"Keswick, March 22, 1831.
My dear Cottle,
Your package arrived safely yesterday afternoon. I shall get the books
with which you presented me furbished up, and write in each that it was
your gift;--a pleasant memorandum which is found in others on these
shelves. I like to give books this incidental value, and write therefore,
the date, and place, in every fresh acquisition. Many recollections do
they call up, which otherwise would have passed away. You who have known
me from the beginning of my authorial life, ought to see this library of
mine. As I think no man ever made more use of his books, so I am sure
that no man ever took more delight in them. They are the pride of my
eyes, and the joy of my heart; an innocent pride, I trust, and a
wholesome joy."
* * * * *
The reader's attention will now be directed to Mr. Coleridge, by
introducing a letter from Mr. C. to Mr. Wade, who had written to him for
advice respecting a meditated excursion to Germany.
"March 6, 1801.
My very dear friend,
I have even now received your letter. My habits of thinking and feeling,
have not hitherto inclined me to personify commerce in any such shape, so
as to tempt me to tarn pagan, and offer vows to the goddess of our isle.
But when I read that sentence in your letter, 'The time will come I
trust, when I shall be able to pitch my tent in your neighbourhood,' I
was most potently commanded to a breach of the second commandment, and on
my knees, to entreat the said goddess, to touch your bank notes and
guineas with her magical multiplying wand. I could offer such a prayer
for you, with a better conscience than for most men, because I know that
you have never lost that healthy common sense, which regards money only
as the means of independence, and that you would sooner than most men cry
out, enough! enough! To see one's children secured against want, is
doubtless a delightful thing; but to wish to see them begin the world as
rich men, is unwise to ourselves, for it permits no close of our labours,
and is pernicious to them; for it leaves no motive to their exertions,
none of those sympathies with the industrious and the poor, which form at
once the true relish and proper antidote of wealth.
... Is not March rather a perilous month for the voyage from Yarmouth to
Hamburg? danger there is very little, in the packets, but I know what
inconvenience rough weather brings with it; not from my own feelings, for
I am never sea-sick, but always in exceeding high spirits on board ship,
but from what I see in others. But you are an old sailor. At Hamburgh I
have not a shadow of acquaintance. My letters of introduction produced
for me, with one exception, viz., Klopstock, the brother of the poet, no
real service, but merely distant and ostentatious civility. And Klopstock
will by this time have forgotten my name, which indeed he never properly
knew, for I could speak only English and Latin, and he only French and
German. At Ratzeburgh, 35 English miles N. E. from Hamburgh, on the road
to Lubec, I resided four months; and I should hope, was not unbeloved by
more than one family, but this is out of your route. At Gottingen I
stayed near five months, but here I knew only students, who will have
left the place by this time, and the high learned professors, only one of
whom could speak English; and they are so wholly engaged in their
academical occupations, that they would be of no service to you. Other
acquaintance in Germany I have none, and connexion I never had any. For
though I was much entreated by some of the Literati to correspond with
them, yet my natural laziness, with the little value I attach to literary
men, as literary men, and with my aversion from those letters which are
to be made up of studied sense, and unfelt compliments, combined to
prevent me from availing myself of the offer. Herein, and in similar
instances, with English authors of repute, I have ill consulted the
growth of my reputation and fame. But I have cheerful and confident hopes
of myself. If I can hereafter do good to my fellow-creatures as a poet,
and as a metaphysician, they will know it; and any other fame than this,
I consider as a serious evil, that would only take me from out the number
and sympathy of ordinary men, to make a coxcomb of me. As to the inns or
hotels at Hamburgh, I should recommend you to some German inn. Wordsworth
and I were at the 'Der Wilde Man,' and dirty as it was, I could not find
any inn in Germany very much cleaner, except at Lubec. But if you go to
an English inn, for heaven's sake, avoid the 'Shakspeare,' at Altona, and
the 'King of England,' at Hamburgh. They are houses of plunder rather
than entertainment. 'The Duke of York' hotel, kept by Seaman, has a
better reputation, and thither I would advise you to repair; and I advise
you to pay your bill every morning at breakfast time: it is the only way
to escape imposition. What the Hamburgh merchants may be I know not, but
the tradesmen are knaves. Scoundrels, with yellow-white phizzes, that
bring disgrace on the complexion of a bad tallow candle. Now as to
carriage, I know scarcely what to advise; only make up your mind to the
very worst vehicles, with the very worst horses, drawn by the very worst
postillions, over the very worst roads, and halting two hours at each
time they change horses, at the very worst inns; and you have a fair,
unexaggerated picture of travelling in North Germany. The cheapest way is
the best; go by the common post wagons, or stage coaches. What are called
extraordinaries, or post-chaises, are little wicker carts, uncovered,
with moveable benches or forms in them, execrable in every respect. And
if you buy a vehicle at Hamburgh, you can get none decent under thirty or
forty guineas, and very, probably it will break to pieces on the infernal
roads. The canal boats are delightful, but the porters everywhere in the
United Provinces, are an impudent, abominable, and dishonest race. You
must carry as little luggage as you well can with you, in the canal
boats, and when you land, get recommended to an inn beforehand, and
bargain with the porters first of all, and never lose sight of them, or
you may never see your portmanteau or baggage again.
My Sarah desires her love to you and yours. God bless your dear little
ones! Make haste and get rich, dear friend! and bring up the little
creatures to be playfellows and school-fellows with my little ones!
Again and again, sea serve you, wind speed you, all things turn out good
to you! God bless you,