Is the writer of this epistle the man, who twenty years before, even
coveted annihilation! Is this the man, who so long preferred, to all
things else, the "Circean chalice!" Is this he, who at one time, learned
to his unutterable dismay, what a sin was, "against an imperishable
being, such as is the soul of man." Is this he, whose will was once
extinguished by an unhallowed passion, and he himself borne along toward
perdition by a flood of intemperance! Is this the man who resisted the
light, till darkness entered his mind, and with it a "glimpse of outer
darkness!" Is this he, who feared that his own inveterate and aggravated
crimes would exclude him, from that heaven, the road to which he was
tracing out for others! Is this he, that through successive years,
contended with the severest mental and bodily afflictions; who knew the
cause, but rejected the remedy?--who, in 1807, declared himself "rolling
rudderless," "the wreck of what he once was," "with an unceasing
overwhelming sensation of wretchedness?" and in 1814, who still
pronounced himself the endurer of all that was "wretched, helpless, and
hopeless?" Samuel Taylor Coleridge is the man on whom all these charges
and fearful anticipations once rested: but he it is fervently hoped, was
changed; that he was renovated; that, when refuge failed, an unseen power
subdued the rebellious, and softened the hard; and that he approached the
verge of life in the serenity of faith and hope.
Before the effect of this letter, the eccentricities of S. T.
Coleridge--his indiscretions, his frailties, vanish away. There is in it
a mellowed character, accordant with a proximity to the eternal state,
when alone the objects of time assume their true dimensions; when, earth
receding; eternity opening; the spirit, called to launch its untried bark
on the dark and stormy waters that separate both worlds, descries _light_
afar, and leans, as its only solace, on the hope of the christian.
Checkered indeed was the life of this great but imperfect man. His dawn
was not without promise. Hopes and blessings attended him in his course,
but mists obscured his noon, and tempests long followed him; yet he set,
it is hoped, serene and in splendor, looking on, through faith in his
Redeemer, to that cloudless morning, where his sun shall no more go down.
* * * * *
The attention of the reader will now be directed to letters of Mr.
Southey, briefly relating to Mr. Coleridge, and to circumstances
connected with the publication of the "Early Recollections of S. T.
Coleridge," 1837;--with a reference to the distressing malady with which
Mrs. Southey was afflicted.
"Keswick, Feb. 26, 1836.
My dear Cottle,
... I never go out but for regular exercise. Constant occupation; a daily
walk whatever the weather may be; constitutional buoyancy of spirits; the
comfort I have in my daughters and son; the satisfaction of knowing that
nothing is neglected for my dear Edith, which can be done by human care
and dutiful attention; above all, a constant trust in God's mercy, and
the certainty that whatever he appoints for us is best; these are my
supports, and I have as much cause to be thankful for present
consolation, as for past happiness.
... If this domestic affliction had not fallen upon us, it was my
intention to have seen you in October 1834, and have brought my son
Cuthbert with me; and if it please God that I should ever be able to
leave home for a distant journey, this I still hope to do, and if you are
not then in a better place than Bedminster, I am selfish enough to wish
you may stay there till we meet; and indeed for the sake of others, that
it may be to the utmost limits which may be assigned us. I would give a
great deal to pass a week with you in this world. When I called on your
brother Robert, in London, four years ago, he did not recollect me, and
yet I was the least changed of the two.
I should very much like to show you the correspondence which once passed
between Shelley and myself. Perhaps you are not acquainted with half of
his execrable history. I know the whole, and as he gave me a fit
opportunity, I read him such a lecture upon it as he deserved.
God bless you, my dear old friend,