CHAPTER II

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE[32]

[32] This chapter is composed of four articles contributed to

_Tait's Magazine_ under the title of "Samuel Taylor Coleridge: By

the English Opium-Eater." They appeared, respectively, in the

numbers of the Magazine for September, October, and November 1834,

and January 1835. Three of these articles were revised by De

Quincey, and thrown into one paper for Vol. II of the Collective

Edition of his writings, published in 1854. The fourth article was

not included in that paper; but it is added to the reprint of the

paper in the American Collective Edition of De Quincey, and is

necessary to complete his sketch of Coleridge. It is therefore

reproduced here. The reader will understand, accordingly, that as

far as to p. 208 we follow De Quincey's revised text of three of

his Coleridge articles; after which we have to print the fourth

article as it originally stood in _Tait_.--M.

It was, I think, in the month of August, but certainly in the summer

season, and certainly in the year 1807, that I first saw this

illustrious man. My knowledge of him as a man of most original genius

began about the year 1799. A little before that time Wordsworth had

published the first edition (in a single volume) of the "Lyrical

Ballads,"[33] and into this had been introduced Mr. Coleridge's poem

of the "Ancient Mariner," as the contribution of an anonymous friend.

It would be directing the reader's attention too much to myself if

I were to linger upon this, the greatest event in the unfolding of

my own mind. Let me say, in one word, that, at a period when neither

the one nor the other writer was valued by the public--both having

a long warfare to accomplish of contumely and ridicule before they

could rise into their present estimation--I found in these poems

"the ray of a new morning," and an absolute revelation of untrodden

worlds teeming with power and beauty as yet unsuspected amongst men. I

may here mention that, precisely at the same time, Professor Wilson,

entirely unconnected with myself, and not even known to me until ten

years later, received the same startling and profound impressions

from the same volume.[34] With feelings of reverential interest,

so early and so deep, pointing towards two contemporaries, it may

be supposed that I inquired eagerly after their names. But these

inquiries were self-baffled; the same deep feelings which prompted

my curiosity causing me to recoil from all casual opportunities of

pushing the inquiry, as too generally lying amongst those who gave

no sign of participating in my feelings; and, extravagant as this

may seem, I revolted with as much hatred from coupling my question

with any occasion of insult to the persons whom it respected, as a

primitive Christian from throwing frankincense upon the altars of

Cæsar, or a lover from giving up the name of his beloved to the coarse

license of a Bacchanalian party. It is laughable to record for how

long a period my curiosity in this particular was thus self-defeated.

Two years passed before I ascertained the two names. Mr. Wordsworth

published _his_ in the second and enlarged edition of the poems[35];

and for Mr. Coleridge's I was "indebted" to a private source; but I

discharged that debt ill, for I quarrelled with my informant for what

I considered his profane way of dealing with a subject so hallowed in

my own thoughts. After this I searched, east and west, north and south,

for all known works or fragments of the same authors. I had read,

therefore, as respects Mr. Coleridge, the Allegory which he contributed

to Mr. Southey's "Joan of Arc."[36] I had read his fine Ode entitled

"France,"[37] his Ode to the Duchess of Devonshire, and various

other contributions, more or less interesting, to the two volumes

of the "Anthology" published at Bristol, about 1799-1800, by Mr.

Southey[38]; and, finally, I had, of course, read the small volume of

poems published under his own name. These, however, as a juvenile and

immature collection, made expressly with a view to pecuniary profit,

and therefore courting expansion at any cost of critical discretion,

had in general greatly disappointed me.[39]

[33] Published in 1798.--M.

[34] See _ante_, p. 61.--M.

[35] Published in 1800.--M.

[36] The first edition of Southey's epic was published in 1796,

the second in 1798, both at Bristol.--M.

[37] Published, with other political pieces, in 1798, after having

appeared in the _Morning Post_ newspaper.--M.

[38] _English Anthology_ for 1799-1800, in 2 vols., published at

Bristol, and edited by Southey.--M.

[39] The first edition, entitled _Poems on Various Subjects, by S.

T. Coleridge, late of Jesus College, Cambridge_, was published at

Bristol in 1796; the second at London in 1797; the third at London

in 1803.--M.

Meantime, it had crowned the interest which to me invested his name,

that about the year 1804 or 1805 I had been informed by a gentleman

from the English Lakes, who knew him as a neighbour, that he had for

some time applied his whole mind to metaphysics and psychology--which

happened to be my own absorbing pursuit. From 1803 to 1808, I was a

student at Oxford; and, on the first occasion when I could conveniently

have sought for a personal knowledge of one whom I contemplated with so

much admiration, I was met by a painful assurance that he had quitted

England, and was then residing at Malta, in the quality of secretary to

the Governor. I began to inquire about the best route to Malta; but,

as any route at that time promised an inside place in a French prison,

I reconciled myself to waiting; and at last, happening to visit the

Bristol Hotwells in the summer of 1807, I had the pleasure to hear

that Coleridge was not only once more upon English ground, but within

forty and odd miles of my own station. In that same hour I bent my

way to the south; and, before evening, reaching a ferry on the river

Bridgewater, at a village called, I think, Stogursey (_i.e._, Stoke de

Courcy, by way of distinction from some other Stoke), I crossed it, and

a few miles farther attained my object--viz., the little town of Nether

Stowey, amongst the Quantock Hills. Here I had been assured that I

should find Mr. Coleridge, at the house of his old friend Mr. Poole. On

presenting myself, however, to that gentleman, I found that Coleridge

was absent at Lord Egmont's, an elder brother (by the father's side)

of Mr. Perceval, the Prime Minister, assassinated five years later;

and, as it was doubtful whether he might not then be on the wing to

another friend's in the town of Bridgewater, I consented willingly,

until his motions should be ascertained, to stay a day or two with

this Mr. Poole--a man on his own account well deserving a separate

notice; for, as Coleridge afterwards remarked to me, he was almost

an ideal model for a useful member of Parliament.[40] I found him a

stout, plain-looking farmer, leading a bachelor life, in a rustic,

old-fashioned house; the house, however, upon further acquaintance,

proving to be amply furnished with modern luxuries, and especially with

a good library, superbly mounted in all departments bearing at all

upon political philosophy; and the farmer turning out a polished and

liberal Englishman, who had travelled extensively, and had so entirely

dedicated himself to the service of his humble fellow-countrymen--the

hewers of wood and drawers of water in this southern part of

Somersetshire--that for many miles round he was the general arbiter of

their disputes, the guide and counsellor of their difficulties; besides

being appointed executor and guardian to his children by every third

man who died in or about the town of Nether Stowey.

[40] For a full account of this interesting Mr. Poole see _Thomas

Poole and his Friends_, by Mrs. Henry Sandford, 2 vols., 1888. He

was born 1765, and died 1837.--M.

The first morning of my visit, Mr. Poole was so kind as to propose,

knowing my admiration of Wordsworth, that we should ride over to

Alfoxton[41]--a place of singular interest to myself, as having been

occupied in his unmarried days by that poet, during the minority of Mr.

St. Aubyn, its present youthful proprietor. At this delightful spot,

the ancient residence of an ancient English family, and surrounded by

those ferny Quantock Hills which are so beautifully glanced at in the

poem of "Ruth," Wordsworth, accompanied by his sister, had passed a

good deal of the interval between leaving the University (Cambridge)

and the period of his final settlement amongst his native lakes of

Westmoreland: some allowance, however, must be made--but how much I do

not accurately know--for a long residence in France, for a short one

in North Germany, for an intermitting one in London, and for a regular

domestication with his sister at Race Down in Dorsetshire.

[41] More properly spelt _Alfoxden_.--M.

Returning late from this interesting survey, we found ourselves

without company at dinner; and, being thus seated _tête-à-tête_,

Mr. Poole propounded the following question to me, which I mention

because it furnished me with the first hint of a singular infirmity

besetting Coleridge's mind:--"Pray, my young friend, did you ever

form any opinion, or, rather, did it ever happen to you to meet

with any rational opinion or conjecture of others, upon that most

revolting dogma of Pythagoras about beans? You know what I mean: that

monstrous doctrine in which he asserts that a man might as well, for

the wickedness of the thing, eat his own grandmother as meddle with

beans."[42]

[42] In the abrupt phrasing of Mr. Poole's question De Quincey

must surely have recollected the similar question put by the clown

in _Twelfth Night_ to the supposed madman Malvolio to test his

sanity--"_Clown_. What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning

wild fowl?"--M.

"Yes," I replied; "the line is, I believe, in the Golden Verses. I

remember it well."

P.--"True: now, our dear excellent friend Coleridge, than whom God

never made a creature more divinely endowed, yet, strange it is to

say, sometimes steals from other people, just as you or I might do; I

beg your pardon--just as a poor creature like myself might do, that

sometimes have not wherewithal to make a figure from my own exchequer:

and the other day, at a dinner party, this question arising about

Pythagoras and his beans, Coleridge gave us an interpretation which,

from his manner, I suspect to have been not original. Think, therefore,

if you have anywhere read a plausible solution."

"I have: and it was a German author. This German, understand, is a poor

stick of a man, not to be named on the same day with Coleridge: so

that, if Coleridge should appear to have robbed him, be assured that he

has done the scamp too much honour."

P.--"Well: what says the German?"

"Why, you know the use made in Greece of beans in voting and balloting?

Well: the German says that Pythagoras speaks symbolically; meaning that

electioneering, or, more generally, all interference with political

intrigues, is fatal to a philosopher's pursuits and their appropriate

serenity. Therefore, says he, follower of mine, abstain from public

affairs as you would from parricide."

P.--"Well, then, Coleridge _has_ done the scamp too much honour: for,

by Jove, that is the very explanation he gave us!"

Here was a trait of Coleridge's mind, to be first made known to me by

his best friend, and first published to the world by me, the foremost

of his admirers! But both of us had sufficient reasons:--Mr. Poole knew

that, stumbled on by accident, such a discovery would be likely to

impress upon a man as yet unacquainted with Coleridge a most injurious

jealousy with regard to all he might write: whereas, frankly avowed

by one who knew him best, the fact was disarmed of its sting; since

it thus became evident that, where the case had been best known and

most investigated, it had not operated to his serious disadvantage. On

the same argument,--to forestall, that is to say, other discoverers,

who would make a more unfriendly use of the discovery,--and also as

matters of literary curiosity, I shall here point out a few others of

Coleridge's unacknowledged obligations, noticed by myself in a very

wide course of reading.[43]

[43] With respect to all these cases of apparent plagiarism, see

an explanatory Note at the end of this chapter.

1. The Hymn to Chamouni is an expansion of a short poem in stanzas,

upon the same subject, by Frederica Brun, a female poet of Germany,

previously known to the world under her maiden name of Münter. The

mere framework of the poem is exactly the same--an appeal to the most

impressive features of the regal mountain (Mont Blanc), adjuring them

to proclaim their author: the torrent, for instance, is required to say

by whom it had been arrested in its headlong raving, and stiffened, as

by the petrific touch of Death, into everlasting pillars of ice; and

the answer to these impassioned apostrophes is made by the same choral

burst of rapture. In mere logic, therefore, and even as to the choice

of circumstances, Coleridge's poem is a translation. On the other hand,

by a judicious amplification of some topics, and by its far deeper tone

of lyrical enthusiasm, the dry bones of the German outline have been

awakened by Coleridge into the fulness of life. It is not, therefore, a

paraphrase, but a re-cast of the original. And how was this calculated,

if frankly avowed, to do Coleridge any injury with the judicious?

2. A more singular case of Coleridge's infirmity is this:--In a very

noble passage of "France," a fine expression or two occur from "Samson

Agonistes." Now, to take a phrase or an inspiriting line from the great

fathers of poetry, even though no marks of quotation should be added,

carries with it no charge of plagiarism. Milton is justly presumed to

be as familiar to the ear as nature to the eye; and to steal from him

as impossible as to appropriate, or sequester to a private use, some

"bright particular star." And there is a good reason for rejecting the

typographical marks of quotation: they break the continuity of the

passion, by reminding the reader of a printed book; on which account

Milton himself (to give an instance) has not marked the sublime words,

"tormented all the air" as borrowed; nor has Wordsworth, in applying to

an unprincipled woman of commanding beauty the memorable expression "a

weed of glorious feature," thought it necessary to acknowledge it as

originally belonging to Spenser. Some dozens of similar cases might be

adduced from Milton. But Coleridge, when saying of republican France

that,

"_Insupportably advancing_,

Her arm made mockery of the warrior's tramp,"

not satisfied with omitting the marks of acknowledgment, thought fit

positively to deny that he was indebted to Milton. Yet who could

forget that semi-chorus in the "Samson" where the "bold Ascalonite" is

described as having "fled from his lion ramp"? Or who, that was not

in this point liable to some hallucination of judgment, would have

ventured on a public challenge (for virtually it was that) to produce

from the "Samson" words so impossible to be overlooked as those of

"insupportably advancing the foot"? The result was that one of the

critical journals placed the two passages in juxtaposition and left the

reader to his own conclusions with regard to the poet's veracity. But,

in this instance, it was common sense rather than veracity which the

facts impeach.

3. In the year 1810 I happened to be amusing myself by reading, in

their chronological order, the great classical circumnavigations of

the earth; and, coming to Shelvocke, I met with a passage to this

effect:--That Hatley, his second captain (_i.e._ lieutenant), being a

melancholy man, was possessed by a fancy that some long season of foul

weather, in the solitary sea which they were then traversing, was due

to an albatross which had steadily pursued the ship; upon which he shot

the bird, but without mending their condition. There at once I saw

the germ of the "Ancient Mariner"; and I put a question to Coleridge

accordingly. Could it have been imagined that he would see cause

utterly to disown so slight an obligation to Shelvocke? Wordsworth, a

man of stern veracity, on hearing of this, professed his inability to

understand Coleridge's meaning; the fact being notorious, as he told

me, that Coleridge had derived from the very passage I had cited the

original hint for the action of the poem; though it is very possible,

from something which Coleridge said on another occasion, that, before

meeting a fable in which to embody his ideas, he had meditated a poem

on delirium, confounding its own dream-scenery with external things,

and connected with the imagery of high latitudes.

4. All these cases amount to nothing at all as cases of plagiarism,

and for this reason expose the more conspicuously that obliquity of

feeling which could seek to decline the very slight acknowledgments

required. But now I come to a case of real and palpable plagiarism;

yet that, too, of a nature to be quite unaccountable in a man of

Coleridge's attainments. It is not very likely that this particular

case will soon be detected; but others will. Yet who knows? Eight

hundred or a thousand years hence, some reviewer may arise who having

read the "Biographia Literaria" of Coleridge, will afterwards read the

"Philosophical----"[44] of Schelling, the great Bavarian professor--a

man in some respects worthy to be Coleridge's assessor; and he will

then make a singular discovery. In the "Biographia Literaria" occurs

a dissertation upon the reciprocal relations of the _Esse_ and the

_Cogitare_,--that is, of the _objective_ and the _subjective_: and an

attempt is made, by inverting the postulates from which the argument

starts, to show how each might arise as a product, by an intelligible

genesis, from the other. It is a subject which, since the time of

Fichte, has much occupied the German metaphysicians; and many thousands

of essays have been written on it, or indirectly so, of which many

hundreds have been read by many tens of persons. Coleridge's essay,

in particular, is prefaced by a few words in which, aware of his

coincidence with Schelling, he declares his willingness to acknowledge

himself indebted to so great a man in any case where the truth would

allow him to do so; but, in this particular case, insisting on the

impossibility that he could have borrowed arguments which he had

first seen some years after he had thought out the whole hypothesis

_proprio marte_. After this, what was my astonishment to find that

the entire essay, from the first word to the last, is a _verbatim_

translation from Schelling, with no attempt in a single instance to

appropriate the paper by developing the arguments or by diversifying

the illustrations? Some other obligations to Schelling, of a slighter

kind, I have met with in the "Biographia Literaria"; but this was a

barefaced plagiarism, which could in prudence have been risked only

by relying too much upon the slight knowledge of German literature in

this country, and especially of that section of the German literature.

Had, then, Coleridge any need to borrow from Schelling? Did he borrow

_in forma pauperis_? Not at all: there lay the wonder. He spun daily,

and at all hours, for mere amusement of his own activities, and from

the loom of his own magical brain, theories more gorgeous by far, and

supported by a pomp and luxury of images such as neither Schelling--no,

nor any German that ever breathed, not John Paul--could have emulated

in his dreams. With the riches of El Dorado lying about him, he would

condescend to filch a handful of gold from any man whose purse he

fancied, and in fact reproduced in a new form, applying itself to

intellectual wealth, that maniacal propensity which is sometimes well

known to attack enormous proprietors and millionaires for acts of petty

larceny. The last Duke of Anc---- could not abstain from exercising his

furtive mania upon articles so humble as silver spoons; and it was the

nightly care of a pious daughter, watching over the aberrations of her

father, to have his pockets searched by a confidential valet, and the

claimants of the purloined articles traced out.

[44] I forget the exact title, not having seen the book since

1823, and then only for one day; but I believe it was Schelling's

"Kleine Philosophische Werke."

Many cases have crossed me in life of people, otherwise not wanting in

principle, who had habits, or at least hankerings, of the same kind.

And the phrenologists, I believe, are well acquainted with the case,

its signs, its progress, and its history. Dismissing, however, this

subject, which I have at all noticed only that I might anticipate,

and (in old English) that I might _prevent_, the uncandid interpreter

of its meaning, I will assert finally that, after having read for

thirty years in the same track as Coleridge--that track in which few

of any age will ever follow us, such as German metaphysicians, Latin

schoolmen, thaumaturgic Platonists, religious Mystics--and having thus

discovered a large variety of trivial thefts, I do, nevertheless,

most heartily believe him to have been as entirely original in all

his capital pretensions as any one man that ever has existed; as

Archimedes in ancient days, or as Shakspere in modern. Did the reader

ever see Milton's account of the rubbish contained in the Greek and

Latin Fathers?[45] Or did he ever read a statement of the monstrous

chaos with which an African Obeah man stuffs his enchanted scarecrows?

Or, take a more common illustration, did he ever amuse himself by

searching the pockets of a child--three years old, suppose--when

buried in slumber after a long summer's day of out-o'-doors intense

activity? I have done this; and, for the amusement of the child's

mother, have analyzed the contents, and drawn up a formal register

of the whole. Philosophy is puzzled, conjecture and hypothesis are

confounded, in the attempt to explain the law of selection which _can_

have presided in the child's labours; stones remarkable only for

weight, old rusty hinges, nails, crooked skewers stolen when the cook

had turned her back, rags, broken glass, tea-cups having the bottom

knocked out, and loads of similar jewels, were the prevailing articles

in this _procès-verbal_. Yet, doubtless, much labour had been incurred,

some sense of danger perhaps had been faced, and the anxieties of a

conscious robber endured, in order to amass this splendid treasure.

Such in value were the robberies of Coleridge; such their usefulness to

himself or anybody else; and such the circumstances of uneasiness under

which he had committed them. I return to my narrative.

[45] "Whatever Time, or the heedless hand of blind Chance, hath

drawn down from of old to this present in her huge drag-net,

whether fish, or seaweed, shells or shrubs, unpicked, unchosen,

these are the Fathers." Milton's Tract _Of Prelatical Episcopacy_,

published in 1641.--M.

Two or three days had slipped away in waiting for Coleridge's

re-appearance at Nether Stowey, when suddenly Lord Egmont called

upon Mr. Poole, with a present for Coleridge: it was a canister of

peculiarly fine snuff, which Coleridge now took profusely. Lord

Egmont, on this occasion, spoke of Coleridge in the terms of excessive

admiration, and urged Mr. Poole to put him upon undertaking some great

monumental work, that might furnish a sufficient arena for the display

of his various and rare accomplishments; for his multiform erudition

on the one hand, for his splendid power of theorizing and combining

large and remote notices of facts on the other. And he suggested,

judiciously enough, as one theme which offered a field at once large

enough and indefinite enough to suit a mind that could not show its

full compass of power unless upon very plastic materials--a History

of Christianity, in its progress and in its chief divarications into

Church and Sect, with a continual reference to the relations subsisting

between Christianity and the current philosophy; their occasional

connexions or approaches, and their constant mutual repulsions. "But,

at any rate, let him do something," said Lord Egmont; "for at present

he talks very much like an angel, and does nothing at all." Lord Egmont

I understood from everybody to be a truly good and benevolent man; and

on this occasion he spoke with an earnestness which agreed with my

previous impression. Coleridge, he said, was now in the prime of his

powers--uniting something of youthful vigour with sufficient experience

of life; having the benefit, beside, of vast meditation, and of reading

unusually discursive. No man had ever been better qualified to revive

the heroic period of literature in England, and to give a character of

weight to the philosophic erudition of the country upon the Continent.

"And what a pity," he added, "if this man were, after all, to vanish

like an apparition, and you, I, and a few others, who have witnessed

his grand _bravuras_ of display, were to have the usual fortune of

ghost-seers, in meeting no credit for any statements that we might

vouch on his behalf!"

On this occasion we learned, for the first time, that Lord Egmont's

carriage had, some days before, conveyed Coleridge to Bridgewater, with

a purpose of staying one single day at that place, and then returning

to Mr. Poole's. From the sort of laugh with which Lord Egmont taxed

his own simplicity, in having confided at all in the stability of any

Coleridgian plan, I now gathered that procrastination in excess was,

or had become, a marking feature in Coleridge's daily life. Nobody who

knew him ever thought of depending on any appointment he might make:

spite of his uniformly honourable intentions, nobody attached any

weight to his assurances _in re futura_: those who asked him to dinner

or any other party, as a matter of course, sent a carriage for him, and

went personally or by proxy to fetch him; and, as to letters, unless

the address were in some female hand that commanded his affectionate

esteem, he tossed them all into one general _dead-letter bureau_, and

rarely, I believe, opened them at all.[46] Bourrienne mentions a mode

of abridging the trouble attached to a very extensive correspondence,

by which infinite labour was saved to himself, and to Napoleon, when

First Consul. Nine out of ten letters, supposing them letters of

business with official applications of a special kind, he contends,

answer themselves: in other words, time alone must soon produce events

which virtually contain the answer. On this principle the letters were

opened periodically, after intervals, suppose, of six weeks; and, at

the end of that time, it was found that not many remained to require

any further more particular answer. Coleridge's plan, however, was

shorter: he opened none, I understood, and answered none. At least

such was his habit at that time. But, on that same day, all this,

which I heard now for the first time, and with much concern, was fully

explained; for already he was under the full dominion of opium, as he

himself revealed to me, and with a deep expression of horror at the

hideous bondage, in a private walk of some length which I took with him

about sunset.

[46] This might pass as a description of De Quincey himself in his

later years, if not all through his life.--M.

Lord Egmont's information, and the knowledge now gained of Coleridge's

habits, making it very uncertain when I might see him in my present

hospitable quarters, I immediately took my leave of Mr. Poole, and went

over to Bridgewater. I had received directions for finding out the

house where Coleridge was visiting; and, in riding down a main street

of Bridgewater, I noticed a gateway corresponding to the description

given me. Under this was standing, and gazing about him, a man whom I

will describe. In height he might seem to be about five feet eight (he

was, in reality, about an inch and a-half taller, but his figure was

of an order which drowns the height); his person was broad and full,

and tended even to corpulence; his complexion was fair, though not

what painters technically style fair, because it was associated with

black hair; his eyes were large, and soft in their expression; and it

was from the peculiar appearance of haze or dreaminess which mixed

with their light that I recognised my object. This was Coleridge.[47]

I examined him steadfastly for a minute or more; and it struck me

that he saw neither myself nor any other object in the street. He was

in a deep reverie; for I had dismounted, made two or three trifling

arrangements at an inn-door, and advanced close to him, before he had

apparently become conscious of my presence. The sound of my voice,

announcing my own name, first awoke him; he started, and for a moment

seemed at a loss to understand my purpose or his own situation; for he

repeated rapidly a number of words which had no relation to either of

us. There was no _mauvaise honte_ in his manner, but simple perplexity,

and an apparent difficulty in recovering his position amongst daylight

realities. This little scene over, he received me with a kindness of

manner so marked that it might be called gracious. The hospitable

family with whom he was domesticated were distinguished for their

amiable manners and enlightened understandings: they were descendants

from Chubb, the philosophic writer, and bore the same name. For

Coleridge they all testified deep affection and esteem--sentiments

in which the whole town of Bridgewater seemed to share; for in the

evening, when the heat of the day had declined, I walked out with him;

and rarely, perhaps never, have I seen a person so much interrupted

in one hour's space as Coleridge, on this occasion, by the courteous

attentions of young and old.

[47] At the date of this first meeting of De Quincey with

Coleridge, De Quincey was twenty-two years of age and Coleridge

nearly thirty-seven.--M.

All the people of station and weight in the place, and apparently all

the ladies, were abroad to enjoy the lovely summer evening; and not a

party passed without some mark of smiling recognition, and the majority

stopping to make personal inquiries about his health, and to express

their anxiety that he should make a lengthened stay amongst them.

Certain I am, from the lively esteem expressed towards Coleridge at

this time by the people of Bridgewater, that a very large subscription

might, in that town, have been raised to support him amongst them, in

the character of a lecturer, or philosophical professor. Especially I

remarked that the young men of the place manifested the most liberal

interest in all that concerned him; and I can add my attestation

to that of Mr. Coleridge himself, when describing an evening spent

amongst the enlightened tradesmen of Birmingham, that nowhere is

more unaffected good sense exhibited, and particularly nowhere more

elasticity and _freshness_ of mind, than in the conversation of

the reading men in manufacturing towns. In Kendal, especially, in

Bridgewater, and in Manchester, I have witnessed more interesting

conversations, as much information, and more natural eloquence in

conveying it, than usually in literary cities, or in places professedly

learned. One reason for this is that in trading towns the time is more

happily distributed; the day given to business and active duties--the

evening to relaxation; on which account, books, conversation, and

literary leisure are more cordially enjoyed: the same satiation never

can take place which too frequently deadens the genial enjoyment of

those who have a surfeit of books and a monotony of leisure. Another

reason is that more simplicity of manner may be expected, and more

natural picturesqueness of conversation, more open expression of

character, in places where people have no previous name to support. Men

in trading towns are not afraid to open their lips for fear they should

disappoint your expectations, nor do they strain for showy sentiments

that they may meet them. But, elsewhere, many are the men who stand

in awe of their own reputation: not a word which is unstudied, not

a movement in the spirit of natural freedom, dare they give way to,

because it might happen that on review something would be seen to

retract or to qualify--something not properly planed and chiselled to

build into the general architecture of an artificial reputation. But to

return:--

Coleridge led me to a drawing-room, rang the bell for refreshments,

and omitted no point of a courteous reception. He told me that there

would be a very large dinner party on that day, which, perhaps, might

be disagreeable to a perfect stranger; but, if not, he could assure

me of a most hospitable welcome from the family. I was too anxious to

see him under all aspects to think of declining this invitation. That

point being settled, Coleridge, like some great river, the Orellana,

or the St. Lawrence, that, having been checked and fretted by rocks

or thwarting islands, suddenly recovers its volume of waters and its

mighty music, swept at once, as if returning to his natural business,

into a continuous strain of eloquent dissertation, certainly the most

novel, the most finely illustrated, and traversing the most spacious

fields of thought by transitions the most just and logical, that it

was possible to conceive. What I mean by saying that his transitions

were "just" is by way of contradistinction to that mode of conversation

which courts variety through links of _verbal_ connexions. Coleridge,

to many people, and often I have heard the complaint, seemed to wander;

and he seemed then to wander the most when, in fact, his resistance to

the wandering instinct was greatest--viz., when the compass and huge

circuit by which his illustrations moved travelled farthest into remote

regions before they began to revolve. Long before this coming round

commenced most people had lost him, and naturally enough supposed that

he had lost himself. They continued to admire the separate beauty of

the thoughts, but did not see their relations to the dominant theme.

Had the conversation been thrown upon paper, it might have been easy

to trace the continuity of the links; just as in Bishop Berkeley's

"Siris,"[48] from a pedestal so low and abject, so culinary, as Tar

Water, the method of preparing it, and its medicinal effects, the

dissertation ascends, like Jacob's ladder, by just gradations, into the

Heaven of Heavens and the thrones of the Trinity. But Heaven is there

connected with earth by the Homeric chain of gold; and, being subject

to steady examination, it is easy to trace the links; whereas, in

conversation, the loss of a single word may cause the whole cohesion to

disappear from view. However, I can assert, upon my long and intimate

knowledge of Coleridge's mind, that logic the most severe was as

inalienable from his modes of thinking as grammar from his language.

[48] _Seiris_ ought to have been the title--_i.e._ [Greek:

Seiris], a chain. From this defect in the orthography, I did not

in my boyish days perceive, nor could obtain any light upon, its

meaning.

On the present occasion, the original theme, started by myself, was

Hartley and the Hartleian theory. I had carried as a little present to

Coleridge a scarce Latin pamphlet, "De Ideis," written by Hartley about

1746,--that is, about three years earlier than the publication of his

great work. He had also preluded to this great work in a little English

medical tract upon Joanna Stephens's medicine for the stone; for indeed

Hartley was the person upon whose evidence the House of Commons had

mainly relied in giving to that same Joanna a reward of £5000 for her

idle medicines--an application of public money not without its use, in

so far as it engaged men by selfish motives to cultivate the public

service, and to attempt public problems of very difficult solution; but

else, in that particular instance, perfectly idle, as the groans of

three generations since Joanna's era have too feelingly established. It

is known to most literary people that Coleridge was, in early life, so

passionate an admirer of the Hartleian philosophy that "Hartley" was

the sole baptismal name which he gave to his eldest child; and in an

early poem, entitled "Religious Musings," he has characterized Hartley

as

"Him of mortal kind

Wisest, him first who mark'd the ideal tribes

Up the fine fibres through the sentient brain

Pass in fine surges."

But at present (August 1807) all this was a forgotten thing. Coleridge

was so profoundly ashamed of the shallow Unitarianism of Hartley, and

so disgusted to think that he could at any time have countenanced that

creed, that he would scarcely allow to Hartley the reverence which is

undoubtedly his due; for I must contend that, waiving all question of

the extent to which Hartley would have pushed it (as though the law of

association accounted not only for our complex pleasures and pains, but

also might be made to explain the act of ratiocination),--waiving also

the physical substratum of nervous vibrations and miniature vibrations

to which he has chosen to marry his theory of association;--all this

apart, I must contend that the "Essay on Man, his Frame, his Duty,

and his Expectations" stands forward as a specimen almost unique

of elaborate theorizing, and a monument of absolute beauty in the

impression left of its architectural grace. In this respect it has, to

my mind, the spotless beauty and the ideal proportions of some Grecian

statue. However, I confess that, being myself, from my earliest years,

a reverential believer in the doctrine of the Trinity, simply because I

never attempted to bring all things within the mechanic understanding,

and because, like Sir Thomas, Browne, my mind almost demanded mysteries

in so mysterious a system of relations as those which connect us with

another world, and also because the farther my understanding opened the

more I perceived of dim analogies to strengthen my creed, and because

nature herself, mere physical nature, has mysteries no less profound;

for these, and for many other "_becauses_," I could not reconcile with

my general reverence for Mr. Coleridge the fact, so often reported to

me, that he was a Unitarian. But, said some Bristol people to me, not

only is he a Unitarian--he is also a Socinian. In that case, I replied,

I cannot hold him a Christian. I am a liberal man, and have no bigotry

or hostile feelings towards a Socinian; but I can never think that man

a Christian who has blotted out of his scheme the very powers by which

only the great offices and functions of Christianity can be sustained;

neither can I think that any man, though he make himself a marvellously

clever disputant, ever could tower upwards into a very great

philosopher unless he should begin or should end with Christianity.

Kant is a dubious exception. Not that I mean to question his august

pretensions, so far as they went, and in his proper line. Within his

own circle none durst tread but he. But that circle was limited. He

was called by one who weighed him well, the _alles-zermalmender_, the

world-shattering Kant. He could destroy--his intellect was essentially

destructive. He was the Gog and he was the Magog of Hunnish desolation

to the existing schemes of Philosophy. He probed them; he showed the

vanity of vanities which besieged their foundations--the rottenness

below, the hollowness above. But he had no instincts of creation or

restoration within his Apollyon mind; for he had no love, no faith, no

self-distrust, no humility, no childlike docility; all which qualities

belonged essentially to Coleridge's mind, and waited only for manhood

and for sorrow to bring them forward.

Who can read without indignation of Kant that, at his own table, in

social sincerity and confidential talk, let him say what he would

in his books, he exulted in the prospect of absolute and ultimate

annihilation; that he planted his glory in the grave, and was

ambitious of rotting for ever? The King of Prussia, though a personal

friend of Kant's, found himself obliged to level his state thunders

at some of his doctrines, and terrified him in his advance; else I

am persuaded that Kant would have formally delivered Atheism from

the professor's chair, and would have enthroned the horrid Ghoulish

creed (which privately he professed) in the University of Königsberg.

It required the artillery of a great king to make him pause: his

menacing or warning letter to Kant is extant. The general notion

is, that the royal logic applied so austerely to the public conduct

of Kant in his professor's chair was of that kind which rests its

strength "upon thirty legions." My own belief is that the king had

private information of Kant's ultimate tendencies as revealed in his

table-talk. The fact is that, as the stomach has been known, by means

of its own potent acid secretion, to attack not only whatsoever alien

body is introduced within it, but also (as John Hunter first showed)

sometimes to attack itself and its own organic structure, so, and with

the same preternatural extension of instinct, did Kant carry forward

his destroying functions, until he turned them upon his own hopes and

the pledges of his own superiority to the dog, the ape, the worm. But

"_exoriare aliquis_"--and some philosopher, I am persuaded, _will_

arise; and "one sling of some victorious arm" ("Paradise Lost," B. x.)

will yet destroy the destroyer, in so far as he has applied himself

to the destruction of Christian hope. For my faith is that, though a

great man may, by a rare possibility, be an infidel, an intellect of

the highest order must build upon Christianity. A very clever architect

may choose to show his power by building with insufficient materials;

but the supreme architect must require the very best, because the

perfection of the forms cannot be shown but in the perfection of the

matter.

On these accounts I took the liberty of doubting, as often as I heard

the reports I have mentioned of Coleridge; and I now found that he

disowned most solemnly (and I may say penitentially) whatever had been

true in these reports. Coleridge told me that it had cost him a painful

effort, but not a moment's hesitation, to abjure his Unitarianism, from

the circumstance that he had amongst the Unitarians many friends, to

some of whom he was greatly indebted for great kindness. In particular,

he mentioned Mr. Estlin of Bristol, a distinguished Dissenting

clergyman, as one whom it grieved him to grieve. But he would not

dissemble his altered views. I will add, at the risk of appearing to

dwell too long on religious topics, that, on this my first introduction

to Coleridge, he reverted with strong compunction to a sentiment which

he had expressed in earlier days upon prayer. In one of his youthful

poems, speaking of God, he had said--

"Of whose omniscient and all-spreading love

Aught to implore were impotence of mind."

This sentiment he now so utterly condemned that, on the contrary, he

told me, as his own peculiar opinion, that the act of praying was the

very highest energy of which the human heart was capable; praying, that

is, with the total concentration of the faculties; and the great mass

of worldly men, and of learned men, he pronounced absolutely incapable

of prayer.

For about three hours he had continued to talk, and in the course

of this performance he had delivered many most striking aphorisms,

embalming more weight of truth, and separately more deserving to be

themselves embalmed, than would easily be found in a month's course

of select reading. In the midst of our conversation, if that can be

called conversation which I so seldom sought to interrupt, and which

did not often leave openings for contribution, the door opened,

and a lady entered. She was in person full and rather below the

common height; whilst her face showed to my eye some prettiness of

rather a commonplace order. Coleridge paused upon her entrance; his

features, however, announced no particular complacency, and did not

relax into a smile. In a frigid tone he said, whilst turning to me,

"Mrs. Coleridge"; in some slight way he then presented me to her: I

bowed; and the lady almost immediately retired. From this short but

ungenial scene, I gathered, what I afterward learned redundantly, that

Coleridge's marriage had not been a very happy one. But let not the

reader misunderstand me. Never was there a baser insinuation, viler in

the motive, or more ignoble in the manner, than that passage in some

lampoon of Lord Byron's, where, by way of vengeance on Mr. Southey (who

was the sole delinquent), he described both him and Coleridge as having

married "two milliners from Bath." Everybody knows what is _meant_

to be conveyed in that expression, though it would be hard, indeed,

if, even at Bath, there should be any class under such a fatal curse,

condemned so irretrievably, and so hopelessly prejudged, that ignominy

must, at any rate, attach, in virtue of a mere name or designation, to

the mode by which they gained their daily bread, or possibly supported

the declining years of a parent. However, in this case, the whole

sting of the libel was a pure falsehood of Lord Byron's. Bath was

not the native city, nor at any time the residence, of the ladies in

question, but Bristol. As to the other word, "_milliners_," that is

not worth inquiring about. Whether they, or any one of their family,

ever _did_ exercise this profession, I do not know; they were, at all

events, too young, when removed by marriage from Bristol, to have

been much tainted by the worldly feelings which may beset such a mode

of life. But, what is more to the purpose, I heard, at this time,

in Bristol, from Mr. Cottle, the author, a man of high principle,

as also from his accomplished sisters,--from the ladies, again, who

had succeeded Mrs. Hannah More in her school, and who enjoyed her

entire confidence,--that the whole family of four or five sisters had

maintained an irreproachable character, though naturally exposed, by

their personal attractions, to some peril, and to the malevolence of

envy. This declaration, which I could strengthen by other testimony

equally disinterested, if it were at all necessary, I owe to truth; and

I must also add, upon a knowledge more personal, that Mrs. Coleridge

was, in all circumstances of her married life, a virtuous wife and a

conscientious mother; and, as a mother, she showed at times a most

meritorious energy. In particular, I remember that, wishing her

daughter to acquire the Italian language, and having in her retirement

at Keswick no means of obtaining a master, she set to work resolutely,

under Mr. Southey's guidance, to learn the language herself, at a time

of life when such attainments are not made with ease or pleasure. She

became mistress of the language in a very respectable extent, and then

communicated her new accomplishment to her most interesting daughter.

I go on, therefore, to say, that Coleridge afterwards made me, as

doubtless some others, a confidant in this particular. What he had

to complain of was simply incompatibility of temper and disposition.

Wanting all cordial admiration, or indeed comprehension, of her

husband's intellectual powers, Mrs. Coleridge wanted the original basis

for affectionate patience and candour. Hearing from everybody that

Coleridge was a man of most extraordinary endowments, and attaching

little weight, perhaps, to the distinction between popular talents

and such as by their very nature are doomed to a slower progress in

the public esteem, she naturally looked to see, at least, an ordinary

measure of worldly consequence attend upon their exercise. Now, had

Coleridge been as persevering and punctual as the great mass of

professional men, and had he given no reason to throw the _onus_ of

the different result upon his own different habits, in that case this

result might, possibly and eventually, have been set down to the

peculiar constitution of his powers, and their essential mal-adaptation

to the English market. But, this trial having never fairly been made,

it was natural to impute his non-success exclusively to his own

irregular application, and to his carelessness in forming judicious

connexions. In circumstances such as these, however, no matter how

caused or how palliated, was laid a sure ground of discontent and

fretfulness in any woman's mind, not unusually indulgent or unusually

magnanimous. Coleridge, besides, assured me that his marriage was not

his own deliberate act, but was in a manner forced upon his sense of

honour by the scrupulous Southey, who insisted that he had gone too

far in his attentions to Miss Fricker for any honourable retreat. On

the other hand, a neutral spectator of the parties protested to me,

that, if ever in his life he had seen a man under deep fascination, and

what he would have called desperately in love, Coleridge, in relation

to Miss F., was that man. Be that as it might, circumstances occurred

soon after the marriage which placed all the parties in a trying

situation for their candour and good temper. I had a full outline of

the situation from two of those who were chiefly interested, and a

partial one from a third: nor can it be denied that all the parties

offended in point of prudence. A young lady became a neighbour, and

a daily companion of Coleridge's walks, whom I will not describe

more particularly than by saying that intellectually she was very

much superior to Mrs. Coleridge. That superiority alone, when made

conspicuous by its effects in winning Coleridge's regard and society,

could not but be deeply mortifying to a young wife. However, it was

moderated to her feelings by two considerations:--1. That the young

lady was much too kind-hearted to have designed any annoyance in this

triumph, or to express any exultation; 2. That no shadow of suspicion

settled upon the moral conduct or motives of either party: the young

lady was always attended by her brother; she had no personal charms;

and it was manifest that mere intellectual sympathies, in reference

to literature and natural scenery, had associated them in their daily

walks.

Still, it is a bitter trial to a young married woman to sustain any

sort of competition with a female of her own age for any part of her

husband's regard, or any share of his company. Mrs. Coleridge, not

having the same relish for long walks or rural scenery, and their

residence being, at this time, in a very sequestered village, was

condemned to a daily renewal of this trial.[49] Accidents of another

kind embittered it still further: often it would happen that the

walking party returned drenched with rain; in which case, the young

lady, with a laughing gaiety, and evidently unconscious of any liberty

that she was taking, or any wound that she was inflicting, would run

up to Mrs. Coleridge's wardrobe, array herself, without leave asked,

in Mrs. Coleridge's dresses, and make herself merry with her own

unceremoniousness and Mrs. Coleridge's gravity. In all this, she took

no liberty that she would not most readily have granted in return;

she confided too unthinkingly in what she regarded as the natural

privileges of friendship; and as little thought that she had been

receiving or exacting a favour, as, under an exchange of their relative

positions, she would have claimed to confer one. But Mrs. Coleridge

viewed her freedoms with a far different eye: she felt herself no

longer the entire mistress of her own house; she held a divided

empire; and it barbed the arrow to her womanly feelings that Coleridge

treated any sallies of resentment which might sometimes escape her as

narrow-mindedness; whilst, on the other hand, her own female servant,

and others in the same rank of life, began to drop expressions which

alternately implied pity for her as an injured woman, or contempt for

her as a very tame one.

[49] Another sentence of faulty grammar: a rare thing with De

Quincey.--M.

The reader will easily apprehend the situation, and the unfortunate

results which it boded to the harmony of a young married couple,

without further illustration. Whether Coleridge would not, under

any circumstances, have become indifferent to a wife not eminently

capable of enlightened sympathy with his own ruling pursuits, I do not

undertake to pronounce. My own impression is, that neither Coleridge

nor Lord Byron could have failed, eventually, to quarrel with _any_

wife, though a Pandora sent down from heaven to bless him. But,

doubtless, this consummation must have been hastened by a situation

which exposed Mrs. Coleridge to an invidious comparison with a more

intellectual person; as, on the other hand, it was most unfortunate

for Coleridge himself to be continually compared with one so ideally

correct and regular in his habits as Mr. Southey. Thus was their

domestic peace prematurely soured: embarrassments of a pecuniary nature

would be likely to demand continual sacrifices; no depth of affection

existing, these would create disgust or dissension; and at length

each would believe that their union had originated in circumstances

overruling their own deliberate choice.

The gloom, however, and the weight of dejection which sat upon

Coleridge's countenance and deportment at this time could not be

accounted for by a disappointment (if such it were) to which time

must, long ago, have reconciled him. Mrs. Coleridge, if not turning

to him the more amiable aspects of her character, was at any rate a

respectable partner. And the season of youth was now passed. They had

been married about ten years; had had four children, of whom three

survived; and the interests of a father were now replacing those of a

husband. Yet never had I beheld so profound an expression of cheerless

despondency. And the restless activity of Coleridge's mind, in chasing

abstract truths, and burying himself in the dark places of human

speculation, seemed to me, in a great measure, an attempt to escape

out of his own personal wretchedness. I was right. In this instance,

at least, I had hit the mark; and Coleridge bore witness himself at an

after period to the truth of my divination by some impressive verses.

At dinner, when a very numerous party had assembled, he knew that he

was expected to talk, and exerted himself to meet the expectation. But

he was evidently struggling with gloomy thoughts that prompted him to

silence, and perhaps to solitude: he talked with effort, and passively

resigned himself to the repeated misrepresentations of several amongst

his hearers. The subject chiefly discussed was Arthur Young, not for

his Rural Economy, but for his Politics.[50] It must be to this period

of Coleridge's life that Wordsworth refers in those exquisite "Lines

written in my pocket copy of the 'Castle of Indolence.'" The passage

which I mean comes after a description of Coleridge's countenance, and

begins in some such terms as these:--

"A piteous sight it was to see this man,

When he came back to us, a wither'd flow'r," &c.

Withered he was, indeed, and to all appearance blighted. At night he

entered into a spontaneous explanation of this unhappy overclouding

of his life, on occasion of my saying accidentally that a toothache

had obliged me to take a few drops of laudanum. At what time or on

what motive he had commenced the use of opium, he did not say; but the

peculiar emphasis of horror with which he warned me against forming a

habit of the same kind impressed upon my mind a feeling that he never

hoped to liberate himself from the bondage. My belief is that he never

_did_. About ten o'clock at night I took leave of him; and, feeling

that I could not easily go to sleep after the excitement of the day,

and fresh from the sad spectacle of powers so majestic already besieged

by decay, I determined to return to Bristol through the coolness of

the night. The roads, though, in fact, a section of the great highway

between seaports so turbulent as Bristol and Plymouth, were as quiet

as garden-walks. Once only I passed through the expiring fires of a

village fair or wake: that interruption excepted, through the whole

stretch of forty miles from Bridgewater to the Hot-wells, I saw no

living creature but a surly dog, who followed me for a mile along a

park-wall, and a man, who was moving about in the half-way town of

Cross. The turnpike-gates were all opened by a mechanical contrivance

from a bedroom window; I seemed to myself in solitary possession of the

whole sleeping country. The summer night was divinely calm; no sound,

except once or twice the cry of a child as I was passing the windows of

cottages, ever broke upon the utter silence; and all things conspired

to throw back my thoughts upon that extraordinary man whom I had just

quitted.

[50] Arthur Young's numerous works, published between 1768 and

1812, are mainly on agricultural subjects, in the form of tours

and statistics, but include political doctrines and theories.--M.

The fine saying of Addison is familiar to most readers--that Babylon

in ruins is not so affecting a spectacle, or so solemn, as a human

mind overthrown by lunacy. How much more awful, then, when a mind

so regal as that of Coleridge is overthrown, or threatened with

overthrow, not by a visitation of Providence, but by the treachery of

its own will, and by the conspiracy, as it were, of himself against

himself! Was it possible that this ruin had been caused or hurried

forward by the dismal degradations of pecuniary difficulties? That

was worth inquiring. I will here mention briefly that I _did_ inquire

two days after; and, in consequence of what I heard, I contrived that

a particular service should be rendered to Mr. Coleridge, a week

after, through the hands of Mr. Cottle of Bristol, which might have

the effect of liberating his mind from anxiety for a year or two, and

thus rendering his great powers disposable to their natural uses. That

service was accepted by Coleridge.[51] To save him any feelings of

distress, all names were concealed; but, in a letter written by him

about fifteen years after that time, I found that he had become aware

of all the circumstances, perhaps through some indiscretion of Mr.

Cottle's. A more important question I never ascertained, viz. whether

this service had the effect of seriously lightening his mind. For some

succeeding years, he did certainly appear to me released from that load

of despondency which oppressed him on my first introduction. Grave,

indeed, he continued to be, and at times absorbed in gloom; nor did I

ever see him in a state of perfectly natural cheerfulness. But, as he

strove in vain, for many years, to wean himself from his captivity to

opium, a healthy state of spirits could not be much expected. Perhaps,

indeed, where the liver and other organs had, for so large a period

in life, been subject to a continual morbid stimulation, it might be

impossible for the system ever to recover a natural action. Torpor,

I suppose, must result from continued artificial excitement; and,

perhaps, upon a scale of corresponding duration. Life, in such a case,

may not offer a field of sufficient extent for unthreading the fatal

links that have been wound about the machinery of health, and have

crippled its natural play.

[51] The service consisted in a gift by De Quincey of £300

conveyed to Coleridge through the Bristol bookseller Cottle.

Coleridge's receipt to Cottle for the money is dated 12th November

1807. Coleridge knew nothing more at the time than that the gift

came from "a young man of fortune who admired his talents." De

Quincey, who had but recently attained his majority, had then

plenty of money. He wanted, indeed, to make the gift £500; but

Cottle insisted on reducing the sum.--M.

Meantime--to resume the thread of my wandering narrative--on this

serene summer night of 1807, as I moved slowly along, with my eyes

continually settling upon the northern constellations, which, like

all the fixed stars, by their immeasurable and almost spiritual

remoteness from human affairs, naturally throw the thoughts upon the

perishableness of our earthly troubles, in contrast with their own

utter peace and solemnity--I reverted, at intervals, to all I had ever

heard of Coleridge, and strove to weave it into some continuous sketch

of his life. I hardly remember how much I then knew; I know but little

now: that little I will here jot down upon paper.

* * * * *

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was the son of a learned clergyman--the vicar

of Ottery St. Mary, in the southern quarter of Devonshire.[52] It is

painful to mention that he was almost an object of persecution to his

mother; why, I could never learn. His father was described to me, by

Coleridge himself, as a sort of Parson Adams, being distinguished

by his erudition, his inexperience of the world, and his guileless

simplicity. I once purchased in London, and, I suppose, still possess,

two elementary books on the Latin language by this reverend gentleman;

one of them, as I found, making somewhat higher pretensions than a

common school grammar.[53] In particular, an attempt is made to

reform the theory of the cases; and it gives a pleasant specimen of

the rustic scholar's _naïveté_, that he seriously proposes to banish

such vexatious terms as the _accusative_; and, by way of simplifying

the matter to tender minds, that we should call it, in all time to

come, the "_quale-quare-quidditive_" case, upon what incomprehensible

principle I never could fathom. He used regularly to delight his

village flock, on Sundays, with Hebrew quotations in his sermons, which

he always introduced as the "immediate language of the Holy Ghost."

This proved unfortunate to his successor: he also was a learned man,

and his parishioners admitted it, but generally with a sigh for past

times, and a sorrowful complaint that he was still far below Parson

Coleridge--for that _he_ never gave them any "immediate language

of the Holy Ghost." I presume that, like the reverend gentleman so

pleasantly sketched in "St. Ronan's Well," Mr. Coleridge, who resembled

that person in his oriental learning, in his absence of mind, and in

his simplicity, must also have resembled him in shortsightedness,

of which his son used to relate this ludicrous instance. Dining in

a large party, one day, the modest divine was suddenly shocked by

perceiving some part, as he conceived, of his own snowy shirt emerging

from a part of his habiliments, which we will suppose to have been

his waistcoat. It was _not_ that; but for decorum we will so call

it. The stray portion of his own supposed tunic was admonished of

its errors by a forcible thrust back into its proper home; but still

another _limbus_ persisted to emerge, or seemed to persist, and still

another, until the learned gentleman absolutely perspired with the

labour of re-establishing order. And, after all, he saw with anguish

that some arrears of the snowy indecorum still remained to reduce

into obedience. To this remnant of rebellion he was proceeding to

apply himself--strangely confounded, however, at the obstinacy of the

insurrection--when, the mistress of the house rising to lead away the

ladies from the table, and all parties naturally rising with her, it

became suddenly apparent to every eye that the worthy Orientalist had

been most laboriously stowing away into the capacious receptacles of

his own habiliments--under the delusion that it was his own shirt--the

snowy folds of a lady's gown, belonging to his next neighbour; and so

voluminously that a very small portion of it, indeed, remained for the

lady's own use; the natural consequence of which was, of course, that

the lady appeared inextricably yoked to the learned theologian, and

could not in any way effect her release, until after certain operations

upon the vicar's dress, and a continued refunding and rolling out of

snowy mazes upon snowy mazes, in quantities which at length proved too

much for the gravity of the company. Inextinguishable laughter arose

from all parties, except the erring and unhappy doctor, who, in dire

perplexity, continued still refunding with all his might--perspiring

and refunding--until he had paid up the last arrears of his long debt,

and thus put an end to a case of distress more memorable to himself and

his parishioners than any "_quale-quare-quidditive_" case that probably

had ever perplexed his learning.

[52] Coleridge was born there 21st October 1772, the youngest of a

family of nine brothers and four sisters, three of the sisters by

a previous marriage of his father.--M.

[53] _A Critical Latin Grammar_, published for the author in 1772,

and _Sententiæ Excerptæ, explaining the Rules of Grammar_, printed

for the author in 1777. He also published a political sermon.

Besides being vicar of Ottery St. Mary, he was master of the

grammar school there.--M.

In his childish days, and when he had become an orphan, Coleridge was

removed to the heart of London, and placed on the great foundation

of Christ's Hospital.[54] He there found himself associated, as a

school-fellow, with several boys destined to distinction in after

life; particularly the brilliant Leigh Hunt, and more closely with one

who, if not endowed with powers equally large and comprehensive as his

own, had, however, genius not less original or exquisite--viz. the

inimitable Charles Lamb. But, in learning, Coleridge outstripped all

competitors, and rose to be the captain of the school. It is, indeed,

a memorable fact to be recorded of a boy, that, before completing his

fifteenth year, he had translated the Greek Hymns of Synesius into

English Anacreontic verse. This was not a school task, but a labour of

love and choice. Before leaving school, Coleridge had an opportunity

of reading the sonnets of Bowles, which so powerfully impressed his

poetic sensibility that he made forty transcripts of them with his own

pen, by way of presents to youthful friends. From Christ's Hospital,

by the privilege of his station at school, he was transferred to Jesus

College, Cambridge.[55] It was here, no doubt, that his acquaintance

began with the philosophic system of Hartley, for that eminent person

had been a Jesus man. Frend also, the mathematician, of heretical

memory (he was judicially tried, and expelled from his fellowship, on

some issue connected with the doctrine of the Trinity), belonged to

that college, and was probably contemporary with Coleridge.[56] What

accident, or imprudence, carried him away from Cambridge before he had

completed the usual period of study, I never heard. He had certainly

won some distinction as a scholar, having obtained the prize for a

Greek ode in Sapphic metre, of which the sentiments (as he observes

himself) were better than the Greek. Porson was accustomed, meanly

enough, to ridicule the Greek _lexis_ of this ode; which was to break

a fly upon the wheel. The ode was clever enough for a boy; but to such

skill in Greek as could have enabled him to compose with critical

accuracy Coleridge never made pretensions.

[54] This was in July 1782.--M.

[55] In February 1791.--M.

[56] The Rev. William Frend (1757-1831), a very eminent scholar,

had been ejected from his tutorship in Jesus College in 1788,

because of his Unitarian opinions and general liberalism, but was

still about the University in Coleridge's time, battling stoutly

with the authorities.

The incidents of Coleridge's life about this period, and some account

of a heavy disappointment in love, which probably it was that

carried him away from Cambridge, are to be found embodied (with what

modifications I know not) in the novel of "Edmund Oliver," written by

Charles Lloyd. It is well known that, in a frenzy of unhappy feeling

at the rejection he met with from the lady of his choice, Coleridge

enlisted as a private into a dragoon regiment.[57] He fell off his

horse on several occasions, but perhaps not more than raw recruits are

apt to do when first put under the riding-master. But Coleridge was

naturally ill framed for a good horseman.

[57] He enlisted in the 15th Light Dragoons, 3d December 1793,

under the name of Silas Titus Comberback. So says a very minute

memoir of him prefixed to Messrs. Macmillan's edition of his

Poetical and Dramatic Works in four volumes, 1880.--M.

He is also represented in "Edmund Oliver" as having found peculiar

difficulty or annoyance in grooming his horse. But the most romantic

incident in that scene of his life was in the circumstances of his

discharge. It is said (but I vouch for no part of the story) that

Coleridge, as a private, mounted guard at the door of a room in

which his officers were giving a ball. Two of them had a dispute upon

some Greek word or passage when close to Coleridge's station. He

interposed his authentic decision of the case. The officers stared as

though one of their own horses had sung "Rule Britannia"; questioned

him; heard his story; pitied his misfortune; and finally subscribed

to purchase his discharge. So the story has been told; and also

otherwise.[58] Not very long after this, Coleridge became acquainted

with the two celebrated Wedgwoods of Etruria, both of whom, admiring

his fine powers, subscribed to send him into North Germany, where,

at the University of Göttingen, he completed his education according

to his own scheme. The most celebrated professor whose lectures he

attended was the far-famed Blumenbach, of whom he continued to speak

through life with almost filial reverence. Returning to England, he

attended Mr. Thomas Wedgwood, as a friend, throughout the afflicting

and anomalous illness which brought him to the grave. It was supposed

by medical men that the cause of Mr. Wedgwood's continued misery was a

stricture of the colon. The external symptoms were torpor and morbid

irritability, together with everlasting restlessness. By way of some

relief to this latter symptom, Mr. Wedgwood purchased a travelling

carriage, and wandered up and down England, taking Coleridge as

his companion. And, as a desperate attempt to rouse and irritate

the decaying sensibility of his system, I have been assured, by a

surviving friend, that Mr. Wedgwood at one time opened a butcher's

shop, conceiving that the affronts and disputes to which such a

situation would expose him might act beneficially upon his increasing

torpor. This strange expedient[59] served only to express the anguish

which had now mastered his nature; it was soon abandoned; and this

accomplished but miserable man at length sank under his sufferings.

What made the case more memorable was the combination of worldly

prosperity which forced into strong relief and fiery contrast this

curse written in the flesh. He was rich, he was young, he was popular,

distinguished for his scientific attainments, publicly honoured for

patriotic services, and had before him, when he first fell ill, every

prospect of a career even nationally splendid.

[58] Somewhat otherwise in the memoir mentioned in last note,

where the date of his discharge is given as 10th April 1794, and

the place as Hounslow. He returned to Cambridge for a few months,

and then, after shifting about a little, settled in Bristol with

Southey, where he married, 4th October 1795, Sara Fricker, the

sister of Southey's wife. De Quincey seems to misdate his first

visit to Germany.--M.

[59] Which, however, his brother denied as a pure fable. On

reading this account, he wrote to me, and in very courteous terms

assured me that I had been misinformed. I now retain the story

simply as a version, partially erroneous, no doubt, of perhaps

some true anecdote that may have escaped the surviving Mr.

Wedgwood's knowledge; my reason for thinking thus being that the

same anecdote essentially but varied in the circumstances, has

reached me at different periods from parties having no connexion

whatsoever.

By the death of Mr. Wedgwood, Coleridge succeeded to a regular annuity

of £75, which that gentleman had bequeathed to him. The other Mr.

Wedgwood granted him an equal allowance. Now came his marriage, his

connexion with politics and political journals, his residence in

various parts of Somersetshire, and his consequent introduction to

Mr. Wordsworth. In his politics, Mr. Coleridge was most sincere and

most enthusiastic. No man hailed with profounder sympathy the French

Revolution; and, though he saw cause to withdraw his regard from

many of the democratic zealots in this country, and even from the

revolutionary interest as it was subsequently conducted, he continued

to worship the original revolutionary cause in a pure Miltonic spirit;

and he continued also to abominate the policy of Mr. Pitt in a degree

which I myself find it difficult to understand. The very spirited

little poem of "Fire, Famine, and Slaughter," who are supposed to meet

in conference, to describe their horrid triumphs, and then to ask in

a whisper _who_ it was that unchained them,--to which each in turn

replies,

"Letters four do form his name!"--

expresses his horror of Mr. Pitt personally in a most extravagant

shape, but merely for the purpose of poetic effect; for he had no real

unkindness in his heart towards any human being; and I have often heard

him disclaim the hatred which is here expressed for Mr. Pitt, as he

did also very elaborately and earnestly in print. Somewhere about this

time, Coleridge attempted, under Sheridan's countenance, to bring a

tragedy upon the stage of Drury Lane; but his prospect of success, as I

once heard or read, was suddenly marred by Mr. Sheridan's inability to

sacrifice what he thought a good jest. One scene presented a cave with

streams of water weeping down the sides; and the first words were, in a

sort of mimicry of the sound, "Drip, drip, drip!" Upon which Sheridan

repeated aloud to the assembled green-room, expressly convoked for the

purpose of hearing the play read, "Drip, drip, drip!--why, God bless

me, there's nothing here but _dripping_!" and so arose a chorus of

laughter amongst the actors fatal for the moment to the probationary

play.

About the latter end of the century, Coleridge visited North Germany

again, in company with Mr. and Miss Wordsworth.[60] Their tour was

chiefly confined to the Hartz Forest and its neighbourhood. But the

incident most worthy of remembrance in their excursion was a visit

made to Klopstock; either at Hamburgh, or, perhaps, at the Danish

town of Altona, on the same river Elbe; for Klopstock was a pensioner

of the Danish king. An anonymous writer, who attacked Coleridge

most truculently in an early number of "Blackwood," and with an

_acharnement_ that must astonish the neutral reader, has made the

mistake of supposing Coleridge to have been the chief speaker, who

did not speak at all. The case was this: Klopstock could not speak

English, though everybody remembers the pretty broken English[61]

of his second wife. Neither Coleridge nor Wordsworth, on the other

hand, was able to _speak_ German with any fluency. French, therefore,

was the only medium of free communication; that being pretty equally

familiar to Wordsworth and to Klopstock. But Coleridge found so much

difficulty even in _reading_ French that, wherever (as in the case of

Leibnitz's "Theodicée") there was a choice between an original written

in French and a translation, though it might be a very faulty one,

in German, he always preferred the latter. Hence it happened that

Wordsworth, on behalf of the English party, was the sole supporter of

the dialogue. The anonymous critic says another thing, which certainly

has an air of truth--viz. that Klopstock plays a very secondary _rôle_

in the interview (or words to that effect). But how was this to be

avoided in reporting the case, supposing the fact to have been such?

Now, the plain truth is that Wordsworth, upon his own ground, was

an incomparable talker; whereas "Klubstick" (as Coleridge used to

call him) was always a feeble and slovenly one, because a loose and

incoherent thinker. Besides, he was now old and decaying. Nor at any

time, nor in any accomplishment, could Klopstock have shone, unless in

the respectable art of skating. _There_ he had a real advantage. The

author of "The Messiah," I have authority for saying, skated with the

ease and grace of a regular artist; whereas the poet of the "Excursion"

sprawled upon the ice like a cow dancing a cotillon. Wordsworth did the

very opposite of that with which he was taxed; for, happening to look

down at Klopstock's swollen legs, and recollecting his age, he felt

touched by a sort of filial pity for his helplessness. And he came to

the conclusion that it would not seem becoming in a young and as yet

obscure author to report too consciously the real superiority which he

found it easy to maintain in such a colloquy.

[60] He was absent on this tour in Germany from September 1798 to

November 1799.--M.

[61] Published in Richardson's Correspondence.

But neither had Klopstock the pretensions as a poet which the

Blackwood writer seems to take for granted. Germany, the truth is,

wanted a great epic poet. Not having produced one in that early and

plastic stage of her literary soil when such a growth is natural and

spontaneous, the next thing was to bespeak a substitute. The force

of Coleridge's well-known repartee, when, in reply to a foreigner

asserting for Klopstock the rank of German Milton, he said, "True,

sir; a very _German_ Milton," cannot be fully appreciated but by one

who is familiar with the German poetry, and the small proportion in

which it is a natural, racy, and domestic growth. It has been often

noticed as the misfortune of the Roman literature that it grew up too

much under the oppression of Grecian models, and of Grecian models

depraved by Alexandrian art--a fact, so far as it _was_ a fact, which

tended to cripple the _genial_ and characteristic spirit of the

national mind. But this evil, after all, did not take effect except

in a partial sense. Rome had cast much of her literature in her own

moulds before these exotic models had begun to domineer. In fact, the

reproach is in a very narrow sense true. Not so with Germany. Her

literature, since its revival in the last century (and the revival upon

the impulse of what cattle!--Bodmer on the one hand, and Gottsched,

the never-enough-to-be-despised Gottsched, on the other!) has hardly

moved a step in the freedom of natural grace. England for nineteen, and

France for the twentieth, of all her capital works, has given the too

servile law: and, with regard to Klopstock, if ever there was a good

exemplification of the spurious and the counterfeit in literature, seek

it in "The Messiah." He is verily and indeed the _Birmingham_ Milton.

This Klopstockian dialogue, by the way, was first printed (hardly

_published_) in the original, or Lake edition of "The Friend." In the

recast of that work it was omitted; nor has it been printed anywhere

else that I am aware of.

About the close of the first revolutionary war it must have been, or

in the brief interval of peace, that Coleridge resorted to the English

Lakes as a place of residence.[62] Wordsworth had a natural connexion

with that region, by birth, breeding, and family alliances. Wordsworth

must have attracted Coleridge to the Lakes; and Coleridge, through his

affinity to Southey, eventually attracted _him_. Southey, as is known

to all who take an interest in the Lake colony, married a sister of

Mrs. Coleridge's; and, as a singular eccentricity in the circumstances

of that marriage, I may mention that, on his wedding-day, and from

the very portico of the church, Southey left his bride to embark for

Lisbon. His uncle, Dr. Herbert, was chaplain to the English factory in

that city; and it was to benefit by the facilities in that way opened

to him for seeing Portugal that Southey now went abroad. He extended

his tour to Spain; and the result of his notices was communicated to

the world in a volume of travels. By such accidents of personal or

family connexion as I have mentioned was the Lake colony gathered;

and the critics of the day, unaware of the real facts, supposed them

to have assembled under common views in literature--particularly with

regard to the true functions of poetry, and the true theory of poetic

diction. Under this original blunder, laughable it is to mention

that they went on to _find_ in their writings all the agreements and

common characteristics which their blunder had presumed; and they

incorporated the whole community under the name of the _Lake School_.

Yet Wordsworth and Southey never had one principle in common; their

hostility was even flagrant. Indeed, Southey troubled himself little

about abstract principles in anything; and, so far from agreeing with

Wordsworth to the extent of setting up a separate school in poetry, he

told me himself (August 1812) that he highly disapproved both of Mr.

Wordsworth's theories and of his practice. It is very true that one man

may sympathize with another, or even follow his leading, unconscious

that he does so; or he may go so far as, in the very act of virtual

imitation, to deem himself in opposition; but this sort of blind

agreement could hardly be supposed of two men so discerning and so

self-examining as Wordsworth and Southey. And, in fact, a philosophic

investigation of the difficult questions connected with this whole

slang about schools, Lake schools, &c., would show that Southey has

not, nor ever had, any _peculiarities_ in common with Wordsworth,

beyond that of exchanging the old prescriptive diction of poetry,

introduced between the periods of Milton and Cowper, for the simpler

and profounder forms of daily life in some instances, and of the

Bible in others. The bold and uniform practice of Wordsworth was here

adopted, on perfectly independent views, by Southey. In this respect,

however, Cowper had already begun the reform; and his influence,

concurring with the now larger influence of Wordsworth, has operated so

extensively as to make their own original differences at this day less

perceptible.

[62] It was in 1800 that Coleridge removed from London to Keswick,

Wordsworth being then at Grasmere.--M.

By the way, the word _colony_ reminds me that I have omitted to mention

in its proper place some scheme for migrating to America which had

been entertained by Coleridge and Southey about the year 1794-95,

under the learned name of _Pantisocracy_. So far as I ever heard, it

differed little, except in its Grecian name, from any other scheme for

mitigating the privations of a wilderness by settling in a cluster of

families, bound together by congenial tastes and uniform principles,

rather than in self-depending, insulated households. Steadily pursued,

it might, after all, have been a fortunate plan for Coleridge.

"Soliciting my food from daily toil," a line in which Coleridge alludes

to the scheme, implies a condition of life that would have upheld

Coleridge's health and happiness somewhat better than the habits of

luxurious city life as now constituted in Europe. But, returning[63]

to the Lakes, and to the Lake colony of poets: So little were Southey

and Wordsworth connected by any personal intercourse in those days,

and so little disposed to be connected, that, whilst the latter had

a cottage in Grasmere, Southey pitched his tent at Greta Hall, on a

little eminence rising immediately from the river Greta and the town

of Keswick. Grasmere is in Westmoreland; Keswick in Cumberland; and

they are thirteen good miles apart. Coleridge and his family were

domiciliated in Greta Hall; sharing that house, a tolerably large one,

on some principle of amicable division, with Mr. Southey. But Coleridge

personally was more often to be found at Grasmere--which presented the

threefold attractions of loveliness so complete as to eclipse even the

scenery of Derwentwater; a pastoral state of society, free from the

deformities of a little town like Keswick; and, finally, for Samuel

Taylor Coleridge, the society of Wordsworth. Not before 1815 or 1816

could it be said that Southey and Wordsworth were even upon friendly

terms; so entirely is it untrue that they combined to frame a school of

poetry. Up to that time, they viewed each other with mutual respect,

but also with mutual dislike; almost, I might say, with mutual disgust.

Wordsworth disliked in Southey the want of depth, or the apparent want,

as regards the power of philosophic abstraction. Southey disliked in

Wordsworth the air of dogmatism, and the unaffable haughtiness of his

manner. Other more trivial reasons combined with these.

[63] This peculiar usage of an unrelated participle is pretty

frequent with De Quincey, and is perhaps the only recurring

peculiarity of his grammar to which a purist would object.--M.

At this time, when Coleridge first settled at the Lakes, or not long

after, a romantic and somewhat tragical affair drew the eyes of all

England, and, for many years, continued to draw the steps of tourists,

to one of the most secluded Cumberland valleys, so little visited

previously that it might be described almost as an undiscovered

chamber of that romantic district. Coleridge was brought into a closer

connexion with this affair than merely by the general relation of

neighbourhood; for an article of his in a morning paper, I believe,

unintentionally furnished the original clue for unmasking the base

impostor who figured as the central actor in this tale. The tale was

at that time dramatized, and scenically represented by some of the

minor theatres in London, as noticed by Wordsworth in the "Prelude."

But other generations have arisen since that time, who must naturally

be unacquainted with the circumstances; and on their account I will

here recall them:--One day in the Lake season there drove up to the

Royal Oak, the principal inn at Keswick, a handsome and well-appointed

travelling carriage, containing one gentleman of somewhat dashing

exterior. The stranger was a picturesque-hunter, but not of that order

who fly round the ordinary tour with the velocity of lovers posting to

Gretna, or of criminals running from the police; his purpose was to

domiciliate himself in this beautiful scenery, and to see it at his

leisure. From Keswick, as his head-quarters, he made excursions in

every direction amongst the neighbouring valleys; meeting generally a

good deal of respect and attention, partly on account of his handsome

equipage, and still more from his visiting cards, which designated him

as "The Hon. Augustus Hope." Under this name, he gave himself out for

a brother of Lord Hopetoun's. Some persons had discernment enough to

doubt of this; for the man's breeding and deportment, though showy,

had an under-tone of vulgarity about it; and Coleridge assured me that

he was grossly ungrammatical in his ordinary conversation. However,

one fact, soon dispersed by the people of a little rustic post-office,

laid asleep all demurs; he not only received letters addressed to

him under this assumed name--_that_ might be through collusion with

accomplices--but he himself continually _franked_ letters by that name.

Now, this being a capital offence, being not only a forgery, but (as

a forgery on the Post-Office) sure to be prosecuted, nobody presumed

to question his pretensions any longer; and, henceforward, he went to

all places with the consideration attached to an earl's brother. All

doors flew open at his approach; boats, boatmen, nets, and the most

unlimited sporting privileges, were placed at the disposal of the

"Honourable" gentleman: and the hospitality of the district was put on

its mettle, in offering a suitable reception to the patrician Scotsman.

It could be no blame to a shepherd girl, bred in the sternest solitude

which England has to show, that she should fall into a snare which many

of her betters had not escaped. Nine miles from Keswick, by the nearest

bridle-road through Newlands, but fourteen or fifteen by any route

which the honourable gentleman's travelling-carriage could traverse,

lies the Lake of Buttermere. Its margin, which is overhung by some of

the loftiest and steepest of the Cumbrian mountains, exhibits on either

side few traces of human neighbourhood; the level area, where the

hills recede enough to allow of any, is of a wild pastoral character,

or almost savage; the waters of the lake are deep and sullen; and the

barrier mountains, by excluding the sun for much of his daily course,

strengthen the gloomy impressions. At the foot of this lake (that is,

at the end where its waters issue) lie a few unornamented fields,

through which rolls a little brook-like river, connecting it with the

larger lake of Crummock; and at the edge of this miniature domain,

upon the roadside, stands a cluster of cottages, so small and few that

in the richer tracts of England they would scarcely be complimented

with the name of hamlet. One of these, and I believe the principal,

belonged to an independent proprietor, called, in the local dialect,

a "_Statesman_"[64]; and more, perhaps, for the sake of attracting a

little society than with much view to pecuniary profit at that era,

this cottage offered the accommodations of an inn to the traveller

and his horse. Rare, however, must have been the mounted traveller in

those days, unless visiting Buttermere for itself, and as a _terminus

ad quem_; since the road led to no further habitations of man, with

the exception of some four or five pastoral cabins, equally humble, in

Gatesgarthdale.

[64] _i.e._--A 'Statesman elliptically for an Estatesman,--a

native dalesman possessing and personally cultivating a

patrimonial landed estate.

Hither, however, in an evil hour for the peace of this little

brotherhood of shepherds, came the cruel spoiler from Keswick. His

errand was, to witness or to share in the char-fishing; for in

Derwentwater (the Lake of Keswick) no char is found, which breeds only

in the deep waters, such as Windermere, Crummock, Buttermere, and

Coniston--never in the shallow ones. But, whatever had been his first

object, _that_ was speedily forgotten in one more deeply interesting.

The daughter of the house, a fine young woman of eighteen, acted as

waiter.[65] In a situation so solitary, the stranger had unlimited

facilities for enjoying her company, and recommending himself to her

favour. Doubts about his pretensions never arose in so simple a place

as this; they were overruled before they could well have arisen by the

opinion now general in Keswick, that he really was what he pretended to

be: and thus, with little demur, except in the shape of a few natural

words of parting anger from a defeated or rejected rustic admirer, the

young woman gave her hand in marriage to the showy and unprincipled

stranger. I know not whether the marriage was, or could have been,

celebrated in the little mountain chapel of Buttermere. If it were,

I persuade myself that the most hardened villain must have felt a

momentary pang on violating the altar of such a chapel; so touchingly

does it express, by its miniature dimensions, the almost helpless

humility of that little pastoral community to whose spiritual wants

it has from generation to generation administered. It is not only

the very smallest chapel by many degrees in all England, but is so

mere a toy in outward appearance that, were it not for its antiquity,

its wild mountain exposure, and its consecrated connexion with the

final hopes and fears of the adjacent pastoral hamlet--but for these

considerations, the first movement of a stranger's feelings would be

towards loud laughter; for the little chapel looks not so much a mimic

chapel in a drop-scene from the Opera House as a miniature copy from

such a scene; and evidently could not receive within its walls more

than half a dozen of households. From this sanctuary it was--from

beneath the maternal shadow, if not from the very altar,[66] of this

lonely chapel--that the heartless villain carried off the flower of

the mountains. Between this place and Keswick they continued to move

backwards and forwards, until at length, with the startling of a

thunder-clap to the affrighted mountaineers, the bubble burst: officers

of justice appeared: the stranger was easily intercepted from flight,

and, upon a capital charge, was borne away to Carlisle. At the ensuing

assizes he was tried for forgery on the prosecution of the Post-Office,

found guilty, left for execution, and executed accordingly.[67] On

the day of his condemnation, Wordsworth and Coleridge passed through

Carlisle, and endeavoured to obtain an interview with him. Wordsworth

succeeded; but, for some unknown reason, the prisoner steadily refused

to see Coleridge; a caprice which could not be penetrated. It is true

that he had, during his whole residence at Keswick, avoided Coleridge

with a solicitude which had revived the original suspicions against him

in some quarters, after they had generally gone to sleep. But for this

his motive had then been sufficient: he was of a Devonshire family,

and naturally feared the eye, or the inquisitive examination of one

who bore a name immemorially associated with the southern part of that

county.

[65] "_Waiter_":--Since this was first written, social changes in

London, by introducing females very extensively into the office

(once monopolized by men) of attending the visitors at the tables

of eating-houses have introduced a corresponding new word--viz.,

_waitress_; which word, twenty-five years back, would have been

simply ludicrous; but now is become as indispensable to precision

of language as the words traitress, heiress, inheritrix, &c.

[66] My doubt is founded upon the varying tenure of these secluded

chapels as to privileges of marrying or burying. The mere name of

chapel, though, of course, in regular connexion with some mother

church, does not of itself imply whether it has or has not the

power to solemnize a marriage.

[67] At Carlisle, 3d September 1803. His marriage with Mary

Robinson, the Beauty of Buttermere, had been on 3d October 1802,

when he was forty-three years of age. Originally he had been a

commercial traveller; and his early marriage with an illegitimate

daughter of a younger son of an English nobleman seems to have had

much to do with his subsequent career. Deserting this wife and her

children in 1782, he had lived a life of swindling ever since, had

married a second wife and deserted her, and was wooing a young

Irish lady at the very time when the Buttermere girl became his

victim. "His manners were extremely polished and insinuating, and

he was possessed of qualities which might have rendered him an

ornament of society," is the pleasant character I find of him in

one _Newgate Calendar_ compendium.--M.

Coleridge, however, had been transplanted so immaturely from his

native region that few people in England knew less of its family

connexions. That, perhaps, was unknown to this malefactor; but, at

any rate, he knew that all motive was now at an end for disguise of

any sort; so that his reserve, in this particular, had now become

unintelligible. However, if not him, Coleridge saw and examined his

very interesting papers. These were chiefly letters from women whom he

had injured, pretty much in the same way, and by the same impostures,

as he had so recently practised in Cumberland; and, as Coleridge

assured me, were in part the most agonizing appeals that he had ever

read to human justice and pity. The man's real name was, I think,

Hatfield. And amongst the papers were two separate correspondences, of

some length, with two young women, apparently of superior condition

in life (one the daughter of an English clergyman), whom this villain

had deluded by marriage, and, after some cohabitation, abandoned,--one

of them with a family of young children. Great was the emotion of

Coleridge when he recurred to his remembrance of these letters, and

bitter, almost vindictive, was the indignation with which he spoke

of Hatfield. One set of letters appeared to have been written under

too certain a knowledge of _his_ villany to whom they were addressed;

though still relying on some possible remains of humanity, or perhaps

(the poor writer might think) on some lingering preference for herself.

The other set was even more distressing; they were written under the

first conflicts of suspicions, alternately repelling with warmth the

gloomy doubts which were fast arising, and then yielding to their

afflicting evidence; raving in one page under the misery of alarm, in

another courting the delusions of hope, and luring back the perfidious

deserter,--here resigning herself to despair, and there again labouring

to show that all might yet be well. Coleridge said often, in looking

back upon that frightful exposure of human guilt and misery, that the

man who, when pursued by these heart-rending apostrophes, and with

this litany of anguish sounding in his ears, from despairing women

and from famishing children, could yet find it possible to enjoy the

calm pleasures of a Lake tourist, and deliberately to hunt for the

picturesque, must have been a fiend of that order which fortunately

does not often emerge amongst men. It is painful to remember that,

in those days, amongst the multitudes who ended their career in the

same ignominious way, and the majority for offences connected with

the forgery of bank notes, there must have been a considerable number

who perished from the very opposite cause--viz., because they felt,

too passionately and profoundly for prudence, the claims of those who

looked up to them for support. One common scaffold confounds the most

flinty hearts and the tenderest. However, in this instance, it was

in some measure the heartless part of Hatfield's conduct which drew

upon him his ruin: for the Cumberland jury honestly declared their

unwillingness to hang him for having forged a frank; and both they,

and those who refused to aid his escape when first apprehended, were

reconciled to this harshness entirely by what they heard of his conduct

to their injured young fellow-countrywoman.

She, meantime, under the name of _The Beauty of Buttermere_, became

an object of interest to all England; melodramas were produced in the

London suburban[68] theatres upon her story; and, for many a year

afterwards, shoals of tourists crowded to the secluded lake, and the

little homely cabaret, which had been the scene of her brief romance;

It was fortunate for a person in her distressing situation that

her home was not in a town: the few and simple neighbours, who had

witnessed her imaginary elevation, having little knowledge of worldly

feelings, never for an instant connected with her disappointment any

sense of the ludicrous, or spoke of it as a calamity to which her

vanity might have co-operated. They treated it as unmixed injury,

reflecting shame upon nobody but the wicked perpetrator. Hence, without

much trial to her womanly sensibilities, she found herself able to

resume her situation in the little inn; and this she continued to hold

for many years. In that place, and that capacity, I saw her repeatedly,

and shall here say a word upon her personal appearance, because the

Lake poets all admired her greatly. Her figure was, in my eyes, good;

but I doubt whether most of my readers would have thought it such. She

was none of your evanescent, wasp-waisted beauties; on the contrary,

she was rather large every way; tallish, and proportionably broad. Her

face was fair, and her features feminine; and, unquestionably, she

was what all the world would have agreed to call "good-looking." But,

except in her arms, which had something of a statuesque beauty, and

in her carriage, which expressed a womanly grace, together with some

degree of dignity and self-possession, I confess that I looked in vain

for any _positive_ qualities of any sort or degree. _Beautiful_, in

any emphatic sense, she was not. Everything about her face and bust

was negative; simply without offence. Even this, however, was more

than could be said at all times; for the expression of her countenance

_could_ be disagreeable. This arose out of her situation; connected

as it was with defective sensibility and a misdirected pride. Nothing

operates so differently upon different minds and different styles of

beauty as the inquisitive gaze of strangers, whether in the spirit of

respectful admiration or of insolence. Some I have seen upon whose

angelic beauty this sort of confusion settled advantageously, and like

a softening veil; others, in whom it meets with proud resentment, are

sometimes disfigured by it. In Mary of Buttermere it roused mere anger

and disdain; which, meeting with the sense of her humble and dependent

situation, gave birth to a most unhappy aspect of countenance. Men who

had no touch of a gentleman's nature in their composition sometimes

insulted her by looks and by words, supposing that they purchased

the right to do this by an extra half-crown; and she too readily

attributed the same spirit of impertinent curiosity to every man whose

eyes happened to settle steadily upon her face. Yet, once at least,

I must have seen her under the most favourable circumstances: for,

on my first visit to Buttermere, I had the pleasure of Mr. Southey's

company, who was incapable of wounding anybody's feelings, and to Mary,

in particular, was well known by kind attentions, and I believe by

some services. Then, at least, I saw her to advantage, and perhaps,

for a figure of her build, at the best age; for it was about nine or

ten years after her misfortune, when she might be twenty-seven or

twenty-eight years old. We were alone, a solitary pair of tourists:

nothing arose to confuse or distress her. She waited upon us at dinner,

and talked to us freely. "This is a respectable young woman," I said

to myself; but nothing of that enthusiasm could I feel which beauty,

such as I _have_ beheld at the Lakes, would have been apt to raise

under a similar misfortune. One lady, not very scrupulous in her

embellishments of facts, used to tell an anecdote of her which I hope

was exaggerated. Some friend of hers (as she affirmed), in company with

a large party, visited Buttermere within one day after that upon which

Hatfield suffered; and she protested that Mary threw upon the table,

with an emphatic gesture, the Carlisle paper containing an elaborate

account of his execution.

[68] In connexion with this mention of "suburban" and minor

theatres, it is but fair to cite a passage expressly relating to

Mary of Buttermere from the Seventh Book (entitled "Residence in

London") of Wordsworth's "Prelude":--

"Here, too, were _forms and pressures of the time_,

Rough, bold, as Grecian comedy display'd

When Art was young; dramas of living men,

And recent things yet warm with life; a sea-fight,

Shipwreck, or some domestic incident

Divulged by Truth, and magnified by Fame;

Such as the daring brotherhood of late

Set forth, too serious theme for that light place--

I mean, O distant friend! a story drawn

From our own ground--the Maid of Buttermere,

And how, unfaithful to a virtuous wife,

Deserted and deceived, the spoiler came

And wooed the artless daughter of the hills,

And wedded her, in cruel mockery

Of love and marriage bonds. These words to thee

Must needs bring back the moment when we first,

Ere the broad world rang with the maiden's name,

Beheld her serving at the cottage inn,

Both stricken, as she enter'd or withdrew,

With admiration of her modest mien

And carriage, mark'd by unexampled grace.

We since that time not unfamiliarly

Have seen her--her discretion have observed,

Her just opinions, delicate reserve,

Her patience and humility of mind,

Unspoiled by commendation and the excess

Of public notice--an offensive light

To a meek spirit suffering inwardly."

The "distant friend" here apostrophized is Coleridge, then at Malta.

But it is fair to record this memorial of the fair mountaineer--going

perhaps as much beyond the public estimate of her pretensions as my own

was below it. It should be added that William Wordsworth and Samuel

Taylor Coleridge (to whom the writer appeals as in general sympathy

with himself) had seen Mary more frequently, and had conversed with her

much more freely, than myself.