373. To Thomas Poole Address: Mr T. Poole | N. Stowey | Bridgewater| Somerset MS. British Museum. Pub. with omis. E. L. G. i. 166. Postmark: 9 January 1801. Stamped: Keswick. Tuesday Night, Jan. 7. [6] 1801 My dear Poole I write, alas! from my bed, to which I have been confined for almost the whole of the last three weeks with a Rheumatic Fever -which has now left me, I trust -- but the pain has fixed itself in ray hip, & in consequence, as I believe, of the torture I have sustained in that part, & the general feverous state of my body, my left testicle has swoln to more than three times it's natural size, so that I can only lie on my back, and am now sitting wide astraddle on this wearisome Bed. O me, my dear fellow! the notion of a Soul is a comfortable one to a poor fellow, who is beginning to be ashamed of his Body. For the last four months I have not had a fortnight of continuous health / bad eyes, swoln Eyelids, Boils behind my ears, & heaven knows what! -- From this year I commence a Liver by Rule -- the most degrading, perhaps, of all occupations, & which, were I not a Husband & Father, I should reject, as thinking human Life not worth it. -- My visit to the South I must defer to the warm weather -- the remaining months of the winter & the Spring I must give totis viribus to Health & Money -- . But for my illness I should have been so far beforehand with the world, that I should in all probability have been able to have maintained myself all this year without drawing on [the] Mr Wedgewoods, which I wished with a very fever of earnestness: for indeed it is gall to me to receive any more money from them, till I can point to something which I have done with an inward consciousness, that therein I have exerted the whole of my mind. -- As soon as my poor Head can endure the intellectual & mechanical part of composition, I must immediately finish a volume which has been long due -- this will cost me a month, for I must not attempt to work hard. When this is finished, I shall receive 70£ clear -- which will not be sufficient by some pounds to liquidate my debts: for I owe 20£ to Wordsworth, 25£ to Shopkeepers & my Landlord in Keswick, & 25£ to Phillips, the Bookseller (moneys received on the score of a work to be done for him which I could do indeed in a fortnight & receive 25£ more; but the fellow's name is become so infamous, that it would be worse than any thing I have yet done to appear in public as his Hack.) -Besides these I owe about 30£, 17£ of it to you, & the remainder -661- to Lamb -- but these are of no pressing nature, whereas the above mentioned are imperious. -- After this work I shall publish my Tragedy, which I have greatly added to, & altered, under the title of a Poem -- & likewise, & by itself, Christabel. These will fetch me 60£ -- & here end the List of my immediate & certain Resources. ---I have by me a Drama, and a sort of Farce -- written wholly for the Theatre, & which I should be ashamed of in any other view -- works written purposely vile -- if aught good should come of them, it would set me at case at once; but that is but a Dream. -- The result of all this is (I am so dizzy in consequence of so long lying a bed that I do not know whether I write legibly in manner or intelligibly in matter) that much as it may distress me, I must draw on Mr Wedgewood -- I do not know how much of this year's money I have anticipated -- I hope, not more than 40£ -- if so, I have 110 coming. -One thing I must request of you, that you will desire Mr King to pay 15£ to Mrs Fricker on my account -- and I have written to Mr Wedgewood to repay that sum to you. I have done this, because she is in immediate want of the money, & it saves the circuit of Letters, & it would have been gross to have had the money sent to her immediately from Mr Wedgewood. -- My Wife & Children are well -- Derwent is a fine fat little fellow, that very often looks just like your dear Mother. Hartley is a universal Darling -- he seems to have administered Love Philtres to the whole Town. -God bless you, my dearest Poole! -- I have scarce strength left to fold up the Letter -- S. T. Coleridge 374. To Humphry Davy Address: Mr Davy | Pneumatic Institution | Hotwells | Bristol MS. Royal Institution. Pub. with orals. E. L. G. i. 168. Postmark: 14 January 1801. Stamped: Keswick. Jan. 11. 1801 My dear Davy With legs astraddle & bebolster'd back, Alack! alack! I received your letter just in time to break up some speculations on the Hernia Humoralis, degenerating into Sarcocele, 'in which (after a long paragraph of Horrors) the Patient is at last carried off in great misery.' ---- From the week that Stoddart left me to the present I have been harrassed by a succession of Indispositions, inflamed eyes, swoln eyelids, boils behind my ear, &c &c -- Somewhat more than 8 weeks ago I walked to Grasmere, & was wet thro' -- I changed immediately -- but still the next day I was taken -662- ill, & by the Lettre de cachet of a Rheumatic Fever sentenced me to the Bed-bastille -- the Fever left me, and on the Friday before last I was well enough to be conveyed home in a chaise -- but immediately took to my bed again -- a most excrue[ia]ting pain on the least motion, but not without motion, playing Robespierre & Marat in my left Hip & the small of my back -- but alas I worse than all, my left Testicle swelled, without pain indeed, but distressing from it's weight; from a foolish shamefacedness almost peculiar to Englishmen I did [not] shew it to our doctor till last Tuesday night. On examination it appeared that a Fluid had collected between the Epididymis & the Body of the Testicle (how learned a Misfortune of this kind makes one) -- Fomentations & fumigations of Vinegar having no effect, I applied Sal ammoniac dissolved in verjuice, & to considerable purpose; but the smart was followed by such a frantic & intolerable Itching over the whole surface of the Scrotum, that I am convinced it is the identical Torment which the Damned suffer in Hell, & that Jesus, the good-natured one of the Trinity, had it built of Brimstone, in a pang of pity for the poor Devils. -- In all the parts thro' which the Spermatic Chord passes, I have dull & obtuse pains -- and on removing the suspensory Bandage the sense of weight is terrible. -- I never knew before what it was to be truly weak in body -- I h[av]e such pains in the Calves of my Legs -- / yet still [m]y animal spirits bear me up -- tho' I am so weak, that even from sitting up to write this note to you I seem to sink in upon myself in a ruin, like a Column of Sand informed & animated only by a Whirl-blast of the Desart. 1 Pray, my dear Davy! did you rectify the red oil which rises over after the Spirit of Hartshorn is gotten from the Horns, so as to make that animal oil of Diphelius? 2 And is it true what Hoffman 3 asserts, that 15 or 20 drops will exert many times the power of opium both in degree & duration, without inducing any after fatigue? -- You say W.'s 'last poem is full of jus[t] pictures of what human life ought to be' -- believe me, that such scenes & such char[acters] ____________________ 1 Cf. the following lines from The Triumph of Loyalty: The Whirl-blast comes, the desert-sands rise up And shape themselves; from Heaven to Earth they stand, As though they were the Pillars of a Temple, Built by Omnipotence in its own honour! But the Blast pauses, and their shaping spirit Is fled: the mighty Columns were but sand. Poems, ii. 1072, and also i. 423. 2 Presumably Coleridge refers to the animal oil invented by J. K. Dippel, 1678-1784. 3 Probably Friedrich Hoffmann ( 1660-1742), the celebrated German physician. -663- really exist in this county -- the superiority [of] the small Estatesman, such as W. pain[ts in] old Michael, is a God compared to our Peasants & small Farmers in the South: & furnishes important documents of the kindly ministrations of local attachment & hereditary descent -- Success, my dear Davy! to Galvanism & every other ism & schism that you are about. Perge, dilectissime! et quantum p[otes] (potes autem, plurimùm) rempublicam hu[ma]ni generis juva. Videtur mihi salte[m a]lios velle -- te vero posse. Interea a Deo [optimo] maximo iterum atque iterum precor, ut Davy meus, Davy, meum cor, meum cap[ut,] mea spes altera, vivat, ut vivat diu et feliciter! ---- Tui amantissimus S. T. Coleridge Raptum properante Tραμματαϕóρω 375. To Thomas Poole Address: Mr T. Poole | N. Stowey | Bridgewater | Somerset Single Sheet MS. British Museum. Partly pub. Thomas Poole, ii. 27. On 19 January 1801 Coleridge sent Poole a sheet containing (1) a copy of a letter from Wordsworth to Charles James Fox, in Dorothy Wordsworth's handwriting (see Early Letters, 259), (2) a copy of a letter from Wordsworth to William Wilberforce in Dorothy Wordsworth's handwriting but dictated to her by Coleridge, and (8) a personal letter from Coleridge to Poole. At the top of the manuscript Coleridge wrote: 'Dear Poole Turn to the Back of the Letter before you read this. S. T. C.' Since the letter to Wilberforce is unpublished and is Coleridge's own composition, it is added as an addendum to the letter to Poole. Postmark: 22 January 1801. Stamped: Keswick. Monday Night, Jan. 19, 1801 My dearest Poole Since I last wrote, I have had a sad time & a painful -- a fluid, it seems, had collected between the tunica vaginalis & the left Testicle -- in short, 'twas an hydrocele. By the increased weight the spermatic cord was affected, and in consequence the hip & the back, & where ever the spermatic cord passed, were troubled constantly by a dull pain and frequently by sharp & shooting Pains-& towards night I had regularly feverish Symptoms. But the sense of Lassitude, if I only sate up in bed, was worst of all -I seem'd to fall in upon myself in ruin, like a column of sand, that had been informed & animated only by a whirl blast of the desart -such & so treacherous were my animal spirits to me. -- The Vinegar fomentations & fumigations, &c producing no effect, we had recourse to an application of Sal Ammoniac dissolved in verjuice -- -664- this promised well at first, but it soon by the extreme irritation brought on over the whole surface of the scrotum such a frantic Itching, that I have no doubt but that this & no other is the Torment in Hell, & that Brimstone was given not [as] a producer, but as a merciful Palliative, of the Punishment. -- This Itching was succeeded by the appearance of five small but angry Ulcers on the Scrotum / on Wednesday morning I had three Leeches applied, & the wounds by means of hot cloaths were kept bleeding the whole day -- & after this I applied poultices, of bread grated & mixed up with a strong solution of Lead. -- Since that day I have been (not indeed without sorrowful Relapses at Evening) mending fast -- the fever toward night is almost gone -- & the Fluid has been absorbed & is absorbing apace -- and all seems doing well. This day for the first time I sate up for an hour or two, & do not find myself the worse. -- Our Surgeon & apothecary is an excellent, modest, truly intelligent man. -- The Lyrical Ballads will be published by the time this Letter reaches you -- for my sake, & Wordsworth's, & your own, you will purchase not only the new Volume, but likewise the second Edition of the First Volume, on account of the valuable Preface. By my advice, & at Longman's expence, copies with appropriate Letters were sent to the Dutchess of Devonshire, Sir Bland Burgess, 1 Mrs Jordan, Mr Fox, Mr Wilberforce, & 2 or 8 others -I dictated all the other Letters while W. wrote one to Mr Fox. 2 I have had that letter transcribed for you, for it's excellence -- & mine to Wilberforce, because the two contain a good view of our notions & motives, poetical & political. -- I had written to Mr Wedgewood to repay you. I rejoice at your dear Mothe[r's heal]th. Love to Ward, & congrat. on his Sister's account. God love you, dear Friend -- S. T. Coleridge. Write. I have not heard from Mr Wedgewood since I wrote -- & am not a little pinched for money. Last week I payed 25£ to Phillips, in consequence of an attorney's Letter, 3 the first I ever received & ____________________ 1 Sir James Bland Burges ( 1752-1824), politician and man of letters. 2 For note concerning Fox's reply see Letter 380. 3 This 'attorney's Letter' has been preserved: London 9 Jany 1801 Sir I have been applyd to by Mr Rd Phillips of this City Bookseller who directs me to inform You that unless your engagemt. with him is forthwith completed I have his instructions to commence an Action against You without further Notice I am Sir | Your most Obt Servt D. Abbott. Rolls Yard Chancery Lane /. -665- which amused me infinitely. -- I felt like a man of this World. I had irritated P. by an exceedingly humorous Letter, which I will send you. Wordsworths left me this morning. -- To William Wilberforce Esqr. M.P. [Composed by Coleridge for Wordsworth] Sir, I composed the accompanying poems under the persuasion, that all which is usually included under the name of action bears the same pro[por]tion (in respect of worth) to the affections, as a language to the thing sign[ified.] When the material forms or intellectual ideas which should be employed to [rep]resent the internal state of feeling, are made to claim attention for their own sake, then commences Lip-worship, or superstition, or disputatiousness, in religion; a passion for gaudy ornament & violent stimulants in morals; & in our literature bombast and vicious refinements, an aversion to the common conversational language of our Countrymen, with an extravagant preference given to Wit by some, and to outrageous incident by others; while the most sacred affections of the human race seem to lay no hold on our sympathies unless we can contemplate them in the train of some circumstances that excite curiosity, or unriddle them from some gaudy phrases that are to attract our wonder for themselves. It was the excellence of our elder Poets to write in such a language as should the most rapidly convey their mean[ing,] but the pleasure which I am persuaded the greater number of Read[ers re]ceive from our modern writers in verse & prose, arises from the sense of having overcome a difficulty, of having made a series of lucky guesses, & perhaps, in some degree, of understanding what they are conscious the lower Classes of their Countrymen would not be able to understand. The poems which accompany this letter were written with no idle expectation of the Author's immediate fame or their. rapid circulation: had my predominant influences been either the love of praise or the desire of profit, I should have held out to myself other subjects than the affections which walk 'in silence and in a veil' and other rules of poetic diction than the determination to prefer passion to imagery, & (except when the contrary was chosen for dramatic purposes) to express what I meant to express with all possible regard to precision and propriety but with very little attention to what is called dignity. In thus stating my opinions I state at the same time my reasons for soliciting your acceptance of these Volumes. In your religious -666- treatise 1 these truths are developed, & applied to the present state of our religion; I have acted on them in a less awful department, but not I trust with less serious convictions. Indeed had I not persuaded myself that in the composition of them I had been a Fellow-labourer with you in the same Vineyard, acting under the perception of some one common truth & attributing to that truth the same importance & necessity; 2 if I had not appeared to myself to have discovered (in my intentions at least) some bond of connection between us; I could not without self-reproof have taken this opportunity of &c &c W. Wordsworth. 376. To John Thelwall Address: Mr John Thelwall | Hereford | Herefordshire MS. Pierpont Morgan Lib. Hitherto unpublished. Postmark: 26 January 1801. Stamped: Keswick. Jan. 23. 1801 Keswick, Cumberland Dear Thelwall Shortly after I wrote to you, I was seized with a Rheumatic Fever, & after that with an Hydrocele -- I have been now for more than 5 weeks confined to my bed, and at the time your Letter arrived too ill to read it -- & Now I can only write merely but to inclose the note -- a blank half-sheet -- for as a supersacramentary penance to my other grievous ones my right eye is inflamed & the Lid prodigiously swollen. But I am weary of writing of this I -- I -I -- I -- so bepatched & bescented with Sal Ammoniac & Diaculum, Pain & Infirmity. My own Moans are grown stupid to my own ears. I rejoice sincerely that you have left a situation wholly unfit for you -- doubtless, by your Talents you will always be able to earn sufficient for the Day at least. I wish for your sake that so many foolish Epic Poems had not been published lately, or on the eve of Publication. You entirely misunderstood me as to religious matters. -- You love your wife, children, & friends, you worship nature, and you dare hope, nay, have faith in, the future improvement of the human Race ---- this is true Religion / your notions about the historical credibility or non-credibility of a sacred Book, your assent to or dissent from the existence of a supramundane Deity, or personal God, are absolutely indifferent to me / mere figures of a magic Lanthern. I hold my faith -- you keep your's. ____________________ 1 William Wilberforce, A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, 1797. 2 The remainder of this letter is in Coleridge's handwriting; all that precedes is in Dorothy Wordsworth's. -667- Write to inform me, that you have received the note -- for your address -- Hereford -- is a very brief one indeed. The account I gave you is the true one -- had I been able to send 10£ or 100£ on my own account, I would do it with eagerness -- but without any gravities concerning your injuries or your merits -- / these speculations are superseded in me by plain simple affection. My love to your dear Wife. Derwent, my youngest, is a fat healthy hungry pretty creature -- the abstract idea of a Baby -a fit Representative of Babe-borough. Hartley is quite the contrary -- a fairy elf -- all life, all motion -- indefatigable in joy -- a spirit of Joy dancing on an Aspen Leaf. From morning to night he whirls about and about, whisks, whirls, and eddies, like a blossom in a May-breeze. -- Sara desires to be kindly remembered to you -- & your's. God bless you | & S. T. Coleridge I have not seen your Novel -- nor knew that you had written one. 1 Any thing left for me at Mr Longman's, Paternoster Row, will find it's way to me sometime or other. P.S. By all means procure a sight of the 2nd Volume of the Lyrical Ballads, and of the second Edition of the first Volume -the Preface is invaluable. 377. To Thomas Poole Address: Mr T. Poole | N. Stowey | Bridgewater | Somerset. MS. British Museum. Pub. E. L. G. i. 170. Postmark: 4 February 1801. Stamped: Keswick. Sunday Night. Feb. 1. 1801 My dear Poole It mingles with the pleasures of convalescence, with the breeze that trembles on my nerves, the thought how glad you will be to hear that I am striding back to my former health with such manful paces. The Fluid is nearly, indeed almost wholly absorbed, and though I cannot sit up very long without lassitude & pains in my back, yet I can sit up every day longer than the Day before. I have begun to take Bark, and I hope, that shortly I shall look back on my long & painful Illness only as a Storehouse of wild Dreams for Poems, or intellectual Facts for metaphysical Speculation. Davy in the kindness of his heart calls me the Poet-philosopher -- I hope, Philosophy & Poetry will not neutralize each ____________________ 1 In 1801 Thelwall published a novel, The Daughter of Adoption, 4 vols., under the pseudonym, John Beaufort, LL.D. -668- other, & leave me an inert mass. But I talk idly -- I feel, that I have power within me: and I humbly pray to the Great Being, the God & Father who has bidden me 'rise & walk' that he will grant me a steady mind to employ the health of my youth and manhood in the manifestation of that power. One week more of Repose I am enjoined to grant myself: & then I gird up my Loins, first, to disembarrass my circumstances by fulfilling all my engagements / & then to a Work -- O my dear dear Friend! that you were with me by the fireside of my Study here, that I might talk it over with you to the Tune of this Night Wind that pipes it's thin doleful climbing sinking Notes like a child that has lost it's way and is crying aloud, half in grief and half in the hope to be heard by it's Mother. 1 But when your Ripping is over, you will come, or at farthest immediately after your Hay Harvest. -- Believe me, often and often in my walks amid these sublime Landscapes. I have trod the ground impatiently, irritated that you were not with me. -- Poor dear Mrs Robinson I you have heard of her Death. She wrote me a most affecting, heart-rending Letter a few weeks before she died, to express what she called her death bed affection & esteem for me -- the very last Lines of her Letter are indeed sublime -- 'My little Cottage is retired and comfortable. There I mean to remain (if indeed I live so long) till Christmas. But it is not surrounded with the romantic Scenery of your chosen retreat: it is not, my dear Sir! the nursery of sublime Thoughts -- the abode of Peace -- the solitude of Nature's Wonders. O! Skiddaw! -- I think, if I could but once contemplate thy Summit, I should never quit the Prospect it would present till my eyes were closed for ever!' O Poole! that that Woman had but been married to a noble Being, what a noble Being she herself would have been. Latterly, she felt this with a poignant anguish. -- Well! -- O'er her pil'd grave the gale of evening sighs; And flowers will grow upon it's grassy Slope. I wipe the dimming Water from mine eyes -- Ev'n in the cold Grave dwells the Cherub Hope! 2 Our children are well -- twenty times a week I see in little Derwent such a striking Look of your dear Mother! -- My love to Ward. -- I congratulate him on his Brother's Marriage. ---- Have you received the 15£ from Mr Wedgewood? he informed me that he would send it to you speedily. I received 25£ from him, which I payed off immediately -- and now that I am so near to Health, & shall be soon able to finish my engagements with Longman, I feel ____________________ 1 Cf. Dejection; an Ode, lines 121-5; Poems, i. 868; and Letter 438, p. 795. 2 Poems, ii. 996. -669- a repugnance at sending to him again for more money immediately. If it would [be] no inconvenience to you to let me have 20£ for six weeks, you would make my mind easy -- at that time I will either send you back the Money myself, or write to Mr Wedgewood to do so. But if it be inconvenient to you, feel no pain in telling me so -- only write to me. I have paid Phillips, as I told you, I believe; & that the Fellow sent me an Attorney's Letter ---- it amused me exceedingly at first -- but afterwards it made my very heart ache, thinking of poor Cruckshank ---- God bless you, my dear Friend! & S. T. Coleridge. -- 378. To Humphry Davy Address: Mr Davy | Pneumatic Institution | Hot Wells | Bristol Single MS. Royal Institution. Pub. Letters, i. 345. Postmark: 6 February 1801. Stamped: Keswick. Tuesday, Feb. 8. 1801 My dear Davy I can scarcely reconcile it to my Conscience to make you pay postage for another Letter. O what a fine Unveiling of modern Politics it would be, if there were published a minute Detail of all the sums received by Government from the Post Establishment, and of all the outlets, in which the sums so received, flowed out again -- and on the other hand all the domestic affections that had been stifled, all the intellectual progress that would have been, but is not, on account of this heavy Tax, &c &c ---- The Letters of a nation ought to be payed for, as an article of national expence. ---- Well -- but I did not take up this paper to flourish away in splenetic Politics. ---- A Gentleman resident here, his name Calvert, 1 an idle, goodhearted, and ingenious man, has a great desire to commence fellow-student with me & Wordsworth in Chemistry. -- He is an intimate friend of Wordsworth's -- & he has proposed to Wordsworth to take a house which he ( Calvert) has nearly built, called Windy Brow, in a delicious situation, scarce half a mile from Grieta Hall, the residence of S. T. Coleridge Esq. / and so for him (Calvert) to live with them, i.e. Wordsworth & his Sister. -- In this case he means to build a little Laboratory &c. -- Wordsworth has not quite decided, but is strongly inclined to adopt the scheme, because he and his Sister have before lived with Calvert on the same footing, and are much attached to him; because my Health is so precarious, and so much injured by Wet, and his health too is, like ____________________ 1 William Calvert, whose brother, Raisley Calvert, had left a legacy to Wordsworth. -670- little potatoes, no great things, and therefore Grasmere (18 miles from Keswick) is too great a distance for us to enjoy each other's Society without inconvenience as much as it would be profitable for us both; & likewise because he feels it more & more necessary for him to have some intellectual pursuit less closely connected with deep passion, than Poetry, & is of course desirous too not to be so wholly ignorant of knowleges so exceedingly important --. However whether Wordsworth come or no, Calvert & I have determined to begin & go on. Calvert is a man of sense, and some originality / and is besides what is well called a handy man. He is a good practical mechanic &c -- and is desirous to lay out any sum of money that may be necessary. You know how long, how ardently I have wished to initiate myself in Chemical science -both for it's own sake, and in no small degree likewise, my beloved friend! -- that I may be able to sympathize with all, that you do and think. -- Sympathize blindly with it all I do even now, God knows! from the very middle of my heart's heart -- ; but I would fain sympathize with you in the Light of Knowlege. -- This opportunity therefore is exceedingly precious to me -- as on my own account I could not afford any the least additional expence, having been already by long & successive Illnesses thrown behind hand so much, that for the next 4 or five months, I fear, let me work as hard as I can, I shall not be able to do what my heart within me burns to do -- that is, concenter my free mind to the affinities of the Feelings with Words & Ideas under the title of 'Concerning Poetry & the nature of the Pleasures derived from it.' ---- I have faith, that I do understand this subject / and I am sure, that if I write what I ought to do on it, the Work would supersede all the Books of Metaphysics hitherto written / and all the Books of Morals too. -- To whom shall a young man utter his Pride, if not to a young man whom he loves? ---- I beg you therefore, my dear Davy! to write to me a long Letter when you are at leisure, informing me I What Books it will be well for Mr Calvert to purchase. 2. Directions for a convenient little Laboratory -- and 3rdly -- to what amount the apparatus would run in expence, and whether or no you would be so good as to superintend it's making at Bristol. -- Fourthly, give me your advice how to begin ---- and fifthly & lastly & mostly do send a drop of hope to my parched Tongue, that you will, if you can, come & visit me in the Spring. -- Indeed, indeed, you ought to see this Country, this divine Country -- and then the Joy you would send into me! The Shape of this paper will convince you with what eagerness I began this Letter -- I really did not see that it was not a Sheet. I have been thinking vigorously during my Illness -- so that I -671- cannot say, that my long long wakeful nights have been an lost to me. The subject of my meditations ha[s] been the Relations of Thoughts to Things, in the language of Hume, of Ideas to Impressions: I may be truly described in the words of Descartes. I have been 'res cogitans, id est, dubitans, affirmans, negans, p[auca] intelligens, multa ignorans, volens, nolens, imaginans etia[m,] et sentiens 1 -- ' & I please myself with believing, that [you] will receive no small pleasure from the result of [my] broodings, altho' I expect in you (in some points) [a] determined opponent -but I say of my mind, in this respect, 'Manet imperterritus ille Hostem magnanimum opperiens, et mole suâ stat.' 2 Every poor fellow has his proud hour sometimes -- & this, I suppose, is mine. -- I am better in every respect than I was; but am still very feeble. The Weather has been woefully against me for the last fortnight, it having rained here almost incessantly -- I take large quantities of Bark, but the effect is (to express myself with the dignity of Science) X = 0 0 0 0 0 0 0: and I shall not gather strength or t[hat] suffusion of bloom which belongs to my healthy state, till I can walk out. God bless you, my dear Davy! & your ever affectionate Friend, S. T. Coleridge. P.S. An electrical machine & a number of little nick nacks connected with it Mr Calvert has. ---- Write. 379. To Dorothy Wordsworth Address: Mr Clarkson| Euse hill by Pooley Bridge | near | Penrith for | Miss Wordsworth MS. Lord Latymer Hitherto unpublwhed Stamped: Keswick. Monday, Feb. 9. 1801 My dearest Rotha The Hack, Mr Calvert was so kind as to borrow for me, carried me home as pleasantly as the extreme Soreness of my whole frame admitted. I was indeed in the language of Shakespere, not a Man but a Bruise -- I went to bed immediately, & rose on Sunday quite restored. -- If I do not hear from you any thing to the contrary, I shall walk half way to Grasmere, on Friday Morning -- leaving Keswick at ten o'clock precisely -- in the hopes of meeting Sara 3 -- ____________________ 1 Meditatio Tertia. 2 Aeneid, x. 770-1. 3 Sara Hutchinson had arrived on 18 Nov. 1800 for a visit to the Wordsworths lasting for several months. Journals, i. 78. -672- partly to prevent the necessity of William's walking so far, just as he will have begun to tranquillize, & partly to remove from Mrs Coleridge's mind all uncertainty as to the time of her coming, which if it depended on William's mood of Body, might (unless he went to the injury of his health) be a week, or a fortnight hence ---But if Sara should have been so fatigued, as not to be able to take so long a walk without discomfort, on Friday / I shall walk on to Grasmere, & return with her the next day -- all this however to be understood with the usual Deo Volente of Health & Weather. The Small Pox is in Keswick -- & we are anxious, and eddy-minded about Derwent -- / I had a very long conversation with Hartley about Life, Reality, Pictures, & Thinking, this evening. He sate on my knee for half an hour at least, & was exceedingly serious. I wish to God, you had been with us. Much as you would desire to believe me, I cannot expect that I could communicate to you all that Mrs C. & I felt from his answers -- they were so very sensible, accurate, & well worded. I am convinced, that we are under great obligations to Mr Jackson, who, I have no doubt, takes every opportunity of making him observe the differences of Things: for he pointed out without difficulty that there might be five Hartleys, Real Hartley, Shadow Hartley, Picture Hartley, Looking Glass Hartley, and Echo Hartley / and as to the difference between his Shadow & the Reflection in the Looking Glass, he said, the Shadow was black, and he could not see his eyes in it. One thing, he said, was very curious -- I asked him what he did when he thought of any thing -he answered -- I look at it, and then go to sleep. To sleep? -- said I -you mean, that you shut your eyes. Yes, he replied -- I shut my eyes, & put my hands so (covering his eyes) and go to sleep -- then I WAKE again, and away I run. ---- That of shutting his eyes, & covering them was a Recipe I had given him some time ago / but the notion of that state of mind being Sleep is very striking, & he meant more, I suspect, than that People when asleep have their eyes shut-indeed I know it from the tone & leap up of Voice with which he uttered the word 'WAKE.' To morrow I am to exert my genius in making a paper-balloon / the idea of carrying up a bit of lighted Candle into the clouds makes him almost insane with Pleasure. As I have given you Hartley's Metaphysics I will now give you a literal Translation of page 49 of the celebrated Fichte's Uber den Begriff der Wissenschaftslehre [ 1794] -- if any of you, or if either your Host or Hostess, have any propensity to Doubts, it will cure them for ever / for the object of the author is to attain absolute certainty. So read it aloud. (N.B. the 'I' means poor Gilbert's I -- das 'Ich' -- ) ---- 'Suppose, that A in the proposition -673- A = A stands not for the I, but for something or other different, then from this proposition you may deduce the condition under which it may be affirmed, that it is established, and how we are authorized to conclude, that If A is established, then it is established. Namely: the Proposition, A = A, holds good originally only of the I: it is abstracted from the Proposition in the Science of absolute Knowlege, I am I -- the substance therefore or sum total of every Thing, to which it may be legitimately applied, must lie in the I, and be comprehended under it. No A therefore can be aught else than something established in the I, and now therefore the Proposition may stand thus: What is established in the I, is established -- if therefore A is established in the I, then it is established (that is to say in so far as it is established, whether as only possible, or as real, or necessary) and then the Proposition is true without possibility of contradiction, if the I is to be I. -Farther, if the I be established, because it is established, then all, that is established in the I, is established because it is established; and provided only, that A is indeed a something established in the I, then it is established, if it is established; and the second Question likewise is solved.' ---- Here's a numerous Establishment for you / nothing in Touchstone ever equalled this -- it is not even surpassed by Creech's account of Space in his notes to Lueretius. 1 -- Remember me & my wife kindly to Mr & Mrs Clarkson 2 -- & give a kiss for me to dear little Tom -- God love him! -- I gave H. pictures, nuts, & mince pie, all as a Present from Tommy. -Heaven bless you, my dear friends! S. T. C. -- 380. To Thomas Poole Address: Mr T. Poole | Nether Stowey | Bridgewater | Somerset MS. British Museum, Pub. E. L. G. i. 172. Postmark: 16 February 1801. Stamped: Keswick. Friday, Feb. 13. 1801 My dearest Friend I received your Letter with the Bill inclosed this evening. -- If you come in the beginning of May, you will make it joyous as an Italian Month to me. -- Only let it be in the middle of May, that the Leaves may be all out. -- I shall begin to look at the Lake, and the ____________________ 1 Thomas Creech ( 1659-1700) published his translation of Lucretius in 1682. 2 Thomas Clarkson ( 1760-1846), after several years of strenuous activity on behalf of the abolition of the slave trade, had retired to Eusemere Hill in the Lake Country. Mrs. Clarkson, née Catherine Buck, became one of Dorothy Wordsworth's most intimate friends. -674- encamped Host of mountains with a new Interest -- 'that will delight him!' -- God ever bless you, my dear dear Friend! -- I received from J. W. the same account as your's nearly in the same words 1 -- Inter nos, I believe Mr Sharpe 2 to be a very shallow man, & as to Mackintosh -- Lord have pity upon those Metaphysics, of which he is a competent Judge. I attended 5 of his Lectures -such a wretched patch work of plagiarisms from Condilliac 3 -- of contradictions, and blunders in matter of fact, I never heard from any man's mouth before. Their opinion weighs as nothing with me. -- But I take T. Wedgewood's own opinion, his own convictions, as STRONG presumptions that he has fallen upon some very valuable Truths -- some he stated but only in short hints to me / & I guess from these, that they have been noticed before, & set forth by Kant in part & in part by Lambert. 4 -- I guess, that it will be so / yet I wish, they may not be, both for the sake of the Truth, & because if they should be, it would damp his spirits. ---- I have been myself thinking with the most intense energy on similar subjects / I shall shortly communicate the result of my Thoughts to the Wedgewoods / but previously shall send off some Letters which I have only to copy out fair to J. Wedgewood respecting Locke & Des Cartes, & likewise concerning the supposed Discovery of the Law of Association by Hobbes. -- Since I have been at Keswick, I have read a great deal / and my Reading has furnished me with many reasons for being exceedingly suspicious of supposed Discoveries in Metaphysics. My dear dear Poole Plato, and Aristotle were great & astonishing Geniuses, and yet there is not a Presbyterian Candidate for a Conventicle but believes that they were mere children in Knowlege compared with himself & Drs Priestly & Rees, 5 &c ---- My Letters to the Wedgewoods shall be copied out & sent you, in the course of the next week. 6 I do not think, they will entertain you very much, those already written, I mean / for they are ____________________ 1 On 8 Feb. Poole wrote to Coleridgethat he had heard from Josiah Wedgwood as follows: 'When Tom was here he enjoyed a high satisfaction in explaining to Mackintosh the result of his metaphysical speculations, and in finding M. concur with him in his opinions. . . . He has also convinced Sharpe, as far as he has opened the business to him. The subjects he has cleared are no less than Time, Space, and Motion; and Mackintosh and Sharpe think a metaphysical revolution likely to follow.' Thomas Poole, ii. 28. 2 Richard, "Conversation", Sharp ( 1759-1885), man of business, Member of Parliament, and critic. 3 Étienne Bonnot de Condillac ( 1715-80), the French philosopher, whose name Coleridge Consistently misspelled. 4 Johann H. Lambert ( 1728-77), German physicist and mathematician. 5 Dr. Abraham Rees ( 1743-1825), cyclopaedist and presbyterian divine. 6 See headnote to Letter 381 and Letters 881-8.M -675- crowded with Latin Quotations, & relate chiefly to the character of Mr Locke, whom I think I have proved to have gained a reputation to which he had no honest claim / and Hobbes as little to the reputation, to which T. Wedgewood & after him Mackintosh have laboured to raise him. But all this inter noq. Wordsworth has received answers from all but Mr Fox 1 -- all respectful & polite, but all written immediately on the receipt of the Poems, & consequently expressing no Opinion. His reputation as a Poet is high indeed in London. Mr Sharpe told me of his Friend Rogers, the drivelling Booby that let the Pleasures of Memory ---- 'I look upon him, Mr Coleridge I as a sweet Enamel Poet.' Change of Ministry interests me not -- I turn at times half reluctantly from Leibnitz or Kant even to read a smoking new newspaper / such a purus putus, Metaphysicus am I become. Mrs Coleridge has been ill with an ulcerated Sore throat; but is bettering. -- I am feebler far, than I could wish to be / but the weather is against me. Mrs C. desires her kindest, very kindest Love to your Mother -- she sends her Love to Ward, & begs & intreats of him (if your Mother is not disposed to write) that he will immediately write her a Letter, full of news, Stowey news -of Mr & Mrs Rich, of the Chesters, of every body, & every thing -she hates the sight of your nasty Letters, with not'a word for a woman to read in them. -- But Ward is a bad hand -- do get your dear Mother to write. O May! best month of all the Year! Derwent is going to be inoculated with the Cow Pox -- he is a beautiful Boy. And Hartley I could fill Sheets about him. -- God love my dearest Friend & S. T. Coleridge ____________________ 1 Fox answered on 25 May 1801. He said that the poems had given him the greatest pleasure and that Harry Gill, We are Seven, The Mad Mother, and The Idiot were his favourites. Of The Brothers and Michael, which Wordsworth had especially singled out, Fox could only say: 'I am no great friend to blank verse for subjects which are to be treated of with simplicity.' Concerning Coleridge's share in the first volume he wrote: 'Of the poems which you state not to be yours, that entitled "Love" appears to me to be the best, and I do not know who is the author. "The Nightingale" I understand to be Mr. Coleridge's, who combats, I think, very successfully, the mistaken prejudice of the nightingale's note being melancholy.' The Prose Works of William Wordsworth, ed. by A. B. Grosart, 8 vols., 1876, ii. 205-6. -676- 381. To Josiah Wedgwood Address: Mr T. Poole | N. Stowey | Bridgewater | SomersetSingle Sheet MS. British Museum. Hitherto unpublished. A second and briefer holograph of this letter is among the MSS. of Lord Latymer. Early in 1801 Coleridge embarked upon a serious study of philosophy, and at the onset he determined to examine the bases of Locke's position. During February he composed a series of letters dealing mainly with Locke and Descartes (see Letter 880). On 18 February he sent the first of these letters to Josiah Wedgwood, and at the same time sent a copy to Poole (see Letter 881). Chagrined at not receiving any acknowledgement of this letter from Wedgwood, he delayed sending the remaining letters for more than a month (see Letter 388). On 24 March, however, he posted Letters 882 and 388 to Wedgwood and sent copies of them to Poole the same day (see Letter 889). Josiah Wedgwood received these letters, for on 81 March 1801 he wrote to Poole: 'As to metaphysics I know little about them, and my head is at present so full of various affairs that I have not even read the letters Coleridge has written on those subjects, as I have honestly told him. From the cursory view I took of them he seems to have plucked the principal feathers out of Locke's wings. Tom is with us . . . but not well enough to pursue his own speculations or to attend to those of others' (MS. British Museum). Poole acknowledged Letter 381 on 14 March and Letters 882 and 383 on 9 April ( Thomas Poole, ii. 32 and 42). The philosophical letters sent to Josiah Wedgwood (Letters 381-3) have disappeared, but the manuscript copies Coleridge prepared for Poole survive and furnish the present text. The fourth philosophical letter (884) is only an incomplete rough draft, containing neither salutation nor conclusion. There is no evidence that it was sent either to Wedgwood or to Poole. It is among the Coleridge manuscripts acquired by the British Museum from E. H. Coleridge(Egerton MS. 2801). Since Coleridge's four philosophical letters (881-4) were written in the face of a long-established tradition that Locke was entirely the critic of Descartes, and since Coleridge attempted to prove that ' Locke System existed in the writings of Descartes', it will be well, perhaps, to examine briefly the reasons for the traditional view of Locke and to glance at one or two twentieth-century estimates of Locke's relation to Descartes. James Gibson declares that 'without the influence of the Cartesian view of knowledge and the Cartesian conception of self-consciousness, It is not too much to say that the Essay, as we know it, would never have been written'. He insists, nevertheless, that 'the way in which Locke develops the view of knowledge which he found in Descartes, and the very different use to which he puts the conception of self-consciousness, suffice to negative at once the suggestion of any want of originality in his fundamental positions'; and he concludes that Locke so freely transforms the Cartesian principles 'that the existence of any positive relation of dependence upon them has frequently been ignored by the historian of philosophy, and the positions of Descartes and Locke have been set in antithetical opposition to each other'. ( Locke's Theory of Knowledge and its Historical Relations, 1917, p. 207.) Professor R. I. Aaron says that Leibnitz at the turn of the eighteenth century considered Locke as the protagonist of the Gassendists and as an opponent of Descartes. Subsequently, Aaron points out, Voltaire and the Encyclopaedists acknowledged Locke as the critic of Cartesianism, 'hailed him as the founder of the empirical school . . . [and] created . . . the erroneous -677- view that the two schools had nothing in common', a view persisting until late in the nineteenth century, when Locke's indebtedness to Descartes was realized. 'In our own day,' Aaron continues, ' Locke is talked of as if he were a mere rationalist, owing everything to Descartes. This view is equally untrue and needs to be corrected. Locke accepted much that Descartes taught. Nevertheless, he was his constant critic, criticizing him in the light of empiricism, that of Bacon and of Boyle on the one hand, and of the Gassendists on the other.' ( John Locke, 1987, pp. 10, 88-34, and 77.) These philosophical letters, then, attack the view of Locke current in the early nineteenth century, but Coleridge overstated Locke's dependence upon Descartes and failed to recognize the fundamental differences between the two philosophers. Professor R. I. Aaron, who has examined these letters, says that Coleridge was among the first, if he was not the first, to realize Locke's debt to Descartes, but that in emphasizing only the indebtedness to Descartes he stated a half-truth. Professor Aaron agrees that Coleridge rightly identified Locke as a conceptualist, but suggests that while Coleridge gives evidence of having studied Book I and the opening chapters of Book II of the Essay, he does not seem to have read the rest of the work with much care. Nevertheless, Coleridge's letters are important in pointing out Locke's dependence upon Descartes half a century before such writers as Edward Tagart and T. E. Webb 'discovered once again the rationalist elements in Locke's thought', and as evidence of Coleridge's own rejection of British empiricism. Stamped: Kendal. 1801 My dear Sir It gives me a pleasure not wholly self-respective, that I am able to inform you of my almost compleat Recovery. -- May God grant me Hope, and a steady Mind! & I trust, I shall soon make up for the time, I have lost in Sickness. I wrote to you my intention of communicating to your Brother the result of my meditations on the relations of Thoughts to Things; but I will rather, with your permission, throw the burthen of reading them upon you -- because you will of course shew them to Tom if they give you pleasure, & if they prove trifling & all awry, you are less likely, than he, to receive Pain from Disgust. (Believe me, my dear Sir! I scarcely half express the diffidence, I feel.) -- But I shall previously make you pay post for a Letter or two respecting some errors, as I believe, in the generally received History of metaphysical opinions. I was led to this subject by a late Perusal of Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding. I had read, & I think, mentioned to you, a very small book, attacking the Essay, & was rather pleased with it, tho' it was but a superficial affair; 1 but after this it occurred to ____________________ 1 Since Coleridge is known to have annotated Henry Lee Anti-Scepticism, 1702, which criticized Locke Essay, chapter by chapter, it has been suggested that he refers to Lee here. Such an assumption is erroneous. Coleridge would not refer to Lee's large folio volume as 'a very small book' and 'a superficial affair'. The book could have been any one of a number of attacks on Locke. -678- me, that Mr Locke's Essay was a Book which I had really never read, but only looked thro' -- I felt, of course, that I had been guilty of petulance, and began to wonder at my long want of curiosity concerning the writings of a philosopher (our countryman), whose Name runs in a collar with Newton's, as naturally as Milton's name with that of Shakespere. I had read a multitude of out of the way Books, Greek, Latin, & German, & groped my way thro' the French of Malbranche; 1 & there are men, who gain the reputation of a wide erudition by consuming that Time in reading Books obsolete & of no character, which other men employ in reading those which every Body reads; but I should be sorry to detect in myself this silly vanity, & so, as aforesaid, I took Locke from my Landlord's Shelf, & read it attentively. -- In my Biographical Dictionary the writer introduces Locke as one of the greatest men that England ever produced.['] Mr Hume, a much more competent Judge, declares that he was 'really a great Philosopher.' Wolf, Feder, & Platner, 2 three Germans, the fathers or favourers of three different Systems, concur in pronouncing him to be 'a truly original Genius.' And Mr Locke himself has made it sufficiently clear both in his Essay, and in his Letters to the Bishop of Worcester, 3 that he did not regard himself as a Reformer, but as a Discoverer; not as an opposer of a newly introduced Heresy in Metaphysics but as an Innovator upon ancient and generally received Opinions. In his dedicatory Epistle speaking of those who are likely to condemn his Essay as opposite to the received Doctrines, 'Truth' (says he) 'scarce ever yet carried it by Vote any where at it's first appearance.New Opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed without any other reason but because they are not already common. But Truth, like Gold, is not the less so, for being newly brought out of the mine.' 4 -- It would have been well, if Mr Locke had stated the Doctrines which he considered as Errors in the very words of some of the most celebrated Teachers of those Doctrines & enumerated the Truths of which he considered himself as the Discoverer. A short Postscript to this purpose would have brought to an easy determination the opinions of those, who (as Harris & Monboddo, 5 for instance) believe that Mr Locke has grossly misrepresented the ancient & received opinions, and that the Doctrines which he holds for Truths of his own Discovery are ____________________ 1 Nicolas Malebranche ( 1638-1715). 2 C. F. von Wolf ( 1679-1754), J. G. H. Feder ( 1740-1821), and Ernst Platner ( 1744-1818). 3 Edward Stillingfleet ( 1685-99). A copy of his Origines Sacrae, 1675, containing Coleridge's annotations is in the British Museum. 4 Human Understanding, 1798, Epistle Dedicatory, xviii. 5 James Harris ( 1709-80) and James Burnett, Lord Monboddo ( 1714-99). -679- many of them erroneous & none original. Exempli gratiâ -- in the very commencement of the work he says 'It is an established opinion amongst some men, that there are in the Understanding certain Innate Principles, some primary notions, KοιVαìεVVιαι characters as it were stamped upon the mind of Man, which the Soul receives in it's very first being, and brings into the World with it.' 1 His own opinion on the contrary is that there are but two sorts of ideas and both acquired by Experience, namely, 'external Objects furnish the mind with ideas of sensible Qualities, which are all those different Perceptions they produce in us: and the Mind furnishes the Understanding with ideas of it's own operations.' 2 Of course, as Locke teaches that the Understanding is but a Term signifying the Mind in a particular state of action, he means that the mind furnishes itself; and so he himself expresses the Thought in the preceding Paragraph, defining Ideas of Reflection by 'those, which the mind gets by reflecting on it's own operations within itself.' 3 Now, it would have been well if Locke had named those who held the former Doctrines, and shewn from their own Words that the two opinions (his and their's) were opposite or at least different. 4 More especially, he should have given his Readers the Definition of the obscure Word 'innate' in the very Language of the most accurate of such Writers as had used the Word. Pythagoras, it is said, and Plato, it is known, held the preexistence of human Souls, and that the most valuable Part of our knowlege was Recollection. The earliest of these Recollections Plato calls ZὼπVα, living Sparks, & 'EVασ+̂μα, Kindle-fuel. These notions he enforces in the Theaetetus, and the Phaedon, and still more at large in the Menon; but neither in these nor elsewhere asserts, that any Ideas (in the present sense of the word) could be furnished originally or recollectively otherwise than by the mind itself or by things external to the Mind, i.e. by Reflection or Sensation. -- The nihil in intellectu quod non prius in sensu of the Peripatetics is notorious, and that Aristotle speaks of the mind in it's first state ὼU+3C3+̂πVε γαμματεîοûτ ὼ μδὲV ὲVαμμλχíα γεαμμάV+V - the original of Gassendi's and Hobbes's tabula rasa, and Mr Locke's unwritten sheet of Paper. Of Aristotle's complete coincidence in this point with Mr Locke vide Cap. 18 (of the Anal. Poster. Lib. I.) entitled De ignorantia secundum negationem, but ____________________ 1 Human Understanding, Bk. I, ch. ii, § 1. 2 Ibid. , Bk. II, ch.i, § 5. 3 Ibid. , Bk. II, ch. i, § 4. 4 Professor Aaron believes that Locke's polemic against innate knowledge was meant for the Cartesians, for the schoolmen, for certain members of the Cambridge Platonists, and for those others, Herbert and the rest, who advocated the theory of innate ideas in any way'. John Locke,82. -680- above all Cap XIX (of the Anal. Poster. Lib. II) entitled De cognitione Primorum Principiorum. The Stoics used the phrase о+03BFιVαì ε+̋A indeed; but that they meant nothing opposite to Mr Locke's opinions is made evident by a passage in the work (attributed to Plutarch) De Plac. Philos. 4. 11., in which are these words 'The Stoics regarded the Soul when it came into the World as an unwritten Tablet.['] The Realists among the Schoolmen held a Doctrine strangely compounded of the Peripatetic & Plotinian School, that universal Ideas are the Souls of all things. I have never read Aquinas or Scotus, the two great Defenders of this System; 1 but it is certain, it was a question of Psychogony not Psychology; the Soul, whatever it was, could only derive it's thoughts from itself or things external to itself. The nominalists taught that these abstract Ideas were mere names; the Conceptualists who moderated between these & the Realists coincided with Mr Locke fully & absolutely. (Of their party were Abelard & Heloisa.) -- Mr Hume with his wonted sagacity has given an able statement of the utter unmeaningness of the assertion which Mr Locke had made. 'For what is meant by Innate? If innate be equivalent to Natural, then all the Perceptions and Ideas of the Mind must be allowed to be innate or natural, in whatever sense we take the latter word whether in opposition to what is uncommon, artificial, or miraculous. If by innate be meant, contemporary to our birth, the Dispute seems to be frivolous; nor is it worth while to inquire, at what time Thinking begins, whether before, at or after our Birth. Again the word Idea seems to be commonly taken in a very loose sense, even by Mr Locke himself, as standing for any of our Perceptions, our sensations, & Passions, as well as Thoughts. Now in this sense I should desire to know what can be meant by asserting that Self-love, or Resentment of Injuries, or the Passion betwixt the Sexes is not innate?' 2 Note at the end of Essay II. ---- I had not read this note of Mr Hume's when I had written the former part of this sheet; & having read it I should have desisted from the Subject altogether, had I not beard Mr Mackintosh affirm in his Lectures, that 'the Doctrine of Innate Ideas (a doctrine unknown to the ancients) was first introduced by Des Cartes, & fully overthrown by Locke.' Mr M. must have made a mistake -- for Lord Herbert's Work De Veritate ____________________ 1 The Lord Latymer MS. contains the following addition: 'but I can easily conceive that the difference between their opinions & those of many HyperBerkleian Idealists in the present Day are not essentially Different.' Five months later Coleridge was reading Duns Scotus in the Durham Library. See Letter 405. 2 David Hume, Philosophical Essays concerning Human Understanding, Essay II, 'Of the Origin of Ideas'. -681- (which Mr Locke himself refers to in the third Chapter of his first book, § 15, as that which he had consulted, and in which these innate Principles were assigned) was published in 1624, whereas Des Cartes' Metaphysical Books did not appear till 1641. But laying this aside, yet in what sense can Des Cartes be called the introducer of the Doctrine? The Phrase 'innate Ideas' is surely not of Des Cartes' Invention -- ε+̋V+Vοια ε+̋μΦV+τοϛ ζιϛε+̋μπVτóϛḐσ+̂τιVήτ μοιτο̋ Πεíα -- (Diog. Laer. in the Life of Plato). A pueris tot rerum atque tantarum insitas et quasi consignatas notiones quas ἐ+V+Vοíαϛ vocant -- Cic. Tuse. Quaest. 1 -- Omnibus cognitio, Deum existere, naturaliter inserta est. Damascenus. -Deus attigitur notione innati. Ficinus in versione Iamblichi de Myst. 2 Des Cartes' Heresy therefore must have consisted in the new meaning he gave to the Word[s -- ] in something or other Mr Locke must have conceived [Des] Cartes's opinions as opposite to his own, for he never loses an opportunity of a sneer or sarcasm at the French Philosopher -- and what if it were nevertheless true, that Mr Locke's whole System, as far as it is a system, pre-existed in Des Cartes? In order to shew this permit me to trace back the meaning of the word Ideas. By Ideas Plato, notwithstanding his fantastic expressions respecting them, meant what Mr Locke calls the original Faculties & Tendencies of the mind, the internal Organs, as it were, and Laws of human Thinking: and the word should be translated 'Moulds' and not 'Forms'. ( Cicero assures us, that Aristotle's Metaphysical Opinions differ from Plato's only as a Thing said in plain prose, i.e. worn out metaphors, differs from the same thing said in new & striking Metaphors -- Aristotle affirms to the same purpose ΔVαμει Πὼϛ ó ἐτá ó Nοϛ, àλλ ἐVτεíχεα οV§ἐV τíV αV μήVή -- 3 in respect of Faculty the Thought [Mind] is the Thoughts, but actually it is nothing previous to Thinking.) By the usual Process of language Ideas came to signify not only these original moulds of the mind, but likewise all that was cast in these moulds, as in our language the Seal & the Impression it leaves are both called Seals. Latterly, it wholly lost it's original meaning, and became synonimous sometimes with Images simply (whether Impressions or Ideas) and sometimes with Images in the memory; and by Des Cartes it is used for whatever is immediately perceived ____________________ 1 xxiv. 57. 2 Marsilio Ficino, lamblichus de Mysteriis -- Ægyptiorum, 1497. 3 In the Lord Latymer MS. Coleridge, after this quotation from Aristotle, added: 'that is, in respect of Faculty the Mind is it's intellectual Thoughts. Plato's reasonings against Particulars &c probably meant little more than Lord Bacon's admonitions against the making of Experiments without some preconceived Generalization.' -682- by the mind. Thus in Meditatione Tertiâ Des Cartes had said 'Quaedam ex his (scilicet cogitationibus humanis) tanquam rerum imagines sunt, quibus solis proprie convenit ideae nomen, ut cum hominem vel chimaeram vel caelum vel angelum vel Deum cogito.['] In the Objectiones Tertiae, which were undoubtedly written by Hobbes, the word Idea is obstinately taken for Image, and it is objected to the passage 'nullam Dei habemus imaginem sive ideam.' To which Des Cartes answers 'Hîc nomine ideae vult tantum intelligi imagines rerum materialium in phantasiâ corporeâ depictas, quo posito facile illi est probare, nullam Angeli nec Dei propriam ideam esse posse; atqui ego passim ubique, ac praecipue hoe ipso in loco ostendo me nomen ideae sumere pro omni eo quod immediate a mente percipitur, adeo ut cum volo et timeo, quia simul percipio me velle et timere, ipsa Volitio et Timor inter Ideas a me numerentur, ususque sum hoe verbo, quia jam tritum erat a Philosophis &c; et nullum aptius habebam[']. Locke in his second Letter to the B. of Worcester gives the same definition and assigns the same Reason; he would willingly change the Term 'Idea' for a Better, if any one could help him to it. But he finds none that stands so well 'for every immediate object of the mind in thinking, as Idea does.' As Des Cartes & Locke perfectly coincide in the meaning of the Term Ideas, so likewise do they equally agree as to their Sorts and Sources. I have read Mr Locke's Book with care, and I cannot suppress my feelings of unpleasant doubt & wonder, which his frequent claims to originality raised in me; his apologies for new words as necessary in a system deviating so widely, as his, from the hitherto received Opinions; and his repeated Triumphs over his nameless Adversaries for their incapability of instancing any one idea not derived from one or other of the two Sources, which he, Mr Locke, had pointed out. -- I will give 4 quotations from 4 very different Authors -- 1 (All Philosophers say, that the Soul perceives some things thro' the Body, as when she hears or sees; and some things she herself notices in herself.) 2. Intellectio, autem CT., dividitur vulgo in Rectam et Reflexam. Recta dicitur quando tantum aliquid cognoscimus, ut in prima apprehensione Hominis, Bovis, Equi, &c. Reflexa autem, quâ mens seipsam cognoscit, scilicet se cognoscere et cognoscendi habere potestates. 2 3. The mind receiving certain ideas from without, when it turns it's view inward upon itself and observes it's own actions about those Ideas, ____________________ 1 Diogenes Laërtius, Life of Plato, III. 12. 2 Daniel Sennertus, Opera omnia, 3 vols., 1641, i. 117. For potestates read potestatem. -683- it has, takes from thence other ideas, which are as capable to be the Objects of it's Contemplation as any of those, it derives from foreign Things. -- Likewise the Mind often exercises an active power in making several combinations: for it being furnished with simple Ideas, it can put them together in several compositions, and so make variety of complex ideas without examining whether they exist so together in nature. 1 4 Ex ideis aliae cogitativae, aliae adventitiae, aliae a mente factae videntur: nam quod intelligam quid sit res, quid sit veritas, quid sit cogitatio, haec non allunde habere videor quam ab ipsâmet meâ natura; quod autem nunc strepitum audiam, solem videam, ignem sentiam, a rebus quibusdam extra me positis procedere hactenus judicavi: ac denique Sirenes, Hippogryphes, et similia a me ipso finguntur, diversas nempe ideas adventitias vi proprid permiscente. -- These four quotations were evidently written by four men teaching precisely the same doctrine; but of the third and fourth one might almost suspect that the one was a free translation of the other. The first I extracted from Diog. Laert. in the Life of PLATO; the second from Daniel Sennertus, an adherent of the Aristotelian Philosophy who wrote the passage about the year 1620; the third you will know to be from Mr Locke, & the fourth is extracted from the Med. Tert. of Descartes; save only that instead of (cogitativae) the word in the original is innatae (cogitativae in the principia of Descartes being used instead of innatae) and the last sentence, marked with Italics, & crotchets / I have inserted into the text from one of Des Cartes' own explanatory notes. Here then we come at Locke's Innate Ideas, and find that the Author defines them not in relation to Time but merely in relation to their source, and that they are neither more nor less than Mr Locke's own Ideas of Refiection 2 -the intellectio reflexa of the Peripateties, the ατή αΘ αΘτήV of Plato. -- But to place this beyond the possibility of Doubt I will add another quotation to this Letter of Quotations. At the close of the year 1647 there was published in Belgium a Programma entitled Explicatio mentis humanae, &c, levelled at Descartes tho' his name is no where mentioned in it. The 12th Article of this Programma is as follows. 3 XII. Mens non indiget ideis vel notionibus innatis: sed sola ejus facultas cogitandi, ipsi, ad notiones suas peragendas, sufficit. -- To this Des Cartes answers -- In articulo XII non videtur nisi solis verbis a me dissentire. Cum enim ait, mentem ____________________ 1 Human Understanding, Bk. II, ch. vi, § 1, and ch. xxii, § 2. 2 Professor Aaron suggests that by 'reflection' Locke meant what we call 'introspection'. 'Most of our information about the mind comes through reflection, that is, introspection' ( John Locke, 120 and n. 3). 3 See ibid. , 78 f., for Professor Aaron's discussion of this quotation. -684- non indigere ideis innatis, et interim ei facultatem cogitandi concedit (puta naturalem sive innatam) re affmnat plane idem, quod ego, sed verbo negat. Non enim unquam scripsi vel judicavi, mentem indigere ideis innatis, quae sint aliquid diversum ab ejus facultate cogitandi; sed cum adverterem, quasdam. in me esse cogitationes, quae non objectis externis, nec a voluntatis meae determinatione procedebant, sed a solh cogitandi facultate, quae in me est -- ut ideas sive notiones, quae sint istarum cogitationum formae, ut [ab] aliis adventitiis aut factis distinguerem, illas innaras vocavi, eodem sensu, quo dicimus generositatem esse quibusdam familiis innatam, ahis vero quosdam morbos, ut podagram vel calculum -- non quod ideo istarum familiarum infantes morbis istis in utero matris laborent, sed quod nascantur cum quddam dispositione sive facultate ad illos contrahendos. Good-night, my dear Sir! -- Your's with grateful affection S. T. Coleridge P.S. -- Hobbes objected to Des Cartes -- 'Praeterea, ubi dicit ideam Dei et animae nostrae nobis innatam esse, velim. scire, si animae dormientium profunde sine insomnis cogitent. Si non, non habent eo tempore ideas ullas: quare nulla idea est innata: nam quod est innatum, semper adest.['] 1 Des Cartes answers: -- Cum dicimus ideam aliquam nobis esse innatam, non intelligimus illam nobis semper obversari; sed tantum nos habere in nobis ipsis facultatem, illam eliciendi. 2 P.S. Des Cartes took his divisions from Lord Bacon, who uses the words notiones nativae et adventitiae. -- Nativae = innatae, & frequently Lord Bacon uses the very word innatae in the same sense with Des Cartes. 382. To Josiah Wedgwood Address: T. Poole | N. Stowey | Bridgewater | SomersetSingle Sheet MS. British Museum. Hitherto unpublished. Postmark: 27 March 1801. Stamped: Keswick. Tuesday, Feb. 24, 1801 My dear Sir Ecce iterum Crispinus! 3 -- It has been made appear then, I think, that Des Cartes & Locke held precisely the same opinions concerning the original Sources of our Ideas. They both taught, nearly in the same words and wholly to the same Purpose, that the Objects of human Knowledge are either Ideas imprinted on the ____________________ 1 Objectiones Tertiae, 'Objectio' X. 2 'Responsio' to 'Objectio' X. 3 Juvenal, iv. 1. -685- Senses, or else such as are perceived by attending to the passions and operations of the mind, or lastly Ideas formed by Help of Memory and Imagination, either compounding, dividing, or barely representing those originally perceived in the aforesaid Ways. This proves no more, I allow, than that Mr Locke's first Book is founded on a blunder in the History of Opinions, and that Des Cartes and Locke agreed with each other in a Tenet, common to all the Philosophers before them; but it is far enough from proving the assertion I made in my first Letter, that the whole System of Locke, as far [as] it was a System (i.e. made up of cohering Parts) was to be found in the writings of Des Cartes. But even that, which I have proved, trifling as it may seem, has led me to Reflections on the Rise & Growth of literary Reputation, that have both interested & edified me; nor can it, I suppose, be wholly without effect on the minds of any, who know or remember how much of Locke's Fame rests on the common Belief, that in overthrowing the Doctrine of Innate Ideas he had overthrown some ancient, general, & uncouth Superstition, which had been as a pillar to all other Superstitions. If you ask a person, what Sir Isaac Newton did -- the answer would probably be, he discovered the universal action of Gravity, and applied it to the Solution of all the Phaenomena of the Universe. Ask what Locke did, & you will be told if I mistake not, that he overthrew the Notion, generally held before his time, of innate Ideas, and deduced all our knowledge from experience. Were it generally known, that these Innate Ideas were Men of Straw, or scarcely so much as that -- and that the whole of Mr Locke's first Book is a jumble of Truisms, Calumnies, and Misrepresentations, I suspect, that we should give the name of Newton a more worthy associate -- & instead of Locke & Newton, we should say, BACON & NEWTON, or still better perhaps, Newton and Hartley. Neither N. nor H. discovered the Law, nor that it was a Law; but both taught & first taught, the way to apply it universally. Kepler (aye, and Des Cartes too) had done much more for Newton, than Hobbes had done for Hartley / even were it all true which it has been fashionable of late to believe of Hobbes. But I recur to my assertion, that Locke System existed in the writings of Descartes; not merely that it is deducible from them, but that it exists in them, actually, explicitly. Do me the kindness to believe, my dear Sir! that I am sensible how exceedingly dull these Letters must needs be; but if the Facts, which they contain, have not been noticed to you, or by you, they can scarcely be so worthless, as to be overpaid for by the Reading of a long Letter in close handwriting: tho' this be no trifle to eyes like your's & mine. Without more apology then I proceed to detail my Proofs. -- In the -686- Meditations and the Treatise De Methodo Descartes gives a little History of the rise - growth of his opinions. When he first began to think himself from out of that state in which he, like every body else, suppose themselves to perceive objects immediately without reflecting at all either on their minds or their senses, he saw that those Ideas, which referred him to Objects as externally present, were more vivid - definite than those of memory or imagination, &were not connected with volition. 'Experiebar enim, illas absque ullo meo consensu mihi advenire, et quum multo magis vividae et expressae essent quam ullae ex iis quas ipse prudens et sciens meditando effingebam, vel memoriae meae impressas advertebam, fieri non posse videbatur ut a meipso procederent: ideoque supererat, ut ab aliis quibusdam Rebus advenirent, quarum Rerum. cum nullam aliunde Notitiam haberem, quam ex istis ipsis Ideis, non poterat aliud mihi venire in mentem, quàm, illas iis similes esse[']; 1 - seeing that his other Ideas were less vivid than those which referred him to Objects as externally present, et ex earum partibus componi, he was led to believe that his mind did nothing more than passively represent the Objects which were within the reach of the Senses. But afterwards, the Differences made by Distance in the Shape of Objects, and his often Detecting of himself in such Speeches as these 'Yonder is a man coming', when in truth he saw only a Red or Blue Coat, - perhaps only the Glimmer even of that, forced him to consider that this seemingly intuitive Faith was made up of Judgements passed by the Mind in consequence of repeated Experiences, that such Appearances in the Distance would form that other appearance which we call a man, when he came close to it; and that from hence he had been caused to judge, both that the appearance was a man, and that the Man was at a Distance. These Judgements too were often found to have been wrong; he often misunderstood the meaning of these appearances, and he saw clearly that if any one phaenomenon, however different, were connected with another sufficiently long - sufficiently often, they would be identified in the mind so as to pass for intuitions. This he illustrates by the common phrases, I have a pain in my Limbs, &c. He was led to consider the vast power of association chiefly by having his curiosity excited concerning the causes that determined the place of Pain, and relates in the fourth Part of his Principia the fact to which he had before alluded in his sixth meditation. Cum puellae cuidam, manurn gravi morbo affectam habenti, velarentur Oculi quoties Chirurgus accedebat, ne curationis apparatu turbaretur, eique post aliquot dies brachium ad cubitum usque, oh gangraenam in eo serpentem, fuisset ampu- ____________________ 1 Meditatio Sexta. -687- tatum, et panni in ejus locum ita substituti ut plane ignoraret se brachio suo privatam fuisse, ipsa interim varios dolores, nunc in uno ejus manus, quae abscissa erat, Digito, nunc in alio se sentire querebatur 1. To these he added the old crambe bis cocta of the Pyrrhonists, of the ordinary Phaenomena of Dreams and Deliria, in which Ideas became so vivid as to be undistinguishable from Impressions; but he observes in his own defence, 'Nec tamen in eo Scepticos imitabar, qui dubitant tantùm ut dubitent, et praeter incertitudinem ipsam nihil quaerunt. Nam contra totus in eo eram ut aliquid certi reperirem.' 2 -- In consequence of his reflection on these and similar facts he informs us that he found himself compelled to turn his view inward upon his own frame and faculties in order to determine what share they had in the making up both of his Ideas and of his Judgements on them. He now saw clearly, that the objects, which he had hitherto supposed to have been intromitted into his mind by his senses, must be the joint production of his Mind, his Senses, and an unknown Tertium Aliquid / all which might possibly be developements of his own Nature, in a way unknown to him. The existence of archetypes to his Ideas was not therefore proveable either by the vividness of any Impression nor by it's disconnection from the Will. Et quamvis sensuum perceptiones a voluntate meâ non penderent, non ideo concludendum esse putabam illas a rebus a me diversis procedere, quia forte aliqua esse potest in me ipso facultas, etsi mihi nondum cognita, illarum effectrix. 3 All such ideas however, as arose in him without his will, - referred him to something separate from himself, or were recollected as such, he termed adventitious: and factitious when the parts only of any Shape were remembered by him, but the disposition, or number, of these parts were imagined either actively or passively by him, i.e. awake or in dreams. But besides these he found in himself certain Ideas of Relation, certain Ideas, or rather modes of contemplating Ideas, of which he had acquired the knowlege by attending to the operations of his own Thoughts, and which did not depend in any degree on his Will. In these he recognized the fountains of Truth, and of Truth immutable, because it did not depend upon the existence of any Archetypes. These Truths in his early works he called Innate Ideas, but in his Principia he dropped this name, - adopted that of res cogitativae, or experiences acquired by Reflection. By these, according to him, we may acquire the knowlege, that there is a God, and from the Veracity implied in the Idea of an absolutely perfect Being deduce a complete Assurance, that all these Things are real to the belief of the ____________________ 1 Principia, Pt. IV, Sect. CXCVI. 2 De Methodo, Pt. III. 3 Meditatio Sexta. -688- Reality of which our Reason doth truly - irresistably compel us. A clear and distinct Perception therefore of any thing warrants it's Truth - Reality in the relation, in which it is clearly - distinctly perceived. On these grounds he builds the certainty of an external World -- / in what sense he uses these words, I may have occasion to shew hereafter / and to consider his Ideas in reference to it. Accordingly he divides his Ideas, precisely as Mr Locke has done, into simple ideas, of one sense, of more than one sense, of Reflexion, - both of Reflexion - Sensation / and states the distinction of primary - secondary Qualities, or of Qualities - Powers, in words so exactly corresponding to Mr Locke's, that they might be deemed a free Translation, one of the other -- save only that Solidity which Mr Locke distinguishes from Hardness, - affirms to be a primary Quality of Matter, Des Cartes considers only as a secondary Quality, a mode of Hardness, a mere sensation of Resistance, of course a power not a quality, that same Somewhat, which Mr Locke calls Motivity (& with Thinking form[s] according to him the primary Ideas of Spirit,) - which Des Cartes therefore very consistently excluded from his Idea of Matter: as Mr Locke ought to have done, unless he had been able to shew the difference between Resistance - Impulse, or power of originating motion, which last he expressly confines to the Idea of Spirit. The subjects of Perception, Retention, and Discerning which Locke has skimmed over so superficially - yet not without admixture of error in his 9th, 10th, - 11th Chapters, Des Cartes, in his Dissertatio De Methodo, in the fourth Book of his Dioptrics, - in the Pars Prima of his Work De Passionibus, has treated in a manner worthy of the Predecessor of Hartley. In these - the first Book of his Principia you find likewise the whole substance of Locke's 12, 14, 15, 16, 18, 20, 29, 80, 81, 82 - 33rd Chapters. -- Mr Locke has given 25 folio pages to the explanation of Clear, Distinct, obscure, confused, real, fantastical, adequate, inadequate, true - false Ideas; and if I mistake not has exhibited throughout the whole a curious specimen of dim writing. Good heavens! twenty five folio pages to define half a dozen plain words; and yet I hazard the assertion, that the greater number of these words are explained falsely. Des Cartes took the words from the Schools, and defined them only as they occurred. I have taken the trouble to collect - arrange his Definitions / Read them, and when you have a leisure half hour glance your eye over Mr Locke's four Chapters on the meaning of these Words, - compare. -- Our Ideas, says Descartes, are classed & distinguished, not in - for themselves, but in reference to the Judgements of the mind respecting their Relations to each other, to their supposed external Archetypes or Causes, and to Language. -689- Accordingly, Ideas may be divided into simple and complex -- that is, into those which we cannot and those which we can analyse. Again, complex Ideas may be subdivided into complex ideas of memory, as a man, a horse, - complex Ideas of Imagination, as a Centaur, a Chimaera. Simple Ideas are said to be CLEAR, when they recur with such steadiness that we can use names intelligibly. James's Ideas of Red - Yellow are two clear Ideas / let a Red and a Yellow Thing be brought before him, - he will say, this is Red this Yellow, in the same Instance in which others would say it -But his Ideas of Green - Blue are said to be OBSCURE (not that they are not clear in each particular instance in - for themselves, but) because they are so unsteady in relation to their supposed external Cause, that he sometimes mistakes Blue for Green, - Green for Blue -- not always, for then his Ideas would be steady, consequently, his mistake undiscoverable, or more properly, no mistake at all. Again, a man may have an idea that is clear - steady, yet unintelligible because ANOMALOUS. James's Brother cannot distinguish Purple from Violet -- two different external Objects produce uniformly one effect on him, that produce two on his neighbours. When he tells them, he has seen a man in a purple Coat, they know only that he means either Purple or Violet. Simple Ideas can be called neither distinct nor confused. (Mr Locke instead of saying 'the Smell of a Rose - that of a Violet are clear & distinct Ideas' need only have said, they are two Ideas. Distinct does not mean, in accurate language, difference merely, but such difference as can be stated in words. -- When in his preface he says, he has ordinarily preferred the word determinate, - used it instead of clear - distinct, and used it in one sense for simple Ideas, - in another sense for complex Ideas, I may [be] allowed to say without petulance that his word is idly chosen / it means too many things to mean any thing determinately.) A complex idea may be either DISTINCT or CONFUSED. It is said to be distinct, when we distinguish all it's component parts -- that is, when we see the Relations which the Ideas, it may be analysed into, bear to each other. An anatomist has a distinct Idea of the Eye; but I have only a CONFUSED one. I do not know all it's component parts, or I have not arranged them in my mind so as to enable me to pass from one to another, still perceiving their Relations as Parts to the Whole, and as Coparts to each other. When a Complex idea passes on the mind for a simple Idea, for instance, when a plain Man thinks, he has a Pain in his Limbs, this is said to be a clear but not a distinct Idea: in other words, it is to him a simple idea. Light to my child is a clear but not distinct idea, to me a complex but confused one, to Newton it was a distinct complex idea. -- We are likewise said to -690- have sufficient & insufficient, adequate & inadequate Ideas. (For sufficient & insufficient Mr Locke uses True & False Ideas, which I think injudicious.) I have a sufficient Idea of Winter Cole so far as it enables me to distinguish it from Savoy Cabbage; but insufficient inasmuch as I cannot distinguish it from Brocoli. The Botanist's Ideas of Plants may be sufficient to distinguish the Genera & Species; but insufficient to distinguish the Individuals of the same Species from each other. Adequate, that is, perfectly sufficient Ideas, belong only to the Supreme Being. To say with Mr Locke that all simple Ideas are adequate is an error in language. A simple Idea, as a simple Idea, cannot refer to any external Substance, representatively: for as Pythagoras said, nothing exists but in complexity. A simple Idea can be adequate therefore only in reference to itself; and this is merely affirming that this particular Idea is this same particular Idea, that is, if A be A, then A is A. -- nor is it a whit more proper to say, that a Mathematician's Idea of a Triangle is adequate; for this is likewise to say, if A is A, then A is A. Adequate is not synonimous with 'complete', but with 'perfectly coincident': which is absurd to affirm of an Idea with itself. S. T. Coleridge. [A] Mathematician's Idea of a Triangle is falsel[y stated] -- it should be, his Idea, Triangle. -- 383. To Josiah Wedgwood Address: Mr T. Poole | N. Stowey | Bridgewater | Somerset Single Sheet MS. British Museum. Hitherto unpublished. Postmark: 27 March 1801. Stamped: Keswick. [ February 1801] My dear Sir This letter I intend for a miscellaneous Postscript to my last / or if you like, a sort of sermon on a text from Hobbes 'Animadverte quam sit ab improprietate verborum pronum hominibus prolabi in errores circa res.' Mr Locke would have never disgraced his Essay with the first Book, if he had not mistaken innasci for synonimous with connasci, whereas to be 'born in', and to be 'born at the same time with', are phrases of very different import. My mind is, for aught I know to the contrary, connate with my brain / but a staunch materialist would perhaps deny this, and affirm that the Brain was the elder of the two, and that the mind is innate in the brain. Des Cartes chose the word 'innascor' because it implied Birth & of course Subsequence, & at the same time pointed out the -691- place of Birth. -- He confined it to what Locke calls Ideas of Reflection, merely because he did not wish to innovate on the established Language of metaphysics. But he expressly affirms, that in more accurate Language all ideas are innate, 'ipsas motuum. et figurarum Ideas esse innatas'; the mind is both their Birth-place and their manufacturer; and we use the term 'adventitious' [']quando judicemus, has vel illas Ideas, quas nunc habemus cogitationi nostrae praesentes, ad res quasdam extra nos positas referri -- non quia res extra nos menti nostrae per organa sensuum illas ipsas Ideas immiserunt; sed quia aliquid tamen immittitur, quod menti occasionem dedit ad ipsas per innatam sibi facultatem hoc tempore potius quam alio efformandas.' 1 Innate therefore is inaccurately opposed to adventitious; but as the word had been in common use, he had adopted it to express those cognitions which the mind gains by attending to it's own passions & operations. These cognitions he elsewhere calls in the language of his age communes notiones and eternae veritates, the same which Mr Locke calls intuitive Knowlege, 2 & they are explained by Descartes to the same purport as these Intuitions are explained by Mr Locke to be those Laws in the conformation of the mind by which all men necessarily perceive ideas in certain Relations to each other. These Laws Aristotle calls △úϒᾱϒἐσ+̂úμøϒδ øαíϒατοτο ̅øροϒ̅στο) a power inherent in all living Beings determining the manner in which external objects must act upon them. -- It is observable, that Des Cartes finding that he had been misunderstood both in the word 'innatae' and in the word 'Ideae', entirely dismissed them from his Principia / for innatae he uses cogitativae or intellectualis, and for Ideae he uses sometimes notiones, sometimes cognitiones, sometimes motus percepti, & when he wishes to express himself generally he resigns the convenience of a single Word, which was his first motive for using it, & expresses himself by a paraphrase 'Quaecunque sub perceptionem nostram cadunt.' The word Idea occurs but twice in the first book of the Principia, and then he uses it only in reference to his Meditations. It is a proof to me of Mr Locke's having never read the works of Des Cartes, that he adopted the word Idea / he would never have used this word, if he had seen the disputes in which it involved the French Philosopher, the anxious Warding-off of misinterpretation, which he never fails to manifest when he uses it, by repeated Definitions, & sometimes by marginal Nota benes: and in his Principia he wisely desisted from the use of the word altogether. ____________________ 1 Notae in Programma quoddam, Explicatio. 2 Locke does not call communes notiones and eternae veritates 'intuitive knowledge'. For Locke on intuitive knowledge, see Essay IV, ii. -692- It is likewise to be observed that he uses it steadily in one sense, & never dreamt of introducing such a phrase as 'abstract Ideas.['] Having thus seen how grossly Mr Locke has misunderstood Descartes, or perhaps how gossip-like he has taken up upon hearsay a rabble of silly calumnies respecting him, we shall be the less surprized at the 23rd Paragraph of the fourth chapter of his first Book, in which he implies that Aristotle was an asserter & Patron of connate Principles & Ideas -- Aristotle, whose expressions in reprobation of such a doctrine are even violent. Quod igitur eas (scil. cognitiones) a naturh habemus, absurdum est. τUο̅οϒ! 1 is the mildest phrase which he deigns to bestow on such an hypothesis. If Locke ever looked into the logical or metaphysical Works of Aristotle, I hazard a conjecture that this strange Blunder of his in matter of fact originated in a Blunder as to the meaning of a Word. ϒομα and ϒμαι are put together in some Lexicons as one word, and in all the Lexicons which I have consulted, they are given as synonimous with each other & with and all three are rendered by Insum, innascor. But in philosophical Greek ϒωσ+̂ ϒοσαϒóáϒ and ϒóαεϒα have each it's separate meaning -- ϒσ+̂ ϒοσ+̂ (which is mentioned by Aristotle as a possible Hypothesis & disposed of with an 'absurdum est[']) is equivalent to connate or inherent Ideas, Mr Locke's Innate Ideas. ϒáε ἐϒσ+̂ (which is used by Plato) = Ideas born in the Mind, or in Mr Locke's Language, Ideas derived from Reflection. But ϒáε ἐϒóμεϒα, a favorite Phrase of Aristotle's, or ingenerated Ideas = Ideas acquired by Experience -cognitiones, quae a nobis acquiruntur, as Pacius rightly translates these passages. Hence Aristotle often has the sentence. Thus then these cognitions ε+̕íϒοϒτα τ['] -- are ingenerated in the Soul -- i.e. by the action of external subjects on our senses. I guess therefore that Mr Locke carelessly & in a slovenly mood of mind, reading these passages, with a preconceived Opinion that the Peripatetic Philosophy was a congeries of false Hypotheses & verbal Subtleties, translated the words 'are innate (i.e. in his sense, inherent) in the mind,['] herein perhaps relying without scruple on the authority of his Lexicon, and the common use of the word in common Greek. I hope, that I am not treating Mr Locke with undue disrespect; for if I reject this, and all similar suppositions, I shall be reduced to the Belief that he charged upon a truly great man an opinion, which he himself deemed outrageously silly, without having ever read that great man's Works. Thus too in that express attack on Des Cartes in the 1st Chap. of his 2nd Book 'Men think not always' by translating the Cartesian 'Cogito' by the word ____________________ 1 Underlined once in MS. -693- 'Think' he prepares his Reader to suppose that Des Cartes had taught that we are always voluntarily combining Ideas / for this, as Mr Locke himself observes, is the meaning of the English Word Think. Now Des Cartes expressly defines his cogitatio as a general Term for all our consciousnesses, whether of Impressions, Ideas, or mere Feelings. -- Again in the words 'think not always' I need not point out to you the confusion in the word ('always') as combined with ('think not,') if we should admit Mr Locke's own account of Time as meaning nothing more than a succession of Thoughts, & that in this Proposition Mr Locke in order to rescue himself from absurdity must necessarily bewilder his Reader in obscure Notions of Relative Time as contradistinguished from Absolute. -- The whole Reasoning (as far as Des Cartes' Cogito is not misconstrued) resolves itself into an equivocation in the word Consciousness, which is sometimes used for present Perception, & sometimes for the memory of a past Perception / for as to the wild & silly assertions, with which this Chapter is so amply stocked, it would be idle to include them under the term reasoning. These equivocations & these assertions are happily blended in the two following sentences. 'Those who do at any time sleep without dreaming can never be convinced that their Thoughts are sometimes for four hours together busy without their knowing it.' -And 'If the Soul doth think in a sleeping Man without being conscious of it, I ask whether during such thinking it has any pleasure or Pain or be capable of Happiness or Misery? I am sure, the Man is not, no more than the Bed or Earth he lies on. (!!!) For to be happy or miserable without being conscious of it seems to me utterly inconsistent & impossible.' This is a truly curious passage! First Des Cartes had expressly defined Thinking by Consciousness -thus then 'If the Soul is conscious without being conscious I ask whether during such consciousness it has any consciousness.['] --. ----- Or what if a Cartesian should answer To be happy or miserable without being afterwards conscious of having been so seems to me neither inconsistent nor impossible ----- But if Mr Locke speaks of present perception, how came he to be so sure, that a sleeping man is devoid of Feeling? -- 'The man does not remember, that he had any.' Well (it may be answered) the natural Deduction from this is, that the Man had forgotten it. For to affirm that a man can breathe & turn himself & perform all the usual actions of sleep without any sensation is actually to affirm of men that same absurd Doctrine which Des Cartes is accused of having held concerning the Brutes, & which Mr Locke in his merry mood calls a step beyond the Rosecrucians.' This silly chapter with many others not much better originated in the little attention, which -694- Locke had given to the Law of association as explanatory of the Phaenomena both of Memory and of Reasoning -- / for I find by his Preface what I first heard from Mr Mackintosh, that the trifling Chapter on Association was not introduced till the fourth Edition. It is true, that if we were to judge of Locke's merits by the first Book, & the first Chapter in the second Book of his Essay, we should sink him below his proper rank, even more than his present Reputation is above it. Yet if any one had read to me that chapter on 'Men think not always' without mentioning the Author, and afterwards read a passage in his fourth Book, in which it is asserted that Morals are equally susceptible of Demonstration as Mathematics, & then another passage in the conclusion of the eleventh [tenth] Chapter of Book the third, in which it [is] said 'all the figurative application of Words, Eloquence hath invented, are for nothing else but to insinuate wrong ideas, move the Passions, and thereby mislead the Judgement; and so indeed are perfect cheat' -I should have found myself incapable of believing the Author to be any thing but -- what, I reverence even a great name too much to apply to Mr Locke. It may not be amiss to remark, that the Opinion of Descartes respecting the Brutes has not been accurately stated. Malbranche indeed positively denies all feeling to Brutes, & considers them as purae putae Machines. But Des Cartes asserted only, that the Will and Reason of Man was a Something essentially distinct from the vital Principle of Brutes / [and that we had no proof that Brutes are not mere automatons. Des Cartes, like Hartley & Darwin, held the possibility of a machine so perfect, & susceptible of Impulses, as to perform many actions of apparent Consciousness without consciousness / but the falsehood of a thing possible can never 'be demonstrated,['] tho' such demonstration may be superseded by intuitive Certainty. I am certain that I feel; and when I speak of men, I imply in the word 'Men' Beings like myself; but in the word 'Brutes' I imply Beings someway or other different from my own species, to them therefore I am not entitled to transfer my intuitive Self-knowlege / consequently, I cannot prove i.e. demonstrate, that any consciousness belongs to them. The strongest expression in all Des Cartes' Writings on this subject is 'etsi ratione careant, et forte omni cogitatione'. -- This is, no doubt, egregious trifling, unworthy of Des Cartes, & hardly to be reconciled with other parts of his own Works, in which he shews that Nature acts upon us as Language, and that veracity is involved in the notion of Deity. However, to assert that a thing is so or so, and to assert that it cannot be demonstrated not to be so or so, form articles of Belief widely different from each other. Malbranche asserted that Brutes -695- were machines devoid of all consciousness, Des Cartes only asserted, that no one could demonstrate the contrary. I have abstained purposely from intermingling in these Letters any remarks of my own, not connected with matters of historical Fact / tho' I was greatly tempted to animadvert on the gross metaphor & at the same time bold assumption implied in the words 'inherent,' 'innate,' 'ingenerated,' 'object of the mind in thinking,' &c / I was likewise tempted to remark that I do not think the Doctrine of innate Ideas even in Mr Locke's sense of the Word so utterly absurd & ridiculous, as Aristotle, Des Cartes, & Mr Locke have concurred in representing it. What if instead of innate Ideas a philosopher had asserted the existence of constituent Ideas / the metaphor would not be a whit more gross, nor the hypothesis involved more daring or unintelligible, than in the former phrases / and I am sure, it would lead to more profitable Experiments & Analyses. In Mr Locke there is a complete Whirl-dance of Confusion with the words we, Soul, Mind, Consciousness, & Ideas. It is we as far as it is consciousness, and Soul & Mind are only other words for we / and yet nothing is more common in the Essay than such Sentences as these 'I do not say there is no Soul in us because we are not sensible of it in our sleep' & -- 'actions of our mind unnoticed by us['] -- i.e. (according to Locke's own definitions of mind & we) 'actions of our consciousness, of which our Consciousness is unconscious.['] Sometimes again the Ideas are considered as objects of the mind in thinking, sometimes they stand for the mind itself, and sometimes we are the thinkers, & the mind is only the Thought-Box. -- In short, the Mind in Mr Locke's Essay has three senses -- the Ware-house, the Wares, and the Ware-house-man. -What is the etymology of the Word Mind? I think that I could make it as probable as could be expected in a conjecture on such a subject that the following is the history of the Word -- In a Swabian Poet of the 13th Century I have found the word Min (pronounced mein); it is used by him for Geist, or Gemuth, the present German Words for Mind. -- The same poet uses the word Minen, which is only the old Spelling for the present German Meinen -- the old signification of Meinen (& which is still in many parts of Germany the provincial use of the word) exactly corresponds with the provincial use of the verb 'To mind' in England. Don't you mind that? -- i.e. Do you not remember it. -- Be sure, you mind him of that -- i.e. remind him of that. -- Hence it appears to be no other than provincial Differences of Pronunciation between the words Meinen, & Mahnen -- which last word retains the old (present provincial) meaning of the word Meinen -- i.e. to mind a person (of his Duty for instance). But the insertion of the n in the middle -696- of a German verb is admitted on all hands to be intensive or reduplicative / as the Dictionary Phrase is. In reality it is no more than repeating the last syllable as people are apt to when speaking hastily or vehemently. Mahnen therefore is Mahenen, which is Mahen spoken hastily or vehemently. But the oldest meaning of the word mfihen is to move forward & backward, yet still progressively -- thence applied to the motion of the Scythe in mowing -from what particular motion the word was first abstracted, is of course in this as in all other instances, lost in antiquity. For words have many fates -- they first mean particulars, become generals, then are confined to some one particular again, & so forth -- as the word 'indorse' for instance. -- To mow is the same as the Latin movere which was pronounced mow-ere -- & monere in like manner is only the reduplicative of mow-ere -- mow-en -- mow-nen -- mownen, or monen. This word in the time of Ennius was menere, & hence mens -- the Swedish word for Mind is Mon -- the Islandic Mene. The Greek μϒáομá, i.e. μεϒáμαá 1 from whence μϒημη, the memory, is the same word -- and all alike mean a repetition of similar motion, as in a scythe. It is even probable that the word meh, ma, & moe, the old German and English Words for more is of the same Birth & Parentage. All infinitives are in my opinion Imperatives with or without some auxiliar substantive / in our Language without, in Latin, German, etc with. What the Latin 're' and 'ri' are, I think I could make a bold guess at -- and likewise at the meaning of the en, common to all the Gothic Dialects. -God bless you, my dear Sir!, I would, I were with you to join in the Laugh against myself. S. T. Coleridge 384. To Josiah Wedgwood MS. British Museum. Hitherto unpublished. [ February 1801.] Mr Locke's third Book is on Words; and under this head [he] should have arranged the greater number of the Chapters in his second Book. Des Cartes has said multum in parvo on the subject of words. He has said the same things as Mr Locke; but he has said them more perspicuously, more philosophically, & without any admixture of those errors or unintelligibilities into which Mr Locke suffered himself to be seduced by his Essences and Abstract Ideas. -- Words (according to Des Cartes) are to be considered in three ways -- they are themselves images and sounds; 2. they are connected with our Thoughts by associations with Images & ____________________ 1 μεϒ underlined once in MS. -697- Feelings; 3. with Feelings alone, and this too is the natural Tendency of Language. For as words are learnt by us in clusters, even those that most expressly refer to Images & other Impressions are not all learnt by us determinately; and tho' this should be wholly corrected by after experience, yet the Images & Impressions associated with the words become more & more dim, till at last as far as our consciousness extends they cease altogether; & Words act upon us immediately, exciting a mild current of Passion & Feeling without the regular intermediation of Images. Nam videmus, verba sive ore prolata sive tantum scripts, quaslibet in animis nostris cogitationes & commotiones excitare -- & so forth. And if, says Des Cartes it be objected that these Words do not all excite images of the Battles, Tempests, Furies, &c, sed tantummodo diversas intellectiones 1 ; this is true, but yet no wise different from the manner in which Impressions & Images act upon us. Gladius corpori nostro admovetur, et scindit illud; ex hoc sequitur Dolor, qui non minus diversus a gladii vel corporis locali motu, quam color vel sonus. 2 Words therefore become a sort of Nature to us, & Nature is a sort of Words. Both Words & Ideas derive their whole significancy from their coherence. The simple Idea Red dissevered from all, with which it had ever been conjoined would be as unintelligible as the word Red; the one would be a sight, the other a Sound, meaning only themselves, that is in common language, meaning nothing. But this is perhaps not in our power with regard to Ideas, but much more easily with regard to Words. Hence the greater Stability of the Language of Ideas. Yet both Ideas & Words whenever they are different from or contrary to our Habits either surprize or deceive us; and both in these instances deceive where they do not surprize. From inattention to this, it is conceivable, quantum in Catoptricis majores nostri aberrarent, quoties in speculis cavis et convexis locum Imaginum determinate conati fuerunt. 3 With regard to Knowlege, & Truth, & Error & Falsehood I find no essential Difference whatsoever in the opinions of Locke & Des Cartes. Knowlege according to Des Cartes is clear & distinctive Perception, & Truth a clear & distinct Perception of the Relations which our Cognitions bear to each other. The causes of error & falsehood are such associations of Ideas with Ideas, of Words with Ideas, & of Words with Words, as are liable to be broken in upon. I associate the idea of a Red Coat with a Soldier, & herein I have not erred; but I have associated with the idea of a Red Coat nothing else but the Idea of a Soldier, & in consequence ____________________ 1 Principia, Pt. IV, Sect. cxcvii. 2 Ibid. 3 Dioptrices, Ch. VI, Sect. xix. For aberrarent read aberrarint. -698- a feeling of conviction that whenever I see a Red Coat coming, it must be a Soldier / but this is liable to be broken in upon -- it is error. -- The most common sources of error arise according[ly] from misunderstanding the nature of Abstract Ideas, and the confiding in certain propositions & verbal theses, as believing that we had formerly demonstrated them -- quod multa putemus a nobis olim fuisse percepta, iisque memoriae mandatis, tanquarn omnino perceptis, assentiamur, quae tamen revera nunquarn percepimus. 1 To which he adds, as a motive for a wise and moderated scepticism, the action of early prejudices on our minds long after we have appeared to ourselves to have completely ridden our minds of them. ----- If the facts, I have adduced, produce the same effect on you which they have produced on me, you will have been convinced that there is no Principle, no organic part, if I may so express myself, of Mr Locke's Essay which did not exist in the metaphysical System of Des Cartes -- I say, the metaphysical / for with his Physics & in them with his notions of Plenum &c I have no concern. Yet it doth not follow that Des Cartes' System & Locke's were precisely the same. I think, if I were certain that I should not weary or disgust you by these long Letters, I could make it evident, that the Cartesian is bonâ fide identical with the Berkleian Scheme, with this Difference that Des Cartes has developed it more confusedly, and interruptedly than Berkley, and probably therefore did not perceive it in his own mind with the same steadiness & distinctness. Thus it is possible that in consequence of some brief Hints which your Brother gave me, & my after meditations on subjects connected with them, I may have formed in relation to visible & tangible Ideas opinions, which are not at present the same, but which would coalesce with his, instant[an]eously / but I am certain from the habits of my mind, that both my opinions & my modes of representing those opinions to my own mind, would be comparatively gross, drossy as it were, & unsteady too from the disturbing Forces of ordinary Language, with which I as a much & readily talking man have connected deeper Delights than he, & formed closer affinities. We may have the same point in view, but he is sailing thither, & I swimming. So Des Cartes's system is a drossy Berkleianism -- and it is in consequence of it's dross & verbal Impurities, that the System of Locke is found so completely bodied out in it. -- If I should not have been mistaken in this, it would follow that the famous Essay on the human Understanding is only a prolix Paraphrase on Des Cartes with foolish Interpolations of the Paraphrast's; the proper motto to which would be ____________________ 1 Principia, Pt. I, Sect. XLIV. -699- Nihil hîc Novi, plurimum vero superflui. A System may have no new Truths for it's component Parts, yet having nothing but Truths may be for that very reason a new System -- which appears to me to be the case with the moral philosophy of Jesus Christ / but this, [which] is admitted on all hands, is not the case with Mr Locke's Essay. But if it's Truths are neither new nor unaccompanied by Errors and Obscurities, it may be fairly asked, wherein does Mr Locke's Essay['s] merit consist. Certainly not in his style, which has neither elegance, spirit, nor precision; as certainly not in his arrangement, which is so defective that I at least seem always in an eddy, when I read him / round & round, & never a step forward; but least of all can it be in his Illustrations, which are seldom accurate to the eye, & never interesting to the Affections. -I feel deeply, my dear Sir! what ungracious words I am writing; in how unamiable a Light I am placing myself. I hazard the danger of being considered one of those trifling men who whenever a System has gained the applause of mankind hunt out in obscure corners of obscure Books for paragraphs in which that System may seem to have been anticipated; or perhaps some sentence of half [a] dozen words, in the intellectual Loins of which the System had lain snug in homuncular perfection. This is indeed vile in any case, but when that System is the work of our Countryman; when the Name, from which we attempt to detract, has been venerable for a century in the Land of our Fathers & Forefathers, it is most vile. But I trust, that this can never be fairly applied to the present Instance -- on the contrary I seem to myself as far as these facts have not been noticed, to have done a good work, in restoring a name, to which Englishmen have been especially unjust, to the honors which belong to it. It were well if we should rid ourselves of a fault that is common to us, in literary far more than in political Relations -- the hospitibus feros, 1 attributed to us of old. No cautious man will affirm any thing of a People without Limitations that almost squeeze the poor Proposition to Death / With such exceptions however, as a prudent man must be understood to make, when he speaks of national character, I am inclined to say -- that the French boast & flatter / the English neither boast nor flatter / but they assume and detract: that is, they take what they believe to be their absolute Bulk as a thing necessarily presupposed, & as it were, axiomatic, and they endeavor to increase their relative Size by levelling all around them. -- Besides, Discoveries of these & similar Facts in literary History are by no means so unprofitable as might appear at the first view. They lessen that pernicious custom begun no doubt by the great Bacon, & in no small degree ____________________ 1 Horace, Carm. iii, 4, line 33. -700- fostered by Des Cartes, of neglecting to make ourselves accurately acquainted with the opinions of those who have gone before us, which doth only by rendering honest Fame insecure, greatly diminish a venial motive to worthy Efforts, but lays us open to many Delusions, & obnoxious to Sects & opinions of Sects which but for the charm of supposed novelty would have sunk at once, without gaining even the honors of Oblivion by having been once noticed. It is even better to err in admiration of our Forefathers, [than] to become all Ear, like Blind men, living upon the Alms and casual mercies of contemporary Intellect. Besides, Life is short, & Knowlege infinite; & it is well therefore that powerful & thinking minds should know exactly where to set out from, & so lose no time in superfluous Discoveries of Truths long before discovered. That periodical Forgetfulness, which would be a shocking Disease in the mind of an Individual relatively to it's own Discoveries, must be pernicious in the Species. For I would believe there is more than a metaphor in the affirmation, that the whole human Species from Adam to Bonaparte, from China to Peru, may be considered as one Individual Mind. But more than all, these little Detections are valuable as throwing [light] on the causes & growth of Reputation in Books as well as man. I hold the following circumstances to have [been] the main efficients of Mr Locke's Fame. 1 First & foremost, he was a persecuted Patriot, in the times of James the Second -closely connected with the Earl of Shaftesbury, the Earl of Peterborough, &c / and his works cried up by the successful Revolutionary Party with the usual Zeal & industry of political Faction. 2. The opinions of Gassendus, & Hobbes, had spread amazingly in the licentious & abominable Days of Charles the second & the controversial Reign of his Successor -- All knowlege & rational Belief were derived from experience -- we had no experience of a God, or a future state -- therefore there could be no rational Belief. How fashionable these opinions & how popular the argument against Miracles of which Mr Hume seems to have conceited himself to have been the Discoverer, we need only read the Sermons of South 2 to be convinced of. When the fundamental Principles of the new Epicurean School were taught by Mr Locke, & all the Doctrines of Religion & Morality, forced into juxtaposition & apparent combination with them, the Clergy imagined that a disagreeable Task was fairly taken off their hands -- they ____________________ 1 In Dec. 1810 Coleridge explained Locke's reputation with many of the same arguments he employs in this letter. See Blake, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Lamb, etc. being Selections from the Remains of Henry Crabb Robinson, ed. by Edith J. Morley, 1922, p. 36. 2 Robert South ( 1634-1716) published his sermons in 6 volumes, 1679-1715. -701- could admit what they were few of them able to overthrow, & yet shelter themselves from the consequences of the admission by the authority of Mr Locke. The high Church Clergy were no friends to Mr Locke indeed; but they were popular chiefly among the Ignorant, and their popularity was transient. Besides, a small party violently & industriously praising a work will do much more in it's favor, than a much larger party abusing it can effect to it's disadvantage. But the low Clergy were no small party, & they had all the Dissenters to back. To this must be added the great spread of Arian notions among the Clergy / and it was no secret, that Mr Locke was an Arian. / Of this however the Clergy in the present Day take no notice; no Parson preaches, no Judge speechifies, no Counseller babbles against Deism, but the great Mr Locke's name is discharged against the Infidels, Mr Locke, that greatest of Philosophers & yet pious Believer. The effect, the Clergy have had in raising, extending & preserving Mr Locke's Reputation cannot be calculated -- and in the meantime the Infidels were too politic to contradict them. The infidels attacked the Christians with Mr Locke's Principles, & the Christians fell foul on the Infidels with Mr Locke's authority. -- 3. Sir Isaac Newton had recently overthrown the whole system of Cartesian Physics, & Mr Locke was believed to have driven the plough of Ruin over the Cartesian Metaphysics. -- This was a complete Triumph of the English over the French / the true origin of the union, now proverbial, of the two names -- Newton & Locke. -- 5 [4]. After this came Leibnitz, & the Dispute concerning the Invention of the Infinitesimal &c and the bitterness & contempt with which this great man was treated not only by Newton's Understrappers, but by the whole English Literary Public, have not even yet wholly subsided. -Now Leibnitz not only opposed the Philosophy of Locke, but was believed & spoken of as a mere reviewer of the exploded Cartesian Metaphysics -- a visionary & fantastic Fellow, who had only given Mr Locke occasion to 'fight his Battles o'er again & twice to slay the Slain.' -- Leibnitz's notions of Plenum, pre-established Harmony &c were misrepresented with the most ludicrous blunders by Maclaurin 1 & other Lockists -- & Voltaire in that jumble of Ignorance, Wickedness, & Folly, which with his usual Impudence he entitled a Philosophical Dictionary, made it epidemic with all the No-thinking Freethinkers throughout Europe, to consider Locke's Essay as a modest common sense System, which taught but little indeed -- & yet taught all that could be known / & held it up in opposition to the dreams of the Philosophy of Leibnitz, whose mortal sin in the Mind of Voltaire & his Journeymen was, not his ____________________ 1 Colin Maclaurin ( 1698-1746), mathematician and natural philosopher. -702- monads, but that intolerable Doctrine of the Theodicee, that the system of the Universe demanded not only the full acquiescence of the Judgement in its perfection, but likewise the deepest devotion of Love & Gratitude. Berkley who owed much to Plato & Malebranch, but nothing to Locke, 1 is at this day believed to be no more than a refiner upon Locke -- as Hume is complimented into a refiner on Berkley. Hence Mr Locke has been lately called the Founder of all the succeeding Systems of Metaphysics, as Newton of natural Philosophy ----- & in this sense his Name is revered tho' his Essay is almost neglected / -- Those, who do read Mr Locke, as a part of Education or of Duty, very naturally think him a great Man / having been taught to suppose him the Discoverer of all the plain pre-adamitical Common sense that is to be found in his Book. But in general his Merit like that of a Luther, or a Roger Bacon, is not now an idea abstracted from his Books, but from History, -- among the Overthrowers of Superstition, his Errors & Inaccuracies are sometimes admitted, now only to be weighed against the Bullion of his Truths, but more often as in other holy Books, are explained away -- & the most manifest selfcontradictions reconciled with each other / & on the plea, that so great a man has to be judged by the general Spirit of his Opinions, & not by the Dead Letter. -- Lastly, we must take in as the main Pillar of Mr Locke's Reputation the general aversion from even the name of Metaphysics & the Discussions connected with it / arising 1. from the enormous commerce of the Nation, & the enormous increase of numbers in the Profession of the Law consequent hereon, and 2. from the small number of the Universities & the nature of the Tutorships & Professorships in them -- & 3 & principally, from the circumstance that the preferment of the Clergy in general is wholly independent of their Learning or their Talents, but does depend very greatly on a certain passive obedience to the Impelling[?] articles of the Church. In the more than one or two Instances I have heard Clergymen confess that they did not read for fear that they might [be] rendered uneasy in their minds. How great a Loss this is to the Community will appear by the reflection, that of the three greatest, nay, only three great Metaphysicians which this Country has produced, B., B. & H. 2 / two were Clergymen of the Church of England. [MS. of this letter breaks off thus.] 3 ____________________ 1 To say that Berkeley owed nothing to Locke is nonsense. 2 I mean, Berkley & [ Joseph] Butler / in whose company I place Hartley as a useful Writer.' [Cancelled sentence in MS.] 3 The verso of the last page of this manuscript contains a rough draft of a small part of Letter 382. -703- 385. To Josiah Wade Pub. Early Rec. ii. 18. March 6th, 1801 My very dear friend, I have even now received your letter. My habits of thinking and feeling have not hitherto inclined me to personify commerce in any such shape as could tempt me to turn Pagan, and offer vows to the Goddess of our Isle. But when I read that sentence in your letter, 'The time will come I trust, when I shall be able to pitch my tent in your neighbourhood,' I was most potently tempted to a breach of the second commandment, and on my knees, to entreat the said Goddess, to touch your bank notes and guineas with her magical, multiplying wand. I could offer such a prayer for you, with a better conscience than for most men, because I know that you have never lost that healthy common sense, which regards money only as the means of independence, and that you would sooner than most men cry out, enough! enough! To see one's children secured against want, is doubtless a delightful thing; but to wish to see them begin the world as rich men, is unwise to ourselves, (for it permits no close of our labors) and is pernicious to them; for it leaves no motive to their exertions, none of those sympathies with the industrious and the poor, which form at once the true relish and proper antidote of wealth. . . . Is not March rather a perilous month for the voyage from Yarmouth to Hamburg? danger there is very little, in the packets, but I know what inconvenience rough weather brings with it; not from my own feelings, for I am never sea sick, but always in exceeding high spirits on board ship, but from what I see in others. But you are now an old sailor. At Hamburg I have not a shadow of acquaintance. My letters of introduction produced for me (with one exception, viz. Klopstock the brother of the poet) no real service, but merely distant and ostentatious civility. And Klopstock will by this time have forgotten my name, (which indeed he never properly knew) for I could speak only English and Latin, and he only French and German. At Ratzeburgh (35 English miles N. E. from Hamburgh on the road to Lubec) I resided four months, and I should hope, was not unbeloved by more' than one family, but this is out of your route. At Gottingen I stayed near five months, but here I knew only students, who will have left the place by this time, and the high learned professors, only one of whom could speak English, and they are so wholly engaged in their academical occupations, that they would be of no service to you. Other acquaintance in Germany I have none, and connection I -704- never had any. For though I was much intreated by some of the Literati to correspond with them, yet my natural laziness, with the little value I attach to literary men, as literary men, and with my aversion from those letters, which are to be made up of studied sense, and unfelt compliments,* combined to prevent me from availing myself of the offer. Herein and in similar instances, with English authors of repute, I have ill consulted the growth of my reputation and fame. But I have cheerful and confident hopes of myself. If I can hereafter do good to my fellow creatures, as a poet, and as a metaphysician, they will know it; and any other fame than this, I consider as a serious evil, that would only take me from out the number and sympathy of ordinary men, to make a coxcomb of me. As to the Inns or Hotels at Hamburgh, I should recommend you to some German Inn. Wordsworth and I were at the 'Der Wilde Man,' and dirty as it was, I could not find any Inn in Germany very much cleaner, except at Lubec. But if you go to an English Inn, for heaven's sake, avoid the Shakspeare, at Altona, and the King of England, at Hamburgh. They are houses of plunder, rather than entertainment. The Duke of York's Hotel, kept by Seaman, has a better reputation, and thither I would advise you to repair; and I advise you to pay your bill every morning at breakfast time; it is the only way to escape imposition. What the Hamburgh merchants may be I know not, but the tradesmen are knaves. Scoundrels, with yellow-white phizzes, that bring disgrace on the complexion of a bad tallow candle. Now as to carriage, I know scarcely what to advise; only make up your mind to the very worst vehicles, with the very worst horses, drawn by the very worst postillions, over the very worst roads, (and halting two hours at each time they change horses) at the very worst inns; and you have a fair, unexaggerated picture of travelling in North Germany. The cheapest way is the best; go by the common post waggons, or stage coaches. What are called extraordinaries, or post chaises, are little wicker carts, uncovered, with moveable benches or forms in them, execrable in every respect. And if you buy a vehicle at Hamburgh, you can get none decent under thirty or forty guineas, and very probably it will break to pieces on the infernal roads. The canal boats are delightful, but the porters everywhere in the United Provinces, are an impudent, abominable, and dishonest race. You must carry as little luggage as you well can with you, in the canal boats, and when you land, get recommended to an inn beforehand, and bargain with the porters first of all, and never lose sight of them, or you may never see your portmanteau or baggage again. Sarah desires her love to you and yours. God bless your dear -705- little ones! Make haste and get rich, dear friend! and bring up the little creatures to be playfellows and schoolfellows with my little ones! Again and again, sea serve you, wind speed you, all things turn out good to you God bless you, S. T. Coleridge. 386. To William Godwin Address: Mr Godwin | Polygon | Sommers Town | London -MS. Lord Abinger. Hitherto unpublished. Postmark:10 March 1801. Stamped: Keswick. Keswick, Cumberland March 7, 1801 Dear Godwin I have puzzled my brains to no purpose to find a plausible conjecture, why you have not written to me. -- If I had in any way offended you, your simple & direct habits would have impelled you to write; and if you have been employed, I should have thought, it would have been some Cheering of Toil to have set a friend at a distance a sympathizing with you. -- Do write -- if it be only half a dozen Lines. -- Your's sincerely, S. T. Coleridge 387. To Thomas Poole Address: Mr T. Poole | N. Stowey | Bridgewater | Somerset. MS. British Museum. Pub. with omis. Letters, i. 348. About one-third of pages a and 4 has been torn from the holograph; the passages in brackets have been supplied from a transcript made by Thomas Ward. Stamped: Keswick. Monday Night. [ 16 March 1801] [Endorsed March 16, 1801] My dear Friend The interval since my last Letter has been filled up by me in the most intense Study. If I do not greatly delude myself, I have not only completely extricated the notions of Time, and Space; but have overthrown the doctrine of Association, as taught by Hartley, and with it all the irreligious metaphysics of modern Infidelst -especially, the doctrine of Necessity. -- This I have done; but I trust, that I am about to do more -- namely, that I shall be able to evolve all the five senses, that is, to deduce them from one sense, & to state their growth, & the causes of their difference ----- & in this evolvement to solve the process of Life & Consciousness. ----- I -706- write this to you only; & I pray you, mention what I have written to no one. -- At Wordsworth's advice or rather fervent intreaty I have intermitted the pursuit -- the intensity of thought, & the multitude of minute experiments with Light & Figure, have made me so nervous & feverish, that I cannot sleep as long as I ought & have been used to do; & the Sleep, which I have, is made up of Ideas so connected, & so little different from the operations of Reason, that it does not afford me the due Refreshment. I shall therefore take a Week's respite; & make Christabel ready for the Press -- which I shall publish by itself -- in order to get rid of all my engagements with Longman -- My German Book I have suffered to remain suspended, chiefly because the thoughts which had employed my sleepless nights during my illness were imperious over me, & tho' Poverty was staring me in the face, yet I dared behold my Image miniatured in the pupil of her hollow eye, so steadily did I look her in the Face! -- for it seemed to me a Suicide of my very soul to divert my attention from Truths so important, which came to me almost as a Revelation / Likewise, I cannot express to you, dear Friend of my heart! -- the loathing, which I once or twice felt, when I attempted to write, merely for the Bookseller, without any sense of the moral utility of what I was writing. -- I shall therefore, as I said, immediately publish my CHRISTABEL, with two Essays annexed to it, on the Praeternatural -- and on Metre. This done I shall propose to Longman instead of my Travels (which tho' nearly done I am exceedingly anxious not to publish, because it brings me forward in a personal way, as a man who relates little adventures of himself to amuse people -- & thereby exposes me to sarcasm & the malignity of anonymous Critics, & is besides beneath me -- I say, beneath me / for to whom should a young man utter the pride of his Heart if not to the man whom he loves more than all others?) I shall propose to Longman to accept instead of these Travels a work on the originality & merits of Locke, Hobbes, & Hume / which work I mean as a Pioneer to my greater work, and as exhibiting a proof that I have not formed opinions without an attentive Perusal of the works of my Predecessors from Aristotle to Kant. -- I am confident, that I can prove that the Reputation of these three men has been wholly unmerited, & I have in [what I have already written traced the whole history of the causes that effected this reputation entirely to Wordsworth's satisfaction. You have seen, I hope, the lyrical Ballads -- In the divine Poem called Michael, by an infamous Blunder of the Printer near 20 lines are omitted in page 210, which makes it nearly unintelligible -- Wordsworth means to write to you & to send them together with a list of the numerous] Errata. The character of the Lyrical -707- Ballads is very great, & will increase daily. They have extolled them in the British Critic. 1 Ask Chester (to whom I shall write in a week or so concerning his German Books) for Greenough's Address -- & be so kind as to send it immediately. [Indeed, I hope for a long Letter from you -- your opinion of the L. B, the preface &c -- You know, I presume, that Davy is appointed Director of the Laboratory; and Professor at the Royal Institution? 2 -- I received a very affectionate Letter from him on the Occasion. Love to all -- We are all well, except perhaps myself -- Write! -- God love you & S T Coleridge] 388. To Thomas Pook Address: Mr T. Poole | N. Stowey I Bridgewater | Somerset. Single MS. British Museum. Pub. Letters, i. 350. Postmark: 26 March 1801. Stamped: Keswick. Monday Night [ 23 March 1801] My dear Friend I received your kind Letter of the 14th -- I was agreeably disappointed in finding that you had been interested in the Letter respecting Locke -- those which follow are abundantly more entertaining & important; but I have no one to transcribe them -- nay, three Letters are written which have not been sent to Mr Wedgewood, because I have no one to transcribe them for me -- & I do not wish to be without Copies -- / of that Letter, which you have, I have no Copy. -- It is somewhat unpleasant to me, that Mr Wedgewood has never answered my letter requesting his opinion of the utility of such a work, 3 nor acknowleged the receipt of the long Letter containing the evidence that the whole of Locke's system, as far as it was a system, & with the exclusion of those parts only which have been given up as absurdities by his warmest admirers, pre-existed in the writings of Des Cartes, in a far more pure, elegant, & delightful form. 4 ----- Be not afraid, that I shall join the party of the Little-ists 5 -- I believe, that I shall delight you by the detection of their artifices -- Now Mr Locke was the founder of this ____________________ 1 British Critic, Feb 1801. 2 Davy arrived in London on 11 Mar. 1801, and during the spring gave three courses of lectures at the Royal Institution. It was not until 15 July that he was officially appointed by the Managers. 3 No such letter has come to light. 4 See Letter 881, dated 18 Feb. 1801, and apparently sent at that time to both Josiah Wedgwood and Poole. 5 In acknowledging Letter 381, Poole on 14 Mar. warned Coleridge not to become a Little-ist: 'Think before you join the herd of Little-ists, who, without knowing in what Locke is defective, wish to strip the popular mind of him, leaving in his place nothing -- darkness, total darkness.' Thomas Poole. ii. 34. -708- sect, himself a perfect Little-ist. My opinion is this -- that deep Thinking is attainable only by a man of deep Feeling, and that all Truth is a species of Revelation. The more I understand of Sir Isaac Newton's works, the more boldly I dare utter to my own mind & therefore to you, that I believe the Souls of 500 Sir Isaac Newtons would go to the making up of a Shakspere or a Milton. But if it please the Almighty to grant me health, hope, and a steady mind, (always the 8 clauses of my hourly prayers) before smy 30th year I will thoroughly understand the whole of Newton's Works -- At present, I must content myself with endeavouring to make myself entire master of his easier work, that on Optics. I am exceedingly delighted with the beauty & neatness of his experiments, & with the accuracy of his immediate Deductions from them -- but the opinions founded on these Deductions, and indeed his whole Theory is, I am persuaded, so exceedingly superficial as without impropriety to be deemed false. Newton was a mere materialist -- Mind in his system is always passive -- a lazy Lookeron on an external World. If the mind be not passive, if it be indeed made in God's Image, & that too in the sublimest sense -- the Image of the Creator -- there is ground for suspicion, that any system built on the passiveness of the mind must be false, as a system. / I need not observe, My dear Friend, how unutterably silly & contemptible these Opinions would be, if written to any but to another Self. I assure you, solemnly assure you, that you & Wordsworth are the only men on Earth to whom I would have uttered a word on this subject -- . It is a rule, by which I hope to direct all my literary efforts, to let my Opinions & my Proofs go together. It is insolent to differ from the public opinion in opinion, if it be only opinion. It is sticking up little i by itself i against the whole alphabet. But one word with meaning in it is worth the whole alphabet together -- such is a sound Argument, an incontrovertible Fact. -- O for a lodge in a Land, where human Life was an end, to which Labor was only a Means, instead of being, as it [is] here, a mere means of carrying on Labor. -- I am oppressed at times with a true heart-gnawing melancholy when I contemplate the state of my poor oppressed Country. -- God knows, it is as much as I can do to put meat & bread on my own table; & hourly some poor starving wretch comes to my door, to put in his claim for part of it. -- It fills me with indignation to hear the croaking accounts, which the English Emigrants send home of America. The society is so bad -the manners so vulgar -- the servants so insolent. -- Why then do they not seek out one another, & make a society -- ? It is arrant ingratitude to talk so of a Land in which there is no Poverty but -709- as a consequence of absolute Idleness -- and to talk of it too with abuse comparatively with England, with a place where the laborious Poor are dying with Grass with[in] their Bellies! -- It is idle to talk of the Seasons -- as if that country must not needs be miserably misgoverned in which an unfavorable Season introduces a famine. No! No! dear Poole! it is our pestilent Commerce, our unnatural Crowding together of men in Cities, & our Government by Rich Men, that are bringing about the manifestations of offended Deity. -- I am assured, that such is the depravity of the public mind, that no literary man can find bread in England except by misemploying & debasing his Talents -- that nothing of real excellence would be either felt or understood. The annuity, which I hold, perhaps by a very precarious Tenure, will shortly from the decreasing value of money become less than one half of what it was when first allowed to me -- If I were allowed to retain it, I would go & settle near Priestly, in America / I shall, no doubt, get a certain price for the two or three works, which I shall next publish -- ; but I foresee, they will not sell -- the Booksellers finding this will treat me as an unsuccessful Author -- i.e. they will employ me only as an anonymous Translator at a guinea a sheet -- (I will write across my other writing in order to finish what I have to say.) I have no doubt, that I could make.500£ a year, if I liked. But then I must forego all desire of Truth and Excellence. I say, I would go to America, if Wordsworth would go with me, & we could persuade two or three Farmers of this Country who are exceedingly attached to us, to accompany us -- I would go, if the difficulty of procuring sustenance in this Country remain in the state & degree, in which it is at present. Not on any romantic Scheme, but merely because Society has become a matter of great Indifference to me -- I grow daily more & more attached to Solitude -- but it is a matter of the utmost Importance to be removed from seeing and suffering Want. God love you, my dear Friend! -- S. T. Coleridge. 389. To Thomas Poole Address: Mr T. Poole | N. Stowey | Bridgewater | Somerset Single Sheet. MS. British Museum. A few lines pub. Thomas Poole, ii. 40. Postmark: 27 March 1801. Stamped: Keswick. Keswick, Tuesday, March 24. 1801 My dearest Poole The latter half of my yesterday's Letter was written in 'a wildlywailing strain.' 1 The truth is, I was horribly hypochondriacal. So ____________________ 1 Cf. a fragmentary poem concluding with the line, 'A wildly-wailing Note'. Poems, ii. 997. -710- many miserable Beings, that day, travelling with half-famished children, had levied contributions on us, that when I received the Newspaper, I could scarcely read the Debates; my heart swelled so within me at the brutal Ignorance & Hardheartedness of all Parties alike -- Add to this, I was affected by a Rheumatism in the back part of my head -- and Add to this too, that I was irritated by the necessity, I was under, of intermitting most important & hitherto successful Researches, in order to earn a trifle of ready money by scribbling for a Newspaper. Having given to my own conscience proof of the activity & industry of my nature I seemed to myself to be entitled to exert those powers & that industry in the way, I myself approved.-In that mood of mind nothing appeared to me so delightful as to live in a Land where Corn & Meat were in abundance -- & my imagination pointed to no other place, than those inland parts of America where there is little communication with their foul Cities, & all the articles of Life, of course, to be had for a trifle. -- But my Country is my Country; and I will never leave it, till I am starved out of it. -- Do not mistake me, my dear Poole! -- I am not alarmed for the present year. I know that what I shall have finished in two or three months will fetch a fair Price, & disembarrass me compleatly; but I foresee, that my works will not sell, & that the Booksellers finding this will have nothing to do with me, except as an anonymous Hack at starving Wages. The Country is divided into two Classes -- one rioting & wallowing in the wantonness of wealth, the other struggling for the necessaries of Life. -- The Booksellers feel this -Longman told me, that 'scarcely any, but Books of expence, sold well. Expensive Paper, & Ornaments &c were never layed out in vain. For the chief Buyers of Books were the Wealthy who bought them for Furniture.' -- Now what can I write that could please the Taste of a Rich Man? -- Dear Poole -- a man may be so kindly tempered by nature, and so fortunately placed by unusual circumstances, as that for a while he shall, tho' rich, bear up against the anti-human Influences of Riches; but they will at last conquer him. It is necessary for the human Being in the present state of society to have felt the pressures of actual Hardships, in order to be a moral Being. Where these have been never & in no degree felt, our very deeds of Pity do to a certain point co-operate to deprave us. Consider for a moment the different Feelings with which a poor woman in a cottage gives a piece of Bread & a cup of warm Tea to another poor Woman travelling with a Babe at her Back, & the Feelings with which a Lady lets two pence drop from her Carriage Window, out of the envelope of perfumed Paper by which her Pocket is defended from the Pollution of Copper ----- -711- the difference is endless. But all this is better for our fire side Conversation, than for an eight-penny Letter. I have sent you two more Letters, 1 & will send the Rest / all of which you must bring back with you when you come. -- When you come, I shall beg you to bring me a Present -- it is, three Prismsthey will cost you 8 shillings a piece. Some time ago I mentioned to you a thought which had suggested itself to me, of making Acorns more serviceable. I am convinced that this is practicable simply by malting them. -- There was a total failure of acorns in this country last year, or I would have tried it. But last week as I was turning up some ground in my garden, I found a few acorns just beginning to sprout -- and I eat them -- they were, as I had anticipated, perfectly sweet & fine-flavored, & wholly & absolutely without any of that particular & offensive Taste which Acorns, when crude, leave upon the Palate, & Throat. -- I have no doubt that they would make both bread & beer, of an excellent taste & nutritious Quality. -- It may be objected, -- Suppose this -- what gain? -- They fatten pigs at present -- . This is however inaccurately stated -- Where there are large woods of Oak, a few Pigs may be fattened -- but Acorns are so uncertain a Crop, that except in large woods Pigs can never be kept on that speculation -- & in truth of the Acorns [drop]ped every year ths are wasted. Secondly, Pigs fed with only acorns have a bad flavor / thirdly, Pigs are likewise & more regularly fatted with Potatoes & Barley-meal -- & if the Objection, which I have stated, held good against the humanization of Acorns it would have held good against the introduction of Potatoes & Barley, as human Food -- nay, it actually has been made in Germany & France against Potatoes. -- What gain, said they? -- they are already useful -- we fatten our Pigs with them. -- In this Country Oaks thrive uncommonly well, & in very bleak & rocky Places -and I have little doubt, that by extending & properly managing the Plantation of Oaks, there might be 20 Families maintained where now there is one -- For Corn in this country is a most uncertain crop; but it so happens, that those very seasons which utterly destroy Corn produce an overflow of Acorns, & those Seasons, which are particularly favorable to Corn, prevent the Harvest of Acorns. Thus, the Summer before last all the Corn was spoilt, but there was a prodigious Crop of Acorns -- last summer there was a fine Crop of excellent Corn in these Counties (which never want as much moisture as Corn needs) but no acorns. -- If my hopes should be realized by my experiments, it would add another to the innumerable Instances of the Almighty's wisdom ____________________ 1 Letters 382 and 383. -712- & Love -- making the Valleys & the Mountains supply, each the Failure of the other. When the Mountains are struck with drouth, the Valleys give Corn -- when the Valleys are rotted with rain, the Mountains yield Acorns. -- The great objection at present to the Planting of Oaks is their slow Growth (the young wood which is weeded out not paying sufficient for the Board & Lodging of the wood destined for Timber) -- But very young Trees bear a certain proportion of acorns ----- Oaks, I apprehend, draw, even more than other T[rees], their nourishment from the moisture &c of the air, for they thrive in dry soils alone; yet are most fruitful in wet seasons. It is worth trying whether the Oak would be injured if the Leaves were taken off after the Acorns have fallen / they make a food for Horses, Cows, & Sheep. -- Should it be true, that the Oak is fructified by superficial Irrigation, what a delightful Thing it would be if in every Plot adjacent to Mountain Cottages stood half a dozen noble Oaks, & the little red apple-cheeked children in drouthy seasons were turning a small Fire engine into the air so as to fall on them! Merciful God! what a contrast to the employment of these dear Beings by a wheel or a machine in a hellish Cotton Factory! -- 'See! see! what a pretty Rainbow I have made!' -- &c &c Write to me -- I cannot express to you what a consolation, I receive from your Letters! S. T. C. My Wife has a violent Cold -- Derwent is quite well -- & Hartley has the worms. Do not forget to ask Chester for Greenough's address. -- Love to your dear Mother. -- The Farmers in these Northern Counties are getting rich. Their Crops last year were excellent; but the County itself is starving. If it were found, that Potatoes would bear Carriage as well as Grain, there would be no Food left in the County. It would all go to Liverpool and Manchester, &c. 390. To William Godwin Address: Mr Godwin | the Polygon | Sommers Town | London Single MS. Lord Abinger. Pub. with omis. William Godwin, ii. 77. Postmark: 28 March 1801. Stamped: Keswick. Greta Hall, Keswick Wednesday, March 25, 1801 Dear Godwin I fear, your Tragedy 1 will find me in a very unfit state of mind to sit in Judgement on it. I have been, during the last 8 months, undergoing a process of intellectual exsiccation. In my long Illness I had compelled into hours of Delight many a sleepless, painful ____________________ 1 This was Abbas, King of Persia, which was not accepted for presentation at Drury Lane. -713- hour of Darkness by chasing down metaphysical Game -- and since then I have continued the Hunt, till I found myself unaware at the Root of Pure Mathematics -- and up that tall smooth Tree, whose few poor Branches are all at it's very summit, am I climbing by pure adhesive strength of arms and thighs -- still slipping down, still renewing my ascent. -- You would not know me -- ! all sounds of similitude keep at such a distance from each other in my mind, that I have forgotten how to make a rhyme -- I look at the Mountains (that visible God Almighty that looks in at all my windows) I look at the Mountains only for the Curves of their outlines; the Stars, as I behold them, form themselves into Triangles -- and my hands are scarred with scratches from a Cat, whose back I was rubbing in the Dark in order to see whether the sparks from it were refrangible by a Prism. The Poet is dead in me -- my imagination (or rather the Somewhat that had been imaginative) lies, like a Cold Snuff on the circular Rim of a Brass Candle-stick, without even a stink of Tallow to remind you that it was once cloathed & mitred with Flame. That is past by! -- I was once a Volume of Gold Leaf, rising & riding on every breath of Fancy -- but I have beaten myself back into weight & density, & now I sink in quicksilver, yea, remain squat and square on the earth amid the hurricane, that makes Oaks and Straws join in one Dance, fifty yards high in the Element. However, I will do what I can -- Taste & Feeling have I none, but what I have, give I unto thee. ----- But I repeat, that I am unfit to decide on any but works of severe Logic. I write now to beg, that, if you have not sent your Tragedy, you may remember to send Antonio with it, which I have not yet seen -- & likewise my Campbell's Pleasures of Hope, which Wordsworth wishes to see. Have you seen the second Volume of the Lyrical Ballads, & the Preface prefixed to the First? ----- I should judge of a man's Heart, and Intellect precisely according to the degree & intensity of the admiration, with which he read those poems ----- Perhaps, instead of Heart I should have said Taste, but when I think of The Brothers, of Ruth, and of Michael, I recur to the expression, & am enforced to say Heart. If I die, and the Booksellers will give you any thing for my Life, be sure to say -- ' Wordsworth descended on him, like the ϒω+̑θ σ+̂εατóϒ from Heaven; by shewing to him what true Poetry was, he made him know, that he himself was no Poet.' In your next Letter you will perhaps give me some hints respecting your prose Plans. -- . God bless you & S. T. Coleridge -714- I have inoculated my youngest child, Derwent, with the Cowpoxhe passed thro' it without any sickness. -- I myself am the Slave of Rheumatism -- indeed, tho' in a certain sense I am recovered from my Sickness, yet I have by no means recovered it. I congratulate you on the settlement of Davy in London. -- I hope, that his enchanting manners will not draw too many Idlers round him, to harrass & vex his mornings. -- . . . 1 P.S. -- What is a fair Price -- what might an Author of reputation fairly ask from a Bookseller for one Edition, of a 1000 Copies, of a five Shilling Book? -- 391. To Thomas N. Longman Address: Messrs. Longman and Rees | Paternoster Row | London MS. Professor C. B. Tinker. Hitherto unpublished. This letter is written on a sheet the first page of which contains a letter from Wordsworth to Longman. Early Letters, 265. Postmark: 30 March 1801. Stamped: Keswick. Friday Night, March 26 [27], 1801 Dear Sir Mr Wordsworth was so good as to send me your Letter to him with his own unsealed, that I might write without putting you to the expence of two Letters. -- Had not my dear friend, Mr Wordsworth, taken my Debt to you on his Shoulders, & thereby liquidated it, 2 I should have been made seriously unhappy by the Delays of my long & tedious Illness -more unhappy, I may truly say, than ever before a pecuniary transaction had rendered me / and this because your behaviour to me has been marked by such uniform delicacy, & liberality. -- My Sickness has left me in a state of mind, which it is scarcely possible for me to explain to you -- one feature of it is an extreme Disgust hich I feel at every perusal of my own Productions, & which makes it exceedingly painful to me not only to revise them, but I may truly add, even to look on the Paper, on which they are written. -- This has been produced in part no doubt by Disease; but in part too by the very important Researches & Studies, in which I have been lately immersed, & which have made all subjects of ordinary Interest appear to me trifling beyond measure. -Conscious however, that this is truly Disease, I shall very soon remit you the manuscript of my 'Information collected during a ____________________ 1 Two lines heavily inked out in manuscript. 2 I consider the 302 which you advanced to Mr Coleridge as advanced on my account.' Wordsworth to Longman and Rees, 27 Mar. 1801. By 5 July Coleridge had repaid part of this indebtedness to Wordsworth. See Letter 403. -715- residence of 10 months in North Germany'/ -- considering however my previous Agreement as in no wise binding on you. You will look the work over, & then if you like to renew your former offer, well and good! -- If not, I shall be equally well-satisfied. -- In the mean time, I should rather wish to send forth a Poem first, which I have reason to believe, from the concurring testimony of all the Persons to whom I have submitted it, is more likely to be popular than any thing which I have hitherto written -- . It is in length about the size of the Farmer's Boy, and I shall annex to it two Discourses, Concerning Metre, & Concerning the Marvellous in Poetry -- / For this poem a friend of mine is now drawing for me under my own direction some head-and tail-pieces, representing the particular Scenes & Places, which are mentioned in the course of the Tale, all of which he takes on the spot -- and they are from the wildest & most romantic parts of this County. -- I wish to know whether you are disposed to publish this poem in the manner in which the FABLIAUX edited by Mr Ellis 1 are published / whether you would venture on the expence of having the little Drawings engraved or cut in wood /? The title of the Poem is CHRISTABEL, a Legend, in five Books. -- As to Terms, I wish them to be such as would diminish the Risk as much as possible -- that is to say, I would leave the Terms to yourself, undetermined till the first Edition was sold -- and the trifle, I should request leave to draw on you for, I would have put to my personal Account -- to be liquidated by my after labors, if the success of this Poem should not answer my wishes: for hopes & expectations I do not waste on things of such utter uncertainty. -- Your's [ver]y truly, S. T. Coleridge 392. To Robert Southey Pub. Life and Corres. ii. 146. According to Cuthbert Southey, this letter was waiting for Southey when he returned to England from Portugal in July 1801. Greta Hall, Keswick; April 18. 1801 My dear Southey, I received your kind letter on the evening before last, and I trust that this will arrive at Bristol just in time to rejoice with them that rejoice. Alas! you will have found the dear old place sadly rainused by the removal of Davy. It is one of the evils of long silence, that when one recommences the correspondence, one has so much to say that one can say nothing. I have enough, with what I have seen, and with what I have done, and with what I have ____________________ 1 George Ellis edited G. L. Way translations of select Fabliaux in 1796. A second edition appeared in 1800. -716- suffered, and with what I have heard, exclusive of all that I hope and all that I intend -- I have enough to pass away a great deal of time with, were you on a desert isle, and I your Friday. But at present I purpose to speak only of myself relatively to Keswick and to you. Our house stands on a low hill, the whole front of which is one field and an enormous garden, nine-tenths of which is a nursery garden. Behind the house is an orchard, and a small wood on a steep slope, at the foot of which flows the river Greta, which winds round and catches the evening lights in the front of the house. In front we have a giant's camp -- an encamped army of tent-like mountains, which by an inverted arch gives a view of another vale. On our right the lovely vale and the wedge-shaped lake of Bassenthwaite; and on our left Derwentwater and Lodore full in view, and the fantastic mountains of Borrodale. Behind us the massy Skiddaw, smooth, green, high, with two chasms and a tent-like ridge in the larger. A fairer scene you have not seen in all your wanderings. Without going from our own grounds we have all that can please a human being. As to books, my landlord, who dwells next door, has a very respectable library, which he has put with mine; histories, encyclopaedias, and all the modern gentry. But then I can have, when I choose, free access to the princely library of Sir Guilfred Lawson, which contains the noblest collection of travels and natural history of, perhaps, any private library in England; besides this, there is the Cathedral library of Carlisle, from whence I can have any books sent to me that I wish; in short, I may truly say that I command all the libraries in the county. . . . Our neighbour is a truly good and affectionate man, a father to my children, and a friend to me. He was offered fifty guineas for the house in which we are to live, but he preferred me for a tenant at twenty-five; and yet the whole of his income does not exceed, I believe, 2001. a year. A more truly disinterested man I never met with; severely frugal, yet almost carelessly generous; and yet he got all his money as a common carrier, by hard labour, and by pennies and pennies. He is one instance among many in this country of the salutary effect of the love of knowledge -- he was from a boy a lover of learning. . . . The house is full twice as large as we want; it hath more rooms in it than Allfoxen; you might have a bedroom, parlour, study, &c. &c., and there would always be rooms to spare for your or my visitors. In short, for situation and convenience, -- and when I mention the name of Wordsworth, for society of men of intellect, -- I know no place in which you and Edith would find yourselves so well suited. . . . 1 ____________________ 1 The remainder of this letter, as well as another of later date, was filled -717- 393. To George Bellas Greenough Address: -- Greenough Esq. | No /21 Bedford Street | Covent Garden I London. Transcript Professor Edith J. Morley. Pub. with omis. Wordsworth and Coleridge, ed. by E. L. Griggs, 1939, 235. Postmark: 16 April 1801. Stamped: Keswick. Greta Hall, Keswick, Cumberland. Monday, April 18, 1801 Dear Greenough, I heard lately with a deep emotion, that you had visited Stowey & wrote immediately for your Address. This evening I received it. You have no doubt considered me as having behaved forgetfully towards you; & with justice, as far as the word 'behaved' implies an outward & visible Intercourse. -- But, Greenough! I should calumniate myself most vilely, if I should admit that I had really been forgetful, or had felt one symptom of a cooling & alienated mind. Your name is familiar with all, whom I love / Yet where I have spoken of you once, I have thought of you a thousand times -aye, with the Heart's Thoughts. -- My neglect was occasioned in the first Instance by perplexities domestic & pecuniary -- since then I have been monthly more & more ignorant whither to direct to you / & my whole time I may say with severest Truth, has been parcelled out into wearisome occupation, changes of Residence, and long & tedious fits of Sickness, which have thrown me behind hand ever more & more in my literary engagements. -- I was always a wretched Performer of epistolary Duties; but latterly I have almost wholly omitted them -- I am situated here in a country that one may call charming & new-stamp the worn-out slang Phrase with definite meaning & sincere emotion. My House commands perhaps the noblest Prospects of any House in the Island / & my honored Friend, Wordsworth, has fixed his Cottage in the most beautiful Spot in Grasmere Vale -- a few miles from me. -- I would, that I could make out to my mind a distinct Hope of seeing you this Summer / possibly amid the dreary Goings on & burthensome Manners of daily Life it might be both pleasant & morally useful to you to dwell awhile with me & with Wordsworth & his Sister -- for we are in some sort unusual Beings, inasmuch as we have seen a great deal of what is called the World, & acquired a great deal of what is called Knowlege, & yet have formed a deep conviction that all is contemptible that does not spring immediately out of an affectionate Heart. Possibly too it may be some ____________________ with a most gloomy account of his own health, to which my father refers in the commencement of his reply.' Note by Cuthbert Southey, Life and Corres. ii. 148-9. -718- inducement to you, that the probability of having me to see is yearly diminishing -- I feel, that I 'to the Grave go down' -- As a Husband, & a Father, as a young Man who had dar'd hope that he, even he, might sometime benefit his fellow creatures, I wish to live, but I have kept my best hope so unprofan'd by Ambition, so pure from the love of Praise, & I have so deep an intuition that to cease to be are sounds without meaning, that though I wish to live, yet the Thought of Death is never for a moment accompanied by Gloom, much less terror,' in my feelings or imagination. -- I write to you from a bed of Pain / with the fine weather I revive, like a Parlour Fly; but every change in this changeful Climate throws me on my back again, with inflamed eyes, rheumatic fever, & latterly a sort of irregular Gout -- I am seldom in health three days together. -- With the fall of the Leaf it is my present intention to pass over into a warmer climate / & I think of visiting the Azores, in order to ascertain the effect which a mere continuing summer may have. -- I have written entirely concerning myself; for of you or of those whom we know in common, I am so ignorant where you are & what your pursuits & objects, that all I could write would be inquiries which possibly I might not be entitled to make. -- But believe, dear Greenough, that as in Germany I loved & esteemed you more than any I met there, so neither since I have been in Englafid, have I met any new acquaintance whom I love & esteem one tenth part so much. S. T. Coleridge. I have opened the letter to beg you to forgive it's unseemly Form &c 394. To Thomas Poole Address: Mr T. Poole | N. Stowey | Bridgewater | SomersetSingle MS. British Museum. A few lines pub. Thomas Poole, ii. 44. Postmark: 21 April 1801. Stamped: Keswick. Saturday, April 18. 1801 My dearest Poole He must needs be an unthinking or a hard-hearted man who is not often oppressed in his spirits by the present state of the Country. There is a dearth of Wisdom still heavier than that of Corn / the mass of the inhabitants of the country are growing more & more acquainted with the blackness of the conspiracy, which the Wealthy have entered into, against their comforts & independence & intellect. But they perceive it only thro' the dimness of passions & personal indignation. The professed Democrats, who on an occasion of uproar would press forward to be the -719- Leaders, are without knowlege, talents, or morals. I have conversed with the most celebrated among them; more gross, ignorant, & perverted men I never wish to see again! -- O it would have made you, my friend I 'a sadder & a wiser man', if you had been with me at one of Horne Tooke's public Dinners! -- I could never discover by any train of Questions that any of these Lovers of Liberty had either [a] distinct object for their Wishes, or distinct views of the means. -- All seemed a quarrel about names! -- Taxes -- national Debt -- representation -- overthrow of Tythes & Church Establishments -- &c &c. -- I believe, that it would be easy to enumerate the causes of the evils of the Country, & to prove that they & they alone were the great & calculable, causes; but I doubt the possibility of pointing out a Remedy. -- Our enormous Riches & accompanying Poverty have corrupted the Morals of the nation. All Principle is scouted -- : by the Jacobins, because it is the death-blow of vainglorious Scepticism -- by the Aristocrats, because it is visionary & theoretical -- even our most popular Books of Morals, (as Paley's 1 for instance) are the corrupters & poisoners of all moral sense & dignity, without which neither individual or people can stand & be men. -- O believe me, Poole! it is all past by with that country, in which it is generally believed that Virtue & Prudence are two words with the same signification -- in which Vice is considered as evil only because it's distant consequences are more painful than it's immediate enjoyments are pleasurable -- and in which the whole human mind is considered as made up of just four ingredients, Impression, Idea, Pleasure and Pain. -- I said, that I doubted the possibility of pointing out a Remedy -- my reason is this -- The Happiness & Misery of a nation must ultimately be traced to the morals & understandings of the People. A nation where the Plough is always in the Hand of the owner, or (better still) where the Plough, the Horse, and the Ox have no existence, may be a great & a happy nation; and may be called so, relatively to others less happy, if it has only a manifest direction & tendency towards this 'best Hope of the World.' Now where there is no possibility of making the number of independent & virtuous men bear any efficient proportion to the number of the Tyrants & the Slaves -- that country is fallen never to rise again! There is no instance in the World in which a Country has ever been regenerated which has had so large a proportion of it's Inhabitants crowded into it's metropolis, as we in G. Britain. -- I confess, that I have but small Hopes of France; tho' the proportion there is not nearly so great. -- So enormous a metropolis imposes on the Governors & ____________________ 1 William Paley ( 1748-1805), Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy, 1785. -720- People the necessity of Trade & Commerce -- these become the Idols -- and every thing that is lovely & honest fall[s] in sacrifice to these Demons. -- It is however consoling to me in some small degree to find these opinions of the iniquity of Wealth & Commerce more & more common / especially, among the humbler Quakers in the North, & the more religious Part of the Day Labourers in this County. I assure you, they legislate respecting the Rights & Wrongs of Property with great Boldness & not without a due sense of the enormous Difficulties that would attend the Enthronement of Justice & Truth. -- O merciful Heaven! if it were thy good Will to raise up among us one great good man, only one man of a commanding mind, enthusiastic in the depth of his Soul, calm on the surface -- and devoted to the accomplishment of the last End of human Society by an Oath which no Ear of Flesh ever heard, but only the omnipresent God! -- Even this unhappy nation might behold what few have the courage to dream of, and almost as few the goodness to wish. ----- I trust, that your troubles & commotions are now over. What well grounded Objection can there be to the fixing the Minimum of Wages by some article of a certain real value? If at any time there should be so many Candidates for Labor, that, but for this Law, the Masters could get Labourers at a still cheaper Rate, then the Parishes might be obliged to employ a large number in the cultivation of Lands, &c. O there are ways enough, Poolel to palliate our miseries -- but there is not honesty nor public spirit enough to adopt them. -- Property is the bug bear -- it stupifies the heads & hardens the hearts of our Counsellors & Chief Men! -- They know nothing better than Soup-shops -- or the boldest of them push forward for an abolition of Tythes! -- Honest Men! -- I trust, that these anti-tythe men will be the occasion of a miracle -- they will make even our Priests utter aloud the very Truth. It will be a proud Day for me, when the Gentlemen of landed Property set in good earnest about plundering the Clergy ------ 'When Rogues quarrel,' &c -- the proverb is somewhat musty. -- I have written a long Letter & said nothing of myself. In simple verity, I am disgusted with that subject. For the last ten days I have kept my Bed, exceedingly ill. I feel and am certain, that 'I to the Grave go down.' -- My complaint I can scarcely describe / it is a species of irregular Gout which I have not strength of constitution sufficient to ripen into a fair Paroxysm -- it flies about me in unsightly swellings of my knees, & dismal affections of my stomach & head. What I suffer in mere pain is almost incredible; but that is a trifle compared with the gloom of my Circumstances. -- I feel the transition of the Weather even in my bed -- at present, the Disease -721- has seized the whole Region of my Back, so that I scream mechanically on the least motion. -- If the fine Weather continue, I shall revive -- & look round me -- & before the Fall of the Year make up my mind to the important Question -- Is it better to die or to quit my native Country, & live among Strangers? -- Another Winter in England would do for me. -- Besides, I am rendered useless & wretched -- not that my bodily pain afflicts me -- God forbid! Were I a single man & independent, I should be ashamed to think myself wretched merely because I suffered Pain / that there is no Evil which may not ultimately be reduced into Pain, is no part of my Creed. I would rather be in Hell, deserving Heaven, than be in Heaven, deserving Hell. It is not my bodily Pain -- but the gloom & distresses of those around me for whom I ought to be labouring & cannot. -- Enough of this ----- It is the last time, I shall ever write you in such a [. . . ?] -- you have perplexities enough of your own. -- God love you, & S. T. Coleridge -- 395. To John Thelwall Address: Mr Thelwall | Hereford single MS. Pierpont Morgan Lib. Hitherto unpublished. Postmark: 26 April 1801. Stamped: Keswick. April 23, 1801 Dear Thelwall I wish you all joy & comfort on the Safety of your Wife -& congratulate you both for the Mother and the Child. -- I should conjecture that you have written me some letter which must have miscarried, from the enigmatic style of some parts of that which I received yesterday; but that it is more probable that in the bustle & liveliness of your imagination you may have supposed that you had written what you had meant to write. -- I allude to 'the secret expedition' which you talk of; the word 'secret' is a word, I detest -- & I know of no expeditions but those to Holland, Ferrol, & Egypt. -- And what connection your 'Lady of the Lake' has with this Expedition; in other words, the meaning of the phrase The Lady of the Lake, therefore, quite eludes my powers of decyphering, which are in truth sufficiently blunt. -- I never likewise received a hint of your intention to translate the French Georgics -- I suppose, you meant -- his Country Gentleman, or Homme des Champs -- or his Poems on Gardens --. / It is true, he has translated Virgil's Georgics -- but you cannot have intended to translate a translation. 1 -- ____________________ 1 Jacques Delille, the French translator of Virgil, published L'Homme des Champs, ou Les Géorgiques Françaises, in 1800. -722- You say 'I should like to know your opinion on my mode of publication & my advertisement:' -- and certes, if I believed, it was not too late, and I at all capable of influencing your conduct, I should think it my duty to give it freely. As it is, I see no use in it -- especially in a letter, in which it is at all times difficult to make your full meaning understood, & very easy to occasion yourself to be misunderstood. -- Besides, we are so utterly unlike each other in our habits of thinking, and we have adopted such irreconcileably different opinions in Politics, Religion, & Metaphysics, (& probably in Taste too) that, I fear -- I fear -- I do not know how to express myself ----- but such, I fear, is the chasm between us, that so far from being able to shake hands across it, we cannot even make our Words intelligible to each other. -- Moral Esteem, frequent & kind wishes, & a lively Interest in your Welfare as a good Man & man of Talents make up in my mind for the too great want of similitude in our intellectual Habits & modes of Faith; (and, I presume, the same holds good in your feelings towards me) but this utter dissimilitude must needs render us fitter to do any other good service for each other, than to offer advice. -- I shall briefly say therefore, that I am exceedingly glad, you have published by Subscription -- first, because you have a right to do so, & secondly, I suspect, that in a very very short time the London Booksellers will be marvellously shy of EPIC Poems. -- The Lady of the Lake is rather an unlucky title; as since the time of Don Quixote the phrase has become a cant word in almost all European Languages for a Woman of Pleasure / A dramatic Legend is likewise not a happy combination. The Etyma of the words 'dramatic' & [']legend' directly contradict each other -- tho' not so absurd as the phrase 'speaking Pantomime' it is too much of the same class. -- Paternal Tears instead of Poems on that particular subject is a quaint &, at the same time, trite conceit. To call a poem a Tear is quite Italian -- Milton was young enough to be your Son when he used the phrase 'melodious Tear.' -- But these are trifles -- I am more concerned at your publication of two Books of your Epic Poem. First of all, you mean to publish the whole -- & then your Subscribers are to buy these two Books over again / but waiving this, it will appear a childish impatience if you have not finished the Poem; for then it is to be presumed that these books must be to a certain degree unfinished, at all events, not adjusted so as to be an harmonious part of the Whole. -- At least no Poet has a right to be certain, that any Book of a Poem will remain what it is, until he has written the whole. 1 -- But if you have written the whole, ____________________ 1 ThelwallPoems chiefly written in Retirement. The Fairy of the Lake, a Dramatic Romance; Effusions of Relative and Social Feeling: and Specimens ofthe Hope of Albion; -723- I should have advised you to have published it alone by Subscription. -- The Hope of Albion is a very vague title -- & would apply to a thousand Subjects. -- You say no part of the contents of this Volume are to be political? -- How is this possible if you give your Memoirs? ----- My health is very, very bad -- this day I have risen from my bed after another long confinement of fourteen Days / indeed, I feel & know, that (at all events, if I stay in this climate) I am going down to the Grave -- an event which neither [alarms nor depresses] me. -[If I d]ie, and I do not expect to live many years, my Brothers will, I have reason to believe, protect my Wife & children -- and from this Cause I am sure I need not request you not to mention my name in your memoirs 1 --. -- I say this, not thinking it at all probable that you would do so; but because the thing may be of some importance to my poor Wife & children. Your's &c S. T. Coleridge. 396. To William Godwin Address: Mr Godwin | Polygon | Sommers' Town | London MS. Lord Abinger. Hitherto unpublished. Postmark: 1 May 1801. Stamped: Keswick. Keswick Tuesday Evening, April 28, 1801 Dear Godwin I have, this moment, received your manuscript: & this night, if I had not received it, I should have certainly written to you, to make the proper inquiries &c. Indeed, I should have written long ago; but that I feel the utmost aversion at writing an unnecessary Letter since the increase of the postage, that brutal Tax upon the affections & understanding --! You need not be half as poor as I am; & yet look blank & fretful on any idle Letter, that has taken a shilling from your pocket. ----- I do not know in what way you wish me to convey my remarks -- whether by Letter to you, or en masse to be sent as a companion, when I send back the manuscript. -- Spite of the strange Delay at Crosby & Letterman's, & afterwards, perhaps, at the Penrith Booksellers, no time has been lost -- / since during the last three weeks I have kept my bed -- to day I have crawled forth into the hot Sun, and, if this ____________________ the Hope of Albion; or, Edwin of Northumbria: an Epic Poem, 1801. The first edition is not available. In the second edition 'Fairy' rather than 'Lady' is used in all titles and sub-titles; 'dramatic romance' is used for 'dramatic legend'; and Thelwall apologizes for publishing an extract from his epic. 1 No mention of Coleridge appears in the memoir prefixed to Thelwall's volume. -724- weather continue, I have hopes of Health -- at least, till next Autumn / . But this last Winter has truly been a hard one for me -one ugly Sickness has followed another, fast as phantoms before a vapourish Woman / in the mean time my expences increased, and I unable to write a line to defray them. -- But enough of this -- You, I doubt not, can find matter of gloom in London quite sufficient for all the stock of sympathy, which you may have, or wish to have. I will give your manuscript my best attention, & what I think, I will communicate -- but indeed, indeed, I am not dissembling when I express my exceeding scepticism respecting the sanity of my own Feelings & Tone of Intellect, relatively to a work of Sentiment & Imagination. -- I have been compelled, (wakeful thro' the night, & seldom able, for my eyes, to read in the Day) to seek resources in austerest reasonings -- & have thereby so denaturalized my mind, that I can scarcely convey to you the disgust with which I look over any of my own compositions -- a disgust, which has rendered the few brief intervals of my Sicknesses profitless to me as to those engagements with my bookseller which I yet must fulfil or starve. -God be praised, I do not however owe my bookseller any thing -methinks, I would rather have my Butcher & Baker for Duns, than Printers & Booksellers. -- Have you seen Davy lately? -- It has been an age since I heard of him or from him --. It would have yielded me much satisfaction, in many an hour of Downheartedness, if I could have received from you some information respecting your literary Projects & Plans of Sustenance. -- The Theatre -- alas! alas! that is not to be relied on by you. -- I have fears even concerning the managers / -- and suspect, that your future warfare with theatrical Intrigue, & Duplicity will be worse, than any you have hitherto waged. -- It is perhaps impertinent in me to offer advice to you concerning the choice of subjects &c --; but I cannot help wish[ing] that you would write a novel more on [the] plan of Tom Jones -- taking up your Hero or Heroine at or before the Birth, & relating his story in the third Person or first -as your Judgement inclines. -- You will have seen the new Tragedy. When you write, devote half a dozen Lines to it. My wife & children are well -- I trust, that your little ones grow & flourish. -- Your's sincerely S. T. Coleridge -725- 397. To Humphry Davy Address: Mr Davy MS. Royal Institution. Pub. with omis. Frag. Remains, 89. Monday, May 4, 1801 My dear Davy I received a letter this evening from Dr Beddoes who immediately wants the Books in the inclosed Parcel. They should have been sent some 9 months ago --; but I have had enough to do &c -with my miseries & sicknesses ----- Be so good as to have the Parcel booked & forwarded immediately. -- I heard from Tobin the day before yesterday, nay, it was Friday -- from him I learn that you are giving lectures on Galvanism. Would to God! I were one of your auditors. -- My motive muscles tingled & contracted at the news, as if you had bared them & were zincifying the life-mocking Fibres. When you have leisure & impulse, perfect leisure & a complete Impulse, write to me -- but only then. For tho' there does not exist a man on earth who yields me greater pleasure by writing to me, yet I have neither Pain nor Disquietude from your Silence. I have a deep faith in the guardianship of Nature over you -- of the Great Being whom you are manifesting. -- Heaven bless you, my dear Davy! -- I have been rendered uneasy by an account of a Lisbon Pacquet's non-arrival -- lest Southey should have been on board it. -- Have you heard from him lately? -- It would seem affectation to write to you & say nothing of my health / but in truth I am weary of giving useless pain. Yesterday I should have been incapable of writing you this scrawl; & tomorrow I may be as bad. 'Sinking, sinking, sinking! I feel, that I am sinking!' -- My medical attendant says that it is irregular Gout with nephritic Symptoms --. Gout in a young man of 29 -- ! -- ! Swoln Knees, & knotty Fingers, a loathy Stomach, & a dizzy head -- trust me, Friend! I am at times an object of moral Disgust to my own Mind. -- But that this long long Illness has impoverished me, I should immediately go to St Miguel's, one of the Azores -- the Baths & the delicious Climate might restore me -- and if it were possible, I would afterwards send over for my Wife & children, & settle there for a few years -- it being exceedingly cheap. -- On this supposition Wordsworth & his Sister have with generous Friendship offered to settle there with me -- & possibly our dear Southey would come too. -- But of this I pray you, my dear fellow! do not say a syllable to any human Being -- for the scheme from the present state of my circumstances is rather the Thing of a Wish than of a Hope. -726- Tell Tobin I have received his letter, & expect the Books &c with impatience, & return him my best Thanks. -- If you write to me, pray in a couple of sentences tell me whether Herschel Thermometric Spectrum (in the Philos. Trans.) will lead to any Revolution in the chemical Philosophy. -- As far as words go, I have become a formidable chemist -- having got by heart a prodigious quantity of terms &c to which I attach some ideas -- very scanty in number, I assure you, & right meagre in their individual persons. That which most discourages me in it is that I find all power & vital attributes to depend on modes of arrangement -- and that Chemistry throws not even a distant rush-light glimmer upon this subject. The reasoning likewise is always unsatisfactory to me -I am perpetually saying -- probably, there are many agents hitherto undiscovered. This cannot be reasoning; for in all conclusive reasoning we must have a deep conviction that all the terms have been exhausted. This is saying no more than that (with Dr Beddoes's leave) chemistry can never possess the same kind of certainty with mathematics -- in truth, it is saying nothing. I grow however exceedingly interested in the subject. ----- God love you, my dear Friend! -- From Tobin's account I fear that I must give up a very sweet vision -- that of seeing you this summer. The summer after my Ghost perhaps may be a Gas -- Your's affectionately S. T. Coleridge 398. To Robert Southey Address: Mr C. Danvers | St James's Place | Kingsdown | Bristol Single (For Mr Southey) MS. Lord Latymer. Pub. Letters, i. 354. Postmark: 11 May 1801. Stamped: Keswick. Greta Hall, Keswick. May 6, 1801 My dear Southey I wrote you a very very gloomy letter; & I have taken blame to myself for inflicting so much pain on you without any adequate motive. Not that I exaggerated anything as far as the immediate Present is concerned; but had I been in better health & a more genial State of Sensation, I should assuredly have looked out upon a more chearful Future. -- Since I wrote you, I have had another & more severe fit of Illness -- which has left me weak, very weak -but with so calm a mind, that I am determined to believe, that this Fit was bonâ fide the last. -- Whether I shall be able to pass the next Winter in this Country, is doubtful; nor is it possible, I should -727- know till the fall of the Leaf. -- At all events, you will (I hope & trust, & if need were intreat) spend as much of the summer & autumn with us as will be in your power -- & if our Healths should permit it, I am confident there will be no other solid objection to our living together in the same house, divided. We have ample Room -- Room enough & more than enough -- and I am willing to believe, that the blessed Dreams, we dreamt some 6 years ago may be auguries of something really noble which we may yet perform together. -- We wait impatiently, anxiously, for a letter announcing your arrival -- indeed the article Falmouth has taken precedence of the Leading Paragraph with me for the last 8 weeks. -- Our best Love to Edith. -- Derwent is the Boast of the County -- the little RiverGod is as beautiful as if he had been the Child of Venus Anaduomene previously to her Emersion. -- Dear Hartley! we are at times alarmed by the state of his Health -- but at present he is well -- if I were to lose him, I am afraid, it would exceedingly deaden my affection for any other children I may have ----- 1 A little child, a limber Elf Singing, dancing to itself; A faery Thing with red round Cheeks, That always finds, and never seeks -- Doth make a Vision to the Sight, Which fills a Father's Eyes with Light! And Pleasures flow in so thick & fast Upon his Heart, that he at last Must needs express his Love's Excess In Words of Wrong and Bitterness. Perhaps 'tis pretty to force together Thoughts so all unlike each other; To mutter and mock a broken charm; To dally with Wrong, that does no Harm -- Perhaps, 'tis tender too & pretty At each wild Word to feel within A [s]weet Recoil of Love & Pity; And what if in a World of Sin (O sorrow & shame! should this be true) Such Giddiness of Heart & Brain Comes seldom, save from Rage & Pain, So talks, as it's most us'd to do. ----- ____________________ 1 These lines, of which no other manuscript version exists, were printed in 1816 as the conclusion to Part II of Christabel. Obviously they were inspired by Hartley Coleridge. -728- A very metaphysical account of Fathers calling their children rogues, rascals, & little varlets ----- &c ----- God bless you, my dear Southey! I need not say, write! -- S. T. Coleridge P.S. We shall have Pease, Beans, Turneps (with boiled Leg of mutton), cauliflowers, French Beans, &c &c -- endless! -- We have a noble Garden! 399. To Daniel Stuart MS. British Museum. Pub. Letters from the Lake Poets, 17. Keswick, Saturday, May 16, 1801 Dear Stuart I should have been greatly affected by the contents of your letter at any time; and at present I felt them with a fellow-feeling added to brotherly sympathy. -- You have had misery enough of your own & see enough immediately around you for any profitable purpose, to which Sufferance or compassion can conduce -- were it not therefore necessary in some sort as a justification of my silence & inexertion, I should feel no impulse to tell you that since the first of January I have been, with the exception of 3 weeks and a few days, & this not continuous but interspersed, confined to my bed, with a succession of Disorders, i.e. Rheumatic Fever followed by an Hydrocele, & since then by what is called irregular or retrocedent Gout. My powers of mind never forsook me; but the act of writing (& in general, of conversation) was wholly out of my power. -- Since the last 8 days I appear to myself to be really recovering; but I have had so many short Recoveries of one, two, and three days each, followed by such severe Relapses, that verily I am almost afraid to Hope. But chearful Thoughts come with genial sensations: -- & Hope is itself no mean Medicine. I thank you for your kindness in continuing to send the paper to us -- it has been a great amusement to Mrs Coleridge during her long attendance on my sick bed -- & latterly to me. It would give me more than a common pleasure if I could write any thing that would please you or do you an atom of service -- as to any terms, they are out of the Question -- my ill health & those habits of irresolution, which are perhaps the worst bad consequences of ill health, forbid me at present to rely on myself -- but if you would write & point out to me any subjects, I would do any thing for you off hand with great pleasure --. I ask you for subjects & a little information -- for I am wholly ignorant of the present state of the public Feeling. ----- -729- In the question respecting the Disfranchisement of the Clergy it appeared to me . . . [Remainder of manuscript missing.] 400. To Thomas Poole Address: Mr T. Poole | N. Stowey | Bridgewater | Somerset Single sheet MS. British Museum A few lines pub. Thomas Poole, ii. 48. Postmark: 20 May 1801. Stamped: Keswick. May 17, 1801. -- Sunday Evening My dear Poole I thank you with a full heart for your last Letter which was as wise as it was kind. -- Ah dear friend I had you seen me a few days before the date of it, you would have needed no other evidence [to] have convinced you, that my gloom & forebodingness respecting pecuniary affairs were the effects, & in no degree the causes, of my personal indisposition. -- I should take shame to myself indeed, if in an hour of health I had suffered 10 minutes unhappiness from the difficulty of living at 1801 a year -- sadly minused as it is, & probably will continue to be, by Income Taxes & the other Gentry of that class. -- No! Poole -- I should be unworthy of your esteem as an ordinary man, & most deserving of your ridicule as a pretended Philosopher, if that gloom & the expressions, that conveyed it to you, had been other than perishing Maggots engendered in the weakly bowels of Disease. My pecuniary Embranglements indeed will cost me some trouble to cut through -- if I regain my health, I shall arm my hands in a stout Pair of Hedger's & Ditcher's Gloves, & fall to with a light heart / if not, God's will be done! -- I must do what I can / tho' it would be unusually painful to me to continue in Debt even to those who love me, desirous as I am that no one should with truth impute my disregard of wealth for myself to want of strict honesty & punctuality in my money-dealings with others. -- I have written you many letters; and yet from all of them you will scarcely have been able to collect a connected story of my Health, & it's Downfalls. -- I will give it now (as briefly as I can) that you may distinctly understand the plans which I shall after mention. -- During the whole Fall of the year to Christmas I had been harrassed with all sorts of crazinesses, blood-shot eyes, swoln Eye lids, rheumatic pains in the back of my head & limbs, clusters of Boils in my neck, &c -- from all which, but especially from a transient Puffiness of one of my hands, I learnt the doleful Tidings that the machine was crazed -- & slight changes of weather affected me, & Wet cloathes, tho' pulled off immediately on my entering the house, never failed to throw me on my back. -- The new year was ushered in with what I believed a Rheumatic Fever / tho' no -730- doubt part of the pains were nephritic. -- This was followed by the Hydrocele & a tedious, tormenting, humiliating Visitant it was. -My general Health, after this was removed, was as you may suppose, but indifferent, sometimes better, sometimes worse, never good -- & during this Interval I applied myself with great intensity of thought & application, far greater indeed than in all my former Life. Notwithstanding the Result, I still praise God that I did so. -- In the course of these studies I tried a multitude of little experiments on my own sensations, & on my senses -- and some of these (too often repeated) I have reason to believe did injury to my nervous system -- / However this be, I relapsed -- and a Devil of a Relapse it has been, to be sure! --. There is no Doubt, that it is irregular Gout combined with frequent nephritic attacks -- I had not strength enough to ripen it into a fair Paroxysm -- it made it's outward shews sometimes in one or other of my fingers, sometimes in one or more of my Toes, sometimes in my right Knee & Ancle; but in general it was in my left Knee and Ancle -- here the Disorder has been evidently attempting to fix itself -- my left knee was most uncouthly swoln & discolored, & gave me night after night pain enough, heaven knows, but yet it never came to a fair Paroxysm. -All this was mere nothing -- but O dear Poole! the attacks on my stomach, & the nephritic pains in my back which almost alternated with the stomach fits -- they were terrible! -- The Disgust, the Loathing, that followed these Fits & no doubt in part too the use of the Brandy & Laudanum 1 which they rendered necessary -- this ____________________ 1 This letter, with its passing reference to laudanum, gives a true account of the beginning of Coleridge's slavery to opium, and confirms his reiterated assertion, made in 1814, 1820, and 1826, that he unwittingly became a drug addict in an effort to alleviate pain. Thus in 1814 he tells Cottle how he was 'seduced into the ACCURSED Habit ignorantly. I had been almost bed-ridden for many months with swellings in my knees -- in a medical Journal I unhappily met with an account of a cure performed in a similar case (or what to me appeared so) by rubbing in of Laudanum, at the same time taking a given dose internally -- It acted like a charm, like a miracle! I recovered the use of my Limbs, of my appetite, of my Spirits -- & this continued for near a fortnight. At length, the unusual stimulus subsided -- the complaint returned -- the supposed remedy was recurred to -- but I can not go thro' the dreary history --' MS. New York Public Lib. ( Early Rec. ii. 157). See T. Allsop, Letters, Conversations and Recollections of S. T. Coleridge, 1864, p. 41, and Gillman, Life, 246-8. See also Letter 516, p. 984 n. Although this letter to Poole does not contain any reference to medical reading, Letter 374 provides evidence of it. Earlier letters show that Coleridge had previously taken opium both for medicinal purposes and to relieve the strain of agitated spirits and that he was well aware of the 'divine repose' it induced (see Letters 10, 108, 150, 151, 209, 238, and 809), but it seems evident that his habitual use of drugs did not begin until his illness of 1800-1. See also E. L. Griggs, "Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Opium", Huntington Lib. Quar., August 1954, pp. 357-78. -731- Disgust, Despondency, & utter Prostration of Strength, & the strange sensibility to every change in the atmosphere even while in my bed -- / enough! -- I pray God with a fervent heart, my beloved & honored Poole I that those words may for ever remain Words to you -- unconstrued by your own experience. -- On Monday, May 4th, I recovered, all at once as it were -- my appetite returned, & my spirits too in some measure -- On the Thursday following I took the opportunity of a return Post Chaise, & went to Grasmere -to do away doleful remembrances -- & I grew better and better, till Tuesday last -- indeed I was so stout that I had resolved on walking back to Keswick the next morning -- but on Tuesday afternoon I took a walk of about six miles, & on my return was seized again with a shivering Fit followed by a feverish & sleepless night, & in the Morning my left Knee was swoln as much as ever. -- I return'd to Keswick in a return post chaise on Friday Evening -my knee is still swoln, & my left [ancle?] in flames of fire, & last night these pretty companions kept me sleepless the whole night -hour after hour, I utter'd and suppress'd full many a groan, The Cur, Arthritis, gnawing my knee-bone -- but my stomach & head & back remain unaffected, & I am resolved to believe that I am really recovering, tho' I have had so many recoveries of two, & three days each, followed by such severe Relapses, that verily I am almost afraid to hope. But chearful Thoughts come with genial sensations; and Hope is itself no mean Medicine. -- My plan is very short -- when the swelling in my knee is gone, I shall take for a few weeks the Rust of Iron in pretty large Doses -- & thro' the whole Summer I will observe every rule of the most scrupulous Prudence & Forecast with religious strictness, using regulated Diet & regulated Exercise -- at the close of the summer if I should be so far re-established, that I no longer feel my health affected by the changes of the Weather, I shall have nothing to do, but to pass the Winter in quiet industry, with unremitted caution as to Wet & cold. -- If the contrary should be the case, I am determined to go to St Miguel's (one of the Azores -- see ' St Miguel' in your Encyc.) -- I can go from Whitehaven, which is but sixteen miles from Keswick, for a mere trifle -- perhaps, for nothing; & I can be lodged & boarded in a convent close by the Bath in the E. of the Island for the whole Winter for ten pound. Even in a pecuniary Light it will be a good plan / for my Letters will bring me at least a hundred Pound. Captn Wordsworth (W's Brother & worthy to be so) passed two months there, & warmly recommends a Wintering there, as almost a certain Cure of my -732- Complaints. -- When I am sick or in pain, I look forward to this scheme with a comforting satisfaction -- but whenever I am quite at ease, I cannot bear even to think of it. -- I had hopes, when I began this Letter, that one Half of it would have sufficed for my story -- & now I am at the end, & have no room to say aught about my disappointment in not seeing you -& now too the Country is in it's very lustre of beauty, & hitherto unpestered by the Tourists. -- But if I can send a letter franked from London to you, by means of a parcel which I shall soon send to Longman, I will write again. -- God in heaven bless you & S. T. Coleridge Love to your dear Mother -- & to Ward -- Mrs C. & the Children quite well -- Derwent is a downright Beauty --. When you see your Sister & Mr K., remember us affectionately to them. 401. To Humphry Davy Address: Mr Davy | Royal Institution | Albermarle Street | LondonSingle MS. Royal Institution. Pub. with omis. Frag. Remains, 90. Postmark: 24 May 1801. Stamped: Keswick. Greta Hall, Keswick. May 20, 1801 My dear Davy I rested my whole weight on my crutch, & laughed so that I could scarce hold myself on the crutch, at the question, you put to me, in Underwood's 1 name. -- I suppose, that when I had begun to laugh, from my exceeding weakness I continued it nolens volens. -- But wherein the laughable of the Question consists, it may be difficult to shew. -- In the first place, I was excessively tickled by the sentence 'to love a woman called Haysor Taylor'. I did not (& do not) know how to understand these words -- whether Underwood loves a woman whose name he had mentioned to you, but you had forgotten whether the name, he mentioned, was Hayesor Taylor -- or whether the woman was really Hayesalias Taylor -- i.e. had sometimes' assumed one name, & sometimes another. On the first supposition, as no two Combinations of letters can well be more widely different from each other than Hayes & Taylor, it left me in no small scepticism as to the degree of attention, with which you had vitalized your auditory nerves at the moment that the little man had named his Amata to you; and of course, it became a possible case that neither Hayes nor Taylor ____________________ 1 T. R. Underwood, the artist. He was Tom Wedgwood's travelling companion to France and Switzerland in 1808. Coleridge sometimes referred to him as Subligno. -733- might be the Lady's name, but Saunderson, or Courtney, or any other. On the other supposition, it tickled me no little that a man should be in love before he had received a conviction even of the Woman's good character; but most of all at an inquiry into the character & honor of 'a woman named Hayesalias Taylor.' -Now Hayesalias Taylor may perhaps have had some other name, at the time I knew her -- / for certes No Lady of either of these names do I recollect (except Miss Mary Hayes, of literary note, whom I once saw for half an hour.) -- I went first thro' all the virtuous Women, I had ever known, as far as my Memory would assist -- but it was all Blank. Then (& verily I, a Husband & a Father, & for the last seven years of my Life a very Christian Liver, felt oddly while I did it) then, I say, I went as far as memory served, thro' all the loose women I had known, from my 19th to my 22nd year, that being the period that comprizes my Unchastities; but as names are not the most recollectible of our Ideas, & the name of a loose Woman not that one of her adjuncts, to which you pay the most attention, I could here recollect no name at all -- no, nor even a face nor feature. I remembered my vices, & the times thereof, but not their objects. ----- Bye the bye has not Underwood a wife & child? -- And of what nature is this Love? -- But I am not Underwood's confessor; & his creed & mine agree probably in very few articles. But it would give me great pleasure to save him from mischief, because there is much about the little man which I much like, tho' there is likewise more than a little which I could wish the Alchemist, Thought, to transmute. Therefore, when you see him, tell him from me that either from the confusion of my memory or of yours I am left ignorant, who it is, whom he means; but if he will bring back my former Self to me by a few Ubi Quando Circumstances -- where I knew her, & when -&c &c, I will then communicate all I know with great pleasure. Ask him what he thinks of a Trip to the Azores with me -- on a landskip scheme? It is a world of great & peculiar landskipbeauties; & I give it as my solemn advice, that the Oreads & the Dryads are the very best Ladies in the World for him to form a long amatory connection with: -- amatory, I say, as contradistinguished both from the conjugal and the amicitial connections. Tho' we of the North must forego you, my dear Davy, yet I shall rejoice when I receive a letter from you from Cornwall. I must believe, that you have made some important discoveries in Galvanism, and connected the facts with other more interesting ones -- or I should be puzzled to conceive how that subject could furnish matter for more than one Lecture. If I recollect aright, you have identified it with Electricity -- & that indeed is a wide field. -734- I shall dismiss my British Critic, & take in Nichol[son's] Journal -& then I shall know something about you. 1 I am sometimes apprehensive, that my passion for science is scarcely true & genuine -- it is but Davyism! that is, I fear that I am more delighted at your having discovered a Fact, than at the Fact's having been discovered. My health is better -- I am indeed eager to believe, that I am really beginning to recover -- tho' I have had so many short recoveries followed by severe Relapses, that I am at times almost afraid to hope. But chearful thoughts come with genial sensations; & Hope is itself no mean Medicine. I am anxious respecting Robert Southey! Why is he not in England? -- Remember me kindly to Tobin. As soon as I have any thing to communicate, I will write to him. But alas! Sickness turns large districts of Time into dreary uniformity & sandy Desolation. ----- Alas for Egypt! -- & Menou! 2 -- However, I trust the English will keep it if they take it -- & something still will be gained to the cause of human Nature. -- Heaven bless you! S. T. Coleridge 402. To William Godwin Address: Mr Godwin | the Polygon | Sommers' Town | LondonSingle Sheet MS. Lord Abinger. Pub. with omis. Macmillan's Magazine, April 1864, p. 528. Postmark: 26 June 1801. Stamped: Keswick. Grieta Hall, Keswick Tuesday Evening, June 28, 1801 Dear Godwin I have had, during the last three weeks, such numerous interruptions of my 'uninterrupted rural Retirement', such a succession of Visitors both indigenous & exotic, that verily I wanted both the time & the composure necessary to answer your Letter of the first of June. At present, I am writing to you from my bed. For in consequence of a very sudden change in the weather from intense Heat to a raw and scathing chillness my bodily Health has suffered a Relapse as severe as it was unexpected; but I find however, that I have gathered much strength in this last Interval. The Disease assumes an air of far greater Decision than it ever before manifested; and about 5 o/clock this morning I had a fair & full Paroxysm of the Gout in my left Knee & Foot, which, after a sojourn of some ____________________ 1 Coleridge refers to Nicholson Journal of Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, and the Arts, 1797-1815, to which Davy contributed a number of articles. 2 Jacques F. de Menou ( 1750-1810), the French general defeated at Alexandria, 21 Mar. 1801. -735- Hours, has left me in better spirits than it found me, tho' my knee remains swoln & exquisitely sore, and I am instructed too to expect a second Fit in the course of the Night. But I can bear even violent Pain with the meek patience of a Woman, if only it be unmingled with confusion in the Head, or sensations of Disgust in the stomach, for these, alas! insult and threaten the steadiness of our moral Being. I have not yet received either Antonio or your Pamphlet in answer to Dr Parr & the Scotch Gentleman 1 (who is to be Professor of Morals to the young Nabobs at Calcutta with an Establishment of 3000£ a year!!) -- Stuart was so kind as to send me Fenwick's Review of it in a paper called the Albion; & Mr Longman has informed me that by your orders the Pamphlet itself has been left for me at his House. The extracts, which I saw, pleased me much, with the exception of the introduction which is incorrectly & clumsily worded. But indeed I have before observed that whatever you write, the first Page is always the worst in the Book. -- I wish, that instead of six days you had employed six months, and instead of a half a crown Pamphlet had given us a good half a guinea Octavo. But you may yet do this. -- It strikes me that both in this work & in your second Edition of the Political Justice 2 your Retractations have been more injudicious than the assertions or dogmas retracted. But this is no fit subject for a mere Letter. If I had time, which I have not, I would write two or three sheets for your sole Inspection, entitled, History of the Errors & Blunders of the literary Life of William Godwin. To the World it would appear a Paradox to say, that you are all too persuadible a man; but you yourself know it to be the truth. -- I shall send back your manuscript on Friday, with my criticisms. You say, in your last, 'How I wish you were here!' -- When I see how little I have written of what I could have talked, I feel with you that a Letter is but 'a mockery' to a full & ardent mind. In truth I feel this so forcibly, that if I could be certain that I should remain in this country, I should press you to come down, & finish the whole in my House; but if I can by any means raise the moneys, I shall go in the first Vessels that leave Liverpool for the Azores, (St Michael's to wit) & these sail at the latter end of July. -- Unless I can escape one English Winter & Spring, I have not any rational prospect of Recovery. You 'cannot help regarding uninterrupted ____________________ 1 Cf. Godwin Thoughts occasioned by . . . Dr. Parr's Spital Sermon, . . . being a Reply to the Attacks of Dr. Parr, Mr. Mackintosh, the Author of an Essay on Population, and Others, 1801. A copy of this work with Coleridge's annotations is in the British Museum. 2 The second edition of Political Justice was published in 1796. -736- rural retirement as a principal cause' of my ill-health. My ill-health commenced at Liverpool in the shape of blood-shot eyes & swoln Eyelids while I was in the daily habit of visiting the Liverpool Literati -- these on my settling at Keswick were followed by large Boils in my neck & shoulders -- these by a violent Rheumatic Fever -- this by a distressing & tedious Hydrocele -- & since then by irregular Gout, which promises at this moment to ripen into a legitimate Fit. What uninterrupted rural retirement can have had to do in the production of these outward & visible evils, I cannot guess! What share it has had in consoling me under them I know with a tranquil mind, & feel with a grateful Heart. O that you had now before your eyes the delicious picture of Lake, & River, & Bridge, & Cottage, & spacious Field with it's pathway, & woody Hill with it's spring verdure, & mountain with the snow yet lingering in fantastic patches upon it -- this, even the same which I had from my sick bed, even without raising my head from the Pillow! -O God! all but dear & lovely Things seemed to be known to my Imagination only as Words -- even the Forms which struck terror into me in my fever-dreams were still forms of Beauty -- Before my last seizure I bent down to pick something from the Ground, & when I raised my head, I said to Miss Wordsworth -- I am sure, Rotha! that I am going to be ill: for as I bent my head, there came a distinct & vivid spectrum upon my Eyes -- it was one little picture -- a Rock with Birches & Ferns on it, a Cottage backed by it, & a small stream. -- Were I a Painter I would give an outward existence to this -- but I think it will always live in my memory. ----- Bye the bye our rural Retirement has been honored by the company of Mr Sharp, and the poet Rogers -- the latter, tho' not a man of very vigorous intellect, won a good deal both on myself & Wordsworth -for what he said evidently came from his own feelings, & was the result of his own observation. I doubt not that they both return to London with far other opinion respecting Wordsworth, than the Scotch Gentleman 1 has been solicitous to impress his Listeners with. But that Gemman's Lectures & Conversations are but the Steam of an Excrement, & truly animalcular must those Souls be, to whom this can form a cloud that hides from them the face of Sun or Star. He is a thing that must make itself known to all noses, sooner or later; but some men's olfactories are quicker than others' -- / You for instance smelt at him & found him out -- I & Wordsworthwinded him at a distance. -- It gave me pain that you should so misunderstand a sentence in my former Letter respecting the Lyrical Ballads. 2 It was a mere Tirade, almost as compleatly so, as your apotheosis of ____________________ 1 James Mackintosh. 2 See Letter 890. -737- me in your last Letter, &, as I supposed, it was sufficiently explained to be a Tirade by the spirit of the whole Epistle which I wrote while struggling with the most disquieting & depressing sensations, & which was indeed no more than the awkward Curvette of a heavy-loaded Beast of Burthen grown restive under his Load. The passage, which you quote, would have been grossly improper, addressed to a junior -- addressed to you seriously it would have deserved no milder name than Coxcombry or Insolence. Yet seriously I should have small fellow-feeling with a man who could read 'the Brothers' & 'Michael' with indifference, or (as some have done) with merriment -- & I must add too (in proof of a favorite opinion of my own, viz. that where the Temper permits a sneer, the Understanding most frequently makes a blunder) that there are few better reasons than the accidental circumstance of private Friend[ship] why, as a touchstone by which to come at a decision in my own mind concerning a Man's Taste & Judgment, the works of a contemporary writer hitherto without fame or rank ought 'to take the lead of Milton, Shakespear, & Burke.' I have myself met with persons who professed themselves idolatrous admirers of Milton, & yet declared it to be their opinion that Dr Darwin was as great a poet. Thousands believe that they have always admired Milton -- who have never asked themselves, for what they admired him, or whether in naked matter of Fact they ever did admire him. -- Likewise, dear Godwin! highly as I respect the powers of Edmund Burke, I feel a sort of confidence that I could reason any candid man into a conviction that he had acted lightly & without due awe when he placed Burke's name by the side of Milton's & Shakespear's. My love to your dear little ones. Mrs Coleridge is well -- & Hartley & Derwent. The latter is as fair & fat a creature, as ever had his naked Body circumnavigated by an old Nurse's kisses. -- I feel my knee beginning to make ready for the reception of the Lady Arthritis. -- God bless you and S. T. Coleridge 403. To Thomas Poole Address: Mr T. Poole | Nether Stowey | Bridgewater | Somerset Single MS. British Museum. Pub. E. L. G. i. 174. Postmark: 8 July 1801. Stamped: Keswick. Sunday, July 7 [5], 1801. Keswick My dearest Poole I had written you a letter some days ago, which by accident was not sent to the post -- it's purport chiefly was to desire you to -738- desire Mr King to pay Mrs Fricker 10£ in my name, which sum Mr Wedgewood will remit to you the first time he writes. I wrote to him on Wednesday night last, requesting him so to do. I adopt this mode of conveying the money to Mrs F. first to save her the expence of two double Letters, as I must divide the note in order to send it with certain safety, & four Shillings is a heavy Drawback from 10£ -- & secondly, from the great difficulty of procuring Bank of England Bills in this County. Nobody here will take them -- they call them 'swindling notes' -- the home business is carried on by the Bank Paper of the chief Towns in this & the adjoining Counties, & the London Business by means of Drafts. ----- The remaining part of my Letter was written in so gloomy a spirit that I am glad it was delayed long enough for me to see & destroy it. On Wednesday Evening I received a friendly Letter from Jos. Wedgewood. He had seen a letter of mine to Tobin, written for the purpose of preventing him & a friend of his from paying me a visit this summer, (a month's visit) the reason I assigned was the uncertainty of my remaining in this country after this month, as I was determined to go to the Azores in the very first vessels, & winter there, if I could get the moneys necessary for me to go with, & for my Wife & Babes to be left behind with. -Mr Wedgewood says -- 'I shall be very glad to hear from you, when you have strength & spirits to write, as I suppose some plan must be settled as to your annuity. In the mean time I inclose a draft of 50£, as I think we are in your debt.' -- This 50£ has, I doubt not, left me their debtor, as far as respects this year's annuity. It has enabled [me] to pay up to the present hour all our half yearly & quarterly Keswick Bills, rent, &c -- & as much of the remainder of the Debt transferred from Longman to Wordsworth as is sufficient for W's present necessities. -- Within a trifle, 4 or 5£ perhaps, my Household will go on very smoothly & easily till Christmas when I shall be able to draw again. -- I wrote to Tobin in the first gloomy moments of a sudden & severe Relapse: on the three following nights I had three sharp paroxysms of decided Gout which left me in apparent health & good spirits: & under these influences I wrote a very chearful answer to Mr Wedgewood, & informed him, that I had postponed, and I hoped relinquished the scheme of passing the Winter at St Michael's; but that I meant to try a course of Horse Exercise. Within two Hours, after I had dispatched this Letter I was again taken ill with fever & the most distressing stomach-attacks -- on Friday Evening & night I was very ill -- only a little better on Saturday -- and I am still very sick & somewhat sad. I can bear pain, my dear Poole! I can bear even violent pain with the meek patience -739- of a Woman; but nausea & giddiness are far worse than pain -- for they insult & threaten the steadiness of our moral Being -- & there is one thing yet more deplorable than these -- it is the direful Thought of being inactive & useless. Nine dreary months -- and oh me I have I had even a fortnight's full & continuous health? I have hardly gained the Rock, ere a new Wave has overtaken & carried me back again. When I am well & employed as I ought to be, I cannot describe to you how independent a Being I seem to myself to be. My connection with the Wedgewoods I feel to be an honor to myself, & I hope, and almost feel, that it will hereafter be even something like an honor to them too -- but -- oh Poole! you know my heart & I need not reverse the picture. Now what am I to do? Mr Wedgewood says 'From all I have heard of the part of England where you are, I think it is very likely that you may have suffered from the wetness of the climate, & that you might probably derive great benefit from merely changing your place of Abode in England.' To this I make two remarks which I shall make into two paragraphs -- a trick, I have learnt by writing for Booksellers at so much per sheet. Blank Spaces are a Relief to the Reader's eye & the Author's Brain -- & the Printers too call them FAT. First then, that beastly Bishop, that blustering Fool, Watson, 1 a native of this vicinity, a pretty constant Resident here, & who has for many years kept a Rain-gage, considers it as a vulgar Error that the climate of this County is particularly wet. He says, the opinion originates in this -- that the Rain here falls more certainly in certain months, & these happen to be the months in which the Tourists visit us. William Coates said to me at Bristol -- [']Keswick, Sir! is said to be the rainiest place in the Kingdom -- it always rains there, Sir! -- I was there myself three Days, & it rained the whole of the Time.' -- Men's memories are not much to be relied on in cases of weather; but judging from what I remember of Stowey & Devon, Keswick has not been, since I have been here, wetter than the former, and not so wet as Devonshire. Secondly, whither am I to go? -- Nota bene, Poole! I have now no furniture: & no means whatever to buy any. Giving the requisite & merited attention to this circumstance, I say, I live cheaper here than I could do any where in England. I have delightful Prospects, heavenly Grounds for the children, a solicitously kind neighbour in my Landlord -- & a mother to Hartley in his Housekeeper. But all this out of the question -- I say, I live cheaper here than I could in any part of the Kingdom. -- But then I find, alas! that I cannot endure the climate -- but then I have not an ____________________ 1 Richard Watson, who was born in Westmorland, devoted much attention to chemistry and made discoveries concerning the thermometer. -740- atom of Belief, nor the most trifling Reason for believing, that the Climate in any other part of the Kingdom is one whit better for me -- excepting perhaps some part of Cornwall. And how am I to get thither? -- Every one has said to me -- I hope, you may recover your health merely by living in Devonshire or Cornwall without going abroad. I have always answered thus -- Going abroad -- going out of the Kingdom, &c -- are terrible Words -- but what is the Thing itself? -- I can go, by myself, to St Michael's for 5 guineas, & live there for 20£ a year -- & if I send for my wife & children, the expence will be exactly in the same proportion -- and the carriage of my Books will cost nothing additional. But if I go to the coasts of Devon, or Cornwall, by myself, the coasting-voyage is too dangerous for me to go by sea & it is intolerably tedious & uncertain: if I go by Land, I must often halt a day or two on the road, & it cannot cost me so little as 20 guineas -- and as to living, Lord have mercy upon me! ----- if I go with my Wife & Children, the expence will be in the same proportion -- & the Carriage of my Books will half ruin me! -----. Add to this, that at St Michael's I have not only an exceedingly cheap country, a heavenly Country to look at, & Baths specific in the cure of my Disease, but I can gain twice as much as my voyage there & back, & my maintenance, by writing without half the effort which I am now using what I have seen & noticed. -- I have therefore made up my mind to go & see the place at the end of this month, if I can. -- And now all I have to do is to think how I can do it. -- I could go if I had 30£ for myself, & 10£ to leave with Mrs Coleridge. This 40£ I think I could raise from the Booksellers without injuring my reputation by giving out unfinished works, merely in advance, provided I could get any one to be my Security for the repayment of the money in case that Death or Disease should occasion a non-performance of my Engagement. 1 -- To the Wedgewoods I will not apply -- it would look like borrowing money upon my annuity -- and I am, and I ought to be, feverishly fearful & delicate with regard to my pecuniary connections with them, having yet done nothing in evidence that they did not do a hasty & imprudent thing in having done so much for me. -- God bless them! ----- I am sure, I think often & often of them with a grateful & affectionate heart --. Neither do I apply to you -- partly, because I am vexed that I have not yet ____________________ 1 Wordsworth opposed such a scheme in a letter to Poole: 'This plan, for my own part, though I did not like to say so abruptly to Coleridge, I greatly disapprove, as I am sure it would entangle him in an engagement which it is ten to one he would be unable to fulfil, and what is far worse, the engagement, while useless in itself, would prevent him from doing anything else.' Early Letters, 281. -741- been able to repay you the 37£, I already owe -- & partly, because I know how manifold & vexatious your pecuniary responsibilities already are -- and am somewhat too proud willingly to force you to think of me at the time you are thinking of poor ----- or -----. I shall apply therefore elsewhere, if I can think of any body else -if not, I will try my rhetoric to persuade some Bookseller to advance the sum without security -- and not till this have failed, shall I ask you. ----- Consider this Letter therefore only as one giving you occasion for writing to advise me, if you have any advice to offer, or any reason for believing that I am wrong in my present Determination. Something I must do, & that speedily -- for Body & Soul are going -- Soul is going into Body, and Body is going into Dung & Crepitus -- with more of the latter than the former. Wordsworth mentioned to me that he meant to write you. I told him, I should certainly write myself, & was about to state what I meant to say -but he desired me not to do it, that he might write with his opinions unmodified by mine. 1 -- We are all well but I. Best Love to your mother. ----- God for ever bless you, my | [Dear Poole, | & | S. T. Coleridge 404. To William Godwin Address: Mr Godwin | Polygon | Sommers' Town | LondonSingle MS. Lord Abinger. Pub. with omis. William Godwin, ii. 79. Postmark: 11 July 1801. Stamped: Keswick. Keswick. Wednesday. -- [ 8 July 1801.] Dear Godwin I have this evening sent your Tragedy (directed to you) to Penrith to go from thence to London by the Mail. You will probably receive it on Saturday Morning. -- It is the Carlisle Mail -you can easily enquire it out, if it should not arrive on Saturday -tho' perhaps it may be delayed one day in Penrith -- if so, you will not receive it till Monday. -- It would be needless to recount the pains & evils that prevented me from sending it on the day, I meant to do. Your letter of this evening has given me some reason to be glad, that I was prevented. My Criticisms &c were written in a style & with a boyish freedom of censure & ridicule, that would have given pain & perhaps, offence. I will rewrite them, abridge them, or rather extract from them their absolute meaning, & send them in the way of [a] Letter. -- In the Tragedy I have frequently used the following marks -- ---Of these the first, › calls your attention to ____________________ 1 See Letter 411. -742- my suspicions, that your Language is false or intolerable English: the second ⊤,marks the passages, which struck me as flat or mean -- the third. is a note of reprobation levelled at those sentences, in which you have adopted that worst sort of vulgar Language, common-place book Language -- such as, [']Difficulties that mock narration' -- [']met my view' [']bred in the lap of Luxury' ----- &c -# implies bad metre. ----- I was much interested by the last three acts -- indeed, I greatly admired your management of the story. The two first acts, I am convinced, you must entirely re-write / -I would indeed open the play with the Conspirators in Isfahan, confident of their success -- & Bulac, who had fled from the army in some apparent Defeat (afterwards recovered by the Sefi) at the head of these Conspirators -- In this way you might with great dramatic animation explain to the Audience all you wish, & give likewise palpable motives of Despair & Revenge to Bulac's after Conduct. -- But this I will write to you -- the papers, in which I have detailed what I think might be substituted, I really do not dare send --. You must have been in an odd mood, when you could write to a poor fellow with a sick stomach, a giddy head, & swoln & limping Limbs, to a man on whom the Dews of Heaven cannot fall without diseasing him, 'You want, or at least you think you want neither accom[m]odation nor society as ministerial to your happiness['] -- / and strangely credulous too, when you could gravely repeat that in the Island of St Michael's, the chief town of which contains 14000 Inhabitants, no other residence was procurable but 'an unwindowed Cavern scooped in the Rock' --! -- I must have been an idle fool indeed to have resolved so deeply without having made due inquiries how I was to be housed & fed. -- Accom[m]odations are necessary to my Life -- & Society to my Happiness, tho' I can find that society very interesting & good, which you perhaps would find dull & uninstructive. -- One word more. You say -- I do not tolerate you in the degree of partiality you feel for Mrs I. -- will not allow your admiration of Hume, & the pleasure you derive from Virgil, from Dryden, even in a certain degree, from Rowe. ----- Hume & Rowe I for myself hold very cheap; & have never feared to say so -- but never had any objection to any one's differing from me. I have received, & I hope, still shall, great delight from Virgil, whose versification I admire beyond measure, & very frequently his Language. Of Dryden I am & always have been a passionate admirer. I have always placed him among our greatest men. -- You must have misunderstood me -- & considered me as detracting when I considered myself only as discriminating. -- But were my -743- opinions otherwise I should rather fear that others would not tolerate me in holding opinions different from those of people in general, than feel any difficulty in tolerating others in their conformity with the general sentiment. -- Of Mrs I. I once, I believe, wrote a very foolish sentence or two to you. 1 -- And now for 'my late acquisitions of friends.['] -- Aye -- friends! -- Stoddart indeed, if he were nearer to us and more among us, I should really number among such -- he is a man of uncorrupted integrity & of a very, very kind heart -- his talents are respectable -- and his information such, that while he was with me I derived much instruction from his conversation. -- Sharpe & Rogers had an introductory note from Mr Wedgewood -- they are so much my friends, that my chief ground in etiquette to call on Sharpe would be his intimacy with Mr Wedgewood, & as to Mr Rogers -- even if I wished it, and were in London the next week, I should never dream that any acquaintance, I have with him, would entitle me to call on him at his own house. -- That Tobin thought of bringing Underwood & Dyson astonished both me & W. -- they would neither have been in my house. The whole visit should have been from Tobin, whom I greatly venerate -- tho' certainly a four weeks' visit from him with two unpleasant uninvited men in his train would have been somewhat too much. -- Dyson I dislike -- but little [Su]bligno -- what has he done? Tobin & [Da]vy think well of him. -- God bless you & S. T. Coleridge. 405. To Robert Southey Address: Mrs Danvers | Kings down Parade | Bristol | (For Mr Southey) Single Sheet MS. Lord Latymer. Pub. with omis. Letters, i. 356. Postmark: 25 July 1801. Wednesday, July 22, 1801 My dear Southey Yesterday evening I met a boy on an ass, winding down as picturish a glen, as eye ever looked at -- he & his Beast no mean part of the picture -- I had taken a liking to the little Blackguard at a distance, & I could have downright hugged him when he gave me a letter with your hand-writing. -- Well, God be praised! I shall surely see you once more, somewhere or other. If it be really impracticable for you to come to me, I will doubtless do any thing rather than not see you -- tho' in simple truth travelling in chaises or coaches even for one day is sure to lay me up for a week. -- But ____________________ 1 For Coleridge's opinion of Mrs. Inchbald see Letter 333. -744- do, do, for heaven's sake, come -- & go the shortest way, however dreary it be -- for there is enough to be seen when you get to our house. -- If you did but know what a flutter the Old Moveable at my left Breast has been in, since I read your letter -- I have not had such a Fillip for a many months. -- My dear Edith! how glad you were to see old Bristol again! 1 ----- I am again climbing up that rock of Convalescence, from which I have been so often so washed off, & hurried back -- but I have been so unusually well these last two Days, that I should begin to look the damsel Hope full in the face, instead of sheep's eyeing her, were it not that the Weather has been so unusually hot -- & that is my Joy! -- Yes, Sir! we will go to Constantinople; but as it rains there, which my Gout loves as the Devil does Holy Water, the Grand Turk shall shew the exceeding attachment, he will no doubt form towards us, by appointing us his Vice-roys in Egypt -I will be Supreme Bey of that showerless District, & you shall be my Supervisor. -- But for God's sake, make haste & come to me, and let us talk of the Sands of Arabia while we are floating in our lazy Boat on Keswick Lake, with our eyes on massy Skiddaw, so green & high. Perhaps, Davy might accompany you. Davy will remain unvitiated -- his deepest & most recollectible Delights have been in Solitude, & the next to those with one or two whom he loved. He is placed no doubt in a perilous Desart of good things -but he is connected with the present Race of Men by a very aweful Tie, that of being able to confer immediate benefit on them; and the cold-blooded venom-toothed Snake, that winds around him, shall be only his Coat of Arms, as God of Healing. -- I exceedingly long to see Thalaba -- & perhaps still more to read Madoc over again. -- I never heard of any third Edition of my Poems -- I think, you must have confused it with the L. B. -Longman could not surely be so uncouthly ill-mannered, as not to write to me to know if I wished to make any corrections or additions. -- If I am well enough, I mean to alter, with a devilish sweep of revolution, my Tragedy, & publish it in a little volume by itself with a new name, as a Poem. But I have no heart for Poetry -alas! alas! how should I? who have passed 9 dreary months with giddy head, sick stomach, & swoln knees. -- My dear Southey! -it is said, that long sickness makes us all grow selfish by the necessity which it imposes of continual[l]y thinking about ourselves -- but long & sleepless Nights are a fine Antidote -- oh! how I have dreamt about you -- Times, that have been, & never can return, have been with me on my bed of pain, and how I yearned ____________________ 1 After a little over a year in Portugal the Southeys arrived in Bristol on 10 July 1801: there they stayed with the Danvers for several weeks. -745- toward you in those moments, I myself can know only by feeling it over again! -- But come! 'strengthen the weak hands, & confirm the feeble knees. Then shall the lame man leap as a hart, and sorrow & sighing shall flee away.' ----- I am here, in the vicinity of Durham, for the purpose of reading from the Dean & Chapter's Library an Ancient, of whom you may have heard -- Duns Scotus! 1 I mean to set the poor old Gemman on his feet again, & in order to wake him out of his present Lethargy, I am burning Locke, Hume, & Hobbes under his Nose -- they stink worse than Feather or Assafetida. Poor Joseph! he has scribbled away both head & heart. What an affecting Essay I could write on that Man's character. -- Had he gone in his quiet way, on a little poney looking about him with a sheep's eye cast now & then at a short poem, I do verily think from many parts of the Malvern Hill, that he would at last have become a poet better than many who have had much fame -- but he would be an Epic, & so Victorious o'er the Danes I Alfred preach, Of my own Forces Chaplain-general! -- I have a very large Boil in my neck a little to the right of my Wind-pipe, & it is poulticed -- in consequence whereof I smell so exactly like a hot Loaf, that it would be perilous for me to meet a hungry blind man. -- But it has broke, & is easy. -- Write immediately, directing -- Mr Coleridge, Mr George Hutchinson's, Bishop's Middleham, Rushiford, Durham 2 -- & tell me, when you set off -& I will contrive to meet you at Liverpool -- where, if you are jaded with the journey, we can stay a day or two at Dr Crompton's -- & chat a bit with Roscoe & Curry, whom you will like as men far, far better than as writers -- O Edith! how happy Sara will be -and little Hartley, who uses the air & the Breezes as skipping Ropes -- & fat Derwent, so beautiful & so proud of his three Teeth, that there's no bearing of him. God bless you, dear Southey & S. T. Coleridge P.S. Remember me kindly to Danvers, & Mrs Danvers -- ____________________ 1 The schoolman, Joannes Duns Scotus ( 1265?-1308?). In a marginal note Coleridge says he 'could find but one work of Duns Scotus -- that De Sententiis' in the Durham Library. See Notes on English Divines, ed. by Derwent Coleridge , 2 vols., 1853, ii. 21. See also Letter 528. 2 At this time George Hutchinson was living at Bishop Middleham, near Durham, and apparently Sara kept house for him. Thomas Hutchinson was at Gallow Hill, near Scarborough, and Mary seems to have made her home there. -746- 406. To Robert Southey Address: Mrs Danvers | Kingsdown | Bristol for Mr Southey MS. Lord Latymer. Pub. with omis. Letters, i. 359. Postmark: 27 July 1801. Stamped: Durham. Saturday, July 25, 1801. Durham My dear Southey I do loathe cities -- that's certain. I am in Durham at an Inn -& that too I do not like -- & have dined with a large parcel of Priests all belonging to the Cathedral -- thoroughly ignorant & hard-hearted. I have had no small trouble in gaining permission to have a few books sent to me 8 miles from the place, which nobody has ever read in the memory of man. -- Now you will think what follows a Lie -- & it is not. I asked a stupid haughty fool, who is the Librarian of the Dean & Chapter's Library in this city, if he had Leibnitz. He answered -- 'We have no Museum in this Library for natural curiosities; but there is a mathematical Instrumentseller in the town, who shews such [an]imalcula thro' a glass of great magnifying powers.' Heaven & Earth! -- he understood the word 'live Nits.' Well, I return early tomorrow to Middleham, to a quiet good family, that love me dearly -- a young farmer, & his Sister 1 -- & he makes very droll verses in the northern dialect & in the metre of Burns, & is a great Humourist; & the woman is so very good a woman, that I have seldom indeed seen the like of her. -- Death! that every where there should be one or two good & excellent People like these -- & that they should not have the power given 'em to edit a crepitus strong enough to whirl away the rest to Hell --! I do not approve the Palermo & Constantinople scheme -- to be secretary to a fellow, that would poison you for being a poet while he is only a lame Verse-maker! But verily, dear Southey! it will not suit you to be under any man's controll -- or biddances. What if you were a Consul -- 'twould fix you to one place, as bad as if you were a Parson. It won't do. -- Now mark my scheme! -St Nevis is the most lovely as well as the most healthy Island in the W. Indies -- Pinny's Estate is there -- and he has a country House situated in a most heavenly way, a very large mansion. Now between you & me I have reason to believe that not only this House is at my service, but many advantages in a family way that would go one half to lessen the expences of living there -- & perhaps, Pinny would appoint us sine-cure Negro-drivers at a hundred a ____________________ 1 Sara Hutchinson, who accompanied Coleridge to Gallow Hill a few days later. See Letter 407. -747- year each, or some other snug & reputable office -- & perhaps, too we might get some office in which there is quite nothing to do, under the Governour. Now I & my family, & you & Edith, & Wordsworth & his Sister might all go there -- & make the Island more illustrious than Cos or Lesbos. A heavenly climate -- a heavenly country, -- & a good House. The Sea shore so near us -dells & rocks, & streams -- / Do now think of this! But say nothing about it -- on account of old Pinny. -- Wordsworth would certainly go, if I went. By the living God, it is my opinion, that we should not leave three such men behind us. N.B. I have every reason to believe Keswick (& Cumberland & Westmoreland in general) full as dry a Climate as Bristol. Our rains fall more certainly in certain months; but we have fewer rainy days taking the year thro'. -- As to cold, I do not believe the difference perceptible by the human Body. -- But I feel, that there is no relief for me in any part of England. -- Very hot weather brings me about in an instant -- & I relapse as soon as it coldens. ----- You say nothing of your voyage homeward or the circumstances that preceded it -- this however I had far rather hear from your mouth than your Letter. ----- Come! and come quickly. My love to Edith -- & remember me kindly to Mary & Martha & Eliza, & Mrs Fricker. -- My kind respects to Charles & Mrs Danvers. Is Davy with you? -- If he is, I am sure, he speaks affectionately of me. -- God bless you! Write. S. T. Coleridge 407. To Robert Southey Address: Mrs Danvers | Kingsdown Parade | Bristol (For Mr Southey) MS. Lord Latymer. Pub. with omis. Letters, i. 361. Postmark: 3 August 1801. Scarborough, Aug. 1. 1801 My dear Southey On my return from Durham (I foolishly walked back) I was taken ill -- & my left knee swelled, 'pregnant with agony' as Mr Dodsley says in one of his poems. Dr Fenwick has earnestly persuaded me to try Horse-exercise & warm Sea-bathing -- & I took the opportunity of riding with Sara Hutchinson to her Brother Tom, who lives near this place, where I can ride to & fro, & bathe with no other expence there than that of the Bath. The fit comes on me either at 9 at night, or 2 in the morning -- in the former case it continues 9 hours, in the latter 5 -- I am often literally sick with pain. -- In the day time however I am well -- surprisingly so indeed considering how very little sleep I am able to snatch. -- Your letter was sent after me, & arrived here this morning -- and but that my -748- letter can reach you on the 4th of this month, I would immediately set off again, tho' I arrived here only last night. But I am unwilling not to try the Baths for one week --. If therefore you have not made the immediate preparation, you may stay one week longer at Bristol -- but if you have, you must look at the Lake, & play with my Babies 8 or four days -- tho' this grieves me. I do not like it -- I want to be with you, & to meet you even at the very verge of the Lake Country. -- I would far rather that you would stay a week at Grasmere, (which is on the Road, 14 miles from Keswick) with Wordsworth than go on to Keswick, & I not be there. O how you will love Grasmere! All I ever wish of you with regard to wintering at Keswick is to stay with me till you find the climate injurious. -- When I read that chearful sentence 'we will climb Skiddaw this year, & scale Etna the next' with a right piteous & humorous Smile did I ogle my poor knee, which at this present moment is larger than the thickest part of my Thigh. ----- A little quaker Girl (the daughter of the great quaker mathematician Slee, a friend of Anti-Negro-trade Clarkson who has a house at the foot of Ulswater, which Slee Wordsworth dined with -a pretty parenthesis!) this little Girl, 4 years old, happened after a very hearty meal to eructate, while Wordsworths were there. Her Mother looked at her -- & the little creature immediately & formally observed -- 'Yan belks when yan's fu', & when yan's empty' -- that is 'One belches when one's full, & when one's empty.' -- Since that time this is a favorite piece of Slang at Grasmere & Greta Hall -- whenever we talk of poor Joey, George Dyer, & other Perseverants in the noble Trade of Scriblerism. -- Wrangham, who lives near here, one of your Anthology Friends, has married again -- a Lady of a neat 700£ a year -- his Living by the Inclosure will be something better than 600 -- besides what little fortune he had with his last wife, who died in the first year. His present wife's Cousin observed -- 'Mr W. is a lucky man -- his present Lady is very weakly & delicate.' -- I like the idea of a man's speculating in sickly Wives. It would be no bad character for a farce. That letter ₤ to which you allude was a kind-hearted honest well-spoken Citizen -- the three Strokes, which did for him were, as I take it, First, the Ictus Cardiacus, which devitalized his moral Heart -- 2ndly, the Stroke of the Apoplexy in his head -- & thirdly, a stroke of the Palsy in his Right hand -- which produces a terrible shaking & impotence in the very attempt to reach his Breeches Pocket. -- O dear Southey! what incalculable Blessings, worthy of Thanksgiving in Heaven, do we not owe to our being & having been, -749- Poor! No man's Heart can wholly stand up against Property. ----- My love to Edith. S. T. Coleridge P.S. If you write again, before I see you, which I scarcely expect, direct your letter as before, to Mr George Hutchinson's, Bishops Middleham, Rushiford, Durham. -- I shall be there in ten days, unless I should be worse, than I have the slightest reason to expect. -- There I shall stay two days, merely for rest -- & then proceed straight on to Keswick -- at which place I trust that I shall arrive on the 15th of this month, or the 16th at farthest. ----- Kind Remembrances to Danvers! 408. To Francis Wrangham Transcript Coleridge family. Pub. E. L. G. i. 179. Gallow Hill -- Aug. 2 -- 1801 Dear Wrangham I arrived here on Friday afternoon. Such is the state of my health that I could not venture to ride over to Hunmanby, uncertain whether or no you are at home -- but I cannot satisfy myself unless in some way or other I convey to you my wish for the enduring happiness of yourself and those who are dear to you. 1 I shall remain here four or five days, or a week at the farthest: as Southey will at the conclusion of that time be (with Mrs Southey) on his road to Keswick. Have you any thoughts of visiting the Lakes this Autumn? I need not say, how happy we of Keswick & Grasmere shall be to give you the welcome in our own names & in that of Lady Nature -- Wordsworth at least can introduce you to all her best things in all her mollissima tempora -- for few men can boast, I believe, so intimate an acquaintance with her Ladyship. ----- Believe me, dear Wrangham, Your's sincerely S. T. Coleridge. 409. To Robert Southey Address: Mrs Danvers | Kingsdown Parade | Bristol Single Sheet (for Mr Southey) MS. Lord Latymer. Pub. E. L. G. i. 179. Postmark: 15 August 1801. Stamped: Rushyford. Bishop's Middleham, Wednesday, August 11. [12] My dear Southey I am glad that Longman played the Jew with you. Do not, whatever you do, do not send Madoc hastily out of your hands. -- ____________________ 1 'Alluding to my recent marriage with D. Cayley -- July 14 -- 1801.' [MS. note by Wrangham.] -750- I have much (and as I believe some things of importance) to talk over with you respecting that poem. I cannot but believe that it will stand unrivalled in it's own kind -- and that a very noble kind. I am anxious about that poem. -- Do not write for Stuart Hamilton is bad enough. 'Sdeath! is there nothing you can translate, to wit, anonymously? ---- I much wish, it were possible to bring your Mother with you. Change -- & chearfulness -- and Rest they are the Physicians. I met two Lines in an old German Latin Book which pleased me -- Si tibi deficiant Medici, Medici tibi fiant Haec tria, Mens hilaris, Requies, Moderata Diaeta. 1 What you say of Davy, impressed me, melancholied me. After I had written what I wrote to you concerning him, & had sent on my letter, a reproof rose up in my heart -- & I said to myself O when wilt thou be cured of the idle trick of letting thy Wishes make Romances out of men's characters? I had one very affecting letter from Davy, soon after his arrival in London -- & in this he complained in a deep tone of the ill effect which perpetual analysis had on his mind. I for my part never did think his sphere of utility extended by his removal to London; and I think those most likely to be permanently useful who most cherish their best feelings. Know thy own self & reverence the Muse! 2 What a thing, what a living thing, is not Shakespere & in point of real utility I look on Sir Isaac Newton as a very puny agent compared with Milton -- and I have taken some pains with the comparison, & disputed with transient conviction for hours together in favor of the former. -- However, you are right as an oracle when you add -- we are all well in our way. -- I have seen no new books except Godwin's which I met with by accident -- & think of it precisely as you do. I was so much delighted with all the rest of the Pamphlet that I could have myself pulled his nose for that loathsome & damnable passage. Dr Fenwick at Durham dissuaded me from bathing in the open Sea -- he thought it would be fatal to me. I came out all at once on the Beach, and had Faith in the Ocean. I bathed regularly, frolicked in the Billows, and it did me a proper deal of good. When I received your letter this morning, I was packing up to go Keswickward -- I returned from Scarborough last night -- but now I shall ____________________ 1 See De Conservanda Bona Valetudine. Opusculum Scholae Salernitanae . . . Cum Arnoldi Novicomensis . . . brevissimis ac utilissimis ac Enarrationibus: Accuratius iam & emendatius edita per Ioannem Curionem, & Iacobum Crellium, Frankfurt, 1551, cap. i. Coleridge cites this Latin distich a number of times in his letters. 2 Cf. James Beattie, The Minstrel, i. 59. -751- stay a week at Dinsdale & bathe twice a day in the sulphur baths there. They work wonders. God bless you. I long to behold you. Love to Edith. -- On my first emersion I composed a few lines which will please you as a symptom of convalescence -- for alas! it is a long [time] since I have cropt a flowering weed on the sweet Hill of Poesy 1 -- 1 God be with thee, gladsome Ocean! How gladly greet I thee once more - Ships and Waves and endless Motion And Life rejoicing on thy Shore. 2 Gravely said the sage Physician, To bathe me on thy shores were Death; But my Soul fulfill'd her Mission, And lo! I breathe untroubled Breath. 3 Fashion's pining Sons and Daughters That love the city's gilded Sty, Trembling they approach thy Waters And what cares Nature, if they die? 4 Me a thousand Loves and Pleasures A thousand Recollections bland, Thoughts sublime and stately Measures Revisit on thy sounding Strand -- 5 Dreams, the soul herself forsaking, Grief-like Transports, boyish Mirth, Silent Adorations, making A blessed Shadow of this Earth! 6 O ye Hopes, that stir within me, Health comes with you from above: God is with me, God is in me, I cannot die, if Life be Love! ____________________ 1 Poems, i. 359. -752- 410. To Miss Isabella Addison and Miss Joanna Hutchinson Address: Miss Addison | Mr Hutchinson's | Gallow-Hill | Wykeham, | Malton | [Yorkshire] MS. Miss Joanna Hutchinson. Hitherto unpublished. The holograph is torn; the bracketed passages were written on the manuscript by Emma Hutchinson. Wednesday, Aug. 19. 1801 Respected Miss Is'bel, Joanna, 1 my Dear! This comes to you hoping. -- We're happy to hear By a Pigeon, that early this morn did appear At our window with two Billet-deux in it's Bill, That safe, wind and limb, you had reach'd Gallow Hill The Mare [all obedient to Isabel's will] Two such beautiful Girls in so knowing a Pha'ton (Mem. A Board nail'd behind with a name and a date on) Two such very sweet Girls in a Taxer so green, Miss Addison driving as bright as a Queen And Joanna so gay -- by the ghost of old Jehu, It was well worth a shilling, my Lasses! to see you! Why, even the Dust fell in love, I'll be bound, With you both, and for Love could not rest on the ground And Mary, for gladness & joy did not scant any When she said Tom & you, with the Horse, Mare, and A[ntony.] But this topic [I fear] I've ex[hausted 'twere better With some news and advice to enliven my letter But e]nough is as good as a feast -- and for More, Why, you know, it might surfeit -- at least, make one snore. But one thing indeed I am forc'd to declare, You are both fair as Angels, and good as you're fair, And I'll purchase a glazier's diamond, my Lasses, To scribble your names on all windows & glasses. Now for news. -- There is none. My eyes I've not cock'd on Brother George since last night: for he's gone into Stockton - And on Saturday last, as that wit told you scoffing, To Dinsdale I rode, & was boil'd in a coffin. And then I did smell -- aye, I smelt, by old Davy, Like a Pole Cat serv'd up in an addle-egg gravy. High in health I return'd; but on Sunday grew bad, And on Monday was worse, & a fever I had, ____________________ 1 Isabella Addison later married John Monkhouse; Joanna Hutchinson was Sara's younger sister. -753- On Tuesday grew better, & on Wednesday, you see, Am as gay as the Lark that sings high o'er the Lea. And next for ADVICE. -- Aye, of that I have plenty If instead of but two you were 20 times 20. There's a Lake by the fir-grove -- don't bathe there, I say; 'Tis tempting, I own; but too much in the way And it rouges, like Lamp-black -- and then it were risible To paint such fair Maids, as Joanna & Isabel. A Brunette is a pretty complexion, as such -- But black & all black -- why, 'tis somewhat too much. - The sweet Lake hath a Die, that's too deep for a Lady - So, pray, be content with what Nature has made 'e. But, secondly -- mind! -- You'll be going to Scarborough - I intreat and admonish you tho', not to harbour a Thought of electing from Dukes or from Earls A Husband to suit you -- 'twon't answer, my Girls. A Baronet? -- Why, if he's eager to wed you, You may do as you like -- I shall not forbid 'you. But as plain Meat is all that the Healthy desire, Were I you, I'd put up with a simple Esquire. Such a one now as me. (Nota bene. I'm married, And Coals to Newcastle must never be carried!!) But thirdly & lastly, for Enough, as I tell you, Is as good as a feast -- and More would but swell you. - At present, they are doctoring George's black Mare - I intreat and admonish you, do have a care (You, Miss Addison, You I now am addressing,) As you love poor Joanna, & hope for my Blessing, Do keep the Mare's Physic snug out of [her way] For Enough is as good as a Feast, as I [say,] She has taken three ounces of Salts with[out manna] But she may take too much-& then farew[ell Joanna.] My love to dear Mary -- & tell Tom to bear in Remembrance his promise to come after shearing. He might visit all way from the Thames to the Tyne And not meet a Welcome more glowing than mine. And if Mary will come, a kind kiss I will gi' her, And at Grasmere are Folks, will be happy to see her At least, they will treat her with all due civility - And Politeness is better than downright Hostility. -754- Bless my soul! What, turn over! -- Why, I've written a whole Ridge - Enough is a Feast -- so adieu from YOUR COLERIDGE P.S. Dear Girls! I had almost forgotten to say, That I think, that you both possess charms in your way. 411. To Thomas Poole Address: Mr. T. Poole | Nether Stowey | Bridgewater | Somerset Single MS. British Museum. Pub. with omis. Thomas Poole, ii.63. In July 1801 Wordsworth wrote to Poole 'solely on Coleridge's account', and suggested that 150 would make it possible for Coleridge to go to the Azores in search of health. 'My dear Poole,' Wordsworth concluded, 'you will do what you think proper on this statement of facts; if, in case of Coleridge's death, you could afford to lose 50£, or more if necessary, it may perhaps appear proper to you to lend him that sum, unshackled by any conditions, but that he should repay it when he shall be able; if he dies, if he should be unwilling that any debt of his should devolve on his Brothers, then let the debt be cancelled.' Early Letters, 279-81. On 21 July 1801 Poole replied not to Wordsworth, but to Coleridge. After regretting Coleridge's ill health, Poole went on to say that he had proposed to the Wedgwoods that Coleridge accompany Tom to Sicily, but that he had received no answer. He suggested the advisability of Coleridge borrowing from his brothers. Then, after mentioning Wordsworth's letter and the request for £50, Poole said he had 'many claims', offered to lend £20, and added the comforting news that Coleridge's indebtedness was £52, not £37, as Coleridge had supposed. MS. British Museum. Postmark: 10 September 1801. Stamped: Keswick. Keswick. Sept. 7. 1801 My dear Poole It has been, you may be well assured, neither a Falling off of my affection to you, nor doubt of your's to me which has produced my long silence --; but simply confusion, & ignorance & indecision and want of means respecting the disposal of myself in order to the preservation of a Life, which heaven knows, but for a sense of duty I would resign as quietly & blessedly as a Baby fallen asleep lets the mother's nipple slip from it's innocent gums. -- I have such an utter dislike to all indirect ways of going about any thing, that when Wordsworth mentioned his design of writing to you, but would not explain to me even by a hint what he meant to write, I felt a great repugnance to the idea, which was suppressed by my habitual deference to his excellent good sense. I wish, I had not suppressed it -- he wrote without knowing you, or your circumstances, your habitual associations in the whole growth of your mind, or the accidental impressions of disgust made by your many Losses & -755- the squandering of your exertions on objects that had proved themselves unworthy of them. It is impossible that you should feel with regard to pecuniary affairs as Wordsworth or as I feel or even as men greatly inferior to you in all other things that make man a noble Being. But this I always knew & calculated upon; & have applied to you in my little difficulties when I could have procured the sums with far less pain to myself from persons less dear to me, only that I might not estrange you wholly from the outward & visible Realities of my existence, my Wants & Sufferings. -- In all my afflictions I never dreamt however for a moment of making such an application to you, as Wordsworth did -- he acted erroneously but not wrongly -- for you, I understand, had requested him to write to you freely on all that in his opinion concerned my Welfare. -- However Error generates Error; his Letter untuned your mind -- You wrote to me when you ought assuredly to have written to him -- & you wrote to the Wedgewoods, & made a most precipitate & unwise request, which coming from you will, I am sorry to say, in all human probability connect in their minds a feeling of disgust with my character & my relations to them -- a feeling of disgust, & a notion of troublesonwness. -- Besides, the Request itself --! O God! how little you must have comprehended the state of my Body and mind not to have seen that to have accompanied Tom Wedgewood was the very last thing that I could have submitted to! Two Invalids -- & two men so utterly unlike each other in opinions, habits, acquirements, & feeling! When I was well, I made the offer to him as a duty, provisionally that he could find no other person, that suited him; but in the state in which I now am, I should have felt it my duty to have declined it, had it been offered to me or even desired of me. -- The other proposals I only sighed at -- principally, that of applying to my family. What claims have I on my family? A name & nothing but a name. Had I followed the wishes of my family, Poole! think you, that ten times the paltry sum, that may be wanted by me, would have presented any difficulty to me. -- My family -- I have wholly neglected them -- I do not love them -- their ways are not my ways, nor their thoughts my thoughts -- I have no recollections of childhood connected with them, none but painful thoughts in my after years -- at present, I think of them habitually as commonplace rich men, bigots from ignorance, and ignorant from bigotry. -- To me they have always behaved unexceptionably. I have a little to thank them for, & nothing to complain of -- / but what one claim can I have on their assistance or exertions? whence can it arise? Shall I say then -- do it, because I am called your Brother? Or shall I say, do it because I am your Brother? -- I who am not -756- their Brother in any sense that gives to that title aught that is good or dear. -- Or shall I say -- Preserve my life, because if it is preserved, I shall most assuredly devote it with all it's powers & energies to the overthrow of all that you hold precious or sacred? But enough of this -- let us for the future abstain from all pecuniary matters -- if I live, I shall soon pay all I at present owe -- & if I die, the thought of being in your debt will never disquiet me on my sick bed. I love you too well to have one injurious thought respecting you. -- You deem me, too often perhaps, an enthusiast -- Enthusiast as I may be, Poole! I have not passed thro' Life without learning, that it is a heart-sickening Degradation to borrow of the Rich, & a heart-withering affliction to owe to the Poor. ---- As to my health, I am going, as I suspect. -- My knee & leg remains swoln & troublesome -- but that is a trifle. Other symptoms of a more serious nature have lately appeared -- a tendency to scrophulous Boils and Indurations in the Neck, a dry husky Cough, with profuse sweats at night confined to the Region of my Chest. Of course, it is my Duty not to stay in this climate -- I have accordingly written to John Pinny of Somerton, requesting of him to let me have apartments in his Country House in the Isle of St Nevis, & even earnestly solicited him to contrive, that the expences of my food & necessary conveniences may by his means & letters be alleviated as much as possible. When I have heard from him, I will write again to you. My spirits are good -- I am generally cheerful, & when I am not, it is only because I have exchanged it for a deeper & more pleasurable Tranquillity. The young Soldier rushes on the Bayonet & cries with his last breath -- God save King George! I should have been strangely idle, an Hypocrite or a Dupe, if I have not learnt my Trade as well as he has learnt his. His Trade has been to follow a blind feeling -- & thereby to act -- mine has been to contemplate -- & thereby to endure. Southey is here with his Wife. Wordsworth is gone into Scotland to the Scotch Lakes with Sir William & Lady Rush & their six Daughters -- to the eldest of whom Montague (who is with them) was to have been married on Thursday last at Edingburgh -- & was so, I suppose. She is a fine girl, only 18. -- My Wife & children are both well. -- How much Mrs C. was shocked at the death of poor Susan Chester, you may easily suppose. I felt a sort of pain -- just enough to bring a tear upon my cheek, some five minutes after I heard the intelligence. Poor Mrs Chester! -- My best Love to your Mother -- & kind Remembrances to Ward if he be with you. -- Heaven bless you, my dear Poole, & your affectionate Friend, S. T. Coleridge -757- 412. To Thomas Poole Address: Mr T. Poole | Nether Stowey | Bridgewater | Somerset MS. British Museum. Pub. Letters, i.364. Postmark: 22 September 1801. Stamped: Keswick. Greta Hall, Keswick. Sept. 19. 1801 By a letter from Davy I have learnt, Poole! that your Mother is with the Blessed. -- I have given her the tears & the pang, which belong to her Departure; & now she will remain to me for ever what she has long been, a dear & venerable Image, often gazed at by me in imagination, and always with affection & filial piety. She was the only Being whom I ever felt in the relation of Mother: & She is with God! We are all with God! -- What shall I say to you? I can only offer a prayer of Thanksgiving for you, that you are one who have habitually connected the act of Thought with that of Feeling; & that your Natural Sorrow is so mingled up with a sense of the Omnipresence of the Good Agent, that I cannot wish it to be other than what, I know, it is. The frail, & the too painful, will gradually pass away from you; & there will abide in your Spirit a great & sacred accession to those solemn Remembrances and faithful Hopes, in which and by which the Almighty lays deep the foundations of our continuous Life, and distinguishes us from the Brutes, that perish. As all things pass away, & those Habits are broken up which constituted our own & particular Self, our nature by a moral instinct cherishes the desire of an unchangeable Something, & thereby awakens or stirs up anew the passion to promote permanent Good, & facilitates that grand business of our Existence -- still further, & further still, to generalize our affections, till Existence itself is swallowed up in Being, & we are in Christ even as he is in the Father. -- It is among the advantages of these events that they learn us to associate a new & deep feeling with all the old good phrases, all the reverend sayings of comfort & sympathy, that belong, as it were, to the whole human Race -- I felt this, dear Poole! as I was about to write my old -- God bless you & love you for ever and ever! Your affectionate Friend, S. T. Coleridge Would it not be well, if you were to change the scene awhile! Come to me, Poole! -- No -- No -- no. -- You have none that love you so well as I -- I write with tears that prevent my seeing what I am writing. -- -758- 413. To Daniel Stuart Address: D. Stuart Esq. | No/ 885 | Strand | London MS. British Museum. Pub. Letters from the Lake Poets, 19. Postmark: 22 September 1801. Stamped: Keswick. Saturday Evening, Sept. 19. 1801 Dear Stuart I have received your very kind Letter (with the half of the 30£ note.) Meaning, what I do, by these words I need not expatiate on your liberality &c. Southey, I am certain, never thought otherwise than that you had behaved very handsomely with him; & will, I know, be more pleased with the 13 guineas, as an instance of generosity in the thing itself, than for the particular result to him. -- I will assuredly make the attempt to write some good prose for you; but I must first give the Poetics a compleat Jog. 1 I shall certainly labor to make the poems in general suited to a daily morning Paper -- every short poem, that has any merit at all, must be suitable in it's turn, whatever kind it may [be] of -- but some kinds ought to recur more frequently than others -- and these of course, temporary & political. What I have been doing, since I first wrote, has been this: -- to get together a fair stock in hand of poems, serious & ludicrous, tales &c -- & to send these off as things always to be had -- & then, as the event, or occasion, or thought rises to send you from time to time something of the day & for the day. -- Southey & I do well together in this Line; for I have always 50 subjects with all the ideas thereunto appertaining, but it is always a struggle with me to execute -- and this Southey performs not only with rapidity, but takes great pleasure in doing it. Have you seen the Thalaba? -- It is not altogether a poem exactly to my Taste; there are however three uncommonly fine passages in it. The first in Volume 1st beginning (p. 130) at the words 'It was the Wisdom & the Will of Heaven' continued to the end of the third Line, p. 184. then omitting the intermediate pages, pass on to page 147. & recommence with the words Their Father is their Priest -- to the last line of p. 166. -- concluding with the words Of Thalaba went by. 2 This would be a really good extract, & I am sure, none of the Reviews will have either feeling or Taste to select. You will see when you see the book, that the pages are almost entirely filled up with notes, so that the number of Lines is not great. Should it however be too great, you may begin it at p. 150, and entitle it THE LOVE OF ONEIZA FOR THALABA extracted &c. -- ____________________ 1 Coleridge contributed five poems to the Morning Post in Sept 1801. 2 Cf. Thalaba, Book III, lines 229-370. -759- The next extract is in Volume the second, p. 126. beginning at the words All Waste! no sign of Life &c -- to p. 131, ending with the words She clapt her hands for Joy. 1 The third passage is very short, & uncommonly lyrical -- indeed, in versification & conception superior to any thing I have ever seen of Southey's -- It must begin at the 3rd line of p. 142, Volume the second -- and be entitled Khawla, or the enchantress's Incantation 'Go out, ye lights!' quoth Khawla &c and go on to the last words of p. 143. 2 -- There should be a little note saying, that Eblis is the Mahometan Name for the Evil Spirit. ---- These three passages are excellently suited for a Paper, & would doubtless be of service to the Book. -- Longman will, of course, gladly send you the Books. -- I feel myself much affected by the wish, you express, that I had applied to you in my pecuniary Distresses. Pinched we have been, no doubt; for Sickness increased my outgoings, while it cut off [a]ll the resources that depended on my own Industry. But the evil day is gone by & I have found that a little wi[ll go] a good way if there is an absolute necessity for it. -- As to you, dear Stuart! I already consider myself independently of this our new engagement, as your Debtor; for I am not so blinded by Authorship, as to believe that what I have done is at all adequate to the money, I, have received. But it is however something in a world like this to have a man really attached to your Interest for your sake as well as his own -- & that man, believe me, Stuart! you have in me. I have a favor to ask of you, which I am almost ashamed to ask too -- it is this -- Wordsworth & myself have one very dear Friend to whom the pleasure of seeing a paper during the time I wrote in it would be greater, than you can easily imagine. Would you send a paper for this next Quarter to her? Wordsworth will feel himself excited by his affections to do something -- & whatever he does I shall conscientiously add & not substitute, as a sort of acknowlegement for this new Debt. The paper must be directed -- Miss S. Hutchinson, Bishops Middleham, Rushiford, Durham. My children are both well, & their Mother. We expect Southey in a fortnight. Mrs Southey is with us. -- I am so much better that I begin to hope, that I may be well enough to pass the winter near you -- Your's sincerely S. T. Coleridge ____________________ 1 Thalaba, Book VIII, lines 287-390. 2 Ibid., Book IX, lines 49 fol. -760- 414. To William Godwin Address: Mr Godwin | Polygon | Somers' Town | London MS. Lord Abinger. Pub. with omis. William Godwin, ii.81. Postmark: 25 September 1801. Greta Hall, Keswick, Cumberland Tuesday, Sep. 22. 1801 Dear Godwin When once a correspondence has intermitted from whatever cause, it scarcely ever recommences without some impulse ab extra. After my last Letter I went rambling after Health, or at least alleviation of Sickness -- my Azores scheme I was obliged to give up, as well, I am afraid, as that of going abroad altogether, from want of money. -- Latterly, I have had additional sources of Disquietude -- so that altogether I have, I confess, felt little inclination to write to you, who have not known me long enough, nor associated enough of that esteem, which you entertain for the qualities, you attribute to me, with me myself me, to be much interested about the carcase, Coleridge. -- So of Carcase Coleridge no more. -- At Middleham, near Durham, I accidentally met your Pamphlet, & read it -- and only by accident was prevented from immediately writing to you. For I read it with unmingled delight & admiration, with the exception of that one hateful Paragraph, for the insertion of which I can account only on a superstitious hypothesis, that when all the Gods & Goddesses gave you each a good gift, Nemesis counterbalanced them all with the destiny, that in whatever you published, there should be some one outrageously imprudent, suicidal Passage. But you have heard enough of this. With the exception of this passage I never remember to have read a pamphlet with warmer feelings of sympathy & respect. Had I read it en masse when I wrote to you, I should certes have made none of the remarks, I once made, in the first Letter on the subject; but as certainly should have done so in my second. On the most deliberate reflection I do think the introduction clumsily worded -- and (what is of more importance) I do think your retractations always imprudent, & not always just. -- But it is painful to me to say this to you -- I know not what effect it may have on your mind -- for I have found, that I can not judge of other men by myself. I myself am dead indifferent as to censures of any kind --/ Praise even from Fools has sometimes given me a momentary pleasure, & what I could not but despise as opinion I have taken up with some satisfaction, as sympathy. But the censure or dislike of my dearest Friend, even of him, whom I think the wisest man, I know, does not give me the slightest pain -761- / it is ten to one but I agree with him -- & if I do, then I am glad. If I differ from him, the pleasure I receive in developing the SOURCES of our disagreement entirely swallows up all consideration of the disagreement itself. But then I confess, I have written nothing that I value myself at all -- & that constitutes a prodigious difference between us -- & still more this, that no man's opinion merely as opinion operates on me in any other way, than to make me review my own side of the Question. All this looks very much like self-panegyric -- I cannot help it -- it is the truth. And I find it to hold good of no other person, id est, to the extent of the indifference, which I feel -- and therefore I am without any criterion, by which I can determine what I can say & how much without wounding or irritating. -- I will never therefore willingly criticize any manuscript composition, unless the author and I are together / for then I know, that say what I will, he cannot be wounded because my voice, my look, my whole manner, must convince any good man, that all I said was accompanied with sincere good-will & genuine kindness. Besides, I seldom fear to say any thing, when I can develope my reasons / but this is seldom possible in a Letter. ---- It is not improbable, that is to say, not very improbable, that if I am absolutely unable to go abroad -- (and I am now making the last effort by an application to Mr John Pinny respecting his House at St Nevis, & the means of living there) I may perhaps come up to London, & maintain myself, as before, by writing for the Morning Post. -- If I come, I come alone. -- Here it will be imprudent for me to stay, from the wet & the cold -- even if every thing within doors were as well suited to my head & heart, as my head & heart would, I trust, be to every thing that was wise & amiable. 1 -- My darling ____________________ 1 While Coleridge and his wife were an ill-assorted pair, the failure of their marriage is not evident until the winter of 1800-1 (see Early Letters, 273). Reluctant to go north, Mrs. Coleridge, who did not share in the intimacy with the Wordsworths, was sorely tried after her removal to Keswick by her husband's months of ill health and the resultant inability to provide for his family. It seems probable, too, that she was aware of his growing attachment to Sara Hutchinson, an attachment which ripened into love during Sara's protracted stay with the Wordsworths in the winter of 1800-1; and certainly, his month-long visit with the Hutchinsons in the summer of 1801 precipitated a crisis. Earlier Coleridge had been able to view the incompatibility between himself and Mrs. Coleridge with equanimity; indeed, he wrote to Southey on 12 Feb. 1800: 'My wife is a woman of absolutely pure mind and considerable intellect . . ., but her every-day self and her minor interests, alas, do not at all harmonize with my occupations, my temperament, or my weaknesses -- we cannot be happy in all respects. In my early married life I was often almost miserable -- now (as everything mellows) I am content, indeed, thankful!' Association with Sara Hutchinson, however, brought to Coleridge the 'heart-withering Conviction' that he could not but be miserable with his wife, an attitude bound to make married life intolerable alike for him and for her; -762- Hartley has this evening had an attack of fever -- but my medical friend thinks, it will pass off. -- I think of your children not infrequently. God love them. Wordsworth is not at home. He has been in the Scotch [Lakes] with Montague & his new Father, S[ir] William Rush. -- Your's, S. T. Coleridge. 415. To Daniel Stuart Address: D. Stuart Esq. | No/ 835 | Strand | London MS. British Museum. Pub. with omis. Letters from the Lake Poets, 23. Postmark: 30 September 1801. Stamped: Keswick. [ Circa 27 September 1801] My dear Stuart I have been afraid that my widow would have had to settle my 16 guineas with you -- I have had a frightful seizure of the Cholera morbus, or bilious Colic -- but the danger is past -- & I am assured, that I shall be much improved in my general Health by the violent discharges. I write that you may not wonder at my silence -perhaps, you may not hear from me for 5 or 6 days, as I really find it more than merely expedient to lie in perfect calmness after so violent an agitation of the body & the spirits. It can be, I suppose, of no great importance when I begin with you / I think more & more seriously of coming to London. -- I am in bed. I [cannot write] any further; but believe m[e,] with great sincerity, | Your's S. T. Coleridge Of course, I received on Thursday the other half of the note. -- 416. To Thomas Poole Address: Mr T. Poole | Nether Stowey | Bridgewater | Somerset Through London. MS. British Museum. Pub. with omis. Thomas Poole, ii.66. Postmark: 8 October 1801. Stamped: Keswick. Greta Hall, Keswick. Octob. 5. 1801 My dear Poole I have this evening received your Letter. That I felt many & deep emotions of tenderness & sympathy, you will know without my telling you -- and in truth minds, like mine & (in it's present mood) your's too, require to be braced rather than suppled. Your plan for your own life appears to me wise & judicious: and I cannot ____________________ and immediately after his return from the Hutchinsons he began to fill his letters with complaints about his domestic unhappiness and to talk of separation. -763- too earnestly impress upon you the solemn Duty, you owe to yourself, your fellow-men, & your maker, to exert your faculties, to give evidence of that which God has delivered to your keeping, first to your own mind, & next to that of your countrymen. Great Talents you undoubtedly possess -- indeed, when I consider the vast disadvantages which you have laboured under as an intellectual Being, from the circumstances of having been born to a patrimony & of having had almost from your Birth hourly Doings with money -- all dear Relationships, all hourly intercourses, in some measure modified, or interrupted, by influences of money -- & compare with these disadvantages your opinions, powers, & habits of feeling, I feel an indefiniteness in my conception of your Talents -- a faith, that they are greater than even to your own mind they have hitherto appeared to be. To some great work I exhort you to devote yourself, as soon as ever the Hurry of Grief & Mutation is over, as soon as the Darkness of Sorrow has thinned away into Gloom -- to some great work, which shall combine a predominance of selfcollected fact & argument with the necessity of wide & extensive Reading. -- Poole! I have seen only two defects in your making up, that are of any importance -- (let me premise before I write the next sentence that by family attachment I do not mean domestic attachment, but merely family -- cousinships; not Brother, not Sister, not Son -- for these are real relations; but family, as far as it [is] mere accident.) The two defects which I have seen in you, are, 1. Excess of family & of local attachment, which has fettered your moral free-agency, & bedimmed your intellectual vision. It has made you half a coward at times when (I dream at least that) I should [have] been more than brave. -- 2. A too great desire & impatience to produce immediate good -- to see with your own eyes the plant, of which you have sown the seed. Mustard Cress may be raised this way; & we will raise Mustard Cress; but acorns, acorns -- to plant these is the work, the calling, the labor of our moral Being. This in this awful tone I have been powerfully impelled to say: tho' in general I detest any thing like the giving of Advice. -- I was with an acquaintance lately, & we passed by a poor Ideot boy, who exactly answered my description -- he Stood in the sun, rocking his sugar-loaf Head, And staring at a'bough from Morn to Sunset See-saw'd his voice in inarticulate Noises. 1 ____________________ 1 For these lines in a somewhat different form see Remorse, Act ii, Scene i, lines 189-91. Since the passage of which they are a part does not belong to Osorio, Coleridge must have been reworking that play as early as 1801. See Letter 405, in which he tells Southey of his intention to alter his tragedy 'with a devilish sweep of revolution', and to publish it 'as a Poem'. -764- I wonder, says my Companion, what that Ideot means to say. 'To give advice,' I replied: 'I know not what else an Ideot can do, & any Ideot can do that.' It is more accordant with my general Habits of Thinking to resign every man to himself, & the quiet influences of the great Being -- & in that spirit, & with a deep, a very deep, affection, I now say -- God bless you, Poole! ---- As to the plan, you propose for me, I see no reasons attached to any part of it -- & no motives, as well as no reasons, to the former part of it, namely, that of my taking lodgings near London. -- But you do not know, you have never formed any conception, of the real state of my health. -- It is probable, that my plan will be this this Autumn & the winter I shall probably pass in Somersetshire & Dorset with [the] Wedgewoods, Pinny, & you -- & possibly, a week or two at Ottery -- & in the Spring, if I live so long which is more than I myself expect, I shall go to St Nevis to Pinny's House where Pinny will by that time have prepared for me a comfortable Home without expence -- & there I shall pass a year. Farther on than this I see no wisdom in attempting to look. Mrs Coleridge & the children will, in all probability, stay where they are -- in a more delightful place or a more kind & respectful neighbourhood she cannot be - & she is attached to the place & the people who live next door to us. I am sorry, that my letter affected you so painfully & I need not say, what a pang I felt at the accident of the time, in which it must have reached you. The letter itself I cannot, after the most dispassionate Review, consider as objectionable. Why should you feel pain at my affirming, that it is impossible for you & me to feel alike in money concerns? From my childhood I have associated nothing but pain with money -- I have had no wish, no dream, no one pleasure connected with wealth. The only pleasure which the possession of a few pounds has ever given me has been simply this -- 'Well -- for a week or two I shall have no occasion to interrupt my thoughts & feelings by any accursed Thoughts about money.' -- To[o] I have formed long & meditative habits of aversion to the Rich, Lov[e for] the Poor or the unwealthy, & belief in the excessive evils arising from Property. How is it possible, Poole! that you can have all these feelings? You would not wish to have them. -- I still think that you erred in writing to Mr Wedgewood -- and still think of the idea of an application from me to my nominal Brotherhood, as I then thought. -- I WAS vexed that Wordsworth should have applied to you -- for I know enough of the human heart to have felt, without any positive fact, that there is a great difference between our fore-seeing that such or such an answer would be the Result of such or such an application, & our knowing -765- that such & such an answer has been the Result. That I should not have refused the 50£, tho' it had been my only 50£, beyond the expences of the ensuing month, is saying nothing; because I should not have refused it on a less important necessity to many a man, for whom I have but a very diluted love & esteem, and to whom I should refuse many a sacrifice of much greater difficulty, which you would wittingly make for me. But different as our feelings are respecting money, I am assured that you would not have refused thrice the sum, if necessary, had you believed the state of my Health to be that which I know it to be. No -- Poole! I love you, & know that you love me. -- Even at this moment it almost irritates me, that Wordsworth should have applied to you -- the money might have been raised from so many Quarters -- indeed, I was prevented from going to the Azores not by this, but by intelligence received of the exceeding dampness of the Climate. -- Southey has been with me for some time, but quits me on Wednesday morning for Ireland -- he is appointed private secretary to Corry, the Irish Chancellor -- half the year he spends in Dublin, & half in London. His salary is 200£ a year, & 200£ for travelling expences -- this is nothing -- but his society will be all the first & greatest people -and of course the opening is great. -- Men of Talents are at present in great request by the Ministry -- had I a spark of ambition, I have opportunities enough -- but I will be either far greater than all this can end in, even if it should end in my being Minister of state myself, or I will be nothing. -- Mrs Coleridge & both children are well -- God love you, my dear Poole! and restore you to that degree of cheerfulness which is necessary for virtue & energetic well-doing. May he vouchsafe the same blessing to your affectionate friend, S. T. [Coleri]dge. 417. To Robert Southey MS. Lord Lalymer. Pub. with omis. E. L. G. i. 182. Oct. 21. 1801. -- The day after my Birth day -- 29 years of age! -- Who on earth can say that without a sigh! [De]ar Southey You did not stay long enough with us to love these mountains & this wonderful vale. Yesterday the snow fell -- and to day -- O that you were here -- Lodore full -- [the] mountains snow-crested -- & the -766- dazzling silver of the Lake -- this cloudy, sunny, misty, howling Weather! ---- After your arrival I move southward in the hopes that warm Rooms & deep tranquillity may build me up anew; & that I may be able to return in the Spring without the necessity of going abroad. I propose to go with you & Edith to London -- & thence to Stowey or Wedgewood's, as circumstances direct. -- My knee is no longer swoln, & this frosty weather agrees with me -- but O Friend! I am sadly shattered. The least agitation brings on bowel complaints, & within the last week twice with an ugly symptom -- namely -- of sickness even to vomiting -- & Sara -- alas! we are not suited to each other. But the months of my absence I devote to self -- discipline, & to the attempt to draw her nearer to me by a regular developemetit of all the sources of our unhappiness then for another Trial, fair as I hold the love of good men dear to me -- patient, as I myself love my own dear children. I will go believing that it will end happily -- if not, if our mutual unsuitableness continues, and (as it assuredly will do, if it continue) increases & strengthens, why then, it is better for her & my children, that I should live apart, than that she should be a Widow & they Orphans. Carefully have I thought thro' the subject of marriage & deeply am I convinced of it's indissolubleness. -- If I separate, I do it in the earnest desire to provide for her & [the]m; that while I live, she may enjoy the comforts of life; & that when I die, something may have been accumulated that may secure her from degrading Dependence. When I least love her, then m[ost] do I feel anxiety for her peace, comfort, & welfare. Is s[he] not the mother of my children? And am I the man not to know & feel this? -- Enough of this. But, Southey! much as we differ in our habits, you do indeed possess my esteem & affection in a degree that makes it uncomfortable to me not to tell you what I have told you. I once said -- that I missed no body -- I only enjoyed the present. At that moment my heart misgave me, & had no one been present, I should have said to you -- that you were the only exception -- / for my mind is full of visions, & you had been so long connected with the fairest of all fair dreams, that I feel your absence more than I enjoy your society: thol that I do not enjoy your society so much, as I anticipated that I should do, is wholly or almost wholly owing to the nature of my domestic feelings, & the fear, or the consciousness, that you did not & could not sympathize with him [them]. -- Now my heart is a little easy. -- God bless youl ---- Dear Davy! -- If I have not overrated his intellectual Powers, I have little fear for his moral character. Metaphysicians! Do, Southey, keep to your own most excellent word (for the invention of which you deserve a pension far more than Johnson for his Dictionary) & -767- always say -- Metapothecaries. There does not exist an instance of a deep metaphysician who was not led by his speculations to an austere system of morals --. What can be more austere than the Ethics of Aristotle -- than the systems of Zeno, St Paul, Spinoza (in the Ethical Books of his Ethics), Hartley, Kant, and Fichte? -- As to Hume, was he not -- ubi non fur, ibi stultus -- & often thief & blockhead at the same time? It is not thinking that will disturb a man's morals, or confound the distinctions, which to think makes. But it is talking -- talking -- talking -- that is the curse & the poison. I defy Davy to think half of what he talks: if indeed he talk what has been attributed to him. But I must see with my own eyes, & hear with my own ears. Till then I will be to Davy, what Max was to Wallenstein. Yet I do agree with you that chemistry tends in it's present state to turn it's Priests into Sacrifices. One way, in which it does it -- this however is an opinion, that would make Rickman laugh 1 at me if you told it him -- is this -- it prevents or tends to prevent a young man from falling in love. We all have obscure feelings that must be connected with some thing or other -- the Miser with a guinea Lord Nelson with a blue Ribbon -- Wordsworth's old Molly with her washing Tub -- Wordsworth with the Hills, Lakes, & Trees -- / all men are poets in their way, tho' for the most part their ways are damned bad ones. Now Chemistry makes a young man associate these feelings with inanimate objects -- & that without any moral revulsion, but on the contrary with complete self-approbation and his distant views of Benevolence, or his sense of immediate beneficence, attach themselves either to Man as the whole human Race, or to Man, as a sick man, as a painter, as a manufacturer, &c -- and in no way to man, as a Husband, Son, Brother, Daughter, Wife, Friend, &c &c --. That to be in love is simply to confine the feelings prospective of animal enjoyment to one woman is a gross mistake -- it is to associate a large proportion of all our obscure feelings with a real form -- A miser is in love with a guinea, & a virtuous young man with a woman, in the same sense, without figure or metaphor. A young poet may do without being in love with a woman -- it is enough, if he loves -- but to a young chemist it would be salvation to be downright romantically in Love -- and unfortunately so far from the Poison & antidote growing together, they are like the Wheat & Barberry. -- You are not the first person who has sought in vain for Mole & ____________________ 1 John Rickman ( 1771-1840), statistician, was at this time secretary to Charles Abbot, Chief Secretary for Ireland. In 1802, when Abbot became Speaker in the House of Commons, Rickman remained his secretary. In 1814 he was appointed Second Clerk Assistant at the Table of the House of Commons. -768- Mulla. 1 -- I shall end this Letter with a prayer for your speedy arrival, & a couple of Sapphic Verses translated in my way from Stolberg -- You may take your Oath for it, it was no admiration of the Thought, or the Poetry that made me translate them -- To the Will o/ the Wisps 2 -- But now I think of it -- no -- I will pursue my first thought ---- Lunatic Witch-fires! Ghosts of Light & Motion! Fearless I see you weave your wanton Dances Near me, far off me, You that tempt the Trav'ller Onward & onward, Wooing, retreating, till the Swamp beneath him Groans! -- And 'tis dark! -- This Woman's Wile -- I know it! Learnt it from thee, from thy perfidious Glances, Black-ey'd Rebecca! -- It is more poetical than the original, of which this is a literal Translation -- Still play, juggling Deceiverl still play thy wanton Dances, Fugitive child of Vapor, that fervently temptest onward the Wanderer's feet, then coyly fleest, at length beguilest into Ruin. These maiden Wiles -- I know them -- learnt them all out of thy blue eyes, fickle Nais. Heaven bless you -- . -- S. T. Coleridge 418. To Thomas Poole Address: Mr T. Poole | Nether Stowey | Bridgewater | Somerset Through London. MS. British Museum. Pub. E. L. G. i.186. Postmark: 24 October 1801. Stamped: Keswick. Oct. 21. 1801. My dear Poole Was my society then useless to you during my Abode at Stowey? Yet I do not remember, that I ever once offered you advice! If indeed under this word you chuse to comprehend all that free communication of thought & feeling, which distinguished our inter- ____________________ 1 Cf. Spenser, Colin Clouts Come Home Againe, lines 56-59: One day (quoth he), I sat, (as was my trade) Under the foote of Mole, that mountaine hore, Keeping my sheepe amongst the cooly shade Of the greene alders by the Mullaes shore. 2 Poems, ii. 979. -769- course, I have nothing to do but to subscribe to your Meaning, referring you to the Dictionary for the better wording thereof. By the 'quiet influences of the great Being' I wished to convey all that all things do from natural impulse, rather than direct and prospective Volition: not that I meant to interdict the latter -- on the contrary, in that very letter I felt it my duty to give you plump advice -- nay, I admit that man is an advising animal; even as he is a concupiscent one -- Now as Religion has directed it's main attacks against concupiscence, because we are too much inclined to it, so does Prudence against advice-giving, & for the same reason. In short, I meant no more than that it is well to have a general suspicion of ourselves in the moment of an inclination to advise this suspicion, not as a ham-stringer to cripple, but as a curb-rein to check. As to myself, advice from almost any body gives me pleasure, because it informs me of the mind & heart of the adviser -- but from a very very dear Friend it has occasionally given me great pain -- but, so help me Heaven, as I believe at least that I speak truly -- on his account alone-or, if on my own, on my own only as a disruption of that sympathy, in which Friendship has it's Being. A thousand people might have advised all that you did, and I might have been pleased; but it [was] the you you part of the Business that afflicted me -- tho' by what figure of speech any part of my Letter could be called outrageous, I can discover by the science of metaphysics, rather than by any hitherto published Art of Rhetoric. -- And here ends, I trust, the Controversial -- from which I have seldom seen much good come even in conversation & never any thing but evil when Letters have been the Vehicle. -- I will come to you as soon as I can get the money necessary. There are a few bills here, which must be payed before I can leave Mrs Coleridge with comfort, to the amount of 10£ perhaps; I must leave her 5£; & my own Journey will cost me 10£. Any part of this money, that you can spare for the space of four months, I shall be glad to receive from you -- & the rest, I will borrow from Pinny as soon as I know of his arrival at Somerton. I have very particular Reasons for not anticipating any part of my next year's annuity by any draft on the Mr Wedgewoods. -- Mackintosh, (who is a large tall man) spent two days with me at Keswick, & was very entertaining & pleasant. He is every inch the Being, I had conceived him to be, from what I saw of him at Cote House. We talked of all & every thing -- on some very affecting subjects, in which he represented himself by words as affected; on some subjects that called forth his verbal indignation-or exultation: but in no one moment did any particle of his face from the top of his forehead to the half of his neck, move. His face has no lines -770- like that of a man -- no softness, like that of a woman -- it is smooth, hard, motionless -- a flesh-mask! -- As to his conversation, it was an uncommonly well-worded: but not a thought in it worthy of having been worded at all -- He was however entertaining to me always; & to all around him then chiefly, when he talked of Parr, Fox, Addington, 1 &c &c. When I asked him concerning Davy -- he answered Oh! -- little Davy -- Dr Beddoes' Eleve, you mean? -- This was an exquisite trait of character. The Irish Chancellor's Name is Corry, not Curry. We, i.e. Wordsworth & myself, regard the Peace as necessary; but the Terms as most alarming. My children are well -- & I am better. My knee is quite gone down -- & the frosty air has greatly improved my general health. But a fit of Rain, or a fit of Grief, undoes in three hours what 3 weeks had been doing. I am a crazy crazy machine! -- God bless you & S. T. Coleridge What did you mean by my being 'the sport of the capricious advice of the most capricious'? It was quite an enigma to me. -- N.B. I never received a double letter from Mr Wedgewood that was not charged single, nor a single Letter from you that was not charged double. Yesterday was my Birth day -- 29 years of age! O that I could write it without a sigh -- or rather without occasion for one! -- 419. To Thomas Poole Address: Mr T. Poole | N. Stowey | Bridgewater | Somerset Single sheet MS. British Museum. Hitherto unpublished. Postmark: 8 November 1801. Stamped: Keswick. Saturday Night, Nov. [October] 81. 1801 My dear Poole I received both letters, inclosing the 252 compleat -- (N.B. Each letter charged only single -- whereas all your single letters have been charged double) -- If I can, I leave this place on Saturday next, go straight forward to London, in which place I shall settle all my literary concerns with advice for my future health, &c -- My stay [t]here will certainly not exceed ten days -- and from thence I proceed in the Bridgewater Mail for Bridgewater & you. -- I purpose ____________________ 1 Henry Addington ( 1757-1844), later first Viscount Sidmouth, was at this time First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer. Under his government England made peace with France in 1802. -771- staying with you, & Mr Wedgewood, & Mr Pinny, & [at] Ottery till the last days of March / less than two months I shall assuredly not stay with you. Now for the words -- if I can --. My health & personal appearance is much improved; but on Wednesday in stepping over a fence I had a Thorn run into my leg, some inch & a half from the Ancle close by the tendo Achilles -- I have reason to fear that it has broke in -- an incision has been made to no purpose -- but the wound keeps open, & a suppuration is forming -& when formed, it may bring forth the lurker. I have suffered great agony -- I am more than lame -- for I cannot without torture move my leg from a super-horizontal position. Whether I exaggerate illness or no, remains to be proved; but this I will venture to say for myself, that there is scarcely a Woman in the Island that can endure Pain more quietly than I -- tho' the Present is scarcely an Instance -- for I have had such valuable Lights thrown upon me, with regard to the exceedingly interesting & obscure subject of Pain, in consequence' of this accident, that I am quite in spirits about it. O! how I watched myself while the Lancet was at my Leg! -- Vivat Metaphysic! And now, my dearest Poole I for a word or two respecting your very interesting piece of News. You will not suspect me, I know, of being warped by my dislike of old Symes, & my abhorrence of his moral dispositions --: I do not fear that you will suspect me of this -- all I fear is, lest you should suspect that long, & solitary Broodings over the elements of Thought have diseased my notions of those moral Relations which result from the great aggregates of Life, the Father, the Husband, the Clergyman, the Brother, the Citizen. -- Do not, I intreat you, think this of me. My opinions in Ethics are, if any thing, more austere than they ever were -- but really, ignorant as I am of all the minor facts, & judging only from the facts which you have adduced, I can not see that Bradley has committed any error at all -- or has done any thing which I would not have done in his place. A lewd Boy & a wanton Girl mutually seduce each other; but the Boy is willing to repair the evil, & to marry the Girl. If he do not, the Girl is hunted by Infamy, & perhaps hunted by it into the Toils of Guilt & habitual Depravity. This Girl is Bradley's Sister-in-law. -- Old Symes who at first was 'a madman in fury,' & whose fury has now 'settled into a deep malignant rage' -- old Symes -- i.e. a Man-shaped animal capable of 'a deep malignant Rage' & known to be so by every one that knew any thing of him -- he surely was not a man to apply to, unless Bradley wished to do so as a substitute for necromancy to save himself the trouble of calling up a Devil from Hell to trumpet & blast abroad the infamy of his Sister -- I should say, to make it infamy by his trumpetings. -- You must know that Symes never -772- would have consented to the marriage -- & Bradley knew it -- & if, Poole! you do not know that the young man did his duty in marrying the young woman, all I can say is that my moral system is more austere than your's -- and I am sure that in this case your system is founded on Prudence of Men, & not on the Gospel of Christ. -- Bradley saw that whatever Hubbub might at first be created, all would die away -- Husband & Wife are Husband & Wife -- and warmth of constitution is often connected with many excellent moral dispositions -- the affair may have prevented her from being a Whore -- & no doubt has prevented him from being, as the Stowey youths of his acquaintance all were, Whoremongers deep-died! 1. . . As to the clandestineness, &c &c -- they were only steps of prudence -- if it were right to do the thing, it certainly could not be wrong to do it in the only way in which it could be done without uproar & desecration. I see no moral wrong in the clandestineness whatever -- if I saw Bradley, & you had not convinced us [by] the adduction of new facts that I am in the wrong, I should give him my right hand, & say, You have acted, Sir! as a man, & a Christian -- . -- I will write again on the [day] I leave this place. Most affect. -- S.T.C. -- P.S. You will see, I take it for granted that the Girl is with child. -- 420. To Humphry Davy Address: Mr Davy | Royal Institution | Albermarle Street | London MS. Royal Institution. Pub. Frag. Remains, 91. Postmark: 3 November 1801. Stamped: Keswick. Greta Hall Keswick Cumberland. Oct. 81 1801. My dear Davy I do not know by what fatality it has happened; but so it is that I have thought more often of you, & I may say, yearned after your society more for the last 3 months than I ever before did -- & yet I have not written to you. But you know that I honor you, & that I love whom I honor. Love & Esteem with me have no dividual Being; & where ever this is not the case, I suspect, there must be some lurking moral superstition which Nature gets the better of -- & that the real meaning of the phrase -- 'I love him tho' I can not esteem him' -- is -- I esteem him but not according to my system of esteem -- but you, my dear Fellow! all men love and esteem -- which is the only suspicious part of your character -- at least, according to the 5th Chapter of St Matthew. -- God bless you - And now for the Business of this Letter. If I can, I leave this ____________________ 1 Three or four words inked out in manuscript. -773- place so as to be in London on Wednesday the eleventh of next mouth -- in London I shall stay a fortnight -- but as I am in feeble health, & have a perfect phobia of Inns & Coffee-houses, I should rejoice if you or Southey should be able to offer me a bedroom for the fortnight aforesaid. -- From London I move Southward. -Now for the Italicized words if I can -- the cryptical & implicit import of which is -- I have a damned Thorn in my leg, which the Surgeon has not been yet able to extract -- & but that I have metaph[ys]icized most successfully on Pain in consequence of the accident, by the great Scatterer of Thoughts, I should have been half-mad. -- But as it is I have borne it like a Woman -- which I believe to be two or three degrees at least beyond a Stoic. -- A suppuration is going on -- and I endure in hope. -- I have re-direct[ed] one of Southey's Letters to you, taking it for granted that you will see him immediately on his arrival in Town -- he left us yesterday afternoon. -- Let me hear from you if it be only to say what I know already that you will be glad to see me. -- O dear friend, thou one of the two human Beings of whom I dare hope with a hope, that elevates my own heart -- O bless you! -- S. T. Coleridge 421. To Robert Southey Address: R. Southey Esq. MS. Lord Latymer. Pub. E. L. G. i. 188. Novemb. 9 1801 Monday Night Dear Southey The thorn Mr Edmondson believes to be still in my leg -- the wound does not heal, -- or in the damn'd Scotch-English of the present day -- heals not. But I leave this place to morrow morning for Eusemere, Mr Clarkson's Residence, whither Mrs Coleridge & my beloved children are already gone. -- Whether I leave Eusemere Wednesday or Friday, I can not say -- Friday is the latest day ---- I wish you immediately to write a penny post letter to Stuart (No / 835, Strand, London) informing [him] of this, & that I have received his letter, & that he will be the second person, I shall call on / maning you for the first. -- Love to Edith. -- Hartley was breeched last Sunday -- & looks far better than in his petticoats. He ran to & fro in a sort of dance to the Jingle of the Load of Money, that had been put in his breeches pockets; but he did [not] roll & tumble over and over in his old joyous way -- No! it was an eager & solemn gladness, as if he felt it to be an awful aera in his Life.O bless him! bless him! bless him! If my wife loved me, and I my -774- wife, half as well as we both love our children, I should be the happiest man alive -- but this is not -- will not be! -- Your's affectionately S. T. Coleridge. 422. To William Godwin Address: Mr Godwin | Polygon | Somers' Town MS. Lord Abinger. Pub. with omis. William Godwin, ii. 83. Postmark: 19 November 1801. 25, Bridge Street, Westminster 1 Thursday Morning. [ 19 November 1801] Dear Godwin I arrived here late on Sunday Evening -- & how long I shall stay, depends much upon my health. If I were to judge from my feelings of yesterday & to day, it will be a very short time indeed -- for I am miserably uncomfortable. By your Letter to Southey I understand that you are particularly anxious to see me. To day I am engaged for 2 hours in the morning with a person in the city -- after which I shall be at Lambe's -- till past 7 at least -- I had assuredly planned a walk to Somers' town; but I saw so many People on Monday and walked to & fro so much, that I have been ever since like a Fish in air, who, as you perhaps know, lies panting & dying from excess of Oxygen/ -- A great change from the society of W. & his sister for tho' we were three persons, it was but one God -- -- whereas here I have the amazed feelings of a new Polytheist, meeting Lords many, & Gods many -- some of them very Egyptian Physiognomies, dog-faced Gentry, Crocodiles, Ibises, &c -- tho' more odd fish, than rarae ayes. -- However as to the business of seeing you it is possible that you may meet me this evening -- if not, & if I am well enough, I will call on you -- & if you breakfast at 10 -- breakfast with you to morrow morning/ it will be hard indeed if I cannot afford a half-a-crown Coach-fare to annihilate the sense at least of the Space. -- I write like a Valetudinarian; but I assure you, that this morning I feel it still more -- Your's | &c | S. T. Coleridge P.S. Southey's best Comp's -- ____________________ 1 Southey's lodgings in London. -775- 423. To Mrs. S. T. Coleridge [Addressed and franked] London November twenty . . . | Mrs. Coleridge | Kesw[ick] W. Williams Wynn MS. Victoria University Lib. Hitherto unpublished. Postmark: -- November 18<01>. [ Circa 25 November 1801] My dear Sara I remain well -- to day I remove to my Lodging, No/ 10, King Street, Covent Garden, London 1 -- but how long I shall stay there, I know not -- probably not more than 10 days: for the Letter, which you inclosed for me, was from T. Wedgewood, who asks me if it would be agreeable to me to pass 3 months with him in Cornwall -- This of course I answered in the affirmative: it is of the first importance to me to make the connection with the Wedgewoods one of Love & personal attachment, as well as of moral calculation & intellectual Hope -- which are subject to sad Caprices in this mortal Life. -- O my dear Hartleym -- my Derwent! my [children]! -- The night before last I dreamt [I saw] them so vividly, that I was quite ill in the morning -- & wept my eyes red which was good for me. -- . . .[Remainder of manuscript missing.] 424. To Thomas Poole Address: Mr T. Poole | Nether Stowey | Bridgewater | Somerset MS. British Museum. Pub. E. L. G. i. 189. Postmark: 14 18<01>. Monday, Dec. 14. 1801 My dear Poole That I ought to have written to you a month ago, I feel about as strongly as it is possible you can feel. But London has upset me it is all buz buz buz with my poor Head -- & like a creature robbed of his free agency I do what I must not what I would -- I am writing for the Morning Post -- & reading in the old Libraries 2 for my curious metaphysicial Work --; but I hate London & my intention is in a week's time to go to Gunville, & from thence in a few days to proceed to you with Tom Wedgewood -- who spoke of you to me with an enthusiasm of Friendship that surprized me & brought such a gush of Tears into my eyes that I had well nigh made a fool ____________________ 1 'I took a first floor for him in King Street, Covent Garden, at my tailor's, Howell's, whose wife was a cheerful good housewife, of middle age, who I knew would nurse Coleridge as kindly as if he were her son.' Daniel Stuart, Gentleman's Magazine, May 1988, p. 487. 2 Among other books Coleridge was reading the Parmenides and the Timaeus of Plato. See Letter 459. -776- of myself in the Street. -- I am better than I could expect -- & would so much rather talk with you than write to you, that I am right glad that what I could write I shall soon be able to talk. -- It would be no unpleasant subject for a day-dream -- Davy, you, & I going into France together. -- God bless you! My best remembrances to Ward. S. T. Coleridge 425. To Thomas Poole Address: Mr T. Poole | Nether Stowey | Bridgwater | Somerset MS. British Museum. Hitherto unpublished. Postmark: 24 December, 1801. Thursday Evening [ 24 December 1801.] My dear Poole If it please God, I shall leave Town to morrow night in the Bridgewater Mail -- & of course, shall be at Bridgewater, barring accidents, on Saturday. From thence I shall get to Stowey according as the Weather dictates. -- I have had a fearful Bout of it this time -- the Bell (for my Bedroom looks out into the great Church-yard) has tolled often & dolefully for those that died of the same Complaint-but my Hour was not come-nay, I seem to be on the whole of a lightened spirit since I have left my bed. I hope, T. W. is with you --. God bless you both -- & S. T. C. 426. To Daniel Stuart Address: D. Stuart Esq. | No/ 335 | Strand MS. British Museum. Pub. Letters from the Lake Poets, 7. Friday Night -- [ 25 December 1801] My dear Stuart A Letter which I received this afternoon makes it proper for me to be off to Stowey as soon as I can -- You will hear from me by Tuesday's Post, at the farthest -- & this you may rely on -- & I feel the inmost conviction that I shall do more for you the ten days of my absence than if I had been in London -- I have borrowed 5 guineas of Mr Howel, which you will be so good as to pay him -- and if you want money, I have written on the other side a draft for 25£, which you will use if you have any need -- I am much your debtor at present; but please God! deliver me of this complaint. I will soon work it out. Your's sincerely S. T. Coleridge -777- 427. To Robert Southey Address: Mr Southey MS. Lord Latymer. Pub. Letters, i. 365. Dec. 81. 1801. -- Nether Stowey, Bridgewater. Dear Southey On Xmas day I breakfasted with Davy, with the intention of dining with you; but I returned very unwell, & in very truth in so utter a dejection of spirits, as both made it improper for me to go any whither, & a most unfit man to be with you. -- I left London on Saturday Morning 4 o/ clock -- & for 8 hours was in such a storm, as I was never before out in: for I was a top of the Coach -- Rain & Hail & violent wind with vivid flashes of Lightning, that seemed almost to alternate with the flash-like Re-emersions of the Waning Moon, from the ever shattered ever closing Clouds. However, I was armed cap-a-pie, in a compleat Panoply, namely, in a huge, most huge, Roquelaire, which had cost the Government 7 Guineas -- & was provided for the Emigrants in the Quiberon Expedition, one of whom falling sick stayed behind & parted with his Cloak to Mr Howel who lent it me --. I dipped my head down, shoved it up, & it proved a compleat Tent to me. I was as dry as if I had been sitting by the fire --. I arrived at Bath at 11 o clock at Night -- & spent the next day with Warren who has gotten a very sweet Woman to Wife, and a most beautiful House & situation at Whitcomb, on the Hill over the Bridge. -- On Monday afternoon I arrived at Stowey --. I am a good deal better; but my Bowels are by no means derevolutionized. -- So much for me. - I do not know what I am to say to you of your dear Mother 1! Life passes away from us in all modes & ways -- in our friends, in ourselves. We all 'die daily'. -- Heaven knows that many & many & many a time I have regarded my Talents & Acquirements as a Porter's Burthen, imposing on me the Duty of going on to the end of the Journey, when I would gladly lie down by the side of the road, & become the Country for a mighty nation of Maggots -- for what is Life, gangrened, as it is with me, in it's very vitals domestic Tranquillity? ---- These things being so, I confess that I feel for you but not for the event; or for the event only by an act of Thought, & not by any immediate shock from the like Feeling within myself. ---- When I return to Town, I can scarcely tell -- I have not yet made up my mind whether or no I shall move Devonward. My Relations wish to see me, & I wish to avoid the uneasy feelings I shall have, ____________________ 1 Southey's mother died on 5 Jan. 1802. -778- if I remain so near them without gratifying the wish / no very brotherly mood of mind, I must confess -- but it is, 9/10ths of it at least, a work of their own Doing. -- Poole desires to be remembered to you -- Remember me to your wife, & to Mrs Lovell. God bless you | & S. T. Coleridge