1 ', !' i&f / / ( y J Samuel Taylor Coleridge at 6i LETTERS OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE EDITED BY ERNEST HARTLEY COLERIDGE IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. II BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 'CI^E fii\)crsibe pres?, CambciDoe 1895 Copyright, 1895, By HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. All rights reserved. T7te Tiiverside Press, Cambridge, Masf., U. S. A. Electrotyped and Printed by H. 0. Houghton & Co. •• • • • • • •• . . . . • • '.*••. ; ' • : •.:.:'.. •;•••• ••".•. :.v. :.:•:: • -. • - •:•::>•. '. '.- • •;- ,. ..*.•..• • • . . • • • A4 CONTENTS OF VOLUME II CHAPTER VII. A LONG ABSENCE, 1804-1806. Page CXLIV. Richard Sharp, January 1.5, 1804. (Life of Words- worth, 1889, ii. 9) 447 CXLV. Thomas Poole, January 15, 1804. (Forty lines pub- lished, Thomas Poole and his Friends, 1887, ii. 122) . 4.52 CXLVI. Thomas Poole [January 26, 1804] . , , .454 CXLVII. The Wordsworth Family, February 8, 1804. (Life of Wordsworth, 1889, ii. 12) 456 CXLVIII. Mrs. S. T. Coleridge, February 19, 1804 . . .460 CXLIX. Robert Southey, February 20, 1804 . . . .464 CL. Mrs. S. T. Coleridge, April 1, 1804 . . . .467 CLI. Robert Southey, April 16, 1804 469 CLIL Daniel Stuart, April 21, 1804. (Privately printed. Letters from the Lake Poets, p. 33) .... 475 CLin. Mrs. S. T. Coleridge, June, 1804 480 CLIV. Daniel Stuart, October 22, 1804. (Privately printed, Letters from the Lake Poets, p. 45) .... 485 CLV. Robert Socthey, February 2, 1805 .... 487 CLVI. Daniel Stuart, April 20, 1805. (Privately printed, Letters from the Lake Poets, p. 46) .... 403 CLVII. Mrs. S. T. Coleridge, July 21, 1805 .... 496 CLVIII. Washington Allston, June 17, 1806. (Scribner's Maga- zine, January, 1892) 498 CLIX. Daniel Stuart, August 18, 1800. (Privately printed. Letters from the Lake Poets, p. 54) . . . .501 CHAPTER VIII. HOME AND NO HOME, 1806-1807. CLX. Daniel Stuart, September 15, 1806. (Privately printed, Letters from the Lake Poets, p. 60) .... 505 CLXI. Mrs. S. T. Coleridge, September IG [1806] . . .507 CLXII. Mrs. S. T. Coleridge, December 25, 1806 . . .509 CLXIII. Hartley Coleridge, April 3, 1807 . . . .511 CLXIV. Sir H. Davy, September 11, 1807. (Fragmentary Re- . mains, 1858, p. 99) 514 CHAPTER IX. A PUBLIC LECTURER, 1807-1808. CLXV. The Morgan Family [November 23, 1807] . . .519 CLXVI. Robert Southey [December 14, 1807] . . .520 Ji.^^\J iv CONTENTS CLXVII. Mrs. Moroan, January 25, 1808 . . . .524 CLXVllI. Francis Jkkfrky, May 23, 1808 .... 527 CLXIX. Francis Jkkfrey, July 20, ISOS . . . .528 CHAPTER X. GRASMERE AND THE FRIEND, 1808-1810. CLXX. Damii. Stiakt [D.cembor 0, 180S]. (Privately piiiitfd, Li'tters froui the Lake Poets, p. O.'l) . . 533 CLXXI. Francis Jkkfrey, December 14, 1808. (Illustrated London News, June 10, 18!):!) .... 5.34 CLXXU. Thomas Wilkinson, December 31, 1808. (Friends' Quarterly MaEKs [?], October 28, 1819 . Joseph Henry Green [January 14, 1820] Joseph Henry Green, May 25, 1820 Charles Augustus Tulk, February 12, 1821 . CHAPTER XIV. THE PHILOSOPHER AND DIVINE, 1822- CCXXX. John Murray, January 18, 1822 . . . . CCXXXI. Jajies GiluvL/VN, October 28, 1822. (Life of Coleridge, 1838, p. 344) CCXXXI I. Miss Brent, July 7, 1823 .... CCXXXI H. Rev. Edward Coleridge, July 23, 1823 CCXXXIV. Joseph Henry Green, February 1.5, 1824 CCXXXV. Joseph Henry Green, May 10, 1824 CCXXXVI. James Gillman, November 2, 1824 . CCXXXVII. Rev. II. F. Caky, December 14, 1824 CCXXXVIII. William Wordsworth [? 182.5]. (Fifteen lines published, Life of Wordsworth, 1889, ii. 305) CCXXXIX. John Taylor Coleridge, April 8, 1825 . CCXL. Rev. Edward Coleridge, May 19, 1825 . CCXLI. Daniel Stuart, July 9, 1825. (Privately printed. Letters from the Lake Poets, p. 280) CCXLII. James Gillman, October 10, 1825 . . . . CCXLIIl. Rev. Edward Coleridge, December 9, 1825 . CCXLIV. Mrs. Gillman. May 3, 1827 ... CCXLV. Rev. George May Coleridge, January 14, 1828 . CCXLVI. George Dyer, June 6, 1828. (The Mirror, xxxviii. 1841, p. 282) CCXLVII. George Cattermole, August 14, 1828 . CCXLVIII. Joseph Henry Green, June 1, 1830 CCXLI X. Thomas Poole, 1830 .... CCL. Mrs. Gillman, 1830 CCLI. Joseph Henry Green, December 15, 1831 CCLII. II. N. Coleridge, February 24, 18.32 CCLI II. Miss Lawrence, March 22, 18.32 CCLIV. Rev. H. F. Cary, AprQ 22, 1832. (Memoir of Cary. 1847. ii. 104) CCLV. JouN Peirse Kennard, August 13, 1832 H. F. GOO 093 695 699 700 701 704 706 712 1832. 717 721 722 724 726 728 729 731 733 734 738 740 742 744 745 746 748 750 751 753 754 754 756 758 760 762 I CONTENTS vii CHAPTER XV. THE BEGINNING OF THE END, 1833-1834. CCLVI. Joseph Henry Green, AprQ 8, 1833 . . .767 CCLVII. Mrs. Aders [1833] 769 CCLVIII. John Sterling, October 30, 1833 . . . .771 CCLIX. Miss Eliza Nixon, July 9, 1834 .... 773 CCLX. Adam Steinmetz Kennard, July 13, 1834. (Early Recollections, 1837, ii. 193) 775 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Page Samuel Taylor Colekldge, aged sixty-one. From a pencil-sketch by J. Kayser, of Kaserworth, now in the possession of the editor. Fronti^iece Mks. Wilson. From a pencil-sketch by Edward Nash, 1816, now in the possession of the editor 460 Hartley Coleridge, aged ten. After a painting by Sir David Wil- kie, R. A., now in the possession of Sir George Beaumont, Bart. . . 510 The Room in Mr. Gillman's House, The Grove, Highgate, which served as study and bedroom for the poet, and in which he died. From a water-colour drawing now in the jjossession of Miss Chris- tabel Coleridge, of Cheyne, Torquay 616 Derwent Coleridge, aged nineteen. From a pencil-sketch by Ed- ward Nash, now in the possession of the editor 704 The Reverend George Coleridge. From an oil painting now in the possession of the Right Honourable Lord Coleridge 746 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, aged (about) fifty-six. From an oil painting (taken at the Argyll Baths), now in the possession of the editor 758 CHAPTER VII A LONG ABSENCE 1804-1806 CHAPTER VII A LONG ABSENCE 1804-1806 CXLIV. TO RICHARD SHARP.^ King's Arms, Kendal, Sunday morning, January 15, 1804. My dear Sir, — I give you thanks — and, that I may make the best of so poor and unsubstantial a return, permit me to say, that they are such thanks as can only come from a nature unworldly by constitution and by habit, and now rendered more than ever impressible by sudden restoration — resurrection I mio-ht sav — from a long, long sick-bed. I had gone to Grasmere to take my farewell of William Wordsworth, his wife, and his sis- ter, and thither your letters followed me. I was at Gras- mere a whole month, so ill, as that till the last week I was unable to read your letters. Not that my inner being was disturbed ; on the contrary, it seemed more than usually serene and self-sufficing ; but the exceeding pain, of which I suffered every now and then, and the fearful distresses of my sleep, had taken away from me the con- necting link of voluntary power, which continually com- bines that part of us by which we know ourselves to be, with that outward picture or hieroglyphic, by which we hold communion with our like — between the vital and 1 Richard Sharp, 1759-1835, of Wordsworth's, and on intimate known as " Convei'sation Sharp," a terms with Coleridg-e and Southey. banker, Member of Parliament, and Life of W. Wordsworth, i. 377 ; Let- distinguished critic. He was a friend ters of R. Southey, i. 279, et passim. 448 A LONG ABSENCE [Jan. the or^janie — - or wliat Boikeloy, I suppose, would call miiiil and its sensuous lan<^uago. I had only just strength enough to smile gratefully on my kind nurses, who tended me with sister's and mother's love, and often, I well know, we])t for me in their sleep, and watehed for me even in their dreams. Oh, dear sir! it does a man's heart good, 1 will not say, to know such a family, but even to know that there is such a family. In sjiite of Wordsworth's occasional fits of hypochondriacal uncom- fortableness, — from which, more or less, and at longer or shorter intervals, he has never been wholly free from his very childhood, — in spite of this hypochondriacal graft in his nature, as dear Wedgwood calls it, his is the happiest family I ever saw, and were it not in too great symjiathy with my ill health — were I in good health, and their neighbour — I verily believe that the cottage in Grasmere Vale would be a proud sight for Phil()S()ph3\ It is with no idle feeling of vanity that I speak of my importance to them ; that it is /, rather than another, is almost an accident ; but being so very happy within themselves they are too good, not the more, for that very reason, to want a friend and common object of love out of their household. I have met with several genuine Philologists, Philonoists, Physiophilists, keen hun- ters after knowledge and science ; but truth and wisdom are higher names than these — and revering Davy, I am half angry with him for doing that which would make me laugh in another man — I mean, for prostituting and profaning the name of "Philosopher," "great Philoso- pher," "eminent Philosopher," etc., etc., etc., to every fellow who has made a lucky experiment, though the man should be Frenchified to the heart, and though the whole Seine, with all its filth and poison, flows in his veins and arteries. Of our common friends, my dear sir, I flatter myself that you and I should agree in fixing on T. Wedgwood I 1804] TO RICHARD SHARP 449 and on Wordsworth as genuine Philosophers — for I have often said (and no wonder, since not a day passes but the conviction of the truth of it is renewed in me, and with the conviction, the accompanying esteem and love), often have I said that T. Wedgwood's faults im- press me with veneration for his moral and intellectual character more than almost any other man's virtues ; for under circumstances like his, to have a faidt only in that degree is, I doubt not, in the eye of God, to possess a high virtue. Who does not prize the Retreat of Moreau ^ more than all the straw-blaze of Bonaparte's victories? And then to make it (as Wedgwood really does) a sort of crime even to think of his faults by so many virtues retained, cultivated, and preserved in growth and blossom, in a climate — where now the gusts so rise and eddy, that deejDly rooted must that be which is not snatched up and made a plaything of by them, — and, now, " the parching air burns frore." W. Wordsworth does not excite that almost painfully profound moral admiration which the sense of the exceed- ing difficulty of a given virtue can alone call forth, and which therefore I feel exclusively towards T. Wedgwood ; but, on the other hand, he is an object to be contem- plated with greater complacency, because he both deserves to be, and is, a happy man ; and a happy man, not from natural temperament, for therein lies his main obstacle, not by enjoyment of the good things of this world — for even to this day, from the first dawn of his manhood, he has purchased independence and leisure for great and good pursuits by austere frugality and daily self-denials ; nor yet by an accidental confluence of amiable and happy- making friends and relatives, for every one near to his heart has been placed there by choice and after know- ^ Jean Victor Moreau, 1763-1813. Archduke Charles at Nereshcim, in The "retreat" took place in Octo- the preceding August. Biographical ber, 1796, after his defeat of the Dictionary. 450 A LONG ABSENCE [Jan. lednv ami (Mlbevatlon ; but he is a happy man, because lie is :i l*liiU).si>i)hc'r, because he knows the intrinsic value of the tlilYerent objects of human pursuit, and regulates his wishes in strict subordination to that knowledge ; because he feels, and with ?i practical faith, the truth of that which you, more than once, my dear sir, have with equal good sense and kindness pressed upon me, that we can do but one thing well, and that therefore we must make a choice. lie has made that choice from his early youth, has pursued and is pursuing it ; and certainly no small i>art of his hai)piness is owing to this unity of interest and that homogeneity of character which is the natural consequence of it, and which that excellent man, the poet Sotheby, noticed to me as the characteristic of Wordsworth. Wordsworth is a poet, a most original poet. He no more resembles Milton than Milton resembles Shakespeare — no more resembles Shakcs])eare than Shakespeare re- sembles Milton. He is himself and, I dare affirm that, he will hereafter be admitted as the first and greatest })hilo- sophical poet, the only man who has effected a complete and coustant synthesis of thought and feeling and com- bined them with poetic forms, with the music of pleasur- able passion, and with Imagination or the modifying power in that highest sense of the word, in which I have ventured to oppose it to Fancy, or the agffregating power — in that sense in which it is a dim analogue of creation — not all that we can believe, but all that we can conceive of crea- tion. — Wordsworth is a poet, and I feel myself a better poet, in knowing how to honour him than in all my own poetic compositions, aU I have done or hope to do ; and I proi)hcsy inunortality to his "Recluse," as the first and finest philosophical poem, if only it be (as it imdoubt- edly will l)e) a faithful transcript of his own most august and innocent life, of his own habitual feelings and modes of seeing and hearing. — My dear sir ! I began a letter 1804] TO RICHARD SHARP 451 with a heart, Heaven knows ! how full of gratitude toward you — and I have flown off into a whole letter-full respect- ing Wedgwood and Wordsworth. Was it that my heart demanded an outlet for grateful feelings — for a long stream of them — and that I felt it would be oiDpressive to you if I wrote to you of yourself half of what I wished to write ? Or was it that I knew I should be in sympathy with you, and that few subjects are more pleasing to you than a detail of the merits of two men, whom, I am sure, you esteem equally with myself — though accidents have thrown me, or rather Providence has placed me, in a closer connection with them, both as confidential friends and the one as my benefactor, and to whom I owe that my bed of sickness has not been in a house of want," unless I had bought the contrary at the price of my conscience by becoming a jjriest. I leave this place this afternoon, having walked from Grasmere yesterday. I walked the nineteen miles through mud and drizzle, fog and stifling air, in four hours and thirty-five minutes, and was not in the least fatigued, so that you may see that my sickness has not much weakened me. Indeed, the suddenness and seeming perfectness of my recovery is really astonishing. In a single hour I have changed from a state that seemed next to death, swollen limbs, racking teeth, etc., to a state of elastic health, so that I have said, " If I have been dreaming, yet you, Wordsworth, have been awake." And Words- worth has answered, " I could not expect any one to be- lieve it who had not seen it." These changes have always been produced by sudden changes of the weather. Dry hot weather or dry frosty weather seem alike friendly to me, and my persuasion is strong as the life within me, that a year's residence in Madeira would renovate me. I shall spend two days in Liverpool, and hope to be in London, coach and coachman permitting, on Friday afternoon or Saturday at the furthest. And on this day week I look 452 A LONG ABSENCE [Jan. forward to tlie pleasure of thaukin*;^ you personally, for I still hope to avail myself of your kind introductions. I mean to wait in London till a good vessel sails for Madeira ; but of this wlien I see you. Ik'lieve me, my dear sir, with grateful and affectionate thanks, your sincere friend, S. T. Coleridge. CXLV. TO THOMAS POOLE. Kendal, Sunday, January 15, 1804. My dear Poole, — My health is as the weather. That, for the last month, has been unusually bad, and so has my health. I go by the heavy coach this afternoon. I shall be at Liverj^ool tomorrow night. Tuesday, Wednesday, 1 shall stay there ; not more certainly, for I have taken my place all the way to London, and this stay of two days is an indidgence and entered in the road-bill, so I expect to be in London on Friday evening about six o'clock, at the Saracen's Head, Snow Hill. Now my dearest friend ! will you send a twopenny post letter directed, " Mr. Coleridge (Passenger in the Heavy Coach from Kendal and Liver- pool), to be left at the bar, Saracen's Head, Snow Hill," informing me whether I can have a bed at your lodgings, or whether Mr. Eickman coidd let me have a bed for one or two nights, — for I have such a dread of sleeping at an Inn or Coffee house in London, that it quite unmans me to think of it. To love and to be beloved makes hothouse plants of us, dear Poole ! Though wretchedly ill, I have not yet been deserted by hope — less dejected than in any former illness — and my mind has been active, and not vaguely, but to that deter- minate purpose which has employed me the last three months, and I want only one fortnight steady reading to have got all my materials before me, and then I neither stir to the right nor to the left', so help me God ! till the work is finished. Of its contents, the title will, in part, 1804] TO THOMAS POOLE 453 iufornl you, " Consolations and Comforts from tlie exer- cise and right application of the Reason, the Imagination, the Moral Feelings, Addressed especially to those in sick- ness, adversity, or distress of mind, from speculative gloom,^ etc." -^ I put that last phrase, though barbarous, for your in- formation. I have puzzled for hours together, and could never hit off a phrase to express that idea, that is, at once neat and terse, and yet good English. The whole plan of my literary life I have now laid down, and the exact order in which I shall execute it, if God vouchsafe me life and adequate health ; and I have sober though confident ex- pectations that I shall render a good account of what may have appeared to you and others, a distracting manifold- ness in my objects and attainments. You are nobly em- ployed, — most worthily of you. You are made to endear yourself to mankind as an immediate benefactor : I must throw my bread on the waters. You sow corn and I plant the olive. Different evils beset us. You shall give me advice, and I will advise you, to look steadily at every- thing, and to see it as it is — to be willing to see a thing to b-^ evil, even though you see, at the same time, that it is for the present an irremediable evil ; and not to over- rate, either in the convictions of your intellect, or in the feelings of your heart, the Good, because it is present to you, and in your power — and, above all, not to be too hasty an admirer of the Rich, who seem disposed to do good with their wealth and influence, but to make your esteem strictly and severely proportionate to the worth of the Agent, not to the value of the Action, and to refer the latter wholly to the Eternal Wisdom and Goodness, to ^ This phrase reappears in the gloom" and finally to "dejection first issne (1808) of the Prospectus of mind." See letter to F. Jeffrey, of The Friend. Jeffrey, to whom the December 14, 1808, published in Prospectus was submitted, objected the Illustrated London News, JunelO, to the wording, and it was changed, 1893. Letter CLXXI. in the first instance, to "mental 45-i A LONG ABSENCE [Jan. God, upon whom it wholly clepeucls, and in whom alone it has a moral worth. I love and honour you, Poole, for many things — scarcely for anything; more than that, trusting firmly in the recti- tude and simplieity of your own heart, and listening with faith to its revealing voice, you never suffered either my subtlety, or my eloquence, to proselytize you to the per- nieious doctrine of Necessity. ^ All praise to the Great Being wlio has graciously enabled me to find my way out of that labyrinth-den of sophistry, and, I woidd fain believe, to brinir with me a better clue than has hitherto been known, to enable others to do the same. I have convinced Southey and Wordsworth ; and W., as you know, was, even to extravagance, a Necessitarian. Southey never believed and abhorred the Doctrine, yet thought the argument for it unanswerable by luunan reason. I have convinced both of them of the sophistry of the argiiment, and wherein the sophism consists, viz., that all have hitherto — both the Necessitarians and their antagonists — confounded two essentially different things under one name, and in conse- quence of this mistake, the victory has been always hollow, in favor of the Necessitarians. God bless you, and S. T. Coleridge. P. S. If any letter come to your lodgings for me, of course you will take care of it. CXLVI. TO THE SAME. [January 26, 1804.] My dearest Poole, — I have called on Sir James Mackintosh,^ who offered me his endeavours to procure ^ See concluding paragraph of Introductory Address of Condones ad Foj'iulnin (February, 170.")) ; The Friend, Section L, Essay xvi. ; Cole- ridge's Works, 1853, ii. 307. For recantation of Necessitarianism, see footnote (1797) to lines " To a Friend, together with an Unfinished Poem." Poetical Works, p. 3S. ^ Stuart is responsible for a story that Coleridge's dislike and distrust of the " fellow from Aberdeen," the 1804] TO THOMAS POOLE 455 me a place under him in India, of which endeavour he would not for a moment doubt the success ; and assured me on Ms Honour^ on his Soul! ! (N. B. his Honour! !) (N. B. his Soul!!) that he was sincere. Lillibullero ahoo ! ahoo ! ahoo ! Good morning-, Sir James I I next called on Davy, who seems more and more determined to mould himself upon the Age, in order to make the Age mould itself upon him. Into this language at least I could have translated his conversation. Oh, it is a dangerous business tliis bowing of the head in the Temple of Rimmon ; and such men I aptly christen Theo-mammonists^ that is, those who at once worship God and Mammon. However, God gi-ant better things of so noble a work of His ! And, as I once before said, may that Serpent, the World, climb around the club which supports him, and be the symbol of healing ; even as in Tooke's " Pantheon," ^ you may see the tiling done to your eyes in the picture of Escidapius. Well ! now for business. I shall leave the note among the schedules. They will wonder, plain, sober people ! what hero of The Two Round Spaces on a friend's cause -with unnecessary ve- Tombstone, dated from a visit to the heraence. Gentleman's Magazine, Wedgwoods at Cote House, when May, 1838, p. 485. Mackintosh outtalked and outshone ^ The Pantheon. By Andrew his fellow proteg^, and drove him Tooke. Revised, etc., for the use in dudgeon from the party. But in of schools. London: 1791. 1838, when he contributed his arti- " Tooke was a prodigious fa- des to the Gentleman s Magazine, vourite with us (at Christ's Hospi- Stuart had forgotten much and tal). I see before me, as vividly looked at all things from a different now as ever, his Mars and Apollo, point of view. For instance, he says his Venus and Aurora — the Mars that the verses attacking Mackin- coming on furiously in his car; tosh were never published, whereas Apollo, with his radiant head, in they appeared in the Morning Post the midst of shades and fountains ; of December 4, 1800. A more prob- Aurora with hers, a golden dawn ; able explanation is that Stuart, who and Venus, very handsome, we was not on good terms with his thought, and not looking too modest brother-in-law, was in the habit of in ' a slight cymar.' " Autobiogra- confiding liis grievances, and tliat phy of Leigh Hunt, p. 75. Coleridge, more sua, espoused his 456 A LONG ABSENCE [Feb. damn'cl madcap has got among tliem ; or rather I will put it uiuh'i- the letter just arrived for you, that at least it may perhaps be under the Itoae} Well, ouce again. I will try to get at it, but I am laniling on a surfy shore, and am always driven back upon the open sea of various thoughts. I dine with Davy at five o'clock this evening at the Prince of Wales's Coffee House, Leicester S(piare, an he can give us three hours of his company ; and I beseech you do make a point and come. God bless you, and may His Grace be as a pair of brimstone gloves to guard against dirty diseases from such bad company as you are keeping — Rose ^ and Thomas Poole ! — ! ! ! S. T. Coleridge. T. Poole, Esq., Parliament Office. [Note in Poole's handwriting : " Very interesting jeu d'esprit^ but not sent."] CXLVII. TO THE WORDSWORTHS. DuNMOW, Essex, Wednesday night, \ past 11, February 8, 1804. My DEAREST Friends, — I must write, or I shall have delayed it till delay has made the thought painful as of a duty neglected. I had meant to have kept a sort of journal for you, but I have not been calm enough ; and if I had kept it, I should not have time to transcribe, for nothins: can exceed the bustle I have been in from the day of my arrival in town. The only incident of any ^ See note infra, 2 George Rose, 1744-1818, states- man and political writer. lie had recently brought in a bill -which ' ' authorised the sending to all the Pari.sh Overseers in the country a pa- per of questions on the condition of the poor." Poole, at the instance of John Rieknian, secretary to Speaker Abbot, was at this time engaged at Westminster in drawing up an ab- stract of the various returns which had been made in accordance with Sir George Rose's bill. See Letter from T. Poole to T. Wedgwood, dated September 14, 1803. Cot- tle's Reminiscences, pp. 477, 478; T/iomas Poole and his Friends, iL 107-114. 1804] TO THE WORDSWORTHS 457 extraordiuary interest was a direful quarrel between Godwin and me/ in which, to use his own phrase (unless Lamb suggested it to him), I " thundered and lightened with frenzied eloquence " at him for near an hour and a half. It ended in a reconciliation next day ; but the affair itself, and the ferocious spirit into which a j^^us- quam sujjicit of punch had betrayed me, has sunk deep into my heart. Few events in my life have grieved me more, though the fool's conduct richly merited a flogging, but not with a scourge of scorpions. I wrote to Mrs. Coleridge the next day, when my mind was full of it, and, when you go into Keswick, she will detail the matter, if you have nothing better to talk of. My health has greatly improved, and rich and precious wines (of several of which I had never before heard the names) agree admirably with me, and I fully believe, most dear Wil- liam ! they would with you. But still I am as faithful a barometer, and previously to, and during all falling weather, am as asthmatic and stomach-twitched as when with you. I am a perfect conjuror as to the state of the weather, and it is such that I detected myself in being somewhat flattered at finding the infallibility of my un- comfortable feelings, as to falling weather, either coming or come. What Sicily may do for me I cannot tell, but Dalton,^ the Lecturer on Natural Philosophy at the R. Institution, a man devoted to Keswick, convinced me that there was five times the duration of falling weather at Keswick compared with the flat of midland counties, and more than twice the gross quantity of water fallen. I have as yet been able to do nothing for myself. My plans are to try to get such an introduction to the Cap- tain of the war-ship that shall next sail for Malta, as to ^ See Letter to Southey of Feb- his? researches on the atomic theory, ruary 20, 1804. Letter CXLIX. which he had be^un in 180:^, in his 2 John Dalton, 1700-1844, ehem- New System of Chemical Philosophy, ist aud meteorologist. He published in 1808. Biographical Dictionary, 458 A LOKG ABSENCE [Feb. be taken as liis friend (from Malta to Syracuse is but six hours passage in a spallanza). At Syracuse I shall meet with a hearty weleonu' from Mr. Leeky, the Consul, and I h(>j)e to be able to have a letter from Lord. Nelson to the Convent of lienedictines at Catania to receive and lodge me for such time as I may choose to stay. Catania is a pleasant town, with jdeasant, hosi)itable inhabitants, at the foot of Etna, though fifteen miles, alas ! from the j woody region. Greenough ^ has read me an admirable, because most minute, journal of his Sights, Doings, and Done-untos in Sicily. As to money, I shall avail myself of £105, to be repaid to you on the first of January, 1805, and another <£100, to be employed in paying the Life Assurance, the bills at Keswick, Mrs. Fricker, next half year ; and if any re- main, to buy me comforts for my voyage, etc., Dante and a dictionary. I shall borrow part from my brothers, and part from Stuart. I can live a year at Catania (for I have no plan or desire of travelling except up and down \ Etna) for £100, and the getting back I shall trust to chance. O my dear, dear friends ! if Sicily should become a British island, — as all the inhabitants intensely desire it to be, — and if the climate agreed with you as well as I doubt not it will with me, — and if it be as much cheaper than even Westmoreland, as Greenough reports, and if I coidd get a Vice-Consulship, of which I have little doubt, oh, what a dream of ha])i)iness could we not realize I But mortal life seems destined for no continuous happiness, save that which results from the exact performance of duty ; and blessed are you, dear William ! whose p;ith of duty lies through vine-trellised elm-groves, through Love and Joy and Grandeur. " O for one hour of Dundee ! "^ ^ His old fellow-student at Got- " In the Pass of Killicranky." tingen. Wordsworth's Poetical Works, 1889, » " O for a HiiiRle lioiir of tliat Dundee, p. 201. Who on tliat day the word of onset gave." 1804] TO THE WORDSWORTHS 459 How often shall I sigh, " Oh ! for one hour of ' The Recluse ' ! " I arrived at Dunmow on Tuesday, and shall stay till Tuesday morning. You will direct No. 116 Abingdon St., Westminster. I was not received here with mere kindness ; I was welcomed almost as you welcomed me when first I visited you at Racedown. And their solici- tude and attention is enough to effeminate one. Indeed, indeed, they are kind and good people ; and old Lady Beaumont, now eighty-six, is a sort of miracle for beauty and clear understanding and cheerfulness. The house is an old house by a tan-yard, with nothing remarkable but its awkward passages. We talk by the long hours about you and Hartley, Derwent, Sara, and Johnnie ; and few things, I am laersuaded, would delight them more than to live near you. I wish you would write out a sheet of verses for them, and I almost promised for you that you should send that delicious poem on the Higldand Girl at Invers- nade. But of more importance, incomparably, is it, that Mary and Dorothy should begin to transcribe all William's MS. poems for me. Think what they will be to me in Sicily ! They shovdd be written in pages and lettered up in parcels not exceeding two ounces and a quarter each, including the seal, and three envelopes, one to the Speaker, imder that, one to John Rickman, Esqre, and under that, one to me. (Terrible mischief has happened from foolish people of R.'s acquaintance neglecting the middle envelope, so that the Speaker, opening his letter, finds himself made a letter snuiggler to Nicholas Noddy or some other unknown gentleman.) But I will send you the exact form. The weight is not of much importance, but better not exceed two ounces and a quarter. I will write again as soon as I hear from you. In the mean time, God bless yon, dearest William, Dorothy, Mary, S., and my god- child. S. T. Coleridge. 4G0 A LONG ABSENCE [Feb. CXLVIII. TO HIS WIFE. February 19, 1804. "J. Tobin, Esqre.,1 No. 17 Barnard's Inn, Ilolborn. For Mv. Cok'riilge." So, if you wish me to answer it by return of post : but if it be of no consequence, whether I receive it four hours sooner or four hours hiter, then direct " Mr. Lainbe,''^ East India House, London." 1 did not receive youi- last letter written on the " veiy, very windy and very cold Sunday night," till yesterday afternoon, owing to Poole's neglect and forgetfidness. But Poole is one of those men who have one good quality, namely, that they always do one thing at a time ; but who likewise have one defect, that they can seldom think but of one thing at a time. For instance, if Poole is intent on his matter while he is speaking, he cannot give the least attention to his language or pronunciation, in conse- quence of which there is no one error in his dialect which he has ever got rid of. My mind is in general of the contrary make. I too often do nothing, in consequence of being impressed all at once (or so rapidly consecutively as to appear all at once) by a variety of impressions. If there are a dozen people at table I hear, and cannot help giving some attention to what each one says, even thotigh there should be three or four talking at once. The detail of the Good and the Bad, of the two different makes of mind, would form a not uninteresting brace of essays in a Spectator or Guardian. You will of course repay Southey instantly all the money you may have borrow^ed either for yourself or for Mr. Jackson,'' and do not forget to remember that a share ^ John Toljin the dr.amatist (or ^ fhe mLsspelling^, which -was in- possibly his brother James), with tentional, was an intimation to Lamb whom Coleridije spi-nt the last weeks that the letter was not to be opened, of liis staj' in London, before he ^ A retired carrier, the owner of left for Portsmouth on the 27th of Greta Hall, who occupied " the March, on his way to Malta. smaller of the two houses inter- ATrs. Wilson H •■T fJl r i # ^1/ / / *?*??v ^,^y^- :>^-' '^ A .-*#^ 5;^**^- ..rv" « !! n 1804] TO HIS WIFE 461 of the wine-hill belonged to me. Likewise when you pay Mr. Jackson, you will pay him just as if he had not had any money from you. Is it liaK a year ? or a year and a half's rent that we owe him ? Did we pay him up to Jidy last ? If we did, then, were I you, I w^ould now pay him the whole year's rent up to July next, and tell him that you shall not want the twenty pounds which you have lent him till the beginning of May. Remember me to him in the most affectionate manner, and say how sin- cerely I condole with him on his sprain. Likewise, and as affectionately, remember me to Mrs. Wilson. It gave me pain and a feeling of anxious concern on our own account, as well as Mr. Jackson's, to find him so distressed for money. I fear that he will be soon induced to sell the house. Now for our darling Hartley. I am myself not at all anxious or uneasy respecting his habits of idleness ; but I should be very unhappy if he were to go to the town school, unless there were any steady lad that Mr. Jackson knew and coidd rely on, who went to the same school regularly, and who would be easily induced by half-a- crown once in two or three months to take care of him, let him always sit by him, and to whom you should in- struct the child to yield a certain degree of obedience. If this can be done (and you will read what I say to Mr. Jackson), I have no great objection to his going to school and making a fair trial of it. Oh, may God vouchsafe me health that he may go to school to his own father ! I exceedingly wish that there were any one in Keswick who would Q-ive him a little instruction in the elements of drawing. I will go to-morrow and enquire for some very elementary book, if there be any, that proposes to teach connected under one roof." He was ley's childhood, was Jackson's house- godfather to Hartley Coleridge, and keeper. Memoir and Letters of Sara left him a legacy of fifty pounds. Coleridge, 1873, i. 13. Mrs. Wilson, the " Wilsy " of Hart- 462 A LONG ABSENCE [Feb. it without the assistance of a drawing master, and which you might make him read to you instead of his other books. Sir G. Beaumont was very much pleased and interested by Hartley's promise of attaehment to his dar- Ihig Art. If I can find the book I will send it off instantly, together with the Spillekins (Spielchen, or Gamelet, I suppose), a German refinement of our Jack Straw. You or some one of your sisters will be so good as to play with Hartley, at first, that Derweut may learn it. Little Al- bert at Dr. Crompton's, and indeed all the children, are quite spillekin mad. It is certainly an excellent game to teach children steadiness of hand and quickness of eye, and a good opportunity to impress upon them the beauty of strict truth, when it is against their own interest, and to give them a pride in it, and habits of it, — for the slightest perceptible motion jiroduced in any of the spille- kins, except the one attempted to be croolced off the heap, destroys that turn, and there is a good deal of foresight executed in knowing when to give it a lusty pull, so as to move the spillekins under, if only you see that your adver- sary who will take advantage of this pull, wdll himself not succeed, and yet by Jus or the second pull put the sj)i]lekin easily in the power of the third pull. ... I am now writing in No. 44 Upper Titchfield Street, where I have for the first time been breakfasting with A. Welles, who seems a kind, friendly man, and instead of recom- mending any more of his medicine to me, advises me to persevere in and expedite my voyage to a better climate, and has been very pressing with me to take up my home at his house. To-morrow I dine with Mr. Rickman at his own house ; Wednesday I dine with him at Tobin's. I shall dine witli IVIr. Welles to-day, and thence by eight o'clock to the Royal Institution to the lecture.^ On 1 Coleridge had already attended correspondence to Davy's Lectures Davy's Lectures at the Royal Insti- gave rise to the mistaken supposition tution in 1S()2, and. possibly, in 1S03. that lie delivered public lectures in It is probable that allusions in his London before 1808. 1804] TO HIS WIFE 463 Thursday afternoon, two o'clock to the lecture, and Sat- urday night, eight o'clock to the lecture. On Friday, I spend the day with Davy certainly, and I hope with Mr. Sotheby likewise. To-morrow or Wednesday I exjiect to know certainly what my plans are to be, whither to go and when, and whether the intervening space will make it worth my while to go to Ottery, or whether I shall go back to Dunmow, and return with Sir George and Lady B. when they come to their house in Grosvenor Square. I cannot express to you how very, very affectionate the behaviour of these good people has been to me ; and how they seem to love by anticipation those very few whom I love. If Southey would but permit me to copy that divine passage of his " Madoc," ^ respecting the Harp of the Welsh Bard, and its imagined divinity, with the Two Savages, or any other detachable passage, or to transcribe his " Ke- hama," I will pledge myself that Sir George Beaumont and Lady B. will never suffer a single individual to hear or see a single line, you saying that it is to be kept sacred to them, and not to be seen by any one else. [No signature.] > " He said, and, gliding like a snake, Into so sweet a harmony, tliat sure Where Caradoc lay sleeping made his way. It seem'd no earthly tone. The savage man Sweetly slept he, and pleasant were his Suspends his stroke ; he looks astonished dreams round ; Of Britain, and the blue-eyed maid he loved. No human hand is near : . . . and hark I The Azteoa stood over him ; he knew again ^ His victim, and the power of vengeance The aerial music swells and dies away. gave Then first the heart of Tlalala felt fear : Mah'gnant joy. ' Once hast thou 'scaped my He thought that some protecting spirit arm : watch'd But what shall save thee now?' the Tyger Beside the Stranger, and, abash 'd, with- thought, drew." Exulting; and he raised his spear to strike. « Madoc in Aztlan," Book XI. That instant, o'er the Briton's unseen harp , r) .• ; ti/™7,„ ifiQa „ The gale of morning past, and swept its Sonthey's Poetical Works, 1838, v. strings 274, 275. 464 A LONG ABSENCE [Feb. CXLIX. TO ROBERT SOUTHEY. Kkkiiiairs Office, H. of Commoii8, February 20, 1804, Monday noon. Dear Soutiiey, — The affair with Godwin began thus. We were talking of reviews, and bewailing their ill effects. I detailed my plan for a review, to occupy regidarly the fourth side of an evening paper, etc., etc., adding that it had been a favourite scheme with me for two years past. Godwin very coolly observed that it was a i)lan which " no man who had a spark of honest pride " could join with. " No man, not the slave of the grossest egotism, could unite in," etc. Cool and civil ! I asked whether he and most others did not already do what I proposed in prefaces. " Aye ! in prefaces ; that is quite a different thing." I then adverted to the extreme rudeness of the speech with regard to myself, and added that it was not only a very rough, but likewise a very mistaken opinion, for I was nearly if not quite sure that it had received the approbation both of you and of Wordsworth. " Yes, sir ! just so ! of Mr. Southey — just what I said," and so on moi'^ Godioiniuno in language so ridiculously and exclu- sively appropriate to himself, that it would have made you merry. It was even as if he was looking into a sort of moral looking-glass, without knowing what it was, and, seeing his own very, very Godwiuship, had by a merry conceit christened it in your name, not without some an- nexment of me and Wordsworth. I replied by laughing in the first place at the capricious nature of his nicety, that what was gross in folio should become double-refined in octavo foolscap or jnchpochet quartos, blind slavish egotism in small pica, manly discriminating self-respect in double ])rimer, modest as maiden's blushes between boards, or in calf-skin, and only not obscene in naked sheets. And then in a deep and somewhat sarcastic tone, tried to teach him to speak more reverentially of his betters, by I 1804] TO ROBERT SOUTHEY 465 stating' what and who they were, by whom honoured, by whom depreciated. Well ! this gust died away. I was going- home to look over his Duncity ; he begged me to stay till his return in half au hour. I, meaning to take nothing more the whole evening, took a crust of bread, and Mary Lamb made me a glass of punch of most deceit- fid strength. Instead of half an hour, Godwin stayed an hour and a half. In came his wife, Mrs. Fenwick,^ and four young ladies, and just as Godwin returned, supjier came in, and it was now useless to go (at supper I was rather a mirth-maker than merry). I was disgTisted at heart with the grossness and vulgar insauocecity of this dim-headed prig of a philosophocide, when, after supper, his ill stars impelled him to renew the contest. I begged him not to goad me, for that I feared my feelings would not long remain in my power. He (to my wonder and indignation) persisted (I had not deciphered the cause), and then, as he well said, I did " thunder and lighten at him " with a vengeance for more than an hour and a half. Every effort of seK-defence only made him more ridicu- lous. If I had been Truth in person, I could not have spoken more accurately ; but it was Truth in a war- chariot, drawn by the three Furies, and the reins had slipped out of the goddess's hands ! . . . Yet he did not absolutely give way till that stinging contrast which I drew between him as a man, as a writer, and a benefactor of society, and those of whom he had sjDoken so irrev- erently. In short, I suspect that I seldom, at any time and for so great a length of time, so continuously displayed so much power, and do hope and trust that never did I display one half the scorn and ferocity. The next morn- ing, the moment when I awoke, O mercy ! I did feel like ^ Mrs. E. Fenwick, author of ^ friend of Lamb's essays, "Two Races of Godwin's first wife, Mary Wollstone- Men," and "Newspapers Thirty-five craft. William Godwin, by C. Kegan Years ago." Paul, i. 282, 283. See, also, Lamb's 4G6 A LONG ABSENCE [Feb. a very wretch. I got up and immediately wrote and sent off by a porter, a letter, I dare affirm an affecting and eloquent letter to him, and since then have been working for him. for I was heart-smitten with the recollection that I had said all, all in the presence of his loife. But if I had known all I now know, I will not say that I should not have apologised, but most certainly I should not have made such an apology, for he confessed to Lamb that he should not have persisted in irritating me, but that Mrs. Godwin had twitted him for his prostration before me, as if he was afraid to say his life was his own in my presence. He admitted, too, that although he never to the very last suspected that I was tipsy, yet he saw clearly that some- thing imusual ailed me, and that I had not been my natu- ral self the whole evening. What a poor creature ! To attack a man who had been so kind to him at the instiga- tion of such a woman ! ^ And what a woman to instigate him to quarrel with 7ne, who with as much power as any, and more than most of his acquaintances, had been per- haps the only one who had never made a butt of him — who had uniformly spoken respectfully to him. But it is past ! And I trust will teach me wisdom in future. I have undoubtedly suffered a great deal from a coward- ice in not daring to repel unassimilating acquaintances who press forward upon my friendship ; but I dare aver, that if the circumstances of each particular case were examined, they would prove on the whole honourable to me rather than otherwise. But I have had enouah and done enough. Hereafter I shall show a diffei-ent face, and calmly inform those who press upon me that my health, spirits, and occupation alike make it necessary for me to confine myself to the society of those with whom I have the nearest and highest connection. So help me God I 1 will hereafter be quite sure that I do really and ' Lamb's " bad baby " — "a disg^usting woman who weare green spec- tacles.'' LtUers, passim. 1804] TO HIS WIFE 467 in the whole of my heart esteem and like a man before I permit him to call me friend. I am very anxious that you should go on with your " Madoc." If the thought had happened to suggest itself to you originally and with all these modifications and poly- pus tendrils with which it would have caught hold of your subject, I am afraid that you would not have made the first voyage as interesting at least as it ought to be, so as to preserve entire the fit proportion of interest. But go on ! I shall call on Longman as soon as I receive an answer from him to a note which I sent. . . . God bless you and S. T. Coleridge. P. S. I have just received Sara's four lines added to my brother George's letter, and cannot explain her not having received my letters. If I am not mistaken I have written three or four times : upon an average I have written to Greta Hall once every five days since I left Liverpool — if you will divide the letters, one to each five days. I will write to my brother immediately. I wrote to Sara from Dunmow ; to you instantly on my return, and now again. I do not deserve to be scolded at present. I met G. Burnett the day before yesterday in Lincoln's Inn Fields, so nervous, so helpless with such opium- stupidly-wild eyes. Ob, it made the place one calls the heart feel as it was going to ache. CL. TO HIS WIFE. Mr. J. C. Motley's, Thomas Street, Portsmouth, Sunday, April 1, 1804. My dear Sara, — I am waiting here with great anxiety for the arrival of the Speedwell. The Leviathan, Man of War, our convoy, has orders to sail with the fii"st fair wind, and whatever wind can bring in the Speedwell will carry out the Leviathan, unless she have other orders 4G8 A LONG ABSENCE [April than those g^eiu'rally known. 1 have left the Inn, and its crumeua-inuhja luttio, and am only at the expense of a lodyini,' at half a guinea a week, for I have all my meals at Mr. Motley's, to whom a letter from Stuart introduced me, and who has done most especial honour to the introduc- tion. Inileed he could not well help, for Stuart in his letter called me his very, very particular friend, and that every attention would sink more into his heart than one offered to himself or his brother. Besides, you know it is no new thin<^ for i)eople to take sudden and hot likings to me. How different Sir G. B. ! He disliked me at first. When I am in better spirits and less flurried I will transcribe his last letter. It breathed the very soul of calm and manly yet deep affection. Hartley wiU receive his and Derwent's Spillekins with a letter from me by the first waggon that leaves London after Wednesday next. My dear Sara I the mother, the attentive and excellent mother of my children must needs be always more than the word friend can express when applied to a woman. I pray you, use no word that you use with reluctance. Yet what we have been to each other, our understandings will not permit our hearts to forget ! God knows, I weep tears of blood, but so it is ! For I greatly esteem and honour you. Heaven knows if I can leave you really comfortable in your circmnstances I shall meet Death with a face, which I feel at the moment I say it, it would rather shock than comfort you to imagine. My health is indifferent. I am rather endurably unwell than tolerably well. I will write Southey to-morrow or next day, though Motley rides and drives me about sight- seeing so as to leave me but little time. I am not sure that I shall see the Isle of Wijrht. Write to Wordsworth. Inform him that I have re- ceived all and everything and will write him very soon, as soon as I can command si)irits and time. . . . Motley can 1804] TO ROBERT SOUTHEY 469 send off all letters to Malta under Government covers. You direct, therefore, at all times merely to me at Mr. J. C. Motley's, Portsmouth. My very dear Sara, may God Almighty bless you and your affectionate S. T. Coleridge. I mourn for poor Mary. CLI. TO ROBERT SOUTHEY. Oif Oporto and the coast of Portugal, Monday noon, April 16, 1804. My dear Southey, — I was thinldng long before day- light this morning, that I ought, sj^ite of toss and tumble and cruel rocking, to write a few letters in the course of this and the three following days ; at the end of which, if the northwest wind still blows behind, we may hope to be at Gibraltar. I have two or three very unpleas- ant letters to write, and I was planning whether I should not begin with these, have them off my hands and thoughts, in short, whistle them down into the sea, and then take up the paper, etc., a whole man. When, lo ! I heard the Captain above deck talking of Oporto, slipped on my great- coat and went shoeless up to have a look. And a beauti- ful scene verily it was and is ! The high land of Portugal, and the mountain land behind it, and behind that fair mountains with blue pyramids and cones. By the glass I could distinguish the larger buildings in Oporto, a scram- bling city, part of it, seemingly, walls washed by the sea, l)a'rt of it upon hills. At first view, it looked much like a vast brick kiln in a sandy, clayey country on a hot sum- mer afternoon ; seen more distinctly, it gave the nobler idea of a ruined city in a wilderness, its houses and streets lying low in ruins under its ruined walls, and a few tem- ples and palaces standing untouched. But over all the sea between us and the land, short of a stone's throw on the left of the vessel, there is such a delicious warm olive 470 A LONG ABSENCE [April green, almost yellow, on the water, and now it lias taken in the vessel, ami its homulary is a gunshot to my ri<;lit, and one fine vessel exaetly on its edge. This, thougli oceasioned by the impurity of the nigh shore and the disemboguing rivers, forms a home seene ; it is warm and landlike. The air is balmy and genial, and all that the fresh breeze can do can scarcely keep under its vernal warmth. The country round about Ojiorto seems darkly wooded ; and in the distant gap far behind and below it on the cwve of that high ridge forming a gap, I count seventeen conical and pyramidal summits ; below that the high hills are saddle- backed. (In picturesque cant I ought to have said but be- low that, etc.) To me the saddleback is a pleasant form which it never w'oultl have occurred to me to christen by that name. Tents and marquees with little points and summits made by the tent-poles suggest a more striking likeness. Well ! I need not say that the sight of the coast of Portugal made it impossible for me to write to any one before I had written to jou — I now seeing for the first time a country you love so dearly. But you, perhaps, are not among my mountains I God Almighty grant that yoti may not. Yes I you are in London : all is well, and Hart- ley has a younger sister than tiny Sally. If it be so, call her Edith — Edith by itself — Edith. But somehow or other I would rather it were a boy, then let nothing, I con- jure you, no false eonii)liment to another, no false feeling indulged in yourself, deprive your eldest son of his father's name. Such was ever the manner of our forefathers, and there is a dignity, a self-respect, or an awful, preeminently self-referring event in the custom, that makes it well worthy of our imitation. I would have done [so], but that from my earliest years I have had a feeling of dislike and disgust connected with my own Christian name — such a vile short jdumpness, such a dull abortive smartness in tlie first syllable, and this so harshly contrasted by the obscurity and indefiniteness of the syllabic vowel, and the 1801] TO ROBERT SOUTHEY 471 feebleness of the uncovered liquid with which it ends, the wobble it makes, and struggling between a dis- and a tri-syllable, and the whole name sounding as if you were abeeceeing S. M, U. L. Altogether, it is, perhaps, the worst combination of which vowels and consonants are susceptible. While I am writing we are in 41° 10m. lat- itude, and are almost three leagues from land ; at one time we were scarcely one league from it, and about a quarter of an hour ago, the whole country looked so very like the country from Hutton Moor to Saddleback and the adjoin- ing part of Skiddaw. I cannot help some anxious feelings respecting you, nor some superstitious twitches within, as if it were wrong at this distance to write so prospectively and with such par- ticularization of that which is contingent, which may be all otherwise. But — God forbid ! and, surely, hope is less ominous than fear. We set sail from St. Helier's, April 9th, Monday morning, having dropped down thither from Spithead on Sunday evening. We lost twenty-six hours of fair wind before our commodore gave the signal — our brig, a most excellent and first-rate sailor, but laden deep with heavy goods (eighty-four large cannon for Trieste in the hold), which makes it rock most cruelly. I can only — Wed. April 18. I was going to say I can only com- pare it to a wench kept at home on some gay day to niu'se a fretful infant and who, having long rocked it in vain, at length rocks it in spite. . . . But though the rough weather and the incessant rocking does not disease me, yet the damn'd rocking depresses one inconceivably, like hiccups or itching ; it is troublesome and impertinent and forces you away from your thoughts like the presence and gossip of an old aunt, or long-staying visitor, to two lov- ers. Oh with what envy have I gazed at our commodore, the Leviathan of seventy-four guns, the majestic and beautiful creature sailing right before us, sometimes half 472 A LONG ABSENCE [April a mile, of toner a fuiloug (for we are alwaj^s first), with two or at most three topsails that just bisect the naked masts — as much naked mast above as below, upright, motionless as a church with its steeple, as though it moved by its will, as though its speed were spiritual, the bein"-- and essence without the body of motion, or as thou<>h the distance passed away by it and the objects of its pursuit hm-ried onward to it ! In all other respects I cannot be better off, except perhaps the two passengers ; the one a gay, worldly-minded fellow, not deficient in sense or judgment, but inert to everything except gain and eating ; the other, a woman once housekeeper in Gen- eral Fox's family, a creature with a horrible superfluity of envelope, a monopolist and patentee of flabby flesh, or rather Jish. Indeed, she is at once fish, flesh, and fotcl^ thoujih no chicken. But, ... to see the man eat autl this Mrs. Carnosity talk about it ! "I must have that little potato " (baked in grease under the meat), " it looks so smilingly at me." " Do cut me, if you please " (for she is so fat she cannot help herself), "that small bit, just there, sir! a leetle, tiny bit below if you please." "Well, I have brought plenty of pickles, I always think," etc. " I have always three or four jars of brandy cherries with me : for with boil'd rice now," etc., "for I always think," etc. And true enough, if it can be caDed thinking, she does always think upon some little damned article of eating that be- longs to the housekeeper's cupboard's locker. And then her plaintive yawns, such a mixture of moan and petted child's dry cry^ or try at a cry in them. And then she said to me this morning, " How unhappy, I always think, one always is, when there is nothing and nobody as one may say, about one to amuse one. It makes me so ner- voxi^y She eats, drinks, snores, and simply the being stupid, and silly, and vacant the learned body calls ner- vous. Shame on me for talking about her ! The sun is setting so exactly behind my Lack that a ball from it 1804] TO ROBERT SOUTHEY 473 would strike the stem of the vessel against which my back rests. But sunsets are not so beautiful, I think, at sea as on land. I am sitting at my desk, namely the rudder- case, on the duck coop, the ducks quacking at my legs. The chicken and duck coops run thus j and so inclose on three sides the rudder-case.]] ^^— ^ 1 But now immediately that the sun has sunk, the ''- ' ' sea runs high, and the vessel begins its old trick of rocking, which it had intermitted the whole day — the second intermis- sion only since our voyage. Oh, how glad I was to see Cape Mondego, and then yesterday the Rock of Lisbon and the fine mountains at its interior extremity, which I conceived to be Ciutra ! Its outline from the sea is some- thing like this and just at A. where the fine stony M. begins, with a C. lying on its back, is a village or villages, and before we came abreast of this, we saw far inland, seemingly close by, several breasted peaks, two towers, and, by the glass, three, of a very large building, be it convent or palace. However, I knew you had seen all these places over and over again. The dome-shaped mountain or Cape Esperi- chel, between Lisbon and Cape St. Vincent, is one of the finest I ever saw ; indeed all the mountains have a noble outline. We sail on at a wonderful rate, and considering that we are in convoy, shall have made a most lucky voy- age to Gibraltar, if we are not becalmed and taken in the Gut ; for we shall be there to-morrow afternoon if the wind hold, and have gone it in ten days. It is unlucky to prophesy good things, but if we have as good fortune in the Mediterranean, instead of nine or eleven weeks, we may reach Malta in a month or five weeks, including the week which we shall most probably stay at Gibraltar. I 474 A LONG ABSENCE [April shall keep the letters open till we arrive there, simply put two strokes under the word " Gibralta r," and close up the letter, as I may gain thereby a fortnight's post. You will not expeet to hear from me again till we get to Malta. I had hoped to have done something during my voyage ; at all events, to have written some letters, etc. But what with the rains, the incessant rocking, and my consequent ill health or stupefaction, I have done little else than read through the Italian Grammar. I took out with me some of the finest wine and the oldest in the kingdom, some marvellous brandy, and rum twenty years old, and excepting a pint of wine, which I had mulled at two different times, and Instantly ejected again, I have touched nothing but lemonade from the day we set sail to the present time. So very little does anything grow into a habit with me ! This I should say to poor Tobin, who continued advising and advisiiuj to the last moment. O God, he is a good fellow, but this rage of advising and disciissing character, and (as almost all men of strong habitual health have the trick of doing) of finding out the cause of everybody's ill health in some one niali)rac- tice or other. This, and the self-conceit and presumption necessarily generated by it, added to his own marvellous genius at utterly misunderstanding what he hears, and transposing words often in a manner that would be ludi- crous if one did not suspect that his blindness had a share in producing it — all this renders him a sad mischief- maker, and with the best intentions, a manufacturer and propagator of calumnies. I had no notion of the extent of the mischief till I was last in town. I was low, even to sinldng, when I was at the Inn. Stuart, best, kindest man to me ! was with me, and Lamb, and Sir G. B.'s valet. But Tobin fastened upon me, and advised and reproved, and just l)efore I stejiped into the coach, reminded me of a debt of ten pounds which I had borrowed of him for another person, an intimate friend of his, on the condition 1804] TO DANIEL STUART 475 that I was not to repay him till I could do it out of my own purse, not borrowing of another, and not embarrass- ing myself — in his very words, "till he wanted it more than I." I was calling to Stuart in order to pay the sum, but he stopped me with fervoiu*, and, fully convinced that he did it only in the rage of admonition, I was vexed that it had angered me. Therefore say nothing of it, for really he is at bottom a good man. I dare say nothing of home. I will write to Sara from Malta, the moment of my arrival, if I have not time to write from Gibraltar. One of you write to me by the regular post, " S. T. Coleridge, Esqre. Dr. Stoddart's, Malta : " the other to me at Mr. J. C. Motley's, Ports- mouth, that I may see whether Motley was right or no, and which comes first. God bless you all and S. T. Coleridge. Remember me kindly to Mr. Jackson, Mrs. Wilson, to the Calverts and Mrs. Wilkinson, to Mary Stamper, etc. CLII. TO DANIEL STUART. On board the Speedwell, at anchor in the Bay of Gibraltar, Saturday night, April 21, 1S04. My dear Stuart, — AVe dropped anchor half a mile from the landing place of the Rock of Gibraltar on Thurs- day afternoon between four and five ; a most prosperous voyage of eleven days. . . . Since we anchored I have passed nearly the whole of eacli day in scrambling about on the back of the rock, among the monkeys. I am a match for them in climbing, but in hops and flying leaps they beat me. You some- times see thirt}^ or forty together of these our poor rela- tions, and you may be a month on the rock and go to the back every day and not see one. Oh, my dear friend ! it is a most interesting place, this ! A rock which thins as it rises up, so that you can sit a-straddle on almost any 47G A LONG ABSENCE [April ]):ut of its suuiiuit, between two and three miles from north to south. Rude as this line is, it gives you the outline of its ai)pearance, from the sea close to it, toler- ably accurately ; only, in nature, it gives you very much the idea of a rude statue of a lion couch ant, like that in tlie picture of the Lion and the Gnat, in the coninion spelling-books, or of some animal with a great dip in the neck. The lion's head [turns] towards the Spanish, his stiffened tail (4) to the African coast. At (5) a range of jMoorish towers and wall begins ; and at (6) the town begins, the INIoorish wall running straight down by the side of it. Above the town, little gardens and neat small houses are scattered here and there, wher- ever they can force a bit of gardenable ground ; and in these are poplars, with a profusion of geraniums and other flowers unknown to me ; and their fences are most commonly that strange vegetable monster, the prickly aloe ; its leaves resembling the head of a battledore, or the wooden wings of a church-cherub, and one leaf grow- ing out of another. Under the Lion's Tail is Europa Point, which is fidl of gardens and pleasant trees ; but the highest head of this mountain is a heap of rocks, with the palm-trees growing in vast quantities in their inter- stices, with many flowering weeds very often peeping out of the small holes or slits in the body of the rock, just as if they were growing in a bottle. To have left England only eleven days ago, with two flannel waistcoats on, and two others over them ; with tjvo flannel drawers under cloth pantaloons, and a thick pair of yarn stockings ; to have had no temptation to lay any part of these aside during the whole voyage, and now to find myself in the heat of an Englisli summer, among flowers, and seeking 1804] TO DANIEL STUART 477 shade, and courting the sea-breezes ; all the trees in rich foliage, and the corn knee-high, and so exquisitely green 1 and to find myself forced to retain only one flannel waist- coat, and roam about in a pair of silk stockings and nan- keen pantaloons, is a delightfid transition. How I shall bear the intensity of a Maltese or even a Sicilian summer I cannot guess ; but if I get over it, I am confident, from what I have experienced the last four days, that their late autumn and winter will almost re-create me. I could fill a fresh sheet with the description of the singular faces, dresses, manners, etc., etc., of the Spaniards, Moors, Jews (who have here a peculiar dress resembling a college dress), Greeks, Italians, English, etc., that meet in the hot crowded streets of the town, or walk under the aspea poplars that form an Exchange in the very centre. But words would do nothing. I am sure that any yoimg man who has a turn for character-painting might pass a year on the Rock with infinite advantage. A dozen plates by Hogarth from this town ! We are told that we shall not sail to-morrow evening. The Leviathan leaves us and goes to join the fleet, and the Maidstone Frigate is to convoy us to Malta. When you write, send one letter to me at Mr. J. C. Motley's, Portsmouth, and another by the post to me at Dr. Stoddart's,! Malta, that I may see which comes first. God grant that my present health may continue, and then my after-letters will be better worth the postage. But even this scrawl will not be un- welcome to you, since it tells you that I am safe, improv- ing in my health, and ever, ever, my dear Stuart, with true affection, and willing gratitude, your sincere friend, S. T. Coleridge. In the diary of his voyage on the Speedwell Coleridge records at greater length and in a more impassioned strain his first impressions of Gibraltar. " Saturday, ^ Afterwards Sir John Stoddart, Chief Justice of Malta, 1826-39. 478 A LONG ABSP:NCE [April April 21st, went again on shore, walked np to the further- most signal-house, the summit of tliat third and last segment of the mountain ridge which looks over the blue sea to Africa. The mountains around me did not any- where arrange tliemselves strikingly, and few of their shapes were striking. One great pyramidal summit far above the rest, on the coast of Spain, and an uncouth form, an old Giant's Head and shoulders, looking in upon us from Africa far inland, were the most impressive ; but the sea was so blue, calm, sunny, so majestic a lake where it is enshored by mountains, and, where it is not [en- shored], having its indefiniteness the more felt from those huge mountain boundaries, which yet by their greatness prepared the mind for the sublimity of unbounded ocean — altogether it reposed in the brightness and quietness of the noon — majestic, for it was great with an inseparable character of unity, and, thus, the more touching to me who had looked from far loftier mountains over a far more manifold landscape, the fields and habitations of English- men, children of one family, one religion, and that my own, the same language and manners — by every hill, by every river some sweet name familiar to my ears, or, if first heard, remembered as soon as heard ! But here, on this side of me, Spaniards, a degraded race that dishonour Christianity ; on the other. Moors of many nations, wretches that dishonour human nature ! If any one were near me and could tell me, ' that mountain yonder is called so and so, and at its foot runs such and such a river,' oh, with how blank an ear should I listen to sounds wliich probably my tongue could not repeat, and which I should be sure to forget, and take no pleasure in remembering! And the Rock itself, on which I stand (nearly tlie same in length as our Carrock, but not so high, nor one tenth as wide), what a comi)lex Thing ! At its feet mighty ramparts establishing themselves in the sea with their huge artillery, hollow trunks of iron where 1804] FROM COLERIDGE'S DIARY 479 Death and Thunder sleej) ; the gardens in deep moats between lofty and massive walls ; a town of all nations and all languages — close below me, on my left, fields and gardens and neat small mansions — poplars, cypresses, and willow-leaved aspens, with fences of prickly aloe — strange plant that does not seem to be alive, but to have been so, a thing fantastically carved in wood, and coloured — some hieroglyphic or temple ornament of undiscovered mean- ing. On my right and immediately with and aroimd me white stone above stone, an irregular heap of marble rocks, with flowers growing out of the holes and fissures, and palmettoes everywhere . . . beyond these an old Moorish tower, and then galleries and halls cut out by human labour out of the dense hard rock, with enormous cannon the apertures for which no eye could distinguish, from the sea or the land below them, from the nesting- holes of seafowl. On the north side, aside these, one absolutely perpendicular precipice, the absolute length of the Rock, at its highest a precipice of 1,450 feet — the whole eastern side an unmanageable mass of stones and weeds, save one place where a perpendicular precipice of stone slants suddenly off in a swelling slope of sand like the Screes on Wastwater. The other side of this rock 5,000 men in arms, and no less than 10,000 inhabitants — in this [side] sixty or seventy apes ! What a multitude, an almost discordant complexity of associations ! The Pillars of Hercules, Calpe, and Abyla, the realms of Masinissa, Jugurtha, and Syphax : Spain, Gibraltar : the Dey of Algiers, dusky Moor and black African, and others. Quiet it is to the eye, and to the heart, which in it will entrance itself in the present vision, and know nothing, feel nothing, but the abiding things of Nature, great, calm, majestic, and one ! From the road I climbed up among the rocks, crushing the tansy, the strong smell of which the open air reconciled to me. I reached the ' striding edge,' where, as I sate, I fell into the above musing." 480 A LONG ABSENCE [June CLIII. TO HIS WIFE. [Malta,] June, 1804. [My dear Saka,] — [I wvote] to Southey from Gi- l)ralt:u\ directing you to open the letter in case Southey shoul«l be in town. You received it, I trust, and learnt from it that I had been pretty well, and that we had had a famous quick passage. At Gibraltar we stayed five days, and so lost our fair wind, and [during our] after-voyage to Malta [there] was [a] storm, that carried away our main yard, etc., long dead calms, every rope of the whole ship re- flected in the bright, soft blue sea, and light winds, often varying every quarter of an hour, and more often against us than for us. We were the best sailing vessel in the whole convoy ; but every day we had to lie by and wait for the laggards. This is very disheartening ; likewise the frequent danger in light winds or calms, or in foggy weatlier of running foul of each other is another heavy inconvenience of convoy, and, in case of a deep calm in a narrow sea, as in the Gut of Gibraltar and in the Archi- pelago, etc., where calms are most common, a privateering or piratical row-boat might board you and make slaves of you mider the very nose of the man-of-war, which would lie a lifeless hulk on the smooth water. For these row- boats, mounting from one to four or five guns, would in- stantly sink a man-of-war's boat, and one of them, last war, had very nearly made a British frigate sti'iJce. I mention these facts because it is a common notion that going under convoy you are " as snug as a bug in a rug." If I had gone without convoy on board the Speedwell, we should have reached Malta in twenty days from the day I left Portsmouth, but, however, we were congratu- lated on having had a very r/ood passage for the time of the year, having been only forty days including our stay at Gibraltar ; and if there be inconvenience in a convoy, I have reason to know and to be grateful for its advantages. 1804] TO HIS WIFE 481 The whole of the voyage from Gibraltar to Malta, except- ing the four or five last days, I was wretchedly unwell. . . . The harbour at Valetta is narrow as the neck of a bottle in the entrance ; but instantly opens out into a lake with tongues of land, capes, one little island, etc., etc., where the whole navy of England might lie as in a dock in the worst of weather. All around its banks, in the form of an amphitheatre, rise the magnificent houses of Valetta, and its two over-the-water towns, Burmola and Flavia (which are to Valetta what the Borough is to London). The houses are all lofty and built of fine white freestone, something like Bath, only still whiter and newer looking, yet the windows, from the prodigious thickness of the walls, being all out of sight, the whole appeared to me as Carthage to ^neas, a proud city, well nigh but not quite finished. I walked up a long street of good breadth, all a flight of stairs (no place for beast or carriage, each broad stair composed of a cement-sand of terra j>ozzolana^ hard and smooth as the hardest pavement of smooth rock by the seaside and very like it). I soon found out Dr. Stod- dart's house, which seemed a large pile of building. He was not at home, but I stayed for him, and in about two hours he came, and received me with an explosion of sur- prise and welcome — move fun than affection in the man- ner, but just as I wished it. . . . Yesterday and to-day I have been pretty well. In a hot climate, now that the glass is high as 80 in the shade, the healthiest persons are liable to fever on the least disagreement of food with the first passages, and my general health is, I would fain be- lieve, better on the ivhole. ... I will try the most scruiju- lous regimen of diet and exercise ; and I rejoice to find that the heat, great as it is, does not at all annoy me. In about a fortnight I shall probably take a trip into Sicily, and spend the next two or three months in some cooler and less dreary place, and return in September. For eight mouths in the year the climate of Malta is delight- 482 A LONG ABSENCE [June fill, l)ut a (livarii'i- place eye never saw. No stream in the wholi- island, only one plaee of springs, which are conveyed by aipieducts and suj^ijly the island with about one third of its water : the other two thirds they depend for upon the rain. And the reservoirs under the houses, walls, etc., to preserve the rain are stupendous ! The tops of all the houses are flat, and covered with that smooth, hard com- position, and on these and every^vhere where rain can fall are channels and jiipes to conduct it to the reservoirs. Malta is about twenty miles by twelve — a mere rock of freestone. In digging out this they find large quantities of vegetable soil. They separate it, and with the stones they build their houses and garden and field walls, all of an enormous thickness. The fields are seldom so much as half an acre ZH one above another in that form, so that everything gTows as in huge garden pots. The whole island looks like one monstrous fortification. Nothing green meets your eye — one dreary, grey- white, — and all the country towns from the retirement and invisibility of the windows look like towns burnt out and desolate. Yet the fertility is marvellous. You almost see things grow, and the population is, I suppose, unexampled. The toAvn of Valetta itself contains about one hundred and ten streets, all at right angles to each other, each having from twelve to fifty houses ; but many of them very steep — a few staired all across, and almost all, in some part or other, if not the whole, having the footway on each side so staired. The houses lofty, all looking new. The good houses are built with a court in the centre, and the rooms large and lofty, from sixteen to twenty feet high, and walls enormously thick, all necessary for coohiess. The fortifications of Valetta are endless. When I first walked about them, I was struck all of a heap with their strangeness, and when I came to understand a little of their purpose, I was overwhelmed with wonder. Such vast masses — bidky mountain-breasted heights; gardens 1804 TO HIS WIFE 483 with pomegranate trees — the prickly pears in the fosses, and the caper (the most beautiful of flowers) growing profusely in the interstices of the high walls and on the battlements. The Maltese are a dark, light-limbed people. Of the women five tenths are ugly ; of the remainder, four fifths would be ordinary but that they look so quaint^ and one tenth, perhaps, may be called quaint-pretty. The pret- tiest resemble pretty Jewesses in England. They are the noisiest race ^ under heaven, and Yaletta the noisiest 1 A note dated "Treasury, July 20th, 1805," gives vent to his feelings on this point. "Saturday morning ^ past nine o'clock, and soon I shall have to brace up my hearing in toto, (for I hear in my brain — I hear, that is, I have an immediate and peculiar feeling instantly co-adunated with the sense of external sound = (ex- actly) to that which is experienced when one makes a wry face, and putting one's right hand palm-wise to the right ear, and the left palm pressing hard on the forehead, one says to a bawler, ' For mercy's sake, man ! don't split the drum of one's ear ' — sensations analogous to this of various degrees of pain, even to a strange sort of uneasy pleasure. I am obnoxious to pure sound and therefore was saying — [N. B. Tho' I ramble, I always come back to sense — the sense alive, tho' sometimes a limb of syntax broken] — was saying that I hear in my brain, and still more hear in my stomach). For this ubiquity, almost (for I might safely add my toes — one or two, at least — and niy knees) for this ubiquity of the Tympanum auditorium I am now to wind up my courage, for in a few seconds that accursed Reveille, the hon-ible crash and persevering malignant torture of the Pare-de-Drum, will attack me, like a party of yelling, drunken North American Indians attacking a crazy fort with a tired garrison, out of an ambush. The noisiness of the Maltese everybody must no- tice ; but I have observed uniformly among them such utter impassive- ness to the action of sounds as that I am fearful that the verum will be scarcely verisimile. I have heard screams of the most frightful kind, as of children run over by a cart, and running to the window I have seen two children in a parlour opposite to me (naked, except a kerchief tied round the waist) screaming in their horrid fiendi- ness — iorfun! three adults in the room perfectly unannoyed, and this suffered to continue for twenty minutes, or as long as their lungs enabled them. But it goes thro' everything, their street -cries, their priests, their advocates, their very pigs yell rather than squeak, or both together, rather, as if they were the true descendants of some half-dozen of the swine into which the Devils went, recovered by the Royal Hu- mane Society. The dogs all night long would draw curses on them, but that the Maltese cats — it sur- passes description, for he who has io 484 A LONG .VBSENCE [June place. The sudden sliot-ii]i, explosive bellows-cries you ever heard in London would give you the faintest idea of it. Even when you pass hy a fruit stall the fellow will put his hand like a speaking- trumpet to his mouth and shoot such a thunderbolt of sound full at you. Then the endless jangling of those cursed bells, etc. Sir Alexander Ball and General Valette (the civil and military com- manders) have been marvellously attentive — Sir A. B. even friendly and confidential to me. Poor Mrs. Stoddart was brought to bed of a little girl on the 24tli of May, and it died on Tuesday, June 5th. On the night of its birth, poor little lamb I I had such a lively vision of my little Sara, that it brought on a sort of hysterical fit on me. O mercifid God ! how I tremble at the thought of letters from England. I should be most miserable icithout them, and yet I shall receive them as a sentence of death ! So terribly has fear got the upper hand in my habitual feelings, from my long destitution of hope and joy. Hartley, Derwent, my sweet children ! a father's bless- ing on you I With tears and clasped hands I bless you. Oh, I must write no more of this. I have been haunted by the thought that I have lost a box of books containing Shakespeai-e (Stockdale's), the four or five first volumes of the " British Poets," Young's " Syllabus "(a red paper book), Condillac's "Logic," "Thornton on Public Credit," etc. Be sure you inform me whether or no I did take these books from Keswick. I will write to Southey by the next opportunity. You recollect that I went away without knowing the result of Edith's confinement ; not a day in which I do not think of it. only lieard caterwauling on English screams uttered by imps while they roofs can have no idea of a cat- are dragging- each other into hotter serenafle in Malta. In England it and still hotter pools of brimstone has often a close and painful resem- and fire. It is the discord of Tor- blance to the distressful cries of ment and of Rage and of Hate, of young children, but in Malta it is paroxysms of Revenge, and every identical with the wide range of note grumbles away into Despair." 1804] TO DANIEL STUART 485 My love to dear Southey, and remember me to Mr. Jackson, and Mrs. Wilson with the kindest words, and to Mary Stamper. My kind remembrances to Mr. and Mrs. "Wilkinson, and to the Calverts. How is your sister Mary in her spirits? My wishes and prayers attend her. I am anxious to hear about poor George and shall write about him to Portsmouth in the course of a week, for by that time a convoy will be going to England as we expect. I hope that in the course of three weeks or a month I may be able to give a more promising account of my health. As it is, I have reason to be satisfied. The ef- fect of years cannot be done away in a few weeks. I am tranquil and resigned, and, even if I should not bring back health, I shall at least bring back exiserience, and suffer with patience and in silence. Again and again God bless you, my dear Sara ! Let me know everything of your health, etc., etc. Oh, the letters are on the sea for me, and what tidings may they not bring to me ! S. T. Coleridge. Single sheet. Per Germania a Londra. An. 1804. CLIV. TO DANIEL STUART. Syeacuse/ October 22, 1804. My dear Stuart, — I have written you a long letter this morning by way of Messina, and from other causes 1 The first Sicilian tour extended The notes -which he took of his from the middle of August to the visit to Etna are fragmentary and 7th of November, 1804. Two or imperfect, but the description of three days, August 19-21, were Syracuse and its surroundings occu- spent in the neighbourhood of Etna, pies many pages of his note-book. He slept at Nicolosi and visited the Under the heading, " Timoleon's, Hospice of St. Nicola dell' Arena. Oct. 18, 1804, Wednesday, noon," It is unlikely that he reached the he writes : " The Gaza and Tree at actual summit, but two ascents were Tremiglia. Rocks with cactus, pen- made, probably to the limit of the dulous branches, seed-pods black at wooded region. A few days later, the same time with the orange-yeh August 24, he reached Syracuse, low flower, and little daisy-like tnfta where he was hospitably entertained of silky hair. . . . Timoleon's villa, by H. M. Consul G. F. Lecky. supposed to be in the field above the 486 A LONG ABSENCE [Feb. am so done up and hrain weary that I must put you to the expense of this as ahuost a blank, except that you will be pleased to observe my attention to business in having written two letters of advice, as well as transmitted first and second of excliange for <£50 which I have drawn upon you, payable to order of Dr. Stoddart at usance. I shall want no more for my return. I shall stay a month at Messina, and in that time visit Naples. Supposing the letter of this morning to miss, I ought to repeat to you that I leave the publication of the Pacquet,^ which is waiting for convoy at Malta for you, to your own opinion. present house, from -which yon as- cend to fifty stairs. Grand view of the harhour and sea, over that tong-ue of land which forms the anti-Ortygian embracing arm of the harbour, the point of Plemrayrium where Alcibiades and Nicias landed. I left the aqueduct and walked aseendingly to some ruined cottages, beside a delve, with straight lime- stone walls of rock, on which there played the shadows of the fig-tree and the olive. I was on part of Epipolse, and a glorious view in- deed ! Before me a neck of stony common and fields — Ortygia, the open sea and the ships, and the circu- lar harbour which it embraces, and the sea over that again. To my right that large extent of plain, green, rich, finely wooded ; the fields so divided and enclosed that you, as it were, knew at the first view that they are all hedged and enclosed, and yet no hedges nor enclosings obtrude themselves — an effect of the vast number of trees of the same sort. On my left, stony fields, two har- bours, Magnisi and its sand isle, and Augtista, and Etna, whose smoke mingles with the clouds even as they rise from the crater. . . . Still as I walk the lizard gliding darts along the road, and immerges himself under a stone, and the grasshopper leaps and tumbles awkwardly be- fore me." It must have been in anticipation of this visit to Sicily, or after some communication with Coleridge, that Wordswortli, after alluding to hia friend's abode, — " Where Etna over hill and vsilley casta His sliadow stretching towards Syracuse, The city of Timoleon," gives utterance to that unusual out- burst of feeling : — " Oil ! wrap him in your shades, ye giant woods, On Ktiia's side ; and thou, flowery field Of Enna ! is tliere not some nook of tliine, From the first play-time of the infant world Kept sacred to restorative deliglit, When from afar invoked by anxious love ? " Wordsworth's Poetical Works, 1889, " The Prelude," Book XL p. 319. ^ A short treatise entitled Obser- vations on Egypt, which is extant in MS., may have been among the papers sent to Stuart with a view to publication. 1805] TO ROBERT SOUTHEY 487 If the information appear new or valuable to you, and the letters themselves entertaining, etc., publish them ; only do not sell the copyright of more than the right of two editions to the bookseller. He will not give more, or much more for the copyright of the whole. May God bless you ! I am, and shall be as long as I exist, your truly grateful and affectionate friend, S. T. Coleridge. CLV. TO EOBERT SOUTHEY. Sat. morning, 4 o'clock. Treasury, Malta. February 2, 180.5. Dear Southey, — A Privateer is to leave this Port to-day at noon for Gibraltar, and, it chancing that an offi- cer of rank takes his passage in her. Sir A. Ball trusts his dispatches with due precaution to this unusual mode of conveyance, and I must enclose a letter to you in the government parcel. I pray that the lead attached to it will not be ominous of its tardy voyage, much less of its making a diving tour whither the spirit of Shakespeare went, under the name of the Dreaming Clarence.^ Cer- tain it is that I awoke about some half hour ago from so vivid a dream that the work of sleep had completely de- stroyed all sleepiness. I got up, went to my office-room, rekindled the wood-fire for the purpose of writing to you, having been so employed from morn till eve in writing public letters, some as long as memorials, from the hour that this opportimity was first announced to me, that for onc6 in my life, at least, I can with strict truth affirm that I have had no time to write to you, if by time be under- stood the moments of life in which our powers are alive. I am well — at least, till within the last fortnight I ivas perfectly so, till the news of the sale of my blessed house played " the foe intestine " with me. But of that here- after. ^ Shakespeare, Richard III., Act I. Scene 4, 488 A LONG ABSENCE [Feb. !My dear Southey ! ^ the longer I live, and the more I see, know, and think, the more deeply do I seem to know and feel your goodness ; and why, at this distance,' may I not allow myself to utter forth my whole thought hy add- ing your f/rcatnef^s ? " Thy kingdom come " will have been a petition already granted, when in the minds and hearts of all men both words mean the same ; or (to shake off a state of feeling deeper than may be serviceable to me) when gulielmosartorially speaking (i. e. William "Taylorice") the latter word shall have become an incur- able sjmonym, a lumberly duplicate, thrown into the ken- nel of the Lethe-lapping Chronos Anubioeides,^ as a car- riony, bare-ribbed tautology. Oh me ! it will not do ! You, my children, the Wordsworths, are at Keswick and Gras- mere, and I am at Malta, and it is a silly hypocrisy to pretend to joke when I am hea\y at heart. By the acci- dent of the sale of a dead Colonel's effects, who arrived in this healing climate too late to be healed, I procured the perusal of the second volume of the "Annual Keview." I was suddenly and strangely affected by the marked at- tention which you had paid to my few hints, by the inser- tion of my joke on Booker ; but more, far more than all, by the affection for me which peeped forth in that " Wil- liam Brown of Ottery." I knew you stopped before and after you had written the words. But I am to speak of your reviews in general. I am confident, for I have care- fully reperused almost the whole volume, and what I knew or detected to be yours I have read over and over again, ^ He Lad, perhaps, something they may be excused, and when they more than a suspicion that Southey are not, there is no excuse for them." disliked these protestations. In the Life and Correspondence, ii. 266. letter of friendly remonstrance (Feb- - Cynocephalus, Dog - visaged. ruary, 1804), which Southey wrote Compare Milton's "Hymn on the to him after the affair with Godwin, Nativity:" — he admits that he may be " too in tolerant of these phrases," but, in deed, he adds, "when they are true, , r 1 t , " ^''^ brutish gods of Nile as fast, tolerant of tliese phrases, but, m- igj^ ^^^ Orus and the dog Anubis haste." 1805] TO ROBERT SOUTHEY 489 with as much care and as little warping of partiality as if it had been a manuscript of my own going to the press — I can say confidently that in my best judgment they are models of good sense and correct style ; of high and hon- est feeling intermingled with a sort of wit which (I now translate as truly, though not as verbally, as I can, the sense of an observation which a literary Venetian, who resides here as the editor of a political journal, made to me after having read your reviews of Clarke's " Mari- time Discoveries ") unites that happy turn of words, which is the essence of French wit, with those comic picture- making combinations of fancy that characterises the old wit of old England. If I can find time to copy off what in the hurry of the moment I wrote on loose papers that cannot be made up into a letter without subjecting you to an expense wholly disproportionate to their value, I shall prove to you that I have been watchful in marking what appeared to me false, or better-not, or hetter-otlier- wise, parts, no less than what I felt to be excellent. It is enough to say at present, that seldom in my course of reading have I been more deeply impressed than by the sense of the diffused good they were likely to effect. At the same time I could not help feeling to how many false and pernicious principles, both in taste and in politics, they were likely, by their excellence, to give a non-nat- ural circulation. W. Taylor grows worse and worse. As to his political dogmata concerning Egypt, etc., God forgive him ! He knows not what he does ! But as to his spawn about Milton and Tasso — nay. Heaven forbid it should be spawn, it is pure toad-spit, not as toad-spit is, but as it is vulgarly believed to be. (/S'ee, too, his Ar- ticle in the " Critical Revieio.''''^ Now for your feelings respecting " Madoc." I regaixl them as all nerve and stom- ach-work, you having too recently quitted the business. Genius, too, has its intoxication, which, however divine, leaves its headaches and its nauseas. Of the very best 490 A LONG ABSENCE [Feb. of tbo few Lad, ^oocl, aiul indifferent things, I have had the same sensations. Concerning the innnediate chryso- jwetic i)()wers of " Madoc " I can only fear somewhat and liope somewhat. Midas and Apollo are as little cronies as ]Marsyas and Apollo. But of its great and lasting effects on your fame, if I doubted, I should then doubt all things in which I had hitherto had firm faith. Nei- ther am I without cheerful belief respecting its ultimate effects on your worldly fortune. O dear Southey ! when I see this booby with his ten pound a day as Mr. Com- missary X., and that thorough-rogue two doors off him with his fifteen pound a day as Mr. General Paymaster Y. Z., it stirs up a little bile from the liver and gives my ])oor stomach a pinch, when I hear you talk of having to look forward to an £100 or X150. But cheerily ! what do we comjjlain of ? would we be either of these men ? Oh, had I domestic happiness, and an assurance only of the health I now possess continuing to me in England, what a blessed creature should I be, though I found it necessary to feed me and mine on roast potatoes for two days in each week in order to make ends meet, and to awake my beloved with a kiss on the first of every Janu- ary. " Well, my best darling ! we owe nobody a farthing ! and I have you, my children, two or three friends, and a thousand books ! " I have written very lately to Mrs. Coleridge. If my letter reaches her, as I have quoted in it a part of yours of Oct. 19th, she will wonder that I took no notice of the house and the BcUygereiit. From Mrs. C. I have received no letter by the last convoy. In truth I am and have reason to be ashamed to own to what a diseased excess my sensibility has worsened into. I was so agitated by the receipt of letters, that I did not Viring myself to open them for two or three days, half- dreaming that from there being no letter from Mrs. C. some one of the children had died, or that she herself hud been ill, or — for so help me God ! most ill-starred 1805] TO ROBERT SOUTHEY 491 as our mai'riage has been, tliere is perhaps nothing that would so frightfully affect me as any change respecting her health or life ; and, when I had read about a third of your letter, I walked up and down and then out, and much business intervening, I wi'ote to her before I had read the remainder, or my other letters. I grieve ex- ceedingly at the event, and my having foreseen it does not diminish the shock. My dear study ! and that house in which such persons have been ! where my Hartley has made his first love-commune with Nature, to belong to White. Oh, how could Mr. Jackson have the heart to do it ! As to the climate, I am fully convinced that to an invalid all parts of England are so much alike, that no disadvantages on that score can overbalance any marked advantages from other causes. Mr. J. well knows that but for my absolute confidence in him I shoidd have taken the house for a long lease — but, poor man ! I am rather to soothe than to reproach him. When will he ever again have loving: friends and housemates like to us ? And dear good Mrs. Wilson ! Sm-ely Mrs. Coleridge must have written to me, though no letter has arrived. Now for my- self. I am most anxiously expecting the arrival of Mr. Chapman from Smyrna, who is (by the last ministry if that shoidd hold valid) appointed successor to Mr. Macau- lay, as Public Secretary of Malta, the second in rank to the Governor. Mr. M., an old man of eighty, died on the 18th of last month, calm as a sleeping baby, in a tremen- dous » thunder-and-lightning storm. In the interim, I am and some fifty times a day subscribe myself, Segretario Puhhlico deir Isole di Malta^ Gozo, e delle loro dijoen- denze. I live in a perfect palace and have all my meals with the Governor ; but my profits will be much less than if I had employed my time and efforts in my own literary pursuits. However, I gain new insights and if (as I doubt not I shall) I return having expended nothing, having paid all my prior debts as well as interim expense 492 A LONG ABSENCE [April (of the ^vh\c]\ debts I consider the XlOO borrowed by me from Sothi'by on the firm of W. Wordsworth, the heavi- est), with lu'iilth, and some additional knowledge both in thinjis and languages, I surely shall not have lost a year. My intention is, assuredly, to leave this place at the far- thest in the latter end of this month, whether by the con- voy, or over-land by Trieste, Vienna, Berlin, Embden, and Denmark, but I must be guided by circumstances. At all events, it will be well if a letter should be left for me at the " Courier " office in London, by the first of May, informing me of all which it is necessary for me to know. But of one thing I am most anxious, namely, that my as- surance money should be paid. I pray you, look to that. You will have heard long before this letter reaches you that the French fleet have escaped from Toulon. I have no heart for politics, else I could tell you how for the last nine months I have been working in memorials concern- ing Egypt, Sicily, and the coast of Africa. Could France ever possess these, she would be, in a far grander sense than the Roman, an Empire of the World. And what would remain to England? England; and that which our miserable diplomatists affect now to despise, now to consider as a misfortune, our language and institutions in America. France is blest by nature, for in possess- ing Africa she would have a magnificent outlet for her population as near her own coasts as Ireland to ours ; an America that must forever be an integral i)art of the mother-country. Egypt is eager for France — only eager, far more eager for G. Britain. The imiversal cry there (I have seen translations of twenty, at least, mercan- tile letters in the Court of Admiralty here (in which I have made a speech with a wig and gown, a true Jack of all Trades), all stating that the vox 2)0jmli) is Eng- lish, Englisli, if we can! but Hats at all events! (Hats means Europeans in contradistinction to Tur- bans.) God bless you, Southey ! I wish earnestly to 1805] TO DANIEL STUART 493 kiss your child. And all whom you love, I love, as far as I can, for your sake. For England. Per lughilterra, Robert Southey, Esqre, Greta Hall, Keswick, Cumberland. CLVI. TO DANIEL STUART. Favoured by Captain Maxwell of the Artillery. — N. B., an amiable mild man, who is prej)ared to give you any information. Malta, April 20, 1805. Dear Stuart, — The above is a duplicate, or rather a sex or sep^em-plicate of an order sent off within three weeks after my draft on you had been given by me ; and very anxious I have been, knowing that all or almost all of my letters have failed. It seems like a judgment on me. Formerly, when I had the sure means of conveying letters, I neglected my duty through indolence or procras- tination. For the last year, when, having all my heart, all my hope in England, I found no other gratification than that of writing to Wordsworth and his family, his wife, sister, and wife's sister ; to Southey, to you, to T. Wedgwood, Sir. G. Beaumont, etc. Indeed, I have been supererogatory in some instances — but an evil destiny has dogged them — one large and (forgive my vanity !) rather important set of letters to you on Sicily and Egypt were destroyed at Gibraltar among the papers of a most excellent man. Major Adye, to whom I had entrusted them on his departure from Sicily, and who died of the Plague FOUR DAYS after his arrival at Gibraltar. But still was I afflicted (shame on me ! even to violent weeping) when aU my many, many letters were thrown overboard from the Arrow, the Acheron, and a merchant vessel, to all which I had entrusted them ; the last through my own over care. For I delivered them to the captain with great pomp of seriousness, in my official character as Public 494 A LONG ABSENCE [April Secretary of tlie Islands.' lie took them, and consider- ing them as puhlie papers, on being close chased and expecting to be boarded, threw them overboard ; and he, however, escaped, steering for Africa, and returned to IMalta. But regrets are idle things. In my letter, which will accompany this, I have detailed my health and all that relates to me. In case, however, that letter shoidd not arrive, I will simply say, that till within the last two months or ten weeks my health had improved to the utmost of my hopes, though not without some intrusions of sickness ; but latterly the loss of my letters to England, the almost entire non-arrival of letters from England, not a single one from Mrs. Coleridge or Southey or you ; and only one from the Wordsworths, and that dated September, 1804 ! my consequent heart- saddening anxieties, and still, still more, the depths which Captain John Wordsworth's death ^ sunk into my heart. 1 A printed slip, cut off from some public document, has been preserved in one of Coleridge's note-books. It runs thus: "Segreteria del Go- vemo 11 29 Gennajo 1805. Samuel T. Coleridge Seg. Pub. del. Commis. Regio. G. N. Zamniit Pro segre- tario." His actual period of office extended from January 18 to Sep- tember G, 1805. ^ John Wordsworth, the poet's younger brother, the original of Leon- ard in " The Brothers," and of " The Happy Warrior," was drowned off the Bill of Portland, February 5, 1805. In a letter to Sir G. Beau- mont, dated February 11, 1805, Wordsworth writes: "I can say nothing higher of my ever-dear brother than that he was worthy of his sister, who is now weeping beside me, and of the friendship of Coleridge ; meek, affectionate, si- lently enthusiastic, loving all quiet things, and a poet in everything but words." " We have had no tidings of Coleridge. I tremble for the moment when he is to hear of my brother's death ; it will distress him to the heart, and his poor body can- not bear sorrow. He loved my brother, and he knows how we at Grasmere loved him." The report of the wreck of the Earl of Aber- gavenny and of the loss of her cap- tain did not reach Malta till the 31st of March. It was a Sunday, and Coleridge, who had been sent for to the Palace, first heard the news from Lady Ball. His emotion at the time, and, perhaps, a petition to be ex- cused from his duties brought from her the next day " a kindly letter of apology." "Your strong feelings," she writes, ' ' are too great for your health. I hope that you will soon re- cover your spirits." But Coleridge took the trouble to heart. It was 1805] TO DANIEL STUART 495 and which I heard abruptly, and in the very painfuUest way possible in a public company — all these joined to my disappointment in my expectation of returning to England by this convoy, and the quantity and variety of my public occujjations from eight o'clock in the morning to five in the afternoon, having besides the most anxious duty of writing public letters and memorials which be- longs to my talents rather than to my 'pro-tem'pore office ; these and some other causes that I cannot mention rela- tive to my affairs in England have produced a sad change indeed on my health ; but, however, I hope all will be well. ... It is my present intention to return home over- land by Naj)les, Ancona, Trieste, etc., on or about the second of next month. The gentleman who will deliver this to you is Captain Maxwell of the Royal Artillery, a well-informed and very amiable countryman of yours. He will give you any information you wish concerning Malta. An intelligent friend of his, an officer of sense and science, has entrusted to him an essay on Lampedusa,^ which I have advised him to publish in a newspaper, leaving it to the Editor to divide it. It may, perhaps, need a little softening^ but it is an accurate and well-reasoned memorial. He only the first death in the inner circle of one of the rejoicers . . . and all his friends ; it meant a heavy sorrow these were but decoys of death ! to those whom he best loved, and Well, but a nobler feeling than these it seemed to confirm the haunting vain regrets would become the friend presentiment that death would once of the man whose last words were, more visit his family during his ' I have done my duty ! let her go ! ' absence from home. Ten days later Let us do our duty ; all else is a he writes (in a note-book) : " dear dream — life and death alike a John Wordsworth ! What joy at dream ! This short sentence would Grasmere that you were made Cap- comprise, I believe, the sum of all tain of the Abergavenny ! now it was profound philosophy, of ethics and next to certain that you would in a metaphysics, and conjointly from few years settle in your native hills, Plato to Fichte. S. T. C." and be verily one of the concern. Then ^ An island midway between came your share in the brilliant ac- Malta and Tunis, ceded by Naples to tion at Linois. I was at Grasmere Don Fernandez in 1802. in spirit only ! but in spirit I was 496 A LONG ABSENCE [July wishes to s^ve it puhUcitij, and to have not only his name concealoil, but every circumstance that could lead to a suspii'ion. If after reading it you approve of it, you would greatly ol)lige him by giving it a place in the " Courier/' He is a sensible, independent man. For all else to my other letter. — I am, dear Stuart, with f aitlif ul recollections, yoiu* much obliged and tridy grateful friend and servant, S. T. Coleridge. April 20, 1805. CLVII. TO HIS WIFE. IIalta, July 21, 1805. Dear Sara, — The Niger is ordered off for Gibraltar at a moment's warning, and the Hall is crowded with offi- cers and merchants whose oaths I am to take, and ac- compts to sign. I will not, however, suffer it to go without a line, and including a draft for XllO — another opportu- nity will offer in a week or ten days, and I will enclose a duplicate in a letter at large. Now for the most important articles. My health had greatly improved ; but latterly it has been very, very bad, in great measure owing to de- jection of spirits, my letters having failed, the greater part of those to me, and almost all mine homeward. . . . My letters and the duplicates of them, written with so much care and minuteness to Sir George Beaumont — those to Wedgwood, to the Wordsworths, to Southey, Major Adye's sudden death, and then the loss of the two frigates, the capture of a merchant's privateer, all have seemed to spite. No one not absent on a dreary island, so many leagues of sea from England, can conceive the effect of these accidents on the spirit and inmost soid. So help me Heaven ! they have nearly broken my heart. And, added to this, I have been hoping and expecting to get away for England for five months past, and Mr. Chapman not arriving, Sir Alexander's importunities have always over- powered me, though my gloom has increased at each dis- 1805] TO HIS WIFE 497 appointment. I am determined, however, to go in less than a month. My office, as Public Secretary, the next civil dignitary to the Governor, is a very, very busy one, and not to involve myself in the resj)onsibility of the Treasurer I have but half the salary. I oftentimes sub- scribe my name 150 times a day, S. T. Coleridge, Pub. Sec. to H. M. Civ. Commissi, or (if in Italian) Seg. Pub. del Commiss' Regio, and administer half as many oaths — besides which I have the public memorials to write, and, worse than all, constant matters of arbitration. Sir A. Ball is indeed exceedingly kind to me. The officers will be impatient. I would I could write a more cheerful ac- count of my health ; all I can say is that I am better than I have been, and that I was very much better before so many circumstances of dejection haj^pened. I shoidd overset myself completely, if I ventured to mention a sin- gle name. How deeply I love, O God! it is agony at morning and evening. S. T. Coleridge. P. S. On being abruptly told by Lady Ball of John "Wordsworth's fate, I attempted to stagger out of the room (the great saloon of the Palace with fifty people present), and before I coidd reach the door fell down on the ground in a convulsive hysteric fit. I was confined to my room for a fortnight after ; and now I am afraid to open a letter, and I never dare ask a question of any new-comer. The night before last I was much affected by the sudden entrance of poor Reynell (our inmate at Stowey) ; ^ more of him in my next. May God Almighty bless you and — (Signed with seal, E2TH2E.) For England. Mrs. Coleridge, Kes^m•k, Cumberland. Postmark, Sept. 8, 1805. 1 A description of the cottage at ter at Thorveston, was published in Stowey and its inmates, contained in the Illustrated London News, April a letter written by Mr. Richard 22, 1893. Reynell (in August, 1797) to his sis- 498 A LONG ABSENCE [June CLVIII. TO WASHINGTON ALLSTON. Direct to me at INIr. Degens, Leghorn. God bless you I Tuesday, June 17, 1806.1 My dear Allston, — No want of affection has occa- sioned my silence. Day after day I expected Mr. Wallis. Benvennti received me with almost insulting coldness, not even asking me to sit down ; neither could I, by any en- quiry, find that he ever returned my call, and even in answer to a very polite note enquiring for letters, sent a verbal message, that there was one, and that I might call for it. However, within the last seven or eight days he has called and made his amende honourable ; he says he forgot the name of my inn, and called at two or three in vain. Whoo ! I did not tell him that within five days I sent him a note in which the inn was mentioned, and that he sent me a message in consequence, and yet never called for ten days afterwards. However, yester-evening the truth came out. He had been bored by letters of recommendation, and till he received a letter from Mr. 1 Coleridge left Rome with his and the arrest of all the English friend Mr. Russell on Sunday, May took place at six." In a letter to 18, 1800. He liad received, so he his brother George, which he wrote tells us in the liiographia Literaria, about six months after he returned a secret warning from the Pope to England, he says that he was that Napoleon, whose animosity had warned to leave Rome, but does not been roused by articles in the enter into particulars. It is a well- Morning Post, had ordered his ar- known fact that Napoleon read the rest. A similar statement is made leading articles in the Morning Post, in a footnote to a title-page of a pro- and deeply resented their tone and posed reprint of newspaper articles spirit, but whether Coleridge was (an anticipation of Essays on His rightly informed that an order for Oun Times), which was drawn up in his arrest had come from Paris, or 1817. ''My essays," he writes, "in whether he was warned that, if with theiVornine/Post, during the peace of other Englishmen he should be ar- Amif-ns, brought my life into jeop- rested, his connection with the Morn- ardy when I waa at Rome. An ing Post would come to light, must order for ray arrest came from Paris remain doubtful. Coleridge's Works, to Rome at twelve at niglit — by the 1853, iii. 309. Pope's goodness I was o£P by one — 1806] TO WASHINGTON ALLSTON 499 looked upon me as a bore — which, however, he might and ought to have got rid of in a more gentlemanly manner. Nothing more was necessary than the day after my arrival to have sent his card by his servant. But I forgive him from my heart. It should, however, be a lesson to Mr. Wallis, to whom, and for whom, he gives letters of recommendation. I have been dangerously ill for the last fortnight, and unwell enough, Heaven knows, previously ; about ten days ago, on rising from my bed, I had a manifest stroke of palsy along my right side and right arm. My head felt like another man's head, so dead was it, that I seemed to know it only by my left hand, and a strange sense of nimibness. . . . Enough of it, continual vexations and preyings upon the spirit — I gave life to my children,^ and they have re- peatedly given it to me ; for, by the Maker of all things, but for them I woidd try my chance. But they pluck out the wing-feathers from the mind. I have not entirely recovered the sense of my side or hand, but have recovered the use. I am harassed by local and partial fevers. This day, at noon, we set off for Leghorn ; ^ all passage through the Italian States and Germany is little other than inipos- 1 An entry in a note-book, dated Come, come thou bleak December wind, June 7, 180G, expresses this at greater And blow the dry leaves from the tree ! length : " my children ! whether, ^^f »>• ^'^^ ^ loTe-thought thro' me. Death - ° And take a life that wearies me. and which of you are dead, whether any and which among you are alive ^ It is difficult to trace his move- I know not, and were a letter to ments during his last week in Italy, arrive this moment from Keswick He reached Leghorn on Saturday, I fear that I should be unable to June 7. Thence he made his way open it, so deep and black is my to Florence and returned to Pisa on despair. O my children ! My chil- a Thursday, probably Thursday, drenic I gave you life once, uncon- June 19, the date of this letter. On Bcious of the life I was giving, and Sunday, June 22, he was still at you as unconsciously have given life Pi.sa, but, I take it, on the eve of to me." A fortnight later, he ends setting saQ for England. Fifty-five a similar outburst of despair with a days later, August 17, he leaped on cry for deliverance : — shore at Stangate Creek- His ac- 600 A LONG ABSENCE [Aug. sible for an Eni;li.slnuan, and Heaven knows whether Leg- horn may not be Lloekaded. However, we go thither, and shall go to England in an American ship. Inform Mr. AN'allis of this, and urge him to make his way — assure him of my anxious thoughts and fervent wishes respecting him and of my love for T , and his family. Tell Mr. Migliorus [?] that I should have written him long ago but for my ill health ; and will not fail to do it on my arrival at Pisa — from thence, too, I will write a letter to you, for this I do not consider as a letter. Nothing can surpass Mr. Russell's ^ kindness and tender- heartedness to me, and his understanding is far superior to what it appears on first acquaintance. I will write like- wise to Mr. Wallis and conjure him not to leave Amelia. I have heard in Leghorn a sad, sad character of one of those whom you called acquaintance, but who call you their dear friend. My dear Allston, somewhat from increasing age, but more from calamity and intense fra[ternal affections], my heart is not open to more than kind, good wishes in gen- eral. To you, and to you alone, since I left England, I have felt more, and had I not known the Wordsworths, shoidd have esteemed and loved you ^Vs^ and mos^/ and, as it is, next to them I love and honour you. Heaven count of Pisa is hif^lily charaeteris- for many years after in a Lecture on tic. "Of the hanging Tower," he the History of Philosophy, delivered writes, " the Duorao, the Cemetery, January 19, 1819, he describes mi- the Baptistery, I shall say nothing, nutely and vividly the " Triumph except that being all together they of Death," the great fresco in the form a wild mass, especially by Campo Santo at Pisa, which was moonlight, when the hanging Tower formeriy assigned to Orcagna, but is has something of a supernatural now, I believe, attributed to Am- look ; but what interested me with brogio and Pietro Lorenzetti. MS. a deeper interest were the two hos- Journal ; MS. Heport of Lecture. pitals, one for men, one for women," ^ Mr. Russell was an artist, an etc., and these he proceeds to de- Exeter man, whom Coleridge met in scribe. Nevertheless he must have Rome. They were fellow-travellers paid more attention to the treasures in Italy, and returned together to of Pisan art than his note implies, England. 1806] TO DANIEL STUART 501 knows, a part of sucli a wreck as my head and lieart is scarcely wortk your acceptance. S. T. Coleridge. CLIX. TO DANIEL STUART. Bell Inn, Friday Street, Monday morning, August 18, 1806. My DEAR Sir, -^ I arrived here from Staugate Creek last night, a little after ten, and have foimd myseK so un- usually better ever since I leaped on land yester-afternoon, that I am glad that neither my strength nor spirits enabled me to write to you on my arrival in Quarantine on the eleventh. Both the captain and my fellow-passengers were seriously alarmed for my life ; and indeed such have been my miremitting sufferings from pain, sleeplessness, loath- ing of food, and spirits wholly despondent, that no motive on earth short of an awful duty would ever prevail on me to take any sea-voyage likely to be longer than three or four days. I had rather starve in a hovel, and, if life through disease become worthless, will choose a Roman death. It is true I was very low before I embarked. . . . To have been working so hard for eighteen months in a business I detested ; to have been flattered, and to have flattered myself that I should, on striking the balance, have paid all my debts and maintained both myself and family during my exile out of my savings and earnings, including my travels through Germany, through which I had to the very last hoped to have passed, and found myself! — but enough ! I cannot charge my conscience with a single extravagance, nor even my judgment with any other im- prudences than that of suffering one good and great man to overpersuade me from month to month to a delay which was gnawing away my very vitals, and in being duped in disobedience to my first feelings and previous ideas by another diplomatic Minister. ... A gentleman offered to take me without expense to Rome, which I accepted with o02 A LONG ABSENCE [Aug. the fidl intention of staying only a fortniglit, and then re- turnin<^ to Naples to pass the winter. ... I left every- thing but a good suit of clothes and my shirts, etc., all my letters of credit, manuscripts, etc. I had not been ten days in Kome before the French torrent rolled down on Naples. All return was imi^ossible, and all transmission of jiapers not only insecure, but being English and many of them political, highly dangerous both to the sender and sendee, . . . But this is only a fragment of a chapter of contents, and I am too much agitated to write the details, but will call on you as soon as my two or three remaining [(/uhieas^ shall have put a decent hat upon my head and shoes ujjon my feet. I am literally afraid, even to cow- ardice, to ask for any person or of any person. Including the Quarantine we had fifty-five days of shipboard, work- ing up against head-winds, rotting and sweating in calms, or running under hard gales with the dead lights secured. From the captain and my fellow-passenger I received every possible tenderness, only when I was very ill they laid their wise heads together, and the latter in a letter to his father begged him to inform my family that I had arrived, and he trusted that they would soon see me in better health and spirits than when I had quitted them ; a letter which must have alarmed if they saw into it, and wounded if they did not. I was not informed of it till tliis morning. God bless you, my dear sir ! I have yet cheerful hopes that Heaven will not suffer me to die de- gTaded by any other debts than those which it ever has been, and ever will be, my joy and pride still to pay and still to owe ; those of a truly gratefid heart, and to you among the first of those to whom they are due. S. T. Coleridge. CHAPTER VIII HOME AND NO HOME 1806-1807 CHAPTER VIII HOME AND NO HOME 1806-1807 CLX. TO DANIEL STUART. Monday, (?) September 15, 1806. My dear Stuart, — I arrived in town safe, but so tired by the next evening, that I went to bed at nine and slept till past twelve on Sunday. I cannot keep off my mind from the last subject we were talking about ; though I have brought my notions concerning it to hang so well on the balance that I have in my own judgment few doubts as to the relative weight of the arguments persuasive and dissuasive. But of this " face to face." I sleep at the "Courier" office, and shall institute and carry on the in- quiry into the characters of Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox, and having carried it to the Treaty of Amiens, or rather to the recommencement of the War, I propose to give a full and severe Critique of the " Enquiry into the State of the Nation," taking it for granted that this work does, on the whole, contain Mr. Fox's latest political creed ; and this for the purpose of answering the " Morning Chronicle " (!) assertions, that Mr. Fox was the greatest and msest states- man ; that Mr. Pitt was no statesman. I shall endeavour to show that both were undeserving of that high charac- ter ; but that Mr. Pitt was the better ; that the evils which befell him were undoubtedly produced in great measure by blimders and wickedness on the Continent which it was almost impossible to foresee ; while the effects of Mr. Fox's measures must in and of themselves produce calamity and degradation. 506 HOME AND NO HOME [Sept. To confess the truth, I am by no means pleased with Mr. Street's character of ISIr. Fox as a speaker and man of intellect. As a piece of panegyric, it falls woefully short of the Article in the " Morning Chronicle " in style and selection of thoughts, and runs at lea«t equally far beyond the bounds of truth. Persons who write in a hurry are very liable to contract a sort of snipt, convulsive style, that moves forward by short repeated pushes, with iso-chronous asthmatic pants, " He — He — He — He — ," or the like, beginning a dozen short sentences, each mak- ing a period. In this way a man can get rid of all that happens at any one time to be in his memory, with very little choice in the arrangement and no expenditure of logic in the connection. However, it is the matter more than the manner that displeased me, for fear that what I shall write for to-morrow's " Courier " may involve a kind of contradiction. To one outrageous passage I persuaded him to add a note of amendment, as it was too late to alter the Article itself. It was impossible for me, seeing him satisfied with the Article himself, to say more than that he appeared to me to have exceeded in eiUogy. But beyond doubt in the political position occupied by the " Courier," with so little danger of being anticipated by the other papers in anything which it ought to say, except some obvious points which being common to all the papers can give credit to none, it woidd have been better to have an- nounced his death, and simply led the way for an after disquisition by a sort of shy disclosure with an appearance of suppression of the spirit \vitli which it could be con- ducted. There are letters at the Post Office, Margate, for me. Be so good as to send them to me, directed to the " Cou- rier " office. I think of going to Mr. Smith's ^ to-morrow, ^ William Smith, M. P. for Nor- great measure through his advice ■wich, who lived at Parndon House, and interest that Coleridge obtained near Harlow, in Essex. It was in a his Lecturesliip at the Royal Insti- 1806] TO HIS WIFE 507 or not at all. Whetlier Mr. Fox's death ^ will keep Mr. S. in town, or call him there, I do not know. At all events I shall return by the time of your arrival. May God bless you ! I am ever, my dear sir, as your obliged, so your affectionately grateful friend, S. T. Coleridge. CLXI. TO HIS WIFE. September 16, [1806.] My dear Sara, — I had determined on my arrival in town to write to you at full, the moment I could settle my affairs and speak decisively of myself. Unfortunately Mr. Stuart was at Margate, and wdiat with my journey to and fro, day has passed on after day. Heaven knows, counted by me in sickness of heart. I am now obliged to return to Parndon to Mr. W. Smith's, at whose house Mr. and Mrs. Clarkson are, and where I spent three or four days a fort- night ago. The reason at present is that Lord Howick has sent a very polite message to me through Mr. Smith, expressing his desire to make my acquaintance. To this I have many objections which I want to discuss with Mr. S., and at all events I had rather go with him to his Lordshij^'s than by myself. Likewise I have had ap- plication from the R. Institution for a course of lectures, which I am much disposed to accept, both for money and reputation. In short, I must stay in town till Friday sen'night ; for Mr. Stuart returns to town on Monday next, and he relies on my being there for a very interest- ing private concern of his own, in which he needs both my counsel and assistance. But on Friday sen'night, tution. Ten years later (1817), on of his old vigour gave battle on behalf the occasion of the surreptitious of his brother-in-law in the pages of publication of Wat Tyler, Mr. The Courier. Essays on His Own Smith, who was a staunch liberal. Times, ill. 939-950. denounced the Laureate as a " rene- ^ Charles James Fox died on Sep- gade," and Coleridge with something tember 13, 1806. 608 HOME AND NO HOME [Dec. please God, I shall quit town, and trust to be at Kes^vick on IMonday, Sept. 29th. If I finally accept the lectures, I must return by the middle of November, but propose to take you and Hartley with me, as we may be sure of rooms cither in Mr, Stuart's house at Knightsbridge, or in the Strand. My purpose is to divide my time steadily between my reflections moral and political, grounded on information obtained during two years' residence in Italy and the INIediterranean, and the lectures on the " Princi- ples common to all the Fine Arts." It is a terrible mis- fortune that so many important papers are not in my power, and that I must wait for Stoddart's care and alert- ness, which, I am sorry to say, Is not to be relied on. However, it is well that they are not in Paris. My heart aches so cruelly that I do not dare trust my- self to the writing of any tenderness either to you, my dear, or to our dear children. Be assured, I feel with deep though sad affection toward you, and hold your character in general in more than mere esteem — in rever- ence. ... I do not gather strength so fast as I had ex- pected ; but this I attribute to my very great anxiety. I am indeed very feeble^ but after fifty-five days of such horrors, following the dreary heart-wasting of a year and more, it is a wonder that I am as I am. I sent you from Malta <£110, and a duplicate in a second letter. If you have not received it, the triplicate is either at Malta or on its way from thence. I had sent another £100, but by Elliot's villainous treatment of me ^ was obliged to recall it. But these are trifles. IMr. Clarkson is come, and is about to take me down to Parndon (Mr. S.'s country seat in Essex, about twenty 1 An unpublished letter from Sir that Coleridge ever said in favour of Alexander Ball to His Excellency " Ball " exceeds what Sir Alexander H. Elliot, Esq. (Minister at the says of Coleridge, but the Minister, Court of Naples), strongly recora- -whose hands must have been pretty mends Coleridge to his favourable full at the time, failed to be im- notice and consideration. Nothing pressed, and withheld his patronage. 1806] TO HIS WIFE 509 miles from town). I shall return by Sunday or Monday, and my address, " S. T. Coleridge, Esqre, No. 348 Strand, London." My grateful love to Southey, and blessing on his little one. And may God Almighty preserve you, my dear! and your faithful, though long absent husband, S. T. COLEEIDGE. CLXII. TO THE SAME. [Farmhouse near Coleorton,] December 25, 1806. My deae Sara, — By my letter from Derby you will have been satisfied of our safety so far. We had, however, been grossly deceived as to the equi-distance of Derby and Loughborough. The expense was nearly double. Still, however, I was in such torture and my boils bled, throbbed, and stabbed so con furia, that perhaps I have no reason for regret. At Coleorton we found them din- ing, Sunday, ^ past one o'clock. To-day is Xmas day. Of course we were welcomed with an uproar of sincere joy : and Hartley hung suspended between the ladies for a long minute. The children, too, jubilated at Hart- ley's arrival. He has behaved very well indeed — only that when he could get out of the coach at dinner, I was obliged to be in incessant watch to prevent him from rambling off into the fields. He twice ran into a field, and to the further end of it, and once after the dinner was 6n table, I was out five minutes seeking him in great alarm, and found him at the further end of a wet meadow, on the marge of a river. After dinner, fearful of losing our places by the window (of the long coach), I ordered him to go into the coach and sit in the place where he was before, and I would follow. In about five minutes I followed. No Hartley ! Halloing — in vain ! At lengih, where should I discover him ! In the same meadow, only at a greater distance, and close down on the very edge of 510 HOME AND NO HOME [April the water. I was angry from downright fright ! And what, think yon, was Cataphraet's excuse ! " It was a niisundorstanding, Father ! I thought, you see, that you Lid nie go to the very same place, in the meadow where I was.'' I tohl him that he had interpreted the text by the suggestions of the flesh, not the inspiration of the spirit ; and his Wish the naughty father of the base- born Thought. However, saving and excejiting his pas- sion for field truantry, and his hatred of confinement [in which his fancy at least — Doth sing a doleful song about green fields ; How sweet it were in woods and wild savannas ; To hunt for food and be a naked man And wander up and down at liberty !J,^ he is a very good and sweet child, of strict honour and truth, from which he never deviates except in the form of sophism when he sports his logical false dice in the game of excuses. This, however, is the mere effect of his activ- ity of thought, and his aiming at being clever and ingen- ious. Pie is exceedingly amiable toward children. All here love him most dearly : and your namesake takes upon her all the duties of his mother and darling friend, with all the mother's love and fondness. He is very fond of her ; but it is very pretty to hear how, without any one set declaration of his attaclunent to Mrs. Wilson and Mr. Jackson, his love for them continually breaks out — so many things remind him of them, and in the coach he talked to the strangers of them just as if everybody must know Mr. J. and Mrs. W. His letter is only half written ; so cannot go to-day. We all wish you a merry Christmas and many following ones. Concerning the London Lectures, we are to discuss it, William and I, this evening, and I shall write you at full the day after to- morrow. To-morrow there is no post, but this letter I 1 "The Foster-Mother's Tale," Poetical Works, 1893, p. 83, Hartley Coleridtre 1807] TO HARTLEY COLERIDGE 511 mean merely as bearer of the tidings of our safe arrival. I am better than usual. Hartley has coughed a little every morning since he left Greta Hall ; but only such a little cough as you heard from him at the door. He is in high health. All the children have the hooping cough; but in an exceedingly mild degree. Neither Sarah Hutchinson nor I ever remember to have had it. Hart- ley is made to keep at a distance from them, and only to play with Johnny in the open air. I found my spice- megs ; but many papers I miss. The post boy waits. My love to Mrs. Lovell, to Southey and Edith, and be- lieve me anxiously and for ever, Your sincere friend S. T. Coleridge. CLXIII. TO HARTLEY COLERIDGE, ^TAT. X.^ April 3, 1807. My dear Boy, — In all human beings good and bad qualities are not only found together, side by side, as it were, but they actually tend to produce each other; at least they must be considered as twins of a common parent, and the amiable propensities too often sustain and foster their unhandsome sisters. (For the old Romans per- ^ Hartley Coleridge, now in his economy," says Hartley, " would not eleventh year, was under his father's allow us to visit the Jewel Office, sole care from the end of December, but Mr. Scott, then no anactolater, 1806, to May, 1807. The first three took an evident pride in showing me months were spent in the farmhouse the claymores and bucklers taken near Coleorton, which Sir G. Beau- from the Loyalists at Culloden." mont had lent to the Wordsworths, Whilst he was at Coleorton, Hartley and it must have been when that was painted by Sir David Wilkie. visit was drawing to a close that this It is the portrait of a child " whose letter was written for Hartley's ben- fancies from afar are brought,'' but efit. The remaining five or six the Hartley of this letter is better weeks were passed in the company represented by the grimacing boy in of the Wordsworths at P.asil Monta- Wilkie 's " Blind Fiddler," for which, gu's house in London. Then it was I have been told, he sat as a model, that Hartley saw his first play, and Poems of Hartley Coleridge, 1851, ■was taken by Wordsworth and Wal- i. ccxxii. ter Scott to the Tower. " The bard's 512 HOME AND NO HOME [April sonified virtues and vices both as women.) This is a suffi- cient i)roof that uiere natural qualities, however pleasing and delightful, must not be deemed virtues until tliey are broken in and yoked to the plough of lieason. Now to apply this to your own ease — I could equally apply it to myself — but you know yourself more accurately than you can know me, and will therefore understand my argument better when the facts on which it is built exist in your own consciousness. You are by natiu-e very kind and forgiving, and wholly free from revenge and sullenness ; you are likewise gifted with a very active and self-gratifying fancy, and such a high tide and flood of pleasurable feelings, that all unpleasant and painful thoughts and events are hurried away upon it, and neither remain in the surface of your memory nor sink to the bot- tom of your heart. So far all seems right and matter of thanksgiving to your Maker ; and so all really is so, and will be so, if you exert your reason and free will. But on the other hand the very same disposition makes you less impressible both to the censure of your anxious friends and to the whispers of your conscience. Nothing that gives you pain dwells long enough upon your mind to do you any good, just as in some diseases the medicines pass so quickly through the stomach and bowels as to be able to exert none of their healing qualities. In like manner, this power which you possess of shoving aside all dis- agreeable reflections, or losing them in a labyrinth of day-dreams, which saves you from some present pain, has, on the other hand, interwoven with your nature habits of procrastination, which, unless you correct them in time Tand it will recpiire all your best exertions to do it effec- tually), must lead you into lasting unhappiness. You are now going with me (if God have not ordered it otherwise) into Devonshire to visit your Uncle G. Cole- ridge. He is a very good man and very kind ; but his notions of right and of propriety are very strict, and he 1807] TO HARTLEY COLERIDGE 613 is, therefore, exceedingly shocked by any gross deviations from what is right and proper. I take, therefore, this means of warning you against those bad habits, which I and all your friends here have noticed in you ; and, be assured, I am not writing in anger, but on the contrary with great love, and a comfortable hope that your beha- viour at Ottei-y will be such as to do yourself and me and your dear mother credit. First, then, I conjure you never to do anything of any kind when out of sight which you would not do in my presence. What is a frail and faulty father on earth compared with God, your heavenly Father? But God is always present. Specially, never pick at or snatch up anything, eatable or not. I know it is only an idle, fool- ish trick ; but your Ottery relations would consider you as a little thief ; and in the Church Catechism piching and stealing are both put together as two sorts of the same vice, " And keep my hands from picking and steal- ing." And besides, it is a dirty trick ; and people of weak stomachs would turn sick at a dish which a young jiltli-paiv) had been fingering. Next, when you have done wrong acknowledge it at once, like a man. Excuses may show your ingenuity, but they make your honesty suspected. And a grain of hon- esty is better than a pound of wit. We may admire a man for his cleverness ; but we love and esteem him only for his goodness ; and a strict attachment to truth, and to the whole truth, with openness and frankness and sim- plicity is at once the foundation stone of all goodness, and no small part of the superstructure. Lastly, do what you have to do at once, and put it out of hand. No procras- tination ; no self-delusion ; no " I am sure I can say it, I need not learn it again," etc., which sures are such very unsure folks that nine times out of ten their sureships break their word and disappoint you. Among the lesser faults I beg you to endeavour to re- 614 HOME AND NO HOME [Sept. member not to stand between the half-opened door, either while you are speaking, or si)oken to. But come i7i or go out, and always speak and listen with the door shut. Likewise, not to speak so loud, or abruptly, and never to interi'ui)t your elders while they are speaking, and not to talk at all during meals. I pray you, keep tliis letter, and read it over every two or three days. Take but a little trouble with yourself, and every one wiU be delighted with you, and try to gratify you in all your reasonable wishes. And, above all, you will be at peace with yourself, and a double blessing to me, who am, my dear, my very dear Hartley, most anxiously, your fond father, S. T. Coleridge. P. S. I have not spoken about your mad passions and frantic looks and pout-mouthing ; because I trust that is all over. Hartley Coleridge, Coleorton, Leicestershire. CLXIV. TO SIR H. DAVY. September 11, 1807. . . . Yet how very few are there whom I esteem and (pardon me for this seeming deviation from the language of friendship) admire equally with yourself. It is indeed, and has long been, my settled persuasion, that of all men known to me I could not justly equal any one to you, combining in one view powers of intellect, and the steady moral exertion of them to the production of direct and indirect good ; and if I give you pain, my heart bears wit- ness that I inflicted a gTeater on myself, — nor should I have written such words, if the chief feeling that mixed with and followed them had not been that of shame and self-reproach, for having profited neither by your general example nor your frequent and immediate incentives. Neither would I have oppressed you at all with this mel- 1807] TO SIR H. DAVY 515 ancholy statement, but that for some days past I have found myself so much better in body and mind, as to cheer me at times with the thought that this most morbid and oppressive weight is gradually lifting up, and my will acquiring some degree of strength and power of reaction. I have, however, received such manifest benefit from horse exercise, and gradual abandonment of fermented and total abstinence from spirituous liquors, and by being alone with Poole, and the renewal of old times, by wan- dering about among my dear old walks of Quantock and Alfoxden, that I have seriously set about composition, with a view to ascertain whether I can conscientiously undertake what I so very much wish, a series of Lectures at the Royal Institution. I trust I need not assure you how much I feel your kindness, and let me add, that I consider the application as an act of great and unmerited condescension on the part of the managers as may have consented to it. After having discussed the subject with Poole, he entirely agrees with me, that the former plan suggested by me is invidious in itself, unless I disguised my real opinions ; as far as I should deliver my sentiments respecting the arts^ [it] woidd require references and illus- trations not suitable to a public lecture room ; and, finally, that I ought bot to reckon upon spirits enough to seek about for books of Italian prints, etc. And that, after all, the general and most philosophical principles, I might naturally introduce into lectures on a more confined plan — namely, the principles of poetry, conveyed and illustrated in a series of lectures. 1. On the genius and writings of Shakespeare, relatively to his predecessors and contempo- raries, so as to determine not only his merits and defects, and the proportion that each must bear to the whole, but what of his merits and defects belong to his age, as being found in contemporaries of genius, and what belonged to himself. 2. On Spenser, including the metrical romances, 616 HOME AND NO HOME [Sept. and Chaucer, thouf^li the character of the latter as a mauner-painter I shall have so far anticipated in distin- guishing; it froui, and comparing it with, Shakespeare. 3. Milton. 4. Dry den and Po})e, including the origin and after history of poetry of witty logic. 5. On Modern Poetry and its characteristics, with no introduction of any particular names. In the course of these I shall have said all I know, the whole result of many years' continued reflection on the subjects of taste, imagination, fancy, pas- sion, the source of our pleasures in the fine arts, in the antithetical balance-loving nature of man, and the con- nexion of such pleasures with moral excellence. The ad- vantage of this plan to myself is, that I have all my materials ready, and can rapidly reduce them into form (for this is my solemn determination, not to give a single lecture till I have in fair writing at least one half of the whole course), for as to trusting anything to immediate effort, I shrink from it as from guilt, and guilt in me it would be. In short, I should have no objection at once to pledge myself to the immediate preparation of these lec- tures, but that I am so surrounded by embarrassments. . . . For God's sake enter into my true motive for this wear- ing detail ; it would torture me if it had any other effect than to impress on you my desire and hope to accord with your plan, and my incapability of making any final prom- ise till the end of this month. S. T. Coleridge. CHAPTER IX A PUBLIC LECTURER 1807-1808 CHAPTER IX PUBLIC LECTURER 1807-1808 CLXV. TO THE MORGAN FAMILY. Hatchett's Hotel, Piccadilly, Monday evening', [November 23, 1807.] My dear Friends, — I arrived here in safety this morn- ing between seven and eight, coaeh-stimned, and with a cold in my head ; but I had dozed away the whole night with fewer disturbances than I had reason to expect, in that sort of ivhethei'-you-unll-or-no slumber brought upon me by the movements of the vehicle, which I attribute to the easiness of the mail. About one o'clock I moaned and started, and then took a wing of the fowl and the rum, and it operated as a preventive for the after time. If very, very affectionate thoughts, ^vishes, recollections, anticipations, can score instead of grace before and after meat, mine was a very religious meal, for in this sense my inmost heatt prayed hefore., after^ and durmg. After breakfast, on attempting to clean and dress myself from cro^vn to sole, I found myself quite unfit for a??//thing, and my legs were painful, or rather my feet, and nothing but an horizontal position woidd remove the feeling. So I got into bed, and did not get up again till Mr. Stuart called at my chamber, past three. I have seen no one else, and therefore must defer all intelligence concerning my lectures, etc., to a second letter, which you will receive in a few days, God willing, with the D'Espriella, etc. When I was leaving you, one of the little alleviations 520 A rUBLlC LECTURER [Dec. wliicli I looked forward to, was that I could write with less emharrassinent than I could utter in your presence the many feelings of grateful affection and most affectionate esteem toward you, that pressed upon my heart almost, as at times it seemed, with a bodily weight. But I suppose it is yet too short a time since I left you — you are scarcely out of my eyes yet, dear Mrs. M. and Charlotte ! To-morrow I shall go about the portraits. I have not looked at the lirofile since, nor shall I till it is framed. An absence of four or five days will be a better test how far it is a likeness. For a day or two, farewell, my dear friends ! I bless you all thi-ee fervently, and shall, I trust, as long as I am S. T. Coleridge. I shall take up my lodgings at the " Courier " office, where there is a nice suite of rooms for me and a quiet bedroom without expense. My address therefore, ^^ Squire Coleridge," or " S. T. Coleridge, Esq : ' Courier ' Office, Strand," — unless you are in a sensible mood, and then you will wTite 3Ir. Coleridge, if it were only in comj)as- sion to that poor, unfortunate exile, from the covers of letters at least, despised Jlli. Mr. Jno. Jas. Morgan, St. James's Square, Bristol. CLXVI. TO ROBERT SOUTHET. [Postmark, December 14, 1807.] My dear Southey, — I have been confined to my bedroom, and, with exceptions of a few hours each night, to my bed for near a w^eek past — having once ventured out, and suffered in consequence. My complaint a low bilious fever. Whether contagion or sympathy, I know not, but I had it hanging about me from the time I was with Davy. It went off, however, by a journey which I took with Stuart, to Bristol, in a cold frosty air. Soon 1807] TO ROBERT SOUTHEY 521 after my return Mr. Riclout informed me from Drs. Babbington and Bailly, that Davy was not only ill, but his life precarious, his recovery doubtful. And to this day no distinct symptom of safety has appeared, though to-day he is better. I cannot express what I have suf- fered. Good heaven ! in the very springtide of his honom- — his ? his country's ! the world's ! after discov- eries more intellectual, more ennobling, and inipowering human nature than Newton's ! But he must not die ! I am so much better that I shall go out to-morrow, if I awake no worse than I go to sleep. Be so good as to tell Mrs. Coleridge that I will write to her either Tuesday or Wednesday, and to Hartley and Derwent, ^vith whose letters I was much both amused and affected. I was with Hartley and Mrs. Wilson and Mr. Jackson in spirit at their meeting. Howel's bill I have paid, tell Mrs. C. (for this is what she wiU be most anxious about), and that I had no other debt at all weighing upon me, either pruden- tially or from sense of propriety or delicacy, till the one I shall mention, after better subjects, in the tail of this letter. I very thoroughly admired your letter to W. Scott,^ concerning the " Edinburgh Review." The feeling and the resolve are what any one knowing you half as weU as I must have anticipated, in any case where you had room for ten minutes, thinking, and relatively to any person, with regard to whom old affection and belief of injury and unworthy conduct had made none of those mixtures, which people the brains of the best men — none but good men having the component drugs, or at least the ^ Scott had proposed to Southey " that sort of bitterness [in criti- that he should use his influence with cisra] which tends directly to wound Jeffrey to get him placed on the a man in his feelings, and injure him staff of the Edinburijh Review, in his fame and fortune." Life and Southey declined the offer alike on Correspondence, iii. 124-128. See, the score of political divergence too, Lockhart's Life of Sir ]Valter from the editor, and disapproval of Scott, 1837, ii. 130. 522 A PUBLIC LECTURER [Dec. clni<;s in that state of composition — hut it is admirably expressed — if I liad meant only tcdl expressed, I should have said, '* and it is well expressed," — but, to my feeling, it is an unusual s^jeeimen of honourable feeling supporting itself by sDund sense and conveyed with simplicity, dig- nity, anil a warmth evidently under the complete control of the understanding. I am a fair judge as to such a sentence, for from morbid wretchedness of mind I have been in a far, far greater excess, indifferent about what is said, or written, or supposed, concerning me or my compositions, than W. can have been ever sujjposed to be interested respecting his — and the "Edinburgh Review" I have not seen for years, and never more than four or five numbers. As to reviewing W.'s poems, my sole ob- jection would rest on the t'wie of the publication of the " Annual Review." Davy's illness has put off the com- mencement of my Lectures to the middle of January. They are to consist of at least twenty lectures, and the subject of modern poetry occupies at least three or four. Now I do not care in how many forms my sentiments are printed : if only I do not defraud my hirers, by causing my lectures to be anticipated. I would not review them at all, unless I can do it systematically, and with the whole sti-ength of my mind. And, when I do, I shall express my convictions of the faults and defects of the poems and system, as plainly as of the excellencies. It has been my constant reply to those who have charged me with bigotry, etc., — " While you can perceive no excellencies, it is my duty to appear conscious of no de- fects, because, even though I should agree with you in the instances, I should only confirm you in what I deem a pernicious error, as our principle of disapprobation must necessarily be different." In my Lectures I shall speak out, of Rogers, Campbell, yourself (that is " Madoc " and " Thalaba ; " for I shall speak only of iwems^ not of poets), and Wordsworth, as plainly as of Milton, Dry den, 1807] TO ROBERT SOUTHEY 623 Pope, etc. ... I did not overliugely admire the " Lay of the Last Minstrel," but saw no likeness whatever to the " Christabel," much less any improper resemblance. I heard by accident that Dr. Stoddart had arrived a few days ago, and wrote him a letter expostulating with him for his unkindness in having detained for years my books and MSS., and stating the great loss it had been to me (a loss not easy to be calculated. I have as witnesses T. Poole and Squire Acland ^ (who calls me infallible Prophet), that from the information contained in them, though I could not dare trust my recollection sufficiently for the proofs, I foretold distinctly every event that has happened of importance, with one which has not yet happened, the evacuation of Sicily). This, however, of coiu'se, I did not write to Dr. S., but simply requested he would send me my chests. In return I received yesterday an abusive letter confirming what I suspected, that he is writing a book himself. In this he conjures up an in- definite debt, customs, and some old affair before I went to Malta, amounting to more than fifty pounds (the cus- toms twenty-five pounds, all of which I should have had remitted, if he had sent them according to his promise), and informing me that when I send a person properly documented to settle this account, that person may then take away my goods. This I shall do to-morrow, though without the least pledge that I shall receive all that I left. . . . This wiU prevent my sending Mrs. C. any money for three weeks, I mean exclusive of the [an- nuity of] <£150 which, assure her, is, and for the future will remain, sacred to her. By Wallis' attitude to Allston I lost thirty pounds in customs, by my brother's refusal ^ ^ Sir John Acland. The property at Ottery .is had been orig-inally is now in the possession of a de- proposed. Georg-e Coleridg-e disap- scendant in the female line, Sir proved of liis brother's intended Alexander Hood, of Fairfield, Dod- separation from his wife, and de- ington. clined to countenance it in any way '^ To receive him and his family whatever. 524 A PUBLIC LECTURER [Jan. all tlie exponsos up ami down of my family. So it has been a bacUlish year ; but I am not disquieted. S. T. C. Poor Godwin is going to the dogs. He has a tragedy ^ to come out on Wednesday. I will write again to you in a few days. After my Lectures I woiUd willingly under- take any Review with you, because I shall then have given my Code. I omit other parts of your letter, not that they interested me less, but because I have no room, and am too much exhausted to take uj3 a second sheet. God bless you. My kisses to your little ones, and love to your wife. The only vindictive idea I have to Dr. S. is the anticipation of showing his letter to Sir Alexander Ball I ! The folly of sinning against our first and pure impressions ! It is the sin against our own ghost at least I CLXVII. TO MRS. MORGAN. 348, Strand, Friday moriung, January 25, 1808. Dear and honoured Mary, — Having had you con- tinually, I may almost say, present to me in my dreams, and always appearing as a compassionate comforter therein, appearing in shape as your own dear self, most innocent and full of love, I feel a strong impulse to address a letter to you by name, though it equally respects all my three friends. If it had been told me on that evening when dear Morgan was asleep in the parlour, and you and beloved Caroletta asleep at opposite corners of the sopha in the drawing-room, of which I occupied the centre in a state of blessed half-unconsciousness as a drowsy guardian of your slumbers ; if it had been then told me that in less than a fortnight the time should come when I should not wish to be with you, or wish you to be with me, I should have out with one of Caroletta's harm- 1 Faulkner: a Tragedy, 1807-1808, 8vo. 1808] TO MRS. MORGAN 525 less " condemn its " (commonly pronounced " da7n7i it "), " that 's no truth ! " And yet since on Friday evening, my lecture having made an impression far beyond its worth or my expectation, I have been in such a state of wretch- edness, confined to my bed, in such almost continued pain . . , that I have been content to see no one but the un- lovable old woman, as feeling that I should only receive a momently succession of pangs from the presence of those who, giving no pleasure, would make my wretched- ness appear almost unnatural, even as if the fire should cease to be warm. Who would not rather shiver on an ice moimt than freeze before the fire which had used to spread comfort through his fibres and thoughts of social joy through his imagination? Yet even this, yet even from thi& feeling that your society would be an agony, oh I know, I feel how I love you, my dear sisters and friends. I have been obliged, of course, to put off my lecture of to-day; a most painfid necessity, for I disappoint some hundreds ! I have sent for Abernethy, who has restored Mr. De Quincey to health ! Could I have foreseen my present state I would have stayed at Bristol and taken lodgings at Clifton in order to be within the power of being seen by you, without being a domestic nuisance, for still, still I feel the comfortlessness of seeing no face, hearing no voice, feeling no hand that is dear, though conscious that the pang would oiitweigh the solace. When finished, let the two dresses, etc., be sent to me ; but if my illness should have a completed conclusion, of me as well as of itself, and there seems to be a distinct inflammation of the mesentery, — then let them be sent to Grasmere for Mrs. Wordsworth and Miss Hutchinson, — gay dresses, indeed, for a mourning. I write in great pain, but yet I deem, whatever become of me, that it will hereafter be a soothing thought to you that in sickness or in health, in hope or in despondency, 526 A PUBLIC LECTURER [May T have thought of j'ou with love and esteem and grati- tude. My dear Mary I dear Charlotte I May Heaven bless you! AVith such a wife and such a sister, my friend is already blest ! INIay Heaven give him health and elastic spirits to enjoy these and all other blessings ! Once more bless you, bless you. Ah I who is there to bless S. T. Coleridge? P. S. Sunday Night. I do not know when this letter was written — jirobably Thursihnj morning, not Wednes- day, as I have said in my letter to John. I have opened this by means of the steam of a tea-kettle, merely to say that I have, I know not how or where, lost the pretty shirt- pin Charlotte gave me. I promise her solemnly never to accept one from any other, and never to wear one here- after as long as I live, so that the sense of its real absence shall make a sort of imaginary presence to me. I am more vexed at the accident than I ought to be ; but had it been either of jonv locks of hair or her profile (which must be by force and association yoiir profile too, and a far more efficacious one than that done for you, which had no other merit than that of having no likeness at all, and this certainly is a sort of negative advantage) I should have fretted myself into superstition and been haunted with it as by an omen. Of the lady and her poetical daughter I had never before heard even the name. Oh these are shadows ! and all my literary admirers and flatterers, as well as despisers and calumniators, pass over my heart as the images of clouds over didl sea. So far from being retained, they are scarcely made visible there. But I love you, dear ladies ! substantially, and pray do write at least a line in Morgan's letter, if neither will write me a whole one, to comfort me by the assurance that you remember me with esteem and some affection. Most affectionately have you and Charlotte treated me, 1808] TO FRANCIS JEFFREY 527 and most gratefully do I remember it. Good-night, good- night ! To be read after the other. Mrs. Morgan, St. James's Square, Bristol. CLXVIII. TO FRANCIS JEFFREY. 348 Strand, May 23, 1808. Dear Sir, — Without knowing me you have been, perhaps rather unwarrantably, severe on my morals and understanding, inasmuch as you have, I understand, — for I have not seen the Reviews, — frequently introduced my name when I had never brought any publication within your court. With one slight exception, a shilling pamphlet ^ that never obtained the least notice, I have not j^ublished anything with my name, or known to be mine, for thir- teen years. Surely I might quote against you the com- plaint of Job as to those who brought against him " the iniquities of his youth." What harm have I .ever done you, dear sir, by act or word? If you knew me, you would yourself smile at some of the charges, which, I am told, you have fastened on me. Most assuredly, you have mistaken my sentiments, alike in moralit}^ politics, and — what is called — metaphysics, and, I would fain hope, that if you knew me, you would not have ascribed self- opinion and arrogance to me. But, be this as it may, I write to you now merely to intreat — for the sake of man- kind — an honourable review of Mr. Clarkson's " History of the Abolition of the Slave Trade." ^ I know the man, and if you knew him you, I am sure, would revere him, and your reverence of him, as an agent, would almost ^ I presume that the reference is burgh Review, July, 1808. It has to the Condones ad Populum, pub- never been reprinted. Samuel Taylor lished at Bristol, November If), 17!'5. Coleridge, by J. Dykes Campbell. " Coleridge's article on Clarkson's London, 1894, p. 1(58 ; Letters from History of the Abolition of the Slave the Lake Poets, p. 180; Allsop's Let- Trade was published in the Edin- ters, 183G, ii. 112. 528 A PUBLIC LECTURER [July sui>orsetlc all jiulgnient of him as a mere literary man. It would 1)0 prosuinptuous in me to offer to write the review of his work. Yet I should be glad were I per- mitted to suhuiit to yon the many thonghts which occurred to me iluring its perusal. Be assnred, that with the great- est respect for your talents — as far as I can judge of them from the few nnmbers of the " Edinburgh Review " which I have had the opportunity of reading — and every kind thought respecting your motives, I am, dear sir, your ob. humb. ser't, S. T. Coleridge. Jkffray (sic), Esq., to the care of Mr. Constable, Bookseller, Ediugburgh (sic). CLXIX. TO THE SAME. [Postmark] Bury St. Edmunds, July 20, 1808. Dear Sir, — Not having been gratified by a letter from you, I have feared that the freedom with which I opened out my opinions may have given you offence. Be assured, it was most alien from my intention. The pur- port of what I wrote was simply this — that severe and long-continued bodily disease exacerbated by disappoint- ment in the great hope of my Life had rendered me insensible to blame and praise, even to a faulty degree, unless they proceeded from the one or two who love me. The entrance-passage to my heart is choked up with heavy lumber, and I am thus barricadoed against attacks, which, doubtless, I should otherwise have felt as keenly as most men. Instead of censuring a certain quantum of irritability respecting the reception of published composi- tion, I rather envy it — it becomes ludicrous then only, when it is disavowed, and the opposite temper pretended to. The ass's skin is almost scourge-proof — while the elephant thrills under the movements of every fly that runs over it. But though notoriously almost a zealot in 1808] TO FRANCIS JEFFREY 529 behalf of my friend's poetic reputation, yet I can leave it with cheerful confidence to the fair working of his own powers. I have known many, very many instances of contempt changed into admiration of his genius ; but I neither know nor have heard of a single person, who hav- ing been or having become his admirer had ceased to be so. For it is honourable to us all that our kind affections, the attractions and elective affinities of our nature, are of more permanent agency than those passions which repel and dissever. From tliis cause we may explain the final growth of honest fame, and its tenacity of life. When- ever the struggle of controversy ceases, we think no more of works which give us no pleasure and apply our satire and scorn to some new object, and thus the field is left entire to friends and partisans. But the case of Mr. Clarkson appeared to me altogether different. I do not hold his fame dear because he is my friend ; but I sought and cultivated his acquaintance, be- cause a long and sober enquiry had assured me, that he had been, in an aweful sense of the word, a benefactor of mankind : and this from the purest motives unalloyed by the fears and hopes of selfish superstition — and not with that feverish power which fanatics acquire by crowding together, but in the native strength of his own moral im- pulses. He, if ever human being did it, listened exclu- sively to his conscience, and obeyed its voice at the price of all his youth and manhood, at the price of his health, his private fortune, and the fairest prospects of honourable ambition. Such a man I cannot regard as a mere author. I cannot read or criticise such a work as a mere literary production.. The opinions publicly expressed and circu- lated concerning it must of necessity in the author's feel- ings be entwined with the cause itself, and with his own character as a man, to which that of the historian is only an accidental accession. Were it the pride of authorship alone that was in danger of being fretted, I should have 530 A rUBLIC LECTURER [July remaiueil as passive in this instance as in that of my most i)aitic'ular friend, to whom I am bound by ties more close and oi louiier standin2^ than those which connect me personally with Mr. Clarkson, But I know that any sar- casms or ridicule would deeply wound his feelings, as a veteran warrior in a noble contest, feelings that claim the reverence of all good men. The Review was sent, addressed to you, by the post of yester-evening. There is not a sentence, not a word in it, which I should not have written, had I never seen the author. I am myself about to bring out two works — one a small pamphlet ^ — the second of considerable size — it is a rifacciamento, a very free translation with large addi- tions, etc., etc., of the masterly work for which poor Palm was murdered. I hope to be in the North, at Keswick, in the course of a week or eight days. I shall be happy to hear from you on this or any other occasion. Yours, dear sir, sincerely, S. T. Coleridge. 1 Of this pamphlet or the transla- g-ust 2G, 1800, in consequence of the tion of Palm's Dimtschland in seiner publication of the work, which re- tie/stenErmedriyiing,lknov,' iwth'mg. fleeted unfavorably on the conduct The author, John Philip Palm, a and career of Napoleon. Nuremberg bookseller, was shot Au- CHAPTER X GRASMERE AND THE FRIEND 1808-1810 CHAPTER X GEASMEEE AND THE FRIEND 1808-1810 CLXX. TO DANIEL STUART. [December 9, 1808,] My DEAR Stuart, — Scarcely when listening to count the hour, have I been more perplexed by the '■'-Inopem me copia fecit " of the London church clocks, than by the press of what I have to say to you. I must do one at a time. Briefly, a very happy change ^ has taken place in my health and spirits and mental activity since I jilaced myself under the care and inspection of a physician, and I dare say with confident hope, "Judge me from the 1st January, 1809." I send you the Prospectus, and intreat you to do me all the good you can ; which like the Lord's Prayer is Thanksgiving in the disguise of petition. If you think that it should be advertized in any way, or if Mr. Street can do anything » for me — but I know you will do what you can. I have received promises of contribution from many tall fellows with big names in the world of Scribes, and coimt even Pharisees (two or three Bishops) in my list of patrons. But whether I shall have 50, 100, 600, or 1,000 subscribers I am not able even to conjecture. All must ^ Compare his letter to Poole, 1808, in which he speaks of a change dated December 4, 1808. " Begin for the better in health and habits, to count my life, as a friend of Thomas Poole and his Friends, ii. 'I'll ; yours, from 1st January, 180'.) ; " Fragmentary Bemains of Sir H. and a letter to Davy, of December, Davy, p. 101. 534 GRASMERE AND TUE FRIEND [Dec. depend on the zeal of my friends, on which I fear I have thrown more water than oil — bnt some like the Greek fire burn beneath the wave I "Wordsworth has nearly finished a series of most mas- terly Essays ^ on the Affairs of Portugal and Spain, and by my advice he will first send them to you that if they suit the "■ Courier " they may be inserted. I have not heard from Savage, but I suppose that he has printed a thousand of these Prospectuses, and you may have any number from him. lie lives hard by some of the streets in Co vent Garden which I do not remember, but a note to Mr. Savage, R. Institution, Albemarle Street, will find him. INlay God Almighty bless you ! I feel that I shall yet live to give proof of what is deep within me towards you. S. T. Coleridge. CLXXI. TO FRANCIS JEFFREY. Gkasmere, December 14, 1808. Dear Sir, — The only thing in which I have been able to detect any degree of hypochrondriasis in my feelings is the reading and answering of letters, and in this instance I have been at times so wof ully under its domination as to have left every letter received lie unopened for weeks to- gether, all the while thoroughly ashamed of the weakness and yet without power to get rid of it. This, however, has not been the case of late, and I was never yet so careless as ^ The Convention of Cintra was and January, in the Courier. An signed August oO, 1808. Woids- accidental loss of several sheets of worth's Essays were begun in the the manuscript delayed the continu- following November. " For the sake ance of the publication in that nian- of immediate and general circulation ner till the close of the Christmas I determined (when I had made a holidays; and this plan of publica- considerable progress in the raanu- tion was given up." Advertisement script) to print it in different por- to Wordsworth^ s pamphlet on the tions in one of the daily newspapers. Convention of Cintra. May 20, 1S09 ; Accordingly two portions of it were Letters from the Lake Poets, p. 385. printed, in the months of December 1808] TO FRANCIS JEFFREY 535 knowingly to suffer a letter relating to money to remain unanswered by the next post in my power. I, therefore, on reading your very kind letter of 8 Dec. conclude that one letter from you during my movements from Grasmere, now to Keswick, now to Bratha and Elleray, and now to Kendal, has been mislayed. As I considered your insertion of the review of Mr. Clarkson's as an act of j)ersonal kindness and attention to the request of one a stranger to you except by name, the thought of any pecuniary remuneration never once occurred to me ; and had it been written at yom- request I should have thought twenty guineas a somewhat extrav- agant price whether I considered the quantity or quality of the communication. As to the alterations, your char- acter and interest, as the known Editor of the Review, are pledged for a general consistency of principle in the dif- ferent articles with each other, and you had every possible right to alter or omit ad libitvm, unless a special condition had been insisted on of aut totum aut nihil. As the writer, therefore, I neither thought nor cared about the alterations ; as a general reader, I differed with you as [to] the scale of merit relatively to Mr. Wilberforce, whose services I deem to have been overrated, not, perhaps, so much absolutely as by comparison. At all events, some following passages should have been omitted, as they are in blank contradiction to the paragraph inserted, and betrayed a co-presence of two writers in one article. As to the longer paragraph, Wordsworth thinks you on the true side ; and Clarkson himself that you were not far from the truth. As to my own opinion, I believed what I wrote, and deduced my belief from all the facts pro and con, with which Mr. Clarkson's conversation have fur- nished [me] ; but such is my detestation of that pernicious Minister,^ such my contempt of the cowardice and fatuity ^ " In the place of some just stituted some abuse and detraction." eulogiums due to Mr. Pitt was sub- Allsop's Letters, 1836, ii. 112. 536 GRASMERE AND THE FRIEND [Dec. of his measui'es, and my hoiTor at the yet unended train of their direful conso({iienees, that, if obedience to truth coidd ever be painful to ine, this woidd have been. I acted well in writing what on the whole I believed the more probable, and I was pleased that you acted equally well in idtering- it according to your convictions. I had hoped to have furnished a letter of more interest- ing contents to you, but an honest gentleman in London having taken a great fancy to two thirds of the possible profits of my literary labours without a shadow of a claim, and having over-hurried the business through overweening of my simplicity and carelessness, has occasioned me some perplexity and a great deal of trouble and letter-writing. I will write, however, again to you my first leisure even- ing, whether I hear from you or no in the interim. I trust you have received my scrawl with the prospectus ^ and feel sincerely thankful to you for your kindness on the arrival of the prospectuses, prior to your receipt of the letter which was meant to have announced them. But our post here is very irregular as well as circuitous — but three times a week — and then, too, we have to walk more than two miles for the chance of finding letters. This you will be so good as to take into account whenever my answers do not arrive at the time they might have been expected from places in general. I remain, dear sii", with kind and respectfid feeling, your obliged, S. T. Coleridge. * A preliminary prospectus of The and "year-long absences" he gives Friend was printed at Kendal and up, but, as the postscript intimates, submitted to Jeffrey and a few oth- "moral impulses" he has the hardi- ers. A copy of this " first edition " hood to retain. See The Friend'' s is in my possession, and it is inter- Quarterly Examiner for July, 1893, esting to notice that Coleridge has art. "JS. T.Coleridge on Quaker Prin- directed his amanuensis, MLss Hutch- ciples ; " and Athenceum for Septem- in.son, to amend certain offending ber IG, lS!*o, art. " Coleridge on phrases in accordance with Jeffrey's Quaker Principles." suggestions. " Speculative gloom " 1808] TO FRANCIS JEFFREY 537 I entirely coincide in your dislike of " speculative gloom " — it is illogical as well as barbarous, and almost as bad as " picturesque eye." I do not know how I came to pass it ; for when I first wrote it, I undermarked it, not as the expression, but as a remembrancer of some better that did not immediately occur to me. "Year-long ab- sences" I think doubtful — had any one objected to it, I should have altered it ; but it woidd not much offend me in the writings of another. But to " moral impulses " I see at present no objections, nor does any other phrase sug- gest itself to me which would have expressed my meaning. That there is a semblance of presumptuousness in the man- ner I exceedingly regret, if so it be — my heart bears me witness that the feeling had no place there. Yet I need not say to you that it is impossible to succeed in such a work unless at the commencement of it there be a quick- ening and throb in the pulse of hope ; and what if a blush from inward modesty disguise itself on these occasions, and the hectic of unusual self-assertion increase the appearance of that excess which it in reality resists and modifies ? It will amuse you to be informed that from two correspond- ents, both of them men of great literary celebrity, I have received reproof for a supposed affectation of humility in the style of the prospectus. In my own consciousness I was guilty of neither. Yet surely to advance as a teacher, and in the very act to declare yourseK inferior to those whom you propose to teach, is incongruous ; and must dis- gust a pure mind by its evident hypocrisy. 638 GRASMERE AND THE FRIEND [Dec. CLXXII. TO THOMAS WILKINSON.^ Gkasmere, December 31, 1808. Dear Sir, — I thank you for your exertions in my behalf, and — which more deeply interests me — for the openness with which you have communicated your doubts and ai)i)rchensions. So much, indeed, am I interested, that 1 cannot lay down my head on my pillow in perfect tranquillity, without endeavoring to remove them. First, however, I must tell you that ..." The Friend " will not a])pear at the time conditionally announced. There are, besides, great difficulties at the Stamp Office concern- ing it. But the particulars I will detail when we meet. Myself, with William Wordsworth and the family, are glad that we are so soon to see you. Now then for what is so near my heart. Only a certain number of jjrospec- tuses were printed at Kendal, and sent to acquaintances. The much larger number, which were to have been jDrinted at London, have not been printed. When they are, you will see in the article, noted in this copy, that I neither intend to omit, nor from any fear of offence have scrupled to announce my intention of treating, the subject of reli- ^ Tliomas Wilkinson, of Yanwath, Dress, Dancing', Gardening, Music, near Penritli, was a member of the Poetry, and Painting " were erased Society of Friends. He owned and in obedience to Wilkinson. Most tilled a small estate on the banks of of these articles, however, " Archi- the Emont, which he laid oiit and tecture, Dress," etc., reappeared in ornamented ' ' after the manner of a second edition of the Prospectus, Shenstone at his Leasowes." As a attached to the second number of friend and neighbour of the Clark- The Friend, but Dancing-, "Greek son-s and of Lord Lonsdale he was statuesque dancing," on which Cole- well known to Wordsworth, who, ridge might have discoursed at some greatly daring, wrote in his lionour length, was gone forever. Words- hLs lines " To the Spade of a Friend worth's Works, p. 211 (Fenwick (an Agriculturist)." Note) ; The Friend's Quarterly Ex- Ahw! for the poor Prospectus! aminer, July, 1893; Becords of a " Speculative gloom " and " year- Quaker Family, by Anne Ogden long absence " had been sacrificed Boyce, London, 1889, pp. 30, 31, 55. to Jeffriv, and now " Architecttire, 1808] TO THOMAS WILKINSON. 6o9 gion. I had suijposed that the words " speculative gloom " would have conveyed this intention. I had inserted an- other article, which I was induced to omit, from the fear of exciting doubts and queries. This was : On the transi- tion of natural religion into revelation, or the principle of internal guidance : and the gTOunds of the possibility of the connection of spiritual revelation with historic events ; that is, its manifestation in the world of the senses. This meant as a preliminary — leaving, as already performed by others, the proof of the reality of this connection in the jDarticular fact of Christianity. Herein I wished to prove only that true philosophy rather leads to Chris- tianity, than contained anything preclusive of it, and therefore adopted the phrase used in the definition of philosophy in general : namely. The science which answers the question of things actual, how they are possible ? Thus the laws of gravitation illustrate the possihility of the motion of the heavenly bodies, the action of the lever, etc. ; the reality of which was already known. I men- tion this, because the argument assigned which induced me to omit it in a prospectus was, that by making a dis- tinction between revelation in itself («. e. a principle of internal supernatural guidance), and the same revelation conjoined with the power of external manifestation by supernatural works, would proclaim me to be a Quaker, and " The Friend "* as intended to propagate peculiar and sectarian principles. Think then, dear Friend ! what my regret was at finding that you had taken it for granted that I denied the existence of an internal monitor ! I trust I am neither of Paul, or of Apollos, or of Cephas ; but of Christ. Yet I feel reverential gratitude toward those who have conveyed the spirit of Christ to my heart and understanding so as to afford light to the latter and vital warmth to the former. Such gratitude I owe and feel toward W. Penn. Take his Preface to G. Fox's Journal, and his Letter to his Son, — if they contain a 540 GRASMERE AND THE FRIEND [Feb. faithful statement of genuine Christianity according to your faith, I am one with you. I subscribe to each and all of the principles therein laid down ; and by them I propose to try, and endeavour to justify, the charge made by me (uiy conscience bears me witness) in the spirit of entire love against some passages of the journals of later Friends. Oh — and it is a groan of earnest aspiration ! a strong wish of bitter tears and bitter self-dissatisfaction, — Oh that in all things, in self -subjugation, unwearied benefi- cence, and unfeigned listening and obedience to the Voice within, I were as like the evangelic John Woolman, as I know myself to be in the belief of the existence and the sovran authority of that Voice ! When we meet, I will endeavour to be wholly known to you as I am, in principle at least. A few words more. Unsuspicious of the possibility of misunderstanding, I had inserted in this prospectus Dress and Dancing among the fine Arts, the principles common to which I was to develope. Now surely anything common to Dress or Dancing with Architecture, Gardening, and Poetry could contain nothing to alarm any man who is not alarmed by Gardening, Poetry, etc., and secondly, principles common to Poetry, Music, etc., etc., could hardly be founded in the ridiculous hopping up and down in a modern ball-room, or the washes, paints, and patches of a fine lady's toilet. It is well known how much I admired Thomas Clarkson's Chapter on Dancing. The truth is, that I referred to the drapery and ornamental decoration of Painting, Statuary, and the Greek Spectacles ; and to the scientific dancing of the ancient Greeks, the business of a life confined to a small class, and placed under the direction of particular magistrates. My object was to prove the truth of the principles by shewing that even dress and dancing, when the ingenuity and caprice of man had elaborated them into Fine Arts, were bottomed in the same principles. But desirous even to avoid suspicion, 1809] TO THOMAS POOLE 541 the passage will be omitted in the future prospectuses. Farewell ! till we meet. S. T. Coleridge. See P. S. P. S. Do you not know enough of the world to be con- vinced that by declaring myself a warm defender of the Established Church against all sectarians, or even by attacking Quakerism in particular as a sect hateful to the bigots of the day from its rejection of priesthood and out- ward sacraments, I should gain twenty subscribers to one ? It shocks me even to think that so mean a motive could be supposed to influence me. I say aloud everywhere, that in the essentials of their faith I believe as the Qua- kers do, and so I make enemies of the Church, of the Calvinists, and even of the Unitarians. Again, I declare my dissatisfaction with several points both of notion and of practice among the present Quakers — I dare not conceal my convictions — and therefore receive little good opinion even from those, with whom I most accord. But Truth is sacred. CLXXIII. TO THOMAS POOLE. Grasmere, Kendal, February 3, 1809. My dearest Poole, — For once in my life I shall have been blamed by you for silence, indolence, and pro- crastination without reason. Even now I write this letter on a speculation, for I am to take it with me to-morrow to Kendal, and if I can bring the proposed printer and pub- lisher to final terms, to put it into the post. It would be a tiresome job were I to detail to you all the vexations, hindrances, sooundrelisms, disap])ointments, and pros and cons that, witliout the least fault or remissness on my part, have rendered it impracticable to publish "The Friend"' till the first week of March. The whole, however, is now settled, provided that Pennington (a worthy old book- seller and printer of Kendal, but a genius and mightily indifferent about the affairs of this life, both from that 542 GRASMERE AND THE FRIEND [Feb. cause and from age, and from being as rich as he wishes) will become, as he has almost promised, the printer and publisher.^ " The Friend " will be stamped as a newspaper and under the Newspaper Act, which will take 3.]d. from each shilling, but enable the essay to pass into all parts and corners of the Empire without exjiense or trouble. It will be so published as to appear in London every Satur- day morning, and be sent off from the Kendal post to every part of the Kingdom by the Thursday morning's post. I hope that Mr. Stuart will have the prospectuses printed by this time, — at all events, within a day or two after your receipt of this letter you will receive a parcel of them. The money is to be paid to the bookseller, the agent, in the next towai, once in twenty weeks, where there are several subscribers in the same vicinity ; other- wise, [it] must be remitted to me direct. This is the ug- liest part of the business : but there is no getting over it without a most villainous diminution of my profits. You will, I know, exert yourself to procure me as many names as you can, for if it succeeds, it will almost make me. Among my subscribers I have Mr. Canning and Sturges Bourne, and Mr. W. Rose, of whose moral odour your nose, I believe, has had competent experience. The first prospectus I receive, I shall send with letters to Lord Egmont and Lady E. Percival, and to Mr. Acland. 1 The original draft of the pro- attached to the first number of the spectws of r/(e Fnenrf, which was is- weekly issue, June 1, 1809, was sued in the late autumn of 1808, was printed by Brown, a bookseller and printed at Kendal by W. Penning- stationer at Penrith, who, on Mr. ton. Certain alterations were sug- Pennington's refusal, undertook to gested by Jeffrey and others (Sou- print and publisli The Friend. Some they in a letter to Rickman dated curious letters which passed between January 18, 1800, complains that Coleridge and his printer, together Coleridge had " carried a prospectus with the MS. of The Friend, in the -wet from the pen to the publisher, handwriting of Miss Sarah Hutchin- without consulting anybody "), and son, are preserved in the For.ster a fresh batch of prospectuses was Library at the South Kensington Mu- printed in London. A third variant seura. Letters from the Lake Poets. 1809] TO THOMAS POOLE 543 You will probably have seen two of Wordsworth's Es- says in the " Courier," signed " G." The two last colamns of the second, excepting the concluding paragraph, were written all but a few sentences by me.^ An accident in London delayed the publication ten days. The whole, therefore, is now publishing as a pamphlet, and I believe with a more comprehensive title. 1 cannot say whether I was — indeed, both I and W. W. — more pleased or affected by the whole of your last letter ; it came from a very pure and warm heart through the moulds of a clear and strong brain. But I have not now time to write on these concerns. For my opinions, feelings, hopes, and apprehensions, I can safely refer you to Wordsworth's pamphlet. The minister's conduct hith- erto is easily defined. A great deal too much because not half enough. Two essays of my own on this most lofty theme, — what we are entitled to hope, what com- pelled to fear concerning the Spanish nation, by the light of history and psychological knowledge, you mil soon see in the " Courier." PoorWardle!^ I fear lest his zeal may have made him confound that degree of evidence which is sufficient to convince an unprejudiced private company with that which will satisfy an unwilling nu- merous assembly of factious and corrupt judges. As to the truth of the^ charges, I have little doubt, knowing myself similar facts. O dear Poole ! Beddoes' departure ^ has taken more pp. 85-188 ; Selections from the Letters gard to the undue influence in mili- ofH. Southey, ii. 120. tary appointments of the notorious ' Compare letters to Stuart (De- Mrs. Clarke, cember), 18US. " You will long ere •' Coleridge's friendship with Dr. this have received Wordsworth's Beddoes dated from 17'.l")-0n, and second Essay, etc., rewritten by me, was associated with his happier and in some parts reeomposed." Let- days. It is possible that the recent tersfrom the Lake Poels, p. 101. amendment in health and spirits 2 Colonel Wardle, who led the at- was due to advice and sympathy tack in the House of Commons which he had met with in response against the Duke of York, with re- to a confession made in writing to 544 GRASMERE AND THE FRIEND [March hope out of luy life than any former event except perhaps T. Wedgwood's. That did indeed pull very hard at me ; never a week, seldom two days have i)assed in which the recollection has not made me sad or thoughtful. Bed- does' seems to pidl yet harder, because it combines with the former, because it is the second, and because I have not been in the habit of connecting- such a weight of de- spondency with my attachment to him as with my love of my revered and dear benefactor. Poor Beddoes ! he was good and beneficent to all men, but to me he was, more- over, affectionate and loving, and latterly his sufferings had opened out his being to a delicacy, a tenderness, a moral beauty, and unlocked the source of sensibility as with a key from heaven. My own health is more recjular than formerly, for I am severely temi)erate and take nothing that has not been pronounced medically unavoidable ; yet my sufferings are often great, and I am rarely indeed wholly without pain or sensations more oppressive than definite pain. But my mind, and what is far better, my will is active. I must leave a short space to add at Kendal after all is settled. My beloved and honoured friend ! may God preserve you and your obliged, and affectionately gratefid, S. T. Coleridge. My dearest Poole, — Old Mr. Pennington has ulti- mately declined the printing and publishing ; indeed, he is about to decline business altogether. There is no other in this country capable of doing the work, and to printing and publishing in London there are gigantic objections. What think you of a press at Grasmere? I will write when I get home. Oh, if you luiew what a warmth of un- usual feeling, what a genial air of new and living hope his old Bristol friend. His death, "take out of his life " the hope of which took ])lace on the 24th of De- self-conqnest. The letter implies cemher, ISOS, would roh Coleridg'e that he had recently heard from or of a newly-found support, and would conversed with Beddoes. 1809] TO DANIEL STUART 545 breathed upon me as I read tliat casual sentence in your letter, seeming to imply a chance we have of seeing you at Grasmere ! I assure you that the whole family, Mrs. Wordsworth and her all-amiable sister, not with less warmth than W. W. and Dorothy, were made cheerful and wore a more holiday look the whole day after. Oh, do, do come ! CLXXIV. TO DANIEL STUART. Posted March .31, 1809. My dear Friend, — I have been severely indisposed, Icnoched up indeed, with a complaint of a contagious na- ture called the Mumps ; ^ preceded by most distressing low spirits, or rather absence of all spirits; and accom- panied with deafness and stui^efying perpetual echo in the ear. But it is going off. Little John Wordsworth was attacked with it last year when I was in London, and from the stupor with which it suffuses the eyes and look, it Avas cruelly mistaken for water on the brain. It has been brought here a second time by some miners, and is a dis- ease with little danger and no remedy. I attributed your silence to its right cause, and I assiu'e you when I was at Penrith and Kendal it was very pleas- ant to me to hear how universally the conduct of the " Courier " was extolled ; indeed, you have behaved most nobly, and it is impossible but that you must have had a great weight in the displacing of that prime grievance of grievances. Among many reflections that kept crowding on my mind during the trial,^ this was perhaps the chief — ^ Compare letter from Southey to extra swatliings whicli yesterday J. N. White dated April 21, 1809. buried my chin, after the fashion of "A ridiculous disorder called the fops a few years ago." Selections Mumps hjis nearly gone through from the Letters of B. Southey, ii. the house, and visited me on its 135, 136. way — a thing -which puts one more '^ The Parliamentary investigation out of humour than out of health ; of the charges and allegations with but my neck has now regained its regard to the military patronage of elasticity, and I have left off the the Duke of York. 546 GRASMERE AND THE FRIEND [June What if, after a long, long reign, some titled sycophant should whisper to ^Majesty, '' By what means do your Min- isters manage the Legislature ? " " By the distribution of patronage, according to the influence of individuals who claim it." '' Do this yourself, or by your own family, and you become indei)endent of parties, and your Ministers are your servants. The Army under a favourite son, the Church with a wife, etc., etc." Good heavens ! the very essence of the Constitution is unmoulded, and the ven- erable motto of our liberty, " The king can do no wrong," becomes nonsense and blasphemy. As soon as ever my mind is a little at ease, I will put together the fragments I have written on this subject, and if AYordsworth have not anticipated me, add to it some thoughts on the effect of the military principle. We owe something to Whitbread for his (pienching at the first sjiiell a possible fire. How is it possible that a man apparently so honest can talk and think as he does respecting France, peace, and Buona- parte? . . . On Thursday Wordsworth, Southey, and myself, with the printer and publisher, go to Aj^pleby to sign and seal, which paper, etc., will of course be inunediately disj^atched to London. I doubt not but that the <£60 will be now paid at the " Courier " office in a few days ; and as soon as you will let me know whether the stamped paper is to be paid for necessarily in ready money, or with what credit, I shall instantly write to some of my friends to ad- vance me what is absolutely necessary. I can only say I am ready and eager to commence, and that I earnestly hope to see " The Friend " advertised shortly for the first of May. As to the Paper, how and from whom, and what and in what quantity, I must again leave to your judgment, and recommend to your affection for me. I have reason to believe that I shall commence with 500 names. I write from Keswick. Mrs. Southey was delivered 1809] TO DANIEL STUART 547 yester-morning of a girl.i I forgot to say, that I have been obliged to purchase, and have paid for, a font of types of small pica, the same with the London Prospectus, from Wilsons of Glasgow. I was assured they would cost only from £25 to X28, instead of which, £38 odd. God bless you and S. T. Coleridge. CLXXV. TO THE SAME. Gkasmerk, Kendal, June 13, 1809. Dear Stuart, — I left Penrith Monday noon, and, prevented by the heavy rain from crossing Grisedale Tarn (near the summit of Helvellyn, and our most perilous and difficult Alpine Pass), the same day I slept at Luff's, and crossed it yester-morning, and arrived here by brealcfast time. I was sadly grieved at Wordsworth's account of yoiu" late sorrows and troubles. . . . I cannot adequately express how much I am concerned lest anything I wrote in my last letter (though God knows under the influence of no one feeling which you would not wish me to have) should chance to have given you any additional unpleasantness, however small. Would that I had worthier means than words and professions of proving to you what my heart is. . . . I rise every morning at five, and work three hours be- fore breakfast, either in letter-writing or serious composi- tion. . . . I take for granted that more than the poor <£G0 has been expended in the paper I have received. But I have written to Mr, Clarkson to see what can be done ; for it would be a sad thing to give it all up now I am going on so well merely for want of means to provide the first twenty weeks paper. IVIy present stock will not quite suf- fice for three niunbers. I printed 620 of No. 1, and G50 of No. 2, and so many more are called for that I shall be 1 Bertha Southey, afterwards Mrs. Herbert Hill, was born March 27, 1809. 548 GRASMERE AND THE FRIEND [June forced to reprint botli as soon as I hear from Clarkson. The proof sheet of No, 3 goes back to-day, and with it the copy of No. 4, so that henceforth we sliall be secure of reguhu'ity ; indeed it was not all my fault before, but the printer's inexperience and the nmltitude of errors, though from a very decent copy, which took him a full day and more in correcting. I had altered my plan for the Introductory Essays after my arrival at Penrith, which cost me exceeding trouble ; but the numbers to come are in a very superior style of polish and easy intelligibility. The only thing at present which I am under the necessity of applying to you for respects Clement. It may be his interest to sell " The Friend " at his shop, and a certain number will always be sent ; but I am quite in the dark as to wdiat profits he expects. Surely not book-profits for a newspaper that can circulate by the post? And it is certainly neither my interest, nor that of the regular pur- chasers of "The Friend," to have it bought at a shoj), in- stead of receiving it as a franked letter. All I want to know is his terms, for I have quite a horror of booksellers, whose mode of carrying on trade in London is absolute rapacity. . . . On this ruinous plan poor Southe}^ has been toiling for years, w'ith an industry honourable to human nature, and must starve upon it were it not for the more profitable employment of reviewing ; a task unworthy of him, or even of a man with not one half of his honour and hon- esty. I have just read Wordsworth's pamphlet, and more than fear that your friendly expectations of its sale and influence have been too sanguine. Plad I not known the author I woidd willingly have travelled from St. Michael's IVIount to Johnny Groat's House on a pilgrimage to see and reverence him. But from the public I am apprehen- sive, first, that it will be impossible to rekindle an ex- hausted interest respecting the Cintra Convention, and 1809] TO DANIEL STUART 549 therefore that the long porch may prevent readers from entering the Temple. Secondly, that, partly from Words- worth's own style, which represents the chain of his thoughts and the movements of his heart, admirably for me and a few others, but I fear does not possess the more profitable excellence of translating these down into that style which might easily convey them to the understand- ings of common readers, and partly from Mr. De Quin- cey's strange and most mistaken system of punctuation — (The periods are often alarmingly long, perforce of their construction, but De Quincey's punctuation has made sev- eral of them immeasurable, and perplexed half the rest. Never was a stranger whim than the notion that , ; : and . could be made logical symbols, expressing all the diver- sities of logical connection) — but, lastly, I fear that read- ers, even of judgement, may complain of a want of shade and background ; that it is all foreground, all in hot tints ; that the first note is pitched at the height of the instru- ment, and never suffered to sink ; that such depth of feel- ing is so incorporated with depth of thought, that the attention is kept throughout at its utmost strain and stretch ; and — but this for my own feeling. I could not help feeling that a considerable part is almost a self-rob- bery from some great philosophical poem, of which it would form an appropriate part, and be fitlier attuned to the high dogmatic eloquence, the oracular [tone] of im- passioned blank verse. In short, cold readers, conceited of their supposed judgement, on the score of their possess- ing nothing else, and for that reason only, taking for granted that they must have judgement, will abuse the book as positive, violent, and " in a mad passion ; " and readers of sense and feeling will have no other dread, than that the Work (if it should die) would die of a ple- thora of the highest qualities of combined philosophic and poetic genius. The Apple Pie they may say is made all of Quinces. I much admired our young friend's note on 550 GllASMEllE AND THE FRIEND [Oct. Sir John Moore and his clespatL-h ; ^ it was excellently ar- ranged and urged. I have had no opportunity, as yet, to speak a word to Wordsworth himself about it ; I wrote to you as usual in f idl confidence. I shall not be a little anxious to have your opinion of my third number. Lord Lonsdale blames me for exclud- ing party politics and the events of the day from my plan. I exclude both the one and the other, only as far as they are merely partij^ i. e. personal and temporal interests, or merely events of To-day, that are defunct in the To-mor- row. I flatter myself that I have been the first, who will have given a calm, disinterested account of our Constitu- tion as it really is and liow it is so, and that I have, more radically than has been done before, shown the un- stable and boggy grounds on which all systematic reform- ers hitherto have stood. But be assured that I shall give up this opinion with joy, and consider a truer view of the question a more than recompense for the necessity of re- tracting what I have written. God bless you ! Do, pray, let me hear from you, though only three lines. S. T. Coleridge. CLXXVI. TO THOIVIAS POOLE. October 9, 1809. My dear Poole, — I received yours late last night, and sincerely thank you for the contents. The whole shall be arranged as you have recommended. Yet if I know my own wishes, I woidd far rather you had refused me, and said you should have an opportunity in a few days of explaining your motives in jyerson, for oh, the autmnn is divine here. You never beheld, I will answer 1 " The Appendix (to the pamphlet masterly manner, was drawn up by On the Convention of Cintra), ii \iov- Mr. De Quincey, who revised the tion of the work whicli Mr. Words- proofs of the whole." Memoirs of worth regarded as executed in a Wordsworth, i. 384. 1809] TO THOMAS POOLE 551 for it, such combinations of exquisite heauty with sufficient grandeur of elevation, even in Switzerland. Besides, I sorely want to talk with you on many points. All the defects you have mentioned I am perfectly aware of, and am anxiously endeavouring to avoid. There is too often an entortillage in the sentences and even in the thought (which nothing can justify), and, always ahnost, a stately piling up of story on story in one architectural period, which is not suited to a periodical essay or to essays at all (Lord Bacon, whose style mine more nearly resembles than any other, in his greater works, thought Seneca a better model for his Essays), but least of all suited to the present illogical age, which has, in imitation of the French, rejected all the cements of language, so that a popular book is now a mere bag of marbles, that is, aphorisms and epigrams on one subject. But be assured that the numbers will improve ; indeed, I hope that if the dire stoppage have not prevented it, you will have seen proof of improvement already in the seventh and eighth numbers, — still more in the ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth numbers. Strange ! but the " Three Graves " is the only thing I have yet heard generally praised and inquired after ! ! Eemember how many different guests I have at my Round Table. I groan ,beneath the Errata, but I am thirty miles cross -post from my printer and publisher, and Southey, who has been my corrector, has been strangely oscitant, or, which I believe is sometimes the case, has not understood the sentences, and thought they might have a meaning for me though they had not for him. There was one direful one,i No. 5, p. 80, lines 3 and 4. 1 In Southey's copy of the reprint affections of the sense into distinct of the stamped sheets of The Friend Thoughts and Judgements, accord- the passage runs thus: "However ing to its own essentiiU forms. These this may be, the Understanding or forms, however," etc. The Friend, regtihitive faculty is manifestly dis- No. 5, Thursday, September 14, 1809, tinct from Life and Sensation, its p. 79, n. function being to take up the passive 552 GRASMERE AND THE FRIEND [Oct. Ueail, — '' its fimcttons being to take up the passive affec- tions of the senses into distinct thouf/Jits and judf/ements, according to its own essential yb?'??i.s, forniae formantes in the lanfuage of Lord Bacon in contradistinction to the formae fonnatie." My greatest difficulty will be to avoid that grievoris defect of running one number into another, I not being- present at the printing. To really cut down or stretch out every subject to the Procrustes-Bed of sixteen pages is not possible without a sacrifice of my whole plan, but most often I will divide them polypus-wise, so that the first half should get itself a new tail of its oNvn, and the latter a new head, and ahvays take care to leave off at a paragraph. With my best endeavours I am baffled in respect of making one Essay fill one number. The tenth number is, W. thinks, the most interesting, " On the Errors of both Parties," or " Extremes Meet ; " and, do what I would, it stretched to seven or eight pages more ; but I have endeavoured to take your advice in toto, and shall announce to the public that, with the exception of my volume of Political Essays and State Memorials, and some technical works of Logic and Grammar, I shall consider " The Friend " as both the reservoir and the living fountain of all my mind, that is, of both my powers and my attainments, and shall therefore publish all my poems in " The Friend," as occasion rises. I shall begin with the " Fears in Solitude," and the " Ode on France," which will fill up the remainder of No. 11 ; so that my next Essay on vulgar Errors concerning Taxation, in which I have alluded to a conversation with you, will just fill No. 12 by itself. I have been much affected by your efforts respecting poor Blake. Cannot you Avith propriety give me that narrative? But, above all, if you have no particular objection, no very particular and insurmountable reason against it, do, do let me have that divine narrative of 1809] TO THOMAS POOLE 553 John Walford,^ which of itself stamps you a poet of the first class in the pathetic, and the painting of poetry so very rarely combined. As to politics, I am sad at the very best. Two cabinet ministers duelling on Cabinet measures like drunken Irishmen. O heaven, Poole ! this is wringing the dregs in order to drink the last drops of degTadation. Such base insensibility to the awfulness of their situation and the majesty of the country ! As soon as I can get them transcribed, I will send you some most interesting letters from the ablest soldier I ever met with (extra aide-de- camp to Sir J. Moore, and shot through the body at Flushing, but still alive) ; they will serve as a key to more than one woe-trumpet in the Apocalypse of national calamity. But the truth is, that to combine a govern- ment every way fitted as ours is for quiet, justice, free- dom, and commercial activity at liome, with the conditions of raising up that individual greatness, and of securing in every department the very man for the very place, which are requisite for maintaining the safety of our Empire and the Majesty of our power abroad, is a state-riddle which yet remains to be solved. I have thought myself as well employed as a private citizen can be, in drawing oflp well-intentioned patriots from the wrong scent and pointing out ti'liat^ the true evils are and xi^lnj^ and the exceeding difficidty of removing them without hazarding worse. ... I was asked for a motto for a market clock. I uttered the following literally, without a moment's pre- meditation : — Wliat now, O man ! thou dost or mean'st to do "Will help to give thee peace, or make thee rue, "When hovering o'er the Dot tliis liand shall tell The moment that secures thee Heaven or Hell? ^ For extracts from Poole's narra- narrative into verse, but was dissat- tive of John Walford, see Thomas isfied with the resiilt. His lines have Poole and his Friends, ii. 2.35-2.'57. never been published. Wordsworth endeavoured to put the ^ h_ j,^_ Coleridge included these 554 GRASMERE AND THE FRIEND [Dec. ISIay God bless you ! IVIy kindest remembrances to Mr. Chubl), and to Ward. Pray remember me when you write to your sister and jSIr. Kini^. Oh, but Poole ! do stretch a point and come. If the F. rises to a 1,000 I will frank you. Do come ; never will you have layed out money better. CLXXVII. TO ROBERT SOUTIIEY. December, 1809. My dear Soutiiey, — I suspect you have misunder- stood me, and applied to the Maltese Regiment what I said of the Corsican Hangers. Both are bad enough, but of the former I know little, of course, as I was away from Malta before the regiment had left the island. But in the Essays (2 or 3) which I am now writing on Sir A. Ball, I shall mention it as an exemplification among many others of his foresight. It was a job, I have no doubt, merely to get General Valette a lucrative regiment ; but G. V. is dead, and it was not such a job as that of the Corsican Rangers, which can be made appear glaring. The long and short of the story is, that the men were four fifths married, would have fought as well as the best, at home, and behind their own walls, but could not be ex- pected to fight abroad, where they had ne interest. Be- sides, it was cruel., shameful to take 1,500 men as soldiers for any part of our enormous Empire, out of a popula- tion, man, w^oman, and child, not at that time more than 100,000. There were two Maltese Militia Regiments officered by their own Maltese nobility — these against the entreaties and tears of the men and officers (I myself saw them weeping), against the remonstrances and memo- rial (written by myself) of Sir A. B., were melted into lines, as they appear in a note-book, can be no doubt that Coleritlge among the Omntana of 1809-1816. wrote, " On a clock in a market They are heatled incorrectly, "In- place (proposed)." Table Talk, etc., scription on a Clock in Cheapside." 1884, p. 401 ; Poetical Works, p. The MS. is not very legible, but there 181. 1809] TO ROBERT SOUTHEY 555 one large one, officered by English officers, and a general affront given to the island, because General Valette had gi-eat friends at the War Office, Duke of York, etc. ! This is the whole, but do not either expose yourself or me to judicial inquiries. It is one thing to know a thing, and another to be able to jyrove it in a law court. This remark applies to the damnahle treatment of the prisoners of war at Malta. I should have thought your facts, with which I am familiar, a confirmation of Miss Schoning.^ Be that as it may, take my word for it, that in substance the story is as certain as that Dr. Dodd was hung. To mention one proof only. Von Hess,^ the celebrated historian of Ham- burg, and, since Lessing, the best German prosist, went himself to Nuremberg, examined into the facts officially and personally, and it was on him that I relied, though if you knew the government of Nuremberg, you would see that the first account could not have been published as it was, if it had not been too notorious even for conceal- ment to be hoped for. After I left Germany, Von Hess had a public controversy that threatened to become a Diet concern with the magistrates of Nuremberg, for some other bitter charges against them. I have their defence of themselves, but" they do not even attempt to deny the fact of Harlin and Schdning. But, indeed, Southey ! it is almost as bad as if I could have mistaken e converso Patch's trial for a novel. Your remark on the voice is most just, but that was my ^ The story of Maria Eleanora and the beautiful illustration of the Schoning' appeared in No. 13 of TAe "withered leaf" were allowed to Friend, Thni-sday, November 10, remain unaltered, and appear in ]80t>, pp. 1U4-208. It was reprinted every edition. Coleridge's ]\'orks, as the " Second Landinrr Place " in 1853, ii. 312-326. the revised edition of The Friend, ^ Jonas Lewis von ITess, 1766- published in 1818. The somewhat 1823. He was a friend and pupil laboured description of the lieroine's of Kant, and author of A History of voice, which displeased Southey, Uamburg. 556 GRASMERE AND THE FRIEND [Jan. ]nir]iosc. Not only so, but the rcliolc passage was in- serted, anil intertnulecl after the rest was written, rcluc- tante amanuensi med, in order to unrealize it even at the expense of f//i!naturalizing- it. Lady B. therefore pleased me by saying, " never was the golden tint of the poet more judieiously employed," etc. For this reason, too, I introduced the simile of the leaf, etc., etc. I not only thought the " voice " part out of place, but in bad taste 2)er se. May God bless you all. S. T. Coleridge. CLXXVIII. TO THOMAS POOLE. Grasmere, Kendal, January 28, 1810. My dear Friend, — My " manti-aps and spring guns in this garden" have hitherto existed only in the painted board, in terrorem. Of course, I have received and thank you for both your letters. What Wordsworth may do I do not know, but I think it highly probable that I shall settle in or near London. Of the fate of " The Friend " I remain in the same ignorance nearly as at the publication of the 20th November. It would make you sick were I to waste my paper by detailing the numerous instances of meanness in the mode of payment and dis- continuance, esjjecially among the Quakers. So just was the answer I once made in the presence of some " Friends " to the query: What is genuine Quakerism? 'Answer, The antithesis of the present Quakers. I have received this evening together with yours, one as a specimen. (N. B. Three days after the publication of the 21st Num- ber, and sixteen days after the publication of the " Super- numerary " [number of "The Friend," January 11, 1810], a bill upon a postmaster, an order of discontinuance, and information that any others that may come will not be paid for, as if I had been gifted with prophecy. And this precious epistle directed, " To Thomas Coleridge, of Graze- 1810] TO THOMAS POOLE 657 mar " ! And yet this Mr. would think himself libelled, if he were called a dishonest man.) . . . We will take for granted that " The Friend " can be continued. On this suj^position I have lately studied " The Specta- tor," and with increasing pleasure and admiration. Yet it must be evident to you that there is a class of thoughts and feelings, and these, too, the most important, even practically, which it would be impossible to convey in the manner of Addison, and which, if Addison had pos- sessed, he would not have been Addison. Read, for instance, Milton's prose tracts, and only ti'y to conceive them translated into the style of "The Sjiectator," or the finest part of Wordsworth's pamphlet. It would be less absurd to wish that the serious Odes of Horace had been written in the same style as his Satires and Epis- tles. Consider, too, the very different objects of " The Friend," and of " The Spectator," and above all do not forget, that these are aweful times! that the love of reading as a refined pleasure, weaning the mind from GROSSER enjoyments, which it was one of " The Specta- tor's" chief objects to awaken, has by that work, and those that followed (Connoisseur, World, Mirror, etc.), but still more, by Newspapers, Magazines, and Novels, been carried into excess : and " The Spectator " itself has innocently contributed to the general taste for uncon- nected writing, just as if " Reading made easy " should act to give men an aversion to words of more than two syllables, instead of drawing them through those words into the power of reading books in general. In the pres- ent age, whatever flatters the mind in its ignorance of its ignorance, tends to aggravate that ignorance, and, I ap- prehend, does on the whole do more harm than good. Have you read the debate on the Address? What a melancholy picture of the intellectual feebleness of the country ! So much on the one side of the question. On the other (1) I will, preparatory to writing on any chosen 558 GRASMERE AND THE FRIEND [Jan. subject, consuk'i- whether it can be treated popularly, and with that lightui-ss aud variety of illustration which form the charms of '' The Spectator." If it can, I will do my best. If not, next, whether yet there may not be fur- nished by the remits of such an Essay thoughts and truths that may be so treated, and form a second Essay. (3) I sliall always, besides this, have at least one number in four of rational entertainment, such as " Satyrane's Letters," as instructive as I can, but yet making entertain- ment the chief object in my own mind. But, lastly, in the Supplement of " The Friend " I shall endeavour to include whatever of higher and more abstruse meditation may be needed as the foundations of all the work after it ; and the difference between those who will read and mas- ter that Supplement, and those who decline the toil, will be simply this, that what to the former will be demon- strated conclusions, the latter must start from as from postulates, and (to all whose minds have not been sophis- ticated by a half -philosophy) axioms. For no two things, that are yet different, can be in closer harmony than the deductions of a profound pliilosoi)hy, and the dictates of plain common sense. Whatever tenets are obscure in the one, and recpiiring the greatest powers of abstraction to reconcile, are the same which are held in manifest con- tradiction by the common sense, and yet held and fii-ndy believed, without sacrificing A to — A, or — A to A. . . . After this work I shall endeavour to pitch my note to the idea of a common, w^ell-educated, thoughtful man, of ordinary talents ; and the exceptions to this rule shall not form more than one fifth of the work. If with all this it will not do, well! And well it will be, in its noblest sense : for / shall have done my best. Of parentheses I may be too fond, and will be on my guard in this respect. But I am certain that no work of impassioned and elo- quent reasoning ever did or could subsist without them. They are the drama of reason, and present the thought 1810] TO THOMAS POOLE 559 growing, instead of a mere Hortus siccus. The aversion to tliem is one of the numberless symptoms of a feeble Frenchified Public. One other observation : I have rea- son to hope for contributions from strangers. Some from you I rely on, and these will give a variety which is highly desirable — so much so, that it would weigh with me even to the admission of many things from unknown cor- respondents, though but little above mediocrity, if they were proportionately short, and on subjects which I should not myself treat. . . . May God bless you, and your affectionate S. T. Coleridge. CHAPTER XI A JOURNALIST, A LECTURER, A PLAYWRIGHT 1810-1813 CHAPTER XI A JOURNALIST, A LECTURER, A PLAYWRIGHT 1810-1813 » CLXXIX. TO HIS WIFE. Spring, 1810. My DEAR Love, — I imcTerstand that Mr. De Quincey is going to Keswick to-morrow ; though between ourselves he is as great a to-morroioer to the full as your poor hus- band, and without his excuses of anxiety from latent dis- ease and external pressure. Now as Lieutenant Southey is with you, I fear that you could not find a bed for me if I came in on Monday or Tuesday. I not only am desirous to be with you and Sara for a while, but it would be of great importance to me to be within a post of Penrith for the next fortnight or three weeks. How long Mr. De Quincey may stay I cannot guess. He (Miss Wordsworth says) talks of a week, but Lloyd of a month ! However, put yourself to no violence of inconvenience, only be sure to write to me (N. B. — to me) by the carrier to-morrow. I am middling, but the state of my spirit of itself re- quires a change of scene. Catherine W. [the Words- worths' little daughter] has not recovered the use of her arm, etc., but is evidently recovering it, and in all other respects in better health than before, — indeed, so much better as to confirm my former opinion that nature was weak In her, and can more easily supply vital power for two thirds of her nervous system than for the whole. May God bless you, my dear ! and S. T. Coleridge. 5G4 JOURNALIST, LECTURER, PLAYWRIGHT [March ITartloy looks and behaves all that the fondest parent could wish. He is really handsome ; at least as handsome as a face so original and intellectual can be. And Der- went is " a nice little fellow," and no lack-wit either. I read to Hartley out of the German a series of very mas- terlv ari^umcnts concerning' the startling gross improbabil- ities of Esther (fourteen improbabilities are stated). It really surprised me, the acuteness and steadiness of judg- ment with which he answered more than half, weakened many, and at last determined that two only were not to be got over. I then read for myself and afterwards to him Eichhorn's solution of the fourteen, and the coincidences were surprising. Indeed, Eichhorn, after a lame attempt, was obliged to give up the two which H. had declared as despei'ate. CLXXSf. TO THE MORGANS. December 21, "1810." My dear Friends, — I am at present at Brown's Cof- fee House, Mitre Court, Elect Street. My objects are to settle something by which I can secure a certain sum weekly, sufficient for lodging, maintenance, and physician's fees, and in the mean time to look out for a suitable place near Gray's Inn. My immediate plan is not to trouble myself further about any introduction to Abernethy, but to write a plain, honest, and full account of my state, its history, causes, and occasions, and to send it to him with two or three pounds enclosed, and asking him to take me under his further care. If I have raised the money for the enclosure, this I shall do to-morrow. For, indeed, it is not only useless but imkind and ungi-atef ul to you and all who love me, to trifle on any longer, depressing your spirits, and, spite of myself, gradually alienating your esteem and chilling your affection toward me. As soon as I have heard from Abernethy, I Avill walk over to you, and spend a few days before I enter into my lodging, and 1811] TO W. GODWIN 565 on my dread ordeal — as some kind-hearted Catholics have taught, that the soul is carried slowly along close by the walls of Paradise on its way to Purgatory, and permit- ted to breathe in some snatches of blissful airs, in order to strengthen its endurance during its fiery trial by the foretaste of what awaits it at the conclusion and final gaol- delivery. I pray you, therefore, send me immediately all my books and papers with such of my linen as may be clean, in my box, by the errand cart, directed — " Mr. Coleridge, Brown's Coffee House, Mitre Court, Fleet Street." A couple of nails and a rope will sufficiently secure the box. Dear, dear Mary ! Dearest Charlotte ! I entreat you to believe me, that if at any time my manner toward you has appeared unlike myself, this has arisen wholly either from a sense of self-dissatisfaction or from apprehension of having given you offence ; for at no time and on no occasion did I ever see or imagine anything in your behav- iour which did not awaken the purest and most affection- ate esteem, and (if I do not grossly deceive myself) the sincerest gratitude. Indeed, indeed, my affection is both deep and strong toward you, and such too that I am proud of it. " And looking towards the Heaven that bends ahove you, Full oft I bless the lot that made me love you ! " Again and again and for ever may God bless and love you. S. T. Coleridge. J. J. Morgan, Esq., No. 7, Portland Place, Hammersmith. CLXXXI. TO W. GODWIN. March 1.5, 1811. My dear Godwin, — I receive twice the pleasure from my recovery that it would have otherwise afforded, as it enables me to accept your kind invitation, which in this instance I might with perfect propriety and manliness thank you for, as an honour done to me. To sit at the 5G6 JOURNALIST, LECTURER, PLAYWRIGHT [June same table with G rattan, who would not think it a mem- orable honour, a red letter day in the almanac of his life ? No one certainly who is in any degree worthy of it. Rather than not be in the same room, I could be well content to wait at the table at which I was not permitted to sit, and this not merely for Grattan's undoubted great talents, and still less from any entire accordance with his political opinions, but because his great talents are the tools and vehicles of his genius, and all his speeches are attested by that constant accompaniment of true genius, a certain moral bearing, a moral dignity. His love of lib- erty has no snatch of the mob in it. Assure Mrs. Godwin of my anxious wishes respecting her health. The scholar Salernitanus ^ says : — "Si tibi deficiant medici, medici tibi fiant Hsec tria : mens hilaris, requies, moderata diaeta." The regulated diet she already has, and now she must contrive to call in the two other doctors. God bless you. S. T. Coleridge. CLXXXII. TO DANIEL STUART. Tuesday, June 4, 1811. Dear Stuart, — I brought your umbrella in with me yester-morning, but, having forgotten it at leaving Port- land Place, sent the coachman back for it, who brought what aj>peared to me not the same. On returning, how- ever, with it, I couhl find no other, and it is certainly as gootl or better, but looks to me as if it were not equally new, and as if it had far more silk in it. I will, however, leave it at Brompton, and if by any inexplicable circum- stance it should not prove the same, you must be content with the substitute. The family at Portland Place caught ^ John of Milan, who flourished " versibus Leoninis," a poem enti- 1100 A. D., was the author of Medi- tied Flos Medicince. Hoffmann's iex- cina iSalcrnitana. He also composed icon Universale, art. " Salernum." 1811] TO DANIEL STUART 567 at my doubts as to the identity of it. I had hoped to have seen you this morning, it being a leisurely time in respect of fresh tidings, to have submitted to you two Essays,^ one on the Catholic Question, and the other on Parliamentary Reform, addressed as a letter (from a cor- respondent) to the noblemen and members of Parliament who had associated for this purpose. The former does not exceed two columns ; the latter is somewhat lonsrer. But after the middle of this month it is probable that the Paper will be more open to a series of Articles on less momentary, though still contemj)orary, interests. Mr. Street seems highly pleased with what I have written this morning on the battle ^ of the 16th (May), though I ap- prehend the whole cannot be inserted. I am as I ought to be, most cautious and shy in recommending anything ; otherwise, I should have requested Mr. Street to give insertion to the paragraphs respecting Holland, and the nature of Buonaparte's resources, ending with the neces- sity of ever re-fuelling the moral feelings of the people, as to the monstrosity of the giant fiend that menaces them ; [with an] allusion to Judge Grose's opinion"^ on Drakard^ before the occasion had passed away from the public mem- ory. So, too, if the Duke's return is to be discussed at all, the Article should be published before Lord Milton's mo- tion.^ For though in a complex and widely controverted ^ Three letters on the Catholic is an act so monstrous," etc. " Buon- Question appeared in the Courier, aparte," Courier, June 29, 1811 ; September 3, 21, and 26, 1811. Es- Essays on His Own Times, iii. 818. says on His Own Times, iii. 891-890, * John Drakard, the printer of 920-932. the Stamford News, was convicted 2 The Battle of Alhuera. Arti- at Lincoln, May 25, 1811, of the cles on the battle appeared in the publication of an article against Courier on June 5 and 8, 1811. flogg-ing in the army, and sentenced Essays on His Own Times, iii. 802- to a fine and imprisonment. 805. ^ Lord Milton, one of the mem- ^ " That a Judge should have re- hers for Yorkshire, brought forward garded as an aggravation of a libel a motion on June 6, 1811, against on the British Army, the writer's the reappointment of the Duke of having written against Buonaparte, York as Commander-in-Chief. 568 JOURNALIST, LECTURER, PLAYWRIGHT [June question, whore huiulrcds rush into the field of combat, it is wise to defer it till the Debates in Parliament have shown what the arguments are on which most stress is laid by men in common, as in the Bullion Dispute ; yet, gener- ally, it is a great honour to the London ])apers, that for one argument they borrow from the parliamentary speakers, the latter borrow two from them, at all events are cmti- cipatcd by them. But the true prudential rule is, to defer only when any effect of freshnens or novelty is impracti- cable ; but in most other cases to consider freshness of effect as the point which belongs to a iVetwspaper and dis- tinguishes it from a library book ; the former being the Zenith, and the latter the Nadir, with a number of inter- mediate degrees, occupied by pamplilets, magazines, re- views, satirical and occasional poems, etc., etc. Besides, in a daily newspaper, with advertisements proportioned to its sale, what is deferred must, four times in five, be extin- guished. A newspaper is a market for flowers and vege- tables, rather than a granary or conservatory ; and the drawer of its editor, a common burial ground, not a cata- comb for embalmed mummies, in which the defunct are preserved to serve in after times as medicines for the liv- ing. To turn from the Paper to myself, as candidate for the place of auxiliary to it. I drew, with Mr. Street's con- sent and order, ten pounds, which I shall repay during the week as soon as I can see Mr. Monkhouse of Budge Kow, who has collected that sum for me. This, therefore, I put wholly aside, and indeed expect to replace it with Mr. Green to-morrow morning. Besides this I have had five pounds from Mr. Green, ^ chiefly for the purposes of coach hire. All at once I could not venture to walk in the heat and other accidents of weather from Hammersmith to the Office ; but hereafter I intend, if I continue here, to return on foot, which will reduce my coach hire for the week from ^ Clerk of the Courier, Letter to Gentleman's Magazine, June, 1838, p. 586. 1811] TO DANIEL STUART 669 eighteen shillings to nine shillings. But to walk in, I know, would take off all the blossom and fresh fruits of my si^irits. I trust that I need not say, how pleasant it would be to me, if it were in my power to consider every- thing I could do for the " Courier," as a mere return for the pecuniary, as well as other obligations I am under to you ; in short as working off old scores. But you know how I am situated ; and that by the daily labour of the brain I must acquire the daily demands of the other parts of the body. And it now becomes necessary that I shoidd form some settled system for my support in London, and of course know what my weekly or monthly means may be. Respecting the " Courier," I consider you not merely as a private friend, but as the Co-proprietor of a large concern, in which it is your duty to regulate yourself with relation to the interests of that concern, and of your partner in it ; and so take for granted, and, indeed, wish no other, than that you and he should weigh whether or no I can be of any material use to a Paper already so flourishing, and an Evening Paper. For, all mock humil- ity out of the question (and when I write to you, every other sort of insincerity), I see that such services as I might be able to afford, would be more important to a rising than to a risen Paper ; to a morning, perhaps, more than to an evening one. You will however decide, after the experience hitherto afforded, and modifying it by the temporary circumstances of debates, press of foreign news, etc. ; how far I can be of actual use by my attendance, in order to help in the things of the day, as ai-e the para- graphs, which I have for the most part hitherto been called [upon] to contribute ; and, by my efforts, to sustain the literary character of the Paper, by large articles, on open days, and [at] more leisure times. My dear Stuart ! knowing the foolish mental cowardice with which I slink off from all pecuniary subjects, and the particular weight I must feel from the sense of exist- 570 JOURNALIST, LECTURER, PLAYWRIGHT [Dec. ing obligations to you, you will be convinced that my only motive is the desire of settling with others such a plan for myself, as may, by setting my mind at rest, enable me to realize whatever powers I possess, to as much satis- faction to those who employ them, and to my own sense of duty, as possible. If Mr. Street should think tliat the " Courier " does not require any auxiliary, I shall then rely on your kindness, for putting me in the way of some other paper, the principles of which are sufficiently in accordance with my own ; for while cabbage stalks rot on dung hills, I will never write what, or for what, I do not think right. All that prudence can justify is not to write what at certain times one may yet think. God bless you and S. T. Coleridge. CLXXXIII. TO SIR G. BEAUMONT. J. J. Morgan's, Esq., 7, Portland Place, Hammersmith, Saturday morning, December 7, 1811. Dear Sir George, — On Wednesday night I slept in town in order to have a mask^ taken, from which, or 1 Many years after the date of that a death-mask had been taken this letter, Dr. Spurzheim took a life- of the poet's features. "Whether mask of Coleridge's face, and used it this served as a model for a posthu- as a model for a bust which origi- mous bust, or not, I am unable to nally belonged to H. N. Coleridge, say. In the curious and valuable and is now in the Library at Heath's article on death-masks which Mr. Court, Ottery St. Mary. Another bust Laurence Hutton contributed to the of Coleridge, very similar to Spurz- October number of Uarper''s Maga- heim's, belonged to my father, and zine, for 1892, he gives a fac-simile is still in the possession of the fam- of a death-mask which was said to ily. I have been told that it was be that of S. T. Coleridge. At the taken from a death-mask, but as time that I wrote to him on the Mr. Hamo Thomycroft, who de- subject, I had not seen Henry Cole- signed the bust for Westminster Ab- ridge's letter, but I came to the con- bey, pointed out to me, it abounds elusion that this sad memorial of in anatomical defects. In a letter death was genuine. The " glorious wliich Henry Coleridge wrote to his forehead " is there, but the look has father, Colonel Coleridge, on the passed away, and the " rest is si- day of his uncle's death, he says lence." With regard to Allston's 1811] TO SIR G. BEAUMONT 571 rather with which, Allston means to model a bust of me. I did not, therefore, receive your letter and the enclosed till Thm-sday night, eleven o'clock, on my return from the lecture ; and early on Friday morning, I was roused from my first sleep by an agony of toothache, which con- tinued almost without intermission the whole day, and has left my head and the whole of my trmik, " not a man but a bruise." ^ What can I say more, my dear Sir George, than that I deeply feel the proof of your contin- ued friendship, and pray from my inmost soul that more perseverance in efforts of duty may render me more wor- thy of your kindness than I at present am ? Ingratitude, like all crimes that are at the same time vices — bad as malady, and worse as sym23tom — is of so detestable a na- ture that an honest man will mourn in silence under real injuries, [rather] than hazard the very suspicion of it, and will be slow to avail himself of Lord Bacon's remark ^ (much as he may admire its profundity), — "Crimen ingrati animi, quod niagnis ingeniis hand raro objicitur, saepius nil aliud est quam perspicacia quaedam in causam beneficii collati." Yet that man has assuredly tenfold reason to be grateful who can be so, both head and heart, who, at once served and honoured, knows himself more delighted by the motive that influenced his friend than by the benefit received by himself ; were it only perhaps for this cause — that the consciousness of always repay- ing the former in kind takes away all regret that he is incapable of returning the latter. bust of Coleridg'e, which was exhib- the morning- a bruise." Table Talk, ited at the Royal Academy in 1812, etc., Bell & Co., 1884, p. 231, note. I possess no information. See Har- - " Crimen ingrati animi nil aliud per's Magazine, October, 1892, pp. est quam perspicacia qutedara in 782, 783. causam collati beneficii." De Aug- ^ A favourite quip. Apropos of mentis Scientiarum, cap. iii. 15. If the bed on which he slept at Trin- this is the passage which Coleridge ity College, Cambridge, in June, is quoting, he has inserted some 1833, he remarks, " Truly I lay words of his own. The Works of down at night a man, and awoke in Bacon, 1711, i. 183. 672 JOURNALIST, LECTURER, PLAYWRIGHT [Deo. Mr. Dawe, Royal Associate, who plastered my face for me, says that he never saw so excellent a mask, and so unaffected by any expression of pain or uneasiness. On Tuesday, at the farthest, a cast will be finished, which I was vain enough to desire to be packed up and sent to Dunmow. Witli it you will find a chalk drawing of my face,^ which I think far more like than any former at- tempt, excepting Allston's full-length portrait of me,^ which, with all his casts, etc., two or three valuable works of the Venetian school, and his Jason — almost finished, and on which he had employed eighteen months without intermission — are lying at Leghorn, with no chance of procuring them. There will likewise be an epistolary essay 1 A crayon sketch of Coleridge, drawn by George Dawe, R. A., is now in existence at Heath Court. The figure, which is turned sideways, the face looking up, the legs crossed, is that of a man in early middle life, somewhat too portly for his years. An engraving of the sketch forms the frontispiece to Lloyd's History of Highgate. It was, in the late Lord Coleridge's opinion, a most characteristic likeness of his great- uncle. A time came when, for some reason, Coleridge held Dawe in but light esteem. I possess a card of in- vitation to his funeral, which took place at St. Paul's Cathedral, on Oc- tober 27, 1829. It is endorsed thus : — " I really would have attended the Grub's Canonization in St. Paul's, under the impression that it would gratify his sister, Mrs. Wright ; but Mr. G. interposed a conditional but sufficiently decorous negative. ' No ! Unless you wish to fallow his Grub- ship still further t/ojon.' So I pleaded ill health. But the very Thursday morning I went to Town to see my daughter, for the first time, as Mrs. Henry Coleridge, in Gower Street, and, odd enough, the stage was stopijed by the Pomjious Funeral of the unchangeable and predestinated Grub, and I extemporised : — As Grub Dawe pass'd beneath the Hearse's Lid, On which a large RESURGAM met the eye, Col, who well knew the Grub, cried. Lord forbid ! I trust, he 's only telling us a lie E S. T. Coleridge," Dawe, it may be remembered, ia immortalised by Lamb in his amus- ing Recollections of a Late lioyal Academician. 2 This portrait, begun at Rome, was not finished when Coleridge left. It is now in the possession of All- ston's niece, Miss Charlotte Dana, of Boston, Mass., U. S. A. The por- trait by Allston, now in the National Portrait Gallery, was taken at Bris- tol in 1814. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a Narrative, by J. Dykes Campbell, 1894, p. 150, footnote 5. 1811] TO SIR G. BEAUMONT 573 for Lady Beaumont on the subject of religion in refer- ence to my own faith ; it was too long to send by the post. Dawe is engaged on a picture (the figTires about four feet) from my poem of Love. She leaned beside the armed man, The statue of the armed knight ; She stood and listened to my harp Amid the lingering light. His dying words — but when I reached, etc. All impulses of soul and sense, etc. His sketch is very beautiful, and has more expression than I ever found in his former productions — excepting, indeed, his Imogen. Allston is hard at work on a large Scripture piece — the dead man recalled to life by touching the bones of the Prophet. He models every figure. Dawe, who was de- lighted with the Cupid and Psyche, seemed quite aston- ished at the facility and exquisiteness with which Allston modelled. Canova at Rome expressed himself to me in very warm terms of admiration on the same subject. He means to exhibit but two or at the most three pictures, all poetical or history painting, in part by my advice. It seemed to me impolitic to appear to be trying in half a dozen ways, as if his mind had not yet discovered its main current. The longer I live the more deeply am I con- vinced of the high importance, as a symptom^ of the love of heauty in a young painter. It is neither honourable to a young man's heart or head to attach himself year after year to old or deformed objects, comparatively too so easy, especially if bad drawing and worse colouring leaves the»spectator's imagination at lawless liberty, and he cries out, " How very like ! " just as he would at a coal in the centre of the fire, or at a frost-figure on a window pane. It is on tliis, added to his quiet unenvious spirit, to his 574 JOURNALIST, LECTURER, PLAYWRIGHT [Feb. lofty feelings concerning liis art, and to the religious purity of his moral character, that I chiefly rest my hopes of Allston's future fame. Ilis best productions seem to please him princii)ally because be sees and has learnt something -which enables him to promise himself, " I shall do better in my next." I have not been at the " Courier " office for some months past. I detest writing politics, even on the right side, and when I discovered that the " Courier " was not the independent paper I had been led to believe, and had myself over and over again asserted, I wrote no more for it. Greatly, indeed, do I prefer the present Ministers to the leaders of any other party, but indiscriminate support of any class of men I dare not give, especially when there is so easy and honourable an alternative as not to write politics at all, which, henceforth, nothing but blank neces- sity shall compel me to do. I will write for the Perma- nent, or not at all. " The Comet " therefore I have never seen or heard of it, yet most true it is that I myself have composed some verses on the comet, but I am quite certain that no one ever saw them, for the best of all rea- sons, that my own brain is the only substance on which they have been recorded. I will, however, consign them to paper, and send them to you with the " Courier " poem as soon as I can procure it, for the curiosity of the thing. . . . My most affectionate respects to Lady Beaumonte, and believe me, dear Sir George, with heartfelt regard, Your obliged and grateful friend, S. T. Coleridge. P. S. Were you in town, I should be very sorry, in- deed, to see you in Fetter Lane.^ The lectures were ^ The lectures were delivered at Hall, Crane Court, Fleet Street (en- the rooms of " The London Pliilo- trance from Fetter Lane)." Of the Bophical Society, Scotch Corporation lecture on " Love and the Female 1812] TO J. J. MORGAN 575 meant for the young men of the City. Several of my friends join to take notes, and if I can correct what they can shape out of them into any tolerable form, I will send them to you. On Monday I lecture on " Love and the Fe- male Character as displayed by Shakespeare." Good Dr. Bell is in town. He came from Keswick, all delight with my little Sara, and quite enchanted with Southey. Some flights of admiration in the form of questions to me (" Did you ever see anything so finely conceived ? so profoundly thought ? as this passage in his review on the Methodists ? or on the Education ? " etc.) embarrassed me in a very ri- diculous way ; and, I verily believe, that my odd way of hesitating left on Bell's mind some shade of a suspicion, as if I did not like to hear my friend so highly extolled. Half a dozen words from Southey would have precluded this, without diminution to his own fame — I mean, in conversation with Dr. Bell. CLXXXIV. TO J. J. MORGAN. Keswick,! Sunday, February 28, 1812. My dear Morgan, — I stayed a day in Kendal in order to collect the reprint of " The Friend," and reached Keswick on Tuesday last before dinner, having taken Hartley and Derwent with me from Ambleside. Of course the first evening was devoted Larihus domesticis^ to Southey and his and my children. My own are all the fondest father could pray for ; and little Sara does honour Character," which was delivered on London, 1856, p. viii. ; H. C. Robin- December 9, 1811, H. C. Robinson son's Diary, ii. 348, MS. notes by writes : " Accomiianied Mrs. Rough J. Tomalin. to Coleridge's seventh and incom- ^ The visit to Greta Hall, the last parably best Lecture. He declaimed he ever paid to the Lake Country, with great eloquence about love, lasted about a month, from February without wandering from his subject, 23 to March 26. On his journey Romeo and Juliet." Among the southward he remained in Penrith friends who took notes were John for a little over a fortnight, rejoin- Payne Collier, and a Mr. Tomalin. ing the Morgans towards the middle Coleridge's Lectures on Shakespeare, of April. 576 JOURNALIST, LECTURER, PLAYWRIGHT [Feb. to Ik'v mother's anxieties, reads Frencli tolerably, and Italian fluently, and I was astonished at her acquaintance with her native language. The word "" hostile " occurring in what she read to nie, I asked her what " hostile " meant ? and she answered at once, " WJiy ! inimical ; only that ' inimical ' is more often used for things and meas- ures and not, as ' hostile ' is, to persons and nations." If I had dared, I should have urged Mrs. C. to let me take her to Loudon for four or five months, and return with Southey, but I feared it might be inconvenient to you, and I knew it would be presmnptuous in me to bring her to you. But she is such a sweet-tempered, meek, blue-eyed fairy and so affectionate, trustworthy, and really service- able ! Derwent is the self-same, fond, small, Samuel Taylor Coleridge as ever. When I went for them from Mr. Dawes,^ he came in dancing for joy, while Hartley turned pale ^ and trembled all over, — then after he had taken some cold water, instantly asked me some questions about the connection of the Greek with the Latin, which latter he has just begun to learn. Poor Derwent, who has by no means strong health (having inherited his poor ^ The Reverend John Dawes, any pecuniary remuneration." Poems who kept a day-school at Amble- of Hartley Coleridge, ISol, i. liii. side. Hartley and Derwent Cole- - In an unpublished letter from ridge, Robert Jameson, Owen Lloyd Mrs. Coleridge to Poole, dated Octo- and his three brothers (sons of ber 30, 1812, she tells her old friend Charles Lloj'd), and tlie late Edward that when "the boys" perceived Jefferies, afterwards Curate and that their father did not intend to Rector of Grasmere, were among his turn aside to visit the Wordsworths pupils. In the Memoir of Hart- at the Rectory opposite Grasmere ley Coleridge, his brother Derwent Church, they turned pale and were describes at some length the char- visibly affected. No doubt they acter of his " worthy master," and knew all about the quarrel and were adds : " We were among his earliest mightUy concerned, but their .agita- scholars, and deeming it, as he said, tion was a reflex of the grief and an honour to be entrusted with the passion " writ lai^e " in their fa- education of Mr. Coleridge's sons, ther's face. One can iniapfine with he refused, first for the elder, and what ecstasy of self-torture he would afterwards for the younger brother, pass through Grasmere and leave Wordsworth unvisited. 1812] TO J. J. MORGAN 577 father's tenderness of bowels and stomach, and conse- quently capriciousness of animal spirits), has complained to me (having no other possible grievance) " that Mr. Dawes does not love him, because he can't help crying when he is scolded, and because he ain't such a genius as Hartley — and that though Hartley should have done the same thing, yet all the others are punished, and Mr. Dawes only looks at Hartley and never scolds him^ and that all the boys think it very unfair — he is a genius." This was uttered in low spirits and a tenderness brought on by my petting, for he adores his brother. Indeed, God be j)raised, they all love each other. I was delighted that Derwent, of his own accord, asked me about little Miss Brent that used to j^lay with him at Mr. and Mrs. Mor- gan's, adding that he had almost forgot what sort of a lady she was, "only she was littler, — less I mean — (this was said hastily and laughing at his blunder) than Mama." A oentleman M'ho took a third of the chaise with me from Ambleside, and whom I found a well-informed and think- ing man, said after two hours' knowledge of us, that the two boys united woidd be a perfect representation of my- self. I trust I need not say that I should have written on the second day if nothing had hai^pened ; but from the dreadful dampness of the house, worse than it was in the rudest state when I first lived in it, and the weather, too, all storm and rain, I caught a violent cold which almost blinded me by inflammation of both my eyes, and for three days bore all the symptoms of an ague or intermit- tent fever. Knowing I had no time to lose, I took the most Hercvdean remedies, among others a solution of arsenic, and am now as well as when I left you, and see no reason to fear a relapse. I passed through Grasmere ; but did not call on Wordswoi'th. I hear from Mrs. C. that he treats the affair as a trifle, and only wonders at my resenting it, and that Dorothy AVordsworth before my 578 JOURNALIST, LECTURER, PLAYWRIGHT [April arrival expressed her coiifuleut hope that I shouhl come to them at ouee ! I wlio "' for years past had been an ab- solute NUISANCE in the family." This illness has thrown me Lehindhand ; so that I cannot quit Keswick till the end of the week. On Friday I shall return by way of Ambleside, probably S2)end a day with Charles Lloyd. . . . It will not surprise you that the statements respecting me and Montagu and Wordsworth have been grossly pervertetl : and yet, spite of all this, there is not a friend of Wordsworth's, I understand, who does not severely blame him, though they execrate the Montagus yet more heavily. But the tenth part of the truth is not known. Would you believe it possible that Wordsworth himself stated my loearing poicder as a proof positive that I never could have suffered any pain of mind from the affair, and that it was all pretence ! ! God forgive him ! At Liverpool I shall either give lectures, if I can secure a hundred pomids for them, or return immediately to you. At all events, I shall not remain there beyond a fortnight, so that I shall be with you before you have changed houses. Mrs. Coleridge seems quite satisfied with my plans, and abundantly convinced of my obligations to your and Mary's kindness to me. Nothing (she said) but the circumstance of my residing with you could reconcile her to my living in London. Southey is the semper idem. It is impossible for a good heart not to esteem and to love him ; but yet the love is one fourth, the esteem all the remainder. His children are, 1. Edith, seven years ; 2. Herbert, five ; 3. Bertha^ four ; 4. Catharine, a year and a half. I had hoped to have heard from you by this time. I wrote from Slough, from Liverpool, and from Kendal. Why need I send my kindest love to Mary and Char- lotte ? I would not return if I had a doubt that they be- lieved me to be in the very inmost of my being their and your affectionate and grateful and constant friend, S. T. Coleridge. 1812] TO HIS WIFE 579 CLXXXV. TO HIS WIFE. 71, Berners Street, Tuesday, April 21, 1812. My deae Love, — Everything is going on so very- well, so much beyond my exiJectation, that I will not revert to anything unpleasant to damp good news with. The last receipt for the insurance is now before me, the date the 4tli of May. Be assured that before April is past, you shall receive both receipts, this and the one for the present year, in a frank. In the first place, my health, spirits, and disposition to activity have continued such since my arrival in town, that every one has been struck with the change, and the Morgans say they had never before seen me myself. I feel myself an altered man, and dare promise you that you shall never have to complain of, or to apprehend, my not opening and reading your letters. Ever since I have been in town, I have never taken any stimulus of any kind, till the moment of my getting into bed, except a glass of British white wine after dinn6r, and from three to four glasses of port, when I have dined out. Secondly, my lectures have been taken up most warmly and zealously by Sir Thomas Bernard,^ Sir George Beaumont, Mr. Sotheby, etc., and in a few days, I trust that you \\\\\ be agreeably surprised with the mode in which Sir T. B. hopes and will use his best exertions to have them an- nounced. Thirdly, Gale and Curtis are in high spirits and confident respecting the sale of " The Friend," ^ and 1 Sir Thomas Bernard, 1750-1818, conclude the unfinished narrative of the well-known philanthropist and the life of Sir Alexander Ball, and promoter of national education, was to publish the wliole as a complete one of the founders of the Royal work. A printed slip cut out of a Institution. page of publishers' advertisements 2 It is probable that during his and forwarded to " H. X. Coleridge, stay at Pcnritli he recovered a nuni- Esq., from W. Pickering,'' contains ber of unbound sheets of the reprint the following announcement : — of The Friend. Ilis proposal to " Mr. Coleridge's Fr/e (if/, of which Gale and Curtis must have been to twenty-eight Numbers are published, 580 JOURNALIST, LECTURER, PLAYWRIGHT [Aprii the call for a second edition, after the conipleniental num- bers have been })rinted, and not less so respecting the success of the other work, the Propaidia (or Propaideia) Cyclica, and are desirous to have the terms properly rati- fied, and signed as soon as possible. Nothing intervenes to overglooni my mind, but the sad state of health of Mr. Morgan, a more faithful and zealous friend than whom no man ever possessed. Thank God ! my safe arrival, the improvement of my health and spirits, and my smilino- prospects have already exerted a favourable influence on him. Yet I dare not disguise from myself that there is cause for alarm to those who love and value him. But do not allude to this subject in your letters, for to be thought ill or to have his state of health spoken of, agi- tates and depresses him. As soon as ever I have settled the lecture room, which perhaps will be Willis's in Hanover Square, the price of whieh is at present ten guineas a time, I will the very first thing pay the insurance and send off a parcel of books for Hartley, Derwent, and dear Sara, whom I kissed seven times in the shape of her pretty letterlet. My poor darling Derwent ! I shall be most anxious to receive a letter from you, or from himself, about him. In giving my love to Mrs. Lovell, tell her that I have not since the day after my arrival been able to go into the city, my business having employed me wholly either in writing or in traversing the West End of the town. I dined with Lady Beaumont and her sister on Saturday, for Sir George was engaged to Sir T. Bernard. He how- may now be had, in one Volume, can obtain them throng'h their regu- royal Svo. boards, of Mess: Gale lar Booksellers. Only 300 copies and Curtis, Paternoster Row. And remain of the 28 numbers, and their Mr. C. intends to complete the Work, being printed on unstamped paper in from eight to ten similar sheets to will account to the Subscribers for the foregoing, which will be pub- the difference of price. 23, Tater- li.shed together in one part, sewed, noster Row, London, Ist February, The Subscribers to the former part 1812." 1812] TO HIS WIFE 581 ever came and sat with us to the very last moment, and I dine with him to-day, and AUston is to be of the party. The bust and the picture from Genevieve are at the Royal Academy, and already are talked of. Dawe and I will be of mutual service to each other. As soon as the pictures are settled, that is, in the first week of May, he means to treat himself with a fortnight's relaxation at the Lakes. He is a very modest man, his manners not over polished, and his worst point is that he is (at least, I have found him so) a fearful questionist, whenever he thinks he can pick up any information, or ideas, poetical, historical, topographical, or artistical, that he can make bear on his profession. But he is sincere, friendly, strictly moral in every respect, I firmly believe even to innocence^ and in point of cheerful indefatigableness of industry, in regu- larity, and temperance — in short, in a glad, yet quiet, devotion of his whole being to the art he has made choice of, he is the only man I ever knew who goes near to rival Southey — gentlemanly address, person, physiognomy, knowledge, learning, and genius being of course wholly excluded from the comparison. God knows my heart ! and that it is my full belief and conviction, that taking all together^ there does not exist the man who could with- out flattery or delusion be called Southey's equal. It is quite delightful to hear how he is spoken of by all good people. Dawe will doubtless tahe him. Were S. and I rich men, we would have ourselves and all of you, short and tall, in one family picture. Pray receive Dawe as a friend. I called on Murray, who complained that by Dr. Bell's delays and irresolutions and scruples, the book " On the Origin," ^ etc., instead of 3,000 in three weeks, which he has no doubt would have been the sale had it been brought out at the fit time, will not now sell 300. I told him that I believed otherwise, but much would depend on ^ The full title of this work was the New System of Education. The Origin, Nature and Object of Southey's Life of Dr. Bell, ii. 400. 582 JOURNALIST, LECTURER, PLAYWRIGHT [April the circuiustauce whether temper or prudence would have most intlueuce on the Atheiiiau critic and his friend Brougham. If, as I hoped, the former, and the work shouhl be reviewed in the " Edinburgh Keview," if they took up the gauntlet thrown at them, then there was no doubt but that a strong tide of sale would set in. Though verily this gauntlet was of weighty metal, though of polished steel, and being thrown at rather than doion, it was challenging a man to fight by a blow that threat- ened to brain him. I have seen Dr. Bell and shall dine with him at Sir T. Bernard's on Monday next. The ven- erable Bishop of Durham ^ has sent me a very kind mes- sage, that though he cannot himself appear in a hired lec- ture room, yet he will be not only my subscriber but use his best influence with his acquaintance. I am very anxious that my books shoidd be sent forward as soon as possible. They may be sent at three different times, with a week's intervention. But there is one, scarcely a book, but a collection of loose sheets tied up together at Grasmere, which I want immediately, and, if possible, would have sent up by the coach from Kendal or Penrith. It is a German Romance with some name beginning with an A, followed by " oder Die Gliickliche Insehi." It makes two volumes, but several of the sheets are missing, at least were so when I put them together. If sent oft' im- mediately, it would be of serious benefit to me in my lec- tures. Miss Hutchinson knows them, and will probably recollect the sheets I allude to, and these are what I espe- cially want. One pair only of breeches were in the parcel, and I am sadly off for stockings, but the white and under ones I 1 The ITonourable and Right Rev- He was a warm supporter of the erend John Shute Barrington, 17o4— Madras system of education. It 18-6, sixth son of the first Lord was no douht Dr. Bell who helped Barrington, was successively Bishop to interest the Bishop in Coleridge's of LlandafF, Salisbury, and Durham. Lectures. 1812] TO HIS WIFE 583 can buy here cheap, but if young Mr. White coukl j^ro- cure half a dozen or even a dozen pair of black silk made as stout and weighty as possible, I would not mind giving seventeen shillings per pair, if only they can be i^elied on, which one cannot do in London. A double knock. I meant to read over your letter again, lest I should have forgot anything. If I have, I will answer it in my next. God bless you and your affectionate husband, S. T. Coleridge. Has Southey read " Childe Harold " ? All the world is talking of it. I have not, but from what I hear it is exactly on the plan that I myself had not only conceived six years ago, but have the whole scheme drawn out in one of my old memorandum books. My dear Edith, and my dear Moon ! ^ Though I have scarce room to write it, yet I love you very much. CLXXXVI. TO THE SAME. 71, Berners Street, April 24, 1812. My dear Sara, — Give my kind love to Southey, and inform him that I have, egomet his ipsis meis oculls, seen Nohs^ alive, well, and in full fleece ; that after the death of Dr. Samuel Dove,^ of Doncaster, who did not ^ Herbert Southey, known in the was fully developed in the spring of family as " Doj^-Lunus," and " Lu- 1812, when Coleridg-e paid his last nus," and " The Moon." Letters of visit to Greta Hall. It wtis not till R. Southey, ii. 31)9. the winter of 1833-1834, that tlie first 2 Readers of The Doctor will not two volumes of The Doctor appeared be at a loss to understand the sig- in print, and, as they were published nificance of the references to Dr. anonymously, they were, probably, Daniel Dove and his horse Nobs, by persons familiar with hLs contri- Accordino- to Cuthbert Southey. the bution to Black-wood and the Loudon actual composition of the book be- Magazine, attributed to Hartley gan in 1813, but the date of this Coleridge. " No clue to the author letter (April, 1812) shows that the has reached me," wrote Southey to myth or legend of the "Doctor," his friend Wynne. "As for Hart- and his iron-grey, which had taken ley Coleridge, I wish it were his, but shape certainly as early as 1805, am certain that it is not. He is 584 JOURNALIST, LECTURER, PLAYWRIGHT [April survive the loss of his faithful wife, Mrs. Dorothy Dove, more than eleven months, Nobs was disposed of by his executors to Longman and Clements, IMusieal Instrument Manufacturers, whose grand pianoforte hearses he now draws in the streets of London. The carter was aston- ished at the enthusiasm with which I intreated him to stop for half a minute, and the embrace I gave to Xobs, who evidently understood me, and wistfully with such a sad expression in his eye, seemed to say, " Ah, my kind old master. Doctor Daniel, and ah I my mild mistress, his dear duteous Dolly Dove, my gratitude lies deeper than my obligation ; it is not merely skin-deep ! Ah, what I have been ! Oh, what I am I his naked, neighing, night- wandering, new-skinned, nibbling, noblenursling. Nobs I " His legs and hoofs are more than half sheepified, and his fleece richer than one ever sees in the Leicester breed, but not so fine as might have been the case had the merino cross been introduced before the surprising accident and more surprising remedy took place. More surprising I say, because the first happened to St. Bartholomew (for there were skinners even in the days of St. Bartholomew), but the other never before there was no Dr. Daniel Dove. I trust that Southey will now not hesitate to record and transmit to posterity so remarkable a fact. I am de- lighted, for now malice itself will not dare to attribute the story to my invention. If I can procure the money, I will attempt to purchase Nobs, and send him down to Keswick by short journeys for Herbert and Derwent to ride upon, provided you can get the field next us. quite clever enough to have written folly are of tliat kind." There had it — quite odd enough, hut his opin- been a time when Southey would ions are desperately radical, and he have expressed himself differently, is the last person in the world to hut in 1834 dissociation from Cole- disguise them. One report was that ridge had become a matter alike of his father had assisted him ; there habit and of principle. tiouthey's is not a page in the hook, wise or Life and Correspondence, ii. 355, vi. foolish, which the latter couW have 22.5-229; Letters of R. Southey, iv. written, neither his wisdom nor his 373. 1812] TO HIS WIFE 585 I have not been able to procure a frank, but I daresay you will be glad to receive the enclosed receipt even with the drawback of postage. Everything, my dear, goes on as prosperously as you could yourself wish. Sir T. Bernard has taken AVillis's Rooms, King Street, St. James's, for me, at only four guineas a week, fires, benches, etc., included, and I ex- pect the lectures to commence on the first Tuesday in May. But at the present moment I need both the advice and the aid of Southey. The " Friends " have arrived in town. I am at work on the Supplemental Numbers, and it is of the last importance that they should be brought out as quieldy as possible during the flush and fresh breeze of my popularity ; but this I cannot do without know- ino- whether Mr. Wordsworth will transmit to me the two fuiishing Essays on Epitaphs.^ It is, I know and feel, a very delicate business ; yet I wish Southey would imme- diately write to Wordsworth and urge him to send them by the coach, either to J. J. Morgan, Esq., 71, Berners Street, or to Messrs. Gale and Curtis, Booksellers, Pater- noster Row, with as little delay as possible, or if he decline it, that Southey should apprize me as soon as possible. S. T. Coleridge. The Morgans desire to be kindly remembered, and Charlotte Brent (tell Derwent) hopes he has not forgot his old playfellow. 1 The first of the series of " Es- an outline and some extracts in the says upon Epitaphs " was published Memoirs (i. 434-445), were pub- in No. 25 of the original issue of lished in full in Prose Works of The Friend (Feb. 22, 1810), and re- Wordsworth, 1876, ii. 41-75." Life published by Wordsworth in the of W. Wordsworth, ii. 152 ; Poetical notes to The Excursion, 1814. " Two Works of Wordsworth, Bibliography, other portions of the 'Series,' of p. 907. which the Bishop of Lincoln gives 586 JOURNALIST, LECTURER, PLAYWRIGHT [Mat CLXXXVII. TO CHARLES LAMB. May 2, 1812. My dear Charles, — I should almost deserve what I have suffered, if I refused even to put my life in hazard in defence of my o\ni honour and veracity, and in satis- faction of the honour of a friend. I say hononr, in the latter instance, singly, because I never felt as a matter of serious complaint, ichat was stated to have been said (for this, though painfully aggravated, was yet substantially true) — but by whom it was said, and to whom, and how and when. Grievously unseasonable therefore as it is, that I should again be overtaken and hurried back by the surge, just as I had begun to feel the firm ground under my feet — just as I had flattered myself, and given reason to my hospitable friends to flatter themselves, that I had regained tranquillity, and had become quite myself — at the time, too, when every thought should be given to my lectures, on the success or failure of my efforts in which no small part of my reputation and future prospects will depend — yet if Wordsworth, upon reflection, adheres to the plan jiroposed, I will not draw back. It is right, how- ever, that I should state one or two things. First, that it has been my constant desire that evil shoidd not propa- gate evil — or the unhapjiy accident become the means of spreadinc/ dissension. (2) That I never quarrelled with Mr. Montagu — say rather, for that is the real truth, that Mr. Montagu never was, or appeared to be, a man with whom I could, without self -con tempt, allow myself to quarrel — and lastly, that in the present business there are but three possible cases — either (1) Mr. Wordsworth said what I solemnly aver that I most distinctly recollect Mr. Montagu's representing him as having said, and which / understood, not merely as great unkindness and even cruelty, but as an intentional means of putting an end to our long friendship, or to the terms at least, mider 1812] TO CHARLES LAMB 587 which it had for so long a period subsisted — or (2), Mr. Montagu has grossly misrepresented Wordsworth, and most cruelly and wantonly injured me — or (3), I have wantonly invented and deliberately persevered in atrocious falsehoods, which place me in the same relation to Mr. Montagu as (in the second case) Mr. Montagu woidd stand in to me. If, therefore, Mr. Montagu declares to my face that he did not say what I solemnly aver that he did — what must be the consequence, unless I am a more abject coward than I have hitherto suspected, I need not say. Be the consequences what they may, however, I will not shrink from doing my duty ; but previously to the meeting I shoidd very much wish to transmit to Wordsworth a statement which I long ago began, with the intention of sending it to Mrs. Wordsworth's sister, — but desisted in consequence of understanding that she had already decided the matter against me. My reason for wishing this is that I think it right that Wordsworth should know, and have the means of ascertaining, some conversations which yet I coidd not publicly bring for- ward without hazarding great disquiet in a family known (though slightly) to Wordsworth — (2) Because common humanity would embarrass me in stating before a man what I and others think of his wife — and lastly, certain other points which my own delicacy and that due to Wordsworth himself and his family, preclude from being talked of. For Wordsworth ought not to forget that, whatever influence old associations may have on his mind respecting Montagu, yet that / never respected or liked him — for if I had ever in a common degree done so, I should have quarrelled with him long before we arrived in London. Yet all these facts ought to be known — because supposing Montagu to affirm what I am led to suppose he has — then nothing remains but the comparative proba- bility of our two accounts, and for this the state of my feelings towards Wordsworth and his family, my opinion 588 JOURNALIST, LECTURER, PLAYWRIGHT [May of Mr. ami ]\Irs. ^Montagu, and my previous intention not to lodge with tlieni in town, are important documents as far as they do not rely on my own present assertions. Woe is me, that a friemlsliip of fifteen years should come to this ! and such a friendship, in which I call God Al- mighty to be my witness, as I ever thought it no more than my duty, so did 1 ever feel a readiness to prefer him to myself, yea, even if life and outward reputation itself had been the pledge required. But tliis is now vain talk- ins:. Be it, however, remembered that I have never wan- dered beyond the one single com]ilaint, that I had been cru- elly and unkindly treated — that I made no charge against my friend's veracity, even in respect to his charges against me — that I have explained the circumstance to those only who had already more or less perfectly become accpiainted with our difference, or were certain to hear of it from oth- ers, and that except on this one point, no word of re- proach, or even of subtraction from his good name, as a good man, or from his merits as a great man, ever escaped me. May God bless you, my dear Charles. S. T. Coleridge. CLXXXVIII. TO TTrLLTAlM -^VORDSTVOT^TH. 71, Berners Street. Monday, May 4, 1812. I will divide my statement, which I will endeavour to send you to-morrow, into two parts, in separate letters. The latter, commencing from the Sunday night, 28 Octo- ber, 1810, that is, that on which the communication was made to me, and which will contain my solemn avowal of what was said by Mr. and Mrs. Montagu, you will make what use of you please — but the former I write to you, and in confdence — yet only as far as to your o\\ai heart it shall appear evident, that in desiring it I am actuated by no wish to shrink personally from any test, not involv- ing an acknowledgement of my own degradation, and so become a false witness against myself, but only by del- 1812] TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 589 icacy t6wards the feelings of otliers, and the dread of spreading the curse of dissension. But, Wordsworth! the very message you sent by Lamb and which Lamh did not deliver to me from the anxiety not to add fuel to the flame, sufficiently proves what I had learnt on my first arrival at Keswick, and which alone prevented my goino- to Grasmere — namely, that you had prejudged the case. As soon as I was informed that you had denied having used certain expressions, I did not hesitate a moment (nor was it in my power to do so) to give you my fullest faith, and approve to my own consciousness the truth of my declaration, that I should have felt it as a blessin"-, though my life had the same instant been hazarded as the pledge, could I with firm conviction have given Montagu the lie, at the conclusion of his story, even as, at the very first sentence, I exclaimed — " Impossible ! It is impossible ! " The expressions denied were indeed only the most offen- sive part to the feelings — but at the same time I learnt that you did not hesitate instantly to express your convic- tion that Montagu never said those words and that I had invented them — or (to use your own words) " had for- gotten myself." Grievously indeed, if I know aught of my nature, must I have forgotten both myself and com- mon honesty, could I have been villain enough to have invented and persevered in such atrocious falsehoods. Your message was that " if I declined an exj^lanation, you begged I would no longer continue to talk about the af- fair." When, Wordsworth, did I ever decline an expla- nation ? From you I expected one, and had a right to expect it — for let Montagu have added what he may, still that which remained was most unkind and what I had little deserved from you, who might by a single ques- tion have learnt from me that I never made up my mind to lodge with Montagu and had tacitly acquiesced in it at Keswick to tranquillise Mrs. Coleridge, to whom ]Mrs. Montagu had made the earnest professions of watching 690 JOURNALIST, LECTURER, PLAYWRIGHT [May and nursing me, and for wlioiu this and her extreme re- pugnance to my original, and nnich wiser, resohition of going to Edinburgh and placing myself in the house, and under the constant eye, of some medical man, were the sole iirounds of her assent that I should leave the North at all. Yet at least a score of times have I begun to write a detailed account, to Wales ^ and afterwards to Grasmere, and gave it up from excess of agitation, — till finally I learnt that all of your family had decided against me unheard — and that [you begged] / would no loiKjer talk about it. If, Wordsworth, you had but done me the com- mon justice of asking those with whom I have been most intimate and confidential since my first arrival in Town in Oct., 1810, you would have received other negative or posi- tive proofs how little I needed the admonition or deserve the sarcasm. Talk about it ? O God ! it has been talked about ! and that it had, was the sole occasion of my dis- closing it even to Mary Lamb, the first person who heard of it from me and that not voluntarily — but that morn- ing a friend met me, and communicated what so agitated me that then having previously meant to call at Lamb's I was compelled to do so from faintness and universal trem- bling, in order to sit down. Even to her I did not intend to mention it ; but alarmed by the wildness and jialeness of my countenance and agitation I had no power to con- ceal, she entreated me to tell her what was the matter. In the first attempt to speak, my feelings overpowered me ; an agony of weeping followed, and then, alarmed at my own imprudence and conscious of the possible effect on her health and mind if I left her in that state of sus- pense, I brought out convulsively some such words as — " Wordsworth, Wordsworth has given me up. He has no hope of me — I have been an absolute nuisance ^ in his ^ To Miss Sarah Hutchinson, then these words, or commissioned Mon- livinp^ in Wales. tagu to repeat tlieni to Coleridg-e, is 2 That Wordsworth ever used in itself improbable and was sol- 1812] TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 591 family " — and when long weeping had relieved me, and I was able to relate the occurrence connectedly, she can bear witness for me that, disgracefiil as it was that I should be made the topic of vulgar gossip, yet that " had the whole and ten times more been proclaimed by a speak- ing-trumpet from the chinnieys, I should have smiled at it — or indulged indignation only as far as it excited me to pleasurable activity — but that you had said it, this and this only, was the sting ! the scorpion-tooth I " Mr. Mor- gan and afterwards his wife and her sister were made ac- quainted with the whole case — and why ? Not merely that I owed it to their ardent friendship, which has continued to be mainly my comfort and my only support, but because they had already heard of it, in part — because a most intimate and dear friend of Mr. and Mrs. Montaou's had urged Mr. Morgan to call at the Montagus in order to be put on his giiard against me. He came to me instantly, told me that I had enemies at work against my character, and pressed me to leave the hotel and to come home with him — with whom I have been ever since, with the excep- tion of a few intervals when, from the bitter conscious- ness of my own infirmities and increasing irregularity of emnly denied by Wordsworth him- Montagu to fight his own battles, seh^ But Wordsworth did not deny The cruel words which Montagu put that with the best motives and in a into Wordsworth's mouth or Cole- kindly spirit he took Montagu into ridge in his agitation and resentment his confidence and put him on his put into Montagu's, were but the guard, that he professed " to have salt which the sufferer rubbed into no hope " of his ohl friend, and that his own wound. The time, the man- with regard to Coleridge's "habits " ner, and the person combined to ag- he might have described them as a gravate his misery and dismay, "nuisance" in his family. It was Judgment had been delivered all meant for the best, but much against him in absentia, and the evil and misery might have been judge was none other than his own avoided if Wordsworth had warned "familiar friend." Henry Crabb Coleridge tliat if he should make Robinson's Diary, May 3-10, 1812, his home under Mcmtngu's roof he first publislied in ii/e q/" W. Words- could not keep silence, or, better worth, ii. 168, 187. still, if he had kept silence and left 592 JOURNALIST, LECTURER, PLAYWRIGHT []\Iay temper, I took lodgings, against his will, and was always by his zealous friendship brought back again. If it be allowed to call any one on earth Saviour, Morgan and his family have been my Saviours, body and soul. For my moral will was, and I fear is, so weakened relatively to my duties to myself, that I cannot act, as I ouglit to do, except under the influencing knowledge of its effects on those I love and believe myself loved by. To him like- wise I exi)lained the affair ; but neither from him or his family has one word ever escaped me concerning it. Last autumn Mr. and IVIrs. Southey came to town, and at Mr. Ray's at Richmond, as we were walking alone in the gar- den, the subject was introduced, and it became my duty to state the whole affair to them, even as the means of transmitting it to you. With these exceptions I do not remember ever to have made any one my confidant — though in two or three instances I have alluded to the suspension of our familiar intercourse without ex])lanation, but even here only where I knew or fully believed the persons to have already heard of it. Such was Mrs. Clai'k- son, who wrote to me in consequence of one sentence in a letter to her ; yet even to her I entered into no detail, and disclosed nothing that was not necessary to my own de- fence in not continuing my former correspondence. In short, the one only thing which I have to blame in myself was that in my first letter to Sir G. Beaumont I had con- cluded with a desponding remark allusive to the breach between us, not in the slightest degree suspecting that he was ignorant of it. In the letters, which followed, I was compelled to say more (though I never detailed the words which had been uttered to me) in consequence of Lady Beaumont's expressed apprehension and alarm lest in the advertisement for my lectures the sentence "concerning the Living Poets " contained an intention on my part to attack your literary merits. The very thought, that I could be imagined capable of feeling vindictively toward 1812] TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 593 you at all, much more of gratifying the passion in so de- spicable as well as detestable manner, agitated me. I sent her LadyshijD the verses composed after your recita- tion of the great Poem at Coleorton, and desired her to judge whether it was j)ossible that a man, who had written that poem, could be capable of such an act, and in a letter to Sir G. B., anxious to remove from his mind the assump- tion that I had been agitated by the disclosure of any till then vmknown actions of mine or parts of conduct, I en- deavoured to impress him with the real truth that not the facts disclosed, but the manner and time and the person by whom and the person to whom they had been disclosed, formed the whole ground of the breach. And writing in great agitation I once again used the same words which had venially burst from me the moment Montagu had ended his account. " And this is cruel ! this is base .<' " I did not reflect on it till it was irrevocable — and for that one word, the only word of positive reproach that ever escaped from me, I feel sorrow — and assure you, that there is no permanent feeling in my heart which corre- sponds to it. Talk about it ? Those who have seen me and been with me, day by day, for so many many months could have told you, how anxiously every allusion to the subject was avoided — and with abundant reason — for immediate and palpable derangement of body as well as spirits regularly followed it. Besides, had there not ex- isted in your mind — let me rather say, if ever there had existed any portion of esteem and regard for me since the autumn of 1810, would it have been possible that your quick and powerful judgement could have overlooked the gross improbability, that I should first invent and then scatter abroad for talk at public tables the phrases which (Mr. Robinson yesterday informed me) Mr. Sharon Turner was indelicate enough to trumpet abroad at Long- man's table ? I at least wiU call on Mr. Sharon and de- mand his authority. It is my full conviction, that in no 594 JOURNALIST, LECTURER, PLAYWRIGHT [May one of the huiulred tables at wliich any particulars of our breach have been mentioned, could the authority be traced back to those who had received the account from myself. It seemed unnatural to me, nay, it was unnatural to me to write to you or to any of your family with a cold exclu- sion of the feelings which almost overjiower me even at this moment, and I therefore write this })rc]>aratory letter to disburthen my heart, as it were, before 1 sit down to detail my recollections simpl}^ and unmixed with the anguish which, spite of my best efforts, accompany them. But one thing more, the last complaint that you will hear from me, perhaps. When without my knowledge dear IVIary Lamb, just then on the very verge of a relapse, wrote to Grasmere, was it kind or even humane to have returned such an answer, as Lamb deemed it unadvisable to shew me ; but which I learnt from the only other per- son, who saw the answer, amounted in substance to a sneer on my reported high spirits and my wearing pow- der? When and to whom did I ever make a merit of my sufferings ? Is it consistent noio to charge me with going about complaining to everybody, and now with my high spirits? Was I to carry a gloomy face into every society ? or ought I not rather to be grateful that in the natural activity of my intellect God had given me a counteracting princijjle to the intensity of my feelings, and a means of escaping from a part of the pressure? But for this I had been driven mad, and j^et for how many months was there a continual brooding and going on of the one gnawing recollection behind the curtain of my outward being, even when I was most exerting myself, and exerting myself more in order the more to benumb it ! I might have truly said with Desdemona : — " I am not merry, but I do beguile The Thing I am, by seeming otherwise." And as to the powder, it was first put "in to prevent my taking cold after my hair had been thinned, and I was 1812] TO DANIEL STUART 595 advised to continue it till I became wholly grey, as in its then state it looked as if I had dirty powder in my hair, and even when known to be only the everywhere- mixed-grey, yet contrasting with a face even younger than my real age it gave a queer and contradictory character to my whole appearance. Whatever be the result of this long-delayed explanation, I have loved you and j'ours too long and too deeply to have it in my own power to cease to do so. S. T. Coleridge. CLXXXIX. TO DANIEL STUART. May 8, 1812. My dear Stuart, — I send you seven or eight tick- ets,^ entreating you, if pre-engagements or your health does not preclude it, to bring a group with you ; as many ladies as possible ; but gentlemen if you cannot muster ladies — for else I shall not only have been left in the lurch as to the actual receipts by my great patrons (the five hundred half-promised are likely to shrink below fifty) but shall absolutely make a ridiculous appearance. The tickets are transferable. If "you can find occasion for more, pray send for them to me, as (what it really will be) a favour done to myself. 1 The tickets were numbered and contain Six Lectures, at One Guinea, signed by the lecturer. Printed The Tickets Transferable. An Ac- cards which were issued by way of count is opened at Mess. Ransom advertisement contained the follow- Morland & Co., Bankers, Pall Mall, ing announcement : — in the names of Sir G. Beaumont, " Lectukes on the Drama. Bart., Sir T. Bernard, Bart., W. " Mr. Coleridge proposes to give Sotheby, Esq., where Subscriptions a series of Lectures on the Drama will be received, and Tickets issued. of the Greek, French, English and The First Lecture on Tuesday, the Spanish stage, chiefly with Ptefer- 12th of May. — S. T. C, 71, Ber- ence to the Works of Shakespeare, ners St." at Willis's Rooms, King Street, St. For an account of the first fonr James's, on the Tuesdays and Fri- lectures, see H. C. Robinson's Diary, days in May and June at Three i. 385-388. o'clock precisely. The Course will 596 JOURNALIST, LECTURER, PLAYWRIGHT [May I am anxious to see you, and to learn how far Bath has Improved or (to use a fashionable slang phrase) disim- proved your health. Sir James and Lady IMaekintosh are I hear at Bath Hotel, Jermyn Street. Do you think it will be taken amiss if I enelosed two or three tickets and cards with my respectful congratulations on his safe return.^ I abhor the doing anything that could be even interpreted into servility, and yet feel increasingly the necessity of not neglecting the courtesies of life. . . . God bless you, my dear sir, and your obliged and affec- tionate friend, S. T. Coleridge. P. S. Mr. Morgan has left his card for you. CXC. TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 71, Berners Street, Monday afternoon, 3 o'clock, May 11, 1812. My dear Wordsworth, — I declare before God Al- mighty that at no time, even in my sorest affliction, did even the possibility occur to me of ever doubting your word. I never ceased for a moment to have faith in you, to love and revere you ; though I was unable to explain an unkindness, which seemed anomalous in your char- acter. Doubtless it would have been better, wiser, and more worthy of my relation to you, had I immediately written to you a full account of what had happened — especially as the person's language concerning your fam- ily was such as nothing but the wild general counter- panegyric of the same person almost in the same breath of yourself — as a converser, etc., — could have justified me in not resenting to the uttermost . . .^ All these, added * From Bombay. stances which seemed to justify mis- 2 I have followed Professor Knight understanding." The alleged facts in omitting a passage in which " he throw no light on the relations be- gives a lengthened list of circum- tween Coleridge and Wordsworth. 1812] TO ROBERT SOUTHEY 597 to what I mentioned in my letter to you, may not justify, but yet must palliate, the only offence I ever committed against you in deed or word or thought — that is, the not writing to you and trusting instead to our common friends. Since I left you my pocket books have been my only full confidants,^ — and though instructed by pru- dence to write so as to be intelligible to no being on earth but yourself and your family, they for eighteen months together would furnish proof that in anguish or indura- tion I yet never ceased both to honour and love you. S. T. Coleridge. I need not say, of course, that your presence at the Lectures, or anywhere else, will be gratifying to me. CXCI. TO ROBERT SOUTHEY. [May 12, 1812.] My dear Southey, — The awful event of yester-af- ternoon has forced me to defer my Lectures to Tuesday, the 19th, by advice of all my patrons. The same thought struck us all at the same moment, so that our letters might be said to meet each other. I write now to urge you, if it be in your power, to give one day or two of your time to write something in your impressive way on that theme which no one I meet seems to feel as they ought to do, — which, I find scarcely any but ourselves estimate according to its true gigantic magnitude — I mean the sinking down of Jacobinism below the middle and tolera- bly educated classes into the readers and all-swallowing ^ The cryptogratn which Cole- pert would probably decipher nine ridge invented for his own use was tenths of these memoranda at a based on the arbitrary selection of glance, but here and tliere the words letters of the Greek as equivalents symbolised are themselves anagrams to letters of the English alphabet, of Greek, Latin, and German words, The vowels were represented by and. in a few instances, the clue is English letters, by the various points, hard to seek, and by algebraic symbols. An ex- 598 JOURNALIST, LECTURER, PLAYWRIGHT [May auditors in tap-rooms, etc. ; and the [political sentiments in the] " Statesman," " Examiner," eto. I have ascertained that throughout the great manufacturing counties, Whit- bread's, Burdett's, and Waithman's speeches and the lead- ing articles of the "Statesman" and " Examiner " are printed in ballad [shape] and sold at a halfpenny or a penny each. I was turned numb, and then sick, and then into a convulsive state of weeping on the first tidings — just as if Perceval^ had been my near and personal friend. But good God ! the atrocious sentiments univer- sal among the popidace, and even the lower order of householders. On my return from the " Courier," where I had been to offer my services if I could do anything for them on this occasion, I was faint from the heat and much walking, and took that opportunity of going into the tap-room of a large public house frequented about one o'clock by the lower orders. It was really shocking, nothing but exultation ! Burdett's health drank with a clatter of pots and a sentiment given to at least fifty men and women — " May Burdett soon be the man to have sway over us ! " These were the very words, " This is but the beginning." " More of these damned scoun- drels must go the same way, and then poor people may live." " Every man might maintain his family decent and comfortable, if the money were not picked out of our pockets by these damned placemen." " God is above the devil, / say, and down to Hell with him and all his brood, the Ministers, men of Parliament fellows." " They won't hear Burdett ; no I he is a Christian man and speaks for the poor," etc., etc. I do not think I have altered a word. My love to Sara, and I have received everything right. The plate will go as desired, and among it a present to Sariola and Edith from good old Mr. Brent, who had 1 The Right Honourable Spencer Bellingham, in the lobby of the Perceval was shot by a man named House of Commons, May 11, 1812. 1812] TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 599 great deliglit in hearing them talked of. It was wholly the old gentleman's own thought. Bless them both ! The affair between Wordsworth and me seems settled, much against my first expectation from the message I re- ceived from him and his refusal to open a letter from me. I have not yet seen him, but an explanation has taken place. I sent by Robinson an attested, avowed statement of what Mr. and Mrs. Montagu told me, and Wordsworth has sent me an unequivocal denial of the whole in sjnrit and of the most offensive passages in letter as well as spirit, and I instantly informed him that were ten thou- sand Montagus to swear against it, I should take his word, not ostensibly only, but with inward faith ! To-morrow I will write out the passage from " Apu- leius," and send the letter to Rickman. It is seldom that want of leisure can be fairly stated as an excuse for not writing ; but really for the last ten days I can honestly do it, if you will but allow a due portion to agitated feel- ings. The subscription is languid indeed compared with the expectations. Sir T. Bernard almost pledged himself for my success. However, he has done his best, and so has Lady Beaumont, who herself procured me near thirty names. I should have done better by myself for the present, but in the future perhaps it will be better as it is. CXCII. TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.^ 71, Berners Street, Monday noon, December 7, 1812. Write ? My dear Friend ! Oh that it were in my power to be with you myself instead of my letter. The Lectures 1 The occasion of this letter was immediate reply was sent to Cole- the death of Wordsworth's son, ridge." We have it, on the author- Thomas, which took place Decern- itv of Mr. Clarkson, that when ber 1, 1812. It would seem, as Pro- Wordsworth and Dorothy did write, fessor Knight intimates, that the in the spring of the following year, letter was not altogether acceptable inviting liim to Grasmere, their let- to the Wordsworths, and that " no ters remained unanswered, and that 600 JOURNALIST, LECTURP:R, PLAYWRIGHT [Dec. I could give up ; but the rehearsal of my Play commences this week, and upon this depends my best hopes of leaving town after Christmas, and living among you as long as I live. Strange, strange are the coincidences of things! Yesterday Martha Frieker dined here, and after tea I had asked question after question respecting your children, first one, then tlie other ; but, more than all, concerning Thomas, till at length Mrs. Morgan said, " What ails you, Coleridge ? AVhy don't you talk about Hartley, Derwent, and Sara? " And not two hours ago (for the whole fam- ily were late from bed) I was asked what was the matter with my eyes ? I told the fact, that I had awoke three times during the night and morning, and at each time found my face and part of the pillow wet with tears. " Were you dreaming of the Words worths ? " she asked. — "Of the children?" I said, "No! not so much of them, but of Mrs. W. and Miss Hutchinson, and yourself and sister." Mrs. Morgan and her sister are come in, and I have been relieved by tears. The sharp, sharp pang at the heart needed it, when they reminded me of my words the very yester-night : "It is not possible that I should do otherwise than love Wordsworth's children, all of them ; but Tom is nearest my heart — I so often have him be- fore my eyes, sitting on the little stool by my side, while •when tLe news came that Coleridge light of Hope " died away, he was was about to leave London for the left to face the world and himself as seaside, a fresh wound was inflicted, best or as worst he could. Of the and fresh offence taken. As Mr. months which intervened between Dykes Campbell has pointed out, March and September, 1813, there the consequences of this second rup- is no record, and we can only guess ture were fatal to Coleridge's peace that he remained with liis kind and of mind and to his well-being gener- patient hosts, the Morgans, sick in ally. The brief spell of success and body and broken-hearted. Life of prosperity which attended the rep- W. Wordsworth, ii. 182 ; Samuel resentation of " Remorse " inspired Taylor Coleridge, a Narrative, by J. him for a few weeks with unnatural Dykes Campbell, 1894, pp. 193-197. courage, but as the '' pale imwarming 1812] TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 601 I was writing my essays ; and how quiet and happy the affectionate little fellow woidd be if he could but touch one, and now and then be looked at." O dearest friend ! what comfort can I afford you ? "What comfort ought I not to afford, who have given you so much pain? Sympathy deep, of my whole being. . . . In grief, and in joy, in the anguish of perplexity, and in the fulness and overflow of confidence, it has been ever what it is ! There is a sense of the word. Love, in which I never felt it but to you and one of your household ! I am distant from you some hundred miles, but glad I am that I am no longer distant in spirit, and have faith, that as it has happened but once, so it never can happen again. An awful truth it seems to me, and prophetic of our fu- ture, as well as declarative of our present I'eal nature, that one mere thought, one feeling of suspicion, jealousy, or resentment can remove two human beings farther from each other than winds or seas can separate their bodies. The words " religious fortitude " occasion me to add that my faith in our progressive nature, and in all the doctrinal facts of Christianity, is become habitual in my understanding, no less than in my feelings. More cheer- ing illustrations of our survival I have never received, than from the recent study of the instincts of animals, their clear heterogeneity from the reason and moral essence of man and yet the beautiful analogy. Especially, on the death of children, and of the mind in childhood, alto- gether, many thoughts have accmnidated, from which I hope to derive consolation from that most oppressive feel- ing which hurries in upon the first anguish of such tidings as I have received ; the sense of uncertainty, the fear of enjopnent, the pale and deathy gleam thrown over the countenances of the living, whom we love. . . . But this is bad comforting. Your own virtues, your own love itself, must give it. Mr. De Quincey has left town, and will by this time have arrived at Grasmere. On Sunday 602 JOURNALIST, LECTURER, PLAYWRIGHT [Jan. last I gave him a letter for yoii ; but he (I have heard) did not leave town till Thursday night, by what accidents prevented I know not. In the oppression of spirits under which I wrote that letter, I did not make it clear that it was only Mr. Josiah's half of the annuity ^ that was with- drawn from me. My answer, of course, breathed nothing but gratitude for the past. I will write in a few days again to you. To-morrow is my lecture night, " On the liuman causes of the spread of Christianity, and its effects after the establishment of Christendom." Dear Mary ! dear Dorothy I dearest Sara ! Oh, be assured, no thought relative to myself has half the influence in inspiring the wish and effort to ap2iear and to act what I always in my will and heart have been, as the knowledge that few things could more console you than to see me healthy, and \vorthy of my- self I Again and again, my dearest Wordsworth ! I ! I am affectionately and truly yours, S. T. Coleridge. CXCIII. TO HIS WIFE. Wednesday afternoon [January 20,] 18[1.3]. My dear Sara, — Hitherto the " Remorse " has met with unexampled applause^ but whether it will continue to fill the house, that is quite another question, and of this, my f)-iends are, in my opinion, far, far too sanguine. I have disposed not of the copyright but of edition by edition to Mr. Pople, on terms advantageous to me as an author and honourable to him as a publisher. The ex- penses of printing and paper (at the trade-price) adver- tising, etc., are to be deducted from the total produce, and the net profits to be divided into three equal parts, of which Pople is to have one, and I the other two. And at any future time, I may publish it in any volume of my poems collectively. Mr. Arnold (the manager) has just 1 See Letter CXCV., p. 611, note 2. 1813] TO HIS WIFE 603 left me. He called to urge me to exert myself a little with regard to the daily press, and brought with him " The Times " ^ of Monday as a specimen of the infernal lies of which a newspaper scribe can be capable. Not only is not one sentence in it true ; but every one is in the direct face of a palpable truth. The misrepresenta- tions must have been wilfid. I must now, therefore, write to " The Times," and if Walter refuses to insert, I will then, recording the circmnstance, publish it in the "Morning Post," "Morning Chronicle," and "The Courier." The dirty malice of Antony Pasquin^ in the " Morning Herald " is below notice. This, however, will explain to you why the shortness of this letter, the main business of which is to desire you to draw upon Brent and Co., No. 103 Bishopsgate Street Within, for an hundred pounds, at a month's date from the drawing, or, if that be objected to, for tlu-ee weeks, only let me know which. In the course of a month I have no hesitation in promising you another hundred, and I hope likewise before Midsummer, if God grant me life, to repay you whatever you have expended for the childi'en. ^ The notice of " Remorse " in to Osorio, London, 1873, contains The Times, though it condemned the selections of press notices of "Re- play as a whole, was not altogether morse," and other interesting mat- iincomplimentary, and would be ac- ter. See, too, Poetical Works, Ed- cepted at the present day by the itor's Note on " Remorse," pp. 6-19- majority of critics as just and fair. 0.51. It was, no doubt, the didactic and ^ John Williams, described by Ma- patronising tone adopted towards the caulay as " a filthy and malignant author which excited Coleridge's baboon," who wrote under the indignation. "We speak," writes pseudonym of " Anthony Pasquin," the reviewer, " with restraint and emigrated to America early in this unwillingly of the defects of a work century. In 1S04 lie published a which must have cost its author so work in Boston, and there is, appar- much labour. We are peculiarly re- ently, no reason to suppose that he luctant to touch the anxieties of a subsequently returned to England, man," etc. The notice in the Morn- Either Coleridge was in error or he ing Post was friendly and flattering uses tlie term generally for a scurri- in the highest degree. The preface lous critic. 604 JOURNALIST, LECTURER, PLAYWRIGHT [Feb. My wishes and purposes concerning Hartley and Der- went I will communicate as soon as this bustle and endless rat-a-tat-tat at our door is somewhat over. I concluded my Lectures last night most ti'iumphantly. with loud, long, and enthusiastic applauses at my en- trance, and ditto in yet fidler chorus as, and for some minutes after I had retired. It was lucky that (as I never once thought of the Lecture till I had entered the Lecture Box), the two last were the most impressive and really the best. I suppose that no diamatic author ever had so large a number of unsolicited, unknown yet •prede- termined plauditors in the theatre, as I had on Satur- day night. One of the malignant papers asserted that I had collected all the saints from Mile End turnpike to Tyburn Bar. With so many warm friends, it is impos- sible, in the present state of human nature, that I should not have many unprovoked and unknown enemies. You will have heard that on my entering the box on Saturday night, I was discovered by the pit, and that they all turned their faces towards our box, and gave a treble cheer of claps. I mention these things because it will please Southey to hear that there is a large number of persons in Lon- don who hail with enthusiasm my prospect of the stage's being purified and rendered classical. My success, if I succeed (of which I assure you I entertain doubts in my opinion well founded, both from the want of a prominent actor for Ordonio, and from the want of vulgar pathos in the play itself — nay, there is not enough even of true dramatic pathos), but if I succeed, I succeed for others as well as myseK. . . . S. T. Coleridge. P. S. I pray yov^ my dear Sara ! do take on yourself the charge of instantly sending off by the waggon Mr. Sotheby's folio edition of all Petrarch's Works, which I 1813] TO ROBERT SOUTHEY 605 left at Grasmere. (I am ashamed to meet Sotheby till I have returned it.) At the same time my quarto MS. Book with the German Musical Play in it,i and the two folio volumes of the Greek Poets may go. For I want them hourly and I must try to imita te W. Scott^in making hay while the sun shines. Kisses and heartfelt loves for my sweet Sara, and scarce less for dear little Herbert and Edith. CXCIV. TO EGBERT SOUTHEY. 71, Berners Street, Tuesday, February 8, 1813. My dear Southey, — It is seldom that a man can with literal truth apologise for delay in writing ; but for the last three weeks I have had more upon my hands and spirits than my health was equal to. The first copy I can procure of the second edition (of the play) I will do my best to get franked to you. You will, I hope, think it much improved as a poem. Dr. Bell, who is all kindness and goodness, came to me in no small bustle this morning in consequence of " a censure passed on the ' Remorse ' by a man of great talents, both in prose and verse, who was impartial, and thought higldy of the work on the whole." What was it, think you ? There were many unequal lines in the Play, but which he did not choose to specify. Dr. Bell would not mention the critic's name, but was very earnest with me to jarocure some indifferent person of good sense to read it over, by way of spectacles to an author's own dim judgement. Soon after he left me I discovered that the critic was Gifford, who had said good-naturedly that I ought to be whipt for leaving so many weak and slovenly lines in so fine a poem. What the lines were he would not say and /do not care. 1 This note-book must have passed passed into the hands of my father, out of Coleridge's possession in his The two folio volumes of the Greek life-time, for it is not among those Poets were in my father's library, which were bequeathed to Joseph and are now in my possession. Henry Green, and subsequently 606 JOURN.VLIST, LECTURER, PLAYWRIGHT [Feb. Inequalities liave every poem, even an Epio — much more a Dramatic Poem must have anil ought to have. The question is, are they in their own place dlssoiiances ? If so I am the last man to stickle for them, who am nick- named in the Green Room the " anomalous author," from my utter indifference or prompt facility in sanctioning every omission that was suggested. That paragra])h in the " Quarterly Review " ^ respecting me, as ridiculed in " Re- jected Addresses," was surely unworthy of a man of sense like Gifford. What reason coidd he have to suppose me a man so childishly irritable as to be provoked by a trifle so contemptible ? If he had, how coidd he think it a j^arody at all ? But the noise which the " Rejected Addresses " made, the notice taken of Smith the author by Lord Hol- land, Byron, etc., give a melancholy confirmation of my assertion in " The Friend " that " we worship the vilest reptile if only the brainless head be expiated by the sting of personal malignity in the tail." I wish I could pro- cure for you the " Examiner " and Drakard's London Paper. They were forced to affect admiration of the Tragedy, but yet abuse me they must, and so comes the old infamous crambe bis milUes coda of the " sentimental- ities, puerilities, whinings, and meannesses, both of style and thought," in my former writings, but without (which is worth notice both in these gentlemen and in all our former Zoili), without one single quotation or reference in proof or exemplification. No wonder! for excepting the " Three Graves," which was announced as not meant for poetr}^ and the poem on the Tethered Ass, with the motto Sermoni iwo-priora^ and which, like your " Dancing ^ " Mr. Colridg'e {siic) will not, we - The motto " Sermoni propriora," fear, be as much entertained as we translated by Lamb " properer for were with his ' Playhouse Musings,' a sermon," was prefixed to " Reflec- whieh begin with characteristic pa- tions on having left a Place of Re- thos and simplicity, and put us much tirement." The lines " To a Young in mind of the afEecting story of old Ass " were originally published in Poulter's mare." the Morning Chronicle, December 30, 1813] TO ROBERT SOUTHEY 607 Bear," might be called a ludicro-spleuetic co]3y of verses, witli the diction purposely aj)propriate, they might (as at the first appearance o£ my poems they did) find, indeed, all the opiJosite vices. But if it had not been for the Preface to W.'s "Lyrical Ballads,"' they would never themselves have dreamt of affected simplicity and meanness of thought and diction. This slang has gone on for fourteen or fifteen years against us, and really deserves to be ex- posed. As far as my judgement goes, the two best quali- ties of the tragedy are, first, the simplicity and unity of the plot, in respect of that which, of all the unities, is the only one founded on good sense — the presence of a one all-pervading, all-combining Principle. By Remorse I mean the anguish and disquietude arising from the self- contradiction introduced into the soul by guilt, a feeling which is good or bad according as the will makes use of it. This is expressed in the lines chosen as the motto : — Remorse is as the heart in which it grows : If that be gentle, it drops balmy dews Of true repentance ; but if proud and gloomy, It is a poison tree that, pierced to the inmost, Weeps only tears of poison ! Act i. sc. 1. And Remorse is everywhere distinguished from virtuous penitence. To excite a sanative remorse Alvar returns, the Passion is put in motion at Ordonio's first entrance by the appearance of Isidore's wife, etc. ; it is carried still higher by the narration of Isidore, Act ii. sc. 1 ; higher still by the interview with the supposed wizard ; and to its acme by the Incantation Scene and Picture. Now, then, we are to see its effects and to exemplify the second part of the motto, " but if proud and gloomy. It is a poi- son tree," etc. Ordonio, too proud to look steadily into himself, catches a false scent, plans the murder of Isidore 1794, under the heading, " Address etical Works, pp. 35, 36, Appendix C, to a Young Jack Ass, and its tethered p. 477. See, too, Biographia Litera,- Mother. In Familiar Veise." J'o- ria, Coleridge's TrorArs, 1853, iii. 161. 608 JOURNALIST, LECTURER, PLAYWRIGHT [Feb. aiul the poisoning of the Sorcerer, perpetrates the one, and, attempting the other, is driven by liemorse and the discovery of Alvar to a temporary distraction ; and, finally, falling a victim to the only crime that had been realized, by the hand of Alhadra, breathes his last in a pang of pride : " O couldst thou forget me ! " As from a circum- ference to a centre, every ray in the tragedy converges to Ordonio. Spite of wretched acting, the passage told wonderfully in which, as in a struggle between two un- equal Panatldists or wrestlers, the weaker had for a mo- ment got uppermost, and Ordonio, with unfeigned love, and genuine repentance, says, " I will kneel to thee, my Brother ! Forgive me, Alvar ! " till the Pride, like the bottom -swell on our lake, gusts up again in " Curse me with forgiveness ! " The second good quality is, I think, the variety of metres according as the speeches are merely transitive, or narrative, or passionate, or (as in the Incantation) deliberate and formal poetry. It is true they are all, or almost all, Iambic blank verse, but under that form there are five or six perfectly distinct metres. As to the outcry that the " Remorse " is not pathetic (meaning such pathos as convulses in " Isabella " or " The Gamester") the answer is easy. True! the poet never meant that it should be. It is as pathetic as the " Ham- let " or the " Julius Ciesar." He woo'd the feelings of the audience, as my wretched epilogue said : — With no TOO real Woes that make you gi-oan (At home-bred, kindred grief, perhaps your own), Yet with no image compensate tlie mind, Nor leave one joy for memory behind. As to my thefts from the " Wallenstein," they came on compulsion from the necessity of haste, and do not lie on my conscience, being partly thefts from myself, and because I gave Schiller twenty for one I have taken, and in the mean time I hope they will lie snug. " The obscur- 1813] TO THOMAS POOLE 609 est Haunt of all our mountains," ^ I did not recognize as Wordsworth till after the play was all printed. I must write again to-morrow on other subjects. The House was crowded again last night, and the Man- ager told me that they lost X200 by suspending it on [the] Saturday night that Jack Bannister came out. (No signature.) CXCV. TO THOMAS POOLE. February 13, 1813. Dear Poole, — Love so deep and so domesticated with the whole being, as mine was to you, can never cease to he. To quote the best and sweetest lines I ever wrote: ^ — Alas ! they had been Friends in Youth ! But whisp'riug Tongues can poison Truth ; And Constancy lives in Reahns above ; And Life is thorny ; and Youth is vain ; And to be wroth with one we love Doth work, like Madness, in the Brain ! And so it chanced (as I divine) With Roland and Sir Leoline. Each spake words of high Disdain ^ The -words, " Obscurest Haunt Coleridge, if he had anything per- of all our mountains," are to be sonal in his mind, and we may be found in the first act of " Remorse," sure that he had, was looking back lines 115, 1 16. Their counterpart in on his early friendship with Southey, Wordsworth's poems occurs in" The and the bitter quarrel which began Brothers," 1. 140. (" It is the lone- over the collapse of pantisocracy, liest place of all these hills.") " De and was never healed till the sum- minimis non curat lex," especially mer of 1799. In the late autumn of ■when there is a plea to be advanced, 1800, when the second part of " Chris- or a charge to be defended. Poeii- tabel " was written, Southey was ab- cal Works, p. 362 ; Works of Words- sent in Portugal, and the thought of worth, p. 127. all that had come and gone between 2 Many theories have been haz- him and his " heart's best brother " arded with regard to the broken inspired this outburst of affection friendship commemorated in these and regret, lines. My own impression is that 610 JOURNALIST, LECTURER, PLAYWRIGHT [Feb. And Insult to his heart's best Brother : They parted — ne'er to meet again ! But never either found anotlier To free the hollow Heart from Paining — They stood aloof, the Scars remaining, Like Cliffs, which had been rent asunder, A dreary Sea now flows between ! — But neither Frost, nor Heat, nor Thunder, Shall wholly do away, I ween, The marks of that which once hath been ! Stung as I have been with your unkindness to me, in my sore aclversitj^ yet the receipt of your two heart-engen- dered lines was sweeter than an unexpected strain of sweetest music, or, in humbler phrase, it was the only pleasurable sensation which the success of the " Kemorse " has given me. I have read of, or perhaps only imagined, a punishment in Arabia, in which the culprit was so bricked up as to be unable to turn his eyes to the right or the left, while in front was placed a high heap of bar- ren sand glittering under the vertical sun. Some slight analogue of this, I have myself suffered from the mere unusualness of having my attention forcibly directed to a subject which permitted neither sequence of imagery, or series of reasoning. No grocer's apprentice, after his first month's permitted riot, was ever sicker of figs and raisins than I of hearing about the " Remorse." The endless rat-a-tat-tat at our black-and-blue-bruised door, and my three master-fiends, proof sheets, letters (for I have a raging epistolophobia), and worse than these — • invitations to large dinners, which I cannot refuse with- out offence and imputation of pride, or accept without disturbance of temper the day before, and a sick, aching stomach for two days after, so that my sjjirits quite sink under it. From what I myself saw, and from what an intelligent friend, more solicitous about it than myself, has told me, 1813] TO THOMAS POOLE 611 the " Remorse " has succeeded in spite of bad scenes, execrable acting, and newspaper calumny. In my com- pliments to the actors, I endeavoured (such is the lot of this world, in which our best qualities tilt against each other, ex. gr., our good nature against our veracity) to make a lie edge round the tru^h as nearly as possible. Poor Rae (why poor? for Ordonio has almost made his fortune) did the best in his power, and is a good man . . . a moral and affectionate husband and father. But nature has denied him person and all volume and depth of voice ; so that the blundering coxcomb EUiston, by mere dint of voice and self-conceit, out-dazzled him. It has been a good thing for the theatre. They will get ^£8,000 or ilO,000, and I shall get more than all my literary labours put together ; nay, thrice as much, subtracting my heavy losses in the "Watchman" and " Friend," — £400 in- cluding the copyright. You will have heard that, previous to the acceptance of " Remorse," Mr. Jos. Wedgwood had withdrawn from his share of the annuity ! ^ Well, yes, it is well ! — for I can now be sure that I loved him, revered him, and was grate- ^ The annuitj' of £150 for life, dren, for whom the annuity was re- which Josiah Wedgwood, on his served. It is hardly likely that a own and his brother Thomas' be- man of business forgot the terras of half, offered to Coleridge in Jan- his own offer, or that he could nary, 1798. The letter expressly have imagined that Coleridge was no states that it is " an amiuity for life longer in need of support. Either of £ loO to be regularly paid by us, no in some fit of penitence or of passion condition whatsoever being annexed Coleridge offered to release him, or to it." " We mean," he adds, '" the once again " whispering tongues had annuity to be independent of every- poisoned truth," and some one had thing but the wreck of our for- represented to Wedgwood that the tune." It is extraordinary that a money was doing more harm than man of probity should have taken good. But a bond is a bond, and it advantage of the fact that the an- is hard to see, unless the act and nuity, as had been proposed, was deed were Coleridge's, how Wedg- not secured by law, and should have wood can escape blame. Thomas Btrnck this blow, not so much at Poole and his Friends, i. 257-259. Coleridge, as at his wife and chil- 612 JOURNALIST, LECTURER, PLAYWRIGHT [Fkb. fill to liim from no selfish feeling. For equally (and may these wonls be my final condeiunation at the last awful day, if I speak not the whole truth), equally do I at this moment love him, and with the same reverential grati- tude ! To Mr. Thomas Wedgwood I felt, doubtless, love ; but it was mingled with fear, and constant apprehension of his too exquisite taste in morals. But Josiah I Oh, I ever did, and ever shall, love him, as a being so beauti- fully balanced in mind and heart deserves to be ! 'Tis well, too, because it has given me the strongest impulse, the most imperious motive I have experienced, to prove to him that his past munifi.cence has not been wasted ! You jierhaps may likewise have heard (in the Whisper- ing Gallery of the Woi'ld) of the year-long difference be- tween me and Wordsworth (compared with the sufferings of which all the former afflictions of my life were less than flea-bites), occasioned (in great part^ by the wicked folly of the arch-fool Montagu. A reconciliation has taken place, but the feeling, which I had previous to that moment, when the (three-fourth) calumny burst, like a thunderstorm from a blue sky, on my soul, after fifteen years of such religious, almost su- perstitious idolatry and self-sacrifice. Oh, no I no ! that, I fear, never can return. All outward actions, all inward wishes, all thoughts and admirations will be the same — are the same, but — aye, there remains an immedicable But. Had W. said (what he acknowledges to have said) to you, I should have thought it unkind, and have had a right to say, " Why, why am I, whose whole being has been like a glass beehive before you for five years, why do I hear this from a third person for the first time ? " But to such ... as Montagu ! just when W. himself had forewarned me ! Oh ! it cut me to the heart's core. S. T, Coleridge, CHAPTER XII A MELANCHOLY EXILE 1813-1815 i I CHAPTER XII A MELANCHOLY EXILE 1813-1815 CXCVI. TO DANIEL STUART. September 25, 1813. Dear Stuart, — I forgot to ask you by what address a letter would best reach you ! Whether Kilburn House, Kilburn? I shall therefore send it, or leave it at the " Courier " office. I found Southey so chevaux-de-frized and pallisadoed by preengagements that I coidd not reach at him till Sunday sennight, that is, Sunday, October 3, when, if convenient, we should be happy to wait on you. Southey will be in town till Monday evening, and you have his brother's address, should you wish to write to him (Dr. Southey ,i 28, Little Queen Anne Street, Caven- dish Square). A curious paragraph in the " Morning Chronicle " of this morning, asserting with its usual comfortahle anti- patriotism the determination of the Emperor of Austria to persevere in the terms ^ offered to his son-in-law, in his frenzy of power, even though he should be beaten to the dust. ISIethinks there ought to be good authority before a journalist dares prophesy folly and knavery in union of our Imperial Ally. An excellent article ought to be written on this subject. In the same paper there is what I should have called a masterly essay on the causes of the ' Dr. Southey, the poet's young-er lifelong friendship arose between the brother Henry, and Daniel IStiiart two families. were afterwards neighbours in Har- 2 Treaty of Vienna, October 9, ley Street. A close intimacy and 1809. 616 A MELANCHOLY EXILE [April downfall of the Coiuie Drama, if I was not perplexed by the distinct recollection of having conversed the greater part of it at Lamb's. I wish you would read it, and tell me what you think ; for I seem to remember a conversa- tion with you in which you asserted the very contrary ; that comic genius was the thing wanting, and not comic subjects — that the watering places, or rather the char- acters presented at them, had never been adequately man- aged, etc. Might I request you to present my best respects to Mrs. Stuart as those of an old acquaintance of yours, and, as far as I am myself conscious of, at all times with hearty affection, your sincere friend, S. T. Coleridge. P. S. There are some half dozen more books of mine left at the "Courier" office, Ben Jonson and sundry German volumes. As I am compelled to sell my library,^ you would oblige me by ordering the porter to take them to 19, London Street, Fitzroy Square ; whom I will re- munerate for his trouble. I should not take this liberty, but that I had in vain ^vi-itten to Mr. Street, requesting the same favour, which in his hurry of business I do not wonder that he forgot. CXCVII. TO JOSEPH C0TTLE.2 sY'^^pril 26, 1814. You have poured oil in the raw and festering wound of an old friend's conscience, Cottle ! but it is oil of ^ This could only have been car- ter, and still more of that to Josiah ried out in part. A large portion Wade of June 26, 1814 (Letter of the books which Coleridge pos- CC), was deeply resented by Cole- sessed at his death consisted of those ridge's three children and by all which he had purchased during his his friends. In the preface to hia travels in Germany in 1799, and in Early Becollectiom Cottle defends Italy in 180r)-1806. himself on the plea that in the in- ^ The publication by Cottle, in terests of truth these confessions 1837, of this and the following let- should be revealed, and urges that The room at Highgate, where he died r^- \^m> -f -~ / y.ii&,Mn^^ %^ Wmm^ ->ai ^^■;:: . iii^ 1814] / TO JOSEPH COTTLE 617 vitriol ! I but barely glanced at the middle of the first page of your letter, and have seen no more of it — not from resentment (God forbid !), but from the state of my bodily and mental sufferings, that scarcely permitted himian fortitude to let in a new visitor of affliction. The object of my present reply is to state the case just as it is. First, that for ten years the anguish of my spirit has been indescribable, the sense of my danger staring, but the consciousness of my guilt worse, far worse than all. I have prayed, with drops of agony on my brow, trembling not only before the justice of my Maker, but even before the mercy of my Redeemer. " I gave thee so many talents, what hast thou done with them?" Secondly, overwhelmed as I am with a sense of my direful infirmity, I have never attempted to dis- guise or conceal the cause. On the contrary, not only to friends have I stated the whole case with tears and the very bitterness of shame, but in two instances I have warned young men, mere acquaintances, who had spoken of having taken laudanum, of the direful consequences, by an awful exjDosition of the tremendous effects on myself. Coleridge's own demand that after etc., he was able to quote Southey his death " a full and unqualified as an advocate, though, possibly, a narrative of my wretchedness and reluctant advocate, for publication, its guilty cause may be made pub- There can be no question that nei- lic," not only justified but called ther Coleridge's request nor South- for his action in the matter. The ey's sanction gave Cottle any right law of copyiight in the letters of to wound the feelings of the living parents and remoter ancestors was or to expose the frailties and remorse less cleariy defined at that time than of the dead. The letters, which have it is at present, and Coleridge's liter- been public property for nearly ary executors contented themselves sixty years, are included in these with recording their protest in the volumes because they have a nat- strongest possible terms. In 1848, ural and proper place in any coUec- when Cottle reprinted his Earlif tion of Coleridge's Letters which Recollections, together with some claims to be, in any sense, repre- additional matter, under the title of sentative of his correspondence at Reminiscences of S. T. Coleridge, large. G18 A MELANCHOLY EXILE [May Thirdly, though before God I cannot lift up my eye- lids, :iud only do not despair of His mercy, because to despair would be adding crime to crime, yet to my fellow- men I may say that I was seduced into the accursed habit ignorantly. I had been almost bed-ridden for many months with swellings in my knees. In a medical jour- nal, I unhappily met with an account of a cure performed in a similar case (or what appeared to me so), by rub- bing in of laudanum, at the same time taking a given dose internally. It acted like a charm, like a miracle ! I recovered the use of my limbs, of my appetite, of my spirits, and this continued for near a fortnight. At length the unusual stimulus subsided, the complaint returned, the supposed remedy was recurred to — but I cannot go through the dreary history. Suffice it to say, that effects were produced which acted on me by terror and cowardice, of pain and sudden death, not (so help me God !) by any temptation of pleasure, or expectation, or desire of exciting pleasurable sensations. On the very contrary, Mrs. Morgan and her sister will bear witness, so far as to say, that the longer I abstained the higher my spirits were, the keener my enjoyment — till the moment, the direful moment, arrived when my piilse began to fluctuate, my heart to paljiitate, and such a dreadful falling abroad, as it were, of my whole frame, such intolerable restlessness, and incipient bewil- derment, that in the last of my several attempts to aban- don the dire poison, I exclaimed in agony, which I now repeat in seriousness and solemnity, " I am too poor to hazard this." Had I but a few hundred jiounds, but £200 — half to send to Mrs. Coleridge, and half to place myself in a private madhouse, where I could procure nothing but what a physician thought proper, and where a medical attendant could be constantly with me for two or three months (in less than that time life or death would be determined), then there might be hope. Now 1814] TO JOSEPH COTTLE 619 there is none ! ! O God ! how willingly would I place myself under Dr. Fox, in his establishment ; for my ease is a species of madness, only that it is a derangement, an utter impotence of the volition, and not of the intellectual faculties. You bid me rouse myself : go bid a man paralytic in both arms, to rub them briskly together, and that will cure him. " Alas ! " he would reply, " that I cannot move my arms is my complaint and my misery." May God bless you, and your affectionate, but most afflicted, S. T. Coleridge. CXCVIII. TO THE SAME. Friday, May 21, 1814. My dear Cottle, — Gladness be with you, for your convalescence, and equally so, at the hope which has sus- tained and fcranquillised you through your imminent peril. Far otherwise is, and hath been, my state ; yet I too am grateful ; yet I cannot rejoice. I feel, with an intensity unfathomable by words, my utter nothingness, impotence, and worthlessness, in and for myself. I have learned what a sin is, against an infinite imperishable being, such as is the soul of man ! I have had more than a glimpse of what is meant by death and outer darkness, and the worm that dieth not — and that all the hell of the reprobate is no more incon- sistent with the love of God, than the blindness of one who has occasioned loathsome and guilty diseases, to eat out his eyes, is inconsistent with the light of the sun. But the consolations, at least, the sensible sweetness of hope, I do not possess. On the contrary, the temptation which I have constantly to fight up against is a fear, that if anni- hilation and the jwsslbility of heaven were offered to my choice, I should choose the former. This is, perhaps, in part, a constitutional idiosyncrasy, for when a mere boy I wrote these lines : — 620 A MELANCHOLY EXILE [May O, what a wonder seems the fear of death, Seeing how gladly we all sink to sleep, Bahes, children, youths, and men. Night following night, for three-score years and ten I * And in my early manhood, in lines descriptive of a gloomy solitude, I disguised my own sensations in the following words : — Here wisdom might abide, and here remorse ! Here, too, the woe-worn man, who, weak in soul, And of this busy human heart aweary. Worships the spirit of unconscious life In tree or wild-flower. Gentle lunatic ! If so he might not wholly cease to be, He would far rather not be what he is ; But would be something that he knows not of, In woods or waters, or among the rocks. ^ My main comfort, therefore, consists in what the divines call the faith of adherence, and no spiritual effort aj^pears to benefit me so much as the one earnest, importunate, and often for hours, momently repeated prayers : "I be- lieve ! Lord, help my imbelief ! Give me faith, but as a mustard seed, and I shall remove this mountain ! Faith ! faith ! faith ! I believe. Oh, give me faith ! Oh, for my Redeemer's sake, give me faith in my Redeemer." In all this I justify God, for I was accustomed to op- pose the preaching of the terrors of the gospel, and to represent it as debasing virtue by the admixture of slav- ish selfishness. I now see that what is spiritual can only be spiritually apprehended. Comprehended it cannot. Mr. Eden gave you a too flattering account of me. It ^ At whatever time these lines Works, p. 61 ; Editor's Note, pp. may have been written, they were 562, 563. not printed till 1829, when they ^ " The Picture ; or The Lover's were prefixed to the " Monody on the Resolution," lines 17-25. Poetical Death of Chatterton." Foeticcd Works, p. 162. 1814] TO CHARLES MATHEWS 621 is true, I am restored as much beyond my expectations almost as my deserts ; but I am exceedingly weak. I need for myself solace and refocillation of animal spirits, instead of being in a condition of offering it to otliers. Yet as soon as I may see you, I will call upon you. S. T. COLEKIDGE. CXCIX. TO CHARLES MATHEWS. 2, Queen's Square, Bristol, May 30, 1814. Dear Sir, — Unusual as this liberty may be, yet as it is a friendly one, you will pardon it, especially from one who has had already some connection with the stage, and may have more. But I was so higlily gratified with my feast of this night, that I feel a sort of restless imj)idse to tell you what I felt and thought. Imprimis, I grieved that you had such miserable mate- rials to deal with as Colman's Solomon Grundy,^ a char- acter which in and of itself (Mathews and his Variations ad lihitum put out of the question) contains no one ele- ment of genuine comedy, no, nor even of fun or drollery. The play is assuredly the very sediment, the dregs of a noble cask of wine ; for such was, yes, in many instances was and has been, and in many more might have been, Colman^s dramatic genius. A genius Colman is by nature. What he is not, or has not been, is all of his own making. In my humble opinion, he possessed the elements of dramatic power in a far higher degree than Sheridan : or which of the two, think you, should pronounce with the deeper sigh of self- reproach, " Fuimus Troes ! and what might we not have been?" But I leave this to proceed to the really astonishing effect of your duplicate of Cook in Sir Archy McSar- ^ Solomon Grundy is a character, a Guinea ? produced at Covent Gar- played by Fawcett, in George Col- den, 1804-1805. man the younger's piece, Who wants 622 A MELANCHOLY EXILE [June casui.^ To say that iu some of your higher notes your voice was rather tJiinner, rather less substance and thick body than poor Cook's, would be merely to say that A. B. is not exactly A. A. But, on the whole, it was almost illusion, and so very excellent, that if I were intimate with you, I should get angry and abuse you for not form- ing for yourself some original and important character. The man who could so impersonate Sir Archy McSar- casm might do anything in profound Comedy (that is, that which gives us the jjassions of men and their endless modifications and influences on thought, gestures, etc., modified in their turn by circumstances of rank, relations, nationality, etc., instead of mere transitory manners ; in short, the inmost man rej^resented on the sui^erficies, in- stead of the sui^erficies merely representing itself). But you will forgive a stranger for a suggestion ? I cannot but think that it would anstver for your still increasing fame if you were either previously to, or as an occasional diversification of Sir Archy, to study and give that one most incomparable monologue of Sir Pertinax McSyco- phant,^ where he gives his son the history of his rise and progress in the world. Being in its essence a soliloquy with all the advantages of a dialogue, it would be a most happy introduction to Sir Archy McSarcasm, which, I doubt not, will call forth with good reason the Covent Garden Manager's thanks to you next season. I once had the presumption to address this advice to an actor on the London stage : "TVif/i/i, in order that you may be able to ohserve I ■ Observe, in order that you may have materials to think upon ! And thirdly, keej) awake ever the habit of instantly embodying and realising the results of the two ; but always thinh ! " A great actor, comic or tragic, is not to be a mere copy, a fac simile, or but an imitation, of Nature. Now an ^ A character in Macklin's play, ^ A character in Mackliu's play, Love d. la Mode, A Man of (he World, 1814] TO JOSIAH WADE 623 imitation differs from a copy in this, that it of necessity implies and demands difference, whereas a copy aims at identity. What a marble peach on a mantelpiece, that you take uj) deluded and put down with pettish disgust, is, compared with a fruit-piece of Vauhuyser's, even such is a mere C02:>y of nature compared with a true histrionic iini- tation. A good actor is Pygmalion's Statue, a work of exquisite art, animated and gifted with motion ; but still art, still a species of -poetry. Not the least advantage which an actor gains by having secured a high rejiutation is this, that those who sincerely admire him may dare tell him the truth at times, and thus, if he have sensible friends, secure his progressive im- provement ; in other words, keep liim thinking. For without thinking, nothing consummate can be effected. Accept this, dear sir, as it is meant, a small testimony of the high gratification I have received from you and of the respectful and sincere kind wishes with which I am Your obedient S. T. Coleridge. Mathews, Esq., to be left at the Bristol Theatre. CC. TO JOSIAH WADE. Bristol, June 26, 1814. Dear Sir, — For I am unworthy to call any good man friend — much less you, whose hospitality and love I have abused ; accept, however, my intreaties for your forgive- ness, and for your prayers. Conceive a poor miserable wretch, who for many years has been attempting to beat off pain, by a constant recur- rence to the vice that reproduces it. Conceive a spirit in hell, employed in tracing out for others the road to that heaven, from which his crimes exclude him ! In short, conceive whatever is most wretched, helpless, and hope- less, and you will form as tolerable a notion of my state, as it is possible for a good man to have. 624 A MELANCHOLY EXILE [Aug, I used to think the text in St. James that " he who of- fended in one point, offends in all," very harsh ; bnt I now feel the awful, the tremendous truth of it. In the one crime of opium, what crime have 1 not made myself guilty of ! — Ingratitude to my Maker ! and to my bene- factors — injustice ! and iinnatural cruelty to my jioor childven ! — self -contempt for my repeated promise — breach, nay, too often, actual falsehood ! After my death, I earnestly entreat, that a full and un- qualified narration of my wretchedness, and of its guilty cause, may be made public, that at least some little good nx^j be effected by the direful example. May God Ahnighty bless you, and have mercy on your still affectionate, and in his heart, grateful S. T. Coleridge. CCI. TO JOHN MURRAY. Josiah Wade's, Esq., 2, Queen's Square, Bristol, August 2i, 1814. Dear Sir, — I have heard, from my friend Mr. Charles Lamb, writing by desire of Mr. Robinson, that you wish to have the justly-celebrated " Faust " ^ of Goethe trans- lated, and that some one or other of my partial friends have induced you to consider me as the man most likely 1 It is needless to say that Cole- ridge never even attempted a trans- lation of Faust. Whether there were initial dif3Bculties with regard to procuring the " whole of Goethe's works," and other books of refer- ence, or whether his heart failed him when he began to study the work with a view to translation, the ar- rangement with Murray fell through. A statement in the Table Talk for February 16, 183.3, that the task was abandoned on moral grounds, that he could not bring himself to famil- iarise the English public with " lan- guage, mucli of which was," he thought, " vulgar, licentious, and blasphemous," is not borne out by the tone of his letters to Murray, of July 29, August 31, 1814. No doubt the spirit of Faust, alike with re- gard to tlieology and morality, would at all times have been distasteful to him, but with regard to what actu- ally took place, he deceived himself in supposing that the feelings and scruples of old age would have pre- vailed in middle life. Memoirs of John Murray, i. 297 et seq. 1814] TO JOHN MURRAY 625 to execute the work adequately, those excepted, of course, whose higher power (established by the solid and satisfac- tory ordeal of the wide and rapid sale of their works) it might seem profanation to employ in any other manner than in the develojiment of their own intellectual organi- sation. I return my thanks to the recommender, whoever he be, and no less to you for your flattering faith in the recommendation ; and thinking, as I do, that among many volumes of praiseworthy German poems, the "Louisa" of Voss, and the "Faust" of Goethe, are the two, if not the only ones, that are emphatically original in their concep- tion, and characteristic of a new and peculiar sort of thinking and imagining, I should not be averse from exerting my best efforts in an attempt to import what- ever is importable of either or of both into our own language. But let me not be suspected of a presumption of which I am not consciously guilty, if I say that I feel two diffi- culties : one arising from long disuse of versification, added to what / know, better than the most hostile critic could inform me, of my comparative weakness ; and the other, that any work in Poetry strikes me with more than common awe, as proposed for realization by myself, be- cause from long habits of meditation on language, as the symbolical medium of the connection of Thought with Thought, and of Thought as affected and modified by Passion and Emotion, I should spend days in avoiding what I deemed faults, though with the full fore-knowledge that their admission would not have offended perhaps three of all my readers, and might be deemed Beauties by 300 — if so many there were ; and this not out of any re- spect for the Public (i. e. the persons who might happen to purchase and look over the Book), but from a hobby- horsical, superstitious regard to my own feelings and sense of duty. Language is the Sacred Fire in this Temple of Humanity, and the Muses are its especial and vestal 626 A MELANCHOLY EXILE [Sept. Priestesses. Though I cannot prevent the vile drugs and counterfeit Frankincense, which render its flame at once pitchy, glowing, and imsteady, I would yet be no volun- tary accomplice in the Sacrilege. AVith the commence- ment of a Public, commences the degradation of the Good and the Beautiful — both fade and retire before the accidentally Agreeable. " Othello " becomes a hol- low lip-worship ; and the " Castle Spectre " or any more peccant thing of Froth, Noise, and Impermanence, that may have overbillowed it on the restless sea of curi- osity, is the time Prayer of the Praise and Admiration. I thought it right to state to you these opinions of mine, that you might know that I think the Translation of the " Faust " a task demanding (from me, I mean) no ordi- nary efforts — and why ? This — that it is painful, very painful, and even odious to me, to attempt anything of a literary nature, with any motive oi pecuniary advantage; but that I bow to the all-wise Providence, which has made me a 2)00)' man, and therefore compelled me by other du- ties inspiring feelings, to bring eve7i my Intellect to the Market. And the finale is this. I should like to attempt the Translation. If you will mention your terms, at once and irrevocably (for I am an idiot at bargaining, and shrink from the very thought), I will return an answer by the next Post, whether in my present circumstances, I can or cannot undertake it. If I do, I will do it inunedi- ately ; but I must have all Goethe's works, which I can- not procure in Bristol ; for to give the " Faust " without a preliminary critical Essay would be worse than nothing, as far as regards the Public. If you were to ask me as a friend whether I think it would suit the General Taste, I should reply that I cannot calculate on caprice and acci- dent (for instance, some fashionable man or review ha}> pening to take it up favourably), but that otherwise my fears would be stronger than my hopes. Men of genius will admire it, of necessity. Those must, who think deep- 1814] TO DANIEL STUART 627 est and most imaginatively. Then " Louisa " would de- light all of good hearts. I remain, dear sir, with every respect, S. T. Coleridge. ecu. TO DANIEL STUART. Mr. Smith's, Ashley, Box, near Bath, September 12, 1814, My dear Sir, — I wrote some time ago to Mr. Smith, earnestly requesting your address, and entreating him to inform you of the dreadful state in which I was, when your kind letter must have arrived, during your stay at Bath. . . . But let me not complain. I ought to be and I trust I am, grateful for what I am, having escaped with my intellectual powers, if less elastic, yet not less vigor- ous, and with ampler and far more solid materials to ex- ert them on. We know nothing even of ourselves, till we know ourselves to be as nothing (a solemn truth, spite of point and antithesis, in which the thought has chanced to word itself) ! From this ivord of truth which the sore discipline of a sick bed has compacted into an indwelling reality, from this article, formerly, of speculative helief, but which [circumstances] have actualised into practical faith ^ I have learned to counteract calumny by self-re- proach, and not only to rejoice (as indeed from natural disposition, from the very constitution of my heart, I should have done at all periods of my life) at the tempo- ral prosperity, and increased and increasing reputation of my old fellow-labourers in philosophical, political, and po- etical literature, but to bear their neglect, and even their detraction, as if I had done nothing at all, when it would have asked no very violent strain of recollection for one or two of them to have considered, whether some part of their most successful somethings were not among the nothings of my intellectual no-doings. But all strange things are less strange than the sense of intellectual obli- 628 A MELANCHOLY EXILE [Sept. gations. Seldom do I ever see a Keview, yet almost as often as that seldomness permits have I smiled at find- ing myself attacked in strains of thought which would never have occurred to the writer, had he not directly or indirectly learned them from mj'self. This is among the salutary effects, even of the dawn of actual religion on the mind, that we begin to reflect on our duties to God and to ourselves as permanent beings, and not to flatter our- selves by a superficial auditing of our negative duties to our neighbours, or mere acts in transitu to the transitory. I have too sad an account to settle between myself that is and has been, and myself that can not cease to be, to al- low me a single complaint that, for all my labours in be- haK of truth against the Jacobin party, then against mili- tary despotism abroad, against weakness and despondency and faction and factious goodiness at home, I have never received from those in power even a verbal acknowledg- ment ; thoTigh by mere reference to dates, it might be proved that no small number of fine speeches in the House of Commons, and elsewhere, originated, directly or indi- rectly, in my Essays and conversations.^ I dare assert, that the science of reasoning and judging concerning the productions of literature, the characters and measures of public men, and the events of nations, by a systematic subsumption of them, under Principles, deduced from the nature of man, and that of prophesying concerning the future (in contradiction to the hopes or fears of the majority) by a careful cross-examination of some period, the most analogous in past history, as learnt from contem- porary authorities, and the proportioning of the ultimate event to the likenesses as modified or counteracted by the differences, was as good as unkno\\Ti in the public prints, ' " The thoughts of Coleridge, age, the great moral truths which even during the whirl of passing were then being proclaimed in char- events, discovered their hidden acters of fire to mankind."' Alison's springs, and poured forth, in an ob- History of Europe, ix. 3 (ninth edi- Bcure style, and to an unheeding tion). 1814] TO DANIEL STUART 629 before the year 1795-96. Earl Darnley, on the appear- ance of my letters in the " Courier " concerning the Spaniards,! bluntly asked me, whether I had lost my senses, and quoted Lord Grenville at me. If you should happen to cast your eye over my character of Pitt,^ my two letters to Fox, my Essays on the French Emj^ire under Buonaparte, compared with the Roman, under the first Emperors ; that on the probability of the restoration of the Bourbons, and those on Ireland, and Catholic Emancipation (which last unfortunately remain for the greater part in manuscript, Mr. Street not relishing them), and should add to them my Essays in " The Friend " on Taxation, and the supposed effects of war on our commer- cial jsrosperity ; those on international law in defence of our siege of Copenhagen ; and if you had before you the lonff letter which I wrote to Sir G. Beaumont in 1806,^ concerning the inevitableness of a war with America, and the sj^ecific dangers of that war, if not provided against by si3ecific pre-arrangements ; with a list of their Frigates, so called, with their size, number, and weight of metal, the characters of their commanders, and the proportion suspected of British seamen. — I have luckily a co})y of it, a rare accident with me. — I dare amuse myself, I say, with the belief, that by far the better half of all 1 The eight " Letters on the Span- Six Letters to Judge Fletcher on iards," which Coleridge contributed Catliolic Emancipation, ■which ap- to the Courier in December, Janii- peared at irregular intervals in the ary, 1809-10, are reprinted in Es- Courier, September-December, 1814, says on His Own Times, ii. 593-670. are reprinted in Essays on His Own ^ The character of Pitt appeared Times, iii. 077-733. in the Morning Post, March 19, 1800 ; The Essay on Taxation forms the the letters to Fox, on November 4, seventh Essay of Section the First, 9, 1802 ; the Essays on the French on the Principles of Political Know- Empire, etc., September 21, 25, and ledge. The Friend ; Coleridge'' s October 2, 1802 ; the Essay on the M'orks, Harper & Brothers, 1853, restoration of the Bourbons, Octo- ii. 208-222. bar, 1802. They are reprinted in ^ Neither the original nor the the second volume of Essays on His transcript of this letter has, to my Own Times, knowledge, been preserved. G30 A MELANCHOLY EXILE [Sept. these, would road to 3'ou now, AS history. And what have I got for all this ? AVhat for my first daring to blow the trumpet of sound philosophy against the Lancastrian fac- tion? The answer is not complex. Unthanked, and left worse than defenceless, by the friends of the Gov^ernment and the Establishment, to be undermined or outraged by all the malice, hatred, and calumny of its enemies ; and to think and toil, with a patent for all the abuse, and a transfer to others of all the honours. In the " Quarterly " Review of the " Remorse " (delayed till it could by no possibility be of the least service to me, and the compli- ments in which are as senseless and silly as the censures ; every fault ascribed to it, being either no improbability at all, or from the very essence and end of the drama no DRAMATIC improbability, without noticing any one of the REAL faults, and there are many glaring, and one or two DEADLY sins in the tragedy) — in this Review, I am abused, and insolently reproved as a man, with reference to my supposed private habits, for not publishing. Woidd to heaven I never had ! To this very moment I am embarrassed and tormented, in consequence of the non-payment of the subscribers to " The Friend." But I could rebut the charge ; and not merely say, but prove, that there is not a man in England, whose thoughts, im- ages, words, and erudition have been published in larger quantities than mine; though I must admit, not hy, or /or, myself. Believe me, if I felt any pain from these things, I should not make this e?rpose ; for it is constitu- tional with me, to shrinh from all talk or communication of what gnaws within me. And, if I felt any real anger, I should not do what I fully intend to do, publish two long satires, in Drydenic verse, entitled " Puff and Slan- der." 1 But I seem to myself to have endured the hoot- 1 He reverts to this "turning of dated January 5, 1818. He threat- the worm " in a letter to Morgan ened to attack publishers and print- 1814] TO DANIEL STUART 631 ings and peltings, and " Go up bald head " (2 Kings, ch. ii. vs. 23, 24) quite long enough ; and shall therefore send forth my two she-bears, to tear in pieces the most obnoxious of these ragged children in intellect ; and to scare the rest of these mischievous little mud-larks back to their crevice-nests, and lurking holes. While those who know me best, spite of my many infirmities, love me best, I am determined, henceforward, to treat my unpro- voked enemies in the spirit of the Tiberian adage, Oderint modo timeant. And now, having for the very first time in my whole life opened out my whole feelings and thoughts concern- ing my past fates and fortunes, I will draw anew on your patience, by a detail of my present operations. My med- ical friend is so well satisfied of my convalescence, and that nothing now remains, but to superinduce j^ositive health on a system from which disease and its removable causes have been driven out, that he has not merely con- sented to, but advised my leaving Bristol, for some rural retirement. I coidd indeed pursue nothing uninterrupt- edly in that city. Accordingly, I am now joint tenant with Mr. Morgan, of a sweet little cottage, at Ashley, haK a mile from Box, on the Bath road. I breakfast every morning before nine ; work till one, and walk or read till three. Thence, till tea-time, chat or read some lounge book, or correct what I have written. From six to eight work again ; from eight till bed-time, play whist, or the little mock billiard called bagatelle, and then sup, and go to bed. My morning hours, as the longest and most im- portant division, I keep sacred to my most important era in " a vig'orons and harmonious stalment of " these two long' satires." satire " to be called " PnlY and Slan- Letter in British Museum. MSS. der." I am inclined to think that Addit. 25612. Samuel Taylor Cole- the remarkable verses entitled " A ridge, a Narrative by J. Dykes Character," which were first printed Campbell, p. 234, note; Poetical in 1834, were an accomplished in- Works, pp. 195, 642. 632 A MELANCHOLY EXILE [Sept. Work,i wliic'li is printing at Bristol ; two of my friends having- taken ui)on themselves the risk. It is so long since I have conversed with you, that I cannot say, whether the subject will, or will not be interesting to you. The title is " Christianity, the one true Philosophy ; or. Five Treatises on the Logos, or Communicative Intelli- gence, natural, human, and divine." To which is prefixed a prefatory Essay, on the laws and limits of toleration and liberality, illustrated by fragments of AUTO-biography. The first Treatise — Logos Propaideuticos, or the Science of systematic thinking in ordinary life. The second — Logos Architectonicus, or an attempt to apply the con- structive or Mathematical process to Metaphysics and Natural Theology. The third — 'O Aoyo? 6 Ocdi'Opwn-o'; (the divine logos incarnate) — a full commentary on the Gos- pel of St. John, in development of St. Paul's doctrine of preaching Christ alone, and Him crucified. The fourth — on Spinoza and Spinozism, with a life of B. Spinoza. This entitled Logos Agonistes. The fifth and last, Logos Alogos (i. c. Logos Illogicus), or on modern Unitarian- ism, its causes and effects. The whole will be comprised in two portly octavos, and the second treatise will be the only one which will, and from the nature of the subject 1 A ■work which should contain tated to his amanuensis and disciple, all knowledge and proclaim all phi- J. H. Green, and is now in my pos- losophy had been Coleridge's dream session. A commentary on the Gos- from the beginning, and, as no such pels and some of the Epistles, of work Avas ever produced, it may be which the original MS. is extant, said to have been his dream to the and of which I possess a transcrip- end. And yet it was something tion, was an accomplished fact. I more than a dream. Besides innu- say nothing of the actual or relative merable fragments of metaphysical value of this unpublished matter, and theological speculation which but it should be put on record that have passed into my hands, he actu- it exists, that much labour, ill- ally did compose and dictate two judged perhaps, and ineffectual la- large quarto volumes on formal logic, bour, was expended on the outworks which are extant. " Something more of the fortresses, and that the walls than a volume," a portentous intro- and bastions are standing to the duction to his magnum opus, was die- present day. 1814] TO DANIEL STUART 633 must, be unintelligible to the great majority even of well educated readers. The purpose of the whole is a philo- sophical defence of the Articles of the Church, as far as they respect doctrine, as points of faith. If originality be any merit, this Work will have that, at all events, from the first page to the last. The evenings I have employed in composing a series of Essays on the principles of Genial Criticism concerning the fine Arts, especially those of Statuary and Painting ; ^ and of these four in title, but six or more in size, have been published in "Felix Farley's Bristol Journal;" a strange plan for such a publication ; but my motive was originally to serve poor Allston, who is now exhibiting his pictures at Bristol. Oh ! dear sir ! do pray if you have the power or opportunity use your influence with " The Sun," not to continue that accursed system of cal- umny and detraction against Allston. The articles, by whomever written, were a disgrace to human nature, and, to my positive knowledge, argued only less ignorance than malignity. Mr. Allston has been cruelly used. Good God ! what did I not hear Sir George Beamnont say, with my own ears ! Nay, he wrote to me after repeated exam- ination of AUston's great picture, declaring himself a complete convert to all my opinions of AUston's para- mount genius as a historical painter. What did I not hear Mr. West say ? After a full hour's examination of the picture, he pointed out one thing he thought out of harmony (and which against my earnest desire Allston altered and had reason to repent sorely) and then said, " I have shot my bolt. It is as near perfection as a pic- ture can be ! " . . . 1 The appearance of these " Essays 1885, in his Miscellanies, Esthetic on the Fine Arts "was announced in and Literary, pp. 5-35. Coleridge the Bristol Journal of Aiigust G, himself " set a high value '' on these 1814. They were reprinted in 1837 essays. See Table Talk of January by Cottle, in his Early Recollections, 1, 1834. ii. 201-240, and by Thomas Ashe in 634 A MELANCHOLY EXILE [Oct. But to return to my Essays. I shall publish no more in Bristol. What they could do, they have done. But I have carefully corrected and polished those already pub- lished, and shall carry them on to sixteen or twenty, con- taining- animated descriptions of all the best pictures of the great masters in ICngland, with characteristics of the great masters from Giotto to Correggio. The first three Essays were of necessity more austere ; for till it could be determined what beauty was ; whether it was beauty merely because it pleased, or pleased because it was beauty, it would have been as absurd to talk of general principles of taste, as of tastes. Now will this series, pu- rified from all accidental, local, or personal references, tint or serve the " Courier " in the present dearth ? I have no hesitation in declaring them the best compositions /have ever written. I could regularly supply two Essays a week, and one political Essay. Be so good as to speak to Mr. Street.^ I could send him up eight or ten at once. Make my best respects to Mrs. Stuart. I shall be very anxious to hear from you. Your affectionate and grateful friend, S. T. Coleridge. CCIII. TO THE SAME. " October 30, 1814." Dear Stuart, — After I had finished the third letter,^ I thought it the best I had ever written ; but, on re- perusal, I perfectly agree with you. It is misty, and like most misty compositions, lahorioiis, — what the Italians call FATicoso. I except the two last paragraphs (" In this guise my Lord," to — " aversabitur "). These I ^ The -working editor of the in the Couri'er, October 21, 1814. It Courier. is reprinted in Essays on His Own 2 The third letter to Judge Times, iii. 090-697. Fletcher ou Ireland was published 1814] TO DANIEL STUART 635 still like. Yet what I wanted to say is very important, because it strikes at the ROOT of all legislative Jacob- inism. The view which our laws take of robbery, and even murder, not as guilt of which God alone is pre- sumed to be the Judge, but as CRI3IES depriving the King of one of his subjects, rendering dangerous and abating the value of the King's PIigh.ways, etc., may suggest some notion of my meaning. Jack, Tom, and Harry have no existence in the eye of the law, except as included in some form or other of the permanent property of the realm. Just as, on the other hand. Religion has nothing to do with Ranks, Estates, or Offices; but exerts itself wholly on what is personal, viz., our souls, consciences, and the morality of our actions, as opposed to mere legality. Ranks, Estates, Offices, etc., were made for persons 1 exclaims Major Cartwright ^ and his partizans. Yes, I reply, as far as the divine administration is con- cerned, but Imman jurisprudence, wisely aware of its own weakness, and sensible how incommensurate its powers are with so vast an object as the well-being of individuals, as individuals, reverses the position, and knows nothing of persons, other than as properties, officiaries, subjects. The preambles of our old statutes concerning aliens (as foreign merchants) and Jews, are all so many illustrations of my principle ; the strongest instance of opposition to which, and therefore characteristic of the present age, was the attempt to legislate for animals by Lord Erskine ; ^ 1 Jolin Cartwright, 1740-1824, Lords May 15, 1809, and was passed known as Major Cartwright, was an without a division. The Bill was ardent parliamentary reformer and read a second time in the House of an advocate of universal suffrage. He Commons but was rejected on going refused to fight against the United into committee, the opposition being States and wrote Letters on Ameri- led by Windham in a speech of can Independence (1774). considerable ability. 2 Lord Erskine's Bill for the Pre- By " imperfect " duties Coleridge vention of Cruelty to Animals was probable means " duties of imper- brought forward in the House of feet obligation." 636 A MELANCHOLY EXILE [Oct. that is, not merely interfering with persons as persons ; or with what are called by moralists the imperfect duties (a very obscure phrase for obligations of conscience, not capable of being- realized (^perfectd) by legal penalties), but extending personality to things. In saying this, I mean only to designate the general spirit of human law. Every principle, on its application to practice, must be limited and modified by circum- stances ; our reason by our common sense. Still, how- ever, the PRINCIPLE is most important, as aim, rule, and guide. Guided by this spirit, our ancestors repealed the Puritan Law, by which adidtery was to be punished with death, and brought it back to a civil damage. So, too, actions for seduction. Not that the Judge or Legislator did not feel the guilt of such crimes, but that the Law knows nothing about guilt. So, in the Exchequer, com- mon debts are sued for on the plea that the creditor is less able to pay our Lord the King, etc., etc. Now, contrast with this, the preamble to the first French Constitution, and I think my meaning will become more intelligible ; that the pretence of considering persons not states, happi- ness not property, always has elided, and always will end, in making a new state, or corporation, infinitely more oppressive than the former ; and in which the real freedom of persons is as much less, as the things inter- fered with are more numerous, and more minute. Com- pare the duties, exacted from a United Irislmian by the Confederacy, with those required of him by the law of the land. This, I think, not ill expressed, in the two last periods of the fourth paragraph. " Thus in order to sacrifice . . . confederation." Of course I immediately recognised your hand in the Article concerning the " Edinburgh Review," and much pleased I was with it ; and equally so in finding, from your letter, that we had so completely coincided in our 1814] TO DANIEL STUART 637 feelings, concerning- that wicked Lord Nelson Article.^ If there be one thing on earth that can outrage an honest man's feelings, it is the assumption of austere morality for the purposes of personal slander. And the gross ingratitude of the attack ! In the name of God what have we to do with Lord Nelson's mistresses, or domestic quarrels ? Sir A. Ball, himself exemplary in this respect, told me of his own personal knowledge Lady Nelson was enough to drive any man wild. . . . She had no sympa- thy with his acute sensibilities, and his alienation was effected, though not shown, before he knew Lady Hamil- ton, by being heart starved, still more than by being teased and tormented by her sullenness. Observe that Sir A. Ball detested Lady Hamilton. To the same en- thusiastic sensibilities which made a fool of him with regard to his Emma, his country owed the victories of the Nile, Copenhagen, and Trafalgar, and the heroic spirit of all the officers reared under him. When I was at Bowood there was a plan suggested between Bowles and myself, to engage among the cleverest literary characters of our knowledge, six or eight, each of whom was to engage to take some one subject of those into which the " Edinburgh Review " might be aptly di- vided ; as Science, Classical Knowledge, Style, Taste, Philosophy, Political Economy, Morals, Religion, and Patriotism ; to state the number of Essays he could write and the time at which he would deliver each ; and so go through the whole of the " Review " : — to be i^ublished in the first instance in the " Courier " during the Recess of Parliament. We thought of Southey, Wordsworth, Crowe, 1 This article, a review of " The for April, 1814. The attack is Letters of Lord Nelson to Lady mainly directed against Lady Ham- Hamilton ; with a .Supplement of Uton, but Nelson, with every pre- Interesting Letters by Distinguished tence of reluctance and of general Personages. 2 vols. Svo. Lovewell admiration, is also censured on and Co. London. 1814," appeared moral grounds, and his letters are in No. xxi. of The Quarterly Review, held up to ridicule. 638 A MELANCnOLY EXILE [Nov. Crabbe, AVoUaston ; and Bowles thought he could answer for several single Articles from persons of the highest rank in the Church and our two Universities. Such a plan, adequately executed, seven or eight years ago, woidd have gone near to blow up this Magazine of Mischief. As to Ridgeway ^ and the Essays, I have not only no objection to my name being given, but I should prefer it. I have just as much right to call myself dramatically an Irish Protestant, when writing in the character of one, as Swift had to call liimseK a draper.^ I have waded through as mischievous a Work, as two huge quartos, very dull, can be, by a Mr. Edward Wakefield, called an Account of Ireland. Of all scribblers these agricultural quarto-mongers are the vilest. I thought of making the affairs of Ireland, in toto, chiefly however with reference to the Catholic Question, a new series, and of republish- ing in the Appendix to the eight letters to Mr. Justice Fletcher, Lord Clare's (then Chancellor Fitzgibbon's) admirable speech, worthy of Demosthenes, of which a copy was brought me over from Dublin by Rickman, and given to Lamb. It was never printed in England, nor is it to be procured. I never met with a person who had heard of it. Except that one main point is omitted (and it is remarkable that the poet Edmund Spenser in his Dialogue on Ireland ^ is the only writer who has urged this point), \'iz., the foi'cing upon savages the laws of a comparatively civilised people, instead of adojDt- ing measures gradually to render them susceptible of those laws, this speech might be deservedly called the philoso- ^ A partner in the publishing' firm why he adopted the French instead of Ridg'eway and Symonds. Letters of the English spelling' of the -word of R. Southey, iii. 05. does not seem to have been satisfac- ^ The reference is to Swift's fa- torily explained. Notes and Que- mous " Drapior " Letters. Swift ries, III. Series, x. 5.5. ■WTote in the assumed character of a ^ fhe Vieiv of the State of Ire- draper. and dated his letters " From land, first published in 1033. my shop in St. Francis Street," but 1814] TO JOHN KENYON 639 phy of the past and present liistory of Ireland. It makes me smile to observe, how all the mediocre men exult in a Ministry that have been so successful without any over- powering talent of eloquence, etc. It is true that a series of gigantic events like those of the last eighteen months, will lift up any cock-boat to the skies upon their billows ; but no less true that, sooner or later, parliamentary talent will be found absolutely requisite for an English Ministry. With sincere regard and esteem, your obliged S. T. Coleridge. CCIV. TO JOHN KENYON.l Mr. B. Morgan's, Bath, November 3 [1814]. My dear Sir, — At Binn's, Cheap Street, I found Jeremy Taylor's " Dissuasive from Popery," in the largest and only complete edition of his Polemical Tracts. Mr. Binns had no objection to the paragraphs being transcribed any morning or evening at his house, and I put in a piece of paper with the words at which the transcript should begin and with which end — p. 450, 1. 5, to p. 451, 1. 31, I believe. But indeed I am ashamed, rather I feel awkward and uncomfortable at obtruding on you so long a task, much longer than I had imagined. I don't like to use any words that might give you W7ipleasure, but I can- not help fearing that, like a child spoilt by your and Mrs. Kenyon's great indulgence, I may have been betrayed ^ John Kenyon, 1783-18.56, a poet is known." With Coleridge him- and philanthropist. He settled at self the tie was less close, but he Woodlands nearStoweyin 1802, and was, I know, a most kind friend to became acquainted with Poole and the poet's wife during those anxious Poole's friends. He was on espe- years, 1814-181!), when her children cially intimate terms with Southey, were growing up, and she had little who writes of him (January 11, else to depend upon but South ey's 1827) to his still older friend Wynne, generous protection and the moiety as " one of the very best and pleas- of the Wedgwood annuity. Ken- antest men whom I have ever known, yon's friendship with the Brownings one whom every one likes at first belongs to a later chapter of literary sight, and likes better the longer he history. 640 A MELANCHOLY EXILE [April into prcsumiug on it more than I ought. Indeed, my dear sir ! I do feel very keenly how exceeding kind you and Mrs. K. have been to me. It makes this scrawl of mine look dim in a way that was less unconunon with me formerly than it has been for the last eight or ten years. But to return, or turn off, to the good old Bishop. It would be worth your while to read Taylor's " Letter on Original Sin," and what follows. I compare it to an old statue of Janus, with one of the faces, that which looks towards his opponents, the controversial phiz in highest preservation, — the force of a mighty one, all power, all life, — the face of a God rushing on to battle, and, in the same moment, enjoying at once both contest and triumph ; the other, that which should have been the countenance that looks toward his followers, that with which he sub- stitutes his own opinion, all weather eaten, dim, useless, a Ghost in incn'hie, such as you may have seen represented in many of Piranesi's astomiding engi^avings from Rome and the Campus ISIartius. Jer. Taylor's discursive intel- lect dazzle-darkened his intuition. The principle of be- coming all things to all men, if by a7iy means he might save any, with him as with Burke, thickened the protect- ing epidermis of the tact-nerve of truth into something like a callus. But take him all in all, such a miraculous combination of erudition, broad, deep, and omnigenous ; of logic subtle as well as acute, and as robust as agile ; of psychological insight, so fine yet so secure ! of public prudence and practical sagoiess that one ray of creative Faith woidd have lit up and transfigured into wisdom, and of genuine imagination, with its streaming face uni- fying all at one moment like that of the setting sun when through an interspace of blue sky no larger than itself, it emerges from the cloud to sink behind the mountain, but a face seen only at starts, when some breeze from the higher air scatters, for a moment, the cloud of butterfly fancies, which flutter around him like a morning-garment 1815] TO LADY BEAUMONT 641 of ten thousand colours — (now how shall I get out of this sentence ? the tail is too big to be taken up into the coiler's mouth) — well, as I was saying, I believe such a comislete man hardly shall we meet again. May God bless you and yours ! Your obliged S. T. Coleridge. P. S. My address after Tuesday will be (God permit- ting) Mr. Page's, Surgeon, Cahie. J. Kenyon, Esq., 9, Argyle Street. CCV. TO LADY BEAUIVIONT. April 3, 1815. Dear Madam, — Should your Ladyship still have among your papers those lines of mine to Mr. Words- worth after his recitation of the poem on the growth of his own &pirit,i which you honoured by wishing to take a copy, you would oblige me by enclosing them for me, addressed — " Mr. Coleridge, Calne, Wilts." Of " The Excursion," excluding the tale of the ruined cottage, which I have ever thought the finest poem in our language, comparing it with any of the same or similar length, I can truly say that one half the number of its beauties would make all the beauties of all his contemporary poets collectively moimt to the balance : — but yet — the fault may be in my own mind — I do not think, I did not feel, it equal to the work on the growth of his own spirit. As proofs meet me in every part of " The Excursion " that the poet's genius has not flagged, I have sometimes fan- cied that, having by the conjoint operation of his own experiences, feelings, and reason, himself convinced him- self oi truths, which the generality of persons have either taken for granted from their infancy, or, at least, adopted in early life, he has attached all their own depth and weight to doctrines and words, which come almost as tru- ^ Poetical Works, p. ITG; Appendix H, pp. 525, 526. 642 A MELANCHOLY EXILE [April isms or commonplacos to others. From this state of mind, in which I was comparing Wordsworth with himself, I was roused by the infamous " Edinburgh " review of the poem. If ever guilt lay on a writer's head, and if malig- nity, slander, hypocrisy, and self-contradictory baseness can constitute guilt, I dare openly, and openly (please God !) I will, impeach the writer of that article of it. These are awful times — a dream of dreams ! To be a prophet is, and ever has been, an unthankful office. At the Illumination for the Peace I furnished a design for a friend's transparency — a vrdture, with the head of Na- poleon, chained to a rock, and Britannia bending down, with one hand stretching out the wing of the vulture, and with the other clipping it with shears, on the one blade of which was written Nelson, on the other Wellington. The motto — We 've fought for peace, and conquer'd it at last ; The ravening Vulture's leg is fetter'd fast. Britons, rejoice ! and yet be wary too ! The chain may break, the dipt wing sprout anew.^ And since I have conversed with those who first returned from France, I have weekly expected the event. Napo- leon's object at present is to embarrass the Allies, and to cool the enthusiasm of their subjects. The latter he un- fortmiately will be too successful in. In London, my Lady, it is scarcely possible to distinguish the oisinions of the people from the ravings and railings of the mob ; but in country towns we must be blind not to see the real state of the popidar mind. I do not know whether your Lady- ship read my letters to Judge Fletcher. I can assure you it is no exaggerated picture of the predominance of Jacob- inism. In this small town of Calne five hundred volun- teers were raised in the last war. I am persuaded that five could not be raised now. A considerable landowner, ^ Poetical Works, p. 450. 1815] TO LADY BEAUMONT 643 aud a man of great observation, said to me last week, " A famine, sir, could scarce have produced more evil than the Corn Bill ^ has done under the present circumstances." I speak nothing of the Bill itseK, except that, after the closest attention and the most sedulous inquiry after facts from landowners, farmers, stewards, millers, and bakers, I am convinced that both opponents and advocates were in extremes, and that an evil produced by many causes was by many remedies to have been cured, not by the imiversal elixir of one sweeping law. My poems will be put to press by the middle of June. A number adequate to one volume are already in the hands of my friends at Bristol, imder conditions that they are to be published at all events, even though I should not add another volume, which I never had so little reason to doubt. Within the last two days I have composed three poems, containing 500 lines in the whole. Mr. and Mrs. Morgan present their respective compli- ments to your Ladysliip and Sir George. I remain, my Lady, your Ladyship's obliged humble servant, ^^ S. T. Coleridge. CCVI. TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. Calne, May 30, 1815. My HONOURED Friend, — On my return from Devizes, whither I had gone to procure some vaccine matter (the small-pox having appeared in Calne, and Mrs. Morgan's sister believing herself never to have had it), I found your letter : and I will answer it immediately, though to answer it as I coidd wish to do would require more recollection ^ In 1815 an act was broug-ht in a quarter. During the spring of the by Mr. Robinson (afterwards Lord year, January-March, while the bill Ripon) and passed, pennitting the was being- discussed, bread-riots took importation of corn when tlie price place in London and Westminster, of home-grown wheat reached 80». 644 A MELANCHOLY EXILE [May and arrangement of thought than is always to be com- manded on the instant. But I dare not trust my own habit of procrastination, and, do what I wouki, it would be impossible in a single letter to give more than general con^^ctions. But, even after a tenth or twentieth letter, I should still be disquieted as knowing how poor a substi- tute must letters be for a viva voce examination of a work with its author, line by line. It is most uncomfortable from many, many causes, to express anything but sym- pathy, and gratulation to an absent friend, to whom for the more substantial third of a life we have been habit- uated to look up : especially where a love, though increased by many and different influences, yet begun and throve and knit its joints in the percej)tion of his superiority. It is not in written wo}'ds, but by the hundred modifica- tions that looks make and tone, and denial of the Jull sense of the very words used, that one can reconcile the struggle between sincerity and diffidence, between the per- suasion that I am in the right, and that as deej) though not so vivid conviction, that it may be the positiveness of ignorance rather than the certainty of insight. Then come the human frailties, the dread of giving pain, or exciting suspicions of alteration and dyspathy, in short, the almost inevitable insincerities between imperfect beings, however sincerely attached to each other. It is hard (and I am Protestant enough to doubt whether it is right) to confess the whole truth (even q/" one's self, human nature scarce endures it, even to one's self), but to me it is still harder to do this of and to a revered friend. But to your letter. First, I had never determined to print the lines addressed to you. I lent them to Lady Beaumont on her promise that they should be copied, and returned ; and not knowing of any copy in my own pos- session, I sent for them, because I was making a MS. collection of all my poems — publishable and unpublish- able — and still more perhaps for the handwriting of the 1815] TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 645 only perfect copy, that entrusted to her ladyship. Most assuredly, I never once thought of printing them without having consulted you, and since I lit on the first rude draught, and corrected it as well as I could, I wanted no additional reason for its not being published in my life- time than its personality respecting myseK. After the opinions I had given publicly, in the preference of " Lyci- das " (moral no less than poetical) to Cowley's Monody, I could not have printed it consistently. It is for the bio- grapher, not the poet, to give the accidents of individual life. Whatever is not representative, generic, may be in- deed most poetically expressed, but is not poetry. Other- wise, I confess, your prudential reasons would not have weighed with me, except as far as my name might haply injure your reputation, for there is nothing in the lines, as far as your powers are concerned, which I have not as fully expressed elsewhere ; and I hold it a miserable cow- ardice to withliold a deliberate opinion only because the man is alive. Secondly, for " The Excursion," I feared that had I been silent concerning " The Excursion," Lady Beaumont would have drawn some strange inference ; and j^et I had scarcely sent off the letter before I repented that I had not rim that risk rather than have approach to dispraise communicated to you by a third person. But what did my criticism amount to, reduced to its full and naked sense ? This, that comparatively with the former poem, " The Excursion," as far as it was new to me, had disap- pointed my expectations ; that the excellencies were so many and of so high a class that it was impossible to attribute the inferiority, if any such really existed, to any flagging of the writer's own genius — and that I conjec- tured that it might have been occasioned by the influence of self-established convictions having g-iven to certain thoughts and expressions a depth and force which they had not for readers in general. In order, therefore, to ex- G4:Q A MELANCHOLY EXILE [May plain the disajijiointment^ I must recall to your mind what my expectations were: and, as these again were founded on the supposition that (in whatever order it might be published) the poem on the growth of your own mind was as the ground i)lot and the roots, out of which "The Re- cluse " was to have sprung up as the tree, as far as [there was] the same sap in both, I expected them, doubtless, to have formed one complete whole ; but in matter, form, and product to be different, each not only a distinct but a different work. In the first I had found " themes by thee first sung aright," Of smiles spontaneous and mysterious fears (The first-born they of reason and twin-birth) Of tides obedient to external force, And currents self-determin'd, as might seem, Or by some central breath ; of moments awful, Now in thy inner life, and now abroad, When power stream'd from thee, and thy soul received The light reflected as a light bestowed ; Of fancies fair, and milder hours of youth, Hyblaean murmurs of poetic thought Industrious in its joy, in vales and glens Native or outland, lakes and famous hlUs ! Or on the lonely highroad, when the stars Were rising ; or by secret mountain streams, The guides and the companions of thy way ; \ Of more than fancy — of the social sense Distending wide, and man beloved as man, Where France in all her towns lay vibrating, Ev'n as a bark becalm'd beneath the burst Of Heaven's immediate thunder, when no cloud Is visible, or shadow on the main ! For Thou wevt there, thy own brows garlanded, Amid the tremor of a realm aglow, Amid a mighty nation jubilant. When from the general heart of human kind Hope sprang forth, like a full-born Deity ! / 1815] TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 647 Of that dear Hope afflicted, and amaz'd, So homeward sunimon'd ! thenceforth calm and sure From the dread watch-tower of man's absolute self, With light unwaning on her eyes, to look Far on ! herself a glory to behold, The Angel of the vision ! Then (last strain) Of duty, chosen laws controlling choice. Action and Joy ! An Orphic song iJideed, A song divine of high and passionate truths, To their own music chaunted ! Indeed, through the whole of that Poem, /xe kvpa ns €icre7rv€Do-€ fj-ovaLKwrdrr]. This I Considered as " The Excur- sion ; " 1 and the second, as "The Recluse " I had (from what I had at different times gathered from your conver- sation on the Place [Grasmere]) anticipated as commen- cing with you set down and settled in an abiding home, and that with the description of that home you were to begin a 2)^ii^oso2)hical poem, the result and fruits of a 1 It would seem that Coleridge had either overlooked or declined to put faith in Wordsworth's Apol- ogy for The Excursion, which ap- peared in the Preface to the First Edition of 1814. He was, of course, familiar with the " poem on the growth of your mind," the hitherto unnamed and unpublished Prelude, and he must have been at least equally familiar with the earlier hooks of The Excursion. ^Vlly then was he disappointed with the poem as a whole, and what had he looked for at Wordsworth's hands ? Not, it would seem, for an "ante-chapel," but for the sanctuary itself. He had been stirred to the depths by the recitation of The Prelude at Coleorton, and in his lines "To a Gentleman," which he quotes in this letter, he recapitulates the argu- ments of the poem. This he consid- ered was The Excursion, " an Orphic song indeed " / and as he listened the melody sank into his soul. But that was but an exordium, a " prelusive strain " to The Becluse, which might indeed iuclude the Grasmere frag- ment, the story of Margaret and so forth, but which in the form of poetry would convey the substance of divine philosophy. He had looked for a second Milton who would put Lucretius to a double shame, for a "philosophic poem," which would justify anew "the ways of God to men ; " and in lieu of this pageant of the imagination there was Wordsworth prolific of moral discourse, of scenic and per- sonal narrative — a prophet indeed, but " unmindful of the heavenly Vision." 648 A MELANCHOLY EXILE [May spirit so framed and so disciplined as had been told in the former. Whatever in Lucretius is poetry is not philosophical, whatever is philosophical is not poetry ; and in the very pride of confident hope I looked forward to " The Re- cluse " as the first and only true philosophical poem in existence. Of course, I expected the colours, music, \ imaginative life, and passion of 'poetry ; hut the matter and arrangement of philosophy ; not doubting from the advantages of the subject that the totality of a system was not only capable of being harmonised with, but even calculated to aid, the unity (beginning, middle, and end) of a poem. Thus, whatever the length of the work might be, still it was a determinate length ; of the subjects announced, each would have its own appointed place, and, excluding repetitions, each would relieve and rise in interest above the other. I supposed you first to have meditated the faculties of man in the abstract, in their correspondence with his sphere of action, and, first in the feeling, touch, and taste, then in the eye, and last in the ear, — to have laid a solid and immovable foundation for the edifice by removing the sandy sophisms of Locke, and the mechanic dogmatists, and demonstrating that the senses were living growths and developments of the mind and spirit, in a much juster as well as higher sense, than the mind can be said to be formed by the senses. Next, I understood that you would take the human race in the concrete, have exploded the absurd notion of Pope's "Essay on Man," Darwin, and all the countless believers even (strange to say) among Christians of man's having progressed from an ourang-outang state — so contrary to all history, to all religion, nay, to all possibility — to have affirmed a Fall in some sense, as a fact, the possibility of which cannot be understood from the nature of the will, but the reality of which is attested by experience and conscience. Fallen men contemplated in the different 1816] TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 649 ages of the world, and in the different states — savage, barbarous, civilised, the lonely cot, or borderer's wigwam, the village, the manufacturing town, seaport, city, univer- sities, and, not disguising the sore evils under which the whole creation groans, to point out, however, a manifest scheme of redemption, of reconciliation from this enmity with Nature — what are the obstacles, the Antichrist that must be and already is — and to conclude by a grand didactic swell on the necessary identity of a true philo- sophy with true religion, agreeing in the results and differ- ing only as the analytic and synthetic process, as discur- sive from intuitive, the former chiefly useful as perfecting the latter ; in short, the necessity of a general revolution in the modes of developing and disciplining the human mind by the substitution of life and intelligence (consid- ered in its different powers from the plant up to that state in which the difference of degree becomes a new kind (man, self -consciousness), but yet not by essential opposition) for the philosophy of mechanism, which, in everything that is most worthy of the human intellect, strikes Death, and cheats itself by mistaking clear images for distinct conceptions, and which idly demands concep- tions where intuitions alone are possible or adequate to the majesty of the Truth. In short, facts elevated into theory — theory into laws — and laws into living and intelligent powers — true idealism necessarily perfecting itself in realism, and realism refining itself into idealism. 7 Such or something like this was the plan I had sup- posed that you were engaged on. Your own words will therefore exj^lain my feelings, viz., that your object " was not to convey recondite, or refined truths, but to place com- monplace truths in an interesting point of view." Now this I suppose to have been in your two volumes of poems, as far as was desirable or possible, without an insight into the whole truth. How can common truths be made permanently interesting but by being bottomed on our 650 A MELANCHOLY EXILE [May commoii nature ? It is only by the profounclest insight into numbers and quantity that a sublimity and even religious wonder become attached to the simplest opera- tions of arithmetic, the most evident properties of the circle or triangle. I have only to finish a preface, which I shall have done in two, or, at farthest, three days ; and I will then, dismissing all comparison either with the poem on the growth of your own support, or with the imagined plan of " The Recluse," state fairly my main objections to " The Excursion " as it is. But it would have been alike vmjust both to you and to myself, if I had led you to suppose that any disappointment I may have felt arose wholly or chiefly from the passages I do not like, or from the poem considered irrelatively. Allston lives at 8, Buckingham Place, Fitzroy Square. He has lost his wife, and been most unkindly treated and most unfortunate. I hope you will call on him. Good God ! to think of such a grub as Dawe with more than he can do, and such a genius as Allston without a single patron ! God bless you ! I am, and never have been other than your most affectionate S. T. Coleridge. Mr. and Mrs. Morgan desire to be affectionately re- membered to you, and they would be highly gratified if you could make a little tour and spend a short time at Calne. There is an admirable collection of pictures at Corsham. Bowles left Bremhill (two miles from us, where he has a perfect paradise of a place) for town yesterday morning. 1815] TO THE REV. W. MONET G51 CCVII. TO THE REV. W. MONEY.^ Calne, Wednesday, 1815. Dear Sir, — I have seldom made a greater sacrifice and gratification to prudence than in the determination most rehictantly formed, that the state of my health, which requires hourly regimen, joined with the uncertain state of the weather and the perilous consequences of my taking cold in the existing weakness of the viscera, ren- ders it improper for me to hazard a night away from my home. No pleasure, however intellectual (and to all but intellectual itleasures 1 have long been dead, for surely the staving off of pain is no pleasure), could repay me even for the chance of being again unwell in any house but ray own. I have a great, a gigantic effort to make, and I will go through with it or die. Gross have been the calumnies concerning me ; but enough remains of truth to enforce the necessity of considering all other things as unimportant compared with the necessity of liv- ing theyyi doum. This letter is, of course, sacred to your- self, and a pledge of the high respect I entertain for your moral being ; for you need not the feelings of friendship to feel as a friend toward every fellow Christian. To turn to another subject, Mr. Bowles, I understand, is about to publish, at least is composing a reply to some answer to the " Velvet Cushion." ^ I have seen neither work. But this I will venture to say, that if the respond- ents in favour of the Church take upon them to justify in the most absolute sense, as if Scripture were the subject ^ The Rev. William Money, a de- ^ A controversial -work on the scendant of John Kyrle, the '' Man inspiration of Scripture. A thin of Ross," eulogised alike by Pope thread of narrative runs through the and Coleridge, was at this time in dissertation. It was the work of possession of the family seat of the Rev. J. W. Cuimingham, Vicar Whethara, a few miles distant from of Harrow, and was published in Calne, in Wiltshire. Coleridge was 1813. often a guest at his house. 652 A MELAXCIIOLY EXILE [1815 of the controversy, every minute part of our admirable Liturgy, and liturgical and sacramental services, they will only furnish new trium})!! to ungenerous adversaries. The Church of England has in the Articles solemnly declared that all Churches are fallible — and in another, to assert its absolute immacidateness, sounds to me a mere contradiction. No ! I would first overthrow what can be fairly and to all men intelligibly overthrown in the adver- saries' objections (and of this kind the instances are as twenty to one). For the remainder I would talk like a special pleader, and from the defensive pass to the offen- sive, and then prove from St. Paul (for of the practice of the early Church even in its purest state, before the reign of Constantine, our opponents make no account) that errors in a Church that neither directly or indirectly injure morals or oppugn salvation are exercises for mu- tual charity, not excuses for schism. In short, is there or is there [not] such a condemnable thing as schism ? In the proof of consequences of the affirmative lies, in my humble opinion, the complete confutation of the (so-called) Evangelical Dissenters. I shall be most happy to converse with you on the sub- ject. If Mr. Bowles were not employed on it, I should have had no objection to have reduced my many thoughts to order and have published them ; but this might now seem invidious and like rivalry. Present my best respects to Mrs. Money, and be so good as to make the fitting apologies for me to Mr. T. Methuen,^ the man wise of heart ! But an apology al- ready exists for me in his own mind. I remain, dear sir, respectfully your obliged S. T. Coleridge. Wednesday, Calne. ^ The Hon. and Rev. T. A. Me- afterward Lord Methuen of Corsham thuen, Rector of All Cannings, was House. He contributed some rem- the son of Paul Methuen, Esq., M. P., iniscences of Coleridge at this period 1815] TO THE REV. W. MONEY 653 P. S. I have opened this letter to add, that the greater number, if not the whole, of the arguments used apply- only to the ministers, not to the members of the Estab- lished Church. Some one of our eminent divines refused even to take the pastoral office, I believe, on account of the Funeral Service and the Absolution of the Sick ; but still it remains to justify schism from Church-Member- ship. To the Rev. W. Money, Whetham. to tho Christian Observer of 1845. tive, by J. Dykes Campbell, 1894, p. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a Narra- 208. CHAPTER XIII NEW LIFE AND NEW FRIENDS 1816-1821 CHAPTER XIII NEW LIFE AND NEW FRIENDS 1816-1821 With Coleridge's name and memory must ever be as- sociated the names of James and Anne Gillman. It was beneath the shelter of their friendly roof that he spent the last eighteen years of his life, and it was to their wise and loving care that the comparative fruitfulness and well-being of those years were due. They thought them- selves honoured by his presence, and he repaid their devo- tion with unbounded love and gratitude. Friendship and lovingkindness followed Coleridge all the days of his life. What did he not owe to Poole, to Southey for his noble protection of his family, to the Morgans for their long-tried faithfulness and devotion to himself? But to the Gill- mans he owed the " crown of his cup and garnish of his dish," a welcome which lasted till the day of his death. Doubtless there were chords in his nature wliich w^ere struck for the first time by these good people, and in their presence and by their help he was a new man. But, for all that, their patience must have been inexhaustible, their loyalty unimpeachable, their love indestructible. Such friendship is rare and beautiful, and merits a most hon- ourable remembrance. CCVIII. TO JAMES GILLMAN. 42, Norfolk Street, Strand, Saturday noon, [April 13, 1816.] My DEAR Sir, — The very first half hour I was with you convinced me that I should owe my reception into 658 NEW LIFE AND NEW FRIENDS [April your family exclusively to motives not less flattering to me than honourable to yourself. I trust we shall ever in matters of intellect be reciprocally serviceable to each other. Men of sense generally come to the same conclu- sion ; but they are likely to contribute to each other's ex- changement of view, in proportion to the distance or even opposition of the points from which they set out. Travel and the strange variety of situations and employments on which chance has thrown me, in the course of my life, might have made me a mere man of ohservation^ if pain and sorrow and self-miscomplacence had not forced my mind in on itself, and so formed habits of yneditation. It is now as much my nature to evolve the fact from the law, as that of a practical man to deduce the law from the fact. With respect to pecuniary remuneration,^ allow me to say, I must not at least be suffered to make any addition to your family expenses — though I cannot offer anything that would be in any way adequate to my sense of the ser- vice ; for that, indeed, there could not be a compensation, as it must be returned in kind, by esteem and grateful affection. And now of myself. My ever wakeful reason, and the keenness of my moral feelings, will secure you from all unpleasant circmnstances connected with me, save only 1 The annual payments for board no pecuniary obligation on Cole- and lodging, wbich were made at ridge's part, it is right that the truth first, for some time before Cole- should be known. On the other ridge's death fell into abeyance. The hand, it is only fair to Coleridge's approximate amount of the debt so memory to put it on record that incurred, and the circumstances un- this debt of honour was a sore trou- der which it began to accumulate, ble to him, and that he met it as are alike unknown to me. The fact best he coidd. We know, for in- that such a debt existed was, I be- stance, on his own authority, that lieve, a secret jealously guarded by the profits of the three volume edi- his generous hosts, but as, with the tion of his poems, published in 1828, best intentions, statements have been were made over to Mr. Gillman. made to the effect that there was 1816] TO JAMES GILLMAN 659 one, viz., tlie evasion of a specific madness. You will never A ear anything but truth from me: — prior habits render it out of my power to tell an untruth, but unless carefully observed, I dare not promise that I should not, with regard to this detested poison, be capable of acting one. No .sixty hours have yet passed without my having taken laudanum, though for the last week [in] compara- tively trifling doses. I have full belief that your anxiety need not be extended beyond the first week, and for the first week I shall not, I must not, be permitted to leave your house, unless with you. Delicately or indelicately, this must be done, and both the servants and the assistant must receive absolute commands from you. The stimulus of conversation suspends the terror that haunts my mind ; but when I am alone, the horrors I have suffered from laudanum, the degradation, the blighted utility, almost overwhelm me. If (as I feel for tlie^rs^ time a soothing confidence it will prove) I should leave you restored to my moral and bodily health, it is not myself only that will love and honour you; every friend I have (and thank God ! in spite of this wretched vice, I have many and warm ones, who were friends of my youth and have never deserted me) will thank you with reverence. I have taken no notice of your kind apologies. If I could not be comfortable in your house, and with your family, I should deserve to be miserable. If you could make it convenient I should wish to be with you by Monday evening, as it would prevent the necessity of taking fresh lodgings in town. With respectful compliments to Mrs. Gilhnan and her sister, I remain, dear sir, your much obliged S. T. Coleridge. 660 NEW LIFE AND NEW FRIENDS [May CCIX. TO DANIEL STUART. James Gillman's, Esq., Surgeon, Highgate, Wednesday, May 8, 1810. My dear Stuart, — Since you left me I have been reflecting a good deal on the subject of the Catholic Ques- tion, and somewhat on the " Courier" in general. AVith all my weight of faults (and no one is less likely to underrate them than myself) a tendency to be influenced by selfish motives in my friendships, or even in the culti- vation of my acquaintances, will not, I am sure, be hy you placed among them. When we first knew each other, it was perhaps the most interesting period of both our lives, at the very turn of the flood ; and I can never cease to reflect with affectionate delight on the steadiness and independ- ence of your conduct and principles ; and how, for so many years, with little assistance from others, and with one main guide, a sympathising tact for the real sense, feeling, and impulses of the respectable part of the Eng- lish nation, you went on so auspiciously, and likewise so effectively. It is far, very far, from being a hyperbole to affirm, that you did more against the French scheme of Continental domination, than the Duke of Wellington has done ; or rather Wellington could neither have been supplied by the Ministers, nor the Ministers supported by the Nation, but for the tone first given, and then con- stantly kept up, by the plain, unministerial, anti-opposi- tion, anti-jacobin, anti-gallican, anti-Napoleonic spirit of your writings, aided by the colloquial style, and evident good sense, in which as acting on an immense mass of knowledge of existing men and existing circumstances, you are superior to any man I ever met with in my life- time. Indeed you are the only human being of whom I can say, with severe truth, that I never conversed with you for an hour, without I'ememberable instruction. And with the same simplicity I dare affirm my belief, that my greater knowledge of man has been useful to you ; 1816] TO DANIEL STUART GGl though from the nature of things, not so useful, as your knowledge of men has been to me. Now with such con- victions, my dear Stuart, how is it possible that I can look back on the conduct of the " Courier," from the period of the Duke of York's restoration, without some pain? You cannot be seriously offended or affronted with me, if in this deep confidence, and in a letter which, or its con- tents, can meet no eye but your own, I venture to declare that, though since then much has been done, very much of high utility to the country by and under Mr. Street, yet the " Courier " itself has gradually lost that sanctifying spirit which was the life of its life, and without which even the best and soundest principles lose half their effect on the human mind. I mean, the faith in the faith of the person or paper which brings them forward. They are attributed to the accident of their happening to be for such a side or such a party. In short there is no longer any root in the paper, out of which all the various branches and fruits and even fluttering leaves are seen or believed to grow. But it is the old tree barked round above the root, though the circular decortication is so small, and so neatly filled up and coloured as to be scarcely visible but in its total effects. Excellent fruits still at times hang on the boughs, but they are tied on by threads and hairs. In all this I am well aware that you are no otherwise to blame, than in permitting what, without disturbance to your health and tranquillity, you could not perhaj^s have prevented, or effectively modified. But the whole plan of Street's seems to me to have been motiveless from the beginning, or at least affected by the grossest miscalcula- tions in respect even of pecuniary interest. For had the paper maintained and asserted not only its independence but its appearance of it, it is true that Mr. Street might not have had Mr. Croker to dine with him, or received as many nods or shakes of the hand from Lord this, or that, but it is at least equally true, that the Ministry would have 662 NEW LIFE AND NEW FRIENDS [May been far more effectually served, and that (I speak now from facts) both paper and its conductor would have been held by the adherents of Ministers in far higher respect. And after all, Ministers do not love newspapers in their hearts ; not even those that support them. Indeed it seems epidemic among Parliament men in general, to affect to look down upon and to despise newspapers to which they owe -/oVo ^^ *^^^^' infl^e^^ce and character — and at least three fifths of their knowledge and phrase- ology. Enough ! Burn this letter and forgive the writer for the purity and affectionateness of his motive. With regard to the Catholic Question, if I write I must be allowed to express the truth and the whole truth con- cerning the imprudent avowal of Lord Castlereagh that it was not to be a government question. On this condi- tion I will write immediately a tract on the question which to the best of my knowledge will be about from 120 to 140 octavo pages ; but so contrived that Mr. Street may find no difficulty in dividing it into ten or twenty essays, or leading paragraphs. In my scheme I have carefully excluded every approximation to metaphysical reasoning ; and set aside every thought which cannot be brousfht under one or the other of three heads — 1. Plain evident sense. 2. Historical documental facts. 3. Ex- isting circumstances, character, etc., of Ireland in relation to Great Britain, and to its own interests, and those of its various classes of proprietors. I shall not deliver it till it is whoUy finished, and if you and Mr. Street think that such a work delivered entire will be worth fifty pounds to the paper, I will begin it immediately. Let me either see or hear from you as soon as possible. Cannot Mr. Street send me some one or other of the daily papers, without expense to you, after he has done with them? Kind respects to Mrs. Stuart. Your affectionate and obliged friend, S. T. Coleridge. 1816] TO DANIEL STUART G63 CCX. TO THE SAME. Monday, May 13, 1816. Dear Stuart, — It Is among the feeblenesses of our nature, that we are often, to a certain degree, acted on by stories, gravely asserted, of which we yet do most reli- giously disbelieve every syllable, nay, which perhaps we know to be false. The truth is that images and thoughts possess a power in, and of themselves, independent of that act of the judgment or understanding by which we affirm or deny the existence of a reality corresi3ondent to them. Such is the ordinary state of the mind in dreams. It is not strictly accurate to say that we believe our dreams to be actual while we are dreaming. We neither believe it, nor disbelieve it. With the will the comparing power is suspended, and without the comparing power, any act of judgment, whether affirmation or denial, is impossible. The forms and thoughts act merely by their own inherent power, and the strong feelings at times apparently con- nected with them are, in point of fact, bodily sensations which are the causes or occasions of the images ; not (as when we are awake) the effects of them. Add to this a voluntary lending of the will to this suspension of one of its own operations (that is, that of comparison and conse- quent decision concerning the reality of any sensuous im- pression) and you have the true theory of stage illusion, equally distant from the absurd notion of the French crit- ics, who ground their principles on the presumption of an absolute fZelusion, and of Dr. Johnson who would persuade us that our judgments are as broad awake during the most masterly representation of the deepest scenes of Othello, as a philosopher woidd be during the exhibition of a magic lanthorn with Punch and Joan and Pull Devil, Pidl Baker, etc., on its painted slides. Now as extremes always meet, this dogma of our dramatic critic and sopor- ific irenist would lead, by inevitable consequences, to that G64 NEW LIFE AND NEW FRIENDS [Feb. very doctrine of the unities maintained by the French Belle Lettrists, which it was the object of his strangely overrated, contradictory, and most illogical j^reface to Shakespeare to overthrow. Thus, instead of troubling you with the idle assertions that have been most autlioritatively uttered, concerning your being under bond and seal to the present Ministry, whic'li I know to be (monosyllabically s])eaking) a lie, and which formed, I guess, part of the impulse which occa- sioned my last letter, I have given you a theory which, as far as I know, is new, and which I am quite sure is most important as the ground and fundamental principle of all philosophic and of all common-sense criticisms concerning the drama and the theatre. To put off, however, the Jack-the-Giant-Killer-seven- leagued boots, with which I am apt to run away from the main purpose of what I had to write, I owe it to myself and the truth to observe, that there was as much at least of i)artiality as of grief and incidpation in my remarks on the spirit of the " Courier ; " and that with all its faults, I prefer it greatly to any other paper, even without refer- ence to its being the best and most effective vehicle of what I deem most necessary and urgent truths. Be as- sured there was no occasion to let me know, that with re- gard to the proposed disquisition you were interested as a patriot and a protestant, not as a proprietor of the partic- ular paper. Such too. Heaven knows, is my sole object ! for as to the money that it may be thought worth accord- ing to the number and value of the essays, I regard it merely as enabling me to devote a given portion of time and effort to this subject, rather than to any one of the many others by which I might procure the same remuner- ation. From this hour I sit down to it tooth and nail, and shall not turn to the left or right till I have finished it. When I have reached the half-way house I will trans- mit the MSS. to you, that I may, without the necessity of 1817] TO JOHN MURRAY 665 clls- or re-arranging tlie work, be able to adopt any sug- gestions of yours, whether they should be additive, alter- ative, or emendative. One question only I have to con- sult you concerning — viz., the form which woidd be the most attractive of notice ; simply essays ? or letters ad- dressed to Lord Liverpool for instance, on the supposition that he remains firm to the Perceval principle on this blind, blundering, and feverous scheme ? Mr. and Mrs. Gillman will be most happy to see you to share in a family dinner, and spend the evening with us ; and if you will come early, I can show you some most delicious walks. You will like Mr. Gillman. He is a man of strong, fervid, and agile intellect, with such a mas- ter passion for truth, that his most abstracted verities as- sume a character of veracity. And his wife, it will be impossible not to respect, if a balance and harmony of powers and qualities, unified and spiritualized by a native feminine fineness of character, render womanhood amia- ble and respectable. In serious truth I have much reason to be most grateful for the choice and chance which has placed me under their hosisitable roof. I have no doubt that Mr. Gillman as friend and as physician will succeed in restoring me to my natural self. My kind respects to Mrs. Stuart. I long to see the lit- tle one. Your obliged and sincere friend, S. T. COLEKIDGE. CCXI. TO JOHN MURRAY. HiGHGATE, February 27, 1817. My dear Sir, — I had a visit from IVIr. Morgan yester-afternoon, and trouble you with these lines in con- sequence of his communications. AVhen I stated to you the circumstances respecting the volumes of mine that have been so long printed, and the embarrassment into which the blunder of the printer had entangled me, with GQG NEW LIFE AND NEW FRIENDS [Feb. the sinking down of my health that made it so perplexing for me to remedy it, I did it under the belief that you were yourself very little disposed to the publication of the " Zapolya " ^ as a separate work — unless it had, in some shape or other, been brought out at the Theatre. Of tliis I seemed to have less and less chance. What had been declared an indispensable part, and of all the play, the most theatrical as well as dramatic, by Lord Byron, was ridiculed and thrown out of all question by Mr. Douglas Kinnaird, with no other exjjlanation vouchsafed but that Lord Byron knew nothing about the matter — and, be- sides that, was in the habit of overrating my perform- ances. These were not the words, but these words con- tain the purport of what he said. Meantune what Mr. D. Kinnaird most warmly approved, Mr. Harris had previously declared would convulse a house with laughter, and damn the piece beyond any possibility of a further hearing. Still I was disposed in my distressed circum- stances of means, health, and spirits, to have tried the plan suggested by Mr. D. Kinnaird of turning the "Zapolya" into a melodrama by the omission of the first act. But Mr. K. was, with Lord Byron, dropjied from the sub- committee, and I knew no one to whom I could apply. Mr. Dibdin, who had promised to befriend me, was like- ^ Zapolya : A Christmas Tale, in ray, dated March 2G and March 29, two Parts, was published by Rest 1817, it is evident that the £50 ad- Fenner late in 1817. A year before, vanced on A Christmas Tale waa after the first part had been rejected repaid. In acknowledging the re- by the Drury Lane Committee, Cole- ceipt of the sum, Murray seems to ridge arranged with Murray to pub- have generously omitted all mention lish both parts as a poem, and re- of a similar advance on "a play ceived an advance of £50 on the then in composition." In his letter MS. He had, it seems, applied to of March 29, Coleridge speaks of Murray to be released from this en- this second debt, which does not ap- gagement, and on the strength of pear to have been paid. Samuel an ambiguous reply, offered the Taylor Coleridge, a Narrative, by work to the publishers of Sybil- J. Dykes Campbell, p. 22.'? ; ^fe- line Leaves. From letters to Mur- nioirs of John Murray, i. ;]04-:306. 1817] TO JOHN MURRAY 667 wise removed from the stage-managership. Mr. Rae did indeed promise to give me a few hours of his time repeatedly, and from my former acquaintance with him, as the Ordonio of the " Remorse," I had some reason to be wounded by his neglect. Indeed, at Drury Lane, no one knows to whom any effective application is to be made. Mr. Kinnaird had engaged to look over the "Zapolya" with me, and appointed the time. I went accordingly and passed the whole of the fore-dinner day with him — in what ? In hearing an opera of his own, and returned as wise as I came. Much is talked of the advantages of a managership of noblemen, but as far as I have seen and experienced, an author has no cause to congratulate himself on the change, either in the taste, courtesy, or reliability of his judges. Desponding con- cerning this (and finding that every publication with my name would be persecuted by pre-determination by the one guiding party, that I had no support to expect from the other, and that the thicker and closer the cloud of misfortunes gathered round me, the more actively and remorselessly were the poisoned arrows of wanton enmity shot through it), I sincerely believed that it would be neither to your advantage or mine that the "Zapolya" should be published singly. It appeared, at that time, that the annexing to it a collection of all my poems would enable the work to be brought out without delay, — and I therefore applied to you, offering either to repay the money received for it, or to work it out by furnishing you with miscellaneous matter for the "Quarterly," or by sittino; down to the " Rabbinical Tales " ^ as soon as ever 1 Murray had offered Coleridge sue of The Friend (Nos. x., xi.), and two hundred g-uineas for " a small these, with the assistance of his volume of specimens of Rabbinical friend Hyman Ilurwitz, Master of Wisdom," but owing to pressure of the Hebrew Academy at Highgate, work the project was abandoned, he intended to supplement and ex- " Specimens of Rabbinical Wisdom pand into a volume. Samuel Tay- selected from the Mishna " had al- lor Coleridge, a Narrative, by J. ready appeared in the original is- Dykes Campbell, p. 224 and uote. 668 NEW LIFE AND NEW FRIENDS [Feb. the works now in the press were put out of my hand, that is, as far as the copy was concerned. Your answer im- pressed nie wath your full assent to the plan. Nay, how- ever mortifying- it might in ordinary circumstances have been to an author's vanity, it was not so to me, that the " Zapolya" was a work of which you had no objection, to be rid. But, if I misunderstood you, let me now be better informed, and whatever you wish shall be done. I have never knowingly or intentionally been guilty of a dishon- ourable transaction, but have in all things that respect my neighbour been more sinned against than sinning. JSIuch less would I hazard the appearance of an equivocal con- duct at present when I feel that I am sinking into the grave, with fainter and fainter hopes of achieving that which, God knows my inmost heart ! is the sole motive for the wish to live — namely, that of preparing for the press the results of twenty-five years hard study and almost constant meditation. Reputation has no charm for me, except as a preventive of starving. Abuse and ridicule are all w^hich I could expect for myself, if the six volumes were published which would comprise the sum total of my convictions ; but, most thoroughly satisfied both of their truth and of the vital importance of these truths, convinced that of all systems that have ever been prescribed, this has the least of mysticism^ the very ob- ject throughout from the first page to the last being to reconcile the dictates of common sense with the conclu- sions of scientific reasoning — it woidd assuredly be like a sudden gleam of sunshine falling on the face of a dying man, if I left the world with a knowledge that the work would have a chance of being read in better times. But of all men in the way of business, my dear sir ! I should be most reluctant to give you any just cause of reproach- ing my integrity ; because I know and feel, and have at all times and to all persons who had any literary concerns with me, acknowledged that you have acted with a friendly 1817] TO JOHN MURRAY 669 kindness towards me, — and if Mr. Gifford have taken a prejudice against me or my writings, I never imputed it as blame to you. Let me then know what you wish me to do, and I will do it. I ought to add, that in yielding to the proposal of annexing the " Zapolya " to the volume of poetry, provided I coidd procure your assent, I ex- pressly stipulated that if, in any shape or modification, it should be represented on the stage, the copyright of it in that form would be reserved for your refusal or accept- ance, and, in like manner the " Christabel " when com- pleted, and the "Rabbinical Tales." The second "Lay Sermon " (a most unfortunate name) will aiDj)ear, I trust, next week. I remain, my dear sir, with respect and regard, your obliged S. T. Coleridge. P. S. I have not seen either the " Edinburgh " ^ or the "Quarterly" last Reviews. The article against me in the former was, I am assured, written by Hazlitt. Now what can I think of Mr. Jeffre}^, who knows nothing person- ally of me but my hospitable attentions to him, and from whom I heard nothing but very high seasoned compli- ments, and who yet can avail himself of such an instru- ^ Apart from internal evidence, content with commissioning Ilazlitt there is nothing to prove that this to review the book, Jeffrey appended article, a review of "Christabel," a long footnote signed with his ini- which appeared in the Edinburgh Be- tials, in wliich he indignantly repudi- view, December, 1810, was written by ates the charge of personal animus, Hazlitt. It led, however, to the in- and makes bitter fun of Coleridge's sertion of a footnote in the firet vol- susceptibility to flattery, and of his ume of the Biographia Literaria, in boasted hospitality. Southey had which Coleridge accused Jeffrey of offered him a cup of coffee, and personal and ungenerous animosity Coleridge had dined witli him at the against himself, and reminded him inn. Voila tout. Both footnotes are of hospitality shown to him at Kes- good reading. Biographia Literaria, wick, and of the complacent and ed. 1817, i. S'i note ; Edinburgh Re- flattering language which he had view, December, 1817. employed on that occasion. Not 670 NEW LIFE AND NEW FRIENDS [June ment of his most unprovoked malignity towards me, an inoffensive man in distress and sickness ? As soon as I have read the article (and the loan of the book is prom- ised me), I shall make up my mind whether or not to address a letter, publicly to Mr. Jeffrey, or, in the form of an appeal, to the public, concerning his proved pre- determined malice. Mr. Murray, Bookseller, Albemarle Street, Piccadilly. CCXII. TO ROBERT SOUTHEY. ^^ '-^^ ' -^ • ~ " • [May, 1817.] Dear Southey, — Mr. Ludwig Tieck ^ has continued to express so anxious a wish to see you, as one man of genius sees another, that he will not lose even the slight chance of possibility that you may not have quitted Paris when he arrives there. I have only therefore (should this letter be delivered to you by Mr. Tieck) to tell you — first, that Mr. Tieck is the gentleman who was so kind to me at Rome ; secondly, that he is a good man, emphat- ically, without taint of moral or religious infidelity ; thirdly, that as a poet, critic, and moralist, he stands (in 1 Two letters from Tieck to Cole- Ilighgate remain unforgettable. I ridge have been preserved, a very have seen your friend Robinson, long one, dated February 20, 1818, once here in Dresden, but you — in which he discusses a scheme for At that time I believed tliat I should bringing out bis works in England, come again to England — and in and asks Coleridge if he has sue- such hopes we grow old and wear eeeded in finding a publisher for away. him, and the following note, written My kindest remembrances to your sixteen years later, to introduce the excellent hosts at Highgate. It is German painter, Herr von Vogel- with especial emotion that I look stein. I am indebted to my cousin, again and again at the Anatomji of Miss Edith Coleridge, for a trausla- Melancholy [a present from Mr. Gill- tion of both letters. man], as well as the Lay Sermons, Chrislabel, and tlie Biographia Lite- Dresden, April HO, 1834. raria. Herr von Vogelstein, one of I hope that my dear and honoured the most esteemed histoiical painters friend Coleridge still remembers me. of Germany, brings you this letter To me those delightful hours at from your loving LUDWIG TXECK. 1817] TO H. C. ROBINSON 671 reputatioii) next to Goethe (and I believe that this repu- tation will he fame) ; lastly, it will interest you with Bris- tol, Keswick, and Grasmere associations, that Mr. Tieck has had to run, and has run, as nearly the same career in Germany as yourself and Wordsworth and (by the spray of being known to be intimate with you) Yours sincerely, S. T. Coleridge. P. S. Should this meet jon^for GocVs sake, do let me know of your arrival in London ; it is so very important that I should see you. R. SOUTHEY, Esq. Honoured by Mr. LuDWiG Tieck, CCXIII. TO H. C. ROBINSON.^ June, 1817. Mt dear Eobinson, — I shall never forgive you if you do not try to make some arrangement to bring Mr. L. Tieck and yourself up to Highgate very soon. The day, the dinner-hour, you may appoint yourself ; but what I most wish would be, either that Mr. Tieck would come in the first stage, so as either to walk or to be driven in Mr. Gill- man's gig to Caen Wood, and its delicious groves and alleys (the finest in England, a grand cathedral aisle of giant lime-trees. Pope's favourite composition walk when with the old Earl, a brother-rogue of yours in the law 1 Henry Crabb Robinson, whose Grasmere and Lanj^dale, then and admirable diaries, first published in now the property of Mr. Wheatley 18G'.), may, it is hoped, be reedited Balme. This must have been in and published in full, died at the 18.57, when he was past eighty years age of ninety-one in 1S07. He was of age. My impression is that his a constant guest at my father's house conversation consisted, for the most in Chelsea during my boyhood. I part, of anecdotes concerniug Wie- have, too, a distinct remembrance of land and Schiller and Goethe. Of his walking over Loughrigg from Wordsworth and Coleridge he must Rydal Mount, where he was staying have had much to say, but his words, with Mrs. Wordsworth, and visiting as was natural, fell on the unlieeding my parents at High Close, between ears of a child. 672 NEW LIFE AND NEW FRIENDS [July liue), or else to come up to dinner, sleep here, and return (if then return he must) in the afternoon four o'eloek stage the day after. I should be most happy to make him and that admirable man, Mr. Frere,^ aequainted — their pursuits have been so similar — and to convince Mr. Tiec'k that he is tlic man among us in whom taste at its maxinuuu has vitalized itself into productive power. [For] genius, you need only show him the incomparable trans- lation annexed to Southey's " Cid " (which, by the bye, would perhajjs give Mr. Tieck the most favourable impres- sion of Southey's own powers) ; and I would finish the work off by Mr. Frere's " Aristophanes." In such GOOD- NESS, too, as both my Mr. Frere (the Right Hon. J. H. Frere), and his brother George (the lawyer in Brunswick Square), live, move, and have their being, there is fjenius. I have read two pages of "Lalla Rookh," or whatever it is called. Merciful Heaven ! I dare read no more, that I may be able to answer at once to any questions, " I have but just looked at the work." O Robinson ! if I could, or if I dared, act and feel as Moore and his set do, what havoc could I not make amongst their crockery- ware ! Why, there are not three lines together without some adulteration of common English, and the ever-recur- ring blunder of using the possessive case, " compassiori's tears," etc., for the preposition " of " — a blunder of which I have found no instances earlier than Dryden's slovenly verses written for the trade. The ride is, that the case 's is always jjersonal ; either it marks a person, or a personification, or the relique of some proverbial per- sonification, as " Who for their belly's sake," in " Lyci- das." But for A to weep the tears of B puts me in mind ^ The Right Hon. John Hookham Frere. 1709-1840, now better known as the translator of Aristophanes than as statesman or diplomatist, was a warm friend to Coleiidge in his later years. He fig-nres in the later memoranda and correspondence as 6 Ka\oKdyados, the ideal Christian gentleman. 1817] TO THOMAS POOLE 673 of the exquisite jmssage in Rabelais where Panta"'iuel gives the page his cup, and begs him to go down into the courtyard, and curse and swear for him about half an hour or so. God bless you ! S. T. Coleeidge. CCXIV. TO TH03IAS POOLE. [July 22, ISn.] My dear Poole, — It was a great comfort to me to meet and part from you as I did at Mr. Purlds's : ^ for, methinks, every true friendship that does not go with us to heaven, must needs be an obstacle to our own going thither, — to one of the parties, at all events. I entreat your acceptance of a corrected cojiy of my " Sibylline Leaves " and " Literary Life ; " and so wildly have they been printed, that a corrected copy is of some value to those to whom the works themselves are of any. I would that the misprinting had been the worst of the delusions and ill-usage, to which my credulity exposed me, from the said printer. After repeated j)romises that he took the printing, etc., merely to serve me as an old schoolfellow, and that he should charge "one sixpence profit," he charged paper, which I myself ordered for him at the paper-mill, at twenty-five to twenty-six shillings per ream, at thirty-five shillings, and, exclusive of this, his bill was £80 beyond the sum assigned by two eminent London printers as the price at which they would be will- ^ Samuel Purkis, of Brentford, ter to Poole of the sarae date, he tanner and man of letters, was an thus describes his host : " Purkis is early friend of Poole's, and throu]n;'h a gentleman, with the free and cor- him became acquainted witli Cole- dial and interesting manners of the ridge and Sir Humphry Davy, man of literature. His colloquial When Coleridge went up to London diction is uncommonly pleasing, his in June, IT'.tS, to stay with the information various, his own mind Wedgwoods at Stoke House, in the elegant and acute." Thomas Poole village of Cobham,he stayed a night and his Friends, i. 271, et passim. at Brentford on the way. In a let- 674 NEW LIFE AND NEW FRIENDS [July ing to print the same quantity. And yet even this is among the minima of his Bristol honesty. Tenner,^ or rather his religious factotum, the Rev. T. Curtis, ci-clevant bookseller, and whose affected retirement from business is a humbug, having got out of me a scheme for an Encyclopiiidia, which is the admiration of all the Trade, flatter themselves that they can carry it on by themselves. They refused to realise their promise to ad- vance me X300 on the pledge of my works (a proposal of their own) unless I would leave Highgate and live at Camber well. I took the advice of such friends as I had the opportunity of consulting immediately, and after tak- ing into consideration the engagement into which I had entered, it was their unanimous opinion that their breach of their promise was a very fortunate circumstance, that it could not have been kept without the entire sacrifice of all my powers, and, above all, of my health — in short, that I could not in all human probability survive the first year. Mr. Frere yesterday advised me strenuously to finish the " Christabel," to keep the third volume of " The Friend" within a certain fathom of metaphysical depth, but within that to make it as elevated as the subjects re- quired, and finally to devote myself industriously to the Works I had planned, alternating a poem with a prose volume, and, unterrified by reviews on the immediate sale, to remain confident that I should in some way or other be enabled to live in comfort, above all, not to write any more in any newspaper. He told me both Mr. Canning and Lord Liverpool had spoken in very high terms of me, and advised me to send a copy of all my works with a let- ter of some weight and length to the Marquis of Welles- 1 For an account of Coleridge's cotVs Mag. for June, 1870, art. relations with his publishers, Fen- " Some Unpublished Correspondence ner and Curtis, see Samuel Taylor of S. T. Coleridge," and Brandl'a Coleridge, a Narrative, by J. Dykes Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the Campbell, p. 227. See, too, Lippin- Romantic School, 1887, pp. .3.">l-353. 1817] TO TPIOMAS POOLE 675 ley. He offered me all his interest with regard to Der- went/ if he was sent to Cambridge. "It is a point" (these were his words) " on which I shoidd feel myself authorised not merely to ask but to require and impor- tune." Hartley has been with me for the last month. He is very much imj)roved ; and, if I coidd see him more sys- tematic in his studies and in the emplojiuent of his time, I should have little to complain of in him or to wish for. He is very desirous to visit the place of his infancy, poor fellow ! And I am very desirous, if it were practicable, that he should be in the neighbourhood, as it were, of his uncles, so that there might be a probability of one or the other inviting him to spend a few weeks of his vacation at Ottery. His cousins^ (the sons of my brothers James and George) are very good and affectionate to him ; and it is a great comfort to me to see the chasm of the first generation closing and healing up in the second. From the state of your sister-in-law's health, when I last saw you, and the probable results of it, I cannot tell how your household is situated. Otherwise, I should venture to entreat of you, that you would give poor Hartley an in- vitation to pass a fortnight or three weeks with you this vacation.^ ^ J. H. Frere was, I believe, one nephews should be set against All- of those who assisted Coleridge to sop's foolish and uncalled for at- send his younger son to Cambridge. tack on " the Bisliopand the Judge." 2 Joha Taylor Coleridge (better Letters, etc., of S. T. Coleridge, 1836, known as Mr. Justice Coleridge), i. 22.5, note. and George May Coleridge, Vicar of ^ Poole's reply to this letter, dated St. Mary Church, Devon, and Pre- Jidy 31, 1817, contained an invita- bendary of Wells. Another cousin tion to Hartley to come to Nother who befriended Hartley, when he Stowey. Mrs. Sandford tells us that was an undergraduate at Merton, it was believed that " the young man and again later when ho w.as living spent more tlian one vacation at with the Montagus, in London, was Stowey, where lie was well-known William Hart Coleridge, afterward and very popular, tliough tlie young Bisliop of Barbados. The poet's own ladies of the place eitlier themselves testimony to the good work of his called him the Black Dwarf, or cher- 676 NEW LIFE AND NEW FRIENDS [Oct. The object of the third vohinie of my " Friend," which will be wholly fresh matter, is briefly this, — that moral- ity without religion is as senseless a scheme as religion without morality ; that religion not revealed is a contra- diction in terms, and an historical nonentity ; that religion is not revealed unless the sacred books containing it are interpreted in the obvious and literal sense of the word, and that, thus interpreted, the doctrines of the Bible are in strict harmony with the Liturgy and Articles of our Established Church. May God Almighty bless you, my dear Friend ! and your obliged and affectionately grateful S. T. Coleridge. CCXV. TO H. F. CARY.l Little Hajipton, October [29], 1817. I regret, dear sir ! that a slave to the worst of tyrants (outward tyrants, at least), the booksellers, I have not been able to read more than two books and passages here and tliere of the other, of your translation of Dante. You will not susjiect me of tlie worthlessness of exceeding my real opinion, but like a good Christian will make even modesty give way to charity, though I say, that in the severity and learned sijnjiliciti/ of the diction, and in the peculiar character of the Blank Verse, it has transcended ished a conviction that that was tice adopted partly for the sake of his nickname at Oxford." Thomas the sea-breezes. . . . For several Poole and his Friends, ii. 256-258. consecutive days Coleridge crossed ^ The Rev. H. F. Gary, 1772- ns in our walk. The sound of the 1S44, the well-kno\vn translator of Greek, and especially the expressive the Divina Co nunedia. His son and countenance of the tutor, attracted biographer, the Rev. Henry Carj-, his notice ; so one day, as we met) g^ves the following account of his he placed himself directly in my father's first introduction to Cole- father's waj' and thus accosted him : ridge, which took place at Little- ' Sir, yours is a face I should know hampton in the autumn of 1817 : — I am Samuel Taylor Coleridge.' " " It was our custom to walk on the Memoir of II. F. Cari/, ii. 18. sands and read Homer aloud, a prac- 1817] TO H. F. GARY 677 what I should have thought possible without the Terza Rima. In itself, the metre is, compared with any English poem o£ one quarter the length, the most varied and har- monious to my ear of any since Milton, and yet the effect is so Dantesque that to those who should compare it only with other English poems, it would, I doubt not, have the same effect as the Terza Rima has compared with other Italian metres. I would that my literary influence were enough to secure the knowledge of the work for the true lovers of poetry in general.^ But how came it that you had it published in so too unostentatious a form ? For a second or third edition, the form has its conven- iences ; but for the first, in the present state of EngKsh society, qaod non arrogas tibl, nan habes. If you have any other works, poems, or poemata, by you, printed or MSS., you would gratify me by sending them to me. In the mean time, accept in the spirit in which it is offered, this trifling testimonial of my respect from, dear sir. Yours truly, S. T. Coleridge. CCXVI. TO THE SAME. Little Hampton, Sussex, November 6, 1817. My dear Sir, — I thank you for your kind and valued present, and equally for the kind letter that accompanied it. What I expressed concerning your translation, I did not say lightly or without examination : and I know enough of myself to be confident that any feeling of per- sonal partiality would rather lead me to doubts and dis- satisfactions respecting a particular work in proportion as it might possibly occasion me to overrate the man. For ^ It appears, however, that he un- Court, on February 27, 1818, led, so derrated his position as a critic. A his son says, to the immediate sale quotation from Gary's Dante, and a of a thousand copies, and notices eulogistic mention of the work gen- " reechoing Coleridge's praises " in erally, in a lecture on Dante, deliv- the Editiburgh and Quarterly Be- ered by Coleridge at Flower-de-Luce views. Memoir of II. F. Cari/, ii. 28. 678 NEW LIFE AND NEW FRIENDS [Nov. example, if, indeed, I do estimate too highly what I deem the charaeteristic exeellencies of Wordsworth's poems, it results from a congeniality of taste without a congeniality in the productive i)ower ; but to the faults and defects I have been far more alive than his detractors, even from the first publication of the " Lyrical Ballads," though for a long course of years my oi)inions were sacred to his own ear. Since my last, I have read over your translation, and have carefully compared it with my distinctest recollec- tions of every specimen of blank verse I am familiar with that can be called epic, narrative, or descriptive, exclud- ing only the dramatic, declamatory, and lyrical — with Cowper, Armstrong, Southey, Wordsworth, Landor (the author of " Gebir "), and with all of my own that fell within comparisons as above defined, especially the pas- sage from 287 to 292, " Sibylline Leaves," i — and I find no other alteration in my judgement but an additional confidence in it. I still affirm that, to my ear and to my judgement, both your metre and your rhythm have in a far greater degree than I know any instance of, the variety of Milton without any mere Miltonisms, that (wherein I in the passage referred to have chiefly failed) the verse has this variety without any loss of continuity^ and that this is the excellence of the work considered as a transla- tion of Dante — that it gives the reader a similar feeling of wandering and wandering, onward and onward. Of the diction, I can only say that it is Dantesque even in that in which the Florentine must be preferred to our English giant — namely, that it is not only pure langxiacje^ but pure JEnglish. The language differs from that of a mother or a well-bred lady who had read little but her Bible, and a few good books, only as far as the thoughts and things to be expressed require learned words from a learned poet ! Perhaps I may be thought to ajipreciate this merit too highly ; but you have seen what I have said 1 From the Destiny of Nations, 1817] TO J. H. GREEN 679 in defence of tliis in the " Literary Life." By tlie bye, there is no PuhlisJier s name mentioned in the title-page. Should I place any number of copies for you with Gale and Curtis, or at Murray's ? Believe me, that it will be both a pleasure and a relief to my mind should you bring with you any MSS. that you can yourself make it so as to read them to me. Mrs. Gillman hopes, that, if choice or chance should lead you and yours near Highgate, you will not dejirive us of the opportunity of introducing you to my excellent friend Mr. Gillman, and of shewing by our gladness how much we are, my dear sir, yours and Mrs. Gary's sincere respecters, and I beg you will accept an expression of particular esteem from your old lecturer, S. T. Coleridge. P. S. I return the " Prometheus " and the " Persae " with thanks. I hope the Cambridge Professor will go through the remaining plays of ^schylus. They are de- lightful editions. CCXVII. TO J. H. GREEN.l Highgate, Friday morning, November 14, 1817. Dear Sir, — I arrived at Highgate from Little Hamp- ton yester-night : and the most interesting tidings I heard, 1 Joseph Henry Green, 1791 - years to pass two afternoons of the 1863, an eminent surgeon and anato- week at Highgate, and on these mist. In his own profession he won occasions as amanuensis and coUab- distinction as lecturer and ojjera- orateur, he helped to lay the foun- tor, and as the author of the Bis- datious of tlie Magnum Opus, eector^s Manual, and some pain- Coleridge appointed him his literary phlets on medical reform and edu- executor, and bequeathed to him a cation. He was twice, 1849-50 and mass of unj)ublished MSS. which 1858-59, President of the College of it was hoped he would reduce to Surgeons. His acquaintance with order and publish as a connected sys- Coleridge, wliich began in 1817, was tem of philosophy. Two addresses destined to influence his whole ca- whieli he delivered, as Huntorian reer. It was liis custom for many Orations in 1841 and 1847, on 080 NEW LIFE AND NEW FRIENDS [Dec. were of your return autl of your great kindness . . . I can only say that I will call in Lincoln's Inn Fields the first day I am able to come to town — but should your occupation suffer you to take me in any of your rides for exercise or relaxation, need I say with what gladness I shoulil welcome you? Our dinner-hour is four: but alterable without inconvenience to earlier or later. As soon as I have finished my present slave-work I shall write at large to Mr. Tieck. Be pleased to present my respectful regards to Mrs. Green, and believe me, dear sir, with marked esteem, Your obliged S. T. Coleridge. CCXVIII. TO THE SAME. [December 13, 1817.] My dear Sir, — I thank you for the transcript. The lecture ^ went off beyond my expectations ; and in several parts, where the thoughts were the same, more happily " Vital Dynamics " and " Mental Dy- healing waters of Faith and Hope, namics," were published in his life- Spiritual Philosophy, by J. H. Green ; time, and after his death two vol- Memoir of the author's life, i.-lix. umes entitled Spiritual Philosophy, ^ This must have been the im- founded on the Teaching of S. T. proniptu lecture " On the Growth Coleridge, were issued, together with of the Individual Mind," delivered a memoir, by his friend and former at the rooms of the London Philo- pnpil, Sir John fSimon. sophical Society. According to His fame has suffered eclipse ow- Gillman, who details tlie circum- ing in great measure to his chival- stances under which the address wiis rous if imsuecessful attempt to do given, but does not suj)ply the date, honour to Coleridge. But he de- the lecturer began with an " apolo- serves to stand alone. Members of getic preface " : " The lecture I am his own profession not versed in about to give this evening is purely polar logic looked up to his " great extempore. Should you find a riom- and noble intellect " with pride and inative case looking out for a verb — delight, and by those who were hon- or a fatherless verb for a nomina^ cured by his intimacy he was held tive case, you must excuse it. It is in love and reverence. To Coleridge purely extempore, though I have he was a friend indeed, bringing thought and read much on this with him balms more soothing subject." Life of Coleridge, pp. than "poppy or mandragora," the 354-357. 1817] TO J. H. GREEN 681 expressed extempore than in the Essay on the Science of Method^ for the "Encyclopaedia Metropolitana." How- ever, you shall receive the first correct copy of the latter that I can procure. I would that I could present it to you, as it was written ; though I am not inclined to quar- rel with the judgment and prudence of omission, as far as the public are concerned. Be assured, I shall not fail to avail myself of your kind invitation, and that time passes happily with me under your roof, receiving and returning. Be pleased to make my best respects to Mrs. Green, and I beg her acceptance of the " Hebrew Dirge " with my free translation,^ of which I will, as soon as it is printed, send her the music, viz. the original melody, and Bishop's additional music. Of this I am convinced, that a dozen of such " very pretty, ^^ and " so siceet,'"' and " how smooth," " well, that is charming " compositions would gain me more admiration with the English public than twice the num- ber of poems twice as good as the " Ancient Mariner," the " Christabel," the " Destiny of Nations," or the " Ode to the Departing Year." My own opinion of the German philosophers does not greatly differ from yours ; much in several of them is unintelligible to me, and more unsatisfactory. But I make a division. I reject Kant's stoic principle, as false, unnatural, and even immoral, where in his " Kritik der ^ The " Essay on the Science of on the day of the Funeral of her Method" was finished in Decern- Royal Highness the Princess Char- ber, 1817, and printed in the follow- lotte. By Hyinan Hurwitz, Master ing January. Samuel Taylor Cole- of the Hebrew Academy, Highgate, ridge, a Narrative, by J. Dykes 1817." Campbell, 1894, p. 232. The translation is below Coleridge 2 The Hebrew text and Cole- at his worst. The '' Harp of Qu.m- ridge's translation were published in tock " must, indeed, have required the form of a pamphlet, and sold stringing before such a line as "For by " T. Boosey, 4 Old Broad Street, England's Lady is laid low " could 1817." The full title was " Israel's liave escaped the file, or " worn her" Lament. Translation of a Hebrew be permitted to rhyme with " mourn- dirge, chaunted in the Great Syna- er"! Poetical Works, p. 187; Ed- gogue, St. James' Place, Aldgate, itor's Note, p. G38. G82 NEW LIFE AND NEW FRIENDS [Dec. praktiselieu Vernunft," ^ he treats the affections as indif- ferent (d6t(i<^()/Ki) in ethies, and wouhl persuade us that a man who disliking, and without any feehng of love for virtue, yet acted virtuously, because and only because his dttty^ is more worthy of our esteem, than the man whose affections were aidant to and congruous with his con- science. For it would imply little less than that things not the objects of the moral will or under its control were yet indispensable to its due practical direction. In other words, it would subvert his own sj'stem. Likewise, his remarks on prayer in his " Religion innerhalb der reinen Vernunft," are crass, nay vulgar and as superficial even in psychology as they are low in taste. But with these ex- ceptions, I reverence Immanuel Kant with my whole heart and soul, and believe him to be the only philosopher, for all men who have the power of thinking. I cannot con- ceive the liberal pursuit or profession, in which the service derived from a patient study of his works would not be incalculably great, both as cathartic, tonic, and directly nutritious. Fichte in his moral system is but a caricature of Kant's, or rather, he is a Zeno, with the cowl, rope, and sackcloth of a Carthusian monk. His metaphysics have gone by ; but he hath merit of having prepared the ground for, and laid the first stone of, the dynamic philosophy by the sub- stitution of Act for Thing, Der einfilhren Actionen statt der Dinge an sich. Of the Natur-j)1iiloso2)h.en^ as far as physical dynamics are concerned and as opposed to the mechanic corpuscular system, I think very highly of some parts of their system, as being sound and scientific — metaphysics of Quality, not less evident to my reason than the metaphysics of Quantity, that is, Geometry, etc. ; of the rest and larger part, as tentative, experimental, and highly useful to a chemist, zoologist, and physiologist, as unfettering the mind, exciting its inventive powers. ^ The Kritik der praktischen Vernunft was published in 1797. 1817] TO J. H. GREEN 683 But I must be understood as confining these observations to the works of Schelling and H. Steffens. Of Schel- ling's Theology and Theanthroposophy, the telescopic stars and nebulae are too many for my " grasp of eye." (N. B. The catachresis is Dry den s, not miue.^ In short, I am half inclined to believe that both he and his friend Francis Baader are but half in earnest, and paint the veil to hide not they^ce but the want of one.^ Schel- ling is too ambitious, too eager to be the Grand Seignior of the allein-selig Philosophie to be altogether a trust- worthy philosopher. But he is a man of great genius; and, however unsatisfied with his conclusions, one cannot read him without being either ivhetted or improved. Of the others, saving Jacobi, who is a rhapsodist, excellent in sentences all in small capitals, I know either nothing, or too little to form a judgement. As my opinions were formed before I was acquainted with the schools of Fichte and Schelling, so do they remain indei^endent of them, though I con- and pro-fess great obligations to them in the development of my thoughts, and yet seem to feel that I should have been more useful had I been left to evolve them myself without knowledge of their coinci- dence. I do not very much like the SternbakP of our friend ; it is too like an imitation of Heinse's " Arding- hello,"^ and if the scene in the Painter's Garden at Rome is less licentious than the correspondent abomination in the former work, it is likewise duller. I have but merely looked into Jean Paul's " Vorschule dcr Aisthetik," * but I found one sentence almost word for word the same as one written by myself in a fi*agment of ^ This statement requires expla- ^ Lurlwifj Tieck published his nation. Franz Xavier von Baader, Sternhald' s Wanderungen in 1708. 1765-1841, was a mystic of the ^ Heinse's Ardlnghello was pub- school of Jacob P)olune, and wrote lished in 1787. in opposition to Schelling. * Richter's Vorschule der Aisthetik was published in 1804 (3 vols.). 684 NEW LIFE AND NEW FRIENDS [1818 an Essay on the Supernatural ^ many years ago, viz. that the ^;rc.sc«ce of a ghost is the terror, not what he does, a principle which Southey, too, overlooks in his " Thalaba " and " Kehama." But I must conclude. Believe me, dear sir, with un- feigned regard and esteem, your obliged S. T. Coleridge. I expect my eldest son, Hartley Coleridge, to-day f n Oxford. •om CCXIX. TO CHARLES AUGUSTUS TULK.^ HiGHGATE, Thursday evening, 1818. Dear Sir, — As an innocent female often blushes not at any image which had risen in her own mind, but from a confused apprehension of some xy z that might be attributed to her by others, so did I feel uncomfortable at the odd coincidence of my commending to you the late Swedenborgian advertisement. But when I came home I simply asked Mrs. G. if she remembered my having read to her such an address. She instantly rejDlied not only in ' See Table Talk for January 8 I possess transcripts of twenty-five and May 1, 1823. See, also, The letters from Coleridge to Tulk, in Friend, Essay iii. of the First Land- many of which he details his theories ing Place. Coleridge's Works, Har- of ontological speculation. The ori- per & Brothers, 1853, ii. 134-137, giuals were sold and dispersed in and " Notes on Hamlet," Ibid. iv. 1882. 147-150. A note on Swedenhorg's treatise, - Charles Augustus Tulk, de- " De Cultu et Amore Dei," is printed .scribed by Mr. Campbell as " a man in Notes Theological and Political, of fortune with an uncommon taste London, 1853, p. 110, but a long for philosophical speculation," was series of marginalia on the pages of an eminent Swedenborgian, and the treatise, " De Crelo et Inferno," mainly instrumental in establishing of which a transcript has been made, the "New Church" in Great Brit- remains unpublished. ain. It was through Coleridge's For Coleridge's views on Sweden- intimacy with Mr. Tulk that his borgianism, see "Notes on Noble's writings became known to the Swe- Appeal," Literary Remains ; Cole- denborgian community, and that his ridge's Works, Harper & Brothers, letters were read at their gatherings. 1853, v. 522-527. 1818] TO CHARLES AUGUSTUS TULK 685 the affirmative, but mentioned the circumstance of my having expressed a sort of half-inclination, half-intention of addressing a letter to the chairman mentioning my receipt of a book of which I highly approved, and re- questing him to transmit my acknowledgments, if, as was probable, the author was known to him or any of the gentlemen with him. I asked her then if she had herself read the advertisement ? " Yes, and I carried it to Mr. ; Gillman, saying how much you had been pleased with the style and the freedom from the sectarian spirit." " And do you recollect the name of the Chairman ? " " No ! why, bless me ! could it be Mr. Tulk? " Very nearly the same conversation took place with Mr. Gillman afterwards. I can readily account for the fact in myself; for first I never recollect any persons by their names, and have fallen into some laughable perplexities by this specific catalepsy of memory, such as accepting an invitation in the streets from a face perfectly familiar to me, and being afterwards unable to attach the name and habitat thereto; and secondly, that the impression made by a conversation that appeared to me altogether accidental and by your voice and person had been completed before I heard your name ; and lastly, the more habitual tliinking is to any one, the larger share has the relation of cause and effect in producing recognition. But it is strange that neither Mrs. or IVIr. Gillman should have recollected the name, though probably the accidentality of having made your acquaintance, and its being at Little Hampton, and asso- ciated with our having at the same time and by a similar accidental rencontre become acquainted with the Eev. Mr. Gary and his family, overlaid any former relique of a man's name in Mrs. G. as well as myself. I return you Blake's poesies,^ metrical and graphic, 1 It may be supposed that it was that, as an indirect consequence, the Blake, the mystic and the spiritual- original edition of his poems, " en- ist, that aroused Talk's interest, and graved in writing-hand," was sent 686 NEW LIFE AXD NEW FRIENDS [1818 with tluinks. With this and the book, I have sent a rude scrawl as to the order in which I was pleased by the sev- eral poems. With respectful compliments to ]\Irs. Tulk, I remain, dear sir, your obliged S. T. Coleridge. Thursdaj' evening, Iligligate. Blake's Poems. — I begin with my dyspathies that I may forget them, and have uninterrupted space for loves and sympathies. Title-page and the following emblem contain all the faidts of the drawings with as few beauties as could be in the compositions of a man who was capable of such faults and such beauties. The faulty despotism in symbols amounting in the title-page to the fito-rjTov, and occasionally, irregular unmodified lines of the inanimate, sometimes as the effect of rigidity and sometimes of exos- sation like a wet tendon. So likewise the ambiguity of the drapery. Is it a garment or the body incised and scored out ? The lumpness (the effect of vinegar on an egg) in the upper one of the two prostrate figures in the title-page, and the straight line down the waistcoat of pinky goldbeaters' skin in the next drawing, with the I don't-know-whatness of the countenance, as if the mouth to Coleridge for his inspection and for in 1812 Crabb Robinson, so he criticism. The Songs of Innocence tells us, read them aloud to Words- were published in 1787, ten years "worth, who was " pleased with some before the Lyrical Ballads appeared, of them, and considered Blake as and more than thirty years before having the elements of poetry, a the date of this letter, but they were thousand times more than either known only to a few. Lamb, writ- Byron or Scott." None, however, ing in 1824, speaks of him as Robert of these hearty and genuine admir- Blake, and after praising in the ers appear to have reflected that highest terms his paintings and en- Blake had " gone back to nature," a gravings, says that he has never while before Wordsworth or Cole- read his poems, " which have been ridge turned their steps in that di- sold hitherto only in manuscrijit." rection. Letters of Charles Lamb, It is strange that Coleridge should 1886, ii. 104, 105, 324, 325 ; H. C. not have been familiar with them, Robinson's Diary, i, 385. 1818] TO CHARLES AUGUSTUS TULK G87 had been formed by the habit of placing the tongue not contemptuously, but stupidly, between the lower gums and the lower jaw — these are the only repulsive faults I have noticed. The figure, however, of the second leaf, abstracted from the expression of the countenance given it by something about the mouth, and the interspace from the lower lip to the chin, is such as only a master learned in his art could produce. JV. B. I signifies "It gave me great pleasure." i, "Still greater." II, "And greater still." 0, "In the highest degree." O, " In the lowest." Shepherd, I ; Spring, I (last stanza, I) ; Holy Thurs- day, II ; Laughing Song, I ; Nurse's Song, I ; The Di- vine Image, ; The Lamb, I ; The little black Boy, 0, yea ©-{-0; Infant Joy, II (N. B. For the three last lines I should write, "When wilt thou smile," or "O smile, O smile ! I '11 sing the wdiile." For a babe two days old does not, cannot smile, and innocence and the very truth of Nature must go together. Infancy is too holy a thing to be ornamented). " The Echoing Green," I, (the fig- ures I, and of the second leaf, 11) ; " The Cradle Song," I; "The School Boj^" II; Night, 0; "On another's Sor- row," I ; " A Dream," ? ; " The little boy lost," I (the drawing, I) ; " The little boy found," I ; "The Blossom," O ; " The Chimney Sweeper," O ; " The Voice of the Ancient Bard," O. Introduction, I ; Earth's Answer, I ; Infant Sorrow, I ; " The Clod and the Pebble," I ; " The Garden of Love," I ; " The Fly," I ; " The Tyger," I ; "A little boy lost," I ; " Holy Thursday," I ; [p. 13, O ; " Nurse's Song," O?] ; "The little girl lost and found" (the orna- ments most exquisite ! the poem, I) ; " Chimney Sweeper in the Snow," O; "To Tirzah, and the Poison Tree," I — and yet O; "A little Girl lost," O. (I would have had it omitted, not for the want of innocence in the poem, but from the too probable want of it in many readers.) 688 NEW LIFE AND NEW FRIENDS [May " London," I : " The Sick Rose,"' I ; " The little Vaga- bond," O. Tliougli I cannot approve altogether of this last poem, and have been inclined to think that the en-or which is most likely to beset the scholars of P^manuel Swedeuborg is that of utterly demerging the tremendous incompatibilities with an evil will that arise out of the essential Holiness of the abysmal A-seity ^ in the love of the Eternal T'ersoii, and thus giving temptation to weak minds to sink this love itself into Good jVature, yet still I dis- approve the mood of mind in this wild poem so nnich less than I do the servile blind-worm, wrap-rascal scurf-coat of J'ear of the modern Saint (whose whole being is a lie, to themselves as well as to their brethren), that I should laugh with good conscience in watching a Saint of the new stamp, one of the first stars of our eleemosynary adver- tisements, groaning in wind-pipe ! and with the whites of his eyes upraised at the audacity of this poem ! Any- thing rather than this degradation I of Humanity, and therein of the Incarnate Divinity ! o. JL. \j. O means that I am perplexed and have no opinion. I, with which how can we utter "Our Father"? CCXX. TO J. H. GREEN. Spring- Garden Coffee House, [May 2, 1818.] My dear Sir, — Having been detained here till the present hour, and under requisition for Monday morning early, I have decided on not returning to Ilighgate in the interim. I propose, therefore, to have the pleasure of pass- ^ In the Aids to Reflection, at the the df\ri/xa and the &ovXi\, that is, close of a long comment on a pas- the Absohite AVill as the universal sage in Field, Coleridge alludes to ground of all being, and the election " discussions of the Greek Fathers, and purpose of God in the per- and of the Schoolmen on the obscure sonal Idea, as Father." Coleridge's and abjsmal subject of the divine Works, 18.53, i. 317. A-aeity, and the distinction between 1818] TO J. H. GREEN 689 ing the fore-dinner liours, from eleven o'clock to-morrow morning, with you in Lincoln's Inn Square, unless I should hear from you to the contrary. The Cotton-children Bill ^ (an odd irony to children hred up in cotton /) which has passed the House of Commons, would not, I suspect, have been discussed at all in the House of Lords, but have been quietly assented to, had it not afforded that Scotch coxcomb, the plebeian Earl of Lauderdale,^ too tempting an occasion for displaying his muddy three inch depths in the gutter (? Guttur) of his Political Economy. Whether some half-score of rich capitalists are to be prevented from suborning suicide and perpetuating infanticide and soul-murder is, forsooth, the most perplexing question which has ever called forth his determining faculties, accustomed as they are loell known to have been, to grappling with difficulties. In short, he wants to make a speech almost as much as I do to have a release signed by conscience from the duty of making or anticipating answers to such speeches. 1 The bill in whick Coleridge in- prohibit soul-ranrder on the part of terested himself, and in favour of the rich, and self-slaughter on that which he wrote two circulars which of the poor!), or any dictum of our were printed and distributed, was grave law authoi'ities from Fortescue introduced in the House of Com- — to Eldon : for from the borough inons by the first Sir Robert Peel, of Hell I wish to have no represen- Tlie object of the bill was to regu- tatives." Henry Crabb Robinson's late the employment of children in Diary, ii. 93-95. cotton factories. A bill for prohib- ^ James Maitland, 1750-1839, iting the employment of children eighth Earl of Lauderdale, belonged under nine was passed in 1S33, but to the party of Charles James Fox, it was not till 1844 that the late and, like Coleridge, opposed the first Lord Shaftesbury, then Lord Ash- war with France, which began in ley, succeeded in passing the Ten 1793. In the ministry of " All the Hours Bills. In a letter of May od Talents " he held the Great Seal of to Crabb Robinson, Coleridge asks : Scotland. Coleridge calls him ple- "Can you furnish us with any other beian because he inherited the peer- instances in which the legislature has age from a remote connection. He interfered with what is ironically was the author of several treatises on called ' Free Labour' {i. e. dared to finance and political economy. G90 NEW LIFE AND NEW FRIENDS [July O when the heart is deaf and l)lin(l, how hlear The lynx's eye ! how dull the niould-\vai'j)'s ear ! Verily the Worhl is mighty! and for all but the few the orb of Truth labours under eclipse from the shadow of the world ! With kind respects to Mrs. Green, believe me, my dear sir, with sincere and affectionate esteem, Yours, S. T. Coleridge. CCXXI. TO MRS. GILLMAN. J. Green's, Esq., St. Lawrence, nr. Maldon, Wednesday, July 19, 1818. My VERY DEAR SiSTER AND Friend, — The distance from the post and the extraordinary thinness of popula- tion in this district (especially of men and women of let- ters) which affords only two days in the seven for sending to or receiving from Maldon, are the sole causes of your not hearing oftener from me. The cross roads from Margret- ting Street to the very house are excellent, and through the first gate we drove up between two large gardens, that on the right a flower and fruit garden not without kitclienery, and that on the left, a kitchen garden not without fruits and flowers, and both in a perfect blaze of roses. Yet so capricious is our, at least my, nature, that I feel I do not receive the fifth part of the delight from this miscellany of Flora, flowers at every step, as from the economized glasses and flower-pots at Highgate so tended and wor- shipped by me, and each the gift of some kind friend or courteous neighbour. I actually make up a flower-pot every night, in oi-der to imitate my Highgate pleasures. The country road is very beautiful. About a quarter of a mile from the garden, all the way through beautiful fields in blossom, we come to a wood, full of birds and not un- charmed by the nightingales, and which the old workman, to please his mistress, has romanticised with, I dare say, fifty seats and honeysuckle bowers and green arches made 1818] TO MRS. GILLMAN 691 by twisting the branches of the trees across the paths. The view from the hilly field above the wood command- ing the arm of the sea, and ending in the open sea, re- minded me very much of the prospects from Stowey and Alfoxden, in Somersetshire. The cottagers seem to be and are in possession of plenty of comfort. Poverty I have seen no marks of, nor of the least servility, though they are courteous and respectfid. We have abundance of cream. The Farm must, I should think, be a valuable estate ; and the parents are anxious to leave it as complete as possible for Joseph, their only child (for it is Mrs. J. Green's sisters that we have seen — G. himself has no sister). There is no society hereabouts. I like it the better there/b^'e. The clergyman, a young man, is lost in a gloomy vulgar Calvinism, will read no book but the Bible, converse on nothing but the state of the soul, or rather he will not converse at all, but visit each house once in two months, when he prays and admonishes, and gives a lecture every evening at his own rooms. On be- ing invited to dine with us, the sad and modest youth returned for answer, that if Mr. Green and I should be here when he visited the house, he shoidd have no objec- tion to enter into the state of our souls with us, and if in the mean time we desired any instruction from him, we might attend at his daily evening lecture ! Election, Rep- robation, Children of the Devil, and all such flowers of rhetoric, and flour of brimstone, form his discourses both in church and parlour. But my folly in not filling the snuff canister is a subject of far more serious and awful I'egret with me, than the not being in the way of being thus led by the nose of this Pseudo-Evangelist. Nothing but Scotch ; and that five miles off. O Anne ! it was cruel in you not to have calculated the monstrous dispro- portion between the huge necessities of my nostrils, or rather of my thumb and forefinger, and that vile little vial three fourths empty of snuff ! The flat of my thumb, 692 NEW LIFE AND NEW FRIENDS [Dec. yea, the nail of my forefinger is not only clean ; it is white ! white as the })ale Hag of famine ! ^ Now for my health. . . . Ludicrous as it may seem, yet it is no joke for me, that from the marshiness of these sea marshes, and the number of unnecessary fish ponds and other stagnancies iunnediately around the house, the gnats are a very plague of Egypt, and suspicious, with good reason, of an erysipelatous tendency, I am anxious concerning the effects of the irritation produced by these canorous visitants. While awake (and two tliirds of last night I was kept awake by their bites and trumpetings) I can so far command myself as to check the intolerable itching by a weak mixture of goulard and rosewater ; but in my sleep I scratch myself as if old Scratch had lent me his best set of claws. This is the only drawback from my comforts here, for nothing can be kinder or more cordial than my treatment. I like Mrs. J. Green better and better ; but feel that in twenty years it would never be above or beyond liking. She is good-natured, lively, in- nocent, but without a soothingness, or something I do not know what that is tender. As to my return, I do not think it will be possible, without great unkindness, to be with you before Tuesday evening or Wednesday, calculat- ing icholly by the progress of the manuscript ; and we have been hard at it. Do not take it as words, of course, when I say and solemnly assure you, that if I followed my own ivishes, I should leave this place on Saturday morning : for I feel more and more that I can be well off nowhere away from you and Gillman. May God bless him ! For a dear friend he is and has been to be. Re- member me affectionately to the Milnes and Betsy, if 1 It -was, I have been told by an cess that the maid servant had di- eyewitness, Coleridge's habit to take rections to sweep up these literary a pinch of snuff, and whilst he was remains and replace them in the t.'ilking to rub it between his fingers, canister. He wasted so much snuff in the pro- 1818] TO W. COLLINS 693 they are at Higligate. Love to James. Kisses for the Fish of Five Waters,^ none of which are stagnant, and I hope that Mary, Dinah, and Lucy are well, and that Mary is quite recovered. Again and again and again, God bless you, my most dear friends ; for I am, and ever trust to remain, more than can be expressed, my dear Anne ! your affectionate, obliged, and grateful So T. Coleridge. P. S. Not to put Essex after Maldon. CCXXII. TO W. COLLINS, ESQ., A. E. A. HiGHGATE, December, 1818. My dear Sir, — I at once comply with, and thank you for, your request to have some prospectvises. God knows I have so few friends, that it would be unpardon- able in me not to feel proportionably grateful towards those few who think the time not wasted in which they interest themselves in my behalf. There is an old Latin adage. Vis videri paiiper, et j)ciuj)er es ! Poor 3'ou jjro- fess yourself to be, and poor therefore you are, and will remain. The prosperous feel only with the prosperous, and if you subtract from the whole sum of their feeling for all the gratifications of vanity, and all their calcula- tions of lending to the Lord., both of which are best answered by confessing the supei-fluity of their superflui- ties on advertised and advertisable distress, or on such cases as are known to be in all respects their inferior, you will have, I fear, but a scanty remainder. All this is too true ; but then, what is that man to do whom no distress can bribe to swindle or deceive? who cannot reply as Theophilus Gibber did to his father, Colley Gibber, who, seeing him in a rich suit of clothes whispered to him as he passed, " The ! The ! I pity thee ! " " Pity me ! pity my tailor!" ^ A pet name for the Gillmans' younger son, Henry. 694 NEW LIFE AND NEW FRIENDS [Dec. Spite of the decided approbation wliieli my plan of delivering lectures has received from several judicious and highly respectable individuals, it is still too histrionic, too much like a retail dealer in instruction and pastime, not to be depressing. If the duty of living were not far more awful to my conscience than life itself is agreeable to my feelings, I shoidd sink under it. But, getting nothing by my i)ublications, which I have not the power of making estimable by the public without loss of self- estimation, what can 1 do ? The few who have won the present age, while tliey have secured the praise of pos- terity, as Sir Walter Scott, Mr. Southey, Lord Byron, etc., have been in happier circumstances. And lecturing is the only means by which I can enable myself to go on at all with the great pliilosopliical work to whicli the best and most genial hours of the last twenty years of my life have been devoted. Poetry is out of the question. The attempt would only hurry me into that sphere of acute feelings from which abstruse research, the mother of self- oblivion, i)resents an asylum. Yet sometimes, spite of myself, I cannot help bursting out into the affecting ex- clamation of our Spenser (his "wine " and " ivy garland" inter^Dreted as competence and joyous circumstances} : — " Thou kenn'st not, Percy, how the rhyme should cage ! Oh, if my temples were bedewed with wine, And girt with g-arlands of wild ivy-twine. How I eoiild rear the Muse on stately stage ! And teach her tread aloft in buskin fine, With queen' d Bellona in her equipage ! But ah, my courage cools ere it be warm ! " ^ But God's w^ill be done. To feel the full force of the Christian religion it is, perhaps, necessary for many tempers that they should first be made to feel, experimen- tally, the liollowness of human friendship, the presump- tuous emptiness of human hopes. I find more substantial comfort now in pious George Herbert's " Temple," which ^ Coleridge was fond of quoting these lines as applicable to himself. 1818J TO THOMAS ALLSOP G95 I used to read to amuse myself with his quaiutness, in short, only to laugh at, than in all the poetry since the poems of Milton. If you have not read Herbert, I can recommend the book to you confidently. The poem enti- tled " The Flower " is especially affecting ; and, to me, such a phrase as " and relish versing " ex2)resses a sin- cerity, a reality, which I woidd unwillingly exchange for the more dignified " and once more love the Muse," etc. And so, with many other of Herbert's homely phrases. We are all anxious to hear from, and of, our excellent transatlantic friend.^ I need not repeat that your com- pany, with or without our friend Leslie,^ will gratify Your sincere S. T. Coleridge. CCXXIII. TO THOMAS ALLSOP. The origin of Coleridge's friendship with Thomas All- sop, a young city merchant, dates from the first lecture wliich he delivered at Flower de Luce Court, January 27, 1818. A letter from Allsop containing a " judicious sug- gestion " with regard to the subject advertised, " The Dark Ages of Europe," was handed to the lecturer, who could not avail himself of the hint on this occasion, but promised to do so before the close of the series. Personal inter- course does not seem to have taken place till a year later, but from 1819 to 1826 Coleridge and Allsop were close and intimate friends. In 1825 the correspondence seems to have dropped, but I am not aware that then or after- wards there was any breach of friendship. In 183G Allsop ^ Washington Allston. croft, R. A., after a careful inspec- 2 Charles Robert Leslie, historical tion of other portraits and eng-rav- painter, 1794-1859, was born of ings of S. T. Coleridg-e, modelled American parents, bnt studied art the bust which now (thanks to in London under Wiushiiigton All- American generosity) finds its place ston. A pencil sketch, for which in Poets' Corner, mainly in accord- Coleridge sat to him in 1820, is in ance with this sketch, my possession. Mr. Ilamo Tliorny- G96 NEW LIFE AND NEW FRIENDS [Dec. publislied the letters whicli lie had received from Coleridge. Partly on account of the personal allusions which some of the letters contain, and partly because it would seem that Coleridge expressed himself to his young disciple with some freedom on matters of religious oi)iniou, the pul)lica- tiou of these letters was regarded by Coleridge's friends as an act of mala fides. Allsop was kindness itself to Cole- ridge, but, no doubt, the allusions to friends and children, which were of a painful and priv^ate nature, ought, during their lifetime at least, to have been omitted. The origi- nals of many of these letters were presented by the All- sop family to the late P]mperor of Brazil, an enthusiastic student and admirer of Coleridge.^ December 2, 1818. My dear Sir, — I cannot express how kind I felt your letter. Would to Heaven I had had many with feelings like yours, "accustomed to exjDress themselves warmly and (as far as the word is applicable to 5^ou, even) enthusiastically." But, alas ! during the prime manhood of my intellect I had nothing but cold water thrown on my efforts. I speak not now of my systematic and most unprovoked maligners. On them I have re- torted oidy by pit}* and by prayer. These may have, and doubtless have^ joined with the frivolity of " the reading public " in checking and almost in preventing the sale of my works ; and so far have done injury to my j^urse. Me they have not injured. But I have loved with enthu- siastic self-oblivion those who have been so well pleased that I should, year after year, flow with a hundred name- less rills into thew main stream, that they could find nothing but cold praise and effective discouragement of every attempt of mine to roll onward in a distinct cui'rent of my own; who (idmitted that the "Ancient Mariner," the " Christabel," the " Kemorse," and some pages of " The ' Letters, Conversations, and Recollections of S. T. Coleridge, London, 1836, i. 1-3. \Mf^^4^iA^ 1818] TO THOMAS ALLSOP 697 Friend " were not without merit, but were abundantly anxious to acquit their judgements of any blindness to the very numerous defects. Yet they kneiv that to praise, as mere praise, I was characteristically, almost constitu- tionally, indifferent. In sympathy alone I found at once nourishment and stimulus ; and for symj^athy alone did my heart crave. They knew, too, how long and faithfully I had acted on the maxim, never to admit the faidts of a work of genius to those who denied or were incapable of feeling and understanding the beauties ; not from wilful partiality, but as well knowing that in saying truth I should, to such critics, convey falsehood. If, in one in- stance, in my literary life, I have appeared to deviate from this rvde, first, it was not till the fame of the writer (which I had been for fourteen years successively toiling like a second Ali to build up) had been established ; and, secondly and chiefly, with the pm^pose and, I maj^ safely add, with the effect of rescuing the necessary task from malignant defamers, and in order to set forth the excel- lences and the trifling proportion which the defects bore to the excellences. But this, my dear sir, is a mistake to which affectionate natures are liable, though I do not remember to have ever seen it noticed, the mistaking those who are desirous and well-pleased to be loved hy you, for those who love you. Add, as a mere general cause, the fact that I neither am nor ever have been of any jjarty. What wonder, then, if I am left to decide which has been my worse enemy, — the broad, pre-deter- mined abuse of the " Edinburgh Review," etc., or the cold and brief compliments, Avith the warm regrets of the " Quarterly " ? After all, however, I have now but one sorrow relative to the ill success of my literary toils (and toils they have been, thottgh not imdelightful toih^, and this arises wholly from the almost insurmountable dififi- cidties which the anxieties of to-day oppose to my com- pletion of the great work, the form and materials of G98 NEW LIFE AND NEW FRIENDS [Jan. which it has been the employment of the best and most genial hours of the last twenty years to mature and collect. If I could but have a tolerably numerous audience to my first, or first and second Lectures on the History of Philosophy/ I should entertain a strong hope of success, because 1 know that these lectures will be found by far the most interesting and entertaining of any that I have yet delivered, independent of the more permanent inter- ests of rememberable instruction. Few and unimportant would the errors of men be, if they did but know, first, what they themselves meant; and, secondly, what the words mean by which they attempt to convey their mean- ing ; and I can conceive no subject so well fitted to exem- plify the mode and the importance of these two points as the History of Philosophy, treated as in the scheme of these lectures. Trusting that I shall shortly have the pleasure of seeing you here, I remain, my dear sir, yours most sincerely, S. T. Coleridge. ^ The Prospectus of the Lectures and Gentleman, Three Guineas. Sin- on the History of Philosophy was gle Tickets, Two Guineas. Ad- printed in AUsop's Letters, etc., as mission to a Single Lecture, Five Letter xliv., November 26, 1818, but Shillings. An Historical and Chron- the announcement of the time and ological Guide to the course will place has been omitted. A very be printed." rare copy of the origmal prospectus, A reporter was hired at the ex- which has been placed in my hands pense of Hookham Frere to take byMrs. Henry Watson, gives the fol- down the lectures in shorthand. A lowing details : — transcript, which I possess, contains " This course will be comprised numerous errors and omissions, but is in Fourteen Lectures, to commence interesting as affording proof of the on Monday evening, December 7, conversational style of Coleridge's 1818, at eight o'clock, at the Crown lectures. See, for further account and Anchor, Strand ; and be contin- of Lectures of 1819, Samuel Tay- ued on the following Mondays, with lor Coleridge, a Narrative, by J. the intermission of Christmas week Dykes Campbell, pp. 238, 239. — Double Tickets, admitting a Lady 1819] TO J. H. GREEN 699 CCXXIV. TO J. H. GREEN. [Postmark, January 16, 1819.] My deae Green, — I forgot both at the Lecture Koom and at Mr. Phillips's to beg you to leave out for me Goethe's " Zur Farbenlehre." It is for a passage in the preface in which he compares Plato with Aristotle, etc., as far as I recollect, in a spirited manner. The books are at your service again, after the lecture. Either Mr. Gary or some messenger will call for them to-morrow ! I piously resolve on Tuesday to put my books in some order, but at all events to select yours and send all of them that I do not want (and I do not recollect any that I do, unless perhaps the little volume edited by Tieck of his friend's composition), back to you. I am more and more delighted with Chantrey. The little of his conversation which I enjoyed ex ^>e(Ze Herculem^ left me no doubt of the power of his insight. Light, manlihood, simplicity, wholeness. These are the entelechy of Phidian Genius ; and who but must see these in Chantrey 's solar face, and in all his manners ? Item : I am bewitched with your wife's portrait. So very like and yet so ideal a portrait I never remember to have seen. But as Mr. Phillips ^ said : " Why, sir ! she was a sweet subject, sir ! That 's a great thing." As to my own, I can form no judgment. In its present state, the eyes appear too large, too globose, and their colour must be made lighter, and I thought that the face, 1 Thomas Phillips, R. A., 1770- Justice used to say that the Salston 1845, painted two portraits of Cole- picture was " the best presentation ridge, one of which is in the posses- of the outward man." No doubt sion of Mr. John Murray, and was it recalled his great-uncle as he re- engraved as the frontispiece of the membered him. It certainly bears first volume of the Table Talk ; a close resemblance to the portraits and the other in that of Mr. William of Coleridge's brothers, Edward and Rennell Coleridge, of Salston, Ottery George, and of other members of the St. Mary. The late Lord Chief family. 700 NEW LIFE AND NEW FRIENDS [Oct. exclusive of the forehead, was stronger, more energetic than mine seems to be when I catch it in the glass, and therefore the forehead and brow less so — not in them- selves, but in consequence of the proportion. But of course I can form no notion of what my face and look may be when I am animated in friendly conversation. My kind and respectful remembrances to j^our Mother, and believe me, most affectionately. Your obliged friend, S. T. Coleridge. CCXXV. TO JAMES GILLMAN. [Ramsgate, Postmark, August 20, 1819.] My dear Friend, — Whether from the mere inten- sity of the heat, and the restless, almost sleepless, nights in consequence, or from incautious exposure to draughts ; or whether simply the change of air and the sea bath was repairing the intestinal canal (and bad indeed must the road be which is not better than a road a-mendlnc/^ a hint which oiw revohitionary reformers would do well to attend to) or from whatever cause, I have been miserably unwell for the last three days — but last night passed a tolerably good night, and, finding myself convalescent this morning, I bathed, and now am still better, having had a glorious tumble in the waves, though the water is still not cold enough for my liking. The weather, how- ever, is evidently on the change, and we have now a suc- cession of flying April showers, and needle rains. My bath is about a mile and a quarter from the Lime Grove, a wearisome travail by the deep crumbly sands, but a very pleasant breezy walk along the top of the cliff, from which you descend through a deep steep lane cut through the chalk rocks. The tide comes up to the end of the lane, and washes the cliff, but a little before or a little after high tide there are nice clean seats of rock with foot-baths, and then an expanse of sand, greater than I 1819] TO MRS. ADERS 701 need ; and exactly a liuudred of my strides from the end of the lane there is a good, roomy, arched cavern, with an oven or cupboard in it, where one's clothes may be put free from the sand. ... I find that I can write no more if I am to send this by the to-day's post. Pray, if you can with any sort of propriety, do come down to me — to us, I suppose I ought to say. We are all as should be Bur fiovdTpovcrXt (jiopfiaX. . . . God bless you and S. T. C. CCXXVI. TO MES. ADERS. [?] ^ [HiGHGATE, October 28, 1819.] Dear Madam, — I wish from my very heart that you could teach me to express my obligations to you with half the grace and delicacy with which you confer them ! But not to the Giver does the evening cloud indicate the rich lights, which it has received and transmits and yet retains. For other eyes it must glow : and what it can- not return it will strive to represe?it, the poor proxy of the gracious orb which is departing. I would that the simile were less accurate throughout, and with those of Homer's lost its likeness as it approached to its conclusion ! This, I fear, is somewhat too selfish; but we cannot have attachment without fear or grief. " We cannot choose — But weep to have what we so dread to lose," says Nature's child, our best Shakespeare ; and that Hu- manity cannot grieve without a portion of selfishness, Nature herself says. To take up my allegoric strain with a slight variation, even in the fairest shews and liveliest demon- strations of grateful and affectionate leave-taking from a generous friend or disinterested patron or benefactor, we ^ My impression is that this letter the engraver Raphael Smith, but the was written to Mrs. Aders, the beau- address is wanting and I cannot tiful and accomplished daughter of speak with any certainty. 702 NEW LIFE AND NEW FRIENDS [Oct. are like evening rainbows, that at once shine and weep, things made up of reflected splendour and our own tears. ^ To meet, to know, t' esteem — and then to part, Forms the sad tale of many a genial heart.^ The stonn ^ now louring and muttering in our political atmosphere might of itself almost forbid me to regret your leaving England. For I have no apprehension of any serious or extensive danger to property or to the coercive powers of the Law. Both reason and history preclude the fear of any revolution, where none of the constituent states of a nation are arrayed against the others. The risk is still less in Great Britain where property is so widely diffused and so closely interlinked and co-organized. But I dare not promise as much for personal safety. The struggle may be short, the event certain ; yet the mischief in the interim appalling ! May my Fears, My filial fears, be vain ! and may the vaunts And menace of the vengeful enemy Pass like the gust, that roared and died away ^ Compare lines 16-20 of The Two Poetical Works, p. 106. See, too, Founts : — for unprinted stanza, Ibid. Editor's ♦' As on the driving cloud the shiny bow, Note, p. 042. That gracious thing made up of tears and 2 " rp^ rp^^ Sisters." Poetical "S"-" Works, p. 119. The poem as a whole was composed "^ Tlie so-called " Manchester Mas- in 1826, and, as I am assured by Mrs. sacre," nicknamed Peterloo, took Henry Watson (on the authority of place August 16, 1819. Towards her grandmother, Mi-s. Gillman), the middle of October dangerous addressed to Mrs. Aders ; but the riots broke out at North Shields, fifth and a preceding stanza, which Cries of "Blood for blood," "Man- Coleridge marked for interpolation, Chester over again," were heard in in an annotated copy of Poetical the streets, and " so daiing have the Works, 1S28 (kindly lent me by Mrs. mob been that they actually threat- Watson), must have been written be- ened to burn or destroy the ships fore that date, and were, as I gather of war." Annual Register, October from an insertion in a notebook, ori- 15-23, 1819. ^nally addressed to Mrs. Gillmau. 1819] TO MRS. ADERS 703 In the distant tree : which heard, and only heard In this low dell, bow'd not the delicate grass.^ 1 confess that I read the poem from which these lines are extracted (" Fears in Solitude ") and now cite them with far other than an author s feelings ; those, I trust, of a patriot, I am sure, those of a Christian. You will not, I know, fail to assure Miss Harding ^ of the kind feelings and wishes with which I accompany her ; but my sense of the last boon, which I owe to her, I shall convey, my dear madam ! by hands less likely to make extenuating comments on my words than your tongue or hand. Before I subscribe my name, I must tell you that had my wish been the chooser and had taken a month to deliberate on the choice, I could not have received a keepsake so in all respects gratifying to me, as the exquisite impressions of cameo's and intaglio's.^ First, it enables me to entertain and gratify so many friends, my own and Mr. and Mrs. Gillman's ; secondly, every little gem is associated with my recollections, or more or less recalls the images and persons seen and met with during my own stay in the Mediterranean and Italy ; thirdly, they stand in the same connection with the places of your past and future sojourn, and therefore, lastly, supply me with the means and the occasion of expressing to others more strongly, perhaps, but not more warmly or sincerely than I now do to yourself, with how much respect and regard I remain, dear madam, Your obliged friend and servant, S. T. Coleridge. Saturday, 28th Octr. 1819. On the 20th of this month completed my 49th year. ^ "Fears in Solitude." Poetical gems, once, no doubt, the property Works, p. 127. of S. T. C, is now in the possession 2 Mrs. Gillman'a sister. of Alexander Gillman, Esq., of ■ ^ A collection of casts of antique Sussex Square, Brighton. 704 NEW LIFE AND NEW FRIENDS [Jan. CCXXVII. TO J. II. GREEN. January 14, 1820. My dear Green, — Charles Lamb has j ust written to inform me that he and his sister will pay me their Neio Years visit on Sunday next, and may perhaps bring a friend to see me, though certainly not to dine, and hopes I may not be engaged. I must therefore defer onv j^hUosopJiical intercommuue till the Sunday after ; but if you have no more pleasant way of passing the ante- prandial or, still better, the day including prandial and post-prandial, I trust that it will be no anti-philosophical expenditure of time, and I need not say an addition to the pleasure of all this household. I should like, too, to arrange some plan of going with you to Covent Garden Theatre, to see Miss Wensley, the new actress, whose father (a merchant of Bristol, at whose house I had once been, but whom the capricious Nymph of Trade has un- horsed from his seat) has called on me, a compound of the Oratorical, the Histrionic, and the Exquisite ! All the dull colours in the colour-shop at the sign of the Bluecoat Boy would not suffice to neutralize the glare of his Colorit into any tolerably fair likeness that wovdd not be scouted as Caricature ! Gillman will give you a slight sketch of him. Since I saw you, we have dined and spent the night (for it was near one when we broke up) at Mathews', and heard and saw his forthcoming " At Home." There were present, besides G. and myself, Mrs. and young Mathews, and Mr. and Mrs. Chisholm, James Smith of Rej. Add. notoriety, and the author of (all the trash of) Mathews' Entertainment, for the good parts are his own, (What a pity that you dare not offer a word of friendly sensible advice to such men as M., but you may be certain that it w^ill be useless to them and attributed to envy or some vile selfish object in the ad- Derwent Coleridge fi.:/^ ^)M. mm^^ .**s? '''■ii>'i' .J*-'- i 1820] TO J. H. GREEN 705 viser !) Mr. Dubois/ the author of " Vaurien," " Old Nic," " My Pocket Book," and a notable share of the theatrical puffs and slanders of the periodical press ; and, lastly, Mr. Thomas Hill,- quondam drysalter of Thames Street, whom I remember twenty-five years ago with ex- actly the same look, person, and manners as now. Math- ews calls him the Immutable. He is a seemingly al- ways good-natured fellow who knows nothing and about everything, no person, and about and all about every- body — a complete parasite, in the old sense of a dinner- hunter, at the tables of all who entertain public men, authors, players, fiddlers, booksellers, etc., for more than thirty years. It was a pleasant evening, however. Be so good as to remember the drawing from the Al- chemy Book. Mrs. GiUman desires her love to Mrs. Green ; and we hope that the twin obstacles, ague and the boreal weather, to our seeing her here, will vanish at the same time. Mrs. G. bids me tell her that she grumbles at the doc- tors, her husband included, and is confident that her 1 Edward Dubois, satirist, 1775- of Coleridge, headed " A Farewell, 1850, was the author of The Wreath, 18o4," " I dined in company at my a Translation of Boccaccio's Decam- father's table, I sat between Cole- eron, 1804, and other works besides ridge and Mr. Hill (known as ' Lit- those mentioned in the text. Bio- tie Tommy Hill') of the Adelphi, graphical Dictionary. and Ezekiel then formed the theme 2 A late note-book of the High- of Coleridge's eloquence. I well re- gate period contains the following member his citing the chapter of doggerel : t'*® Dead Bones, and his sepulchral voice as lie asked, ' Can these bones To THE MOST VERACIOUS AnECDOTIST AND .. r, , rr>l \ ■ i i- 2.1 ^ „ „ „ .„ u,„ i7<,„ live? Ihen, his observation that Small-Talk Man, Thomas Hill, Esq. ' nothing in the range of human Tom Hill who laughs at cares and woes, i i-„ ii .,. ... thought was more sublime than As nauci — mil — pill — -r. ,. ,, What is belike as I suppose? Ezekiel s reply. Lord, thou know- Why to be sure, a Rose, a Rose. est,' in deepest humility, not presum- At least no soul that Toiii Hill knows, j„w to doubt the omnipotence of the Could e'er recall a Li-ly. jyj ^ High." Letters from the Lake Poets, p. 322. See, too. Letters from "The first time," writes Miss Hill to Stuart, iJ/t/. p. 435. Stuart, in a personal remembrance 700 NEW LIFE AND NEW FRIENDS [May husband would have made a cure long ago. A faitliful wife is a common blessing, I trust : but what a treasure to have a wife full of faith ! By tlie bye, I have lit on some (o)s l/Aotye SoKci analogous) cases in which the nau- seating plan, even for a short time, appears to have had a wonderful effect in breaking the chain of a morbid ten- dency ; and the almost infallible specific of sea-sickness in curing an old ague is surely a confirmation as far as it goes. Yours most affectionately, S. T. Coleridge. CCXXYIII. TO THE SAME. [May 25, 1820.] My dear Green, — I was greatly affected in finding how ill you had been, and long ere this should have let you know it, but that I have myself been in no usual dejjree unwell. I wish I could with truth underline the words have been, and in the hope of being able to do so it was that I delayed answering your note. Unless a speedy change for the better takes place, I should culpably de- ceive myself if I did not interpret my present state as a summons. God's will be done ! I cannot pretend that I have not received countless warnings ; and for my neglect and for the habits, and all the feebleness and wastings of the moral will which unfit the soul for spiritual ascent, and must sink it, of moral necessity, lower and lower, if it be essentially imperishable, my only ray of hope is this, that in my inmost heart, as far as my consciousness can soimd its depths, I plead nothing but my utter and sinful helplessness and worthlessness on one side, and the infi- nite mercy and divine Humanity of our Creator and Redeemer crucified from the beginning of the world, on the other ! I use no comparatives, nor indeed could I ever charitably interpret the penitential phrases (" I am the vilest of sinners, worse than the wickedest of my 1820] TO J. H. GREEN 707 fellow-men," etc.) otherwise than as figures o£ speech, the whole purport of which is, " In relation to God I appear to myself the same as the very worst man, if such there be, would appear to an earthly tribunal." I mean no comparatives ; for what have a man's permanent concerns to do with comparison ? What avails it to a bird shat- tered and irremediably disorganized in one wing, that another bird is similarly conditioned in both wings? Or to a man in the last stage of ulcerated lungs, that his neighbour is liver-rotten as well as consumptive ? Both find their equation, the birds as to flight, the men as to life. In o o o's there is no comparison. My nephew, the Revd. W. Hart Coleridge, came and stayed here from Monday afternoon to Tuesday noon, in order to make Derwent's acquaintance, and brought with him by accident Marsh's Divinity Lecture, No 3rd, on the authenticity and credibility of the Books collected in the New Testament. As I could not sit with the party after tea, I took the pamphlet with me into my bedroom, and gave it an attentive perusal, knowing the Bishop's intimate acquaintance with the investigations of Eichhorn, Paulus, and their numerous scarcely less celebrated scholars, and myself familiar with the works of the Gottingen Professor (Eichhorn), the founder and head of the daring school. I saw or seemed to see more man- agement in the Lecture than proof of thorough convic- tion. I supplied, however, from my own reasonings enough of wliat appeared wanting or doubtful in the Bishop's to justify the conclusion that the Gospel History beginning with the Baptism of John, and the Doctrines contained in the fourth Gospel, and in the Epistles, truly represent the assertions of the Apostles and the faith of the Christian Church during the first century ; that there exists no tenable or even tolerable ground for doubting the authenticitij of the Books ascribed to John the Evangelist, to Mark, to Luke, and to Paul ; nor the authority of Mat- 708 NEW LIFE AND NEW FRIENDS [May thew and tlie author of the Epistle to the Hebrews ; and lastly, that a man need only have common sense and a good heart to be assured that these Apostles and Apostolic men wrote nothing- but what they themselves believed. And yet I have no hesitation in avowing that many an argument derived from the nature of man, nay, that many a strong though only speculative probability, pierces deeper, pushes more home, and clings more press- ingly to my mind than the whole sum of merely external evidence, the fact of Christianity itself alone excepted. Nay, I feel that the external evidence derives a great and lively accession of force, for my mind, from my previous speculative convictions or presumptions ; but that I can- not fhid that the latter are at all strengthened or made more or less probable to me by the former. Besides, as to the external evidence I make up my mind once for all, and merely as evidence think no more about it ; but those facts or reflections thereon which tend to change belief into insight, can never lose their effect, any more than the distinctive sensatiojis of disease, compared with a more perceived corresjjondence of symptoms with the diagnostics of a medical book. I was led to this remark by reflecting on the awfid importance of the phj-siological question (so generally decided one way by the late most popular writers on insanity), Does the efficient cause of disease and disor- dered action, and, collectively, of pain and perishing, lie entirely in the organs, and then, reawakening the active principle in me, depart — that all pain and disease would be removed, and I should stand in the same state as I stood in previous to all sickness, etc., to the admission of any disturbing forces into my nature ? Or, on the con- trary, would such a repaired Organismus be no fit organ for my life, as if, for instance, a worn lock with an equally worn key — [the key] might no longer fit the lock. The repaired organs might from intimate in-corresi)ondence 1820] TO J. H. GREEN 709 be the causes of torture and madness. A system of materialism, in which organisation stands first, whether compared by Nature, or God and Life, etc., as its results (even as the sound is the result of a bell), such a system would, doubtless, remove great part of the terrors which the soul makes out of itself ; but then it removes the soul too, or rather precludes it. And a supposition of coex- istence, without any ivechselwirkimg, it is not in our power to adopt in good earnest ; or, if we did, it would answer no purpose. For which of the two, soul or body, am I to call " I " ? Again, a soul separate from the body, and yet entirely ^mssive to it, would be so like a drum playing a tattoo on the drummer, that one cannot build any hope on it. If then the organisation be j^ri- marily the result, and only by reaction a cause, it would be well to consider what the cases are in this life, in which the restoration of the organisation removes disease. Is the organisation ever restored, except as continually reproduced? And in the remaining number are they not cases into which the soul never entered as a conscious or rather a moral cojiscionable aoent ? The resrular re- production of scars, marks, etc., the increased suscepti- bility of disease in an organ, after a perfect apparent restoration to healthy structure in action ; the insuscepti- bility in other cases, as in the variolous — these and many others are fruitful subjects, and even imperfect as the induction may be, and must be in our present degree of knowledge, we might yet deduce that a suicide, under the domination of disorderly passions and erroneous principles, plays a desperately hazardous game, and that the chance is, he may re-house himself in a worse hogs- head, with the nails and spikes driven inward — or, sink- ing below the organising power, be employed fruitlessly in a horrid appetite of re-skinning himself, after he had succeeded mjleaing his life and leaving all its sensibili- ties bare to the ineursive powers without even the cortex 710 NEW LIFE AND NEW FRIENDS [May of a nerve to sliiokl them? "Would it not follow, too, from these considerations, that a redemptive power must be necessary if immortality be true, and man be a disor- dered being? And that no power can be redemptive which does not at the same time act in the ground of the life as one with the ground, that is, must act in my will and not merely on my will ; and yet extrinsically, as an outward power, that is, as that which outward Nature is to the organisation, viz. the causa corresj^ondens ct con- ditio 'perpctua ah extra ? Under these views, I cannot read the Sixth Chapter of St. John without great emo- tion. The Redeemer cannot be merely God, unless we adopt Pantheism, that is, deny the existence of a God ; and yet God he must be, for whatever is less than God, may act on, but cannot act in, the will of another. Christ must become man, but he cannot become lis, except as far as we become him, and this we cannot do but by assimilation ; and assimilation is a vital real act, not a notional or merely intellective one. There are phenomena, which are phenomena relatively to our present five senses, and these Christ forbids us to understand as his meaning, and, collectively, they are entitled the Flesh that perishes. But does it follow that there are no other phenomena ? or that these media of manifestation might not stand to a spiritual world and to our enduring life in the same rela- tion as our visible mass of body stands to the world of the senses, and to the sensations correspondent to, and excited by, the stimulants of that world. Lastly, would not the sum of the latter phenomena (the spiritual) be appropriately named, the Flesh and Blood of the divine Humanity ? If faith be a mere apperception, eine hlbsse Wahrnehmung, this, I grant, is senseless. For it is evident, tliat the assimilation in question is to be carried on by faith. But if faith be an energy, a positive act, and that too an act of intensest power, why should it necessarily differ in toto genere from any other act^ ex. 1820] TO J. H. GREEN 711 gr. from that of tlie animal life in the stomach ? It will be found easier to laugh or stare at the question than to prove its irrationahility. Enough for the present. I had been told that Dr. Leach ^ wasaLawrencian, a materialist, and I know not what. I met him at Mr. Abernethy's, and with sincere delight I found him the very contrary in every respect. Except yourself, I have never met so enlarged or so bold a love of truth in an English physiol- ogist. The few minutes of conversation that I had the power of enjoying have left a strong wish in my mind to see more of him. Give my kind love to Mrs. Green. Mr. and Mrs. Gillman are anxious to see you. I assure you they were very much affected by the account of your health. Yoimg Allsop behaves more like a dutiful and anxious son thaai an acquaintance. He came up yester-night at ten o'clock, and left the house at eight this morning, in order to urge me to go to some sea-bathing place, if it was thought at all advisable. Derwent goes on in every respect to my satisfaction and comfort. Again and again, God bless you and your sincerely affectionate friend, S. T. Coleridge. ^ William Elford Leach, 1790- tures on the Physiology, Zoology, 1836, a physician and naturalist, was and Natural History of Man," which at this time Curator of the Natural were delivered in 1816, are alluded History Department at the British to more than once in liis " Theory Museum. of Life." "Theory of Life" in By Lawrencian, Coleridge means Miscellanies, Esthetic and Literary, a disciple of the eminent surgeon Bohn's Standard Library, pp. 377, William Lawrence, whose " Lee- 385. 712 NEW LIFE AND NEW FRIENDS [Feb. CCXXIX. TO CHARLES AUGUSTUS TULK. February 12, 1821. My dear Sir, — " They say, Coleridge ! that you are a Swedenborgian ! " " Would to God," I replied fervently, "that t hey •were amjthingy I was writing a brief essay on the prospects of a country where it has become the mind of the nation to appreciate the evil of public acts and measures by their next consecpiences or immediate occasions, while the 2)^"inciple violated, or that a principle is thereby violated, is either wholly dropped out of the consideration, or is introduced but as a garnish or ornamental commonplace in the peroration of a speech ! The deep interest was present to my thoughts of that distinction between the lieason, as the source of princi- ples, the true celestial influx and porta Dei in hominem ceternum, and the Understanding ; with the clearness of the proof, by which this distinction is evinced, viz. that vital or zoo-organic power, instinct, and understanding fall all three under the same definition in genere, and the very additions by which the definition is a])plied from the first to the second, and from the second to the third, are themselves expressive of degrees only, and in degree only deniable of the preceding. (^Ex. gr. 1. Reflect on the selective power exercised by the stomach of the caterpillar on the undigested miscellany of food, and, 2, the same power exercised by the caterpillar on the outward plants, and you will see the order of the conceptions.) 1. Vital Power = the power by which means are adapted to proxi- mate ends. 2. Instinct = the power irliicli adajUs means to proximate ends. 3. Understanding = the power which adapts means to proximate ends according to varying circumstances. May I not safely challenge any man to peruse Ruber's " Treatise on Ants," and yet deny their claim to be included in the last definition. But try to apply the same defuiition, with any extension of degree, 1821] TO CHARLES AUGUSTUS TULK 713 to the reason, the absurdity will flash upon the convic- tion. First, in reason there is and can be no degree. Deus introit aut non introit. Secondly, in reason there are no means nor ends, reason itself being one with the ultimate end, of which it is the manifestation. Thirdly, reason has no concern with things (that is, the imperma- nent flux of particulars), but with the permanent Rela- tions ; and is to be defined even in its lowest or theoret- ical attribute, as the power which enables man to draw necessary and universal conclusions from particular facts or forms, ex. gr. from any three-cornered thing, that the two sides of a triangle are and must be greater than the third. From the understanding to the reason, there is no continuous ascent possible ; it is a metabasis eis aAAo ycVos even as from the air to the light. The true essential peculiarity of the human understanding consists in its capability of being irradiated by the reason, in its recip- iency ; and even this is given to it by the presence of a higher power than itself. What then must be the fate of a nation that substitutes Locke for logic, and Paley for morality, and one or the other for polity and theology, according to the predominance of Whig or Tory predi- lection. Slavery, or a commotion is at hand ! But if the gentry and clerisy (including all the learned and educated) do this, then the nation does it, or a commo- tion is at hand. Ace2Jhalum enim, aura quamvis et calore vitali potiatur, morientem rectius dicimus, quani quod vivit. AVith these thoughts was I occupied when I received your very kind and most acceptable present, and the results I must defer to the next post. With best regards to Mrs. Tulk, Believe me, in the brief interval, your obliged and grateful S. T. Coleridge. C. A. Tulk, Esq., M. P., Regency Park. CHAPTER XIV THE PHILOSOPHER AND DIVINE 1822-1832 I CHAPTER XIV THE PHILOSOPHER AND DIVINE 1822-1832 CCXXX. TO JOHN MURRAY. HiGHGATE, January 18, 1822. Dear Sir, — If not with the works, you are doubtless familiar with the name of that " wonderful man " (for such, says Doddridge, I must deliberately call him), Arch- bishoj) Leighton. It would not be easy to point out an- other name, which the eminent of all parties. Catholic and Protestant, Episcopal and Presbyterian, Whigs and Tories, have been so unanimous in extolling. " There is a spirit in Archbishop Leighton I never met with in any human writings ; nor can I read many lines in them without impressions which I coidd wish always to retain," observes a dignitary of our Establishment and F. R. S. eminent in his day both as a philosopher and a divine. In fact, it would make no small addition to the size of the volume, if, as was the fashion in editing the classics, we shoidd collect the eulogies on his writings passed by bishops only and church divines, from Burnet to Porteus. That this confluence of favourable opinions is not without good cause, my own experience convinces me. For at a time when I had read but a small portion of the Arch- bishop's principal work, when I was altogether ignorant of its celebrity, much more of the peculiar character at- tributed to his writings (that of making and leaving a deep impression on readers of all classes), I remember 718 THE PHILOSOPHER AND DIVINE [Jan. saying to ]\Ir. Southey ^ " that in the Apostolic Epistles I hcaril the last hour of Inspiration striking, and in Ai-ch. Leighton's commentary the lingering vibration of the sounil." Perspicuous, I had almost said trans})arent, his style is elegant by the mere comjjulsion of the thoughts and feelings, and in despite, as it were, of the writer's wisli to the contrary. Profound as his conceptions often are, and numerous as the passages are, where the most athletic thinker will find himself tracing a rich vein from the surface downward, and leave off with an unknown depth for to-morrow's delving — yet there is this quality peculiar to Leighton, unless we add Shakespeare — that there is always a scum on the very surface which the simplest may understand, if they have head and heart to understand anything. The same or nearly the same excellence characterizes his eloquence. Leighton had by nature a quick and pregnant fancy, and the august ob- jects of his habitual contemplation, and their remoteness from the outward senses, his constant endeavour to see or to bring all things under some point of unity, but, above all, the rare and vital union of head and heart, of light and love, in his own character, — all these working con- jointly could not fail to form and nourish in him the higher power, and more akin to reason, the power, I mean, of imagination. And yet in his freest and most figurative passages there is a subdvedness, a self-checking timidity in his colouring, a sobering silver-grey tone over all ; and an experienced eye may easily see where and in how many instances Leighton has substituted neutral tints for a strong light or a bold relief — by this sacrifice, however, of particular effects, giving an increased per- manence to the impression of the whole, and wonderfully facilitating its soft and quiet ilhqjse into the very recesses of our convictions. Leighton's happiest ornaments of 1 Incliulecl in the Omniana of 1809-1816. Table Talk, etc., Bell & Sons, 1884, p. 400. 1822] TO JOHN MUERAY 719 style are made to appear as efforts on the part of the author to express himself less ornamentally, more plainly. Since the late alarm respecting- Church Calvinism and Calvinistic Methodism (a cry of Fire I Fire ! in conse- quence of a red glare on one or two of the windows, from a bonfire of straw and stubble in the church-yard, while the dry rot of virtual Socinianism is snugly at work in the beams and joists of the venerable edifice) I have heard of certain gentle doubts and questions as to the Arch- bishop's perfect orthodoxy — some small speck in the diamond wliich had escajjed the quick eye of all former theological jewellers from Bishop Burnet to the outra- geously anti-Methodistic Warburton. But on what grounds I cannot even conjecture, unless it be, that the Christian- ity which Leighton teaches contains the doctrines pecvdiar to the Gospel as well as the truths common to it with the (so-called) light of nature or natural religion, that he dissuades students and the generality of Christians from all attempts at explaining the mj'Steries of faith by notional and metaphysical speculations, and rather by a heavenly life and temper to obtain a closer view of these truths, the jfull light and knowledge of which it is in Heaven only that we shall possess. He further advises them in speaking of these truths to proper scripture language ; but since something more than this had been made necessary by the restless spirit of dispute, to take this " something more " in the sound precise terms of the Liturgy and Articles of the Established Church. En- thusiasm ? Fanaticism ? Had I to recommend an anti- dote, I declare on my conscience that above all others it should be Leighton. And as to Calvinism, L.'s exposi- tion of the scriptural sense of election ought to have i)re- vented the very [suspicion of its presence]. You will long ago, I fear, have [been asking yourself], To what does all this tend ? Briefly then, I feel strongly per- suaded, perhaps because I strongly wish it, that the *• 720 THE PHILOSOPHER AND DIVINE [Oct. Beauties of Archbishop Leigliton, selected and method- ized, with a (better) Life of the Author, that is, a bio- graphical and critical introduction as Preface, and Notes, would make not only a useful but an interesting Pocket Volume. " Beauties " in general are objectionable works — injurious to the original author, as disorganizing his productions, pulling to pieces the well-wrought crown of his glory to pick out the shining stones, and injurious to the reader, by indulging the taste for unconnected, and for that reason unretained single thoughts, till it fares with him as with the old gentleman at Edinburgh, who eat six kittywakes by way of lohettiny his appetite — " whereas " (said he) " it proved quite the contrary : I never sat down to a dinner with so little." But Lei2. Life time a letter of Coleridge to Mrs. of W. Wordsworth, ii. 29&-303. 734 THE PHILOSOPHER AND DIVINE [April where what is not idiom is never other than logically correct, I doubt not that the irregularities could be re- moved. But I am liaunted by the ai)prehensioii that I am not feeling or thinking in the same spirit with you, at one time, and at another too much in the si)irit of your writings. Since Milton, I know of no poet with so many felicities and unforgettable lines and stanzas as you. And to read, therefore, page after page without a single brilliant note, depresses me, and I grow peevish with you for having wasted your time on a work so much below you, that you cannot stoop and take. Finally, my con- viction is, that you undertake an impossibility^ and that there is no medium between a prose version and one on the avowed principle of compensation in the widest sense, that is, manner, genius, total effect. I confine myself to Virgil when I say this. I must now set to work with all my powers and thoughts to my Leighton,! and then to my logic, and then to my opus maximum ! if indeed it shall please God to spare me so long, which I have had too many warnings of late (more than my nearest friends know of) not to doubt. My kind love to Dorothy. S. T. Coleridge. CCXXXIX. TO JOHN TAYLOR COLERIDGE. Geove, Highgate, Friday, April 8, 1825. My dear Nephew, — I need not tell you that no attention in my power to offer shall be wanting to Dr. Reich. As a foreigner and a man of letters he might claim this in his own right ; and tliat he came from you would have ensured it, even though he had been a French- man. But that he is a German, and that you think him 1 Coleridge was at this time (1824) gether with his own comment and engaged in making a selection of corollaries, were published as Aids choice passages from the works of to Jieflection, in 1825. See Letter Archbishop Leighton, which, to- CCXXX. 1825] TO JOHN TAYLOR COLERIDGE 735 a wortliy and deserving man, and that his lot, like my own, has been cast on the bleak north side of the moun- tain, make me reflect with pain on the little influence I possess, and the all but zero o£ my direct means, to serve or to assist him. The prejudices excited against me by Jeffrey, combining with the mistaken notion of my Ger- man Metaphysics to which (I am told) some passages in some biographical gossip book about Lord Byron ^ have given fresh currency, have rendered my authority with the Trade worse than nothing. Of the three schemes of philosophy, Kant's, Fichte's, and Schelling's (as diverse each from the other as those of Aristotle, Zeno, and Plotinus, though all crushed together under the name Kantean Philosophy in the English talk) I should find it difficult to select the one from which I differed the most, though perfectly easy to determine which of the three men I hold in highest honour. And Immanuel Kant I assuredly do value most highly ; not, however, as a metaphysician, but as a logician who has completed and systematised what Lord Bacon had boldly designed and loosely sketched out in the Miscellany of Aphorisms, his Novum Organum. In Kant's " Critique of the Pure Reason " there is more than one fundamental error ; but the main fault lies in the title-page, which to the manifold advantage of the work might be exchanged for " An Inquisition respecting the Constitution and Limits of the Ilimian Understanding." I can not only honestly assert, but I can satisfactorily prove by reference to writings (Let- ters, Marginal Notes, and those in books that have never been in my possession since I first left England for Ham- burgh, etc.) that aU the elements, the differentials, as the algebraists say, of my present opinions existed for me before I had even seen a book of German Metajihysics, later than "Wolf and Leibnitz, or could have read it, if I had. But what will this avail ? A High German Tran- 1 Conversations of Lord Byron, etc., by Captain Medwin. 736 THE PHILOSOPHER AND DIVINE [April scendentalist I must be content to remain, and a young American painter, Leslie (pnpil and friend of a very dear friend of mine, Allston), to whom I have been in the habit for ten years and more of shewing as cordial regards as I could to a near relation, has, I find, intro- duced a portrait of me in a picture from Sir W. Scott's " Anti(piary," as Dr. Duster Swivil, or whatever his name is.^ Still, however, I will make any attempt to serve Dr. Reich, which he may point out and which, I am not sure, would dis-serve him ! I do not, of course, know what command he has over the Enolish lanouaoe. If he wrote it fluently, I should think that it woiUd answer to any one of our great publishers to engage him in the translation of the best and cheapest Natural History in existence, viz., Okens, in three thick octavo volumes, con- taining the inorganic world, and the animals from the IIpwTo'CMa and animalcula of Infusions, to man. The Botany was not published two years ago. Whether it is now I do not know. There is one thin quarto of plates. It is by far the most entertaining as well as instructive book of the kind I ever saw ; and with a few notes and the omission (or castigation) of one or two of Oken's adventurous whimsies, would be a valuable addition to our English literature. So much for this. I will not disguise from you, my dearest nephew, that the first certain information of your having taken the "Quarterly "2 gave me a pain, which it required all my confidence in the soundness of your judgement to counter- act. I had long before by conversation with experienced barristers got rid of all apprehension of its being likely to injure you professionally. My fears were directed to ' The frontispiece of the second ^ John Taylor Coleridge was ed- volume of the Antiquary represents itor of the Quarterly Review for one Dr. Uousterswivel digging for trea- year, 1825-1826. Southey's Life and sure in Misticot's grave. The re- Correspondence, v. W4, 201, 204. '2:^>9, semblance to Coleridge is, perhaps, etc.; Letters of Robert Southey, iii. not wholly imaginary. 455, 473, 511, 514, etc. 1825] TO JOHN TAYLOR COLERIDGE 737 the invidlousness of the situation, it being the notion of publishers that without satire and sarcasm no review can obtain or keep up a sale. Perhaps pride had some con- cern in it. 1^0)' myself I have none, probably because I had time out of mind given it up as a lost cause, given myself over, I mean, a predestined author, though with- out a drop of true author blood in my veins. But a pride in and for the name of my father's house I have, and those with whom I live know that it is never more than a dogr. sleep, and apt to start up on the slight alarms. Now, though very sillily, I felt pain at the notion of any com- parisons being drawn between you (to whom with your sister my heart pulls the strongest) and Mr. Gifford, even though they should be [to] your advantage ; and still more, the thought that . . . Murray should be or hold him- self entitled to have and express an opinion on the subject. The insolence of one of his proposals to me, viz., that he would publish an edition of my Poems, on the condition that a gentleman in his confidence (Mr. Milman ! ^ I un- derstand) was to select, and make such omissions and corrections as should be thought advisable — this, which offered to myself excited only a smile in which there was nothing sardonic, might very possibly have rendered me sorer and more sensitive when I boded even an infinites- imal ejusdem farinoi in connection with you. But henceforward I shall look at the thing in a sunnier mood. Mr. Frere is strongly impressed with the impor- tance and even dignity of the trust, and on the power you have of gradually giving a steadier and manlier tone to the feelings and princijjles of the higher classes. But I hope very soon to converse with you on this subject, as soon as I have finished my Essay for the Literary Society, 1 Henry Hart Milman, 1791-1808, chiefly as a poet. His Fall of Jertt- afterwards celebrated as historian salem was published in 1820. He and divine (Dean of St. Paul's. 1S4'.I), was a contributor to the Quarterly was, at this time, distinguished lieview. 738 THE nilLOSOPIIER AND DIVINE [May (in which I flatter myself I have thrown some light on the passages in Herodotus respecting the derivation of the Greek ISIythology from Egypt, and in what respect that paragraph respecting Homer and Hesiod is to be understood), and have, likewise, got my "Aids to Re- flection " out of the Press. But I have more to do for the necessities of the day, and which are JVos non nobis, than I can well manage so as to go on with my own works, though I work from morning to night, as far as my health acbnits and the loss of my friendly amanuensis. For the slowness with which I get on with the pen in my own hand contrasts most strangely with the rapidity with which I dictate. Your kind letter of invitation did not reach me, but there was one which I ought to have an- swered long ago, which came while I was at Ramsgate. We have had a continued succession of illness in our family here, at one time six persons confined to their beds. I have been sadly afraid that we should lose Mrs. Gilhnan, who would be a loss indeed to the whole neigh- bourhood, young and old. But she seems, thank God ! to recover strength, though slowly. As I hope to write again in a few days with my book, I shall now desire my cordial regards to Mrs. J. Coleridge, and with my affec- tionate love to the little ones. With the warmest interest of affection and esteem, I am, my dear John, your sincere friend, S. T. Coleridge. J. T. Coleridge, Esq., 65, Torrington Square. CCXL. TO THE REV. EDWARD COLERIDGE. May 19, 1825. My VERY DEAR Nephew, — You have left me under a painful and yet genial feeling of regret, that my lot in life has hitherto so much estranged me from the children of the sons of my father, that venerable countenance and 1825] TO EDWARD COLERIDGE 739 name which form my earliest recollections and viahe them religious. It is not in my power to express adequately so as to convey it to others what a revolution has taken place in my mind since I have seen your sister, and John and Henry, and lastly yourself. Yet revolution is not the word I want. It is rather the sudden evolution of a seed that had sunk too deep for the warmth and exciting air to reach, but which a casual spade had turned uj) and brought close to the surface, and I now know the meaning as well as feel the truth of the Scottish proverb, Blood is thicker than water. My book will be out on Monday next, and Mr. Hessey hopes that he shall be able to have a copy ready for me by to-morrow afternoon, so that I may present it to the BishojD of London, whom (at his own request Lady B. tells me) with his angel-faced wife and Miss Howley ^ I am to meet at Sir George's to-morrow at six o'clock. There are many on whose sincerity and goodness of heart I can rely. There are several in whose judgement and knowledge of the world I have greater trust than in my own. And among these few John Coleridge ranks fore- most. It was, therefore, an indescribable comfort to me to hear from him, that the first draft of my " Aids to Re- flection," that is, all he had yet seen, had delighted him beyond measure. I can with severest truth declare that half a score flaming panegyrical reviews in as many works of periodical criticism would not have given me half the pleasure, nor one quarter the satisfaction. I dine D. V. on Saturday next in Torrington Square, when doubtless we shall drink your healtli with a2)pr{)pri- ate adjuncts. Yesterday I had to inflict an hour and twenty-five miniites' essay full of Greek and superannu- ated Metaphysics on the ears of the Royal Society of 1 Afterward the wife of Sir George Beaumont, the artist's son and suc- cessor in the baronetcy. 740 THE PHILOSOPHER AND DIVINE [July Literature, the subject being the Prometheus o£ ^schylus deeiphered in proof and as instanee of the connection of the Greek Drama with the Mysteries.^ " Douce take it " (as Charles Lamb says in his Superannuated Man) if I did not feel remorseful pity for my audience all the time. For, at the very best, it was a thing to be read, not to read. God bless you or I shall be too late for the post. Your affectionate uncle, S. T. Coleridge. P. S. I went yesterday to the Exhibition, and hastily " thrid " the labyrinth of the dense huddle, for the sole purpose of seeing our Bishop's portrait,^ My own by the same artist is very much better, though even in this the smile is exaggerated. But Fanny and your mother were in raptures with it while they too seemed very cold in their praise of William's. CCXLI. TO DANIEL STUART. Postmark, July 9, 1825. My dear Sir, — The bad weather had so far damped my expectations, that, though I regretted, I did not feel any disappointment at your not coming. And yet I hope you will remember our Highgate Thursday conversation evenings on your return to town ; because, if you come once, I flatter myseK, you will afterwards be no unfre- quent visitor. At least, I have never been at any of the town conver- sazioni, literary, or artistical, in which the conversation ^ Almost the same sentence with Harper & Brothers, 1S53, iv. 344- reg'ard to his address as Royal Asso- 3(55. See, also, Brandl's Tiife of Cole- ciate occurs in a letter to his nephew, ridge, p. 301. John Taylor Colerid|je, of May 20, ^ Tlie portrait of William Hart 182"). The " Essay on the Prome- Coleridge, Bishop of Barbadoes and theus of ^jschylus," which was the Leeward Islands, by Thomas pnnted in Literary Remains, was re- Pliillips, R. A., is now in the Hall published in Coleridge's Works, of Christ Church, Oxford. 1825] TO DANIEL STUART 741 has been more miscellaneous without degenerating- into pinches.^ a pinch of this, and a pinch of that, without the least connection between the subjects, and with as little interest. You will like Irving as a companion and a con- verser even more than you admire him as a preacher. He has a vigorous and (what is always pleasant) a growing mind, and his character is manly throughout. There is one thing, too, that I cannot help considering as a recom- mendation to our evenings, that, in addition to a few ladies and pretty lasses, we have seldom more than five or six in company, and these generally of as many professions or pursuits. A few weeks ago we had present, two painters, two poets, one divine, an eminent chemist and naturalist, a major, a naval captain and voj^ager, a physician, a colo- nial chief justice, a barrister, and a baronet ; and this was the most numerous meeting we ever had. It woidd more than gratify me to know from you, what the impressions are which my " Aids to Reflection " make on your judgment. The conviction respecting the character of the times expressed in the comment on Aph. vi., page 147, contains the aim and object of the whole book. I venture to direct your notice particidarly to the note, page 204 to 207, to the note to page 218, and to the sentences respecting common sense in the last twelve lines of page 252, and the conclusion, page 377. Lady Beaumont writes me that the Bishop of London has expressed a most favourable opinion of the book ; and Blanco AVhite was sufficiently struck with it, as innne- diately to purchase all my works that are in print, and has procured from Sir George Beaumont an introduction to me. It is well I should have some one to speak for it, for I am unluckily ill off . . . and you will easily see what a chance a poor book of mine has in these days. Such has been tlie influence of the " Edinburgh Re- view " that in all Edinburgh not a single copy of Words- worth's works or of any part of them could be procured a 742 THE PHrLOSOPIIER AND DIVINE [Oct. few uioiitlis ago. The only copy Irving saw in Scotland belonged to a poor weaver at Paisley, who prized them next to his Bible, and had all the Lyrit-al Ballads by heart — a fact which wonld cut Jeffrey's conscience to the bone, if he had any. I give you my honour that Jeffrey himself told me that lie was himself an enthusiastic admirer of Wordsworth's poetry, but it was necessary that a Review should have a character. Forgive this egotism, and be pleased to remember me kindly and with my best respects to Mrs. Stuart, and with every cordial wish and prayer for you and yours, be assured that I am your obliged and affectionate friend, S. T. Coleridge. Friday, July 8, 1825. CCXLII. TO JAMES GILLMAN. [8 Plains of Waterloo, Ramsgate,] October 10, 182.'j. My dear Friend, — It is a flat'ning thought that the more we have seen, the less we have to say. In youth and early manhood the mind and nature are, as it were, two rival artists both potent magicians, and engaged, like the King's daughter and the rebel genii in the Arabian Nights' Entertainments, in sharp conflict of conjuration, each having for its object to turn the other into canvas to paint on, clay to mould, or cabinet to contain. For a while the mind seems to have the better in the contest, and makes of Nature what it likes, takes her lichens and weather-stains for types and printers' ink, and prints maps and facsimiles of Arabic and Sanscrit MSS. on her rocks ; composes country dances on her moonshiny ri})ples, fan- dangos on her waves, and waltzes on her eddy-pools, trans- forms her smnmer gales into harps and harpers, lovers' sighs and sighing lovers, and her winter blasts into Pin- daric Odes, Christabels, and Ancient Mariners set to music by Beethoven, and in the insolence of triumph conjures 1825] TO JAMES GILLMAN 743 her clouds into wliales and walruses with palanquins on their backs, and chases the dodging stars in a sky-hunt ! But alas ! alas ! that Nature is a wary wily long-breathed old witch, tough-lived as a turtle and divisible as the polyp, repullulative in a thousand snips and cuttings, Integra et in toto. She is sure to get the better of Lady Mind in the long run and to take her revenge too ; transforms our to-day into a canvas dead-coloured to receive the dull, fea- tureless portrait of yesterday : not alone turns the mimic mind, the ci-devant sculptress with all her kaleidoscopic freaks and symmetries ! into clay, but leaves it such a clay to cast dumps or bullets in ; and lastly (to end with that which suggested the beginning) she mocks the mind with its o^vn metaphor, metamorphosing the memory into a Vujninn vitce escritoire to keep unpaid bills and dun's letters in, with outlines that had never been filled up, MSS. that never went further than the title-pages, and proof sheets, and foul copies of Watchmen, Friends, Aids to Reflection, and other stationary wares that have kissed the publishers' shelf with all the tender intimacy of inos- culation ! Finis ! and what is all this about ? Why, verily, my dear friend ! the thought forced itself on me, as I was beginning to put down the first sentence of this letter, how impossible it would have been fifteen or even ten years ago for me to have travelled and voyaged by land, river, and sea a hundred and twenty miles with fire and water blending their souls for my propulsion, as if I had been riding on a centaur with a sopha for a saddle, and yet to have nothing more to tell of it than that we had a very fine day and ran aside the steps in Ramsgate Pier at half-past four exactly, all having been well except poor Harriet, who during the middle third of the voyage fell into a reflecting melancholy. . . . She looked pathetic, but I cannot affirm that I observed anything sympathetic in the countenances of her fellow-passengers, which drew forth a sigh from me and a sage remark how many of our 744 THE PHILOSOPHER AND DIVINE [May virtues orig-inatc in the fear of deatli, and that while we flatter ourselves that we are melting in Christian sensibil- ity over the sorrows of our human brethren and sisteren, we are in fact, though perhaps unconsciously, moved at the prospect of our own end. For who ever sincerely pities seasickness, toothache, or a fit of the gout in a lusty good liver of fifty? AMiat have I to say ? We have received the snuff, for which I thank your providential memory. . . . To Mar- gate, and saw the caverns, as likewise smelt the same, called on Mr. Bailey, and got the Novum Organum. In my hui-ry, I scrambled up the Blackwood instead of a volume of Giovanni Battista Vico, which I left on the table in my room, and forgot my sponge and sponge-bag of oiled silk. But perhaps when I sit down to work, I may have to request something to be sent, which may come with them. I therefore defer it till then. . . . God bless you, my dear friend! You will soon hear again from S. T. Coleridge. CCXLIII. TO THE REV. EDWARD COLERIDGE. December 9, 1825. My DEAR Edward, — T write merely to tell you, that I have secured Charles Lamb and Mr. Irving to meet you, and wait only to learn the day for the endeavour to induce Mr. Blanco White to join us. Will you present Mr. and ]\Irs. Gillman's regards to your brothers Henry and John, and that they would be most hajipy if both or either would be induced to accompany j'ou ? I have had a very interesting conversation with Irving this evening on the present condition of the Scottish Church, the spiritual life of which, yea, the very core he describes as in a state of ossification. The greater part of the Scottish clergy, he complains, have lost the ttnction of their own church without acquiring the erudition and 1827] TO MRS. GILLMAN 745 accomplisliments of ours. Tlieir sermons are all dry the- ological arguing and disputing, lifeless, pulseless, — a ruslilisht in a flesliless skull. My kindest love to your sister, and kisses, prayers, and blessino's for the little one. [S. T. Coleridge.] Thursday midnight. I almost despair of John's coming ; but do persuade Henry if you can. I quite long to see him again. ■• CCXLIV. TO MRS. GILLMAN. May 3, 1827. My dear Friend, — I received and acknowledge your this morning's present both as plant and symbol, and with appropriate thanks and correspondent feeling. The rose is the pride of summer, the delight and the beauty of our gardens ; the eglantine, the honeysuclde, and the jasmine, if not so bright or so ambrosial, are less transient, creep nearer to us, clothe our walls, twine over our porch, and haply peep in at our chamber window, with the crested wren or linnet within the tufts wishing good morning to us. Lastly the geranium passes the door, and in its hun- dred varieties imitating now this now that leaf, odour, blossom of the garden, still steadily retains its own staid character, its own sober and refreshing hue and fragance. It deserves to be the inmate of the house, and with due attention and tenderness will live through the winter grave yet cheerful, as an old family friend, that makes up for the departure of gayer visitors, in the leafless season. But none of these are the myrtle ! ^ In none of tliese, nor in all collectively, will the myrtle find a substitute. ^ A sprifj of this myrtle (or was presented it to the hite Lord Cole- it a sprig of myrtle in a nosegay ?) ridge. It now flourislies, in strong grew into a plant. At some time af- old a^q, in a protected nook outside ter Coleridge's death it passed into the libr.ary at Heath's Court, Ottery the hands of the late S. C. Hall, who St. Mary. 74G THE PHILOSOPHER AND DIVINE [Jan. All together and joining with them all the aroma, the spices, and the balsams of the hot-house, yet would they be a sad exchange for the myrtle ! Oh, precious in its sweetness is the rich innocence of its snow-white blossoms ! And dear are they in the remembrance ; but these may pass with the season, and wliile the myrtle plant, our own myrtle plant remains unchanged, its blossoms are remem- bered the more to endear the faithful bearer ; yea, they survive invisibly in every more than fragrant leaf. As the flashing strains of the nightingale to the yearning murmurs of the dove, so the myrtle to the rose ! He who has once possessed and prized a genuine myrtle will rather remember it under the cyjiress tree than seek to forget it among the rose bushes of a paradise. God bless you, my dearest friend, and be assured that if death do not suspend memory and consciousness, death itself will not deprive you of a faithful participator in all your hopes and fears, affections and solicitudes, in your unalterable S. T. Coleridge. CCXLV. TO THE REV. GEORGE MAY COLERIDGE. Monday, January 14, 1828. My dear Nepheav, — An interview with your cousin Henry on Saturday and a note received from him last night had enabled me in some measure to prepare my mind for the awful and humanly afflicting contents of your letter, and I rose to the receiving of it from earnest sup- lication to " the Father of Mercies and God of all Com- fort " — that He would be strong in the weakness of His faithful servant, and his effectual helper in the last con- flict. My first impulse on reading your letter was to set off innnediately, but on a re-perusal, I doubt whether I shall not better comply with your suggestion by waiting for your next. Assuredly, if God permit I will not forego the claim, which my heart and conscience justify me in Rev. George Coleritige 1828] TO GEORGE MAY COLERIDGE 747 making, to be one among the mourners who ever truly loved and honoured your father. Allow me, my dear nephew, in the swelling grief of my heart to say, that if ever man morning and evening and in the watches of the night had earnestly intreated through his Lord and Medi- ator, that God would shew him his sins and their sinful- ness, I, for the last ten years at least of my life, have done so ! But, in vain, have I tried to recall any one moment since my quitting the University, or any one occasion, in which I have either thought, felt, spoken, or intentionally acted of or in relation to my bi'other, otherwise than as one who loved in him father and brother in one, and who independent of the fraternal relation and the remem- brance of his manifold goodness and kindness to me from boyhood to early manhood should have chosen him above all I had known as the friend of my inmost soul. Never have man's feeling and character been more cruelly mis- represented than mine. Before God have I sinned, and I have not hidden my offences before him; but He too knows that the belief of my brother's alienation and the grief that I was a stranger in the house of my second father has been the secret wound that to this hour never closed or healed up. Yes, my dear nephew ! I do grieve, and at this moment I have to struggle hard in order to keep my spirit in tranquillity, as one who has long since referred his cause to God, through the grief at my little communication with my family. Had it been otherwise, I might have been able to shew myself, my tvliole self, for evil and for good to my brother, and often have said to myself, " How fearful an attribute to sinful man is Omniscience I " and yet have I earnestly wished, oh, how many times ! that my brotlier could have seen my inmost heart, with every thought and every frailty. But his reward is nigh : in the light and love of his Lord and Saviour he will soon be all light and love, and I too shall have his prayers before the throne. ^lay the Almighty 748 THE PHILOSOPHER AND DIVINE [June and the Si)irit the Comforter dwell in your and your mother's spirit. I must conclude. Only, if I come and it should please God that your dear father shall be still awaiting his Kedeemer's final call, I shall be perfectly sat- isfied in all things to be directed by you and your mother, who will judge best whether the knowledge of my arrival thousih without seeing him would or would not be a satis- faction, would or would not be a disturbance to him. Your affectionate uncle, S. T. Coleridge. Grove, Higligate. Rev. Gkorgk May Coleridgk, Warden House, Ottery St. Mary, Devon. CCXLVI. TO GEORGE DYER.^ June 6, 1828. My dear long known, and long loved friend, — Be assured that neither Mr. Irving nor any other person, high or low, gentle or simple, stands higher in my esteem or bears a name endeared to me by more interesting recol- lections and associations than youi-self ; and if gentle man or gentle woman, taking too literally the ])artial portraiture of a friend, has a mind to see the old lion in his sealed cavern, no more potent " Open, Sesame, Open " will be found than an introduction from George Dyer, my elder bi'other under many titles — brother Blue, brother Gre- cian, brother Cantab, brother Poet, and last best form of ^ George Dyer, 1755-1841, best with Lamb and Southey. He con- remembered as the author of The tributed " The Show, an English History of the University of Cam- Eclogue," and other poems, to the bridge, and a companion work on Annual Anthology of 17!)9 and The Privileges of the University of 1800. His poetry was a constant Cambridge, began life as a Baptist source of amused delight to Lamb minister, but settled in London as and Coleridge. A pencil sketch of a man of letters in 1792. As a Dyer by Matilda Betham is in the " brother-Grecian " he was intro- British Museum. Letters of Charles duced to Coleridge in 1794, in the Lamb, i. 125-128 et passim ; South- early days of pantisocracy, and prob- ey^s Life and Correspondence, 1.218 ably through him became intimate et passim. 1828] TO GEORGE DYER 749 fraternity, a man who has never in his long life, by tongue or pen, uttered what he did not believe to be the truth (from any motive) or concealed what he did conceive to be such from other motives than those of tenderness for the feelings of others, and a conscientious fear lest what was truly said might be falsely interpreted, — in all these points I dare claim brotherhood with my old friend (not omitting grey hairs, which are venerable), but in one point, the long toilsome life of inexhaustible, un- sleeping benevolence and beneficence, that slept only when there was no form or semblance of sentient life to awaken it, George Dyer must stand alone ! He may have a few second cousins, but no full brother. Now, with regard to your friends, I shall be happy to see them on any day they may find to suit their or your convenience, from twelve (I am not ordinarily visible before, or if the outward man were forced to make his appearance, yet from sundry bodily infirmities, my soul would present herself with unwashed face) till four, that is, after Monday next, — we having at present a servant ill in bed, you must perforce be content with a sandwich lunch or a glass of wine. But if you could make it suit you to take your tea, an early tea, at or before six o'clock, and spend the evening, a long evening, with us on Thursday next, Mr. and iSIrs. Gilhuan will be most happy to see you and Mrs. Dyer, with your friends, and you will probably meet some old friend of yours. On Thursday evening, indeed, at any time, between half -past five and eleven, you may be sure of findinjT us at liome, and with a very fair chance of Basil Montagu taking you and Mrs. Dyer back in his coach. I have long owed you a letter, and should have long since honestly paid my debt ; but we have had a house of sickness. My own health, too, has been very crazy and out of repair, and I have had so much work accumu- 760 THE PIIILOSOniER AND DIVINE [June latecl on me that I have been like an overtired inau roused from insufficient sleep, who sits on his bedside with one stocking on and the other in his hand, doing nothing, and thinking what a deal he has to do. But I am ever, sick or well, weary or lively, my dear Dyer, your sincere and affectionate friend, S. T. Coleridge. CCXLVII. TO GEORGE CATTERMOLE.^ Gkove, Highgate, Thursday, August 14, 1828. My DEAR Sir, — I have but this moment received yours of the 13th, and though there are but ten minutes in my power, if I am to avail myself of this day's post, I will rather send you a very brief than not an immediate answer. I shall be much gratified by standing beside the baptismal font as one of the sponsors of the little pilgrim at his inauguration into the rights and duties of Immor- tality, and he shall not want my prayers, nor aught else that shall be within my power, to assist him in becoming that of which the Great Sponsor who brought light and immortality into the world has declared him an emblem. There are one or two points of character belonging to me, so, at least, I believe and trust, which I would gladly communicate with the name, — earnest love of Truth for its own sake, and steadfast convictions grounded on faith, not fear, that the religion into which I was baptised is the Truth, without which all other knowledge ceases to merit the appellation. As to other things, which yet I most sin- 1 George Cattermole, 1800-1868, to Catterraole." His brother Richard whose " peculiar gifts and powerful was Secretary of the Royal Society genius " Mr. Ruskin has borne tes- of Literature, of whicli Coleridge was timony, was eminent as an arcliitec- appointed a Royal Associate in 1825. tural draughtsman and water-colour Copies of this and of other letters painter. With his marvellous illus- from Coleridge to Cattermole were trations of '" Master Humphrey's kindly placed at my disposal by Mr. Clock" all the world is familiar. James M. Menzies of 24, Carlton Diet, of Nat. Bio 1832] TO MISS LAWRENCE 759 hearetli prayers. If vai'ied learning, if the assiduous cul- tivation of the reasoning powers, if an accurate and minute acquaintance with all the arguments of contro- versial writers ; if an intimacy with the doctrines of the Unitarians, which can only be obtained by one who for a year or two in his early life had been a convert to them, yea, a zealous and by themselves deemed powerful sup- porter of their opinions ; lastly, if the utter absence of any imaginable worldly interest that could sway or warp the mind and affections, — if all these combined can give any weight or authority to the opinion of a fellow-crea- ture, they will give weight to my adjuration, sent from my sickbed to you in kind love. O trust, O trust, in your Redeemer ! in the coeternal Word, the Onl3^-begotten, the living Name of the Eternal I AM, Jehovah, Jesus ! I shall endeavour to see Mr. Hamilton.^ I doubt not his scientific attainments. I have had proofs of his taste 2 Sir William Rowan Hamilton, 1805-1805, the great mathematician, was at this time Professor of Astron- omy at Dublin. He was afterwards appointed Astronomer Royal of Ire- land. He was, as is well known, a man of culture and a poet ; and it was partly to ascertain his views on scientific questions, and partly to in- terest him in his verses, that Hamil- ton was anxious to be made kno^vn to Coleridge. He had begun a cor- respondence with Wordsworth as early as 1827, and Wordsworth, on the occasion of his tour in Ireland in 1829, visited Hamilton at the Observatory. Miss Lawrence's intro- duction led to an interview, but a letter which Hamilton wrote to Cole- ridge in the spring of 1832 re- mained unanswered. In a second letter, dated February 3, 1833, he speaks of a " Lecture on Astron- omy " which he forwards for Cole- ridge's acceptance, and also of " some love-poems to a lady to whom I am shortly to be married." The love- poems, eight sonnets, which are smoothly turned and are charming enough, have survived, but the lec- ture has disappeared. The interest of this remarkable letter lies in the double appeal to Coleridge as a sci- entific authority and a literary critic. Coleridge's reply, if reply there was, would be read with peculiar interest. In a letter to Mr. Aubrey de Vere, May 28, 1832, he thus records his impressions of Coleridge : " Coleridge is rather to be considered as a Fac- ulty than as a Mind ; and I did so consider him. I seemed rather to listen to an oracular voice, to be cir- cumfused in a Divine oii;5, v. of duty, makes no such statement ; 54r)-.550, and in Notes Theological and the confessions or outpourings and Political, London, 1853, pp. 10-3- from the later note-books which are 109. included in the Life point to a dif- ^ Admirers of Dr. Magee, 1765- ferent conclusion. That after his 1S:]1, who was successively Bisliop settlement at Highgate, in 1810, the of Kaphoe, 1819, and Archbisiiop habit was regulated and brought of Dublin, 1822. He was the au- under control, and that this change thor of Discourses on the Scriptural for the better was due to the Gill- Doctrines of the Atonement. He was mans' care and to his own ever- grandfather of the late Archbishop renewed efforts to be free, none can of York, better known as Bishop gainsay. There was a moral strug- of Peterborough. 762 THE PHILOSOPHER AND DIVINE [Aug. any one or all of whom I would defy to answer a single paragraph of Asgill's tract, or unloose a single link from the chain of logic. I have no biographical dictionary, and never saw one but in a little sort of one-volume thing. If you can help me in this, do. I give my kind- est love to Mrs. Gary. Yours, with unutterable and unuttered love and regard, in all (but as to the accursed Keform Bill ! that men- daclum ingens to its own preamble (to which no human being can be more friendly than I am), that huge tape- worm He of some threescore and ten yards) entire sym- pathy of heart and soul. Your affectionate S. T. Coleridge. CCLV. TO JOHN PEIRSE KENNARD.^ Grove, Highgate, August lo, 1832. My DEAR Sir, — Your letter has announced to me a loss too great, too awful, for common grief, or any of its ordinary forms and outlets. For more than an hour after, I remained in a state which I can only describe as a state of deepest mental silence, neither prayer nor thanksgiving, but a prostration of absolute faith, as if the Omnipresent were present to me by a more special intui- tion, passing all sense and all understanding. Whether Death be but the cloudy Bridge to the Life beyond, and Adam Steinmetz has been wafted over it without suspen- sion, or with an immediate resumption of self-conscious existence, or whether liis Life be hidden in God, in the ^ I am indebted to Mr. John Henry Coleridg'e Kennard Bart., M. P. for Steinmetz, a younger brother of Sali.sbury, and of Mr. Adam Stein- Coleridge's friend and ardent disci- metz Kennard, of Crawley Conrt, pie, for a copy of this letter. It was Hants, at whose baptism the poet addressed, he informs me, to his was present, and to whom he ad- brother's friend, the late Mr. John dressed tlie well-known letter (Letter Peirse Kennard, of Hordle Cliff, CCLX.), "To my GodchUd, Adam Hants, father of the late Sir John Steinmetz Kennard." 1832] TO JOHN PEIRSE KENNARD 763 eternal only-begotten, the Pleroma of all Beings and the Habitation both of the Retained and the Ketrleved, therein in a blessed and most divine Slumber to grow and evolve into the perfected Spirit, — for sleep is the ap- pointed season of all growth here below, and God's ordi- nances in the earthly may shadow out his ways in the Heavenly, — in either case our friend is in God and loith God. Were it possible for me even to think otherwise,^ the very grass in the fields would turn black before my eyes, and nature appear as a skeleton fantastically mossed over beneath the weeping vault of a charnel house ! Deeply am I persuaded that for every man born on earth there is an appointed task, some remedial process in the soul known only to the Omniscient ; and, this through divine grace fulfilled, the sole question is whether it be needful or expedient for the church that he should still remain : for the individual himself " to depart and to be with Christ " must needs be great gain. And of my dear, my filial friend, we may with a strong and most consoling assurance affirm that he was eminently one Who, being innocent, did even for that cause Bestir him in good deeds ! Wise Virgin He, and wakeful kept his Lamp Aye trimm'd and full ; and thus thro' grace he liv'd In this bad World as in a place of Tombs, And touch'd not the Pollutions of the Dead. And yet in Christ only did he build a hope. Yea, he blessed the emptiness that made him capable of his Lord's fullness, gloried in the blindness that was a receptive of his Master's light, and in the nakedness that asked to be cloathcd with the wedding-garment of his Redeemer's Righteousness. Therefore say I unto you, my young friend, Rejoice ! and again I say. Rejoice ! The effect of the event communicated in your letter has 1 See Table Talk, August 14, 1832. 764 THE PHILOSOPHER and divine [1832 been that of awe and sadness on our whole household. Mrs. Gilhnan mourns as for a son, but with tluit . A-seity, 088 and note. Asgill, Jolin, aud his Treatises, 701 and note. Ashburtou, oO.j n. Ashe, 'I'homas, his Miscellanies, ^s- thttic and Literari/, ti^o n. Ashlev, C. with the Morgans at, O;)!." Ashley, Lord, and the Ten Hours Bills, ()8!) n. Ashton, 140 and note. As late I roamed through Fancy^s shadowy ua/e, a sonnet, 116 n., llS. Atheism, 101, 102, 107, 199, 200. Athenaeum, The, 200 n., -530 n., 753 n. Atlantic Monthly, 200 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, 73."). Badcoek, Mr., 21. Badeock, Harry, 22. Badcoek, Sam, 22. Bala, 79. Ball. Ladv, 494 n., 497. Ball. Sir Alexander John, 484, 487, 490, 497; mutual reg-ard of C. and, .508 n. ; .524, .554 ; C.'s nar- rative of his life. 579 n. : his opin- ions of Ladv Nelson aud Lady Hamilton, 0">7. Ba'lad of the Dark Ladie, The. -"75. Bampfylde, John Codiiugton War- wick, his genius, originality, and subsequent lunacy, 3i '9 and note ; his Sixteen Sonriets, 309 n. Baufill, Mr., 306. Barbauld. Anna Lsetitia, 317 n. Barbou Casimir, The, 67 and notes, OS. Barlow, Caleb. 38. Barr, Mr., liis children. 154, Barrington, Hon. and Kt. Rev. John Shute, Bishop of Durham, 582 and note. Bassenthwaite Lake, 335, 376 n. ; sunset over, .384. Beard, On Mrs. Mondai/'s, 9 n. Beaumont, Lady, 459, 573, 580, 592, 593 ; procures subscribers to C.'s lectures, 599 ; 044, 045, 739, 741 ; letter from C, (i41. Beaumont, Sir George, 440 n., 462 ; his afi'ection for C. preceded by dislike, 408; 4'.l3 ; extract from a letter from Wordsworth on .John Wordsworth's death, 494 n. ; 49(); lends the ^V'ords\vorths his farm- liouse near Coleorton, .")09 n. ; 579- 581 ; C. explains the nature of his quarrel with Wordsworth to, 592, .593; .595 n., 029; on Allston aa an historical painter, 0.]3 ; 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, 1.57, 211, .338; C.'s grief at his death, 543 and note, 544 and note ; his advice and sympathy in response to C.'8 confession, 543 n. ; lis character, 544. Bedford, Grosvenor, 400 n. Beet sugar, 299 and note. Beguines, the, .327 n. Bell, Rev. Andrew, D. D., 575, .582 and note, t)05 ; his Origin, Nature, and Object of the Neiv System of Education, .581 and note, .582. Bell, Rev. Andrew, Life of, by R. and C. C. Southey, 5S1 n. Bcllingham, John, 598 n. Bell-iinging in Germany, 293. Belper. Lord (Edward Strutt), 215 n. Bennett. Abraham, his electroscope, 2 IS n., 219 n. Beutley's Q\iarto Edition of Horace, (is and note. Benvenuti, 498, 499. Benyoirski. Count, or the Consjdracy of Kamtsrhatka. a Tragi -comedy, by Kotzeltne, 230 and note. Berdmore, Mr., 80, S2. Bernard, Sir Thomas, 579 and notes, 580, .582, 5S5, 595 n., 599. Betham, Matilda, To. From a Stranger, 404 n. Bible, The, as literature, C.'s opinion of, 200 ; slovenly hexameters in, 398. INDEX 779 Bibliography, Southey's proposed work, 428-430. Bibliotheca Britannica, or an History of British Literature, a proposed work, 4:>5-427, 429, 430. Bigotry, 198. Biilington, Mrs. Elizabeth Weiehsel, 308. Bingen, 751. Biogruphia Literaria, 3, 68 n., 74 n., 152 n., U!4 n., 174 n., 232 n., 257, 320 n., 498 n., 007 n., 669 n., 670 n.; C. ill-used by the printer of, 673, 674; 079, 756 n. Birniinoham, 151, 152. Bishop's Middleham, 358 and note, 3()0. BlarkwoofPs Magazine, 756. Blake, William, as poet, painter, and engraver, ()85 n., 686 n. ; C.'s crit- icism of his poems and their ac- companying- illustrations, 686-688; his Songs of Innocence and Expe- rience, 086 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 Sou they, 7(! n., 116. Bourbons, C.'s Essaj' on the restora- tion of the, 629 and note. Bourne, Sturtjes, 542. Bovev waterfall, 305 n. Bowdon, Anne, marries Edward Coleridg-e, 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, 1 11 . Bowles. Rev. William Lisle, C.'s ad- miration for his poems, •37, 42, 179 ; iVt n., 7() and note ; C.'s son- net to. 111 and note ; 1 15 ; his sonuf'ts, 177; liis Hope, an ^Alle- gorical Sketch, 179. 181); 19(). 197, 211 ; his translation of Dean Ogle's Latin Iambics, 374 and note ; school life at Winchester, 374 n. ; C.'s, Southey's, and Sothe- by's admiration of, and its effect on their poems, 39() ; boiTows 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. Janits, 61, 113, 768 n. Brahmin creed, the, 229. Brandes, Herr von, 279. Brandl's Samud Taylor Coleridge and the English Eoihantic School, 258, 674 D., 740 n. Bratha, 394. r35. Bray, near Maidenhead, €9, 70. Brazil, Emperor of, an enthusiastic student and admirer of C, 696. Bread-riots, 643 n. Brecon, 410, 411. Brendiill, ()50. Brent, Mr., 598, 599. Brent, Miss Charlotte, 520, 524-526 ; C.'s affection for, .o65 ; 577, 585, 6C0, 618, 643, 722 n. ; letter from C, 722. See Morgan family, the. Brentford, 326, 673 n. Bridge water, 164. Bright, Henry A., 245 n. Bristol, C.'s bachelor life in, 133- 135; 138, 139, 1()3 n., 166, l(i7, 184, 326, 414, 520, 572 n., 621, 623, 624. Bristol Journal, 633 n. British Critic, the, 350. Brookes, Mr., 80, S2. Brothers, The, by Wordsworth, the oiigin.al of Leonard in, 494 n. ; C. accused of llo^ro^^ing a line from, 609 n. Brown, John, printer and publisher of The Fiitnd,M-I n. Brnn, Frederica, C.'s indebtedness 1<) her for the framework of the Hymn before Sunrise in the Vale of Chamouni, 405 n. Bruno, Giordano, 371. I Brunton, Mi.ss, 86 and note, 87, 89 ; I verses to. 94. Brunton. Elizabeth, 86 n. I Brunton, John. 8() n., 87. Brunton, Louisa, 86 n. Bryant. Jacob, 216 n., 219. , Buchan, Earl of, 139. 780 INDEX Buc'l^, Miss, 130. See Cruiksbauk, Mi's. John. UuUer, .Sir Francis (Judge), n. ; obtains a Clirist's Hospital Pre- sentation for C, 18. Buonaparte, 808, -.VJl n., ?.20 and note ; his animosity against C, 498 n. ; 5o0 n. ; C.'s cartoon and lines on, 042. Burdett, !Sir Francis, 598. Burke, Edmund, C.'s sonnet to, lU) n., 118; his Letter to a Noble Lord, li'u and note ; Tbelwall on, U)0; 177. Burnett, George, 74, 121, 140-142, 144-i:)l, 174 n., ;325, 4(57. Burns, Robert, l'.)(3; C.'s poem on, 200 and note, 207. Burton, 320. Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, 428. .Busts of C, 570 n., 571, 09") n. Butler, Samuel (afterwards Head Master of Shrewsbury and Bishop of Lichfield), 40 and note. Buttermere, 393. Byron, Lord, his Childe Harold, 583 ; 0()6, ()04, 72r). Byron, Lord, Conversations of, by Capt. Thomas Medwiu, 735 and note. Cabriere, Miss, 18. Caermarthen, 411. Caldbeck, ;570 n., 724. Calder, the river, 339. Caldwell, Rev. George, 25 and note, 29, 71, 82. Calne, WUtshire, C.'s Ufe at, 641- 653. Calvert, Raisley, 345 n. Calvert, William, proposes to study chemistry with C. and Words- worth, 345 ; his portrait in a poem of Wordsworth's, 345 n. ; proposes to share his new hous'j near (Jreta Hall with Wordsworth and his sister, 340 ; his sense and ability, .340 ; 347, 348. Cambridge, description of. 39 ; 137, 270. _ Cambridge, Beminiscences of, by Henry Gunning, 24 n., 3()3 n. Cambridge Intelligencer, The, 93 n., 2 IS 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 Cole- ridge, 2(i9 n., 527 n., 572 n., (iOO n., 631 n., 653 n., 660 n., 667 u., 674 n., 681 n., 684 n., 698 n., 752 n., 753 n., 772 n. Canary Islands, 417, 418. Canning, George, 542, (>74. Canova, Antonio, on Allston's mod- elling, ■")7-!. Cape Esperichel, 473. Carlisle, Sir Anthony, 341 and note. Carlton House, 392. Carlyle, Thomas, his portrait of C. in the Life of Sterling, 77 1 n. Carlyon, Clement, M. 1)., his Early Years and Late liecollections, 258, 298 n. Carnosity, Mrs., 472. Carrock, the mountain, a tempest on, 339, 340. Carrock man, the, 339. Cartwright, Major John, 035 and note. Cary, Rev. Henry, his Memoir of H. F. Cary, 070 n. Cary, 11. F., Memoir of, by Henry Cary, 076 n. Cary, Rev. H. F., his translation of the Divina Commedia, 07t), (')77 and note, 678, 679 ; C. introduces hinjself to, 676 n. ; 685, 699 ; let- ters from C, 670, 677, 731, 760. Casimir, the Barbou, 67 and notes, ()8. Castlereagh, Lord. 602. Castle Spectre, The. a play by Monk Lewis, C.'s criticism of, 236 and note, 237, 238 ; 020. Catania, 458. Cat-serenades in Malta, 483 n., 484 n. Catherine II., Empress of Russia, 207 n. Cathloma, 51. Catholic Emancipation, C.'s Let- ters to Judge Fletcher on, 629 and note, 634 and note, 635, 636, ()42. Catholicism in Germany, 291, 292. Catholic question, the, letters in the Courier on, 5(i7 and note ; C. pro- poses to again write for the Cou- INDEX 781 rier on, 6G0, 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. Chalmei-s, Rev. Thomas, D. D., calls on C, 752 and note. Chantrey, Mr. (afterwards Sir) Fran- cis, R. A., C."s impressions of, 6'J'J; 727. Chapman, Mr., appointed Puhlic Secretary of Malta, 491, 496. Character, A, 031 n. Charity, 110 n. Chatterton, Monody on the Death of, 110 n., 15S 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, 1.39, 140 n. Chester, John, accompanies C. to Germany, 259 ; 265, 267, 269 n., 272, 2S0, 281, 300. Childe Harold, by Byron, 588. Childhood, memory of, in old age, 428. Children in cotton factories, legisla- tion as to the employment of, 689 and note. Christ, both God and man, 710. Christabel, written in a dream or dreandike reverie, 245 n. ; 310, 313, 317, 337 and note, 342, 349 ; Con- clusion to Part II., 355 and note, 35ti n. ; Part II., 405 n. ; a fine edition proposed, 42 1 , 422 ; 437 n., .523 ; C. quotes from, 609. 610 ; the iBrokcn frieiulsliip commemo- rated in, 609 n. ; tlu; copyriglit of, 6()9 ; the Edinburgh lieview's un- kind criticism of, 669 and note, 670 ; Mr. Frere advises C. to finish, ()74 ; 69(). Christianit;/, the one true Philosophy (C.'s magnum opus), outline of, 632, 63.3 ; fragmentary remains of, 632 n. ; the sole motive for C.'s Tvi.sh to live, ()68 ; J. H. Green helps to lay the foundations of, 079 n. ; 694, 753 ; plans for, 772, 773. Christian Observer, 653 n. Christmas Carol, A, 330. Christmas Indoors in North Germany, 257, ^75 n. Christmas Out of Doors, 257. Christmas-tree, the German, 289, 29(J. Christ's Hospital, C.'s life at, 18-22 ; 173 n. Christ's Hospital Five and Thirty Years Ago, by Charles Lamb, 20 n. ChrisVs Hospital, List of Exhibition- ers, from 1566-1885, 41 n. Chronicle, Morning, 111 n., 114, 116n., 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, Theoph- ilus, 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, ()38. Clarke, Mrs., the notorious, 543 n. Clarkson, Mrs., 592. Clarkson, Thomas, 36.3. 398 ; his History of the Abolition of the Slave Trade, b'21 and note, 528- 530; liis character, 529, 5;;0; C.'a re\'iew of his book, 5;]5, 536 ; 538 n., 547, 548 ; on tlie second rupture between C. and A^'ords- worth, 599 n. Clement, Mr., a bookseller, 548. Clergyman, an earnest young, 691, Clevedon, C.'s honeymoon at, 1.30. 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. 782 INDEX Cobham, GT^l n. Cole, Mrs., 271. Coleorton, ^f<'morials of, 300 n., 440. Coleorton Fanulioiise, C.'s visit to the Wordsworths at, .OU'J-514. Coleri(l{;e, Anne (sister — usually called "Nancy "), 8 and note, 21, 21). Coleridg'e, Berkeley (son), birth of, 247 and note, 248, 24'.) ; taken with smallpox, 2.V.) n., 2()U n. ; 2()2, 207, 272 ; death of, 247 n., 282-287, 289. Coleridffe, David Hartley (son — usually called "Hartley"), birth of, 109; 170, 205, 218, 220, 231, 245, 200-202, 207 n., 289, 296, 305, 318; his talkativene.ss and boisterousness at the age of three, 321 ; his theologico-astro- nomical hypothesis as to stars, 323 ; a pompous remark by, 332 ; illness, 342, 343 ; early astro- nomical observations, 342, 343 ; an extraordinary creature, 343, 344 ; 345 n., 355, 350 n., 359 ; a poet in spite of bis low forehead, 395 ; 408, 413, 410, 421 ; at seven years, 443; plans for his education, 4()1, 462 ; 408, 508 ; visits the Words- worths 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, 5 11 n. ; spends five or six weeks with his father and the Wordsworths at Basil Mon- tagu's house in London, .511 n. ; portraits of, 511 n. ; 521 ; his ap- pearance, behavior, and mental acuteness at the age of thirteen, 504 ; at fifteen, 570, 577 ; at Mr. Dawes's school, 570) and note, 577 ; 583 n. ; friendly relations with his cousins, ()75 and note ; C. asks Poole to invite him to Stowey, 075 ; visits Stowey, 075 n. ; 684, 721.720; letter of ad- vice 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, 410 ; at three years, 443; 462, 408, 521; at nine years, 504 ; at eleven years, 570, 577 ; at Mr. Dawes's school, 570 and note, 577 ; 580, (iOo n., 071 n. ; John llnokham Frere's assistance in sending him to Cam- bridge, 075 and )iote ; 707, 711. Coleridge, Miss Edith, 070 n. Coleridge, Edward (brother), 7, 53- 55, 099 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 qnarrel with S. T. C, 13, 14 ; becomes a midshipman, 17 ; dies, 53 and note. Coleridge, Frederick (nephew), 50. Coleridge, Rev. George (brother), 7, 8 ; his character and ability, 8 ; 12,21 n.,25 n. ; his lines to Genius, Ibi Hcr;c Jmondita Solus, 43 n. ; 59 ; bis self-forgetting economy, 65 ; extract from a letter from J. Flampin, 70 n. ; 95, 97 n., 98 and note, 201 ; visit from S. T. C. and his wife, 305 n., 30(i ; 467, 498 n., 512 ; disapproves of S. T. C.'s intended separation from bis wife and refuses to receive him and his family into his house, 523 and note ; 099 n. ; approaching death of, 740-748 ; S. T. C.'s relations with, 747, 748 ; letters from S. T. C, 22, 23, 42, 53, 55, .59, GO, 02- 70, 103, 239. Coleridge, the Bev. George, To, a dedication, 223 and note. Coleridge, Rev. George May (ne- phew), his friendly relations with Hartley C, 075 and note ; letter from C, 740. Coleridge, Harllci/, Poems of, 511 n. Coleridge, Henry Nelson (nephew and son-in-law), 3, 553 n., 570 n., 579 n., 744-740 ; sketch of his life, 750 n. ; letter from S. T. C, 750. Coleridge, Mrs. Henry Nelson (Sara Coleridge), 9 n., 10."] n.; extract from a letter from Mrs. Words- worth, 220 n. ; 320 n., 327 n., 572 n. Coleridge, James, the yoimger, (nephew), liis narrow escape, 50. INDEX 783 Coleridj^e, Colonel James (brother), 7, 54, 56, 01, :jUG, 724 n., 72G n.; letter from IS. T. C, 01. Coleridge, Mrs. James (sister-in- law), 740. Coleridge, John (brother), 7. Coleridge, John (grandfather), 4, 5. Coleridge, Mrs. John (mother), 5 n., 7, lo-17, 21 n., 2.>, 50 ; letter from S. T. C, 21. Coleridge, Rev. John (father), 5 and note, 0, 7, 10-12, 15, 10 ; dies, 17, 18 ; his character, 18. Coleridge, John Duke, Lord Chief- Justice (great-nephew), 572 n., 699 n., 743 n. Coleridge, Sir John Taylor (nephew), his friendly relations with Hartley C, 675 and note; editor of The Quarterhj Review, 7^50 and note, 737 ; his judgment and knowledge of the world, 7o;l ; delighted with Aids to Reflection, T^Vd; 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 parent- age, 4-7 ; birth, 0, 9 and note ; his brothers and sister, 7-9 ; chris- tened, 9 ; infancy and childhood, 9-12 ; learns to read, 10 ; early taste in books. 1 1 and note, 12 ; his dreaminess ami indisposition to bodily activity in childhood, 12 ; boyhood, 12-21 ; lias 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, 10 ; a Christ's Hospital Presentation procured for him by Judge Dul- ler, 18; visits liis 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 wliioli he obtains the Browne g'old medal for 1792, 43 and note ; is matric- ulated as pensioner, 44 and note ; his examination for the Craven Scholarship, 45 and note, 4(5 ; his temperament, 47 ; takes violin les- sons, 49 ; enlists in the army, 57 and note ; nurses a comrade who is ill of smallpox in the Henley workhouse, 58 and note ; his en- listment disclosed to his family, 57 n., 58, 59; remorse, 59-01, 04, 65 ; arrangements resulting in his discharge, 01-70 ; his religious be- liefs at twenty-one, OS, 09 ; re- turns to the university and is pun- ished, 70, 71 ; drops his gay ac- quaintances 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 ; proj)oses to go to America with a colony of panti- socrats, 81, 88-91, 101-103 ; his in- terest in Miss Fricker cools and his old love for Mary Evans re- vives, 89; his indolence, 103, 104; on his own poetry, 112 ; considers going to Wales with Southey and others to found a colony of pan- tisocrats, 121, 122; his love for Mary Evans proves hopeless, 122- 120 ; in lodgings in Bristol after having left Cambridge without taking his degree, 133-135; mar- ries Miss Sarah Fricker and spends the honeymoon in a cottage at Clevedon, 136 ; breaks with South- ey, 13(5-151 ; happiness in early married life, 139 ; his tour to pro- cure subscribers for the Watch- man, 151 and note, 152-154 ; pov- erty, 154, 155 ; receives a commu- nication from Mr. Thomas Poole that seven or eight friends have imdertaken to subscribe a certain sum to be paid annually to him as the author of the monody on Chat- terton, 158 n. ; discontinues the Watchman, 158; takes Charles Lloyd into his home, l(i8-170; birth of his first child, David Hartley, 169 ; considers starting a day school at Derby, 170 and note ; has a severe .attack of neu- ralgia for which he takes lau- danum, 173-170; early use of opium and beginning of the habit. '84 INDEX 173 n. , 174 n. ; selects twenty-eight soDiicts by liiuiselt'j.Soutliey, Lloyd, Lamb, and otlu'is and luuj tlieni pr-vati'ly printed, to be bound uj) with Bowles's sonnets, 177, -0(i and note ; his description of him- self in 17'.U), ISO, bSI ; liis pei'sonal appearance aa described by an- other, ISO 11., iSln. ; anxious to take a cottag'e al Netlier tStowey and support himself by <;ardenin ; writes Joseph Cottle in reg'ard to a third edition of his poems, 239 ; rup- ture with Lloyd, 2:5S, 245 n., 24(; ; fir.st recourse to opium to relieve distress of mind, 245 n. ; birth of a second child, Berkeley, 247 ; temporary estrang-ement from Lamb caused by Lloyd, 249-25.") ; poos to Germany with William Wordsworth, Dorothy ^Voids- worth. and John Chester, for the purpose of study and observation, 25S-2(i2 ; life enpcnaion with Che.s- ter in the family of a German pas- tor at Ratzeburg', after parting from the Wordsworths at Ham- burg'. 2(52-278 ; loaniiug the Ger- man language, 202, 2(i-;. 2(>7, 2('>S ; writes a poem in German. 2(i;] ; proposes to proceed to (jiittingen, 2(iS-27n; proposes to write a life of Leasing, 270 ; travels by coach from Ratzeburg to Gottingen, pa-ssing through H.anover, 2/8- 2>>0 ; enters the University, 2S1 ; receives word of the death of his little son, Berkeley, 2S2-2s7 ; learns the Gothic and Theotuscan languages, 29S ; reconcili.ition with Southey. after tlie return from Germany, 303, ;»!)4 ; with liis wife and child he visits the houtheysat Exeter, 305 and note ; accompa- nies Southey on a walking-tour in Dartnio(»r. ;!(I5 and note ; makes a tour of tlie Lake Country, 312 n., 313; in London, writing for the Morning l^ost, 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-stu- dent, 345-347 ; proposes to write a book on the originality and merits of Locke, llobbes, and Hume, 349, 850 ; spends a week at Scarborough, riding and bath- ing for his health, 3()l-3()3; di- vides the winter of 1801-1802 be- tween London and Nether Stowey, 365-3(JS ; domestic unhappiness, 36(j ; writes the ()7; his g-rief at Captain John Wordsworth's death, 4u4 and note, 4i)5 and note, 4'.>7 ; in Italy, 41(8- 502 ; i-eturiis to England, 5U1 ; re- mains in and about London, writ- ing political articles for tlie Cou- rier, 5Uo-5UL) ; invited to deliver a course of lectures at the Royal Institution, i')U7 ; visits the Words- worths at Coleortou J'arnihouse with his son Hartley, M.}-'j14; spends five or six weeks with Hartley in the company of the Wordswortlis at Basil Montagu's house in London, 511 n. ; outlines Lis coui-se of lectures at the Royal Institution, 515, 510, 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 phy- sician, 5;]o and note, 543 n. ; with tlie Wordsworths at Grasnieie, de- voting hinist-lf to the publication of The Frietid, 533-559 ; in Lon- don, 504 ; determines to place himself under the care of Dr. John Abernethy, 5(:)4, 565 ; visits the Morgans in Portland Place, Hammersmith, 500-575; life- masks, death-mask, busts, and portraits, 571) and note, 572 and not^s ; last visit to Greta Hall and the Lake roiintrv, 575-578 ; mis- understanding with Wordsworth, 570 n.. 577, 578, 58()-588; visits the Morg.nns at No. 71 Berners Stre(!t, 57i)-(il2 ; ))rpparations for another course of lectures, 57'.', 580, 582, 585 ; writes Wordsworth lettei-s of explanation, 588-595 ; his Lectures on tlie Drama at Wil- lis's Rooms, 595 antl notes, 590, 597, 599 ; reconciled with ^Vords- worth, 590, 597, 599 ; second rup- ture witlr Wordsworth, 599 n., 600 n. ; Josiah's half of the Wedg- wood annuity withdraw'n on ac- count of C.'s abu.se of opium, 602, 611 and note; successful produc- tion of his tragedy, Remorse (Oso- rio rewritten), at Drury Lane The- atre, 002-011 ; sells a part of his library, 010 and note ; anguish and remorse from the abuse of opium, 610-621, 623, 624; at Bristol, 021-020; propo.ses to translate Faust for John Murray, 624 and note, 625, 020 ; convales- cent, 031 ; with the Morgans at Asldey, near Box, 031 ; writing at his projected great work.' Chris- tianity, the one true Fhilosojihy, 032 and note, 033 ; with the Mor- gans at Mr. Pages, Calne. Wilts, 041-053 ; resolves to free himself from his opium habit and arranges to enter the house of James Gill- man, Esq., a surgeon, in High- gate (an arrangement vhich ends only with bis life). (i57-<)59 ; sub- mits his drama Zapoliia to the Drury Lane Committee, and, after its rejection, publishes it in book form, 00(i and note, 607-009 ; pub- lishes Sibylline Leaves and Bio- graphia Literaria. 67-) ; disputes with his publishers, Fenner and Curtis, 673, 074 and note ; pro- poses a new Encyelopadia, 674; his reputation as a critic, ()77 n. ; visits Joseph Henry Green. Esq., at St. Lawrence, near Maldon, 690-693; his snuff taking habits, 691, (i92 and note; his friendship and correspondence with Thomas Allsop, ()95, 69() ; delivers a course of Lectures on the History of Phi- losophy at the Crown and Anchor, Strand, ()\^^ and note ; criticises his portrait by Thomas Phillips, ()99, 700; at the seashore, 700, 701 ; a candidate for associateship in the Royal Society of Literature, 720), 727 ; elected as a Royal As- sociate, 728; at Ramsgate, 729— 731 ; prepares and publishes Aids to BeJIectioii. 734 n., 738 ; reads an Essay on the Promethfus of ^'Eschy- Ills 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—75(5, 75S ; con- valescence, 700, 701 ; begins to see a new edition of his poetical works 78G INDEX through the press, 709 n. ; writes a letter to his godchild from his deathbed, 775, 7To. Coleridge, Early Recollections of, by Joseph Cottle, l;Jll n., 14U n., 1.")! n., -Ji;) n., -SVl n., 251 u., OIG n., 017 11.. (i:!', n. Coleridge, Life of by James Gill- man, 3, 20 n., 2;i n., 24 n., 45 n., 40 n., 171 n., 257, (iSO n., 701 n. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, by James Dykes Cam^jbell, 209 n., 527 n., 672 11., 000 n., OJl ii., 05o n., (iOO u., 607 n., 074 n., (iSl n., 084 n., 698 n., 752 n., 758 n., 772 n. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, and the English Romantic School, by Alois Braiidl, 25S, ()74 n., 740 n. Coleridge, S. T., Letters, Conversa- tions, and Recollections of, by Thoniiis Allsop, 41 ii., 527 n., G75 11. ; the publication of, re- garded by C.'s friends as an act of bad faith, 090 and note, 721 n. ; 09S n. Coleridge, S. T., Spiritual Phi- losophy, founded on the Teaching of, by J. H. Green, 080 n. Coleridge's Logic, article in The Athen'cum, 753 n. Coleridge and Southey, Reminiscences of, by Joseph Cottle, 208 n., 209 n., 417. 450 n., 017 n. Coleridf^e. Mrs. 8amnel Taylor (Sarah Fricker, afterwards called " Sara "), edits the second edition of liiographia Literaria, -i ; loO, 145, 14t), 150, 151 ; illness and re- covery of, 155, 150; 1*)S; birth of her first child, l^avid Hartley, 109; 174 n., 181, 188-190, 2;).5, 2ir>, 214, 210, 224, 245; birth of her saconi child, Berkeley, 247- j 249 ; 257, 25S, 259 n. ; extract from a letter to S. T. C, 208 n. ; 1 extract from a letter to Mrs. Lovell. 207 n. ; 271, 297, 812 n., 318, 818, 821,_ 825, 820, 882; birth and baptism of her third child. Derwent, '■i'^'^ and note ; her devotion saves his life. -i'-iS n. ; 387 ; fears of a separation from her husband operate to restore harinimv, 8>9, 890 ; her faults as detailed by S. T. C, 8S9, 890; 392, 893 n., 395, 390 j birth of a daughter, Sara, 416; 418, 443, 457, 407, 490, 491, 521 ; extract from a letter to Poole, 570 n. ; 578 ; John Kenyon a kind friend to, 089 11. ; letters from S. T. C, 259-20(i, 271, 277, 284, 288, 367, 410, 420, 481, 400,41)7,480, 490, 507, 509, 50.8, 579, 5S8, 002 ; let- ter to S. T. ('. after her little Berkeley's death, 282 n. Coleridge, Sara (daughter), her birth 41(i ; in infancy, 448 ; at the age of nine, 575, 5Tt) ; 580, 721 ; mar- ries her cousin, Henry Nelson C, 750 n. See Coleridge, Mrs. Henry Nelson. Coleridge, Sara, Memoir and Letters of, 401 n., 75S 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 Uishoji of Barbadoes), befriends Hartley C, 075 n. ; 707 ; his portrait by Thomas Pliillips, R. A., 749 and nota. Coleridge, William Rennell, 699 n. Coleridge family, origin of, 4 n. Collier, John Payne, 575 n. Collins, William, his Ode on the Po- etical Character, 190 ; his Odes, 818. Collins, William, A. R. A. (after- ward, R. A.), letter from C, 1 ; C.'s opin- ion of his poems, 1(J4 ; 211; the first litirarv diaractcr in Europe, and tlie most origimd - minded man. 'Jl.j; ;:!iS(5, 04.S. Dash Ueck, •]~'> n., o70 n. Davy, :;ir Humphry, ;n 5-317, 321, 324, 3-0, 344, ;jr>(t, 357, 3(i5, 379 n., 44S ; a Theo-maninionist, 455 ; 45() ; C. attends his lectures, 4(i2 and notu, 4t)3 ; C.'s esteem and admiration for. 514; liis success- ful eliorts to induce C. to give a course of lectures at tlie Royal Institution, 515, 5 Hi; seriously ill, 51:0, 521 ; hears from C. of his improvement in healtii and habits, 533 n. ; ()73 n. ; letters from C, 330-341. 345, 514. Davy, Sir Ilumphri/, Fragmentary Bemains 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 there- on, 572 n. ; immortalized by Lamb, 572 n. ; engaged on a pic- ture 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 Hart- ley and Derwent C, 570 and note, 577. Death, fear of, responsible for many virtues, 744 ; the nature of, 702, 703. 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 : A n Ode, 378 and note, 370 and note, 380-384, 405 n. Delia Cruscanism, 106. Democracy, C. disavows belief in, 104- 1 05" ; 1 ;U, 243. See Republi- canism and Pantisocracy. Denbigh, SO, 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 pam- j)blet On the Convention of Cintra, 540, 5.JU n. ; 503, 001, 772 n. Derby, 152 ; jjroposal to start a school in, 170 and note ; 188 ; the people of, 215 and note, 210. Derwent, the river, 339. Descartes, Ren^, 351 and note. Destiny of Nations, The, 278 n., 178 n. Deutschland in seiner iiffsten Ernie- driguiig. by John Philip Palm, C.'s translation of, 530. De Yere, Aubrey, extract from a letter from iSir William Rowan Hamilton to, 759 n. Devil's Thoughts, The, by Coleridge and Southey, 318. Devoek Lake, 393. Devonshire, 305 and note. Devonshire, Georgiana, Duchess of, Ode to, 320 and note, 330. Dibdin, Mr., stage-manager at Dniry Lane Theatre, 660. Disappointment, To, 28. Dissuasion from Popery, by Jeremy Taylor. 039. Divina Commedia, C. praises the Rev. H. F. Gary's translation of, 676, 677 and note, 678, 679 ; Ga- briele Rossetti's essay on the mechanism and interpretation of, 732. Doctor, The, 583 n., 584 n. Doling, Herr von, 279. Dove, Dr. Daniel, 583 and note, 584. Dove Cottage, Grasmere, 379 n. See Grasmere. Dowseborough, 22.5 n. Drakard, John, 5(i7 and note. Drayton, Michael, his Poly-Olbion, 374 n. Dreams, the state of mind in. 603. Drury Lane Theatre, C.'s Zajmlya before the committee of, 666 and note, ()67. Drvden, John, his slovenly verses, (i72. Dubois, Edward, 705 and note. Duchess, Ode to the, 320 and note, 330. Dunmow, Essex, 4.56, 459. Duns Scot us. 358. Dupuis, Charles Francois, his Origine de tons les Cidtes, ou Religion JJni- verselle, 181 and note. INDEX 789 Diu'ham, Bishop of, 582 and note. Durham, C. reading Duns Scotus at, 35S-;361. Duty, 495 n. Dyer, George, 84, 93, 316, 317; his article on JSouthey in Public Char- acters/or 1799-1800, 317 and note ; 3(53, Vl'I ; sketch of his life, 748 n. ; C.'s esteem and affection for, 748, 749 ; his benevolence and benefi- cence, 749 ; letter from C, 748. Earl of Abergavenny, the •wreck of, 494 n. ; 495 n. Early liecollections of Coleridge, by Joseph Cottle, 139 n., 140 n., 151 n., 2 19 n., 232 n., 251 n., 016 n., 617 n., 633 n. Early Years and Late Ttecollections, by Clement Cai-lyon, M. D., 258, 298 n. East Tarbet, 431, 432 and note, 433. Echoes, 409 n. Edgeworth, Maria, her Helen, 773, 774. Edgeworth, Richard Lovell, 262. Edgevvorth's Essay on Education, 261. Edgeworths, the, very miserable when children, 262. Edinburgh, a place of literary gos- sip, 423; C.'s visit to, 434-440; Southey's first impressions of, 438 n. Edinburgh Review, The, 438 u. ; Soutliey 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 ; 630. 6:57 ; severe review of Chris- tabel in, 6t)9 and note, 670 ; Jef- frey's reply to C. in, 609 n. ; re- echoes C.'s praise of Cary's Dante, 677 n. ; its broad, predetermined abuse of C, 697, 72'5 ; its influ- ence on the .sale of Wordsworth's books in Scotland, 741, 742. Edmund Oliver, by diaries 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 be- lief, 16, 17. Edwards, Rev. Mr., of Birmingham, extract from a letter from C. to, 174 n. Edwards, Thomas, LL. D., 101 and note. EgTemont, 393. Egypt, Observations on, 486 n. Egypt, political relations of, 492. Eichhom, Prof., of Gottingen, 298, 504, 7i)7, 773. Einbeck, 279, 280. Elbe, the, 2.59, 277. Electrometers of taste, 218 and note. Elegy, by Robert Southey, 115. EUeray, 535. Elliot, H., Minister at the Court of Najjles, 508 and note. EUiston, ilr., an actor. Oil. Elmsley, Rev. Peter 438 and note, 439. Encyclopaidia Metropolitana, a work projected by C, 674, 081. Encyclopiedias, 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. Ei-skine, Lord, his Bill for the Pre- vention of Cruelty to Animals, 035 and note. Erste Schiffer, Der (The First Navi- gator), by Gesner, 309, 371, 372, .•!7(>-378, 397, 402, 403. Eskdale, 39; J, 401. Essai/ on Animal Vitality, by Thel- wall, 179. 212. Essay on Fasting, 157. Essay on the New French Constitu- tion, 320 and note. Essay on the Prometheus of ^schy- Ins, 7-10 and note. Essay on the Science of Method, 081 and note. Essai/s on Ilis Own Times. 156 n., 157 n., 320 n., 327 n., 329 n.. 335 n., 414 n., 498 n., 567 n., 029 n., 034 n. Essat/ on the Fine Arts, 633 and note, 634. Essays upon Epitaphs, by Words- worth, 585 and note. 790 INDEX Estlin, Mrs. J. P., 100, 213, 214. Estlin, Kev. J. P., 184, ksr,, UIO, 2.30. 2S7, 2SS ; his sernions, oS'> ; 4 Id ; lettei-s from C, 213, 245, 240, 414. Ether, 41:0, 435. Etna, 458, 485 n., 4S(i n. Evans. Mrs., C. spends a fortnight with, 23 and note; 24; C.'s filial regard for, 2(), liT ; her unselfish- ness, 40 ; letters from C, 20, 3'J, 4.j. Evans, Anne, 27, 20-31 ; 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, 307. 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, 048. Examiner, The, its notice of C.'s tragedy, llemorse, 00(). Excursion, The, by Wordsworth, 244 n., 337 u., -585 n., C.'s opinion of, 641; the Edinburgh Review's crit- icism of, 042; C. discusses it in the light of his previous expecta- tions, 045-1)50. 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, I'riscilla, Poems on the Death of, by Charles Lloyd, 200 and note. Farmers, 335 n. Farmhouse, by Robert Lovell, 115. FastiiH/. Essay on, 157. Faidkmr : a Tragedy, by William Godwin. 524 and note. Fauntleroy's trial, 730, Faust, C.'s proposal to translate, 624 and note, (i25, 020. Favell, Robert, 80, 109 n., 110 n., 1 13, 225 and note. Fayette, 112. Fears in Solitude, published. 201 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, titU; n. ; his ill-usage of C. in regard to Sibylline Leaces, Biogra- phia Literaria, and the projected Encyclopedia Metropolitana, 073, 074 and note. Fenwick, Dr., 301 and note. Fenwick, Mrs. E., 405 and note. Fernier, John, 211. Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, the pbilo- sophv of, 082, 683, 735. Field, Mr., 93. Fine Arts, Essays on the, 633 and note, 034. Fire, The, by Robert Southey, 108 and note. Fire and Famine, 327. First Landing Place, The, 084 n. First Navigator, The, translation of Gesner's Der Erste Schiffer, 309, 371, 372, 370-378, 397, 402, 403. Fitzgibbon. John, 038. Fletcher, Judge, C.'s Courier Let- ters to, 029 and note, 034 and note, 035, 030, 042. Florence, 499 n. Flower, Benjamin, editor of the Cambridge Intelligencer, 93 and note. Flower, The, by George Herbert, 095. Flowers, 745, 740. Fort Augustus, 435. Foster-Mother's Tale, The, 510 n. Fox, Charles James, his Letter to the Westminster Electors, 50 ; ;!27 ; Coleridge versus, 423, 424 ; pro- posed articles on, 505 ; 500 ; death of, 507 and note ; 029 and note. Fox, Dr., ()19. Foyers, the Falls of, 440. Fragment found in a Lecture Room, A, 44. Fragments of a Journal of a Tour I over the Bracken, 257. INDEX 791 France, political condition of, in 1800, 329 and note. France, an Ode, 'Ml n., 552. Freeling, bir Francis, 751. French, C. not proficient in, 181. French Constitution, Essay on the New, ;)"iO and note. French Empire under Buonaparte, C.'s essays on the, ((29 and note. French Revolution, the, 21i), 240. Frend, William, 24 and note. Frere, George, 072. Frere, Right Hon. John Hookham, 072 and note ; advice and friendly assistance to C. from, (i74, 075 and note; ()98, 7ol, 732, 737. Frieker, Mrs., 98, 189 ; C. proposes to allow her an annuity of £20, 190 ; 423, 458. Frieker, Edith (afterwards Mrs. Robert Southey), 82 ; marries Southey, 137 n. ; 103 n. See Southey, Mrs. Robert. Frieker, George, 315, 316. Frieker, Mai-tha, 600. Frieker, Sarah, C. falls in love with, 81; 83-86 ; C.'s love cools, 89 ; marries C, 1.36 ; 138, 103 n. ; letter from Southey, 107 n. See Cole- ridge, Mrs. Samuel Taylor. Friend, The, 11 n., 25 n., 80 n., 257, 274 n., 275 n., 351 n., 404 n., 412 n., 453 n., 454 n. ; preliminary prospec- tus of, and its revision, 533, 530 and note, 537-541 ,542n. ; arrangements for the publication of, 541, 542 and note, .544, 540, 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 ; 600, 611, 029 and note, 0:!0. 0()7 n. ; J. H. Frere's advice in regard to, 674 ; the object of the third vol- ume of, 670 ; 684 n. ; 697, 756 n., 768 and note. Friends, C. complains of lack of sj"mpathy on the part of his, 696, 097. Friend's Quarterly Examiner, The, 536 n., 538 n. Frisky Sonr/sttr. The. 237. Frost at Midnight, 8 n., 201 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 ; reconmiended to Thelwall, 215 ; at Nether Stowey, 219, 220. Gebir, 328. Gentleman's Magazine, The. 455 n. Georgiana, Buchtss of Devonshire, Ode to, 320 and note, 330. German language, the, C. learning, 262, 263, 267, -Lm. German philosophers, C.'s opinions of, 681-(i83, 735. German playing-cards, 263. Gemians, their partiality for Eng- land and the Eiiglisli," 203, 264; their eating and smoking customs, 276, 277 ; an unlovely race, 278 ; their Christmas-tree and otJier religious customs, 289-292 ; super- stitions of the baners, 1:9], 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 ; Protest- ants and Catholics of, 291, 292; bell-ringing in, 293 ; churches in, 293 ; shepherds in, 293 ; care of owls in, 293 ; gallows and hang- man 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 Wil- helra, 773. Ge.sner, his Erste Schiffer (The First Navigator), 369, 371, :')72. 37<>- 378, 397, 402, 403 ; his rhythmical prose, 398. Ghosts. 084. Gibraltar, 4(!9, 473, 474 ; description of, 475-479 ; 480, 493. Gilford, William, his criticism of C.'s tragedy. Remorse, 605, 606 ; <169, 737. Gillman. Alexander, 703 n. Gillmaii. Henry. 09:! n Gillman. James, his Life of Cole- ridge, .">. 20 n., 2."! 11.. 24 n.. -15 n., 46 n., 171 n., 257; 57 ; C. arranges to enter his household as a patient, (JoT-Ooi) ; C.'s pecuniary obligations to, 658 n. ; eharafter and intellect of, 60."); ()Ti)n., (iTV), t)S.'>, (;;iL', 7t»4 ; C.'s gratitude to and affection for, 721, lS2 ; on C.'s opium habit, 7(>1 n. ; 7<)8 ; extracts from a letter from John Sterling to, 772 n. ; letter's from C, 0.37, 700, 721, 72'.t, 74-'. Gillman, James, the younger, passes his examination for ordination ■with great credit, 7.35. Gillman, Mrs. James (Anne), her faithful friendship for C, 0.57 ; character of, OO.j ; 07!), 0S4, GS.j, 702 n., 70.), 721, 722, 729, 73:3; illness of, 7oS ; C.'s attachment to, 740 ; C.'s gratitude to and affec- tion for, 7.54 ; 704, 774 ; letters from C, 090, 745, 754. Ginger-tea, 412, 413. Glencoe, 4i;3, 440. Glen Falloch, 433. Gloucester, 72. Gnats, 0:»2. Godliness, C.'s definition of, 203 n., 204 ; ht. Peter's paraphrase of, 204. Godwin, William, 01, 114; C.'s son- net to, 1 10 n., 1 17 ; lines by Southey to, 120 ; his misanthropy, 101, 102; 101 n., 107; C.'s book on, 210; 310, 321; his St. Leon, 324, 325 ; a qiiarrel and reconciliation ■with C, 457, 404-400 ; his Faulk- ner : a Tragedij, 524 and note ; C. accepts his invitation to meet Grattan, 505, 500 ; letter from C. , 505. Godwin, William. : His Friends and Contemporaries, by Charles Kegan Paul, 101 n.,324 n., 405 n. Godwin, Mrs. William, 405, 406, 560. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, his Faust, C.'s proposal to translate, 624 and note, (525, 020 ; his Zur Farhenlehre, 099. Gosforth, 3i)3. Goslar, 272, 273. Gottingen, C. proposes to visit, 268- 270, 272; 2(iS n., 209 n. ; C. calls on Professor Heyne at, 280 ; C. enters the University of, 281 ; the Saturday Club at, 281 ; the gal- lows near, 294 ; C.'s stay at, 281- 300. Gough, Charles, 309 n. Governments as effects and causes, 241. Grasmere, 335, 346, 3(52, 379 n., 394, 405 n., 419,420; C visits and is taken ill there, 447, 448; C. visits, 533-.5(59. See Kendal. Grattan, Henry, C.'s admiration for, 5(50. Greek Islands, the, 329. Greek poetry contra.sted with He- brew poetry, 4o5, 4(J(). 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 pro- fession, (579 n. ; C.'s amanuensis and coUaborateur, 079 n. ; C ap- points him liis literary executor, 079 n. ; his published works, (579 n., 680 n. ; his character and intel- lect, (J80 n. ; his faithful friend- ship for C, 689 n. ; his Spiritual Philosophy, founded on the Teach- ing of S. T. Coleridge, OSO n. ; re- ceives a visit from C. at St. Law- rence, near Maldon, (59(MS93 ; 753 n. ; letters from C, (5(5it, 680, 688, (599, 704, 706, 726, 728, 751, 7.54, 7(57. 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, 33>5-444 ; situation of, 335 ; description of 391, 392 ; C. urges Southey to make it his home, 391, 392, 394, 395 ; Southey at first de- clines but subsequent! v accepts C.'s invitation to settle there, 395 n. ; Southey makes a visit there which proves permanent, 435 ; 4150 n. ; sold by its owner in C.'s ab- sence, 490, 491 ; C.'s last visit to, 575 and note, 57(5-578 ; 724, 725. n., .'308 n. Growth of the Individual Mind, On the, C.'s extempore lecture, (580 and note, 681. Guuning-, Henry, his Reminiscences of Cambridge, 24 n. Gwynne, General, K. L. D., 02. Hfemony, Milton's allegorical flower, 40(5, 4U7. Hague, Charles, .50. Hale, JSir Pliilip, a "titled Dog- berry,"' 282 n. Hall, 8. C, 257, 745 n. Hamburg, 257, 251) ; C.'s arrival at, 2()1 ; -'USn. Hamilton, a Cambridge man at Giittingen, 281 Hamilton, Lady, 087 and note. Hamilton, Sir William Rowan, 759 and note, 700. IIu inlet. Notes on, 684 n. Hancock's house, 2U7. Hangman and gallows in Germany, 2posed to have written the Edinburgh Review criticism of Christabel, 6G9 and note. Hebrew poetry richer in imagina- tion than the Greek, 405, 400. Heiuse's Ardinghello, 083 and note. Helen, by Maria Edgeworth, 773, 774. Helvellyn, 547. Henley workhouse, C. nnrses a fel- low-diagoon in the, 58 and note. Herald. Morning, its notice of C.'s tragedy, Ixemorse, OOo. Herbert, George, C.'s love for his poems, 004, 005 ; his Temple, 694; his Flower, 005. Heretics of the Jirst two Centuries after Christ, Histori/ of the, by Nathaniel Lardner, D. D., 830. Herodotus, 788. Hertford, C. a Blue-Coat boy at, 19 and note. Hess, Jonas Lewis von, 555 and note. Hessey, Mr., of Taylor and Hessey, publishers, 780. Hexameters, parts of the Bible and Ossian written in slo^'enly, 808. Heyne, Christian Gottlob, 279; C. calls on, 280; 281. Higginbottom, Nehemiah, a pseudo- nym of C.'s, 251 n. Highgate, History of by Lloyd, 572 n. Highland Girl, to a, by Words- worth, 540. Highland lass, a beautiful, 432 and note, 450. 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 9 and note. Jasper, by Mrs. Robinson, 322 n. Jeffrey, Francis (afterwards Lord), 453 n., 521 n. ; C. accuses bira of being unwarrantably severe on him, 527 ; 536 n., 538 n. ; C.'s accusation of personal and un- generous animosity against him- self and his reply thereto, 009 and note, 670 ; 735 ; his attitude to- INDEX 795 ward Wordsworth's poetry, 742 ; letters from C, 527, 528, 534. See Edinburgh lieview. Jerdan, Mr., of Michael's Grove, Bi-ompton, 727. Jesus College, C.'slife 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, 56(5 n. Johnson, J., the bookseller, lends C. £30, 2()1 ; publishes Fears in Soli- tude, for C, 2G1 and notes, 318 ; 321. Johnson, Dr. Samuel, on the condi- tion of the mind during stage rep- resentations, ()(>>. Johnston, Lady, 731. Johnston, Sir Alexander, 7.30 and note ; C.'s impressions of, 731. Josephus, 407. Kant, Iramanuel, 204 n., 351 n. ; C.'s opinion of the philosophy of, 681, 682; his Krilik der praktisch- en Vernunft, (iSl, 682 and note ; his Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der hlossen 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., 369. 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, Mis., 630, 640. Kenyon, Jolin, 639 n. ; letter from C.;639. Keswick, 174 n. ; C. passes through, during his firet tour in the Lake Country, 312 n. ; a Uruidical 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, liaron, and his daugh- ter, Mary Sophia, 263 n. Kilmansig, Countess, C. becomes acquainted with, 262, 263. King, Mr., 183, 185, 186. King, Mrs., 183. Kingsley, Kev. Charles, 771 n. Kingston, Uuchess of, her masque- rade costume, 237. Kinnaird, Douglas, 666, 667- Kirkstone Pass, a storm in, 418- 420. Kisses, 54 n. Klopstock, Friedrich Gottlieb, 257 ; his Messias, .j72, 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 Benyoioski, or the Conspiracy of Kandsrhatka, a Trayi-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, 57.5 n. See Grasmere, Greta Hall, Kendal, Keswick. Lalla Rookh, by Moore, 672. Lamb, C, To, 128 and note. Laiiil), diaries, love of Woolman's Journal, 4 n. ; visit to Nether Stowey, 10 n. ; his Christ's Hospi- tal Five and Thirty Yfars Ago, 20 n. ; a man of uncommon genius, 111; writes four lines of a sonnet for C, 111, 1)2 and note ; and his sister, 127, 128; C.'s linos to, 128 and note ; 16.'> n ; correspondence with C. after his (Lanib"s) mother's tragic death, 171 and note; 182; extract from a letter toC, 197 n. ; 206 n. ; his Grandame, 206 n. ; 796 INDEX C.'s poem on Bums addressed to, 20(5 and note, 2U7 ; extract from a letter to C, -'2-i n. ; visits C at Nether Stowey, lili4 and note, 2;i5- 227 ; temporary estrany:enient from C, 24'J-20;J ; his relations to the quarrel between C. and Southey, 'o04, 312, ."320 n. ; visits C. at Greta Hall with his sister, 3l)(J u. ; a Latin letter from, 400 n ; 40.') n., 421, 422, 4GU n., 474 ; his Berollections of a Late liotjal Acatlemician, 072 ii. ; his connec- tion with the reconciliation of C. and AVordsworth, 5St>-.'j88, 594 ; on William Elake's paintings, en- gravings, and poems, (i8(i n. ; 704 ; his ISuperannuuted Man. 740 ; 744 ; his acquaintance with George Dyer, 74S n. ; 751 n., 7U0 ; letter of condolence from C, 171 ; other letters from C, 24i), 586. Lamb, Charles, Letters of, 164 n., 171 n., 197 n., 396 u., 4UU n., 465 n., 466 n., 6S() 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 brotlier Charles, 3!)(i n. ; be- comes 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 be- tween 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 Hereiirs ofthejirst 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, ()59. .See Opium. Lauderdale, James Maitland, Earl of, ()8'.> and note. Law, luiman a-s distinguished from divine, 635, (i36. Lawrence, Miss, governess in the family of Dr. Peter Crcmpton, 758 n. ; letter from C, 758. Lawrence, William, 711 n. Lawson, 8ir Gilford, 270; C. has free access to his library, 336 ; 392. Lay of the Last Minstrel, The, by fcjcott, 523. Lay Stniion, the second, ()69. Leacli, A\'illiam Elford, C. meets, 71 1 and note. Lecky, G. F., Britisli Consul at ^^yracuse, 458 ; C. entertained by, 485 n. Lectures, C.'s at the Royal Institu- tion, 506 n., 507, 508, 511, 515, 51(J, 522, 525 ; at the rooms of the London Philosophical Society, 574 and note, 575 and note ; a pro- po.sed coui'se 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 Philo- sophical Society, 680 and note, (i8l ; regarded as a means of live- lihood, 694 ; on the History of Philosophy, delivered at the Crown and Anchor, Strand, ()98 and note. Lectures on Shah sjieare. 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 comjnla- tion, which, together witli his own comment and corollaries, is finally published as Aids to Refection, 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 Anti- quary, 736 and note. INDEX 797 proposes to Lessing, Life of, C write, 270; 321, 323. Letters, C.s reluctance to open and answer, 534. Letters from the Lake Poets, 25 n., 86 n., 2GTn., 30(in., 369 n., 527 n., 534 n., 542 n., 543 n., 705 n. Letter smuggling-, 459. Letters on the iSjJaniards, 629 and note. Letter to a Noble Lord, by Edmund Burke, 157 aud 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, (526. Libertji, the Progress of, 20(). Life aud death, meditations on, 283- 287. Life-masks of C, 570 and note. Lime-Trte 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 Kock of, 473. Literary Life. See Biographia Lite- raria. Literary Eemains, 684 n., 740 n., 756 n., 761 n. Literature, a proposed History of British, 42.J-427, 429, 430. Literature as a profession, C.'s opin- ion of, 191,192. Live nits, 3,60. Liverpool, 578. Liverpool, Lord, 665, 674. Llandoverv, 411. Llanfyllin," 79. Llangollen, 80. Llangunnog, 79. Llovd, Mr., father of Charles, 168, 186. Lloyd, Charles, andWoolman's Jour- nal, 4 n. ; goes to live with C, 168- 170 ; character and genius of, 1(')9, 170; 184, 189, 190, 102, 205, 206; his Poems on the Death of Priscilla Farmer, 206 n. ; 207 n., 208 n. ; with C. at Nether .'^towey. 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 ; un- worthy 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 Bra- tha, 394 ; 563 ; his History of Highgate, 572 n., 578. Llyswen, 234 n., 235 n. Loch Katrine, 431, 432 and note, 4"3 Loch Lomond, 431, 4.32 n., 433, 440. Locke, John. C.'s opinion of his phi- losophy, 349-;351, 648; 713. Lockhart. ilr., 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. Nathan- iel Lardner, 157. London, Bisliop of, 739 ; his favour- able opinion of Aids to Bejiection, 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 Wallensttin. 4C3 ; 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 Farm- house, 115, 121, 122, 139, 147, 150; dies, 159 n. ; 317 n. Lovell, Bohert, and Bobert Southey of Balliol College, Bath, Poems by 107 n. Lovell. Mrs. Kobert (Mary Fricker), 122, 159 .and note, 4S5. ' Lover^s Complaint to his Mistress, A, 36. 798 INDEX Low was our pretty Cot, C.'s opinion of, 224. Lubec, 274. 275. Lucretius, his philosophy and his poetry, 'US. Luff, Captain, •}(!!) and note, 547. Luisf, ein liindlichfs Gedicht in drei Jdyllen, by Johann lleinrich Voss, quotation from, 20.J n. ; an em- phatically original poem, 02.j ; 027. Liincburg-, 27S. Lushinj;-ton, Mr., 101. Luss, 4:!1. Lycou, Ode to, by Robert Southey, 107 n., 108. Lyrical Ballads, by Coleridge and 'Wordsworth, :5:](i, 3:57, 341, 350 and note, 387, 007, 078. Macaulay, Alexander, death of, 491. Mackintosh, iSir 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. ; 5'.K). Macklin, Harriet, 751 and note, 764. Madeira, 442, 451, 452. Madoc, by Southey, C. urges its completion and publication, 314, 4G7 ; 357 ; C.'s enthusiasm for, 388, 489, 490 ; a divine passage of, 403 and note. Mad Ox. r/ie, 2l9n., 327. Magee, William, D. D., 701 n. Magnum Opus. See Christianity, the one true Philosophy. Maid of Orleans, 239. Malta, C. plans a trip to, 457, 458 ; the voyage to, 409—481 ; sojourn at, 481-484, 4S7-497; army af- fairs at, 554, 555. Maltese, the, 483 and note, 484 and note. Maltese, Regiment, the, 554, .5.55. Malvern Hills, by Joseph Cottle, 358. Manchester Massacre, the, 702 n. Manchineel, 223 n. Marburg, 291. Margarot, Ififi, 167 n. Markes, Rev. Mr., 310. Marriage as a means of ensuring the nutiire and education of children, 210,217. Marsh, Herbert, Bishop of Peter- borough, his lecture on the au- thenticity and credibility of the books collected in the New Testa- ment. 707. 70S. Martin, Rev. H.. 71 n., 81 n. Man/, the Maid of the Inn, by Southey, 223. Miussena, Marshal, defeats the Rus- sians at Zurich, 308 and note. Masy, Mr., 40. Mathews, Charles, C. hears and sees his entertainment. At Home, 704, 705 ; letter from C. 621. Maltathias, The Death of, by Robert .Soutliey, 108 and note. Maurice, Rev. John Frederick Den- nison, 771 n. Maxwell, Captain, of the Royal Ar- tillery, 493, 495, 490. McKinnon, General, 309 n. Medea, a subject for a tragedy, 399. Meditation, C.'s habits of, ().58. \l Medwin, Capt. Thomas, his Conver- sations 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, 80 n. Messina, 485, 486. Metaphysics, 102, 347-352 ; C. pro- poses 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 Ger- man philosophers. 681-683, 735; 712, 713. See Christianity, the One True Philosophy , Plnlosophy, Religion. Metevard, Eliza, her Group of Eng- lishmen, 209 n., 308 n. Method, Essay on the Science of, 681 and note. Methuen, Rev. T. A., 652 and note. Microcosm, 4.'! and note. Middleton, H. F. (afterwards Bishop of Calcutta), 2:!, 25, 32, 3:',. Milman, Henry Hart. 737 and note. Milton, John, 1()4, 197 and note ; a sublimer poet than Homer or Vir- gil, 199, 200 ; the imagery in Par- adise Lost borrowed from the INDEX 799 Scriptures, 199, 200 ; his Acci- dence, ;>^1 ; on poetry, 387 ; his ^ platonizing spirit, 400, 407 ; 678, 734. Milton, Lord, 567 and note. V Mind versus Nature, in youth and later life, 742, 743. Minor Poems, 317 n. Miscellanies, Esthetic and Literary, 711 n. Miss Rosamond, by Southey, 108 and note. Mitford, Mary Russell, G3 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, noil., 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' be- tween C. and Wordsworth, 578, 586-591, 593, 599, 612 ; endea- vours to have an associateship of the Royal Society of Literature conferred on C, 726, 727 ; his ef- forts successful, 728 ; 749. Montagu, Mrs. Basil, her connection ■with the quarrel between C. and Wordsworth, .588, 589, 591, 599. Month! 1/ Magazine, the, 179 and note, 18.".,' 197, 215, 251 n., 310, 317. Moore, Thomas, his Lalla Bookh, 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 quar- rel with Wordsworth to. 591, 592; 596, ()50. 6(;5 ; letter from C, 575. Morgan, Mrs. John James. C.'s affec- tion for, 505; 578, 000, 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, 5()6-575 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 Archdea- con Paley, 47. Motley, J. C., 467-469, 475. Mountains, of Portugal, 470, 473 ; about Gibraltar, 478. Mumps, the, .545 and note. Murray, Jolin, 581 ; proposes to pub- lish a translation of Faust, &2-k- 626 ; his connection with the pub- lication of Zapolya, 66() and note, 667-61)9; offers C. two Inmdred guineas for a volume of specimens of Rabbinical wisdom, ()67 n. ; 699 n. ; proposal from C. to com- pile a volume of selections from Archbishop Leightoii, 717-720 ; 723 ; his proposal to publish an edition of C.'s poems, 737 ; letters from C, 624, 665, 717. Murray, John, Memoirs o/, 624 n., 66() n. Music. 49. Myrtle, praise of the, 745, 746. Mythology, Greek and Roman, con- trasted with Christianity, 199, 200. Nannv, 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. Natund Theology, by William Palev, 424 n,, 425 n. Nature, her influence on the p.as- sions, 243, 244 ; Mind and, two rival artists, 742, 74:!. Natur-philosophen, C. on the, 682, 6S3. Navigation and Discovery, The Spirit of by William Lisle Bowles, 403 and note. 800 INDEX Necessitarianism, the sophistry of, 454. Neighbours, 186. Nelson. Lady, ():)7. Nelson, Lord. (ioT and note. Nesbitt, Fanny, C.'s poem to, 56, 57. Netherlands, the, 751. Nether IStowey, 105 and note ; C. proposes to move to, 184-1'.)4; ar- rangements for moving to, 20!); settled at, 21o ; C.'s description of his place at, 21.'}; Thelwall urged not to settle at, 2o2-2;>4 ; the curate-in-charge of, 2()7 n. ; 2t)7, o2o, o«6; C.'s last visit to, 405 n. ; 497 n. Neuralgia, a severe attack of, 173- 177. Newcorae's (Mr.) School, 7, 25 n. Newlands, -i'M and note, 411, 725. New Monthly Magazine, 257. Newspapers, freshness necessary for, 508. 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. Northeoto, Sir Stafford, 15 and note. Northmore, Thomas, C. dines with, 300, 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., 701 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, 200. Ode in the manner of Anacreon, An, 35. Ode on the Poetical Character, by William Collins, I'.Hi. Odes to Great People, by Thomas Hood, 250 n. Ode to Dejection, 378 and note, 379 and note, 380-384, 4()5 n. Ode to (Jeorgiana, Duchess of Devon- shire, 320 and note, 33;). Ode to Li/ron, 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 ThelwalTs criticisms on, 218 and note; 221. Ode to the Duchess, 320 and note, 330. O geritle look, that didst my soul be- guile, a sonnet. 111, 112 and note. Ogle, Captain, 03 and note. Ogle, Lieutenant, 374 n. Ogle, Dr. Ne\4ton, Dean of West- minster, his Latin Iambics, 374 and note. Oken, Lorenz, his Natural History, 73(i. 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 Bupture, 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 begin- ning of the habit, 173 and note, 174 and note, 175 ; fii-st recourse to it for the relief of mental distress, 245 n. ; daily quantity reduced, 413; regarded as leas harmful than other stimulants, 413 ; 420 ; its use discontinued for a time, 434, 435 ; angiiish and re- morse from its abuse, 6Ui-021, 623, 024 ; in order to free himself INDEX 801 from the slavery, C. arranges, to live with Mr. James Gillman as a patient, G-37-t)5i) ; a final effort to give up the use of it altogether, 700 and note ; the habit regulated and brought under control, but never entirely done away with, 7tJ0n., 7(iln. Oporto, seen from the sea, 409, 470. Orestes, by William Sotheby, 402, 400, 410. Original Sin, C. a believer in, 242. Original Sin, Letter on, by Jeremy Taylor, 040. Origine de tons les Cukes, ou Re- ligion universelle, by Charles Fran- cois Dupuis, 181 and note. , Origin, Nature, and Object of the New System of Education, by An- drew Bell, D. D., 581 and note, 582. Osorio, a tragedy, 10 n., 229 and note, 2;J1, 284 n,, 603 n. See Re- morse. Ossian, hexanaeters in, 398.. Otter, the river, 14, l-). Ottery St. Mary, G-8, 30.") 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 ivhat a loud and fearful shriek was there, a sonnet, 1 10 n., 117. Owls, care of, in Germany, 293. Oxford University, C.'s feeling to- wards, 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 Car- lisle, 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, 5."!0 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, 507. Parndon House, 506 n., 507, 508. Parret, the liver, 105. Parties, political, in England, 242. Pasquin, Antony, 003 and note. Patience, 203 and note. Patteson, Hon. Mr. Justice, 726 n. Paul, Charles Kegan, his William Godwin: His Friends and Con- temporaries, 101 n., 324 n., 4(15 n. Pauperis Funeral, by Robei't Sou- they, 108 and note, 109. Peace and Union, byWiUiara Friend, 24 n. Pearee, Dr., Master of Jesus College, 2:5, 24. 05, 70-72. Pedlar, The, former title of Words- worth's Excursion, 337 and note. Peel, Sir Robert, ()89 n. Penche, M. de la, 49. Penniaen Mawr, C.'s ascent of, 81 n. Penn, William. 539. Pennington, W., 541, 542 n., 544. Penritii. 420. 421, .547, 548, 575 n. Penruddock, 420, 421. Perceval, Rt. Hon. Spencer, assassi- nation of, 597, 59S and note. Perdita, see Robinson, Mrs. Mary. Peripatetic, The, or Sketches of the Heart, of Nature, and of Society, by John Thelwall, 100 and note. Perry, James, 1 14. 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, ;!27. Phillips. Thomas, R. A., 699; his two portraits of C, 699 and note, 701 », 740; his portrait of William Hart Coleridge, Bishop of Barba- does and the Leeward Islands, 741) and note. Philological Museum, 733 n. Philosophy, 648-050; German. 681- 08.'! ; C.'s lectures on tlie History of, 09S and note. See Metaphysics and Religion. 802 INDEX Pickerin. Prometheus of ^-Eschylus, Essay on the, 740 and note. Property, to be modified by the pre- dominance of intellect, 323. Pseudonym, "Eo-ttjo-*, 398 ; its mean- ing, 407 and note, 408. Public Characters for 1790-1800, published by Richard Phillips, 317 n Puff and Slander, projected satires, 630 and notes, ()31 n. Purkis, Samuel, 326, 673 n. Quack medicine, a German, 264. Quaker Fa mill/. Records of a, by Anne Ogdcn Boyce, 538 n. Quaker girl, inelegant remark of a little, 362, 3()S. Quakerism, 415 ; C's belief in the essentials of, 539-541 ; C's defi- nition of, 55(5. Quakers, as subscribers to The Friend, 556, 557. Quakers and Unitarians, the only (christians, 41.5. Quantocks, the, 405 n. Quarterly Review, The, 606 ; its re- view of The Letters of Lord Nel- son to Lady Hamilton, 637 and note, 667 ; reechoes C's praise of Gary's Dante, 677 n. ; its attitude towards G., (597, 723 ; John Taylor Goleridge editor of, 736 and notes, 737. Rabbinical Tales, 667 and note, 669. Racedown, G.'s visit to Wordsworth at, 163 n., 220 and note, 221. Race of Banquo, The, by iSouthey, 92 and note. Rae, Mr., an actor, 611, 667. Rainbow The, by tjouthey, 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, 27S ; 292-294. " Raw Head " and " Bloody Bones," 45. Reading, see Books. Reading, Berkshire, 66, 67. Reason and understanding, the dis- tinction between, 712, 713. Recluse, The. a projected poem by Wordsworth of which The Excur- sion (q. v.) was to form the second part and to M-hich The Prelude (q. V.) was to be an introduction, C.'s hopes for, 646, (547 and note, 648-650. Recollections of a Late Royal Acade- mician, by Charles Lamb. 572 n. Records ll(5 n. R.'fonn r.ill. 760. 7(52. Reich. Dr., 7:'.4. 73(5. Rejected Atldrmses. by Horace and James .^mith, (50(5. Religion, beliefs and doubts of C. in regard to, (54, (58, (51 1, 88, 105, 10(5, 127, 135, 152, 15.3, 1.5 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, -TOO 7'>.> Rough, Sergeant, 225 and note. Royal Institution, C. obtains a lec- tureship at the, 500 n., 507, .508, 511; an outline of proposed lec- tures at the. 515. 51(5, 522; C.'s lectures at^he, 525. Royal Society of Liter.ature, the, Basil Montagu's endeavors to se- cure for C. an associateship of, 720, 727 ; C. an as.sociate of, 728 ; 731 ; an essay for, 737. 738 ; C. reads an /-'ssay on the Prometheus of ^srhylus heiore, 730, 740. Rulers, always as bad as they dare to be, 240." Rush. Sir William, 308. Rushiford,*358. INDEX 805 Russell, Mr., of Exeter, C.'s fellow- traveller, 41(1S n., 500 and note. R-jstats, 24, 4o. Ru'h, by Wordsworth, 387. Rutliin, 78. St. Albyn, Mrs., the owner of Al- foxden, 232 n. St. Augustine, 375. St. Bees, 3!)2, 393. St. Ulasius, 292. St. Clear, 411, 412. St. Lawrence, near Maldon, descrip- tion of, (59(M)92. St- Leon, by Godwin, the copyright sold for £400, 324, 325. St. Nevis, .300, 3()1. St. Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews, 200. Salernitanus, .560 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., 1G5 n., 170 n., 183 n., 232 n., 234 n., 258, 207 n., 282 n., 319 n., 335 n., 456 n., 533 n., 553 n., 673 n., 67t') n. Saturday Club, the, at Gottingen, 281. Satyrane\sed p:intisocratio colony, S9, 9i». 95. 96. Slave Tradf, lli.itnrji of the Abolition of the, by Thomas Clarkson, C.'s review of, 527 and note, 528-630, 535. 5;i6. Slave Trade, On the, 43 and note. 80G INDEX Slee, Miss, 002, 3G:l Sleep, C.'s sufferiiiga in, 435, 440, 441, 447. Smerdon. Mrs.. 21, 22. Snienlon, l\ev. Mr., Vicar of Ottery, 22, KKi and note. Smitli. Charlotte, ;]2(i. Smith, Horace and James, their Re- jicted Addresses, UUG. Smitli, James, 7U4. Smith, Raphael, 7Ul n. Smith, Robert Percy (Bobus), 43 and note. Smith, AVilliam, M. P., 50G n., 507 and note. Snufi', GUI, G92 and note. Social Life at the English Universi- ties, by Christopher Wordsworth, 225 n. Something Childish, but Very Natu- ral, quoted, 2U4. Song. 100. Songs (if the Pixies, 222. Sonnet, an anonymous, 177, 178. Sonnet composed on a journey home- icard, the author having received intelligence of the birth of a son, l'.t4 and note, 195. Sonnets, 111, 112, and note ; to Priestley, IIG and note; to Kos- ciusko, 110 n., 117; to Godwin, IIG n., 117; to Sheridan, IIG n., 117, 118; to Burke, 110 n., 118; to Sonthey, IKi n., 120; a selection of, privately printed by C, 177, 200 and note ; by " Nehemiah Higgin- bottom," 251 n. Sonnets, Sixteen, by Bampfylde, 309 n. Sonnet to Simplicity, 251 and note. Sonnet to the Author of the liobbers, 90 n. Sorrel, James. 21. Sotheby, William, C. translates Ges- ner's JUrste Schiffer at his instance, 309, 371, 372, 370-37S, 397. 402, 403 ; his translation of the Geor- gics of Virgil, 375 ; his Poems, .375 ; his Netleif Abbey. 390; his Welsh Tour, 390; \ns' Orestes, 402, 409, 410; proposes a fine edition of Christubel, 421, 422 ; 492, 579, 595 n.. 004, 005; letters from C, .3()9, 37(i, 39(i-40S. Sotheby, Mrs. William, 3G9, 375, 378. Soul and body, 708, 709. South Devon, 305 n. Southuy, Lieutenant, 5(53. Sonthey, Bertha, daughter of Robert S., born, 540, .547 and note, 578. Sonthey, Catharine, daughter of Robert S., 57f^. Sonthey, Rev. Charles Cuthbert, his Life and Correspondence of liobert 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 Loctor, 583 n. Sonthev, Edith, daughter of Robert S., 578. Southey, Dr. Henry, 015 and note. Southey, Herbert, sou of Robert S., 578 ; his nicknames, 58;; n. Southey, Margaret, daugliter of Rob- ert S., born, 394 n., 395 n. ; dies, 435 n. Southey, Mrs. Margaret, mother of Roberts., 138, 147. Southey, Robert, his and C.'s Omni- ana, 9 n., .554 n., 718 n. ; his Botany Bay Eclogues, 70 n., IKi; proposed emigration to America with a colo- ny of pantisoerats, 81, 82, 8()-i)l, 9.5, 90, 98, 101-103; his sonnets, 82, 83, 92, 108 ; his connection with C.'s engagement to Miss Sarah Fricker, 84-80, 12G; his Pace of Banquo, 92 and note; 97 n. ; hia Retrospect, 107 and note ; his Ode to liomance, 107 and note ; his Ode to Lycon, 107 n., 108; his Death of Mattathias, lOS and note; his son- nets, To Valentine, The Fire, The Rainbow, 108 and notes ; his Rosa- mund to Henry, 108 and notes; his Pauperis Funeral, 108 and note, 109; his Chapel Bell, 110 and note ; C. prophesies fame for, 110; his Elegy. 115; C.'s sonnet to, llOn., 120; lines to Godwin, 120; suggestion that the jiroposcd colony of pantisoerats be founded in Wales, 121, 122; his sonnet, Hold your mod hands.', 127 and note ; his abandonment of panti- socracy causes a serious rupture with (L, 134-151 ; marries Edith Fricker, 137 n. ; his Joan of Arc, 141, 149, 178 .and note, 210, 319; 103 n. ; the poet for the patriot. INDEX 807 178 ; 198 and note ; his verses to a coUeg'e eat, 201 ; C. compares his poetry with his own, 210; per- sonal relations with C. after the partial reconciliation, 210, 211 ; his exertions in aid of Chatterton's sister. 221, 222; his Marij the Maid of the Inn, 22;J ; C.'s Sonnet to SiiujAicity not written with ref- erence to, 2') 1 and note ; a more complete reconciliation with C, 308, o( )4 ; visits C. at btowey with his wife, 304 ; C, with his wife and child, visits hira at Exeter, 305 and note ; accompanies C. on a walking tonr in Dartmoor, '.'A)'t and note ; his Specimens of the Later English Poets, 30!) n.; his Madoc, 314, 357, 388, 4li3 and note, 467, 489, 490; his Thulaba the Destroi/er, 314. 319, 324, 357, 684; out of health, 314; C. sug- gests 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, 32'), 329, 3iiO, 3(51 ; an advocate of the establishment of Protestant orders of .Sisters of Mercy, 327 n. ; proposes the estab- lishment of a magazine with signed articles, 32S n. ; extract from a letter to C. on the condi- tion of France, 329 n.; C. begs him to make liis home at Greta Hall, 354-35(5,3(12,391, 392,394, 395 ; 367, 379 n. ; his proposed history of Portugal, 3>i7. 388, 423 ; secretary to the C'liaiK-ellor of the Exchequer for Ireland for a sliort time, 390 and note ; birth of his first child. Margaret, 304 n., 305 n ; his admiration of Bowh^s and its effect on l)is poems, 3'.li'i ; 400 n. ; his prose style, 42.1; his proposed bibliographical work, 42.'<-43(); makes a visit to Grehi Hall which proves perniaupnt. 4.35 ; death of his little daughter, Margaret, 435 and note. 437 ; his lii'st imprt^s- sions of Edinburgh, 43.*^ n. ; 442 ; on Hartley and Derwent Cole- ridge, 443; 460, 463, 4()8, 4St, 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 lieview, 521 and note; 542 n.; extract from a letter to J. N. White, 545 n. ; on the nmnips, 545 n. ; 54(5 ; birth of his daugh- ter Bertha, 54(>, 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, r>X-] n., 584 n. ; 585 ; C. states his side of the quarrel with Wordswortii in conversation witli, 592; (5(J4, 600 n.. 615, 617 n.; Avrites of his friend John Kenyon, 639 n. ; his protection of C.'s fam- ily, 657 ; C.'s letter introducing Mr. Ludwig Tieck, (570 ; his Curse of Kehama, (584; 694, 718, 724; his Book of the Church, 724; 726; his acquaintance with George Dyer, 748 n. ; letters from C, 72- 101, 10(5-121, 125, 1.34, 137, 221, 251 n., 303, 307-332, 354-361, 365, 384, 393, 415, 422-430, 434, 437, 464, 469, 487, 520, 5.54, 597, 605, 67(); letter to Miss Sarah Fricker, 107 n. See Annual ^In- tholoyy, the. edited by Southey. Southey, Robert, Life and Corre- spondence of, by Rev. Charles Cuthbert Southey, 108 n., 308 n., 309 n., 327 n., 320 n., 384 n., 395 n., 400 n., 425 n., 488 n., 521 n., 584 n., 736 n., 748 n. Southey, Robert, Selections from Let- ters of, 305 n., 438 n., 447 n., 543 n., 545 n., 58.3 n., -584 n.. 73(5 n. Southey, Robert, of Bailiol College, Bath, Poems by Robert Lovell and, 107 n. Southey, Mrs. Robert (Edith Frick- er), Southev's sonnet to, 127 and note ; .384. ."is:,, :;00-;','.12 ; birth of lier fii-st child. Margaret. .'.94 n., 30.5 n. ; 4.'^ ; birth of her daugh- ter Bertlia, 546, 547 and note ; 592. Southey, Thomas. 108 n., 109 n., 147 ; a midsliipman on the .Sylph at the time of her capture, 308 .and note. Sontii Mdlton, .5. Spade of a Friend (an Agriculturist), 808 INDEX To the, by Wordsworth, in honor of Thomas Wilkinson. 5;58 n. Spaniards, ('."s opinion of, 47S. Spaniards, Letttrs on the, ()21) and note. Sparrow, Mr., head-master of New- come's Academy, 24, 2") n. Specimens of the Later English Poets, by Southey, oUS) n. Spectator, Addison's, studied by C. in connection with The Friend, 557, 558. Speedwell, the brig, 4(17 ; on board, 4(5!)-48l. Spenser, Edmund, his View of the State of Inland, {'y'-iS and note; quotation from, (iy4. Spillekins. 402, 4ti8. Spinoza, Benedict, G;>2. Spirit of ]Vavi ; his knowledge of men, 600; letters from C, 475, 485, 493, 501, 505, 533, 545, 547, 566, 595, 615, 627, 634, 6(i0, 663, 740. See Courier and Post, Morning. Stutfield, Mr., amanuensis and dis- ciple of C, 753 and note. Sugar, beet, 299 and note. Su)i, The, 633. Sunset in the Lake Country, a, 384. Supernatural, C.'s essay on the, 684. Superstitions of the German bauers, 291, 2!)2, 294. Suwarrow, Alexander Vasilievitch, 307 and note. Swedenborg, Emanuel, his De Cultu et Amore Dei, 684 n. ; his De INDEX 809 Ccdo et Inferno, 684 n. j 688, 729, 730. Swedenborgianism, C. and, 684 n. Swift, Jonathan, his Drapier Letters, 638 and note. Sylph, the gun-brig', capture of,.j08 n. Sympathy, C.'s craving for, (j^M, 697. Synesius, by Canterus, 67 and note, 6S. Syracuse, Sicily, 458 ; C.'s visit to, 48.J n., 4SG n. Table Talk, 81 n., 440 n., 624 n., 683 n., 684 n., 699 n., 756 n., 703 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. ToxUmin 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 Origi- nal 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. 1-59, 160 ; his criticisms of C.'s poi'trv, 163, 1(!4, 194-197,218 ; on Burke, 166 ; his Peripatetic, or Sketches of the Heart, of Nature, ami of Society, l70; two letters to C. from, (i70 n. ; 671, (i72, 680; his Strrnbald's Wanderungen. 66i5 and note; 6'.t9. Times, The, 327 n. ; its notice of C.'s tragedy liemorse, 603 and note. Tineum, by C. Valentine Le Grice, 111 and note. ■Tiverton. 56. To a Friend, together tvith an Un- finished Poem. 12S n., 454 n. To a friend who had declared his in- tention of writing no more poetry, 206 n. To a Gentleman, 647 n. See To Wil- liam Wordsworth, To a Highland Girl, by Words- worth, 4.59. 810 INDEX To a Young Ass; its mother being tethered mar it, 1 1'J and note, 120, 00(5 ami note. To a Yotng 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, 20-* and note. Tobiu, Mr., his habit of advising, 474, 47). Tobin, James, 460 n. Tobin, John, 4()0 n. To lio'des, 1 1 1 and note. To Disappointment , 28. Tomalin, J., his Shorthand Report of Lectures, 11 n., 57") n. To Matilda Betham. From a Stranger, 404 n. Tonikins, Mr., ;^>!)7, 402, 403. To my own Heart, 92 n. Tooke, Andrew, 4.55 n. ; his Pan- theon, 4").") and note. Tooke, Horna, 21S. To one icho published in print what had been intrusted to him by my fireside, 'l-Yl n. Torbay, ;50.") n. To R. B. Sheridan, Esq., IIG n., lis. To thp Spade of a Friend {an Agri- culturist), b}' Wordsworth, in honor of Thomas Wilkinson, .538 n. Totness, 30). Touhnin, Rev. Dr., 220 n. ; tragic death of his daughter, 247, 248. Tour in North Wales, by J. Hacks, 74 n., SI n. Tour over the Brocken, 257. Tour through Parts of Wales, by William riotheby, 390. To Valentine, by Southey, 108 and note. Towers, 321. To William Wordsworth, 041, 044 ; C. quotes from, 04(5, 047 ; 047 n. Treaty of V^ienna, 015 and note. Trossachs, the, 431, 432, 440. Tuekett, G. L. , 57 n. ; letter from C, 57. Talk, Charles Augustus, 684 n. ; letters from C, 084, 712. Turkey, 329. Turner, Sh.aron, 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. Upeott, 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, 487-407. Valette, General, 484 ; given com- mand of the Maltese Regiment, 5.54, .555. Vane, Sir Frederick, his library, 290. Velvet Cushion, The, by Rev. J. W. Ciinnini^ham, 051 and note. Vienna, Treaty of, 015 and note. Violin-teacher, C.'s, 49. Virg-il's ^Fneid, Wordsworth's un- finished translation of, 733 and note, 734. Virgil's Georgics, William Sotheby's translation, .■>T5. Visions of the Maid of Orleans, The, 192, liOO. Vital power, definition of. 712. Vogelstein, Karl Cliristian Vogel von. a letter of introduction from Ludwig Tieck to C, 070 n. Von Axen, Messrs. P. and O., 209 n. Voss, Johann Heinrich, his Luise, 20.5 n., ()25, (i27 ; his Idi/lls, 398. Voyage to Malta, C.'s, 409-481. Wade, Josiah, 137 n., 145, 151 n., 152 n., 191, 288; publication by Cottle of Coleridge's letter of June 20, 1814, to, 010 n., 017 n. ; letters from C 151, 023. Waithman, a politician, 598. Wakefield, Edward, his Account of Ireland, 038. Wales, proposed colony of pantiso- crats in. 121. 122, 140, 141. Wales, Tour through Parts of, by William .Sotheby, ;!90. Wales, North, C.'s tour of, 72-81. INDEX 811 Wales, South, C.'s tour of, 410-414. Walforcl, John, Poole's narrative of, 55."] and note. Walker, Tliomas, 162. Walk into the country, a, 32, 33. Wallenstein, by ISchiller, C.'s trans- lation of, 4U3, 608. Waliis, Mr., 498-500, 523. Wallis, Mrs., 3'J2. Wanderer^s Farewell to Two Sisters, The, 722 n. Ward, C. A., 763 n. Ward, Thonitis, 170 n. Wardle, Colonel, leads the attack on the Duke of York in the House of Conniions, .")43 and note. Warren, Parson, 18. Wastdale, 303, 401. Watchman, The, 57 n. ; C.'s tour to procure subscribers for, 151 and note, 152-154; 155-157; discon- tinued, 158 ; 174 n., 611. Watson, Mrs. Henry, ()y8 n., 702 n. Wat Ti/Ur. bv Southey, 506 n. Wedgwood, josiah, 260, 261, 268, 26'.t n. ; visit from C. at Upcott, 808 ; his temporary residence at Upcott, 3U8 n. ; 337 n., ;)50, 351 and note, 41() n. ; withdraws his half of the Wedgwood annuity from C, ()02, (Jl 1 and note ; C.'s regard and love for. Oil, 612. Wedgwood, Josiah and Thomas, settle on C. an annuity for life of £150, 2;>4 and note, 235 and note ; 26!) n.. 321. Wedgwood, Miss Sarah, 412, 416, 417. Wedgwood. Thomas. 323. 370 n. ; witli C. in South Wales, 412, 413; y his fine and subtle mind, 412 ; proposes to p:v.ss the winter in Italy with C, 41.3, 414, 418; 415, 4 Hi; a genuini" philosopher, 448, 440; C.'s gr.ititude towards, 451 ; 456 n.. 4113 ; C.'s love for. mingled •with fear, (512 ; letter from C, 417. Welles, A., 462. Wellesley, Marquis of, 674. Welsh clercvinau. a, 70, 80. Wenslev, Miss, an actress, and her father. 701. Wernigi'rode Inn, 298 n. West. INIr.. 6:1.".. Whitbread, Samuel, 598. Wliite, 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, Su" David, his portraits of Hartley C, 511 n. ; his Blind Fiddler, 5 11 n. Wilkinson, Thomas, 538 n. ; letter from C, 538. Will, lunacy or idiocy of the, 768. Williams, Edward (lolo Morgangw), 162 and note. Williams, John ("Antony Pasquin "), 603 n. Wilson, Mrs., housekeeper for Mr. Jackson of Greta Hall, 4()1 and note, 491 ; Hartley C.'s attachment for, 510. Wilson, Professor, 756. Windy Brow, 34(). Wish written in Jesus Wood, Feb- ruary 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. Woolinan, John, the Journal q/", 4and note. Worcester. 1.54. Wordswortli. Catherine. 563. Wordsworth. Khv. Christopiier, D.D., 225 n. ; Charles Lloyd reads Greek with. 311. Wordsworth, Rev. Christopher, M. A., his Social Life at the English Ihiirersities in the Eighteenth Cen- tury. 225 n. Wordsworth. Rt. Rev. Christopher, I). 1).. his Mrmoirs of William Wordsworth. 4:'.2 n., 585 n. Wordsworth. Dorothy, 10 n. ; C.'s description of. 2 IS n. : visits C. with her brother. 224-227; 228, 231, 245 n.. 249; goes to Germany witli William Wordsworth. Cole- ridge, and .John Chester. 259 ; with her brother at Goslar, 272, 273 ; 812 INDEX returns -witli him to Enj^land, 288, 2U(); ;jll 11., ;J4(i, I'Au. :',T-'>, .'385; accoinpanies her brother and C. on a. tour in ^^cothlnd, 4;)1, 43li and note; aTT, ")'.*'.• n. Wordsworth, John, son of William AV., ->-i:>. Wordsworth, Captain John, and the effect of his death on C's spirits, 41)4 and note, 4'.)") and note, 497. Wordsworth, Thomas, death of, 51»'.» n. ; C.'s love of, (500. Wordsworth, William, 10 n., 1G.3 and note, 104 and note, 218 n. ; visit from C. at Racedown,220 and note, 221 : greatness of, 221, 224 ; settles at Alfoxden, near btowey, 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 amiabil- itv, 239 ; his Excursion, 244 n., 337 n., 585 n., 041, 042, 645-050 ; 245 ; C.'s admiration for, 246 ; 250 n. ; accompanies C. to Ger- many, 259 ; 208, 209 n. ; considers settling near the Lakes, 270 ; 271 ; at Goslar with his sister, 272, 273 ; an Epitaph by, 284 ; returns to England, 288, 290 ; wishes C. to live near him in the North of Eng- land, 290 ; his grief at C.'s refu- sal, 290, 297; 304, 313; his and ^ C.'s Lyrical Ballads, .330, ;'.37, 341, 350 and note, 3S7 ; his admiration for Christabel. 3:17 ; ^538, 342 ; pro- posal from William t'alvert in regard to sharing his house and studying chemistry with him, 345, 34() ; his Stanzas uritten in my Pocket Copy of Thomson's Castle of Indolence, 345 n. ; 348, 350 ; marries Miss Mary Hutchinson, 359 n. ; 303, 307, 370, 373; his opinion of poetic license, 373-375 ; C. addresses his Ode to Ikjertion to, 378 and note, 379 and note, 3S0-384 ; 385-387 ; his Ruth, 387 ; 400, 418, 428 ; with C. on a Scotch tour, 431-434 ; his Peter Bell, 432 and note; 441, 44:]; receives a visit at Gra-smere from C, who is taken ill there, 447 ; his hypo- chondria, 448 ; his happiness and philosojihy, 449, A-A) ; a most ori- ginal poet, 450; 451 ; his To a Highland Girl, 459; 404, 408; his reference to C. in The Prelude, 380 n. ; 4")2 ; his Jirothers, 494 n., 699 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 ("intra, .534 and note, 543 and note, 548-550 ; 535 ; his To the Spade of a Friend, 558 n. ; 543 and note, .540, 522. 55.3 n., 556; C.'s mistm- derstanding with, 576 n., 577, 578, 58()-588, 012 ; his Essays upon Epitaphs, 585 and note ; a long- delayed explanation from C, 588- 595 ; reconciled with C, 590, 597, 599, 612 ; death of his son Thomas, 599 n. ; second rupture with C, 599 n., 00 n. ; his projected poem. The Pecluse, 040, 047 and note, 648-0.'i0; ()78; on William Blake as a poet, ()86 n. ; his unfinished translation of the ^neid, 733 and note, 734 ; felicities and unforget- table lines and stanzas in his po- ems, 734 ; influence of the Edin- burgh Eevietv on the sale of his works in Scotland, 741, 742 ; 759 n. ; letters from C, 234, 588, 596, 599, 64;'., 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., 73.3 n., 759 n. Wordsiroith, William, Memoirs of, by Christopher Words\vorth, 432 n.. 550 n., 585 n. Wordsworth, William, To, 041,044; C. quotes from, 040, ()47 ; 047 n. Wordsworth, Mrs. William, extract from a letter to Sara Cohridge, 220 ; 525. Set Hutchinson, Mary. Wordsworths, the, visit from C. and his son Hartley at Coleorton Farm- house, .509-514 ; 545 ; letter from C, 456. Wr.angham, Francis, 363 and note. Wrexham, 77, 78. Wright, Joseph, A. R. A. (Wright of Derbv), 152 and note. Wright, W. Aldis, 174 n. INDEX 813 Wynne, Mr., an old friend of South- ey's, 6o'J n. Wyville's proofs of C.'s portrait, 770. Yarmouth, 258, 259. Yates, Miss, ;}9. Yews near Brecon, 411. York, Duke of, 543 n., 555 n., 567 and note. Young, Edward, 404. Youth and Age, 730 n. Zapolj/a : A Christinas Tale, in two Parts, its publication in book form after rejection by the Drury Lane Committee, 066 and note, 667-669. IMPORTANT BIOGRAPHIES. Robert Browning. Life and Letters. By Mrs. Sutherland Orr. With Portrait and View of Browning's Study. Uniform with Browning's Works. Riverside Edition. 2 vols, crown 8vo, gilt top, $3.00. A biography of the very first importance, and withal a work that for readableness and the admirable discretion shown in the choice and arrangement of material has hardly a rival among contemporary memoirs. — Boston Beacon. Thomas Carlyle. The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emer- son. Edited by Charles Eliot 'Norton. With Portraits. 2 vols, crown 8vo, gilt top, rough edges, $4.00; half calf, $8.00. Library Edition. 2 vols. 1 2mo, $3.00 ; half calf, $6.00. The memory of a fine friendship. — Atlantic Monthly. Frances Power Cobbe. Her Life told by Herself. With Portrait and View of her Home. 2 vols, crown 8vo, gilt top, $4.00. It is as distinctly charming as it is exceptional to come upon a writer who has lived a long life and joyfully acknowledges that it has been a happy one. Miss Frances Power Cobbe not only belongs to this class, but so far as any recent bio- grapher is concerned, may be placed at the head of it. — London Telegraph. Maria Edgeworth. Her Life and Letters. Edited by Augustus J. C. Hare. With a Portrait and View of her Home. 2 vols, crown 8vo, gilt top, $4.00. These letters constitute the first adequate and public biography of one whom Macaulay regarded as the second woman of her age. — London Standard. Ralph Waldo Emerson. By James Elliot Cabot. With a new Portrait. 2 vols, crown Svo, gilt top, $3.50; half calf, $6.00. An admirable memoir, full of solid interest. — Nnv York Tribune. Such a character as his is the greatest and most beneficent of human achieve- ments. — Christum Union (New York). Letters of Asa Gray. Edited by Jane Loring Gkay. With Portraits and other Illus- trations. 2 vols, crown Svo, gilt top, $4.00. Dr. Gray was an unusually attractive man. and his circle of friends included many of the men and women best worth knowing in Europe as well as at home. — The Congregationalist (Boston). Nathaniel Hawthorne and his Wife. By Julian Hawthorne. With Portraits and \'ignettes. 2 vols. crown Svo, $5.00; half morocco, or half calf. $9.00. An eminent English author pronounces this " the most important and interest- ing biographical work since Boswell's Johnson." Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Witli Extracts from liis Journals and Correspondence. Including " Final Memorials." Edited by Sa.mukl Longkkllow. With Portraits and Illustrations. 3 vols, crown 8vo, gilt top, $6.00; half calf, $9.00 ; half calf, gilt top, $9.75. It will take its place side by side with the standard Boswells of literature. — Philadelphia Press. Harriet Martineau. Autol)iography. With Memorials by Mrs. M. W. Cmai'MAX, Por- traits, and Illustrations. 2 vols. Svo, $6.00 ; half calf, $10.00. New Popular Edition. With Heliotype of Statue by Anne Whitney. 2 vols, crown Svo, gilt top, $4.00. Her work is so far the best of its kind that no other autobiographer deserves to be named as even second to her. — New York Evening Post. Henry Crabb Robinson. His Diary, Reminiscences, and Correspondence. 1789-1866. Se- lected and Edited by Thomas Sadler. Cr. Svo, gilt top, $2.50. Crabb Robinson was the prince of story-tellers, and this dehghtful volume is brimming over with salient anecdote and sagacious reflection. — Spectator (London). Sir Walter Scott. By John Gibson Lockhart. With 8 steel Plates. 3 vols. i2mo, $4.50 ; half calf, $9.00. Next to Boswell's Life of Johnson, it will probably always be considered as the most interesting work of biography in the English language. — Alison, History of Europe. Sir Walter Scott. Familiar Letters of. With a fine steel Portrait of Scott and an Autographic Plan of Abbotsford. 2 vols. Svo, $6.00. The magic that clings to everything that came from the pen of the Great Un- known lies over them, and the public of to-day will read them as eagerly as the public of seventy years syne read the '" Tales of My Landlord." — Pall Mall Gazette. George Ticknor. Life, Letters, and Journals. With two Portraits and Heliotype of Mr. Ticknor's Library. 2 vols. i2mo, $4.00; half calf, $6.50. As charming as Boswell's Johnson, Lockhart's Scott, Forster's Goldsmith, or Ticknor's own biography of Prescott. — Dr. R. S. Mackenzie. John Greenleaf Whittier. Life and Letters. By S. T. Pickard. With seven Portraits and Views. 2 vols, crown Svo, gilt top, $4.00. The many letters contained in these volumes will be found, in the main, delight- ful reading ; they cover a wide range of subjects, and, whether dealing with poli- tics, ethics, or literature, Wliittier always proves himself a sane thinker and a charming correspondent, — stimulating and entertaining. — The Speaker (London). Sold by all Booksellers. Sent, postpaid, by HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO., Boston. II East 17TH Street, New York. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. IfrSIR RtC'O LD-URt V/?r SOUTHFRM o^cf^'f'^y °' California *^ LOS ANGElIs, CaTipSr^^N A'y095°i^3ir '^' » U Form n PR khS3 kk 1895 V.2 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY J