J. H. Green, with memoir of the author’s life, by Sir John Simon,
680 n.
Spurzheim, Johann Kaspar, his life-mask and bust of C., 570 n.
Stage, illusion of the, 663.
_Stamford News_, 567 n.
Stanger, Mrs. Joshua (Mary Calvert), 345 n.
_Stanzas written in my Pocket Copy of Thomson’s Castle of Indolence_, by
Wordsworth, 345 n.
Steam vessels, 730 and note, 743.
Steffens, Heinrich, 683.
Steinburg, Baron, 279.
Steinmetz, Adam, C.’s letter to his friend, John Peirse Kennard, after
his death, 762;
his character and amiable qualities, 763, 764, 775.
Steinmetz, John Henry, 762 n.
Stephen, Leslie, on C.’s study of Kant, 351 n.
Stephens (Stevens), Launcelot Pepys, 25 and note.
_Sterling, Life of_, by Carlyle, 771 n., 772 n.
Sterling, John, his admiration for C., 771 n., 772 n.;
letter from C., 771.
_Sternbald’s Wanderungen_, by Ludwig Tieck, 683 and note.
Stevens (Stephens), Launcelot Pepys, 25 and note.
Stoddart, Dr. (afterwards Sir) John, 477 and note, 481, 508;
detains C.’s books and MSS., 523;
524.
Stoke House, C. visits the Wedgwoods at, 673 n.
Storm, on a mountain-top, 339, 340;
with lightning in December, 365, 366;
on Scafell, 400 and note;
in Kirkstone Pass, 418-420.
Stowey, _see_ Nether Stowey.
Stowey Benefit Club, 233.
Stowey Castle, 225 n.
Street, Mr., editor of the _Courier_, 506, 533, 567, 568, 570, 616, 629,
634;
his unsatisfactory conduct of the _Courier_, 661, 662.
Strutt, Mr., 152, 153.
Strutt, Edward (Lord Belper), 215 n.
Strutt, Joseph, 215 n., 216, 367.
Strutt, Mrs. Joseph, 216.
Strutt, William, 215 and note.
Stuart, Miss, a personal reminiscence of C. by, 705 n.
Stuart, Daniel, proprietor and editor of the _Morning Post_ and
_Courier_, 311, 315;
engages C. for the _Morning Post_, 319, 320;
321, 329;
engages lodgings in Covent Garden for C., 366 n.;
on C.’s dislike of Sir James Mackintosh, 454 n., 455 n.;
458, 468, 474, 486 n., 507, 508, 519, 520, 542, 543 n.;
a friend of Dr. Henry Southey, 615 n.;
his steadiness and independence of character, 660;
his public services, 660;
his knowledge of men, 660;
letters from C., 475, 485, 493, 501, 505, 533, 545, 547, 566, 595,
615, 627, 634, 660, 663, 740.
See _Courier_ and _Post, Morning_.
Stutfield, Mr., amanuensis and disciple of C., 753 and note.
Sugar, beet, 299 and note.
_Sun, The_, 633.
Sunset in the Lake Country, a, 384.
Supernatural, C.’s essay on the, 684.
Superstitions of the German bauers, 291, 292, 294.
Suwarrow, Alexander Vasilievitch, 307 and note.
Swedenborg, Emanuel, his _De Cultu et Amore Dei_, 684 n.;
his _De Cœlo et Inferno_, 684 n.;
688, 729, 730.
Swedenborgianism, C. and, 684 n.
Swift, Jonathan, his _Drapier_ Letters, 638 and note.
Sylph, the gun-brig, capture of, 308 n.
Sympathy, C.’s craving for, 696, 697.
_Synesius_, by Canterus, 67 and note, 68.
Syracuse, Sicily, 458;
C.’s visit to, 485 n., 486 n.
_Table Talk_, 81 n., 440 n., 624 n., 633 n., 684 n., 699 n., 756 n.,
763 n., 764 n.
_Table Talk and Omniana_, 9 n., 554 n., 571 n., 718 n., 764 n.
Tatum, 53, 54.
Taunton, 220 n.;
C. preaches for Dr. Toulmin in, 247.
Taxation, C.’s Essay on, 629 and note.
Taxes, 757.
Taylor, Sir Henry, his _Philip Van Artevelde_, 774 and note.
Taylor, Jeremy, his _Dissuasion from Popery_, 639;
his _Letter on Original Sin_, 640;
a complete man, 640, 641.
Taylor, Samuel, 9.
Taylor, William, 310;
on double rhymes in English, 332;
488, 489.
Tea, 412, 413, 417.
Temperance, suggestions as to the furtherance of the cause of, 767-769.
_Temple, The_, by George Herbert, 694.
Teneriffe, 414, 417.
Terminology, C. wishes to form a better, 755.
_Thalaba the Destroyer_, by Southey, 414;
C.’s advice as to publishing, 319;
324, 357, 684.
_The Hour when we shall meet again_, 157.
Thelwall, John, his radicalism, 159, 160;
his criticisms of C.’s poetry, 163, 164, 194-197, 218;
on Burke, 166;
his _Peripatetic, or Sketches of the Heart, of Nature, and of
Society_, 166 and note;
his _Essay on Animal Vitality_, 179, 212;
his _Poems_, 179, 197;
his contemptuous attitude towards the Christian Religion, 198-205;
two odes by, 218;
C. criticises a poem and a so-called sonnet by, 230;
C. advises him not to settle at Stowey, 232-234;
letter to Dr. Crompton on the Wedgwood annuity, 234 n.;
extract from a letter from C. on the Wedgwood annuity, 235 n.;
letters from C., 159, 166, 178, 193, 210, 214, 228-232.
Thelwall, Mrs. John (Stella, first wife of preceding), 181, 205, 206 n.,
207, 214.
Theology, C.’s great interest in, 406;
C.’s projected great work on, 632 and note, 633.
_Theory of Life_, 711 n.
_The piteous sobs which choke the virgin’s breast_, a sonnet by C., 206
n.
_This Lime-Tree Bower my Prison_, 225 and note, 226 and notes, 227, 228
n.
Thompson, James, 343 and note.
Thornycroft, Hamo, R. A., 570 n.;
his bust of C., 695 n.
_Thou gentle look, that didst my soul beguile_, see _O gentle look_, etc.
_Though king-bred rage with lawless tumult rude_, a sonnet, 116 and note.
Thought, a rule for the regulation of, 244, 245.
_Three Graves, The_, 412 and note, 551, 606.
Thunder-storm, in December, 365, 366;
on Scafell, 400 and note.
Tieck, Ludwig, a letter of introduction from C. to Southey, 670;
two letters to C. from, 670 n.;
671, 672, 680;
his _Sternbald’s Wanderungen_, 663 and note;
699.
_Times, The_, 327 n.;
its notice of C.’s tragedy _Remorse_, 603 and note.
_Tineum_, by C. Valentine Le Grice, 111 and note.
Tiverton, 56.
_To a Friend, together with an Unfinished Poem_, 128 n., 454 n.
_To a friend who had declared his intention of writing no more poetry_,
206 n.
_To a Gentleman_, 647 n.
See _To William Wordsworth_.
_To a Highland Girl_, by Wordsworth, 459.
_To a Young Ass; its mother being tethered near it_, 119 and note, 120,
606 and note.
_To a Young Lady, with a Poem on the French Revolution_, 94 and note.
_To a Young Man of Fortune who had abandoned himself to an indolent and
causeless melancholy_, 207 and note, 208 and note.
Tobin, Mr., his habit of advising 474, 475.
Tobin, James, 460 n.
Tobin, John, 460 n.
_To Bowles_, 111 and note.
_To Disappointment_, 28.
Tomalin, J., his _Shorthand Report of Lectures_, 11 n., 575 n.
_To Matilda Betham. From a Stranger_, 404 n.
Tomkins, Mr., 397, 402, 403.
_To my own Heart_, 92 n.
Tooke, Andrew, 455 n.;
his _Pantheon_, 455 and note.
Tooke, Horne, 218.
_To one who published in print what had been intrusted to him by my
fireside_, 252 n.
Torbay, 305 n.
_To R. B. Sheridan, Esq._, 116 n., 118.
_To the Spade of a Friend (an Agriculturist)_, by Wordsworth, in honor
of Thomas Wilkinson, 538 n.
Totness, 305.
Toulmin, Rev. Dr., 220 n.;
tragic death of his daughter, 247, 248.
_Tour in North Wales_, by J. Hucks, 74 n., 81 n.
_Tour over the Brocken_, 257.
_Tour through Parts of Wales_, by William Sotheby, 396.
_To Valentine_, by Southey, 108 and note.
Towers, 321.
_To William Wordsworth_, 641, 644;
C. quotes from, 646, 647;
647 n.
Treaty of Vienna, 615 and note.
Trossachs, the, 431, 432, 440.
Tuckett, G. L., 57 n.;
letter from C., 57.
Tulk, Charles Augustus, 684 n.;
letters from C., 684, 712.
Turkey, 329.
Turner, Sharon, 425 n., 593.
_Two Founts, The_, 702 n.
_Two Round Spaces on a Tombstone, The_, the hero of, 455.
_Two Sisters, To_, 702 n.
Tychsen, Olaus, 398 and note.
Tyson, T., 393.
Ulpha Kirk, 393.
Understanding, as distinguished from reason, 712, 713.
Unitarianism, 415, 758, 759.
Upcott, C. visits Josiah Wedgwood at, 308.
Usk, the vale of, 410.
_Valentine, To_, by Southey, 108 and note.
Valetta, Malta, C.’s visit to, 481-484, 487-497.
Valette, General, 484;
given command of the Maltese Regiment, 554, 555.
Vane, Sir Frederick, his library, 296.
_Velvet Cushion, The_, by Rev. J. W. Cunningham, 651 and note.
Vienna, Treaty of, 615 and note.
Violin-teacher, C.’s, 49.
Virgil’s _Æneid_, Wordsworth’s unfinished translation of, 733 and note,
734.
Virgil’s _Georgics_, William Sotheby’s translation, 375.
_Visions of the Maid of Orleans, The_, 192, 206.
Vital power, definition of, 712.
Vogelstein, Karl Christian Vogel von, a letter of introduction from
Ludwig Tieck to C., 670 n.
Von Axen, Messrs. P. and O., 269 n.
Voss, Johann Heinrich, his _Luise_, 203 n., 625, 627;
his _Idylls_, 398.
Voyage to Malta, C.’s, 469-481.
Wade, Josiah, 137 n., 145, 151 n., 152 n., 191, 288;
publication by Cottle of Coleridge’s letter of June 26, 1814, to, 616
n., 617 n.;
letters from C., 151, 623.
Waithman, a politician, 598.
Wakefield, Edward, his _Account of Ireland_, 638.
Wales, proposed colony of pantisocrats in, 121, 122, 140, 141.
_Wales, Tour through Parts of_, by William Sotheby, 396.
Wales, North, C.’s tour of, 72-81.
Wales, South, C.’s tour of, 410-414.
Walford, John, Poole’s narrative of, 553 and note.
Walker, Thomas, 162.
Walk into the country, a, 32, 33.
_Wallenstein_, by Schiller, C.’s translation of, 403, 608.
Wallis, Mr., 498-500, 523.
Wallis, Mrs., 392.
_Wanderer’s Farewell to Two Sisters, The_, 722 n.
Ward, C. A., 763 n.
Ward, Thomas, 170 n.
Wardle, Colonel, leads the attack on the Duke of York in the House of
Commons, 543 and note.
Warren, Parson, 18.
Wastdale, 393, 401.
_Watchman, The_, 57 n.;
C.’s tour to procure subscribers for, 151 and note, 152-154;
155-157;
discontinued, 158;
174 n., 611.
Watson, Mrs. Henry, 698 n., 702 n.
_Wat Tyler_, by Southey, 506 n.
Wedgwood, Josiah, 260, 261, 268, 269 n.;
visit from C. at Upcott, 308;
his temporary residence at Upcott, 308 n.;
337 n., 350, 351 and note, 416 n.;
withdraws his half of the Wedgwood annuity from C., 602, 611 and note;
C.’s regard and love for, 611, 612.
Wedgwood, Josiah and Thomas, settle on C. an annuity for life of £150,
234 and note, 235 and note;
269 n., 321.
Wedgwood, Miss Sarah, 412, 416, 417.
Wedgwood, Thomas, 323, 379 n.;
with C. in South Wales, 412, 413;
his fine and subtle mind, 412;
proposes to pass the winter in Italy with C., 413, 414, 418;
415, 416;
a genuine philosopher, 448, 449;
C.’s gratitude towards, 451;
456 n., 493;
C.’s love for, mingled with fear, 612;
letter from C., 417.
Welles, A., 462.
Wellesley, Marquis of, 674.
Welsh clergyman, a, 79, 80.
Wensley, Miss, an actress, and her father, 704.
Wernigerode Inn, 298 n.
West, Mr., 633.
Whitbread, Samuel, 598.
White, Blanco, 741, 744.
White, J. N., extract from a letter from Southey, 545 n.
White Water Dash, 375 and note, 376 n.
Wilberforce, William, 535.
Wilkie, Sir David, his portraits of Hartley C., 511 n.;
his _Blind Fiddler_, 511 n.
Wilkinson, Thomas, 538 n.;
letter from C., 538.
Will, lunacy or idiocy of the, 768.
Williams, Edward (Iolo Morgangw), 162 and note.
Williams, John (“Antony Pasquin”), 603 n.
Wilson, Mrs., housekeeper for Mr. Jackson of Greta Hall, 461 and note,
491;
Hartley C.’s attachment for, 510.
Wilson, Professor, 756.
Windy Brow, 346.
_Wish written in Jesus Wood, February 10, 1792, A_, 35.
_With passive joy the moment I survey_, an anonymous sonnet, 177, 178.
_With wayworn feet, a pilgrim woe-begone_, a sonnet by Southey, 127 and
note.
Wolf, Freiherr Johann Christian von, 735.
Wollstonecraft, Mary, 316, 318 n., 321.
Woodlands, 271.
Woolman, John, 540.
_Woolman, John, the Journal of_, 4 and note.
Worcester, 154.
Wordsworth, Catherine, 563.
Wordsworth, Rev. Christopher, D. D., 225 n.;
Charles Lloyd reads Greek with, 311.
Wordsworth, Rev. Christopher, M. A., his _Social Life at the English
Universities in the Eighteenth Century_, 225 n.
Wordsworth, Rt. Rev. Christopher, D. D., his _Memoirs of William
Wordsworth_, 432 n., 585 n.
Wordsworth, Dorothy, 10 n.;
C.’s description of, 218 n.;
visits C. with her brother, 224-227;
228, 231, 245 n., 249;
goes to Germany with William Wordsworth, Coleridge, and John Chester,
259;
with her brother at Goslar, 272, 273;
returns with him to England, 288, 296;
311 n., 346, 367, 373, 385;
accompanies her brother and C. on a tour in Scotland, 431, 432 and
note;
577, 599 n.
Wordsworth, John, son of William W., 545.
Wordsworth, Captain John, and the effect of his death on C.’s spirits,
494 and note, 495 and note, 497.
Wordsworth, Thomas, death of, 599 n.;
C.’s love of, 600.
Wordsworth, William, 10 n., 163 and note, 164 and note, 218 n.;
visit from C. at Racedown, 220 and note, 221;
greatness of, 221, 224;
settles at Alfoxden, near Stowey, 224;
at C.’s cottage, 224-227;
C. visits him at Alfoxden, 227;
228, 231, 232;
suspected of conspiracy against the government, 232 n., 233;
memoranda scribbled on the outside sheet of a letter from C., 238 n.;
his greatness and amiability, 239;
his _Excursion_, 244 n., 337 n., 585 n., 641, 642, 645-650;
245;
C.’s admiration for, 246;
250 n.;
accompanies C. to Germany, 259;
268, 269 n.;
considers settling near the Lakes, 270;
271;
at Goslar with his sister, 272, 273;
an _Epitaph_ by, 284;
returns to England, 288, 296;
wishes C. to live near him in the North of England, 296;
his grief at C.’s refusal, 296, 297;
304, 313;
his and C.’s _Lyrical Ballads_, 336, 337, 341, 350 and note, 387;
his admiration for _Christabel_, 337;
338, 342;
proposal from William Calvert in regard to sharing his house and
studying chemistry with him, 345, 346;
his _Stanzas written in my Pocket Copy of Thomson’s Castle of
Indolence_, 345 n.;
348, 350;
marries Miss Mary Hutchinson, 359 n.;
363, 367, 370, 373;
his opinion of poetic license, 373-375;
C. addresses his _Ode to Dejection_ to, 378 and note, 379 and note,
380-384;
385-387;
his _Ruth_, 387;
400, 418, 428;
with C. on a Scotch tour, 431-434;
his _Peter Bell_, 432 and note;
441, 443;
receives a visit at Grasmere from C., who is taken ill there, 447;
his hypochondria, 448;
his happiness and philosophy, 449, 450;
a most original poet, 450;
451;
his _To a Highland Girl_, 459;
464, 468;
his reference to C. in _The Prelude_, 386 n.;
452;
his _Brothers_, 494 n., 609 n.;
his _Happy Warrior_, 494 n.;
extract from a letter to Sir George Beaumont on John Wordsworth’s
death, 494 n.;
511 and note, 522;
his essays on the Convention of Cintra, 534 and note, 543 and note,
548-550;
535;
his _To the Spade of a Friend_, 558 n.;
543 and note, 546, 522, 553 n., 556;
C.’s misunderstanding with, 576 n., 577, 578, 586-588, 612;
his _Essays upon Epitaphs_, 585 and note;
a long-delayed explanation from C., 588-595;
reconciled with C., 596, 597, 599, 612;
death of his son Thomas, 599 n.;
second rupture with C., 599 n., 600 n.;
his projected poem, _The Recluse_, 646, 647 and note, 648-650;
678;
on William Blake as a poet, 686 n.;
his unfinished translation of the _Æneid_, 733 and note, 734;
felicities and unforgettable lines and stanzas in his poems, 734;
influence of the _Edinburgh Review_ on the sale of his works in
Scotland, 741, 742;
759 n.;
letters from C., 234, 588, 596, 599, 643, 733.
_Wordsworth, William, Life of_, by Rev. William Angus Knight, LL. D.,
164 n., 220 n., 447 n., 585 n., 591 n., 596 n., 599 n., 600 n.,
733 n., 759 n.
_Wordsworth, William, Memoirs of_, by Christopher Wordsworth, 432 n.,
550 n., 585 n.
_Wordsworth, William, To_, 641, 644;
C. quotes from, 646, 647;
647 n.
Wordsworth, Mrs. William, extract from a letter to Sara Coleridge, 220;
525.
_See_ Hutchinson, Mary.
Wordsworths, the, visit from C. and his son Hartley at Coleorton
Farmhouse, 509-514;
545;
letter from C., 456.
Wrangham, Francis, 363 and note.
Wrexham, 77, 78.
Wright, Joseph, A. R. A. (Wright of Derby), 152 and note.
Wright, W. Aldis, 174 n.
Wynne, Mr., an old friend of Southey’s, 639 n.
Wyville’s proofs of C.’s portrait, 770.
Yarmouth, 258, 259.
Yates, Miss, 39.
Yews near Brecon, 411.
York, Duke of, 543 n., 555 n., 567 and note.
Young, Edward, 404.
_Youth and Age_, 730 n.
_Zapolya: A Christmas Tale, in two Parts_, its publication in book form
after rejection by the Drury Lane Committee, 666 and note, 667-669.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Richard Sharp, 1759-1835, known as “Conversation Sharp,” a banker,
Member of Parliament, and distinguished critic. He was a friend of
Wordsworth’s, and on intimate terms with Coleridge and Southey. _Life of
W. Wordsworth_, i. 377; _Letters of R. Southey_, i. 279, _et passim_.
[2] Jean Victor Moreau, 1763-1813. The “retreat” took place in October,
1796, after his defeat of the Archduke Charles at Neresheim, in the
preceding August. _Biographical Dictionary._
[3] This phrase reappears in the first issue (1808) of the Prospectus of
_The Friend_. Jeffrey, to whom the Prospectus was submitted, objected to
the wording, and it was changed, in the first instance, to “mental gloom”
and finally to “dejection of mind.” See letter to F. Jeffrey, December 14,
1808, published in the _Illustrated London News_, June 10, 1893. Letter
CLXXI.
[4] See concluding paragraph of Introductory Address of _Conciones ad
Populum_ (February, 1795); _The Friend_, Section I., Essay xvi.;
_Coleridge’s Works_, 1853, ii. 307. For recantation of Necessitarianism,
see footnote (1797) to lines “To a Friend, together with an Unfinished
Poem.” _Poetical Works_, p. 38.
[5] Stuart is responsible for a story that Coleridge’s dislike and
distrust of the “fellow from Aberdeen,” the hero of _The Two Round Spaces
on a Tombstone_, dated from a visit to the Wedgwoods at Cote House, when
Mackintosh outtalked and outshone his fellow _protégé_, and drove him in
dudgeon from the party. But in 1838, when he contributed his articles to
the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, Stuart had forgotten much and looked at all
things from a different point of view. For instance, he says that the
verses attacking Mackintosh were never published, whereas they appeared in
the _Morning Post_ of December 4, 1800. A more probable explanation is
that Stuart, who was not on good terms with his brother-in-law, was in the
habit of confiding his grievances, and that Coleridge, _more suo_,
espoused his friend’s cause with unnecessary vehemence. _Gentleman’s
Magazine_, May, 1838, p. 485.
[6] _The Pantheon._ By Andrew Tooke. Revised, etc., for the use of
schools. London: 1791.
“Tooke was a prodigious favourite with us (at Christ’s Hospital). I see
before me, as vividly now as ever, his Mars and Apollo, his Venus and
Aurora--the Mars coming on furiously in his car; Apollo, with his radiant
head, in the midst of shades and fountains; Aurora with hers, a golden
dawn; and Venus, very handsome, we thought, and not looking too modest in
‘a slight cymar.’” _Autobiography of Leigh Hunt_, p. 75.
[7] See note _infra_.
[8] George Rose, 1744-1818, statesman and political writer. He had
recently brought in a bill which “authorised the sending to all the Parish
Overseers in the country a paper of questions on the condition of the
poor.” Poole, at the instance of John Rickman, secretary to Speaker Abbot,
was at this time engaged at Westminster in drawing up an abstract of the
various returns which had been made in accordance with Sir George Rose’s
bill. See Letter from T. Poole to T. Wedgwood, dated September 14, 1803.
Cottle’s _Reminiscences_, pp. 477, 478; _Thomas Poole and his Friends_,
ii. 107-114.
[9] See Letter to Southey of February 20, 1804. Letter CXLIX.
[10] John Dalton, 1766-1844, chemist and meteorologist. He published his
researches on the atomic theory, which he had begun in 1803, in his _New
System of Chemical Philosophy_, in 1808. _Biographical Dictionary._
[11] His old fellow-student at Göttingen.
[12]
“O for a single hour of that Dundee,
Who on that day the word of onset gave.”
“In the Pass of Killicranky.” Wordsworth’s _Poetical Works_, 1889, p. 201.
[13] John Tobin the dramatist (or possibly his brother James), with whom
Coleridge spent the last weeks of his stay in London, before he left for
Portsmouth on the 27th of March, on his way to Malta.
[14] The misspelling, which was intentional, was an intimation to Lamb
that the letter was not to be opened.
[15] A retired carrier, the owner of Greta Hall, who occupied “the smaller
of the two houses inter-connected under one roof.” He was godfather to
Hartley Coleridge, and left him a legacy of fifty pounds. Mrs. Wilson, the
“Wilsy” of Hartley’s childhood, was Jackson’s housekeeper. _Memoir and
Letters of Sara Coleridge_, 1873, i. 13.
[16] Coleridge had already attended Davy’s Lectures at the Royal
Institution in 1802, and, possibly, in 1803. It is probable that allusions
in his correspondence to Davy’s Lectures gave rise to the mistaken
supposition that he delivered public lectures in London before 1808.
[17]
“He said, and, gliding like a snake,
Where Caradoc lay sleeping made his way.
Sweetly slept he, and pleasant were his dreams
Of Britain, and the blue-eyed maid he loved.
The Azteca stood over him; he knew
His victim, and the power of vengeance gave
Malignant joy. ‘Once hast thou ’scaped my arm:
But what shall save thee now?’ the Tyger thought,
Exulting; and he raised his spear to strike.
That instant, o’er the Briton’s unseen harp
The gale of morning past, and swept its strings
Into so sweet a harmony, that sure
It seem’d no earthly tone. The savage man
Suspends his stroke; he looks astonished round;
No human hand is near: ... and hark! again
The aërial music swells and dies away.
Then first the heart of Tlalala felt fear:
He thought that some protecting spirit watch’d
Beside the Stranger, and, abash’d, withdrew.”
“Madoc in Aztlan,” Book XI. Southey’s _Poetical Works_, 1838, v. 274, 275.
[18] Mrs. E. Fenwick, author of _Secrecy_, a novel (1799); a friend of
Godwin’s first wife, Mary Wollstonecraft. _William Godwin_, by C. Kegan
Paul, i. 282, 283. See, also, Lamb’s _Letters_ (ed. Ainger), i. 331; and
Lamb’s essays, “Two Races of Men,” and “Newspapers Thirty-five Years ago.”
[19] Lamb’s “bad baby”--“a disgusting woman who wears green spectacles.”
_Letters_, _passim_.
[20] Afterwards Sir John Stoddart, Chief Justice of Malta, 1826-39.
[21] A note dated “Treasury, July 20th, 1805,” gives vent to his feelings
on this point. “Saturday morning ½ past nine o’clock, and soon I shall
have to brace up my hearing _in toto_, (for I hear in my brain--I hear,
that is, I have an immediate and _peculiar_ feeling instantly co-adunated
with the sense of external sound = (exactly) to that which is experienced
when one makes a wry face, and putting one’s right hand palm-wise to the
right ear, and the left palm pressing hard on the forehead, one says to a
bawler, ‘For mercy’s sake, man! don’t split the drum of one’s
ear’--sensations analogous to this of various degrees of pain, even to a
strange sort of uneasy pleasure. I am obnoxious to pure sound and
therefore was saying--[N. B. Tho’ I ramble, I always come back to
sense--the sense alive, tho’ sometimes a limb of syntax broken]--was
saying that I hear in my brain, and still more hear in my stomach). For
this ubiquity, almost (for I might safely add my toes--one or two, at
least--and my knees) for this ubiquity of the _Tympanum auditorium_ I am
now to wind up my courage, for in a few seconds that accursed Reveille,
the horrible crash and persevering malignant torture of the
_Pare-de-Drum_, will attack me, like a party of yelling, drunken North
American Indians attacking a crazy fort with a tired garrison, out of an
ambush. The noisiness of the Maltese everybody must notice; but I have
observed uniformly among them such utter impassiveness to the action of
sounds as that I am fearful that the _verum_ will be scarcely
_verisimile_. I have heard screams of the most frightful kind, as of
children run over by a cart, and running to the window I have seen two
children in a parlour opposite to me (naked, except a kerchief tied round
the waist) screaming in their horrid fiendiness--for _fun_! three adults
in the room perfectly unannoyed, and this suffered to continue for twenty
minutes, or as long as their lungs enabled them. But it goes thro’
everything, their street-cries, their priests, their advocates, their very
pigs yell rather than squeak, or both together, rather, as if they were
the true descendants of some half-dozen of the swine into which the Devils
went, recovered by the Royal Humane Society. The dogs all night long would
draw curses on them, but that the Maltese cats--it surpasses description,
for he who has only heard caterwauling on English roofs can have no idea
of a cat-serenade in Malta. In England it has often a close and painful
resemblance to the distressful cries of young children, but in Malta it is
identical with the wide range of screams uttered by imps while they are
dragging each other into hotter and still hotter pools of brimstone and
fire. It is the discord of Torment and of Rage and of Hate, of paroxysms
of Revenge, and _every_ note grumbles away into Despair.”
[22] The first Sicilian tour extended from the middle of August to the 7th
of November, 1804. Two or three days, August 19-21, were spent in the
neighbourhood of Etna. He slept at Nicolosi and visited the Hospice of St.
Nicola dell’ Arena. It is unlikely that he reached the actual summit, but
two ascents were made, probably to the limit of the wooded region. A few
days later, August 24, he reached Syracuse, where he was hospitably
entertained by H. M. Consul G. F. Lecky. The notes which he took of his
visit to Etna are fragmentary and imperfect, but the description of
Syracuse and its surroundings occupies many pages of his note-book. Under
the heading, “Timoleon’s, Oct. 18, 1804, Wednesday, noon,” he writes: “The
Gaza and Tree at Tremiglia. Rocks with cactus, pendulous branches,
seed-pods black at the same time with the orange-yellow flower, and little
daisy-like tufts of silky hair.... Timoleon’s villa, supposed to be in the
field _above_ the present house, from which you ascend _to_ fifty stairs.
Grand view of the harbour and sea, over that tongue of land which forms
the anti-Ortygian embracing arm of the harbour, the point of Plemmyrium
where Alcibiades and Nicias landed. I left the aqueduct and walked
ascendingly to some ruined cottages, beside a delve, with straight
limestone walls of rock, on which there played the shadows of the fig-tree
and the olive. I was on part of Epipolæ, and a glorious view indeed!
Before me a neck of stony common and fields--Ortygia, the open sea and the
ships, and the circular harbour which it embraces, and the sea over that
again. To my right that large extent of plain, green, rich, finely wooded;
the fields so divided and enclosed that you, as it were, _knew_ at the
first view that they are all hedged and enclosed, and yet no hedges nor
enclosings obtrude themselves--an effect of the vast number of trees of
the same sort. On my left, stony fields, two harbours, Magnisi and its
sand isle, and Augusta, and Etna, whose smoke mingles with the clouds even
as they rise from the crater.... Still as I walk the _lizard gliding
darts_ along the road, and immerges himself under a stone, and the
grasshopper leaps and tumbles awkwardly before me.”
It must have been in anticipation of this visit to Sicily, or after some
communication with Coleridge, that Wordsworth, after alluding to his
friend’s abode,--
“Where Etna over hill and valley casts
His shadow stretching towards Syracuse,
The city of Timoleon,”
gives utterance to that unusual outburst of feeling:--
“Oh! wrap him in your shades, ye giant woods,
On Etna’s side; and thou, O flowery field
Of Enna! is there not some nook of thine,
From the first play-time of the infant world
Kept sacred to restorative delight,
When from afar invoked by anxious love?”
Wordsworth’s _Poetical Works_, 1889, “The Prelude,” Book XI. p. 319.
[23] A short treatise entitled _Observations on Egypt_, which is extant in
MS., may have been among the papers sent to Stuart with a view to
publication.
[24] Shakespeare, _Richard III._, Act I. Scene 4.
[25] He had, perhaps, something more than a suspicion that Southey
disliked these protestations. In the letter of friendly remonstrance
(February, 1804), which Southey wrote to him after the affair with Godwin,
he admits that he may be “too intolerant of these phrases,” but, indeed,
he adds, “when they are true, they may be excused, and when they are not,
there is no excuse for them.” _Life and Correspondence_, ii. 266.
[26] Cynocephalus, Dog-visaged. Compare Milton’s “Hymn on the Nativity:”--
“The brutish gods of Nile as fast,
Isis and Orus and the dog Anubis haste.”
[27] A printed slip, cut off from some public document, has been preserved
in one of Coleridge’s note-books. It runs thus: “Segreteria del Governo li
29 Gennajo 1805. Samuel T. Coleridge Seg. Pub. del. Commis. Regio. G. N.
Zammit Pro segretario.” His actual period of office extended from January
18 to September 6, 1805.
[28] John Wordsworth, the poet’s younger brother, the original of Leonard
in “The Brothers,” and of “The Happy Warrior,” was drowned off the Bill of
Portland, February 5, 1805. In a letter to Sir G. Beaumont, dated February
11, 1805, Wordsworth writes: “I can say nothing higher of my ever-dear
brother than that he was worthy of his sister, who is now weeping beside
me, and of the friendship of Coleridge; meek, affectionate, silently
enthusiastic, loving all quiet things, and a poet in everything but
words.” “We have had no tidings of Coleridge. I tremble for the moment
when he is to hear of my brother’s death; it will distress him to the
heart, and his poor body cannot bear sorrow. He loved my brother, and he
knows how we at Grasmere loved him.” The report of the wreck of the Earl
of Abergavenny and of the loss of her captain did not reach Malta till the
31st of March. It was a Sunday, and Coleridge, who had been sent for to
the Palace, first heard the news from Lady Ball. His emotion at the time,
and, perhaps, a petition to be excused from his duties brought from her
the next day “a kindly letter of apology.” “Your strong feelings,” she
writes, “are too great for your health. I hope that you will soon recover
your spirits.” But Coleridge took the trouble to heart. It was the first
death in the inner circle of his friends; it meant a heavy sorrow to those
whom he best loved, and it seemed to confirm the haunting presentiment
that death would once more visit his family during his absence from home.
Ten days later he writes (in a note-book): “O dear John Wordsworth! What
joy at Grasmere that you were made Captain of the Abergavenny! now it was
next to certain that you would in a few years settle in your native hills,
and be verily one of the _concern_. Then came your share in the brilliant
action at Linois. I was at Grasmere in spirit only! but in spirit I was
one of the rejoicers ... and all these were but decoys of death! Well, but
a nobler feeling than these vain regrets would become the friend of the
man whose last words were, ‘I have done my duty! let her go!’ Let us do
our duty; all else is a dream--life and death alike a dream! This short
sentence would comprise, I believe, the sum of all profound philosophy, of
ethics and metaphysics, and conjointly from Plato to Fichte. S. T. C.”
[29] An island midway between Malta and Tunis, ceded by Naples to Don
Fernandez in 1802.
[30] A description of the cottage at Stowey and its inmates, contained in
a letter written by Mr. Richard Reynell (in August, 1797) to his sister at
Thorveston, was published in the _Illustrated London News_, April 22,
1893.
[31] Coleridge left Rome with his friend Mr. Russell on Sunday, May 18,
1806. He had received, so he tells us in the _Biographia Literaria_, a
secret warning from the Pope that Napoleon, whose animosity had been
roused by articles in the _Morning Post_, had ordered his arrest. A
similar statement is made in a footnote to a title-page of a proposed
reprint of newspaper articles (an anticipation of _Essays on His Own
Times_), which was drawn up in 1817. “My essays,” he writes, “in the
_Morning Post_, during the peace of Amiens, brought my life into jeopardy
when I was at Rome. An order for my arrest came from Paris to Rome at
twelve at night--by the Pope’s goodness I was off by one--and the arrest
of all the English took place at six.” In a letter to his brother George,
which he wrote about six months after he returned to England, he says that
he was warned to leave Rome, but does not enter into particulars. It is a
well-known fact that Napoleon read the leading articles in the _Morning
Post_, and deeply resented their tone and spirit, but whether Coleridge
was rightly informed that an order for his arrest had come from Paris, or
whether he was warned that, if with other Englishmen he should be
arrested, his connection with the _Morning Post_ would come to light, must
remain doubtful. Coleridge’s _Works_, 1853, iii. 309.
[32] An entry in a note-book, dated June 7, 1806, expresses this at
greater length: “O my children! whether, and which of you are dead,
whether any and which among you are alive I know not, and were a letter to
arrive this moment from Keswick I fear that I should be unable to open it,
so deep and black is my despair. O my children! My children! I gave you
life once, unconscious of the life I was giving, and you as unconsciously
have given life to me.” A fortnight later, he ends a similar outburst of
despair with a cry for deliverance:--
Come, come thou bleak December wind,
And blow the dry leaves from the tree!
Flash, like a love-thought thro’ me, Death!
And take a life that wearies me.
[33] It is difficult to trace his movements during his last week in Italy.
He reached Leghorn on Saturday, June 7. Thence he made his way to Florence
and returned to Pisa on a Thursday, probably Thursday, June 19, the date
of this letter. On Sunday, June 22, he was still at Pisa, but, I take it,
on the eve of setting sail for England. Fifty-five days later, August 17,
he leaped on shore at Stangate Creek. His account of Pisa is highly
characteristic. “Of the hanging Tower,” he writes, “the Duomo, the
Cemetery, the Baptistery, I shall say nothing, except that being all
together they form a wild mass, especially by moonlight, when the hanging
Tower has something of a supernatural look; but what interested me with a
deeper interest were the two hospitals, one for men, one for women,” etc.,
and these he proceeds to describe. Nevertheless he must have paid more
attention to the treasures of Pisan art than his note implies, for many
years after in a Lecture on the History of Philosophy, delivered January
19, 1819, he describes minutely and vividly the “Triumph of Death,” the
great fresco in the Campo Santo at Pisa, which was formerly assigned to
Oreagna, but is now, I believe, attributed to Ambrogio and Pietro
Lorenzetti. _MS. Journal_; _MS. Report of Lecture_.
[34] Mr. Russell was an artist, an Exeter man, whom Coleridge met in Rome.
They were fellow-travellers in Italy, and returned together to England.
[35] William Smith, M. P. for Norwich, who lived at Parndon House, near
Harlow, in Essex. It was in a great measure through his advice and
interest that Coleridge obtained his Lectureship at the Royal Institution.
Ten years later (1817), on the occasion of the surreptitious publication
of _Wat Tyler_, Mr. Smith, who was a staunch liberal, denounced the
Laureate as a “renegade,” and Coleridge with something of his old vigour
gave battle on behalf of his brother-in-law in the pages of _The Courier_.
_Essays on His Own Times_, iii. 939-950.
[36] Charles James Fox died on September 13, 1806.
[37] An unpublished letter from Sir Alexander Ball to His Excellency H.
Elliot, Esq. (Minister at the Court of Naples), strongly recommends
Coleridge to his favourable notice and consideration. Nothing that
Coleridge ever said in favour of “Ball” exceeds what Sir Alexander says of
Coleridge, but the Minister, whose hands must have been pretty full at the
time, failed to be impressed, and withheld his patronage.
[38] “The Foster-Mother’s Tale,” _Poetical Works_, 1893, p. 83.
[39] Hartley Coleridge, now in his eleventh year, was under his father’s
sole care from the end of December, 1806, to May, 1807. The first three
months were spent in the farmhouse near Coleorton, which Sir G. Beaumont
had lent to the Wordsworths, and it must have been when that visit was
drawing to a close that this letter was written for Hartley’s benefit. The
remaining five or six weeks were passed in the company of the Wordsworths
at Basil Montagu’s house in London. Then it was that Hartley saw his first
play, and was taken by Wordsworth and Walter Scott to the Tower. “The
bard’s economy,” says Hartley, “would not allow us to visit the Jewel
Office, but Mr. Scott, then no _anactolater_, took an evident pride in
showing me the claymores and bucklers taken from the Loyalists at
Culloden.” Whilst he was at Coleorton, Hartley was painted by Sir David
Wilkie. It is the portrait of a child “whose fancies from afar are
brought,” but the Hartley of this letter is better represented by the
grimacing boy in Wilkie’s “Blind Fiddler,” for which, I have been told, he
sat as a model. _Poems of Hartley Coleridge_, 1851, i. ccxxii.
[40] Scott had proposed to Southey that he should use his influence with
Jeffrey to get him placed on the staff of the _Edinburgh Review_. Southey
declined the offer alike on the score of political divergence from the
editor, and disapproval of “that sort of bitterness [in criticism] which
tends directly to wound a man in his feelings, and injure him in his fame
and fortune.” _Life and Correspondence_, iii. 124-128. See, too,
Lockhart’s _Life of Sir Walter Scott_, 1837, ii. 130.
[41] Sir John Acland. The property is now in the possession of a
descendant in the female line, Sir Alexander Hood, of Fairfield,
Dodington.
[42] To receive him and his family at Ottery as had been originally
proposed. George Coleridge disapproved of his brother’s intended
separation from his wife, and declined to countenance it in any way
whatever.
[43] _Faulkner: a Tragedy_, 1807-1808, 8vo.
[44] I presume that the reference is to the _Conciones ad Populum_,
published at Bristol, November 16, 1795.
[45] Coleridge’s article on Clarkson’s _History of the Abolition of the
Slave Trade_ was published in the _Edinburgh Review_, July, 1808. It has
never been reprinted. _Samuel Taylor Coleridge_, by J. Dykes Campbell,
London, 1894, p. 168; _Letters from the Lake Poets_, p. 180; Allsop’s
_Letters_, 1836, ii. 112.
[46] Of this pamphlet or the translation of Palm’s _Deutschland in seiner
tiefsten Erniedrigung_, I know nothing. The author, John Philip Palm, a
Nuremberg bookseller, was shot August 26, 1806, in consequence of the
publication of the work, which reflected unfavorably on the conduct and
career of Napoleon.
[47] Compare his letter to Poole, dated December 4, 1808. “Begin to count
my life, as a friend of yours, from 1st January, 1809;” and a letter to
Davy, of December, 1808, in which he speaks of a change for the better in
health and habits. _Thomas Poole and his Friends_, ii. 227; _Fragmentary
Remains of Sir H. Davy_, p. 101.
[48] The Convention of Cintra was signed August 30, 1808. Wordsworth’s
Essays were begun in the following November. “For the sake of immediate
and general circulation I determined (when I had made a considerable
progress in the manuscript) to print it in different portions in one of
the daily newspapers. Accordingly two portions of it were printed, in the
months of December and January, in the _Courier_. An accidental loss of
several sheets of the manuscript delayed the continuance of the
publication in that manner till the close of the Christmas holidays; and
this plan of publication was given up.” _Advertisement to Wordsworth’s
pamphlet on the Convention of Cintra_, May 20, 1809: _Letters from the
Lake Poets_, p. 385.
[49] “In the place of some just eulogiums due to Mr. Pitt was substituted
some abuse and detraction.” Allsop’s _Letters_, 1836, ii. 112.
[50] A preliminary prospectus of _The Friend_ was printed at Kendal and
submitted to Jeffrey and a few others. A copy of this “first edition” is
in my possession, and it is interesting to notice that Coleridge has
directed his amanuensis, Miss Hutchinson, to amend certain offending
phrases in accordance with Jeffrey’s suggestions. “Speculative gloom” and
“year-long absences” he gives up, but, as the postscript intimates, “moral
impulses” he has the hardihood to retain. See _The Friend’s Quarterly
Examiner_ for July, 1893, art. “S. T. Coleridge on Quaker Principles;” and
_Athenæum_ for September 16, 1893, art. “Coleridge on Quaker Principles.”
[51] Thomas Wilkinson, of Yanwath, near Penrith, was a member of the
Society of Friends. He owned and tilled a small estate on the banks of the
Emont, which he laid out and ornamented “after the manner of Shenstone at
his Leasowes.” As a friend and neighbour of the Clarksons and of Lord
Lonsdale he was well known to Wordsworth, who, greatly daring, wrote in
his honour his lines “To the Spade of a Friend (an Agriculturist).”
Alas! for the poor Prospectus! “Speculative gloom” and “year-long absence”
had been sacrificed to Jeffrey, and now “Architecture, Dress, Dancing,
Gardening, Music, Poetry, and Painting” were erased in obedience to
Wilkinson. Most of these articles, however, “Architecture, Dress,” etc.,
reappeared in a second edition of the Prospectus, attached to the second
number of _The Friend_, but Dancing, “Greek statuesque dancing,” on which
Coleridge might have discoursed at some length, was gone forever.
Wordsworth’s _Works_, p. 211 (Fenwick Note); _The Friend’s Quarterly
Examiner_, July, 1893; _Records of a Quaker Family_, by Anne Ogden Boyce,
London, 1889, pp. 30, 31, 55.
[52] The original draft of the prospectus of _The Friend_, which was
issued in the late autumn of 1808, was printed at Kendal by W. Pennington.
Certain alterations were suggested by Jeffrey and others (Southey in a
letter to Rickman dated January 18, 1809, complains that Coleridge had
“carried a prospectus wet from the pen to the publisher, without
consulting anybody”), and a fresh batch of prospectuses was printed in
London. A third variant attached to the first number of the weekly issue,
June 1, 1809, was printed by Brown, a bookseller and stationer at Penrith,
who, on Mr. Pennington’s refusal, undertook to print and publish _The
Friend_. Some curious letters which passed between Coleridge and his
printer, together with the MS. of _The Friend_, in the handwriting of Miss
Sarah Hutchinson, are preserved in the Forster Library at the South
Kensington Museum. _Letters from the Lake Poets_, pp. 85-188; _Selections
from the Letters of R. Southey_, ii. 120.
[53] Compare letters to Stuart (December), 1808. “You will long ere this
have received Wordsworth’s second Essay, etc., rewritten by me, and in
some parts recomposed.” _Letters from the Lake Poets_, p. 101.
[54] Colonel Wardle, who led the attack in the House of Commons against
the Duke of York, with regard to the undue influence in military
appointments of the notorious Mrs. Clarke.
[55] Coleridge’s friendship with Dr. Beddoes dated from 1795-96, and was
associated with his happier days. It is possible that the recent amendment
in health and spirits was due to advice and sympathy which he had met with
in response to a confession made in writing to his old Bristol friend. His
death, which took place on the 24th of December, 1808, would rob Coleridge
of a newly-found support, and would “take out of his life” the hope of
self-conquest. The letter implies that he had recently heard from or
conversed with Beddoes.
[56] Compare letter from Southey to J. N. White dated April 21, 1809. “A
ridiculous disorder called the Mumps has nearly gone through the house,
and visited me on its way--a thing which puts one more out of humour than
out of health; but my neck has now regained its elasticity, and I have
left off the extra swathings which yesterday buried my chin, after the
fashion of fops a few years ago.” _Selections from the Letters of R.
Southey_, ii, 135, 136.
[57] The Parliamentary investigation of the charges and allegations with
regard to the military patronage of the Duke of York.
[58] Bertha Southey, afterwards Mrs. Herbert Hill, was born March 27,
1809.
[59] “The Appendix (to the pamphlet _On the Convention of Cintra_), a
portion of the work which Mr. Wordsworth regarded as executed in a
masterly manner, was drawn up by Mr. De Quincey, who revised the proofs of
the whole.” _Memoirs of Wordsworth_, i. 384.
[60] In Southey’s copy of the reprint of the stamped sheets of _The
Friend_ the passage runs thus: “However this may be, the Understanding or
regulative faculty is manifestly distinct from Life and Sensation, its
_function_ being to take up the _passive affections_ of the sense into
distinct Thoughts and Judgements, according to its own essential forms.
These forms, however,” etc. _The Friend_, No. 5, Thursday, September 14,
1809, p. 79, _n._
[61] For extracts from Poole’s narrative of John Walford, see _Thomas
Poole and his Friends_, ii. 235-237. Wordsworth endeavoured to put the
narrative into verse, but was dissatisfied with the result. His lines have
never been published.
[62] H. N. Coleridge included these lines, as they appear in a note-book,
among the _Omniana_ of 1809-1816. They are headed incorrectly,
“Inscription on a Clock in Cheapside.” The MS. is not very legible, but
there can be no doubt that Coleridge wrote, “On a clock in a market place
(proposed).” _Table Talk_, etc., 1884, p. 401; _Poetical Works_, p. 181.
[63] The story of Maria Eleanora Schöning appeared in No. 13 of _The
Friend_, Thursday, November 16, 1809, pp. 194-208. It was reprinted as the
“Second Landing Place” in the revised edition of _The Friend_, published
in 1818. The somewhat laboured description of the heroine’s voice, which
displeased Southey, and the beautiful illustration of the “withered leaf”
were allowed to remain unaltered, and appear in every edition. Coleridge’s
_Works_, 1853, ii. 312-326.
[64] Jonas Lewis von Hess, 1766-1823. He was a friend and pupil of Kant,
and author of _A History of Hamburg_.
[65] John of Milan, who flourished 1100 A. D., was the author of _Medicina
Salernitana_. He also composed “versibus Leoninis,” a poem entitled _Flos
Medicinæ_. Hoffmann’s _Lexicon Universale_, art. “Salernum.”
[66] Three letters on the Catholic Question appeared in the _Courier_,
September 3, 21, and 26, 1811. _Essays on His Own Times_, iii. 891-896,
920-932.
[67] The Battle of Albuera. Articles on the battle appeared in the
_Courier_ on June 5 and 8, 1811. _Essays on His Own Times_, iii. 802-805.
[68] “That a Judge should have regarded as an aggravation of a libel on
the British Army, the writer’s having written against Buonaparte, is an
act so monstrous,” etc. “Buonaparte,” _Courier_, June 29, 1811; _Essays on
His Own Times_, iii. 818.
[69] John Drakard, the printer of the _Stamford News_, was convicted at
Lincoln, May 25, 1811, of the publication of an article against flogging
in the army, and sentenced to a fine and imprisonment.
[70] Lord Milton, one of the members for Yorkshire, brought forward a
motion on June 6, 1811, against the reappointment of the Duke of York as
Commander-in-Chief.
[71] Clerk of the _Courier_. Letter to _Gentleman’s Magazine_, June, 1838,
p. 586.
[72] Many years after the date of this letter, Dr. Spurzheim took a
life-mask of Coleridge’s face, and used it as a model for a bust which
originally belonged to H. N. Coleridge, and is now in the Library at
Heath’s Court, Ottery St. Mary. Another bust of Coleridge, very similar to
Spurzheim’s, belonged to my father, and is still in the possession of the
family. I have been told that it was taken from a death-mask, but as Mr.
Hamo Thornycroft, who designed the bust for Westminster Abbey, pointed out
to me, it abounds in anatomical defects. In a letter which Henry Coleridge
wrote to his father, Colonel Coleridge, on the day of his uncle’s death,
he says that a death-mask had been taken of the poet’s features. Whether
this served as a model for a posthumous bust, or not, I am unable to say.
In the curious and valuable article on death-masks which Mr. Laurence
Hutton contributed to the October number of _Harper’s Magazine_, for 1892,
he gives a fac-simile of a death-mask which was said to be that of S, T.
Coleridge. At the time that I wrote to him on the subject, I had not seen
Henry Coleridge’s letter, but I came to the conclusion that this sad
memorial of death was genuine. The “glorious forehead” is there, but the
look has passed away, and the “rest is silence.” With regard to Allston’s
bust of Coleridge, which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1812, I
possess no information. See _Harper’s Magazine_, October, 1892, pp. 782,
783.
[73] A favourite quip. Apropos of the bed on which he slept at Trinity
College, Cambridge, in June, 1833, he remarks, “Truly I lay down at night
a man, and awoke in the morning a bruise.” _Table Talk_, etc., Bell & Co.,
1884, p. 231, note.
[74] “Crimen ingrati animi nil aliud est quam perspicacia quædam in causam
collati beneficii.” _De Augmentis Scientiarum_, cap. iii. 15. If this is
the passage which Coleridge is quoting, he has inserted some words of his
own. _The Works of Bacon_, 1711, i. 183.
[75] A crayon sketch of Coleridge, drawn by George Dawe, R. A., is now in
existence at Heath Court. The figure, which is turned sideways, the face
looking up, the legs crossed, is that of a man in early middle life,
somewhat too portly for his years. An engraving of the sketch forms the
frontispiece to Lloyd’s _History of Highgate_. It was, in the late Lord
Coleridge’s opinion, a most characteristic likeness of his great-uncle. A
time came when, for some reason, Coleridge held Dawe in but light esteem.
I possess a card of invitation to his funeral, which took place at St.
Paul’s Cathedral, on October 27, 1829. It is endorsed thus:--
“I really would have attended the Grub’s Canonization in St. Paul’s,
under the impression that it would gratify his sister, Mrs. Wright;
but Mr. G. interposed a conditional but sufficiently decorous
negative. ‘No! Unless you wish to follow his Grubship still further
_down_.’ So I pleaded ill health. But the very Thursday morning I went
to Town to see my daughter, for the first time, as _Mrs. Henry
Coleridge_, in Gower Street, and, odd enough, the stage was stopped by
the Pompous Funeral of the unchangeable and predestinated Grub, and I
extemporised:--
As Grub Dawe pass’d beneath the Hearse’s Lid,
On which a large RESURGAM met the eye,
_Col_, who well knew the Grub, cried, Lord forbid!
I trust, he’s only telling us a lie!
S. T. COLERIDGE.”
Dawe, it may be remembered, is immortalised by Lamb in his amusing
_Recollections of a Late Royal Academician_.
[76] This portrait, begun at Rome, was not finished when Coleridge left.
It is now in the possession of Allston’s niece, Miss Charlotte Dana, of
Boston, Mass., U. S. A. The portrait by Allston, now in the National
Portrait Gallery, was taken at Bristol in 1814. _Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
a Narrative_, by J. Dykes Campbell, 1894, p. 150, footnote 5.
[77] The lectures were delivered at the rooms of “The London Philosophical
Society, Scotch Corporation Hall, Crane Court, Fleet Street (entrance from
Fetter Lane).” Of the lecture on “Love and the Female Character,” which
was delivered on December 9, 1811, H. C. Robinson writes: “Accompanied
Mrs. Rough to Coleridge’s seventh and incomparably best Lecture. He
declaimed with great eloquence about love, without wandering from his
subject, Romeo and Juliet.” Among the friends who took notes were John
Payne Collier, and a Mr. Tomalin. Coleridge’s _Lectures on Shakespeare_,
London, 1856, p. viii.; H. C. Robinson’s _Diary_, ii. 348, MS. notes by J.
Tomalin.
[78] The visit to Greta Hall, the last he ever paid to the Lake Country,
lasted about a month, from February 23 to March 26. On his journey
southward he remained in Penrith for a little over a fortnight, rejoining
the Morgans towards the middle of April.
[79] The Reverend John Dawes, who kept a day-school at Ambleside. Hartley
and Derwent Coleridge, Robert Jameson, Owen Lloyd and his three brothers
(sons of Charles Lloyd), and the late Edward Jefferies, afterwards Curate
and Rector of Grasmere, were among his pupils. In the _Memoir of Hartley
Coleridge_, his brother Derwent describes at some length the character of
his “worthy master,” and adds: “We were among his earliest scholars, and
deeming it, as he said, an honour to be entrusted with the education of
Mr. Coleridge’s sons, he refused, first for the elder, and afterwards for
the younger brother, any pecuniary remuneration.” _Poems_ of Hartley
Coleridge, 1851, i. liii.
[80] In an unpublished letter from Mrs. Coleridge to Poole, dated October
30, 1812, she tells her old friend that when “the boys” perceived that
their father did not intend to turn aside to visit the Wordsworths at the
Rectory opposite Grasmere Church, they turned pale and were visibly
affected. No doubt they knew all about the quarrel and were mightily
concerned, but their agitation was a reflex of the grief and passion “writ
large” in their father’s face. One can imagine with what ecstasy of
self-torture he would pass through Grasmere and leave Wordsworth
unvisited.
[81] Sir Thomas Bernard, 1750-1818, the well-known philanthropist and
promoter of national education, was one of the founders of the Royal
Institution.
[82] It is probable that during his stay at Penrith he recovered a number
of unbound sheets of the reprint of _The Friend_. His proposal to Gale and
Curtis must have been to conclude the unfinished narrative of the life of
Sir Alexander Ball, and to publish the whole as a complete work. A printed
slip cut out of a page of publishers’ advertisements and forwarded to “H.
N. Coleridge, Esq., from W. Pickering,” contains the following
announcement:--
“Mr. Coleridge’s _Friend_, of which twenty-eight Numbers are published,
may now be had, in one Volume, royal 8vo. boards, of Mess. Gale and
Curtis, Paternoster Row. And Mr. C. intends to complete the Work, in from
eight to ten similar sheets to the foregoing, which will be published
together in one part, sewed. The Subscribers to the former part can obtain
them through their regular Booksellers. Only 300 copies remain of the 28
numbers, and their being printed on unstamped paper will account to the
Subscribers for the difference of price. 23, Paternoster Row, London, 1st
February, 1812.”
[83] The full title of this work was _The Origin, Nature and Object of the
New System of Education_. Southey’s _Life of Dr. Bell_, ii. 409.
[84] The Honourable and Right Reverend John Shute Barrington, 1734-1826,
sixth son of the first Lord Barrington, was successively Bishop of
Llandaff, Salisbury, and Durham. He was a warm supporter of the Madras
system of education. It was no doubt Dr. Bell who helped to interest the
Bishop in Coleridge’s Lectures.
[85] Herbert Southey, known in the family as “Dog-Lunus,” and “Lunus,” and
“The Moon.” _Letters of R. Southey_, ii. 399.
[86] Readers of _The Doctor_ will not be at a loss to understand the
significance of the references to Dr. Daniel Dove and his horse Nobs.
According to Cuthbert Southey, the actual composition of the book began in
1813, but the date of this letter (April, 1812) shows that the myth or
legend of the “Doctor,” and his iron-grey, which had taken shape certainly
as early as 1805, was fully developed in the spring of 1812, when
Coleridge paid his last visit to Greta Hall. It was not till the winter of
1833-1834, that the first two volumes of _The Doctor_ appeared in print,
and, as they were published anonymously, they were, probably, by persons
familiar with his contribution to _Blackwood_ and the _London Magazine_,
attributed to Hartley Coleridge. “No clue to the author has reached me,”
wrote Southey to his friend Wynne. “As for Hartley Coleridge, I wish it
were his, but am certain that it is not. He is quite clever enough to have
written it--quite odd enough, but his opinions are desperately radical,
and he is the last person in the world to disguise them. One report was
that his father had assisted him; there is not a page in the book, wise or
foolish, which the latter _could_ have written, neither his wisdom nor his
folly are of that kind.” There had been a time when Southey would have
expressed himself differently, but in 1834 dissociation from Coleridge had
become a matter alike of habit and of principle. _Southey’s Life and
Correspondence_, ii. 355, vi. 225-229; _Letters of R. Southey_, iv. 373.
[87] The first of the series of “Essays upon Epitaphs” was published in
No. 25 of the original issue of _The Friend_ (Feb. 22, 1810), and
republished by Wordsworth in the notes to _The Excursion_, 1814. “Two
other portions of the ‘Series,’ of which the Bishop of Lincoln gives an
outline and some extracts in the _Memoirs_ (i. 434-445), were published in
full in _Prose Works of Wordsworth_, 1876, ii. 41-75.” _Life of W.
Wordsworth_, ii. 152; _Poetical Works of Wordsworth_, Bibliography, p.
907.
[88] To Miss Sarah Hutchinson, then living in Wales.
[89] That Wordsworth ever used these words, or commissioned Montagu to
repeat them to Coleridge, is in itself improbable and was solemnly denied
by Wordsworth himself. But Wordsworth did not deny that with the best
motives and in a kindly spirit he took Montagu into his confidence and put
him on his guard, that he professed “to have no hope” of his old friend,
and that with regard to Coleridge’s “habits” he might have described them
as a “nuisance” in his family. It was all meant for the best, but much
evil and misery might have been avoided if Wordsworth had warned Coleridge
that if he should make his home under Montagu’s roof he could not keep
silence, or, better still, if he had kept silence and left Montagu to
fight his own battles. The cruel words which Montagu put into Wordsworth’s
mouth or Coleridge in his agitation and resentment put into Montagu’s,
were but the salt which the sufferer rubbed into his own wound. The time,
the manner, and the person combined to aggravate his misery and dismay.
Judgment had been delivered against him _in absentiâ_, and the judge was
none other than his own “familiar friend.” Henry Crabb Robinson’s _Diary_,
May 3-10, 1812, first published in _Life of W. Wordsworth_, ii. 168, 187.
[90] The tickets were numbered and signed by the lecturer. Printed cards
which were issued by way of advertisement contained the following
announcement:--
“LECTURES ON THE DRAMA.
“Mr. Coleridge proposes to give a series of Lectures on the Drama of the
Greek, French, English and Spanish stage, chiefly with Reference to the
Works of Shakespeare, at Willis’s Rooms, King Street, St. James’s, on the
Tuesdays and Fridays in May and June at Three o’clock precisely. The
Course will contain Six Lectures, at One Guinea. The Tickets Transferable.
An Account is opened at Mess. Ransom Morland & Co., Bankers, Pall Mall, in
the names of Sir G. Beaumont, Bart., Sir T. Bernard, Bart., W. Sotheby,
Esq., where Subscriptions will be received, and Tickets issued. The First
Lecture on Tuesday, the 12th of May.--S. T. C., 71, Berners St.”
For an account of the first four lectures, see H. C. Robinson’s _Diary_,
i. 385-388.
[91] From Bombay.
[92] I have followed Professor Knight in omitting a passage in which “he
gives a lengthened list of circumstances which seemed to justify
misunderstanding.” The alleged facts throw no light on the relations
between Coleridge and Wordsworth.
[93] The cryptogram which Coleridge invented for his own use was based on
the arbitrary selection of letters of the Greek as equivalents to letters
of the English alphabet. The vowels were represented by English letters,
by the various points, and by algebraic symbols. An expert would probably
decipher nine tenths of these memoranda at a glance, but here and there
the words symbolised are themselves anagrams of Greek, Latin, and German
words, and, in a few instances, the clue is hard to seek.
[94] The Right Honourable Spencer Perceval was shot by a man named
Bellingham, in the lobby of the House of Commons, May 11, 1812.
[95] The occasion of this letter was the death of Wordsworth’s son,
Thomas, which took place December 1, 1812. It would seem, as Professor
Knight intimates, that the letter was not altogether acceptable to the
Wordsworths, and that “no immediate reply was sent to Coleridge.” We have
it, on the authority of Mr. Clarkson, that when Wordsworth and Dorothy did
write, in the spring of the following year, inviting him to Grasmere,
their letters remained unanswered, and that when the news came that
Coleridge was about to leave London for the seaside, a fresh wound was
inflicted, and fresh offence taken. As Mr. Dykes Campbell has pointed out,
the consequences of this second rupture were fatal to Coleridge’s peace of
mind and to his well-being generally. The brief spell of success and
prosperity which attended the representation of “Remorse” inspired him for
a few weeks with unnatural courage, but as the “pale unwarming light of
Hope” died away, he was left to face the world and himself as best or as
worst he could. Of the months which intervened between March and
September, 1813, there is no record, and we can only guess that he
remained with his kind and patient hosts, the Morgans, sick in body and
broken-hearted. _Life of W. Wordsworth_, ii. 182; _Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, a Narrative_, by J. Dykes Campbell, 1894, pp. 193-197.
[96] See Letter CXCV., p. 611, note 2.
[97] The notice of “Remorse” in _The Times_, though it condemned the play
as a whole, was not altogether uncomplimentary, and would be accepted at
the present day by the majority of critics as just and fair. It was, no
doubt, the didactic and patronising tone adopted towards the author which
excited Coleridge’s indignation. “We speak,” writes the reviewer, “with
restraint and unwillingly of the defects of a work which must have cost
its author so much labour. We are peculiarly reluctant to touch the
anxieties of a man,” etc. The notice in the _Morning Post_ was friendly
and flattering in the highest degree. The preface to _Osorio_, London,
1873, contains selections of press notices of “Remorse,” and other
interesting matter. See, too, _Poetical Works_, Editor’s Note on
“Remorse,” pp. 649-651.
[98] John Williams, described by Macaulay as “a filthy and malignant
baboon,” who wrote under the pseudonym of “Anthony Pasquin,” emigrated to
America early in this century. In 1804 he published a work in Boston, and
there is, apparently, no reason to suppose that he subsequently returned
to England. Either Coleridge was in error or he uses the term generally
for a scurrilous critic.
[99] This note-book must have passed out of Coleridge’s possession in his
lifetime, for it is not among those which were bequeathed to Joseph Henry
Green, and subsequently passed into the hands of my father. The two folio
volumes of the Greek Poets were in my father’s library, and are now in my
possession.
[100] “Mr. Colridge (_sic_) will not, we fear, be as much entertained as
we were with his ‘Playhouse Musings,’ which begin with characteristic
pathos and simplicity, and put us much in mind of the affecting story of
old Poulter’s mare.”
[101] The motto “Sermoni propriora,” translated by Lamb “properer for a
sermon,” was prefixed to “Reflections on having left a Place of
Retirement.” The lines “To a Young Ass” were originally published in the
_Morning Chronicle_, December 30, 1794, under the heading, “Address to a
Young Jack Ass, and its _tethered_ Mother. In Familiar Verse.” _Poetical
Works_, pp. 35, 36, Appendix C, p. 477. See, too, Biographia Literaria,
Coleridge’s _Works_, 1853, iii. 161.
[102] The words, “Obscurest Haunt of all our mountains,” are to be found
in the first act of “Remorse,” lines 115, 116. Their counterpart in
Wordsworth’s poems occurs in “The Brothers,” l. 140. (“It is the loneliest
place of all these hills.”) “De minimis non curat lex,” especially when
there is a plea to be advanced, or a charge to be defended. _Poetical
Works_, p. 362; _Works of Wordsworth_, p. 127.
[103] Many theories have been hazarded with regard to the broken
friendship commemorated in these lines. My own impression is that
Coleridge, if he had anything personal in his mind, and we may be sure
that he had, was looking back on his early friendship with Southey and the
bitter quarrel which began over the collapse of pantisocracy, and was
never healed till the summer of 1799. In the late autumn of 1800, when the
second part of “Christabel” was written, Southey was absent in Portugal,
and the thought of all that had come and gone between him and his “heart’s
best brother” inspired this outburst of affection and regret.
[104] The annuity of £150 for life, which Josiah Wedgwood, on his own and
his brother Thomas’ behalf, offered to Coleridge in January, 1798. The
letter expressly states that it is “an annuity for life of £150 to be
regularly paid by us, no condition whatsoever being annexed to it.” “We
mean,” he adds, “the annuity to be independent of everything but the wreck
of our fortune.” It is extraordinary that a man of probity should have
taken advantage of the fact that the annuity, as had been proposed, was
not secured by law, and should have struck this blow, not so much at
Coleridge, as at his wife and children, for whom the annuity was reserved.
It is hardly likely that a man of business forgot the terms of his own
offer, or that he could have imagined that Coleridge was no longer in need
of support. Either in some fit of penitence or of passion Coleridge
offered to release him, or once again “whispering tongues had poisoned
truth,” and some one had represented to Wedgwood that the money was doing
more harm than good. But a bond is a bond, and it is hard to see, unless
the act and deed were Coleridge’s, how Wedgwood can escape blame. _Thomas
Poole and his Friends_, i. 257-259.
[105] Dr. Southey, the poet’s younger brother Henry, and Daniel Stuart
were afterwards neighbours in Harley Street. A close intimacy and lifelong
friendship arose between the two families.
[106] Treaty of Vienna, October 9, 1809.
[107] This could only have been carried out in part. A large portion of
the books which Coleridge possessed at his death consisted of those which
he had purchased during his travels in Germany in 1799, and in Italy in
1805-1806.
[108] The publication by Cottle, in 1837, of this and the following
letter, and still more of that to Josiah Wade of June 26, 1814 (Letter
CC.), was deeply resented by Coleridge’s three children and by all his
friends. In the preface to his _Early Recollections_ Cottle defends
himself on the plea that in the interests of truth these confessions
should be revealed, and urges that Coleridge’s own demand that after his
death “a full and unqualified narrative of my wretchedness and its guilty
cause may be made public,” not only justified but called for his action in
the matter. The law of copyright in the letters of parents and remoter
ancestors was less clearly defined at that time than it is at present, and
Coleridge’s literary executors contented themselves with recording their
protest in the strongest possible terms. In 1848, when Cottle reprinted
his _Early Recollections_, together with some additional matter, under the
title of _Reminiscences of S. T. Coleridge_, etc., he was able to quote
Southey as an advocate, though, possibly, a reluctant advocate, for
publication. There can be no question that neither Coleridge’s request nor
Southey’s sanction gave Cottle any right to wound the feelings of the
living or to expose the frailties and remorse of the dead. The letters,
which have been public property for nearly sixty years, are included in
these volumes because they have a natural and proper place in any
collection of Coleridge’s Letters which claims to be, in any sense,
representative of his correspondence at large.
[109] At whatever time these lines may have been written, they were not
printed till 1829, when they were prefixed to the “Monody on the Death of
Chatterton.” _Poetical Works_, p. 61; Editor’s Note, pp. 562, 563.
[110] “The Picture; or The Lover’s Resolution,” lines 17-25. _Poetical
Works_, p. 162.
[111] Solomon Grundy is a character, played by Fawcett, in George Colman
the younger’s piece, _Who wants a Guinea?_ produced at Covent Garden,
1804-1805.
[112] A character in Macklin’s play, _Love à la Mode_.
[113] A character in Macklin’s play, _A Man of the World_.
[114] It is needless to say that Coleridge never even attempted a
translation of _Faust_. Whether there were initial difficulties with
regard to procuring the “whole of Goethe’s works,” and other books of
reference, or whether his heart failed him when he began to study the work
with a view to translation, the arrangement with Murray fell through. A
statement in the _Table Talk_ for February 16, 1833, that the task was
abandoned on moral grounds, that he could not bring himself to familiarise
the English public with “language, much of which was,” he thought,
“vulgar, licentious, and blasphemous,” is not borne out by the tone of his
letters to Murray, of July 29, August 31, 1814. No doubt the spirit of
_Faust_, alike with regard to theology and morality, would at all times
have been distasteful to him, but with regard to what actually took place,
he deceived himself in supposing that the feelings and scruples of old age
would have prevailed in middle life. _Memoirs of John Murray_, i. 297 _et
seq._
[115] “The thoughts of Coleridge, even during the whirl of passing events,
discovered their hidden springs, and poured forth, in an obscure style,
and to an unheeding age, the great moral truths which were then being
proclaimed in characters of fire to mankind.” Alison’s _History of
Europe_, ix. 3 (ninth edition).
[116] The eight “Letters on the Spaniards,” which Coleridge contributed to
the _Courier_ in December, January, 1809-10, are reprinted in _Essays on
His Own Times_, ii. 593-676.
[117] The character of Pitt appeared in the _Morning Post_, March 19,
1800; the letters to Fox, on November 4, 9, 1802; the Essays on the French
Empire, etc., September 21, 25, and October 2, 1802; the Essay on the
restoration of the Bourbons, October, 1802. They are reprinted in the
second volume of _Essays on His Own Times_.
Six Letters to Judge Fletcher on Catholic Emancipation, which appeared at
irregular intervals in the _Courier_, September-December, 1814, are
reprinted in _Essays on His Own Times_, iii. 677-733.
The Essay on Taxation forms the seventh Essay of Section the First, on the
Principles of Political Knowledge. _The Friend_; _Coleridge’s Works_,
Harper & Brothers, 1853, ii. 208-222.
[118] Neither the original nor the transcript of this letter has, to my
knowledge, been preserved.
[119] He reverts to this “turning of the worm” in a letter to Morgan dated
January 5, 1818. He threatened to attack publishers and printers in “a
vigorous and harmonious satire” to be called “Puff and Slander.” I am
inclined to think that the remarkable verses entitled “A Character,” which
were first printed in 1834, were an accomplished instalment of “these two
long satires.” Letter in British Museum. MSS. Addit. 25612. _Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, a Narrative_ by J. Dykes Campbell, p. 234, note; _Poetical
Works_, pp. 195, 642.
[120] A work which should contain all knowledge and proclaim all
philosophy had been Coleridge’s dream from the beginning, and, as no such
work was ever produced, it may be said to have been his dream to the end.
And yet it was something more than a dream. Besides innumerable fragments
of metaphysical and theological speculation which have passed into my
hands, he actually did compose and dictate two large quarto volumes on
formal logic, which are extant. “Something more than a volume,” a
portentous introduction to his _magnum opus_, was dictated to his
amanuensis and disciple, J. H. Green, and is now in my possession. A
commentary on the Gospels and some of the Epistles, of which the original
MS. is extant, and of which I possess a transcription, was an accomplished
fact. I say nothing of the actual or relative value of this unpublished
matter, but it should be put on record that it exists, that much labour,
ill-judged perhaps, and ineffectual labour, was expended on the outworks
of the fortresses, and that the walls and bastions are standing to the
present day.
[121] The appearance of these “Essays on the Fine Arts” was announced in
the _Bristol Journal_ of August 6, 1814. They were reprinted in 1837 by
Cottle, in his _Early Recollections_, ii. 201-240, and by Thomas Ashe in
1885, in his _Miscellanies, Æsthetic and Literary_, pp. 5-35. Coleridge
himself “set a high value” on these essays. See _Table Talk_ of January 1,
1834.
[122] The working editor of the _Courier_.
[123] The third letter to Judge Fletcher on Ireland was published in the
_Courier_, October 21, 1814. It is reprinted in _Essays on His Own Times_,
iii. 690-697.
[124] John Cartwright, 1740-1824, known as Major Cartwright, was an ardent
parliamentary reformer and an advocate of universal suffrage. He refused
to fight against the United States and wrote Letters on American
Independence (1774).
[125] Lord Erskine’s Bill for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was
brought forward in the House of Lords May 15, 1809, and was passed without
a division. The Bill was read a second time in the House of Commons but
was rejected on going into committee, the opposition being led by Windham
in a speech of considerable ability.
By “imperfect” duties Coleridge probably means “duties of imperfect
obligation.”
[126] This article, a review of “The Letters of Lord Nelson to Lady
Hamilton; with a Supplement of Interesting Letters by Distinguished
Personages. 2 vols. 8vo. Lovewell and Co. London. 1814,” appeared in No.
xxi. of _The Quarterly Review_, for April, 1814. The attack is mainly
directed against Lady Hamilton, but Nelson, with every pretence of
reluctance and of general admiration, is also censured on moral grounds,
and his letters are held up to ridicule.
[127] A partner in the publishing firm of Ridgeway and Symonds. _Letters
of R. Southey_, iii. 65.
[128] The reference is to Swift’s famous “Drapier” Letters. Swift wrote in
the assumed character of a draper, and dated his letters “From my shop in
St. Francis Street,” but why he adopted the French instead of the English
spelling of the word does not seem to have been satisfactorily explained.
_Notes and Queries_, III. Series, x. 55.
[129] The _View of the State of Ireland_, first published in 1633.
[130] John Kenyon, 1783-1856, a poet and philanthropist. He settled at
Woodlands near Stowey in 1802, and became acquainted with Poole and
Poole’s friends. He was on especially intimate terms with Southey, who
writes of him (January 11, 1827) to his still older friend Wynne, as “one
of the very best and pleasantest men whom I have ever known, one whom
every one likes at first sight, and likes better the longer he is known.”
With Coleridge himself the tie was less close, but he was, I know, a most
kind friend to the poet’s wife during those anxious years, 1814-1819, when
her children were growing up, and she had little else to depend upon but
Southey’s generous protection and the moiety of the Wedgwood annuity.
Kenyon’s friendship with the Brownings belongs to a later chapter of
literary history.
[131] _Poetical Works_, p. 176; Appendix H, pp. 525, 526.
[132] _Poetical Works_, p. 450.
[133] In 1815 an act was brought in by Mr. Robinson (afterwards Lord
Ripon) and passed, permitting the importation of corn when the price of
home-grown wheat reached 80s. a quarter. During the spring of the year,
January-March, while the bill was being discussed, bread-riots took place
in London and Westminster.
[134] It would seem that Coleridge had either overlooked or declined to
put faith in Wordsworth’s Apology for _The Excursion_, which appeared in
the Preface to the First Edition of 1814. He was, of course, familiar with
the “poem on the growth of your mind,” the hitherto unnamed and
unpublished _Prelude_, and he must have been at least equally familiar
with the earlier books of _The Excursion_. Why then was he disappointed
with the poem as a whole, and what had he looked for at Wordsworth’s
hands? Not, it would seem, for an “ante-chapel,” but for the sanctuary
itself. He had been stirred to the depths by the recitation of _The
Prelude_ at Coleorton, and in his lines “To a Gentleman,” which he quotes
in this letter, he recapitulates the arguments of the poem. _This_ he
considered was _The Excursion_, “_an Orphic song indeed_”! and as he
listened the melody sank into his soul. But that was but an exordium, a
“prelusive strain” to _The Recluse_, which might indeed include the
Grasmere fragment, the story of Margaret and so forth, but which in the
form of poetry would convey the substance of divine philosophy. He had
looked for a second Milton who would put Lucretius to a double shame, for
a “philosophic poem,” which would justify anew “the ways of God to men;”
and in lieu of this pageant of the imagination there was Wordsworth
prolific of moral discourse, of scenic and personal narrative--a prophet
indeed, but “unmindful of the heavenly Vision.”
[135] The Rev. William Money, a descendant of John Kyrle, the “Man of
Ross,” eulogised alike by Pope and Coleridge, was at this time in
possession of the family seat of Whetham, a few miles distant from Calne,
in Wiltshire. Coleridge was often a guest at his house.
[136] A controversial work on the inspiration of Scripture. A thin thread
of narrative runs through the dissertation. It was the work of the Rev. J.
W. Cunningham, Vicar of Harrow, and was published in 1813.
[137] The Hon. and Rev. T. A. Methuen, Rector of All Cannings, was the son
of Paul Methuen, Esq., M. P., afterward Lord Methuen of Corsham House. He
contributed some reminiscences of Coleridge at this period to the
_Christian Observer_ of 1845. _Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a Narrative_, by
J. Dykes Campbell, 1894, p. 208.
[138] The annual payments for board and lodging, which were made at first,
for some time before Coleridge’s death fell into abeyance. The approximate
amount of the debt so incurred, and the circumstances under which it began
to accumulate, are alike unknown to me. The fact that such a debt existed
was, I believe, a secret jealously guarded by his generous hosts, but as,
with the best intentions, statements have been made to the effect that
there was no pecuniary obligation on Coleridge’s part, it is right that
the truth should be known. On the other hand, it is only fair to
Coleridge’s memory to put it on record that this debt of honour was a sore
trouble to him, and that he met it as best he could. We know, for
instance, on his own authority, that the profits of the three volume
edition of his poems, published in 1828, were made over to Mr. Gillman.
[139] _Zapolya: A Christmas Tale, in two Parts_, was published by Rest
Fenner late in 1817. A year before, after the first part had been rejected
by the Drury Lane Committee, Coleridge arranged with Murray to publish
both parts as a poem, and received an advance of £50 on the MS. He had, it
seems, applied to Murray to be released from this engagement, and on the
strength of an ambiguous reply, offered the work to the publishers of
_Sybilline Leaves_. From letters to Murray, dated March 26 and March 29,
1817, it is evident that the £50 advanced on _A Christmas Tale_ was
repaid. In acknowledging the receipt of the sum, Murray seems to have
generously omitted all mention of a similar advance on “a play then in
composition.” In his letter of March 29, Coleridge speaks of this second
debt, which does not appear to have been paid. _Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a
Narrative_, by J. Dykes Campbell, p. 223; _Memoirs of John Murray_, i.
301-306.
[140] Murray had offered Coleridge two hundred guineas for “a small volume
of specimens of Rabbinical Wisdom,” but owing to pressure of work the
project was abandoned. “Specimens of Rabbinical Wisdom selected from the
Mishna” had already appeared in the original issue of _The Friend_ (Nos.
x., xi.), and these, with the assistance of his friend Hyman Hurwitz,
Master of the Hebrew Academy at Highgate, he intended to supplement and
expand into a volume. _Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a Narrative_, by J. Dykes
Campbell, p. 224 and note.
[141] Apart from internal evidence, there is nothing to prove that this
article, a review of “Christabel,” which appeared in the _Edinburgh
Review_, December, 1816, was written by Hazlitt. It led, however, to the
insertion of a footnote in the first volume of the _Biographia Literaria_,
in which Coleridge accused Jeffrey of personal and ungenerous animosity
against himself, and reminded him of hospitality shown to him at Keswick,
and of the complacent and flattering language which he had employed on
that occasion. Not content with commissioning Hazlitt to review the book,
Jeffrey appended a long footnote signed with his initials, in which he
indignantly repudiates the charge of personal animus, and makes bitter fun
of Coleridge’s susceptibility to flattery, and of his boasted hospitality.
Southey had offered him a cup of coffee, and Coleridge had dined with him
at the inn. _Voila tout._ Both footnotes are good reading. _Biographia
Literaria_, ed. 1817, i. 52 note; _Edinburgh Review_, December, 1817.
[142] Two letters from Tieck to Coleridge have been preserved, a very long
one, dated February 20, 1818, in which he discusses a scheme for bringing
out his works in England, and asks Coleridge if he has succeeded in
finding a publisher for him, and the following note, written sixteen years
later, to introduce the German painter, Herr von Vogelstein. I am indebted
to my cousin, Miss Edith Coleridge, for a translation of both letters.
DRESDEN, April 30, 1834.
I hope that my dear and honoured friend Coleridge still remembers me.
To me those delightful hours at Highgate remain unforgettable. I have
seen your friend Robinson, once here in Dresden, but you--At that time
I believed that I should come again to England--and in such hopes we
grow old and wear away.
My kindest remembrances to your excellent hosts at Highgate. It is
with especial emotion that I look again and again at the _Anatomy of
Melancholy_ [a present from Mr. Gillman], as well as the _Lay
Sermons_, _Christabel_, and the _Biographia Literaria_. Herr von
Vogelstein, one of the most esteemed historical painters of Germany,
brings you this letter from your loving
LUDWIG TIECK.
[143] Henry Crabb Robinson, whose admirable diaries, first published in
1869, may, it is hoped, be reëdited and published in full, died at the age
of ninety-one in 1867. He was a constant guest at my father’s house in
Chelsea during my boyhood. I have, too, a distinct remembrance of his
walking over Loughrigg from Rydal Mount, where he was staying with Mrs.
Wordsworth, and visiting my parents at High Close, between Grasmere and
Langdale, then and now the property of Mr. Wheatley Balme. This must have
been in 1857, when he was past eighty years of age. My impression is that
his conversation consisted, for the most part, of anecdotes concerning
Wieland and Schiller and Goethe. Of Wordsworth and Coleridge he must have
had much to say, but his words, as was natural, fell on the unheeding ears
of a child.
[144] The Right Hon. John Hookham Frere, 1769-1846, now better known as
the translator of Aristophanes than as statesman or diplomatist, was a
warm friend to Coleridge in his later years. He figures in the later
memoranda and correspondence as ὁ καλοκάγαθος, the ideal Christian
gentleman.
[145] Samuel Purkis, of Brentford, tanner and man of letters, was an early
friend of Poole’s, and through him became acquainted with Coleridge and
Sir Humphry Davy. When Coleridge went up to London in June, 1798, to stay
with the Wedgwoods at Stoke House, in the village of Cobham, he stayed a
night at Brentford on the way. In a letter to Poole of the same date, he
thus describes his host: “Purkis is a _gentleman_, with the free and
cordial and interesting manners of the man of literature. His colloquial
diction is uncommonly pleasing, his information various, his _own mind_
elegant and acute.” _Thomas Poole and his Friends_, i. 271, _et passim_.
[146] For an account of Coleridge’s relations with his publishers, Fenner
and Curtis, see _Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a Narrative_, by J. Dykes
Campbell, p. 227. See, too, _Lippincott’s Mag._ for June, 1870, art. “Some
Unpublished Correspondence of S. T. Coleridge,” and Brandl’s _Samuel
Taylor Coleridge and the Romantic School_, 1887, pp. 351-353.
[147] J. H. Frere was, I believe, one of those who assisted Coleridge to
send his younger son to Cambridge.
[148] John Taylor Coleridge (better known as Mr. Justice Coleridge), and
George May Coleridge, Vicar of St. Mary Church, Devon, and Prebendary of
Wells. Another cousin who befriended Hartley, when he was an undergraduate
at Merton, and again later when he was living with the Montagus, in
London, was William Hart Coleridge, afterward Bishop of Barbados. The
poet’s own testimony to the good work of his nephews should be set against
Allsop’s foolish and uncalled for attack on “the Bishop and the Judge.”
_Letters, etc., of S. T. Coleridge_, 1836, i. 225, note.
[149] Poole’s reply to this letter, dated July 31, 1817, contained an
invitation to Hartley to come to Nether Stowey. Mrs. Sandford tells us
that it was believed that “the young man spent more than one vacation at
Stowey, where he was well-known and very popular, though the young ladies
of the place either themselves called him the Black Dwarf, or cherished a
conviction that that was his nickname at Oxford.” _Thomas Poole and his
Friends_, ii. 256-258.
[150] The Rev. H. F. Cary, 1772-1844, the well-known translator of the
_Divina Commedia_. His son and biographer, the Rev. Henry Cary, gives the
following account of his father’s first introduction to Coleridge, which
took place at Littlehampton in the autumn of 1817:--
“It was our custom to walk on the sands and read Homer aloud, a practice
adopted partly for the sake of the sea-breezes.... For several consecutive
days Coleridge crossed us in our walk. The sound of the Greek, and
especially the expressive countenance of the tutor, attracted his notice;
so one day, as we met, he placed himself directly in my father’s way and
thus accosted him: ‘Sir, yours is a face I _should_ know. I am Samuel
Taylor Coleridge.’” _Memoir of H. F. Cary_, ii. 18.
[151] It appears, however, that he underrated his position as a critic. A
quotation from Cary’s _Dante_, and a eulogistic mention of the work
generally, in a lecture on Dante, delivered by Coleridge at Flower-de-Luce
Court, on February 27, 1818, led, so his son says, to the immediate sale
of a thousand copies, and notices “reëchoing Coleridge’s praises” in the
_Edinburgh_ and _Quarterly Reviews_. _Memoir of H. F. Cary_, ii. 28.
[152] From the _Destiny of Nations_.
[153] Joseph Henry Green, 1791-1863, an eminent surgeon and anatomist. In
his own profession he won distinction as lecturer and operator, and as the
author of the _Dissector’s Manual_, and some pamphlets on medical reform
and education. He was twice, 1849-50 and 1858-59, President of the College
of Surgeons. His acquaintance with Coleridge, which began in 1817, was
destined to influence his whole career. It was his custom for many years
to pass two afternoons of the week at Highgate, and on these occasions as
amanuensis and collaborateur, he helped to lay the foundations of the
_Magnum Opus_. Coleridge appointed him his literary executor, and
bequeathed to him a mass of unpublished MSS. which it was hoped he would
reduce to order and publish as a connected system of philosophy. Two
addresses which he delivered, as Hunterian Orations in 1841 and 1847, on
“Vital Dynamics” and “Mental Dynamics,” were published in his lifetime,
and after his death two volumes entitled _Spiritual Philosophy, founded on
the Teaching of S. T. Coleridge_, were issued, together with a memoir, by
his friend and former pupil, Sir John Simon.
His fame has suffered eclipse owing in great measure to his chivalrous if
unsuccessful attempt to do honour to Coleridge. But he deserves to stand
alone. Members of his own profession not versed in polar logic looked up
to his “great and noble intellect” with pride and delight, and by those
who were honoured by his intimacy he was held in love and reverence. To
Coleridge he was a friend indeed, bringing with him balms more soothing
than “poppy or mandragora,” the healing waters of Faith and Hope.
_Spiritual Philosophy_, by J. H. Green; Memoir of the author’s life,
i.-lix.
[154] This must have been the impromptu lecture “On the Growth of the
Individual Mind,” delivered at the rooms of the London Philosophical
Society. According to Gillman, who details the circumstances under which
the address was given, but does not supply the date, the lecturer began
with an “apologetic preface”: “The lecture I am about to give this evening
is purely extempore. Should you find a nominative case looking out for a
verb--or a fatherless verb for a nominative case, you must excuse it. It
is purely extempore, though I have thought and read much on this subject.”
_Life of Coleridge_, pp. 354-357.
[155] The “Essay on the Science of Method” was finished in December, 1817,
and printed in the following January. _Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a
Narrative_, by J. Dykes Campbell, 1894, p. 232.
[156] The Hebrew text and Coleridge’s translation were published in the
form of a pamphlet, and sold by “T. Boosey, 4 Old Broad Street, 1817.” The
full title was “ISRAEL’S LAMENT. Translation of a Hebrew dirge, chaunted
in the Great Synagogue, St. James’ Place, Aldgate, on the day of the
Funeral of her Royal Highness the Princess Charlotte. By Hyman Hurwitz,
Master of the Hebrew Academy, Highgate, 1817.”
The translation is below Coleridge at his worst. The “Harp of Quantock”
must, indeed, have required stringing before such a line as “For England’s
Lady is laid low” could have escaped the file, or “worn her” be permitted
to rhyme with “mourner”! _Poetical Works_, p. 187; Editor’s Note, p. 638.
[157] The _Kritik der praktischen Vernunft_ was published in 1797.
[158] This statement requires explanation. Franz Xavier von Baader,
1765-1841, was a mystic of the school of Jacob Böhme, and wrote in
opposition to Schelling.
[159] Ludwig Tieck published his _Sternbald’s Wanderungen_ in 1798.
[160] Heinse’s _Ardinghello_ was published in 1787.
[161] Richter’s _Vorschule der Aisthetik_ was published in 1804 (3 vols.).
[162] See _Table Talk_ for January 3 and May 1, 1823. See, also, _The
Friend_, Essay iii. of the First Landing Place. Coleridge’s _Works_,
Harper & Brothers, 1853, ii. 134-137, and “Notes on Hamlet,” _Ibid._ iv.
147-150.
[163] Charles Augustus Tulk, described by Mr. Campbell as “a man of
fortune with an uncommon taste for philosophical speculation,” was an
eminent Swedenborgian, and mainly instrumental in establishing the “New
Church” in Great Britain. It was through Coleridge’s intimacy with Mr.
Tulk that his writings became known to the Swedenborgian community, and
that his letters were read at their gatherings. I possess transcripts of
twenty-five letters from Coleridge to Tulk, in many of which he details
his theories of ontological speculation. The originals were sold and
dispersed in 1882.
A note on Swedenborg’s treatise, “De Cultu et Amore Dei,” is printed in
_Notes Theological and Political_, London, 1853, p. 110, but a long series
of marginalia on the pages of the treatise, “De Cœlo et Inferno,” of which
a transcript has been made, remains unpublished.
For Coleridge’s views on Swedenborgianism, see “Notes on Noble’s Appeal,”
_Literary Remains_; Coleridge’s _Works_, Harper & Brothers, 1853, v.
522-527.
[164] It may be supposed that it was Blake, the mystic and the
spiritualist, that aroused Tulk’s interest, and that, as an indirect
consequence, the original edition of his poems, “engraved in
writing-hand,” was sent to Coleridge for his inspection and criticism. The
_Songs of Innocence_ were published in 1787, ten years before the _Lyrical
Ballads_ appeared, and more than thirty years before the date of this
letter, but they were known only to a few. Lamb, writing in 1824, speaks
of him as _Robert_ Blake, and after praising in the highest terms his
paintings and engravings, says that he has never read his poems, “which
have been sold hitherto only in manuscript.” It is strange that Coleridge
should not have been familiar with them, for in 1812 Crabb Robinson, so he
tells us, read them aloud to Wordsworth, who was “pleased with some of
them, and considered Blake as having the elements of poetry, a thousand
times more than either Byron or Scott.” None, however, of these hearty and
genuine admirers appear to have reflected that Blake had “gone back to
nature,” a while before Wordsworth or Coleridge turned their steps in that
direction. _Letters of Charles Lamb_, 1886, ii. 104, 105, 324, 325; H. C.
Robinson’s _Diary_, i. 385.
[165] In the _Aids to Reflection_, at the close of a long comment on a
passage in Field, Coleridge alludes to “discussions of the Greek Fathers,
and of the Schoolmen on the obscure and abysmal subject of the divine
A-seity, and the distinction between the θέλημα and the βουλή, that is,
the Absolute Will as the universal ground of all being, and the election
and purpose of God in the personal Idea, as Father.” Coleridge’s _Works_,
1853, i. 317.
[166] The bill in which Coleridge interested himself, and in favour of
which he wrote two circulars which were printed and distributed, was
introduced in the House of Commons by the first Sir Robert Peel. The
object of the bill was to regulate the employment of children in cotton
factories. A bill for prohibiting the employment of children under nine
was passed in 1833, but it was not till 1844 that the late Lord
Shaftesbury, then Lord Ashley, succeeded in passing the Ten Hours Bills.
In a letter of May 3d to Crabb Robinson, Coleridge asks: “Can you furnish
us with any other instances in which the legislature has interfered with
what is ironically called ‘Free Labour’ (_i. e._ dared to prohibit
soul-murder on the part of the rich, and self-slaughter on that of the
poor!), or any dictum of our grave law authorities from Fortescue--to
Eldon: for from the borough of Hell I wish to have no representatives.”
Henry Crabb Robinson’s _Diary_, ii. 93-95.
[167] James Maitland, 1759-1839, eighth Earl of Lauderdale, belonged to
the party of Charles James Fox, and, like Coleridge, opposed the first war
with France, which began in 1793. In the ministry of “All the Talents” he
held the Great Seal of Scotland. Coleridge calls him plebeian because he
inherited the peerage from a remote connection. He was the author of
several treatises on finance and political economy.
[168] It was, I have been told by an eyewitness, Coleridge’s habit to take
a pinch of snuff, and whilst he was talking to rub it between his fingers.
He wasted so much snuff in the process that the maid servant had
directions to sweep up these literary remains and replace them in the
canister.
[169] A pet name for the Gillmans’ younger son, Henry.
[170] Coleridge was fond of quoting these lines as applicable to himself.
[171] Washington Allston.
[172] Charles Robert Leslie, historical painter, 1794-1859, was born of
American parents, but studied art in London under Washington Allston. A
pencil sketch, for which Coleridge sat to him in 1820, is in my
possession. Mr. Hamo Thornycroft, R. A., after a careful inspection of
other portraits and engravings of S. T. Coleridge, modelled the bust which
now (thanks to American generosity) finds its place in Poets’ Corner,
mainly in accordance with this sketch.
[173] _Letters, Conversations, and Recollections of S. T. Coleridge_,
London, 1836, i. 1-3.
[174] The Prospectus of the Lectures on the History of Philosophy was
printed in Allsop’s _Letters_, etc., as Letter xliv., November 26, 1818,
but the announcement of the time and place has been omitted. A very rare
copy of the original prospectus, which has been placed in my hands by Mrs.
Henry Watson, gives the following details:--
“This course will be comprised in Fourteen Lectures, to commence on Monday
evening, December 7, 1818, at eight o’clock, at the Crown and Anchor,
Strand; and be continued on the following Mondays, with the intermission
of Christmas week--Double Tickets, admitting a Lady and Gentleman, Three
Guineas. Single Tickets, Two Guineas. Admission to a Single Lecture, Five
Shillings. An Historical and Chronological Guide to the course will be
printed.”
A reporter was hired at the expense of Hookham Frere to take down the
lectures in shorthand. A transcript, which I possess, contains numerous
errors and omissions, but is interesting as affording proof of the
conversational style of Coleridge’s lectures. See, for further account of
Lectures of 1819, _Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a Narrative_, by J. Dykes
Campbell, pp. 238, 239.
[175] Thomas Phillips, R. A., 1770-1845, painted two portraits of
Coleridge, one of which is in the possession of Mr. John Murray, and was
engraved as the frontispiece of the first volume of the _Table Talk_; and
the other in that of Mr. William Rennell Coleridge, of Salston, Ottery St.
Mary. The late Lord Chief Justice used to say that the Salston picture was
“the best presentation of the outward man.” No doubt it recalled his
great-uncle as he remembered him. It certainly bears a close resemblance
to the portraits of Coleridge’s brothers, Edward and George, and of other
members of the family.
[176] My impression is that this letter was written to Mrs. Aders, the
beautiful and accomplished daughter of the engraver Raphael Smith, but the
address is wanting and I cannot speak with any certainty.
[177] Compare lines 16-20 of _The Two Founts_:--
“As on the driving cloud the shiny bow,
That gracious thing made up of tears and light.”
The poem as a whole was composed in 1826, and, as I am assured by Mrs.
Henry Watson (on the authority of her grandmother, Mrs. Gillman),
addressed to Mrs. Aders; but the fifth and a preceding stanza, which
Coleridge marked for interpolation, in an annotated copy of _Poetical
Works_, 1828 (kindly lent me by Mrs. Watson), must have been written
before that date, and were, as I gather from an insertion in a note-book,
originally addressed to Mrs. Gillman. _Poetical Works_, p. 196. See, too,
for unprinted stanza, _Ibid._ Editor’s Note, p. 642.
[178] “To Two Sisters.” _Poetical Works_, p. 179.
[179] The so-called “Manchester Massacre,” nicknamed Peterloo, took place
August 16, 1819. Towards the middle of October dangerous riots broke out
at North Shields. Cries of “Blood for blood,” “Manchester over again,”
were heard in the streets, and “so daring have the mob been that they
actually threatened to burn or destroy the ships of war.” _Annual
Register_, October 15-23, 1819.
[180] “Fears in Solitude.” _Poetical Works_, p. 127.
[181] Mrs. Gillman’s sister.
[182] A collection of casts of antique gems, once, no doubt, the property
of S. T. C., is now in the possession of Alexander Gillman, Esq., of
Sussex Square, Brighton.
[183] Edward Dubois, satirist, 1775-1850, was the author of _The Wreath_,
a _Translation of Boccaccio’s Decameron_, 1804, and other works besides
those mentioned in the text. _Biographical Dictionary._
[184] A late note-book of the Highgate period contains the following
doggerel:--
TO THE MOST VERACIOUS ANECDOTIST AND SMALL-TALK MAN, THOMAS HILL, ESQ.
Tom Hill who laughs at cares and woes,
As nanci--nili--pili--
What is _he_ like as I suppose?
Why to be sure, a Rose, a Rose.
At least no soul that Tom Hill knows,
Could e’er recall a Li-ly.
S. T. C.
“The first time,” writes Miss Stuart, in a personal remembrance of
Coleridge, headed “A Farewell, 1834,” “I dined in company at my father’s
table, I sat between Coleridge and Mr. Hill (known as ‘Little Tommy Hill’)
of the Adelphi, and Ezekiel then formed the theme of Coleridge’s
eloquence. I well remember his citing the chapter of the Dead Bones, and
his sepulchral voice as he asked, ‘Can these bones live?’ Then, his
observation that nothing in the range of human thought was more sublime
than Ezekiel’s reply, ‘Lord, thou knowest,’ in deepest humility, not
presuming to doubt the omnipotence of the Most High.” _Letters from the
Lake Poets_, p. 322. See, too, Letters from Hill to Stuart, _Ibid._ p.
435.
[185] William Elford Leach, 1790-1836, a physician and naturalist, was at
this time Curator of the Natural History Department at the British Museum.
By Lawrencian, Coleridge means a disciple of the eminent surgeon William
Lawrence, whose “Lectures on the Physiology, Zoölogy, and Natural History
of Man,” which were delivered in 1816, are alluded to more than once in
his “Theory of Life.” “Theory of Life” in _Miscellanies, Æsthetic and
Literary_, Bohn’s Standard Library, pp. 377, 385.
[186] Included in the _Omniana_ of 1809-1816. _Table Talk_, etc., Bell &
Sons, 1884, p. 400.
[187] Compare a letter of Coleridge to Allsop, dated October 8, 1822, in
which he details “the four griping and grasping sorrows, each of which
seemed to have my very heart in its hands, compressing or wringing.”
It was the publication of this particular letter, with its thinly-veiled
allusions to Wordsworth, Southey, and to Coleridge’s sons, which not only
excited indignation against Allsop, but moved Southey to write a letter to
Cottle. _Letters, Conversation_, etc., 1836, ii. 140-146.
[188] Compare “The Wanderer’s Farewell to Two Sisters” (Mrs. Morgan and
Miss Brent), 1807. Miss Brent made her home with her married sister, Mrs.
J. J. Morgan, and during the years 1810-1815, when Coleridge lived under
the Morgans’ roof at Hammersmith, in London, and in the West of England,
he received from these ladies the most affectionate care and attention,
both in sickness and in health. _Poetical Works_, pp. 179, 180.
[189] The Reverend Edward Coleridge, 1800-1883, the sixth and youngest son
of Colonel James Coleridge, was for many years a Master and afterwards a
Fellow of Eton. He also held the College living of Mapledurham near
Reading. He corresponded with his uncle, who was greatly attached to him,
on philosophical and theological questions. It was to him that the
“Confessions of an Enquiring Spirit” were originally addressed in the form
of letters.
[190] Colonel Coleridge’s only daughter, Frances Duke, was afterwards
married to the Honourable Mr. Justice Patteson, a Judge of the Queen’s
Bench.
[191]
Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore
On winding lake, or rivers wide,
That ask no aid of sail or oar,
That fear no spite of wind or tide.
“Youth and Age,” ll. 12-15. _Poetical Works_, p. 191. A MS. copy of “Youth
and Age” in my possession, of which the probable date is 1822, reads
“boats” for “skiffs.”
[192] Sir Alexander Johnston, 1775-1849, a learned orientalist. He was
Advocate General (afterwards Chief Justice) of Ceylon, and had much to do
with the reorganisation of the constitution of the island. He was one of
the founders of the Royal Asiatic Society. _Dict. of Nat. Biog._ art.
“Johnston, Sir Alexander.”
[193] Gabriele Rossetti, 1783-1854, the father of Dante G. Rossetti, etc.,
first visited England as a political exile in 1824. In 1830 he was
appointed Professor of the Italian language at King’s College. He is best
known as a commentator on Dante. He presented Coleridge with a copy of his
work, _Dello Spirito Antipapale che Produsse la Riforma_, and some of his
verses in MS., which are in my possession.
[194] From the letter of Wordsworth to Lord Lonsdale, of February 5, 1819,
it is plain that the translation of three books of the Æneid had been
already completed at that date. Another letter written five years later,
November 3, 1824, implies that the work had been put aside, and, after a
long interval, reattempted. In the mean time a letter of Coleridge to Mrs.
Allsop, of April 8, 1824, tells us that the three books had been sent to
Coleridge and must have remained in his possession for some time. The MS.
of this translation appears to have been lost, but “one of the books,”
Professor Knight tells us, was printed in the _Philological Museum_, at
Cambridge, in 1832. _Life of W. Wordsworth_, ii. 296-303.
[195] Coleridge was at this time (1824) engaged in making a selection of
choice passages from the works of Archbishop Leighton, which, together
with his own comment and corollaries, were published as _Aids to
Reflection_, in 1825. See Letter CCXXX.
[196] _Conversations of Lord Byron_, etc., by Captain Medwin.
[197] The frontispiece of the second volume of the _Antiquary_ represents
Dr. Dousterswivel digging for treasure in Misticot’s grave. The
resemblance to Coleridge is, perhaps, not wholly imaginary.
[198] John Taylor Coleridge was editor of the _Quarterly Review_ for one
year, 1825-1826. _Southey’s Life and Correspondence_, v. 194, 201, 204,
239, etc.; _Letters of Robert Southey_, iii. 455, 473, 511, 514, etc.
[199] Henry Hart Milman, 1791-1868, afterwards celebrated as historian and
divine (Dean of St. Paul’s, 1849), was, at this time, distinguished
chiefly as a poet. His _Fall of Jerusalem_ was published in 1820. He was a
contributor to the _Quarterly Review_.
[200] Afterward the wife of Sir George Beaumont, the artist’s son and
successor in the baronetcy.
[201] Almost the same sentence with regard to his address as Royal
Associate occurs in a letter to his nephew, John Taylor Coleridge, of May
20, 1825. The “Essay on the Prometheus of Æschylus,” which was printed in
_Literary Remains_, was republished in _Coleridge’s Works_, Harper &
Brothers, 1853, iv. 344-365. See, also, Brandl’s _Life of Coleridge_, p.
361.
[202] The portrait of William Hart Coleridge, Bishop of Barbadoes and the
Leeward Islands, by Thomas Phillips, R. A., is now in the Hall of Christ
Church, Oxford.
[203] A sprig of this myrtle (or was it a sprig of myrtle in a nosegay?)
grew into a plant. At some time after Coleridge’s death it passed into the
hands of the late S. C. Hall, who presented it to the late Lord Coleridge.
It now flourishes, in strong old age, in a protected nook outside the
library at Heath’s Court, Ottery St. Mary.
[204] George Dyer, 1755-1841, best remembered as the author of _The
History of the University of Cambridge_, and a companion work on _The
Privileges of the University of Cambridge_, began life as a Baptist
minister, but settled in London as a man of letters in 1792. As a
“brother-Grecian” he was introduced to Coleridge in 1794, in the early
days of pantisocracy, and probably through him became intimate with Lamb
and Southey. He contributed “The Show, an English Eclogue,” and other
poems, to the _Annual Anthology_ of 1799 and 1800. His poetry was a
constant source of amused delight to Lamb and Coleridge. A pencil sketch
of Dyer by Matilda Betham is in the British Museum. _Letters of Charles
Lamb_, i. 125-128 _et passim_; _Southey’s Life and Correspondence_, i. 218
_et passim_.
[205] George Cattermole, 1800-1868, to whose “peculiar gifts and powerful
genius” Mr. Ruskin has borne testimony, was eminent as an architectural
draughtsman and water-colour painter. With his marvellous illustrations of
“Master Humphrey’s Clock” all the world is familiar. _Dict. of Nat. Biog._
art. “George Cattermole.” His brother Richard was Secretary of the Royal
Society of Literature, of which Coleridge was appointed a Royal Associate
in 1825. Copies of this and of other letters from Coleridge to Cattermole
were kindly placed at my disposal by Mr. James M. Menzies of 24, Carlton
Hill, St. John’s Wood.
[206] Harriet Macklin, Coleridge’s faithful attendant for the last seven
or eight years of his life. On his deathbed he left a solemn request in
writing that his family should make a due acknowledgment of her services.
It was to her that Lamb, when he visited Highgate after Coleridge’s death,
made a present of five guineas.
[207] Dr. Chalmers represented the visit as having lasted three hours, and
that during that “stricken” period he only got occasional glimpses of what
the prophet “would be at.” His little daughter, however, was so moved by
the “mellifluous flow of discourse” that, when “the music ceased, her
overwrought feelings found relief in tears.” _Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a
Narrative_, by J. Dykes Campbell, 1894, p. 260, footnote.
[208] A disciple and amanuensis, to whom, it is believed, he dictated two
quarto volumes on “The History of Logic” and “The Elements of Logic,”
which originally belonged to Joseph Henry Green, and are now in the
possession of Mr. C. A. Ward of Chingford Hatch. _Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
a Narrative_, by J. Dykes Campbell, 1894, pp. 250, 251; _Athenæum_, July
1, 1893, art. “Coleridge’s Logic.”
[209] Henry Nelson Coleridge, 1798-1843, was the fifth son of Colonel
James Coleridge of Heath’s Court, Ottery St. Mary. His marriage with the
poet’s daughter took place on September 3, 1829. He was the author of _Six
Months in the West Indies_, 1825, and an _Introduction to the Study of the
Greek Poets_, 1830. He practised as a chancery barrister and won
distinction in his profession. The later years of his life were devoted to
the reëditing of his uncle’s published works, and to throwing into a
connected shape the literary as distinguished from the philosophical
section of his unpublished MSS. The _Table Talk_, the best known of
Coleridge’s prose works, appeared in 1835. Four volumes of _Literary
Remains_, including the “Lectures on Shakespeare and other Dramatists,”
were issued 1836-1839. The third edition of _The Friend_, 1837, the
_Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit_, 1840, and the fifth edition of _Aids
to Reflection_, 1843, followed in succession. The second edition of the
_Biographia Literaria_, which “he had prepared in part,” was published by
his widow in 1847.
A close study of the original documents which were at my uncle’s disposal
enables me to bear testimony to his editorial skill, to his insight, his
unwearied industry, his faithfulness. Of the charm of his appearance, and
the brilliance of his conversation, I have heard those who knew him speak
with enthusiasm. He died, from an affection of the spine, in January,
1843.
[210] This lady was for many years governess in the family of Dr. Crompton
of Eaton Hall, near Liverpool. _Memoirs and Letters of Sara Coleridge_,
London, 1873, i. 8 109-116.
[211] Sir William Rowan Hamilton, 1805-1865, the great mathematician, was
at this time Professor of Astronomy at Dublin. He was afterwards appointed
Astronomer Royal of Ireland. He was, as is well known, a man of culture
and a poet; and it was partly to ascertain his views on scientific
questions, and partly to interest him in his verses, that Hamilton was
anxious to be made known to Coleridge. He had begun a correspondence with
Wordsworth as early as 1827, and Wordsworth, on the occasion of his tour
in Ireland in 1829, visited Hamilton at the Observatory. Miss Lawrence’s
introduction led to an interview, but a letter which Hamilton wrote to
Coleridge in the spring of 1832 remained unanswered. In a second letter,
dated February 3, 1833, he speaks of a “Lecture on Astronomy” which he
forwards for Coleridge’s acceptance, and also of “some love-poems to a
lady to whom I am shortly to be married.” The love-poems, eight sonnets,
which are smoothly turned and are charming enough, have survived, but the
lecture has disappeared. The interest of this remarkable letter lies in
the double appeal to Coleridge as a scientific authority and a literary
critic. Coleridge’s reply, if reply there was, would be read with peculiar
interest. In a letter to Mr. Aubrey de Vere, May 28, 1832, he thus records
his impressions of Coleridge: “Coleridge is rather to be considered as a
Faculty than as a Mind; and I did so consider him. I seemed rather to
listen to an oracular voice, to be circumfused in a Divine ὀμφὴ, than--as
in the presence of Wordsworth--to hold commune with an exalted man.” _Life
of W. Wordsworth_, iii. 157-174, 210, etc.
[212] He is referring to a final effort to give up the use of opium
altogether. It is needless to say that, after a trial of some duration,
the attempt was found to be impracticable. It has been strenuously denied,
as though it had been falsely asserted, that under the Gillmans’ care
Coleridge overcame the habit of taking laudanum in more or less unusual
quantities. Gillman, while he maintains that his patient in the use of
narcotics satisfied the claims of duty, makes no such statement; and the
confessions or outpourings from the later note-books which are included in
the _Life_ point to a different conclusion. That after his settlement at
Highgate, in 1816, the habit was regulated and brought under control, and
that this change for the better was due to the Gillmans’ care and to his
own ever-renewed efforts to be free, none can gainsay. There was a moral
struggle, and into that “sore agony” it would be presumption to intrude;
but to a moral victory Coleridge laid no claim. And, at the last, it was
“mercy,” not “praise,” for which he pleaded.
[213] The notes on Asgill’s Treatises were printed in the _Literary
Remains, Coleridge’s Works_, 1853, v. 545-550, and in _Notes Theological
and Political_, London, 1853, pp. 103-109.
[214] Admirers of Dr. Magee, 1765-1831, who was successively Bishop of
Raphoe, 1819, and Archbishop of Dublin, 1822. He was the author of
_Discourses on the Scriptural Doctrines of the Atonement_. He was
grandfather of the late Archbishop of York, better known as Bishop of
Peterborough.
[215] I am indebted to Mr. John Henry Steinmetz, a younger brother of
Coleridge’s friend and ardent disciple, for a copy of this letter. It was
addressed, he informs me, to his brother’s friend, the late Mr. John
Peirse Kennard, of Hordle Cliff, Hants, father of the late Sir John
Coleridge Kennard, Bart., M. P. for Salisbury, and of Mr. Adam Steinmetz
Kennard, of Crawley Court Hants, at whose baptism the poet was present,
and to whom he addressed the well-known letter (Letter CCLX.), “To my
Godchild, Adam Steinmetz Kennard.”
[216] See _Table Talk_, August 14, 1832.
[217] So, too, of Keats. See _Table Talk_, etc., Bell & Sons. 1884, _Talk_
for August 14, 1832. _Table_ p. 179.
[218] “The sot would reject the poisoned cup, yet the trembling-hand with
which he raises his daily or hourly draught to his lips has not left him
ignorant that this, too, is altogether a poison.” _The Friend_, Essay
xiv.; _Coleridge’s Works_, ii. 100.
[219] The motto of this theme, (January 19, 1794), of which I possess a
transcript in Coleridge’s handwriting, or perhaps the original copy, is--
Quid fas
Atque nefas tandem incipiunt sentire peractis
Criminibus.
The theme was selected by Boyer for insertion in his _Liber Aureus_ of
school exercises in prose and verse, now in the possession of James Boyer,
Esq., of the Coopers’ Company. The sentence to which Coleridge alludes ran
thus: “As if we were in some great sea-vortex, every moment we perceive
our ruin more clearly, every moment we are impelled towards it with
greater force.”
The essay was printed for the first time in the _Illustrated London News_,
April 1, 1893.
[220] This letter, which is addressed in Coleridge’s handwriting, “Mrs.
Aders, favoured by H. Gillman,” and endorsed in pencil, “S. T. C.’s letter
for Miss Denman,” refers to the new edition of his poetical works which
Coleridge had begun to see through the press. Apparently he had intended
that the “Epitaph” should be inscribed on the outline of a headstone, and
that this should illustrate, by way of vignette, the last page of the
volume.
[221] Of the exact date of Sterling’s first visit to Highgate there is no
record. It may, however, be taken for granted that his intimacy with
Coleridge began in 1828, when he was in his twenty-third year, and
continued until the autumn of 1833,--perhaps lasted until Coleridge’s
death. Unlike Maurice, and Maurice’s disciple, Kingsley, Sterling outlived
his early enthusiasm for Coleridge and his acceptance of his teaching. It
may be said, indeed, that, thanks to the genius of his second master,
Carlyle, he suggests both the reaction against and the rejection of
Coleridge. Of that rejection Carlyle, in his _Life of Sterling_, made
himself the mouth-piece. It is idle to say of that marvellous but
disillusioning presentment that it is untruthful, or exaggerated, or
unkind. It is a sketch from the life, and who can doubt that it is
lifelike? But other eyes saw another Coleridge who held them entranced. To
them he was the seer of the vision beautiful, the “priest of invisible
rites behind the veil of the senses,” and to their ears his voice was of
one who brought good tidings of reconciliation and assurance. Many, too,
who cared for none of these things, were attracted to the man. Like the
wedding-guest in the _Ancient Mariner_, they stood still. No other, they
felt, was so wise, so loveable. They, too, were eye-witnesses, and their
portraiture has not been outpainted by Carlyle. Apart from any expression
of opinion, it is worth while to note that Carlyle saw Coleridge for the
last time in the spring of 1825, and that the _Life of Sterling_ was
composed more than a quarter of a century later. His opinion of the man
had, indeed, changed but little, as the notes and letters of 1824-25
clearly testify, but his criticism of the writer was far less appreciative
than it had been in Coleridge’s lifetime. The following extracts from a
letter of Sterling to Gillman, dated “Hurstmonceaux, October 9, 1834,” are
evidence that his feelings towards Coleridge were at that time those of a
reverent disciple:--
“The Inscription [in Highgate Church] will forever be enough to put to
shame the heartless vanity of a thousand such writers as the Opium Eater.
As a portrait, or even as a hint for one, his papers seem to me worse than
useless.
“If it is possible, I will certainly go to Highgate, and wait on Mrs.
Gillman and yourself. I have travelled the road thither with keen and
buoyant expectation, and returned with high and animating remembrances
oftener than any other in England. Hereafter, too, it will not have lost
its charm. There is not only all this world of recollection, but the
dwelling of those who best knew and best loved his work.” _Life of
Sterling_, 1871, pp. 46-54; _Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a Narrative_, by J.
Dykes Campbell, pp. 259-261; British Museum, add. MS. 34,225, f. 194.
[222] The following unpublished lines were addressed by Coleridge to this
young lady, a neighbour, I presume, and friend of the Gillmans. They must
be among the last he ever wrote:--
ELISA.
TRANSLATION OF CLAUDIAN.
_Dulcia dona mihi tu mittis semper Elisa!_
Sweet gifts to me thou sendest always, Elisa!
_Et quicquid mittis, Thura putare decet._
And whatever thou sendest, Sabean odours to think it it behoves me.
The whole adapted from an epigram of Claudius by substituting _Thura_ for
_mella_, the original distich being in return for a Present of Honey.
IMITATION.
Sweet Gift! and always doth Eliza send
Sweet Gifts and full of fragrance to her Friend.
Enough for Him to know they come from _Her_,
Whate’er she sends is Frankincense and Myrrh.
Another on the same subject by S. T. C. himself:--
Semper, Eliza! mihi tu suaveolentia donas:
Nam quicquid donas, te redolere puto.
Literal translation: Always, Eliza! to me things of sweet odour thou
presentest. For whatever thou presentest, I fancy redolent of thyself.
Whate’er thou giv’st, it still is sweet to me,
For still I find it redolent of _thee_!
[223] _Philip Van Artevelde._
[224] Sir Henry Taylor.