217. To Josiah Wedgwood Address: Josiah Wedgewood Esq. | Penzance | ornwall MS. Wedgwood Museum. Pub. E.L.G. i. 85. Stamped: Bridgewater. Stowey [near Br]idgewater. J[an.] 5th, 1798 Dear Sir By the inclosed you will understand the occasion of this Letter. Your Brother and yourself will be pleased with my conduct, if I shall make it appear probable to you, that the purposes, for which you sent and I accepted so large a Bill, will be better answered by my returning than by my retaining it. You wished to remove those urgent motives which might make it necessary for me to act in opposition to my principles: you wished to give me leisure for the improvement of my Talents at the same time that my mind should be preserved free from any professional Bias which might pervert, or at least hamper, the exertion of them. I will state to you with great Simplicity all that has passed thro' my mind on these subjects. The affectionate esteem, with which I regard your character, makes this openness pleasant to me: and your Kindness seems to have authorized the freedom, which I am about to take in being so diffuse concerning my own affairs. If a man considered himself as acting in opposition to his principles then only when he gave his example or support to actions and institutions, the existence of which produces unmingled evil, he might perhaps with a safe conscience perpetrate any crime and become a member of any Order. If on the other hand a man should make it his principle to abstain from all modes of conduct, the general practice of which was not permanently useful, or at least absolutely harmless, he must live, an isolated Being: his furniture, his servants, his very cloathes are intimately connected with Vice and Misery. To preserve therefore our moral feelings without withdrawing ourselves from active life we should, I imagine, endeavor to discover those evils in society which are the most pressing, and those of which the immediate Removal appears the most practicable: to the removal of these we should concenter our energies, for the removal of them be prepared to make any sacrifices. In -364- other things we must compound with a large quantity of evil -taking care to select from the modes of conduct, which may be within our choice, those in which we can do the most good with the least evil. Now I shall apply this to myself. As far as I am able to decide, the most pressing evils & those of which the speedy removal is the most practicable, are these -- the union of Religion with the Government, and those other political Institutions & abuses which I need not name; but which not only produce much evil directly & per se, but likewise perpetuate the causes of most other evils. Do not think me boastful when I assert that rather than in any way support any of these, I would undergo Poverty, Dependence, & even Death. There remain within my choice two Sources of Subsistence: the Press, and the Ministry. Now as to the Press, I gain at present a guinea a week by writing for the Morning Post -- and as my expences, living as I now do, will not exceed 100£ a year -or but little more, even including the annual 20£, for which my wife's mother has a necessity -- I could by means of your kindness subsist for the two next years, & enjoy leisure & external comfort. But anxiety for the future would remain & increase, as it is probable my children will come fast on me: and the Press, considered as a Trade, is perhaps only not the worst occupation for a man who would wish to preserve any delicacy of moral feeling. The few weeks that I have written for the Morning Post, I have felt this -- Something must be written & written immediately -- if any important Truth, any striking beauty, occur to my mind, I feel a repugnance at sending it garbled to a newspaper: and if any idea of ludicrous personality, or apt antiministerial joke, crosses me, I, feel a repugnance at rejecting it, because something must be written, and nothing else suitable occurs. The longer I continue a hired paragraph-scribbler, the more powerful these Temptations will become: and indeed nothing scarcely that has not atang of personality or vindictive feeling, is pleasing or interesting, I apprehend, to my Employers. Of all things I most dislike party politics -- yet this sort of gypsie jargon I am compelled to fire away. -- To the ministry I adduced the following objections at the time that I decided against entering into it. -- It makes one's livelihood hang upon the profession of particular opinions: and tends therefore to warp the intellectual faculty; to fasten convictions on the mind by the agency of it's wishes; and if Reason should at length dissever them, it presents strong Motives to Falsehood or Simulation. -- Secondly, as the subscriptions of the Congregation form the revenue, the minister is under an inducement to adapt his moral exhortations to their wishes rather than to their needs. (Poor Pilkington of Derby was, I believe, obliged to resign on account of his sermons -365- respecting Riches & Rich Men.) Thirdly, the routine of Duty brings on a certain sectarian mannerism, which generally nar Rows the Intellect itself, and always nar Rows the sphere of it's operation. In answer to these objections it may be observed: first, that I see the contingency of these evils very distinctly, and in proportion to my clear perception of them it is probable that I shall be able to guard against them. Secondly, the Press, considered as a Trade, presents still greater temptations -- & this is not a controversy concerning absolute, but concerning comparative good. Thirdly, the income of that place, which is now offered to me, does not depend on the congregation, but is an estate. This weakens certainly, tho' as certainly it does not remove, the second objection. Fourthly -- The principal of these objections are weak or strong in proportion to the care & impartiality with which the particular opinions had been formed previously to the assumption of the ministerial office; inasmuch as the probability of a change in these opinions is thereby proportionally lessened. Now, not only without any design of becoming an hired Teacher in any sect but with decisive intentions to the contrary I have studied the subject of natural & revealed Religion -- I have read the works of the celebrated Infidels -- I have conversed long, & seriously, & dispassionately with Infidels of great Talents & information -- & most assuredly, my faith in Christianity has been confirmed rather than staggered. In teaching it therefore, at present, whether I act beneficently or no, I shall certainly act benevolently. Fifthly -- The necessary creed in our sect is but short -- it will be necessary for me, in order to my continuance as an Unitarian Minister, to believe that Jesus Christ was the Messiah -- in all other points I may play off my intellect ad libitum. Sixthly -- that altho' we ought not to brave temptations in order to shew our strength, yet it would be slothful and cowardly to retire from an employment, because tho' there are no temptations at present, there may be some hereafter. -- In favor of my assuming the ministerial office it may be truly said, that it will give me a regular income sufficient to free me from all anxiety respecting my absolute wants, yet not large enough to exempt me from motives, even of a pecuniary nature, for literary exertion. I can afford to dedicate three or twice three years to some one work, which may be of benefit to society, and will certainly be uninjurious to my own moral character: for I shall be positive at least that there is no falsehood or immorality in it proceeding from haste or necessity. -- If I do enter on this office, it will be at Shrewsbury. I shall be surrounded by a fine country, no mean ingredient in the composition of a poet's happiness -- I shall have at least five days in every week of perfect leisure -- 120£. a year -- a -366- good house, valued at 30£ a year -- and if I should die & without any culpable negligence or extravagance have left my family in want, Congregations are in the habit of becoming the guardians. Add to this, that by Law I shall be exempted from military service -- to which, Heaven only knows how soon we may be dragged. For I think it not improbable, that in case of an invasion our government would serve all, whom they chose to suspect of disaffection, in the same way that good King David served Uriah -- 'Set ye Uriah in the forefront of the hottest Battle, & retire ye from him, that he may be smitten & die.' I do not wish to conceal from you that I have suffered more from fluctuation of mind on this than any former occasion: and even now I have scarcely courage to decide absolutely. It is chilling to go among strangers -- & I leave a lovely country, and one friend so eminently near to my affections that his society has almost been consolidated with my ideas of happiness. However I shall go to Shrewsbury, remain a little while amongst the congregation: if no new argument arise against the ministerial office, and if the old ones assume no new strength, there I shall certainly pitch my tents, & probably shall build up my permanent Dwelling. -- Whatever is conducive to a man's real comforts is in the same degree conducive to his utility -- a permanent income not inconsistent with my religious or political creeds, I find necessary to my quietness -- without it I should be a prey to anxiety, and Anxiety, with me, always induces Sickliness, and too often Sloth: as an overdose of Stimulus proves a narcotic. You will let me know of the arrival of the Bill: and it would give me very great pleasure to hear, that I had not forfeited your esteem by first accepting, & now returning it. I acted, each time, from the purest motives possible on such an occasion: for, my public usefulness being incompatible with personal vexations, an enlightened Selfishness was in this case the only species of Benevolence left to me -- Believe me, dear Sir! with no ordinary feelings of esteem and affection for you & your family, sincerely your's S. T. Coleridge 218. To John Prior Estlin Address: Revd J. P. Estlin | St Michael's Hill | Bristol Ms. Bristol Central Lib. Pub. E.L.G. i. 91. Stamped: Bridgewater. Saturday Morning [ 6 January 1798] My dear friend After much & very painful hesitation I have at length returned the Draft to Mr Wedgewood with a long letter explanatory of my -367- conduct -- The first sunny morning that I walk out, at Shrewsbury, will make my heart die away within me -- for I shall be in a land of Strangers! For I shall have left a Friend whose sympathies were perfect with my manners, feelings & opinions -- and what is yet more painful, I shall have left him unconvinced of the expediency of my going, public or personal. -- I could not stay with an easy conscience; but whether I shall be happy so far removed from any who love me, I know not. This I know -- I will make myself contented by struggling to do my Duty. -- I have written to Mr Wood & to Mr Row -- promising to be at Shrewsbury by the latter end of next week. To mor Row I perform Mr Howel's duty -- the good old man has gone to London with his daughter to seek surgical assistance for her. I am now, utterly without money: and my account stands thus. -- I owe Biggs 5£ -- Parsons, the Bookseller, owes me more than this considerably; but he is a rogue, & will not pay me. -- I have not payed Mrs Fricker her quarterly allowance -- in short -- £ S D Biggs 5" 0" 0 Mrs Frick. 5" 5" 0 A quarter's Rent due Dec. 25th, 2" 2" 0 1797 Maid's Wages 1" 1" 0 Shoemaker 1" 13" 0 Coals 2" 6" 0 Chandler-- 0" 12" 0 Sundries 0" 12" 0 _____________________________________ £18" 11" 0 This is all I owe in the world: now in order to pay it I must bor Row ten pound of you, 5£ of Mr Wade, 1 and will sell my Ballad to Phillips who I doubt not will give me 5£ for it 2 -- I suppose, that my Friends will not withdraw their annual subscription of 5£ this year -- Afterwards of course I should not want it -- So that, you see, I propose to anticipate your's, Mr Hobhouse's, & Mr Wade's Subscriptions. -- God love you I I will be with you -- as soon as Riches, instead of ____________________ 1 The following endorsement appears on the address sheet of this manuscript: Jany -- 8-98 I Rec'd of Mr. Estlin Fifteen Guineas I on Coleridge's acct. | J. Wade 2 Coleridge refers to The Ancient Mariner. It did not appear in the Monthly Magazine, of which Richard Phillips was the proprietor. -368- making themselves wings, shall make a pair for my shoulders-at present, I am absolutely unfledged. -- Your's with filial & fraternal affection S. T. Coleridge My affectionate remembrances to Mrs Estlin. -- 219. To Josiah Wade Address: Mr. Wade | No. 6 Barclay Parade, Bristol Transcript Coleridge family. Pub. E.L.G. i. 90. Saturday [ 6 January 1798] My very dear Friend This last fortnight has been eventful -- I received an hundred pounds from Josiah Wedgewood, in order to prevent the necessity of my going into the Ministry -- I have received an invitation from Shrewsbury to be the Minister there -- and after the fluctuations of mind which have for nights together robbed me of Sleep, & I am afraid of Health, I have at length returned the order to Mr Wedgewood with a long letter explanatory of my conduct, & accepted the Shrewsbury Invitation -- so I shall be with you by the middle of next week -- But I am moneyless, & want 20£-for 10£ I have written to Mr Estlin, 5£ I will get, somehow or other from the Editor of the New Monthly Magazine, and 5£ I must bor Row of you, if you can lend it me with perfect convenience, but, I beseech [you], do not put yourself out of your way in these hard times -for [if] it be not perfectly convenient to you, I doubt not, I shall be able to get it somewhere or other -- My dear friend, T. Poole, is not convinced of the expediency, either to the public or myself, of my returning the Draft & accepting the congregation -- It would have been a heart sadning thing to. have parted from him in any way, but to part from him, he not satisfied that there is any necessity or propriety in my parting from him, is very painful. -- But more of this when we meet -- let me hear from you immediately -- God love you S. T. Coleridge 220. To John Prior Estlin Address: Revd J. P. Estlin | St Michaels Hill | Bristol by favor of Mr Kell. MS. Cornll University Lib. Pub. Letters to Estlin, 45. Sunday Night [ 14 January 1798] My very dear Friend After a fatiguing Journey I arrived here on Saturday night -- I left Worcester 6 o'clock, Saturday Morning -- and we did not reach -369- Shrewsbury till Saturday night, 8 o'clock. I preached, of course, morning & afternoon -- like Mr Row much -- he is a sensible, christian-hearted man -- & I am very well. -- What more can I write? -- If you were to pay the post, it would go against my conscience to leave so much space unfilled, & give you so little for your money -- but as it will cost you nothing, why should I stand wringing my dish clout of a brain in order to squeeze out a few dirty drops not worth the having -- Give my kind love to Mrs Estlin & believe me with fraternal & filial esteem & affection Your S. T. Coleridge 221. To John Prior Estlin Address: Revd J. P. Estlin | St Michael's Hill | Bristol single MS. Bristol Central Lib. Pub. D.L.G. i. 92. Stamped: Shrewsbury. [ 16 January 1798] My very dear Friend I answer your letter to Mr Row -- because it is probable that I must say all that he would say -- and that I shall have to say what he could not say for me. -- We have talked over the affair seriously -- and at the conclusion of our conversations our opinions have nearly coincided. -- First of all I must give you the information, which I have received on this affair -- & then I will proceed to make some direct observations on your very kind letter. In a letter full of elevated sentiments Mr Josiah Wedgewood offers me from himself & his brother Thomas Wedgewood 'an annuity of 150£ for life, legally secured to me, no condition whatever being annexed.' -- / -You seemed by the phrase of 'a family in this neighbourhood' to suppose that the offer proceeded from or included the Wedgewoods at Cote House -- this is not the case. Josiah Wedgewood lives in Staffordshire. Now nothing can be clearer than that I cannot accept the Ministerial Salary at Shrewsbury & this at the same time. For as I am morally certain that the Wedgewoods would not have thought it their duty, or rather would have found it to be not their duty, to have offered me 150£ yearly, if I had been previously possessed of an 150£ regular income -- it follows indisputably, that I cannot accept the first 150£ with the determination to accept the latter 150£ immediately after. -- But (independently of the animus donantis which is conclusive in this case) were I to accept the salary at Shrewsbury, I would not accept the annuity from the Wedgewoods. -- Many deserve it equally; and few would want it less. -- It is -370- almost equally clear to me, that as two distinct & incompatible objects are proposed to me, I ought to clause between them -- with reference to the advantages of each -- & not make the one a dernier resource if the other should fail. -- No, anteriorly to the decision of the Congregation here, I will send the Wedgewoods a definitive answer, either accepting or declining the offer -- If I accept it, I will accept it for itself -- and not to console me for a disappointment in the other object, which I should have preferred if I could have ensured it. -- Now then I can state clearly the Question on which I am to decide -- 'Shall I refuse 150£ a year for life, as certain, as any fortune can be, for (I will call it) another 150£ a year, the attainment of which is not yet certain, and the duration of which is precarious? -- ' You answer -- 'Yes! -- the cause of Christianity & practical Religion demands your exertions. The powers of intellect, which God has given you, are given for this very purpose, that they may be employed in promoting the best interests of mankind.' -- Now this answer would be decisive to my understanding, & (I think you know enough of me to believe me when I say that were the annuity 1500£ a year instead of 150£,) it should be decisive on my conduct, if I could see any reason why my exertions for Christianity & practical Religion depend -- I will not say, on my being at Shrewsbury, but -- on my becoming a stipendiary & regular minister. -- It makes me blush, I assure you, sitting alone as I now am, at the idea of mentioning two such names as I am about to do, with any supposeable reference to my own talents, present or to come / but the kind is not altered by the degree -- Did Dr HARTLEY employ himself for the promotion of the best interests of mankind? Most certainly. If instead of being a physician he had been an hired Teacher, that he would not have taught Christianity better, I can certainly say -- & I suspect, from the vulgar prejudices of mankind that his name might have been less efficacious. -- That however is a Trifle. A man who thinks that Lardner defended Christianity because he received 50 or 60£ a year for preaching at Crouched Friars, [Crutched Friars] 1 must be such a booby that it cannot be of much consequence what he thinks -- but -- Lardner! -do you really think, my dear Friend! that it would have been of much detriment to the Christian world if the author of the Credibility &c had never received nor accepted the invitation at Crouched Friars? -- Surely not. -- I should be very unwilling to think that my efforts as a Christian Minister depended on my preaching ____________________ 1 Nathaniel Lardner ( 1684-1768), nonconformist divine and biblical scholar, became assistant to Dr. Harris at the meeting-house in Poor Jewry Lane, Crutched Friars, in Sept. 1729. -371- regularly in one pulpit. -- God forbid! -- To the cause of Religion I solemnly devote all my best faculties -- and if I wish to acquire knowlege as a philosopher and fame as a poet, I pray for grace that I may continue to feel what I now feel, that my greatest reason for wishing the one & the other, is that I may be enabled by my knowlege to defend Religion ably, and by my reputation to draw attention to the defence of it. -- I regard every experiment that Priestly made in Chemistry, as giving wings to his more sublime theological works. -- I most assuredly shall preach often -- and it is my present purpose alternately to assist Dr Toulmin & Mr Howel, one part of every Sunday, while I stay at Stowey. -- 'I know (you say) that it was from the purest motives that he thought of entering into the ministry' -- My motives were as pure as they could be, or ought to be. Surely an especial attachment to a society, which I had never seen, was not one of them -- neither if I were to permit myself to be elected the Minister here, should I consider the salary as the payment of my services, i.e. my stated & particular services to the People here, but as a means of enabling myself to employ all my time both for their benefit & that of all my fellow-beings. -Two modes of gaining [a] livelihood were in my power -- The press without reference to Religion -- & Religion without reference to the Press. -- (By the Press as a Trade I wish you to understand, reviewing, newspaper-writing, and all those things in which I proposed no fame to myself or permanent good to society -- but only to gain that bread which might empower me to do both the one and the other on my vacant days. --) I chose the latter -- I preferred, as more innocent in the first place, & more useful in the second place, the ministry as a Trade to the Press as a Trade. -- A circumstance arises -- & the necessity ceases for my taking up either -- that is -- as a means of providing myself with the necessaries of Life. -- Why should I not adopt it? -- But you continue -- 'and I cannot but rejoice that he has it in his power to demonstrate this (i.e. the purity of my motives) to the satisfaction of others.' -- It is possible then that some may say, 'while he wanted money, he was willing to preach the gospel in order to get [it] -- when that want ceased, his zeal departed.' -- Let them say it -- I shall answer most truly -- While I could not devote my time to the service of Religion without receiving money from a particular congregation, I subdued the struggles of reluctance, & would have submitted to receive it -Now I am enabled -- as I have received freely, freely to give. -- If in the course of a few years I shall have appeared neglectful of the cause of Religion, if by my writings & preachings I shall not have been endeavouring to propagate it, then & not till then the charge will affect me. -- I have written you as the thoughts came upper- -372- most -- I might say a great deal more. I might talk of Shrewsbury in particular & state particular reasons of attachment to Stowey -but I chose to confine myself to generals. -- Anterior to any conversation Mr Row thought on the whole that I ought to accept the annuity -- He desires me to say, that he will leave this place on the Wednesday of next week, for Bristol -- I will serve for him as long as he clauses. Your's most affectionately S. T. Coleridge P. S. To this add that the annuity is independent of my health, &c &c -- the salary dependent not on health but on 20 caprices of 20 people. -- 222. To Josiah Wedgwood Address: Josiah Wedgewood, Esq. | [Penzance | [Cornwall MS. Wedgwood Museum. Pub. E.L.G. i. 96. Coleridge's letter was written in answer to the following letter from the Wedgwoods, which arrived in Stowey after Coleridge's departure for Shrewsbury. Poole opened it and had a copy prepared and sent to Coleridge. Stamped: Shrewsbury. Penzance Jany 10th. 1798. Dear Sir In the absence of my Brother who has an engagement this morning, I take up the pen to reply to your letter received yesterday. I cannot help regretting very sincerely that at this critical moment we are separated by so great a length of the worst road in the kingdom. It is not that we have found much difficulty in deciding how to act in the present juncture of your affairs, but we are apprehensive that deprived of the benefit of conversation, we may fail somewhat in explaining our views & intentions with that clearness & persuasion which should induce you to accede to our proposal without scruple or hesitation, -- nay, with that glow of pleasure which an accession of merited good fortune & the observation of virtuous conduct in others, ought powerfully to excite in the breast of healthful Sensibility. -- Writing is painful to me. I must endeavor to be concise; yet to avoid abruptness. My Brother & myself are possessed of a considerable superfluity of fortune; squandering & hoarding are equally distant from our inclinations. But we are earnestly desirous to convert this superfluity into a fund of beneficence & we have now been accustomed, for some time, to regard ourselves rather as Trustees than Proprietors. We have canvassed your past life, your present situation & prospect; your character & abilities. As far as certainty is compatible with the delicacy of the estimate, we have no hesitation in declaring that your claim upon the fund appears to come under more of the conditions we have prescribed to ourselves for it's disposal, & to be every way more unobjectionable than we could possibly have expected. This result is so congenial with our heart-felt wishes that it will be a real mortification to us if any misconception or distrust of our intentions, or any unworthy diffidence of yourself, should interfere to prevent it's full operation in your favor. [ Tom Wedgwood.] -373- After what my brother Thomas has written I have only to state the proposal we wish to make to you. It is that you shall accept an annuity for life of £150 to be regularly paid by us, no condition whatsoever being annexed to it. Thus your liberty will remain entire, you will be under the influence of no professional bias, & will be in possession of a 'permanent income not inconsistent with your religious & political creeds' so necessary to your health & activity. I do not now enter into the particulars of the mode of securing the annuity &c. that will be done when we receive your consent to the proposal we are making, and we shall only say now that we mean the annuity to be independent of every thing but the wreck of our fortune, an event which we hope is not very likely to happen, though it must in these times be regarded as more than a bare possibility. Give me leave now to thank you for the openness with which you have written to me, & the kindness you express for me, to neither of which can I be indifferent, and I shall be happy to derive the advantages from them that a friendly intercourse with you cannot fail to afford me. I am very sincerely yours Josiah Wedgwood Dear Sir Shrewsbury Jan. 17th, 1798 Yesterday morning I received the letter which you addressed to me in your own and your brother's name. Your benevolence appeared so strange & it came upon my mind with such suddenness, that for a while I sat and mused on it with scarce a reference to myself, and gave you a moral approbation almost wholly unmingled with those personal feelings which have since filled my eyes with tears -- which do so even now while I am writing to you. What can I say? I accept your proposal not unagitated but yet, I trust, in the same worthy spirit in which you made it. -- . I return to Stowey in a few days. Disembarrassed from all pecuniary anxieties yet unshackled by any regular profession, with powerful motives & no less powerful propensities to honourable effort, it is my duty to indulge the hope that at some future period I shall have given a proof that as your intentions were eminently virtuous, so the action itself was not unbeneficent. With great affection & esteem | I remain | Your's sincerely S. T. Coleridge 223. To Thomas Poole Address: Mr T. Poole | Stowey | near | Bridgewater | [ Somerset MS. British Museum. Hitherto unpublished. Stamped: Shrewsbury. My best dear Friend [ 17 January 1798] I have written to Josiah Wedgewood by this post, & accepted the offer. -- Such benevolence is something so new, that I am not -374- certain that I am not dreaming: I sit & muse upon it in the abstract, & it seems so strange that I cannot apply it to myself -- nor has my heart yet felt any of the swell & glow of personal feelings. -- Well -- I will receive them on my return by reflection from your's -- I shall or rather I must stay here two Sundays longer; because Mr Row is going to Bristol to seek a House. -- Estlin is ardent for my declining Wedgewood's offer -- he wrote at me in a letter to Mr Row, which accompanied your letters -- Row read Estlin's letter, and advised me without a moment's hesitation to accept the offer. -- The people here are dressy & fond of expence -- & the women very handsome -- the Parsons of the Church of England, many of them, Unitarians & democrats -- and the People hot-headed Aristocrats -- this is curious, but it is true. -- The Congregation is small, and my reputation had cowed them into vast respectfulness -- but one shrewd fellow remarked that he would rather hear me talk than preach. -- My love to our dear Mother -- & to Ward -- Your's most affectionately -S. T. Coleridge 224. To Isaac Wood Address: Mr. Isaac Wood, | High Street, |Shrewsbury. Pub. Christian Reformer, Nov. -- Dec. 1834, p. 838. Shrewsbury, Jan. 19, 1798 Dear Sir, 'Freely have ye received, freely give,' is a precept in which the practice and spirit of every Christian Minister ought to be moulded. I do not hesitate to affirm it as my opinion, that both Christianity and the preaching of Christianity would exist in a much purer state, if, like St. Paul, we made tents for our bread, and preached the Gospel for conscience' sake. There is a congruity, not wholly fanciful, in purchasing things necessary for the body by the labour of the body, and things necessary for the mind by the labour of the mind. Food, raiment and lodging seem the appropriate remunerations for manual industry; respect, esteem, affection, and the consciousness of doing good for knowledge, or learning, or piety, or disinterested zeal. But, alas I this beautiful order of things, if not rendered impossible by the present state of society, is in most instances incompatible with our present modes of education. I will instance my own case. A scholastic education, continued to the age of twenty-three, made my bodily faculties obtuse and weak in proportion as it had given variety and acuteness to my intellectual -375- powers, and, of course, presented insuperable objections, both of mind and body, to my obtaining sustenance for myself and a family by my labour either in the manufactory or the field. At this time I formed those religious and political opinions which exclude me, I thank God, from the Law and the Church. The profession of Physic remained; but I could not afford the previous expenses, and (to avail myself of a vulgar proverb) 'the horses would have starved while the grass was g Rowing.' There lay before me, then, either the Press as a trade, or the Ministerial Office. (By the Press as a trade, I wish you to understand the writing for newspapers, reviews and magazines -- all those literary exertions in which I proposed neither my own reputation nor the permanant good of society, but only as innocently as possible to gain such a salary as might enable me to do both the one and the other on my vacant days.) Perceiving, or appearing to myself to perceive, that some general evils, and some particular discomforts would result from my becoming a salaried minister, I adopted the former. But I soon discovered my mistake. I did not indeed alter my opinion essentially respecting the nature and consequences of hired preaching, but I saw more clearly the nature and consequences of hired writing. I found it the situation of all others in which a delicacy of moral feeling and moral perception would with the greatest difficulty be preserved. I found that the temptations to do evil were many, and the anxieties and uncertainties of the occupation so great, that they would soon have sapped the very faculties by which alone that occupation could be made profitable to myself, and on which alone can be founded my future utility to my fellow-creatures. I therefore subdued the struggles of reluctance, and with the purest motives possible on such an occasion, I determined to choose the ministry, not as in itself an absolute good, but as far more innocent, far more useful than the other mode of employment; and at that time my choice lay only between these two, and one or the other of them I was under the immediate impulse both of duty and necessity to choose. Still, however, I should have conformed so far to that precept with which I commenced my letter, that I should have regarded the salary I received, not as payment for my particular services to the congregation from whom I received it, but only as the means of enabling myself to pursue a general scheme of Christian warfare, of which those particular services would have formed only a part. Within these few days the state of my circumstances has been altered; and with the simple and cottage life to which I have accommodated my habits, I am enabled to defend that cause to which I have solemnly devoted my best efforts, when and how and where it appears best to me; and, as I have received the gospel -376- freely, freely to give it. Of course I retire from the candidateship for the ministerial office at Shrewsbury; and have deemed it proper to inform your society. of it, before I placed myself within the contingency of their election, and antecedently to my being accepted or rejected. I have an humble trust, that many years will not pass over my head before I shall have given proof in some way or other that active zeal for Unitarian Christianity, not indolence or indifference, has been the motive of my declining a local and stated settlement as preacher of it. My friends Mr. Howell and Dr. Toulmin are both in the descent of life, and both at a small distance from me; and it is my purpose to relieve one or the other every Sunday. -- You will be kind enough to convey this information to the society in the way you think best. I have developed my motives to you with all the openness and simplicity of a confidential and private letter; but I have not the least objection to your communicating it publicly. As this, my dear Sir, may very probably be the close of our short-lived correspondence, I cannot conclude it without expressing my great and unfeigned esteem for you, as sincerely believing you to be a man whose natural dispositions have made him a wellwisher to his fellow-men, and whose zeal and clearness of intellect have enabled him to be in no ordinary degree their benefactor. -- May God bless you, and S. T. Coleridge 225. To William Wordsworth Address: W. Wordsworth Esq. | Allfoxden | Stowey, near | Bridgewater | Somerset. Single MS. Bristol Central Lib. Pub. Letters, i. 234. Stamped: Shrewsbury. Tuesday Morning. Jan. [23,] 1798 My dear Wordsworth You know, of course, that I have accepted the magnificent liberality of Josiah & Thomas Wedgewood. I accepted it on the presumption that I had talents, honesty, & propensities to perseverant effort. If I have hoped wisely concerning myself, I have acted justly. 1 But dismissing severer thoughts, believe me, my dear fellow! that of the pleasant ideas, which accompanied this unexpected event, it was not the least pleasant nor did it pass thro' my mind the last in the procession, that I should at least be able to ____________________ 1 Wordsworth's comment on Coleridge's good fortune is somewhat unenthusiastic: 'No doubt you have heard of the munificence of the Wedgwoods towards Coleridge. I hope the fruit will be good as the seed is noble.' Early Letters, 188. -377- trace the spring & early summer of Alfoxden with you; & that wherever your after residence may be, it is probable that you will be within the reach of my Tether, lengthened as it now is. -- The country round Shrewsbury is rather tame -- My imagination has cloathed it with all it's summer attributes; but I still can see in it no possibility beyond that of Beauty. -- The Society here were sufficiently eager to have me, as their Minister, and, I think, would have behaved kindly & respectfully -- but I perceive clearly, that without great courage & perseverance in the use of the monosyllable, Nol I should have been plunged in a very Maelstrom of visiting-whirled round, and round, and round, never changing yet always moving. -- Visiting with all it's pomps & vanities is the mania of the place; & many of the congregation are both rich & expensive. -- I met a young man, a Cambridge undergraduatetalking of plays &c, he told that an acquaintance of his was printing a translation of one of Kotzebu's Tragedies, entitled, Beniowski 1 -- The name startled me, and upon examination I found that the story of my 'Siberian Exiles' has been already dramatized. -- If Kotzebu has exhibited no greater genius in it than in his Negro slaves, I shall consider this as an unlucky circumstance -- but the young man speaks enthusiastically of it's merits. I have just read the Castle Spectre 2 -- & shall bring it home with me. -- I will begin with it's defects, in order that my 'But' may have a charitable transition. -- 1. Language -- 2. Character. 8. Passion. 4. Sentiment. 5. Conduct -- 1. Of styles some are pleasing, durably and on reflection -- some only in transition -- and some are not pleasing at all -- And to this latter class belongs the Castle Spectre. There are no felicities in the humourous passages; and in the serious ones it is Schiller Lewis-ized -- i.e. a flat, flabby, unimaginative Bombast oddly sprinkled with colloquialisms. 2. -- No character at all. The author in a postscript lays claim to novelty in one of his charactersthat of Hassan. -- Now Hassan is a negro, who had a warm & benevolent heart; but having been kidnapped from his country & barbarously used by the Christians, becomes a Misanthrope. -This is'all!! -- 3. Passio -- horror I agonizing pangs of Conscience! Dreams full of hell, serpents, & skeletons! starts & attempted murders &c &c &c; but, positively, not one line that marks even a superficial knowlege of human feelings, could I discover. 4. Sentiments are moral & humourous. There is a book called the Frisky ____________________ 1 Count Benyowsky; or the Conspiracy of Kamtschatka. A Tragi-comedy. Translated from the German by W. Render, 1798. 2 M. G. Lewis Castle Spectre was produced at Drury Lane in 1797. Coleridge's copy of the play, according to E. H. Coleridge, is dated 20 Jan. 1798. Cf. Letters, i. 236 n. -378- Songster, at the end of which are two chapters -- the first containing Frisky Toasts & Sentiments -- the second, Moral Toasts: -and from these chapters I suspect, that Mr Lewis has stolen all his sentimentality, moral & humourous. A very fat Friar, renowned for Gluttony & Lubricity, furnishes abundance of jokes (all of them abdominal vel si quid infra) Jokes that would have stunk, had they been fresh; and alas! they have the very saeva mephitis of antiquity on them. -- BUT -- 5 -- the Conduct of the Piece is, I think, good -- except that the first act is wholly taken up with explanation & narration. -- This Play proves how accurately you conjectured concerning theatric merit. The merit of the Castle Spectre consists wholly in it's situations. These are all bor Rowed, and all absolutely pantomimical; but they are admirably managed for stage effect. There is not much bustle; but situations for ever. The whole plot, machinery, & incident are bor Rowed -- the play is a mere patchwork of plagiarisms -- but they are very well worked up, & for stage effect make an excellent whole. -- There is a pretty little Ballad-song introduced -- and Lewis, I think, has great & peculiar excellence in these compositions. The simplicity & naturalness is his own, & not imitated; for it is made to subsist in congruity with a language perfectly modern -- the language of his own times, in the same way that the language of the writer of 'Sir Cauline' 1 was the language of his times. This, I think, a rare merit: at least, I find, I cannot attain this innocent nakedness, except by assumption -- I resemble the Dutchess of Kingston, who masqueraded in the character of 'Eve before the Fall' in flesh-coloured Silk. -- This play struck me with utter hopelessness -- it would be [easy] to produce these situations, but not in a play so for[cibly] as to admit the permanent & closest beauties of style, passion & character. To admit pantomimic tricks the plot itself must be pantomimic -Harlequin cannot be had unaccompanied by the Fool. -- I hope to be with you by the middle of next week -- I must stay over next Sunday, as Mr Row is obliged to go to Bristol to seek a House. He & his Family are honest, sensible, pleasant people. My kind Love to Dorothy -- & believe me -- with affectionate esteem Your's sincerely S. T. Coleri[dge] ____________________ 1 It was from 'Sir Cauline' that S. T. C. borrowed not only the archaic words found in 'The Ancient Mariner' but also the name 'Christabel', which name, however, occurs only in the stanzas interpolated by Percy, (See Reliques.) MS. note by J. D. Campbell. -379- 226. To Joseph Cottle Address: Mr Cottle | Bookseller | High Street | Bristol by favor of the Revd Mr Rowe MS. Cornell University Lib. Pub. with omis. Early Rec. i. 307. [ 24 January 1798] 1 My very dear Cottle The moment I received Mr Wedgewood's letter, I accepted his offer -- how a contrary report could arise, I cannot guess -- / -- I hope to see you at the close of next week -- I have been respectfully & kindly treated at Shrewsbury, & am well, & now & ever Your grateful & affectionate | Friend S. T. Coleridge -- Send the inclosed as soon as possible to Mr Wade. -- 227. To Thomas Wedgwood MS. Wedgwood Museum. Pub. Tom Wedgwood, 58. Shrewsbury Friday Night -- twelve o'clock [ 26 January 1798] My dear Sir -- I have this moment received your letter-and have scarcely more than a moment to answer it by return of post. If kindly feelings can be repaid by kindly feelings, I am not your debtor -- / -- I would wish to express the something that is big at my heart, but I know not how to do it without indelicacy. As much abstracted from personal feelings, as is possible, I honor & esteem you for that which you have done -- I must, of necessity, stay here till the close of Sunday next -- On Monday Morning I shall leave it & on Tuesday will be with you at Cote House -- Very affectionately your's S. T. Coleridge 228. To Thomas Poole Address: Mr T. Poole | Stowey | near | Bridgewater, | Somerset MS. British Museum. Pub. E.L.G. i. 97. Stamped: Shrewsbury. Saturday Morning [ 27 January 1798] My dearest Poole I thank you, heart-wise, for the Joy you have in my joy --. I received a very affectionate letter from Thomas Wedgewood last ____________________ 1 In Letter 221 Coleridge said that Mr. Rowe 'will leave this place on the Wednesday of next week, [24 Jan.] for Bristol'. The address shows that Rowe was to deliver this letter to Cottle. -380- night -- & answered it immediately. He desires me to meet him at Cote House -- I shall therefore leave this place on Monday Morning -- & shall, God willing, breakfast with him on Tuesday Morning -- on which day I will write you -- The people here absolutely consume me -- the Clergymen of the Church are eminently courteous, & some of them come & hear me. If I had stayed, I have reason to think that I should have doubled the congregation almost immediately. -- With two sermons to meditate in each week, with many letters to write, with invitations for dinner, tea, & supper in each day, & people calling in, & I forced to return morning calls, every morning, you will not be surprized, tho' you will be vexed to hear, that I have written nothing for the Morning Post -- but I shall write immediately to the Editor. -- I long to be at home with you, & to settle & persevere in, some mode of repaying the Wedgewoods thro' the medium of Mankind -- / I wish to be at home with you indeed, indeed -- my Joy is only in the bud here -- I am like that Tree, which fronts me -- The Sun shines bright & warm, as if it were summer -- but it is not summer & so it shines on leafless boughs. The beings who know how to sympathize with me are my foliage -- My filial love to your dear Mother | & believe me, my best dear friend! | ever, ever most affectionately your's S. T. Coleridge P.S. My love to Ward, the Coryphaeus of Transcribers & Rescribers!! when the evil times come, I will use all my Interest to save him from the Proscribers. -- That joke is like the last drop of greasy water wrung out of an afternoon dishclout -- it came with difficulty & might as well have stayed behind. 229. To the Editor of the 'Monthly Magazine' Pub. Monthly Magazine, January 1798, p. 8. In September and October 1796 and December 1797 three communications to the editor of the Monthly Magazine, signed 'B., 'Crito', and 'A.B.C.D.', discussed Coleridge's Monody on the Death of Chatterton. Shrewsbury [ January 1798] Sir I hope, that this letter may arrive time enough to answer its purpose. I cannot help considering myself as having been placed in a very ridiculous light, by the gentlemen who have remarked, answered, and rejoined, concerning my monody on Chatterton. I have not seen the compositions of my competitors, 1 (unless indeed ____________________ 1 Crito ( Monthly Magazine, Oct 1796) had said: 'There were at least, two -381- the exquisite poem of Warton, entitled "The Suicide" refer to this subject) but this I know, that my own is a very poor one. It was a school exercise, somewhat altered; and it would have been omitted in the last edition of my poems, but for the request of my friend, Mr. Cottle, whose property those poems are. If it be not in your intention to exhibit my name on any future month, you will accept my best thanks, and not publish this letter, but if Crito and the Alphabet-Men should continue to communicate on this subject, and you should think it proper, for reasons best known to yourself, to publish their communications, then I depend on your kindness for the insertion of my letter; by which, it is possible, those your correspondents may be induced to expend their remarks, whether panegyrical or vituperative, on nobler game than on a poem which was, in truth, the first effort of a young man, all whose poems a candid critic will only consider as first efforts. Your's with due respect, S. T. Coleridge 230. To John Thelwall Address: Mr Thelwall | Llynswen, [Llyswen] | Brecknockshire | to be left at the three Cooks in the | road to Brecknock -- By the Hay Bag. MS. Pierpont Morgan Lib. Pub. E.L.G. i. 99. Stamped: Bristol. Tuesday, Jan. 80th, 1798 My dear Thelwall Two days after I received your letter -- that to which you allude in your last -- I returned you an answer, directed J. Thelwall, Derby. In it I informed you of Dr Beddoes' answer to me -- 'how he had applied to those, whom he had entertained hopes from, without success; but was ready to contribute his own quota' -- and that I wrote back to Dr B. ['] that I believed you would probably accomplish your plan by the assistance of your friends; but that if you had occasion for his individual assistance, I would inform him as soon as I heard from you.' -- And I did not hear from youand it appears, that you did not receive my letter; for which I am sorry -- but I have lately had a letter from me to Mr Wedgewood intercepted, and I suspect the country post masters grievously. -- My Wife & Baby are well -- and I shall probably kiss my youngest boy in April. -- As to myself, I received an invitation from Shrews- ____________________ monodies written on CHATTERTON, superior to the poem in question.' A.B.C.D. replying to Crito ( Monthly Magazine, Dec 1797) supposed that the two poems were written by Warton and Amwell, but he affirmed 'that MR. Coleridge, in his monody, eminently excels his competitors'. -382- bury to be the Unitarian Minister, and at the same time an order for 100£ from Thomas & Josiah Wedgewood -- I accepted the former, & returned the latter in a long letter explanatory of my motives -- & went off to Shrewsbury, where they were on the point of electing me unanimously & with unusual marks of affection, when I received an offer from T. & J. Wedgewood -- of an annuity of 150£ to be legally settled on me. -- Astonished, agitated, & feeling as I could not help feeling, I accepted the offer -- in the same worthy spirit, I hope, in which it was made -- And this morning I have returned from Shrewsbury, & am now writing in Cottle's Shop -- / I received your letter this morning, & have lost no time in answering it. -- I shall be at Stowey in a few days; from whence I write to you of my plans &c -- & likewise concerning you. -Unhusbandize your lips, & give the kiss of fraternal love to Stella, for me -- I am hurried off -- & can only say that I think of you often -- & never without affectionate Esteem -- S. T. Coleridge 231. To George Coleridge Address: Revd G. Coleridge | Ottery St Mary MS. Lady Cave. Hithedo unpublished. Stowey near Bridgewater Feb. 8th [9] 1 1798 My dear Brother The interval, since I received your letter, has been c Rowded with events of great importance to me. On Christmas Day I received a letter from Mr Josiah Wedgewood -- of which the following is a copy -- (Note. The late Mr Wedgewood had three sons, John, a Banker, who resides at Cote House, a magnificent Seat near Bristol -- Josiah, who carries on the Pottery in Staffordshire -- and Thomas, a single man, & in no line of business) Launceston, Decembr. 28, 1797 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, that you will accept the inclosed draft with the same simplicity, with which it is offered to you -- I remain, dear Sir sincerely your's Josiah Wedgewood. ____________________ 1 Coleridge apparently was confused over the date, for in the next letter he tells Estlin, 'I arrived at Stowey, on Friday last, by dinner time', i.e. 9 Feb. -383- The inclosed draft was for an 100£ -- After some hesitation I returned an answer, accepting it -- but on the day after I received an invitation from the Unitarian congregation at Shrewsbury to become their minister -- and having taken a week maturely to deliberate on the subject, I at last returned the draft to Mr Wedgewood in a letter, of which No. 1. is a copy. 1 -- I immediately set off for Shrewsbury -- on the eleventh of January -- arrived there the 13th -- and on the 16th I received from Josiah & Thomas Wedgewood a letter, of which No. 2 is a copy. 2 -- I returned an answer, expressing human & manly feelings of gratitude, & accepted the offer. -- I of course addressed a letter to the society, declining the office, & explaining my motives -- but did not leave Shrewsbury till Monday 29th of Jan. -- I received a very complimentary & affectionate letter from the Society, expressing their regret for their own loss, but approving my motives -- & they requested that I would publish the six sermons, which I had preached to them -- / which I declined, having preached them extempore, & consequently, not able to appreciate their real merits -- -- I stayed a week at Cote House, & have just returned home. Disembarrassed from pecuniary anxieties yet unshackled by any regular profession, with powerful motives, and, I trust, no less powerful propensities to honorable effort, I indulge the hope, that at some future period I shall have given some proof, that as the intentions of the Wedgewoods were eminently pure, so the action itself was not unbeneficent. We received pain from hearing of the sickness which you have had -- We hope, it is past, and that you have no other toils than that of the school. -- God be praised, both Mrs Coleridge & my child enjoy, & have enjoyed, compleat health. -- As to my Tragedy, the story is briefly this -- Last year in the spring Sheridan wrote to me thro' Bowles (the poet) requesting me in very pressing & complimentary language to write a Tragedy -- he promised me his assistance in adapting it for the stage, & that he would bring it on with every possible advantage. -- I knew the man's character too well, to suffer myself to be inflated by hopehowever I set myself in good earnest about it, finished the piece in a much better style than I had supposed myself capable of doing, & transmitted it to Sheridan, in October -- From that time to this I have received no answer from him, altho' I have written to him -- & the only intelligence, I have received, was from Linley, Sheridan's brother in law, who told me that Sheridan spoke to him in extravagant terms of it's merits. -- In all probability, Mrs ____________________ 1 See Letter 217. 2 See headnote to Letter 222 for the Wedgwoods' letter. -384- Sheridan has made thread-papers with it. -- It has not given me one pang: for some who know Sheridan intimately, had prepared me to expect it. -- Give my love to Mrs G. Coleridge -- & to my Brothers -- & my Duty to my Mother. -- I intreat my Brother James's acceptance of the accompanying prints -- I am told, they are great likenesses, and as he is a musical man, may perhaps be interesting to him. -They were payed to me by a bankrupt bookseller, in commutation for some money which he owed me Your affectionate & grateful Brother, S. T. Coleridge 232. To John Prior Estlin Address: Revd J. P. Estlin IVS. Bristol Central Lib. Pub. Letters to Estlin, 59. Tuesday night -- [ 18 February 1798] My dear Friend If you have never been a slave to the superstition of impulses, you will marvel to hear that I arrived at Stowey, on Friday last, by dinner time. -- I left Mr Wedgewood's on Thursday evening, just time enough to keep an engagement, I had made, to sup with a Mr Williams of Nottingham, at the White Lion. -- There I slept -awoke at 5 in the morning, and was haunted by a strange notion that there was something of great importance that demanded my immediate presence at Stowey. I dressed myself, and walked out to dissipate the folly -- but the Bridgewater Coach rattling by, & the Coachman asking me if I would get in -- I took it for an omen -- the superstitious feeling recurred -- and in I went -- came home, & found -- my wife & child in very good health! -- However, as I must necessarily be in Bristol, in a few weeks, I the less regret my strange & abrupt departure. T. Poole informs me that there is a letter for me at your house -if so, be so kind as to send it to Mr Cottle's for me. -- T. Wedgewood did not speak a word to me about the circumstance -- only that I should hear from him. So I know nothing relating to myself so far, which you do not know. Have you given over the thoughts of editing Butler's analogy 1 with notes? -- If the Unitarian Society would publish it in their tracts, I would willingly & immediately Undertake it with youadding a disquisition on Hume's system of Causation -- or rather of non-causation. This is the pillar, & confessedly, the sole pillar, ____________________ 1 Joseph Butler Analogy first appeared in 1736. -385- of modern Atheism -- if we could clearly & manifestly detect the sophisms of this system, I think, that Butler's Analogy aided by well-placed notes would answer irresistably all the objections to Christianity founded on a priori reasonings -- & these are the only reasonings that infidels use even with plausibility. -- I have sent you Payne's Letter to Erskine 1 -- it was sent to me privately by the Editor of the Morning Post -- for they do not venture to publish it. -- There are some ludicrous blunders -- exemp.grati -- This erudite Philosopher mistakes Moses's Autograph for the publication of the Law -- & asserts that the Law was not known till Hilkiah (Chronicles, Ch. 34.) pretended to have found it -- Mr Ireland 2 pretended to have found a copy of Lear in Shakspere's own hand -ergo -- we have proof that the Tragedy was not composed by Shakespere, & never heard of till the 87th year of the reign of George the third! -- / . -- Erudite Logician! -- / There is annexed a Sermon in defence of Deity with one or two good remarks in it -but the proof is very idle, & the definition of Deity -- i.e. a being whose power is equal to his will -- in all probability applies equally to a Maggot. There is however one argument against the Bible quite new -- 'I (the said Thomas Payne) could write a better book myself' -- & therefore it cannot be the word of God --. Now unless we suppose Mr Payne mistaken (which is hard to suppose on a subject where he must be so impartial a judge, i.e. his own genius) this argument is quite unanswerable!! I mentioned the unitarian Society, because I propose to myself no pecuniary profit, but could not sustain, on the other hand any pecuniary loss. My kind love to Mrs Estlin -- & believe me | with gratitude, esteem, & fervent affection | ever, ever your's S. T. Coleridge 233. To Joseph Cottle Address: Mr Cottle MS. Jesus College Lib., Cambridge. Pub. with omis. E.L.G. i. 100. Feby 18-1798 My dear Cottle [I pray you, when you send a parcel, do always write one line ____________________ 1 Paine published his Letter to Erskine in June 1797. Erskine was counsel for the prosecution in the case against Thomas Williams, publisher of Paine's Age of Reason. To Paine Letter was appended a Discourse to the Society of Theophilanthropists, later published as Atheism Refuted. 2 In Dec. 1795 Samuel Ireland published the forgeries of his son, W. H. Ireland , as Miscellaneous Papers and Legal Instruments under the hand and seat of William Shakespeare, including the tragedy of King Lear, and a small fragment of Hamlet, from the original MSS. in the possession of Samuel Ireland. -386- at least -- I always must pay like damnation.] 1 I have finished my ballad -- it is 840 lines. 2 I am going on with the Visions 3 -- all together (for I shall print two scenes of my Tragedy, as fragments) 4 I can add 1500 lines -- / Now what do you advise? -- Shall I add my Tragedy, & so make a second Volume -- ? or pursue my first intention of inserting the 1500 in the 8rd Edition? 5 -- If you should advise a second volume, should you wish -- i.e. -- find it convenient -- to be the purchaser / ? I ask this question, because I wish you to know the true state of my present circumstances -- / I have received nothing yet from the Wedgewoods & my money is utterly expended. A friend of mine wanted 5 guineas for a little while, which I bor Rowed of Poole as for myself -- & do not therefore like to apply to him. Mr Estlin has some little money, I believe, in his hands; but I received from him before I went to Shrewsbury 15£ -- & I believe that this was an anticipation of the 5 guinea presents, which my friends would have made me, in March. But (this affair of the Mr Wedgewoods turning out) the money in Mr Estlin's hand must go towards repaying him that sum which he suffered me to anticipate -- Meantime I owe Biggs 5£ which lies heavy on my thoughts -- And Mrs Fricker has not been payed her last quarter which lies still heavier. As to myself, I can contrive to go on here -but this 10£ I must pay some how, that is, 5£ to Biggs, and 5£ to Mrs Fricker. -- This week I purpose to offer myself to the Bridgewater congregation as assistant minister -- without any salary, directly or indirectly. -- But say not a word of this to any one, unless you see Mr Estlin. -- I pray you, if you have not 5£ conveniently to spare, call on Mr Estlin & get it in my name as borrowed, & transmit it to Mrs Fricker -- for that must be payed. -- God love you | & S. T. Coleridge 234. To Thomas Poole Address: Mr T. Poole MS. Victoria University Lib. Pub. with omis. Letters, i. 18. This is the fifth and last of the autobiographical letters. [Endorsed Feby 19th 1798] From October 1781 to October 1782. After the death of my father we, of course, changed houses, & I ____________________ 1 Passage in brackets inked out in MS. 2 Coleridge apparently refers again to The Ancient Mariner, though that poem when 'finished' in 1798 had 658 lines. 3 i.e. The Destiny of Nations. 4 Two scenes from Osorio, The Foster-mother's Tale and The Dungeon, appeared in Lyrical Ballads, 1798. 5 No such '3rd Edition' appeared at this time. -387- remained with my mother till the spring of 1782, and was a dayscholar to Parson Warren, my Father's successor-- / He was a booby, I believe; and I used to delight my poor mother by relating little instances of his deficiency in grammar knowlege -- every detraction from his merits seemed an oblation to the memory of my Father, especially as Parson Warren did certainly pulpitize much better. -- Somewhere, I think, about April 1792, [ 1782] Judge Buller, who had been educated by my Father, sent for me, having procured a Christ's Hospital Presentation. -- I accordingly went to London, and was received by my mother's Brother, Mr Bowden, a Tobacconist & (at the same [time]) clerk to an Underwriter. My Uncle lived at the corner of the Stock exchange, & carried on his shop by means of a confidential Servant, who, I suppose, fleeced him most unmercifully. -- He was a widower, & had one daughter who lived with a Miss Cabriere, an old Maid of great sensibilities & a taste for literature -- Betsy Bowden had obtained an unlimited influence over her mind, which she still retains -- Mrs Holt (for this is her name now) was, when I knew her, an ugly & an artful woman & not the kindest of Daughters -- but indeed, my poor Uncle would have wearied the patience & affection of an Euphrasia. -- He was generous as the air & a man of very considerable talents -- but he was a Sot. -- He received me with great affection, and I stayed ten weeks at his house, during which time I went occasionally to Judge Buller's. My Uncle was very proud of me, & used to carry me from Coffee-house to Coffee-house, and Tavern to Tavern, where I drank, & talked & disputed, as if I had been a man -- /. Nothing was more common than for a large party to exclaim in my hearing, that I was a prodigy, &c &c &c -- so that, while I remained at my Uncle's, I was most completely spoilt & pampered, both mind & body. At length the time came, & I donned the Blue coat & yellow stockings, & was sent down to Hertford, a town 20 miles from London, where there are about 800 of the younger Blue coat boys -- At Hertford I was very happy, on the whole; for I had plenty to eat & drink, & pudding & vegetables almost every day. I stayed there six weeks; and then was drafted up to the great school at London, where I arrived in September, 1792 [ 1782] -- and was placed in the second ward, then called Jefferies's ward; & in the under Grammar School. There are twelve Wards, or dormitories, of unequal sizes, beside the Sick Ward, in the great School -- & they contained, all together, 700 boys; of whom I think nearly one third were the Sons of Clergymen. There are 5 Schools, a Mathematical, a Grammar, a drawing, a reading, & a writing School -- all very large Buildings. -- When a boy is admitted, if he read very badly, he is either sent to Hertford or to the Reading- -388- School -- (N.B. Boys are admissible from 7 to 12 years old) -- If he learn to read tolerably well before 9, he is drafted into the lower Grammar-school -- if not, into the writing-school, as having given proof of unfitness for classical attainment. -- If before he is eleven he climbs up to the first form of the lower Grammar-school, he is drafted into the head Grammar School -- if not, at 11 years old he is sent into the writing School, where he continues till 14 or 15 -- and is then either apprenticed, & articled as clerk, or whatever else his turn of mind, or of fortune shall have provided for him. Two or three times a year the Mathematical Master beats up for recruits for the King's boys, as they are called -- and all, who like the navy, are drafted into the Mathematical & Drawing Schools -- where they continue till 16 or 17, & go out as Midshipmen & Schoolmasters in the Navy. -- The Boys, who are drafted into the head Grammar School, remain there till 13 -- & then if not chosen for the university, go into the writing school. Each dormitory has a Nurse, or Matron -- & there is a head Matron to superintend all these Nurses. -- The boys were, when I was admitted, under excessive subordination to each other, according to rank in School -- & every ward was governed by four Monitors, (appointed by the Steward, who was the supreme Governor out of School -- our Temporal Lord) and by four Markers, who wore silver medals, & were appointed by the head Grammar Master, who was our supreme Spiritual Lord. The same boys were commonly both Monitors & Markers -We read in classes on Sundays to our Markers, & were catechized by them, & under their sole authority during prayers, &c -- all other authority was in the monitors; but, as I said, the same boys were ordinarily both the one & the other. -- Our diet was very scanty -- Every morning a bit of dry bread & some bad small beer -- every evening a larger piece of bread, & cheese or butter, whichever we liked -- For dinner -- on Sunday, boiled beef & broth -Monday, Bread & butter, & milk & water -- on Tuesday, roast mutton, Wednesday, bread & butter & rice milk, Thurday, boiled beef & broth -- Friday, boiled mutton & broth -- Saturday, bread & butter, & pease porritch -- Our food was portioned -- & excepting on Wednesdays I never had a belly full. Our appetites were damped never satisfied -- and we had no vegetables. -- S. T. Coleridge -389- 235. To Joseph Cottle Address: Mr Cottle | Bookseller | Bristol MS. Mr. W. L. Léis. Pub. with omis. Letters, i. 238. Stamped: Bridgewater. Stowey, Wednesday Morning. [ 7 March 1798] My dear Cottle I have been confined to my bed for some days thro' a fever occasioned by the stump of a tooth which baffled chirurgical efforts to eject it; & which by affecting my eye affected my stomach, & thro' that my whole frame. I am better -- but still weak in consequence of such long sleeplessness & wearying pains -- weak, very weak. -- I thank you, my dear Friend! for your late kindness -- and in a few weeks will either repay you in money or by verses, as you like. -- With regard to Lloyd's verses, it is curious that I should be applied to -- to be 'PERSUADED to RESIGN,['] and in ho[pe] that I might 'CONSENT to GIVE up' a number of poem[s] which were published at the earnest request of the author[, who] assured me that the circumstance was 'of no trivial import to his happiness.' -- Times change, & people change; but let us keep our souls in quietness! -- I have no objection to any disposal of C. Lloyd's poems except that of their being republished with mine. 1 The motto, which I had prefixed 'Duplex &c' from Groscollius 2 has placed me in a ridiculous situation 3 -- but it was a foolish & presumptuous start of affectionateness, and I am not unwilling to incur punish- ____________________ 1 Southey certainly, and possibly Lamb took umbrage at the Nehemiah Higginbottom. sonnets, and it is difficult to suppose that Lloyd was not deeply wounded by Coleridge's ill-timed burlesque. When he learned of the plan to issue a new edition of the poems of Coleridge, Lamb, and Lloyd, he asked that his own poems be omitted; he and Lamb, too, planned a collaborative venture, which appeared during 1798 as Blank Verse, by Charles Lamb and Charles Lloyd. This letter shows that Coleridge was hurt by Lloyd's action, probably more deeply than he cared to reveal to Cottle. 2 In the manuscript Cottle twice underlined the word 'Groscollius' and wrote '(fictitious)' above it. 3 The motto for the 1797 edition of the Poems of Coleridge, Lamb, and Lloyd was: 'Duplex nobis vinculum, et amicitiae et similium junctarumque Camoenarum; quod utinam neque mors solvat, neque temporis longinquitas! Groscoll. Epist. ad Car. Utenhov. et Ptol. Lux. Tast.' When Cottle asked concerning the meaning of the motto, Coleridge replied: 'It was all a hoax. Not meeting with a suitable motto, I invented one, and with references purposely obscure.' (Rem. 164.) Groscollius, Carolus Utenhovius, and Ptolomoeus Luxius Tastaeus were scholar friends of the Scottish poet and historian George Buchanan ( 1506-82). In the light of the separate publication in 1798 of Lamb's and Lloyd's poems Coleridge's motto indeed loses its significance: 'We have a double bond: that of friendship and of our linked and kindred Muses: may neither death nor length of time dissolve it.' -390- ments due to my folly. -- By past experiences we build up our moral being. -- How comes it that I have never heard from dear Mr Estlin, my fatherly & brotherly friend? This idea haunted me during my sleepless nights, till my sides were sore in turning from one to the other, as if I were hoping to turn away from the idea. -- The Giant Wordsworth -- God love him! -- even when I speak in the terms of admiration due to his intellect, I fear lest tho[se] terms should keep out of sight the amiableness of his manners -- he has written near 1200 lines of a blank verse, superior, I hesitate not to aver, to any thing in our language which any way resembles it. 1 Poole (whom I feel so consolidated with myself that I seem to have no occasion to speak of him out of myself) thinks of it as likely to benefit mankind much more than any thing, Wordsworth has yet written. -- With regard to my poems I shall prefix the Maid of Orleans, 1000 lines -- & three blank verse poems, making all three, about 200-- / and I shall utterly leave out perhaps a larger quantity of lines: & I should think, it would answer to you in a pecuniary way to print the third Edition humbly & cheaply. My alterations in the Religious Musings will be considerable, & will lengthen the poem. -- Oh I Poole desires you not to mention his house to any one unless you hear from him again; as since I have been writing a thought has struck us of letting it to an inhabitant of the village -which we should prefer, as we should be certain that his manners would be severe, inasmuch as he would be a Stow-ic. God bless you & S. T. C. 236. To the Editor of the 'Morning Post' Pub. Morning Post, 10 March 1798. [Early March 1798] Sir, I am not absolutely certain that the following Poem 2 was written by EDMUND SPENSER, and found by an angler buried in a 'fishing-box -'Under the foot of Mole, that mountain hoar, Mid the green alders, by the Mulla's shore.' 3 But a learned Antiquarian of my acquaintance has given it as his opinion, that it resembles SPENSER'S minor Poems as nearly as Vortigern and Rowena 4 the Tragedies of WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. -- ____________________ 1 Wordsworth's long projected but never completed Recluse. See Early Letters, 188, 190. 2 The Raven, Poems, i. 169. 3 See p. 769, footnote 1. 4 W. H. Ireland pseudo -- Shakespearian play. -391- The Poem must be read in recitative, in the same manner as the Aegloga Secunda of the Shepherd's Calendar. Cuddy. 237. To John Wicksteed Address: John Wicksteed | Wem near | Shrewsbury Transcript British Museum. Pub. E.L.G. i. 101. March 9th 1798. I will relate to you Sir! with simplicity all of my conversation respecting Mr Arthur Aikin, 1 which I can recollect. You may, I think, rely on the substance; but I do not pledge myself for the identical words. Indeed, when I hear a man pretending to minute accuracy in the retailing of conversations, I am in the habit of suspecting that he is deceiving himself. I at least, who at Shrewsbury talked much on many subjects, should find it impossible; especially as the circumstance, on which you have written, made no very deep impression on my mind. -- I was supping at Mr Hart's --: to the best of my present recollection, I did not then know that Mr Arthur Aikin had ever been a Minister in any place, still less of his particular connection with the Town of Shrewsbury -- Some one (I forget who) asked me, what I thought of Mr Arthur Aikin? I answered, that I had never seen either him or any of his works; but that from what I had heard from a literary Man in London I concluded that he was a booby -- a booby, I think, I said -- if not that, it was some phrase equally indefensible. By the warmth, which I had excited, I perceived gradually the morass, into which I had been walking; and retraced my steps as well as I could. But 'As well as we can' is, you know, awkward enough on such occasions; and this awkwardness & confusion are too light a punishment for the folly & presumption which places us there. A few minutes after, a Lady present spoke of a friend of mine, Mr Estlin, with considerable asperity, upon almost as slight grounds as I had before spoken of Mr Arthur Aikin. I defended my friend; and then animadverting on my own rashness with sufficient severity concluded by moralizing on the silliness & cruelty of pronouncing harsh opinions of men with whom we are slightly or not at all acquainted. The next morning, or the morning after, I met the younger Miss Hart; & again apologized to her for my words, and my apology consisted wholly in self-condemnation -- This is all I remember; but whatever I said, I must have said professedly from hearsay -- and as to bad- ____________________ 1 Arthur Aikin ( 1773-1854), nephew of Mrs. Barbauld and a scientific writer, was trained for the Unitarian ministry, but apparently never took a pulpit. -392- ness of heart or moral character in any way, I never spoke or even thought of it -- However, whatever else I said, 'si quid dixissem contra spiritum caritatis universae, id indictum volo.' I had received a letter from a friend in London in which he wrote -- ' George Dyer is going into Scotland with that booby, Arthur Aikin' -- and another acquaintance once told me, that he had met young Aikin occasionally at Edingburgh; that he was ['] a sullen cold blooded fellow; but very acute.' -- These were the only ideas that I could in any way have connected with his name; & I accuse myself of an obtuseness in my moral associations in not making his relationship to that great and excellent woman Mrs Barbauld counteract the unkindly feeling, which the foolish and contradictory tittle-tattle of my two acquaintances had produced in my mind to his disfavor. But regret is a waste of our faculties -- from the past experiences we constitute the present moral existence. -- Pardon me, if I read without believing your account of the infrahuman folly of 'numbers of the good people of Shrewsbury' in their feelings of admiration towards me -- It must have been exaggerated to you by a glass that has magnified to monstruosity. -- I am sure that I discovered enough good sense in them with whom I conversed, and who alone could retail my conversation, to justify me in pronouncing it impossible. But if the fact should ever approximate to your statement of it, I assure you it would be neither 'amusing' to me or 'ludicrous' -- The errors of my fellow-creatures ordinarily incline me to reflectiveness; or if my meditations be imbued with any passion, it is with that of sorrow -- it would be especially so with reference to persons, whom my good wishes and grateful thoughts will always follow, wherever I may be. -- You have written Sir! with warmth, and I am neither surprised nor offended by it; no, nor by the imperious tone, to which the supposed injury your friend had received from my rashness, seems to entitle you, and which you have accordingly assumed. But ordinarily it is a great waste of time, intellect & feeling to be hunting old conversations about characters any way known -- we had better be discussing the opinions which have made such characters known. Among whom, but the very foolish, can a Man's character be injured by a vague assertion or an unproved story? -- and to be injured among the foolish is, for aught I know, an advantage -- it preserves you from their praise. -- Besides the nature of the human memory is such that no man can at all times accurately keep distinct two sentences spoken near about the same time, even tho' they should have had different references, or distinguish himself between what he said and what at the same time he said it, he had in his thoughts to say likewise -- or, but I should exhaust a much -393- larger space of paper than remains to me and your patience to boot, if I went on to enumerate the various causes of that very evident fact, that the persons of veracity, who endeavour to repeat a conversation, will each repeat it a different way. People in general are not sufficiently aware how often the imagination creeps in and counterfeits the memory -- perhaps to a certain degree it does always blend with our supposed recollections -- You will excuse these desultory remarks or attribute them to my old vice of preaching -although preaching is not my trade nor 'reverend' a prefix to my name which I voluntarily admit -- I have answered your letter by the return of post -farewell S. T. Coleridge -P.S. On looking for your address I perceive it is Wem. I have therefore opened my letter to beg that you will tell young Mr Haseloed [Hazlitt] that I remember him with respect due to his talents and that the wish which I expressed of seeing him at Stowey still lives within me -- 238. To George Coleridge Address: Revd G. Coleridge | Ottery St Mary | Devon MS. Coleridge Cottage, Nether Stowey. Pub. with omis. Letters, i. 239. Stamped: Bridgewater. [Circa 10 March 1798] 1 My dear Brother An illness, which confined me to my bed, prevented me from returning an immediate answer to your kind & interesting Letter. My indisposition originated in the stump of a tooth over which some matter had formed: this affected my eye, my eye my stomach, my stomach my head; and the consequence was a general fever -and the sum of pain was considerably increased by the vain attempts of our Surgeon to extract the offending stump. Laudanum gave me repose, not sleep: but YOU, I believe, know how divine that respose is -- what a spot of inchantment, a green spot of fountains, & flowers & trees, in the very heart of a waste of Sands! 2 -- God be praised, the matter has been absorbed; and I am now ____________________ 1 This letter clearly follows Letter 235 (7 Mar.), since Coleridge is now recovering from his illness, and closely parallels Letter 240, in which the same recovery is mentioned. It seems to precede Letter 240, since there Mrs. Coleridge's confinement is spoken of as 'within a month', while here as 'within 5 or 6 weeks. It was probably written during the Alfoxden visit of 9-18 Mar., as was Letter 240. See Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth, ed. by E. de Selincourt, 2 vols., 1952, i. 11, 14. It is worth noting that Berkeley Coleridge was not born until 14 May. 2 Cf. Kubla Khan. -394- recovering a pace, and enjoy that newness of sensation from the fields, the air, & the Sun, which makes convalescence almost repay one for disease. -- I collect from your letter, that our opinions and feelings on political subjects are more nearly alike, than you imagine them to be. Equally with you (& perhaps with a deeper conviction, for my belief is founded on actual experience) equally with you I deprecate the moral & intellectual habits of those men both in England & France, who have modestly assumed to themselves the exclusive title of Philosophers & Friends of Freedom. I think them at least as distant from greatness as from goodness. If I know my own opinions, they are utterly untainted with French Metaphysics, French Politics, French Ethics, & French Theology. -- As to THE RULERS of France, I see in their views, speeches, & actions nothing that distinguishes them to their advantage from other animals of the same species. History has taught me, that RULERS are much the same in all ages & under all forms of government: they are as bad as they dare to be. The Vanity of Ruin & the curse of Blindness have clung to them, like an hereditary Leprosy. Of the French Revolution I can give my thoughts the most adequately in the words of Scripture -- 'A great & strong wind rent the mountains & brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: and after the earthquake a Fire -- & the Lord was not in the fire:' and now (believing that no calamities are permitted but as the means of Good) I wrap my face in my mantle & wait with a subdued & patient thought, expecting to hear 'the still small Voice,' 1 which is of God. -- In America (I have received my information from unquestionable authority) the morals & domestic habits of the people are daily deteriorating: & one good consequence which I expect from revolutions, is that Individuals will see the necessity of individual effort; that they will act as kind neighbours & good Christians, rather than as citizens & electors; and so by degrees will purge off that error, which to me appears as wild & more pernicious than the πασΞπνσον and panacaea of the old Alchemists -- the error of attributing to Governments a talismanic influence over our virtues & our happiness -- as if Governments were not rather effects than causes. It is true, that all effects react & become causes -- & so it must be in some degree with governments -- but there are other agents which act more powerfully because by a nigher & more continuous agency, and it remains true that Governments are more the effect than the cause of that which we are. -- Do not therefore, my Brother! consider me as an enemy to Governments & Rulers: or as one who say[s] that they ____________________ 1 Kings xix. 11-13. -395- are evil. I do not say so -- in my opinion it were a species of blasphemy. Shall a nation of Drunkards presume to babble against sickness & the head-ach? -- I regard Governments as I regard the abscesses produced by certain fevers -- they are necessary consequences of the disease, & by their pain they increase the disease; but yet they are in the wisdom & goodness of Nature; & not only are they physically necessary as effects, but also as causes they are morally necessary in order to prevent the utter dissolution of the patient. But what should we think of the man who expected an absolute cure from an ulcer that only prevented his dying? -- Of GUILT I say nothing; but I believe most stedfastly in original Sin; that from our mothers' wombs our understandings are darkened; and even where our understandings are in the Light, that our organization is depraved, & our volitions imperfect; and we sometimes see the good without wishing to attain it, and oftener wish it without the energy that wills & performs -- And for this inherent depravity, I believe, that the Spirit of the Gospel is the sole cure -- but permit me to add, that I look for the spirit of the Gospel 'neither in the mountain, nor at Jerusalem.' --. You think, my Brother! that there can be but two parties at present, for the Government & against the Government. -- It may be so -- I am of no party. It is true, I think the present ministry weak & perhaps unprincipled men; but I could not with a safe conscience vote for their removal; for I could point out no substitutes. I think very seldom on the subject; but as far as I have thought, I am inclined to consider the Aristocrats as the more respectable of our three factions, because they are more decorous. The Opposition & the Democrats are not only vicious -- they wear the filthy garments of vice. He that takes Deep in his soft credulity the stamp Design'd by loud Declaimers on the part Of Liberty, themselves the slaves of Lust, Incurs derision for his easy faith And lack of Knowlege -- & with cause enough. For when was public Virtue to be found Where private was not? Can he love the whole Who loves no part? He be a nation's friend Who is, in truth, the friend of no man there? Can he be strenuous in his country's cause Who slights the charities, for whose dear sake That country, if at all, must be belov'd? Cowper. 1 -- ____________________ 1 The Task, v. 496-508. -396- I am prepared to suffer without discontent the consequences of my follies & mistakes --: and unable to conceive how that which I am, of Good could have been without that which I have been of Evil, it is withheld from me to regret any thing: I therefore consent to be deemed a Democrat & a Seditionist. A man's character follows him long after he has ceased to deserve it -- but I have snapped my squeaking baby-trumpet of Sedition & the fragments lie scattered in the lumber-room of Penitence. I wish to be a good man & a Christian -- but I am no Whig, no Reformist, no Republican -- and because of the multitude of these fiery & undisciplined spirits that lie in wait against the public Quiet under these titles, because of them I chiefly accuse the present ministers -- to whose folly I attribute, in great measure, their increased & increasing numbers. -- You think differently: and if I were called on by you to prove my assertions, altho' I imagine I could make them appear plausible, yet I should feel the insufficiency of my data. The Ministers may have had in their possession facts which may alter the whole state of the argument, and make my syllogisms fall as flat as a baby's card-house -- And feeling this, my Brother! I have for some time past withdrawn myself almost totally from the consideration of immediate causes, which are infinitely complex & uncertain, to muse on fundamental & general causes -- the 'causae causarum.' -- I devote myself to such works as encroach not on the antisocial passions -- in poetry, to elevate the imagination & set the affections in right tune by the beauty of the inanimate impregnated, as with a living soul, by the presence of Life -- in prose, to the seeking with patience & a slow, very slow mind 'Quid sumus, et quidnam victuri gignimur['] -- What our faculties are & what they are capable of becoming. -- I love fields & woods & mounta[ins] with almost a visionary fondness -- and because I have found benevolence & quietness growing within me as that fondness [has] increased, therefore I should wish to be the means of implanting it in others -- & to destroy the bad passions not by combating them, but by keeping them in inaction. Not useless do I deem These shadowy Sympathies with things that hold An inarticulate Language: for the Man Once taught to love such objects, as excite No morbid passions, no disquietude, No vengeance & no hatred, needs must feel The Joy of that pure principle of Love So deeply, that, unsatisfied with aught Less pure & exquisite, he cannot clause But seek for objects of a kindred Love -397- In fellow-natures, & a kindred Joy. Accordingly, he by degrees perceives His feelings of aversion softened down, A holy tenderness pervade his frame! His sanity of reason not impair'd, Say rather that his thoughts now flowing clear From a clear fountain flowing, he looks round -- He seeks for Good & finds the Good he seeks. Wordsworth. 1 -- I have layed down for myself two maxims -- and what is more I am in the habit of regulating myself by them -- With regard to others, I never controvert opinions except after some intimacy & when alone with the person, and at the happy time when we both seem awake to our own fallibility -- and then I rather state my reasons than argue against his. -- In general conversation & general company I endeavor to find out the opinions common to us -- or at least the subjects on which differefice of opinion creates no uneasiness -such as novels, poetry, natural scenery, local anecdotes & (in a serious mood and with serious men) the general evidences of our Religion. -- With regard to myself, it is my habit, on whatever subject I think, to endeavour to discover all the good that has resulted from it, that does result, or that can result -- to this I bind down my mind and after long meditation in this tract, slowly & gradually make up my opinions on the quantity & the nature of the Evil. -- I consider this as a most important rule for the regulation of the intellect & the affections -- as the only means of preventing the passions from turning the Reason into an hired Advocate. -- I thank you for your kindness -- & purpose in a short time to walk down to you 2 -- but my Wife must forego the thought, as she is within 5 or 6 weeks of lying-in. -- She & my child (whose name is David Hartley) are remarkably well. -- You will give my duty to my Mother -- & my love to my Brothers, to Mrs J. & G. Coleridge --. Excuse my desultory style & illegible scrawl: for I have written you a long letter, you see -- & am, in truth, too weary to write a fair copy, or re-arrange my ideas -- and I am anxious that you should know me as I am -God bless you | & your affectionate Brother S. T. Coleridge ____________________ 1 These lines originally formed part of the conclusion to The Ruined Cottage. See Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, ed. by E. de Selincourt and Helen Darbishire , 5 vols., 1940-9, v. 400-1. 2 Coleridge paid a brief visit to Ottery St. Mary in April, and by the 18th had returned to Stowey. See Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth, i. 15, and G. M. Harper , William Wordsworth, 2 vols., 1923, i. 342. -398- 239. To Joseph Cottle [Addressed by Dorothy Wordsworth] Mr Cottle | Bookseller | High Street! Bristol MS. Mr. A. G. B. Randle. Pub. with omis. Early Rec. i. 297. Stamped: Bridgewater. [Circa 18 March 1798] 1 My dear Cottle I regret that aught should have happened to have disturbed our tranquillity respecting Lloyd -- I am willing to believe myself in part mistaken -- & so let all things be as before. -- I have no wish respecting those poems, either for or against their republication with mine. -- As to the third Edition, if there be occasion for it immediately, it must be published with some alterations but no additions or omissions. -- The Pixies, Chatterton, and some dozen, others shall be printed at the end of the volume under the title of Juvenile Poems -- & in this case I will send you the volume immediately. -- But if there be no occasion for the volume to go to the press for ten weeks, at the expiration of that time I would make it a volume worthy of me, and omit utterly near one half of the present volume -- a sacrifice to pitch-black Oblivion. -Whichever be the case, I will repay you the money you have payed for me in money -- & in a few weeks -- as if you should prefer the latter proposal (i.e. the not sending me to the press for 10 weeks) I should insist on considering the additions however large as mere payment to you for the omissions -- which indeed would be but strict justice. I am requested by Wordsworth to put the following questions -- What could you conveniently & prudently, and what would you, give for ____________________ 1 On the manuscript of Coleridge's letter Dorothy Wordsworth wrote the following undated note: Dear Cottle, We have sent you the Malvern hill[s] by the Bristol coach from Bridgewater -- The great Coat and the waistcoat we shall send by Milton next Week. Mr and Mrs Coleridge have been here a few days -- I wish you were of the party. Wm. begs his best love -- God bless you Dear Cottle Yours most truly Dorothy Wordsworth We have received the books for which we are much obliged to you. They have already completely answered the purpose for which William wrote for them. He will either send them at the time appointed, or, as they are Pinney's, write to him & explain -- Remember me kindly to your Mother & sisters. Since the Coleridges were at Alfoxden from 9 Mar. to 18 Mar., and since Dorothy Wordsworth says they 'have been here a few days', this letter must have been written during their visit. -399- 1 Our two Tragedies -- with small prefaces containing an analysis of our principal characters. Exclusive of the prefaces, the Tragedies are together 5000 lines -- which in the printing from the dialogue form & directions respecting actors & scenery is at least equal to 6000. -- To be delivered to you within a week of the date of your answer to this letter -- & the money, which you offer, to be payed to us at the end of four months from the same date -- none to be payed before -- all to be payed then. -- 2 Wordsworth's Salisbury Plain & Tale of a Woman which two poems with a few others which he will add & the notes will make a volume [of . . . pages. --] 1 This to be delivered to you within 8 weeks of the date of your answer -- & the money to be payed, as before, at the end of four months from the same date. -Do not, my dearest Cottlel harrass yourself about the imagined great merit of the compositions -- or be reluctant to offer what you can prudently offer, from an idea that the poems are worth more -- / But calculate what you can do with reference, simply to yourself -- & answer as speedily as you can -- and believe me your sincere, grateful, & affectionate Friend & Brother S. T. Coleridge N.B. The Tragedies to be published in one volume. -- 240. To Joseph Cottle Address: Mr Cottle | Bookseller | High Street | Bristol MS. Mr. A. G. B. Randle. Pub. with omis. Early Rec. i. 300. Stamped: Bridgewater. [Circa 17 March 1798] 2 My dear Cottle I never involved you in the bickering -- and never suspected you, in any one action of your life [(except that of 'our poems')] 3 of practising any guile against any human being except yourself -- Your letter supplied only one in a Link of circumstances that informed me of some things & perhaps deceived me in others 4 -- I shall write to day to Lloyd. -- ____________________ 1 Words in brackets inked out in manuscript. 2 This letter was written towards the end of the Alfoxden visit of 9-18 Mar. The allusion to 'the Tragedies' places it shortly after Letter 289; the reference to the lectures in Bristol and the remarks concerning Mrs. Coleridge's physician parallel comments in Letter 241. 3 Passage in brackets inked out in manuscript. 4 From this and the preceding letter it would seem that Cottle was also involved in Coleridge's misunderstanding with Lloyd and Lamb, an inference perhaps borne out by Lamb in dedicating his Works to Coleridge in 1818: 'My friend Lloyd and myself came into our first battle (authorship is a sort of -400- You will be so kind as not to communicate the contents of my last letter, concerning the Tragedies &c, to any one. -- There is no occasion. -- I do not think, I shall come to Bristol for these lectures 1 ' -- I ardently wish for the knowlege -- but Mrs Coleridge is within a month of her time -- and I cannot, I ought not to leave her -- especially, as her Surgeon is not a John Hunter, nor our house likely to perish from a plethora of comforts. Besides, there are other things that might disturb that evenness of benevolent feeling which I wish to cultivate. I am much better -- & at present, at Allfoxden -- and my new & tender health is all over me like a voluptuous feeling. -God bless you -- I do not much like to make you pay the postage for this scrawl; but you requested it -- S. T. Coleridge 241. To Josiah Wade Pub. Early Rec. i. 296. March 21st, 1798 My very dear friend, I have even now returned from a little excursion 2 that I have taken for the confirmation of my health, which had suffered a rude assault from the anguish of a stump of a tooth which had baffled the attempts of our surgeon here, and which confined me to my bed. I suffered much from the disease, and more from the doctor; rather than again put my mouth into his hands, I would put my hands in a lion's mouth. I am happy to hear of, and should be most happy to see, the plumpness and progression of your dear boy; but -- yes, my dear Wade, it must be a but, much as I hate the word but. Well, -- but I cannot attend the chemical lectures. I have many reasons, but the greatest, or at least the most ostensible reason, is, that I cannot leave Mrs. C. at that time; our house is an uncomfortable one; our surgeon may be, for aught I know, a lineal descendant of Esculapius himself, but if so, in the repeated trans- ____________________ warfare) under cover of the greater Ajax. How this association . . . came to be broken, -- who snapped the threefold cord, -- whether yourself (but I know that was not the case) grew ashamed of your former companions, or whether (which is by much the more probable) some ungracious bookseller was author of the separation, -- I cannot tell.' 1 Dr. Thomas Beddoes 'opened his course [of Chemical Lectures] early in the spring of 1798'. J. E. Stock, Memoirs of the Life of Thomas Beddoes, 1811, p. 145. 2 The 'little excursion' must have been, as Chambers suggests, the visit to Alfoxden of 9-18 Mar. ( Life, 101). -401- fusion of life from father to son, through so many generations, the wit and knowledge, being subtle spirits, have evaporated. . . . Ever your grateful and affectionate friend, S. T. Coleridge 242. To Joseph Cottle Pub. Early Rec. i. 311. [Early April 1798] 1 My dear Cottle, Neither Wordsworth nor myself could have been otherwise than uncomfortable, if any but yourself had received from us the first offer of our Tragedies, and of the volume of Wordsworth's Poems. At the same time, we did not expect that you could with prudence and propriety, advance such a sum, as we should want at the time we specified. In short, we both regard the publication of our Tragedies as an evil. It is not impossible but that in happier times, they may be brought on the stage: and to throw away this chance for a mere trifle, would be to make the present moment act fraudulently and usuriously towards the future time. My Tragedy employed and strained all my thoughts and faculties for six or seven months: Wordsworth consumed far more time, and far more thought, and far more genius. We consider the publication of them an evil on any terms; but our thoughts were bent on a plan for the accomplishment of which, a certain sum of money was necessary, (the whole) at that particular time, and in order to this we resolved, although reluctantly, to part with our Tragedies: that is, if we could obtain thirty guineas for each, and at less than thirty guineas Wordsworth will not part with the copy-right of his volume of Poems. We shall offer the Tragedies to no one, for we have determined to procure the money some other way. If you choose the volume of Poems, at the price mentioned, to be paid at the time specified, i.e. thirty guineas, to be paid sometime in the last fortnight of July, you may have them; but remember, my dear fellow! I write to you now merely as a bookseller, and intreat you, in your answer, to consider yourself only; as to us, although money is necessary to our plan, [that of visiting Germany] 2 yet the plan ____________________ 1 This letter follows Letters 239 and 240, since Wordsworth and Coleridge have now abandoned their plan to publish their Tragedies. On 12 Apr. Wordsworth wrote to Cottle inviting him to visit Alfoxden, and Coleridge's letter seems to have been written early in the same month. The clause, 'if thou comest in May', suggests that this letter belongs to April. 2 This seems to be Cottle's interpolation. Wordsworth wrote to James Losh on 11 Mar. of the proposed visit to Germany ( Early Letters, 189), but there is no evidence that either he or Coleridge had mentioned it to Cottle. -402- is not necessary to our happiness; and if it were, W. would sell his Poems for that sum to some one else, or we could procure the money without selling the poems. So I entreat you, again and again, in your answer, which must be immediate, consider yourself only. Wordsworth has been caballed against so long and so loudly, that he has found it impossible to prevail on the tenant of the Allfoxden estate, to let him the house, after their first agreement is expired, so he must quit it at Midsummer; whether we shall be able to procure him a house and furniture near Stowey, we know not, and yet we must: for the hills, and the woods, and the streams, and the sea, and the shores would break forth into reproaches against us, if we did not strain every nerve, to keep their Poet among them. Without joking, and in serious sadness, Poole and I cannot endure to think of losing him. At all events, come down, Cottle, as soon as you can, but before Midsummer, and we will procure a horse easy as thy own soul, and we will go on a roam to Linton and Linmouth, which, if thou comest in May, will be in all their pride of woods and waterfalls, not to speak of its august cliffs, and the green ocean, and the vast valley of stones, all which live disdainful of the seasons, or accept new honours only from the winter's snow. At all events come down, and cease not to believe me much and affectionately your friend, S. T. Coleridge 243. To Charles Lamb Transcript Dorothy Wordsworth, in Lord Latymer's possession. Pub. with omis. Letters, i. 249. The transcript contains four slight additions in Coleridge's handwriting. Because there had been so much misunderstanding through Lloyd's tattling and Southey's animosity, Coleridge took the precaution of preserving a copy of his letter. [Early May 1798] 1 Dear Lamb Lloyd has informed me through Miss Wordsworth 2 that you ____________________ 1 This letter belongs to early May 1798, since Coleridge refers to Edmund Oliver, published in April, and since Wordsworth, in a letter dated 9 May, tells Cottle he has received ' Charles Lloyd's works', but has not read the novel, though Dorothy has done so ( Later Years, iii. 1839-40). A letter from Lloyd to Southey, misdated 4 Apr. 1797, the year certainly being 1798 and the month and day possibly being in error as well, may refer to this letter of Coleridge's: ' Coleridge has written a very odd letter to Lamb. I don't know what may be his sentiments with regard to our conduct, but I can perceive that he is bent on dissociating himself from us -- particularly Lamb I think he has used unkindly' ( Lamb Letters, i. 104 n.). 2 Reverting to the events of this spring in a notebook entry dated 8 Nov. 1810, Coleridge showed how Lloyd's gossip had involved Dorothy Wordsworth: -403- intend no longer to correspond with me. This has given me little pain; not that I do not love and esteem you, but on the contrary because I am confident that your intentions are pure. You are performing what you deem a duty, & humanly speaking have that merit which can be derived from the performance of a painful duty. -- Painful, for you could not without some struggles abandon me in behalf of a man who wholly ignorant of all but your name became attached to you in consequence of my attachment, caught his from my enthusiasm, & learnt to love you at my fire-side, when often while I have been sitting & talking of your sorrows & affections [afflictions], I have stopped my conversations & lifted up wet eyes & prayed for you. No! I am confident, that although you do not think as a wise man, you feel as a good man. From you I have received little pain, because for you I suffer little alarm -- I cannot say this for your friend -- it appears to me evident that his feelings are vitiated, & that his ideas are in their combinations, merely the creatures of those feelings. I have received letters from him & the best & kindest wish which as a christian I can offer in return is that he may feel remorse. Some brief resentments rose in my mind, but they did not remain there; for I began to think almost immediately; & my resentments vanished. There has resulted only a sort of fantastic scepticism concerning my own consciousness of my own rectitude. As dreams have impressed on him the sense of reality, my sense of reality may be but a dream. From his letters it is plain, that he has mistaken the heat & bustle & swell of self-justification for the approbation of his conscience. I am certain that this is not the case with me, but the human heart is so wily & so inventive, that possibly it may be cheating me, who am an older warrior, with some newer stratagem. -- When I wrote to you that my sonnet to simplicity was not composed with reference to Southey you answered me (I believe these were the words) 'It was a lie too gross for the grossest ignorance to believe,' & I was not angry with you, because the assertion, which the grossest Ignorance would believe a lie the Omniscient knew to be truth -- This however makes me cautious not too hastily to affirm the falsehood of an assertion of Lloyd's, that in Edmund Oliver's love-fit, debaucheries, leaving college & going into the army he had no sort of allusion to, or recollection of, my love-fit, debaucheries, leaving college, & going into the army ____________________ '[ Lloyd] even wrote a letter to D. W., in which he not only called me a villain, but appealed to a conversation which passed between him & her, as the grounds of it -- and as proving that this was her opinion no less than his -- She brought over the letter to me from Alfoxden with tears -- I laughed at it --' Chambers, A Sheaf of Studies, 68. -404- & that he never thought of my person in the description of Edmund Oliver's person in the first letter of the second volume. 1 This cannot appear stranger to me than my assertion did to you; & therefore I will suspend my absolute faith -- I write to you not that I wish to hear from you, but that I wish you to write to Lloyd & press upon him the propriety, nay, the necessity of his giving me a meeting either tête à tête or in the presence of all whose esteem I value. 2 This I owe to my own character -- I owe it to him if by any means he may even yet be extricated. He assigned as reasons for his rupture, my vices, and he is either right or wrong; if right it is fit that others should know it & follow his example -- if wrong he has acted very wrong. At present, I may expect every thing from his heated mind, rather than continence of language; & his assertions will be the more readily believed on account of his former enthusiastic attachment, though with wise men this would cast a hue of suspicion over the whole affair, but the number of wise men in the kingdom would not puzzle a savage's arithmetic -- you may tell them in every count on your fingers. I have been unfortunate in my connections. Both you & Lloyd became acquainted with me at a season when your minds were far from being in a composed or natural state & you clothed my image with a suit of notions & feelings which could belong to nothing human. You are restored to comparative saneness, & are merely wondering what is become of the Coleridge with whom you were so passionately in love. Charles Lloyd's mind has only changed its disease, & he is now arraying his ci-devant angel in a flaming Sanbenito -- the whole ground of the garment a dark brimstone & plenty of little Devils flourished out in black. O me! Lamb, 'even in laughter the heart is sad' -- My kindness, my affectionateness he deems wheedling, but if after reading all my letters to yourself & to him you can suppose him wise in his treatment & correct in his accusations of me, you think worse of human nature than poor human nature, bad as it is, deserves to be thought of. God bless you & S. T. Coleridge 3 ____________________ 1 Edmund Oliver, published by Cottle and dedicated to Lamb, deeply lacerated Coleridge's feelings. Unlike Dorothy -- 'She thinks it contains a great deal, a very great deal of excellent matter but bears the marks of a too hasty composition', Wordsworth reported to Cottle -- Coleridge saw through its thin disguise. He recognized, apparently for the first time, the extent of the animosity against himself and the part Southey must have played in the genesis of Edmund Oliver. See especially Letter 248, in which Coleridge says that Lloyd's 'infirmities have been made the instruments of another man's darker passions'. 2 No such meeting took place, though Wordsworth soon tried 'to bring back poor Lloyd' to Stowey. (See Letter 248.) 3 No answer to this letter has been preserved, but it shows that there was -405- To Lloyd, of course, must go much of the blame for Coleridge's quarrel with Lamb. Lloyd was an inveterate and often malicious talebearer, and he carried gossip first to Southey, then to Lamb, and finally to Cottle and Dorothy Wordsworth. His conduct, Coleridge later wrote in his notebook, 'was not that of a fiend, only because it was that of a madman' (Chambers, A Sheaf of Studies, 68). And Lamb, too, was later to blame Lloyd in a letter to Coleridge: 'He is a sad Tattler; . . . he almost alienated you . . . from me, or me from you, I don't know which' ( Lamb Letters. ii. 267-8). 244. To William Wordsworth Address: Mr Wordsworth | Allfoxden "MS. Dove Cottage. Pub. E. L. Griggs, 'Wordsworth through Coleridge's Eyes", Wordsworth, ed. by G. T. Dunklin, 1951, p. 48. May 10th, 1798 In stale blank verse a subject stale May 10th, 1798 I send per post my Nightingale; 1 And like an honest bard, dear Wordsworth, You'll tell me what you think, my Bird's worth. My own opinion's briefly this -- His bill he opens not amiss; And when he has sung a stave or so, His breast, & some small space below, So throbs & swells, that you might swear No vulgar music's working there. So far, so good; but then, 'od rot him! There's something falls off at his bottom. Yet, sure, no wonder it should breed, That my Bird's Tail's a tail indeed And makes it's own inglorious harmony AEolio crepitû, non carmine. S.T. Coleridge ____________________ considerable correspondence, now lost, among Coleridge, Lamb, and Lloyd. Some time after receiving it Lamb, on hearing that Coleridge was going to Germany, sent him a sarcastic letter containing eight burlesque scholastic theses, and on 28 July he included these theses in a note to Southey ( Lamb Letters, i. 123-7). Lucas suggests that Lamb and Lloyd may have concocted this letter while they were together in Birmingham from 23 May to 6 June, a suggestion borne out by Coleridge's remark to Cottle on showing it to him: 'These young visionaries will do each other no good' ( ibid. i. 125 n. and Early Rec. i. 301). Coleridge wisely refrained from replying to Lamb, but the friendship was not renewed until early 1800. 1 The Nightingale; a Conversation Poem, April, 1798, Poems, i. 264. -406- 245. To John Prior Estlin Address: Revd J. P. Estlin | St Michael's Hill | Bristol MS. Bristol Central Lib. Pub. Letters, i. 246. Stamped: Bridgewater. Monday, May 14th, 1798 My dear Friend I ought to have written to you before; and have done very wrong in not writing. But I have had many sorrows; and some that bite deep, calumny & ingratitude from men who have been fostered in the bosom of my confidence! 1 -- pray God, that I may sanctify these events; by forgiveness, & a peaceful spirit full of love. -- This morning, half past one, my Wife was safely delivered of a fine boy; 2 she had a remarkably good time, better if possible than her last; & both she & the Child are as well as can be. -- By the by, it is only 8 in the morning now. -- I walked in to Taunton & back again; & performed the divine services for Dr Toulmin. I suppose you must have heard that his daughter in a melancholy derangement suffered herself to be swallowed up by the tide on the sea-coast between Sidmouth & Bere. -- These events cut cruelly into the hearts of old men; but the good Dr Toulmin bears it like the true practical Christian -- there is indeed a tear in his eye, but that eye is lifted up to the heavenly father! -- I have been too neglectful of practical religion -- I mean, actual & stated prayer, & a regular perusal of scripture as a morning & evening duty! May God grant me grace to amend this error; for it is a grievous one! -- Conscious of frailty I almost wish (I say it confidentially to you) that I had become a stated Minister: for indeed I find true Joy after a sincere prayer; but for want of habit my mind wanders, and I cannot pray as often [as] I ought. Thanksgiving is pleasant in the performance; but prayer & distinct confession I find most serviceable to my spiritual health when I can do it. But tho' all my doubts are done away, tho' Christianity is my Passion, it is too much my intellectual Passion: and therefore will do me but little good in the hour of temptation & calamity. -- My love to Mrs E. & the dear little ones: & ever, O ever believe me with true affection & gratitude | Your filial Friend S. T. Coleridge ____________________ 1 In a notebook entry for a Nov. 1810 Coleridge says that his suffering over the quarrel with Lamb and Lloyd prevented his finishing Christabel. Chambers, A Sheaf of Studies, 68. 2 Berkeley Coleridge. -407- 246. To Thomas Poole Address: Mr Thomas Poole | Mr R. Poole's | Sherborn MS. British Museum. Pub. Letters, i. 248. Stamped: Bridgewater. Monday, May 14th, 1798 Morning, 10 o clock -- My dearest Friend I have been sitting many minutes with my pen in my hand, full of prayers & wishes for you & the house of affliction in which you have so trying a part to sustain -- but I know not what to write. May God support you! may he restore your Brother -- but above all I pray that he will make us able to cry out with a fervent sincerity, Thy Will be done! -- I have had lately some sorrows that have cut more deeply into my heart than they ought to have done -- & I have found Religion & commonplace Religion too, my restorer & my comfort -- giving me gentleness & calmness & dignity! Again, and again may God be with you, my best dear Friend! -- O believe me, believe me, my Poole! dearer, to my understanding & affections unitedly, than all else in this world! -- It is almost painful & a thing of fear to tell you that I have another boy -- it will bring upon your mind the too affecting circumstance of poor Mrs Richard Poole 1 -- The prayers which I have offered for her have been a relief to my own mind -- I would that they could have been a consolation to her. -- Scripture seems to teach us that our fervent prayers are not without efficacy even for others -- and tho' my Reason is perplexed, yet my internal feelings impel me to a humble Faith, that it is possible & consistent with the divine attributes. -Poor Dr Toulmin! he bears his calamity like one in whom a faith thro' Jesus is the Habit of the whole man, of his affections still more than of his convictions. The loss of a dear child in so frightful a way cuts cruelly with an old man -- but tho' there is a tear & an anguish in his eye, that eye is raised to heaven. Sara was safely delivered at half past one this morning -- the boy is already almost as large as Hartley. She had an astonishingly good time, better if possible than her last; and excepting her weakness, is as well as ever. The child is strong, & shapely -- & has the paternal beauty in his upper lip. -- God be praised for all things! -- Your affectionate & entire Friend S. T. Coleridge ____________________ 1 Poole's brother Richard was on his death-bed, and Mrs. Richard Poole had just given birth to a baby. -408- 247. To George Coleridge Address: Revd G. Coleridge | Ottery St Mary | Devon MS. Lady Cave. Pub. E.L.G. i. 104. Stamped: Bridgewater. May 14th, Monday. 1798 My dear Brother By an odd jumble of accidents I did not receive the parcel till within a few days -- / My wife was this morning delivered of a very fine boy -- she had a remarkably good time & both she and the child are as well as can be. May God be praised! -Believe me, I am truly anxious to hear concerning your little one; my little Hartley has had an ugly cough & feverish complaint which made me fear the whooping cough; but it was only the effect of teething, at least, so we hope. -- Yesterday I walked in to Taunton to perform the divine services for poor Dr Toulmin whose daughter in a melancholy derangement suffered herself to be swallowed up by the tide on the coast between Sidmouth & Bere. Good old Man! he bears it like one in whom Christianity is an habit of feeling in a still greater degree than a conviction of the understanding. He sanctifies his calamity; but it is plain, that it has cut deep into his heart. -- And then from a Mrs Stone I heard all at once the death of Mr William Lewis: remembering the man, & remembering the conversation we had concerning him in the churchyard walk, and considering as it were in a glance of the imagination his bulk & stature, & then the horrid manner of his death -- it so overpowered me that I felt as if I had been choked, and then burst into an agony of tears. I scarcely remember ever to have been so deeply affected. -I will write again in a few days, and send you the Tragedy, &c &c -- Sheridan has again promised to fit it for the stage & bring it on, which promise he will as certainly break as I am your affectionate & grateful | Brother S. T. Coleridge Present my duty to my Mother & my Wife's Duty -- My kindest love to Mrs G. Coleridge & a dear kiss for the little one. Mrs S. Coleridge's thanks & love to her & Mrs J. Coleridge. -- My kind love to Edward & the Major -- & the Major's Quintetto, 1 God bless their beautiful faces! -- I have written a poem lately which I think even the Major (who is no admirer of the art) would like. 2 -- ____________________ 1 The 'Major's Quintetto' were James, John Taylor, Bernard Frederick, Francis George, and Frances. 2 Probably Fears in Solitude, written in April 1798, during the alarm of an invasion, Poems, i. 256. -409- Pray let me hear from you; what was I to send beside the Tragedy & the Historical Grammar? There was something else: & I have forgotten it. -- 248. To John Prior Estlin Address: Revd J. P. Estlin | St Michael's Hill | Bristol MS. Bristol Central Lib. Pub. Letters, i. 245. May, [ 18, 1798] 1 Friday Morning My dear Friend I write from Cross -- to which place I accompanied Mr Wordsworth, who will give you this letter. We visited Cheddar -- but his main business was to bring back poor Lloyd, whose infirmities have been made the instruments of another man's darker passions. -But Lloyd, (as we found by a letter that met us on the road) is off for Birmingham / Wordsworth proceeds lest possibly Lloyd may not be gone 2 -- & likewise to see his own Bristol Friends, as he is so near them. -- I have now known him a year & some months, and my admiration, I might say, my awe of his intellectual powers has increased even to this hour -- & (what is of more importance) he is a tried good man. -- On one subject we are habitually silent -- we found our data dissimiliar, & never renewed the subject / It is his practice & almost his nature to convey all the truth he knows without any attack on what he supposes falsehood, if that falsehood be interwoven with virtues or happiness -- he loves & venerates Christ & Christianity -- I wish, he did more -- but it were wrong indeed, if an incoincidence with one of our wishes altered our respect & affection to a man, whom we are as it were instructed by our great master to say that not being against us he is for us. -- His genius is most apparent in poetry -- and rarely, except to me in tete a tete, breaks forth in conversational eloquence. My best & most affectionate wishes attend Mrs Estlin & your little ones -- & believe me with filial & fraternal | Friendship | Your grateful S. T. Coleridge ____________________ 1 According to Dorothy Wordsworth's journal, she, Wordsworth, and Cole. ridge left for Cheddar on Wednesday, 16 May, and slept at Bridgwater. The next entry, again mentioning the visit to Cheddar and Cross, is obviously misdated Thursday, 22 May, for 17 May. ( Journals, i. 16.) This letter, written from Cross on 18 May, was to be delivered by Wordsworth on his arrival in Bristol. 2 In June, as a result of Cottle's efforts to effect a reconciliation, Lloyd wrote to Cottle: 'I love Coleridge, and can forget all that has happened' (Early Rec. i. 804). It was, however, a long time before Coleridge could view with equanimity the baseness of Charles Lioyd. -410- 249. To Thomas Poole Address: Mr T. Poole MS. British Museum. Pub. Letters, i. 249. Sunday Morning [ 20 May 1798] My dearest Poole I was all day yesterday in a distressing perplexity whether or no it would be wise or consolatory for me to call at your house -- or whether I should write to your mother, as a christian Friend -- -or whether it would not be better to wait for the exhaustion of that grief, which must have it's way. -So many unpleasant & shocking circumstances have happened to me or to my immediate knowlege within the last fortnight, that I am in a nervous state & the most trifling thing makes me weep -- / Poor Richard! May Providence heal the wounds which it hath seen good to inflict! Do you wish me to see you to day? Shall I call on you? shall I stay with you? -- or had I better leave you uninterrupted? -- In all your Sorrows as in your joys, I am, indeed, my dearest Poole, a true & faithful Sharer! -May God bless & comfort you all! -- S. T. Coleridge 250. To Joseph Cottle Address: Mr Cottle | Bookseller | No 5 | Wine Street | Bristol MS. Harvard College Lib. Pub. with omis. Early Rec. i. 315. Monday Morning [ 28 May 1798] 1 My dear Cottle You know what I think of a letter -- how impossible it is to argue in it. You must therefore take simple statements, & in a week or two I shall see you & endeavor to reason with you. Wordsworth & I have maturely weigh'd your proposal, & this is our answer -- W. would not object to the publishing of Peter Bell or the Salisbury Plain, singly; but to the publishing of his poems ____________________ 1 On 18 May, as Letter 248 shows, Wordsworth went to Bristol. While he was away Hazlitt arrived for a three-week visit to Stowey, lasting from circa 20 May to 11 June; and a day or two after Hazlitt's arrival Wordsworth himself returned from Bristol. Possibly Cottle came with him; at all events, Cottle's visit, during which plans for the publication of Lyrical Ballads were formulated, probably took place in late May. Furthermore, on 31 May Dorothy wrote to her brother that ' William has now some poems in the Bristol press' ( Early Letters, 192). Coleridge's letter, therefore, must have been written on 28 May, immediately following Cottle's visit, or at latest on Monday, 4 June. -411- in two volumes he is decisively repugnant & oppugnant -- He deems that they would want variety &c &c -- if this apply in his case, it applies with tenfold force to mine. -- We deem that the volumes offered to you are to a certain degree one work, in kind tho' not in degree, as an Ode is one work -- & that our different poems are as stanzas, good relatively rather than absolutely: -- Mark you, I say in kind tho' not in degree. -- The extract from my Tragedy will have no sort of reference to my Tragedy, but is a Tale in itself, as the ancient Mariner. -- The Tragedy will not be mentioned -- / As to the Tragedy, when I consider it [in] reference to Shakespear's & to one other Tragedy, it seems a poor thing; & I care little what becomes of it -- when I consider [it] in comparison with modern Dramatists, it rises: & I think it too bad to be published, too good to be squandered. -- I think of breaking it up; the planks are sound, & I will build a new ship of old materials. -- The dedication to the Wedgewoods 1 would be indelicate & unmeaning. -- If after 4 or 5 years I shall have finished some work of some importance, which could not have been written but in an unanxious seclusion -- to them I will dedicate it, for the Public will have owed the work to them who gave me the power of that unanxious Seclusion. -- As to anonymous Publications, depend on it, you are deceived. -Wordsworth's name is nothing -- to a large number of persons mine stinks -- The Essay on Man, Darwin's 2 Botanic Garden, the Pleasures of memory, & many other most popular works were published anonymously. -- However, I waive all reasoning; & simply state it as an unaltered opinion, that you should proceed as before, with the ancient Mariner. -- The picture shall be sent. 3 For your love-gifts & book-loans accept our hearty love -- The Joan of Arc is a divine book. 4 -- It opens lovelily -- I hope that you will take off some half dozen of our poems in great paper, even as the Joan of Are. -- Cottle, my dear Cottle, I meant to have written you an Essay on the Metaphysics of Typography; but I have not time. -- Take a few hints without the abstruse reasons for them with which I mean to favor you -- 18 lines in a page, the lines closely printed, certainly, more closely than those of the Joan -- (Oh by all means closer! W. Wordsworth) 5 equal ink; & large margins. That is beauty -- it may even under your immediate care mingle the sublime! -- ____________________ 1 In printing this letter Cottle Inserted here the phrase, 'which you recommend'. Early Rec. i. 816. 2 Cottle deleted ' Darwin's' and substituted 'the' in the manuscript. 3 The earliest known portrait of Wordsworth by W. Shuter. 4 The second edition of Southey's Joan of Are appeared in 1798. 5 The sentence in parentheses is in Wordsworth's handwriting. -412- And now, my dear Cottle! may God love you & me who am ever with most unauthorish feelings your true friend S. T. Coleridge I walked to Linton the day after you left us, & returned on Saturday. -- I walked in one day & returned in one -- / 251. To Thomas Poole Address: Mr T. Poole | Stowey | near | Bridgewater | Somerset MS. British Museum. Pub. with amis. Thomas Poole, i. 271. Stamped: Cobham. Saturday. June 16th, 1798 My dear Poole I arrived in Bristol on Monday Evening, 1 spent the next day at Estlin's, who opposed my German Expedition furore perreligioso, amicissimo furore. -- At Brentford I arrived Wednesday Evening -and was driven by Mr Purkiss 2 great part of the way to Stoke, on Thursday Evening --: and here I am, well, &c &c. Mr Josiah Wedgewood & Wife left us this morning, being obliged to go to Bristol; for Dr Beddoes has alarmed him concerning the state of his wife's health; so I stay with Tom & the Miss Wedgewoods. / -- Purkiss is a gentleman with the free & cordial & interesting manners of the man of literature. His colloquial diction is uncommonly pleasing, his information various, his own mind elegant & acute /: all these are but general expressions; but this I can say, that if he liked me as well as I liked him, I have left very agreeable thoughts & feelings in the mind of an excellent man. And I like Mrs Purkiss. The Wedgewoods received me with joy & affection. I have been metaphysicizing so long & so closely with T. Wedgewood, that I am a caput mortuum, mere lees & residuum; but if I do not write now, you will not receive the letter, heaven knows when / for the post here is quite uncertain. -- Godwin has expressed to the Wedgewoods a vehement desire of being re-introduced to me -- so I shall see him next week. -- I shall step into London on Monday / there are some letters from Wedgewood to me; be so kind as to open them, & to give me an account whether any thing be contained in them except his various' determinations concerning his ____________________ 1 Hazlitt, his visit to Stowey over, accompanied Coleridge to Bristol. Writing to his father he says: 'I have just time to let you know that I shall set out on my way home this evening. Mr. Coleridge is gone to Taunton to preach for Dr. Toulmin. He is to meet me at Bridgwater, and we shall proceed from thence to Bristol tomorrow morning.' P. P. Howe, The Life of William Hazlitt, 1947, pp. 48-44. 2 Samuel Purkis, Poole's friend, was living in Brentford, near London. -413- going to Bristol / -- direct -- Mr Coleridge, Josiah Wedgewood's Esq. Stoke, near Cobham, Surry. -- This place is a noble large house, in a rich pleasant country / but the little Toe of Quantock is better than the head & shoulders of Surry & Middlesex. These dull places however have the effect of liveliness from their being a variety to me. -- May you say the same by this letter -- for it is scarcely worth the postage. -- God bless you, my Friend, & believe me with gratitude & constancy your's ever, S. T. Coleridge 252. To Thomas Poole Address: Mr T. Poole | Stowey near | Bridgewater MS. British Museum. Pub. E.L.G. i. 106. Stamped: Bristol. August 3rd 1798 My dearest Poole I arrived safely, &c. -- With regard to Germany, these are my intentions, if not contravened by superior arguments. -- I still think the realization of the scheme of high importance to my intellectual utility; and of course to my moral happiness. But if I go with Mrs C. & little ones, I must borrow -- an imprudent, perhaps an immoral thing --: and the uncertainties attendant on all human schemes; the uncertainty of our happiness, comfort, cheap living &c when in Germany; and the unsettled state of Germany itself; force on me the truth that I ought not to hazard any considerable sum. -- I propose therefore, if, as I guess, Mrs Coleridge's wishes tend the same way, to go myself (comparatively a trifling expence) stay 8 or 4 months, in which time I shall at least have learnt the language / then, if all is well, all comfortable, and I can rationally propose to myself a scheme of weighty advantages -- to fetch over my family -- if not to return, with my German for my pains; & the wisdom that 8 or 4 months sojourn among a new people must give to a watchful & thinking man. -- Make up your mind on my scheme -- I shall return in a week. -- All, whom I have seen, are well. Wordsworth & his Sister, Wade & Cottle, desire their best love to you -- / I shall dart into Wales, and return per viam Swansea usque ad Bridgwater sive Cummage -- absent a week from date hereof. 1 -- God bless you & your ever affectionate & grateful, S. T. Coleridge ____________________ 1 Coleridge did, in fact, 'dart into Wales' in the company of the Wordsworths, Dorothy later noting that ' Mr Coleridge proposed it to us one evening and we departed the next morning at six o'clock' ( Early Letters, 201). While in Wales they paid a visit to Thelwall at Liyswen ( Later Years, ii. 959). -414- Wordsworth has not forgotten his promise about his Tragedy. I have been very anxious about poor Cruckshanks -- doubtful, very doubtful about the bottom of his affairs! -- May his better Genius protect him! -- 253. To Thomas Poole Address: Mr Thomas Poole | Nether Stowey | Bridgewa[ter] | Somerse[t] MS. British Museum. Pub. Letters, i. 258. Postmark: 17 September 1798. [ 15 September 1798] My very dear Poole We have arrived at Yarmouth 1 just time to be hurried into the packet -- and 4 or 5 letters of recommendation have been taken away from me, owing to their being wafered. -- Wedgewood's luckily were not. -I am on the point of leaving my native country for the first time -- a country, which, God Almighty knows, is dear to me above all things for the love I bear to you. -- Of many friends, whom I love and esteem, my head & heart have ever chosen you as the Friend -as the one being, in whom is involved the full & whole meaning of that sacred Title -- God love you, my dear Poole! and your faithful & most affectionate S. T. Coleridge P.S. -- We may be only 2 days, we may be a fortnight going -- the same of the pacquet that returns -- so do not let my poor Sara be alarmed, if she do not hear from me. -- I will write alternately to you & to her, twice every week, during my absence. -- May God preserve us & make us continue to be joy & comfort & wisdom & virtue to each other, my dear, dear Poole! -- 254. To Mrs. S. T. Coleridge Address: Mrs Coleridge | Nether Stowey, Bridgewater, | Somersetshire, England. MS. New York Public Lib. Pub. with omis. Letters, i. 259. Postmark: Foreign Office, 1 October 1798. I. Tuesday Night, 9' o clock. Sept. 18th, 1798 Over what place does the Moon hang to your eye, my dearest Sara? To me it hangs over the left bank of the Elbe; and a long ____________________ 1 On 14 Sept. 1798 Coleridge, John Chester of Stowey, and the Wordsworths left London. They arrived in Yarmouth the next day and sailed for Germany on 16 Sept. Dorothy Wordsworth Journals, i. 19. -415- trembling road of moonlight reaches from thence up to the stern of our Vessel, & there it ends. We have dropped anchor in the middle of the Stream, 80 miles from Cuxhaven, where we arrived this morning at eleven o'clock, after an unusually fine passage of only 48 hours. -- The Captain agreed to take all the passengers up to Hamburgh for ten guineas -- / my share amounted only to half a guinea. We shall be there if no fogs intervene tomorrow morning. -Chester was ill the whole voyage, Wordsworth shockingly ill, his Sister worst of all -- vomiting, & groaning, unspeakably! And I neither sick or giddy, but gay as a lark. The sea rolled rather high; but the motion was pleasant to me. The stink of a sea cabbin in a packet, what from the bilge water, & what from the crowd of sick passengers, is horrible. I remained chiefly on deck. -- We left Yarmouth, Sunday Morning, Sept. 16th, at eleven o'clock -- / Chester & [the] Wordsworths ill immediately -- Our passengers were Wordsworths, Chester, S. T. Coleridge, A Dane, Second Dane, Third Dane, A Prussian, an Hanoverian & his Servant, a German Taylor & his Wife, a French Emigrant, & french Servant, two English Gentlemen, and a Jew. -- All those with the prefix were sick; those marked horribly sick. -- The view of Yarmouth from the sea is interesting -- besides, it was English Ground that was flying away from me. -- When we lost sight of land, the moment that we quite lost sight of it, & the heavens all round me rested upon the waters, my dear Babies came upon me like a flash of lightning -- I saw their faces so distinctly! -- This day enriched me with characters -- and I passed it merrily. Each of these characters, I will delineate to you in my Journal, which you & Poole, alternately, will receive regularly as soon as I arrive at any settled place -which will be in a week. Till then I can do little more than give you notice of my safety, & my faithful affection to you / but the Journal will commence from the day of my arrival at London, & give every day's occurrence, &c -- I have it written, but I have neither paper, or time, to transcribe it. I trust nothing to memory. -- The Ocean is a noble Thing by night; a beautiful white cloud of foam at momently intervals roars & rushes by the side of the Vessel, and Stars of Flame dance & sparkle & go out in it -- & every now and then light Detachments of Foam dart away from the Vessel's side with their galaxies of stars, & scour out of sight, like a Tartar Troop' over a Wilderness! -- What these Stars are, I cannot say -- the sailors say, that they are the Fish Spawn which is phosphorescent. -/ The noisy Passengers swear in all their languages with drunken Hiccups that I shall write no more -- & I must join them. -- Indeed, they present a rich feast for a Dramatist. -- My kind love to dear Mrs Poole / with what wings of swiftness would I fly home if I -416- could but find something in Germany to do her good! -- Remember me affectionately to Ward -- & my love to the Chesters, Bessy, Susan & Julia / & to Cruckshanks, & to Ellen & Mary when you see them -- & to Lavinia Poole, & Harriet & Sophy. And be sure you give my kind love to Nanny -- I associate so much of Hartley's Infancy with her, so many of his figures, looks, words & antics with her form, that I can never cease to think of her, poor Girl I without interest. -- Tell my best good Friend, my dear Poole! that all his manuscripts with Wordsworth's Tragedy are safe in Josiah Wedgewood's hands -- & they will be returned to him together. -- Good night, my dear, dear Sara! -- 'every night when I go to bed & every morning when I rise' I will think of you with a yearning love, & of my blessed Babies! -- Once more, my dear Sara! good night. -- Did you receive my letter, directed in a different hand, with the 80£ Bank Note? -- The Morning Post & Magazine will come to you as before. If not regularly, Stewart desires that you will write to him. Wednesday afternoon, 4 o'clock We are safe in Hamburgh -- an ugly City that stinks in every corner, house, & room worse than Cabbin, Sea sickness, or bilge Water! -The Hotels are all crowded -- with great difficulty we have procured a very filthy room at a large expence; but we shall move tomorrow. -- We get very excellent Claret for a Trifle -- a guinea sells at present for more than 28 shillings here. -- But for all particulars, I must refer your patience to my Journal -- & I must get some proper paper. / I shall have to pay a shilling or eighteen pence with every letter. -- N.B. -- Johnson, the Bookseller, without any poems sold to him; but purely out of affection conceived for me, & as part of any thing I might do for him, gave me an order on Remnant at Hamburgh for 80 pound. 1 -- The Epea Pteroenta, an Essay on Population, 2 and a History of Paraguay, will come down for me directed to Poole / & for Poole's Reading -- / Likewise, I have desired Johnson to print in Quarto a little Poem [of mine, 3 one of ____________________ 1 Soon after his arrival in Hamburg Coleridge took advantage of Johnson's kindness. Hamburgh, Septr 21st 1798. For 252, sterling Two months after Date pay this my first of Exchange (Second not paid) to the order of Mr William Remnant Twenty five pounds Sterling, value received, and place the same to Account as advised by S. T. Coleridge To Mr Joseph Johnson, | Bookseller, St Paul's Church Yard | London. [MS. private possession.] 2 J. Horne Tooke, EIIEA IITEPOENTA or the Diversions of Purley, Parts I and II, 1798, and T. R. Malthus, Essay on Population, 1798. 3 Fears in Solitude, Written in 1798, during the Alarm of an Invasion. To -417- which Quartos must] be sent to my Brother Revd G C Ottery St Mary, carriage paid --] 1 I pray you, my Lovel read Edgeworth's Essay on Education 2 -- read it heart & soul -- & if you approve of the mode, teach Hartley his Letters -- I am very desirous, that you should begin to teach him to read -- & they point out some easy modes. -- J. Wedgewood informed me that the Edgeworths were most miserable when Children, & yet the Father, in his book, is ever vapouring about their Happiness! -- ! -- However there are very good things in the work -- & some nonsense! -Kiss my Hartley, & Bercoo Baby Brodder / Kiss them for their dear Father, whose heart will never be absent from them many hours together! -- My dear Sara -- I think of you with affection & a desire to be home / & in the full & holiest sense of the word, A, after the antique principles of Religion unsophisticated by philosophy will be, I trust, your Husband faithful unto Death. [ S T Coleridge] [Wednesday night 11 o'clock -- The sky & colours of the clouds are quite English just as if I were coming out of T Poole's homeward with you in] my arm. 255. To Thomas Poole Transcript Thomas Ward copy-book, New York Public Lib. Hitherto unpublished. Hamburg Friday Septr 28th 1798 My dear dear Poole The Ocean is between us & I feel how much I love you! God bless you my dear Friend -- Since I last wrote to Sara, I have been wandering about & about to find Lodgings -- I have given up all thought of going to Eisenach or Weimar, and shall settle with Chester for three months or possibly four at Ratzeburg, 7 German (i.e. 85 English Miles) from Hamburg -- We go tomorrow & my address is -- Mr Coleridge | at the | Pastor Unruke, I Ratzeburg, | Germany, -- Get a German Map and find me out -- Ratzeburg is a most beautiful place and North-east of Hamburg -- On Sunday Morning I begin ____________________ which are added, France, an Ode; and Frost at Midnight, 1798. This little work was printed by Johnson, which may explain why he gave Coleridge the order on Remnant. 1 A few lines cut from the manuscript, presumably for Coleridge's autograph on the opposite page. The words enclosed in brackets have been supplied from a transcript made by Thomas Ward. 2 Practical Education, a joint work of Maria Edgeworth and her father, Richard Edgeworth, appeared in two volumes in 1798. -418- my Journal, and you' will receive, or Sara, the first Sheet by the next Mail -- Did you receive my letter from Yarmouth? Did Sara receive the Bank note of £80 from London? -- The price of Lodging and Boarding is very high -- we shall pay 86 marks a week for two rooms, for bread, butter, milk, dinner, & supper -- & find ourselves washing, tea & wine -- this is at the rate of 60 pounds a year each, English Money -- We are not imposed on in this -- but the Cheapness of Germany is a Hum! -- at least of the Northern Parts. -Wordsworth & his Sister have determined to travel on into Saxony, to seek cheaper places 1 -- God knows whether he will succeed -- to him who means to stay two or three years, it may answer -- To me who mean to return in 3 months, the having no travelling expences will nearly pay for my Lodging and Boarding -- For Chester & I shall reach Ratzeburg (Luggage & all) for 16 shillings -- Our Journey to Eisenach and back again could not have cost less than £30 -- A Mark is 16 pence but then an English Guinea is always 17 marks & now it is 17 marks and ninepence -- and Bills of Exchange for pounds sterling are reckoned in the same proportion -- I have not been idle -- you will soon see in the Morning Post the Signature of Cordomi 2 -- Let me hear from you and tell me of every thing -- & ____________________ 1 After a short stay together in Hamburg, Wordsworth and Coleridge separated, Coleridge and Chester setting off for Ratzeburg on 30 Sept. Three days later the Wordsworths moved on to Goslar ( Dorothy Wordsworth Journals, i. 28, 31, and 34). The decision to settle in separate places in Germany was, as this letter shows, a perfectly justifiable one, and relations continued as amicable as before. Between the two poets, too, a voluminous correspondence, now lost, was carried on: 'I hear as often from Wordsworth as letters can go backward & forward,' Coleridge wrote to Mrs. Coleridge on 14 Jan. 1799. At home in England, however, the separation of the two poets was greeted with enthusiasm. 'The Wordsworths', Poole wrote to Coleridge on 8 Oct. 1798, 'have left you -- so there is an end of our tease about amalgamation, etc, etc. I think you both did perfectly right -- it was right for them to find a cheaper situation, and it was right for you to avoid the expence of travelling, provided you are where pure German is spoken. You will of course frequently hear from Wordsworth -- when you write remember me to him and to his sister.' Josiah Wedgwood, too, expresses satisfaction in an unpublished letter to Poole, dated 1 Feb. 1799: 'I have received one long & interesting letter from Coleridge. . . . I think his expedition seems to have answered to him and I hope that Wordsworth & he will continue separated. I am persuaded that Coleridge will derive great benefit from being thrown into mixed society.' And Lamb, not without maliciousness, wrote to Southey when he heard the news: 'I hear that the Two Noble Englishmen have parted no sooner than they set foot on German earth, but I have not heard the reason -- possibly, to give novelists an handle to exclaim, " Ah me! what things are perfect?" ' ( Lamb Letters, i. 141). 2 No contributions to the Morning Post for this period have been identified. Two poems, Something Childish, but very Natural and Home-sick. Written in Germany, were first published with the signature 'Cordomi' in the Annual Anthology, 1800. (Cf. Poems, i. 818-14.) Coleridge quoted the first poem in Letter 276, the second in Letter 277. -419- give me your Opinion &c -- I expect that Stuart will pay me very handsomely for what I mean to do -- I have spent some time with Klopstock; but I shall anticipate nothing. I associate none but kindly feelings with Stowey -- & therefore tell all whom you meet that I desire my love to them -- but to your dear Mother and Ward particularly, for they are with you and of you -- Tell my dear Sara that I am well, very well -- and so is Chester -- Go to my house and kiss my dear babies for me -- my Friend, my best Friend, my Brother, my Beloved -- the tears run down my face -- God love you & S T Coleridge Chester's love and duty to his Mother &c &c &c -- The People here for this last week have been frantic with Joy for Nelson's Victories 1 &c -- 256. To Mrs. S. T. Coleridge Transcript Thomas Ward copy-book, New York Public Lib. The journal part of this letter was revised and published as Satyrane's Letters, i. See The Friend, No. 14, 28 November 1809, and Biog. Lit., 1817, ii.183-204. Ratzeburg Octbr 3d 1798 Wednesday My dearest love / At length out of the filth, the noise and the tallow-faced Roguery of Hamburg, I sit down, in quietness to fulfil my promise -- No little fish thrown back again into the water -- no Fly unimprisoned from a boy's hand, could more buoyantly enjoy it's element, than I this clear & peaceful house, situated in this wholesome Air! with this lovely view of the Town, woods and lake of Ratzeburg from the window, at which I write. -- In London I visited Mrs Barbauld; but before that I had introduced myself to Johnson, the Bookseller, who received me civilly the first time, cordially the second, affectionately the third -- & finally took leave of me with tears in his eyes. -- He is a worthy Man. -- At Yarmouth I had some long conversations with George Burnet -- Sunday Septr 16th 1798 -- Eleven o'clock -- The Packet set sail, & for the first time in my life I beheld my native land retiring from me -- my native Land to which I am convinced I shall return with an intenser affection -- with a proud Nationality made rational by my own experience of its Superiority. -- My dear dear Babies -I told you how, when the land quite disappeared, they came upon my eye as distinctly as if they had that moment died and were crossing me in their road to Heaven! -- Chester began to look ____________________ 1 Coleridge refers, of course, to the battle of the Nile, 1 Aug 1798. -420- Frog-coloured and doleful -- Miss Wordsworth retired in confusion to the Cabin -- Wordsworth soon followed -- I was giddy, but not sick, and in about half an hour the giddiness went away, & left only a feverish Inappetence of Food, arising I believe, from the accursed stink of the Bilge water, & certainly not decreased by the Sight of the Basons from the Cabin containing green and yellow specimens of the inner Man & brought up by the Cabin-boy every three minutes-I talked and laughed with the Passengers -- then went to sleep on the deck -- was awaked about three o'clock in the Afternoon by the Danes, who insisted in very fluent but not very correct English, that I should sit down and drink with them -- Accordingly I did -- My name among them was Docteur Teology -- (i.e. Theology) -- & dressed as I was all in black with large shoes and black worsted stockings, they very naturally supposed me to be a Priest. -- I rectified their mistake -- what then? said they -- Simply I replied, un Philosophe. -- Well, I drank some excellent wine & devoured Grapes & part of a pine-apple -- Good things I said, good things I eat, I gave them wisdom for their meat. -- And in a short time became their Idol -- Every now and then I entered into the feelings of my poor Friends below, who in all the agonies of sea-sickness heard us most distinctly, spouting, singing, laughing, fencing, dancing country dances -- in a word being Bacchanals -- The Dane (so by way of eminence I shall call a short thin limbed Man with white hair and farthing face slightly marked with the small pox). The Dane nearly tipsy got me to himself towards the Evening, & began to talk away in most magnific style, & as a sort of pioneering to his own Vanity flattered me with such Grossness! -- the most highest superlativities an Englishman can conceive would be mere debasements in comparison -- The following conversation I noted down immediately & is as accurate as the detail of a conversation can possibly be -- (Dane) 'Vat imagination! vat language! vat fast science! vat eyes! -- vat a milk vite forehead! -- O my Heafen! You are a God! -- Oh me! if you should tink I flatters you -- no, no, no -- I hafe ten tousand a year -- yes -ten tousand a year -- ten tousand pound a year! -- vell, vat's that? a mere trifle! -- I 'ouldn't give my sincere heart for ten times the money. -- Yes! you are a God! -- I a mere Man! -- But my dear Friend! tink of me as a Man. Is I not speak English very fine? Is I not very eloquent?' (STC) 'Admirably, Sir! most admirably! -Believe me, Sir! I never heard even a Native talk so fluently.' (Dane squeezing my hand most vehemently) 'My dear Friend! vat an affection & fidelity we hafe for each other! -- But tell me, do tell -421- me -- Is I not now & den speak some fault? Is I not in some wrong? --' (STC) 'Why, Sir! perhaps it might be observed by nice Critics in the Eéglish Language that you occasionally use the word "is" instead of "am" -- In our best Companies We generally say "am I" not "Is I" -- Excuse me Sir! -- It is so mere a Trifle' -(Dane) 'O! o! o! -- Is -- is -- is -- Am -- am -- am -- ah -- hah -- yes -- yes -- I know -- I knows' -- (STC) 'Am, art, is; are, are, are' (Dane) 'O yes! I know, I know -- Am, am, "am" is the presens, and "is" the Perfectum -- Yes! yes. yes! and "are" is the Plusquam perfectum' (STC. bridling in my face with a curb rein) 'And "art" Sir! is?' (Dane) 'My dear Friend! it is dhe plusquam perfectum' -- (then swinging my hand about & cocking his little bright hazle eyes at me, that danced with vanity and wine) 'You see, my dear Friend! I hafe some learning' -- (STC) Learning Sir! -- Who, dares suspect it! Who can hear you talk for a minute, who can even look at you without perceiving it? (Dane) 'My dear Friend!' (then with a somewhat humbler look & in a reasoning tone of voice) I could not talk so of Presens & Imperfectum & Futurum and Plusquam plueperfectum and all dat my dear Friend! widout some learning! -- (STC) To be sure, you could not --! Lordt Lord! Sir! -- A Man like you cannot talk on any subject without shewing the Depth of his information --! (Dane) [']Now I will tell you, my dear Friend! There did happen about me what de whole History of Denmark record no instance about no body else -- I is -- I AM dhe only instance. ! Dhe Bishop did ask me all dhe questions about all dhe Religion, in dhe Latin Grammar' -- (STC) 'Grammar, Sir? -- the language, I presume --?' (Dane a little offended) 'Yes! Grammar is language, and language is Grammar['] -- (STC) 'Ten thousand pardons-it is a blunder of my own.' -- (Dane) 'Vell, and I was only fourteen of my years' -- (STC) 'only fourteen years old?['] (Dane) 'Yes, only fourteen years old -- & he asked me all questions, Religion & Philosophy and all in dhe Latin Tongue. -- & I answered him all, every one, my dear Friend! -- all in dhe Latin Tongue!' -(STC) 'A Prodigy!' (Dane) 'No! no! no! he was a Bisehoff -- a Bisehoff!['] -- (STC, not knowing what he meant) 'Yes! a Bishop.' -- (Dane) 'Yes! a Bishop, not a Prédigé --' (STC) 'What is a Prédigé, my dear Friend?' -- (Dane) 'A Prediger -- a Priest that must preach efery sontay -- It was a Bishop' / STC (N.B. I have since discovered that Prédigér is the German word for an inferiour Priest -- however I now replied) 'My dear Sir! We have misunderstood each other. I said that your answering in Latin was a Prodigy, that is, a thing that is wonderful! that does not often happen!' (Dane) 'often! dhere is not von instance recorded in dhe whole History of Demnark.' (STC) 'And since then, Sir' -- (Dane) [']I was -422- sent ofer to dhe West Indies -- to an Island, & dhen I had no more to do wid books -- no, no! -- I put my genius anodher way -- & my dear Friend! I hafe made ten tousand a year -- is not dhat genius, my dear Friend! But vat is money? -- I tink dhe poorest Man alive my equal -- Yes! my dear Friend! my little fortune is pleasant to my generous heart because I can do good -- no Man with so little a fortune ever did so much generosity! -- no person-no man person, no woman person ever denies it. -- But we are Gotte's Children' -/ Here the Hanoverian interrupted us, and the Danes and the Prussian joined us -- The Prussian was a hale Man, tall, strong, & stout -and 60 years old -- a travelling Merchant -- full of stories and gesticulations, & buffoonery -- but manifestly with the soul as well as the look of a Mountebank, who while he is making you laugh picks your pocket. -- Amid all his droll looks and droll gestures, there remained one look, in his face, that never laughed -- and that one look was the Man -- the other looks were but his Garments -- The Hanoverian was a pale, fat, bloated, young Man, whose Father lives in Soho Square in London -- his name Eckand -- and he has made a large fortune as an army Contractor -- The Son emulated the English in Extravagance &c -- was a good-natured fellow not without information & literature; but a most egregious Coxcomb. -- He had attended constantly the house of Commons & Kemble & Mrs Siddons, at Drury Lane, had spoken, as he informed me, with considerable applause in several debating Societies -- was perfect in Walker's pronouncing Dictionary; and with an accent, which strongly reminded me of the Scotchman in Roderic Random, who professed to teach the true English Pronunciation. He was constantly deferring to my superiour Judgment whether or no I had spoken this or that word with propriety, or 'the true delicacy' His great ambition seemed to be towards Oratory & he introduced most liberally in all his conversation those cant phrases which disfigure the orations of our legislators -- as 'while I am on my legs I &c &c &c -- Of the two Danes not yet described, (N.B. one a Swede, not a Dane) one of them, the Brother of the Dane, a Man with a fair, white and unhealthy face, and white hair, looked silly, said little, and seemed to be absolutely dependent on his Brother-the second was a fiery featured, scurvy faced Man, his Complexion the colour of a red hot poker that is beginning to cool -- a blackish red -- he was however by far the best informed & most rational of the whole Party, & quite the Gentleman; but appeared miserably dependent on the Dane. This Man, the Swede, for reasons that will soon appear I distinguish by the name of 'Nobility.' -- The Englishman was a genteel Youth who spoke German perfectly and acted often as Interpreter of the Prussian's jokes for me -- The Jew -423- was in the Hold, & the French Man was so ill that I could observe nothing of him or concerning him except the affectionate attentions of his Servant to him -- The poor Fellow was very sick himself, & every now and then ran to the side of the vessel, discharged his stomach and returned in the twinkling of an eye to his sick Master -- now holding his head -- now wiping his forehead, and in the most soothing terms telling him he would soon be better; and his eye was always affectionate towards his Master. -- Sunday Afternoon 7 o'clock -- The Sea rolled higher; & the Dane by means of the greater agitation turned out of doors enough of what he had been drinking to make room for a. great deal more. His favourite drink was Sugar and Brandy -- i.e. a very little water with a great deal of Brandy, sugar and nutmeg -- His Servant boy, a black eyed Mulatto, had a goodnatured round face, exactly the colour of the peel of the fruit of the walnut-The Dane again got me to himself; we sate together in the ship's boat that lay on the Deck, and here began a conversation most truly ludicrous -- he told me that he had made a large fortune in the Island of Santa Cruz, & was returning to Denmark to enjoy it -- talked away in the most magnific style, till the Brandy aiding his Vanity, & garrulity aiding the Brandy, he talked like a Madman; entreated me to come and see him in Denmark -there I should find in what a style he would live, his influence with the Government of Denmark, and he would introduce me to the young King &c &c &c -- so he went on dreaming aloud; and then turning the conversation to Politicks, declaimed like a Member of the Corresponding Society about the Rights of Man; & how notwithstanding his fortune he thought the poorest Man alive his Equal --! 'All are equal, my dear Friend! all are equal -- we are all Gotte's Children -- The Poorest Man hafe the same rights with me -- Jack! Jack I some more sugar and Brandy! -- dhere is dat fellow now -- he is a Mulatto; but he is a Man -- he is my equal -- dhat's right, Jack I here you Sir I shake hands with dhis Gentleman -- shake hands with me you dog! -- Dhere, dhere, we are all equal, my dear Friend! -- Do I not speak like Socrates? -- Socrates & Plato & Aristotle -- they were all Philosophers, all very great Men -- and so was Homer & Virgil, but they were Poets -- Yes! I know all about it -but what can any body say more dhan dhis -- we are all equal -- we are all Gotte's Children -- Dho I have ten tousafid a year, I am no more dhan the meanest Man alive -- I have no pride, and yet my dear Friend! I can say do! and it is done! Ha! Ha! Ha! my dear Friend! -- Now dhere, is dhat Gentleman -- (pointing to 'Nobility') he is a Swedish Baron -- you shall see -- Ho! Ho! Ho! (calling to him) get me, will you, a bottle of wine from the cabin.['] (Swede) Here, Jack! go and get your Master a bottle of wine from the Cabin- -424- (Dane) No! no! no! -- do you go now -- you go yourself -- you go now -- (Swede) Pshaw! -- (Dane) Now go, go I pray you. -- And the Swede went! -- After this the Dane talked about Religion, and supposing me to be in the continental sense of the expression what I had called myself -- Un Philosophe', -- he talked of Deity in a declamatory style very much resembling some Parts of Payne's devotional Rants in the Age of Reason -- & then said, 'what damn'd Hypocrism all Jesus Christ's Business was,['] and ran on in the commonplace style about Christianity -- and appeared withered when I professed myself a Christian. I sunk 50 fathoms immediately in his Graces -- however I turned the conversation from a subject on which I never think myself allowed not to be in earnest -- I found that he was a Deist disbelieving a future state -- The Dane retired to the Cabin, and I wrapped myself up in my great Coat, lay in the Boat, and looked at the water, the foam of which, that beat against the Ship & coursed along by it's sides, & darted off over the Sea, was full of stars of flame -- I was cold, and the Cabin stunk, and I found reason to rejoice in my great Coat, which I bought in London, and gave 28 shillings for -- a weighty, long, high caped, respectable rug -- The Collar will serve for a night Cap, turning over my head -- I amused myself with two or three bright stars that oscillated with the motion of the sails -- fell asleep -- woke at one o'clock Monday Morning, and, it raining, I found myself obliged to go down to the cabin-accordingly 'I descended into Hell and rose again' the next morning after a most sound sleep -- my nose, the most placable of all our Senses, reconciled & insensible of the stink -- Monday Septr 17th. -- Eat a hearty breakfast -- talked much with the Swede, who spoke with contempt of the Dane, as a Fool, pursemad -- but he confirmed the Dane's boasts concerning the largeness of his Fortune, which he had acquired partly as a Planter, and partly as an Advocate -- that is -- a Barrister -- From the Dane and from himself I gathered that he was indeed a Swedish Nobleman, who had squandered his Fortune in high living and Gaming, & had sold his estates to the Dane, on whom he was absolutely dependent -- He seemed to suffer little pain, if any, from the Dane's Insolence -- was very humane & attentive to Miss Wordsworth, performing all the most disagreeable offices for her with the utmost delicacy and gentleness. Indeed, his manners and conversation were in a very high degree pleasing, and I struggled to believe his Insensibility respecting the Dane, Philosophical fortitude -- The Dane quite sober; but still his Character oozed out at every pore -- We dined &c -- & I partook of the Hanoverian's & Dane's wines, & Pine apples -- told them some hundred Jokes, and passed as many of my own /. Danced all together a sort of wild dance on the Deck -425- -- Wordsworth and Sister bad as ever -- The Dane, insolent with wine, every quarter of an hour or perhaps oftener would hollo to the Swede in these words -- 'Ho I Nobility, go and do such a thing -Mr Nobility, do that,' &c -- and so the Swede went by the name of Nobility. -- About 4 o'clock I saw a wild duck swimming on the waves -- a single solitary wild duck -- You cannot conceive how interesting a thing it looked in that round objectless desart of waters -- In the evening till dark talked with the Hanoverian -Sails lowered, for fear we should run foul on the land in the night -(the land is so flat that it can only be seen at a very small distance) -- went to bed -- awaked at 4 o'clock in the morning on Tuesday Septr 18th by the cry of Land! Land! -- It was an ugly Island Rock at a distance on our left, called Helgoland. -- About nine o'clock we saw the Main-land, which seemed as scarce able to hold it's head above water -- low, flat, and dreary -- so low that it edged the water -- low, flat, and dreary, with light houses & land marks that seemed to give a language & character to the dreariness -- We entered the mouth of the Elbe, having first passed closely the Island Newerck [Neuwerk] -- edn see but one bank, namely, the right -- saw a Church -- thanked God for my safe voyage, and thought most affectionately and with many tears of my wife and babies, and of my Friend -- and of my Friends at Bristol -- dear good Mr and Mrs Estlin, and Wade, whose heart has been ever so firm towards me.-Eleven o'clock -- arrive at Cuxhaven, which if you cannot find in the map, you will at least find the name of Ritzebuttel, which is almost the same place -- Here the ship dropped Anchor, and the boat was hoisted out, which carried the Hanoverian and a few others over to Cuxhaven -- The Captain agreed to take us all up to Hamburg for ten guineas -- hauled anchor and passed gently up the river -- At Cuxhaven in clear weather both sides of the river may be seen -- we could see only the right bank -- Passed a Multitude of English Merchant Ships that had been for nine days waiting for a wind -- Saw both banks; and both neat and flat; very neat and quite artificial -- On the left bank saw a Church or two in the distance -- on the right bank it was Steeple, and Windmill, and Cottage, and Windmill & house, and Steeple, and Windmill, & Windmill, and neat house, and Steeple. These are the objects; and this was the succession of them -- About 40 mile's from Cuxhaven we passed a most lovely Island, about a mile and a half in length, wedge shaped -- very green and woody, and with a nice farm-house on it. -- From Cuxhaven to this place the shore was very green, and not inelegantly planted with Trees -- where there were no Trees, it bore a striking resemblance to the Shore from Huntspill to Cummage. -- But five miles before we arrived at this Island, the night -426- came on, and (for the navigation of the Elbe is a most perilous one) we dropped anchor 85 miles from Cuxhaven. -- I began a letter to my dearest Sara -- the moon over the left bank of the Elbe -- a deep black cloud above it -- and a thin, very thin black cloud, like a strip of black crape stretched across it -- The line of Moonlight on the water, which had been so bright, glimmered very dim -- We saw lights in the houses on the right bank, two or three; I felt the striking contrast between the silence of this majestic Stream whose banks are populous with Men & Women & Children, & flocks and herds -- the Silence by night of the peopled river, contrasted with the ceaseless noise, the uproar, and the loud agitations of the desolate solitude of the ocean -- The Passengers below have retired to bed, and left me to all my best Feelings -- The Prussian this night had displayed all his talents to captivate the Dane, who had adopted him into his Train of Dependents -- The English Youth interpreted the Prussian's stories to me -- they were all obscene and abominable; but some sufficiently witty, and a few valuable as philosophical facts of the manners of the Countries, concerning the natives of which he related them -- His person, countenance, manners & conversation all coincided -- cold, tho' libidinous; cunning and calculative amid the roar of his boisterous Buffoonery. -- The German Taylor and his little Wife were both Characters; but these and some other things of less consequence I have reserved that I may have something to talk of when once more I sit in the great Arm Chair at Poole's over his strong beer -- God bless him -Wednesday Septr 19th. Hauled the Anchor at 5 o'clock in the morning -- at six a thick fog came on & we were obliged to drop it again -- and we were fearful that it would continue all Day; but about nine it cleared and we passed that beautiful Island -- We had but very little wind & did not go more than 4 miles an hour -The Shores became more beautiful; green and the Trees close to the water, with neat houses and sharp Steeples peering over them, some of the Steeples white, some black, & some red. There is the greatest profusion of Churches on the right bank. -- The Trees and Houses are very low; sometimes the low trees overtopping the yet lower houses; sometimes the low houses overtopping the lower Trees -- Both the right & left Banks are green to the very brink, & level with the water, like a park Canal. Forty six miles from Cuxhaven and 16 from Hamburg (English miles) the Village of Veder [Wedel ?] with a black Steeple -- it stands on the left bank which belongs all the way to Denmark -- Close by the Village of Veder and without any Church the village of Schulau, wild & pastoral -- and then the left bank rises at once 40 feet at least above the water, and stood a perpendicular sandy Facing -427- with thin patches of green like some parts of the shore near Shurton Bars. I look[ed] up the River along the same bank, and saw at some distance high lands, brown and barren with scars of naked sand -We now saw boats with Fishermen in them, and the Sea-gulls flying round and round about them -- We reach those high lands, and come to Blankenese, a very wild Village scattered amidst scattered Trees in three divisions over three Hills -- the Village in three divisions; yet seemingly continuous -- Each of the three hills stands towards the River, a facing of bare sand; and a great number of Boats with bare Poles stood in Files along the Banks, in a sort of fantastic Harmony with the steep facings of bare Sand. Between each Facing is a Dell green & woody, and one a deep Dell. It is a large Village made up of Individual houses, each house surrounded with Trees and with a separate path to it -- A village with a Labyrinth of Paths -- A Neighbourhood of houses is the best name I can find to give it -- Fishermen dwell here, and it is celebrated for making boats called Blankenese Boats. Here first we saw the Spires of Hamburg -- From Blankenese up to Altona the left bank of the Elbe very pretty -- high and green, prettily planted with Trees -houses near the water . . . 1 of Trees -- and Summer houses and Chinese things all up the high Banks -- all neat and comfortable, like a rural Place cut into Shapes & townified for the citizens who come here from Altona and Hamburg to smoke their pipes on Saturdays and Sundays -- The Boards of the houses (i.e. the Farm houses) are left unplaistered, painted green and black, like some old houses in England --- Wednesday 4 o'clock -- got ourselves out of the Vessel into a Boat at Altona, half a mile from Hamburg -- passed with trouble the huge masses of Shipping that choke the wide Elbe from Altona up to Hamburg -- and are now safe at the boom [baum] -- house Hamburg -Chester and I are well -- and comfortable. But I wish hourly for my dear Sara, & my Babes. God bless her & her faithful & affectionate Husband S T Coleridge 257. To Mrs. S. T. Coleridge Transcript Thomas Ward copy-book, New York Public Lib. Pub. Letters, i. 262. The first part of this letter is missing from the transcript. Octbr 20th 1798 . . . But I must check these feelings & write more collectedly. -- I am well, my dear Love! -- very well -- and my situation is in all ____________________ 1 Word missing in transcript. -428- respects comfortable -- My Room is large, & healthy -- The house commands an enchanting prospect -- The Pastor is worthy and a learned Man -- a Widower with 8 Children, 5 of whom are at home -- The German Language is spoken here in the utmost purity -- The Children often stand round my Sopha and chatter away -- & the little one of all corrects my pronunciation with a pretty pert lisp & self sufficient tone, while the others laugh with no little joyance. -The Gentry and Nobility here pay me almost an adulatory attention -- There is a very beautiful little Woman, less I think than you -- a Countess Kilmansig [Kielmansegge] -- her Father is our Lord Howe's Cousin. She is the wife of a very handsome Man, and has two fine little Children -- I have quite won her heart by a German Poem which I wrote. It is that sonnet 'Charles! my slow heart was only sad when first' 1 -- & considerably dilated with new images & much superior in the German to it's former dress -- It has excited no small wonder here for it's purity and harmony -- I mention this as a proof of my progress in the language -- indeed it has surprised myself -- but I want to be home -- and I work hard -- very hard, to shorten the time of absence -- The little Countess said to me -- 'O! Englishmen be always sehr gut Fathers and Husbands.-I hope dat you will come and lofe my little babies, and I will sing to you and play on the guitar & the Piano Forte-and my dear Huspan he spracts sehr gut English and he lofes England better than all the world' -- (sehr gut is very good; spract speaks or talks) -- She is a sweet little Woman, and what is very rare in Germany, she has perfectly white regular, french Teeth -- I could give you many instances of the ridiculous partiality or rather madness for the English -- One of the first things, which strikes an Englishman, is the German cards -- They are very different from ours -- the Court Cards have two heads, a very convenient thing, as it prevents the necessity of turning the cards and betraying your hand -- & are smaller & cost only a penny -- yet the Envelope, in which they are sold, has Wahrliche Englisch Karten -- i.e. Genuine English Cards. -- I bought some sticking plaister yesterday; it cost two pence -a very large piece; but it was three halfpence farthing too dear -for indeed it looked like a nasty rag of black Silk which Cat or Mouse dung had stained & spotted -- but this was König1. Pat: Engl: 'Im: Plaister -- i.e. Royal Patent English Ornament Plaister -- They affect to write English over their doors -- One house has English Lodgement and Caffee Hous! -- But the most amusing of all is an advertisement of a quack Medicine of the same Class with Dr Solomon's & Brody's -- For the spirits and all weakness of mind and body -- What think you? 'A wonderful and secret Essence ____________________ 1 Poems, i. 154. The German version has not come to light. -429- extracted with patience & God's blessing from the English Oaks, and from that part thereof, which the heroic Sailors of that Great Nation call the Heart of Oak. This invaluable & infallible Medicine has been godlily extracted therefrom by the slow processes of the Sun & magnetical Influences of the Planets & Fixed Stars.' -- This is a literal Translation -- At the Concert, when I entered, the Band played 'Britannia! rule the waves' -- and at the dinner which was given in honor of Nelson's Victory, 21 guns were fired by order of the military Governour, and between each Firing the Military Band played an English Tune -- I never saw such enthusiasm, or heard such tumultuous shouting, as when the Governour gave as a toast, 'The Great Nation.' -- By this Name they always designate England, in opposition to the same title self-assumed by France. The Military Governour is a pleasant Man, & both he & the Amtmann (i.e. the Civil Regent) are particularly attentive to me -- I am quite domesticated in the house of the latter -- his first wife was an English Woman, and his partiality for England is without bounds. -God bless you, my love! write me a very, very long letter -- write me all that can cheer me -- all that will make my eyes swim & my heart melt with tenderness! Your faithful & affectionate Husband S. T. Coleridge P.S. -- A Dinner lasts not uncommonly three Hours! -- 258. To Thomas Poole Address: Mr T. Poole | Nether Stowey | Somersetshire | England Payed to Cuxhaven fr Ritzbuttel MS. New York Public Lib. Part of the journal in this letter was revised and published in Satyrane's Letters, ii. See The Friend, No. 16, 7 December 1809, and Biog. Lit. 1817, ii. 205-17. The manuscript is torn and the words in brackets have been supplied from a transcript made by Thomas Ward. Postmark: 10 November 1798. October 26th-1798 3rd of the Journal -- 8th including all. 1 My best and dearest Friend My spirit is more feminine than your's -- I cannot write to you without tears / and I know that when you read my letters, and when you talk of me, you must often 'compound with misty eyes' --. May God preserve me for your friendship, and make me worthy of it! I received your letter yesterday -- since I last wrote, I have been ____________________ 1 Actually the second part of the journal. Only six letters to Poole and Mrs. Coleridge from 15 Sept. to 26 Oct. have come to light. -430- on a tour to Travemunde on the Baltic Sea, & the places adjoining to which circumstance you must attribute my silence. -- My last landed me on the Elbe-stairs at the Baum-house, Hamburgh. -While I was standing on the stairs, I was amused by the passage boat which goes once or twice a day from Hamburg to Haarburg, across the River -- it was crammed with all people of all nations in all sorts of dresses, the Men with pipes of all shapes and fancies, strait and wreathed, simple and complex, long and short, cane, clay, porcelain, wood, tin, silver, and ivory -- one, a mere hot-spicegingerbreadeake-man's Stump Whiffer, and many with silver chains & with silver bole-covers. -- Well, but to adopt the Journal Form Sep. 19th Afternoon. -- Wordsworth had introduced himself to a kind of confidential acquaintance with the French Emigrant who appeared a man of sense & was in his manners a most complete gentleman. He seemed about 50. It was agreed that if possible we should house together -- Wordsworth & the Emigrant went in search of an Hotel -- the Emigrant's Servant, Chester, & Miss Wordsworth stayed with the luggage -- and I dashed into the town to deliver my letters of recommendation. I had two from Wedgewood, 1. to Mr Von Axen, and one to a Mr Chatterley. -- I dashed on; and very naturally began to wonder at all things -- some for being so like, and some for being so unlike, the things in England. Dutch Women with large umbrella Hats shooting out half a yard before them, and with a prodigal plumpness of petticoat behind -- the Hamburghers with caps, plated on the cawl with silver or gold, or both, fringed with lace, & standing round before their eyes, like a canopyveil -- the Hanoverian Women with the fore part of the Read bare, then a stiff lace standing upright like a Wall, perpendicular on the Cap; and the Cap behind tailed with a monstrous quantity of Ribbon which lies or tosses on the Back. 'Their Visnomies seem'd like a goodly Banner Spread in defiance of all Enemies!' 1 -- The Young Men dashing English Bucks -- the Ladies, all in English Dresses & in the newest Fashions -- and all rouged. -- I looked in at the windows as I passed -- gentlemen & ladies drinking Coffee or playing Cards, and all the Gentlemen Smoking at the same Time. The Streets narrow and stinking, without any appropriate path for the foot-passengers -- the Gable Ends of the Houses all towards the street; some in the ordinary Triangular form, -- but most of them notched and shapified with more than Chinese ____________________ 1 Spenser, Amoretti, v. -431- Grotesqueness. -- Above all, both here and at Altona, I was struck with the profusion of windows -- so large & so many that the Houses look all Glass. Mr Pitt's Tax would greatly improve the Architecture of Hamburgh; but the Elbe & the Country round will be still more benefited by the last Conflagration. For it is a foul City! -- I moved on & crossed a multitude of ugly Bridges, the water intersecting the City every where & furnishing to an Architect the capabilities of all that is beautiful & magnificent in human Edifices -- such it might have been; it might have been more than the Rival of Venice; & it is -- Huddle and Ugliness, Stink and Stagnation! Close by many of the Bridges I observed great Water wheels -- huge deformities, but yet they produced motion in the air & the water, & therefore appeared pleasing to me. -- I met with many who talked broken English -- & at last, after some vagaries, I arrived at the Jungfr' Stieg (Maidens' Walk) where the Von Axens reside. -- It is a walk or promenade, planted with treble rows of Elm Trees, which are slim & dwarf, on account of their being pruned & cropped every year -- and this Walk occupies one side of a Square piece of water, with many Swans on it, quite tame / & there were Gentlemen, in pretty pleasure-boats, rowing the Ladies. -- It pleased me much --; but I observed that it was not lamped round. If it were, it would make a beautiful appearance by night! -- I delivered my letter to Mr Von Axen who embarrassed me by his sad and solemn Politeness, & his broken English -- I left him rather abruptly & called on Remnant, an English Bookseller for whom I had a letter from Johnson-he was not at home / thro' Streets & Streets, or rather thro' Lanes & Lanes, I trudged to Chatterley's / amused as I went on by the wicker-waggons (with moveable forms in them, one behind the other, across the waggon)! These Waggons are the Hackney Coaches of Hamburgh -- (tho' there were Hackney Coaches likewise; but the Waggons appeared far more numerous). They were quite uncovered, & in shape something like the old Grecian Cars, only much larger / that is, long, & narrow compared with the length -- I saw several parties of Eight in them besides the Coach Man. -- Amused too by the signboards on the Shops -- all the articles sold within are painted in a grotesque confusion on these Boards, & in general were painted very exactly. -- Well, I arrived at Chatterley's -- an odd beast! He read Mr Wedgewood's letter, & asked me drily if I would take a cup of Tea. -- 'Yes!' -- / An old Woman, his domestic, poured into her hand out of the Tea Cannister what I thought a very small portion -- 'Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!' exclaimed Chatterley -- & she returned part of it into the Tea Cannister! -- Well, I drank a couple of dishes, & agreed that I would call again on the morrow morning -- & now the Emigrant's Servant came & guided -432- me to Der Wilder Man i.e. The Savage -- an hotel not of the genteelest Class. -- But Wordsworth & the Emigrant had trudged over & over the City -- & every House was full! However they were drinking some excellent Claret, & I joined them with no small glee --. -- The Emigrant had one large Room in which himself & Servant were to sleep, & in which it was agreed that we should all breakfast & drink Tea -- there was a Bed room for Chester & me, with two beds in it -- and one for Miss Wordsworth. -- Wordsworth had procured one for himself at Sea Man's Hotel where Baldwin lodged, the Brother of Losh's Wife, & a college Acquaintance of Wordsworth's. My bed room looked into and commanded the Market Place of Hamburgh; and close by, as close as close can be, is the great huge church of St Nicholas, with shops & houses built up against it; out of which Wens and Warts, or rather, out of which unseemly Corns, it's high huge Steeple rises, necklaced near the Top with a Round of large Gilt Balls. -- The Hotel is certainly well fitted for a stranger -- this Steeple must be quite a Pole-Star. -- / -- The Emigrant was of the Noblesse, & was an intimate Friend of the Abbe De Lisle, the famous Poet -- he had been a man of large Fortune, out of which he had rescued a considerable part. He talked with rapture of Paris under the Monarchy -- & seemed not a little enamoured of Lbndon, where he had lived in style, & where his favorite Niece resided, a married woman. But some Emigrants, whom he had offended, I believe, by some refusals in the moneyway, conspired against him, accused him of being connected with the governing Party, & tho' they could prove nothing; yet they had interest enough to have him sent away by the Duke of Portland. So he was obliged to sell out of the Stocks at a great loss -- & leave the Country. He seemed very deeply cut at heart -- a man without hopes or wishes -- yet a melancholy Frenchman is almost a merry Englishman, & we found no lack of vivacity in him, & his manner was exceedingly delightful. He carried with him a sort of travelling furniture & toilet -- all of silver or gold -- indeed every part of his moveables evinced the Man of Fortune. -- He meant to take a House near Hamburgh. -- The Swedish Nobleman called on me, from the Dane / & in his name pressed me to come to the 'King of England' -- the great superb Hotel of Hamburgh -- / & here I might have had a room in the Dane's suit[e] of apartments, & have been one of his Table. -- But I remembered Godwin's excuse for feeding on that scoundrelly money-lender, Ki[ng --] (the Proprietor of that ex[ecrable ve]hice of Jacobinism, the Telegraph) -- and tho' I should have liked to [have studied] the man a little more, yet I did not think it right or reputa[ble -- so] I refused the offered Kindness. -- Went to be[d -- We both] instead of Bed Cloaths had two feather -433- beds one above & one below -- / both ou[r Sheets] strunk prodigiously of the Soap, with which they had been washed. -- I awo[ke at] two o'clock, & was struck by the awful Echo of the Clock in the huge Ch[urch,] which I heard distinctly. The Echo was loud, & long, and trembling. -- [Slept again,] and, (Thursday, Sept. 20th --) Sept. 20th, I was awaked by the distressful Cries of Poultry crowing [& clucking] & screaming in the market place. I looked out, and saw a large crowd of Market-people / and saw among other articles large Heaps of Hares & Game Fowl, for Sale. -- I reviewed my Expences from Yarmouth to Hamburgh -- L. S. D 0" 3' 6 Fee to the Searcher. 0' 12" 6 Pass port. 0" 6" 0 Bill at the Inn. 0' 1" 0 Porterage to the Pier 0" 3" 0 1 Boat to the Pacquet. N.B. Every Passenger pays half a crown [for himself and 1 shilling for every box] or [parcel he may have --] 3" 3" 0 Passage Money. 1" 1' 0 Provision-money. N.B. Wordsworths & Chester pro- visioned themselves; but I would advise every one to provision with the Captain -- it is but a guinea, & you may be at Sea a fortnight. -- 0" 10" 6 Fees to the Mate, Steward, & Sailors. N.B. This is the least Sum possible. -- 0" 10" 6 Passage from Cuxhaven to Altona. Had I gone in any other way, than in the Pacquet, this would have cost at least a guinea -- probably more / and it is very rare indeed that the pacquets go up to Hamburgh. So I was in luck. -- 0" 1" 0 Boat for self & portmanteau from Altona to Ham- burgh. -- 0" 2" 0 Porterage from the Boat to the Inn. N.B. Of course, I payed the share -- tho' my own baggage was not the 20th part. -- I mention this, merely to account for the largeness of the Sum. -- Sum-Total. £.6" 14' 6. -- P.S. For Babies they charge nothing on board the Pacquet -- Children above 5 years old pay half price. -- My next Sheet will recommence with Thursday, Sept. 20th --/ --. We are very well, & very comfortable. My progress in the language ____________________ 1 In Coleridge's notebook this item reads 3/6, thus making the 'Sum-Total' correct. -434- is rapid & surprizes the people here not a little. Every one pays me the most assiduous attentions -- I have attended some Conversations at the Houses of the Nobility -- stupid things enough. -- It was quite a new thing to me to have Counts & Land-dr[osten] bowing & scraping to me -- & Countesses, old & young, complimenting & amusing me. -- But to be an Englishman is in Germany to be an Angel -- they almost worship you. I wrote to Mrs Coleridge some ludicrous instances of the Rage for England. -- It is absolutely false that the literary Men are Democrats in Germany -- Many were; but like me, have published Abjurations of the French -- among which number are Klopstock, Goethe, (the author of the Sorrows of Werter) Wieland, Schiller & Kotzebu. -- The German is a noble Language -- a very noble Language. If you had time, I should recommend you strenuously to look over the German Grammar, & devote half an hour in every day to construing five or six lines of German. There are Grammar & Dictionary & Meisner's Dialogues among my Books. -- I cannot endure to have an enjoyment in which you cannot partake / and it will furnish an immense store of Enjoyment for your Retirement, and Old Age. -- I have written to a learned Physician in Hamburgh about the Palliate for the Stone -Sir John Sinclair is such an old [wo]man that I have no hopes. Most certainly, Beddoes would have heard of it. -- However, God grant, it may be true! -- My dear Love to your Mother -- indeed, indeed, I love her as a Mother. -- Love to Ward -- & My dear Poole! my Heart is quite full of you. [God bless you & S. T. Coleridge --] N.B. The present King of Prussia is quite adored in Germany; & deserves to be so. He is a good Man. May he continue to be so. 259. To Mrs. S. T. Coleridge Address: Mrs Coleridge | Nether Stowey | Somersetshire | England Pay'd to Cuxhaven. MS. New York Public Lib. Part of the journal in this letter was revised and published in Satyrane's Letters, ii. See The Friend, No. 16, 7 December 1809, and Biog. Lit. 1817, ii. 217-21. Coleridge prints in Satyrane's Letters, ii, a long passage on drama, of which he says, 'I might have written this last sheet without having gone to Germany'; and since the passage does not appear in the German letters, I suspect he wrote it after he returned to England. Postmark: Foreign Office, 21 November 1798. Nov. 8th, 1798 My dearest Love After an eight weeks' Run of fine weather we are at last visited by the chilly, misty Rains of November -- and the Lake looks turbid, -435- and the purple of the woods has degenerated into a shabby Dirtcolour. My best dear Sara! what an impassable Hog-stye, what a Slough of Despond must Lime-Street be -- vocal with the Poorhouse Nightingales! -- But however let me recommence my Journal -- Thursday Morn. Sept. 20th -- 10 o clock. I called on Mr Chatterley. He introduced me to his Partner, Mr Klopstock; or as we ludicrously named him, YOUNG Klopstock.-- He is indeed younger than his Brother / altho' an old man. -- Well -- he could not speak a word of English; but was kind and courteous. I went and fetched Wordsworth; and he and Klopstock talked in French -- which K. spoke fluently, altho' with a most glorious havock of Genders & Syntax. -- K. took us to Professor Ebeling -- Now what a Professor is, I know not; but I will enquire & inform you when I give an account of the German Universities & the condition of their Literary Men. -- The Professor was a lively intelligent Man -- lively altho' deaf -- he spoke English very decently / but it was [an] effort to talk with him -- as we were obliged to drop all our Pearls into a huge Ear-trumpet. -- He informed us that Pacha Oglou 1 was not a Rebel, but a Turkish Constitutionalist, at the head of the Party who oppose all the Innovations & Gallicisms of the Seraglio. He is a sturdy Mahometan, supported by the Nobles & Men of Law -- and ready to submit, if the Grand Seignior will reduce his Government to the practices of his Ancestors. -- This information he had received from a Mr Hawkins who had just returned from Constantinople, who likewise affirms that the Modern Greeks are an estimable and interesting People; very many among them remember the glory of their ancestors; they are impatient of the Turkish Yoke, but detest French Men & French Manners. -- He told us a good Italian Pun. -- When Buonaparte was in Italy, he was on some occasion exceedingly irritated by the Perfidy of the Italians, & said in a large Company -- Ay! -- 'their own Proverb is most true.' -- The Italians are 'tutto Ladrones' [tutti ladroni] (that is -- all Bandittimen, or Thieves. --) An Italian Lady present answered -- Non tutto [tutti]; mais [ma] Buona Parte. Not all; but a good Part. -- The following anecdote is more valuable; & is true: whereas to my mind the Pun sounds very much like a Might be good Thing. -- Hoche 2 had received much information concerning the Face of the Country from a very accurate Map, the Maker of which, he had been informed, lived at Dusseldorf. -- At the storming of Dusseldorf by the French Army Hoche ordered the House & Property of this man to be preserved; & finding that he had fled, said -- 'He had no reason ____________________ 1 Pasvan Oglu, Turkish governor of Vidin. 2 Lazare Hoche ( 1768-97), the French general. -436- to flee / the French Nation make war for such men, not against them!' -- You remember Milton's Sonnet -- 'The great Emathian Conqueror bade spare The House of Pindarus' -- / Altho' a Snailtrailing Mapmaker may not be put alongside of the Theban Eagle, yet this does not prevent Hoche from being as great a man as Alexander -- From the Professor's Klopstock took us to Wagon-house -- i.e. -a place where second Hand Travelling-Machines were on Sale. -All very dear -- none under 80 pound. -Young Klopstock is a sort of Merchant in the agency Line; (as indeed are most of the Hamburghers) and he is the Proprietor of one of the Hamburgh Newspapers. -- We saw at his house a fine Bust of his Brother -- there was a solemn and heavy Greatness in the Countenance which corresponded with my preconceptions of his style & genius. -- I saw likewise there a very, very fine picture of Lessing. His eyes were uncommonly like mine -- if any thing, rather larger & more prominent -- But the lower part of his face & his nose -- O what an exquisite expression of elegance and sensibility I -- There appeared no depth, weight, or comprehensiveness in the Forehead. -- The whole Face seemed to say, that Lessing was a man -- of quick & voluptuous Feelings; of an active but light Fancy; acute; yet acute not in the observation of actual Life, but in the arrangements & management of the Ideal World -- (i.e.) in taste, and in metaphysics. Thursday. 30 / clock. Dined at the Saxe Hotel; because, it being French, we expected it would be cheap. But we had a miserable Dinner; and were detestably cheated. -- 6 o-clock. We went to the French Comedy. -- Most truly stupid & ridiculous. The following is a sketch. -- First Act informs us that a Court Martial is to be held on a Count Vatron who had drawn his Sword on the Colonel whose Sister he had married. The Officers plead in behalf of Count Vatron -- in vain! -- His wife -- the Colonel's Sister -- pleads -- with most tempestuous agonies -- in vain! She falls into Hysterics & faints away. -- Second Act -- Sentence of Death passed -- the Wife frantic & Hysterical as before. -- Third Act -- / Wife frantic -- Soldiers just going to fire -- the Handkerchief dropped -- when 'Reprieve!['] 'Reprieve' -- is cried out -- & in comes the Prince Somebody -and pardons the Count -- & the Wife is frantic with Joy. -- That's all! -- The afterpiece was flat; but with some pretty Music. Thursday Night. -- Saw in the Streets not one Prostitute / I found afterwards that they all live in one Street near Altona; and never appear out of their Houses, as Prostitutes. -- (N.B. Altona is a large town; bearing the same relation to Hamburgh, as Islington to London. / But it belongs to the King of Denmark -- & the Ham- -437- burghers (they say) named it for that Reason, Altona -- which in low German signifies, Too near.) -- Amused by the Watchmen who chant a sort of Night-Song, ringing not unmusically, a small Bell at Intervals. -- (N.B.) At Ratzeburgh the Watchman blows a Tune on a Horn, every half-hour thro' the Night. / -- The Doors of all the Houses have Bells, both at Hamburgh & Ratzeburgh, & wherever else I have been. -- A little Iron Rod, the length of my hand, is fastened to the Top of the Door, thus -- The Bell hangs on one side of the Door -- & bends in the shape of a Canopy over the Iron Rod. Of course whenever you open or shut the Door, the Iron Rod strikes the Bell -- and there is from Morning to Night an incessant kling, kling, klang / quite wearisome till you cease to observe it. -- Bürger alludes to this in the Lenore where the Knight first comes to the Chamber -- And horch I und horch I den Pfortenving -- And hark I and hark the Gate-Bell Ganz lose, leise, klingklingkling! 1 All softly, lowly, klingklingkling. -- N.B. -- Bürger of all the German Poets pleases me the most, as yet -- the Lenore is greatly superior to any of the Translations. Bér -ger's wife was unchaste, & he died of a broken Heart -- She is now a Demirep & an Actress at Hamburgh! -- A Bitch!! -- Friday, Septem. 21st. We consumed the morning in carriagehunting: -- and dined at our Hotel at the Ordinary -- a mark a head. -- This was the Dinner, & all the Dinners I have since seen, resemble it as nearly as English Dinners resemble one another in different Houses. -- First -- Soup. -- (N.B. It was good Broth; but every Thing here is called Soup. --) -- A long Interval. -- Some hung Beef, with unsalted boiled Beef, cut out in slices & handed round in a plate -- each man takes what he likes with his fork. -- Then two large Dishes of Vegetables were handed round -- The first, Carrots drest in butter -- not unpleasantly: & at the same time, great French Beans with their seeds in them, stewed in some condiment, I knew not what. -- The vegetables are never brought to Table simple as with us. -- Another long Interval -- 'And Patience, at at a German Ordinary, Smiling at Time! -- Then were handed round in a plate as before Slices of roast-beef, roasted dry & ragged -- A good Sallad -- then Slices of Roast Pork with stewed Prunes, & other sweet Fruit stewed --. -- Then cheese, and Butter, with plates of Orleans Plumbs by way of Desert: and -- Apples. -- It appears from Shake- ____________________ 1 G. A. Bürger, Lenore, lines 101-2. -438- spear's Plays that in his time the Eng[lish] 1 drest their dishes as the Germans do now -- as for instance, the Merry Wives [of] Windsor -'Slender. I bruised my shin with playing with sword & dagger for a dish [of stewed] prunes; & by my Troth I cannot abide the smell of Hot Meat since.' -- So in the [same Piece --] 'Evans. -- I will make an end of my dinner: there's pippins & cheese yet to come[.'] I have now dined at all the Gentlemen's & Noblemen's Houses w(ithin] two or three miles of Ra[tzebur]gh -- & the dinners have been always [begun by] Soup. -- sometimes made of Flesh, sometimes of Fruit -- in short, it [is always the first) Thing. -- I believe, I have tasted 20 kinds of Soup. -- The flesh Soup is good Broth & the Meat is introduced afterwards -- not the better for it's avantcourier. -- Besides this, the most common Soups are / -- I Wine Soup -- made of the common Wine, (resembling pleasant Cyder but with the vinous flavor) of Water, sugar, Eggs & Carraway Seeds. -2 Water Soup -- the same as Water gruel. -- 3. Plum Soup -- made of bruised Plums, Sugar, Eggs & Water. 4 Raisin Soup. -- Made of Water-gruel with Currants & Raisins in it, and a little wine. 5. Rice Soup: -- it is Rice-milk. 6. Kreutzer (Grütze?] Soup. Milk with a sort of Millet, called Kreutzers -- v(there are large Fields of the Plant which flowers in June -- & then for half a mile together you may see one sheet of white blossoms that send forth an odour sweeter, they say, than the Bean blossom. --) 7. Beer Soup. -- Made of Beer, Eggs, Sugar, & crumbled Bread. / -- Well -- first Soup. -- Then the Table is covered with small dishes, & exactly resembles a Saturday's Scrap Dinner in a large Family -- a long Interval -- then Fish is handed round -another Interval -- then Pies & Tarts -- another Interval -- then a large Joint of Roast Meat -- another Interval -- then Cheese, Butter, Fruits, & Sweetmeats. -- There is placed for every two Persons a bottle of common wine, either white or red -- the white I have described before; & the Red is a distant Relation of Claret --/ But during the Dinner the Servants hand round Glasses of richer wines -- at the Lord of Culpin's they came in this order. -1. Claret. 2. Madeira. 8. Port. 4. Frontiniac. 5. A Spanish Wine -- I have forgot the name. 6 Old Hock. 7. Mountain. 8. Champaign. 9. Old Hock again. loth & last. -- Punch. -- Each Man drank a glass of each / but this is the custom only on high days & great Feasts. -They change the Plates often; but seldom or never the Knives and Forks-not even after Fish. -- I however always send away my knife and fork with the Plate / and the Servants consider me as an Englishman. -- All the men have a hideous custom of picking their Teeth with their forks -- Some hold up their napkins before their ____________________ 1 Manuscript torn; the words in brackets in this and the following paragraph are supplied from a transcript made by Thomas Ward. -439- mouths while they do it -- which is shocking -- and adds a moral Filth to the action by evincing that the Person is conscious of the Filth of the Action. -- And the Top of their Teeth, the breadth of the Top, is commonly black & yellow with a Life's Smoking -- the Women too have commonly bad Teeth. In every House every Person, Children & all, have always a folded Napkin put on the Plate / but it is not always very clean. -- Carpets are very uncommon. As far as my experience goes hitherto, I like the Stoves very well. -- Chester & I could not conceive at first what they were. We saw in every Room a great high Thing of a strange Shape, made of Dutch Tiles -- or black Tiles -- or ebony -- from seven to ten feet high -- Till I went to Ratzeburgh, I imagined them to be ornamental Furniture. -- I wish very much I could draw -- how many awkward round about Sentences which after all convey no true ideas, would three lines with a pencil save me: -- and I too am especially a very awkward Describer of Shapes & Dresses. -- We are well, My dear Love! -- My next letter will recommence with Friday, Sept. 21st -- N.B. Yet Goose is always stuffed with Plums & Prunes in great quantities -- it is indeed a Plum & Prune Pie, of which the Goose is the Crust. We have not heard from the Wordsworths -- to my great Anxiety & inexpressible Astonishment. Where they are, or why they are silent, I cannot even guess. -- O my love! I wish you were with me --/ -- I have received no information that can be relied upon concerning the medicine, Sir John Sinclair mentions -- / but I will not give up the Search / tho' I believe it to be all idle. -- How a man ought to weigh such Sentences before he publishes them! -- it is no good thing to trifle with the Hopes of them who are in Agony! -- I have not yet heard from you, my Love! But I hope that tomorrow or next day will bring me a letter -- / God love you & your most aff. & faithful Husband, S. T. Coleridge. -- My love to dear Mrs Poole, -- to Bessy, Susan, & Julia Chester -to Lavinia, &c at the Farm -- to Mr & Mrs Roskilly -- &c -- 260. To William Wordsworth Pub. Memoirs of William Wordsworth, by Christopher Wordsworth, 2 Vols., 1851, i. 132. [Circa 17 November 1798] 1 You have two things against you: your not loving smoke; and your sister. If the manners at Goslar resemble those at Ratzeburg, ____________________ 1 Since on 8 Nov. Coleridge told his wife that he had not heard from Wordsworth (Letter 259), and since he wrote to Poole on 20 Nov. (Letter 261) that Wordsworth had written from Goslar, 'where he arrived six weeks ago (6 Oct.), this letter belongs to circa 17 Nov. -440- it is almost necessary to be able to bear smoke. Can Dorothy endure smoke? Here, when my friends come to see me, the candle nearly goes out, the air is so thick. 261. To Thomas Poole Address: Mr Thomas Poole | Nether Stowey | Somersetshire | Englandsingle payed to Cuxhaven MS. New York Public Lib. Part of the journal in this letter was revised and published in Satyrane's Letters, iii. See The Friend, No. 18, 21 December 1809, and Biog. Lit. 1817, ii. 287-58. Postmark: Foreign Office, 10 December 1798. Ratzeburgh. Novemb. 20th, 1798 My beloved Poole -- How comes it that I hear from none of you? -- Since your's of the 8th of October, there has been a dreary Silence. Am I not a Friend, a Husband, a Father? -- And do there not belong to each of these it's own longings and inquietudes? -The Post comes in here four times a week; and for these last three Weeks four times every week have I hoped and hoped for a letter, till my heart is almost weary of hoping -- and no hour passes in which my anxiety about you does not for a few minutes turn me away from my studies. -- I fear that you have not written; and I fear that you have written --: if the latter be the Case, you may be blaming me -- & Sara imagining that I do not feel my own & her absence as I ought to feel it. -- Friday, Sept. 21st. Wordsworth & I accompanied Klopstock to his Brother's who lives ten minutes walk from the Gates, in a row of little Summer-houses -- so they appear -- with ugly rows of cropped & meagre Elms before them. -- Whatever beauty may be before the Poet's Eyes at present, it must certainly be purely of his own creatiori -- thought I, as I entered the House. -- We waited a few minutes in a neat little parlour, ornamented with Prints, the subjects of which were from Klopstock Odes. -- The Poet entered. --I was much disappointed in his countenance. I saw no Likeness to the Bust. --. There was no comprehension in the Forehead -- no weight over the eyebrows -- no expression of peculiarity, either moral or intellectual, in the eyes; -- there was no massiveness in the general Countenance. -- He is not quite so tall as I am -- his upper jaw is toothless, his under jaw all black Teeth; and he wore very large half-boots, which his legs completely filled. They were enormously swelled. -- He was lively, kind and courteous. He talked in French with Wordsworth -- &, with difficulty, spoke a few sentences to me in English. -- We were with him somewhat more than an hour. He began the conversation by expressing his rapture, in a -441- very voluble utterance, at the surrender of the French in Ireland 1 -- and his sanguine belief in Nelson's Victory. -- He talked as a most vehement Anti-gallican. -- The Subject changed to Poetry -& I enquired, in Latin, concerning the history of German Poetry, & of the elder German Poets. -- To my great astonishment he confessed, he knew very little on the subject -- he had indeed read occasionally one or two of their elder writers -- but not as to be able to speak of their merits. -- He told me that Professor Ebeling would probably give me every information of this kind -- the subject had not particularly excited his curiosity. -- (N.B. He answered in French, & Wordsworth interpreted it to me) --He shewed us a superb Edition of his works in Quarto -- two Volumes containing his Odes are all that are yet printed --. The price is £2, the volume / nearly twice as dear as the same sort of Books in England. From whence I conclude that they import the Paper from England, & that Printers capable of the Beautiful in Printing are few & of course have their own Prices. He talked of Milton & Glover; 2 & thought, Glover's blank Verse superior to Milton's! -- Wordsworth & myself expressed our surprize -- & Wordsworth explained his definition & ideas of harmonious Verse, that it consisted in the arrangement of pauses & cadences, & not in the even flow of single Lines -- Klopstock assented, & said that he meant only in single Lines that Glover was the Superior. He said, he had read Milton, in a prose Translation, when he was 14. -- I understood this myself, & Wordsworth interpreted Klopstock's French, as I had already construed it. He appeared to know very little of Milton -- or indeed of our Poets in general. He spoke with great Indignation of the English Prose Translation of his Messiah -- All the Translations had been bad, very bad -- but the English was no Translation -- there were pages on pages, not in the Original --: & half the Original was not to be found in the Translation. Wordsworth told him that I intended to translate a few of his Odes as specimens of German Lyrics -- he then said to me in English, 'I wish, you would render into English some select Passages of the Messiah, & revenge me of your Countryman.' -- It was the liveliest Thing, which he produced in the whole Conversation. He told us that his first Ode was fifty years older than his last. I looked at him with much emotion -- I considered him as the venerable Father of German Poetry; as a good man; as a Christian; with legs enormously swelled; seventy four years old; yet active and lively in his motions, as a boy; active, lively, chearful and kind and communicative -- and the Tears swelled ____________________ 1 On 8 Sept. 1798 General Humbert, who had conducted a French expedition to Ireland, surrendered to Cornwallis. 2 Richard Glover ( 1712-85), author of Leonidas, a blank verse epic. -442- into my eyes; and could I have made myself invisible and inaudible, I should have wept outright. -- In the picture of Lessing there was a Toupee Periwig which enormously injured the effect of his Physiognomy -- Klopstock wore the same, powered, &c -- / it had an ugly look; & Powder ever makes an old man's face look dirty. -It is an honor to Poets & Great Men that you think of them as parts of Nature; and any thing of Trick & Fashion wounds you in them as much as when you see Yews clipped into miserable peacocks. -- The Author of the Messiah should have worn his own Grey Hair. -- Powder and the Periwig were to the Eye what Mr Milton would be to the Ear --. -- Klopstock talked what appeared to me great nonsense about the superior power which the German Language possessed, of concentering meaning. He said, he had often translated parts of Homer & Virgil line by line; and a German Line was always sufficient for a Greek One. -- He observed that in English we could not do this. -- I answered that in English we could commonly render I Greek line in a line & a half English; & that I conjectured, that a Line and a half English contained no more words than one German Hexameter. -- He did not understand me well& I was glad of it. -- It appeared to me great nonsense -- & since I have read so many of the German Poets, I find that it really was nonsense. I have translated some German Hexameters into English -- & three lines English will express four lines German. The reason is evident -- our language abounds in monosyllables. -- We took our leave. We did not see Klopstock's Wife. -- He never had any children -- & this is his second Wife. -- Klopstock possesses a pension from the Court of Denmark, or rather I believe from the Bernstorff Family -- It was procured for him by his Friend, Count Stolberg the Poet -- whose Sister was Bernstorff's Wife. I need not tell you, that this Bernstorff was the great & good Prime Minister of Denmark -- whose name smells like a sweet Odor thro' the whole North of Europe / & his Son succeeds him in his office, & tho' not in Talents, yet in Virtue. -- At the beginning of the French Revolution Klopstock wrote some fiery Odes in praise of France -- he received high & honorary Presents from the French Republic, &, like our Priestley, was invited to the French Legislature, which he declined. -- But when French Liberty metamorphosed herself into a Fury, he sent back the Presents with an Ode, expressing his Recantation -- & his abhorrence of the French Proceedings. -- And since then, he has [been] more than enough an Antigallican. -- I will anticipate a little. -- On Sunday 28rd I went to Ratzeburgh -- & stayed there till Thursday -- / In this Interval Wordsworth dined at the Country house of Klopstock's Brother -- & the Poet -443- & his Wife dined with him. -- The Wife had been a great Beauty, & retained the proofs of it -- but according to [him & Miss) W. -She was vain & haughty -- & gratified her pride by manifestly exercising her authority over the Poet, as if conscious alwa[ys] who it was over whom she was ruling. -- So much for her. -Wordsworth had a long [&] various Conversation on literature with Klopstock-but it [was] (& Wordsworth agrees with me) all very commonplacet He [s]poke in high terms of Wieland, as the greatest Master of the German Language; but when prest on the subject of his immorality, he confessed that he would not have written the Oberon. -- He spoke with the keenest contempt of Schiller's Productions; & said, they could not retain their fame many years. -- Of Kant he said, that he was a Mountebank & the Disgrace of Germany -- an unintelligible Jargonist. -- And that his New Lights were going out very fast in Germany. (N.D. / I meet every where tho', with some SNUFFS that have a live spark in them -- & fume under your nose in every company. -- All are Kantians whom I have met with.) -- Of our poets he knew very little. He spoke of Shakespeare's absurdities in a manner which proved he had felt but little from his beauties. -- Of Gray he knew nothing but his Elegy -- An Englishman some years back had given him Collins's Poems, with which he was pleased. -- He spoke of his own Odes as excelling chiefly in lyric Construction; & therein thought himself a successful Imitator of the Ancient Lyric. -- Wordsworth confessed, he had never discovered either sense or beauty in the construction of Horace's Odes; but of this Klopstock would not even hear! -- Now here comes a melancholy Story: -- as it implies a littleness & vanity in the Old Poet that is painful to contemplate. -- He said, he had first planned the Messiah when he was Seventeen -- that he meditated on the Plan three years before he wrote a Line -- / & that he had never seen Milton till he had finished his Plan. -- This was a flat self-contradiction; but he appeared, according to Wordsworth, very fearful lest he should be considered as an Imitator of Milton! -- / -- I was vexed to the Heart to hear this Story -- & the Wordsworths & I strive to believe that it was a mistake on our part; but we cannot. However, we shall never mention it except to our most intimate Friends who do not live in or about London. Well -- so much for that. -- Well, he meditated three years on the Plan -- & then began to write; at first, in measured Prose, like the Telemachus, in which he succeeded tolerably well -- At last the Thought struck him that the Ancient Hexameter would suit the German Language. There had been already some specimens of German Hexameter; but most miserable ones. -- He set himself to -444- work, & in the course of a day or two had constructed 20 German Hexameters; & was so pleased with them that from henceforward he wrote only in Hexameters. -- He published, thro' the urgency of Friends, the six first Books in his 28rd year: -- & they were received with rapture. -- Such is the History of the Messiah from the Poet's own Mouth. -- Perhaps, you will ask, Have you read any of Klopstock's Poetry? -- But a little, & that little was sad Stuff! -- They call him the German Milton -- a very German Milton indeed! -- A sensible young man here assures me that Kl.'s poetical Fame is going down Hill. -- I have heard from Wordsworth -- He is at Goslar -- where he arrived six weeks ago / & his violent hatred of letter-writing had caused his ominous silence -- for which he accuses himself in severe terms. -- Goslar is an old decaying city at the Foot of the Hartz Mountain[s] -- provisions very cheap, & lodgings very cheap; but no Society -- and therefore as he did not come into Germany to learn the Language by a Dictionary, he must remove: which he means to do at the end of the Month. His address is -- la grande Rue de Goslar en Basse Saxe. -- Dorothy says -- 'William works hard, but not very much at the German.' -- This is strange -- I work at nothing else, from morning to night -- / -- It is very difficult to combine & arrange the German Sentences -- and I make miserable Havoc with the Genders -- but yet my progress is more rapid than I could myself have believed. -- We are well -- very well. -- There is a fine lovely Frost. -God love you, & my Sara & Babes -- Love to your dear Mother. S. T. Coleridge 262. To Mrs. S. T. Coleridge Transcript Thomas Ward copy-book, New York Public Lib. Pub. with omis. Letters, i. 265. Part of the journal in this letter was revised and published in Satyrane's Letters, iii. See The Friend, No. 18, 21 December 1809, and Biog. Lit. 1817, ii. 282-4. Ratzeburg, Novr 26th. 1798 Another, and another, and yet another Post day; and still Chester greets me with, 'No letters from England'! A Knell, that strikes out regularly four times a week -- How is this my Love? -Why do you not write to me? -- Do you think to shorten my absence by making it insupportable to me? -- Or perhaps you anticipate that if I received a letter, I should idly turn away from my German to dream of you -- of you & my beloved babies! -- Oh yes! -- I should indeed dream of you for hours and hours; of you, -445- and of beloved Poole, and of the Infant that sucks at your breast, and of my dear dear Hartley -- You would be present, you would be with me in the Air that I breathe; and I should cease to see you only when the tears rolled out of my eyes, and this naked undomestic Room became again visible -- But oh with what leaping and exhilarated faculties should I return to the objects & realities of my mission. -- But now -- nay, I cannot describe to you the gloominess of Thought, the burthen and Sickness of heart, which I experience every post day -- Through the whole remaining day I am incapable of every thing but anxious imaginations, of sore and fretful feelings -- The Hamburg Newspapers arrive here four times a week; and almost every Newspaper commences with, ' Schreiben aus London -- They write from London' -- This day's, with schreiben aus London, vom Nov 13 -- But I am certain that you have written more than once; and I stumble about in dark and idle conjectures, how and by what means it can have happened that I have not received your Letters -- I recommence my Journal, but with feelings that approach to disgust -- for in very truth I have nothing interesting to relate -- Saturday Septr 22d -- Wordsworth and we were in a state of doubt and oscillation whether we should proceed to Weimar or fix ourselves in some village near Hamburg -- We were frightened at the expences of travelling to Weimar, extra post, as these expences were represented by English Travellers. Baldwin told us that it probably would cost 60 and must cost forty guineas -- Remnant & the Germans affirmed this to be a prodigious hyperbole, & Remnant assured us that it was impossible that the Journey, (extra post, that is, the same as post chaises in opposition to stage Coaches) should cost us all four, provisions and all, & including all conceivable impositions, more than 15£ -- What a difference! -- But Wordsworth says he can believe no Man -- The laxity and inaccuracy of Men's minds are so astonishing -- Young Klopstock recom. mended Ratzeburg to us, & offered a letter of introduction -- and we accepted it, and I was appointed the Missioner. Septr 23d. Sunday -- Shops, half of them, open as on other days. A French Comedy at Night --; but this is the third time only that the Theatres have been open on Sundays. The Hamburghers had been struggling for it for years, but it had been refused by the Aldermen as indecent. -- One gate too is to be openable at Night -hitherto the gates have been all shut at 9 in Summer, & 5 in Winter, & no person from highest to lowest permitted to go out or in -- I observed a Woman ironing, & others at work -- I felt myself inclined to a strict Sabbatism; for I observe that where the Rich may play, the poor must work. -- I entered the Church of St Nicholas -- -446- observed a huge picture, I suppose 16 feet high, of St Christopher with our Saviour on his shoulders -- I should not have understood it, but for the note relative to the saint in Southey's Travels in Spain & Portugal -- There was the largest Organ that I ever beheld -- & the whole Church was profuse in all ornaments except Worshippers -- It was an inconceivably thin Congregation -- In other parts of Germany none pretend not to be Infidels, except the Pastors & the Peasantry -- but in Hamburgh they are not Irreligionists, only they have no Religion -- Septr 28d. -- Sunday 5 o'clock -- afternoon -- I set off in the stage for Ratzeburg -- The vehicle bore a sort of rude resemblance to an English stage coach -- but it was larger -- It held the same proportion and likeness as an Elephant's ear to the human. On the Top were naked boards of different colours, some painted, some not -- as if they had been parts of different Wainscoats -- Instead of Windows there were leathern curtains with a little eye of glass in them -- The Coach Doors and the Back-seats were thus windowed; and as these Curtain Windows would not come close, it was terribly cold. -- And yet this thing of a Coach had it's finery -- for it was lined with cut velvet! -- The four horses were harnessed simply with ropes, which, when they stopped, lay upon the Ground -- I payed 4 marks for my fare -- As we entered the Vicinity of Hamburgh, I was much struck with the neat and festal lightness of the Country houses -- Some were houses of entertainment, some private houses; but all were neat & crowded with neat holliday-dressed People -- I observed some Boys playing in a farm-yard -- One sat on a high post and swung round and round a black. Skin -- the others shouting and running with forward hands, round and round the post -- but the particulars of the play I could not learn -- There was a German in the Coach, who talked a little Latin, & was very kind and civil to me -- Whenever the Coach stopped, I went up to the Cottages, or rather Bauer-houses, & the alehouses -- they were alike, except in size -- one great Room like a Barn with a hay loft over it -- the straw & hay dangling in tufts through the Boards, which formed the Ceiling of the great Room & the floor of the Loft -From this huge Room, which is paved like a street, sometimes one, sometimes two rooms are inclosed -- and these are commonly floored -- In the large Room the Cattle, the Pigs & Poultry, Men, Women & Children live very amicably -- but yet it seemed clean and comfortable. -- One house I measured -- it was an hundred feet in length and 48 in breadth: Door Door -- 1 -Apartments won from the Room -- 2.2 -- Stalls for Cattle &c -- 3 -447- -- the breadth where the stalls were not -- 48 feet -- 4 --the breadth where the stalls were, 82 feet -- Of course the stalls were on each side 8 feet in breadth -- the faces of the Cows &c were towards the room, indeed in it -- (What a Genius for painting I possess! I cannot help admiring the exquisite Elegance of my own drawing -- it wants nothing but colours to make it surpass the original.) The Woodwork of these buildings on the outside, unplaistered as in the old houses among us, & being painted red & green, they cut & tesselate the house very prettily -- From within three miles of Hamburgh almost to Molln, which is 80 miles, it was a dead flat, only varied by woods in the Distance -- near Molln it became more beautiful -- There was a small Lake planted round with Groves -- exactly like a Nobleman's seat among us. -- There was a palace in view, belonging to the King of England and tenanted by the Inspector of the Forests. -- We were nearly the same time travelling from Hamburgh to Ratzeburg 85 miles, as from London to Yarmouth 126 -- However we arrived there Monday Septr 24th. 9 o'clock -- It appeared at a little distance like a cluster of neat red houses, on the opposite side of the lake, & near the head of it -- but as we approached, it appeared more and more near the middle of it -- & this too was a delusion. For Ratzeburg is an Island in the lake, and there are seven miles of water above it, and only 1/2 beneath it -- the lake runs nearly from south to north -- But I will describe Ratzeburg more fully hereafter -- Suffice it at present to say that I was enchanted with the appearance -- Here a ludicrous circumstance occurred -- I had never asked Klopstock the Name of the Gentleman, but only took the letter -- Accordingly when I arrived at Ratzeburgh, I consulted the direction -- but lo! it was in German Characters -- which, (the written) I cannot even now read. However there was one word which I made out, & which from it's situation I took for the name -- this was Wohlgebohrne. -- So I began to enquire where Mr Wohlgebohrne lived -- No body knew such a Person -- I was a little frightened and shewed my letter -- A Grin! -The address was to the Amtman Braunes -- An Amtman is a sort of perpetual Mayor -- at once the Mayor & the Justice of Peace; -and Wohlgebohrne or 'Well born' is one of the common titles of Civility, & means no more than our Esqr -- Well I delivered my letter to the Amtman, who spoke English very well & received me very kindly -- Here I must conclude -- or I shall be too late for the post -- let your letters be thus directed, Mr Coleridge | Ratzeburg | (7 Ger: miles from Hamburgh) | Germany Chester is well, & we are comfortable except from anxiety -- My -448- best love to Mrs Poole and to all Friends -- God bless you my dear love -- & your affectionate and faithful Husband S T Coleridge -- N.B. My love to Nanny. ---- We have a deep snow and a hard frost, and I am learning to skate --There are Balls and Concerts every week -- & I am pressed by all the Ladies to dance. -- But if I could, I am in no dancing Mood. ---- 263. To Mrs. S. T. Coleridge Transcript Thomas Ward copy-book, New York Public Lib. Pub. Letters, i. 266. Sunday Evening/ Deer 2d. 1798 God, the Infinite, be praised that my Babes are alive. His mercy will forgive me that late and all too slowly I raised up my heart in thanksgiving. 1 -- At first and for a time, I wept as passionately as if they had been dead -- and for the whole day the weight was heavy upon me, relieved only by fits of weeping. -- I had long expected, I had passionately expected, a letter; I received it, and my frame trembled -- I saw your hand, and all feelings of mind and body crowded together -- had the news been chearful & only, 'We are as you left us' -- I must have wept, to have delivered myself of the stress and tumult of my animal sensiblity -- But when I read the danger and the agony -- My dear Sara! -- my love! my Wife! --- God bless you & preserve us -- I am well; but a stye, or something of that kind, has come upon & enormously swelled my eye-lids, so that it is painful and improper for me to read or write ! -- In a few days it will now disappear -- & I will write at length -- (now it forces me to cease) -- tomorrow I will write a line or two on the other side of the page to Mr Roskilly 2 -- I received your letter Friday, November 81st.[30th.] -- I cannot well account for the slowness -- O my babies! -- Absence makes it painful to be a Father! -- My Wife, believe and know that I pant to be home & with you. S. T. Coleridge Decr. 3d. -- My eyes are painful -- but there is no doubt, but they will be well in two or three days -- I have taken physic, eat very little flesh -- & drink only water -- but it grieves me that I cannot read -- I need not have troubled my poor eyes with a superfluous love to my dear Poole -- ____________________ 1 In a letter of 1 Nov. 1798 Mrs. Coleridge wrote of Berkeley Coleridge's illness, disfigurement, and recovery from an inoculation with small-pox. 2 The Rev. Mr. Roskilly, curate at Nether Stowey, had been promoted to be rector of Kempsford in Gloucestershire. -449- 264. To Mr. Roskilly Transcript Thomas Ward copy-book, New York Public Lib. Pub. Letters, i. 267. Ratzeburg Germany Decr 3d 1798 My dear Sir There is an honest heart out of Great Britain that enters into your good fortune with a sincere and lively Joy -- May you enjoy life and health -- all else you have -- a good Wife -- a good conscience, a good temper, sweet children and Competence! -- The first glass of wine I drink shall be a bumper -- not to you! no! -- but to the Bishop of Gloucester! God bless him! Sincerely your Friend S. T. Coleridge 265. To William Wordsworth Pub. Memoirs of Wordsworth, i. 138. This fragment and the one which follows are undated. They seem to have been written about the same time. Since the letter to Coleridge from William and Dorothy Wordsworth ( Early Letters, 208) in answer to Letter 266 mentions Coleridge's eyes, and since on 8 December Coleridge said, 'My eyes are painful --' ( Letter263), these two fragments probably belong to early December 1798. [Early December 1798] With regard to measures, I am convinced that our language is, in some instances, better adapted to these metres than the German: e.g. 'a' and 'the' are better short syllables than 'ein' and 'der;''not' than 'nicht.' . . . Is the German, in truth, adapted to these metres? I grievously suspect that it is all pure pedantry. Some advantages there, doubtless, are, for we cannot fall foul of any thing without advantages. 266. To William Wordsworth Pub. Memoirs of Wordsworth, i. 138. [Early December 1798] As to the German Hexameters, they have in their very essence grievous defects. It is possible and probable that we receive organically very little pleasure from the Greek and Latin hexameters; for, most certainly, we read all the spondees as iambics or trochees. But then the words have a fixed quantity. We know it; and there is an effect produced in the brain similar to harmony without passing through the ear-hole. The same words, with different meanings, rhyming in Italian, is a close analogy. I suspect -450- that great part of the pleasure derived from Virgil consists in this satisfaction of the judgment. 'Majestate manûs' begins an hexameter; and a very good beginning it is. 'Majestate magnâ' is read exactly in the same manner, yet that were a false quantity; and a schoolmaster would conceit that it offended his ear. Secondly, the words having fixed quantities in Latin, the lines are always of equal length in time; but in German, what is now a spondee is in the next line only two-thirds of a dactyl. Thirdly, women all dislike the hexameters with whom I have talked. They say, and in my opinion they say truly, that only the two last feet have any discernible melody; and when the liberty of two spondees, 'Jovis incrementum,' is used, it is absolute prose. 1 When I was ill and wakeful, I composed some English hexameters: 2 William, my teacher, my friend! dear William and dear Dorothea! Smooth out the folds of my letter, and place it on desk or on table; Place it on table or desk; and your right hands loosely half-closing, 3 Gently sustain them in air, and extending the digit didactic, Rest it a moment on each of the forks of the five-forkéd left hand, Twice on the breadth of the thumb, and once on the tip of each finger; Read with a nod of the head in a humouring recitativo; And, as I live, you will see my hexameters hopping before you. This is a galloping measure; a hop, and a trot, and a gallop! All my hexameters fly, like stags pursued by the stag-hounds, Breathless and panting, and ready to drop, yet flying still onwards. 4 I would full fain pull in my hard-mouthed runaway hunter; But our English Spondeans are clumsy yet impotent curb-reins; And so to make him go slowly, no way have I left but to lame him. William, my head and my heart! dear Poet that feelest and thinkest! Dorothy, eager of soul, my most affectionate sister! Many a mile, O! many a wearisome mile are ye distant, Long, long, comfortless roads, with no one eye that doth know us. O! it is all too far to send to you mockeries idle: Yea, and I feel it not right! But O! my friends, my beloved! Feverish and wakeful I lie, -- I am weary of feeling and thinking. Every thought is worn down, -- I am weary, yet cannot be vacant. Five long hours have I tossed, rheumatic heats, dry and flushing, ____________________ 1 For Wordsworth's reply, see Early Letters, 203. 2 Poem, i. 304. 3 False metre. [Note by S. T. C.] 4 'Still flying onwards', were perhaps better. [Note by S. T. C.] -451- Gnawing behind in my head, and and throbbing about me, Busy and tiresome, my friends, as the beat of the boding nightspider. 1 I forget the beginning of the line: . . . my eyes are a burthen, Now unwillingly closed, now open and aching with darkness. O! what a life is the eye! what a fine and inscrutable essence! Him that is utterly blind, nor glimpses the fire that warms him; Him that never beheld the swelling breast of his mother; Him that ne'er smiled at the bosom as babe that smiles in its slumber; Even to him it exists, it stirs and moves in its prison; Lives with a separate life, and 'Is it the spirit?' he murmurs: Sure, it has thoughts of its own, and to see is only its language. There was a great deal more, which I have forgotten, as I never wrote it down. No doubt, much better might be written; but these will still give you some idea of them. The last line which I wrote I remember, and write it for the truth of the sentiment, scarely less true in company than in pain and solitude: William, my head and my heart! dear William and dear Dorothea! You have all in each other; but I am lonely, and want you! 267. To William Wordsworth Address: M. Wordsworth, | Chez Madame la Veuve Dippermaer, [Deppermann] | Dans la Grande Rue, | Goslar, Basse Saxe. Pub. Memoirs of Wordsworth, i. 137. Ratzeburg, Dec. 10. 1798 . . . The blank lines gave me as much direct pleasure as was possible in the general bustle of pleasure with which I received and read your letter. I observed, I remember, that the 'fingers woven,' 2 &c., only puzzled me; and though I liked the twelve or fourteen first lines very well, yet I like the remainder much better. Well, now I have read them again, they are very beautiful, and leave an affecting impression. That Uncertain heaven received Into the bosom of the steady lake, 3 ____________________ 1 False metre. [Note by S. T. C.] 2 There was a Boy, line 7, Wordsworth, Poet. Works, ii. 206. 3 Ibid. , lines 24-25. -452- I should have recognised any where; and had I met these lines running wild in the deserts of Arabia, I should have instantly screamed out 'Wordsworth!'. . . 268. To William Wordsworth Pub. Memoirs of Wordsworth, i. 138. [ December 1798] 1 I am sure I need not say how you are incorporated into the better part of my being; how, whenever I spring forward into the future with noble affections, I always alight by your side. . . . 269. To Thomas Poole Address: Mr T. Poole | Nether Stowey | Somersetshire England Pay'd to Cuxhaven MS. New York Public Lib. Pub. with omis. Letters, i. 267. A small part of the journal was revised and published in Satyrane's Letters, iii. See The Friend, No. 18, 21 December 1809, and Biog. Lit. 1817, ii. 236-7. The manuscript is torn and the passages in brackets have been supplied from a transcript made by Thomas Ward. Postmark: Foreign Office, 19 January 1799. January 4th, 1799 -- Morning, 11 o'clock My Friend, my dear Friend! Two Hours have past, since I received your Letter -- it was so frightfully long since I received one!! -- My body is weak and faint with the Beating of my Heart. -- But every thing affects one, more than it ought to do, in a foreign Country. I cried myself blind about Berkley, when I ought to have been on my knees in the joy of thanksgiving. -- The waywardness of the Pacquets is wonderful -- On the 7th of Decemb. Chester received a letter from his Sister, dated Nov. 27th --: your's is dated Nov. 22nd, & I received it only this morning. I am quite well; calm, & industrious. I now read German as English -- that is, without any mental translation, as I read -- I likewise understand all that is said to me, & a good deal of what they say to each other. On very trivial, and on metaphysical Subjects I can talk tolerably -- so so! -- but in that conversation, which is between both, I bungle most ridiculously. -- I owe it to my industry that I can read old German, & even the old low- ____________________ 1 Christopher Wordsworth in introducing this fragment notes that the letter of which it is an excerpt deals with some plan for the future settlement of Wordsworth and Coleridge 'in neighbourhood to each other'; and since Coleridge's letter to Poole of 4 Jan. 1799 shows that a plan for settling in the same vicinity in England had already been under discussion, this fragment must belong to Dec. 1798. -453- german, better than most of even Natives -- it has greatly enlarged my knowlege of the English Language. -- It is a great bar to the amelioration of Germany that thro' at least half of it, and that half composed almost wholly of Protestant States, from whence alone amelioration can proceed, the Agriculturists & a great part of the Artisans talk a language as different from the language of the higher classes (in which all books are written,) as the Latin is from the Greek. The differences are greater than the affinities, & the affinities are darkened by the difference of pronunciation & spelling. -- I have written twice to Mr Jos. Wedgewood 1 -- & in a few days will follow a most voluminous letter, or rather series of letters, which will comprise a history of the Bauers, or Peasants -- collected not so much from books, as from oral communications from the Amtman here -- (An Amtman is a sort of perpetual Land-mayor -- / -- uniting in himself Judge & Justice of Peace over the Bauers of a given District.) ----. I have enjoyed great advantages in this place; but I have payed dear for them. Including all expences I have not lived at less than two pound a week -- Wordsworth (from whom I receive long & affectionate letters) has enjoyed scarcely one advantage, but his expences have been considerably less than they were in England. -- Here I shall stay till the last week in January, when I shall proceed to G0TTINGEN, where, all expences included, I can live for 15 shillings a week -- for these last two months I have drank nothing but water & I eat but little animal food -- at Gottingen I shall hire lodging for two months, buy my own cold beef at an eating-house, & dine in my chamber which I can have at a dollar a week. -- And here at Gottingen I must endeavor to unite the advantages of advancing in German, & doing something to repay myself. -- My dear Poole! I am afraid, that, supposing I return in the first week of May, my whole expences from Stowey to Stowey, including books & cloathes, will not have been less than 90 POUND! -- And if I buy ten pounds worth more of books it will have been an hundred. / I despair not by that intense application & regular use of my time, to which I have now almost accustomed myself, that by three months' residence at Gottingen I shall have on paper at least all the materials, if not the whole of the structure, of a work that will repay me. -The work I have planned -- & I have imperiously excluded all waverings about other works -- ! That is the disease of my mind -it is comprehensive in it's conceptions & wastes itself in the con- ____________________ 1 Writing to Coleridge on 20 Jan. 1799, Josiah Wedgwood said: 'I have just received your letter of the 29th Novr and I find by it that a former from Hamburgh has not come to me, and I do not now expect to receive it.' Neither of Coleridge's letters has come to light. -454- templations of the many things which it might do! -- I am aware of the disease, & for the next three months, if I cannot cure it I will at least suspend it's operation. This Work is a Life of Lessing -- & interweaved with it a true state of German Literature, in it's rise & present state. ---- I have already written a little life, from three different biographies, divided it into years -- & at Gottingen I will read his works regularly, according to the years in which they were written, & the controversies, religious & literary, which they occasioned. 1 -- But of this say nothing to any one. ---- The Journey to Germany has certainly done me good -- my habits are less irregular; & my mind more in my own power! But I have much still to do! ---- I did indeed receive great joy from Roskilly's good fortune -- & in a little note to my dear Sara I joined a note of congratulation to Roskilly. -- Cruckshank! -- O Poole! you are a noble heart as ever God made! ---- Poor Cruckshank -- he is passing thro' a fiery discipline, and I would fain believe, that it will end in his peace and utility. --/-- Wordsworth is divided in his mind, unquietly divided, between the neighbourhood of Stowey & the N. of England. He cannot think of settling at a distance from me, & I have told him that I cannot leave the vicinity of Stowey. His chief objection to Stowey is the want of Books -- the Bristol Library is a hum & will do us little service, & he thinks that he can procure a house near Sir Gilford [Gilfrid] Lawson's by the Lakes, & have free access to his immense Library. -- I think it better once in a year to walk to Cambridge, in the summer vacation -- perhaps, I may be able to get rooms for nothing -- & there for a couple of months read like a Turk on a given plan, & return home with a mass of materials which with dear independent Poetry will fully employ the remaining year. -- But this is idle prattling about the Future. But indeed it is time to be looking out for a house for me ---- it is not possible, I can be either comfortable or useful in so small a house as that in Lime street --. If Woodland can be gotten at a reasonable Price, I would have it: -- I will now finish my long neglected Journal ---- On Thursday, Sept. 27th, 1798, I returned by extra-post as far as Empfelde a little village half way between Ratzeburgh & Hamburgh -- from Empfelde I walked to Hamburgh -- thro' deep sandy roads & a dreary Flat -- the soil every where white & hungry & excessively pulverized. But the approach to Hamburgh, that is, a mile or two before you reach it, is exceedingly sweet. The light cool Country Houses, which you can look thro'; & the gardens behind, with Trees in piazzas; every house with neat rails before it, & green ____________________ 1 Coleridge's projected study of Leasing, to which so many references occur in succeeding letters, was never carried out. -455- seats within the rails -- every thing, nature & all, neat & artificial -& it pleased me far more than if the Houses & Gardens & Pleasurefields had been in a better Taste. For this better Taste would have been mere apery -- / the narrow-minded, ignorant, money-loving Merchant of Hamburgh could only have adopted, he could not have enjoyed, the wild simplicity of Nature / and the mind begins to love nature first of all by imitating human conveniences in nature -- but this is a step in intellect tho' a low one; & were it not, all around me spoke of innocent enjoyment in sensitive Comfortableness; and I enter'd with joy & sympathy into the enjoyments even of the narrow-minded & money-loving Merchants of Hamburgh. With these thoughts I reached the vast Ramparts of the city -- they are huge, green CUSHIONS, one rising above the other, and Trees growing in the interspaces, eloquent of a long Peace. -- I found Wordsworth at the inn -- out of spirits & disgusted with Hamburgh & Hamburghers, & resolved to seek cheaper residence more to the South. -- Sept. 28th -- After dinner, I walked with Wordsworth to Altona -- we found the Prostitutes all in one Street -- we had seen none even in the streets, & no beggars. We walked on the ramparts -- O what a divine Sunset! There were woods in the Distance -- A rich sandy Light (nay, much deeper than sandy) was over the woods that blackened in this blaze: a brassy Mist seemed to float on that part of the woods which lay immediately under the intenser part of the Blaze. The Trees on the Ramparts & the moving People between the Trees were cut & -- I want a word -- patched (shall I say) by the brassy Splendor -- all else was obscure -- in the same manner as the Trees were divided into portions of obscurity & brassy Light, so were the Bodies of the men & women that moved up & down thro' them. -- It was a fairy Scene -- & what added to the effect, among the People there was a very beautiful Child riding on a saddled goat with a splendid Bridle. -- Chester & self resolved to stay over the Saturday because this Saturday was the Feast of St Michael, the Patron Saint of Hamburgh; and we were informed that there would be splendid Processions &c. Satur. 29th. Feast of St Michael, but no processions! -- Only two or three sermons preached to nobody in two or three churches, all silent & solemn, as a Sunday at Bristol; & St Michael & his Patronage cursed by the higher Classes, because the French Comedy is prohibited on this day -- Sunday, Sept. 30th Left Hamburgh in an extra-post at seven o'clock. These Extra-posts answer to Post-chaises in England; they are uncovered wicker-carts, -- a dust-cart, an English Dustcart -on my word, I do not exaggerate -- is a piece of finery compared -456- with him [them] -- & the Horses! Were one of your Plough-mares to see one of these, she would believe that it was the SkeletonGhost of her Grandfather! -- Where ever we stopped, the Postillion fed his horses with the brown rye-bread which he eat himself -- he and his Horses breakfasted together on the same diet in a most amusing manner -- only the Horses had no gin to their water, & the Postillion no water to his Gin! -- Changed post at Emfelde, & of course, more Germanorum, stopped two Hours. -- The Inns are always Farms -- and both on Inns, Stables, & Farms there are ALWAYS nailed up at both Gables two pieces of wood cross each other thus a the Gable. bb. the Cross. -- the crosses often shaped into [horns &] horses heads This, they believe univer sally, keeps of[f] the Evil Spirit who in a ball of fire would come into their chimnies. -- Here all the higher classes, except the Clergy perhaps, are Infidels -- & all the People grossly superstitious. -- From Emfelde to Ratzeburgh our journey is comprized in two lines -- We rode in wicker waggon with our Goods / O'er damn'd bad roads thro' damn'd delightful Woods. These woods were sometimes like walls to the road -- sometimes they opened on one side & left us, formed curves & prospects in the distance -- Sometimes both sides grad[ually] went off & we found ourselves in a large circle formed by distant woods -- [The] area once a green & lovely Pasturage Farm -- but more often dry & drear[y Fields of] Rye stubble. We observed a cruel Custom -- [The] Cattle in the roads were [chai]ned horn to hoof, & so had their heads ever on the g[round -- ] I have observed similar Cruelties in the Isle of Anglesea in Wales -- & where ever fences & general agriculture are bad, there they will always exist. -- In the great Stables here where the Cattle are wintered the Cattle have the head ever chained, low down in a state of most unnatural Constraint. -- On Sunday Evening we arrived at Ratzeburg, & we took possession of our Lodgings. ---- Here ends my Journal -- After this time one day was like another -- in my next letter I will describe Ratzeburg, & give you my Journey to Lubec & the Baltic Sea. -- Then shall follow the customs of the better classes wherein they differ from the English -- & then the Customs, Superstitions, modes of Marriage &c of the Bowers. -Chester begs that you take up 25£ from his Brother, & [remit it for him to Mr Wedgwood, & I shall draw for it in a Draught on Mr Wedgwood through the Von Axens -- Chester is well & comfortable & begins to make progress -- not in speaking -- but in reading -- He begs his kind remembrances to you -- -457- I am pestered every ball night which very modestly I refuse -- They dance a most infamous dance called the Waltzen -There are perhaps 20 couple -- the Man & his Partner embrace each other, arms round waists, & knees almost touching, & then whirl round & round, the whole 20 couple, 40 times round at least, to lascivious music. This they dance at least three times every ball night -- There is no Country on the Earth where the married Women are chaste like the English -- here the married Men intrigue or whore -- and the Wives have their Cicisbeos. I entreat you, suspect me not of any Cicisbeo affair ---- I am no Puritan; but yet it is not customs or manners that can extinguish in me the Sacredness of a married Woman, or quench the disgust I feel towards an Adultress -- It is here as in France -- the single Women are chaste, but Marriage seems to legitimate Intrigue -- This is the chief moral objection I have to Infidels -- In Individuals it may not operate -but when it is general, it always taints the domestic Happiness of a People ---- ]. Sara, I suppose, is at Bristol -- On Monday I shall write to her. ---- The Frost here has been uncommonly severe / for two days it was twenty degrees under the Freezing Point. -- Wordsworth has left Goslar, & is on his road into higher Saxony to cruise for a pleasanter place. He has made but little progress in the Language --. -- I am interrupted -- & if I do not conclude, shall lose the Post. --. Give my kind love to your dear Mother -- O that I could but find her comfortable on my return -- to Ward remember me affectionately-likewise remember [me] to James Cole, & my grateful remembrances to Mrs Cole for her kindness during my Wife's domestic Troubles. -- To Harriet, Sophia, & Lavinia Poole -- to the Chesters -- to Mary & Ellen Cruikshank ---- in short, to all to whom it will give pleasure remember me affectionately and my dear, dear Poole -- God bless us! -- S. T. Coleridge [P.S. The Amtman who is almost an Englishman & an Idolizer of our nation, desires to be kindly remembered to you -- He told me yesterday that he had dreamt of you the night before.]