THE FRIEND
[During the Spring of 1808, Coleridge, while delivering his lectures,
had some correspondence with Matilda Betham between March and July.
Matilda Betham was a portrait painter, and Coleridge had consented to
sit for her. The letters to Matilda Betham are probably dated thus: I,
(March) 1808; II, 4th April 1808; III, (April 1808); IV, 7th May 1808;
V, (---- 1808). _Fraser's Magazine_, 1878.
After paying a visit to the Clarkson's, at Bury St. Edmunds, Coleridge
went back to Grasmere and lived with the Wordsworths, now at Allan Bank.
Coleridge felt that lecturing was not a permanent form of employment,
and now projected a journal to disseminate what he called the Permanent
Principles of Politics, Morality, and Religion. In a letter written
about this time to his old friend Josiah Wade, he repudiates the
accusation that he had lived to little purpose.
LETTER 139. TO WADE
Tuesday night, _i.e._, Wednesday morning.
(1807-8).
My best and dearest friend,
I have barely time to scribble a few lines, so as not to miss the post,
for here as every where, there are charitable people, who, taking for
granted that you have no business of your own, would save from the pain
of vacancy, by employing you in theirs.
As to the letter you propose to write to a man who is unworthy even of a
rebuke from you, I might most unfeignedly object to some parts of it,
from a pang of conscience forbidding me to allow, even from a dear
friend, words of admiration, which are inapplicable in exact proportion
to the power given to me of having deserved them, if I had done my duty.
It is not of comparative utility I speak: for as to what has been
actually done, and in relation to useful effects produced, whether on
the minds of individuals, or of the public, I dare boldly stand forward,
and (let every man have his own, and that be counted mine which, but
for, and through me, would not have existed) will challenge the proudest
of my literary contemporaries to compare proofs with me, of usefulness
in the excitement of reflection, and the diffusion of original or
forgotten, yet necessary and important truths and knowledge; and this is
not the less true, because I have suffered others to reap all the
advantages. But, O dear friend, this consciousness, raised by insult of
enemies, and alienated friends, stands me in little stead to my own
soul, in how little then, before the all-righteous Judge! who, requiring
back the talents he had entrusted, will, if the mercies of Christ do not
intervene, not demand of me what I have done, but why I did not do more;
why, with powers above so many, I had sunk in many things below most!
But this is too painful, and in remorse we often waste the energy which
should be better employed in reformation--that essential part, and only
possible proof, of sincere repentance. * * *
May God bless you, and your affectionate friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.[15]
To Davy Coleridge writes a little later.
LETTER 140. TO DAVY
Grasmere, Kendal, Wednesday, December, 1808.
My dear Davy,
* * * My health and spirits are improved beyond my boldest hopes. A very
painful effort of moral courage has been remunerated by tranquillity--by
ease from the sting of self-disapprobation. I have done more for the
last ten weeks than I had done for three years before. Among other
things, I wrote what the few persons who saw it thought a spirited and
close reasoned letter to Mr. Jeffery, respecting the introductory
paragraph of the _Edinburgh_[16] review of your paper; but I was
earnestly dissuaded from sending it, as from an act of undeserved
respect--as from too great a condescension even on my part; and secondly
(and which was of more weight with me), as an act involving you more or
less, whatever I might say, and likely to be attributed to your
instigation, direct or indirect, as it is not unknown that I have been
on terms of intimacy with you. Yet I own I should be sorry to have it
lost, as I think it is the most eloquent and manly composition I ever
produced. If you think it worth the postage, it shall be transcribed,
and I will send you the original. The passage in question was the
grossest and most disgusting _kick-up_ of envy that has deformed even
the _E. R._ Had the author had the truth before his eyes, and purposely
written in diametrical opposition, he could not have succeeded better.
It is high time that the spear of Ithuriel should touch the toad at the
ear of the public.
I would willingly inform you of my chance of success in obtaining a
sufficient number of subscribers, so as to justify me prudentially in
commencing the work (_The Friend_), but I do not at present possess
grounds even for a sane conjecture. It will depend in a great measure on
the zeal of my friends, on which I confess, not without remorse, I have
more often cast water than oil. Here a conceit about the Greek fire
might come in, but the simile is somewhat _tritical_.
Wordsworth has nearly finished a series of masterly essays on our late
and present relations to Portugal and Spain. Southey is sending to the
press his _History of Brazil_, and at the same time (the indefatigable!)
composing a defence of religious missions to the East, etc. Excepting
the introduction (which, however, I have heard highly praised, but
myself think it shallow, flippant, and ipse dixitish), I have read few
books with such deep interest as the _Chronicle of the Cid_. The whole
scene in the Cortes is superior to any equal part of any epic poem, save
the _Paradise Lost--me saltem judice_. The deep glowing, yet ever
self-controlled passion of the Cid--his austere dignity, so finely
harmonizing with his pride of loyal humility--the address to his swords,
and the burst of contemptuous rage in his final charge and address to
the Infantes of Carrion, and his immediate recall of his mind--are
beyond all ordinary praises. It delights me to be able to speak thus of
a work of Southey's! I am so often forced to quarrel with his want of
judgment and his unthinkingness--which, Heaven knows, I never do without
pain, and the vexation of a disappointed wish. But I am encroaching on
time more valuable than my own, and I, too, have enough to do. May God
grant you health and the continuance of your intellectual vigour!
S. T. COLERIDGE.
LETTER 141. TO DAVY
Grasmere, Kendal, December 14 (1808).
Dear Davy,
The above written copies[17] will explain this second application to
you. I understood from Mr. Bernard (afterwards Sir Thomas), as well as
from yourself, that Mr. Savage had agreed to print and publish the work
on the sole condition that he was to have five per cent. for the
publisher, and to charge the printing, etc., at the price charged to the
booksellers, or the _trade_ (as they very ingenuously and truly style
their art and mystery). To spare me the necessity of troubling Mr.
Bernard with a fresh letter, I entreat you to transmit this to him as
soon as possible. There is but one part of Mr. Savage's letter that I
can permit myself to comment upon, that of the propriety of pricing the
essay at sixpence, and consequently of not having it stamped, nor finely
printed, nor on fine paper. For him, and for a work conducted as he
would have it conducted, _i.e._, one, the object of which is to attract
as many purchasers as possible, this might answer. My purposes are
widely different. I do not write in this work for the _multitude_, but
for those who, by rank or fortune, or official situation, or talents and
habits of reflection, are to _influence_ the multitude. I write to found
true principles, to oppose false principles in criticism, legislation,
philosophy, morals, and international law. As giving me an opportunity
of explaining myself, I say Cobbett sells his weekly sheet for tenpence.
Now this differs from mine in two points, mainly: First, he applies
himself to the passions that are gratified by curiosity, and sharp,
often calumnious, personality; by the events and political topics of the
day, and the names of notorious contemporaries. Now, from all these I
abstain altogether--nay, to strangle this vicious temper of mind, by
directing the interest to the nobler germs in human nature, is my
express and paramount object. But of English readers three-fourths are
led to purchase periodical works in the expectation of gratifying these
passions--even periodical works professedly literary, of which the keen
interest excited by the _Edinburgh Review_, and its wide circulation,
yield a proof as striking as it is dishonourable to the moral taste of
the present public--all these readers I give up all claim to. Secondly,
Cobbett himself rarely writes more than a third of the weekly journal;
the remainder of the sheet is either mere reprinting or stupid
make-weights from correspondents (with few exceptions) of the very
lowest order. And what are his own compositions? The undigested
passionate monologues of a man of robust natural understanding, but one
unenriched by various knowledge, undisciplined by a comprehensive
philosophy; under the warping influence of rooted habits of opposing and
attacking, and from this state of mind fruitful in thoughts which a
purer taste would have rejected so long, that they would cease to occur,
and promiscuous in the adoption of whatever such a state of mind
suggests to him of these thoughts furnished by the occurrences of the
day. Indeed, more often than otherwise his letters, etc., are mere
comments on large _extracts_ from the morning papers, such as a
passionate man would talk at breakfast over a newspaper supporting the
political party which he hated. No _one_ thesis is proposed--there is no
orderly origination, development, and conclusion; in short, none of
those qualities which constitute the _nicety_ and _effort_ of
composition. But _I_ (and if I do not, my work will be dropped and
abandoned)--I bring the results of a life of intense study and
unremitted meditation, of toil and personal travels, and great unrepaid
expense. Those to whom these reasons would not justify me in selling the
work (stamped as Cobbett's) for that part of twopence more which remains
when the additional cost of finer paper and printing is deducted, I
neither expect nor wish to have among my subscribers. It is scarcely
necessary to remark, that in pointing out these differences I had no
intention of depreciating the political journal (the style and contents
of the work are perfectly well suited to the purpose of the writer). The
labourer's pocket knife was one excellently adapted to the cutting of
bread and cheese, but it would be unfair to demand that the medical
cutler A. should sell his case of lancets at the same price that the
common cutler B. sells an equal weight of the bread-and-cheese knives,
supposing them both equally good of their kind. This letter from Mr.
Savage, added to his long delay in answering me at all, has a good deal
perplexed my proceedings, but it shall not make me abandon my intention.
If anything new have occurred in chemistry from your own labours, or
those of others, it would be deeply gratifying to me to be informed of
it by you; for hitherto I have not been able to afford to take in any
philosophical journal, or, indeed, any other. I was told by a friend
that William Allen had proved that oxygen was absorbed in the lungs, but
that its action consisted in carrying off the carbon from the
blood--consequently that the old hypothesis of refrigeration was not
altogether false. But my communicant was no chemist, and his account was
so confused, that I am not sure that I have given an accurate statement
of it.
My health and spirits are far better than I had dared hope, only from
neglect of exercise I remain more corpulent than I ought, though I drink
nothing but table-beer, and eat very moderately. When I was in London I
was shocked at the alteration in our friend Tobin's looks and
appearance. Those who always interpret two coincidents into cause and
effect would surmise that marriage has been less conducive to his health
than to his moral comfort. It would give me serious pleasure to have a
more cheerful account of him.
As soon as I have a little leisure I shall send my Greek accidence and
vocabulary of terminations to the press with my Greek-English Lexicon,
which will be followed by a Greek philosophical grammar. Heaven preserve
and keep you!
S. T. COLERIDGE.[18]
LETTER FROM DAVY TO COLERIDGE
December 27, 1808.
Alas! poor Beddoes is dead! He died on Christmas eve. He wrote to me two
letters, on two successive days, 22nd and 23rd. From the first, which
was full of affection and new feeling, I anticipated his state. He is
gone at the moment when his mind was purified and exalted for noble
affections and great works.
My heart is heavy. I would talk to you of your own plans, which I shall
endeavour in every way to promote; I would talk to you of my own
labours, which have been incessant since I saw you, and not without
result; but I am interrupted by very melancholy feelings, which, when
you see this, I know you will partake of.
Ever, my dear Coleridge,
Very affectionately yours,
H. DAVY.
LETTER 142. TO DAVY
Grasmere, Kendal, Monday morning, January 30, 1809.
My dear Davy,
I was deeply affected by the passage in your letter respecting Dr.
Beddoes. It was indeed the echo of my own experience. The intelligence
of his departure from among us, came upon me abruptly and unexpectedly.
I was sitting down to dinner, having quitted an unfinished sheet, which
I had been writing, in answer to a long and affectionate letter from the
Doctor. There was indeed a depth and flow of feeling in it, which filled
me with bodings, but I had no thought that the event was so near at
hand. The note, therefore, sent from one of his patients, who had placed
himself at Clifton by mine and Wordsworth's advice, (written) the day
after his decease, struck me like a bodily blow, and was followed by a
long and convulsive weeping, with scarce any inward suffering: but when
some half hour after I recovered myself, and my tears flowed slowly, and
with grief more worthy of the cause, I felt that more hope had been
taken out of my life by this than by any former event. For Beddoes was
good and beneficent to all men; but to me he had always been kind and
affectionate, and latterly I had become attached to him by a personal
tenderness. The death of Mr. Thomas Wedgwood pulled hard at my heart; I
am sure no week of my life--almost I might have said scarce a day, in
which I have not been made either sad or thoughtful by the recollection.
But Dr. Beddoes's death has pulled yet harder, probably because it came
second--likewise, too, perhaps that I had been in the habit of
connecting such oppression of despondency with my love of him. There are
two things which I exceedingly wished, and in both have been
disappointed: to have written the _Life_ and prepared the _Psychological
Remains_ of my revered friend and benefactor, T. W.: and to have been
entrusted with the _Biography_, etc., of Dr. B. This latter work
(Southey informs me) was first offered to you, and then to Mr. Giddy,
and is finally devolved on Dr. Stock. As my heart bears me full witness
with what unalloyed satisfaction I should have seen this last duty in
your hands or in D. Giddy's, so I feel myself permitted to avow the
pain, yea, the sense of shame, with which I contemplate Dr. Stock as the
performant. I could not help assenting to Southey's remark, that the
proper vignette for the work would be a funeral lamp beside an urn, and
Dr. Stock in the act of placing an extinguisher on it. * * *
I have just read a brief account of your first lecture of this season,
and, though I did not see as clearly as I could wish, the pertinence of
the religious declaration quoted from you, and am not quite at ease
(especially when I think of Darwin), when I find theosophy mingled with
science, and though I wished to have been with you to have expressed my
doubts concerning the accuracy of your comparison between the great
discoverers of science and the Miltons, Spinozas, and Rafaels; yet the
intervening history (it is only that I am writing to you that I stopped
and hesitate in using the word) overwhelmed me, and I dare avow,
furnished to my understanding and conscience proofs more convincing than
the dim analogies of natural organization to human mechanism, both of
the Supreme Reason, as super-essential to the world of the senses; of an
analogous mind in man not resulting from its perishable machine, nor
even from the general spirit of life, its inclosed steam or perfluent
water-force; and of the moral connection between the finite and the
infinite Reason, and the awful majesty of the former, as both the
revelation and the exponent voice of the latter, immortal timepiece, an
eternal sun. Shame be with me in my death-hour if ever I withhold or
fear to pay my first debt of due honour to the truly great man, because
it has been my good lot to be his contemporary, or my happiness to have
known, esteemed, and loved, as well as admired him.
It is impossible to pass otherwise than abruptly to my own affairs. I
had from the very first informed Mr. Savage[19] that I would not
undertake the work at all, except I could secure him from all possible
risk. His proposals were such, that had I acceded to them, after years
of toil, I should have been his debtor and slave, without having
received a farthing--or, to use the strong, coarse illustration of a
friend, a man of consummate good sense and knowledge of the world, and
of twenty years' experience in periodical works--"Savage's proposals
would have led you into a gulph of debt or obligation: you would have
been like a girl who gets into a house of ill-fame, and whom the old
bawd always keeps in debt, stripping her of every shilling she gets for
prostitution." What my error was, after my _first_ conversation with Mr.
S. I know, but shall not say: but his mistake has been in construing my
indifference as to pecuniary matters, and _apparent_ ignorance of
business, into absolute silliness and passive idiocy. But this is
passed. As soon as I received his letter I made up my mind to another
mode of publication. _The Friend_ will be printed as a newspaper, _i.e._
not in form or matter, but under the act of parliament, and with its
privilege, printed at Kendal, and sent to each subscriber by the post.
My health is more regular; yet, spite of severe attention to my diet,
etc., my sufferings are at times heavy. Please to make my best respects
to Mr. Bernard.
May God bless you!
S. T. COLERIDGE.[20]
The Prospectus of _The Friend_ and the following correspondence with
Southey explain Coleridge's views of what he conceived as the
requirements of a periodical devoted to the highest interests of Truth
and Humanity.
LETTER 143. To ----
1 June, 1809.
It is not unknown to you, that I have employed almost the whole of my
Life in acquiring, or endeavouring to acquire, useful Knowledge by
Study, Reflection, Observation, and by cultivating the Society of my
Superiors in Intellect, both at Home and in foreign Countries. You know
too, that at different Periods of my Life I have not only planned, but
collected the materials for, many Works on various and important
Subjects: so many indeed, that the Number of my unrealized Schemes, and
the Mass of my miscellaneous Fragments, have often furnished my Friends
with a Subject of Raillery, and sometimes of Regret and Reproof. Waiving
the Mention of all private and accidental Hindrances, I am inclined to
believe, that this Want of Perseverance has been produced in the Main by
an Over-activity of Thought, modified by a constitutional Indolence,
which made it more pleasant to me to continue acquiring, than to reduce
what I had acquired to a regular Form. Add too, that almost daily
throwing off my Notices or Reflections in desultory Fragments, I was
still tempted onward by an increasing Sense of the Imperfection of my
Knowledge, and by the Conviction, that, in Order fully to comprehend and
develope any one Subject, it was necessary that I should make myself
Master of some other, which again as regularly involved a third, and so
on, with an ever-widening Horizon. Yet one Habit, formed during long
Absences from those with whom I could converse with full Sympathy, has
been of Advantage to me--that of daily noting down, in my Memorandum or
Common-place Books, both Incidents and Observations; whatever had
occurred to me from without, and all the Flux and Reflux of my Mind
within itself. The Number of these Notices, and their Tendency,
miscellaneous as they were, to one common End ("_quid sumus et quid
futuri gignimur_," _what we are and what we are born to become; and thus
from the End of our Being to deduce its proper Objects_) first
encouraged me to undertake the Weekly Essay, of which you will consider
this Letter as the Prospectus.
Not only did the plan seem to accord better than any other with the
Nature of my own Mind, both in its Strength and in its Weakness; but
conscious that, in upholding some Principles both of Taste and
Philosophy, adopted by the great Men of Europe from the Middle of the
fifteenth till toward the Close of the seventeenth Century, I must run
Counter to many Prejudices of many of my readers (_for old Faith is
often modern Heresy_) I perceived too in a periodical Essay the most
likely Means of winning, instead of forcing my Way. Supposing Truth on
my Side, the Shock of the first Day might be so far lessened by
Reflections of the succeeding Days, so as to procure for my next Week's
Essay a less hostile Reception, than it would have met with, had it been
only the next Chapter of a present Volume. I hoped to disarm the Mind of
those Feelings, which preclude Conviction by Contempt, and, as it were,
fling the Door in the Face of Reasoning by a _Presumption_ of its
Absurdity. A Motive too for honourable Ambition was supplied by the
Fact, that every periodical Paper of the Kind now attempted, which had
been conducted with Zeal and Ability, was not only well received at the
Time, but has become permanently, and in the best Sense of the Word,
popular. By honourable Ambition I mean the strong Desire to be useful,
aided by the Wish to be generally acknowledged to have been so. As I
feel myself actuated in no ordinary Degree by this Desire, so the Hope
of realizing it appears less and less presumptuous to me, since I have
received from Men of highest Rank and established Character in the
Republic of Letters, not only strong Encouragements as to my own fitness
for the Undertaking, but likewise Promises of Support from their own
Stores.
The _Object_ of _The Friend_, briefly and generally expressed, is--to
uphold those Truths and those Merits, which are founded in the nobler
and permanent Parts of our Nature, against the Caprices of Fashion, and
such Pleasures, as either depend on transitory and accidental Causes, or
are pursued from less worthy Impulses. The chief _Subjects_ of my own
Essays will be:
The true and sole Ground of Morality, or Virtue, as distinguished
from Prudence.
The Origin and Growth of moral Impulses, as distinguished from
external and immediate Motives.
The necessary dependence of Taste on Moral Impulses and Habits: and
the Nature of Taste (relatively to Judgment in general and to
Genius) defined, illustrated, and applied. Under this Head I
comprize the Substance of the Lectures given, and intended to have
been given, at the Royal Institution, on the distinguished English
Poets, in illustration of the general Principles of Poetry;
together with Suggestions concerning the Affinity of the Fine Arts
to each other, and the Principles common to them all:
Architecture; Gardening; Dress; Music; Painting; Poetry.
The opening out of new Objects of just Admiration in our own
Language; and Information of the present State and past History of
Swedish, Danish, German, and Italian Literature (to which, but as
supplied by a Friend, I may add the Spanish, Portuguese and
French) as far as the same has not been already given to English
Readers, or is not to be found in common French Authors.
Characters met with in real Life:--Anecdotes and Results of my own
Life and Travels, etc. etc. as far as they are illustrative of
general moral Laws, and have no immediate Bearing on personal or
immediate Politics.
Education in its widest Sense, private and national.
Sources of Consolation to the afflicted in Misfortune, or Disease,
or Dejection of Mind, from the Exertion and right Application of
the Reason, the Imagination, and the moral Sense; and new Sources
of Enjoyment opened out, or an Attempt (as an Illustrious Friend
once expressed the Thought to me) to add Sunshine to Daylight, by
making the Happy more happy. In the words "Dejection of Mind" I
refer particularly to Doubt or Disbelief of the moral Government
of the World, and the grounds and arguments for the religious
Hopes of Human Nature.[21]
LETTER 144. TO SOUTHEY
October 20, 1809.
My dear Southey,
* * * * *
What really makes me despond is the daily confirmation I receive of my
original apprehension, that the plan and execution of _The Friend_ is so
utterly unsuitable to the public taste as to preclude all rational hopes
of its success. Much, certainly, might have been done to have made the
former numbers less so by the interposition of others written more
expressly for general interest; and, if I could attribute it wholly to
any removable error of my own, I should be less dejected. I will do my
best, will frequently interpose tales and whole numbers of amusement,
will make the periods lighter and shorter; and the work itself,
proceeding according to its plan, will become more interesting when the
foundations have been laid. Massiveness is the merit of a foundation;
the gilding, ornaments, stucco-work, conveniences, sunshine, and sunny
prospects will come with the superstructure. Yet still I feel the
deepest conviction that no efforts of mine, compatible with the hope of
effecting any good purpose, or with the duty I owe to my permanent
reputation, will remove the complaint. No real information can be
conveyed, no important errors radically extracted, without demanding an
effort of thought on the part of the reader; but the obstinate, and now
contemptuous, aversion to all energy of thinking is the mother evil, the
cause of all the evils in politics, morals, and literature, which it is
my object to wage war against; so that I am like a physician who, for a
patient paralytic in both arms, prescribes, as the only possible cure,
the use of the dumb-bells.[22] Whatever I publish, and in whatever form,
this obstacle will be felt. _The Rambler_, which, altogether, has sold a
hundred copies for one of the _Connoisseur_, yet, during its periodical
appearance, did not sell one for fifty, and was dropped by reader after
reader for its dreary gravity and massiveness of manner. Now what I wish
you to do for me--if, amid your many labours, you can find or make a
leisure hour--is, to look over the eight numbers, and to write a letter
to _The Friend_ in a lively style, chiefly urging, in a humorous manner,
my Don Quixotism in expecting that the public will ever pretend to
understand my lucubrations, or feel any interest in subjects of such sad
and unkempt antiquity, and contrasting my style with the cementless
periods of the modern Anglo-Gallican style, which not only are
understood _beforehand_, but, being free from all connections of logic,
all the hooks and eyes of intellectual memory, never oppress the mind by
any after recollections, but, like civil visitors, stay a few moments,
and leave the room quite free and open for the next comers. Something of
this kind, I mean, that I may be able to answer it so as, in the answer,
to state my own convictions at full on the nature of obscurity, etc.
* * *
God bless you!
S. T. COLERIDGE.
SOUTHEY'S ANSWER
To _The Friend_
[Without date.]
Sir,
I know not whether your subscribers have expected too much from you, but
it appears to me that you expect too much from your subscribers; and
that, however accurately you may understand the diseases of the age,
you have certainly mistaken its temper. In the first place, Sir, your
essays are too long. "Brevity," says a contemporary journalist, "is the
humour of the times; a tragedy must not exceed fifteen hundred lines, a
fashionable preacher must not trespass above fifteen minutes upon his
congregation. We have short waistcoats and short campaigns; everything
must be short--except lawsuits, speeches in Parliament, and tax-tables."
It is expressly stated, in the prospectus of a collection of extracts,
called the _Beauties of Sentiment_, that the extracts shall always be
complete sense, and _not very long_. Secondly, Sir, though your essays
appear in so tempting a shape to a lounger, the very fiends themselves
were not more deceived by the _lignum vitae_ apples, when
They, fondly thinking to allay
Their appetite with gust, instead of fruit
Chew'd bitter ashes,
than the reader is who takes up one of your papers from breakfast table,
parlour-window, sofa, or ottoman, thinking to amuse himself with a few
minutes' light reading. We are informed, upon the authority of no less a
man than Sir Richard Phillips, how "it has long been a subject of just
complaint among the lovers of English literature, that our language has
been deficient in lounging or parlour-window books;" and to remove the
opprobrium from the language, Sir Richard advertises a list, mostly
ending in _ana_, under the general title of _Lounging Books or Light
Reading_. I am afraid, Mr. Friend, that your predecessors would never
have obtained their popularity unless their essays had been of the
description Ὅμοιον ὁμοίῳ φíλονi,--and this is a light age.
You have yourself observed that few converts were made by Burke; but the
cause which you have assigned does not sufficiently explain why a man of
such powerful talents and so authoritative a reputation should have
produced so little an effect upon the minds of the people. Was it not
because he neither was nor could be generally understood? Because,
instead of endeavouring to make difficult things easy of comprehension,
he made things which were easy in themselves, difficult to be
comprehended by the manner in which he presented them, evolving their
causes and involving their consequences, till the reader, whose mind was
not habituated to metaphysical discussions, neither knew in what his
arguments began nor in what they ended? You have told me that the
straightest line must be the shortest; but do not you yourself sometimes
nose out your way, hound-like, in pursuit of truth, turning and winding,
and doubling and running when the same object might be reached in a
tenth part of the time by darting straightforward like a greyhound to
the mark? Burke failed of effect upon the people for this reason,--there
was the difficulty of mathematics without the precision in his writings.
You looked through the process without arriving at the proof. It was the
fashion to read him because of his rank as a political partizan;
otherwise he would not have been read. Even in the House of Commons he
was admired more than he was listened to; not a sentence came from him
which was not pregnant with seeds of thought, if it had fallen upon good
ground; yet his speeches convinced nobody, while the mellifluous
orations of Mr. Pitt persuaded his majorities of whatever he wished to
persuade them; because they were easily understood, what mattered it to
him that they were as easily forgotten?
The reader, Sir, must think before he can understand you; is it not a
little unreasonable to require from him an effort which you have
yourself described as so very painful a one? and is not this effort not
merely difficult but in many cases impossible? All brains, Sir, were not
made for thinking: modern philosophy has taught us that they are
galvanic machines, and thinking is only an accident belonging to them.
Intellect is not essential to the functions of life; in the ordinary
course of society it is very commonly dispensed with; and we have lived,
Mr. Friend, to witness experiments for carrying on government without
it. This is surely a proof that it is a rare commodity; and yet you
expect it in all your subscribers!
Give us your moral medicines in a more "elegant preparation." The
Reverend J. Gentle administers his physic in the form of tea; Dr.
Solomon prefers the medium of a cordial; Mr. Ching exhibits his in
gingerbread nuts; Dr. Barton in wine; but you, Mr. Friend, come with a
tonic bolus, bitter in the mouth, difficult to swallow, and hard of
digestion.[23]
My dear Coleridge,
All this, were it not for the Sir and the Mr. Friend, is like a real
letter from me to you: I fell into the strain without intending it, and
would not send it were it not to show you that I have attempted to do
something. From jest I got into earnest, and, trying to pass from
earnest to jest failed. It was against the grain, and would not do. I
had re-read the eight last numbers, and the truth is, they left me no
heart for jesting or for irony. In time they will do their work; it is
the form of publication only that is unlucky, and that cannot now be
remedied. But this evil is merely temporary. Give two or three amusing
numbers, and you will hear of admiration from every side. Insert a few
more poems,--any that you have, except _Christabel_, for that is of too
much value. There is scarcely anything you could do which would excite
so much notice as if you were _now_ to write the character of Bonaparte,
announced in former times for "to-morrow," and to-morrow and to-morrow;
and I think it would do good by counteracting that base spirit of
condescension towards him, which I am afraid is gaining ground; and by
showing the people what grounds they have for hope.
God bless you!
R. S.
LETTER 145. TO R. L.[24]
26 October, 1809.
Dear Sir,
When I first undertook the present Publication for the sake and with the
_avowed_ object of referring Men in all things to PRINCIPLES or
fundamental Truths, I was well aware of the obstacles which the plan
itself would oppose to my success. For in order to the regular
attainment of this object, all the driest and least attractive Essays
must appear in the first fifteen or twenty Numbers, and thus subject me
to the necessity of demanding effort or soliciting patience in that part
of the Work, where it was most my interest to secure the confidence of
my Readers by winning their favour. Though I dared warrant for the
pleasantness of the Journey on the whole; though I might promise that
the road would, for the far greater part of it, be found plain and easy,
that it would pass through countries of various prospect, and that at
every stage there would be a change of company; it still remained a
heavy disadvantage, that I had to start at the foot of a high and steep
hill: and I foresaw, not without occasional feelings of despondency,
that during the slow and laborious ascent it would require no common
management to keep my Passengers in good humour with the Vehicle and its
Driver. As far as this inconvenience could be palliated by sincerity and
previous confession, I have no reason to accuse myself of neglect. In
the Prospectus of _The Friend_, which for this cause I re-printed and
annexed to the first Number, I felt it my duty to inform such as might
be inclined to patronize the Publication, that I must submit to be
esteemed dull by those who sought chiefly for amusement: and this I
hazarded as a _general_ confession, though in my own mind I felt a
chearful confidence that it would apply almost exclusively to the
earlier Numbers. I could not therefore be surprised, however much I may
have been depressed, by the frequency with which you hear _The Friend_
complained of for its abstruseness and obscurity; nor did the highly
flattering expressions, with which you accompanied your communication,
prevent me from feeling its truth to the whole extent.
An Author's pen like Children's legs, improves by exercise. That part of
the blame which rests on myself, I am exerting my best faculties to
remove. A man long accustomed to silent and solitary meditation, in
proportion as he encreases the power of thinking in long and connected
trains, is apt to lose or lessen the talent of communicating his
thoughts with grace and perspicuity. Doubtless too, I have in some
measure injured my style, in respect to its facility and popularity,
from having almost confined my reading, of late years, to the Works of
the Ancients and those of the elder Writers in the modern languages. We
insensibly imitate what we habitually admire; and an aversion to the
epigrammatic unconnected periods of the fashionable _Anglo-gallican_
Taste has too often made me willing to forget, that the stately march
and difficult evolutions, which characterize the eloquence of Hooker,
Bacon, Milton, and Jeremy Taylor, are, notwithstanding their intrinsic
excellence, still less suited to a periodical Essay. This fault I am now
endeavouring to correct; though I can never so far sacrifice my judgment
to the desire of being immediately popular, as to cast my sentences in
the French moulds, or affect a style which an ancient critic would have
deemed purposely invented for persons troubled with the asthma to read,
and for those to comprehend who labour under the more pitiable asthma
of a short-witted intellect. It cannot but be injurious to the human
mind never to be called into effort: the habit of receiving pleasure
without any exertion of thought, by the mere excitement of curiosity and
sensibility, may be justly ranked among the worst effects of habitual
novel reading. It is true that these short and unconnected sentences are
easily and instantly understood: but it is equally true, that wanting
all the cement of thought as well as of style, all the connections, and
(if you will forgive so trivial a metaphor) all the _hooks-and-eyes_ of
the memory, they are easily forgotten: or rather, it is scarcely
possible that they should be remembered.--Nor is it less true, that
those who confine their reading to such books dwarf their own faculties,
and finally reduce their Understandings to a deplorable imbecility: the
fact you mention, and which I shall hereafter make use of, is a fair
instance and a striking illustration. Like idle morning Visitors, the
brisk and breathless Periods hurry in and hurry off in quick and
profitless succession; each indeed for the moments of its stay prevents
the pain of vacancy, while it indulges the love of sloth; but all
together they leave the Mistress of the house (the soul I mean) flat and
exhausted, incapable of attending to her own concerns, and unfitted for
the conversation of more rational Guests.
I know you will not suspect me of fostering so idle a hope, as that of
obtaining acquittal by recrimination; or think that I am attacking one
fault, in order that its opposite may escape notice in the noise and
smoke of the battery. On the contrary, I shall do my best, and even make
all allowable sacrifices, to render my manner more attractive and my
matter more generally interesting. All the principles of my future Work,
all the fundamental doctrines, in the establishment of which I must of
necessity require the attention of my Reader to become my
fellow-labourer; all the primary facts essential to the intelligibility
of my principles, the existence of which facts I can prove to others
only as far as I can prevail on them to retire _into themselves_ and
make their own minds the objects of their stedfast attention; these
will, all together, not occupy more than six or seven of my future
Essays, and between each of these I shall interpose one or more Numbers
devoted to the rational _entertainment_ of my various Readers; and,
partly from the desire of gratifying particular requests, and partly as
a specimen of the subjects which will henceforward have a due proportion
of _The Friend_ allotted to them, I shall fill up the present Paper with
a miscellany. I feel too deeply the importance of the convictions which
first impelled me to the present undertaking, to leave unattempted any
honourable means of recommending them to as wide a circle as possible;
and though all the opinions which I shall bring forward in the course of
the Work, on politics, morals, religion, literature, and the fine arts,
will with all their applications, be strictly deducible from the
principles established in these earlier Numbers; yet I doubt not, that
being Truths and interesting Truths (and such, of course, I must be
supposed to deem them) their intrinsic beauty will procure them
introduction to the feelings of my Readers, even of those whose habits
or avocations preclude the fatigue of close reasoning, and that each
Essay of itself, by the illustrations and the auxiliary and independent
arguments appropriate to it, will become sufficiently intelligible and
evident.
Hitherto, my dear Sir, I have been employed in laying the Foundation of
my Work. But the proper merit of a foundation is its massiveness and
solidity. The conveniences and ornaments, the gilding and stucco work,
the sunshine and sunny prospects, will come with the Superstructure. Yet
I dare not flatter myself, that any endeavours of mine, compatible with
the duty I owe to Truth and the hope of permanent utility, will render
_The Friend_ agreeable to the majority of what is called the reading
Public. I never expected it. How indeed could I, when I was to borrow so
little from the influence of passing Events, and absolutely excluded
from my plan all appeals to personal curiosity and personal interests?
Yet even this is not my greatest impediment. No real information can be
conveyed, no important errors rectified, no widely injurious prejudices
rooted up, without requiring some effort of thought on the part of the
Reader. But the obstinate (and toward a contemporary Writer, the
contemptuous) aversion to all intellectual effort is the mother evil of
all which I had proposed to war against, the Queen Bee in the Hive of
our errors and misfortunes, both private and national. The proof of the
Fact, positively and comparatively, and the enumeration of its various
causes, will, as I have already hinted form the preliminary Essay of the
disquisition on the elements of our moral and intellectual faculties. To
solicit the attention of those on whom these debilitating causes have
acted to their full extent, would be no less absurd than to recommend
exercise with the dumb bells, as the only mode of cure, to a patient
paralytic in both arms. You, my dear Sir, well know, that my
expectations were more modest as well as more rational. I hoped, that my
Readers in general would be aware of the impracticability of suiting
every Essay to every Taste in _any_ period of the work; and that they
would not attribute wholly to the Author, but in part to the necessity
of his plan, the austerity and absence of the lighter graces in the
first fifteen or twenty Numbers. In my cheerful moods I sometimes
flattered myself, that a few even among those, who foresaw that my
lucubrations would at all times require more attention than from the
nature of their own employments they could afford them, might yet find a
pleasure in supporting _The Friend_ during its infancy, so as to give it
a chance of attracting the notice of others, to whom its style and
subjects might be better adapted. But my main anchor was the Hope, that
when circumstances gradually enabled me to adopt the ordinary means of
making the Publication generally known, there might be found throughout
the Kingdom a sufficient number of meditative minds, who, entertaining
similar convictions with myself, and gratified by the prospect of seeing
them reduced to form and system, would take a warm interest in the work
from the very circumstance, that it wanted those allurements of
transitory interest, which render particular patronage superfluous, and
for the brief season of their Blow and Fragrance attract the eye of
thousands, who would pass unregarded
Flowers
Of sober tint, and Herbs of med'cinable powers.
I hoped that a sufficient number of such Readers would gradually be
obtained, as to secure for the Paper that small extent of circulation
and immediate Sale, which would permit the Editor to carry it on to its
conclusion, and that they might so far interest themselves in
recommending it to men of kindred judgments among their acquaintances,
that the alterations in my list of Subscribers should not be exclusively
of a discouraging nature. Hitherto, indeed, I have only to express
gratitude, and acknowledge constancy; but I do not attempt to disguise
from myself that I owe this, in many instances, to a generous reluctance
hastily to withdraw from an Undertaking in its first struggles, and
before the Adventurer had had a fair opportunity of displaying the
quality of his goods, or the foundations of his credit.
* * *--the one tantum vidi: the other I know by his works only and his
public character. To profess indifference to their praises would convict
me either of insensibility or insincerity. Yet (and I am sure, that you
will both understand, and sympathize with, the feeling) my delight was
not unalloyed by a something like pain, as if I were henceforward less
free to express my admiration of them with the same warmth and
affection, which I have been accustomed to do, before I had even
anticipated the honour of such a communication. You will therefore not
judge me too harshly, if so confirmed and cheered, I have sometimes in
the warmth of composition, and while I was reviewing the materials of
the more important part of my intended Essays, if I had sometimes
permitted my Hopes a bolder flight; and counted on a share of favour and
protection from the soberly zealous among the professionally Learned,
when the Principles of _The Friend_ shall have been brought into clear
view, and Specimens have been given of the mode and the direction in
which I purpose to apply and enforce them.
There are charges, the very suspicion of which is painful to an
ingenuous mind in exact proportion as they are unfounded and
inapplicable. I can bear with resignation a charge of enthusiasm. Even
if accused of presumption, I will repay myself by deriving from the
accusation an additional motive to increased watchfulness over myself,
that I may remain entitled to plead, Not guilty! to it in the Court of
my own conscience. But if my anxiety to obviate hasty judgments and
misapprehensions is imputed to a less honourable motive than the earnest
wish to exert my best faculties, as to the most beneficial purposes, so
in the way most likely to effectuate them, I can give but one answer:
that however great my desires of _profit_ may be, they cannot be greater
than my ignorance of the world, if I have chosen a weekly paper planned,
as _The Friend_ is, written on such subjects, and composed in such a
style, as the most promising method of gratifying them.
S. T. C.
LETTER 146. TO CANTAB
21 Dec. 1809.
I thank the "_Friend's friend and a Cantab_" for his inspiriting Letter,
and assure him, that it was not without its intended effect, of giving
me encouragement. That this was not needless, he would feel as well as
know, if I could convey to him the anxious thoughts and gloomy
anticipations, with which I write any single paragraph, that demands the
least effort of attention, or requires the Reader to enter into himself
and question his own mind as to the truth of that which I am pressing on
his notice. But both He and my very kind Malton Correspondent, and all
of similar dispositions, may rest assured, that with every imaginable
endeavour to make _The Friend_, _collectively,_ as _entertaining_ as is
compatible with the main Object of the Work, I shall never so far forget
the duty, I owe to them and to my own heart, as not to remember that
_mere_ amusement is _not_ that main Object. I have taken upon myself
(see Letter 145) all the blame that I could acknowledge without
adulation to my readers and hypocritical mock-humility. But the
principal source of the obscurity imputed must be sought for in the want
of _interest_ concerning the truths themselves. (_Revel._ iii, 17.) My
sole Hope (I dare not say expectation) is, that if I am enabled to
proceed with the work through an equal number of Essays with those
already published, it will gradually find for itself its appropriate
Public.
S. T. COLERIDGE.[25]
Coleridge worked pretty hard at _The Friend_. He was ably assisted by
Miss Sarah Hutchinson, who acted as amanuensis. _The Friend_ was first
issued on 1st June 1809, and ceased with the twenty-seventh number on
10th March 1810. Like _The Watchman_, _The Friend_ was published by
subscription and was not a financial success. In _The Friend_ Coleridge
wrote in his most diffuse style. The long intricate sentence, imitative
of that of the seventeenth century divines and political writers, was
his favourite medium when writing on the Permanent Principles of things,
and in it he often ran into prolixity. In a letter to Poole, of 28th
January 1810 (_Letters_, 556), Coleridge defends himself for abandoning
the Frenchified style of the _Spectator_, and the eighteenth-century
Belles-Lettrists, who, in his estimation, had contributed to the taste
for "unconnected writing" and "Reading made easy." Coleridge tried to
awaken a deeper note in the English magazine, and make the periodical a
vehicle for profound reflection and logically connected thought; and
although Coleridge's own age was against him in this, the latter half of
the nineteenth century has reversed the verdict in his favour.
While busy with _The Friend_, Coleridge was again contributing to _The
Courier_ a series of letters supporting the Spaniards in their struggle
against Napoleon, and endeavouring to maintain British sympathy for the
inhabitants of the Peninsula. These letters are written with Coleridge's
accustomed virility when writing for _The Courier_, and are almost as
good as his Letters to Fox of 1802. It is a curious fact that when
Coleridge stepped into _The Courier_ office, he abandoned for the time
being his over-refinement of ideas and subtle disquisitive method of
writing for a more popular style, as good as any leader-writer of the
day. He had great versatility of talent in prose; in fact he had three
styles of writing--his Philosophic style, his Journalist style, and his
Letter-Writer's style, in the last of which he abandoned himself to the
most curious and humorous freaks of construction and imagery, as when he
apologizes for some warmth of expression, calling it "the dexterous
_toss_, necessary to turn an idea out of its pudding-bag, round and
_unbroken_."--_Letters_, 410.]
FOOTNOTES:
[15] [Letters CLXVIII-CLXX follow 139.]
[16] [_Edinburgh Review_, No. 12, p. 394, July 1808.]
[17] Copies of Letters from Mr. Savage to Coleridge, and from the
latter to the former, respecting the printing and publishing of
_The Friend_.
[18] [Letters CLXXI-CLXXII follow 141.]
[19] The printer with whom he had been negotiating respecting the
bringing out of _The Friend_.
[20] [Letters CLXXIII-CLXXIV follow 142.]
[21] [Letters CLXXV-CLXXVI follow 143.]
[22] [This argument is repeated in the next letter, printed in _The
Friend_.]
[23] [Coleridge did not publish this answer.]
[24] [Perhaps Robert Lloyd.]
[25] [Letters CLXXVII-CLXXX follow 146.]