171. To Thomas Poole MS. British Museum. Pub. Poems, ii. 978. This invitation is scribbled on the back of a Prospectus of Coleridge's course of six lectures on the English Rebellion and the French Revolution, to begin on 28 June 1795. [Endorsed Jany 〈17〉97.] To T. Poole Plucking flowers from the Galáxy On the pinions of Abstraction I did quite forget to ax 'e Whether you have an objaction With us to swill 'e and to swell 'e And make a pig stie of your belly. A lovely limb most dainty Of a ci-de vant Mud-raker, I makes bold to acquaint 'e We've trusted to the Baker: 1 And underneath it Satis Of that subtérrene Apple By the Erudite 'clep'd, taties, With which if you'd wish to grapple; As sure as I am a sloven The clock will not strike twice one, When the said Dish will be out of the Oven, And the Dinner will be a nice one. P.S. Besides, we've got some cabbage -- You Jew-dog, if you linger May the Itch in pomp of Scabbage Pop out between each finger. 172. To Joseph Cottle Address: Mr. Cottle Bookseller | High-Street | Bristol Single MS. Harvard College Lib. Pub. with omis. and as three separate letters, Early Ree. i. 188, 219, and 229. The postscript which Cottle added ( ibid. i. 189 ) will be found in vol. vi, Appendix B, Letter 148. Stamped: Bridgewater. [Friday] Morning [ 6 January 1797] 2 My dear Cottle We arrived safe -- our house is set to rights -- we are all, Maid, Wife, Bratling, & self, remarkably well -- Mrs Coleridge likes ____________________ 1 'The "miserable cottage" did not possess an oven.' Thomas Poole, i. 211 n. 2 This letter was written a few days after Coleridge's arrival at Nether -296- Stowey, & loves Thomas Poole, & his Mother, who love her -- a communication has been made from our Orchard into T. Poole's Garden, & from thence to Cruikshanks's, a friend of mine & a young married Man, whose Wife is very amiable; & she & Sara are already on the most cordial terms -- from all this you will conclude, that we are happy. -- I have not been unmindful of you, and my engagements -- & but that Milton, the carrier, passed by on Wednesday Morning two hours earlier than his usual time, you would have received a parcel -- Now I wish you to adopt for my sake as a poet & for Biggs's sake as a printer, the following plan -- which was suggested by Thomas Poole -- not to page the volume; but merely in the last page instead of Finis to put the number of pages _________ 256 pages. | thus. _____________ but instead thereof to put over the pages in the centre No. 1. No. 2. etc -- as for instance the Visions of the Maid of Arc, notes & introduction, will comprise exactly four sheets, reckoning that there are actually in each page eighteen lines, which I find is the case in Southey's -- (bye the bye what a divine poem his Musings on a Landscape after Gaspar Poussin is! -- I love it almost better than the Hymn to the Penates.) -- Now [ov]er every page of these 64 pages (No. 1.) -- then Chatterton (No. 2) -- etc 1 -- This will answer three ends -- it will be new- -- t will be uniform / whereas sticking the Titles over the pages, some very long titles, others short, others without any, is hateful to the eye -- & lastly, 2 it will give me that opportunity which I so much wish, of sending my Visions of the Maid of Arc & my correcting of the Joan of Arc, to Wordsworth, who lives not above 20 [40] miles from me & to Lamb, whose taste & judgment I see reason to think more correct & philosophical than my own, which yet I place pretty high. 3 -- Of my last Ode I have received criticisms from these Quarters, 4 which ____________________ Stowey. Since Coleridge speaks of having missed Milton the carrier on Wednesday and tells Cottle the Ode on the Departing Year as published in pamphlet form on 31 Dec. 1796 would have been better if he had had the advantage of Lamb's criticism, sent from London on 2 Jan. 1797, Friday, 6 Jan. 1797, seems a safe conjecture. 1 The 1797 edition Coleridge's Poems did not quite follow these suggestions. The pages and not the poems are numbered. See also Letter 180. 2 Cottle omits the preceding part of this sentence, substituting the introductory clause, 'If you delay the press'. Early Rec. i. 229. 3 Ultimately Lamb's unfavourable opinion of The Destiny of Nations was in part responsible for Coleridge's abandonment of the poem for the 1797 volume. See Letter 178. 4 This is further evidence that Wordsworth and Coleridge were in correspondence. See Letter 127. -297- if I had seen before it's publication would have brought my Ode much nearer to perfection. -- This therefore is my wish & intention -- but at all events you may depend on receiving from Milton on Thursday next the Prefaces 1 & six hundred lines of the first poem -it will consist of eight hundred twenty more or less -- but the Notes will be numerous. -- This then must be the order of the Volume. Title page, Dedicatory Sonnet, 2 first half-sheet Table of Contents Prefaces (for I second half-sheet. make two) Then No. 1. The Progress of Liberty, or the Visions of the Maid of Orleans. 3 (Four sheets. -- No. 2. Monody on Chatterton. No. 8 Songs of the Pixies No. 4. The Rose. (page 80. No. 5. The Kiss (page 82. No. 6 To a young Ass No. 7 Domestic Peace (p. 77. No. 8 The Sigh No. 9 Epitaph on an Infant. (No. 9. over the page; but let number 10. begin in the same page -- No. 10. The Man of Ross. No. 11 The Spring in a Village -- No. 12. Edmund No. 13 Lines with a Poem on the French Revolution. No. 14. Lines with an unfinished Poem. No. 15. The Sonnets -- / which there will be 10 I will send you 6 already printed -- 4 new.------ No. 16. Shurton Bars. new. No. 17. My pensive Sara! thy soft cheek reclin'd No. 18. Low was our pretty Cot. No. 19 The flower in February. Sweet Flowerl that peeping &c -- ____________________ 1 In the 1797 volume Coleridge reprinted with alterations the Preface of 1796 and also added a second Preface. 2 In 1797 a blank verse Dedication to the Reverend George Coleridge replaced the proposed 'Dedicatory Sonnet'. 3 This poem was omitted in 1797, the Ode on the Departing Year being the first poem after the dedication. -298- No. 20 The Hour, when we shall meet again. No. 21 The Poem to Charles Lloyd No. 22 Ode on the Departing Year. No. 28. Religious Musings. Then -- No. 24. No. 25. No. 26. Charles Lamb's Poems Divided into three numbers -Sonnets -- Fragments -- Ode -- Then -- my Juvenile pieces -- unnumbered, to shew how little I value them -- with a short Advertisement. The notes will be printed at the bottom of the page-& I write exactly the same number of words in a line as are printed in the lines of Southey's notes -- so that I know, I am accurate in giving five sheets to Title, Preface, & Visions of the Maid of Orleans. -You may therefore On Monday Morning send my Chatterton & Songs of the Pixies to the Press -- In the Chatterton make the following alterations 1 -- Page 1st inclose the two last lines in a parenthesis/. Page. 2nd. omit bosom-startling. Yet oft ('tis Nature's call). Page 8rd. Line the 3rd -- let line be Line -- i.e. I into L. Page 4th. line the 3rd omit, aye, as -- Light-hearted Youth! he hastes along, And meditates the future Song, How dauntless Ælla fray'd the Dacyan Foes: Seel as floating &c. And instead of He -line 4th. & See instead of And -- line 6th -- then omit the eight last lines of this Page. / -- Page 5th instead of Clad in Nature's &c put Yes! in Nature's rich array -- His eyes dance rapture, & his bosom glows! Yes! in Nature's rich array &c Page 5th line 4th Most fair instead of How fair -- & in the last line of the Page -- light-flushing instead of that lighten'd -- land Joy's wild gleams light-flushing o'er thy face. Page 6. line 7th omit death-cold. Page 7th line 2nd omit thrilling -& at the end of the Monody put -- October, 1794. Songs of the Pixies. 2 Page 16. / After the words 'on which occasion,' [a]dd 'and at which time,' / page 18. Streaks the East [w]ith purple Light -- ____________________ 1 All of the suggested alterations in the Monody on the Death of Chatterton were followed in 1797, with the exception of lines 41 and 54. Coleridge directed that line 41 read, 'Yes I in Nature's rich array', but it was printed, 'Yes I Clad in Nature's rich array'. In line 54 light-flashing appeared instead of light-flushing. 2 All of the suggested changes in the Songs of the Pixies were followed in 1797, except: froths not altered to froth (line 72) ; The purpling not altered to Th' impurpling (line 107); and August, 1793 was not added at the end of the poem. -299- instead of Purples the East with streaky Light. [I]n the 12th line scented instead of lily-scented. Page 20. Solemn Thought instead of solemn thought -- i.e. capitals in the Initial letters. Page 21. Wild instead of wildly-bow'rd. Page 22. Omit the comma after [w]aves & alter froths into froth. Page 24. Obeisance instead of obedience. Page 25th line 4th Th' impurpling instead of The purpling -- [A]t the end -- put -- August, 1798. -- The Rose (p. 80.) omit the word 'the' before dew --. -- Inebriate with dew. -- The Kiss (p. 82) needs [n]o alteration. In the Ass. p. 92. line 9th. 'thy Master' instead of 'her Master' [a]nd line eleventh alter to For much I fear me, that He lives, like thee. Line 18th alter to 'How askingly it's footsteps hither bend['] -- P. 98. last line alter [to] The aching of pale FASHION'S vacant breast! -- & then put December, 1794. 1 Domestic Peace & the Sigh need no alteration -- & these will last Biggs till Thursday Morning -- when if you will send down your young man to the Bear Inn, Red Cliff Street, to ask for Milton, the Stowey Carrier, you will find a parcel containing the book of my poems interleaved with the alterations -- & likewise the Prefaces & Poem which I shall send to you for your criticisms. -Let me hear from you, my friend! -- & tell me about my Ode-it is very strange that Parsons has not advertised it. -- Is Southey gone to London yet? I think that the Poems from p. 7 to 28. 49 to 52. 67 to 74. 83 to 98. 121 to 128. 135 to 144. 163 to 182 -- would have appeared to more advantage in the volume of Lovell & Southey -that they do not rise much above mediocrity 2 -- that the Poems from 29 to 48. from 55 to 64. from 77 to 82. 99 to 116 -- 129 to 184. 145 to 158 -- 187 to 198 -- are worthy the author of Joan of Arca 3 -- & that from 154 to 158 -- 208 to 220 deserve to have been [pu]blished after the Joan of Arc, as proofs of progressive genius. 4 -- God bless you & S. T. C. ____________________ 1 The changes requested for The Rose, &c., were all made in the Poems of 1797. 2 Coleridge refers to the following poems in Southey 1797 volume: The Triumph of Woman; Ode written on the 1st. of January; two poems entities Birth-Day Ode; Humphrey and William; John, Samuel, and Richard; Sappito; Ode written on the 1st. Decr.; To Contemplation; To Horror; Mary; and Donica. 3 Coleridge refers to the following poems: Poems on the Slave Trade, six sonnets; To the Genius of Africa; To my own Miniature Picture; The Pauper's Funeral; Inscriptions (1-8); Elinor; Frederic; ten sonnets; Written on a Sunday Morning; Ode on the Death of a Favorite Spaniel; The Soldier's Wife; The Widow; The Chapel Bell; The Race of Banquo; and Rudiger. 4 Coleridge refers to Musings on a Landscape of Gaspar Poussin and Hymn to the Penates. -300- 173. To John Prior Estlin MS. Bristol Central Lib. Pub. with omis. Letters, i. 213. [ January 1797] My dear Friend I was indeed greatly rejoiced at the first sight of a letter from you; but it's contents were painful. Dear, dear Mrs Estlin! -- Sara burst into an agony of tears, that she HAD been so ill. -- Indeed, indeed, we hover about her -- & think, & talk of her, with many an interjection of prayer. -- I do not wonder that you have acquired a distaste to London -- your associations must be painful indeed. -But God be praised! you shall look back on those sufferings, as the vexations of a dream! Our friend, T. Poole, particularly requests me to mention how deeply he condoles with you in Mrs Estlin's illness, how fervently he thanks God for her recovery. -- I assure you he was extremely affected. -- We are all remarkably well -& the child grows fat & strong. Our House is better than we expected-there is a comfortable bedroom & sitting room for C. Lloyd, 1 & another for us -- a room for Nanny, a kitchen, and outhouse. Before our door a clear brook runs of very soft water; and in the back yard is a nice Well of fine spring water. We have a very pretty garden, and large enough to find us vegetables & employment. And I am already an expert Gardener -- & both my Hands can exhibit a callum, as testimonials of their Industry. We have likewise a sweet Orchard; & at the end of it T. Poole has made a gate, which leads into his garden -- & from thence either thro' the tan yard into his house, or else thro' his orchard over a fine meadow into the garden of a Mr Cruikshanks, an old acquaintance, who married on the same day as I, & has got a little girl a little younger than David Hartley. Mrs Cruikshanks is a sweet little woman, of the same size as my Sara -- & they are extremely cordial. T. Poole's Mother behaves to us, as a kind & tender Mother -- She is very fond indeed of my Wife. -- So that, you see, I ought to be happy -- & thank God, I am so. -- I may expect your sermon I suppose, in the course of a fortnight -- Will you send me introductory Letter[s) to Mr Howell 2 of Bridgewater & Toulmin 3 of Taunton? I have fifty things to ____________________ 1 Late in 1796 Charles Lloyd returned to Birmingham on a visit to his family, but by 16 Jan. 1797 he was with Lamb in London. ( Lamb Letters, i. 90.) Early in February he came to Stowey, stayed a fortnight with Poole, and settled in the Coleridge cottage on the 22nd. ( Charles Lamb and the Lloyds, 87-38.) 2 Mr. Howell, the Unitarian minister at Bridgwater. 3 Joshua Toulmin ( 1740-1815), a staunch Socinian and liberal, was a Unitarian minister at Taunton for thirty-eight years. -301- write -- but the carrier is at the door -- To poor John give our love -- and our kind love to Miss Estlin -- & to all friends -- To Mrs Estlin my heart is so full, that I know not what to write -Believe me with gratitude, with filial respect, & fraternal affection Your sincere friend S. T. Coleridge. 174. To Thomas Poole Address: Mr T. Poole MS. Victoria University Lib. Pub. Letters, i. 4. This is the first of five autobiographical letters written at Poole's request. (Cf. Letters 179, 208, 210, 284.) With these letters may be read the autobiographical notes in Chapter I of James Gillman Life of Coleridge, 1838. Feb. 6, 1797 Monday. 1 My dear Poole I could inform the dullest author how he might write an interesting book -- let him relate the events of his own Life with honesty, not disguising the feelings that accompanied them. -- I never yet read even a Methodist's 'Experience' in the Gospel Magazine without receiving instruction & amusement: & I should almost despair of that Man, who could peruse the Life of John Woolman 2 without an amelioration of Heart. -- As to my Life, it has all the charms of variety: high Life, & low Life, Vices & Virtues, great Folly & some Wisdom. However what I am depends on what I have been; and you, MY BEST FRIEND! have a right to the narration. -- To me the task will be a useful one; it will renew and deepen my reflections on the past; and it will perhaps make you behold with no unforgiving or impatient eye those weaknesses and defects in my character, which so many untoward circumstances have concurred to plant there. -- My family on my Mother's side can be traced up, I know not, how far -- The Bowdens inherited a house-stye & a pig-stye in the Exmore Country, in the reign of Elizabeth, as I have been told -- & to my own knowlege, they have inherited nothing better since that time. -- On my father's side I can rise no higher than my Grandfather, who was dropped, when a child, in the Hundred of Coleridge in the County of Devon; christened, educated, & apprenticed by the parish. -- He afterwards became a respectable ____________________ 1 'When Coleridge resided at Stowey he agreed to write his life in a series of letters to be addressed to me -- I was to receive a letter every Monday morning -- ' [MS. note by Tom Poole.] 2 The Journal of John Woolman ( 1720-72), the Quaker abolitionist, was published in Philadelphia in 1774 and in London in 1775. -302- Woolen-draper in the town of South Molton. 1 / I have mentioned these particulars, as the time may come in which it will be useful to be able to prove myself a genuine Sans culotte, my veins uncontaminated with one drop of Gentility. My father received a better education than the others of his Family in consequence of his own exertions, not of his superior advantages. When he was not quite 16 years old, my Grandfather became bankrupt; and by a series of misfortunes was reduced to extreme poverty. My father received the half of his last crown & his blessing; and walked off to seek his fortune. After he had proceeded a few miles, he sate him down on the side of the road, so overwhelmed with painful thoughts that he wept audibly. A Gentleman passed by, who knew him: & enquiring into his distrersses took my father with him, & settled him in a neighb'ring town as a schoolmaster. His school increased; and he got money & knowlege: for he commenced a severe & ardent student. Here too he married his first wife, by whom he had three daughters; all now alive. While his first wife lived, having scraped up money enough, at the age of 20 he walked to Cambridge, entered at Sidney College, distinguished himself for Hebrew & Mathematics, & might have had a fellowship: if he had not been married. -- He returned -- his wife died -- Judge Buller's Father gave him the living of Ottery St Mary, & put the present Judge to school with him -- he married my Mother, by whom he had ten children of whom I am the youngest, born October 20th [21], 1772. These sketches I received from my mother & Aunt; but I am utterly unable to fill them up by any particularity of times, or places, or names. Here I shall conclude my first Letter, because I cannot pledge myself for the accuracy of the accounts, & I will not therefore mingle them with those, for the accuracy of which in the minutest parts I shall hold myself amenable to the Tribunal of Truth. -- You must regard this Letter, as the first chapter of an history; which is devoted to dim traditions of times too remote to be pierced by the eye of investigation. -- Your's affectionately S. T. Coleridge ____________________ 1 "Probably a mistake for Crediton". Letters, i. 5 n. -303- 175. To Richard Brinsley Sheridan 1 Address: Richard Brinsley Sheridan Esq. | M. P. | London MS. Harvard College Lib. Hitherto unpublished. Stamped: Bridgewater. Stowey, near Bridgewater. Feb. 6th, 1797 Dear Sir I received a letter last Saturday from a friend 2 of the Revd W. L. Bowles, importing that You wished me 'to write a tragedy on some popular subject.' 3 I need not say, that I was gratified and somewhat elated by the proposal; and whatever hours I can win from the avocations, by which I earn my immediate subsistence, shall be sacred to the attempt. The attempt I shall make more readily, as I have reason to believe, that I can hope without expecting, and of course meet rejection without suffering disappointment. Indeed I have conceived so high an idea of what a Tragedy ought to be, that I am certain I shall myself be dissatisfied with my production; and I can therefore safely promise, that I will neither be surprized or wounded, if I should find you of the same opinion. I should consider myself well paid for my trouble by the improvement which my mind would have received from it, as an Exercise; and by the honor conferred on me by your having proposed it. The phrase 'popular subject' has a little puzzled me. Mr Bowles perhaps will be able to inform me, whether you meant by it to recommend a fictitious and domestic subject, or one founded on well-known History. The four most popular Tragedies of Shakespear ( Lear, Othello, Hamlet, and Romeo and Juliet) are either fictitious, or drawn from Histories and parts of History unknown to the Many: and the impression from Schiller's 'Fiesco' is weak compared to that produced by his 'Robbers.' There are however great advantages in the other scale. The Spectators come with a prepared Interest. -- I shall not cease to remember this your kind attention to me; and am pleased, that I have to add the feeling of individual obligation to the deeper and more lofty gratitude, which I owe you in common with all Europe. -- S. T. Coleridge ____________________ 1 Richard Brinsley Sheridan ( 1751-1816), dramatist and parliamentary orator. 2 Probably William Linley. Cf. Letter 211. 3 In compliance with Sheridan's request, Coleridge wrote Osorio. See Letters 209 and 212. -304- 176. To John The wall Address: Mr. Thelwall | . . . [address heavily inked out] (Readdressed in another hand] Mr. Hardy's | Tavistock Street | Covent Garden MS. Pierpont Morgan Lib. Pub. with omis. Letters, i. 214. Postmark: 9 February 1797. Stamped: Bridgewater. Stowey, near Bridgewater, Somerset. Feb. 6th 1797. I thank you, my dear Thelwall, for the parcel, & your Letters. Of the contents I shall speak in the order of their importance. First then, of your scheme of a school. I approve it; and fervently wish, that you may find it more easy of accomplishment, than my fears suggest. But try, by all means, try. Have hopes without expectations -- hopes to stimulate exertion, not expectations to hazard disappointment. -- Most of our patriots are tavern & parlour Patriots, that will not avow their principles by any decisive action; & of the few, who would wish to do so, the larger part are unable, from their children's expectancies on rich Relations &c &c. -- May there remain enough for your Stella to employ herself on! Try, by all means, try! For your comfort, for your progressiveness in literary excellence, in the name of every thing that is happy, and in the name of every thing that is miserable I would have you do any thing honest, rather than lean with the whole weight of your necessities on the Press. Get bread, & cheese, cloathing & housing independently of it; & you may then safely trust to it for beef and strong beer. You will find a country Life a happy one; and you might live comfortably with an hundred a year. Fifty £ you might, I doubt not, gain by reviewing; & furnishing miscellanies for the different magazines; you might safely speculate on twenty pound a year more from your compositions published separately -50+20 = 709 £ -- by severe economy, a little garden labor, & a pig stie, this would do -- and if the education scheme did not succeed, and I could get engaged by any one of the Reviews & the New Monthly Magazine, I would try it: & begin to farm by little & slow degrees. -- You perceive that by the Press I mean merely writing without a certainty. The other is as secure as any thing else could be to you. With health & spirits it would stand; & without health & spirits every other mode of maintenance, as well as reviewing, would be impracticable.-You are going to Derby! I shall be with you in Spirit. -- Derby is no common place; but where you will find citizens enough to fill your lecture room puzzles me. -- Dr Darwin will no doubt excite your respectful curiosity. On the whole, I think, he is the first literary character in Europe, and the most original-minded Man. Mrs Crompton is an Angel; & Dr Crompton a truly honest & benevolent man, possessing good sense & a large -305- portion of humour. I never think | without respect, & tenderness; never (for thank heaven! I abominate Godwinism) without gratitude. William Strutt is a man of stern aspect, but strong, very strong abilities: Joseph Strutt every way amiable. He deserves his Wife -- which is saying a great deal -- for she is a sweet-minded Woman, and one that you would be apt to recollect whenever you met or used the words lovely, handsome, beautiful &c -- 'While smiling Loves the shaft display, And lift the playful torch elate.' -Perhaps, you may be so fortunate as to meet with a Mrs Evans whose seat is at Darley, about a mile from Derby. Blessings descend on her! Emotions crowd on me at the sight of her name -We spent five weeks at her house -- a sunny spot in our Life! -- My Sara sits and thinks and thinks of her, & bursts into tears -- & when I turn to her, says -- I was thinking, my dear! of Mrs Evans & Bessy.( -- (i.e.) her daughter). I mention this to you, because things are charactered by their effects. She is no common Being who could create so warm & lasting an interest in our hearts: for we are no common people. Indeed, indeed, Thelwalll she is without exception the greatest WOMAN, I have been fortunate enough to meet with in my brief pilgrimage thro' Life. -- At Nottingham you will surely be more likely to obtain audiences; & I doubt not, you will find a hospitable reception there. I was treated by many families with kindliness, by some with a zeal of affection. Write me if you go & when you go. -- Now for your pamphlet. -- It is well-written; & the doctrines sound, altho' sometimes, I think, deduced falsely -- for instance -p. (111) It is true that all a man's children, 'however begotten, whether in marriage or out,' are his heirs in nature, and ought to be so in true policy; but instead of tacitly allowing that I meant by it to encourage what Mr B. & the Priests would call licentiousness, (and which surely, Thelwall I in the present state of society you must allow to be injustice, inasmuch as it deprives the woman of her respectability in the opinions of her neighbors) I would have shewn that such a law would of all others operate most powerfully in favor of marriage; by which word I mean not the effect of spells uttered by conjurors, but permanent cohabitation useful to Society as the best conceivable means (in the present state of Soc. at least:) of ensuring nurture & systematic education to infants & children. We are but frail beings at present; & want such motives to the practice of our duties. Unchastity may be no vice -- I think, it is -- but it may be no vice, abstractly speaking -- yet from a variety of causes unchaste women are almost without exception careless Mothers. Wife is a solemn name to me because of it's influence on the more solemn duties of Mother. -- Such passages -- -306- (page 80 is another of them) are offensive. They are mere assertions, and of course can convince no person who thinks differently: and they give pain & irritate. -- I write so frequently to you on this subject, because I have reason to know that passages of this order did give very general offence in your first part; & have operated to retard the sale of the second. -- If they had been arguments, or necessarily connected with your main argument, I am not the man, Thelwall! who would oppose the filth of prudentials merely to have it swept away by the indignant torrent of your honesty. But as I said before, they are mere assertions; & certainly their truth is not self-evident. -- Without [sic] the exception of these passages the pamphlet is the best, I have read, since the commencement of the war; warm, not fiery; well-reasoned without being dry; the periods harmonious yet avoiding metrical harmony; and the ornaments so disposed as to set off the features of truth without turning the attention on themselves. -- I account for it's slow sale partly from your having compared yourself to Christ in the first (which gave great offence to my knowlege, altho' very foolishly, I confess) & partly from the sore & fatigued state of men's minds which disqualifies them for works of principle that exert the intellect without agitating the passions. -- But it has not been reviewed yet -- has it? -- I read your narrative -- & was almost sorry, I had read it -- : for I had become much interested, & the abrupt 'no more' jarred me. -- I never heard before of your variance with Horne Tooke. -- Of the poems the two Odes are the best 1 -- Of the two Odes the last, I think -- it is in the best style of Akenside's best Odes. -- Several of the sonnets are pleasing -- & whenever I was pleased, I paused, & imaged you in my mind in your captivity. -- My Ode by this time you are conscious that you have praised too highly -- you wrote to me in the warmth of a first impression. With the exception of 'I unpartaking of the evil thing' which line I do not think injudiciously weak, I accede to all your remarks, & shall alte[r] accordingly -- Your remark that the line on the Empress had more of Juvenal than Pindar flasheà itself on my mind -- I had admired the line before; but I became immediately of your opinion -- & that criticism has convinced me that your nerves are exquisite electrometers of Taste. 2 -- You forgot to point out to me, that the whole Childbirth of Nature is at once ludicrous & disgusting -- an epigram smart yet bombastic. -- The Review of Bryant's pamphlet 3 is good -- the sauce is better than ____________________ 1 See Poems written in Close Confinement, 1795, pp. 13-22. 2 For this figure see also Letters 195 and 464. 3 Jacob Bryant ( 1715-1804) published a treatise against the doctrines of Thomas Paine. -307- the Fish. -- Speaking of Lewis's death, 1 surely, you forget that the Legislature of France were to act by Laws and not by general morals -- ; & that they violated the Law which they themselves had made. I will take in the Corresponding Society Magazine. -That good man, James Losh, has just published an admirable pamphlet translated from the French of Benjamin Constant entitled 'Considerations on the Strength of the present Government of France'. 2 'Woe to that country where crimes are punished by crimes, and where men murder in the name of Justice.' -- I apply this to the death of the mistaking but well-meaning Lewis.-I never go to Bristol -- from seven to half past eight I work in my garden; from breakfast till 12 I read & compose; then work again -feed the pigs, poultry &c, till two o'clock-after dinner work again till Tea -- from Tea till supper review. So jogs the day; & I am happy. I have society -- my friend, T. Poole and as many acquaintances as I can dispense with -- there are a number of very pretty young women in Stowey, all musical -- & I am an immense favorite: for I pun, conundrumize, listen, & dance. The last is a recent acquirement --. We are very happy -- & my little David Hartley grows a sweet boy -- & has high health -- he laughs at us till he makes us weep for very fondness. -- You would smile to see my eye rolling up to the ceiling in a Lyric fury, and on my knee a Diaper pinned, to warm. -- I send & receive to & from Bristol every week -- & will transcribe that part of your last letter & send it to Reed. I raise potatoes & all manner of vegetables; have an Orchard; & shall raise Corn with the spade enough for my family. -- We have two pigs, & Ducks & Geese. A Cow would not answer the keep: for we have whatever milk we want from T. Poole. -- God bless you & your affectionate S. T. Coleridge Sara's love to you, amorous Jeffery Ruddell! 3 -- & my Love to Stella. -- ____________________ 1 Louis XVI was guillotined at Paris, 21 Jan. 1793. 2 Henri Benjamin Constant pamphlet, De la force du gouvernement actuel et de la nécessité de s'y rallier, was published in 1796. James Losh's translation is not listed in the British Museum Catalogue. 3 Geoffrey de Rudel, the troubadour, fell in love with the Countess of Tripoli without having seen her. -308- 177. To Joseph Cottle Pub. Early Rec. i. 137. Stowey, [Early February 1797] My dear Cottle, I feel it much, and very uncomfortable, that, loving you as a brother, and feeling pleasure in pouring out my heart to you, I should so seldom be able to write a letter to you, unconnected with business, and uncontaminated with excuses and apologies. I give every moment I can spare from my garden and the Reviews (i.e.) from my potatoes and meat, to the poem, [The Destiny of Nations] 1 but I go on slowly, for I torture the poem, and myself, with corrections; and what I write in an hour, I sometimes take two or three days in correcting. You may depend on it, the poem and prefaces will take up exactly the number of pages I mentioned, and I am extremely anxious to have the work as perfect as possible, and which I cannot do, if it be finished immediately. The Religious Musings, I have altered monstrously, since I read them to you, and received your criticisms. I shall send them to you in my next. The Sonnets I will send you with the Musings. God love you ! From your affectionate friend, S. T. Coleridge. 178 To Joseph Cottle Pub. Rem. 130, where the text is more complete than in Early Ree. i. 230. [Circa 10 February 1797] 2 My dear Cottle, The lines which I added to my lines in the 'Joan of Are,' have been so little approved by Charles Lamb, to whom I sent them, that although I differ from him in opinion, I have not heart to finish the poem. . . . So much for an 'Ode,' [Departing Year] which some people think superior to the 'Bard' of Gray, and which others think a rant of turgid obscurity; and the latter are the more numerous class. It is not obscure. My 'Religious Musings' I know are, but not this 'Ode.' ____________________ 1 Cottle text supplies Religious Musings in brackets, but Coleridge obviously refers to The Destiny of Nations. 2 On 5 Feb. 1797 Lamb sent Coleridge some severe criticisms on The Destiny of Nations; on 13 Feb., realizing that he had disheartened Coleridge, he acknowledged the justice of some of Coleridge's objections and urged him to go on with the poem. Lamb Letters, i. 92-100. This letter, therefore, must have been written about 10 Feb. 1797. -309- 179. To Thomas Poole Address: Mr Thomas Poole MS. Victoria University Lib. Pub. with omis. Letters, i. 6. This is the second of the autobiographical letters. Sunday March 1797 My dear Poole My Father, (Vicar of, and Schoolmaster at, Ottery St. Mary, Devon) was a profound Mathematician, and well-versed in the Latin, Greek, & Oriental Languages. He published, or rather attempted to publish, several works: 1st, Miscellaneous Dissertations arising from the 17th and 18th Chapters of the Book of Judges; II. Sententiae excerptae, for the use of his own School; 3rd (& his best work) a Critical Latin Grammar; in the preface to which he proposes a bold Innovation in the names of the Cases. My father's new nomenclature was not likely to become popular, altho' it must be allowed to be both sonorous and expressive -exempli gratify -- he calls the ablative the Quippe-quare-quale-quiaquidditive Case! -- My Father made the world his confidant with respect to his Learning & ingenuity: & the world seems to have kept the secret very faithfully. -- His various works, uncut, unthumbed, have been preserved free from all pollution, except that of his Family's Tails. -- This piece of good-luck promises to be hereditary: for all my compositions have the same amiable homestaying propensity. -- The truth is, My Father was not a first-rate Genius -- he was however a first-rate Christian. I need not detain you with his Character -- in learning, good-heartedness, absentness of mind, & excessive ignorance of the world, he was a perfect Parson Adams. -- My Mother was an admirable Economist, and managed exclusively. -- My eldest Brother's name was John: he went over to the East Indies in the Company's Service; he was a successful Officer, & a brave one, I have heard: he died of a consumption there about 8 years ago. My second Brother was called William -- he went to Pembroke College, Oxford; and afterwards was assistant to Mr Newcome's School, at Hackney. He died of a putrid fever the year before my Father's death, & just as he was on the eve of marriage with Miss Jane Hart, the eldest Daughter of a very wealthy Druggist in Exeter. -- My third Brother, James, has been in the army since the age of sixteen -- has married a woman of fortune -- and now lives at Ottery St Mary, a respectable Man. My Brother Edward, the wit of the Family, went to Pembroke College; & afterwards, to Salisbury, as assistant to Dr Skinner: he married a woman 20 years older than his Mother. She is dead: -310- & he now lives at Ottery St Mary, an idle Parson. My fifth Brother, George, was educated at Pembroke College, Oxford; and from thence went to Mr Newcome's, Hackney, on the death of William. He stayed there fourteen [ten] years: when the living of Ottery St Mary 1 was given him -- there he now has a fine school, and has lately married Miss Jane Hart; who with beauty, & wealth, had remained a faithful Widow to the memory of William for 16 years. -- My Brother George is a man of reflective mind & elegant Genius. He possesses Learning in a greater degree than any of the Family, excepting myself. His manners are grave, & hued over with a tender sadness. In his moral character he approaches every way nearer to Perfection than any man I ever yet knew -- indeed, he is worth the whole family in a Lump. My sixth Brother, Luke (indeed the seventh, for one Brother, the second, died in his Infancy, & I had forgot to mention him) was bred as a medical Man -- he married Miss Sara Hart: and died at the age of 22 [25], leaving one child, a lovely Boy, still alive. My Brother Luke was a man of uncommon Genius, -- a severe student, & a good man. -The 8th Child was a Sister, Anne -- she died a little after my Brother Luke -- aged 21. Rest, gentle, Shade! & wait thy Maker's will; Then rise unchang'd, and be an Angel still! The 9th Child was called Francis: he went out as a Midshipman, under Admiral Graves -- his Ship lay on the Bengal Coast -- & he accidentally met his Brother John -- who took him to Land, & procured him a Commission in the Army. -- He shot himself (having been left carelessly by his attendant) in a delirious fever brought on by his excessive exertions at the siege of Seringapatam: at which his conduct had been so gallant, that Lord Cornwallis payed him a high compliment in the presence of the army, & presented him with a valuable gold Watch, which my Mother now has. -- All my Brothers are remarkably handsome; but they were as inferior to Francis as I am to them. He went by the name of 'the handsome Coleridge.' The tenth & last Child was S. T. Coleridge, the subject of these Epistles: born (as I told you in my last) October 20th, 1772. From October 20th, 1772 to October 20th, 1773. -- Christened Samuel Taylor Coleridge -- my Godfather's name being Samuel Taylor Esq. I had another Godfather, his name was Evans: & two Godmothers; both called 'Monday' [Mundy]. -- From October 20th, 1773 to October 20th 1774. -- In this year ____________________ 1 ' George Coleridge was Chaplain Priest, and Master of the King's School, but never Vicar of Ottery St. Mary.' Letters, i. 8 n. -311- I was carelessly left by my Nurse -- ran to the Fire, and pulled out a live coal -- burnt myself dreadfully -- while my hand was being Drest by a Mr Young, I spoke for the first time (so my Mother informs me) & said -- 'Nasty Doctor Young'! -- The snatching at fire, & the circumstance of my first words expressing hatred to professional men, are they at all ominous? This Year, I went to School -- My Schoolmistress, the very image of Shenstone's, was named, Old Dame Key -- she was nearly related to Sir Joshua Renyolds [sic]. -- From October 20th 1774 to October 1775. I was inoculated; which I mention, because I distinctly remember it: & that my eyes were bound -- at which I manifested so much obstinate indignation, that at last they removed the bandage -- and unaffrighted I looked at the lancet & suffered the scratch. -- At the close of this Year I could read a Chapter in the Bible. Here I shall end; because the remaining years of my Life all assisted to form my particular mind -- the three first years had nothing in them that seems to relate to it. [Signature cut off] 180. To Joseph Cottle Address: Mr Cottle | Bookseller | High-street | Bristol Single MS. Harvard College Lib. Pub. with omis. and as two separate letters, Early Rec. i. 213 and 232. In the manuscript the Preface to the 1797 edition of Coleridge Poems and two poems precede this letter. Stamped: Bridgewater. Friday Morning [ 10 March 1797] If, my dear Cottle! you have not sent the prefaces to the press you will substitute the one now sent 1 for that sent by T. Poole. -If you do not like these Verses; 2 or if you do not think them worthy of an Edition in which I profess to give nothing but my choicest fish, pick'd, gutted, and clean'd; get somebody to write them out, & send them with my compliments to the Editor of the New Monthly Magazine. 3 -- But if you think as well of them as I do, (most probably from parental dotage for my last-born) . . . 4 you must ____________________ 1 The 'Preface to the second Edition' which Coleridge included in this letter is dated 6 Mar. 1797. Since the manuscript version is the same as that printed in the 1797 Poems, I have omitted it. Cf. Poems, ii. 1145. 2 See end of letter for 'these Verses'. 3 The first of these two poems, To an unfortunate Woman, which was omitted from the 1797 volume, was first printed in the Morning Post, 7 Dec 1797; the second, Allegorical Lines on the same subject, was published in the 1797 Poems, 105, under the title, To an Unfortunate Woman. 4 Four lines inked out on manuscript, apparently by Cottle. They read in part: be so kind as to shew them to Mr & to Mrs Estlin -- if either of them, -312- print them immediately following the Kiss, according to the order which I sent you by Letter -- only paging, instead of Numbering. I suppose, I shall hear from you tomorrow. -- Public affairs are in strange confusion -- I am afraid that I shall prove at least as good a prophet as bard -- O doom'd to fall, enslav'd & vile: 1 -- but may God make me a foreboder of evils never to come! -- I have heard from Sheridan, desiring me to write a Tragedy -- I have no genius that way -- Robert Southey has -- and highly as I think of his Joan of Arc, I cannot help prophesying, that he will be known to posterity as Shakespear's great Grandson, and only as Milton's great great grand nephew-in-law. -- I think, that he will write a Tragedy; and Tragedies. -- Charles Lloyd has given me his Poems, which I give to you on condition that you print them in this volume -- after Charles Lamb's poems -- the Title-page, which by the bye must not be printed till all the rest is, thus -- Poems by S. T. Coleridge, second Edition, to which are added Poems by Charles Lamb, and C. Lloyd. -Charles Lamb's poems will occupy about 40 pages: C. Lloyd's at least a hundred -- altho' only his choice fish -- A poem on Christmas which he has written lately is exquisite -- Now supposing that the poems, which I myself have added, are only sufficient to make up for the different type & number of lines in each page, in the two Editions -- my poems will occupy only 182 pages, that being two thirds of the present -- to this add 140 -- and you have 272 pages -- 72 more than the former Edition. -- So much for the priceableness of the Volume -- Now for the saleability, Charles Lloyd's connections will take off a great many more than a hundred, I doubt not. -- So that in no way can you miss my omitted Lines -- in the table of my contents put the added poems in Italics, with a note saying so -- God bless you -- & S. T. Coleridge. To an unfortunate Woman, whom I knew in the days of her Innocence. Composed at the Theatre. 2 Maiden! that with sullen brow Sit'st behind those Virgins gay, Like a scorch'd and mildew'd bough Leafless mid the blooms of May; Inly-gnawing, thy Distresses Mock those starts of wanton glee, And thy inmost soul confesses Chaste Affection's Majesty. ____________________ upon whose taste I have almost an implicit reliance, . . . to their being unworthy of my Edition -- . . . 1 Line 121 of the early versions of the Ode on the Departing Year. 2 Poems, i. 171. -313- Loathing thy polluted Lot, Hie thee, Maiden! hie thee hence: Seek thy weeping Mother's cot With a wiser Innocence! 1 Mute the *Lavrac and forlorn, While she moults those firstling plumes, That had skimm'd the tender corn Or the Beanfield's od'rous blooms: Soon with renovated Wing Shall she dare a loftier flight, Upwards to the Day-star sing And embathe in heavenly Light! * the Lark [S.T.C.] Allegorical Lines on the same subject. 2 Myrtle-Leaf, that ill-besped Pinest in the gladsome ray, Soil'd beneath the common tread Far from thy protecting Spray; When the Scythesman 3 o'er his sheaf Caroll'd in the yellow Vale, Sad I saw thee, heedless Leaf! Love the dalliance of the Gale. Lightly didst thou, poor fond 4 Thing! Heave and flutter to his sighs; While the Flatt'rer, on his wing Woo'd and whisper'd thee to rise. Gaily from thy mother stalk Wert thou danc'd and wafted high; Soon on this unshelter'd walk Flung to fade, and rot, and die! 5 ____________________ 1 With the wreck of Innocence! [MS. emendation in Cottle's handwriting; not adopted by Coleridge.] 2 Poems, i. 172. 3 Rustic [MS. emendation in Cottle's handwriting; authorized by Coleridge.] Cf. Letter 181. 4 foolish [MS. emendation in Cottle's handwriting; authorized by Coleridge.] Cf. Letter 181. 5 Flung to wither and to die! [MS. emendation in Cottle's handwriting; authorized by Coleridge, but not carried out in the 1797 Poems.] Cf. Letter 181. -314- 181. To Joseph Cottle MS. Harvard College Lib. Pub. with omis and as two separate letters, Early Rec. i. 197 and 224. The sentence, 'I like your lines on Savage', appears in Early Rec. i. 288, as a postscript to one of the two letters Cottle made of Letter 180 of this edition. Wednesday Morning [ 15 March 1797] Ten o'clock. My dearest Cottle I write under great anguish of mind, Charles Lloyd being very ill. He has been seized with his fits three times in the space of seven days; and just as I was in bed, last night, I was called up again -and from 12 o clock at night to five this morning he remained in one continued state of agoniz'd Delirium. What with the bodily toil exerted in repressing his frantic struggles, and what with the feelings of anguish for his agonies, you may suppose that I have forced myself from bed with aching temples & a feeble frame. I was not in bed till after five. -- However, I will hastily tell you what is to be done with the poems. -- The Ode must be reprinted -- T. Poole says, that rather than the first poem in the book should appear with so many horrid blunders, you shall put a guinea to his account towards the expence -- & I will scrape up another. -- O'er Nature struggling in portentous birth is printed after Weep & Rejoice -- instead of before it, as the Sense, the Poetry, & (what might have directed you) the correspondent Metre of the second antistrophe demanded -- and you have in page 15 retained one of those two lines, for which two I had substituted this one, By livid fount & -- in consequence, the passage is nonsense, imprimis, & (secondly) there is a line without a rhyme. -- Besides this, there are a multitude of small typographical blunders -- & one or two very foolish alterations. -- Mr Lloyd's poems are to be printed after mine in the order put in page 16 of the copy of my Ode -- The first poem on the Unfortunate Woman will do well for the monthly Magazine -- the second therefore only shall be printed in my poems -- with this title -- Allegorical Lines to an unfortunate Woman, whom I had known in the days of her Innocence. Your remarks are perfectly just on it 1 -- except that, in this country, T. P. informs me, Corn is as often cut with a Scythe, as with a hook. However for Scythesman read Rustic -- for 'poor fond ____________________ 1 In Early Rec. i. 219-24 Cottle prints what purports to be his letter of criticism to Coleridge. -315- thing['] -- read -- foolish Thing, -- & for Flung to fade & rot & die -- read Flung to wither & to die! -- Ill-besped is indeed a sad blotch -- but after having tried at least a hundred ways before I sent the poem to you, and as many more since, -- I find it incurable. -- This first poem is but a so so composition -- I wonder, I could be so blinded by the ardor of recent composition, as to see any thing in it. -- I will send it myself to the Editor. -- I like your lines on Savage -- . . . 1 We offer petitions, not as supposing that we influence the immutable -- but because to petition the Supreme Being is the way, most suited to our nature, to stir up the benevolent affection in our own heart -- Christ positively commands it -- & in St Paul, &c you will find unnumbered instances of prayers for individual Blessings for Kings, rulers, countries, &c &c -- We indeed should always join to our petition -- But thy will be done, Omniscient, All-loving, Immutable God! -- Milton waits impatiently -- S. T. Coleridge 182. To Josiah Wade Address: Mr. Wade | at Mrs. Wade's Pershore, Worcestershire (Readdressed] at Mrs. Cooper's Queen Square No. 48 -- Bristol Transcript Coleridge. family. Pub. E.L.G. i. 72. Stowey near Bridgewater March 16th 1797. My dear Friend If any set of circumstances can excuse me for suffering so kind, so very kind, a letter as your last, to remain so long unanswered, these circumstances are ready to plead for me -- In the first place, my review business had been suffered to accumulate so as to excite great discontent in my employers; for this last three weeks I have been compelled to devote great part of my time to it -- Secondly Cottle has been clamorous about my new Edition, and transcribings, alterations, &c, &c, have been forced on me by necessity -Thirdly Sheridan has sent to me to write a Tragedy, which he promises me to introduce on Drury Lane Theatre with every possible advantage, and wishes me to sketch out one immediately and send him the sketch, when he will give me his opinion of it. But fourthly poor Charles Lloyd has been ill indeed -- within these ten days he has had five fits, all of them followed by a continued and agonizing Delirium of five or six hours. -- So that what with bodily struggles and mental anguish and loss of sleep from sitting up with him, my temples ache, and my frame is feeble. -- My dear ____________________ 1 One sentence inked out in MS. -316- dear Wade! never believe so very ill of me as to suspect that my epistolary silence originates in want of affection. -- I detest profession, but it eases my heart to tell you, how often I think and talk of you and of the unwearied kindness you have shewn me: indeed it is a common theme after supper. I speak of you with both my eyes and heart full -- brimfull -- We are well -- the baby and Mrs. Coleridge remarkably so -- in my next, which I will write before I receive an answer to this, I will give you a minute account of our Cottage and mode of life. You are a good Prophet -- my God! into what a state have the Scoundrels brought this devoted kingdom -- If the House of Commons would but melt down their faces, it would greatly assist the copper Currency -- We should have brass enough. 1 Our love to Mrs. Wade -- I rejoice to hear that you are likely to settle in Bristol -- as then I shall hear from you and be more in the way of seeing you---- T. Poole desires his love -- be particular in your next about Ann Wade -- Our David Hartley is a very Seraph in Clouts -- and laughs, till he makes us cry for very overflowing joy and tenderness. God Almighty love you and | Your ever grateful Friend S. T. Coleridge You see in what a hurry I write. 183. To William Lisle Bowles Address: Revd W. L. Bowles | Donhead | near Shaftsbury | Wilts. MS. Professor C. B. Tinker. Pub. A Wiltshire Parson and His Friends, by Garland Greever, 1926, p. 29. Thursday Morning. [ 16 March 1797] 2 Dear Sir But that I am not likely to have another opportunity of transmitting the accompanying trifles to you, I would not intrude on you at a moment, when your heart is necessarily occupied with it's own feelings. -- You have the nightly prayers of my little family for the restoration of your dear Mother's health. To me the death of the aged has a more mournful effect than that of the young. Accustomed to observe a completeness in all the works of Nature, the departure of the Latter seems more of a transition -- the heart is dissatisfied, & says, this cannot be all. But of the aged we have seen the bud, the blossom, & the fruit -- & the whole circle of existence appears completed. -- But praise & thanksgiving to ____________________ 1 Cottle added this paragraph as a postscript to Letter 185 of this edition. Cf. Early Rec. i. 240. 2 This letter was written before the death of Bowles's mother on 25 Mar. 1797, and the reference to Lloyd's seizures suggests mid-March. -317- him who sent light & immortality into the world, bidding the corruptible put on incorruption, & the mortal immortality: for the young & old alike rejoice before God & the Lamb. -- The poems of Mr Lloyd will, I think, please you -- the Woman, whom they lament, approached as near perfection, as human nature admits. -- His affection for her was almost too great -- for her death has had the most melancholy effects on his health -- he fell into a nervous complaint, which has terminated in a species of epileptic seizures. -- He is at present domesticated in my cottage. My Ode you will read with a kindly forbearance as to it's political sentiments. -- The base of our politics is, I doubt not, the same. We both feel strongly for whomever our imaginations present to us in the attitude of suffering. -- I confess, that mine is too often a stormy pity.' The plan I had sketched for my tragedy is too chaotic to be transmitted at present -- but immediately I understand it myself, I will submit it to you: & feel greatly obliged to you for your permission to do it. -- It is 'romantic & wild & somewhat terrible' -& I shall have Siddons & Kemble in my mind -- but indeed I am almost weary of the Terrible, having been an hireling in the Critical Review for these last six or eight months -- I have been lately reviewing the Monk, the Italian, Hubert de Sevrac 1 & &c & &c -in all of which dungeons, and old castles, & solitary Houses by the Sea Side, & Caverns, & Woods, & extraordinary characters, & all the tribe of Horror & Mystery, have crowded on me -- even to surfeiting. -- I rejoice to hear of your new Edition -- Why did you ever omit that sublime Sonnet, Thou, whose stern Spirit loves the awful storm -- ? 2 I should have pleaded hard too for the first, Bereave me not 3 -- & still more vehemently for the Sonnet to Harmony 4 -- ____________________ 1 Professor Garland Greever, on the basis of this letter, identifies four reviews as Coleridge's: those of Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho and The Italian, of Mary Robinson Hubert de Sevrac, and of M. G. Lewis The Monk; but Mr. C. I. Patterson convincingly shows that only the review of The Monk is indubitably Coleridge's. In a letter dated 1828 Coleridge confirms Mr. Patterson's contention. The reviews of The Monk and of Bishop Horsley's tract, On the Prosodies of the Greek and Latin Languages, Coleridge says, 'were perfected into Print'. (Both of these reviews appeared in the February issue of the Critical Review for 1797.) Coleridge adds that he 'likewise had written some half a score or more of what, I thought, clever & epigrammatic & devilishly severe Reviews', but that 'a Remark made by Miss Wordsworth', to whom he had read one of therp, 'occasioned my committing the whole Batch to the Fire'. See Garland Greever, A Wiltshire Parson, 165-200; C. I. Patterson, "The Authenticity of Coleridge's Reviews of Gothic Romances", Journal of Eng. and Ger. Philology, Oct 1951, pp. 517-21; and E.L.G. ii. 407. 2 At Dover, 1786. 3 At Oxford, 1786. 4 music. -318- the only description of the effect of Music that suited my experience -- or rose above commonplace -- [In Sonn]et xvi (as they now stand) the parenthesis always [interr]upts the tide of my feelings 1 -- We describe [for o]thers -- not when we speak to the object described -- perhaps I may be wrong -- but I am sure, you will excuse my freedom -- I do not like your alteration of Evening -- it seems now to possess less oneness than it did before -- in the 18th 2 you use 'hope' in two ways -- once as an abstract -- he with new hope -- once as an impersonation -- Sweet Hope! -- is this an imper -fection? -- I could write a great deal about your late alteration -but I will not detain you any more -- believe me | very sincerely | Your's S. T. Coleridge I shall be anxious to your [hear?] of your dear Parent's Health. -- 184. To Joseph Cottle From a catalogue of Browne and Browne, Booksellers, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Pub. E.L.G. i. 70. [Early April 1797] My dearest Cottle I love and respect you as a brother, and my memory deceives me woefully, if I have not evidenced by the animated tone of my conversation, when we have been téte-à-téte, how much your company interested me. But when last in Bristol the day I meant to have devoted to you was such a day of sadness, that I could do nothing. -- On the Saturday, the Sunday, and the ten days after my arrival at Stowey 3 I felt a depression too dreadful to be described So much I felt my genial spirits droop! My hopes all flat, nature within me seem'd In all her functions weary of herself. 4 Wordsworth's conversation, 5 &c roused me somewhat; but even ____________________ 1 Distant View of England from the Sea. 2 Hope. 3 Coleridge was in Bristol on 23 Mar. See Letter 185, headnote. 4 Samson Agonistes, 594-6. 5 On 19 Mar. 1797 Wordsworth had left Racedown for Bristol, from whence he expected to return in about a fortnight. Cf. Early Letters, 165. He may have seen Coleridge in Bristol; but it is certain from Coleridge's letter that Wordsworth visited Stowey, probably early in April, on his way back to Racedown. See Letter 190, which shows that Poole also met Wordsworth at this time. -319- now I am not the man I have been -- and I think never shall. A sort of calm hopelessness diffuses itself over my heart. -- Indeed every mode of life which has promised me bread and cheese, has been, one after another torn away from me -- but God remains. I have no immediate pressing distress, having received ten pounds from Lloyd's father at Birmingham. 1 -- I employ myself now on a book of Morals in answer to Godwin, and on my Tragedy. David Hartley is well, and grows. -- Sara is well and desires a sister's love to you. Tom Poole desires to be kindly remembered to you. I see they have reviewed Southey's Poems and my Ode in the Monthly Review. 2 Notwithstanding the Reviews, I, who in the sincerity of my heart am jealous for Robert Southey's fame, regret the publication of that volume. Wordsworth complains, with justice, that Southey writes too much at his eases 3 -- that he seldom 'feels his burthened breast Heaving beneath th' incumbent Deity.' He certainly will make literature more profitable to him from the fluency with which he writes, and the facility with which he pleases himself, But I fear, that to posterity his wreath will look unseemly -- here an ever living amaranth, and close by its side some weed of an hour, sere, yellow,and shapeless -- his exquisite beauties will lose half their effect from the bad company they keep. Besides I am fearful that he will begin to rely too much on story and event in his poems, to the neglect of those lofty imaginings, that are peculiar to, and definitive of, the poet. The story of Milton might be told in two pages -- it is this which distinguishes an Epic Poem from a Romance in metre. Observe the march of Milton -- his severe application, his laborious polish, his deep metaphysical researches, his prayers to God before he began his great poem, all that could lift and swell his intellect, became his daily food. I should not think of devoting less than 20 years to an Epic Poem. Ten to collect materials and warm my mind with universal science. I would be a tolerable Mathematician, I would thoroughly know Mechanics, Hydrostatics, Optics, and Astronomy, Botany, Metallurgy, Fossilism, Chemistry, Geology, Anatomy, Medicine -- then the mind of man -- then the minds of men -- in all Travels, Voyages and ____________________ 1 Charles Lloyd left Nether Stowey, presumably before 23 Mar., since Coleridge was in Bristol on that date. Shortly afterwards Lloyd was placed under the care of Dr. Erasmus Darwin, in a sanatorium at Lichfield. Lamb Letters, i. 107. 2 See Monthly Review, Mar 1797. 3 Cottle ( Early Rec. i. 191) omits the names of both Wordsworth and Southey and prints: 'There are some Poets who write too much at their ease.' -320- Histories. So I would spend ten years -- the next five to the composition of the poem -- and the five last to the correction of it. So I would write haply not unhearing of that divine and rightlywhispering Voice, which speaks to mighty minds of predestinated Garlands, starry and unwithering. God love you, S. T. Coleridge. 185. To Josiah Wade Pub. Early Rec. i. 240. In introducing this fragment Cottle remarks: 'A little before this time [i.e. 10 May 1797; see Letter 188], a curious, or, rather, ludicrous occurrence happened to Mr. C. during a pedestrian excursion of his into Somersetshire.' Early Rec. i. 289. The fragment probably belongs to a letter of 1797. On 23 March 1797 Coleridge signed for the first two volumes of J. J. Brucker Historia Critica Philosophiae, 6 vols., 1766-7, at the Bristol Library, but he did not take the books with him until 6 April (see Letter 187). It would seem, therefore, that he was in Bristol on 28 March and again on 6 April. Since he returned in dejected spirits to Stowey after the March visit (see Letter 184), he was in no mood to write in so jesting a manner as in this fragment, which may have been written after the second visit to Bristol. [Circa 8 April 1797] My dear friend, I am here [Stowey] after a most tiresome journey; in the course of which, a woman asked me if I knew one Coleridge, of Bristol. I answered, I had heard of him. 'Do you know, (quoth she) that that vile jacobin villain drew away a young man of our parish, one Burnet,' &c. and in this strain did the woman continue for near an hour; heaping on me every name of abuse that the parish of Billingsgate could supply. I listened very particularly; appeared to approve all she said, exclaiming, 'dear me!' two or three times, and, in fine, so completely won the woman's heart by my civilities, that I had not courage enough to undeceive her. . . . S. T. Coleridge. 1 186. To Joseph Cottle Pub. Rem. 140, where the text is more complete than in Early Rec. i. 246. This letter, as printed by Cottle, is obviously a composite of parts of several letters. The first paragraph refers to Burnett's illness at his home in Huntspill, which probably explains Coleridge's presence there. The second paragraph sends a message to Mrs. Coleridge, even though the letter is headed 'Stowey'; this paragraph, therefore, probably belongs to a letter written ____________________ 1 The postscript Cottle printed here is a paragraph taken from Letter 182. -321- before Coleridge settled in Nether Stowey. The third paragraph presumably belongs to the Stowey period, though mice may have plagued the Coleridges at Clevedon or elsewhere. The postscript may be from a letter written in Stowey. Did Cottle group together Coleridge's comments on kittens, mice, and dogs for reasons known only to himself? Stowey. [Early April 1797?] My dear friend, I found George Burnet ill enough, heaven knows, Yellow Jaundice, -- the introductory symptoms very violent. I return to Bristol on Thursday, and shall not leave till all be done. Remind Mrs. Coleridge of the kittens, and tell her that George's brandy is just what smuggled spirits might be expected to be, execrable! The smack of it remains in my mouth, and I believe will keep me most horribly temperate for half a century. He ( Burnet) was bit, but I caught the Brandiphobia. 1 [obliterations] . . . ( -- scratched out, well knowing that you never allow such things to pass, uncensured. A good joke, and it slipped out most impromptu-ishly.) The mice play the very devil with us. It irks me to set a trap. By all the whiskers of all the pussies that have mewed plaintively, or amorously, since the days of Whittington, it is not fair. 'Tis telling a lie. 'Tis as if you said, 'Here is a bit of toasted cheese; come little mice! I invite you!' when, oh, foul breach of the rites of hospitality! I mean to assassinate my too credulous guests! No, I cannot set a trap, but I should vastly like to make a Pitt-fall. (Smoke the Pun!) But concerning the mice, advise thou, lest there be famine in the land. Such a year of scarcity! Inconsiderate mice! Well, well, so the world wags. Farewell, S. T. C. P.S. A mad dog ran through our village, and bit several dogs. I have desired the farmers to be attentive, and to-morrow shall give them, in writing, the first symptoms of madness in a dog. I wish my pockets were as yellow as George's phiz! ____________________ 1 'It appears that Mr. Burnet had been prevailed upon by smugglers to buy some prime cheap brandy, but which Mr. Coleridge affirmed to be a compound of Hellebore, kitchen grease, and Assafoetida! or something as bad.' Rem. 140. -322- 187. To G. Catcott Address: Mr G. Catcott Sub-Libran. MS. Bristol Central Lib. Pub. Early Ree. i. 211. In printing this letter Cottle changed 'one shilling & three pence' to 'five shillings', in the first sentence; and at the close of the letter he inserted the word 'expensive' before 'notes & letters'. [ Circa 6 May 1797] 1 Mr Catcott I beg your acceptance of the enclosed letters. You must not think lightly of the present; as they cost me, who am a very poor man, one shilling & three pence. -- For the future, all letters to me from the Library must be thus directed -- S. T. Coleridge | Mr Cottle's | Bookseller, | High Street | Bristol. With respect to the Bruckers; altho' by accident they were register'd on the 23rd of March, yet they were not removed from the Library for a fortnight after -- : and when I received your first letter on this subject, 2 I had had the two Volumes just three weeks. Our learned & ingenious Committee may read thro' two quartos -i.e. two thousand and four hundred pages of close printed Greek & Latin in three weeks, for aught I know to the contrary: I pretend to no such intenseness of application or rapidity of Genius. -- I must beg you to inform me by Mr Cottle, [wha]t length of time is allowed by the rules & customs of our institution for each book -whether the contents, as well as the size, are consulted in apportioning the times -- or whether, customarily, any time at all is apportioned, except where the Committee, in individual cases, clause to deem it proper. -- I subscribe to your Library, Mr Catcott! not to read novels, or books of quick reading & easy digestion -but to get books, which I can not get else where -- books of massy knowlege -- & as I have few books of my own, I read with a common place book -- so that if I be not allowed a longer period of time for the perusal of such books, I must contrive to get rid of my ____________________ 1 In the Register of the Bristol Library Society it is noted that Coleridge was charged with the Brucker volumes from 28 Mar. to 11 May 1797. The entries also show that letters from the Library were sent to Coleridge on 26 Apr. and 5 May. See George Whalley, "The Bristol Library Borrowings of Southey and Coleridge, 1798-8", The Library, Trans. Biblio. Soc., Sept. 1949, pp. 114-82. Coleridge's letter was probably written immediately on receipt of the library's second communication. 2 The 'first letter' from the Bristol Library on 26 Apr. 1797 reads: 'Sir, I am directed by the COMMITTEE to remind you that Brucker, Hist. Crit. Phil. Vol. 1st & 2nd was registered in your Name, on the 23 Day of March ulto. G. Catcott Sub-Librarian.' [MS. Harvard.] -323- subscription, which would be a thing perfectly useless, except as far as it gives me an opportunity of reading your little notes & letters -- . Your's in christian fellowship S. T. Coleridge 188. To Joseph Cottle Addirss: Mr Cottle | Bookseller. MS. Edinburgh University Lib. Pub. E.L.G. i. 75. Cottle makes two letters of this manuscript. Cf. Early Rec. i. 211 and 289. [ 10 May 1797] My dear dear Cottle Have patience -- & every thing shall be done. I think entirely of your Brother; 1 in two days, I will think entirely for you -- and by Wednesday next you shall have Lloyd's other poem, & all Lamb's -- besides &c -- I have written 1500 lines of my Tragedy -- T. Poole is in extacies with it -- he says, it has passion, well-conducted plot, stage-effect, & the spirit of poetic language without the technicalities. -- S. T. Coleridge I have not received the Poet's Fate. 2 Take the enclosed to the Library 3 -- I have sent a Curious Letter to G. Catcott. -- A dog, he has all together made me pay 5s for postage -- 189. To Joseph Cottle Pub. Early Rec. i. 147. Cottle introduces this fragment thus: 'I then pressed him to dedicate his Poems to one of his relatives, his brother George, of whom he occasionally spoke with peculiar kindness.' Since the Dedication. To the Reverend George Coleridge, of Ottery St. Mary, Devon, was dated 26 May 1797, this note must have been written not long before. In one copy of the 1797 Poems Coleridge wrote: 'N.B. If this volume should ever be delivered according to its direction, i.e. to Posterity, let it be known that the Reverend George Coleridge was displeased and thought his character endangered by the Dedication. -- S. T. Coleridge.' Poems, i. 173 n. [Circa 15 May 1797] You, I am sure, will be glad to learn, that I shall follow your advice. ____________________ 1 'My brother, [Amos Cottle] when at Cambridge, had written a Latin poem for the prize: the subject, "Italia, Vastata", and sent it to Mr. Coleridge . . . in MS. requesting the favor of his remarks.' Rem. 136 n. 2 Cf. George Dyer, The Poet's Fate. A Poetical Dialogue, 1797. Pantisocracy and Coleridge are mentioned in the footnotes, pp. 26-27. 3 Referring, apparently, to the Brucker volumes, which were returned on 11 May. -324- 190. To Joseph Cottle Address: Mr Cottle | Bookseller | Iiigh Street | Bristol MS. Harvard College Lib. Pub. Letters, i. 220. Stamped: Crewkhern. Thursday. [ 8 June 1797] My dear Cottle I am sojourning for a few days at Racedown, the mansion of our friend Wordsworth: who has received Fox's Achmed 1 -- he returns you his acknowlegements & presents his kindliest respects to you. -- I shall be home by Friday -- not tomorrow -- but the next Friday. If the Ode on the departing Year be not reprinted, please to omit the lines from 'When shall scepter'd Slaughter cease' -- to -- For still does Madness roam on Guilt's bleak dizzy height -- inclusive. The first Epode is to end at the words 'Murderer's fate. 2 -- Wordsworth admires my Tragedy -- which gives me great hopes. Wordsworth has written a Tragedy himself. 3 I speak with heart-felt sincerity & (I think) unblinded judgement, when I tell you, that I feel myself a little man by his side; & yet do not think myself the less man, than I formerly thought myself. -- His Drama is absolutely wonderful. You know, I do not commonly speak in such abrupt & unmingled phrases -- & therefore will the more readily believe me. -- There are in the piece those profound touches of the human heart, which I find three or four times in 'The Robbers' of Schiller, & often in Shakespere -- but in Wordsworth there are no inequalities. T. Poole's opinion of Wordsworth is-that he is the greatest Man, he ever knew -- I coincide. 4 -- It is not impossible, that in the course of two or three months I may see you. -- God bless you & S. T. Coleridge Of course, with the lines you omit the notes that relate to them. ____________________ 1 In 1797 Cottle published Poems, containing the Plaints, Consolations, and Delights of Achmed Ardebeili, a Persian Exile, by Charles Fox, 1749-1809. 2 These lines, which had appeared earlier in the Cambridge Intelligencer, were not included in the 1797 edition. Cf. Poem, i. 168 n.; Wise, Bibliog., 88. 3 Referring, of course, to The Borderers. 4 This statement proves conclusively that Poole, like Coleridge, had formed an estimate of Wordsworth prior to June 1797. Letter 184 shows that Wordsworth had stopped at Nether Stowey on his return to Racedown from Bristol, probably in early April. Coleridge's 'sojourn' at Racedown reported at the beginning of this letter was, therefore, a return visit. -325- 191. To John Prior Estlin Address: Revd J. P. Esilin | St Michael's Hill | Bristol MS. Bristol Central Lib. Pub. Letters to Estlin, 38. The upper half of pages I and 2 of the manuscript has been cut off. Stamped: Crewkhern. [ 9 June 1797] . . . of this month -- I wished to have written you when it was decided. -- These causes dissolved in that universal menstruum of apologies, my indolence -- made me delay my letter, till, I fear, I write at a time, when even a letter from a friend will intrude on your fears & anxieties. Believe me, I share them -- no hour passes, in which I do not think of, with an eagerness of mind, -- dear Mrs Estlin. I feel, at times, sad & depressed on her account -- on mine own, I might have said. For, God knows! these are not the times, when we can fear for a dear friend with a moderate fear! -- I am at present sojourning for a few days with Wordsworth, at Racedown Lodge, near Crewkherne: & finishing my Tragedy. Wordsworth, who is a strict & almost severe critic, thinks very highly of it -- which gives me great hopes. . . . . . . I have been led to believe. -- Where there are two ministers, they ought to be either as Brothers -- one soul in two heads -- or as Father & Son. -- I breakfasted with Dr Toulmin last Monday -- the more I see of that man, the more I love him. I preached for Mr Howel the Sunday before -- My sermon was admired -- but admired sermons, I have reason to think, are not those that do most good. -- I endeavored to awaken a Zeal for Christianity by shewing the contemptiblenqss & evil of lukewarmness. -- T. Poole gives me notice that you have, a midsummer's 20 guineas for me, which those have contributed who believe that they are enabling me to benefit my fellow-creatures in proportion to my powers. -- Will you be so kind as to call on Mrs Fricker, and give her five guineas in my name -- and to transmit five guineas to Mrs Coleridge. -- I hope, & trust, that this will be the last year, that I can conscientiously accept of those contributions, which in my present lot & conscious of my present occupations, I feel no pain in doing. -- If this Mr Reynell settles with me, 1 it will at least provide my immediate household expences -- &, if my Tragedy succeed, Io triumphe! -- ____________________ 1 Richard Reynell, who paid a visit to Stowey in Aug. 1797, did not settle with the Coleridges. See Ill. London News, 22 Apr. 1896, for his letter describing Wordsworth, Burnett, the Coleridges, and the cottage. -326- Give my heart-felt love to dear, dear Mrs Estlin -- and kiss dear Anna, and Alfred & Caroline for me. My kindest remembrances to Mr & Mrs Hort -- & believe me your obliged, & truly affectionate Friend S. T. Coleridge 192. To John Prior Estlin Address: Revd J. P. Estlin| St Michael's Hill | Bristol MS. Bristol Central Lib. Pub. E.L.G. i. 75. Stamped: Crewkhern. Saturday Morning. [ 10 June 1797] My dear Friend I wrote to you yesterday -- & to day I must write again. -- I shall have quite finished my Tragedy in a day or two; & then I mean to walk to Bowles, the poet, to read it to him, & have his criticisms -- & then, accordingly as he advises, I shall either transmit the play to Sheridan, or go to London & have a personal interview with him.-At present, I [am] almost shillingless -- I should be glad therefore, if you could transmit me immediately a five pound note of the bank of England, directed -- S. T. Coleridge, | Race-down Lodge | near | Crewkherne. -- I calculate that by this time your anxieties are past -- mine will continue till I hear from you. This is a lovely country -- & Wordsworth is a great man. -- He admires your sermon against Payne 1 much more than your last -I suppose because he is more inclined to Christianity than to Theism, simply considered. -- The lines over leaf, which I have procured Miss Wordsworth to transcribe, will, I think, please you. -- When I arrive at Bowles's, I will write again -- giving you a minute account of the bard -- God bless you, and your's -- & all of us! -- Most affectionately | Your obliged friend S. T. Coleridge her eye Was busy in the distance, shaping things That made her heart beat quick. Seest thou that path? (The green-sward now has broken its grey line;) There, to and fro she paced; through many a day ____________________ 1 Evidences of revealed religion, and particularly Christianity, stated, with reference to a pamphlet called: The Age of Reason, in a discourse delivered December 25, 1795. -327- Of the warm summer: from a belt of flax That girt her waist, spinning the long-drawn thread With backward steps. Yet, ever as there passed A man, whose garments shewed the Soldier's red, Or crippled mendicant in Sailor's garb, The little child, who sat to turn the wheel, Ceased from his toil, and she, with faultering voice, Expecting still to learn her husband's fate, Made many a fond inquiry; and when they, Whose presence gave no comfort, were gone by, Her heart was still more sad -- And by yon gate That bars the traveller's road, she often sat, And if a stranger-horseman came, the latch Would lift; & in his face look wistfully, Most happy, if from aught discovered there Of tender feeling, she might dare repeat The same sad question -- Meanwhile, her poor hut Sank to decay: for he was gone, whose hand, At the first nippings of October frost, Closed up each chink, and with fresh bands of straw Checquered the green-grown thatch; and so she sat Through the long winter, reckless and alone, Till this reft house by frost, and thaw, and rain Was sapped; and, when she slept, the nightly clamps Did chill her breast, and in the stormy day Her tattered clothes were ruffled by the wind, Even by the side of her own fire. Yet still She loved this wretched spot, nor would for worlds Have parted hence: and still, that length of road, And this rude bench one torturing hope endeared, Fast rooted at her heart; and, Stranger, here In sickness she remained, and here she died, Last human tenant of these ruined walls -- 1 193. To Joseph Cottle Address: Mr Cottle. MS. Edinburgh University Lib. Pub. E.L.G. i. 77. June 29 -- 1797 My very dear friend I unfortunately gave away the loose sheets, you sent me -- what shall I do? -- There are many errata -- C. Lamb will probably be ____________________ 1 Excursion, i. 880-916. -328- here in about a week -- Could you not contrive to put yourself in a Bridgewater Coach -- & T. Poole would fetch you in a one horse Chair to Stowey ---- What delight would it not give us. -- By all means omit that one line -- & if you like, the objectionable part in the first advertisement ---- I do not admit your reasoning against the latter part of the dedication -- the possible error or intemperance to which I alluded -- was -- All nations curse thee! &c &c ---- in the Ode 1 -- I returned from Wordsworth's last night -- God love you & eke your affectionate friend S. T. Coleridge. If Lamb is to come, I will write you when -- 194. To Joseph Cottle Pub. Early Rec. i. 230. Stowey, [Late June] 1797. 2 My dear Cottle, I deeply regret, that my anxieties and my slothfulness, acting in a combined ratio, prevented me from finishing my 'Progress of Liberty, or Visions of the Maid of Orleans,' with that Poem at the head of the volume, with the Ode in the middle, and the 'Religious Musings' at the end. . . . In the 'Lines on the Man of Ross', immediately after these lines, 'He heard the widow's heaven-breathed prayer of praise, He mark'd the shelter'd orphan's tearful gaze,' Please to add these two lines; 'And o'er the portioned maiden's snowy cheek, Bade bridal love suffuse its blushes meek.' And, for the line, 'Beneath this roof, if thy cheer'd moments pass,' I should be glad to substitute this, 'If near ['neath] this roof thy wine-cheer'd moments pass.' ____________________ 1 Cf. line 189 of the Departing Year. 2 Since the changes which Coleridge requests for the Lines on the Man of Ross 'came too late for admission' in the 1797 Poems (Early Rec. i. 281), this letter must have been written in June. See Letter 195. -329- 195. To Joseph Cottle Address: Mr Cottle | Bookseller | High Street | Bristol MS. Harvard College Lib. Pub. with omis. Chambers, Life, 77. Cottle mangled this letter 'even beyond his wont', making a separate letter of two parts, printing another section as a postscript to Letter 301 of this edition, and transferring the names of C. Lamb, Wordsworth, and Dr. Parr to Letter 118 of this edition. See Early Rec. i.161, 252, and 256. Stamped: Bridgewater. [Circa 8 July 1797] 1 My dear friend These are the errors, 2 or the alterations -- Now, I conceive, that as the volumes are bound, you might employ a boy for sixpence or a shilling to go thro' them & with a fine pen, and dainty ink, make the alterations in each volume -- I am confident, it would not cost more than printing the errata, -- and then the Errata may remain, as it is now already printed. 3 -- I wish, it could be so: for really, nobody scarcely does look at the table of Errata ---- the Volume is a most beautiful one ---- you have determined that the three Bards shall walk up Parnassus, or the Hill of Fame, in their best Bib & Tucker. Give my Love to your Brother Amos -- I condole with him -- but it is the fortune of War -- the finest poem, I ever wrote, lost the prize 4 -- & that which gained it, was contemptible -- but an ode may sometimes be too bad for the prize; but VERY OFTEN too good. Wordsworth & his exquisite Sister are with me -- She is a woman indeed! -- in mind, I mean, & heart -- for her person is such, that if you expected to see a pretty woman, you would think her ordinary -- if you expected to find an ordinary woman, you would think her pretty! -- But her manners are simple, ardent, impressive --. In every motion her most innocent soul Outbeams so brightly, that who saw would say, Guilt was a thing impossible in her. 5 -- Her information various -- her eye watchful in minutest observation ____________________ 1 Arriving from Racedown on 28 June, Coleridge almost immediately returned there, bringing the Wordsworths back to Stowey on 2 July. Since he does not mention the accidental scalding of his foot, which occurred on 4 July, or Charles Lamb, who arrived on 7 July, this letter was probably written on 3 July. See Chambers, Life, 77, and Letter 197. 2 See end of letter for the Errata. 3 'According to an Advertisment in The Morning Post the book was published on October 28th, 1797.' Wise, Bibliography, 39. 4 Coleridge apparently refers to his Greek Ode on Astronomy, which failed to win a Browne Medal in 1793. See Letter 28. 5 For these lines, descriptive of Joan of Arc, see Destiny of Nations, 173-5. -330- of nature -- and her taste a perfect electrometer -- it bends, protrudes, and draws in, at subtlest beauties & most recondite faults. ---- She with her Brother desire their kindest respects to you -- If you can pick up a Hamlet, an Othello, & a Romeo & Juliet, separately, in numbers, or an odd volume -- Wordsworth would thank you to get it for him ---- T. Poole will be collecting the names of the persons, who want my poems here -- when I have got them, I will send the Number & you will put it to Poole's account -- For myself I want one, for C. Lamb one, for Wordsworth in your name one, for my Brother one, and one I shall send with a sonnet to Dr Parr -- God love you | & your ever affectionate S. T. Coleridge Errata 1 P. 22. For 'light-flashing' read 'light-flushing' P. 52. The Man of Ross is altogether misprinted; and cannot be made intelligible in these Errata. P. 78. Line 8. for 'blissful' read 'happy' & for 'anguish'd' read 'mournful'. Line 9 for 'thy margin's willowy maze' read 'thy marge with willows grey'. Line 11. place a full stop after 'transparence' -and instead of 'to the gaze' read 'on my way' and Line 7. for 'blaze' read 'ray' P. 87. Line 11. Omit the full stop. P. 92. Line 10. For the colon put a comma. P. 97. Scratch out these three lines 'Where melodies round honey-dropping flowers 'Footless & wild like birds of Paradise 'Nor pause nor perch hovering on untamed wing['] and put a full stop instead of a Comma at 'Fairy-land.' -- P. 105. Line 7. omit the comma at 'sad' & Line 8. for 'gale' read 'Gale'. P. 109. Scratch out the 9th & 10th lines. Religious Musings Line 71. alter to 'Fear, a wild-visaged Man with starting eye'. Alter Lines 77 and 78 to these 'While Faith's whole armour girds his limbs! And thus 'Transfigur'd, with a deep and dreadless awe, 'A solemn hush of spirit, he beholds['] ____________________ 1 In the manuscript these errata, which are in Dorothy Wordsworth's handwriting, precede the letter. See Wise, Bibliography, 89, for a description of the errata slip inserted in some copies of the 1797 Poems. See also Poems, 1797, p. 278. -331- P. 145 -- There is a line omitted; after 876 it ought to have been 'Up the fine fibres thro' the sentient brain 'Roll subtly-surging. Pressing on his steps Lo! PRIESTLEY there &c -- and a colon instead of a comma at the word 'Sage'. P. 180. For 'When I this performed' read 'When I had this perform'd' P. 186. Line 9. after 'boundeth' insert the word 'on' 196. To Thomas Poole Address: Mr T. Poole MS. British Museum. Pub. Ill. London News, 22 April 1893, p. 500. On 14 July 1797 the lease for Alfoxton (usually spelled Alfoxden), a house some three miles from Nether Stowey, was signed by Wordsworth, and he and Dorothy settled there the same day. (Cf. Early Letters, 170.) Coleridge was visiting there on the 17th. Thomas Poole, i.232-3. [Circa 17 July 1797] My dear Poole We have taken a fore quarter of Lamb from your Mother -which you will be so kind, according to your word, or (as the wit said to a minister of state) notwithstanding your promise, to send over to the Foxes [Alfoxden] to morrow morning by a boy -- I pray you, come over if possible by eleven o'clock that we may have Wordsworth's Tragedy read under the Trees -- S. T. Coleridge 197. To Robert Southey Address: Robert Southey | at Mrs Barnes's | Burton, near Ringwood | Hampshire Single MS.Lord Latymer. Pub. with omis. Letters, i.221. Stamped: Bridgewater [Circa 17 July 1797] Dear Southey You are acting kindly in your exertions for Chatterton's sister: 1 but I doubt the success. Chatterton's or Rowley's poems were never popular -- the very circumstance which made them so much talked of -- their ancientness -- prevented them from being generally read ---- in the degree, I mean, that Goldsmith's poem or even ____________________ 1 The Works of Thomas Chatterton, to which Cottle contributed 'most of the editorial part', and Southey 'advice and a preface', did not appear until 1808. Jack Simmons, Southey, 68. -332- Rogers's thing upon memory has been. -- The sale was never very great. -- Secondly, the London Edition & the Cambridge Edition, which are now both of them the property of London Booksellers, are still on hand -- & these Booksellers will 'hardly exert their interest for a rival.' Thirdly, these are bad times. Fourthly, all who are sincerely zealous for Chatterton, or who from knowlege of her are interested in poor Mrs Newton, will come forwards first ---- & if others should drop in but slowly, Mrs Newton will either receive no benefit at all from those, her friends, or one so long procrastinated from the necessity of waiting for the complement of subscribers, that it may at last come too late. -- For these reasons I am almost inclined to think, a subscription simply would be better. ---- It is unpleasant to cast a damp on any thing; but that benevolence alone is likely to be beneficent, which calculates. -- If however you continue to entertain higher hopes, than I -- believe me, I will shake off my sloth, & use my best muscles in gaining subscribers. I will certainly write a preliminary Essay, and I will attempt to write a poem on the life & death of Chatterton, but the Monody must not be reprinted. -- Neither this or the Pixies' Parlour would have been in the second Edition, but for dear Cottle's solicitous importunity. Excepting the last 18 lines of the Monody, which tho' deficient in chasteness & severity of diction, breathe a pleasing spirit of romantic feeling, there are not 5 lines in either poem, which might not have been written by a man who had lived & died in the self-same St Giles's Cellar, in which he had been first suckled by a drab with milk & Gin. -- The Pixies is the least disgusting; because the subject leads you to expect nothing -- but on a life & death so full of heart-giving realities, as poor Chatterton's to find such shadowy nobodies, as cherub-winged DEATH, Trees of HOPE, barebosom'd AFFECTION, & simpering PEACE -- makes one's blood circulate like ipecacacuanha [sic]. -- But so it is. A young man by strong feelings is impelled to write on a particular subject -- and this is all, his feelings do for him. They set him upon the business & then they leave him. -- He has such a high idea, of what Poetry ought to be, that he cannot conceive that such things as his natural emotions may be allowed to find a place in it -- his learning therefore, his fancy, or rather conceit, and all his powers of buckram are put on the stretch --. It appears to me, that strong feeling is not so requisite to an Author's being profoundly pathetic, as taste & good sense. -- Poor old Wag! ---- his mother died of a dish of a clotted Cream, which my mother sent her as a present. I rejoice that your poems are all sold. 1 -- In the ballad of Mary, ____________________ 1 Poems by Robert Southey, 1797. -333- the Maid of the Inn, you have properly enough made the diction colloquial -- but 'engages the eye', applied to a gibbet strikes me as slipsloppish -- from the unfortunate meaning of the word 'engaging'. 1 -- Your praise of my Dedication gave me great pleasure -- From the 9th to the 14th the five lines are flat & prosish -- & the versification ever & anon has too much of the rhyme or couplet cadence -& the metaphor on the diverse sorts of friendship is hunted down 2 -but the poem is dear to me, and in point of taste I place it next to "Low was our pretty cot ['] which I think the best of my poems. -- I am as much a Pangloss as ever -- only less contemptuous, than I used to be, when I argue how unwise it is to feel contempt for any thing ---- I had been on a visit to Wordsworth's at Racedown near Crewkherne -- and I brought him & his Sister back with me & here I have settled them --. By a combination of curious circumstances a gentleman's seat, with a park & woods, elegantly & completely furnished -- with 9 lodging rooms, three parlours & a Hall -- in a most beautiful & romantic situation by the sea side -- 4 miles from Stowey -- this we have got for Wordsworth at the rent of 23| a year, taxes included!! -- The park and woods are his for all purposes he wants them -- i.e. he may walk, ride, & keep a horse in them -& the large gardens are altogether & entirely his. -- Wordsworth is a very great man -- the only man, to whom at all times & in all modes of excellence I feel myself inferior -- the only one, I mean, whom I have yet met with -- for the London Literati appear to me to be very much like little Potatoes -- i.e. no great Things! -- a compost of Nullity & Dullity. -- Charles Lamb has been with me for a week -- he left me Friday morning. -- / The second day after Wordsworth came to me, dear Sara accidently emptied a skillet of boiling milk on my foot, which confined me during the whole time of C. Lamb's stay & still prevents me from all walks longer than a furlong. -- While Wordsworth, his Sister, & C. Lamb were out one evening; / sitting in the arbour of T. Poole's garden, which communicates with mine, I wrote these lines, 3 with which I am pleased ---- Well -- they are gone: and here must I remain, Lam'd by the scathe of fire, lonely & faint, This lime-tree bower my prison. They, meantime, ____________________ 1 Southey later altered the line to 'His irons you still from the road may espy'. See Poet. Works, 1838, vi.9. 2 See lines 20-30, Poems, i.174. 3 Poems, i.178. Another copy of these lines was sent in a letter to Charles Lloyd, which has not come to light. See Campbell, Poetical Works, 591, for the version sent to Lloyd. -334- My friends, whom I may never meet again, On springy * heath, along the hill-top edge, Wander delighted, and look down, perchance, On that same rifted Dell, where many an Ash 1 Twists it's wild limbs beside the ferny rock, Whose plumy ferns ** for ever nod and drip Spray'd by the waterfall. But chiefly Thou, My gentle-hearted CHARLES! thou, who hast pin'd And hunger'd after Nature many a year In the great City pent, winning thy way, With sad yet bowed soul, thro' evil & pain And strange calamity. -- Ah slowly sink Behind the western ridge; thou glorious Sun! Shine in the slant beams of the sinking orb, Ye purple Heath-flowers! Richlier burn, ye Clouds! Live in the yellow Light, ye distant Groves! And kindle, thou blue Ocean! So my friend Struck with joy's deepest calm, and gazing round On the wide view, † may gaze till all doth seem Less gross than bodily, a living Thing That acts upon the mind, and with such hues As cloathe the Almighty Spirit, when he makes Spirits perceive His presence! A Delight Comes sudden on my heart, and I am glad As I myself were there! Nor in this bower Want I sweet sounds or pleasing shapes. I watch'd The sunshine of each broad transparent Leaf Broke by the shadows of the Leaf or Stem, Which hung above it: and that Wall-nut Tree Was richly ting'd: and a deep radiance lay Full on the ancient ivy which usurps Those fronting elms, and now with blackest mass ____________________ * elastic, I mean. -- [S.T.C.] ** The ferns, that grow in moist places, grow five or six together & form a complete 'Prince of Wales's Feather' -- i.e. plumy. -- [S.T.C.] 1 Wand'ring well-pleas'd, look down on grange or dell Or deep fantastic [originally that deep gloomy] Rift, where many an Ash [Cancelled version of lines 6 and 7.] Cf. Kubla Khan, line 12, 'But oh! that deep romantic chasm'. Should the 'wild, romantic dell' near Alfoxden described in This Lime-Tree join the combe at Culbone as a possible influence on Kubla Khan? See Thomas Poole, i.288; Early Letters, 170-1; W. Sypher, "Coleridge's Somerset: a Byway to Xanadu", Philological Quarterly, Oct 1939, p. 353; and Letter 209. † You remember, I am a Berkleian. -- [S.T.C.] -335- Makes their dark foliage gleam a lighter hue Thro' the last twilight. -- And tho' the rapid bat Wheels silent by and not a swallow twitters, Yet still the solitary humble-bee Sings in the bean flower. Henceforth I shall know That nature ne'er deserts the wise & pure, No scene so narrow, but may well employ Each faculty of sense, and keep the heart Awake to Love & Beauty: and sometimes 'Tis well to be bereav'd of promis'd good That we may lift the soul, & contemplate With lively joy the joys, we cannot share. My Sister & my Friends! when the last Rook Beat it's straight path along the dusky air Homewards, I bless'd it; deeming, it's black wing Cross'd, like a speck, the blaze of setting day, 1 While ye stood gazing; or when all was still, Flew creaking o'er your heads, & had a charm For you, my Sister & my Friends! to whom No sound is dissonant, which tells of Life! I would make a shift by some means or other to visit you, if I thought, that you & Edith Southey would return with me. -- I think, indeed I almost am certain that I could get a one horse chair free of all expence -- I have driven about the country a great deal lately -- & brought back Miss Wordsworth over forty miles of execrable road: & have been always a very cautious & am now no inexpert, whip. -- And Wordsworth at whose house I now am for change of air has commissioned me to offer you a suit of rooms at this place, which is called 'All-foxen' -- & so divine and wild is the country that I am sure it would increase your stock of images -- & three weeks' absence from Christ-Church will endear it to you -- & Edith Southey & Sara may not have another opportunity of seeing each other -- & Wordsworth is very solicitous to know you -- & Miss Wordsworth is a most exquisite young woman in her mind, & heart. -- I pray you, write me immediately, directing Stowey near Bridgewater, as before. -- God bless you & your affectionate S. T. Coleridge I heard from C. Lamb of Favell & Legrice. Poor Allen! 2 I know ____________________ 1 Had cross'd the flood [originally orb] & blaze of setting day, [Cancelled version of line above.] 2 Robert Allen had been appointed Assistant Surgeon to the Second Royals, then stationed in Portugal. -336- nothing of it -- As to Rough, he is a wonderful fellow. -- And when I returned from the army, cut me for a month, till he saw that other people were as much attached [to] me as before. 198. To John Prior Estlin Address: Revd J. P. Estlin | St Michael's Hill | Bristol MS. Bristol Central Lib. Pub. R.L.G. i. 78. Stamped: Bridgewater. Stowey -- Sunday. [ 28 July 1797] My dear Friend I would accept your kind invitation immediately, but that I have a bad foot -- A scald imperfectly healed -- & I walked with it -after one day's walking I was obliged to return -- with a wound in my foot. -- But if possible, I will ride to Bristol at the end of the week. ---- Heaven forbid that there should not be worse vices of the mind than Prejudice -- for all of us, more or less, must necessarily be prejudiced. -- The worst vice of the Intellect, I believe, is malignant Prejudice -- & next to this, or perhaps co-equal with it, is Indifference. -- I have sometimes feared, from the dislike, the encreasing dislike, which I find in myself, to all chirurgical operations, that my mind is verging to this state -- it is certainly much nearer to it, than to any disquietude & restlessness of Temper concerning errors, which do not appear directly connected with vice & misery. -- I judge so much by the fruits, that I feel a constant yearning towards the belief that such tenets are not errors. -- Now all this applies to the present case. I cannot as yet reconcile my intellect to the sacramental Rites; but as I do not see any ill-effect which they produce among the Dissenters, and as you declare from your own experience that they have good effects, it is painful to me even simply to state my dissent -- and more than this I have not done, and, unless Christianity were attacked on this head by an Infidel of real learning & talents, more than this I do not consider myself as bound to do. -- I never even state my dissent unless to Ministers who urge me to undertake the ministry. -- My conduct is this -- I omit the rites, -- and wish to say nothing about it -- every thing that relates to Christianity is of importance; but yet all things are not of equal importance; and when the Incendiaries have surrounded the building, it is idle to dispute among ourselves whether an old Stair-case was placed in it by the original Architect, or added afterwards by a meaner Hand. ---- But notwithstanding this, it's little comparative importance, I cannot, I must not, play the hypocrite -- If I performed or received the Lord's supper, in my -337- present state of mind, I should indeed be eating & drinking condemnation. But this I need not say to you. ---- As to Norwich, it is an ugly place, and an extravagantly dear place -- & it is very, very far different from all I love, animate & inanimate -- & parties run high -- and I am wearied with politics, even to soreness. -- I never knew a passion for politics exist for a long time without swallowing up, or absolutely excluding, a passion for Religion --. Perhaps I am wrong: but so I think. -- However, I trust to see you by the end of the week. -- To Mrs Estlin remember me affectionately -and kiss for me the dear little ones. -- May Heaven love you and him who ever feels for you the mingled affections of Son, Brother, & Friend -- S. T. Coleridge 199. To Thomas Poole Address: Mr T. Poole MS. British Museum. Pub. E.L.G. i. 80. Wednesd. July. [26?] 1797 My dear Poole If you are at leisure, will you send by Nanny the Coat &c, which you mentioned to me -- as I wish to have it made fit for me by next Sunday -- Sara bids me likewise remind you of some Stockings, half silk & half-cotton, which you could not wear / -- ---- You shall be my Elijah -- & I will most reverentially catch the Mantle, which you have cast off. ---- Why should not a Bard go tight & have a few neat things on his back? Ey? -- Eh! -- Eh! God bless you | & S. T. Coleridge 200. To Josiah Wade Address: Mr Wade | No 6 Berkley Place Bristol Transcript Coleridge family. Pub. E.L.G. i. 80. Aug -- 1. [17]97 My very dear Friend I meant to have surprized you by a visit at Berkley Place -- and therefore did not immediately answer your letter -- Were I going on a Journey to Paradise I would defer it, to have the pleasure of seeing you a week at Stowey. I pray you come -- do, do, my dear Wadel In very sincerity I know nothing in the ordinary events of life that would give me so great pleasure -- Your letter cheered -338- me. I was gloomy at your silence -- You misunderstood my letter. I meant only to say, that I should write so quick, that you could not answer my first before you would receive my second letter. From this I was prevented by reviews and a strange Visitor -and then I knew not where to direct to you, my dear fellow! do not let there be such pauses in our correspondence. I will pledge myself to write you once every fortnight -- if you will repay my letters. What can I say to you of your dear Baby? I heard of it, only from your Letter. A Tear came into my eye -- and I have sighed many times since, when I have been walking alone: -- and the pretty Lamb has passed across my Memory. -- And all the comfort we can offer on such occasions, is sympathy. Sara has had a miscarriage -- but in so very early a stage, that it occasioned but little pain, one day's indisposition and no confinement. -- Indeed, the circumstance is quite unknown, except to me. My little Hartley grows a beautiful child. -- T. Poole would be most joyful to behold your face. John Thelwall is a very warm hearted honest man -- and disagreeing, as we do, on almost every point of religion, of morals, of politics, and of philosophy; we like each other uncommonly well -He is a great favorite with Sara. Energetic Activity, of mind and of heart, is his Master-feature. He is prompt to conceive, and still prompter to execute --. But I think, that he is deficient in that patience of mind, which can look intensely and frequently at the same subject. He believes and disbelieves with impassioned confidence I wish to see him doubting and doubting. However, he is the man for action-he is intrepid, eloquent, and -- honest. -Perhaps the only acting Democrat, that is honest 1 for the Patriots are ragged cattle -- a most execrable herd -- arrogant because they are ignorant, and boastful of the strength of reason, because they have never tried it enough to know its weakness. -- O my poor [Then] by our sides Thy Sara, and my Susan, and, perchance, Allfoxden's musing tenant, and the maid Of ardent eye, who, with fraternal love, Sweetens his solitude. ____________________ 1 Thelwall arrived at Stowey on 17 July, visiting the Coleridges and at Alfoxden for ten days. ( Thomas Poole, i.232.) He was in Bristol by early August, for Wade, writing to Coleridge on 10 Aug., said: 'Thank you for the character of Thelwall. So far as I was able to judge it is very just. He dined with me on his return -- we went down to Pill by water & walk'd back. Some People would accuse him of too much levity; but you know my opinion is that there is, "a time for all things" -- we went out to be merry & laugh --'. In his poem, Lines written at Bridgewater, in Somersetshire, on the 27th of July, 1797, Thelwall contemplates the possibility of living near the households at Nether Stowey and Alfoxden: -339- Country! The Clouds cover thee -- there is not one spot of clear blue in the whole heaven. My love to all whom you love -- and believe [me] with brotherly affection, with esteem and gratitude, and every warm emotion of the heart, Your faithful S. T. Coleridge 201. To Joseph Cottle Pub. Early Rec. i. 253. This letter is particularly baffling. The reference to Cottle's ill health, also mentioned by Wordsworth on 16 Aug. 1797 (Early Letters, 172), and the paragraph concerning Thelwall's trunk suggest that the letter was written in August 1797. Herbert Croft, however, was imprisoned for debt in 1795 and in 1797 was living abroad. Cottle, therefore, has again combined passages from different letters. Stowey, [Early August 1797] My very dear Cottle, Your illness afflicts me, and unless I receive a full account of you by Milton, I shall be very uneasy, so do not fail to write. Herbert Croft is in Exeter goal! This is unlucky. Poor devil! He must now be unpeppered. We are all well. W[ordsworth] 1 is well. Hartley sends a grin to you! He has another tooth! In the waggon, there was brought, from Bath, a trunk, in order to be forwarded to Stowey, directed, 'S. T. Coleridge, Stowey, near Bridgewater.' This, we suppose, arrived in Bristol on Tuesday or Wednesday, last week. It belonged to Thelwall. If it be not forwarded to Stowey, let it be stopped, and not sent. Give my kind love to your brother Robert, and ax him to put on his hat, and run without delay to the inn, or place, by whatever bird, beast, fish, or man distinguished, where Parsons's Bath waggon sets up. From your truly affectionate friend, S. T. Coleridge 202. To John Thelwall Address: Mr Thelwall to be left at the Post Office | Swansea | Glamorganshire MS. Pierpont Morgan Lib. Pub. Letters, i. 231. Stamped: Bridgewater. Saturday Evening [ 19 August 1797]. 2 Bridgewater My dear Thelwall Yesterday morning I miss'd the Coach; and was ill, and could ____________________ 1 Printed as ' Wordsworth' in Rem. 145. 2 Coleridge's reference to the assizes, which were held on 19 Aug. 1797, establishes the date of this letter, which in turn dates Letters 203 and 204. -340- not walk. This Morning the Coach was completely full: but I was not ill, and so did walk -- and here I am, foot-sore, very; and weary, somewhat. -- With regard to the business, I mentioned it at Howell's; but I perceive, he is absolutely powerless -- Chubb I would have called on -- but these are the assizes -- and I find, he is surrounded in his own house by a mob of visitors, whom it is scarcely possible for him to leave -- long enough at least for the conversation, I want with him. -- I will write him tomorrow morning -- & shall have an answer the same day -- which I will transmit to you on Monday, but you cannot receive it till Tuesday night -- if therefore you leave Swansea before that time, or in case of accident, before Wednesday Night -- leave directions with the Post Master to have your letter forwarded ---- I go for Stowey immediately 1 -which will make my walk 41 miles. The Howells desire to be remembered to you kindly -- I am sad at heart about you on many accounts; but chiefly anxious for this present business. -- The Aristocrats seem determined to persecute, even Wordsworth. 2 -- But we will at least not yield without a struggle -- and if I cannot get you near me, it shall not be for want of a tryal on my part. -- But perhaps, I am passing the worn-out spirits of a fag-walk, for [the r]eal aspect of the business. -- God love you & believe me | Affectionately Your friend S. T. Coleridge 203. To John Chubb Address: Mr John Chubb | Bridgewater MS. Mr. John B. Chubb. Pub. E.L.G. i. 82. Stamped: Bridgewater. [ 20 August 1797] Dear Sir I write to you on the subject of Thelwall. He has found by experience, that neither his own health or that of his Wife & children can be preserved in London; and were it otherwise, yet his income is inadequate to maintain him there. He is therefore ____________________ 1 On his arrival at Stowey, Coleridge found Richard Reynell there on a visit. Reynell's letter to his sister also describes Coleridge's journey from Bristol: 'On my arrival at Stowey and at Mr. Coleridge's house I found he was from home, having set out for Bristol to see Mrs. Barbauld a few days before. . . . He returned on Saturday evening after a walk of about 40 miles in one day apparently not much fatigued.' 2 See A. J. Eagleston, "Wordsworth, Coleridge, and the Spy" , Coleridge, ed. by Edmund Blunden and E. L. Griggs, 1984, pp. 73-87; George W. Meyer, "Wordsworth and the Spy Hunt", American Scholar, Winter 1950-1, pp. 50-56; Thomas Poole, i.285-43; and Biog. Lit., ch. x. -341- under the necessity of fixing his residence in the Country. But by his particular exertions in the propagation of those principles, which we hold sacred & of the highest importance, he has become, as you well know, particularly unpopular, thro' every part of the kingdom -- in every part of the kingdom therefore some odium, & inconvenience must be incurred by those, who should be instrumental in procuring him a cottage there -- but are Truth & Liberty of so little importance that we owe no sacrifices to them? And because with talents very great, & disinterest[ed]ness undoubted, he has evinced himself, in activity & courage, superior to any other patriot, must his country for this be made a wilderness of waters to him? ---- There are many reasons for his preferring this to any other part of the kingdom / he will here find the society of men equal to himself in talents, & probably superior in acquired knowlege -- of men, who differ from each other very widely in many very important opinions, yet unite in the one great duty of unbounded tolerance. -- If the day of darkness & tempest should come, it is most probable, that the influence of T. would be very great on the lower classes -- it may therefore prove of no mean utility to the cause of Truth & Humanity, that he had spent some years in a society, where his natural impetuosity had been disciplined into patience, and salutary scepticism, and the slow energies of a calculating spirit. ---- But who shall get him a cottage here? I have no power -- & T. Poole is precluded from it by the dreadful state of his poor Mother's health, & by his connection with the Benefit Club 1 -- the utilities of which he estimates very high, & these, he thinks, would be materially affected by any activity in favor of T. -- Besides, has he not already taken his share of odium --? has he not already almost alienated, certainly very much cooled, the affections of some of his relations, by his exertions on my account? -- And why should one man do all? ---- But it must be left to every man's private mind to determine, whether or no his particular circumstances do or do not justify him in keeping aloof from all interference in such subjects. ---- J. T. is now at Swansea, and expects an answer from me respecting the possibility of his settling here -- he requested me to write to you -- I have done it -- & you will be so kind (if in your power, to day) to give me one or two lines, briefly informing me whether or no your particular circumstances enable you to exert ____________________ 1 This club is referred to by a government agent reporting to the Home Office on 16 Aug. He speaks of 'the inhabitants of Alfoxton House' as a Sett of violent Democrats', alludes to the activities of both Coleridge and Thelwall, and finds Poole 'the more dangerous from his having established . . . what He stiles The Poor Man's Club. A. J. Eagleston, op. cit. 82-83. -342- yourself in taking a cottage for him -- any where 5 or 6 miles round Stowey. -- He means to live in perfect retirement -- neither taking pupils or any thing else ---- / It is painful to ask that of a person which he may find it equally distressing to grant or deny -- / But I do not ask any thing; but simply lay before you the calculations on one side of the subject -- / Your own mind will immediately suggest those on the other side -- / & I doubt not, you will decide according [to] the preponderance ---- Believe me with respect &c S. T. Coleridge 204. To John Thelwall Address: Mr Thelwall | to be left at the Post office | Swansea | Glamorganshire Cross Post MS. Pierpont Morgan Lib. Pub. Letters, i. 232. Stamped: Bridgewater. [ 21 August 1797] Dear Thelwall This is the first hour, that I could write to you any thing decisive. -- I have received an answer from Chubb, intimating that he would undertake the office of procuring you a cottage, provided it was thought right, that you should settle here; but this -- (i.e. -- the whole difficulty --) he left for T. Poole & me to settle. -- And he acquainted Poole with this determination --. Consequently, the whole returns to it's former situation -- & the hope, which I had entertained, that you could have settled here without any, the remotest interference of Poole, has vanished. To such interference on his part there are insuperable difficulties -- the whole Malignity of the Aristocrats will converge to him, as to the one point -- his tranquillity will be perpetually interrupted -- his business, & his credit, hampered & distressed by vexatious calumnies -- the ties of relationship weakened -- perhaps broken -- & lastly, his poor Mother made miserable -- the pain of the Stone aggravated by domestic calamity & quarrels betwixt her son & those neighbours with whom & herself there have been peace & love for these fifty years. -- Very great odium T. Poole incurred by bringing me heremy peaceable manners & known attachment to Christianity had almost worn it away -- when Wordsworth came & he likewise by T. Poole's agency settled here -- / You cannot conceive the tumult, calumnies, & apparatus of threatened persecutions which this event has occasioned round about us. If you too should come, I am afraid, that even riots & dangerous riots might be the consequence -- / either of us separately would perhaps be tolerated -- but all -343- three together -- what can it be less than? & damned conspiracy -- a school for the propagation of demagugy & atheism? -- And it deserves examination whether or no as moralists we should be justified in hazarding the certain evil of calling forth malignant passions for the contingent good, that might result from our living in the same neighbourhood? -- Add to which, that in point of the public interest we must put into the balance the Stowey Benefit Club -- / of the present utility of this T. Poole thinks highly-of it's possible utility very, very highly indeed -- / -- but the interests, nay, perhaps almost the existence of this club is interwoven with his character -- as a peaceable & undesigning Man -- certainly, any future & greater excellence, which he hopes to realize, in & through this society, will vanish like a dream of the morning. -- If therefore you can get the land & cottage near Bath, of which you spoke to me, I would advise it -- on many accounts -- but if you still see the arguments on the other side in a stronger light than those which I have stated, ----- come! but not yet! -- come in two or three months -- take lodgings at Bridgewater -- familiarize the people to your name & appearance -- and when the monstrosity of the thing is gone off, & the people shall have begun to consider you, as a man whose mouth won't eat them -- & whose pocket is better adapted for a bundle of sonnets than the transportation or ambush-place of a French army -- then you may take a house -- but indeed -- I say it with a very sad, but a very clear conviction -- at present I see that much evil & little good would result from your settling here. ---- / I am unwell -- this business has indeed preyed much on my spirits -- and I have suffered for you more than I hope & trust you will suffer yourself ---- God love you & Your's -S. T. Coleridge 205. To Joseph Cottle Pub. Early Rec. i. 234. [ August 1797] I shall now stick close to my Tragedy (called Osorio,) and when I have finished it, shall walk to Shaftesbury to spend a few days with Bowles. 1 From thence I go to Salisbury, and thence to Christchurch, to see Southey. ____________________ 1 Coleridge set off to see Bowles on 6 Sept. Early Letters, 172. -344- 206. To Thomas Poole Address: Mr Poole MS. British Museum. Hitherto unpublished. [Endorsed August 30th, 1797] My dearest Poole I had quite forgotten the Bristol fair 1 -- and this very evening, I was anticipating the delight of coming upon you tomorrow, with Fifth Act. -- -- -- -- Finis I have but a very few lines to do. -- Tobin 2 is engaged to dine tomorrow at Bridgewater -- the which he deeply regrets; but he cannot disentangle himself. God love you, my best and dearest Friend! Your's -S. T. Coleridge 207. To Robert Southey [Addressed by Charles Lloyd] Mr. Robert Southey | No 8 West-Gate buildings | Bath MS. Lord Latymer. Hitherto unpublished. A letter from Charles Lloyd to Southey occupies pages 1 and 2 of the manuscript, Coleridge's letter pages 8 and 4. It was at this time that Coleridge must have met Tom Wedgwood, who was to play so great a part in his life. Stamped: Bridgewater. [ 15 September 1797] 3 Dear Southey That little poem4 is to me the most affecting of all your little pieces -- I beseech you, do not alter the latter part -- the line & a half that disrobes, The Earth of all it's bright, day-borrow'd hues -- ____________________ 1 The Bristol fair was held for eight days, beginning 1 Sept. 2 James Webbe Tobin, a Bristol friend of both Coleridge and Wordsworth. He later settled in London. He is not to be confused with his brother, John Tobin, the dramatist, who left Bristol in 1787, and whom Coleridge first mentions in 1803. See Letter 499-A. 3 There is nothing in Coleridge's letter to suggest when it was written but Lloyd's letter affords a clue: N. Stowey Friday morning Dear Southey I went yesterday over to Wordsworth's with the hope of hearing the remaining acts of his tragedy, but was disappointed in finding him ill & [See p. 346 for note 4.] -345- says nothing more than 'that discolouring shade' and is an anticlimax to two, the most pleasing lines, I recollect any where -'day-borrow'd['] -- I do not like independent of this objection -- it is [a wo]rd not 'in keeping' with the other part. [H]omewardly & heaven ward -- come rather too close together, for a fastidious ear. -- The lines 'nor could her heart' -- down to -- [']insolent pity.' -are so common-place & say so little that has not been said in the same language before, that I cannot but think that the poem would be better without them. What follows is altogether exquisite -- very, very pathetic --/ but the idea of the infant's ingratitude would be more forcible, if the infant's age were definitely introduced, any where in the poem -- & the phrase 'became indifferent to her' -is ambiguous -- and may mean -- that she cared not for the child -as well as that the child cared not for her. -- God love you | & S. T. Coleridge 208. To Thomas Poole Address: Mr Thomas Poole MS. Victoria University Lib. Pub. Letters, i. 10. This is the third of the autobiographical letters. October 9th, 1797 My dearest Poole From March to October -- a long silence! but [as] it is possible, that I may have been preparing materials for future letters, the time cannot be considered as altogether subtracted from you. From October 1775 to October 1778. These three years I continued at the reading-school -- because I ____________________ incapable of reading it -- He & his Sister very much press'd me to stay over to morrow as the Wedgwoods are coming to spend two days with them -This, as you may suppose was no great inducement, but as Wordsworth has promis'd to read me his tragedy, not having any important reason to alledge, for not accepting his invitation I intend staying till Monday -- Coleridge is unwell with a sore throat -Still I have not heard from Birmingham! -My love to Edith -- God bless you! C. Lloyd Jr. Since Tom and John Wedgwood arrived at Alfoxden on 15 or 16 Sept., Lloyd's letter and therefore Coleridge's must have been written on Friday, 15 Sept. 1797. See R. B. Litchfield, Tom Wedgwood, 1903, p. 51. Consider also an unpublished letter from Tom Wedgwood to Poole, dated from Alfoxden, 18 Sept. 1797: 'It gave us real concern to miss seceing you last night.' Southey was at Bath on 16 Sept. See E. K. Chambers, A Sheaf of Studies, 1942, p. 63. 4 Coleridge refers to Southey English Eclogue, Hannah, written at Burton and published in 1799. Southey made some of the suggested alterations. -346- was too little to be trusted among my Father's School-boys --. After breakfast I had a halfpenny given me, with which I bought three cakes at the Baker's close by the school of my old mistress -& these were my dinner on every day except Saturday & Sunday -- when I used to dine at home, and wallowed in a beef & pudding dinner. -- I am remarkably fond of Beans & Bacon -- and this fondness I attribute to my father's having given me a penny for having eat a large quantity of beans, one Saturday -- for the other boys did not like them, and as it was an economic food, my father thought, that my attachment & penchant for it ought to be encouraged. ---- My Father was very fond of me, and I was my mother's darling -- in consequence, I was very miserable. For Molly, who had nursed my Brother Francis, and was immoderately fond of him, hated me because my mother took more notice of me than of Frank -- and Frank hated me, because my mother gave me now & then a bit of cake, when he had none -- quite forgetting that for one bit of cake which I had & he had not, he had twenty sops in the pan & pieces of bread & butter with sugar on them from Molly, from whom I received only thumps & ill names. -- So I became fretful, & timorous, & a tell-tale -- & the School-boys drove me from play, & were always tormenting me -- & hence I took no pleasure in boyish sports -- but read incessantly. My Father's Sister kept an every-thing Shop at Crediton -- and there I read thro' all the giltcover little books that could be had at that time, & likewise all the uncovered tales of Tom Hickathrift, Jack the Giant-killer, &c & &c &c &c -- / -- and I used to lie by the wall, and mope -- and my spirits used to come upon me suddenly, & in a flood -- & then I was accustomed to run up and down the church-yard, and act over all I had been reading on the docks, the nettles, and the rank-grass. -- At six years old I remember to have read Belisarius, Robinson Crusoe, & Philip Quarle [Quarll] -- and then I found the Arabian Nights' entertainments -- one tale of which (the tale of a man who was compelled to seek for a pure virgin) made so deep an impression on me (I had read it in the evening while my mother was mending stockings) that I was haunted by spectres, whenever I was in the dark -- and I distinctly remember the anxious & fearful eagerness, with which I used to watch the window, in which the books lay -& whenever the Sun lay upon them, I would seize it, carry it by the wall, & bask, & read --. My Father found out the effect, which these books had produced -- and burnt them. -- So I became a dreamer -- and acquired an indisposition to all bodily activity -- and I was fretful, and inordinately passionate, and as I could not play at any thing, and was slothful, I was despised & hated by the boys; and because I could read & spell, & had, I may truly say, a memory -347- & understanding forced into almost an unnatural ripeness, I was flattered & wondered at by all the old women -- & so I became very vain, and despised most of the boys, that were at all near my own age -- and before I was eight years old, I was a character -- sensibility, imagination, vanity, sloth, & feelings of deep & bitter contempt for almost all who traversed the orbit of my understanding, were even then prominent & manifest. From October 1778 to 1779. -- That which I began to be from 8 to 6, I continued from 6 to 9. -- In this year I was admitted into the grammer school, and soon outstripped all of my age. -- I had a dangerous putrid fever this year -- My Brother George lay ill of the same fever in the next room. ---- My poor Brother Francis, I remember, stole up in spite of orders to the contrary, & sate by my bedside, & read Pope's Homer to me -- Frank had a violent love of beating me -- but whenever that was superseded by any humour or circumstance, he was always very fond of me -- & used to regard me with a strange mixture of admiration & contempt -- strange it was not --: for he hated books, and loved climbing, fighting, playing, & robbing orchards, to distraction. -- My mother relates a story of me, which I repeat here -- because it must be regarded as my first piece of wit. -- During my fever I asked why Lady Northcote (our neighbour) did not come & see me. -- My mother said, She was afraid of catching the fever -- I was piqued & answered -- Ah -- Mamma! the four Angels round my bed an't afraid of catching it. -- I suppose, you know the old prayer -- Matthew! Mark! Luke! & John! God bless the bed which I lie on. Four Angels round me spread, Two at my foot & two at my bed [head] -- This prayer I said nightly -- & most firmly believed the truth of it. -- Frequently have I, half-awake & half-asleep, my body diseased & fevered by my imagination, seen armies of ugly Things bursting in upon me, & these four angels keeping them off. -- In my next I shall carry on my life to my Father's Death. -- God bless you, my dear Poole! | & your affectionate S. T. Coleridge. 209. To John Thelwall Address: Mr John Thelwall | Derby MS. Pierpont Morgan Lib. Pub. with omis. Letters, i. 228. This letter tends to establish the date of Kubla Khan. Although the note Coleridge prefixed to Kubla Khan when it was published -348- in 1816 asserts that the poem was written during a retirement 'to a lonely farmhouse' in the summer of 1797, another note, which he added to an autograph copy of the poem now in the possession of Lady Crewe, points to the autumn of 1797: 'This fragment with a good deal more, not recoverable, composed, in a sort of Reverie brought on by two grains of Opium, taken to check a dysentery, at a Farm House between Porlock & Linton, a quarter of a mile from Culbone Church, in the fall of the year, 1797.' This letter to Thelwall tends to confirm the second note. The brief absence mentioned in the opening sentence probably refers to the solitary retirement near Porlock, where Kubla Khan was composed. The passage in the first paragraph concerning his yearning for 'something great -- something one & indivisible', -- a passage echoed in the next letter-shows that he was preoccupied with sublimity at this time, and he demonstrates his argument by citing a few lines from This Lime-Tree Bower my Prison. The line recalling 'rocks or waterfalls, mountains or caverns' is reminiscent of Kubla Khan, and the wish he expresses, 'to float about along an infinite ocean cradled in the flower of the Lotos', suggests the effect of opium. Furthermore, the phrase quoted from Osorio, 'the fall of the year', parallels the use of that expression in the Crewe manuscript cited above; and the opening lines of the long quotation from Osorio portray an autumnal scene, possibly near Porlock -- indeed, Professor Wylie Sypher, who identifies the farmhouse where Kubla Khan was written as Ash Farm, says 'it overlooks the very panorama that Coleridge seems to have described in [these lines from] Osorio' ( "Coleridge's Somerset: a Byway to Xanadu", Philological Quarterly, Oct 1939, pp. 353-66). Thus it seems safe to assume that Kubla Khan was composed in Oct 1797, a few days before this letter was written, and not, as E. H. Coleridge and J. D. Campbell suggest, in May 1798. See Poems, i. 295, and Poetical Works, xlli. Postmark: 16 October 1797. Stamped: Bridgewater. Saturday Morning. [ 14 October 1797] My dear Thelwall I have just received your letter -- having been absent a day or two -- & have already, before I write you, written to Dr Beddoes -- I would to heaven, it were in my power to serve you -- but alas! I have neither money or influence -- & I suppose, that at last I must become a Unitarian minister as a less evil than starvation -- for I get nothing by literature -- & Sara is in the way of repairing the ravages of war, as much as in her lies. ---- You have my wishes, & what is very liberal in me for such an atheist reprobate, my prayers. ---- I can at times feel strongly the beauties, you describe, in themselves, & for themselves -- but more frequently all things appear little -- all the knowlege, that can be acquired, child's play ---the universe itself -- what but an immense heap of little things? -- I can contemplate nothing but parts, & parts are all little --! -- My mind feels as if it ached to behold & know something great -- something one & indivisible -- and it is only in the faith of this that rocks or waterfalls, mountains or caverns give me the sense of sublimity or majesty! -- But in this faith all things counterfeit infinity! -'Struck with the deepest calm of Joy' I stand -349- Silent, with swimming sense; and gazing round On the wide Landscape gaze till all doth seem Less gross than bodily, a living Thing Which acts upon the mind, & with such Hues As cloath th' Almighty Spirit, when he makes Spirits perceive his presence! 1 ---- It is but seldom that I raise & spiritualize my intellect to this height -- & at other times I adopt the Brahman Creed, & say -- It is better to sit than to stand, it is better to lie than to sit, it is better to sleep than to wake -- but Death is the best of all! -- I should much wish, like the Indian Vishna, [Vishnu] to float about along an infinite ocean cradled in the flower of the Lotos, & wake once in a million years for a few minutes -- just to know that I was going to sleep a million years more. I have put this feeling in the mouth of Alhadra my Moorish Woman ---- She is going by moonlight to the house of Velez -- when the Band turn off to wreck their vengeance on Francesco -- But 'She mov'd steadily on Unswerving from the path of her resolve.' 2 ---- A moorish Priest (who has been with her & then left her to seek the men) had just mentioned the owl -- 'It's note comes dreariest in the fall of the year' -- /this dwells on her mind -- & she bursts into this soliloquy 3 -- The hanging Woods, that touch'd by Autumn seem'd As they were blossoming hues of fire & gold, The hanging Woods, most lovely in decay, The many clouds, the Sea, the Rock, the Sands, Lay in the silent moonshine -- and the Owl, (Strange, very strangel) the Scritch-owl only wak'd, Sole Voice, sole Eye of all that world of Beauty! -- Why, such a thing am I? ---- Where are these men? I need the sympathy of human faces To beat away this deep contempt for all things Which quenches my revenge! -- O would to Alla, ____________________ 1 Cf. This Lime-Tree Bower my Prison, lines 38-43, Poems, i. 180. 2 Osorio, Act v, Scene i, lines 8-9, Poems, ii. 583. 3 This passage from Act v of Osorio (lines 37-56), with its emphasis on 'the fall of the year', was probably composed in Oct. 1797, and may have an association with Coleridge's 'retirement' near Porlock. Although Coleridge had earlier noted that Osorio was almost finished, Letter 211 shows that he was still working over it after his September visit to Bowles. See Letters 205 and 206. -350- The Raven & the Seamew were appointed To bring me food -- or rather that my Soul Could drink in life from the universal air! It were a lot divine in some small skiff Along some Ocean's boundless solitude To float for ever with a careless course, And think myself the only Being alive! I do not wonder that your poem procured you kisses & hospitality -- It is indeed a very sweet one -- and I have not only admired your genius more, but I have loved YOU better, since I have read it. -- Your sonnet -- (as you call it -- & being a free-born Briton who shall prevent you from calling 25 blank verse lines a Sonnet, if you have taken a bloody resolution so to do) -- your Sonnet I am much pleased with -- / but the epithet 'downy' is probably more applicable to Susan's upper lip than to her Bosom -- & a mother is so holy & divine a being, that I cannot endure any corporealizing epithets to be applied to her or any part of her -- besides, damn epithets! --. The last line & a half I suppose miswritten -- what can be the meaning of 'or scarce one Leaf To cheer etc. &c -- '? -'Cornelian Virtues' ---- pedantry! -- [']The melancholy fiend' -villainous in itself -- & inaccurate -- it ought to be the fiend that makes melancholy -- I should have written it either thus (or perhaps something better) but with matron cares Drives away heaviness, & in your smiles -- & &c ---- A little compression would make it a beautiful poem. Study compression! -- I presume you mean Decorum by Harum Dick. An affected fellow at Bridgewater called Truces, Trusses -- I told him I admired his pronunciation -- for that lately they had been found 'to suspend ruptures without curing them' --. -- There appeared in the Courier the day before yesterday a very sensible vindication of the conduct of the Directory. 1 [Di]d you see it? ---- Your news respecting Mrs E. did not surprize me -- I saw it even from the first week I was at Darley ---- As to the other event, our non-settlement at Darley, I suspect, had little or rather nothing to do with it ---- but the cause of our non-settlement there, might perhaps -- / -- O God! O God! ---- I wish -- (but what is the use of wishing?) I wish that Walter Evans may have talent enough to ____________________ 1 No such article appeared in the Courier on Thursday, 'the day before yesterday'; but Coleridge must refer to an article, 'Justification of the late conduct of the Directory', which was published in the Courier on Tuesday, 10 Oct 1797. -351- appreciate Mrs Evans! 1 -- but I suspect, his intellect is not tall enough even to measure her's! ---- Hartley is well -- & will not walk or run, having discovered the art of crawling with wonderful ease & rapidity! ---- Wordsworth & his Sister are well -- I want to see your Wife -- God bless her! ---- Oh! my Tragedy -- it is finished, transcribed, & to be sent off to day 2 -- but I have no hopes of it's success -- or even of it's being acted. -- God bless [you] & S. T. Coleridge 210. To Thomas Poole Address: Mr T. Poole MS. Victoria University Lib. Pub. with omis. Letters, i. 13. This is the fourth of the autobiographical letters. [Endorsed Octr 16th, <17> 97] Dear Poole From October 1779 to Oct. 1781. ---- had asked my mother one evening to cut my cheese entire, so that I might toast it: this was no easy matter, it being a crumbly cheese -- My mother however did it -- / I went into the garden for some thing or other, and in the mean time my Brother Frankminced my cheese, 'to disappoint the ____________________ 1 Walter Evans had married Mrs. Evans of Darley. Cf. Letter 136. 2 Two copies of Osorio were sent off, the first to William Linley, Sheridan's brother-in-law, on 14 Oct., the second via Bowles to Sheridan two days later (see Letter 211). On 2 Dec. Coleridge wrote that he had received a letter from Linley'the long & the short of which is that Sheridan rejects the Tragedy' (cf. Letter 213). Coleridge had met Linley when he visited Bowles in Sept. 1797 and addressed the following sonnet to him: To Mr William Linley While my young cheek preserves it's healthful hues And I have many friends, who hold me dear -- LINLEY! methinks, I would not often hear Such melodies as thine, lest I should lose All memory of the wrongs and sore distress For which my miserable brethren weep: But should uncomforted misfortunes steep My daily bread in tears and bitterness, And if in Death's dread moment I should lie With no beloved face by my bed side To catch the last glance of my closing eye -- O God I such songs breath'd by my angel guide Would make me pass the cup of anguish by, Mix with the blest, nor know that I had died! S. T. Coleridge. Donhead | September 12th, | 1797 [MS. Buffalo Public Lib.] -352- favorite'. I returned, saw the exploit, and in an agony of passion flew at Frank -- he pretended to have been seriously hurt by my blow, flung himself on the ground, and there lay with outstretched limbs ---- I hung over him moaning & in a great fright -- he leaped up, & with a horse-laugh gave me a severe blow in the face -- I seized a knife, and was running at him, when my Mother came in & took me by the arm -- / I expected a flogging -- & struggling from her I ran away, to a hill at the bottom of which the Otter flowsabout one mile from Ottery. -- There I stayed; my rage died away; but my obstinacy vanquished my fears -- & taking out a little shilling book which had, at the end, morning & evening prayers, I very devoutly repeated them -- thinking at the same time with inward & gloomy satisfaction, how miserable my Mother must be! -- I distinctly remember my feelings when I saw a Mr Vaughan pass over the Bridge, at about a furlong's distance -- and how I watched the Calves in the fields beyond the river. It grew dark -& I fell asleep -- it was towards the latter end of October -- & it proved a dreadful stormy night -- / I felt the cold in my sleep, and dreamt that I was pulling the blanket over me, & actually pulled over me a dry thorn bush, which lay on the hill -- in my sleep I had rolled from the top of the hill to within three yards of the River, which flowed by the unfenced edge of the bottom. -- I awoke several times, and finding myself wet & stiff, and cold, closed my eyes again that I might forget it. ---- In the mean time my Mother waited about half an hour, expecting my return, when the Sulks had eyaporated -- I not returning, she sent into the Church-yard, & round the town -- not found! -- Several men & all the boys were sent to ramble about & seek me -- in vain! My Mother was almost distracted -- and at ten o'clock at night I was cry'd by the crier in Ottery, and in two villages near it -- with a reward offered for me. -- No one went to bed -- indeed, I believe, half the town were up all one night! To return to myself -- About five in the morning or a little after, I was broad awake; and attempted to get up & walk -- but I could not move -- I saw the Shepherds & Workmen at a distance -- & cryed but so faintly, that it was impossible to hear me 80 yards off ---- and there I might have lain & died -- for I was now almost given over, the ponds & even the river near which I was lying, having been dragged. -- But by good luck Sir Stafford Northcote, who had been out all night, resolved to make one other trial, and came so near that he heard my crying -- He carried me in his arms, for near a quarter of a mile; when we met my father & Sir Stafford's Servants. -- I remember, & never shall forget, my father's face as he looked upon me while I lay in the servant's arms -- so calm, and the tears stealing down his face: for I was the -353- child of his old age. ---- My Mother, as you may suppose, was outrageous with joy -- in rushed a young Lady, crying out -- 'I hope, you'll whip him, Mrs Coleridge!' -- This woman still lives at Ottery -& neither Philosophy or Religion have been able to conquer the antipathy which I feel towards her, whenever I see her. -- I was put to bed -- & recovered in a day or so -- but I was certainly injured -For I was weakly, & subject to the ague for many years after -- . -- My Father (who had so little of parental ambition in him, that he had destined his children to be Blacksmiths &c, & had accomplished his intention but for my Mother's pride & spirit of aggrandizing her family) my father had however resolved, that I should be a Parson. I read every book that came in my way without distinction -- and my father was fond of me, & used to take me on his knee, and hold long conversations with me. I remember, that at eight years old I walked with him one winter evening from a farmer's house, a mile from Ottery ---- & he told me the names of the stars -- and how Jupiter was a thousand times larger than our world -- and that the other twinkling stars were Suns that had worlds rolling round them -- & when I came home, he shewed me how they rolled round -- / . I heard him with a profound delight & admiration; but without the least mixture of wonder or incredulity. For from my early reading of Faery Tales, & Genii &c &c -- my mind had been habituated to the Vast ---- & I never regarded my senses in any way as the criteria of my belief. I regulated all my creeds by my conceptions not by my sight -- even at that age. Should children be permitted to read Romances, & Relations of Giants & Magicians, & Genii? ---- I know all that has been said against it; but I have formed my faith in the affirmative. -- I know no other way of giving the mind a love of 'the Great', & 'the Whole'. -- Those who have been led to the same truths step by step thro' the constant testimony of their senses, seem to me to want a sense which I possess -- They contemplate nothing but parts -- and all parts are necessarily little -- and the Universe to them is but a mass of little things. 1 -- It is true, that the mind may become credulous & prone to superstition by the former method -- but are not the Experimentalists credulous even to madness in believing any absurdity, rather than believe the grandest truths, if they have not the testimony of their own senses in their favor? -- I have known some who have been rationally educated, as it is styled. They were marked by a microscopic acuteness; but when they looked at great things, all became a blank & they saw nothing -- and denied ____________________ 1 The similarity between the foregoing passage and Letter 209 has been obscured, since E. H. Coleridge printed the autobiographical letters at the beginning of his edition, thus placing them out of their chronological order. -354- (very illogically) that any thing could be seen; and uniformly put the negation of a power for the possession of a power -- & called the want of imagination Judgment, & the never being moved to Rapture Philosophy! ---Towards the latter end of September 1781 my Father went to Plymouth with my Brother Francis, who was to go as Midshipman under Admiral Graves; the Admiral was a friend of my Father's. -My Father settled my Brother; & returned Oct. 4th, 1781 -- . He arrived at Exeter about six o'clock -- & was pressed to take a bed there by the Harts -- but he refused -- and to avoid their intreaties he told them -- that he had never been superstitious -- but that the night before he had had a dream which had made a deep impression. He dreamt that Death had appeared to him, as he is commonly painted, & touched him with his Dart. Well he returned home -- & all his family, I excepted, were up. He told my mother his dream --; but he was in high health & good spirits -- & there was a bowl of Punch made -- & my Father gave a long & particular account of his Travel, and that he had placed Frank under a religious Captain &c -- / At length, he went to bed, very well, & in high Spirits. -- A short time after he had lain down he complained of a pain in his bowells, which he was subject to, from the wind -- my mother got him some peppermint water -- and after a pause, he said -- 'I am much better now, my dear!' -- and lay down again. In a minute my mother heard a noise in his throat -- and spoke to him -- but he did not answer -- and she spoke repeatedly in vain. Her shriek awaked me -- & I said, 'Papa is dead.' -- I did not know [of] my Father's return, but I knew that he was expected. How I came to think of his Death, I cannot tell; but so it was. -- Dead he was -- some said it was the Gout in the Heart -- probably, it was a fit of Apoplexy / -- He was an Israelite without guile; simple, generous, and, taking some scripture texts in their literal sense, he was conscientiously indifferent to the good & the evil of this world. -- God love you & S. T. Coleridge 211. To William Lisle Bowles Address: The Revd W. L. Bowles | Donhead MS. Yale University Lib. Pub. A Wiltshire Parson, by Garland Greever, 1926, 32. Stowey near Bridgewater. Monday, Oct. 16th, 1797 My dear Sir At last I send you the Tragedy complete & neatly transcribed -I have sent another to Mr Linley. -- I endeavoured to strike out the character of Warville, the Englishman; and to substitute -355- some more interesting one -- but in vain! -- So I have altered his name, made him a German, and a nothing at all. Perhaps, I had better have given Albert a confidential Servant -- he might have cleaned Albert's shoes, &c -- whereas what Maurice does or can do, is not quite so clear. -- In truth, I have fagged so long at the work, & see so many imperfections in the original & main plot, that I feel an indescribable disgust, a sickness of the very heart, at the mention of the Tragedy. If there be any thing with which I am at all satisfied, it is -- the style. I have endeavoured to have few sentences which might not be spoken in conversation, avoiding those that are commonly used in conversation. ---- You, I know, will forward it to Mr Sheridan with all speed; and will be so kind as to write to him on the subject. ---- Excepting for the money which would be gained if it succeeded, I am not conscious of a wish relating to the piece. It is done: and I would rather mend hedges & follow the plough, than write another. I could not avoid attaching a pecuniary importance to the business; and consequently, became anxious: and such anxieties humble & degrade the mind. -- I hope you are well -- give my respects to Mrs Bowles, & believe me with great sincerity Your obliged S. T. Coleridge P.S. I should very much wish to see your Progress of Discovery before it is printed -- you might be sure, that I would shew it to no human being, except my Wife. ---- You will be so kind as with the Tragedy to transmit this little volume to Mr Sheridan. 1 212. To Joseph Cottle Address: Mr Cottle | Bookseller | High Street | Bristol MS. Harvard College Lib. Pub. with omis. E. K. Chambers, A Sheaf of Studies, 1942, p. 43. Cottle took his usual liberties with this manuscript, printing it as three communications. See Early Rec. i. 139, 251, and 288. The top half of pages 1 and 2 of the holograph has been torn off. Stamped: Bridgewater. [Circa 20 November 1797] 2 . . . Southey's poem 3 is very [plea]sing -- no. . . a little digressive. -- ____________________ 1 Presumably, Poems by S. T. Coleridge, 1797. 2 The reference to the introduction of Wordsworth's play to Harris, the manager of Covent Garden (see postscript), suggests that this letter was written about 20 Nov. 1797, before which date The Borderers was dispatched to London. Cf. Early Letters, 174. 3 To A. S. Cottle, published only in A. S. Cottle, Icelandic Poetry, 1797, pp. xxxi-xlii. -356- From the beginning to the Words -- Of Earth & Heaven --! -- It is exquisite -- / Regner's tale has been hackneyed by Southey in other poems, and by 20 before Southey. -- From 'Were I, my Friend! a solitary man' -- to Fill'd with the firs' faint odour --! is in Southey's best manner -- rich -- almost delicious! -- Let me except the two lines 'That loathes the commerce['] ---- to 'hollow Gaieties! -- ['] It may be very well; but we have had too much of it. -- What follows to 'the deeds of men['] -- is well conceived, but expressed in an every-day Manner -- it wants the vividness of an original mind. -- From thence to 'wretched wife' -- a sublime & deep Eloquence! -- The conclusion of the Paragraph is very well; but Southey himself has hackneyed it. He may reply as Martial did to the Man who laughed at his worn-out Toga -- Vetus, at meum. -- Old, but my own. -- To the. . . & awful Invective against Things as they are? -- He himself is the best Judge. ---- I am translating the Oberon of Wieland -- it is a difficult Language, and I can translate at least as fast as I can construe. -- I pray you, as soon as possible, procure for me a German-English Grammar -- I believe, there is but one -- Widderburne's, I think -- but I am not certain. -- I have written a ballad of about 300 lines 1 -- & the Sketch of a Plan of General Study: -- and I have made a very considerable Proficiency in the French Language, and study it daily -- and daily study the German -- so that I am not, & have not been, idle. ---- I have heard nothing about my Tragedy, except some silly remarks of Kemble's, to whom Linley shewed it -- it does not appear to me that there is a shadow of probability that it will be accepted. -- It gave me no pain -- & great pleasure in finding that it gave me no pain. I had rather hoped than believed, that I was possessed of so much philosophical capability. -- Sheridan, most certainly, has not used me with common Justice. The proposal came from himself -- and altho' this circumstance did not bind him to accept the Tragedy, it certainly bound him to pay every & that the earliest, attention to it. -- I suppose, it lies snugly in his green Bag -- if it have not emigrated to the Kitchen or the Cloāca. I sent three mock Sonnets in ridicule of my own, & Charles Lloyd's, & Lamb's, 2 &c &c -- in ridicule of that affectation of unaffectedness, of jumping & misplaced accent on common-place epithets, flat lines forced into poetry by Italics (signifying how well & mouthis[h]ly the Author would read them) puny pathos &c &c -- ____________________ 1 Apparently The Ancient Mariner, see Letters 218 and 288, and E. K. Chambers , "Some Dates in Coleridge's Annus Mirabilis", A Sheaf of Studies, 1942, pp. 42-59. 2 "Sonnets attempted in the Manner of Contemporary Writers", first published Monthly Magazine, Nov 1797. Cf. Poems, i. 209. -357- the instances are almost all taken from mine & Lloyd's poems ---- I signed them Nehemiah. Higginbottom. I think they may do good to our young Bards. -- God love you & S. T. Coleridge. P.S. I have procured for Wordsworth's Tragedy an Introduction to Harris, the Manager of Convent-garden -- who has promised to read it attentively and give his answer immediately -- and if he accept it, to put it in preparation without an hour's delay. -- 213. To Thomas Poole Address: Mr T. Poole | Stowey | near | Bridgewater MS. British Museum. Pub. E.L.G. i. 83. Stamped: Bristol. Saturday Evening [Endorsed Decem. 2d 1797] My dear Poole I write from Cottle's shop to request you if there have arriv'd any letters for me to send them addressed to Cottle's High Street -- I have been several times at King's -- he & your Sister are remarkably well -- Sara & I go there on Wednesday, stay for a day or two, and homeward for Stowey -- I received a letter from Linley, the long & the short of which is that Sheridan rejects the Tragedy -- his sole objection is -- the obscurity of the three last acts. ---- The Estlins, & Cottle, and Wade all desire to be kindly remembered to you -- My love to your dear Mother & to Ward -- & believe me, as ever, your's, my best & dearest Friend! most affectionately, S. T. Coleridge 214. To Robert Southey Address: Mr Southey | No. 23 | East Street | Red Lion Square | London MS. Lord Latymer, Pub. with omis. Letters, i. 251 n. Postmark: 8 December 1797. Stamped: Bristol. Thursday Morning [ 7 December 1797] I am sorry, Southey! very sorry that I wrote or published those Sonnets 1 -- but 'sorry' would be a tame word to express my feelings, ____________________ 1 Coleridge refers to his Nehemiah Higginbottom sonnets, the second of which, To Simplicity, Southey assumed to be in ridicule of himself. This sonnet brought Southey's animosity into the open, and Lamb, to whom Coleridge also wrote that it 'was not composed with reference to Southey', vehemently rejected the denial: 'It was a lie too gross for the grossest ignorance to believe.' -358- if I had written them with the motives which you have attributed to me. -- I have not been in the habit of treating our separation with levity -- nor ever since the first moment thought of it without deep emotion -- and how you could apply to yourself a Sonnet written to ridicule infantine simplicity, vulgar colloquialisms, and lady-like Friendships -- I have no conception. Neither I believe could a passage in your writings have suggested to me or any man the notion of your 'plaining plaintively'. 1 I am sorry that I wrote them; because I am sorry to perceive a disposition in you to believe evil of me, and a disposition to teach others to believe Evil -- of which your remark to Charles Lloyd was a painful instance. 2 -- I say this to you; because I shall say it to no other being.-I feel myself wounded: and write ae[cordingly] -- I believe in my letter to Lloyd I forgot to mention that the Editor of [the] Morning Post is called Stuart 3 -- and that he is the Brother in law of Mackintosh 4 -- Your's sincerely S. T. Coleridge No 19 Sale Street, Lincoln's Inn, London, Novr 17th, 1797. Sir In common with every man of taste & feeling I have long been an admirer of your genius, but it was not till my late visit to Mr Wedgewood's that I felt an interest In your Character almost equal to my admiration of your ____________________ 1 To Simplicity, line 11, 'Now of my false friend plaining plaintively.' 2 Although Lloyd had left the Coleridges in the spring of 1797 with no ill feelings and seems to have been on friendly terms when he visited Stowey in Sept. 1797 (see Letter 207), by 11 Nov. he had written a novel, Edmund Oliver, the hero of which resembles Coleridge in personal appearance and undergoes experiences in love, in the army, and in the use of opium not unlike Coleridge's. Southey, whose quarrel with Coleridge of 1795 was only superficially healed, probably provided material for Lloyd's novel -- a justifiable inference, since Lloyd was living with Southey during its composition and since Southey had himself planned a novel by the same name in 1796. Coleridge apparently did not learn of Edmund Oliver until its appearance in Apr. 1798 (see Letter 248). 3 Daniel Stuart ( 1766-1846) had purchased the Morning Post in 1795. An astute journalist, he raised that paper into prominence. Later he was equally successful with the Courier. Stuart was soon to be on the most intimate terms with Coleridge, whose contributions to the Morning Post began on 7 Dec 1797. 4 James Mackintosh ( 1765-1882), philosopher, politician, and historian, in 1789 married Daniel Stuart's sister, who died eight years later. In Apr. 1798 Mackintosh married Catherine Allen, a sister of Mrs. John and Mrs. J osiah Wedgwood. Coleridge seems never to have been drawn to Mackintosh and came to speak of him with an asperity which may have arisen from Mackintosh's unfavourable estimate of Wordsworth as a poet. See Letter 402. Among the papers of Lord Latymer, however, there is a letter from Mackintosh to Coleridge, in which it is proposed that Coleridge contribute to the Morning Post. Mackintosh may have influenced the Wedgwoods in their determination to offer financial assistance to Coleridge. -359- 215. To Josiah Wedgwood MS. Wedgwood Museum. Pub. E.L.G. i. 84. On 23 December 1797, Thomas and Josiah Wedgwood, sons of the potter, sent a draft for £100 to Coleridge (see Letter 281). On 27 December 1797 Coleridge wrote the following letter of acceptance; reconsidering the matter, he later returned the draft in a long letter dated 5 January 1798 (see Letter 217). On 10 January 1798, the Wedgwoods offered Coleridge an annuity of £150, 'independent of every thing but the wreck of our fortune, an event which we hope is not very likely to happen' (see headnote to Letter 222 for the Wedgwoods' letter). On 17 January 1798 (Letter 222) Coleridge wrote to Josiah Wedgwood accepting the annuity. Stowey near Bridgewater. Decemb. 27th, 1 1797 Dear Sir I received your letter, with the enclosed order, yesterday. You have relieved me from a state of hesitation & perplexity; and have ____________________ extraordinary powers. From the reports of Dr Beddoes & of my amiable Friend Miss Allen I found that you were no less interesting as a man than as a poet & I heard with the most sincere regret that like many other good men & great poets you had not been so kindly treated by fortune as by nature. Had I been possessed of opulence I should certainly have thought your permission to assist you one of the greatest honours of my life & the power of aiding such a Man to be the chief enjoyment & blessing of wealth. But I am poor & the great & wealthy of our days seem to have a different taste in the employment of their riches from that which I flatter myself would actuate me if I were in their place. -- On my return to town I found an easy opportunity of procuring a very small Stipend for you which I thought might with very little exertion from you contribute to make you somewhat more easy. When I went to Cote House again Dr Beddoes at my desire wrote to you & by your answer I saw that you were not averse from the proposal. The Newspaper is the Morning Post. The political tone is such as cannot be disagreeable to your feelings or repugnant to your Principles. The Proprietor who is no stranger to your Character & talents is ashamed of offering you so small a pittance but he pleads in excuse that the large establishment of parliamentary reporters makes this season of the year peculiarly expensive & that if the Connexion proves agreeable to both parties after a fair trial he will very gladly increase the salary. He has already ordered the Paper to be sent to you & he informs me that verses or political Essays as you may chance to be inclined will be equally agreeable to him. You will observe the address proper for your letters at the bottom of the Paper. Will you do me the favour of communicating to me the name of your tragedy that I may urge the irresolute good nature of Sheridan to bring it forward as soon as possible. Suffer me to add that if by any means within my narrow power either now or hereafter I can shew you in any degree my esteem for your virtue & my admiration for your genius you will do me [the grea]test plea[s]ure & honour [by po]inting it out to me. [Conclusion and signature cut off manuscript.] 1 If Coleridge received Josiah Wedgwood's letter and the draft for £100 on Christmas Day, this letter must have been written on 26 Dec. Cf. Letters 216 and 231. In both letters, however, he speaks of a delay in answering. -360- given me the tranquillity & leisure of independence for the next two years. -- I am not deficient in the ordinary feelings of gratitude to you and Mr T. Wedgewood; but I shall not find them oppressive or painful, if in the course of that time I shall have been acquiring knowlege for myself, or communicating it to others; if either in act or preparation I shall have been contributing my quota to the cause of Truth & Honesty. -- I am | with great respect & affection -- | Your obliged &c S. T. Coleridge 216. To John Prior Estlin Address: Revd J. P. Estlin I St Michael's Hill I Bristol MS. Bristol Central Lib. Pub. Letters to Estlin, 46. Stamped: Bridgewater. Saturday Morning [ 30 December 1797] My dear Friend On the morning of Christmas day I received Mr Row's 1 letter to you: on Thursday night, eleven o'clock, I received from Mr I. Wood of Shrewsbury an invitation in the name of Mr Row's Congregation, accompanied with a very kind note from Mr Row. On this subject I now entreat your friendly advice: and in order to enable you to give it, I must retrace my life for the last three months. -- At the commencement of this period I began to feel the necessity of gaining a regular income by a regular occupation. My heart yearned toward the ministry; but I considered my scruples, as almost insurmountable Obstacles to my conscientious performance of it's duties. -- Another plan presented itself; that of joining with Mr Montagueg 2 in a project of Tuition. Our scheme was singular & extensive: extensive, for we proposed in three years to go systematically, yet with constant reference to the nature of man, thro' the mathematical Branches, chemistry, Anatomy, the laws of Life, the laws of Intellect, & lastly, thro' universal History, arranging separately all the facts that elucidate the separate states of Society, savage, civilized & luxurious: singular, for we proposed ourselves, not as Teachers, but only as Managing Students. If by this plan I ____________________ 1 John Rowe, the Unitarian minister at Shrewsbury, was resigning his post to join Estlin in Bristol. 2 Basil Montagu ( 1770-1851), the friend of Wordsworth, was called to the bar in May 1798. It was Montagu who precipitated the Wordsworth-Coleridge quarrel in 1810. -361- could at once subsist my family for three years, and enable myself to acquire such a mass of knowlege, it would doubtless be preferable to all other modes of action for me, who have just knowlege enough of most things to feel my ignorance of all things. The probability however of it's success was very small -- before I left Stowey, it dwindled yet more -- & when at Bristol, in all the despondency of the new taxes, the plan appeared absolutely romantic. In the mean time my conversations with you had certainly weakened my convictions on certain subjects, or at least deadened their efficacy -- I made up my mind to be a Dissenting Minister -- & offered to supply Mr Row's place for a few Sundays at Shrewsbury, to see whether I liked the place and whether the congregation liked me, and would endure my opinions, which softened & modified as they had been, did still retain a degree of peculiarity. -- I returned to Stowey, & wrote to Montague, that if indeed he should procure, & immediately procure, the eight pupils at 100£ a year, they boarding & lodging at their own expence (for this was his plan) I would join him gladly. -- But as I did not perceive the slightest chance of this, unless it were done immediately, I should accept some situation, as Dissenting Minister -- and that I had no time for delay or wavering. -- /Well I -- on Christmas day Morning I received two letters -- one from you, i.e. -- Mr Row's letter to you -- one in an unknown hand, but which I supposed to be upon some newspaper business -- & did not open it till some time after I had read & pondered the former. -- In this I saw the features of contingency very strongly marked, & (as I always do on such occasions) to prevent disappointment I checked my hopes. Mr Kentish was to be applied to -- I had heard that he was not very comfortably situated at Exeter -- & as to Norwich, the same motive which inclined me not only to prefer Shrewsbury, but Shrewsbury out of the question, to reject Norwich, I naturally supposed would have it's influence on him -- the salary being so much more, the country more delightful, & provisions of all kinds so much cheaper. -- Supposing that he declined it, still it was uncertain whether the congregation would elect me: & that part of Mr Row's letter (Without some independence Mr C. is almost the only man I would wish to settle here &c) increased my doubts. -- I did not refuse to think, that by gentleness, & intellectual efforts I should compel their respect when they became acquainted with me --: but I thought it probable, that such a congregation, in a town so violently aristocratic, would be deterred from electing me by the notoriety of my political conduct, & by the remaining peculiarities of my religious creed. -- My mind was lost & swallowed up in musing on all this; when I carelessly opened the second letter. It proved to be from Mr Josiah Wedgewoodm -- -362- The following is a Copy -- Dear Sir, My Brother Thomas & myself had separately determined that it would be right to enable you to defer entering into an engagement, we understand you are about to form, from the most urgent of motives. We therefore request, you will accept the inclosed Draft with the same simplicity with which it is offered to you. -- Dear Sir, sincerely Your's Josiah Wedgewood P.S. As the draft is payable to the Bearer of it, I shall be obliged to you to acknowlege the receipt of it to me at Penzance. -- The inclosed Draft was for an hundred pound. -- Well! what was I to do? This hundred pound joined with the guinea per week which I gain from the Morning Post & which only takes me up two days in the week would give me the leisure & tranquillity of independence for the two next years -- at the end of which time by systematic study I should be better fitted for any profession than I am at present. -- Without this, unless I am elected at Shrewsbury which I thought more than uncertain, I shall remain necessitous & dependent, and be compelled to fag on in all the nakedness of Talent without the materials of Knowlege or systematic Information. -- But if I accept it, I certainly bind myself to hold myself free for some time at least for the co-execution of the Plan of general Study with Montague: and in the realization of which I understand that the Wedgewoods are actively interesting themselves: as conceiving it likely to be of general Benefit. -- And this letter was to be answered immediately. My friend T. Poole strenuously advised me to accept it -- considering how contingent the Shrewsbury plan appeared -- I however lingered, I may truly say, almost a sleepless man, Monday night, and Tuesday night & Wednesday night, regularly sitting up till the post came in, which is not till past eleven -- anxiously hoping to receive some letter more decisive respecting Shrewsbury. -- On the Thursday Morning I was obliged to acknowlege the receipt of the Draft -- having already delayed it beyond all limits of propriety. -- Well -- after a storm of fluctuations, Poole still retaining his opinions, & urging them more decisively, I accepted the Draft in a letter expressive of manly gratitude -- and on the Thursday Night I received the letter from Mr Wood! -- The distress of my mind since then has been inexpressible. -- The plan which with the eagerness of Friendship you had been exerting yourself to secure for me -- how can I bear to think that it should perish in your hand, the very moment you had caught it? -- Yet on the other hand if I send back the Draft I shall lose the esteem of the Wedgewoods & their friends, to whom I shall appear deficient not only in consistency, but even in common probity. It will appear to them, -363- that I had accepted the Draft in words which implied tnat it had relieved me from a state of great uncertainty -- whereas in truth, I had accepted it to console myself for a disappointment. -- Write immediately -- S. T. Coleridge