_Letters, Conversations and Recollections of S. T. Coleridge. New
York: Harper and Brothers._
We feel even a deeper interest in this book than in the late
Table-Talk. But with us (we are not ashamed to confess it) the most
trivial memorial of Coleridge is a treasure of inestimable price. He
was indeed a “myriad-minded man,” and ah, how little understood, and
how pitifully villified! How merely nominal was the difference (and
this too in his own land) between what he himself calls the “broad,
pre-determined abuse” of the Edinburgh Review, and the cold and brief
compliments with the warm _regrets_ of the Quarterly. If there be any
one thing more than another which stirs within us a deep spirit of
indignation and disgust, it is that damnation of faint praise which so
many of the Narcissi of critical literature have had the infinite
presumption to breathe against the majesty of Coleridge—of
Coleridge—the man to whose gigantic mind the proudest intellects of
Europe found it impossible not to succumb. And as no man was more
richly-gifted with all the elements of mental renown, so none was more
fully worthy of the love and veneration of every truly good man. Even
through the exertion of his great powers he sought no immediate
worldly advantages. To use his own words, he not only sacrificed all
present prospects of wealth and advancement, but, in his inmost soul,
stood aloof from temporary reputation. In the volume now before us, we
behold the heart, as in his own works we have beheld the mind, of the
man. And surely nothing can be more elevating, nothing more cheering
than this contemplation, to one who has faith in the possible virtue,
and pride in the possible dignity of mankind. The book is written, we
believe, by one of the poet's most intimate friends—one too in whom we
recognize a familiarity with the thoughts, and sympathy with the
feelings of his subject. It consists of letters, conversations, and
fragmentary recollections, interspersed with comment by the compiler,
and dedicated to “Elizabeth and Robin, the Fairy Prattler, and still
Meek Boy of the Letters.” The letters are by far the most valuable
part of the compilation—although all is truly so. A portion of one of
them we copy as affording a picture, never surpassed, of great mental
power conscious of its greatness, and tranquilly submitting to the
indignities of the world.
But enough of these generals. It was my purpose to open myself out to
you in detail. My health, I have reason to believe, is so intimately
connected with the state of my spirits, and these again so dependant
on my thoughts, prospective and retrospective, that I should not doubt
the being favored with a sufficiency for my noblest undertaking, had I
the ease of heart requisite for the necessary abstraction of the
thoughts, and such a reprieve from the goading of the immediate
exigencies as might make tranquillity possible. But, alas! I know by
experience (and the knowledge is not the less because the regret is
not unmixed with self-blame, and the consciousness of want of exertion
and fortitude,) that my health will continue to decline as long as the
pain from reviewing the barrenness of the past is great in an inverse
proportion to any rational anticipations of the future. As I now am,
however, from five to six hours devoted to actual writing and
composition in the day is the utmost that my strength, not to speak of
my nervous system, will permit; and the invasions on this portion of
my time from applications, often of the most senseless kind, are such
and so many as to be almost as ludicrous even to myself as they are
vexatious. In less than a week I have not seldom received half a dozen
packets or parcels of works, printed or manuscript, urgently
requesting my candid _judgment_, or my correcting hand. Add to these,
letters from lords and ladies, urging me to write reviews or puffs of
heaven-born geniuses, whose whole merit consists in being ploughmen or
shoemakers. Ditto from actors; entreaties for money, or
recommendations to publishers, from ushers out of place, &c. &c.; and
to _me_, who have neither interest, influence, nor money, and, what is
still more _àpropos_, can neither bring myself to tell smooth
falsehoods nor harsh truths, and, in the struggle, too often do both
in the anxiety to do neither. I have already the _written_ materials
and contents, requiring only to be put together, from the loose papers
and commonplace or memorandum books, and needing no other change,
whether of omission, addition, or correction, than the mere act of
arranging, and the opportunity of seeing the whole collectively bring
with them of course,—I. Characteristics of Shakspeare's Dramatic
Works, with a Critical Review of each Play; together with a relative
and comparative Critique on the kind and degree of the Merits and
Demerits of the Dramatic Works of Ben Johnson, Beaumont and Fletcher,
and Massinger. The History of the English Drama; the accidental
advantages it afforded to Shakspeare, without in the least detracting
from the perfect originality or proper creation of the {452}
Shakspearian Drama; the contradistinction of the latter from the Greek
Drama, and its still remaining _uniqueness_, with the causes of this,
from the combined influences of Shakspeare himself, as man, poet,
philosopher, and finally, by conjunction of all these, dramatic poet;
and of the age, events, manners, and state of the English language.
This work, with every art of compression, amounts to three volumes of
about five hundred pages each.—II. Philosophical Analysis of the
Genius and Works of Dante, Spenser, Milton, Cervantes, and Calderon,
with similar, but more compressed, Criticisms on Chaucer, Ariosto,
Donne, Rabelais, and others, during the predominance of the Romantic
Poetry. In one large volume. These two works will, I flatter myself,
form a complete code of the principles of judgment and feeling applied
to Works of Taste; and not of _Poetry_ only, but of Poesy in all its
forms, Painting, Statuary, Music, &c. &c.—III. The History of
Philosophy considered as a Tendency of the Human Mind to exhibit the
Powers of the Human Reason, to discover by its own Strength the Origin
and Laws of Man and the World, from Pythagoras to Locke and Condillac.
Two volumes.—IV. Letters on the Old and New Testaments, and on the
Doctrine and Principles held in common by the Fathers and Founders of
the Reformation, addressed to a Candidate for Holy Orders; including
Advice on the Plan and Subjects of Preaching, proper to a Minister of
the Established Church.
To the completion of these four works I have literally nothing more to
do than _to transcribe_; but as I before hinted, from so many scraps
and _Sibylline_ leaves, including margins of books and blank pages,
that, unfortunately, I must be my own scribe, and not done by myself,
they will be all but lost; or perhaps (as has been too often the case
already) furnish feathers for the caps of others; some for this
purpose, and some to plume the arrows of detraction, to be let fly
against the luckless bird from whom they had been plucked or moulted.
In addition to these—of my GREAT WORK, to the preparation of which
more than twenty years of my life have been devoted, and on which my
hopes of extensive and permanent utility, of fame, in the noblest
sense of the word, mainly rest—that, by which I might,
“As now by thee, by all the good be known,
When this weak frame lies moulder'd in the grave,
Which self-surviving I might call my own,
Which Folly cannot mar, nor Hate deprave—
The incense of those powers, which, risen in flame,
Might make me dear to Him from whom they came.”
Of this work, to which all my other writings (unless I except my
poems, and these I can exclude in part only) are introductory and
preparative; and the result of which (if the premises be, as I, with
the most tranquil assurance, am convinced they are—insubvertible, the
deductions legitimate, and the conclusions commensurate, and only
commensurate, with both,) must finally be a revolution of all that has
been called _Philosophy_ or Metaphysics in England and France since
the era of the commencing predominance of the mechanical system at the
restoration of our second Charles, and with this the present
fashionable views, not only of religion, morals, and politics, but
even of the modern physics and physiology. You will not blame the
earnestness of my expressions, nor the high importance which I attach
to this work; for how, with less noble objects, and less faith in
their attainment, could I stand acquitted of folly and abuse of time,
talents, and learning, in a labor of three fourths of my
_intellectual_ life? Of this work, something more than a volume has
been dictated by me, so as to exist fit for the press, to my friend
and enlightened pupil, Mr. Green; and more than as much again would
have been evolved and delivered to paper, but that, for the last six
or eight months, I have been compelled to break off our weekly
meeting, from the necessity of writing (alas! alas! of _attempting_ to
write) for purposes, and on the subjects of the passing day. Of my
poetic works, I would fain finish the Christabel. Alas! for the proud
time when I planned, when I had present to my mind the materials, as
well as the scheme of the hymns entitled, Spirit, Sun, Earth, Air,
Water, Fire, and Man; and the epic poem on—what still appears to me
the one only fit subject remaining for an epic poem—Jerusalem besieged
and destroyed by Titus.
And here comes my dear friend; here comes my sorrow and my weakness,
my grievance and my confession. Anxious to perform the duties of the
day arising out of the wants of the day, these wants, too, presenting
themselves in the most painful of all forms,—that of a debt owing to
those who will not exact it, and yet need its payment, and the delay,
the long (not live-long but _death_-long) behindhand of my accounts to
friends, whose utmost care and frugality on the one side, and industry
on the other, the wife's management and the husband's assiduity are
put in requisition to make both ends meet,—I am at once forbidden to
attempt, and too perplexed earnestly to pursue, the _accomplishment_
of the works worthy of me, those I mean above enumerated,—even if,
savagely as I have been injured by one of the two influensive Reviews,
and with more effective enmity undermined by the utter silence or
occasional detractive compliments of the other,[5] I had the probable
chance of disposing of them to the booksellers, so as even to
liquidate my mere boarding accounts during the time expended in the
transcription, arrangement, and proof correction. And yet, on the
other hand, my heart and mind are for ever recurring to them. Yes, my
conscience forces me to plead guilty. I have only by fits and starts
even prayed. I have not prevailed on myself to pray to God in
sincerity and entireness for the fortitude that might enable me to
resign myself to the abandonment of all my life's best hopes, to say
boldly to myself,—“Gifted with powers confessedly above mediocrity,
aided by an education, of which, no less from almost unexampled
hardships and sufferings than from manifold and peculiar advantages, I
have never yet found a parallel, I have devoted myself to a life of
unintermitted reading, thinking, meditating, and observing. I have not
only sacrificed all worldly prospects of wealth and advancement, but
have in my inmost soul stood aloof from temporary reputation. In
consequence of these toils and this self-dedication, I possess a calm
and clear consciousness, that in many and most important departments
of truth and beauty I have outstrode my contemporaries, those at least
of highest name; that the number of my printed works bears witness
that I have not been idle, and the seldom acknowledged, but strictly
_proveable_, effects of my labors appropriated to the immediate
welfare of my age in the Morning Post before and during the peace of
Amiens, in the Courier afterward, and in the series and various
subjects of my lectures at Bristol and at the Royal and Surrey
Institutions, in Fetter Lane, at Willis's Rooms, and at the Crown and
Anchor (add to which the unlimited freedom of my communications in
colloquial life), may surely be allowed as evidence that I have not
been useless in my generation. But, from circumstances, the _main_
portion of my harvest is still on the ground, ripe indeed, and only
waiting, a few for the sickle, but a large part only for the
_sheaving_, and carting, and housing, but from all this I must turn
away, must let them rot as they lie, and be as though they never had
been, for I must go and gather blackberries and earth-nuts, or pick
mushrooms and gild oak-apples for the palates and fancies of chance
customers. I must abrogate the name of philosopher and poet, and
scribble as fast as I can, and with as little thought as I can, for
Blackwood's Magazine, or, as I have been employed for the last days,
in writing MS. sermons for lazy clergymen, who stipulate that the
composition must not be more than respectable, for fear they should be
desired to publish the visitation sermon!” This I have not yet had
courage to do. My soul sickens and my heart sinks; {453} and thus,
oscillating between both, I do neither, neither as it ought to be
done, or to any profitable end. If I were to detail only the various,
I might say capricious, interruptions that have prevented the
finishing of this very scrawl, begun on the very day I received your
last kind letter, you would need no other illustrations.
[Footnote 5: Neither my Literary Life, (2 vols.) nor Sibylline Leaves,
(1 vol.) nor Friend, (3 vols.) nor Lay Sermons, nor Zapolya, nor
Christabel, have ever been noticed by the Quarterly Review, of which
Southey is yet the main support.]
Now I see but one possible plan of rescuing my permanent utility. It
is briefly this, and plainly. For what we struggle with inwardly, we
find at least easiest to _bolt out_, namely,—that of engaging from the
circle of those who think respectfully and hope highly of my powers
and attainments a yearly sum, for three or four years, adequate to my
actual support, with such comforts and decencies of appearance as my
health and habits have made necessaries, so that my mind may be
unanxious as far as the present time is concerned; that thus I should
stand both enabled and pledged to begin with some one work of these
above mentioned, and for two thirds of my whole time to devote myself
to this exclusively till finished, to take the chance of its success
by the best mode of publication that would involve me in no risk, then
to proceed with the next, and so on till the works above mentioned as
already in full material existence should be reduced into formal and
actual being; while in the remaining third of my time I might go on
maturing and completing my great work (for if but easy in mind I have
no doubt either of the reawakening power or of the kindling
inclination,) and my Christabel, and what else the happier hour might
inspire—and without inspiration a barrel-organ may be played right
deftly; but
“All otherwise the state of _poet_ stands:
For lordly want is such a tyrant fell,
That where he rules all power he doth expel.
The vaunted verse a vacant head demands,
Ne wont with crabbed Care the muses dwell:
_Unwisely weaves who takes two webs in hand!_”
Now Mr. Green has offered to contribute from 30_l._ to 40_l._ yearly,
for three or four years; my young friend and pupil, the son of one of
my dearest old friends, 50_l._; and I think that from 10_l._ to 20_l._
I could rely upon from another. The sum required would be about
200_l._, to be repaid, of course, should the disposal or sale, and as
far as the disposal and sale of my writings produced the means.
I have thus placed before you at large, wanderingly as well as
diffusely, the statement which I am inclined to send in a compressed
form to a few of those of whose kind dispositions towards me I have
received assurances,—and to their interest and influence I must leave
it—anxious, however, before I do this, to learn from you your very,
very inmost feeling and judgment as to the previous questions. Am I
entitled, have I earned _a right_ to do this? Can I do it without
moral degradation? and, lastly, can it be done without loss of
character in the eyes of my acquaintance, and of my friends'
acquaintance, who may have been informed of the circumstances? That,
if attempted at all, it will be attempted in such a way, and that such
persons only will be spoken to, as will not expose me to indelicate
rebuffs to be afterward matter of gossip, I know those to whom I shall
entrust the statement, too well to be much alarmed about.
Pray let me either see or hear from you as soon as possible; for,
indeed and indeed, it is no inconsiderable accession to the pleasure I
anticipate from disembarrassment, that _you_ would have to contemplate
in a more gracious form, and in a more ebullient play of the inward
fountain, the mind and manners of,
My dear friend,
Your obliged and very affectionate friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
It has always been a matter of wonder to us that the _Biographia
Literaria_ here mentioned in the foot note has never been republished
in America. It is, perhaps, the most deeply interesting of the prose
writings of Coleridge, and affords a clearer view into his mental
constitution than any other of his works. Why cannot some of our
publishers undertake it? They would be rendering an important service
to the cause of psychological science in America, by introducing a
work of great scope and power in itself, and well calculated to do
away with the generally received impression here entertained of the
_mysticism_ of the writer.