CAMBRIDGE AND PANTISOCRACY
(1791 to 1795)
Come back into memory, like as thou wert in the day-spring of thy
fancies, with Hope like a fiery column before thee--the dark pillar
not yet turned--Samuel Taylor Coleridge--Logician, Metaphysician,
Bard!--
S. T. Coleridge entered at Jesus College, Cambridge, the 5th of
February, 1791. [He did not go into residence till October 1791.]
The poems he wrote about this time and during his first vacation at
College are rather conventional, and give few indications of his future
deft handling of verse. His "Mathematical Problem" sent to his brother
George, is a piece of droll nonsense, but the letter accompanying it is
much better than the verse. It reads as follows:
LETTER 6. TO GEORGE COLERIDGE, WITH A POEM ENTITLED "A MATHEMATICAL
PROBLEM"
Dear Brother,
I have often been surprised that Mathematics, the quintessence of Truth,
should have found admirers so few and so languid. Frequent consideration
and minute scrutiny have at length unravelled the cause; viz. that
though Reason is feasted, Imagination is starved; whilst Reason is
luxuriating in its proper Paradise, Imagination is wearily travelling on
a dreary desert. To assist Reason by the stimulus of Imagination is the
design of the following production. In the execution of it much may be
objectionable. The verse (particularly in the introduction of the ode)
may be accused of unwarrantable liberties, but they are liberties
equally homogeneal with the exactness of Mathematical disquisition, and
the boldness of Pindaric daring. I have three strong champions to defend
me against the attacks of Criticism: the Novelty, the Difficulty, and
the Utility of the work. I may justly plume myself that I first have
drawn the nymph Mathesis from the visionary caves of abstracted idea,
and caused her to unite with Harmony. The first-born of this Union I now
present to you; with interested motives indeed--as I expect to receive
in return the more valuable offspring of your Muse.
Thine ever S. T. C.
Christ's Hospital, March 31, 1791. [1]
[Footnote 1: Letters VIII-XXXI follow No. 6 of our collection.]
The piece of doggerel, to which this epistle is a preface, will be found
in vol. ii, p. 386, of the Aldine Edition of Coleridge's Poems.
Coleridge's brother George also wrote verses, and "Mathematical Problem"
is just one of the cantrips in verse that passed between the brothers.]
He gained Sir William Browne's gold medal for the Greek Ode in the
summer of that year. It was on the Slave Trade. The poetic force and
originality of this Ode were, as he said himself, much beyond the
language in which they were conveyed. In the winter of 1792-3 he stood
for the University (Craven) Scholarship with Dr. Keate, the late
head-master of Eton, Mr. Bethell (of Yorkshire) and Bishop Butler, who
was the successful candidate. In 1793 he wrote without success for the
Greek Ode on Astronomy, the prize for which was gained by Dr. Keate. The
original is not known to exist, but the reader may see what is probably
a very free version of it by Mr. Southey in his Minor Poems. ("Poetical
Works", vol. ii, p. 170.) "Coleridge"--says a schoolfellow [1] of his
who followed him to Cambridge in 1792, "was very studious, but his
reading was desultory and capricious. He took little exercise merely for
the sake of exercise: but he was ready at any time to unbend his mind in
conversation; and, for the sake of this, his room, (the ground-floor
room on the right hand of the staircase facing the great gate,) was a
constant rendezvous of conversation-loving friends. I will not call them
loungers, for they did not call to kill time, but to enjoy it. What
evenings have I spent in those rooms! What little suppers, or "sizings",
as they were called, have I enjoyed; when Aeschylus, and Plato, and
Thucydides were pushed aside, with a pile of lexicons and the like, to
discuss the pamphlets of the day. Ever and anon a pamphlet issued from
the pen of Burke. There was no need of having the book before
us;--Coleridge had read it in the morning, and in the evening he would
repeat whole pages "verbatim"."--"College Reminiscences, Gentleman's
Mag"., Dec. 1834.
[Footnote 1: C. V. Le Grice.]
In May and June, 1793, Frend's trial took place in the Vice-
Chancellor's Court, and in the Court of Delegates, at Cambridge. Frend
was a Fellow of Jesus, and a slight acquaintance had existed between
him and Coleridge, who however soon became his partizan. Mr. C. used
to relate a remarkable incident, which is thus preserved by Mr.
Gillman:--"The trial was observed by Coleridge to be going against
Frend, when some observation or speech was made in his favour;--a
dying hope thrown out, as it appeared, to Coleridge, who in the midst
of the Senate House, whilst sitting on one of the benches, extended
his hands and clapped them. The Proctor in a loud voice demanded who
had committed this indecorum. Silence ensued. The Proctor, in an
elevated tone, said to a young man sitting near Coleridge, "Twas you,
Sir!' The reply was as prompt as the accusation; for, immediately
holding out the stump of his right arm, it appeared that he had lost
his hand;--'I would, Sir,' said he, 'that I had the power!' That no
innocent person should incur blame, Coleridge went directly afterwards
to the Proctor, who told him that he saw him clap his hands, but fixed
on this person, who he knew had not the power. 'You have had,' said
he, 'a narrow escape.'"--"Life of S. T. C"., i, p. 55.
Coleridge passed the summer of 1793 at Ottery, and whilst there wrote
his "Songs of the Pixies" ("Poetical Works", i, p. 13), and some other
little pieces. He returned to Cambridge in October, but, in the
following month, in a moment of despondency and vexation of spirit,
occasioned principally by some debts not amounting to £100 he suddenly
left his college and went to London. In a few days he was reduced to
want, and observing a recruiting advertisement he resolved to get bread
and overcome a prejudice at the same time by becoming a soldier. He
accordingly applied to the sergeant, and after some delay was marched
down to Reading, where he regularly enlisted as a private in the 15th
Light Dragoons on the 3d of December, 1793. He kept his initials under
the names of Silas Tomkyn Comberbacke. "I sometimes," he writes in a
letter, "compare my own life with that of Steele, (yet O! how
unlike!)--led to this from having myself also for a brief time borne
arms, and written 'private' after my name, or rather another name; for,
being at a loss when suddenly asked my name, I answered "Cumberback",
and verily my habits were so little equestrian, that my horse, I doubt
not, was of that opinion." Coleridge continued four months a light
dragoon, during which time he saw and suffered much. He rode his horse
ill, and groomed him worse; but he made amends by nursing the sick, and
writing letters for the sound. His education was detected by one of his
officers, Captain Nathaniel Ogle, who observed the words,--"Eheu! quam
infortunii miserrimum est fuisse felicem!"--freshly written in pencil on
the stable-wall or door, and ascertained that Comberbacke was the
writer. But the termination of his military career was brought about by
a chance recognition in the street: his family was apprized of his
situation, and after some difficulty he was duly discharged on the both
of April, 1794, at Hounslow.
Coleridge now returned to Cambridge, and remained there till the
commencement of the summer vacation. But the adventures of the preceding
six months had broken the continuity of his academic life, and given
birth to new views of future exertion. His acquaintance with Frend had
materially contributed to his adoption of the system called
Unitarianism, which he now openly professed, and this alone made it
imperative on his conscience to decline availing himself of any
advantages dependent on his entering into holy orders, or subscribing
the Articles of the English Church. He lived, nevertheless, to see and
renounce his error, and to leave on record his deep and solemn faith in
the catholic doctrine of Trinal Unity, and the Redemption of man through
the sacrifice of Christ, both God and Man. Indeed his Unitarianism, such
as it was, was not of the ordinary quality. "I can truly say"--were
Coleridge's words in after life--"that I never falsified the Scripture.
I always told the Unitarians that their interpretations of the Scripture
were intolerable upon any principles of sound criticism; and that if
they were to offer to construe the will of a neighbour as they did that
of their Maker, they would be scouted out of society. I said then
plainly and openly that it was clear enough that John and Paul were not
Unitarians. But at that time I had a strong sense of the repugnancy of
the doctrine of vicarious atonement to the moral being, and I thought
nothing could counterbalance that. 'What care I,' I said, 'for the
Platonisms of John, or the Rabbinisms of Paul?--My conscience revolts!'
That was the ground of my Unitarianism."--"Table Talk", Bohn Library
edition, p. 290.
At the commencement of the Long Vacation, in June, 1794, Coleridge went
to Oxford on a visit to an old school-fellow, intending probably to
proceed afterwards to his mother at Ottery. But an accidental
introduction to Robert Southey, then an under-graduate at Balliol
College, first delayed, and ultimately prevented, the completion of this
design, and became, in its consequences, the hinge on which a large part
of Coleridge's after life was destined to turn.
The first letter to Southey was written from Gloucester on 6th July
1794, and it shows the degree of intimacy on which the two
undergraduates stood at this time. They had met only about a month
before, for Southey writes on 12th June to his friend Grosvenor Bedford:
"Allen is with us daily and his friend from Cambridge, Coleridge, whose
poems you will oblige me by subscribing to, either at Hookam's or
Edward's. He is of most uncommon merit, of the strongest genius, the
clearest judgment, the best heart. My friend he already is, and must
hereafter be yours," ("Life and Correspondence of Southey", i, 210). The
poems mentioned were a projected volume of "Imitations from Modern Latin
Poets", of which an ode after Casimir is the only relic. Coleridge's
first letter to Southey reads as follows:
LETTER 7. TO SOUTHEY
6 July 1794.
You are averse to gratitudinarian flourishes, else would I talk about
hospitality, attention, &c. &c.; however, as I must not thank you, I
will thank my stars. Verily, Southey, I like not Oxford, nor the
inhabitants of it. I would say thou art a nightingale among owls; but
thou art so songless and heavy towards night that I will rather liken
thee to the matin lark, thy "nest" is in a blighted cornfield, where the
sleepy poppy nods its red-cowled head, and the weak-eyed mole plies his
dark work; but thy soaring is even unto heaven. Or let me add (for my
appetite for similes is truly canine at this moment), that as the
Italian nobles their new-fashioned doors, so thou dost make the
adamantine gate of Democracy turn on its golden hinges to most sweet
music. [1]
[Footnote 1: Letter XXXII gives the full text of No. 7. Letter XXXIII is dated
15 July, 1794.]
For the next fifteen months Coleridge and Southey were close companions,
Coleridge being the elder by two years.
Upon the present occasion, however, he left Oxford with an acquaintance,
Mr. Hucks, for a pedestrian tour in Wales. [2] Two other friends,
Brookes and Berdmore, joined them in the course of their ramble; and at
Caernarvon Mr. Coleridge wrote the following letter to Mr. Martin, of
Jesus College.
[Footnote 2: It is to this tour that he refers in the "Table Talk", p.
88.--"I took the thought of "grinning for joy" in that poem ("The
Ancient Mariner") from my companion (Berdmore's) remark to me, when we
had climbed to the top of Penmaenmaur, and were nearly dead with thirst.
We could not speak from the constriction, till we found a little puddle
under a stone. He said to me,--'You grinned like an idiot.' He had done
the same."]
LETTER 8. To HENRY MARTIN [1]
July 22d, 1794.
Dear Martin,
From Oxford to Gloucester,+ to Ross,+ to Hereford, to Leominster, to
Bishop's Castle,+ to Montgomery, to Welshpool, Llanvelling,+ Llangunnog,
Bala,+ Druid House,+ Llangollin, Wrexham,++ Ruthin, Denbigh,+ St. Asaph,
Holywell,+ Rudland, Abergeley,+ Aberconway,+ Abber,+ over a ferry to
Beaumaris+ (Anglesea), Amlock,+ Copper Mines, Gwindu, Moeldon, over a
ferry to Caernarvon, have I journeyed, now philosophizing with Hucks, 1
now melancholizing by myself, or else indulging those daydreams of
fancy, that make realities more gloomy. To whatever place I have affixed
the mark +, there we slept. The first part of our tour was intensely
hot--the roads, white and dazzling, seemed to undulate with heat--and
the country, bare and unhedged, presenting nothing but stone fences,
dreary to the eye and scorching to the touch. At Ross we took up our
quarters at the King's Arms, once the house of Mr. Kyrle, the celebrated
Man of Ross. I gave the window-shutter a few verses, Which I shall add
to the end of the letter. The walk from Llangunnog to Bala over the
mountains was most wild and romantic; there are immense and rugged
clefts in the mountains, which in winter must form cataracts most
tremendous; now there is just enough sun-glittering water dashed down
over them to soothe, not disturb the ear. I climbed up a precipice on
which was a large thorn-tree, and slept by the side of one of them near
two hours.
At Bala I was apprehensive that I had caught the itch from a Welsh
democrat, who was charmed with my sentiments; he bruised my hand with a
grasp of ardour, and I trembled lest some discontented citizens of the
"animalcular" republic might have emigrated. Shortly after, in came a
clergyman well dressed, and with him four other gentlemen. I was asked
for a public character; I gave Dr. Priestley. The clergyman whispered
his neighbour, who it seems is the apothecary of the
parish--"Republicans!" Accordingly when the doctor, as they call
apothecaries, was to have given a name, "I gives a sentiment, gemmen!
may all republicans be "gull"oteened!" Up starts the democrat; "May all
fools be gulloteened, and then you will be the first!" Fool, rogue,
traitor, liar, &c. flew in each other's faces in hailstorms of
vociferation. This is nothing in Wales--they make if necessary
vent-holes for the sulphureous fumes of their temper! I endeavoured to
calm the tempest by observing that however different our political
opinions might be, the appearance of a clergyman assured me that we were
all Christians, though I found it rather difficult to reconcile the last
sentiment with the spirit of Christianity! "Pho!" quoth the clergyman;
"Christianity! Why we a'nt at "church" now, are we? The gentleman's
sentiment was a very good one, because it shows him to be sincere in his
principles." Welsh politics, however, could not prevail over Welsh
hospitality; they all shook hands with me (except the parson), and said
I was an open-speaking, honest-hearted fellow, though I was a bit of a
democrat.
On our road from Bala to Druid House, we met Brookes and Berdmore. Our
rival pedestrians, a "Gemini" of Powells, were vigorously marching
onward, in a postchaise! Berdmore had been ill. We were not a little
glad to see each other. Llangollen is a village most romantically
situated; but the weather was so intensely hot that we saw only what was
to be admired--we could not admire.
At Wrexham the tower is most magnificent; and in the church is a white
marble monument of Lady Middleton, superior, "mea quidem sententia", to
anything in Westminster Abbey. It had entirely escaped my memory, that
Wrexham was the residence of a Miss E. Evans, a young lady with whom in
happier days I had been in habits of fraternal correspondence; she lives
with her grandmother. As I was standing at the window of the inn, she
passed by, and with her, to my utter astonishment, her sister, Mary
Evans, "quam afflictim et perdite amabam",--yea, even to anguish. They
both started, and gave a short cry, almost a faint shriek; I sickened,
and well nigh fainted, but instantly retired. Had I appeared to
recognise her, my fortitude would not have supported me:
Vivit, sed mihi non vivit--nova forte marita.
Ah, dolor! alterius nunc a cervice pependit.
Vos, malefida valete accensae insomnia mentis,
Littora amata valete; vale ah! formosa Maria.
Hucks informed me that the two sisters walked by the window four or five
times, as if anxiously. Doubtless they think themselves deceived by some
face strikingly like me. God bless her! Her image is in the sanctuary of
my bosom, and never can it be torn from thence, but by the strings that
grapple my heart to life! This circumstance made me quite ill. I had
been wandering among the wild-wood scenery and terrible graces of the
Welsh mountains to wear away, not to revive, the images of the
past;--but love is a local anguish; I am fifty miles distant, and am not
half so miserable.
At Denbigh is the finest ruined castle in the kingdom; it surpassed
everything I could have conceived. I wandered there two hours in a still
evening, feeding upon melancholy. Two well dressed young men were
roaming there. "I will play my flute here," said the first; "it will
have a romantic effect." "Bless thee, man of genius and sensibility," I
silently exclaimed. He sate down amid the most awful part of the ruins;
the moon just began to make her rays pre-dominant over the lingering
daylight; I preattuned my feelings to emotion;--and the romantic youth
instantly struck up the sadly pleasing tunes of "Miss Carey"--"The
British Lion is my sign--A roaring trade I drive on", &c.
Three miles from Denbigh, on the road to St. Asaph, is a fine bridge
with one arch of great, great grandeur. Stand at a little distance, and
through it you see the woods waving on the hill-bank of the river in a
most lovely point of view.
A "beautiful" prospect is always more picturesque when seen at some
little distance through an arch. I have frequently thought of Michael
Taylor's way of viewing a landscape between his thighs. Under the arch
was the most perfect echo I ever heard. Hucks sang "Sweet Echo" with
great effect.
At Holywell I bathed in the famous St. Winifred's Well. It is an
excellent cold bath. At Rudland is a fine ruined castle. Abergeley is a
large village on the sea-coast. Walking on the sea sands I was surprised
to see a number of fine women bathing promiscuously with men and boys
perfectly naked. Doubtless the citadels of their chastity are so
impregnably strong, that they need not the ornamental bulwarks of
modesty; but, seriously speaking, where sexual distinctions are least
observed, men and women live together in the greatest purity.
Concealment sets the imagination a-working, and as it were,
"cantharadizes" our desires.
Just before I quitted Cambridge, I met a countryman with a strange
walking-stick, five feet in length. I eagerly bought it, and a most
faithful servant it has proved to me. My sudden affection for it has
mellowed into settled friendship. On the morning of our leaving
Abergeley, just before our final departure, I looked for my stick in the
place in which I had left it over night. It was gone. I alarmed the
house; no one knew any thing of it. In the flurry of anxiety I sent for
the Crier of the town, and gave him the following to cry about the town
and the beach, which he did with a gravity for which I am indebted to
his stupidity.
"Missing from the Bee Inn, Abergeley, a curious walking-stick. On one
side it displays the head of an eagle, the eyes of which represent
rising suns, and the ears Turkish crescents; on the other side is the
portrait of the owner in wood-work. Beneath the head of the eagle is a
Welsh wig, and around the neck of the stick is a Queen Elizabeth's ruff
in tin. All down it waves the line of beauty in very ugly carving. If
any gentleman (or lady) has fallen in love with the above described
stick, and secretly carried off the same, he (or she) is hereby
earnestly admonished to conquer a passion, the continuance of which must
prove fatal to his (or her) honesty. And if the said stick has slipped
into such gentleman's (or lady's) hand through inadvertence, he (or she)
is required to rectify the mistake with all convenient speed. God save
the king."
Abergeley is a fashionable Welsh watering place, and so singular a
proclamation excited no small crowd on the beach, among the rest a lame
old gentleman, in whose hands was descried my dear stick. The old
gentleman, who lodged at our inn, felt great confusion, and walked
homewards, the solemn Crier before him, and a various cavalcade behind
him. I kept the muscles of my face in tolerable subjection. He made his
lameness an apology for borrowing my stick, supposed he should have
returned before I had wanted it, &c. &c. Thus it ended, except that a
very handsome young lady put her head out of a coach-window, and begged
my permission to have the bill which I had delivered to the Crier. I
acceded to the request with a compliment, that lighted up a blush on her
cheek, and a smile on her lip.
We passed over a ferry to Aberconway. We had scarcely left the boat ere
we descried Brookes and Berdmore, with whom we have joined parties, nor
do we mean to separate. Our tour through Anglesea to Caernarvon has been
repaid by scarcely one object worth seeing. To-morrow we visit Snowdon.
Brookes, Berdmore, and myself, at the imminent hazard of our lives,
scaled the very summit of Penmaenmaur. It was a most dreadful
expedition. I will give you the account in some future letter.
I sent for Bowles's Works while at Oxford. How was I shocked! Every
omission and every alteration disgusted taste, and mangled sensibility.
Surely some Oxford toad had been squatting at the poet's ear, and
spitting into it the cold venom of dulness. It is not Bowles; he is
still the same, (the added poems will prove it) descriptive, dignified,
tender, sublime. The sonnets added are exquisite. Abba Thule has marked
beauties, and the little poem at Southampton is a diamond; in whatever
light you place it, it reflects beauty and splendour. The "Shakespeare"
is sadly unequal to the rest. Yet in whose poems, except those of
Bowles, would it not have been excellent? Direct to me, to be left at
the Post Office, Bristol, and tell me everything about yourself, how you
have spent the vacation, &c.
Believe me, with gratitude and fraternal friendship,
Your obliged S. T. COLERIDGE.
[Footnote 1: Long portions of this letter appear in a letter to Southey
of 15 September 1794. See "Letters", p. 74.]
[Footnote 2: Hucks published, in 1795, an account of the holiday
entitled "Tour in North Wales".]
On his return from this excursion Coleridge went, by appointment, to
Bristol for the purpose of meeting Southey, whose person and
conversation had excited in him the most lively admiration. This was at
the end of August or beginning of September. Southey, whose mother then
lived at Bath, came over to Bristol accordingly to receive his new
friend, who had left as deep an impression on him, and in that city
introduced Coleridge to Robert Lovell, a young Quaker, then recently
married to Mary Fricker, and residing in the Old Market. After a short
stay at Bristol, where he first saw Sarah Fricker, Mrs. Lovell's elder
sister, Coleridge accompanied Southey on his return to Bath. There he
remained for some weeks, principally engaged in making love, and in
maturing, with his friend, the plan, which he had for some time
cherished, of a social community to be established in America upon what
he termed a pantisocratical basis.
Much discussion has taken place regarding the origin of Pantisocracy,
most writers on the subject attributing the scheme to Coleridge. A
perusal of the letters of Southey, however, leads to a different
conclusion. Southey was enamoured during his stay at Oxford with Plato,
and especially with the "Republic" of the Greek philosopher; and he
frequently quotes from the work or refers to its principles in his
correspondence with Grosvenor and Horace W. Bedford between 11th
November 1793 and 12th June 1794. Before his meeting with Southey no
trace of ideal Republicanism appears in the letters of Coleridge. His
leaning notwithstanding this was already towards Republicanism, and the
friendship struck up between him and Southey was a natural consequence
of flint coming into contact with steel. The next two letters, to
Southey, indicate the fiery nature of the young Republicans.
LETTER 9. To SOUTHEY
6 Sept. 1794.
The day after my arrival I finished the first act: I transcribed it. The
next morning Franklin (of Pembroke Coll. Cam., a "ci-devant Grecian" of
our school--so we call the first boys) called on me, and persuaded me to
go with him and breakfast with Dyer, author of "The Complaints of the
Poor, A Subscription", &c. &c. I went; explained our system. He was
enraptured; pronounced it impregnable. He is intimate with Dr.
Priestley, and doubts not that the Doctor will join us. He showed me
some poetry, and I showed him part of the first act, which I happened to
have about me. He liked it hugely; it was "a nail that would drive...."
Every night I meet a most intelligent young man, who has spent the last
five years of his life in America, and is lately come from thence as an
agent to sell land. He was of our school. I had been kind to him: he
remembers it, and comes regularly every evening to "benefit by
conversation," he says. He says £2,000 will do; that he doubts not we
can contract for our passage under £400; that we shall buy the land a
great deal cheaper when we arrive at America than we could do in
England; "or why," he adds, "am I sent over here?" That twelve men may
"easily" clear 300 acres in four or five months; and that, for 600
dollars, a thousand acres may be cleared, and houses built on them. He
recommends the Susquehanna, from its excessive beauty and its security
from hostile Indians. Every possible assistance will be given us; we may
get credit for the land for ten years or more, as we settle upon. That
literary characters make "money" there: &c. &c. He never saw a "bison"
in his life, but has heard of them: they are quite backwards. The
mosquitos are not so bad as our gnats; and, after you have been there a
little while, they don't trouble you much.
LETTER 10. TO SOUTHEY
18 Sept. 1794.
Since I quitted this room what and how important events have been
evolved! America! Southey! Miss Fricker!... Pantisocracy! Oh! I shall
have such a scheme of it! My head, my heart, are all alive. I have drawn
up my arguments in battle array: they shall have the "tactician"
excellence of the mathematician, with the enthusiasm of the poet. The
head shall be the mass; the heart, the fiery spirit that fills, informs
and agitates the whole. SHAD GOES WITH US: HE IS MY BROTHER!! I am
longing to be with you: make Edith my sister. Surely, Southey, we shall
be frendotatoi meta frendous--most friendly where all are friends. She
must, therefore, be more emphatically my sister.... C----, the most
excellent, the most Pantisocratic of aristocrats, has been laughing at
me. Up I arose, terrible is reasoning. He fled from me, because "he
would not answer for his own sanity, sitting so near a madman of
genius." He told me that the strength of my imagination had intoxicated
my reason, and that the acuteness of my reason had given a directing
influ-* *ence to my imagination. Four months ago the remark would not
have been more elegant than just: now it is nothing. [1]
[Footnote 1: This letter is given in full in "Letters", No. XXXIV.]
These letters show that Pantisocracy was now the all absorbing topic.
The following letter written at this time by Coleridge to Mr. Charles
Heath, of Monmouth, is a curious evidence of his earnestness upon this
subject:
LETTER 11. To CHARLES HEATH OF MONMOUTH [1]
(----1794).
Sir,
Your brother has introduced my name to you; I shall therefore offer no
apology for this letter. A small but liberalized party have formed a
scheme of emigration on the principles of an abolition of individual
property. Of their political creed, and the arguments by which they
support and elucidate it they are preparing a few copies--not as meaning
to publish them, but for private distribution. In this work they will
have endeavoured to prove the exclusive justice of the system and its
practicability; nor will they have omitted to sketch out the code of
contracts necessary for the internal regulation of the Society; all of
which will of course be submitted to the improvements and approbation of
each component member. As soon as the work is printed, one or more
copies shall be transmitted to you. Of the characters of the individuals
who compose the party I find it embarrassing to speak; yet, vanity
apart, I may assert with truth that they have each a sufficient strength
of head to make the virtues of the heart respectable, and that they are
all highly charged with that enthusiasm which results from strong
perceptions of moral rectitude, called into life and action by ardent
feelings. With regard to pecuniary matters it is found necessary, if
twelve men with their families emigrate on this system, that £2,000
should be the aggregate of their contributions--but infer not from hence
that each man's "quota" is to be settled with the littleness of
arithmetical accuracy. No; all will strain every nerve; and then, I
trust, the surplus money of some will supply the deficiencies of others.
The "minutiae" of topographical information we are daily endeavouring to
acquire; at present our plan is, to settle at a distance, but at a
convenient distance, from Cooper's Town on the banks of the Susquehanna.
This, however, will be the object of future investigation. For the time
of emigration we have fixed on next March. In the course of the winter
those of us whose bodies, from habits of sedentary study or academic
indolence, have not acquired their full tone and strength, intend to
learn the theory and practice of agriculture and carpentry, according as
situation and circumstances make one or the other convenient.
Your fellow Citizen, S. T. COLERIDGE. [Footnote: Letter XXXV is dated 19
Sept. 1794.]
[Footnote 1: One of the Pantisocrats.]
The members of the society at that time were Coleridge himself, Southey,
Lovell, and George Burnett, a Somersetshire youth and fellow collegian
with Southey. Toward the beginning of September, Coleridge left Bath and
went, for the last time, as a student, to Cambridge, apparently with the
view of taking his degree of B.A. after the ensuing Christmas. Here he
published "The Fall of Robespierre" ("Lit. Remains", i, p.
1), of which the first act was written by himself, and the second and
third by Mr. Southey, and the particulars of the origin and authorship
of which may be found stated in an extract from a letter of Mr.
Southey's there printed. The dedication to Mr. Martin is dated at Jesus
College, 22nd of September 1794.
[The following is the Dedication:]
LETTER 12. To HENRY MARTIN, ESQ., OF JESUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.
DEDICATORY LETTER TO THE "FALL OF ROBESPIERRE," A DRAMA IN THREE ACTS BY
COLERIDGE AND SOUTHEY.
Dear Sir,
Accept as a small testimony of my grateful attachment, the following
Dramatic Poem, in which I have endeavoured to detail, in an interesting
form, the fall of a man whose great bad actions have cast a disastrous
lustre on his name. In the execution of the work, as intricacy of plot
could not have been attempted without a gross violation of recent facts,
it has been my sole aim to imitate the impassioned and highly figurative
language of the French Orators, and to develop the characters of the
chief actors on a vast stage of horrors.
Yours fraternally, S. T. COLERIDGE.
Jesus College, September 22, 1794.
[Note: Letters XXXVI-XLII follow No. 12.]
This dedicatory letter is no doubt an apology for a play destitute of
dramatic art. The declamatory speeches may be an intentional imitation
of the harangues of the Revolutionaries, but they are more likely to be
the product of the inflation of youth. The redeeming feature of the play
is the beautiful little lyric, "Domestic Peace", which is in rhythm
an imitation of Collins' "How Sleep the Brave".
The scheme of Pantisocracy was not much further forward at the close of
1794 than it had been in the summer; and Southey had been advised to try
it in Wales instead of on the banks of the Susquehanna. Coleridge writes
in December:
LETTER 13. TO SOUTHEY
--Dec. 1794.
For God's sake, my dear fellow, tell me what we are to gain by taking a
Welsh farm? Remember the principles and proposed consequences of
Pantisocracy, and reflect in what degree they are attainable by
Coleridge, Southey, Lovell, Burnett, and Co., some five men _going
partners_ together! In the next place, supposing that we have found
the preponderating utility of our aspheterising in Wales, let us by our
speedy and united inquiries discover the sum of money necessary. Whether
such a farm with so very large a house is to be procured without
launching our frail and unpiloted bark on a rough sea of anxieties? How
much money will be necessary for "furnishing" so large a house? How much
necessary for the maintenance of so large a family--eighteen people--for
a year at least?]
[Note: Letters XLIII gives the full text of this Letter 13. Letters
XLIV-L follow 13.]
In January 1795, he was to return--and then with Spring breezes to
repair to the banks of the Susquehanna! But his fate withstood;--he took
no degree, nor ever crossed the Atlantic. Michaelmas Term, 1794, was the
last he kept at Cambridge; the vacation following was passed in London
with Charles Lamb, and in the beginning of 1795 he returned with Southey
to Bristol, and there commenced man.
The whole spring and summer of this year he devoted to public Lectures
at Bristol, making in the intervals several excursions in Somersetshire,
one memorial of which remains in the "Lines composed while climbing
Brockley Combe". It was in one of these excursions that Mr. Coleridge
and Mr.Wordsworth first met at the house of Mr. Pinney. [1] The first
six of those Lectures constituted a course presenting a comparative view
of the Civil War under Charles I and the French Revolution. Three of
them, or probably the substance of four or five, were published at
Bristol in the latter end of 1795, the first two together, with the
title of "Conciones ad Populum", and the third with that of "The Plot
Discovered". The eloquent passage in conclusion of the first of these
Addresses was written by Mr. Southey. The tone throughout them all is
vehemently hostile to the policy of the great minister of that day; but
it is equally opposed to the spirit and maxims of Jacobinism. It was
late in life that, after a reperusal of these "Conciones", Coleridge
wrote on a blank page of one of them the following words:--"Except the
two or three pages involving the doctrine of philosophical necessity and
Unitarianism, I see little or nothing in these outbursts of my youthful
zeal to retract; and with the exception of some flame-coloured epithets
applied to persons, as to Mr. Pitt and others, or rather to
personifications--(for such they really were to me)--as little to
regret."
Another course of six Lectures followed, "On Revealed Religion, its
corruptions, and its political views". The Prospectus states--"that
these Lectures are intended for two classes of men, Christians and
Infidels;--the former, that they may be able to "give a reason for the
hope that is in them";--the latter, that they may not determine against
Christianity from arguments applicable to its corruptions only." Nothing
remains of these Addresses, nor of two detached Lectures on the Slave
Trade and the Hair Powder Tax, which were delivered in the interval
between the two principal courses. They were all very popular amongst
the opponents of the Governments; and those on religion in particular
were highly applauded by his Unitarian auditors, amongst whom Dr. and
Mrs. Estlin and Mr. Hort were always remembered by Coleridge with regard
and esteem.
The Transatlantic scheme, though still a favourite subject of
conversation, was now in effect abandoned by these young Pantisocrats.
Mr. C. was married at St. Mary Redcliff Church to Sarah Fricker on the
4th of October, 1795, and went to reside in a cottage at Clevedon on the
Bristol Channel; and six weeks afterwards Mr. Southey was also married
to Edith Fricker, and left Bristol on the same day on his route to
Portugal. At Clevedon Mr. and Mrs. Coleridge resided with one of Mrs.
C.'s unmarried sisters and Burnett until the beginning of December.
[Footnote 1: This statement of H. N. Coleridge, and a remark by
Wordsworth in a letter to Wrangham of November 20th, 1795, are the only
evidence on which rests the belief that Coleridge and Wordsworth met
before 1797. The letter is quoted in the "Athenaeum" of December 8th,
1894. See also Letter LXXXI, to Estlin, May 1798.]