"Keswick, 14 April, 1836.
My dear Cottle,
If you are drawing up your 'Recollections of Coleridge,' for separate
publication, you are most welcome to insert anything of mine which you
might think proper; but it is my wish that nothing of mine may go into
the hands of any person concerned in bringing forward Coleridge's MSS.
I know that Coleridge at different times of his life never let pass an
opportunity of speaking ill of me. Both Wordsworth and myself have often
lamented the exposure of duplicity which must result from the publication
of his letters, and by what he has delivered by word of mouth to the
worshippers by whom he was always surrounded. To Wordsworth and to me, it
matters little. Coleridge received from us such substantial services as
few men have received from those whose friendship they had forfeited.
This indeed was not the case with Wordsworth, as it was with me, for he
knew not in what manner Coleridge had latterly spoken of him. But I
continued all possible offices of kindness to his children, long after I
regarded his own conduct with that _utter disapprobation_ which alone it
can call forth from all who had any sense of duty and moral obligation.
Poole[101] from whom I had a letter by the same post with yours, thinks,
from what you have said concerning Coleridge's habit of taking opium,
that it would operate less to deter others from the practice, than it
would lead them to flatter themselves in indulging in it, by the example
of so great a man. That there is some probability in this I happen to
know from the effect of Mr. De Quincey's book; one who had never taken a
drop of opium before, but took so large a dose, for the sake of
experiencing the sensations which had been described, that a very little
addition to the dose might have proved fatal. There, however, the
mischief ended, for he never repeated the experiment. But I apprehend if
you send what you have written, about Coleridge and opium, it will not be
made use of, and that Coleridge's biographer will seek to find excuses
for his abuse of that drug. Indeed in Mr. Alsop's book, it is affirmed
that the state of his heart, and other appearances in his chest, showed
the habit to have been brought on by the pressure of disease in those
parts:--the more likely inference is, that the excess brought on the
disease.
I am much pleased with your "_Predictions_." Those who will not be
convinced by such scriptural proofs, if they pretend to admit any
authority in the Scriptures, would not, though one rose from the dead.
God bless you, my dear old friend. Whenever I can take a journey, I will,
if you are living, come to Bedminster. There is no other place in the
world which I remember with such feelings as that village.[102]
Believe me always yours most affectionately,