THE WATCHMAN
(1795 to 1796)
Ah! quiet dell! dear cot, and mount sublime!
I was constrained to quit you. Was it right,
While my unnumbered brethren toiled and bled,
That I should dream away th' entrusted hours
On rose-leaf beds pampering the coward heart
With feelings all too delicate for use?
* * * * *
I therefore go, and join head, heart and hand
Active and firm, to fight the bloodless fight
Of science, freedom, and the truth in Christ.
Coleridge had in the course of the summer of 1795 become acquainted with
that excellent and remarkable man, the late Thomas Poole of Nether
Stowey, Somerset. In a letter written to him on the 7th of October, C.
speaks of the prospect from his cottage, and of his future plans in the
following way:
LETTER 14. To THOMAS POOLE
My Dear Sir,
God bless you-or rather God be praised for that he has blessed you! On
Sunday morning I was married at St. Mary's, Redcliff--from Chatterton's
church. The thought gave a tinge of melancholy to the solemn joy which I
felt, united to the woman, whom I love best of all created beings. We
are settled, nay, quite domesticated, at Clevedon,--our comfortable
cot! * * * The prospect around is perhaps more various than any in the
kingdom: mine eye gluttonizes. The sea, the distant islands, the
opposite coast!--I shall assuredly write rhymes, let the nine Muses
prevent it if they can. * * * I have given up all thoughts of the
Magazine for various reasons. It is a thing of monthly anxiety and
quotidian bustle. To publish a Magazine for one year would be nonsense,
and, if I pursue what I mean to pursue, my school-plan, I could not
publish it for more than one year. In the course of half a year I mean
to return to Cambridge--having previously taken my name off from the
University's control--and, hiring lodgings there for myself and wife,
finish my great work of "Imitations" in two volumes. My former
works may, I hope, prove somewhat of genius and of erudition; this will
be better; it will show great industry and manly consistency. At the end
of it I shall publish proposals for a School. * * * My next letter will
be long and full of something;--this is inanity and egotism. * * Believe
me, dear Poole, your affectionate and mindful--friend, shall I so soon
have to say? Believe me my heart prompts it. [1] S. T. COLERIDGE!
In spite of this letter Coleridge had not abandoned the project of
starting a magazine. His school-plan, as well as a project to become
tutor to the sons of the Earl of Buchan at Edinburgh (see Letter to
George Dyer, "Bookman" for May 1910), came to nothing. A meeting
was held among his chief friends "one evening," says Cottle, "at the
Rummer Tavern, to determine on the size, price, and time of publishing,
with all other preliminaries essential to the launching this first-rate
vessel on the mighty deep. Having heard of the circumstance the next
day, I rather wondered at not having also been requested to attend, and
while ruminating on the subject, I received from Mr. C. the following
communication."
[Footnote 1: Letter LI is our No. 14. LII is dated 13 November 1795.]
LETTER 15. To COTTLE
(--Dec. 1795).
My dear Friend,
I am fearful that you felt hurt at my not mentioning to you the proposed
"Watchman", and from my not requesting you to attend the meeting.
My dear friend, my reasons were these. All who met were expected to
become subscribers to a fund; I knew there would be enough without you,
and I knew, and felt, how much money had been drawn from you lately.
God Almighty love you!
S. T. C.
"It is unknown," says Cottle, "when the following letter was received
(although quite certain that it was not the evening in which Mr.
Coleridge wrote his "Ode to the Departing Year"), and it is printed
in this place at something of an uncertainty." The probable date is 1
January 1796.
LETTER 16. To COTTLE
January 1st (1796).
My dear Cottle,
I have been forced to disappoint not only you, but Dr. Beddoes, on an
affair of some importance. Last night I was induced by strong and joint
solicitation, to go to a cardclub to which Mr. Morgan belongs, and,
after the playing was over, to sup, and spend the remainder of the
night: having made a previous compact, that I should not drink; however
just on the verge of twelve, I was desired to drink only one wine glass
of punch, in honour of the departing year; and, after twelve, one other
in honour of the new year. Though the glasses were very small, yet such
was the effect produced during my sleep, that I awoke unwell, and in
about twenty minutes after had a relapse of my bilious complaint. I am
just now recovered, and with care, I doubt not, shall be as well as ever
to-morrow. If I do not see you then, it will be from some relapse, which
I have no reason, thank heaven, to anticipate.
Yours affectionately,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
[The Mr. Morgan referred to in the above letter was John James Morgan
with whom Coleridge afterwards lived in London, at Hammersmith, and at
Calne. Dr. Beddoes was the founder of the Pneumatic Institution, and the
friend of the Wedgwoods and Humphry Davy; and it was he who was
instrumental in introducing Coleridge to these acquaintances.]
The monthly anxiety of a Magazine justly alarmed Coleridge on the 7th of
October; yet in the December following he courageously engaged to
conduct a weekly political Miscellany. This was _The Watchman_, of
which the following Prospectus was in that month printed and circulated.
"To supply at once the places of a Review, Newspaper, and Annual
Register.
"On Tuesday, the ist of March, 1796, will be published No. 1. price
fourpence, of a Miscellany, to be continued every eighth day, under the
name of "The Watchman", by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. This Miscellany
will be comprised in two sheets, or thirty-two pages, closely printed in
8vo; the type, long primer. Its contents, 1:--A history of the domestic
and foreign policy of the preceding days. 2:--The speeches in both
Houses of Parliament; and, during the recess, select parliamentary
speeches from the commencement of the reign of Charles I. to the present
æra, with notes historical and biographical. 3:--Original essays and
poetry. 4:--Review of interesting and important publications. Its
advantages, 1. There being no advertisements, a greater quantity of
original matter will be given, and the speeches in Parliament will be
less abridged. 2. From its form it may be bound up at the end of a year,
and become an Annual Register. 3. This last circumstance may induce men
of letters to prefer this Miscellany to more perishable publications as
the vehicle of their effusions. 4. Whenever the Ministerial and
Opposition prints differ in their accounts of occurrences, etc. such
difference will always be faithfully stated."
Mr. C. went to Bristol in the beginning of December for the purpose of
arranging the preliminaries of this undertaking, and at the close of
the month he set off upon the tour mentioned in Chapter X of the
"Biographia Literaria", to collect subscribers. It will be
remembered that he was at this time a professed Unitarian; and the
project of becoming a minister of that persuasion seems to have passed
through his head. He had previously preached, for the first time, two
sermons at Mr. Jardine's Chapel in Bath, the subjects being the Corn
Laws and the Hair Powder Tax. He appeared in the pulpit in a blue coat
and white waistcoat, and, according to Mr. Cottle's testimony, who was
present, Coleridge delivered himself languidly, and disappointed every
one. But there is no doubt that he subsequently preached upon many
occasions with very remarkable effect. The following extracts are from
letters written by Mr. C. in the month of January, 1796, during his tour
to his early and lasting friend, Mr. Josiah Wade of Bristol, and may
serve as a commentary on parts of the accounts given of the same tour in
the Biographia Literaria.
LETTER 17. To JOSIAH WADE
Worcester, January, 1796.
My dear Wade,
We were five in number, and twenty-five in quantity. The moment I
entered the coach, I stumbled on a huge projection, which might be
called a belly with the same propriety that you might name Mount Atlas a
mole-hill. Heavens! that a man should be unconscionable enough to enter
a stage coach, who would want elbow room if he were walking on Salisbury
Plain.
The said citizen was a most violent aristocrat, but a pleasant humorous
fellow in other respects, and remarkably well informed in agricultural
science; so that the time passed pleasantly enough. We arrived at
Worcester at half-past two: I, of course, dined at the inn, where I met
Mr. Stevens. After dinner I christianized myself, that is, washed and
changed, and marched in finery and clean linen to High Street. With
regard to business, there is no chance of doing anything at Worcester.
The aristocrats are so numerous, and the influence of the clergy is so
extensive, that Mr. Barr thinks no bookseller will venture to publish
"The Watchman". ***
S. T. COLERIDGE.
P.S.--I hope and trust the young citizeness is well, and also Mrs. Wade.
Give my love to the latter, and a kiss for me to Miss Bratinella.
LETTER 18
Birmingham, January, 1796.
My dear Friend,
*** My exertions here have been incessant, for in whatever company I go,
I am obliged to be the figurante of the circle. Yesterday I preached
twice, and, indeed, performed the whole service, morning and afternoon.
There were about 1,400 persons present, and my sermons, (great part
extempore,) were preciously peppered with politics. I have here at least
double the number of subscribers I had expected. * * *
[It was at Birmingham that Coleridge met the Tallow Chandler whom he has
immortalized in his "Biographia Literaria". The sketch of the "taperman
of lights" is one of the masterpieces of English humour.]
LETTER 19. To JOSIAH WADE
Nottingham, January, 1796.
My dear Friend,
You will perceive by this letter I have changed my route. From
Birmingham on Friday last (four o'clock in the morning), I proceeded to
Derby, stayed there till Monday morning, and am now at Nottingham. From
Nottingham I go to Sheffield; from Sheffield to Manchester; from
Manchester to Liverpool; from Liverpool to London; from London to
Bristol. Ah, what a weary way! My poor crazy ark has been tossed to and
fro on an ocean of business, and I long for the Mount Ararat on which it
is to rest. At Birmingham I was extremely unwell; a violent cold in my
head and limbs confined me for two days. Business succeeded very
well;--about a hundred subscribers I think.
At Derby, also, I succeeded tolerably well. Mr. (Joseph) Strutt, the
successor of Sir Richard Arkwright, tells me I may count on forty or
fifty in Derby. Derby is full of curiosities;--the cotton and silk
mills; Wright the painter, and Dr. Darwin,[l] the every thing
but Christian. Dr. Darwin possesses, perhaps, a greater range of
knowledge than any other man in Europe, and is the most inventive of
philosophical men. He thinks in a new train on all subjects but
religion. He bantered me on the subject of religion. I heard all his
arguments, and told him it was infinitely consoling to me, to find that
the arguments of so great a man, adduced against the existence of a God,
and the evidences of revealed religion, were such as had startled me at
fifteen, but had become the objects of my smile at twenty. Not one new
objection--not even an ingenious one! He boasted "that he had never read
one book in favour of such stuff, but that he had read all the works of
Infidels!"
What would you think, Mr. Wade, of a man who, having abused and
ridiculed you, should openly declare that he had heard all that your
enemies had to say against you, but had scorned to inquire the truth
from any one of your friends? Would you think him an honest man? I am
sure you would not. Yet such are all the Infidels whom I have known.
They talk of a subject, yet are proud to confess themselves profoundly
ignorant of it. Dr. Darwin would have been ashamed to reject Hutton's
theory of the Earth without having minutely examined it;--yet what is
it to us, how the earth was made, a thing impossible to be known? This
system the Doctor did not reject without having severely studied it;
but all at once he makes up his mind on such important subjects, as
whether we be the outcasts of a blind idiot called Nature,[2] or the
children of an All wise and Infinitely Good God!--whether we spend a
few miserable years on this earth, and then sink into a clod of the
valley; or endure the anxieties of mortal life, only to fit us for the
enjoyment of immortal happiness! These subjects are unworthy a
philosopher's investigation! He deems that there is a certain self-
evidence in Infidelity, and becomes an Atheist by intuition. Well did
St. Paul say, "ye have an evil heart of unbelief".
* * * What lovely children Mr. Barr of Worcester has! After church, in
the evening, they sat round and sang hymns so sweetly that they
overpowered me. It was with great difficulty that I abstained from
weeping aloud; and the infant in Mrs. B.'s arms leaned forward, and
stretched his little arms, and stared, and smiled. It seemed a picture
of heaven, where the different Orders of the blessed join different
voices in one melodious hallelujah; and the babe looked like a young
spirit just that moment arrived in heaven, startled at the seraphic
songs, and seized at once with wonder and rapture. * * *
From your affectionate friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
[Footnote 1: Erasmus Darwin, 1731-1802.]
[Footnote 2: See poem, "Human Life", written about 1815.]
LETTER 20
Sheffield, January, 1796.
My very dear Friend,
I arrived at this place late last night by the mail from Nottingham,
where I have been treated with kindness and friendship, of which I can
give you but a faint idea. I preached a charity sermon there last
Sunday. I preached in coloured clothes. With regard to the gown at
Birmingham (of which you inquire), I suffered myself to be
over-persuaded. First of all, my sermon being of so political a
tendency, had I worn my blue coat, it would have impugned Edwards. They
would have said, he had stuck a political lecturer in his pulpit.
Secondly, the society is of all sorts,--Socinians, Arians, Trinitarians,
etc., and I must have shocked a multitude of prejudices. And thirdly,
there is a difference between an inn and a place of residence. In the
first, your example is of little consequence; in a single instance only,
it ceases to operate as example; and my refusal would have been imputed
to affectation, or an unaccommodating spirit.
Assuredly I would not do it in a place where I intended to preach often.
And even in the vestry at Birmingham, when they at last persuaded me, I
told them I was acting against my better knowledge, and should possibly
feel uneasy afterwards. So these accounts of the matter you must
consider as reasons and palliations, concluding, "I plead guilty, my
Lord!" Indeed I want firmness; I perceive I do. I have that within me
which makes it difficult to say, No, repeatedly to a number of persons
who seem uneasy and anxious. * * *
My kind remembrances to Mrs. Wade. God bless her and you, and (like a
bad shilling slipped in between two guineas), your faithful and
affectionate friend, S. T. COLERIDGE.
[Note 1: Letter LIII is our 19.]
LETTER 21
Manchester, January 7, 1796. My dear Friend,
I arrived at Manchester last night from Sheffield, to which place I
shall only send about thirty numbers. I might have succeeded there, at
least equally well with the former towns, but I should injure the sale
of the "Iris", the editor of which paper, (a very amiable and
ingenious young man of the name of James Montgomery)[1] is now in prison
for a libel on a bloody-minded magistrate there. Of course I declined
publicly advertising or disposing of "The Watch man" in that town.
This morning I called on Mr. -------- with H.'s letter. Mr. ---------
received me as a rider, and treated me with insolence that was really
amusing from its novelty. "Overstocked with these articles. "---------"
People always setting up some new thing or other. "---------" I read the
"Star" and another paper: what could I want with this paper, which
is nothing more?"--"Well, well, I'll consider of it." To these
entertaining "bons mots" I returned the following repartee--"Good
morning, Sir." * * *
God bless you, S. T. C.
[Footnote 1: The Poet, 1771-1854.]
Mr. C. went to Liverpool and was as successful there as elsewhere
generally in procuring subscribers to "The Watchman". The late Dr.
Crompton found him out, and became his friend and patron. His exertions,
however, at Liverpool were suddenly stopped by news of the critical
state of Mrs. C.'s health, and a pressing request that he would
immediately return to Bristol, whither Mrs. C. had now gone from
Clevedon. Coleridge accordingly gave up his plan of visiting London, and
left Liverpool on his homeward trip. From Lichfield he wrote to Mr. Wade
the following letter:
LETTER 22
Lichfield, January, 1796.
My dear Friend,
* * * I have succeeded very well here at Lichfield. Belcher, bookseller,
Birmingham; Sutton, Nottingham; Pritchard, Derby; and Thomson,
Manchester; are the publishers. In every number of "The Watchman" there
will be printed these words, "Published in Bristol by the Author, S. T.
Coleridge, and sold, etc."
I verily believe no poor fellow's idea-pot ever bubbled up so vehemently
with fears, doubts, and difficulties, as mine does at present. Heaven
grant it may not boil over, and put out the fire! I am almost heartless.
My past life seems to me like a dream, a feverish dream--all one gloomy
huddle of strange actions and dim-discovered motives;--friendships lost
by indolence, and happiness murdered by mismanaged sensibility. The
present hour I seem in a quick-set hedge of embarrassments. For shame! I
ought not to mistrust God; but, indeed, to hope is far more difficult
than to fear. Bulls have horns, lions have talons:
The fox and statesman subtle wiles ensure,
The cit and polecat stink and are secure;
Toads with their venom, doctors with their drug,
The priest and hedgehog in their robes are snug.
Oh, Nature! cruel step-mother and hard
To thy poor naked, fenceless child, the bard!
No horns but those by luckless Hymen worn,
And those, alas! not Amalthaea's horn!
With naked feelings, and with aching pride,
He bears the unbroken blast on every side;
Vampire booksellers drain him to the heart,
And scorpion critics cureless venom dart.
S. T. C.
Coleridge on his return to Bristol resided for a short time on Redcliff
Hill, in a house occupied by Mrs. C.'s mother. He had procured upwards
of a thousand subscribers' names to "The Watchman", and had certainly
some ground for confidence in his future success. His tour had been a
triumph; and the impression made by his personal demeanour and
extraordinary eloquence was unprecedented, and such as was never effaced
from the recollection of those who met with him at this period. He seems
to have employed the interval between his arrival in Bristol and the 1st
of March--the day fixed for the appearance of "The Watchman"--in
preparing for that work, and also in getting ready the materials of his
first volume of poems, the copyright of which was purchased by Mr.
Cottle for thirty guineas. Coleridge was a student all his life; he was
very rarely indeed idle in the common sense of the term; but he was
constitutionally indolent, averse from continuous exertion externally
directed, and consequently the victim of a procrastinating habit, the
occasion of innumerable distresses to himself and of endless solicitude
to his friends, and which materially impaired, though it could not
destroy, the operation and influence of his wonderful abilities. Hence,
also, the fits of deep melancholy which from time to time seized his
whole soul, during which he seemed an imprisoned man without hope of
liberty. In February, 1796, whilst his volume was in the press, he wrote
the following letter to Mr. Cottle:
LETTER 23
My dear Cottle,
I have this night and to-morrow for you, being alone, and my spirits
calm. I shall consult my poetic honour, and of course your interest,
more by staying at home than by drinking tea with you. I should be happy
to see my poems out even by next week, and I shall continue in stirrups,
that is, shall not dismount my Pegasus, till Monday morning, at which
time you will have to thank God for having done with your affectionate
friend always, but author evanescent,
S. T. C.
[The last letter is one of many short notes to Cottle explaining why he
was not making progress with the proposed volume of Poems. The next is
the concluding letter of the series, still apologizing for the delay.
LETTER 24. To COTTLE.
Stowey, (--Feb. 1796.)
My dear Cottle,
I feel it much, and very uncomfortable, that, loving you as a brother,
and feeling pleasure in pouring out my heart to you, I should so seldom
be able to write a letter to you, unconnected with business, and
uncontaminated with excuses and apologies. I give every moment I can
spare from my garden and the Reviews (i.e.) from my potatoes and meat to
the poem ("Religious Musings"), but I go on slowly, for I torture the
poem and myself with corrections; and what I write in an hour, I
sometimes take two or three days in correcting. You may depend on it,
the poem and prefaces will take up exactly the number of pages I
mentioned, and I am extremely anxious to have the work as perfect as
possible, and which I cannot do, if it be finished immediately. The
"Religious Musings" I have altered monstrously, since I read them to you
and received your criticisms. I shall send them to you in my next. The
Sonnets I will send you with the "Musings". God love you!
From your affectionate friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.]
Shortly afterwards, mistaking the object of a message from Mr. Cottle
for an application for "copy" for the press, Coleridge wrote the
following letter with reference to the painful subject:
LETTER 25
Redcliff Hill, February 22, 1796.
My dear Sir,
It is my duty and business to thank God for all his dispensations, and
to believe them the best possible; but, indeed, I think I should have
been more thankful, if He had made me a journeyman shoemaker, instead of
an author by trade. I have left my friends; I have left plenty; I have
left that ease which would have secured a literary immortality, and have
enabled me to give to the public works conceived in moments of
inspiration, and polished with leisurely solicitude; and, alas! for what
have I left them? For--who deserted me in the hour of distress, and for
a scheme of virtue impracticable and romantic! So I am forced to write
for bread--write the flights of poetic enthusiasm, when every minute I
am hearing a groan from my wife! Groans, and complaints, and sickness!
The present hour I am in a quick-set hedge of embarrassment, and,
whichever way I turn, a thorn runs into me. The future is cloud and
thick darkness. Poverty, perhaps, and the thin faces of them that want
bread looking up to me! Nor is this all. My happiest moments for
composition are broken in upon by the reflection that I must make haste.
"I am too late." "I am already months behind." "I have received my pay
beforehand."----O wayward and desultory spirit of Genius, ill can'st
thou brook a taskmaster! The tenderest touch from the hand of obligation
wounds thee like a scourge of scorpions!
I have been composing in the fields this morning, and came home to write
down the first rude sheet of my Preface, when I heard that your man had
brought a note from you. I have not seen it, but I guess its contents. I
am writing as fast as I can. Depend on it, you shall not be out of
pocket for me. I feel what I owe you, and, independently of this, I love
you as a friend,--indeed so much that I regret, seriously regret, that
you have been my copyholder.
If I have written petulantly, forgive me. God knows I am sore all over.
God bless you! and believe me that, setting gratitude aside, I love and
esteem you, and have your interest at heart full as much as my own.
S. T. COLERIDGE. [1]
On the 1st of March, 1796, "The Watchman" was published; it ended with
the tenth number on the 13th of May following. In March Mr. C. removed
to a house in Oxford Street in Kingsdown, and thence wrote the following
letter to Mr. Poole:
[1: Letter LIV is our 25.]
LETTER 26
30th March, 1796.
My dear Poole,
For the neglect in the transmission of "The Watchman", you must blame
George Burnett, who undertook the business. I however will myself see it
sent this week with the preceding Numbers. I am greatly obliged to you
for your communication--(on the Slave Trade in No. V);--it appears in
this Number. I am anxious to receive more from you, and likewise to know
what you dislike in "The Watchman", and what you like, but particularly
the former. You have not given me your opinion of "The Plot Discovered".
Since you last saw me, I have been well nigh distracted. The repeated
and most injurious blunders of my printer out of doors, and Mrs.
Coleridge's danger at home--added to the gloomy prospect of so many
mouths to open and shut, like puppets, as I move the string in the
eating and drinking way;--but why complain to you? Misery is an article
with which every market is so glutted that it can answer no one's
purpose to export it.
I have received many abusive letters, post-paid, thanks to the friendly
malignants! But I am perfectly callous to disapprobation, except when it
tends to lessen profit. Then indeed I am all one tremble of sensibility,
marriage having taught me the wonderful uses of that vulgar commodity,
yclept Bread. "The Watchman" succeeds so as to yield a
"bread-and-cheesish" profit. Mrs. Coleridge is recovering apace, and
deeply regrets that she was deprived of the pleasure of seeing you. We
are in our new house, where there is a bed at your service whenever you
will please to delight us with a visit. Surely in Spring you might force
a few days into a sojourning with us.
Dear Poole, you have borne yourself towards me most kindly with respect
to my epistolary ingratitude. But I know that you forbade yourself to
feel resentment towards me, because you had previously made my neglect
ingratitude. A generous temper endures a great deal from one whom it has
obliged deeply.
My poems are finished. I will send you two copies the moment they are
published. In No. III of "The Watchman" there are a few lines entitled,
"The Hour when we shall meet again" ("Dim Hour! that sleep'st on
pillowing clouds afar"), which I think you will like. I have received
two or three letters from different "Anonymi", requesting me to give
more poetry. One of them writes thus:--
"Sir, I detest your principles; your prose I think very
so so; but your poetry is so beautiful that I take in your
"Watchman" solely on account of it. In justice therefore
to me and some others of my stamp, I entreat you to give us
more verse, and less democratic scurrility. Your Admirer,--not
Esteemer."
Have you read over Dr. Lardner on the Logos? It is I think, scarcely
possible to read it, and not be convinced. I find that "The Watchman"
comes more easy to me, so that I shall begin about my Christian Lectures
(meaning a publication of the course given in the preceding year). I
will immediately order for you, unless you immediately countermand it,
Count Rumford's Essays; in No. V of "The Watchman" you will see why.
(That number contained a critique on the Essays.) I have enclosed Dr.
Beddoes's late pamphlets; neither of them as yet published. The Doctor
sent them to me.... My dutiful love to your excellent Mother, whom,
believe me, I think of frequently and with a pang of affection. God
bless you. I'll try and contrive to scribble a line and half every time
the man goes with "The Watchman" to you.
N.B. The Essay on Fasting I am ashamed of--(in No. II of "The
Watchman");--but it is one of my misfortunes that I am obliged to
publish ex tempore as well as compose. God bless you.
S. T. COLERIDGE.[1]
[Footnote 1: Letter LV is our 26.]
Two days afterwards Mr. Coleridge wrote to Mr. B. Flower, then the
editor of the "Cambridge Intelligencer", with whom he had been
acquainted at the University:
LETTER 27
April 1, 1796.
Dear Sir,
I transmitted to you by Mr. B---- a copy of my "Conciones ad Populum",
and of an Address against the Bills (meaning "The Plot Discovered"). I
have taken the liberty of enclosing ten of each, carriage paid, which
you may perhaps have an opportunity of disposing of for me;--if not,
give them away. The one is an eighteen-penny affair;--the other
ninepence. I have likewise enclosed the Numbers which have been hitherto
published of "The Watchman";--some of the Poetry may perhaps be
serviceable to you in your paper. That sonnet on the rejection of Mr.
Wilberforce's Bill in your Chronicle the week before last was written by
Southey, author of "Joan of Arc", a year and a half ago, and sent to me
per letter;-how it appeared with the late signature, let the plagiarist
answer.... I have sent a copy of my Poems--(they were not yet
published):--will you send them to Lunn and Deighton, and ask of them
whether they would choose to have their names on the title page as
publishers; and would you permit me to have yours? Robinson and, I
believe, Cadell, will be the London publishers. Be so kind as to send an
immediate answer.
Please to present one of each of my pamphlets to Mr. Hall--(the late
Robert Hall, the Baptist). I wish I could reach the perfection of his
style. I think his style the best in the English language; if he have a
rival, it is Mrs. Barbauld.
You have, of course, seen Bishop Watson's Apology for the Bible. It is a
complete confutation of Paine; but that was no difficult matter. The
most formidable Infidel is Lessing, the author of "Emilia Galotti";--I
ought to have written, "was", for he is dead. His book is not yet
translated, and is entitled, in German, "Fragments of an Anonymous
Author". It unites the wit of Voltaire with the subtlety of Hume and the
profound erudition of "our" Lardner. I had some thoughts of translating
it with an Answer, but gave it up, lest men, whose tempers and hearts
incline them to disbelief, should get hold of it; and, though the
answers are satisfactory to my own mind, they may not be equally so to
the minds of others.
I suppose you have heard that I am married. I was married on the 4th of
October.
I rest all my poetical credit on the "Religious Musings". Farewell; with
high esteem, yours sincerely,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
Benjamin Flower, the editor of the "Cambridge Intelligencer", printed
the first published version of the "Monody on Chatterton" in his Edition
of the Rowley Poems, 1794. He was also to have been the publisher of the
"Imitations of the Latin Poets", of which Coleridge spoke so often at
this time. Our next letter is from "The Watchman" of 1 April, in answer
to a correspondent. Godwin, whom Coleridge had hailed in one of his
sonnets in the "Morning Chronicle" (10 January, 1795) as one formed to
"illume a sunless world" by his "Political Justice" (1793), is here
attacked with some virulence. In after years Coleridge held a better
opinion of Godwin and wrote some of his finest letters to him.
LETTER 28. TO CAIUS GRACCHUS.
You have attacked me because I ventured to disapprove of Mr. Godwin's
Works: I notice your attack because it affords me an opportunity of
expressing more fully my sentiments respecting those principles.--I must
not however wholly pass over the former part of your letter. The
sentence "implicating them with party and calumniating opinions," is so
inaccurately worded, that I must "guess" at your meaning. In my first
essay I stated that literary works were generally reviewed by personal
friends or private enemies of the Authors. This I "know" to be fact; and
does the spirit of meekness forbid us to tell the truth? The passage in
my Review of Mr. Burke's late pamphlet, you have wilfully misquoted:
"with respect to the work in question," is an addition of your own. That
work in question I myself considered as mere declamation; and
"therefore" deemed it wofully inferior to the former production of the
venerable Fanatic.--In what manner I could add to my numerous "ideal"
trophies by quoting a beautiful passage from the pages which I was
reviewing, I am ignorant. Perhaps the spirit of vanity lurked in the use
of the word ""I""--"ere "I" begin the task of blame." It is pleasant to
observe with what absurd anxiety this little monosyllable is avoided.
Sometimes "the present writer" appears as its substitute: sometimes the
modest author adopts the style of royalty, swelling and multiplying
himself into "We"; and sometimes to escape the egotistic phrases of "in
my opinion," or, "as I think," he utters dogmas, and positively
asserts--"exempli gratia": ""It is" a work, which, etc." You deem me
inconsistent, because, having written in praise of the metaphysician, I
afterwards appear to condemn the essay on political justice. Would an
eulogist of medical men be inconsistent, if he should write against
vendors of (what he deemed) poisons? Without even the formality of a
"since" or a "for" or a "because," you make an unqualified assertion,
that this essay will be allowed by all, except the prejudiced, to be a
deep, metaphysical work, though abstruse, etc. etc. Caius Gracchus must
have been little accustomed to abstruse disquisitions, if he deem Mr.
Godwin's work abstruse:--A chief (and certainly not a small) merit is
its perspicuous and "popular" language. My chapter on modern patriotism
is that which has irritated you. You condemn me as prejudiced--O this
enlightened age! when it can be seriously charged against an essayist,
that he is prejudiced in favour of gratitude, conjugal fidelity, filial
affection, and the belief of God and a hereafter!!
Of smart pretty fellows in Bristol are numbers, some
Who so modish are grown, that they think plain sense cumbersome;
And lest they should seem to be queer or ridiculous,
They affect to believe neither God nor "old Nicholas"![1]
I do consider Mr. Godwin's principles as vicious; and his book as a
pander to sensuality. Once I thought otherwise--nay, even addressed a
complimentary sonnet to the author, in the "Morning Chronicle", of which
I confess with much moral and poetical contrition, that the lines and
the subject were equally bad. I have since "studied" his work; and long
before you had sent me your contemptuous challenge, had been preparing
an examination of it, which will shortly appear in "The Watchman" in a
series of essays. You deem me an "enthusiast"--an enthusiast, I presume,
because I am not quite convinced with yourself and Mr. Godwin that mind
will be omnipotent over matter, that a plough will go into the field and
perform its labour without the presence of the agriculturist, that man
may be immortal in this life, and that death is an act of the
will!!!--You conclude with wishing that "The Watchman" "for the future
may be conducted with less prejudice and greater liberality:"--I ought
to be considered in two characters--as editor of the Miscellany, and as
a frequent contributor. In the latter I contribute what I believe to be
the truth; let him who thinks it error, contribute likewise, that where
the poison is, there the antidote may be. In my former, that is, as the
editor, I leave to the public the business of canvassing the nature of
the principles, and assume to myself the power of admitting or rejecting
any communications according to my best judgment of their style and
ingenuity. The Miscellany is open to all "ingenious" men whatever their
opinions may be, whether they be the disciples of Filmer, of Locke, of
Paley, or of Godwin. One word more of "the spirit of meekness." I meant
by this profession to declare my intention of attacking things without
expressing malignity to persons. I am young; and may occasionally write
with the intemperance of a young man's zeal. Let me borrow an apology
from the great and excellent Dr. Hartley, who of all men least needed
it. "I can truly say, that my free and unreserved manner of speaking has
flowed from the sincerity and earnestness of my heart." But I will not
undertake to justify all that I have said. Some things may be too hasty
and censorious; or however, be unbecoming my age and station. I heartily
wish that I could have observed the true medium. For want of candour is
not less an offence against the Gospel of Christ, than false shame and
want of courage in his cause.
S. T. COLERIDGE.
[Footnote 1: The lines are by Coleridge.]
LETTER 29. TO MR. POOLE.
11th April, 1796.
My dear, very dear Friend,
I have sent the 5th, 6th, and part of the 7th Number--all as yet
printed. Your censures are all right: I wish your praises were equally
so. The Essay on Fasts I am ashamed of. It was conceived in the spirit,
and clothed in the harsh scoffing, of an Infidel. You wish to have one
long essay;--so should I wish; but so do not my subscribers wish. I feel
the perplexities of my undertaking increase daily. In London and Bristol
"The Watchman" is read for its original matter,--the news and debates
barely tolerated. The people of Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham,
etc., take it as a newspaper, and regard the essays and poems as
intruders unwished for and unwelcome. In short, each subscriber, instead
of regarding himself as a point in the circumference entitled to some
one diverging ray, considers me as the circumference, and himself as
the centre to which all the rays ought to converge. To tell you the
truth, I do not think "The Watchman" will succeed. Hitherto I have
scarcely sold enough to pay the expenses;--no wonder, when I tell you
that on the 200 which Parsons in Paternoster Row sells weekly, he gains
eight shillings more than I do. Nay, I am convinced that at the end of
the half year he will have cleared considerably more by his 200 than I
by the proprietorship of the whole work.
Colson has been indefatigable in my service, and writes with such zeal
for my interests, and such warmth of sorrow for my sufferings, as if he
wrote with fire and tears. God bless him! I wish above all things to
realize a school. I could be well content to plod from morning to night,
if only I could secure a secure competence; but to toil incessantly for
uncertain bread weighs me down to earth.
Your Night-dream has been greatly admired. Dr. Beddoes spoke in high
commendation of it. Your thoughts on Elections I will insert whenever
Parliament is dissolved. I will insert them as the opinions of a
sensible correspondent, entering my individual protest against giving a
vote in any way or for any person. If you had an estate in the swamps of
Essex, you could not prudently send an aguish man there to be your
manager,--he would be unfit for it;--you could not honestly send a hale
hearty man there, for the situation would to a moral certainty give him
the ague. So with the Parliament:--I will not send a rogue there; and I
would not send an honest man, for it is twenty to one that he will
become a rogue.
Count Rumford's "Essays" you shall have by the next parcel. I thank you
for your kind permission with respect to books. I have sent down to you
"Elegiac Stanzas" by Bowles; they were given to me, but are altogether
unworthy of Bowles. I have sent you Beddoes's Essay on the merits of
William Pitt; you may either keep it, and I will get another for myself
on your account, or if you see nothing in it to library-ize it, send it
me back next Thursday, or whenever you have read it. My own "Poems" you
will welcome. I pin all my poetical credit on the "Religious Musings".
In the poem you so much admired in "The Watchman", for "Now life and
joy," read "New life and joy." (From "The Hour when we shall meet
again".) "Chatterton" shall appear modernized. Dr. Beddoes intends, I
believe, to give a course of Chemistry in a most "elementary"
manner,--the price, two guineas. I wish, ardently wish, you could
possibly attend them, and live with me. My house is most beautifully
situated; an excellent room and bed are at your service. If you had any
scruple about putting me to additional expense, you should pay me seven
shillings a week, and I should gain by you.
Mrs. Coleridge is remarkably well, and sends her kind love. Pray, my
dear, dear Poole, do not neglect to write to me every week. Your
critique on "Joan of Arc" and the "Religious Musings" I expect. Your
dear mother I long to see. Tell her I love her with filial
respectfulness. Excellent woman! Farewell; God bless you and your
grateful and affectionate
S. T. COLERIDGE.
Mr. C.'s first volume of poems was published by Mr. Cottle in the
beginning of April, 1796, and his sense of the kind conduct of the
latter to him throughout the whole affair was expressed in the following
manner on a blank leaf in a copy of the work:
LETTER 30.
Dear Cottle,
On the blank leaf of my Poems I can most appropriately write my
acknowledgments to you for your too disinterested conduct in the
purchase of them. Indeed, if ever they should acquire a name and
character, it might be truly said the world owed them to you. Had it not
been for you, none perhaps of them would have been published, and some
not written.
Your obliged and affectionate friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
Bristol, April 15, 1796.
[Another project of Coleridge to earn a small sum to tide over financial
difficulties was to "Rumfordise" the cities of England. Coleridge
reviewed Rumford's Essays in "The Watchman" of 2nd April. Count Rumford
(Count of the Holy Roman Empire), had cleared certain cities of Austria
of beggars and vagabonds, and had established garden cities for the
soldiery practising agricultural pursuits and engaging in remunerative
occupations during their non-attendance at drill. What part of the
"Rumfordising" Coleridge proposed to apply to his native country does
not appear from the letter.]
LETTER 31. TO COTTLE
(Apl. 1796.)
My ever dear Cottle,
Since I last conversed with you on the subject, I have been thinking
over again the plan I suggested to you, concerning the application of
Count Rumford's plan to the city of Bristol. I have arranged in my mind
the manner, and matter of the Pamphlet, which would be three sheets, and
might be priced at one shilling.
Considerations
Addressed to the Inhabitants of Bristol,
on a subject of importance,
(unconnected with Politics.)
BY S. T. C.
Now I have by me the history of Birmingham, and the history of
Manchester. By observing the names, revenues, and expenditures of their
different charities, I could easily alter the calculations of the
"Bristol Address", and, at a trifling expense, and a few variations, the
same work might be sent to Manchester and Birmingham. "Considerations
addressed to the inhabitants of Birmingham", etc. I could so order it,
that by writing to a particular friend, at both places, the pamphlet
should be thought to have been written at each place, as it certainly
would be "for" each place. I think therefore 750 might be printed in
all. Now will you undertake this? either to print it and divide the
profits, or (which indeed I should prefer) would you give me three
guineas, for the copyright? I would give you the first sheet on
Thursday, the second on the Monday following, the third on the Thursday
following. To each pamphlet I would annex the alterations to be made,
when the press was stopped at 250.
God love you!
S. T. C.
Cottle says regarding this project, "I presented Mr. C. with the three
guineas, but forbore the publication."]
LETTER 32. TO MR. COTTLE
(April) 1796.
My ever dear Cottle,
I will wait on you this evening at nine o'clock, till which hour I am on
"Watch." Your Wednesday's invitation I of course accept, but I am rather
sorry that you should add this expense to former liberalities.
Two editions of my "Poems" would barely repay you. Is it not possible to
get 25 or 30 of the "Poems" ready by to-morrow, as Parsons, of
Paternoster Row, has written to me pressingly about them? "People are
perpetually asking after them. All admire the poetry in the "Watchman","
he says. I can send them with 100 of the first number, which he has
written for. I think if you were to send half a dozen "Joans of Arc"
(4to £1 1s. 0d.) on sale or return, it would not be amiss. To all the
places in the North we will send my "Poems", my "Conciones", and the
"Joans of Arc" together, "per" waggon. You shall pay the carriage for
the London and Birmingham parcels; I for the Sheffield, Derby,
Nottingham, Manchester, and Liverpool.
With regard to the "Poems" I mean to give away, I wish to make it a
common interest; that is, I will give away a sheet full of Sonnets.
One to Mrs. Barbauld; one to Wakefield; one to Dr. Beddoes; one to
Wrangham--a college acquaintance of mine,--an admirer of me, and a
pitier of my principles;--one to George Augustus Pollen, Esq.; one to
C. Lamb; one to Wordsworth; one to my brother George, and one to Dr. Parr.
These Sonnets I mean to write on the blank leaf, respectively, of each
copy. * * * * God bless you, and
S. T. COLERIDGE.
"The Sonnets," says Mr. Cottle, "never arrived." [But a pamphlet of 16
pages, containing 28 Sonnets, was printed, the only extant copy of which
is in the Dyce Collection. "Poems", 1893, p. 544.]
LETTER 33. TO MR. POOLE
6th May, 1796.
My very dear Friend,
The heart is a little relieved, when vexation converts itself into
anger. But from this privilege I am utterly precluded by my own
epistolary sins and negligences. Yet in very troth thou must be a
hard-hearted fellow to let me trot for four weeks together every
Thursday to the Bear Inn--to receive no letter. I have sometimes thought
that Milton the carrier did not deliver my last parcel, but he assures
me he did.
This morning I received a truly fraternal letter from your brother
Richard of Sherborne, containing good and acceptable advice. He deems my
"Religious Musings" "too metaphysical for common readers." I answer--the
poem was not written for common readers. In so miscellaneous a
collection as I have presented to the Public, "singula cuique" should be
the motto. There are, however, instances of vicious affectation in the
phraseology of that poem;--"unshudder'd, unaghasted", for example. ("Not
in the poem now".) Good writing is produced more effectually by rapidly
glancing the language as it already exists than by a hasty recourse to
the mint of invention. The "Religious Musings" has more mind than the
Introduction of B. II. of "Joan of Arc", ("Destiny of Nations", Poet. W.
I. p. 98) but its versification is not equally rich. It has more
passages of sublimity, but it has not that diffused air of severe
dignity which characterizes my epic slice. Have I estimated my own
performances rightly? ...
With regard to my own affairs they are as bad as the most rampant
philo-despot could wish in the moment of cursing. After No. XII I shall
cease to cry the state of the political atmosphere. It is not pleasant,
Thomas Poole, to have worked fourteen weeks for nothing--for nothing;
nay, to have given to the Public in addition to that toil, £45. When I
began the Watchman I had £40 worth of paper given to me; yet with this I
shall not have received a farthing at the end of the quarter. To be sure
I have been somewhat fleeced and over-reached by my London publisher. In
short, my tradesmen's bills for "The Watchman", including what paper I
have bought since the seventh number, the printing, etc., amount exactly
to £5 more than the whole of my receipts. "O Watchman, thou hast watched
in vain!"--said the Prophet Ezekiel, when, I suppose, he was taking a
prophetic glimpse of my sorrow-sallowed cheeks.
My plans are reduced to two;--the first unpracticable,--the second not
likely to succeed.
Plan 1. I am studying German, and in about six weeks shall be able to
read that language with tolerable fluency. Now I have some thoughts of
making a proposal to Robinson, the great London bookseller, of
translating all the works of Schiller, which would make a portly quarto,
on condition that he should pay my journey and my wife's to and from
Jena, a cheap German University where Schiller resides, and allow me two
guineas each quarto sheet, which would maintain me. If I could realize
this scheme, I should there study chemistry and anatomy, and bring over
with me all the works of Semler and Michaelis, the German theologians,
and of Kant, the great German metaphysician. On my return I would
commence a school for either young men at £105 each, proposing to
perfect them in the following studies in this order:--1. Man as an
Animal;--including the complete knowledge of anatomy, chemistry,
mechanics, and optics:--2. Man as an intellectual Being;--including the
ancient metaphysics, the system of Locke and Hartley--of the Scotch
philosophers--and the new Kantean system:--3. Man as a Religious
Being;--including an historic summary of all religions, and of the
arguments for and against natural and revealed religion. Then proceeding
from the individual to the aggregate of individuals, and disregarding
all chronology, except that of mind, I should perfect them: 1--in the
history of savage tribes; 2--of semi-barbarous nations; 3--of nations
emerging from semi-barbarism; 4--of civilized states; 5--of luxurious
states; 6--of revolutionary states; 7--of colonies. During these studies
I should intermix the knowledge of languages, and instruct my scholars
in "belles lettres", and the principles of composition.
Now, seriously, do you think that one of my scholars, thus perfected,
would make a better senator than perhaps any one member in either of our
Houses?--Bright bubbles of the age--ebullient brain! Gracious Heaven!
that a scheme so big with advantage to this kingdom--therefore to
Europe--therefore to the world--should be demolishable by one
monosyllable from a bookseller's mouth!
My second plan is to become a Dissenting Minister, and adjure politics
and casual literature. Preaching for hire is not right; because it must
prove a strong temptation to continue to profess what I may have ceased
to believe, "if ever" maturer judgment with wider and deeper reading
should lessen or destroy my faith in Christianity. But though not right
in itself, it may become right by the greater wrongness of the only
alternative--the remaining in neediness and uncertainty. That in the one
case I should be exposed to temptation is a mere contingency; that under
necessitous circumstances I am exposed to great and frequent temptations
is a melancholy certainty.
Write, my dear Poole! or I will crimp all the rampant Billingsgate of
Burke to abuse you. Count Rumford is being reprinted.
God bless you and
S. T. COLERIDGE.
On Friday, the 13th of May, 1796, the tenth and last number of "The
Watchman" appeared--the Author having wisely accelerated the termination
of a hopeless undertaking, the plan of which was as injudicious as the
execution of it by him for any length of time impracticable. Of the 324
pages, of which "The Watchman" consists, not more than a hundred contain
original matter by Coleridge, and this is perhaps more remarkable as a
test of the marvellous spring of his mind almost immediately afterwards
than for any very striking merit of its own. Still, however, the nascent
philosopher may be discovered in parts; and the Essay on the Slave
Trade, in the fourth number, may be justly distinguished as comprising a
perfect summary of the arguments applicable on either side of that
question.
In the meantime Mr. Poole had been engaged in circulating a proposal
amongst a few common friends for purchasing a small annuity and
presenting it to Mr. Coleridge. The plan was not in fact carried into
execution;[1] but it was communicated to Mr. C. by Mr. Poole, and the
following letter refers to it:--
[Footnote 1: An error. A subscription annuity of £35 or £40 was
collected and paid to Coleridge in 1796 and 1797.]
LETTER 34. TO MR. POOLE
12th May, 1796.
Poole! The Spirit, who counts the throbbings of the solitary heart,
knows that what my feelings ought to be, such they are. If it were in my
power to give you anything, which I have not already given, I should be
oppressed by the letter now before me. But no! I feel myself rich in
being poor; and because I have nothing to bestow, I know how much I have
bestowed. Perhaps I shall not make myself intelligible; but the strong
and unmixed affection which I bear to you seems to exclude all emotions
of gratitude, and renders even the principle of esteem latent and inert.
Its presence is not perceptible, though its absence could not be
endured.
Concerning the scheme itself I am undetermined. Not that I am ashamed to
receive;--God forbid! I will make every possible exertion; my industry
shall be at least commensurate with my learning and talents;--if these
do not procure for me and mine the necessary comforts of life, I can
receive as I would bestow, and, in either case--receiving or
bestowing--be equally grateful to my Almighty Benefactor. I am
undetermined therefore--not because I receive with pain and reluctance,
but--because I suspect that you attribute to others your own enthusiasm
of benevolence; as if the sun should say--"With how rich a purple those
opposite windows are burning!" But with God's permission I shall talk
with you on this subject. By the last page of No. X, you will perceive
that I have this day dropped "The Watchman". On Monday morning I will go
"per" caravan to Bridgewater, where, if you have a horse of tolerable
meekness unemployed, you will let him meet me.
I should blame you for the exaggerated terms in which you have spoken of
me in the Proposal, did I not perceive the motive. You wished to make it
appear an offering--not a favour--and in excess of delicacy have, I
fear, fallen into some grossness of flattery.
God bless you, my dear, very dear Friend. The widow is calm, and amused
with her beautiful infant. [1] We are all become more religious than we
were. God be ever praised for all things! Mrs. Coleridge begs her kind
love to you. To your dear Mother my filial respects.
S. T. COLERIDGE. [2]
[Footnote 1: Mrs. Robert Lovell, whose husband had been carried off by a
fever, about two years after his marriage with my Aunt. S. C.]
[Footnote 2: Letter LVI is our 34. LVII is dated 13 May, 1796.]
The visit to Mr. Poole at Stowey was paid, and Mr. C. returned to
Bristol on the 20th of May, 1796. On his way back he wrote the following
letter to Mr. Poole from Bridgewater:--
LETTER 35
29th May, 1796.
My dear Poole,
This said caravan does not leave Bridgewater till nine. In the
market-place stand the hustings. I mounted, and pacing the boards, mused
on bribery, false swearing, and other foibles of election times. I have
wandered too by the river Parret, which looks as filthy as if all the
parrots in the House of Commons had been washing their consciences
therein. Dear Gutter of Stowey! Were I transported to Italian plains,
and lying by the side of a streamlet which murmured through an orange
grove, I would think of thee, dear Gutter of Stowey, and wish that I
were poring on thee!
So much by way of rant. I have eaten three eggs, swallowed sundries of
tea and bread and butter, purely for the purpose of amusing myself, and
I have seen the horse fed. When at Cross, where I shall dine, I shall
think of your happy dinner celebrated under the auspices of humble
independence, supported by brotherly love. I am writing, you understand,
for no worldly purpose but that of avoiding anxious thoughts. Apropos of
honey-pie:--Caligula or Heliogabalus,[1] (I forget which,) had a dish of
nightingales' tongues served up. What think you of the stings of bees?
God bless you. My filial love to your mother, and fraternity to your
sister. Tell Ellen Cruikshanks, that in my next parcel to you I will
send my Haleswood Poem to her. Heaven protect her, and you, and Sara,
and your Mother, and--like a bad shilling passed off in a handful of
guineas--your affectionate friend and brother,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
P.S. Don't forget to send by Milton my old clothes and linen that once
was clean--a pretty "periphrasis" that![2]
[Footnote 1: Elagabalus.]
[Footnote 2: Letter LVIII is our 35. LIX is dated 22 June 1796.]
The month of June, 1796, was spent in Bristol, and some negotiation took
place as to Mr. C.'s settling in Nottingham, the particulars of which
the Editor is unable to state. On the 4th of July Mr. Coleridge writes
to Mr. Poole.
LETTER 36. TO MR. POOLE
4th July, 1796.
My very dear Poole,
Do not attribute it to indolence that I have not written to you.
Suspense has been the real cause of my silence. Day after day I have
confidently expected some decisive letter, and as often have been
disappointed. "Certainly I shall have one to-morrow noon, and then I
will write." Thus I contemplated the time of my silence in its small
component parts, forgetful into what a sum total they were swelling. As
I have heard nothing from Nottingham notwithstanding I have written a
pressing letter, I have, by the advice of Cottle and Dr. Beddoes,
accepted a proposal of Mr. Perry's, the editor of the "Morning
Chronicle",--accepted it with a heavy and reluctant heart. On Thursday
Perry was at Bristol for a few hours, just time enough to attend the
dying moments of his associate in the editorship, Mr. Grey, whom Dr.
Beddoes attended. Perry desired Dr. B. to inform me that, if I would
come up to London and write for him, he would make me a regular
compensation adequate to the maintenance of myself and Mrs. Coleridge,
and requested an immediate answer by the post. Mr. Estlin, and
Charles Danvers, and Mr. Wade are or were all out of town;--I had no one
to advise with except Dr. Beddoes and Cottle. Dr. B. thinks it a good
opening on account of Grey's death; but I rather think that the
intention is to employ me as a mere hackney without any share of the
profits. However, as I am doing nothing, and in the prospect of doing
nothing settled, I was afraid to give way to the "omenings" of my heart;
and accordingly I accepted his proposal in general terms, requesting a
line from him expressing the particulars both of my proposed occupation
and stipend. This I shall receive to-morrow, I suppose; and if I do, I
think of hiring a horse for a couple of days, and galloping down to you
to have all your advice, which indeed, if it should be for rejecting the
proposals, I might receive by post; but if for finally accepting them,
we could not interchange letters in a time sufficiently short for
Perry's needs, and so he might procure another person possibly. At all
events I should not like to leave this part of England--perhaps for
ever--without seeing you once more. I am very sad about it, for I love
Bristol, and I do not love London; and besides, local and temporary
politics have become my aversion. They narrow the understanding, and at
least acidulate the heart; but those two giants, yclept Bread and
Cheese, bend me into compliance. I must do something. If I go, farewell,
Philosophy! farewell, the Muse! farewell, my literary Fame!
My "Poems" have been reviewed. The "Monthly" has cataracted panegyric on
me; the "Critical" cascaded it, and the "Analytical" dribbled it with
civility. As to the "British Critic", they durst not condemn, and they
would not praise--so contented themselves with commending me as a
"poet", and allowed me "tenderness of sentiment and elegance of
fiction." I am so anxious and uneasy that I really cannot write any
further. My kind and fraternal love to your Sister, and my filial
respects to your dear Mother, and believe me to be in my head, heart,
and soul, yours most sincerely.
S. T. COLERIDGE.
The Editor can find no further trace of the proposed connection with the
"Morning Chronicle"; but almost immediately after the date of the
preceding letter, Mr. Coleridge received an invitation from Mrs. Evans,
then of Barley, near Derby, to visit her with a view to his undertaking
the education of her sons. He and Mrs. C. accordingly went to Barley,
where the matter was arranged to the satisfaction of both parties; and
Mr. C. returned to Bristol alone with the intention of visiting his
Mother and Brother at Ottery before leaving the south of England for
what promised to be a long absence. But this project, like others, ended
in nothing. The other guardians of Mrs. E.'s sons considered a public
education proper for them, and the announcement of this resolution to
Mr. C. at Bristol stopped his further progress, and recalled him to
Darley. After a stay of some ten days, he left Darley with Mrs. C., and
visited Mr. Thomas Hawkes at Mosely, near Birmingham, and thence he
wrote to Mr. Poole--
LETTER 37. TO MR. POOLE
August, 1796.
My beloved Friend,
I was at Matlock, the place monodized by Bowles, when your letter
arrived at Darley, and I did not receive it till near a week afterwards.
My very dear Poole, I wrote to you the whole truth. After the first
moment I was perfectly composed, and from that moment to the present
have continued calm and lighthearted. I had just quitted you, and I felt
myself rich in your love and esteem; and you do not know how rich I feel
myself. O ever found the same, and trusted and beloved!
The last sentences of your letter affected me more than I can well
describe. Words and phrases which might perhaps have adequately
expressed my feelings, the cold-blooded children of this world have
anticipated and exhausted in their unmeaning gabble of flattery. I use
common expressions, but they do not convey common feelings. My heart has
thanked you. I preached on Faith yesterday. I said that Faith was
infinitely better than Good Works, as the cause is greater than the
effect,--as a fruitful tree is better than its fruits, and as a friendly
heart is of far higher value than the kindnesses which it naturally and
necessarily prompts. It is for that friendly heart that I now have
thanked you, and which I so eagerly accept; for with regard to
settlement, I am likely to be better off now than before, as I shall
proceed to tell you.
I arrived at Darley on the Sunday.... Monday I spent at Darley. On the
Tuesday Mrs. Coleridge, Miss Willett, and I went in Mrs. Evans's
carriage to Matlock, where we stayed till Saturday.... Sunday we spent
at Darley, and on Monday Sara, Mrs. Evans, and myself visited Oakover, a
seat famous for a few first-rates of Raffael and Titian; thence to Ilam,
a quiet vale hung round with wood, beautiful beyond expression, and
thence to Dovedale, a place beyond expression tremendously sublime.
Here, in a cavern at the head of a divine little fountain, we dined on
cold meat, and returned to Darley, quite worn out with the succession of
sweet sensations. On Tuesday we were employed in packing up, and on
Wednesday we were to have set off.... But on the Wednesday Dr. Crompton,
who had just returned from Liverpool, called on me, and made me the
following proposal:--that if I would take a house in Derby and open a
day-school, confining my number to twelve scholars, he would send three
of his children on these terms--till my number should be completed, he
would allow me £100 a year for them;--when the number should be
complete, he would give £21 a year for each of them:--the children to be
with me from nine to twelve, and from two to five--the last two hours to
be employed with their writing or drawing-master, who would be paid by
the parents. He has no doubt but that I shall complete my number almost
instantly. Now 12 x 20 guineas = £252, and my mornings and evenings at
my own disposal = good things. So I accepted the offer, it being
understood that if anything better offered, I should accept it. There
was not a house to be got in Derby; but I engaged with a man for a house
now building, and which is to be completed by the 8th of October, for
£12 a year, and the landlord to pay all the taxes except the Poor Rates.
The landlord is rather an intelligent fellow, and has promised me to
Rumfordize the chimneys. The plan is to commence in November; the
intermediate time I spend at Bristol, at which place I shall arrive, by
the blessing of God, on Monday night next. This week I spend with Mr.
Hawkes, at Mosely, near Birmingham; in whose shrubbery I now write. I
arrived here on Friday, having left Derby on Friday. I preached here
yesterday.
If Sara will let me, I shall see you for a few days in the course of a
month. Direct your next letter to S. T. C., Oxford Street, Bristol. My
love to your dear Mother and Sister, and believe me affectionately your
ever faithful friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
I shall write to my Mother and Brothers to-morrow.
At the same time Mr. C. wrote to Mr. Wade in terms similar to the above,
adding that at Matlock the time was completely filled up with seeing the
country, eating, concerts, etc.
LETTER 38
(--Sept. 1796.)
"I was the first fiddle;--not in the concerts--but every where else, and
the company would not spare me twenty minutes together. Sunday I
dedicated to the drawing up my sketch of education, which I meant to
publish, to try to get a school!" He speaks of "the thrice lovely valley
of Ilam; a vale hung with beautiful woods all round, except just at its
entrance, where, as you stand at the other end of the valley, you see a
bare bleak mountain standing as it were to guard the entrance. It is
without exception the most beautiful place I ever visited." ... He
concludes:--"I have seen a letter from Mr. William Roscoe, author of the
"Life of Lorenzo the Magnificent"; a work in two 4to volumes (of which
the whole first edition sold in a month); it was addressed to Mr.
Edwards, the minister here, and entirely related to me. Of me and my
compositions he writes in terms of high admiration, and concludes by
desiring Mr. Edwards to let him know my situation and prospects, and
saying that if I would come and settle at Liverpool, he thought a
comfortable situation might be procured for me. This day Edwards will
write to him."
Whilst at Birmingham, on "The Watchman" tour, Mr. C. had been introduced
to Mr. Charles Lloyd, the eldest son of Mr. Lloyd, an eminent banker of
that place. At Mosely they met again, and the result of an intercourse
for a few days together was an ardent desire on the part of Lloyd to
domesticate himself permanently with a man whose conversation was to him
a revelation from Heaven. Nothing, however, was settled on this
occasion, and Mr. and Mrs. C. returned to Bristol in the beginning of
September. On the 24th of September he writes to Mr. Poole:--
LETTER 39. TO MR. POOLE
24th September, 1796.
My dear, very dear Poole,
The heart thoroughly penetrated with the flame of virtuous friendship is
in a state of glory; but lest it should be exalted above measure, there
is given to it a thorn in the flesh. I mean that where the friendship of
any person forms an essential part of a man's happiness, he will at
times be pestered with the little jealousies and solicitudes of imbecile
humanity. Since we last parted I have been gloomily dreaming that you
did not leave me so affectionately as you were wont to do. Pardon this
littleness of heart, and do not think the worse of me for it. Indeed my
soul seems so mantled and wrapped round with your love and esteem, that
even a dream of losing but the smallest fragment of it makes me shiver,
as if some tender part of my nature were left uncovered and in
nakedness.
Last week I received a letter from Lloyd, informing me that his parents
had given their joyful concurrence to his residence with me, but that,
if it were possible that I could be absent from home for three or four
days, his father wished particularly to see me. I consulted Mrs.
Coleridge, who advised me to go.... Accordingly on Saturday night I went
by the mail to Birmingham, and was introduced to the father, who is a
mild man, very liberal in his ideas, and in religion an allegorizing
Quaker.[1] I mean that all the apparently irrational parts of his sect
he allegorizes into significations, which for the most part you or I
might assent to. We became well acquainted, and he expressed himself
thankful to Heaven, "that his son was about to be with me." He said he
would write to me concerning money matters, after his son had been some
time under my roof.
On Tuesday morning I was surprised by a letter from Mr. Maurice, our
medical attendant, informing me that Mrs. C. was delivered on Monday,
19th September, 1796, half-past two in the morning, of a son, and that
both she and the child were uncommonly well. I was quite annihilated
with the suddenness of the information, and retired to my room to
address myself to my Maker, but I could only offer up to Him the silence
of stupified feelings. I hastened home, and Charles Lloyd returned with
me. When I first saw the child, I did not feel that thrill and
overflowing of affection which I expected. I looked on it with a
melancholy gaze; my mind was intensely contemplative, and my heart only
sad. But when two hours after, I saw it at the bosom of its mother--on
her arm--and her eye tearful and watching its little features--then I
was thrilled and melted, and gave it the kiss of a Father. * * * * The
baby seems strong, and the old nurse has over-persuaded my wife to
discover a likeness to me in its face,--no great compliment to me; for
in truth I have seen handsomer babies in my lifetime. Its name is
David Hartley Coleridge. I hope that ere he be a man, if God destines
him for continuance in this life, his head will be convinced of, and his
heart saturated with, the truths so ably supported by that great master
of Christian Philosophy.
Charles Lloyd wins upon me hourly; his heart is uncommonly pure, his
affections delicate, and his benevolence enlivened, but not sicklied, by
sensibility. He is assuredly a man of great genius; but it must be in a
"tete-a-tete" with one whom he loves and esteems that his colloquial
powers open:--and this arises not from reserve or want of simplicity,
but from having been placed in situations, where for years together he
met with no congenial minds, and where the contrariety of his thoughts
and notions to the thoughts and notions of those around him induced the
necessity of habitually suppressing his feelings. His joy and gratitude
to Heaven for the circumstance of his domestication with me, I can
scarcely describe to you; and I believe his fixed plans are of being
always with me. His father told me, that if he saw that his son had
formed habits of severe economy, he should not insist upon his adopting
any profession; as then his fair share of his (the father's) wealth
would be sufficient for him.
My dearest Poole, can you conveniently receive Lloyd and me in the
course of a week? I have much, very much, to say to you, and to consult
with you about; for my heart is heavy respecting Derby; and my feelings
are so dim and huddled, that though I can, I am sure, communicate them
to you by my looks and broken sentences, I scarcely know how to convey
them in a letter. C. Lloyd also wishes much to know you personally. I
shall write on the other side of the paper two of his sonnets, composed
by him in one evening at Birmingham. The latter of them alludes to the
conviction of the truth of Christianity, which he had received from me.
Let me hear from you by post immediately, and give my kind love to your
sister and dear mother, and likewise my love to that young man with the
soul-beaming face, which I recollect much better than I do his name.
("Mr. Thomas Ward of Over Stowey".) God bless you, my dear friend, and
believe me with deep affection yours,
S. T. COLERIDGE.[2]
[Footnote 1: The relationship of Coleridge and the Lloyds is told fully
in "Charles Lamb and the Lloyds", by E. V. Lucas, 1898.]
[Footnote 2: Letter LX is our 39.]
The reader of Coleridge's Poems will remember the beautiful lines "To a
young friend, on his proposing to domesticate with the Author". They
were written at this time and addressed to Lloyd; and it may be easily
conceived what a deep impression of delight they would make on a mind
and temperament so refined and enthusiastic as his. The Sonnet "To a
Friend who asked how I felt when the Nurse first presented my infant to
me"--is the metrical version of a passage in the foregoing letter. A
short time before the birth of little Hartley C., Mr. Southey had
returned to Bristol from Portugal, and was in lodgings nearly opposite
to Mr. Coleridge's house in Oxford Street. There had been a quarrel
between them on the occasion of the abandonment of the American scheme,
which was first announced by Mr. Southey, and he and Coleridge had
ceased to have any intercourse. But a year's absence had dissipated all
angry feelings, and after Mr. C.'s return from Birmingham in the end of
September, Southey took the first step, and sent over a slip of paper
with a word or two of conciliation.[1] This was immediately followed by
an interview, and in an hour's time these two extraordinary youths were
arm in arm again. They were indeed of essentially opposite tempers,
powers, and habits; yet each well knew and appreciated the
other,--perhaps even the more deeply from the contrast between them.
Circumstances separated them in after life; but Mr. Coleridge recorded
his testimony to Southey's character in the "Biographia Literaria", and
in his Will referred to it as expressive of his latest convictions.
[In Ainger's "Letters of Charles Lamb" will be found a series of letters
by Lamb to Coleridge on various matters, literary and domestic, which
affords a good insight into the doings of Coleridge at this time. The
following beautiful letter by Coleridge was written on the occasion of
the death of Lamb's mother.
[Footnote 1: The paper contained a sentence in English from Schiller's
Conspiracy of Fiesco at Genoa. "Fiesko! Fiesko! du Sumst einen Platz in
meiner Brust, den das Menschengeschlecht, dreifach genommen, nicht mehr
besetzen wird". "Fiesco! Fiesco! thou leavest a void in my bosom, which
the human race, thrice told, will never fill up." Act V, Sc. 16. S. C.]
LETTER 40. TO CHARLES LAMB[1]
(29 Sept. 1796.)
Your letter, my friend, struck me with a mighty horror. It rushed upon
me and stupified my feelings. You bid me write you a religious letter; I
am not a man who would attempt to insult the greatness of your anguish
by any other consolation. Heaven knows that in the easiest fortunes
there is much dissatisfaction and weariness of spirit; much that calls
for the exercise of patience and resignation; but in storms, like these,
that shake the dwelling and make the heart tremble, there is no middle
way between despair and the yielding up of the whole spirit unto the
guidance of faith. And surely it is a matter of joy, that your faith in
Jesus has been preserved; the Comforter that should relieve you is not
far from you. But as you are a Christian, in the name of that Saviour,
who was filled with bitterness and made drunken with wormwood, I conjure
you to have recourse in frequent prayer to "his God and your God," [2]
the God of mercies, and father of all comfort. Your poor father is, I
hope, almost senseless of the calamity; the unconscious instrument of
Divine Providence knows it not, and your mother is in heaven. It is
sweet to be roused from a frightful dream by the song of birds, and the
gladsome rays of the morning. Ah, how infinitely more sweet to be
awakened from the blackness and amazement of a sudden horror, by the
glories of God manifest, and the hallelujahs of angels.
As to what regards yourself, I approve altogether of your abandoning
what you justly call vanities. I look upon you as a man, called by
sorrow and anguish and a strange desolation of hopes into quietness, and
a soul set apart and made peculiar to God; we cannot arrive at any
portion of heavenly bliss without in some measure imitating Christ. And
they arrive at the largest inheritance who imitate the most difficult
parts of his character, and bowed down and crushed under foot, cry in
fulness of faith, "Father, thy will be done."
I wish above measure to have you for a little while here--no visitants
shall blow on the nakedness of your feelings--you shall be quiet, and
your spirit may be healed. I see no possible objection, unless your
father's helplessness prevent you, and unless you are necessary to him.
If this be not the case, I charge you write me that you will come.
I charge you, my dearest friend, not to dare to encourage gloom or
despair--you are a temporary sharer in human miseries, that you may be
an eternal partaker of the Divine Nature. I charge you, if by any means
it be possible, come to me.
I remain, your affectionate,
S. T. COLERIDGE.[3]
Of the next letter Cottle says:--"A second edition of Mr. Coleridge's
poems being demanded, I was under no obligation, the copyright being
mine, in publishing a second edition, to make Mr. Coleridge any payment,
alterations or additions being optional with him; but in his
circumstances, and to show that my desire was to consider Mr. C. even
more than myself, I promised him, on the sale of the second edition of
500, twenty guineas. The following was his reply: (not viewing the
subject quite in the right light; but this was of little consequence)."
[Footnote 1: The letter to which this is an answer is No. VIII of Canon
Ainger's "Letters of Lamb".]
[Footnote 2: "Vide" St. John, ch. xx, ver. 17.]
[Footnote 3: Letter LXI is our 40.]
LETTER 41. TO COTTLE
Stowey, Oct. 18th, 1796.
My dear Cottle,
I have no mercenary feelings, I verily believe; but I hate bartering at
any time, and with any person; with you it is absolutely intolerable. I
clearly perceive that by giving me twenty guineas, on the sale of the
second edition, you will get little or nothing by the additional poems,
unless they should be sufficiently popular to reach a third edition,
which soars above our[1] wildest expectations. The only advantage you
can derive therefore from the purchase of them on such terms, is,
simply, that my poetry is more likely to sell when the whole may be had
in one volume, price 5 shillings., than when it is scattered in two
volumes; the one 4 shillings., the other possibly 3 shillings. In short,
you will get nothing directly, but only indirectly, from the probable
circumstance, that these additional poems added to the former, will give
a more rapid sale to the second edition than could otherwise be
expected, and cause it possibly to be reviewed at large. Add to this,
that by omitting every thing political, I widen the sphere of my
readers. So much for you. Now for myself. You must see, Cottle, that
whatever money I should receive from you, would result from the
circumstances that would give me the same, or more--if I published them
on my own account. I mean the sale of the poems. I can therefore have no
motive to make such conditions with you, except the wish to omit poems
unworthy of me, and the circumstance that our separate properties would
aid each other by the union; and whatever advantage this might be to me,
it would, of course, be equally so to you. The only difference between
my publishing the poems on my own account, and yielding them up to you;
the only difference, I say, independent of the above stated differences,
is, that, in one case, I retain the property for ever, in the other
case, I lose it after two editions.
However, I am not solicitous to have any thing omitted, except the
sonnet to Lord Stanhope and the ludicrous poem;[1] only I should like to
publish the best pieces together, and those of secondary splendour, at
the end of the volume, and think this is the best quietus of the whole
affair.
Yours affectionately,
S. T. COLERIDGE.]
[Footnote 1: "my" in "Early Recollections".]
[Footnote 2: "Written before Supper".]
On the 1st of November, 1796, Coleridge wrote the following letter to
his friend:
LETTER 42
November 1, 1796.
My beloved Poole,
Many "causes" have concurred to prevent my writing to you, but all
together they do not amount to a "reason". I have seen a narrow-necked
bottle, so full of water, that when turned up side down not a drop has
fallen out--something like this has been the case with me. My heart has
been full, yea, crammed with anxieties about my residence near you. I so
ardently desire it, that any disappointment would chill all my
faculties, like the fingers of death. And entertaining wishes so
irrationally strong, I necessarily have "day"-mair dreams that something
will prevent it--so that since I quitted you, I have been gloomy as the
month which even now has begun to lower and rave on us. I verily
believe, or rather I have no doubt that I should have written to you
within the period of my promise, if I had not pledged myself for a
certain gift of my Muse to poor Tommy: and alas! she has been too "sunk
on the ground in dimmest heaviness" to permit me to trifle. Yet
intending it hourly I deferred my letter "a la mode" the procrastinator!
Ah! me, I wonder not that the hours fly so sweetly by me--for they pass
unfreighted with the duties which they came to demand!
* * * I wrote a long letter to Dr. Crompton, and received from him a
very kind letter, which I will send you in the parcel I am about to
convey by Milton.
My "Poems" are come to a second edition, that is the first edition is
sold. I shall alter the lines of the "Joan of Arc", and make "one" poem
entitled "Progress of European Liberty, a Vision";--the first line
"Auspicious Reverence! hush all meaner song," etc. and begin the volume
with it. Then the "Chatterton,--Pixies' Parlour,--Effusions 27 and
28--To a young Ass--Tell me on what holy ground--The Sigh--Epitaph on an
Infant--The Man of Ross--Spring in a Village--Edmund--Lines with a poem
on the French Revolution"--Seven Sonnets, namely, those at pp. 45, 59,
60, 61, 64, 65, 66--"Shurton Bars--My pensive Sara--Low was our pretty
Cot--Religious Musings";--these in the order I have placed them. Then
another title-page with "Juvenilia" on it, and an advertisement
signifying that the Poems were retained by the desire of some friends,
but that they are to be considered as being in the Author's own opinion
of very inferiour merit. In this sheet will be "Absence--La
Fayette--Genevieve--Kosciusko--Autumnal Moon--To the
Nightingale--Imitation of Spenser--A Poem written in early youth". All
the others will be finally and totally omitted. It is strange that in
the "Sonnet to Schiller" I should have written--"that hour I would have
wished to 'die'--Lest--aught more mean might stamp me 'mortal';"--the
bull never struck me till Charles Lloyd mentioned it. The sense is
evident enough, but the word is ridiculously ambiguous.
Lloyd is a very good fellow, and most certainly a young man of great
genius. He desires his kindest love to you. I will write again by
Milton, for I really can write no more now--I am so depressed. But I
will fill up the letter with poetry of mine, or Lloyd's, or Southey's.
Is your Sister married? May the Almighty bless her!--may he enable her
to make all her new friends as pure, and mild, and amiable as
herself!--I pray in the fervency of my soul. Is your dear Mother well?
My filial respects to her. Remember me to Ward. David Hartley Coleridge
is stout, healthy, and handsome. He is the very miniature of me. Your
grateful and affectionate friend and brother,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
Speaking of lines by Mr. Southey, called "Inscription for the Cenotaph
at Ermenonville",[1] written in his letter, Mr. C. says, "This is
beautiful, but instead of Ermenonville and Rousseau put Valchiusa and
Petrarch. I do not particularly admire Rousseau. Bishop Taylor, old
Baxter, David Hartley, and the Bishop of Cloyne are my men."
The following Sonnet, transcribed in the foregoing Letter, has not been
printed. "It puts in," he says, "no claim to poetry, but it is a most
faithful picture of my feelings on a very interesting event." See the
Letter to Mr. Poole of 24th September, 1796. This Sonnet shows in a
remarkable way how little the Unitarianism, which Mr. C. professed at
this time, operated on his fundamental "feelings" as a catholic
Christian.
"On receiving a Letter informing me of the birth of a Son."
When they did greet me Father, sudden awe
Weigh'd down my spirit: I retir'd and knelt
Seeking the throne of grace, but inly felt
No heavenly visitation upwards draw
My feeble mind, nor cheering ray impart.
Ah me! before the Eternal Sire I brought
Th' unquiet silence of confused thought
And hopeless feelings: my o'erwhelmed heart
Trembled, and vacant tears stream'd down my face.
And now once more, O Lord! to thee I bend,
Lover of souls! and groan for future grace,
That, ere my babe youth's perilous maze have trod,
Thy overshadowing Spirit may descend,
And he be born again, a child of God!
It was not till the summer of 1797 that the second edition Of Mr. C.'s
Poems actually appeared, before which time he had seen occasion to make
many alterations in the proposed arrangement of, and had added some of
his most beautiful compositions to, the collection. It is curious,
however, that he never varied the diction of the Sonnet to Schiller in
the particular to which he refers in the preceding Letter. [2]
[Footnote 1: Afterwards included among the "Minor Poems" of Mr. S.--S. C.]
[Footnote 2: See Dykes-Campbell's edition of Coleridge's "Poems", p.
572.]
LETTER 43. To MR. POOLE
5, November, 1796.
Thanks, my heart's warm thanks to you, my beloved Friend, for your
tender letter! Indeed I did not deserve so kind a one; but by this time
you have received my last. To live in a beautiful country, and to enure
myself as much as possible to the labours of the field, have been for
this year past my dream of the day, my sigh at midnight. But to enjoy
these blessings near you, to see you daily, to tell you all my thoughts
in their first birth, and to hear yours, to be mingling identities with
you, as it were!--the vision-weaving Fancy has indeed often pictured
such things, but Hope never dared whisper a promise. Disappointment!
Disappointment! dash not from my trembling hand this bowl, which almost
touches my lips. Envy me not this immortal draught, and I will forgive
thee all thy persecutions! Forgive thee! Impious! I will bless thee,
black-vested minister of Optimism, stern pioneer of happiness! Thou hast
been the cloud before me from the day that I left the flesh-pots of
Egypt, and was led through the way of a wilderness--the cloud that had
been guiding me to a land flowing with milk and honey--the milk of
innocence, the honey of friendship!
I wanted such a letter as yours, for I am very unwell. On Wednesday
night I was seized with an intolerable pain from my right temple to the
tip of my right shoulder, including my right eye, cheek, jaw, and that
side of the throat. I was nearly frantic, and ran about the house almost
naked, endeavouring by every means to excite sensation in different
parts of my body, and so to weaken the enemy by creating a division. It
continued from one in the morning till half-past five, and left me pale
and fainty. It came on fitfully, but not so violently, several times on
Thursday, and began severer threats towards night; but I took between 60
and 70 drops of laudanum, and sopped the Cerberus just as his mouth
began to open. On Friday it only niggled, as if the Chief had departed,
as from a conquered place, and merely left a small garrison behind, or
as if he had evacuated the Corsica, and a few straggling pains only
remained. But this morning he returned in full force, and his name is
Legion. Giant-Fiend of a hundred hands, with a shower of arrowy
death-pangs he transpierced me, and then he became a Wolf and lay
gnawing my bones!--I am not mad, most noble Festus! but in sober sadness
I have suffered this day more bodily pain than I had before a conception
of. My right cheek has certainly been placed with admirable exactness
under the focus of some invisible burning-glass, which concentrated all
the rays of a Tartarean sun. My medical attendant decides it to be
altogether nervous, and that it originates either in severe application,
or excessive anxiety.
My beloved Poole, in excessive anxiety I believe it might originate. I
have a blister under my right ear, and I take 25 drops of laudanum every
five hours, the ease and spirits gained by which have enabled me to
write to you this flighty, but not exaggerating, account. With a gloomy
wantonness of imagination I had been coquetting with the hideous
possibles of disappointment. I drank fears like wormwood--yea--made
myself drunken with bitterness; for my ever-shaping and distrustful mind
still mingled gall-drops, till out of the cup of Hope I almost poisoned
myself with Despair.
Your letter is dated 2. November; I wrote to you on the 1st. Your Sister
was married on that day; and on that day I several times felt my heart
overflowed with such tendernesses for her, as made me repeatedly
ejaculate prayers in her behalf. Such things are strange. It may be
superstition to think about such correspondences; but it is a
superstition which softens the heart and leads to no evil. We will call
on your dear Sister as soon as I am quite well, and in the mean time I
will write a few lines to her.
I am anxious beyond measure to be in the country as soon as possible. I
would it were possible to get a temporary residence till Adscombe is
ready for us. I wish we could have three rooms in William Poole's large
house for the winter. Will you try to look out for a fit servant for
us,--simple of heart, physiognomically handsome, and scientific in
vaccimulgence. That last word is a new one, but soft in sound, and full
of expression. Vaccimulgence! I am pleased with the word. Write to me
all things about yourself; where I cannot advise, I can console; and
communication, which doubles joy, halves sorrow.
Tell me whether you think it at all possible to make any terms with
----.[1] You know, I would not wish to touch with the edge of the nail
of my great toe the line which should be but half a barley-corn out of
the circle of the most trembling delicacy! I will write to Cruikshank
tomorrow, if God permit me. God bless and protect you Friend! Brother!
Beloved! Sara's best love and Lloyd's. David Hartley is well. My filial
love to your dear Mother. Love to Ward. Little Tommy! I often think of
thee! S. T. COLERIDGE.[2]
[Footnote 1: William Poole.]
[Footnote 2: Letter LXII is our 43. Letters LXIII-LXX follow.]
Charles Lloyd, spoken of in a letter of my father's in the last chapter
as "a young man of great genius," was born Feb. 12th, 1775, died at
Versailles Jan. 15th, 1839. He published sonnets and other poems in
conjunction with my Father and Mr. Lamb, in 1797, and these and Mr.
Lamb's were published together, apart from my Father's, the year
afterwards. "While Lamb," says Sergeant Talfourd, "was enjoying habits
of the closest intimacy with Coleridge in London, he was introduced by
him to a young poet whose name has often been associated with his--
Charles Lloyd--the son of a wealthy banker at Birmingham, who had
recently cast off the trammels of the Society of Friends, and, smitten
with the love of poetry, had become a student at the University of
Cambridge. There he had been attracted to Coleridge by the fascination
of his discourse; and, having been admitted to his regard, was
introduced by him to Lamb. Lloyd was endeared both to Lamb and
Coleridge by a very amiable disposition and a pensive cast of thought;
but his intellect had little resemblance to that of either. He wrote,
indeed, pleasing verses and with great facility,--a facility fatal to
excellence; but his mind was chiefly remarkable for the fine power of
analysis which distinguishes his "London", and other of his later
compositions. In this power of discriminating and distinguishing--
carried to a pitch almost of painfulness--Lloyd has scarcely ever been
equalled, and his poems, though rugged in point of versification, will
be found by those who will read them with the calm attention they
require, replete with critical and moral suggestions of the highest
value."
Besides three or four volumes of poetry Mr. Lloyd wrote novels:--"Edmund
Oliver", published soon after he became acquainted with my Father, and
"Isabel" of later date. After his marriage he settled at the lakes. "At
Brathay," (the beautiful river Brathay near Ambleside,) says Mr. De
Quincey, "lived Charles Lloyd, and he could not in candour be considered
a common man. He was somewhat too Rousseauish, but he had in
conversation very extraordinary powers for analysis of a certain kind,
applied to the philosophy of manners, and the most delicate 'nuances' of
social life; and his Translations of Alfieri together with his own
poems, shew him to have been an accomplished scholar."
My Mother has often told me how amiable Mr. Lloyd was as a youth; how
kind to her little Hartley; how well content with cottage accommodation;
how painfully sensitive in all that related to the affections. I
remember him myself, as he was in middle life, when he and his excellent
wife were most friendly to my brothers, who were school-fellows with
their sons. I did not at that time fully appreciate Mr. Lloyd's
intellectual character, but was deeply impressed by the exceeding
refinement and sensibility marked in his countenance and manners,--(for
he was a gentleman of the old school without its formality,)--by the
fluent elegance of his discourse, and, above all, by the eloquent
pathos, with which he described his painful mental experiences and wild
waking dreams, caused by a deranged state of the nervous system. _Le
ciel nous vend toujours les biens qu'il nous prodigue_. Nervous
derangement is a dear price to pay even for genius and sensibility. Too
often, even if not the direct effect of these privileges, it is the
accompanying drawback; hypochondria may almost be called the
intellectual man's malady.
"The Duke D'Ormond", which was written 24 years before its publication
in 1822, that is in 1798, soon after Mr, Lloyd's residence at Stowey,
has great merit as a dramatic poem, in the delineation of character and
states of mind; the plot is forced and unnatural; not only that, but
what is worse, in point of effect, it is tediously subjective; and we
feel the actions of the piece to be improbable while the feelings are
true to nature; yet there is tragic effect in the scenes of the
'denouement'. I understand what it was in Mr. Lloyd's mind which Mr. De
Quincey calls 'Rousseauish'. He dwelt a good deal on the temptations to
which human nature is subject, when passions, not in themselves
unworthy, become, from circumstances, sins if indulged, and the source
of sin and misery; but the effect of this piece is altogether favourable
to virtue, and to the parent and nurse of virtue, a pious conviction of
the moral government of the world. The play contains an 'anatomy' of
passion, not a 'picture' of it in a concrete form, such as the works of
Richardson and of Rousseau present, a picture fitted to excite
'feelings' of baneful effect upon the mind, rather than to awaken
'thought', which counteracts all such mischief. Indeed I think no man
would have sought my Father's daily society who was not predominantly
given to reflection. What is very striking in this play is the character
of the heroine, whose earnest and scrupulous devotion to her mother
occasions the partial estrangement of her lover, d'Ormond, and, in its
consequences, an overwhelming misery, which overturns her reason and
causes her death, and thus, through remorse, works the conversion of
those guilty persons of the drama, who have been slaves to passion, but
are not all "enslaved, nor wholly vile." Strong is the contrast which
this play presents, in its exhibition of the female character, with that
of the celebrated French and German writers, who have treated similar
subjects. Men write,--I have heard a painter say, men even paint,--as
they feel and as they are. Goethe's Margaret has been thought equal to
Shakespeare's Ophelia and Desdemona; in some respects it is so; but it
is like a pot of sweet ointment into which some tainting matter has
fallen. I think no Englishman of Goethe's genius and sensibility would
have described a maiden, whom it was his intention to represent, though
frail on one point, yet lovely and gentle-hearted, as capable of being
induced to give her poor old mother a sleeping potion. "It will do her
no harm." But the risk!--affection gives the wisdom of the serpent
where there would else be but the simplicity of the dove. A true
Englishman would have felt that such an act, so bold and undaughterly,
blighted at once the lily flower, making it "put on darkness" and "fall
into the portion of weeds and out-worn faces." In Mr. Lloyd's youthful
drama even the dissipated Marchioness, who tempts and yields to
temptation, is made to play a noble part in the end, won back from sin
by generous feeling and strong sense: and the description of Julia
Villeneuve's tender care of her mother is so characteristic of the
author, that I cannot help quoting a part of it here, though it is not
among the powerful parts of the play.
Describing how her aged parent's extreme infirmity rendered her
incapable, without a sacrifice, of leaving the small dwelling to which
she had been accustomed, and how this had prevented her even from
hinting her lover's proposal for their union, Julia says,
"Though blind
She loved this little spot. A happy wife
There lived she with her lord. It was a home
In which an only brother, long since dead,
And I, were educated: 'twas to her
As the whole world. Its scanty garden plot,
The hum of bees hived there, which still she heard
On a warm summer's day, the scent of flowers,
The honey-suckle which trailed around its porch,
Its orchard, field, and trees, her universe!--
I knew she could not long be spared to me.
Her sufferings, when alleviated best,
Were most acute: and I could best perform
That sacred task. I wished to lengthen out,--
By consecrating to her every moment,--
Her being to myself! etc."
"Could I leave her?--
I might have seen her,--such was D'Ormond's plea--
Each day. But who her evening hours could cheer?
Her long and solitary evening hours?--
Talk her, or haply sing her, to her sleep?
Read to her? Smooth her pillow? Lastly make
Morning seem morning with a daughter's welcome?
For morning's light ne'er visited her eyes!--
Well! I refused to quit her! D'Ormond grew
Absent, reserved, nay splenetic and petulant!
He left the Province, nor has he once sent
A kind enquiry so t' alleviate
His heavy absence."
"Beritola" is Italian in form, as much as Wieland's "Oberon",
but the spirit is that of the Englishman, Charles Lloyd; it contains the
same vivid descriptions of mental suffering, the same reflective display
of the lover's passion, the same sentiments of deep domestic tenderness,
uttered as from the heart and with a special air of reality, as "The
Duke D'Ormond" and the author's productions in general. The
versification is rather better than that of his earlier poems, but the
want of ease and harmony in the flow of the verse is a prevailing defect
in Mr. Lloyd's poetry, and often makes it appear prosaic, even where the
thought is not so. This pathetic sonnet is one of a very interesting
set, on the death of Priscilla Farmer, the author's maternal
grandmother, included in the joint volume:
"Oh, She was almost speechless! nor could hold
Awakening converse with me! (I shall bless
No more the modulated tenderness
Of that dear voice!) Alas, 'twas shrunk and cold
Her honour'd face! yet, when I sought to speak,
Through her half-open'd eyelids She did send
Faint looks, that said, 'I would be yet thy friend!'
And (O my chok'd breast!) e'en on that shrunk cheek
I saw one slow tear roll! my hand She took,
Placing it on her heart--I heard her sigh
'Tis too, too much!' 'Twas Love's last agony!
I tore me from Her! 'Twas her latest look,
Her latest accents--Oh my heart, retain
That look, those accents, till we meet again!"
S. C.
Meantime Coleridge had written to Charles Lloyd's father three letters
about his son, highly interesting as glimpses of his own character.
These letters were first published in "Charles Lamb and the Lloyds", by
E. V. Lucas. They are as follows:
LETTER 44. To CHARLES LLOYD, SEN.
Dear Sir,
As the father of Charles Lloyd you are of course in some measure
interested in any alteration of my schemes of life; and I feel it a kind
of Duty to give you my reasons for any such alteration. I have declined
my Derby connection, and determined to retire once for all and utterly
from cities and towns: and am about to take a cottage and half a dozen
acres of land in an enchanting Situation about eight miles from
Bridgewater. My reasons are--that I have cause to believe my Health would
be materially impaired by residing in a town, and by the close
confinement and anxieties incident to the education of children; that as
my days would be dedicated to Dr. Crompton's children, and my evenings
to a course of study with my admirable young friend, I should have
scarcely a snatch of time for literary occupation; and, above all,
because I am anxious that my children should be bred up from earliest
infancy in the simplicity of peasants, their food, dress, and habits
completely rustic. I never shall, and I never will, have any fortune to
leave them: I will leave them therefore hearts that desire little, heads
that know how little is to be desired, and hands and arms accustomed to
earn that little. I am peculiarly delighted with the 2ist verse of the
4th chapter of Tobit, "And fear not, my son! that we are made poor: for
thou hast much wealth, if thou fear God, and depart from all sin and do
that which is pleasing in His sight." Indeed, if I live in cities, my
children (if it please the All-good to preserve the one I have, and to
give me more), my children, I say, will necessarily become acquainted
with politicians and politics--a set of men and a kind of study which I
deem highly unfavourable to all Christian graces. I have myself erred
greatly in this respect; but, I trust, I have now seen my error. I have
accordingly snapped my squeaking baby-trumpet of sedition, and have hung
up its fragments in the chamber of Penitences.
Your son and I are happy in our connection--our opinions and feelings
are as nearly alike as we can expect: and I rely upon the goodness of
the All-good that we shall proceed to make each other better and wiser.
Charles Lloyd is greatly averse from the common run of society--and so
am I--but in a city I could scarcely avoid it. And this, too, has aided
my decision in favour of my rustic scheme. We shall reside near a very
dear friend of mine, a man versed from childhood in the toils of the
Garden and the Field, and from whom I shall receive every addition to my
comfort which an earthly friend and adviser can give.
My Wife requests to be remembered to you, if the word "remember" can be
properly used. You will mention my respects to your Wife and your
children, and believe that I am with no mean esteem and regard
Your Friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
Saturday, 15th Oct., 1796.
LETTER 45. To CHARLES LLOYD, SEN.
Dear Sir,
I received your letter, and thank you for that interest which you take
in my welfare. The reasons which you urge against my present plan are
mostly well-founded; but they would apply equally against any other
scheme of life which 'my' Conscience would permit me to adopt. I
might have a situation as a Unitarian minister, I might have lucrative
offices as an active Politician; but on both of these the Voice within
puts a firm and unwavering negative. Nothing remains for me but
schoolmastership in a large town or my present plan. To the success of
both, and indeed even to my 'subsisting' in either, health and the
possession of my faculties are necessary Requisites. While I possess
these Requisites, 'I know', I can maintain myself and family in the
COUNTRY; the task of educating children suits not the activity of my
mind, and the anxieties and confinement incident to it, added to the
living in a town or city, would to a moral certainty ruin that Health
and those faculties which, as I said before, are necessary to my gaining
my livelihood in 'any' way. Undoubtedly, without fortune, or trade,
or profession it is 'impossible' that I should be in any situation
in which I must not be dependent on my own health and exertions for the
bread of my family. I do not regret it--it will make me 'feel' my
dependence on the Almighty, and it will prevent my affections from being
made earthly altogether. I praise God in all things, and feel that to
His grace alone it is owing that I am 'enabled' to praise Him in
all things. You think my scheme 'monastic rather than Christian'.
Can he be deemed monastic who is married, and employed in rearing his
children?--who 'personally' preaches the truth to his friends and
neighbours, and who endeavours to instruct tho' Absent by the Press? In
what line of Life could I be more 'actively' employed? and what
titles, that are dear and venerable, are there which I shall not
possess, God permit my present resolutions to be realised? Shall I not
be an Agriculturist, an Husband, a Father, and a 'Priest' after the
order of 'Peace'? an 'hireless' Priest? "Christianity teaches
us to let our lights shine before men." It does so--but it likewise bids
us say, Our Father, lead us not [into] temptation! which how can he say
with a safe conscience who voluntarily places himself in those
circumstances in which, if he believe Christ, he must acknowledge that
it would be easier for a Camel to go thro' the eye of a needle than for
HIM to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven? Does not that man 'mock'
God who daily prays against temptations, yet daily places himself in the
midst of the most formidable? I meant to have written a few lines only
respecting myself, because I have much and weighty matter to write
concerning my friend, Charles Lloyd; but I have been seduced into many
words from the importance of the general truths on which I build my
conduct.
While your Son remains with me, he will, of course, be acquiring that
knowledge and those powers of Intellect which are necessary as the
'foundation' of excellence in all professions, rather than the
immediate science of 'any'. 'Languages' will engross one or
two hours in every day: the 'elements' of Chemistry, Geometry,
Mechanics, and Optics the remaining hours of study. After tolerable
proficiency in these, we shall proceed to the study of 'Man' and of
'Men'--I mean, Metaphysics and History--and finally, to a thorough
examination of the Jewish and Christian Dispensations, their doctrines
and evidences: an examination necessary for all men, but peculiarly so
to your son, if he be destined for a medical man. A Physician who should
be even a Theist, still more a 'Christian', would be a rarity
indeed. I do not know 'one'--and I know a 'great many'
Physicians. They are 'shallow' Animals: having always employed
their minds about Body and Gut, they imagine that in the whole system of
things there is nothing but Gut and Body. * * *
I hope your Health is confirmed, and that your Wife and children are
well. Present my well-wishes. You are blessed with children who are
'pure in Heart'--add to this Health, Competence, Social Affections,
and Employment, and you have a complete idea of Human Happiness.
Believe me,
With esteem and friendly-heartedness,
Your obliged
S. T. COLERIDGE.
Monday, November 14th (1796).
LETTER 46. To CHARLES LLOYD, SEN.
Dear Sir,
I think it my duty to acquaint you with the nature of my connection with
your Son. If he be to stay with me, I can neither be his tutor or
fellow-student, nor in any way impart a regular system of knowledge. My
'days' I shall devote to the acquirement of 'practical'
husbandry and horticulture, that as "to beg I am ashamed," I may at
least be able "to dig": and my evenings will be fully employed in
fulfilling my engagements with the 'Critical Review' and 'New
Monthly Magazine'. If, therefore, your Son occupy a room in my
cottage, he will be there merely as a Lodger and Friend; and the only
money I shall 'receive' from him will be the sum which his
'board' and 'lodging' will cost 'me', and which, by an
accurate calculation, I find will amount to half a guinea a week,
'exclusive' of his washing, porter, cyder, spirits, in short any
potation beyond table-beer--these he must provide himself with. I shall
keep no servant.
I must add that Charles Lloyd must 'furnish' his own bed-room. It
is not in my power to do it myself without running into debt; from which
may heaven amid its most angry dispensations preserve me!
When I mentioned the circumstances which rendered my literary engagement
impracticable, when, I say, I first mentioned them to Charles Lloyd, and
described the severe process of simplification which I had determined to
adopt, I never dreamt that he would have desired to continue with me:
and when at length he did manifest such a desire, I dissuaded him from
it. But his feelings became vehement, and in the present state of his
health it would have been as little prudent as humane in me to have
given an absolute refusal.
Will you permit me, Sir! to write of Charles Lloyd with freedom? I do
not think he ever will endure, whatever might be the consequences, to
practise as a physician, or to undertake any commercial employment. What
weight your authority might have, I know not: I doubt not he would
struggle to submit to it--but would he 'succeed' in any attempt to
which his temper, feelings, and principles are inimical? * * * What then
remains? I know of nothing but agriculture. If his attachment to it
'should' prove permanent, and he really acquired the steady
dispositions of a practical farmer, I think you could wish nothing
better for him than to see him married, and settled 'near you' as a
farmer. I love him, and do not think he will be well or happy till he is
married and settled.
I have written plainly and decisively, my dear Sir! I wish to avoid not
only evil, but the 'appearances' of evil. This is a world of
calumnies! Yea! there is an imposthume in the large tongue of this world
ever ready to break, and it is well to prevent the contents from being
sputtered into one's face. My Wife thanks you for your kind inquiries
respecting her. She and our Infant are well--only the latter has met
with a little accident--a burn, which is doing well.
To Mrs. Lloyd and all your children present my remembrances, and believe
me in all esteem and friendliness, Yours sincerely, S. T. COLERIDGE. [1]
Sunday, December 4, 1796.
[Footnote 1: To this letter Mr. Lloyd seems to have returned the
question, How could Coleridge live without companions? The answer came
quickly, as we learn from a letter from Coleridge to Poole
{'Letters', I, p. 186}, in which he mentions Mr. Lloyd's query and
quotes his own characteristic reply: "I shall have six companions: My
Sara, my babe, my own shaping and disquisitive mind, my books, my
beloved friend Thomas Poole, and lastly, Nature looking at me with a
thousand looks of beauty, and speaking to me in a thousand melodies of
love. If I were capable of being tired with all these, I should then
detect a vice in my nature, and would fly to habitual solitude to
eradicate it." Coleridge's letter to Mr. Lloyd, containing this passage,
seems to have been lost. Note by E. V. Lucas.]
The 'Ode to the Departing Year,' Coleridge tells us, was written on
24th, 25th, and 26th December, 1796. It was first printed in the
'Cambridge Intelligencer' of 31st December, and then republished, along
with the 'Lines to a Young Man who abandoned himself to a Causeless
Melancholy' (probably Charles Lloyd), in quarto form of 16 pages. It was
then prefaced by the following letter:
LETTER 47. TO THOMAS POOLE, OF STOWEY. DEDICATION
TO THE "ODE TO THE DEPARTING YEAR."
My dear Friend,
Soon after the commencement of this month, the editor of the 'Cambridge
Intelligencer' (a newspaper conducted with so much ability, and such
unmixed and fearless zeal for the interests of piety and freedom, that I
cannot but think my poetry honoured by being permitted to appear in it)
requested me, by letter, to furnish him with some lines for the last day
of this year. I promised him that I would make the attempt; but almost
immediately after, a rheumatic complaint seized on my head, and
continued to prevent the possibility of poetic composition till within
the last three days. So in the course of the last three days the
following Ode was produced. In general, when an author informs the
public that his production was struck off in a great hurry, he offers an
insult, not an excuse. But I trust that the present case is an
exception, and that the peculiar circumstances which obliged me to write
with such unusual rapidity give a propriety to my professions of it:
"nec nunc eam apud te jacto, sed et ceteris indico; ne quis asperiore
limae carmen examinet, et a confuso scriptum et quod frigidum erat ni
statim traderem." (I avail myself of the words of Statius, and hope that
I shall likewise be able to say of any weightier publication, what 'he'
has declared of his Thebaid, that it had been tortured with a laborious
polish.)
For me to discuss the 'literary' merits of this hasty composition were
idle and presumptuous. If it be found to possess that impetuosity of
transition, and that precipitation of fancy and feeling, which are the
'essential' excellencies of the sublimer Ode, its deficiency in less
important respects will be easily pardoned by those from whom alone
praise could give me pleasure: and whose minuter criticisms will be
disarmed by the reflection, that these lines were conceived "not in the
soft obscurities of retirement, or under the shelter of Academic Groves,
but amidst inconvenience and distraction, in sickness and in sorrow."[1]
I am more anxious lest the 'moral' spirit of the Ode should be mistaken.
You, I am sure, will not fail to recollect that among the ancients, the
Bard and the Prophet were one and the same character; and you 'know'
that although I prophesy curses, I pray fervently for blessings.
Farewell, Brother of my Soul!
--O ever found the same
And trusted and beloved!
Never without an emotion of honest pride do I subscribe myself
Your grateful and affectionate friend, S. T. COLERIDGE.
[Bristol, December 26, 1796.]
[Footnote 1: From the Preface to the first Edition of Johnson's
_Dictionary of the English Language._]