Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1
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Title: Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1
Author: Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Editor: Arthur Turnbull
Release date: June 1, 2005 [eBook #8210]
Most recently updated: December 26, 2020
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8210
Credits: Jonathan Ingram, Clytie Siddall and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BIOGRAPHIA EPISTOLARIS, VOLUME 1 ***
Jonathan Ingram, Clytie Siddall
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
Samuel Taylor Coleridge's
BIBLIOGRAPHIA EPISTOLARIS
comprising 33 letters
and being
the Biographical Supplement of
Coleridge's BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA
with additional letters etc., edited by
A. TURNBULL
Vol. 1.
"On the whole this was surely the mightiest genius since Milton. In
poetry there is not his like, when he rose to his full power; he was
a philosopher, the immensity of whose mind cannot be gauged by
anything he has left behind; a critic, the subtlest and most
profound of his time. Yet these vast and varied powers flowed away
in the shifting sands of talk; and what remains is but what the few
land-locked pools are to the receding ocean which has left them
casually behind without sensible diminution of its
waters."
Academy, 3d October, 1903.
PREFACE
The work known as the Biographical Supplement of the Biographia
Literaria of S. T. Coleridge, and published with the latter in 1847, was
begun by Henry Nelson Coleridge, and finished after his death by his
widow, Sara Coleridge. The first part, concluding with a letter dated
5th November 1796, is the more valuable portion of the Biographical
Supplement. What follows, written by Sara Coleridge, is more
controversial than biographical and does not continue, like the first
part, to make Coleridge tell his own life by inserting letters in the
narrative. Of 33 letters quoted in the whole work, 30 are contained in
the section written by Henry Nelson Coleridge. Of these 11 were drawn
from Cottle's Early Recollections, seven being letters to Josiah Wade,
four to Joseph Cottle, and the remainder are sixteen letters to Poole,
one to Benjamin Flower, one to Charles E Heath, and one to Henry Martin.
From this I think it is evident that Henry Nelson Coleridge intended
what was published as a Supplement to the Biographia Literaria to be a
Life of Coleridge, either supplementary to the Biographia Literaria or
as an independent narrative, in which most of the letters published by
Cottle in 1837 and unpublished letters to Poole and other correspondents
were to form the chief material. Sara Coleridge, in finishing the
fragment, did not attempt to carry out the original intention of her
husband. A few letters in Cottle were perhaps not acceptable to her
taste, and in rejecting them she perhaps resolved to reject all
remaining letters in Cottle. She thus finished the fragmentary Life of
Coleridge left by her husband in her own way.
But Henry Nelson Coleridge had begun to build on another plan. His
intention was simply to string all Coleridge's letters available on a
slim biographical thread and thus produce a work in which the poet would
have been made to tell his own life. His beginning with the five
Biographical Letters to Thomas Poole is a proof of this. He took these
as his starting point; and, as far as he went, his "Life of Coleridge"
thus constructed is the most reliable of all the early biographies of
Coleridge.
This edition of the Biographical Supplement is meant to carry out as far
as possible the original project of its author. The whole of his
narrative has been retained, and also what Sara Coleridge added to his
writing; and all the non-copyright letters of Coleridge available from
other sources have been inserted into the narrative, and additional
biographical matter, explanatory of the letters, has been given. [1] By
this retention of authentic sources I have produced as faithful a
picture of the Poet-Philosopher Coleridge as can be got anywhere, for
Coleridge always paints his own character in his letters. Those desirous
of a fuller picture may peruse, along with this work, the letters
published in the Collection of 1895, the place of which in the narrative
is indicated in footnotes.
[Footnote: What has been added is enclosed in square brackets.]
The letters are drawn from the following sources:
"Biographical Supplement", 1847 ............................................ 33
Cottle's "Reminiscences", 1847 ............................................. 78
The original "Friend", 1809 ................................................. 5
"The Watchman", 1796 ........................................................ 1
Gillman's "Life of Coleridge", 1838 ......................................... 7
Allsop's "Letters, Conversations, etc., of S. T. C"., 1836 (1864) .......... 45
"Essays on his Own Times", 1850 ............................................. 1
"Life and Correspondence of R. Southey", 1850 ............................... 7
Editorials of Poems, etc .................................................... 8
"Literary Remains of S. T. C., 1836, etc" ................................... 3
"Blackwood's Magazine", October, 1821 ....................................... 1
"Fragmentary Remains of Humphry Davy", 1858 ................................ 15
"Macmillan's Magazine", 1864 (Letters to W. Godwin) ......................... 9
Southey's "Life of Andrew Bell", 3 vols., 1844 .............................. 2
"Charles Lamb and the Lloyds", by E. V. Lucas ............................... 3
"Anima Poetae", by E. H. Coleridge, 1895 .................................... 1
The letters of Coleridge have slowly come to light. Coleridge was always
fond of letter-writing, and at several periods of his career he was more
active in letter-writing than at others. He commenced the publication of
his letters himself. The epistolary form was as dear to him in prose as
the ballad or odic form in verse. From his earliest publications we can
see he loved to launch a poem with "A letter to the Editor," or to the
recipient, as preface. The "Mathematical Problem", one of his juvenile
facetiae in rhyme, was thus heralded with a letter addressed to his
brother George explaining the import of the doggerel. His first printed
poem, "To Fortune" (Dykes Campbell's Edition of the "Poems", p. 27), was
also prefaced by a short letter to the editor of the "Morning
Chronicle". Among Coleridge's letters are several of this sort, and each
affords a glimpse into his character. Those with the "Raven" and
"Talleyrand to Lord Grenville" are characteristic specimens of his
drollery and irony.
Coleridge's greatest triumphs in letter-writing were gained in the field
of politics. His two letters to Fox, his letters on the Spaniards, and
those to Judge Fletcher, are his highest specimens of epistolary
eloquence, and constitute him the rival of Rousseau as an advocate of
some great truth in a letter addressed to a public personage. In
clearness of thought and virile precision of language they surpass the
most of anything that Coleridge has written. They never wander from the
point at issue; the evolution of their ideas is perfect, their idiom the
purest mother-English written since the refined vocabulary of Hooker,
Jeremy Taylor, and Harrington was coined.
Besides the political letters, Coleridge published during his lifetime
four important letters of great length written during his sojourn in
Germany. Three of these appeared in the "Friend" of 1809, and indeed
were the finest part of that periodical; and one was first made public
in the "Amulet" of 1829. Six letters published in "Blackwood's Magazine"
of 1820-21, and a few others of less importance, brought up the number
of letters published by Coleridge to 46. The following is a list of them:
7th Nov. 1793, "To Fortune," Ed. "Morning Chronicle" ................ 1
22nd Sept. 1794, Dedication to "Robespierre," to H. Martin ........... 1
1st April 1796, Letter to "Caius Gracchus," "The Watchman" ........... 1
26th Dec. 1796, Dedication to the "Ode to the Departing Year,"
to T. Poole ........... 1
1798, Ed. "Monthly Magazine, re Monody on Chatterton"................. 1
1799, Ed. "Morning Post," with the "Raven" ........................... 1
21 Dec. 1799, Ed. "Morning Post," with "Love" ........................ 1
10th Jan. 1800, Ed. "Morning Post, Talleyrand to Lord Grenville" ..... 1
18th Nov. 1800, "Monthly Review," on "Wallenstein" ................... 1
1834, To George Coleridge, with "Mathematical Problem" ............... 1
Political Letters to the "Morning Post" and "Courier" ................ 21
1809, Letters of Satyrane, etc., in the "Friend" ..................... 8
1820-21, Letters to "Blackwood's Magazine" ........................... 6
1829, "The Amulet," "Over the Brocken" .............................. 1
--
46
The "Literary Remains," published in 1836, added ..................... 4
Allsop, in his "Letters, Conversations, etc.", gave to the world ..... 46
Cottle followed in 1837, with his "Early Recollections", in which .... 84
letters or fragments of letters made their appearance
Gillman in 1838 published 11 letters or fragments, 4 of which had
already appeared in the works of Allsop and Cottle and in the
"Friend", leaving a contribution of ................................. 7
The "Gentleman's Magazine" followed in 1838
with letters to Daniel Stuart ........................................17
Cottle, in 1847, re-cast his "Early Recollections", and called his
work "Reminiscences of Coleridge and Southey", and added the
splendid Wedgwood series of 19 letters, and a few others of less
importance, in all ...................................................25
The "Biographical Supplement" to the 1847 edition of the "Biographia
Literaria" contained 33 letters, 11 of which were from Cottle;
leaving a contribution of ............................................22
In 1850, Coleridge's "Essays on his Own Times", consisting of his
magazine and newspaper articles, contained in the Preface (p. 91),
a fragment of a letter to Poole .......................................1
Making ..............................................................252
published up to 1850 by Coleridge himself and his three early
biographers; and these continued to be quoted and alluded to by writers
on Coleridge until 1895, when Mr. E. H. Coleridge gave to the world a
collection of 260 letters.
Meantime, numerous biographies, memoirs, and magazines continued to
throw in a contribution now and then. The following, as far as I have
been able to ascertain, is the number of letters or fragments of letters
contributed by the various works enumerated:
1836-8, Lockhart's "Life of Sir Walter Scott" 1
1841, "Life of Charles Mathews" 1
" "The Mirror", Letter to George Dyer 1
1844, Southey's "Life of Dr. Andrew Bell" 5
1847, "Memoir of Carey" (Translator of Dante) 1
1848, "Memoir of William Collins, R.A." 1
1849, "Life and Correspondence of R. Southey" 7
1851, "Memoirs of W. Wordsworth" 8
1858, "Fragmentary Remains of Sir H. Davy" 15
1860, "Autobiography of C. R. Leslie" 1
1864, "Macmillan's Magazine" (Letters to Win. Godwin) 9
1869, "H. Crabb Robinson's Diary" 5
1870, "Westminster Review" (Letters to Dr. Brabant) 11
1871, Meteyard's "Group of Englishmen" 2
1873, Sara Coleridge's "Memoirs" 1
1874, "Lippincott's Magazine" 10
1876, "Life of William Godwin", by C. Regan Paul (16,
less 7 of those which appeared in "Macmillan's
Magazine", 1864) 9
1878, "Fraser's Magazine" (letters to Matilda Betham) 5
1880, Macmillan's Edition of "Coleridge's Poems" 1
1882, "Journals of Caroline Fox" 1
1884, "Life of Alaric Watts" 5
1886, Brandl's "Life of Coleridge" 10
1887, "Memorials of Coleorton" 20
1888, "Thomas Poole and his Friends" (Mrs. Sandford) 75
1889, Professor Knight's "Life of Wordsworth" 12
1889, "Rogers and his Contemporaries" 1
1890, "Memoir of John Murray" 4
1891, "De Quincey Memorials" 4
1893, "Life of Washington Allston" (Flagg) 4
" "Friends' Quarterly Magazine" 1
" "Illustrated London News" 19
1893, J. Dykes Campbell's Edition of "Coleridge's Poems" 8
1894, " " " Life of Coleridge" (fragments) 36
1894, "The Athenaeum" (3 letters to Wrangham) 3
1895, "Letters" of S. T. Coleridge (edited by E. H.
Coleridge) 174
" "Anima Poetae" (E. H. C.), Letter to J. Tobin. 1
" "The Gillmans of Highgate" (A. W. Gillman) 3
" "Athenaeum" of 18 May, 1895 1
1897, "William Blackwood and his Sons", by Mrs. Oliphant 6
1898, "Charles Lamb and the Lloyds" (E. V. Lucas) 3
1899, "J. H. Frere and his Friends" 7
1903, "Tom Wedgwood", by R. B. Litchfield 1
1907, "Christabel", edited by E. H. Coleridge 1
1910, "The Bookman", May 1
Total 747
Besides these there are privately printed letters and letters not yet
published to be taken account of. The chief collection of these is
"Letters from the Lake Poets" (edited by E. H. Coleridge), containing 87
letters to Daniel Stuart, some of which are republished in the
"Letters", 1895. The remainder of letters not published, from the
information given by Mr. E. H. Coleridge in his Preface, I make out to
be about 300.
Nor does this exhaust the list of letters written by Coleridge. In
Ainger's Collection of the Letters of Charles Lamb are 62 letters by
Lamb to Coleridge, most of which are in answer to letters received. We
may therefore estimate the letters of Coleridge to Lamb at not less than
62. In Dorothy Wordsworth's "Grasmere Journal" there are no less than 32
letters to the Wordsworths[1] mentioned as having been received during
the period 1800-1803, not represented among the letters in Professor
Knight's "Life of Wordsworth". The total number of letters known to have
been written by Coleridge is therefore between 1,100 and 1,200. Other
correspondents of Coleridge not appearing among the recipients of
letters in publications are probably as follows:
V. Le Grice.
Sam. Le Grice.
T. F. Middleton.
Robert Allen.
Robert Lovell.
Ch. Lloyd, Jr.
John Cruickshank.
Dr. Beddoes.
Edmund Irving.
Mr. Clarkson.
Mrs. Clarkson (except one small fragment in "Diary of H. C. Robinson").
[Footnote 1:
The letters to Lamb and Miss Wordsworth do not now exist.]
The letters of Coleridge, taken as a whole, are one of the most
important contributions to English Letter-writing. They are gradually
coming to light, and with every letter or group of letters put forth,
the character and intellectual development of Coleridge is becoming
clearer. His poems and prose works, great as these are, are not
comprehensible without a study of his letters, which join together the
"insulated fragments" of that grand scheme of truth which he called his
"System" ("Table Talk", 12th Sept. 1831, and 26th June 1834).
Coleridge, in his letters, has written his own life, for his life, after
all, was a life of thought, and his finest thoughts and his most
ambitious aspirations are given expression to in his letters to his
numerous friends; and the true biography of Coleridge is that in which
his letters are made the main source of the narrative. A Biographia
Epistolaris is what we want of such a man.
Coleridge's letters are often bizarre in construction and quite
regardless of the conventions of style, and abound in the most curious
freaks of emphasis and imagery. They resemble the letters of Cowper in
that they were not written for publication; and, like Cowper's, they
have a character of their own. But they far surpass the epistles of the
poet of Olney in spiritual vision and intellectuality. The eighteenth
century, from Pope and Swift down to Cowper, is extremely
rich in
letter-writing. Bolingbroke, Lord Chesterfield, Lady Mary Wortley
Montagu, Gray, Mason, Johnson, Beattie, Burns, and Gibbon, among
literary personages, have contributed to the great Epistolick Art, as
Dr. Johnson called it; and this list does not include the letters of the
politicians, Horace Walpole, Junius, and others. The eighteenth century,
in fact, was a letter-writing age; and while the bulk of the poetry of
its 300 poets, with the exception of a few masterpieces of monumental
quality, has gradually gone out of fashion, its letters have risen into
greater repute. Even among the poets whose verse is still read there is
a hesitation in public opinion as to whether the verses or letters are
superior. There are readers not a few who would not scruple to place
Cowper's letters above his poems, who believe that Gray's letters are
much more akin to the modern spirit than the "Elegy" and the "Ode
to Eton College", and who think that Swift's fly-leaves to his
friends will outlive the fame of "Gulliver" and the "Tale of a
Tub".
Coleridge, who stands between the eighteenth and the nineteenth
centuries, was, like the poets of the former age, a multiform
letter-writer. He was often seized with letter-writing when unable to
write poetry or execute those unpublished masterpieces in the
composition of some of which he was engaged.
Coleridge's letters are of the utmost importance as a part of the
literature of the opening of the nineteenth century. It is in the
letters that we see better than elsewhere the germs of the speculations
which afterwards came to fruition between 1817 and 1850, when the
poetical and critical principles of the Lake School gradually took the
place of the Classicism of the eighteenth century, and the theology of
Broad Churchism began to displace the old theology, and the school of
Paley in Evidences and Locke in Philosophy gave way before the inroad of
Transcendentalism.
As the record of the phases of an intellectual development the letters
of Coleridge stand very high; and, indeed, I do not know anything equal
to them except it be the "Journal of Amiel".
The resemblance between Coleridge and Amiel is very striking. Both
valetudinarians and barely understood by the friends with whom they came
into contact, they took refuge in the inner shrine of introspection, and
clothed the most abstruse ideas in the most beautiful forms of language
and imagery that is only not poetry because it is not verse. While one
wrote the story of his own intellectual development in secret and
retained the record of it hidden from all eyes, the other scattered his
to the winds in the shape of letters, which thus, widely distributed,
kept his secret until they were gathered together by later hands. The
letters of Coleridge as a collection is one of the most engaging
psychological studies of the history of an individual mind.
The text of the letters in the present volume is reproduced from the
original sources, the "Biographical Supplement", Cottle, Gillman,
Allsop, and the "Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey". Fuller
texts of some of the letters will be found in "Letters of S. T. C." of
1895, Litchfield's "Tom Wedgwood", and other recent publications. One of
the objects of the present work is to preserve the text of the letters
as presented in these authentic sources of the life of Coleridge.
Letters Nos. 44, 45, and 46, from "Charles Lamb and the Lloyds", by Mr.
E. V. Lucas (Smith, Elder and Co.); No. 130 from "Anima Poetae" (W.
Heinemann), are printed here by arrangement with the poet's grandson,
Ernest Hartley Coleridge, Esq., to whom my sincere thanks are also due
for his kindness in reading the proofs. Mr. Coleridge, of course, is not
responsible for any of the opinions expressed in this work; but he has
taken great pains in putting me right regarding certain views of others
who had written on Coleridge, and also on some of the mistakes made by
Henry Nelson Coleridge and Sara Coleridge, who had insufficient data on
the matters on which they wrote, and definite information on which,
indeed, could not be ascertainable in 1847. Coming from Mr.
Coleridge--the chief living authority on the life, letters, and
published and unpublished writings of S. T. Coleridge--the corrections
in the footnotes and elsewhere may be taken as authoritative; and I have
to acknowledge my indebtedness to him accordingly,
ARTHUR TURNBULL.
KIRKCALDY,
31st January, 1911.
WORKS RELATING TO COLERIDGE
"Early Years and Late Reflections". By Clement Carlyon, M.D. 4 vols.
1836-1858.
"Letters, Conversations, and Recollections of S. T. Coleridge". With a
Preface by the Editor. Moxon, 1836. 2 vols. Second Edition. By Thomas
Allsop. 1858. Third Edition, 1864.
"Early Recollections, chiefly relating to the late S. T. Coleridge
during his long residence in Bristol". By Joseph Cottle. 2 vols. 1837.
"The Letters of Charles Lamb with a Sketch of his Life". By Sir Thomas
Noon Talfourd, 1837; and "Final Memorials", 1848.
"Reminiscences of S. T. Coleridge and Robert Southey". By Joseph Cottle.
1847. 1 vol.
"Biographia Literaria, or Biographical Sketches of my Literary Life and
Opinions". By S. T. Coleridge. Second Edition, prepared for publication
in part by the late H. N. Coleridge: completed and published by his
widow. 2 vols. 1847.
"The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey". 6 vols. 1849-1850.
"Essays on his own Times". By Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Edited by his
daughter. London: William Pickering. 3 vols. 1850.
"Memoirs of William Wordsworth". By Christopher Wordsworth, D.D. 2 vols.
1851.
"The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge". New York: Harper and
Brothers. 7 vols. 1853.
"Oxford and Cambridge Essays". Professor Hort on Coleridge. 1856.
"Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey". 4 vols. 1856.
"Fragmentary Remains, literary and scientific, of Sir Humphry Davy,
Bart." Edited by his brother, John Davy, M.D. 1858.
"Dissertations and Discussions". John Stuart Mill. 4 vols. 1859-1875.
"Autobiographical Recollections by the late Charles Robert Leslie, R.A."
Edited by Tom Taylor. 2 vols. 1860.
"Beaten Paths". By T. Colley Grattan 2 vols. 1862.
"Studies in Poetry and Philosophy". By J. C. Shairp. 1868.
"Diary, Reminiscences, and Correspondence of Henry Crabb Robinson".
Selected and Edited by Thomas Sadler, Ph.D. 3 vols. 1869.
"A Group of Englishmen (1795-1815) being records of the younger
Wedgwoods and their Friends". By Eliza Meteyard, 1 vol. 1871.
"Memoir and Letters of Sara Coleridge", 1 vol. 1873.
"Life of William Godwin". By C. Kegan Paul. 2 vols. 1876.
"Journals and Letters of Caroline Fox". 2 vols. 1884.
"Life and Works of William Wordsworth". By William Knight, LL.D. 11
vols. 1882-1889.
"Prose Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge". Bohn Library. 6 vols. (various
dates).
"Memorials of Coleorton". Edited by William Knight, University of St.
Andrews. 2 vols. 1887.
"The Letters of Charles Lamb". Edited by Alfred Ainger. 2 vols. 1888.
"Thomas Poole and his Friends". By Mrs. Henry Sandford. 2 vols. 1888.
"Appreciations". By Walter Pater. 1889.
"De Quincey Memorials". Edited by Alexander H. Japp, LL.D., F.R.S.E. 2
vols. 1891.
"Posthumous Works of De Quincey". Edited by Alexander H. Japp, LL.D.,
F.R.S.E. Vol. II. 1893.
"The Life of Washington Allston". By Jared B. Flagg. 1893.
"The Works of Thomas De Quincey". Edited by Professor Masson. Vols.
I-III. 1896.
"Illustrated London News", 1893. Letters of S. T. C. edited by E. H.
Coleridge.
"Anima Poetae: From the unpublished note-books of Samuel Taylor
Coleridge". Edited by Ernest Hartley Coleridge. 1895.
"The Gillmans of Highgate". By Alexander W. Gillman. 1895.
"Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge". Edited by Ernest Hartley
Coleridge. 2 vols. 1895. (Referred to in present volume as "Letters".}
"The Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth". Edited by William Knight. 2 vols.
1897.
"The Early Life of William Wordsworth", 1770-1798, "A Study of the
Prelude". By Emile Legouis; translated by J. W. Matthews. 1897.
"Charles Lamb and the Lloyds". Edited by E. V. Lucas. 1898.
"Bibliography of S. T. Coleridge". R. Heine Shepherd and Colonel
Prideaux. 1900.
"The German Influence on Coleridge". By John Louis Haney. 1902.
"A Bibliography of Samuel Taylor Coleridge". By John Louis Haney. 1903.
"Tom Wedgwood, the First Photographer". By R. B. Litchfield. 1903.
"Christabel, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge; illustrated by a Facsimile of
the Manuscript and by Textual and other notes". By Ernest Hartley
Coleridge, Hon. F.R.S.L. Published under the direction of the Royal
Society of Literature: London, Henry Frowde. 1907. (The Facsimile is
that of the MS. presented by Coleridge to Sarah Hutchinson.)
BIOGRAPHIES OF COLERIDGE
John Thomas Cox. Memoir prefixed to Edition of the Poems of S. T.
Coleridge. 1836.
Life of Coleridge prefixed to Edition of the Poems by Milner and
Sowerby. (No date.)
James Gillman. "Life of S. T. Coleridge". Vol. I. 1838.
Biographical Supplement to the Second Edition of the "Biographia
Literaria". By Henry Nelson Coleridge and Sara Coleridge. 1847.
F. Freiligrath. Memoir to the "Tauchnitz Edition" of the Poems of S. T.
Coleridge. 1860.
E. H. Norton. Poetical and Dramatic Works, with Life of the Author. 3
vols. Boston, 1864.
Derwent Coleridge, Introductory Essay to Poems of S. T. C. Moxon and
Sons. 1870.
W. M. Rossetti. Critical Memoir to the Edition of Poems of S. T. C. in
Moxon's "Popular Poets." 1872.
William Bell Scott. Introduction to Edition of the Poems in "Routledge's
Poets."
Memoir prefixed to the Edition of the Poems of S. T. C. in "Lansdown"
Poets. F. Warne and Co. 1878.
R. Herne Shepherd. Life of S. T. C. prefixed to Macmillan's Edition of
the Poems of S. T. C. 4 vols. 1877-1880.
Memoir prefixed to the "Landscape Edition" of the Poems of S. T.
Coleridge. Edinburgh, 1881.
"Life of S. T. Coleridge". By H. Traill, "English Men of Letters
Series." 1884.
Thomas Ashe. "Life of S. T. Coleridge" prefixed to the "Aldine Edition"
of the Poems of S. T. C. 2 vols. 1885.
Professor Alois Brandl, Prague. "Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the English
Romantic School". English Edition by Lady Eastlake. 1887.
"The Life of S. T. Coleridge". By Hall Caine. "Great Writers Series."
1887.
Introductory Memoir by J. Dykes Campbell, prefixed to "Poetical Works of
S. T. C." Macmillan. 1893.
"Samuel Taylor Coleridge". A narrative of the events of his Life. By
James Dykes Campbell. 1894.
"Coleridge". Bell's "Miniature Series of Great Writers." By Richard
Garnett. 1904.
"La Vie d'un Poete--Coleridge". Par Joseph Aynard. Paris, 1907.
INTRODUCTIONS TO SELECTIONS OF THE POEMS OF S. T. C., 1869-1908
Algernon C. Swinburne. "Christabel and the Lyrical and Imaginative Poems
of S. T. Coleridge" (Sampson Low, and Co.). 1869.
Joseph Skipsey. Prefatory Notice to the "Canterbury Edition" of
Coleridge's Poems (Walter Scott).
Stopford A. Brooke. Introduction to the Golden Book of Coleridge (Dent
and Co.).
Andrew Lang. Introduction to Poems of S. T. C. (Longmans).
Richard Garnett. "The Poetry of Samuel Taylor Coleridge". The "Muses"
Library (Lawrence and Bullen, now Routledge). 1888.
"Coleridge's Select Poems". Edited by Andrew J. George, M. A. (Heath,
publisher.)
"Poems". Edited by E. H. Coleridge (Heinemann).
"Poems". Edited by Alice Meynell. "Red Letter Library" (Blackie).
"Poems of S. T. C." Edited by Professor Knight (Newnes).
"Poems of Coleridge", selected and arranged. Edited by Arthur Symons
(Methuen and Co.).
"The Poems of Coleridge". Illustrated by Gerald Metcalfe. With an
Introduction by E. Hartley Coleridge (John Lane). 1907.
"The Poems of S. T. Coleridge". "The World's Classics" (Frowde). Edited
by T. Quiller-Couch. 1908.
"Poems of Coleridge". "The Golden Poets." With an Introduction by
Professor Edward Dowden, LL.D. (Caxton Publishing Company).
BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATIONS
1865. Article in the "North British Review" for December of this year.
1903. "From Ottery to Highgate, the story of the childhood and later
years of Samuel Taylor Coleridge". By Wilfred Brown (Coleberd and Co.,
Ltd., Ottery St. Mary).
CONTENTS
PART I.--POETRY
Page
CHAPTER I. EARLY YEARS I, 3
Letter 1. To Thomas Poole. -- Feby. 1797 5
2. " -- Mch. 1797 7
3. " 9 Oct. 1797 11
4. " 16 Oct. 1797 15
5. " 19 Feby. 1798 19
CHAPTER II. CAMBRIDGE AND PANTISOCRACY 29
Letter 6. To George Coleridge. 31 Mch. 1791 29
7. Robert Southey. 6 July, 1794 34
8. Henry Martin. 22 July, 1794 35
9. Southey. 6 Sept. 1794 42
10. " 18 Sept. 1794 43
11. Charles Heath. -- -- 1794 44
12. Henry Martin. 22 Sept. 1794 46
13. Southey. -- Dec. 1794 47
CHAPTER III. "THE WATCHMAN" 50
Letter 14. To Thomas Poole. 7 Oct. 1795 50
15. Joseph Cottle. -- Dec. 1795 52
16. " 1 Jany. 1796 52
17. Josiah Wade. -- Jany. 1796 55
18. " -- -- 1796 55
19. " -- -- 1796 56
20. " -- -- 1796 58
21. " 7 Jany. 1796 59
22. " -- Jany. 1796 60
23. Cottle. -- Feby. 1796 62
24. " -- -- 1796 62
25. " 22 Feby. 1796 63
26. Poole. 30 Mch. 1796 65
27. Benjamin Flower. 1 April, 1796
28. Caius Gracchus. 1 April, 1796
29. Poole. 11 April, 1796
30. Cottle. 15 April, 1796
31. " -- April, 1796
32. " -- April, 1796
33. Poole. 6 May, 1796
34. " 12 May, 1796
35. " 29 May, 1796
36. " 4 July, 1796
37. " -- Aug. 1796
38. Wade. -- Sept. 1796
39. Poole. 24 Sept. 1796
40. Charles Lamb. 29 Sept. 1796
41. Cottle. 18 Oct. 1796
42. Poole. 1 Nov. 1796
43. " 5 Nov. 1796
44. Charles Lloyd, Senr. 15 Oct. 1796
45. " 14 Nov. 1796
46. " 4 Dec. 1796
47. Poole. 26 Dec. 1796
CHAPTER IV. CONTEMPORARY PORTRAITS OF COLERIDGE
CHAPTER V. STOWEY
Letter 48. To Cottle. Jany. 1797
49. " 3 Jany. 1797
50. " 10 Jany. 1797
51. " Jany. 1797
52. " Jany. --
53. " Jany. --
54. " Feby. or Mch. 1797
55. " May, 1797
56. " -- --
57. " -- --
58. Wade. -- --
59. Cottle. -- --
60. " -- June, 1797
61. " 8 June, 1797
62. " 29 -- --
63. " 3-17 July, 1797
64. Wade. 17-20 July, 1797
Letter 65. To Cottle. --Sept. 1797
66. " 3 Sept. 1797
67. " 10-15 Sept. 1797
68. " 28 Nov. 1797
69. " 2 Dec. 1797
70. " --Jany. 1798
71. Wedgwood. --Jany. 1798
72. Cottle. 24 Jany. 1798
73. the Editor, "Monthly Mag." --Jany. 1798
CHAPTER VI. THE LYRICAL BALLADS AND GERMANY
Letter 74. To Cottle. 18 Feb. 1798
75. the Editor, "Morning Post." 10 Mch. 1798
76. Cottle. 8 Mch. 1798
77. Wade. 21 Mch. 1798
78. Cottle. Mch. or Apl. 1798
79. " 14 April, 1798
80. " --April, 1798
81. " --May, 1798
82. Mrs. Coleridge. 14 Jany. 1799
83. " 23 April, 1799
CHAPTER VII. THE RELIGION OF THE PINEWOODS
Letter 84. To Mrs. Coleridge. 17 May, 1799
CHAPTER VIII. RETURN TO ENGLAND, "WALLENSTEIN", AND
THE "MORNING POST"
Letter 85. To Josiah Wedgwood. 21 May, 1799
86. "the Editor, Morning Post." 21 Dec. 1799
87. " 10 Jany. 1800
88. Thomas Wedgwood. --Jany. 1800
89. Josiah Wedgwood. --Feby. 1800
90. Thomas Poole. --Mch. 1800
CHAPTER IX KESWICK
Letter 91. To William Godwin. 21 May, 1800
92. Humphry Davy. --June, 1800
93. Josiah Wedgwood. 24 July, 1800
94. Davy. 25 July, 1800
95. Godwin. 22 Sept. 1800
96. Davy. 9 Oct. 1800
97. Godwin. 13 Oct. 1800
98. Davy. 18 Oct. 1800
99. Josiah Wedgwood. 1 Nov. 1800
100. " 12 Nov. 1800
101. the Editor, "Monthly Review."18 Nov. 1800
102. Davy. 2 Dec. 1800
103. " 3 Feby. 1801
104. Wade. 6 March, 1801
105. Godwin. 25 March, 1801
PART II.--THE PERMANENT
CHAPTER X. ILL HEALTH; SOUTHEY COMES TO KESWICK
Letter 106. To Southey. 13 April, 1801
107. Davy. 4 May, 1801
108. " 20 May, 1801
109. Godwin. 23 June, 1801
110. Davy. 31 Oct. 1801
111. Thos. Wedgwood. 20 Oct. 1802
112. " 3 Nov. 1802
113. " 9 Jany. l803
114. " 14 Jany. 1803
115. " 10 Feby. 1803
116. " 10 Feby. 1803
117. " 17 Feby. 1803
118. " 17 Feby. 1803
119. Godwin. 4 June, 1803
120. " 10 July, 1803
121. Southey. -- July, 1803
122. Thos. Wedgwood. 16 Sept. 1803
123. Miss Cruikshank. -- -- 1803
124. Thos. Wedgwood. -- Jany. 1804
125. " 28 Jany. 1804
126. Davy. 6 Mch. 1804
127. Sarah Hutchinson. 10 March, 1804
128. Wedgwood. 24 March, 1804
129. Davy. 25 March, 1804
PART I
POETRY
BIOGRAPHIA EPISTOLARIS
CHAPTER I
EARLY YEARS
[1772 to 1791]
While here, thou fed'st upon etherial beams,
As if thou had'st not a terrestrial birth;--
Beyond material objects was thy sight;
In the clouds woven was thy lucid robe!
"Ah! who can tell how little for this sphere
That frame was fitted of empyreal fire!" [1]
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was the youngest child of the Reverend John
Coleridge, Chaplain-Priest and Vicar of the parish of Ottery St. Mary,
in the county of Devon, and Master of the Free Grammar, or King's
School, as it is called, founded by Henry VIII in that town. His
mother's maiden name was Ann Bowdon. He was born at Ottery on the 21st
of October 1772, "about eleven o'clock in the forenoon," as his father,
the Vicar, has, with rather unusual particularity, entered it in the
register.
John Coleridge, who was born in 1719, and finished his education at
Sidney-Sussex College, Cambridge,[2] was a country clergyman and
schoolmaster of no ordinary kind. He was a good Greek and Latin scholar,
a profound Hebraist, and, according to the measure of his day, an
accomplished mathematician. He was on terms of literary friendship with
Samuel Badcock, and, by his knowledge of Hebrew, rendered material
assistance to Dr. Kennicott, in his well known critical works. Some
curious papers on theological and antiquarian subjects appear with his
signature in the early numbers of "The Gentleman's Magazine", between
the years 1745 and 1780; almost all of which have been inserted in the
interesting volumes of Selections made several years ago from that work.
In 1768 he published miscellaneous Dissertations arising from the 17th
and 18th chapters of the Book of Judges; in which a very learned and
ingenious attempt is made to relieve the character of Micah from the
charge of idolatry ordinarily brought against it; and in 1772 appeared a
"Critical Latin Grammar", which his son called "his best work," and
which is not wholly unknown even now to the inquisitive by the proposed
substitution of the terms "prior, possessive, attributive, posterior,
interjective, and quale-quare-quidditive," for the vulgar names of the
cases. This little Grammar, however, deserves a philologer's perusal,
and is indeed in many respects a very valuable work in its kind. He also
published a Latin Exercise book, and a Sermon. His school was
celebrated, and most of the country gentlemen of that generation,
belonging to the south and east parts of Devon, had been his pupils.
Judge Buller was one. The amiable character and personal eccentricities
of this excellent man are not yet forgotten amongst some of the elders
of the parish and neighbourhood, and the latter, as is usual in such
cases, have been greatly exaggerated. He died suddenly in the month of
October 1781, after riding to Ottery from Plymouth, to which latter
place he had gone for the purpose of embarking his son Francis, as a
midshipman, for India. Many years afterwards, in 1797, S. T. Coleridge
commenced a series of Letters to his friend Thomas Poole, of Nether
Stowey, in the county of Somerset, in which he proposed to give an
account of his life up to that time. Five only were written, and
unfortunately they stop short of his residence at Cambridge. This series
will properly find a place here.
[Footnote 1: From a Sonnet To Coleridge by Sir Egerton Brydges--written
16th Feb. 1837. S. C.]
[Footnote 2: He was matriculated at Sidney a sizar on the 18th of March
1748, but does not appear to have taken any degree at the University. S.
C.]
LETTER 1. TO MR. POOLE
My Dear Poole,
I could inform the dullest author how he might write an interesting
book. Let him relate the events of his own life with honesty, not
disguising the feelings that accompanied them. I never yet read even a
Methodist's "Experience" in the Gospel Magazine without receiving
instruction and amusement; and I should almost despair of that man who
could peruse the Life of John Woolman without an amelioration of heart.
As to my Life, it has all the charms of variety,--high life and low
life, vices and virtues, great folly and some wisdom. However, what I am
depends on what I have been; and you, my best friend, have a right to
the narration. To me the task will be a useful one. It will renew and
deepen my reflections on the past; and it will perhaps make you behold
with no unforgiving or impatient eye those weaknesses and defects in my
character, which so many untoward circumstances have concurred in
planting there.
My family on my Mother's side can be traced up, I know not how far. The
Bowdons inherited a good farm and house thereon in the Exmoor country,
in the reign of Elizabeth, as I have been told; and to my knowledge they
have inherited nothing better since that time. My Grandfather was in the
reign of George I a considerable woollen trader in Southmolton; so that
I suppose, when the time comes, I shall be allowed to pass as a
"Sans-culotte" without much opposition. My Father received a better
education than the rest of his family in consequence of his own
exertions, not of his superiour advantages. When he was not quite
sixteen years of age, my grandfather, by a series of misfortunes, was
reduced to great distress. My Father received the half of his last crown
and his blessing, and walked off to seek his fortune. After he had
proceeded a few miles, he sate him down on the side of the road, so
overwhelmed with painful thoughts that he wept audibly. A gentleman
passed by who knew him, and, inquiring into his sorrow, took him home
and gave him the means of maintaining himself by placing him in a
school. At this time he commenced being a severe and ardent student. He
married his first wife, by whom he had three daughters, all now alive.
While his first wife lived, having scraped up money enough, he at the
age of twenty walked to Cambridge, entered himself at Sidney College,
distinguished himself in Hebrew and Mathematics, and might have had a
fellowship if he had not been married. He returned and settled as a
schoolmaster in Southmolton where his wife died. In 1760 he was
appointed Chaplain-Priest and Master of the School at Ottery St. Mary,
and removed to that place; and in August, 1760, Mr. Buller, the father
of the present Judge, procured for him the living from Lord Chancellor
Bathurst. By my Mother, his second wife, he had ten children, of whom I
am the youngest, born October 20th,[1] 1772.
These facts I received from my Mother; but I am utterly unable to fill
them up by any further particulars of times, or places, or names. Here I
shall conclude my first Letter, because I cannot pledge myself for the
accuracy of the accounts, and I will not therefore mingle it with that
for the truth of which, in the minutest parts, I shall hold myself
responsible. You must regard this Letter as a first chapter devoted to
dim traditions of times too remote to be pierced by the eye of
investigation.
Yours affectionately, S. T. COLERIDGE.
Feb. 1797. Monday.
[Footnote 1: A mistake, should be October 21st.]
LETTER 2. To MR. POOLE
My Dear Poole,
My Father (Vicar of, and Schoolmaster at, Ottery St. Mary, Devon) was a
good mathematician, and well versed in the Greek, Latin, and Hebrew
languages. He published, or rather attempted to publish, several
works;--1st, Miscellaneous Dissertations arising from the 17th and 18th
chapters of the Book of Judges; 2d, "Sententiae Excerptcae" for the use
of his own School; and 3d, his best work, a Critical Latin Grammar, in
the Preface to which he proposes a bold innovation in the names of the
cases. My Father's new nomenclature was not likely to become popular,
although it must be allowed to be both sonorous and expressive. "Exempli
gratia", he calls the ablative case "the quare-quale-quidditive case!"
He made the world his confidant with respect to his learning and
ingenuity, and the world seems to have kept the secret very faithfully.
His various works, uncut, unthumbed, were preserved free from all
pollution in the family archives, where they may still be for anything
that I know. This piece of good luck promises to be hereditary; for all
"my" compositions have the same amiable home-staying propensity. The
truth is, my Father was not a first-rate genius; he was, however, a
first-rate Christian, which is much better. I need not detain you with
his character. In learning, goodheartedness, absentness of mind, and
excessive ignorance of the world, he was a perfect Parson Adams.
My Mother was an admirable economist, and managed exclusively. My
eldest brother's name was John. He was a Captain in the East India
Company's service; a successful officer and a brave one, as I have
heard. He died in India in 1786. My second brother William went to
Pembroke College, Oxford. He died a clergyman in 1780, just on the eve
of his intended marriage. My brother James has been in the army since
the age of fifteen, and has married a woman of fortune, one of the old
Duke family of Otterton in Devon. Edward, the wit of the family, went
to Pembroke College, and is now a clergyman. George also went to
Pembroke. He is in orders likewise, and now has the same School, a very
flourishing one, which my Father had. He is a man of reflective mind
and elegant talent. He possesses learning in a greater degree than any
of the family, excepting myself. His manners are grave, and hued over
with a tender sadness. In his moral character he approaches every way
nearer to perfection than any man I ever yet knew. He is worth us all.
Luke Herman was a surgeon, a severe student, and a good man. He died in
1790, leaving one child, a lovely boy still alive. [1] My only sister,
Ann, died at twenty-one, a little after my brother Luke:--
Rest, gentle Shade! and wait thy Maker's will; Then rise unchang'd, and
be an angel still!
Francis Syndercombe went out to India as a midshipman under Admiral
Graves. He accidentally met his brother John on board ship abroad, who
took him ashore, and procured him a commission in the Company's army. He
died in 1792, aged twenty-one, a Lieutenant, in consequence of a fever
brought on by excessive fatigue at and after the siege of Seringapatam,
and the storming of a hill fort, during all which his conduct had been
so gallant that his Commanding Officer particularly noticed him, and
presented him with a gold watch, which my Mother now has. All my
brothers are remarkably handsome; but they were as inferiour to Francis
as I am to them. He went by the name of "the handsome Coleridge." The
tenth and last child was Samuel Taylor, the subject and author of these
Epistles.
From October 1772 to October 1773. Baptized Samuel Taylor, my
Godfather's name being Samuel Taylor, Esquire. I had another called
Evans, and two Godmothers, both named Munday.
From October 1773 to October 1774. In this year I was carelessly left by
my nurse, ran to the fire, and pulled out a live coal, and burned myself
dreadfully. While my hand was being drest by Mr. Young, I spoke for the
first time, (so my Mother informs me) and said, "nasty Dr. Young!" The
snatching at fire, and the circumstance of my first words expressing
hatred to professional men--are they at all ominous? This year I went to
school. My Schoolmistress, the very image of Shenstone's, was named Old
Dame Key. She was nearly related to Sir Joshua Reynolds.
From October 1774 to 1775. I was inoculated; which I mention, because I
distinctly remember it, and that my eyes were bound; at which I
manifested so much obstinate indignation, that at last they removed the
bandage, and unaffrighted I looked at the lancet, and suffered the
scratch. At the close of this year I could read a chapter in the Bible.
Here I shall end, because the remaining years of my life all assisted to
form my particular mind;--the first three years had nothing in them that
seems to relate to it.
God bless you and your sincere S. T. COLERIDGE.
Sunday, March, 1797.
[Footnote 1: William Hart Coleridge, Bishop of Barbadoes and the Leeward
Islands.
(He was appointed to that See in 1824, retired from it in 1842; and
afterwards accepted the Wardenship of St. Augustine's College,
Canterbury. S. C.) [He died in 1849.] ]
A letter from Francis S. Coleridge to his sister has been preserved in
the family, in which a particular account is given of the chance
meeting of the two brothers in India, mentioned shortly in the
preceding Letter. There is something so touching and romantic in the
incident that the Reader will, it is hoped, pardon the insertion of the
original narrative here.
Dear Nancy,
You are very right, I have neglected my absent friends, but do not
think I have forgot them, and indeed it would be ungrateful in me if I
did not write to them.
You may be sure, Nancy, I thank Providence for bringing about that
meeting, which has been the cause of all my good fortune and happiness,
which I now in fulness enjoy. It was an affectionate meeting, and I
will inform you of the particulars. There was in our ship one Captain
Mordaunt, who had been in India before, when we came to Bombay. Finding
a number of his friends there he went often ashore. The day before the
Fleet sailed he desired one Captain Welsh to go aboard with him, who
was an intimate friend of your brother's. "I will," said Welsh, "and
will write a note to Coleridge to go with us." Upon this Captain
Mordaunt, recollecting me, said there was a young midshipman, a
favourite of Captain Hicks, of that name on board. Upon that they
agreed to inform my brother of it, which they did soon after, and all
three came on board. I was then in the lower deck, and, though you
won't believe it, I was sitting upon a gun and thinking of my brother,
that is, whether I should ever see or hear anything of him; when seeing
a Lieutenant, who had been sent to inform me of my brother's being on
board, I got up off the gun: but instead of telling me about my
brother, he told me that Captain Hicks was very angry with me and
wanted to see me. Captain Hicks had always been a Father to me, and
loved me as if I had been his own child. I therefore went up shaking
like an aspen leaf to the Lieutenant's apartments, when a Gentleman
took hold of my hand. I did not mind him at first, but looked round for
the Captain; but the Gentleman still holding my hand, I looked, and
what was my surprise, when I saw him too full to speak and his eyes
full of tears. Whether crying is catching I know not, but I began a
crying too, though I did not know the reason, till he caught me in his
arms, and told me he was my brother, and then I found I was paying
nature her tribute, for I believe I never cried so much in my life.
There is a saying in Robinson Crusoe, I remember very well,
viz.--sudden joy like grief confounds at first. We directly went ashore
having got my discharge, and having took a most affectionate leave of
Captain Hicks, I left the ship for good and all.
My situation in the army is that I am one of the oldest Ensigns, and
before you get this must in all probability be a Lieutenant. How many
changes there have been in my life, and what lucky ones they have been,
and how young I am still! I must be seven years older before I can
properly style myself a man, and what a number of officers do I command,
who are old enough to be my Father already!
LETTER 3. To MR. POOLE
October 9th, 1797.
My Dearest Poole,
From March to October--a long silence! But it is possible that I may
have been preparing materials for future Letters, and the time cannot be
considered as altogether subtracted from you.
From October 1775 to October 1778. These three years I continued at the
Reading School, because I was too little to be trusted among my Father's
schoolboys. After break-fast I had a halfpenny given me, with which I
bought three cakes at the baker's shop close by the school of my old
mistress; and these were my dinner every day except Saturday and Sunday,
when I used to dine at home, and wallowed in a beef and pudding dinner.
I am remarkably fond of beans and bacon: and this fondness I attribute
to my Father's giving me a penny for having eaten a large quantity of
beans on Saturday. For the other boys did not like them, and, as it was
an economic food, my Father thought my attachment to it ought to be
encouraged. He was very fond of me, and I was my Mother's darling: in
consequence whereof I was very miserable. For Molly, who had nursed my
brother Francis, and was immoderately fond of him, hated me because my
Mother took more notice of me than of Frank; and Frank hated me because
my Mother gave me now and then a bit of cake when he had none,--quite
forgetting that for one bit of cake which I had and he had not, he had
twenty sops in the pan, and pieces of bread and butter with sugar on
them from Molly, from whom I received only thumps and ill names.
So I became fretful, and timorous, and a tell-tale; and the schoolboys
drove me from play, and were always tormenting me. And hence I took no
pleasure in boyish sports, but read incessantly. I read through all
gilt-cover little books that could be had at that time, and likewise all
the uncovered tales of Tom Hickathrift, Jack the Giant Killer, and the
like. And I used to lie by the wall, and mope; and my spirits used to
come upon me suddenly, and in a flood;--and then I was accustomed to run
up and down the churchyard, and act over again all I had been reading on
the docks, the nettles, and the rank grass. At six years of age I
remember to have read Belisarius, Robinson Crusoe, and Philip Quarles;
and then I found the Arabian Nights' Entertainments, one tale of which,
(the tale of a man who was compelled to seek for a pure virgin,) made so
deep an impression on me, (I had read it in the evening while my mother
was at her needle,) that I was haunted by spectres, whenever I was in
the dark: and I distinctly recollect the anxious and fearful eagerness,
with which I used to watch the window where the book lay, and when the
sun came upon it, I would seize it, carry it by the wall, and bask, and
read. My father found out the effect which these books had produced, and
burned them.
So I became a dreamer, and acquired an indisposition to all bodily
activity; and I was fretful, and inordinately passionate; and as I could
not play at anything, and was slothful, I was despised and hated by the
boys: and because I could read and spell, and had, I may truly say, a
memory and understanding forced into almost unnatural ripeness, I was
flattered and wondered at by all the old women. And so I became very
vain, and despised most of the boys that were at all near my own age,
and before I was eight years old I was a "character". Sensibility,
imagination, vanity, sloth, and feelings of deep and bitter contempt for
almost all who traversed the orbit of my understanding, were even then
prominent and manifest.
From October 1778 to 1779. That which I began to be from three to six, I
continued to be from six to nine. In this year I was admitted into the
Grammar School, and soon outstripped all of my age. I had a dangerous
putrid fever this year. My brother George lay ill of the same fever in
the next room. My poor brother, Francis, I remember, stole up in spite
of orders to the contrary, and sat by my bedside, and read Pope's Homer
to me. Frank had a violent love of beating me; but whenever that was
superseded by any humour or circumstances, he was always very fond of
me, and used to regard me with a strange mixture of admiration and
contempt. Strange it was not, for he hated books, and loved climbing,
fighting, playing, and robbing orchards, to distraction. My Mother
relates a story of me, which I repeat here, because it must be reckoned
as my first piece of wit.--During my fever, I asked why Lady Northcote,
our neighbour, did not come and see me. My Mother said she was afraid of
catching the fever. I was piqued, and answered, "Ah! Mamma! the four
Angels round my bed a'n't afraid of catching it!" I suppose you know the
old prayer:--
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
Bless the bed that I lie on!--
Four good Angels round me spread,
Two at my feet and two at my head.
This "prayer" I said nightly, and most firmly believed the truth of it.
Frequently have I, (half-awake and half-asleep; my body diseased, and
fevered by my imagination,)--seen armies of ugly things bursting in upon
me, and these four Angels keeping them off.
In my next I shall carry on my life to my Father's death.
God bless you, my dear Poole,
And your affectionate, S.T. COLERIDGE.
In a note written in after life Mr. Coleridge speaks of this period of
his life in the following terms:
"Being the youngest child, I possibly inherited the weakly state of
health of my Father, who died, at the age of sixty-two, before I had
reached my ninth year; and from certain jealousies of old Molly, my
brother Frank's dotingly fond nurse--and if ever child by beauty and
loveliness deserved to be doted on, my brother Francis was that
child--and by the infusion of her jealousies into my brother's mind, I
was in earliest childhood huffed away from the enjoyments of muscular
activity in play, to take refuge at my Mother's side on my little stool,
to read my little book, and to listen to the talk of my elders. I was
driven from life in motion to life in thought and sensation. I never
played except by myself, and then only acted over what I had been
reading or fancying, or half one, half the other, with a stick cutting
down weeds and nettles, as one of the "Seven Champions of Christendom."
Alas! I had all the simplicity, all the docility of the little child,
but none of the child's habits. I never thought as a child, never had
the language of a child." [1]
[Footnote 1: Gillman's "Life of Coleridge", p. 10.]
LETTER 4. TO MR. POOLE
Dear Poole,
From October 1779 to 1781. I had asked my Mother one evening to cut my
cheese entire, so that I might toast it. This was no easy matter, it
being a "crumbly" cheese. My Mother however did it. I went into the
garden for something or other, and in the mean time my brother Frank
minced my cheese, to "disappoint the favourite." I returned, saw the
exploit, and in an agony of passion flew at Frank. He pretended to have
been seriously hurt by my blow, flung himself on the ground, and there
lay with outstretched limbs. I hung over him mourning and in a great
fright; he leaped up, and with a horse-laugh gave me a severe blow in
the face. I seized a knife, and was running at him, when my Mother came
in and took me by the arm. I expected a flogging, and, struggling from
her, I ran away to a little hill or slope, at the bottom of which the
Otter flows, about a mile from Ottery. There I staid; my rage died away,
but my obstinacy vanquished my fears, and taking out a shilling book,
which had at the end morning and evening prayers, I very devoutly
repeated them--thinking at the same time with a gloomy inward
satisfaction--how miserable my Mother must be! I distinctly remember my
feelings, when I saw a Mr. Vaughan pass over the bridge at about a
furlong's distance, and how I watched the calves in the fields beyond
the river. It grew dark, and I fell asleep. It was towards the end of
October, and it proved a stormy night. I felt the cold in my sleep, and
dreamed that I was pulling the blanket over me, and actually pulled over
me a dry thorn-bush which lay on the ground near me. In my sleep I had
rolled from the top of the hill till within three yards of the river,
which flowed by the unfenced edge of the bottom. I awoke several times,
and finding myself wet, and cold, and stiff, closed my eyes again that I
might forget it.
In the meantime my Mother waited about half an hour, expecting my return
when the "sulks" had evaporated. I not returning, she sent into the
churchyard, and round the town. Not found! Several men and all the boys
were sent out to ramble about and seek me. In vain! My Mother was almost
distracted; and at ten o'clock at night I was 'cried' by the crier
in Ottery, and in two villages near it, with a reward offered for me. No
one went to bed;--indeed I believe half the town were up all the night.
To return to myself. About five in the morning, or a little after, I was
broad awake, and attempted to get up, and walk; but I could not move. I
saw the shepherds and workmen at a distance, and cried, but so faintly,
that it was impossible to hear me thirty yards off. And there I might
have lain and died;--for I was now almost given over, the ponds and even
the river, near which I was lying, having been dragged. But
providentially Sir Stafford Northcote, who had been out all night,
resolved to make one other trial, and came so near that he heard me
crying. He carried me in his arms for nearly a quarter of a mile, when
we met my father and Sir Stafford Northcote's servants. I remember, and
never shall forget, my Father's face as he looked upon me while I lay in
the servant's arms--so calm, and the tears stealing down his face; for I
was the child of his old age. My Mother, as you, may suppose, was
outrageous with joy. Meantime in rushed a young lady, crying out--"I
hope you'll whip him, Mrs. Coleridge." This woman still lives at Ottery;
and neither philosophy nor religion has been able to conquer the
antipathy which I feel towards her, whenever I see her. I was put to
bed, and recovered in a day or so. But I was certainly injured; for I
was weakly and subject to ague for many years after.
My Father--who had so little parental ambition in him, that, but for my
Mother's pride and spirit, he would certainly have brought up his other
sons to trades--had nevertheless resolved that I should be a parson. I
read every book that came in my way without distinction; and my Father
was fond of me, and used to take me on his knee, and hold long
conversations with me. I remember, when eight years old, walking with
him one winter evening from a farmer's house, a mile from Ottery; and he
then told me the names of the stars, and how Jupiter was a thousand
times larger than our world, and that the other twinkling stars were
suns that had worlds rolling round them; and when I came home, he showed
me how they rolled round. I heard him with a profound delight and
admiration, but without the least mixture of wonder or incredulity. For
from my early reading of fairy tales and about genii, and the like, my
mind had been habituated "to the Vast"; and I never regarded "my senses"
in any way as the "criteria" of my belief. I regulated all my creeds by
my conceptions, not by my sight, even at that age. Ought children to be
permitted to read romances, and stories of giants, magicians, and genii?
I know all that has been said against it; but I have formed my faith in
the affirmative. I know no other way of giving the mind a love of the
Great and the Whole. Those who have been led to the same truths step by
step, through the constant testimony of their senses, seem to me to want
a sense which I possess. They contemplate nothing but parts, and all
parts are necessarily little, and the universe to them is but a mass of
little things. It is true, the mind may become credulous and prone to
superstition by the former method;--but are not the experimentalists
credulous even to madness in believing any absurdity, rather than
believe the grandest truths, if they have not the testimony of their own
senses in their favour? I have known some who have been rationally
educated, as it is styled. They were marked by a microscopic acuteness;
but when they looked at great things, all became a blank, and they saw
nothing, and denied that anything could be seen, and uniformly put the
negative of a power for the possession of a power, and called the want
of imagination, judgment, and the never being moved to rapture,
philosophy.
Towards the latter end of September 1781, my Father went to Plymouth
with my brother Francis, who was to go out as midshipman under Admiral
Graves, who was a friend of my Father's. He settled Frank as he wished,
and returned on the 4th of October, 1781. He arrived at Exeter about six
o'clock, and was pressed to take a bed there by the friendly family of
the Harts; but he refused; and to avoid their entreaties he told them
that he had never been superstitious, but that the night before he had
had a dream, which had made a deep impression on him. He dreamed that
Death had appeared to him, as he is commonly painted, and had touched
him with his dart. Well, he returned home; and all his family, I
excepted, were up. He told my Mother his dream; but he was in high
health and good spirits; and there was a bowl of punch made, and my
Father gave a long and particular account of his travel, and that he had
placed Frank under a religious Captain, and so forth. At length he went
to bed, very well and in high spirits. A short time after he had lain
down, he complained of a pain in his bowels, to which he was subject,
from wind. My Mother got him some peppermint water, which he took, and
after a pause, he said, "I am much better now, my dear!"--and lay down
again. In a minute my Mother heard a noise in his throat, and spoke to
him, but he did not answer; and she spoke repeatedly in vain. Her shriek
awaked me, and I said--"Papa is dead!" I did not know my Father's
return; but I knew that he was expected. How I came to think of his
death, I cannot tell; but so it was. Dead he was. Some said it was gout
in the heart;--probably it was a fit of apoplexy. He was an Israelite
without guile, simple, generous, and, taking some Scripture texts in
their literal sense, he was conscientiously indifferent to the good and
the evil of this world. God love you and
S.T. COLERIDGE.
He was buried at Ottery on the 10th of October 1781. "O! that I might so
pass away," said Coleridge, thirty years afterwards, "if, like him, I
were an Israelite without guile! The image of my Father, very reverend,
kind, learned, simple-hearted Father is a religion to me."
At his Father's death Coleridge was nearly nine years old. He continued
with his Mother at Ottery till the spring of 1782, when he was sent to
London to wait the appointed time for admission into Christ's Hospital,
to which a presentation had been procured from Mr. John Way through the
influence of his father's old pupil Sir Francis Buller. Ten weeks he
lived in London with an Uncle, and was entered in the books on the 8th
of July 1782.
LETTER 5. TO MR. POOLE
From October 1781 to October 1782. After the death of my Father, we, of
course, changed houses, and I remained with my Mother till the spring of
1782, and was a day scholar to Parson Warren, my Father's successor. He
was not very deep, I believe; and I used to delight my poor Mother by
relating little instances of his deficiency in grammar knowledge--every
detraction from his merits seeming an oblation to the memory of my
Father, especially as Warren did certainly "pulpitize" much better.
Somewhere I think about April 1782, Judge Buller, who had been educated
by my Father, sent for me, having procured a Christ's Hospital
presentation. I accordingly went to London, and was received and
entertained by my Mother's brother, Mr. Bowdon. He was generous as the
air, and a man of very considerable talents, but he was fond, as others
have been, of his bottle. He received me with great affection, and I
staid ten weeks at his house, during which I went occasionally to Judge
Buller's. My Uncle was very proud of me, and used to carry me from
coffee-house to coffee-house, and tavern to tavern, where I drank, and
talked, and disputed as if I had been a man. Nothing was more common
than for a large party to exclaim in my hearing, that I was a prodigy,
and so forth; so that while I remained at my Uncle's, I was most
completely spoilt and pampered, both mind and body.
At length the time came, and I donned the blue coat and yellow
stockings, and was sent down to Hertford, a town twenty miles from
London, where there are about three hundred of the younger Blue-coat
boys. At Hertford I was very happy on the whole, for I had plenty to eat
and drink, and we had pudding and vegetables almost every day. I
remained there six weeks, and then was drafted up to the great school in
London, where I arrived in September, 1782, and was placed in the second
ward, then called Jefferies' Ward, and in the Under Grammar School.
There are twelve wards, or dormitories, of unequal sizes, beside the
sick ward, in the great school; and they contained altogether seven
hundred boys, of whom I think nearly one-third were the sons of
clergymen. There are five schools,--mathematical, grammar, drawing,
reading, and writing--all very large buildings. When a boy is admitted,
if he reads very badly, he is either sent to Hertford, or to the reading
school. Boys are admissible from seven to twelve years of age. If he
learns to read tolerably well before nine, he is drafted into the Lower
Grammar School, if not, into the Writing School, as having given proof
of unfitness for classical studies. If, before he is eleven, he climbs
up to the first form of the Lower Grammar School, he is drafted into the
Head Grammar School. If not, at eleven years of age, he is sent into the
Writing School, where he continues till fourteen or fifteen, and is then
either apprenticed or articled as a clerk, or whatever else his turn of
mind or of fortune shall have provided for him. Two or three times a
year the Mathematical Master beats up for recruits for the King's boys,
as they are called; and all who like the navy are drafted into the
Mathematical and Drawing Schools, where they continue till sixteen or
seventeen years of age, and go out as midshipmen, and schoolmasters in
the Navy. The boys who are drafted into the Head Grammar School, remain
there till thirteen; and then, if not chosen for the University, go into
the Writing School.
Each dormitory has a nurse or matron, and there is a head matron to
superintend all these nurses. The boys were, when I was admitted, under
excessive subordination to each other according to rank in school; and
every ward was governed by four Monitors,--appointed by the Steward, who
was the supreme governor out of school--our temporal lord,--and by four
Markers, who wore silver medals, and were appointed by the Head Grammar
Master, who was our supreme spiritual lord. The same boys were commonly
both Monitors and Markers. We read in classes on Sundays to our Markers,
and were catechised by them, and under their sole authority during
prayers, etc. All other authority was in the Monitors; but, as I said,
the same boys were ordinarily both the one and the other. Our diet was
very scanty. Every morning a bit of dry bread and some bad small beer.
Every evening a larger piece of bread, and cheese or butter, whichever
we liked. For dinner,--on Sunday, boiled beef and broth; Monday, bread
and butter, and milk and water; Tuesday, roast mutton; Wednesday, bread
and butter, and rice milk; Thursday, boiled beef and broth; Friday,
boiled mutton and broth; Saturday, bread and butter, and pease-porridge.
Our food was portioned; and, excepting on Wednesdays, I never had a
belly full. Our appetites were damped, never satisfied; and we had no
vegetables. [1]
[Footnote 1: The above five letters are I-V of Mr. E. H. Coleridge's
"Letters of S. T. C". Letter VI is dated 1785; Letter VII of "Letters"
is dated "before 1790."]
S. T. COLERIDGE.
"O! what a change!" he writes in another note; "depressed, moping,
friendless, poor orphan, half starved; at that time the portion of food
to the Blue-coats was cruelly insufficient for those who had no friends
to supply them." And he afterwards says:--"When I was first plucked up
and transplanted from my birth-place and family, at the death of my dear
Father, whose revered image has ever survived in my mind to make me know
what the emotions and affections of a son are, and how ill a father's
place is likely to be supplied by any other relation, Providence, (it
has often occurred to me,) gave me the first intimation that it was my
lot, and that it was best for me, to make or find my way of life a
detached individual, a "terrae filius", who was to ask love or service
of no one on any more specific relation than that of being a man, and as
such to take my chance for the free charities of humanity."
Coleridge continued eight years at Christ's Hospital. It was a very
curious and important part of his life, giving him Bowyer for his
teacher, and Lamb for his friend. [1]
[Footnote 1: A few particulars of this "most remarkable and amiable
man," the well-known author of "Essays of Elia, Rosamund Gray, Poems",
and other works, will interest most readers of the "Biographia".
He was born on the 18th of February, 1775, in the Inner Temple; died
27th December, 1834, about five months after his friend Coleridge, who
continued in habits of intimacy with him from their first acquaintance
till his death in July of the same year. In "one of the most exquisite
of all the Essays of Elia," "The Old Benchers of the Middle Temple"
("Works", vol. ii, p. 188), Lamb has given the characters of his father,
and of his father's master, Samuel Salt. The few touches descriptive of
this gentleman's "unrelenting bachelorhood"--which appears in the sequel
to have been a persistent mourner-hood--and the forty years' hopeless
passion of mild Susan P.--which very permanence redeems and almost
dignifies, is in the author's sweetest vein of mingled humour and
pathos, wherein the latter, as the stronger ingredient, predominates.
Mr. Lamb never married, for, as is recorded in the Memoir, "on the death
of his parents, he felt himself called upon by duty to repay to his
sister [a] the solicitude with which she had watched over his infancy. To
her, from the age of twenty-one he devoted his existence, seeking
thenceforth no connection which could interfere with her supremacy in
his affections, or impair his ability to sustain and to comfort her."
[[Sub-footnote a: "A word Timidly uttered, for she "lives", the meek,
The self-restraining, the ever kind."
From Mr. Wordsworth's memorial poem to her brother. P. W. V. P. 333.]]
Mr. Coleridge speaks of Miss Lamb, to whom he continued greatly
attached, in these verses, addressed to her brother:
"Cheerily, dear Charles!
Thou thy best friend shall cherish many a year;
Such warm presages feel I of high hope!
For not uninterested the dear maid
I've viewed--her soul affectionate yet wise,
Her polished wit as mild as lambent glories
That play around a sainted infant's head."
(See the single volume of Coleridge's Poems, p. 28.)
Mr. Lamb has himself described his dear and only sister, whose proper
name is Mary Anne, under the title of "Cousin Bridget," in the Essay
called "Mackery End", a continuation of that entitled "My Relations", in
which he has drawn the portrait of his elder brother. "Bridget Elia," so
he commences the former, "has been my housekeeper for many a long year.
I have obligations to Bridget, extending beyond the period of memory. We
house together, old bachelor and maid, in a sort of double singleness;
with such tolerable comfort upon the whole, that I, for one, find in
myself no sort of disposition to go out upon the mountains, with the
rash king's offspring, to bewail my celibacy."--("Works", vol. ii, p.
171.) He describes her intellectual tastes in this essay, but does not
refer to her literary abilities. She wrote "Mrs. Leicester's School",
which Mr. C. used warmly to praise for delicacy of taste and tenderness
of feeling.
Miss Lamb still survives, in the words of Mr. Talfourd, "to mourn the
severance of a life-long association, as free from every alloy of
selfishness, as remarkable for moral beauty, as this world ever
witnessed in brother and sister. "I have felt desirous to place in
relief, as far as might be, such an interesting union--to show how blest
a fraternal marriage may be, and what sufficient helpmates a brother and
sister have been to each other. Marriages of this kind would perhaps be
more frequent but for the want of some pledge or solid warranty of
continuance equivalent to that which rivets wedlock between husband and
wife. Without the vow and the bond, formal or virtual, no society, from
the least to the greatest, will hold together. Many persons are so
constituted that they cannot feel rest or satisfaction of spirit without
a single supreme object of tender affection, in whose heart they are
conscious of holding a like supremacy,--who has common hopes, loves, and
interests with themselves. Without this the breezes do not refresh nor
the sunbeams gladden them. A "share" in ever so many kind hearts does
not suffice to their happiness; they must have the whole of one, as no
one else has any part of it, whatever love of another kind that heart
may still reserve for others. There is no reason why a brother and
sister might not be to each other this second-self--this dearer
half--though such an attachment is beyond mere fraternal love, and must
have something in it "of choice and election," superadded to the natural
tie: but it is seldom found to exist, because the durable cement is
wanting--the sense of security and permanence, without which the body of
affection cannot be consolidated, nor the heart commit itself to its
whole capacity of emotion. I believe that many a brother and sister
spend their days in uncongenial wedlock, or in a restless faintly
expectant-singlehood, who might form a "comfortable couple" could they
but make up their minds early to take each other for better for worse.
Two other poems of Mr. C. besides the one in which his sister is
mentioned, are addressed to Mr. Lamb--"This Lime-tree-bower my Prison",
and the lines "To a Friend, who had declared his intention of writing no
more Poetry".--("Poetical Works", i, p. 201 and p. 205.) In a letter to
the author ("Ainger", i, p. 121), Lamb inveighs against the soft epithet
applied to him in the first of these. He hoped his ""virtues" had done
"sucking""--and declared such praise fit only to be a "cordial to some
greensick sonnetteer."
"Yes! they wander on
In gladness all; but thou, methinks, most glad,
My "gentle-hearted" Charles! for thou hast pined
And hungered after nature, many a year,
In the great city pent, winning thy way
With sad yet patient soul through evil and pain
And strange calamity."
In the next poem he is called "wild-eyed boy." The two epithets,
"wild-eyed" and "gentle-hearted," will recall Charles Lamb to the minds
of all who knew him personally. Mr. Talfourd seems to think that the
special delight in the country, ascribed to him by my father, was a
distinction scarcely merited. I rather imagine that his indifference to
it was a sort of "mock apparel" in which it was his humour at times to
invest himself. I have been told that, when visiting the Lakes, he took
as much delight in the natural beauties of the region as might be
expected from a man of his taste and sensibility. [b]
[[Sub-footnote b:
"Thou wert a scorner of the field, my Friend,
But more in show than truth."
From Mr. W.'s poem "To a good man of most dear memory", quoted in p.
323.]]
Mr. Coleridge's expression, recorded in the "Table Talk", that he
"looked on the degraded men and things around him like moonshine on a
dunghill, that shines and takes no pollution," partly alludes to that
tolerance of moral evil, both in men and books, which was so much
remarked in Charles Lamb, and was, in so good a man, really remarkable.
His toleration of it in books is conspicuous in the view he takes of the
writings of Congreve and Wycherley, in his essay on the artificial
comedy of the last century ("Works", vol. ii, p. 322), and in many of
his other literary criticisms. His toleration of it in men--at least his
faculty of merging some kinds and degrees of it in concomitant good, or
even beholding certain errors rather as objects of interest, or of a
meditative pity and tenderness, than of pure aversion and condemnation,
Mr. Talfourd has feelingly described in his "Memoir" (vol. ii, p.
326-9), "Not only to opposite opinions," he says, "and devious habits of
thought was Lamb indulgent; he discovered the soul of goodness in things
evil so vividly, that the surrounding evil disappeared from his mental
vision." This characteristic of his mind is not to be identified with
the idolizing propensity common to many ardent and imaginative spirits.
He "not only loved his friends in spite of their errors," as Mr.
Talfourd observes, "but loved them, "errors and all";" which implies
that he was not unconscious of their existence. He saw the failings as
plainly as any one else, nay, fixed his gentle but discerning eye upon
them; whereas the idolizers behold certain objects in a bedarkening
blaze of light, or rather of light-confounding brightness, the
multiplied and heightened reflection of whatever is best in them, to the
obscurity or transmutation of all their defects. Whence it necessarily
follows that the world presents itself to their eyes divided, like a
chess-board, into black and white compartments--a moral and intellectual
chequer-work; not that they love to make darkness, but that they
luxuriate too eagerly in light: and their "over-muchness" toward some
men involves an over-littleness towards others, whom they involuntarily
contrast, in all their poor and peccant reality, with gorgeous
idealisms. The larger half of mankind is exiled for them into a
hemisphere of shadow, as dim, cold, and negative as the unlit portion of
the crescent moon. Lamb's general tendency, though he too could warmly
admire, was in a different direction; he was ever introducing streaks
and gleams of light into darkness, rather than drowning certain objects
in floods of it; and this, I think, proceeded in him from indulgence
toward human nature rather than from indifference to evil. To his friend
the disposition to exalt and glorify co-existed, in a very remarkable
manner, with a power of severe analysis of character and poignant
exhibition of it,--a power which few possess without exercising it some
time or other to their own sorrow and injury. The consequence to Mr.
Coleridge was that he sometimes seemed untrue to himself, when he had
but brought forward, one after another, perfectly real and sincere moods
of his mind.
In his fine poem commemorating the deaths of several poets, Mr.
Wordsworth thus joins my father's name with that of his almost life-long
friend:
"Nor has the rolling year twice measured,
From sign to sign, its steadfast course,
Since every mortal power of Coleridge
Was frozen at its marvellous source;
The rapt One of the godlike forehead,
The heaven-eyed creature sleeps in earth;
And Lamb, the frolic and the gentle,
Has vanished from his lonely hearth."
S. C. Footnote 1 ends: main text resumes:]
Numerous retrospective notices by himself and others exist of this
period; but none of his really boyish letters have been preserved. The
exquisite Essay intitled, "Christ's Hospital five and thirty years
ago", by Lamb, is principally founded on that delightful writer's
recollections of the boy Coleridge, and that boy's own subsequent
descriptions of his school days. Coleridge is Lamb's "poor friendless
boy."--"My parents and those who should care for me, were far away.
Those few acquaintances of theirs, which they could reckon upon being
kind to me in the great city, after a little forced notice, which they
had the grace to take of me on my first arrival in town, soon grew tired
of my holiday visits. They seemed to them to recur too often, though I
thought them few enough; and, one after another, they all failed me, and
I felt myself alone among six hundred playmates. O the cruelty of
separating a poor lad from his early homestead! The yearnings which I
used to have toward it in those unfledged years! How, in my dreams would
my native town, far in the west, come back with its church, its trees,
and faces! How I would wake weeping, and in the anguish of my heart
exclaim upon sweet "Calne in Wiltshire!""
Yet it must not be supposed that Coleridge was an unhappy boy. He was
naturally of a joyous temperament, and in one amusement, swimming, he
excelled and took singular delight. Indeed he believed, and probably
with truth, that his health was seriously injured by his excess in
bathing, coupled with such tricks as swimming across the New River in
his clothes, and drying them on his back, and the like. But reading was
a perpetual feast to him. "From eight to fourteen," he writes, "I was a
playless day-dreamer, a "helluo librorum", my appetite for which was
indulged by a singular incident: a stranger, who was struck by my
conversation, made me free of a circulating library in King Street,
Cheapside."--"Here," he proceeds, "I read through the catalogue, folios
and all, whether I understood them, or did not understand them, running
all risks in skulking out to get the two volumes which I was entitled to
have daily. Conceive what I must have been at fourteen; I was in a
continual low fever. My whole being was, with eyes closed to every
object of present sense, to crumple myself up in a sunny comer, and
read, read, read,--fancy myself on Robinson Crusoe's island, finding a
mountain of plum-cake, and eating a room for myself, and then eating it
into the shapes of tables and chairs--hunger and fancy!"--"My talents
and superiority," he continues, "made me for ever at the head in my
routine of study, though utterly without the desire to be so; without a
spark of ambition; and as to emulation, it had no meaning for me; but
the difference between me and my form-fellows, in our lessons and
exercises, bore no proportion to the measureless difference between me
and them in the wide, wild, wilderness of useless, unarranged book
knowledge and book thoughts. Thank Heaven! it was not the age for
getting up prodigies; but at twelve or fourteen I should have made as
pretty a juvenile prodigy as was ever emasculated and ruined by fond and
idle wonderment. Thank Heaven! I was flogged instead of being flattered.
However, as I climbed up the school, my lot was somewhat alleviated."
CHAPTER II
CAMBRIDGE AND PANTISOCRACY
(1791 to 1795)
Come back into memory, like as thou wert in the day-spring of thy
fancies, with Hope like a fiery column before thee--the dark pillar
not yet turned--Samuel Taylor Coleridge--Logician, Metaphysician,
Bard!--
S. T. Coleridge entered at Jesus College, Cambridge, the 5th of
February, 1791. [He did not go into residence till October 1791.]
The poems he wrote about this time and during his first vacation at
College are rather conventional, and give few indications of his future
deft handling of verse. His "Mathematical Problem" sent to his brother
George, is a piece of droll nonsense, but the letter accompanying it is
much better than the verse. It reads as follows:
LETTER 6. TO GEORGE COLERIDGE, WITH A POEM ENTITLED "A MATHEMATICAL
PROBLEM"
Dear Brother,
I have often been surprised that Mathematics, the quintessence of Truth,
should have found admirers so few and so languid. Frequent consideration
and minute scrutiny have at length unravelled the cause; viz. that
though Reason is feasted, Imagination is starved; whilst Reason is
luxuriating in its proper Paradise, Imagination is wearily travelling on
a dreary desert. To assist Reason by the stimulus of Imagination is the
design of the following production. In the execution of it much may be
objectionable. The verse (particularly in the introduction of the ode)
may be accused of unwarrantable liberties, but they are liberties
equally homogeneal with the exactness of Mathematical disquisition, and
the boldness of Pindaric daring. I have three strong champions to defend
me against the attacks of Criticism: the Novelty, the Difficulty, and
the Utility of the work. I may justly plume myself that I first have
drawn the nymph Mathesis from the visionary caves of abstracted idea,
and caused her to unite with Harmony. The first-born of this Union I now
present to you; with interested motives indeed--as I expect to receive
in return the more valuable offspring of your Muse.
Thine ever S. T. C.
Christ's Hospital, March 31, 1791. [1]
[Footnote 1: Letters VIII-XXXI follow No. 6 of our collection.]
The piece of doggerel, to which this epistle is a preface, will be found
in vol. ii, p. 386, of the Aldine Edition of Coleridge's Poems.
Coleridge's brother George also wrote verses, and "Mathematical Problem"
is just one of the cantrips in verse that passed between the brothers.]
He gained Sir William Browne's gold medal for the Greek Ode in the
summer of that year. It was on the Slave Trade. The poetic force and
originality of this Ode were, as he said himself, much beyond the
language in which they were conveyed. In the winter of 1792-3 he stood
for the University (Craven) Scholarship with Dr. Keate, the late
head-master of Eton, Mr. Bethell (of Yorkshire) and Bishop Butler, who
was the successful candidate. In 1793 he wrote without success for the
Greek Ode on Astronomy, the prize for which was gained by Dr. Keate. The
original is not known to exist, but the reader may see what is probably
a very free version of it by Mr. Southey in his Minor Poems. ("Poetical
Works", vol. ii, p. 170.) "Coleridge"--says a schoolfellow [1] of his
who followed him to Cambridge in 1792, "was very studious, but his
reading was desultory and capricious. He took little exercise merely for
the sake of exercise: but he was ready at any time to unbend his mind in
conversation; and, for the sake of this, his room, (the ground-floor
room on the right hand of the staircase facing the great gate,) was a
constant rendezvous of conversation-loving friends. I will not call them
loungers, for they did not call to kill time, but to enjoy it. What
evenings have I spent in those rooms! What little suppers, or "sizings",
as they were called, have I enjoyed; when Aeschylus, and Plato, and
Thucydides were pushed aside, with a pile of lexicons and the like, to
discuss the pamphlets of the day. Ever and anon a pamphlet issued from
the pen of Burke. There was no need of having the book before
us;--Coleridge had read it in the morning, and in the evening he would
repeat whole pages "verbatim"."--"College Reminiscences, Gentleman's
Mag"., Dec. 1834.
[Footnote 1: C. V. Le Grice.]
In May and June, 1793, Frend's trial took place in the Vice-
Chancellor's Court, and in the Court of Delegates, at Cambridge. Frend
was a Fellow of Jesus, and a slight acquaintance had existed between
him and Coleridge, who however soon became his partizan. Mr. C. used
to relate a remarkable incident, which is thus preserved by Mr.
Gillman:--"The trial was observed by Coleridge to be going against
Frend, when some observation or speech was made in his favour;--a
dying hope thrown out, as it appeared, to Coleridge, who in the midst
of the Senate House, whilst sitting on one of the benches, extended
his hands and clapped them. The Proctor in a loud voice demanded who
had committed this indecorum. Silence ensued. The Proctor, in an
elevated tone, said to a young man sitting near Coleridge, "Twas you,
Sir!' The reply was as prompt as the accusation; for, immediately
holding out the stump of his right arm, it appeared that he had lost
his hand;--'I would, Sir,' said he, 'that I had the power!' That no
innocent person should incur blame, Coleridge went directly afterwards
to the Proctor, who told him that he saw him clap his hands, but fixed
on this person, who he knew had not the power. 'You have had,' said
he, 'a narrow escape.'"--"Life of S. T. C"., i, p. 55.
Coleridge passed the summer of 1793 at Ottery, and whilst there wrote
his "Songs of the Pixies" ("Poetical Works", i, p. 13), and some other
little pieces. He returned to Cambridge in October, but, in the
following month, in a moment of despondency and vexation of spirit,
occasioned principally by some debts not amounting to £100 he suddenly
left his college and went to London. In a few days he was reduced to
want, and observing a recruiting advertisement he resolved to get bread
and overcome a prejudice at the same time by becoming a soldier. He
accordingly applied to the sergeant, and after some delay was marched
down to Reading, where he regularly enlisted as a private in the 15th
Light Dragoons on the 3d of December, 1793. He kept his initials under
the names of Silas Tomkyn Comberbacke. "I sometimes," he writes in a
letter, "compare my own life with that of Steele, (yet O! how
unlike!)--led to this from having myself also for a brief time borne
arms, and written 'private' after my name, or rather another name; for,
being at a loss when suddenly asked my name, I answered "Cumberback",
and verily my habits were so little equestrian, that my horse, I doubt
not, was of that opinion." Coleridge continued four months a light
dragoon, during which time he saw and suffered much. He rode his horse
ill, and groomed him worse; but he made amends by nursing the sick, and
writing letters for the sound. His education was detected by one of his
officers, Captain Nathaniel Ogle, who observed the words,--"Eheu! quam
infortunii miserrimum est fuisse felicem!"--freshly written in pencil on
the stable-wall or door, and ascertained that Comberbacke was the
writer. But the termination of his military career was brought about by
a chance recognition in the street: his family was apprized of his
situation, and after some difficulty he was duly discharged on the both
of April, 1794, at Hounslow.
Coleridge now returned to Cambridge, and remained there till the
commencement of the summer vacation. But the adventures of the preceding
six months had broken the continuity of his academic life, and given
birth to new views of future exertion. His acquaintance with Frend had
materially contributed to his adoption of the system called
Unitarianism, which he now openly professed, and this alone made it
imperative on his conscience to decline availing himself of any
advantages dependent on his entering into holy orders, or subscribing
the Articles of the English Church. He lived, nevertheless, to see and
renounce his error, and to leave on record his deep and solemn faith in
the catholic doctrine of Trinal Unity, and the Redemption of man through
the sacrifice of Christ, both God and Man. Indeed his Unitarianism, such
as it was, was not of the ordinary quality. "I can truly say"--were
Coleridge's words in after life--"that I never falsified the Scripture.
I always told the Unitarians that their interpretations of the Scripture
were intolerable upon any principles of sound criticism; and that if
they were to offer to construe the will of a neighbour as they did that
of their Maker, they would be scouted out of society. I said then
plainly and openly that it was clear enough that John and Paul were not
Unitarians. But at that time I had a strong sense of the repugnancy of
the doctrine of vicarious atonement to the moral being, and I thought
nothing could counterbalance that. 'What care I,' I said, 'for the
Platonisms of John, or the Rabbinisms of Paul?--My conscience revolts!'
That was the ground of my Unitarianism."--"Table Talk", Bohn Library
edition, p. 290.
At the commencement of the Long Vacation, in June, 1794, Coleridge went
to Oxford on a visit to an old school-fellow, intending probably to
proceed afterwards to his mother at Ottery. But an accidental
introduction to Robert Southey, then an under-graduate at Balliol
College, first delayed, and ultimately prevented, the completion of this
design, and became, in its consequences, the hinge on which a large part
of Coleridge's after life was destined to turn.
The first letter to Southey was written from Gloucester on 6th July
1794, and it shows the degree of intimacy on which the two
undergraduates stood at this time. They had met only about a month
before, for Southey writes on 12th June to his friend Grosvenor Bedford:
"Allen is with us daily and his friend from Cambridge, Coleridge, whose
poems you will oblige me by subscribing to, either at Hookam's or
Edward's. He is of most uncommon merit, of the strongest genius, the
clearest judgment, the best heart. My friend he already is, and must
hereafter be yours," ("Life and Correspondence of Southey", i, 210). The
poems mentioned were a projected volume of "Imitations from Modern Latin
Poets", of which an ode after Casimir is the only relic. Coleridge's
first letter to Southey reads as follows:
LETTER 7. TO SOUTHEY
6 July 1794.
You are averse to gratitudinarian flourishes, else would I talk about
hospitality, attention, &c. &c.; however, as I must not thank you, I
will thank my stars. Verily, Southey, I like not Oxford, nor the
inhabitants of it. I would say thou art a nightingale among owls; but
thou art so songless and heavy towards night that I will rather liken
thee to the matin lark, thy "nest" is in a blighted cornfield, where the
sleepy poppy nods its red-cowled head, and the weak-eyed mole plies his
dark work; but thy soaring is even unto heaven. Or let me add (for my
appetite for similes is truly canine at this moment), that as the
Italian nobles their new-fashioned doors, so thou dost make the
adamantine gate of Democracy turn on its golden hinges to most sweet
music. [1]
[Footnote 1: Letter XXXII gives the full text of No. 7. Letter XXXIII is dated
15 July, 1794.]
For the next fifteen months Coleridge and Southey were close companions,
Coleridge being the elder by two years.
Upon the present occasion, however, he left Oxford with an acquaintance,
Mr. Hucks, for a pedestrian tour in Wales. [2] Two other friends,
Brookes and Berdmore, joined them in the course of their ramble; and at
Caernarvon Mr. Coleridge wrote the following letter to Mr. Martin, of
Jesus College.
[Footnote 2: It is to this tour that he refers in the "Table Talk", p.
88.--"I took the thought of "grinning for joy" in that poem ("The
Ancient Mariner") from my companion (Berdmore's) remark to me, when we
had climbed to the top of Penmaenmaur, and were nearly dead with thirst.
We could not speak from the constriction, till we found a little puddle
under a stone. He said to me,--'You grinned like an idiot.' He had done
the same."]
LETTER 8. To HENRY MARTIN [1]
July 22d, 1794.
Dear Martin,
From Oxford to Gloucester,+ to Ross,+ to Hereford, to Leominster, to
Bishop's Castle,+ to Montgomery, to Welshpool, Llanvelling,+ Llangunnog,
Bala,+ Druid House,+ Llangollin, Wrexham,++ Ruthin, Denbigh,+ St. Asaph,
Holywell,+ Rudland, Abergeley,+ Aberconway,+ Abber,+ over a ferry to
Beaumaris+ (Anglesea), Amlock,+ Copper Mines, Gwindu, Moeldon, over a
ferry to Caernarvon, have I journeyed, now philosophizing with Hucks, 1
now melancholizing by myself, or else indulging those daydreams of
fancy, that make realities more gloomy. To whatever place I have affixed
the mark +, there we slept. The first part of our tour was intensely
hot--the roads, white and dazzling, seemed to undulate with heat--and
the country, bare and unhedged, presenting nothing but stone fences,
dreary to the eye and scorching to the touch. At Ross we took up our
quarters at the King's Arms, once the house of Mr. Kyrle, the celebrated
Man of Ross. I gave the window-shutter a few verses, Which I shall add
to the end of the letter. The walk from Llangunnog to Bala over the
mountains was most wild and romantic; there are immense and rugged
clefts in the mountains, which in winter must form cataracts most
tremendous; now there is just enough sun-glittering water dashed down
over them to soothe, not disturb the ear. I climbed up a precipice on
which was a large thorn-tree, and slept by the side of one of them near
two hours.
At Bala I was apprehensive that I had caught the itch from a Welsh
democrat, who was charmed with my sentiments; he bruised my hand with a
grasp of ardour, and I trembled lest some discontented citizens of the
"animalcular" republic might have emigrated. Shortly after, in came a
clergyman well dressed, and with him four other gentlemen. I was asked
for a public character; I gave Dr. Priestley. The clergyman whispered
his neighbour, who it seems is the apothecary of the
parish--"Republicans!" Accordingly when the doctor, as they call
apothecaries, was to have given a name, "I gives a sentiment, gemmen!
may all republicans be "gull"oteened!" Up starts the democrat; "May all
fools be gulloteened, and then you will be the first!" Fool, rogue,
traitor, liar, &c. flew in each other's faces in hailstorms of
vociferation. This is nothing in Wales--they make if necessary
vent-holes for the sulphureous fumes of their temper! I endeavoured to
calm the tempest by observing that however different our political
opinions might be, the appearance of a clergyman assured me that we were
all Christians, though I found it rather difficult to reconcile the last
sentiment with the spirit of Christianity! "Pho!" quoth the clergyman;
"Christianity! Why we a'nt at "church" now, are we? The gentleman's
sentiment was a very good one, because it shows him to be sincere in his
principles." Welsh politics, however, could not prevail over Welsh
hospitality; they all shook hands with me (except the parson), and said
I was an open-speaking, honest-hearted fellow, though I was a bit of a
democrat.
On our road from Bala to Druid House, we met Brookes and Berdmore. Our
rival pedestrians, a "Gemini" of Powells, were vigorously marching
onward, in a postchaise! Berdmore had been ill. We were not a little
glad to see each other. Llangollen is a village most romantically
situated; but the weather was so intensely hot that we saw only what was
to be admired--we could not admire.
At Wrexham the tower is most magnificent; and in the church is a white
marble monument of Lady Middleton, superior, "mea quidem sententia", to
anything in Westminster Abbey. It had entirely escaped my memory, that
Wrexham was the residence of a Miss E. Evans, a young lady with whom in
happier days I had been in habits of fraternal correspondence; she lives
with her grandmother. As I was standing at the window of the inn, she
passed by, and with her, to my utter astonishment, her sister, Mary
Evans, "quam afflictim et perdite amabam",--yea, even to anguish. They
both started, and gave a short cry, almost a faint shriek; I sickened,
and well nigh fainted, but instantly retired. Had I appeared to
recognise her, my fortitude would not have supported me:
Vivit, sed mihi non vivit--nova forte marita.
Ah, dolor! alterius nunc a cervice pependit.
Vos, malefida valete accensae insomnia mentis,
Littora amata valete; vale ah! formosa Maria.
Hucks informed me that the two sisters walked by the window four or five
times, as if anxiously. Doubtless they think themselves deceived by some
face strikingly like me. God bless her! Her image is in the sanctuary of
my bosom, and never can it be torn from thence, but by the strings that
grapple my heart to life! This circumstance made me quite ill. I had
been wandering among the wild-wood scenery and terrible graces of the
Welsh mountains to wear away, not to revive, the images of the
past;--but love is a local anguish; I am fifty miles distant, and am not
half so miserable.
At Denbigh is the finest ruined castle in the kingdom; it surpassed
everything I could have conceived. I wandered there two hours in a still
evening, feeding upon melancholy. Two well dressed young men were
roaming there. "I will play my flute here," said the first; "it will
have a romantic effect." "Bless thee, man of genius and sensibility," I
silently exclaimed. He sate down amid the most awful part of the ruins;
the moon just began to make her rays pre-dominant over the lingering
daylight; I preattuned my feelings to emotion;--and the romantic youth
instantly struck up the sadly pleasing tunes of "Miss Carey"--"The
British Lion is my sign--A roaring trade I drive on", &c.
Three miles from Denbigh, on the road to St. Asaph, is a fine bridge
with one arch of great, great grandeur. Stand at a little distance, and
through it you see the woods waving on the hill-bank of the river in a
most lovely point of view.
A "beautiful" prospect is always more picturesque when seen at some
little distance through an arch. I have frequently thought of Michael
Taylor's way of viewing a landscape between his thighs. Under the arch
was the most perfect echo I ever heard. Hucks sang "Sweet Echo" with
great effect.
At Holywell I bathed in the famous St. Winifred's Well. It is an
excellent cold bath. At Rudland is a fine ruined castle. Abergeley is a
large village on the sea-coast. Walking on the sea sands I was surprised
to see a number of fine women bathing promiscuously with men and boys
perfectly naked. Doubtless the citadels of their chastity are so
impregnably strong, that they need not the ornamental bulwarks of
modesty; but, seriously speaking, where sexual distinctions are least
observed, men and women live together in the greatest purity.
Concealment sets the imagination a-working, and as it were,
"cantharadizes" our desires.
Just before I quitted Cambridge, I met a countryman with a strange
walking-stick, five feet in length. I eagerly bought it, and a most
faithful servant it has proved to me. My sudden affection for it has
mellowed into settled friendship. On the morning of our leaving
Abergeley, just before our final departure, I looked for my stick in the
place in which I had left it over night. It was gone. I alarmed the
house; no one knew any thing of it. In the flurry of anxiety I sent for
the Crier of the town, and gave him the following to cry about the town
and the beach, which he did with a gravity for which I am indebted to
his stupidity.
"Missing from the Bee Inn, Abergeley, a curious walking-stick. On one
side it displays the head of an eagle, the eyes of which represent
rising suns, and the ears Turkish crescents; on the other side is the
portrait of the owner in wood-work. Beneath the head of the eagle is a
Welsh wig, and around the neck of the stick is a Queen Elizabeth's ruff
in tin. All down it waves the line of beauty in very ugly carving. If
any gentleman (or lady) has fallen in love with the above described
stick, and secretly carried off the same, he (or she) is hereby
earnestly admonished to conquer a passion, the continuance of which must
prove fatal to his (or her) honesty. And if the said stick has slipped
into such gentleman's (or lady's) hand through inadvertence, he (or she)
is required to rectify the mistake with all convenient speed. God save
the king."
Abergeley is a fashionable Welsh watering place, and so singular a
proclamation excited no small crowd on the beach, among the rest a lame
old gentleman, in whose hands was descried my dear stick. The old
gentleman, who lodged at our inn, felt great confusion, and walked
homewards, the solemn Crier before him, and a various cavalcade behind
him. I kept the muscles of my face in tolerable subjection. He made his
lameness an apology for borrowing my stick, supposed he should have
returned before I had wanted it, &c. &c. Thus it ended, except that a
very handsome young lady put her head out of a coach-window, and begged
my permission to have the bill which I had delivered to the Crier. I
acceded to the request with a compliment, that lighted up a blush on her
cheek, and a smile on her lip.
We passed over a ferry to Aberconway. We had scarcely left the boat ere
we descried Brookes and Berdmore, with whom we have joined parties, nor
do we mean to separate. Our tour through Anglesea to Caernarvon has been
repaid by scarcely one object worth seeing. To-morrow we visit Snowdon.
Brookes, Berdmore, and myself, at the imminent hazard of our lives,
scaled the very summit of Penmaenmaur. It was a most dreadful
expedition. I will give you the account in some future letter.
I sent for Bowles's Works while at Oxford. How was I shocked! Every
omission and every alteration disgusted taste, and mangled sensibility.
Surely some Oxford toad had been squatting at the poet's ear, and
spitting into it the cold venom of dulness. It is not Bowles; he is
still the same, (the added poems will prove it) descriptive, dignified,
tender, sublime. The sonnets added are exquisite. Abba Thule has marked
beauties, and the little poem at Southampton is a diamond; in whatever
light you place it, it reflects beauty and splendour. The "Shakespeare"
is sadly unequal to the rest. Yet in whose poems, except those of
Bowles, would it not have been excellent? Direct to me, to be left at
the Post Office, Bristol, and tell me everything about yourself, how you
have spent the vacation, &c.
Believe me, with gratitude and fraternal friendship,
Your obliged S. T. COLERIDGE.
[Footnote 1: Long portions of this letter appear in a letter to Southey
of 15 September 1794. See "Letters", p. 74.]
[Footnote 2: Hucks published, in 1795, an account of the holiday
entitled "Tour in North Wales".]
On his return from this excursion Coleridge went, by appointment, to
Bristol for the purpose of meeting Southey, whose person and
conversation had excited in him the most lively admiration. This was at
the end of August or beginning of September. Southey, whose mother then
lived at Bath, came over to Bristol accordingly to receive his new
friend, who had left as deep an impression on him, and in that city
introduced Coleridge to Robert Lovell, a young Quaker, then recently
married to Mary Fricker, and residing in the Old Market. After a short
stay at Bristol, where he first saw Sarah Fricker, Mrs. Lovell's elder
sister, Coleridge accompanied Southey on his return to Bath. There he
remained for some weeks, principally engaged in making love, and in
maturing, with his friend, the plan, which he had for some time
cherished, of a social community to be established in America upon what
he termed a pantisocratical basis.
Much discussion has taken place regarding the origin of Pantisocracy,
most writers on the subject attributing the scheme to Coleridge. A
perusal of the letters of Southey, however, leads to a different
conclusion. Southey was enamoured during his stay at Oxford with Plato,
and especially with the "Republic" of the Greek philosopher; and he
frequently quotes from the work or refers to its principles in his
correspondence with Grosvenor and Horace W. Bedford between 11th
November 1793 and 12th June 1794. Before his meeting with Southey no
trace of ideal Republicanism appears in the letters of Coleridge. His
leaning notwithstanding this was already towards Republicanism, and the
friendship struck up between him and Southey was a natural consequence
of flint coming into contact with steel. The next two letters, to
Southey, indicate the fiery nature of the young Republicans.
LETTER 9. To SOUTHEY
6 Sept. 1794.
The day after my arrival I finished the first act: I transcribed it. The
next morning Franklin (of Pembroke Coll. Cam., a "ci-devant Grecian" of
our school--so we call the first boys) called on me, and persuaded me to
go with him and breakfast with Dyer, author of "The Complaints of the
Poor, A Subscription", &c. &c. I went; explained our system. He was
enraptured; pronounced it impregnable. He is intimate with Dr.
Priestley, and doubts not that the Doctor will join us. He showed me
some poetry, and I showed him part of the first act, which I happened to
have about me. He liked it hugely; it was "a nail that would drive...."
Every night I meet a most intelligent young man, who has spent the last
five years of his life in America, and is lately come from thence as an
agent to sell land. He was of our school. I had been kind to him: he
remembers it, and comes regularly every evening to "benefit by
conversation," he says. He says £2,000 will do; that he doubts not we
can contract for our passage under £400; that we shall buy the land a
great deal cheaper when we arrive at America than we could do in
England; "or why," he adds, "am I sent over here?" That twelve men may
"easily" clear 300 acres in four or five months; and that, for 600
dollars, a thousand acres may be cleared, and houses built on them. He
recommends the Susquehanna, from its excessive beauty and its security
from hostile Indians. Every possible assistance will be given us; we may
get credit for the land for ten years or more, as we settle upon. That
literary characters make "money" there: &c. &c. He never saw a "bison"
in his life, but has heard of them: they are quite backwards. The
mosquitos are not so bad as our gnats; and, after you have been there a
little while, they don't trouble you much.
LETTER 10. TO SOUTHEY
18 Sept. 1794.
Since I quitted this room what and how important events have been
evolved! America! Southey! Miss Fricker!... Pantisocracy! Oh! I shall
have such a scheme of it! My head, my heart, are all alive. I have drawn
up my arguments in battle array: they shall have the "tactician"
excellence of the mathematician, with the enthusiasm of the poet. The
head shall be the mass; the heart, the fiery spirit that fills, informs
and agitates the whole. SHAD GOES WITH US: HE IS MY BROTHER!! I am
longing to be with you: make Edith my sister. Surely, Southey, we shall
be frendotatoi meta frendous--most friendly where all are friends. She
must, therefore, be more emphatically my sister.... C----, the most
excellent, the most Pantisocratic of aristocrats, has been laughing at
me. Up I arose, terrible is reasoning. He fled from me, because "he
would not answer for his own sanity, sitting so near a madman of
genius." He told me that the strength of my imagination had intoxicated
my reason, and that the acuteness of my reason had given a directing
influ-* *ence to my imagination. Four months ago the remark would not
have been more elegant than just: now it is nothing. [1]
[Footnote 1: This letter is given in full in "Letters", No. XXXIV.]
These letters show that Pantisocracy was now the all absorbing topic.
The following letter written at this time by Coleridge to Mr. Charles
Heath, of Monmouth, is a curious evidence of his earnestness upon this
subject:
LETTER 11. To CHARLES HEATH OF MONMOUTH [1]
(----1794).
Sir,
Your brother has introduced my name to you; I shall therefore offer no
apology for this letter. A small but liberalized party have formed a
scheme of emigration on the principles of an abolition of individual
property. Of their political creed, and the arguments by which they
support and elucidate it they are preparing a few copies--not as meaning
to publish them, but for private distribution. In this work they will
have endeavoured to prove the exclusive justice of the system and its
practicability; nor will they have omitted to sketch out the code of
contracts necessary for the internal regulation of the Society; all of
which will of course be submitted to the improvements and approbation of
each component member. As soon as the work is printed, one or more
copies shall be transmitted to you. Of the characters of the individuals
who compose the party I find it embarrassing to speak; yet, vanity
apart, I may assert with truth that they have each a sufficient strength
of head to make the virtues of the heart respectable, and that they are
all highly charged with that enthusiasm which results from strong
perceptions of moral rectitude, called into life and action by ardent
feelings. With regard to pecuniary matters it is found necessary, if
twelve men with their families emigrate on this system, that £2,000
should be the aggregate of their contributions--but infer not from hence
that each man's "quota" is to be settled with the littleness of
arithmetical accuracy. No; all will strain every nerve; and then, I
trust, the surplus money of some will supply the deficiencies of others.
The "minutiae" of topographical information we are daily endeavouring to
acquire; at present our plan is, to settle at a distance, but at a
convenient distance, from Cooper's Town on the banks of the Susquehanna.
This, however, will be the object of future investigation. For the time
of emigration we have fixed on next March. In the course of the winter
those of us whose bodies, from habits of sedentary study or academic
indolence, have not acquired their full tone and strength, intend to
learn the theory and practice of agriculture and carpentry, according as
situation and circumstances make one or the other convenient.
Your fellow Citizen, S. T. COLERIDGE. [Footnote: Letter XXXV is dated 19
Sept. 1794.]
[Footnote 1: One of the Pantisocrats.]
The members of the society at that time were Coleridge himself, Southey,
Lovell, and George Burnett, a Somersetshire youth and fellow collegian
with Southey. Toward the beginning of September, Coleridge left Bath and
went, for the last time, as a student, to Cambridge, apparently with the
view of taking his degree of B.A. after the ensuing Christmas. Here he
published "The Fall of Robespierre" ("Lit. Remains", i, p.
1), of which the first act was written by himself, and the second and
third by Mr. Southey, and the particulars of the origin and authorship
of which may be found stated in an extract from a letter of Mr.
Southey's there printed. The dedication to Mr. Martin is dated at Jesus
College, 22nd of September 1794.
[The following is the Dedication:]
LETTER 12. To HENRY MARTIN, ESQ., OF JESUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.
DEDICATORY LETTER TO THE "FALL OF ROBESPIERRE," A DRAMA IN THREE ACTS BY
COLERIDGE AND SOUTHEY.
Dear Sir,
Accept as a small testimony of my grateful attachment, the following
Dramatic Poem, in which I have endeavoured to detail, in an interesting
form, the fall of a man whose great bad actions have cast a disastrous
lustre on his name. In the execution of the work, as intricacy of plot
could not have been attempted without a gross violation of recent facts,
it has been my sole aim to imitate the impassioned and highly figurative
language of the French Orators, and to develop the characters of the
chief actors on a vast stage of horrors.
Yours fraternally, S. T. COLERIDGE.
Jesus College, September 22, 1794.
[Note: Letters XXXVI-XLII follow No. 12.]
This dedicatory letter is no doubt an apology for a play destitute of
dramatic art. The declamatory speeches may be an intentional imitation
of the harangues of the Revolutionaries, but they are more likely to be
the product of the inflation of youth. The redeeming feature of the play
is the beautiful little lyric, "Domestic Peace", which is in rhythm
an imitation of Collins' "How Sleep the Brave".
The scheme of Pantisocracy was not much further forward at the close of
1794 than it had been in the summer; and Southey had been advised to try
it in Wales instead of on the banks of the Susquehanna. Coleridge writes
in December:
LETTER 13. TO SOUTHEY
--Dec. 1794.
For God's sake, my dear fellow, tell me what we are to gain by taking a
Welsh farm? Remember the principles and proposed consequences of
Pantisocracy, and reflect in what degree they are attainable by
Coleridge, Southey, Lovell, Burnett, and Co., some five men _going
partners_ together! In the next place, supposing that we have found
the preponderating utility of our aspheterising in Wales, let us by our
speedy and united inquiries discover the sum of money necessary. Whether
such a farm with so very large a house is to be procured without
launching our frail and unpiloted bark on a rough sea of anxieties? How
much money will be necessary for "furnishing" so large a house? How much
necessary for the maintenance of so large a family--eighteen people--for
a year at least?]
[Note: Letters XLIII gives the full text of this Letter 13. Letters
XLIV-L follow 13.]
In January 1795, he was to return--and then with Spring breezes to
repair to the banks of the Susquehanna! But his fate withstood;--he took
no degree, nor ever crossed the Atlantic. Michaelmas Term, 1794, was the
last he kept at Cambridge; the vacation following was passed in London
with Charles Lamb, and in the beginning of 1795 he returned with Southey
to Bristol, and there commenced man.
The whole spring and summer of this year he devoted to public Lectures
at Bristol, making in the intervals several excursions in Somersetshire,
one memorial of which remains in the "Lines composed while climbing
Brockley Combe". It was in one of these excursions that Mr. Coleridge
and Mr.Wordsworth first met at the house of Mr. Pinney. [1] The first
six of those Lectures constituted a course presenting a comparative view
of the Civil War under Charles I and the French Revolution. Three of
them, or probably the substance of four or five, were published at
Bristol in the latter end of 1795, the first two together, with the
title of "Conciones ad Populum", and the third with that of "The Plot
Discovered". The eloquent passage in conclusion of the first of these
Addresses was written by Mr. Southey. The tone throughout them all is
vehemently hostile to the policy of the great minister of that day; but
it is equally opposed to the spirit and maxims of Jacobinism. It was
late in life that, after a reperusal of these "Conciones", Coleridge
wrote on a blank page of one of them the following words:--"Except the
two or three pages involving the doctrine of philosophical necessity and
Unitarianism, I see little or nothing in these outbursts of my youthful
zeal to retract; and with the exception of some flame-coloured epithets
applied to persons, as to Mr. Pitt and others, or rather to
personifications--(for such they really were to me)--as little to
regret."
Another course of six Lectures followed, "On Revealed Religion, its
corruptions, and its political views". The Prospectus states--"that
these Lectures are intended for two classes of men, Christians and
Infidels;--the former, that they may be able to "give a reason for the
hope that is in them";--the latter, that they may not determine against
Christianity from arguments applicable to its corruptions only." Nothing
remains of these Addresses, nor of two detached Lectures on the Slave
Trade and the Hair Powder Tax, which were delivered in the interval
between the two principal courses. They were all very popular amongst
the opponents of the Governments; and those on religion in particular
were highly applauded by his Unitarian auditors, amongst whom Dr. and
Mrs. Estlin and Mr. Hort were always remembered by Coleridge with regard
and esteem.
The Transatlantic scheme, though still a favourite subject of
conversation, was now in effect abandoned by these young Pantisocrats.
Mr. C. was married at St. Mary Redcliff Church to Sarah Fricker on the
4th of October, 1795, and went to reside in a cottage at Clevedon on the
Bristol Channel; and six weeks afterwards Mr. Southey was also married
to Edith Fricker, and left Bristol on the same day on his route to
Portugal. At Clevedon Mr. and Mrs. Coleridge resided with one of Mrs.
C.'s unmarried sisters and Burnett until the beginning of December.
[Footnote 1: This statement of H. N. Coleridge, and a remark by
Wordsworth in a letter to Wrangham of November 20th, 1795, are the only
evidence on which rests the belief that Coleridge and Wordsworth met
before 1797. The letter is quoted in the "Athenaeum" of December 8th,
1894. See also Letter LXXXI, to Estlin, May 1798.]
CHAPTER III
THE WATCHMAN
(1795 to 1796)
Ah! quiet dell! dear cot, and mount sublime!
I was constrained to quit you. Was it right,
While my unnumbered brethren toiled and bled,
That I should dream away th' entrusted hours
On rose-leaf beds pampering the coward heart
With feelings all too delicate for use?
* * * * *
I therefore go, and join head, heart and hand
Active and firm, to fight the bloodless fight
Of science, freedom, and the truth in Christ.
Coleridge had in the course of the summer of 1795 become acquainted with
that excellent and remarkable man, the late Thomas Poole of Nether
Stowey, Somerset. In a letter written to him on the 7th of October, C.
speaks of the prospect from his cottage, and of his future plans in the
following way:
LETTER 14. To THOMAS POOLE
My Dear Sir,
God bless you-or rather God be praised for that he has blessed you! On
Sunday morning I was married at St. Mary's, Redcliff--from Chatterton's
church. The thought gave a tinge of melancholy to the solemn joy which I
felt, united to the woman, whom I love best of all created beings. We
are settled, nay, quite domesticated, at Clevedon,--our comfortable
cot! * * * The prospect around is perhaps more various than any in the
kingdom: mine eye gluttonizes. The sea, the distant islands, the
opposite coast!--I shall assuredly write rhymes, let the nine Muses
prevent it if they can. * * * I have given up all thoughts of the
Magazine for various reasons. It is a thing of monthly anxiety and
quotidian bustle. To publish a Magazine for one year would be nonsense,
and, if I pursue what I mean to pursue, my school-plan, I could not
publish it for more than one year. In the course of half a year I mean
to return to Cambridge--having previously taken my name off from the
University's control--and, hiring lodgings there for myself and wife,
finish my great work of "Imitations" in two volumes. My former
works may, I hope, prove somewhat of genius and of erudition; this will
be better; it will show great industry and manly consistency. At the end
of it I shall publish proposals for a School. * * * My next letter will
be long and full of something;--this is inanity and egotism. * * Believe
me, dear Poole, your affectionate and mindful--friend, shall I so soon
have to say? Believe me my heart prompts it. [1] S. T. COLERIDGE!
In spite of this letter Coleridge had not abandoned the project of
starting a magazine. His school-plan, as well as a project to become
tutor to the sons of the Earl of Buchan at Edinburgh (see Letter to
George Dyer, "Bookman" for May 1910), came to nothing. A meeting
was held among his chief friends "one evening," says Cottle, "at the
Rummer Tavern, to determine on the size, price, and time of publishing,
with all other preliminaries essential to the launching this first-rate
vessel on the mighty deep. Having heard of the circumstance the next
day, I rather wondered at not having also been requested to attend, and
while ruminating on the subject, I received from Mr. C. the following
communication."
[Footnote 1: Letter LI is our No. 14. LII is dated 13 November 1795.]
LETTER 15. To COTTLE
(--Dec. 1795).
My dear Friend,
I am fearful that you felt hurt at my not mentioning to you the proposed
"Watchman", and from my not requesting you to attend the meeting.
My dear friend, my reasons were these. All who met were expected to
become subscribers to a fund; I knew there would be enough without you,
and I knew, and felt, how much money had been drawn from you lately.
God Almighty love you!
S. T. C.
"It is unknown," says Cottle, "when the following letter was received
(although quite certain that it was not the evening in which Mr.
Coleridge wrote his "Ode to the Departing Year"), and it is printed
in this place at something of an uncertainty." The probable date is 1
January 1796.
LETTER 16. To COTTLE
January 1st (1796).
My dear Cottle,
I have been forced to disappoint not only you, but Dr. Beddoes, on an
affair of some importance. Last night I was induced by strong and joint
solicitation, to go to a cardclub to which Mr. Morgan belongs, and,
after the playing was over, to sup, and spend the remainder of the
night: having made a previous compact, that I should not drink; however
just on the verge of twelve, I was desired to drink only one wine glass
of punch, in honour of the departing year; and, after twelve, one other
in honour of the new year. Though the glasses were very small, yet such
was the effect produced during my sleep, that I awoke unwell, and in
about twenty minutes after had a relapse of my bilious complaint. I am
just now recovered, and with care, I doubt not, shall be as well as ever
to-morrow. If I do not see you then, it will be from some relapse, which
I have no reason, thank heaven, to anticipate.
Yours affectionately,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
[The Mr. Morgan referred to in the above letter was John James Morgan
with whom Coleridge afterwards lived in London, at Hammersmith, and at
Calne. Dr. Beddoes was the founder of the Pneumatic Institution, and the
friend of the Wedgwoods and Humphry Davy; and it was he who was
instrumental in introducing Coleridge to these acquaintances.]
The monthly anxiety of a Magazine justly alarmed Coleridge on the 7th of
October; yet in the December following he courageously engaged to
conduct a weekly political Miscellany. This was _The Watchman_, of
which the following Prospectus was in that month printed and circulated.
"To supply at once the places of a Review, Newspaper, and Annual
Register.
"On Tuesday, the ist of March, 1796, will be published No. 1. price
fourpence, of a Miscellany, to be continued every eighth day, under the
name of "The Watchman", by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. This Miscellany
will be comprised in two sheets, or thirty-two pages, closely printed in
8vo; the type, long primer. Its contents, 1:--A history of the domestic
and foreign policy of the preceding days. 2:--The speeches in both
Houses of Parliament; and, during the recess, select parliamentary
speeches from the commencement of the reign of Charles I. to the present
æra, with notes historical and biographical. 3:--Original essays and
poetry. 4:--Review of interesting and important publications. Its
advantages, 1. There being no advertisements, a greater quantity of
original matter will be given, and the speeches in Parliament will be
less abridged. 2. From its form it may be bound up at the end of a year,
and become an Annual Register. 3. This last circumstance may induce men
of letters to prefer this Miscellany to more perishable publications as
the vehicle of their effusions. 4. Whenever the Ministerial and
Opposition prints differ in their accounts of occurrences, etc. such
difference will always be faithfully stated."
Mr. C. went to Bristol in the beginning of December for the purpose of
arranging the preliminaries of this undertaking, and at the close of
the month he set off upon the tour mentioned in Chapter X of the
"Biographia Literaria", to collect subscribers. It will be
remembered that he was at this time a professed Unitarian; and the
project of becoming a minister of that persuasion seems to have passed
through his head. He had previously preached, for the first time, two
sermons at Mr. Jardine's Chapel in Bath, the subjects being the Corn
Laws and the Hair Powder Tax. He appeared in the pulpit in a blue coat
and white waistcoat, and, according to Mr. Cottle's testimony, who was
present, Coleridge delivered himself languidly, and disappointed every
one. But there is no doubt that he subsequently preached upon many
occasions with very remarkable effect. The following extracts are from
letters written by Mr. C. in the month of January, 1796, during his tour
to his early and lasting friend, Mr. Josiah Wade of Bristol, and may
serve as a commentary on parts of the accounts given of the same tour in
the Biographia Literaria.
LETTER 17. To JOSIAH WADE
Worcester, January, 1796.
My dear Wade,
We were five in number, and twenty-five in quantity. The moment I
entered the coach, I stumbled on a huge projection, which might be
called a belly with the same propriety that you might name Mount Atlas a
mole-hill. Heavens! that a man should be unconscionable enough to enter
a stage coach, who would want elbow room if he were walking on Salisbury
Plain.
The said citizen was a most violent aristocrat, but a pleasant humorous
fellow in other respects, and remarkably well informed in agricultural
science; so that the time passed pleasantly enough. We arrived at
Worcester at half-past two: I, of course, dined at the inn, where I met
Mr. Stevens. After dinner I christianized myself, that is, washed and
changed, and marched in finery and clean linen to High Street. With
regard to business, there is no chance of doing anything at Worcester.
The aristocrats are so numerous, and the influence of the clergy is so
extensive, that Mr. Barr thinks no bookseller will venture to publish
"The Watchman". ***
S. T. COLERIDGE.
P.S.--I hope and trust the young citizeness is well, and also Mrs. Wade.
Give my love to the latter, and a kiss for me to Miss Bratinella.
LETTER 18
Birmingham, January, 1796.
My dear Friend,
*** My exertions here have been incessant, for in whatever company I go,
I am obliged to be the figurante of the circle. Yesterday I preached
twice, and, indeed, performed the whole service, morning and afternoon.
There were about 1,400 persons present, and my sermons, (great part
extempore,) were preciously peppered with politics. I have here at least
double the number of subscribers I had expected. * * *
[It was at Birmingham that Coleridge met the Tallow Chandler whom he has
immortalized in his "Biographia Literaria". The sketch of the "taperman
of lights" is one of the masterpieces of English humour.]
LETTER 19. To JOSIAH WADE
Nottingham, January, 1796.
My dear Friend,
You will perceive by this letter I have changed my route. From
Birmingham on Friday last (four o'clock in the morning), I proceeded to
Derby, stayed there till Monday morning, and am now at Nottingham. From
Nottingham I go to Sheffield; from Sheffield to Manchester; from
Manchester to Liverpool; from Liverpool to London; from London to
Bristol. Ah, what a weary way! My poor crazy ark has been tossed to and
fro on an ocean of business, and I long for the Mount Ararat on which it
is to rest. At Birmingham I was extremely unwell; a violent cold in my
head and limbs confined me for two days. Business succeeded very
well;--about a hundred subscribers I think.
At Derby, also, I succeeded tolerably well. Mr. (Joseph) Strutt, the
successor of Sir Richard Arkwright, tells me I may count on forty or
fifty in Derby. Derby is full of curiosities;--the cotton and silk
mills; Wright the painter, and Dr. Darwin,[l] the every thing
but Christian. Dr. Darwin possesses, perhaps, a greater range of
knowledge than any other man in Europe, and is the most inventive of
philosophical men. He thinks in a new train on all subjects but
religion. He bantered me on the subject of religion. I heard all his
arguments, and told him it was infinitely consoling to me, to find that
the arguments of so great a man, adduced against the existence of a God,
and the evidences of revealed religion, were such as had startled me at
fifteen, but had become the objects of my smile at twenty. Not one new
objection--not even an ingenious one! He boasted "that he had never read
one book in favour of such stuff, but that he had read all the works of
Infidels!"
What would you think, Mr. Wade, of a man who, having abused and
ridiculed you, should openly declare that he had heard all that your
enemies had to say against you, but had scorned to inquire the truth
from any one of your friends? Would you think him an honest man? I am
sure you would not. Yet such are all the Infidels whom I have known.
They talk of a subject, yet are proud to confess themselves profoundly
ignorant of it. Dr. Darwin would have been ashamed to reject Hutton's
theory of the Earth without having minutely examined it;--yet what is
it to us, how the earth was made, a thing impossible to be known? This
system the Doctor did not reject without having severely studied it;
but all at once he makes up his mind on such important subjects, as
whether we be the outcasts of a blind idiot called Nature,[2] or the
children of an All wise and Infinitely Good God!--whether we spend a
few miserable years on this earth, and then sink into a clod of the
valley; or endure the anxieties of mortal life, only to fit us for the
enjoyment of immortal happiness! These subjects are unworthy a
philosopher's investigation! He deems that there is a certain self-
evidence in Infidelity, and becomes an Atheist by intuition. Well did
St. Paul say, "ye have an evil heart of unbelief".
* * * What lovely children Mr. Barr of Worcester has! After church, in
the evening, they sat round and sang hymns so sweetly that they
overpowered me. It was with great difficulty that I abstained from
weeping aloud; and the infant in Mrs. B.'s arms leaned forward, and
stretched his little arms, and stared, and smiled. It seemed a picture
of heaven, where the different Orders of the blessed join different
voices in one melodious hallelujah; and the babe looked like a young
spirit just that moment arrived in heaven, startled at the seraphic
songs, and seized at once with wonder and rapture. * * *
From your affectionate friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
[Footnote 1: Erasmus Darwin, 1731-1802.]
[Footnote 2: See poem, "Human Life", written about 1815.]
LETTER 20
Sheffield, January, 1796.
My very dear Friend,
I arrived at this place late last night by the mail from Nottingham,
where I have been treated with kindness and friendship, of which I can
give you but a faint idea. I preached a charity sermon there last
Sunday. I preached in coloured clothes. With regard to the gown at
Birmingham (of which you inquire), I suffered myself to be
over-persuaded. First of all, my sermon being of so political a
tendency, had I worn my blue coat, it would have impugned Edwards. They
would have said, he had stuck a political lecturer in his pulpit.
Secondly, the society is of all sorts,--Socinians, Arians, Trinitarians,
etc., and I must have shocked a multitude of prejudices. And thirdly,
there is a difference between an inn and a place of residence. In the
first, your example is of little consequence; in a single instance only,
it ceases to operate as example; and my refusal would have been imputed
to affectation, or an unaccommodating spirit.
Assuredly I would not do it in a place where I intended to preach often.
And even in the vestry at Birmingham, when they at last persuaded me, I
told them I was acting against my better knowledge, and should possibly
feel uneasy afterwards. So these accounts of the matter you must
consider as reasons and palliations, concluding, "I plead guilty, my
Lord!" Indeed I want firmness; I perceive I do. I have that within me
which makes it difficult to say, No, repeatedly to a number of persons
who seem uneasy and anxious. * * *
My kind remembrances to Mrs. Wade. God bless her and you, and (like a
bad shilling slipped in between two guineas), your faithful and
affectionate friend, S. T. COLERIDGE.
[Note 1: Letter LIII is our 19.]
LETTER 21
Manchester, January 7, 1796. My dear Friend,
I arrived at Manchester last night from Sheffield, to which place I
shall only send about thirty numbers. I might have succeeded there, at
least equally well with the former towns, but I should injure the sale
of the "Iris", the editor of which paper, (a very amiable and
ingenious young man of the name of James Montgomery)[1] is now in prison
for a libel on a bloody-minded magistrate there. Of course I declined
publicly advertising or disposing of "The Watch man" in that town.
This morning I called on Mr. -------- with H.'s letter. Mr. ---------
received me as a rider, and treated me with insolence that was really
amusing from its novelty. "Overstocked with these articles. "---------"
People always setting up some new thing or other. "---------" I read the
"Star" and another paper: what could I want with this paper, which
is nothing more?"--"Well, well, I'll consider of it." To these
entertaining "bons mots" I returned the following repartee--"Good
morning, Sir." * * *
God bless you, S. T. C.
[Footnote 1: The Poet, 1771-1854.]
Mr. C. went to Liverpool and was as successful there as elsewhere
generally in procuring subscribers to "The Watchman". The late Dr.
Crompton found him out, and became his friend and patron. His exertions,
however, at Liverpool were suddenly stopped by news of the critical
state of Mrs. C.'s health, and a pressing request that he would
immediately return to Bristol, whither Mrs. C. had now gone from
Clevedon. Coleridge accordingly gave up his plan of visiting London, and
left Liverpool on his homeward trip. From Lichfield he wrote to Mr. Wade
the following letter:
LETTER 22
Lichfield, January, 1796.
My dear Friend,
* * * I have succeeded very well here at Lichfield. Belcher, bookseller,
Birmingham; Sutton, Nottingham; Pritchard, Derby; and Thomson,
Manchester; are the publishers. In every number of "The Watchman" there
will be printed these words, "Published in Bristol by the Author, S. T.
Coleridge, and sold, etc."
I verily believe no poor fellow's idea-pot ever bubbled up so vehemently
with fears, doubts, and difficulties, as mine does at present. Heaven
grant it may not boil over, and put out the fire! I am almost heartless.
My past life seems to me like a dream, a feverish dream--all one gloomy
huddle of strange actions and dim-discovered motives;--friendships lost
by indolence, and happiness murdered by mismanaged sensibility. The
present hour I seem in a quick-set hedge of embarrassments. For shame! I
ought not to mistrust God; but, indeed, to hope is far more difficult
than to fear. Bulls have horns, lions have talons:
The fox and statesman subtle wiles ensure,
The cit and polecat stink and are secure;
Toads with their venom, doctors with their drug,
The priest and hedgehog in their robes are snug.
Oh, Nature! cruel step-mother and hard
To thy poor naked, fenceless child, the bard!
No horns but those by luckless Hymen worn,
And those, alas! not Amalthaea's horn!
With naked feelings, and with aching pride,
He bears the unbroken blast on every side;
Vampire booksellers drain him to the heart,
And scorpion critics cureless venom dart.
S. T. C.
Coleridge on his return to Bristol resided for a short time on Redcliff
Hill, in a house occupied by Mrs. C.'s mother. He had procured upwards
of a thousand subscribers' names to "The Watchman", and had certainly
some ground for confidence in his future success. His tour had been a
triumph; and the impression made by his personal demeanour and
extraordinary eloquence was unprecedented, and such as was never effaced
from the recollection of those who met with him at this period. He seems
to have employed the interval between his arrival in Bristol and the 1st
of March--the day fixed for the appearance of "The Watchman"--in
preparing for that work, and also in getting ready the materials of his
first volume of poems, the copyright of which was purchased by Mr.
Cottle for thirty guineas. Coleridge was a student all his life; he was
very rarely indeed idle in the common sense of the term; but he was
constitutionally indolent, averse from continuous exertion externally
directed, and consequently the victim of a procrastinating habit, the
occasion of innumerable distresses to himself and of endless solicitude
to his friends, and which materially impaired, though it could not
destroy, the operation and influence of his wonderful abilities. Hence,
also, the fits of deep melancholy which from time to time seized his
whole soul, during which he seemed an imprisoned man without hope of
liberty. In February, 1796, whilst his volume was in the press, he wrote
the following letter to Mr. Cottle:
LETTER 23
My dear Cottle,
I have this night and to-morrow for you, being alone, and my spirits
calm. I shall consult my poetic honour, and of course your interest,
more by staying at home than by drinking tea with you. I should be happy
to see my poems out even by next week, and I shall continue in stirrups,
that is, shall not dismount my Pegasus, till Monday morning, at which
time you will have to thank God for having done with your affectionate
friend always, but author evanescent,
S. T. C.
[The last letter is one of many short notes to Cottle explaining why he
was not making progress with the proposed volume of Poems. The next is
the concluding letter of the series, still apologizing for the delay.
LETTER 24. To COTTLE.
Stowey, (--Feb. 1796.)
My dear Cottle,
I feel it much, and very uncomfortable, that, loving you as a brother,
and feeling pleasure in pouring out my heart to you, I should so seldom
be able to write a letter to you, unconnected with business, and
uncontaminated with excuses and apologies. I give every moment I can
spare from my garden and the Reviews (i.e.) from my potatoes and meat to
the poem ("Religious Musings"), but I go on slowly, for I torture the
poem and myself with corrections; and what I write in an hour, I
sometimes take two or three days in correcting. You may depend on it,
the poem and prefaces will take up exactly the number of pages I
mentioned, and I am extremely anxious to have the work as perfect as
possible, and which I cannot do, if it be finished immediately. The
"Religious Musings" I have altered monstrously, since I read them to you
and received your criticisms. I shall send them to you in my next. The
Sonnets I will send you with the "Musings". God love you!
From your affectionate friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.]
Shortly afterwards, mistaking the object of a message from Mr. Cottle
for an application for "copy" for the press, Coleridge wrote the
following letter with reference to the painful subject:
LETTER 25
Redcliff Hill, February 22, 1796.
My dear Sir,
It is my duty and business to thank God for all his dispensations, and
to believe them the best possible; but, indeed, I think I should have
been more thankful, if He had made me a journeyman shoemaker, instead of
an author by trade. I have left my friends; I have left plenty; I have
left that ease which would have secured a literary immortality, and have
enabled me to give to the public works conceived in moments of
inspiration, and polished with leisurely solicitude; and, alas! for what
have I left them? For--who deserted me in the hour of distress, and for
a scheme of virtue impracticable and romantic! So I am forced to write
for bread--write the flights of poetic enthusiasm, when every minute I
am hearing a groan from my wife! Groans, and complaints, and sickness!
The present hour I am in a quick-set hedge of embarrassment, and,
whichever way I turn, a thorn runs into me. The future is cloud and
thick darkness. Poverty, perhaps, and the thin faces of them that want
bread looking up to me! Nor is this all. My happiest moments for
composition are broken in upon by the reflection that I must make haste.
"I am too late." "I am already months behind." "I have received my pay
beforehand."----O wayward and desultory spirit of Genius, ill can'st
thou brook a taskmaster! The tenderest touch from the hand of obligation
wounds thee like a scourge of scorpions!
I have been composing in the fields this morning, and came home to write
down the first rude sheet of my Preface, when I heard that your man had
brought a note from you. I have not seen it, but I guess its contents. I
am writing as fast as I can. Depend on it, you shall not be out of
pocket for me. I feel what I owe you, and, independently of this, I love
you as a friend,--indeed so much that I regret, seriously regret, that
you have been my copyholder.
If I have written petulantly, forgive me. God knows I am sore all over.
God bless you! and believe me that, setting gratitude aside, I love and
esteem you, and have your interest at heart full as much as my own.
S. T. COLERIDGE. [1]
On the 1st of March, 1796, "The Watchman" was published; it ended with
the tenth number on the 13th of May following. In March Mr. C. removed
to a house in Oxford Street in Kingsdown, and thence wrote the following
letter to Mr. Poole:
[1: Letter LIV is our 25.]
LETTER 26
30th March, 1796.
My dear Poole,
For the neglect in the transmission of "The Watchman", you must blame
George Burnett, who undertook the business. I however will myself see it
sent this week with the preceding Numbers. I am greatly obliged to you
for your communication--(on the Slave Trade in No. V);--it appears in
this Number. I am anxious to receive more from you, and likewise to know
what you dislike in "The Watchman", and what you like, but particularly
the former. You have not given me your opinion of "The Plot Discovered".
Since you last saw me, I have been well nigh distracted. The repeated
and most injurious blunders of my printer out of doors, and Mrs.
Coleridge's danger at home--added to the gloomy prospect of so many
mouths to open and shut, like puppets, as I move the string in the
eating and drinking way;--but why complain to you? Misery is an article
with which every market is so glutted that it can answer no one's
purpose to export it.
I have received many abusive letters, post-paid, thanks to the friendly
malignants! But I am perfectly callous to disapprobation, except when it
tends to lessen profit. Then indeed I am all one tremble of sensibility,
marriage having taught me the wonderful uses of that vulgar commodity,
yclept Bread. "The Watchman" succeeds so as to yield a
"bread-and-cheesish" profit. Mrs. Coleridge is recovering apace, and
deeply regrets that she was deprived of the pleasure of seeing you. We
are in our new house, where there is a bed at your service whenever you
will please to delight us with a visit. Surely in Spring you might force
a few days into a sojourning with us.
Dear Poole, you have borne yourself towards me most kindly with respect
to my epistolary ingratitude. But I know that you forbade yourself to
feel resentment towards me, because you had previously made my neglect
ingratitude. A generous temper endures a great deal from one whom it has
obliged deeply.
My poems are finished. I will send you two copies the moment they are
published. In No. III of "The Watchman" there are a few lines entitled,
"The Hour when we shall meet again" ("Dim Hour! that sleep'st on
pillowing clouds afar"), which I think you will like. I have received
two or three letters from different "Anonymi", requesting me to give
more poetry. One of them writes thus:--
"Sir, I detest your principles; your prose I think very
so so; but your poetry is so beautiful that I take in your
"Watchman" solely on account of it. In justice therefore
to me and some others of my stamp, I entreat you to give us
more verse, and less democratic scurrility. Your Admirer,--not
Esteemer."
Have you read over Dr. Lardner on the Logos? It is I think, scarcely
possible to read it, and not be convinced. I find that "The Watchman"
comes more easy to me, so that I shall begin about my Christian Lectures
(meaning a publication of the course given in the preceding year). I
will immediately order for you, unless you immediately countermand it,
Count Rumford's Essays; in No. V of "The Watchman" you will see why.
(That number contained a critique on the Essays.) I have enclosed Dr.
Beddoes's late pamphlets; neither of them as yet published. The Doctor
sent them to me.... My dutiful love to your excellent Mother, whom,
believe me, I think of frequently and with a pang of affection. God
bless you. I'll try and contrive to scribble a line and half every time
the man goes with "The Watchman" to you.
N.B. The Essay on Fasting I am ashamed of--(in No. II of "The
Watchman");--but it is one of my misfortunes that I am obliged to
publish ex tempore as well as compose. God bless you.
S. T. COLERIDGE.[1]
[Footnote 1: Letter LV is our 26.]
Two days afterwards Mr. Coleridge wrote to Mr. B. Flower, then the
editor of the "Cambridge Intelligencer", with whom he had been
acquainted at the University:
LETTER 27
April 1, 1796.
Dear Sir,
I transmitted to you by Mr. B---- a copy of my "Conciones ad Populum",
and of an Address against the Bills (meaning "The Plot Discovered"). I
have taken the liberty of enclosing ten of each, carriage paid, which
you may perhaps have an opportunity of disposing of for me;--if not,
give them away. The one is an eighteen-penny affair;--the other
ninepence. I have likewise enclosed the Numbers which have been hitherto
published of "The Watchman";--some of the Poetry may perhaps be
serviceable to you in your paper. That sonnet on the rejection of Mr.
Wilberforce's Bill in your Chronicle the week before last was written by
Southey, author of "Joan of Arc", a year and a half ago, and sent to me
per letter;-how it appeared with the late signature, let the plagiarist
answer.... I have sent a copy of my Poems--(they were not yet
published):--will you send them to Lunn and Deighton, and ask of them
whether they would choose to have their names on the title page as
publishers; and would you permit me to have yours? Robinson and, I
believe, Cadell, will be the London publishers. Be so kind as to send an
immediate answer.
Please to present one of each of my pamphlets to Mr. Hall--(the late
Robert Hall, the Baptist). I wish I could reach the perfection of his
style. I think his style the best in the English language; if he have a
rival, it is Mrs. Barbauld.
You have, of course, seen Bishop Watson's Apology for the Bible. It is a
complete confutation of Paine; but that was no difficult matter. The
most formidable Infidel is Lessing, the author of "Emilia Galotti";--I
ought to have written, "was", for he is dead. His book is not yet
translated, and is entitled, in German, "Fragments of an Anonymous
Author". It unites the wit of Voltaire with the subtlety of Hume and the
profound erudition of "our" Lardner. I had some thoughts of translating
it with an Answer, but gave it up, lest men, whose tempers and hearts
incline them to disbelief, should get hold of it; and, though the
answers are satisfactory to my own mind, they may not be equally so to
the minds of others.
I suppose you have heard that I am married. I was married on the 4th of
October.
I rest all my poetical credit on the "Religious Musings". Farewell; with
high esteem, yours sincerely,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
Benjamin Flower, the editor of the "Cambridge Intelligencer", printed
the first published version of the "Monody on Chatterton" in his Edition
of the Rowley Poems, 1794. He was also to have been the publisher of the
"Imitations of the Latin Poets", of which Coleridge spoke so often at
this time. Our next letter is from "The Watchman" of 1 April, in answer
to a correspondent. Godwin, whom Coleridge had hailed in one of his
sonnets in the "Morning Chronicle" (10 January, 1795) as one formed to
"illume a sunless world" by his "Political Justice" (1793), is here
attacked with some virulence. In after years Coleridge held a better
opinion of Godwin and wrote some of his finest letters to him.
LETTER 28. TO CAIUS GRACCHUS.
You have attacked me because I ventured to disapprove of Mr. Godwin's
Works: I notice your attack because it affords me an opportunity of
expressing more fully my sentiments respecting those principles.--I must
not however wholly pass over the former part of your letter. The
sentence "implicating them with party and calumniating opinions," is so
inaccurately worded, that I must "guess" at your meaning. In my first
essay I stated that literary works were generally reviewed by personal
friends or private enemies of the Authors. This I "know" to be fact; and
does the spirit of meekness forbid us to tell the truth? The passage in
my Review of Mr. Burke's late pamphlet, you have wilfully misquoted:
"with respect to the work in question," is an addition of your own. That
work in question I myself considered as mere declamation; and
"therefore" deemed it wofully inferior to the former production of the
venerable Fanatic.--In what manner I could add to my numerous "ideal"
trophies by quoting a beautiful passage from the pages which I was
reviewing, I am ignorant. Perhaps the spirit of vanity lurked in the use
of the word ""I""--"ere "I" begin the task of blame." It is pleasant to
observe with what absurd anxiety this little monosyllable is avoided.
Sometimes "the present writer" appears as its substitute: sometimes the
modest author adopts the style of royalty, swelling and multiplying
himself into "We"; and sometimes to escape the egotistic phrases of "in
my opinion," or, "as I think," he utters dogmas, and positively
asserts--"exempli gratia": ""It is" a work, which, etc." You deem me
inconsistent, because, having written in praise of the metaphysician, I
afterwards appear to condemn the essay on political justice. Would an
eulogist of medical men be inconsistent, if he should write against
vendors of (what he deemed) poisons? Without even the formality of a
"since" or a "for" or a "because," you make an unqualified assertion,
that this essay will be allowed by all, except the prejudiced, to be a
deep, metaphysical work, though abstruse, etc. etc. Caius Gracchus must
have been little accustomed to abstruse disquisitions, if he deem Mr.
Godwin's work abstruse:--A chief (and certainly not a small) merit is
its perspicuous and "popular" language. My chapter on modern patriotism
is that which has irritated you. You condemn me as prejudiced--O this
enlightened age! when it can be seriously charged against an essayist,
that he is prejudiced in favour of gratitude, conjugal fidelity, filial
affection, and the belief of God and a hereafter!!
Of smart pretty fellows in Bristol are numbers, some
Who so modish are grown, that they think plain sense cumbersome;
And lest they should seem to be queer or ridiculous,
They affect to believe neither God nor "old Nicholas"![1]
I do consider Mr. Godwin's principles as vicious; and his book as a
pander to sensuality. Once I thought otherwise--nay, even addressed a
complimentary sonnet to the author, in the "Morning Chronicle", of which
I confess with much moral and poetical contrition, that the lines and
the subject were equally bad. I have since "studied" his work; and long
before you had sent me your contemptuous challenge, had been preparing
an examination of it, which will shortly appear in "The Watchman" in a
series of essays. You deem me an "enthusiast"--an enthusiast, I presume,
because I am not quite convinced with yourself and Mr. Godwin that mind
will be omnipotent over matter, that a plough will go into the field and
perform its labour without the presence of the agriculturist, that man
may be immortal in this life, and that death is an act of the
will!!!--You conclude with wishing that "The Watchman" "for the future
may be conducted with less prejudice and greater liberality:"--I ought
to be considered in two characters--as editor of the Miscellany, and as
a frequent contributor. In the latter I contribute what I believe to be
the truth; let him who thinks it error, contribute likewise, that where
the poison is, there the antidote may be. In my former, that is, as the
editor, I leave to the public the business of canvassing the nature of
the principles, and assume to myself the power of admitting or rejecting
any communications according to my best judgment of their style and
ingenuity. The Miscellany is open to all "ingenious" men whatever their
opinions may be, whether they be the disciples of Filmer, of Locke, of
Paley, or of Godwin. One word more of "the spirit of meekness." I meant
by this profession to declare my intention of attacking things without
expressing malignity to persons. I am young; and may occasionally write
with the intemperance of a young man's zeal. Let me borrow an apology
from the great and excellent Dr. Hartley, who of all men least needed
it. "I can truly say, that my free and unreserved manner of speaking has
flowed from the sincerity and earnestness of my heart." But I will not
undertake to justify all that I have said. Some things may be too hasty
and censorious; or however, be unbecoming my age and station. I heartily
wish that I could have observed the true medium. For want of candour is
not less an offence against the Gospel of Christ, than false shame and
want of courage in his cause.
S. T. COLERIDGE.
[Footnote 1: The lines are by Coleridge.]
LETTER 29. TO MR. POOLE.
11th April, 1796.
My dear, very dear Friend,
I have sent the 5th, 6th, and part of the 7th Number--all as yet
printed. Your censures are all right: I wish your praises were equally
so. The Essay on Fasts I am ashamed of. It was conceived in the spirit,
and clothed in the harsh scoffing, of an Infidel. You wish to have one
long essay;--so should I wish; but so do not my subscribers wish. I feel
the perplexities of my undertaking increase daily. In London and Bristol
"The Watchman" is read for its original matter,--the news and debates
barely tolerated. The people of Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham,
etc., take it as a newspaper, and regard the essays and poems as
intruders unwished for and unwelcome. In short, each subscriber, instead
of regarding himself as a point in the circumference entitled to some
one diverging ray, considers me as the circumference, and himself as
the centre to which all the rays ought to converge. To tell you the
truth, I do not think "The Watchman" will succeed. Hitherto I have
scarcely sold enough to pay the expenses;--no wonder, when I tell you
that on the 200 which Parsons in Paternoster Row sells weekly, he gains
eight shillings more than I do. Nay, I am convinced that at the end of
the half year he will have cleared considerably more by his 200 than I
by the proprietorship of the whole work.
Colson has been indefatigable in my service, and writes with such zeal
for my interests, and such warmth of sorrow for my sufferings, as if he
wrote with fire and tears. God bless him! I wish above all things to
realize a school. I could be well content to plod from morning to night,
if only I could secure a secure competence; but to toil incessantly for
uncertain bread weighs me down to earth.
Your Night-dream has been greatly admired. Dr. Beddoes spoke in high
commendation of it. Your thoughts on Elections I will insert whenever
Parliament is dissolved. I will insert them as the opinions of a
sensible correspondent, entering my individual protest against giving a
vote in any way or for any person. If you had an estate in the swamps of
Essex, you could not prudently send an aguish man there to be your
manager,--he would be unfit for it;--you could not honestly send a hale
hearty man there, for the situation would to a moral certainty give him
the ague. So with the Parliament:--I will not send a rogue there; and I
would not send an honest man, for it is twenty to one that he will
become a rogue.
Count Rumford's "Essays" you shall have by the next parcel. I thank you
for your kind permission with respect to books. I have sent down to you
"Elegiac Stanzas" by Bowles; they were given to me, but are altogether
unworthy of Bowles. I have sent you Beddoes's Essay on the merits of
William Pitt; you may either keep it, and I will get another for myself
on your account, or if you see nothing in it to library-ize it, send it
me back next Thursday, or whenever you have read it. My own "Poems" you
will welcome. I pin all my poetical credit on the "Religious Musings".
In the poem you so much admired in "The Watchman", for "Now life and
joy," read "New life and joy." (From "The Hour when we shall meet
again".) "Chatterton" shall appear modernized. Dr. Beddoes intends, I
believe, to give a course of Chemistry in a most "elementary"
manner,--the price, two guineas. I wish, ardently wish, you could
possibly attend them, and live with me. My house is most beautifully
situated; an excellent room and bed are at your service. If you had any
scruple about putting me to additional expense, you should pay me seven
shillings a week, and I should gain by you.
Mrs. Coleridge is remarkably well, and sends her kind love. Pray, my
dear, dear Poole, do not neglect to write to me every week. Your
critique on "Joan of Arc" and the "Religious Musings" I expect. Your
dear mother I long to see. Tell her I love her with filial
respectfulness. Excellent woman! Farewell; God bless you and your
grateful and affectionate
S. T. COLERIDGE.
Mr. C.'s first volume of poems was published by Mr. Cottle in the
beginning of April, 1796, and his sense of the kind conduct of the
latter to him throughout the whole affair was expressed in the following
manner on a blank leaf in a copy of the work:
LETTER 30.
Dear Cottle,
On the blank leaf of my Poems I can most appropriately write my
acknowledgments to you for your too disinterested conduct in the
purchase of them. Indeed, if ever they should acquire a name and
character, it might be truly said the world owed them to you. Had it not
been for you, none perhaps of them would have been published, and some
not written.
Your obliged and affectionate friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
Bristol, April 15, 1796.
[Another project of Coleridge to earn a small sum to tide over financial
difficulties was to "Rumfordise" the cities of England. Coleridge
reviewed Rumford's Essays in "The Watchman" of 2nd April. Count Rumford
(Count of the Holy Roman Empire), had cleared certain cities of Austria
of beggars and vagabonds, and had established garden cities for the
soldiery practising agricultural pursuits and engaging in remunerative
occupations during their non-attendance at drill. What part of the
"Rumfordising" Coleridge proposed to apply to his native country does
not appear from the letter.]
LETTER 31. TO COTTLE
(Apl. 1796.)
My ever dear Cottle,
Since I last conversed with you on the subject, I have been thinking
over again the plan I suggested to you, concerning the application of
Count Rumford's plan to the city of Bristol. I have arranged in my mind
the manner, and matter of the Pamphlet, which would be three sheets, and
might be priced at one shilling.
Considerations
Addressed to the Inhabitants of Bristol,
on a subject of importance,
(unconnected with Politics.)
BY S. T. C.
Now I have by me the history of Birmingham, and the history of
Manchester. By observing the names, revenues, and expenditures of their
different charities, I could easily alter the calculations of the
"Bristol Address", and, at a trifling expense, and a few variations, the
same work might be sent to Manchester and Birmingham. "Considerations
addressed to the inhabitants of Birmingham", etc. I could so order it,
that by writing to a particular friend, at both places, the pamphlet
should be thought to have been written at each place, as it certainly
would be "for" each place. I think therefore 750 might be printed in
all. Now will you undertake this? either to print it and divide the
profits, or (which indeed I should prefer) would you give me three
guineas, for the copyright? I would give you the first sheet on
Thursday, the second on the Monday following, the third on the Thursday
following. To each pamphlet I would annex the alterations to be made,
when the press was stopped at 250.
God love you!
S. T. C.
Cottle says regarding this project, "I presented Mr. C. with the three
guineas, but forbore the publication."]
LETTER 32. TO MR. COTTLE
(April) 1796.
My ever dear Cottle,
I will wait on you this evening at nine o'clock, till which hour I am on
"Watch." Your Wednesday's invitation I of course accept, but I am rather
sorry that you should add this expense to former liberalities.
Two editions of my "Poems" would barely repay you. Is it not possible to
get 25 or 30 of the "Poems" ready by to-morrow, as Parsons, of
Paternoster Row, has written to me pressingly about them? "People are
perpetually asking after them. All admire the poetry in the "Watchman","
he says. I can send them with 100 of the first number, which he has
written for. I think if you were to send half a dozen "Joans of Arc"
(4to £1 1s. 0d.) on sale or return, it would not be amiss. To all the
places in the North we will send my "Poems", my "Conciones", and the
"Joans of Arc" together, "per" waggon. You shall pay the carriage for
the London and Birmingham parcels; I for the Sheffield, Derby,
Nottingham, Manchester, and Liverpool.
With regard to the "Poems" I mean to give away, I wish to make it a
common interest; that is, I will give away a sheet full of Sonnets.
One to Mrs. Barbauld; one to Wakefield; one to Dr. Beddoes; one to
Wrangham--a college acquaintance of mine,--an admirer of me, and a
pitier of my principles;--one to George Augustus Pollen, Esq.; one to
C. Lamb; one to Wordsworth; one to my brother George, and one to Dr. Parr.
These Sonnets I mean to write on the blank leaf, respectively, of each
copy. * * * * God bless you, and
S. T. COLERIDGE.
"The Sonnets," says Mr. Cottle, "never arrived." [But a pamphlet of 16
pages, containing 28 Sonnets, was printed, the only extant copy of which
is in the Dyce Collection. "Poems", 1893, p. 544.]
LETTER 33. TO MR. POOLE
6th May, 1796.
My very dear Friend,
The heart is a little relieved, when vexation converts itself into
anger. But from this privilege I am utterly precluded by my own
epistolary sins and negligences. Yet in very troth thou must be a
hard-hearted fellow to let me trot for four weeks together every
Thursday to the Bear Inn--to receive no letter. I have sometimes thought
that Milton the carrier did not deliver my last parcel, but he assures
me he did.
This morning I received a truly fraternal letter from your brother
Richard of Sherborne, containing good and acceptable advice. He deems my
"Religious Musings" "too metaphysical for common readers." I answer--the
poem was not written for common readers. In so miscellaneous a
collection as I have presented to the Public, "singula cuique" should be
the motto. There are, however, instances of vicious affectation in the
phraseology of that poem;--"unshudder'd, unaghasted", for example. ("Not
in the poem now".) Good writing is produced more effectually by rapidly
glancing the language as it already exists than by a hasty recourse to
the mint of invention. The "Religious Musings" has more mind than the
Introduction of B. II. of "Joan of Arc", ("Destiny of Nations", Poet. W.
I. p. 98) but its versification is not equally rich. It has more
passages of sublimity, but it has not that diffused air of severe
dignity which characterizes my epic slice. Have I estimated my own
performances rightly? ...
With regard to my own affairs they are as bad as the most rampant
philo-despot could wish in the moment of cursing. After No. XII I shall
cease to cry the state of the political atmosphere. It is not pleasant,
Thomas Poole, to have worked fourteen weeks for nothing--for nothing;
nay, to have given to the Public in addition to that toil, £45. When I
began the Watchman I had £40 worth of paper given to me; yet with this I
shall not have received a farthing at the end of the quarter. To be sure
I have been somewhat fleeced and over-reached by my London publisher. In
short, my tradesmen's bills for "The Watchman", including what paper I
have bought since the seventh number, the printing, etc., amount exactly
to £5 more than the whole of my receipts. "O Watchman, thou hast watched
in vain!"--said the Prophet Ezekiel, when, I suppose, he was taking a
prophetic glimpse of my sorrow-sallowed cheeks.
My plans are reduced to two;--the first unpracticable,--the second not
likely to succeed.
Plan 1. I am studying German, and in about six weeks shall be able to
read that language with tolerable fluency. Now I have some thoughts of
making a proposal to Robinson, the great London bookseller, of
translating all the works of Schiller, which would make a portly quarto,
on condition that he should pay my journey and my wife's to and from
Jena, a cheap German University where Schiller resides, and allow me two
guineas each quarto sheet, which would maintain me. If I could realize
this scheme, I should there study chemistry and anatomy, and bring over
with me all the works of Semler and Michaelis, the German theologians,
and of Kant, the great German metaphysician. On my return I would
commence a school for either young men at £105 each, proposing to
perfect them in the following studies in this order:--1. Man as an
Animal;--including the complete knowledge of anatomy, chemistry,
mechanics, and optics:--2. Man as an intellectual Being;--including the
ancient metaphysics, the system of Locke and Hartley--of the Scotch
philosophers--and the new Kantean system:--3. Man as a Religious
Being;--including an historic summary of all religions, and of the
arguments for and against natural and revealed religion. Then proceeding
from the individual to the aggregate of individuals, and disregarding
all chronology, except that of mind, I should perfect them: 1--in the
history of savage tribes; 2--of semi-barbarous nations; 3--of nations
emerging from semi-barbarism; 4--of civilized states; 5--of luxurious
states; 6--of revolutionary states; 7--of colonies. During these studies
I should intermix the knowledge of languages, and instruct my scholars
in "belles lettres", and the principles of composition.
Now, seriously, do you think that one of my scholars, thus perfected,
would make a better senator than perhaps any one member in either of our
Houses?--Bright bubbles of the age--ebullient brain! Gracious Heaven!
that a scheme so big with advantage to this kingdom--therefore to
Europe--therefore to the world--should be demolishable by one
monosyllable from a bookseller's mouth!
My second plan is to become a Dissenting Minister, and adjure politics
and casual literature. Preaching for hire is not right; because it must
prove a strong temptation to continue to profess what I may have ceased
to believe, "if ever" maturer judgment with wider and deeper reading
should lessen or destroy my faith in Christianity. But though not right
in itself, it may become right by the greater wrongness of the only
alternative--the remaining in neediness and uncertainty. That in the one
case I should be exposed to temptation is a mere contingency; that under
necessitous circumstances I am exposed to great and frequent temptations
is a melancholy certainty.
Write, my dear Poole! or I will crimp all the rampant Billingsgate of
Burke to abuse you. Count Rumford is being reprinted.
God bless you and
S. T. COLERIDGE.
On Friday, the 13th of May, 1796, the tenth and last number of "The
Watchman" appeared--the Author having wisely accelerated the termination
of a hopeless undertaking, the plan of which was as injudicious as the
execution of it by him for any length of time impracticable. Of the 324
pages, of which "The Watchman" consists, not more than a hundred contain
original matter by Coleridge, and this is perhaps more remarkable as a
test of the marvellous spring of his mind almost immediately afterwards
than for any very striking merit of its own. Still, however, the nascent
philosopher may be discovered in parts; and the Essay on the Slave
Trade, in the fourth number, may be justly distinguished as comprising a
perfect summary of the arguments applicable on either side of that
question.
In the meantime Mr. Poole had been engaged in circulating a proposal
amongst a few common friends for purchasing a small annuity and
presenting it to Mr. Coleridge. The plan was not in fact carried into
execution;[1] but it was communicated to Mr. C. by Mr. Poole, and the
following letter refers to it:--
[Footnote 1: An error. A subscription annuity of £35 or £40 was
collected and paid to Coleridge in 1796 and 1797.]
LETTER 34. TO MR. POOLE
12th May, 1796.
Poole! The Spirit, who counts the throbbings of the solitary heart,
knows that what my feelings ought to be, such they are. If it were in my
power to give you anything, which I have not already given, I should be
oppressed by the letter now before me. But no! I feel myself rich in
being poor; and because I have nothing to bestow, I know how much I have
bestowed. Perhaps I shall not make myself intelligible; but the strong
and unmixed affection which I bear to you seems to exclude all emotions
of gratitude, and renders even the principle of esteem latent and inert.
Its presence is not perceptible, though its absence could not be
endured.
Concerning the scheme itself I am undetermined. Not that I am ashamed to
receive;--God forbid! I will make every possible exertion; my industry
shall be at least commensurate with my learning and talents;--if these
do not procure for me and mine the necessary comforts of life, I can
receive as I would bestow, and, in either case--receiving or
bestowing--be equally grateful to my Almighty Benefactor. I am
undetermined therefore--not because I receive with pain and reluctance,
but--because I suspect that you attribute to others your own enthusiasm
of benevolence; as if the sun should say--"With how rich a purple those
opposite windows are burning!" But with God's permission I shall talk
with you on this subject. By the last page of No. X, you will perceive
that I have this day dropped "The Watchman". On Monday morning I will go
"per" caravan to Bridgewater, where, if you have a horse of tolerable
meekness unemployed, you will let him meet me.
I should blame you for the exaggerated terms in which you have spoken of
me in the Proposal, did I not perceive the motive. You wished to make it
appear an offering--not a favour--and in excess of delicacy have, I
fear, fallen into some grossness of flattery.
God bless you, my dear, very dear Friend. The widow is calm, and amused
with her beautiful infant. [1] We are all become more religious than we
were. God be ever praised for all things! Mrs. Coleridge begs her kind
love to you. To your dear Mother my filial respects.
S. T. COLERIDGE. [2]
[Footnote 1: Mrs. Robert Lovell, whose husband had been carried off by a
fever, about two years after his marriage with my Aunt. S. C.]
[Footnote 2: Letter LVI is our 34. LVII is dated 13 May, 1796.]
The visit to Mr. Poole at Stowey was paid, and Mr. C. returned to
Bristol on the 20th of May, 1796. On his way back he wrote the following
letter to Mr. Poole from Bridgewater:--
LETTER 35
29th May, 1796.
My dear Poole,
This said caravan does not leave Bridgewater till nine. In the
market-place stand the hustings. I mounted, and pacing the boards, mused
on bribery, false swearing, and other foibles of election times. I have
wandered too by the river Parret, which looks as filthy as if all the
parrots in the House of Commons had been washing their consciences
therein. Dear Gutter of Stowey! Were I transported to Italian plains,
and lying by the side of a streamlet which murmured through an orange
grove, I would think of thee, dear Gutter of Stowey, and wish that I
were poring on thee!
So much by way of rant. I have eaten three eggs, swallowed sundries of
tea and bread and butter, purely for the purpose of amusing myself, and
I have seen the horse fed. When at Cross, where I shall dine, I shall
think of your happy dinner celebrated under the auspices of humble
independence, supported by brotherly love. I am writing, you understand,
for no worldly purpose but that of avoiding anxious thoughts. Apropos of
honey-pie:--Caligula or Heliogabalus,[1] (I forget which,) had a dish of
nightingales' tongues served up. What think you of the stings of bees?
God bless you. My filial love to your mother, and fraternity to your
sister. Tell Ellen Cruikshanks, that in my next parcel to you I will
send my Haleswood Poem to her. Heaven protect her, and you, and Sara,
and your Mother, and--like a bad shilling passed off in a handful of
guineas--your affectionate friend and brother,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
P.S. Don't forget to send by Milton my old clothes and linen that once
was clean--a pretty "periphrasis" that![2]
[Footnote 1: Elagabalus.]
[Footnote 2: Letter LVIII is our 35. LIX is dated 22 June 1796.]
The month of June, 1796, was spent in Bristol, and some negotiation took
place as to Mr. C.'s settling in Nottingham, the particulars of which
the Editor is unable to state. On the 4th of July Mr. Coleridge writes
to Mr. Poole.
LETTER 36. TO MR. POOLE
4th July, 1796.
My very dear Poole,
Do not attribute it to indolence that I have not written to you.
Suspense has been the real cause of my silence. Day after day I have
confidently expected some decisive letter, and as often have been
disappointed. "Certainly I shall have one to-morrow noon, and then I
will write." Thus I contemplated the time of my silence in its small
component parts, forgetful into what a sum total they were swelling. As
I have heard nothing from Nottingham notwithstanding I have written a
pressing letter, I have, by the advice of Cottle and Dr. Beddoes,
accepted a proposal of Mr. Perry's, the editor of the "Morning
Chronicle",--accepted it with a heavy and reluctant heart. On Thursday
Perry was at Bristol for a few hours, just time enough to attend the
dying moments of his associate in the editorship, Mr. Grey, whom Dr.
Beddoes attended. Perry desired Dr. B. to inform me that, if I would
come up to London and write for him, he would make me a regular
compensation adequate to the maintenance of myself and Mrs. Coleridge,
and requested an immediate answer by the post. Mr. Estlin, and
Charles Danvers, and Mr. Wade are or were all out of town;--I had no one
to advise with except Dr. Beddoes and Cottle. Dr. B. thinks it a good
opening on account of Grey's death; but I rather think that the
intention is to employ me as a mere hackney without any share of the
profits. However, as I am doing nothing, and in the prospect of doing
nothing settled, I was afraid to give way to the "omenings" of my heart;
and accordingly I accepted his proposal in general terms, requesting a
line from him expressing the particulars both of my proposed occupation
and stipend. This I shall receive to-morrow, I suppose; and if I do, I
think of hiring a horse for a couple of days, and galloping down to you
to have all your advice, which indeed, if it should be for rejecting the
proposals, I might receive by post; but if for finally accepting them,
we could not interchange letters in a time sufficiently short for
Perry's needs, and so he might procure another person possibly. At all
events I should not like to leave this part of England--perhaps for
ever--without seeing you once more. I am very sad about it, for I love
Bristol, and I do not love London; and besides, local and temporary
politics have become my aversion. They narrow the understanding, and at
least acidulate the heart; but those two giants, yclept Bread and
Cheese, bend me into compliance. I must do something. If I go, farewell,
Philosophy! farewell, the Muse! farewell, my literary Fame!
My "Poems" have been reviewed. The "Monthly" has cataracted panegyric on
me; the "Critical" cascaded it, and the "Analytical" dribbled it with
civility. As to the "British Critic", they durst not condemn, and they
would not praise--so contented themselves with commending me as a
"poet", and allowed me "tenderness of sentiment and elegance of
fiction." I am so anxious and uneasy that I really cannot write any
further. My kind and fraternal love to your Sister, and my filial
respects to your dear Mother, and believe me to be in my head, heart,
and soul, yours most sincerely.
S. T. COLERIDGE.
The Editor can find no further trace of the proposed connection with the
"Morning Chronicle"; but almost immediately after the date of the
preceding letter, Mr. Coleridge received an invitation from Mrs. Evans,
then of Barley, near Derby, to visit her with a view to his undertaking
the education of her sons. He and Mrs. C. accordingly went to Barley,
where the matter was arranged to the satisfaction of both parties; and
Mr. C. returned to Bristol alone with the intention of visiting his
Mother and Brother at Ottery before leaving the south of England for
what promised to be a long absence. But this project, like others, ended
in nothing. The other guardians of Mrs. E.'s sons considered a public
education proper for them, and the announcement of this resolution to
Mr. C. at Bristol stopped his further progress, and recalled him to
Darley. After a stay of some ten days, he left Darley with Mrs. C., and
visited Mr. Thomas Hawkes at Mosely, near Birmingham, and thence he
wrote to Mr. Poole--
LETTER 37. TO MR. POOLE
August, 1796.
My beloved Friend,
I was at Matlock, the place monodized by Bowles, when your letter
arrived at Darley, and I did not receive it till near a week afterwards.
My very dear Poole, I wrote to you the whole truth. After the first
moment I was perfectly composed, and from that moment to the present
have continued calm and lighthearted. I had just quitted you, and I felt
myself rich in your love and esteem; and you do not know how rich I feel
myself. O ever found the same, and trusted and beloved!
The last sentences of your letter affected me more than I can well
describe. Words and phrases which might perhaps have adequately
expressed my feelings, the cold-blooded children of this world have
anticipated and exhausted in their unmeaning gabble of flattery. I use
common expressions, but they do not convey common feelings. My heart has
thanked you. I preached on Faith yesterday. I said that Faith was
infinitely better than Good Works, as the cause is greater than the
effect,--as a fruitful tree is better than its fruits, and as a friendly
heart is of far higher value than the kindnesses which it naturally and
necessarily prompts. It is for that friendly heart that I now have
thanked you, and which I so eagerly accept; for with regard to
settlement, I am likely to be better off now than before, as I shall
proceed to tell you.
I arrived at Darley on the Sunday.... Monday I spent at Darley. On the
Tuesday Mrs. Coleridge, Miss Willett, and I went in Mrs. Evans's
carriage to Matlock, where we stayed till Saturday.... Sunday we spent
at Darley, and on Monday Sara, Mrs. Evans, and myself visited Oakover, a
seat famous for a few first-rates of Raffael and Titian; thence to Ilam,
a quiet vale hung round with wood, beautiful beyond expression, and
thence to Dovedale, a place beyond expression tremendously sublime.
Here, in a cavern at the head of a divine little fountain, we dined on
cold meat, and returned to Darley, quite worn out with the succession of
sweet sensations. On Tuesday we were employed in packing up, and on
Wednesday we were to have set off.... But on the Wednesday Dr. Crompton,
who had just returned from Liverpool, called on me, and made me the
following proposal:--that if I would take a house in Derby and open a
day-school, confining my number to twelve scholars, he would send three
of his children on these terms--till my number should be completed, he
would allow me £100 a year for them;--when the number should be
complete, he would give £21 a year for each of them:--the children to be
with me from nine to twelve, and from two to five--the last two hours to
be employed with their writing or drawing-master, who would be paid by
the parents. He has no doubt but that I shall complete my number almost
instantly. Now 12 x 20 guineas = £252, and my mornings and evenings at
my own disposal = good things. So I accepted the offer, it being
understood that if anything better offered, I should accept it. There
was not a house to be got in Derby; but I engaged with a man for a house
now building, and which is to be completed by the 8th of October, for
£12 a year, and the landlord to pay all the taxes except the Poor Rates.
The landlord is rather an intelligent fellow, and has promised me to
Rumfordize the chimneys. The plan is to commence in November; the
intermediate time I spend at Bristol, at which place I shall arrive, by
the blessing of God, on Monday night next. This week I spend with Mr.
Hawkes, at Mosely, near Birmingham; in whose shrubbery I now write. I
arrived here on Friday, having left Derby on Friday. I preached here
yesterday.
If Sara will let me, I shall see you for a few days in the course of a
month. Direct your next letter to S. T. C., Oxford Street, Bristol. My
love to your dear Mother and Sister, and believe me affectionately your
ever faithful friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
I shall write to my Mother and Brothers to-morrow.
At the same time Mr. C. wrote to Mr. Wade in terms similar to the above,
adding that at Matlock the time was completely filled up with seeing the
country, eating, concerts, etc.
LETTER 38
(--Sept. 1796.)
"I was the first fiddle;--not in the concerts--but every where else, and
the company would not spare me twenty minutes together. Sunday I
dedicated to the drawing up my sketch of education, which I meant to
publish, to try to get a school!" He speaks of "the thrice lovely valley
of Ilam; a vale hung with beautiful woods all round, except just at its
entrance, where, as you stand at the other end of the valley, you see a
bare bleak mountain standing as it were to guard the entrance. It is
without exception the most beautiful place I ever visited." ... He
concludes:--"I have seen a letter from Mr. William Roscoe, author of the
"Life of Lorenzo the Magnificent"; a work in two 4to volumes (of which
the whole first edition sold in a month); it was addressed to Mr.
Edwards, the minister here, and entirely related to me. Of me and my
compositions he writes in terms of high admiration, and concludes by
desiring Mr. Edwards to let him know my situation and prospects, and
saying that if I would come and settle at Liverpool, he thought a
comfortable situation might be procured for me. This day Edwards will
write to him."
Whilst at Birmingham, on "The Watchman" tour, Mr. C. had been introduced
to Mr. Charles Lloyd, the eldest son of Mr. Lloyd, an eminent banker of
that place. At Mosely they met again, and the result of an intercourse
for a few days together was an ardent desire on the part of Lloyd to
domesticate himself permanently with a man whose conversation was to him
a revelation from Heaven. Nothing, however, was settled on this
occasion, and Mr. and Mrs. C. returned to Bristol in the beginning of
September. On the 24th of September he writes to Mr. Poole:--
LETTER 39. TO MR. POOLE
24th September, 1796.
My dear, very dear Poole,
The heart thoroughly penetrated with the flame of virtuous friendship is
in a state of glory; but lest it should be exalted above measure, there
is given to it a thorn in the flesh. I mean that where the friendship of
any person forms an essential part of a man's happiness, he will at
times be pestered with the little jealousies and solicitudes of imbecile
humanity. Since we last parted I have been gloomily dreaming that you
did not leave me so affectionately as you were wont to do. Pardon this
littleness of heart, and do not think the worse of me for it. Indeed my
soul seems so mantled and wrapped round with your love and esteem, that
even a dream of losing but the smallest fragment of it makes me shiver,
as if some tender part of my nature were left uncovered and in
nakedness.
Last week I received a letter from Lloyd, informing me that his parents
had given their joyful concurrence to his residence with me, but that,
if it were possible that I could be absent from home for three or four
days, his father wished particularly to see me. I consulted Mrs.
Coleridge, who advised me to go.... Accordingly on Saturday night I went
by the mail to Birmingham, and was introduced to the father, who is a
mild man, very liberal in his ideas, and in religion an allegorizing
Quaker.[1] I mean that all the apparently irrational parts of his sect
he allegorizes into significations, which for the most part you or I
might assent to. We became well acquainted, and he expressed himself
thankful to Heaven, "that his son was about to be with me." He said he
would write to me concerning money matters, after his son had been some
time under my roof.
On Tuesday morning I was surprised by a letter from Mr. Maurice, our
medical attendant, informing me that Mrs. C. was delivered on Monday,
19th September, 1796, half-past two in the morning, of a son, and that
both she and the child were uncommonly well. I was quite annihilated
with the suddenness of the information, and retired to my room to
address myself to my Maker, but I could only offer up to Him the silence
of stupified feelings. I hastened home, and Charles Lloyd returned with
me. When I first saw the child, I did not feel that thrill and
overflowing of affection which I expected. I looked on it with a
melancholy gaze; my mind was intensely contemplative, and my heart only
sad. But when two hours after, I saw it at the bosom of its mother--on
her arm--and her eye tearful and watching its little features--then I
was thrilled and melted, and gave it the kiss of a Father. * * * * The
baby seems strong, and the old nurse has over-persuaded my wife to
discover a likeness to me in its face,--no great compliment to me; for
in truth I have seen handsomer babies in my lifetime. Its name is
David Hartley Coleridge. I hope that ere he be a man, if God destines
him for continuance in this life, his head will be convinced of, and his
heart saturated with, the truths so ably supported by that great master
of Christian Philosophy.
Charles Lloyd wins upon me hourly; his heart is uncommonly pure, his
affections delicate, and his benevolence enlivened, but not sicklied, by
sensibility. He is assuredly a man of great genius; but it must be in a
"tete-a-tete" with one whom he loves and esteems that his colloquial
powers open:--and this arises not from reserve or want of simplicity,
but from having been placed in situations, where for years together he
met with no congenial minds, and where the contrariety of his thoughts
and notions to the thoughts and notions of those around him induced the
necessity of habitually suppressing his feelings. His joy and gratitude
to Heaven for the circumstance of his domestication with me, I can
scarcely describe to you; and I believe his fixed plans are of being
always with me. His father told me, that if he saw that his son had
formed habits of severe economy, he should not insist upon his adopting
any profession; as then his fair share of his (the father's) wealth
would be sufficient for him.
My dearest Poole, can you conveniently receive Lloyd and me in the
course of a week? I have much, very much, to say to you, and to consult
with you about; for my heart is heavy respecting Derby; and my feelings
are so dim and huddled, that though I can, I am sure, communicate them
to you by my looks and broken sentences, I scarcely know how to convey
them in a letter. C. Lloyd also wishes much to know you personally. I
shall write on the other side of the paper two of his sonnets, composed
by him in one evening at Birmingham. The latter of them alludes to the
conviction of the truth of Christianity, which he had received from me.
Let me hear from you by post immediately, and give my kind love to your
sister and dear mother, and likewise my love to that young man with the
soul-beaming face, which I recollect much better than I do his name.
("Mr. Thomas Ward of Over Stowey".) God bless you, my dear friend, and
believe me with deep affection yours,
S. T. COLERIDGE.[2]
[Footnote 1: The relationship of Coleridge and the Lloyds is told fully
in "Charles Lamb and the Lloyds", by E. V. Lucas, 1898.]
[Footnote 2: Letter LX is our 39.]
The reader of Coleridge's Poems will remember the beautiful lines "To a
young friend, on his proposing to domesticate with the Author". They
were written at this time and addressed to Lloyd; and it may be easily
conceived what a deep impression of delight they would make on a mind
and temperament so refined and enthusiastic as his. The Sonnet "To a
Friend who asked how I felt when the Nurse first presented my infant to
me"--is the metrical version of a passage in the foregoing letter. A
short time before the birth of little Hartley C., Mr. Southey had
returned to Bristol from Portugal, and was in lodgings nearly opposite
to Mr. Coleridge's house in Oxford Street. There had been a quarrel
between them on the occasion of the abandonment of the American scheme,
which was first announced by Mr. Southey, and he and Coleridge had
ceased to have any intercourse. But a year's absence had dissipated all
angry feelings, and after Mr. C.'s return from Birmingham in the end of
September, Southey took the first step, and sent over a slip of paper
with a word or two of conciliation.[1] This was immediately followed by
an interview, and in an hour's time these two extraordinary youths were
arm in arm again. They were indeed of essentially opposite tempers,
powers, and habits; yet each well knew and appreciated the
other,--perhaps even the more deeply from the contrast between them.
Circumstances separated them in after life; but Mr. Coleridge recorded
his testimony to Southey's character in the "Biographia Literaria", and
in his Will referred to it as expressive of his latest convictions.
[In Ainger's "Letters of Charles Lamb" will be found a series of letters
by Lamb to Coleridge on various matters, literary and domestic, which
affords a good insight into the doings of Coleridge at this time. The
following beautiful letter by Coleridge was written on the occasion of
the death of Lamb's mother.
[Footnote 1: The paper contained a sentence in English from Schiller's
Conspiracy of Fiesco at Genoa. "Fiesko! Fiesko! du Sumst einen Platz in
meiner Brust, den das Menschengeschlecht, dreifach genommen, nicht mehr
besetzen wird". "Fiesco! Fiesco! thou leavest a void in my bosom, which
the human race, thrice told, will never fill up." Act V, Sc. 16. S. C.]
LETTER 40. TO CHARLES LAMB[1]
(29 Sept. 1796.)
Your letter, my friend, struck me with a mighty horror. It rushed upon
me and stupified my feelings. You bid me write you a religious letter; I
am not a man who would attempt to insult the greatness of your anguish
by any other consolation. Heaven knows that in the easiest fortunes
there is much dissatisfaction and weariness of spirit; much that calls
for the exercise of patience and resignation; but in storms, like these,
that shake the dwelling and make the heart tremble, there is no middle
way between despair and the yielding up of the whole spirit unto the
guidance of faith. And surely it is a matter of joy, that your faith in
Jesus has been preserved; the Comforter that should relieve you is not
far from you. But as you are a Christian, in the name of that Saviour,
who was filled with bitterness and made drunken with wormwood, I conjure
you to have recourse in frequent prayer to "his God and your God," [2]
the God of mercies, and father of all comfort. Your poor father is, I
hope, almost senseless of the calamity; the unconscious instrument of
Divine Providence knows it not, and your mother is in heaven. It is
sweet to be roused from a frightful dream by the song of birds, and the
gladsome rays of the morning. Ah, how infinitely more sweet to be
awakened from the blackness and amazement of a sudden horror, by the
glories of God manifest, and the hallelujahs of angels.
As to what regards yourse
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