inn- Js>V< s UNPUBLISHED LETTERS FROM SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE TO THE REV." JOHN PRIOR ESTLIN. COMMUNICATED BY HENRY A. BRIGHT. UNPUBLISHED LETTERS FROM SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE TO THE REV. JOHN PRIOR ESTLIN. HE accompanying very in- terefting letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge have been kindly placed at my difpofal by Mifs Eftlin, of Clifton. They were addrefled to her grand- father, the Rev. Dr. Eftlin, who was the Unitarian minifter of the Le win's Mead Congregation at Briftol. Dr. Eftlin appears to have been a man of confiderable ability and very highly refpedted ; and it is clear that during the earlier part of Coleridge's career he exerted a remarkable influence over him. Thefe letters range from 1796 to 1814, and are efpecially 1)87689 . : .- 4 - ; Unpublijhed Letters ; curious as {bowing, more fully than has hitherto been done, the cir- cumftances under which Coleridge adopted and afterwards relinquifhed the profeffion of a Unitarian minifter. Two diftinguiflied literary men have fpoken of the time, to which the moft important of thefe letters refer. In Hazlitt's " My firft ac- " quaintance with Poets," which he contributed to " The Liberal," he fpeaks of walking, when a boy, ten miles to Shrewftmry to hear Cole- ridge preach, for " a poet and a " philofopher getting up into a Uni- " tarian pulpit to preach the Gofpel, " was a romance in thofe degenerate " days, a fort of revival of the primi- " tive fpirit of Chriftianity, which " was not to be refifted." It was fome eight or nine years afterwards that De Quincey met Coleridge. " Coleridge told me that " it had coft him a painful effort, of S. T. Coleridge. 5 " but not a moment's hefitation, to " abjure his Unitarianifm, from the " circumftance that he had amongft " the Unitarians many friends, to " fome of whom he was greatly in- " debted for great kindnefs. In " particular he mentioned Mr. Eft- " lin of Briftol, a diftinguifhed Dif- " fen ting clergyman, as one whom " it grieved him to grieve. But he " would not diflemble his altered " views." There is alfo an unpublifhed letter of February, 1798, from Theophilus Lindfey (who will be known to many of us from the interefting ac- count of him in Trevelyan's " Life " of Fox") to a friend at Shrewf- bury, in which he fays : " You " cannot well conceive how much " you have raifed my opinion of " Mr. Coleridge by your account " of him. Such mining lights, fo " virtuous and difmterefted, will 6 Unpublifhed Letters " contribute to redeem the age we " live in from being fo deftitute of " apoftolic zeal/' The previous year, Mrs. Barbauld had addrefled a poem to Coleridge, urging him to " fair exertion for " bright fame fuftained." I have found it difficult to arrange thefe letters in their proper order, as many of them are without date, and though conjectural dates are often inferted, there is always liability to miftake. Cottle's " Early Recol- " ledlions " has ferved as a guide in fome inftances, but the letters he gives are often alfo without date, and are fometimes apparently mifplaced. Of the three poems, the fragment copied out by Mifs Wordfworth appears afterwards in a fomewhat altered form, in Book I. of " The " Excurfion." The verfes, "To An " Unfortunate Princefs " may be found in the " Monthly Magazine " of S. T. Coleridge. 7 with the title " On a late Connubial " rupture in High Life," and they appear again in Pickering's edition of Coleridge, 1877: they are not in the 1848 edition. The lines to Home Tooke I am unable to trace. They were written, it appears, for " Home Tooke and the " company, who met on June a8th " to celebrate his poll," at the Weft- minfter election. This celebration was held at the " Crown and Anchor" in the Strand and was largely at- tended, and we further learn from Hamilton Reid's " Life of Tooke," that " excellent patriotic fongs " were fung, but no words are given. On the circumftances connected with Coleridge's vifit to Mrs. Evans (in the firft letter) I can throw no light, except indeed that Southey, writing to Cottle in 1836, fays that in 1 794 " Coleridge made his en- " gagement to Mifs Fricker on our 8 Unpublijhed Letters " return from this journey at my " mother's houfe at Bath ; not a " little to my aftonimment, for he " had talked of being deeply in love " with a certain Mary Evans" With regard to Coleridge's Shrewf- bury epifode, it would appear that he firfl went on trial at Mr. Rowe's requeft (Coleridge mis-fpells the name Row throughout), and after- wards accepted the invitation of the congregation. The Wedgewoods' prefent of ioo/. he declined, but fhortly afterwards came the fecond offer of 1 5o$ KOLI AIOMOVOS, &c., Eph. vi. 21, from which rule he deduces abfolute affertions of the Godhead of Chrift from Acts xx. 28, Eph. v. 5, 2 Theflal. i. 12, i Timoth. v. 21, 2 Timoth. iv. i, Titus ii. 13, 2 Peter i. i, Jude 4. Kit Wordf- worth's book is occupied in proofs that all the Greek Fathers, and many 84 Unpublijhed Letters and thofe the moft learned of the Latin Fathers, did fo underfland thefe texts, when from the nature of the Arian controverfy, it would have anfwered their purpofes much better to have underftood the words ac- cording to our prefent verfions. The firft thing that flared me in the face, and which I afterwards found true, is that all the inftances but two are, to all intents and purpofes, pro- per names , and confequently fall within Grenville Sharp's own ex- ception. The two inftances which I have not found ufed as proper names are Titus ii. 13, and 2 Peter i. i . Now if you know any proof of Z^r^p being ufed without an ar- ticle in any place where it ftands by itfelf, in the fame manner as Chrift is, and God, and as Kvptog I can prove to be in a hundred inftances in Greek, you would ferve me, and what is a much greater inducement of S. T. Coleridge. 85 to you, throw light on a very im- portant fubjecl: ; or if you know any inftance in which Sharp's rule is falfified. In Englifh now, exem. caufd, we might fay, As I walked out to-day, whom mould I meet but the carpenter and fhoemaker of our village ? It would certainly be more accurate to fay the carpenter and the fhoemaker ; but the accuracy of fpecial pleading is to be found in few books, nor is it neceflary. You would know that I had met two perfons, becaufe you know that the trades of carpenter and moemaker are not one in this country, whereas if I had faid, the carpenter and joiner, though the form of grammar would have been the fame, you would have known inftantly that I had met but one man. If you re- collect in Ariftophanes, &c., or the Septuagint, any inftances to this pur- pofe, you would oblige me by tranf- 86 Unpublijhed Letters mitting them to me. Unfortunately, I have none of the Greek Fathers, neither have I the Septuagint ; but I have found much that I want in Suicerus's Thefaurus Patrum, which I was lucky enough to buy for its weight at a druggift's. In thefe letters I purpofe to review Horfley's and Prieftley's controverfy, and in thefe you will fee my Con- fejfio Fidei, which as far as regards the doctrine of the Trinity is negative Unitarianifm, a non liquet concern- ing the nature and being of Chrift, but a condemnation of the Trini- tarians as being wife beyond what is written. On the fubjects of the original corruption of our Nature, the doctrines of Redemption, Re- generation, Grace, and Juftification by Faith, my conviftions are altogether different from thofe of Drs, Prieftley, Lindfey, and Difney ; neither do I conceive Chriftianity to be tenable of S. T. Coleridge. 87 on the Prieftleyan hypothefis. I read Lardner often ; not fo much for the information I gain from him which is, however, very great but for the admirable modefty and truly Chriftian fpirit which breathes through his works, and which I wim to imbibe as a man, and to imitate as a writer, well aware of the natural Impetuofity and War- hurt onianifm of my own unconnected difpofition. My dear Friend, be- lieve no idle reports concerning me ; if I differ from you, and wherein I differ from you, it will be that I believe on the whole more than you, not lefs, of which I give, I truft, the beft proof in my power, by breeding up my child in habits of awe for Deity, and undoubted Faith in the truth in Chrift. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the pleafure and inftrudlion which I have received from your fermon on 88 Unpublijhed Letters the Sabbath, which I have read repeatedly, and (hall take occafion to fpeak of", as in my humble opinion incomparably the beft work that has been written on the fubjeft, as far as I have feen, and a fufficient anfwer to (what I had before be- lieved unanfwerable) Paley's objec- tions. It grieved me that you fhould have the word genius fo empha- tically (p. 26) to Evanfon, for furely you wrote it unthinkingly. Is not Evanfon egregioufly a weak and vain man ? God forgive me if I fpeak un- charitably, I am fure I do not feel fo ; but his book on the diffonance of the Evangelifts ftruck me as the fillieft and moft vapid book I ever perufed.