Biographia Epistolaris Volume 2 - being The Biographical Supplement of Coleridge's Biographia Literaria

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Title: Biographia Epistolaris Volume 2 - being The Biographical Supplement of Coleridge's Biographia Literaria
Author: Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834
Language: English
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Transcriber's Notes

This is the second volume of Biographia Epistolaris. The index refers to
both volumes. There were a number of minor corrections made, which are
described in the Notes to be found at the end of this text.

The editor of the original text added material for this edition, which
was indicated using square brackets. These, of course, are retained. The
final opening bracket at the beginning of Chapter XXX was not closed.

There are several typographical effects which could only be approximated.
In particular, a small triangle, surrounded by the letters S, G, and N
is indicated here as: [S^G^N].

Words in italic font are presented using _underscore_ characters.
Superscripts are simply dropped in-line ("Dr.", "Revd"). Mixed "small
cap" text is shifted into uppercase here. As described in the end notes,
ellipses are used typographically to elide names from time to time, and
are given as printed.

Footnotes have been gathered at the end of each chapter and renumbered
to be unique.

BIOGRAPHIA
EPISTOLARIS

BEING

THE BIOGRAPHICAL SUPPLEMENT OF

COLERIDGE'S BIOGRAPHIA

LITERARIA

WITH ADDITIONAL LETTERS, ETC., EDITED BY

A. TURNBULL

VOL. II

[Illustration]

LONDON
G. BELL AND SONS, LTD.
1911

CHISWICK PRESS: CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO.
TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.

CONTENTS

PAGE

CHAPTER XI. MALTA AND ITALY II, 1

Letter 130. To J. Tobin. 10 April, 1804 1

CHAPTER XII. HOME AGAIN, ROLLING, RUDDERLESS! THEOLOGY 8

Letter 131. To Cottle. -- -- 1807 9
132. " -- -- 1807 10
133. " -- June, 1807 13
134. George Fricker. -- -- 1807 22
135. Cottle. -- -- 1807 25

CHAPTER XIII. DE QUINCEY 27

Letter 136. To Cottle. 7 October, 1807 28

CHAPTER XIV. FIRST LECTURES 30

Letter 137. To Humphry Davy. 11 Sept. 1807 30
138. Dr. Andrew Bell. 15 April, 1808 35

CHAPTER XV. _THE FRIEND_ 38

Letter 139. To Wade. -- -- 1807-8 38
140. Humphry Davy. -- Dec. 1808 40
141. " 14 Dec. 1808 41
142. " 30 Jany. 1809 45
143. ---- 1 June, 1809 48
144. Southey. 20 Oct. 1809 52
145. R. L. 26 Oct. 1809 57
146. "Cantab." 21 Dec. 1809 63

CHAPTER XVI. QUARREL WITH WORDSWORTH; LECTURES, 1811-12 66

Letter 147. To Godwin. 26 Mch. 1811 68
148. " 29 Mch. 1811 70
149. Dr. Andrew Bell. 30 Nov. 1811 74

CHAPTER XVII. DANIEL STUART AND _THE COURIER_ 76

Letter 150. To Daniel Stuart. 4 June, 1811 79
151. " 8 May, 1816 90

CHAPTER XVIII. MRS. COLERIDGE; LAST STAY AT THE LAKE
DISTRICT 100

CHAPTER XIX. _REMORSE_ 104

Letter 152. To Poole. 13 Feby. 1813 105

CHAPTER XX. COTTLE'S DARK CHAPTER 116

Letter 153. To Wade. 8 Dec. 1813 117
154. Cottle. 5-14 April, 1814 118
155. " -- -- 1814 119
156. " -- -- 1814 120
157. " -- -- 1814 121
158. " 26 April, 1814 126
159. " 26 April, 1814 129
160. " Apl. 1814 130
161. Miss Cottle. 13 May, 1814 131
162. Cottle. 27 May, 1814 132
163. Wade. 26 June,1814 135

CHAPTER XXI. THE MORGANS; BRISTOL AND CALNE 140

Letter 164. To Cottle. 7 March, 1815 142
165. " 10 March, 1815 144

CHAPTER XXII. HIGHGATE; LECTURES OF 1818 149

Letter 166. To Gillman. 13 April, 1816 150
167. -- -- -- 1816 153
168. -- -- -- 1816 154
169. -- -- -- 1816 157

CHAPTER XXIII. THOMAS ALLSOP 158

Letter 170. To Allsop. 28 Jany. 1818 158
171. " 20 Sept. 1818 160
172. " 26 Nov. 1818 160
173. " 2 Dec. 1818 163
174. Mr. Britton. 28 Feby. 1819 166
175. " Feby.-Mch. 1819 168
176. Allsop. 30 Sept. 1819 169
177. " 13 Dec. 1819 172
178. To Allsop. 20 Mch. 1820 174
179. " 10 April, 1820 178

CHAPTER XXIV. SIR WALTER SCOTT 181

Letter 180. To Allsop. 8 or 18 April, 1820 182
181. " 31 July, 1820 190
182. " 8 August, 1820 192
183. " 11 October, 1820 198
184. " 20 October, 1820 201
185. " 25 October, 1820 202
186. " 27 Nov. 1820 203
187. " January, 1821 204

CHAPTER XXV. H.C. ROBINSON 216

CHAPTER XXVI. CHARLES LAMB 218

Letter 188. To Allsop. 1 March, 1821 218
189. " 4 May, 1821 219
190. " 23 June, 1821 226
191. " --- 1821 227
192. " 15 Sept. 1821 227
193. " 24 Sept. 1821 229
194. Mr. Blackwood. -- Oct. 1821 232
195. Allsop. 20 Oct. 1821 238
196. " 2 Nov. 1821 240
197. " 17 Nov. 1821 244
198. " -- 1821 245
199. " 25 Jany. 1822 247
200. " 4 Mch. 1822 249
201. " 22 Mch. 1822 251
202. " 18 April, 1822 255

CHAPTER XXVII. THE GILLMANS 257

Letter 203. To Allsop. 30 May, 1822 257
204. " 29 June, 1822 259
205. " 8 Octr. 1822 261
206. Gillman. 28 Octr.1822 265
207. Allsop. 26 Dec. 1822 266
208. " 10 Dec. 1823 269
209. " 24 Dec. 1823 270
210. Mrs. Allsop. -- 1823 270
211. Mr. and Mrs. Allsop. 8 April, 1824 272

Letter 212. To Allsop. 14 April, 1824 274
213. " 27 April, 1824 274

CHAPTER XXVIII. THE NEW ACADEME 278

Letter 214. To Allsop. 20 Mch. 1825 284
215. " 30 April, 1825 286
216. " 2 May, 1825 287
217. " 10 May, 1825 287
218. " -- 1825 290

CHAPTER XXIX. ALARIC WATTS 292

CHAPTER XXX. THE RHINE TOUR, AND LAST COLLECTED
EDITIONS OF THE POEMS 296

Letter 219. To Adam S. Kennard. 13 July, 1834 302

CHAPTER XXXI. CONCLUSION 305

APPENDIX AND ADDITIONAL NOTES 313

INDEX 327

BIOGRAPHIA EPISTOLARIS

CHAPTER XI

MALTA AND ITALY

[Coleridge set sail from Portsmouth in the "Speedwell" on 9th or 10th
April 1804. He wrote to J. Tobin on the 10th (_Anima Poetae_, p. 68):

LETTER 130. TO J. TOBIN

April 10, 1804.

Men who habitually enjoy robust health have, too generally, the trick,
and a very cruel one it is, of imagining that they discover the secret
of all their acquaintances' ill health in some malpractice or other;
and, sometimes, by gravely asserting this, here, there, and everywhere
(as who likes his penetration hid under a bushel?), they not only do all
they can, without intending it, to deprive the poor sufferer of that
sympathy which is always a comfort and, in some degree, a support to
human nature, but, likewise, too often implant serious alarm and
uneasiness in the minds of the person's relatives and his nearest and
dearest connections. Indeed (but that I have known its inutility, that I
should be ridiculously sinning against my own law which I was
propounding, and that those who are most fond of advising are the least
able to hear advice from others, as the passion to command makes men
disobedient) I should often have been on the point of advising you
against the two-fold rage of advising and of discussing character, both
the one and the other of which infallibly generates presumption and
blindness to our own faults. Nay! more particularly where, from whatever
cause, there exists a slowness to understand or an aptitude to mishear
and consequently misunderstand what has been said, it too often renders
an otherwise truly good man a mischief-maker to an extent of which he is
but little aware. Our friends' reputation should be a religion to us,
and when it is lightly sacrificed to what self-adulation calls a love of
telling the truth (in reality a lust of talking something seasoned with
the cayenne and capsicum of personality), depend upon it, something in
the heart is warped or warping, more or less according to the greater or
lesser power of the counteracting causes. I confess to you, that being
exceedingly low and heart-fallen, I should have almost sunk under the
operation of reproof and admonition (the whole too, in my conviction,
grounded on utter mistake) at the moment I was quitting, perhaps for
ever! my dear country and all that makes it so dear--but the high esteem
which I cherish towards you, and my sense of your integrity and the
reality of your attachment and concern blows upon me refreshingly as the
sea-breeze on the tropic islander. Show me anyone made better by blunt
advice, and I may abate of my dislike to it, but I have experienced the
good effects of the contrary in Wordsworth's conduct toward me; and, in
Poole and others, have witnessed enough of its ill-effects to be
convinced that it does little else but harm both to the adviser and the
advisee.[1]

* * * * *

There is some dubiety as to whether the J. Tobin to whom the above
letter was addressed is John Tobin, the dramatist, or his brother James.
But Coleridge had taken

up quarters with either of the brothers in London before sailing for
Malta (Dykes Campbell's _Life_, p. 141); and the letter is Coleridge's
parting shot for his host's over solicitous advice.

On 16th April he was off Oporto, and wrote a description of the place,
as seen from the sea, for Southey (_Letters_, 469). The "Speedwell" was
convoyed by the "Leviathan," man-of-war of 74 guns. Lisbon and the rest
of the Portuguese coast are described by Coleridge, and on 19th April
the "Speedwell" reached Gibraltar, where Coleridge landed and scrambled
on the rocks among the monkeys, "our poor relations." In his note-books
he describes more fully the scene around the Rock of Gibraltar with its
multitude and discordant complexity of associations--the Pillars of
Hercules, Calpe, and Abyla, the realms of Masinissa, Jugurtha, and
Syphax; Spain, Gibraltar, the Dey of Algiers, dusky Moor, and black
African. "At its feet mighty ramparts establishing themselves in the
sea, with their huge artillery, hollow trunks of iron where Death and
Thunder sleep," and "the abiding things of Nature, great, calm,
majestic, and one!" (_Letters_, pp. 478-9; _Anima Poetae_, pp. 70, 74.)

In the voyage between Gibraltar and Malta they were frequently in long
dead calms--"every rope of the whole ship reflected in the bright soft
blue sea"--an _Ancient Mariner_ touch. They reached Valetta on 18th May,
where Coleridge was the guest of John Stoddart (afterwards Sir John
Stoddart), Attorney-General for Malta. Sir Alexander Ball was then
governor of the Island, and was greatly pleased with Coleridge's
conversation and manners, and appointed him his private secretary. The
public secretary of the Island dying suddenly in January 1805, Coleridge
was made interim Government secretary until the new nominee should
arrive. He held the office for eight months, from 18th January to 6th
September (_Letters_, 494); and he acquitted himself well as a business
man in the post. What De Quincey says to the contrary is a tissue of
unfounded conjectures. Dykes Campbell, one of Coleridge's most
painstaking biographers, admits that there is nothing to show that
Coleridge did not perform the routine work of office well.

While in Malta Coleridge duly entered in his note-books his impressions
of his surroundings and he records his dreamy introspections of the
night watches (_Anima Poetae_). But Coleridge did not spend all his time
in Malta. Dykes Campbell informs us that "early in August, the _demon of
restlessness_ drove him to Sicily" (_Life_, p. 145), which may be rather
interpreted that the proximity of the land of Theocritus was
irresistible. He was away from the middle of August to 7th November
1804. He twice ascended Etna; and, although Dykes Campbell doubts his
having attained to the summit, according to his own account he looked
down the crater (Cottle's _Rem._, 318; Letter, No. 133). Very few of
Coleridge's letters written in Malta are extant; on account of the
precariousness of the mode of despatch in a time of war some of them
never reached their destination.

In the Spring of 1805 Coleridge was regretting that he had accepted the
Public Secretaryship, saying that his profits would be much less than if
he had employed his time and efforts in his own literary pursuits
(_Letters_, 491), another way of grumbling against occupations inferior
to the pursuit of the Permanent. To Daniel Stuart he writes on 20th
April 1805: "In my letter, which will accompany this, I have detailed my
health and all that relates to me. In case, however, that letter should
not arrive, I will simply say, that till within the last two months or
ten weeks my health had improved to the utmost of my hopes, though not
without some intrusion of sickness; but _latterly_ the loss of my
letters to England, the almost entire non-arrival of letters from
England, not a single one from Mrs. Coleridge, or Southey, or you; and
only one from the Wordsworths, and that dated September 1804! my
consequent heart-saddening anxieties, and still, still more, the depths
which Captain John Wordsworth's[2] death sunk into my heart, and which I
heard abruptly, and in the very painfullest way possible in a public
company--all these joined to my disappointment in my expectation of
returning to England by this convoy, and the quantity and variety of my
public occupations from eight o'clock in the morning to five in the
afternoon, having besides the most anxious duty of writing public
letters and memorials which belongs to my talents rather than to my
_pro-tempore_ office; these and some other causes that I cannot mention
relative to my affairs in England, have produced a sad change indeed on
my health; but, however, I hope all will be well. It is my present
intention to return home by Naples, Ancona, Trieste, etc., on or about
the second of next month" (_Letters_, 494-5). To his wife he says, on 21
July 1805: "I have been hoping and expecting to get away for England for
five months past, and Mr. Chapman[3] not arriving, Sir Alexander's
importunities have always overpowered me, though my gloom has increased
at each disappointment. I am determined, however, to go in less than a
month. My office, as Public Secretary, the next civil dignitary to the
Governor, is a very, very busy one, and not to involve myself in the
responsibility of the Treasurer I have but half the salary. I oftentimes
subscribe my name 150 times a day--and administer half as many
oaths--besides which I have the public memorials to write, and, worse
than all, constant matters of irritation. Sir A. Ball is indeed
exceedingly kind to me" (_Letters_, 496-7).

Coleridge did not return by the proposed route of Naples, Ancona,
Trieste, to be continued, to avoid Napoleon's power, by Vienna, Berlin,
Embden, and Denmark (_Letters_, 492). He went, on the contrary,
straight to Naples in company with a gentleman unnamed (Dykes Campbell's
_Life_, 149). Here he remained till the end of January 1806; and then
proceeded to Rome, where he associated with the artists resident in the
Papal capital. He made the acquaintance of Baron W. von Humboldt, then
Prussian Minister at the Papal Court; Ludwig Tieck, the German
translator of Shakespeare; Washington Allston, the best American painter
of his day; Canova, and Washington Irving; (Flagg's _Life of Allston_,
61).

Various accounts have been given about what Coleridge said regarding his
sojourn in Italy and his flight from it. Gillman (179-181), Cottle
(_Rem._, 310-313), and Caroline Fox (_Journals_), all differing as to
particulars. Flagg, the writer of the _Life of Allston_, says: "He had
intended to go by Switzerland and Germany, but being somewhat
apprehensive of danger on account of the movements of the French troops,
took the precautions to ask the advice of Ambassador von Humboldt; he
advised Coleridge to avoid Bonaparte, who was meditating the seizure of
his person, and had already sent to Rome an order for his arrest, which
was withheld from execution by the connivance of the good old Pope, Pius
VII, who sent him a passport, and counselled his immediate flight by way
of Leghorn. Accordingly he hastened to that port, where he found an
American vessel ready to sail for England, and embarked. On the voyage
they were chased by a French sail; the captain, becoming alarmed,
commanded Coleridge to throw his papers, including his notes on Rome,
overboard" (_Life of Allston_, p. 61). This agrees substantially with
what Coleridge says in the _Biographia Literaria_, Chapter X. Cottle
works the matter up into a romance in his own facetious way; and the
other re-narrators mistake the facts somewhat. Caroline Fox, for
instance, locates the embarkation from Genoa, saying: "On reaching
Genoa, he so delighted an American by his conversation, who had never
heard anything like it since he left Niagara, that at all risks, and
with many subtleties, he got him on board, and brought him safe to
England" (_Journals_, I, 123).[4]]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] [Letters CLI-CXLIII follow 130.]

[2] [Drowned 5th February 1805.]

[3] [The new Secretary.]

[4] [It is quite true that he did induce an American captain to
smuggle him on board.]

CHAPTER XII

HOME AGAIN, _ROLLING_, _RUDDERLESS_! THEOLOGY

[Coleridge reached England on 17th August 1806 (_Letters_, 499), and
made for London, intending to write articles once more for Daniel
Stuart. He does not seem, however, to have done anything at this time
for the newspapers.[5] Humphry Davy was endeavouring to get him to give
a course of lectures on the Fine Arts (Dykes Campbell's _Life_, 154). At
the close of the year Coleridge was at Coleorton, the seat of Sir George
Beaumont in Leicestershire, where he met William and Dorothy
Wordsworth.[6] Wordsworth read to him the _Prelude_, now completed; and
Coleridge, after its recital, wrote the well-known poem to Wordsworth in
blank verse, which is as much a dirge over his own failures as a eulogy
of Wordsworth's poem. Wordsworth's view of the great men of all ages,
forming an interconnected scheme of truth slowly being revealed, is a
Coleridgean rather than a Wordsworthian idea (_Prelude_, Book XIII,
300-311); and Coleridge in his verses to his brother bard hails him as
among the men of the Permanent, among the

Choir of ever-during men.

On 17th February, Coleridge was still at Coleorton (Dykes Campbell's
_Life_, 138); but in July, Coleridge and his wife and family were again
at Stowey on a visit to Poole (_T. Poole and his Friends_, ii, 175-182).
Here Coleridge remained till the end of September. Tom Wedgwood had died
while he was at Malta; and his brother Josiah expected Coleridge to
furnish him with some materials for a Life of Tom. Poole endeavoured to
impress upon him the necessity of complying; but the task was
distasteful to him, at which Josiah Wedgwood, not unnaturally, was
displeased.[7] But Coleridge, after some procrastination, wrote to
Josiah Wedgwood on 27th June 1807, giving reasons for his delay
(Meteyard's _Group of Englishmen_, p. 324); and Wedgwood wrote to Poole,
"I was truly glad to hear from him. His letter removed all those
feelings of anger which occasionally, but not permanently, existed in my
mind towards him." (_T. Poole and his Friends_, ii, 185.)

Meantime, we find Coleridge again in correspondence with Cottle, who had
heard of his arrival in Stowey. Cottle wrote to him, expressing the hope
that Coleridge's health would soon allow him to pay a visit to Bristol
(_Rem._, 305). To this Coleridge replied:

LETTER 131. TO COTTLE

(---- 1807.)

Dear Cottle,

On my return to Bristol, whenever that may be, I will certainly give you
the right hand of old fellowship; but, alas! you will find me the
wretched wreck of what you knew me, rolling, rudderless. My health is
extremely bad. Pain I have enough of, but that is indeed to me, a mere
trifle, but the almost unceasing, overpowering sensations of
wretchedness: achings in my limbs, with an indescribable restlessness,
that makes action to any available purpose, almost impossible: and worst
of all, the sense of blighted utility, regrets, not remorseless. But
enough; yea, more than enough; if these things produce, or deepen the
conviction of the utter powerlessness of ourselves, and that we either
perish, or find aid from something that passes understanding.

Affectionately,

S. T. C.

* * * * *

Cottle tells us he knew nothing as yet of opium, and was struck with the
interesting narratives Coleridge gave of his Italian experiences and of
his voyage to England. Theology was now in the ascendant with Coleridge
who had now abjured unitarianism and become more orthodox. The following
letters on the Trinity and kindred subjects attest to the veracity of
Cottle's estimate of Coleridge at this period (_Reminiscences_, 306,
325-6):

LETTER 132. TO COTTLE

(1807.)

* * * The declaration that the Deity is "the sole Operant" (Religious
Musings) is indeed far too bold; may easily be misconstrued into
Spinozism; and, therefore, though it is susceptible of a pious and
justifiable interpretation, I should by no means now use such a phrase.
I was very young when I wrote that poem, and my religious feelings were
more settled than my theological notions.[8]

As to eternal punishments, I can only say, that there are many passages
in Scripture, and these not metaphorical, which declare that all flesh
shall be finally saved; that the word _aionios_ is indeed used sometimes
when eternity must be meant, but so is the word "Ancient of Days," yet
it would be strange reasoning to affirm, that therefore, the word
ancient must always mean eternal. The literal meaning of _aionios_ is,
"through ages;" that is indefinite; beyond the power of imagination to
bound. But as to the effects of such a doctrine, I say, First,--that it
would be more pious to assert nothing concerning it, one way or the
other.

Ezra says well, "My Son, meditate on the rewards of the righteous, and
examine not over-curiously into the fate of the wicked." (This
apocryphal Ezra is supposed to have been written by some Christian in
the first age of Christianity.) Second,--that however the doctrine is
now broached, and publicly preached by a large and increasing sect, it
is no longer possible to conceal it from such persons as would be likely
to read and understand the _Religious Musings_. Third.--That if the
offers of eternal blessedness; if the love of God; if gratitude; if the
fear of punishment, unknown indeed as to its kind and duration, but
declared to be unimaginably great; if the possibility, nay, the
probability, that this punishment may be followed by annihilation, not
final happiness, cannot divert men from wickedness to virtue; I fear
there will be no charm in the word Eternal.

Fourth, that it is a certain fact, that scarcely any believe eternal
punishment practically with relation to themselves. They all hope in
God's mercy, till they make it a presumptuous watch-word for religious
indifference. And this, because there is no medium in their faith,
between blessedness and misery,--infinite in degree and duration; which
latter they do not practically, and with their whole hearts, believe. It
is opposite to their clearest views of the divine attributes; for God
cannot be vindictive, neither therefore can his punishments be founded
on a vindictive principle. They must be, either for amendment, or
warning for others; but eternal punishment precludes the idea of
amendment, and its infliction, after the day of judgment, when all not
so punished shall be divinely secured from the possibility of falling,
renders the notion of warning to others inapplicable.

The Catholics are far more afraid of, and incomparably more influenced
in their conduct by, the doctrine of purgatory, than Protestants by that
of hell! That the Catholics practise more superstitions than morals, is
the effect of other doctrines.--Supererogation; invocation of saints;
power of relics, etc., etc., and not of Purgatory, which can only act as
a general motive, to what must depend on other causes.

Fifth, and lastly.--It is a perilous state in which a Christian stands,
if he has gotten no further than to avoid evil from the fear of hell!
This is no part of the Christian religion, but a preparatory awakening
of the soul: a means of dispersing those gross films which render the
eye of the spirit incapable of any religion, much less of such a faith
as that of the love of Christ.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, but perfect love
shutteth out fear. It is sufficient for the utmost fervour of gratitude
that we are saved from punishments, too great to be conceived; but our
salvation is surely not complete, till by the illumination from above,
we are made to know "the exceeding sinfulness of sin," and that
horribleness in its nature, which, while it involves all these frightful
consequences, is yet, of itself more affrightful to a regenerated soul
than those consequences. To him who but for a moment felt the influence
of God's presence, the thought of eternal exclusion from the sense of
that presence, would be the worst hell his imagination could conceive.

N.B. I admit of no right, no claim of a creature on its Creator. I speak
only of hopes and of faith deduced from inevitable reason, the gift of
the Creator; from his acknowledged attributes. Above all, immortality
is a free gift, which we neither do, nor can deserve. * * *

S. T. C.

LETTER 133. TO COTTLE

Bristol (June), 1807.
Dear Cottle,

To pursue our last conversation. Christians expect no outward or
sensible miracles from prayer. Its effects, and its fruitions are
spiritual, and accompanied says that _true Divine_, Archbishop Leighton,
"not by reasons and arguments, but by an inexpressible kind of evidence,
which they only know who have it."

To this I would add, that even those who, like me I fear, have not
attained it, yet may presume it. First, because reason itself, or rather
mere human nature, in any dispassionate moment, feels the necessity of
religion, but if this be not true there is no religion, no religation,
or binding over again; nothing added to reason, and therefore
_Socinianism_, misnamed _Unitarianism_, is not only not _Christianity_,
it is not even _religion_, it does not _religate_; does not bind anew.
The first outward and sensible result of prayer is, a penitent
resolution, joined with a consciousness of weakness in effecting it, yea
even a dread, too well grounded, lest by breaking and falsifying it, the
soul should add guilt to guilt; by the very means it has taken to escape
from guilt; so pitiable is the state of unregenerate man.

Are you familiar with Leighton's Works? He resigned his archbishoprick,
and retired to voluntary poverty on account of the persecutions of the
Presbyterians, saying, "I should not dare to introduce Christianity
itself with such cruelties, how much less for a surplice, and the name
of a bishop." If there could be an intermediate space between inspired,
and uninspired writings, that space would be occupied by Leighton. No
show of learning, no appearance, or ostentatious display of eloquence,
and yet both may be shown in him, conspicuously and holily. There is in
him something that must be felt, even as the Scriptures must be felt.

You ask me my views of the _Trinity_. I accept the doctrine, not as
deduced from human reason, in its grovelling capacity for comprehending
spiritual things, but as the clear revelation of Scripture. But perhaps
it may be said, the Socinians do not admit this doctrine as being taught
in the Bible. I know enough of their shifts and quibbles, with their
dexterity at explaining away all they dislike, and that is not a little,
but though beguiled once by them, I happily for my own peace of mind,
escaped from their sophistries, and now hesitate not to affirm, that
Socinians would lose all character for honesty, if they were to explain
their neighbour's will with the same latitude of interpretation, which
they do the Scriptures.

I have in my head some floating ideas on the _Logos_, which I hope,
hereafter, to mould into a consistent form; but it is a gross perversion
of the truth, in Socinians, to declare that we believe in _three gods_;
and they know it to be false. They might, with equal justice affirm that
we believe in _three suns_. The meanest peasant, who has acquired the
first rudiments of Christianity, would shrink back from a thing so
monstrous. Still the Trinity has its difficulties. It would be strange
if otherwise. A _Revelation_ that revealed nothing, not within the grasp
of human reason!--no religation, no binding over again, as before said;
but these difficulties are shadows, contrasted with the substantive and
insurmountable obstacles, with which _they_ contend who admit the
_Divine authority of Scripture_, with the _superlative excellence of
Christ_, and yet undertake to prove that these Scriptures teach, and
that Christ taught his own _pure humanity_.

If Jesus Christ was merely a man, if he was not God as well as man, be
it considered, he could not have been even a _good man_. There is no
medium. The SAVIOUR _in that case_ was absolutely _a deceiver_! one,
transcendantly _unrighteous_! in advancing pretensions to miracles, by
the "Finger of God," which he never performed; and by asserting claims,
(as a man) in the most aggravated sense, blasphemous. These
consequences, Socinians, to be consistent, must allow, and which impious
arrogation of Divinity in Christ, according to their faith, as well as
his false assumption of a community of "glory" with the Father, "before
the world was," even they will be necessitated completely to admit the
exoneration of the Jews,[9] according to their law, in crucifying one,
who "being a man," "made himself God!" But in the Christian, rather than
in the _Socinian_, or _Pharisaic_ view, all these objections vanish, and
harmony succeeds to inexplicable confusion. If Socinians hesitate in
ascribing _unrighteousness_ to Christ, the inevitable result of their
principles, they tremble, as well they might, at their avowed creed, and
virtually renounce what they profess to uphold.

The Trinity, as Bishop Leighton has well remarked, is "a doctrine of
faith, not of demonstration," except in a _moral_ sense. If the New
Testament declare it, not in an insulated passage, but through the whole
breadth of its pages, rendering, with any other admission, the book
which is the Christian's anchor-hold of hope, dark and contradictory,
then it is not to be rejected, but on a penalty that reduces to an atom,
all the sufferings this earth can inflict.

Let the grand question be determined.--Is, or is not the Bible
_inspired_? No one book has ever been subjected to so rigid an
investigation as the Bible, by minds the most capacious, and in the
result, which has so triumphantly repelled all the assaults of infidels.
In the extensive intercourse which I have had with this class of men, I
have seen their prejudices surpassed only by their ignorance. This I
found particularly the case in Dr. Darwin (Letter 19), the prince of
their fraternity. Without therefore, stopping to contend on what all
dispassionate men must deem, undebatable ground, I may assume
inspiration as admitted; and, equally so, that it would be an insult to
man's understanding, to suppose any other Revelation from God than the
Christian Scriptures. If these Scriptures, impregnable in their
strength, sustained in their pretensions, by undeniable prophecies and
miracles, and by the experience of the _inner man_, in all ages, as well
as by a concatenation of arguments, all bearing upon one point, and
extending with miraculous consistency, through a series of fifteen
hundred years; if all this combined proof does not establish their
validity, nothing can be proved under the sun; but the world and man
must be abandoned, with all its consequences, to one universal
scepticism! Under such sanctions, therefore, if these Scriptures, as a
fundamental truth, _do_ inculcate the doctrine of the _Trinity_; however
surpassing human comprehension; then I say, we are bound to admit it on
the strength of _moral demonstration_.

The supreme Governor of the world and the Father of our spirits, has
seen fit to disclose to us much of his will, and the whole of his
natural and moral perfections. In some instances he has given his _word_
only, and demanded our _faith_; while on other momentous subjects,
instead of bestowing full revelation, like the _Via Lactea_, he has
furnished a glimpse only, through either the medium of inspiration, or
by the exercise of those rational faculties with which he has endowed
us. I consider the Trinity as substantially resting on the first
proposition, yet deriving support from the last.

I recollect when I stood on the summit of Etna, and darted my gaze down
the crater; the immediate vicinity was discernible, till, lower down,
obscurity gradually terminated in total darkness. Such figures exemplify
many truths revealed in the Bible. We pursue them, until, from the
imperfection of our faculties, we are lost in impenetrable night. All
truths, however, that are essential to faith, _honestly_ interpreted;
all that are important to human conduct, under every diversity of
circumstance, are manifest as a blazing star. The promises also of
felicity to the righteous in the future world, though the precise nature
of that felicity may not be defined, are illustrated by every image that
can swell the imagination; while the misery of the _lost_, in its
unutterable intensity, though the language that describes it is all
necessarily figurative, is there exhibited as resulting chiefly, if not
wholly, from the withdrawment of the _light of God's countenance_, and a
banishment from his _presence_! best comprehended in this world by
reflecting on the desolations, which would instantly follow the loss of
the sun's vivifying and universally diffused _warmth_.

You, or rather _all_, should remember that some truths from their
nature, surpass the scope of man's limited powers, and stand as the
criteria of _faith_, determining by their rejection, or admission, who
among the sons of men can confide in the veracity of heaven. Those more
ethereal truths, of which the Trinity is conspicuously the chief,
without being circumstantially explained, may be faintly illustrated by
material objects. The eye of man cannot discern the satellites of
Jupiter, nor become sensible of the multitudinous stars, whose rays have
never reached our planet, and consequently garnish not the canopy of
night; yet are they the less _real_, because their existence lies beyond
man's unassisted gaze? The tube of the philosopher, and the _celestial
telescope_,--the unclouded visions of heaven will confirm the one class
of truths, and irradiate the other.

The _Trinity_ is a subject on which analogical reasoning may
advantageously be admitted, as furnishing, at least, a glimpse of light,
and with this, for the present, we must be satisfied. Infinite Wisdom
deemed clearer manifestations inexpedient; and is man to dictate to his
Maker? I may further remark, that where we cannot behold a desirable
object distinctly, we must take the best view we can; and I think you,
and every candid enquiring mind, may derive assistance from such
reflections as the following.

Notwithstanding the arguments of Spinosa, and Des Cartes, and other
advocates of the _Material system_, or, in more appropriate language,
the _Atheistical system_! it is admitted by all men, not prejudiced, not
biased by sceptical prepossessions, that _mind_ is distinct from
_matter_. The mind of man, however, is involved in inscrutable darkness,
(as the profoundest metaphysicians well know) and is to be estimated, if
at all, alone by an inductive process; that is, by its _effects_.
Without entering on the question, whether an extremely circumscribed
portion of the mental process, surpassing instinct, may or may not be
extended to quadrupeds, it is universally acknowledged, that the mind of
man alone, regulates all the actions[10] of his corporeal frame. Mind,
therefore, may be regarded as a distinct genus, in the scale ascending
above brutes, and including the whole of intellectual existences;
advancing from _thought_, that mysterious thing! in its lowest form,
through all the gradations of sentient and rational beings, till it
arrives at a Bacon, a Newton; and then, when unincumbered by matter,
extending its illimitable sway through Seraph and Archangel, till we are
lost in the GREAT INFINITE!

Is it not deserving of notice, as an especial subject of meditation,
that our _limbs_, in all they do or can accomplish, implicitly obey the
dictation of the _mind_? that this operating power, whatever its name,
under certain limitations, exercises a sovereign dominion not only over
our limbs, but over our[11] intellectual pursuits? The mind of every man
is evidently the fulcrum, the moving force, which alike regulates all
his limbs and actions: and in which example, we find a strong
illustration of the subordinate nature of mere _matter_. That alone
which gives direction to the organic parts of our nature, is wholly
_mind_; and one mind if placed over a thousand limbs, could, with
undiminished ease, control and regulate the whole.

This idea is advanced on the supposition that _one mind_ could command
an unlimited direction over any given number of _limbs_, provided they
were all connected by _joint_ and _sinew_. But suppose, through some
occult and inconceivable means, these limbs were dis-associated, as to
all material connexion; suppose, for instance, one mind with unlimited
authority, governed the operations of _two_ separate persons, would not
this substantially, be only _one person_, seeing the directing principle
was one? If the truth here contended for, be admitted, that _two
persons_, governed by _one mind_, is incontestably _one person_; the
same conclusion would be arrived at, and the proposition equally be
justified, which affirmed that, _three_, or otherwise _four_ persons,
owning also necessary and essential subjection to _one mind_, would only
be so many diversities or modifications of that _one mind_, and
therefore the component parts virtually collapsing into _one whole_, the
person would be _one_. Let any man ask himself, whose understanding can
both reason and become the depository of truth, whether, if _one mind_
thus regulated with absolute authority, _three_, or otherwise _four_
persons, with all their congeries of material parts, would not these
parts inert in themselves, when subjected to one predominant mind, be in
the most logical sense, _one person_? Are ligament and exterior
combination indispensable pre-requisites to the sovereign influence of
mind over mind? or mind over matter?

But perhaps it may be said, we have no instance of one mind governing
more than one body. This may be, but the argument remains the same. With
a proud spirit, that forgets its own contracted range of thought, and
circumscribed knowledge, who is to limit the sway of Omnipotence? or
presumptuously to deny the possibility of _that_ Being, who called light
out of darkness, so to exalt the dominion of _one mind_, as to give it
absolute sway over other dependant minds, or (indifferently) over
detached, or combined portions of organized matter? But if this
superinduced quality be conferable on any order of created beings, it is
blasphemy to limit the power of God, and to deny _his_ capacity to
transfuse _his own_ Spirit, when and to whom he will.

This reasoning may now be applied in illustration of the Trinity. We are
too much in the habit of viewing our Saviour Jesus Christ, through the
medium of his body. "A body was prepared for him," but this body was
mere matter; as insensible in itself as every human frame when deserted
by the soul. If therefore the Spirit that was in Christ, was the Spirit
of the Father; if no thought, no vibration, no spiritual communication,
or miraculous display, existed in, or proceeded from Christ, not
immediately and consubstantially identified with Jehovah, the Great
First cause; if all these operating principles were thus derived, in
consistency alone with the conjoint divine attributes; if this Spirit of
the Father ruled and reigned in Christ as his own manifestation, then in
the strictest sense, Christ exhibited "the Godhead bodily," and was
undeniably "_one_ with the Father;" confirmatory of the Saviour's words:
"Of myself," (my body) "I can do nothing, the Father that dwelleth in
me, he doeth the works."

But though I speak of the body as inert in itself, and necessarily
allied to matter, yet this declaration must not be understood as
militating against the Christian doctrine of the _resurrection of the
body_. In its grosser form, the thought is not to be admitted, for
"flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God," but, that the body,
without losing its consciousness and individuality, may be subjected by
the illimitable power of Omnipotence, to a sublimating process, so as to
be rendered compatible with spiritual association, is not opposed to
reason, in its severe abstract exercises, while in attestation of this
_exhilarating belief_, there are many remote analogies in nature
exemplifying the same truth, while it is in the strictest accordance
with that final dispensation, which must, as Christians, regulate all
our speculations. I proceed now to say, that

If the postulate be thus admitted, that one mind influencing two bodies,
would only involve a diversity of operations, but in reality be one in
essence; or otherwise (as an hypothetical argument, illustrative of
truth), if one pre-eminent mind, or spiritual subsistence, unconnected
with matter, possessed an undivided and sovereign dominion over two or
more disembodied minds, so as to become the exclusive source of all
their subtlest volitions and exercises, the _unity_, however complex the
modus of its manifestation, would be fully established; and this
principle extends to Deity itself, and shows the true sense, as I
conceive, in which Christ and the Father are one.

In continuation of this reasoning, if God who is light, the Sun of the
Moral World, should in his union of Infinite Wisdom, Power, and
Goodness, and from all Eternity, have ordained that an emanation from
himself,--for aught we know, an essential emanation, as light is
inseparable from the luminary of day--should not only have existed in
his Son, in the fulness of time to be united to a mortal body, but that
a like emanation from himself (also perhaps essential) should have
constituted the Holy Spirit, who, without losing his ubiquity, was more
especially sent to this lower earth, _by_ the Son, _at_ the impulse of
the Father, then in the most comprehensive sense, God, and his Son,
Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost, are ONE. "Three persons in one God,"
and thus form the true Trinity in Unity.

To suppose that more than ONE Independent Power, or Governing mind
exists in the whole universe, is absolute Polytheism, against which the
denunciations of all the Jewish and Christian canonical books were
directed. And if there be but ONE directing MIND, that Mind is God!
operating however, in Three Persons, according to the direct and uniform
declarations of that inspiration which "brought life and immortality to
light." Yet this divine doctrine of the Trinity is to be received, not
because it is or can be clear to finite apprehension, but (in
reiteration of the argument) because the Scriptures, in their
unsophisticated interpretation expressly state it. The Trinity,
therefore, from its important aspects, and Biblical prominence, is the
grand article of faith, and the foundation of the whole Christian
system.

Who can say, as Christ and the Holy Ghost proceeded from, and are still
one with the Father, and as all the disciples of Christ derive their
fulness from him, and, in spirit, are inviolately united to him as a
branch is to the vine, who can say, but that in one view, what was once
mysteriously separated, may as mysteriously, be re-combined, and
(without interfering with the everlasting Trinity, and the individuality
of the spiritual and seraphic orders) the Son, at the consummation of
all things, deliver up his mediatorial kingdom to the Father, and God,
in some peculiar and infinitely sublime sense, become All in All! God
love you,

S. T. COLERIDGE.

"The following letter," says Cottle, "was written by Mr. Coleridge to
Mr. George Fricker, his brother-in-law, it is believed, in 1807."

LETTER 134. TO GEORGE FRICKER

Saturday afternoon.
(1807.)

My dear young friend,

I am sorry that you should have felt any delicacy in disclosing to me
your religious feelings, as rendering it inconsistent with your
tranquillity of mind to spend the Sunday evening with me. Though I do
not find in that book, which we both equally revere, any command, either
express, or which I can infer, which leads me to attach any criminality
to cheerful and innocent social intercourse on the Lord's day; though I
do not find that it was in the least degree forbidden to the Jews on
their Sabbath; and though I have been taught by Luther, and the great
founders of the Church of England, that the Sabbath was a part of the
ceremonial and transitory parts of the law given by heaven to Moses; and
that our Sunday is binding on our consciences, chiefly from its manifest
and most awful usefulness, and indeed moral necessity; yet I highly
commend your firmness in what you think right, and assure you solemnly,
that I esteem you greatly for it. I would much rather that you should
have too much, than an atom too little. I am far from surprised that,
having seen what you have seen, and suffered what you have suffered, you
should have opened your soul to a sense of our fallen nature; and the
incapability of man to heal himself. My opinions may not be in all
points the same as yours; but I have experienced a similar alteration. I
was for many years a Socinian; and at times almost a Naturalist, but
sorrow, and ill health, and disappointment in the only deep wish I had
ever cherished, forced me to look into myself; I read the New Testament
again, and I became fully convinced, that Socinianism was not only not
the doctrine of the New Testament, but that it scarcely deserved the
name of a religion in any sense. An extract from a letter which I wrote
a few months ago to a sceptical friend, who had been a Socinian, and of
course rested all the evidences of Christianity on miracles, to the
exclusion of grace and inward faith, will perhaps, surprise you, as
showing you how much nearer our opinions are than what you must have
supposed. "I fear that the mode of defending Christianity, adopted by
Grotius first; and latterly, among many others, by Dr. Paley, has
increased the number of infidels;--never could it have been so great, if
thinking men had been habitually led to look into their own souls,
instead of always looking out, both of themselves, and of their nature.
If to curb attack, such as yours on miracles, it had been
answered:--'Well, brother! but granting these miracles to have been in
part the growth of delusion at the time, and of exaggeration afterward,
yet still all the doctrines will remain untouched by this circumstance,
and binding on thee. Still must thou repent and be regenerated, and be
crucified to the flesh; and this not by thy own mere power; but by a
mysterious action of the moral Governor on thee; of the Ordo-ordinians,
the Logos, or Word. Still will the eternal filiation, or Sonship of the
Word from the Father; still will the Trinity of the Deity, the
redemption, and the thereto necessary assumption of humanity by the
Word, "who is with God, and is God," remain truths: and still will the
vital head-and-heart FAITH in these truths, be the living and only
fountain of all true virtue. Believe all these, and with the grace of
the Spirit consult your own heart, in quietness and humility, they will
furnish you with proofs, that surpass all understanding, because they
are felt and known; believe all these I say, so as that thy faith shall
be not merely real in the acquiescence of the intellect; but actual, in
the thereto assimilated affections; then shall thou KNOW from God,
whether or not Christ be of God. But take notice, I only say, the
miracles are extra essential; I by no means deny their importance, much
less hold them useless, or superfluous. Even as Christ did, so would I
teach; that is, build the miracle on the faith, not the faith on the
miracle.'

May heaven bless you, my dear George, and
Your affectionate friend,
S. T. C.

* * * * *

The following curious letter was written also about this time.

LETTER 135. TO COTTLE

(1807.)

My dear Cottle,

* * * The common end of all narrative, nay, of all poems is, to convert
a series into a whole, to make those events, which, in real or imagined
history, move on in a straight line, assume to our understandings a
circular motion--the snake with its tail in its mouth. Hence, indeed,
the almost flattering and yet appropriate term, Poesy, _i.e._
Poieses--_making_. Doubtless, to His eye, which alone comprehends all
past and all future, in one eternal, what to our short sight appears
straight, is but a part of the great cycle, just as the calm sea to us
appears level, though it be indeed only a part of the globe. Now what
the globe is in geography, miniaturing in order to manifest the truth,
such is a poem to that image of God, which we were created into, and
which still seeking that unity, or revelation of the one, in and by the
many, which reminds it, that though in order to be an individual being,
it must go further from God; yet as the receding from him, is to proceed
toward nothingness and privation, it must still at every step turn back
toward him, in order to be at all. A straight line continually
retracted, forms of necessity a circular orbit. Now God's will and word
CANNOT be frustrated. His fiat was, with ineffable awfulness, applied to
man, when all things, and all living things, and man himself, (as a mere
animal) included, were called forth by the Universal, "Let there be,"
and then the breath of the Eternal superadded, to make an immortal
spirit--immortality being, as the author of the _Wisdom of Solomon_
profoundly expresses it, "the only possible reflex, or image of
eternity." The immortal finite is the contracted shadow of the eternal
Infinite. Therefore nothingness, or death, to which we move, as we
recede from God and from the Word, cannot be nothing; but that
tremendous medium between nothing and true being, which Scripture and
inmost reason present as most, most horrible!

Affectionately,
S. T. C.]

FOOTNOTES:

[5] [Stoddart had retained his MSS. in Malta (for some
unaccountable reason), which had disconcerted Coleridge.]

[6] [Staying at the farmhouse near the mansion of Coleorton.]

[7] _T. Poole and his Friends_, ii, 174-184.

[8] _Religious Musings_ was at first called _The Nativity_, and sent
to Charles Lamb in December 1794 as an unfinished poem.
Coleridge wrote to Cottle in one of his short notes, while his
first volume of _Poems_ was being put through the press: "_The
Nativity_ is not quite three hundred lines. It has cost me much
labour in polishing; more than any poem I ever wrote, and I
believe it deserves it:" Cottle's _Reminiscences_, p. 66. The
first 158 lines, down to "This is the Messiah's destined
victory!" were probably written in the spring of 1796. Their
spirit is diametrically opposed to the remainder of the poem,
in which the Messiah's victory is to be a political one.

[9] ["Even they will be necessitated to admit, completely exonerated
the Jews."--_Early Recollections._]

[10] ["Voluntary actions."--_Early Recollections._]

[11] ["Over all our."--_Early Recollections._]

CHAPTER XIII

DE QUINCEY

[Cottle tells us that in the spring of 1807 a lady of his acquaintance
introduced to him a Mr. De Quincey. On the 26th July, Cottle wrote to
Poole (_T. Poole and his Friends_, ii, 190) a note of introduction and
sent it with "the bearer Mr. De Quincey, a Gentleman of Oxford, a
scholar and a man of genius." Coleridge had gone to Bridgwater on a
visit to a friend, Mr. Chubb; but Poole entertained De Quincey and
invited him to stay till Coleridge should return. De Quincey, however,
preferred to go in quest of the poet, and proceeded to Bridgwater and
there found Coleridge as he has depicted him in his description already
given in Chapter IV.

Afterwards De Quincey made enquiries of Cottle concerning the pecuniary
affairs of Coleridge, and asked Cottle if he thought Coleridge would
accept a gift of one or two hundred pounds (_Rem._, 340-341). Cottle
informs us that he enquired personally of Coleridge regarding his
monetary circumstances, and then told him that "a young man of fortune,
who admired his talents," wished to present him with a hundred or two
hundred pounds. The _De Quincey Memorials_ gives a somewhat different
account of this transaction in which Cottle first divulged the generous
purpose of De Quincey by letter (_De Quincey Memorials_, i, 127-130).
Doubtless Cottle had forgotten his letter, and, writing thirty years
after the event, recollected only the conversation with Coleridge
intervening between the date of his letter and another to De Quincey,
dated 7th October. In the P.S. of the letter to De Quincey Cottle says,
"I have no doubt but that Coleridge has suffered exceedingly from
straits. I am sure he is the greatest genius breathing; and that such a
mind should be perplexed about mutton and pudding and waistcoats and
hose for himself and children is piteous and afflicting. These things
paralyse his efforts. Under favourable auspices, what gigantic effort
would be too mighty for him? Oct. 7, 1807."

Cottle further states that De Quincey ultimately wished to give £500;
but that he urged De Quincey to make it only £300 in the meantime, to be
afterwards increased, if need be, to £500.

Coleridge, in answer to Cottle, wrote the following letter which must be
of even date with his letter to De Quincey.

LETTER 136. TO COTTLE

(7 Oct. 1807.)
My dear Cottle,

Independent of letter-writing, and a dinner engagement with C. Danvers,
I was the whole of yesterday till evening, in a most wretched
restlessness of body and limbs, having imprudently discontinued some
medicines, which are now my anchor of hope. This morning I dedicate to
certain distant calls on Dr. Beddoes and Colston, at Clifton, not so
much for the calls themselves, as for the necessity of taking brisk
exercise.

But no unforeseen accident intervening, I shall spend the evening with
you from seven o'clock.

I will now express my sentiments on the important subject communicated
to you. I need not say it has been the cause of serious meditation.
Undoubtedly, calamities have so thickened on me for the last two years,
that the pecuniary pressures of the moment, are the only serious
obstacles at present to my completion of those works, which, if
completed, would make me easy. Besides these, I have reason for belief
that a Tragedy of mine will be brought on the stage this season, the
result of which is of course only one of the possibilities of life, on
which I am not fool enough to calculate.

Finally therefore, if you know that any unknown benefactor is in such
circumstances, that, in doing what he offers to do, he transgresses no
duty of morals, or of moral prudence, and does not do that from feeling
which after reflection might perhaps discountenance, I shall gratefully
accept it, as an unconditional loan, which I trust I shall be able to
restore at the close of two years. This however, I shall be able to know
at the expiration of one year, and shall then beg to know the name of my
benefactor, which I should then only feel delight in knowing, when I
could present to him some substantial proof, that I have employed the
tranquillity of mind, which his kindness has enabled me to enjoy, in
sincere desires to benefit my fellow men. May God bless you.

S. T. C.
* * * * *

The Tragedy here spoken of may have been a re-cast of _Osorio_ or a
projected play entitled _The Triumph of Loyalty_, of which one act was
written, and of which the _Night Scene_, attributed to 1801, is a
fragment.

The full account of De Quincey's meeting, and description of Coleridge,
is found in De Quincey's _Works_, edited by Professor Masson, vol. ii,
139-164, 214-225. His dictum on Coleridge has been often quoted: "He is
the largest and most spacious intellect, the subtlest and most
comprehensive that has yet existed among men."]

CHAPTER XIV

FIRST LECTURES

[In August 1807 we find Humphry Davy writing to Poole that he had been
corresponding with Coleridge urging him to undertake a course of
Lectures at the Royal Institution, London, whither Davy had gone after
leaving the Pneumatic Institute of Dr. Beddoes. Coleridge did not show
alacrity in answering, one of the reasons being doubtless the attitude
of his friend Tom Poole, who did not approve of Coleridge wasting his
abilities in lecturing, even on Shakespeare. Southey, too, corroborated.
When he heard that Coleridge was engaging to give lectures at the Royal
Institution he wrote: "From this I shall endeavour to dissuade him, if
it be not too late, because it will detain him from what is of greater
immediate importance; because he will never be ready, and therefore
always on the fret; and because I think his prospects such that it is
not prudent to give lectures to ladies and gentlemen in Albemarle
Street,--Sidney Smith is good enough for them." (_T. Poole and his
Friends_, ii, 177-8.)

At last Coleridge replied to Davy in a hesitating state of mind:

LETTER 137. TO DAVY

September 11, 1807.

* * * Yet how very few are there whom I esteem, and (pardon me from this
seeming deviation from the language of friendship) admire equally with
yourself. It is indeed, and has long been, my settled persuasion, that
of all men known to me, I could not justly equal any one to you,
combining in one view powers of intellect, and the steady moral exertion
of them to the production of direct and indirect good; and if I give you
pain, my heart bears witness that I inflicted a greater on myself,--nor
should have written such words (alluding to expression of feeling
respecting himself in the opening portion of the letter), if the chief
feeling that mixed with and followed them, had not been that of shame
and self-reproach, for having profited neither by your general example,
nor your frequent and immediate incentives. Neither would I have
oppressed you at all with this melancholy statement, but that for some
days past, I have found myself so much better in body and mind, as to
cheer me at times with the thought that this most morbid and oppressive
weight is gradually lifting up, and my will acquiring some degree of
strength and power of reaction.

* * * * *

I have, however, received such manifest benefit from horse exercise, and
gradual abandonment of fermented and total abstinence from spirituous
liquors, and by being alone with Poole, and the renewal of old times, by
wandering about among my dear old walks of Quantock and Alfoxden, that I
have seriously set about composition, with a view to ascertain whether I
can conscientiously undertake what I so very much wish, a series of
Lectures at the Royal Institution. I trust, I need not assure you, how
much I feel your kindness, and let me add, that I consider the
application as an act of great and unmerited condescension on the part
of the managers as may have consented to it. After having discussed the
subject with Poole, he entirely agrees with me, that the former plan
suggested by me is invidious in itself, unless I disguised my real
opinions; as far as I should deliver my sentiments respecting the
_arts_, would require references and illustrations not suitable to a
public lecture room; and, finally, that I ought not to reckon upon
spirits enough to seek about for books of Italian prints, etc. And that
after all the general and most philosophical principles, I might
naturally introduce into lectures on a more confined plan--namely, the
principles of poetry, conveyed and illustrated in a series of lectures.
1. On the genius and writings of Shakespeare, relatively to his
predecessors and contemporaries, so as to determine not only his merits
and defects, and the proportion that each must bear to the whole, but
what of his merits and defects belong to his age, as being found in
contemporaries of genius, and what belonged to himself. 2. On Spenser,
including the metrical romances, and Chaucer, though the character of
the latter as a manner-painter, I shall have so far anticipated in
distinguishing it from, and comparing it with, Shakespeare. 3. Milton.
4. Dryden and Pope, including the origin and after history of poetry of
witty logic. 5. On Modern Poetry, and its characteristics, with no
introduction of any particular names. In the course of these I shall
have said all I know, the whole result of many years' continued
reflection on the subjects of taste, imagination, fancy, passion, the
source of our pleasures in the fine arts, in the _antithetical_
balance-loving nature of man, and the connexion of such pleasures with
moral excellence. The advantage of this plan to myself is--that I have
all my materials ready, and can rapidly reduce them into form (for this
is my solemn determination, not to give a single lecture till I have in
fair writing at least one half of the whole course), for as to trusting
anything to immediate effect, I shrink from it as from guilt, and guilt
in me it would be.

In short, I should have no objection at once to pledge myself to the
immediate preparation of these lectures, but that I am so surrounded by
embarrassments.

* * * * *

For God's sake enter into my true motive for this wearing[12] detail: it
would torture me if it had any other effect than to impress on you my
desire and hope to accord with your plan, and my incapability of making
any final promise till the end of this month.

S. T. COLERIDGE.[13]

In spite of Poole and Southey's objections a course of Lectures was at
last arranged. Poole, writing to Davy in January 1808, informs him that
their mutual friend Purkis had heard one of the lectures and speaks
highly of it and its effect. "I heretofore thought Coleridge," says
Poole, "might employ himself in something more permanently important
than lecturing on such subjects as he would lecture on at the Royal
Institution. But from my more intimate knowledge of his present state
and habits, I am now convinced that he _cannot_ exert himself to better
purpose; and further, that nothing whatever is more likely to stimulate
him to exert his matchless powers (so is he constituted, and so morbid
feelings oppress him) than in reading his productions to such an
audience," (_T. Poole and his Friends_, ii, 205).

The Lectures were delivered between 12th January and June 1808. Charles
Lamb, in a letter to his friend Manning, on 26th February 1808, says:
"Coleridge has delivered two lectures at the Royal Institution; two more
attended but he did not come. It is thought he has gone sick upon them"
(_Ainger_, i, 246). Wordsworth, hearing of Coleridge's illness, came to
town in April, and he reported to Sir George Beaumont that he had heard
Coleridge lecture twice, and that he seemed to give great satisfaction,
although he was not in spirits and suffered much during the course of
the week in body and mind (Knight's _Life of Wordsworth_, ii, 114).

De Quincey's vivid description of the "lock" of carriages in Albemarle
Street, and dismissal after dismissal of audiences on account of
Coleridge's failure to appear, like so much more in the work of that
supreme master of imaginative biography, is perhaps exaggerated.
Coleridge disappointed his audience only twice, on account of illness.

Besides the evidence of Lamb and Purkis and Wordsworth, regarding the
success of the lectures, Henry Crabb Robinson gives some short notices
of them. He heard at least four of the course. The second Lecture,
delivered on 5th February, he reports to have been largely taken up with
discoursing on the origin of the Greek mythology and Greek drama, and in
showing that the Modern Drama, like the Ancient, originated in Religion.
The character of Hamlet was also treated of. The lectures were much in
substance similar to the course afterwards given in 1811, in which
Coleridge more fully developed his views.

In one of his lectures Coleridge made an attack on Lancaster, the
founder of the method of education which went under his name, which
caused some recrimination on the part of the adherents of Lancaster.
Coleridge about this time had, through the Wordsworths, become
acquainted with Dr. Andrew Bell, the originator of the Madras system of
education, and he spoke as the champion of Bell against Lancaster in the
controversy that ensued between the partisans of the two. Bell
seemingly, from the evidence of Coleridge's letters, expostulated with
Coleridge for his having too warmly espoused his cause. Of the four
letters written to Dr. Bell at this time (Southey's _Life of Bell_, II,
575-584), we give the first. The others are of little importance. The
dates of the three others are: II, April 1808; III, 17th May 1808, in
which Coleridge asserts that he is "a convinced and fervent son of the
Church of England"; and IV, May, 1808. The first letter relates to the
_Elements of Tuition_, which Dorothy Wordsworth had been revising for
Dr. Bell, and was also submitted to Coleridge for his opinion.

LETTER 138. TO DR. ANDREW BELL[14]

15 April, 1808.

A concurrence of intelligence from my friends in the North, has not only
made it difficult for me to force my mind away from dreaming about them,
but has employed me in running about after my friends day after day; yet
even this would not have prevented my commencing (according to my
judgment, which, on such a work, is but another word for my feelings) on
the sheets you have sent me, if I had seen aught which appeared to me
likely to diminish its _present utility_. I confess that I seem to
perceive some little of an effort produced by talking with _objectors_,
with men who, to a man like you, are far, far more pernicious than
avowed antagonists. Men who are actuated by fear and perpetual suspicion
of human nature, and who regard their poorer brethren as possible
highwaymen, burglarists, or Parisian revolutionists (which includes all
evil in one), and who, if God gave them grace to know their own hearts,
would find that even the little good they are willing to assist proceeds
from fear, from a momentary variation of the balance of probabilities,
which happened to be in favour of letting their brethren know just
enough to keep them from the gallows. O dear Dr. Bell, you are a great
man! Never, never permit minds so inferior to your own, however high
their artificial rank may be, to induce you to pare away _an atom_ of
what you know to be right! The sin that besets a truly good man is,
that, naturally desiring to see instantly done what he knows will be
eminently useful to his fellow beings, he sometimes will consent to
sacrifice a part, in order to realize, in a given spot (to construct, as
the mathematicians say), his idea in a given diagram. But yours is for
the world--for all mankind; and all your opposers might, with as good
chance of success, stop the half-moon from becoming full--all they can
do is, a little to retard it. Pardon, dear sir, a great liberty taken
with you, but one which my heart and sincere reverence for you
impelled--as the Apostle said, Rejoice!--so I say to you _Hope_! From
hope, faith and love, all that is good, all that is great, all lovely
and "all honourable things," proceed, from fear, distrust and the spirit
of compromise--all that is evil. You and Thomas Clarkson have, in
addition to your _material_ good works, given to the spiritual world a
benefaction of incalculable value. You have both--he in removing the
evil, you in producing good--afforded a practicable proof how great
things one good man may do, who is thoroughly in earnest.

May the Almighty preserve you!

P.S. If, in the course of a few days, you could send me the same, or
another copy of, the sheets I now send you, they would be useful to me
in composing my lecture on the subject. Sir G. and Lady Beaumont are
very desirous to see and consult you about a school at Dunmow. Be
assured, while I have life and power, I shall find a deep consolation in
being your zealous apostle. I write in a great hurry, scarce knowing
what I write; but before a future edition, I will play the minute critic
with you, and regard your book as a literary work for posterity.

About this time Coleridge met his old sweetheart, Mary Evans; and, in
answer to an invitation to call upon her and her husband, Mr. Todd, he
wrote: "Undoubtedly the first moment of the feeling was an awful one to
me, the _second_ of time previous to my full recognition of you, the
Mary Evans of 14 years ago, flashed across my eyes with a truth and
vividness as great as its rapidity." The full letter, which is undated,
but must be of 1804-8, was communicated to the _Athenæum_ of 18 May
1895, by her granddaughter, Mrs. Linde, of Wiesbaden.]

FOOTNOTES:

[12] [Perhaps "wearying."]

[13] [Letter CLXIV is our 137. Letters CLXV-CLXVII follow.]

[14] [Southey's _Life of Bell_, p. 575.]

CHAPTER XV

THE FRIEND

[During the Spring of 1808, Coleridge, while delivering his lectures,
had some correspondence with Matilda Betham between March and July.
Matilda Betham was a portrait painter, and Coleridge had consented to
sit for her. The letters to Matilda Betham are probably dated thus: I,
(March) 1808; II, 4th April 1808; III, (April 1808); IV, 7th May 1808;
V, (---- 1808). _Fraser's Magazine_, 1878.

After paying a visit to the Clarkson's, at Bury St. Edmunds, Coleridge
went back to Grasmere and lived with the Wordsworths, now at Allan Bank.
Coleridge felt that lecturing was not a permanent form of employment,
and now projected a journal to disseminate what he called the Permanent
Principles of Politics, Morality, and Religion. In a letter written
about this time to his old friend Josiah Wade, he repudiates the
accusation that he had lived to little purpose.

LETTER 139. TO WADE

Tuesday night, _i.e._, Wednesday morning.
(1807-8).

My best and dearest friend,

I have barely time to scribble a few lines, so as not to miss the post,
for here as every where, there are charitable people, who, taking for
granted that you have no business of your own, would save from the pain
of vacancy, by employing you in theirs.

As to the letter you propose to write to a man who is unworthy even of a
rebuke from you, I might most unfeignedly object to some parts of it,
from a pang of conscience forbidding me to allow, even from a dear
friend, words of admiration, which are inapplicable in exact proportion
to the power given to me of having deserved them, if I had done my duty.

It is not of comparative utility I speak: for as to what has been
actually done, and in relation to useful effects produced, whether on
the minds of individuals, or of the public, I dare boldly stand forward,
and (let every man have his own, and that be counted mine which, but
for, and through me, would not have existed) will challenge the proudest
of my literary contemporaries to compare proofs with me, of usefulness
in the excitement of reflection, and the diffusion of original or
forgotten, yet necessary and important truths and knowledge; and this is
not the less true, because I have suffered others to reap all the
advantages. But, O dear friend, this consciousness, raised by insult of
enemies, and alienated friends, stands me in little stead to my own
soul, in how little then, before the all-righteous Judge! who, requiring
back the talents he had entrusted, will, if the mercies of Christ do not
intervene, not demand of me what I have done, but why I did not do more;
why, with powers above so many, I had sunk in many things below most!
But this is too painful, and in remorse we often waste the energy which
should be better employed in reformation--that essential part, and only
possible proof, of sincere repentance. * * *

May God bless you, and your affectionate friend,

S. T. COLERIDGE.[15]

To Davy Coleridge writes a little later.

LETTER 140. TO DAVY

Grasmere, Kendal, Wednesday, December, 1808.

My dear Davy,

* * * My health and spirits are improved beyond my boldest hopes. A very
painful effort of moral courage has been remunerated by tranquillity--by
ease from the sting of self-disapprobation. I have done more for the
last ten weeks than I had done for three years before. Among other
things, I wrote what the few persons who saw it thought a spirited and
close reasoned letter to Mr. Jeffery, respecting the introductory
paragraph of the _Edinburgh_[16] review of your paper; but I was
earnestly dissuaded from sending it, as from an act of undeserved
respect--as from too great a condescension even on my part; and secondly
(and which was of more weight with me), as an act involving you more or
less, whatever I might say, and likely to be attributed to your
instigation, direct or indirect, as it is not unknown that I have been
on terms of intimacy with you. Yet I own I should be sorry to have it
lost, as I think it is the most eloquent and manly composition I ever
produced. If you think it worth the postage, it shall be transcribed,
and I will send you the original. The passage in question was the
grossest and most disgusting _kick-up_ of envy that has deformed even
the _E. R._ Had the author had the truth before his eyes, and purposely
written in diametrical opposition, he could not have succeeded better.
It is high time that the spear of Ithuriel should touch the toad at the
ear of the public.

I would willingly inform you of my chance of success in obtaining a
sufficient number of subscribers, so as to justify me prudentially in
commencing the work (_The Friend_), but I do not at present possess
grounds even for a sane conjecture. It will depend in a great measure on
the zeal of my friends, on which I confess, not without remorse, I have
more often cast water than oil. Here a conceit about the Greek fire
might come in, but the simile is somewhat _tritical_.

Wordsworth has nearly finished a series of masterly essays on our late
and present relations to Portugal and Spain. Southey is sending to the
press his _History of Brazil_, and at the same time (the indefatigable!)
composing a defence of religious missions to the East, etc. Excepting
the introduction (which, however, I have heard highly praised, but
myself think it shallow, flippant, and ipse dixitish), I have read few
books with such deep interest as the _Chronicle of the Cid_. The whole
scene in the Cortes is superior to any equal part of any epic poem, save
the _Paradise Lost--me saltem judice_. The deep glowing, yet ever
self-controlled passion of the Cid--his austere dignity, so finely
harmonizing with his pride of loyal humility--the address to his swords,
and the burst of contemptuous rage in his final charge and address to
the Infantes of Carrion, and his immediate recall of his mind--are
beyond all ordinary praises. It delights me to be able to speak thus of
a work of Southey's! I am so often forced to quarrel with his want of
judgment and his unthinkingness--which, Heaven knows, I never do without
pain, and the vexation of a disappointed wish. But I am encroaching on
time more valuable than my own, and I, too, have enough to do. May God
grant you health and the continuance of your intellectual vigour!

S. T. COLERIDGE.

LETTER 141. TO DAVY

Grasmere, Kendal, December 14 (1808).

Dear Davy,

The above written copies[17] will explain this second application to
you. I understood from Mr. Bernard (afterwards Sir Thomas), as well as
from yourself, that Mr. Savage had agreed to print and publish the work
on the sole condition that he was to have five per cent. for the
publisher, and to charge the printing, etc., at the price charged to the
booksellers, or the _trade_ (as they very ingenuously and truly style
their art and mystery). To spare me the necessity of troubling Mr.
Bernard with a fresh letter, I entreat you to transmit this to him as
soon as possible. There is but one part of Mr. Savage's letter that I
can permit myself to comment upon, that of the propriety of pricing the
essay at sixpence, and consequently of not having it stamped, nor finely
printed, nor on fine paper. For him, and for a work conducted as he
would have it conducted, _i.e._, one, the object of which is to attract
as many purchasers as possible, this might answer. My purposes are
widely different. I do not write in this work for the _multitude_, but
for those who, by rank or fortune, or official situation, or talents and
habits of reflection, are to _influence_ the multitude. I write to found
true principles, to oppose false principles in criticism, legislation,
philosophy, morals, and international law. As giving me an opportunity
of explaining myself, I say Cobbett sells his weekly sheet for tenpence.
Now this differs from mine in two points, mainly: First, he applies
himself to the passions that are gratified by curiosity, and sharp,
often calumnious, personality; by the events and political topics of the
day, and the names of notorious contemporaries. Now, from all these I
abstain altogether--nay, to strangle this vicious temper of mind, by
directing the interest to the nobler germs in human nature, is my
express and paramount object. But of English readers three-fourths are
led to purchase periodical works in the expectation of gratifying these
passions--even periodical works professedly literary, of which the keen
interest excited by the _Edinburgh Review_, and its wide circulation,
yield a proof as striking as it is dishonourable to the moral taste of
the present public--all these readers I give up all claim to. Secondly,
Cobbett himself rarely writes more than a third of the weekly journal;
the remainder of the sheet is either mere reprinting or stupid
make-weights from correspondents (with few exceptions) of the very
lowest order. And what are his own compositions? The undigested
passionate monologues of a man of robust natural understanding, but one
unenriched by various knowledge, undisciplined by a comprehensive
philosophy; under the warping influence of rooted habits of opposing and
attacking, and from this state of mind fruitful in thoughts which a
purer taste would have rejected so long, that they would cease to occur,
and promiscuous in the adoption of whatever such a state of mind
suggests to him of these thoughts furnished by the occurrences of the
day. Indeed, more often than otherwise his letters, etc., are mere
comments on large _extracts_ from the morning papers, such as a
passionate man would talk at breakfast over a newspaper supporting the
political party which he hated. No _one_ thesis is proposed--there is no
orderly origination, development, and conclusion; in short, none of
those qualities which constitute the _nicety_ and _effort_ of
composition. But _I_ (and if I do not, my work will be dropped and
abandoned)--I bring the results of a life of intense study and
unremitted meditation, of toil and personal travels, and great unrepaid
expense. Those to whom these reasons would not justify me in selling the
work (stamped as Cobbett's) for that part of twopence more which remains
when the additional cost of finer paper and printing is deducted, I
neither expect nor wish to have among my subscribers. It is scarcely
necessary to remark, that in pointing out these differences I had no
intention of depreciating the political journal (the style and contents
of the work are perfectly well suited to the purpose of the writer). The
labourer's pocket knife was one excellently adapted to the cutting of
bread and cheese, but it would be unfair to demand that the medical
cutler A. should sell his case of lancets at the same price that the
common cutler B. sells an equal weight of the bread-and-cheese knives,
supposing them both equally good of their kind. This letter from Mr.
Savage, added to his long delay in answering me at all, has a good deal
perplexed my proceedings, but it shall not make me abandon my intention.

If anything new have occurred in chemistry from your own labours, or
those of others, it would be deeply gratifying to me to be informed of
it by you; for hitherto I have not been able to afford to take in any
philosophical journal, or, indeed, any other. I was told by a friend
that William Allen had proved that oxygen was absorbed in the lungs, but
that its action consisted in carrying off the carbon from the
blood--consequently that the old hypothesis of refrigeration was not
altogether false. But my communicant was no chemist, and his account was
so confused, that I am not sure that I have given an accurate statement
of it.

My health and spirits are far better than I had dared hope, only from
neglect of exercise I remain more corpulent than I ought, though I drink
nothing but table-beer, and eat very moderately. When I was in London I
was shocked at the alteration in our friend Tobin's looks and
appearance. Those who always interpret two coincidents into cause and
effect would surmise that marriage has been less conducive to his health
than to his moral comfort. It would give me serious pleasure to have a
more cheerful account of him.

As soon as I have a little leisure I shall send my Greek accidence and
vocabulary of terminations to the press with my Greek-English Lexicon,
which will be followed by a Greek philosophical grammar. Heaven preserve
and keep you!

S. T. COLERIDGE.[18]

LETTER FROM DAVY TO COLERIDGE

December 27, 1808.

Alas! poor Beddoes is dead! He died on Christmas eve. He wrote to me two
letters, on two successive days, 22nd and 23rd. From the first, which
was full of affection and new feeling, I anticipated his state. He is
gone at the moment when his mind was purified and exalted for noble
affections and great works.

My heart is heavy. I would talk to you of your own plans, which I shall
endeavour in every way to promote; I would talk to you of my own
labours, which have been incessant since I saw you, and not without
result; but I am interrupted by very melancholy feelings, which, when
you see this, I know you will partake of.

Ever, my dear Coleridge,

Very affectionately yours,
H. DAVY.

LETTER 142. TO DAVY

Grasmere, Kendal, Monday morning, January 30, 1809.

My dear Davy,

I was deeply affected by the passage in your letter respecting Dr.
Beddoes. It was indeed the echo of my own experience. The intelligence
of his departure from among us, came upon me abruptly and unexpectedly.
I was sitting down to dinner, having quitted an unfinished sheet, which
I had been writing, in answer to a long and affectionate letter from the
Doctor. There was indeed a depth and flow of feeling in it, which filled
me with bodings, but I had no thought that the event was so near at
hand. The note, therefore, sent from one of his patients, who had placed
himself at Clifton by mine and Wordsworth's advice, (written) the day
after his decease, struck me like a bodily blow, and was followed by a
long and convulsive weeping, with scarce any inward suffering: but when
some half hour after I recovered myself, and my tears flowed slowly, and
with grief more worthy of the cause, I felt that more hope had been
taken out of my life by this than by any former event. For Beddoes was
good and beneficent to all men; but to me he had always been kind and
affectionate, and latterly I had become attached to him by a personal
tenderness. The death of Mr. Thomas Wedgwood pulled hard at my heart; I
am sure no week of my life--almost I might have said scarce a day, in
which I have not been made either sad or thoughtful by the recollection.
But Dr. Beddoes's death has pulled yet harder, probably because it came
second--likewise, too, perhaps that I had been in the habit of
connecting such oppression of despondency with my love of him. There are
two things which I exceedingly wished, and in both have been
disappointed: to have written the _Life_ and prepared the _Psychological
Remains_ of my revered friend and benefactor, T. W.: and to have been
entrusted with the _Biography_, etc., of Dr. B. This latter work
(Southey informs me) was first offered to you, and then to Mr. Giddy,
and is finally devolved on Dr. Stock. As my heart bears me full witness
with what unalloyed satisfaction I should have seen this last duty in
your hands or in D. Giddy's, so I feel myself permitted to avow the
pain, yea, the sense of shame, with which I contemplate Dr. Stock as the
performant. I could not help assenting to Southey's remark, that the
proper vignette for the work would be a funeral lamp beside an urn, and
Dr. Stock in the act of placing an extinguisher on it. * * *

I have just read a brief account of your first lecture of this season,
and, though I did not see as clearly as I could wish, the pertinence of
the religious declaration quoted from you, and am not quite at ease
(especially when I think of Darwin), when I find theosophy mingled with
science, and though I wished to have been with you to have expressed my
doubts concerning the accuracy of your comparison between the great
discoverers of science and the Miltons, Spinozas, and Rafaels; yet the
intervening history (it is only that I am writing to you that I stopped
and hesitate in using the word) overwhelmed me, and I dare avow,
furnished to my understanding and conscience proofs more convincing than
the dim analogies of natural organization to human mechanism, both of
the Supreme Reason, as super-essential to the world of the senses; of an
analogous mind in man not resulting from its perishable machine, nor
even from the general spirit of life, its inclosed steam or perfluent
water-force; and of the moral connection between the finite and the
infinite Reason, and the awful majesty of the former, as both the
revelation and the exponent voice of the latter, immortal timepiece, an
eternal sun. Shame be with me in my death-hour if ever I withhold or
fear to pay my first debt of due honour to the truly great man, because
it has been my good lot to be his contemporary, or my happiness to have
known, esteemed, and loved, as well as admired him.

It is impossible to pass otherwise than abruptly to my own affairs. I
had from the very first informed Mr. Savage[19] that I would not
undertake the work at all, except I could secure him from all possible
risk. His proposals were such, that had I acceded to them, after years
of toil, I should have been his debtor and slave, without having
received a farthing--or, to use the strong, coarse illustration of a
friend, a man of consummate good sense and knowledge of the world, and
of twenty years' experience in periodical works--"Savage's proposals
would have led you into a gulph of debt or obligation: you would have
been like a girl who gets into a house of ill-fame, and whom the old
bawd always keeps in debt, stripping her of every shilling she gets for
prostitution." What my error was, after my _first_ conversation with Mr.
S. I know, but shall not say: but his mistake has been in construing my
indifference as to pecuniary matters, and _apparent_ ignorance of
business, into absolute silliness and passive idiocy. But this is
passed. As soon as I received his letter I made up my mind to another
mode of publication. _The Friend_ will be printed as a newspaper, _i.e._
not in form or matter, but under the act of parliament, and with its
privilege, printed at Kendal, and sent to each subscriber by the post.

My health is more regular; yet, spite of severe attention to my diet,
etc., my sufferings are at times heavy. Please to make my best respects
to Mr. Bernard.

May God bless you!

S. T. COLERIDGE.[20]

The Prospectus of _The Friend_ and the following correspondence with
Southey explain Coleridge's views of what he conceived as the
requirements of a periodical devoted to the highest interests of Truth
and Humanity.

LETTER 143. To ----

1 June, 1809.

It is not unknown to you, that I have employed almost the whole of my
Life in acquiring, or endeavouring to acquire, useful Knowledge by
Study, Reflection, Observation, and by cultivating the Society of my
Superiors in Intellect, both at Home and in foreign Countries. You know
too, that at different Periods of my Life I have not only planned, but
collected the materials for, many Works on various and important
Subjects: so many indeed, that the Number of my unrealized Schemes, and
the Mass of my miscellaneous Fragments, have often furnished my Friends
with a Subject of Raillery, and sometimes of Regret and Reproof. Waiving
the Mention of all private and accidental Hindrances, I am inclined to
believe, that this Want of Perseverance has been produced in the Main by
an Over-activity of Thought, modified by a constitutional Indolence,
which made it more pleasant to me to continue acquiring, than to reduce
what I had acquired to a regular Form. Add too, that almost daily
throwing off my Notices or Reflections in desultory Fragments, I was
still tempted onward by an increasing Sense of the Imperfection of my
Knowledge, and by the Conviction, that, in Order fully to comprehend and
develope any one Subject, it was necessary that I should make myself
Master of some other, which again as regularly involved a third, and so
on, with an ever-widening Horizon. Yet one Habit, formed during long
Absences from those with whom I could converse with full Sympathy, has
been of Advantage to me--that of daily noting down, in my Memorandum or
Common-place Books, both Incidents and Observations; whatever had
occurred to me from without, and all the Flux and Reflux of my Mind
within itself. The Number of these Notices, and their Tendency,
miscellaneous as they were, to one common End ("_quid sumus et quid
futuri gignimur_," _what we are and what we are born to become; and thus
from the End of our Being to deduce its proper Objects_) first
encouraged me to undertake the Weekly Essay, of which you will consider
this Letter as the Prospectus.

Not only did the plan seem to accord better than any other with the
Nature of my own Mind, both in its Strength and in its Weakness; but
conscious that, in upholding some Principles both of Taste and
Philosophy, adopted by the great Men of Europe from the Middle of the
fifteenth till toward the Close of the seventeenth Century, I must run
Counter to many Prejudices of many of my readers (_for old Faith is
often modern Heresy_) I perceived too in a periodical Essay the most
likely Means of winning, instead of forcing my Way. Supposing Truth on
my Side, the Shock of the first Day might be so far lessened by
Reflections of the succeeding Days, so as to procure for my next Week's
Essay a less hostile Reception, than it would have met with, had it been
only the next Chapter of a present Volume. I hoped to disarm the Mind of
those Feelings, which preclude Conviction by Contempt, and, as it were,
fling the Door in the Face of Reasoning by a _Presumption_ of its
Absurdity. A Motive too for honourable Ambition was supplied by the
Fact, that every periodical Paper of the Kind now attempted, which had
been conducted with Zeal and Ability, was not only well received at the
Time, but has become permanently, and in the best Sense of the Word,
popular. By honourable Ambition I mean the strong Desire to be useful,
aided by the Wish to be generally acknowledged to have been so. As I
feel myself actuated in no ordinary Degree by this Desire, so the Hope
of realizing it appears less and less presumptuous to me, since I have
received from Men of highest Rank and established Character in the
Republic of Letters, not only strong Encouragements as to my own fitness
for the Undertaking, but likewise Promises of Support from their own
Stores.

The _Object_ of _The Friend_, briefly and generally expressed, is--to
uphold those Truths and those Merits, which are founded in the nobler
and permanent Parts of our Nature, against the Caprices of Fashion, and
such Pleasures, as either depend on transitory and accidental Causes, or
are pursued from less worthy Impulses. The chief _Subjects_ of my own
Essays will be:

The true and sole Ground of Morality, or Virtue, as distinguished
from Prudence.

The Origin and Growth of moral Impulses, as distinguished from
external and immediate Motives.

The necessary dependence of Taste on Moral Impulses and Habits: and
the Nature of Taste (relatively to Judgment in general and to
Genius) defined, illustrated, and applied. Under this Head I
comprize the Substance of the Lectures given, and intended to have
been given, at the Royal Institution, on the distinguished English
Poets, in illustration of the general Principles of Poetry;
together with Suggestions concerning the Affinity of the Fine Arts
to each other, and the Principles common to them all:
Architecture; Gardening; Dress; Music; Painting; Poetry.

The opening out of new Objects of just Admiration in our own
Language; and Information of the present State and past History of
Swedish, Danish, German, and Italian Literature (to which, but as
supplied by a Friend, I may add the Spanish, Portuguese and
French) as far as the same has not been already given to English
Readers, or is not to be found in common French Authors.

Characters met with in real Life:--Anecdotes and Results of my own
Life and Travels, etc. etc. as far as they are illustrative of
general moral Laws, and have no immediate Bearing on personal or
immediate Politics.

Education in its widest Sense, private and national.

Sources of Consolation to the afflicted in Misfortune, or Disease,
or Dejection of Mind, from the Exertion and right Application of
the Reason, the Imagination, and the moral Sense; and new Sources
of Enjoyment opened out, or an Attempt (as an Illustrious Friend
once expressed the Thought to me) to add Sunshine to Daylight, by
making the Happy more happy. In the words "Dejection of Mind" I
refer particularly to Doubt or Disbelief of the moral Government
of the World, and the grounds and arguments for the religious
Hopes of Human Nature.[21]

LETTER 144. TO SOUTHEY

October 20, 1809.

My dear Southey,

* * * * *

What really makes me despond is the daily confirmation I receive of my
original apprehension, that the plan and execution of _The Friend_ is so
utterly unsuitable to the public taste as to preclude all rational hopes
of its success. Much, certainly, might have been done to have made the
former numbers less so by the interposition of others written more
expressly for general interest; and, if I could attribute it wholly to
any removable error of my own, I should be less dejected. I will do my
best, will frequently interpose tales and whole numbers of amusement,
will make the periods lighter and shorter; and the work itself,
proceeding according to its plan, will become more interesting when the
foundations have been laid. Massiveness is the merit of a foundation;
the gilding, ornaments, stucco-work, conveniences, sunshine, and sunny
prospects will come with the superstructure. Yet still I feel the
deepest conviction that no efforts of mine, compatible with the hope of
effecting any good purpose, or with the duty I owe to my permanent
reputation, will remove the complaint. No real information can be
conveyed, no important errors radically extracted, without demanding an
effort of thought on the part of the reader; but the obstinate, and now
contemptuous, aversion to all energy of thinking is the mother evil, the
cause of all the evils in politics, morals, and literature, which it is
my object to wage war against; so that I am like a physician who, for a
patient paralytic in both arms, prescribes, as the only possible cure,
the use of the dumb-bells.[22] Whatever I publish, and in whatever form,
this obstacle will be felt. _The Rambler_, which, altogether, has sold a
hundred copies for one of the _Connoisseur_, yet, during its periodical
appearance, did not sell one for fifty, and was dropped by reader after
reader for its dreary gravity and massiveness of manner. Now what I wish
you to do for me--if, amid your many labours, you can find or make a
leisure hour--is, to look over the eight numbers, and to write a letter
to _The Friend_ in a lively style, chiefly urging, in a humorous manner,
my Don Quixotism in expecting that the public will ever pretend to
understand my lucubrations, or feel any interest in subjects of such sad
and unkempt antiquity, and contrasting my style with the cementless
periods of the modern Anglo-Gallican style, which not only are
understood _beforehand_, but, being free from all connections of logic,
all the hooks and eyes of intellectual memory, never oppress the mind by
any after recollections, but, like civil visitors, stay a few moments,
and leave the room quite free and open for the next comers. Something of
this kind, I mean, that I may be able to answer it so as, in the answer,
to state my own convictions at full on the nature of obscurity, etc.
* * *

God bless you!
S. T. COLERIDGE.

SOUTHEY'S ANSWER

To _The Friend_

[Without date.]
Sir,

I know not whether your subscribers have expected too much from you, but
it appears to me that you expect too much from your subscribers; and
that, however accurately you may understand the diseases of the age,
you have certainly mistaken its temper. In the first place, Sir, your
essays are too long. "Brevity," says a contemporary journalist, "is the
humour of the times; a tragedy must not exceed fifteen hundred lines, a
fashionable preacher must not trespass above fifteen minutes upon his
congregation. We have short waistcoats and short campaigns; everything
must be short--except lawsuits, speeches in Parliament, and tax-tables."
It is expressly stated, in the prospectus of a collection of extracts,
called the _Beauties of Sentiment_, that the extracts shall always be
complete sense, and _not very long_. Secondly, Sir, though your essays
appear in so tempting a shape to a lounger, the very fiends themselves
were not more deceived by the _lignum vitae_ apples, when

They, fondly thinking to allay
Their appetite with gust, instead of fruit
Chew'd bitter ashes,

than the reader is who takes up one of your papers from breakfast table,
parlour-window, sofa, or ottoman, thinking to amuse himself with a few
minutes' light reading. We are informed, upon the authority of no less a
man than Sir Richard Phillips, how "it has long been a subject of just
complaint among the lovers of English literature, that our language has
been deficient in lounging or parlour-window books;" and to remove the
opprobrium from the language, Sir Richard advertises a list, mostly
ending in _ana_, under the general title of _Lounging Books or Light
Reading_. I am afraid, Mr. Friend, that your predecessors would never
have obtained their popularity unless their essays had been of the
description Ὅμοιον ὁμοίῳ φíλονi,--and this is a light age.

You have yourself observed that few converts were made by Burke; but the
cause which you have assigned does not sufficiently explain why a man of
such powerful talents and so authoritative a reputation should have
produced so little an effect upon the minds of the people. Was it not
because he neither was nor could be generally understood? Because,
instead of endeavouring to make difficult things easy of comprehension,
he made things which were easy in themselves, difficult to be
comprehended by the manner in which he presented them, evolving their
causes and involving their consequences, till the reader, whose mind was
not habituated to metaphysical discussions, neither knew in what his
arguments began nor in what they ended? You have told me that the
straightest line must be the shortest; but do not you yourself sometimes
nose out your way, hound-like, in pursuit of truth, turning and winding,
and doubling and running when the same object might be reached in a
tenth part of the time by darting straightforward like a greyhound to
the mark? Burke failed of effect upon the people for this reason,--there
was the difficulty of mathematics without the precision in his writings.
You looked through the process without arriving at the proof. It was the
fashion to read him because of his rank as a political partizan;
otherwise he would not have been read. Even in the House of Commons he
was admired more than he was listened to; not a sentence came from him
which was not pregnant with seeds of thought, if it had fallen upon good
ground; yet his speeches convinced nobody, while the mellifluous
orations of Mr. Pitt persuaded his majorities of whatever he wished to
persuade them; because they were easily understood, what mattered it to
him that they were as easily forgotten?

The reader, Sir, must think before he can understand you; is it not a
little unreasonable to require from him an effort which you have
yourself described as so very painful a one? and is not this effort not
merely difficult but in many cases impossible? All brains, Sir, were not
made for thinking: modern philosophy has taught us that they are
galvanic machines, and thinking is only an accident belonging to them.
Intellect is not essential to the functions of life; in the ordinary
course of society it is very commonly dispensed with; and we have lived,
Mr. Friend, to witness experiments for carrying on government without
it. This is surely a proof that it is a rare commodity; and yet you
expect it in all your subscribers!

Give us your moral medicines in a more "elegant preparation." The
Reverend J. Gentle administers his physic in the form of tea; Dr.
Solomon prefers the medium of a cordial; Mr. Ching exhibits his in
gingerbread nuts; Dr. Barton in wine; but you, Mr. Friend, come with a
tonic bolus, bitter in the mouth, difficult to swallow, and hard of
digestion.[23]

My dear Coleridge,

All this, were it not for the Sir and the Mr. Friend, is like a real
letter from me to you: I fell into the strain without intending it, and
would not send it were it not to show you that I have attempted to do
something. From jest I got into earnest, and, trying to pass from
earnest to jest failed. It was against the grain, and would not do. I
had re-read the eight last numbers, and the truth is, they left me no
heart for jesting or for irony. In time they will do their work; it is
the form of publication only that is unlucky, and that cannot now be
remedied. But this evil is merely temporary. Give two or three amusing
numbers, and you will hear of admiration from every side. Insert a few
more poems,--any that you have, except _Christabel_, for that is of too
much value. There is scarcely anything you could do which would excite
so much notice as if you were _now_ to write the character of Bonaparte,
announced in former times for "to-morrow," and to-morrow and to-morrow;
and I think it would do good by counteracting that base spirit of
condescension towards him, which I am afraid is gaining ground; and by
showing the people what grounds they have for hope.

God bless you!
R. S.

LETTER 145. TO R. L.[24]

26 October, 1809.
Dear Sir,

When I first undertook the present Publication for the sake and with the
_avowed_ object of referring Men in all things to PRINCIPLES or
fundamental Truths, I was well aware of the obstacles which the plan
itself would oppose to my success. For in order to the regular
attainment of this object, all the driest and least attractive Essays
must appear in the first fifteen or twenty Numbers, and thus subject me
to the necessity of demanding effort or soliciting patience in that part
of the Work, where it was most my interest to secure the confidence of
my Readers by winning their favour. Though I dared warrant for the
pleasantness of the Journey on the whole; though I might promise that
the road would, for the far greater part of it, be found plain and easy,
that it would pass through countries of various prospect, and that at
every stage there would be a change of company; it still remained a
heavy disadvantage, that I had to start at the foot of a high and steep
hill: and I foresaw, not without occasional feelings of despondency,
that during the slow and laborious ascent it would require no common
management to keep my Passengers in good humour with the Vehicle and its
Driver. As far as this inconvenience could be palliated by sincerity and
previous confession, I have no reason to accuse myself of neglect. In
the Prospectus of _The Friend_, which for this cause I re-printed and
annexed to the first Number, I felt it my duty to inform such as might
be inclined to patronize the Publication, that I must submit to be
esteemed dull by those who sought chiefly for amusement: and this I
hazarded as a _general_ confession, though in my own mind I felt a
chearful confidence that it would apply almost exclusively to the
earlier Numbers. I could not therefore be surprised, however much I may
have been depressed, by the frequency with which you hear _The Friend_
complained of for its abstruseness and obscurity; nor did the highly
flattering expressions, with which you accompanied your communication,
prevent me from feeling its truth to the whole extent.

An Author's pen like Children's legs, improves by exercise. That part of
the blame which rests on myself, I am exerting my best faculties to
remove. A man long accustomed to silent and solitary meditation, in
proportion as he encreases the power of thinking in long and connected
trains, is apt to lose or lessen the talent of communicating his
thoughts with grace and perspicuity. Doubtless too, I have in some
measure injured my style, in respect to its facility and popularity,
from having almost confined my reading, of late years, to the Works of
the Ancients and those of the elder Writers in the modern languages. We
insensibly imitate what we habitually admire; and an aversion to the
epigrammatic unconnected periods of the fashionable _Anglo-gallican_
Taste has too often made me willing to forget, that the stately march
and difficult evolutions, which characterize the eloquence of Hooker,
Bacon, Milton, and Jeremy Taylor, are, notwithstanding their intrinsic
excellence, still less suited to a periodical Essay. This fault I am now
endeavouring to correct; though I can never so far sacrifice my judgment
to the desire of being immediately popular, as to cast my sentences in
the French moulds, or affect a style which an ancient critic would have
deemed purposely invented for persons troubled with the asthma to read,
and for those to comprehend who labour under the more pitiable asthma
of a short-witted intellect. It cannot but be injurious to the human
mind never to be called into effort: the habit of receiving pleasure
without any exertion of thought, by the mere excitement of curiosity and
sensibility, may be justly ranked among the worst effects of habitual
novel reading. It is true that these short and unconnected sentences are
easily and instantly understood: but it is equally true, that wanting
all the cement of thought as well as of style, all the connections, and
(if you will forgive so trivial a metaphor) all the _hooks-and-eyes_ of
the memory, they are easily forgotten: or rather, it is scarcely
possible that they should be remembered.--Nor is it less true, that
those who confine their reading to such books dwarf their own faculties,
and finally reduce their Understandings to a deplorable imbecility: the
fact you mention, and which I shall hereafter make use of, is a fair
instance and a striking illustration. Like idle morning Visitors, the
brisk and breathless Periods hurry in and hurry off in quick and
profitless succession; each indeed for the moments of its stay prevents
the pain of vacancy, while it indulges the love of sloth; but all
together they leave the Mistress of the house (the soul I mean) flat and
exhausted, incapable of attending to her own concerns, and unfitted for
the conversation of more rational Guests.

I know you will not suspect me of fostering so idle a hope, as that of
obtaining acquittal by recrimination; or think that I am attacking one
fault, in order that its opposite may escape notice in the noise and
smoke of the battery. On the contrary, I shall do my best, and even make
all allowable sacrifices, to render my manner more attractive and my
matter more generally interesting. All the principles of my future Work,
all the fundamental doctrines, in the establishment of which I must of
necessity require the attention of my Reader to become my
fellow-labourer; all the primary facts essential to the intelligibility
of my principles, the existence of which facts I can prove to others
only as far as I can prevail on them to retire _into themselves_ and
make their own minds the objects of their stedfast attention; these
will, all together, not occupy more than six or seven of my future
Essays, and between each of these I shall interpose one or more Numbers
devoted to the rational _entertainment_ of my various Readers; and,
partly from the desire of gratifying particular requests, and partly as
a specimen of the subjects which will henceforward have a due proportion
of _The Friend_ allotted to them, I shall fill up the present Paper with
a miscellany. I feel too deeply the importance of the convictions which
first impelled me to the present undertaking, to leave unattempted any
honourable means of recommending them to as wide a circle as possible;
and though all the opinions which I shall bring forward in the course of
the Work, on politics, morals, religion, literature, and the fine arts,
will with all their applications, be strictly deducible from the
principles established in these earlier Numbers; yet I doubt not, that
being Truths and interesting Truths (and such, of course, I must be
supposed to deem them) their intrinsic beauty will procure them
introduction to the feelings of my Readers, even of those whose habits
or avocations preclude the fatigue of close reasoning, and that each
Essay of itself, by the illustrations and the auxiliary and independent
arguments appropriate to it, will become sufficiently intelligible and
evident.

Hitherto, my dear Sir, I have been employed in laying the Foundation of
my Work. But the proper merit of a foundation is its massiveness and
solidity. The conveniences and ornaments, the gilding and stucco work,
the sunshine and sunny prospects, will come with the Superstructure. Yet
I dare not flatter myself, that any endeavours of mine, compatible with
the duty I owe to Truth and the hope of permanent utility, will render
_The Friend_ agreeable to the majority of what is called the reading
Public. I never expected it. How indeed could I, when I was to borrow so
little from the influence of passing Events, and absolutely excluded
from my plan all appeals to personal curiosity and personal interests?
Yet even this is not my greatest impediment. No real information can be
conveyed, no important errors rectified, no widely injurious prejudices
rooted up, without requiring some effort of thought on the part of the
Reader. But the obstinate (and toward a contemporary Writer, the
contemptuous) aversion to all intellectual effort is the mother evil of
all which I had proposed to war against, the Queen Bee in the Hive of
our errors and misfortunes, both private and national. The proof of the
Fact, positively and comparatively, and the enumeration of its various
causes, will, as I have already hinted form the preliminary Essay of the
disquisition on the elements of our moral and intellectual faculties. To
solicit the attention of those on whom these debilitating causes have
acted to their full extent, would be no less absurd than to recommend
exercise with the dumb bells, as the only mode of cure, to a patient
paralytic in both arms. You, my dear Sir, well know, that my
expectations were more modest as well as more rational. I hoped, that my
Readers in general would be aware of the impracticability of suiting
every Essay to every Taste in _any_ period of the work; and that they
would not attribute wholly to the Author, but in part to the necessity
of his plan, the austerity and absence of the lighter graces in the
first fifteen or twenty Numbers. In my cheerful moods I sometimes
flattered myself, that a few even among those, who foresaw that my
lucubrations would at all times require more attention than from the
nature of their own employments they could afford them, might yet find a
pleasure in supporting _The Friend_ during its infancy, so as to give it
a chance of attracting the notice of others, to whom its style and
subjects might be better adapted. But my main anchor was the Hope, that
when circumstances gradually enabled me to adopt the ordinary means of
making the Publication generally known, there might be found throughout
the Kingdom a sufficient number of meditative minds, who, entertaining
similar convictions with myself, and gratified by the prospect of seeing
them reduced to form and system, would take a warm interest in the work
from the very circumstance, that it wanted those allurements of
transitory interest, which render particular patronage superfluous, and
for the brief season of their Blow and Fragrance attract the eye of
thousands, who would pass unregarded

Flowers
Of sober tint, and Herbs of med'cinable powers.

I hoped that a sufficient number of such Readers would gradually be
obtained, as to secure for the Paper that small extent of circulation
and immediate Sale, which would permit the Editor to carry it on to its
conclusion, and that they might so far interest themselves in
recommending it to men of kindred judgments among their acquaintances,
that the alterations in my list of Subscribers should not be exclusively
of a discouraging nature. Hitherto, indeed, I have only to express
gratitude, and acknowledge constancy; but I do not attempt to disguise
from myself that I owe this, in many instances, to a generous reluctance
hastily to withdraw from an Undertaking in its first struggles, and
before the Adventurer had had a fair opportunity of displaying the
quality of his goods, or the foundations of his credit.

* * *--the one tantum vidi: the other I know by his works only and his
public character. To profess indifference to their praises would convict
me either of insensibility or insincerity. Yet (and I am sure, that you
will both understand, and sympathize with, the feeling) my delight was
not unalloyed by a something like pain, as if I were henceforward less
free to express my admiration of them with the same warmth and
affection, which I have been accustomed to do, before I had even
anticipated the honour of such a communication. You will therefore not
judge me too harshly, if so confirmed and cheered, I have sometimes in
the warmth of composition, and while I was reviewing the materials of
the more important part of my intended Essays, if I had sometimes
permitted my Hopes a bolder flight; and counted on a share of favour and
protection from the soberly zealous among the professionally Learned,
when the Principles of _The Friend_ shall have been brought into clear
view, and Specimens have been given of the mode and the direction in
which I purpose to apply and enforce them.

There are charges, the very suspicion of which is painful to an
ingenuous mind in exact proportion as they are unfounded and
inapplicable. I can bear with resignation a charge of enthusiasm. Even
if accused of presumption, I will repay myself by deriving from the
accusation an additional motive to increased watchfulness over myself,
that I may remain entitled to plead, Not guilty! to it in the Court of
my own conscience. But if my anxiety to obviate hasty judgments and
misapprehensions is imputed to a less honourable motive than the earnest
wish to exert my best faculties, as to the most beneficial purposes, so
in the way most likely to effectuate them, I can give but one answer:
that however great my desires of _profit_ may be, they cannot be greater
than my ignorance of the world, if I have chosen a weekly paper planned,
as _The Friend_ is, written on such subjects, and composed in such a
style, as the most promising method of gratifying them.

S. T. C.

LETTER 146. TO CANTAB

21 Dec. 1809.

I thank the "_Friend's friend and a Cantab_" for his inspiriting Letter,
and assure him, that it was not without its intended effect, of giving
me encouragement. That this was not needless, he would feel as well as
know, if I could convey to him the anxious thoughts and gloomy
anticipations, with which I write any single paragraph, that demands the
least effort of attention, or requires the Reader to enter into himself
and question his own mind as to the truth of that which I am pressing on
his notice. But both He and my very kind Malton Correspondent, and all
of similar dispositions, may rest assured, that with every imaginable
endeavour to make _The Friend_, _collectively,_ as _entertaining_ as is
compatible with the main Object of the Work, I shall never so far forget
the duty, I owe to them and to my own heart, as not to remember that
_mere_ amusement is _not_ that main Object. I have taken upon myself
(see Letter 145) all the blame that I could acknowledge without
adulation to my readers and hypocritical mock-humility. But the
principal source of the obscurity imputed must be sought for in the want
of _interest_ concerning the truths themselves. (_Revel._ iii, 17.) My
sole Hope (I dare not say expectation) is, that if I am enabled to
proceed with the work through an equal number of Essays with those
already published, it will gradually find for itself its appropriate
Public.

S. T. COLERIDGE.[25]

Coleridge worked pretty hard at _The Friend_. He was ably assisted by
Miss Sarah Hutchinson, who acted as amanuensis. _The Friend_ was first
issued on 1st June 1809, and ceased with the twenty-seventh number on
10th March 1810. Like _The Watchman_, _The Friend_ was published by
subscription and was not a financial success. In _The Friend_ Coleridge
wrote in his most diffuse style. The long intricate sentence, imitative
of that of the seventeenth century divines and political writers, was
his favourite medium when writing on the Permanent Principles of things,
and in it he often ran into prolixity. In a letter to Poole, of 28th
January 1810 (_Letters_, 556), Coleridge defends himself for abandoning
the Frenchified style of the _Spectator_, and the eighteenth-century
Belles-Lettrists, who, in his estimation, had contributed to the taste
for "unconnected writing" and "Reading made easy." Coleridge tried to
awaken a deeper note in the English magazine, and make the periodical a
vehicle for profound reflection and logically connected thought; and
although Coleridge's own age was against him in this, the latter half of
the nineteenth century has reversed the verdict in his favour.

While busy with _The Friend_, Coleridge was again contributing to _The
Courier_ a series of letters supporting the Spaniards in their struggle
against Napoleon, and endeavouring to maintain British sympathy for the
inhabitants of the Peninsula. These letters are written with Coleridge's
accustomed virility when writing for _The Courier_, and are almost as
good as his Letters to Fox of 1802. It is a curious fact that when
Coleridge stepped into _The Courier_ office, he abandoned for the time
being his over-refinement of ideas and subtle disquisitive method of
writing for a more popular style, as good as any leader-writer of the
day. He had great versatility of talent in prose; in fact he had three
styles of writing--his Philosophic style, his Journalist style, and his
Letter-Writer's style, in the last of which he abandoned himself to the
most curious and humorous freaks of construction and imagery, as when he
apologizes for some warmth of expression, calling it "the dexterous
_toss_, necessary to turn an idea out of its pudding-bag, round and
_unbroken_."--_Letters_, 410.]

FOOTNOTES:

[15] [Letters CLXVIII-CLXX follow 139.]

[16] [_Edinburgh Review_, No. 12, p. 394, July 1808.]

[17] Copies of Letters from Mr. Savage to Coleridge, and from the
latter to the former, respecting the printing and publishing of
_The Friend_.

[18] [Letters CLXXI-CLXXII follow 141.]

[19] The printer with whom he had been negotiating respecting the
bringing out of _The Friend_.

[20] [Letters CLXXIII-CLXXIV follow 142.]

[21] [Letters CLXXV-CLXXVI follow 143.]

[22] [This argument is repeated in the next letter, printed in _The
Friend_.]

[23] [Coleridge did not publish this answer.]

[24] [Perhaps Robert Lloyd.]

[25] [Letters CLXXVII-CLXXX follow 146.]

CHAPTER XVI

QUARREL WITH WORDSWORTH, SECOND
COURSE OF LECTURES ON
SHAKESPEARE

[During the remainder of 1810, after the cessation of _The Friend_,
Coleridge did nothing of importance except write letters to his
acquaintances about new projects which grew up in the impetuosity of his
conversation or in answering some enquiry to a correspondent. At the
close of the year Coleridge had determined to go to London once more;
and an unfortunate occurrence took place on his arrival in London. Basil
Montagu with his wife and child were travelling from Scotland to London,
and called upon the Wordsworths at Allan Bank, where Coleridge resided
with brief intervals of absence from September 1808 to April 1810.
Montagu invited Coleridge to travel to the metropolis with him in his
chaise and stay some time at his residence. Wordsworth warned Montagu of
Coleridge's opium habit, and said something to the effect that "he had
no hope" of Coleridge, and perhaps that he had been a "nuisance" in the
Wordsworth family. On his arrival in London, Montagu informed Coleridge
that Wordsworth had commissioned him to say that Wordsworth had no hope
of him, and that certain habits of his had made him a nuisance in the
Allan Bank household (Dykes Campbell's _Life_, 179). Coleridge, of
course, left the Montagus on hearing this communication, and repaired to
7, Portland Place, Hammersmith, then the abode of his old friend John
Morgan, and his wife Mary Brent, and her sister Charlotte Brent, with
whom the father of the ladies also lived (_Letters_, 598).

Coleridge was deeply stung that Wordsworth should have said such a thing
to Montagu. Professor Knight in his _Life of Wordsworth_ gives a pretty
full narrative of the event, and believes that Wordsworth, though he
said he had no hope of Coleridge, did not utter the more offensive
assertion about Coleridge being a nuisance in his family. Henry Crabb
Robinson effected a formal reconciliation between the two poets, in
which both figure to some disadvantage. Wordsworth's proposal to
confront Coleridge, his best and closest friend, with Montagu, a
comparative stranger to both of them, for cross-examination, and thus
sift out the actual expression used by the latter to the former, seems
like very hard dealing; and Coleridge's vehemence of protestation to
believe whatever Wordsworth asserted to be the true version, in
contradistinction to anything that Montagu might say, savours of
unreality. Wordsworth's taking offence at Coleridge not going to
Grasmere on the death of his child at a juncture when it was impossible
for him to leave London while _Remorse_ was being put on the stage, does
not redound to the credit of the Bard of Rydal; and Coleridge's failure
to call on his old friend while in the Lake District for the last time
is equally against the poet of Stowey. The estrangement died down rather
than was reconciled; but the irritation against Wordsworth remained long
in Coleridge's heart, and it is more than probable that after the
excitement of the reconciliation made by Crabb Robinson was over,
Coleridge believed Montagu's rather than Wordsworth's version of what
had occurred. This is endorsed by the fact that Montagu was again taken
into favour, and he and his wife were regular guests at the Highgate
Thursdays in after times.[26]

During 1811, while in London, Coleridge again met Godwin, to whom he
softened in his opinion. The following two letters indicate that he did
not occupy the same attitude to the author of _Political Justice_ as he
did when he wrote _The Watchman_.

LETTER 147. TO GODWIN

Tuesday, March 26, 1811.

Dear Godwin,

Mr. Grattan did me the honour of calling on me, and leaving his card, on
Sunday afternoon, unfortunately a few minutes after I had gone out--and
I am so unwell, that I fear I shall not be able to return the call
to-day, as I had intended, though it is a grief even for a brace of days
to appear insensible of so much kindness and condescension. But what
need has Grattan of pride?

Ha d'uopo solo
Mendicar dall' orgoglio onore e stima,
Chi senza lui di vilipendio é degno.

CHIABRERA.

I half caught from Lamb that you had written to Wordsworth, with a wish
that he should versify some tale or other, and that Wordsworth had
declined it. I told dear Miss Lamb that I had formed a complete plan of
a poem, with little plates for children, the _first_ thought, but that
alone, taken from Gessner's _First Mariner_; and this thought, I have
reason to believe, was not an invention of Gessner's. It is this--that
in early times, in some island or part of the Continent, the ocean had
rushed in, overflowing a vast plain of twenty or thirty miles, and
thereby _insulating_ one small promontory or cape of high land, on which
was a cottage, containing a man and his wife, and an infant daughter.
This is the _one_ thought; all that Gessner has made out of it--(and I
once translated into blank verse about half of the poem, but gave it up
under the influence of a double disgust, moral and poetical)--I have
rejected; and, strictly speaking, the tale in all its parts, that one
idea excepted, would be original. The tale will contain the cause, the
occasions, the process, with all its failures and ultimate success, of
the construction of the first boat, and of the undertaking of the first
naval expedition. Now, supposing you liked the idea (I address you and
Mrs. G., and as _commerciants_, not you as the philosopher who gave us
the first system in England that ever dared reveal at full that most
important of all important truths, that morality might be built on its
own foundation, like a castle built _from_ the rock and _on_ the rock,
with religion for the ornaments and completion of its roof and upper
stories--nor as the critic who, in the life of Chaucer, has given us, if
not principles of _æsthetic_ or taste, yet more and better data for
principles than had hitherto existed in our language)if we pulling like
two friendly tradesmen together, (for you and your wife _must_ be one
flesh, and I trust _are_ one heart) you approve of the plan, the next
question is, Whether it should be written in prose or in verse, and if
the latter, in what metre--stanzas, or eight-syllable iambics with
rhymes (for in rhyme it must be), now in couplets and now in quatrains,
in the manner of Cooper's admirable translation of the _Vert-Vert_ of
Gresset. (N.B. not _the_ Cowper).

Another thought has struck me within the last month, of a school-book in
two octavo volumes, of Lives in the manner of Plutarch--not, indeed, of
comparing and coupling Greek with Roman, Dion with Brutus, and Cato with
Aristides, of placing ancient and modern together: Numa with Alfred,
Cicero with Bacon, Hannibal with Gustavus Adolphus, and Julius Cæsar
with Buonaparte--or what perhaps might be at once more interesting and
more instructive, a series of lives, from Moses to Buonaparte, of all
those great men, who in states or in the mind of man had produced great
revolutions, the effects of which still remain, and are more or less
distant causes of the present state of the world.

I remain, with unfeigned and affectionate esteem,

Yours, dear Godwin,
S. T. COLERIDGE.[27]

LETTER 148. TO GODWIN

Friday morning, March 29, 1811.

Dear Godwin,

My chief motive in undertaking _The First Mariner_ is merely to weave a
few tendrils around your destined walking-stick, which, like those of
the woodbine (that, serpent-like climbing up, and with tight spires
embossing the straight hazel, rewards the lucky schoolboy's search in
the winter copse) may remain on it, when the woodbine, root and branch,
lies trampled in the earth. I shall consider the work as a small plot of
ground given up to you, to be sown at your own hazard with your own seed
(gold-grains would have been but a bad saw, and besides have spoilt the
metaphor). If the increase should more than repay your risk and labour,
why then let me be one of your guests at Hendcot House. Your last letter
impressed and affected me strongly. Ere I had yet read or seen your
works, I, at Southey's recommendation, wrote a sonnet in praise of the
author. When I had read them, religious bigotry, the but
half-understanding your principles, and the _not_ half-understanding my
own, combined to render me a warm and boisterous anti-Godwinist. But my
warfare was open; my unfelt and harmless blows aimed at an abstraction I
had christened with your name; and at that time, if not in the world's
_favor_, you were among the captains and chief men in its admiration. I
became your acquaintance, when more years had brought somewhat more
temper and tolerance; but I distinctly remember that the first turn in
my mind towards you, the first movements of a juster appreciation of
your merits, was occasioned by my disgust at the altered tone of
language of many whom I had long known as your admirers and
disciples--some of them, too, men who had made themselves a sort of
reputation in minor circles as your acquaintances, and therefore your
echoes by authority, who had themselves aided in attaching an unmerited
ridicule to you and your opinions by their own ignorance, which led them
to think the best settled truths, and indeed _every_ thing in your
_Political Justice_, whether assertion, or deduction, or conjecture, to
have been new thoughts--downright creations! and by their own vanity,
which enabled them to forget that everything must be new to him who
knows _nothing_; others again, who though gifted with high talents, had
yet been indebted to you and the discussions occasioned by your work,
for much of their development, who had often and often styled you the
Great Master, written verses in your honour, and, worse than all, had
now brought your opinions--with many good and worthy men--into as
unmerited an odium, as the former class had into contempt, by attempts
equally unfeeling and unwise, to realize them in private life, to the
disturbance of domestic peace. And lastly, a third class; but the name
of ---- spares me the necessity of describing it. In all these there was
such a want of common sensibility, such a want of that gratitude to an
intellectual benefactor, which even an honest reverence for their past
selves should have secured, as did then, still does, and ever will,
disgust me. As for ----, I cannot justify him; but he stands in no one
of the former classes. When he was young he just looked enough into your
books to believe you taught republicanism and stoicism; ergo, that he
was of your opinion and you of his, and that was all. Systems of
philosophy were never his taste or forte. And I verily believe that his
conduct originated wholly and solely in the effects which the trade of
reviewing never fails to produce at certain times on the best
minds,--presumption, petulance, callousness to personal feelings, and a
disposition to treat the reputations of their contemporaries as
playthings placed at their own disposal. Most certainly I cannot approve
of such things; but yet I have learned how difficult it is for a man who
has from earliest childhood preserved himself immaculate from all the
common faults and weaknesses of human nature, and who, never creating
any small disquietudes, has lived in general esteem and honour, to feel
remorse, or to admit that he has done wrong. Believe me, there is a
bluntness of conscience superinduced by a very unusual infrequency, as
well as by a habit of frequency of wrong actions. "Sunt quibus cecidisse
prodesset," says Augustine. To this add that business of review-writing,
carried on for fifteen years together, and which I have never hesitated
to pronounce an immoral employment, unjust to the author of the books
reviewed, injurious in its influences on the public taste and morality,
and still more injurious on its influences on the head and heart of the
reviewer himself. The _prægustatores_ among the luxurious Romans soon
lost their taste; and the verdicts of an old prægustator were sure to
mislead, unless when, like dreams, they were interpreted into
contraries. Our reviewers are the genuine descendants of these
palate-seared taste dictators. I am still confined by indisposition, but
mean to step out to Hazlitt's--almost my next door neighbour--at his
particular request. It is possible that I may find you there.

With kind remembrances to Mrs. Godwin,

Yours, dear Godwin, affectionately,
S. T. COLERIDGE.

From 19th April to 27th September 1811 Coleridge (_Essays on his Own
Times_, 733-938) was busy contributing articles again to _The Courier_
on all subjects of the day, their irony as bright, their imagery as
fresh, their philosophy as sound as anything he had formerly written.
But Coleridge ceased to write for _The Courier_ when he discovered that
it was not an independent paper. An article on the Duke of York written
by Coleridge, after having been set up in type, was suppressed, at the
instigation of the Government. He wrote to Beaumont on 7th December
1811: "I have not been at _The Courier_ office for some months past. I
detest writing politics even on the right side; and when I discovered
that _The Courier_ was not the independent paper I had been led to
believe, and had myself over and over again asserted, I wrote no more
for it.... I will write for the _Permanent_, or not at all." (Coleorton
_Memorials_ ii, 162, 7th December 1811.)

During the winter of 1811-12 Coleridge did something for the _Permanent_
in the shape of a new course of Lectures on Shakespeare. The course
lasted from the beginning of November 1811 to 28th January 1812. The
Lectures are published in T. Ashe's edition (Bohn Library, pp. 33-165).
The finest of the Lectures is No. IX, given on 16th December 1811. The
Lectures were delivered at the London Philosophical Society's Rooms,
Fetter Lane, and were attended, according to Henry Crabb Robinson, by
enthusiastic audiences; and the course closed with _éclat_. On one
occasion Rogers and Byron were present. The following letter to Dr.
Andrew Bell, whom, it will be remembered, he corresponded with while he
was giving his first course, is a characteristic bit of Coleridge's
application of the Law of Association.

LETTER 149. TO DR. ANDREW BELL (Southey's _Life of Bell_, ii, 645)

Mr. Pople's, 67 Chancery Lane
Holborn, 30 November 1811.

My Dear Sir,

The room I lecture in is very comfortable, and of a grave academic
appearance; the company highly respectable, though (unluckily) rather
scanty; but the entrance, which is under a short passage from Fetter
Lane, some thirty doors or more from Fleet Street, is disagreeable even
to foot-comers, and far more so to carriages, from the narrowness and
bendings of the lane. This, and in truth, the very name of _Fetter_
Lane, renowned exclusively for pork and sausages, have told against me;
and I pay an exorbitant price in proportion to the receipts. I should
doubtless feel myself honoured by your attendance on some one night; but
such is your distance, and such is the weather, that I scarce dare
_wish_ it, much less ask or expect it.

I wrote a long letter to you concerning the sophistications of your
system at present in vogue, the inevitable consequences on the whole
mass of moral feelings, even of the dissenters themselves, and the
courage as well as fortitude, required for the effort to do one's duty.
But I asked myself why I should give you pain, and destroyed it. Yet
come what will, the subject shall be treated fully, intrepidly, and by
close deduction from settled first principles, in the first volume of
the recommencing _Friend_, which I hope to bring out early in the
spring, on a quarterly or four-monthly plan, in partnership with a
publisher who is personally my friend, and who will take on himself all
the _business_, and leave me exclusively occupied in the composition.
Even to this day I have not received nearly one-half of the
subscriptions for the former numbers, and am expiating the error by all
sorts of perplexities and embarrassments. A man who has nothing better
than prudence is fit for no world to come; and he who does not possess
it in full activity, is as unfit for the present world. What then shall
we say? Have both prudence and the moral sense, but subordinate the
former to the latter; and so possess the flexibility and address of the
serpent to glide through the brakes and jungles of this life, with the
wings of the dove to carry us upward to a better!

May the Almighty bless and preserve you, my dear Sir! With most
unfeigned love and honour, I remain--and till I lose all sense of my
better being, of the veiled immortal within me, ever must remain, your
obliged and grateful friend,

S. T. COLERIDGE.]

FOOTNOTES:

[26] [See _Letters_, p. 590, and Professor Knight's _Life of
Wordsworth_, ch. XXV, for full account of the misunderstanding.]

[27] [Letter CLXXXI precedes our 147.]

CHAPTER XVII

DANIEL STUART AND THE COURIER

Here[28] I may best introduce the remarks which have been made, and
details which have been given, respecting Mr. Coleridge's services to
_The Morning Post_ and _The Courier_, spoken of by him in Chapter X of
the _Biographia Literaria_. That representation has been excepted
against by Mr. Stuart, who was Editor of the former Paper when my Father
wrote for it, and half proprietor of the other. The view which he takes
of the case he has already made public;[29] he seems to be of opinion,
that the language used by Mr. Coleridge in this work is calculated to
give an impression of the amount of his actual performances on behalf of
those papers beyond what the facts warrant; I have not thought it
necessary or proper to withdraw that portion of Chapter X of which he
complains, nor do I see that it must necessarily bear a construction at
variance with his own statements: but neither would I republish it,
without giving Mr. Stuart's account of matters to which it refers,
extracted from letters written by him to Mr. Coleridge's late Editor. He
writes as follows from Wykham Park, on the 7th of October, 1835.

"In August, 1795, I began to conduct _The Morning Post_, the sale of
which was so low, only 350 per day, that a gentleman at that time made a
bet with me that the Paper was actually extinct.

"At Christmas, 1797, on the recommendation of Mr. Mackintosh, Coleridge
sent me several pieces of poetry; up to the time of his going to
Germany, about 12 pieces.[30] Prose writing I never expected from him at
that time. He went to Germany in the summer of 1798.

"He returned, I believe, about the end of 1799,[31] and proposed to me
to come to London to reside near me, and write daily for the paper. I
took lodgings for him in King Street, Covent Garden. _The Morning Post_
then selling 2,000 daily. Coleridge wrote some things, particularly, I
remember, Comments on Lord Grenville's reply to Buonaparte's Overtures
of Peace, in January, 1800. But he totally failed in the plan he
proposed of writing daily on the daily occurrences."

Mr. Stuart then gives three short letters of Mr. C.'s, showing how often
he was ill and incapable of writing for the paper, and the beginning of
a long one dated Greta Hall, Keswick, 19th July, 1800,[32] in which he
promises a second part of Pitt and Buonaparte, but speaks of it as
uncertain whether or no he should be able to continue any regular
species of employment for Mr. S.'s paper.

After noting that Mr. C. left London at the end of his first half year's
engagement, Mr. S. brings forward more letters, containing excuses on
account of illness, but promising a number of essays: two on the war, as
respecting agriculture; one on the raising of rents; one on the riots
(corn riots in 1800); and one on the countenance by Government of
calumnies on the King;--promising also a second part of Pitt and
Buonaparte, which Mr. S. supposes he was constantly dunning for, the
Character of Pitt, published in _The M. P._ early in 1800, having made a
great sensation; proposing a letter to Sir F. Burdett on solitary
imprisonment, and that all these should be published in pamphlets, after
they had been divided into pieces, and published in _The M. P._, he
doubting whether they were of value for a newspaper. Some of these
essays appear to have been sent; it is not specified which or how many.

"Early in 1807," Mr. S. says, "I was confined by a violent fever.
Several weeks I was delirious, and to my astonishment, when I recovered,
Pitt was out of place, and Horne Tooke in Parliament. I did not resume
the conduct of the Paper till the spring. The Paper suffered loss."

The next letter, dated May, 1801, Keswick, speaks of ill health, and
"the habits of irresolution which are its worst consequences,"
forbidding him to rely on himself. Mr. S. had solicited him to write,
and offered terms, and it appears that he did form a new engagement for
the Paper about that time. In a letter of Sept. 1801, he says, "I am not
so blinded by authorship as to believe that what I have done is at all
adequate to the money I have received." Mr. Stuart then produces a
letter with the postmark Bridgewater, of Jan. 19, 1802.[33] These
letters show, he says, that in July and October 1800, in May 1801, on
the 30th of September 1801, Coleridge was at Keswick, that in January
1802, he was at Stowey, that he could not therefore have materially
contributed to the success of _The Morning Post_. "In this last year,"
says Mr. Stuart, "his Letters to Judge Fletcher, and on Mr. Fox, at
Paris, were published." The former were not published till 1814. The six
letters appeared in _The Courier_ on Sept. 20th, 29th, Oct. 21st, Nov.
2nd, Dec. 3rd, 6th, 9th and 10th. The latter appeared on the 4th and 9th
of Nov. 1802. Mr. Stuart speaks of it as a mistake in those who have
supposed that the coolness of Fox to Sir James Mackintosh was occasioned
by his ascribing this "violent philippic," as Lamb called it, to him
(Sir James). "On those to Judge Fletcher," he says, "and many other such
essays, as being rather fit for pamphlets than newspapers, I did not set
much value." On this subject hear Coleridge himself in a letter[34] dated
June 4th, 1811, when he was engaged with Mr. Street.

LETTER 150. TO DANIEL STUART

"Freshness of effect belongs to a newspaper and distinguishes it from a
literary book: the former being the Zenith and the latter the Nadir,
with a number of intermediate degrees, occupied by pamphlets, magazines,
reviews, etc. Besides, in a daily paper, with advertisements
proportioned to its large sale, what is deferred must four times in five
be extinguished. A newspaper is a market for flowers and vegetables,
rather than a granary or conservatory; and the drawer of its Editor a
common burial ground, not a catacomb for embalmed mummies, in which the
defunct are preserved to serve in after times as medicines for the
living."

This freshness of effect Coleridge scarcely ever gave to either _The
Morning Post_ or _The Courier_. He was occasionally in London during my
time, in _The Morning Post_ it is true, but he never gave the daily
bread. He was mostly at Keswick. * * * A few months in 1800, and a few
weeks in 1802, that was all the time he ever wasted on _The Morning
Post_, and as for _The Courier_, it accepted his proffered services as a
favour done to him," etc.

After speaking again of the former paper, he says, "I could give many
more reasons for its rise than those I gave in my former letter, and
among others I would include Coleridge's occasional writings, though to
them I would not set down more than one hundredth part of the cause of
success, much as I esteemed his writings and much as I would have given
for a regular daily assistance by him. But he never wrote a thing I
requested, and, I think I may add, he never wrote a thing I expected. In
proof of this he promised me at my earnest and endless request, the
character of Buonaparte, which he himself, at first of his own mere
motion, had promised; he promised it letter after letter, year after
year, for ten years (last for _The Courier_), yet never wrote it. Could
Coleridge and I place ourselves thirty-eight years back, and he be so
far a man of business as to write three or four hours a day, there is
nothing I would not pay for his assistance. I would take him into
partnership," (which, I think, my Father would have declined,) "and I
would enable him to make a large fortune. To write the leading paragraph
of a newspaper I would prefer him to Mackintosh, Burke, or any man I
ever heard of. His observations not only were confirmed by good sense,
but displayed extensive knowledge, deep thought and well-grounded
foresight; they were so brilliantly ornamented, so classically
delightful. They were the writings of a Scholar, a Gentleman and a
Statesman, without personal sarcasm or illiberality of any kind. But
when Coleridge wrote in his study without being pressed, he wandered and
lost himself. He should always have had the printer's devil at his elbow
with 'Sir, the printers want copy.'

"So far then with regard to _The Morning Post_, which I finally left in
August, 1803. Throughout the last year, during my most rapid success,
Coleridge did not, I believe, write a line for me. Seven months
afterwards I find Coleridge at Portsmouth, on his way to Malta." Mr.
Stuart proceeds to state that Mr. C. returned to England in the summer
of 1806, that in 1807 he was engaged with his Play at Drury Lane
Theatre, early in 1808 gave his lectures at the Royal Institution, at
the end of that year began his plan of _The Friend_, which took him up
till towards the end of 1809--in 1811 proposed to write for _The
Courier_ on a salary. Mr. Stuart mentions that the Essays on the
Spaniards were sent in the end of 1809 by Mr. Coleridge, as some return
for sums he had expended on his account, not on his (Mr. Stuart's)
solicitation. He says that Mr. C. wrote in _The Courier_ for his own
convenience, his other literary projects having failed, and that he
wrote for it against the will of Mr. Street, the Editor, who, in
accepting his services, only yielded to his (Mr. S.'s) suggestion. "_The
Courier_," he says, "required no assistance. It was, and had long been,
the evening paper of the highest circulation." In another letter, dated
7th September 1835, he speaks thus: "_The Courier_ indeed sold 8000
daily for some years, but when Street and I purchased it at a good price
in June, 1799, it sold nearly 2000, and had the reputation of selling
more. It was the apostasy of _The Sun_ in 1803, Street's good
management, its early intelligence, and the importance of public events,
that raised _The Courier_." In the same letter he says, "Could Coleridge
have written the leading paragraph daily his services would have been
invaluable, but an occasional essay or two could produce little effect.
It was early and ample accounts of domestic occurrences, as Trials,
Executions, etc. etc., exclusively early Irish news; the earliest French
news; full Parliamentary Debates; Corn Riots in 1800; Procession
proclaiming Peace; the attack on the King by Hatfield at the Theatre;
the arrest of Arthur O'Connor, respecting which I was examined at the
Privy Council: it was the earliest and fullest accounts of such things
as these, while the other papers were negligent, that raised _The
Morning Post_ from 350, when I took it in August, 1795, to 4500, when I
sold it in August, 1803, and then no other daily morning paper sold
above 3000. It was unremitting attention and success in giving the best
and earliest accounts of occurrences that made _The Morning Post_, and
not the writings of any one, though good writing is always an important
feature. I have known the Paper served more by a minute, picturesque,
lively account of the ascension of a balloon than ever it was by any
piece of writing. There is a great difference among newspapers in this
respect. Most of the Sunday Papers, calling themselves _News_papers,
have no news, only political essays, which are read by the
working-classes, and which in those papers produce astonishing success."
In other letters he says: "The reputation of the writings of any man,
the mere reputation of them, would not serve, or in the very slightest
degree serve, any daily newspaper." "Mackintosh's reputation as a
political writer was then much higher than that of Coleridge, and he was
my brother-in-law, known to have written for the Paper, especially
during one year (1795-6), and to be on good terms with me, yet I must
confess that even to the reputation of his writing for the Paper I never
ascribed any part of its success."

It does not appear from Mr. Stuart how many essays in all Mr. Coleridge
contributed to _The Morning Post_ and _The Courier_. Mr. C. himself
mentions several in the tenth chapter of the _Biographia Literaria_. All
these have been copied, and will be republished hereafter.[35] I happen
to possess also his contributions to _The Courier_ in 1811. They are
numerous, though not daily; which I have now no means of ascertaining.
The Critique on _Bertram_ first appeared in that Paper, I believe in
1816. Mr. Stuart admits that some of the poems published by Mr. C. in
_The Morning Post_ before his going to Germany made a "great
impression:" that on Mr. C.'s proposing "personally on the spot and by
daily exertion to assist him in the conduct of the Paper," he "grasped
at the engagement," and "no doubt solicited" him "in the most earnest
manner to enter upon it;" that his "writings produced a greater effect
in _The Morning Post_ than any others." In his letter of September 19,
1835, Mr. S. says "The most remarkable things Coleridge published in
_The Morning Post_ were _The Devil's Thoughts_ and the _Character of
Pitt_. Each of these made a sensation, which any writings unconnected
with the news of the day rarely did." Elsewhere he says, "Several
hundred sheets extra were sold by them, and the paper was in demand for
days and weeks afterwards. Coleridge promised a pair of portraits, Pitt
and Buonaparte. I could not walk a hundred yards in the streets but I
was stopped by inquiries, 'When shall we have Buonaparte?' One of the
most eager of these inquirers was Dr. Moore, author of _Zeluco_." In the
letter mentioned just above he says "At one time Coleridge engaged to
write daily for _The Courier_ on the news of the day, and he did attend
very regularly and wrote; but as it was in the spring, when the Paper
was overwhelmed with debates and advertisements (and Street always
preferring news, and a short notice of it in a leading paragraph to any
writing however brilliant,) little or nothing that he wrote was inserted
from want of room. Of this he repeatedly complained to me, saying that
he would not continue to receive a salary without rendering services. I
answered, 'Wait till Parliament is up; we shall then have ample room,
and shall be obliged to you for all you can give us.' When Parliament
rose Coleridge disappeared, or at least discontinued his services."

The time here spoken of was in June, 1811. In April he had proposed to
Mr. Stuart a particular plan of writing for _The Courier_, and on May 5,
he writes to that gentleman, that he had stated and particularized this
proposal to Mr. Street, and "found a full and in all appearance a warm
assent." Mr. Street, he says, "expressed himself highly pleased both at
the thought of my assistance in general, and with the specific plan of
assistance. There was no doubt, he said, that it would be of great
service to the Paper."

Mr. Stuart has been offended by Mr. Coleridge's saying that he "employed
the prime and manhood of his intellect in these labours," namely for the
Papers; that they "added nothing to his fortune or reputation;" that the
"industry of the week supplied the necessities of the week." This he has
considered as a reproach to himself, and an unjust one. It was not--Mr.
Stuart himself saw that it was not--so intended; Mr. Coleridge's only
object was to show that he had not altogether suffered his talents to
"rust away without any efficient exertion for his own good or that of
his fellow-creatures;" that he had laboured more than would appear from
the number and size of the books he had produced, and in whatever he
wrote had aimed not merely to supply his own temporal wants, but to
benefit his readers by bringing high principles in view. "For, while
cabbage-stalks rot on dunghills," says he, in a letter[36] to the late
Editor of _The Morning Post_, "I will never write what, or for what, I
do not think right. All that prudence can justify is not to write what
at certain times one may yet think." But Mr. Stuart thought that the
Public would draw inferences from Mr. C.'s language injurious to
himself, though it was not meant of him; and hence he gave the details
which I have thought it right to bring forward. I have no doubt that Mr.
Coleridge had an exaggerated impression of the amount of his labours for
_The Morning Post_ and _The Courier_, and that when he said that he had
raised the sale of the former from a low number to 7000 daily, he
mistook the sale of the latter, which, Mr. Stuart admits, may have been
7000 per day in 1811, when he wrote for it constantly, with that of
_The Morning Post_, which never sold above 4500. Mr. Stuart says truly
"Coleridge had a defective memory, from want of interest in common
things;" and of this he brings forward a strong instance. I think my
Father's example and experience go to prove that Newspaper reading must
ever be more or less injurious to the public mind; high and careful
writing for the daily journal will never answer: who could furnish noble
views and a refined moral commentary on public events and occurrences
every day of the week, or even every other day, and obtain a
_proportionate_ recompense? On the other hand, a coarse or low sort of
writing on the important subjects, with which the journal deals, must do
mischief. No one will deny that the character of Mr. C.'s articles was
such as he has described; he would naturally be more alive to marks of
the impression made by what he wrote in particular than any one else,
even the Editor; and men are apt to judge of their labours by intensity
as much as by quantity. He perhaps expended more thought on some of
those essays, of which Mr. Street and even Mr. Stuart thought lightly,
than would have served to furnish a large amount of ordinary serviceable
matter. Mr. Stuart observes, "He never had a prime and manhood of
intellect in the sense in which he speaks of it in the _Lit. Biography_.
He had indeed the great mind, the great powers, but he could not use
them for the press with regularity and vigour.[37] He was always ill."
This may have been true; yet it was during what ought to have been the
best years of his life that he wrote for the Papers, and doubtless what
he did produce helped to exhaust his scanty stock of bodily power, and
to prevent him from writing as many books as he might have done, had
circumstances permitted him to use his pen, not for procuring "the
necessities of the week," but in the manner most congenial to his own
mind, and ultimately most useful to the public. "Such things as _The
Morning Post_ and money," says Mr. S., in _The Gentleman's Magazine_,
"never settled upon his mind." I believe that such things _unsettled_
his mind, and made him, as the lampooner said, with a somewhat different
allusion, "Like to a man on double business bound, who both neglects."
This was a trouble to himself and all connected with him. _Le ciel nous
vend toujours les biens qu'il nous prodigue_, may be applied to my poor
Father emphatically.

In regard to the remuneration he received, I do not bring forward the
_particulars_ given by Mr. Stuart of his liberal dealing with Mr.
Coleridge, simply because the rehearsal of them would be tedious, and
could answer no end. Such details may be superseded by the general
declaration, that I believe my Father to have received from Mr. Stuart
far more than the market value of his contributions to the Papers which
that gentleman was concerned in. Mr. Stuart says that he "paid at the
time as highly as such writings were paid for," and to Mr. Coleridge's
satisfaction, which my Father's own letters certainly testify; and
concludes the account of sums advanced by him to Mr. C., when he was not
writing for the paper, by saying that he had "at least £700 of him
beside many acts of kindness." A considerable part of this was spent on
stamps and paper for _The Friend_; two hundred of it was given after the
publication of the _Biographia Literaria_.

Mr. Coleridge expressed his esteem for Mr. Stuart and sense of his
kindness very strongly in letters to himself, but not more strongly than
to others. He speaks of him in a letter written about the beginning of
1809, addressed to a gentleman of the Quaker persuasion at Leeds, as "a
man of the most consummate knowledge of the world, managed by a
thorough strong and sound judgment, and rendered innocuous by a good
heart"--as a "most wise, disinterested, kind, and constant friend." In a
letter to my Mother, written on his return from Malta, he says, "Stuart
is a friend, and a friend indeed."

I have thought it right to bring forward these particulars,--(I and
those equally concerned with myself)--not only out of a regard to truth
and openness, that the language of this work respecting _The Morning
Post_ and _The Courier_ may not be interpreted in any way contrary to
fact, which, I think, it _need_ not be; but also in gratitude to a man
who was serviceable and friendly to my Father during many years of his
life; who appreciated his merits as a prose writer when they were not
generally known and acknowledged; and by whose aid his principal prose
work, _The Friend_, was brought before the public. I do not complain in
the least of his stating the facts of my Father's newspaper writings; in
the _manner_ in which this was done--as was pointed out at the
time--there _was_ something to complain of. Let me add that I consider
his representation of my Father's feelings on certain occasions
altogether incredible, and deeply regret these pieces of bad construing,
dictated by resentment, in one who was once so truly his friend.

My Father certainly does not assert, as Mr. Stuart represents him as
having asserted in the _Literary Biography_, that he "made the fortunes
of _The Morning Post_ and _The Courier_, and was inadequately paid." He
speaks of his writings as having been in furtherance of _Government_. I
have no doubt he thought that they were serviceable to Government and to
his country, and that while they brought upon him the enmity of the
anti-ministerial and Buonapartean party, and every possible hindrance to
his literary career which the most hostile and contemptuous criticism of
a leading journal could effect, they were unrewarded in any other
quarter. There was truth in one half of Hazlitt's sarcasm, "his politics
turned--_but not to account_." "From Government, or the friends of
Government!" says Mr. Stuart, "Why, Coleridge was attacking Pitt and
Lord Grenville in 1800, who were at the head of the Government. In 1801,
when the Addingtons came into power, he wrote little or nothing in _The
Morning Post_; in the autumn of 1802 he wrote one or two able essays
against Buonaparte in relation to the Peace of Amiens, and he published
in that paper, at that time, a letter or two to Judge Fletcher." This
last sentence is a double mistake, as I have already shown. "At that
time the newspaper press generally condemned the conduct of Buonaparte
in the severest manner: and no part of it more severely than _The
Morning Post_ by my own writings. Cobbett attacked Fox, etc., but _The
Morning Post_ was the most distinguished on this subject, and the
increase of its circulation was great. The qualified opposition to
Government was not given to Pitt's ministry, but to Addington's. To Pitt
_The Morning Post_ was always, in my time, decidedly opposed. I
supported Addington against Buonaparte, during the Peace of Amiens, with
all my power, and in the summer of 1803 Mr. Estcourt came to me with a
message of thanks from the prime minister, Mr. A. offering anything I
wished. I declined the offer. It was not till the summer of 1804, a year
after I had finally left _The Morning Post_ that, in _The Courier_, I
supported Pitt against Buonaparte, on the same grounds I had supported
Mr. Addington, Pitt having become again prime minister, to protect Lord
Melville against the fifth clause. Coleridge confuses things. The
qualified support of the ministry, he alludes to, applies wholly to _The
Courier_." I do not see the material discrepancy between this statement
and my Father's, when he says that _The Morning Post_ was
"_anti-ministerial_, indeed, but with far greater earnestness and zeal,
both anti-jacobin and anti-gallican," and that it proved a far more
useful ally to the Government in its most important objects, in
consequence of its being generally considered moderately
_anti-ministerial_, than if it had been the avowed eulogist of _Mr._
Pitt; "that the rapid increase in the sale of _The Morning Post_ is a
pledge that genuine impartiality with a respectable portion of literary
talent will secure the success of a newspaper _without ministerial
patronage_," and that from "the _commencement of the Addington
administration_" whatever he himself had written "in _The Morning Post_
or _Courier_ was in defence of Government." In the preceding paragraph
he argues that neither Mr. Percival nor "the present administration"
pursued the plans of Mr. Pitt.

In what degree my Father's writings contributed to the reputation and
success of _The Morning Post_ cannot at this distance of time be
_precisely_ settled. It must indeed be difficult to say what occasions
success in such enterprises, if Mr. Stuart's own brother could attribute
that of _The Morning Post_ to Sir James Mackintosh, "though with less
reason even than if he had ascribed it to Coleridge." The long story
told to show that booksellers were not aware of Mr. C.'s having produced
any effect on the paper, and when they set up a rival journal, never
cared to obtain his services, but eagerly secured those of Mr. Stuart's
assistant, George Lane, does not quite decide the question; for
booksellers, though, as Mr. Stuart says, "knowing men" in such matters,
are not _omniscient_ even in what concerns their own business. If the
anti-gallican policy of _The Morning Post_ "increased its circulation,"
I cannot but think that the influence of my Father's writings,[38]
though not numerous, and indirectly of his intercourse with the
Editor,--who rates his conversational powers as highly as it is usual to
rate them--in directing the tone and determining the principles of the
paper, must have served it materially. I believe him to have been the
anti-gallican _spirit_ that governed _The Morning Post_, though he may
not have performed as much of the _letter_ as he fancied.

I shall conclude this subject with quoting part of a letter of my
Father's on the subject of _The Courier_, to which Mr. Stuart, to whom
it was addressed, declares himself to have replied, that "as long as he
actively interfered, the Paper was conducted on the independent
principles alluded to by Coleridge," but that, for reasons which he
states, he found it best, from the year 1811, to "leave Street entirely
to his own course;" and "so it gradually slid into a mere ministerial
journal--an instrument of the Treasury:" "acquired a high character for
being the organ of Government, and obtained a great circulation; but
became odious to the mob--excited by the falsehoods of the weekly
journals."

LETTER 151. TO STUART[39]

Wednesday, 8th May, 1816.
James Gillman's, Esq., Surgeon,
Highgate.

My dear Stuart,

Since you left me, I have been reflecting a great deal on the subject of
the Catholic question, and somewhat on _The Courier_ in general. With
all my weight of _faults_, (and no one is less likely to underrate them
than myself), a tendency to be influenced by selfish motives in my
friendships, or even in the cultivation of my acquaintance, will not, I
am sure, be by _you_ placed among them. When we first knew each other,
it was perhaps the most interesting period of both our lives, at the
very turn of the flood; and I can never cease to reflect with
affectionate delight on the steadiness and independence of your conduct
and principles, and how, for so many years, with little assistance from
others, and with one main guide, a sympathizing tact for the real sense,
feeling, and impulses of the _respectable_ part of the English nation,
you went on so auspiciously, and likewise so _effectively_. It is far,
very far, from being an hyperbole to affirm, that you did more against
the French scheme of Continental domination than the Duke of Wellington
has done; or rather, Wellington could neither have been supplied by the
Ministers, nor the Ministers supported by the nation, but for the tone
first given, and then constantly kept up by the plain, un-ministerial,
anti-opposition, anti-Jacobin, anti-Gallican, anti-Napoleon spirit of
your writings, aided by a colloquial style and evident good sense, in
which, as acting on an immense mass of knowledge of existing men and
existing circumstances, you are superior to any man I ever met with in
my life-time. Indeed you are the only human being, of whom I can say
with severe truth, that I never conversed with you for an hour without
rememberable instruction; and with the same simplicity I dare affirm my
belief, that my greater knowledge of _man_ has been useful to you,
though, from the nature of things, not so useful as your knowledge of
_men_ has been to me.

Now, with such convictions, my dear Stuart, how is it possible that I
can look back on the conduct of _The Courier_, from the period of the
Duke of York's restoration, without some pain? You cannot be seriously
offended or affronted with me, if, in this deep confidence and in a
letter, which, or its contents, can meet no eye but your own, I venture
to declare, that though since then much has been done, very much of high
utility to the country, by and under Mr. Street, yet _The Courier_
itself has gradually lost that sanctifying spirit which was the life of
its life, and without which, even the best and soundest principles lose
half their effect on the human mind; I mean, the faith in the _faith_ of
the person and paper which brings them forward. They are attributed to
the _accident_ of their happening to be for such a side, or for such a
party. In short, there is no longer any _root_ in the paper, out of
which all the various branches and fruits, and even fluttering leaves,
are seen or believed to grow. But it is the old tree, barked round above
the root, though the circular decortication is so small and so neatly
filled up and coloured as to be scarcely visible but in its effects,
excellent fruit still hanging on the boughs, but they are tied on by
threads and hairs.

In all this I am well aware, that you are no otherwise to be blamed than
in permitting that which without disturbance to your heart and
tranquillity, you could not, perhaps, have prevented or effectively
modified. But the whole plan of Street seems to me to have been
motiveless from the beginning, or at least affected by the grossest
miscalculations, in respect even of pecuniary interests. For, had the
paper maintained and asserted not only its independence, but its
appearance of it;--it is true that Mr. Street might not have had Mr. A.
to dine with him, or received as many nods and shakes of the hand from
Lord this or that; but at least equally true, that the ministry would
have been far more effectively served, and that (I speak from facts),
both the paper and its conductor would have been held by the adherents
of ministers in far higher respect; and after all, ministers do not
_love_ newspapers in their hearts, not even those that support them;
indeed it seems epidemic among Parliament men in general to affect to
look down upon and despise newspapers, to which they owe 999/1000 of
their influence and character, and at least 3/5ths of their knowledge
and phraseology. Enough! burn the letter, and forgive the writer, for
the purity and affectionateness of his motive."--Quoted from the
_Gentleman's Magazine_ of June, 1838.[40]

One other point connected with Mr. C.'s writings for public journals I
must advert to before concluding this chapter. Mr. Cottle finds want of
memory in some part of the narrative, contained in this work, respecting
the publication of _The Watchman_; it is as well to let him tell the
story in his own way, which he does as follows. "The plain fact is, I
purchased the whole of the paper for _The Watchman_, allowing Mr. C. to
have it at prime cost, and receiving small sums from Mr. C.
occasionally, in liquidation. I became responsible, also, with Mr. B.
for printing the work, by which means, I reduced the price per sheet, as
a bookseller (1000), from fifty shillings to thirty-five shillings. Mr.
C. paid me for the paper in fractions, as he found it convenient, but
from the imperfection of Mr. Coleridge's own receipts I never received
the whole. It was a losing concern altogether, and I was willing, and
did bear, uncomplaining, my portion of the loss. There is some
difference between this statement, and that of Mr. Coleridge, in his
_Biographia Literaria_. A defect of memory must have existed, arising
out of the lapse of twenty-two years; but my notices, made at the time,
did not admit of mistake. There were but twenty sheets in the whole ten
numbers of _The Watchman_, which, at thirty-five shillings per sheet,
came to only thirty-five pounds. The paper amounted to much more than
the printing.

"I cannot refrain from observing further, that my loss was augmented
from another cause. Mr. C. states in the above work, that his London
publisher never paid him 'one farthing,' but 'set him at defiance.' I
also was more than his equal companion in this misfortune. The thirty
copies of Mr. C.'s poems, and the six '_Joans of Arc_' (referred to in
the preceding letter)[41] found a ready sale, by this said
'indefatigable London publisher,' and large and fresh orders were
received, so that Mr. Coleridge and myself successively participated in
two very opposite sets of feeling; the one of exultation that our
publications had found _so good a sale_; and the other of _depression_,
that the time of _payment_ never arrived!"

I take this opportunity of expressing my sense of many kind acts and
much friendly conduct of Mr. Cottle towards my Father, often spoken of
to me by my dear departed Mother, into whose heart all benefits sank
deep, and by whom he was ever remembered with respect and affection. If
I still regard with any disapproval his publication of letters exposing
his friend's unhappy bondage to opium and consequent embarrassments and
deep distress of mind, it is not that I would have wished a broad
influencive fact in the history of one whose peculiar gifts had made him
in some degree an object of public interest, to be finally concealed,
supposing it to be attested, as this has been, by clear unambiguous
documents. I agree with Mr. Cottle in thinking that he would himself
have desired, even to the last, that whatever benefit the world might
obtain by the knowledge of his sufferings from opium,--the calamity
which the _unregulated_ use of this drug had been to him--into which he
first fell ignorantly and innocently, (not as Mr. De Quincey has said,
to restore the "riot of his animal spirits," when "youthful blood no
longer sustained it," but as a relief from bodily pain and nervous
irritation)--that others might avoid the rock, on which so great a part
of his happiness for so long a time was wrecked; and this from the same
benevolent feeling, which prompted him earnestly to desire that his body
should be opened after his death, in the hope that some cause of his
life-long pains in the region of the bowels might be discovered, and
that the knowledge thus obtained might lead to the invention of a remedy
for like afflictions. Such a wish indeed, on the former point, as well
as afterwards on the latter, he once strongly expressed; but I believe
myself to be speaking equally in his spirit when I say, that all such
considerations of advantage to the public should be subordinated to the
prior claims of private and natural interests. My own opinion is, that
it is the wiser and better plan for persons connected with those, whose
feats of extraordinary strength have drawn the public gaze upon them, to
endure patiently that their frailties should be gazed and wondered at
too; and even if they think, that any reflection to them of such
celebrity, on such conditions, is far more to be deprecated than
desired, still to consider that they are not permitted to determine
their lot, in this respect, but are to take it as it has been determined
for them, independently of their will, with its peculiar pains and
privileges annexed to it. I believe that most of them would be like the
sickly queen in the fairy tale of Peronella, who repented when she had
obtained the country maiden's youth and health at the loss of rank and
riches. Be this as it may, they have not a choice of evils, nor can
exchange the aches and pains of their portion, or its wrinkles and
blemishes,--for a fair and painless obscurity. These remarks, however,
refer only to the feeling and conduct of parties privately affected by
such exposures. Others are bound to care for them as they are not bound
to care for themselves. If a finished portrait of one, in whom they are
nearly concerned, is due to the world, they alone can be the debtors,
for the property by inheritance is in them. Other persons, without their
leave, should not _undertake_ to give any such portrait; _their_ duties
move on a different plane; nor can they rightly feel themselves
"entitled" (to borrow the language of Mr. De Quincey, while I venture to
dissent from his judgment), "to notice the most striking aspects of his
character, of his disposition and his manners, as so many reflex
indications of his intellectual constitution," if this involves the
publication of letters on private subjects, the relation of domestic
circumstances and other such personalities affecting the living. I am
sure at least that conscience would prohibit _me_ from any such course.
I should never think the public good a sufficient apology for publishing
the secret history of any man or woman whatever, who had connections
remaining upon earth; but if I were possessed of private notices
respecting one in whom the world takes an interest, should think it
right to place them in the hands of his nearest relations, leaving it to
them to deal with such documents, as a sense of what is due to the
public, and what belongs to openness and honesty, may demand.

* * * * *

Of all the censors of Mr. Coleridge, Mr. De Quincey is the one whose
remarks are the most worthy of attention; those of the rest in general
are but views taken from a distance, and filled up by conjecture, views
taken through a medium so thick with _opinion_, even if not clouded with
vanity and self-love, that it resembles a horn more than glass or the
transpicuous air;--The Opium eater, as he has called himself, had
sufficient inward sympathy with the subject of his criticism to be
capable in some degree of beholding his mind, as it actually existed, in
all the intermingling shades of individual reality; and in few minds
have these shades been more subtly intermingled than in my Father's. But
Mr. De Quincey's portrait of Coleridge is not the man himself; for
besides that his knowledge of what concerned him outwardly was
imperfect, the inward sympathy of which I have spoken was far from
entire, and he has written as if it were greater than it really was. I
cannot but conjecture, from what he has disclosed concerning himself,
that on some points he has seen Mr. Coleridge's mind _too much_ in the
mirror of his own. His sketches of my Father's life and character are,
like all that he writes, so finely written, that the blots on the
narrative are the more to be deplored. One of these blots is the passage
to which I referred at the beginning of the last paragraph: "I believe
it to be notorious that he first began the use of opium, not as a relief
from any bodily pains or nervous irritations--for his constitution was
strong and excellent--but as a source of luxurious sensations. It is a
great misfortune, at least it is a great pain, to have tasted the
enchanted cup of youthful rapture incident to the poetic temperament.
Coleridge, to speak in the words of _Cervantes_, wanted better bread
than was made with wheat." Mr. De Quincey mistook a constitution that
had vigour in it for a vigorous constitution. His body was originally
full of life, but it was full of death also from the first; there was in
him a slow poison, which gradually leavened the whole lump, and by which
his muscular frame was prematurely slackened and stupified. Mr. Stuart
says that his letters are "one continued flow of complaint of ill health
and incapacity from ill health." This is true of all his letters--(all
the _sets_ of them)--which have come under my eye, even those written
before he went to Malta, where his opium habits were confirmed. Indeed
it was in search of health that he visited the Mediterranean,--for one
in his condition of nerves a most ill-advised measure,--I believe that
the climate of South Italy is poison to most persons who suffer from
relaxation and tendency to low fever. If my Father sought more from
opium than the mere absence of pain, I feel assured that it was not
luxurious sensations or the glowing phantasmagoria of passive dreams;
but that the power of the medicine might keep down the agitations of his
nervous system, like a strong hand grasping the jangled strings of some
shattered lyre,--that he might once more lightly flash along

Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore,
On winding lakes and rivers wide,
That ask no aid of sail or oar,
That fear no spite of wind or tide,--

released, for a time at least, from the tyranny of ailments, which, by a
spell of wretchedness, fix the thoughts upon themselves, perpetually
drawing them inwards, as into a stifling gulf. A letter[42] of his has
been given in this Supplement, which records his first experience of
opium: he had recourse to it in that instance for violent pain in the
face, afterwards he sought relief in the same way from the suffering of
rheumatism.

I shall conclude this chapter with a poetical sketch drawn from my
Father by a friend, who knew him during the latter years of his life,
after spending a few days with him at Bath, in the year 1815.[43]

Proud lot is his, whose comprehensive soul,
Keen for the parts, capacious for the whole,
Thought's mingled hues can separate, dark from bright,
Like the fine lens that sifts the solar light;
Then recompose again th' harmonious rays,
And pour them powerful in collected blaze--
Wakening, where'er they glance, creations new,
In beauty steeped, nor less to nature true;
With eloquence that hurls from reason's throne
A voice of might, or pleads in pity's tone:
To agitate, to melt, to win, to soothe,
Yet kindling ever on the side of truth;
Or swerved, by no base interest warped awry,
But erring in his heart's deep fervency;
Genius for him asserts the unthwarted claim,
With these to mate--the sacred Few of fame--
Explore, like them, new regions for mankind,
And leave, like theirs, a deathless name behind.

FOOTNOTES:

[28] [The whole of this chapter is by Sara Coleridge, whose
narrative is now resumed from the beginning of Chapter V.]

[29] In articles on _Mr. Coleridge, the Poet, and his Newspaper
writings_, etc., in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ of May, June,
July, August of 1838.--S. C.

[30] "Short pieces," Mr. Stuart calls them in the _Gentleman's
Magazine_. But among them was _France, an Ode_, which was first
published in the _M. P._ in the beginning of 1798, and
republished in the same Paper some years afterwards, and must
have helped to give it a decent poetical reputation, I
think.--S. C.

[31] Nov. 27, 1799.--S. C.

[32] [No. IV of _Gentleman's Magazine_.]

[33] [No. VII of _Gentleman's Magazine_.]

[34] [For the full text of this letter, see _Letters_, CLXXXII.]

[35] [In the _Essays on his Own Times_, 1850.]

[36] [Letter, 4 June 1811.]

[37] "He never could write a thing that was immediately required of
him," says Mr. S., in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, of May, 1838.
"The thought of compulsion disarmed him. I could name other
able literary men in this unfortunate plight." One of the many
grounds of argument against the sole _profession_ of
literature.--S. C.

[38] [Sir Archibald Alison, after having eulogized Sir Walter Scott,
Byron, Campbell, Southey, and Moore, and indicated their
relationship to the French Revolution, says: "But the genius of
these men, great and immortal as it was, did not arrive at the
bottom of things. They shared in the animation of passing
events, and were roused by the storm which shook the world; but
they did not reach the secret caves whence the whirlwind
issued, nor perceive what spirit had let loose the tempest upon
the earth. In the bosom of retirement, in the recesses of
solitary thought, the awful source was discovered, and the
Aeolus stood forth revealed in the original Antagonist Power of
wickedness. The thought of Coleridge, even during the whirl of
passing events, discovered their hidden springs, and poured
forth in an obscure style, and to an unheeding age, the great
moral truths which were then being proclaimed in characters of
fire to mankind."--_History of Europe_, chap. lxiv.]

[39] [No. XVII of _Gentleman's Magazine_.]

[40] [Letter CCIX is our 151.]

[41] [Letter 32.]

[42] [Letter 43.]

[43] The passage belongs to him as far as "heart's deep fervency."
It concluded, when first written, with a reference to the
unhappy thraldom of his powers, of which I have been speaking;
for at that time, says the writer, in a private communication,
"he was not so well regulated in his habits and labours
afterwards." The verses are from a _Rhymed Plea for Tolerance_:
in two dialogues, by John Kenyon. I wish that I had space to
quote the sweet lines that follow, relating to the author's own
character and feelings, and his childhood passed "in our Carib
isle." They do justice to Mr. Kenyon's humility and
cheerfulness, in what they say of himself, but not to his
powers.

CHAPTER XVIII

MRS. COLERIDGE. LAST STAY AT THE LAKE DISTRICT

[Coleridge married Sarah Fricker, as we have already seen, on 5th
October, 1795. The first period of Coleridge's married life had been a
happy one. Although there is reason to believe Coleridge married his
wife to "heal a deeper wound," and that Mary Evans would have been the
object of his choice, there is no reason to suppose that he ever
regretted his union with Sarah Fricker during the first years of their
marriage. All accounts we have of the Clevedon and Stowey periods agree
that Coleridge was happy in the new domestic bond. Cottle prints a
glowing picture of the life at Clevedon (_Reminiscences_);[44] and
Richard Reynell concurs regarding the Stowey cottage life (_Illustrated
London News_, 1893). Coleridge, too, wrote most affectionately to his
wife during his absence in Germany (_Letters_), and he was a deep lover
of his children, and always in dread lest any calamity should happen to
them while he was in Germany and Malta (_Letters_). Coleridge, above
most men, was peculiarly fitted to make a good husband. He never spoke
of his wife as his intellectual inferior, although he knew perfectly
well she was not fitted to follow him in his Platonic imaginings.
Dorothy Wordsworth's remarks (_Coleorton Memorials_, p. 164) on this
point are beside the mark. Coleridge never expected to find in the woman
he was prepared to love intellectual grasp of his philosophic system.
The woman ideals he has given us are not blue-stockings, but domestic
Ophelias and Imogens. Read in this connection _The Eolian Harp_ and
_Lines written on having left a Place of Retirement_, _Lewti_,
_Christabel_, _Love_, _Fears in Solitude_, the _Day Dream_. "I could,"
said Coleridge to Thomas Allsop in 1822, "have been happy with a
servant-girl had she only in sincerity of heart responded to my
affection." (Allsop's _Letters of S. T. Coleridge_, p. 206.)

Strained relations commenced to develop between the poet and Mrs.
Coleridge between the summer of 1801 and the summer of 1802; and that
Coleridge was not living happily with his wife began to leak out among
their acquaintances during 1802; and by 1807 it had become a recognized
fact. The evidence of all this does not require to be quoted to those
who have read the _Journals_ and Letters of Dorothy Wordsworth. There
are numerous notices of the estrangement, and Dorothy in a letter to
Lady Beaumont (_Coleorton Memorials_, i, 162), enumerates what she
supposes were the causes of the gulf of separation.

The causes of the estrangement were cumulative. While Coleridge never
looked upon his wife as his inferior, and never expected attainments in
her which she did not have, Mrs. Coleridge, as she advanced in years,
could not be slow to perceive that there were other women beside herself
who deeply interested themselves in her husband with his conversational
fascinations and gentlemanly bearing toward woman. She could not be
oblivious to the fact that Dorothy Wordsworth, for instance, was
intellectually better fitted than herself to comprehend the "large
discourse" which characterized Coleridge; and into Dorothy's ear was
poured many a transcendental disquisition not understandable by the
wife. Very few wives, as we know from the Carlyle history, can allow
their husbands to have a "Gloriana;" and it is not likely that Sarah
Fricker was one of the exceptions. Later, Charlotte Brent became one of
Coleridge's Platonic sisterhood, but of what intellectual capacity she
was of we cannot tell. But she added to the wife's resentment. Opium,
too, of course, had its share in irritating the discontented wife.

There is little foundation, as far as I can see, for the charge made
against Mrs. Coleridge in Flagg's _Life of Allston_, p. 356, that Mrs.
Coleridge had a horrible and ungovernable temper. I think ill-temper was
created by events and by the non-success of Coleridge, and by the
unfavourable comparison Coleridge as a literary man made with Southey,
who was luckily successful in his ventures while Coleridge was always
unfortunate. She was doubtless sorely tried.

It must also be stated that Coleridge did not neglect his wife in the
pecuniary sense. He allowed Mrs. Coleridge to enjoy the whole of the
Wedgwood Pension (less £20 a year which he granted to her mother, Mrs.
Fricker).[45] In his brief bursts of prosperity he also remitted her
supplementary sums, £110 was sent from Malta, and £100 more promised.
When _Remorse_ was a success he sent her £100, on 20th January 1813
(_Letters_, 603), and another £100 was promised in a month. Coleridge
also effected an insurance on his life for £1,000, with profits, before
going to Malta, the premium for which was £27 5_s._ 6_d._ per annum.
This was paid to the end of his life, sometimes, no doubt, by the help
of friends; and the policy realized £2,560. The charge, therefore, that
Coleridge neglected or deserted his wife and family is without
foundation. Stuart, in an article otherwise by no means favourable to
Coleridge, acquits him on this charge. He says Coleridge "never deserted
them in the sense which the words imply. On the contrary, he always
spoke of them to me with esteem, affection, and anxiety. He allowed to
them the greatest part of his income, but that was sometimes
insufficient for their comfortable subsistence, and he himself was
usually more distressed for money than they;" (_Gentleman's Magazine_,
1838). We may add that Coleridge was a man of a vestal purity; and, in
spite of his own experience, never said anything in disparagement of the
marriage bond.

Coleridge paid his last visit to the Lake District in the spring of
1812, 23rd February to 26th March (_Letters_, 575). He quitted his wife
on cordial enough terms, and wrote an agreeable letter to her from
London (_Letters_, 579), of date 21st April. But he never returned to
Keswick. That mysterious gulf which he has described so wonderfully and
weirdly in _Christabel_ which separates sundered hearts, widened with
the years; and

They stood aloof, the scars remaining!]

FOOTNOTES:

[44] [See also _Eolian Harp_, and _Lines written on having left a
place of Retirement_.]

[45] [After 1812 the pension was reduced by half.]

CHAPTER XIX

REMORSE AT DRURY LANE[46]

By what I _have_ effected, am I to be judged by my fellow-men; what I
_could_ have done is a question for my own conscience.--S. T. C.

As the _Biographia Literaria_ does not mention all Mr. Coleridge's
writings, it will be proper to give some account of them here.

The Poetical Works in three volumes include the _Juvenile Poems_,
_Sibylline Leaves_, _Ancient Mariner_, _Christabel_, _Remorse_,
_Zapolya_, and _Wallenstein_.

The first volume of _Juvenile Poems_ was published in the Spring of
1796. It contains three sonnets by Charles Lamb, and a poetical Epistle
which he called "Sara's," but of which my Mother told me she wrote but
little. Indeed it is not very like some simple affecting verses, which
were wholly by herself, on the death of her beautiful infant, Berkeley,
in 1799. In May, 1797, Mr. C. put forth a collection of poems,
containing all that were in his first edition, with the exception of
twenty pieces and the addition of ten new ones and a considerable number
by his friends, Lloyd and Lamb. _The Ancient Mariner_, _Love_,[47] _The
Nightingale_, _The Foster Mother's Tale_ first appeared with the
_Lyrical Ballads_ of Mr. Wordsworth in the summer of 1798. There was a
third edition of the _Juvenile Poems_ by themselves in 1803, with the
original motto from Statius, _Felix curarum_, etc. _Silo. Lib._ iv. A
spirit of almost child-like sociability seemed to reign among these
young poets--they were fond of joint publications.

_Wallenstein_, a Play translated from the German of Schiller, appeared in
1800. _Christabel_ was not published till April 1816, but written, the
first part at Stowey in 1797, the second at Keswick in 1800. It went
into a third edition in the first year. The fragment called _Kubla Khan_,
composed in 1797,[48] and the _Pains of Sleep_, which was annexed to the
former by way of contrast, were published with the first edition of
_Christabel_, in 1816.

The Tragedy called _Remorse_ was written in the summer and autumn of
1797, but not represented on the stage till 1813, when it was performed
at Drury Lane--on the authority of an old play-bill of the Calne
Theatre, "with unbounded applause thirty successive nights." On "the
success of the _Remorse_," Mr. Coleridge wrote thus to his friend Mr.
Poole, on the 14th of February, 1813:

LETTER 152.

"The receipt of your heart-engendered lines was sweeter than an
unexpected strain of sweetest music;--or in humbler phrase, it was the
only pleasurable sensation which the _success of the Remorse_ has given
me. I have read of, or perhaps only imagined, a punishment in Arabia, in
which the culprit was so bricked up as to be unable to turn his eyes to
the right or to the left, while in front was placed a high heap of
barren sand glittering under the vertical sun. Some slight analogue of
this, I have myself suffered from the mere unusualness of having my
attention forcibly directed to a subject which permitted neither
sequence of imagery, nor series of reasoning. No grocer's apprentice,
after his first month's permitted riot, was ever sicker of figs and
raisins than I of hearing about the _Remorse_. The endless rat-a-tat-tat
at our black-and-blue bruised door, and my three master fiends, proof
sheets, letters (for I have a raging epistolophobia), and worse than
these--invitations to large dinners, which I cannot refuse without
offence and imputation of pride, nor accept without disturbance of
temper the day before, and a sick aching stomach for two days
after--oppress me so that my spirits quite sink under it.

"I have never seen the Play since the first night. It has been a good
thing for the Theatre. They will get £8,000 or £10,000 by it, and I
shall get more than all my literary labours put together, nay, thrice as
much, subtracting my heavy losses in _The Watchman_ and _The Friend_,
including the copyright."[49]

The manuscript of the _Remorse_, immediately after it was written, was
shown to Mr. Sheridan, "who," says my Father, in the Preface to the
first Edition, "by a twice conveyed recommendation (in the year 1797)
had urged me to write a Tragedy for his theatre, who, on my objection
that I was utterly ignorant of all stage tactics, had promised that _he_
would himself make the necessary alterations, if the piece should be at
all representable." He however neither gave him any answer, nor returned
him the manuscript, which he suffered to wander about the town from his
house, and my Father goes on to say, "not only asserted that the Play
was rejected because I would not submit to the alteration of one
ludicrous line, but finally, in the year 1806, amused and delighted (as
who was ever in his society, if I may trust the universal report,
without being amused and delighted?) a large company at the house of a
highly respectable Member of Parliament, with the ridicule of the
Tragedy, as a _fair specimen_ of the _whole_ of which he adduced a line:

Drip! drip! drip!
There's nothing here but dripping.

In the original copy of the Play, in the first scene of the fourth act,
Isidore _had_ commenced his soliloquy in the cavern with the words:

Drip! drip! a ceaseless sound of water-drops,--

as far as I can at present recollect: for, on the possible ludicrous
association being pointed out to me, I instantly and thankfully struck
out the line." I repeat this story as told by Mr. C. himself, because it
has been otherwise told by others. I have little doubt that it was more
pointedly than faithfully told to him, and can never believe that Mr. S.
represented a ludicrous line as a fair specimen of the whole Play, or
his tenacious adherence to it as the reason for its rejection. I dare
say he thought it, as Lord Byron afterwards thought _Zapolya_,
"beautiful but not practicable." Mr. Coleridge felt that _he_ had some
claim to a friendly spirit of criticism in that quarter, because he had
"devoted the firstlings of his talents," as he says in a marginal note,
"to the celebration of Sheridan's genius,"[50] and after the treatment
described "not only never spoke unkindly or resentfully of it, but
actually was zealous and frequent in defending and praising his public
principles and conduct in the _Morning Post_"--of which, perhaps,
Mr. S. knew nothing. However, in lighter moods, my Father laughed
at Sheridan's joke as much as any of his auditors could have done
in 1806, and repeated with great effect and mock solemnity
"Drip!--Drip!--Drip!--nothing but dripping." I suppose it was at this
time,--the winter of 1806-7--that he made an unsuccessful attempt to
bring out the Tragedy at Drury Lane.[51]

When first written this Play had been called _Osorio_, from the
principal character, whose name my Father afterwards improved into
_Ordonio_. I believe he in some degree altered, if he did not absolutely
recast, the three last acts after the failure with Mr. Sheridan,
who probably led him to see their unfitness for theatrical
representation.[52] But of this point I have not certain knowledge. It
was when Drury Lane was under the management of Lord Byron and Mr.
Whitbread, and through the influence of the former, that it was produced
upon the stage. Mr. Gillman says, "Although Mr. Whitbread did not give
it the advantage of a single new scene, yet the popularity of the Play
was such, that the principal actor, (Mr. Roe,) who had performed in it
with great success, made choice of it for his benefit night, and it
brought an overflowing house." This was some time after Mr. Coleridge
took up his residence at Highgate, in April, 1816. After all I am happy
to think that this drama is a strain of _poetry_, and like all, not only
dramatic poems, but highly poetic dramas, not to be fully appreciated on
the stage.

_Zapolya_ came before the public in 1817. The stage fate of this piece
is alluded to in the _B. L._ Mr. Gillman mentions that it was Mr.
Douglas Kinnaird, then the critic for Drury Lane, who rejected the Play,
and complained of its "metaphysics"--a term which is not, upon all
occasions, to be strictly construed, but, when used in familiar talk,
seems merely to denote whatever is too fine-spun, in the texture of
thought and speech, for common wear; whatever is not readily
apprehensible and generally acceptable. Schoolboys call everything in
books or discourse, which is graver or tenderer than they like,
"_metaphysics_." Mr. Kinnaird may have judged quite rightly that the
Play was too _metaphysical_ for our theatres in their present state,
though certainly plays as metaphysical were once well received on the
stage. _Zapolya_, however, had a favourable audience from the public as
a dramatic poem. Mr. Gillman says this Christmas Tale, which the author
"never sat down to write, but dictated while walking up and down the
room, became so immediately popular that 2,000 copies were sold in six
weeks."

The collection of poems entitled _Sibylline Leaves_, "in allusion to the
fragmentary and widely scattered state in which they had been long
suffered to remain," appeared in 1817, about the same time with
_Zapolya_, the _Biographia Literaria_, and the first _Lay Sermon_.

The _Miscellaneous Poems_ were composed at different periods of the
author's life, many of them in his later years. I believe that _Youth
and Age_ was written before he left the North of England in 1810,[53]
when he was about seven or eight-and-thirty,--early indeed for the poet
to say of himself

I see these locks in silvery slips,
This drooping gait, this altered size:
But spring-tide blossoms on thy lips,
And tears take sunshine from thine eyes.

The whole of the _Poetical Works_, with the exception of a few which
must be incorporated in a future edition, are contained in that in three
volumes.[54] _The Fall of Robespierre_, an Historic drama, of which the
first act was written by Mr. Coleridge, and published September 22,
1794, is printed in the first vol. of the _Lit. Remains_. This first act
contains the Song on _Domestic Peace_. In the blank verse there are some
faint dawnings of his maturer style, as in these lines:

The winged hours, that scatter'd roses round me,
Languid and sad, drag their slow course along,
And shake big gall-drops from their heavy wings--

and in these:

Why, thou hast been the mouth-piece of all horrors,
And, like a blood-hound, crouch'd for murder! Now
Aloof thou standest from the tottering pillar,
Or, like a frighted child behind its mother,
Hidest thy pale face in the skirts of--_Mercy_!

but it contains scarcely anything of his peculiar original powers, and
some of the lines are in schoolboy taste; for instance,

While sorrow sad, like the dank willow near her,
Hangs o'er the troubled fountain of her eye.

Yet three years after the date of this composition, in 1797, which has
been called his _Annus Mirabilis_, he had reached his poetical zenith.
But perhaps it may be said that, from original temperament, and the
excitement of circumstances, my Father lived fast.

He had four poetical epochs, which represented, in some sort, boyhood,
youthful manhood, middle age, and the decline of life. The first
commenced a little on this side childhood, when he wrote _Time real and
Imaginary_, and ended in 1796. This period embraces the Juvenile Poems,
concluding with _Religious Musings_, written on the Christmas Eve of
1794, a few months after _The Fall of Robespierre_: _The Destiny of
Nations_ was composed a little earlier. _Lewti_, written in 1795, _The
Æolian Harp_, and _Reflections on having left a place of Retirement_,
written soon after, are more finished poems, and exhibit more of his
peculiar vein than any which he wrote before them; though one poet, Mr.
Bowles, has said that he never surpassed the _Religious Musings_! _Fire,
Famine, and Slaughter_ belongs to 1796. _The Lines to a Friend_
(Charles Lamb) _who had declared his intention of writing no more
poetry_, and those _To a Young Friend_ (Charles Lloyd) were composed in
the same year. These poems of 1794-5-6 may be considered intermediate in
power as in time, and so forming a link between the first epoch and the
next.[55]

Then came his poetic prime, which commenced with the _Ode to the
Departing Year_, composed at the end of December, 1796. The year
following, the five-and-twentieth of his life, produced the _Ancient
Mariner_, _Love_, and _The Dark Ladie_, the first part of _Christabel_,
_Kubla Khan_, _Remorse_, in its original cast, _France_, and _This
Lime-tree bower_. _Fears in Solitude_, _The Nightingale_, and _The
Wanderings of Cain_, were written in 1798. _Frost at Midnight_,[56] _The
Picture_,[57] the _Lines to the Rev. G. Coleridge_,[58] and those _To W.
Wordsworth_,[59] are all of this same Stowey period. It was in June,
1797, that my Father began to be intimate with Mr. Wordsworth, and this
doubtless gave an impulse to his mind. _The Hymn before Sunrise_,[60]
and other strains produced in Germany, link this period to the next. The
_Hexameters written during a temporary blindness_, and the _Catullian
Hendecasyllables_ (which are freely translated from Matthisson's
_Milesisches Mährchen_) Mr. Cottle seems to place in 1797,[61] but the
Author has marked the former as produced in 1799, and I believe that the
latter are of the same date. The _Night Scene_, _Myrtle leaf that ill
besped_,[62] _Maiden that with sullen brow_, are of this period, and so
I believe are _Lines composed in a concert-room_, and some others.

The poems which succeed are distinguished from those of my Father's
Stowey life by a less buoyant spirit. Poetic fire they have, but not the
clear bright mounting flame of his earlier poetry. Their meditative
vein is graver, and they seem tinged with the sombre hues of middle age;
though some of them were written before the Author was thirty-five years
old. A characteristic poem of this period is _Dejection, an Ode_:
composed at Keswick, April 4, 1802. _Wallenstein_ had been written in
London in 1800. _The Three Graves_ was composed in 1805 or 6;[63] the
second part of _Christabel_ soon after the Author's settling in the Lake
country (in 1801);[64] _Youth and Age_ not long before he quitted it as
a residence for ever (in 1810).[65] _Recollections of Love_ must have
been written on his return to Keswick from Malta in 1806: _The Happy
Husband_ at that time, or earlier. The small fragment called _The
Knight's Tomb_ probably belongs to the North. _The Devil's Thoughts_
appeared in _The Morning Post_ in 1800.[66] This production certainly
has in it more of youthful sprightliness than of middle-aged soberness;
still it is less fantastic and has more of world-wisdom in its satire
than the _War Eclogue_ of 1796. The _Complaint and Reply_ first appeared
in 1802. The _Ode to Tranquillity_ was published in _The Friend_, March,
1809.

The poems of his after years, even when sad, are calmer in their
melancholy than those produced while he was ceasing to be young. We are
less heavy-hearted when youth is out of sight than when it is taking its
leave. _Duty surviving Self-Love_, _The Pang more sharp than all_,
_Love's Apparition and Evanishment_, _The Blossoming of the solitary
Date tree_, and some other poems of his latter years, have this
character of resigned and subdued sadness. _Work without Hope_ was
written at fifty-six. The _Visionary Hope_ and _The Pains of Sleep_,[67]
which express more agitation and severer suffering, are of earlier date.
These and all in the _Sibylline Leaves_ were written before the end of
1817, when he had completed his forty-fifth year. The productions of the
fourth epoch, looked at as works of imagination, are tender, graceful,
exquisitely finished, but less bold and animated than those of his
earlier day. This may be said of _Zapolya_, _Alice du Clos_,[68] _The
Garden of Boccaccio_,[69] _The Two Founts_, _Lines suggested by the last
Words of Berengarius_, _Sancti Dominici Pallium_, and other poems
written, I believe, when the poet was past forty, the four last-named
after he was fifty years old. _Love, Hope, and Patience in Education_
was, I think, one of his latest poetical efforts, if not the very last.

The following prose compositions are included in the poetical volumes,
and the _Apologetic Preface to Fire, Famine and Slaughter_, containing a
comparison between Milton and Jeremy Taylor, is placed at the end of
Vol. I: _An Allegoric Vision_, first published in _The Courier_ in 1811,
and _New Thoughts on Old Subjects_, which first appeared in _The
Keepsake_, are inserted in Vol. II.

The whole of the Poetical Works, except a few which have been reprinted
in the _Literary Remains_, are contained in the stereotyped edition in
three volumes. The Poems without the Dramas have been collected in a
single volume,[70] from which some of the Juvenile Poems, and two or
three of later date, are excluded, and which includes a few not
contained in the three vol. edition.

I now proceed to Mr. Coleridge's compositions in Prose. _Conciones ad
Populum_, are two addresses to the People, delivered at the latter end
of February,[71] and then thrown into a small pamphlet. "After this,"
says Mr. Cottle, "he consolidated two other of his lectures, and
published them under the title of _The Plot Discovered_." A moral and
political Lecture delivered at Bristol by Mr. C. was published in the
same year. I do not know whether he printed any of his other Bristol
orations of the year ninety-five. _The Watchman_ was carried on in 1796.
The first number appeared March 1; the tenth and last, May 13. These
were youthful immature productions. Whatever was valuable and of a
permanent nature in them was transferred into his later productions, or
included in later publications.

_The Friend_, a Literary, Moral, and Political Weekly Paper, excluding
personal and party politics and the events of the day, was written and
published at Grasmere. The first number appeared on Thursday, June 1st,
1809, the 27th and last of that edition, March 15, 1810. _The Friend_
next appeared before the public in 3 vols. in 1818. This was "rather a
rifacimento," as the Author said, "than a new edition, the additions
forming so large a proportion of the whole work, and the arrangement
being altogether new." (Essays V-XIII, pp. 38-128, treat of the _Duty of
communicating truth, and the conditions under which it may be safely
communicated_; Essay V is _on the expediency of pious frauds, etc._).
The third edition of 1837 gave the Author's last corrections, an
appendix containing the parts thrown out in the recast, with some other
_miscellanea_, and a synoptical table of the contents by the Editor.
There is now a fourth edition.

The two _Lay Sermons_ were published, the one in 1816, the other in
1817. The first is entitled _The Statesman's Manual_, or _The Bible the
best Guide to Political skill and foresight_: a Lay Sermon addressed to
the higher classes of society, with an Appendix, containing comments and
essays connected with the study of the inspired writings:--the second _A
Lay Sermon_, addressed to the Higher and Middle Classes, on the existing
distresses and discontents. Mr. Gillman says he "had the intention of
addressing a third to the lower classes."

The _Biographia Literaria_ was published in 1817, but parts of the first
volume must have been composed some years earlier.[72] The _Edinburgh
Review_ in its August number of that year was as favourable to the book
_as could be expected_."[73]

FOOTNOTES:

[46] [The above chapter is by Sara Coleridge.]

[47] [_Love_, not till second edition of _Lyrical Ballads_, 1800.]

[48] [Should be 1798. See _Letters_, p. 245.]

[49] [Letter CXCV is our 152. Letters CLXXXIII-CXCIV precede it in
chronological order: Letter CXCVI follows.]

[50] See his Sonnet to Sheridan.--S.C.

[51] [See Letter 136.]

[52] [The original _Osorio_ is republished in Dykes Campbell's
edition of the _Poems_, p. 479.]

[53] [Should be 1822-1832.]

[54] [Issued in 1834.]

[55] [Many of the dates of the Poems are now ascertained to be
different from those in the text of Sara Coleridge.]

[56] [Should be 1797.]

[57] [1800.]

[58] [1797.]

[59] [1806.]

[60] [1802.]

[61] [1799.]

[62] [1797.]

[63] [Should be 1797-1798.]

[64] [1800.]

[65] [1822-1832.]

[66] [1799.]

[67] [1803.]

[68] [1829.]

[69] [1828.]

[70] [Issued in 1848.]

[71] [1795.]

[72] [1815.]

[73] The remarks in that article upon my Father's remarks on _poetic
diction_ I have vainly tried to understand:--"a paste of rich
and honeyed words, like the candied coat of the auricula, a
glittering tissue of quaint conceits and sparkling metaphors,
crusting over the rough stalk of homely thoughts; &c. such is
the style of Pope and Gray; such very often is that of
Shakespeare and Milton; and, notwithstanding Mr. Coleridge's
decision to the contrary, of Spenser's _Faëry Queen_."
_Homely_ thoughts clothed in a glittering tissue of poetic
diction are but pseudo-poetry; and the powder on the auricula
would be nothing, if the coat itself were not of velvet. Mr.
C.'s decision respecting the _Faëry Queen_ is equally
misrepresented, for he maintains that Spenser's language _is_
distinct from that of prose, such language being required by
his thoughts and in harmony with them. To say that he decided
"the contrary," as if he had denied poetic diction to Spenser,
is not like the auricula's coat, _candid_.--S. C.

CHAPTER XX

COTTLE'S DARK CHAPTER

[Coleridge had now become a recognized public lecturer on Poetry, and it
was his last resource to keep out of political writing, which he saw was
a rather barren business on which to waste his powers. Two courses of
lectures were given between the spring of 1812 and that of 1813. His
third course was delivered at Willis's Rooms from 12th May to 5th June.
Henry Crabb Robinson attended the second, third and fourth of the course
on 23rd, 26th, and 29th May, and has left some short accounts. His
fourth course began on 3rd November 1812 and closed on 29th January
1813. H. C. R. attended the closing lecture. "He was received," says H.
C. R., "with three rounds of applause on entering the lecture room, and
very loudly applauded during the lecture and at its close." (H. C. R.
_Diary_.)

The letter to Poole of 13th February 1813 quoted in the last chapter is
only a fragment; the full text is given by Mr. E. H. Coleridge in
_Letters_, 609-612. It ends as follows: "You perhaps may likewise have
heard (in the Whispering Gallery of the World) of the year-long
difference between me and Wordsworth (compared with the sufferings of
which all the former afflictions of my life were less than flea-bites),
occasioned (in great part) by the wicked folly of the arch-fool Montagu.

"A reconciliation has taken place, but the _feeling_, which I had
previous to that moment, when the (three-fourth) calamity burst, like a
thunderstorm from a blue sky, on my soul, after fifteen years of such
religious, almost superstitious idolatry and self-sacrifice. Oh no!
that, I fear, can never return. All outward actions, all inward wishes,
all thoughts and admirations will be the same--_are_ the same, but--aye,
there remains an immedicable _But_."

Not much is known regarding Coleridge's whereabouts in the summer of
1813. In September Southey came to London and took him to see Madame De
Staël (_Letters of Southey_, ii, 332), who as we know was drowned by his
monologue. In the end of October Coleridge left for Bristol, and reached
the then second city of England to deliver a fifth course of lectures on
poetry which had been arranged for by his friends there (Cottle's
_Rem._, 353). The course lasted from 28th October to 16th November (Bohn
Library, _Shakespeare Lectures_, p. 456). Cottle says the first lecture
was on _Hamlet_; but the report from the Bristol papers (Ashe, Bohn
Library, 458) contradicts this, the lecture on _Hamlet_ being the third.
A sixth course of lectures was arranged for, which Cottle says were well
attended (_Rem._, 354). Another course of four lectures on Milton,
between 5th and 14th April (Ashe, Bohn Library, 457), was indifferently
attended. His eighth course of lectures, this time on Homer, scarcely
paid expenses (_Cottle_, 355). Although Coleridge must have repeated
himself frequently in these lectures, they were new to Bristol. C. R.
Leslie, a painter of some note in his day, speaks favourably of them
(Leslie's _Autobiography, etc._, vol. 1, chap. 3). The following letters
belong to the visit to Bristol.

LETTER 153. TO WADE

8 Dec. 1813.

* * * Since my arrival at the Greyhound, Bath, I have been confined to
my bed-room, almost to my bed. Pray for my recovery, and request Mr.
Roberts's[74] prayers, for my infirm, wicked heart; that Christ may
mediate to the Father, to lead me to Christ, and give me a _living_
instead of a _reasoning_ faith! and for my health, so far only as it may
be the condition of my improvement, and final redemption.

My dear affectionate friend, I am your obliged, and grateful, and
affectionate, friend,

S. T. COLERIDGE.

LETTER 154. TO COTTLE.

(5-14 April 1814.)
My dear Cottle,

An erysipelatous complaint, of an alarming nature, has rendered me
barely able to attend and go through with my lectures, the receipts of
which, have almost paid the expenses of the room, advertisements,
etc.[75] Whether this be to my discredit, or that of the good citizens
of Bristol, it is not for me to judge. I have been persuaded to make
another trial, by advertising three lectures, on the rise, and progress,
and conclusion of the French Revolution, with a critique on the proposed
constitution, but unless fifty names are procured, not a lecture give I.

Even so the two far, far more important lectures, for which I have long
been preparing myself, and have given more thought to, than to any other
subject, viz.: those on female education, from infancy to womanhood
practically systematized, I shall be (God permitting) ready to give the
latter end of the week after next, but upon condition that I am assured
of sixty names. Why as these are lectures that I must write down, I
could sell them as a _recipe_ for twice the sum at least.

If I can walk out, I will be with you on Sunday. Has Mr. Wade called on
you? Mr. Le Breton, a near neighbour of yours, in Portland Square,
would, if you sent a note to him, converse with you on any subject
relative to my interest, with congenial sympathy; but indeed I think
your idea one of those Chimeras, which kindness begets upon an
unacquaintance with mankind.[76]

Harry! thy wish was father to that thought.
God bless you,
S. T. C.

LETTER 155. TO COTTLE.

(-- 1814).

* * * Mr. ----[77] I find is raising the city against me, as far as he
and his friends can, for having stated a mere matter of fact; viz. that
Milton had represented Satan as a sceptical Socinian; which is the case;
and I could not have explained the excellence of the sublimest single
passage in all his writings, had I not previously informed the audience,
that Milton had represented Satan, as knowing the Prophetic and
Messianic character of Christ, but was sceptical as to any higher
claims. And what other definition could Mr. ---- himself give of a
sceptical Socinian? (with this difference indeed, that Satan's faith
somewhat exceeded that of Socinians.) Now that Satan has done so, will
you consult _Paradise Regained_, Book IV, from line 196, and the same
Book, from line 500.

LETTER 156. TO COTTLE.

(-- 1814.)

My dear Cottle,

I have been engaged three days past, to dine with the sheriff, at
Merchant's Hall to-morrow. As they will not wield knife and fork till
near six, I cannot of course attend the meeting (for the establishment
of an Infant School) but should it be put off, and you will give me a
little longer notice, I will do my best to make my humble talents
serviceable in their proportion to a cause in which I take no common
interest, which has always my best wishes, and not seldom my prayers.
God bless you, and your affectionate friend,

S. T. COLERIDGE.

P.S. To you who know I prefer a roast potatoe and salt to the most
splendid public dinner, the very sight of which always offends my infant
appetite, I need not say that I am actuated solely by my pre-engagement,
and by the impropriety of disappointing the friend whom I am to
accompany, and to whom probably I owe the unexpected compliment of the
sheriff's invitation.

I have read two-thirds of Dr. Pole's[78] pamphlet on Infant Schools,
with great interest. Thoughts on thoughts, feelings on feelings, crowded
upon my mind and heart during the perusal, and which I would fain, God
willing, give vent to! I truly honor and love the orthodox dissenters,
and appreciate with heart-esteem their works of love. I have read, with
much pleasure, the second preface to the second edition of your
_Alfred_. It is well written.

LETTER 157. TO COTTLE.

1814.

My dear Cottle,

On my return home yesterday, I continued unwell, so as to be obliged to
lie down for the greater part of the evening, and my indisposition
keeping me awake during the whole night, I found it necessary to take
some magnesia and calomel, and I am at present very sick. I have little
chance of being able to stir out this morning, but if I am better I will
see you in the evening. God bless you,

S. T. COLERIDGE.
Mr. Wade's, Queen Square.

* * * * *

While Coleridge was in Bristol in 1814 Cottle for the first time learnt
of Coleridge's addiction to opium, which is rather surprising in one who
had known him so intimately during 1795-98 and in 1807. It is
remarkable, too, that in the early years of opium taking Coleridge never
hid the fact from his friends, but freely corresponded with Tom Wedgwood
and others about the effects of opium and kindred drugs, as if it were
no secret that he was in the habit of resorting to them. But Cottle now
saw that opium had been, in his estimation, the cause of all Coleridge's
failures to apply his great powers to do something of the first order,
and deemed it his duty to rate Coleridge for his folly, and wrote him
the following letter:

COTTLE TO COLERIDGE.[79]

Bristol, April 25, 1814.

Dear Coleridge,

I am conscious of being influenced by the purest motives in addressing
to you the following letter. Permit me to remind you that I am the
oldest friend you have in Bristol, that I was such when my friendship
was of more consequence to you than it is at present, and that at that
time you were neither insensible of my kindnesses, nor backward to
acknowledge them. I bring these things to your remembrance, to impress
on your mind, that it is still a _friend_ who is writing to you; one who
ever has been such, and who is now going to give you the most decisive
evidence of his sincerity.

When I think of Coleridge, I wish to recall the image of him, such as he
appeared in past years; now, how has the baneful use of opium thrown a
dark cloud over you and your prospects. I would not say anything
needlessly harsh or unkind, but I must be _faithful_. It is the
irresistible voice of conscience. Others may still flatter you, and hang
upon your words, but I have another, though a less gracious duty to
perform. I see a brother sinning a sin unto death, and shall I not warn
him? I see him perhaps on the borders of eternity, in effect, despising
his Maker's law, and yet indifferent to his perilous state!

In recalling what the expectations concerning you once were, and the
excellency with which, seven years ago, you wrote and spoke on religious
truth,[80] my heart bleeds to see how you are now fallen; and thus to
notice, how many exhilarating hopes are almost blasted by your present
habits. This is said not to wound, but to arouse you to reflection.

I know full well the evidences of the pernicious drug! You cannot be
unconscious of the effects, though you may wish to forget the cause. All
around you behold the wild eye! the sallow countenance! the tottering
step! the trembling hand! the disordered frame! and yet will you not be
awakened to a sense of your danger, and I must add, your guilt? Is it a
small thing, that one of the finest of human understandings should be
lost! That your talents should be buried! That most of the influences to
be derived from your present example, should be in direct opposition to
right and virtue! It is true you still talk of religion, and profess the
warmest admiration of the church and her doctrines, in which it would
not be lawful to doubt your sincerity; but can you be unaware, that by
your unguarded and inconsistent conduct, you are furnishing arguments to
the infidel; giving occasion for the enemy to blaspheme; and (amongst
those who imperfectly know you) throwing suspicion over your religious
profession! Is not the great test in some measure against you, "By their
fruits ye shall know them?" Are there never any calm moments, when you
impartially judge of your own actions by their consequences?

Not to reflect on you; not to give you a moment's _needless_ pain, but,
in the spirit of friendship, suffer me to bring to your recollection,
some of the sad effects of your undeniable intemperance.

I know you have a correct love of honest independence, without which,
there can be no true nobility of mind; and yet for opium, you will sell
this treasure, and expose yourself to the liability of arrest, by some
"dirty fellow," to whom you choose to be indebted for "ten pounds!" You
had, and still have, an acute sense of moral right and wrong, but is not
the feeling sometimes overpowered by self-indulgence? Permit me to
remind you, that you are not more suffering in your mind than you are in
your body, while you are squandering largely your money in the purchase
of opium, which, in the strictest equity, should receive _a different
direction_.

I will not again refer to the mournful effects produced on your own
health from this indulgence in opium, by which you have undermined your
strong constitution; but I must notice the injurious consequences which
this passion for the narcotic drug has on your literary efforts. What
you have already done, excellent as it is, is considered by your
friends and the world, as the bloom, the mere promise of the harvest.
Will you suffer the fatal draught, which is ever accompanied by sloth,
to rob you of your fame, and, what to you is a higher motive, of your
power of doing good; of giving fragrance to your memory, amongst the
worthies of future years, when you are numbered with the dead?

(And now I would wish in the most delicate manner, to remind you of the
injurious effects which these habits of yours produce on your family.
From the estimation in which you are held by the public, I am clear in
stating, that a small daily exertion on your part, would be sufficient
to obtain for you and them, honour, happiness, and independence. You are
still comparatively, a young man, and in such a cause, labour is sweet.
Can you withhold so small a sacrifice? Let me sincerely advise you to
return home, and live in the circle once more, of your wife and family.
There may have been faults on one, possibly on both sides; but calumny
itself has never charged criminality. Let all be forgotten, a small
effort for the Christian. If I can become a mediator, command me. If you
could be prevailed on to adopt this plan, I will gladly defray your
expenses to Keswick, and I am sure, with better habits, you would be
hailed by your family, I was almost going to say, as an angel from
heaven. It will also look better in the eyes of the world, who are
always prompt with their own constructions, and these constructions are
rarely the most charitable. It would also powerfully promote your own
peace of mind.

There is this additional view, which ought to influence you, as it would
every generous mind. Your wife and children are domesticated with
Southey. He has a family of his own, which by his literary labour, he
supports, to his great honour; and to the extra provision required of
him on your account, he cheerfully submits; still, will you not divide
with him the honour? You have not extinguished in your heart the
Father's feelings. Your daughter is a sweet girl. Your two boys are
promising; and Hartley, concerning whom you once so affectionately
wrote, is eminently clever. These want only a father's assistance to
give them credit and honourable stations in life. Will you withhold so
equitable and small a boon. Your eldest son will soon be qualified for
the university, where your name would inevitably secure him patronage,
but without your aid, how is he to arrive there; and afterward, how is
he to be supported? Revolve on these things, I entreat you, calmly, on
your pillow.)[81]

And now let me conjure you, alike by the voice of friendship, and the
duty you owe yourself and family: above all, by the reverence you feel
for the cause of Christianity; by the fear of God, and the awfulness of
eternity, to renounce from this moment opium and spirits, as your bane!
Frustrate not the great end of your existence. Exert the ample abilities
which God has given you, as a faithful steward; so will you secure your
rightful pre-eminence amongst the sons of genius; recover your
cheerfulness; your health; I trust it is not too late! become reconciled
to yourself; and through the merits of that Saviour, in whom you profess
to trust, obtain, at last, the approbation of your Maker! My dear
Coleridge, be wise before it be too late! I do hope to see you a
renovated man! and that you will still burst your inglorious fetters,
and justify the best hopes of your friends.

Excuse the freedom with which I write. If at the first moment it should
offend, on reflection, you will approve at least of the motive, and,
perhaps, in a better state of mind, thank and bless me. If all the good
which I have prayed for, should not be effected by this letter, I have
at least discharged an imperious sense of duty. I wish my manner were
less exceptionable, as I do that the advice through the blessing of the
Almighty, might prove effectual. The tear which bedims my eye, is an
evidence of the sincerity with which I subscribe myself

Your affectionate friend,
JOSEPH COTTLE.

* * * * *

Coleridge replied to this next day:

LETTER 158. COLERIDGE TO COTTLE.

April 26th, 1814.

You have poured oil in the raw and festering wound of an old friend's
conscience, Cottle! but it is _oil of vitriol_! I but barely glanced at
the middle of the first page of your letter, and have seen no more of
it--not from resentment, God forbid! but from the state of my bodily and
mental sufferings, that scarcely permitted human fortitude to let in a
new visitor of affliction.

The object of my present reply, is, to state the case just as it
is--first, that for ten years the anguish of my spirit has been
indescribable, the sense of my danger staring, but the consciousness of
my GUILT worse--far worse than all! I have prayed, with drops of agony
on my brow; trembling, not only before the justice of my Maker, but even
before the mercy of my Redeemer. "I gave thee so many talents, what hast
thou done with them?" Secondly, overwhelmed as I am with a sense of my
direful infirmity, I have never attempted to disguise or conceal the
cause. On the contrary, not only to friends, have I stated the whole
case with tears, and the very bitterness of shame; but in two instances,
I have warned young men, mere acquaintances, who had spoken of having
taken laudanum, of the direful consequences, by an awful exposition of
its tremendous effects on myself.

Thirdly, though before God I cannot lift up my eyelids, and only do not
despair of his mercy, because to despair would be adding crime to
crime, yet to my fellow-men, I may say, that I was seduced into the
ACCURSED habit ignorantly. I had been almost bed-ridden for many months,
with swellings in my knees. In a medical Journal, I unhappily met with
an account of a cure performed in a similar case, or what appeared to me
so, by rubbing in of Laudanum, at the same time taking a given dose
internally. It acted like a charm, like a miracle! I recovered the use
of my limbs, of my appetite, of my spirits, and this continued for near
a fortnight. At length the unusual stimulus subsided, the complaint
returned,--the supposed remedy was recurred to--but I cannot go through
the dreary history.

Suffice it to say, that effects were produced which acted on me by
terror and cowardice, of pain and sudden death, not (so help me God!) by
any temptation of pleasure, or expectation, or desire of exciting
pleasurable sensations. On the very contrary, Mrs. Morgan and her sister
will bear witness so far, as to say, that the longer I abstained, the
higher my spirits were, the keener my enjoyments--till the moment, the
direful moment arrived, when my pulse began to fluctuate, my heart to
palpitate, and such falling abroad,[82] as it were, of my whole frame,
such intolerable restlessness, and incipient bewilderment, that in the
last of my several attempts to abandon the dire poison, I exclaimed in
agony, which I now repeat in seriousness and solemnity, "I am too poor
to hazard this." Had I but a few hundred pounds, but £200--half to send
to Mrs. Coleridge, and half to place myself in a private mad house,
where I could procure nothing but what a physician thought proper, and
where a medical attendant could be constantly with me for two or three
months (in less than that time, life or death would be determined), then
there might be hope. Now there is none!! O God! how willingly would I
place myself under Dr. Fox, in his establishment; for my case is a
species of madness, only that it is a derangement, an utter impotence of
the volition, and not of the intellectual faculties. You bid me rouse
myself: go bid a man paralytic in both arms, to rub them briskly
together, and that will cure him. "Alas!" he would reply, "that I cannot
move my arms, is my complaint and my misery." May God bless you, and

Your affectionate, but most afflicted,
S. T. COLERIDGE.[83]

"On receiving this full and mournful disclosure," Cottle says, "I felt
the deepest compassion for Mr. C.'s state, and sent him the following
letter. (Necessary to be given to understand Mr. Coleridge's reply.)"

COTTLE TO COLERIDGE

Dear Coleridge,

I am afflicted to perceive that Satan is so busy with you, but God is
greater than Satan. Did you ever hear of Jesus Christ? That he came into
the world to save sinners? He does not demand, as a condition, any merit
of your own, he only says, "Come and be healed!" Leave your idle
speculations: forget your vain philosophy. Come as you are. Come and be
healed. He only requires you to be sensible of your need of him, to give
him your heart, to abandon with penitence, every evil practice, and he
has promised that whosoever thus comes, he will in no wise cast out. To
such as you Christ ought to be precious, for you see the hopelessness of
every other refuge. He will add strength to your own ineffectual
efforts.

For your encouragement, I express the conviction, that such exercises as
yours, are a conflict that must ultimately prove successful. You do not
cloak your sins. You confess and deplore them. I believe that you will
still be as "a brand plucked from the burning," and that you (with all
your wanderings) will be restored, and raised up, as a chosen
instrument, to spread a Saviour's name. Many a "chief of sinners," has
been brought, since the days of "Saul of Tarsus," to sit as a little
child at the Redeemer's feet. To this state you, I am assured, will
come. Pray! Pray earnestly, and you will be heard by your Father, which
is in Heaven. I could say many things of duty and virtue, but I wish to
direct your views at once to Christ, in whom is the alone balm for
afflicted souls.

May God ever bless you,
JOSEPH COTTLE.

P.S. If my former letter appeared unkind, pardon me! It was not
intended. Shall I breathe in your ear?--I know one, who is a stranger to
these throes and conflicts, and who finds "Wisdom's ways to be ways of
pleasantness, and her paths, paths of peace."

To this letter Cottle received the following reply:

LETTER 159. TO COTTLE

O dear friend! I have too much to be forgiven, to feel any difficulty in
forgiving the cruellest enemy that ever trampled on me: and you I have
only to _thank_! You have no conception of the dreadful hell of my mind,
and conscience, and body. You bid me pray. O, I do pray inwardly to be
able to pray; but indeed to pray, to pray with a faith to which a
blessing is promised, this is the reward of faith, this is the gift of
God to the elect. Oh! if to feel how infinitely worthless I am, how poor
a wretch, with just free-will enough to be deserving of wrath, and of my
own contempt, and of none to merit a moment's peace, can make a part of
a Christian's creed; so far I am a Christian.

S. T. C.
April 26, 1814.
*/

Cottle informs us that Coleridge had now resolved to put himself under
constraint in the asylum of Dr. Fox, in the neighbourhood of Bristol.

LETTER 160. TO COTTLE

(-- Apl., 1814.)

Dear Cottle,

I have resolved to place myself in any situation, in which I can remain
for a month or two, as a child, wholly in the power of others. But,
alas! I have no money! Will you invite Mr. Hood, a most dear and
affectionate friend to worthless me; and Mr. Le Breton, my old
school-fellow, and, likewise, a most affectionate friend: and Mr. Wade,
who will return in a few days: desire them to call on you, any evening
after seven o'clock, that they can make convenient, and consult with
them whether anything of this kind can be done. Do you know Dr. Fox?

Affectionately,
S. T. C.

I have to prepare my lecture. Oh! with how blank a spirit![84]

Cottle did not give his sanction to this proposal; but, on the contrary,
wrote to Southey detailing what he had discovered about Coleridge, and
requesting Southey's opinion. Southey wrote without delay advising other
measures. Southey had been fully cognizant of the consumption of opium
and laudanum, and says the Morgans had at one time broken him of the
habit when his consumption was from two quarts a week to a pint a day
(_Rem._, 373). It is difficult to credit that any one, even habituated
to the drug, could consume this quantity; but Southey evidently believed
it. An ordinary dose of laudanum is 30 drops. 480 drops form an ounce,
and there are 20 ounces in a pint. This makes 320 doses in a pint; and
this, taken within twenty-four hours, would not give a patient time to
wake up out of his stupor, even though administered by other hands, to
take the successive draughts. Southey recommended that Coleridge should
go and visit Poole at Stowey for a few weeks; then come on to Keswick by
way of Birmingham and Liverpool, and deliver lectures at these places to
raise funds. In answer to a second letter by Cottle to Southey proposing
to get up an annuity among Coleridge's friends to enable him to
prosecute some of his projects, Southey threw cold water on the scheme;
and Cottle says that Coleridge's repugnance to visit Greta Hall and
apply his talents in the way suggested by Southey was invincible;
neither would he visit Poole, nor lecture at Birmingham nor Liverpool.
To this Mr. Hall Caine says: "My strong conviction is that the chief
bugbear for Coleridge at Greta Hall was none other than Southey
himself." (_Life of Coleridge_, 126.)

Cottle, having been taken ill after his correspondence with Southey, was
prohibited intercourse with friends. "During my illness," says Cottle,
"Mr. Coleridge sent my sister the following letter and the succeeding
one to myself."

LETTER 161. TO MISS COTTLE

13th May, 1814.

Dear Madam,

I am uneasy to know how my friend, J. Cottle, goes on. The walk I took
last Monday to enquire, in person, proved too much for my strength, and
shortly after my return, I was in such a swooning way, that I was
directed to go to bed, and orders were given that no one should
interrupt me. Indeed I cannot be sufficiently grateful for the skill
with which _the surgeon treats me_. But it must be a slow, and
occasionally, an interrupted progress, after a sad retrogress of nearly
twelve years. To God all things are possible. I intreat your prayers,
your brother has a share in mine.

What an astonishing privilege, that a sinner should be permitted to cry,
"Our Father!" Oh, still more stupendous mercy, that this poor ungrateful
sinner should be exhorted, invited, nay, commanded, to pray--to pray
importunately. That which great men most detest, namely, importunacy; to
_this_ the GIVER and the FORGIVER ENCOURAGES _his_ sick petitioners!

I will not trouble you except for one verbal answer to this note. How is
your brother?

With affectionate respects to yourself and your sister,

S. T. COLERIDGE.

To Miss Cottle, Brunswick Square.

LETTER 162. TO COTTLE

Friday, 27th May, 1814.

My dear Cottle,

Gladness be with you, for your convalescence, and equally so, at the
hope, which has sustained and tranquillized you through your imminent
peril. Far otherwise is, and hath been, my state; yet I too am grateful;
yet I cannot rejoice. I feel, with an intensity, unfathomable by words,
my utter nothingness, impotence, and worthlessness, in and for myself. I
have learned what a sin is, against an infinite imperishable being, such
as is the soul of man.

I have had more than a glimpse of what is meant by death and outer
darkness, and the worm that dieth not--and that all the _hell_ of the
reprobate, is no more inconsistent with the love of God, than the
blindness of one who has occasioned loathsome and guilty diseases
to eat out his eyes, is inconsistent with the light of the sun. But
the consolations, at least, the sensible sweetness of hope, I do not
possess. On the contrary, the temptation which I have constantly
to fight up against, is a fear, that if _annihilation_ and the
_possibility_ of _heaven_, were offered to my choice, I should choose
the former.

That is, perhaps, in part, a constitutional idiosyncracy, for when a
mere boy, I wrote these lines:

Oh, what a wonder seems the fear of death,
Seeing how gladly we all sink to sleep;
Babes, children, youths and men,
Night following night, for three-score years and ten.[85]

And in my early manhood, in lines descriptive of a gloomy solitude, I
disguised my own sensations in the following words:

Here wisdom might abide, and here remorse!
Here too, the woe-worn man, who weak in soul,
And of this busy human heart aweary,
Worships the spirit of _unconscious life_,
In tree, or wild-flower. Gentle lunatic!
If so he might not wholly cease to BE,
He would far rather not be that he is;
But would be something that he knows not of,
In woods, or waters, or among the rocks.[86]

My main comfort, therefore, consists in what the divines call the faith
of adherence, and no spiritual effort appears to benefit me so much as
the one earnest, importunate, and often, for hours, momently repeated
prayer: "I believe, Lord help my unbelief! Give me faith, but as a
mustard seed, and I shall remove this mountain! Faith, faith, faith! I
believe, O give me faith! O, for my Redeemer's sake, give me faith in my
Redeemer."

In all this I justify God, for I was accustomed to oppose the preaching
of the terrors of the gospel, and to represent it as debasing virtue, by
the admixture of slaving selfishness.

I now see that what is spiritual, can only be spiritually apprehended.
Comprehended it cannot.

Mr. Eden gave you a too flattering account of me. It is true, I am
restored, as much beyond my expectations almost, as my deserts; but I am
exceedingly weak. I need for myself, solace and refocillation of animal
spirits, instead of being in a condition of offering it to others. Yet,
as soon as I may see you, I will call on you.

S. T. COLERIDGE.

P.S. It is no small gratification to me, that I have seen and conversed
with Mrs. Hannah More. She is, indisputably, the first literary female
I ever met with. In part, no doubt, because she is a Christian. Make my
best respects when you write.[87]

* * * * *

"Mr. Josiah Wade," says Cottle, "presented to me the following mournful
and touching letter, addressed to him by Mr. Coleridge in the year
1814, which, whilst it relieved my mind from so onerous a burden, fully
corroborated all that I had presumed, and all that I had affirmed. Mr.
W. handed this letter to me that it might be made public, in conformity
with his departed friend's injunction."

LETTER 163. TO WADE

Bristol, June 26th, 1814.

Dear sir,

For I am unworthy to call any good man friend--much less you, whose
hospitality and love I have abused; accept, however, my intreaties for
your forgiveness, and for your prayers.

Conceive a poor miserable wretch, who for many years has been attempting
to beat off pain, by a constant recurrence to the vice that reproduces
it. Conceive a spirit in hell, employed in tracing out for others the
road to that heaven, from which his crimes exclude him! In short,
conceive whatever is most wretched, helpless, and hopeless, and you will
form as tolerable a notion of my state, as it is possible for a good man
to have.

I used to think the text in St. James that "he who offended in
one point, offends in all," very harsh: but I now feel the awful,
the tremendous truth of it. In the one crime of OPIUM, what crime
have I not made myself guilty of!--Ingratitude to my Maker! and
to my benefactors--injustice! _and unnatural cruelty to my poor
children!_--self-contempt for my repeated promise--breach, nay, too
often, actual falsehood!

After my death, I earnestly entreat, that a full and unqualified
narration of my wretchedness, and of its guilty cause, may be made
public, that at least, some little good may be effected by the direful
example.

May God Almighty bless you, and have mercy on your still affectionate,
and in his heart, grateful--

S. T. COLERIDGE.[88]

Meantime, during all this strange transaction with Cottle and Wade,
Coleridge during the year 1814, was never more brilliant in his
intellectual output, whether as lecturer, letter-writer, or political
writer. His letters at this date to Charles Mathews (_Letters_, 621),
to Sir George Beaumont (_Col. Mem._) of 9th June; to John Murray
(_Letters_, 624), about a projected translation of Faust; to Daniel
Stuart, of 12th September and 30th October; and to John Kenyon, of
3rd November 1814 (_Letters_, 627-64), his _Essays on the Fine Arts_
to Felix Fairley's _Bristol Journal_ (August, 1814, see _Bohn Lib.
Misc. Works_, 4-52), and his six political letters to the Editor of
_The Courier_ from 20th September to 10th December 1814, show no
diminution of intellectual power, but rather sustained mental vigour.
C. R. Leslie's account of Coleridge at this date, too, leaves us
to imagine a very different Coleridge from the one depicted in the
_Reminiscences_ of this period. Leslie was accompanying the Allstons
from London to Bristol. Mr. Allston fell ill at Salt Hill, and Coleridge
was sent for from town. Coleridge came to Salt Hill the same afternoon,
accompanied by his friend, Dr. Tathill. He stayed and nursed Allston.
"We were kept up late," says Leslie, "in consequence of the critical
condition of Allston, and when he retired, Coleridge, seeing a copy of
_Knickerbocker's History of New York_ lying on the table, took it up
and began reading. I went to bed, and I think he must have been up the
greater part of the night, for the next day I found he had nearly got
through _Knickerbocker_. He was delighted with it." Leslie adds: "At
Salt Hill, and on some other occasions, I witnessed his performance of
the duties of friendship in a manner which few men of his constitutional
indolence could have roused themselves to equal" (_Autobiography_, i,
pp. 33-35).

Coleridge was a chameleon[89] character; and altered his tone to suit
every kind of individual with whom he came into contact. We have
seen how he changed his attitude to Godwin between his letter in _The
Watchman_ in 1796, and his letters to the author of _Political Justice_
in 1811. It was the same in many cases, and Southey reproved him for it.
Hence it was that, in the presence of Cottle and Wade, of an evangelical
tone of mind, Coleridge humiliated himself and wrote penitential
letters, while at the same time towards Sir George Beaumont, Stuart, and
others, he was the Coleridge of vast intellectual pretensions to whom no
task was impossible.

Whether Cottle was justified in publishing the "opium letters" of
Coleridge has always been a moot point. The fact is Cottle had
determined on "pointing a moral and adorning a tale," as was the custom
of writers of his day, and he enlisted the sympathy and support of
Southey and John Foster to endorse his project of making moral capital
out of the story of Coleridge's life. The long correspondence at the
end of the _Reminiscences_ with these two friends regarding how much
he should divulge and how much he should keep back, is a study in the
art of compromise; but the "moralist's duty," as it was then called,
prevailed in the end. They had determined, as is mentioned in the last
letter of the correspondence (p. 482) by John Foster, that "an emphatic
moral lesson" should be wrung out of the life of Coleridge; and Southey
and Foster warned Cottle to be on his guard against collaborating
with Gillman--as was his original intention--to write the _Life of
Coleridge_, lest the "solemn warning and example should be lost"
(Cottle's _Rem._, p. 482).

The real cause of Coleridge's many and harassing ailments has now
been made known. Writing to the _Times_ newspaper in reply to a
criticism which had appeared in its columns on Coleridge's _Letters_,
just published (in 1895), and which had asserted that the perpetual
cry of ill health which echoes through the volume from end to end,
meant little less than "opium and indolence," Mrs. Lucy E. Watson,
granddaughter of James Gillman, quotes a letter by the latter narrating
the circumstances attending the post mortem examination of Coleridge's
body. The disease from which he had suffered was enlargement of the
heart, by which the sides of that organ were so attenuated as not to
be able to sustain it when raised. An article appeared in the _Lancet_
on 15th June 1895 on the matter, which closes by saying: "The record
suffices to prove that this intellectual giant must have suffered
more than the world was aware of, and it can be understood that his
_indolence_ as well as his opium habit had a physical basis. It can only
add to the marvel with which his achievements are justly regarded that
one so physically disabled should have made such extensive and profound
contributions to philosophy and literature. It is one more instance of
the triumph of mind over body" (_The Gillmans of Highgate_, p. 35).

This physical defect was the cause of all Coleridge's inability to
execute his own ambitious schemes. As he states in his letter to Davy
of 25 March 1804, he had Power minus Strength. His enfeeblement of
will is attributable to the physical defect of his enlarged heart;
and while he treated himself for gout and kindred ailments by taking
narcotics he, of course, only increased his own inability to act. He was
continually trying to drive what he felt to be an inward stomach gout
to the extremities. Coleridge enjoyed, however, at rare intervals, some
happy spells of health duly recorded in his letters. He seems to have
been best while climbing hills and bathing in the dry, hard air of the
East Coast. His ascent of the Brocken, his long walk in the Scottish
Highlands in 1803, in which he accomplished 263 miles in 8 days (Letter
_Col. Mem._ i, 7, quoted in Dyke Campbell's Edition of the _Poems_,
631), and other hill walks seemed to inspire him with a new life. He
has given an account of the effects of mountain climbing on him in his
letter to Tom Wedgwood of 14th January 1803, and this is one of his most
surprising letters.

Coleridge made a great mistake, however--labouring under the impression
that his ailment was gout--of choosing warm and slumberous climates
for his health-recruiting spheres. Malta did him no good, for he had
an intellectual affinity for the sunshine, for the land of the Lotus.
In fact, Coleridge's addiction to opium was temperamental as well as
acquired. He contracted the habit to deaden pain, it is true; but his
nature was of an Asiatic cast. He had in his infancy, as he tells
us, been brought up on the _Arabian Nights_, and his mind had been
habituated to the Vast (Letter 4). Joined to a dreaminess of imagination
was the love of warm climatic associations betraying the Asiatic
temperament. _Kubla Khan_, with its slumberous melody and vague music,
embodies the Asiatic sentiment. We feel in reading it on the borders
of the Buddhistic territory. To those endowed with such a temperament
the opium habit is easy to fall into; their dreamy soul is the seed-bed
on which it fastens. Indolence, Procrastination, vast ambitions,
unachieved accomplishments are the results: and we have in Coleridge
and his brother genius, Amiel, two examples in the Western world of the
Asiatic Genius, one terminating his career in opium and the other in the
Malady of the Ideal. Both endeavoured to push beyond the limitations
of Humanity. "Man can destroy the harmony of his being in two ways,"
says Chateaubriand, Coleridge's great French contemporary and brother
Romanticist, "by wishing to love too much and by wishing to know too
much" (_Genius of Christianity_, 1st Part, III, chap. iii). Coleridge
and Amiel have this fault in common; it is one of the defects of their
qualities.]

FOOTNOTES:

[74] A Dissenting minister of Bristol [Cottle].

[75] It is apprehended that this must be a mistake. I sent Mr.
Coleridge five guineas for my Shakspeare ticket, and entertain
no doubt but that some others did the same. But his remark may
refer to some succeeding lectures, of which I have no distinct
recollection [Cottle].

[76] A request of permission from Mr. Coleridge, to call on a few of
his known friends, to see if we could not raise an annuity for
him of one hundred a year, that he might pursue his literary
objects without pecuniary distractions [Cottle].

[77] [Estlin.]

[78] A worthy medical Friend of Bristol, who first in that city,
interested himself in the establishment of infant schools
[Cottle].

[79] [I include the whole of this correspondence with Cottle because
fragments only have been printed in biographies of Coleridge.]

[80] In Letters 132 and 133.

[81] This long sentence, between brackets, was struck out by Mr.
Southey, in perusing the MS., through delicacy, as it referred
to himself; but on the present occasion it is restored
[Cottle]. [Cottle submitted the MS. of his _Early
Recollections_ to Southey before publication.]

[82] ["And such a dreadful falling abroad."--_Early Recollections._]

[83] [Letter CXCVII is our 158.]

[84] Some supplemental lecture [Cottle.]

[85] These four lines in the edition of Mr. C.'s _Poems_, published
after his death, are oddly enough thrown into the _Monody on
Chatterton_, and form the four opening lines. Many readers may
concur with myself in thinking, that the former commencement
was preferable; namely,--

"When faint and sad, o'er sorrow's desert wild,
Slow journeys onward poor misfortune's child;" etc. [Cottle].

[The lines were first included in the _Monody_ in 1829.]

[86] [_The Picture, or the Lover's Resolution_, 1800.]

[87] [Letter CXCVIII is our 162. CXCIX follows.]

[88] [Letter CC is our 163. CCI-CCIV follow.]

[89] [Mr. John Mackinnon Robertson, in _New Essays towards a
Critical Method_, 1897, employs this epithet to describe
Coleridge.]

CHAPTER XXI

THE MORGANS, BRISTOL, AND CALNE

[John James Morgan, the joint friend of Coleridge and Southey in their
Pantisocratic days, was the son of a Bristol merchant, and as early as
1795 was acquainted with Coleridge (see Letter 16). It was to the house
of Morgan that Coleridge repaired after his return from Malta, at the
close of 1807, when he felt himself "ill, penniless, and worse than
homeless" (Meteyard's _Group of Englishmen_, p. 325); and in the
_Courier_ of 10th December 1807 appeared a poem, entitled the
_Wanderer's Farewell_, addressed to Mrs. Morgan and Charlotte Brent, her
sister. Morgan was at one time possessed of a fortune of £10,000 to
£15,000 (Southey's _Life and Cor._, iv. 361); but adverse circumstances
had come against him, and he and his family had removed to Hammersmith,
London. After the quarrel with Wordsworth, Coleridge, as we have already
seen, went to the Morgans, and remained off and on with them in the
various places of their abode for the six years between 1810 and 1816.
Not only were the Morgans kind hosts to Coleridge; Mrs. Morgan exercised
a considerable command for good over him, and put compulsory measures in
force when he was indulging in opium.

Although the Morgans were not exactly literary people, they were
discerners and appreciators of the genius of Coleridge; and it was while
staying with them that he produced his greatest contributions to
thinking. The Morgans changed about a good deal. In November 1810 they
were living at 7, Portland Place, Hammersmith; in April 1812 they had
removed to 71, Berners Street: in April 1814 they were at 2, Queen's
Square, Bristol; in September Coleridge and they had taken up quarters
at Ashley, Box, near Bath; on 3rd November they were at Bath; and on
10th November they had removed to Calne, in Wiltshire.

It would make an interesting study to detail in full all the changes of
Coleridge's political creed from the time when he was an ardent
enthusiast for the French Revolution to his gradual evolution into a
conservative whose creed was

The Sensual and the Dark rebel in vain.

As men advance in years they generally believe less in the power of
politics to accomplish what can be achieved only by Religion, Poetry,
Art and Culture. The contemplation of Coleridge's change of view from
Radicalism to temperate Conservatism, registering the natural swing of
the pendulum from Youth to Age, is a most inviting study for the
statesman. Southey and Wordsworth underwent the same change, but their
evolution is not so instructive as that of Coleridge.

A Tory in the strictest sense of the word Coleridge never was; for
he always claimed right to dissent and did at times dissent from the
ministry of the hour. A striking instance of his dissension was given
while living at Calne, when he strongly objected to the imposition
of new corn duties when wheat was selling at 63_s._ a quarter and
the quartern loaf sold at 11_d._ The working people were in a state
of starvation, and Coleridge espoused the cause of the starvers and
got up a Petition against the duties proposed. He even became the
ringleader of the local agitation. He writes to Dr. Brabant of Devizes
(6½ miles away) in the Spring of 1815: "On Wednesday we had a public
meeting in the Market Place, at Calne, to petition Parliament against
the Corn Bill. I drew it up for Mr. Wait, and afterwards mounted on
the butcher's table made a butcherly sort of speech of an hour long to
a very ragged but not butcherly audience, for by their pale faces few
of them seemed to have had more than a very occasional acquaintance
with butcher's meat. Loud were the huzzas, and if it depended on the
inhabitants at large, I believe they would send me up to Parliament"
(_Westminster Review_, 1870, p. 348).

Coleridge and the Morgans themselves were not in a flourishing
condition. They were in straitened circumstances, and Coleridge wrote
the following two letters to Cottle in March 1815.

LETTER 164. TO COTTLE

Calne, March 7, 1815.
Dear Cottle,

You will wish to know something of myself. In health, I am not worse
than when at Bristol I was best; yet fluctuating, yet unhappy! in
circumstances "poor indeed!" I have collected my scattered, and my
manuscript poems, sufficient to make one volume. Enough I have to make
another. But till the latter is finished, I cannot without great loss of
character, publish the former on account of the arrangement, besides the
necessity of correction. For instance, I earnestly wish to begin the
volumes, with what has never been seen by any, however few, such as a
series of Odes on the different sentences of the Lord's Prayer, and more
than all this, to finish my greater work on _Christianity, considered as
Philosophy, and as the only Philosophy_. All the materials I have in no
small part reduced to form, and written, but, oh me! what can I do, when
I am so poor, that in having to turn off every week, from these to some
mean subject for the newspapers, I distress myself, and at last neglect
the greater wholly to do little of the less. If it were in your power to
receive my manuscripts (for instance what I have ready for the press of
my poems) and by setting me forward with _thirty_ or _forty_ pounds,
taking care that what I send, and would make over to you, would more
than secure you from loss, I am sure you would do it. And I would die
(after my recent experience of the cruel and insolent spirit of calumny)
rather than subject myself, as a slave, to a club of subscribers to my
poverty.

If I were to say I am easy in my conscience, I should add to its pains
by a lie; but this I can truly say, that my embarrassments have not been
occasioned by the bad parts, or selfish indulgences of my nature, I am
at present five and twenty pounds in arrear, my expenses being at £2
10_s._ per week. You will say I ought to live for less, and doubtless I
might, if I were to alienate myself from all social affections, and from
all conversation with persons of the same education. Those who severely
blame me, never ask, whether at any time in my life, I had for myself
and my family's wants, £50 beforehand.

Heaven knows of the £300 received, through you, what went to myself.[90]
No! bowed down under manifold infirmities, I yet dare to appeal to God
for the truth of what I say;[91] I have remained poor by always having
been poor, and incapable of pursuing any one great work, for want of a
competence beforehand.

S. T. COLERIDGE.

LETTER 165. TO COTTLE

Calne, Wiltshire, March 10, 1815.

My dear Cottle,

I have been waiting with the greatest uneasiness for a letter from you.
My distresses are impatient rather than myself: inasmuch as for the last
five weeks, I know myself to be a burden on those to whom I am under
great obligations: who would gladly do all for me; _but who have done
all they can!_ Incapable of any exertion in this state of mind, I have
now written to Mr. Hood, and have at length bowed my heart down, to beg
that four or five of those, who I had reason to believe, were interested
in my welfare, would raise the sum I mentioned, between them, should you
not find it convenient to do it. Manuscript poems, equal to one volume
of 230 to 300 pages, being sent to them immediately. If not, I must
instantly dispose of all my poems, fragments and all, for whatever I can
get from the first rapacious bookseller, that will give anything--and
then try to get my livelihood where I am, by receiving, or waiting on
day-pupils, children, or adults, but even this I am unable to wait for
without some assistance: for I cannot but with consummate baseness,
throw the expenses of my lodging and boarding for the last five or six
weeks on those who must injure and embarrass themselves in order to pay
them. The _Friend_ has been long out of print, and its republication has
been called for by numbers.

Indeed from the manner in which it was first circulated, it is little
less than a new work. To make it a complete and circular work, it needs
but about eight or ten papers. This I could and would make over to you
at once in full copyright, and finish it outright, with no other delay
than that of finishing a short and temperate Treatise on the Corn Laws,
and their national and moral effects; which had I even twenty pounds
only to procure myself a week's ease of mind, I could have printed
before the bill had passed the Lords. At all events let me hear by
return of post. I am confident that whether you take the property of my
Poems, or of my Prose Essays, in pledge, you cannot eventually lose the
money.

As soon as I can, I shall leave Calne for Bristol, and if I can procure
any day pupils, shall immediately take cheap lodgings near you. My plan
is to have twenty pupils, ten youths or adults, and ten boys. To give
the latter three hours daily, from eleven o'clock to two, with exception
of the usual school vacations, in the Elements of English, Greek, and
Latin, presenting them exercises for their employment during the rest of
the day, and two hours every evening to the adults (that is from sixteen
and older) on a systematic plan of general knowledge; and I should hope
that £15 a year would not be too much to ask from each, which excluding
Sundays and two vacations, would be little more than a shilling a day,
or six shillings a week, for forty-two weeks.

To this I am certain I could attend with strictest regularity, or indeed
to any thing mechanical.

But composition is no voluntary business. The very necessity of doing it
robs me of the power of doing it. Had I been possessed of a tolerable
competency, I should have been a voluminous writer. But I cannot, as is
feigned of the Nightingale, sing with my breast against a thorn. God
bless you,

S. T. COLERIDGE.[92]
Saturday, Midnight.

* * * * *

To the first of these letters Cottle replied with a five-pound note; but
he now believed that all Coleridge's earnings went to fill what he calls
the "Circean chalice" (_Rem._, 391). He believed that Coleridge was
spending £2 10_s._ a week on opium. It is as likely that Coleridge was
now keeping the home of the Morgans going; although they oftener kept
him than he kept them. We know that he gave them the money received for
the _Christabel_ volume.

From the first letter to Cottle it will be seen that Coleridge had been
collecting his poems with a view to publication, afterwards given to the
world as _Sibylline Leaves_. On 3rd April 1815, he writes to Lady
Beaumont requesting a copy of the Poem to Wordsworth composed on hearing
the Prelude (_Coleorton Mem._, ii, 175). Wordsworth had just published
the _Excursion_, and on 30th May Coleridge wrote to Wordsworth
criticising that poem (Knight's _Life of Wordsworth_, ii, 255) in a long
letter, which, with other notes (_Anima Poetae_) of 1802, contained the
germs of the Critique of the _Biographia Literaria_. The _Biographia_
was at first merely intended as an Introduction to the _Sibylline
Leaves_; but in the writing it swelled so much that it had to be
published as a separate work (see Dykes Campbell's _Life_, pp. 212-14).

Coleridge has been charged with plagiarism from Schelling, in composing
his _Biographia_, by Ferrier in _Blackwood's Magazine_ of 1840, and by
others.[93] Some others complain that Coleridge has no formal scheme of
philosophy of his own. But this is merely saying it was never written
down in its entirety, not that he did not have a philosophy. One of the
features of Coleridge is that he was never without a Philosophy, and
could not speak without betraying the fact that he judged all things
from a standpoint which was the centre of a large planetary system of
dependent and interdependent ideas. Coleridge's philosophy is a
combination of parts of the philosophies of Plato, Plotinus, Giordano
Bruno, Vico, Berkeley, Herder, Kant, Maas, and Schelling; he took
freely from all his predecessors, as every new philosopher is bound to
do, and has done, before him. Nor is he merely eclectic; his borrowings
are fused together into a system. His originality consists not in the
ideas which he entertains in his system, but in the reconstellation of
these ideas. To charge Coleridge with plagiarism for having appropriated
certain trains of thinking from others is on a level with the brilliant
discovery which finds that Shakespeare pilfered some of his plots and
stories from Italian novels, or that Molière took his own where he found
it (_Je prend mon bien où je le trouve_).

The valuable parts of the _Biographia_, however, are not the
philosophical, but the critical and biographical portions. The Critique
on Wordsworth's poetry will always be reckoned as the finest of our
literary criticisms on Wordsworth. We may object to Coleridge's
strictures on _The Daffodils_ or _Alice Fell_, but lovers of Wordsworth
will give general acquiescence to the contentions of Coleridge's
discriminating criticism. Coleridge stands in the front rank of those
great exponents of Poetry and Art who, from Aristotle to Sainte-Beuve,
have guided the taste of the nations.

The contention of the closing paragraph that Faith is but the
continuation of Reason is founded on a saying of his early love, Mary
Evans, that "Faith is only Reason applied to a particular subject"
(_Letters_, 88). It was written in her farewell letter in 1794.

Among the works of Coleridge undertaken at Calne was the drama of
_Zapolya_, in which the character of Sarolta, an offshoot from the
Christabel idea, appears.

These works were composed by Coleridge to tide over the necessities of
the time, but the Morgans and he were unable to hold together, and
Coleridge came once more to London at the beginning of 1816. Morgan fell
into ill health. Mrs. Morgan latterly had to take a situation as teacher
of a charity school; Charles Lamb and Southey got up a subscription
annuity of £25 for Morgan, who did not live long to enjoy it, dying in
1820 (_Southey's Life and Correspondence_, iv, 361); and after 1823
Charlotte Brent disappears from the arena of literary history
(_Letters_, 722).

Coleridge's letters to Dr. Brabant of Devizes, were written between
February 1815, and 5th December 1816, and are published in the
_Westminster Review_ for 1870.]

FOOTNOTES:

[90] This statement requires an explanation, which none now can
give. Was the far larger proportion of this £300 appropriated
to the discharge of Opium debts? This does not seem unlikely,
as Mr. C. lived with friends, and he could contract few other
debts [Cottle]. [This note is most misleading. Coleridge's
receipt for the £300 is dated November 12, 1807 (_De Quincey
Memorials._ I, 132). At this time, and for long after it,
Coleridge never lived with friends except the Morgans, whom he
paid. Cottle's assumption is baseless.]

[91] "Of the truth of what I say."--_Early Recollections._

[92] [Letters CCV-CCVII follow 165.]

[93] [Coleridge gives a general acknowledgment of indebtedness; and
doubtless when he wrote the _Biographia_ he could not always
discriminate in his note-books what was Schelling's and what
was his own.]

CHAPTER XXII

HIGHGATE; LECTURES OF 1818

[It was in the Spring of 1816 that Coleridge took refuge from himself
and the world and came to the Gillmans of Highgate, and became the great
lay preacher of his time. Before this he had been staying at 42, Norfolk
Street, Strand, and consulting a physician, Dr. Joseph Adams, who
recommended him to Mr. Gillman. The letter of Dr. Adams to Mr. Gillman
is as follows:

Hatton Garden, April 9, 1816.

Dear Sir.

A very learned, but in one respect an unfortunate gentleman, has applied
to me on a singular occasion. He has for several years been in the habit
of taking large quantities of opium. For some time past he has been in
vain endeavouring to break himself of it. It is apprehended his friends
are not firm enough, from a dread, lest he should suffer by suddenly
leaving it off, though he is conscious of the contrary; and has proposed
to me to submit himself to any regimen, however severe. With this view
he wishes to fix himself in the house of some medical gentleman, who
will have courage to refuse him any laudanum, and under whose
assistance, should he be the worse for it, he may be relieved. As he is
desirous of retirement, and a garden, I could think of no one so readily
as yourself. Be so good as to inform me whether such a proposal is
absolutely inconsistent with your family arrangements. I should not have
proposed it, but on account of the great importance of the character,
as a literary man. His communicative temper will make his society very
interesting, as well as useful. Have the goodness to favour me with an
immediate answer, and believe me, dear sir,

Your faithful humble servant,
JOSEPH ADAMS.

Before calling on Dr. Gillman, Coleridge wrote the following letter:

LETTER 166. TO JAMES GILLMAN

42, Norfolk Street, Strand, Saturday Noon.
(April 13, 1816.)

My Dear Sir.

The first half hour I was with you convinced me that I should owe my
reception into your family exclusively to motives not less flattering to
me than honourable to yourself. I trust we shall ever in matters of
intellect be reciprocally serviceable to each other. Men of sense
generally come to the same conclusions; but they are likely to
contribute to each other's enlargement of view, in proportion to the
distance or even opposition of the points from which they set out.
Travel and the strange variety of situations and employments on which
chance has thrown me, in the course of my life, might have made me a
mere man of _observation_, if pain and sorrow and self-miscomplacence
had not forced my mind in on itself, and so formed habits of
_meditation_. It is now as much my nature to evolve the fact from the
law, as that of a practical man to deduce the law from the fact.

With respect to pecuniary remuneration, allow me to say, I must not at
least be suffered to make any addition to your family expenses--though I
cannot offer anything that would be in any way adequate to my sense of
the service; for that indeed there could not be a compensation, as it
must be returned in kind, by esteem and grateful affection.

And now of myself. My ever wakeful reason, and the keenness of my moral
feelings, will secure you from all unpleasant circumstances connected
with me save only one, viz. the evasion of a specific madness. You will
never _hear_ anything but truth from me:--prior habits render it out of
my power to tell an untruth, but unless carefully observed, I dare not
promise that I should not, with regard to this detested poison, be
capable of acting one. No sixty hours have yet passed without my having
taken laudanum, though for the last week comparatively trifling doses. I
have full belief that your anxiety need not be extended beyond the first
week, and for the first week, I shall not, I must not be permitted to
leave your house, unless with you. Delicately or indelicately this must
be done, and both the servants and the assistant must receive absolute
commands from you. The stimulus of conversation suspends the terror that
haunts my mind; but when I am alone, the horrors I have suffered from
laudanum, the degradation, the blighted utility, almost overwhelm me. If
(as I feel for the _first time_ a soothing confidence it will prove) I
should leave you restored to my moral and bodily health, it is not
myself only that will love and honour you; every friend I have (and
thank God! in spite of this wretched vice[94] I have many and warm ones,
who were friends of my youth, and have never deserted me,) will thank
you with reverence. I have taken no notice of your kind apologies. If I
could not be comfortable in your house, and with your family, I should
deserve to be miserable. If you could make it convenient, I should wish
to be with you by Monday evening, as it would prevent the necessity of
taking fresh lodgings in town.

With respectful compliments to Mrs. Gillman and her sister, I remain,
dear sir,

Your much obliged,
S. T. COLERIDGE.[95]

The Gillmans felt spellbound by Coleridge's talk, and consented to
receive him into their household, where he remained for the last
eighteen years of his life.

It was at Highgate that Coleridge sat looking down upon the "illimitable
limitary ocean of London," as Carlyle finely puts it. He had still his
ambitions to do something for the Permanent; but the world of England
was not yet ripe for Transcendentalism, and the fine distinctions
between the Reason and the Understanding, Imagination and Fancy, the
Person and the Thing, and all the other subtle analysings of the Human
Intellect; but he still had his lore on Shakespeare to fall back on, and
he could re-churn it into a new series of Lectures. His ninth course he
delivered in 1818, 27th January to 13th March. The course was delivered
at "Flower de Luce" Court (Fleur-de-Lis Court). The notes of these
lectures occupy about a half of the Bohn Library volume of the _Lectures
on Shakespeare_. They are often, like the rest of Coleridge's prose
writing, a series of brilliant digressions from the main point, but like
De Quincey's similar wanderings, they often come wonderfully round to
the subject in hand. H. Crabb Robinson attended only four of the course,
and he does not give a very favourable account of them. Gillman says:
"He lectured from notes, yet it was obvious that his audience was more
delighted when, putting his notes aside, he spoke extempore. He was
brilliant, fluid, and rapid; his words seemed to flow from a person
repeating with grace and energy some delightful poem. If, however, he
sometimes paused, it was not for the want of words, but that he was
seeking the most appropriate, or their most logical arrangement." The
following letters, given by Gillman in his _Life of Coleridge_, are
supposed to belong to this period.

LETTER 167. TO ----

(-- 1816?)

In a copy of verses, entitled _A Hymn before Sunrise in the Vale of
Chamouni_, I describe myself under the influence of strong devotional
feelings, gazing on the mountain, till as if it had been a shape
emanating from and sensibly representing her own essence, my soul had
become diffused through the mighty vision: and there,

As in her natural form, swell'd vast to Heaven.

Mr. Wordsworth, I remember, censured the passage as strained and
unnatural, and condemned the hymn in toto, (which, nevertheless, I
ventured to publish in my _Sibylline Leaves_,) as a specimen of the mock
sublime. It may be so for others, but it is impossible that I should
myself find it unnatural, being conscious that it was the image and
utterance of thoughts and emotions in which there was no mockery. Yet,
on the other hand, I could readily believe that the mood and habit of
mind out of which the hymn rose, that differs from Milton's and
Thomson's and from the psalms, the source of all three, in the author's
addressing himself to _individual_ objects actually present to his
senses, while his great predecessors apostrophize _classes_ of things
presented by the memory, and generalized by the understanding;--I can
readily believe, I say, that in this there may be too much of what our
learned _med'ciners_ call the _idiosyncratic_ for true poetry.--For,
from my very childhood, I have been accustomed to _abstract_, and as it
were, unrealize whatever of more than common interest my eyes dwelt on,
and then by a sort of transfusion and transmission of my consciousness
to identify myself with the object; and I have often thought within the
last five or six years, that if ever I should feel once again the genial
warmth and stir of the poetic impulse, and refer to my own experiences,
I should venture on a yet stranger and wilder allegory than of
yore--that I would allegorize myself as a rock, with its summit just
raised above the surface of some bay or strait in the Arctic Sea, "while
yet the stern and solitary night brooked no alternate sway"--all around
me fixed and firm, methought, as my own substance, and near me lofty
masses, that might have seemed to "hold the moon and stars in fee," and
often in such wild play with meteoric lights, or with the quiet shine
from above, which they made rebound in sparkles, or dispand in
off-shoot, and splinters, and iridescent needle shafts of keenest
glitter, that it was a pride and a place of healing to lie, as in an
apostle's shadow, within the eclipse and deep substance-seeming gloom of
"these dread ambassadors from earth to heaven, great hierarchs!" And
though obscured, yet to think myself obscured by consubstantial forms,
based in the same foundation as my own. I grieved not to serve
them--yea, lovingly and with gladsomeness I abased myself in their
presence: for they are my brothers, I said, and the mastery is theirs by
right of older birth, and by right of the mightier strivings of the
hidden fire that uplifted them above me.

LETTER 168. TO ----[96]

(--1816?)
My dear sir,

Accept my thanks for your kind remembrance of me, and for the proof of
it in the present of your tribute of friendship, I have read it with
uninterrupted interest, and with satisfaction scarcely less continuous.
In adding the three last words, I am taking the word satisfaction in its
strictest sense: for had I written pleasure, there would have been no
ground for the limitation. Indeed as it was, it is a being scrupulous
over much. For at the two only passages at which I made a moment's
_halt_ (viz. § p. 3, and p. 53, last line but five,) "she had
seldom"----"oppressive awe," my not _objection_ but _stoppage_ at the
latter amounted only to a doubt, a _quære_, whether the trait of
character here given should not have been followed by some little
comment, as for instance, that such a state of feeling, though not
desirable in a regenerate person, in whom belief had wrought love, and
love obedience, must yet be ranked amongst those constitutional
differences that may exist between the best and wisest Christians,
without any corresponding difference in their spiritual progress. One
saint fixes his eyes on the _palm_, another saint thinks of the previous
_conflict_, and closes them in prayer. Both are waters of the same
fountain--_this_ the basin, _that_ the salient column, both equally dear
to God, and both may be used as examples for men, the one to invite the
thoughtless sceptic, the other to alarm the reckless believer. You will
see, therefore, that I do not object to the sentence itself; but as a
matter of _feeling_, it met me too singly and suddenly. I had not
anticipated such a trait, and the surprise counterfeited the sensation
of perplexity for a moment or two. On as little objection to anything
you have said, did the _desiderium_ the sense of not being quite
satisfied, proceed in regard to the § p. 3. In the particular instance
in the application of the sentiment, I found nothing to question or
qualify. It was the rule or principle which a certain class of your
readers might be inclined to deduce from it, it was the possible
generalization of the particular instance that made me pause. I am
jealous of the disposition to turn Christianity or Religion into a
particular _business_ or line. "Well, Miss, how does your pencil go on,
I was delighted with your last landscape." "Oh, sir, I have quite given
_up_ that, I have got into the religious line." Now, my dear sir, the
rule which I have deduced from the writings of St. Paul and St. John,
and (permit me also to add) of Luther, would be this. Form and endeavour
to strengthen into an habitual and instinct-like feeling, the sense of
the utter incompatibility of Christianity with every thing wrong or
unseemly, with whatever betrays or fosters the mind of flesh, the
predominance of the _animal_ within us, by having habitually present to
the mind, the full and lively conviction of its perfect compatibility
with whatever is innocent of its harmony, with whatever
contra-distinguishes the HUMAN from the animal; of its sympathy and
coalescence with the cultivation of the faculties, affections, and
fruitions, which God hath made _peculiar_ to _man_, either wholly or in
their ordained _combination_ with what is peculiar to humanity, the
blurred, but not obliterated signatures of our original title deed, (and
God said, man will we make in our own image.) What?--shall Christianity
exclude or alienate us from those powers, acquisitions, and attainments,
which Christianity is so preeminently calculated to elevate and enliven
and sanctify?

Far, very far, am I from suspecting in you, my dear sir, any
participation in these prejudices of a shrivelled proselyting and
censorious religionist. But a numerous and stirring faction there is, in
the so-called Religious Public, whose actual and actuating principles,
with whatever vehemence they may disclaim it in words, is, that
redemption is a something not yet effected--that there is neither sense
nor force in our baptism--and that instead of the Apostolic command,
_Rejoice, and again I say unto you, rejoice_; baptized Christians are to
put on sackcloth and ashes, and try, by torturing themselves and others,
to procure a rescue from the devil. Again, let me thank you for your
remembrance of me, and believe me from the hour we first met at
Bristol, with esteem and regard,

Your sincere friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.

* * * * *

In 1816 an attempt was made to revive _Remorse_ at Drury Lane, and
Coleridge had some intercourse with Byron regarding it and another
tragedy he was proposing to write for the theatre (_Westminster Review_,
94 (1874), p. 2). He wrote the following fragment on Byron probably
about this time:

LETTER 169. TO----

(--1816?)

If you had seen Lord Byron, you could scarcely disbelieve him--so
beautiful a countenance I scarcely ever saw--his teeth so many
stationary smiles--his eyes the open portals of the sun--things of light
and for light--and his forehead so ample, and yet so flexible, passing
from marble smoothness into a hundred wreathes and lines and dimples
correspondent to the feelings and sentiments he is uttering.[97]]

FOOTNOTES:

[94] This is too strong an expression. It was not idleness, it was
not sensual indulgence, that led Coleridge to contract this
habit. No, it was latent disease, of which sufficient proof is
given in this memoir.--[Note by Gillman.]

[95] [Letter CCVIII is our 166.]

[96] [Cottle or Estlin.]

[97] [Letters CCIX-CCXVIII follow 169.]

CHAPTER XXIII

THOMAS ALLSOP

[Coleridge's lectures and his conversations at the Gillmans brought him
many new friends. Among others was Thomas Allsop, a young London
merchant, whose acquaintance dates from January, 1818; and which, by
December, had ripened into close friendship. Allsop acted as the Boswell
of the later period of Coleridge's life, and by his devotion made up for
the absence of Wordsworth and Poole. He afterwards published the letters
he received from Coleridge, and some of Coleridge's axiomatic sayings
and conversations. Allsop was also a friend of Charles Lamb, and often
visited Highgate in company with Elia, who made Allsop one of his
testamentary trustees (_Ainger_, ii, 82, 85). The following letters to
Allsop indicate the birth of the intimacy between Coleridge and him.

LETTER 170. TO ALLSOP

Jan. 28th, 1818.

Dear Sir,

Your friendly letter was first delivered to me at the lecture-room door
on yesterday evening, ten minutes before the lecture, and my spirits
were so sadly depressed by the circumstance of my hoarseness, that I was
literally incapable of reading it. I now express my acknowledgments, and
with them the regret that I had not received the letter in time to have
availed myself of it.

When I was young I used to laugh at flattery, as, on account of its
absurdity, I now abhor it, from my repeated observations of its
mischievous effects. Amongst these, not the least is, that it renders
honourable natures more slow and reluctant in expressing their real
feelings in praise of the deserving, than, for the interests of truth
and virtue, might be desired. For the weakness of our moral and
intellectual being, of which the comparatively strongest are often the
most, and the most painfully conscious, needs the confirmation derived
from the coincidence and sympathy of the friend, as much as the voice of
honour within us denounces the pretences of the flatterer. Be assured,
then, that I write as I think, when I tell you that, from the style and
thoughts of your letter, I should have drawn a very different conclusion
from that which you appear to have done, concerning both your talents
and the cultivation which they have received. Both the matter and manner
are manly, simple, and correct.

Had I the time in my power, compatibly with the performance of duties of
immediate urgency, I would endeavour to give you, by letter, the most
satisfactory answer to your questions that my reflections and the
experience of my own fortunes could supply. But, at all events, I will
not omit to avail myself of your judicious suggestion in my last
lecture, in which it will form a consistent part of the subject and
purpose of the discourse. Meantime, believe me, with great respect,

Your obliged fellow-student
of the true and the beseeming,
S. T. COLERIDGE.[98]

LETTER 171. TO ALLSOP

Sept. 20th, 1818.

Dear Sir,

Those who have hitherto chosen to take notice of me, as known to them
only by my public character, have for the greater part taken out, not,
indeed, a poetical, but a critical, license, to _make game_ OF me,
instead of sending game TO me. Thank heaven! I am in this respect more
tough than tender. But, to be serious, I heartily thank you for your
polite remembrance; and, though my feeble health and valetudinarian
stomach force me to attach no little value to the present itself, I feel
still more obliged by the kindness that prompted it.

I trust that you will not come within the purlieus of Highgate without
giving me the opportunity of assuring you personally that I am, with
sincere respect,

Your obliged,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
T. Allsop, Esq.

LETTER 172. TO ALLSOP

Nov. 26th, 1818.

Dear Sir,

I take the liberty of addressing a Prospectus to you. Should it be in
your power to recommend either Course among your friends, you will (I
need not add) oblige your sincere, &c.

S. T. COLERIDGE.

_"Prospectus of a Course of Lectures, Historical and Biographical, on
the Rise and Progress, the Changes and Fortunes of Philosophy, from
Thales and Pythagoras to the Present Times; the Lives and Succession
of the distinguished Teachers in each Sect; the connexion of
Philosophy with General Civilisation; and, more especially, its
relations to the History of Christianity, and to the Opinions,
Language, and Manners of Christendom, at different Æras, and in
different Nations._
"BY S. T. COLERIDGE, ESQ.

"Logical subtleties and metaphysical trains of argument form neither
part nor object of the present Plan, which supposes no other
qualification in the auditors of either sex than a due interest in
questions of deepest concern to all, and which every rational
creature, who has arrived at the age of reflection, must be presumed,
at some period or other, to have put to his own thoughts:--What, and
_for_ what am I made? What _can_ I, and what _ought_ I to, make of
myself? and in what relations do I stand to the world and to my fellow
men? Flattering myself with a continuance of the kind and respectful
attention, with which my former courses have been honoured, I have so
little apprehension of not being intelligible throughout, that were it
in my power to select my auditors, the majority would, perhaps,
consist of persons whose acquaintance with the History of Philosophy
would commence with their attendance on the Course of Lectures here
announced. When, indeed, I contemplate the many and close connexions
of the subject with the most interesting periods of History; the
instances and illustrations which it demands and will receive from
Biography, from individuals of the most elevated genius, or of the
most singular character: I cannot hesitate to apply to it as a whole
what has been already said of an important part (I allude to
Ecclesiastical History)--that for every reflecting mind it has a
livelier as well as deeper interest, than that of fable or romance.

Nor can these Lectures be justly deemed superfluous even as a literary
work. We have, indeed, a History of Philosophy, or rather a folio
volume so called, by STANLEY, and ENFIELD'S Abridgment of the massive
and voluminous BRUCKER. But what are they? Little more, in fact, than
collections of sentences and extracts, formed into separate groups
under the several names, and taken (at first or second hand) from the
several writings of individual philosophers, with no _Principle_ of
arrangement, with no _method_, and therefore without unity and without
progress or completion. Hard to be understood as detached passages,
and impossible to be remembered as a whole, they leave at last on the
mind of the most sedulous student but a dizzy recollection of jarring
opinions and wild fancies. Whatever value these works may have as
books of reference, so far from _superseding_, they might seem rather
to _require_, a work like the present, in which the accidental
influences of particular periods and individual genius are by no means
overlooked, but which yet does in the main consider Philosophy
historically, as an essential part of the history of man, and as if it
were the striving of a single mind, under very different circumstances
indeed, and at different periods of its own growth and development;
but so that each change and every new direction should have its cause
and its explanation in the errors, insufficiency or prematurity of the
preceding, while all by reference to a common object is reduced to
harmony of impression and total result. Now this object, which is one
and the same in all the forms of Philosophy, and which alone
constitutes a work _Philosophic_, is--the origin and primary laws (or
efficient causes) either of the WORLD, man included (which is
_Natural_ Philosophy)--or of Human Nature exclusively, and as far only
as it is _human_ (which is _Moral_ Philosophy). If to these we
subjoin, as a third problem, the question concerning the sufficiency
of the human reason to the solution of both or either of the two
former, we shall have a full conception of the sense in which the term
Philosophy is used in this Prospectus and the Lectures corresponding
to it.

The main Divisions will be--1. From Thales and Pythagoras to the
appearance of the Sophists. 2. And of Socrates. The character and
effect of Socrates' life and doctrines, illustrated in the instances
of Xenophon, as his most faithful representative, and of Antisthenes,
or the Cynic sect, as the one partial view of his philosophy, and of
Aristippus, or the Cyrenaic sect, as the other and opposite extreme.
3. Plato and Platonism. 4. Aristotle and the Peripatetic school. 5.
Zeno and Stoicism, Epicurus and Epicureans, with the effects of these
in the Roman republic and empire. 6. The rise of the Eclectic or
Alexandrine Philosophy, the attempt to set up a pseudo-Platonic
Polytheism against Christianity, the degradation of Philosophy itself
into mysticism and magic, and its final disappearance, as Philosophy,
under Justinian. 7. The resumption of the Aristotelian philosophy in
the thirteenth century, and the successive re-appearance of the
different sects from the restoration of literature to our own
times.[99]

The last letter refers to lectures delivered from 19th December 1818 to
April 1819, his tenth course. Another course on Shakespeare was also
being given at the same time, at the Crown and Anchor tavern, Strand
(Dykes Campbell's _Life_, 238), commencing 17th December 1818. No record
has been published of these two series of lectures (see _Lamb's
Letters_, ii, 16). The next letter is about Wordsworth and the
_Edinburgh Review_, and repeats some of Coleridge's strong convictions
against anonymous criticism.

LETTER 173. TO ALLSOP

Dec. 2nd, 1818.

My Dear Sir,

I cannot express how kind I felt your letter. Would to Heaven I had had
many with feelings like yours, "accustomed to express themselves warmly
and (as far as the word is applicable to you, even) enthusiastically."
But, alas! during the prime manhood of my intellect I had nothing but
cold water thrown on my efforts. I speak not now of my systematic and
most unprovoked maligners. On _them_ I have retorted only by pity and by
prayer. These may have, and doubtless _have_, joined with the frivolity
of "the reading public" in checking and almost in preventing the sale of
my works; and so far have done injury to my _purse_. _Me_ they have not
injured. But I have loved with enthusiastic self-oblivion those who have
been so well pleased that I should, year after year, flow with a hundred
nameless rills into _their_ main stream, that they could find nothing
but cold praise and effective discouragement of every attempt of mine
to roll onward in a distinct current of my own; who _admitted_ that the
_Ancient Mariner_, the _Christabel_, the _Remorse_, and some pages of
the _Friend_ were not without merit, but were abundantly anxious to
acquit their judgments of any blindness to the very numerous defects.
Yet they _knew_ that to _praise_, as mere praise, I was
characteristically, almost constitutionally, indifferent. In sympathy
alone I found at once nourishment and stimulus; and for sympathy _alone_
did my heart crave. They knew, too, how long and faithfully I had acted
on the maxim, never to admit the _faults_ of a work of genius to those
who denied or were incapable of feeling and understanding the
_beauties_; not from wilful partiality, but as well knowing that in
_saying_ truth, I should, to such critics, convey falsehood. If, in one
instance, in my literary life, I have appeared to deviate from this
rule, first, it was not till the fame of the writer[100] (which I had
been for fourteen years successively toiling like a second Ali to build
up) had been established; and, secondly and chiefly, with the purpose
and, I may safely add, with the _effect_ of rescuing the necessary task
from Malignant Defamers, and in order to set forth the excellences and
the trifling proportion which the defects bore to the excellences. But
this, my dear sir, is a mistake to which affectionate natures are too
liable, though I do not remember to have ever seen it noticed,--the
mistaking those who are desirous and well pleased to be loved _by_ you,
for those who love you. Add, as a more general cause, the fact that I
neither am nor ever have been of any party. What wonder, then, if I am
left to decide which has been my worse enemy, the broad, pre-determined
abuse of the _Edinburgh Review_, &c., or the cold and brief compliments,
with the warm _regrets_, of the _Quarterly_? After all, however, I have
now but one sorrow relative to the ill success of my literary toils (and
toils they have been, _though not undelightful toils_), and this arises
wholly from the almost insurmountable difficulties which the anxieties
of to-day oppose to my completion of the great work, the form and
materials of which it has been the employment of the best and most
genial hours of the last twenty years to mature and collect.

If I could but have a tolerably numerous audience to my first, or first
and second Lectures on the HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY, I should entertain a
strong hope of success, because I know that these lectures will be found
by far the most interesting and _entertaining_ of any that I have yet
delivered, independent of the more permanent interests of rememberable
instruction. Few and unimportant would the errors of men be, if they did
but know, first, _what they themselves meant_; and, secondly, what the
_words_ mean by which they attempt to convey their meaning; and I can
conceive no subject so well fitted to exemplify the mode and the
importance of these two points as the History of Philosophy, treated as
in the scheme of these lectures. Trusting that I shall shortly have the
pleasure of seeing you here,

I remain, my dear Sir,
Yours, most sincerely,
S. T. COLERIDGE.[101]
T. Allsop, Esq.

* * * * *

At the close of 1818, Coleridge published his _Essay on Method_, an
introduction to the _Encyclopedia Metropolitana_, which exhibits his
grasping ambitious intellect.

The two following letters to Mr. Britton were written regarding his
lectures. Neither Thomas Ashe nor Dykes Campbell has been able to find
any evidence that Coleridge delivered lectures on Shakespeare seventeen
years before 1819. He must have been labouring under a delusion on this
matter and mistaking the date of his lectures delivered in 1808.

LETTER 174. TO MR. BRITTON

Highgate, 28th Feb., 1819.

Dear Sir,

First permit me to remove a very natural, indeed almost inevitable,
mistake, relative to my lectures; namely, that I _have_ them, or that
the lectures of one place or season are in any way repeated in another.
So far from it, that on any point that I had ever studied (and on no
other should I dare discourse--I mean, that I would not lecture on any
subject for which I had to _acquire_ the main knowledge, even though a
month's or three month's previous time were allowed me; on no subject
that had not employed my thoughts for a large portion of my life since
earliest manhood, free of all outward and particular purpose)--on any
point within my habit of thought, I should greatly prefer a subject I
had never lectured on, to one which I had repeatedly given; and those
who have attended me for any two seasons successively will bear witness,
that the lecture given at the London Philosophical Society, on the
_Romeo and Juliet_, for instance, was as different from that given at
the Crown and Anchor, as if they had been by two individuals who,
without any communication with each other, had only mastered the same
principles of philosophical criticism. This was most strikingly
evidenced in the coincidence between my lectures and those of Schlegel;
such, and so close, that it was fortunate for my moral reputation that I
had not only from five to seven hundred ear witnesses that the passages
had been given by me at the Royal Institution two years before Schlegel
commenced his lectures at Vienna, but that notes had been taken of these
by several men and ladies of high rank. The fact is this; during a
course of lectures, I faithfully employ all the intervening days in
collecting and digesting the materials, whether I have or have not
lectured on the same subject before, making no difference. The day of
the lecture, till the hour of commencement, I devote to the
consideration, what of the mass before me is best fitted to answer the
purposes of a lecture, that is, to keep the audience awake and
interested during the delivery, and to leave a sting behind, that is, a
disposition to study the subject anew, under the light of a new
principle. Several times, however, partly from apprehension respecting
my health and animal spirits, partly from the wish to possess copies
that might afterwards be marketable among the publishers, I have
previously written the lecture; but before I had proceeded twenty
minutes, I have been obliged to push the MS. away, and give the subject
a new turn. Nay, this was so notorious, that many of my auditors used to
threaten me, when they saw any number of written papers on my desk, to
steal them away; declaring they never felt so secure of a good lecture
as when they perceived that I had not a single scrap of writing before
me. I take far, far more pains than would go to the set composition of a
lecture, both by varied reading and by meditation; but for the words,
illustrations, &c., I know almost as little as any of the audience (that
is, those of anything like the same education with myself) what they
will be five minutes before the lecture begins. Such is my way, for such
is my nature; and in attempting any other, I should only torment myself
in order to disappoint my auditors--torment myself during the delivery,
I mean; for in all other respects it would be a much shorter and easier
task to deliver them from writing. I am anxious to preclude any
semblance of affectation; and have therefore troubled you with this
lengthy preface before I have the hardihood to assure you, that you
might as well ask me what my dreams were in the year 1814, as what my
course of lectures was at the Surrey Institution. _Fuimus Troes._

LETTER 175. TO MR. BRITTON

(Feb.-Mch., 1819)

My next Friday's lecture will, if I do not grossly flatter-blind myself,
be interesting, and the points of view not only original, but new to the
audience. I make this distinction, because sixteen or rather seventeen
years ago, I delivered eighteen lectures on Shakespeare, at the Royal
Institution; three-fourths of which appeared at that time startling
paradoxes, although they have since been adopted even by men, who then
made use of them as proofs of my flighty and paradoxical turn of mind;
all tending to prove that Shakespeare's judgment was, if possible, still
more wonderful than his genius; or rather, that the contra-distinction
itself between judgment and genius rested on an utterly false theory.
This, and its proofs and grounds have been--I should not have said
adopted, but produced as their own legitimate children by some, and by
others the merit of them attributed to a foreign writer, whose lectures
were not given orally till two years after mine, rather than to their
countryman; though I dare appeal to the most adequate judges, as Sir
George Beaumont, the Bishop of Durham, Mr. Sotheby, and afterwards to
Mr. Rogers and Lord Byron, whether there is one single principle in
Schlegel's work (which is not an admitted drawback from its merits),
that was not established and applied in detail by me. Plutarch tells us,
that egotism is a venial fault in the unfortunate, and justifiable in
the calumniated, &c.[102]

* * * * *

Mr. Dykes Campbell thinks these letters to Mr. Britton refer to a course
projected to be given at the Russell Institution; but there is no
evidence that another Shakespeare course was delivered after that of
1818-19 (Dykes Campbell's _Life of Coleridge_, p. 240). Coleridge's
indebtedness to Kant, Lessing, Herder, Schiller, Jean Paul Richter, and
Augustus Schlegel is traced by Brandl (_Life of Coleridge_, pp.
296-322). Schlegel's Lectures were delivered in 1808, the same year as
Coleridge's first course. Coleridge did not peruse Schlegel's _Lectures_
till 1811; but as no full record of his Lectures of 1808 exist, the
original indebtedness of Coleridge to Schlegel cannot be determined.

During his stay at Highgate, Coleridge occasionally went to Ramsgate to
enjoy the seaside. The next letter was written on his return from one of
his visits to Ramsgate.

LETTER 176. TO ALLSOP

Highgate, Sept. 30th, 1819.

My dear Sir,

Returned from Ramsgate, I hasten to assure you that, next to seeing you,
I have pleasure in hearing from you: and wish the former in preference,
not merely from the greater mutual enjoyment, but likewise because one
can convey more, and with greater assurance of being understood, in an
hour, than one could write in a day. On the other hand, letters are more
permanent, and an epistolary correspondence more endearing, like all
marks of remembrance in absence.

My sentiments concerning the expediency, and both moral and intellectual
advantages, of a trade or profession, for such as fix their ultimate end
on objects nobler than trades or professions can bestow on the most
favoured of their followers, may be learnt from the eleventh chapter of
my _Literary Life_,[103] which, though addressed to a small and
particular class, yet permits a more general application. To you, my
dear young friend, I should say, temptations and preventives--the
poisons and the antidotes--are pretty evenly dispersed through all the
different accredited paths of life. Nay, those temptations which are
foreknown and foreseen as most appertinent to our particular calling,
are commonly least dangerous, or even cease to be temptations to a mind
forearmed by principles and aspirations like yours. The false step is
more likely to take place in the recoil than the advance; in the neglect
rather than in the too eager pursuit of the means; in under, rather than
over, valuing the advantages of wealth and worldly respectability. The
true plan on which you should regulate your conduct and feelings, (that
at least, which to me appears such) is the following. Propose to
yourself from the present hour such views of action and enjoyment, as
will make the leisure attached to independence, and honourably earned by
previous industry, the fair object of a wise man's efforts and a good
man's desires. Meantime, let the chosen _employments_ of the years in
_hope_ be the _relaxations_ of the time present, of the years devoted to
present duties, and, among these, to the means of realising that hope;
thus you will answer two great ends at once. Your inward trains of
thought, your faculties, and your feelings, will be preserved in a
fitness and, as it were, contempered to a life of ease, and capable of
enjoying leisure, because both able and disposed to _employ_ it.
Secondly, while you thus render future affluence more and more
desirable, you will at the same time prevent all undue impatience, and
disarm the temptation of poisoning the allotted interval by _anxieties_,
and anxious schemes and efforts to get rich _in haste_. There is yet one
other inducement to look on your existing appointment with complacency.
Every improvement in knowledge, and the moral power of wielding and
directing it, will _tell for more_,--have a wider and more benignant
influence,--than the same accomplishment would in a man who belonged to
one of the learned professions. Both your information and your example
will fall where they are most wanted, like the noiseless dews in Malta,
where rain comes seldom and no regular streams are to be met with. As to
your present studies, for such portions of your time as you can
prudently appropriate to reading, without wrong to the claims of health
and _social_ relaxation, there is one department of knowledge, which,
like an ample palace, contains within itself mansions for every other
knowledge; which deepens and extends the interest of every other, gives
it new charms and additional purpose; the study of which, rightly and
_liberally_ pursued, is beyond any other _entertaining_, beyond all
others tends at once to tranquillize and enliven, to keep the mind
elevated and steadfast, the heart humbler and tender: it is _biblical
theology_--the philosophy of religion, the religion of philosophy. I
would that I could refer you to any _book_ in which such a plan of
reading had been sketched out, in detail or even but generally.

Alas! I know of none. But most gladly will I make the attempt to supply
this desideratum by conversation, and then by letter. But of this when I
have next the pleasure of seeing you at Highgate.

You have perhaps heard that my publisher is a bankrupt.

* * * * *

All the profits from the sale of my writings, which I should have had,
and which, in spite of the accumulated disadvantages under which the
works were published, would have been considerable, I have lost; and not
only so, but have been obliged, at a sum larger than all the profits
made by my lectures, to purchase myself my own books and the half
copyrights. Well, I am now _sole_ proprietor, and representing my works
by cyphers, and the author by _I_, my emblem might be 00001. I have
withdrawn them from sale. This is rather hard, but perhaps my comet may
some time or other have its perihelion of popularity, and then the
_tail_, you know, whisks round to the other end; and for 00001, lo! and
behold, 10,000. Meantime, enough for me to thank God that, relatively to
my fellow men at least, I have been "sinned against, not sinning;" and
relatively to my Maker, these afflictions are but penances of mercy,
less than the least of my forfeitures.--I hope you will soon take
pot-luck with us.

Believe me, with esteem and regard, yours,
S. T. COLERIDGE.[104]
T. Allsop, Esq.

* * * * *

The bankrupt publishers referred to were Rest and Fenner, to whom
Coleridge had entrusted the publication of his works. The next letters
are about Cobbett, who was also a friend of Allsop.

LETTER 177. TO ALLSOP

Dec. 13th, 1819.
My dear Sir,

Accept my affectionate thanks; and, in mine, conceive those of my
housemates included. Would to heaven I had more than barren thanks to
offer you. If you, or rather your residence, were nearer to me, and I
could have more of your society, I should feel this the less. It was,
for me at least, unfortunate, that, almost every time you have been
here, I should have been engaged in the only way that I should have
suffered to be a pre-engagement, viz. the duties of friendship. These
are now discharged; and whenever you can give me a day, henceforward, I
shall have nothing to do but to enjoy it. I could not help "winning an
hour from the hard season," as Milton says, the day before yesterday, by
surrendering my reason to the detail of a day dream, as I was going
over, and after I had gone over, a very pretty house, with beautiful
garden and grounds, and a still more lovely prospect, at the moderate
rent of £60 and taxes proportionally low, discussing the question with
myself, as seriously as if it were actually to be decided, how far the
rising at eight, breakfasting, and riding, driving, or staging to
London, and returning by the stage or otherwise, would be advantageous
to your health; and then the ways and means of improving and enjoying
our Sundays, etc. All I can say in excuse of these air-built castles is,
that they bring with them no bills for brick and mortar, no quarrels
with the masons, no indignation at the deceits and lures of the
architects, surveyor, etc., when the final expense is found to treble
the amount of the well-paid and costly calculation: in short, that if
they do no honour to the head, they leave no harm in the heart. And
then, _poeta fuimus_: and the philosopher, though pressing with the
weight of an Etna, cannot prevent the poet from occasionally changing
sides, and manifesting his existence by smoke traversed by electrical
flashes from the crater.

Have you seen Cobbett's last number? It is the most _plausible_ and the
best written of anything I have seen from _his_ pen, and _apparently_
written in a less fiendish spirit than the average of his weekly
effusions. The self-complacency with which he assumes to himself
exclusively, truths which he can call his own only as a horse-stealer
can appropriate a stolen horse, by adding mutilation and deformities to
robbery, is as _artful_ as it is amusing. Still, however, he has given
great additional publicity to weighty truths, as _ex. gr._ the
hollowness of _commercial_ wealth; and from whatever dirty corner or
straw moppet the ventriloquist Truth causes her words to proceed, I not
only listen, but must bear witness that it is Truth talking. His
conclusions, however, are palpably absurd--give to an over-peopled
island the countless back settlements of America, and countless balloons
to carry thither man and maid, wife and brat, beast and baggage--and
then we might rationally expect that a general crash of trade,
manufactures, and credit, might be as mere a summer thunderstorm in
Great Britain as he represents it to be in America.

One deep, most deep, impression of melancholy, did Cobbett's letter to
Lord Liverpool leave on my mind,--the conviction that, wretch as he is,
he is an overmatch in intellect for those, in whose hands Providence, in
its retributive justice, seems to place the destinies of our country;
and who yet rise into respectability, when we compare them with their
parliamentary opponents.

I am commanded to add an especial request, that it may not be long
before you make yourself visible on the banks of Lake Superior.

Ever, my dear sir
Yours faithfully and affectionately,
S. T. COLERIDGE.[105]
T. Allsop, Esq.

LETTER 178. TO ALLSOP

20th March, 1820.

My dear Sir,

You must have thought it strange that I had taken no notice of so kind a
letter from you; but the truth is, I received the little packet
supposing it to contain the Cobbett only, put it in my pocket for my
reading at a leisure hour, and had not opened it until the day before I
last saw you. Within a few days, I hope to lay myself open to you in an
express letter; till when, I can only say, that the affectionate
interest you have taken in my well-being, has been not only a comfort
but a spur, when I needed both, and was almost yielding at times to the
apprehension, that I had sacrificed all that the world holds precious,
without being able to do any effective good in a higher and nobler
kind. I have sent the three volumes of the _Friend_, with my MS.
corrections, and additions. The largest, that towards the end of the
last _philosophical_ essay in the third volume, had a two-fold
object--to guard my own character from the suspicion of pantheistic
opinions, or Spinozism (it _was_ written, though not so much at large,
before the work was printed, and omitted by wilfulness, or such
carelessness as does not fall far short of it); and next, to impress, as
far as I could, the conviction that true philosophy, so far from having
any tendency to unsettle the _principles_ of faith, that may and ought
to be common to all men, does itself actually require them as its
premises; nay, that it supposes them as its ground.--I was highly
gratified to hear, and from such a man too as Mr. John Hookham Frere,
that a man of rank, and of a highly cultivated mind, who had become
reluctantly a sceptic, or something more, respecting the Christian
religion, wholly in consequence of studying Leland, Lardner, Watson,
Paley, and other defenders of the Gospel on the strength of the
_ex_ternal evidences--not of Christianity, but of the miracles with
which its first preaching was accompanied--and of having been taught to
regard the arguments, and mode of proof adopted in the works above
mentioned, as the only rational ones, had read the _Friend_ with great
attention, and when he came to the passage in which I had explained the
nature of miracles, their necessary dependence on a credible religion
for their own credibility, etc., dropped the book (as he himself
informed Mr. Frere), and exclaimed, "Thank God! I can still believe in
the Gospel--I can yet be a Christian." The remark that a miracle,
divested of all connection with a doctrine, is identical with
witchcraft, which in all ages has been regarded with instinctive horror
by the human mind, and the reference to our Lord's own declarations
concerning miracles, were among the passages that particularly impressed
his mind.

I should have sent a corrected copy of the _Sibylline Leaves_; but for a
two-legged little _accident_ having torn out two leaves at the
beginning, and I will no longer delay this parcel, but will transcribe
at another time what I had written in them, and I hope it will not be
long before you let us see you. The people here are occupied in raising
and distributing relief for the poor of the hamlet. On the first day
there were seven hundred and fifty applicants to whom small sums were
given! It would be most un-Christian moroseness not to feel delight in
the unwearied zeal with which every mode and direction of charity is
supported; and I hope that this is a sunshiny spot in our national
character, and that this virtue will suspend the judgments that threaten
the land. But it would, on the other hand, be wilful blindness not to
see that the lower orders become more and more improvident in
consequence, more and more exchange the sentiments of Englishmen for the
feelings of Lazzaroni.

God bless you; and, S. T. COLERIDGE.

P.S.--Charles and Mary Lamb dined with us on Sunday.

When I next see you, that excellent brother and sister will supply me
with half an hour's interesting conversation. When you know the _whole_
of him, you will love him in spite of all oddities and even faults--nay,
I had almost said, _for_ them--_at least_, admire that under his
visitations they were so few and of so little importance. Thank God, his
circumstances are comfortable; and so they ought, for he has been in the
India House since his fourteenth year.

* * * * *

I have subjoined the MS. addition mentioned above, and should wish you
to read it with great care and attention in its proper place; which is,
after the word "vacuum," in page 263, vol. iii of the _Friend_.[106]

If we thoughtfully review the course of argument pursued, we shall
rest in the following as our sum and ultimatum. The dialectic
intellect, by exertion of its own powers exclusively, may enable us to
affirm the reality of an absolute Being, generally. But here it stops.
It can command neither insight nor conviction concerning the existence
(or even the possibility) of the world as distinct and different from
Deity. It finds itself constrained to confound the Creator with the
creation; and then, cutting the knot it cannot solve, merges the
latter in the former, and denies reality to all finite existence. But
here the philosophiser is condemned to meet with his sure confutation
in his own secret dissatisfaction, and is forced at length to shelter
himself from his own importunate queries in the wretched evasion, that
of Nothings no solution can be required. Wretched indeed, and weak as
desperate! Nature herself--his own inevitable Nature--through every
organ of sense, compels his own abused reason to reiterate the demand:
How and whence did this sterile Nothing split or multiply into
_plurality_? Whence this portentous transnihilation of Nothing into
Nothings? What, above all, is that inward mirror, the human mind, in
and for which these Nothings possess at least a relative existence? Or
dost thou wait till, with a more bitter irony, Pain and Anguish and
Remorse ask thee, Are WE too Nothings?

O youthful reader! (for such _The Friend_ dares anticipate), thou,
that in my mind's eye, standest beside me, like my own youth! Fresh
and keen as the morning Hunter in the pursuit of Truth, glad and
restless in the feeling of mental growth! O learn early, that if the
Head be the Light of the Heart, the Heart is the Life of the Head:
yea, that Consciousness itself, that Consciousness of which all
reasoning is the varied modification, is but the Reflex of the
Conscience when most luminous; and too often a fatuous vapour, a
warmthless bewildering mockery of Light, exhaled from its corruption
or stagnation. Mark the inevitable result of all _consequent_
reasoning, when the intellect refuses to acknowledge a higher and
deeper ground than itself can supply, and weens to possess within
itself the centre of its own system! From Zeno the Eleatic to Spinoza,
and from Spinoza to Schelling, Oken, and the German
"_Natur-philosophen_" of the present day, the Result has been, and
ever must be, PANTHEISM, under some one or other of its modes or
disguises: and it is of awful importance to the speculative Inquirer
to be aware, that the seemliest of these modes differs from the most
repulsive, not in its consequences, which in all alike are Atheistic,
but only as far as it evinces the efforts of the individual to hide
these consequences from his own consciousness.

This, then, I again repeat, is our ultimate conclusion. All
_speculative_ disquisition must begin with _Postulates_, authorised
and substantiated by the conscience exclusively. From whatever point
the reason may start, whether from the _Things that are seen_ to the
One Invisible, or from the idea of the ABSOLUTE ONE to the _things
that are seen_, it will in either case find a chasm, which the moral
being, the _spirit_ and the _religion_ of man, can alone fill up or
overbridge. "THE LIFE IS THE LIGHT OF MAN:" and "WE LIVE BY FAITH."

LETTER 179. TO ALLSOP

Highgate, April 10th, 1820.

My dear Friend,

May I venture to obtrude on you what I cannot intrust to a messenger,
much less to the post. Sackville-street is not I hope more than fifteen
or twenty minutes' walk from your house. It is to inquire if Mr.
Caldwell is _in town_; if he be, then to leave the letter, and that is
all; but if not, to learn whether he is at his living, and if so, then
to transfer his present address to the letter, and put it into the
nearest General Post Office box. It is of serious importance to Derwent
that the inclosed should reach Mr. Caldwell with as little delay as
possible, or I need not say that I should not have taxed your time and
kindness merely to make a letter-carrier of you.

On Saturday evening I received a note from Mathews, which I have
inclosed. I took it very kind of him; but to obtrude myself on Walter
Scott, _nolentem volentem_, and within a furlong of my own abode, as he
knows (for Mr. Frere told him my address), was a liberty I had no right
to take; and though it would have highly gratified me to have conversed
with a brother bard, and to have renewed on the mental retina the image
of, perhaps, the most extraordinary man, assuredly the most
_extraordinary_ writer, of his age, yet I dared not purchase the
gratification at so high a price as that of risking the respect which I
trust has not hitherto been forfeited by,

My dear friend,
Your obliged and very affectionate friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
T. Allsop, Esq.

P.S. I had not the least expectation, yet I could not suppress a sort of
fluttering hope, that my letter might have reached you on Saturday
night, and that you might be disengaged and turn your walk
Highgate-ward. You will be delighted with the affectionate attachment of
the two brothers to each other, the boyish high spirits with manly
independence of intellect, and, in one word, with the simplicity which
is their nature, and the common _ground_ on which the differences of
their mind and characters (for no two can be more distinct) shoot and
play. When I say that nothing can exceed their fondness for their
father, I need not add that they are impatient to be introduced to you.
And I can offer no better testimony of the rank you hold in my bosom, my
dear Allsop, than the gladness with which I anticipate their becoming
your _friends_, in the noblest sense of the word. Would to Heaven their
dear sister were with us, the cup of paternal joy would be full to the
brim! The rapture with which both Hartley and Derwent talk of her, quite
affects Mrs. Gillman, who has always felt with a sort of lofty yet
refined enthusiasm respecting the relations of an only sister to her
brothers. Of all women I ever knew, Mrs. G. is the woman who seems to
have been framed by Nature for a heroine in that rare species of love
which subsists in a tri-unity of the heart, the moral sense, and the
faculty, corresponding to what Spurzheim calls the organ of _ideality_.
What in other women is _refinement_ exists in her as by implication,
and, _à fortiori_, in a native _fineness_ of character. She often
represents to my mind the best parts of the Spanish Santa Teresa,
ladyhood of nature.

_Vexation!_ and Mrs. Gillman has this moment burnt Mathews' note. The
purport, however, was as follows:--"I have just received a note from
Terry, informing me that Sir Walter Scott will call upon me to-morrow
morning (_i.e._ Sunday) at half-past eleven. Will you contrive to be
here at the same time? Perhaps the promise of your company may induce
Sir Walter to appoint a day on which he will dine with me before he
returns to the north."

Now as Scott had asked Terry for my address on his first arrival in
town, it is not _impossible_, though not very probable, that Terry may
have said--"You will meet Coleridge at Mathews's," though I was not
entitled to presume this. The bottom of all this, my dear friend, is
neither more nor less than as follows:--I seem to feel that I _ought_ to
feel more desire to see an extraordinary man than I really do feel; and
I do not wish to appear to two or three persons (as the Mr. Freres,
William Rose, etc.), as if I cherished any dislike to Scott respecting
the _Christabel_, and generally an increasing dislike to appear out of
the common and natural mode of thinking and acting. All this is, I own,
sad weakness, but I am weary of _dyspathy_.

* * * * *

It will be seen from the postscript of the last letter that Hartley and
Derwent, Coleridge's sons, were on a visit to Highgate.]

FOOTNOTES:

[98] [Letters CCXIX-CCXXI follow 170.]

[99] [Letter CCXXII follows 172.]

[100] [Wordsworth.]

[101] [CCXXIII is our 173, CCXXIV follows.]

[102] [Letter CCXXV follows 175.]

[103] [_Biographia Literaria_.]

[104] [Letter CCXXVI follows 176.]

[105] [Letter CCXXVII follows 177.]

[106] [Bohn Library edition of the _Friend_, p. 344.]

CHAPTER XXIV

SIR WALTER SCOTT

[Coleridge and Sir Walter Scott met at least three times during their
lives, once in 1807,[107] once in 1820, and again in 1828. Sir Walter
was cognizant of the genius of Coleridge both as the author of
_Christabel_ and of the translation of _Wallenstein_, which he praised
highly; and he had on the last occasion of their meeting to acknowledge
Coleridge's extraordinary colloquial power. His tribute to the genius of
Coleridge is well known to readers of Lockhart's _Life of Scott_. The
next letter to Allsop contains Coleridge's estimate of Scott. No greater
contrast than Scott and Coleridge as literary men, the two greatest,
with the exception of Goethe, of their generation, could be conceived.
Scott, successful, the darling of the hour, reaping thousands of pounds
for his literary output and almost unable to keep pace with the demand
for his creations; Coleridge, always unable to obtain anything like
remuneration for his more profound and original work, and never the
possessor in advance of £50 which he could call his own. And yet, both
were the victims of a fate which seemed to brood over them; and, after
all, it is difficult to say from a worldly point of view which was
really the more successful, the creator of a whole gallery of characters
known throughout Anglo-Saxondom as household beings, or the other the
disseminator of the most fruitful ideas in all departments of human
thought.

LETTER 180. TO ALLSOP

Highgate, April 8th, 1820.[108]

My dear Friend,

It is not the least advantage of friendship, that by communicating our
thoughts to another, we render them distinct to ourselves, and reduce
the subjects of our sorrow and anxiety to their just magnitude for our
own contemplation.

As long as we inly brood over a misfortune (there being no divisions or
separate circumscriptions in things of mind, no _proper_ beginning nor
ending to any thought, on the one hand; and, on the other, the
confluence of our recollections being determined far more by sameness or
similarity of the feelings that have been produced by them, than by any
positive resemblance or connection between the things themselves that
are thus recalled to our attention) we establish a centre, as it were, a
sort of nucleus in the reservoir of the soul; and toward this, needle
shoots after needle, cluster points on cluster points, from all parts of
contained fluid, and in all directions, till the mind with its best
faculties is locked up in one ungenial frost. I cannot adequately
express the state of feeling in which I wrote my last letter; the letter
itself, I doubt not, bore evidence of its _nest_ and mode of incubation,
as certain birds and lizards drag along with them part of the egg-shells
from which they had forced their way. Still one good end was answered. I
had made a clearance, so far as to have my head in light and my eyes
open; and your answer, every way worthy of you, has removed the rest.

But before I enter on this subject, permit me to refer to some points of
_comparative_ indifference, lest I should forget them altogether. I
occasioned you to misconceive me respecting Sir Walter Scott. My purpose
was to bring proofs of the energetic or inenergetic state of the minds
of men, induced by the excess and unintermitted action of stimulating
events and circumstances,--revolutions, battles, _newspapers_, mobs,
sedition and treason trials, public harangues, meetings, dinners; the
necessity in every individual of ever increasing activity and anxiety in
the improvement of his estate, trade, etc., in proportion to the
decrease of the actual value of money, to the multiplication of
competitors, and to the almost compulsory expedience of expense, and
prominence, even as the means of obtaining or retaining competence; the
consequent craving after amusement as proper _relaxation_, as _rest_
freed from the tedium of vacancy; and, again, after such knowledge and
such acquirements as are _ready coin_, that will pass _at once_,
unweighed and unassayed; to the unexampled facilities afforded for this
end by reviews, magazines, etc., etc. The theatres, to which few go to
see _a play_, but to see Master Betty or Mr. Kean, or some one
individual in some _one_ part: and the single fact that our neighbour,
Mathews, has taken more, night after night, than both the regular
theatres conjointly, and when the best comedies or whole plays have been
acted at each house, and those by excellent comedians, would have
yielded a striking instance, and illustration of my position. But I
chose an example in literature, as more in point for the subject of my
particular remarks, and because every man of genius, who is born for his
age, and capable of acting _immediately_ and widely on that age, must of
necessity _reflect_ the age in the first instance, though as far as he
is a man of genius, he will doubtless be himself reflected by it
reciprocally. Now I selected Scott for the very reason, that I do hold
him for a man of _very extraordinary_ powers; and when I say that I
have read the far greater part of his novels twice, and several three
times over, with undiminished pleasure and interest; and that, in my
reprobation of the _Bride of Lammermoor_ (with the exception, however,
of the almost Shakspearian old witch-wives at the funeral) and of the
_Ivanhoe_, I mean to imply the grounds of my admiration of the others,
and the permanent nature of the interest which they excite. In a word, I
am far from thinking that _Old Mortality_ or _Guy Mannering_ would have
been less admired in the age of Sterne, Fielding, and Richardson, than
they are in the present times; but only that Sterne, etc., would not
have had the same _immediate_ popularity in the present day as in their
own less stimulated and, therefore, less languid reading world.

Of Sir Walter Scott's poems I cannot speak so highly, still less of the
Poetry in his _Poems_; though even in these the power of presenting the
most numerous figures, and figures with the most complex movements, and
under rapid succession, in _true picturesque unity_, attests true and
peculiar genius. You cannot imagine with how much pain I used, many
years ago, to hear ----'s contemptuous assertions respecting Scott; and
if I mistake not, I have yet the fragments of the rough draft of a
letter written by me so long ago as my first lectures at the London
Philosophical Society, Fetter Lane, and on the backs of the unused
admission tickets.

One more remark. My criticism was _confined_ to the one point of the
higher degree of intellectual activity implied in the reading and
admiration of Fielding, Richardson, and Sterne;--in moral, or, if that
be too high and inwardly a word, in _mannerly_ manliness of taste the
present age and its _best_ writers have the decided advantage, and I
sincerely trust that Walter Scott's readers would be as little disposed
to relish the stupid lechery of the courtship of Widow Wadman, as Scott
himself would be capable of presenting it. And, that though I cannot
pretend to have found in any of these novels a character that even
approaches in genius, in truth of conception, or boldness and freshness
of execution, to Parson Adams, Blifil, Strap, Lieutenant Bowling, Mr.
Shandy, Uncle Toby and Trim, and Lovelace; and though Scott's _female_
characters will not, even the very best, bear a comparison with Miss
Byron, Clementina Emily, in Sir Charles Grandison; nor the comic ones
with Tabitha Bramble, or with Betty (in Mrs. Bennet's _Beggar Girl_);
and though, by the use of the Scotch dialect, by Ossianic mock-highland
motley-heroic, and by extracts from the printed sermons, memoirs, etc.,
of the fanatic preachers, there is a good deal of _false effect_ and
stage trick: still the number of characters _so good_ produced by one
man, and in so rapid a succession, must ever remain an illustrious
phenomenon in literature, after all the subtractions for those borrowed
from English and German sources, or compounded by blending two or three
of the old drama into one--_ex. gr._ the Caleb in the _Bride of
Lammermoor_.

Scott's great merit, and, at the same time, his _felicity_, and the true
solution of the long-sustained _interest_ novel after novel excited, lie
in the nature of the subject; not merely, or even chiefly, because the
struggle between the Stuarts and the Presbyterians and sectaries, is
still in lively memory, and the passions of the adherency to the former,
if not the adherency itself, extant in our own fathers' or grandfathers'
times; nor yet (though this is of great weight) because the language,
manners, etc., introduced are sufficiently different from our own for
_poignancy_, and yet sufficiently near and similar for sympathy; nor yet
because, for the same reason, the author, speaking, reflecting, and
descanting in his own person, remains still (to adopt a painter's
phrase) in sufficient _keeping_ with his subject matter, while his
characters can both talk and feel interesting to _us_ as men, without
recourse to _antiquarian_ interest, and nevertheless without moral
anachronism (in all which points the _Ivanhoe_ is so wofully the
contrary, for what Englishman cares for Saxon or Norman, both brutal
invaders, more than for Chinese and Cochin-Chinese?)--yet great as all
these causes are, the essential wisdom and happiness of the subject
consists in this,--that the contest between the loyalists and their
opponents can never be _obsolete_, for it is the contest between the two
great moving principles of social humanity; religious adherence to the
past and the ancient, the desire and the admiration of permanence, on
the one hand; and the passion for increase of knowledge, for truth, as
the offspring of reason--in short, the mighty instincts of _progression_
and _free agency_, on the other. In all subjects of deep and lasting
interest, you will detect a struggle between two opposites, two polar
forces, both of which are alike necessary to our human well-being, and
necessary each to the continued existence of the other. Well, therefore,
may we contemplate with intense feelings those whirlwinds which are for
free agents the appointed means, and the only possible condition of that
equilibrium in which our moral Being subsists; while the disturbance of
the same constitutes our sense of life. Thus in the ancient Tragedy, the
lofty struggle between irresistible fate, and unconquerable free will,
which finds its equilibrium in the Providence and the future retribution
of Christianity. If, instead of a contest between Saxons and Normans, or
the Fantees and Ashantees,--a mere contest of indifferents! of minim
surges in a boiling fish-kettle,--Walter Scott had taken the struggle
between the men of arts and the men of arms in the time of Becket, and
made us feel how much to claim our well-wishing there was in the cause
and character of the priestly and papal party, no less than in those of
Henry and his knights, he would have opened a new mine, instead of
translating into Leadenhall Street Minerva Library sentences, a cento of
the most common incidents of the stately self-congruous romances of
D'Urfe, Scuderi, etc. N.B. I have not read the _Monastery_, but I
suspect that the thought or element of the faery work is from the
German. I perceive from that passage in the _Old Mortality_, where
Morton is discovered by old Alice in consequence of calling his dog
Elphin, that Walter Scott has been reading Tieck's _Phantasies_ (a
collection of faery or witch tales), from which both the incident and
name is borrowed.

I forget whether I ever mentioned to you, that some eighteen months ago
I had planned and half collected, half manufactured and invented a work,
to be entitled _The Weather_-BOUND _Traveller_; or, Histories, Lays,
Legends, Incidents, Anecdotes, and Remarks, contributed during a
detention in one of the Hebrides, recorded by their Secretary, Lory
McHaroldson, Senachy in the Isle of ----.

The principle of the work I had thus expressed in the first
chapter:--"Though not _fact_, must it needs be false? These things have
a truth of their own, if we but knew how to look for it. There is a
_humanity_ (meaning by this word whatever contradistinguishes man),
there is a humanity common to all periods of life, which each _period_
from childhood has its own way of representing. Hence, in whatever laid
firm hold of us in early life, there lurks an interest and a charm for
our maturest years,[109] but which _he_ will never draw forth, who,
content with mimicking the unessential, though natural defects of
thought and expression, has not the skill to remove the _childish_, yet
leave the _childlike_ untouched. Let each of us then relate that which
has left the deepest impression on his mind, at whatever period of his
life he may have seen, heard, or read it; but let him tell it in
accordance with the _present state_ of his intellect and feelings, even
as he has, perhaps (Alnaschar-like), acted it over again by the parlour
fire-side of a rustic inn, with the fire and the candles for his only
companions."

On the hope of my Lectures answering, I had intended to have done this
work out of hand, dedicating the most genial hours to the completion of
_Christabel_, in the belief that in the former I should be rekindling
the feeling, and recalling the state of mind, suitable to the
latter.--But the Hope was vain.

In stating the names and probable size of my works, I by no means meant
any reference to the mode of their publication; I merely wished to
communicate to you the amount of my labours. In two moderate volumes it
was my intention to comprise all those more prominent and systematic
parts of my lucubrations on Shakspeare as should be published (in the
first instance at least, in the form of books), and having selected and
arranged them, to send the more particular illustrations and analysis to
some respectable magazine. In like manner, I proposed to include the
philosophical critiques on Dante, Milton, Cervantes, etc., in a series
of Letters entitled _The Reviewer in Exile, or Critic confined to an Old
Library_. Provided the truths (which are, I dare affirm, original, and
all tending to the same principles, and proving the endless fertility of
true principle, and the decision and power of growth which it
communicates to all the faculties of the mind) are but in existence, and
to be read by such as might wish to read, I have no choice as to the
mode; nay, I should prefer that mode which most multiplied the
chances.--So too as to the order.--For _many_ reasons, it had been my
wish to commence with the _Theological Letters_: one, and not the least,
is the strong desire I have to put you and Hartley and Derwent Coleridge
in full possession of my whole Christian creed, with the grounds of
reason and authority on which it rests; but especially to unfold the
true "glorious liberty of the Gospel," by showing the distinction
between doctrinal faith and its sources and historical belief, with
their reciprocal action on each other; and thus, on the one hand, to do
away (with) the servile superstition which makes men _Bibliolators_, and
yet hides from them the proper excellences, the one continued revelation
of the Bible documents, which they idolise; and, on the other hand, to
expose, in its native worthlessness, the so-called evidences of
Christianity first brought into _toleration_ by Arminius, and into
fashion by Grotius and the Socinian divines; for as such I consider all
those who preach and teach in the spirit of Socinianism, though even in
the outward form of a defence of the thirty-nine articles.

I have been interrupted by the arrival of my sons, Hartley and Derwent,
the latter of whom I had not seen for so dreary a time. I promise myself
great pleasure in introducing him to you. Hartley you have already met.
Indeed, I am so desirous of this, that I will defer what I have to add,
that I may put this letter in the post, time enough for you to receive
it this evening; saying only, that it was not my purpose to have had any
further communication on the subject but with Mr. Frere, and with him
only as a counsellor. Let me see you as soon as you can and as often. I
shall be better able hereafter to talk with you than to write to you on
the contents of your last.

Your very affectionate friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.[110]
T. Allsop, Esq.

* * * * *

Hartley Coleridge had been sent by the generosity of his uncles and
Poole, and other friends, to Oxford, and had gained a Fellowship at
Oriel in 1819; but at the close of his probationary year forfeited his
fellowship on the ground of intemperance. This calamity fell upon
Coleridge with great severity. The following letters refer to it.

LETTER 181. TO ALLSOP

31st July, 1820.

My very dear Friend,

Before I opened your letter, or rather before I gave it to my best
sister, and, under God, best comforter, to open, a very heavy affliction
came upon me with all the aggravations of surprise, sudden as a peal of
thunder from a cloudless sky.[111]

* * * * *

Alas! both Mr. and Mrs. Gillman had spoken to him with all the
earnestness of the fondest parents; his cousins had warned him, and I
(long ago) had written to him, conjuring him to reflect with what a
poisoned dagger it would arm my enemies: yea, and the phantoms that,
half-_counterfeiting_, half-expounding the conscience, would persecute
my sleep. My conscience indeed bears me witness, that from the time I
quitted Cambridge, no human being was more indifferent to the pleasures
of the table than myself, or less needed any stimulation to my spirits;
and that by a most unhappy quackery, after having been almost bedrid for
six months with swollen knees and other distressing symptoms of
disordered digestive functions, and through that most pernicious form of
ignorance, medical half-knowledge, I was _seduced_ into the use of
narcotics, not secretly, but (such was my ignorance) openly and
exultingly, as one who had discovered and was never weary of
recommending, a grand panacea and saw not the truth till my _body_ had
contracted a habit and a necessity; and that, even to the latest, my
responsibility is for cowardice, and defect of fortitude, not for the
least craving after gratification or pleasurable sensation of any sort,
but for yielding to pain, terror, and haunting bewilderment. But this I
say to _man_ only, who knows only what has been yielded not what has
been resisted: before God I have but one voice--"Mercy! mercy! woe is
me."--This was the sin of his nature, and this has been fostered by the
culpable indulgence, at least non-interference, on my part; while, in a
different quarter, contempt of the self-_interest_ he saw seduced him
unconsciously into _selfishness_.

Pray for me, my dear friend, that I may not pass such another night as
the last. While I am awake and retain my reasoning powers, the pang is
gnawing, but I am, except for a fitful moment or two, tranquil; it is
the howling wilderness of sleep that I dread.

I am most reluctant thus to transplant the thorns from my own pillow to
yours, but sooner or later you must know it, and how else could I
explain to you the incapability I am under of answering your letter? For
the present (my late visitation and sorrow out of the question) my
anxiety is respecting your health. Mr. Gillman feels satisfied that
there is nothing in your case symptomatic of aught more dangerous than
irritable, and at present disordered, organs of digestion, requiring
indeed great care, but by no means incompatible with comfortable health
on the whole. Would to God! that your uncle lived near Highgate, or that
we were settled near Clapham. Most anxious am I--(for I am sure I do not
_over_rate Gillman's medical skill and sound medical good sense, and
have had every possible opportunity of satisfying myself on this head,
_comparatively_ as well as positively, from my intimate acquaintance
with so many medical men in the course of my life)--I am most anxious
that you should not apply to any medical practitioner at Clapham, till
you have consulted some physician recommended by Gillman, and with whom
our friend might have some confidential conversation.--The next earnest
petition I make to you,--for should I lose _you_ from this world, I fear
that religious terrors would shake my strength of mind, and to how many
are you, must you be, very dear,--is that you would stay in the country
as long as is _morally_ practicable. Let nothing but _coercive_ motives
have weight with you; a month's tranquillity in pure air (O! that I
could spend that month with you, with no greater efforts of mental or
bodily exercise than would exhilarate both body and mind) might save you
many months' interrupted and half-effective labour.

If any thoughts occur to you at Clapham on which it would amuse or
gratify you to have my notions, write to me, and I shall be served by
having something to think and write about not connected with myself.
But, at all events, write as often as you can, and as much as (but not a
syllable more than) you ought. Need I say how unspeakably dear you are
to your, you must not refuse me to say in heart,

S. T. COLERIDGE.
T. Allsop, Esq.

LETTER 182. TO ALLSOP

August 8th, 1820.

My very Dear Friend,

Neither indolence nor procrastination have had any place among the
causes of my silence, least of all either yourself, or the subject of
your letter, or the purpose of answering it, having been absent from my
thoughts. You may with almost literal truth attribute it to want of
time, from the number, quantity, and quality of my engagements, the
necessity of several journeys _to_ and (still worse) _in_ town being
the largest waster of time and spirits. At length I have settled J. for
the next six or eight weeks with Mr. Montague, where he is engaged on an
_Essay on the Principles of Taste in relation to Metre and Rhythm_,
containing, first, a new scheme of prosody, as applied to the choral and
lyrical stanzas of the Greek drama; secondly, the possibility of
improving and enriching our English versification by digging in the
original mines, viz.--the tunes of nature and impassioned conversation,
both of which may be illustrated from Mr. Frere's _Aristophanic Poems_.
I have been working hard to bring together for him the notes, etc., that
I had prepared on this subject. E. has been ill, and even now is far
from well. There are some persons--I have known several--who, when they
find themselves uncomfortable, take up the pen and transfer as much
discomfort as they can to their absent friends. But I know only one of
this sort, who, as soon as they take up the pen, instantly become
_dolorous_, however smug, snug, and cheerful the minute before and the
minute after.

Now just such is Mrs. D., God bless her! and she has been writing letter
after letter to E. about J., and every discomfortable recollection and
anticipation that she could conjure up, that she has completely overset
him. _This must not be._ Mr. Gillman, too, has been _out_ of _sorts_,
but at this present we are all better. I at least am as well as I ever
am, and my regular employment, in which Mr. Green is weekly my
amanuensis, the work on the books of the Old and New Testaments
introduced by the assumptions and postulates required as the
pre-conditions of a fair examination of Christianity as a scheme of
doctrines, precepts, and histories, drawn or at least deducible from
these books. And now, in the narrative line, I have only to add that
Mrs. Gillman desires to be affectionately remembered to you, and bids me
entreat you to stay _away as long_ as you possibly can, provided it be
from _London_ as well as from Highgate.

Would to heaven I were with you! In a few days you should see that the
spirit of the mountaineer is not yet utterly extinct in me. Wordsworth
has remarked (in the _Brothers_, I believe),

The thought of death sits light upon the man
That has been bred, and dies among the mountains.

But I fear that this, like some other few of Wordsworth's _many_
striking passages, means less than it seems, or rather promises to mean.
Poets (especially if philosophers too) are apt to represent the effect
made upon themselves as general; the geese of Phœbus are all swans;
and Wordsworth's shepherds and estates men are Wordsworth's, even (as in
old Michael) in the unpoetic traits of character. Whether mountains have
any particular effect on the native inhabitants by virtue of being
mountains exclusively, and what that effect is, would be a difficult
problem. If independent tribes, mountaineers are robbers of the
lowlanders; brave, active, and with all the usual warlike good and bad
qualities that result from habits of adventurous robbery. Add clanship
and the superstitions that are the surviving _precipitate_ of an
established religion, both which are common to the uncivilised Celtic
tribes, in plain no less than in mountain, and you have the Scottish
Highlanders. But where the inhabitants exist as states, or civilised
parts of civilised states, they appear to be in mind and character just
what their condition and employments would render them in level plain,
the same as amid Alpine heights. At least the influence acts indirectly
only, as far as the mountains are the _causa causæ_ or occasion of a
_pastoral_ life instead of an agricultural; thus combining a lax and
common property, possessed by a whole district, with small hereditary
estates sacred to each, while the properties in sheep seem to partake of
both characters. And truly, to this circumstance, aided by the
favourable action of a necessarily scanty population (for _man_ is an
oak that wants room, not a _plantation tree_), we must attribute
whatever superiority the mountaineers of Cumberland and Westmoreland and
of the Swiss and Tyrolese Alps possess, as the shocking contrast of the
Welsh mountaineers too clearly evinces. But this subject I have
discussed, and (if I do not flatter myself) satisfactorily, in the
Literary Life, and I will not conceal from _you_ that this inferred
dependency of the human soul on accidents of birth-place and abode,
together with the vague, misty, rather than mystic, confusion of God
with the world, and the accompanying nature-worship, of which the
asserted dependence forms a part, is the trait in Wordsworth's poetic
works that I most dislike as unhealthful, and denounce as contagious;
while the odd introduction of the popular, almost the vulgar, religion
in his later publications (the popping in, as Hartley says, of the old
man with a beard), suggests the painful suspicion of worldly
prudence--at best a justification of masking truth (which, in fact, is a
falsehood substituted for a truth withheld) on plea of
expediency--carried into religion. At least it conjures up to my fancy a
sort of _Janus_ head of Spinoza and Dr. Watts, or "I and my brother the
dean."

Permit me, then, in the place of the two lines,

The thought of death sits easy on the man,
Who hath been bred, and dies among the mountains,

to say,

The thought of death sits easy on the man,
Whose earnest _will_ hath lived among the deathless.

And I can perhaps build upon this foundation an answer to the question,
which would deeply interest me, by whomever put, and pained me only
because it was put by _you_; _i.e._ because I feared it might be the
inspiration of ill health, and am jealous of any _consenting_ of that
inward will which, with some mysterious germination, moves in the
Bethesda pool of our animal life, to withdraw its resistance. For the
soul, among its other regalia, has an energetic veto against all
undermining of the constitution, and among these, as not the least
insidious, I consider the thoughts and hauntings that tamper with the
love of life.

Do not so! you _would not_, if I could transfer into you, in all its
depth and liveliness, the sense what a hope, promise, impulse, you are
to me in my present efforts to realise my past labours; and by building
up the temple,--the shaped stones, beams, pillars, yea, the graven
ornaments and the connecting clamps of which have been piled up by me,
only in too great abundance,--to enable you and my two (may I not say
other) sons to affirm,--_Vivit, quia non frustra vixit._

In reading an extract in the German Encyclopædia from Dobrizhoffer's
most interesting account of the Abiponenses, a savage tribe in Paraguay,
houseless, yet in person and in morals the noblest of savage tribes;
who, when first known by Europeans, amounted to 100,000 warriors, yet
have a tradition that they were but the relic of a far more numerous
community, and who by wars with other savage tribes, and by intestine
feuds among themselves, are now dwindled to a thousand (men, women, and
children do not exceed five thousand), it struck me with distinct
remembrance--first, that this is the history of _all_ savages tribes;
and, second, that all tribes _are_ savage that have not a positive
religion defecated from witchcraft, and an established priesthood
contra-distinguished from individual conjurers. Nay, the islands of the
Pacific (the Polynesia, which sooner or later the swift and silent
masonry of the coral worms will compact into a rival continent, into a
_fifth quarter_ of the world), blest with all the plenties of nature,
and enjoying an immunity from all the ordinary dangers of savage life,
were many of them utterly dispeopled since their first discovery, and
wholly by their own feuds and vices; nay, that their bread-fruit tree
and their delicious and healthful climate had only made the process of
mutual destruction and self-destruction more hateful, more basely
sensual. This, therefore, I assume as an undoubted fact of history; and
from this, as a portion of the history of _men_, I draw a new (to my
knowledge, at least, a new) series of proofs of several, I _might_ say
of _all_, the positions of pre-eminent importance and interest more than
vital; a series which, taken in harmonious counterpart to a prior series
drawn from _interior_ history (the history of _man_), the documents of
which are to be found only in the archives of each individual's own
consciousness, will form a complete _whole_--a system of evidence,
consisting of two correspondent worlds, as it were, correlative and
mutually potentiating, yet each integral and self-subsistent--having the
same correlation, as the geometry and the observations, or the
metaphysics and the physics, of astronomy. If I can thus demonstrate the
truth of the doctrine of existence after the present life, it is not
improbable that some rays of light may fall on the question, what
_state_ of existence it may be reasonably supposed to be? At all events,
we shall, I trust, be enabled to determine negatively, what it can _not_
be for _any_; and _for whom_ this or that, which does not appear
universally precluded, is yet _for them_ precluded. In plainer words,
what can _not_ be, universally speaking; second, what may be; third,
what the differences may be for different individuals, within the limits
prescribed in No. 2; fourth, what scheme of embodied representation of
the future state (our _reason_ not forbidding the same) is recommended
by the truest analogies; and, fifth, what scheme it is best to combine
with our belief of a hereafter, as most conducive to the growth and
cultivation of our collective faculties in this life, or of each in the
order of its comparative worth, value, and permanence. This I must defer
to another letter, for I cannot let another post pass by, without your
knowing that we are all thinking of and loving you.

S. T. COLERIDGE.
T. Allsop, Esq.

LETTER 183. TO ALLSOP

Highgate, Oct. 11th, 1820.

My dear Friend,

You will think it childish in me, and more savouring of a jealous
boarding-school miss than a friend and a philosopher, when I confess
that the "with great respect, your obliged and grateful...," gave me
pain. But I did not return from Mr. Cooper's, at whose house we all
dined, till near midnight, and did not open the packet till this morning
after getting out of bed; and this you know is the hour in which the
cat-organ of an irritable viscerage is substituted for the brain as the
mind's instrument.

The Cobbett is assuredly a strong and battering production throughout,
and in the best bad style of this political rhinoceros, with his coat
armour of dry and wet mud, and his one horn of brutal strength on the
nose of scorn and hate; not to forget the flaying rasp of his tongue!
There is one article of his invective, however, from which I cannot
withhold my vote of consent: that I mean which respects Mr. Brougham's
hollow complimentary phrases to the ministry and the House of Lords. On
expressing my regret that his poor hoaxed and hunted client had been
lured or terrified into the nets of the revolutionists, and had taken
the topmost perch, as the flaring, screaming _maccaw_, in the clamorous
aviary of faction, Sheriff Williams, who dined with us, premising that
his _wishes_ accorded with mine, declared himself, however fully and
deeply convinced, that, without this alliance, the Queen must have been
overwhelmed, not wholly or even chiefly from the strength of the party
itself, but because, without the activity, enthusiasm, and combination,
peculiar to the reformists, her case, in all its detail and with all its
appendages, would never have had that notoriety so beyond example
universal; which (to translate Sheriff Williams into Poet Coleridge),
with kettle drum reveillée, had echoed through the mine and the
coal-pit, which had lifted the latch of every cottage, and thundered
with no run-away knock at Carlton Palace. I could only reply, that I had
never yet seen, heard, or read of any advantage in the long run,
occurring to a good cause from an unholy alliance with evil passions and
incongruous or alien purposes. It was ever heavy on my heart, that the
people, alike high and low, do perish for lack of knowledge; that both
sheep and shepherd, the Flocks and the Pastors, go astray among swamps
and in desolate places, for want of the _Truth_, the _whole_ Truth, and
nothing but the Truth; and that the sacred motto, which I had adopted
for my first political publication (_The Watchman_), would be the
aspiration of my death-bed--THAT ALL MAY KNOW THE TRUTH; AND THAT THE
TRUTH MAY MAKE US FREE.

I observed farther, that in bodies of men, not accidentally collected
nor promiscuously, but such as our House of Lords, the usual effect of
terror was, first, self-justification as to the worst of their past
violent and unconstitutional measures; and, next, a desperate belief
that their safety would be still more endangered by giving way than by
plunging onward; that, if they must fall, they would fall in that way in
which they might take vengeance on the occasion of the mischief. If the
proposition be either ... or ..., and the latter blank is to be filled
up by _a Civil War_, what shall we put for the former, to make our duty
to submit to it deniable or even doubtful? A Legislature permitted by us
to stand in the eye of the whole civilised World as the representative
of our country, corruptly and ruthlessly pandering to an Individual's
Lust and Hate! Open Hostility to Innocence, and the subversion of
justice, a shameless trampling under foot of the Laws of God and the
Principles of the Constitution, in the name and against the known will
of the Nation! Well! if anything, it must be this! It is a decision,
compared with which the sentence of the elder Brutus were a grief for
which an onion might supply the tears. A dreadful decision! But be it
so!--How much more then are we bound to be careful, that no conduct of
our own, no assent or countenance given by us to the violence of others,
no want of courage and alertness in denouncing the same, should have the
least tendency to bring about an act or event, dire enough to justify a
civil war for its preventive! I produced, as you may suppose, but small
effect; and yet your very note enforces the truth of my reply--for these
very answers of the Queen's conjointly with her plebicolar (or
plebicolous) Clap-Trapperies in the live puppet-show of wicked Punch and
his wife, that has come back again, and the devil on all sides, make it
impossible for me to ask you, as I otherwise should have done,--What
proof, proveably independent of the calumny plot, have we of any want of
delicacy in the Queen? What act or form of demeanour can be adduced on
competent testimony, from which we are forced or entitled to infer
innate Coarseness, if not Grossness? The dire disclosure of the extent
and extremes to which Calumny may be carried--and perhaps the recent
persecution of poor dear ... mixes its workings--makes me credulous in
incredulity; so that I am almost prepared to reverse the proverb, and
think that "what every one says must be a lie!" They put a body up to
the nostrils in the dunghill of reeking slander, and then exclaim: There
is no smoke without some fire!

It is my purpose, God willing! to leave this place on Friday, so as to
take an afternoon coach, if any such there be, or the Oxford mail, as
the dernier resource--and so to be in Oxford by Saturday morning, while
my letter, which is unfortunately a very long one (and I could not make
it otherwise), will reach Dr. Coplestone, if arrived, on Friday morning;
thus giving him a day's preparation for the personal interview. How long
my absence from Highgate may be, I cannot of course predetermine;
certainly not an hour beyond what [Hartley]'s interest requires.

God bless you, my dear friend, and your truly affectionate, and--if it
did not look like a _retort_, how truly might I not add--

Your obliged and grateful friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
T. Allsop, Esq.

P.S.--Sheriff Williams is apparently a very worthy, and assuredly a very
entertaining man. He gave us accounts, on his own evidence, of wonderful
things respecting Miss M'Evoy and a Mr. De Vains of Liverpool; so
wonderful as to threaten the stoppage even of my Bank of Faith.

I have just heard from Derwent, who is well; but I have not had time to
decipher his villainous scrawl.

LETTER 184. TO ALLSOP

Oct. 20th, 1820.

My dear Friend,

Doubtless nothing can be more delightful to me, independent of Mrs.
Gillman's kind but unnecessary anxieties, than to go to Oxford with you.
Nay, though it will be but a flight to and fro, with a sojourn but of
two days, if so much, yet I should even ask it of you if I were quite
sure, absolutely sure, that it would not inconvenience you.

But in the fear of this, I could not ask or receive your companionship
without some selfishness which would completely baffle itself.

I have not yet received an answer from Oxford respecting Dr.
Coplestone's return to Oriel.

God bless you, my ever dear friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
T. Allsop, Esq.

* * * * *

The visit to Oxford was undertaken to try to get the authorities to
mitigate the sentence on Hartley.

Queen Caroline and her misfortunes had been in his young days the
subject of one of Coleridge's poems, _On a late Connubial Rupture in
High Life_. She still engaged his attention, and he meditated writing on
the matter, from which, however, Gillman dissuaded him.

LETTER 185. TO ALLSOP

Oct. 25th, 1820.

My dearest Friend,

It will please you, though I scarcely know whether the pleasure is worth
the carriage, to know that my own feelings and convictions were, from
the very commencement of this unhappy affair, viz.--the terms proposed
to the Queen by Lord Hutchinson, in coincidence with your present
suggestion, and that I actually began an essay, and proposed a sort of
_diary_, _i.e._ remarks moral and political, according as the events of
the day suggested them. But Mr. Gillman dissuaded me. Again, about five
weeks ago I had written a letter to Conder, the editor of the _Eclectic
Review_ and _ci-devant_ bookseller, offering, and offering to _execute_,
a scheme of publication, "the Queen's case stated _morally_; 2,
judicially; 3, politically." But _again_ Mr. G. earnestly persuaded me
to suppress it. His reasons were, first, that my mind was not
sufficiently tranquil, in consequence of I.'s affair, to enable me to
rely upon going through with the publication; secondly, that it would
probably involve me with certain of my connexions in high life, and be
injurious to Hartley and Derwent, especially the latter; with thirdly,
the small chance of doing any good, people are so guided by their first
notions. To tell you the truth, Mr. G.'s _own dislike_ to it was of more
weight than all his three reasons.

However, we will talk of the publication, if _it be not too late_, and
at all events I will compose the statement.

I pray you make no apologies for doing that which cannot but add to the
esteem and affection with which I am most truly your _friend_,
fraternally and paternally.

We shall soon see you?

S. T. COLERIDGE.
T. Allsop, Esq.

LETTER 186. TO ALLSOP

Nov. 27, 1820.

My very dear Friend,

I have been more than usually unwell, with great depression of spirits,
loss of appetite, frequent sickness, and a harassing pain in my left
knee; and at the same time anxious to preclude, as much as I can, the
ill effects of poor J.'s procrastination--indolence it is not, for he is
busy enough in his own way, and rapidly bringing together materials for
his future credit as a man of letters and a poet, but shrinking from all
things connected with painful associations, and of that morbid
temperament, which I too well understand, that renders what would be
motives for men in general, narcotics for him, in exact proportion to
their strength; and this I could only do by taking on myself as much of
the document writing as was contrivable. Besides this, I have latterly
felt increasingly anxious to avail myself of every moment that ill
health left me, to get forward with my _Logic_ and with my _Assertion of
Religion_.

Nay, foolish though it be, I cannot prevent my mind from being affected
by the alarming state of public affairs, and, as it appears to me, the
want of stable principle even in the chiefs of the party that seem to
feel aright, yet chirrup like crickets in warmth without light.

The consequence of all this is, that I not only have deferred writing
to you, but have played the procrastinator with myself, even in giving
attention to your very interesting letter. For minor things your
kindness and kind remembrances are so habitual, that my acknowledgments
you cannot but take for granted. Mr. Gillman has been ill; Mrs.
Gillman--and this leads me to the particular object of this
letter--expresses aloud and earnestly what I feel no less, her
uneasiness that three weeks have passed, and we have not had the comfort
of seeing you. Do come up when you can, with justice to yourself and
other connections, for it is a _great_ comfort to me; something, I
trust, I shall have to show you. A note of warning from one who has been
a true but unheard prophet to my countrymen for five-and-twenty years.

May God bless you, my dear friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
T. Allsop, Esq.

LETTER 187. TO ALLSOP

January, 1821.

My dear young Friend,

The only impression left by you on my mind is an increased desire to see
you again, and at shorter intervals. Were you my son by nature, I could
not hold you dearer, or more earnestly desire to retain you the adopted
of whatever within me will remain, when the dross and alloy of infirmity
shall have been purged away. I feel the most entire confidence that no
prosperous change of my outward circumstances would add to your _faith_
in the sincerity of this assurance; still, however, the average of men
being what it is, and it being neither possible nor desirable to be
fully conscious in our understanding of the habits of thinking and
judging in the world around us, and yet to be wholly impassive and
unaffected by them in our feelings, it would endear and give a new
value to an honourable competence, that I should be able to evince the
true nature and degree of my esteem and attachment beyond the suspicion
even of the sordid, and separate from all that is accidental or
adventitious. But yet the friendship I feel for you is so genial a
warmth, and blends so undistinguishably with my affections, is so
perfectly one of the family in the household of love, that I would not
be otherwise than obliged to you; and God is my witness, that my wish
for an easier and less embarrassed lot is _chiefly_ (I think I might
have said _exclusively_) grounded on the deep conviction, that exposed
to a less bleak aspect I should bring forth flowers and fruits both more
abundant and more worthy of the unexampled kindness of your _faith_ in
me. Interpreting the "wine" and the "ivy garland" as figures of poetry
signifying competence, and the removal of the petty needs of the body
that plug up the pipes of the playing fountain (and such it is too well
known was the intent and meaning of the hardly used poet), and oh! how
often, when my heart has begun to swell from the genial warmth of
thought, as our northern lakes from the (so called) bottom winds, when
all above and around is stillness and sunshine--how often have I
repeated in my own name the sweet stanza of Edmund Spenser:

Thou kenst not, Percie, how the rhyme should rage.
O! if my temples were bedewed with wine,
And girt in garlands of wild ivy twine;
How I could rear the muse on stately stage,
And teach her tread aloft in buskin fine
With queint Bellona in her equipage.[112]

Read what follows as you would a note at the bottom of a page.

But ah! Mecænas is ywrapt in clay, and great Augustus long ago
is dead.

(This is a natural sigh, and natural too is the reflection that
follows.)

And if that any buds of poesy
Yet of the old stock 'gin to shoot again,
'Tis or _self_-lost the worldling's meed to gain,
And with the rest to breathe its ribauldry,
Or as it sprung it wither must again;
Tom Piper makes them better melody.

But though natural, the complaint is not equally philosophical, were it
only on this account,--that I know of no age in which the same has not
been advanced, and with the same grounds. Nay, I retract; there never
was a time in which the _complaint_ would be so little wise, though
perhaps none in which the _fact_ is more prominent. Neither philosophy
nor poetry ever did, nor as long as they are terms of comparative
excellence and contradistinction, ever can be _popular_, nor honoured
with the praise and favour of contemporaries. But, on the other hand,
there never was a time in which either books, that were _held_ for
excellent as poetic or philosophic, had so extensive and rapid a sale,
or men reputed poets and philosophers of a high rank were so much
_looked up_ to in society, or so munificently, almost profusely
rewarded. Walter Scott's poems and novels (except only the two wretched
abortions, _Ivanhoe_ and the _Bride of Ravensmuir_, or whatever its name
may be) supply both instance and solution of the _present_ conditions
and components of popularity, viz. to amuse without requiring any effort
of thought, and without exciting any deep emotion. The age seems _sore_
from excess of stimulation, just as, a day or two after a thorough
debauch and long sustained drinking match, a man feels all over like a
bruise. Even to admire otherwise than _on the whole_, and where "I
admire" is but a synonym for "I remember I _liked_ it very much _when I
was reading it_," is too much an effort, would be too disquieting an
emotion. Compare _Waverley_, _Guy Manner__ing_, and Co., with works
that had an _immediate run_ in the last generation, _Tristram Shandy_,
_Roderick Random_, _Sir Charles Grandison_, _Clarissa Harlowe_, and _Tom
Jones_ (all of which became popular as soon as published, and therefore
instances fairly in point), and you will be convinced that the
difference of taste is real, and not any fancy or croaking of my own.

But enough of these generals. It was my purpose to open myself out to
you in detail. My health, I have reason to believe, is so intimately
connected with the state of my spirits, and these again so dependent on
my thoughts, prospective and retrospective, that I should not doubt the
being favoured with a sufficiency for my noblest undertaking, had I the
ease of heart requisite for the necessary abstraction of the thoughts,
and such a reprieve from the goading of the immediate exigencies as
might make tranquillity possible. But, alas! I know by experience (and
the knowledge is not the less because the regret is not unmixed with
self-blame, and the consciousness of want of exertion and fortitude),
that my health will continue to decline, as long as the pain from
reviewing the barrenness of the past is great in an inverse proportion
to any rational anticipations of the future. As I now am, however, from
five to six hours devoted to actual writing and composition in the day
is the utmost that my strength, not to speak of my nervous system, will
permit; and the invasions on this portion of my time from applications,
often of the most senseless kind, are such and so many as to be almost
as ludicrous even to myself as they are vexatious. In less than a week I
have not seldom received half-a-dozen packets or parcels, of works
printed or manuscript, urgently requesting my candid _judgment_, or my
correcting hand. Add to these, letters from lords and ladies, urging me
to write reviews or puffs of heaven-born geniuses, whose whole merit
consists in being ploughmen or shoemakers. Ditto from actors; entreaties
for money, or recommendations to publishers, from ushers out of place,
etc. etc.; and to _me_, who have neither interest, influence, nor money,
and, what is still more _àpropos_, can neither bring myself to tell
smooth falsehoods nor harsh truths, and, in the struggle, too often do
both in the anxiety to do neither.--I have already the _written_
materials and contents, requiring only to be put together, from the
loose papers and commonplace or memorandum books, and needing no other
change, whether of omission, addition, or correction, than the mere act
of arranging, and the opportunity of seeing the whole collectively bring
with them of course,--I. Characteristics of Shakspeare's Dramatic Works,
with a Critical Review of each Play; together with a relative and
comparative Critique on the kind and degree of the Merits and Demerits
of the Dramatic Works of Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and
Massinger. The History of the English Drama; the accidental advantages
it afforded to Shakespeare, without in the least detracting from the
perfect originality or proper creation of the Shakspearian Drama; the
contradistinction of the latter from the Greek Drama, and its still
remaining _uniqueness_, with the causes of this, from the combined
influences of Shakespeare himself, as man, poet, philosopher, and
finally, by conjunction of all these, dramatic poet; and of the age,
events, manners, and state of the English language. This work, with
every art of compression, amounts to three volumes of about five hundred
pages each.--II. Philosophical Analysis of the Genius and Works of
Dante, Spenser, Milton, Cervantes, and Calderon, with similar, but more
compressed Criticisms on Chaucer, Ariosto, Donne, Rabelais, and others,
during the predominance of the Romantic Poetry.[113] In one large
volume.--These two works will, I flatter myself, form a complete code of
the principles of judgment and feeling applied to Works of Taste; and
not of _Poetry_ only, but of Poesy in all its forms, Painting, Statuary,
Music, etc. etc.--III. The History of Philosophy considered as a
Tendency of the Human Mind to exhibit the Powers of the Human Reason, to
discover by its own Strength the Origin and Laws of Man and the World
from Pythagoras to Locke and Condillac. Two volumes.--IV. Letters on the
Old and New Testament, and on the Doctrine and Principles held in common
by the Fathers and Founders of the Reformation, addressed to a Candidate
for Holy Orders; including Advice on the Plan and Subjects of Preaching,
proper to a Minister of the Established Church.

To the completion of these four works I have literally nothing more to
do than _to transcribe_; but, as I before hinted, from so many scraps
and _Sibylline_ leaves, including margins of books and blank pages,
that, unfortunately, I must be my own scribe, and not done by myself,
they will be all but lost; or perhaps (as has been too often the case
already) furnish feathers for the caps of others; some for this purpose,
and some to plume the arrows of detraction, to be let fly against the
luckless bird from whom they had been plucked or moulted.

In addition to these--of my GREAT WORK, to the preparation of which more
than twenty years of my life have been devoted, and on which my hopes of
extensive and permanent utility, of fame, in the noblest[114] sense of
the word, mainly rest--that, by which I might,

As now by thee, by all the good be known,
When this weak frame lies moulder'd in the grave,
Which self-surviving I might call my own,
Which Folly cannot mar, nor Hate deprave--
The incense of those powers, which, risen in flame,
Might make me dear to Him from whom they came.

Of this work, to which all my other writings (unless I except my Poems,
and these I can exclude in part only) are introductory and preparative;
and the result of which (if the premises be, as I with the most tranquil
assurance, am convinced they are--insubvertible, the deductions
legitimate, and the conclusions commensurate, and only commensurate,
with both), must finally be a revolution of all that has been called
_Philosophy_ or Metaphysics in England and France since the era of the
commencing predominance of the mechanical system at the restoration of
our second Charles, and with this the present fashionable views, not
only of religion, morals, and politics, but even of the modern physics
and physiology. You will not blame the earnestness of my expressions,
nor the high importance which I attach to this work; for how, with less
noble objects, and less faith in their attainment, could I stand
acquitted of folly, and abuse of time, talents, and learning, in a
labour of three-fourths of my _intellectual_ life? Of this work,
something more than a volume has been dictated by me, so as to exist fit
for the press, to my friend and enlightened pupil, Mr. Green; and more
than as much again would have been evolved and delivered to paper, but
that, for the last six or eight months, I have been compelled to break
off our weekly meeting, from the necessity of writing (alas! alas! of
_attempting_ to write) for purposes, and on the subjects of the passing
day.--Of my poetic works, I would fain finish the _Christabel_. Alas!
for the proud time when I planned, when I had present to my mind, the
materials, as well as the scheme, of the Hymns entitled _Spirit_, _Sun_,
_Earth_, _Air_, _Water_, _Fire_, and _Man_: and the Epic Poem on--what
still appears to me the one only fit subject remaining for an Epic
Poem--_Jerusalem besieged and destroyed by Titus_.

And here comes, my dear friend--here comes my sorrow and my weakness, my
grievance and my confession. Anxious to perform the duties of the day
arising out of the wants of the day, these wants, too, presenting
themselves in the most painful of all forms,--that of a debt owing to
those who will not exact it, and yet need its payment, and the delay,
the long (not live-long but _death_-long) behind-hand of my accounts to
friends, whose utmost care and frugality on the one side, and industry
on the other, the wife's management and the husband's assiduity are put
in requisition to make both ends meet, I am at once forbidden to
attempt, and too perplexed earnestly to pursue, the _accomplishment_ of
the works worthy of me, those I mean above enumerated,--even if,
savagely as I have been injured by one of the two influensive Reviews,
and with more effective enmity undermined by the utter silence or
occasional detractive compliments of the other,[115] I had the probable
chance of disposing of them to the booksellers, so as even to liquidate
my mere boarding accounts during the time expended in the transcription,
arrangement, and proof correction. And yet, on the other hand, my heart
and mind are for ever recurring to them. Yes, my conscience forces me to
plead guilty, I have only by fits and starts even prayed. I have not
prevailed on myself to pray to God in sincerity and entireness for the
fortitude that might enable me to resign myself to the abandonment of
all my life's best hopes, to say boldly to myself,--"Gifted with powers
confessedly above mediocrity, aided by an education, of which, no less
from almost unexampled hardships and sufferings than from manifold and
peculiar advantages, I have never yet found a parallel, I have devoted
myself to a life of unintermitted reading, thinking, meditating, and
observing. I have not only sacrificed all worldly prospects of wealth
and advancement, but have in my inmost soul stood aloof from temporary
reputation. In consequence of these toils and this self-dedication, I
possess a calm and clear consciousness, that in many and most
important departments of truth and beauty I have outstrode my
contemporaries--those at least of highest name; that the number of my
printed works bears witness that I have not been idle, and the seldom
acknowledged, but strictly _proveable_, effects of my labours
appropriated to the immediate welfare of my age in the _Morning Post_
before and during the peace of Amiens, in _The Courier_ afterwards, and
in the series and various subjects of my lectures at Bristol and at the
Royal and Surrey Institutions, in Fetter Lane, at Willis's Rooms, and at
the Crown and Anchor (add to which the unlimited freedom of my
communications in colloquial life), may surely be allowed as evidence
that I have not been useless in my generation. But, from circumstances,
the _main_ portion of my harvest is still on the ground, ripe indeed,
and only waiting, a few for the sickle, but a large part only for the
_sheaving_, and carting, and housing; but from all this I must turn
away, must let them rot as they lie, and be as though they never had
been, for I must go and gather blackberries and earth-nuts, or pick
mushrooms and gild oak-apples for the palates and fancies of chance
customers. I must abrogate the name of philosopher and poet, and
scribble as fast as I can, and with as little thought as I can, for
_Blackwood's Magazine_, or as I have been employed for the last days, in
writing MS. sermons for lazy clergymen, who stipulate that the
composition must not be more than respectable, for fear they should be
desired to publish the visitation sermon!" This I have not yet had
courage to do. My soul sickens and my heart sinks; and thus, oscillating
between both, I do neither, neither as it ought to be done, or to any
profitable end. If I were to detail only the various, I might say
capricious, interruptions that have prevented the finishing of this very
scrawl, begun on the very day I received your last kind letter, you
would need no other illustrations.

Now I see but one possible plan of rescuing my permanent utility. It is
briefly this and plainly. For what we struggle with inwardly, we find at
least easiest to _bolt out_ namely--that of engaging from the circle of
those who think respectfully and hope highly of my powers and
attainments a yearly sum, for three or four years, adequate to my actual
support, with such comforts and decencies of appearance as my health and
habits have made necessaries, so that my mind may be unanxious as far as
the present time is concerned; that thus I should stand both enabled and
pledged to begin with some one work of these above mentioned, and for
two-thirds of my whole time to devote myself to this exclusively till
finished, to take the chance of its success by the best mode of
publication that would involve me in no risk, then to proceed with the
next, and so on till the works above mentioned as already in full
material existence should be reduced into formal and actual being;
while in the remaining third of my time I might go on maturing and
completing my great work, and (for if but easy in mind, I have no doubt
either of the re-awakening power or of the kindling inclination), and my
_Christabel_, and what else the happier hour might inspire--and without
inspiration a barrel-organ may be played right deftly; but

All otherwise the state of _poet_ stands;
For lordly want is such a tyrant fell,
That where he rules all power he doth expel.
The vaunted verse a vacant head demands,
Ne wont with crabbed Care the muses dwell:
_Unwisely weaves who takes two webs_ IN HAND![116]

Now Mr. Green has offered to contribute from £30 to £40 yearly, for
three or four years; my young friend and pupil, the son of one of my
dearest old friends, £50; and I think that from £10 to £20 I could rely
upon from another. The sum required would be about £200, to be repaid,
of course, should the disposal or sale, and as far as the disposal and
sale, of my writings produce the means.

I have thus placed before you at large, wanderingly, as well as
diffusely, the statement which I am inclined to send in a compressed
form to a few of those of whose kind dispositions towards me I have
received assurances,--and to their interest and influence I must leave
it--anxious, however, before I do this, to learn from you your very,
very inmost feeling and judgment as to the previous questions. Am I
entitled, have I earned _a right_ to do this? Can I do it without moral
degradation? and, lastly, can it be done without loss of character in
the eyes of my acquaintance, and of my friends' acquaintance, who may
have been informed of the circumstances? That, if attempted at all, it
will be attempted in such a way, and that such persons only will be
spoken to, as will not expose me to indelicate rebuffs to be afterwards
matter of gossip, I know those, to whom I shall entrust the statement,
too well to be much alarmed about.

Pray let me either see or hear from you as soon as possible; for, indeed
and indeed, it is no inconsiderable accession to the pleasure I
anticipate from disembarrassment, that _you_ would have to contemplate
in a more gracious form, and in a more ebullient play of the inward
fountain, the mind and manners of,

My dear friend,
Your obliged and very affectionate friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
T. Allsop, Esq.[117]

Coleridge's animadversions on Scott's work are not justifiable. Although
Sir Walter's poetry is not to be compared for literary technique to that
of Coleridge, it has a merit not unlike some parts of Coleridge's own.
Sir Walter may be designated the Poet of Romantic Association; much of
his poetry is founded on the associations of localities celebrated in
history. The _Second Part of Christabel_ and the _Knight's Tomb_ are
clearly of this genre of poetry. A touch of jealousy of the success of
Scott seems to enter into Coleridge's estimate of his brother poet. His
criticism of the novels is of less importance; for Coleridge was always
hostile to the novel as enticing men away from serious study and
reading.]

FOOTNOTES:

[107] [Lockhart's _Life of Scott_, ch. xix, also Memoir of Hartley
Coleridge, xxxv, prefixed to Hartley Coleridge's _Poems_,
1851.]

[108] [The date of this or Letter 179, given by Allsop, must be
wrong, perhaps for 8th read 18th April.]

[109] [An echo of Schiller's

"a deeper import
Lurks in the legend told my infant years
Than lies upon that truth we live to learn," etc.
_The Piccolomini_, Act II, Scene 3.]

[110] [Letter CCXXVIII follows 180.]

[111] Here follows a detail of charges brought against one very
near, and deservedly dear, to the writer, originating with, or
adopted by the present Bishop of Llandaff. These charges were
afterwards, I believe, withdrawn; at all events compensation
was tendered to the party implicated [Allsop]. [This refers to
Hartley.]

[112] _Shepherd's Calendar. October._

[113] [See Coleridge's _Miscellaneous Works_, edited by T. Ashe:
Bohn Library.]

[114] Turn to Milton's _Lycidas_, sixth stanza--

Alas! what boots it with incessant care
To tend the homely slighted shepherd's trade,
And strictly meditate the thankless Muse?
Were it not better done as others use,
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
Or with the tangles of Neæra's hair?
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
(That last infirmity of noble mind)
To scorn delights and live laborious days;
But the fair guerdon when we hope to find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears,
And slits the thin-spun life. But not the praise,
Phœbus replied, and touched my trembling ears;
Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,
Nor on the glistering foil
Set off to the world, nor in broad Rumour lies,
But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes,
And perfect witness of all-judging Jove;
As he pronounces lastly in each deed,
Of so much fame in heav'n expect thy meed.

The sweetest music does not fall sweeter on my ear than this
stanza on both mind and ear, as often as I repeat it aloud.

[115] Neither my _Literary Life_ (2 vols.), nor _Sibylline Leaves_
(1 vol.) nor _Friend_ (3 vols.), nor _Lay Sermons_, nor
_Zapolya_, nor _Christabel_, has ever been noticed by the
_Quarterly Review_, of which Southey is yet the main support.

[116] [_Shepherd's Calendar: October._]

[117] [Letter CCXXIX follows 173.]

CHAPTER XXV

HENRY CRABB ROBINSON

[Among the men who met Coleridge, and recorded their impressions of
his talk, Henry Crabb Robinson occupies a prominent place. He was
one of the leading genius tasters of the time, and made pilgrimages
to great living men in place of visiting the relics of departed
worth or the shrines of the saints, which serves with others the
same purpose. He thus came into contact with as wide a circle of
intellectuality as any man of his day, his list including Goethe,
Schiller, Wieland, and many of the Germans, Madame De Staël,
Wordsworth, Lamb, and a host of others well known to readers of his
lively _Diary_. Henry Crabb Robinson met Coleridge for the first
time in 1810 at Lamb's, and was at once smitten with Coleridge's
talk. He met him several times in the first month of their
acquaintanceship, and one of his entries in the _Diary_
reads--"Coleridge kept me on the stretch of attention and admiration
from half past three to twelve o'clock." But for a long time
Robinson did not rank Coleridge as high as Wordsworth, with whom he
had been familiar before meeting the former, and he was rather
surprised when Lamb put Coleridge above the poet of Rydal (_Diary_,
i, 319).

Robinson frequently visited Coleridge at Highgate. Indeed he was
among the first of Coleridge's acquaintances to be asked to dine at
the Grove. On 17th June 1817 we find Coleridge asking him to make an
appointment so that he might bring Ludwig Tieck with him to meet
John Hookham Frere (_Letters_, 671). He induces him to come to
Highgate to have a walk or drive "in Caen Wood and its delicious
groves and alleys (the finest in England), a grand Cathedral aisle
of giant lime-trees, Pope's favourite composition walk when with the
old Earl, a brother rogue of yours in the law line." He informs
Robinson that he has read two pages of _Lallah Rookh_, which he
pronounces "Crockery-ware!"

The following is a specimen of the many entries in the
_Diary_--"December 24, 1822. This afternoon I spent at Aders.[118] A
large party--a splendid dinner, prepared by a French cook; and music
in the evening. Coleridge was the star of the evening. He talked in
his usual way, though with more liberality than when I saw him last
some years ago. But he was somewhat less animated and brilliant and
paradoxical. The music was enjoyed by Coleridge, but I could have
dispensed with it for the sake of his conversation" (_Diary_, ii,
239).

The letters of Coleridge to Robinson preserved in the _Diary_, are
as follows: I, May 1808 (ii, 266-7); II, 1811 (ii, 360-4); III, 7th
Dec. 1812 (iii, 423-4); IV, June 1817 (iii, 57-8); V, 3rd May 1818
(iii, 93-95). The letters to Robinson in Brandl's _Life_ are--p. 322
(1811); p. 323, 18th Nov. 1811; p. 354, 3rd December 1817; p. 362,
20th June 1817.]

FOOTNOTES:

[118] [Mrs. Aders was the daughter of Raphael Smith, the engraver.
Coleridge's poem _The Two Founts_ was written to her.]

CHAPTER XXVI

CHARLES LAMB

[Charles Lamb, Coleridge's associate of the "Cat and Salutation" days,
remained a close friend to the last, and he plays an important part in
the Highgate period. Among Lamb's letters, edited by Canon Ainger, are
sixty-two to Coleridge; and there are a few to Allsop and James Gillman
from 1821 onward. The next fourteen letters to Allsop reflect the
relationship of the little circle of the Lambs and Gillman and
Coleridge.

LETTER 188. TO ALLSOP

Blandford-place, March 1st, 1821.

My dearest Friend,

God bless you, and all who are dear and near to you! but as to your
pens, they seem to have been plucked from the _devil's_ pinions, and
slit and shaped by the blunt edge of the broad sprays of his antlers. Of
the ink (_i.e._ your inkstand), it would be base to complain. I hate
abusing folks in their _absence_. Do you know, my dear friend, that
having sundry little snug superstitions of my own, I shrewdly suspect
that whimsical ware of that sort is connected with the state and
garniture of your paper-staining machinery.--Is it so? Well, I have seen
Murray, and he has been civil, I may say kind, in his manners. Is this
your knock?--Is it you on the stairs?--No. I explained my full purpose
to him, namely,--that he should take me and my concerns, past and
future, for print and reprint, under his umbrageous foliage, though the
original name of his great predecessor in the patronage of genius, who
gave the name of Augustan to all happy epochs--Octavius would be more
appropriate--and he promises,--_cætera desunt_.

LETTER 189. TO ALLSOP

May 4th, 1821.
My dear Friend,

Mr. and Mrs. Gillman's kind love, and we beg that the good lady's late
remembering that (as often the very fullness and vividness of the
purpose and intention to do a thing imposes on the mind a sort of
counterfeit feeling of quiet, similar to the satisfaction which the
having done it would produce) you had not been written to, will not
prejudice the present attempt at "better late than never." We have a
party _to-morrow_, in which, because we believed it would interest you,
you stood included. In addition to a neighbour Robert Sutton, and
ourselves, and Mrs. Gillman's most un-Mrs. Gillmanly sister (but _n. b._
this is a secret to all who are both blind and deaf), there will be the
Mathews (Mr. and Mrs.) _at home_, Mathews I mean, and Charles and Mary
Lamb.

Of myself the best thing that I can say is that, in the belief of those
well qualified to judge, I am not so ill as I fancy myself. Be this as
it may,

I am always, my dearest friend,
With highest esteem and regard,
Your affectionate friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
T. Allsop, Esq.

* * * * *

"Of this day and the one following," Allsop says, "I have a few notes,
which appear to me of interest. It must be borne constantly in mind,
that much of what is preserved has relation to positions enforced by
others, which Coleridge held to be untenable on the particular grounds
urged, not as being untrue in themselves."

* * * * *

Had Lord Byron possessed perseverance enough to undergo the drudgery of
research, and had his theological studies and attainments been at all
like mine, he would have been able to unsettle all the evidences of
Christianity, upheld as it is at present by simple confutation. Is it
possible to assent to the doctrine of redemption as at present
promulgated, that the moral death of an _unoffending_ being should be a
consequence of the transgression of humanity[119] _and its atonement_?

* * * * *

Walter Scott's novels are chargeable with the same faults as Bertram,
_et id omne genus_, viz., that of ministering to the depraved appetite
for excitement, and, though in a far less degree, creating sympathy for
the vicious and infamous, solely because the fiend is _daring_. Not
twenty lines of Scott's poetry will ever reach posterity; it has
relation to nothing.

* * * * *

When I wrote a letter upon the scarcity, it was generally said that it
was the production of an immense cornfactor, and a letter was addressed
to me under that persuasion, beginning "Crafty Monopolist."

* * * * *

It is very singular that no _true poet_ should have arisen from the
lower classes, when it is considered that every peasant who can read
knows more of books now than did Æschylus, Sophocles, or Homer; yet if
we except Burns, none[120] such have been.

* * * * *

Crashaw seems in his poems to have given the first ebullience of his
imagination, unshapen into form, or much of, what we now term,
sweetness. In the poem, _Hope_, by way of question and answer, his
superiority to Cowley is self-evident. In that on the name of Jesus
equally so; but his lines on St. Theresa are the finest.

Where he does combine richness of thought and diction nothing can excel,
as in the lines you so much admire--

Since 'tis not to be had at home,
She'l travel to a martyrdome.
No home for her confesses she,
But where she may a martyr be.
She'l to the Moores, and trade with them
For this invalued diadem,
She offers them her dearest breath
With Christ's name in't, in change for death.
She'l bargain with them, and will give
Them God, and teach them how to live
In Him, or if they this deny,
For Him she'l teach them how to die.
So shall she leave amongst them sown,
The Lord's blood, or, at least, her own.
Farewell then, all the world--adieu,
Teresa is no more for you:
Farewell all pleasures, sports and joys,
Never till now esteemed toys--
Farewell whatever dear'st may be,
Mother's arms or father's knee;
Farewell house, and farewell home,
She's for the Moores and martyrdom.

These verses were ever present to my mind whilst writing the second
part of _Christabel_; if, indeed, by some subtle process of the mind
they did not suggest the first thought of the whole poem.--Poetry, as
regards small poets, may be said to be, in a certain sense, conventional
in its accidents and in its illustrations; thus Crashaw uses an image:--

As sugar melts in tea away,

which, although _proper then_, and _true now_, was in bad taste at that
time equally with the present. In Shakspeare, in Chaucer there was
nothing of this.

The wonderful faculty which Shakspeare above all other men possessed, or
rather the power which possessed him in the highest degree, of
anticipating everything, evidently is the result--at least partakes--of
meditation, or that mental process which consists in the submitting to
the operation of thought every object of feeling, or impulse, or passion
observed _out_ of it. I would be willing to live only as long as
Shakspeare were the mirror to nature.

* * * * *

What can be finer in any poet than that beautiful passage in Milton--

----Onward he moved
And thousands of his saints around.

This is grandeur, but it is grandeur without completeness: but he adds--

Far off their coming shone;

which is the highest sublime. There is _total_ completeness.

So I would say that the Saviour praying on the Mountain, the Desert on
one hand, the Sea on the other, the city at an immense distance below,
was sublime. But I should say of the Saviour looking towards the City,
his countenance full of pity, that he was majestic, and of the situation
that it was grand.

When the whole and the parts are seen at once, as mutually producing
and explaining each other, as unity in multiety, there results
shapeliness--_forma formosa_. Where the perfection of _form_ is combined
with pleasurableness in the sensations, excited by the matters or
substances so formed, there results the Beautiful.

_Corollary._--Hence colour is eminently subservient to beauty, because
it is susceptible of forms, _i.e._ outline, and yet is a sensation. But
a rich mass of scarlet clouds, seen without any attention to the _form_
of the mass or of the parts, may be a _delightful_ but not a beautiful
object or colour.

When there is a deficiency of unity in the line forming the whole (as
angularity, for instance), and of number in the plurality or the parts,
there arises the Formal.

When the parts are numerous, and impressive, and predominate, so as to
prevent or greatly lessen the attention to the whole, there results the
Grand.

Where the impression of the whole, _i.e._ the sense of unity
predominates, so as to abstract the mind from the parts--the Majestic.

Where the parts by their harmony produce an effect of a whole, but there
is no seen form of a whole producing or explaining the parts, _i.e._
when the parts only are seen and distinguished, but the whole is
felt--the Picturesque.

Where neither whole nor parts, but unity, as boundless or endless
_allness_--the Sublime.

* * * * *

It often amuses me to hear men impute all their misfortunes to fate,
luck, or destiny, whilst their successes or good fortune they ascribe to
their own sagacity, cleverness, or penetration. It never occurs to such
minds that light and darkness are one and the same, emanating from, and
being part of, the same nature.

* * * * *

The word Nature, from its extreme familiarity, and in some instances,
fitness, as well as from the want of a term, or _other_ name for God,
has caused very much confusion in the thoughts and language of men.
Hence a Nature-God, or God-Nature, not God in Nature; just as others,
with as little reason, have constructed a natural and sole religion.

* * * * *

Is it then true, that Reason to man is the ultimate faculty, and that,
to convince a _reasonable_ man, it is sufficient to adduce adequate
reasons or arguments? How, if this be so, does it happen that we reject
as insufficient the _reasoning_ of a friend in our affliction for this
or that _cause or reason_, yet are comforted, soothed, and reassured, by
similar or far less sufficient _reasons_, when urged by a friendly and
affectionate woman? It is no answer to say that women were made
_comforters_; that it is the tone, and, in the instance of man's chief,
best comforter, the wife of his youth, the mother of his children, the
oneness with himself, which gives value to the consolation; the
_reasons_ are the same, whether urged by man, woman, or child. It must
be, therefore, that there is something in the will itself, above and
beyond, if not higher than, reason. Besides, is Reason or the reasoning
always the same, even when free from passion, film, or fever? I speak of
the same person. Does he hold the doctrine of temperance in equal
reverence when hungry as after he is sated? Does he at forty retain the
same _reason_, only extended and developed, as he possessed at four and
twenty? Does he not love the meat in his youth which he cannot endure in
his old age? But these are appetites, and therefore no part of him. Is
not a man one to-day and another to-morrow? Do not the very ablest and
wisest of men attach greater weight at one moment to an argument or a
_reason_ than they do at another? Is this a want of sound and stable
judgment? If so, what then is this perfect reason? for we have shown
what it is not.

* * * * *

It is prettily feigned, that when Plutus is sent from Jupiter, he limps
and gets on very slowly at first; but when he comes from Pluto, he runs
and is swift of foot. This, rightly taken, is a great sweetener of slow
gains. Bacon (alas! the day) seems to have had this in mind when he
says, "seek not proud gains, but such as thou mayst get justly, use
soberly, distribute cheerfully, and leave contentedly." He that is
covetous makes too much haste; and the wise man saith of him, "he cannot
be innocent."

* * * * *

I have often been pained by observing in others, and was fully conscious
in myself, of a _sympathy_ with those of rank and condition in
preference to their inferiors, and never discovered the source of this
sympathy until one day at Keswick I heard a thatcher's wife crying her
heart out for the death of her little child. It was given me all at once
to feel, that I sympathized equally with the poor and the rich in all
that related to the best part of humanity--the affections; but that, in
what relates to fortune, to _mental_ misery, struggles, and conflicts,
we reserve consolation and sympathy for those who can appreciate its
force and value.

* * * * *

There are many men, especially at the outset of life, who, in their too
eager desire for the end, overlook the difficulties in the way; there is
another class, who see nothing else. The first class _may_ sometimes
fail; the latter rarely succeed.

LETTER 190. TO ALLSOP

June 23, 1821.

My dearest Friend,

Be assured that nothing bearing a nearer resemblance to offence, whether
felt or perceived, than a syllogism bears to the colour of the man in
the moon's whiskers, ever crossed my brain: not even with that brisk
diagonal traverse which Ghosts and apparitions always choose to surprise
us in. I have _indeed_ observed _or_ fancied, that, for some time past,
you have been anxious about something, have had something pressing upon
your mind, which I wished _out of you_, though not particularly _to
have_ it out of you. I must explain myself. Say that X. were my dearest
Friend, to whom I would be as it were transparent, and have him so to me
in all respects that concerned our permanent Being, and likewise in all
circumstantial accidents in which we could be of service to each other.
Yet there are many things that will press upon us which are our
_individualities_, which one man does not feel any tendency in himself
to speak of to a man, however dear or valued. X. does not think or wish
to think of it when with Y., nor Y. in his turn when with X., and yet
still the great law holds good--whatever vexes or depresses ought if
possible to be _out_ of us. Now I say that I should rejoice if you had a
female Friend--a Sister, an Aunt, or a Beloved to whom you could lay
yourself open. I should further exult if your _confidante_ were _my_
Friend too, my Sister or my Wife.

God bless you.
S. T. COLERIDGE.
T. Allsop, Esq.

LETTER 191. TO ALLSOP

My dear Friend,

We are quite sure that you would not allow yourself to fancy any
rightful ground, cause, or occasion for not coming here, but the wish,
the duty, or the propriety of going elsewhere or staying at home. When
the Needle of your Thoughts begins to be magnetic, you may be certain
that my _Pole_ is at that moment attracting you by the spiritual magic
of strong wishing for your arrival. N.B. My _Pole_ includes in this
instance _both the Poles_ of Mr. and eke of Mrs. Gillman, _i.e._, the
head and the heart.

But seriously--I am a little anxious--so give my blest sisterly Friend a
few lines by return of post--just to let us know that you are and have
been well, and that nothing of a painful nature has deprived us of the
expected pleasure; a pleasure which, believe me, stands a good many
degrees above _moderate_ in the cordi or hedonometer of,

Yours most _cordi_ally,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
T. Allsop, Esq.

LETTER 192. TO ALLSOP

Sept. 15th, 1821.

My dear Friend,

I cannot rest until I have answered your last letter. I have
contemplated your character, affectionately indeed, but through a clear
medium. No film of passion, no glittering mist of outward advantages,
has arisen between the sight and the object: I had no other
prepossession than the esteem which my knowledge of your sentiments and
conduct could not but secure for you. I soon learnt to esteem you; and
in esteeming, became attached to you. I began by loving the man on
account of his conduct, but I ended in valuing the actions chiefly as so
many looks and attitudes of the same person. "_Hast_ thou any thing?
Share it with me, and I will pay thee an equivalent. _Art_ thou any
thing? O then we will exchange souls."

We can none of us, not the wisest of us, brood over any source of
affliction inwardly, keeping it back, and as it were pressing it in on
ourselves; but we must MAGNIFY it. We cannot see it clearly, much less
distinctly; and as the object enlarges beyond its real proportions, so
it becomes vivid; and the feelings that blend with it assume a
proportionate undue intensity. So the one acts on the other, and what at
first was effect, in its turn becomes a cause; and when at length we
have taken heart, and given the whole thing, with all its several parts,
the proper distance from our mind's eye, by confiding it to a true
friend, we are ourselves surprised to find what a dwarf the giant
shrinks into, as soon as it steps out of the mist into clear sunlight.

I am aware that these are truths of which you do not need to be
informed; but they will not be the less impressive on this account in
your judgment, knowing, as you must know, that nothing short of my deep
and anxious convictions of their importance in all cases of hidden
distress, and of their _unspeakable_ importance in yours, could impel me
to _seek_ and _entreat_ your _entire_ confidence, to beg you, so
fervently as I here am doing, to open out to me the cause of your
anxiety, that I may offer you the best advice in my power,--advice that
will not be the less dispassionate from its being dictated by zealous
friendship, and blended with the truest love.

I fear that in any decision to which you may come in any matter
affecting yourself alone, you may, from a culpable delicacy of honour,
which, forbidden by wisdom and the universal experience of others,
cannot but be in contradiction to the genuine dictates of duty, want
fortitude to choose, the lesser evil, at whatever cost to your
immediate feelings, and to put that choice into immediate and peremptory
act. But I must finish. I trust that the warmth and earnestness of my
language are not warranted by the occasion; but they are barely
proportionate to the present solicitude of,

Your faithful and affectionate friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
T. Allsop, Esq.

LETTER 193. TO ALLSOP

Sept. 24th, 1821.

My dearest Friend,

I will begin with the beginning of your (to me most affecting) letter.
Not exactly _obligation_, my entirely beloved and relied-on friend! The
soiling hand of the world has dyed and sunk into the sense and import of
the term too inseparably, for it to convey the kind and degree of what I
feel towards you, on the one scale. I love you so truly, that in the
first glance, as it were, and _welcome_ of your anxious affection, it
delights me for the very act's sake. I think only of it and you, or
rather both are one and the same, and I live in you. Nor does the
complacency suffer any abatement, but becomes more intense and lively.
As a mother would talk of the soothing attentions, the sacrifices and
devotion of a son, eager to supply every want and anticipate every wish,
so I talk to myself concerning you; and I am proud of you, and proud to
be the object of what cannot but appear lovely to my judgment, and which
the hard contrast in so many heart-withering instances forced on me by
the experience of my last twenty years, compels me to feel and value
with an additional glow. Lastly, it is a source of strength and comfort
to know that the labours and aspirations and sympathies of the genuine
and invisible Humanity exist in a social world of their own; that its
attractions and assimilations are no Platonic fable, no dancing flames
or luminous bubbles on the magic cauldron of my wishes; but that there
are, even in this unkind life, spiritual parentages and filiations of
the soul. Can there be a counterpoise to these? Not a counterpoise--but
as weights in the counter-scale there will come the self-reproach, that
spite of all inauspicious obstacles, not in my power to remove without
loss of self-respect, I have not done all I could and might have done to
prevent my present state of dependence. I am now able to hope that I
shall be capable of setting apart such a portion of my _useable_ time to
my greater work (in assertion of the ideal truths and _à priori_
probability, and _à posteriori_ internal and external evidence of the
historic truth of the Christian religion), as to leave a sufficient
portion for a not unprofitable series of articles for pecuniary supply.
I entertain some hope, too, that my _Logic_, which I could begin
printing immediately if I could find a publisher willing to undertake it
on equitable terms, might prove an exception to the general fate of my
publications. It is a long lane that has no turning, and while my own
heart bears witness to the genial delight you would feel in assisting
me, I know that you would have a more satisfactory gladness in my not
needing it.

And now a few, a very few, words on the latter portion of your letter.
You know, my dearest Friend, how I acted myself, and that my example
cannot be urged in confirmation of my judgment. I certainly strive hard
to divest my mind of every prejudice, to look at the question sternly
through the principle of Right separated from all mere Expedience, nay,
from the question of earthly happiness _for its own sake_. But I cannot
answer to myself that the image of any serious obstacle to your peace of
heart, that the Thought of your full development of soul being put a
stop to, of a secret anxiety blighting your _utility_ by cankering your
happiness, I cannot be sure--I cannot be sure that this may not have
made me _weigh_ with a trembling and unsteady hand, and less than half
the presumption of error, afforded by the shrinking and recoil of your
moral sense or even feeling, would render it my duty and my impulse to
bring my conclusion anew to the ordeal of my Reason and Conscience. But
on your side, my dear Friend! try with me to contemplate the question as
a problem in the _science_ of Morals, in the first instance, and to
recollect that there are false or intrusive weights possible in the
other scale; that our very virtues may become, or be transformed into
temptations to, or occasions of, _partial_ judgment; that we may judge
partially _against_ ourselves from the very fear, perhaps contempt, of
the contrary; that self may be moodily gratified by _self_-sacrifice,
and that the Heart itself, in its perplexity, may acquiesce for a time
in the decision as a more safe way; and, lastly, that the question can
only be fully answered, when Self and Neighbour, as equi-distant
[S^G^N] from the conscience or God, are blended in the common term,
a _Human Being_: that we are _commanded_ to love ourselves as our
Neighbour in the Law that requires a Christian to love his Neighbour as
himself.

But indeed I persuade myself that this dissonance is not real between
us, and that it would not have seemed to exist, had I continued the
subject into the possible particular cases; _e.g._, suppose a case in
which the misery, and so far the moral incapacitation, of both parties
were certainly foreseen as the immediate consequence. A morality of
Consequences I, you well know, reprobate; but to exclude the necessary
_effect_ of an action is to take away all meaning from the word
action--_to strike Duty with blindness_. I repeat it, that I do not,
cannot find it in myself to believe, that _on any one_ case, made out in
all its limbs, features, and circumstances, your heart and mine would
prompt different verdicts.

But the thought of you personally and individually is at present too
strong and stirring to permit me to reason on any points. If the weather
is at all plausible, we propose to set off on Saturday. I do most
earnestly wish that you could accompany us; a steam-vessel would give us
three-fourths of the whole day to _tête-à-tête_ conversation. God bless
you,

And your affectionate and faithful friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.

T. Allsop, Esq.

* * * * *

Cottle saw Coleridge for the last time in 1821. He says "It is a
consolation to reflect, that, in the year 1821, being in London, I
called to see Mr. Coleridge, at Mr. Gillman's, when he welcomed me in
his former kind and cordial manner. The depressing thought filled my
mind, that that would be our final interview in this world, as it was.
On my going away, Mr. C. presented me with his _Statesman's Manual_, in
the title-page of which he wrote--'Joseph Cottle, from his old and
affectionate friend, S. T. Coleridge.'"--(_Early Recollections_, ii,
177.)

Coleridge, during his Highgate period, was induced by Blackwood to send
a few contributions to his magazine (see _Lamb's Letters_, ii, 32). He
had contributed _Fancy in Nubibus_ in 1819, and he now sent selections
from his _Literary Correspondence_ in the shape of letters, which
appeared in 1821. Two of these letters are printed by Thomas Ashe
(_Miscell. Works_, 238). The following is one of the letters not
published by Ashe:

LETTER 194. TO WILLIAM BLACKWOOD

October, 1821.

Dear Sir,

Here have I been sitting, this whole long-lagging, _muzzy_, mizly
morning, struggling without success against the insuperable disgust I
feel to the task of explaining the abrupt chasm at the outset of our
correspondence, and disposed to let your verdict take its course,
rather than suffer over again by detailing the causes of the stoppage;
though sure by so doing to acquit _my will_ of all share in the result.
Instead of myself, and of _you_, my dear sir, in relation to myself, I
have been thinking, first, of the _Edinburgh Magazine_; then of
magazines generally and comparatively; then of a magazine in the
abstract; and lastly, of the immense importance and yet strange neglect
of that prime dictate of prudence and common sense--Distinct Means to
Distinct Ends. But here I must put in one proviso, not in any relation
though to the aphorism itself, which is of universal validity, but
relatively to my intended application of it. I must assume--I mean, that
the individuals disposed to grant me free access and fair audience for
my remarks, have _a conscience_--such a portion at least, as being eked
out with superstition and sense of character, will suffice to prevent
them from seeking to realise the _ultimate_ end, (_i.e._ the maxim of
profit) by base or disreputable means. This, therefore, may be left out
of the present argument, an extensive sale being the common object of
all publishers, of whatever kind the publications may be, morally
considered. Nor do the means appropriate to this end differ. Be the work
good or evil in its tendency, in both cases alike there is one question
to be predetermined, viz. what class or classes of the reading-world the
work is intended for? I made the proviso, however, because I would not
mislead any man even for an honest cause, and my experience will not
allow me to promise an equal immediate circulation from a work addressed
to the higher interests and blameless predilections of men, as from one
constructed on the plan of flattering the envy and vanity of sciolism,
and gratifying the cravings of vulgar curiosity. Such may be, and in
some instances, I doubt not, has been, the result. But I dare not answer
for it beforehand, even though both works should be equally well suited
to their several purposes, which will not be thought a probable case,
when it is considered how much less talent, and of how much commoner a
kind, is required in the latter.

On the other hand, however, I am persuaded that a sufficient success,
and less liable to drawbacks from competition, would not fail to attend
a work on the former plan, if the scheme and execution of the contents
were as appropriate to the object which the purchasers must be supposed
to have in view as the means adopted for its outward attraction, and its
general circulation were to the interest of its proprietors.

During a long literary life, I have been no inattentive observer of
periodical publications; and I can remember no failure in any work
deserving success that might not have been anticipated from some error
or deficiency in the means, either in regard to the mode of circulating
the work (as, for instance, by the vain attempt to unite the characters
of author, editor, and publisher), or to the typographical appearance;
or else from its want of suitableness to the class of readers on whom,
it should have been foreseen, the remunerating sale must principally
depend. It would be misanthropy to suppose that the seekers after truth,
information, and innocent amusement, are not sufficiently numerous to
support a work in which these attractions are prominent, without the
dishonest aid of personality, literary faction, or treacherous invasions
of the sacred recesses of private life, without slanders which both
reason and duty command us to _disbelieve_ as well as to abhor; for what
but falsehood, or that half truth, which is falsehood in its most
malignant form, can or ought to be expected from a self-convicted
traitor and ingrate?

If these remarks are well founded, we may narrow the problem to the few
following terms--it being understood that the work now in question is a
monthly publication, not devoted to any _one_ branch of knowledge or
literature, but a magazine of whatever may be supposed to interest
readers in general, not excluding the discoveries or even the
speculations of science, that are generally intelligible or interesting,
so that the portion devoted to any one subject or department shall be
kept proportionate to the number of readers for whom it may be supposed
to have a _particular_ interest. Here, however, we must not forget, that
however few the actual dilettanti, or men of the fancy may be, yet, as
long as the articles remain generally intelligible (in _pugilism_, for
instance) Variety and Novelty communicate an attraction that interests
all. _Homo sum, nihil humani a me alienum._ If to this we add the
exclusion of theological controversy, which is endless, I shall have
pretty accurately described the present _Edinburgh Magazine_, as to its
characteristic plan and purposes; which may, I think, be comprised in
three terms, as Philosophical. Philological, and Aesthetic Miscellany.
The word miscellany, however, must be taken as involving a predicate in
itself, in addition to the three preceding epithets, comprehending,
namely, all the ephemeral births of intellectual life which add to the
gaiety and variety of the work, without interfering with its express and
regular objects.

Having thus a sufficiently definite notion of what your Magazine is, and
is intended to be, I propose to myself, as a problem to find out, _in
detail_, what the _means_ would be to the most perfect attainment of
this end. In other words, what the _scheme_, and of what nature, and in
what order and proportion, the _contents_ should be of a monthly
publication; in order for it to verify the title of a Philosophical,
Philological, and Aesthetic Miscellany and Magazine. The result of my
lucubrations I hope to forward in my next, under the title of _The Ideal
of a Magazine_; and to mark those departments, in the filling up of
which, I flatter myself with the prospect of being a fellow labourer.
But since I began this scrawl, a friend reminded me of a letter I wrote
him many years ago, on the improvement of the mind by the habit of
commencing our inquiries with the attempt to construct the most absolute
or perfect form of the object desiderated, leaving its practicability,
in the first instance, undetermined. An essay, in short, _de emendatione
intellectûs per ideas_--the beneficial influence of which on his mind he
spoke of with warmth. The main contents of the letter, the effect of
which my friend appreciated so highly, were derived from conversation
with a great man now no more. And as I have reason to regard that
conversation as an epoch in the history of my own mind, I feel myself
encouraged to hope that its publication may not prove useless to some of
your numerous readers, to whom Nature has given the stream, and nothing
is wanting but to be led into the right channel. There is one other
motive to which I must plead conscious, not only in the following, but
in all these, my preliminary contributions; viz.--That by the reader's
agreement with the principles and sympathy with the general feelings
which they are meant to impress, the interest of my future
contributions, and still more, their permanent effect, will be
heightened; and most so in those in which, as narrative and imaginative
compositions, there is the least show of reflection, on my part, and the
least necessity for it,--though I flatter myself not the least
opportunity on the part of my readers.

It will be better, too, if I mistake not, both for your purposes and
mine, to have it said hereafter that he dragged slow and stiff-kneed up
the first hill, but sprang forward as soon as the road was full before
him, and _got in_ fresh; than that he set off in grand style--broke up
midway, and came in broken-winded. _Finis coronat opus._

Yours, etc.,
S. T. COLERIDGE.

P.S. I wish I could find a more familiar word than aesthetic for works
of taste and criticism. It is, however, in all respects better, and of
more reputable origin, than belletristic. To be sure, there is _tasty_;
but that has been long ago emasculated for all unworthy uses by
milliners, tailors, and the androgynous correlatives of both, formerly
called _'its_, and now yclept dandies. As our language, therefore,
contains no other _useable_ adjective, to express that coincidence of
form, feeling, and intellect, that something, which, confirming the
inner and the outward senses, becomes a new sense in itself, to be tried
by laws of its own, and acknowledging the laws of the understanding so
far only as not to contradict them; that faculty which, when possessed
in a high degree, the Greeks termed φῖλοκᾶλία, but when spoken of
generally, or in kind only, το αἰσθητικόν; and for which even our
substantive, Taste, is a--not inappropriate--but very inadequate
metaphor; there is reason to hope, that the term _aesthetic_, will
be brought into common use as soon as distinct thoughts and definite
expressions shall once more become the requisite accomplishment of a
gentleman. So it was in the energetic days, and in the starry court
of our _English_-hearted Eliza; when trade, the nurse of freedom, was
the enlivening counterpoise of agriculture, not its alien and usurping
spirit; when commerce had all the enterprise, and more than the romance
of war; when the precise yet pregnant terminology of the schools gave
bone and muscle to the diction of poetry and eloquence, and received
from them in return passion and harmony; but, above all, when from the
self-evident truth, that what _in kind_ constitutes the superiority of
man to animals, the same _in degree_ must constitute the superiority of
men to each other, the practical inference was drawn that every proof of
these distinctive faculties, being in a _tense_ and _active_ state, that
even the sparks and crackling of mental electricity, in the sportive
approaches and collisions of ordinary intercourse, (such as we have in
the wit-combats of Benedict and Beatrice, of Mercutio, and in the
dialogues assigned to courtiers and gentlemen, by all the dramatic
writers of that reign,) are stronger indications of natural superiority,
and, therefore, more becoming signs and accompaniments of _artificial_
rank, than apathy, studied mediocrity, and the ostentation of wealth.
When I think of the vigour and felicity of style characteristic of the
age from Edward VI to the restoration of Charles, and observable in the
letters and family memoirs of noble families--take, for instance, the
_Life of Colonel Hutchinson_, written by his widow--I cannot suppress
the wish--O that the _habits_ of those days could return, even though
they should bring pedantry and Euphuism in their train![121]

* * * * *

Coleridge and the Gillmans had gone to Ramsgate for a holiday while
Allsop had gone to Derbyshire. The next letter is from Ramsgate.

LETTER 195. TO ALLSOP

Oct. 20, 1821.

My dear Friend,

Not a day has passed since we left Highgate in which I have not been
tracing you in spirit up and down the Glens and Dells of Derbyshire,
while my feet only have been in commune with the sandy beach here at
Ramsgate. Once when I had stopped and stood stone still for some
minutes, Mrs. Gillman's call snatched me away from a spot opposite to a
house, to the second-floor window of which I had been gazing, as if I
had feared, yet expected, to see you passing to and fro by it. These,
however, were visions to which I had myself given the commencing
act--fabrics of which the "I wonder where Allsop is now" had laid the
foundation stone. But for the last three days your image, alone or
lonely in an unconcerning crowd of human figures, has forced itself on
my sleep in dreams of the rememberable kind, accompanied with the
feeling of being afraid to go up to you--and now of letting you pass by
unnoticed, from want of courage to ask you, what was most on my
mind--respecting the one awful to me because so awfully dear to
you--(for there is a _religion in all deep love_, but the love of a
Mother is, at your age, the veil of softer light between the Heart and
the Heavenly Father!) Mrs. Gillman likewise has been thinking of you
both asleep and awake: and so, though I know not how to direct my
letter, yet a letter I am resolved to write.

I am sure, my dear Friend! that if aught can be a comfort to you in
affliction or an addition to your joy in the hour of Thanksgiving, it
will be to know, and to be reminded of your knowledge, that I feel as
your own heart in all that concerns you. Next to this I have to tell
you, that the Sea Air and the Sea Plunges, and the leisure of mind, with
regular devotion of the Daylight to exercise (for I write only after
tea), have been auspicious, beyond my best hopes, to my health and
spirits. The change in my looks is beyond the present reality, but may
be veracious as _prophecy_, though somewhat exaggerating as _history_.
The same in all essentials holds good of Mrs. Gillman; and I am most
pleased that the improvement in her looks and strength has been gradual
though rapid. First she got rid, in the course of four or five days, of
the _Positives_ of the wrong sort--_e.g._ the blackness under the eyes
and the thinness of the cheeks--and now she is acquiring the Positives
of the right kind, her eyes brightening, her face becoming plump, and a
delicate, yet cool and steady colour, stealing upon her cheeks. Mr.
Gillman too is uncommonly well since his second arrival here. The first
week his arm, the absorbents of which had been perilously poisoned by
opening a body, was a sad drawback, and prevented his bathing. In short,
we are all better than we could have anticipated; and the better we are,
the more I long, and we all wish you to be with us. If you _can_ come,
though but for a few days, I pray you come to us. In grief or gladness,
we shall grieve less, and (I need not say) be more glad, by seeing you,
by having you with _us_. I will not say _write_, for I would a thousand
times rather have you plump in on me, unannounced; but yet write, unless
this be possible. We have an excellent house, with beds enough for half
a dozen Allsops, if so many there were or could be, the situation the
very best in all Ramsgate (Wellington Crescent, East Cliff, Ramsgate);
and we, or rather Mrs. Gillman's voice and manner, procured it _shameful
cheap_ for the size and accommodations.

I am called to dinner; so God bless you, and receive all our loves, my
very dear friend.

S. T. COLERIDGE.
T. Allsop, Esq.

My birth-day, 51; or, as all my collegiates and Mrs. Coleridge swear,
50.

* * * * *

Coleridge was only forty-nine on 21st October 1821, not fifty-one as he
supposes. He could never remember his birthday, nor the year in which he
was born.

LETTER 196. TO ALLSOP

Ramsgate, Nov. 2nd, 1821.

My dear Friend,

First, let me utter the fervent, God be praised! for the glad tidings
respecting your dear Mother, which would have given an abounding
interest to a far less interesting letter. May she be long preserved
both to enjoy and reward your love and piety! And now I will try to
answer the other contents of your letter, as satisfactorily I _hope_, as
I am sure it will be sincerely and affectionately. Conscious how
heedfully, how watchfully I cross-examined myself whether or no my
anxiety for your earthly happiness and free exercise of head and heart
had not _warped_ the attention which it was my purpose to give whole and
undivided to the one Question--What is the Right, I can repeat (with as
much confidence as the slippery and Protean nature of all
self-inquisition and the great _à priori_ likelihood of my reason being
tampered with by my affections, will sanction me in expressing) what I
have already more than once said, viz., that I hold it incredible, at
least improbable to the utmost extent, that you and I should decide
differently in any one definite instance. Let a case be stated with all
its _particulars_, personal and circumstantial, with its antecedents and
_involved_ (_n.b._--not its contingent or apprehended) consequents--and
my faith in the voice within, whenever the heart desiringly listens
thereto, will not allow me to fear that our verdict should be diverse.
If this be true, as true it is, it follows--that we have attached a
different import to the same terms in some general proposition;--and
that, in attempting to generalise my convictions briefly, and yet
comprehensively, I have worded it either incorrectly or obscurely. On
the other hand, your communications likewise, my dear friend! were
indefinite--"taught light to counterfeit a gloom;" and love left in the
dusk of twilight is apt to fear the worst, or rather, to think of worse
than it fears, and the momentary transformations of posts and bushes
into apparitions and foot-pads must not be interpreted as symptoms of
brain fever or depraved vision.

And now, my dearest Allsop! why should it be "a _melancholy_ reflection,
that the three most affectionate, gentle, and estimable women in your
world are the three from whom you have learnt almost to undervalue
their sex?" In other words those who in their reasonings have supposed
as possible, not even improbable, that women can be unworthy and
insincere in their expressions of attachment to men, the frequency of
which it is as impossible, living open-eyed, not to have ascertained, as
it is with a heart awake to what a woman ought to be, and those of whom
you speak substantially[122] are. Why should this be a melancholy
reflection? (Thursday, Nov. 1st. A fatality seems to hang over this
letter; I will not, however, defer the continuation for the purpose of
explaining its suspension.) Why, dearest friend, a melancholy
reflection? Must not those women who have the highest sense of
womanhood, who know what their sex may be, and who feel the rightfulness
of their own claim to be loved with honour, and honoured with love, have
likewise the keenest sense of the contrary? Understand a few foibles as
incident to humanity; take as matters of course that need not be
mentioned, because we know that in the least imperfect a glance of the
womanish will shoot across the womanly, and there are Mirandas and
Imogens, a Una, a Desdemona, out of fairy land; rare, no doubt, yet less
rare than their counterparts among men in real life. Now can such a
woman not be conscious, must she not feel how great the happiness is
that a woman is capable of communicating, say rather _of being_ to a man
of sense and sensibility, pure of heart, and capable of appreciating,
cherishing, and repaying her virtues? Can she feel this, and not shrink
from the contemplation of a contrary lot? Can she know this, and not
know what a sore evil, fearful in its heart-withering affliction in
proportion to the capacity of being blessed, a weak, artful, or
worthless woman is--perhaps in her _own_ experience has been? And if she
happen to know a young Man, know him as the good, and only the good,
know each other--if he were precious to her, as a younger brother to a
matron sister--and so that she could not dwell on his principles,
dispositions, manners, without the thought--"If I had an only daughter,
and she all a mother ever prayed for, one other prayer should I
offer--that, freely chosen and choosing, she should enable me to call
this man my son!" would you not more than pardon even an excess of
anxiety, even an error of judgment, proceeding from a disinterested
dread of his taking a step irrevocable, and, if unhappy, miserable
beyond all other misery, that of guilt alone excepted? Especially if
there were no known particulars to guide her judgment--if that judgment
were given avowedly, on the mere unbelieved possibility, on an
unsupposed supposition of the worst.

In Mrs. Gillman I have always admired, what indeed I have found more or
less an accompaniment of womanly excellence wherever found, a high
opinion of her own sex comparatively, and a partiality for female
society. I know that her strongest prejudices against individual men
have originated in their professed disbelief of such a thing as female
friendship, or in some similar brutish forgetfulness that woman is an
immortal soul; and as to all parts of the female character, so chiefly
and especially to the best, noblest and highest--to the germs and
yearnings of immortality in the man. I have much to say on this, and
shall now say it with comfort, because I can think of it as a pure
Question of Thought. But I will not now keep this letter any longer.

God bless you, and your friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.

T. Allsop, Esq.

P.S. The morning after our arrival, a card with our address and _all our
several_ names was delivered in at the post office, and to the
Postmaster; and this morning, Monday, Oct. 29, I received your letter
dated 16th, which ought to have been delivered on Wednesday last--lying
at the Post-office while I was hour by hour fretting or dreaming about
you. And you, too, must have been puzzled with mine, written on my
birthday. A neglect of this kind may be forgivable, but it is utterly
inexcusable; a Blind-worm sting that has sensibly quickened my
circulation, and I have half a mind to write to Mr. Freeling, if my
wrath does not subside with my pulse, and I should have nothing better
to do.

LETTER 197. TO ALLSOP

Saturday Afternoon, Nov. 17th, (1821).

At length, my dear friend! we are safe and (I hope) sound at Highgate.
We would fain have returned, as we went, by the Steam-vessel, but for
two reasons; one that there was none to go by, the other that Mr.
Gillman thought it hazardous from the chance of November fogs on the
river. _Likewise_, my dear Allsop, I have _two_ especial reasons for
wishing that it may be in your power to dine with us tomorrow; first, it
will give you so much real pleasure to see my improved looks, and how
_very well_ Mrs. Gillman has come back. I need not tell you, that your
sister cannot be dearer to _you_--and you are no ordinary brother--than
Mrs. Gillman is to me; and you will therefore readily understand me when
I say, that I look at the manifest and (as it was gradual), I hope
permanent change in her countenance, expression, and motion, with a sort
of _pride_ of comfort; second (and in one respect more urgent), my
anxiety to consult you on the subject of a proposal made to me by
Anster, before I return an answer, which I must do speedily. I cannot
conclude without assuring you how important a part your love and esteem
constitute of the happiness, and through that (I will yet venture to
hope) of the utility, of your affectionate friend,

S. T. COLERIDGE.

T. Allsop, Esq.

LETTER 198. TO ALLSOP

Monday Morning (--1821).

My dear Friend,

Ab Hydromania, Hydrophobia: from Water-lust comes Water-dread. But this
is a violent metaphor, and disagreeable to boot. Suppose then, by some
caprice or colic of nature, an Aqueduct split on this side of the slider
or Sluice-gate, the two parts removed some thirty feet from each other,
and the communication kept up only by a hollow reed split lengthways, of
just enough width and depth to lay one's finger in; the likeness would
be fantastic to be sure, but still it would be no inapt likeness or
emblem of the state of mind in which I feel myself as often as I have
just received a letter from you!--and when, after the first flush of
interest and rush of thoughts stirred up by it, I sit down, or am about
to sit down, to write in answer, a poor fraction, or finger-breadth of
the intended reply fills up three-fourths of my paper; so sinking under
the impracticability of saying what seemed of use to say, I substitute
what there is no need to say at all--the expression of my wishes, and
the Love, Regard, and Affection, in which they originate.

For the future, therefore, I am determined, whenever I have any time,
however short, to write whatever is first in mind, and to send it off in
the self-same hour.

I do not know whether I was most affected or delighted with your last
letter. It will endear Flower de Luce Court to me above all other
remembrances of past efforts; and the pain, the restless aching, that
comes instantly with the thought of giving out my soul and spirit where
you cannot be present, where I could not see your beloved countenance
glistening with the genial _spray_ of the outpouring; this, in
conjunction with your anxiety and that of Mr. and Mrs. Gillman
concerning my health, is the most efficient, I may say, imperious of the
_retracting_ influences as to the Dublin scheme.

Basil Montagu called on me yesterday. I could not but be amused to hear
from him, as well as from Mrs. Chisholm and two other visitors, the
instantaneous expression of surprise at the apparent change in my
health, and the certain improvement of my looks. One lady said, "Well!
Mr. Coleridge really _is_ very handsome."

Highgate is in high feud with the factious stir against the governors of
the chapel, one of whom I was advising against a reply addressed to the
inhabitants as an _inconsistency_. "But, sir, we would not carry any
thing to an extreme!" THIS IS THE DARLING WATCH-WORD OF WEAK MEN, _when
they sit down on the edges of two stools. Press them to act on fixed
principles, and they talk of extremes_; as if there were or could be any
way of avoiding them but by keeping close to a fixed principle, _which
is a principle only because it is the one medium between two extremes_.

God bless you, my ever dear friend, and
Your affectionately attached
S. T. COLERIDGE.

T. Allsop, Esq.

P.S. Our friend Gillman sees the factious nature and origin of the
proceedings in so strong a light, and feels so indignantly, that I am
constantly afraid of his honesty spirting out to his injury. If I had
the craft of a Draughtsman, I would paint Gillman in the character of
Honesty, levelling a pistol (with "Truth" on the barrel) at Sutton, in
the character of Modern Reform, and myself as a _Dutch_ Mercury,[123]
with rod in hand, hovering aloft and----pouring water into the
touchhole. The superscription might be "Pacification," a little finely
pronounced on the first syllable.[124]

The scheme alluded to in the last two letters, was a project to deliver
a course of lectures in Dublin. Anster, the translator of _Faust_, was a
Professor in Trinity College, Dublin.

LETTER 199. TO ALLSOP

January 25th, 1822.

Dearest Friend,

My main reason for wishing that Mrs. Gillman should have made her call
on Mrs. Allsop, or that Mrs. Allsop would waive the ceremony, and taking
the willingness for the act, and the præsens _in rus_ (if Highgate
deserves that name) for the future _in urbe_, would accompany you
hither, on the earliest day convenient to you both, is, that I cannot
help feeling the old inkling to press you to spend the Sunday with me,
and yet feel a something like impropriety in so doing. Speaking
confidentially, _et inter nosmet_, if it were prognosticable that dear
Charles would be half as delightful as when we were last with him, and
as pleasant relatively to the probable impressions on a stranger to him
as Mary always is, I should still ask you to fulfil our first
expectation. As it is, I must be content to wish it; and leave the rest
to your knowledge of the circumstantial pro's and con's. Only remember,
that what is dear to you becomes dear to me, and that whatever can in
the least add to happiness in which you are interested, is a duty which
I cannot neglect without injury to my own. _I am convinced that your
happiness is in your own possession._

One part of your letter gave me exceeding comfort--that in which you
spoke of the peculiar sentiment awakened or inspired _at first sight_.
_This is an article of my philosophic creed._

And now for my pupil schemes. Need I say that the verdict of your
judgment, after a sufficient hearing, would determine me to abandon a
plan of the expediency and probable result of which I was less sceptical
than I am of the present? But first let me learn from you whether you
had before your mind, at the moment that you formed your opinion, the
circumstance of my being already in some sort engaged to _one_ pupil
already: that with Mr. Stutfield and Mr. Watson I have already proceeded
on two successive Thursdays, and completed the introduction and the
first chapter, amounting to somewhat more than a closely-printed octavo
sheet, requiring no such revision as would render transcription
necessary; and that three or four more young men at the table will make
no addition, or rather no change. Mr. Gillman thought my agreeing to
receive Stutfield advisable. Mrs. G. did not indeed influence me by any
express wish, but thought that this was the most likely way in which my
work would proceed with regularity and constancy; in short, it was, or
seemed to be, a _bird in the hand_, that, in conjunction with other
reliable sources, would remove my anxiety with regard to _increasing_
any positive pressure on their finances of former years; so that if I
could not lessen, I should prevent the deficit from growing. On all
these grounds I did--I need not say down right--_engage_ myself, but I
certainly permitted Mr. Stutfield to make the trial in such a form that
I scarcely know whether I can, in the spirit of the expectation I
excited, be the first to cry _off_, he appearing fully satisfied and in
good earnest. Now, supposing this to be the state of the case, how would
my work fare the better by dictating it to two amanuenses instead of
five or six, if I get so many? For the occasional explanations, and the
necessity of removing difficulties and misapprehensions, are a real
advantage in a work which I am peculiarly solicitous to have "level with
the plainest capacities." To be sure, on the other hand, I _might_ go on
three days in the week instead of one, and let the work outrun the
lectures, but just so I _might_ on the plan of an increased number of
auditors; and secondly, so many little obstacles start up when it is not
_fore_-known that on such a day I _must_ do so and so. I need not
explain myself further. You can understand the "I would not ask you, but
it is only--" "and but that--" "I pray do not take any _time_ about it,"
etc., etc., added to my _startings_ off.

If I do not see you on Sunday, do not fail to write to me, for of course
I shall take no step till I am quite certain that your judgment is
_satisfied_ one way or other, for I am with unwrinkled confidence and
inmost reclination,

Your affectionate friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
T. Allsop, Esq.

* * * * *

It will be seen from this letter that Coleridge was falling behind with
his Board money due to Gillman: hence his anxiety to form a
philosophical class composed of Mr. Seth Watson, Mr. Stutfield, and
others.

LETTER 200. TO ALLSOP

March 4th, 1822.
My dearest Friend,

I have been much more than ordinarily unwell for more than a week
past--my sleeps worse than my vigils, my nights than my days;

----The night's dismay
Sadden'd and stunned the intervening day;

but last night I had not only a calmer night, without roaming in my
dreams through any of Swedenborg's Hells _modéré_; but arose this
morning lighter and with a sense of _relief_.

I scarce know whether the enclosed Detenu[125] is worth enclosing or
reading. I fancy that I send it because I cannot write at any length
that which is even tolerably adequate to what I wish to say. Mrs.
Gillman returned from town--very much pleased with her reception by Mrs.
Allsop, and with the impression that it would be her husband's fault if
she did not make him a happy home.

I shall make you smile, as I did dear Mary Lamb, when I say that you
sometimes mistake my position. As individual to individual, from my
childhood, I do not remember feeling myself either superior or inferior
to any human being; except by an act of my own will in cases of real or
imagined moral or intellectual superiority. In regard to worldly rank,
from eight years old to nineteen, I was habituated, nay, naturalized, to
look up to men circumstanced as you are, as my superiors--a large number
of our governors, and almost _all_ of those whom we regarded as greater
men still, and whom we saw most of, viz. our committee governors, were
such--and as neither awake nor asleep have I any other feelings than
what I had at Christ's Hospital, I distinctly remember that I felt a
little flush of pride and consequence--just like what we used to feel at
school when the boys came running to us--"Coleridge! here's your friends
want you--they are quite _grand_," or "It is quite a _lady_"--when I
first heard who you were, and laughed at myself for it with that
pleasurable sensation that, spite of my sufferings at that school, still
accompanies any sudden re-awakening of our school-boy feelings and
notions. And oh, from sixteen to nineteen what hours of Paradise had
Allen and I in escorting the Miss Evanses home on a Saturday, who were
then at a milliner's whom we used to think, and who I believe really
was, such a nice lady;--and we used to carry thither, of a summer
morning, the pillage of the flower gardens within six miles of town,
with Sonnet or Love Rhyme wrapped round the nose-gay. To be feminine,
kind, and genteelly (what I should now call neatly) dressed, these were
the only things to which my head, heart, or imagination had any
polarity, and what I was then, I still am.

God bless you and yours,
S. T. COLERIDGE.

T. Allsop, Esq.

LETTER 201. TO ALLSOP

March 22nd, 1822.
My dear Friend,

Mr. Watson is but now returned. I was about to set off to your house and
take turns with Mrs. Allsop in watching you. It is a comfort to hear
from Watson that he thinks you look not only better than when he saw you
before, but more promisingly.

Si tibi deficiant medici, medici tibi fiant
Haec tria: mens hilaris, requies, moderata dieta

is the adage of the old Schola Salernitana, and his belief and judgment.
Would to God that there were any druggist or apothecary within the
king's dominions where I could procure for you the first ingredient of
the recipe, fresh and genuine. I would soon make up the prescription,
have the credit of curing you, and then make my fortune by advertising
the nostrum under the name of Dr. Samsartorius, _Carbonijugius's Panacea
Salernitana----iensis_.

You will have thought, I fear, that I had forgotten my promise of
sending you Charles Lamb's _epistola porcina_. But it was not so. I now
enclose it, and when you return it I will make a copy for you if you
wish it, for I think that writing in your present state will be most
injurious to you.

I am interrupted--"a poor lad, very ragged, he says Mr. Dowling has sent
him to you to show you his poetry."--"Well! desire him to step up,
Maria!"

As soon as Mr. Green left me, Mrs. Gillman delivered your letter. I am
not sorry, therefore, that the _Wild Irish Boy_ made it too late to
finish the above for that day's post. His name, poor lad! is Esmond
Wilton; his mother, I guess, was poetical. But I will reserve him for a
dish on our table of chat when we meet.--In reply to your affectionate
letter what can I say, but that from all that you say, write or do, I
receive but two impressions; first a full, cordial, and unqualified
assurance of your love towards me, a genial unclouded faith in the
entireness and steadfastness of your more than friendship, sustained and
renewed by the consciousness of a responsive attachment in myself, that
blends the affections of parent, brother and friend,--

A love of thee that seems, yet cannot greater be;

and secondly, impressions of grief or joy, according, and in proportion
to, the information I receive, or the inferences that I draw, respecting
your health, ease of heart and mind, and all the events, incidents, and
circumstances, that affect, or are calculated to affect, both or either.
Only this in addition--whatever _else_ may pass through your mind,
never, from any motive, or with any view, withhold from me your
thoughts, your feelings, and your sorrows. What if they be momentary,
winged thoughts, not native, that blowing weather has driven out of
their course, and to which your mind has allowed thorough flight, but
neither nest, perch, nor halting room? Send them onward to pass through
mine; and between us both, we shall be better able to give a good
account of them! What if they are the offspring of low or perturbed
spirits--the changelings of ill health or disquietude? So much the
rather communicate them. When on the white paper, they are already out
of _us_; and when the letter is gone, they will not stay long behind;
the very anticipation of the answer will have answered them, and
superseded the need, though not the wish, of its arrival. And shall I
not, think you, take them for what they are? With what comfort, with
what security, could I receive or read your letters, or you mine, if we
either of us had reason to believe, that whatever affliction had
befallen, or discomfort was harassing, or anxiety was weighing on the
heart, the other would say no word of or about it, under the plea of not
transplanting thorns, or whatever other excuse a depressed fancy might
invent, in order to transmute _unfriendly withholding_ into a
self-sacrifice of tenderness. If you had come to stay with me while I
lay on a bed of pain, it would grieve you indeed, if, from an imagined
duty of not grieving you, I should suppress every expression of
suffering, and not tell you where my pain was, or whether it was greater
or less. _Grant_ that I was rendered anxious or heavy at heart, or
keenly sorrowful, by any tidings you had communicated respecting
yourself! _Should_ it not be so? Ought it not to be so? Will not the Joy
be greater when the Cloud is passed off--greater in _kind_, nobler,
better--because I should feel it was my _right_? And is there not a
dignity and a hidden Healing in the suffering itself--which is soothed
in the wish and tempered in the endeavour of removing, or lessening, or
supporting it, in the Soul of a dear Friend? However trifling my
vexations are, yet if they vex me, and I am writing to you, to you I
will unbosom them, my dear ... and my serious sorrows and hindrances I
will still less keep back from you. General Truths, Discussions, Poems,
Queries--all these are parts of my nature, _often_ uppermost; and when
they are so, you have them--and I like well to write to, and to hear
from you on them--but these I might write to the Public: and with all
Christian respect for that gentleman, I love your little finger better
than his whole multitudinous Body.

Give my love to Mrs. Allsop, and tell her I will try to deserve hers.

Ever and ever God bless you, my dearest friend.

S. T. COLERIDGE.

T. Allsop, Esq.

* * * * *

"The letter here alluded to," says Allsop, "is a most delightful
communication from Charles Lamb; which, with the hints thrown out by
Manning, as to the probable origin of roast meat, were afterwards
interwoven into that paper on _Roast Pig_, one of the best of Lamb's
productions."

9 Mch. 1822.
Dear C.,

It gives me great satisfaction to hear that the Pig turned out so
well--they are interesting creatures at a certain age. What a pity
such buds should blow out into the maturity of rank bacon! You had all
some of the crackling--and brain sauce--did you remember to rub it
with butter, and gently dredge it a little, just before the crisis?
Did the eyes come away kindly with no Œdipean avulsion?--was the
crackling the colour of the ripe pomegranate?--had you no damned
complement of boiled neck of mutton before it to blunt the edge of
delicate desire?--did you flesh maiden teeth in it?

Not that I sent the Pig, or can form the remotest guess what part Owen
(our landlord) could play in the business. I never knew him give any
thing away in his life--he would not begin with strangers. I suspect
the Pig after all was meant for me--but at the unlucky juncture of
time being absent, the present, somehow, went round to Highgate.

To confess an honest truth, a Pig is one of those things I could never
think of sending away. Teals, widgeons, snipes, barn-door fowls,
ducks, geese, your tame villatic things--Welsh mutton--collars of
brawn--sturgeon, fresh and pickled--your potted char--Swiss
cheeses--French pies--early grapes--muscadines,--I impart as freely to
my friends as to myself,--they are but _self_-extended; but pardon me
if I stop somewhere--_where the fine feeling of benevolence giveth a
higher smack than the sensual rarity; there my friends_ (or any good
man) _may command me_; but pigs are pigs; and I myself am therein
nearest to myself; nay, I should think it an affront, an undervaluing
done to Nature, who bestowed such a boon upon me, if, in a churlish
mood, I parted with the precious gift. One of the bitterest pangs I
ever felt of remorse was when a child--my kind old aunt had strained
her pocket-strings to bestow a sixpenny whole plum-cake upon me. In my
way home through the Borough, I met a venerable old man--not a
mendicant--but thereabouts; a _look-beggar_--not a verbal
petitionist--and, in the coxcombry of taught charity, I gave away the
cake to him. I walked on a little _in all the pride of an evangelical
peacock_, when of a sudden my old aunt's kindness crossed me--_the sum
it was to her_--_the pleasure that she had a right to expect that I,
not the old impostor, should take in eating her cake_--the damned
ingratitude by which, under the colour of a Christian virtue, I had
frustrated her cherished purpose. I sobbed, wept, and took it to heart
so grievously, that I think I never suffered the like. And I was
right; it was a piece of unfeeling hypocrisy, and proved a lesson to
me ever after. The cake has long been masticated, consigned to the
dunghill, with the ashes of that unseasonable pauper.

But when Providence, who is better to us all than our aunts, gives me
a Pig, remembering my temptation and my fall, I shall endeavour to act
towards it more in the spirit of the donor's purpose.

Yours (short of Pig) to command in everything,

C. L.

LETTER 202. TO ALLSOP

April 18th, 1822.

My dearest Friend,

There was neither self nor unself in the flash or jet of pleasurable
-----
| T P |
--- ---
sensation with which I saw the old | PALL MALL | tea-canister top
| 3 |
-----------
surmounting my own name, but a mere unreflecting gladness, a sally of
inward welcoming, on finding you near to me again. I am indebted to it,
however, for this, and the dear and affectionate letter that sustained
and substantiated it, like a gleam of sunshine ushering in a genial
south-west, and setting all the birds a singing; while the joy at the
recall of the old, dry, _scathy_, viceroy of the discouraged spring, the
Tartar laird from the north-east, augments yet loses itself in the
delight at the arrival of the long-wished-for successor to his native
realm, gave a sudden spur and kindly sting to my spirits, the
restorative effects of which I felt on rising this morning, as soon
after, at least, as the pain which always greets me on awaking, and
never fails to be my Valentine for every day in the year, had taken its
leave.

Charles and Mary Lamb are to dine with us on Sunday next, and I hope it
will be both pleasant and possible for you and Mrs. Allsop to complete
the party; and if so, I will take care to be quite _free_ to enjoy your
society from the moment of your arrival, and I hope that Mrs. Allsop
will not be too much tired for me to show her some of our best views and
walks; and perhaps the nightingales may commence their ditties on or by
that day, for I have daily expected them.

Need I say what thoughts rush into my mind when I read a letter from you,
or think of your love towards me.

God bless you, my dear, dear friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
T. Allsop, Esq.]

FOOTNOTES:

[119] Let it always be borne in mind, that this and other
expressions in these pages were the opinions which he ever
expressed _to me_, and are not to be taken as evidences of
doubt generally, but of disbelief in the corruptions of the
vulgar Christianity in vogue. [ALLSOP.]

[120] In after years he excepted Elliot, the smith, though he held
his judgment in very slight estimation. [ALLSOP.]

[121] [This letter is followed in _Blackwood_ by the two letters to
a Junior Soph, at Cambridge, republished by T. Ashe in
_Miscellanies, Authentic and Literary_, Bohn Library, pp.
244-260. As these are rather Essays than Letters they are not
reproduced in this work.]

[122] Thus in original letter, (Allsop).

[123] Mercury, the god of lucre and selfish ends, patron god of
thieves, tradesmen, stock-jobbers, diplomatists, pimps,
harlots and go-betweens; the soothing, pacifying god.

[124] [Letter CCXXX follows 198.]

[125] [_Letter to a Young Lady on the Choice of a Husband_ reprinted
in _Miscellanies, Aesthetic and Literary_, p. 229.]

CHAPTER XXVII

THE GILLMANS

Friendship is a Sheltering Tree.--_Youth and Age_, 1822-3.

* * * * *

[The Gillmans necessarily come much into notice in Coleridge's later
letters. The following to Allsop have some references to his kind hosts,
besides other friends and acquaintances of Coleridge. The Mr. Dawes
referred to was the Rev. John Dawes, who kept a day school at Ambleside,
and taught Hartley and Derwent classics and mathematics (_Letters_,
576).

LETTER 203. TO ALLSOP

May 30th, 1822.

My very dear Friend,

On my arrival at Highgate after our last parting, I ought to have
written, if it were only that I had fully resolved to do so, and when I
feel that I have not done what I ought, and what you would (have) done
in my place, I will, as indeed too safely to make a merit of it I may
do, leave the palliative and extenuating circumstance to your kindness
to think of. This only let me say, that mournful as my experience of
Messrs. ---- and ----[126] in my own immediate concerns had been, of the
latter especially, I was not prepared for their late behaviour, or, to
use Anster's words on the occasion, for "so piteous a lowering of human
nature," as the contents of Mr. W.'s letters were calculated to produce.

I have at _length_--for I really tore it out of my brain, as it were
piecemeal, a bit one day and a bit the day after--finished and sent off
a letter of two folio _large_ and close-written sheets--nine sides equal
to twelve of this size paper--to Mr. Dawes, of Ambleside, the rough copy
of which I will show you when we meet.

The exceeding kindness and uncalculating instantaneous and decisive
generous friendship of the Gillmans, and the presence of _you_ to my
Thoughts, prevent all approach to misanthropy in my Feelings, but _for
that reason_ render those feelings more _acutely_ painful. If I did not
know that Genius, like Reason, though not perhaps so entirely, is rather
a presence vouchsafed, like a guardian spirit, to an Individual, which
departs whenever the Evil Self becomes decisively predominant, and not
like Talents or the Powers of the Understanding, a personal
property--the contemplation of ....'s[127] late and present state of
Head and Heart would overwhelm me. But I must not represent my neglect
as worse than I myself hold it to be; for I feel that I could not have
omitted it had I not known that you were so busily engaged.

Charles and Mary Lamb and Mr. Green dine with us on Sunday next, when we
are to see Mathews' Picture Gallery. Can you and Mrs. Allsop join the
party? or, if Mrs. Allsop's health should make this hazardous or too
great an exertion, can you come yourself? I am sure she will forgive me
for putting the question.

God bless you and your affectionate
S. T. COLERIDGE.

LETTER 204. TO ALLSOP

June 29th, 1822.

My dear Friend,

As fervent a prayer, as glow-trembling a joy, thanksgiving that seeks to
steady itself by prayer, and prayer that dissolves itself into thanks
and gladness, as ever eddied in or streamed onward from love and
friendship, for pain and dread, for travail of body and spirit passed
over, and a mother smiling over the firstborn at her bosom, have sped
toward you from the moment I opened your Letter. For as if there had
been a light suffused along the paper at that part, "birth of a Daughter
after a very short illness," were the first words I saw. "Well pleased!"
To be sure you are. It was scarcely a week ago that--during the only
hour free from visits, visitors, and visitations that we have had to
ourselves for I do not know how long--Mrs. Gillman and I had settled the
point; and, after a strict, patient, and impartial poll of the _pro's_
and _con's_ on both sides, a Girl it was to be, and a Girl was returned
by a very large majority of wishes. But as wishes, like strawberries, do
not bear carriage well, or at least require to be poised on the _head_,
I will send a scanty specimen of the Reasons by way of _Hansel_.
_Imprimis_, A Girl takes five times as much spoiling to spoil her.
_Item._--It is a great advantage both in respect of Temper, Manners, and
the Quickening of the Faculties, for a Boy to have a Sister or Sisters a
year or two older than himself.--But I devote this brief scroll to
Feeling: so no more of disquisition, except it be to declare the entire
coincidence of my experience with yours as to the very rare occurrence
of strong and deep Feeling in conjunction with free power and vivacity
in the expression of it. The most eminent Tragedians, Garrick for
instance, are known to have had their emotions as much at command, and
almost as much on the surface, as the muscles of their countenances;
and the French, who are all Actors, are proverbially heartless. Is it
that it is a false and feverous state for the Centre to live in the
Circumference? The vital warmth seldom rises to the surface in the form
of sensible Heat, without becoming hectic and inimical to the Life
within, the only source of real sensibility. Eloquence itself--I speak
of it as habitual and at call--too often is, and is always like to
engender, a species of histrionism.

In one of my juvenile poems (on a Friend who died in a Frenzy Fever),
you will find[128] that I was jealous of this in myself; and that it is
(as I trust it is), otherwise, I attribute mainly to the following
causes:--A naturally, at once searching and communicative disposition,
the necessity of reconciling the restlessness of an ever-working Fancy
with an intense craving after a resting-place for my Thoughts in some
_principle_ that was derived from experience, but of which all other
knowledge should be but so many repetitions under various limitations,
even as circles, squares, triangles, etc., etc., are but so many
positions of space. And, lastly, that my eloquence was most commonly
excited by the desire of running away and hiding myself from my personal
and inward feelings, _and not for the expression of them_, while
doubtless this very effort of feeling gave a passion and glow to my
thoughts and language on subjects of a general nature, that they
otherwise would not have had. I fled in a Circle, still overtaken by the
Feelings, from which I was ever more fleeing, with my back turned
towards them; but above all, my growing deepening conviction of the
_transcendancy of the moral to the intellectual_, and the inexpressible
comfort and inward strength which I experience myself to derive as often
as I contemplate truth realised into Being by a human Will; so that, _as
I cannot love without esteem, neither can I esteem without loving_.
Hence I _love_ but few, but those I love as my own Soul; for I feel that
without them I should--not indeed cease to be kind and effluent, but by
little and little become a soul-less fixed Star, receiving no rays nor
influences into my Being, _a Solitude which I so tremble at, that I
cannot attribute it even to the Divine Nature_.

_God_father or not (have not Girls Godfathers?), the little lady shall
be to me a dear Daughter, and I will make her love me by loving her own
Papa and Mamma. God bless you.

S. T. COLERIDGE.

T. Allsop, Esq.

* * * * *

The last letter refers to the birth of "Titania Puckinella," as
Coleridge loved to call Allsop's girl. The next letter refers to
Coleridge's four "griping and grasping sorrows." The third sorrow was
the break with Sarah Hutchinson, who, as we have seen, had been one of
Coleridge's good angels, the "Lady" of _Dejection; an Ode_.

LETTER 205. TO ALLSOP

Ramsgate, Oct. 8th, 1822.

My dearest Friend,

In the course of my past life I count four griping and grasping sorrows,
each of which seemed to have my very heart in its hands, compressing or
wringing. The first, when the Vision of a Happy Home sunk for ever, and
it became impossible for me any longer even to hope for domestic
happiness under the name of Husband, when I was doomed to know

That names but seldom meet with Love,
And Love wants courage without a name!

The second commenced on the night of my arrival (from Grasmere) in town
with Mr. and Mrs. Montagu, when all the superstructure raised by my
idolatrous Fancy during an enthusiastic and self-sacrificing Friendship
of fifteen years--the fifteen bright and ripe years, the strong summer
of my Life--burst like a Bubble! But the Grief did not vanish with it,
nor the love which was the stuff and vitality of the grief, though they
pined away up to the moment of ...'s last total Transfiguration into
Baseness; when, with £1,200 a year, and just at the moment that the
_extraordinary_ Bankruptcy of Fenner and Curtis had robbed me of every
penny I had been so many years working for, every penny I possessed in
the world, and involved me in a debt of £150 to boot, he _first_
regretted that he was not able to pay a certain bill of mine to his
...'s wife's brother, himself, "never wanted money so much in his
life," etc. etc.; and an hour after attempted to extort from me a
transfer to himself of all that I could call my own in the world--my
books--as the condition of his paying a debt which in _equity_ was as
much, but in honour and gratitude was far more, _his_ debt than mine!

My third sorrow was in some sort included in the second; what the former
was to friendship, the latter was to a yet more inward bond. The former
spread a wider gloom over the world around me, the latter left a
darkness deeper within myself; the former is more akin to indignation,
and moody scorn at my own folly in my weaker moments, and to
contemplative melancholy and alienation from the Past in my ordinary
state; the latter had more of self in its character, but of a Self,
emptied--a gourd of Jonas: and is _this_ it under which I hoped to have
prophesied?

My fourth commenced with the tidings of the charge against
J...--remitted with the belief and confidence of the Falsehood of the
charge--relapsed again--and again--and again--blended with the sad
convictions, that neither E. nor I. thought of or felt towards me as
they ought, or attributed any thing done for them to me; and lastly,
reached its height on the nineteenth day of E.'s fever by J.'s desertion
of him, when it trembled in the scales whether he should live or die,
and the cause of this desertion first awakening the suspicion that I had
been deliberately deceived and made an accomplice in deceiving
others.[129]

And yet, in all these four griefs, my recollection, as often as they
were recalled to my mind, turned not to _what_ I suffered, but on what
_account_--at worst, I never thought of the sufferings apart from the
causes and occasions of them; but the latter were ever uppermost. It was
reserved for the interval between six o'clock and twelve on _that
Saturday_ evening to bring a suffering which, do what I will, I cannot
help thinking of and being _affrighted_ by, as a terror of itself--a
self-subsisting, separate something, detached from the cause. I cannot
help hearing the sound of my voice at the moment when I... took me by
surprise, and asked me for the money to pay a debt to, and take leave
of, Mr. Williams, promising to overtake me if possible before I had
reached his aunt Martha's, but at latest before five. "Nay, say _six_.
Be, if you can, by five, but _say_ six." Then, when he had passed a few
steps--"J... six; O my God! think of the _agony_, the _sore agony_, of
every moment after six!" And though he was not three yards from me, I
only saw the colour of his Face through my Tears!--No more of this! I
will finish this scrawl after my return from the Beach.

When I had left behind me what I had no power to make better or worse,
and arrived at the sea side, I had soon reason to remember that I was
not at _home_, or at Muddiford, _or_ at Little Hampton, or at Ramsgate,
but under the conjunct signs of Virgo and the Crab; the one in the wane,
the other in advance, yet in excellent agreement with the former, by
virtue of its rare privilege of advancing backward. In sober prose, I
verily believe we should have found as genial a birth in a nest hillock
of Termites or Bugaboos as with this single Ant-consanguineous. As soon
therefore as dear Mr. Gillman returned to us, you will not hold it
either strange or unwise that, in agreeing to accompany him to Dover,
the kingdom of France west of Paris, Ramsgate, Sandwich, and foreign
parts in general, I determined to give myself up to each moment as it
came, with no anticipations and with no recollections, save as far as is
involved in the wish every now and then, that you had been with me; and
in this resolve it was that I destroyed the kit-cat or bust at least of
the letter I had meant to have sent you. But oh! how often have I
wished, and do I wish, that you and Mrs. Allsop could form a household
in common at Ramsgate with us next year.

And now for your second Letter. What shall I say? When our Griefs and
Fears and agitations are strongly roused towards one object, we almost
want some fresh memento to remind us that we have other Loves, other
Interests. Forgive me if I tell you that your last letter did, in
something of this way, make me feel afresh, that there was that in my
very heart that called you Son as well as Friend, and reminded me that a
Father's affection could not exist exempt from a Father's anxiety. I am
fully aware that every syllable in the latter half of your letter
proceeded from the strong two-fold desire at once to comfort and
conciliate, and that I ought to regard your remarks as the mere
straining of the Soul towards an End felt and known to be pure and
lovely; and even so I do regard them, yet I cannot read them without
anxiety: not indeed anxious Thoughts, but anxious Feeling. Sane or
insane, fearful thing it is, when I can be comforted by an assurance of
the latter; but I neither know nor _dare_ hear of any mid state, of no
vague necessities dare I hear. Our own wandering thoughts may be
suffered to become Tyrants over the mind, of which they are the
Offspring and the most effective Viceroys, or substitutes of that dark
and dim spiritual Personëity, whose whispers and fiery darts holy men
have supposed them to be, and that these may end in the loss, or rather
Forfeiture of Free agency, I doubt not. But, my dearest friend, I have
both the _Faith of Reason_ and the Voice of Conscience and the assurance
of Scripture, that, "resist the evil one, and he will flee from you."
But for self-condemnation, J... would never have tampered with Fatalism;
and but for Fatalism, he would never have had such cause to condemn
himself. With truest love,

Yours,
S. T. COLERIDGE.

T. Allsop, Esq.

P.S. Affectionate remembrances to Mrs. Allsop, in short, to you and
_yours_. While I write the two last words, my lips felt an appetite to
kiss the baby.

LETTER 206. TO GILLMAN

Ramsgate, 28th Oct., 1822.

Dear Friend,

Words I know are not wanted between you and me. But there are occasions
so awful, there may be instances and manifestations of friendship so
affecting, and drawing up with them so long a train from behind, so
many folds of recollection as they come onward on one's mind, that it
seems but a mere act of justice to oneself, a debt we owe to the dignity
of our moral nature to give them some record; a relief which the spirit
of man asks and demands to contemplate in some outward symbol, what it
is inwardly solemnizing. I am still too much under the cloud of past
misgivings, too much of the stun and stupor from the recent peals and
thunder-crush still remains, to permit me to anticipate others than by
wishes and prayers. What the effect of your unwearied kindness may be on
poor M.'s mind and conduct, I pray fervently, and I feel a cheerful
trust that I do not pray in vain, that on my own mind and spring of
action, it will be proved not to have been wasted. I do inwardly
believe, that I shall yet do something to thank you, my dear--in the way
in which you would wish to be thanked--by doing myself honour.--Dear
friend and brother of my soul, God only knows how truly, and in the
depth, you are loved and prized by your affectionate friend,

S. T. COLERIDGE.[130]

LETTER 207. TO ALLSOP

Dec. 26th, 1822.

My very dear Friend,

I might with strict truth assign the not only day after day, but hour
after hour employment, if not through the whole period of my waking
time, yet through the whole of my writing power, as the cause of my not
having written to you with my own hand; but then I ought to add that it
was enforced and kept up by the expectation of seeing you. There are two
ways of giving you pleasure and comfort; would to God I could have made
the one _compossible_ with the other and done both! The first, the
having finished the Logic in its three main divisions,--as the Canon, or
that which prescribes the rule and form of all _conclusion_ or
conclusive reasoning; second, as the Criterion, or that which teaches to
distinguish truth from falsehood, containing all the sorts, forms, and
sources of error, and means of deceiving or being deceived; third, as
the Organ, or positive instrument for discovering truth, together with
the general introduction to the whole.

The second was to come to town, and pass a week with you and Mrs.
Allsop. The latter I could not have done, and yet have been able to send
you the present good tidings that with regard to the former we are in
sight of land; that Mr. Stutfield will give three days in the week for
the next fortnight; and that I have no doubt, notwithstanding Mrs.
Coleridge and my little Sara's expected arrival on Friday next, that by
the end of January the whole book will not only have been finished, for
_that_ I expect will be the case next Sunday fortnight, but ready for
the press. In reality, I have _now_ little else but to transcribe, and
even this would in part only be necessary, but that I must of course
dictate the sentences to Mr. Stutfield and Mr. Watson, and shall
therefore avail myself of the opportunity for occasional correction and
improvement. When this is done, and can be offered as _a whole_ to
Murray or other Publisher, I shall have the Logical Exercises, or the
Logic exemplified and applied in a critique on--1. Condillac; 2. Paley;
3. The French Chemistry and Philosophy, with other miscellaneous matters
from the present Fashions of the age, moral and political, ready to go
to the press with by the time the other is printed off; and this without
interrupting the greater work on Religion, of which the first Half,
containing the Philosophy or ideal Truth, possibility, and _a priori_
probability of the articles of Christian Faith, was completed on Sunday
last.

Let but these works be once done, and the responsibility off my
conscience, and I have no doubt or dread of afterwards obtaining an
honourable sufficiency, were it only by school books, and compilations
from my own memorandum volumes. The publication of my Shakspeare and
other similar lectures, sheet per sheet, in _Blackwood_, with the aid of
Mr. Frere's short-hand copies, and those on the History of Philosophy in
one volume, would nearly suffice.

I was unspeakably delighted to see Mrs. Allsop look so _charmingly_
well. My affectionate regards to her, and a heart-uttered Happy, Happy,
Happy Christmas to you both, one for each, and the third for the little
girl, who (Mr. Watson assures me) has now the ground work and necessary
pre-condition of thriving, though it may be some time before a notable
change in the appearances may take place for the general eye.

God bless you, and your friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.[131]

T. Allsop, Esq.

The Shakespeare Lectures as arranged for _Blackwood_ were probably
written out by one of Coleridge's friends. The History of Philosophy
consisted of the Lectures commenced 14th December 1818. The Logic is
still in MS. (Dykes Campbell, _Life_, 251, note).

Mrs. Coleridge and Sara came to Highgate and remained till the end of
February (_Ainger_, ii, 65, 71). Mrs. Coleridge wrote that "our visits
to Highgate have been productive of the greatest satisfaction to all
parties." It was at this time that Sara and her cousin, Henry Nelson
Coleridge, first met.

LETTER 208. TO ALLSOP

Grove, Highgate, Dec. 10th, 1823.

My dear Allsop,

I shall be alone on Sunday, and shall be happy to spend it with you.
Ever since the disappearance of a most unsightly eruption on my Face I
have been, with but short intermission, annoyed with the noise as of a
distant Forge hammer incessantly sounding, so that for some time I
actually supposed it to be an outward sound. To me, who never before
_knew_ by any sensation that I had a head upon my shoulders, this you
may suppose is extremely harassing to the spirits and distractive of my
attention. Mrs. Gillman, on stepping from my attic, slipt on the first
step of a steep flight of nine high stairs, precipitated herself and
fell head foremost on the fifth stair; and when at the piercing scream I
rushed out, I found her lying on the landing place, her head at the
wall. Even now the Image, and the Terror of the Image, blends with the
recollection of the Past a strange expectancy, a fearful sense of a
something still to come; and breaks in, and makes stoppages, as it were,
in my Thanks to God for her providential escape. For an escape we all
must think it, though the small bone of her left arm was broken, and her
wrist sprained. She went without a light, though (Oh! the vanity of
Prophecies, the truth of which can be established only by the proof of
their uselessness) two nights before I had expostulated with her on this
account with some warmth, having previously more than once remonstrated
against it, on stairs not familiar and without carpeting.

As I shall _rely_ on your spending Sunday here, and with me alone, I
shall defer to that time all but my tenderest regards to Mrs. Allsop,
and the superfluous assurance that I am evermore, my dearest Allsop,

Your most cordial, attached, and
Affectionate friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.

T. Allsop, Esq.

P.S.--You will be delighted with my new room.

LETTER 209. TO ALLSOP

Dec. 24th, 1823.

My dearest Allsop,

I forgot to ask you, and so did Mr. and Mrs. G. ... whether you could
dine with us on Christmas-day--or on New Year's-day--or on both! If you
can, need I say that I shall be glad.

My noisy forge-hammer is still busy; quick, thick, and fervent.

With kindest regards to Mrs. Allsop,
Your ever faithful and affectionate,
S. T. COLERIDGE.

T. Allsop, Esq.

LETTER 210. TO MRS. ALLSOP

(-- 1823).

My dear Mrs. Allsop,

Indeed, indeed you have sadly misunderstood my last hurried note. So
over and over again has Mr. Allsop been assured that every invitation to
him included you, so often has he been asked to consider one meant for
both, that in a few lines scrawled in the dark, with a distracting,
quick, thick, and noisy beating as of a distant forge-hammer in my head,
and, lastly, written, not so much under any expectation of seeing him
(in fact for _Christmas_-day I had none), as from a nervous jealousy of
any customary mark of respect and affection being omitted, the ceremony
of EXPRESSING your name did not occur to me. But the blame, whatever it
be, lies with me, wholly, exclusively on me; for on asking _Mr._ Gillman
whether an invitation had been sent to you, he replied by asking me if I
had not spoken, and on my saying it was now too late, he still desired
me to write, his words being,--"For though Allsop must know how glad we
always are to see him, yet still, as far as it is a mark of respect, it
is his due." Accordingly I wrote. But after the letter had been sent to
the post, on going to Mrs. Gillman to learn how she was, and saying that
I had just scrawled a note in the dark in order not to miss the post,
_she_ expressed her disapprobation as nearly as I can remember in these
words:--"I do not think a mere ceremony any mark of respect to intimate
friends. How, in such weather as this, and short days, can it be
supposed that Mrs. Allsop could either leave the children or take them?
But to expect Mr. Allsop to dine away from his family at this time is
what I would not even appear to do, for I should think it very wrong if
he did." I was vexed, and could only reply,--"This comes of doing things
of a hurry. However, Allsop knows me too well to attribute to me any
other feeling or purpose than the real ones." I give you my word and
honour, my dear madame, that these were, to the best of my recollection,
the very words; but I am quite CERTAIN that they contain the same
substance. And for this reason, knowing how it would vex and fret on her
spirits that you had been offended, and (if the letter of itself without
any interpretation derived from the character or known sentiments of the
writer were to decide it), justly offended, I have not shown her your
note, nor mentioned the circumstance to her; for this sad accident has
pulled her down sadly, coming too in conjunction with the distressful
state of my health and spirits; for such is my state at present, that
though I would myself have run any hazard to have spent to-morrow with
Miss Southey, my own Sara's friend and twin-sister, and with Miss
Wordsworth at Monkhouse's, in Gloster-place; yet Mr. Gillman has both
dissuaded and forbidden me as my medical adviser. I trust, therefore,
that finding Mrs. Gillman _more_ than _blameless_, and that in me the
blame was in the judgment and not in the _intention_, you will think no
more of it, but do me the _justice_ to believe that any intentions or
feelings of which I have been conscious have ever been of a kind most
contrary to any form of disrespect, omissive or commissive; to which,
let me add, that _I should_ be doing what Mr. Allsop (I am sure) would
_not_ do, _if having_ shown you _consciously_ any _dis_respect I
continued to subscribe myself _his_ friend, not to speak of any
profession of being what in very truth I am, my dear Mrs. Allsop,

Sincerely and affectionately _yours_,
S. T. COLERIDGE.[132]

Thomas Monkhouse referred to in the above letter was a cousin of Mrs.
Wordsworth, with whom Lamb on 4th March 1823 "dined in Parnassus with
Wordsworth, Coleridge, Rogers, and Tom Moore, half the poetry of England
clustered and constellated in Gloucester Place" (_Ainger_, ii, 69).

LETTER 211. TO MR. AND MRS. ALLSOP

Grove, Highgate, April 8th, 1824.

Dear Mrs. Allsop,

There are three rolls of paper, Mr. Wordsworth's translation of the
first, second, and third books, two in letter-paper, one in a little
writing-book, in the drawer under the side-board in your dining-room. Be
so good as to put them up and give them to the bearer should Mr. Allsop
not be at home.

My dear Allsop,

You I know will have approved of my instant compliance with Mr.
Gillman's request of returning with him; and I know, too, that both Mrs.
Allsop and yourself will think it superfluous in me to tell you what you
must be sure I cannot but feel. I trust that when I next return from
you, I shall have--not to thank you less--but with less painful
recollections of the trouble and anxiety I have occasioned you.

In the agitation of leaving Mrs. Allsop, I forgot to take with me the
translation of Virgil. Could I, that is, dared I, wait till Sunday, I
might make it one way of inducing you to spend the day with me. Upon the
whole, however, I had better send than increase my anxieties, so I will
send Riley with this note.

My Grandfatherly love and kisses to the Fairy Prattler and the meek boy.
I did heave a long-drawn wish this morning, as the sun and the air too
were so genial, that the latter had been in the good woman's house at
Highgate well wrapped up. A fortnight would do wonders for the dear
little fellow. You and Mrs. Allsop may rely on it that I would see him
every day during his stay here, if there were only one hour in which it
did not rain vehemently.

God bless you,
And your obliged and most
affectionately attached friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.

T. Allsop, Esq.

Coleridge wrote about this time to Wordsworth regarding his translation
of part of Virgil (Knight's _Life of Wordsworth_, ii, 302), and threw
cold water on the project of Wordsworth's entering into rivalry with
Dryden.

LETTER 212. TO ALLSOP

April 14th, 1824.

My dearest Friend,

I am myself at my ordinary average of Health, and beat off the blue
Devils with the Ghosts of defunct hopes, chasing the Jack-o'-lanterns of
foolish expectation as well as I can, in the which, believe me, I derive
no small help from the Faith that in _your_ affection and sincerity I
have at least one entire counterpart of the Thoughts and Feelings with
which I am evermore and most sincerely

Your affectionate friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.

T. Allsop, Esq.

My kindest love and remembrance to Mrs. Allsop, and assure her that I
called this morning at Mrs. Constable's, induced by the very fine though
unwarm day, to hope I might find the little boy there, and was rather
disappointed to see her return without him. But, doubtless, we are
entitled every day to expect a change of the present to a more genial
wind. If the meek little one does not crow and clap his wings in a week
or so from Thursday, it shall not be for want of being looked after.

LETTER 213. TO ALLSOP

April 27th, 1824.

My dearest Friend,

I direct this to your _house_, or _firm_ should I say? because I should
not think myself justified in exciting in Mrs. Allsop an alarm, for
which I have no more grounds than my own apprehensions and unlearned
conjectures. And yet having these bodings, I cannot feel quite easy in
withholding them from you. On Saturday, the morning Mrs. Allsop was
here, I was in high hope, the little boy looking so much clearer and
livelier than on the Thursday; but the weather since then being on the
whole genial, and the baby showing no mark of progress, but rather the
reverse, and it seeming to me each returning day to require a stronger
effort to rouse its attention, and the relapse to a dulness, which it is
evident the upright posture alone prevented from being a doze, becoming
more immediate, I cannot repel the boding that there is either some
mesenteric affection, which sometimes exists in infants without
betraying itself by any notable change in the ingestion or the egesta,
yet producing on the brain an effect similar to that which flatulence,
or confined gas pressing on the nerves of the stomach, will do; or else
that it is a case of chronic (slow) hydrocephalus. Against this fear I
have to say, first, that I have not been able to detect any
insensibility to light in the pupil of its eyes, and that the little
innocent has no convulsive twitches, and neither starts nor screams in
its sleep. For the first I have no opportunity (the sun being clouded)
of making a decisive experiment, and requested Mrs. Constable to try it
with a candle, as soon as it was taken up after dark; and though the
presence of this symptom is an infallible evidence of the presence of
effusion, or some equivalent cause of pressure, its absence is no sure
proof of the absence of the disease, though it is a presumption in
favour of the _degree_. The freedom from perturbation in sleep, however,
is altogether a favourable circumstance, and allows a hope that the
continued heaviness and immediate relapse into slumber on being placed
horizontally may be the effect of weakness. But then the poor little
fellow habitually keeps its hand to its head, and there is a sensible
heat and throbbing at the temples. On the whole, you should be prepared
for the possible event, and Mrs. Constable is naturally very anxious on
this point, not merely lest any neglect should be suspected on her part,
but likewise from an anticipation of the mother's agitation, should she
at any time come up just to witness the baby's last struggles, or to
find no more what she was expecting to see in incipient recovery.

Do not misunderstand me, my dearest friend, nor let this letter alarm
you beyond what the facts require. I have seen no decisive marks, no
positive change for the worse, no measurable _retro_-gression. I have of
course repeatedly spoken to Mr. Gillman, but he says it is impossible to
form any conclusive opinion. There is no proof that it may not be
weakness at present and hitherto, but neither dare he determine what the
continuance of the weakness may not produce. Nothing can warrantably be
attempted in this uncertainty but mild alteratives, watchful attention
to the infant's regularity, with as cordial nourishment as can be given
without endangering heat or inflammatory action.

I do not think that I have been able to remain undisturbed an hour
together for the last three days, such a tumble in of persons with
requests or claims on me has there been. House-hunting, etc., etc.

* * * * *

The genial glow of Friendship once deadened can never be rekindled.

Idly we supplicate the Powers above--
There is no Resurrection for a Love
That uneclipsed, unthwarted, wanes away
In the chilled heart by inward self-decay.
Poor mimic of the Past! the love is o'er,
That must _resolve_ to do what did itself of yore.

God bless you, and your ever affectionate
S. T. COLERIDGE.

T. Allsop, Esq.

P.S. To my great surprise and delight, Mr. Anster came in on us this
afternoon, and in perfect health and spirits.[133]

It was about this time that Coleridge wrote his beautiful _Youth and
Age_,[134] in which occurs the fine designation of Friendship as "a
Sheltering Tree."

* * * * *

The following opinion of Coleridge by Mrs. Gillman is taken from _The
Bright Side of Life_ by Dr. Prentiss, an American, who visited Mrs.
Gillman in 1842, and will fittingly close this chapter:

"In speaking of Coleridge personally and as a member of her family
Mrs. Gillman's testimony was to this effect:

"'I do assure you that through all the years he lived with us, I do
not remember once to have seen him fretful or out of humour; he was
the same kindly, affectionate being from morning till evening, and
from January till December. He delighted to reconcile little
differences, and to make all things go smoothly and happily. He was
always teaching the Beautiful and the Good, while his own daily life
was the best illustration of the good and beautiful which he taught.
You know how the world sometimes misrepresented and ill-treated him,
and he felt it now and then very keenly; but he bore it all with the
sweetest patience. As I have said, I never saw him in what could be
called an ill-temper during the nineteen years he was under our
roof,--never! The servants in the house idolized him; and when he died
it seemed as if their hearts would break. We all had one feeling
toward him: we all loved him alike, each in our own way; and we all
alike wept when he died. Love was the law of his nature. He clothed
his friends, to be sure, in the colours of his own fancy, and
sometimes, perhaps, the colours were too bright; but it was his
goodness of heart, quite as much as his imagination, that was at
fault.'"

FOOTNOTES:

[126] Great as was the shock my friend sustained from the
unkind conduct of the gentlemen here alluded to, it is to me
a great solace to be assured that he forgave them fully and
entirely. [Allsop.]

[127] [Perhaps Wordsworth.]

[128] To me hath Heaven with bounteous hand assigned
Energic Reason and a shaping mind,
The daring ken of Truth, the Patriot's part,
And Pity's sigh, that breathes the gentle heart.

Sloth jaundiced all! and from my graspless hand
Drop Friendship's precious pearls, like hour-glass sand.
I weep, yet stoop not! the faint anguish flows,
A dreamy pang in Morning's feverish dose.

_Is this piled earth our Being's passless mound?
Tell me, cold grave! is Death with poppies crowned?
Tired sentinel! 'mid fitful starts I nod,
And fain would sleep, though pillowed on a clod._

[129] [The initials are probably Allsop's.]

[130] [Letter CCXXXI is our 206.]

[131] [Letters CCXXXII-CCXXXIII follow 207.]

[132] [Letter CCXXXIV follows 210.]

[133] [Letters CCXXXV-CCXXXVIII follow 213.]

[134] [1822-23.]

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE NEW ACADEME

[The letters to Allsop gradually lessen in number as we draw away from
the year 1822. This is not necessarily because there was less
communication between the two friends, but more probably because their
meetings were more frequent. The Gillmans, on account of the large
circle of friends who assembled round their guest, had to set aside an
afternoon once a week as a special "at home" day for the convenience of
visitors (_Life of Alaric Watts_, i, 244-45). This was the origin of the
_Table Talk_, edited by Henry Nelson Coleridge, which begins on 29th
December 1822, and continues, with breaks, to the year 1834. Various
accounts have been given of these celebrated Thursdays, the most notable
of which is that of J. Noon Talfourd in the concluding chapter of his
_Final Memorials of Charles Lamb_. The scraps of _Table Talk_, published
by Henry Nelson Coleridge, though reckoned of great value, are, after
all, very isolated; and to any one who has studied Coleridge's prose
works and can comprehend the "grand planetary wheelings" of his logic
they appear insufficient to warrant the accounts of the eulogists of
Coleridge's conversational ability. Doubtless they have the same
relationship to Coleridge's conversation as the shattered fragments of
the great icebergs which come floating down the Gulf Stream and wreck
themselves on the coasts of Iceland have to the icebergs of which they
are the disunited parts.

Many men who afterwards attained to eminence in their several
departments gathered at the Grove to hear Coleridge discourse. Charles
and Mary Lamb, Basil Montagu and his wife, J. Hookham Frere, Henry Crabb
Robinson, John Sterling, Henry Nelson Coleridge, Allsop, and Joseph
Henry Green, may be regarded as the planets who revolved around the
central sun. The planets, too, occasionally brought their satellites.
Joseph Henry Green made Coleridge's acquaintance in 1817. Deeply
interested in philosophy, he imbibed Coleridge's principles, and
afterwards wrote a book on the Logos, published in 1865 as _Spiritual
Philosophy_. Edward Irving also sat at the feet of Coleridge; he brought
Carlyle to Highgate in 1824, who wrote his impressions of Coleridge to
his brother the same year, and twenty years later depicted Coleridge in
colours which will remain beside those of Hazlitt, De Quincey, Noon
Talfourd, Henry Nelson Coleridge, and Clement Carlyon and T. Colley
Grattan, one of the fine gallery of contemporary literary portraits of
Coleridge. Dr. Chalmers came in 1827 and caught occasional glimpses of
meaning, (_Memoir_ by Hanna, ii, 126-27): and Emerson called in 1833,
without, however, any vital feeling of spiritual inter-relationship
springing up between them, (_English Traits_).

During 1824 Coleridge was much engaged with Religious subjects; and then
composed those Letters afterwards published as _Confessions of an
Enquiring Spirit_.

Our next letter refers to the _Aids to Reflection_ which Coleridge was
now having published. The germs of the volume may be found in the long
Theological Letter to Cottle of 1807, in which Coleridge extols Leighton
as the best of the old divines, and in a letter to John Murray of 18th
January 1822 (_Letters_, 717) in which he projected a selection of
_Beauties from Leighton_. Its theory of Atonement also lies in germ in
the play of _Osorio_, 1797, (_Remorse_ of 1813). The _Aids to
Reflection_ not only became the most popular of Coleridge's works; it
helped to forward interest in his other writings.]

The _Aids to Reflection_ first appeared in 1825. The original title was
_Aids to Reflection in the formation of a manly character on the several
grounds of Prudence, Morality, and Religion; illustrated by select
passages from our elder divines, especially from Archbishop Leighton_.
In an advertisement to the first edition, the Author mentions that the
work was proposed and begun as a mere selection from the writings of
Leighton, with a few notes and a biographical preface by the selector,
but underwent a revolution of plan and object. "It would, indeed," he
adds, "be more correct to say, that the present volume owed its
accidental origin to the intention of compiling one of a different
description than to speak of it as the same work." "Still, however, the
selections from Leighton, which will be found in the fundamental and
moral sections of this work, and which I could retain consistently with
its present form and matter, will, both from the intrinsic excellence
and from the characteristic beauty of the passages, suffice to answer
two prominent purposes of the original plan; that of placing in a clear
light the principle which pervades all Leighton's writings--his sublime
view, I mean, of Religion and Morality as the means of reforming the
human soul in the Divine Image (_Idea_); and that of exciting an
interest in the works, and an affectionate reverence for the name and
memory of this severely tried and truly primitive Churchman."

Neither Hume nor Clarendon, I believe, mentions the persecution of
Archbishop Leighton's father by the Prelatical party of his day; and yet
it was one of their worst acts, and that which most excited wrath and
indignation against the Primate--so faithful is their portrait of those
times! Never can I read Mr. Wordsworth's sublime sonnet to Laud,
especially the lines,

Prejudged by foes determined not to spare,
An old weak man for vengeance laid aside,

without thinking of another "old weak man for vengeance laid aside"--of
Laud in the day of his power pulling off his hat and thanking God for
the inhuman sentence that had been passed upon the already wasted
victim[135]--of the miserable den to which the mangled man was committed
for life after that sentence had been executed in all its multiplication
and precision of barbarity--then calling to mind the words of our
Saviour, _They that take the sword shall perish with the sword_, and
_Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy_. It was not
_mercy_ alone that was violated by these acts--but law and justice; and
if he who instigated and rejoiced in them received neither justice nor
mercy in his turn, is he worthy of the sacred name of _Martyr_? May we
not say that the _vengeance_ which fell upon this persecutor was the
Lord's vengeance, even if it came to pass by evil instruments, and fell
upon a head already bowed down, and in some respects a noble one? Can
the _glory and honour_ of meeting death with firmness,--nay even with
"sublime" piety, cast its beams backward and bathe in one pure luminous
flood a life darkened with such deep shadows, as those that chequer the
sunshine of Laud's career?--the parts really brightened with the light
of heaven? Plainness, sincerity, integrity, learning, munificence to a
cause[136]--can virtues like these outweigh or neutralize such faults of
head, heart, and temper, as lie to the charge of this Bishop in the
church of Christ? As well might we set the cold bright morning dews,
that rest on the stony crown of Vesuvius, against the burning lava that
bursts from its crater, and expect them to quench the fire or reduce it
to a moderate heat. _Some_ abatement must be made from the guilt of his
violences from consideration of the _times_; but to subtract the whole
on that account, or even to make light of it, is surely too much to make
moral good and evil dependent on circumstance. What? Have Arundel,
Bonner, Gardiner little or nothing to answer for? Was there ever yet a
persecutor that persecuted from mere _speculative_ inhumanity? Even
through Clarendon's account we may discern, I think, that Laud's private
passions, in part at least, engaged him in the cause of Intolerance. He
had been exasperated, before he attained power, by Puritan molestations
and oppositions,--he became the persecutor of Puritans after he attained
it; as schoolboys that have been tormented while they were in a low
form, torment in their turn when they get into a high one,--not their
tormentors but unfortunates who represent them to their imagination. An
eminently good and wise man is above his _times_, if not in all, yet in
many things; but Laud was the very impersonation of his times--the
impersonated spirit of his age and his party. (Compare his over
ceremonious consecration of St. Catherine's Church, gloated over by
Hume, with Archdeacon Hare's remarks on his neglect of his diocese, in
_The Mission of the Comforter_.) They who are of that party still, who
would still swathe religion by way of supporting it, and dizen by way of
dressing it, and gaze with fond regretful admiration upon the giant
forms of Spiritual Despotism and Exaggerated Externalism, as they loom
shadowy and magnificent through the vapoury vista of ages, to them no
wonder that he is a giant too. And there are others, far above that or
any other _party_, who in their love and zeal for the Church, abstract
the how and the why of Laud's public warfare, and see him abstractedly
as the Champion of the Church of England. "God knows my heart," says Mr.
Coleridge, (in a marginal note on Mr. Southey's article on the _History
of Dissenters_, in the _Quarterly Review_ of October 1813,) "how
bitterly I abhor _all_ intolerance, how deeply I pity the actors when
there is reason to suppose them deluded; but is it not clear that this
theatrical scene of Laud's death, who was the victim of almost national
indignation, is not to be compared with 'bloody sentences' in the
coolness of secure power? As well might you palliate the horrible
atrocities of the Inquisition, every one of which might be justified on
the same grounds that Southey has here defended Laud, by detailing the
vengeance taken on some of the Inquisitors." I do not see that _here_ my
honoured Uncle _defends_ the Primate: he says, "We are not the
apologists of Laud; in some things he was erroneous, in some imprudent,
in others culpable. Evil, which upon the great scale is ever made
conducive to good, produces evil to those by whom it comes." And how
wise and beautiful is this sentiment a little further on! "It especially
behoves the historian to inculcate charity, and take part with the
oppressed, whoever may have been the oppressors."

As some excuse for my Father's expression, "theatrical scene," I allege
that sentence of Laud's; "Never did man put off mortality with a better
courage, nor look upon his bloody and malicious enemies with more
Christian charity." My Father adds: "I know well how imprudent and
unworldly these my opinions are. The Dissenters will give me no thanks,
because I prefer and extol the _present_ Church of England, and the
partizans of the Church will calumniate me, because I condemn particular
members, and regret particular æras, of the _former_ Church of England.
Would that Southey had written the _whole_ of his review in the spirit
of this beautiful page." (Page 102.) In that very interesting collection
of meditative Sonnets by the late Sir Aubrey de Vere is one upon Laud,
against which I ventured to write, "If _anything_ done in the name of
principle must needs be righteous, then the tortures and long
languishing of Leighton are no impeachment of Laud's righteousness."
There was a second edition of the _Aids_ in 1831, a fifth in 1843.

The little work _On the Constitution of the Church and State, according
to the Idea of each_, first appeared in 1830, and went into a second
edition in the same year. It is now joined with the _Lay Sermons_ in one
volume. To the _Church and State_ are appended _Notes on Taylor's
History of Enthusiasm_, and _A Dialogue between Demosius and Mystes_.

[LETTER 214. TO ALLSOP

March 20th, 1825.

My dearest Friend,

I should have answered your last but for three causes: first, that I had
proofs to correct and a passage of great nicety to add, neither of which
could be deferred without injustice to the Publishers, and the breach of
a definite promise on my part; second, that I was almost incapacitated
from thinking of and doing anything as it ought to be done by poor Mrs.
G.'s restless and interrogating anxieties, which in the first instance
put the whole working Hive of my Thoughts in a whirl and a bur; and
then, when I see her care-worn countenance, and reflect on the state of
her health (and it is difficult to say which of the two, ill-health or
habitual anxiety, is more cause and more effect), a sharp fit of the
Heart-ache follows.

But enough of this Subject. I ought to be ashamed of myself for
troubling you with it; you have enough frets and frictions of your own.
And so I proceed to the third cause, which is that (how far imputable to
the mood of mind I was in, I cannot say) I did not understand your
letter.

Is there any definite service, or any chance of any definite service,
great or small, that I can do or promote, or expedite, by coming to
town? If there be, let me have a line or a monosyllable _Yes_, and
mention the time. I would have set off and taken the chance without
asking the question, but that I have so many irons in the fire at this
present moment,--1, my Preface; 2, my Essay; 3, a Work prepared for the
press by my Hebrew Friend,[137] in which I am greatly interested,
morally and _crumenically_, though not like the Modern Descendants of
Heber, one of a _crumenimulga Natio_, _i.e._ a purse-milking set; and 4,
Revisal, etc., for a friend only less near than yourself.

Mr. Chance, I take it for granted, has written to you. My opinion is,
that he will be a valuable man, not only generally, but _especially_ to
that which alone concerns _me_--_your_ comfort and happiness. He is a
self-satisfied man, but of the very kindest and best sort. Prosperous in
all his concerns, and with peace in his own conscience and family, I
regard such vainness but as the overflow of humanity. I do not like him
the better _for_ it; but I should not like him the better _without_ it.
Meantime he is active, shrewd, a thorough man of business; _sanguine_ I
should think, both by constitution and habitual success: and, under any
sudden emergency, I think that Mr. Chance, not so deeply interested, and
yet (such is his nature) with equal liveliness in feeling, would be a
comfort to you.

I shall miss the post if I do more than add, that whatever really serves
_you_, will (and on his death-pillow quite as much as in his present
garret) delight

Your sincere and affectionate friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.[138]

T. Allsop, Esq.

LETTER 215. TO ALLSOP

April 30th, 1825.

My dearest Friend,

Having disburdened myself of the main loads of outward obligation at
least that pressed upon me, my Essay for the R. S. L.,[139] and my _Aids
to Reflection_, with other matters not so expressly my own, but having
the same, if not greater, demands on such quantity of time, as bodily
pain and disqualification, with unprecludible interruption, have enabled
me to make use of, I take the _very_ first moment of the Furlough to
tell you that I have been perplexed both by your silence and your
absence. In fact, I had taken for granted you were in Derbyshire, till
this afternoon, when I saw one who had met you yesterday.

Now I cannot recollect anything that can--I am sure, ought to have given
you offence, unless it were my non-performance of the request
communicated to me by Mr. Jameson.

I was ever in the _stifle_ of my _reflected_ anxieties, _i.e._ anxieties
felt by reflection from those of others, and my _Tangle_ of
_Things-to-be-done_, solicitous to see and talk with you. You must not
feel wounded if, loving you so truly as I do, and feeling more and more
every week that nothing is worth living for but the consciousness of
living aright, I was _nervous_ if you will, with regard to the effect of
this undertaking on the frame of your moral and intellectual Being. In
the meantime, you never came near me, so that I might have been able to
rectify my opinions, or rather to form them; and I felt, and still feel,
that I would gladly go into a garret and work from morning to late
night, at any work I could get money by, and more than share my
pittance with you and yours, than see you unhappy with twenty thousand
at your command.

Do not, my dearest friend, therefore let my perplexities, derived in
great measure from my unacquaintance with the facts, and to which my
ever-wakeful affection gave the origin, prevent you from treating, as
you were wont to do,

Your truly sincere
S. T. COLERIDGE.

T. Allsop, Esq.

LETTER 216. TO ALLSOP

Saturday, May 2nd, 1825.

My dear Friend,

I am sure you did not mean that the interest I feel in this undertaking
was one which I was likely to _throw_ off, or one which there was any
chance of my not retaining; but I would fain have you not even speak or
write below that line of friendship and mutual implicit reliance, on
which you and I stand. We are in the world, and obliged to chafe and
chaffer with it; _but we are not of the world, nor will we use its
idioms or adopt its brogue_.

God bless you, and your affectionate Friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.

T. Allsop, Esq.

LETTER 217. TO ALLSOP

May 10th, 1825.

My dearest Friend,

I have been reflecting earnestly and actively on the subject of a
Metropolitan University, now in agitation, and could conveniently
comprise the results in three Lectures.

On the Histories of Universities generally, the most interesting
Features in the History of the most celebrated Universities in Great
Britain, Germany, France, etc. Reduction of all Universities of any
name, with respect to their construction and constitution, to three
Classes. 2. The Meaning of the Term, University, and the one true and
only adequate Scheme of a University stated and unfolded from the Seed
(_i.e._ the idea) to the full Tree with all its Branches. 3. The
advantages, moral, intellectual, national, developed from reason and
established by proofs of History; and, lastly, a plan (and sketch of the
_means_) of approximating to the Ideal, adapted and applied to this
Metropolis. (N.B. The Plan _in detail_, salaries only not mentioned--the
particular sums, I mean.) The obstacles, the favourable circumstances,
the _pro_ and _con_ regarding the question of Collegiate Universities,
etc. etc. That I could make these subjects not only highly interesting
but even entertaining, I have not the least doubt. But would the subject
excite an interest of _curiosity_? Would the anticipation of what I
might say attract an audience of respectable smallclothes and petticoats
sufficiently large to produce something more than, with the same
exertions of Head and Hand, I might earn in my Garret (to give the
precise Top-ography of my abode) here at Nemorosi, _alias_ Houses in the
Grove. For the expense of coach-hire, the bodily fatigue, and (to borrow
a phrase from poor Charles Lloyd) "_the hot huddle of indefinite
sensations_" that hustle my inward man in the _monster_ city and a Crown
and Anchor Room demand a +, and would an =, after all expenses paid, but
ragged economy, unless I were certain of effecting more good in this
than in a quieter way of industry.

I wrote to Mr. B. Montagu for his advice; but he felt no interest
himself in the subject, and naturally therefore was doubtful of any
number of others feeling any. But he promised to talk with his friend
Mr. Irving about it! On the other hand, I heard from Mr. Hughes and a
Mr. Wilkes (a clever Solicitor-sort of a man who lives in
Finsbury-square, has a great sway with the Slangi yclept the Religious
Public, and, _this I add as a whitewasher_, was a regular attendant on
_my_ lectures), that the subject itself is stirring up the Mud-Pool of
the Public Mind in London with the vivacity of a Bottom wind. If you can
find time, I wish you would talk with Jameson about it, and obtain the
opinion of as many as are likely to think aright; and let me know your
own opinion and anticipation above all, and at all events, and as soon
as possible. We dine on Friday with Mr. Chance. I wish you were with us,
for I am sure he would be glad to see you. Need I say that my thoughts,
wishes, and prayers follow you in all your doings and strivings, for I
am evermore, my dearest friend,

Yours, with a friend and a father's
affection and solicitude,
S. T. COLERIDGE.

T. Allsop, Esq.

My kindest remembrances to Mrs. Allsop, with kisses for little Titania
Puckinella.

_Years have passed since I heard the Nightingales sing as they did this
evening_ in Mr. Robart's Garden Grounds; _so many, and in such full
song, particularly that giddy voluminous whirl of notes which you never
hear but when the Birds feel the temperature of the air voluptuous_.

* * * * *

P.S. If I undertook these Lectures, I should compose the three, and
write them out with as much care and polish as if for the Press, though
I should probably make no use of the MS. in speaking, or at all attempt
to recollect it. It would, relatively to my _vivâ voce_ addresses, be
only a way of premeditating the subject.

LETTER 218. TO ALLSOP

(-- 1825.)

My dearest Friend,

The person to whom I alluded in my last is a Mr. T...,[140] who, within
the last two or three years, has held a situation in the Colonial
Office, but _what_, I do not know. From his age and comparatively recent
initiation into the office, it is probably not a very influensive one;
and, on the other hand, from the rank and character of his friends, he
has occasionally brought up with him to our Thursday evening _conver_-,
or, to mint a more appropriate term, _one_-versazione, it must be a
respectable one. Mr. T... is _Southey's friend_, and more than a
literary acquaintance to _me_, only in consequence of my having had some
friendly intercourse with his uncle during my abode in the north. Of
_him_ personally I know little more than that he is a remarkably
handsome fashionable-looking young man, a little _too deep_ or _hollow
mouthed_ and important in his enunciation, but clever and well read; and
I have no reason to doubt that he would receive any one whom I had
introduced to him as a friend of mine in whose welfare I felt anxious
interest, with kindness and a disposition to forward his object should
it be in his power.

But again, my dearest Friend, you must allow me to express my regret
that I am acting in the dark, without any conviction on my mind that
your present proceeding is not the result of wearied and still agitated
spirits, an impetus of despondency, _that_ fever which accompanies
exhaustion. I can too well sympathise with you; and bitterly do I feel
the unluckiness of my being in such a deplorable state of health just at
the time when for your sake I should be most desirous to have the use
of all my faculties. May God bless you, and your little-able but most
sincere friend,

S. T. COLERIDGE.[141]

T. Allsop, Esq.]

FOOTNOTES:

[135] The particulars of this instance of Star Chamber tyranny I
read in Aikman's _Life of Archbishop Laud_, prefixed to his
works. It is said that when he was taken out of the wretched
cell in Newgate in which he was confined before his sentence,
"_the skin and hair had almost wholly come off his body_."
This was for writing against _Prelacy_, not against
Christianity. Any man may do the like now and not a hair of
his head can be touched; yet _moral_ offences, public or
private, have far less chance of escaping with impunity than
they had then. [S. C.]

[136] Clarendon, _passim_, especially his summary of Laud's
character. [S. C.]

[137] [Hyman Hurwitz, see Aldine Edition of the _Poems_, ii, 248.]

[138] [Letter CCXXXIX follows letter 214.]

[139] [The Essay for the R.S.L. referred to in letter 215 is the
_Disquisition on the Prometheus of Aeschylus_ delivered before
the Royal Society of Literature on 18th May, 1825. It is one
of the most mystical of all Coleridge's productions.]

[140] [Sir Henry Taylor.]

[141] [Letters CCXL-CCLIX follow 218.]

CHAPTER XXIX

ALARIC WATTS

[While at Highgate, Coleridge contributed some short pieces of poetry,
which may be regarded as his Autumn Leaves, to the Annals got up by
Alaric Alexander Watts and F. M. Reynolds, to which Sir Walter Scott and
the other leading literary men of the time were induced to send their
less ambitious pieces. Fine steel engravings accompanied the poems and
novelettes; and one of these by Stoddart, entitled the _Garden of
Boccaccio_, was the subject of a poem by Coleridge in the _Keepsake_ of
1829. For this poem and some trifling epigrams Coleridge received the
sum of £50 (_Life of Alaric Watts_, i, 292). The name of Coleridge must
have stood high to command so large a fee for the things given to the
_Keepsake_. The _Lines on Berengarius_ appeared in the _Literary
Souvenir_ of 1827, and _Youth and Age_ and _Work without Hope_ in the
_Bijou_ of 1828.

Some conception of the importance of these annuals may be gathered from
stating that the _Literary Souvenir_ of 1827, got up by Alaric Watts,
sold to the number of 7,712 copies in England, between November and
April, and 700 in America of the ordinary edition, and 528 of a
large-paper edition. There were other annuals besides these already
mentioned, called the _Forget-me-Not_, _Friendship's Offering_, _The
Amulet_, _The Winter's Wreath_, _The Anniversary_, _The Gem_, and other
kindred publications (_Life of Alaric Watts_, i, 305).

The most finished production of Coleridge's latest period is _Alice Du
Clos_, a ballad of the Romantic Movement. Much speculation as to the
date of its origin has been put forth, some thinking it belongs to the
time when the _Ancient Mariner_, _Christabel_, and the _Three Graves_
were written, others placing it between the publication of the last two
Editions of the Collected Poems, 1829-1834. But in Letter 205 of date
8th October 1822, the quotation of the two lines

That names but seldom meet with Love,
And Love wants courage without a name!

seems to imply that the ballad was then extant. Coleridge, as we know
(see _Letters_, ii, 717), was engaged between 1822 and 1825 writing his
_Aids to Reflection_, and the following curious passage occurs in
Aphorism XXXI (Moral and Religious Aphorisms). Speaking of slander, he
says: "It is not expressible how deep a wound a tongue sharpened to this
work will give, with no noise and a very little word. This is the true
white gunpowder, which the dreaming projectors of silent mischief and
insensible poisons sought for in the laboratories of art and nature, in
a world of good; but which was to be found in its most destructive form,
in _the world of evil_, the Tongue" (Bohn Library edition, p. 70).
_Alice Du Clos, or the Forked Tongue_, is the full title of the ballad;
and it looks as if it had been written to illustrate the passage, though
it has an affinity with Lewis's _Ellen of Eglantine_ and _The
Troubadour, or Lady Alice's Bower_ (_Tales of Terror and Wonder_).[142]

In a letter to William Blackwood of 20th October 1829 Coleridge says he
has among other poems for the Magazine, "a Lyrical Tale, 250 lines,"
which he could give if desired (_William Blackwood and his Sons_, by
Mrs. Oliphant, i, 415). The date of the poem may therefore be put down
as 1822-1829.

_Alice Du Clos_ ranks with the _Ancient Mariner_, _Christabel_, _Kubla
Khan_, _Love_ and the _Ballad of the Dark Ladye_, among Coleridge's
poems in which he rises out of his own subjectivity into the clear realm
of objective art. The remark of Thomas Ashe (Preface to the Aldine
Edition of the _Poems_, cxxxvi), that "the great fault of Coleridge is
that he puts too much of himself, _unidealized_, into his verses," is
perfectly true. Coleridge was himself aware of this defect, and in
Letter 167, speaking of the _Hymn before Sunrise_, he admits that there
is in the Hymn too much of the _idiosyncratic_ for true poetry, a piece
of self-criticism that can be alleged against a great number of his
poems, beautiful of their kind yet savouring too often of the Ego. The
_Lime Tree Bower_, _Dejection, an Ode_, the _Lines to Wordsworth_, the
_Pains of Sleep_, the _Tombless Epitaph_, _Youth and Age_, the _Garden
of Boccaccio_, _Work without Hope_, are not exceptions. It is only in
the _Ancient Mariner_, _Christabel_, _Kubla Khan_, _The Three Graves_,
_Love_, _The Ballad of the Dark Ladye_, and _Alice Du Clos_, that
Coleridge succeeds in hiding his own personal identity behind his
melodious utterance, and attains to that simplicity which is truly
classical. Most of his other poems are autobiographical, and can be
thoroughly understood only as part of his epistolary correspondence. His
finest ode, _Dejection_, is only a versified letter to Wordsworth,
afterwards denuded of its most personal references, and addressed to a
"Lady," to give it a more artistic cast.

The relationship between Coleridge and Alaric Watts was not confined to
the contributions to the Annuals. An agreeable social intimacy sprang up
between the Highgate household and the Watts; and a correspondence
between Mr. and Mrs. Watts and Coleridge took place. Five fine letters
by Coleridge are contained in the _Life of Alaric Watts_, from which it
seems Coleridge and Mr. Watts intended to collaborate in the issue of an
edition of Shakespeare, which would have been a congenial task to
Coleridge, and one can feel regret that it was not carried out. A
feature of the edition was to be "properly critical notes, prefaces, and
analyses, comprising the results of five and twenty years' study: the
object being to ascertain and distinguish what Shakespeare possessed in
common with other great men of his age, or differing only in degree, and
what was his, peculiar to himself" (_Life of Alaric Watts_, i, 243).
This, of course, as any one acquainted with Coleridge's Lectures on
Shakespeare knows, was one of Coleridge's favourite topics, and one
which could have been better illustrated in an annotated edition than in
popular lectures.

In one of his letters to Alaric Watts Coleridge gives the best account
of the lack of voluntary power to open letters sent him; and counsels
Watts if he wishes an immediate answer to his letters to send them under
cover to Mrs. Gillman, who is his "outward conscience." In another
letter, sending contributions for the Annual, he encloses his poem
entitled _Limbo_, which he says is a pretended fragment of the poet
Lee.]

FOOTNOTES:

[142] [The error "Ellen" in line 91 may have arisen from Coleridge
having called the heroine Ellen, after that of Lewis's _Ellen
of Eglantine_, but afterwards having changed that name for
Alice in the other stanzas forgetting to alter the word in
line 91.]

CHAPTER XXX

THE RHINE TOUR, AND LAST COLLECTED
EDITIONS OF THE POEMS

[Coleridge and Wordsworth, who, as we have seen, had had a serious
estrangement in 1810, but gradually drew together again with the
softening of the years, went on tour to the Rhine in 1828; and this was
Coleridge's third time on the Continent. On their way they met Thomas
Colley Grattan, novelist and miscellaneous writer. He gave in his
_Beaten Paths_ some account of the two poets as they appeared at the
time--partly reproduced in Knight's _Life of Wordsworth_. This passage
is the best description of the two poets in their later period and the
most reliable, along with Clement Carlyon's description of Coleridge in
Germany. There is no attempt in Grattan to spin rhetoric out of
Coleridge, such as we find in De Quincey, Hazlitt, and Carlyle. Another
diarist gave a picture of the poets during the Rhine Tour, Julian
Charles Young, who wrote the memoir of his brother, Charles Mayne Young,
an actor of the time. This account is also partly reproduced in Knight's
_Life of Wordsworth_. Grattan says: "He was about five feet five[143]
inches in height, of a full and lazy appearance but not actually stout.
He was dressed in black, and wore short breeches, buttoned and tied at
the knees, and black silk stockings. And in his costume (the same that
he describes to have been worn in his earliest voyages and travels in
the year 1798), he worked along, in public coaches or barges, giving
the idea of his original profession, an itinerant preacher. His face was
extremely handsome, its expression placid and benevolent. His mouth was
particularly pleasing, and his grey eyes, neither large nor prominent,
were full of intelligent softness. His hair, of which he had plenty, was
entirely white. His forehead and cheeks were unfurrowed and the latter
showed a healthy bloom" (_Beaten Paths_, ii, 108-109). On all topics
touched by Coleridge he said something to be remembered. "In almost
everything that fell from Coleridge there was a dash of deep
philosophy--even in the outpourings of his egotism--touches not to be
given without the whole of what they illustrated" (_Beaten Paths_, ii,
113). "Coleridge took evident delight in rural scenes. He was in
ecstasies at a group of haymakers in a field we passed. He said the
little girls, standing with their rakes, the handles resting on the
ground, 'looked like little saints.' Half-a-dozen dust-covered children
going by the roadside, with a garland of roses raised above their heads,
threw him into raptures" (_Beaten Paths_, ii, 115).

Coleridge made a new collection of his Poems in 1828, which added to the
Early Poems and _Sibylline Leaves_ seventeen new pieces. The collection
was published in three volumes by Pickering, and included _Remorse_,
_Zapolya_, and _Wallenstein_. Coleridge made many careful revisions; his
corrections are a study in verse making. Another edition was issued in
1829; and here again Coleridge made alterations in twenty-one of the
poems, the chief of which were in the _Monody on the Death of
Chatterton_. The last edition of Coleridge's Poems prepared during his
life was that of 1834, in three volumes, but though the first volume was
out in May, the third volume was not issued from the press till after
his demise on 25th July. The corrections extend to twenty-three poems.
Some are merely restorations of former readings; but they constitute a
real difference from the text of 1829, and must be accepted as
belonging to the Textus Receptus. Henry Nelson Coleridge superintended
the edition, but it is not likely, as Dykes Campbell supposed, that he
made the alterations, for Coleridge was continually readjusting his
texts.

The remainder of Coleridge's life from 1829 was taken up with visits
from his old friends, in composing a Commentary on the New Testament,
writing marginalia on the English Divines, and holding his Thursday
at-homes. In 1830 he published his noble pamphlet _On the Constitution
of Church and State_. Many new friends flocked round the ageing poet, to
be introduced to whose acquaintance was one of the highest literary
treats of London life. Friendship had been the balm of Coleridge's life;
he had had his estrangements and misunderstandings. But he knew well
that

Friendship is a Sheltering Tree,

the pathos of which line can be appreciated only when we recall to mind
that its writer had been denied the full enjoyment of the deeper
friendship called Love.

A good sized volume could be compiled of all the contemporary accounts
of Coleridge. We have already had some of these. Another we must add by
a young American. Coleridge was highly appreciated on the other side of
the Atlantic; his monument in Westminster Abbey was the gift of an
American; and the late Emperor of Brazil was an admirer and student of
Coleridge. The following account is taken from _The Nation_, an American
literary journal, of 14th July 1910:

"Henry Blake McLellan was born at Maidstone, Essex County, Vt.,
September 16, 1810. He was the son of Isaac and Eliza McLellan of
Boston, and the grandson of Gen. William Hull of Newton, Mass. After a
preparatory course at the Boston Latin School, McLellan entered Harvard
University in 1825, and graduated in 1829. He studied for the ministry
at Andover, 1829-31, and then went on a tour, which included Great
Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland. He left America
September 16, 1831; started on his return April 18, 1833, and landed at
Boston June 12. Then came the tragic ending to a bright young life.
Eight weeks after his return he was stricken by typhus, and died four
weeks later, in his twenty-third year.

"Such was the young and ardent spirit who went to see Coleridge in the
filial spirit in which a disciple might have sat at the feet of an
ancient philosopher. He writes this simple and affecting account of the
interview:

"'Saturday, April 27th, 1832.

"'Walked to Highgate to call on Mr. Coleridge. I was ushered into the
parlor while the girl carried up my letter to his room. She presently
returned, and observed that her master was very poorly, but would be
happy to see me, if I would walk up to his room, which I gladly did. He
is short in stature, and appeared to be careless in his dress. I was
impressed with the strength of his expression, his venerable locks of
white, and his trembling frame. He remarked that he had for some time
past suffered much bodily anguish. For many months (thirteen) seventeen
hours each day had he walked up and down his chamber. I inquired whether
his mental powers were affected by such intense suffering; "Not at all,"
said he. "My body and head appear to hold no connexion; the pain of my
body, blessed be God, never reaches my mind." After some further
conversation, and some inquiries respecting Dr. Chalmers, he remarked,
"The Doctor must have suffered exceedingly at the strange conduct of our
once dear brother laborer in Christ, Rev. Mr. Irving. Never can I
describe how much it has wrung my bosom. I had watched with
astonishment and admiration the wonderful and rapid development of his
powers. Never was such unexampled advance in intellect as between his
first and second volume of sermons, the first full of Gallicisms and
Scottisms, and all other cisms, the second discovering all the elegance
and power of the best writers of the Elizabethan age. And then so sudden
a fall, when his mighty energies made him so terrible to sinners." Of
the mind of the celebrated Puffendorf he said, "his mind is like some
mighty volcano, red with flame, and dark with tossing clouds of smoke,
through which the lightnings play and glare most awfully." Speaking of
the state of the different classes of England, he remarked, "We are in a
dreadful state. Care, like a foul hag, sits on us all; one class presses
with iron foot upon the wounded heads beneath, and all struggle for a
worthless supremacy, and all to rise to it move shackled by their
expenses; happy, happy are you to hold your birthright in a country
where things are different; you, at least at present, are in a
transition state; God grant it may ever be so! Sir, things have come to
a dreadful pass with us; we need most deeply a reform, but I fear not
the horrid reform which we shall have. Things must alter; the upper
classes of England have made the lower persons _things_; the people in
breaking from this unnatural state will break from duties also."

"'He spoke of Mr. Allston with great affection and high encomium; he
thought him in imagination and color almost unrivalled (pp.
230-232).'"[144]

* * * * *

The letters of Coleridge written during his last years breathe a pious
and tender melancholy, but they are few, and what have been published
are fragmentary. On 18th March 1833 he wrote to John Sterling, who, in
spite of Carlyle's assertion to the contrary, remained a disciple to the
end: "With grief I tell you I have been, and now am, worse, far worse
than when you left me. God have mercy on me, and not withdraw the
influence of His Spirit from me!" Recommending Mr. Gillman's son for the
Living of Leiston he wrote:

"I have known the Revd James Gillman from his Childhood, as having been
from that time to this a trusted Inmate of the Household of his dear and
exemplary Parents. I have followed his progress at weekly Intervals from
his entrance into the Merchants' Taylors' School, and traced his
continued improvements under the excellent Mr. Bellamy to his Removal,
as Head Scholar, to St. John's College; and during his academic Career
his Vacations were in the main passed under my eye.

"I was myself educated for the Church at Christ's Hospital, and sent
from that honoured and unique Institution to Jesus College, Cambridge,
under the tutorage and discipline of the Revd James Bowyer who has left
an honoured name in the Church for the zeal and ability with which he
formed and trained his Orphan Pupils to the Sacred Ministry, as
Scholars, as Readers, as Preachers, and as sound Interpreters of the
Word. May I add that I was the Junior Schoolfellow in the next place,
the Protegé, and the Friend of the late venerated D^r Middleton, the
first Bishop of Calcutta. And assuredly whatever under such Training and
such Influence I learnt, or thro' a long life mainly devoted to
Scriptural, Theological and Ecclesiastical Studies, I have been
permitted to attain, I have been anxious to communicate to the Son of my
dearest Friends, with little less than paternal Solicitude. And at all
events I dare attest, that the Revd James Gillman is pure and blameless
in morals and unexceptionable in manners, equally impressed with the
importance of the Pastoral Duties as of the Labours of the Desk and the
Pulpit: and that his mind is made up to preach the _whole_ truth in
Christ."[145]

Coleridge was always a lover of children. From his earliest years he was
interested in the weak and small things of the earth, or as he expressed
it at the conclusion of his immortal poem,

All things both great and small,

which embraced more than the babes; and there is an innate connection
between his solicitude for children and that sentimental love of the
"bird and beast" which characterized his poetical period (_Brandl_, p.
102). We have seen how he took notice of the young haymakers on the
Rhine Tour, and how he loved to call the children of his friends by
endearing pet names, Puckinella and the like. The last letter Coleridge
wrote was to a child, not yet able to read, to whom he had stood
godfather.

LETTER 219. TO ADAM STEINMETZ KENNARD

To Adam Steinmetz Kennard,

My dear godchild,--I offer up the same fervent prayer for you now, as I
did kneeling before the altar, when you were baptized into Christ, and
solemnly received as a living member of his spiritual body, the church.
Years must pass before you will be able to read with an understanding
heart what I now write. But I trust that the all-gracious God, the
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, who, by his
only-begotten Son, (all mercies in one sovereign mercy!) has redeemed
you from evil ground, and willed you to be born out of darkness, but
into light; out of death, but into life; out of sin, but into
righteousness; even into "the Lord our righteousness;" I trust that he
will graciously hear the prayers of your dear parents, and be with you
as the spirit of health and growth, in body and in mind. My dear
godchild, you received from Christ's minister, at the baptismal font, as
your Christian name, the name of a most dear friend of your father's,
and who was to me even as a son, the late Adam Steinmetz, whose fervent
aspirations, and paramount aim, even from early youth, was to be a
Christian in thought, word, and deed; in will, mind, and affections. I
too, your godfather, have known what the enjoyment and advantages of
this life are, and what the more refined pleasures which learning and
intellectual power can give; I now, on the eve of my departure, declare
to you, and earnestly pray that you may hereafter live and act on the
conviction, that health is a great blessing; competence, obtained by
honourable industry, a great blessing; and a great blessing it is, to
have kind, faithful, and loving friends and relatives; but that the
greatest of all blessings, as it is the most ennobling of all
privileges, is to be indeed a Christian. But I have been likewise,
through a large portion of my later life, a sufferer, sorely affected
with bodily pains, languor, and manifold infirmities, and for the last
three or four years have, with few and brief intervals, been confined to
a sick room, and at this moment, in great weakness and heaviness, write
from a sick bed, hopeless of recovery, yet without prospect of a speedy
removal. And I thus, on the brink of the grave, solemnly bear witness to
you, that the Almighty Redeemer, most gracious in his promises to them
that truly seek him, is faithful to perform what he has promised; and
has reserved, under all pains and infirmities, the peace that passeth
all understanding, with the supporting assurance of a reconciled God,
who will not withdraw his spirit from me in the conflict, and in his own
time will deliver me from the evil one. O my dear godchild! eminently
blessed are they who begin _early_ to seek, fear, and love, their God,
trusting wholly in the righteousness and mediation of their Lord,
Redeemer, Saviour, and everlasting High Priest, Jesus Christ. Oh,
preserve this as a legacy and bequest from your unseen godfather and
friend,

S. T. COLERIDGE.[146]

July 13th, 1834,
Grove, Highgate.

FOOTNOTES:

[143] [Coleridge in his youth was about five feet ten inches in
height.]

[144] _Journal of a Residence in Scotland and Tour through England,
France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy._ With a Memoir of the
Author and Extracts from his Religious Papers. Compiled by
Isaac McLellan, jr., Boston, 1834.

[145] [_The Gillmans of Highgate_, p. 28.]

[146] [Letter CCLX of E. H. Coleridge's _Letters_ of S. T. C. is our
No. 219.]

CHAPTER XXXI

CONCLUSION

After Mr. Coleridge's death in July 1834,[147] four volumes of his
_Literary Remains_ were published by his late Editor. Vols. I and II
appeared in 1836, Vol. III in 1838, Vol. IV in 1839. Vol. I contains
_The Fall of Robespierre_ and other poems, and poetical fragments, Notes
of a Course of Lectures delivered in 1818, Marginal Notes on several
books, Fragments of Essays, Mr. C.'s Contributions to the _Omniana_ of
Mr. Southey, published in 1812, and fifty-six other short articles on
various subjects. Vol. II contains more Notes of Lectures on
Shakespeare, including criticism on each of his Plays, with Introductory
Matter on Poetry, the Drama, and the Stage, prefaced by extracts of
letters relating to these Lectures: Notes on Ben Jonson, on Beaumont and
Fletcher, on Fuller, on Sir Thomas Browne, an Essay on the Prometheus of
Æschylus, and other miscellaneous writings.

Vol. III contains _Formula Fidei de S. Trinitate_, A Nightly Prayer,
Notes on the Book of Common Prayer, on Hooker, Field, Donne, Henry More,
Heinrichs, Hacket, Jeremy Taylor, The Pilgrim's Progress, and John
Smith, and a Letter to a Godchild.

Vol. IV contains Notes on Luther, St. Theresa, Bedell, Baxter, Leighton,
Sherlock, Waterland, Shelton, Andrew Fuller, Whitaker, Oxlee, A
Barrister's Hints, Davison, Irving, and Noble, and an Essay on Faith.
The present edition of the _Literary Remains_ is nearly exhausted. In a
fresh edition new matter will be added from marginal notes, probably in
a fifth volume. Archdeacon Hare speaks of _The Remains_ in the Preface
to his _Mission of the Comforter_ in a passage which may fitly be
produced here.

"Of recent English writers, the one with whose sanction I have chiefly
desired, whenever I could, to strengthen my opinions, is the great
religious philosopher to whom the mind of our generation in England owes
more than to any other man. My gratitude to him I have endeavoured to
express by dedicating the following Sermons to his memory; and the
offering is so far at least appropriate, in that the main work of his
life was to spiritualize, not only our philosophy, but our theology, to
raise them both above the empiricism into which they had long been
dwindling, and to set them free from the technical trammels of logical
systems. Whether he is as much studied by the genial young men of the
present day, as he was twenty or thirty years ago, I have no adequate
means of judging; but our theological literature teems with errors, such
as could hardly have been committed by persons whose minds had been
disciplined by his philosophical method, and had rightly appropriated
his principles. So far too as my observation has extended, the third and
fourth volumes of his _Remains_, though they were hailed with delight by
Arnold on their first appearance, have not yet produced their proper
effect on the intellect of the age. It may be that the rich store of
profound and beautiful thought contained in them, has been weighed down,
from being mixt with a few opinions on points of Biblical criticism,
likely to be very offensive to persons who know nothing about the
history of the Canon. Some of these opinions, to which Coleridge himself
ascribed a good deal of importance, seem to me of little worth; some, to
be decidedly erroneous. Philological criticism, indeed, all matters
requiring a laborious and accurate investigation of details, were alien
from the bent and habits of his mind; and his exegetical studies, such
as they were, took place at a period when he had little better than the
meagre Rationalism of Eickhorn and Bertholdt to help him. Of the
opinions which he imbibed from them, some abode with him through life.
These, however, along with everything else that can justly be objected
to in the _Remains_, do not form a twentieth part of the whole, and may
easily be separated from the remainder. Nor do they detract, in any way,
from the sterling sense, the clear and far-sighted discernment, the
power of tracing principles in their remotest operations, and of
referring all things to their first principles which are manifested in
almost every page, and from which we might learn so much."

The last posthumous work of Mr. Coleridge, published September, 1840, is
entitled _Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit_, and consists of seven
letters on the Inspiration of the Scriptures. It should be understood
that this work is intended _not to undermine the belief that the Bible
is the Word of God_, or in any degree to lessen the deep reverence with
which it is regarded by Christians, but to put that belief on a better
foundation than it commonly rests upon. "Let it be distinctly
understood," the author says, "that my arguments and objections apply
exclusively to the following Doctrine or Dogma. To the opinions which
individual divines have advanced in lieu of this doctrine,"--for
instance, I suppose, the strange fancy that the _words_ of the Bible are
not divinely dictated, that the language is human and yet exempt, by
divine power, from any possible admixture of human error,--"my only
objection, as far as I object, is--that I do not understand them.--I
said that in the Bible there is more that _finds_ me than I have
experienced in all other books put together; that the words of the Bible
find me at greater depths of my being; and that whatever finds me brings
with it an irresistible evidence of its having proceeded from the Holy
Spirit. But the Doctrine in question requires me to believe, that not
only what finds me, but that all that exists in the sacred volume, which
I am bound to find therein, was not alone inspired by, that is, composed
by men under the actuating influence of the Holy Spirit, but
likewise--dictated by an infallible intelligence;--that the writers,
each and all, were divinely informed as well as inspired.----I can
conceive no softenings here which would not nullify the Doctrine, and
convert it to a cloud for each man's fancy to shape and shift at will.
And this doctrine, I confess, plants the vineyard of the word with
thorns for me, and places snares in its pathways." He proceeds to shew
how the doctrine in question injures the true idea of the spirituality
and divinity of the sacred volume, and directly or indirectly tends to
alienate men from the outward Revelation. A second edition of this
little work will soon be prepared.

The book has been denounced in strange style by some who do not profess
to have read it. These reasoners assume in the first place that both the
tendency and object of it is to overthrow Christianity--whereas any one
who reads _it_, and not merely what a hostile spirit has predetermined
to find in it, cannot fail to perceive that at least the writer's
_object_ is to guard and exalt the religion of Christ. But, secondly,
forgetting that the book is [not] intended to overthrow Christianity,
they urge that Christianity has done very well hitherto without such
views as it propounds, and that very great thinkers and good men have
lived and died, in the faith and fear of the Lord, without the knowledge
of them;--as if the wants of the Church were in all ages exactly alike;
or as if there had not been in all ages clouds over the sunshine of
faith, occasioned by the difficulties which the writer seeks to remove;
or as if it were not true that the more light men obtain on one side of
the region of thought the more they need on other sides; as if greatness
and goodness, in their application to men, were not relative terms, and
the best and wisest of mortals that have appeared upon earth had ever
been free from error and imperfection! I should think there is hardly a
foolish or evil notion on any subject which might not be screened from
attack by such arguments as these. And, even were they not such mere
weakness, of what force can they be with those, who take for their
motto, as Mr. Coleridge did from first to last: _That all men may know
the truth_ and that _the truth may set them free_? Religious truth and
religion are identified in Scripture, or at least represented as one and
inseparable; and how can a man obey the truth or minister to it, except
by setting forth, what, after the widest survey of the subject which he
is capable of taking, _he believes to be the truth_?

The suggestion that no man should examine such subjects or call in
question prevailing views in religion save one who starts from a high
station of holiness and spiritual light, can be of little value unless
accompanied by a _criterion_ of holiness, both as to kind and degree,
admitted by all men. _Prevailing_ notions are often utterly erroneous,
and if none might expose what they believe in their hearts to be wrong
and injurious views, till it was proved, even to their adversaries'
satisfaction, that they were far advanced in true sanctity, wrong views
would be the prevailing ones till the end of time. Providence works by
finer means than enter into this sort of philosophy, making imperfection
minister to the perfecting of what is good and purifying of what is
evil.

Whether or no the views of St. Jerome and other ancient Fathers
concerning Inspiration are, as has been affirmed, something far deeper
and higher than we, in our inferior state of spirituality, can conceive,
I do not presume to decide; but yet I would suggest, that high and
spiritual views in general are capable of being set forth in words, and
of gradually raising men up to _some_ apprehension of them. They do not
remain a light to lighten the possessor and mere darkness, or a light
that closely resembles a shade, to the rest of the world. Things that
pertain to reason and the spirit appeal to the rational and spiritual in
mankind at large; they tend to elicit the reason and expand the
understandings of men; deep calleth unto deep; and if the teaching of
Paul and John is now in a wonderful manner apprehended by peasants and
children, who hear the Gospel habitually, St. Jerome's notions of
Inspiration, if truly divine and evangelical, would by this time be
generally apprehended by Christians in the same way, and by the wise and
learned would be comprehended more intellectually and systematically.
Whereas, can it be denied, that no consistent scheme of Inspiration has
ever been gathered from the teaching of those ancient Fathers? They who
believe that such a scheme is contained in their writings, explicitly or
implicitly, will do well to unfold it. Merely to talk about such a thing
in a style of indefinite grandeur is but to conjure up a mist, by the
spell of solemn sounding words, to mock the eyes of men with a cloud
castle for a season--a very little season it is during which any such
piece of mist-magnificence can remain undispersed in times like the
present, except for those who had rather gaze on painted vapours than on
realities of a hue to which their eyes are unaccustomed.

I have not been able to obtain any exact account of all my Father's
courses of lectures, given after his visit to Germany, but find, from
letters and other sources of information that he lectured in London,
before going to Malta, in 1804; on his return from Malta, in 1807; again
in 1808; in 1811; in 1814, in which year he also lectured at Bristol; in
1817; and, for the last time, I believe, in 1819. His early lectures at
Bristol are mentioned in the biographical sketch.[148]

The poetic or imitative art, an ancient critic has observed, must needs
describe persons either better than they are, at the present time, or
worse, as they are exactly. The fact is, however, that in literary
fiction _individuals_ can seldom be exhibited _exactly_ such as they
are, the subtle interminglings of good and evil, the finely balanced
qualities that exist in the actual characters of men, even those in whom
the colours are deepest and the lines most strongly traced, being _too_
fine and subtle for dramatic effect. Indeed it is scarcely possible to
present a man as he truly is except in plain narrative; his mind cannot
be properly manifested save in and through the very events and
circumstances which gave utterance to his individual being and which his
peculiar character helped to mould and produce. When taken out of these
and placed in the alien framework of the novelist or dramatist it
becomes another thing; the representation may convey truth of human
nature in a broad way, and seem _drawn to the life_, if the writer have
a lively wit, but as a portrait of a particular person it is often the
more a falsehood the more natural it appears.

To poetic descriptions these remarks do not apply. They are, for the
most part, mere views of a character in its elevated and poetic
aspects--tributes of admiration to its beautiful qualities. Such are the
fine stanzas, already quoted, in which the _poet_ Coleridge is described
by the great Poet, his Friend:[149] and such are some less known,
composed by a poet of a later generation, who never saw my Father face
to face. Of these the last four will serve for a conclusion to this
sketch. I give them here for the sake of their poetic truth and the
earnest sympathy they manifest with the studious poet--

Philosopher contemning wealth and death,
Yet docile, childlike full of life and love,--

though they are not among the very finest parts of their author's
thoughtful and beautiful poetry.

No loftier, purer soul than his hath ever
With awe revolved the planetary page
(From infancy to age)
Of knowledge: _sedulous and proud to give her
The whole of his great heart for her own sake;
For what she is; not what she does, or what can make._[150]

And mighty voices from afar came to him;
Converse of trumpets held by cloudy forms,
And speech of choral storms.
Spirits of night and noontide bent to woo him--
He stood the while, lonely and desolate
As Adam when he ruled a world, yet found no mate.

His loftiest Thoughts were but like palms uplifted;
Aspiring, yet in supplicating guise--
His sweetest songs were sighs.
Adown Lethean streams his spirit drifted,
Under Elysian shades from poppied bank
With Amaranths massed in dark luxuriance dank.

Coleridge, farewell! That great and grave transition
Which may not Priest or King or Conqueror spare,
And yet a Babe can bear,
Has come to thee. Through life a goodly vision
Was thine; and time it was thy rest to take.
Soft be the sound ordained thy sleep to break--
When thou art waking, wake me, for thy Master's sake![151]

FOOTNOTES:

[147] [25th July 1834.]

[148] [For the correct dates of the Lectures see p. 167 of this
volume.]

[149] [Chapter IV.]

[150] Here seems an allusion to an anti-utilitarian maxim of
Bacon's, which is very expressive of my Father's turn of
mind:--Et tamen quemadmodum luci magnam habemus gratiam, quod
per eam vias inire, artes, exercere, legere, nos invicem
dignoscere possimus, et nihilominus _ipsa visio lucis res
praestantior est et pulchrior, quam multiplex ejus usus; ita
certe ipsa contemplatio rerum, prout sunt, sine superstitione
aut impostura, errore aut confusione, in se ipsa magis digna
est, quam universus inventorum fructus_. Novum Organum, Part
of Aph. CXXIX.

[151] From a volume containing _The Search after Proserpine_,
_Recollections of Greece_ and other Poems by Aubrey de Vere,
author of _The Fall of Rora_.

APPENDIX AND ADDITIONAL NOTES

APPENDIX

LETTERS CONTAINED IN THIS WORK DRAWN FROM JOSEPH COTTLE'S _EARLY
RECOLLECTIONS_ (1837), AND HIS _REMINISCENCES_ (1847)

_E. R._ _REM._
LETTER 15 Vol. i, p. 150 p. 74
" 16 " 184 97
" 17 " 164 84
" 18 " 165 85
" 19 " 166 85
" 20 " 169 87
" 21 " 172 90
" 22 " 171 88
" 23 " 140 67
" 24 " 137 65
" 25 " 141 68
" 30 " 144 70
" 31 " 145 70
" 32 " 159 81
" 38 " 173 90
" 41 " 209 115
" 48 " 197 107
" 49 " 229, 188 130, 100
" 50 " 230 130
" 51 " 219 122
" 52 " 213 118
" 53 " 224 126
" 54 " 232 132
" 55 " 211 117
" 56 " 190 102
" 57 " 239 136

_E. R._ _REM._
LETTER 58 Vol. i, p. 240 p. 137
" 59 " 246 140
" 60 " 230 131
" 61 " 250 142
" 62 " 274 149
" 63 " 252 144
" 64 " 254 148
" 65 " 253 144
" 66 " 234 133
" 67 " 255 149
" 68 " 251 143
" 69 " 288 159
" 70 " 305 171
" 71 -- 172
" 72 " 307 173
" 74 " 307 173
" 76 " 294, 251 164, 143
" 77 " 296 165
" 78 " 297 165
" 79 " 300 167
" 80 " 311 176
" 81 " 315 179
" 85 -- 425
" 88 -- 429
" 89 -- 432
" 93 -- 435
" 99 -- 438
" 100 -- 453
" 104 Vol. ii, p. 18, 254
" 111 -- 443
" 112 -- 448
" 113 -- 450
" 114 -- 454
" 115 -- 458
" 116 -- 459
" 117 -- 461
" 118 -- 463
" 122 -- 465

LETTER 123 Vol. i, p. 201 p. 109
" 124 -- 467
" 125 -- 471
" 128 -- 472
" 131 Vol. ii, p. 75 305
" 132 Vol. i, p. 204 112
" 133 Vol. ii, p. 83 314
" 134 116 337
" 135 131 345
" 136 126 341
" 139 133 346
" 153 -- 351
" 154 146 357
" 155 112 336
" 156 147 358
" 157 -- 359
" 158 155 366
" 159 160 370
" 160 162 371
" 161 164 380
" 162 165 380
" 163 185 394
" 164 174 386
" 165 177 389
" 219 193 397

Letters Nos. 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 30, 32, and 38 were
included in the _Biographical Supplement_. The text of these
eleven letters is that of the _Supplement_.

LETTERS IN THE _LIFE OF WILLIAM GODWIN_, NOT INCLUDED IN THIS WORK
NOR IN _LETTERS OF S. T. COLERIDGE_ (1895)

1. Letter to Godwin, vol. ii, p. 1. 8 January 1800
2. " " " 2. 3 March 1800
3. " " " 6. 11 September 1800
4. Letter to Godwin, vol. ii, p. 13. 9 December 1800
5. " " " 15. 17 December 1800
6. " " " 79. 8 July 1801
7. " " " 81. 22 Sept. 1801
8. " " " 83. 19 Nov. 1801

MEMORIALS OF COLEORTON (1887)

LETTERS BY COLERIDGE TO SIR GEORGE AND LADY BEAUMONT, NOT INCLUDED
IN _LETTERS OF S. T. COLERIDGE_ (1895)

1. Letter to Sir George and Lady Beaumont, vol. i, p. 1.
12 August, 1803
2. vol. i, p. 6.
22 September 1803
3. " " " vol. i, p. 12.
1 October 1803
4. " Sir George Beaumont, vol. i, p. 38.
30 January 1804
5. " " " p. 43.
1 February 1804
6. " Lady Beaumont, vol. i, p. 52. 5 March 1804
7. " Sir George Beaumont, vol. i, p. 55. 8 March 1804
8. p. 58. 6 April 1804
9. " Sir George and Lady Beaumont, vol. i, p. 69.
Malta, 1 August 1804
10. " Sir George Beaumont, vol. ii, p. 44.
18 February 1808
11. " " " p. 63.
17 December 1808
12. p. 69.
2 January 1809
13. " Lady Beaumont, p. 96. 21 January 1810
14. 124. 16 March 1811
15. " Sir George and Lady Beaumont, vol. ii, p. 164.
(1806 or 1811?)
16. Letter to Sir George Beaumont, vol. ii, p. 171. 9 June 1814
17. " Lady Beaumont, vol. ii, p. 194. January 1821?
18. " " " 246. 18 March 1826

LETTERS IN _THOMAS POOLE AND HIS FRIENDS_, BY MRS. HENRY SANDFORD
(1888), NOT CONTAINED IN THE BIOGRAPHICAL SUPPLEMENT, NOR IN
_LETTERS OF S. T. C._ (1895).

Vol. i, p.10, S. T. Coleridge to Thomas Poole -- 1799
154, " " ? Aug. 1796
179, " " 15 Nov. 1796
180, " " (Nov.) 1796
271, " " June 1798
295, " " 8 April 1799
300, " Mrs. Coleridge 6 May 1799
Vol. ii, 1-2, " Thomas Poole -- January 1800
5, " " 14 February 1800
7, " " -- Mch. 1800
8-9, " " 31 Mch. 1800
10-11, " " 14 August 1800
15 " " -- October 1800
22-3, " " 7 January 1801
26, " " 1 February 1801
30, " " 13 February 1801
40, " " Mch.-Apl. 1801
44, " " Apl.-May 1801
48, " " 17 May 1801
57, " " 1 July 1801
63, " " 7 Sept. 1801
66, " " 5 October 1801
71, " " 21 October 1801
79, " " 7 May 1802
99, " " 17 Dec. 1802
101, " " 29 Dec. 1802
226, " " 4 Dec. 1808
258, note, and
279-80, " " July 1821?
280, " " 2 January 1827

LETTERS CONTAINED IN BRANDL'S _LIFE OF COLERIDGE_ (1887)

p. 267, Coleridge to Samuel Purkis, of Brentford. (Autumn) 1800
323, " H. C. Robinson. 18 Nov. 1811
362, " H. C. Robinson. 20 June 1817
354, " H. C. Robinson. 3 Decr. 1817
357, " John Morgan. 5 January 1818
351, " John Taylor Coleridge. 8 May 1825
373, " Basil Montagu. 1 Feby. 1826

LETTERS CONTAINED IN PROFESSOR KNIGHT'S _LIFE OF WORDSWORTH_, NOT
APPEARING IN THIS WORK, OR _LETTERS OF S. T. C._ (1895)

Vol. i, p. 180, Coleridge to W. Wordsworth. -- 1798
p. 184, " " -- 1798
p. 184, " " -- 1799
p. 184, " " -- 1799
p. 195, " " Summer 1799
p. 198, " Dorothy Wordsworth -- 1799
p. 201, " W. Wordsworth. 12 Oct. 1799
p. 201, " " Dec. 1799
p. 202, " " Feby. 1800
Vol. ii, p. 13, " " 16 Feby. 1804
p. 14, " " 4 April 1804
p. 100, " " Spring 1808
p. 172, " John Morgan 27 Mch. 1812

LETTERS CONTAINED IN _WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND HIS SONS_, BY MRS.
OLIPHANT (1897)

Vol. i, p. 408, S. T. Coleridge to William Blackwood. (Spring) 1819
" 412, " " 30 June 1819
" 413, " " 24 Feby. 1826
" 414, " " 20 October 1829
" 416, " " 15 May 1830
" 419, " " 26 May 1832

LETTERS CONTAINED IN THE _LIFE OF ALARIC WATTS_, BY HIS SON, ALARIC
ALFRED WATTS (1884)

Vol. i, p. 152, S. T. Coleridge to Alaric Watts. (1823-1824)
" 243, " " (1827)
" 288, " " (1827)
" 290, " " 1 January 1828
" 291, " " 14 September 1828

LETTERS CONTAINED IN _JOHN HOOKHAM FRERE AND HIS FRIENDS_, BY
GABRIELLE FESTING, 1899.

Chap. XI, p. 218, S. T. Coleridge to J. H. Frere. (-- 1816)
" 220, " George Frere. Dec. 1816
" 221, " " 19 Dec. 1816
" 222, " J. H. Frere. 27 June 1817
" 224, " " 16 July 1817
" 227, " " (-- 1827)
" 228, " " (no date)

ADDITIONAL NOTES

_Biographical Supplement._--The original Text of the Supplement of the
_Biographia Literaria_, 2 vols., 1847, by Henry Nelson Coleridge and
Sara Coleridge, is as follows:

Pp. 311-35, vol. i, pp. 1-29 to "5th of February 1791" of this work.
335-38, " 30-34 to "destined to turn" of this work.
338-44, " 35-41 to "pantisocratical basis" of this work.
344-45, " 44-46 to "22nd of September 1794" of this work.
345-48, " 47-51 to "S. T. Coleridge" of this work.
348-50, " 53-56 to "expected" "
350-55, " 56-62 to "S. T. C." "
355-60, " 63-68 to "S. T. Coleridge" "
360-62, " 71-74 to "S.T. Coleridge" "
362-3, " 76-76 to "never arrived" "
363-77, " 77-92 to "latest convictions" "
377-86, " 96-105 to "S. C." o "
386-90, " 114-119 to "plaintive warbling" "
391, " 121 to "were written" "
391-411, vol. ii, 76-99 to "name behind" "
411-21, " 104-115 to "candid" "
422-25, " 280-284 to "_Demosius and Mystes_" of this work.
426-32, " 305-312 to "_Fall of Rora_" of this work.

_Cottle's Text._--Cottle has been severely blamed for tampering with the
text of the letters of Coleridge. The most glaring changes occur in
Letter 32, in which Cottle inserts the names of Lamb, Wordsworth and Dr.
Parr, and in Letter 123, in which he alters his own name for that of
Biggs, his partner. His changes consist mostly of omissions. Letters 99,
114, 117, 122, which are given in full in T. Litchfield's _Tom Wedgwood
the First Photographer_, are the principal sufferers from Cottle's
treatment. It cannot be said that these omissions amount to a serious
charge against Cottle. They were made to avoid bringing in the names of
people still alive or whose near relations might object to their names
figuring in a publication, and also to avoid obtruding Coleridge's
complaints about his ill-health and his own treatment into notice. His
tampering with the letters of Southey, in which he makes Southey say
what he never wrote, is not, of course, defensible (see Dykes Campbell's
_Life of Coleridge_, p. 204 _note_). Cottle's longest omission is in
Letter 99, to Wedgwood, where Coleridge quotes what Lamb had written to
him about Cottle's own poem _Alfred_ (see Ainger's _Letters of Lamb_, i,
138). The omission of such a passage was only to be expected; Cottle was
not going to act as his own hangman. Henry Nelson Coleridge, Thomas Noon
Talfourd, and even Canon Ainger, and indeed nearly all editors of
letters published during the first half of the nineteenth century, took
the liberty to discriminate what should be communicated to the public in
volumes such as Cottle's.

_Vol. I, p. 50._--The Summer of 1795 should be "the Autumn of 1794;" see
_Thomas Poole and his Friends_, I, 95.

_Vol. I, p. 62._--Letter 24 is placed by Cottle in the spring of 1796,
but being dated from Stowey, it is possible that this letter may belong
to 1797. The revision of the _Religious Musings_ mentioned in the letter
would suit 1797 as well as 1796, for the text of that poem differed very
widely from that of the First Edition.

_Vol. I, p. 97._--The numbered poems in Letter 42, are:

Effusion 27. _The Rose_, "As late each flower that sweetest blows."
28. _The Kiss_, "One kiss, dear Maid! I said, and sigh'd."
Sonnets, 45. To Bowles.
59. "Thou gentle look that didst my soul beguile."
60. "Pale Roamer thro' the night, thou poor Forlorn!"
61. "Sweet Mercy! how my very heart has bled."
Sonnets, 64. "Thou bleedest my poor Heart! and thy distress."
65. To Schiller.
66. Brockley Coombe.

_Vol. I, p. 292_, _Letter_ 117. Books from Wordsworth's
Library.--"Perhaps one of the most interesting books in the whole
selection is Sir T. Browne's _Enquiries into Vulgar and Common Errors_,
the folio edition of 1658, which contains a long letter to Sara
Hutchinson, relative principally to many curious passages in the work,
also several MS. marginal notes and corrections, all in the handwriting
of S. T. Coleridge, and autographs of Charles Lamb and Mary Wordsworth.
The copy of Sir Thomas Browne's _Religio Medici_, 1669, contains copious
marginal and other MS. annotations by Coleridge, and has this
inscription inside the cover, 'Sara Hutchinson from S. T.
C.'"--_Athenæum_, No. 3579, May 30, 1896.

_Vol. II, p. 262_, _Contemplative melancholy_.--The phrase is a
variation of "speculative gloom," which Coleridge used in his original
prospectus of the _Friend_, objected to by Francis Jeffrey (see Letters,
ii, 536, _note_), and afterwards changed into "_Dejection of Mind_" in
the printed Prospectus (see Letter 143, vol. ii, p. 51). The phrase
"speculative gloom" was derived from Warton's _Ode for the New Year_
1786 (which Coleridge took as his model for his own _Ode to the
Departing Year_):

"Hence then, each vain complaint, away,
Each captious doubt, and cautious fear!
Nor blast the new-born year,
That anxious waits the Spring's slow-shooting ray:
Nor deem that Albion's honours cease to bloom.
With candid glance, th' impartial Muse,
Invoked on this auspicious morn,
The present scans, the distant scene pursues,
And breaks Opinion's speculative gloom:
Interpreter of ages yet unborn,
Full right she spells the characters of Fate,
That Albion still shall keep her wonted state!
Still in eternal glory shine,
Of Victory the sea-beat shrine;
The source of every splendid art,
Of old, of future worlds the universal mart."

_Vol. II, p. 294._ _The Objective and the Subjective in Art._--Goethe
and Schiller always insisted upon the _Objective_ as the highest form of
art; many passages occur in their letters regarding the distinction.
Schiller says, 28th November 1796: "As regards _Wallenstein_, it is at
present progressing very slowly, as I am chiefly occupied with the raw
material, which is not yet quite collected; but I still feel equal to
it, and I have obtained many a clear and definite idea in regard to its
form. What I _wish_ and _ought_ to do, and what I _have_ to do, has now
become pretty clear to me; it now merely depends upon accomplishing what
I wish and what I ought to do by using what I have in hand before me. As
regards the _spirit_ in which I am working, you will probably be
satisfied with what I have done. I shall have no difficulty in keeping
my subject outside of myself, and in only giving the object."--_Bohn
Library Translation_, Correspondence between Goethe and Schiller, i,
263-4.

_Vol. II, p. 297._--Poems of Coleridge differing in their Texts
in the Editions of 1829 and 1834:

_The Raven_ (two lines).
_Time Real and Imaginary_ (one word).
_Songs of the Pixies._
_Lines on an Autumnal Evening_ (one word).
_Lines written at the King's Arms, Ross._
_Monody on the Death of Chatterton_ (11 lines).
_Sonnet on Kosciusko_ (one line).
_Sonnet, "Pale roamer through the night."_
_Brockley Coombe._
_Religious Musings_ (a few words).
_Destiny of Nations_ (differs slightly).
_Christabel_ (slightly).
_Ode to the Departing Year_ (sixth line).
_The Devil's Thoughts._
_To the Rev. George Coleridge_ (one word).
_The Nightingale_ (one word).
_Lines written at Elbingerode_ (one word).
_A Tombless Epitaph_ (one word).
_To a Young Friend on his proposing to domesticate with the author_
(one word).
_Ode to Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire._
_Dejection, an Ode._
_Lines on Berengarius._
_France, an Ode._

INDEX

Adams, Dr. Joseph Adams, recommends Coleridge to James Gillman,
ii, 149.

Addington, Right Honourable H., Prime Minister of England in 1801,
i, 286.

Aders, Mrs., ii, 217.

_Aeolian Harp, The_, poem by Coleridge, i, 167; ii, 110.

Aesthetic, The, ii, 237.

_Aids to Reflection_, origin of, ii, 279-84, 286, 293.

Ainger, Canon, _Letters of Lamb_, Preface, xi, xvii; i, 92.

_Albion, The_, newspaper, i, 247.

Alfoxden, ii, 31.

_Alice du Clos_, a ballad by Coleridge, ii, 293-4.

Alison, Sir Archibald, Historian (1792-1867), on Coleridge, ii, 89.

_Allegorical Lines_, "_Myrtle Leaf that ill besped_," i, 126.

_Allegoric Vision_, ii, 113.

Allen, Robert, early friend of Coleridge, ii, 250.

Allsop, Thomas, friend of Coleridge, Preface, vi, ix, xvi; ii, 158-80;
introduces himself to Coleridge, 158;
birth of his daughter, 259, 267-8, 278, 279.
See also "Letters."

Allsop, Mrs., ii, 250, 258, 267-8, 289.

Allston, Washington, American Artist, i, 115; ii, 6, 136, 300.

Amiel, Henri Frederic (1821-1881), and Coleridge, Preface, xiv;
ii, 139.

_Amulet, The_, Preface, viii; ii, 292.

_Ancient Mariner, The_, i, 150, 159, 160; ii, 104, 111, 293-4.

_Anima Poetae_, by E. H. Coleridge, Preface, vii, xi, xvii.

_Anniversary, The_, an annual, ii, 292.

_Annual Anthology, The_, i, 195.

Anster, Professor John (1793-1867), translator of _Faust_, ii, 247.

_Antonio_, a tragedy by William Godwin, i, 201, 247.

Aristotle, i, 271.

Ashe, Thomas (1836-1889), Poet and Editor of the _Aldine_ Edition of
Coleridge's Poems and other works, Preface, xix; ii, 232, 238;
his opinion of Coleridge's Poetry, 294.

_Athenæum_, quoted, Preface, xi; ii, 36-7.

Atonement, Coleridge's Theory of, ii, 279.

Aynard, Joseph, _La Vie d'un Poète_, Preface, xix.

Ball, Sir Alexander, governor of Malta, appoints Coleridge his
Secretary, ii, 3.

Banks, Sir Joseph (1744-1820), i, 268.

Barbauld, Mrs. (1743-1825), i, 76.

Barr, Mr., of Worcester, entertains Coleridge, i, 58.

_Barrister's Hints, A_, Coleridge's Notes on, ii, 305.

Baxter, Coleridge's Notes on, ii, 305.

Beaumont, Sir George, and Lady, Coleridge's opinion of, i, 300;
ii, 33, 36, 136, 146.

Beaumont and Fletcher, Coleridge's Notes on, ii, 305.

Beddoes, Dr. (1760-1808), acquaintance of Coleridge, i, 52, 66, 72,
76, 83, 84, 155, 206, 245; ii, 28, 30; death of, 45.

Bedell, Coleridge's Notes on, ii, 305.

Bell, Dr. Andrew (1753-1832), Founder of the Madras System of
Education, ii, 34, 74.

Berdmore, Mr., a friend of Southey, i, 35, 37.

_Berengarius, Lines suggested by the last words of_, a poem by
Coleridge, ii, 113, 292.

Berkeley, Bishop (1685-1753), ii, 146.

Bernard, Sir Thomas, ii, 41.

_Bertram_, Coleridge's Critique on, ii, 82, 220.

Betham, Matilda, Portrait Painter, Coleridge writes letters to,
ii, 38.

Bethell, Mr., of Yorkshire, stands along with Coleridge for the
Craven Scholarship, i, 30.

Bibliographies of Coleridge, Preface, xviii.

Biggs, Mr. Cottle's partner, i, 286.

_Bijou, The_, annual, ii, 292.

_Biographia Literaria_, by S. T. Coleridge, Preface, xvi, ii, 86,
93, 104;
origin of, 146, 169.

_Biographia Literaria_, Supplement of.
See _Preface_ and _Appendix_.

Blackwood, William (1776-1834), Publisher, Coleridge's Letters to,
ii, 232, 293.

_Blackwood's Magazine_, Coleridge contributes to, Preface, vii, viii;
ii, 213, 232, 238, 268, 293.

_Blackwood, William, and his Sons_, by Mrs. Oliphant, Letters of
Coleridge contained in.
See _Preface_ and _Appendix_.

_Blossoming of the Solitary Date Tree_, poem by Coleridge, ii, 112.

Blumenbach, Professor J. H., Naturalist (1752-1840), i, 196.

_Bookman, The_, Preface, xi;
quoted, i, 51.

_Borderers, The_, drama by Wordsworth, i, 137, 141, 154, 155, 157.

Bowden, Ann, mother of S. T. Coleridge, i, 3;
ancestry of, 5;
anecdotes of, 19-20.

Bowles, William Lisle, Poet (1762-1850), i, 139.

Bowyer (or Boyer), Rev. James, Teacher of Coleridge at Christ's
Hospital, i, 23; ii, 301.

Brabant, Dr., of Devizes, Coleridge writes to, ii, 141, 148.

Brandl, Professor Alois, of Prague, biographer of Coleridge, his _Life
of Coleridge_, Preface, x, xix; ii, 302.

_Brazil, History of_, Southey's, ii, 41.

Brent, Charlotte, sister of Mrs. Morgan, ii, 102, 140, 148.

_British Critic, The_, i, 246.

Britton, Mr., Coleridge writes letters to, ii, 165-9.

Brooke, Stopford A., his Introduction to the _Golden_ Book of
Coleridge, Preface, xx.

Brookes, Mr., a College acquaintance of Southey, i, 35, 37.

_Brothers, The_, a poem by Wordsworth, i, 200, 229, 240.

Browne, Wilfred, his _From Ottery to Highgate_, Preface, xx.

Browne, Sir Thomas (1605-1682), Coleridge on, i, 293;
Notes on, ii, 305.

Bruno Giordano, Philosopher (died 1600), Coleridge's philosophy
influenced by, ii, 146.

Buller, Sir Francis, procures for Coleridge a presentation to Christ's
Hospital, i, 19.

Burgess, Sir James Bland (1752-1824), his _Richard the First_, i, 243.

Burke and Pitt, Coleridge on, ii, 55.

Burnett, George, one of the Pantisocrats, i, 45, 49, 65, 132, 133-4.

Butler, Samuel (1774-1839), gains the Craven Scholarship, i, 30.

Byron, Lord, i, 235;
attends Coleridge's Lectures, ii, 73;
on _Zapolya_, 107;
Coleridge's description of, 157, 220.

Caine, Mr. Hall, his _Life of Coleridge_, Preface, xix;
on Coleridge and Southey, ii, 131.

"Caius Gracchus," Letter to, i, 69.

Calvert, William, i, 222-4.

_Cambridge Intelligencer_, i, 67, 68.

Cambridge, Coleridge at, i, 29, 51.

Campbell, J. Dykes, _Life of Coleridge_, Preface, x, xix; i, 140, 163.

Campbell, Thomas, Poet (1774-1844), his _Pleasures of Hope_, i, 229.

Canova, Antonio, Italian Sculptor (1757-1822), Coleridge meets in Rome,
ii, 6.

"Cantab," Letter to, in the _Friend_, ii, 63.

_Cary, H. F., Memoir of_, Preface, x.

Carlisle, Sir Antony, i, 220.

Carlyle, Thomas, visits Coleridge in 1824, ii, 279, 296.

Carlyon, Clement (1777-1864), his _Early Years and Late Reflections_,
Preface, xvi;
meets Coleridge in Germany, i, 162;
describes Coleridge at the University of Göttingen and his ascent
of the Brocken, 167; ii, 279, 296.

Caroline, Queen, ii, 202.

Casimir, Latin Poet, Coleridge's Ode after, i, 34.

Catcott, George, of the Bristol Library, Coleridge sends a letter to,
i, 128.

_Catullian Hendecasyllables_, poem by Coleridge, ii, 111.

Chalmers, Dr. Thomas (1780-1847), Free Churchman, pays a visit to
Coleridge, ii, 279, 299.

Chateaubriand, F. R. (1768-1848), quoted, ii, 139.

_Chatterton, Monody on the death of_, first published, i, 68, 73, 144,
154;
revision of, 1829, ii, 133, 297.

_Christabel_, running up to 1,300 lines, i, 206-7;
Coleridge unable to finish, 208;
how Coleridge wrote the _Second Part_, 212-13, 221;
read to Sir Walter Scott, 228;
Southey on, 240;
Coleridge's recitation of, 251, 275;
published in 1816, ii, 104-5, 111, 112, 146;
Coleridge hopes to complete, 188, 211, 214-15;
estimate of, 293-4.
See also _Preface_, xi, xviii.

_Christianity considered as Philosophy and the only Philosophy_,
Coleridge's projected _magnum opus_, ii, 142.

Christ's Hospital, Coleridge at, i, 19-22; ii, 250, 301.

Chubb, Mr., of Bridgwater, Coleridge pays a visit to, ii, 27.

_Church and State, On the Constitution of_, by Coleridge, ii, 284, 298.

Clarkson, Thomas, the Abolitionist (1760-1846), ii, 36, 38.

Clarkson, Mrs., Preface, xii; ii, 38.

Clevedon, Coleridge resides at, i, 49, 50, 60.

Cobbett, William (1762-1835), Coleridge on, ii, 43, 173, 198.

_Coleorton, Memorials of_, Preface, x, xvii; ii, 233; see _Appendix_.

Coleridge, Ann (Nancy), sister of Coleridge, death of, at twenty-one,
8;
letter to, from her brother Francis, 10.

Coleridge, Berkeley (second child), born, i, 162;
died, 163.

Coleridge, David Hartley, Poet (eldest son), (1796-1849), born, i, 90,
131, 185;
described by his father, 201, 215, 220;
and the moon, 221;
ii, at Oxford, 189, 190, 200, 257.

Coleridge, Derwent (third son), (1800-1883), Preface, xix;
birth, i, 207, 216; ii, 178, 201, 257.

Coleridge, Ernest Hartley (grandson), authority on S. T. Coleridge and
his works, see _Preface_, xiv-xv, xviii.

Coleridge, Rev. George (brother), i, 29.

Coleridge, Henry Nelson (1798-1843) (nephew and son-in-law), author of
the _Table Talk of S. T. C._, meets Sara Coleridge, ii, 268;
origin of _Table Talk_, 278-9;
see also _Preface_, v-vi.

Coleridge, Rev. John (father), i, 3;
his publications, 4-7;
his marriage and children, 6-8;
death of, 18.

Coleridge, Mrs. John (mother), i, 3, 6, 8, 9, 12, 14, 15, 16-18, 19.

_Coleridge, Samuel Taylor_: his five autobiographical letters to Thomas
Poole, i, 3-22;
born 21st October 1772, 3;
ancestry and parentage, 3-6;
writes autobiographical letters to Thomas Poole, 5;
baptised, 9;
child life of, 9-22;
at the reading school, 11;
early reading, 12;
admitted to the Grammar School, 13;
anecdotes of, 15;
his father resolves to make him a parson, 17;
recollections of the Vast, 17;
sent to Christ's Hospital, 19;
sent to Hertford, 20;
entered at Jesus College, Cambridge, 29;
gains Sir William Browne's gold medal for the Greek Ode, 30;
stands for the Craven Scholarship, 30;
writes a Greek Ode on Astronomy, 31;
account of, by a fellow student (C. V. Le Grice) at college, 31;
at Frend's trial, 31;
at Ottery St. Mary in 1793, 32;
returns to Cambridge and enlists in the 15th Light
Dragoons, 32;
comes back to Cambridge, 33;
espouses Unitarianism, 33;
goes to Oxford and makes the acquaintance of Southey, 34;
leaves Oxford in company with John Hucks and makes a tour in Wales,
35;
tells an anecdote about his walking stick, 39;
goes to Bristol to meet Southey and is introduced to Sarah Fricker,
41;
along with Southey projects a scheme of Platonic Republicanism named
Pantisocracy, 41-9;
delivers lectures in Bristol, 48;
marries Sarah Fricker on 4th October 1795, 49;
resides at Clevedon, 49-50;
projects a political journal called the _Watchman_, 50;
proposes to start a school, 51;
becomes acquainted with Joseph Cottle, publisher and poet, Bristol,
51;
and John James Morgan, 52;
and Dr. Beddoes and the Wedgwoods, 53;
preaches with remarkable effect, 54;
goes on a tour to the North to canvass for subscribers for the
_Watchman_, 54-61;
meets Erasmus Darwin, 57;
meets James Montgomery, the poet, 59;
returns to Bristol and resides at Redcliffe Hill, 61;
gets ready for publication his first volume of poems, 61;
publishes the _Watchman_, 64;
removes to Kingsdown, Bristol, 64;
attacks William Godwin in the _Watchman_, 69;
projects various literary, etc., schemes, 74-5, 78-9;
Tom Poole collects an annuity for, 80;
proposes to settle at Nottingham, 83;
proposes to take to teaching, 85-6;
goes to Darley to see Mrs. Evans, 85-6;
returns to Bristol, 88;
goes to Birmingham to see the father of Charles Lloyd, 89;
his first child is born, 90;
quarrels with and is reconciled to Southey, 92;
writes his _Ode to the Departing Year_, and dedicates it to Thomas
Poole, 112;
removes early in January 1797 to Stowey, Somersetshire, 121;
engages to publish a revised edition of his Poems, 122;
and sends poems to Cottle for his criticisms, 125;
invited by Sheridan to write a Tragedy, 127;
writes a curious letter to George Catcott of the Bristol Library, 128;
commences his tragedy _Osorio_, 129;
has a droll dialogue with a countrywoman, 132;
writes a humorous letter to Cottle about mice, 133;
meets Dorothy Wordsworth, and describes her to Cottle, 136;
meets John Thelwall, the democrat, 138-9;
goes to London with _Osorio_, 140;
meets W. Linley, Sheridan's brother-in-law and secretary, 141;
his _Osorio_ rejected by Sheridan, 142;
is offered but declines £100 from Thomas Wedgwood, 143;
has conferred on him a pension of £150 a year from Thomas and Josiah
Wedgwood, 144;
his omnivorous reading, 146;
along with Wordsworth projects and publishes the volume of the
_Lyrical Ballads_, 147;
anecdote of how the three bards were taught a lesson by a servant
wench, 148;
projects a Third Edition of his Poems, 153-4;
has an estrangement with Charles Lamb
and Charles Lloyd, 161;
his second child born, 162;
visits Germany, 162;
ascends the Brocken, 167;
projects to write a life of Lessing, 180;
returns to England, 182;
works along with Southey and publishes _The Devil's Thoughts_, 182;
visits Ottery and Stowey and Sockburn, and meets Sarah Hutchinson,
182;
contributes to the _Morning Post_, 185;
meets Godwin, 185;
translates Schiller's _Wallenstein_, 185;
meets Horne Tooke, 188;
leaves London for Stowey, 193;
settles at Greta Hall, Keswick, 197;
adventure of, among the mountains, 210;
projects a work on the _Rise and Condition of the German Boors_,
216;
makes pedestrian tours with the Wordsworths, 219;
proposes to study chemistry, 222;
proposes to write an essay _Concerning Poetry and the Nature of the
Pleasure derived from it_, 223;
meets John Stoddart and gives him a copy of _Christabel_, 228;
laments the loss of his Poetic Faculty, 229;
his ideal of _The Permanent_, 233-6;
in ill health, 243;
thinks of emigrating, 248;
visited by Samuel Rogers, 249;
goes again to London, 251;
his projected Epic, _The Siege of Jerusalem_, 254;
caught in a tempest among the hills, 258-9;
translates Gessner's _Erste Schiffer_, 269;
publishes a Third Edition of his Poems, 270;
goes on a tour to Wales with Tom Wedgwood, 270;
goes on a tour to Scotland with William and Dorothy Wordsworth, 270;
projects a work on _Logic_, 271;
writes again for the _Morning Post_, 275;
projects a _Bibliotheca Britannica_, 279;
lives with the Wordsworths (1803), 288;
back to London, 289;
invited by John Stoddart to Malta, 295;
sails for Malta, ii, 1;
reaches Valetta, 18th May 1804, 3;
becomes acquainted with Sir Alexander Ball, 3;
made interim-government secretary of Malta, 3;
visits Sicily and ascends Etna, 4;
goes to Rome and meets Baron Von Humboldt, Ludwig Ticck, Washington
Allston, Canova and Washington Irving, 6;
returns to England, August 1806, 6-8;
goes to Coleorton and hears Wordsworth's _Prelude_ read, 8;
visits Poole at Stowey in 1807, 9;
writes a long Theological Letter to Joseph Cottle, 13;
offered £300 by Thomas De Quincey, 27;
delivers Lectures in 1808 at the Royal Institution on Poetry,
Shakespeare, etc., 33;
meets Dr. Andrew Bell, founder of the Madras system of Education,
and injudiciously attacks Lancaster, 34;
meets Mary Evans (Mrs. Todd) his early sweetheart (1804-8), 36-7;
projects and publishes the _Friend_, 38-65;
writes Letters to the _Courier_ in support of the Spaniards, 65;
has a quarrel with Wordsworth, 66-73;
his translation of Gessner's First Mariner, 68-70;
drifts away from his wife, 100-3;
leaves the Lake
Country in the Spring of 1812, 103;
delivers Lectures 12th May to 3rd June, at Willis's Rooms, 116;
gives a fourth course of Lectures between 3rd November 1812 and 29th
January 1813, 116;
meets Madame de Staël, 117;
goes to Bristol and delivers his fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth
courses of Lectures, October 1813-April 1814, 117;
corresponds with Cottle about his Opium habit, 117-30;
projects a translation of Goethe's _Faust_, 136;
contributes _Essays on the Fine Arts_ to Felix Farley's _Bristol
Journal_, 136;
physical cause of his inability to carry out his many projects,
137-9;
his political change from Radicals to temperate Conservatism, 141;
advocates at Calne the abolition of the corn duties, 141;
proposes to start a school in Bristol, 145;
compiles _Sibylline Leaves_, and writes his _Biographia Literaria_,
146;
writes _Zapolya_, 147;
goes to Highgate and settles down in the house of James Gillman,
149;
again delivers Lectures on Shakespeare, 27th January to 13th March
1818, 152;
gives an account of Lord Byron, 157;
meets and forms a friendship with Thomas Allsop, 158;
delivers his tenth course of Lectures, December 1818-April 1819, 163;
his eleventh course at the same time, 163;
publishes his _Essay on Method_, 165;
loses through the bankruptcy of Rest and Fenner, publishers, 171-2;
meets Sir Walter Scott in London in 1820, 178-81;
goes to Oxford, 201-2;
meets Cottle for the last time in 1821, 232;
visits Ramsgate, 238;
dines at Monkhouse's with Wordsworth, Rogers, and Moore, 272;
gives a paper before the Royal Society of Literature on the
_Prometheus_ of Aeschylus, 286;
goes with Wordsworth on a Tour to the Rhine, 296;
meets Thomas Colley Grattan and Julian Charles Young on the Continent,
296;
collects his Poems in 1828, 1829, and 1834, 297;
visited by Henry Blake McLellan, a young American, in 1832, 298-300;
last letters of, 300-4;
death of, on 25th July 1834, 305.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, on Acting and Playwriting, i, 208.
on The Aesthetic, ii, 69, 237.
on Atheism, i, 57.
on Bacon and Plato, i, 272.
on Baptism, i, 202, 207.
on the Bible, ii, 15.
on Books, i, 128.
on Sir Thomas Browne, i, 293-5.
on the Catholic Question, ii, 90-1.
on Chaucer, i, 276-7.
on Christianity, i, 93; ii, 10-13, 156, 175, 230-31.
on Democrats, i, 138.
on Epic Poem, Ideal of an, i, 130.
on Eternal Punishment, ii, 11.
on Chemistry, i, 245; ii, 44, 47.
on Children, i, 55, 58, 165-6, 176, 201, 203, 218; ii, 259, 273,
289, 302-4.
on the _Cid_, ii, 41.
on Genius, i, 64; ii, 258.
on German, i, 142, 180.
on William Hazlitt, i, 283.
on Himself, i, 5-22, 25, 74, 80-81, 88, 89, 90, 95, 96, 99-101, 106,
107-8, 110, 129, 152, 181, 186, 193, 198, 213-14, 220, 224,
228-9, 236, 244, 248, 252, 265, 275, 284, 289, 299; ii, 29,
31, 39, 49, 133, 135, 150-51, 159, 164, 167, 205, 207, 211-13,
253, 286.
on Homer's _Banging Lie_, i, 269.
on Mrs. Inchbald, i, 195.
on Journals, ii, 42, 52, 54-5, 60, 64, 79, 92, 232-6.
on the Joys of Journalism, i, 190.
on Keswick and the Lake Country, i, 198, 214, 215, 237-8.
on Logic and Philosophy, i, 271-2, 274; ii, 161-2, 165, 206, 267.
on his _Magnum Opus_, ii, 209.
on Maternal Love, ii, 239.
on Metaphysics, i, 197, 202, 203-4, 210, 224.
on Mice, i, 133.
on Miracles, ii, 23-4.
on Money, i, 191, 225.
on Mountain-Climbing, i, 260-61.
on Nature-God, ii, 224.
on Natural Scenery, i, 51, 198, 200-1, 210-11, 221, 248, 262.
on Novel reading, ii, 184, 206.
on Omnipresent, The, i, 171, 174, 261.
On Playwriting, i, 208.
On Permanent, The, i, 233, 234; ii, 57-63.
on the Ideal of a Poem, ii, 25-6.
on Poetry, ii, 32, 153, 206.
on Poetic Diction, i, 113, 142, 223, 269.
on Population Question, i, 179, 187.
on Prayer, ii, 132.
on his Projects, i, 51, 52, 75, 78, 79, 86-7, 109, 127, 130, 180,
187, 196, 199, 216, 223, 254-5, 271-3, 279-81; ii, 32, 68, 69,
70, 142, 165, 188, 193, 203, 208;
his _Magnum Opus_, 209, 211, 230, 248, 267-8, 285, 287-9.
on the Quantocks, ii, 31.
on Reason and Imagination, i, 29-30; ii, 224.
on Review writing, ii, 72.
on Rich and Poor, ii, 225.
on the Sabbath, ii, 23.
on Skating, i, 163-4.
on Style, i, 187, 190, 205, 254; ii, 53, 59.
on the Sublime and Beautiful, ii, 223.
on Sympathy with the Ill in health, ii, 2.
on the Trinity, ii, 14-22.
on Unitarianism, ii, 13, 119.
on the Vast, i, 17.
on Woman, ii, 241-43.
on Wordsworth, Dorothy, i, 136.
on Wordsworth, William, i, 129, 135, 152, 157, 158, 199; ii, 164,
194-5.
on his _Wallenstein_, i, 199, 213, 218.

Coleridge, Mrs. S.T. (_née_ Sarah Fricker, called "Sara"), meets
Coleridge, i, 41, 43;
married to Coleridge, 4th October 1795, 49, 60, 65, 73, 81, 83, 85,
86, 88;
at Stowey, 123, 140, 153, 155, 162, 185, 195, 201, 203, 207, 218,
255, 263, 273, 288;
ii, estrangement with Coleridge, 100-103;
Coleridge's solicitude about, 127;
comes to London and visits her husband and the Gillmans, 267, 268.

Coleridge, Sara (daughter), afterwards Mrs. Henry Nelson Coleridge,
born, i, 270;
on Daniel Stuart and her Father, chapter xvii, ii, 76, 267, 268;
see also _Preface_, v;
her _Memoirs_, Preface, x.

_Complaint and Reply_, ii, 112.

_Concert Room, Lines composed in a_, ii, 111.

_Conciones ad Populum_, i, 48; ii, 113.

_Confessions of an Enquiring Spirit_, ii, 279, 307-10.

_Connubial Rupture in High Life, On a late_, ii, 202.

_Conspiracy of Gowrie_, by William Rough, i, 243.

Copleston, Dr., ii, 200, 201.

Cottle, Amos, i, 137.

Cottle, Joseph, Bookseller and Poet, Bristol (1770-1853), Preface, v,
vi, ix, xvi;
becomes acquainted with Coleridge, i, 51-2;
purchases the copyright of the First volume of Poems by Coleridge,
61;
receives many letters from Coleridge, 62-4, etc., 74, 76, 83, 94,
136, 140;
treats with Coleridge and Wordsworth about the publication of
_Lyrical Ballads_, 147, 154-5, 159, 242, 285; ii, 6, 9-10;
acts as intermediary between De Quincey and Coleridge on the former
offering £300 to Coleridge, 27;
Sara Coleridge on, 94;
reproves Coleridge for his opium habit, 121-9, 130-31;
publishes his _Early Recollections_ (1837), 137;
misrepresents Coleridge, 143 _n_;
relieves Coleridge's necessities, 145;
visits Coleridge in London in 1821, 232;
see also _Appendix_ regarding Cottle's Text of the Letters
published by him; see "Letters."

_Courier_ Newspaper, ii, 65, 73, 78, 79, 80-82;
Coleridge on, 90-93, 136, 140, 212.

Cowper, William (1731-1800), his Letters, Preface, xii.

Cox, John Thomas, _Memoir of Coleridge_, Preface, xviii.

Crashaw, ii, 221

Critical Review, i, 110.

Croft, Herbert, i, 139.

Cruikshank, Ellen, of Nether Stowey, i, 82;
letter by Coleridge to, 285.

Cruikshank, John, a Nether Stowey acquaintance of Coleridge, preface,
xii; i, 123.

Crompton, Dr., of Liverpool, i, 60, 97, 106, 288.

Danvers, Charles, i, 84; ii, 28.

_Dark Ladye, The Ballad of the_, ii, 111, 294.

Darwin, Erasmus, (1731-1802), Coleridge meets, 57;
Coleridge's opinion of, ii, 15, 47.

Davison, Coleridge's Notes on, ii, 305.

Davy, Sir Humphry (1778-1829), Preface, x, xvi;
becomes acquainted with Coleridge, i, 53, 188, 194, 195;
corresponds with (see "Letters"), 204, 219-20, 230;
describes Coleridge, 251;
writes to Coleridge, 297;
urges him to commence lectures at the Royal Institution, ii, 30;
informs Coleridge of the death of Beddoes, 45.

Dawes, Rev. John, Ambleside, ii, 257-8.

_Dejection, an Ode_, i, 252, 270, 295; ii, 112, 294.

De Quincey, Thomas (1785-1859), on Coleridge, i, 116-7; ii, 27-9, 34;
Sara Coleridge on, 94-8, 152, 279.

De Quincey Memorials, Preface, xvii.

De Quincey, _Works_ of, Preface, xvii.

Dermody, Thomas, an _Anthology_ poet, i, 242.

Descartes quoted, i, 224; ii, 18.

_Destiny of Nations_, (_Joan of Arc_) lines), compared with _Religious
Musings_, i, 77, 97, 122, 124, 134, 138, 150; ii, 110.

De Vere, Aubrey, on Coleridge, ii, 312.

_Devil's Thoughts, The_, i, 182; ii, 83, 112.

_Dialogue between Demosius and Mystes_, ii, 284.

Dobrizhoffer on the Abiponenses, ii, 196.

Donne, Coleridge's Notes on, ii, 305.

Dowden, Professor Edward, his _Poems of Coleridge_, Preface, xx.

Drury Lane Theatre, i, 140.

_Duty surviving Self-Love_, ii, 112.

Dyer, George (1755-1841), on Pantisocracy, i, 42;
a letter by Coleridge to, 51.

_Edinburgh Review_, ii, 40, 42, 114, 163.

Elliot, Ebenezer (1781-1849), ii, 221.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803-1882), visits Coleridge, ii, 279.

_English Divines_, Coleridge's Notes on, ii, 305.

Epigrams contributed to the _Morning Post_ by Coleridge, i, 253.

Epitaph, Coleridge's, on Himself, i, 285.

_Essays on his own Times_, Coleridge's, Preface, xvi.

Estlin, Dr. J. P., Unitarian Minister, Coleridge acquainted with, i,
49, 84; ii, 119, 154.

Etna, Coleridge's ascents of, ii, 4, 16.

Evans, Mary (Coleridge's early love), Coleridge meets at Wrexham,
i, 37; ii, 36-7, 147, 250.

Evans, Mrs., of Darley, i, 85, 86.

_Excursion_, Wordsworth's, published, ii, 146.

Farley, Felix, His _Bristol Journal_, ii, 136.

_Fall of Robespierre_, Preface, viii; i, 45-6;
printed in the _Literary Remains_, ii, 109, 305.

_Fancy in Nubibus_, contributed to _Blackwood's Magazine_, ii, 232.

_Faust_, Goethe's, proposed translation of, ii, 136.

_Fears in Solitude_, ii, 111.

Ferrier, Professor (1808-1864), on Coleridge's plagiarisms from
Schelling, ii, 146.

Field, Coleridge's Notes on, ii, 305.

Fielding, Henry (1707-1754), ii, 184, 207.

_Fine Arts_, Essays on, ii, 136.

_Fire, Famine, and Slaughter_, ii, 110, 112, 113.

Flagg's _Life of Washington Allston_, Preface, x, xvii;
quoted, ii, 6, 102.

Flower, Benjamin (1755-1829), Coleridge writes to, i, 67, 68.

_Forget-me-Not_, The, an annual, ii, 292.

_Foster Mother's Tale, The_, a Dramatic Fragment, ii, 104.

Foster, John (1770-1843), ii, 137.

_Fox and Statesman subtle wiles ensure, The_, lines by Coleridge, i, 61.

Fox, Caroline (1819-1871), Preface, x, xvii;
her _Journals_ quoted, ii, 6.

Fox, Charles James (1749-1806), i, 190;
Coleridge's letters to, in the _Morning Post_, 251, 286; ii, 79.

Fox, Dr., of Bristol, ii, 127.

_France, an Ode_, ii, 77, 111.

_Frazer's Magazine_, Preface, x; ii, 38.

Freiligrath, F., his Memoir of Coleridge, Preface, xviii.

Frend, an acquaintance of Coleridge at Cambridge, trial of, i, 31.

Frere, J. Hookham (1769-1846), Preface, xi; i, 205; ii, 175, 180, 193,
268, 279.

Fricker, George, brother-in-law of Coleridge, letter to, ii, 22.

Fricker, Mrs., mother-in-law of Coleridge, i, 61.

Fricker, Sarah, see Mrs. S. T. Coleridge.

_Friend, The_, Journal started and published by Coleridge in 1809, ii,
38-65;
Prospectus of, 48-52;
references to, 86;
recast and republished in 1818, 114, 144;
addition to, given to Thomas Allsop, 176-8.

_Friend, To a young, on his proposing to domesticate with the author_,
i, 91; ii, 111.

_Friend, To a, who asked me how I felt_, etc., Sonnet by Coleridge,
i, 91-2.

_Friend, Lines on a, who died in a Frenzy Fever_, by Coleridge,
ii, 260.

_Friendship's Offering_, an annual, ii, 292.

_Frost at Midnight_, ii, 111.

Fuller, Andrew, English Theologian (1754-1815); Coleridge's Notes on,
ii, 305.

_Garden of Boccaccio, The_, poem by Coleridge, ii, 113, 292, 294.

Garnett, Richard, Bell's _Miniature Series of Great Writers_, Preface,
xix;
The Poetry of S. T. Coleridge, Preface, xx.

_Gem, The_, an annual, ii, 292.

_Gentleman's Magazine, The_, quoted, i, 31; ii, 77, 86, 102-3.

George, A. J., _Coleridge's Select Poems_, Preface, xx.

Germany, i, 158; Coleridge in, 162-82;
Coleridge on, 225-8.

Gessner, Salomon, German Idyllic Poet (1730-1788);
Coleridge translates his _Erste Schiffer_ (First Mariner), 269;
paraphrases one of his idylls in the _Picture, or the Lover's
Resolution_, 270; ii, 68.

Gillman, James, Physician, Highgate, quoted, i, 31;
his _Life of Coleridge_, Preface, ix, xviii; ii, 137;
receives Coleridge into his house, 149-50, 152, 190, 193, 204, 238,
239, 246, 248, 249, 257-77, 258, 270, 272, 273, 276, 278, 294.

Gillman, Mrs. James, wife of Dr. Gillman, 179, 190, 201, 204, 239;
Coleridge on, 243, 244, 247, 248, 250, 257-77, 259, 269, 270, 272;
on Coleridge, 277, 278, 284, 294.

Gillman, Rev. James (son of James Gillman), Coleridge recommends him
to the Living of Leiston, ii, 301.

Godwin, William, Philosopher, Novelist, and Dramatist (1756-1836);
Preface, x, xvii;
Coleridge attacks him in the _Watchman_, i, 68-71;
intends to controvert him, 130;
meets in London, and characterizes him in 1800, 185, 188, 200;
writes letters to, 201, 208, 209;
Coleridge on his _Political Justice_, 247, 275;
on his character, ii, 70-71, 136-7.
See "Letters."

Grattan, T. Colley, Novelist and Miscellaneous Writer (1792-1864),
Preface, xvii, ii, 279;
meets Coleridge and Wordsworth on their Rhine Tour, 296-7.

Gray, Thomas (1716-1771), his Letters, Preface, xiii.

Greek Lexicon, ii, 44.

Green, Joseph Henry, ii, 193, 252;
meets Coleridge in 1817, 279.

Greta, the River, i, 207.

Greta Hall, Keswick, described by Coleridge, i, 198-9, 237-8.

Groscollias (or Groscollius), origin of, i, 151-2.

Grotius, Hugo, (1583-1645), referred to, ii, 23.

Hacket, Coleridge's Notes on, ii, 305.

Hamlet, Shakespeare's, i, 236.

Haney, John Louis, Bibliography of S. T. Coleridge, Preface, xviii;
_The German Influence on Coleridge_, Preface, xviii.

_Happy Husband, The_, ii, 112.

Hare, Archdeacon Julius Charles (1795-1855); on Coleridge, ii, 306.

Hawkes, Thomas, of Moseley, ii, 85, 87.

Hazlitt, William, Essayist (1778-1830), on Coleridge, i, 117-19, 274;
described by Coleridge, 283; ii, 279.

Heath, Charles, one of the Pantisocrats, Letter by Coleridge to, i, 44.

Heinrichs, Coleridge's Notes on, ii, 305.

Herder, Johann Gottfried (1744-1803), ii, 146.

Herschel, Sir William (1738-1822), i, 245.

_Hexameters written during a temporary blindness_, ii, 111.

_Higginbotham Sonnets, The_, i, 142.

Hood, William, of Bristol, a friend of Coleridge, ii, 144.

Hooker, Richard, Coleridge's Notes on, ii, 305.

Hort, W. J., Unitarian Minister, acquainted with Coleridge, i, 49.

Hort, Professor, _Oxford and Cambridge Essays_, xvi.

_Hour when we shall meet again, The_, i, 73.

Hucks, John, Coleridge's fellow pedestrian in the Welsh Tour, i, 35,
36, 39.

Humboldt, Karl Wilhelm von (1767-1835), Coleridge meets in Rome, ii, 6.

Hume, David (1711-1776), i, 194.

Hurwitz Hyman, ii, 285.

Hutchinson, Sarah (sister of Mrs. Wordsworth), meets Coleridge at
Stockton, i, 183, 262, 292;
the "Lady" of _Dejection, an Ode_, 295;
acts as Coleridge's amanuensis for the _Friend_, ii, 64, 261, 262.

_Hymn before Sunrise in the Vale of Chamouni_, i, 167, 270; ii, 111;
Coleridge on, 153, 294.

Hymns entitled _Spirit_, _Sun_, _Earth_, _Air_, _Water_, _Fire_, and
_Man_, ii, 211.

Ilam, i, 86.

_Illustrated London News_, Preface, x, xvii.

Inchbald, Mrs. (1753-1821), Coleridge on, i, 195.

Irving, Edward (1792-1834), ii, 279.

Irving, Washington (1783-1859), Coleridge meets in Rome, ii, 6, 136.

Jackson, Mr., owner of Greta Hall, i, 215, 238.

Jeffrey, Francis, _Edinburgh_ Reviewer (1773-1850), ii, 40.

_Jerusalem, Siege of_, a projected Epic by Coleridge, ii, 211.

_Joan of Arc_, Southey's, ii, 94.

_Joan of Arc_, Coleridge's contributions to, see _Destiny of Nations_.

Jonson, Ben (1573-1637), ii, 305.

Kames, Lord Henry Home (1696-1782), his _Sketches of Man_, i, 271.

Kant, Immanuel (1724-1804), i, 78; ii, 146.

Keate, Dr., competes for the Craven Scholarship, i, 30.

_Keepsake, The_, an annual, ii, 113, 292.

Kemble, John Philip (1757-1823), i, 208.

Kenyon, John, ii, 136.

Klopstock, F. G., German Poet (1724-1803), i, 226.

Knight, Professor W., ii, 296;
on the quarrel between Wordsworth and Coleridge, ii, 67.

Knight, Professor W., _Poems of S. T. Coleridge_, Preface, xx.

_Knight's Tomb, The_, ii, 112.

_Kubla Khan_, i, 116, 233; ii, 105, 111, 294.

Lamb, Charles (1775-1834), at Christ's Hospital, i, 23-7, 23 _n._, 76;
letter by Coleridge to, 92-3, 115, 122-3 _n._, 124;
to visit Stowey, 136, 142;
estrangement with Coleridge, 161, 193, 194, 270;
on Coleridge's Lectures, ii, 33, 158, 176, 216, 218-56;
his Epistola Porcina, 251, 254, 256, 258, 272, 279.

Lamb, Mary, ii, 176, 219, 247, 256, 258, 279.

_Lamb, Letters of Charles_, by Canon Ainger, Preface, xvii.

Lancaster, Joseph (1778-1838), Coleridge attacks, ii, 34.

Lane's Edition of Coleridge's _Poems_, edited by E. H. Coleridge,
Preface, xx.

Lang, Andrew, Mr., his Introduction to _Poems of Coleridge_, Preface,
xx.

"Landscape" Edition of Coleridge's _Poems_, Preface, xix.

"Lansdown" Edition of Coleridge's _Poems_, Preface, xix.

Lardner, Dr. Nathaniel (1684-1729), on the Logos, i, 66.

_Latin Poets, Imitations from Modern_, a projected work by Coleridge,
i, 34, 51.

Lawson, Sir Guilfred, i, 199, 215, 238.

_Lay Sermons_, Coleridge's, ii, 114.

Le Breton, Mr., of Bristol, ii, 119.

Lectures by Coleridge, Early Political, and Religious Lectures in
1795, i, 47-8;
First Lectures on Shakespeare and Poetry at the Royal Institution,
12th January-June 1808, ii, 30-34;
Second Course, November 1811-January 1812, 73;
Third Course, May-June 1812, at Willis's Rooms, 116;
Fourth Course, November 1812-January 1813, 116;
Fifth Course at Bristol, October-November 1813, 117;
Sixth Course, 117;
Seventh Course, 5th-14th April 1814, 117;
Eighth Course, on Homer, Spring 1814, 117;
Ninth Course at Flower de Luce Court, January-March 1818, 152;
Tenth and Eleventh Courses, December 1818-April 1819, 163;
Coleridge on his own Lectures, 165-9, 212;
Sara Coleridge on, 310.

Lee, Nathaniel (1653-1692), ii, 295.

Legouis, Emile, his _Early Life of William Wordsworth_, Preface, xviii.

Leibnitz, G. W. (1646-1716), i, 197.

Leighton, Archbishop (1611-1684), ii, 13-15, 279-84.

Leslie, Sir John (1766-1832), a friend of the Wedgwoods, i, 253, 266;
ii, 136.

Leslie, C. R., _Autobiography_ of, Preface x, xvii.

_Lessing, Life of_, an unfinished work by Coleridge, partly written in
1799-1800, i, 180, 187, 207.

Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge:
to Allsop, Thomas (28 January 1818), ii, 158;
(20 Sept. 1818), 160;
(26 Nov. 1818), 160;
(2 Dec. 1818), 163;
(30 Sept. 1819), 169;
(13 Dec. 1819), 172;
(20 Mch. 1820), 174;
(10 Apl. 1820), 178;
(8 or 18 April 1820), 182;
(31 July 1820), 190;
(8 August 1820), 192;
(22 October 1820), 198;
(20 October 1820), 201;
(25 October 1820), 202;
(27 Nov. 1820), 203;
(January 1821), 204;
(1 March 1821), 218;
(4 May 1821), 219;
(23 June 1821), 226;
(--1821), 227;
(15 Sept. 1821), 227;
(24 Sept. 1821), 229;
(20 October 1821), 238;
(2 Nov. 1821), 240;
(17 Nov. 1821), 244;
(--1821), 245;
(25 January 1822), 247;
(4 March 1822), 249;
(22 Mch. 1822), 251;
(18 April 1822), 255;
(30 May 1822), 257;
(29 June 1822), 259;
(8 October 1822),
261;
(28 October 1822), 265;
(26 December 1822), 266;
(10 December 1823), 269;
(24 December 1823), 270;
(8 April 1824), 272;
(14 April 1824), 274;
(27 April 1824), 274;
(20 March, 1825), 284;
(30 April 1825), 286;
(2 May 1825), 287;
(10 May 1825), 287;
(---- 1825), 290.
to Allsop, Mrs. (---- 1823), ii, 270.
to Bell, Dr. Andrew (15 April 1808), ii, 35;
(30 Nov. 1811), 74.
to Blackwood, William (--October 1821), ii, 232.
to Britton, Mr.(28 Feby. 1819), ii, 166;
(Feby.-Mch. 1819), 168.
to "Cantab" (21 Decr. 1809), ii, 63.
to "Caius Gracchus" (1 April 1796), i, 68.
to Coleridge, George (31 March 1791), i, 29.
to Coleridge, Mrs. S. T. (14 January 1799), i, 163;
(23 April 1799), 165;
(17 May 1799), 168.
to Cottle, Joseph (--December 1795), i, 52;
(1 January 1796), 52;
(Feby. 1796), 62;
(Feby. 1796), 62;
(22 Feby. 1796), 63;
(15 April 1796), 74;
(April 1796), 74;
(April 1796), 76;
(18 October 1796), 95;
(January 1797), 121;
(3 January 1797), 122;
(10 January 1797), 124;
(January 1797), 124;
(January 1797), 125;
(January 1797), 126;
(Feby. or March, 1797), 127;
(May 1797), 128;
(May 1797), 129;
(May 1797), 131;
(May, 1797), 133;
(June, 1797), 134;
(8 June, 1797), 135;
(29 June, 1797), 136;
(3-17 July, 1797), 136;
(Sept., 1797), 139;
(3 Sept., 1797), 140;
(10-15 Sept., 1797), 140;
(28 Nov., 1797), 141;
(2 Dec., 1797), 142;
(January, 1798), 143;
(24 January, 1798), 144;
(18 Feby. 1798), 150;
(8 March, 1798), 152;
(Mch. or April, 1798), 153;
(14 April, 1798), 155;
(April, 1798), 157;
(May, 1798), 159;
(--1807), ii, 9;
(--1807), 10;
(June, 1807), 13;
(--1807), 25;
(7 October 1807), 28;
(5-14 April 1814), 118;
(--1814), 119;
(--1814), 120;
(--1814), 121;
(26 April 1814), 126;
(26 April 1814), 129;
(April 1814), 130;
(27 May 1814), 132;
(7 March 1815), 142;
(10 March 1815), 144.
to Cottle, Miss (13 May 1814), ii, 131.
to Cruikshank, Ellen (--1803), i, 285.
to Davy, Sir Humphry (June 1800), i, 196;
(25 July 1800), 200;
(9 October 1800), 204;
(18 October 1800), 210;
(2 December 1800), 219;
(3 Feby. 1801), 222;
(4 May 1801), 244;
(20 May 1801), 246;
(31 October 1801), 249;
(6 March 1804), 291;
(25 March 1804), 298;
(11 Sept., 1807), ii, 30;
(December 1808), 40;
(14 December 1808), 41;
(30 January 1809), 45.
to Editor of _The Monthly Review_ (18th November 1800), i, 218.
to Editor of _The Monthly Magazine_ (January 1798), i, 145.
to Editor of _The Morning Post_ (10 March 1798), i, 151;
(21 December 1799), 183;
(10 January 1800), 184.
to Flower, Benjamin (1 April 1796), i, 67.
to Fricker, George (--1807), ii, 22.
to Gillman, James (13 April 1816), ii, 150;
(28 October 1822), 265.
to Godwin, William (21 May 1800), i, 193;
(22 September 1800), 201;
(13 October 1800), 208;
(25 March 1801), 228;
(23 June 1801), 247;
(4 June 1803), 270;
(10 July 1803), 275;
(26 March 1811), ii, 68;
(29 March 1811), 70,
to Heath, Charles (--1794), i, 44.
to Hutchinson, Sarah (10 March 1804), i, 293.
to Kennard, Adam Steinmetz (13 July 1834), ii, 302,
to Lamb, Charles (29 September 1796), i, 93.
to Lloyd, Senr., Charles (15 October 1796), i, 106;
(14 Nov. 1796), 107;
(4 December 1796), 110.
to R. L. (26 October 1809), ii, 57.
to Martin, Henry (22 July 1794), i, 35;
(22 Sept. 1794), 46.
to Poole, Thomas (-- Feby. 1797), i, 5;
(Mch. 1797), 7;
(9 October 1797), 11;
(16 October 1797), 15;
(19 Feby. 1789) 19;
(7 October 1795), 50;
(30 March 1796), 65;
(11 April 1796), 71;
(6 May 1796), 77;
(12 May 1796), 80;
(29 May 1796), 82;
(4 July 1796), 83;
(--August, 1796), 85;
(24 Sept. 1796), 89;
(1 Nov. 1796), 96;
(5 Nov. 1796), 99;
(26 December 1796), 112;
(--March 1800), 191;
(13 Feby. 1813), ii, 105.
to Southey, Robert (6 July 1794), i, 34;
(6 Sept. 1794), 42;
(18 Sept. 1794), 43;
(--Dec. 1794), 47;
(13 April 1801), 237;
(July 1803), 279;
(20 October 1809), ii, 52.
to Stuart, Daniel (4 June 1811), ii, 79;
(8 May 1816), 90.
to Tobin J. (10 April 1804), ii, 1.
to Wade, Josiah (January 1796), i, 55;
(January 1796), 55;
(January 1796), 56;
(January 1796), 58;
(7 January 1796), 59;
(January 1796), 60;
(September 1796), 88;
(May 1797), 132;
(17-20 July 1797), 138;
(21 March 1798), 153;
(6 March 1801), 225;
(--1807-8), ii, 38;
(8 Dec. 1813), 117;
(26 June 1814), 135.
to Wedgwood, Josiah, (21 May 1799), i, 178;
(4 Feby. 1800), 188;
(24 July, 1800), 197;
(1 Nov. 1800), 212;
(12 Nov. 1800), 217.
to Wedgwood, Thomas (--January 1798), i, 143;
(January 1800), 186;
(20 October 1802), 251;
(3 Nov. 1802), 255;
(9 January 1803), 257;
(14 January 1803), 260;
(10 Feby. 1803), 263;
(10 Feby. 1803), 265;
(17 Feby. 1803), 266;
(17 Feby. 1803), 268;
(16 Sept. 1803), 283;
(--Jany. 1804), 287;
(28 January 1804), 290;
(24 March 1804), 295.
to--(unknown), (1 June 1809), ii, 48;
(1816?), 153;
(1816?), 154;
(1816?), 157.

Lewis, Matthew Gregory (1775-1818), ii, 293.

_Lewti_, ii, 110.

_Limbo_, ii, 295.

_Lime-Tree Bower, The_, i, 167; ii, 111, 294.

_Lines to a Friend who had declared his Intention, etc._, ii, 111.

_Lines to the Rev. George Coleridge_ (Dedication of _Poems_, 1797),
ii, 111.

_Lines to W. Wordsworth_ on hearing the Prelude, ii, 8, 111, 294.

Linley, W., Sheridan's Brother-in-law, meets Coleridge, who writes a
sonnet to him, i, 141.

_Lippincott's Magazine_, Preface, x.

Litchfield, Thomas, his _Tom Wedgwood_, Preface, xiv.

_Literary Remains_ of Coleridge, ii, 113, 305-6.

_Literary Souvenir_, ii, 292.

Lloyd, Senr., Charles, i, 88, 89, 106-111.

Lloyd, Charles (1775-1839), meets Coleridge, i, 88, 89, 90-91, 98;
Sara Coleridge on, 102-5_n._; 106-111, 121, 131, 142, 152;
quarrels with Coleridge, 153, 155, 161; ii, 288.

Lloyd, Robert, brother of Charles Lloyd, ii, 57.

Lockhart's _Life of Scott_, Preface, x.

Logos, The, ii, 14, 24, 279.

_Logic_, Coleridge's unpublished work on, i, 271, 277-8; ii, 203, 230,
268.

Longman, Mr., Publisher, i, 247.

Longman's Edition of _Coleridge's Poems_, Preface, xx.

_Love_, first published, i, 183;
Introductory Letter to, 183;
Southey on, 242; ii, 111, 294.

_Love's Apparition and Evanishment_, ii, 112.

_Love, Hope, and Patience in Education_, ii, 113.

Lovell, Robert, one of the Pantisocrats, i, 41, 45, 81.

Lovell (_née_ Fricker), Mrs., i, 41, 81.

Lucas, Mr. E. V., author of _Charles Lamb and the Lloyds_, Preface,
xiv, xviii; i, 89, 106;
note by, quoted, 111.

Luff, Mr. and Mrs., i, 258.

_Lycidas_, Milton's quoted, ii, 209.

_Lyrical Ballads_, origin and publication of, i, 147-61;
Second Edition, 206, 208, 213, 216;
proofs corrected by Davy, 220, 221, 229, 242, 243; ii, 104.

Maas, ii, 146.

Mackintosh, Sir James (1765-1832), i, 189, 209, 247, 286; ii, 79, 89.

McLellan, Henry Blake, a young American, visits Coleridge, ii, 298.

_Macmillan's Magazine_, Preface x.

Macmillan's Edition of _Coleridge's Poems_, x, xix.

_Madoc_, by Southey, i, 243.

"Maiden that with sullen brow," lines by Coleridge, i, 125; ii, 111.

Malta, Coleridge's visit to, i, 295; ii, 1-7.

_Man of Ross, Lines on the_, i, 36;
a proposed correction on, 134.

Martin, Henry, Coleridge writes to, i, 35. 46.

_Mathematical Problem_, juvenile poem of Coleridge, Preface, viii;
i, 29.

Mathews, Charles, Comedian (1776-1835), Preface, x; ii, 136, 178, 180,
183, 219.

Matthisson's _Milesisches Märchen_, ii, 111.

Meteyard, Miss Eliza (1816-1879), her _Group of Englishmen_, Preface,
x, xvii; ii, 140.

_Method, Essay on_, ii, 165.

Meynell, Mrs. Alice, _Coleridge's Poems_, Preface, xx.

_Michael_, poem by Wordsworth, i, 229.

Middleton, Bishop (Thomas Fanshaw), 1769-1822, at College with
Coleridge, ii, 301.

Mill, John Stuart, _Dissertations and Discussions_, Preface, xvii.

Milner and Sowerby's Edition of _Coleridge's Poems_, Preface, xviii.

Milton, ii, 119, 153, 209, 222.

Miracles, Coleridge on, ii, 23-4.

_Mirror, The_, Preface, x.

Molière, ii, 147.

Monkhouse, Thomas, ii, 272.

Montagu, Basil (1770-1851), Coleridge on, i, 189;
causes the quarrel between Coleridge and Wordsworth, ii, 66-7;
afterwards on good terms with Coleridge, 246, 262, 279, 288.

Montgomery James, Poet, 1771-1854, meets Coleridge, i, 59.

_Monthly Magazine_, i, 142, 145.

_Monthly Review_, Preface, viii; i, 218.

Moore, Dr. (1729-1802), author of _Zeluco_, ii, 83.

Moore, Thomas, 1779-1852, ii, 272.

Moore's _Lallah Rookh_, Coleridge on, ii, 217.

Morgan, John James, Bristol Merchant, befriends Coleridge, i, 52-3;
ii, 130, 140-48, 143, 146, 147, 148.

Morgan, Mrs. Mary (Brent), ii, 130, 140.

_Morning Chronicle_, Preface, viii;
Coleridge negotiates to write for, i, 83, 85.

_Morning Post_, Preface, viii;
Coleridge writes for, i, 183, 187, 191, 200, 205, 234, 251, 253,
270, 275, 286; ii, 77, 78, 79, 80-90, 212.

Murray, John, Publisher, Preface, x;
Coleridge treats with, for a translation of _Faust_, ii, 136, 218,
267, 279.

"Myrtle Leaf, that, ill besped," i, 126; ii, 111.

_Nation, The_, American Literary Journal, quoted, ii, 298.

_Nativity, The_, the original of _Religious Musings_, ii, 10.

_Nature's Lady_, by Wordsworth, i, 206.

_New Monthly Magazine_, i, 110.

_New Testament_, Commentary on, ii, 298.

_New Thoughts on Old Subjects_, ii, 113.

_Nicholson's Journal_, i, 246.

_Nightingale, The_, ii, 104, 111.

_Night Scene, The_, a Dramatic Fragment, by Coleridge, i, 270; ii, 29,
111.

Noble, Coleridge's Note on, ii, 305.

_North British Review_, 1865, Biographical Appreciation of Coleridge,
Preface, xx.

Northcote, J., Portrait Painter, i, 298.

Norton, E. H., Coleridge's _Poetical and Dramatic Works_, Preface,
xviii.

Nottingham, Coleridge proposes to settle at, i, 83.

_Oberon_ of Wieland, i, 142.

_Ode to the Departing Year_, written and dedicated to Poole, Preface,
viii, i, 112;
not obscure, 124, 134; ii, 111.

_Ode to the Rain_, i, 253.

_Omniana_, Southey's, Coleridge's contributions to, ii, 305.

Opium, Coleridge takes, i, 100, 101, 233; ii, 102, 121;
exaggerations regarding, 131, 139, 143, 145, 151.

_Osorio_, a Tragedy; begun, i, 129, 137, 140, 142, 154, 155, 157,
160, 202; ii, 29, 108, 279.
See also "Sheridan," "Linley," "_Remorse_."

Oxlee, Coleridge's Notes on, ii, 305.

_Pains of Sleep, The_, ii, 112, 294.

Paley, William (1743-1805); Preface, xiii;
Coleridge on, ii, 24, 175.

_Pang more sharp than all, The_, ii, 112.

Parr, Dr. Samuel (1747-1825), i, 76, 247.

_Pedlar_, Wordsworth's (_The Excursion_), i, 206.

Percival, Lady E., i, 286.

PERMANENT, THE, Coleridge and, i, 233-6.

Perry, James, of the _Morning Chronicle_, i, 83.

_Peter Bell_, by Wordsworth, i, 159.

Philosophy, Coleridge's, ii, 146, 161-2.

_Picture, The, or the Lover's Resolution_, imitated from Gessner,
i, 270; ii, 111, 133.

_Pilgrim's Progress_, Bunyan's, Coleridge's notes on, ii, 305.

Pinney, John, i, 48, 189.

Pitt, William (1759-1806), i, 190, 286; ii, 55;
Coleridge's _Character of Pitt_, 78, 83.

_Pixies, Songs of the_, written in 1793, i, 32, 154.

Plato, i, 272; ii, 146.

Plotinus, ii, 146.

_Plot Discovered, The_, i, 48; ii, 113.

_Poems_, First Edition, 1796;
published, i, 74, 76;
reviewed, 84;
Second Edition, 1797, 94, 97, 99, 122-3, 124, 125-7, 131, 134, 141;
the motto, 151;
Third Edition, proposed, 153, 242(?);
published in 1803, 270; ii, 104-5;
Fourth Edition, contemplated, i, 275;
_Christabel_ volume, ii, 105;
_Sibylline Leaves_, 109;
Collected Editions of 1828, 1829, and 1834, 297.

Poetic Diction, Coleridge on, i, 269.

Poetry, Coleridge on, ii, 25.

Pole, Dr., on infant schools, ii, 120.

Pollen, George Augustus, i, 76.

Poole, Penelope, cousin of Tom Poole, i, 285, 287.

Poole, Thomas, Tanner, of Nether Stowey (1765-1837), Coleridge writes
five autobiographical letters to, in 1797-8, i, 5;
becomes acquainted with Coleridge (in September 1794, _Thomas Poole
and his Friends_, i, 95;
not in 1795 as in Henry Nelson Coleridge's Text), 50;
Coleridge writes him of his marriage and settlement at Clevedon,
50-51, 65, 71, 80, 82;
the _Ode to the Departing Year_, dedicated to, 112, 123, 136, 191,
197, 198;
Coleridge on, 214, 234, 253;
Coleridge visits at Nether Stowey, 263;
his character, 266;
in London, 287, 289; ii, 2, 9;
DeQuincey introduced to, 27;
on Coleridge proposing to give Lectures, 30-31, 33, 65, 105.
See also "Letters."

_Poole, Thomas, and his Friends_, by Mrs. Sandford, Preface, x, xvii;
ii, 30, 33.

Poole, William, Uncle of Thomas Poole, i, 101.

Portraits of Coleridge, i, 114, 119-20.

Preaching, Coleridge's, i, 54, 55-6, 58.

_Prelude_, Wordsworth's, ii, 8.

Prentiss, Dr., America, ii, 277.

Priestley, Joseph (1733-1804), Coleridge's early admiration of, i, 36,
42.

_Prometheus of Aeschylus_, disquisition on, ii, 286, 305.

Prose Works of Coleridge; Harper and Brothers, New York, Preface, xvi;
Bohn Library, xvii.

Puffendorf, Samuel (1632-1694), Coleridge on, ii, 300.

Purkis, Samuel, of Brentford, i, 268; ii, 33.

Pye, Henry James, Poet Laureate; his _Alfred_, i, 242.

Quantocks, Coleridge on the, ii, 31.

_Quarterly Review_, ii, 212.

Quiller-Couch, T., _The Poems of Coleridge,_ Preface, xx.

_Rambler, The_, ii, 53.

Ramsgate, Coleridge at, ii, 238.

_Raven, The_, poem by Coleridge, i, 151.

Reason, Coleridge on, ii, 224.

_Recollections of Love_, ii, 112.

_Reflections on having left a Place of Retirement_ (Clevedon), i, 167;
ii, 110.

_Religion, Assertion of_, a projected work, ii, 203.

_Religious Musings_ (_The Nativity_), poem by Coleridge, composed,
i, 63, 73;
compared with _Destiny of Nations_, 77; obscure, 124, 134;
how revised in 1796, ii, 10, 11, 110.

_Remorse_ (see _Osorio_), ii, 104, 105-7, 111, 157, 279.

Renny, Mr., i, 291.

Rest and Fenner, Publishers, ii, 172, 257, 262.

Reynolds, F. M., ii, 292.

Rhine Tour in 1828; ii, 296-7.

Richardson, Samuel (1689-1761), compared with Scott, ii, 184, 207.

Robertson, J. M., on Coleridge, ii, 136.

Robinson, Henry Crabb (1775-1867), Preface, x, xvii;
tries to reconcile Wordsworth and Coleridge, ii, 67;
attends Coleridge's
lectures, 152, 216-17;
describes Coleridge's talk, 216.

Robinson, Mrs. (_Perdita_), i, 195.

Rogers, Samuel (1763-1855), visits Coleridge, i, 249;
at a lecture by Coleridge, ii, 73;
dines at Monkhouse's with Coleridge, 272.

Roscoe, William (1753-1831), admires Coleridge, i, 88.

Rose, William Stewart (1775-1843), a friend of Sir Walter Scott,
ii, 180.

Rossetti, W. M., Critical Memoir to S. T. Coleridge's Poems, Preface,
xix.

Royal Society of Literature, ii, 286.

_Ruined Cottage, The_, a poem by Wordsworth, i, 137, 152.

Rumford, Count (1753-1814), i, 66, 73, 74-5.

_Ruth_, Wordsworth's, i, 206, 229.

Sabbath, The, Coleridge on, ii, 23.

Saint Theresa, Coleridge's notes on, ii, 305.

_Salisbury Plain_, poem by Wordsworth, i, 154, 157, 159.

_Sancti Dominici Pallium_, poem by Coleridge, ii, 113.

Sandford, Mrs., her _Thomas Poole and his Friends_, Preface, x, xvii.

_Satyrane Letters of_, by Coleridge, i, 162, 167.

Savage, Mr., Printer, ii, 41-4, 47.

Schelling, F. W. J. (1775-1854), Coleridge's indebtedness to, ii, 146.

Schiller, J. C. F. (1759-1805), Coleridge proposes to translate his
works, i, 78;
sonnet to, 97, 99;
Coleridge on his _Robbers_, 135;
an echo of, ii, 187.

Scott, Sir Walter (1771-1832), and _Christabel_, i, 228;
Coleridge compared with, 235, 281; ii, 178, 180, 181-215;
his novels criticised by Coleridge, 206, 220;
his poetry compared with Coleridge's, 215, 292.

Scott, William Bell, Introduction to _Coleridge's Poems_, Preface, xix.

Scotland, Coleridge's Tour in, 1803, i, 270, 284; ii, 138.

Shakespeare, i, 135; ii, 188, 208;
proposed edition of his works, 295.

Shakespeare Lectures (see "Lectures"), ii, 268, 305.

Sharp, Richard (1759-1835), visits Coleridge at Keswick, i, 249, 257;
on Hazlitt, 283, 296.

Shelton, Coleridge's notes on, ii, 305.

Shepherd, R. Herne, _Bibliography of S. T. Coleridge_ (and Colonel
Prideaux), Preface, xviii;
_Life of Coleridge_, xix.

Sheridan, R. B. (1751-1816), desires Coleridge to write a Tragedy,
i, 127;
rejects _Osorio_, 140-41, 202, 216;
Sara Coleridge on, ii, 106-7.

Sherlock, Coleridge's notes on, ii, 305.

_Sibylline Leaves_, published, ii, 109, 112, 144, 146, 297.

Skipsey, Joseph, Prefatory Notice to the Canterbury Edition of _S. T.
Coleridge's Poems_, Preface, xix.

Smith, John, Coleridge's notes on, ii, 305.

Sonnets, i, 76, 98.

Sotheby, William, Poet (1757-1833), Coleridge becomes acquainted with,
i, 269.

Southey, Edith May (see _Selections from the Letters of Robert
Southey_, iii, 399), in London with Sara Coleridge, ii, 272.

Southey, Robert (1774-1843), his _Life of Dr. Andrew Bell_, Preface, x;
meets Coleridge in 1794, i, 34-5;
hatches with Coleridge the Scheme of Pantisocracy, 41-5;
composes along with Coleridge, _The Fall of Robespierre_, 45-6;
lectures in Bristol, 48;
married to Edith Fricker, 49;
quarrel with Coleridge over Pantisocracy and reconciliation, 92, 98;
Coleridge on his Poems, 123;
Coleridge on, 127, 129, 136, 161;
collaborates with Coleridge in writing the _Devil's Thoughts_, 182;
invited by Coleridge to Keswick, 237;
writes to Coleridge, 239, 241, 244, 245, 246, 250;
settles at Greta Hall, 251, 267;
Coleridge proposes to compile a _Bibliotheca Britannica_ in
conjunction with, 279;
his reply, 282; ii, 30, 41;
on the _Friend_, 52-7;
on _Christabel_, 56, 117;
and Cottle on Coleridge's Opium habit, 125, 131, 137, 212, 290.

_Southey, R., Life and Correspondence of_, Preface, x, xvi.

_Southey, Robert, Selections from the Letters of_, Preface, xvi.

Spaniards, Coleridge's Letters on, ii, 65.

_Spectator, The_, ii, 65.

Spenser, Edmund, i, 151;
quoted, ii, 205, 206, 208.

Spinoza, i, 197; ii, 18, 175.

Staël, Madame De, Coleridge meets in 1813, ii, 117.

Stanhope, Sonnet to Lord, i, 286.

Sterne, Lawrence (1713-1768), ii, 184, 207.

Stoddart, Sir John, obtains a copy of _Christabel_ and reads it to Sir
Walter Scott, i, 228;
invites Coleridge to Malta, 295; ii, 3.

Stowey, Nether, Coleridge settles at, i, 121;
revisits, 269; ii, 9.

Street, Mr., joint proprietor with Daniel Stuart and editor of the
_Courier_, ii, 81;
Coleridge on, 90-93.

Stuart, Daniel, proprietor and editor of the _Morning Post and
Courier_, Preface, xi; i, 191, 193, 202, 205, 253, 275, 288;
Coleridge writes from Malta to, ii, 4;
Sara Coleridge on, 76-93;
Letter from Coleridge to, 79;
on Coleridge, 80;
on Coleridge and his wife, 102, 136.

Stutfield, Mr., ii, 248-9, 267.

Style, Coleridge on, ii, 65.

Sublime and Beautiful, The, ii, 223.

Sutton, Mr., ii, 219.

Swinburne, A. C., _Christabel, and the Lyrical and Imaginative Poems
of S. T. Coleridge_, Preface, xix.

Symons, Arthur, _The Poems of Coleridge, selected and arranged_,
Preface, xx.

_Table Talk_, Coleridge's, origin of, ii, 278, 219-225.

Talfourd, J. Noon (1795-1854), Preface, xvi;
on Coleridge, i, 115; ii, 278, 279.

_Talleyrand to Lord Grenville_, i, 184.

Taylor's _History of Enthusiasm_, Notes on, ii, 284.

Taylor, Jeremy, Coleridge's Notes on, ii, 305.

Taylor, Sir Henry, described by Coleridge, ii, 290.

_Thalaba_, by Southey, i, 240, 243.

Thelwall, John, described by Coleridge, i, 138, 139, 146.

Thomson, James (1700-1748), ii, 153.

_Three Graves, The_, i, 150;
extant in 1801, 240;
probably composed in 1797-8, ii, 112;
one of Coleridge's best poems, 293-4.

Tieck, J. Ludwig (1773-1853), Coleridge meets in Rome, ii, 6;
visits Highgate in 1817, 216.

_Time, Real and Imaginary_, written early, ii, 110.

_Tintern Abbey_, by Wordsworth, i, 167.

"Titania Puckinella," ii, 259, 261, 289, 302.

_To an Unfortunate Woman_, "Maiden, that with sullen brow," i, 125.

Tobin, J., i, 244, 245, 245, 291, 296; Letter to, ii, 1.

Todd, Mr. (husband of Mary Evans), ii, 36.

_Tombless Epitaph, The_, i, 167; ii, 294.

Tooke, J. Horne (1736-1812), i, 188, 203.

Traill, H. D., _Life of Coleridge_, Preface, xix.

_Tranquillity, Ode to_, ii 112.

Transcendentalism, ii, 152.

Trinity, Coleridge on the doctrine of the, i, 33; ii, 14-22.

_Triumph of Loyalty_, a projected Drama by Coleridge, ii, 29.

Tucker, Abraham (1705-1774); his _Light of Nature_ abridged by William
Hazlitt, i 274, 277.

Tuffin, Mr., i, 291.

_Two Founts, The_, ii, 113.

Unitarianism, Coleridge and, i, 33, 143; ii, 13, 23, 119.

Universities, Coleridge proposes to lecture on, ii, 288.

Valley of Stones, Linton, i, 159.

Vico, Giovanni Battista (1668-1744), ii, 146.

_Visionary Hope, The_, ii, 112.

Wade, Josiah, of Bristol, early friend of Coleridge, receives letters
from Coleridge while on the _Watchman_ Tour, i, 54-61, 87, 114,
131, 138;
receives a letter from Coleridge on travelling in Germany, 255;
ii, 38-39, 119, 134-5.
See "Letters."

_Waggoner_, Wordsworth's, i, 238.

Wakefield, Gilbert (1756-1801), author and the most learned editor of
Gray's _Poems_, i, 76.

_Wallenstein_, Coleridge's translation of, i, 185, 193;
the language of, 199, 204, 213;
Letter to the _Monthly Review_ regarding, 218; ii, 104-105, 112;
quoted 187.

_Wanderer's Farewell, The_, ii, 140.

_Wanderings of Cain_, ii, 111.

_Watchman, The_, i, 50-64;
Prospectus of 53, 64, 65, 66, 72, 74, 76, 78, 80, 81, 88; ii, 93,
113.

Waterland, Coleridge's Notes on, ii, 305.

Watson, Seth, a friend of Coleridge, ii, 248-9, 267, 268.

Watson, Mrs. Lucy E., ii, 138.

Watts, Alaric Alexander, and Mrs. Watts, friendship with Coleridge,
ii, 292-5.

Wedgwood, John, i, 256, 266.

Wedgwood, Josiah, i, 53, 143;
confers a pension on Coleridge; 144, 160, 178, 182, 257; ii, 9;
see also "Letters."

Wedgwood, Thomas, i, 53, 143, 144, 160, 221, 251, 256-7, 265, 270,
289, 290, 295-7; ii, 9, 46;
see also "Letters."

Welsh Tour, Coleridge's, i, 35-41;
second tour, 270.

_Westminster Review_, Letters to Dr. Brabant, Preface, x; ii, 142,
148, 157.

Whitaker, Coleridge's Notes on, ii, 305.

Wieland's _Oberon_, i, 142.

Willett, Miss, i, 86.

Williams, Sheriff, ii, 198, 201.

Wilton, Esmond, ii, 252.

_Winter's Wreath, The_, an annual, ii, 292.

Woman, Coleridge on, ii, 241-3.

Wordsworth, Dorothy, described by Coleridge, i, 136;
describes Coleridge, 137, 141;
goes to Germany with William Wordsworth and Coleridge, 162, 219,
245, 249, 270, 288;
on Coleridge's estrangement from his wife, ii, 100-1;
(272, perhaps Dora Wordsworth).

_Wordsworth, Dorothy, the Journals of_, Preface, xviii.

Wordsworth, Captain John, i, 182, 264; his death, ii, 5.

Wordsworth, William (1770-1850), i, 76;
first meeting with Coleridge, 122, 129;
Coleridge visits him at Racedown, 135, 140;
_The Borderers_, 141;
the _Lyrical Ballads_, 147;
the Giant Wordsworth, 152;
adds to his stock of poetry, 156, 161;
goes to Germany with Dorothy and Coleridge, 162;
Coleridge visits him at Sockburn, and goes with him to the Lakes,
182, 193, 194, 199, 200, 202;
his _Pedlar_, _Ruth_, and _Nature's Lady_, 206;
second edition of the _Lyrical Ballads_, 213, 216, 219, 221, 222;
his _Brothers_, _Ruth_, and _Michael_, 229;
his _Waggoner_, 238;
the _Brothers_, 240, 243, 245, 249, 258;
his theory of Poetic Diction, 269; 270, 276, 288;
goes to town to see Coleridge, ii, 33, 38, 45;
quarrels with Coleridge, ii, 66-73, 116;
Coleridge on his _Excursion_, 146;
on Coleridge's _Hymn before Sunrise_, 153, 163;
Coleridge on his Nature worship, etc., 194-5; 258;
at Monkhouse's in 1823, 272;
his translations from Virgil, 272-3;
goes on a Tour to the Rhine with Coleridge, 296.

Wordsworth, Mrs., i, 288.

_Wordsworth, Memoirs of W._, Preface, x, xvi.

_Wordsworth_, Professor Knight's _Life of_, Preface, x, xvii.

Works, Coleridge's, Account of, by Sara Coleridge, ii, 104-5, 110-15,
305-7.

_Work without Hope_, ii, 112, 292, 294.

Wrangham, Francis, i, 76.

Wynn, C. W. W., a friend of Southey, i, 239.

Young, Julian Charles, meets Coleridge on the Continent, ii, 296.

_Young Lady, Letter to, on the choice of a Husband_, ii, 250.

_Youth and Age_, ii, 109, 112, 277, 292, 294.

_Zapolya_, ii, 104, 107, 113;
written at Calne, 147.

CHISWICK PRESS: PRINTED BY CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO.
TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.

Transcriber's Notes

Footnotes and Bracketed Text:

The editor of this and its companion volume has used square brackets to
denote added material, including footnotes. The brackets occasionally
are not closed. There are also several footnotes which are either
missing in the text, or missing their numbers on the notes themselves.
These have been corrected, based on the context and usage elsewhere.

p. 168: The footnote anchor for note 102 is missing. It normally would
fall at the end of the letter to which it refers, and has been
added there.

Punctuation:

Punctuation is occasionally used inconsistently. Where these are minor
(especially in the table of contents, footnotes, and the index), they
have been silently corrected.

Letter 151 ends on p. 93 with a closing quote and attribution:

...of his motive"--Quoted from the _Gentleman's Magazine_ of
June, 1838.

There is no corresponding opening quote, and one is not added here.

Ellipses are used (pp. 258, 262-263, 290), seemingly to elide a name.
They have been reproduced as found there. There is also the phrase
"when I... took me by surprise" which may well be a mistake for 'J...',
which was used just above. The 'I' has been retained as printed.
Ellipses are used (pp. 258, 262-263, 290), perhaps to elide a name. They
have been reproduced as found there. There is also the phrase "when
I... took me by surprise" which may well be a mistake for 'J...',
which was used just above. The 'I' has been retained as printed.

The following special situations are noted:

p. 79: I did not set much value.["] Added missing closing
quote.
p. 83: 'When shall we have Buonaparte?["/'] Corrected closing quote.

p. 115: was as favourable to the book _as Closing quote has no
could be expected_.["] mate.

p. 134: Added missing footnote number.

p. 133: Closing bracket of n1 is missing. Added.

p. 308: An extended dash has been shortened
here to '----'.

p. 322; _Vol. I, p. 97._[--]The Added to match
style just above.

Spelling, hyphenation and typographical errors:

There are also very occasional typographical errors that have been
corrected. Any variants in spelling or hyphenation have been retained.
Where the sole instance of a hyphenation occurs at end-of-line, modern
usage has been applied.

p. 130 withou[t] Added.

p. 329 _Golden_ Book of Coleridge Entire title should be
in italics. Retained.

*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Biographia Epistolaris Volume 2 - being The Biographical Supplement of Coleridge's Biographia Literaria" ***

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