis is - over--things are as they should be; my mother vexes herself much, yet - feels she is right. Hostilities are commenced with America! so we must - go to some neutral fort--Hambro' or Venice. - - Your sister is well, and sends her love to all; on Wednesday I hope to - see you. Till then farewell, - - ROBERT SOUTHEY. - - Bath, Sunday morning. - -Compare, also, letter to Thomas Southey, dated October 19, 1794. -_Southey's Life and Correspondence_, i. 222. - -[78] _Poems_, 1795, p. 123. - -[79] See Southey's _Poetical Works_, 1837, ii. 91:-- - - "If heavily creep on one little day, - The medley crew of travellers among." - -[80] _Poems_, 1795, p. 67. - -[81] _Poetical Works_, 1837, ii. 92. - -[82] "Rosamund to Henry; written after she had taken the veil." _Poems_, -1795, p. 85. - -[83] _Poetical Works_, 1837, ii. 216. Southey appears to have accepted -Coleridge's emendations. The variations between the text of the "Pauper's -Funeral" and the _editio purgata_ of the letter are slight and -unimportant. - -[84] In a letter from Southey to his brother Thomas, dated October 21, -1794, this sonnet "on the subject of our emigration" is attributed to -Favell, a convert to pantisocracy who was still at Christ's Hospital. The -first eight lines are included in the "Monody on Chatterton." See -_Poetical Works_, p. 63, and Editor's Note, p. 563. - -[85] Printed as Effusion XVI. in _Poems_, 1796. It was afterwards headed -"Charity." In the preface he acknowledges that he was "indebted to Mr. -Favell for the rough sketch." See _Poetical Works_, p. 45, and Editor's -Note, p. 576. - -[86] Southey's _Poetical Works_, ii. 143. In this instance Coleridge's -corrections were not adopted. - -[87] Published in 1794. - -[88] First version, printed in _Morning Chronicle_, December 26, 1794. See -_Poetical Works_, p. 40. - -[89] First printed as Effusion XIV. in _Poems_, 1796. Of the four lines -said to have been written by Lamb, Coleridge discarded lines 13 and 14, -and substituted a favourite couplet, which occurs in more than one of his -early poems. See _Poetical Works_, p. 23, and Editor's Note, p. 566. - -[90] Imitated from the Welsh. See _Poetical Works_, p. 33. - -[91] A parody of "Qui Bavium non odit, amet tua carmina, Mvi." Virgil, -_Ecl._ iii. 90. Gratio and Avaro were signatures adopted by Southey and -Lovell in their joint volume of poems published at Bristol in 1795. - -[92] Implied in the second line. - -[93] Of the six sonnets included in this letter, those to Burke, -Priestley, and Kosciusko had already appeared in the _Morning Chronicle_ -on the 9th, 11th, and 16th of December, 1794. The sonnets to Godwin, -Southey, and Sheridan were published on the 10th, 14th, and 29th of -January, 1795. See _Poetical Works_, pp. 38, 39, 41, 42. - -[94] First published in the _Morning Chronicle_, December 30, 1794. An -earlier draft, dated October 24, 1794, was headed "Monologue to a Young -Jackass in Jesus Piece. Its Mother near it, chained to a Log." See -_Poetical Works_, Appendix C, p. 477, and Editor's Note, p. 573. - -[95] Compare the last six lines of a sonnet, "On a Discovery made too -late," sent in a letter to Southey, dated October 21, 1794. (Letter -XXXVII.) See _Poetical Works_, p. 34, and Editor's Note, p. 571. - -[96] The first of six sonnets on the Slave Trade. Southey's _Poetical -Works_, 1837, ii. 55. - -[97] Prefixed as a dedication to Juvenile and Minor Poems. It is addressed -to Edith Southey, and dated Bristol, 1796. Southey's _Poetical Works_, -1837, vol. ii. The text of 1837 differs considerably from the earlier -version. Possibly in transcribing Coleridge altered the original to suit -his own taste. - -[98] To a Friend [Charles Lamb], together with an Unfinished Poem -["Religious Musings"]. _Poetical Works_, p. 37. - -[99] This farewell letter of apology and remonstrance was not sent by -post, but must have reached Southey's hand on the 13th of November, the -eve of his wedding day. The original MS. is written on small foolscap. A -first draft, or copy, of the letter was sent to Coleridge's friend, Josiah -Wade. - -[100] The Rev. David Jardine, Unitarian minister at Bath. Cottle lays the -scene of the "inaugural sermons" on the corn laws and hair powder tax, -which Coleridge delivered in a blue coat and white waistcoat, in Mr. -Jardine's chapel at Bath. _Early Recollections_, i. 179. - -[101] If we may believe Cottle, the dispute began by Southey attacking -Coleridge for his non-appearance at a lecture which he had undertaken to -deliver in his stead. The scene of the quarrel is laid at Chepstow, on the -first day of the memorable excursion to Tintern Abbey, which Cottle had -planned to "gratify his two young friends." Southey had been "dragged," -much against the grain, into this "detestable party of pleasure," and was, -no doubt, rendered doubly sore by his partner's delinquency. See _Early -Recollections_, i. 40, 41. See, also, letter from Southey to Bedford, -dated May 28, 1795. _Life and Correspondence_, i. 239. - -[102] At Chepstow. - -[103] A village three miles W. S. W. of Bristol. - -[104] During the course of his tour (January-February, 1796) to procure -subscribers for the _Watchman_, Coleridge wrote seven times to Josiah -Wade. Portions of these letters have been published in Cottle's _Early -Recollections_, i. 164-176, and in the "Biographical Supplement" to the -_Biographia Literaria_, ii. 349-354. It is probable that Wade supplied -funds for the journey, and that Coleridge felt himself bound to give an -account of his progress and success. - -[105] Joseph Wright, A. R. A., known as Wright of Derby, 1736-1797. Two of -his most celebrated pictures were _The Head of Ulleswater_, and _The Dead -Soldier_. An excellent specimen of Wright's work, _An Experiment with the -Air Pump_, was presented to the National Gallery in 1863. - -[106] Compare _Biographia Literaria_, ch. i. "During my first Cambridge -vacation I assisted a friend in a contribution for a literary society in -Devonshire, and in that I remember to have compared Darwin's works to the -Russian palace of ice, glittering, cold, and transitory." Coleridge's -_Works_, Harper & Bros., 1853, iii. 155. - -[107] Dr. James Hutton, the author of the Plutonian theory. His _Theory of -the Earth_ was published at Edinburgh in 1795. - -[108] The title of this pamphlet, which was published shortly after the -_Conciones ad Populum_, was "The Plot Discovered; or, an Address to the -People against Ministerial Treason. By S. T. Coleridge. Bristol, 1795." It -had an outer wrapper with this half-title: "A Protest against Certain -Wills. Bristol: Printed for the Author, November 28, 1795." It is -reprinted in _Essays on His Own Times_, i. 56-98. - -[109] The review of "Burke's Letter to a Noble Lord," which appeared in -the first number of _The Watchman_, is reprinted in _Essays on His Own -Times_, i. 107-119. - -[110] _Ibid._ 120-126. - -[111] The occasion of this "burst of affectionate feeling" was a -communication from Poole that seven or eight friends had undertaken to -subscribe a sum of 35 or 40 to be paid annually to the "author of the -monody on the death of Chatterton," as "a trifling mark of their esteem, -gratitude, and affection." The subscriptions were paid in 1796-97, but -afterwards discontinued on the receipt of the Wedgwood annuity. See -_Thomas Poole and his Friends_, i. 142. - -[112] Mrs. Robert Lovell, whose husband had been carried off by a fever -about two years after his marriage with my aunt.--S. C. - -[113] Compare _Conciones ad Populum_, 1795, p. 22. "Such is Joseph -Gerrald! Withering in the sickly and tainted gales of a prison, his -healthful soul looks down from the citadel of his integrity on his -impotent persecutors. 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, Gerrald 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 transported for -fifteen years. "In April Gerrald 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 Gerrald relative to his defence. -_Ibid._ i. 125. Lords Cockburn and Jeffrey considered the conviction of -these men a gross miscarriage of justice, and in 1844 a monument was -erected at the foot of the Calton Hill, Edinburgh, to their memory. - -[114] Edward Williams (Iolo Morgangw), 1747-1826. His poems in two volumes -were published by subscription in 1794. Coleridge possessed a copy -presented to him "by the author," and on the last page of the second -volume he has scrawled a single but characteristic marginal note. It is -affixed to a translation of one of the "Poetic Triades." "The three -principal considerations of poetical description: what is obvious, what -instantly engages the affections, and what is strikingly characteristic." -The comment is as follows: "I suppose, rather what we recollect to have -frequently seen in nature, though not in the description of it." - -[115] The allusion must be to Wordsworth, but there is a difficulty as to -dates. In a MS. note to the second edition of his poems (1797) Coleridge -distinctly states that he had no personal acquaintance with Wordsworth as -early as March, 1796. 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 husband's "impression" that he first -met Coleridge, Southey, Sara, and Edith Fricker "in a lodging in Bristol -in 1795,"--an imperfect recollection 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 letter of -Lamb to Coleridge, which belongs to the summer of 1796, that "the personal -acquaintance" with Wordsworth had already begun. The probable conclusion -is that there was a first meeting in 1795, and occasional intercourse in -1796, but that intimacy and friendship date from the visit to Racedown in -June, 1797. Coleridge quotes Wordsworth in his "Lines from Shurton Bars," -dated September, 1795, but the first trace of Wordsworth's influence on -style and thought appears in "This Lime-Tree Bower my Prison," July, 1797. -In May, 1796, Wordsworth could only have been "his very dear friend" -_sensu poetico_. _Life of W. Wordsworth_, i. 111; Biographical Supplement -to _Biographia Literaria_, chapter ii.; _Letters of Charles Lamb_, -Macmillan, 1888, i. 6. - -[116] On the side of the road, opposite to Poole's house in Castle Street, -Nether Stowey, is a straight gutter through which a stream passes. See -_Thomas Poole and his Friends_, i. 147. - -[117] _The Peripatetic, or Sketches of the Heart, of Nature, and of -Society_, a miscellany of prose and verse issued by John Thelwall, in -1793. - -[118] January 10, 1795. See _Poetical Works_, p. 41, and Editor's Note, p. -575. Margarot, a West Indian, was one of those tried and transported with -Gerrald. - -[119] See _Poetical Works_, p. 66. - -[120] Early in the autumn of 1796, a proposal had been made to Coleridge -that he should start a day school in Derby. Poole dissuaded him from -accepting this offer, or rather, perhaps, Coleridge succeeded in procuring -Poole's disapproval of a plan which he himself dreaded and disliked. - -[121] Thomas Ward, at first the articled clerk, and afterwards partner in -business and in good works, of Thomas Poole. He it was who transcribed in -"Poole's Copying Book" Coleridge's letters from Germany, and much of his -correspondence besides. See _Thomas Poole and his Friends_, i. 159, 160, -304, 305, etc. - -[122] This letter, first printed in Gillman's _Life_, pp. 338-340, and -since reprinted in the notes to Canon Ainger'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, 1796, announcing the "terrible calamities" which -had befallen his family. "Write me," said Lamb, "as religious 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 nature." 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 -written by him within a few hours of his death, when he could scarcely -direct his pen. It breathes the tenderest loving-kindness, but the -expressions are elaborate and formal. It was only in poetry that he -attained to simplicity. - -[123] Coleridge must have resorted occasionally to opiates long before -this. In an unpublished letter to his brother George, dated November 21, -1791, he says, "Opium never used to have any disagreeable effects on me." -Most likely it was given to him at Christ's Hospital, when he was -suffering from rheumatic fever. In the sonnet on "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. Testimony of this nature appears at first sight to be -inconsistent with statements 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, however, the first commencement of the secret and habitual resort -to narcotics which weighed on memory and conscience, and there is abundant -evidence that it was not till the 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 attached -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 letter 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 madness--my -mind overbalanced on the _e contra_ side of happiness--the blunders 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." - -[124] 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. Corsica 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 Ireland compelled the home government to withdraw -their troops from Corsica. In a footnote to chapter xxv. of his _Life of -Napoleon Bonaparte_, 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 surprised 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 diadem of France and the iron crown of -Lombardy marvelled at meeting on the brow of a Corsican soldier of -fortune." - -In the _Biographia Literaria_, 1847, ii. 380, the word is misprinted -Corrica, but there is no doubt as to the reading of the MS. letter, or to -the allusion to contemporary history. - -[125] It was to this lady that the lines "On the Christening of a Friend's -Child" were addressed. _Poetical Works_, p. 83. - -[126] See Letter LXVIII., p. 206, note. - -[127] The preface to the quarto edition of Southey's _Joan of Arc_ is -dated Bristol, November, 1795, but the volume did not appear till the -following spring. Coleridge's contribution to Book II. was omitted from -the second (1797) and subsequent editions. It was afterwards republished, -with additions, in _Sibylline Leaves_ (1817) as "The Destiny of Nations." - -[128] The lines "On a late Connubial Rupture" were printed in the _Monthly -Magazine_ for September, 1796. The well-known poem beginning "Low was our -pretty Cot" appeared in the following number. It was headed, "Reflections -on entering into active Life. A Poem which affects not to be Poetry." - -[129] Compare the following lines from an early transcript of "Happiness" -now in my possession:-- - - "Ah! doubly blest if Love supply - Lustre to the now heavy eye, - And with unwonted spirit grace - That fat vacuity of face." - -The transcriber adds in a footnote, "The author was at this time, at -seventeen, remarkable for a plump face." - -The "Reminiscences of an Octogenarian" (The Rev. Leapidge Smith), -contributed to the _Leisure Hour_, convey a different impression: "In -person he was a tall, dark, handsome young man, with long, black, flowing -hair; eyes not merely dark, but black, and keenly penetrating; a fine -forehead, a deep-toned, harmonious voice; a manner never to be forgotten, -full of life, vivacity, and kindness; dignified in person and, added to -all these, exhibiting the elements of his future greatness."--_Leisure -Hour_, 1870, p. 651. - -[130] _Origine de tous les Cultes, ou Religion universelle._ - -[131] Thelwall executed his commission. The Iamblichus and the Julian were -afterwards presented by Coleridge to his son Derwent. They are still in -the possession of the family. - -[132] The three letters to Poole, dated December 11, 12, and 13, relative -to Coleridge's residence at Stowey, were published for the first time in -_Thomas Poole and his Friends_. The long letter of expostulation, dated -December 13, which is in fact a continuation of that dated December 12, is -endorsed by Poole: "An angry letter, but the breach was soon healed." -Either on Coleridge's account or his own it was among the few papers -retained by Poole when, to quote Mrs. Sandford, "in 1836 he placed the -greater number of the letters which he had received from S. T. Coleridge -at the disposal of his literary executors for biographical purposes." -_Thomas Poole and his Friends_, i. 182-193. Mrs. Sandford has kindly -permitted me to reprint it _in extenso_. - -[133] "Sonnet composed on a journey homeward, the author having received -intelligence of the birth of a son. September 20, 1796." - -The opening lines, as quoted in the letter, differ from those published in -1797, and again from a copy of the same sonnet sent in a letter to Poole, -dated November 1, 1796. See _Poetical Works_, p. 66, and Editor's Note, p. -582. - -[134] Coleridge's _Poetical Works_, p. 66. - -[135] Compare Lamb's letter to Coleridge, December 5, 1796. "I am glad you -love Cowper. I could forgive a man for not enjoying Milton, but I would -not call that man my friend who should be offended with the 'divine -chit-chat of Cowper.'" Compare, too, letter of December 10, 1796, in which -the origin of the phrase is attributed to Coleridge. _Letters of Charles -Lamb_, i. 52, 54. See, too, Canon Ainger's note, i. 316. - -[136] "Southey misrepresented me. My maxim was and is that the name of God -should not be introduced into _Love Sonnets_." MS. Note by John Thelwall. - -[137] Revelation x. 1-6. Some words and sentences of the original are -omitted, either for the sake of brevity, or to heighten the dramatic -effect. - -[138] Hebrews xii. 18, 19, 22, 23. - -[139] "In reading over this after an interval of twenty-three years I was -wondering what I could have said that looked like contempt of age. May not -slobberers have referred not to age but to the drivelling of decayed -intellect, which is surely an ill guide in matters of understanding and -consequently of faith?" MS. Note by John Thelwall, 1819. - -[140] Patience--permit me as a definition of the word to quote one -sentence from my first Address, p. 20. "Accustomed to regard all the -affairs 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. - -[141] Godliness--the belief, the habitual and efficient belief, that we -are always in the presence of our universal Parent. I will translate -literally a passage [the passage is from Voss's _Luise_. I am enabled by -the courtesy of Dr. Garnett, of the British Museum, to give an exact -reference: _Luise, ein lndliches Gedicht in drei Idyllen_, von Johann -Heinrich Voss, Knigsberg, 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 birthday of his daughter. The _latter part_ fully -expresses the spirit of godliness, and its connection with -brotherly-kindness. (Pardon the harshness of the language, for it is -translated _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 it! It was -but yesterday, it seems to me, that as I was plucking flowers here, and -offering praise, on a sudden the joyful message came, 'A daughter is born -to us.' Much since that time has 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 heavenly 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 towards all his children, -our brothers who inhabit the earth around us; differing indeed from one -another in powers and understanding, yet all dear children of the same -parent, nourished 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 crucified._'" - -Mendelssohn is a German Jew by parentage, and _deist_ by election. He has -written some of the most acute books possible in favour of natural -immortality, and Germany deems him her profoundest metaphysician, with the -exception of the most unintelligible Immanuel Kant.--MS. note to text of -letter by S. T. Coleridge. - -[142] 2 Peter i. 5-7. - -[143] They were criticised by Lamb in his letter to Coleridge Dec. 10, -1796 (xxxi. of Canon Ainger's edition), but in a passage first printed in -the _Atlantic Monthly_ for February, 1891. The explanatory notes there -printed were founded on a misconception, but the matter is cleared up in -the _Athenum_ for June 13, 1891, in the article, "A Letter of Charles -Lamb." - -[144] 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 towards the close of 1796, and -distributed 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. - -[145] A folio edition of "_Poems on the Death of Priscilla Farmer_, by her -grandson Charles Lloyd," was printed at Bristol in 1796. The volume was -prefaced by Coleridge's sonnet, "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 December 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. - -[146] "To a friend (C. Lamb) who had declared his intention of writing no -more poetry." _Poetical Works_, p. 69. See, too, Editor's Note, p. 583. - -[147] Printed in the _Annual Anthology_ for 1799. - -[148] These lines, which were published with the enlarged title "To a -Young Man of Fortune who had abandoned himself to an indolent and -causeless melancholy," may have been addressed to Charles Lloyd. - -The last line, "A prey to the throned murderess of mankind," was -afterwards changed to "A prey to tyrants, murderers of mankind." The -reference is, doubtless, to Catherine of Russia. Her death had taken place -a month before the date of this letter, but possibly when Coleridge wrote -the lines the news had not reached England. It is not a little strange -that Coleridge should write and print so stern and uncompromising a rebuke -to his intimate and disciple before there had been time for coolness and -alienation on either side. Very possibly the reproof was aimed in the -first instance against himself, and afterwards he permitted it to apply to -Lloyd. - -[149] Compare the line, "From precipices of distressful sleep," which -occurs in the sonnet, "No more my visionary soul shall dwell," which is -attributed to Favell in a letter of Southey's to his brother Thomas, dated -October 24, 1795. Southey's _Life and Correspondence_, i. 224. See, also, -Editor's Note to "Monody on the Death of Chatterton," _Poetical Works_, p. -563. - -[150] The _Ode on the Departing Year_. - -[151] Oedipus. - -[152] _Poetical Works_, p. 459. - -[153] William and Joseph Strutt were the sons of Jedediah Strutt, of -Derby. The eldest, William, was the father of Edward Strutt, created 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 on 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 withdraw her proposal. By way of -consolation, she entertained Coleridge and his wife at Darley Hall, and -before he left presented him with a handsome sum of money and a store of -baby-linen, worth, if one may accept Coleridge's valuation, a matter of -forty pounds. _Thomas Poole and his Friends_, i. 152-154; _Estlin -Letters_, p. 13. - -[154] Probably Jacob Bryant, 1715-1804, author of _An Address to Dr. -Priestley upon his Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity_, 1780; _Treatise -on the Authenticity of the Scriptures_, 1792; _The Sentiments of -Philo-Judus concerning the Logos or Word of God_, 1797, etc. Allibone's -_Dictionary_, i. 270. - -[155] "Ode to the Departing-Year," published in the _Cambridge -Intelligencer_, December 24, 1796. 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. 79. - -[156] Compare the well-known description of Dorothy Wordsworth, in a -letter to Cottle of July, 1797: "W. and his exquisite sister are with me. -She is a woman, indeed,--in mind I mean, and heart. Her information -various. Her eye watchful 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 electroscope, is an instrument for "detecting -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, contained in a glass shade, and these under -certain conditions of the application of positive and negative electricity -diverge or collapse. - -The gold leaf electroscope was invented by Abraham Bennett in 1786. -Cottle's _Early Recollections_, i. 252; Ganot's _Physics_, 1870, p. 631. - -[157] His tract _On the Strength of the Existing Government (the -Directory) of France, and the Necessity of supporting it_, was published -in 1796. - -The translator, James Losh, described by Southey as "a provincial -counsel," was at one time resident in Cumberland, and visited Coleridge at -Greta Hall. At a later period he settled at Jesmond, Newcastle. His name -occurs among the subscribers to _The Friend_. _Letters from the Lake -Poets_, p. 453. - -[158] Compare stanzas eight and nine of "The Mad Ox:"-- - - Old Lewis ('twas 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. - -[159] The probable date of this letter is Thursday, June 8, 1797. On -Monday, June 5, Coleridge breakfasted with Dr. Toulmin, the Unitarian -minister at Taunton, and on the evening of that or the next day he arrived -on foot at Racedown, some forty miles distant. Mrs. Wordsworth, 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 remembrance 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 appearance at that moment. My poor sister -has just been speaking of it to me with much feeling and tenderness." A -portion of this letter, of which I possess the original MS., was printed -by Professor Knight in his _Life of Wordsworth_, i. 111. - -[160] This passage, which for some reason Cottle chose to omit, seems to -imply that the second edition of the poems had not appeared by the -beginning of June. - -[161] - - ... Such, O my earliest friend! - Thy lot, and such thy brothers too enjoy. - At distance did ye climb life's upland road, - Yet cheered and cheering: now fraternal love - Hath drawn you to one centre. - -_Poetical Works_, p. 81, l. 9-14. - -[162] - - ... and some most false, - False, and fair-foliaged as the Manchineel, - Have tempted me to slumber in their shade - E'en mid the storm; then breathing subtlest damp - Mixed their own venom with the rain from Heaven, - That I woke poisoned. - -_Poetical Works_, p. 82, l. 25-30. - -Compare Lamb's humorous reproach in a letter to Coleridge, September, -1797: "For myself I must spoil a little passage of Beaumont and Fletcher's -to adapt it to my feelings:-- - - ... I am prouder - That I was once your friend, tho' now forgot, - 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--Manchineel, and I don't know what else." - -_Letters of Charles Lamb_, i. 83. - -[163] Charles Lamb's visit to the cottage of Nether Stowey lasted from -Friday, July 7, to Friday, July 14, 1797. - -[164] According to local tradition, the lime-tree bower was at the back of -the cottage, but according to this letter it was in Poole's garden. From -either spot the green ramparts of Stowey Castle and the "airy ridge" of -Dowseborough are full in view. - -[165] "He [Le Grice] and Favell ... wrote to the Duke of York, when they -were at college, for commissions in the army. The Duke good-naturedly sent -them." _Autobiography of Leigh Hunt_, p. 72. - -[166] Possibly he alludes to his appointment 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 Friend,--Farewell! I shall never think of you but with - tears of the tenderest affection. 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 otherwise - occasioned. But at this serious 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-Surgeon. - 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 fraternity to - young David. - - Yours most affectionate, - R. ALLEN. - -[167] A friend and fellow-collegian of Christopher Wordsworth at Trinity -College, Cambridge. He was a member of the "Literary Society" to which -Coleridge, C. Wordsworth, Le Grice, and others belonged. He afterwards -became a sergeant-at-law. He was an intimate friend of H. Crabb Robinson. -See H. C. Robinson's _Diary_, _passim_. See, too, _Social Life at the -English Universities_, by Christopher Wordsworth, M. A., Fellow of -Peterhouse, Cambridge, 1874, Appendix. - -[168] Not, as has been supposed, Charles and Mary Lamb, but Wordsworth and -his sister Dorothy. Mary Lamb was not and could not have been at that time -one of the party. The version sent to Southey differs both from that -printed in the _Annual Anthology_ of 1800, and from a copy in a -contemporary letter sent to C. Lloyd. It is interesting to note that the -words, "My sister, and my friends," ll. 47 and 53, which gave place in the -_Anthology_ to the thrice-repeated, "My gentle-hearted Charles," appear, -in a copy sent to Lloyd, as "My Sara and my friend." It was early days for -him to address Dorothy Wordsworth as "My sister," but in forming -friendships Coleridge did not "keep to the high road, but leaped over a -gate and bounded" from acquaintance to intimacy. _Poetical Works_, p. 92. -For version of "This Lime-Tree Bower my Prison," sent to C. Lloyd, see -_Ibid._, Editor's Note, p. 591. - -[169] "Elastic, I mean."--S. T. C. - -[170] "The ferns that grow in moist places grow five or six together, and -form a complete 'Prince of Wales's Feathers,'--that is, plumy."--S. T. C. - -[171] "You remember I am a _Berkleian_."--S. T. C. - -[172] "This Lime-Tree Bower," l. 38. _Poetical Works_, p. 93. - -[173] "Osorio," Act V., Sc. 1, l. 39. _Poetical Works_, p. 507. - -[174] Thelwall's visit brought Coleridge and Wordsworth into trouble. At -the instance of a "titled Dogberry," Sir Philip Hale of Cannington, a -government spy was sent to watch the movements of the supposed -conspirators, and, a more serious matter, Mrs. St. Albyn, the owner of -Alfoxden, severely censured her tenant for having sublet the house to -Wordsworth. See letter of explanation and remonstrance from Poole to Mrs. -St. Albyn, September 16, 1797. _Thomas Poole and his Friends_, i. 240. -See, too, Cottle's _Early Recollections_, i. 319, and for apocryphal -anecdotes about the spy, etc., _Biographia Literaria_, cap. x. - -[175] 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 Josiah Wedgwood to Coleridge, dated January 10, 1798. -_Thomas Poole and his Friends_, i. 258. An unpublished letter from -Thelwall to Dr. Crompton dated Llyswen, March 3, 1798, contains one of -several announcements of "his good fortune," made by Coleridge at the time -to his numerous friends. - - To DR. CROMPTON, Eton House, Nr. Liverpool. - - LLYSWEN, 3d March, 1798. - - I am surprised you have not heard the particulars of Coleridge's good - fortune. It is not a legacy, but a gift. The circumstances are thus - expressed by himself in a letter of the 30th January: "I received an - invitation 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 150 to be legally settled on me. Astonished, 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 I have - returned from Shrewsbury." This letter was written in a great hurry in - Cottle's shop in Bristol, in answer to one which a friend of mine had - left for him there, on 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 preachings God's holy word for hire, - which is seconded not a little, I expect, by his repugnance to all - regular routine and application. I also hope he did not, for I know he - cannot preach very often without travelling 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 hey-go-mad, spattering and - splashing through thick and thin and scattering more _levelling_ - sedition and constructive treason than poor Gilly or myself ever - dreamt of. He promised to write to me again in a few days; but, though - I answered his letter directly, I have not heard from him since. - -[176] _Count Benyowsky, or the Conspiracy of Kamtschatka, a Tragi-comedy._ -Translated from the German by the Rev. W. Render, teacher of the German -Language in the University of Cambridge. Cambridge, 1798. - -[177] Coleridge's copy of Monk Lewis' play is dated January 20, 1798. - -[178] The following memoranda, presumably in Wordsworth's handwriting, -have been scribbled on the outside sheet of the letter: "Tea--Thread -fine--needles Silks--Strainer for starch--Mustard--Basil's shoes--Shoe -horn. - -"The sun's course is short, but clear and blue the sky." - -[179] "Duplex nobis vinculum, et amiciti et similium junctarumque -Camoenarum; quod utinam neque mors solvat, neque temporis longinquitas." - -[180] _The Task_, Book V., "A Winter's Morning Walk." - -[181] A later version of these lines is to be found at the close of the -fourth book of "The Excursion." _Works of Wordsworth_, 1889, p. 467. - -[182] In the series of letters to Dr. Estlin, contributed to the privately -printed volumes of the Philobiblon 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 journal for May 16, 1798, affords convincing 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 1816, "in the summer of -1797." - -It would, indeed, have been altogether miraculous if, before he had -written a line of "Christabel," 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 vision to -consummate melody. - -[183] Berkeley Coleridge, born May 14, 1798, died February 10, 1799. - -[184] The original MS. of this letter, which was preserved by Coleridge, -is, doubtless, a copy of that sent by post. Besides this, only three of -Coleridge's letters to Lamb have been preserved,--the "religious letter" -of 1796, a letter concerning the quarrel with Wordsworth, of May, 1812 -[Letter CLXXXIV.], and one written in later life (undated, on the -particulars of Hood's _Odes to Great People_). - -[185] Charles Lloyd. - -[186] The three sonnets of "Nehemiah Higginbottom" were published in the -_Monthly Magazine_ for November, 1797. Compare his letter to Cottle (_E. -R._ 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., exposing -that affectation of unaffectedness, of jumping and misplaced accent, in -commonplace epithets, flat lines forced into poetry by italics (signifying -how well and mouthishly the author would read them), puny pathos, etc., -etc. The instances were all taken from myself and Lloyd and Lamb. I signed -them 'Nehemiah Higginbottom.' 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. 599), have been the immediate -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 occasion of -bitter and angry words. As Lamb and Lloyd and Southey drew together, they -drew away from Coleridge, and Southey, who had only been formally -reconciled with his brother-in-law, seems to have regarded this sonnet as -an ill-natured parody of his earlier poems. In a letter to Wynn, 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 -sonnets--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 simplicity, -vulgar colloquialisms, and lady-like friendships? I have no conception, -neither I believe could a passage in your writings have suggested to me or -any man the notion of _your_ 'plainting plaintively.' I am sorry that I -wrote thus, because I am sorry to perceive a disposition in you to believe -evil of me, 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 _Morning 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. SOUTHEY, No. 23 East Street, Red Lion Square, London. - -[187] Charles Lloyd's novel, _Edmund Oliver_, was published at Bristol in -1798. It is dedicated to "His friend Charles Lamb of the India House." He -says in the Preface: "The incidents 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 Edmund Oliver is not very striking, but apart from the -description of "his person" in the first letter of the second volume, -which is close enough, a single sentence from Edmund Oliver's journal, i. -245, betrays the malignant nature of the attack. "I have at all times a -strange dreaminess about me which makes me indifferent to the future, if I -can by any means fill the present with sensations,--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 Edmund 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." How Coleridge 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 things hast thou 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. - -[188] In a letter dated November 1, 1798, Mrs. Coleridge acquaints her -husband with the danger and the disfigurement from smallpox which had -befallen her little Berkeley. "The dear child," she writes, "is getting -strength every hour; but 'when you lost sight of land, and the faces of -your children crossed you like a flash of lightning,' you saw _that_ face -for the last time." - -[189] "Fears in Solitude, written in 1798, during the alarm of an -invasion. To which are added, France, an Ode; and Frost at Midnight. By S. -T. Coleridge. London: Printed for J. Johnson, in St. Paul's Churchyard. -1798." - -[190] According to Burke's _Peerage_, Emanuel Scoope, second Viscount -Howe, and father of the Admiral, "Our Lord Howe," married, in 1719, Mary -Sophia, daughter of Baron Kielmansegge, Master of the Horse to George I. -Coleridge's countess must have been a great-granddaughter of the baron. In -her reply to this letter, dated December 13, 1798, Mrs. Coleridge writes: -"I am very proud to hear that you are so forward in the language, and that -you are so gay with the ladies. You may give my respects to them, and say -that I am not at all jealous, for I know my dear Samuel in her affliction -will not forget entirely his most affectionate wife, Sara Coleridge." - -[191] The "Rev. Mr. Roskilly" had been curate-in-charge of the parish of -Nether Stowey, and the occasion of the letter was his promotion to the -Rectory of Kempsford in Gloucestershire. Mrs. S. T. Coleridge, in a late -letter (probably 1843) to her sister, Mrs. Lovell, writes: "In March -[1800] I and the child [Hartley] left him [S. T. C.] in London, and -proceeded to Kempsford in Gloucestershire, the Rectory of Mr. Roskilly; -remained there a month. Papa was to have joined us there, but did not." -See _Thomas Poole and his Friends_, i. 25-27, and _Letters from the Lake -Poets_, p. 6. - -[192] In his letter of January 20, 1799, Josiah Wedgwood acknowledges the -receipt of a letter dated November 29, 1798, but adds that an earlier -letter from Hamburg had not come to hand. A third letter, dated Gttingen, -May 21, 1799, was printed by Cottle in his _Reminiscences_, 1848, p. 425. - -[193] Miss Meteyard, in her _Group of Englishmen_, 1871, p. 99, gives -extracts from the account-current of Messrs. P. and O. Von Axen, the -Hamburg agents of the Wedgwoods. According to her figures, Coleridge drew -125 from October 20 to March 29, 1799, and, "conjointly with Wordsworth," -106 10_s._ on July 8, 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 anticipated 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 Monday, Chester and S. T. C., in a damn'd dirty -hole in the Burg Strasse at Gttingen, possessed at that moment eleven -Louis d'ors and two dollars. 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 -10_s._ which Coleridge received 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 autograph letter of Coleridge to Josiah Wedgwood dated -May 21, 1799, Gttingen, 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. - -[194] A portion of this description of Ratzeburg is included in No. III. -of _Satyrane's Letters_, originally published in No. 10 of _The Friend_, -December 21, 1809. - -[195] The following description of the frozen lake was thrown into a -literary shape and published in No. 19 of _The Friend_, December 28, 1809, -as "Christmas Indoors in North Germany." - -[196] 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 silence 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 prevented my thoughts from resting on him. This parting was the -severest trial that I have ever yet undergone, 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 lament -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." - -[197] From "Osorio," Act V. Sc. 1. _Poetical Works_, p. 506. - -[198] The following description of the Christmas-tree, and of Knecht -Rupert, was originally published, almost verbatim, in No. 19 of the -original issue of _The Friend_, December 28, 1809. - -[199] First published in _Annual Anthology_ of 1800, under the signature -_Cordomi_. See _Poetical Works_, p. 146, and Editor's Note, p. 621. - -[200] The men who rip the oak bark from the logs for tanning. - -[201] - - My dear babe, - Who capable of no articulate sound, - Mars all things with his imitative lisp, - How he would place his hand beside his ear, - His little hand, the small forefinger up, - And bid us listen. - ---"The Nightingale, a Conversation Poem," written in April, 1798. -_Poetical Works_, p. 133. - -[202] Hutton Hall, near Penrith. - -[203] First published in the _Annual Anthology_ of 1800. See _Poetical -Works_, p. 146, and Editor's Note, p. 621. According to Carlyon the lines -were dictated by Coleridge and inscribed by one of the party in the -"Stammbuch" of the Wernigerode Inn. _Early Years_, i. 66. - -[204] Olaus Tychsen, 1734-1815, was "Professor of Oriental Tongues" at -Rostock, in Mecklenburg-Schwerin. - -[205] F. C. Achard, born in 1754, was author of an "Instruction for making -sugar, molasses, and vinous spirit from Beet-root." - -[206] The 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 Dartmouth. - -[207] Coleridge took but few notes during this tour. In 1803 he -retranscribed his fragmentary jottings and regrets that he possessed no -more, "though we were at the interesting Bovey waterfall [Becky Fall], -through that wild dell of ashes which leads to Ashburton, 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 Castle." 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 -Southey_, i. 84. - -[208] Suwarrow, at the head of the Austro-Russian troops, defeated the -French under Joubert at Novi near Alessandria, in North Italy, August 15, -1799. - -[209] A temporary residence of Josiah Wedgwood, who had taken it on lease -in order to be near his newly purchased property at Combe Florey, in -Somersetshire. Meteyard's _Group of Englishmen_, 1871, p. 107. - -[210] Southey's brother, a midshipman on board the Sylph gun-brig. A -report had reached England that the Sylph had been captured and brought to -Ferrol. _Southey's Life and Correspondence_, ii. 30. - -[211] Marshal Massena defeated the Russians under Prince Korsikov at -Zurich, September 25, 1799. - -[212] William Jackson, organist of Exeter Cathedral, 1730-1803, a musical -composer and artist. He published, among other works, _The Four Ages with -Essays_, 1798. See letter of Southey to S. T. Coleridge, October 3, 1799, -_Southey's Life and Correspondence_, ii. 26. - -[213] John Codrington Warwick Bampfylde, second son of Richard Bampfylde, -of Poltimore, was the author of _Sixteen Sonnets_, published in 1779. In -the letter of October 3 (see above) Southey gives an interesting account -of his eccentric habits and melancholy history. In a prefatory note to -four of Bampfylde's sonnets, included by Southey in his _Specimens of the -Later English 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, designed to republish the little collection of -Bampfylde's Sonnets, with what few of his pieces were still unedited. - -"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." _Specimens of the Later English Poets_, 1808, -iii. 434. - -[214] "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 countenance had -shone upon her. - -[215] Dr. Cookson, Canon of Windsor and Rector of Forncett, Norfolk. -Dorothy Wordsworth passed much of her time under his roof before she -finally threw in her lot with her brother William in 1795. - -[216] The journal, or notes for a journal, of this 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 Cockermouth. It -is certain that they passed through Keswick again on Friday, November 15, -as the following entry testifies:-- - -"1 mile and 1/2 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 daughter's marriage, -took a solemn farewell of the Vale of Keswick once so strange, but then so -dear and so familiar. - -[217] George Fricker, Mrs. Coleridge's younger brother. - -[218] A gossiping account of the early history and writings of "Mr. Robert -Southey" appeared in _Public Characters for 1799-1800_, a humble -forerunner of _Men of the Time_, published 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, Southey, and -Coleridge, married three sisters. Southey is attached to domestic life, -and, fortunately, was very happy in his matrimonial connection." It was -Sir Richard Phillips, 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. - -[219] "These various pieces were rearranged in three volumes under the -title of _Minor Poems_, in 1815, with this motto, _Nos hc novimus esse -nihil_." _Poetical Works of Robert Southey_, 1837, ii., xii. - -[220] Mary Hayes, a friend of Mary Wollstonecraft, whose opinions she -advocated with great zeal, and whose death she witnessed. Among other -works, she wrote a novel, _Memoirs of Emma Courtney_, and _Female -Biography, or Memoirs of Illustrious and Celebrated Women_. Six volumes. -London: R. Phillips. 1803. - -[221] He used the same words in a letter to Poole dated December 31, 1799. -_Thomas Poole and his Friends_, i. 1. - -[222] "Essay on the New French Constitution," _Essays on His Own Times_, -i. 183-189. - -[223] The Ode appeared in the _Morning Post_, December 24, 1799. The -stanzas in which the Duchess commemorated her passage over Mount St. -Gothard appeared in the _Morning Post_, December 21. They were inscribed -to her children, and it was the last stanza, in which she anticipates 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. H. N. Coleridge._ - -[224] 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 destitute. _Ex his disce_ his friends -Lamb and Southey." _Biographia Literaria_, 1817, vol. i. chapter i. p. 70, -_n._ - -[225] Mrs. Robinson ("Perdita") contributed two poems to the _Annual -Anthology_ of 1800, "Jasper" and "The Haunted Beach." The line which -caught Coleridge's fancy, the first of the twelfth stanza, runs thus:-- - - "Pale Moon! thou Spectre of the Sky." - -_Annual Anthology_, 1800, p. 168. - -[226] _St. Leon_ was published in 1799. _William Godwin, his Friends and -Contemporaries_, i. 330. - -[227] See "Mr. Coleridge's Report of Mr. Pitt's Speech in Parliament of -February 17, 1800, On the continuance 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 skeleton sentences and fragmentary jottings. 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 description 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 -Jacobinism," and, if these were the words which Pitt used, in this -instance, Coleridge altered for the worse. - -[228] "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 beloved and respected." Southey to Rickman, January 9, -1800. _Life and Correspondence_, ii. 46. It is well known that Southey -advocated the establishment of Protestant orders of Sisters of Mercy. - -[229] In a letter from Southey to Coleridge, dated February 15, 1800 -(unpublished), he proposes the establishment of a Magazine with signed -articles. But a "History of the Levelling Principle," which Coleridge had -suggested as a joint work, he would only publish anonymously. - -[230] See Letter from Southey to Coleridge, December 27, 1799. _Life and -Correspondence_, ii. 35. - -[231] "Concerning the French, I wish Bonaparte had staid in Egypt and that -Robespierre had guilloteened Sieys. These cursed complex governments are -good for nothing, and will ever be in the hands of intriguers: the -Jacobins were the men, and one house of representatives, lodging the -executive in committees, the plain and common system of government. The -cause of republicanism is over, and it is now only a struggle for -dominion. There wants a Lycurgus after Robespierre, a man loved for his -virtue, and bold and inflexible, who should have levelled the property of -France, and then would the Republic have been immortal--and the world must -have been revolutionized by example." From an unpublished letter from -Southey to Coleridge, dated December 23, 1799. - -[232] "Alas, poor human nature! Or rather, indeed, alas, poor Gallic -nature! For [Greek: Graioi aei paides] the French are always children, and -it is an infirmity of benevolence to wish, or dread, aught concerning -them." S. T. C., _Morning Post_, December 31, 1797; _Essays on His Own -Times_, i. 184. - -[233] See _Poetical Works_, Appendix K, pp. 544, 545. Editor's Note, pp. -646-649. - -[234] - - "The _winter_ Moon upon the sand - A silvery Carpet made, - And mark'd the sailor reach the land-- - And mark'd _his Murderer_ wash his hand - Where the green billows played!" - -_Annual Anthology_, 1800: "The Haunted Beach," sixth stanza, p. 256. - -[235] These letters, under the title of "Monopolists" and "Farmers," -appeared in the _Morning Post_, October 3-9, 1800. Coleridge wrote the -first of the series, and the introduction to No. III. of "Farmers," "In -what manner they are affected by the War" _Essays on His Own Times_, ii. -413-450; _Thomas Poole and his Friends_, ii. 15, 16. - -[236] It is impossible to explain this statement, which was repeated in a -letter to Josiah Wedgwood, dated November 1, 1800. The printed -"Christabel," even including the conclusion to Part II., makes only 677 -lines, and the discarded portion, if it ever existed, has never come to -light. See Mr. Dykes Campbell's valuable and exhaustive note on -"Christabel," _Poetical Works_, pp. 601-607. - -[237] A former title of "The Excursion." - -[238] "Sunday night, half past ten, September 14, 1800, a boy born -(Bracy). - -"September 27, 1800. The child being very ill was baptized by the name of -Derwent. The child, hour after hour, made a noise exactly like the -creaking of a door which is being shut very slowly to prevent its -creaking." (_MS._) S. T. C. - -My father's life was saved by his mother's devotion. "On the occasion here -recorded," he writes, "I had eleven convulsion fits. At last my father -took my mother gently out of the room, and told her that she must make up -her mind to lose this child. By and by she heard the nurse lulling me, and -said she would try once more to give me the breast." She did so; and from -that time all went well, and the child recovered. - -[239] Afterwards Sir Anthony, the distinguished surgeon, 1768-1840. - -[240] According to Dr. Davy, the editor of _Fragmentary Remains of Sir H. -Davy_, London, 1858, the reference is to the late Mr. James Thompson of -Clitheroe. - -[241] William, the elder brother of Raisley Calvert, who left Wordsworth 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 with a blended portrait of himself and Coleridge, and -ends with a blended portrait of Coleridge and William Calvert. Mrs. Joshua -Stanger (Mary Calvert) maintained that "the large gray eyes" and "low-hung -lip" were certainly descriptive of Coleridge and could not apply to her -father; but she admitted that, in other parts of the poem, Wordsworth may -have had her father in his mind. Of this we may be sure, that neither -Coleridge nor Wordsworth had "inventions rare," or displayed beetles under -a microscope. It is evident that Hartley Coleridge, who said "that his -father's character 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," _Cornhill Magazine_, -May, 1890, pp. 494-520. - -[242] On page 210 of vol. ii. of the second edition of the _Lyrical -Ballads_ (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. 134, II. 4-18. - -[243] During the preceding month Coleridge had 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 addressed to Josiah Wedgwood, embodied the result of -his studies. They would serve, he thought, as a preliminary excursus to a -larger work, and would convince the Wedgwoods that his _wanderjahr_ had -not been altogether misspent. Mr. Leslie Stephen, to whom this -correspondence has been submitted, is good enough to allow me to print the -following 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 transcendentalism of -the Schelling kind. One point is, that he still sticks to Hartley and to -the Association doctrine, which he afterwards denounced so frequently. -Thus he is dissatisfied with Locke, but has not broken with the 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] he 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." - -[244] Nothing is known of these lines beyond the fact that in 1816 -Coleridge printed them as "Conclusion to Part II." of "Christabel." It is -possible that they were intended to form part of a distinct poem in the -metre of "Christabel," or, it may be, they are the sole survival of an -attempted third part of the ballad itself. It is plain, however, that the -picture is from the life, that "the little child, the limber elf," is the -four-year-old Hartley, hardly as yet "fitting to unutterable thought, The -breeze-like motion, and the self-born carol." - -[245] George Hutchinson, the fourth son of John Hutchinson of Penrith, was -at this time in occupation of land at Bishop's Middleham, the original -home of the family. He migrated into Radnorshire in 1815, being then about -the age of thirty-seven; but between that date and his leaving Bishop's -Middleham he had resided for some time in Lincolnshire, at Scrivelsby, -where he was engaged probably as agent on the estate of the "Champion." -His first residence after migration was at New Radnor, where he married -Margaret Roberts of Curnellan, but he subsequently removed into -Herefordshire, where he resided in many places, latterly at Kingston. He -died at his son's house, The Vinery, Hereford, in 1866. It would seem from -a letter dated July 25, 1801 (Letter CXX.), that at this time Sarah -Hutchinson kept house for her brother George, and that Mary (Mrs. -Wordsworth) and Joanna Hutchinson lived with their elder brother Tom at -Gallow Hill, in the parish of Brompton, near Scarborough. The register of -Brompton Church records the marriage of William Wordsworth and Mary -Hutchinson, on October 4, 1802; but in the notices of marriages in the -_Gentleman's Magazine_, of October, 1802, the latter is described as "Miss -Mary Hutchinson of Wykeham," an adjoining parish. - -[From information kindly supplied to me by Mr. John Hutchinson, the keeper -of the Library of the Middle Temple.] - -[246] The historian William Roscoe (afterwards M. P. for Liverpool), and -the physician James Currie, the editor and biographer of Burns, were at -this time settled at Liverpool and on terms of intimacy with Dr. Peter -Crompton of Eaton Hall. - -[247] The Bristol merchant who lent the manor-house of Racedown to -Wordsworth in 1795. - -[248] In the well-known lines "On revisiting the Sea-shore," allusion is -made to this "mild physician," who vainly dissuaded him from bathing in -the open sea. Sea-bathing was at all times an irresistible pleasure to -Coleridge, and he continued the practice, greatly to his benefit, down to -a late period of his life and long after he had become a confirmed -invalid. _Poetical Works_, p. 159. - -[249] Francis Wrangham, whom Coleridge once described as "admirer of me -and a pitier of my political principles" (Letter to Cottle [April], 1796), -was his senior by a few years. On failing to obtain, it is said on account -of his advanced political views, a fellowship at Trinity Hall, he started -taking pupils at Cobham in Surrey in partnership with Basil Montagu. The -scheme was of short duration, for Montagu deserted tuition for the bar, -and Wrangham, early in life, was preferred to the benefices of Hemmanby -and Folkton, in the neighborhood of Scarborough. He was afterwards -appointed to a Canonry of York, to the Archdeaconry of Cleveland, and -finally to a prebendal stall at Chester. He published a volume of _Poems_ -(London, 1795), in which are included Coleridge's Translation of the -"Hendecasyllabli ad Bruntonam e Grant exituram," and some "Verses to Miss -Brunton with the preceding Translation." He died in 1842. _Poetical -Works_, p. 30. See, too, Editor's Note, p. 569; _Reminiscences of -Cambridge_, by Henry Gunning, London, 1855, ii. 12 _seq._ - -[250] "I took a first floor for him in King Street, Covent Garden, at my -tailor's, Howell's, whose wife is a cheerful housewife of middle age, who -I knew would nurse Coleridge as kindly as if he were her son." D. Stuart, -_Gent. Mag._, May, 1838. See, too, _Letters from the Lake Poets_, p. 7. - -[251] Captain Luff, for many years a resident at Patterdale, near -Ulleswater, was held in esteem for the energy with which he procured the -enrolment of large companies of volunteers. Wordsworth and Coleridge were -frequent visitors at his house, For his account of the death of Charles -Gough, on Helvellyn, and the fidelity of the famous spaniel, see -_Coleorton Letters_, i. 97. _Letters from the Lake Poets_, p. 131. - -[252] _Ciceronis Epist. ad Fam._ iv. 10. - -[253] _Ib._ i. 2. - -[254] The lines are taken, with some alterations, from a kind of _l'envoy_ -or epilogue which Bruno affixed to his long philosophical poem, _Jordani -Bruni Nolani de Innumerabilibus Immenso et Infigurabili; seu de Universo -et Mundis libri octo_. Francofurti, 1591, p. 654. - -[255] John Hamilton Mortimer, 1741-1779. He painted _King John granting -Magna Charta_, the _Battle of Agincourt_, the _Conversion of the Britons_, -and other historical subjects. - -[256] Drayton's _Poly-Olbion_, Song 22, 1-17. - -[257] The Latin Iambics, in which Dean Ogle celebrated the little Blyth, -which ran through his father's park at Kirkley, near Ponteland, 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 -without 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 gathered 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. - -[258] One of a series of falls made by the Dash Beck, which divides the -parishes of Caldbeck and Skiddaw Forest, and flows into Bassenthwaite -Lake. - -The following minute description is from an entry in a note-book dated -October 10, 1800:-- - -"The Dash itself is by no means equal to the Churnmilk (_sic_) at Eastdale -(_sic_) or the Wytheburn Fall. This I wrote standing under and seeing the -whole Dash; but when I went over and descended to the bottom, 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 -horse-shoe 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 complete spray-_rain_. Here it assumes, I 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 towards the right edge of the black [rock] two or -three leisurely fillets have escaped out of the turmoil." - -[259] I have been unable to discover any trace of the MS. of this -translation. - -[260] The "Ode to Dejection," of which this is the earliest version, was -composed on Sunday evening, April 4, and published six months later, in -the _Morning Post_ of October 4, 1802. It was reprinted in the _Sibylline -Leaves_, 1817. A comparison of the Ode, as sent to Sotheby, with the 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 Post_. The Ode was begun some three -weeks after Coleridge returned to Keswick, after an absence of four -months. He had visited Southey in London, he had been a fellow guest with -Tom Wedgwood for a month at Stowey, he had returned to London and attended -Davy's lectures at the Royal Institution, and on 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 Keswick on Sunday the 14th or Monday the 15th -of March. On the following Friday he walked over to Dove Cottage, and once -more found himself 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 hopelessness with the glad assurance of inward 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 movements at the -time, contains, among other hints and jottings, the following almost -illegible fragment: "The larches in spring push out their separate bundles -of ... into green brushes or pencils which ... small tassels;"--and with -the note may be compared the following lines included in the version -contained in the letter, but afterwards omitted:-- - - 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!_ - O 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 has rightly -divined, belonged to the original draft of the Ode. _Poetical Works_, p. -159. Appendix G, pp. 522-524. Editor's Note, pp. 626-628. - -[261] "A lovely skye-canoe." _Morning Post._ The reference is to the -Prologue to "Peter Bell." Compare stanza 22, - - "My little vagrant Form of light, - My gay and beautiful Canoe." - -Wordsworth's _Poetical Works_, p. 100. - -[262] For Southey's reply, dated Bristol, August 4, 1802, see _Life and -Correspondence_, ii. 189-192. - -[263] The Right Hon. Isaac Corry, Chancellor of the Exchequer for Ireland, -to whom Southey acted as secretary for a short time. - -[264] "On Sunday, August 1st, 1/2 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 -Wordsworths and transcribed by Miss Sarah Hutchinson. - -[265] "The following month, September (1802), was marked by the birth of -his first child, a daughter, named after her paternal grandmother, -Margaret." _Southey's Life and Correspondence_, ii. 192. - -[266] Southey's reply, which was not in the affirmative, has not been -preserved. The joint-residence at Greta Hall began in September, 1803. - -[267] Charles and Mary Lamb's visit to Greta Hall, which lasted three full -weeks, must have extended from (about) August 12 to September 2, 1802. -_Letters of Charles Lamb_, i. 180-184. - -[268] - - "_Here melancholy, on the pale crags laid, - Might muse herself to sleep_; or Fancy come, - Watching the mind with tender cozenage - And shaping things that are not." - -"Coombe-Ellen, written in Radnorshire, September, 1798." "Poems of William -Lisle Bowles," _Galignani_, p. 139. For "Melancholy, a Fragment," see -_Poetical Works_, p. 34. - -[269] I have not been able to verify this reference. - -[270] "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 certainly have thunder,--yet here (but that I am -hungered and provisionless), _here_ I could be warm and wait, methinks, -for to-morrow's sun--and on a nice stone table am I now at this moment -writing to you--between 2 and 3 o'clock, as I guess. Surely the first -letter ever written from the top of Sca Fell." - -"After the thunder-storm I shouted out all your names in the -sheep-fold--where echo came upon echo, and then Hartley and Derwent, and -then I laughed and shouted Joanna. It leaves all the echoes I ever heard -far, far behind, in number, distinctness and humanness of voice; and then, -not to forget 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 nonnihil displicet, quod in iis ill montium Grisosonum inter se -responsiones totidem reboant anglic, _God, God_, haud aliter atque temet -audivi tuas [sic] montes Cumbrianas [sic] resonare docentes, _Tod, Tod_, -nempe Doctorem infelicem: vocem certe haud Deum sonantem." _Letters of -Charles Lamb_, i. 185. See, too, Canon Ainger's translation and note, -_ibid._ p. 331. See, also, Southey's Letter to Grosvenor Bedford, January -9, 1804. _Life and Correspondence_, ii. 248. - -[271] "The Spirit of Navigation and Discovery." "Bowles's Poetical Works," -_Galignani_, p. 142. - -[272] These lines form part of the poem addressed "To Matilda Betham. From -a Stranger." The date of composition was September 9, 1802, the day before -they were quoted in the letter to Sotheby. _Poetical Works_, p. 168. - -[273] The "Hymn before Sunrise in the Vale of Chamouni" was first printed -in the _Morning Post_, September 11, 1802. It was reprinted in the -original issue of _The Friend_, No. xi. (October 16, 1809, pp. 174-176), -and again in _Sibylline Leaves_, 1817. As De Quincey was the first to -point out, Coleridge was indebted to the Swiss poetess, Frederica Brun, -for the framework of the poem and for many admirable lines and images, but -it was his solitary walk on Scafell, and the consequent uplifting of -spirit, which enabled him "to create the dry bones of the German outline -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 resident in the Lake District, he was absent -at least half the time. Of his greater poems there are but four, the -second part of "Christabel," the "Dejection: an Ode," the "Picture," and -the "Hymn before Sunrise," 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 Keswick 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 pleasant 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 Skiddaw." _Poetical Works_, p. 165, -and Editor's Note, pp. 629, 630. - -[274] Coleridge must have presumed on the ignorance of Sotheby and of his -friends generally. He could hardly have passed out of Boyer's hands -without having learned that [Greek: Estse] signifies, "He hath placed," -not "He hath stood." But, like most people who have changed their -opinions, he took an especial pride in proclaiming his unswerving -allegiance to fixed principles. The initials S. T. C., Grecised and -mistranslated, expressed this pleasing delusion, and the Greek, "Punic -[sc. punnic] Greek," as he elsewhere calls it, might run the risk of -detection. - -[275] Parts III. and IV. of the "Three Graves"--were first published in -_The Friend_, No. vi. Sept. 21, 1809. Parts I. and II. were published for -the first time in _The Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge_, -Macmillan, 1893. The final version of this stanza (ll. 509-513) differs -from that in the text. "A small blue sun" became "A tiny sun," and for -"Ten thousand hairs of colour'd light" Coleridge substituted "Ten thousand -hairs and threads of light." See _Poetical Works_, p. 92, and Editor's -Note, pp. 589-591. - -[276] The six essays to which he calls Estlin's attention are reprinted in -_Essays on His Own Times_, ii. 478-585. - -[277] The residence of Josiah Wedgwood. - -[278] Paley's last work, "_Natural Theology_; or, Evidences of the -Existence and Attributes of A Deity, collected from the Appearances of -Nature," was published in 1802. - -[279] For Southey's well known rejoinder to this "ebullience of -schematism," see _Life and Correspondence_, ii. 220-223. - -[280] Southey's correspondence contains numerous references to the -historian Sharon Turner [1768-1847], and to William Owen, the translator -of the _Mabinogion_ and author of the _Welsh Paradise Lost_. - -[281] It may be interesting to compare the following unpublished note from -Coleridge's Scotch Journal with the well known passage in Dorothy -Wordsworth's Journal of her tour in the Highlands (_Memoir of Wordsworth_, -i. 235): "Next morning 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 native elegance. Oh! she was a divine creature! The sight of -the boat, full of Highland men and women and children from the preaching, -exquisitely fine. We soon reached E. Tarbet--all the while rain. Never, -never let me forget that small herd-boy in his tartan-plaid, dim-seen on -the hilly field, and long heard ere seen, a melancholy voice calling to -his cattle! nor the beautiful harmony of the heath, and the dancing fern, -and the ever-moving birches. That of itself enough to make Scotland -visitable, its fields of heather giving a sort of shot silk finery in the -apotheosis of finery. On Monday we went to Arrochar. 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: "O Esteese, that thou hadst from thy -22nd year indeed made thy _own_ way and _alone_!" - -[282] - - 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._ - -[283] Margaret Southey, who was born in September, 1802, died in the -latter part of August, 1803. - -[284] The "Pains of Sleep" was published for the first time, together with -"Christabel" and "Kubla Khan," in 1816. With the exception of the -insertion of the remarkable lines 52-54, the first draft of the poem does -not materially differ from the published version. A transcript of the same -poem was sent to Poole in a letter dated October 3, 1803. _Poetical -Works_, p. 170, and Editor's Note, pp. 631, 632. - -[285] The Rev. Peter Elmsley, the well known scholar, who had been a -school and college friend of Southey's, was at this time resident at -Edinburgh. The _Edinburgh Review_ had been founded the year before, and -Elmsley was among the earliest contributors. His name frequently recurs in -Southey's correspondence. - -[286] Compare Southey's first impressions 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 on 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 anything so -impressive as the first sight of this; there was a wild red sunset -slanting along it." _Selections from the Letters of R. Southey_, i. 342. - -[287] Compare _Table Talk_, for September 26, 1830, where a similar -statement is made in almost the same words. - -[288] The same sentence occurs in a letter to Sir G. Beaumont, dated -September 22, 1803. _Coleorton Letters_, i. 6. - -[289] The MS. of this letter was given to my father by the Rev. Dr. -Wreford. I know nothing of the person to whom it was addressed, except -that he was "Matthew Coates, Esq., of Bristol." - -[290] Dr. Joseph Adams, the biographer of Hunter, who in 1816 recommended -Coleridge to the care of Mr. James Gillman. - - - -***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LETTERS OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, -VOL. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at <a -href="http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></p> -<p>Title: Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Vol. I (of 2)</p> -<p>Author: Samuel Taylor Coleridge</p> -<p>Editor: Ernest Hartley Coleridge</p> -<p>Release Date: January 1, 2014 [eBook #44553]</p> -<p>Language: English</p> -<p>Character set encoding: UTF-8</p> -<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LETTERS OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, VOL. I (OF 2)***</p> <p> </p> -<h4>E-text prepared by the Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> - (<a href="http://www.pgdp.net">http://www.pgdp.net</a>)<br /> - from page images generously made available by<br /> - Internet Archive<br /> - (<a href="https://archive.org">https://archive.org</a>)</h4> <p> </p> <table border="0" style="background-color: #ccccff;margin: 0 auto;" cellpadding="10"> <tr> @@ -20655,360 +20639,6 @@ Coleridge to the care of Mr. James Gillman.</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> -<hr class="full" /> -<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LETTERS OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, VOL. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - - - - -Title: Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Vol. I (of 2) - - -Author: Samuel Taylor Coleridge - -Editor: Ernest Hartley Coleridge - -Release Date: January 1, 2014 [eBook #44553] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) - - -***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LETTERS OF SAMUEL TAYLOR -COLERIDGE, VOL. I (OF 2)*** - - -E-text prepared by the Online Distributed Proofreading Team -(http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by -Internet Archive (https://archive.org) - - - -Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this - file which includes the original illustrations. - See 44553-h.htm or 44553-h.zip: - (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/44553/44553-h/44553-h.htm) - or - (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/44553/44553-h.zip) - - - Images of the original pages are available through - Internet Archive. See - https://archive.org/details/lettersofsamuelt01coleuoft - - - Project Gutenberg has the other volume of this work. - Volume II: see http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44554 - - -Transcriber's note: - - Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). - - The original text contains letters with diacritical marks - that are not represented in this text-file version. - - The original text includes Greek characters that have been - replaced with transliterations in this text-file version. - - - - - -LETTERS OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE - - -[Illustration] - - -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, Mass., 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, Conversations, and -Recollections of S. T. Coleridge," which was issued in 1836, contains -forty-five letters or parts of letters; 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 himself, and -one, of the greatest interest, to Charles Lamb. In 1847, a series of early -letters to Thomas Poole appeared 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 posthumous "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 H. Davy," -edited by his brother, Dr. Davy; and in the "Diary of H. C. Robinson," -published in 1869, 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, 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 "Lippincott's Magazine," and in 1878, a few letters to Matilda Betham -were published in "Fraser's Magazine." During the last six years the vast -store which still remained unpublished has been drawn upon for various -memoirs and biographies. The following works containing new letters are -given in order of publication: Herr Brandl's "Samuel T. Coleridge and the -English Romantic School," 1887; "Memorials of Coleorton," edited by -Professor Knight, 1887; "Thomas Poole and his Friends," by Mrs. H. -Sandford, 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 Southey 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 Rickman, and four to Coleridge's old college friend, -Archdeacon 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 -Highgate,--only two or three, preserved in the MSS. Department 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 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 accidentally discovered in 1876, only five have been printed. Of some -fourscore letters addressed to his nephews, William Hart Coleridge, John -Taylor Coleridge, Henry Nelson 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 interest, -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 John 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 Philobiblon Society, with an -introduction 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 transcriptions of eighty-seven letters addressed by Coleridge -to her father, Daniel Stuart, editor of "The Morning Post" and "Courier," -and these, together with letters from Wordsworth and Southey, were printed -in a single volume bearing the title, "Letters from the Lake Poets." Miss -Stuart contributed a short account of her father's life, and also a -reminiscence of Coleridge, headed "A Farewell." - -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 Highgate 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 meanwhile, 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 illustrate the story of the writer's -life than to embody his critical opinions, or to record the development of -his philosophical 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 recommendation, 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 received by the -initiated with unquestioning and insatiable delight. But Coleridge's -letters lack style. The fastidious 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 "questionable" 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 the human heart" which command our interest in -Coleridge's Letters, and invest them with their peculiar charm. - -At what period after death, and to what extent the private 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 age. 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. -Thenceforth, as the published writings of his immediate descendants -testify, a fuller and therefore a fairer revelation was steadily -contemplated. Letters collected for this purpose find a place in the -present volume, but the selection has 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 permission 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 Fonthill. The letters 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. -Gordon 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 Cary, the grandson -of the translator of Dante. My acknowledgments 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 addressed 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 Philobiblon 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 grandfather, and for -constant and unwearying advice and assistance 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 Coleridge; 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 Sandford, -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 Chertsey. - -Of my friend, Mr. Dykes Campbell, I can only say that he has 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 contemporaries, -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 accomplished, 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 assurance. - - ERNEST HARTLEY COLERIDGE. - - - - -PRINCIPAL EVENTS IN THE LIFE OF S. T. COLERIDGE - - -Born, October 21, 1772. - -Death of his 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 "Conciones 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 Nether-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 L150 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. - -Residence in Rome, January-May, 1806. - -Returned to England, August, 1806. - -Visit to Wordsworth at Coleorton, December 21, 1806. - -Met De Quincey at Bridgwater, July, 1807. - -First lecture at Royal Institution, January 12, 1808. - -Settled at Allan Bank, Grasmere, September, 1808. - -First number of "The 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 Josiah 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 "Biographia 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 Aeschylus," 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, 1828. - -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 His 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. -1836. - -6. 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 Prior 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. 1838. - -15. The Autobiography of Leigh Hunt. London. 1860. - -16. Diary, Reminiscences, and Correspondence of Henry Crabb Robinson. -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. - -18. 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 Cuthbert 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. D., 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 has been printed previously to its appearance in this -work, the name of the book or periodical containing it is added in -parenthesis. - - - PAGE - - CHAPTER I. STUDENT LIFE, 1785-1794. - - I. THOMAS POOLE, February, 1797. (Biographia Literaria, 1847, - ii. 313) 4 - - II. THOMAS POOLE, March, 1797. (Biographia Literaria, 1847, - ii. 315) 6 - - III. THOMAS POOLE, October 9, 1797. (Biographia Literaria, - 1847, ii. 319) 10 - - IV. THOMAS POOLE, October 16, 1797. (Biographia Literaria, - 1847, ii. 322) 13 - - V. THOMAS POOLE, February 19, 1798. (Biographia Literaria, - 1847, ii. 326) 18 - - VI. MRS. COLERIDGE, Senior, February 4, 1785. (Illustrated - London News, April 1, 1893) 21 - - VII. REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE, undated, before 1790. (Illustrated - London News, April 1, 1893) 22 - - VIII. REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE, October 16, 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 19, 1792 37 - - XIII. MRS. EVANS, February 22 [1792] 39 - - XIV. MARY EVANS, February 22 [1792] 41 - - XV. REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE, April [1792]. (Illustrated London - 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 6 [1794], (Illustrated London - News, April 15, 1893) 57 - - XXII. REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE, February 8, 1794 59 - - XXIII. REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE, February 11, 1794 60 - - XXIV. CAPT. JAMES COLERIDGE, February 20, 1794. (Brandl's Life - of Coleridge, 1887, p. 65) 61 - - XXV. REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE, March 12, 1794. (Illustrated - London News, April 15, 1893) 62 - - XXVI. REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE, March 21, 1794 64 - - XXVII. REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE, end of March, 1794 66 - - XXVIII. REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE, March 27, 1794 66 - - XXIX. REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE, March 30, 1794 68 - - XXX. REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE, April 7, 1794 69 - - XXXI. REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE, May 1, 1794 70 - - XXXII. ROBERT SOUTHEY, July 6, 1794. (Sixteen lines published, - Southey's Life and Correspondence, 1849, i. 212) 72 - - XXXIII. ROBERT SOUTHEY, July 15, 1794. (Portions published in - Letter to H. Martin, July 22, 1794, Biographia Literaria, - 1847, ii. 338) 74 - - XXXIV. ROBERT SOUTHEY, September 18, 1794. (Eighteen lines - published, Southey's Life and Correspondence, 1849, i. 218) 81 - - XXXV. ROBERT SOUTHEY, September 19, 1794 84 - - XXXVI. ROBERT SOUTHEY, September 26, 1794 86 - - XXXVII. ROBERT SOUTHEY, October 21, 1794 87 - - XXXVIII. ROBERT SOUTHEY, November, 1794 95 - - XXXIX. ROBERT SOUTHEY, Autumn, 1794. (Illustrated London News, - April 15, 1893) 101 - - XL. REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE, November 6, 1794 103 - - XLI. ROBERT SOUTHEY, December 11, 1794 106 - - XLII. ROBERT SOUTHEY, December 17, 1794 114 - - XLIII. ROBERT SOUTHEY, December, 1794. (Eighteen lines - published, Southey's Life and Correspondence, 1849, i. 227) 121 - - XLIV. MARY EVANS, (?) December, 1794. (Samuel Taylor Coleridge, - A Narrative, 1894, p. 38) 122 - - XLV. MARY EVANS, December 24, 1794. (Samuel Taylor Coleridge, - A Narrative, 1894, p. 40) 124 - - XLVI. ROBERT SOUTHEY, December, 1794 125 - - - CHAPTER II. EARLY PUBLIC LIFE, 1795-1796. - - XLVII. JOSEPH COTTLE, Spring, 1795. (Early Recollections, - 1837, i. 16) 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, 1795 134 - - LI. THOMAS POOLE, October 7, 1795. (Biographia Literaria, - 1847, ii. 347) 136 - - LII. ROBERT SOUTHEY, November 13, 1795 137 - - LIII. JOSIAH WADE, January 27, 1796. (Biographia Literaria, - 1847, ii. 350) 151 - - LIV. JOSEPH COTTLE, February 22, 1796. (Early Recollections, - 1837, i. 141; Biographia Literaria, 1847, ii. 356) 154 - - LV. THOMAS POOLE, March 30, 1796. (Biographia Literaria, - 1847, ii. 357) 155 - - LVI. THOMAS POOLE, May 12, 1796. (Biographia Literaria, - 1847, ii. 366; Thomas Poole and his Friends, 1887, i. 144) 158 - - LVII. JOHN THELWALL, May 13, 1796 159 - - LVIII. THOMAS POOLE, May 29, 1796. (Biographia Literaria, - 1847, ii. 368) 164 - - LIX. JOHN THELWALL, June 22, 1796 166 - - LX. THOMAS POOLE, September 24, 1796. (Biographia Literaria, - 1847, ii. 373; Thomas Poole and his Friends, 1887, i. 155) 168 - - LXI. CHARLES LAMB [September 28, 1796]. (Gillman's Life of - Coleridge, 1838, pp. 338-340) 171 - - LXII. THOMAS POOLE, November 5, 1796. (Biographia Literaria, - 1847, ii. 379; Thomas Poole and his Friends, 1887, i. 175) 172 - - LXIII. THOMAS POOLE, November 7, 1796 176 - - LXIV. JOHN THELWALL, November 19 [1796]. (Twenty-six lines - published, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, A Narrative, 1894, p. 58) 178 - - LXV. THOMAS POOLE, December 11, 1796. (Thomas Poole and his - Friends, 1887, i. 182) 183 - - LXVI. THOMAS POOLE, December 12, 1796. (Thomas Poole and his - Friends, 1887, i. 184) 184 - - LXVII. THOMAS POOLE, December 13, 1796. (Thomas Poole and his - Friends, 1887, i. 186) 187 - - LXVIII. JOHN THELWALL, December 17, 1796 193 - - LXIX. THOMAS POOLE [? December 18, 1796]. (Thomas Poole and his - Friends, 1887, i. 195) 208 - - LXX. JOHN THELWALL, December 31, 1796 210 - - - CHAPTER III. THE STOWEY PERIOD, 1797-1798. - - LXXI. REV. J. P. ESTLIN [1797]. (Privately printed, - Philobiblon Society) 213 - - LXXII. JOHN THELWALL, February 6, 1797 214 - - LXXIII. JOSEPH COTTLE, June, 1797. (Early Recollections, 1837, - i. 250) 220 - - LXXIV. ROBERT SOUTHEY, July, 1797 221 - - LXXV. JOHN THELWALL [October 16], 1797 228 - - LXXVI. JOHN THELWALL [Autumn, 1797] 231 - - LXXVII. JOHN THELWALL [Autumn, 1797] 232 - - LXXVIII. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, January, 1798. (Ten lines - published, Life of Wordsworth, 1889, i. 128) 234 - - LXXIX. JOSEPH COTTLE, March 8, 1798. (Part published - incorrectly, Early Recollections, 1837, i. 251) 238 - - LXXX. REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE, April, 1798 239 - - LXXXI. REV. J. P. ESTLIN, May [? 1798]. (Privately printed, - Philobiblon Society) 245 - - LXXXII. REV. J. P. ESTLIN, May 14, 1798. (Privately printed, - Philobiblon Society) 246 - - LXXXIII. THOMAS POOLE, May 14, 1798. (Thirty-one lines - published, Thomas Poole and his Friends, 1887, i. 268) 248 - - LXXXIV. THOMAS POOLE [May 20, 1798]. (Eleven lines published, - Thomas Poole and his Friends, 1887, i. 269) 249 - - LXXXV. CHARLES LAMB [spring of 1798] 249 - - - CHAPTER IV. A VISIT TO GERMANY, 1798-1799. - - LXXXVI. THOMAS POOLE, September 15, 1798. (Thomas Poole and - his Friends, 1887, i. 273) 258 - - LXXXVII. MRS. S. T. COLERIDGE, September 19, 1798 259 - - LXXXVIII. MRS. S. T. COLERIDGE, October 20, 1798 262 - - LXXXIX. MRS. S. T. COLERIDGE, November 26, 1798 265 - - XC. MRS. S. T. COLERIDGE, December 2, 1798 266 - - XCI. REV. MR. ROSKILLY, December 3, 1798 267 - - XCII. THOMAS POOLE, January 4, 1799 267 - - XCIII. MRS. S. T. COLERIDGE, January 14, 1799 271 - - XCIV. MRS. S. T. COLERIDGE, March 12, 1799. (Illustrated - London News, April 29, 1893) 277 - - XCV. THOMAS POOLE, April 6, 1799 282 - - XCVI. MRS. S. T. COLERIDGE, April 8, 1799. (Thirty lines - published, Thomas Poole and his Friends, 1887, i. 295) 284 - - XCVII. MRS. S. T. COLERIDGE, April 23, 1799 288 - - XCVIII. THOMAS POOLE, May 6, 1799. (Thomas Poole and his - Friends, 1887, i. 297) 295 - - - CHAPTER V. FROM SOUTH TO NORTH, 1799-1800. - - XCIX. ROBERT SOUTHEY, July 29, 1799 303 - - C. THOMAS POOLE, September 16, 1799 305 - - CI. ROBERT SOUTHEY, October 15, 1799 307 - - CII. ROBERT SOUTHEY, November 10, 1799 312 - - CIII. ROBERT SOUTHEY, December 9 [1799] 314 - - CIV. ROBERT SOUTHEY [December 24], 1799 319 - - CV. ROBERT SOUTHEY, January 25, 1800 322 - - CVI. ROBERT SOUTHEY [early in 1800] 324 - - CVII. ROBERT SOUTHEY [Postmark, February 18], 1800 326 - - CVIII. ROBERT SOUTHEY [early in 1800] 328 - - CIX. ROBERT SOUTHEY, February 28, 1800 331 - - - CHAPTER VI. A LAKE POET, 1800-1803. - - CX. THOMAS POOLE, August 14, 1800. (Illustrated London News, - May 27, 1893) 335 - - CXI. SIR H. DAVY, October 9, 1800. (Fragmentary Remains, - 1858, p. 80) 336 - - CXII. SIR H. DAVY, October 18, 1800. (Fragmentary Remains, - 1858, p. 79) 339 - - CXIII. SIR H. DAVY, December 2, 1800. (Fragmentary Remains, - 1858, p. 83) 341 - - CXIV. THOMAS POOLE, December 5, 1800. (Eight lines published, - Thomas Poole and his Friends, 1887, ii. 21) 343 - - CXV. SIR H. DAVY, February 3, 1801. (Fragmentary Remains, - 1858, p. 86) 345 - - CXVI. THOMAS POOLE, March 16, 1801 348 - - CXVII. THOMAS POOLE, March 23, 1801 350 - - CXVIII. ROBERT SOUTHEY [May 6, 1801] 354 - - CXIX. ROBERT SOUTHEY, July 22, 1801 356 - - CXX. ROBERT SOUTHEY, July 25, 1801 359 - - CXXI. ROBERT SOUTHEY, August 1, 1801 361 - - CXXII. THOMAS POOLE, September 19, 1801. (Thomas Poole and - his Friends, 1887, ii. 65) 364 - - CXXIII. ROBERT SOUTHEY, December 31, 1801 365 - - CXXIV. MRS. S. T. COLERIDGE [February 24, 1802] 367 - - CXXV. W. SOTHEBY, July 13, 1802 369 - - CXXVI. W. SOTHEBY, July 19, 1802 376 - - CXXVII. ROBERT SOUTHEY, July 29, 1802 384 - - CXXVIII. ROBERT SOUTHEY, August 9, 1802 393 - - CXXIX. W. SOTHEBY, August 26, 1802 396 - - CXXX. W. SOTHEBY, September 10, 1802 401 - - CXXXI. W. SOTHEBY, September 27, 1802 408 - - CXXXII. MRS. S. T. COLERIDGE, November 16, 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 - - CXXXVI. MRS. S. T. COLERIDGE, April 4, 1803 420 - - CXXXVII. 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 the - 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 Right - Honourable Lord Coleridge 60 - - THE COTTAGE AT CLEVEDON, occupied by S. T. Coleridge, - October-November, 1795. From a photograph 136 - - 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 Marshmills, Over Stowey 262 - - ROBERT SOUTHEY, aged forty-one. From an etching on copper. - Private plate 304 - - GRETA HALL, KESWICK. From a photograph 336 - - MRS. S. T. COLERIDGE, aged thirty-nine. From a miniature by - Matilda Betham, now in the possession of the editor 368 - - 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 intervals 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 autobiographical letters is taken from the original MSS., and differs -in many important particulars from that of 1847. - - -I. TO THOMAS POOLE. - -Monday, February, 1797. - -MY DEAR POOLE,--I could inform the 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" without receiving -instruction and amusement; and I should almost despair of that man who -could peruse the Life of John Woolman[2] 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 -inherited 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 Coleridge[3] -in the county of Devon, christened, educated, and apprenticed to the -parish. He afterwards became a respectable woollen-draper in the town of -South Molton.[4] (I have mentioned these particulars, 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 -schoolmaster. His school increased and he got money and knowledge: 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, having scraped up money enough at the age of twenty[5] he walked -to Cambridge, entered at Sidney College, distinguished 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 particularity of times, or places, or names. Here I -shall conclude 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 Tribunal 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 investigation. - - Yours affectionately, - S. T. COLERIDGE. - - -II. TO THE SAME. - -Sunday, March, 1797. - -MY DEAR POOLE,--My father (Vicar of, and Schoolmaster 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 Dissertations arising from the 17th and -18th Chapters of the Book of Judges; 2d, _Sententiae excerptae_, 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 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 faithfully. -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, however, a first-rate -Christian. I need not detain you with his character. In learning, -good-heartedness, 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. He -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, when the living of Ottery St. Mary[6] 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 hued 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 uncommon genius, a severe student, and a good -man. The eighth child was a sister, Anne.[7] She died a little after my -brother Luke, aged twenty-one; - - Rest, gentle Shade! and wait thy Maker's will; - Then rise _unchang'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 commission 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 valuable gold watch, which -my mother now has. All my brothers are remarkably handsome; but they were -as inferior 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,[8] -1772. - -From October 20, 1772, to October 20, 1773. Christened 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."[9] 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 myself 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, the very image -of Shenstone's, was named Old Dame Key. She was nearly related to Sir -Joshua Reynolds. - -From October 20, 1774, to October 20, 1775. I was inoculated; which I -mention because I distinctly remember it, and that my eyes were bound; at -which I manifested so much obstinate indignation, that at last they -removed the bandage, and unaffrighted 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, 1797. - -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,[10] -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 having eat a large quantity of beans -on Saturday. For the other boys did not like them, and as it was an -economic 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 consequence 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 books[11] that could be had at that time, and likewise -all the uncovered tales of Tom Hickathrift, Jack the Giant-killer, etc., -etc., etc., etc. And I 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 because I could read and spell and had, I may truly say, a -memory and understanding forced into almost an unnatural 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_. Sensibility, imagination, -vanity, sloth, and feelings of deep and bitter contempt for all who -traversed the orbit of my understanding, 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 remember, stole up in spite of -orders to the 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 half-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 the 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. He 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--thinking at -the _same time_ with inward and gloomy satisfaction how miserable my -mother must be! I distinctly remember 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 fields[12] beyond the river. It grew dark and I fell asleep. -It was towards the latter end of October, and it proved a dreadful stormy -night. I felt the cold in my sleep, and dreamt that I was pulling the -blanket 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, expecting my return -when the _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,[13] 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. - -My father (who had 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 mother'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 distinction; and my father was -fond of me, and used to take me on his knee and hold long conversations -with me. I remember that at eight years old I walked with him 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 been _rationally_ educated, as it is styled. They were -marked by a microscopic acuteness, but when they looked at great things, -all became a blank and they saw nothing, 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 philosophy! - -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 returned -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 impression. 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;[14] 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, but I -knew that he was expected. How I came to think 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. He was an Israelite without -guile, simple, generous, 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 -_pulpitize_ 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 Bowdon had obtained an -unlimited influence over her mind, which she still retains. Mrs. Holt (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, and I stayed ten weeks at his house, -during which time I went occasionally to Judge Buller's. 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_ coat[15] 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 Hertford I was very happy, on 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 September, 1782, and was placed in the second ward, then called -Jefferies' Ward, 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 admissible 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 having 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 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 midshipmen 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 temporal 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 commonly -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.[16] Every morning, a bit of dry bread and some bad small beer. -Every evening, a larger piece of bread and cheese or butter, whichever we -liked. For dinner,--on 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. - - -VI. TO HIS MOTHER. - -February 4, 1785 [London, Christ's Hospital]. - -DEAR MOTHER,[17]--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. -Badcock, to whom I would be glad if you would give my thanks. I shall be -more careful of the somme, 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 admirers. My brother Luke says that Burke's -Art of Speaking 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 1790. - -DEAR BROTHER,--You 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 drawing 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 up with five more, one of whom had -a long, broad, red-hot face, four feet by three. I very luckily found -Middleton at Pembroke College, who (after breakfast, etc.) conducted 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 -shameful) 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,[18] with whom I spent a fortnight at Christmas: -the relaxation from study cooperating with the cheerfulness and attention, -which I met 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 you walk -into town, you would call at Villiers 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 as 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 -relinquish the _mediae pallescere nocti_. We are examined as Rustats,[19] -on the Thursday in Easter Week. The examination for my year is "the last -book of Homer and Horace's _De Arte Poetica_." 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 hogs-lard is pleasing, it is when our -superiors trowel it on. Mr. Frend's company[20] is by no means invidious. -On the contrary, Pearce himself is very intimate with him. No! 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,[21] 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 expected, or (I believe) his merits deserved. He -desires his love to Stevens:[22] 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 scholarship 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 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 be 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, -observe 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 transmit -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: at least, in clearness of complexion and rosiness -of cheek I am no contemptible likeness of them, though that ugly -arrangement of features with which nature has distinguished 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 -consciousness 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 beautiful 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 correspondence; -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-cheeked 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 unseen companion at your side, one who will attend you in your jaunt, -who will be present at your arrival; one whose heart will melt with -unutterable tenderness at your maternal 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! thou 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 th' 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 - 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 -has made you. If 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 declamation[23] 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 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. 'Tis 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 compensate; 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_. - -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 (tho' 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 to visit me at -Cambridge, pray do not suffer the consideration 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 he 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 delightful 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, -where road was none," though we were not unapprized of its difficulties. -The fine weather deceived us. We forgot 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--we 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 -conceptions of the point in which _we conjectured Cambridge_ to lie, we -wandered on "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 -spy'd 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. He -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' Lanthorns--the superstition of this -county attributing a kind of fascination to those wandering vapours, so -that whoever fixes his eyes on them is forced by some irresistible impulse -to follow them. He 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 _scarsely_? When Momus, the fault-finding God, -endeavoured to discover some imperfection in Venus, he could only censure -the creaking of her slipper. I, too, Momuslike, can only fall foul on a -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_ approbation 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 --ll; 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. - -His first mandate I have obeyed, and, I hope you 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.[24] - - 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'll be bound, you will sleep again -sounder than ever. - -A WISH WRITTEN IN JESUS WOOD, FEBRUARY 10, 1792.[25] - - 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. - - Awhile meand'ring round its native fields, - It rolls the 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.[26] - - The dubious light sad glimmers o'er the sky: - 'Tis 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 the offence. - -It's a compensation for the above-written rhymes (which if you ever -condescend to read a second time, pray let it be by the light of their own -flames) in my next letter 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-night, dear sister! and peaceful slumbers await us both! - - S. T. COLERIDGE. - - -XII. TO ANNE EVANS. - -February 19, 1792. - -DEAR ANNE,--To be sure I felt myself rather disappointed at my not -receiving a few lines from you; but I am nevertheless greatly rejoiced at -your amicable dispositions 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 sorrowful 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 impossible, if you will read the little volumes which contain -their exploits, and crave the honour of your acceptance. - -If I could draw, I would have sent a pretty heart stuck through with -arrows, with some such sweet posy underneath 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 concerning 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 shoemaker, is not improbable. He -certainly seems very assiduous 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 absent during the oratorios! -The prince unable to conceal his pain! Oh! oh! oh! oh! oh! oh! oh! oh! -oh! - -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, proctors, tutors, owls, and other two-legged cattle. It -likewise--but here I must interrupt my description to hurry to Mr. -Costobadie's lectures on Euclid, who is as mathematical an author, my dear -Anne, as you would wish to read on 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 together, 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 emphatic 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 I had written the foregoing heap -of nothingness six or seven days 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 improbable) 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 procure 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 discovered -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. - -So (I hear) Allen[27] will be most precipitately emancipated. Good luck -have thou of thy emancipation, Bob-bee! Tell him from me that if he does -not kick Richards'[28] 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 College 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 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 -information. If the pleasure which you receive from the perusal of it -prove equal to that which I have received, it will make you some small -return for the exertions of friendship, 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 beauties, 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 night, April [1792]. - -DEAR BROTHER,--You would have heard from me long since had I not been -entangled in such various businesses as have occupied my whole time. -Besides my ordinary business, which, 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 expectation of success, as a Mr. Smith,[29] a man of immense -genius, author of some papers in the "Microcosm," is among my numerous -competitors. The prize medals will be adjudged 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[30] is, I think, my _chef d'oeuvre_ in poetical composition. 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 in Easter -week. After it a man of our college has offered to take me to town in his -gig, and, if he can bring me back, I think 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 Boeotia 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.... - [Caetera 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 embraced the opportunity of turning over the boat, and -baptizing 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.[31] Oath-taking is very healthy in spring, -I should suppose. I am grown very fat. We have two men at our college, -great cronies, their names Head and Bones; the first an unlicked cub of a -Yorkshireman, the second a very fierce buck. I call them _Raw Head_ 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 disreputable one at Oxford -in your time? Poor Allen, who is just settled there, complains of the -great distance with which the men treat him. 'Tis 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 sickness. 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 agonizing in the snuff of a tallow -candle--a kind of hobgoblin, clouted and bagged up in the most -contemptible shreds, rags, and yellow relics of threadbare mortality. The -event of our examination[32] was such as surpassed my expectations, and -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 survivors, 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 circumstances, 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 alleviate 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 on fire, though it were but to roast an egg for -themselves! Yet surely, considering 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. - -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 -our 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, on 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 _me_ for his _first_-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 preferment than to have made twelve commentaries -on the twelve prophets. My dear Mrs. Evans! excuse the wanderings 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, 1793. - -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 am so closely blocked by an army of -misfortunes that really there is no 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 strolling out -with a friend of his, some curious plant suddenly caught his eye. He -turned round his head with great eagerness to call his companion to a -participation of discovery, and unfortunately continuing to walk forward -he fell into a pool, deep, muddy, and full of chickweed. I was lucky -enough to meet him as he was entering the college gates on his return (a -sight I would not have lost for the Indies), his best black clothes all -green with duckweed, 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 lectures, -and freed me from the necessity of attending them; but this misfortune I -supported with truly Christian fortitude. However, I constantly asked -after his health with filial anxiety, and this morning, making my usual -inquiries, I was informed, to my infinite astonishment and vexation, 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, -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 morning, 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 frequently playing myself, to -render my ear callous. Besides, 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 disappointments; from the warmth of -real enemies and the coldness of pretended friends; from your _well -wishers_ (as they are justly called, in opposition, I suppose, to _well -doers_), men whose inclinations to serve you always decrease in a most -mathematical proportion as their opportunities 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 age_, 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 Whatd'yecallhim, who used to pull off his -hat when he spoke of himself. The poet laureate calls it "_this golden -age_," and with good reason,-- - - 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 -endeavours 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 congratulate 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 prologue 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 spoonful 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[33] the composer, will set it to wild music. I -shall sing it, and accompany myself on the violin. _Ca 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-Thoma 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 complaint:-- - - 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-Thoma, - 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.[34] - -Are you asleep, my dear Mary? I have administered rather a strong dose of -opium; however, if in the course 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 _home_, 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. - - O 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 repinings 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 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-starched 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 brother[35] and a friend! But I struggle for -cheerfulness--and sometimes, 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 forehead. 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.[36] - -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 of this life) disputed with great coolness and forbearance the -whole 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'.[37] - -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 Hart[38] asked her if she was not -afraid to put it in her bosom, as perhaps there might be love in it. I -immediately wrote the following little ode or song or what you please to -call it.[39] It is of the namby-pamby genus. - -THE ROSE. - - As late each flower that 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. - - 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 O!" he cried, "of magic kind - What charms this Throne endear! - Some other Love let Venus find-- - I'll fix _my_ empire here." - -An extempore! Ned during the dispute, thinking he 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. Hussy, you will not forget to present my respects -to him, and to his accomplished 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 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 Sidmouth. I was -there yesterday. He, his wife, and children are well. Frederick is a -charming child. Little James had a most providential 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 unhurt. 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 supposes, 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 chalice 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-- - 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? She was my fellow-traveler in the Tiverton -diligence from Exeter. [She is], I think, a very pretty girl. The orders -for tea are: Imprimis, 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.[40] - -HENLEY, Thursday night, February 6 [1794]. - -DEAR TUCKETT,--I have this moment received your long letter! The Tuesday -before last, an accident of the Reading 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 would go, my letters -were kept at the Reading post-office till our return. I was conveyed to -Henley-upon-Thames, which place our regiment left last Tuesday; but I am -ordered to remain on account of these dreadfully troublesome eruptions, -and that I might nurse my comrade, who last Friday sickened of the -confluent smallpox. So here I am, _videlicet_ the Henley workhouse.[41] 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 excellent 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 extorted 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 _necessary_, but what shadow of _necessity_ -is there to excuse you in showing my letters--to stab the very heart of -confidence. You have acted, Tuckett, 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 irritableness of unhandled sensibility. Mine is -a sensibility gangrened 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 almost 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 -protection 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 action. One pang, however acute, is better than -long-continued solicitude. My brother George possessed the cheering -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 downward--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 8, 1794. - -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 promise? My mind is illegible to myself. I am lost in -the 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 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! O 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! I 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 universally 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! Undoubtedly, my brother, I could -wish to return to College; I know what I _must suffer_ there, but deeply -do I feel what I _ought_ to suffer. Is my brother James still at -Salisbury? I will write to him, to all. - -[Illustration] - -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 chastisement may not have harrowed my heart in vain. Scepticism -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 sensibility, few -occurrences can inflict a more acute pang than the receiving proofs of -tenderness and love where only resentment 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 not by negotiation without an expense which I should -tremble to write. Forty guineas were offered for a discharge 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, 15th, 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, 1793, was -attested and sworn the 4th. 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. COLERIDGE. - -Our regiment is at Reading, and Hounslow, and Maidenhead, and Kensington; -our headquarters, Reading, Berks. The commanding officer there, Lieutenant -Hopkinson, our adjutant. - -TO CAPTAIN JAMES COLERIDGE, Tiverton, Devonshire. - - -XXV. TO THE REV. GEORGE 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 whole matter to the adjutant, who -laughed and said I had been used scurvily; he deferred settling the bill -till Thursday morning. A Captain Ogle,[42] 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 calamo_--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 last 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[43] 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 believed himself divinely -inspired. He slept in the same room with me, and kept me awake till three -in the morning with his ontological disquisitions. Some of the ideas -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." He 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 Wycombe] on Thursday, 10 -o'clock, for Reading. A letter will arrive in time before I go. - - -XXVI. TO THE SAME. - -Sunday night, March 21, 1794. - -I have endeavoured to feel what I ought to feel. Affiliated 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 inertiae_ 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, 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 irrevocably. 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 desultory. 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 expenses of equipping, -etc. - -I must conclude abruptly. God bless you, and your ever grateful - - S. T. COLERIDGE. - - -XXVII. TO THE SAME. - -End of March, 1794. - -MY DEAR BROTHER,--I have been rather uneasy, that I have not heard 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 -shivering 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 behaved 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. They write me, that with "undiminished esteem and increased -affection, the _Jesuites_ 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. - - -XXVIII. 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., four pairs of almost new silk stockings, and two pairs -of new silk and cotton, I can get again for twenty-three shillings. 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 appearance 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 mention 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 -Hackney. There will be two or three trifling expenses on my leaving the -army; I know not their exact amount. The adjutant dismissed 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 bookseller, 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 Casimir[44] by Barbou,[45] a Synesius[46] by Canterus and -Bentley's Quarto Edition. They are worth 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 night, March 30, 1794. - -MY DEAR BROTHER,--I received your enclosed. I am fearful, that as you -advise me to go immediately to Cambridge 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 Reading to High Wycombe on the -outside is four shillings, from High Wycombe to Cambridge (for _there is_ -a coach that passes through Cambridge from Wycombe) I suppose about twelve -shillings, perhaps a trifle more. I shall be two days and a half on the -road, _two nights_. 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 experimentally knew the -necessity of faith in order to regulate 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'll 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, 1794. - -MY DEAR BROTHER,--The last three days I have spent at Bray, near -Maidenhead, at the house of a gentleman 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 performance he is about -to publish, and by writing him a dedication and preface. At my return I -found two letters from you, the one containing the two guineas, which will -be perfectly adequate to my expenses, and, my brother, what some part of -your letter made me feel, I am ill able to express; but of this at another -time. I have signed the certificate of my expenses, but not my discharge. -The moment I receive it I shall set off for Cambridge immediately, most -probably through London, as the gentleman, whose house I was at at Bray, -has pressed me to take his horse, and accompany him on Wednesday morning, -as he himself intends to ride to town that day. If my discharge comes down -on Tuesday morning I shall embrace his offer, particularly as I shall be -introduced to his bookseller, a thing of some consequence to my present -views. - -Clagget[47] has set four songs of mine most divinely, for two violins and -a pianoforte. I have done him some services, 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 THE SAME. - -May 1, 1794. - -MY DEAR BROTHER,--I have been convened before the fellows.[48] Dr. Pearce -behaved with great asperity, Mr. Plampin[49] with exceeding and most -delicate kindness. My sentence is a reprimand (not a public one, but -_implied_ in the sentence), a month's confinement to the precincts of the -College, and to translate the works of Demetrius Phalareus into English. -It is a thin quarto of about ninety Greek pages. All the fellows tried to -persuade the Master 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 -declamation to write in the routine of college business, and the Rustat -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 before 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 understand it. _If_ I should be so _very -lucky_ as to win one of the 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 R. Southey, Health and Republicanism 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 hospitality, -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 similes 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-famished sickly -baby in her arms to put her 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 _obtrusive_! "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; his 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 pantisocracy shall have -_aspheterized_--from [Greek: a], non, and [Greek: spheteros], proprius (we -really _wanted_ such a word), instead of travelling along the circuitous, -dusty, beaten highroad of diction, you thus cut across the soft, green, -pathless field of novelty! Similes for ever! Hurrah! 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 _suffus'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 on a cock's egg. Southey, dost -thou not see wisdom in her _Coan_ vest of allegory? The cockatrice is -emblematic 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; - 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! Hucks' compliments. - - S. T. COLERIDGE. - -Addressed to "Robert Southey. Miss Tyler's, Bristol." - - -XXXIII. TO THE SAME. - -WREXHAM, Sunday, July 15, 1794.[50] - -Your letter, Southey! made me melancholy. Man is a bundle of habits, but -of all habits the habit of despondence 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, and receive unhurt -the flower, which I have climbed precipices 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-house? 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. The following is a _fact_. A friend of Hucks' after long struggles -between principle and _interest_, as it is improperly called, accepted a -place under government. He 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 on the capability of pleasure in a mind like yours, I unwarily -fell into poetry:[51]-- - - 'Tis thine with fairy forms to talk, - And thine the philosophic walk; - And what to thee the sweetest are-- - The setting sun, 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; - 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 shalt not die!" - - "The heart-smile glowing on his aged cheek - Mild as decaying light of summer's eve," - -are lines eminently beautiful. The whole is pleasing. For a motto! Surely -my memory has suffered an epileptic fit. A Greek motto would be pedantic. -These lines will perhaps do:-- - - All mournful to the pensive sages' eye,[52] - 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. The nearer you -approach the sun, the more intense are his rays. Yet what distant corner -of the system do they not cheer and vivify? The ardour of private -attachments makes philanthropy a necessary _habit_ of the soul. I love my -friend. Such as _he_ is, all mankind are or might be. The deduction is -evident. Philanthropy (and indeed every other virtue) is a thing of -_concretion_. Some home-born feeling is the centre of the ball, that -rolling on through life collects and assimilates every congenial -affection. What did you mean by _H._ has "my understanding"? I have -puzzled myself in vain to discover the import of the sentence. The only -sense it _seemed_ to bear was so like _mock-humility_, that I scolded -myself for the momentary supposition.[53] 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:[54]-- - - 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 heaven-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 with heart-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. - -Monday, 11 o'clock. Well, praised be God! here 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 amabam_. 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, sed mihi non vivit--nova forte marita, - Ah dolor! alterius cara, a cervice pependit. - Vos, malefida valete accensae insomnia mentis, - Littora amata valete! Vale, ah! formosa Maria!_ - -My fortitude would not have supported me, had I _recognized_ her--I mean -_appeared_ to do it! I neither ate nor slept yesterday. But love is a -local anguish; I am sixteen 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 Leominster, to Bishop's Castle, to -Welsh Pool, to Llanfyllin, nothing occurred worthy notice except that at -the last place I preached pantisocracy and aspheterism with so much -success that two great huge fellows of butcher-like appearance danced -about the room in enthusiastic agitation. And one of them 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." Southey! Such men -may be of use. They would kill the golden calf _secundum artem_. From -Llanfyllin we penetrated into the interior of the country to Llangunnog, a -village most romantically situated. We dined there on 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 remarkable 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 my sentiments: he grasped my -hand with flesh-bruising ardor, and I trembled lest some disappointed -citizens of the _animalcular_ 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 the parish. I was asked for a gentleman. I gave General -Washington. The parson said in a low voice, "Republicans!" After which, -the medical man said, "Damn toasts! I gives a sentiment: May all -republicans be guillotined!" 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 _make calling one another liars_, etc., necessary -vent-holes to the superfluous fumes of the temper. At last I endeavoured -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 sentiment with the spirit of Christianity." "Pho!" -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 Berdmore. 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 Wrexham to Ruthin, to Denbigh. At Denbigh is a ruined -castle; 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 heartstring to tremulous -emotion. He sat adown (the moon just peering) amid the awful part of the -ruins, and the romantic youth struck up the affecting tune of "Mrs. -Carey."[55] 'Tis fact, upon my honour. - -God bless you, Southey! We shall be at Aberystwith[56] 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. Heigho! - -ROBERT SOUTHEY, No. 8 Westcott Buildings, Bath. - - -XXXIV. TO THE SAME. - -10 o'clock, Thursday morning, September 18, 1794. - -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! 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 _tactician_ excellence of the 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. Harwood--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, Southey, we shall be _frendotatoi meta -frendous_--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 remark 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.[57] -"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." - -"'Twas 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 next sonnet is altogether exquisite,--the -circumstance common yet new to poetry, the moral accurate and full of -soul.[58] "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 shall 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.[59] - -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 received 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 present 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. - - -XXXV. 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 Southey, 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 the _first_ letter -you directed to _me_ at Cambridge, I _would_ 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, I 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, was 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! Lofty conjunction -of circumstances for me to write to Miss F. Besides, I told her 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 London, 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[60] 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 rectitude 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 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 26, 1794. - -MY DEAR, DEAR SOUTHEY,--I am beyond measure distressed and agitated by -your letter to Favell. On the evening of the Wednesday before last, I -arrived in Cambridge; 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 immediately, 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 are theatricalizing. 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 Brunton[61] (Mrs. Merry's 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 literatae. 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 revenge. - -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. COLERIDGE. - - -XXXVII. TO THE SAME. - -October 21, 1794. - -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? Is it for the 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 no right, nor do I feel myself inclined to reproach you -for the Past. God forbid! You have already suffered 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 hurrying you -in the sad Extreme. I have heard that you mean to leave England, and on a -Plan so absurd and extravagant that were I for a moment to imagine it -_true_, I should be obliged to listen with a more patient Ear to -suggestions, 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'erthrown_, 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--Coleridge! Though I have been told -(_indeed_ I do not believe it) that you doubt of his existence and -disbelieve a hereafter. 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 on 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 letter, 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 resolution -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 detested 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, on this plan, but remember, Southey, this is _not our plan_, nor -can I defend it. "Shad's children 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 demolish the system. Wherever men -_can_ be vicious, some _will_ be. The leading idea of pantisocracy is to -make men _necessarily_ virtuous by removing all motives to evil--all -possible temptation. "Let them dine with us and be treated with as much -equality as they would wish, but perform that part of labour for which -their education has fitted them." _Southey_ should not have written this -sentence. My friend, my noble and high-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 mentioned, "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 on 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 creation. 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? Washing with a machine -and cleaning the house. One hour's addition to our daily labor, and -_pantisocracy_ in its most perfect sense is practicable. That the greater -part of our female companions should have the task of maternal exertion 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 practice. It is not -enough that we have once swallowed it. The _heart_ should have _fed_ upon -the _truth_, as insects on 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 Hamburg 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 importation of arms and seize -subjects of the hostile governments. It is said that one cause of the -ministers having been so cool on the business is that it will prevent -emigration, which it seems would be treasonable to a hostile country. Tell -me all you think on these subjects. What 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? - Faint was that Hope, and rayless. Yet 'twas 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![62] - -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 volumes, 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 exquisite.[63] 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 imitation of Gray's Descent of Odin, that I would rather -adopt Shakespeare's mode of introducing the figures themselves, and making -the description now the Witches' and now Fleance's. I detest monodramas, -but I never wished to establish my judgment on the throne of critical -despotism. Send me up the Elegy on the Exiled Patriots and the Scripture -Sonnets. I have promised them to Flower.[64] 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 gentleness. She has loved you tenderly; be firm, -therefore, as a rock, mild as the lamb. I sent a hundred "Robespierres" to -Bath ten days ago and more. - -Five hundred copies of "Robespierre" were printed. A hundred [went] to -Bath; a hundred to Kearsley, in London; 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 academic 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. How -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._ 'Tis -thought a very _aristocratic_ performance; you may suppose how -hyper-democratic my character must have been. The expenses of paper, -printing, and advertisements are nearly nine pounds. We ought to have -charged one shilling and sixpence a copy. - -I presented a copy to Miss Brunton with these verses in the blank -leaf:[65]-- - - Much on my early youth I love to dwell, - Ere yet I bade 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 _twilight_ gloom - Mourned with the breeze, O 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 th' empassioned lyre; - Red from the Tyrants' wounds I shook the lance, - And strode in joy the reeking plains of France! - In ghastly horror lie th' oppressors low, - And my Heart akes tho' Mercy struck the blow! - With wearied thought I seek the amaranth Shade - Where peaceful Virtue weaves her _myrtle_ braid. - And O! 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 this letter I never recollected that yesterday was my -birthday--twenty-two years old. - -I have heard from my brothers--from him particularly who has been friend, -brother, father. 'Twas all remonstrance 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 reason, Southey, to be entangled in the web which -your feelings have woven. Oxen and horses possess not intellectual -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. But who 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 Lushington'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. - -'Tis past one o'clock in the morning. I sat down at twelve o'clock to read -the "Robbers" of Schiller.[66] 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 able to describe such characters. I -tremble like an aspen leaf. Upon my soul, I write to you because I am -frightened. 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. Potter of Emanuel[67] -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 -sentiments 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 horrible 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 vanish 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 _was very_ lovely, Southey! We 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. - - Nutrito vulnere tabens - Impatiensque mei feror undique, solus et excors, - Et desideriis pascor! - -I wish, Southey, in the 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 feeling? 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 infants _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 _anguish_ 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 consolation to your sorrows than be -wasting my feelings in egotistic complaints. "Verily my complaint is -bitter, yet my stroke is heavier than my groaning." - -God love you, my dear Southey! - - 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 lines[68] in a moment of melancholy -dissatisfaction:-- - - ----! thy grave with aching eye I scan, - And inly groan for Heaven's poor outcast--Man! - 'Tis tempest all, or gloom! In earliest youth - If gifted with th' Ithuriel lance of Truth - He force to start amid the feign'd caress - Vice, 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? - 'Twas 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, - The daring soul of Truth, the patriot's part, - And Pity's sigh, that breathes the gentle heart-- - Sloth-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[69] - 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 heav'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 shipwreck'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 - 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 Southey, I received a special invitation from Dr. -Edwards[70] (the great Grecian of Cambridge and heterodox divine) to drink -tea and spend the evening. I there met a councillor whose name is -Lushington, a democrat, and a man of the most powerful and Briarean -intellect. I was challenged on the subject of pantisocracy, which is, -indeed, the universal topic at the University. A discussion began and -continued for six hours. In conclusion, Lushington and Edwards declared -the system impregnable, 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 exhibited closer argument in more -elegant and appropriate language 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 necessary premises -exist. O for that Lyncean eye that can discover in the acorn of Error the -rooted and widely spreading oak of Misery! Quaere: should not all who mean -to become members of our community be incessantly meliorating their -temper and elevating their understandings? Qu.: whether a very respectable -quantity of _acquired_ knowledge (History, Politics, above all, -_Metaphysics_, without which no man _can_ reason but with women and -children) 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 -circumstance? Was it not because I knew, even to certainty of conviction, -that it is subversive of _rational_ hopes of a permanent system? These -children,--the little Frickers, for instance, and your brothers,--are they -not already deeply tinged with the prejudices and errors of society? Have -they not learned from their schoolfellows _Fear_ and _Selfishness_, of -which the necessary offsprings are Deceit and desultory Hatred? How are we -to prevent them from infecting 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? How 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 you, Southey, -that I will accompany you on an _imperfect_ system. But must our system be -thus necessarily imperfect? 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 declared to Caldwell -that I (S. T. Coleridge) was a man of the most _courtly_ and polished -manners, of the most _gentlemanly_ address she had ever met with. But I -will not _crow_! Slovenly, indeed! - - -XL. TO THE REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE. - -Thursday, November 6, 1794. - -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_![71] Hence, -whatever web of friendship my presence may have woven, my absence has -seldom failed to unravel. Anxieties 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 been as constantly obeyed. But so it -has 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 cometh! - -How often and how unkindly are the ebullitions of youthful disputations -mistaken for the result of fixed principles. People have resolved that I -am a d[Greek:e]mocrat, and accordingly look at everything I do through the -spectacles of prejudication. In the feverish distemperature of a _bigoted_ -aristocrat's brain, some phantom of D[Greek:e]mocracy 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.[72] - -"Are these lines in _character_," observed a sensible friend of mine, "in -a speech on the death of the man whom it just became the fashion to style -'The ambitious _Theocrat_'?" "I fear _not_," was my answer, "I gave way to -my feelings." The first speech of Adelaide,[73] whose _Automaton_ is this -character? Who spoke through Le Gendre's mouth,[74] 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 subduing France. Is not this sentiment highly -characteristic? Is it _forced_ into the mouths of the speakers? Could I -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 _all_ who entertain and express this opinion -d[Greek: e]mocrats? 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 d[Greek: e]mocrat. 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 complexity, 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 no 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! He taught those principles of which the necessary -_effect_ was to abolish all slavery. He prepared the _mind_ for the -reception 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 exerted my power in the -defence of the Holy One of Nazareth against the learning of the historian, -the libertinism of the wit, and (his 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 d[Greek: e]mocrat, because -I will not join in the maledictions of the despotist--because I will -_bless all_ 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 thornbush, 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, on 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 morning I received -your letter I poured forth these incondite rhymes. Of course they are -meant for a brother's eye. - - Smerdon! thy grave with aching eye I scan, etc.[75] - -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 "Escapes 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 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 companions. "The -Retrospect!"[76] _Quod qui non prorsus amat et deperit, illum 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"[77] -is the best of the odes. I dislike that to Lycon, excepting 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 Mattathias"[78] -is by far the best. That you should ever write another, _Pulcher Apollo -veta! Musae prohibete venustae!_ 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 Valentine"[79] ("If long and lingering -seem one little day The motley crew of travellers among"); that on "The -Fire"[80] (not your last, a very so-so one); on "The Rainbow"[81] -(particularly the four last lines), and two or three others, are all -divine and fully equal to Bowles. Some parts of "Miss Rosamund"[82] are -beautiful--the _working_ scene, and that line with which the poem ought to -have concluded, "And think who lies so cold and pale below." Of the -"Pauper's Funeral,"[83] that part in which you have done me the honour to -imitate me is by far the worst; the 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 remedied by compression, my _editio -purgata_ 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! but 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,"[84] I wrote the whole but the second and third lines. -Of the "Old Man in the Snow,"[85] ten last lines _entirely_, and part of -the four first. Those ten lines are, perhaps, the best I ever did write. - -Lovell has no taste or simplicity of feeling. I remarked that when a man -read Lovell's poems he _mus cus_ (that is a rapid way of pronouncing "must -curse"), but when he thought of Southey's, he'd "buy on!" For God's sake -let us have no more Bions or Gracchus's. I abominate them! _Southey_ is a -name much more proper and handsome, and, I venture to prophesy, will be -more _famous_. Your "Chapel Bell"[86] 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 patriot'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. Withold 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. - -I shall set about one when 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 published it in a book about the size -and dimensions of children's twopenny books. The dedication is pretty. He -calls the publication "Tineum;"[87] for what reason or with what meaning -would give Madame Sphinx a complete victory over Oedipus. - -A wag has handed about, I hear, an obtuse angle of wit, under the name of -"An Epigram." 'Tis almost as bad as the subject. - - "A tiny man of tiny wit - A tiny book has published. - But not alas! one tiny bit - His tiny fame established." - -TO BOWLES.[88] - - My heart has thank'd thee, 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 thought-bewildered 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 written by Lamb, a man -of uncommon genius. Have you seen his divine sonnet of "O! I could -_laugh_ to hear the winter winds," etc.? - -SONNET.[89] - - O 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 - I 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 particular 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 -contemporaries are among the better things I have written. That to Erskine -is a bad specimen. I 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,[90] which has no other merit -than a pretty simplicity of silliness. - - 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 the subject 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 him the following -note of consolation: "I condole with you on the unpleasant motions, to -which a certain uncouth automaton has been mechanized; and am anxious to -know the motives that impinged on its optic or auditory nerves so as to be -communicated in such rude vibrations through the medullary substance of -its brain, thence rolling their stormy surges into the capillaments of its -tongue, and the muscles of its arm. The diseased violence of its thinking -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 has not lowered you by the accession of anger or -resentment." - -God love you, Southey! My love to your mother! - - S. T. COLERIDGE. - - -XLII. TO THE SAME. - -Wednesday, December 17, 1794. - -When 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-disciplined phalanx of -right-onward feelings. O ye invincible 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, -apostrophical, metaphorical rant. - -I dined yesterday with Perry and Grey (the proprietor and editor of the -"Morning Chronicle") at their house, and met Holcroft. 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. Holcroft 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 dogmatism -of conversation in Holcroft for which you receive little compensation -either from the veracity of his information, 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, Holcroft, etc. They absolutely tremble before him! I had -the honour of working H. a little, and by my great _coolness_ and command -of impressive language certainly _did him over_. "Sir!" said he, "I never -knew so much real wisdom and 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." He 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 sentiments 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 Bowles_! Porson idolizes the sonnets. However it happened, -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!_"[91] - -Why, 'tis 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, - [92]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; 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 [Greek: Heudeis brephos] of Simonides. -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 superior -almost to anything you ever wrote; _quod est magna res dicere_, a great -thing to say. - -SONNET.[93] - - 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! - -SONNET. - - O 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 thy holy guidance bless - And hymn thee, Godwin! with an ardent lay; - For that thy voice, in Passion's stormy day, - When wild I roam'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 following sonnet, whether or -no I shall admit it into the number. 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 those whose -brains are not [Greek: tou ameinonos pelou]. (You have read S.'s poetry -and know that the fancy displayed in it is sweet and delicate to the -highest degree.) - -TO R. 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 possesses _mind_:-- - - 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." - -ADDRESS TO A YOUNG JACKASS AND ITS TETHERED MOTHER.[94] - - 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. - Yea, and more musically sweet to me - Thy dissonant harsh bray of joy would be, - Than _Banti's_ warbled airs, that soothe to rest - The tumult of a scoundrel Monarch's breast! - -How do you like it? - -I took the 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. - -[The following lines in Southey's handwriting are attached 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 encumber'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.] - - -XLIII. TO THE SAME. - -Monday morning, December, 1794. - -MY DEAR SOUTHEY,--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 -inexplicable 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 feelings as ready sacrifices to justice--[Greek: kaukao hyporas -gar]. 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. - -Southey! 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 yourself in the mantle of -self-centring resolve, and refuse to us your bounden quota of intellect? -Why do you say, "_I, I, I_ 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. Remember 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 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 answered 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 suspense. After infinite -struggles of irresolution, I will at last dare to request of you, Mary, -that you will communicate 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 fortitude by total hopelessness. Read this letter with -benevolence--and consign it to oblivion. - -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 annexed 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 -beatings 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 attachment, commits an -act of suicide on 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 disquieting passion; still some inexplicable -suggestion palsied my efforts, and I clung with desperate fondness to this -phantom of love, its mysterious attractions and hopeless prospects. It was -a faint and rayless hope![95] 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 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 steadier resignation from -yourself, than were it announced to me (haply on your marriage day!) by a -stranger. Indulge 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! He 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. COLERIDGE. - -I return to Cambridge to-morrow morning. - -MISS EVANS, No. 17 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 gentleness 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. - -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. He -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, 1794. - -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 virtuous. 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 -gnawings 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 nigh too much for me; but, praised be the -All-Merciful! the feebleness 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 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 -Southey! 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, Southey! _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 character. Your sensibilities are -tempestuous; you feel _indignation_ 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 (believing 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 eagerness to leave it; and am -resolved, whatever be the consequence, to be at Bath by Saturday. I -thought of walking down. - -I have written to Bristol and said I could 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 preventing it. I will write of indifferent -subjects. Your sonnet,[96] "Hold your mad 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.[97] I transcribe it, not so much -to give you my corrections, as for the pleasure it gives me. - - With 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. - -I was writing a poem, which when finished you shall see, and wished him to -describe the character and doctrines of Jesus Christ for me; but his low -spirits prevented him. The poem is in blank verse on the Nativity. I sent -him these careless lines, which flowed from my pen extemporaneously:-- - -TO C. LAMB.[98] - - Thus far my sterile brain hath 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 shalt 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 - Aught 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, which is indeed -much higher 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 panegyrical 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. - - S. T. C. - - -XLIX. TO THE SAME. - -1795. - -DEAR COTTLE,--Shall 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 miraculous 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 L300 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 might arise; your mother, your brother, your Edith, would all -crowd upon you, and certain misery might be weighed against distant, and -perhaps unattainable happiness. 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 peculiar 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. "He 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 feelings, 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 determination, will -make it ultimately the best. - -God love you, my dear Southey! - - S. T. COLERIDGE. - - -LI. TO THOMAS POOLE. - -Wednesday evening, October 7, 1795. - -MY DEAR SIR,--God bless you; or rather, God be praised for that he _has_ -blessed you! - -On Sunday morning I was _married_ at St. Mary's Redcliff, 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 distant islands, the opposite coast! I -shall assuredly write rhymes, let the nine Muses prevent it if they can. -Cruikshank, 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. - -[Illustration] - -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 I write, which will be perfectly -sufficient for my maintenance, I only amusing myself on 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.[99] - -Friday morning, November 13, 1795. - -Southey, I _have_ lost friends--friends who still cherish for me -sentiments of high esteem and unextinguished tenderness. 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," Southey, 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 you, -I will begin at the beginning and regularly retrace your conduct and my -own. In the month of June, 1794, I 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 returned 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 impracticable, by such -similarity of property as would amount to a _moral_ sameness, and answer -all the purposes of _abolition_. Nor were you less zealous, and thought -and expressed your opinion, that if any man embraced our system he must -comparatively disregard "his 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 spirits -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 Promethean -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 convulsive 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, from feeling and from principle I renewed; and I -met a reward more than 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 arrival 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 -reasons," 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 unwonted 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 vehemence, for I well knew that no notion of morality -or its motives could 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 became cold and gloomy, and pleaded with increased -pertinacity for the wisdom of making Self an undiverging Center. At Mr. -Jardine's[100] your language was _strong indeed_. Recollect it. You had -left the table, and we were standing at the window. Then darted into my -mind the dread that you were meditating a separation. At _Chepstow_[101] -your conduct renewed my suspicion, and I was greatly agitated, even to -many tears. But in Peircefield Walks[102] you assured me that my -suspicions were altogether unfounded, 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 -flagrant. Remember when we went to Ashton[103] on the strawberry 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 -individual 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 delivered. 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 condescend to waste my -intellect upon them; but in the most express terms I declared to George -Burnett my opinion (and, Southey, 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 you must have been conscious I should reject decisively -and with scorn." George Burnett was your most affectionate friend; I knew -his unbounded veneration for you, his personal attachment; I knew likewise -his gentle dislike of _me_. Yet him I bade be the judge. I bade him choose -his associate. I would adopt the full system or depart. George, I presume, -detailed of this my conversation 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 returned?" -For to think with almost superstitious veneration of you had been such a -deep-rooted habit of my soul that even then I did not dream you could -hesitate concerning 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 virtue 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 -invulnerable in conscience, for the sake of mankind I did not, however, -quit the field, but pressed you on 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 sentiments in it are of the -boldest order. What if the suspicions of the Bishop be raised, and he -particularly questions you concerning your opinions of the Trinity and -the Redemption?" "Oh," 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 back into the -ranks_; as a man admirable for his 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 -considered you, so I treated you. I studiously avoided all particular -subjects. I acquainted you with nothing relative 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 friendship -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 friendship -leaves behind him." Since that letter I altered my conduct no otherwise -than 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 rupture I wished you to -sink into that class. "Face to face you never changed your manners to me." -And yet I pained you by "cold civility." Egregious contradiction! -Doubtless 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 altered, not as a writer. Our Muses had not quarrelled. I should have -read your poetry with equal delight, and corrected it with equal zeal if -correction it needed. "I received you on my return from Shurton with my -usual shake of the hand." You gave me your hand, and dreadful 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 of -_friendship_? Heaven forbid! I should then be a hypocrite many days in the -week. It is assuredly the pledge of acquaintance, 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, Southey! 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 be so--_hoped_ that we might 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, on examination, I found them a show and -mockery of unreal things, doubtless, my opinion of you _must_ have become -far less respectful. 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 no 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 excriminate 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 immediate 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 Danvers, indeed, and to Cottle I -spoke more particularly, for I knew their prudence and their 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! Southey is going into the -Church! 'Tis all concluded, 'tis in vain to deny it!" I answered: "You are -mistaken; you must contradict; Southey 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, Southey, that you had -given up every principle--that confessedly you were going into the law, -more opposite 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 proposal, I was obliged in my own defence to relate all that -passed between us, all on which I had founded a conviction 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: 'I have seen my error! I have been drunk with principle!'" -Just over the bridge, at the bottom of the High Street, 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 madman 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 attributed, 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 embellishments 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 importance 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 this should never be the case, -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 me 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 _prospects_ were only an -uncertain hope of getting thirty shillings a week between us by writing -for some London paper--for the remainder we were to rely on our -agricultural 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 _you_ could subdue - Temptation!" - -He 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 _principles_ declare against it, and he is not -calculated for it. And his father will not support any expense of -consequence relative to his further education--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-house 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 -precisely 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, _Worldly -Prudence_! - -Curse on all _pride_! 'Tis a harlot that buckrams herself up in virtue -only that she may fetch a higher price. 'Tis 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 indeed -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 reluctantly 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 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 'sloth-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 pantisocracy -more, and if in a certain time I do not see this disqualifying 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 mention to me, -"face to face," my indolence as a motive for your recent conduct? Did you -ever mention it in Peircefield Walks? and some time after, that night when -you scattered some heart-chilling 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 -supposed myself capable. Enough! I heard for the first time on Thursday -that you were to set off for Lisbon on Saturday morning. It gives me great -pain on 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 no 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 -sheet-anchor 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 feasteth, 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 -Him, the source of all virtue, no 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 husband of her best loved sister. Farewell! - - S. T. COLERIDGE. - - -LIII. TO JOSIAH WADE.[104] - -NOTTINGHAM, Wednesday morning, January 27, 1796. - -MY DEAR FRIEND,--You will perceive by this letter that I have changed my -route. From Birmingham, which 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 Sheffield; 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 Birmingham 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,[105] the -painter, and Dr. Darwin, the everything, except the Christian![106] Dr. -Darwin possesses, perhaps, a greater range of knowledge than any other man -in Europe, and is the most inventive of philosophical men. He thinks in a -_new_ train on all subjects except religion. He bantered me on the subject -of religion. I heard all his arguments, and told him that it was -infinitely consoling to me, to find that the arguments which so great a -man adduced against the existence of a God and the evidences of revealed -religion were such as had startled me at fifteen, but had become the -objects of my smile at twenty. Not one new objection--not even an -ingenious one. He boasted that 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, having 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 him 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 subject -infinitely important, yet are proud to confess themselves profoundly -ignorant of it. Dr. Darwin would have been ashamed to have rejected -Hutton's theory of the earth[107] 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 -important 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 valley, 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. Fellowes, and was -introduced to the company. On the right hand of the president whom should -I see but an old College 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 allelujah; -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 inspiration, and polished with leisurely solicitude; and alas! -for what have I left them? 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 -every minute I am hearing a groan from my wife. Groans, and complaints, -and sickness! The 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 darkness! Poverty, perhaps, and the thin faces of them that want -bread, looking up to me! Nor is this all. My happiest 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 -beforehand! 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 preface, 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 transmission of "The Watchman," you -must blame George Burnett, 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 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."[108] - -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, marriage 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 deprived 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 -ingratitude. 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 moment they are -published. In the third number of "The Watchman" there are a few lines -entitled "The Hour when we shall meet again," "_Dim hour that sleeps on -pillowy clouds afar_," 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 on 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" comes more easy to me, so that I shall begin -about my Christian Lectures. I will immediately order for you, unless you -immediately countermand it, Count Rumford's Essays; in No. V. of "The -Watchman" you will see why. I have enclosed Dr. Beddoes'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 "Letter to -a Noble Lord"[109] 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'll try and -venture to scribble a line and a half every time the man goes with "The -Watchman" to you. - -N. B. The "Essay on Fasting"[110] I am ashamed of; but it is one of my -misfortunes that I am obliged to publish _extempore_ as well as compose. -God bless you, - - and S. T. COLERIDGE. - - -LVI. TO THE SAME. - -12th May, 1796. - -Poole! The Spirit, who 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 anything which I have not already given, I should be oppressed -by the letter now before me.[111] 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 perceptible, 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 commensurate 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--receiving or bestowing--be equally -grateful to my Almighty Benefactor. I am undetermined, therefore--not -because I receive with pain and reluctance, but--because I suspect 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 will go _per_ caravan to Bridgewater, -where, if you have a horse of tolerable meekness unemployed, you will let -him meet me. - -I should blame you for the exaggerated terms in which you have spoken of -me in the Proposal, did I not perceive the motive. You wished to make it -appear an offering--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 widow[112] 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 affection of a brother, and I -repay you in kind. Your letters 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 interested 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 which has 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 Politi[cal] 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 increase 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 country?" My dear Thelwall! -how are these opinions connected 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 Aristotle, 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 _acknowledge_ 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 _ungently_, and disappoint your auguries.... "But, you cannot -be a patriot unless you are a Christian." Yes, Thelwall, the disciples of -Lord Shaftesbury and Rousseau as 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 sentences of your letter forced me to.... -_Gerrald_[113] you insinuate is an _atheist_. Was he so, when he offered -those solemn prayers to God Almighty at the Scotch conventicle, and was -this sincerity? But Dr. Darwin and (I suppose from his actions) Gerrald -think sincerity a folly and therefore vicious. Your atheistic brethren -square their moral systems exactly according to their inclinations. -Gerrald 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 imperfect state of our nature. Godwin, whose very -heart is cankered by the love of singularity, and who feels no -disinclination to wound by abrupt harshness, pleads for absolute -sincerity, because such a system gives him a frequent opportunity of -indulging his misanthropy. Poor Williams,[114] 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 indignation and contempt were never more -powerfully excited 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 attack on you is enough for me. At that -time I had prepared 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. He 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 Holcroft -a thousand times better, 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 atheist is only not a fool. "Dr. Priestley? -there is a _petitesse_ in his mind. Hartley? pshaw! _Godwin_, sir, is a -thousand times a better metaphysician!" But this intolerance 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 unadorned reasoning to convince you you are wrong. - -Your remarks on my poems are, I think, just in general; 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,[115] who is, in my opinion, -the best poet of the age (I will send you 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 decoration, -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 -_association_. Milton is _harmonious_ to me, and I absolutely nauseate -Darwin's poems. - - Yours affectionately, - S. T. COLERIDGE. - - JOHN THELWALL, - Beaufort Buildings, Strand, London. - - -LVIII. TO THOMAS POOLE. - -May 29, 1796. - -MY DEAR POOLE,--This said caravan does not leave Bridgewater till nine. In -the market place stands the 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![116] Were I transported to -Italian plains, and lay by the side of the streamlet that murmured 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 humble 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 -Cruikshank 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! - - -LIX. TO JOHN THELWALL. - -Wednesday, June 22, 1796. - -DEAR THELWALL,--That I have not written you has 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 d'oeuvre_. Yet the -"Peripatetic"[117]--for which accept my thanks--pleased me more because it -let me into your heart; the poetry is frequently _sweet_ and possesses the -_fire_ 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 unfavourable 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_ gentleman Margarot in the "Conciones," and my -foolish verses to Godwin in the "Morning Chronicle."[118] At the same -time, Thelwall, do not suppose that I admit your palliations. Doubtless I -could fill a book with slanderous stories 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 -blessing. 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 prejudiced -me against Godwin, but Godwin who has, perhaps, _prejudiced_ me against -atheism. Let me see you--I already know a deist, and Calvinists, and -Moravians whom I love and reverence--and I shall leap forwards to realise -my _principles_ by _feeling_ love and honour for an atheist. By the bye, -are you an atheist? For I was told that Hutton 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,--"independent 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_! - - -LX. TO THOMAS POOLE. - -Saturday, September 24, 1796. - -MY DEAR, VERY DEAR POOLE,--The heart thoroughly penetrated with the flame -of virtuous friendship is in a state of glory; but lest it should be -exalted above measure 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 humanity. 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, as 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 expressed 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 Mrs. Coleridge was delivered on -Monday, September 19, 1796, half 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 information, 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,[119] 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 compliment 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 -continuance 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 uncommonly pure, his -affection delicate, and his benevolence enlivened but not sicklied by -sensibility. He is assuredly a man of great genius; but it must be in -_tete-a-tete_ with one whom he loves and esteems that his colloquial -powers open; and this arises not from reserve or want of simplicity, but -from having been placed in situations 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 feelings. His joy and gratitude to Heaven for -the circumstance of his domestication with me I can scarcely describe 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,[120] and my feelings are so dim and huddled 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 on the other side of the paper two of -Charles Lloyd's sonnets, 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,[121] 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. - - -LXI. TO CHARLES LAMB.[122] - -[September 28, 1796.] - -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 -preserved; the Comforter that should relieve you is not far from you. But -as you are a Christian, in the name of that Saviour, who was filled with -bitterness and made drunken with wormwood, I conjure you to have recourse -in frequent prayer to "his God and your God;" the God of mercies, and -father of all comfort. Your poor father is, I hope, almost senseless of -the calamity; the unconscious 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 inheritance 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 encourage gloom or -despair. You are a temporary sharer in human miseries that you may be an -eternal partaker of the Divine nature. I charge you, if by any means it be -possible, come to me. - - I remain your affectionate - S. T. COLERIDGE. - - -LXII. TO THOMAS POOLE. - -Saturday night, November 5, 1796. - -Thanks, my heart's warm thanks to you, my beloved friend, for your tender -letter! Indeed, I did not deserve so kind a one; but by this time you -have received my last. - -To live in a beautiful country, and to enure myself as much 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. Disappointment! Disappointment! dash not from my -trembling 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 cloud_" 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 morning 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,[123] and _sopped_ the 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 garrison behind, or as if -he had evacuated the Corsica,[124] and a few straggling pains only -remained. But _this morning_ he returned in full force, and his 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 believe 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 ejaculate -prayers in her behalf. Such things are strange. It may be superstitious to -think about such correspondences; 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 temporary residence till Adscombe is ready -for us. I would that 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, physiognomically handsome, and scientific -in vaccimulgence? That last word is a new one, but soft in sound and full -of expression. 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 Cruikshank -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 Aeolus, 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 night, 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 Cruikshank this morning, and this moment I have received a -letter from him. My letter written before the receipt of his contains -everything I would 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 Cruikshank.[125] May the Father and -lover of the meek preserve that meek woman, and give her a safe and joyful -deliverance! - -I wrote this morning a short note of congratulatory kindliness to your -sister, and shall be eager to call on her, when _Legion_ has been -thoroughly exorcised from my temple and cheeks. Tell Cruikshank 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 cheerings 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 required, 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,[126] 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. This parcel I send -to-morrow morning, enclosed in a parcel to Bill Poole of Thurston. - -God love you, my affectionate brother, and your affectionate - - 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 and 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."[127] Homer is the poet for the warrior, Milton for the -religionist, Tasso for women, Robert Southey for the patriot. The first -and fourth books of the "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 Animal 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 admirably written, and -displays strong sense animated by feeling, 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,"[128] with -my name; indeed, I make it a scruple of conscience never to publish -anything, however 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 -high-treasonist, and your friends the democrats. - - "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, expresses great sloth, and great, indeed, -almost idiotic good-nature. 'Tis a mere carcass of a face;[129] fat, -flabby, and expressive chiefly of inexpression. Yet I am told that my -eyes, eyebrows, and forehead are physiognomically good; but of this the -deponent knoweth not. As to my shape, 'tis a good shape enough if -measured, but my gait is awkward, and the walk of the whole man indicates -_indolence capable of energies_. I am, and ever have been, a great reader, -and have read almost everything--a library cormorant. I am _deep_ in all -out of the 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 phantasms that ever possessed "your -philosophy;" dreamers, from Thoth 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 useful knowledge, I am a so-so -chemist, and I love chemistry. All else is _blank_; but I _will_ be -(please God) an horticulturalist and a farmer. I compose very little, and -I absolutely 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 conversation 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,[130] 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. - -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. Iamblichus,[131] Proclus, Porphyrius, etc., one shilling 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 unfortunately be sold, in the same catalogue are:-- - -2109. Juliani Opera, 12s. 6d. - -676. Iamblichus de Mysteriis, 10s. 6d. - -2681. Sidonius Apollinaris, 6s. - -And in the catalogue of Robson, the bookseller in New Bond Street, Plotini -Opera, a Ficino, L1.1.0, making altogether L2.10.0. - -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 I mentioned to you, amounting to two pounds, -ten shillings; and, as in the course of next week I shall send a small -parcel 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 I -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 _Ippokrite_, but I forgot -that you are not a Greekist, and perchance you hate puns; but, in Greek, -_Krites_ signifies a judge and _hippos_ a horse. Hippocrite, therefore, -may mean a _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. - - -LXV. TO THOMAS POOLE.[132] - -Sunday morning, December 11, 1796. - -MY BELOVED POOLE,--The sight of your villainous hand-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, Hind, Pig-protector, 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 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, 1796. - -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 settling 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 unexpected 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 perform, 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 willing to be his own servant. As to Acton, 'tis -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 acquirement -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 for myself and my wife and 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 Estlin [do] for me? They do nothing who do -not teach me how to be independent of any except the Almighty Dispenser of -sickness and health. And "too far from the press." With the printing of -the review and the magazine I have no concern; and, if I publish any work -on 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 suffered 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. 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 vehemently persuading me to prefer Acton to Stowey, and in -return for the loss of your society recommending _Mr. King's_ family as -"very pleasant neighbours." Neighbours! 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 heart-chilling letter. -I 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 -instructed except at Stowey?) and to be where I can communicate in a -literary way. I must conclude. I pray you let me hear from you -immediately. God bless you and - - S. T. COLERIDGE. - - -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 disappointment, 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 looking 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 everything 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 the 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 promised to correct it for me, yet I might as well be fifty miles -from it as twelve, for any purpose of correcting. Secondly, the expense of -moving. Well, but I must move to Acton, and what will the difference be? -Perhaps three guineas.... I would give three guineas that you had not -assigned this reason. Thirdly, the wretchedness 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 manifested a strong dislike to our -living near you--or something 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 written 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 sentiments over leaf came into my heart, I will -not suppress them. 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 Magazine. 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 quietness. 4. From tea till prayer-time to -the reviews, magazines, 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 L40 from C. -Ll.'s L80 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 L40 would make but a poor figure. And -what was I to do at the end of a twelvemonth? In the mean time Mrs. -Fricker'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 to leaving Bristol. I recurred therefore to -my first promise of allowing her L20 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 L40 or L50, 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 -debases 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 meeting. Nothing remains possible but a school, or -writer to a newspaper, or my present plan. I could not love the man who -advised me to keep a school, or write for a newspaper. He 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--everything necessary to my feelings -and the realization of my innocent independence. You know it would be -impossible 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 darkness 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 on 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 the Debtors' -Side of Newgate as full and sufficient payment. - -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 acquiesces 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 on 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 abandon 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 gardener than a Milton, if I could not unite -both. - -My _friend_, wherein I have written impetuously, pardon 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 assigned the true reasons which urged -you to dissuade me from a settlement at Stowey, and if indeed (provided -such settlement were consistent with my good and happiness), it would give -you unmixed pleasure, I adhere to Stowey, and consider the time from last -evening as a distempered 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 unreservedly 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 subdued -this, a rheumatic complaint in the back of my head and shoulders, -accompanied with sore throat and depression 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 account" how I have disposed of your books. This I -will shortly do, with all the veracity which that solemn incantation, -"_upon your honour_," must necessarily have conjured up. - -Your second and third part promise great things. I have counted the -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 farm_ 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 expenses. 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 would 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 particular road. Much good may be done in all. I am not _fit_ for -_public_ life; yet the light shall stream to a far distance 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 _sonnet[133] is obscure_; but you ought to distinguish between -obscurity residing in the uncommonness of the thought, and that which -proceeds from thoughts unconnected and language not adapted to the -expression of 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 semblance -_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 communicate, 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.[134] - -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 orthodox word in all our poets, they meaning by "soul" 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 materialist, 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 had seen him I should have _struggled_ to believe -it. Bless me! a commentary of thirty-five lines in defence of a sonnet! -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 _conceits_. 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 daylight" (three long syllables) is a beauty, as it admirably -expresses the captive's dwelling on the sight of noon with rapture and a -kind of wonder. - - The common sun, the air, the skies - To him are opening paradise. - GRAY. - -But supposing my defence not tenable; yet how a blunder in metre stamps a -man Italian or Della Cruscan I cannot 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 _he_ -should not escape the charge of Della Cruscanism,--this cuts the skin and -surface of my heart. "Poetry to have its highest relish must be -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 Collins's -"Ode on the Poetical Character,"--that part of it, I should say, beginning -with "The band (as faery legends say) Was wove on that creating day,"--has -inspired and whirled _me_ along with greater agitations of enthusiasm than -any the most _impassioned_ scene in Schiller or Shakespeare, 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 -valuable, 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 without feeling. Hence, though my -poetry has in general a hue of tenderness or passion over it, yet it -seldom exhibits unmixed and simple tenderness or passion. My philosophical -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.[135] 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 somehow or other they _marched -off_. No "Poems by John Thelwall" could I find. When I charged you with -anti-religious bigotry, I did not allude to your pamphlet, but to passages -in your letters to me, and to a circumstance which Southey, I _think_, -once mentioned, that you had asserted that the name of _God_ ought never -to be produced in poetry.[136] 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 _all_ my feelings, but will previously take care to -make my feelings benevolent. Contempt is hatred without fear; anger, -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. 'Tis 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 religion 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 infirmities 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 to me to -have done. I will write fully to you now, because 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 natural 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 Rome 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 he had sent it forth, seven thunders uttered -their voices: and when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, the -mighty Angel[137] lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by Him 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_ Paradise Lost in which he has not borrowed his imagery from -the _Scriptures_? I allow and rejoice that _Christ_ appealed only to the -understanding and the affections; but 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 (putting serious -belief out of the question) is a mean flight of impassioned eloquence in -which the Apostle marks the difference 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."[138] _You_ may -prefer to all this the quarrels of Jupiter and Juno, the whimpering of -wounded Venus, and the jokes of the celestials 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 observed 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 -_slobberers_."[139] The only vision which Christianity holds forth is -indeed peculiarly adapted to these _slobberers_. Yes, to these lowly and -despised and perishing slobberers it proclaims that their "corruptible -shall put on _incorruption_, and their mortal put on _immortality_." - -"Morals to the Magdalen and Botany Bay." Now, Thelwall, I presume that to -preach morals to the virtuous 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_? 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 disciples 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 cheerfully 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 for those who inflicted them; -wishing their oppressors to be altogether such 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, Thelwall, that you never read your Testament, since -your understanding was matured, without carelessness, and previous -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 -comprises 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 the _foundation_, -necessary and of first-rate importance, yet made of vile materials, and -hidden beneath the splendid superstructure. - -"Now giving all diligence, add to your faith _fortitude_, and to -_fortitude knowledge_, and to knowledge purity, and to purity -patience,[140] and to patience godliness,[141] and to godliness -brotherly-kindness, and to brotherly-kindness universal love."[142] - -I hope, whatever you may think of godliness, you will like the _note_ on -it. I need not tell you, that godliness is God-_like_ness, 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, Thelwall, 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 enjoined? 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 -expectation 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 _contemptuously_ 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 _fit_ for a man which his mind after sincere examination -approves, which animates 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 them, 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 -expressions are always indicative of the habit of feeling. You possess -fortitude and purity, and a large portion of brotherly-kindness and -universal love; drink with unquenchable thirst of the two latter virtues, -and acquire _patience_; and then, Thelwall, 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-creatures' happiness), "Here lie and did -lie the _all_ of John Thelwall 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 transport 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 struggling to subdue it. I rejoice that -the bankrupt honesty of the public has paid even the small dividend you -mentioned. 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, Thelwall, that the little atheist Madam Stella has an -abominable _Christian_ kind of _heart_? 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 and I printed -together, intending to make a volume, but I gave it up and cancelled -them.[143] Item, Joan of Arc, with only the passage of my writing cut out -for the printers, 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 sonnets[144] -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. Lloyd[145] 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[146] which -was printed to be dispersed among friends. It was addressed to Charles -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 keepsake. Of this parcel I -do entreat thy acceptance. I have another Joan of Arc, so you have a -_right_ to the one enclosed. Postscript. Item, a humorous "Droll" on S. -Ireland, 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 unfortunately he has received a few rays of -supernatural light through a crack in his upper story. I _express_ myself -unfeelingly; but indeed my heart always aches when I think of him. Item, -some verses of Robert Southey to a college cat.[147] And, finally, the -following lines by thy affectionate friend, - - S. T. COLERIDGE. - -TO A YOUNG MAN - -WHO ABANDONED HIMSELF TO A CAUSELESS AND INDOLENT MELANCHOLY.[148] - - Hence that fantastic wantonness of woe, - O 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. - - Or seek some _widow's_ grave; whose dearer part - Was slaughtered, where o'er his uncoffin'd limbs - The flocking flesh-birds 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. Cottle's, High Street, -Bristol. - - -LXIX. TO THOMAS POOLE. - -Sunday morning [? December 18, 1796.] - -MY DEAR POOLE,--I wrote to you with improper impetuosity; but I had been -dwelling so long on the circumstance of living near you, that my mind was -thrown by your letter into the feelings of those distressful dreams[149] -where we imagine ourselves falling from precipices. I 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 convert 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 Rumfordize 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 contrive 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 thoroughly 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--no 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, Southey is unrivalled; but as certainly he does not possess -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 _amalgamating 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_ towards each other, but I do not -_esteem_ or _love_ Southey, as I must esteem and love the man whom I dared -call by the holy name of _friend_: and vice versa Southey 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. -Southey's direction at present is R. 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 external 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 surgeons! Now as to the -metaphysicians. Plato says it is _harmony_. He might as well have said a -fiddlestick's end; but I love Plato, his dear, _gorgeous_ 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 am a mere _apparition_, a -naked spirit, and that 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 -"Ode"[150] 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, "repeating-- - - '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; - Aenigmas that had driven the Theban[151] 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.'"[152] - - - - -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 the 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 associations must be painful indeed. But God be praised! -you shall look back on 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. Estlin's illness, how fervently he thanks God -for her recovery. 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 comfortable bedroom and sitting-room for C. -Lloyd, and another for us, a room for Nanny, a kitchen, and outhouse. -Before our door a clear brook runs of very soft water; and in the back -yard is a nice _well_ of fine 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 callum as testimonials of -their industry. We have likewise a sweet orchard, and at the end of it T. -Poole has 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 BRIDGEWATER, SOMERSET. - February 6, 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 suggest. 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 anything 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 -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 compositions published separately--50 + 20 = L70; 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 Strutt[153] is a man of stern -aspect, but strong, very strong abilities. Joseph Strutt every way -amiable. He deserves his 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 no 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 without exception the greatest -_woman_ I have been fortunate enough to meet with in my brief pilgrimage -through life. - -[Illustration] - -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 sometimes, I think, deduced falsely. For -instance (p. iii.): It is _true_ that all a man's children, "however -begotten, whether in marriage or out," are his heirs in nature, and ought -to be so in true policy; but, instead of tacitly allowing that I meant by -it to encourage what Mr. B.[154] and the priests would call -licentiousness (and which surely, Thelwall, in the _present state of -society_ you must allow to be injustice, inasmuch as it deprives the woman -of her respectability 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 conceivable means (in the present state of society, at least) of -ensuring 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. Unchastity may be no 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 _know_ 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 -oppose 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 -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 agitating 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 -Horne 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_[155] by this time you are -conscious that you have praised too highly. With the exception of "I -unpartaking 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 on 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 _electrometers_[156] of taste. You forgot to point -out to me that the whole childbirth of Nature is at once ludicrous and -disgusting, 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 "Corresponding Society -Magazine." That good man, James Losh, has just published an admirable -treatise translated from the French of Benjamin Constant,[157] entitled, -"Consideration on the Strength of the Present Government 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 mistaken but -well-meaning Lewis.[158] 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 dispense with. There are a number of very pretty -young 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 happy, and my little David Hartley grows a sweet boy and has -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.[159] - -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 you. I shall -be home by Friday--not to-morrow--but the next Friday. If the "Ode on the -Departing Year" be not reprinted, please to _omit_ the lines from "When -shall scepter'd slaughter cease," to "For still does Madness roam on -Guilt's bleak dizzy height," inclusive.[160] 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 his 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 _inequalities_. 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. - -MR. COTTLE, Bookseller, High Street, Bristol. - - -LXXIV. TO ROBERT SOUTHEY. - -July, 1797. - -DEAR SOUTHEY,--You are acting kindly in your exertions 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, their -_ancientness_, prevented them from being generally read, in the degree, I -mean, that Goldsmith's poems or even Rogers' 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 knowledge 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 no 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 -_calculates_. 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 certainly write a preliminary essay, and I will -_attempt_ to write a poem on 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 chasteness 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 Chatterton's, to find such shadowy -nobodies as cherub-winged _Death_, 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 this is all his feelings do for him. -They set him upon the business and then they leave him. He has such a high -idea of what poetry ought to be, that he cannot conceive that 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 on 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," applied to a gibbet, strikes me as _slipshoppish_ -from the unfortunate meaning of the word "engaging." Your praise of my -Dedication[161] 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 metaphor[162] on the -diverse sorts of friendship is _hunted down_, but the poem is dear to me, -and in point of taste I place it next to "Low was our pretty Cot," which I -think the best of my poems. - -I am as much a Pangloss as ever, only less contemptuous 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 combination of curious circumstances a gentleman's seat, with a park -and woods, elegantly and completely furnished, with nine lodging rooms, -three parlours, and a hall, 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.[163] He left me Friday morning. -The second day after Wordsworth came to me, dear Sara accidentally emptied -a skillet of boiling milk on 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[164] which -communicates with mine I wrote these lines, with which I am pleased. (I -heard from C. Lamb of Favell and Le Grice.[165] Poor Allen! I knew nothing -of it.[166] As to Rough,[167] 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,[168] whom I may never meet again, - On springy[169] heath, 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[170] 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 heath-flowers! richlier burn, ye clouds - Live in the yellow Light, ye distant groves! - Struck with joy's deepest calm, and gazing round - On[171] 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 - 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 - 'Tis 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 Edith Southey would return with me. I think--indeed, I am -almost certain--that I could get a one-horse chaise 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 I am sure it would increase -your stock of images, and three weeks' absence from Christchurch 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 letter, having been absent a -day or two, and have already, before I write to you, written to Dr. -Beddoes. I would to Heaven 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 themselves; 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, mountains or caverns, give me the sense of -sublimity or majesty! But in this faith _all things_ counterfeit infinity. - - "Struck with the deepest calm of joy,"[172] I stand - Silent, with swimming sense; and gazing round - On the wide landscape, gaze till all doth seem - Less gross than bodily, a living Thing - Which acts upon the mind and with such hues - As clothe th' Almighty Spirit, where He makes - Spirits perceive His presence!... - -It is but seldom that I raise and spiritualize my intellect to this -height; and at other times I adopt the Brahmin 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 million 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 Velez, 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[173] hanging woods, that touch'd by autumn seem'd - As they were blossoming hues 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 Alla - 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 shall 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 her -bosom, and a mother is so holy and divine a being that I cannot endure any -_corporealizing_ 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 away heaviness_;" and in your similes, etc., etc., a -little _compression_ would make it a beautiful poem. _Study compression!_ - -I presume you mean decorum by _Harum_ 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 yesterday a very sensible -vindication of the conduct of the Directory. Did you see it? - -Your news respecting Mrs. E. did not surprise me. I saw it even from the -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! O God! 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 discovered the art of -crawling with wonderful ease and rapidity. 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 no hope of its success, or even of its being acted. - -God bless, etc., - - S. T. COLERIDGE. - -MR. JOHN 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 somewhat. -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 answer the same day, which I will transmit to you on Monday, -but you _cannot_ receive it till Tuesday night. If, 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_.[174] 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 _fag_-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, 1797.] - -DEAR THELWALL,--This is the first hour that I could write to you anything -decisive. I have received an answer 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, the whole returns to its former -situation; and the hope which I had entertained, that you could have -settled without 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 Christianity 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 consequence. -Either of us separately would perhaps be tolerated, 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 no as moralists we should be justified in hazarding 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 _undesigning_ man; certainly, any future and -greater excellence which he hopes to realize in and through the society -will vanish like a dream of the morning. If, therefore, you can get the -land and cottage near Bath of which you 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 transportation 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. THELWALL, - 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 Josiah and Thomas Wedgwood.[175] I accepted it -on the presumption that I had talents, honesty, and propensities to -perseverant 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, -lengthened 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 no possibility beyond that of _beauty_. The Society here were -sufficiently eager to have me as their minister, and, I think, would have -behaved kindly and respectfully, but I perceive clearly that without great -courage and perseverance in the use of the monosyllabic _No!_ 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. -Talking of plays, etc., he told me that an acquaintance of his was -printing a translation of one of Kotzebue's tragedies, entitled, -"Benyowski."[176] The name startled me, and upon examination I found that -the story of my "Siberian Exiles" has been already dramatized. If Kotzebue -has exhibited no 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 reflection, some only in transition, and some are not -pleasing at all; and to this latter class belongs the "Castle -Spectre."[177] 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 colloquialisms. (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--horror! agonizing pangs of conscience! Dreams full of -hell, serpents, and skeletons; starts and attempted murders, 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 sentimentality, 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 _saeva 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 narration. This -play proves how accurately you conjectured concerning _theatric_ merit. -The merit of the "Castle Spectre" consists wholly in its _situations_. -These are all borrowed and all absolutely _pantomimical_; 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 patchwork 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 innocent 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 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 pantomimic tricks, the plot itself -must be pantomimic. Harlequin 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.[178] - - -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 "persuaded 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 circumstance -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.,[179] from -Groscollius, has placed me in a ridiculous situation; but it was a foolish -and presumptuous start of affectionateness, and I am not unwilling to -incur punishments due to my folly. By past experiences we build up our -moral being. How comes it that 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 admiration 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 language which any -way resembles it. Poole (whom I feel so consolidated with myself that I -seem to have no occasion 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 prefix the "Maid of Orleans," -1,000 lines, and three blank verse poems, making all three about 200, and -I shall utterly 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 alterations 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 answer to your kind and interesting letter. -My indisposition originated in the stump of a tooth over which some matter -had 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 increased 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 recovering -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 actions 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 -adequately 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 after the wind an earthquake; and after the -earthquake a fire; and the Lord was not in the fire;" and now (believing -that no calamities are permitted but as the means of good) I wrap my face -in my mantle and wait, with a subdued and patient thought, expecting to -hear "the still small voice" which is of God. In America (I have received -my information from unquestionable authority) the morals and domestic -habits of the people are daily deteriorating; and one good consequence -which I expect from revolution is that individuals will see the necessity -of individual 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 pernicious than the [Greek: -pagchryson] and panacea of the alchemists, the error of attributing to -governments a talismanic influence over our virtues and our happiness, as -if governments were not rather effects than causes. It is true that all -effects 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 nigher and more continuous 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 -babble against sickness and the headache? I regard governments 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 -prevented his dying. Of guilt I say nothing, but I believe 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 sometimes see the good without wishing to attain it, and oftener _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 -mountain, nor at Jerusalem." - -You think, my brother, that there can be but two _parties_ at present, for -the Government and against the Government. 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 respectable -of our three factions, because they are more decorous. The Opposition and -the Democrats are not only vicious, they wear the _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.[180] - -I am prepared to suffer without discontent the consequences of my follies -and mistakes; and unable to conceive 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 no Whig, no 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 infinitely 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 inanimate 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 gignimus,"--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 bad passions not by combating them but by -keeping them 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, no disquietude, - No vengeance, and no 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 - His 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 he seeks. - WORDSWORTH.[181] - -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 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.[182] - -May [? 1798]. - -MY DEAR FRIEND,--I write from Cross, to which place I accompanied Mr. -Wordsworth, who will give you this letter. We visited Cheddar, but his -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 possibly 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 subject. It is -his practice and almost his nature to convey all the truth he knows -without any attack on what he supposes falsehood, if that falsehood be -interwoven with virtues or happiness. He loves and venerates Christ and -Christianity. I wish he did more, but it were wrong indeed 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. His genius is most _apparent_ in -poetry, and rarely, except to me in _tete-a-tete_, breaks forth in -conversational eloquence. My best and most affectionate wishes attend Mrs. -Estlin and your little ones, and believe 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 these events by forgiveness -and a peaceful spirit full of love. This morning, half-past one, my wife -was safely delivered of a fine boy;[183] 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 melancholy -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 neglectful 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 become 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 confession 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. - - -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 restorer and my comfort, giving me -gentleness and calmness 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 feelings impel me to a humble faith, that it is possible and -consistent with the divine attributes. - -Poor Dr. Toulmin! he bears his calamity like one in whom a faith through -Jesus is the _Habit_ 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--the 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. - - -LXXXIV. 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 on you? Shall I stay with -you? or had I better leave you uninterrupted? In 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.[184] - -[Spring of 1798.] - -DEAR LAMB,--Lloyd has informed me through Miss Wordsworth that you intend -no longer to correspond with me. This has given me little pain; not that -I do not love and esteem you, but on the contrary because I am confident -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 -struggles abandon me in behalf of a man[185] who, wholly ignorant of all -but your name, became attached to you in consequence of my attachment, -caught _his_ from _my_ enthusiasm, and learned to love you at my fireside, -when often while I have been sitting and talking of your sorrows and -afflictions 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 immediately, and my resentments vanished. There -has resulted only a sort of fantastic scepticism concerning my own -consciousness of my own rectitude. As dreams have impressed 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 cheating me, who am an older warrior, -with some newer stratagem. When I wrote to you that my Sonnet to -Simplicity[186] 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 believe;" and I was not angry with you, because the -assertion 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[187] 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. - -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. He 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 acquainted -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 nothing human. You are restored to comparative saneness, -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 brimstone 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 during 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 -Indoors in North Germany," and "Christmas Out of Doors." In 1828, -Coleridge placed a selection of unpublished letters 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 Gillman'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 and May 6, 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, appeared 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. 26-198, _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 Yarmouth 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. Wedgwood'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 fortnight 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 virtue to each other, my dear, dear -Poole! - - -LXXXVII. TO HIS WIFE. - -HAMBURG, September 19, 1798. - -Over what place does the 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 Cuxhaven, 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 -Yarmouth Sunday morning, September 16, at eleven o'clock. Chester and -Wordsworth ill immediately. Our passengers were: +Wordsworth, *Chester, S. -T. Coleridge, a Dane, second Dane, third Dane, a Prussian, a Hanoverian -and *his servant, a German tailor and his *wife, a French +emigrant and -*French servant, *two English gentlemen, and +a Jew. All these with the -prefix * were sick, those marked + horribly sick. The view of Yarmouth -from the sea is interesting; besides, it was English 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 faces[188] -so distinctly! This day enriched me with characters, and I passed it -merrily. Each of those characters 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 commence 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 nothing 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 present 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!). Remember 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 Wordsworth's Tragedy, are safe in -Josiah Wedgwood's hands; 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 yearning 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 -difficulty we have procured a very filthy room at a large expense; but we -shall move to-morrow. We get very excellent 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 Hamburg 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 quarto[189] 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_l._ banknote? The "Morning Post" and Magazine will come to you -as before. If not regularly, Stuart desires that you will write to him. I -pray you, my dear love! read Edgeworth'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. 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 nonsense. - -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 colours of the clouds are -quite English, just as if I were coming out of T. Poole's homeward with -you in my arm. - -[Illustration] - - -LXXXVIII. TO THE SAME. - -[RATZEBURG], October 20, 1798. - -... But I must check these feelings and write more collectedly. 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 children 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 beautiful little woman--less, I think, than you--a Countess -Kilmansig;[190] her father is our Lord Howe's cousin. She is the wife -of a very handsome man, and has two fine little 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 dilated 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 sehr -gut fathers and husbands. I hope dat you will come and lofe my little -babies, and I will sing to you and play on the guitar and the pianoforte; -and my dear huspan he sprachs sehr gut English, and he lofes England -better than all the world." (Sehr gut is very good; sprach, speaks or -talks.) She is a sweet little woman, and, what is very rare in Germany, -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 Englische 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 dung had stained and spotted--but this was "Koenigl. Pat. Engl. Im. -Pflaster," that is, Royal Patent _English Ornament_ 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 -magnetical Influences of the Planets and fixed Stars." This is a literal -translation. At the concert, when I entered, 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 Governor, 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 pleasant man, and both he and the Amtmann (_i. e._ -the civil regent) are particularly attentive to me. I am quite -domesticated 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 tenderness! Your -faithful and affectionate husband, - - S. T. COLERIDGE. - -P. S. A dinner lasts not uncommonly three hours! - - -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 insupportable 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, "_Schreiben aus London_--They write from -London." This day's, with schreiben aus London, vom November 13. But I am -certain that you have written more than once; and I stumble 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. - - -XC. TO THE SAME. - -December 2, 1798. - -Sunday Evening.--God, the Infinite, be praised that my babes are alive. -His mercy will forgive me that late and all too slowly I raised up my -heart in thanksgiving. At first and for a time I wept as passionately as -if they 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 received 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. - - -XCI. TO THE REV. MR. ROSKILLY.[191] - -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 sincere 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 Chester 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. 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 natives. It has greatly -enlarged my knowledge of the English 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 -darkened by the differences of pronunciation and spelling. I have written -twice to Mr. Josiah Wedgwood,[192] 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 certain 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 -expenses have been considerably less than they were in England. Here I -shall stay till the last week in January, when I shall proceed to -Goettingen, 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 -eat but little animal food. At Goettingen I shall hire lodging for two -months, buy my own cold beef at an eating-house, and dine in my chamber, -which I can have at a dollar a week. And here at Goettingen 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 expenses[193] 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 accustomed myself, that by three months' -residence at Goettingen 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 interweaved 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 -Goettingen 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 certainly _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 passing 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 Bristol Library is a hum, and will do us little service; and he -thinks that he can procure a house near Sir Gilford Lawson's by the Lakes, -and have free access to his immense library. I think it better once in a -year to walk to Cambridge, 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 mass of materials which, -with dear, _independent_ Poetry, will fully employ the remaining year. But -this is idle prating about a future. But indeed, it is time to be looking -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 reasonable 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 -comfortable on my return. To Ward remember me affectionately--likewise -remember to James Cole; and my grateful 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 Cruickshank--in short, -to all to whom it will give pleasure 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 remembered to you. He 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 tranquillity. Last evening I was absent in -company, and when I returned to solitude, restless in every fibre, a -novel which 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 pulsation of -my heart had quite wearied me down, and I held the letter in my hand like -as if I was stupid, without attempting 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 homesick, I must walk half an hour, for my mind is too -scattered 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 imagination 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 Herrn -Coleridge, a la Poste Restante, Goettingen, 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 Goettingen I have written 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 it, and is on his journey to Nordhausen. His taking his sister with -him was a wrong step; it is next but impossible for any but married women, -or in the suit of married women, to be introduced to any company in -Germany. Sister 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 W., God love him! seems to have lost his spirits -and almost his inclination for it. In the mean time his expenses have been -almost 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! I do languish to be at home. - -I will endeavour to give you some idea of Ratzeburg, 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 southernmost point of the lake, that -is, from the beginning of the lake, is the island-town of Ratzeburg. - -[Illustration] - -[Symbol] is Ratzeburg; [Symbol] 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 Ratzeburg to the slip of land--you -pass through Ratzeburg 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. - -[Illustration] - -The water to the south of Ratzeburg is called the little lake and the -other the large lake, though they are but one piece of water. This little -lake is very beautiful, the shores just often enough green and bare to -give the proper effect to the magnificent _groves_ which mostly fringe -them. The views vary almost every ten steps, such and so beautiful 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 church-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 entirely 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.[194] 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 pastors 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 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 incessant amusement. Every picture, every -legend cut out in gilded wood-work, was a history of the manners and -feelings 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 spectacles.[195] 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 Red 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, intolerably bright, and the walls of mist partaking -of the light in a _multitude_ of colours. About a month ago the vehemence -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 particles 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 without 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 England, 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 repeated 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. Indeed, a pipe at -breakfast is a great addition to the comfort 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 before 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) quoth he, "it is delightful; it -invigorates the frame and _it clears out the mouth 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 dearest Love, God love and preserve us through this long absence! -O my dear Babies! my Babies! - - -XCIV. TO THE SAME. - - Bei dem Radermacher Gohring, in der Bergstrasse, Goettingen, - March 12, 1799. Sunday Night. - -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 English Pacquets cannot set off. Why need I -say how anxious this long interval of silence has made me! 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 forsaken 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 recovered 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 Halloos 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 intellect. 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 Lueneburg--_i. e._, 35 English -miles--at 3 o'clock on Thursday afternoon. This is a fair specimen! In -England I used to laugh at the "flying waggons;" but, compared with a -German Post Coach, the metaphor is perfectly 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 themselves to me were that it was cold--very cold--shocking -cold--never felt it so cold in my life! Hanover is 115 miles from -Ratzeburg. We arrived there Saturday evening. - -The Herr von Doering, a nobleman who resides at Ratzeburg, gave me letters -to his brother-in-law at Hanover, 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 Hanover, 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 -Von Brandes, the Secretary of State and Governor of Goettingen University. -The first was amazingly _perpendicular_, but civil and polite, and gave me -letters to Heyne, the head Librarian, and, in truth, the real _Governor_ -of Goettingen. Brandes likewise gave me letters to Heyne 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 Hanover 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 -of Leibnitz--the first for its excessive absurdity, ugliness, and -indecency--(absolutely I could write the most humorous octavo volume -containing the description of it with a commentary)--the second--_i. e._ -the bust of Leibnitz--impressed on 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 noon, after having paid a most extravagant bill. We -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. In 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 -extremely 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 beautiful boy among them, -fast asleep, with the softest conceivable 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 Heyne, 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 to me. The next day I took out my matricula, and commenced -student of the University of Goettingen. Heyne 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 concert Hamilton, a Cambridge man, took -me as his guest to the Saturday Club, _where 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 except 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 remembrance 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. - - -XCV. TO THOMAS POOLE. - -April 6, 1799. - -MY DEAREST POOLE,--Your two letters, dated January 24 and March 15,[196] -followed close on each other. I 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! 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 -Pyrrhoniens, et la Raison confond les Dogmatistes. Nous avons une -impuissance a prouver invincible a tout le Dogmatisme. 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 immediately -preceding it; and _that_ degree of consciousness, _that_ small portion of -_memory_, it would not only be arrogant, but in the highest degree absurd, -to deny even to a much younger infant. 'Tis a strange assertion that the -essence of identity lies in _recollective_ consciousness. 'Twere scarcely -less ridiculous to affirm that the eight miles from Stowey to Bridgwater -consist in the eight milestones. 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 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, indeed,-- - - 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.[197] - -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 unsubstantiates the living -things that one has grasped and handled! Some months ago Wordsworth -transmitted me a most sublime epitaph. Whether it had any reality I cannot -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, no force, - She neither hears nor sees: - Mov'd round in Earth's diurnal course - With rocks, and stones, and trees! - - -XCVI. TO HIS WIFE. - -GOETTINGEN, 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 little Being! he -had existed to me for so many months only in dreams and reveries, but 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. Methinks 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 no 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 nonexistence, 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, the most high God forbade us to use his _name vainly_. And -shall we who are Christians, shall we 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 _pastime_, 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--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--they -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 sufficiency and completeness in the narrow -present, weakens the presentiment of our wide and ever widening -immortality. 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 discontented 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 existence of -infants--only because according to his own system 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 He 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 -accompaniments of high and solemn thought, not the workings of pain or -sorrow. When I return indeed, and see the 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 death-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 be _call'd_ a Child of God! - Death whisper'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 Mr. Wade. Mr. -Estlin will permit you to take the letters to Stowey that Poole may see -them, 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 distance--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 support 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 scattered and so little known, even in Germany, will of course -establish my character for industry and erudition certainly; and, I would -fain hope, for reflection and genius. This day in June I hope and trust -that I shall be in England. 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 _whole_ feeling, the most deep 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 Christmas[198] I saw a custom which pleased and -interested me here. The children make little presents to their parents, -and to one another, 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 morning 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 bough -is fastened on the table at a little distance from the wall, a multitude -of little tapers are fastened in the bough, 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 -the 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 on 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 on the tables the presents -for the children; a scene of more sober joy succeeds, as, on 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 observed 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 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 Heaven 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 survive in spite of the -efforts of the Clergy, who in the north of Germany, that is, in the -Hanoverian, Saxon, and Prussian dominions, are almost all Deists. But they -make little or no impressions on the bauers, who are wonderfully religious -and fantastically superstitious, but not in the least priest-rid. But in -the Catholic countries of Germany the difference is vast indeed! I met -lately an intelligent and calm-minded man who had spent a considerable -time at Marburg in the Bishopric of Paderborn in Westphalia. 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 before the performance of his vow, they believe that he hovers -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 to St. Erasmus--for 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 on 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. In 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 information which I can collect (and I have had many -opportunities of collecting various accounts), the peasants in the -Catholic countries of Germany, but especially in Austria, 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 running 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 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 on 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. In a particular part of the ceremony -down comes the great stone Angel with the bason, presenting it to the -pastor, who, having taken _quant. suff._, 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 parallelogrammic 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--"My Sheep -follow me." So it is here. The dog and the shepherd walk first, the -shepherd with his romantic fur, and generally knitting a pair of white -worsted gloves--he walks on and his dog by him, and then follow the sheep -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--on 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 throughout the north of Germany. The -gallows near Goettingen, 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 feath'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-- - 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 'tis dark, one shuts one's lids, - And still dreams on![199] - -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 6, 1799, Monday morn. - -My dear Poole, my dear Poole!--I am homesick. Society 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 your arms, and embrace you. Methinks -my hand would swell if the whole 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 yesterday -the roses (which the ladies carried on the ramparts, 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 -leafless Spring Woods! Oh, how I long to hear you whistle to the -Rippers![200] There are a multitude of nightingales here (poor things! -they sang in the snow). I thought of my own[201] verses on 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 no -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.[202] I told him that, independent of -the expense of removing, and the impropriety of taking Mrs. Coleridge to -a place where she would have no 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 affected; but -he deemed the vicinity of a library absolutely _necessary_ to his health, -nay to his existence. It is painful to me, too, to think of not living -near him; for he is a _good_ and _kind_ 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 reciprocate 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. - - * * * * * - -O Poole! I am homesick. Yesterday, or rather yesternight, I dittied the -following horrible ditty; but my poor Muse is quite gone--perhaps she may -return and meet me at Stowey. - - 'Tis sweet to him who all the week - Through city-crowds must push his way, - To stroll alone 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 on Albion's Shore.[203] - -The Professors here are exceedingly kind to all the Englishmen, but to me -they pay the most flattering attentions, especially Blumenbach and -Eichhorn. Nothing can be conceived more delightful than Blumenbach's -lectures, and, in conversation, he is, indeed, a most interesting man. The -learned Orientalist Tychsen[204] has given me instruction in the Gothic -and Theotuscan languages, which I can now read pretty well; and hope in -the course of a year to be thoroughly acquainted with all the languages -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 -quotations from Laplandish and Patagonian authors, possibly, on the -striking resemblance of the Sweogothian and Sanscrit 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 valuable? _Two ideas of -mine._--To extract _aqua fortis_ 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 Achard[205] the great chemist, 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 Germany -is called _Runkelruebe_. 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. - - * * * * * - -A stupid letter!--I believe my late proficiency in learning has 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 V - -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 shootings 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, sentiments nearly similar, and kindred -pursuits; we have likewise, 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 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 -on his honour as a man and a gentleman" that he never charged Southey with -"aught but deep and implacable enmity towards himself," 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. "Without entering into particulars," he writes, "I -will say generally, 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 untoward events of your separation." Poole's -intervention was successful, and once again the cottage opened its doors -to a distinguished guest. The Southeys remained as visitors at Stowey -until, in company with their host, they set out for Devonshire.] - -[Illustration] - - -C. TO THOMAS POOLE. - - EXETER, Southey's Lodgings, Mr. Tucker's, Fore Street Hill, - September 16, 1799.[206] - -MY DEAR POOLE,--Here I am just returned from a little tour[207] of five -days, having seen rocks and waterfalls, and a pretty river or two; some -wide landscapes, and a multitude of ash-tree dells, and the blue waters of -the "roaring sea," as little Hartley says, who on Friday fell down stairs -and injured his arm. 'Tis 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 Devonshire 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 colonel. George and the -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 -conversation, 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 inventors 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 five 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 brother? 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 Tryphiodorus and -part of Plutarch, and being 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 shallowist--and finally a Mr. Banfill, a man of sense, -information, and various literature, and most perfectly a gentleman--in -short a pleasant man. At his house we dine to-morrow. Northmore himself is -an honest, 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 adhesive 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 fellowmen, and believes -that without more liberty and more equality this well-being is not -possible. He possesses a most noble library. The victory at Novi![208] 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 SOUTHEY. - -STOWEY, Tuesday evening, October 15, 1799. - -It is fashionable among our philosophizers 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 farthing-candle -placed between two looking-glasses. For in truth, my dear Southey! I am -harassed with the rheumatism in my head and shoulders, 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, 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 letter, I have spent a few days -at Upcott;[209] but was too unwell to be comfortable, so I returned -yesterday. Poor Tom![210] 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!_[211] 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 blasphemy; 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'll -split your clerkship's skull for you!" Poole ordered a paper. He has -_found out_, he says, why the _newspapers_ had become so indifferent to -him. _Inventive_ Genius! He 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 _grows out again_, ruining the -prospects of those who had cut it down!" You are harvest-man enough, I -suppose, to understand the metaphor. Jackson[212] 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 unfavourable to the human heart? -Painters have been commonly very clever men, which is not so generally the -case with musicians, but both alike are almost uniformly debauchees. It is -superfluous to say how much your account of Bampfylde[213] interested me. -Predisposition to madness 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 _I_ have seen). If -you think otherwise, you are right I doubt not. I shall be glad to give -Mr. and Mrs. Keenan[214] the right hand of welcome with looks and tones in -_fit_ accompaniment. For the wife of a man of genius who sympathises -effectively with her husband in his habits and feelings is a _rara avis_ -with me; though a vast majority of her own sex and too many of ours will -scout her for a _rara piscis_. 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, Northmore 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. Mohammed 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 on a Jesuitic conspiracy and about -the Russians. 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 what -coxcomb it is that writes it! I wish the paper was kicked out of the -coffee-house." Now, but for Cruikshank, 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-hat on his head, with a scarlet coat and up to his mouth in -flower'd muslin, swearing 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 understanding, or the understanding to invent -without the consent of the heart. But so it is. Soon after Lloyd's arrival -at Cambridge I understand Christopher Wordsworth wrote his uncle, Mr. -Cookson,[215] 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 interests. (This is -his usual mild manner.) Christopher Wordsworth returned for answer that -Lloyd was by no 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 Southey! 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 has not a good one. He is unfit to be any man's friend, -and to all but a very guarded man he is a 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 ama me quia sum Dei, aut ut sim 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 the 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 postage I might have bought Birch's -Milton.--Sara will write soon. Our love to Edith and your mother. - - -CII. TO THE SAME. - -KESWICK,[216] Sunday, November 10, 1799. - -MY DEAR SOUTHEY,--I am anxious lest so long silence should seem -unaffectionate, or I would not, having so little to say, write to you -from such 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 important -accounts. So much for myself. In my last letter I said I would give you my -reasons for thinking "Christabel," _were_ it finished, and finished as -spiritedly as it commences, 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 judice_ 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. - - "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! 'Tis from Virgil's seventh Eclogue. - - "Populus Alcidae gratissima, vitis Iaccho, - Formosae myrtus Veneri, sua laurea Phoebo; - Phyllis amat corylos." - -But still, my dear Southey! it goes grievously against the grain with me, -that _you_ should be editing anthologies. 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 Southey! -publish the "Madoc" _quam citissime_, not hastily, but yet speedily. I -will instantly publish an Essay on Epic Poetry in reference to it. I have -been reading the Aeneid, and there you will be all victorious, excepting -the importance of Aeneas 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 Aeneid. -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 suspend 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 publishers. -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 booksellers. 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 comfort 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 particular nature of your disease. - -Now for poor George.[217] 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 his 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, 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 paramountship 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 _life_, -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. However, -all this is talk at random. I leave it to you to decide. What does Charles -Danvers think? He 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 Wollstonecraft. Why did not George Dyer -(who, by the bye, has written a silly milk-and-water life of you,[218] 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 _I_ 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[219] -thus: "_Nos haec novimus esse nihil--Phillis amat Corylos_." 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 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 Dodsley'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 myself. 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 your 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 Hayes[220] 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. - - -CIV. TO THE SAME. - -Tuesday night, 12 o'clock [December 24], 1799. - -MY DEAR SOUTHEY,--My Spinosism (if Spinosism it be, and i' faith 'tis very -like it) disposed me to consider this big city as that part of the supreme -One which the prophet Moses was allowed to see--I should be more disposed -to pull off my shoes, beholding Him in a _Bush_, than while I am forcing -my reason to believe that even in theatres _He_ is, yea! even in the Opera -House. Your "Thalaba" 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 concerning 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 answered -to him but your works. By me he has lost somewhat--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-set[221] (that -is, from nine in the morning to twelve at night), a pure scribbler. My -mornings to booksellers' compilations, after dinner 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 -expenditure; for, supposing _all clear_ my year's (1800) allowance 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,[222] Advice to -Friends of Freedom, Critiques on 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 _do 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"[223] would -have been a better thing than it is--it being somewhat dullish, etc. I -have bought the "Beauties of the Anti-jacobin," 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.[224] I 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 admired author; but the two others will do with a little -trimming. - -My dear Southey! 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 -being 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 Southey! 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. 'Tis strange, but certainly many things go in the -blood, beside gout and scrophula. Yesterday I dined at Longman's and met -Pratt, and that honest piece of prolix dullity and nullity, young Towers, -who desired to be remembered 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. - - -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 woman 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 _asked_ 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.[225] 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, sentimental correspondence with Miss Hayes, he frequently read -her letters in company, as a subject for _laughter_, and then sate down -and answered them quite _a la Rousseau_! Poor Lloyd! Every hour -new-creates him; he is his own posterity in a perpetually flowing series, -and his body unfortunately retaining an external identity, _their_ mutual -contradictions and disagreeings 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 salutary 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 _despectively_ -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 Hog-trough! _I_ do not endure it; my -eye beholds phantoms, and "nothing 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 Principle." Let me hear. Tom -Wedgwood is going to the Isle of St. Nevis. As to myself, Lessing out of -the question; I must stay in England.... Dear Hartley is well, and in high -force; he sported of his own accord a theologico-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 -soliloquy. 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 inapplicable truths are moral falsehoods, be to -illuminize, why 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_! - -Tell Davy that I will soon write. God love him! You and I, Southey! know a -good and great man or two in this world of ours. - -God love you, my dear Southey, 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 SOUTHEY,--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 -_anonymousness_ 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"[226] requires you -could get four hundred pounds!! 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 "Rise and Progress of a -_Laugher_"--Le Grice in your eye--the effect of Laughing on taste, -manners, morals, and happiness! 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. He would give sixty pounds. -If poor dear Burnett 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 _book_, 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 yourself, 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 sympathising in main opinions, are subjects of -occasional visits; not temptations to a co-township. But if you go to -Burton, Sara and I will waive the Ottery plan, if possible, and spend May -and June with you, and perhaps July; but she must be 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 Roskillies, 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 possess a sort of centrality. Alfoxden would make -two houses sufficiently divided for unimpinging independence. - -Tell Davy that I have not forgotten him, because without 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 understands -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. Read Pitt's speech[227] in -the "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[228] 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 you not to give it up so hastily. Phillips eats no 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 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-plan[229] _cannot_ answer for -this reason. It could exist only as long as the ononymous anti-anonymists -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 cannot 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 Tuesday, 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 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. Have you -tried warm bathing in a high temperature? As to your travelling, your -first business must, of course, be to _settle_. The Greek Islands[230] 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.[231] 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 children.[232] 'Tis 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'll write another quarter for -Mr. Stuart? You will torture yourself 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 -Bruecker, 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, neither praising or abusing -them. Lacedaemon, 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 Bruecker. 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 (without 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 enlighten -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 month 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 impressions 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.) - - -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.[233] They are -_poems_, full of long speeches, in very polish'd blank verse. The theatre! -the theatre! my dear Southey! it will never, never, never do! If you go to -Portugal, your History thereof _will_ 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 -nations--Poetry of rudely civilized--Homer and the Hebrew Poetry, -etc.--Poetry of civilized nations under Republics and Polytheism, State of -Poetry under the Roman 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."[234] I was -so struck with it that I sent to her to desire that [it] might be -preserved 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 immediately that 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. William Taylor, from whom I have received a couple of -letters 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 letters[235] I received exactly four days -ago--some days they must have been lying at Ambleside before they were -sent to Grasmere, and some days at Grasmere before they 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 resides 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 -untitled, have all called or are about to call on me, and I shall 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. How much we rejoice in her 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 on 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 H. DAVY. - -Thursday night, October 9, 1800. - -MY DEAR DAVY,--I was right glad, glad with a _stagger_ of the heart, to -see your writing again. Many a moment 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 believe 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 Glaramara, and Eagle Crag, and you, and -Wordsworth, and me, on the top of them! I pray you do write to me -immediately, and tell me what you mean by the possibility of your -assuming a new occupation. Have you been successful to the extent of your -expectations in your late chemical inquiries? - -[Illustration] - -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,[236] and was so much admired -by Wordsworth, that he thought it indelicate to print two volumes with his -name, in which so much of another man's was included; and, which was of -more consequence, the poem was in direct opposition 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 Pedlar."[237] -I assure you I think very differently of "Christabel." I would rather have -written "Ruth," and "Nature's Lady," than a million such poems. But why do -I calumniate 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. - -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 -_scepticism_ concerning medicines! nay, it is not enough _scepticism_! -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. Crosthwaite'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 baptized; his name is Derwent Coleridge,[238] so -called from the river, for, fronting our house, the Greta runs into the -Derwent. 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 -[Symbol], each one supported by the other like a 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 by enchantment; far off, far, far off -to the south, the mountains 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 descended 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 permit 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 ailing that I am -almost fain to die?" So I advised her to eat a great deal of mustard, -having seen in an advertisement 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. - - -CXIII. TO THE SAME. - -GRETA HALL, Tuesday night, December 2, 1800. - -MY DEAR DAVY,--By an accident I did not receive your letter till this -evening. I would that you had 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 chemical 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 the effects produced by your gas? Did Carlisle[239] ever -communicate 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 degree 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, six small but excruciating boils have appeared, and -harass me almost beyond endurance. In the mean time my darling Hartley has -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 Germany 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 short-necked men who -have their hearts sufficiently 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 evening, looking at the -sky; he saw the moon glide into a large cloud. Shortly after, at another -part of the cloud, several stars sailed in. Says he, "Pretty creatures! -they are going in to see after their mother moon." - -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[240] has made some lucrative discovery. Do -you know aught about it? Have you seen T. Wedgwood since his return? - - -CXIV. TO THOMAS POOLE. - -GRETA 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_ consequence 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 journey southward. I shall, however, try hard -for it. My plan was to go to London, and make a faint trial whether or no -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 Hartley 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 creature, and if he live will, I doubt not, prove a -great genius. Derwent is a fat, pretty child, healthy and hungry. 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 freeman 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 knowledge and power in -these last twelve months, 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, -containing the most important of the many thoughts and feelings which I -want to communicate to you, but hope to do it face to face. - -Give my love to Ward, and to J. Chester. How is poor old Mr. Rich and his -wife? - -God have you ever in his keeping, making life tranquil 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. - - -CXV. 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,[241] an idle, good-hearted, and ingenious man, has a great desire -to commence fellow-student with me and Wordsworth in chemistry. He is an -intimate friend of Wordsworth's, and he has proposed to W. to take a house -which he (Calvert) has nearly built, called Windy Brow, in a delicious -situation, 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. Wordsworth 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, no great things, and therefore Grasmere (thirteen -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 passion than -poetry, and is of course desirous, too, not to be so wholly ignorant of -knowledge so exceedingly important. However, whether Wordsworth come or -no, 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. He 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 _now_, 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 -successive illnesses, thrown behindhand so much that for the 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 _burns_ to do, that is, to _concentre_ my free -mind to the affinities 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 on it, the work would supersede all the books -of metaphysics, 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 purchase. Secondly, Directions for a convenient little -laboratory. 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 beautiful 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 -language 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 intelligens, multa ignorans, volens, nolens, -imaginans etiam, et sentiens." I please myself with believing that you -will receive no small pleasure from the result of these broodings, -although I expect in you (in some points) a determined opponent, but I say -of my mind in this respect: "Manet imperterritus ille hostem magnanimum -opperiens, et mole sua stat." Every poor fellow has his proud hour -sometimes, 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 incessantly. I take quantities of bark, but the effect is (to -express 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 affectionate 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 -overthrown the doctrine of association, as taught by Hartley, and with it -all the irreligious metaphysics of modern infidels--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 intensity of thought, and -the number of minute experiments 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 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 imperious -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, immediately publish my -"Christabel," 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 publish, -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 malignity 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, Hobbes, 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. - -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 -Wordsworth's satisfaction. - -You have seen, I hope, the "Lyrical Ballads." In the divine poem called -"Michael," by an infamous blunder[242] 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 Ballads" 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 occasion. Love to all. We are all -well, except, perhaps, myself. 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 -important; but I have no one to transcribe them. Nay, three letters are -written which have not been sent to Mr. Wedgwood,[243] because I have no -one to transcribe them for me, and I do not wish to be without copies. Of -that letter which you have I have no copy. It is somewhat unpleasant 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 believe -that I shall delight you by the detection of their artifices. _Now 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 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 Shakespeare 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 his -easier work, that on Optics. I am exceedingly delighted with the beauty -and neatness of his experiments, and with the accuracy of his _immediate_ -deductions from them; but the opinions founded on these deductions, and -indeed his whole theory is, I am persuaded, so exceedingly superficial as -without impropriety 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 not _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 on 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 together. 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, 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 country. 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. "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 there is no poverty but as a consequence of -absolute idleness; and to talk of it, too, with abuse comparatively 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 introduces -a famine. No! no! dear Poole, it is our pestilent commerce, our unnatural -crowding together of men in cities, and our government by rich men, that -are bringing 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 annuity -which I hold, _perhaps 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 publish, 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 L500 a year if I liked. -But then I must forego all desire of truth 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 difficulty of procuring sustenance in -this country remain in the state and degree in which it is at present; not -on any romantic scheme, but 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 -suffering want. - -God love you, my dear friend. - - S. T. COLERIDGE. - - -CXVIII. TO ROBERT SOUTHEY. - -GRETA HALL, KESWICK, [May 6, 1801]. - -MY DEAR SOUTHEY,--I wrote you a very, very gloomy letter; and I have taken -blame to myself for inflicting so much pain on 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 illness, -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 some six years ago may be auguries of something really -noble which we may yet perform together. - -We wait impatiently, anxiously, for a letter announcing your arrival. -Indeed, the article _Falmouth_ has taken precedence 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_, - Doth make a vision to the sight, 5 - 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 - In words of wrong and bitterness. 10 - 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. - Perhaps 'tis tender, too, and pretty, 15 - 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) - Such giddiness of heart and brain 20 - Comes seldom, save from rage and pain, - So talks as it's most used to do.[244] - -A very metaphysical account of fathers calling their children rogues, -rascals, and little varlets, etc. - -God bless you, my dear Southey! I need not say, Write. - - S. T. COLERIDGE. - -P. S. We shall have peas, beans, turnips (with boiled leg of mutton), -cauliflowers, French beans, etc., etc., endless! 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 -_as picturisk a glen_ as eye ever looked at, he and his beast no 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 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 sheep'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 viceroys in Egypt. I -will be Supreme Bey of that showerless 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 on 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 -recollectable 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 connected 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-toothed snake that winds around him shall be only his -coat of arms, as God of Healing. - -I exceedingly long to see "Thalaba," and perhaps still more to read -"Madoc" over again. I never heard of any third edition of my poems. I -think you must have confused it with the L. B. Longman could not surely be -so uncouthly 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 Southey! it is said -that long sickness makes us all grow selfish, by the necessity which it -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 sorrow 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 -Hobbes under his nose. They stink worse than feather or assafoetida. Poor -Joseph! [Cottle] he has scribbled away both head and heart. What an -affecting essay I could write on that man's character! Had he gone in his -quiet way on a little pony, looking about him with a sheep'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 the Danes, I Alfred, preach, - Of my own forces, Chaplain-General!" - -... Write immediately, directing Mr. Coleridge, Mr. George -Hutchinson's,[245] Bishop's Middleham, Rushiford, Durham, and tell me -when you set off, and I will contrive and meet you at Liverpool, where, if -you are jaded with the journey, we can stay a day or two at Dr. -Crompton's, and chat a bit with Roscoe and Curry,[246] 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 -no bearing of him! - -God bless you, dear Southey, and - - S. T. COLERIDGE. - -P. S. Remember me kindly to Danvers and Mrs. Danvers. - - [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 certain. 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 permission to have a -few books sent to me eight miles from the place, which nobody has ever -read in the memory of man. 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 Leibnitz. He answered, "We -have no Museum in this Library 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 dialects 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 -everywhere there should be one or two good and excellent people 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 Southey! it will not suit you to be under -any man's control, or biddances. What if you were a consul? 'Twould 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's[247] 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 service, 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 reputable -office, and, perhaps, too, we might get some office in which there is -quite nothing to do under the Governor. Now I and my family, and you and -Edith, and Wordsworth 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 seashore 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 Westmoreland 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 no 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 circumstances 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. Fricker. My kind respects to Charles -and Mrs. Danvers. Is Davy with you? If he is, I am sure he speaks -affectionately 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. Fenwick[248] has earnestly -persuaded me to try horse-exercise and warm sea-bathing, and I took the -opportunity of riding with Sara Hutchinson 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 literally _sick_ 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 injurious. 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 mathematician -Slee, a friend of anti-negro-trade Clarkson, who has a house at the foot -of Ulleswater, which Slee Wordsworth 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 _formally_ 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 favourite piece of slang at -Grasmere and Greta Hall, whenever we talk of poor Joey, George Dyer, and -other perseverants in the noble trade of scribbleism. - -Wrangham,[249] who lives near here, one of your anthology friends, has -married again, a lady of a neat L700 a year. His living by the Inclosure -[Act] will be something better than L600, 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 _lucky_ 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 L was a kind-hearted, honest, well-spoken citizen. The three -strokes which _did_ for him were, as I 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 -thanksgiving 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 POOLE. - -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 imagination, and -always with affection and filial 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! - -What shall I say to _you_! I can only offer a prayer of thanksgiving for -you, that you are one who has habitually 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 cherishes the desire of an unchangeable -Something, and thereby awakens or stirs up anew the passion to promote -_permanent_ good, and facilitates that grand business of our -existence--still further, and further still, to generalise 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 returned very unwell, and in very truth in so utter -a dejection of spirits as both made it improper for me to go anywhither, -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. However, I was armed cap-a-pie in a complete panoply, -namely, in a huge, most huge, roquelaure, which had cost the government -seven guineas, and was provided for the emigrants in the Quiberon -expedition, one of whom, falling sick, stayed behind and parted with his -cloak to Mr. Howel,[250] 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 become 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 Devonward. My relations 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 -confess--but it is, nine tenths of it at least, a work of their own doing. -Poole desires to be remembered to you. Remember me to your wife and Mrs. -Lovell. - -God bless you and - - S. T. COLERIDGE. - - -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 improved, and I have small doubts that a -residence of two years in a mild and even climate will, with God's -blessing, 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 Wedgwoods, 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 Dorothy 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 Bordeaux. Wordsworth has not yet settled whether he shall be married -from Gallow Hill 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 Grasmere, 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 Joseph 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 -_whom_ 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!" - -On Sunday I dined at Sir William Rush's, and on Monday likewise, and went -with them to Mrs. Billington's Benefit. 'Twas 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 acquaintances 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 _tonish_ 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 _sweet_ (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 distrust 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. - - -[Illustration] - - -CXXV. TO W. SOTHEBY. - -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.[251] It gave me such -lively pleasure that I threw my letter into the fire, for it related -chiefly to the "Erste Schiffer" of Gesner, and I could not endure that my -first letter to you should _begin_ with a subject so little interesting 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 -instances 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 emotion? 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 apprehension 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 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, -_I 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 oppressive of all weathers, hot, small _drizzle_, exhibits -the mountains the best of any. It produced such new combinations of ridges -in the Lodore and Borrowdale mountains 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 sleeper. Wordsworth, who has walked through Switzerland, -declared that he never saw anything superior, perhaps nothing 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, _carus mihi expectatusque -venies_.[252] _De coeteris rebus si quid agendum est, et quicquid sit -agendum, ut quam rectissime agantur omni mea cura, opera, diligentia, -gratia providebo._[253] - -On my return to Keswick, I reperused the "Erste Schiffer" with great -attention, and the result was an increasing 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 Giordano Bruno[254] -says in his strange, yet noble poem, "De Immenso et Innumerabili,"-- - - "Quam Garymedeo cultu, graphiceque venustus! - Narcissis referam, peramarunt me quoque Nymphae." - -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, however, 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 Aeolus. Aeolus -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 Aeolus at a time which we positively know -to have been anterior to the invention and establishment of the Grecian -Mythology; and the speech of Aeolus reminds me perpetually of little -engravings 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 volgivagae templa, et -libidinem spirat et subsusurrat, dum innocentiae loquillam, et virginiae -cogitationis dulciter offensantis luctamina simulat_. - -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 suppose her to say. But this is, indeed, general in the German 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, _hic 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 -metaphysician. 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:"-- - - "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 German; but I do dearly, dearly, -dearly love my own countrymen 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 Wordsworth's character as it -appeared to you. It is in a few words, in half a dozen strokes, like one -of Mortimer's[255] figures, a fine portrait. The word "homogeneous" gave -me great pleasure, as most accurately and happily expressing him. I must -set you right with regard to my perfect coincidence with his poetic creed. -It is most certain 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, - And in meandered gyres doth whirl herself about, - _That, this_ way, here and there, backward in and out. - And like a wanton girl oft doubling in her gait - In labyrinthian turns and twinings intricate," etc.[256] - -The first poets, observing such a stream as this, would say with truth and -beauty, "it _strays_;" and now every stream shall _stray_, wherever it -prattles on its _pebbled way_, instead of its bed or channel. And I have -taken the instance from a poet from whom as few instances of this vile, -commonplace, trashy style could be taken as from any writer [namely], from -Bowles' execrable translation[257] 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 justifying 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 _commands_ the -omission of many others allowable in other compositions. Now Wordsworth, -_me saltem 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 on the subject, and we -begin to suspect that there is somewhere or other a radical difference in -our opinions. _Dulce est inter amicos rarissima dissensione condere -plurimas consentiones_, saith 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 -returned. 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 -improve 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 Sotheby. Tell Miss Sotheby 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. Sotheby to a scene that has the grandeur without the -toil or danger of Scale Force. It is called the White Water Dash.[258] - - -CXXVI. 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 Book[259] of the "Erste Schiffer." 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 _somewhat_ 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 monotony in the versification. If I have 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 Englishman, and -tolerate downright grossness more patiently than this coy and distant -dallying with the appetites. "Die pflanzen entstehen aus dem saamen, -gewisse thiere gehen aus dem hervor andre so, andre anders, ich hab es -alles bemerkt, was hab 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 comparatively _distant_ analogies, would necessarily -have seen the difference of sex in her flocks and herds, and the marital -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 _expressing them_. -Shaped and clothed, the mind of a pure being would turn away from them -from natural delicacy of taste, but in that shadowy half-being, that state -of nascent existence 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 immediate 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 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 Aeolus 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 endure 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 journey 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 -metaphysical 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 -metaphysical 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), sickness 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:[260]-- - - Yes, dearest poet, yes! - There was a time when tho' 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: - 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 Patrick Spence: "Late, late -yestreen I saw the new moon with 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 - (With swimming phantom light o'erspread, - But 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! - O 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![261] - I see them all, so exquisitely fair! - I see, not _feel_! how beautiful they are! - 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, - 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 mayst 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 song, all that could be interesting or even -pleasing to you, except, indeed, perhaps I may annex as a fragment a few -lines on the "Aeolian Lute," it having been introduced in its dronings 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 among! - Thou Actor, perfect in all tragic sounds! - Thou mighty Poet, even to frenzy bold! - What tell'st thou now about? - 'Tis 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-- - A tale of less affright, - And tempered with delight, - As thou thyself had'st fram'd the tender lay-- - 'Tis 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! ought I to make an apology for troubling you with such a -long, verse-cramm'd letter? Oh, that instead of it, I could but send to -you the image now before my eyes, over Bassenthwaite. 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 suffused with the darkness of a stormy colour. -Marvellous creatures! how they pass along! Remember me with most -respectful kindness to Mrs. and Miss Sotheby, and the Captains Sotheby. - - Truly yours, - S. T. COLERIDGE. - - -CXXVII. TO ROBERT SOUTHEY.[262] - -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 deserved to be a father by -right of virtues that eminently belonged to him, 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 Wordsworths will -gain L5,000, 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 circulation. 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 Horsley and Priestley respecting the faith of the -Primitive Christians." This is no mere dream, like my "Hymns to the -Elements," 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 great light on the 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. "Concerning Poetry and the characteristic -merits of the Poets, our contemporaries." One volume Essays, the second -Selections.--The Essays are on Bloomfield, Burns, Bowles, Cowper, -Campbell, Darwin, Hayley, Rogers, C. Smith, Southey, Woolcot, -Wordsworth--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 examine 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 necessarily 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, perhaps, 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. He 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 compositions, but here and -there a daring humbleness of language and versification, and a strict -adherence to matter of fact, even to prolixity, that startled me. His -alterations, likewise, in "Ruth" perplexed me, and I have thought and -thought again, and have not had my doubts solved by Wordsworth. On the -contrary, I rather suspect that somewhere or other there is a radical -difference in our theoretical opinions respecting poetry; this I shall -endeavour to go to the bottom of, and, acting the arbitrator between 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 definition 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 subject. In the new edition of -the L. Ballads there is a valuable appendix, which I am sure you must -like, and in the Preface itself considerable additions; one on 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 Southey! will you write it always Sarah? -Sar_a_, 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 Preface to have been in blank verse, and _vice -versa_, etc. However, I need not say, that any diversity of opinion on the -subject between you and myself, or Wordsworth and myself, 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 Religion--the influence of national glory on the -individual morals of a people, especially in the 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 commonalty to -the same class in Spain; the effects of colonization on a small and not -very fruitful country; the effects important, and too often forgotten of -absolute accidents, 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 deeply 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 subjects, 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 but 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 pleasure, and then what -follows:-- - - 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 these lines, I rejoice for you as well as for myself, that -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 feelings 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 -_unimpressible_, warm in anger, cold in sympathy, 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 quickness 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, I -suppose, did the stern match-maker bring together two minds so utterly -contrariant in their primary and organical constitution. Alas! I have -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 marriage she felt and acted as beseemed a wife and a -mother to a husband and the father of her children. She promised to set -about an alteration in her external manners and looks and language, and to -fight against her inveterate habits of puny thwarting and unintermitting -dyspathy, 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 difference 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 Corry[263] 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 influences of the -weather. The mountains are better friends in this respect. Would that I -could flatter myself that the same would be the case with you. The only -objection on 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 incalculable. 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, commanding 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 housemaids 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 absolutely necessary for me, and -one room for you if occasion should be, 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 when that became my -study, and would be a second spare bed. I have no doubt but that Mr. -Jackson would willingly let us retain my present study, which might be -your library and study room. My dear Southey, I merely state these things -to you. All our lot on earth is compromise. Blessings obtained by -blessings foregone, or by evils undergone. I should be glad, no 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 mentioning 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 comfort 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. - - -CXXVIII. TO THE SAME. - -Monday night, August 9, 1802. - -MY DEAR SOUTHEY,--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,[264] after morning church, I left Greta Hall, -crossed the fields to Portinscale, went through Newlands, where "Great -Robinson looks down upon Marden'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 Wasdale, 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 Helvellyn 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 Vale, Tarver Vale, and in upon -Coniston. On Sunday I surveyed the lake, etc., of Coniston, and proceeded -to Bratha, and slept at Lloyd's house; this morning walked from Bratha to -Grasmere, and from Grasmere to Greta Hall, where I now am, quite sweet and -ablute, and have not even now read through your letter, which I will -answer by the night's post, and therefore must defer all account 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 heart-exciting. - -And now for business. The rent of the whole house, including taxes and the -furniture we 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 we 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 directly, 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 subvestments of the young jacobin[265] to -diaper table clothes, sheets, napkins, etc. But these, 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 -Hayley, and in a manner highly satisfactory to the admirers 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 _low_," 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 -affirmative[266] 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. - -Sara will write to Edith soon. - -I have just received a letter from Poole; but I have found so many letters -that I have opened yours only. - - -CXXIX. TO W. SOTHEBY. - -Thursday, August 26, 1802. - -MY DEAR SIR,--I was absent on a little excursion when your letter arrived, -and since my return I have been waiting and making every enquiry in the -hopes of announcing the receipt of your "Orestes" and its companions, with -my sincere thanks for your kindness. But I can hear nothing of them. Mr. -Lamb,[267] however, goes to Penrith next week, and will make strict -scrutiny. I am not to find the "Welsh Tour" among them; and yet I think I -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," Southey observed to me that you, I, and himself -had all done ourselves harm by suffering 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 herself to sleep.[268] - -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 flush'd; her eager look - Beam'd eloquent in slumber! Inly wrought, - Imperfect sounds her moving lips 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 schoolboy 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. Tomkins[269] may have it whenever -he wishes. It would be gratifying to me if you would look it over and -alter anything 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 position 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 or three copies presented in -my name, one to each of the two or three 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 [Greek: Estese], and I mention this to -you because I have some intention of translating Voss's "Idylls" in -English hexameter, with a little prefatory essay on modern hexameters. 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 Boethius' -and Seneca's tragedies, which consists of the latter half of the -hexameter. The thing is worth an experiment, and I wish it to be -considered merely as an experiment. I need not say that the greater number -of the verses signed [Greek: Estese] be such as were never meant for -anything else but the _peritura charta_ of the "Morning Post." - -I had written thus far when your letter of the 16th arrived, franked on -the 23d from Weymouth, with a polite apology from Mr. Bedingfell (if I -have rightly deciphered the name) for its detention. I am vexed I did not -write immediately on 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 _in_curred the -interesting instances in which the proverb is verified. The newest -subject, though brought from the planets (or asteroids) 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 subject of great merit in the ancient mythology -hitherto untouched--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 Aeson, they conceived 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 Peliae 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 invested 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 imposing -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 required 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 priesthood, 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 difficulties 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[270] on -Thursday, August the 3d! I was sheltered (in the phrase of the country, -_lownded_) in a sort of natural porch on the summit of Sca Fell, the -central mountain of our Giants, said to be higher than Skiddaw or -Helvellyn, 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 were, were three vales: -Wastdale, with its lake; Miterdale and Eskdale, with the rivers Irt, Mite, -and Esk seen from their very fountains to their fall into the sea at -Ravenglass 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 Sca -Fell, down Eskdale to Devock Lake, Ulpha Kirk, Broughton Mills, Tarver, -Coniston, Windermere, 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 sending them by the Carlisle waggon. A person is going to -Carlisle on Monday from this place, and will make diligent 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, -perhaps, to be ashamed of my weakness, but I must confess I have been -downright vexed by the business. Every cart, every return-chaise from -Penrith has 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 concerning 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 excited. 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 sentiments of all -who have indeed felt a _true call_ to the ministry 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 -concerned 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. 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 -judgment; 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 Longman 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 Tomkins -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"[271] are among -the best in that second 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 describe any interesting appearance in -nature without connecting 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 Life_. A poet's heart and intellect -should be _combined_, intimately combined and unified with the great -appearances 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 appropriate 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 _passion_ 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 no native passion because he is not a thinker, and has probably -weakened his intellect 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 dithyrambic 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.[272] - -That this is deep in our nature, I felt when I was on Scafell. I -involuntarily poured forth a hymn[273] in the manner of the 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 _dead_, mere 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 aggregating faculty of -the mind, not imagination or the _modifying_ and coadunating faculty. This -the Hebrew poets appear to me to have possessed beyond all others, and -next to them 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 Timaeus 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 l. 629 to 641. All -the puzzle is to find out what plant Haemony 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 abundance that the dull 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 precisely, 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; Unknown and like esteemed and the dull swain Treads on it daily with -his clouted shoon_"--The promises of Redemption offered daily and hourly, -and to all, but accepted scarcely by any--"_He called it Haemony_." Now -what is Haemony? [Greek: haima oinos], 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. Sec. 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. - -[Greek: Estese] signifies "He hath stood,"[274] which, in these times of -apostasy from the principles of freedom or of religion in this country, -and from both by the same persons 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 THE 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 -Borrowdale 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 looking 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 pleasure--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 thinking of you, dreaming of -you, till the tear grown cold upon my cheek 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 increverit, aut si - Hiberni pluviis dependent nubibus imbres, - Nos habeat domus, et multo Lar luceat igne. - Ante focum mihi parvus erit, qui ludat, Iulus, - Blanditias ferat, et nondum constantia verba; - Ipse legam magni tecum monumenta Platonis!" - -Or, what would be still better, I could talk to you (and, if you were here -now, to an accompaniment of winds that would well suit the subject) -instead of writing to you concerning 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 impressions, and if -anywhere there seem anything like a tone 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 seriously, 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 favourable 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, -nineteen 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 indeed, 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 Switzerland, 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 _Larne_, 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 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, has 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 possesses the _finest_, the -_subtlest_ mind and taste I have ever yet met with. His mind resembles -that miniature in my "Three Graves:"[275]-- - - 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 -afternoon 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 purified 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 undoubtedly 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 sometimes 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 pernicious than even tea. It _is my particular wish -that Hartley and Derwent should have as little tea as possible, 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 teaspoonful 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 exceeding -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 transiency 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 might have 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"?[276]--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 -Protestants. 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, instead of the Eternal -and Omnipresent, in whom we live and move and _have_ our Being, we set up -a distinct Jehovah, tricked out in the _anthropomorphic_ attributes of -Time and _successive_ Thoughts, and think of him as a _Person_, _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 religiously--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 intermission--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 understand 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, yesterday, and had the 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. - -[Illustration] - -I was at Cote[277] 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 -engaged to go into Wales with his sister. I arrived at Cote in the -afternoon, and till late evening did not know or conjecture that we were -to go off early in the next morning. 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. However, 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 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 Papishes, all of whom I would burn with fire and faggot, -for what didn'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 which 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 happened 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 somewhere 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 comforts. So you would have abroad, in a genial climate, certain -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 excitement 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 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 continue 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 _smarting_ and _burning_ pain; and -secondly, in consequence of riding with such cold water under my seat, -extremely uneasy 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 breathless, as if it was some mighty -fountain just on the summit of Kirkstone, that shot forth its volcano of -air, and precipitated 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, with distressful dreams, chiefly about my eye; and awaking often -in the dark I thought it was the effect of mere recollection, but it -appeared in the morning that my right eye was bloodshot, and the lid -swollen. That morning, however, 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 has 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., Glenridding, Ulleswater."] - - -CXXXVI. TO HIS WIFE. - -[LONDON], Monday, April 4, 1803. - -MY DEAR SARA,--I have taken my place for Wednesday 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 be at Penruddock -by twelve o'clock that his 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 -objected, 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 -disposition 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 Sotheby. He had informed me that ten gentlemen -who have met me at his house desired him to solicit me to finish the -"Christabel," 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 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 getting 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 necessity 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 knowledge of such facts than 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 country. Indeed, I am rather -induced to determine on wintering in Madeira, rather than staying at home. -I have enclosed ten pounds for Mrs. Fricker. 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 literary -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 History. 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 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 article _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 Erigena_. 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 meus 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-Much and Too-Little." Have you read Paley's last book?[278] -Have you it to review? I could make a dashing review of it. - - -CXXXVIII. TO THE SAME. - -KESWICK, July, 1803. - -MY DEAR SOUTHEY,--... I write now to propose a scheme,[279] 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, biographical, 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,[280] 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 Pope; the poetry of -witty logic,--Swift, Fielding, Richardson, Sterne; I write _par hasard_, -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 in each instance to determine, first, the true merits and demerits of -the _books_; secondly, what of these belong to the age--what to the author -_quasi peculium_. 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 religion; in this (fifth volume), under -different names,--Hooker, Baxter, Biddle, and Fox,--the spirit of the -theology 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 only prevent the -future good, not mar the past; each volume 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 signifies 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 SOUTHEY,--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 impulses -rather than motives, and prick you with _spurs_ that had been dipped in -the vaccine matter of my own cowardliness. While I wrote that last -sentence, I had a vivid recollection, 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 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, Southey! a metaphysical -solution, that does not instantly _tell_ you something in the heart is -grievously to be suspected as apocryphal. I almost 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 support the assertion. -And this is a digression.--My dear Southey, 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 reprinting? Scarcely. Literary history informs us -that most of those great continental bibliographies, etc., were published -by the munificence of princes, or nobles, or great monasteries. A book -from having had 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 uninteresting, 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; (3) because it is -impossible that any one of the volumes can be executed as well as they -would otherwise 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 -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 instances 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 on 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 professed 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 up_ 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 enthusiast 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. - - -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 moorland 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 imagine all the mountains more _detachedly_ -built up, a general 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 ferry wet to the skin. Oh, such a -wretched hovel! But two Highland lassies,[281] who kept 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."[282] 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 Trossachs, 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 Arrochar, on purpose to see the _Cobbler_ which had -impressed 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 -drawings), 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 -disappointed 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 unfortunately shoeless; there is no town where I can get a pair, and I -have no money to spare to buy them, so I expect to enter Perth barefooted. -I burnt my shoes in drying them at the boatman's hovel on 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 -with solitude and liberty--the liberty natural and solitary, the solitude -natural and free! But you must contrive somehow or other to borrow ten -pounds, or, if that cannot be, five pounds, for me, and send it without -delay, directed to me at the 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 calculate, 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 distressful, 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 stunned at present by this beginning to write, making a -beginning of living feeling within me. Whatever comfort 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![283] -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 263 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 abandoned 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, - My spirit I to Love compose, 5 - In humble trust my eyelids close, - With reverential resignation, - No wish conceiv'd, no thought exprest, - Only a _Sense_ of supplication, - A _Sense_ o'er all my soul imprest 10 - 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 - In anguish and in agony, 15 - Awaking from the fiendish crowd - Of shapes and thoughts that tortur'd me! - Desire with loathing strangely mixt, - On wild or hateful objects fixt. - Sense of revenge, the powerless will, 20 - Still baffled and consuming still; - Sense of intolerable wrong, - And men whom I despis'd made strong! - Vain glorious threats, unmanly vaunting, - Bad men my boasts and fury taunting; 25 - 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, - Whether I suffer'd or I did: 30 - 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 - Sadden'd and stunn'd the boding day. 35 - 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, - O'ercome by sufferings dark and wild, 40 - 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 - To Natures, deepliest stain'd with Sin; 45 - Still to be stirring up anew - The self-created Hell within, - The Horror of the crimes to view, - To know and loathe, yet wish to do! - With such let fiends make mockery-- 50 - But I--Oh, wherefore this _on me_? - Frail is my soul, yea, strengthless wholly, - Unequal, restless, melancholy; - But free from Hate and sensual Folly! - To live belov'd is all I need, 55 - And whom I love, I love indeed, - And etc., etc., etc., etc.[284] - -I do not know how I came to scribble down these verses to you--my heart -was aching, my head all confused--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, 1803. - -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 morning, -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 on -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 on with no 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 on 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.[285] What a -wonderful city Edinburgh[286] is! What alternation of height and depth! A -city looked at in the polish'd back of a Brobdingnag spoon held -lengthways, so enormously _stretched-up_ are the houses! When I first -looked down on it, as the coach drove up on 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 Montserrat 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 -horizontally 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 on the whole city and -firth--the sun then setting behind the magnificent rock, crested by the -castle. 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 figures 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 behind me, -was in dark blood-like crimson, and the sharpshooters were behind -exercising minutely, and had chosen that place on account of the fine -thunder echo which, indeed, it would be scarcely possible for the ear to -distinguish 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 talking 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 distinguished 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 going into -Scotland for,[287] to one who has been in Cumberland 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 difference 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.[288] 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 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.[289] - -GRETA HALL, 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 inflamed, 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 nearly four years, and noticed this -strange dependence on the state of my moral feelings 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 Liverpool -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. Adams[290] who wrote a very nice little pamphlet on Madeira, -relative to the different sorts of consumption, and which I have now on my -desk. I need not say that it would be a great comfort to me to be -introduced to him 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, -passions, 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 thing which I -_need_. I am far too contented with solitude. 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. - -Mrs. Coleridge desires me to remember her with respectful regards to Mrs. -Coates, and to enquire into the history of your little family. I have -three children, _Hartley_, seven years old, _Derwent_, 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. He 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 connected 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 _pie_ 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 happiness. -Oh! bless them! Next to the Bible, Shakespeare, and Milton, _they_ are the -three books from which I have learned the most, and the most important -and with the greatest delight. - -I have been thus 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. - - - - -INDEX - - - Abergavenny, 410. - - Abergavenny, Earl of, wreck of the, 494 n.; - 495 n. - - Abernethy, Dr. John, 525; - C. determines to place himself under the care of, 564, 565. - - Achard, F. C., 299 and note. - - Acland, Sir John, 523 and note. - - Acting, 621-623. - - Acton, 184, 186-188, 191. - - Adams, Dr. Joseph, 442 and note. - - Addison's _Spectator_, studied by C. in connection with _The Friend_, - 557, 558. - - _Address on the Present War, An_, 85 n. - - _Address to a Young Jackass and its Tethered Mother_, 119 and note, 120. - - Aders, Mrs., 701 n., 702 n., 752; - letters from C., 701, 769. - - Adscombe, 175, 184, 188. - - Advising, the rage of, 474, 475. - - Adye, Major, 493. - - _Aeschylus, Essay on the Prometheus of_, 740 and note. - - _Aids to Reflection_, 688 n.; - preparation and publication of, 734 n., 738; - C. calls Stuart's attention to certain passages in, 741; - favourable opinions of, 741; - 756 n. - - Ainger, Rev. Alfred, 400 n. - - Akenside, Mark, 197. - - Albuera, the Battle of, C.'s articles on, 567 and note. - - Alfoxden, 10 n.; - Wordsworth settles at, 224, 227; - 326, 515. - - Alison's _History of Europe_, 628 n. - - Allen, Robert, 41 and note, 45, 47, 50; - extract from a letter from him to C., 57 n.; - 63, 75, 83, 126; - appointed deputy-surgeon to the Second Royals, 225 and note; - letter to C., 225 n. - - Allsop, Mrs., 733 n. - - Allsop, Thomas, friendship and correspondence with C., 695, 696; - publishes C.'s letters after his death, 696; - his _Letters, Conversations, and Recollections of S. T. Coleridge_, - 41 n., 527 n., 675 n., 696 and note, 698 n., 721 n.; - 711; - C.'s letter of Oct. 8, 1822, 721 n.; - letter from C., 696. - - Allston, Washington, 523; - his bust of C., 570 n., 571; - his portraits of C., 572 and note; - his art and moral character, 573, 574; - 581, 633; - his genius and his misfortunes, 650; - 695 and notes; - letter from C., 498. - - Ambleside, 335; - Lloyd settles at, 344; - 577, 578. - - America, proposed emigration of C. and other pantisocrats to, 81, 88-91, - 98, 101-103, 146; - prospects of war with England, 91; - 241; - progress of religious deism in, 414; - C.'s letter concerning the inevitableness of a war with, 629. - - Amtmann of Ratzeburg, the, 264, 268, 271. - - _Amulet, The_, 257. - - _Ancient Mariner, The_, 81 n.; - written in a dream or dreamlike reverie, 245 n.; - 696. - - _Animal Vitality, Essay on_, by Thelwall, 179, 212. - - _Annual Anthology_, the, edited by Southey, 207 n., 226 n., 295 n., - 298 n.; - C. suggests a classification of poems in, 313, 314, 317; - 318, 320, 322 and note, 330, 331, 748 n. - - _Annual Review_, 488, 489, 522. - - _Anti-Jacobin, The Beauties of the_, its libel on C., 320 and note. - - _Antiquary, The_, by Scott, C.'s portrait introduced into an - illustration for, 736 and note. - - _Ants, Treatise on_, by Huber, 712. - - _Ardinghello_, by Heinse, 683 and note. - - Arnold, Mr., 602, 603. - - Arrochar, 432 and note. - - Arthur's Crag, 439. - - A-seity, 688 and note. - - Asgill, John, and his Treatises, 761 and note. - - Ashburton, 305 n. - - Ashe, Thomas, his _Miscellanies, Aesthetic and Literary_, 633 n. - - Ashley, C. with the Morgans at, 631. - - Ashley, Lord, and the Ten Hours Bills, 689 n. - - Ashton, 140 and note. - - _As late I roamed through Fancy's shadowy vale_, a sonnet, 116 n., 118. - - Atheism, 161, 162, 167, 199, 200. - - _Athenaeum, The_, 206 n., 536 n., 753 n. - - _Atlantic Monthly_, 206 n. - - Autobiographical letters from C. to Thomas Poole, 3-21. - - - Baader, Franz Xavier von, 683 and note. - - Babb, Mr., 422. - - Bacon, Lord, his _Novum Organum_, 735. - - Badcock, Mr., 21. - - Badcock, Harry, 22. - - Badcock, Sam, 22. - - Bala, 79. - - Ball, Lady, 494 n., 497. - - Ball, Sir Alexander John, 484, 487, 496, 497; - mutual regard of C. and, 508 n.; - 524, 554; - C.'s narrative of his life, 579 n.; - his opinions of Lady Nelson and Lady Hamilton, 637. - - _Ballad of the Dark Ladie, The_, 375. - - Bampfylde, John Codrington Warwick, his genius, originality, and - subsequent lunacy, 309 and note; - his _Sixteen Sonnets_, 309 n. - - Banfill, Mr., 306. - - Barbauld, Anna Laetitia, 317 n. - - _Barbou Casimir, The_, 67 and notes, 68. - - Barlow, Caleb, 38. - - Barr, Mr., his children, 154. - - Barrington, Hon. and Rt. Rev. John Shute, Bishop of Durham, 582 and note. - - Bassenthwaite Lake, 335, 376 n.; - sunset over, 384. - - _Beard, On Mrs. Monday's_, 9 n. - - Beaumont, Lady, 459, 573, 580, 592, 593; - procures subscribers to C.'s lectures, 599; - 644, 645, 739, 741; - letter from C., 641. - - Beaumont, Sir George, 440 n., 462; - his affection for C. preceded by dislike, 468; - 493; - extract from a letter from Wordsworth on John Wordsworth's death, - 494 n.; - 496; - lends the Wordsworths his farmhouse near Coleorton, 509 n.; - 579-581; - C. explains the nature of his quarrel with Wordsworth to, 592, 593; - 595 n., 629; - on Allston as an historical painter, 633; - 739, 741; - letter from C., 570. - - _Beauties of the Anti-Jacobin, The_, its libel on C., 320 and note. - - Becky Fall, 305 n. - - Beddoes, Dr. Thomas, 157, 211, 338; - C.'s grief at his death, 543 and note, 544 and note; - his advice and sympathy in response to C.'s confession, 543 n.; - his character. 544. - - Bedford, Grosvenor, 400 n. - - Beet sugar, 299 and note. - - Beguines, the, 327 n. - - Bell, Rev. Andrew, D. D., 575, 582 and note, 605; - his _Origin, Nature, and Object of the New System of Education_, 581 - and note, 582. - - _Bell, Rev. Andrew, Life of_, by R. and C. C. Southey, 581 n. - - Bellingham, John, 598 n. - - Bell-ringing in Germany, 293. - - Belper, Lord (Edward Strutt), 215 n. - - Bennett, Abraham, his electroscope, 218 n., 219 n. - - Bentley's Quarto Edition of Horace, 68 and note. - - Benvenuti, 498, 499. - - _Benyowski, Count, or the Conspiracy of Kamtschatka, a Tragi-comedy_, by - Kotzebue, 236 and note. - - Berdmore, Mr., 80, 82. - - Bernard, Sir Thomas, 579 and notes, 580, 582, 585, 595 n., 599. - - _Betham, Matilda, To. From a Stranger_, 404 n. - - _Bible, The_, as literature, C.'s opinion of, 200; - slovenly hexameters in, 398. - - Bibliography, Southey's proposed work, 428-430. - - _Bibliotheca Britannica, or an History of British Literature_, a - proposed work, 425-427, 429, 430. - - Bigotry, 198. - - Billington, Mrs. Elizabeth Weichsel, 368. - - Bingen, 751. - - _Biographia Literaria_, 3, 68 n., 74 n., 152 n., 164 n., 174 n., 232 n., - 257, 320 n., 498 n., 607 n., 669 n., 670 n.; - C. ill-used by the printer of, 673, 674; - 679, 756 n. - - Birmingham, 151, 152. - - Bishop's Middleham, 358 and note, 360. - - _Blackwood's Magazine_, 756. - - Blake, William, as poet, painter, and engraver, 685 n., 686 n.; - C.'s criticism of his poems and their accompanying illustrations, - 686-688; - his _Songs of Innocence and Experience_, 686 n. - - Bloomfield, Robert, 395. - - Blumenbach, Prof., 279, 298. - - _Book of the Church, The_, 724. - - Books, C.'s early taste in, 11 and note, 12; - in later life, 180, 181. - - Booksellers, C.'s horror of, 548. - - Borrowdale, 431. - - Borrowdale mountains, the, 370. - - _Botany Bay Eclogues_, by Robert Southey, 76 n., 116. - - Bourbons, C.'s Essay on the restoration of the, 629 and note. - - Bourne, Sturges, 542. - - Bovey waterfall, 305 n. - - Bowdon, Anne, marries Edward Coleridge, 53 n. - - Bowdon, Betsy, 18. - - Bowdon, John (C.'s uncle), C. goes to live with, 18, 19. - - Bowdons, the, C.'s mother's family, 4. - - Bowles, the surgeon, 212. - - _Bowles, To_, 111. - - Bowles, Rev. William Lisle, C.'s admiration for his poems, 37, 42, 179; - 63 n., 76 and note; - C.'s sonnet to, 111 and note; - 115; - his sonnets, 177; - his _Hope, an Allegorical Sketch_, 179, 180; - 196, 197, 211; - his translation of Dean Ogle's Latin Iambics, 374 and note; - school life at Winchester, 374 n.; - C.'s, Southey's, and Sotheby's admiration of, and its effect on their - poems, 396; - borrows a line from a poem of C.'s, 396; - his second volume of poems, 403, 404; - 637, 638, 650-652. - - Bowscale, the mountain, 339. - - Box, 631. - - Boyce, Anne Ogden, her _Records of a Quaker Family_, 538 n. - - Boyer, Rev. James, 61, 113, 768 n. - - Brahmin creed, the, 229. - - Brandes, Herr von, 279. - - Brandl's _Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the English Romantic School_, 258, - 674 n., 740 n. - - Bratha, 394, 535. - - Bray, near Maidenhead, 69, 70. - - Brazil, Emperor of, an enthusiastic student and admirer of C., 696. - - Bread-riots, 643 n. - - Brecon, 410, 411. - - Bremhill, 650. - - Brent, Mr., 598, 599. - - Brent, Miss Charlotte, 520, 524-526; - C.'s affection for, 565; - 577, 585, 600, 618, 643, 722 n.; - letter from C., 722. - _See_ Morgan family, the. - - Brentford, 326, 673 n. - - Bridgewater, 164. - - Bright, Henry A., 245 n. - - Bristol, C.'s bachelor life in, 133-135; - 138, 139, 163 n., 166, 167, 184, 326, 414, 520, 572 n., 621, 623, 624. - - _Bristol Journal_, 633 n. - - _British Critic_, the, 350. - - Brookes, Mr., 80, 82. - - _Brothers, The_, by Wordsworth, the original of Leonard in, 494 n.; - C. accused of borrowing a line from, 609 n. - - Brown, John, printer and publisher of _The Friend_, 542 n. - - Brun, Frederica, C.'s indebtedness to her for the framework of the _Hymn - before Sunrise in the Vale of Chamouni_, 405 n. - - Bruno, Giordano, 371. - - Brunton, Miss, 86 and note, 87, 89; - verses to, 94. - - Brunton, Elizabeth, 86 n. - - Brunton, John, 86 n., 87. - - Brunton, Louisa, 86 n. - - Bryant, Jacob, 216 n., 219. - - Buchan, Earl of, 139. - - Bucle, Miss, 136. - _See_ Cruikshank, Mrs. John. - - Buller, Sir Francis (Judge), 6 n.; - obtains a Christ's Hospital Presentation for C., 18. - - Buonaparte, 308, 327 n., 329 and note; - his animosity against C., 498 n.; - 530 n.; - C.'s cartoon and lines on, 642. - - Burdett, Sir Francis, 598. - - Burke, Edmund, C.'s sonnet to, 116 n., 118; - his _Letter to a Noble Lord_, 157 and note; - Thelwall on, 166; - 177. - - Burnett, George, 74, 121, 140-142, 144-151, 174 n., 325, 467. - - Burns, Robert, 196; - C.'s poem on, 206 and note, 207. - - Burton, 326. - - Burton's _Anatomy of Melancholy_, 428. - - Busts of C., 570 n., 571, 695 n. - - Butler, Samuel (afterwards Head Master of Shrewsbury and Bishop of - Lichfield), 46 and note. - - Buttermere, 393. - - Byron, Lord, his _Childe Harold_, 583; - 666, 694, 726. - - _Byron, Lord, Conversations of_, by Capt. Thomas Medwin, 735 and note. - - - Cabriere, Miss, 18. - - Caermarthen, 411. - - Caldbeck, 376 n., 724. - - Calder, the river, 339. - - Caldwell, Rev. George, 25 and note, 29, 71, 82. - - Calne, Wiltshire, C.'s life at, 641-653. - - Calvert, Raisley, 345 n. - - Calvert, William, proposes to study chemistry with C. and Wordsworth, - 345; - his portrait in a poem of Wordsworth's, 345 n.; - proposes to share his new house near Greta Hall with Wordsworth and - his sister, 346; - his sense and ability, 346; - 347, 348. - - Cambridge, description of, 39; - 137, 270. - - _Cambridge, Reminiscences of_, by Henry Gunning, 24 n., 363 n. - - _Cambridge Intelligencer, The_, 93 n., 218 n. - - Cambridge University, C.'s life at, 22-57, 70-72, 81-129; - C. thinks of leaving, 97 n.; - 137. - - Cameos and intaglios, casts of, 703 and note. - - Campbell, James Dykes, 251 n., 337 n.; - his _Samuel Taylor Coleridge_, 269 n., 527 n., 572 n., 600 n., 631 n., - 653 n., 666 n., 667 n., 674 n., 681 n., 684 n., 698 n., 752 n., - 753 n., 772 n. - - Canary Islands, 417, 418. - - Canning, George, 542, 674. - - Canova, Antonio, on Allston's modelling, 573. - - Cape Esperichel, 473. - - Carlisle, Sir Anthony, 341 and note. - - Carlton House, 392. - - Carlyle, Thomas, his portrait of C. in the _Life of Sterling_, 771 n. - - Carlyon, Clement, M. D., his _Early Years and Late Recollections_, 258, - 298 n. - - Carnosity, Mrs., 472. - - Carrock, the mountain, a tempest on, 339, 340. - - Carrock man, the, 339. - - Cartwright, Major John, 635 and note. - - Cary, Rev. Henry, his _Memoir of H. F. Cary_, 676 n. - - _Cary, H. F., Memoir of_, by Henry Cary, 676 n. - - Cary, Rev. H. F., his translation of the _Divina Commedia_, 676, 677 and - note, 678, 679; - C. introduces himself to, 676 n.; - 685, 699; - letters from C., 676, 677, 731, 760. - - _Casimir, the Barbou_, 67 and notes, 68. - - Castlereagh, Lord, 662. - - _Castle Spectre, The_, a play by Monk Lewis, C.'s criticism of, 236 and - note, 237, 238; - 626. - - Catania, 458. - - Cat-serenades in Malta, 483 n., 484 n. - - Catherine II., Empress of Russia, 207 n. - - Cathloma, 51. - - Catholic Emancipation, C.'s Letters to Judge Fletcher on, 629 and note, - 634 and note, 635, 636, 642. - - Catholicism in Germany, 291, 292. - - Catholic question, the, letters in the _Courier_ on, 567 and note; - C. proposes to again write for the _Courier_ on, 660, 662; - arrangements for the proposed articles on, 664, 665. - - Cattermole, George, 750 n.; - letter from C., 750. - - Cattermole, Richard, 750 n. - - Cattle, disposal of dead and sick, in Germany, 294. - - Chalmers, Rev. Thomas, D. D., calls on C., 752 and note. - - Chantrey, Mr. (afterwards Sir) Francis, R. A., C.'s impressions of, 699; - 727. - - Chapman, Mr., appointed Public Secretary of Malta, 491, 496. - - _Character, A_, 631 n. - - _Charity_, 110 n. - - _Chatterton, Monody on the Death of_, 110 n., 158 n.; - C.'s opinion of it in 1797, 222, 223; - 620 n. - - Chatterton, Thomas, unpopularity of his poems, 221, 222; - Southey's exertions in aid of his sister, 221, 222. - - Chemistry, C. proposes to study, 345-347. - - Chepstow, 139, 140 n. - - Chester, John, accompanies C. to Germany, 259; - 265, 267, 269 n., 272, 280, 281, 300. - - _Childe Harold_, by Byron, 583. - - Childhood, memory of, in old age, 428. - - Children in cotton factories, legislation as to the employment of, 689 - and note. - - Christ, both God and man, 710. - - _Christabel_, written in a dream or dreamlike reverie, 245 n.; - 310, 313, 317, 337 and note, 342, 349; - Conclusion to Part II., 355 and note, 356 n.; - Part II., 405 n.; - a fine edition proposed, 421, 422; - 437 n., 523; - C. quotes from, 609, 610; - the broken friendship commemorated in, 609 n.; - the copyright of, 669; - the _Edinburgh Review's_ unkind criticism of, 669 and note, 670; - Mr. Frere advises C. to finish, 674; - 696. - - _Christianity, the one true Philosophy_ (C.'s _magnum opus_), outline - of, 632, 633; - fragmentary remains of, 632 n.; - the sole motive for C.'s wish to live, 668; - J. H. Green helps to lay the foundations of, 679 n.; - 694, 753; - plans for, 772, 773. - - _Christian Observer_, 653 n. - - _Christmas Carol, A_, 330. - - _Christmas Indoors in North Germany_, 257, 275 n. - - _Christmas Out of Doors_, 257. - - Christmas-tree, the German, 289, 290. - - Christ's Hospital, C.'s life at, 18-22; - 173 n. - - _Christ's Hospital Five and Thirty Years Ago_, by Charles Lamb, 20 n. - - _Christ's Hospital, List of Exhibitioners, from 1566-1885_, 41 n. - - _Chronicle, Morning_, 111 n., 114, 116 n., 119 n., 126, 162, 167, 505, - 506, 606 n., 615, 616. - - Chubb, Mr., of Bridgwater, 231. - - _Church, The Book of the_, by Southey, 724. - - Church, the English, 135, 306, 651-653, 676, 757. - - Church, the Scottish, in a state of ossification, 744, 745. - - Church, the Wesleyan, 769. - - Cibber, Colley, and his son, Theophilus, 693. - - Cibber, Theophilus, his reply to his father, 693. - - Cintra, Wordsworth's pamphlet on the Convention of, 534 and note, 543 - and note; - C.'s criticism of, 548-550. - - Clagget, Charles, 70 and note. - - Clare, Lord, 638. - - Clarke, Mrs., the notorious, 543 n. - - Clarkson, Mrs., 592. - - Clarkson, Thomas, 363, 398; - his _History of the Abolition of the Slave Trade_, 527 and note, - 528-530; - his character, 529, 530; - C.'s review of his book, 535, 536; - 538 n., 547, 548; - on the second rupture between C. and Wordsworth, 599 n. - - Clement, Mr., a bookseller, 548. - - Clergyman, an earnest young, 691. - - Clevedon, C.'s honeymoon at, 136. - - Clock, a motto for a market, 553 and note, 554 n. - - Coates, Matthew, 441 n.; - his belief in the impersonality of the deity, 444; - letter from C., 441. - - Coates, Mrs. Matthew, 442, 443. - - Cobham, 673 n. - - Cole, Mrs., 271. - - _Coleorton, Memorials of_, 369 n., 440. - - Coleorton Farmhouse, C.'s visit to the Wordsworths at, 509-514. - - Coleridge, Anne (sister--usually called "Nancy"), 8 and note, 21, 26. - - Coleridge, Berkeley (son), birth of, 247 and note, 248, 249; - taken with smallpox, 259 n., 260 n.; - 262, 267, 272; - death of, 247 n., 282-287, 289. - - Coleridge, David Hartley (son--usually called "Hartley"), birth of, 169; - 176, 205, 213, 220, 231, 245, 260-262, 267 n., 289, 296, 305, 318; - his talkativeness and boisterousness at the age of three, 321; - his theologico-astronomical hypothesis as to stars, 323; - a pompous remark by, 332; - illness, 342, 343; - early astronomical observations, 342, 343; - an extraordinary creature, 343, 344; - 345 n., 355, 356 n., 359; - a poet in spite of his low forehead, 395; - 408, 413, 416, 421; - at seven years, 443; - plans for his education, 461, 462; - 468, 508; - visits the Wordsworths at Coleorton Farmhouse with his father, 509-514; - as a traveller, 509; - his character at ten years, 510, 512; - 511; - under his father's sole care for four or five months, 511 n.; - spends five or six weeks with his father and the Wordsworths at Basil - Montagu's house in London, 511 n.; - portraits of, 511 n.; - 521; - his appearance, behavior, and mental acuteness at the age of thirteen, - 564; - at fifteen, 576, 577; - at Mr. Dawes's school, 576 and note, 577; - 583 n.; - friendly relations with his cousins, 675 and note; - C. asks Poole to invite him to Stowey, 675; - visits Stowey, 675 n.; - 684, 721, 726; - letter of advice from S. T. C., 511. - - Coleridge, Derwent (son of S. T. C. and father of the editor), birth - baptism of, 338 and note; - 344, and 355, 359; - learns his letters, 393, 395; - 408, 413, 416; - at three years, 443; - 462, 468, 521; - at nine years, 564; - at eleven years, 576, 577; - at Mr. Dawes's school, 576 and note, 577; - 580, 605 n., 671 n.; - John Hookham Frere's assistance in sending him to Cambridge, 675 and - note; - 707, 711. - - Coleridge, Miss Edith, 670 n. - - Coleridge, Edward (brother), 7, 53-55, 699 n. - - Coleridge, Rev. Edward (nephew), 724 n.; - letters from C., 724, 738, 744. - - Coleridge, Frances Duke (niece), 726 and note, 740. - - Coleridge, Francis Syndercombe (brother), 8, 9, 11, 12, 13; - his boyish quarrel with S. T. C., 13, 14; - becomes a midshipman, 17; - dies, 53 and note. - - Coleridge, Frederick (nephew), 56. - - Coleridge, Rev. George (brother), 7, 8; - his character and ability, 8; - 12, 21 n., 25 n.; - his lines to Genius, _Ibi Haec Incondita Solus_, 43 n.; - 59; - his self-forgetting economy, 65; - extract from a letter from J. Plampin, 70 n.; - 95, 97 n., 98 and note, 261; - visit from S. T. C. and his wife, 305 n., 306; - 467, 498 n., 512; - disapproves of S. T. C.'s intended separation from his wife and refuses - to receive him and his family into his house, 523 and note; - 699 n.; - approaching death of, 746-748; - S. T. C.'s relations with, 747, 748; - letters from S. T. C., 22, 23, 42, 53, 55, 59, 60, 62-70, 103, 239. - - _Coleridge, the Rev. George, To_, a dedication, 223 and note. - - Coleridge, Rev. George May (nephew), his friendly relations with Hartley - C., 675 and note; - letter from C., 746. - - _Coleridge, Hartley, Poems of_, 511 n. - - Coleridge, Henry Nelson (nephew and son-in-law), 3, 553 n., 570 n., 579 - n., 744-746; - sketch of his life, 756 n.; - letter from S. T. C., 756. - - Coleridge, Mrs. Henry Nelson (Sara Coleridge), 9 n., 163 n.; - extract from a letter from Mrs. Wordsworth, 220 n.; - 320 n., 327 n., 572 n. - - Coleridge, James, the younger, (nephew), his narrow escape, 56. - - Coleridge, Colonel James (brother), 7, 54, 56, 61, 306, 724 n., 726 n.; - letter from S. T. C., 61. - - Coleridge, Mrs. James (sister-in-law), 740. - - Coleridge, John (brother), 7. - - Coleridge, John (grandfather), 4, 5. - - Coleridge, Mrs. John (mother), 5 n., 7, 13-17, 21 n., 25, 56; - letter from S. T. C., 21. - - Coleridge, Rev. John (father), 5 and note, 6, 7, 10-12, 15, 16; - dies, 17, 18; - his character, 18. - - Coleridge, John Duke, Lord Chief-Justice (great-nephew), 572 n., 699 n., - 745 n. - - Coleridge, Sir John Taylor (nephew), his friendly relations with Hartley - C., 675 and note; - editor of _The Quarterly Review_, 736 and note, 737; - his judgment and knowledge of the world, 739; - delighted with _Aids to Reflection_, 739; - 740 n., 744, 745; - letter from S. T. C., 734. - - Coleridge, Luke Herman (brother), 8, 21, 22. - - COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR, his autobiographical letters to Thomas Poole, - 3-18; - ancestry and parentage, 4-7; - birth, 6, 9 and note; - his brothers and sister, 7-9; - christened, 9; - infancy and childhood, 9-12; - learns to read, 10; - early taste in books, 11 and note, 12; - his dreaminess and indisposition to bodily activity in childhood, 12; - boyhood, 12-21; - has a dangerous fever, 12-13; - quarrels with his brother Frank, runs away, and is found and brought - back, 13-15; - his imagination developed early by the reading of fairy tales, 16; - a Christ's Hospital Presentation procured for him by Judge Buller, 18; - visits his maternal uncle, Mr. John Bowdon, in London, 18, 19; - becomes a Blue-Coat boy, 19; - his life at Christ's Hospital, 20-22; - enters Jesus College, Cambridge, 22, 23; - becomes acquainted with the Evans family, 23 and note, 24; - writes a Greek Ode, for which he obtains the Browne gold medal for - 1792, 43 and note; - is matriculated as pensioner, 44 and note; - his examination for the Craven Scholarship, 45 and note, 46; - his temperament, 47; - takes violin lessons, 49; - enlists in the army, 57 and note; - nurses a comrade who is ill of smallpox in the Henley workhouse, 58 - and note; - his enlistment disclosed to his family, 57 n., 58, 59; - remorse, 59-61, 64, 65; - arrangements resulting in his discharge, 61-70; - his religious beliefs at twenty-one, 68, 69; - returns to the university and is punished, 70, 71; - drops his gay acquaintances and settles down to hard work, 71; - makes a tour of North Wales with Mr. J. Hucks, 72-81; - falls in love with Miss Sarah Fricker, 81; - proposes to go to America with a colony of pantisocrats, 81, 88-91, - 101-103; - his interest in Miss Fricker cools and his old love for Mary Evans - revives, 89; - his indolence, 103, 104; - on his own poetry, 112; - considers going to Wales with Southey and others to found a colony of - pantisocrats, 121, 122; - his love for Mary Evans proves hopeless, 122-126; - in lodgings in Bristol after having left Cambridge without taking his - degree, 133-135; - marries Miss Sarah Fricker and spends the honeymoon in a cottage at - Clevedon, 136; - breaks with Southey, 136-151; - happiness in early married life, 139; - his tour to procure subscribers for the _Watchman_, 151 and note, - 152-154; - poverty, 154, 155; - receives a communication from Mr. Thomas Poole that seven or eight - friends have undertaken to subscribe a certain sum to be paid - annually to him as the author of the monody on Chatterton, 158 n.; - discontinues the _Watchman_, 158; - takes Charles Lloyd into his home, 168-170; - birth of his first child, David Hartley, 169; - considers starting a day school at Derby, 170 and note; - has a severe attack of neuralgia for which he takes laudanum, 173-176; - early use of opium and beginning of the habit, 173 n., 174 n.; - selects twenty-eight sonnets by himself, Southey, Lloyd, Lamb, and - others and has them privately printed, to be bound up with - Bowles's sonnets, 177, 206 and note; - his description of himself in 1796, 180, 181; - his personal appearance as described by another, 180 n., 181 n.; - anxious to take a cottage at Nether Stowey and support himself by - gardening, 184-194; - makes arrangements to carry out this plan, 209; - his partial reconciliation with Southey, 210, 211; - in the cottage at Nether Stowey, 213; - his engagement as tutor to the children of Mrs. Evans of Darley Hall - breaks down, 215 n.; - his visit at Mrs. Evans's house, 216; - daily life at Nether Stowey, 219, 220; - visits Wordsworth at Racedown, 220 and note, 221; - secures a house (Alfoxden) for Wordsworth near Stowey, 224; - visits him there, 227; - finishes his tragedy, _Osorio_, 231; - suspected of conspiracy with Wordsworth and Thelwall against the - government, 232 n.; - accepts an annuity of L150 for life from Josiah and Thomas Wedgwood, - 234 and note, 235 and note; - declines an offer of the Unitarian pastorate at Shrewsbury, 235 and - note, 236; - writes Joseph Cottle in regard to a third edition of his poems, 239; - rupture with Lloyd, 238, 245 n., 246; - first recourse to opium to relieve distress of mind, 245 n.; - birth of a second child, Berkeley, 247; - temporary estrangement from Lamb caused by Lloyd, 249-253; - goes to Germany with William Wordsworth, Dorothy Wordsworth, and John - Chester, for the purpose of study and observation, 258-262; - life _en pension_ with Chester in the family of a German pastor at - Ratzeburg, after parting from the Wordsworths at Hamburg, 262-278; - learning the German language, 262, 263, 267, 268; - writes a poem in German, 263; - proposes to proceed to Goettingen, 268-270; - proposes to write a life of Lessing, 270; - travels by coach from Ratzeburg to Goettingen, passing through Hanover, - 278-280; - enters the University, 281; - receives word of the death of his little son, Berkeley, 282-287; - learns the Gothic and Theotuscan languages, 298; - reconciliation with Southey, after the return from Germany, 303, 304; - with his wife and child he visits the Southeys at Exeter, 305 and note; - accompanies Southey on a walking-tour in Dartmoor, 305 and note; - makes a tour of the Lake Country, 312 n., 313; - in London, writing for the _Morning Post_, 315-332; - life at Greta Hall, near Keswick, 335-444; - proposes to write an essay on the elements of poetry, 338, 347; - proposes to study chemistry with William Calvert as a fellow-student, - 345-347; - proposes to write a book on the originality and merits of Locke, - Hobbes, and Hume, 349, 350; - spends a week at Scarborough, riding and bathing for his health, - 361-363; - divides the winter of 1801-1802 between London and Nether Stowey, - 365-368; - domestic unhappiness, 366; - writes the _Ode to Dejection_, addressing it to Wordsworth, 378-384; - discouraged about his poetic faculty, 388; - a separation from his wife considered and harmony restored, 389, 390; - makes a walking-tour of the Lake Country, 393 and note, 394; - makes a tour of South Wales with Thomas and Sarah Wedgwood, 410-414; - his regimen at this time, 412, 413, 416, 417; - birth of his daughter Sara, 416; - with Charles and Mary Lamb in London, 421, 422; - takes Mary Lamb to the private madhouse at Hugsden, 422; - his tour in Scotland, 431-441; - love for and delight in his children, 443; - visits Wordsworth at Grasmere and is taken ill there, 447, 448; - his rapid recovery, 451; - plans and preparations for going abroad, 447-469; - his mental attitude towards his wife, 468; - voyage to Malta, 469-481; - dislike of his own first name, 470, 471; - life in Malta, 481-484; - a Sicilian tour, 485 and note, 486 and note, 487; - in Malta again, 487-497; - his duties as Acting Public Secretary at Malta, 487, 491, 493, 494 and - note, 495-497; - his grief at Captain John Wordsworth's death, 494 and note, 495 and - note, 497; - in Italy, 498-502; - returns to England, 501; - remains in and about London, writing political articles for the - _Courier_, 505-509; - invited to deliver a course of lectures at the Royal Institution, 507; - visits the Wordsworths at Coleorton Farmhouse with his son Hartley, - 509-514; - spends five or six weeks with Hartley in the company of the Wordsworths - at Basil Montagu's house in London, 511 n.; - outlines his course of lectures at the Royal Institution, 515, 516, - 522; - begins his lectures, 525; - a change for the better in health, habits, and spirits, the result of - his placing himself under the care of a physician, 533 and note, - 543 n.; - with the Wordsworths at Grasmere, devoting himself to the publication - of _The Friend_, 533-559; - in London, 564; - determines to place himself under the care of Dr. John Abernethy, 564, - 565; - visits the Morgans in Portland Place, Hammersmith, 566-575; - life-masks, death-mask, busts, and portraits, 570 and note, 572 and - notes; - last visit to Greta Hall and the Lake Country, 575-578; - misunderstanding with Wordsworth, 576 n., 577, 578, 586-588; - visits the Morgans at No. 71 Berners Street, 579-612; - preparations for another course of lectures, 579, 580, 582, 585; - writes Wordsworth letters of explanation, 588-595; - his Lectures on the Drama at Willis's Rooms, 595 and notes, 596, 597, - 599; - reconciled with Wordsworth, 596, 597, 599; - second rupture with Wordsworth, 599 n., 600 n.; - Josiah's half of the Wedgwood annuity withdrawn on account of C.'s - abuse of opium, 602, 611 and note; - successful production of his tragedy, _Remorse_ (_Osorio_ rewritten), - at Drury Lane Theatre, 602-611; - sells a part of his library, 616 and note; - anguish and remorse from the abuse of opium, 616-621, 623, 624; - at Bristol, 621-626; - proposes to translate _Faust_ for John Murray, 624 and note, 625, 626; - convalescent, 631; - with the Morgans at Ashley, near Box, 631; - writing at his projected great work, _Christianity, the one true - Philosophy_, 632 and note, 633; - with the Morgans at Mr. Page's, Calne, Wilts, 641-653; - resolves to free himself from his opium habit and arranges to enter - the house of James Gillman, Esq., a surgeon, in Highgate (an - arrangement which ends only with his life), 657-659; - submits his drama _Zapolya_ to the Drury Lane Committee, and, after - its rejection, publishes it in book form, 666 and note, 667-669; - publishes _Sibylline Leaves_ and _Biographia Literaria_, 673; - disputes with his publishers, Fenner and Curtis, 673, 674 and note; - proposes a new Encyclopaedia, 674; - his reputation as a critic, 677 n.; - visits Joseph Henry Green, Esq., at St. Lawrence, near Maldon, 690-693; - his snuff-taking habits, 691, 692 and note; - his friendship and correspondence with Thomas Allsop, 695, 696; - delivers a course of Lectures on the History of Philosophy at the - Crown and Anchor, Strand, 698 and note; - criticises his portrait by Thomas Phillips, 699, 700; - at the seashore, 700, 701; - a candidate for associateship in the Royal Society of Literature, 726, - 727; - elected as a Royal Associate, 728; - at Ramsgate, 729-731; - prepares and publishes _Aids to Reflection_, 734 n., 738; - reads an _Essay on the Prometheus of Aeschylus_ before the Royal - Society of Literature, 739, 740; - another visit to Ramsgate, 742-744; - takes a seven weeks' continental tour with Wordsworth and his - daughter, 751; - illness, 754-756, 758; - convalescence, 760, 761; - begins to see a new edition of his poetical works through the press, - 769 n.; - writes a letter to his godchild from his deathbed, 775, 776. - - _Coleridge, Early Recollections of_, by Joseph Cottle, 139 n., 140 n., - 151 n., 219 n., 232 n., 251 n., 616 n., 617 n., 633 n. - - _Coleridge, Life of_, by James Gillman, 3, 20 n., 23 n., 24 n., 45 n., - 46 n., 171 n., 257, 680 n., 761 n. - - _Coleridge, Samuel Taylor_, by James Dykes Campbell, 269 n., 527 n., - 572 n., 600 n., 631 n., 653 n., 666 n., 667 n., 674 n., 681 n., - 684 n., 698 n., 752 n., 753 n., 772 n. - - _Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, and the English Romantic School_, by Alois - Brandl, 258, 674 n., 740 n. - - _Coleridge, S. T., Letters, Conversations, and Recollections of_, by - Thomas Allsop, 41 n., 527 n., 675 n.; - the publication of, regarded by C.'s friends as an act of bad faith, - 696 and note, 721 n.; - 698 n. - - _Coleridge, S. T., Spiritual Philosophy, founded on the Teaching of_, by - J. H. Green, 680 n. - - _Coleridge's Logic_, article in _The Athenaeum_, 753 n. - - _Coleridge and Southey, Reminiscences of_, by Joseph Cottle, 268 n., 269 - n., 417, 456 n., 617 n. - - Coleridge, Mrs. Samuel Taylor (Sarah Fricker, afterwards called "Sara"), - edits the second edition of _Biographia Literaria_, 3; - 136, 145, 146, 150, 151; - illness and recovery of, 155, 156; - 168; - birth of her first child, David Hartley, 169; - 174 n., 181, 188-190, 205, 213, 214, 216, 224, 245; - birth of her second child, Berkeley, 247-249; - 257, 258, 259 n.; - extract from a letter to S. T. C., 263 n.; - extract from a letter to Mrs. Lovell, 267 n.; - 271, 297, 312 n., 313, 318, 321, 325, 326, 332; - birth and baptism of her third child, Derwent, 338 and note; - her devotion saves his life, 338 n.; - 387; - fears of a separation from her husband operate to restore harmony, - 389, 390; - her faults as detailed by S. T. C., 389, 390; - 392, 393 n., 395, 396; - birth of a daughter, Sara, 416; - 418, 443, 457, 467, 490, 491, 521; - extract from a letter to Poole, 576 n.; - 578; - John Kenyon a kind friend to, 639 n.; - letters from S. T. C., 259-266, 271, 277, 284, 288, 367, 410, 420, 431, - 460, 467, 480, 496, 507, 509, 563, 579, 583, 602; - letter to S. T. C. after her little Berkeley's death, 282 n. - - Coleridge, Sara (daughter), her birth, 416; - in infancy, 443; - at the age of nine, 575, 576; - 580, 724; - marries her cousin, Henry Nelson C., 756 n. - _See_ Coleridge, Mrs. Henry Nelson. - - _Coleridge, Sara, Memoir and Letters of_, 461 n., 758 n. - - Coleridge, the Hundred of, in North Devon, 4 and note. - - Coleridge, the Parish of, 4 n. - - Coleridge, William (brother), 7. - - Coleridge, William Hart (nephew, afterwards Bishop of Barbadoes), - befriends Hartley C., 675 n.; - 707; - his portrait by Thomas Phillips, R. A., 740 and note. - - Coleridge, William Rennell, 699 n. - - Coleridge family, origin of, 4 n. - - Collier, John Payne, 575 n. - - Collins, William, his _Ode on the Poetical Character_, 196; - his _Odes_, 318. - - Collins, William, A. R. A. (afterward, R. A.), letter from C., 693. - - Colman, George, the younger, genius of, 621; - his _Who wants a Guinea?_, 621 n. - - Columbus, the, a vessel, 730. - - Combe Florey, 308 n. - - Comberbacke, Silas Tomkyn, C.'s assumed name, 62. - - Comic Drama, the downfall of the, 616. - - _Complaint of Ninathoma, The_, 51. - - _Concerning Poetry_, a proposed book, 347, 386, 387. - - _Conciones ad Populum_, 85 n., 161 n., 166, 454 n., 527 n. - - _Confessions of an Enquiring Spirit_, originally addressed to Rev. - Edward Coleridge, 724 n.; - 756 n. - - Coniston, 394. - - _Connubial Rupture, On a late_, 179 n. - - Consciousness of infants, 283. - - Conservative Party in 1832, the, 757. - - Consolation, a note of, 113. - - _Consolations and Comforts, etc._, a projected book, 452, 453. - - Constant, Benjamin, his tract _On the Strength of the Existing - Government of France, and the Necessity of supporting it_, 219 and - note. - - Contempt, C.'s definition of, 198. - - _Contentment, Motives of_, by Archdeacon Paley, 47. - - Conversation, C.'s, 181, 752 and note; - C.'s maxims of, 244. - - Conversation evenings at the Gillmans', 740, 741, 774. - - Cookson, Dr., Canon of Windsor and Rector of Forncett, Norfolk, 311 and - note. - - Copland, 400. - - Cordomi, a pseudonym of C.'s, 295 n. - - _Cornhill Magazine_, 345 n. - - Cornish, Mr., 66. - - Corry, Right Hon. Isaac, 390 and note. - - Corsham, 650, 652 n. - - Corsica, 174 n. - - Corsican Rangers, 554. - - Cote House, Josiah Wedgwood's residence, C. visits, 416; - 455 n. - - Cottle, Joseph, agrees to pay C. a fixed sum for his poetry, 136; - 137; - his _Early Recollections of Coleridge_, 139 n., 140 n., 151 n., 219 - n., 232 n., 251 n., 616 n., 617 n., 633 n.; - 144, 184, 185, 191, 192, 212; - his _Reminiscences of Coleridge and Southey_, 268 n., 269 n., 417, 456 - n., 617 n.; - his financial difficulties, 319; - 358; - his _Malvern Hill_, 358; - his publication of C.'s letters of confession and remorse deeply - resented by C.'s family and friends, 616 n., 617 n.; - convalescent after a dangerous illness, 619; - letters from C., 133, 134, 154, 218 n., 220, 238, 251 n., 616, 619. - - _Courier_, the, 230; - C. writes for, 505, 506, 507 n., 520; - 534 and note, 543; - its conduct during the investigation of the charges against the Duke - of York universally extolled, 545; - articles and recommendations for, 567 and notes, 568; - C. as a candidate for the place of auxiliary to, 568-570; - 568 n.; - C. breaks with, 574; - 598, 629 and notes, 634 and note; - change in the character of, 660-662, 664; - C. proposes to write on the Catholic question for, 660, 662; - arrangements for the proposed articles, 664, 665. - - _Courier_ office, C. lodges at the, 505, 520. - - Cowper, William, "the divine chit-chat of," 197 and note; - his _Task_, 242 n. - - Craven, Countess of, 86 n. - - Craven Scholarship, C.'s examination for the, 45 and note, 46. - - Crediton, 5 n., 11. - - _Critical Review_, 185, 489. - - Criticism welcome to true poets, 402. - - Crompton, Dr., of Derby, 215; - letter from Thelwall on the Wedgwood annuity, 234 n. - - Crompton, Mrs., of Derby, 215. - - Crompton, Mrs., of Eaton Hall, 758. - - Crompton, Dr. Peter, of Eaton Hall, 359 and note, 758 n. - - Cruikshank, Ellen, 165. - - Cruikshank, John, 136, 177, 184, 188. - - Cruikshank, Mrs. John (Anna), 177; - lines to, 177 n.; - 213. - _See_ Bucle, Miss. - - Cryptogram, C.'s, 597 n. - - Cunningham, Rev. J. W., his _Velvet Cushion_, 651 and note. - - _Cupid turned Chymist_, 54 n., 56. - - Currie, James, 359 and note. - - _Curse of Kehama, The_, by Southey, 684. - - Curtis, Rev. T., partner of Fenner, C.'s publisher, his ill-usage of C., - 674. - - Cuxhaven, 259. - - - Dalton, John, 457 and note. - - Damer, Hon. Mrs., 368. - - Dana, Miss R. Charlotte, 572 n. - - Dante and his _Divina Commedia_, 676, 677 and note, 678, 679, 731 n., - 732. - - Danvers, Charles, his kindness of heart, 316. - - _Dark Ladie, The Ballad of the_, 375. - - Darnley, Earl, 629. - - Dartmoor, a walking-tour in, 305 and note. - - Dartmouth, 305 and note. - - Darwin, Dr. Erasmus, C.'s conversation with, 152, 153; - his philosophy of insincerity, 161; - C.'s opinion of his poems, 164; - 211; - the first literary character in Europe, and the most original-minded - man, 215; - 386, 648. - - Dash Beck, 375 n., 376 n. - - Davy, Sir Humphry, 315-317, 321, 324, 326, 344, 350, 357, 365, 379 n., - 448; - a Theo-mammonist, 455; - 456; - C. attends his lectures, 462 and note, 463; - C.'s esteem and admiration for, 514; - his successful efforts to induce C. to give a course of lectures at - the Royal Institution, 515, 516; - seriously ill, 520, 521; - hears from C. of his improvement in health and habits, 533 n.; - 673 n.; - letters from C., 336-341, 345, 514. - - _Davy, Sir Humphry, Fragmentary Remains of_, edited by Dr. Davy, 343 n., - 533 n. - - Dawe, George, R. A., his life-mask and portrait of C., 572 and note; - his funeral and C.'s epigram thereon, 572 n.; - immortalized by Lamb, 572 n.; - engaged on a picture to illustrate C.'s poem, _Love_, 573; - his admiration for Allston's modelling, 573; - his character and manners, 581; - a fortunate grub, 605. - - Dawes, Rev. John, teacher of Hartley and Derwent C., 576 and note, 577. - - Death, fear of, responsible for many virtues, 744; - the nature of, 762, 763. - - Death and life, meditations on, 283-287. - - Death-mask of C., a, 570 n. - - _Death of Mattathias, The_, by Robert Southey, 108 and note. - - Deism, religious, 414. - - _Dejection: An Ode_, 378 and note, 379 and note, 380-384, 405 n. - - Della Cruscanism, 196. - - Democracy, C. disavows belief in, 104-105; - 134, 243. - _See_ Republicanism _and_ Pantisocracy. - - Denbigh, 80, 81. - - Denman, Miss, 769, 770. - - Dentist, a French, 40. - - De Quincey, Thomas, 405 n., 525; - revises the proofs and writes an appendix for Wordsworth's pamphlet - _On the Convention of Cintra_, 549, 550 n.; - 563, 601, 772 n. - - Derby, 152; - proposal to start a school in, 170 and note; - 188; - the people of, 215 and note, 216. - - Derwent, the river, 339. - - Descartes, Rene, 351 and note. - - _Destiny of Nations, The_, 278 n., 178 n. - - _Deutschland in seiner tiefsten Erniedrigung_, by John Philip Palm, C.'s - translation of, 530. - - De Vere, Aubrey, extract from a letter from Sir William Rowan Hamilton - to, 759 n. - - _Devil's Thoughts, The_, by Coleridge and Southey, 318. - - Devock Lake, 393. - - Devonshire, 305 and note. - - _Devonshire, Georgiana, Duchess of, Ode to_, 320 and note, 330. - - Dibdin, Mr., stage-manager at Drury Lane Theatre, 666. - - _Disappointment, To_, 28. - - _Dissuasion from Popery_, by Jeremy Taylor, 639. - - _Divina Commedia_, C. praises the Rev. H. F. Cary's translation of, 676, - 677 and note, 678, 679; - Gabriele Rossetti's essay on the mechanism and interpretation of, 732. - - _Doctor, The_, 583 n., 584 n. - - Doering, Herr von, 279. - - Dove, Dr. Daniel, 583 and note, 584. - - Dove Cottage, Grasmere, 379 n. - _See_ Grasmere. - - Dowseborough, 225 n. - - Drakard, John, 567 and note. - - Drayton, Michael, his _Poly-Olbion_, 374 n. - - Dreams, the state of mind in, 663. - - Drury Lane Theatre, C.'s _Zapolya_ before the committee of, 666 and - note, 667. - - Dryden, John, his slovenly verses, 672. - - Dubois, Edward, 705 and note. - - _Duchess, Ode to the_, 320 and note, 330. - - Dunmow, Essex, 456, 459. - - Duns Scotus, 358. - - Dupuis, Charles Francois, his _Origine de tous les Cultes, ou Religion - Universelle_, 181 and note. - - Durham, Bishop of, 582 and note. - - Durham, C. reading Duns Scotus at, 358-361. - - Duty, 495 n. - - Dyer, George, 84, 93, 316, 317; - his article on Southey in _Public Characters for 1799-1800_, 317 and - note; - 363, 422; - sketch of his life, 748 n.; - C.'s esteem and affection for, 748, 749; - his benevolence and beneficence, 749; - letter from C., 748. - - - Earl of Abergavenny, the wreck of, 494 n.; - 495 n. - - _Early Recollections of Coleridge_, by Joseph Cottle, 139 n., 140 n., - 151 n., 219 n., 232 n., 251 n., 616 n., 617 n., 633 n. - - _Early Years and Late Recollections_, by Clement Carlyon, M. D., 258, - 298 n. - - East Tarbet, 431, 432 and note, 433. - - Echoes, 400 n. - - Edgeworth, Maria, her _Helen_, 773, 774. - - Edgeworth, Richard Lovell, 262. - - Edgeworth's _Essay on Education_, 261. - - Edgeworths, the, very miserable when children, 262. - - Edinburgh, a place of literary gossip, 423; - C.'s visit to, 434-440; - Southey's first impressions of, 438 n. - - _Edinburgh Review, The_, 438 n.; - Southey declines Scott's offer to secure him a place on, 521 and note, - 522; - its attitude towards C., 527; - C.'s review of Clarkson's book in, 527 and note, 528-530; - 636, 637; - severe review of _Christabel_ in, 669 and note, 670; - Jeffrey's reply to C. in, 669 n.; - re-echoes C.'s praise of Cary's _Dante_, 677 n.; - its broad, predetermined abuse of C., 697, 723; - its influence on the sale of Wordsworth's books in Scotland, 741, 742. - - _Edmund Oliver_, by Charles Lloyd, drawn from C.'s life, 252 and note; - 311. - - _Education, Practical_, by Richard Lovell Edgeworth and Maria Edgeworth, - 261. - - Education through the imagination preferable to that which makes the - senses the only criteria of belief, 16, 17. - - Edwards, Rev. Mr., of Birmingham, extract from a letter from C. to, 174 - n. - - Edwards, Thomas, LL. D., 101 and note. - - Egremont, 393. - - _Egypt, Observations on_, 486 n. - - Egypt, political relations of, 492. - - Eichhorn, Prof., of Goettingen, 298, 564, 707, 773. - - Einbeck, 279, 280. - - Elbe, the, 259, 277. - - Electrometers of taste, 218 and note. - - _Elegy_, by Robert Southey, 115. - - Elleray, 535. - - Elliot, H., Minister at the Court of Naples, 508 and note. - - Elliston, Mr., an actor, 611. - - Elmsley, Rev. Peter, 438 and note, 439. - - _Encyclopaedia Metropolitana_, a work projected by C., 674, 681. - - Encyclopaedias, 427, 429, 430. - - Ennerdale, 393. - - Epitaph, by C., 769 and note, 770, 771. - - _Epitaph_, by Wordsworth, 284. - - Erigena, Joannes Scotus, 417; - the modern founder of the school of pantheism, 424. - - Erskine, Lord, his Bill for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, 635 - and note. - - _Erste Schiffer, Der_ (The First Navigator), by Gesner, 369, 371, 372, - 376-378, 397, 402, 403. - - Eskdale, 393, 401. - - _Essay on Animal Vitality_, by Thelwall, 179, 212. - - _Essay on Fasting_, 157. - - _Essay on the New French Constitution_, 320 and note. - - _Essay on the Prometheus of Aeschylus_, 740 and note. - - _Essay on the Science of Method_, 681 and note. - - _Essays on His Own Times_, 156 n., 157 n., 320 n., 327 n., 329 n., 335 - n., 414 n., 498 n., 567 n., 629 n., 634 n. - - _Essay on the Fine Arts_, 633 and note, 634. - - _Essays upon Epitaphs_, by Wordsworth, 585 and note. - - Estlin, Mrs. J. P., 190, 213, 214. - - Estlin, Rev. J. P., 184, 185, 190, 239, 287, 288; - his sermons, 385; - 416; - letters from C., 213, 245, 246, 414. - - Ether, 420, 435. - - Etna, 458, 485 n., 486 n. - - Evans, Mrs., C. spends a fortnight with, 23 and note; - 24; - C.'s filial regard for, 26, 27; - her unselfishness, 46; - letters from C., 26, 39, 45. - - Evans, Anne, 27, 29-31; - letters from C., 37, 52. - - Evans, Eliza, 78. - - Evans, Mrs. Elizabeth, of Darley Hall, her proposal to engage C. as - tutor to her children, 215 n.; - her kindness to C. and Mrs. C., 215 n., 210; - 231, 367. - - Evans, Mary, 23 n., 27, 30; - an acute mind beneath a soft surface of feminine delicacy, 50; - C. sees her at Wrexham and confesses to Southey his love for her, 78; - 97 and note; - song addressed to, 100; - C.'s unrequited love for, 123-125; - letters from C., 30, 41, 47, 122, 124; - letter to C., 87-89. - - Evans, Walter, 231. - - Evans, William, of Darley Hall, 215 n. - - Evolution, 648. - - _Examiner, The_, its notice of C.'s tragedy, _Remorse_, 606. - - _Excursion, The_, by Wordsworth, 244 n., 337 n., 585 n.; - C.'s opinion of, 641; - the _Edinburgh Review's_ criticism of, 642; - C. discusses it in the light of his previous expectations, 645-650. - - Exeter, 305 and note. - - Ezekiel, 705 n. - - - Faith, C.'s definition of, 202; - 204. - - _Fall of Robespierre, The_, 85 and note, 87, 93, 104 and notes. - - Falls of Foyers, the, 440. - - _Farmer, Priscilla, Poems on the Death of_, by Charles Lloyd, 206 and - note. - - _Farmers_, 335 n. - - _Farmhouse_, by Robert Lovell, 115. - - _Fasting, Essay on_, 157. - - _Faulkner: a Tragedy_, by William Godwin, 524 and note. - - Fauntleroy's trial, 730. - - _Faust_, C.'s proposal to translate, 624 and note, 625, 626. - - Favell, Robert, 86, 109 n., 110 n., 113, 225 and note. - - _Fayette_, 112. - - _Fears in Solitude_, published, 261 n.; - 318, 321, 328, 552, 703 and note. - - Fellowes, Mr., of Nottingham, 153. - - _Female Biography, or Memoirs of Illustrious and Celebrated Women_, by - Mary Hayes, 318 and note. - - Fenner, Rest, publishes _Zapolya_ for C., 666 n.; - his ill-usage of C. in regard to _Sibylline Leaves_, _Biographia - Literaria_, and the projected _Encyclopaedia Metropolitana_, 673, - 674 and note. - - Fenwick, Dr., 361 and note. - - Fenwick, Mrs. E., 465 and note. - - Fernier, John, 211. - - Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, the philosophy of, 682, 683, 735. - - Field, Mr., 93. - - _Fine Arts, Essays on the_, 633 and note, 634. - - _Fire, The_, by Robert Southey, 108 and note. - - _Fire and Famine_, 327. - - _First Landing Place, The_, 684 n. - - _First Navigator, The_, translation of Gesner's _Der Erste Schiffer_, - 369, 371, 372, 376-378, 397, 402, 403. - - Fitzgibbon, John, 638. - - Fletcher, Judge, C.'s _Courier_ Letters to, 629 and note, 634 and note, - 635, 636, 642. - - Florence, 499 n. - - Flower, Benjamin, editor of the _Cambridge Intelligencer_, 93 and note. - - _Flower, The_, by George Herbert, 695. - - Flowers, 745, 746. - - Fort Augustus, 435. - - _Foster-Mother's Tale, The_, 510 n. - - Fox, Charles James, his _Letter to the Westminster Electors_, 50; - 327; - Coleridge _versus_, 423, 424; - proposed articles on, 505; - 506; - death of, 507 and note; - 629 and note. - - Fox, Dr., 619. - - Foyers, the Falls of, 440. - - _Fragment found in a Lecture Room, A_, 44. - - _Fragments of a Journal of a Tour over the Brocken_, 257. - - France, political condition of, in 1800, 329 and note. - - _France, an Ode_, 261 n., 552. - - Freeling, Sir Francis, 751. - - French, C. not proficient in, 181. - - _French Constitution, Essay on the New_, 320 and note. - - French Empire under Buonaparte, C.'s essays on the, 629 and note. - - French Revolution, the, 219, 240. - - Frend, William, 24 and note. - - Frere, George, 672. - - Frere, Right Hon. John Hookham, 672 and note; - advice and friendly assistance to C. from, 674, 675 and note; - 698, 731, 732, 737. - - Fricker, Mrs., 98, 189; - C. proposes to allow her an annuity of L20, 190; - 423, 458. - - Fricker, Edith (afterwards Mrs. Robert Southey), 82; - marries Southey, 137 n.; - 163 n. - _See_ Southey, Mrs. Robert. - - Fricker, George, 315, 316. - - Fricker, Martha, 600. - - Fricker, Sarah, C. falls in love with, 81; - 83-86; - C.'s love cools, 89; - marries C., 136; - 138, 163 n.; - letter from Southey, 107 n. - _See_ Coleridge, Mrs. Samuel Taylor. - - _Friend, The_, 11 n., 25 n., 86 n., 257, 274 n., 275 n., 351 n., 404 n., - 412 n., 453 n., 454 n.; - preliminary prospectus of, and its revision, 533, 536 and note, - 537-541, 542 n.; - arrangements for the publication of, 541, 542 and note, 544, 546, 547; - its vicissitudes during its first eight months, 547, 548, 551, 552, - 554-559; - Addison's _Spectator_ compared with, 557, 558; - the reprint of, 575, 579 and note, 580 n., 585 and note; - 606, 611, 629 and note, 630, 667 n.; - J. H. Frere's advice in regard to, 674; - the object of the third volume of, 676; - 684 n.; - 697, 756 n., 768 and note. - - Friends, C. complains of lack of sympathy on the part of his, 696, 697. - - _Friend's Quarterly Examiner, The_, 536 n., 538 n. - - _Frisky Songster, The_, 237. - - _Frost at Midnight_, 8 n., 261 n. - - - Gale and Curtis, 579 and note, 580 n. - - Gallow Hill, 359 n., 362, 379 n. - - Gallows and hangman in Germany, 294. - - Gardening, C. proposes to undertake, 183-194; - C. begins it at Nether Stowey, 213; - recommended to Thelwall, 215; - at Nether Stowey, 219, 220. - - _Gebir_, 328. - - _Gentleman's Magazine, The_, 455 n. - - _Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, Ode to_, 320 and note, 330. - - German language, the, C. learning, 262, 263, 267, 268. - - German philosophers, C.'s opinions of, 681-683, 735. - - German playing-cards, 263. - - Germans, their partiality for England and the English, 263, 264; - their eating and smoking customs, 276, 277; - an unlovely race, 278; - their Christmas-tree and other religious customs, 289-292; - superstitions of the bauers, 291, 292, 294; - marriage customs of the bauers, 292, 293. - - Germany, 257, 258; - C.'s sojourn in, 259-300; - post coaches in, 278, 279; - the clergy of, 291; - Protestants and Catholics of, 291, 292; - bell-ringing in, 293; - churches in, 293; - shepherds in, 293; - care of owls in, 293; - gallows and hangman in, 294; - disposal of dead and sick cattle in, 294; - beet sugar in, 299. - - Gerrald, Joseph, 161 and note, 166, 167 n. - - Gesenius, Friedrich Heinrich Wilhelm, 773. - - Gesner, his _Erste Schiffer_ (The First Navigator), 369, 371, 372, - 376-378, 397, 402, 403; - his rhythmical prose, 398. - - Ghosts, 684. - - Gibraltar, 469, 473, 474; - description of, 475-479; - 480, 493. - - Gifford, William, his criticism of C.'s tragedy, _Remorse_, 605, 606; - 669, 737. - - Gillman, Alexander, 703 n. - - Gillman, Henry, 693 n. - - Gillman, James, his _Life of Coleridge_, 3, 20 n., 23 n., 24 n., 45 n., - 46 n., 171 n., 257; - 442 n., 680 n., 761 n.; - his faithful friendship for C., 657; - C. arranges to enter his household as a patient, 657-659; - C.'s pecuniary obligations to, 658 n.; - character and intellect of, 665; - 670 n., 679, 685, 692, 704; - C.'s gratitude to and affection for, 721, 722; - on C.'s opium habit, 761 n.; - 768; - extracts from a letter from John Sterling to, 772 n.; - letters from C., 657, 700, 721, 729, 742. - - Gillman, James, the younger, passes his examination for ordination with - great credit, 755. - - Gillman, Mrs. James (Anne), her faithful friendship for C., 657; - character of, 665; - 679, 684, 685, 702 n., 705, 721, 722, 729, 733; - illness of, 738; - C.'s attachment to, 746; - C.'s gratitude to and affection for, 754; - 764, 774; - letters from C., 690, 745, 754. - - Ginger-tea, 412, 413. - - Glencoe, 413, 440. - - Glen Falloch, 433. - - Gloucester, 72. - - Gnats, 692. - - Godliness, C.'s definition of, 203 n., 204; - St. Peter's paraphrase of, 204. - - Godwin, William, 91, 114; - C.'s sonnet to, 116 n., 117; - lines by Southey to, 120; - his misanthropy, 161, 162; - 161 n., 167; - C.'s book on, 210; - 316, 321; - his _St. Leon_, 324, 325; - a quarrel and reconciliation with C., 457, 464-466; - his _Faulkner: a Tragedy_, 524 and note; - C. accepts his invitation to meet Grattan, 565, 566; - letter from C., 565. - - _Godwin, William: His Friends and Contemporaries_, by Charles Kegan - Paul, 161 n., 324 n., 465 n. - - Godwin, Mrs. William, 465, 466, 566. - - Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, his _Faust_, C.'s proposal to translate, - 624 and note, 625, 626; - his _Zur Farbenlehre_, 699. - - Gosforth, 393. - - Goslar, 272, 273. - - Goettingen, C. proposes to visit, 268-270, 272; - 268 n., 269 n.; - C. calls on Professor Heyne at, 280; - C. enters the University of, 281; - the Saturday Club at, 281; - the gallows near, 294; - C.'s stay at, 281-300. - - Gough, Charles, 369 n. - - Governments as effects and causes, 241. - - Grasmere, 335, 346, 362, 379 n., 394, 405 n., 419, 420; - C. visits and is taken ill there, 447, 448; - C. visits, 533-569. - _See_ Kendal. - - Grattan, Henry, C.'s admiration for, 566. - - Greek Islands, the, 329. - - Greek poetry contrasted with Hebrew poetry, 405, 406. - - Greek Sapphic Ode, _On the Slave Trade_, 43 and note. - - Green, Mr., clerk of the _Courier_, 568 and note. - - Green, Joseph Henry, 605, 632 n.; - his eminence in the surgical profession, 679 n.; - C.'s amanuensis and collaborateur, 679 n.; - C. appoints him his literary executor, 679 n.; - his published works, 679 n., 680 n.; - his character and intellect, 680 n.; - his faithful friendship for C., 680 n.; - his _Spiritual Philosophy, founded on the Teaching of S. T. - Coleridge_, 680 n.; - receives a visit from C. at St. Lawrence, near Maldon, 690-693; - 753 n.; - letters from C., 669, 680, 688, 699, 704, 706, 726, 728, 751, 754, - 767. - - Green, Mrs. Joseph Henry, 691, 692, 699, 705. - - Greenough, Mr., 458 and note. - - Greta, the river, 339. - - Greta Hall, near Keswick, C.'s life at, 335-444; - situation of, 335; - description of 391, 392; - C. urges Southey to make it his home, 391, 392, 394, 395; - Southey at first declines but subsequently accepts C.'s invitation to - settle there, 395 n.; - Southey makes a visit there which proves permanent, 435; - 460 n.; - sold by its owner in C.'s absence, 490, 491; - C.'s last visit to, 575 and note, 576-578; - 724, 725. - _See_ Keswick. - - Grey, Mr., editor of the _Morning Chronicle_, 114. - - "Grinning for joy," 81 n. - - Grisedale Tarn, 547. - - Grose, Judge, 567 and note. - - Grossness _versus_ suggestiveness, 377. - - _Group of Englishmen, A_, by Eliza Meteyard, 269 n., 308 n. - - _Growth of the Individual Mind, On the_, C.'s extempore lecture, 680 and - note, 681. - - Gunning, Henry, his _Reminiscences of Cambridge_, 24 n. - - Gwynne, General, K. L. D., 62. - - - Haemony, Milton's allegorical flower, 406, 407. - - Hague, Charles, 50. - - Hale, Sir Philip, a "titled Dogberry," 232 n. - - Hall, S. C., 257, 745 n. - - Hamburg, 257, 259; - C.'s arrival at, 261; - 268 n. - - Hamilton, a Cambridge man at Goettingen, 281. - - Hamilton, Lady, 637 and note. - - Hamilton, Sir William Rowan, 759 and note, 760. - - _Hamlet, Notes on_, 684 n. - - Hancock's house, 297. - - Hangman and gallows in Germany, 294. - - Hanover, 279, 280. - - _Happiness_, 75 n. - - _Happy Warrior, The_, by Wordsworth, the original of, 494 n. - - Harding, Miss, sister of Mrs. Gillman, 703. - - _Harper's Magazine_, 570 n., 571 n. - - Harris, Mr., 666. - - Hart, Dick, 54. - - Hart, Miss Jane, 7, 8. - - Hart, Miss Sara, 8. - - Hartley, David, 113, 169, 348, 351 n., 428. - - _Haunted Beach, The_, by Mrs. Robinson, 322 n.; - C. struck with, 331, 332. - - Hayes, Mary, 318 and note; - her _Female Biography_, 318 and note; - her correspondence with Lloyd, 322; - C.'s opinion of her intellect, 323. - - Hazlitt, William, supposed to have written the _Edinburgh Review_ - criticism of _Christabel_, 669 and note. - - Hebrew poetry richer in imagination than the Greek, 405, 406. - - Heinse's _Ardinghello_, 683 and note. - - _Helen_, by Maria Edgeworth, 773, 774. - - Helvellyn, 547. - - Henley workhouse, C. nurses a fellow-dragoon in the, 58 and note. - - _Herald, Morning_, its notice of C.'s tragedy, _Remorse_, 603. - - Herbert, George, C.'s love for his poems, 694, 695; - his _Temple_, 694; - his _Flower_, 695. - - _Heretics of the first two Centuries after Christ, History of the_, by - Nathaniel Lardner, D. D., 330. - - Herodotus, 738. - - Hertford, C. a Blue-Coat boy at, 19 and note. - - Hess, Jonas Lewis von, 555 and note. - - Hessey, Mr., of Taylor and Hessey, publishers, 739. - - Hexameters, parts of the Bible and Ossian written in slovenly, 398. - - Heyne, Christian Gottlob, 279; - C. calls on, 280; - 281. - - Higginbottom, Nehemiah, a pseudonym of C.'s, 251 n. - - _Highgate, History of_, by Lloyd, 572 n. - - _Highland Girl, To a_, by Wordsworth, 549. - - Highland lass, a beautiful, 432 and note, 459. - - High Wycombe, 62-64. - - Hill, Mrs. Herbert. _See_ Southey, Bertha. - - Hill, Thomas, 705 and note. - - _History of Highgate_, by Lloyd, 572 n. - - _History of the Abolition of the Slave Trade_, by Thomas Clarkson, C.'s - review of, 527 and note, 528-530, 535, 536. - - _History of the Heretics of the first two Centuries after Christ_, by - Nathaniel Lardner, D. D., 330. - - _History of the Levelling Principle_, proposed, 323, 328 n., 330. - - Hobbes, Thomas, 349, 350. - - Holcroft, Mr., C.'s conversation on Pantisocracy with, 114, 115; - the high priest of atheism, 162. - - _Hold your mad hands!_, a sonnet by Southey, 127 and note. - - Holland, 751. - - Holt, Mrs., 18. - - _Home-Sick, Written in Germany_, quoted, 298. - - Homesickness of C. in Germany, 265, 266, 272, 273, 278, 288, 289, 295, - 296, 298. - - Hood, Thomas, his _Odes to Great People_, 250 n. - - _Hope, an Allegorical Sketch_, by Bowles, 179, 180. - - Hopkinson, Lieutenant, 62. - - Horace, Bentley's Quarto Edition of, 68 and note. - - Hospitality in poverty, 340. - - _Hour when we shall meet again, The_, 157. - - Howe, Admiral Lord, 262 and note. - - Howe, Emanuel Scoope, second Viscount, 262 n. - - Howell, Mr., of Covent Garden, 366 and note. - - Howick, Lord, 507. - - Howley, Miss, 739. - - Huber's _Treatise on Ants_, 712. - - Hucks, J., accompanies C. on a tour in Wales, 74-81; - his _Tour in North Wales_, 74 n., 81 n.; - 76, 77 and note, 81 and note, 306. - - Hume, David, 307, 349, 350. - - Hume, Joseph, M. P., a fermentive virus, 757. - - Hungary, 329. - - _Hunt, Leigh, Autobiography of_, 20 n., 41 n., 225 n., 455 n. - - Hunter, John, 211. - - Hurwitz, Hyman, 667 n.; - his _Israel's Lament_, 681 n. - - Hutchinson, George, 358 and note, 359 n., 360. - - Hutchinson, Joanna, 359 n. - - Hutchinson, John, of Penrith, 358 n. - - Hutchinson, John, of the Middle Temple, 359 n. - - Hutchinson, Mary, marries William Wordsworth, 359 n.; - 367. - - Hutchinson, Sarah, 359 n., 360, 362, 367, 393 n.; - her motherly care of Hartley C., 510; - 511; - C.'s amanuensis, 536 n., 542 n.; - 582, 587, 590 n. - - Hutchinson, Thomas, of Gallow Hill, 359 n., 362. - - Hutton, James, M. D., 153 and note; - his _Investigation of the Principles of Knowledge_, 167. - - Hutton, Lawrence, 570 n. - - Hutton Hall, near Penrith, 296. - - _Hymn before Sunrise in the Vale of Chamouni_, origin of, 404 and 405 - and note. - - - _Ibi Haec Incondita Solus_, by George Coleridge, 43 n. - - Idolatry of modern religion, the, 414, 415. - - Illuminizing, 323, 324. - - _Illustrated London News, The_, 258, 453 n., 497 n., 768 n. - - Imagination, education of the, 16, 17. - - _Imitated from the Welsh_ (a song), 112 and note, 113. - - _Imitations from the Modern Latin Poets_, 67 n., 122. - - Impersonality of the Deity, 444. - - Indolence, a vice of powerful venom, 103, 104. - - Infant, the death of an, 282-287. - - _Infant, who died before its Christening, On an_, 287. - - Ingratitude, C. complains of, 627-631. - - Insincerity, a virtue, 161. - - Instinct, definition of, 712. - - _In the Pass of Killicranky_, by Wordsworth, 458. - - _Ireland, Account of_, by Edward Wakefield, 638. - - _Ireland, View of the State of_, by Edmund Spenser, 638 n. - - Irving, Rev. Edward, 723; - a great orator, 726; - on Southey and Byron, 726; - 741, 742, 744, 748, 752. - - Isaiah, 200. - - _Israel's Lament_, by Hyman Hurwitz, C. translates, 681 and note. - - - Jackson, Mr., owner of Greta Hall, 335, 368, 391, 392, 394, 395, 434, - 460 and note, 461; - godfather to Hartley C., 461 n.; - sells Greta Hall, 491; - Hartley C.'s attachment for, 510. - - Jackson, William, 309 and notes. - - Jackstraws, 462, 468. - - Jacobi, Heinrich Freidrich, 683. - - Jacobinism in England, 642. - - Jardine, Rev. David, 139 and note. - - _Jasper_, by Mrs. Robinson, 322 n. - - Jeffrey, Francis (afterwards Lord), 453 n., 521 n.; - C. accuses him of being unwarrantably severe on him, 527; - 536 n., 538 n.; - C.'s accusation of personal and ungenerous animosity against himself - and his reply thereto, 669 and note, 670; - 735; - his attitude toward Wordsworth's poetry, 742; - letters from C., 527, 528, 534. - See _Edinburgh Review_. - - Jerdan, Mr., of Michael's Grove, Brompton, 727. - - Jesus College, C.'s life at, 22-57, 70-72, 81-129. - - Jews in a German inn, 280. - - _Joan of Arc_, by Southey, 141, 149, 178 and note, 179; - Cottle sells the copyright to Longman, 319. - - John of Milan, 566 n. - - Johnson, J., the bookseller, lends C. L30, 261; - publishes _Fears in Solitude_, for C., 261 and notes, 318; - 321. - - Johnson, Dr. Samuel, on the condition of the mind during stage - representations, 663. - - Johnston, Lady, 731. - - Johnston, Sir Alexander, 730 and note; - C.'s impressions of, 731. - - Josephus, 407. - - - Kant, Immanuel, 204 n., 351 n.; - C.'s opinion of the philosophy of, 681, 682; - his _Kritik der praktischen Vernunft_, 681, 682 and note; - his _Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft_, 682; - valued by C. more as a logician than as a metaphysician, 735; - his _Critique of the Pure Reason_, 735. - - Keats, John, 764 n. - - Keenan, Mr., 309. - - Keenan, Mrs., 309 and note. - - _Kehama, The Curse of_, by Southey, 684. - - Kempsford, Gloucestershire, 267 n. - - Kendal, 447, 451, 452, 535, 575. - _See_ Grasmere. - - Kendall, Mr., a poet, 306. - - Kennard, Adam Steinmetz, 762 n.; - letter from C., 775. - - Kennard, John Peirse, 762 n.; - letter from C., 772. - - Kenyon, Mrs., 639, 640. - - Kenyon, John, 639 n.; - letter from C., 639. - - Keswick, 174 n.; - C. passes through, during his first tour in the Lake Country, 312 n.; - a Druidical circle near, 312 n.; - C.'s house at, 335; - climate of, 361; - 405 n., 530, 535, 724, 725. - _See_ Greta Hall. - - Keswick, the lake of, 335. - - Keswick, the vale of, 312 n., 313 n.; - its beauties, 410, 411. - - Kielmansegge, Baron, and his daughter, Mary Sophia, 263 n. - - Kilmansig, Countess, C. becomes acquainted with, 262, 263. - - King, Mr., 183, 185, 186. - - King, Mrs., 183. - - Kingsley, Rev. Charles, 771 n. - - Kingston, Duchess of, her masquerade costume, 237. - - Kinnaird, Douglas, 666, 667. - - Kirkstone Pass, a storm in, 418-420. - - _Kisses_, 54 n. - - Klopstock, Friedrich Gottlieb, 257; - his _Messias_, 372, 373. - - Knecht, Rupert, 289 n., 290, 291. - - Knight, Rev. William Angus, LL.D., his _Life of William Wordsworth_, - 164 n., 220 n., 447 n., 585 n., 591 n., 596 n., 599 n., 600 n., - 733 n., 759 n. - - Kosciusko, C.'s sonnet to, 116 n., 117. - - Kotzebue's _Count Benyowski, or the Conspiracy of Kamtschatka, a - Tragi-comedy_, 236 and note. - - _Kubla Khan_, when written, 245 n.; - 437 n. - - Kyle, John, the Man of Ross, 77, 651 n. - - - Lake Bassenthwaite, 335, 376 n.; - sunset over, 384. - - Lake Country, the, C. makes a tour of, 312 n., 313; - another tour of, 393 and note, 394; - C.'s last visit to, 575 n. - _See_ Grasmere, Greta Hall, Kendal, Keswick. - - _Lalla Rookh_, by Moore, 672. - - _Lamb, C., To_, 128 and note. - - Lamb, Charles, love of Woolman's Journal, 4 n.; - visit to Nether Stowey, 10 n.; - his _Christ's Hospital Five and Thirty Years Ago_, 20 n.; - a man of uncommon genius, 111; - writes four lines of a sonnet for C., 111, 112 and note; - and his sister, 127, 128; - C.'s lines to, 128 and note; - 163 n.; - correspondence with C. after his (Lamb's) mother's tragic death, 171 - and note; - 182; - extract from a letter to C., 197 n.; - 206 n.; - his _Grandame_, 206 n.; - C.'s poem on Burns addressed to, 206 and note, 207; - extract from a letter to C., 223 n.; - visits C. at Nether Stowey, 224 and note, 225-227; - temporary estrangement from C., 249-253; - his relations to the quarrel between C. and Southey, 304, 312, 320 n.; - visits C. at Greta Hall with his sister, 396 n.; - a Latin letter from, 400 n.; - 405 n., 421, 422, 460 n., 474; - his _Recollections of a Late Royal Academician_, 572 n.; - his connection with the reconciliation of C. and Wordsworth, 586-588, - 594; - on William Blake's paintings, engravings, and poems, 686 n.; - 704; - his _Superannuated Man_, 740; - 744; - his acquaintance with George Dyer, 748 n.; - 751 n., 760; - letter of condolence from C., 171; - other letters from C., 249, 586. - - _Lamb, Charles, Letters of_, 164 n., 171 n., 197 n., 396 n., 400 n., 465 - n., 466 n., 686 n., 748 n. - - _Lamb's Prose Works_, 4 n., 20 n., 25 n., 41 n. - - Lamb, Mary, 127, 128, 226 n.; - visits the Coleridges at Greta Hall with her brother Charles, 396 n.; - becomes worse and is taken to a private madhouse, 422; - 465; - learns from C. of his quarrel with Wordsworth, 590, 591; - endeavors to bring about a reconciliation between C. and Wordsworth, - 594; - 704. - - Lampedusa, island, essay on, 495 and note. - - Landlord at Keswick, C.'s, 335. - _See_ Jackson, Mr. - - Lardner, Nathaniel, D. D., his _Letter on the Logos_, 157; - his _History of the Heretics of the first two Centuries after Christ_, - 330; - on a passage in Josephus, 407. - - Latin essay by C., 29 n. - - Laudanum, used by C. in an attack of neuralgia, 173 and note, 174 and - note, 175-177; - 193, 240, 617, 659. - _See_ Opium. - - Lauderdale, James Maitland, Earl of, 689 and note. - - Law, human as distinguished from divine, 635, 636. - - Lawrence, Miss, governess in the family of Dr. Peter Crompton, 758 n.; - letter from C., 758. - - Lawrence, William, 711 n. - - Lawson, Sir Gilford, 270; - C. has free access to his library, 336; - 392. - - _Lay of the Last Minstrel, The_, by Scott, 523. - - _Lay Sermon_, the second, 669. - - Leach, William Elford, C. meets, 711 and note. - - Lecky, G. F., British Consul at Syracuse, 458; - C. entertained by, 485 n. - - Lectures, C.'s at the Royal Institution, 506 n., 507, 508, 511, 515, - 516, 522, 525; - at the rooms of the London Philosophical Society, 574 and note, 575 - and note; - a proposed course at Liverpool, 578; - preparations for another course in London, 579, 580, 582, 585; - at Willis's Rooms on the Drama, 595 and note, 596, 597, 599; - 602, 604; - an extempore lecture _On the Growth of the Individual Mind_, at the - rooms of the London Philosophical Society, 680 and note, 681; - regarded as a means of livelihood, 694; - on the History of Philosophy, delivered at the Crown and Anchor, - Strand, 698 and note. - - _Lectures on Shakespeare_, 575 n. - - _Lectures on Shakespeare and Other Dramatists_, 756 n. - - Leghorn, 498, 499 and note, 500. - - Le Grice, Charles Valentine, 23, 24; - his _Tineum_, 111 and note; - 225 and note, 325. - - Leibnitz, Gottfried Wilhelm, Baron von, 280, 360, 735. - - Leighton, Robert, Archbishop of Glasgow, his genius and character, 717, - 718; - his orthodoxy, 719; - C. proposes to compile a volume of selections from his writings, 719, - 720; - C. at work on the compilation, which, together with his own comment - and corollaries, is finally published as _Aids to Reflection_, 734 - and note. - - Leslie, Charles Robert, 695 and note; - his pencil sketch of C., 695 n.; - introduces a portrait of C. into an illustration for _The Antiquary_, - 736 and note. - - _Lessing, Life of_, C. proposes to write, 270; - 321, 323, 338. - - Letters, C.'s reluctance to open and answer, 534. - - _Letters from the Lake Poets_, 25 n., 86 n., 267 n., 366 n., 369 n., 527 - n., 534 n., 542 n., 543 n., 705 n. - - Letter smuggling, 459. - - _Letters on the Spaniards_, 629 and note. - - _Letter to a Noble Lord_, by Edmund Burke, 157 and note. - - Leviathan, the man-of-war, 467; - a majestic and beautiful creature, 471, 472; - 477. - - Lewis Monk, his play, _Castle Spectre_, 236 and note, 237, 238, 626. - - _Liberty, the Progress of_, 206. - - Life and death, meditations on, 283-287. - - Life-masks of C., 570 and note. - - _Lime-Tree Bower my Prison, this_, 225 and note, 226 and notes, 227, 228 - n. - - _Lines on a Friend who died of a Frenzy Fever_, 98 and note, 103 n., 106 - and note. - - _Lines to a Friend_, 8 n. - - _Lippincott's Magazine_, 674 n. - - Lisbon, the Rock of, 473. - - _Literary Life._ See _Biographia Literaria_. - - _Literary Remains_, 684 n., 740 n., 756 n., 761 n. - - Literature, a proposed History of British, 425-427, 429, 430. - - Literature as a profession, C.'s opinion of, 191, 192. - - Live nits, 360. - - Liverpool, 578. - - Liverpool, Lord, 665, 674. - - Llandovery, 411. - - Llanfyllin, 79. - - Llangollen, 80. - - Llangunnog, 79. - - Lloyd, Mr., father of Charles, 168, 186. - - Lloyd, Charles, and Woolman's Journal, 4 n.; - goes to live with C., 168-170; - character and genius of, 169, 170; - 184, 189, 190, 192, 205, 206; - his _Poems on the Death of Priscilla Farmer_, 206 n.; - 207 n., 208 n.; - with C. at Nether Stowey, 213; - 238; - a serious quarrel with C., 238, 245 n., 246, 249-253; - his _Edmund Oliver_ drawn from C.'s life, 252 and note; - his relations to the quarrel between C. and Southey, 304; - reading Greek with Christopher Wordsworth, 311; - unworthy of confidence, 311, 312; - his _Edmund Oliver_, 311; - his moral sense warped, 322, 323; - settles at Ambleside, 344; - C. spends a night with him at Bratha, 394; - 563; - his _History of Highgate_, 572 n., 578. - - Llyswen, 234 n., 235 n. - - Loch Katrine, 431, 432 and note, 433. - - Loch Lomond, 431, 432 n., 433, 440. - - Locke, John, C.'s opinion of his philosophy, 349-351, 648; - 713. - - Lockhart, Mr., 756. - - Lodore, the waterfall of, 335, 408. - - Lodore mountains, the, 370. - - _Logic, The Elements of_, 753 n. - - _Logic, The History of_, 753 n. - - _Logos, Letter on the_, by Dr. Nathaniel Lardner, 157. - - London, Bishop of, 739; - his favourable opinion of _Aids to Reflection_, 741. - - London Philosophical Society, C.'s lectures at the rooms of, 574 and - note, 575 and note, 680 n. - - Longman, Mr., the publisher, 319, 321; - on anonymous publications, 324, 325; - 328, 329, 341, 349, 357; - loses money on C.'s translation of _Wallenstein_, 403; - 593. - - Lonsdale, Lord, 538 n., 550, 733 n. - - Losh, James, 219 and note. - - Louis XVI., the death of, 219 and note. - - _Love_, George Dawe engaged on a picture to illustrate C.'s poem, 573. - - _Love and the Female Character_, C.'s lecture, 574 n., 575 and note. - - Lovell, Robert, 75; - C.'s opinion of his poems, 110; - 114; - his _Farmhouse_, 115, 121, 122, 139, 147, 150; - dies, 159 n.; - 317 n. - - _Lovell, Robert, and Robert Southey of Balliol College, Bath, Poems by_, - 107 n. - - Lovell, Mrs. Robert (Mary Fricker), 122, 159 and note, 485. - - _Lover's Complaint to his Mistress, A_, 36. - - _Low was our pretty Cot_, C.'s opinion of, 224. - - Lubec, 274, 275. - - Lucretius, his philosophy and his poetry, 648. - - Luff, Captain, 369 and note, 547. - - _Luise, ein laendliches Gedicht in drei Idyllen_, by Johann Heinrich - Voss, quotation from, 203 n.; - an emphatically original poem, 625; - 627. - - Lueneburg, 278. - - Lushington, Mr., 101. - - Luss, 431. - - _Lycon, Ode to_, by Robert Southey, 107 n., 108. - - _Lyrical Ballads_, by Coleridge and Wordsworth, 336, 337, 341, 350 and - note, 387, 607, 678. - - - Macaulay, Alexander, death of, 491. - - Mackintosh, Sir James, his rejected offer to procure a place for C. - under himself in India, 454, 455; - C.'s dislike and distrust of, 454 n., 455 n.; - 596. - - Macklin, Harriet, 751 and note, 764. - - Madeira, 442, 451, 452. - - _Madoc_, by Southey, C. urges its completion and publication, 314, 467; - 357; - C.'s enthusiasm for, 388, 489, 490; - a divine passage of, 463 and note. - - _Mad Ox, The_, 219 n., 327. - - Magee, William, D. D., 761 n. - - _Magnum Opus._ See _Christianity, the one true Philosophy_. - - _Maid of Orleans_, 239. - - Malta, C. plans a trip to, 457, 458; - the voyage to, 469-481; - sojourn at, 481-484, 487-497; - army affairs at, 554, 555. - - Maltese, the, 483 and note, 484 and note. - - Maltese, Regiment, the, 554, 555. - - _Malvern Hills_, by Joseph Cottle, 358. - - Manchester Massacre, the, 702 n. - - Manchineel, 223 n. - - Marburg, 291. - - Margarot, 166, 167 n. - - Markes, Rev. Mr., 310. - - Marriage as a means of ensuring the nature and education of children, - 216, 217. - - Marsh, Herbert, Bishop of Peterborough, his lecture on the authenticity - and credibility of the books collected in the New Testament, 707, - 708. - - Martin, Rev. H., 74 n., 81 n. - - _Mary, the Maid of the Inn_, by Southey, 223. - - Massena, Marshal, defeats the Russians at Zurich, 308 and note. - - Masy, Mr., 40. - - Mathews, Charles, C. hears and sees his entertainment, _At Home_, 704, - 705; - letter from C., 621. - - _Mattathias, The Death of_, by Robert Southey, 108 and note. - - Maurice, Rev. John Frederick Dennison, 771 n. - - Maxwell, Captain, of the Royal Artillery, 493, 495, 496. - - McKinnon, General, 309 n. - - Medea, a subject for a tragedy, 399. - - Meditation, C.'s habits of, 658. - - Medwin, Capt. Thomas, his _Conversations of Lord Byron_, 735 and note. - - Meerschaum pipes, 277. - - _Melancholy, a Fragment_, 396 and note, 397. - - Memory of childhood in old age, 428. - - Mendelssohn, Moses, 203 n., 204 n. - - _Men of the Time_, 317 n. - - Merry, Robert, 86 n. - - Messina, 485, 486. - - Metaphysics, 102, 347-352; - C. proposes to write a book on Locke, Hobbes, and Hume, 349, 350; - in poetry, 372; - effect of the study of, 388; - C.'s projected great work on, 632 and note, 633; - of the German philosophers, 681-683, 735; - 712, 713. - See _Christianity, the One True Philosophy_, Philosophy, Religion. - - Meteyard, Eliza, her _Group of Englishmen_, 269 n., 308 n. - - _Method, Essay on the Science of_, 681 and note. - - Methuen, Rev. T. A., 652 and note. - - _Microcosm_, 43 and note. - - Middleton, H. F. (afterwards Bishop of Calcutta), 23, 25, 32, 33. - - Milman, Henry Hart, 737 and note. - - Milton, John, 164, 197 and note; - a sublimer poet than Homer or Virgil, 199, 200; - the imagery in _Paradise Lost_ borrowed from the Scriptures, 199, 200; - his _Accidence_, 331; - on poetry, 387; - his platonizing spirit, 406, 407; - 678, 734. - - Milton, Lord, 567 and note. - - Mind _versus_ Nature, in youth and later life, 742, 743. - - _Minor Poems_, 317 n. - - _Miscellanies, Aesthetic and Literary_, 711 n. - - _Miss Rosamond_, by Southey, 108 and note. - - Mitford, Mary Russell, 63 n. - - Molly, 11. - - Monarchy likened to a cockatrice, 73. - - _Monday's Beard, On Mrs._, 9 n. - - Money, Rev. William, 651 n.; - letter from C., 651. - - _Monody on the Death of Chatterton_, 110 n., 158 n., 620 n. - - _Monologue to a Young Jackass in Jesus Piece_, 119 n. - - _Monopolists_, 335 n. - - Montagu, Basil, 363 n., 511 n.; - causes a misunderstanding between C. and Wordsworth, 578, 586-591, - 593, 599, 612; - endeavours to have an associateship of the Royal Society of Literature - conferred on C., 726, 727; - his efforts successful, 728; - 749. - - Montagu, Mrs. Basil, her connection with the quarrel between C. and - Wordsworth, 588, 589, 591, 599. - - _Monthly Magazine_, the, 179 and note, 185, 197, 215, 251 n., 310, 317. - - Moore, Thomas, his _Lalla Rookh_, 672; - his misuse of the possessive case, 672. - - Moors, C.'s opinion of, 478. - - Morality and religion, 676. - - Moreau, Jean Victor, 449 and note. - - Morgan, Mrs., 145, 148. - - Morgan, John James, 524, 526; - a faithful and zealous friend, 580; - C. confides the news of his quarrel with Wordsworth to, 591, 592; - 596, 650, 665; - letter from C., 575. - - Morgan, Mrs. John James, C.'s affection for, 565; - 578, 600, 618, 650, 722 n.; - letter from C., 524. - - Morgan family, the (J. J. Morgan, his wife, and his wife's sister, Miss - Charlotte Brent), C.'s feelings of affection, esteem, and - gratitude towards, 519, 520, 524-526, 565; - C. visits, 566-575 and note, 579-622; - 585; - C. confides the news of his quarrel with Wordsworth to, 591, 592; - C. regards as his saviours, 592; - 600 n.; - with C. at Calne, 641-653; - their faithful devotion to C., 657, 722 n.; - letters from C., 519, 524, 564. - - Mortimer, John Hamilton, 373 and note. - - _Motion of Contentment_, by Archdeacon Paley, 47. - - Motley, J. C., 467-469, 475. - - Mountains, of Portugal, 470, 473; - about Gibraltar, 478. - - Mumps, the, 545 and note. - - Murray, John, 581; - proposes to publish a translation of _Faust_, 624-626; - his connection with the publication of _Zapolya_, 666 and note, - 667-669; - offers C. two hundred guineas for a volume of specimens of Rabbinical - wisdom, 667 n.; - 699 n.; - proposal from C. to compile a volume of selections from Archbishop - Leighton, 717-720; - 723; - his proposal to publish an edition of C.'s poems, 787; - letters from C., 624, 665, 717. - - _Murray, John, Memoirs of_, 624 n., 666 n. - - Music, 49. - - Myrtle, praise of the, 745, 746. - - Mythology, Greek and Roman, contrasted with Christianity, 199, 200. - - - Nanny, 260, 295. - - Naples, 486, 502. - - Napoleon, 308, 327 n., 329 and note; - his animosity against C., 498 n.; - 530 n.; - C.'s cartoon and lines on, 642. - - _Napoleon Bonaparte, Life of_, by Sir Walter Scott, 174 n. - - _Natural Theology_, by William Paley, 424 n., 425 n. - - Nature, her influence on the passions, 243, 244; - Mind and, two rival artists, 742, 743. - - _Natur-philosophen_, C. on the, 682, 683. - - _Navigation and Discovery, The Spirit of_, by William Lisle Bowles, 403 - and note. - - Necessitarianism, the sophistry of, 454. - - Neighbours, 186. - - Nelson, Lady, 637. - - Nelson, Lord, 637 and note. - - Nesbitt, Fanny, C.'s poem to, 56, 57. - - Netherlands, the, 751. - - Nether Stowey, 165 and note; - C. proposes to move to, 184-194; - arrangements for moving to, 209; - settled at, 213; - C.'s description of his place at, 213; - Thelwall urged not to settle at, 232-234; - the curate-in-charge of, 267 n.; - 297, 325, 366; - C.'s last visit to, 405 n.; - 497 n. - - Neuralgia, a severe attack of, 173-177. - - Newcome's (Mr.) School, 7, 25 n. - - Newlands, 393 and note, 411, 725. - - _New Monthly Magazine_, 257. - - Newspapers, freshness necessary for, 568. - - New Testament, the, Bishop March's lecture on the authenticity and - credibility of the books collected in, 707, 708. - - Newton, Mr., 48. - - Newton, Mrs., sister of Thomas Chatterton, 221, 222. - - Newton, Sir Isaac, 352. - - _Nightingale, The, a Conversational Poem_, 296 n. - - _Ninathoma, The Complaint of_, 51. - - Nixon, Miss Eliza, unpublished lines of C. to, 773 n., 774 n.; - letter from C., 773. - - Nobs, Dr. Daniel Dove's horse, in _The Doctor_, 583 and note, 584. - - _No more the visionary soul shall dwell_, 109 and note, 208 n. - - Nordhausen, 273. - - Northcote, Sir Stafford, 15 and note. - - Northmore, Thomas, C. dines with, 306, 307; - an offensive character to the aristocrats, 310. - - North Wales, C.'s tour of, 72-81. - - _Notes on Hamlet_, 684 n. - - _Notes on Noble's Appeal_, 684 n. - - _Notes Theological and Political_, 684 n., 761 n. - - Nottingham, 153, 154, 216. - - Novi, Suwarrow's victory at, 307 and note. - - Nuremberg, 555. - - - Objective, different meanings of the term, 755. - - _Observations on Egypt_, 486 n. - - Ocean, the, by night, 260. - - _Ode in the manner of Anacreon, An_, 35. - - _Ode on the Poetical Character_, by William Collins, 196. - - _Odes to Great People_, by Thomas Hood, 250 n. - - _Ode to Dejection_, 378 and note, 379 and note, 380-384, 405 n. - - _Ode to Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire_, 320 and note, 330. - - _Ode to Lycon_, by Robert Southey, 107 n., 108. - - _Ode to Romance_, by Robert Southey, 107 and note. - - _Ode to the Departing Year_, 212 n.; - C.'s reply to Thelwall's criticisms on, 218 and note; - 221. - - _Ode to the Duchess_, 320 and note, 330. - - _O gentle look, that didst my soul beguile_, a sonnet, 111, 112 and note. - - Ogle, Captain, 63 and note. - - Ogle, Lieutenant, 374 n. - - Ogle, Dr. Newton, Dean of Westminster, his Latin Iambics, 374 and note. - - Oken, Lorenz, his _Natural History_, 736. - - _Old Man in the Snow_, 110 and note. - - _Omniana_, by C. and Southey, 9 n., 554 n., 718 n. - - _On a Discovery made too late_, 92 and note, 123 n. - - _On a late Connubial Rupture_, 179 n. - - _On an Infant who died before its Christening_, 287. - - _Once a Jacobin, always a Jacobin_, 414. - - _On Revisiting the Sea-Shore_, 361 n. - - Onstel, 97 n. - - _On the Slave Trade_, 43 and note. - - Opium, C.'s early use of, and beginning of the habit, 173 and note, 174 - and note, 175; - first recourse to it for the relief of mental distress, 245 n.; - daily quantity reduced, 413; - regarded as less harmful than other stimulants, 413; - 420; - its use discontinued for a time, 434, 435; - anguish and remorse from its abuse, 616-621, 623, 624; - in order to free himself from the slavery, C. arranges to live with - Mr. James Gillman as a patient, 657-659; - a final effort to give up the use of it altogether, 760 and note; - the habit regulated and brought under control, but never entirely done - away with, 760 n., 761 n. - - Oporto, seen from the sea, 469, 470. - - _Orestes_, by William Sotheby, 402, 409, 410. - - Original Sin, C. a believer in, 242. - - _Original Sin, Letter on_, by Jeremy Taylor, 640. - - _Origine de tous les Cultes, ou Religion universelle_, by Charles - Francois Dupuis, 181 and note. - - _Origin, Nature, and Object of the New System of Education_, by Andrew - Bell, D. D., 581 and note, 582. - - _Osorio_, a tragedy, 10 n., 229 and note, 231, 284 n., 603 n. - See _Remorse_. - - Ossian, hexameters in, 398. - - Otter, the river, 14, 15. - - Ottery St. Mary, 6-8, 305 n.; - C. wished by his family to settle at, 325; - C.'s last visit to, 405 n.; - a proposed visit to, 512, 513; - 745 n. - - Owen, William, 425 n. - - _O what a loud and fearful shriek was there_, a sonnet, 116 n., 117. - - Owls, care of, in Germany, 293. - - Oxford University, C.'s feeling towards, 45, 72. - - - Paignton, 305 n. - - _Pain_, a sonnet, 174 n. - - Pain, C. interested in, 341. - - _Pains of Sleep, The_, 435-437 and note. - - Paley, William, Archdeacon of Carlisle, his _Motives of Contentment_, 47; - his _Natural Theology_, 424 and note; - 713. - - Palm, John Philip, his pamphlet reflecting on Napoleon leads to his - trial and execution, 530 and note; - C. translates his pamphlet, 530. - - Pantisocracy, 73, 79, 81, 82, 88-91, 101-103, 109 n., 121, 122, 134, - 135, 138-141, 143-147, 149, 317 n., 748 n. - - _Paradise Lost_, by Milton, its imagery borrowed from the Scriptures, - 199, 200. - - Parasite, a, 705. - - Parliamentary Reform, essay on, 567. - - Parndon House, 506 n., 507, 508. - - Parret, the river, 165. - - Parties, political, in England, 242. - - Pasquin, Antony, 603 and note. - - Patience, 203 and note. - - Patteson, Hon. Mr. Justice, 726 n. - - Paul, Charles Kegan, his _William Godwin: His Friends and - Contemporaries_, 161 n., 324 n., 465 n. - - _Pauper's Funeral_, by Robert Southey, 108 and note, 109. - - _Peace and Union_, by William Friend, 24 n. - - Pearce, Dr., Master of Jesus College, 23, 24, 65, 70-72. - - _Pedlar, The_, former title of Wordsworth's _Excursion_, 337 and note. - - Peel, Sir Robert, 689 n. - - Penche, M. de la, 49. - - Penmaen Mawr, C.'s ascent of, 81 n. - - Penn, William, 539. - - Pennington, W., 541, 542 n., 544. - - Penrith, 420, 421, 547, 548, 575 n. - - Penruddock, 420, 421. - - Perceval, Rt. Hon. Spencer, assassination of, 597, 598 and note. - - Perdita, _see_ Robinson, Mrs. Mary. - - _Peripatetic, The, or Sketches of the Heart, of Nature, and of Society_, - by John Thelwall, 166 and note. - - Perry, James, 114. - - _Perspiration. A Travelling Eclogue_, 73. - - Peterloo, 702 n. - - _Philip Van Artevelde_, by Sir Henry Taylor, 774 and note. - - Phillips, Elizabeth (C.'s half sister), 54 n. - - Phillips, Sir Richard, 317 and note, 325, 327. - - Phillips, Thomas, R. A., 699; - his two portraits of C., 699 and note, 700, 740; - his portrait of William Hart Coleridge, Bishop of Barbadoes and the - Leeward Islands, 740 and note. - - _Philological Museum_, 733 n. - - Philosophy, 648-650; - German, 681-683; - C.'s lectures on the History of, 698 and note. - _See_ Metaphysics _and_ Religion. - - Pickering, W., 579 n. - - _Picture, The: or The Lover's Resolution_, 405 n., 620 n. - - Pinney, Mr., of Bristol, 163 n.; - his estate in the West Indies, 360, 361. - - Pipes, meerschaum, 277. - - Pisa, C.'s stay at, 499 n., 500 n.; - his account of, 500 n. - - Pitt, Rt. Hon. William, C.'s report in the _Morning Post_ of his speech - on the continuance of the war with France, 327 and note; - proposed articles on, 505; - C.'s detestation of, 535 and note; - 629 and note. - - _Pixies' Parlour, The_, 222. - - Plampin, J., 70 and note. - - Plato, his _gorgeous_ nonsense, 211; - his theology, 406. - - Playing-cards, German, 263. - - Pleasure, intoxicating power of, 370. - - Plinlimmon, C.'s ascent of, 81 n. - - _Plot Discovered, The_, 156 and note. - - _Poems by Robert Lovell and Robert Southey of Balliol College, Bath_, - 107 n. - - Poems and fragments of poems introduced by C. into his letters, 28, 35, - 36, 51, 52, 54, 56, 73, 75, 77, 83, 92, 94, 98, 100, 111-113, 207, - 212, 225, 355, 379-384, 388, 389, 397, 404, 412, 435-437, 553, - 609, 620, 642, 646, 702, 770, 771. - - _Poems on the Death of Priscilla Farmer_, by Charles Lloyd, 206 and note. - - _Poetical Character, Ode on the_, by Collins, 196. - - _Poetry, Concerning_, a proposed book, 347, 386, 387. - - Poetry, C. proposes to write an essay on, 338, 347, 386, 387; - Greek and Hebrew, 405, 406. - - Poetry, C.'s, not obscure or mystical, 194, 195. - - Poland, 329. - - Political parties in England, 242. - - Politics, 240-243, 546, 550, 553, 574, 702, 712, 713, 757. - _See_ Democracy, Pantisocracy, Republicanism. - - Poole, Richard, 249. - - Poole, Mrs. Richard, 248. - - Poole, Thomas, contributes to _The Watchman_, 155; - collects a testimonial in the form of an annuity of L35 or L40 for C., - 158 n.; - C.'s gratitude, 158, 159; - C. proposes to visit, 159; - C.'s affection for, 168, 210, 258, 609, 610, 753; - C. proposes to visit him with Charles Lloyd, 170; - C.'s happiness at the prospect of living near, 173; - his connection with C.'s removal to Nether Stowey, 183-193, 208-210; - 213, 219, 220; - his opinion of Wordsworth, 221; - 232 and note, 233, 239, 257, 258, 260, 282 n., 289; - effects a reconciliation between C. and Southey, 390; - 308, 319; - C.'s reasons for not naming his third son after, 344; - death of his mother, 364; - 396, 437 n.; - nobly employed, 453; - his rectitude and simplicity of heart, 454; - 456 n.; - his forgetfulness, 460; - 515, 523; - extract from a letter from C., 533 n.; - a visit to Grasmere proposed, 545; - his narrative of John Walford, 553 and note; - C. complains of unkindness from, 609, 610; - 639 n., 657; - meets C. at Samuel Purkis's, Brentford, 673; - extract from a letter from C. about Samuel Purkis, 673 n.; - autobiographical letters from C., 3-18; - other letters from C., 136, 155, 158, 168, 172, 176, 183-187, 208, - 248, 249, 258, 267, 282, 305, 335, 343, 348, 350, 364, 452, 454, - 541, 544, 550, 556, 609, 673, 753. - - _Poole, Thomas, and his Friends_, by Mrs. Henry Sandford, 158 n., 165 - n., 170 n., 183 n., 232 n., 234 n., 258, 267 n., 282 n., 391 n., - 335 n., 456 n., 533 n., 553 n., 673 n., 676 n. - - Poole, William, 176. - - Pope, the, C. leaves Rome at a warning from, 498 n. - - Pope, Alexander, his _Essay on Man_, 648; - a favorite walk of, 671. - - Pople, Mr., publisher of C.'s tragedy, _Remorse_, 602. - - Porson, Mr., 114, 115. - - Portinscale, 393 and note. - - Portraits of C., crayon sketch by Dawe, 572 and note; - full-length portrait by Allston begun at Rome, 572 and note; - portrait by Allston taken at Bristol, 572 n.; - pencil sketch by Leslie, 695 n.; - two portraits by Thomas Phillips, 699 and note, 700, 740; - Wyville's proofs, 770. - - Portugal, C. on Southey's proposed history of, 387, 388, 423; - the coast of, 469-471, 473. - - Possessive case, Moore's misuse of the, 672. - - _Post, Morning_, 310; - C. writing for, 320 and note, 324, 326, 327 and note, 329 and note; - 331, 335 n., 337, 376, 378 n., 379 n., 398, 404 n., 405, 414, 423, - 455 n.; - Napoleon's animosity aroused by C.'s articles in, 498 n.; - its notice of C.'s tragedy, _Remorse_, 603 n. - - Postage, rates too high, 345. - - _Posthumous Fame_, 29 n. - - Potter, Mr., 97 and note, 106. - - Poverty, in England, 353, 354; - blessings of, 364. - - Pratt, 321. - - _Prelude, The_, by Wordsworth, a reference to C. in, 486 n.; - C.'s lines _To William Wordsworth_ after hearing him recite, 641, 644, - 646, 647 and note; - C.'s admiration of, 645, 647 n. - - Pride, 149. - - Priestley, Joseph, C.'s sonnet to, 116 and note; - his doctrine as to the future existence of infants, 286. - - _Progress of Liberty, The_, 296. - - _Prometheus of Aeschylus, Essay on the_, 740 and note. - - Property, to be modified by the predominance of intellect, 323. - - Pseudonym, [Greek: Estese], 398; - its meaning, 407 and note, 408. - - _Public Characters for 1799-1800_, published by Richard Phillips, 317 n. - - _Puff and Slander_, projected satires, 630 and notes, 631 n. - - Purkis, Samuel, 326, 673 n. - - - Quack medicine, a German, 264. - - _Quaker Family, Records of a_, by Anne Ogden Boyce, 538 n. - - Quaker girl, inelegant remark of a little, 362, 368. - - Quakerism, 415; - C.'s belief in the essentials of, 539-541; - C.'s definition of, 556. - - Quakers, as subscribers to _The Friend_, 556, 557. - - Quakers and Unitarians, the only Christians, 415. - - Quantocks, the, 405 n. - - _Quarterly Review, The_, 606; - its review of _The Letters of Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton_, 637 and - note, 667; - reechoes C.'s praise of Cary's Dante, 677 n.; - its attitude towards C., 697, 723; - John Taylor Coleridge editor of, 736 and notes, 737. - - - _Rabbinical Tales_, 667 and note, 669. - - Racedown, C.'s visit to Wordsworth at, 163 n., 220 and note, 221. - - _Race of Banquo, The_, by Southey, 92 and note. - - Rae, Mr., an actor, 611, 667. - - _Rainbow, The_, by Southey, 108 and note. - - Ramsgate, 700, 722, 729-731, 742-744. - - Ratzeburg, 257; - C.'s stay in, 262-278; - the Amtmann of, 264, 268, 271; - description of, 273-277; - C. leaves, 278; - 292-294. - - "Raw Head" and "Bloody Bones," 45. - - Reading, _see_ Books. - - Reading, Berkshire, 66, 67. - - Reason and understanding, the distinction between, 712, 713. - - _Recluse, The_, a projected poem by Wordsworth of which _The Excursion_ - (q. v.) was to form the second part and to which _The Prelude_ (q. - v.) was to be an introduction, C.'s hopes for, 646, 647 and note, - 648-650. - - _Recollections of a Late Royal Academician_, by Charles Lamb, 572 n. - - _Records of a Quaker Family_, by Anne Ogden Boyce, 538 n. - - Redcliff, 144. - - Redcliff Hill, 154. - - _Reflection, Aids to_, 688 n. - - _Reflections on having left a Place of Retirement_, 606 n. - - Reform Bill, 760, 762. - - Reich, Dr., 734, 736. - - _Rejected Addresses_, by Horace and James Smith, 606. - - Religion, beliefs and doubts of C. in regard to, 64, 68, 69, 88, 105, - 106, 127, 135, 152, 153, 159-161, 167, 171, 172, 198-205, 210, - 211, 228, 229, 235 n., 242, 247, 248, 285, 286, 342, 364, 365, - 407, 414, 415, 444, 538-541, 617-620, 624, 676, 688, 694, 706-712, - 746-748, 750, 754, 758-760, 762, 763, 771, 775, 776. - - _Religious Musings_, 239. - - _Reminiscences of Cambridge_, by Henry Gunning, 24 n., 363 n. - - _Reminiscences of Coleridge and Southey_, by Cottle, 268 n., 269 n., - 417, 456 n., 617 n. - - Remorse, C.'s definition of, 607. - - _Remorse, A Tragedy_ (_Osorio_ rewritten), rehearsal of, 600; - has a brief spell of success, 600 n., 602, 604, 610, 611; - business arrangements as to its publication, 602; - press notices of, 603 and note, 604; - William Gifford's criticism of, 605; - the underlying principle of the plot of, 607, 608; - wretchedly acted, 608, 611; - metres of, 608; - lack of pathos in, 608; - plagiarisms in, 608; - labors occasioned to C. by its production and success, 610; - financial success of, 611; - _Quarterly Review's_ criticism of, 630; - 696. - - Repentance preached by the Christian religion, 201. - - Reporting the debates for the _Morning Post_, 324, 326, 327. - - Republicanism, 72, 79-81, 243. - _See_ Democracy, Pantisocracy. - - _Retrospect, The_, by Robert Southey, 107 and note. - - Revelation, 676. - - Reynell, Richard, 497 and note. - - Rheumatism, C.'s sufferings from, 174 n., 193, 209, 307, 308, 432, 433. - - Rhine, the, 751. - - Richards, George, 41 and note. - - Richardson, Mrs., 145. - - Richter, Jean Paul, his _Vorschule der Aisthetik_, 683 and note. - - Rickman, John, 456 n., 459, 462, 542, 599. - - Ridgeway and Symonds, publishers, 638 n. - - _Robbers, The_, by Schiller, 96 and note, 97, 221. - - Roberts, Margaret, 358 n. - - Robespierre, Maximilian Marie Isidore, 203 n., 329 n. - - _Robespierre, The Fall of_, 85 and note, 87, 93, 104 and notes. - - Robinson, Frederick John (afterwards Earl of Ripon), his Corn Bill, 643 - and note. - - Robinson, Henry Crabb, 225 n., 593, 599, 670 n.; - in old age, 671 n.; - reads William Blake's poems to Wordsworth, 686 n.; - extract from a letter from C. to, 689 n.; - his _Diary_, 225 n., 575 n., 591 n., 595 n., 686 n., 689 n.; - letter from C., 671. - - Robinson, Mrs. Mary ("Perdita"), contributes poems to the _Annual - Anthology_, 322 and note; - her _Haunted Beach_, 331, 332; - her ear for metre, 332. - - Roman Catholicism in Germany, 291, 292. - - _Romance, Ode to_, by Southey, 107 and note. - - Rome, C.'s flight from, 498 n.; - 501, 502. - - _Rosamund, Miss_, by Southey, 108 and note. - - _Rosamund to Henry; written after she had taken the veil_, by Southey, - 108 n. - - Roscoe, William, 359 and note. - - Rose, Sir George, 456 and note. - - _Rose, The_, 54 and note. - - Rose, W., 542. - - Roskilly, Rev. Mr., 267 n., 270; - letter from C., 267. - - Ross, 77. - - Ross, the Man of, 77, 651 n. - - Rossetti, Gabriele, 731 and note, 732, 733. - - Rough, Sergeant, 225 and note. - - Royal Institution, C. obtains a lectureship at the, 506 n., 507, 508, - 511; - an outline of proposed lectures at the, 515, 516, 522; - C.'s lectures at the, 525. - - Royal Society of Literature, the, Basil Montagu's endeavors to secure - for C. an associateship of, 726, 727; - C. an associate of, 728; - 731; - an essay for, 737, 738; - C. reads an _Essay on the Prometheus of Aeschylus_ before, 739, 740. - - Rulers, always as bad as they dare to be, 240. - - Rush, Sir William, 368. - - Rushiford, 358. - - Russell, Mr., of Exeter, C.'s fellow-traveller, 498 n., 500 and note. - - Rustats, 24, 43. - - _Ruth_, by Wordsworth, 387. - - Ruthin, 78. - - - St. Albyn, Mrs., the owner of Alfoxden, 232 n. - - St. Augustine, 375. - - St. Bees, 392, 393. - - St. Blasius, 292. - - St. Clear, 411, 412. - - St. Lawrence, near Maldon, description of, 690-692. - - _St. Leon_, by Godwin, the copyright sold for L400, 324, 325. - - St. Nevis, 360, 361. - - St. Paul's _Epistle to the Hebrews_, 200. - - Salernitanus, 566 and note. - - Salisbury, 53-55. - - Samuel, C.'s dislike of the name, 470, 471. - - Sandford, Mrs. Henry, 183 n.; - her _Thomas Poole and his Friends_, 158 n., 165 n., 170 n., 183 n., - 232 n., 234 n., 258, 267 n., 282 n., 319 n., 335 n., 456 n., 533 - n., 553 n., 673 n., 676 n. - - Saturday Club, the, at Goettingen, 281. - - _Satyrane's Letters_, 257, 274 n., 558. - - Savage, Mr., 534. - - Savory, Mr., 316. - - Scafell, 393, 394; - in a thunderstorm on, 400 and note; - view from the summit of, 400, 401; - suggests the _Hymn before Sunrise in the Vale of Chamouni_, 404 and - note, 405 and note. - - Scale Force, 375. - - Scarborough, 361-363. - - Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von, the philosophy of, 683, 735. - - Schiller, his _Robbers_, 96 and note, 97, 221; - C. translates manuscript plays of, 331; - C.'s translation of his _Wallenstein_, 403, 608. - - Scholarship examinations, 24, 43, 45 and note, 46. - - Schoening, Maria Eleanora, the story of, 555 and note, 556. - - Scoope, Emanuel, second Viscount Howe, 262 n. - - Scotland, C.'s tour in, 431-441; - the four most wonderful sights in, 439, 440. - - Scott, an attorney, his manner of revenging himself on C., 310, 311. - - Scott, Sir Walter, his _Life of Napoleon Bonaparte_, 174 n.; - his house in Edinburgh, 439; - takes Hartley C. to the Tower, 511 n.; - his offer to use his influence to get a place for Southey on the staff - of the _Edinburgh Review_, 522 and note, 522; - his _Lay of the Last Minstrel_, 523; - 605, 694; - his _Antiquary_, 736 and note. - - Sea-bathing, 361 n., 362 and note. - - Seasickness, no sympathy for, 743, 744. - - _Sermoni propriora_, 606 and note. - - Shad, 82, 89, 96. - - Shaftesbury, Lord, 689 n. - - _Shakespeare, Lectures on_, 557 n. - - _Shakespeare and other Dramatists, Lectures on_, 756 n. - - Sharp, Richard, 447 n.; - letter from C., 447. - - Shepherds, German, 293. - - _Sheridan, R. B., Esq., To_, 116 n., 118. - - Shrewsbury, C. offered the Unitarian pastorate at, 235 and note, 236. - - _Sibylline Leaves_, 178 n., 378 n., 379 n., 404 n.; - C. ill-used by the printer of, 673, 674; - 678, 770. - - Sicily, C. plans to visit, 457, 458; - C.'s first tour in, 485 and note, 486 and note, 487; - 523. - - Siddons, Mrs., 50. - - Sieyes, Abbe, 329 and note. - - _Sigh, The_, 100 and note. - - _Simplicity, Sonnet to_, 251 and note. - - Sin, original, C. a believer in, 242. - - Sincerity, regarded by Dr. Darwin as vicious, 161. - - _Sixteen Sonnets_, by Bampfylde, 369 n. - - Skiddaw, 335, 336; - sunset over, 384. - - Skiddaw Forest, 376 n. - - Slavery, question of its introduction into the proposed pantisocratic - colony, 89, 90, 95, 96. - - _Slave Trade, History of the Abolition of the_, by Thomas Clarkson, C.'s - review of, 527 and note, 528-530, 535, 536. - - _Slave Trade, On the_, 43 and note. - - Slee, Miss, 362, 363. - - Sleep, C.'s sufferings in, 435, 440, 441, 447. - - Smerdon, Mrs., 21, 22. - - Smerdon, Rev. Mr., Vicar of Ottery, 22, 106 and note. - - Smith, Charlotte, 326. - - Smith, Horace and James, their _Rejected Addresses_, 606. - - Smith, James, 704. - - Smith, Raphael, 701 n. - - Smith, Robert Percy (Bobus), 43 and note. - - Smith, William, M. P., 506 n., 507 and note. - - Snuff, 691, 692 and note. - - _Social Life at the English Universities_, by Christopher Wordsworth, - 225 n. - - _Something Childish, but Very Natural_, quoted, 294. - - _Song_, 100. - - _Songs of the Pixies_, 222. - - _Sonnet_, an anonymous, 177, 178. - - _Sonnet composed on a journey homeward, the author having received - intelligence of the birth of a son_, 194 and note, 195. - - Sonnets, 111, 112, and note; - to Priestley, 116 and note; - to Kosciusko, 116 n., 117; - to Godwin, 116 n., 117; - to Sheridan, 116 n., 117, 118; - to Burke, 116 n., 118; - to Southey, 116 n., 120; - a selection of, privately printed by C., 177, 206 and note; - by "Nehemiah Higginbottom," 251 n. - - _Sonnets, Sixteen_, by Bampfylde, 309 n. - - _Sonnet to Simplicity_, 251 and note. - - _Sonnet to the Author of the Robbers_, 96 n. - - Sorrel, James, 21. - - Sotheby, William, C. translates Gesner's _Erste Schiffer_ at his - instance, 369, 371, 372, 376-378, 397, 402, 403; - his translation of the Georgics of Virgil, 375; - his _Poems_, 375; - his _Netley Abbey_, 396; - his _Welsh Tour_, 396; - his _Orestes_, 402, 409, 410; - proposes a fine edition of _Christabel_, 421, 422; - 492, 579, 595 n., 604, 605; - letters from C., 369, 376, 396-408. - - Sotheby, Mrs. William, 369, 375, 378. - - Soul and body, 708, 709. - - South Devon, 305 n. - - Southey, Lieutenant, 563. - - Southey, Bertha, daughter of Robert S., born, 546, 547 and note, 578. - - Southey, Catharine, daughter of Robert S., 578. - - Southey, Rev. Charles Cuthbert, his _Life and Correspondence of Robert - Southey_, 308 n., 309 n., 327 n., 329 n., 384 n., 395 n., 400 n., - 425 n., 488 n., 521 n., 584 n., 748 n.; - on the date of composition of _The Doctor_, 583 n. - - Southey, Edith, daughter of Robert S., 578. - - Southey, Dr. Henry, 615 and note. - - Southey, Herbert, son of Robert S., 578; - his nicknames, 583 n. - - Southey, Margaret, daughter of Robert S., born, 394 n., 395 n.; - dies, 435 n. - - Southey, Mrs. Margaret, mother of Robert S., 138, 147. - - Southey, Robert, his and C.'s _Omniana_, 9 n., 554 n., 718 n.; - his _Botany Bay Eclogues_, 76 n., 116; - proposed emigration to America with a colony of pantisocrats, 81, 82, - 89-91, 95, 96, 98, 101-103; - his sonnets, 82, 83, 92, 108; - his connection with C.'s engagement to Miss Sarah Fricker, 84-86, 126; - his _Race of Banquo_, 92 and note; - 97 n.; - his _Retrospect_, 107 and note; - his _Ode to Romance_, 107 and note; - his _Ode to Lycon_, 107 n., 108; - his _Death of Mattathias_, 108 and note; - his sonnets, _To Valentine_, _The Fire_, _The Rainbow_, 108 and notes; - his _Rosamund to Henry_, 108 and notes; - his _Pauper's Funeral_, 108 and note, 109; - his _Chapel Bell_, 110 and note; - C. prophesies fame for, 110; - his _Elegy_, 115; - C.'s sonnet to, 116 n., 120; - lines to Godwin, 120; - suggestion that the proposed colony of pantisocrats be founded in - Wales, 121, 122; - his sonnet, _Hold your mad hands!_, 127 and note; - his abandonment of pantisocracy causes a serious rupture with C., - 134-151; - marries Edith Fricker, 137 n.; - his _Joan of Arc_, 141, 149, 178 and note, 210, 319; - 163 n.; - the poet for the patriot, 178; - 198 and note; - his verses to a college cat, 207; - C. compares his poetry with his own, 210; - personal relations with C. after the partial reconciliation, 210, 211; - his exertions in aid of Chatterton's sister, 221, 222; - his _Mary the Maid of the Inn_, 223; - C.'s _Sonnet to Simplicity_ not written with reference to, 251 and - note; - a more complete reconciliation with C., 303, 304; - visits C. at Stowey with his wife, 304; - C., with his wife and child, visits him at Exeter, 305 and note; - accompanies C. on a walking tour in Dartmoor, 305 and note; - his _Specimens of the Later English Poets_, 309 n.; - his _Madoc_, 314, 357, 388, 463 and note, 467, 489, 490; - his _Thalaba the Destroyer_, 314, 319, 324, 357, 684; - out of health, 314; - C. suggests his removing to London, 315; - George Dyer's article on, 317 and note; - _The Devil's Thoughts_, written in collaboration with C., 318; - 320 n.; - thinks of going abroad for his health, 326, 329, 360, 361; - an advocate of the establishment of Protestant orders of Sisters of - Mercy, 327 n.; - proposes the establishment of a magazine with signed articles, 328 n.; - extract from a letter to C. on the condition of France, 329 n.; - C. begs him to make his home at Greta Hall, 354-356, 362, 391, 392, - 394, 395; - 367, 379 n.; - his proposed history of Portugal, 387, 388, 423; - secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequer for Ireland for a short - time, 390 and note; - birth of his first child, Margaret, 394 n., 395 n.; - his admiration of Bowles and its effect on his poems, 396; - 400 n.; - his prose style, 423; - his proposed bibliographical work, 428-430; - makes a visit to Greta Hall which proves permanent, 435; - death of his little daughter, Margaret, 435 and note, 437; - his first impressions of Edinburgh, 438 n.; - 442; - on Hartley and Derwent Coleridge, 443; - 460, 463, 468, 484, 488 n.; - poverty, 490; - his _Wat Tyler_, 507 n.; - declines an offer from Scott to secure him a place on the staff of the - _Edinburgh Review_, 521 and note; - 542 n.; - extract from a letter to J. N. White, 545 n.; - on the mumps, 545 n.; - 546; - birth of his daughter Bertha, 546, 547 and note; - 548; - corrects proofs of _The Friend_, 551 and note; - 575; - C.'s love and esteem for, 578; - his family in 1812, 578; - C.'s estimate of, 581; - on the authorship of _The Doctor_, 583 n., 584 n.; - 585; - C. states his side of the quarrel with Wordsworth in conversation - with, 592; - 604, 609 n., 615, 617 n.; - writes of his friend John Kenyon, 639 n.; - his protection of C.'s family, 657; - C.'s letter introducing Mr. Ludwig Tieck, 670; - his _Curse of Kehama_, 684; - 694, 718, 724; - his _Book of the Church_, 724; - 726; - his acquaintance with George Dyer, 748 n.; - letters from C., 72-101, 106-121, 125, 134, 137, 221, 251 n., 303, - 307-332, 354-361, 365, 384, 393, 415, 422-430, 434, 437, 464, - 469, 487, 520, 554, 597, 605, 670; - letter to Miss Sarah Fricker, 107 n. - See _Annual Anthology_, the, edited by Southey. - - _Southey, Robert, Life and Correspondence of_, by Rev. Charles Cuthbert - Southey, 108 n., 308 n., 309 n., 327 n., 329 n., 384 n., 395 n., - 400 n., 425 n., 488 n., 521 n., 584 n., 736 n., 748 n. - - _Southey, Robert, Selections from Letters of_, 305 n., 438 n., 447 n., - 543 n., 545 n., 583 n., 584 n., 736 n. - - _Southey, Robert, of Balliol College, Bath, Poems by Robert Lovell and_, - 107 n. - - Southey, Mrs. Robert (Edith Fricker), Southey's sonnet to, 127 and note; - 384, 385, 390-392; - birth of her first child, Margaret, 394 n., 395 n.; - 484; - birth of her daughter Bertha, 546, 547 and note; - 592. - - Southey, Thomas, 108 n., 109 n., 147; - a midshipman on the Sylph at the time of her capture, 308 and note. - - South Molton, 5. - - _Spade of a Friend (an Agriculturist), To the_, by Wordsworth, in honor - of Thomas Wilkinson, 538 n. - - Spaniards, C.'s opinion of, 478. - - _Spaniards, Letters on the_, 629 and note. - - Sparrow, Mr., head-master of Newcome's Academy, 24, 25 n. - - _Specimens of the Later English Poets_, by Southey, 309 n. - - _Spectator_, Addison's, studied by C. in connection with _The Friend_, - 557, 558. - - Speedwell, the brig, 467; - on board, 469-481. - - Spenser, Edmund, his _View of the State of Ireland_, 638 and note; - quotation from, 694. - - Spillekins, 462, 468. - - Spinoza, Benedict, 632. - - _Spirit of Navigation and Discovery, The_, by William Lisle Bowles, 403 - and note. - - _Spiritual Philosophy, founded on the Teaching of S. T. Coleridge_, by - J. H. Green, with memoir of the author's life, by Sir John Simon, - 680 n. - - Spurzheim, Johann Kaspar, his life-mask and bust of C., 570 n. - - Stage, illusion of the, 663. - - _Stamford News_, 567 n. - - Stanger, Mrs. Joshua (Mary Calvert), 345 n. - - _Stanzas written in my Pocket Copy of Thomson's Castle of Indolence_, by - Wordsworth, 345 n. - - Steam vessels, 730 and note, 743. - - Steffens, Heinrich, 683. - - Steinburg, Baron, 279. - - Steinmetz, Adam, C.'s letter to his friend, John Peirse Kennard, after - his death, 762; - his character and amiable qualities, 763, 764, 775. - - Steinmetz, John Henry, 762 n. - - Stephen, Leslie, on C.'s study of Kant, 351 n. - - Stephens (Stevens), Launcelot Pepys, 25 and note. - - _Sterling, Life of_, by Carlyle, 771 n., 772 n. - - Sterling, John, his admiration for C., 771 n., 772 n.; - letter from C., 771. - - _Sternbald's Wanderungen_, by Ludwig Tieck, 683 and note. - - Stevens (Stephens), Launcelot Pepys, 25 and note. - - Stoddart, Dr. (afterwards Sir) John, 477 and note, 481, 508; - detains C.'s books and MSS., 523; - 524. - - Stoke House, C. visits the Wedgwoods at, 673 n. - - Storm, on a mountain-top, 339, 340; - with lightning in December, 365, 366; - on Scafell, 400 and note; - in Kirkstone Pass, 418-420. - - Stowey, _see_ Nether Stowey. - - Stowey Benefit Club, 233. - - Stowey Castle, 225 n. - - Street, Mr., editor of the _Courier_, 506, 533, 567, 568, 570, 616, 629, - 634; - his unsatisfactory conduct of the _Courier_, 661, 662. - - Strutt, Mr., 152, 153. - - Strutt, Edward (Lord Belper), 215 n. - - Strutt, Joseph, 215 n., 216, 367. - - Strutt, Mrs. Joseph, 216. - - Strutt, William, 215 and note. - - Stuart, Miss, a personal reminiscence of C. by, 705 n. - - Stuart, Daniel, proprietor and editor of the _Morning Post_ and - _Courier_, 311, 315; - engages C. for the _Morning Post_, 319, 320; - 321, 329; - engages lodgings in Covent Garden for C., 366 n.; - on C.'s dislike of Sir James Mackintosh, 454 n., 455 n.; - 458, 468, 474, 486 n., 507, 508, 519, 520, 542, 543 n.; - a friend of Dr. Henry Southey, 615 n.; - his steadiness and independence of character, 660; - his public services, 660; - his knowledge of men, 660; - letters from C., 475, 485, 493, 501, 505, 533, 545, 547, 566, 595, - 615, 627, 634, 660, 663, 740. - See _Courier_ and _Post, Morning_. - - Stutfield, Mr., amanuensis and disciple of C., 753 and note. - - Sugar, beet, 299 and note. - - _Sun, The_, 633. - - Sunset in the Lake Country, a, 384. - - Supernatural, C.'s essay on the, 684. - - Superstitions of the German bauers, 291, 292, 294. - - Suwarrow, Alexander Vasilievitch, 307 and note. - - Swedenborg, Emanuel, his _De Cultu et Amore Dei_, 684 n.; - his _De Coelo et Inferno_, 684 n.; - 688, 729, 730. - - Swedenborgianism, C. and, 684 n. - - Swift, Jonathan, his _Drapier_ Letters, 638 and note. - - Sylph, the gun-brig, capture of, 308 n. - - Sympathy, C.'s craving for, 696, 697. - - _Synesius_, by Canterus, 67 and note, 68. - - Syracuse, Sicily, 458; - C.'s visit to, 485 n., 486 n. - - - _Table Talk_, 81 n., 440 n., 624 n., 633 n., 684 n., 699 n., 756 n., - 763 n., 764 n. - - _Table Talk and Omniana_, 9 n., 554 n., 571 n., 718 n., 764 n. - - Tatum, 53, 54. - - Taunton, 220 n.; - C. preaches for Dr. Toulmin in, 247. - - Taxation, C.'s Essay on, 629 and note. - - Taxes, 757. - - Taylor, Sir Henry, his _Philip Van Artevelde_, 774 and note. - - Taylor, Jeremy, his _Dissuasion from Popery_, 639; - his _Letter on Original Sin_, 640; - a complete man, 640, 641. - - Taylor, Samuel, 9. - - Taylor, William, 310; - on double rhymes in English, 332; - 488, 489. - - Tea, 412, 413, 417. - - Temperance, suggestions as to the furtherance of the cause of, 767-769. - - _Temple, The_, by George Herbert, 694. - - Teneriffe, 414, 417. - - Terminology, C. wishes to form a better, 755. - - _Thalaba the Destroyer_, by Southey, 414; - C.'s advice as to publishing, 319; - 324, 357, 684. - - _The Hour when we shall meet again_, 157. - - Thelwall, John, his radicalism, 159, 160; - his criticisms of C.'s poetry, 163, 164, 194-197, 218; - on Burke, 166; - his _Peripatetic, or Sketches of the Heart, of Nature, and of - Society_, 166 and note; - his _Essay on Animal Vitality_, 179, 212; - his _Poems_, 179, 197; - his contemptuous attitude towards the Christian Religion, 198-205; - two odes by, 218; - C. criticises a poem and a so-called sonnet by, 230; - C. advises him not to settle at Stowey, 232-234; - letter to Dr. Crompton on the Wedgwood annuity, 234 n.; - extract from a letter from C. on the Wedgwood annuity, 235 n.; - letters from C., 159, 166, 178, 193, 210, 214, 228-232. - - Thelwall, Mrs. John (Stella, first wife of preceding), 181, 205, 206 n., - 207, 214. - - Theology, C.'s great interest in, 406; - C.'s projected great work on, 632 and note, 633. - - _Theory of Life_, 711 n. - - _The piteous sobs which choke the virgin's breast_, a sonnet by C., 206 - n. - - _This Lime-Tree Bower my Prison_, 225 and note, 226 and notes, 227, 228 - n. - - Thompson, James, 343 and note. - - Thornycroft, Hamo, R. A., 570 n.; - his bust of C., 695 n. - - _Thou gentle look, that didst my soul beguile_, see _O gentle look_, etc. - - _Though king-bred rage with lawless tumult rude_, a sonnet, 116 and note. - - Thought, a rule for the regulation of, 244, 245. - - _Three Graves, The_, 412 and note, 551, 606. - - Thunder-storm, in December, 365, 366; - on Scafell, 400 and note. - - Tieck, Ludwig, a letter of introduction from C. to Southey, 670; - two letters to C. from, 670 n.; - 671, 672, 680; - his _Sternbald's Wanderungen_, 663 and note; - 699. - - _Times, The_, 327 n.; - its notice of C.'s tragedy _Remorse_, 603 and note. - - _Tineum_, by C. Valentine Le Grice, 111 and note. - - Tiverton, 56. - - _To a Friend, together with an Unfinished Poem_, 128 n., 454 n. - - _To a friend who had declared his intention of writing no more poetry_, - 206 n. - - _To a Gentleman_, 647 n. - See _To William Wordsworth_. - - _To a Highland Girl_, by Wordsworth, 459. - - _To a Young Ass; its mother being tethered near it_, 119 and note, 120, - 606 and note. - - _To a Young Lady, with a Poem on the French Revolution_, 94 and note. - - _To a Young Man of Fortune who had abandoned himself to an indolent and - causeless melancholy_, 207 and note, 208 and note. - - Tobin, Mr., his habit of advising 474, 475. - - Tobin, James, 460 n. - - Tobin, John, 460 n. - - _To Bowles_, 111 and note. - - _To Disappointment_, 28. - - Tomalin, J., his _Shorthand Report of Lectures_, 11 n., 575 n. - - _To Matilda Betham. From a Stranger_, 404 n. - - Tomkins, Mr., 397, 402, 403. - - _To my own Heart_, 92 n. - - Tooke, Andrew, 455 n.; - his _Pantheon_, 455 and note. - - Tooke, Horne, 218. - - _To one who published in print what had been intrusted to him by my - fireside_, 252 n. - - Torbay, 305 n. - - _To R. B. Sheridan, Esq._, 116 n., 118. - - _To the Spade of a Friend (an Agriculturist)_, by Wordsworth, in honor - of Thomas Wilkinson, 538 n. - - Totness, 305. - - Toulmin, Rev. Dr., 220 n.; - tragic death of his daughter, 247, 248. - - _Tour in North Wales_, by J. Hucks, 74 n., 81 n. - - _Tour over the Brocken_, 257. - - _Tour through Parts of Wales_, by William Sotheby, 396. - - _To Valentine_, by Southey, 108 and note. - - Towers, 321. - - _To William Wordsworth_, 641, 644; - C. quotes from, 646, 647; - 647 n. - - Treaty of Vienna, 615 and note. - - Trossachs, the, 431, 432, 440. - - Tuckett, G. L., 57 n.; - letter from C., 57. - - Tulk, Charles Augustus, 684 n.; - letters from C., 684, 712. - - Turkey, 329. - - Turner, Sharon, 425 n., 593. - - _Two Founts, The_, 702 n. - - _Two Round Spaces on a Tombstone, The_, the hero of, 455. - - _Two Sisters, To_, 702 n. - - Tychsen, Olaus, 398 and note. - - Tyson, T., 393. - - - Ulpha Kirk, 393. - - Understanding, as distinguished from reason, 712, 713. - - Unitarianism, 415, 758, 759. - - Upcott, C. visits Josiah Wedgwood at, 308. - - Usk, the vale of, 410. - - - _Valentine, To_, by Southey, 108 and note. - - Valetta, Malta, C.'s visit to, 481-484, 487-497. - - Valette, General, 484; - given command of the Maltese Regiment, 554, 555. - - Vane, Sir Frederick, his library, 296. - - _Velvet Cushion, The_, by Rev. J. W. Cunningham, 651 and note. - - Vienna, Treaty of, 615 and note. - - Violin-teacher, C.'s, 49. - - Virgil's _Aeneid_, Wordsworth's unfinished translation of, 733 and note, - 734. - - Virgil's _Georgics_, William Sotheby's translation, 375. - - _Visions of the Maid of Orleans, The_, 192, 206. - - Vital power, definition of, 712. - - Vogelstein, Karl Christian Vogel von, a letter of introduction from - Ludwig Tieck to C., 670 n. - - Von Axen, Messrs. P. and O., 269 n. - - Voss, Johann Heinrich, his _Luise_, 203 n., 625, 627; - his _Idylls_, 398. - - Voyage to Malta, C.'s, 469-481. - - - Wade, Josiah, 137 n., 145, 151 n., 152 n., 191, 288; - publication by Cottle of Coleridge's letter of June 26, 1814, to, 616 - n., 617 n.; - letters from C., 151, 623. - - Waithman, a politician, 598. - - Wakefield, Edward, his _Account of Ireland_, 638. - - Wales, proposed colony of pantisocrats in, 121, 122, 140, 141. - - _Wales, Tour through Parts of_, by William Sotheby, 396. - - Wales, North, C.'s tour of, 72-81. - - Wales, South, C.'s tour of, 410-414. - - Walford, John, Poole's narrative of, 553 and note. - - Walker, Thomas, 162. - - Walk into the country, a, 32, 33. - - _Wallenstein_, by Schiller, C.'s translation of, 403, 608. - - Wallis, Mr., 498-500, 523. - - Wallis, Mrs., 392. - - _Wanderer's Farewell to Two Sisters, The_, 722 n. - - Ward, C. A., 763 n. - - Ward, Thomas, 170 n. - - Wardle, Colonel, leads the attack on the Duke of York in the House of - Commons, 543 and note. - - Warren, Parson, 18. - - Wastdale, 393, 401. - - _Watchman, The_, 57 n.; - C.'s tour to procure subscribers for, 151 and note, 152-154; - 155-157; - discontinued, 158; - 174 n., 611. - - Watson, Mrs. Henry, 698 n., 702 n. - - _Wat Tyler_, by Southey, 506 n. - - Wedgwood, Josiah, 260, 261, 268, 269 n.; - visit from C. at Upcott, 308; - his temporary residence at Upcott, 308 n.; - 337 n., 350, 351 and note, 416 n.; - withdraws his half of the Wedgwood annuity from C., 602, 611 and note; - C.'s regard and love for, 611, 612. - - Wedgwood, Josiah and Thomas, settle on C. an annuity for life of L150, - 234 and note, 235 and note; - 269 n., 321. - - Wedgwood, Miss Sarah, 412, 416, 417. - - Wedgwood, Thomas, 323, 379 n.; - with C. in South Wales, 412, 413; - his fine and subtle mind, 412; - proposes to pass the winter in Italy with C., 413, 414, 418; - 415, 416; - a genuine philosopher, 448, 449; - C.'s gratitude towards, 451; - 456 n., 493; - C.'s love for, mingled with fear, 612; - letter from C., 417. - - Welles, A., 462. - - Wellesley, Marquis of, 674. - - Welsh clergyman, a, 79, 80. - - Wensley, Miss, an actress, and her father, 704. - - Wernigerode Inn, 298 n. - - West, Mr., 633. - - Whitbread, Samuel, 598. - - White, Blanco, 741, 744. - - White, J. N., extract from a letter from Southey, 545 n. - - White Water Dash, 375 and note, 376 n. - - Wilberforce, William, 535. - - Wilkie, Sir David, his portraits of Hartley C., 511 n.; - his _Blind Fiddler_, 511 n. - - Wilkinson, Thomas, 538 n.; - letter from C., 538. - - Will, lunacy or idiocy of the, 768. - - Williams, Edward (Iolo Morgangw), 162 and note. - - Williams, John ("Antony Pasquin"), 603 n. - - Wilson, Mrs., housekeeper for Mr. Jackson of Greta Hall, 461 and note, - 491; - Hartley C.'s attachment for, 510. - - Wilson, Professor, 756. - - Windy Brow, 346. - - _Wish written in Jesus Wood, February 10, 1792, A_, 35. - - _With passive joy the moment I survey_, an anonymous sonnet, 177, 178. - - _With wayworn feet, a pilgrim woe-begone_, a sonnet by Southey, 127 and - note. - - Wolf, Freiherr Johann Christian von, 735. - - Wollstonecraft, Mary, 316, 318 n., 321. - - Woodlands, 271. - - Woolman, John, 540. - - _Woolman, John, the Journal of_, 4 and note. - - Worcester, 154. - - Wordsworth, Catherine, 563. - - Wordsworth, Rev. Christopher, D. D., 225 n.; - Charles Lloyd reads Greek with, 311. - - Wordsworth, Rev. Christopher, M. A., his _Social Life at the English - Universities in the Eighteenth Century_, 225 n. - - Wordsworth, Rt. Rev. Christopher, D. D., his _Memoirs of William - Wordsworth_, 432 n., 585 n. - - Wordsworth, Dorothy, 10 n.; - C.'s description of, 218 n.; - visits C. with her brother, 224-227; - 228, 231, 245 n., 249; - goes to Germany with William Wordsworth, Coleridge, and John Chester, - 259; - with her brother at Goslar, 272, 273; - returns with him to England, 288, 296; - 311 n., 346, 367, 373, 385; - accompanies her brother and C. on a tour in Scotland, 431, 432 and - note; - 577, 599 n. - - Wordsworth, John, son of William W., 545. - - Wordsworth, Captain John, and the effect of his death on C.'s spirits, - 494 and note, 495 and note, 497. - - Wordsworth, Thomas, death of, 599 n.; - C.'s love of, 600. - - Wordsworth, William, 10 n., 163 and note, 164 and note, 218 n.; - visit from C. at Racedown, 220 and note, 221; - greatness of, 221, 224; - settles at Alfoxden, near Stowey, 224; - at C.'s cottage, 224-227; - C. visits him at Alfoxden, 227; - 228, 231, 232; - suspected of conspiracy against the government, 232 n., 233; - memoranda scribbled on the outside sheet of a letter from C., 238 n.; - his greatness and amiability, 239; - his _Excursion_, 244 n., 337 n., 585 n., 641, 642, 645-650; - 245; - C.'s admiration for, 246; - 250 n.; - accompanies C. to Germany, 259; - 268, 269 n.; - considers settling near the Lakes, 270; - 271; - at Goslar with his sister, 272, 273; - an _Epitaph_ by, 284; - returns to England, 288, 296; - wishes C. to live near him in the North of England, 296; - his grief at C.'s refusal, 296, 297; - 304, 313; - his and C.'s _Lyrical Ballads_, 336, 337, 341, 350 and note, 387; - his admiration for _Christabel_, 337; - 338, 342; - proposal from William Calvert in regard to sharing his house and - studying chemistry with him, 345, 346; - his _Stanzas written in my Pocket Copy of Thomson's Castle of - Indolence_, 345 n.; - 348, 350; - marries Miss Mary Hutchinson, 359 n.; - 363, 367, 370, 373; - his opinion of poetic license, 373-375; - C. addresses his _Ode to Dejection_ to, 378 and note, 379 and note, - 380-384; - 385-387; - his _Ruth_, 387; - 400, 418, 428; - with C. on a Scotch tour, 431-434; - his _Peter Bell_, 432 and note; - 441, 443; - receives a visit at Grasmere from C., who is taken ill there, 447; - his hypochondria, 448; - his happiness and philosophy, 449, 450; - a most original poet, 450; - 451; - his _To a Highland Girl_, 459; - 464, 468; - his reference to C. in _The Prelude_, 386 n.; - 452; - his _Brothers_, 494 n., 609 n.; - his _Happy Warrior_, 494 n.; - extract from a letter to Sir George Beaumont on John Wordsworth's - death, 494 n.; - 511 and note, 522; - his essays on the Convention of Cintra, 534 and note, 543 and note, - 548-550; - 535; - his _To the Spade of a Friend_, 558 n.; - 543 and note, 546, 522, 553 n., 556; - C.'s misunderstanding with, 576 n., 577, 578, 586-588, 612; - his _Essays upon Epitaphs_, 585 and note; - a long-delayed explanation from C., 588-595; - reconciled with C., 596, 597, 599, 612; - death of his son Thomas, 599 n.; - second rupture with C., 599 n., 600 n.; - his projected poem, _The Recluse_, 646, 647 and note, 648-650; - 678; - on William Blake as a poet, 686 n.; - his unfinished translation of the _Aeneid_, 733 and note, 734; - felicities and unforgettable lines and stanzas in his poems, 734; - influence of the _Edinburgh Review_ on the sale of his works in - Scotland, 741, 742; - 759 n.; - letters from C., 234, 588, 596, 599, 643, 733. - - _Wordsworth, William, Life of_, by Rev. William Angus Knight, LL. D., - 164 n., 220 n., 447 n., 585 n., 591 n., 596 n., 599 n., 600 n., - 733 n., 759 n. - - _Wordsworth, William, Memoirs of_, by Christopher Wordsworth, 432 n., - 550 n., 585 n. - - _Wordsworth, William, To_, 641, 644; - C. quotes from, 646, 647; - 647 n. - - Wordsworth, Mrs. William, extract from a letter to Sara Coleridge, 220; - 525. - _See_ Hutchinson, Mary. - - Wordsworths, the, visit from C. and his son Hartley at Coleorton - Farmhouse, 509-514; - 545; - letter from C., 456. - - Wrangham, Francis, 363 and note. - - Wrexham, 77, 78. - - Wright, Joseph, A. R. A. (Wright of Derby), 152 and note. - - Wright, W. Aldis, 174 n. - - Wynne, Mr., an old friend of Southey's, 639 n. - - Wyville's proofs of C.'s portrait, 770. - - - Yarmouth, 258, 259. - - Yates, Miss, 39. - - Yews near Brecon, 411. - - York, Duke of, 543 n., 555 n., 567 and note. - - Young, Edward, 404. - - _Youth and Age_, 730 n. - - - _Zapolya: A Christmas Tale, in two Parts_, its publication in book form - after rejection by the Drury Lane Committee, 666 and note, 667-669. - - - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[1] Pickering, 1838. - -[2] The Journal of John Woolman, the Quaker abolitionist, was published in -Philadelphia in 1774, and in London in 1775. From a letter of Charles -Lamb, dated January 5, 1797, we may conclude that Charles Lloyd had, in -the first instance, drawn Coleridge's attention to the writings of John -Woolman. Compare, too, _Essays of Elia_, "A Quakers' Meeting." "Get the -writings of John Woolman by heart; and love the early Quakers." _Letters -of Charles Lamb_, 1888, i. 61; _Prose Works_, 1836, ii. 106. - -[3] I have been unable to trace any connection between the family of -Coleridge and the Parish or Hundred of Coleridge in North Devon. -Coldridges or Coleridges have been settled for more than two hundred years -in Doddiscombsleigh, Ashton, and other villages of the Upper Teign, and to -the southwest of Exeter the name is not uncommon. It is probable that at -some period before the days of parish registers, strangers from Coleridge -who had settled farther south were named after their birthplace. - -[4] Probably a mistake for Crediton. It was at Crediton that John -Coleridge, the poet's father, was born (Feb. 21, 1718) and educated; and -here, if anywhere, it must have been that the elder John Coleridge "became -a respectable woollen-draper." - -[5] John Coleridge, the younger, was in his thirty-first year when he was -matriculated as sizar at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, March 18, 1748. -He is entered in the college books as _filius Johannis textoris_. On the -13th of June, 1749, 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. His mother came from -the neighbourhood, and several of his father's scholars, among them -Francis Buller, afterwards the well-known judge, followed him from South -Molton to Ottery St. Mary. - -[6] George Coleridge was Chaplain Priest, and Master of the King's School, -but never Vicar of Ottery St. Mary. - -[7] Anne ("Nancy") Coleridge died in her twenty-fifth year. Her illness -and early death form the subject of two of Coleridge's early sonnets. -_Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge_, Macmillan, 1893, p. 13. See, -also, "Lines to a Friend," p. 37, and "Frost at Midnight," p. 127. - -[8] A mistake for October 21st. - -[9] Compare some doggerel verses "On Mrs. Monday's Beard" which Coleridge -wrote on a copy of Southey's _Omniana_, under the heading of "Beards" -(_Omniana_, 1812, ii. 54). Southey records the legend of a female saint, -St. Vuilgefortis, who in answer to her prayers was rewarded with a beard -as a mark of divine favour. The story is told in some Latin elegiacs from -the _Annus Sacer Poeticus_ of the Jesuit Sautel which Southey quotes at -length. Coleridge comments thus, "_Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixere!_ -What! can nothing be one's own? This is the more vexatious, for at the age -of eighteen I lost a legacy of Fifty pounds for the following Epigram on -my Godmother's Beard, which she had the _barbarity_ to revenge by striking -me out of her Will." - -The epigram is not worth quoting, but it is curious to observe that, even -when scribbling for his own amusement, and without any view to -publication, Coleridge could not resist the temptation of devising an -"apologetic preface." - -The verses, etc., are printed in _Table Talk and Omniana_, Bell, 1888, p. -391. The editor, the late Thomas Ashe, transcribed them from Gillman's -copy of the _Omniana_, now in the British Museum. I have followed a -transcript of the marginal note made by Mrs. H. N. Coleridge before the -volume was cut in binding. Her version supplies one or two omissions. - -[10] The meaning is that the events which had taken place between March -and October, 1797, the composition, for instance, of his tragedy, -_Osorio_, the visit of Charles Lamb to the cottage at Nether Stowey, the -settling of Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy at Alfoxden, would hereafter -be recorded in his autobiography. He had failed to complete the record of -the past, only because he had been too much occupied with the present. - -[11] He records his timorous passion for fairy stories in a note to _The -Friend_ (ed. 1850, 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 _Arabian 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 nature of man and not feel deeply for the affliction of -others possessing like powers and like nature?" Tomalin's _Shorthand -Report of Lecture V._ - -[12] Compare a MS. note dated July 19, 1803. "Intensely hot day, left off -a waistcoat, and for yarn wore silk stockings. Before nine o'clock had -unpleasant chillness, heard a noise which I thought Derwent's in sleep; -listened and found it was a calf bellowing. Instantly came on my mind that -night I slept out at Ottery, and the calf in the field across the river -whose lowing so deeply impressed me. Chill and child and calf lowing." - -[13] Sir Stafford, the seventh baronet, grandfather of the first Lord -Iddesleigh, was at that time a youth of eighteen. His name occurs among -the list of scholars who were subscribers to the second edition of the -_Critical Latin Grammar_. - -[14] Compare a MS. note dated March 5, 1818. "Memory counterfeited by -present impressions. One great cause of the coincidence of dreams with the -event--[Greek: he meter eme]." - -[15] The date of admission to Hertford was July 18, 1782. Eight weeks -later, September 12, he was sent up to London to the great school. - -[16] Compare the 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 Works_, 1836, ii. -27; _Autobiography of Leigh Hunt_, 1860, p. 60. - -[17] Coleridge's "letters home" were almost invariably addressed to his -brother George. It may be gathered from his correspondence that at rare -intervals he wrote to his mother as well, but, contrary to her usual -practice, she did not, with this one exception, preserve his letters. It -was, indeed, a sorrowful consequence of his "long exile" at Christ's -Hospital, that he seems to have passed out of his mother's ken, that -absence led to something like indifference on both sides. - -[18] Compare the autobiographical note of 1832 as quoted by Gillman. About -this time he became acquainted with a widow lady, "whose son," says he, -"I, as upper boy, had protected, and who therefore looked up to me, and -taught me what it was to have a mother. I loved her as such. She had three -daughters, and of course I fell in love with the eldest." _Life of -Coleridge_, p. 28. - -[19] Scholarship of Jesus College, Cambridge, for sons of clergymen. - -[20] At this time Frend was still a Fellow of Jesus College. Five years -had elapsed since he had resigned from conscientious motives the living of -Madingley in Cambridgeshire, but it was not until after the publication of -his pamphlet _Peace and Union_, in 1793, that the authorities took alarm. -He was deprived of his Fellowship, April 17, and banished from the -University, May 30, 1793. Coleridge's demeanour in the Senate House on the -occasion of Frend's trial before the Vice-Chancellor forms the subject of -various contradictory anecdotes. See _Life of Coleridge_, 1838, p. 55; -_Reminiscences of Cambridge_, Henry Gunning, 1855, i. 272-275. - -[21] The Rev. George Caldwell was afterwards Fellow and Tutor of Jesus -College. His name occurs among the list of subscribers to the original -issue of _The Friend_. _Letters of the Lake Poets_, 1889, p. 452. - -[22] "First Grecian of my time was Launcelot Pepys Stevens [Stephens], -kindest of boys and men, since the Co-Grammar Master, and inseparable -companion of Dr. T[rollop]e." _Lamb's Prose Works_, 1835, ii. 45. He was -at this time Senior-Assistant Master at Newcome's Academy at Clapton near -Hackney, and a colleague of George Coleridge. The school, which belonged -to three generations of Newcomes, was of high repute as a private academy, -and commanded the services of clever young schoolmasters as assistants or -ushers. Mr. Sparrow, whose name is mentioned in the letter, was -headmaster. - -[23] A Latin essay on _Posthumous Fame_, described as a declamation and -stated to have been composed by S. T. Coleridge, March, 1792, is preserved -at Jesus College, Cambridge. Some extracts were printed in the College -magazine, _The Chanticleer_, Lent Term, 1886. - -[24] _Poetical Works_, p. 19. - -[25] _Ibid._ p. 19. - -[26] _Poetical Works_, p. 20. - -[27] Robert Allen, Coleridge's earliest friend, and almost his exact -contemporary (born October 18, 1772), was admitted to University College, -Oxford, as an exhibitioner, in the spring of 1792. He entertained -Coleridge and his _compagnon de voyage_, Joseph Hucks, on the occasion of -the memorable visit to Oxford in June, 1794, and introduced them to his -friend, Robert Southey of Balliol. He is mentioned in letters of Lamb to -Coleridge, June 10, 1796, and October 11, 1802. In both instances his name -is connected with that of Stoddart, and it is probable that it was through -Allen that Coleridge and Stoddart became acquainted. For anecdotes -concerning Allen, see Lamb's Essay, "Christ's Hospital," etc., _Prose -Works_, 1836, ii. 47, and _Leigh Hunt's Autobiography_, 1860, p. 74. See, -also, _Letters to Allsop_, 1864, p. 170. - -[28] George Richards, a contemporary of Stephens, and, though somewhat -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 his mark as a clergyman, as -Bampton Lecturer (in 1800), and as Vicar of St. Martin-in-the-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 Exhibitioners, from 1566-1885_, compiled by -A. M. Lockhart. - -[29] 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. - -[30] For complete text of the Greek Sapphic Ode, "On the Slave Trade," -which obtained the Browne gold medal for 1792, see Appendix B, p. 476, to -Coleridge's _Poetical Works_, Macmillan, 1893. See, also, Mr. Dykes -Campbell's note on the style and composition of the ode, p. 653. I possess -a transcript of the Ode, taken, I believe, by Sara Coleridge in 1823, on -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 compliment to -the superior genius of his brother the author, composed the following -lines:-- - -IBI HAEC 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 on 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." - -[31] He was matriculated as pensioner March 31, 1792. He had been in -residence since September, 1791. - -[32] For the Craven Scholarship. In an article contributed to the -_Gentleman's Magazine_ of December, 1834, portions of which are printed in -Gillman's _Life of Coleridge_, C. V. Le Grice, a co-Grecian with Coleridge -and Allen, gives the names of the four competitors. The successful -candidate was Samuel Butler, afterwards Head Master of Shrewsbury and -Bishop of Lichfield. _Life of Coleridge_, 1838, p. 50. - -[33] Musical glee composer, 1769-1821. _Biographical Dictionary._ - -[34] _Poetical Works_, p. 20. - -[35] Francis Syndercombe Coleridge, who died shortly after the fall of -Seringapatam, February 6, 1792. - -[36] Edward Coleridge, the Vicar of Ottery's fourth son, was then -assistant master in Dr. Skinner's school at Salisbury. His marriage with -an elderly widow who was supposed to have a large income was a source of -perennial amusement to his family. Some years after her death he married -his first cousin, Anne Bowdon. - -[37] 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 -Autobiographical Notes of 1832. _Life of Coleridge_, 1838, p. 9. - -[38] The brother of Mrs. Luke and of Mrs. George Coleridge. - -[39] 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 Chymist," but afterwards known as -"Kisses." - -[40] G. L. Tuckett, to whom this letter was addressed, was the first to -disclose to Coleridge's family the unwelcome 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 be induced to -reveal the secret. He was, I presume, a college acquaintance,--possibly an -old Blue, who had left the University and was reading for the bar. In an -unpublished letter from Robert Allen to Coleridge, dated February, 1796, -there is an amusing reference to this kindly _Deus ex Machina_. "I called -upon Tuckett, who thus prophesied: 'You know how subject Coleridge is to -fits of idleness. Now, I'll lay any wager, Allen, that after three or four -numbers (of the _Watchman_) the sheets will contain nothing but -parliamentary debates, and Coleridge will add a note at the bottom of the -page: "I should think myself deficient in my duty to the Public if I did -not give these interesting debates at _full_ length."'" - -[41] It would seem that there were alleviations to the misery and -discomfort of this direful experience. In a MS. note dated January, 1805, -he recalls as a suitable incident for a projected work, _The Soother in -Absence_, the "_Domus quadrata hortensis_, at Henley-on-Thames," and "the -beautiful girl" who, it would seem, soothed the captivity of the forlorn -trooper. - -[42] In the various and varying reminiscences of his soldier days, which -fell "from Coleridge's own mouth," and were repeated by his delighted and -credulous hearers, this officer plays an important part. Whatever -foundation of fact there may be for the touching anecdote that the Latin -sentence, "_Eheu! quam infortunii miserrimum est fuisse felicem_," -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 discharge. He may have exerted himself -privately, but his name does not occur in the formal correspondence which -passed between Coleridge's brothers and the military authorities. - -[43] The Compasses, now The Chequers, High Wycombe, where Coleridge was -billeted just a hundred years ago, appears to have preserved its original -aspect. - -[44] See Notes to _Poetical Works of Coleridge_ (1893), p. 568. The -"intended translation" was advertised in the _Cambridge Intelligencer_ for -June 14 and June 16, 1794: "Proposals for publishing by subscription -_Imitations from the Modern Latin Poets, with a Critical and Biographical -Essay on the Restoration of Literature_. By S. T. Coleridge, of Jesus -College, Cambridge.... - -"In the course of the Work will be introduced a copious selection from the -Lyrics of Casimir, and a new Translation of the Basia of Secundus." - -One ode, "Ad Lyram," was printed in _The Watchman_, No. 11, March 9, 1796, -p. 49. - -[45] The _Barbou Casimir_, published at Paris in 1759. - -[46] Compare the note to chapter xii. of the _Biographia Literaria_: "In -the Biographical Sketch of my Literary Life I may be excused if I mention -here that I had translated the eight Hymns of Synesius from the Greek into -English Anacreontics before my fifteenth year." The edition referred to -may be that published at Basle in 1567. _Interprete G. Cantero._ Bentley's -Quarto Edition was probably the Quarto Edition of Horace, published in -1711. - -[47] Charles Clagget, a musical composer and inventor of musical -instruments, flourished towards the close of the eighteenth century. I -have been unable to ascertain whether the songs in question were ever -published. _Dictionary of Music and Musicians_, edited by George Grove, D. -C. L., 1879, article "Clagget," i. 359. - -[48] The entry in the College Register of Jesus College is brief and to -the point: "1794 Apr.: _Coleridge admonitus est per magistrum in praesentia -sociorum_." - -[49] A letter to George Coleridge dated April 16, 1794, and signed J. -Plampin, has been preserved. The pains and penalties to which Coleridge -had subjected himself are stated in full, but the kindly nature of the -writer is shown in the concluding sentence: "I am happy in adding that I -thought your brother's conduct on his return extremely proper; and I beg -to assure you that it will give me much pleasure to see him take such an -advantage of his experience as his own good sense will dictate." - -[50] A week later, July 22, in a letter addressed to H. Martin, of Jesus -College, to whom, in the following September, he dedicated "The Fall of -Robespierre," 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 report -of the same occurrence contained in Hucks' account of the tour, which was -published in the following year. Coleridge's letters from foreign 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 standard. _Biographia Literaria_, 1847, ii. 338-343; -J. Hucks' _Tour in North Wales_, 1795, p. 25. - -[51] The lines are from "Happiness," an early poem first published in -1834. See _Poetical Works_, p. 17. See, too, Editor's Note, p. 564. - -[52] Quoted from a poem by Bowles entitled, "Verses inscribed to His Grace -the Duke of Leeds, and other Promoters of the Philanthropic Society." -Southey adopted the last two lines of the quotation as a motto for his -"Botany Bay Eclogues." _Poetical Works of Milman, Bowles, etc._, Paris, -1829, p. 117; Southey's _Poetical Works_, 1837, ii. 71. - -[53] Southey, we may suppose, had contrasted Hucks with Coleridge. "H. is -on my level, not yours." - -[54] _Poetical Works_, p. 33. See, too, Editor's Note, p. 570. - -[55] Hucks records the incident in much the same words, but gives the name -of the tune as "Corporal Casey." - -[56] The letter to Martin gives further particulars of the tour, including -the ascent of Penmaen Mawr in company with Brookes and Berdmore. Compare -_Table Talk_ for May 31, 1830: "I took the thought of _grinning for joy_ -in that poem (_The Ancient 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." The 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_, 1795, p. 62. - -[57] Southey's _Poetical Works_, 1837, ii. 93. - -[58] Southey's _Poetical Works_, 1837, ii. 94. - -[59] See Letter XLI. p. 110, note 1. - -[60] "A tragedy, of which the first act was written by S. T. Coleridge." -See footnote to quotation from "The Fall of Robespierre," which occurs in -the text of "An Address on the Present War." _Conciones ad Populum_, 1795, -p. 66. - -[61] One of six sisters, daughters of John Brunton of Norwich. Elizabeth, -the eldest of the family, was married in 1791 to Robert Merry the -dramatist, the founder of the so-called Della Cruscan school of poetry. -Louisa Brunton, the youngest 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 Revolution, that is, "The Fall of Robespierre," must have been an -intermediate sister less known to fame. It is curious to note that "The -Right Hon. Lady Craven" was a subscriber 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. - -[62] This sonnet, afterwards headed, "On a Discovery made too late," was -"first printed in _Poems_, 1796, as Effusion XIX., but in the Contents it -was called, 'To my own Heart.'" _Poetical Works_, p. 34. See, too, -Editor's Note, p. 571. - -[63] "The Race of Banquo." Southey's _Poetical Works_, 1837, ii. 155. - -[64] The Editor of the _Cambridge Intelligencer_. - -[65] "To a Young Lady, with a Poem on the French Revolution." _Poetical -Works_, p. 6. - -[66] Compare "Sonnet to the Author of The Robbers." _Poetical Works_, p. -34. - -[67] The date of this letter is fixed by that of Thursday, November 6, to -George Coleridge. Both letters speak of a journey to town with Potter of -Emanuel, but in writing to his brother he says nothing of a projected -visit to Bath. There is no hint in either letter that he had made up his -mind to leave the University for good and all. In a letter to Southey -dated December 17, he says that "they are making a row about him at -Jesus," and in a letter to Mary Evans, which must have been written a day -or two later, he says, "I return to Cambridge to-morrow." From the date of -the letter to George Coleridge of November 6 to December 11 there is a -break in the correspondence with Southey, but from a statement in Letter -XLIII. it appears plain that a visit was paid to the West in December, -1794. But whether he returned to Cambridge November 8, and for how long, -is uncertain. - -[68] "Lines on a Friend who died of a Frenzy Fever," etc. _Poetical -Works_, p. 35. A copy of the same poem was sent on November 6 to George -Coleridge. - -[69] "The Sigh." _Poetical Works_, p. 29. - -[70] Probably Thomas Edwards, LL. D., a Fellow of Jesus College, -Cambridge, editor of Plutarch, _De Educatione Liberorum_, with notes, -1791, and author of "A Discourse on the Limits and Importance of Free -Inquiry in Matters of Religion," 1792. _Natural Dictionary of Biography_, -xvii. 130. - -[71] Compare "Lines on a Friend," etc., which accompanied this letter. - - To me hath Heaven with liberal hand assigned - Energic reason and a shaping mind, - - * * * * * - - Sloth-jaundiced all! and from my graspless hand - Drop Friendship's precious pearls, like hour-glass sand. - -_Poetical Works_, p. 35. - -[72] The lines occur in Barrere's speech, which concludes the third act of -the "Fall of Robespierre." _Poetical Works_, p. 225. - -[73] "Fall of Robespierre," Act I. l. 198. - - O this new freedom! at how 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 endearment - All sacrificed to Liberty's wild riot. - -_Poetical Works_, p. 215. - -[74] See "Fall of Robespierre," Act I. l. 40. _Poetical Works_, p. 212. - -[75] For full text of the "Lines on a Friend who died of a Frenzy Fever," -see Letter XXXVIII. See, too, _Poetical Works_, p. 35. - -[76] Southey's _Poetical Works_, 1837, ii. 263. - -[77] See _Poems by Robert Lovell, and Robert Southey 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, - In 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'd the 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 unpublished letter from Southey to Miss Sarah -Fricker:-- - - October 18, 1794. - - "Amid the pelting of the pitiless storm" did I, Robert Southey, 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 elements 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 rejoiced 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 traveller. Here - I am, well, and satisfied with my own conduct.... - - My clothes are arrived. "I will never see his face again [writes Miss - Tyler], and, if he writes, will return his letters unopened;" to - comment on this would be useless. I feel that strong conviction of - rectitude which would make me smile on the rack.... The crisis is - over--things are as they should be; my mother vexes herself much, yet - feels she is right. Hostilities are commenced with America! so we must - go to some neutral fort--Hambro' or Venice. - - Your sister is well, and sends her love to all; on Wednesday I hope to - see you. Till then farewell, - - ROBERT SOUTHEY. - - Bath, Sunday morning. - -Compare, also, letter to Thomas Southey, dated October 19, 1794. -_Southey's Life and Correspondence_, i. 222. - -[78] _Poems_, 1795, p. 123. - -[79] See Southey's _Poetical Works_, 1837, ii. 91:-- - - "If heavily creep on one little day, - The medley crew of travellers among." - -[80] _Poems_, 1795, p. 67. - -[81] _Poetical Works_, 1837, ii. 92. - -[82] "Rosamund to Henry; written after she had taken the veil." _Poems_, -1795, p. 85. - -[83] _Poetical Works_, 1837, ii. 216. Southey appears to have accepted -Coleridge's emendations. The variations between the text of the "Pauper's -Funeral" and the _editio purgata_ of the letter are slight and -unimportant. - -[84] In a letter from Southey to his brother Thomas, dated October 21, -1794, this sonnet "on the subject of our emigration" is attributed to -Favell, a convert to pantisocracy who was still at Christ's Hospital. The -first eight lines are included in the "Monody on Chatterton." See -_Poetical Works_, p. 63, and Editor's Note, p. 563. - -[85] Printed as Effusion XVI. in _Poems_, 1796. It was afterwards headed -"Charity." In the preface he acknowledges that he was "indebted to Mr. -Favell for the rough sketch." See _Poetical Works_, p. 45, and Editor's -Note, p. 576. - -[86] Southey's _Poetical Works_, ii. 143. In this instance Coleridge's -corrections were not adopted. - -[87] Published in 1794. - -[88] First version, printed in _Morning Chronicle_, December 26, 1794. See -_Poetical Works_, p. 40. - -[89] First printed as Effusion XIV. in _Poems_, 1796. Of the four lines -said to have been written by Lamb, Coleridge discarded lines 13 and 14, -and substituted a favourite couplet, which occurs in more than one of his -early poems. See _Poetical Works_, p. 23, and Editor's Note, p. 566. - -[90] Imitated from the Welsh. See _Poetical Works_, p. 33. - -[91] A parody of "Qui Bavium non odit, amet tua carmina, Maevi." Virgil, -_Ecl._ iii. 90. Gratio and Avaro were signatures adopted by Southey and -Lovell in their joint volume of poems published at Bristol in 1795. - -[92] Implied in the second line. - -[93] Of the six sonnets included in this letter, those to Burke, -Priestley, and Kosciusko had already appeared in the _Morning Chronicle_ -on the 9th, 11th, and 16th of December, 1794. The sonnets to Godwin, -Southey, and Sheridan were published on the 10th, 14th, and 29th of -January, 1795. See _Poetical Works_, pp. 38, 39, 41, 42. - -[94] First published in the _Morning Chronicle_, December 30, 1794. An -earlier draft, dated October 24, 1794, was headed "Monologue to a Young -Jackass in Jesus Piece. Its Mother near it, chained to a Log." See -_Poetical Works_, Appendix C, p. 477, and Editor's Note, p. 573. - -[95] Compare the last six lines of a sonnet, "On a Discovery made too -late," sent in a letter to Southey, dated October 21, 1794. (Letter -XXXVII.) See _Poetical Works_, p. 34, and Editor's Note, p. 571. - -[96] The first of six sonnets on the Slave Trade. Southey's _Poetical -Works_, 1837, ii. 55. - -[97] Prefixed as a dedication to Juvenile and Minor Poems. It is addressed -to Edith Southey, and dated Bristol, 1796. Southey's _Poetical Works_, -1837, vol. ii. The text of 1837 differs considerably from the earlier -version. Possibly in transcribing Coleridge altered the original to suit -his own taste. - -[98] To a Friend [Charles Lamb], together with an Unfinished Poem -["Religious Musings"]. _Poetical Works_, p. 37. - -[99] This farewell letter of apology and remonstrance was not sent by -post, but must have reached Southey's hand on the 13th of November, the -eve of his wedding day. The original MS. is written on small foolscap. A -first draft, or copy, of the letter was sent to Coleridge's friend, Josiah -Wade. - -[100] The Rev. David Jardine, Unitarian minister at Bath. Cottle lays the -scene of the "inaugural sermons" on the corn laws and hair powder tax, -which Coleridge delivered in a blue coat and white waistcoat, in Mr. -Jardine's chapel at Bath. _Early Recollections_, i. 179. - -[101] If we may believe Cottle, the dispute began by Southey attacking -Coleridge for his non-appearance at a lecture which he had undertaken to -deliver in his stead. The scene of the quarrel is laid at Chepstow, on the -first day of the memorable excursion to Tintern Abbey, which Cottle had -planned to "gratify his two young friends." Southey had been "dragged," -much against the grain, into this "detestable party of pleasure," and was, -no doubt, rendered doubly sore by his partner's delinquency. See _Early -Recollections_, i. 40, 41. See, also, letter from Southey to Bedford, -dated May 28, 1795. _Life and Correspondence_, i. 239. - -[102] At Chepstow. - -[103] A village three miles W. S. W. of Bristol. - -[104] During the course of his tour (January-February, 1796) to procure -subscribers for the _Watchman_, Coleridge wrote seven times to Josiah -Wade. Portions of these letters have been published in Cottle's _Early -Recollections_, i. 164-176, and in the "Biographical Supplement" to the -_Biographia Literaria_, ii. 349-354. It is probable that Wade supplied -funds for the journey, and that Coleridge felt himself bound to give an -account of his progress and success. - -[105] Joseph Wright, A. R. A., known as Wright of Derby, 1736-1797. Two of -his most celebrated pictures were _The Head of Ulleswater_, and _The Dead -Soldier_. An excellent specimen of Wright's work, _An Experiment with the -Air Pump_, was presented to the National Gallery in 1863. - -[106] Compare _Biographia Literaria_, ch. i. "During my first Cambridge -vacation I assisted a friend in a contribution for a literary society in -Devonshire, and in that I remember to have compared Darwin's works to the -Russian palace of ice, glittering, cold, and transitory." Coleridge's -_Works_, Harper & Bros., 1853, iii. 155. - -[107] Dr. James Hutton, the author of the Plutonian theory. His _Theory of -the Earth_ was published at Edinburgh in 1795. - -[108] The title of this pamphlet, which was published shortly after the -_Conciones ad Populum_, was "The Plot Discovered; or, an Address to the -People against Ministerial Treason. By S. T. Coleridge. Bristol, 1795." It -had an outer wrapper with this half-title: "A Protest against Certain -Wills. Bristol: Printed for the Author, November 28, 1795." It is -reprinted in _Essays on His Own Times_, i. 56-98. - -[109] The review of "Burke's Letter to a Noble Lord," which appeared in -the first number of _The Watchman_, is reprinted in _Essays on His Own -Times_, i. 107-119. - -[110] _Ibid._ 120-126. - -[111] The occasion of this "burst of affectionate feeling" was a -communication from Poole that seven or eight friends had undertaken to -subscribe a sum of L35 or L40 to be paid annually to the "author of the -monody on the death of Chatterton," as "a trifling mark of their esteem, -gratitude, and affection." The subscriptions were paid in 1796-97, but -afterwards discontinued on the receipt of the Wedgwood annuity. See -_Thomas Poole and his Friends_, i. 142. - -[112] Mrs. Robert Lovell, whose husband had been carried off by a fever -about two years after his marriage with my aunt.--S. C. - -[113] Compare _Conciones ad Populum_, 1795, p. 22. "Such is Joseph -Gerrald! Withering in the sickly and tainted gales of a prison, his -healthful soul looks down from the citadel of his integrity on his -impotent persecutors. 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, Gerrald 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 transported for -fifteen years. "In April Gerrald 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 Gerrald relative to his defence. -_Ibid._ i. 125. Lords Cockburn and Jeffrey considered the conviction of -these men a gross miscarriage of justice, and in 1844 a monument was -erected at the foot of the Calton Hill, Edinburgh, to their memory. - -[114] Edward Williams (Iolo Morgangw), 1747-1826. His poems in two volumes -were published by subscription in 1794. Coleridge possessed a copy -presented to him "by the author," and on the last page of the second -volume he has scrawled a single but characteristic marginal note. It is -affixed to a translation of one of the "Poetic Triades." "The three -principal considerations of poetical description: what is obvious, what -instantly engages the affections, and what is strikingly characteristic." -The comment is as follows: "I suppose, rather what we recollect to have -frequently seen in nature, though not in the description of it." - -[115] The allusion must be to Wordsworth, but there is a difficulty as to -dates. In a MS. note to the second edition of his poems (1797) Coleridge -distinctly states that he had no personal acquaintance with Wordsworth as -early as March, 1796. 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 husband's "impression" that he first -met Coleridge, Southey, Sara, and Edith Fricker "in a lodging in Bristol -in 1795,"--an imperfect recollection 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 letter of -Lamb to Coleridge, which belongs to the summer of 1796, that "the personal -acquaintance" with Wordsworth had already begun. The probable conclusion -is that there was a first meeting in 1795, and occasional intercourse in -1796, but that intimacy and friendship date from the visit to Racedown in -June, 1797. Coleridge quotes Wordsworth in his "Lines from Shurton Bars," -dated September, 1795, but the first trace of Wordsworth's influence on -style and thought appears in "This Lime-Tree Bower my Prison," July, 1797. -In May, 1796, Wordsworth could only have been "his very dear friend" -_sensu poetico_. _Life of W. Wordsworth_, i. 111; Biographical Supplement -to _Biographia Literaria_, chapter ii.; _Letters of Charles Lamb_, -Macmillan, 1888, i. 6. - -[116] On the side of the road, opposite to Poole's house in Castle Street, -Nether Stowey, is a straight gutter through which a stream passes. See -_Thomas Poole and his Friends_, i. 147. - -[117] _The Peripatetic, or Sketches of the Heart, of Nature, and of -Society_, a miscellany of prose and verse issued by John Thelwall, in -1793. - -[118] January 10, 1795. See _Poetical Works_, p. 41, and Editor's Note, p. -575. Margarot, a West Indian, was one of those tried and transported with -Gerrald. - -[119] See _Poetical Works_, p. 66. - -[120] Early in the autumn of 1796, a proposal had been made to Coleridge -that he should start a day school in Derby. Poole dissuaded him from -accepting this offer, or rather, perhaps, Coleridge succeeded in procuring -Poole's disapproval of a plan which he himself dreaded and disliked. - -[121] Thomas Ward, at first the articled clerk, and afterwards partner in -business and in good works, of Thomas Poole. He it was who transcribed in -"Poole's Copying Book" Coleridge's letters from Germany, and much of his -correspondence besides. See _Thomas Poole and his Friends_, i. 159, 160, -304, 305, etc. - -[122] This letter, first printed in Gillman's _Life_, pp. 338-340, and -since reprinted in the notes to Canon Ainger'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, 1796, announcing the "terrible calamities" which -had befallen his family. "Write me," said Lamb, "as religious 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 nature." 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 -written by him within a few hours of his death, when he could scarcely -direct his pen. It breathes the tenderest loving-kindness, but the -expressions are elaborate and formal. It was only in poetry that he -attained to simplicity. - -[123] Coleridge must have resorted occasionally to opiates long before -this. In an unpublished letter to his brother George, dated November 21, -1791, he says, "Opium never used to have any disagreeable effects on me." -Most likely it was given to him at Christ's Hospital, when he was -suffering from rheumatic fever. In the sonnet on "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. Testimony of this nature appears at first sight to be -inconsistent with statements 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, however, the first commencement of the secret and habitual resort -to narcotics which weighed on memory and conscience, and there is abundant -evidence that it was not till the 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 attached -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 letter 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 madness--my -mind overbalanced on the _e contra_ side of happiness--the blunders 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." - -[124] 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. Corsica 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 Ireland compelled the home government to withdraw -their troops from Corsica. In a footnote to chapter xxv. of his _Life of -Napoleon Bonaparte_, 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 surprised 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 diadem of France and the iron crown of -Lombardy marvelled at meeting on the brow of a Corsican soldier of -fortune." - -In the _Biographia Literaria_, 1847, ii. 380, the word is misprinted -Corrica, but there is no doubt as to the reading of the MS. letter, or to -the allusion to contemporary history. - -[125] It was to this lady that the lines "On the Christening of a Friend's -Child" were addressed. _Poetical Works_, p. 83. - -[126] See Letter LXVIII., p. 206, note. - -[127] The preface to the quarto edition of Southey's _Joan of Arc_ is -dated Bristol, November, 1795, but the volume did not appear till the -following spring. Coleridge's contribution to Book II. was omitted from -the second (1797) and subsequent editions. It was afterwards republished, -with additions, in _Sibylline Leaves_ (1817) as "The Destiny of Nations." - -[128] The lines "On a late Connubial Rupture" were printed in the _Monthly -Magazine_ for September, 1796. The well-known poem beginning "Low was our -pretty Cot" appeared in the following number. It was headed, "Reflections -on entering into active Life. A Poem which affects not to be Poetry." - -[129] Compare the following lines from an early transcript of "Happiness" -now in my possession:-- - - "Ah! doubly blest if Love supply - Lustre to the now heavy eye, - And with unwonted spirit grace - That fat vacuity of face." - -The transcriber adds in a footnote, "The author was at this time, at -seventeen, remarkable for a plump face." - -The "Reminiscences of an Octogenarian" (The Rev. Leapidge Smith), -contributed to the _Leisure Hour_, convey a different impression: "In -person he was a tall, dark, handsome young man, with long, black, flowing -hair; eyes not merely dark, but black, and keenly penetrating; a fine -forehead, a deep-toned, harmonious voice; a manner never to be forgotten, -full of life, vivacity, and kindness; dignified in person and, added to -all these, exhibiting the elements of his future greatness."--_Leisure -Hour_, 1870, p. 651. - -[130] _Origine de tous les Cultes, ou Religion universelle._ - -[131] Thelwall executed his commission. The Iamblichus and the Julian were -afterwards presented by Coleridge to his son Derwent. They are still in -the possession of the family. - -[132] The three letters to Poole, dated December 11, 12, and 13, relative -to Coleridge's residence at Stowey, were published for the first time in -_Thomas Poole and his Friends_. The long letter of expostulation, dated -December 13, which is in fact a continuation of that dated December 12, is -endorsed by Poole: "An angry letter, but the breach was soon healed." -Either on Coleridge's account or his own it was among the few papers -retained by Poole when, to quote Mrs. Sandford, "in 1836 he placed the -greater number of the letters which he had received from S. T. Coleridge -at the disposal of his literary executors for biographical purposes." -_Thomas Poole and his Friends_, i. 182-193. Mrs. Sandford has kindly -permitted me to reprint it _in extenso_. - -[133] "Sonnet composed on a journey homeward, the author having received -intelligence of the birth of a son. September 20, 1796." - -The opening lines, as quoted in the letter, differ from those published in -1797, and again from a copy of the same sonnet sent in a letter to Poole, -dated November 1, 1796. See _Poetical Works_, p. 66, and Editor's Note, p. -582. - -[134] Coleridge's _Poetical Works_, p. 66. - -[135] Compare Lamb's letter to Coleridge, December 5, 1796. "I am glad you -love Cowper. I could forgive a man for not enjoying Milton, but I would -not call that man my friend who should be offended with the 'divine -chit-chat of Cowper.'" Compare, too, letter of December 10, 1796, in which -the origin of the phrase is attributed to Coleridge. _Letters of Charles -Lamb_, i. 52, 54. See, too, Canon Ainger's note, i. 316. - -[136] "Southey misrepresented me. My maxim was and is that the name of God -should not be introduced into _Love Sonnets_." MS. Note by John Thelwall. - -[137] Revelation x. 1-6. Some words and sentences of the original are -omitted, either for the sake of brevity, or to heighten the dramatic -effect. - -[138] Hebrews xii. 18, 19, 22, 23. - -[139] "In reading over this after an interval of twenty-three years I was -wondering what I could have said that looked like contempt of age. May not -slobberers have referred not to age but to the drivelling of decayed -intellect, which is surely an ill guide in matters of understanding and -consequently of faith?" MS. Note by John Thelwall, 1819. - -[140] Patience--permit me as a definition of the word to quote one -sentence from my first Address, p. 20. "Accustomed to regard all the -affairs 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. - -[141] Godliness--the belief, the habitual and efficient belief, that we -are always in the presence of our universal Parent. I will translate -literally a passage [the passage is from Voss's _Luise_. I am enabled by -the courtesy of Dr. Garnett, of the British Museum, to give an exact -reference: _Luise, ein laendliches Gedicht in drei Idyllen_, von Johann -Heinrich Voss, Koenigsberg, 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 birthday of his daughter. The _latter part_ fully -expresses the spirit of godliness, and its connection with -brotherly-kindness. (Pardon the harshness of the language, for it is -translated _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 it! It was -but yesterday, it seems to me, that as I was plucking flowers here, and -offering praise, on a sudden the joyful message came, 'A daughter is born -to us.' Much since that time has 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 heavenly 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 towards all his children, -our brothers who inhabit the earth around us; differing indeed from one -another in powers and understanding, yet all dear children of the same -parent, nourished 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 crucified._'" - -Mendelssohn is a German Jew by parentage, and _deist_ by election. He has -written some of the most acute books possible in favour of natural -immortality, and Germany deems him her profoundest metaphysician, with the -exception of the most unintelligible Immanuel Kant.--MS. note to text of -letter by S. T. Coleridge. - -[142] 2 Peter i. 5-7. - -[143] They were criticised by Lamb in his letter to Coleridge Dec. 10, -1796 (xxxi. of Canon Ainger's edition), but in a passage first printed in -the _Atlantic Monthly_ for February, 1891. The explanatory notes there -printed were founded on a misconception, but the matter is cleared up in -the _Athenaeum_ for June 13, 1891, in the article, "A Letter of Charles -Lamb." - -[144] 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 towards the close of 1796, and -distributed 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. - -[145] A folio edition of "_Poems on the Death of Priscilla Farmer_, by her -grandson Charles Lloyd," was printed at Bristol in 1796. The volume was -prefaced by Coleridge's sonnet, "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 December 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. - -[146] "To a friend (C. Lamb) who had declared his intention of writing no -more poetry." _Poetical Works_, p. 69. See, too, Editor's Note, p. 583. - -[147] Printed in the _Annual Anthology_ for 1799. - -[148] These lines, which were published with the enlarged title "To a -Young Man of Fortune who had abandoned himself to an indolent and -causeless melancholy," may have been addressed to Charles Lloyd. - -The last line, "A prey to the throned murderess of mankind," was -afterwards changed to "A prey to tyrants, murderers of mankind." The -reference is, doubtless, to Catherine of Russia. Her death had taken place -a month before the date of this letter, but possibly when Coleridge wrote -the lines the news had not reached England. It is not a little strange -that Coleridge should write and print so stern and uncompromising a rebuke -to his intimate and disciple before there had been time for coolness and -alienation on either side. Very possibly the reproof was aimed in the -first instance against himself, and afterwards he permitted it to apply to -Lloyd. - -[149] Compare the line, "From precipices of distressful sleep," which -occurs in the sonnet, "No more my visionary soul shall dwell," which is -attributed to Favell in a letter of Southey's to his brother Thomas, dated -October 24, 1795. Southey's _Life and Correspondence_, i. 224. See, also, -Editor's Note to "Monody on the Death of Chatterton," _Poetical Works_, p. -563. - -[150] The _Ode on the Departing Year_. - -[151] Oedipus. - -[152] _Poetical Works_, p. 459. - -[153] William and Joseph Strutt were the sons of Jedediah Strutt, of -Derby. The eldest, William, was the father of Edward Strutt, created 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 on 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 withdraw her proposal. By way of -consolation, she entertained Coleridge and his wife at Darley Hall, and -before he left presented him with a handsome sum of money and a store of -baby-linen, worth, if one may accept Coleridge's valuation, a matter of -forty pounds. _Thomas Poole and his Friends_, i. 152-154; _Estlin -Letters_, p. 13. - -[154] Probably Jacob Bryant, 1715-1804, author of _An Address to Dr. -Priestley upon his Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity_, 1780; _Treatise -on the Authenticity of the Scriptures_, 1792; _The Sentiments of -Philo-Judaeus concerning the Logos or Word of God_, 1797, etc. Allibone's -_Dictionary_, i. 270. - -[155] "Ode to the Departing-Year," published in the _Cambridge -Intelligencer_, December 24, 1796. 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. 79. - -[156] Compare the well-known description of Dorothy Wordsworth, in a -letter to Cottle of July, 1797: "W. and his exquisite sister are with me. -She is a woman, indeed,--in mind I mean, and heart. Her information -various. Her eye watchful 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 electroscope, is an instrument for "detecting -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, contained in a glass shade, and these under -certain conditions of the application of positive and negative electricity -diverge or collapse. - -The gold leaf electroscope was invented by Abraham Bennett in 1786. -Cottle's _Early Recollections_, i. 252; Ganot's _Physics_, 1870, p. 631. - -[157] His tract _On the Strength of the Existing Government (the -Directory) of France, and the Necessity of supporting it_, was published -in 1796. - -The translator, James Losh, described by Southey as "a provincial -counsel," was at one time resident in Cumberland, and visited Coleridge at -Greta Hall. At a later period he settled at Jesmond, Newcastle. His name -occurs among the subscribers to _The Friend_. _Letters from the Lake -Poets_, p. 453. - -[158] Compare stanzas eight and nine of "The Mad Ox:"-- - - Old Lewis ('twas 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. - -[159] The probable date of this letter is Thursday, June 8, 1797. On -Monday, June 5, Coleridge breakfasted with Dr. Toulmin, the Unitarian -minister at Taunton, and on the evening of that or the next day he arrived -on foot at Racedown, some forty miles distant. Mrs. Wordsworth, 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 remembrance 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 appearance at that moment. My poor sister -has just been speaking of it to me with much feeling and tenderness." A -portion of this letter, of which I possess the original MS., was printed -by Professor Knight in his _Life of Wordsworth_, i. 111. - -[160] This passage, which for some reason Cottle chose to omit, seems to -imply that the second edition of the poems had not appeared by the -beginning of June. - -[161] - - ... Such, O my earliest friend! - Thy lot, and such thy brothers too enjoy. - At distance did ye climb life's upland road, - Yet cheered and cheering: now fraternal love - Hath drawn you to one centre. - -_Poetical Works_, p. 81, l. 9-14. - -[162] - - ... and some most false, - False, and fair-foliaged as the Manchineel, - Have tempted me to slumber in their shade - E'en mid the storm; then breathing subtlest damp - Mixed their own venom with the rain from Heaven, - That I woke poisoned. - -_Poetical Works_, p. 82, l. 25-30. - -Compare Lamb's humorous reproach in a letter to Coleridge, September, -1797: "For myself I must spoil a little passage of Beaumont and Fletcher's -to adapt it to my feelings:-- - - ... I am prouder - That I was once your friend, tho' now forgot, - 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--Manchineel, and I don't know what else." - -_Letters of Charles Lamb_, i. 83. - -[163] Charles Lamb's visit to the cottage of Nether Stowey lasted from -Friday, July 7, to Friday, July 14, 1797. - -[164] According to local tradition, the lime-tree bower was at the back of -the cottage, but according to this letter it was in Poole's garden. From -either spot the green ramparts of Stowey Castle and the "airy ridge" of -Dowseborough are full in view. - -[165] "He [Le Grice] and Favell ... wrote to the Duke of York, when they -were at college, for commissions in the army. The Duke good-naturedly sent -them." _Autobiography of Leigh Hunt_, p. 72. - -[166] Possibly he alludes to his appointment 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 Friend,--Farewell! I shall never think of you but with - tears of the tenderest affection. 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 otherwise - occasioned. But at this serious 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-Surgeon. - 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 fraternity to - young David. - - Yours most affectionate, - R. ALLEN. - -[167] A friend and fellow-collegian of Christopher Wordsworth at Trinity -College, Cambridge. He was a member of the "Literary Society" to which -Coleridge, C. Wordsworth, Le Grice, and others belonged. He afterwards -became a sergeant-at-law. He was an intimate friend of H. Crabb Robinson. -See H. C. Robinson's _Diary_, _passim_. See, too, _Social Life at the -English Universities_, by Christopher Wordsworth, M. A., Fellow of -Peterhouse, Cambridge, 1874, Appendix. - -[168] Not, as has been supposed, Charles and Mary Lamb, but Wordsworth and -his sister Dorothy. Mary Lamb was not and could not have been at that time -one of the party. The version sent to Southey differs both from that -printed in the _Annual Anthology_ of 1800, and from a copy in a -contemporary letter sent to C. Lloyd. It is interesting to note that the -words, "My sister, and my friends," ll. 47 and 53, which gave place in the -_Anthology_ to the thrice-repeated, "My gentle-hearted Charles," appear, -in a copy sent to Lloyd, as "My Sara and my friend." It was early days for -him to address Dorothy Wordsworth as "My sister," but in forming -friendships Coleridge did not "keep to the high road, but leaped over a -gate and bounded" from acquaintance to intimacy. _Poetical Works_, p. 92. -For version of "This Lime-Tree Bower my Prison," sent to C. Lloyd, see -_Ibid._, Editor's Note, p. 591. - -[169] "Elastic, I mean."--S. T. C. - -[170] "The ferns that grow in moist places grow five or six together, and -form a complete 'Prince of Wales's Feathers,'--that is, plumy."--S. T. C. - -[171] "You remember I am a _Berkleian_."--S. T. C. - -[172] "This Lime-Tree Bower," l. 38. _Poetical Works_, p. 93. - -[173] "Osorio," Act V., Sc. 1, l. 39. _Poetical Works_, p. 507. - -[174] Thelwall's visit brought Coleridge and Wordsworth into trouble. At -the instance of a "titled Dogberry," Sir Philip Hale of Cannington, a -government spy was sent to watch the movements of the supposed -conspirators, and, a more serious matter, Mrs. St. Albyn, the owner of -Alfoxden, severely censured her tenant for having sublet the house to -Wordsworth. See letter of explanation and remonstrance from Poole to Mrs. -St. Albyn, September 16, 1797. _Thomas Poole and his Friends_, i. 240. -See, too, Cottle's _Early Recollections_, i. 319, and for apocryphal -anecdotes about the spy, etc., _Biographia Literaria_, cap. x. - -[175] Their proposal was to settle on Coleridge "an annuity for life of -L150, to be regularly paid by us, no condition whatever being annexed to -it." See letter of Josiah Wedgwood to Coleridge, dated January 10, 1798. -_Thomas Poole and his Friends_, i. 258. An unpublished letter from -Thelwall to Dr. Crompton dated Llyswen, March 3, 1798, contains one of -several announcements of "his good fortune," made by Coleridge at the time -to his numerous friends. - - To DR. CROMPTON, Eton House, Nr. Liverpool. - - LLYSWEN, 3d March, 1798. - - I am surprised you have not heard the particulars of Coleridge's good - fortune. It is not a legacy, but a gift. The circumstances are thus - expressed by himself in a letter of the 30th January: "I received an - invitation from Shrewsbury to be the Unitarian minister, and at the - same time an order for L100 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 L150 to be legally settled on me. Astonished, 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 I have - returned from Shrewsbury." This letter was written in a great hurry in - Cottle's shop in Bristol, in answer to one which a friend of mine had - left for him there, on 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 preachings God's holy word for hire, - which is seconded not a little, I expect, by his repugnance to all - regular routine and application. I also hope he did not, for I know he - cannot preach very often without travelling 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 hey-go-mad, spattering and - splashing through thick and thin and scattering more _levelling_ - sedition and constructive treason than poor Gilly or myself ever - dreamt of. He promised to write to me again in a few days; but, though - I answered his letter directly, I have not heard from him since. - -[176] _Count Benyowsky, or the Conspiracy of Kamtschatka, a Tragi-comedy._ -Translated from the German by the Rev. W. Render, teacher of the German -Language in the University of Cambridge. Cambridge, 1798. - -[177] Coleridge's copy of Monk Lewis' play is dated January 20, 1798. - -[178] The following memoranda, presumably in Wordsworth's handwriting, -have been scribbled on the outside sheet of the letter: "Tea--Thread -fine--needles Silks--Strainer for starch--Mustard--Basil's shoes--Shoe -horn. - -"The sun's course is short, but clear and blue the sky." - -[179] "Duplex nobis vinculum, et amicitiae et similium junctarumque -Camoenarum; quod utinam neque mors solvat, neque temporis longinquitas." - -[180] _The Task_, Book V., "A Winter's Morning Walk." - -[181] A later version of these lines is to be found at the close of the -fourth book of "The Excursion." _Works of Wordsworth_, 1889, p. 467. - -[182] In the series of letters to Dr. Estlin, contributed to the privately -printed volumes of the Philobiblon 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 journal for May 16, 1798, affords convincing 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 1816, "in the summer of -1797." - -It would, indeed, have been altogether miraculous if, before he had -written a line of "Christabel," 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 vision to -consummate melody. - -[183] Berkeley Coleridge, born May 14, 1798, died February 10, 1799. - -[184] The original MS. of this letter, which was preserved by Coleridge, -is, doubtless, a copy of that sent by post. Besides this, only three of -Coleridge's letters to Lamb have been preserved,--the "religious letter" -of 1796, a letter concerning the quarrel with Wordsworth, of May, 1812 -[Letter CLXXXIV.], and one written in later life (undated, on the -particulars of Hood's _Odes to Great People_). - -[185] Charles Lloyd. - -[186] The three sonnets of "Nehemiah Higginbottom" were published in the -_Monthly Magazine_ for November, 1797. Compare his letter to Cottle (_E. -R._ 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., exposing -that affectation of unaffectedness, of jumping and misplaced accent, in -commonplace epithets, flat lines forced into poetry by italics (signifying -how well and mouthishly the author would read them), puny pathos, etc., -etc. The instances were all taken from myself and Lloyd and Lamb. I signed -them 'Nehemiah Higginbottom.' 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. 599), have been the immediate -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 occasion of -bitter and angry words. As Lamb and Lloyd and Southey drew together, they -drew away from Coleridge, and Southey, who had only been formally -reconciled with his brother-in-law, seems to have regarded this sonnet as -an ill-natured parody of his earlier poems. In a letter to Wynn, 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 -sonnets--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 simplicity, -vulgar colloquialisms, and lady-like friendships? I have no conception, -neither I believe could a passage in your writings have suggested to me or -any man the notion of _your_ 'plainting plaintively.' I am sorry that I -wrote thus, because I am sorry to perceive a disposition in you to believe -evil of me, 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 _Morning 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. SOUTHEY, No. 23 East Street, Red Lion Square, London. - -[187] Charles Lloyd's novel, _Edmund Oliver_, was published at Bristol in -1798. It is dedicated to "His friend Charles Lamb of the India House." He -says in the Preface: "The incidents 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 Edmund Oliver is not very striking, but apart from the -description of "his person" in the first letter of the second volume, -which is close enough, a single sentence from Edmund Oliver's journal, i. -245, betrays the malignant nature of the attack. "I have at all times a -strange dreaminess about me which makes me indifferent to the future, if I -can by any means fill the present with sensations,--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 Edmund 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." How Coleridge 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 things hast thou 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. - -[188] In a letter dated November 1, 1798, Mrs. Coleridge acquaints her -husband with the danger and the disfigurement from smallpox which had -befallen her little Berkeley. "The dear child," she writes, "is getting -strength every hour; but 'when you lost sight of land, and the faces of -your children crossed you like a flash of lightning,' you saw _that_ face -for the last time." - -[189] "Fears in Solitude, written in 1798, during the alarm of an -invasion. To which are added, France, an Ode; and Frost at Midnight. By S. -T. Coleridge. London: Printed for J. Johnson, in St. Paul's Churchyard. -1798." - -[190] According to Burke's _Peerage_, Emanuel Scoope, second Viscount -Howe, and father of the Admiral, "Our Lord Howe," married, in 1719, Mary -Sophia, daughter of Baron Kielmansegge, Master of the Horse to George I. -Coleridge's countess must have been a great-granddaughter of the baron. In -her reply to this letter, dated December 13, 1798, Mrs. Coleridge writes: -"I am very proud to hear that you are so forward in the language, and that -you are so gay with the ladies. You may give my respects to them, and say -that I am not at all jealous, for I know my dear Samuel in her affliction -will not forget entirely his most affectionate wife, Sara Coleridge." - -[191] The "Rev. Mr. Roskilly" had been curate-in-charge of the parish of -Nether Stowey, and the occasion of the letter was his promotion to the -Rectory of Kempsford in Gloucestershire. Mrs. S. T. Coleridge, in a late -letter (probably 1843) to her sister, Mrs. Lovell, writes: "In March -[1800] I and the child [Hartley] left him [S. T. C.] in London, and -proceeded to Kempsford in Gloucestershire, the Rectory of Mr. Roskilly; -remained there a month. Papa was to have joined us there, but did not." -See _Thomas Poole and his Friends_, i. 25-27, and _Letters from the Lake -Poets_, p. 6. - -[192] In his letter of January 20, 1799, Josiah Wedgwood acknowledges the -receipt of a letter dated November 29, 1798, but adds that an earlier -letter from Hamburg had not come to hand. A third letter, dated Goettingen, -May 21, 1799, was printed by Cottle in his _Reminiscences_, 1848, p. 425. - -[193] Miss Meteyard, in her _Group of Englishmen_, 1871, p. 99, gives -extracts from the account-current of Messrs. P. and O. Von Axen, the -Hamburg agents of the Wedgwoods. According to her figures, Coleridge drew -L125 from October 20 to March 29, 1799, and, "conjointly with Wordsworth," -L106 10_s._ on July 8, 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 anticipated 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 Monday, Chester and S. T. C., in a damn'd dirty -hole in the Burg Strasse at Goettingen, possessed at that moment eleven -Louis d'ors and two dollars. 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 L90, of which L15 -was in Books; and Cloathes, mending and making, L10. - -"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 L178 -10_s._ which Coleridge received 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 autograph letter of Coleridge to Josiah Wedgwood dated -May 21, 1799, Goettingen, 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. - -[194] A portion of this description of Ratzeburg is included in No. III. -of _Satyrane's Letters_, originally published in No. 10 of _The Friend_, -December 21, 1809. - -[195] The following description of the frozen lake was thrown into a -literary shape and published in No. 19 of _The Friend_, December 28, 1809, -as "Christmas Indoors in North Germany." - -[196] 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 silence 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 prevented my thoughts from resting on him. This parting was the -severest trial that I have ever yet undergone, 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 lament -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." - -[197] From "Osorio," Act V. Sc. 1. _Poetical Works_, p. 506. - -[198] The following description of the Christmas-tree, and of Knecht -Rupert, was originally published, almost verbatim, in No. 19 of the -original issue of _The Friend_, December 28, 1809. - -[199] First published in _Annual Anthology_ of 1800, under the signature -_Cordomi_. See _Poetical Works_, p. 146, and Editor's Note, p. 621. - -[200] The men who rip the oak bark from the logs for tanning. - -[201] - - My dear babe, - Who capable of no articulate sound, - Mars all things with his imitative lisp, - How he would place his hand beside his ear, - His little hand, the small forefinger up, - And bid us listen. - ---"The Nightingale, a Conversation Poem," written in April, 1798. -_Poetical Works_, p. 133. - -[202] Hutton Hall, near Penrith. - -[203] First published in the _Annual Anthology_ of 1800. See _Poetical -Works_, p. 146, and Editor's Note, p. 621. According to Carlyon the lines -were dictated by Coleridge and inscribed by one of the party in the -"Stammbuch" of the Wernigerode Inn. _Early Years_, i. 66. - -[204] Olaus Tychsen, 1734-1815, was "Professor of Oriental Tongues" at -Rostock, in Mecklenburg-Schwerin. - -[205] F. C. Achard, born in 1754, was author of an "Instruction for making -sugar, molasses, and vinous spirit from Beet-root." - -[206] The 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 Dartmouth. - -[207] Coleridge took but few notes during this tour. In 1803 he -retranscribed his fragmentary jottings and regrets that he possessed no -more, "though we were at the interesting Bovey waterfall [Becky Fall], -through that wild dell of ashes which leads to Ashburton, 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 Castle." 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 -Southey_, i. 84. - -[208] Suwarrow, at the head of the Austro-Russian troops, defeated the -French under Joubert at Novi near Alessandria, in North Italy, August 15, -1799. - -[209] A temporary residence of Josiah Wedgwood, who had taken it on lease -in order to be near his newly purchased property at Combe Florey, in -Somersetshire. Meteyard's _Group of Englishmen_, 1871, p. 107. - -[210] Southey's brother, a midshipman on board the Sylph gun-brig. A -report had reached England that the Sylph had been captured and brought to -Ferrol. _Southey's Life and Correspondence_, ii. 30. - -[211] Marshal Massena defeated the Russians under Prince Korsikov at -Zurich, September 25, 1799. - -[212] William Jackson, organist of Exeter Cathedral, 1730-1803, a musical -composer and artist. He published, among other works, _The Four Ages with -Essays_, 1798. See letter of Southey to S. T. Coleridge, October 3, 1799, -_Southey's Life and Correspondence_, ii. 26. - -[213] John Codrington Warwick Bampfylde, second son of Richard Bampfylde, -of Poltimore, was the author of _Sixteen Sonnets_, published in 1779. In -the letter of October 3 (see above) Southey gives an interesting account -of his eccentric habits and melancholy history. In a prefatory note to -four of Bampfylde's sonnets, included by Southey in his _Specimens of the -Later English 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, designed to republish the little collection of -Bampfylde's Sonnets, with what few of his pieces were still unedited. - -"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." _Specimens of the Later English Poets_, 1808, -iii. 434. - -[214] "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 countenance had -shone upon her. - -[215] Dr. Cookson, Canon of Windsor and Rector of Forncett, Norfolk. -Dorothy Wordsworth passed much of her time under his roof before she -finally threw in her lot with her brother William in 1795. - -[216] The journal, or notes for a journal, of this 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 Cockermouth. It -is certain that they passed through Keswick again on Friday, November 15, -as the following entry testifies:-- - -"1 mile and 1/2 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 daughter's marriage, -took a solemn farewell of the Vale of Keswick once so strange, but then so -dear and so familiar. - -[217] George Fricker, Mrs. Coleridge's younger brother. - -[218] A gossiping account of the early history and writings of "Mr. Robert -Southey" appeared in _Public Characters for 1799-1800_, a humble -forerunner of _Men of the Time_, published 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, Southey, and -Coleridge, married three sisters. Southey is attached to domestic life, -and, fortunately, was very happy in his matrimonial connection." It was -Sir Richard Phillips, 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. - -[219] "These various pieces were rearranged in three volumes under the -title of _Minor Poems_, in 1815, with this motto, _Nos haec novimus esse -nihil_." _Poetical Works of Robert Southey_, 1837, ii., xii. - -[220] Mary Hayes, a friend of Mary Wollstonecraft, whose opinions she -advocated with great zeal, and whose death she witnessed. Among other -works, she wrote a novel, _Memoirs of Emma Courtney_, and _Female -Biography, or Memoirs of Illustrious and Celebrated Women_. Six volumes. -London: R. Phillips. 1803. - -[221] He used the same words in a letter to Poole dated December 31, 1799. -_Thomas Poole and his Friends_, i. 1. - -[222] "Essay on the New French Constitution," _Essays on His Own Times_, -i. 183-189. - -[223] The Ode appeared in the _Morning Post_, December 24, 1799. The -stanzas in which the Duchess commemorated her passage over Mount St. -Gothard appeared in the _Morning Post_, December 21. They were inscribed -to her children, and it was the last stanza, in which she anticipates 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. H. N. Coleridge._ - -[224] 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 destitute. _Ex his disce_ his friends -Lamb and Southey." _Biographia Literaria_, 1817, vol. i. chapter i. p. 70, -_n._ - -[225] Mrs. Robinson ("Perdita") contributed two poems to the _Annual -Anthology_ of 1800, "Jasper" and "The Haunted Beach." The line which -caught Coleridge's fancy, the first of the twelfth stanza, runs thus:-- - - "Pale Moon! thou Spectre of the Sky." - -_Annual Anthology_, 1800, p. 168. - -[226] _St. Leon_ was published in 1799. _William Godwin, his Friends and -Contemporaries_, i. 330. - -[227] See "Mr. Coleridge's Report of Mr. Pitt's Speech in Parliament of -February 17, 1800, On the continuance 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 skeleton sentences and fragmentary jottings. 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 description 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 -Jacobinism," and, if these were the words which Pitt used, in this -instance, Coleridge altered for the worse. - -[228] "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 beloved and respected." Southey to Rickman, January 9, -1800. _Life and Correspondence_, ii. 46. It is well known that Southey -advocated the establishment of Protestant orders of Sisters of Mercy. - -[229] In a letter from Southey to Coleridge, dated February 15, 1800 -(unpublished), he proposes the establishment of a Magazine with signed -articles. But a "History of the Levelling Principle," which Coleridge had -suggested as a joint work, he would only publish anonymously. - -[230] See Letter from Southey to Coleridge, December 27, 1799. _Life and -Correspondence_, ii. 35. - -[231] "Concerning the French, I wish Bonaparte had staid in Egypt and that -Robespierre had guilloteened Sieyes. These cursed complex governments are -good for nothing, and will ever be in the hands of intriguers: the -Jacobins were the men, and one house of representatives, lodging the -executive in committees, the plain and common system of government. The -cause of republicanism is over, and it is now only a struggle for -dominion. There wants a Lycurgus after Robespierre, a man loved for his -virtue, and bold and inflexible, who should have levelled the property of -France, and then would the Republic have been immortal--and the world must -have been revolutionized by example." From an unpublished letter from -Southey to Coleridge, dated December 23, 1799. - -[232] "Alas, poor human nature! Or rather, indeed, alas, poor Gallic -nature! For [Greek: Graioi aei paides] the French are always children, and -it is an infirmity of benevolence to wish, or dread, aught concerning -them." S. T. C., _Morning Post_, December 31, 1797; _Essays on His Own -Times_, i. 184. - -[233] See _Poetical Works_, Appendix K, pp. 544, 545. Editor's Note, pp. -646-649. - -[234] - - "The _winter_ Moon upon the sand - A silvery Carpet made, - And mark'd the sailor reach the land-- - And mark'd _his Murderer_ wash his hand - Where the green billows played!" - -_Annual Anthology_, 1800: "The Haunted Beach," sixth stanza, p. 256. - -[235] These letters, under the title of "Monopolists" and "Farmers," -appeared in the _Morning Post_, October 3-9, 1800. Coleridge wrote the -first of the series, and the introduction to No. III. of "Farmers," "In -what manner they are affected by the War" _Essays on His Own Times_, ii. -413-450; _Thomas Poole and his Friends_, ii. 15, 16. - -[236] It is impossible to explain this statement, which was repeated in a -letter to Josiah Wedgwood, dated November 1, 1800. The printed -"Christabel," even including the conclusion to Part II., makes only 677 -lines, and the discarded portion, if it ever existed, has never come to -light. See Mr. Dykes Campbell's valuable and exhaustive note on -"Christabel," _Poetical Works_, pp. 601-607. - -[237] A former title of "The Excursion." - -[238] "Sunday night, half past ten, September 14, 1800, a boy born -(Bracy). - -"September 27, 1800. The child being very ill was baptized by the name of -Derwent. The child, hour after hour, made a noise exactly like the -creaking of a door which is being shut very slowly to prevent its -creaking." (_MS._) S. T. C. - -My father's life was saved by his mother's devotion. "On the occasion here -recorded," he writes, "I had eleven convulsion fits. At last my father -took my mother gently out of the room, and told her that she must make up -her mind to lose this child. By and by she heard the nurse lulling me, and -said she would try once more to give me the breast." She did so; and from -that time all went well, and the child recovered. - -[239] Afterwards Sir Anthony, the distinguished surgeon, 1768-1840. - -[240] According to Dr. Davy, the editor of _Fragmentary Remains of Sir H. -Davy_, London, 1858, the reference is to the late Mr. James Thompson of -Clitheroe. - -[241] William, the elder brother of Raisley Calvert, who left Wordsworth 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 with a blended portrait of himself and Coleridge, and -ends with a blended portrait of Coleridge and William Calvert. Mrs. Joshua -Stanger (Mary Calvert) maintained that "the large gray eyes" and "low-hung -lip" were certainly descriptive of Coleridge and could not apply to her -father; but she admitted that, in other parts of the poem, Wordsworth may -have had her father in his mind. Of this we may be sure, that neither -Coleridge nor Wordsworth had "inventions rare," or displayed beetles under -a microscope. It is evident that Hartley Coleridge, who said "that his -father's character 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," _Cornhill Magazine_, -May, 1890, pp. 494-520. - -[242] On page 210 of vol. ii. of the second edition of the _Lyrical -Ballads_ (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. 134, II. 4-18. - -[243] During the preceding month Coleridge had 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 addressed to Josiah Wedgwood, embodied the result of -his studies. They would serve, he thought, as a preliminary excursus to a -larger work, and would convince the Wedgwoods that his _wanderjahr_ had -not been altogether misspent. Mr. Leslie Stephen, to whom this -correspondence has been submitted, is good enough to allow me to print the -following 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 transcendentalism of -the Schelling kind. One point is, that he still sticks to Hartley and to -the Association doctrine, which he afterwards denounced so frequently. -Thus he is dissatisfied with Locke, but has not broken with the 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] he 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." - -[244] Nothing is known of these lines beyond the fact that in 1816 -Coleridge printed them as "Conclusion to Part II." of "Christabel." It is -possible that they were intended to form part of a distinct poem in the -metre of "Christabel," or, it may be, they are the sole survival of an -attempted third part of the ballad itself. It is plain, however, that the -picture is from the life, that "the little child, the limber elf," is the -four-year-old Hartley, hardly as yet "fitting to unutterable thought, The -breeze-like motion, and the self-born carol." - -[245] George Hutchinson, the fourth son of John Hutchinson of Penrith, was -at this time in occupation of land at Bishop's Middleham, the original -home of the family. He migrated into Radnorshire in 1815, being then about -the age of thirty-seven; but between that date and his leaving Bishop's -Middleham he had resided for some time in Lincolnshire, at Scrivelsby, -where he was engaged probably as agent on the estate of the "Champion." -His first residence after migration was at New Radnor, where he married -Margaret Roberts of Curnellan, but he subsequently removed into -Herefordshire, where he resided in many places, latterly at Kingston. He -died at his son's house, The Vinery, Hereford, in 1866. It would seem from -a letter dated July 25, 1801 (Letter CXX.), that at this time Sarah -Hutchinson kept house for her brother George, and that Mary (Mrs. -Wordsworth) and Joanna Hutchinson lived with their elder brother Tom at -Gallow Hill, in the parish of Brompton, near Scarborough. The register of -Brompton Church records the marriage of William Wordsworth and Mary -Hutchinson, on October 4, 1802; but in the notices of marriages in the -_Gentleman's Magazine_, of October, 1802, the latter is described as "Miss -Mary Hutchinson of Wykeham," an adjoining parish. - -[From information kindly supplied to me by Mr. John Hutchinson, the keeper -of the Library of the Middle Temple.] - -[246] The historian William Roscoe (afterwards M. P. for Liverpool), and -the physician James Currie, the editor and biographer of Burns, were at -this time settled at Liverpool and on terms of intimacy with Dr. Peter -Crompton of Eaton Hall. - -[247] The Bristol merchant who lent the manor-house of Racedown to -Wordsworth in 1795. - -[248] In the well-known lines "On revisiting the Sea-shore," allusion is -made to this "mild physician," who vainly dissuaded him from bathing in -the open sea. Sea-bathing was at all times an irresistible pleasure to -Coleridge, and he continued the practice, greatly to his benefit, down to -a late period of his life and long after he had become a confirmed -invalid. _Poetical Works_, p. 159. - -[249] Francis Wrangham, whom Coleridge once described as "admirer of me -and a pitier of my political principles" (Letter to Cottle [April], 1796), -was his senior by a few years. On failing to obtain, it is said on account -of his advanced political views, a fellowship at Trinity Hall, he started -taking pupils at Cobham in Surrey in partnership with Basil Montagu. The -scheme was of short duration, for Montagu deserted tuition for the bar, -and Wrangham, early in life, was preferred to the benefices of Hemmanby -and Folkton, in the neighborhood of Scarborough. He was afterwards -appointed to a Canonry of York, to the Archdeaconry of Cleveland, and -finally to a prebendal stall at Chester. He published a volume of _Poems_ -(London, 1795), in which are included Coleridge's Translation of the -"Hendecasyllabli ad Bruntonam e Granta exituram," and some "Verses to Miss -Brunton with the preceding Translation." He died in 1842. _Poetical -Works_, p. 30. See, too, Editor's Note, p. 569; _Reminiscences of -Cambridge_, by Henry Gunning, London, 1855, ii. 12 _seq._ - -[250] "I took a first floor for him in King Street, Covent Garden, at my -tailor's, Howell's, whose wife is a cheerful housewife of middle age, who -I knew would nurse Coleridge as kindly as if he were her son." D. Stuart, -_Gent. Mag._, May, 1838. See, too, _Letters from the Lake Poets_, p. 7. - -[251] Captain Luff, for many years a resident at Patterdale, near -Ulleswater, was held in esteem for the energy with which he procured the -enrolment of large companies of volunteers. Wordsworth and Coleridge were -frequent visitors at his house, For his account of the death of Charles -Gough, on Helvellyn, and the fidelity of the famous spaniel, see -_Coleorton Letters_, i. 97. _Letters from the Lake Poets_, p. 131. - -[252] _Ciceronis Epist. ad Fam._ iv. 10. - -[253] _Ib._ i. 2. - -[254] The lines are taken, with some alterations, from a kind of _l'envoy_ -or epilogue which Bruno affixed to his long philosophical poem, _Jordani -Bruni Nolani de Innumerabilibus Immenso et Infigurabili; seu de Universo -et Mundis libri octo_. Francofurti, 1591, p. 654. - -[255] John Hamilton Mortimer, 1741-1779. He painted _King John granting -Magna Charta_, the _Battle of Agincourt_, the _Conversion of the Britons_, -and other historical subjects. - -[256] Drayton's _Poly-Olbion_, Song 22, 1-17. - -[257] The Latin Iambics, in which Dean Ogle celebrated the little Blyth, -which ran through his father's park at Kirkley, near Ponteland, 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 -without 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 gathered 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. - -[258] One of a series of falls made by the Dash Beck, which divides the -parishes of Caldbeck and Skiddaw Forest, and flows into Bassenthwaite -Lake. - -The following minute description is from an entry in a note-book dated -October 10, 1800:-- - -"The Dash itself is by no means equal to the Churnmilk (_sic_) at Eastdale -(_sic_) or the Wytheburn Fall. This I wrote standing under and seeing the -whole Dash; but when I went over and descended to the bottom, 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 -horse-shoe 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 complete spray-_rain_. Here it assumes, I 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 towards the right edge of the black [rock] two or -three leisurely fillets have escaped out of the turmoil." - -[259] I have been unable to discover any trace of the MS. of this -translation. - -[260] The "Ode to Dejection," of which this is the earliest version, was -composed on Sunday evening, April 4, and published six months later, in -the _Morning Post_ of October 4, 1802. It was reprinted in the _Sibylline -Leaves_, 1817. A comparison of the Ode, as sent to Sotheby, with the 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 Post_. The Ode was begun some three -weeks after Coleridge returned to Keswick, after an absence of four -months. He had visited Southey in London, he had been a fellow guest with -Tom Wedgwood for a month at Stowey, he had returned to London and attended -Davy's lectures at the Royal Institution, and on 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 Keswick on Sunday the 14th or Monday the 15th -of March. On the following Friday he walked over to Dove Cottage, and once -more found himself 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 hopelessness with the glad assurance of inward 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 movements at the -time, contains, among other hints and jottings, the following almost -illegible fragment: "The larches in spring push out their separate bundles -of ... into green brushes or pencils which ... small tassels;"--and with -the note may be compared the following lines included in the version -contained in the letter, but afterwards omitted:-- - - 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!_ - O 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 has rightly -divined, belonged to the original draft of the Ode. _Poetical Works_, p. -159. Appendix G, pp. 522-524. Editor's Note, pp. 626-628. - -[261] "A lovely skye-canoe." _Morning Post._ The reference is to the -Prologue to "Peter Bell." Compare stanza 22, - - "My little vagrant Form of light, - My gay and beautiful Canoe." - -Wordsworth's _Poetical Works_, p. 100. - -[262] For Southey's reply, dated Bristol, August 4, 1802, see _Life and -Correspondence_, ii. 189-192. - -[263] The Right Hon. Isaac Corry, Chancellor of the Exchequer for Ireland, -to whom Southey acted as secretary for a short time. - -[264] "On Sunday, August 1st, 1/2 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 -Wordsworths and transcribed by Miss Sarah Hutchinson. - -[265] "The following month, September (1802), was marked by the birth of -his first child, a daughter, named after her paternal grandmother, -Margaret." _Southey's Life and Correspondence_, ii. 192. - -[266] Southey's reply, which was not in the affirmative, has not been -preserved. The joint-residence at Greta Hall began in September, 1803. - -[267] Charles and Mary Lamb's visit to Greta Hall, which lasted three full -weeks, must have extended from (about) August 12 to September 2, 1802. -_Letters of Charles Lamb_, i. 180-184. - -[268] - - "_Here melancholy, on the pale crags laid, - Might muse herself to sleep_; or Fancy come, - Watching the mind with tender cozenage - And shaping things that are not." - -"Coombe-Ellen, written in Radnorshire, September, 1798." "Poems of William -Lisle Bowles," _Galignani_, p. 139. For "Melancholy, a Fragment," see -_Poetical Works_, p. 34. - -[269] I have not been able to verify this reference. - -[270] "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 certainly have thunder,--yet here (but that I am -hungered and provisionless), _here_ I could be warm and wait, methinks, -for to-morrow's sun--and on a nice stone table am I now at this moment -writing to you--between 2 and 3 o'clock, as I guess. Surely the first -letter ever written from the top of Sca Fell." - -"After the thunder-storm I shouted out all your names in the -sheep-fold--where echo came upon echo, and then Hartley and Derwent, and -then I laughed and shouted Joanna. It leaves all the echoes I ever heard -far, far behind, in number, distinctness and humanness of voice; and then, -not to forget 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 nonnihil displicet, quod in iis illae montium Grisosonum inter se -responsiones totidem reboant anglice, _God, God_, haud aliter atque temet -audivi tuas [sic] montes Cumbrianas [sic] resonare docentes, _Tod, Tod_, -nempe Doctorem infelicem: vocem certe haud Deum sonantem." _Letters of -Charles Lamb_, i. 185. See, too, Canon Ainger's translation and note, -_ibid._ p. 331. See, also, Southey's Letter to Grosvenor Bedford, January -9, 1804. _Life and Correspondence_, ii. 248. - -[271] "The Spirit of Navigation and Discovery." "Bowles's Poetical Works," -_Galignani_, p. 142. - -[272] These lines form part of the poem addressed "To Matilda Betham. From -a Stranger." The date of composition was September 9, 1802, the day before -they were quoted in the letter to Sotheby. _Poetical Works_, p. 168. - -[273] The "Hymn before Sunrise in the Vale of Chamouni" was first printed -in the _Morning Post_, September 11, 1802. It was reprinted in the -original issue of _The Friend_, No. xi. (October 16, 1809, pp. 174-176), -and again in _Sibylline Leaves_, 1817. As De Quincey was the first to -point out, Coleridge was indebted to the Swiss poetess, Frederica Brun, -for the framework of the poem and for many admirable lines and images, but -it was his solitary walk on Scafell, and the consequent uplifting of -spirit, which enabled him "to create the dry bones of the German outline -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 resident in the Lake District, he was absent -at least half the time. Of his greater poems there are but four, the -second part of "Christabel," the "Dejection: an Ode," the "Picture," and -the "Hymn before Sunrise," 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 Keswick 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 pleasant 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 Skiddaw." _Poetical Works_, p. 165, -and Editor's Note, pp. 629, 630. - -[274] Coleridge must have presumed on the ignorance of Sotheby and of his -friends generally. He could hardly have passed out of Boyer's hands -without having learned that [Greek: Estese] signifies, "He hath placed," -not "He hath stood." But, like most people who have changed their -opinions, he took an especial pride in proclaiming his unswerving -allegiance to fixed principles. The initials S. T. C., Grecised and -mistranslated, expressed this pleasing delusion, and the Greek, "Punic -[sc. punnic] Greek," as he elsewhere calls it, might run the risk of -detection. - -[275] Parts III. and IV. of the "Three Graves"--were first published in -_The Friend_, No. vi. Sept. 21, 1809. Parts I. and II. were published for -the first time in _The Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge_, -Macmillan, 1893. The final version of this stanza (ll. 509-513) differs -from that in the text. "A small blue sun" became "A tiny sun," and for -"Ten thousand hairs of colour'd light" Coleridge substituted "Ten thousand -hairs and threads of light." See _Poetical Works_, p. 92, and Editor's -Note, pp. 589-591. - -[276] The six essays to which he calls Estlin's attention are reprinted in -_Essays on His Own Times_, ii. 478-585. - -[277] The residence of Josiah Wedgwood. - -[278] Paley's last work, "_Natural Theology_; or, Evidences of the -Existence and Attributes of A Deity, collected from the Appearances of -Nature," was published in 1802. - -[279] For Southey's well known rejoinder to this "ebullience of -schematism," see _Life and Correspondence_, ii. 220-223. - -[280] Southey's correspondence contains numerous references to the -historian Sharon Turner [1768-1847], and to William Owen, the translator -of the _Mabinogion_ and author of the _Welsh Paradise Lost_. - -[281] It may be interesting to compare the following unpublished note from -Coleridge's Scotch Journal with the well known passage in Dorothy -Wordsworth's Journal of her tour in the Highlands (_Memoir of Wordsworth_, -i. 235): "Next morning 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 native elegance. Oh! she was a divine creature! The sight of -the boat, full of Highland men and women and children from the preaching, -exquisitely fine. We soon reached E. Tarbet--all the while rain. Never, -never let me forget that small herd-boy in his tartan-plaid, dim-seen on -the hilly field, and long heard ere seen, a melancholy voice calling to -his cattle! nor the beautiful harmony of the heath, and the dancing fern, -and the ever-moving birches. That of itself enough to make Scotland -visitable, its fields of heather giving a sort of shot silk finery in the -apotheosis of finery. On Monday we went to Arrochar. 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: "O Esteese, that thou hadst from thy -22nd year indeed made thy _own_ way and _alone_!" - -[282] - - 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._ - -[283] Margaret Southey, who was born in September, 1802, died in the -latter part of August, 1803. - -[284] The "Pains of Sleep" was published for the first time, together with -"Christabel" and "Kubla Khan," in 1816. With the exception of the -insertion of the remarkable lines 52-54, the first draft of the poem does -not materially differ from the published version. A transcript of the same -poem was sent to Poole in a letter dated October 3, 1803. _Poetical -Works_, p. 170, and Editor's Note, pp. 631, 632. - -[285] The Rev. Peter Elmsley, the well known scholar, who had been a -school and college friend of Southey's, was at this time resident at -Edinburgh. The _Edinburgh Review_ had been founded the year before, and -Elmsley was among the earliest contributors. His name frequently recurs in -Southey's correspondence. - -[286] Compare Southey's first impressions 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 on 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 anything so -impressive as the first sight of this; there was a wild red sunset -slanting along it." _Selections from the Letters of R. Southey_, i. 342. - -[287] Compare _Table Talk_, for September 26, 1830, where a similar -statement is made in almost the same words. - -[288] The same sentence occurs in a letter to Sir G. Beaumont, dated -September 22, 1803. _Coleorton Letters_, i. 6. - -[289] The MS. of this letter was given to my father by the Rev. Dr. -Wreford. I know nothing of the person to whom it was addressed, except -that he was "Matthew Coates, Esq., of Bristol." - -[290] Dr. Joseph Adams, the biographer of Hunter, who in 1816 recommended -Coleridge to the care of Mr. James Gillman. - - - -***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LETTERS OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, -VOL. 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