428. To Mrs. S. T. Coleridge MS. Lord Laiymer. Hitherto unpublished. Sunday Night. [ 17 January 1802] 1 [My] dear Sara I must put you to the expence [of an]other Letter, to say, that I shall not go to [Otter]y; but shall return to London, on Tuesday -- [prob]ably, with T. Poole. -- I am ashamed to [sen]d such a Letter to you; but I am too much in a flurry to write more. -- Davy begins his Lectures, much earlier than I expected -- & I am determined to attend the whole course. -- You will therefore write to me, directing as before -- No/ 10, King Street, Covent Garden, London. If all things happen, as I from the very depth of my soul wish them to do, I expect to be with you by the middle of March --. I am at present improved in Health, spite of the intense Frost which at last has broken up/ I hope to God, you will make you[rself] flannel Drawers, &c, as I advised -- [and] instantly, get the fluid Essence [of] Mustard -- & that you have already [begun] to take the Mustard Pills, night & morning. Do it regularly & perseveran[tly,] or it will not signify a farthing. -- I will take care of the Letters, &c -- My Love &c to Mr Jackson, & Mrs Wilson -- And O my dear Children! S. T. Coleridge 429. To Sara Hutchimon Address: Miss S. Hutchins[on] | Gallo[w Hill] Single sheet. MS. Dove Cottage. Hitherto unpublished. This fragment, consisting of the middle of one page, with part of the address on the opposite side, is the first letter from Coleridge to Sara Hutchinson to survive. There was evidently a large correspondence between them, later destroyed, and an entry in Coleridge's ____________________ 1 Since Coleridge arrived in London on Thursday, 21 Jan. 1802, this letter was probably written the previous Sunday. See Letter 431. -779- notebook gives some idea of the intimate nature of their letters: 'If I have not heard from you very recently, and if the last letter had not happened to be full of explicit love and feeling, then I conjure up shadows into substancesand am miserable.' T. M. Raysor, Coleridge and "Asra, Studies in Philology, July 1929, p. 310. See also Letters 448 and 458. Postmark: 18 January 1802. Stamped: Bridgewater. . . . -- Peach 1 has left Greta Hall, & with him went his china men, & beasts, & unpetticoated Beauties -- & of course, the Bull-dog, that so long had been Hartley's Bedfellow. -- Mr Jackson saw that the poor Boy's eyes were full, & that he could scarce keep his heart down at the departure of the Bull-dog & the good creature could not stand it, but without saying a word walked into town & brought back four fourpenny Images, which now take it by turns to sleep in Hartley's arms. Mrs C. writes me, that she read the 10 commandments to him; but after the second he attended no longer; but was quite lost in thought. -- 'What is the matter, my Dear?['] ---- [']I'se afraid, the Lord will be angry with me.' [']And what for?' 'Because I've got four Images, & I take one to bed with me every night. But what is worshipping Images?['] -- Poor Mrs C. has suffered a great deal from the Rheumatism lately. This Evening the wind chopped round from South East to South... 430. To Daniel Stuart Address: D. Stuart Esq. | No/ 835 | Strand | London MS. British Museum. Pub. Letters from the Lake Poets, 24. Postmark: 19 January 1802. Stamped: Bridgewater. Dear Stuart I shall be with you without fail on Thursday morning at the latest -- for the first 10 days after my arrival at Stowey, I had every evening a Bowel-attack -- which layed my spirits prostrate --/ but by a severe adherence to a certain regular Diet & Regimen, I have, I hope, entirely got the better -- I am certainly exceedingly improved in health, spirits, & activity -- & as the Proof of the Pudding is in the eating, I hope, to bring some proofs of it with me. -- Be so good as to let Mr & Mrs Howel know of the Day of my Return -- I left a Check for 25£ for you with them / as I did not like to leave Town so heavily in your Debt. -- Mr T. Wedgewood, who has been with me at Poole's the whole time, informs me, that the Calcutta scheme is knocked on the head -- & with it Mackintosh's Hopes in that Quarter -- ____________________ 1 Mr. Peach was apparently a friend of Jackson's and a temporary resident of Jackson's part of Greta Hall. See Letter 476, and Dorothy Wordsworth Journals, i. 73. -780- What a pitiful Note that of Bonaparte's to the Legislature. -Damn the fellow! -- Your's sincerely, S. T. Coleridge 431. To William Godwin Address: Mr Godwin | Polygon | Somers' Town MS. Lord Abinger. Hitherto unpublished. Postmark: 22 January 1802. King's Street, Covent Garden Thursday, 21. -- [ January 1802] Dear Godwin I left town on the 26 of December; & I returned this morning at 12 o/ clock -- & found your letters on my mantle-piece. I was much affected by them / & can say with the strictest truth that I have been to you qualis ab incaepto. I thought indeed, that I had given you a sufficient proof of [it] by the confidence & openness, with which I spoke to you of my own most private concerns. -- You perhaps took offence at my not calling on you; but ill-health has surely a privilege -- if you had ever asked me & fixed a day, I should most certainly have come -- not, that I wanted an invitation in any other light than as a mere determinant ab extra -- for in London I never go any where, nor in any degree follow my free-inclination -- I am pushed / & waste my time because of all words I find it most difficult to say, No. -- I am sorry that you have suffered pain; tho' indeed there exists some consolation in the reflection, that you must be a far more privileged man, than I am, to be capable of suffering pain from such causes. -- I had never heard of your marriage 1 -- in that & in all things I wish you from the depth & warmth of my spirit all happiness & moral progression. I will call on you as soon as I possibly can; & with your permission will introduce to you one of the very best, & among the most sensible men, in the Kingdom, my friend, T. Poole. -- In the meantime if you have time let me see you -- for I am very sincerely your's S. T. Coleridge ____________________ 1 Godwin married Mrs. Clairmont on 21 Dec. 1801. -781- 432. To William Godwin Address: Mr Godwin | Polygon | Somers' Town MS. Lord Abinger. Hitherto unpublished. Postmark: 22 January 1802. Friday Morning, Jan. 22. 1802 King's Street, Covent Garden -- Dear Godwin I wrote to you yesterday, immediately on my arrival, a few hasty Lines -- went to the Lecture at the Royal Institution, & dined with Poole & Davy, in a large party -- a sort of anniversary club Dinner, of a club with a long name of which Tobin is a member -Vapidarians, 1 I think, they call themselves. I returned at 9 o/ clock, went to bed, & this morning I feel, that I have drunken deep Of all the Blessedness of Sleep -- 2 No wonder -- I have not slept two hours for the last three nights. -This morning I reperused your Letter -- & I write again, because I fear, that in the fretfulness of fatigue & hurry I might not have answered it with the respect & affection due to you. -- I have no other wish, than that you should know 'the Truth, the whole Truth, & (if possible) nothing but the Truth' of me in the sum total of my character, much more in it's immediate relations to you. You date the supposed alteration of my feelings towards you, & consequent conduct, from Midsummer last; & my conduct since my arrival in town from the North you have regarded as an exacerbation of the Disease. My conduct since November I conceived that I have fully explained. You appear to me not to have understood the nature of my body & mind --. Partly from ill-health, & partly from an unhealthy & reverie-like vividness of Thoughts, & (pardon the pedantry of the phrase) a diminished Impressibility from Things, my ideas, wishes, & feelings are to a diseased degree disconnected from motion & action. In plain & natural English, I am a dreaming & therefore an indolent man --. I am a Starling self-incaged, & always in the Moult, & my whole Note is, Tomorrow, & tomorrow, & tomorrow. The same causes, that have robbed me to so great a degree of the self-impelling self-directing Principle, have deprived me too of the due powers of Resistances to Impulses from without. If I might so say, I am, as an acting man, a creature of mere Impact. 'I will' & 'I will not' are phrases, both of them ____________________ 1 In Apr. 1801 Davy was elected to the Tepidarian Society, so called because they drank nothing stronger than tea. 2 Cf. Christabel, lines 375-6. -782- equally, of rare occurrence in my dictionary. -- This is the Truth -- I regret it, & in the consciousness of this Truth I lose a larger portion of Self-estimation than those, who know me imperfectly, would easily believe -- / I evade the sentence of my own Conscience by no quibbles of self-adulation; I ask for Mercy indeed on the score of my ill-health; but I confess, that this very ill-health is as much an effect as a cause of this want of steadiness & self-command; and it is for mercy that I ask, not for justice. -- To apply all this to the present case -- When you spent the Tuesday Evening with me at my Lodgings, I told you my scheme -- i.e. that line of conduct, which I thought it my duty to pursue, & which I wished to realize. -- If I deviated from it, it was (with the exception of two Saturdays, which I dined out, the one with Mackintosh & the other with Sharp, & which I did from Principle) -- all the rest, (& I must add in favor of myself, that the whole scarcely amounted to more than half of half a dozen) was from the causes, I have stated. I was taken out to dinner; & if you had come & fixed a day, you too would have taken me. -- But indeed, Godwin! you were offended, far too hastily. For a week & more I was exceedingly unwell; & in one instance, when I had fully intended to have met you, I had a hint given to me that it would be unpleasant to you, &c. -- So much for my apparent or real Neglect of you since my arrival in town. -- The altered Tone of my Letters previously, is a different affair. When I wrote to you, that I did not imagine you to be much interested about my personal existence, you think this may be fairly considered as a developement of the state of my feelings towards you. -- No. ---- It developed nothing; but it hinted disappointment, & that my feelings of personal concern respecting you had been starved by the imagined want of correspondent feelings in your mind. I had been really & truly interested in you, & for you; & often in the heat of my spirit I have spoken of your literary Imprudences & Self-delusions with asperity, that if 'the good-natured Friends' have conveyed it to you [they] would have conveyed a bare story of the constancy of my friendship -- but the truth & the whole Truth, [is] that I have been angry because I have been vexed. My letters before Midsummer expressed what I felt ---- and nothing but what I felt. If I underwent any alteration of feelings, it was in consequence of my appearing to observe in your Letters a want of interest in me, my health, my goings on. This offended my moral nature, & (so help me God) not my personal Pride. I considered it as a great Defect in your character, & as I always write from my immedia[te] feelings (with more or less suppression) I suffered the Belief to appear in the tone of my language -- I was struggling with sore calamities, with -783- bodily pain, & languor -- with pecuniary Difficulties -- & worse than all, with domestic Discord, & the heart-withering Conviction -that I could not be happy without my children, & could not but be miserable with the mother of them. -- Of all this you knew but a part, & that, no doubt, indistinctly / yet there did appear to me in your letters a sort of indifference -- a total want of affectionate Enquiry -- pardon me, if I dare express all my meaning in a harsh form -- it did appear to me, as if without any attachment to me you were simply gratified by the notion of my attachment to you. But I must repeat (for if I know my own heart, it is the naked Truth) it offended my moral, & not my personal, feelings: for I have purchased Love by Love. -- I am boisterous & talkative in general company; & there are those, who have believed that Vanity is my ruling Passion. They do not know me. -- As an Author, at all events, I have neither Vanity nor ambition -- I think meanly of all, that I have done; and if ever I hope proudly of my future Self, this Hot Fit is uniformly followed & punished by Languor, & Despondency -- or rather, by lazy & unhoping Indifference. -- In the 2nd Volume of Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads you will find certain parts, & superficies of me sketched truly under the title -'A character in the antithetical manner.['] 1 -- I have written thus, and thus prolixly of myself, with far other feelings than those of Self-love, or of pleasure from the writing about myself --. You seemed to doubt my regard & esteem for you: to whom but to a man whom I regarded & esteemed, would I, or could I, have written this Letter? -- Your's, S. T. Coleridge 433. To George Bellas Greenough Address: G. B. Greenough Esq. -Transcript Professor Edith J. Morley. Hitherto unpublished. Monday morning, Jan. [25,] 1802 My dear Greenough I found last night [a] letter (the first I have received from Germany) from the Pastor, with whom I lodged & boarded at Ratzeburg. It interested me, & I think will amuse you -- 'For we have all of us one human heart.' I send you likewise Godwin's Letter, of which you, of course, take care -- & when you have read it, put it safely away till I see you. -- Do be so kind (you humour me so, that I get impudent) as to mend for me the Pens, that are ____________________ 1 See E. L. Griggs, "A Note on Wordsworth's A Character", Rev. of Eng. Studies, Jan 1958, pp. 57-63. -784- inclosed -- / -- I will mend my own head & heart as much as possible, that I may with better confidence subscribe myself, my dear Greenough, | Your affectionate | Friend, S. T. Coleridge 434. To Mrs. S. T. Coleridge MS. Victoria University Lib. Hitherto unpublished. This fragment from the top of pages I and 2 of the manuscript is all that survives. [ February 1802] 1 My dear Sara You did very wrong in not writing to me -- and I did very wrong in writing to you so angrily. Anger on the strongest provocations is rather excusable, than justifiable; . . . . . . beloved Children -- my Hartley -- that apparition of Love / & that Derwent, that creature, that Baby, the idea of whom lives almost as much in my Lips as in my Eyes; so intensely do I long to kiss him. -- Sara's 2. . . 435. To Mrs. S. T. Coleridge Address: Mrs Coleridge | Greta Hall | Keswick | Cumberland MS. Lord Latymer. Pub. E. L. G. i. 191. Postmark: 19 February 1802. No/ 10 King's St, Covent Garden -Friday, Feb. 19, 1802 My dear Love I dined with Southey yesterday, & incautiously [eat] some Greens, & after that some apple Pie; & on my return to my Lodgings to Tea I was taken very ill with colic Pains & Diarrhoea; & when that went off, one of my old shivery fits came / I went to bed -- had a bad night, but about 4 o clock this morning I fell asleep, & awoke at 9 pretty well. With this exception my Health has continued upon the Mend, notwithstanding that the Weather, dank & chill & foggy, has been much against [me]. I attribute my amendment to the more tranquil State of my mind -- & to the chearfulness inspired by the thought of speedily returning to you ____________________ 1 This fragment probably belongs to the early part of 1802. After the birth of his daughter Sara ( 23 Dec. 1802) Coleridge would no longer refer to Derwent as 'that Baby'. 2 No doubt referring to Sara Hutchinson. -785- in love & peace -- I am sure, I drive away from me every thought but those of Hope & the tenderest yearnings after you -- And it is my frequent prayer, & my almost perpetual aspiration, that we may meet to part no more -- & live together as affectionate Husband & Wife ought to do. -- I hope to leave Town this day fortnight, so as to be with you on the 7th of March / the intervening time I shall be very busy / and if I write twice more, it will be as much as I shall be well able to do. -- On Sunday I shall dine with Sir William Rush, & on Monday Evening I am to have a Seat in their Box for Mrs Billington's Benefit -- on Wednesday I dine with Mr Losh. -- I shall exert all my influence to try to get George Fricker a place in the India House, or some other of the public Offices / Mary Lovell is to remain with the Southeys -- in truth, Edith is so exceedingly valetudinarian, that some one or other seems almost necessary. The great Difference of expence will be in the Travelling / & that will be very heavy. Little Subligno (alias, Underwood) fell in love lately with a fair Jewess -- & went to Mr D'Israeli, requesting his interference, & offering immediately to become a convert, & be circumcised. This is nakedly the fact, without a word of Decoration -- I like Subligno hugely. What do you say to a two years' Residence at Montpellier -under blue skies & in a rainless air? In that case, we would go to Liverpool & spend a week or 10 days with the Cromptons -- & from Liverpool to Bordeux by Sea --. But I must first work. Southey would go that way to Lisbon -- & spend some months with us --.-- I wish, you would think of something that I may bring Hartley -I have puzzled my head, & cannot think of any thing that will at once delight him, & be durable. ---- And my sweet Derwent --! My thin child & my fat Child! Remember me most kindly to Mr Jackson & Mrs Wilson -- & to Mr & Mrs Wilkinson -- I hope, you receive the papers regularly. Are you not much affected by the highly sentimental Cast of Mr Ross's Advertisements -- & his Wig-Statue of the lovely & much-lamented Queen of Scots? -- If you wish me to bring any thing from Town, write me what -& I will do it -- God bless you, | & S. T. Coleridge -786- 436. To Thomas Poole Address: Mr T. Pool | N. Stowey | Bridgewater | Somerset MS. British Museum. Hitherto unpublished. Postmark: 19 February 1802. No /10 King's St Covent Garden Friday, Feb. 19, 1802 My dear Poole Of all colors Greens are the most refreshing to weak eyes; but of all vegetables Greens are not the most comforting to weak Bowels. I dined yesterday with Southey, & unfortunately eat some Cole/ went home soon after dinner to write something for Stuart, when I was taken most violently in my bowels, & after an hour's colic & diarrhoea seized with a shivering fit, & went to bed / I was in a high fever till four o/ clock, when I fell into a gentle sleep, & I woke this morning quite recovered. With this exception my health has been on the Mend, since you left town / nor have I had any occasion for opiates of any kind -- neither did I take any last night. -- Your Letter arrived yesterday, with the Bristol post mark, Feb. 17 -- tho' it was dated Monday night. I gave it to Davy, to execute the commissions therein. -- I suppose that by this time you have reached Stowey -- Remember me kindly to Ward. Mr Ridout 1 called on me, & spent half an hour with me. He is a truly amiable man. Indeed, that whole family are a spot of sunshine in the moral World. I scarcely remember having seen so interesting a young Woman, as Mary Ward. -- You may be assured, that in a very short time the first sheet of my metaphysical work will go to the Press. -- My plans are to leave London, in a fortnight/ which time I employ in consulting the Books &c / & in finishing the History of the opinions concerning Space & Time for Mackintosh 2 -When I am more at leisure, I will write you more at length. The anecdote of G. Burnet was very interesting -- I suspected it in London & talked seriously with him; but he denied it. He is now however very happy -- without one earthly Thing to do, but talk Jacobinism with Citizen Stanhope, that glorious Minority of one! -- I have found it convenient to pay Howel for Cloathes &c with a ____________________ 1 J. G. Ridout, Thomas Ward's uncle. See Letter 499. 2 'A great metaphysical book is conceived and about to be born. Thomas Wedgewood the Jupiter whose brain is parturient -- Mackintosh the manmidwife -- a preface on the history of metaphysical opinions promised by Coleridge. This will perhaps prove an abortion. . . . It has, however, proceeded so far as to disturb the spiders, whose hereditary claim to Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus had not been disputed for many a year before. Time and Space are the main subjects of speculation.' Southey to William Taylor, 6 Feb 1802. Memoir of William Taylor, i. 398-9. -787- draft -- therefore you will be so good as to destroy your's, & I send you instead a check on Stuart, who will pay it at sight -- I have deducted the 6£ 12/. When next we meet, my dear Friend! may it be under bluer skies & a more genial Sun! -- God bless you, & your affectionate S. T. Coleridge P.S. We were in truth in much anxiety respecting your Draft on Cruckshank -- & of course, rejoiced at your recovery of it -- 437. To Mrs. S. T. Coleridge Address: Mrs Coleridge | Greta Hall | Keswick | Cumberland MS. Lord Latymer. Pub. Letters, i. 367. Postmark: 24 February 1802. Feb. 24th -- [ 1802] My dear Love I am sure, it will make you happy to hear that both my Health & Spirits have greatly improved -- & I have small doubt, that a residence of two years in a mild & even climate will, with God's Blessing, give me a new Lease in a better Constitution. You may be well assured, that I shall do nothing rashly / but our journey thither I shall defray by Letters to Poole & the Wedgewoods -- or more probably addressed to Mawman, the Bookseller, who will honor my drafts in return. -- Of course, I shall not go till I have earned all the money necessary for the Journey &c -- The plan will be this -- unless you can think of any better. -- Wordsworth will marry soon after my return; 1 & he, Mary, & Dorothy will be our companions, & neighbours / Southey means, if it is in his power, to pass into Spain that way. ----- About July we shall all set sail from Liverpool to Bordeux &c --/ Wordsworth has not yet settled, whether he shall be married at Gallow Hill, or at Grasmere -- only they will of course make a point that either Sara shall be with Mary, or Mary with Sarah / previous to so long a parting. -- If it be decided, that Sarah is to come to Grasmere, I shall return by York, which will be but a few miles out of the way, & bring her / 2. -- ____________________ 1 Wordsworth was not married until 4 Oct. 1802. Undoubtedly letters to and from 'poor Annette' Vallon (see Journals, i. 114-28) led him to delay his marriage until he had seen her and his daughter Caroline. 2 Dorothy says she and Wordsworth were 'perplexed about Sara's coming'; as a matter of fact Sara did not go to Grasmere. Coleridge, nevertheless, arrived at Gallow Hill on Tuesday, 2 Mar., where he remained until 13 Mar. One passage in the original draft of Dejection, an Ode (see Letter 438, p. 792) describes an incident which probably occurred at Gallow Hill at this time. -788- At all events I shall stay a few days at Derby --: for whom, think you, should I meet in Davy's Lecture Room but Joseph Strutt? He behaved most affectionately to me, & pressed me with great earnestness to pass thro' Derby which is on the road to York) & stay a few days at his house among my old friends -- I assure [you], I was much affected by his kind & affectionate [behavior] / tho' I felt a little awkward, not knowing whom I might venture to ask after / I could not bring out the word 'Mrs Evans' -- & so I said -Your Sister, Sir! I HOPE -- she is well! -- / -- On Sunday I dined at Sir William Rush's -- and on Monday likewise -- & went with them to Mrs Billington's Benefit -- 'Twas the Beggar's Opera -- it was perfection! -- I seem to have acquired a new sense by hearing her! -I wished you to have been there --/. I assure you, I am quite a man of fashion -- so many titled acquaintances -- & handsome Carriages stopping at my door -- & fine Cards -- and then I am such an exquisite Judge of Music, & Painting -- & pass criticisms on furniture & chandeliers -- & pay such very handsome Compliments to all Women of Fashion / that I do verily believe, that if I were to stay 3 months in town & have tolerable health & spirits, I should be a Thing in Vogue -- the very tonish Poet & Jemmy Jessamy fine Talker in Town / If you were only to see the tender Smiles that I occasionally receive from the Honorable Mrs Damer -- you would scratch her eyes out, for Jealousy / And then there's the sweet (N.B. musky) Lady Charlotte -- nay, but I won't tell you her name / you might perhaps take it into your head to write an Anonymous Letter to her, & disturb our little innocent amour. -- O that I were at Keswick with my Darlings! My Hartley / My fat Derwent! God bless you, my dear Sara! I shall return in Love & chearfulness, & therefore in pleasurable Convalescence, if not in Health/ -We shall try to get poor dear little Robert into Christ's Hospital / that Wretch of a Quaker will do nothing! The skulking Rogue, 1 just to lay hold of the time when Mrs Lovell was on a Visit to Southey -- there was such low Cunning in the Thought -- Remember me most kindly to Mr & Mrs Wilkinson / & tell Mr Jackson, that I have not shaken a hand, since I quitted him, with more esteem & glad feeling, that I shall soon, I trust, shake his with -- God bless you & your aff. & * faithful Hus. S. T. Coleridge ____________________ * notwithstanding the Honorable Mrs D. & Lady Charlotte ---- [Note by S. T. C.] 1 The grandfather of 'little Robert' Lovell. See Letter 124. -789- 438. To Sara Hutchinson MS. Dove Cottage. Pub. E. de Selincourt, "Coleridge's Dejection: an Ode", Essays and Studies by Members of the English Association, 1937, vol. xxii, 7-25. This earliest draft of Dejection was addressed as a letter to Sara Hutchinson. When Coleridge first published the poem in the Morning Post on 4 October 1802 (the seventh anniversary of his own marriage and Wordsworth's wedding day) and later in Sibylline Leaves, he gave it a unity lacking in its epistolary form and omitted the most personal passages. Thus he turned a poetic letter full of self-revelation and self-pity into a work of art with a timeless and universal significance. See Poems, i. 862, and Letters 445, 449, 464 and 1512. A Letter to ---- April 4, 1802. -- Sunday Evening. Well! if the Bard was weatherwise, who made The grand old Ballad of Sir Patrick Spence, This Night, so tranquil now, will not go hence Unrous'd by winds, that ply a busier trade Than that, which moulds yon clouds in lazy flakes, Or the dull sobbing Draft, that drones & rakes Upon the Strings of this Eolian Lute, Which better far were mute. For, lo! the New Moon, winter-bright! And overspread with phantom Light, (With swimming phantom Light o'erspread But rimm'd & circled with a silver Thread) I see the Old Moon in her Lap, foretelling The coming-on of Rain & squally Blast -O! Sara! that the Gust ev'n now were swelling, And the slant Night-shower driving loud & fast! A Grief without a pang, void, dark, & drear, A stifling, drowsy, unimpassiond Grief That finds no natural Outlet, no Relief In word, or sigh, or tear -This, Sara! well thou know'st, Is that sore Evil, which I dread the most, And oft'nest suffer! In this heartless Mood, To other thoughts by yonder Throstle woo'd, That pipes within the Larch tree, not unseen, (The Larch, which pushes out in tassels green It's bundled Leafits) woo'd to mild Delights By all the tender Sounds & gentle Sights Of this sweet Primrose-month -- & vainly woo'd -790- O dearest Sara! in this heartless Mood All this long Eve, so balmy & serene, Have I been gazing on the western Sky And it's peculiar Tint of Yellow Green -And still I gaze -- & with how blank an eye! And those thin Clouds above, in flakes & bars, That give away their Motion to the Stars; Those Stars, that glide behind them, or between, Now sparkling, now bedimm'd, but always seen; Yon crescent Moon, as fix'd as if it grew In it's own cloudless, starless Lake of Blue -A boat becalm'd! dear William's Sky Canoe! 1 -- I see them all, so excellently fair! I see, not feel, how beautiful they are. My genial Spirits fail -And what can these avail To lift the smoth'ring Weight from off my Breast? It were a vain Endeavor, Tho' I should gaze for ever On that Green Light which lingers in the West! I may not hope from outward Forms to win The Passion & the Life whose Fountains are within! These lifeless Shapes, around, below, Above, O what can they impart? When even the gentle Thought, that thou, my Love! Art gazing now, like me, And see'st the Heaven, I see -Sweet Thought it is -- yet feebly stirs my Heart! Feebly! O feebly! -- Yet (I well remember it) In my first Dawn of Youth that Fancy stole With many secret 2 Yearnings on my Soul. At eve, sky-gazing in 'ecstatic fit' 3 (Alas! for cloister'd in a city School The Sky was all, I knew, of Beautiful) 4 At the barr'd window often did I sit, And oft upon the leaded School-roof lay, And to myself would say -- ____________________ 1 Cf. Prologue to Peter Bell. 2 gentle [Cancelled word in line above.] 3 Milton, The Passion, line 42. 4 Cf. Frost at Midnight, lines 51-53. -791- There does not live the Man so stripp'd of good affections As not to love to see a Maiden's quiet Eyes Uprais'd, and linking on sweet Dreams by dim Connections To Moon, or Evening Star, or glorious western Skies -While yet a Boy, this Thought would so pursue me That often it became a kind of Vision to me! Sweet Thought! and dear of old To Hearts of finer Mould! Ten thousand times by Friends & Lovers blest! I spake with rash Despair, And ere I was aware, The Weight was somewhat lifted from my Breast! O Sara! in the weather-fended Wood, Thy lov'd haunt! where the Stock-doves coo at Noon, I guess, that thou hast stood And watch'd yon Crescent, & it's ghost-like Moon. And yet, far rather in my present Mood I would, that thou'dst been sitting all this while Upon the sod-built Seat of Camomile -- 1 And tho' thy Robin may have ceas'd to sing, Yet needs for my sake must thou love to hear The Bee-hive murmuring near, That ever-busy & most quiet Thing Which I have heard at Midnight murmuring. 2 I feel my spirit moved -And wheresoe'er thou be, O Sister! O Beloved! Those dear mild Eyes, that see Even now the Heaven, I see -There is a Prayer in them! It is for me -And I, dear Sara -- I am blessing thee! It was as calm as this, that happy night When Mary, thou, & I together were, The low decaying Fire our only Light, And listen'd to the Stillness of the Air! O that affectionate & blameless Maid, Dear Mary! on her Lap my head she lay'd -Her Hand was on my Brow, Even as my own is now; ____________________ 1 Built by Coleridge and the Wordsworths, 10 Oct. 1801. See Journals, i. 77. 2 Cf. A Day-dream, line 35. -792- And on my Cheek I felt thy eye-lash play. Such Joy I had, that I may truly say, My Spirit was awe-stricken with the Excess And trance-like Depth of it's brief Happiness. 1 Ah fair Remembrances, that so revive The Heart, & fill it with a living Power, Where were they, Sara? -- or did I not strive To win them to me? -- on the fretting Hour Then when I wrote thee that complaining Scroll Which even to bodily Sickness bruis'd thy Soul! And yet thou blam'st thyself alone! And yet Forbidd'st me all Regret! And must I not regret, that I distress'd Thee, best belov'd I who lovest me the best? My better mind had fled, I know not whither, For O! was this an absent Friend's Employ To send from far both Pain & Sorrow thither Where still his Blessings should have call'd down Joy! I read thy guileless Letter o'er again -I hear thee of thy blameless Self complain -And only this I learn -- & this, alas! I know -That thou art weak & pale with Sickness, Grief, & Pain -And I -- I made thee so! O for my own sake I regret perforce Whatever turns thee, Sara! from the Course Of calm Well-being & a Heart at rest! When thou, & with thee those, whom thou lov'st best, Shall dwell together in one happy Home, One House, the dear abiding Home of All, I too will crown me with a Coronal -- 2 Nor shall this Heart in idle Wishes roam Morbidly soft! No! let me trust, that I shall wear away In no inglorious Toils the manly Day, And only now & then, & not too oft, Some dear & memorable Eve will bless Dreaming of all your Loves & Quietness. ____________________ 1 The incident described in this stanza becomes the subject of A Daydream. See Poems, i. 385. 2 Cf. Intimations Ode, line 40, 'My head hath its corona'. Coleridge's line, which appears in no other version of his poem, clearly links Dejection with Wordsworth's Ode, the first four stanzas of which were composed in Mar. 1802. -793- Be happy, & I need thee not in sight. Peace in thy Heart, & Quiet in thy Dwelling, Health in thy Limbs, & in thine Eyes the Light Of Love, & Hope, & honorable Feeling -Where e'er I am, I shall be well content! Not near thee, haply shall be more content! To all things I prefer the Permanent. And better seems it for a heart, like mine, Always to know, than sometimes to behold, Their Happiness & thine -For Change doth trouble me with pangs untold! To see thee, hear thee, feel thee -- then to part Oh! -- it weighs down the Heart! To visit those, I love, as I love thee, Mary, & William, & dear Dorothy, It is but a temptation to repine -The transientness is Poison in the Wine, Eats out the pith of Joy, makes all Joy hollow, All Pleasure a dim Dream of Pain to follow! My own peculiar Lot, my house-hold Life It is, & will remain, Indifference or Strife. While ye are well & happy, 'twould but wrong you If I should fondly 1 yearn to be among you -Wherefore, O wherefore! should I wish to be A wither'd branch upon a blossoming Tree? But (let me say it! for I vainly strive To beat away the Thought) but if thou pin'd, Whate'er the Cause, in body or in mind, I were the miserablest Man alive To know it & be absent! Thy Delights Far off, or near, alike I may partake -But O! to mourn for thee, & to forsake All power, all hope of giving comfort to thee -To know that thou art weak & worn with pain, And not to hear thee, Sara! not to view thee -Not sit beside thy Bed, Not press thy aching Head, Not bring thee Health again -At least to hope, to try -By this Voice, which thou lov'st, & by this earnest Eye -Nay, wherefore did I let it haunt my Mind The dark distressful Dream! ____________________ 1 idly [Cancelled word in line above.] -794- I turn from it, & listen to the Wind Which long has rav'd 1 unnotic'd! What a Scream Of agony by Torture lengthen'd out That Lute sent forth! O thou wild Storm without! Jagg'd Rock 2, or mountain Pond, or blasted Tree, Or Pine-grove, whither Woodman never clomb, Or lonely House, long held the Witches' Home, Methinks were fitter Instruments for Thee, Mad Lutanist! that in this month of Showers, Of dark brown Gardens, & of peeping Flowers, Mak'st Devil's Yule, with worse than wintry Song The Blossoms, Buds, and timorous Leaves among! Thou Actor, perfect in all tragic Sounds! Thou mighty Poet, even to frenzy bold! What tell'st thou now about? 'Tis of the Rushing of an Host in Rout -And many Groans from men with smarting Wounds -At once they groan with smart, and shudder with the Cold! 'Tis hush'd! there is a Trance of deepest Silence, Again! but all that Sound, as of a rushing Crowd, And Groans & tremulous Shudderings, all are over -And it has other Sounds, and all less deep, less loud! A Tale of less Affright, And temper'd with Delight, As William's Self had made the tender Lay -- 3 'Tis of a little Child Upon a heathy Wild, Not far from home -- but it has lost it's way -And now moans low in utter grief & fear -And now screams loud, & hopes to make it's Mother hear! 4 'Tis Midnight! and small Thoughts 5 have I of Sleep -Full seldom may my Friend such Vigils keep -O breathe She softly in her gentle Sleep! Cover her, gentle Sleep! with wings of Healing. And be this Tempest but a Mountain Birth! May all the Stars hang bright above her Dwelling, Silent, as tho' they watch'd the sleeping Earth! 6 ____________________ 1 howl'd [Cancelled word in line above.] 2 Steep Crag [Cancelled words in line above.] 3 A reference to Wordsworth Lucy Gray. 4 See Letter 377 for the germ of this passage. 5 Hope [Cancelled word in line above.] 6 See Letter 567, at the end of which these two lines are quoted. -795- Healthful & light, my Darling! may'st thou rise With clear & cheerful Eyes -And of the same good Tidings to me send! For, oh! beloved Friend! I am not the buoyant Thing, I was of yore -When like an own Child, I to JOY belong'd; For others mourning oft, myself oft sorely wrong'd, Yet bearing all things then, as if I nothing bore! Yes, dearest Sara! yes! There was a time when tho' my path was rough, The Joy within me dallied with Distress; And all Misfortunes were but as the Stuff Whence Fancy made me Dreams of Happiness: For Hope grew round me, like the climbing Vine, And Leaves & Fruitage, not my own, seem'd mine! But now Ill Tidings 1 bow me down to earth / Nor care I, that they rob me of my Mirth / But oh! each Visitation Suspends what Nature gave me at my Birth, My shaping Spirit of Imagination! I speak not now of those habitual Ills That wear out Life, when two unequal Minds Meet in one House, & two discordant Wills -This leaves me, where it finds, Past cure, & past Complaint -- a fate austere Too fix'd & hopeless to partake of Fear! But thou, dear Sara! (dear indeed thou art, My Comforter! A Heart within my Heart!) Thou, & the Few, we love, tho' few ye be, Make up a world of Hopes & Fears for me. And if 2 Affliction, or distemp'ring Pain, Or wayward Chance befall you, I complain Not that I mourn -- O Friends, most dear! most true! Methinks to weep with you Were better far than to rejoice alone -But that my coarse domestic Life has known No Habits of heart-nursing Sympathy, No Griefs, but such as dull and deaden me, No mutual mild Enjoyments of it's own, No Hopes of it's own Vintage, None, O! none -- ____________________ 1 Misfortunes [Cancelled word in line above.] 2 when [Cancelled word in line above.] -796- Whence when I mourn'd for you, my Heart might borrow Fair forms & living Motions for it's Sorrow. For not to think of what I needs must feel, But to be still & patient all I can; And 1 haply by abstruse Research to steal From my own Nature all the Natural Man -This was my sole Resource, my wisest plan! And that, which suits a part, infects the whole, And now is almost grown the Temper of my Soul. My little Children are a Joy, a Love, A good Gift from above! But what is Bliss, that still calls up a Woe, And makes it doubly keen Compelling me to feel, as well as KNOW, What a most blessed Lot mine might have been. Those little Angel Children (woe is me!) There have been hours, when feeling how they bind And pluck out the Wing-feathers of my Mind, Turning my Error to Necessity, I have half-wish'd, they never had been born! That seldom! But sad Thoughts they always bring, And like the Poet's Philomel, I sing My Love-song, with my breast against a Thorn. With no unthankful Spirit I confess, This clinging Grief too, in it's turn, awakes That Love, and Father's Joy; but O! it makes The Love the greater, & the Joy far less. These Mountains too, these Vales, these Woods, these Lakes, Scenes full of Beauty & of Loftiness Where all my Life I fondly hop'd to live -I were sunk low indeed, did they no solace give; But oft I seem to feel, & evermore I fear, They are not to me now the Things, which once they were. 2 O Sara! we receive but what we give, And in our Life alone does Nature live. Our's is her Wedding Garment, our's her Shroud -And would we aught behold of higher Worth Than that inanimate cold World allow'd To the poor loveless ever-anxious Crowd, ____________________ 1 Or [Cancelled word in line above.] 2 Cf. Intimations Ode, line 9: 'The things which I have seen I now can see no more.' Coleridge's line appears only in this version of his poem. -797- Ah! from the Soul itself must issue forth A Light, a Glory, and a luminous Cloud Enveloping the Earth! And from the Soul itself must there be se[nt] A sweet & potent Voice, of it's own Bir[th,] Of all sweet Sounds the Life & Element. O pure of Heart! thou need'st not ask of me What this strong music in the Soul may be, What, & wherein it doth exist, This Light, this Glory, this fair luminous Mist, This beautiful & beauty-making Power! JOY, innocent Sara! Joy, that ne'er was given Save to the Pure, & in their purest Hour, JOY, Sara I is the Spirit & the Power, That wedding Nature to us gives in Dower A new Earth & new Heaven Undreamt of by the Sensual & the Proud! Joy is that strong Voice, Joy that luminous Cloud -We, we ourselves rejoice! And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight, All melodies the Echoes of that Voice, All Colors a Suffusion of that Light. Sister & Friend of my devoutest Choice! Thou being innocent & full of love, And nested with the Darlings of thy Love, And feeling in thy Soul, Heart, Lips, & Arms Even what the conjugal & mother Dove That borrows genial Warmth from those, she warms, Feels in her thrill'd wings, blessedly outspread -Thou free'd awhile from Cares & human Dread By the Immenseness of the Good & Fair Which thou see'st every where -Thus, thus should'st thou rejoice! To thee would all Things live from Pole to Pole, Their Life the Eddying of thy living Soul -O dear! O Innocent! O full of Love! A very 1 Friend! A 2 Sister of my Choice -O dear, as Light & Impulse from above, Thus may'st thou ever, evermore rejoice! S. T. C. ____________________ 1 gentle [Cancelled word in line above.] 2 O [Cancelled word in line above.] -798- 439. To Thomas Poole Address: Mr T. Poole | N. Stowey | Bridgewater | Somerset MS. British Museum. Pub. with omis. E. L. G. i. 193. Postmark: 10 May 1802. Stamped: Keswick. May 7, [ 1802.] Friday -- Keswick My dear Poole I were sunk low indeed, if I had neglected to write to you from any lack of affection / I have written to no human being -- which I mention, not as an excuse, but as preventive of any aggravation of my fault. I have neither been very well, nor very happy; but I have been far from idle / and I can venture to promise you that by the end of the year I shall have disburthened myself of all my metaphysics, &c -- & that the next year I shall, if I am alive & in possession of my present faculties, devote to a long poem. -- All my small poems are about to be published, as a second Volume / & I mean to write few, if any, small poems, hereafter. -- So much for myself -- My children are well -- Mrs Coleridge is indisposed, & I have too much reason to suspect that she is breeding again / an event, which was to have been deprecated. -- Wordsworth is as well as he usually is; & has written a considerable number of small poems. -- So much for us of the North. -- And you are going to France, Switzerland, Italy! -- Good go with you, & with you return! I have, you well know, read nothing in French but metaphysical French / of French Books I know nothing -- of French manners nothing -- Wordsworth, to whom I shall send your Letter tomorrow, may perhaps have somewhat to communicate / he having been the same rout -- but what can you want? I never saw you in any company in which you did not impress every one present as a superior man / and you will not be three days in France without having learnt the way of learning all you want --. I advise one thing only -- that before you go you skim over Adam Smith, & that in France you look thro' some of their most approved writers on political Economy -- & that you keep your mind intent on this / I am sure, that it is a Science in it's Infancy -indeed, Science it is none -- & you, I would fain anticipate, will be a Benefactor to your Species by making it so. -- Had I been you, I would have gone thro' France & Switzerland, & returned by Paris -- & not gone to Paris first. Such a crowd of eager Englishmen will be there, at the same time with you, all pressing forward with their Letters of Recommendation / & you will find it difficult perhaps to remain disentangled by their society / To which as a more important Reason I may add the superior skill & fluency in French -799- & french manners -- the naturalization of Look & Tongue -- which will enable you to converse with the Literati of Paris on a better footing, if you take Paris last. -- I had offers made me by a London Bookseller of paying me the reasonable expences, of a tour thro' France & Switzerland, on the condition of a regular correspondence with him, which he was, of course, to publish / but tho' I had many strong domestic reasons impelling me to accept the offer, among others the benefit which my Health would have received from such a vacation from household Infelicity, yet I declined it -- chiefly, but not altogether, from my ignorance of the French Language -- / In Switzerland indeed they speak German; but there one uses one's Eyes more than one's Tongue or Ears -- / It would be droll if we had met -- you not knowing of my Scheme! -- What an Æra in our Lives it would have been, to have passed thro' Switzerland together -- You will (tho' I have little claim upon you, I confess) give me the delight of hearing from you / especially, I am solicitous to know the price of provisions & house rent in the South of France -nearest Switzerland / I am glad, you have received the German Picture 1 -- there is one (I see by the Newspaper) in the Exhibition of me / what it is, or whose, I do not know, but I guess, it must be the miniature, which Hazlitt promised to Mrs Coleridge; but did not give to her, because I never finished my sittings / Mine is not a picturesque Face / Southey's was made for a picture. -- Poor old Cruckshank! 2 -- Give my kind Love to Ward -- I will not let this post go off without this Letter, dreary & vacant as it is -- but I will write again, in a few days, when my heart is come back to me / but not to leave such a Blank I will transcribe 2 pleasing little poems of Wordsworth's -- To a Butterfly 3 Stay near me! Do not take thy Flight! A little longer stay in sight! Much Reading do I find in thee, Historian of my Infancy! Float near me! do not yet depart! Dead Times revive in thee -Thou bring'st, gay creature as thou art, A solemn Image to my Heart, My Father's Family. ____________________ 1 See p. 470. 2 Poole had written to Coleridge of the death of William Cruikshank, Lord Egmont's agent. 3 Wordsworth Poet. Works, i. 226. -800- O pleasant, pleasant were the Days The time when in our childish plays My Sister Emmeline & I Together chac'd the Butterfly. A very Hunter did I rush Upon the Prey: with Leaps & Springs I follow'd on from Brake to Bush -But she, God love her! fear'd to brush The Dust from off it's wings. The Sparrow's Nest 1 Look! five blue Eggs are gleaming there! Few Visions have I seen more fair Nor many Prospects of Delight More pleasing than that simple sight! I started, seeming to espy The Home & little Bed, The Sparrow's Dwelling which hard by My Father's House, in wet or dry, My Sister Emmeline & I Together visited. She look'd at it, as if she fear'd it, Still wishing, dreading to be near it; Such Heart was in her, being then A little Prattler among men. The Blessing of my later years Was with me when a Boy, She gave me eyes, she gave me ears, And humble Cares & delicate Fears, A heart the fountain of sweet Tears, And love & thought & Joy! I ought to say for my own sake that on the 4th of April last I wrote you a letter in verse; but I thought it dull & doleful -- & did not send it ----- God bless you, dear Friend! & S. T. C. ----- ____________________ 1 Wordsworth Poet. Works, i. 227. -801- 440. To George Coleridge Address: Revd G. Coleridge | Ottery St Mary | Devon by favor of Revd Mr Froude MS. Lady Cave. Pub. E. L. G. i. 196. June 3, 1802. Keswick. My dear Brother I cannot let Mr Froude stay so long in this country without making him the Bearer of a Letter to you from me / especially, since he has given me so much cheerful Information respecting you, & your's, & the rest of my family. I pray God, that you may all continue as well and happy, as you are prosperous. I assure you I was much affected by the zeal & enthusiasm, with which Mr Froude spoke of you, & the Colonel. He seemed to feel as great a pride in your welfare, & high character, as if you had been his elder Brothers, instead of mine. -- Froude is indeed a very amiable, liberal, & well-principled Man; & I sincerely hope, that he will take with him from among us an accession to his real comfort. ----- As to myself, I have little to communicate. My health is much better than it was; tho' I have still very frequent attacks in my Bowels. They are a seditious Crew; and I have need of the most scrupulous attention to my Diet to preserve them in any tolerable Order. The children are both well; and Derwent is, as Froude will no doubt inform you, a thorough Coleridge in his whole Cast. Hartley is more a thing sui Generis -- but he is of a very sweet and docile Disposition, & possesses that, for which, I believe, I was somewhat remarkable when a child, namely, a memory both quick & retentive. -- Mrs S. Coleridge is but poorly / however her Disorder menaces me with no other Event, I suspect, than that of a New Life. -- As to my Studies, they lie chiefly, I think, in Greek & German. (Hartley made me laugh the other day by saying, that Greek Letters were English Letters dried up.) Tho' I have a great prepossession in favour of all ancient usages, (τά ཰ρχαîα κρατείτω) yet I can not but conjecture, that it would be found both a feasible & profitable Scheme to teach Greek first. It seems wrong, that a language containing Books so much more numerous & valuable than the Latin, & in itself so much more easy & perspicuous, should be confined, as to the ready & fluent Reading of it, to a few Scholars. This is owing solely to the Teaching of the Greek thro' the medium of the Latin; whereas, according to my humble Vote, both Greek & Latin should be taught with direct reference to the English. What should we think of a Schoolmaster, who taught Italian thro' the medium of French? -- But you are more likely to have formed -802- correct opinions on this Subject than I. -- I will only add, that at the time of the first Greek Dictionaries there were not Scholars enough in any one Country to take off so large an Edition, as it was necessary to print / they were therefore compelled to render the Greek into the universal Language / But the cause having so wholly ceased, it is pity but that the effect would likewise cease. Gilbert Wakefield was engaged, & had made good progress, in a Greek & English Lexicon / what is become of it, I have not heard. -- I have read Vincent on the Greek Verb -- in my opinion ----πάυτα κóυ¡ς, καྲྀ πάυτα τó μηδέυ -- It is too dull, to say -- πάυτα γέFגως -πάυτα དπυως, would be the aptest Supplement. You have been, no doubt, interested in some measure by the French Concordat. I own, I was surprized to find it so much approved of by Clergymen of the Church / It appeared to me a wretched Business -- & first occasioned me to think accurately & with consecutive Logic on the force & meaning of the word Estabished Church / and the result of my reflections was very greatly in favor of the Church of England maintained, as it at present is / and those scruples, which, if I mistake not, we had in common when I last saw you, as to the effects & scriptural propriety of this (supposed) alliance of Church & State were wholly removed. -Perhaps, you will in some measure perceive the general nature of my opinions, when I say -- the Church of France at present ought to be called -- a standing church -- in the same sense as we say a standing army. -- If the Subject interested you, I would willingly give you my opinions in full, with an historical account of the Objections of the Dissenters, & of the Warburtonian System of defence, which I rather dislike & suspect. Warburton's Faith was, I fear, of a very suspicious Cast. 1 -- You will give my love & Duty to my Mother, of whose health & good spirits I am delighted to hear -- to my Brother James, his wife, & dear & lively family you will remember me with fraternal affection -- & to Edward / -- Above all, let me say how much I should be delighted to see your little ones, & Mrs G. Coleridge -and if I had written half as often as I have thought of you, (earnestly & seriously thought of you) you would have complained heavily of the Postage, & with good reason. -- God bless you, dear Brother, & your's affectionately & gratefully, S. T. Coleridge ____________________ 1 See William Warburton, The Alliance between Church and State, 1736. -803- 441. To Sara Hutchinson MS. Dove Cottage. Hitherto unpublished fragment. [Early Summer 1802] 1 . . . -- Hartley told his Mother, that he was thinking all day -- all the morning, all the day, all the evening -- 'what it would be, if there were Nothing / if all the men, & women, & Trees, & grass, and birds & beasts, & the Sky, & the Ground, were all gone / Darkness & Coldness -- & nothing to be dark & cold.' His Mother . . . . . . [His] motto from infancy might have been not me alone! [']My Thoughts are my Darlings!' -- Hartley's attachments are excessively strong -- so strong, even to places, that he does not like to go into town -- or on a visit / The field, garden, & river bank / his Kitchen & darling Friend -- they are enough / & Play fellows are burthensome to him / excepting me / because I can understand & sympathize with, his wild Fancies -- & suggest others of my own. -I am tolerably -- My best Love . . . 442. To Sara Hutchinson Address: Miss S. Hutchins[on] | Gallow Hill | Wykeham | [Malto[n] | Yorksh[ire] MS. Dove Cottage. Hitherto unpublished fragment. [Early Summer 1802] . . . The [dear] Children are both well. Derwent, if I have re[mained] a long time without noticing him, comes to me, & says -- Tiss! -He is such an angel! -- Some time ago I watched Hartley under the Trees, down by the River -- the Birds singing so sweetly above him / & he was evidently lost in thought. I went down, & asked him what his Thoughts were-so he hugged me, & said after a while 'I thought, how I love the sweet Birds, & the Flowers, & Derwent, and Thinking; & how I hate Reading, & being wise, & being Good.' -- Does not this remind you of 'the pretty Boy' in my Foster Mother's Tale 2 -- in the L.B. -- . . . ____________________ 1 This and the following fragment belong to 1802, before the birth of Sara. 2 Cf. lines 28-35: And so the babe grew up a pretty boy, A pretty boy, but most unteachable -And never learnt a prayer, nor told a bead, But knew the names of birds, and mock'd their notes, And whistled, as he were a bird himself: And all the autumn 'twas his only play To get the seeds of wild flowers, and to plant them With earth and water, on the stumps of trees. -804- 443. To George Coleridge Address: Revd G. Coleridge | Lymington | Hampshire MS. Lady Cave. Pub. E. L. G. i. 199. Stamped: Keswick. Keswick, Thurs: July 1. 1802 My dear Brother If you have had the same Tempest at Lymington, as has been playing it's freaks among our Lakes & mountains this whole Day, the sea must have 'shown off in a grand style', as the Tourists phrase it. May you have occasion to exclaim with the younger Pliny -- 'O Mare! O Littus! Verum secretumque Moυϭîoυ,quám multa invenitis, quám multa dictatis!' 1 It gave me great pleasure to hear from yourself a confirmation of what Mr Froude had hin[ted] to me -- namely, your intention of living hereafter for yourself -- because I am well assured, that in so doing you will, in some way or other, be living still for the benefit of others. You have purchased for yourself a high earthly Reward, the Love & Honor of men, whom you yourself have been the main Instrument of rendering worthy to be themselves loved & honored. -- It seems as if there were something originally amiss in the constitution of all our family -- if that can be indeed without presumption called 'amiss' which may probably be connected intimately with our moral & [int]ellectual characters -- but we all, I think, carry much passion, [& a] deep interest, into the business of Life -- & when to this is supe[ra]dded, as in my Brother James's Case, great bodily fatigue, the organs of digestion will be soon injured -in weak men this in general produces affections of the Bowels, more or less painful, in strong men spasmodic hypochondria, that will appear to have it's head quarters in the Stomach, & the Secretories of Bile -- and I suspect the latter to be my Brother's case, & that the only prescription is that of the old Latin Distich / Si tibi deficiant Medici, Medici tibi fiant Haec tria: Mens hilaris, Requies, moderata Diaeta. The last is an old acquaintance of the Colonel's; & the two former depend but little on our own arbitrement: so that alas! like advice in general, it is very true, and yet but little worth. ---- I have been better of late -- so much better, that I have hopes of soon becoming a tolerably healthy man / a stout man I never shall be. ----- From the latter part of your Letter I fear that I must have worded my Letter to you very inacc[ur]ately in what respected the change of sentiment -- in saying that I had no longer my former scruples ____________________ 1 Pliny, Epis. I. ix, to Minicius Fundanus. -805- respecting the establishment of the Church of England, I did not mean in any way to refer to it's peculiar Doctrines -- or to the Church of England in particular. The change in my opinions applies equally to the Gallic Church, antecedent to the Revolution, and to the regular & parochial Clergy of Spain & Portugal. -- The Clergy are called in a statute of Queen Elizabeth 'the great, venerable, third Estate of the Realm' -- that is to say, they & their property are an elementary part of our constitution, not created by any Legislature, but really & truly antecedent to any form of Government in England upon which any existing Laws can be built -They & their Property are recognized by the Statutes -- even as the common Law frequently is -- which was bona fide Law, & the most sacred Law, before the Statute / and recognized not for the purpose of having any additional authority conferred on it, but for the removing of any ambiguities & for the increasing of it's publicity. The Church is not depend[en]t on the Government, nor can the Legislature constit[ution]ally alter it's property without consent of the Proprietor -- any [more] than it constitutionally could introduce an agrarian Law. -- Now this is indeed an Establishment -res stabilita -- it has it's own foundations / whereas the present church of France has no foundation of it's own -- it is a House of Convenience built on the sands of a transient Legislature -- & no wise differs from a standing Army. The colonial Soldiers under the Roman Emperors were an established Army, in a certain sense -& so were the Timariots under the Turks / -- but the Church of France is a standing church, as it's army is a standing army. It stands; and so does a Child's House of Cards -- but how long it shall stand depends on the caprice of a few Individuals. -- This I hold to be indeed & in sad & sober Truth an antichristian union of the Kingdom of Christ with the Kingdom of this World -- & in a less degree I look upon the manner, in which the Dissenting Clergy are maintained, as objectionable on the same grounds. Now herein, & only herein, lies the Change in my opinions. -- When I was last with you, & we walked on a Sunday Evening with Mr Southey, toward the Head wier [Weir], you expressed your Dissent from Dr Priestley's opinions, & your disapprobation of the Spirit in which they had been made public; but you said, (& I had heard the same opinion from you before) that you did agree with him in thinking, that Church Establishments had been prejudicial to Christianity. -At that time I was wholl[y] of the same mind & so I remained till mor[e re]ading [and] Reflection removed that opinion, which I ha[d felt to be] common at that time to yourself & to me -----. Wi[th regard] to the particular Doctrines of the Church, or to any [change] I had no motive to speak -- for I have always [declared to] -806- you the truth & the whole truth, when I have talk[ed with you] on this subject -- & I could never discover any differen[ce in your] opinions and my own. -- I understood that in common [with all] the best & greatest men of the Church, with Bishop Tay[lor, Archb]ishop Tillotson, Bishop Law -- (not to mention W[illiam] Paley, & Jortin, because these are, rightly or wrongly believed to be semisocinians) you regretted that so many scholastic Terms & nice Distinctions had been introduced into our Articles & Liturgy -- I do no more. I have read carefully the original of the New Testament -& have convinced myself, that the Socinian & Arian Hypotheses are utterly untenable; but what to put in their place? I find [nothing so] distinctly revealed, that I should dare to impose my opinion as an article of Faith on others -- on the contrary, I hold it probable that the Nature of the Being of Christ is left in obscurity -- & that it behoves us to think with deep humility on the subject, & when we express ourselves, to be especially careful, on such a subject, to use the very words of Scripture. -- Dearest Brother! is there a serious Clergyman of all your acquaintance who does not, when he puts the Question seriously to himself, wish that this could be -- if it could be without too dear a purchase? -- But we know by sad Experience, that Innovations are almost always dearly purchased -- & I plead for no innovations -- not even of the rash Anathemas of the Preface to the athanasian Creed -- neither do I either with my Tongue or in my Heart censure those, who cling to the Church of England as they cling to their Wives -- first, because there is great evil in change -- & secondly, because all moral & all political attachment must be grounded, not on an immunity from defects & errors, but on the presence of Truths & Virtues practicable & suitable to us. ----- My Faith is simply this -- that there is an original corruption in our nature, from which & from the consequences of which, we may be redeemed by Christ -- not as the Socinians say, by his pure morals or excellent Example merely -but in a mysterious manner as an effect of his Crucifixion -- and this I believe -- not because I understand it; but because I feel, that it is not only suitable to, but needful for, my nature and because I find it clearly revealed. -- Whatever the New Testament says, I believe -- according to my best judgment of the meaning of the sacred writers. -- Thus I have stated to you this whole of the Change which has taken place in me -- which is however far from being 'the fi[rst] fruits' of my reverence for the τά ཰ͱχαîα κρ[ατε]ίτω -- My kindest Love to Mrs G. Coleridge -- in [whic]h & to you, & your dear little ones Mrs C. [joins] -- S. T. Coleridge -807- 444. To William Sotheby 1 Address: William Sotheby Esq. | Upper Seymour [St] | London Single Sheet MS. Colonel H. G. Sotheby. Pub. with omis. Letters, i. 369. Stamped: Keswick. Tuesday, July 18, 1802. Greta Hall, Keswick My dear Sir I had written you a letter, and was about to have walked to the Post with it, when I received your's from Longnor -- it gave me such lively pleasure, that I threw my Letter into the Fire / for it related chiefly to the Erste Schiffer of Gesner 2 / and I could not endure that my first Letter to you should begin with a subject so little interesting to my Heart or Understanding. -- I trust, that you are before this at the end of your Journey; and that Mrs and Miss Sotheby have so completely recovered themselves, as to have almost forgotten all the fatigue, except such instances of it as it may be pleasant to them to remember. Why need I say, how often I have thought of you since your departure, & with what Hope & pleasurable Emotion? I will acknowlege to you, that your very, very kind Letter was not only a Pleasure to me, but a Relief to my mind / for after I had left you on the Road between Ambleside & Grasmere, I was dejected by the apprehension, that I had been unpardonably loquacious, and had oppressed you, & still more Mrs Sotheby, with my many words so impetuously uttered. But in simple truth you were yourselves in part the innocent causes of it / for the meeting with you; the manner of the meeting; your kind attentions to me; the deep & healthful delight, which every impressive & beautiful object seemed to pour out upon you; kindred opinions, kindred pursuits, kindred feelings, in persons whose Habits & as it were Walk of Life, have been so different from my own --; these, and more than these which I would but cannot say, all flowed in upon me with unusually strong Impulses of Pleasure / and Pleasure, in a body & soul such as I happen to possess, 'intoxicates more than strong Wine.' -- However, I promise to be a much more subdued creature -- when you next meet me / for ____________________ 1 William Sotheby ( 1757-1833), poet, dramatist, and translator, became Coleridge's staunch friend from the time of their meeting in 1802. 2 Coleridge's translation of Salomon Gessner poem, Der erste Schiffer, was to be published with illustrations by the engraver, P. W. Tomkins. Although in subsequent letters Coleridge gives Sotheby the impression that he had completed the work, he wrote to Godwin in 1811 that he had composed only part of it: 'I once translated into blank verse about half of the poem, but gave it up under the influence of a double disgust, moral and poetical.' William Godwin, ii. 223. No trace of Coleridge's translation remains. -808- I had but just recovered from a state of extreme dejection brought on in part by Ill-health, partly by other circumstances / and Solitude and solitary Musings do of themselves impregnate our Thoughts perhaps with more Life & Sensation, than will leave the Balance quite even. -- But you, my dear Sir! looked [at a] Brother Poet with a Brother's Eyes -- O that you were now in my study, & saw what is now before the window, at which I am writing, that rich mulberry-purple which a floating Cloud has thrown on the Lake -- & that quiet Boat making it's way thro' it to the Shore! -- We have had little else but Rain & squally weather since you left us, till within the last three Days -- but showery weather is no evil to us& even that most oppressive of all weathers, hot small Drizzle, exhibits the Mountains the best of any. It produced such new combinations of Ridges in the Lodore & Borrodale Mountains, on Saturday morning, that, I declare, had I been blindfolded & so brought to the Prospect, I should scarcely have known them again. It was a Dream, such as Lovers have -- a wild & transfiguring, yet enchantingly lovely, Dream of an Object lying by the side of the Sleeper. Wordsworth, who has walked thro' Switzerland, declared that he never saw any thing superior -- perhaps nothing equal -- in the Alps. -- The latter part of your Letter made me truly happy. Uriel himself should not be half as welcome / & indeed he, I must admit, was never any great Favorite of mine. I always thought him a Bantling of zoneless Italian Muses which Milton heard cry at the Door of his Imagination, & took in out of charity. -- However, come horsed as you may, carus mihi expectatusque venies. 1 De ceteris rebus, (si 2 quid agendum est, et quicquid2 sit agendum) ut quam rectissime agantur, omni meâ curâ, operâ, diligentiâ, providebo. 3 On my return to Keswick I reperused the erste Schiffer with great attention; & the result was an increasing Disinclination to the business of translating it / tho' my fancy was not a little flattered by the idea of seeing my Rhymes in such a gay Livery -as poor Giordano Bruno says in his strange yet noble Poem De Immenso et Innumerabili Quam ganymedeo Cultu, graphiceque Venustus! Narcissis referam, peramârunt me quoque Nymphae. 4 But the Poem was too silly. The first conception is noble -- so very good, that I am spiteful enough to hope that I shall discover it not ____________________ 1 Ciceronis Epis. ad Fam. XVI. vii. 2 Underlined twice in MS. 3 Ibid. i. ii. 4 'The lines are taken, with some alterations, from a kind of l'envoy or epilogue which Bruno affixed to his long philosophical poem, Jordani Bruni Nolani de Innumerabilibus Immenso et Infigurabili; seu de Universo et Mundis libri octo. Francofurti, 1591, p. 654.' Letters, i. 871 n. -809- to have been original in Gesner -- he has so abominably maltreated it. -- First, the story is very inartificially constructed -- we should have been let into the existence of the Girl & her Mother thro' the young Man, & after his appearance / this however is comparatively a trifle. -- But the machinery is so superlatively contemptible & commonplace -- as if a young man could not dream of a Tale which had deeply impressed him without Cupid, or have a fair wind all the way to an Island within sight of the Shore, he quitted, without Æolus. Æolus himself is a God devoted & dedicated, I should have thought, to the Muse of Travestie / his Speech in Gesner is not defici[ent] in Fancy -- but it is a Girlish Fancy -- & the God of the winds exceedingly disquieted with animal Love / ind[uces?] a very ridiculous Figure in my Imagination. -- Besides, it was ill taste to introduce Cupid and Æolus at a time which we positive[ly] know to have been anterior to the invention & establishment of the Grecian Mythology -- and the speech of Æolus reminds me perpetually of little Engravings from the Cut Stones of the Ancients, Seals, & whatever else they call them. -- Again, the Girl's yearnings & conversations with [her] Mother are something between the Nursery and the Veneris Volgivagae Templa 1 -- et libidinem spirat et subsusurrat, dum innocentiae loquelam, et virgineae cogitationis dulciter offensantis luctamina simulat. -- It is not the Thoughts that a lonely Girl could have; but exactly such as a Boarding School Miss whose Imagination, to say no worse, had been somewhat stirred & heated by the perusal of French or German Pastorals, would suppose her to say. But this is indeed general in the German & French Poets. It is easy to cloathe Imaginary Beings with our own Thoughts & Feelings; but to send ourselves out of ourselves, to think ourselves in to the Thoughts and Feelings of Beings in circumstances wholly & strangely different from our own / hoc labor, hoc opus / and who has atchieved it? Perhaps only Shakespere. Metaphisics is a word, that you, my dear Sir! are no great Friend to / but yet you will agree, that a great Poet must be, implicitè if not explicitè, a profound Metaphysician. He may not have it in logical coherence, in his Brain & Tongue; but he must have it by Tact / for all sounds, & forms of human nature he must have the ear of a wild Arab listening in the silent Desart, the eye of a North American Indian tracing the footsteps of an Enemy upon the Leaves that strew the Forest --; the Touch of a Blind Man feeling the face of a darling Child -- / and do not think me a Bigot, if I say, that I have read no French or German Writer, who appears to me to have had a heart sufficiently pure & simple to be capable of this or any thing like it. / I could say a great deal ____________________ 1 Cf. Lucretius iv. 1071. -810- more in abuse of poor Gesner's Poem; but I have said more than, I fear, will be creditable in your opinion to my good nature. I must tho' tell you the malicious Motto, which I have written on the first page of Klopstock's Messias -- Tale tuum carmen nobis, divine Poeta, Quale Sopor! 1 Only I would have the words, divine Poeta, translated, Versemaking DIVINE. I read a great deal of German; but I do dearly dearly dearly love my own Countrymen of old times, and those of my contemporaries who write in their Spirit. William Wordsworth & his Sister left me Yesterday on their way to Yorkshire / they walked yesterday to the foot of Ulswater, from whence they go to Penrith & take the Coach -- I accompanied them as far as the 7th Mile Stone. Among the last things, which he said to me, was -- 'Do not forget to remember [me] to Mr [So]theby with whatever affectionate terms, so slight an Intercourse may permit -- and how glad we shall all be to see him again.' -- I was much pleased with your description of Wordsworth's character as it appeared to y[ou --] it is in few words, in half a dozen Strokes, like s[ome of] Mortimer's 2 Figures, a fine Portrait -The word 'homoge[neity' gave] me great pleasure, as most accurate & happily expressi[ve. I must] set you right with regard to my perfect coinc[idence with] his poetic Creed. It is most certain, that that P[reface arose from] the heads of our mutual Conversations &c -- & the f[irst pass]ages were indeed partly taken from notes of mine / for it was at first intended, that the Preface should be written by me -- and it is likewise true, that I warmly accord with W. in his abhorrence of these poetic Licences, as they are called, which are indeed mere tricks of Convenience & Laziness. Exemp. Grat. Drayton has these Lines -- Ouse having Ouleney past, as she were waxed mad, From her first stayder. Course immediately doth gad, And in meandred Gyres doth whirl herself about, That, this way, here and there, back, forward, in and out, And like a wanton Girl oft doubling in her Gait In labyrinthine Turns & Twinings Intricate &c &c -- 3 the first poets observing such a stream as this, would say with truth & beauty -- it strays -- & now every stream shall stray wherever it prattles on it's pebbled way -- instead of it's bed or channel / . (I ____________________ 1 Virgil, Ecl. v.45-46. 2 John Hamilton Mortimer ( 1741-1779), historical painter. 3 Michael Drayton, Poly -Olbion, Song 22, lines 17-22. -811- have taken the instance from a Poet, from whom as few Instances of this vile commonplace trashy Style could be taken as from any writer -- from Bowles execrable Translation of that lovely Poem of Dean Ogle, 1 vol. II. p. 27. -- / I am confident, that Bowles good-naturedly translated it in a hurry, merely to give him an excuse for printing the admirable original.) -- In my opinion every phrase, every metaphor, every personification, should have it's justifying cause in some passion either of the Poet's mind, or of the Characters described by the poet -- But metre itself implies a passion, i.e. a state of excitement, both in the Poet's mind, & is expected in that of the Reader -- and tho' I stated this to Wordsworth, & he has in some sort stated it in his preface, yet he has [not] done justice to it, nor has he in my opinion sufficiently answered it. In my opinion, Poetry justifies, as Poetry independent of any other Passion, some new combinations of Language, & commands the omission of many others allowable in other compositions / Now Wordsworth, me saltem judice, has in his system not sufficiently admitted the former, & in his practice has too frequently sinned against the latter. -- Indeed, we have had lately some little controversy on this subject -- & we begin to suspect, that there is, somewhere or other, a radical Difference [in our] opinions 2 -- Dulce est inter amicos rarissimi Dissensione condiri plurimas consensiones, saith St Augustine, who said more good things than any Saint or Sinner, that I ever read in Latin. -- Bless me! what a Letter! ----- And I have yet to make a request to you / I had read your Georgics 3 at a Friend's House in the Neighbourhood -- and on sending for the book I find that it belonged to a Book Club, & has been returned. If you have a copy interleaved, or could procure one for me, and will send it to me per Coach with a copy of your original Poems I will return them to you with many thanks in the Autumn / & will endeavor to improve my own taste by writing in the blank Leaves my feelings both of the Original & your Translation / your poems I want for another purpose -- of which hereafter. -- Mrs Coleridge & my children are well -- she desires to be respectfully remembered to Mrs & Miss Sotheby. Tell Miss Sotheby that I will endeavor to send her soon the completion of the Dark Ladié -- as she was goodnatured [enough] to be pleased with the first part ----- Let me hear Oh thou, that prattling on thy pebbled way Through my paternal vale dost stray. ____________________ 1 Poetical Works of Bowles, ed. by G. Gilfillan, 2 vols., 1855, i. 100. Lines 1 and 2 of Bowles translation read: 2 This is the first evidence of Coleridge's dissatisfaction with Wordsworth's Preface to Lyrical Ballads. See also Letter 449. 3 Sotheby translation of Virgil Georgics was published in 1800. -812- from you soon, my dear Sir! -- & believe me with heart-felt wishes for you & your's, in every day phrase, but indeed indeed not with every-day Feeling, your's most sincerely, S. T. Coleridge. I long to lead Mrs Sotheby to a Scene that has the grandeur without the Toil or Danger of Scale Force -- it is called the White Water Dash. ----- 445. To William Sotheby Address: W. Sotheby Esq. | Upper Seymour St | LondonSingle Sheet MS. Colonel H. G. Sotheby. Pub. with omis. Letters, i. 376. Postmark: 22 July 1802. Stamped: Keswick. July 19, [1802.] Keswick My dear Sir I trouble you with another Letter, to inform you that I have finished the first Book of the Erste Schiffer; it consists of about 580 Lines -- the second Book will be a 100 lines less. I can transcribe both legibly in three single-sheet Letters -- you will only be so good as to inform me, whither & whether I am to send them. If they are likely to be of any service to Tomkins, he is welcome to them / if not I shall send them to the Morning Post. I have given a faithful Translation in blank Verse / . To have decorated Gesner would have been indeed 'to spice the spices' -- to have lopped & pruned somewhat, would have only produced incongruity / to have done it sufficiently would have been to have published a poem of my own, not Gesner's -- I have aimed at nothing more than purity & elegance of English, a keeping & harmony in the color of the Style, & a smoothness without monotony in the Versification. If I have succeeded, as I trust, I have, in these respects, my Translation will be just so much better than the original, as metre is better than prose, in their judgments at least, who prefer blank Verse to Prose. -- I was probably too severe on the morals of the Poem -- uncharitable perhaps, but I am a homebrewed Englishman, and tolerate downright grossness more patiently than this coy and distant Dallying with the Appetites. 'Die Pflanzen entstehen aus dem Saamen, gewisse Thiere gehen aus den Eyern hervor, andre so, andre anders. Ich hab' es alleg bemerkt; was hab' ich auch sonst zu thun?' &c &c &c Now I apprehend that it will occur to 19 readers out of 20, that a maiden so very curious, so exceedingly inflamed & harrassed by a Difficulty, & so subtle in the discovery of even comparatively distant analogies, would necessarily have seen the difference of sex in her Flocks & Herds, & the MARITAL as well as -813- maternal character could not have escaped her / . Now I avow, that the grossness & vulgar plain Sense of Theocritus's Shepherd Lads, bad as it is, is in my opinion less objectionable than Gesner's Refinement -- which necessarily leads the imagination to Ideas without expressing them -- Shaped & cloathed -- the mind of a pure Being would turn away from them, from natural delicacy of Taste / but in that shadowy half-being, that state of nascent Existence in the Twilight of Imagination, and just on the vestibule of Consciousness, they are far more incendiary, stir up a more lasting commotion, & leave a deeper stain. The Suppression & obscurity arrays the simple Truth in a veil of something like Guilt, that is altogether meretricious, as opposed to the matronly majesty -- of our Scriptures, for instance -- / -- and the Conceptions, as they recede from distinctness of Idea, approximate to the nature of Feeling, & gain thereby a closer & more immediate affinity with the appetites. ----- But independently of this, the whole passage, consisting of precisely one fourth of the whole Poem, has not the least Influence on the action of the Poem / and it is scarcely too much to say, that it has nothing to do with the main Subject / except indeed it be pleaded that Love is induced by compassion for this maiden to make a young man Dream of her, which young man had been, without any influence of this said Cupid, deeply interested in the story -- & therefore did not need the interference of Cupid at all -- any more than he did the assistance of Æolus, for a fair wind all the way to an Island, that was within sight of Shore. -- I translated the Poem, partly, because I could not endure to appear irresolute & capricious to you, in the first undertaking which I had connected in any way with your person -- in an undertaking, which I connect with our journey from Keswick to Grasmere, the Carriage in which we were, your Son, your Brother, your daughter, & your wife -- all of whom may God Almighty bless! -- a Prayer not the less fervent, my dear Sir I for being a little out of place here ----& partly too, because I wished to force myself out of metaphysical trains of Thought -- which, when I trusted myself to my own Ideas, came upon me uncalled -- & when I wished to write a poem, beat up Game of far other kind -- instead of a Covey of poetic Partridges with whirring wings of music, or wild Ducks shaping their rapid flight in forms always regular (a still better image of Verse) up came a metaphysical Bustard, urging it's slow, heavy, laborious, earth-skimming Flight, over dreary & level Wastes. To have done with poetical Prose (which is a very vile Olio) Sickness & some other & worse afflictions, first forced me into downright metaphysics / for I believe that by nature I have more of the Poet in me / In a poem written during that dejection to Wordsworth, & -814- the greater part of a private nature -- I thus expressed the thought -- in language more forcible than harmonious. 1 ----- Yes, dearest Poet, yes! There was a time when tho' my Path was rough, The Joy within me dallied with Distress, And all Misfortunes were but as the Stuff Whence Fancy made me Dreams of Happiness: For Hope grew round me, like the climbing Vine, And Fruit and Foliage, not my own, seem'd mine. But now Afflictions bow me down to Earth -- Nor car'd 2 I, that they rob me of my Mirth; But O! each Visitation Suspends what Nature gave me at my Birth, My shaping Spirit of Imagination! ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- [sic] For not to think of what I needs must feel, But to be still & patient all I can; And haply by abstruse research to steal From my own Nature all the natural Man; This was my sole Resource, my wisest Plan -- And that which suits a part infects the whole, And now is almost grown the Temper of my Soul! Thank Heaven! my better mind has returned to me -- and I trust, I shall go on rejoicing. -- As I have nothing better to fill the blank space of this Sheet with, I will transcribe the introduction of that Poem to you, that being of a sufficiently general nature to be interesting to you. -- The first Lines allude to a stanza in the Ballad of Sir Patrick Spence -- 'Late, late yestreen, I saw the new Moon With the old Moon in her arms; and I fear, I fear, my master dear, There will be a deadly Storm.' -- Letter written Sunday Evening, April 4. 1 Well! if the Bard was weatherwise who made The dear old Ballad of Sir Patrick Spence, This Night, so tranquil now, will not go hence Unrous'd by Winds, that ply a busier Trade ____________________ 1 These selections from the 4 Apr. 1802 draft of Dejection indicate that Coleridge was already working over his poem some months before it was first published in the Morning Post. 2 care [Cancelled word in line above.] -815- Than that, which moulds yon Clouds in lazy Flakes, Or the dull sobbing Draft, that drones and rakes Upon the Strings of this Eolian Lute, Which better far were mute. For lo! the New-moon, winter-bright; And overspread with phantom Light; (With swimming phantom Light o'erspread, But rimm'd and circled with a silver Thread;) I see the old Moon in her Lap, foretelling The coming on of Rain &squally Blast! And O! that even now the Gust were swelling, And the slant Night-shower driving loud & fast! A Grief without a Pang, void, dark, & drear! A stifling, drowsy, unimpassioned Grief, That finds no natural Outlet, no Relief In word, or Sigh, or Tear! This, William! well thou know'st, Is that sore Evil which I dread the most, And oft'nest suffer. In this heartless Mood, To other Thoughts by yonder Throstle woo'd That pipes within the Larch-tree, not unseen -- (The Larch, that pushes out in Tassels green It's bundled Leafits) woo'd to mild Delights By all the tender Sounds & gentle Sights Of this sweet Primrose-Month -- & vainly woo'd! O dearest Poet, in this heartless Mood All this long Eve so balmy & serene Have I been gazing on the western Sky And it's peculiar Tint of yellow-green -- And still I gaze -- & with how blank an eye! And those thin Clouds above, in flakes & Bars, That give away their Motion to the Stars; Those Stars, that glide behind them or between, Now sparkling, now bedimm'd, but always seen; Yon Crescent Moon, as fix'd as if it grew In it's own cloudless starless Lake of Blue -- A Boat becalm'd! thy own sweet Sky-Canoe! I see them all, so excellently 1 fair! I see, not feel, how beautiful they are! My genial Spirits fail, And what can these avail ____________________ 1 E. H. C. ( Letters, i. 381) reads 'exquisitely'. -816- To lift the smoth'ring Weight from off my Breast? It were a vain Endeavor, Though I should gaze for ever On that green Light, that lingers in the West. I may not hope from outward Forms to win The Passion & the Life, whose Fountains are within. O Wordsworth! we receive but what we give, And in our Life alone does Nature live: Our's is her Wedding-garment, our's her Shroud! And would we aught behold of higher Worth Than that inanimate cold World allow'd To the poor loveless ever-anxious Crowd, Ahl from the Soul itself must issue forth A Light, a Glory, a fair luminous cloud Enveloping the Earth! And from the Soul itself must there be sent A sweet and pow'rful Voice, of it's own Birth, Of all sweet Sounds the Life and Element! O pure of Heart! thou need'st not ask of me What this strong Music in the Soul may be -- What and wherein it doth exist, This Light, this Glory, this fair luminous Mist, This beautiful and beauty-making Power! Joy, blameless Poet! Joy, that ne'er was given Save to the Pure, and in their purest Hour, Joy, William! is the Spirit & the Power That wedding Nature to us gives in Dow[er] A new Earth and new Heaven Undreamt of by the Sensual and the Proud! 1 Joy is that sweet Voice, Joy that luminous cloud -- 2 We, we ourselves rejoice! And thence comes all that charms or ear or sight, All Melodies an Echo of that Voice, All colors a suffusion from that Light! Calm stedfast Spirit, guided from above, O Wordsworth! friend of my devoutest choice, Great Son of Genius I full of Light & Love! Thus, thus dost 3 thou rejoice. ____________________ 1 E. H. C.( Letters, i.382) reads" Undream'd of by the sensual and proud-' 2 ( E. H. C. ( ibid. ) omits this line.Letters, i, 882) reads 'Undream'd of by the sensual and proud --' 3 may'st [Cancelled word in line above.] -817- To thee do all things live from pole to pole, Their Life the Eddying of thy living Soul! Brother & Friend of my devoutest choice, Thus may'st thou ever, ever more rejoice! I have selected from the Poem which was a very long one, & truly written only for 'the solace of sweet Song', all that could be interesting or even pleasing to you -- except indeed, perhaps, I may annex as a fragment a few Lines on the Eolian Lute, it having been introduced in it's Dronings in the 1st Stanza. I have used 'Yule' for Christmas. --- Nay wherefore did I let it haunt my mind This dark distressful Dream? I turn from it, & listen to the Wind Which 1 long has rav'd unnotic'd! What a Scream Of Agony by Torture lengthen'd out That Lute sent forth! 2 O thou wild Storm without, Bare Crag, or mountain Tairn, or blasted Tree, Or Pine-grove, whither Woodman never clomb Or lonely House long held the Witches' Home, Methinks, were fitter Instruments for Thee, Mad Lutanist! that in this month of Showers, Of dark-brown Gardens & of peeping Flowers Mak'st Devil's Yule, with worse than wintry Song The Blossoms, Buds, & timorous Leaves among! Thou Actor, perfect in all tragic Sounds! Thou mighty Poet, even to Frenzy bold! What tell'st thou now about? 'Tis of the rushing of an Host in Rout With many Groans from men with smarting Wounds -- At once they groan with Pain, & shudder with the Cold! But hush! there is a Pause of deepests 3 Silence! Again! -- but all that Noise, as of a rushing crowd, With Groans, & tremulous Shudderings, all is over; And it has other Sounds, less fearful & less loud. A Tale of less affright And temper'd with delight, As thou thyself had'st fram'd the tender Lay -- 'Tis of a little Child Upon a heathy 4 Wild ____________________ 1 That [Cancelled word in line above.] 2 E. H. C. ( Letters, i. 388) reads 'out'. 3 E. H. C. ( ibid. ) reads 'deeper'. 4 E. H. C. ( ibid. 884 ) reads 'heath'. -818- Not far from home -- but she has lost her way; And now moans low in utter Grief & Fear, And now screams loud & hopes to make her Mother hear. -- My dear Sir! ought I to make an apology for troubling you with such a long verse-cramm'd Letter? -- O that instead of it I could but send to you the Image now before my eyes -- Over Bassenthwaite the Sun is setting, in a glorious rich brassy Light -- on the top of Skiddaw, & one third adown it, is a huge enormous Mountain of Cloud, with the outlines of a mountain ----- this is of a starchy Grey-but floating fast along it, & upon it, are various Patches of sack-like Clouds, bags & woolsacks, of a shade lighter than the brassy Light of the clouds that hide the setting Sun -- a fine yellowred somewhat more than sandy Light -- and these the highest on this mountain-shaped cloud, & these the farthest from the Sun, are suffused with the darkness of a stormy Color. -- Marvellous creatures! how they pass along! ----- Remember me with most respectful kindness to Mrs & Miss Sotheby, & the Captains Sotheby ----truly, your's, S. T. Coleridge 446. To Messrs. Edwards, Templer, & Co. Address: Messrs Edwards,' Templer, and Co, | Bankers | Stratford Place London Post pay'd MS. Maurice Inman, Inc. Hitherto unpublished. Postmark: 28 July 1802. Stamped: Keswick. Greta Hall, Keswick, Cumberland Tuesday, July 20, 1802 Sirs I have this day drawn on your Bank for the sum of 50£, at six weeks' date, payable to Mr William Jackson or order -- according to permission given me by Josiah Wedgewood Esq., this 50£ making up the whole of the 150£, which I was permitted to draw on you for, in the present year -- I remain, | Gentlemen, | with great respect | Your obedient humble | Servant S. T. Coleridge. -819- 447. To John Prior Estlin Address: Revd. Mr Estlin | BristolSingle sheet. MS. Bristol Central Lib. Pub. Letters to Estlin, 82. Postmark: 29 July 1802.Stamped: Keswick. Greta Hall, Keswick, July 26, 1802 My dear Friend Day after day, and week after week, have I been intending to write to you / to enumerate all the causes of the delay (superadded alas! to my inveterate habit of Procrastination) would make my present Letter a very different one from what I wish it to be / a doleful instead of a cheerful one. I am at present in better health than I have been -- tho' by no means strong or well -- & at home all is Peace & Love. I am about shortly to address a few Letters to the British Critic 1 on the use of the definitive article, & the inferences drawn from it by Grenville Sharp, 2 & since attempted to be proved in a very learned & industrious work by the Revd C. Wordsworth, a fellow of Trinity, our Wordsworth's Brother. Sharp's Principle is as follows -- When α connects two nouns (not of the Plural number, and not Proper names) if the article ὁ, or any of it's cases, precedes the first of the said Nouns or Participles, and is not repeated before the second Noun or Participle, the latter always relates to the same Person, that is expressed or described by the first Noun or Participle / ex. gr. 'OⒽ 3 Π ήμϊ̑ &c 2. Cor. 1.3. -- Ţ ˇXǰὸк 4 ʽ &λфὸкρ&c Eph. VI. 21. -- from which rule he deduces absolute assertions of the Godhead of Christ from Acts XX. 28. Eph. V. 5. 2. Thessal. I. 12. 1. Timoth. V. 21. 2. Timoth. IV. 1. Titus II. 13. 2. Peter. I. 1. Jude 4. -- Kit Wordsworth's Book is occupied in proofs that all the Greek Fathers, & many & those the most learned of the Latin Fathers did so understand these Texts, when from the nature of the Arian Controversy it would have answered their purposes much better to have understood the words according to our present Versions. -- The first thing, that stared me in the face & which I afterwards found true, is that all the instances, but two, are to all ____________________ 1 Chambers thinks the review of Christopher Wordsworth Six Letters to Granville Sharp, 1802, in the British Critic, xx. 15; was probably written by Coleridge. Life, 159. In an unpublished passage from a letter to Poole, dated 28 Jan 1810, however, Coleridge says: 'On the first appearance of Christopher Wordsworth's Book on the Subject I studied the matter seriously; [and] but for accidents should have published on it.' 2 Granville Sharp, Remarks on the Uses of the Definitive Article in the Greek Text of the New Testament, 1798. 3 Underlined twice in MS. 4 Underlined once in MS. -820- intents & purposes Proper Names & consequently fall within Grenville Sharpe's own Exception -- the two instances, which I have not found used as a Proper name, are Titus II. 18. & 2 Peter. I. 1. -Now if you know any proof of Σ̄́+ぎ+03A9ρη being used without an article, in any place where it stands by itself -- in the same manner as Christ is, and God -- and as Kú I can prove to be in a hundred instances in Greek -- you would serve me -- & what is a much greater inducement to you -- throw Light on a very important subject / or if you know any instance in which Sharp's Rule is falsified. / In English now,exem.causâ, we might say, as I walked out to day, whom should I meet but the Carpenter & Shoemaker of our Village / ? it would certainly be more accurate to say the Carpenter & the Shoemaker / but the accuracy of Special Pleading is to be found in few Books -- nor is it necessary -- You would know that I had met TWO Persons, because you know that the trades of Carpenter & Shoemaker are not one in this country -- whereas if I had said, the Carpenter & Joiner / tho' the form of Grammar would have been the same, you would have known instantly that I had met but one man. If you recollect in Aristophanes, &c or the Septuagint any instances to this purpose, you would oblige me by transmitting them to me. Unfortunately I have none of the Greek Fathers -- neither have I the Septuagint -- but I have found much that I want, in Suicerus's Thesaurus Patrum, 1 which I was lucky enough to buy for it's weight at a Druggist's ----- In these Letters I purpose to review Horsley & Priestley controverayu 2 -- & in these you will see my Confessio Fidei, which as far as regards the Doctrine of the Trinity is negative Unitarianism -a non liquet concerning the nature & being of Christ -- but a condemnation of the Trinitarians as being wise beyond what is written. / On the subjects of the original corruption of our Nature, the doctrines of Redemption, Regeneration, Grace, & Justification by Faith my convictions are altogether different from those of Drs Priestley, Lindsey, & Disney -- neither do I conceive Christianity to be tenable on the Priestleyan Hypothesis. I read Lardners 3 often -- not so much for the information, I gain from him -- which is however very great -- but for the admirable modesty & truly Christian Spirit which breathe thro' his works -- & which I wish to imbibe as a man, & to imitate as a Writer -- well aware of the natural Impetuosity & Warburtonianism of my own uncorrected ____________________ 1 J. C. Suicerus, Thesaurus Ecclesiasticus e Patribus Graecis . . ., 2 vols., 1682. 2 Joseph Priestley, Defences of Unitarianim for the Years 1788 and 1789. Containing Letters to Dr. Horsley. . ., 1790. 3 Nathaniel Lardner, Works, 11 vols., 1788, the edition to which Coleridge refers. -821- Disposition. My dear Friend -- believe no idle Reports concerning me / if I differ from you, & wherein I differ from you, it will be that I believe on the whole more than you, not less -- of which I give, I trust, the best proof in my power, by breeding up my Child in habits of awe for Deity, & undoubted Faith in the truth in Christ. ----- I thank you from the Bottom of my Heart for the pleasure & instruction which I have received from your sermon on the Sabbath -- which I have read repeatedly -- & shall take occasion to speak of, as in my humble opinion incomparably the best work that has been written on the Subject -- as far as I have seen / & a sufficient answer to (what I had before believed unanswerable) Paley's objections. -- It grieved me that you should have [applied] the word Genius so emphatically (p. 26) to Evanson 1 / for surely you wrote it unthinkingly -- Is not Evanson egregiously a weak & vain man? God forgive me, if I speak uncharitably -- I am sure I do not feel so -- but his Book on the Dissonance of the Evangelists struck me as the silliest & most vapid Book, I ever perused / . Σ+̄фóδρ́+ぎ+03BFϭμкρὸ μϒοο Φ ф 2 -- the Papias among the Unitarians. ( La[r]dn. Vol. II. p. 108.) -- I wish, you would give us in some form or other, in Magazine or separate Publication, a real History in the spirit of Lardner of all that can be collected of the opinions of the Jews, & Jewish Doctors, concerning the Messiah / antecedent to the time of Christ, & since that time. ----- I have been rather dissatisfied with Lardner's answer to the IVth & last objection to the philosophical explication of the Daemoniacs -- Do be so good as to look to the passage -- Vol. I. p. 483. 3 -- Dr Lardner intimates that it was not Christ's business to instruct men in Physics -- that it was foreign to his Mission -- that he was engaged in teaching the principles of true Religion -- & that any debate on this error might have diverted him from his main work. The Jews were not in danger of Idolatry -- there was therefore no urgent necessity [-- and he a]dds two insta[nces] in which our Lord studiously declined to concern himself with things foreign to the office of a Prophet --. Now the first of these Instances seems to me to weigh against Lardner / Christ might have confuted a dangerous error without involving any question of natural or metaphysical philosophy -- he did not decide for or against the doctrine of Pre-existence; but he most effectually quashed the pernicious moral error of attributing all afflictions to direct Judgments of God upon the Individual so ____________________ 1 Edward Evanson, Arguments against the Sabbatical Observance of the Sunday, 1792. 2 Eusebiuis' comment on Papias, Historia Ecclesiastica, iii. 39 , par. 13. 3 Coleridge refers to Lardner The Credibility of the Gospel History. -822- afflicted. If the Evangelists had in any one passage merely called the Daemoniacs Diseased men, or insane men, 'whose diseases are believed by the people to proceed from Daemons' -- or -- diseases, the true causes of which are not revealed to us, but which are believed to proceed from Daemons / there would have been, I conceive[, no] physical hypothesis implied, & yet the Gospel saved fro[m the] apparent Ignominy of having confirm[ed by] it's author[ity a beli]ef so wild & inhuman. In Dr Lardner's sec[ond] Instance I [do not] agree with him that 'it could not but [be a good] work to decide' that cause, as the Brother required -- On th[e contrary it] appears to me, that if Christ had done so, he would have [recognized?] institutions of individual Property / & the alliance of spiritu[al] authority with concerns of a purely secular Nature. But to [be more] orderly --. 1. It was not his business to instruct men in natural [phil]osophy -- Answer. True! But it was a grievous moral Error -- as well as physical absurdity -- & might have been removed without any decision in physics, at least so far as that his Religion could not have been chargeable with aiding & confirming it. 2. It was foreign to his Mission, which was to instruct men in the Principles of true Religion. Answer. True Principles cannot be taught but by the subversion of false ones. This is eminently the practice in the Gospel of Christ -- more than half of Christ's Discourse on the Mount is consumed in exploding errors -- elsewhere he is open & urgent in the same -- even so with St Paul / . Do, my dear Friend! read what Lardner says p. 462. 468. & 464. -- & then decide in your own mind on the baseness & pernicious effects of such a superstition / [You know human Nature too well not to know that a mind in terror of Spirits & attributing diseases to their malice may not be strictly idolatrous -- but it is impossible that such a mind can be a worshipper of the true Godin the proper, Christian, & spiritual meaning of worshippers in Spirit & in Truth. But not only did it imply frightful corruption, in the great article of all Religion, the moral attributes of God; but it must needs have had a bad effect & an anti-social Influence, on the intercourse between man & man. -- It is not fair, my dear Sir! to state it as a mere popular opinion / it was a reigning & inveterate superstition accompanied by the most wicked practices -- all the impostures & delusions of Exorcism / vide p. 486. 487. Yet so far are these Exorcists from being condemned by Christ, that their Innocence is cited by him to prove his own. Matth. XII. 27. 28. -- Dr Lardner's Exposition of these two Verses, p. 489. appears to me exceedingly arbitrary, & utterly destitute of probability or plausibility --. Indeed, I confess, it shocked me, in so dear & every way excellent a man / . If you see this matter in a different -823- Light, & approve of Lardner's Exposition, I will state my objections to it at length / at present I have no room on the paper. 8. It was not immediately connected with his Mission -- & there Ωμο δοкɛīwas no urgent Necessity. Answer. It was (Ω μο δοкɛî) immediately connected with his Mission / For how could those be deemed sane or proper judges of true miracles, who gave evidence in favor of false ones? St Paul (as Dr Lardner himself shews, p. 458) directly asserts the existence of wicked Spirits swarming in the air, [&] in a state of enmity to man. Eph. VI. 11. 12. Without pressing at all too hardly on the nature of evidence I think we may be permitted to say, that men who believed that six thousand Spirits dwelt in the Body of one man, & after they were forced to leave it, went into two thousand Pigs, three Devils to one Pig, must have been credulous or unreasoning men / & might, as far as this remained without a counterbalance / have been fairly challenged as unfit to be upon a Jury in a question of miracles. But God be praised! we can shew that an ample counterbalance did exist -- yet still Christianity is chargeable with having confirmed & taught a pernicious error -- / The infidelical argument from Christian War s, Crusades, &c is childish / Christianity was the pretext, not the cause -- but of the horrible Burnings & Drownings of thousands of Men & Women, as Witches, and all the irreverent & inhuman feelings towards aged & hypochondriacal People Christianity might seem to have been directly & properly the cause -- For when the Physicians & natural Philosophers earnestly laboured to inculcate humane & true opinions on this subject, they were silenced by the authority of the Gospel, and their efforts for a long time frustrated, as you may easily convince yourself by reading the controversies concerning Witches / I have stated the argument, as I wish to state every argument, with as much force as if I were a compleat convert to it --. I hope to hear from you on the subject / and then I will give you all I can say in solution of the Difficulty -- which I confess appears to me a very serious one. I meant to have said much to Mrs Estlin -- & I am at the end of the Paper. May God preserve & bless her, & you, & your little ones, your affect. & grateful Friend, Coleridge -824- 448. To Sara Hutchinson Address: Miss S. Hutchinson | Gallow Hill | Wykeham | Malton | Yorkshire Single Sheet MS. Dom Cottage. Pub. with omis. Chambers, Life, 336. Stamped: Keswick. Tuesday, July 27, 1802 My dearest Sara If the weather with you be what it is here, our dear Friends 1 must have had a miserable Day yesterday. It rained almost incessantly at Keswick; till the late Evening, when it fell a deep Calm, & even the Leaves, the very topmost Leaves, of the Poplars & Aspens had Holiday, & like an overworked Boy, consumed it in sound Sleep. The whole Vale presented a curious Spectacle / the Clouds were scattered by the wind & rain in all shapes & heights, above the mountains, on their sides, & low down to their Bases -some masses in the middle of the valley -- when the wind & rain dropt down, & died -- and for two hours all the Clouds, white & fleecy all of them, remained without motion, forming an appearance not very unlike the Moon as seen thro' a telescope. On the Mountains directly opposite to our House (in Stoddart's Tobaccojuice Picture) the Clouds lay in two ridges -------- with a broad, strait road between them, they being the walls of the Road. Blessings on the mountains! to the Eye & Ear they are always faithful. I have often thought of writing a set of Play-bills for the vale of Keswick -- for every day in the Year -- announcing each Day the Performances, by his Supreme Majesty's Servants, Clouds, Waters, Sun, Moon, Stars, &c. -- To day the weather is mild -- tho' (as Mrs Bancroft informed my wife in a note last week) 'the humid Aspect of the general Atmosphere is eminently hostile to my fondly-cherished Hopes.' For I wait only for a truly fine Day to walk off to St Bees. Best compliments to the River Bee, & if he have any commands fo the Saint, his Relation, I shall be happy to communicate the same. -- I write now in order to send dear Tom word of an advertisement in the Whitehaven Paper of to day -- concerning Lord Lowther's Farms -- 'To be let by private Contract, & entered upon at Candlemas, 1803 -- I Woodhouse Demesne, in the Parish of Barton, 274 acres. 2. Sockbridge Demesne, in the said Parish, with Sockbridge High Field, & High Field Closes, containing together about 823 acres, with ten Cattle Gaits on Tirrill High Moor. 8. The Lands in Sockbridge called Louth. But, with the House & Croft in Sockbridge (late Stockdale's) containing together about 48 acres, ____________________ 1 On 26 July William and Dorothy Wordsworth left Gallow Hill for London, on their way to France. -825- with 5 Cattle Gaits on Tirrill High Moor. 4. A Farm in Clifton called Town-end Tenement, with Long Lands containing together about 112 acres. 5. A Farm, called Abbots' Farm, near Melkinthorpe, about 95 acres, with FOSTER PASTURE, about 80 acres. 6. Lands near Lowther, called WALKER'S GRASSING about 80 acres. 6. KNIPE SCARS, with the Land called WARTHEY'S & SHAP BECK TENEMENT, about 587 acres. 7. WHALE ING near WHALE (expressively so called) about 48 acres. N.B. Grows capital Train Oil, & Bones for Old Maids' Stays. I recommend this Farm to Tom's particular attention. -- 8. Lands, part of Meaburn Demesne, with the Park, about 268 acres. 9. Hartson Demesne with it's extensive Sheep Heaths. 10. Wet Sleddale Demesne. 11. Wastdale Head & Foot with Demings & it's extensive Sheep Heaths. (The Farm of the three last Farms may be accommodated at a fair Price with what number they choose of the same Heath-going Sheep &c) 12. Frenchfield Estate, near Penrith, 170 acres, recommended to adventurers in Manufactures -- All persons desirous of taking any of these to transmit their Proposals in Writing under Seal to John Richardson, Esquire, at Lowther Hall, Westmoreland, before the 29th of September next.['] -- O would that Lot 11 were as good for FARMER Tom, as it would be for FRIEND Tom. I know it well -the situation is fine beyond description, eleven miles from Keswick, thro' Borrodale!! Ravenglass is it's market Town. I have no doubt the Farm would answer capitally, but for one Thing -- The People of England, 'od rabbit 'em! are not Stone-eaters -- if they were, I don't know a Place in which there is a greater Plenty & variety of that solid & substantial Food. What soft washy pap-like Stuff is a piece of Beef compared with a stout Flint! But there is no persuading People to their own good! So we will have done with it.-As I have been transcribing, I must give you a touch out of WARNER'S ['] Tour thro' the northern Counties' 1 --. P. 14. Vol. 1. 'In the walks of Literature &c &c Bristol has made & still makes a figure, &c &c. The gigantic Intellect & sublime Genius of COLERIDGE, which were here first publicly developed, &C &C. CHATTERTON, second only to his MONODIST (see COLERIDGE'S monody on the Death of Chatterton) &c. Southey's Muse also poured forth those beautiful &c & the two COWLES have given from their own Press works which would add to the fame of any Poets of the Day.' -- Ha! Ha! Ha! -- even to the fame of GIANT COLERIDGE, I suppose! -- Now isn't this a Proof, that it does not depend altogether on a man's own Prudence whether or no he is to become ridiculous. Vol. 2. p. 100. 'The animated, enthusiastic, & accom- ____________________ 1 Richard Warner, A Tour through the Northern Counties of England, and the Borders of Scotland, 2 vols., 1802. -826- plished COLERIDGE, whose residence at Keswick gives additional charm to it's impressive Scenery, inspired us with Terror (A LYING SCOUNDREL!) while he described the universal Uproar (O Lord! what a lie!) that was awakened thro' the mountains by a sudden Burst of involuntary Laughter in the Heart of their Precipices; an incident, which a kindred Intellect, his Friend & Neighbour at Grasmere, WORDSWORTH (whose L.B. exclusively almost of all modern Compositions, breathe the true nervous & simple Spirit of Poetry) has worked up into the following admirable effusion / ['] here follows Joanna. -- Could you believe now, that the Rogue made up all this out of my telling him, that Wordsworth's Echo, tho' purposely beyond Nature, was yet only an exaggeration of what really would happen -- for that I myself with John Wordsworth & William had laughed aloud at Stickle Tarn in Langdale, & that the effect was quite enough to justify the Poem from being more extravagant, than it was it's purpose to be. -- Whatever I told him, the Fellow has murdered in this way -- a book fuller of Lies & Inaccuracies & Blunders was, I believe, on my conscience, never published. From foolish men, that write Books, Lord deliver me! -It has been my Lot to be made a Fool of by Madmen, & represented as a Madman by Fools! Mrs Coleridge is but poorly -- the Children are tolerable -- I am but so so / this Weather has been my Enemy. O that I may be well & look bonny when you all come to us! ---- Dear Hartley -- ! -I picked up a parcel of old Books at Wilkinson's which he gave me / among them is an old System of Philosophy by some FANTASTIC or other, with a large Print of Sun, Moon, & Stars, Birds, Beasts, & Fishes ---- with Adam & Eve, rising out of a Chaos! -Derwent immediately recognized the Horse & Cow -- Hos! Cu! -- & then putting his finger to Eve's Bosom, said -- Ma! -- Ma! PAP! -Ma -- pap! -- i.e. his Mother's or Mary's bosom / into which he puts his little Hand when he is petting. But I asked Hartley what he thought of it -- & he said -- [']it is very curious! A Sea not in a World, but a World rising out of a Sea! (these were his own umprompted words, & entirely his own idea) -- There they all are -Adam & all! -- Well! I dare say, they stared at one another finely!' -- This strikes me as a most happy image of the Creation -- Yesterday, crazy Peter Crosthwaite (not the Museum Peter) came in to Mr Jackson -- (and Mrs Wilson & Hartley only were at home) -Hartley soon found out that he was crazy, turned pale & trembled -- & Mrs W. snatched him up & brought him in to us / as soon as he came in, he cried aloud in an agony, nor could we appease him for near a quarter of an hour -- When I talked to him how foolish it was, Well! says he, you know, I am always frightened at things -827- that are not like other things. But, Hartley! said I -- you would not be frightened if you were to see a number of new Beasts or Birds or Fishes in a Shew -- Yes -- said he! when I was a little Boy, I was frightened at the Monkey & the Dromedary in London (so he was, poor fellow! God knows) -- but now I am not frightened at them, because they are like themselves. What do you mean, Hartley? -- Don't ask me so many questions, Papa! I can't bear it. I mean, that I am frightened at men that are not like men / a Monkey is a monkey -- & God made the Dromedary -- but Peter is a crazy man -- he has had a chain upon him!' -- Poor fellow! when he recovered, he spent the whole afternoon in whirling about the Kitchen, & telling Mrs Wilson wild Stories of his own extempore composition about mad men & mad animals -- all frightful: for tho' he cannot endure the least approximation to a sorrowful Story from another Person, all his own are most fantastically tragical. ---- O dear Sara! -- how dearly I love you! Dear Mary! Heaven bless you & send back our dear Friends to you! S. T. Coleridge. 449. To Robert Southey Address: R. Southey Esq. | St James's Place | King's Down | BristolSingle Sheet MS. Lord Latymer, Pub. with omis. Letters, i. 384. Postmark: 81 July 1802. Stamped: Keswick. July 29, 1802. Greta Hall, Keswick My dear Southey Nothing has given me half the pleasure these many many Months as last week did Edith's Heralding to us of a minor Robert: for that it will be a boy, one always takes for granted. From the bottom of my heart, I say it, I never knew a man that better deserved to be a Father by right of virtues that eminently belonged to him, than yourself /; but besides this, I have cheering hopes that Edith will be born again -- & be a healthy woman. -- When I said, nothing had given me half the pleasure, I spoke truly, and yet said more than you are perhaps aware of -- for by Lord Lonsdale's Death there are excellent Reasons for believing, that the Wordsworths will gain 5000£ / the share of which (and no doubt Dorothy will have more than a mere share) will render William Wordsworth & his Sister quite independent. They are now in Yorkshire -- & he returns in about a month, one of us. -- A part of your today's Letter shocked me exceedingly -- it is the first Breath that I have heard respecting it -- I mean, Wade's Failure / for so, I suppose, I am to understand it -- and it is heavy to me in a double -828- way, for William Read's Loss. Wade ever behaved to me with steady & uniform affection / his Distresses or Misfortunes would afflict me severely -- & at are these compared with immoral conduct? I trust & have full faith, that he is more sinned against than sinning. Estlin's Sermons, I fear, are mere moral Discourses. If so, there is but small chance of their Sale. But if he had published a volume of sermons, of the same kind with those which he has published singly. -- i.e. apologetical & ecelesiastico-historical, I am almost confident, they would have a respectable circulation. Single Sermons to publish is almost always a foolish thing -- like single sheet quarto poems -- / Estlin's sermon on the Sabbath really surprized me / it was well-written, in style I mean / and the reasoning throughout is not only sound, but has a cast of novelty in it -- a superior Sermon altogether it appeared to me ---- I am myself a little theological -- and if any Bookseller will take the risque, I shall in a few weeks, possibly, send to the Press a small Volume under the Title of 'Letters to the British Critic concerning Grenville Sharp's Remarks on the uses of the Definitive article in the Greek Text of the new Testament, & the Revd C. Wordsworth's Six Letters to G. Sharp Esq. in confirmation of the same / together with a Review of the Controversy between Horsley & Priestly respecting the faith of the Primitive Christians.' -- This is no mere Dream, like my Hymns to the Elements / for I have written more than half the work / -- I purpose afterwards to publish a Book -Concerning Tythes & Church Establishment -- for I conceit, that I can throw great Light on the Subject / You are not apt to be much surprized at any change in my mind, active as it is -- but it will perhaps please you to know, that I am become very fond of History -- and that I have read much with very great attention. / -I exceedingly like the Job of Amadis de Gaul 1 -- I wish, you may half as well like the Job, in which I shall very shortly appear. Of it's sale I have no doubt; but of it's prudence? -- There's the Rub. -- Concerning Poetry, & the characteristic Merits of the Poets, our Contemporaries -- one Volume Essays, the second Selections / the Essays are on Bloomfield, Burns, Bowles, Cowper, Campbell, Darwin, Hayley, 2 Rogers, C. Smith, Southey, Woolcot, 3 Wordsworth -the Selections from every one, who has written at all, any way above the rank of mere Scribblers -- Pye & his Dative Case Plural, Pybus, 4 Cottle &c &c 5 -- The object is not to examine what is good ____________________ 1 Southey Amadis of Gaut, 1808. 2 William Hayley ( 1745- 1820), author of The Triumph of Temper, 1781. 3 John Wolcot ( Peter Pindar) ( 1738-1819), poet and satirist. 4 H. J. Pye ( 1745- 1813), poet laureate, and C. S. Pybus, author of The Sovereign. Addressed to Paul, Emperor of All the Russias, 1800. 5 Concerning these projected works, Southey wrote in reply: 'You spawn -829- in each writer, but what has ipso facto pleased, & to what faculties or passions or habits of the mind they may be supposed to have given pleasure / Of course, Darwin & Wordsworth having given each a defence of their mode of Poetry, & a disquisition on the nature & essence of Poetry in general, I shall necessarily be led rather deeper -- and these I shall treat of either first or last / But I will apprize you of one thing, that altho' Wordsworth's Preface is half a child of my own Brain / & so arose out of Conversations, so frequent, that with few exceptions we could scarcely either of us perhaps positively say, which first started any particular Thought -- I am speaking of the Preface as it stood in the second Volume [edition?] -- yet I am far from going all lengths with Wordsworth / He has written lately a number of Poems (82 in all) some of them of considerable Length / (the longest 160 Lines) the greater number of these to my feelings very excellent Compositions / but here & there a daring Humbleness of Language & Versification, and a strict adherence to matter of fact, even to prolixity, that startled me / his alterations likewise in Ruth perplexed me / and I have thought & thought again / & have not had my doubts solved by Wordsworth / On the contrary, I rather suspect that some where or other there is a radical Difference in our theoretical opinions respecting Poetry -- / this I shall endeavor to go to the Bottom of -- and acting the arbitrator between the old School & the New School hope to lay down some plain, & perspicuous, tho' not superficial, Canons of Criticism respecting Poetry. -- What an admirable Definition Milton gives quite in an obiter way -- when he says of Poetry -- that it is 'simple, sensuous, passionate.'! -- It truly comprizes the whole, that can be said on the subject. In the new Edition of the L. Ballads there is a valuable appendix, which I am sure you must like / & in the Preface itself considerable additions, one on the Dignity & nature of the office & character of a Poet, that is very grand, & of a sort of Verulamian Power & Majesty -- but it is, in parts, (and this is the fault, me judice, of all the latter half of that Preface) obscure beyond any necessity -- & the extreme elaboration & almost constrainedness of the Diction contrasted (to my feelings) somewhat harshly with the general style of the Poems, to which the Preface is an Introduction. Sara (why, dear Southey! will you write it always, Sarah? -- Sara, methinks, is associated with times that you & I cannot & do not wish ever to forget) Sara said with some acuteness, that she wished all that Part of the Preface to have been in Blank Verse -- & vice versa &c -- However, I need not say, that any diversity of opinion ____________________ plans like a herring; I only wish as many of the seed were to vivify in proportion.' Life and Cortes. ii. 190. -830- on the subject between you & myself, or Wordsworth and myself, can only be small, taken in a practical point of view. / I rejoice that your History marches on so victoriously. 1 It is a noble Subject, and I have the fullest confidence of your success in it -- The influence of the Catholic Religion -- the influence of national Glory on the individual morals of a people -- especial[l]y in the Downfall of the Nobility of Portugal -- the strange fact (which seems to be admitted as with one voice by all Travellers) of the vileness of the Portuguese Nobles compared with the Spanish -- and of the superiority of the Portuguese Commonalty to the same Class in Spain / the effects of Colonization on a small & not very fruitful Country / the effects, important & too often forgotten effects, of absolute accidents, such as the particular Character of a race of Princes, on a nation -- O what aweful subjects these are! -I long to hear you read a few Chapters to me -- But I conjure you, do not let Madoc go to Sleep. O that without words I could cause you to know all that I think, all that I feel, all that I hope, respecting that Poem! As to myself, all my poetic Genius, if ever I really possessed any Genius, & it was not rather a mere general aptitude of Talent, & quickness in Imitation / is gone -- and I have been fool enough to suffer deeply in my mind, regretting the loss -which I attribute to my long & exceedingly severe Metaphysical Investigations -- & these partly to Ill-health, and partly to private afflictions which rendered any subject, immediately connected with Feeling, a source of pain & disquiet to me / There was a Time when, tho' my Path was rough, I had a heart that dallied with distress; And all Misfortunes were but as the Stuff, Whence Fancy made me dreams of Happiness: For Hope grew round me, like the climbing Vine, And Fruits and Foliage, not my own, seem'd mine! But now Afflictions bow me down to Earth -Nor car'd I, that they robb'd me of my Mirth / But oh! each Visitation Suspends what Nature gave me at my Birth, My shaping Spirit of Imagination! (Here follow a dozen Lines that would give you no pleasure & then what follows --) For not to think of what I needs must feel; But to be still and patient all, I can -And haply by abstruse Research to steal ____________________ 1 Southey did not complete his projected history of Portugal. -831- From my own Nature all the natural Man! / This was my sole Resource, my wisest Plant And that which suits a part, infects the Whole And now is almost grown the Temper of my Soul. -- Having written these Lines, I rejoice for you as well as for myself, that I am able to inform you, that now for a long time there has been more Love & Concord in my House, than I have known for years before. I had made up my mind to a very aweful Step -- tho' the struggles of my mind were so violent, that my sleep became the valley of the Shadows of Death / & my health was in a state truly alarming. It did alarm Mrs Coleridge -- the thought of separation wounded her Pride -- she was fully persuaded, that deprived of the Society of my children & living abroad without any friends, I should pine away -- & the fears of widowhood came upon her -And tho' these feelings were wholly selfish, yet they made her serious-- and that was a great point gained -- for Mrs Coleridge's mind has very little that is bad in it -- it is an innocent mind--; but it is light, and unimpressible, warm in anger, cold in sympathy -- and in all disputes uniformly projects itself forth to recriminate, instead of turning itself inward with a silent Self-questioning. Our virtues & our vices are exact antitheses -- I so attentively watch my own Nature, that my worst Self-delusion is, a compleat Selfknowlege, so mixed with intellectual complacency, that my q[uick]ness to see & readiness to acknowlege my faults is too often frustrated by the small pain, which the sight of them give[s] me, & the consequent slowness to amend them. Mrs C. is so stung by the very first thought of being in the wrong that she never amends because she never endures to look at her own mind at all, in it's faulty parts -- but shelters herself from painful Self-enquiry by angry Recrimination. Never, I suppose, did the stern Match-maker bring together two minds so utterly contrariant in their primary and organical constitution. Alas! I have suffered more, I think, from the amiable propensities of my nature than from my worst faults & most erroneous Habits -- and I have suffered much from both -- But as I said -- Mrs Coleridge was made serious-- and for the first time since our marriage she felt and acted, as beseemed a Wife & a Mother to a Husband, & the Father of her children -- She promised to set about an alteration in her external manners & looks & language, & to fight against her inveterate habits of puny Thwarting & unintermitting Dyspathy -- this immediately -- and to do her best endeavors to cherish other feelings. I on my part promised to be more attentive to all her feelings of Pride, &c &c and to try to correct my habits of impetuous & bitter censure --. We -832- have both kept our Promise -- & she has found herself so much more happy, than she had been for years before, that I have the most confident Hopes, that this happy Revolution in our domestic affairs will be permanent, & that this external Conformity will gradually generate a greater inward Likeness of thoughts, & attachments, than has hitherto existed between us. Believe me, if you were here, it would give you a deep delight to observe the difference of our minutely conduct towards each other, from that which, I fear, could not but have disturbed your comforts, when you were here last. Enough. But I am sure, you have not felt it tedious -- So Corry & you are off? I suspected it; but Edith never mentioned an iota of the Business to her Sister. -- It is well. It was not your Destiny. Where ever you are, God bless you! -- My health is weak enough; but it is so far amended that it is far less dependent on the influences of weather. The mountains are better friends in this respect. -- Would that I could flatter myself, that the same would be the case with you. The only objecti[on] on my part is now, God be praised! done away -- the services, & benefits, I should receive from your society & the spur of your example, would be incalculable. The house consists, the first Floor, or rather ground Floor, of a Kitchen, & a Back Kitchen, a large Parlour, & two nice small Parlours -- the second Floor, of three Bed rooms, one a large one, & one large Drawing Room / the third Floor or Floors, of three Bed rooms -- in all of 12 Rooms -- besides these, Mr Jackson offers to make that nice Out-house, a Workshop, either two Rooms, or one noble Large one, for a Study -- if I wish it. -- If it suited you, you might have one Kitchen or (if Edith & Sara thought it would answer) we might have the two Kitchens in common / -- You might have, I say, the whole Ground Floor, consisting of two sweet Wingrooms, commanding that loveliest view of Borrodale, & the great Parlour / and supposing we each were forc'd to have two servants, a nurse-maid & a housemaid -- the two house-maids would sleep together in one of the upper Rooms and the Nursemaids have each a room to herself -- One of the Wing Rooms on the Ground Floor must be your & Edith's Room / and if Mary be with you, the other hers -- / We should have the whole second Floor -- consisting of the Drawing Room, which would be Mrs Coleridge's Parlour, two Bedrooms, which (as I am so often ill, & when ill cannot rest at all, unless I have a bed to myself) is absolutely necessary for me / & one room, for you, if occasion should be / or any friend of your's or mine. -- The highest Room in the house is a very large one, intended for two; but suffered to remain one by my Desire. It would be [a] capital, healthy Nursery. -- The outhouse would be- -833- come my Study -- and I have a Couch-Bed, on which I am now sitting (in bed) & writing to you -- it is now in the Study -- of course, would be removed to the Outhouse, when that became my Study -and would be a second Spare-bed. -- I have no doubt, but that Mr Jackson would willingly let us retain my present Study -- which might be your Library & Study Room. -- My dear Southey -- I merely state these Things to you. All our Lot on earth is Compromise -- Blessings obtained by Blessings foregone, or by Evils undergone. I should be glad, no doubt, if you thought that your Health & Happiness would find a home under the same Roof with me; and I am sure, you will not accuse me as indelicate or obtrusive in mentioning things as they are / but if you decline it altogether, I shall know that you have good reasons for so doing -- & be perfectly satisfied -- for if it detracted from your comfort, it could of course be nothing but the contrary of all advantage to me. You would have access to 4 or 5 Libraries -- Sir W. Lawson's, a most magnificent one but chiefly in Natural History, Travels -- &c -Carlton House (I am a PRODIGIOUS Favorite of Mrs Wallis, the Owner & Resident, mother of the Privy Counsellor Wallis), Carlisle Dean & Chapter, the Library at Hawkshead School, & another (of what value, I know not) at St Bees -- whither I mean to walk tomorrow, & spend 5 or 6 days, for Bathing -- it is four miles from Whitehaven by the Sea side. -- Mrs Coleridge is but poorly -- children well. Love to Edith & Mary-- & to all, in whom I am at all interested. God love you --. If you let me hear from you, it is among My FIRMEST RESOLVES, god ha' mercy on 'em! to be a regular Correspondent of your's -- S. T. Coleridge P.S. Mrs C. must have one room on the ground floor -- but this is only putting one of your rooms on the second Floor ---- 450. To Sara Hutchinson Transcript Sara Hutchinson, in Mr. A. H. B. Coleridge's possession. Pub. Wordsworth and Coleridge, ed. by E. L. Griggs, 1939, pp. 150-7. The original of this letter, along with those of Letters 451 and 456, has disappeared, but the text has survived in the form of a journal made from them by Sara Hutchinson. This letter and the one following describe the first six days of a solitary tour, begun 1 August and completed 9 August, which carried Coleridge to the top of Scafell. [ 1-5 August 1802] On Sunday Augt. 1st -- ½ after 12 I had a Shirt, cravat, 2 pair of Stockings, a little paper & half a dozen Pens, a German Book ( Voss's Poems) & a little Tea & Sugar, with my Night Cap, packed -834- up in my natty green oil-skin, neatly squared, and put into my net Knapsack / and the Knap-sack on my back & the Besom stick in my hand, which for want of a better, and in spite of Mrs C. & Mary, who both raised their voices against it, especially as I left the Besom scattered on the Kitchen Floor, off I sallied -- over the Bridge, thro' the Hop-Field, thro' the Prospect Bridge at Portinscale, so on by the tall Birch that grows out of the center of the huge Oak, along into Newlands -- Newlands is indeed a lovely Place -- the houses, each in it's little Shelter of Ashes & Sycamores, just under the Road, so that in some places you might leap down on the Roof, seemingly at least -- the exceeding greenness & pastotal beauty of the Vale itself, with the savage wildness of the Mountains, their Coves, and long arm-shaped & elbow-shaped Ridges -- yet this wildness softened down into a congruity with the Vale by the semicircular Lines of the Crags, & of the bason-like Concavities. The Cataract between Newlands & Keseadale had but little water in it / of course, was of no particular Interest -- / I passed on thro' the green steep smooth bare Kescadale / a sort of unfurnished Passage or antechamber between Newlands, & Buttermere, came out on Buttermere & drank Tea at the little Inn, & read the greater part of the Revelations -- the only part of the new Testament, which the Scotch Cobler read -- because why? Became it was the only part that he understood. O 'twas a wise Cobler!. . . 1 Conceive an enormous round Bason mountain-high of solid Stone / cracked in half & one half gone / exactly in the remaining half of this enormous Bason, does Buttermere lie, in this 2 beautiful & stern Embracement of Rock / I left it, passed by Scale Force, the white downfal[l] of which glimmered thro' the Trees, that hang before it like bushy Hair over a madman's Eyes, and climbed 'till I gained the first Level / here it was 'every man his own pathmaker,' & I went directly cross it -- upon soft mossy Ground, with many a hop, skip, & jump, & many an occasion for observing the Truth of the old Saying: where Rushes grow, A Man may go. Red Pike, a dolphin-shaped Peak of a deep red, looked in upon me from over the Fell on my Left, on my right I had, first Melbreak (the Mountain on the right of Crummock, as you ascend the Lake) then a Vale running down with a pretty Stream in it, to Loweswater / then Heck [Hen] Comb, a Fell of the same height & running in the same direction with Melbreak, a Vale on the other side too, -- and at the bottom of both these Vales the Loweswater Fells running abreast. Again I reached an ascent, climbed up, & came to a ruined Sheepfold -- a wild green view all around me, bleating of Sheep & noise ____________________ 1 Three-quarters of line inked out in MS. 2 Small diagram at this point which is not reproduced here. -835- of waters -- I sate there near 20 minutes, the Sun setting on the Hill behind with a soft watery gleam; & in front of me the upper Halves of huge deep-furrowed Grasmire [Grassmoor] (the mountain on the other side of Crummock) & the huge Newland & Buttermere Mountains, & peeping in from behind the Top of Saddleback. Two Fields were visible, the highest cultivated Ground on the Newland side of Buttermere, and the Trees in those Fields were the only Trees visible in the whole Prospect. -- I left the Sheepfold with regret -- for of all things a ruined Sheepfold in a desolate place is the dearest to me, and fills me most with Dreams & Visions & tender thoughts of those I love best -- Well! I passed a bulging roundish-headed green Hill to my Left, (and to the left of it was a frightful Crag) with a very high round-head right before me; this latter is called Ennerdale-Dodd, and bisects the ridge between Ennerdale & Buttermere & Crummock -- I took it on my right hand, & came to the top of the bulging green Hill, on which I found a small Tarn, called Flatern [Floutern] Tarn, about 100 yds. in length, & not more than 7 or 8 in breadth, but O! what a grand Precipice it lay at the foot of! The half of this Precipice (called Herd house) nearest to Ennerdale was black, with green moss-cushions on the Ledges; the half nearest to Buttermere a pale pink, & divided from the black part by a great streamy Torrent of crimson Shiver, & Screes, or Shilly (as they call it). I never saw a more heart-raising Scene. I turned & looked on the Scene which I had left behind, a marvellous group of mountains, wonderfully & admirably arranged -- not a single minute object to interrupt the oneness of the view, excepting those two green Fields in Buttermere -- but before me the glorious Sea with the high Coast & Mountains of the Isle of Mann, perfectly distinct -- & three Ships in view. A little further on, the Lake of Ennerdale (the lower part of it) came in view, shaped like a clumsy battle-dore -- but it is, in reality, exactly fiddle-shaped. The further Bank & the higher part, steep, lofty, bare bulging Crags; the nether Bank green & pastoral, with Houses in the shelter of their own dear Trees. -- On the opposite Shore in the middle & narrow part of the Lake there bulges out a huge Crag, called angling Stone / being a famous Station for anglers -- and the reflection of this Crag in the Water is admirable -- pillars or rather it looks like the pipes of some enormous Organ in a rich golden Color. -- I travelled on to Long Moor, two miles below the foot of the Lake, & met a very hearty welcome from John Ponsonby, a Friend of Mr. Jackson's -- here I stayed the night, [1 August] & the greater part of Monday -- the old man went to the head of the Lake with me / the mountains at the head of this Lake & Wast-dale are the Monsters of the Country, bare bleak -836- Heads, evermore doing deeds of Darkness, weather-plots, & stormconspiracies in the Clouds -- their names are Herd house, Bowness, Wha Head, Great Gavel, the Steeple, the Pillar, & Seat Allian [Seatallan]. -- I left Long Moor after Tea, & proceeded to Egremont, 5 miles -- thro' a very pleasant Country, part of the way by the River Enna [Ehen], with well wooded Banks, & nice green Fields, & pretty houses with Trees, and two huge Sail-cloth Manufactories -- went to Girtskill, a mercer, for whom I had a Letter, but he was at Workington, so I walked on to St. Bees, 8 miles from Egremont -- when I came there could not get a Bed -- at last got an apology for one, at a miserable Pot-house; slept [2 August] or rather dozed, in my Clothes -- breakfasted there -- and went to the School & Church ruins -- had read in the history of Cumbd. that there was an 'excellent Library presented to the School by Sr. James Lowther,' which proved to be some 80 odd Volumes of commentaries on the Scripture utterly worthless -- & which with all my passion for ragged old Folios I should certainly make serviceable. . . 1 for fire-lighting. Men who write Tours and County histories I have by woeful experience found out to be damned Liars, harsh words, but true! -- It was a wet woeful oppressive morning -- I was sore with my bad night -- walked down to the Beach, which is a very nice hard Sand for more than a mile / but the St. Bees Head which I had read much of as a noble Cliff, might be made a song of on the Flats of the Dutch Coast -- but in England 'twill scarcely bear a looking-at. -- Returned to Egremont, [3 August] a miserable walk -- dined there, visited the Castle, the Views from which are uncommonly interesting -- I looked thro' an old wild Arch -- slovenly black Houses, & gardens, as wild as a Dream, over the hills beyond them, which slip down in one place making a noticeable Gap -- had a good Bed, slept well -- & left Egremont this morning [4 August] after Breakfast, had a pleasant walk to Calder Abbey -- an elegant but not very interesting Ruin, joining to a very han[d]some Gentleman's House built of red freestone, which has the comfortable warm look of Brick without it's meanness & multitude of puny squares. This place lies just within the Line of circumference of a Circle of woody Hills -- the area, a pretty Plain half a mile perhaps in diameter -- and completely cloathed & hid with wood, except one red hollow in these low steep hills, & except behind the Abbey, where the Hills are far higher, & consist of green Fields almost (but not quite) to the Top. Just opposite to Calder Abbey, & on the Line of the Circumference, rises Ponsonby Hill, the Village of Calder Bridge, & it's interesting Mill, all in Wood, some hidden, some roofs just on a line with the ____________________ 1 Two or three words inked out in MS. -837- Trees, some higher, but Ponsonby Hall far higher than the rest. -I regained the Road, and came to Bonewood, a single Alehouse on the top of the hill above the Village Gosforth -- drank a pint of Beer (I forgot to tell you that the whole of my expences at St. Bees, a glass of Gin & Water, my Bed, & Breakfast amounted to 11d.) -from this Bonewood is a noble view of the Isle of Man on the one side, & on the other side all the bold dread tops of the Ennerdale & Wastdale Mountains /. Indeed the whole way from Egremont I had beautiful Sea Views, the low hills to my right dipping down into inverted Arches, or Angles, & the Sea, often with a Ship seen thro' -- while on my left the Steeple, & Sca' Fell facing each other, far above the other Fells, formed in their interspace a great Gap in the Heaven. -- So I went on, turned eastward, up the Irt, the Sea behind & Wastdale Mountains before -- & here I am -- Wed. Afternoon 1 ½ past 8, Augt. 4th. 1802-- Wastdale, a mile & half below the Foot of the Lake, at an Alehouse without a Sign, 20 strides from the Door, under the Shade of a huge Sycamore Tree, without my coat -- but that I will now put on, in prudence -- yes here I am / and have been for something more than an hour, & have enjoyed a good Dish of Tea (I carried my Tea & sugar with me) under this delightful Tree. In the House there are only an old feeble Woman, and a 'Tallyeur' Lad upon the Table -- all the rest of the Wastdale World is a haymaking, rejoicing and thanking God for this first downright summer Day that we have had since the beginning of May. -- And now I must go & see the Lake / for immediately at the Foot of the Lake runs a low Ridge so that you can see nothing of the Water till you are at it's very Edge. Between the Lake and the Mountains on the left, a low ridge of hill runs parallel with the Lake, for more than half it's length; & just at the foot of the Lake there is a Bank even & smooth & low like a grassy Bank in a Gentleman's Park. Along the hilly Ridge I walked thro' a Lane of green Hazels, with hay-fields & Haymakers on my Right, beyond the River Irt, & on the other side of the River, Irton Fell with a deep perpendicular Ravine, & a curious fretted Pillar of Clay crosier-shaped, standing up in it -next to Ireton Fells & in the same line are the Screes, & you can look at nothing but the Screes tho' there were 20 quaint Pillars close by you. The Lake is wholly hidden 'till your very Feet touch it, as one may say / and to a Stranger the Burst would be almost overwhelming. The Lake itself seen from it's Foot appears indeed ____________________ 1 This passage on the alehouse appears at the beginning of the Sara Hutchinson journal but is placed here to preserve the chronology of Coleridge's tour. -838- of too regular shape; exactly like the sheet of Paper on which I am writing, except it is still narrower in respect of it's length. (In reality however the Lake widens as it ascends, and at the head is very considerably broader than at the foot.) But yet, in spite of this it is a marvellous sight / a sheet of water between 3 & 4 miles in length, the whole (or very nearly the whole) of it's right Bank formed by the Screes, or facing of bare Rock of enormous Height, two thirds of it's height downwards absol utely perpendicular; & then slanting off in Screes, or Shiver, consisting of fine red Streaks running in broad Stripes thro' a stone colour -- slanting off from the Perpendicular, as steep as the meal newly ground from the Miller's spout. -- So it is at the foot of the Lake; but higher up this streaky Shiver occupies two thirds of the whole height, like a pointed Decanter in shape, or an outspread Fan, or a long-waisted old maid with a fine prim Apron, or -- no, other things that would only fill up the Paper. -- When I first came the Lake was a perfect Mirror; & what must have been the Glory of the reflections in it! This huge facing of Rock said to be half a mile in perpendicular height, with deep Ravin[e]s the whole winded [wrinkled?] & torrent-worn, except where the pink-striped Screes come in, as smooth as silk / all this reflected, turned into Pillars, dells, and a whole new-world of Images in the water! The head of the Lake is crowned by three huge pyramidal mountains, Yewbarrow, Sca' Fell, & the great Gavel; Yewbarrow & Sca' Fell nearly opposite to each other, yet so that the Ness (or Ridge-line, like the line of a fine Nose,) of Sca' Fell runs in behind that of Yewbarrow, while the Ness of great Gavel is still farther back, between the two others, & of course, instead of running athwart the Valeit directly faces you. The Lake & Vale run nearly from East to west and this figure below will give you some idea of it. -- 1 Melfell [Middle Fell] (lying South [north] of the Lake) consists of great mountain steps decreasing in size as they approach the Lake. My Road led along under Melfell & by Yewbarrow -- & now I came in sight of it's other side called Keppel Crag & then a huge enormous bason-like Cove called Green Crag [Red Pike?] / as I suppose, from there being no single Patch of Green to be seen on any one of it's perpendicular sides -- so on to Kirk Fell, at the foot of which is Thomas Tyson's House where W[ordsworth] & I slept Novr. will be 8 years -- & there I was welcomed kindly, had a good Bed, and left it after Breakfast. ____________________ 1 But the Transcriber has not ingenuity enough to copy it, nor the full length Portrait of the Author -- so they must be dispensed with -- [Note by Sara Hutchinson.] -839- Thursday Morning, Augt. 5th -- went down the Vale almost to the water head, & ascended the low Reach between Sca' Fell and the Screes, and soon after I had gained it's height came in sight Burnmoor Water, a large Tairn nearly of that shape, it's Tail towards Sca' Fell, at its head a gap forming an inverted arch with Black Coomb & a peep of the Sea seen thro' it. -- It lies directly at the Back of the Screes, & the stream that flows from it down thro' the gap, is called the Mite -- and runs thro' a Vale of it's own called Miterdale, parallel with the lower part of Wastdale, and divided from it by the high Ridge called Ireton Fells. I ascended Sca' Fell by the side of a torrent, and climbed & rested, rested & climbed, 'till I gained the very summit of Sca' Fell -believed by the Shepherds here to be higher than either Helvellyn or Skiddaw -- Even to Black Coomb -- before me all the Mountains die away, running down westward to the Sea, apparently in eleven Ridges & three parallel Vales with their three Rivers, seen from their very Sources to their falling into the Sea, where they form (excepting their Screw-like flexures) the Trident of the Irish Channel at Ravenglass ---- O my God! what enormous Mountains these are close by me, & yet below the Hill I stand on / Great Gavel, Kirk Fell, Green Crag, & behind the Pillar, then the Steeple, then the Hay Cock -- on the other side & behind me, Great End, Esk Carse [Hause], Bow-fell & close to my back two huge Pyramids, nearly as high as Sca' Fell itself, & indeed parts & parts of Sea' Fell known far & near by these names, the hither one of Broad Crag, and the next to it but divided from it by a low Ridge Doe Crag, which is indeed of itself a great Mountain of stones from a pound to 20 Ton weight embedded in wooly Moss. And here I am lounded-- so fully lounded -- that tho' the wind is strong, & the Clouds are hast'ning hither from the Sea -- and the whole air seaward has a lurid Look -- and we shall certainly have Thunder -- yet here (but that I am hunger'd & provisionless) here I could lie warm, and wait methinks for tomorrow's Sun / and on a nice Stone Table am I now at this moment writing to you -- between 2 and 3 o'Clock as I guess / surely the first Letter ever written from the Top of Sea' Fell! But O! what a look down just under my Feet! The frightfullest Cove that might ever be seen / huge perpendicular Precipices, and one Sheep upon it's only Ledge, that surely must be crag! Tyson told me of this place, & called it Hollow Stones. Just by it & joining together, rise two huge Pillars of bare leadcolored stone -- / I am no measurer / but their height & depth is terrible. I know how unfair it is to judge of these Things by a comparison of past Impressions with present -- but I have no shadow -840- of hesitation in saying that the Coves & Precipices of Helvellin are nothing to these! But [from] this sweet lounding Place I see directly thro' Borrowdale, the Castle Crag, the whole of Derwent Water, & but for the haziness of the Air I could see my own House -- I see clear enough where it stands ----- Here I will fold up this Letter -- I have Wafers in my Inkhorn / & you shall call this Letter when it passes before you the Sca' Fell Letter 1 / -- I must now drop down, how I may into Eskdale-- that lies under to my right -- the upper part of it the wildest & savagest surely of all the Vales that were ever seen from the Top of an English Mountain / and the lower part the loveliest. ----- 451. To Sara Hutchinson Transcript Sara Hutchinson, in Mr. A. H. B. Coleridge possession. Pub. Wordsworth and Coleridge, ed. by E. L. Griggs, 1939, pp. 158-63. Eskdale, Friday, Augt. 6th. [ 1802] at an Estate House called Toes There is one sort of Gambling, to which I am much addicted; and that not of the least criminal kind for a man who has children & a Concern. -- It is this. When I find it convenient to descend from a mountain, I am too confident & too indolent to look round about & wind about 'till I find a track or other symptom of safety; but I wander on, & where it is first possible to descend, there I go -relying upon fortune for how far down this possibility will continue. So it was yesterday afternoon. I passed down from Broadcrag, skirted the Precipices, and found myself cut off from a most sublime Crag-summit, that seemed to rival Sca' Fell Man in height, & to outdo it in fierceness. A Ridge of Hill lay low down, & divided this Crag (called Doe-crag) & Broad-crag -- even as the Hyphen divides the words broad & crag. I determined to go thither; the first place I came to, that was not direct Rock, I slipped down, & went on for a while with tolerable ease -- but now I came (it was midway down) to a smooth perpendicular Rock about 7 feet high-this was nothing -- I put my hands on the Ledge, & dropped down / in a few yards came just such another / I dropped that too / and yet another, seemed not higher -- I would not stand for a trifle / so I dropped that too / but the stretching of the muscle[s] of my hands & arms, & the jolt of the Fall on my Feet, put my whole Limbs in a Tremble, and I paused, & looking down, saw that I had little else to encounter but a succession of these little Precipice -- ____________________ 1 'The Sca' Fell Letter' was posted to Sara Hutchinson at Gallow Hill, Yorkshire, from Ambleside on Sunday evening, 8 Aug. Cf. Letter 453. The transcript contains no conclusion or signature. -841- it was in truth a Path that in a very hard Rain is, no doubt, the channel of a most splendid Waterfall. -- So I began to suspect that I ought not to go on / but then unfortunately tho' I could with ease drop down a smooth Rock 7 feet high, I could not climb it / so go on I must / and on I went / the next 3 drops were not half a Foot, at least not a foot more than my own height / but every Drop increased the Palsy of my Limbs -- I shook all over, Heaven knows without the least influence of Fear / and now I had only two more to drop down / to return was impossible -- but of these two the first was tremendous / it was twice my own height, & the Ledge at the bottom was [so] exceedingly narrow, that if I dropt down upon it I must of necessity have fallen backwards & of course killed myself. My Limbs were all in a tremble -- I lay upon my Back to rest myself, & was beginning according to my Custom to laugh at myself for a Madman, when the sight of the Crags above me on each side, & the impetuous Clouds just over them, posting so luridly & so rapidly northward, overawed me / I lay in a state of almost prophetic Trance & Delight -- & blessed God aloud, for the powers of Reason & the Will, which remaining no Danger can overpower us! O God, I exclaimed aloud -- how calm, how blessed am I now / I know not how to proceed, how to return / but I am calm & fearless & confident / if this Reality were a Dream, if I were asleep, what agonies had I suffered! what screams! -- When the Reason & the Will are away, what remain to us but Darkness & Dimness & a bewildering Shame, and Pain that is utterly Lord over us, or fantastic Pleasure, that draws the Soul along swimming through the air in many shapes, even as a Flight of Starlings in a Wind. -- I arose, & looking down saw at the bottom a heap of Stones -- which had fallen abroad -- and rendered the narrow Ledge on which they had been piled, doubly dangerous / at the bottom of the third Rock that I dropt from, I met a dead Sheep quite rotten -- This heap of Stones, I guessed, & have since found that I guessed aright, had been piled up by the Shepherd to enable him to climb up & free the poor creature whom he had observed to be crag-fast -- but seeing nothing but rock over rock, he had desisted & gone for help -- & in the mean time the poor creature had fallen down & killed itself. -- As I was looking at these I glanced my eye to my left, & observed that the Rock was rent from top to bottom -- I measured the breadth of the Rent, and found that there was no danger of my being wedged in / so I put my Knap-sack round to my side, & slipped down as between two walls, without any danger or difficulty -- the next Drop brought me down on the Ridge called the How / I hunted out my Besom Stick, which I had flung before me when I first came to the Rocks -- and wisely gave -842- over all thoughts of ascending Doe-Crag -- for now the Clouds were again coming in most tumultuously -- so I began to descend / when I felt an odd sensation across my whole Breast -- not pain nor itching -- & putting my hand on it I found it all bumpy -- and on looking saw the whole of my Breast from my Neck [to my Navel] 1 -- & exactly all that my Kamell-hair Breast-shield covers, filled with great red heat-bumps, so thick that no hair could lie between them. They still remain / but are evidently less -- & I have no doubt will wholly disappear in a few Days. It was however a startling proof to me of the violent exertions which I had made. -- I descended this low Hill which was all hollow beneath me -- and was like the rough green Quilt of a Bed of waters -- at length two streams burst out & took their way down, one on [one] side a high Ground upon this Ridge, the other on the other -- I took that to my right (having on my left this high Ground, & the other Stream, & beyond that Doe-crag, on the other side of which is Esk Halse, where the headspring of the Esk rises, & running down the Hill & in upon the Vale looks and actually deceived me, as a great Turnpike Road -in which, as in many other respects the Head of Eskdale much resembles Langdale) & soon the channel sank all at once, at least 40 yards, & formed a magnificent Waterfall -- and close under this a succession of Waterfalls 7 in number, the third of which is nearly as high as the first. When I had almost reached the bottom of the Hill, I stood so as to command the whole 8 Waterfalls, with the great triangle-Crag looking in above them, & on the one side of them the enormous & more than perpendicular Precipices & Bull'sBrows, of Sca' Fell! And now the Thunder-Storm was coming on, again & again! -- Just at the bottom of the Hill I saw on before me in the Vale, lying just above the River on the side of a Hill, one, two, three, four Objects, I could not distinguish whether Peathovels, or hovel-shaped Stones -- I thought in my mind, that 8 of them would turn out to be stones -- but that the fourth was certainly a Hovel. I went on toward them, crossing & recrossing the Becks & the River & found that they were all huge Stones -- the one nearest the Beek which I had determined to be really a Hovel, retained it's likeness when I was close beside / in size it is nearly equal to the famous Bowder stone, but in every other respect greatly superior to it -- it has a complete Roof, & that perfectly thatched with weeds, & Heath, & Mountain-Ash Bushes -- I now was obliged to ascend again, as the River ran greatly to the Left, & the Vale was nothing more than the Channel of the River, all the rest of the interspace between the mountains was a tossing up & down of Hills of all sizes -- and the place at which I am now ____________________ 1 Words in brackets inked out in MS. -843- writing is called -- Te-as, & spelt, Toes-- as the Toes of Sca' Fell --. It is not possible that any name can be more descriptive of the Head of Eskdale -- I ascended close under Sca' Fell, & came to a little Village of Sheep-folds / there were 5 together / & the tedding Stuff, & the Shears, & an old Pot, was in the Passage of the first of them. Here I found an imperfect Shelter from a Thunder-shower -- accompanied with such Echoes! O God! what thoughts were mine! O how I wished for Health & Strength that I might wander about for a Month together, in the stormiest month of the year, among these Places, so lonely & savage & full of sounds! After 1 the Thunder-storm I shouted out all your names in the Sheep-fold -- when Echo came upon Echo/ and then Hartley & Derwent & then I laughed & shouted Joanna 2 / It leaves all the Echoes I ever heard far far behind, in number, distinctness & humanness of Voice -- & then not to forget an old Friend I made them all say Dr. Dodd 3 &c. -- After the Storm I passed on & came to a great Peat-road, that wound down a hill, called Maddock How, & now came out upon the first cultivated Land which begins with a Bridge that goes over a Stream, a Waterfall of considerable height & beautifully wooded above you, & a great water-slope under you / the Gill down which it falls, is called Scale Gill -- & the Fall Scale Gill Force. (The word Scale & Scales is common in this Country -- & is said by. . . 4 to be derived from the Saxon Sceala; the wattling of Sheep -- but judging from the places themselves, Scale Force & this Scale Gill Force -- I think it as probable that it is derived from Scalle -- which signifies a deafening Noise.) Well, I passed thro' some sweet pretty Fields, & came to a large Farm-house where I am now writing / The place is called Toes or Te as -- the master's name John Vicars Towers -- they received me hospitably / I drank Tea here & they begged me to pass the Night -- which I did & supped of some excellent Salmonlings, which Towers had brought from Ravenglass whither he had been, as holding under the Earl of Egremont, & obliged 'to ride the Fair' -- a custom introduced during the times of Insecurity & piratical Incursion for the Protection of Ravenglass Fair. They were a fine Family -- and a Girl who did not look more than 12 years old, but was nearly 15, was very beautiful -- with hair like vine-tendrils -- . She had been long ____________________ 1 This paragraph, which forms the conclusion of this letter in the Sara Hutchinson journal, has been transferred to keep the events of the tour in chronological order. 2 cf. Wordsworth poem, To Joanna. 3 A reference to Dr. William Dodd, the forger. 4 Name omitted in MS. -844- ill -- & was a sickly child -- [']Ah poor Bairn! (said the Mother) worse luck for her / she looks like a Quality Bairn, as you may say.' This man's Ancestors have been time out of mind in the Vale / and here I found that the common Names, Towers, & Tozers are the same -- / er signifies 'upon' -- as Mite-er-dale the Dale upon the River Mite / Donnerdale -- a contraction of Duddon-er-dale the Dale upon the River Duddon -- So Towers, pronounced in the Vale Te-ars -- & Tozers is [are] those who live on the Toes -- i.e. upon the Knobby feet of the Mountain / Mr. Tears has mended my pen. -This morning after breakfast I went out with him, & passed up the Vale again due East, along a higher Road, over a heathy upland, crossed the upper part of Scale Gill, came out upon Maddock How, & then ascending turned directly Northward, into the Heart of the mountains; on my left the wild Crags under which flows the Scale Gill Beck, the most remarkable of them called Cat Crag (a wild Cat being killed there) & on my right hand six great Crags, which appeared in the mist all in a file -- and they were all, tho' of different sizes, yet the same shape all triangles -- . Other Crags far above them, higher up the Vale, appeared & disappeared as the mists passed & came / one with a waterfall, called Spout Crag -and another most tremendous one, called Earn [Heron] Crag -- I passed on, a little way, till I came close under a huge Crag, called Buck Crag -- & immediately under this is Four-foot Stone -- having on it the clear marks of four foot-steps. The Stone is in it's whole breadth just 86 inches, (I measured it exactly) but the part that contains the marks is raised above the other part, & is just 20 1/2 Inches. The length of the Stone is 32 1/2 Inches. The first foot-mark is an Ox's foot -- nothing can be conceived more exact -- this is 5 3/4 Inches wide -- the second is a Boy's shoe in the Snow, 94 Inches in length / this too is the very Thing itself, the Heel, the bend of the Foot, &c. -- the third is the Foot-step to the very Life of a Mastiff Dog -- and the fourth is Derwent's very own first little Shoe, 4 Inches in length & O! it is the sweetest Baby shoe that ever was seen. -- The wie-foot in Borrowdale is contemptible; but this really does work upon my imagination very powerfully / & I will try to construct a Tale upon it / the place too is so very, very wild. I delighted the Shepherd by my admiration / & the four foot Stone is my own Christening, & Towers undertakes it shall hereafter go by that name for hitherto it has been nameless. -- And so I returned & have found a Pedlar here of an interesting Physiognomy -- & here I must leave off -- for Dinner is ready 1 ----- ____________________ 1 Sara Hutchinson's transcript breaks off with Friday, 6 Aug. On 10 Aug. (Letter 458), after his return to Keswick, Coleridge wrote to Sara that he had not yet finished this 'Great-sheet' letter. Probably he never did so, for shortly -845- 452. To Robert Southey Address: Robert Southey Esq. | St James's Place | King's Down | Bristol Single Sheet MS. Lord Latymer. Pub. with omis. Letters, i. 393. Postramk: 12 August 1802. Stamped: Keswick. Monday Night, August 9, 1802 My dear Southey Derwent can say his Letters -- and if you could but see his darling Mouth, when he shouts out Q! -- This is a Digression. -- On Sunday August I. after morning church I left Greta Hall, crossed the fields to Portinscale, went thro' Newlands, where 'Great Robinson looks down upon Maiden's Bower,' and drank Tea at Buttermere -- crossed the mountains to Ennerdale, & slept at a farm House a little below the foot of the Lake / Spent the greater part of the next Day mountaineering, & went in the evening thro' Egrement to St Bees & slept there -- returned next day to Egremont & slept there -- went by the Sea Coast as far as Gosforth, then turned off, & went up Wasdale, & slept at T. Tyson's at the head of the vale / Thursday morning crossed the mountains, & ascended Sca' fell, which is more than a 100 yards higher than either Helvellin or Skiddaw / spent the whole day among clouds, & one of them a frightening thunder-cloud -- slipt down into Eskdale, & there slept -- & spent good part of the next day -- proceeded that evening to Devock Lake, & slept at Ulpha Kirk / on Saturday passed thro' the Donnerdale Mountains to Broughton Vale, Torvor Vale, & in upon Coniston / Sunday surveyed the Lake &c of Coniston, & proceeded to Bratha, and slept at Lloyd's House / this Morning walked from Bratha to Grasmere, & from Grasmere to Greta Hall -- where I now am, quite sweet and ablute / & have but even now read thro' your Letter -- which I will answer by the night's post, & therefore must defer all account of my very Interesting Tour -- saying only that of all earthly things which I have beheld, the view of Sea' fell & from Sca' Fell, (both views from it's own summit) is the most heart-exciting. And now for business -The rent of the whole House, including Taxes, & the Furniture we have, will be not under 40£, & not above 42£ a year / You will have half the house, & half the furniture, and of course, your share will be either 20£ or 20 guineas. As to furniture, the house certainly will not be wholly, i.e. compleatly, furnished by Jackson / two rooms we must somehow or other furnish between us -- but not immediately -- you may pass the winter without it -- & it is hard, if ____________________ afterwards Charles and Mary Lamb arrived at Greta Hall for a visit lasting three weeks. -846- we cannot raise 30£ in the course of the winter between us / and whatever we buy, may be disposed of any Saturday, to a moral certainty at it's full value / or Mr Jackson, who is uncommonly desirous that you should come, will take it -- but we can put on for the winter well enough / . -- Your Books may come all the way from Bristol either to Whitehaven, Maryport, or Workington / sometimes directly, always by means of Liverpool. In the latter case they must be sent to Whitehaven / from whence waggons come to Keswick twice a week. -- You will have 20 or 80 shillings to lay out in Tin & Crockery -- & you must bring with you, or buy here, which you may do at 8 months' credit, knives & forks, &c, and all your Linen from the diaper subvestments of the young Jacobin to diaper Table Cloths, Sheet[s], Napkins, &c. But these, I suppose, you already have. -- What else I have to say, I can not tell / & indeed shall be too late for the Post. But I will write soon again / I was exceedingly amused with the Cottelism / but I have not time to speak of this or of other parts of your Letter. I believe that I can execute the Criticisms with no Offence to Hayley, & in a manner highly satisfactory to the admirers of the Poet Bloomfield, & to the Friends of the Man Bloomfield. But there are certainly other objections of great weight. -- Sara is well -- and the children pretty well. Hartley is almost ill with transport at my Sea' Fell expedition / That child is a Poet, spite of the Forehead 'villainous low,' 1 which his Mother smuggled into his Face. Derwent is more beautiful than ever -- but very backward with his Tongue -altho' he can say all his Letters -- N.B. Not out of Books. God bless you! & your's -- & S. T. Coleridge If you are able to determine, you will of course let me know it, without waiting for a second Letter from me / as if you determine in the affirmative of the Scheme, it will be a great motive with Jackson, indeed a most infallible one, to get immediately to work-so as to have the whole perfectly finished six weeks at least before your arrival. ---- Another reason for your writing immediately is that we may lay you in a Stock of Coals during the summer, which is a saving of some Pounds. ---- When I say determine, of course, I mean -- such determination, as the thousand Contingencies, black & white, permit a wise man to make / & which would be enough for me to act on. ---- ____________________ 1 The Tempest, iv. i. 250. -847- Sara will write to Edith soon -- Sara did not ctach the £ itch, 1 before her concubition with Abram / . -- I have just received a Letter from Poole -- but I have found so many Letters, that I have opened your's only. ---- 453. To Sara Hutchinson Address: Miss S. Hutchinson | Gallow Hill | Wykeham | Malton | Yorkshire MS. Dove Cottage.Pub. with omis. Chambers, Life, 339. Stamped: Keswick. August 10, 1802. Tuesday Evening My dearest Sara You will this morning, I trust, have received the Letter which I left at the Ambleside Post (the first, I came to) on Sunday Evening. I have half such another, the continuation of mytour, written; but on my arrival yesterday at my home, about 8 o'clock in the evening, I found 7 Letters for me / I opened none for an hour, I was so overglad to see the children again / and the first, I opened, I was forced to answer directly -- which was as much as I could do, to save the Post -- & to day I have been so busy letterwriting, that I have not time to finish the Great-sheet Letter -- so must send a short one, briefly to say that I have received your two Letters, one of Monday, Aug. 2. inclosing the 5£ -- which I read last night, & had better left it alone, as I did 5 others -- for it kept me awake longer than I ought to have been -- and one this evening. I am well, & have had a very delightful & feeding Excursion, or rather Circumcursion. -- When you did not hear from me, & in answer too to a letter containing a note, you should surely have concluded, my Darling! that I was not at home: for when do I neglect these things to those, I love? Other things, & weighty ones, God help me! I neglect in abundance / [for instance / two little Boxes, which Dorothy fears, (& with abundant Reason) are lost-& which contain, besides my cloathes & several very valuable Books, all my written collections made in Germany -- which taken merely in a pecuniary point of view are not worth less than 150£ to me. ---- More Rain coming! I broke off writing to look at the Sky / it was exactly 35 minutes after 7, which [was] 4 minutes after the real Sunset, and long long after the apparent sun-set behind our Vales -- & I saw such a sight as I never before saw. Beyond Bassenthwaite at the end of the view was a Sky of bright yellow-green; but over that & extending all over Bassenthwaite, ____________________ 1 Coleridge again refers to Southey's spelling of Mrs. Coleridge's name -Sarah. Cf. Letter 449. -848- & almost up to Keswick church a Cloud-Sky of the deepest most fiery Orange -- Bassenthwaite Lake look'd like a Lake of 'blood-red Wine' -- and the River Greta, in all it's winding, before our house, & the upper part of the Keswick Lake, were fiery red -- even as I once saw the Thames when thehuge Albion Mills were burning, amid the Shouts of an exulting Mob -- but with one foot upon Walla Crag, and the other foot exactly upon Calvert's House at Windy Brow was one great Rainbow, red and all red, entirely formed by the Clouds -- I have now seen all the Rain-bows, that, I suppose, are possible -- the Solar Rainbow, with it's many colors, the grey lunar Rainbow, & a fiery red Rainbow, wholly from the Clouds after sunset! -- I seem, I know not why, to be beating off all Reference to Dorothy & William, & their Letters -- I heard from Sotheby of their meeting -- (tho' I did not read his Letter till after I had read your's --) I wish, I wish, they were back! ---- When I think of them in Lodgings at Calais, Goslar comes back upon me; & of Goslar I never think but with dejection. -- [Dear little Caroline! -- Will she be a ward of Annette? -- Was the subject too delicate for a Letter? -- ] 1 I suppose so. ---- To morrow morning they will leave Calais, if they indeed leave it 10 days after the Date of Dorothy's Letter / so that they will probably be with you, I would fain hope, by Monday next. -- I saw old Molly yesterday / She was weakly, but 'mended' from what she had been / the Rheumatic Pain & weakness had left her Back, & gone into her arms -- I slept at Bratha on Sunday Night -- & did not go on to Grasmere, tho' I had time enough, and was not over-fatigued; but tho' I have no objection to sleep in a lonely House, I did not like to sleep in their lonely House. I called the next day -- went into the garden -- pulled some Peas, & shelled & drest them, & eat them for my dinner with one rasher of Bacon boiled -- but I did not go up stairs, nor indeed any where but the Kitchen. Partly I was very wet & my boots very dirty -- & Molly had set the Pride of her Heart upon it's niceness -& still more -- I had small desire to go up! It was very kind in you, my Darlings! to send the 5£; (which I have now sent back) but it was not very wise. I could have easily procured 8 or 4£ from Mr Jackson / but I gave up the Residence at St Bees, because I began to reflect that in the present state of my finances I ought not to spend so much money. Thomas Ashburner's call was the occasion of my resolve not to go to St Bees; but my own after reflections were the cause. -- In the course of my ____________________ 1 The words enclosed in brackets are heavily inked out in the manuscript. This is the only surviving reference to Annette and Caroline Vallon in Coleridge's letters. -849- Tour (& I was absent 9 days) I gave away to Bairns, & foot-sore Wayfarers four shillings, & some odd pence; & I spent nine shillings -- sum total, £0" 13s 0D -- but to this must be added the wear & tear of my Boots, which are gone to be mended; & sixpence for a great knee-patch for my Pantaloons, which will not however be worn an hour the shorter time for the said large knee-patch. I have now no clothes but what are patched at the elbows, & knees, d. in the seat -- & I am determined to wear them out & out -- & to have none till after Christmas. ---- Hartley is in good spirits; but he does not look well. Derwent too looks less rosy than usual -- for we cannot keep him from the Gooseberries -- Hartley says -- [']He is far over wicked; but it's all owing to Adam, who did the same thing in Paradise.' -- Derwent can repeat all the Letters; & can point out six or seven / O! that you could see his Darling mouth, when he shouts out Q. -- But notwithstanding his erudition, he is very backward in his Tongue. -- Lloyd's children are nice fair Babies; but there is nothing lovely in their countenances or manners. -- I have seldom seen children, I was so little inclined to caress -- fair & clean, as they were. O how many a cottage Bairn have I kissed or long'd to kiss, whose Cheeks I could scarce see for the healthy dirt -- but these I had no wish to kiss! -- There is a something in children that makes Love flow out upon them, distinct from beauty, & still more distinct from good-behaviour / I cannot say, God knows! that our children are even decently well-behaved -- & Hartley is no beauty -- & yet it has been the Lot of the two children to be beloved. They are the general Darlings of the whole Town: & wherever they go, Love is their natural Heritage. Mrs Coleridge is now pretty well. -- God bless my darling Sara! -- & thee, dear Mary! I will finish my long Letter, as soon as possible / but for the next 8 or 4 days I shall be exceedingly busy. Write immediately. Kind Remembrances to Tom & Joanna. -- Bless you, my Darling! & S. T. Coleridge I have received a large Wedgewood Jug, & a large Cup, finely embossed with figures, & thick-rimmed with silver, as a present, from -- Lady Rush! with a kind Note. -- I had a shrewd suspicion, that I was a favorite. ---- Inclosed is the £5, 5s note. -- -850- 454. To Sara Hutchinson Address: Miss S. (Hutchinson] [Sin]gle sheet. MS. Dove Cottage. Hitherto unpublished. These few lines, with a fragment of the address on the opposite side, are all that remain of Coleridge's letter. [ August 1802?] 1 . . . -- the black thick Cloud indeed is still over my head, and all the Landscape' around me is dark & gloomy with it's shadow-but the wind has risen, Darling! it blows this way a strong & steady gale, & I see already with the eye of confident anticipation the laughing blue sky, & no black thick Cloud! -- . . . . . . write next to . . . (Wor]dsworth, Gr . . . . . . [s]hall assuredly be . . . . . . [begin]ning of next wee[k] . . . . . . [nelver cease to do . . . . . . lovely! -- S. T. C[oleridge] . . . consumptive, is gone . . . . . . of gloomy Thoughts. -- 455. To Robert Southey [Addressed by Mrs. S. T. Coleridge] Mrs Southey | St James's-place | Kingsdown | Bristol. MS. Lord Latymer. Hitherto unpublished. Coleridge's letter was written on the address sheet of a letter from Mrs. Coleridge to her sister, Mrs. Southey. Postmark: <1> 4 August< 1802>. Stamped: Keswick. [Circa 12 August 1802] 2 My dear Southey Do let me hear from you / what of the Cow Pox & Loyola? -Marius, an Ecclesiastic of noble birth, a Swiss, who died Anno Domini 601 -- wrote a Latin Chronicle of his own Time, to be met with in Du Cheyne 3 -- in the year 570 he speaks of the Small Pox, ____________________ 1 This letter must have been written shortly after 10 Aug. 1802, because of the reference to Grasmere and to Wordsworth. In Letter 458 Coleridge speaks of the probable arrival of the Wordsworths at Gallow Hill by 'Monday next'. 2 In the summer of 1802 the Southeys took a furnished house in the same row as the Danvers's home, where they had had lodgings the year before. The fact that Mrs. Coleridge did not use the name Danvers in the address, as well as references in her letter, indicates a date in Aug. 1802. 3 Marii Aventicensis Episcopi Chronicon appeared in the first volume of André Du Chesne Historiae Francorum Scriptores. . . , 5 vols., 1636-49. -851- which was first introduced by the Abyssinians into Arabia when they conquered the Province of Hamyen [ Yemen?]; & they called it the Locust-plague, believing it to have originated in the huge heaps of putrefying Locusts in the Desart. -- From Arabia it was carried by Greek merchants to Constantinople -- & from thence by the armies of Justinian in his Gothic War to Italy, Switzerland, & France. Marius expressly says of it; [']animalia bubula maxime interierunt -- the Oxen & Cows chiefly died of it /' tho' he had before stated it's devastations among men as quite frightful. The Cattle plague in 1769 was pronounced by the Physicians in Denmark to be the genuine Small Pox -- it was eradicated in England, Flanders, & the South of France by burying all the diseased Cattle with the Carcases entire, & with their Litter; but in Denmark it became naturalized -- & they prevented it's ill effects by inoculating the Calves, which answered in all cases exactly as inoculation in the human species. -- These facts seem to place the identity of the Small & cow pox out of all doubt -- be so good as to mention them to Mr King & Dr Beddoes -- & learn from them, whether the Facts have been adduced in any of the pamphlets of Jenner, Woodville, 1 & the rest of the Cow po[x men]. God bless you, dear Friend! & S. T. Coleridge. 456. To Sara Hutchinson Transcript Sara Hutchinson, in Mr. A. H. B. Coleridge's possession. Pub. Inquiring Spirit, ed. by Kathleen Coburn, 1951, pp. 240-2. This fragment is an that remains of what was probably a journal letter begun on 25 Aug., the same day Coleridge visited 'Buttermere Halse Fall' (Moss Force). The concluding paragraph of this fragment mentions an excursion of Sunday, 29 Aug., to Lodore, which Coleridge compares with Moss Force and Scale Force. Charles and Mary Lamb were with Coleridge at this time, and it is quite likely that Lamb was his companion on both the short excursions mentioned in this letter. Lamb wrote afterwards that Coleridge 'received us with all the hospitality in the world, and gave up his time to show us all the wonders of the country. . . . We have clambered up to the top of Skiddaw, and I have waded up the bed of Lodore.' Lamb Letters, i. 315. Keswick, Augt. 25th, 1802 All night it rained incessantly-& in a hard storm of Rain this morning, at ½ past 10, I set off, & drove away toward Newlandsthere is a Waterfall, that divides Great Robinson from Buttermere Halse Fell, which when Mary & Tom [ Hutchinson], & I passed, we stopped & said -- what a wonderful Creature it would be in a hard Rain -- dear Mary was especially struck with it's latent Great- ____________________ 1 Edward Jenner ( 1749-1828), discoverer of vaccination; and William Woodville ( 1752-1805). -852- ness -- & since that time I have never passed it without a haunting wish to see it in it's fury -- it is just 8 miles from Keswick. I had a glorious Walk -- the rain sailing along those black Crags & green Steeps, white as the wooly Down on the under side of a Willow Leaf, & soft as Floss Silk / & silver Fillets of Water down every mountain from top to bottom that were as fine as Bridegrooms. I soon arrived at the Halse -- & climbed up by the waterfall as near as I could, to the very top of the Fell -- but it was so craggy -- the Crags covered with spongy soaky Moss, and when bare so jagged as to wound one's hands fearfully -- and the Gusts came so very sudden & strong, that the going up was slow, & difficult & earnest -- & the coming down, not only all that, but likewise extremely dangerous. However, I have always found this stretched & anxious state of mind favorable to depth of pleasurable Impression, in the resting Places & lownding Coves. The Thing repaid me amply / it is a great Torrent from the Top of the Mountain to the Bottom / the lower part of it is not the least Interesting, where it is beginning to slope to a level -- the mad water rushes thro' it's sinuous Bed, or rather prison of Rock, with such rapid Curves, as if it turned the Corners not from the mechanic force, but with foreknowledge, like a fierce & skilful Driver / great Masses of Water, one after the other, that in twilight one might have feelingly compared them to a vast crowd of huge white Bears, rushing, one over the other, against the wind -- their long white hair shattering abroad in the wind / The remainder of the Torrent is marked out by three great Waterfalls -- the lowermost apron-shaped, & though the Rock down which it rushes is an inclined Plane, it shoots off in such an independence of the Rock as shews that it's direction was given it by the force of the Water from above. The middle, which in peaceable times would be two tinkling Falls, formed in this furious Rain one great Water-wheel endlessly revolving / & double the size & height of the lowest -- the third & highest is a mighty one indeed / it is twice the height of both the others added together / nearly as high as Scale Force / but it rushes down an inclined Plane -- and does not fall, like Scale Force / however, if the Plane had been smooth, it is so near a Perpendicular that it would have appeared to fall -- but it is indeed so fearfully savage, & black, & jagged, that it tears the flood to pieces -- and one great black Outjutment divides the water, & overbrows & keeps uncovered a long slip of jagged black Rock beneath, which gives a marked character to the whole force. What a sight it is to look down on such a Cataract! -the wheels, that circumvolve in it -- the leaping up & plunging forward of that infinity of Pearls & Glass Bulbs -- the continual change of the Matter, the perpetual Sameness of the Form -- it is an -853- awful Image & Shadow of God & the World. 1 -- When I reached the very top, where the Stream flows level, there were feeding three darling Sheep, with their red ochre Letters on their sides, as quiet as if they were by a Rill in a flat meadow, flowing clear over smooth tressy water-weeds, & thro' by long Grass -- Bless their dear hearts what darlings mountain Sheep are! -- A little above the summit of the Waterfall I had a very striking view -- the Lake & part of Keswick in a remarkably interesting point of view seen at the end of the Vista formed by the vale of Newlands -- this was on my right -- and as I turned to my left, the Sun burst out -- & I saw close by me part of the Lake of Buttermere, but not an inch of any one of it's Shores or of the Vale -- but over away beside Crummock a white shining dazzling view of the Vale of Lorton & the Sea beyond it. -- I went to Lodore on Sunday [29 August] -- it was finer than I had ever seen it before -- never were there three Waterfalls so different from each other, as Lodore, Buttermere Halse Fall, & Seale Force. -- Scale Force is a proper Fall between two very high & narrow Walls of Rock, well tree'd -- yet so that the Trees rather add to, than lessen the precipice Walls. -- Buttermere Halse Fall is a narrow, open, naked Torrent with three great Water-slopes individualized in it one above another, large, larger, largest-. Lodore has it's Walls, but they are scarcely Walls, they are wide apart, & not upright, & their beauty & exceeding Majesty take away the Terror -- and the Torrent is broad & wide, & from top to bottom it is small Waterfalls, abreast, & abreast. Buttermere Halse Fall is the War-song of a Scandinavian Bard -- Lodore is the Precipitation of the fallen Angels from Heaven, Flight & Confusion, & Distraction, but all harmonized into one majestic Thing by the genius of Milton, who describes it. Lodore is beyond all rivalry the first & best Thing of the whole Lake Country. Indeed ____________________ 1 In two letters contributed to The Times Literary Supplement on 28 Sept. and 26 Oct. 1951, Mr. A. P. Rossiter examines the sources of Coleridge Hymn before Sun-rise, in the Vale of Chamouni, and he convincingly demonstrates that the passage above found lyrical expression in the following lines of the poem. 'Who', asks the poet, called forth the 'five wild torrents Down those precipitous, black, jaggéd rocks, For ever shattered and the same for ever? Who gave you your invulnerable life, Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy, Unceasing thunder and eternal foam? ( Poems, i. 379.) One can only agree with Mr. Rossiter that the account of Buttermere Halse Fall is reflected in Coleridge's poem and that the Falls of Lodore, described later in this letter, also may have stimulated the poet's imagination. For further comment on Coleridge's sources see Letter 459. -854- (but we cannot judge at all from Prints) I have seen nothing equal to it in the Prints & Sketches of the Scotch & Swiss Cataracts. 457. To William Sotheby Address: [W.] Sotheby Esq. | Lodge | Loughton | Essex MS. Colonel ff. G. Sotheby. Pub. with omis. Letters, i. 396. Postmark: 30 August 1802. Stamped: Keswick. Thursday, August 26, 1802 My dear Sir I was absent on a little Excursion, when your Letter arrived& since my return I have been waiting & making every enquiry in the hopes of announcing the receipt of your Orestes 1 & it's companions, with my sincere thanks for your kindness. But I can hear nothing of them. Mr Lamb however goes to Penrith next week, & will make strict scrutiny. I am not to find the Welch Tours 2 among them; & yet I think I am correct in referring the Ode, NETLEY ABBEY, to that collection / a poem which I believe I can very nearly repeat by heart -- tho' it must have been four or five years since I last read it. I well remember, that after reading your Welch Tour, Southey observed to me, that you, I, & himself had all done ourselves harm by suffering our admiration of Bowles to bubble up too often on the surface of our Poems. In perusing the second Volume of Bowles, which I owe to your kindness, I met a line of my own which gave me great pleasure / from the thought, what a pride & joy I should have had at the time of writing it, if I had supposed it possible that Bowles would have adopted it -- The line is Had MELANCHOLY mus'd herself to Sleep 3 / I wrote the lines at 19 -- & published them many years ago in the Morning Post as a fragment -- and as they are but 12 lines I will transcribe them 4 / Upon a moulder'd Abbey's broadest Wall, Where ruining Ivies prop the Ruins steep, Her folded Arms wrapping her tatter'd Pall Had MELANCHOLY mus'd herself to sleep. The FERN was press'd beneath her Hair; ____________________ 1 Sotheby Orestes, 1802. 2 Sotheby A Tour through Parts of Wales, Sonnets, Odes, and Other Poem, 1794. 3 See Bowles Coombe-Ellen, fines 36-37: Here Melancholy on the pale crags laid, Might muse herself to sleep. 4 First published Morning Post, 12 Dec 1797. Poems, i. 73. -855- The dark-green * ADDIER'S tongue was there; And still, as came the flagging Sea-gales weak, The long lank Leaf bow'd fluttering o'er her cheek. Her pallid Cheek was flush'd: her eager Look Beam'd, eloquent in slumber. Inly wrought Imperfect Sounds her moving Lips forsook, And her bent Forehead work'd with troubled Thought. ---- I met these Lines yesterday by accident -- & ill as they are written, there seem'd to me a force & distinctness of Image in them, that were buds of Promise in a school-boy performance / tho' I am giving them perhaps more than their Deserts in thus ensuring them a Reading from you. ---- I have finished the First Navigator; and Mr Tomkins may have it, whenever he wishes. It would be gratifying to me if you would look it over, & alter any thing, you like / my whole wish & purpose is to serve Mr Tomkyns -- & you are not only much more in the habit of writing verse than I am, but must needs have a better Tact of what will offend that class of Readers, into whose hands a shewy Publication is likely to fall. I do not mean, my dear Sir! to impose on you 10 minutes' thought / but often, currente oculo, a better phrase or position of words will suggest itself. As to the 101, it is more than the Thing is worth, either in German or English / & Mr Tomkins will better give the true value of it by kindly accepting what is given with kindness. Two or three copies presented in my name, one to each of the two or three Friends of mine, who are likely to be pleased with a fine Book -- this is the utmost, I desire, or will receive. -- I shall for the ensuing quarter send occasionally verses, &c to the Morning Post, under the signature "Eσ+̂τησ+̂ε 1 -- & I mention this to you, because I have some intention of translating Voss's Idills 2 in English Hexa- ____________________ * Asplenium Scolopendrium, more commonly called the Hart's Tongue. [S. T. C.] 1 Underlined twice in MS. 2 J. H. Voss, Luise, ein ländliches Gedicht in drei Idyllen, 1795. In the Mitchell Library of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, there is an autograph manuscript of Coleridge containing eight lines from this poem. The lines are headed: 'The prefatory Verses to Voss's Louise translated almost verbally, & in the original metre.' Before Gleim's Cottage Up, up! noble old Man! Who knocks there? Friend & Acquaintance Friends should more quietly knock. True! but you would not have heard. Hush! ye'll awaken the Maidens. They love us. Hush! it is Midnight. And could ye wish them to rise? Rise & receive the Belov'd. Whom, prithee? Know you the Vicar of Greeno? What? & Luisa? She and her Husband. But where's Mother? And Mother, to boot. -856- meters, with a little prefatory Essay on modern Hexameters. -- I have discovered, that the poetical Parts of the Bible, & the best parts of Ossian, are little more than slovenly Hexameters -- and the rhythmical Prose of Gesner is still more so -- / & reads exactly like that metre in Boetius' & Seneca's Tragedies which consists of the latter half of the Hexameter --. -- The Thing is worth an Experiment; & I wish it to be considered merely as an Experiment. I need not say, that the greater number of the verses signed "Eσ+̂τησ+̂ε will be such as were never meant for any thing else but the peritura charta of the M. Post. 1 -- I had written thus far when your Letter of the 16th arrived, franked on the 28rd from Weymouth with a polite apology from Mr Bedingfeld (if I have rightly decyphered the Name) for it's detention.-I am vexed, that I did not write immediately on my return home / but I waited, day after day, in hopes of the Orestes, &c. It is an old proverb that Extremes meet, & I have often regretted that I had not noted down as they incurred the interesting Instances, in which the Proverb is verified. The newest subject -- tho' brought from the Planets (or Asteroids) Ceres & Pallas, could not excite my curiosity more than Orestes. -- I will write immediately to Mr Clarkson, who resides at the foot of Ulswater, & beg him to walk in to Penrith, & ask at all the Inns, if any Parcel have arrived -- if not, I will myself write to Mr Faulder, & inform him of the Failure. -- There is a subject of great merit in the ancient mythology hitherto untouched -- I believe so at least -but for the mode of the Death which mingled the ludicrous & horrible, but which might be easily altered, it is one of the finest subjects for Tragedy that I am acquainted with -- Medea after the murder of her children fled to the Court of the old King, Pelias, was regarded with superstitious Horror, & shunned or insulted by the Daughters of Pelias -- till hearing of her miraculous Restoration of Æson they conceived the idea of recalling by her means the youth of their own Father. She avails herself of their credulity -& so works them up by pretended magical Rites, that they consent to kill their Father in his sleep, & throw him into the magic Cauldron -- which done, Medea leaves them with bitter Taunts & triumph. -- The daughters are called, Asteropaea, Antonoe, & Alcestis -- Ovid alludes briefly to this story in the couplet ____________________ Up up, Girls! make ready the Best! Nay, nothing but Shelter -- Shelter and welcoming Smiles. Dear Souls! come in -- it is cold! This translation is on the verso of Coleridge's rough draft of an outline for a poem on Mahomet. See Letter 292. 1 In addition to a number of epigrams, Coleridge contributed such poems as Dejection, The Day Dream, Chamouny, and Ode to the Rain to the Morning Post over this signature. -857- Quid referam Peliae natas pietate nocentes Caesaque virgineâ, membra paterna manu? 1 What a thing to have seen a Tragedy raised on this Fable by Milton in rivalry of the Macbeth of Shakespere! -- The character of Medea, wand'ring & fierce, and invested with impunity by the strangeness & excess of her Guilt -- & truly an injured woman, on the other hand / & possessed of supernatural Powers -- The same story is told in a very different way by some authors -- and out of their narrations matter might be culled that would very well coincide with, & fill up, the main incidents / Her Imposing the sacred Image of Diana on the Priesthood at Iolcus, & persuading them to join with her in inducing the daughters of Pelias to kill their Father / the Daughters under the Persuasion that their Father's youth would be restored, the Priests under the Faith, that the Goddess required the Death of the old King -- & that the safety of the Country depended on it -- In this way Medea might be suffered to escape, under the direct Protection of the Priesthood -who may afterward discover the Delusion. The moral of the Piece would be a very fine one. ---- Wordsworth wrote me a very animated account of his Difficulties & his joyous meeting with you which he calls the happy Rencontre or Fortunate Rain-storm. -- O that you had been with me during a thunder-storm, on Thursday August the 5th / I was sheltered (in the phrase of this country, lownded) in a sort of natural Porch on the summit of Sea' Fell, the central mountain of our Giants, said to be higher than Skiddaw or Helvellin / & in chasm, naked Crag, bursting Springs, & Waterfall the most interesting, without a rival / When the Clouds pass'd away, to my right & left & behind me stood a great national Convention of Mountains which our ancestors most descriptively called Copland, i.e. the Land of Heads -- before me the mountains died away down to the Sea in eleven parallel Ridges -- Close under my feet as it were, were three Vales, Wastdale with it's Lake, Miterdale, & Eskdale, with the three Rivers, Irt, Mite, and Esk seen from their very fountains to their Fall into the Sea at Ravenglass Bay, which with these Rivers form to the Eye a perfect Trident -- -- Turning round I looked thro' Borrodale out upon the Derwentwater & the vale of Keswick even to my own House where my own children were. -- Indeed, I had altogether the most interesting walk -- thro' Newlands to Butter- ____________________ 1 Ovid, Heroides, xii, lines 129-30. See also Pausanias, VIII. 31. 3. -858- mere, over the Fells to Ennerdale, to St Bees, Egremont, Gosforth, up Wasdale, to Sca' Fell, down Eskdale, to Devock Lake, Ulpha Kirk, Broughton Mills, Torver, Coniston, Wyndermere, Grasmere, Keswick / If it would entertain, I would transcribe my notes -- & send them you by the first opportunity. I have scarce left Room for my best respects to Mrs & Miss Sotheby -- & affectionate wishes for your happiness & all who constitute it. With unfeigned Esteem, dear Sir! your's &c, S. T. Coleridge. P.S. I am ashamed to send you a scrawl so like in form to a servant wench's first letter / You will see that the first half was written before I received your last Letter ---- 458. To Robert Southey Address: Robert Sthey Esq. | St James's Place | Kings Down | Bristol Single Sheet MS. Lord Latymer. Pub. with omis. E.L.G. i. 203. Postmark: 6 September 1802. Stamped: Keswick. Thursday, Sept. 2, 1802 Dear Southey I have received your's of 29th ult. & Sara has received Mary's -both this evening -- and we are sadly perplexed. Edith & Mary cannot have counted the rooms accurately. Exclusive of the Kitchen & Back Kitchen, there are ten rooms in the House -- two very large, two tolerably large, & six small ones. The two very large ones would of course be your parlour & mine, the two next in size your Bedroom & mine / there remain six -- the two largest & pleasantest of which must be our two Studies / of the remaining four, two will be the Maids' rooms. Supposing, we have but three Servants -- a Cook, and two Nursery-maids who must make the beds -- & I hope & believe, that these will be enough -- & suppose too, that the Infants sleep with their mothers -- yet still three maids must have two Rooms -- first, because their rooms will be small -- & secondly because Derwent will sleep with that one, who has a bed to herself -- there now are but two -- of these Mary has one, and Tom the other ---- What follows? I have not a single bed to offer to a Friend / & it will be impossible for Mr & Mrs Wordsworth, & Miss Wordsworth ever to pay us a visit -- & not only that, but when Mrs Coleridge lies in, there must be a little bed in her room for the Nurse -- / & of course for 5 or 6 weeks I must have a bed room for myself / indeed, I could not at any time do without one / for if I am in the least unwell, I am utterly sleepless unless I have a bed -859- to myself -- and a bed room too. -- There is an outhouse which I hoped to have had turned into a study for mysef -- & it would have been so large, that I might [have] occasionally slept in it wholesomely -- which I could not do in the little wing room, which will otherwise be my Study / but I find that it is impossible to have it fitted up till next year & I thought, that when I mentioned it, Jackson enumerated the costs of flooring &c, as if it would be more money than he could conveniently hazard / as it would be of no use to him, if I were to go away. At present, it is merely the brick walls, & the blue Slates above. -- I fear too, that the new House will not be finished till the middle of November / tho' Jackson has promised me to bestir himself -- This however is a trifle / the days axe so short at the close of October, that it will make but little difference your not coming till a month later / Besides, you might come / & have furnished Lodgings at Keswick, for a month / at least, either for you & Edith, & child -- or for Mary & Tom / for half of you we could certainly either find or make room for. / The former objections are more weighty. -- Mrs Coleridge will write in a day or two an exact account of the furniture, that we have -- and of what will be wanted / supposing, these objections can be done away. -- It is absolutely necessary, that I should have one spare Room always ready for Wordsworth & his Wife / and tho' Dorothy would, of course, always accompany them, yet I suppose, Mrs Lovell would give her half her Bed. It would be convenient to have a second Bedroom for myself -- but this I can easily waive / when Wordsworth was not expected, of course, I should use his Room, as I have been accustom[ed] to call it -- and when there, I shall either be well, & Mrs C. likewise, & we sleep in one room / or I can put the little lazy bed, that the Nurse will sleep in, into my Study, for the few nights, that he may be at Keswick. -- I told you that you might have half the house -- i.e. 5 rooms, besides the Kitchen / & unless we retained 5, we should be as straightened, as if we were in Lodgings -- & in case of sickness, we should [be] so thronged as to be quite miserable. -- So much for Business. Sara will write to Mary or Edith / & when you have the whole before you, you must then settle it. -- Now for the remainder. The Letter to Estlin is not the existing half, nor the 20th part, of the existing half of my Letters to the B.C. -- W. Taylor's notion that Christ was the author of the Wisdom of Solomon seems to me a silly one unless he can shew the Gospel & Epistles of John to be not only forgeries, but forgeries without any foundation in the real doctrines & tenets of Jesus. He says, that [']the Apostles often quote the Book.' God bless him!! -- why not -- 'the Book often quotes the Apostles.'? -- The Wisdom of Solomon is supposed by -860- Eichhorn 1 to have been written in the second Century by an Alexandrian Christian. -- As to the latter part, I was never more astonished in my Life, than when I read that sentence in your Letter -- 'the latter Solution is so strikingly probable that I know not how it should now first be made.' -- I should suppose, that nothing was ever older. Before I went to Germany, I spoke to Estlin of the great importance of the Miracle of the Ascension, without which the Resurrection could never be proved to be a miracle at all -- or any thing more than resuscitation / as the body was not putrefied, & as Xst was so manifestly favored both by Pilate & the Soldiers. Estlin admitted it -- but spoke of the objection as a very old one. -- Either, he said, the Ascension is true or a lie if true, it confirms the miraculous nature of the Resurrection / if a lie, what need of any ingenious hypothesis about the Resurrection / why not both Lies? -- My mind misgave me at that time, that thousands who would die rather than tell a Lie for a Lie, will tell 20 to help out what they believe to be a certain Truth / and the idea made great impression on my mind, tho' without the least suspicion that it was any thing but an old objection. In Germany, I found it the universal Solution / & at Göttingen I understood that it was publickly stated, as the probable truth, by Eichhorn / & passages from Plutarch, as well as the Passage, you refer to, in Josephus -- cited by him -- on my return home, Dr Beddoes in Biggs' Shop detailed this as a general opinion -- and lo & behold, in Herder's Von der Auferstehung, als Glauben, Geschichte & Lehre, 2 i.e. Of the Resurrection, as an Article of Faith, of History, & of Doctrine, I found the whole developed in a delightful manner -- with the curious passages in Plutarch / & a bold Laugh at those who lay'd any stress on the Ascension. -- I detailed this to you at Keswick, if I am not greatly mistaken / & I am positive, that both Davy & myself entered fully into it at your Rooms, when Northmore was there. Indeed, it would be strange, if I had never mentioned it to you -- for I believe, you would be the only one of my acquaintance to whom I have not mentioned & dwelt upon it. -I cannot believe, that W. Taylor considers this as any discovery of his own / Before the time of Grotius's de Veritate Christianâ no stress was lay'd on the judicial, law-cant kind of evidence for Christianity which has been since so much in Fashion / & Lessing very sensibly considers Grotius as the greatest Enemy that Xtianity ever had. Since his Time I cannot but think, that this hypothesis would be found in very many Authors long before ____________________ 1 J. G. Eichhorn (1752-1827), Einleitung in die apokryphischen Bücher des Alten Testaments, 1795. 2 A copy of this work, 1794, annotated by Coleridge is in the British Museum. -861- Herder or Eichhorn / neither does Herder in the book now before me lay any claim to originality -- & this Book, if I am not mistaken, W. Taylorreviewed. He certainly did, two other little tracts that usually accompany it /. I need not say that Herder (who is a sort of German Bishop) writes very slyly -- & admits the possibility of this resuscitation, as a mere natural occurrence, & the probability of it, as if nothing were lost to Xtianity by the admission. I will quote one sentence, p. 120. They held that to be a miracle which probably was no miracle; they believed that this Resurrection was effected by the omnipotence of God, when perhaps it was merely a natural resuscitation in consequence of the powerful Perfume of Nicodemus.-Plank has written a very large & most fact-full History of the Reformation. 1 -- God bless you & S. T. C. As soon as the new House is finished, the whole front of the old one will be pulled down, if it does not fall before: so we cannot have any rooms in that. An excellent Story that Eagle of Brass! 459. To William Sotheby Address: W. Sotheby Esq. | Lodge | Loughton | Essex Single Sheet MS. Colonel H. G. Sotheby, Pub. with omis. Letters, i. 401. Postmark: 13 September 1802. Stamped: Keswick. Friday, Sept. 10, 1802. Greta Hall, Keswick My dear Sir The Books have not yet arrived, and I am wholly unable to account for the Delay. I suspect, that the cause of it may be Mr Faulder's mistake in sending them by the Carlisle Waggon -- they should have been sent by the Kendal & Whitehaven Waggon. A person is going to Carlisle on Monday from this place -- & will make diligent enquiry -- & if he succeed, still I cannot have them in less than a week -- as they must return to Penrith, & there wait for the next Tuesday's Carrier. I ought perhaps to be ashamed of my weakness / but I must confess, I have been downright vexed by the Biisiness -- every Cart, every return-Chaise from Penrith, has renewed my Hopes, till I begin to play tricks with my own Impatience -- & say -- Well -- I take it for granted, that I sha' n't get [them] for these 7 days, &c &c -- with other of those Half-lies, that Fear begets upon Hope. -- You have imposed a pleasing task on ____________________ 1 G. J. Planck, Geschichte der Entstehung der Veränderungen und der Bildung unsers protestantischen Lehrbegriffs vom Anfang der Reformation bis zu der Einführung der Concordienformel, 6 vols., 1791-1800. -862- me in requesting the minutiae of my opinions concerning your Orestes -- whatever these opinions may be, the disclosure of them will be a sort of map of my mind, as a Poet & Reasoner -- & my curiosity is strongly excited. I feel you a man of Genius in the choice of the subject. It is my Faith, that the 'Genus irritabile' is a phrase applicable only to bad poets 1 -- Men of great Genius have indeed, as an essential of their composition, great sensibility, but they have likewise great confidence in their own powers -- and Fear must always precede anger, in the human mind. I can with truth say, that from those, I love, mere general praise of any thing, I have written, is as far from giving me pleasure, as mere general censure -- in any thing, I mean, to which I have devoted much time or effort. 'Be minute, & assign your Reasons often, & your first impressions always -- & then blame or praise -- I care not which -- I shall be gratified' -- These are my sentiments, & I assuredly believe, that they are the sentiments of all, who have indeed felt a true Call to the Ministry of Song. Of course, I too 'will act on the golden rule of doing to others, what I wish others to do unto me.' -- But while I think of it, let me say that I should be much concerned, if you applied this to the First Navigator -- It would absolutely mortify me, if you did more than look over it -- & when a correction suggested itself to you, take your pen, & make it -- & then let the copy go to Tomkyns -- What they have been, I shall know when I see the Thing in Print -- for it must please the present times, if it please any -- and you have been far more in the fashionable World, than I, & must needs have a finer & surer Tact of that which will offend or disgust in the higher circles of Life. ---- Yet it is not what I should have advised Tomkyns to do -- & that is one reason why I can not & will not except more than a brace of copies, from him. I do not like to be associated in a man's mind with his Losses -- if he have the Translation gratis, he must take it on his own judgment -- but when a man pays for a thing, & he loses by it, the Idea will creep in, spite of himself, that the Failure was, in part, owing to the badness of the Translation. While I was translating the Wallenstein, I told Longman, it would never answer -- when I had finished it, I wrote to him / & foretold that it would be waste paper on his Shelves, & the dullness charitably layed upon my Shoulders. It happened, as I said -- Longman lost 250£ by the work / 50£ of which had been payed to me -- poor pay, Heaven knows! for a thick Octavo volume of blank Verse -& yet I am sure, that Longman never thinks of me but Wallenstein & the Ghosts of his departed Guineas dance an ugly Waltz round my Idea. -- This would not disturb me a tittle, if I thought well of ____________________ 1 Cf. Biographia Literaria, ch. ii. -863- the work myself -- I should feel a confidence, that it would win it's way at last / but this is not the case with Gesner's Der erste Schiffer. -- It may as well lie here, till Tomkins wants it -- let him only give me a week's notice, and I will transmit it to you with a large margin. -- Bowles's Stanzas on Navigation are among the best in that second Volume / but the whole volume is woefully inferior to it's Predecessor. There reigns thro' all the blank verse poems such a perpetual trick of moralizing every thing -- which is very well, occasionally -- but never to see or describe any interesting appearance in nature, without connecting it by dim analogies with the moral world, proves faintness of Impression. Nature has her proper interest; & he will know what it is, who believes & feels, that every Thing has a Life of it's own, & that we are all one Life. A Poet's Heart & Intellect should be combined, intimately combined & unified, with the great appearances in Nature -- & not merely held in solution & loose mixture with them, in the shape of formal Similies. I do not mean to exclude these formal Similies -- there are moods of mind, in which they are natural -- pleasing moods of mind, & such as a Poet will often have, & sometimes express; but they are not his highest, & most appropriate moods, They are 'Sermoni propiora' which I once translated -- ' Properer for a Sermon.' The truth is -- Bowles has indeed the sensibility of a poet; but he has not the Passion of a great Poet. His latter Writings all want native Passion -- Milton here & there supplies him with an appearance of it -- but he has no native Passion, because he is not a Thinker& has probably weakened his Intellect by the haunting Fear of becoming extravagant / Young somewhere in one of his prose works remarks that there is as profound a Logic in the most daring & dithyrambic parts of Pindar, as in the 'Opyavov of Aristotle -- the remark is a valuable one / Poetic Feelings, like the flexuous Boughs Of mighty Oaks, yield homage to the Gale, Toss in the strong winds, drive before the Gust, 1 Themselves one giddy storm of fluttering Leaves; Yet all the while, self-limited, remain Equally near the fix'd and parent Trunk Of Truth & Nature, in the howling Blasts 2 As in the Calm that stills the Aspen Grove. 3 -- That this is deep in our Nature, I felt when I was on Sea' fell --. I involuntarily poured forth a Hymn in the manner of the Psalms, ____________________ 1 Blast [Cancelled word in line above.] 2 Storin [Cancelled word in line above.] 3 Lines 34 -- 41 of To Matilda Betham from a Stranger, Poems, i. 374. -864- tho' afterwards I thought the Ideas &c disproportionate to our humble mountains 1 -- & accidentally lighting on a short Note in some swiss Poems, concerning the Vale of Chamouny, & it's Mountain, I transferred myself thither, in the Spirit, & adapted my former feelings to these grander external objects. You will soon see it in the Morning Post -- & I should be glad to know whether & how far it pleased you. -- It has struck [me] with great force lately, that the Psalms afford a most compleat answer to those, who state the Jehovah of the Jews, as a personal & national God -& the Jews, as differing from the Greeks, only in calling the minor Gods, Cherubim & Seraphim -- & confining the word God to their Jupiter. It must occur to every Reader that the Greeks in their religious poems address always the Numina Loci, the Genii, the Dryads, the Naiads, &c &c -- All natural Objects were dead -- mere hollow Statues -- but there was a Godkin or Goddessling included in each -- In the Hebrew Poetry you find nothing of this poor Stuff -- as poor in genuine Imagination, as it is mean in Intellect -- / At best, it is but Fancy, or the aggregating Faculty of the mind -- not ____________________ 1 The remainder of this sentence is omitted in Letters, i. 405. Mr. A. P. Rossiter, whose two letters to The Times Literary Supplement of 28 Sept. and 26 Oct. 1951 examine the sources of Chamouny, has kindly supplied the following note: 'Presumably these lines were cut out by E. H. C. as a result of De Quincey exposure of the "unacknowledged obligation" to "Frederica Brun, a female poet of Germany" ( Tait's Magazine, 1834), and the subsequent charges of "plagiarism". S. T. C. never admitted using the poem (given in Poems, ii. 1181), and I believed that his detailed use of her notes was unknown before 1951 and my two letters in T.L.S. (Letter 456.) Since then M. Adrien Bonjour has sent me his Lausanne dissertation of 1942, which anticipated some of my points on these notes, without tracing S. T. C.'s sources beyond Frau Brun. I believe that these include echoes from Stolberg's poem an a cataract ( Poems, ii. 1126, and i. 808), possibly others from Brun's alpine verses, and that both form and substance are strongly influenced by Bowles Coombe Ellen -- a rhapsodic blank verse nature-poem, in which (lines 16 f.) will be found the point d'appui of the inconsequent disquisition in this letter on the Greeks, Numina Loci, etc. S. T. C. leaves this poem unmentioned, in a way most suspiciously like his silence on the Brun poem. The inference is, that the involuntary hymn story was an estecian myth, an imposition on the guileless Sotheby. Letter 450 records what he did do on Scafell, and is well backed by a scribbled page near the end of Notebook 2 (p. 32), where he has jotted down the mountain-panorama; and neither gives any more hint of a poem than will be found in the letter to Sotheby of August 26th (Letter 457) -- written three weeks after his ascent. This silence, with the pregnant imaginative image from Buttermere Halse Fall (Letter 456), suggests that the Chamouny verses were not written till after Aug. 26th at earliest; and that S. T. C. was well aware of his "obligations" both to the somewhat un-fairy godmother Friederike and to that insidious Godfather, Bowles: from whose verses his apposite comments appositely rebound on his own Hymn (as it was to be entitled after the original publication in the Morning Post, September 11th 1802).' -865- Imagination, or the modifying, and co-adunating Faculty. 1 This the Hebrew Poets appear to me to have possessed beyond all others& next to them the English. In the Hebrew Poets each Thing has a Life of it's own, & yet they are all one Life. In God they move & live, & have their Being -- not had, as the cold System of Newtonian Theology represents / but have. Great pleasure indeed, my dear Sir! did I receive from the latter part of your Letter. If there be any two subjects which have in the very depth of my Nature interested me, it has been the Hebrew & Christian Theology, & the Theology of Plato. Last winter I read the Parmenides & the Timaeus with great care -- and O! that you were here, even in this howling Rain-Storm that dashes itself against my windows, on the other side of my blazing Fire, in that great Arm Chair there -- I guess, we should encroach on the morning before we parted. How little the Commentators of Milton have availed themselves of the writings of Plato / Milton's Darling! But alas! commentators only hunt out verbal Parallelisms -- numen abest. I was much impressed with this in all the many Notes on that beautiful Passage in Comus from l. 629 to 641 2 -- all the puzzle is to find out what Plant Haemony is -- which they discover to be the English Spleenwort -& decked out, as a mere play & licence of poetic Fancy, with all the strange properties suited to the purpose of the Drama -- They thought little of Milton's platonizing Spirit -- who wrote nothing without an interior meaning. 'Where more is meant, than meets the ear' is true of himself beyond all writers. He was so great a Man, that he seems to have considered Fiction as profane, unless where it is consecrated by being emblematic of some Truth / What an unthinking & ignorant man we must have supposed Milton to be, if without any hidden meaning, he had described [it] as growing in such abundance that the dull Swain treads on it daily -- & yet as never flowering -- Such blunders Milton, of all others, was least likely to commit -- Do look at the passage -- apply it as an Allegory ____________________ 1 Cf. also Letter 535. 2 Amongst the rest a small unsightly root, But of divine effect, he cull'd me out; The leaf was darkish, and had prickles on it, But in another country, as he said, Bore a bright golden flow'r, but not in this soil: Unknown, and like esteem'd, and the dull swain Treads on it daily with his clouted shoon: And yet more medlcinal is it than that moly That Hermes once to wise Ulysses gave; He call'd it haemony, and gave it me, And bad me keep it as of sovereign use 'Gainst all inchantments, mildew, blast, or damp, Or ghastly furies' apparition. -866- of Christianity, or to speak more precisely of the Redemption by the Cross -- every syllable is full of Light! -- [']a small unsightly Root['] -- to the Greeks Folly, to the Jews a stumbling Block -[']The leaf was darkish & had prickles on it['] -- If in this Life only we have hope, we are of all men the most miserable / & (a] score of other Texts -- [']But in another country, as he said, Bore a bright golden Flower -- the exceeding weight of Glory prepared for us hereafter / -- [']but [not] in this soil, unknown, & like esteem'd & the dull Swain treads on it daily with his clouted shoon[] / The Promises of Redemption offered daily & hourly & to all, but accepted scarcely by any -- [']He called it Haemony['] -- Now what is Haemony? Aι+U0301μα-οι+U0301νοs -- Blood-wine. -- And he took the wine & blessed it, & said -- This is my Blood -- / the great Symbol of the Death on the Cross. -- There is a general Ridicule cast on all allegorizers of Poets -- read Milton's prose works, & observe whether he was one of those who joined in this Ridicule. -- There is a very curious Passage in Josephus -- De Bello Jud. L. 7. cap. 25 (al. vi. §§ 8) which is, in it's literal meaning, more wild, & fantastically absurd than the passage in Milton -- so much so that Lardner quotes it in exultation, & asks triumphantly -- Can any man who reads it think it any disparagement to the Christian Religion, that it was not embraced 'by a man who could believe such stuff as this? -- God forbid! that it should affect Christianity, that it is not believed by the learned of this world.' -- But the passage in Josephus I have no doubt, [is] wholly allegorical. -- "Eσ+̂τησ+̂ε signifies -He hath stood 1 -- which in these times of apostacy from the principles of Freedom, or of Religion in this country, & from both by the same persons in France, is no unmeaning Signature, if subscribed with humility, & in the remembrance of, Let him that stands take heed lest he fall --. However, it is in truth no more than S. T. C. written in Greek. Es tee see -- Pocklington will not sell his House -- but he is ill -- & perhaps, it may be to be sold -- but it is sunless all winter. God bless you, & [your's,] & S. T. Coleridge Mrs Coleridge joins me in most respectful remembrances to Mrs & Miss Sotheby. -- ____________________ 1 "EEσ+̂τησ+̂ε signifies 'He hath placed' not 'He hath stood. The word should .have been "εσ+̂τηκε, but then the play on Coleridge's initials would have been lost. Elsewhere he called it 'Punic Greek'. Subsequently Coleridge wrote in a copy of his Conciones ad Populum: 'Qualis ab initio, εσ+̂τησ+̂ε EΣTHΣE = S.T.C. July, 1820.' The echo from Ars Poetica, 127 ('Qualis ab incepto processerit, et sibi constet'), suggests that he found in Horace's 'sibi constet' a confirmation of his forced interpretation. Cf. C. C. Seronsy, "Marginalia by Coleridge in Three Copies of His Published Works", Studies in Philology, July 1954, p. 471, and Poem, i. 453. -867- 460. To William Sotheby Address: William Sotheby Esq. | Lodge | Leughton | Essex. MS. Colonel H. G. Sotheby. Pub. E. L. G. i. 207. Postmark: 22 September 1802. Stamped: Keswick. Sunday Evening, Sept. 19th. 1802. Greta Hall, Keswick My dear Sir Late yesterday evening, on my return from Braighton, 1 I had the pleasure of finding the long expected Parcel. It arrived at Keswick on Friday night. It is so splendid a present, that my first Feeling was not wholly unmixed -- I did not know what I had asked. -- Immediately on my return I had a slight attack of Fever -- and am but just risen from bed -- of course, I write now merely to acknowlege the receipt of the Parcel. You asked me in your last concerning Barrow. Mr Pocklington is very ill, & in case of his Decease it is on the whole rather probable than otherwise, that it will be put up for sale -- tho' he is so strange, & so intensely selfish, a character, that no one would be surprized, if knowing how many People are anxious to have it, he should prevent it's sale by a direct clause in his Will. -- Should this not be the case, yet still I cannot advise you to think of it. Depend on it, it will go at an extravagant Fancy Price -- I know myself three people agape for it -- Sir Wilfrid Lawson, who has a noble, I might well say, a kingly Mansion at Braighton, is enamoured of Barrow -Sir W. is a man, who never lets money stand in the way of any of his inclinations / & he told me himself on Saturday morning, that tho' he would not make a fool of himself by giving an extravagant price for it, yet he would bid hard. -- However, there could be no objection to your bidding your own Sum / but the House itself is in many respects objectionable. During the whole of the winter Months it is utterly sunless; & tho' the Rooms themselves may not be damp, yet the situation is exceedingly so. How often do I see the spot, where the House lies, involved in mist, when all the vale beside, is free! Add to this, that like the rest of Mr Pocklington's Houses, it is built compleatly in the Spirit of a Batchelor -- all the other rooms are sacrificed to the Dining Room -- That is a noble Room, made for a whole Neighbourhood -- but it is the only room / the Bedrooms are mere Pigeon Holes. -- If it were possible to find a truly fine situation, with ground enough about it for a couple of Cows, & a few Horses, it would certainly be better economy to build a House --: for if the situation were well chosen, & the House built with good sense in it's inside, & fine sense in it's outside, it is ____________________ 1 Brayton Hall, the seat of Sir Wilfrid Lawson. -868- what in the common language of men would be called a Certainty, that whenever you were tired of it, it might be either let or sold without any Loss -- & most probably, to a great Advantage. But I cannot say, that I know any such situations. The one at Applethwaite is indeed in point of the exquisitely picturesque confined view on the one side, & the glorious view of the whole vale & lakes on the other / in point of the dryness of the Roads immediately around, & the number of lovely Walks close by -- the place, to which I have long & uniformly given the preference over any other spot in the whole Vale, from the Gorge of Borrodale to the outlet of Bassenthwaite / But there is no Land around it -- at least, not more than an acre. ---- If however your partiality to this Country should continue, & you should wish to pass any number of months here, this Greta Hall will be finished in less than two months -- & you might have 5 rooms (two very large ones) & a kitchen, Cellar & Stable -- with as much garden ground as you wished -- & you might have it for any length of time, from three months to three years -- the House would be perfectly distinct from our's -- it would be just half-furnished -- & the annual rent including Taxes would not exceed 25£. Any furniture sells here by auction 9 times out of 10 at more than it's original value -- at the worst, no one loses more than a very moderate per centage for it's use. -- I have stated this -- because it exists -- & because I wish you to know all that there is, & all that there is not, in the vale -- leaving the Things to persuade or dissuade, according as their nature &c may be. -- It would make me truly happy, if [you] should feel an impulse to come & look out for yourself -- We can make up three beds for you at an hour's warning. We have had dismal weather lately -- the last three days have been hot summer weather -- & it is interesting to see under Skiddaw the Hay, the first fruits of the Soil, in the same fields with the Corn-sheaves. -- Did you see a very fine Sonnet on Buonaparte in the Morning Post of Wednesday or Thursday last --? It was written by Wordsworth -- & comes upon my Feelings, as in the spirit of the best of Milton's Sonnets. Present my kindest & most respectful remembrances to Mrs and Miss Sotheby, & believe me, my dear Sir, with unfeign'd & affectionate Esteem your's truly, S. T. Coleridge Sir Wilfrid Lawson has a most splendid Library at Braighton / in Voyages, Travels, & Books of Natural History it is no doubt the first in the Island -- next to Sir Joseph Banks's. He is an extremely liberal & good-natured Creature --. We have had Sir Charles & -869- Lady Boughton here, with Miss Boughton -- & with them Miles Peter Andrews, & Captn Topham. Sir Charles perfectly astounded me by the diversity of his attainment -- Musician, both as composer, & Player -- Draftsman -- Poet -- & a Linguist, both of the western, & oriental Languages, almost to a prodigy. 461. To Basil Montagu Address: Basil Montague Esq. | Christs College | (or at his Lodgings, opposite Jesus College) I Cambridge Single Sheet MS. Huntington Library. Pub. E. L. G. i. 210. Stamped: Keswick. Greta Hall, Keswick Tuesday, Sept. 21. 1802. My dear Montague I received your Letter last night, inclosing two pound -- & another two pound in a Letter from Dorothy -- which is amply sufficient for me. I am at ease. -- I am puzzled how to read the Direction, you have sent -- I suppose, it is Christ College -- and yet I know not how it can be that, as you lodge opposite Jesus -- You would have heard from me some days ago had I known your address -- & by the close of this week you will hear from me to some purpose. Be under no alarm concerning any other Selections -- were there twenty, it would increase not diminish the probable Sale of our's -- it may possibly be prudent to give the work a more extensive name -- ex. gr. 'Examination of the Style of our English Prose Writers under Charles I. & the Commonwealth, chiefly in reference to Jeremy Taylor, & Milton, with illustrative Selections.' 1 -- I do not see that the Book Mackintosh mentions will be of any use to me, sufficient to repay the expence of Carriage. I have Milton's Works, Hall's Works, & all Taylor's, together with Harrington's. We have been plagued to death with a swarm of Visitors -- I thought of having a Board nailed up at my Door with the following Words painted on it -- Visited out, & removed to the Strand, opposite to St Clement's Church, for the Benefit of Retirement. You tell me -- you are very very happy. How can you be otherwise? You have no overburthening cares -- you have an active mind -- a kind & gentle Heart -- and a wife devoted to you, a beautiful Woman, pure & innocent as her own dear Babe -- affectionate, as yourself, & her affections moving in the same Directions. Beside which, she has a Voice & a Harp that would make me as ____________________ 1 In 1805 Montagu published Selections from the Works of Taylor, Hooker, Hall, and Lord Bacon. With an Analysis of the Advancement of Learning. -870- great a Poet as Milton (I sometimes think) if I lived near you. -May the Almighty bless you both, & continue you to be the sources of each other's Goodness as well as Comfort. -- What are your motives for a residence at Cambridge? I went last week to Braighton to Sir Wilfrid Lawson's who unites a kingly House with a most kingly Library. On my return I called at a Friend's or Acquaintance's rather who lay ill in a nervous Fever -- on my Return I experienced an attack of the same -- a sudden loss of Strength & Spirits, with a very quick & very feeble pulse. My pulse was 120 in the course of the night. I had been myself a witness of the vast efficacy of the muriatic Acid in low Fever -- & took a large Dose -- & it assuredly stopped the Progress of the Fever. I am very weak -- & my bowels deranged by the violence of the Acid -- but my Spirits have recovered from the utter Prostration, into which they fell on the commencement of the attack/& my pulse is fuller, & less frequent. Hartley was six years old lately -- & Derwent 2 years last Tuesday -- on which day he could tell all his Letters -- & tell the names of upwards of 60 animals, on the picture Cards. He is as quick a Learner for his age as any child I know of -- & there is not a child of his age in Christendom that I love so well. I am grieved that Dorothy has been stopped in London by a violent Cold. -- My best prayers for your Infant -- & to Laura a Brother's affectionate kind wishes. -- Your's, dear Montague, most sincerely, S. T. Coleridge P.S. I shall write again on Saturday, if I am alive. -- 462. To William Sotheby MS. Lord Latymer. Pub. Letters, i. 408. This seems to be the 'half of a letter' referred to in Letter 468. It is unfinished and has no address sheet; and since it is not among the Coleridge letters in the possession of Colonel H. G. Sotheby, it was probably not posted. Tuesday, Sept. 27 [28]. 1802. Greta Hall, Keswick My dear Sir The River is full, and Lodore is full, and silver Fillets come out of Clouds, & glitter in every Ravine of all the mountains; and the Hail lies, like Snow, upon their Tops; & the impetuous Gusts from Borrodale snatch the water up high & continually at the bottom of the Lake; it is not distinguishable from Snow slanting before the wind -- and under this seeming Snow-drift the Sunshine gleams, & over all the hither Half of the Lake it is bright, and dazzles -- a cauldron of melted Silver boiling! It is in very truth a sunny, -871- misty, cloudy, dazzling, howling, omniform, Day/& I have been looking at as pretty a sight as a Father's eyes could well see Hartley & little Derwent running in the Green, where the Gusts blow most madly -- both with their Hair floating & tossing, a miniature of the agitated Trees below which they were playing/ inebriate both with the pleasure -- Hartley whirling round for joyo -Derwent eddying half willingly, half by the force of the Gust -driven backward, struggling forward, & shouting his little hymn of Joy. I can write thus to you, my dear Sir! with a confident spirit/for when I received your Letter of the 22nd, & had read 'the family History', I layed down the sheet upon my Desk, & sate for half an hour thinking of you -- dreaming of you -- till the Tear grown cold upon my cheek awoke me from my Reverie. May you live long, long, thus blest in your family -- & often, often may you all sit around one fire-side. O happy should I be, now & then, to sit among you / your Pilot & Guide in some of your summer walks/ Frigidus at sylvis Aquilo si increverit, aut si Hyberni pluviis dependent nubibus Imbres, Nos habeat domus, et multo Lar luceat igne. Ante focum mihi parvus erit, qui ludat, Iulus, Blanditias ferat, et nondum constantia verba: Ipse legam magni tecum monumenta Platonis! Or what would be still better, I could talk to you (& if you were here now, to an accompaniment of Winds that would well suit the subject) instead of writing to you concerning your Orestes. When we talk, we are our own living Commentary / & there are so many running Notes of Look, Tone, and Gesture, that there is small danger of being misunderstood, & less danger of being imperfectly understood -- in writing -- but no! it is foolish to abuse a good substitute, because it is not all that the original is. -- So I will do my best -- & believe me, I consider this Letter which I am about to write, as merely an exercise of my own judgment -- a something that may make you better acquainted perhaps with the architecture & furniture of my mind, tho' it will probably convey to you little or nothing that had not occurred to you before, respecting your own Tragedy. One thing I beg solicitously of you/ that, if any where I appear to speak positively, you will acquit me of any correspondent Feeling/I hope, that it is not a frequent Feeling with me in any case, & that if it appear so, I am belied by my own warmth of manner/in the present instance it is impossible -- I have been too deeply impressed by the work -- & I am now about to give you not criticisms nor decisions, but a History of my -872- Impressions -- & for the greater part, of my first Impressions/& if any where there seem any thing like a tone of Warmth or Dogmatism, do, my dear Sir! be kind enough to regard it as no more than a way of conveying to you the whole of my meaning -or (for I am writing too seriously) as the dexterous Toss, necessary to turn an Idea out of it's Pudding-bag round & unbroken. -- 463. To William Sotheby Address: W. Sotheby Esq. | Lodge | Loughton | Essex Single Sheet MS. Colonel H. G. Sotheby. Pub. E. L. G. i. 212. This letter is written on the fourth page of a foolscap sheet containing Coleridge's critical notes on Sotheby Orestes, 1802. These notes are too detailed for inclusion here, but two examples may be cited. Concerning the lines, 'Be but Orestes safe, and life new-born/ Will glow in every vein', Coleridge has this to say: '-- glow.? -- Pope played the devil with that word, wearing it to rags & tatters; & I never will use it except in it's original sense -- the visible vibratory motion in red hot Iron.' Having carried his comments through the first three acts of Orestes, Coleridge gave up further criticism with the following comment: 'Men almost always write most correctly when they write most passionately. It is a common opinion, but I will ever assert, that [it] is a compleat vulgar error that cold writers are the correct writers. Passion is the common Parent both of Harmony [and of correctness] / -- Now whether it be that the latter part of the Tragedy (rolling shoreward in larger billows of Passion) is indeed faultless in language, or that tho' I have read it over three times, I am still incapable of reading it with sufficient calmness to detect any minute faults -- I know not. The effect is certain -- I cannot find the dot of an I amiss in it. --' Postmark: 6 October 1802. Stamped: Keswick. Friday, Oct. [1, 18]02. Keswick My dear Sir I had written about half of a letter to you on the Orestes, as a Poem, & a Tragedy -- on it's excellencies & Beauties, and on it's defects -- when some necessary business, joined with ill-health, came & stopped me. Eam reverentiam cum Literis ipsis, tum scriptis tuis, debeo, ut sumere in manus illa, nisi vacuo animo, irreligiosum putem. -- But I shall have a day's Leisure in the beginning of next week / & believe me, I have no pleasanter employment to anticipate. In the mean time, I find lying before me a sheet of minutiae minutissimae, which I send you, halfashamed. After I had looked at the building with something of the eye of an architect, to turn myself into a fly, & creep over it with animalcular feet, & peer microscopically at the sand-grit of it's component Stones / this may give you no great idea of my Taste, but I am persuaded, it will please you as proof of the zeal, with which I read, while I read. ----- I have prefixed to the Sheet a significant? I mean to imply, that all below are mere Queries -- & -873- that if any word or sentence have a dogmatic tone, this was merely a mode of conveying the whole idea in my mind fully & broadly; & was absolutely unaccompanied by any feeling of dogmatism. How deeply I admire the Tragedy, & how sincerely / -- I flatter myself, I shall prove to you by proving that I understand it. It is matter of regret with me, that my Greek Tragedies are not yet come from London / but some future time I will write you yet another Letter (unconscionable Scribe that I am) giving a comparative analysis &c. -- Wordsworth will be married, Deo volente, on next Monday, Oct. 4. -- & purposes to be at his own Cottage at Grasmere on Wednesday, Oct. 6. -- He has every reason for a confident Hope, that Lord Lowther will pay the Debt. -- I am so extremely busy in the Morning Post at present, & shall continue so, for the ensuing fortnight, that I shall scarcely have time to look over & transcribe the First Navigator, till the 14th of this month / I would therefore fix the 20th (which is my 30th Birthday) for the time of sending it off to you / but yet if Mr Tomkyns really want it before, I will make time. My next letter will be dated two days earlier than this / for it will not be worth while to transcribe it -- I have had a very serious attack of low Fever -- & stopped it compleatly by the use of the muriatic acid -- which has however deranged my bowels, & both the Disease & the Remedy have left me very weak -S. T. Coleridge My most respectful remembrances to Mrs & Miss & Captn Sotheby. -- 464. To Thomas Wedgwood Address: Thomas Wedgewood Esq. | Eastbury | Blandford | Dorset MS. Wedgwood Museum. Pub. E. L. G. i. 214. Postmark: 28 October 1802. Stamped: Keswick. Oct. 20, 1802. Greta Hall, Keswick My dear Sir This is my Birth-day, my thirtieth. It will not appear wonderful to you therefore, when I tell you that before the arrival of your Letter I had been thinking with a great weight of different feelings concerning you & your dear Brother. For I have good reason to believe, that I should not now have been alive, if in addition to other miseries I had had immediate poverty pressing upon me. I will never again remain silent so long. It has not been altogether -874- Indolence or my habits of Procrastination which have kept me from writing, but an eager wish, I may truly say, a Thirst of Spirit to have something honorable to tell you of myself ----- at present, I must be content to tell you something cheerful. My Health is very much better. I am stronger in every respect: & am not injured by study or the act of sitting at my writing Desk. But my eyes suffer, if at any time I have been intemperate in the use of Candlelight. -- This account supposes another, namely, that my mind is calmer & more at ease. -- My dear Sir! when I was last with you at Stowey, my heart was often full, & I could scarcely keep from communicating to you the tale of my domestic distresses. But how could I add to your depression, when you were low? or how interrupt or cast a shade on your good spirits, that were so rare & so precious to you? -- After my return to Keswick I was, if possible, more miserable than before. Scarce a day passed without such a scene of discord between me & Mrs Coleridge, as quite incapacitated me for any worthy exertion of my faculties by degrading me in my own estimation. I found my temper injured, & daily more so; the good & pleasurable Thoughts, which had been the support of my moral character, departed from my solitude -I determined to go abroad -- but alas! the less I loved my wife, the more dear & necessary did my children seem to me. I found no comfort except in the driest speculations -- in the ode to dejection, which you were pleased with, these Lines in the original followed the line -- My shaping Spirit of Imagination. For not to think of what I needs must feel, But to be still and patient, all I can, And haply by abstruse Research to steal From my own Nature all the natural Man -- This was my sole resource, my only plan, And that which suits a part infects the whole And now is almost grown the Temper of my Soul. -- 1 I give you these Lines for the Truth & not for the Poetry --.-However about two months ago after a violent quarrel I was taken suddenly ill with spasms in my stomach -- I expected to die -Mrs C. was, of course, shocked & frightened beyond measure -- & two days after, I being still very weak & pale as death, she threw herself upon me, & made a solemn promise of amendment -- & she ____________________ 1 These lines were not included in the version of Dejection appearing in the Morning Post and were first published in 1817, nor do they follow, as Coleridge says, the line on imagination in the original draft of the poem; instead, they follow a passage referring to his domestic woes and need for sympathy. See Letters 438, 445, and 449. -875- has kept her promise beyond any hope, I could have flattered myself with: and I have reason to believe, that two months of tranquillity, & the sight of my now not colourless & cheerful countenance, have really made her feel as a Wife ought to feel. If any woman wanted an exact & copious Recipe, 'How to make a Husband compleatly miserable', I could furnish her with one -with a Probatum est, tacked to it. -- Ill tempered Speeches sent after me when I went out of the House, ill-tempered Speeches on my return, my friends received with freezing looks, the least opposition or contradiction occasioning screams of passion, & the sentiments, which I held most base, ostentatiously avowed -- all this added to the utter negation of all, which a Husband expects from a Wife -- especially, living in retirement -- & the consciousness, that I was myself growing a worse man / O dear Sir! no one can tell what I have suffered. I can say with strict truth, that the happiest half-hours, I have had, were when all of a sudden, as I have been sitting alone in my Study, I have burst into Tears. ----But better days have arrived, & are still to come. I have had visitations of Hope, that I may yet be something of which those, who love me, may be proud. -- I cannot write that without recalling dear Poole -- I have heard twice -- & written twice -- & I fear, that by a strange fatality one of the Letters will have missed him. Leslie 1 was here sometime ago. I was very much pleased with him. -- And now I will tell you what I am doing. I dedicate three days in the week to the Morning Post / and shall hereafter write for the far greater part such things as will be of as permanent Interest, as any thing I can hope to write-----& you will shortly see a little Essay of mine justifying the writing in a Newspaper. My Comparison of the French with the Roman Empire was very favorably received. 2 -- The Poetry, which I have sent, has been merely the emptying out of my Desk. The Epigrams are wretched indeed; but they answered Stuart's purpose better than better things --/. I ought not to have given any signature to them whatsoever / I never dreamt of acknowleging either them or the Ode to the Rain. As to feeble expressions & unpolished Lines -- there is the Rub! Indeed, my dear Sir! I do value your opinion very highly -- I should think your judgment on the sentiment, the imagery, the flow of a Poem decisive / at least, if it differed from ____________________ 1 Sir John Leslie ( 1766-1832), mathematician and natural philosopher, to whom Tom Wedgwood granted an annuity in 1797. 2 In addition to a number of epigrams and poems which appeared in the Morning Post in September and October, Coleridge published a series of twelve articles between 21 Sept. and 9 Nov. 1802. See Essays on His Own Times, ii. 478-592. -876- my own, & after frequent consideration mine remained different -it would leave me at least perplexed. For you are a perfect electrometer in these things -- / but in point of poetic Diction I am not so well's[atisf]ied that you do not require a certain Aloofness from [the la]nguage of real Life, which I think deadly to Poetry. Very shortly however, I shall present you from the Press with my opinions in full on the subject of Style both in prose & verse -- & I am confident of one thing, that I shall convince you that I have thought much & patiently on the subject, & that I understand the whole strength of my Antagonists' Cause. -- For I am now busy on the subject -- & shall in a very few weeks go to the Press with a Volume on the Prose writings of Hall, Milton, & Taylor -- & shall immediately follow it up with an Essay on the writings of Dr Johnson, & Gibbon --. And in these two Volumes I flatter myself, that I shall present a fair History of English Prose. -- If my life & health remain, & I do but write half as much and as regularly, as I have done during the last six weeks, these will be finished by January next -- & I shall then put together my memorandum Book on the subject of poetry. In both I have sedulously endeavoured to state the Facts, & the Differences, clearly & acutely & my reasons for the Preference of one style to another are secondary to this. -- Of this be assured, that I will never give any thing to the world in propriâ personâ, in my own name, which I have not tormented with the File. I sometimes suspect, that my foul Copy would often appear to general Readers more polished, than my fair Copy -- many of the feeble & colloquial Expressions have been industriously substituted for others, which struck me as artificial, & not standing the test -- as being neither the language of passion nor distinct Conceptions. -- Dear Sir! indulge me with looking still further on to my literary Life. I have since my twentieth year meditated an heroic poem on the Siege of Jerusalem by Titus -this is the Pride, & the Stronghold of my Hope. But I never think of it except in my best moods. -- The work, to which I dedicate the ensuing years of my Life, is one which highly pleased Leslie in prospective / & my paper will not let me prattle to you about it. ----- I have written what you most wished me to write -- all about myself --. -- Our climate is inclement, & our Houses not as compact as they might be / but it is a stirring climate / & the worse the weather, the more unceasingly entertaining are my Study Windows -- & the month, that is to come, is the Glory of the year with us. A very warm Bedroom I can promise you, & one that at the same time commands our finest Lake -- & mountain-view. If Leslie could not go abroad with you, & I could in any way mould my manners & habits to suit you, I should of all things like to be -877- your companion. Good nature, an affectionate Disposition, & so thorough a sympathy with the nature of your complaint that I should feel no pain, not the most momentary, in being told by you what your feelings required, at the time in which they required it -- this I should bring with me. But I need not say, that you may say to me -- 'you don't suit me', without inflicting the least mortification. -- Of course, this Letter is for your Brother, as for you -- but I shall write to him soon. God bless you, & S. T. Coleridge 465. To Thomas Wedgwood Address: Thomas Wedgewood Esq. | Gunville | Eastbury | Blandford | Dorset MS. Wedgwood Museum. Pub. Tom Wedgwood, 118. Postmark: 6 November 1802. Stamped: Brough. Wednesday, Nov. 3. 1802. Keswick Dear Wedgewood It is now two hours since I received your Letter; and after the necessary consultation, Mrs Coleridge herself is fully of opinion that to lose Time is merely to lose Spirits. Accordingly, I have resolved not to look the children in the Face (the parting from whom is the only downright Bitter in the Thing) but to take a chaise tomorrow morning, ½ past Four, for Penrith, & go to London by tomorrow's Mail. Of course, I shall be in London (God permitting) on Saturday Morning -- I shall rest that day and the next, and proceed to Bristol by the Monday Night's Mail. At Bristol I will go to Cote, and there wait your coming. ----- If the Family be not at home, I shall beg a Bed at Dr Beddoes's, or at least leave word where I am. -- At all events, barring serious Illness, serious Fractures, and the et cetera of serious Unforeseens, I shall be at Bristol, Tuesday Noon, Nov. 9th. You are aware, that my whole knowlege of French does not extend beyond the power of limping slowly, not without a Dictionary Crutch, thro' an easy French Book: & that as to Pronunciation, all my Organs of Speech, from the bottom of the Larynx to the Edge of my Lips, are utterly and naturally Anti-gallican. -- If only I shall have been any Comfort, any Alleviation, to you -- I shall feel myself at ease -- & whether you go abroad or no, while I remain with you, it will greatly contribute to my comfort, if I know that you will have no hesitation, nor pain, in telling me what you wish me to do or not to do. I regard it among the Blessings of my Life that I have never lived among men whom I regarded as my artificial Superiors; that all the respect, I have at any time payed, has been wholly to supposed Goodness or Talent. The consequence has been, that I have no alarms of Pride, -878- no cheval de frise of Independence. I have always lived among Equals. It never occurs to me, even for a moment, that I am otherwise. If I have quarreled with men, it has been, as Brothers, or School-fellows quarrel. How little any man can give me, or take from me, save in matters of Kindness and esteem, is not so much a Thought, or Conviction, with me, or even a distinct Feeling, as it is my very Nature. -- Much as I dislike all formal Declarations of this kind, I have deemed it well to say this. I have as strong feelings of Gratitude as any man. Shame upon me, if in the Sickness & the Sorrow which I have had, and which have been kept unaggravated & supportable by your kindness & your Brother's, shame upon me if I did not feel a kindness, not unmixed with reverence, towards you both / but yet I never should have had my present Impulses to be with you, and this confidence that I may be an occasional comfort to you, if independently of all gratitude I did not thoroughly esteem you; and if I did not appear to myself to understand the nature of your sufferings, & within the last year in some slight degree to have felt, myself, something of the same. Forgive me, my dear Sir! if I have said too much -- it is better to write it than to say it -- & I am anxious that in the event of our travelling together you should feel yourself at ease with me, even as you would with a younger Brother, to whom from his childhood you had been in the Habit of saying, Do this, Col. -- or -- don't do that --. -- I have been writing fast lest I should be too late for the Postforgetting that I am myself going with the Mail, & of course had better send the Letter from London with the intelligence of my safe arrival there ----- Till then, all Good be with us. -S. T. Coleridge Penrith | Thursday Morn -If this Letter reaches you without any further writing, you will understand by it, that all the Places in the Mail are engaged -- & that I must wait a day -- but this will make no difference in my arrival at Bristol -- 466. To Mrs. S. T. Coleridge Address [Mr]s Coleridge | Greta Hall I Keswick | Cumberla[nd] MS. Victoria University Lib.Hitherto unpublished. This fragment comprises parts of the first, second, third, and fourth pages of the manuscript. Undoubtedly the missing passages in this letter included an account of the time Coleridge spent in the company of Sara Hutchinson at Penrith on his way to London. The letters immediately following show that Mrs. Coleridge, cognizant of her husband's intimacy with Sara Hutchinson and thoroughly -879- angered by it, wrote in high dudgeon of this visit. Thus Coleridge was led to berate his wife for her jealousy and to offer analyses of her and of himself; and while he was solicitous about her coming confinement, it is evident that her failure either to look with favour on his affection for Sam Hutchinson and the Wordsworths or 'to give them any Share of your Heart', was an important source of friction between them. Postmark: 8 18<02>. [ 8 November 1802] 1 . . . his wife a nasty hard-hearted, hatchet-fac'd, droop-nos'd, eye-sunken, rappee-complexioned, [old Bitch. --] 2 The first night we stopp'd at 10 o clock -- & slept at [Leeming Lane]2 -- the next night at 12, & slept at Newark -- Sunday afternoon 2 o clock brought us to Stamford -- where I took the Mail for London / a horrible stinking Jew crucified my Nose the whole way -- It is fact, that I never knew what a true foul stench was, before -- O it was a STINKING JEW! We arrived at the Bull & Mouth Inn at ½ past 5 this morning -- I sate by the fire in the dark Coffee-house till ½ past 7, when I got my Breakfast / & took a hackney Coach for King's Street, where the Howells received me with great Joy --, & seemingly true affection. -- My Cloathes are just gone off, & Books 3 -so that I have been under the necessity of ordering a new suit, immediately -- & I shall stay in Town till Wednesday or perhaps Thursday -- but shall see no body but Stuart & John Wordsworth -of this you may depend -----. If any Letter come from the Colonel i.e. my Brother -- or from Mr Dennys, . . . . . . you had better direct the Letter to Mr Estlin's, where I will leave my Address -- if I shall have quitted Bristol. -- It must be a Joy to you to hear, that I have borne the Journey so well -- it cost me two pound, perhaps, more than it would have done, if I could have taken my place in the Mail -- but it was money wellspent -- for both the first & second night my Limbs were quite crazed & feverous, & my inside hot as fire -- so that in all probability had I not had sound sleep each night, I should have been layed up. My Journey has cost me, all in all, £8 11 11s 11 6D. I Will send you down some money in a post or two -- My dear Love -- write as chearfully as possible. I am tenderer, & more fluttery, & bowel-weak, than most -- I can not bear any thing gloomy, unless when it is quite necessary. -- Be assured, I ____________________ 1 Coleridge left Keswick on 4 Nov. as he had planned (see Letter 465), stayed in Penrith overnight, and arrived in London on 8 Nov. 2 The words in brackets are inked out in the manuscript. 3 On 4 Nov. 1802 Lamb wrote to Coleridge that his books, &c., which had been left in London, were to leave by the Kendal wagon the following day. Lamb Letters, i. 328. -880- will bring back (come home when I will) a pure, affectionate, & husbandly Heart to . . . Again & again & for ever more God bless & preserve you, my Love! & me for your sake, & the sake of our dear Children / -- & try to love & be kind to, those whom I love. -- I am, & will remain, Your faithful & affectionate Husband S. T. Coleridge 467. To Mrs. S. T. Coleridge MS. Victoria University Lib. Pub. E.L.G. i. 190. [Saturday Morning, 18 November 1802] 1 . . . when they . . . the trains of my ideas, they fall in, & form part of . . . as to what is thought or said of me by persons, whom I do not particularly esteem or love, & by whom I am not esteemed or loved. 4. An independence of, & contempt for, all advantages of external fortune, that are not immediately connected with bodily comforts, or moral pleasures. I love warm Rooms, comfortable fires, & food, books, natural scenery, music &c; but I do not care what binding the Books have, whether they are dusty or clean & I dislike fine furniture, handsome cloatbes, & all the ordinary symbols & appendages of artificial superiority -- or what is called, Gentility. In the same Spirit, I dislike, at least I seldom like, Gentlemen, gentlemanly manners, &c. I have no Pride, as far as Pride means a desire to be thought highly of by others -- if I have any sort of Pride, it consists in an indolent . . . So much for myself -- & now I will endeavor to give a short sketch of what appears to be the nature of your character. -- As I seem to exist, as it were, almost wholly within myself, in thoughts rather than in things, in a particular warmth felt all over me, but chiefly felt about my heart & breast; & am connected with things without me by the pleasurable sense of their immediate Beauty or Loveliness, and not at all by my knowlege of their average value in the minds of people in general; & with persons without me by ____________________ 1 This fragment is from the letter to which Coleridge refers in the first sentence of Letter 468: 'I wrote to you from the New Passage, Saturday Morning, Nov. 13. --' While this scrap is all that remains of Coleridge's impetuous letter, we may judge of its tenor from a second reference to it in Letter 470: 'I did not write to you that Letter from the Passage without much pain, & many Struggles of mind. . . . Had there been nothing but your Feelings concerning Penrith I should have passed it over -- . . . but there was one whole sentence of a very, very different cast. It immediately disordered my Heart, and Bowels.' -881- no ambition of their esteem, or of having rank & consequence in their minds, but with people in general by general kindliness of feeling, & with my especial friends, by an intense delight in fellowfeeling, by an intense perception of the Necessity of LIKE to LIKE; so you on the contrary exist almost wholly in the world without you / the Eye & the Ear are your great organs, and you depend upon the eyes & ears of others for a great part of your pleasures. . . . 468. To Mrs. S. T. Coleridge Address: Mrs Coleridge | Keswick | Cumberland MS. Lord Latymer. Pub. with omis. Letters, i. 410. Postmark: 18 November 1802. St Clear, Carmarthen. Tues. Nov. 16. 1802 My dear Love I wrote to you from the New Passage, Saturday Morning, Nov. 13. -- We had a favorable Passage -- dined on the other side, & proceeded in a Post-chaise to Usk, and from thence to Abergavenny, where we supped, slept, & breakfasted -- a vile supper, vile beds, & vile breakfast. -- From Abergavenny to Brecon, thro' the vale of Usk, I believe -- 19 miles of most delightful Country -it is not indeed comparable with the meanest part of our Lake Country -- but Hills, Vale, & River, Cottages & Woods, are nobly blended, & thank Heaven! I seldom permit my past greater pleasures to lessen my enjoyment of present Charms -- Of the things, which this 19 miles has in common with our whole vale of Keswick, (which is about 19 miles,) I may say that the two vales, & the two Rivers are equal to each other / that Keswick Vale beats the Welch one, all hollow, in Cottages --; but is as much surpassed by it in Woods, and Timber Trees. I am persuaded, that every Tree in the South of England has three times the number of Leaves, that a Tree of the same sort & size has in Cumberland or Westmoreland -- and there is an incomparably larger number of very large Trees. Even the Scotch Firs luxuriate into beauty, & pluminess, & the Larches are magnificent Creatures indeed -- in S. Wales. -- I must not deceive you however / with all these advantages, S. Wales -- if you came into it with the very pictures of Keswick, Ulswater, Grasmere, &c in your fancy, & were determined to hold them & S. Wales together -- with all it's richer fields, woods, & ancient Trees, S. Wales would needs appear flat & tame, as ditch-water. I have no firmer persuasion than this -that there is no place in our Island -- (& saving Switzerland -- none in Europe, perhaps) which really equals the vale of Keswick, -882- including Borrodale, Newlands, & Bassenthwaite --. O Heaven! that it had but a more genial Climate! -- It is now going on for the 18th week, since they have had any Rain here, more than a few casual refreshing Showers -- & we have monopolized the Rain of the whole Kingdom! From Brecon to Trecastle / a Church Yard two or three miles from Brecon is belted by a circle of the largest & noblest Yews, I ever saw -- in a belt, to wit -- they are not as large as the Yew in Borrodale, or that in Lorton / but so many, so large & noble, I never saw before -- and quite glowing with those heavenly coloured silky-pink-scarlet Berries. -- From Trecastle to Llandovery, where we found a nice Inn, an excellent Supper, & good Beds --. From Llandovery to Llandilo -- from Llandilo to Carmarthen, a large Town, all white-washed -- the Roofs of the Houses all white-washed! a great Town in a Confectioner's shop, on Twelfth cake Day / or a huge Show piece at a distance /. It is nobly situated along a Hill, among Hills, at the Head of a very extensive Vale. -- From Carmarthen after Dinner to St Clear -a little Hamlet nine miles from Carmarthen, three miles from the Sea (the nearest Sea-port being Langarn, pronounced Larn, on Carmarthen Bay -- look in the Map) and not quite 100 miles from Bristol. -- The Country immediately round is exceedingly bleak & dreary-- just the sort of Country, that there is around Shurton, &c -- But the Inn, the BLUE BOAR, is the most comfortable little Public House, I was ever in --. Miss S. Wedgewood 1 left us this morning (we arrived here, at ½ past 4 Yesterday Evening) for Crescella, Mr ALLEN'S Seat (the Mrs Wedgewoods' Father) 2 15 miles from this place -- and T. Wedgewood is gone out, Cock shooting, in high glee & spirits. He is very much better than I expected to have found him / he says, the Thought of my coming, & my really coming so immediately, has sent a new Life into him. -He will be out all the mornings -- the evenings we chat, discuss, or I read to him. To me he is a delightful & instructive Companion. He possesses the finest, the subtlest mind & taste, I have ever yet met with. -- His mind resembles that miniature Sun seen, as you look thro' a Holly Bush, as I have described it in my Three Graves -- 3 'A small blue Sun! and it has got A perfect Glory too! Ten thousand Hairs of color'd Light Make up a Glory gay & bright Round that small orb so blue![']----- ____________________ 1 Sarah Wedgwood was the sister of Tom and Josiah. 2 John Bartlett Allen of Cresselly was the father of Mrs. John and Mrs. Josiah Wedgwood. 3 Poems, i. 284, lines 509-13. -883- I continue in excellent Health, compared with my state at Keswick -- my bowels give me but small Disquiet -- all, I am troubled with, is a frequent oppression, a suffocating Weight, of Wind -Sunday Night I was obliged to sit up in my bed, an hour & a half & at last, was forced to make myself sick by a feather, in order to throw off the Wind from my Stomach --. But I have now left off Beer too, & will persevere in it -- I take no Tea -- in the morning Coffee, with a tea spoonful of Ginger in the last cup -- in the afternoon a large Cup of Ginger Tea -- / & I take Ginger at 12 o clock at noon, & a glass after supper. I find not the least inconvenience from any Quantity, however large -- I dare say, I take a large Table spoonful in the course of the 24 hours -- & once in the 24 hours (but not always at the same hour) I take half a grain of purified opium, equal to 12 drops of Laudanum -- which is not more than [an] 8th part of what I took at Keswick, exclusively of B[eer,] Brandy, & Tea, which last is undoubtedly a pernicious S[timulant --] all which I have left off -- & will give this Regimen a fair, compleat Trial of one month -- with no other deviation, than that I shall sometimes lessen the opiate, & sometimes miss a day. But I am fully convinced, & so is T. Wedgewood, that to a person, with such a Stomach & Bowels as mine, if any stimulus is needful, Opium in the small quantities, I now take it, is incomparably better in every respect than Beer, Wine, Spirits, or any fermented Liquor -- nay, far less pernicious than even Tea. -- It is my particular Wish, that Hartley & Derwent should have as little Tea as possible& always very 1 weak, with more than half milk. Read this sentence to Mary, and to Mrs Wilson. -- I should think, that Ginger Tea with a good deal of Milk in it would be an excellent Thing for Hartley. A Tea spoonful piled up of Ginger would make a pot full of Tea, that would serve him for two days -- And let him drink it half milk -- I dare say, that he would like it very well -- for it is pleasant, with sugar -- & tell him that his dear Father takes it instead of Tea, & believes, that it will make his dear Hartley grow, & cure the Worms. The whole Kingdom is getting Ginger-mad. My dear Love! I have said nothing of Italy: for I am as much in the Dark as when I left Keswick -- indeed, much more. For I now doubt very much whether we shall go or no. Against our going you must place T. W's improved state of Health, & his exceeding dislike to continental Travelling, & horror of the Sea, & his exceeding attachment to his Family / for our going you must place his past experience -- the transiency of his enjoyments, the craving after change, & the effect of a cold winter, especially if it should come on wet, or sleety. His determinations are made so rapidly, ____________________ 1 Underlined twice in MS. -884- that two or three days of wet weather with a raw cold air might have such an effect on his Spirits, that he might go off immediately for Naples, or perhaps for Teneriff -- which latter place he is always talking about. Look out for it in the Encyclopaedia. -- Again, these latter causes make it not impossible or improbable, that the pleasure, he has in me, as a companion, may languish --. I must subscribe myself in haste Your dear Husband S. T. Coleridge The Mail is waiting 469. To Mrs. S. T. Coleridge MS. Lord Latymer. Hitherto unpublished. St. Clear's, Carmarthen. Sunday, Nov. 21. 1802 My dear Sara It is a bleak Country this, & the Rain has come on / tho' to day is a sunshiny Day. I have nothing to tell you therefore, except that I am this instant going to Creseelly, 17 miles from hence, to the Seat of Mr Allen, the Mrs Wedgewoods' Father / that we purpose to return hither to morrow to dinner / but for fear any accident should keep us longer, I now write these few Lines in a hurrywhich yet, I trust, will be worth postage, because they will inform you that my Health continues to improve / & if I remain tranquil, I may return to you, a new Creation. I think it not improbable that we may go from hence to Bodmin, in Cornwall I but I know nothing -- & T.W. knows as little. I shall write to Stuart immediately to send you some money -I can not ask Wedgewood -- & he has not said any thing to me / but merely borrowed from me the money, I had, saying -- that it was impossible, we could have any but joint expences. I hope to find a Letter from you on my return / all about yourself, i.e. your Health, & the dear children. Remember me most affectionately to Mr Jackson -- & Mrs Wilson -- & give my Love to Mary -- & be sure to tell her & Mrs Wilson not to let Derwent & Hartley have any Tea. Milk & water equally hot -- & they won't know the difference. A weak Ginger Tea would certainly be useful to Hartley's Bowels. God bless you, my dear Love, | & S. T. Coleridge -885- 470.To Mrs. S. T. Coleridge Address: Mrs Coleridge | Greta Hall | Keswick | Cumberland MS. Lord Latymer. Pub. with omis. E.L.G. i. 218. Postmark: 25 November 1802. St Clear's, Carmarthen. Tuesday MORNING, ½ past 5!! Nov. 22 [28]. 1802 My dear Love We left this place some two hours before your Letter arrived; & returned hither yesterday Afternoon, ½ past I -- half an hour too late for me to answer your Letter by yesterday's Post. I know, that this will be a Morning of Bustle: & the desire of writing you lay so heavy on my mind, that I awoke at 4 o/clock this morning. The fires here in every room keep in all day & all night; & yet they do not use as much coal on the whole, as we do. It burns like a Brick-kiln Fire -- is never touched -- & never goes out, till the last cinder falls out of the Grate. Would to Heaven! you had only a few Waggon loads of them for the next 8 or 4 months! -- A little after the Clock struck 5, I rose & lit my Candle, found the untended Fire in the parlour bright & clear; & am sitting by it, writing to you -- to tell you, how very much I was & am affected by the tidings of your Fainting -- & to beg you, INSTANTLY to get a Nurse. If Mary's Aunt cannot come, do write immediately to Mrs Clarkson, & try to get Mrs Railton. To be sure, there is a mawkish 'so-vāry-good'-ness about her character, & her Face & Dress have far too much of the SMUG-DOLEFUL in them, for my Taste; but I believe, she is really a well-intentioned honest woman, & she is certainly an excellent Nurse. -- At all events, get somebody immediately -- have a fire in your Bedroom -- & have nothing to do with Derwent, either to mind or to dress him. If you are seriously ill, or unhappy at my absence, I will return at all Hazards: for I know, you would not will it, tho' you might wish it, except for a serious cause. I shall write to Mr Estlin for my Letter. You speak too of a Letter from Mr Dennis. Where is it? I have received none. If I want the Old Man of the Alps, I will write for it. -- Indeed, my dear Love! I did not write to you that Letter from the Passage 1 without much pain, & many Struggles of mind, Resolves, & Counter-resolves. Had there been nothing but your Feelings concerning Penrith I should have passed it over -- as merely a little tiny Fretfulness -- but there was one whole sentence of a very, very different cast. It immediately disordered my Heart, ____________________ 1 See Letter 467. -886- and Bowels. If it had not, I should not have written you; but it is necessary, absolutely necessary for you to know, how such things do affect me. My bodily Feelings are linked in so peculiar a way with my Ideas, that you cannot enter into a state of Health so utterly different from your own natural Constitution -- you can only see & know, that so it is. Now, what we know only by the outward fact, & not by sympathy & inward experience of the same, we are ALL of us too apt to forget; & incur the necessity of being reminded of it by others. And this is one among the many causes, which render the marriage of unequal & unlike Understandings & Dispositions so exceedingly miserable. Heaven bear me witness, [I often say inly -- in the words of Christ -- Father forgive her! she knows not what she does] 1 -- Be assured, my dear Love! I that I shall never write otherwise than most kindly to you, except after great Aggressions on your part: & not then, unless my reason convinces me, that some good end will be answered by my Reprehensions. -My dear Love! let me in the spirit of love say two things /1. I owe duties, & solemn ones, to you, as my wife; but I owe equally solemn ones to Myself, to my Children, to my Friends, and to Society. Where Duties are at variance, dreadful as the case may be, there must be a Choice. I can neither retain my Happiness nor my Faculties, unless I move, live, & love, in perfect Freedom, limited only by my own purity & self-respect, & by my incapability of loving any person, man or woman, unless I at the same time honor & esteem them. My Love is made up 9/10ths of fervent wishes for the permanent Peace of mind of those, whom I love, be it man or woman; & for their Progression in purity, goodness, & true Knowlege. Such being the nature of my Love, no human Being can have a right to be jealous. My nature is quick to love, & retentive. Of those, who are within the immediate sphere of my daily agency, & bound to me by bonds of Nature or Neighbourhood, I shall love each, as they appear to me to deserve my Love, & to be capable of returning it. More is not in my power. If I would do it, I could not. That we can love but one person, is a miserable mistake, & the cause of abundant unhappiness. I can & do love many people, dearly -- so dearly, that I really scarcely know, which I love the best. Is it not so with every good mother who has a large number of Children -- & with many, many Brothers & Sisters in large & affectionate Families? -- Why should it be otherwise with Friends? Would any good & wise man, any warm & wide hearted man marry at all, if it were part of the Contract -- Henceforth this Woman is your only friend, your sole beloved! all the rest of mankind, however amiable & akin to you, must be only ____________________ 1 The passage in brackets is carefully inked out in the manuscript. -887- your acquaintance! --? It were well, if every woman wrote down before her marriage all, she thought, she had a right to, from her Husband -- & to examine each in this form -- By what Law of God, of Man, or of general reason, do I claim this Right? -- I suspect, that this Process would make a ludicrous Quantity of Blots and Erasures in most of the first rude Draughts of these Rights of Wives -- infinitely however to their own Advantage, & to the security of their true & genuine Rights. 2. -- Permit me, my dear Sara! without offence to you, as Heaven knows! it is without any feeling of Pride in myself, to say -- that in sex, acquirements, and in the quantity and quality of natural endowments whether of Feeling, or of Intellect, you are the Inferior. Therefore it would be preposterous to expect that I should see with your eyes, & dismiss my Friends from my heart, only because you have not chosen to give them any Share of your Heart; but it is not preposterous, in me, on the contrary I have a right to expect & demand, that you should to a certain degree love, & act kindly to, those whom I deem worthy of my Love. -- If you read this Letter with half the Tenderness, with which it is written, it will do you & both of us, GOOD; [& contribute it's share to the turning of a mere Cat-hole into a Dove's nest I] 1 You know, Sally Pally! I must have a Joke -or it would not be me! -- Over frightful Roads we at last arrived at Crescelly, about 3 o/clock -- found a Captain & Mrs Tyler there (a stupid Brace) Jessica, Emma, & Frances Allen -- all simple, good, kind-hearted Lasses -- & Jesse, the eldest, uncommonly so. We dined at ½ past 4 -- just after dinner down came Old Allen -- O Christ! Old Nightmair! An ancient Incubus! Every face was saddened, every mouth pursed up! -- Most solemnly civil, like the Lord of a stately Castle 500 years ago! Doleful & plaintive eke: for I believe, that the Devil is twitching him home. After Tea he left us, & went again to Bed -- & the whole party recovered their Spirits. I drank nothing; but I eat sweet meats, & cream, & some fruit, & talked a great deal, and sate up till 12, & did not go to sleep till near 2. In consequence of which I arose sickish, at ½ past 7 -- my breakfast brought me about -- & all the way from Crescelly I was in a very pleasurable state of feeling; but my feelings too tender, my thoughts too vivid -- I was deliciously unwell. On my arrival at St Clear's I received your Letter, & had scarcely read it, before a fluttering of the Heart came on, which ended (as usual) in a sudden & violent Diarrhoea / I could scarcely touch my Dinner, & was obliged at last to take 20 drops of Laudanum -- which now that I have for 10 days left off all stimulus of all kinds, excepting ⅓rd. of a grain of ____________________ 1 The passage in brackets is carefully inked out in the manuscript. -888- um, at night, acted upon me more [pow]erfully than 80 or 100 drops would have done at Keswick. -- I slept sound what I did sleep; but I am not quite well this morning; but I shall get round again in the course of the Day. -- You must see by this, what absolute necessity I am under of dieting myself -- & if possible, the still greater Importance of Tranquillity to me. -- All the Woodcocks seem to have left the Country; T. Wedgewood's hopes & schemes are again all afloat; to day we leave this place for Narbarth, 12 miles from hence -- shall probably return to Crescelly -- & then -God knows, where! Cornwall perhaps -- Ireland perhaps -- perhaps, Cumberland -- possibly, Naples, or Madeira, or Teneriffe. I don't see any likelihood of our going to the Moon, or to either of the Planets, or fixed Stars -- & that is all, I can say. Write immediately, my dear Love! & direct to me -- where? -- That's the Puzzle -- to be left at the Post Office, Carmarthen. -- God bless you, my dear Love! & speed me back to you & our dear H. & D, & etc. Mr T. Wedgewood desires his best respects to you -- he is just come down. -- God bless you again & S. T. Coleridge Best respects to Colonel Moore -- & his Lady & Miss D'arcy -& always remember me affectionately to Mr Jackson, & Hartley's other Mother. ---- 471. To Mrs. S. T. Coleridge Address: Mrs Coleridge | Greta Hall | Keswick | Cumberland MS. Lord Latymer. Pub. E.L.G. i. 222. Postmark: 7 December 1802. Stamped: Narberth. Saturday Night, Dec. 4 1802. Crescelly, near Narbarth My dearest Love I will not disappoint you of a Letter, tho' by a joint Blunder of mine & the Post Boy's I cannot send the Draft, till tomorrow: & for fear of accident do not expect it till this day week -- tho' I hope, it will arrive on Friday: supposing this Letter to arrive on Thursday. -- I have vexed & fretted myself that I did not send it a fortnight ago -- there was no earthly reason, why I should not. You know, how hateful all Money-thoughts are to me! -- & how idly & habitually I keep them at arm's length. -- I received to night your's+Lady Rush -- with a Letter from Col. Moore -- & one from Clarkson. I was affected by your Letter with such Joy & anxious Love -- so overpowered by it, that I could not endure to read Lady Rush's -- nor have I yet done it. -God love you & have you in his keeping, my blessed Sara! -- & speedily restore me to you. -- I have a faith, a heavenly Faith, that our future Days will be Days of Peace, & affectionate Happiness. -- -889- O that I were now with you! I feel it very, very hard to be from you at this trying Time -- I dare not think a moment concerning you in this Relation, or I should be immediately ill. But I shall soon return -- & bring you back a confident & affectionate Husband. Again, and again, my dearest dearest Sara! -- my Wife & my Love, & indeed my very Hope / May God preserve you! -- And do you above all things take care of yourself -- if you have no other serious objection but the expence, to Mrs Railton -- I desire, I command you, to have her instantly. Heaven forbid we should save a few pounds at this time. ---- If you want the money immediately, & cannot without discomfort wait another Day ---- but this is idle -- one or two Days can make no Difference -- . I have some thoughts of sending 50£, which you may change by paying Miss Crosthwaite's Bill. ---- I shall write to Colonel Moore to morrow -- . To morrow morning T. Wedgewood goes to Treharn, about 13 miles from hence -- to see a Cottage which he means to take / on Wednesday or Thursday he will receive an answer from Gunville -& before this I trust, he will receive an Answer from Luff 1 -- In all probability we shall leave this place for Gunville on Friday or Saturday -- & from thence, after a short Stay, proceed together to Keswick. I cannot doubt that I at least, shall be with you by New-Year's Day / -- tho' possibly I may be obliged to leave you again for two or three months -- . But the Future is a Cloud. Josiah Wedgewood has been ill in the rheumatism / he has written, in a Letter to Tom W. (received this evening) a most affectionate Paragraph to me, assuring me of his Love & perfect Regard. It affected me greatly. It is one o clock -- & I must finish this Letter for it is to go off tomorrow morning at 8. I am very comfortable here. Sally Wedgewood is really the most perfectly good woman, I ever knew / & the three Allens are sweet, cheerful, & most innocent Girls. I cannot help being idle among them. What sweeter & more tranquillizing pleasure is there, than to feel one's self completely innocent among compleatly innocent young Women -- ! Save when I think of home, my mind is calm & soundless. -- Sally Wedgewood plays on the Piano Forte divinely -Warm Rooms, warm Bedrooms, Music, pleasant Talking, & extreme Temperance -- all this agrees with me -- & the best Blessing, that results from all, is a placid Sleep -- no difficulties in my Dreams, no Pains, [no Desires] 2 -- . ____________________ 1 Captain Charles Luff, a young friend of the Wordsworths and Clarksons, lived at Glenridding in Patterdale. 2 Words in brackets inked out in manuscript. -890- There is an old Aunt in the House, a large fat old Lady, (her name Mrs Jones) foolishly good-tempered, & of frisky Spirits. -She is old Allen's own Sister -- & has another Brother, Joshua Allen, a great oddity, & enthusiastic Methodist. It is notorious to every one but himself that he neither does care, or ever has cared, a farthing for his Wife or Children -- This man descanted on Religion in the following words -- 'All our sinful affections give way to the blessed Graces of Religion. I am so compleatly a new Creature by means of Religion, tho' it is well known what Love I bear my Wife & children, yet if a man were to murder them before my face, I am positive, that I should not feel the least spark of resentment.' -- [']Nay, nay, Brother Josh (exclaimed the old Lady who looks up to him as to an Angel) there you do go somewhat too far. I SHOULD be a little offended at it.' ---- Jessica Allen was present -- & told me the Story with infinite Humour. ---- Give my best Love to Mr Jackson, & Mrs Wilson And O! My sweet Hartley! & my Derwent! ---- God bless you & S. T. Coleridge Josiah Wedgewood's Esqre Gunville, near Blandford, Dorset will be my next address. 472. To Mrs. S. T. Coleridge MS. Lord Latymer. Pub. E.L.G. i. 226. Crescelly, Dec. 5. 1802 My dearest Love I inclose a Draft for 50£; dated Monday, Decemb. 13th & payable two months after date. I would have you pay Miss Crosthwaite's Bill -- ordering in all you will want for the next month -- & so paying up for the whole year at once. Mr Jackson will be so good as to pay the Bill for you -- & indorse the Draft which I have drawn in his name. Whether you can likewise send 10£ to your Mother, you will see, after you have paid all that is needful or well to pay. J'Anson & the Carriers must be payed off hand. -- Be sure not to leave yourself with less than 10£, if possible -- & therefore as I would have you pay the Butcher & Flour Woman, you had better not think of your Mother. T. Wedgewood did not go to day to Treharn -- ; but I go with him tomorrow. -- As I must get up early, I must not write longer to keep myself awake. I have been listening to sweet Music till I am much effeminated, & if I were to indulge in any Thoughts respecting Keswick I should not close my eyes for hours. God bless -891- you, my dear Love! -- Don't you think, Crescelly Coleridge, would be a pretty name for a Boy? -- If a Girl, let it be Gretha Coleridgenot Greta -- but -- Gretha -- unless you prefer Rotha -- or Laura. What do you think of Bridget? -- Only it ought to end with a vowel. You may take your choice of Sara, Gretha, or rather Algretha, Rotha, Laura, Emily, or Lovenna. -- . The Boy must be either Bracey, or Crescelly. -- Algretha Coleridge will needs be a beautiful Girl. ---- God bless you, my dear Life [sic] -- & our sweet children -- & your affectionate Husband S. T. Coleridge For God's sake don't let the expence weigh with you about a Nurse. You ought to think of a Servant. I hope, Sara Hutchinson will be well enough to come in, while you are lying in / both she & Mary Wordsworth are good Nurses. ---- 473. To John Prior Estlin Address: Revd J. P. Estlin | St Michael's Hill | Bristol MS. Bristol Central Lib. Pub. with omis. Letters, i. 414. Stamped: Narberth. Dec. 7. 1802. -- Crescelly, near Narbarth, Pembrokeshire My dear Friend I took the Liberty of desiring Mrs Coleridge to direct a Letter for me, to you -- fully expecting to have seen you -- but I passed rapidly thro' Bristol, & left it with Mr Wedgewood immediately & literally had no time to see any one. I hope however to see you on my return / for I wish very much to have some hours' conversation with you on a subject, that will not cease to interest either of us, while we live at least -- and I trust, that this is a Synonime of -- 'for ever!' -- As Mr T. Wedgewood however is rapid in his movements, & sudden in his resolves, it is possible, that we may strike up directly thro' Wales into the North, without taking Bristol in our way -- I must therefore request that you will be so good as to redirect any Letter or Letters, which there may be for me, to J. B. Allen's, Esqre, Crescelly, near Narbarth, Pembrokeshire -- by the return of Post. Have you seen my different Essays in the Morning Post? -- The Comparison of Imperial Rome, & France -- the 'Once a Jacobin, always a Jacobin['] -- & the two Letters to Mr Fox? -- Are my Politics your's? -- Have you heard lately from America? A Gentleman informed -892- me, that the Progress of religious Deism in the middle Provinces is exceedingly rapid -- that there are numerous Congregations of Deists -- &c &c. Would to heaven, this were the case in France! -Surely, religious Deism is infinitely nearer the religion of our Saviour, than the gross Idolatry of Popery, or the more decorous, but not less genuine, Idolatry of a vast majority of Protestants. -If there be meaning in words, it appears to me that the Quakers & Unitarians are the only Christians, altogether pure from Idolatry -and even of these, I am sometimes jealous, that some of the Unitarians make too much an Idol of their one God. Even the worship of one God becomes Idolatry, in my convictions, when instead of the Eternal & Omnipresent, in whom we live, & move, & have our Being, we set up a distinct Jehovah tricked out in the anthropomorphic Attributes of Time & Successive Thoughts -- & think of him, as a PERSON, from whom we had our Being. The tendency to Idolatry seems to me to lie at the root of all our human Vices -- it is our Original Sin. -- When we dismiss three Persons in the Deity, only by subtracting two, we talk more intelligibly, but I fear, do not feel more religiously -- for God is a Spirit, & must be worshipped in Spirit. O my dear Sir! it is long since we have seen each other -- believe me, my esteem & grateful Affection for you & Mrs Estlin has suffered no abatement, or intermission -- nor can I persuade myself, that my opinions fully stated & fully understood would appear to you to differ essentially from your own. My creed is very simple -my confession of Faith very brief. I approve altogether & embrace entirely the Religion of the Quakers, but exceedingly dislike the sect, & their own notions of their own Religion. -- By Quakerism I understand the opinions of George Fox rather than those of Barclay -- who was the St Paul of Quakerism. -I pray for you, & your's! -- S. T. Coleridge -- 474. To Mrs. S. T. Coleridge Address: Mrs Coleridge | Greta Hall | Keswick | Cumberland Single Sheet MS. Lord Latymer. Pub. E.L.G. i. 226. Postmark: 15 December 1802. Stamped: Narberth. Crescelly Monday, Dec. 13. 1802 -- Morning, 8 o/clock My dear Love A few minutes remain, before the Post, for me to tell you, that here I still am -- & that nothing has happened -- & that my Health seems stationary, saving that my half boot with a hard Fold has -893- bruised the cross of my foot, which swells and inflames at evenings & gives me much pain & some concern. We waited for a Letter from Luff -- & one from Gunville -- my Letter to Luff has been blown about by Cross winds. When that from Gunville arrives, which surely will come tomorrow, we shall, I suppose, leave this place -- but probably not for Gunville -- but for Keswick. Supposing this to be the case, & supposing we set off on Wednesday or Thursday Morning, we shall be eight Days at least in the Journey -so that we cannot be there before Christmas Day -- it is my intention, as you will then be confined, to leave T. Wedgewood at Clarkson's. But all this may all happen differently -- ! I sent you, a week ago, a draft, dated from this day, for 50£. -- I will give you notice, as soon as I know myself, where a Letter from you will meet me. -- I hope, that Sara Hutchinson is well enough to have come in -- it would be a great comfort, that one or the other of the three Women at Grasmere should be with you -- & Sara rather than the other two because you will hardly have another opportunity of having her by yourself & to yourself, & of learning to know her, such as she really is. How much this lies at my Heart with respect to the Wordsworths, & Sara, and how much of our common Love & Happiness depends on your loving those whom I love, -- why should I repeat? -- I am confident, my dear Love I that I have no occasion to repeat it. Considering how long I have been here, & how without a single Interruption I have continued for three weeks to think of you with love & tenderness, & that this, I regard, as an omen of the Future -I should like the child to be called Crescelly -- purely on the account, I have stated ---- I will write again to morrow -- My dearest Love! with 10 thousand wishes & fervent prayers for you, I am Your faith. & aff. Husband S. T. Coleridge 475. To James Coleridge Address: Col/l Coleridge | Ottery St Mary | Honiton | Devon MS. British Museum. Hitherto unpublished. Crescelly, Pembroke. Dec. 14. 1802 My dear Brother I left Keswick, Nov. 5 [4], & proceeded immediately to my friend, Mr T. Wedgewood, the state of whose Health & Feelings made me feel it my duty to answer a Letter of his, only by going to him. Since that time we have been moving from one place to -894- another; & your Letter has been so tossed about by cross-winds, that I did not receive it till late, yester evening. -- Indeed, my dear Brother! the account of your health was most deeply interesting to me. I will run the risk of being smiled at by you, by adding my opinions to those you have already received. When George tells you, you are bilious, Ned that you have an acid in your stomach, and Mother, that you have the rheumatic Gout, they all unconsciously equivocate -- in one sense it is false, in another sense true, but trifling. Who does not know, that there exists a close sympathy between the Lungs & the Stomach, & between the Stomach & the Liver? Where the stomach & Lungs are confessedly diseased, the Liver will always secrete the Bile, at times, diseasedly -- in quality or quantity. But what does this tell you more, than if a man should tell you, that you looked yellow, or coughed much? Your own Looking-glass, and your own ears will have informed you whether this is true or no. -- So no doubt a Stomach that turns even Fat acid, will often have an acid in it -- & a Stomach, that generates wind in such quantities, must needs afflict the body with these flying pains, which my Mother calls the rheumatic Gout -- . -- All this is true, but it is likewise trifling. But if they mean more, & say -- that such is the cause of your disorder, they speak without proof -- & I suspect, against probability -- they confound the Symptoms with the primary Disease. Your own account is exceedingly rational -I have no doubt, that you see the Truth / but I suspect, that you do not see it in all it's Bearings. There is only one sentence in your account that I object to -- but that sentence is the most important & has made me very anxious. 'In short, I am not in a Decline because I lose no flesh, and look very healthy.' -- I was with a very shrewd & common sense physician lately, who had much experience in pulmonary consumption, and was enumerating the sources of delusion, which led pulmonary Patients to disbelieve the fact till it became of no use to know it. Among others he particularly stated this one -- almost in your very words. Indeed, indeed, my dear Brother, in the early stage of pulmonary Consumption many Patients even gain flesh, & look more than usually healthy. My little Berkley grew fat and looked healthy to the Hour of his Death -- he was opened, & found to have died of ulcers in his Lungs, & the Lungs exceedingly inflamed. -- Whatever may be the cause of your disorder, whether the circumstances, you have stated, or any thing more latent in your original constitution -- or more probably, both in combination -- the effect however is admitted & certain. You have a weak Stomach, that generates acids & gasses; & you have weak Lungs -- that is, Lungs in an inflamed State, & that inflammation easily exasperated. -- Now do ask any -895- experienced Apothecary, whether slight causes would not convert such a State of Body into pulmonary Consumption? Stomach Weakness, when not relieved by natural Paroxysms of Gout, have [has] a frequent termination in consumption; but surely there is no possible description of pulmonary consumption, which would not include heated & inflammable Lungs, with something like a permanent Cold in the Head, as pulmonary consumption in it's first approaches at least, if not in it's earliest Stage. Probably, there may be 20 different Diseases confounded under one name of pulmonary Consumption / . The Disease, when the same, will probably be greatly modified by the circumstance of it's arising from constitutional predisposing weakness, or from direct personal exposure & overaction. The latter is pretty clearly your case -- & I have not the least doubt, that you would be completely renovated by a year passed in a warm & even climate, without those Drafts of air, & those irritating particles of Sea-coal, which make an English Fire-side (that Father & Mother of all genuine English Virtues) a very stepmother to pulmonary Patients. As to myself, I am determined to pass the next year or two of my Life either at Madeira, or Teneriffe, or Lisbon -- with my Family. -- All this I have written on my own score of information / but let it all go for mere Prattle -- only do let me intreat you, my dear Brother! to write a detailed account of your Health to Dr Beddoes. You & I, I dare say, think much alike of Beddoes's general mind. He is a very ingenious man, of great Learning & very extensive practice -but precipitant, & bold, even to daring -- a passionate Innovator. But there is no man in Europe who has had under his inspection so many cases of Scrofula, Hypochondriasis (or Complaints of the Stomach & other digestive organs) and of consumption, whether purely organical & pulmonary, or scrofulous, or hypochondriac, or all conjoined -- & these in all possible stages of the Disorders, & modified by all possible Differences of Age, Habits, Sex, & Constitution -- . Many sensible Physicians, who hold Beddoes very cheap in general, admit that in the detection of Diseases, & in his deductions from Symptoms, he is perhaps unrivalled. -- It will cost you but a guinea, & it is probable, that from some respect & kindness, he bears to me, he may give more thought to it, than to an ordinary Letter. I wish you only to learn from him what your disorder is -- how far you will adopt his mode of curing it, is quite an after question -- Yet while I write thus, I seem to feel, that no two enlightened Physicians, who had been tolerably conversant with pulmonary cases, could have two different opinions on your case. You are evidently not in a Decline; but as evidently [you have] the Basis, the precurrent & predisposing Causes, of pul- -896- monary Consumption / tho' I have no doubt that if only you will see it, & be somewhat afraid, you will not have the least reason to be alarmed. A warm climate would certainly & immediately effect a cure in your case -- without any danger of relapse on your return to this country -- & I should hope, that even in England care, with a very cautious use of the Tincture of Digitalis, would produce the same effect. But believe me, I am not quite so mad as to wish that you should place any Reliance on my prescriptions. -- May God Almighty preserve you for your family & for your Country! ---- I expect to return to Keswick in a day or two, & that Mr T. Wedgewood will accompany me -- As soon as I arrive, I shall certainly write either to you or to George, & give you all I know of my own plans -- & state to you the principles & the feelings, that prevent me from forming others. At present, my main plan must be to recover my health. My stomach is weak -- & disposed to flatulence with all it's pains & heavinesses -- & I have no [doubt that] there is a taint of Scrofula in my constitution. [By Scroful]a I mean no more than an inirritable State [of] the muscles, with deficient venous action, & a languor of the absorbents -- accompanied with an undue sensibility of the nervous system, or of whatever unknown parts of our body are the more immediate Instruments of Feeling & Idea. Where you find a man indolent in body & indisposed to definite action, but with lively Feelings, vivid ideal Images, & a power & habit of continuous Thinking, you may always, I believe, suspect a somewhat of Scrofula -- With me it is something more than a suspicion -- I had several glandular Swellings at School -- & within the last four years a Lump has formed on my left cheek, just on the edge of my whisker -- . The swellings in my knees were from the same cause. -- For my Stomach I have found great relief in taking Ginger Tea with milk & sugar -- & just at the moment of dinner, two or three pills, containing in the whole -- four or five Grains of Rhubarb mixed up in gum water with an equal or greater quantity of Ginger. This no doubt must have been often recommended to you -- [& no doubt] you have tried it. In my diet I prefer simple to seasoned, solids to fluids, and animal food to vegetable -- I sacredly abstain from Tea, which turns acid on my stomach, & is assuredly a poison to weak stomachs -- likewise as sacredly from all wine, spirits, & fermented liquors. If I am at any time very languid, & a faint head-ach & troubled bowels give me the warning, I prefer ether in small quantities with camphorated Julep, or half a grain of opium, to wine or spirit -- & my Health has improved, astonishingly, since I adopted this regimen. But warmth, warm cloathing, & tranquillity of mind, are things of absolute necessity with me. -- -897- I doubt whether I shall reach Keswick before I have to announce another Coleridge to you -- I long very much -- indeed, my whole inside yearns -- to see you all -- & your dear little ones. -- My best duty to my Mother -- my Love to Mrs James, love to the big Children, & kisses to the little ones -- love to George, Mrs George, to Edward & his Wife. May Heaven bless you all! I am, dear Brother, your's with unfeigned Affection, & a deep Esteem S. T. Coleridge -- I write from Mr Allen's Seat -- one of whose Daughters is married to Mr Drew: ---- & 2 others to John & Josiah Wedgewood. 476. To Mrs. S. T. Coleridge Address: Mrs Coleridge, or Mr Jackson, | Greta Hall, | Keswick | Cumberland MS. Lord Latymer. Pub. E. L. G. i. 227. Postmark: 18 December 1802. Stamped: Narberth. Thursday Morning, 7 o/clock. Thursday, Dec. 16. 1802 Crescelly My dear Love I write with trembling -- at what time or in what state my Letter may find you, how can I tell? Small need is there for saying, how anxious I am, how full of terrors & prayers! -- I trust in God, that this Letter, which I write with a palpitating heart, you will read with a chearful one -- the new Baby at your breast. O may God Almighty preserve you! We leave this place in less than an hour -- our rout lies thro' St Clear's, Carmarthen, Llandilo, Llandovery, Trecastle, Brecon, Hay, Hereford, Worcester, Birmingham, Litchfield, Abbot's Bromley, Uttoxeter, Ashborn, New Inn, Buxton, Stockport, Manchester, Bolton, Preston, Garstang, Lancaster, Burton, Kendal, Ambleside, Keswick -- 346 miles. From Keswick I must go with T. Wedgewood. to Mr Clarkson's -- & so on to Luff's. I calculate that we shall not much exceed forty miles a day: & that we shall be at Ambleside, Thursday Evening, Dec. 23rd. ---Mrs Wilson will be so good, as to have a Fire kept in Peach's Parlour, & likewise in Peach's Bedroom / & great care taken, that the Bed & Bedding shall be thoroughly and thoroughly warmed, & air[ed]. I should think it would be advisable to order immediately a pair of best Blankets from Miss Crosthwaite's. ---- My dearest Love! T. W. will not stay above a day or two in Keswick -& for God's sake, do not let [him] be any weight or bustle on your mind -- let him be entirely Mr Jackson's Visitor -- & let a Girl from -898- the town come up for the time, he stays -- & Mrs J'Anson will probably accomodate you with a Fowl or two. -- But above all, Mr Jackson will be so good as immediately to write a Line, to be left for me at the Post Office, Kendal -- informing me, how you are -- and of all, I am to know. Any Letters, you may have written to Gunville, will be sent back again to Keswick. -- Mrs Wilson will be so good as to procure a pound or so of the best salt potted Butter -- which Mr T. Wedgewood likes. ---- Again & again, my dear Love! God bless you S. T. Coleridge If Mr Jackson open this, he will, I am sure, excuse the Liberty I take with him -- & accept of my best & kindest remembrances. And the same to dear Mrs Wilson. ---- I sent 50£, Monday before last. 477. To Thomas Poole Address: T. Poole Eaqre | Nether Stowey | Bridgewater | Somerset MS. British Museum. Pub. E.L.G. i. 228. Stamped: Brecknock. Tecastle, Friday Night, Dec. 17. 1802 My dear Poole Both T. Wedgwood & myself are sorry that we cannot congratulate you on your return to England, with unmingled pleasure -- but this damned Dutch Ague -- I pray God, you may have Stoweyized it to the Devil -- or back again to the low Countries, which I should suppose a worse punishment for an Ague -- unless indeed, like Milton's Devils, it should move alternately from the fiery to the icy end of hell. -- And now let me defend myself against the charge of neglecting you -- . When your Letter arrived at Keswick I was absent -- out among the mountains on a fortnight's Tour -- your Letter came the very day, I left home -- . Mrs Coleridge will bear witness for me, how vexed & wounded I was that a Letter from you should have been a fortnight unanswered -- & how immediately & exclusively I set about answering it. I wrote you a long, & (for my head & heart were both full) not an ineloquent, or valueless Letter -- & if it were at all in my character to set any price on my own compositions, I should be vexed that I had not taken a copy. I wished to do it -- but did not, for eagerness to forward it to you. This Letter must have arrived at your Lodgings in Paris, the day you left it -- . Did you not pass thro' Paris on your return? -You yourself, my dear friend! are not wholly blameless in having stayed so long at Paris without writing to me. On receiving your second Letter, I wrote to you at the Poste restante, Geneva -- not -899- indeed immediately, but time enough in all conscience for it to have reached the place -- before your arrival. This was a mere Letter of affection, with a little effusion of old English Gall contra Gallos. It grieves me that you have not received these Letters -because it does a friendship no good for a man to have felt resentfully or woundedly towards his friend for 3 or 4 months -- even tho' he finds afterwards that he has wronged his Friend. -- Now of all earthly Things I detest explanations -- after the Day of Judgment there will be an end to them / veniat regnum tuum! -- And now for information respecting myself & our friend. -- I received on the 3rd of November a Letter from T. Wedgwood, which, I felt, could be properly answered only by immediately going to him. I left Keswick the next morning -- passed thro' London to Bristol met T. W. at Cote -- proceeded with him & Sally Wedgwood into Wales -- spent a week or so at St Clear's -- & then to Crescelly, the Seat of the Mrs Wedgwoods' Father, old Allen -- where we have passed the last 3 weeks in much comfort. Miss S. Wedgewood is a truly excellent woman / her whole Soul is clear, pure, & deep, as an Italian Sky -- Jessy, Fanny, & Emma Allen are all sweet Girls -- & Jessy & Fanny very interesting. We had plenty of music & plenty of Cream: for at Crescelly (I mention it as a remarkable circumstance it being the only place, I was ever at, in which it was not otherwise) tho' they have a Dairy, & tho' they have plenty of milk, yet nevertheless they are not at all stingy of it. In all other Houses, where Cows are kept, you may drink six shillings' worth of wine a day, & welcome / but use threepenny worth of Cream & O Lord I the Feelings of the Household & their Looks would curdle the Cream Dish. I have never been able to understand or analyse this strange Folly ---- it is a perfect mystery, that threepenny worth of Cream should be more costly than a shilling's worth of Butter. 1 ---- Our friend's Health is as nearly as possible what it was last Christmas -- & I conceive, that he must go to a warmer Climate sooner or later. He would not hesitate an hour, but that he feels that he is not likely to be happy, at a distance from, & out of reach of, Josiah. -- He is determined to give England a fair Trial -- & a scheme has started, which he thinks himself bound to act upon tho' the success of it, in it's first approaches, is extremely problematical. The Detail of it he will acquaint you with, as soon as he can ascertain any thing respecting it -- and on this scheme he is now going strait onwards to Cumberland -- and will return into ____________________ 1 C -- used to be very fond of the clouted cream -- eating more than my Dairy-maid thought sufficient -- The reproof within is meant for her -- or me. [Note written in the manuscript by Thomas Poole.] -900- South Wales, about the middle or perhaps end of January. It is a sense of Duty -- no movement of pleasure -- that impels him to the North, instead of to Stowey -- according to our former plan. He has taken a Shooting Cottage at Trewern, 5 miles from Narbarth, 13 from Crescelly, in Pembrokeshire --. This afternoon as we were on our way from Llandovery to this place, he had a very serious fit indeed, brought on by long detention of indurated faeces -- he is now relieved -- but God Almighty shield him from a second. I should extremely dread an inflammation in the Bowels, as the consequence. ---- My own Health is certainly better than it was when you last saw me -- much better. But it is far, very far from what it ought to be. My Stomach is exceedingly weak -- and all sort of food produces flatulence -- & my Bowels are weak. I find every month an increased necessity of austere Diet -- I have left off all wine, Spirit, & fermented liquor -- & I try to prefer solids to fluids, & animal food to vegetable --: simple food to seasoned I prefer naturally. But deep & pleasurable Tranquillity of Mind -- & an even warmth of Body -- are absolutely necessary for me, as far at least as Health is necessary. The latter I can gain only by settling in Sicily, or Teneriffe, or the W. Indies -- & this I should not hesitate concerning, if I could ensure the former, which you well know does not depend on myself. -- However, Mrs C. & I go on with less ---- of those habitual Ills That wear out Life when two unequal minds Meet in one house, & two discordant wills -- 1 We have been at peace. -- I return home with a palpitating heart-for I expect to hear at Kendal, that I have a new Child. -- From Keswick I shall write again; but T. Wedgwood joins with me in begging & entreating that you will immediately write to him, or me, at Keswick -- informing us, how you are -- for in very truth we are both anxious. -- Give my love to Ward -- to whom Mr Wedgewood desires his friendly remembrance. And if Miss Ward is at Stowey, I send her my best good wishes -- for she is of the better clay -- there is a susceptibility of the good & the beautiful in her heart & mind. ---- God bless you, my dear friend! I still believe, that I shall see you in a few months. S. T. Coleridge We shall arrive at Keswick Dec. 24 or 25th God willing. -- ____________________ 1 Cf. Letter 488, p. 796. -901- 478. To Robert Southey Address: Robert Southey Esqre | St James's Place | Kingsdown | Bristol MS. Lord Latymer. Pub. Letters, i. 415. Postmark: 29 December 1802. Stamped: Keswick. Christmas Day, 1802 My dear Southey I arrived at Keswick, with T. Wedgewood, on Friday Afternoon -- that is to say, yesterday -- & had the comfort to find that Sara was safely brought to bed, the morning before -- i.e. Thursday ½ past six, of a healthy -- GIRL! I had never thought of a Girl as a possible event -- the word[s] child & man child were perfect Synonimes in my feelings -- however I bore the sex with great Fortitude -- & she shall be called Sara. Both Mrs Coleridge & the Coleridgiella are as well as can be -- I left the little one sucking at a great rate. Derwent & Hartley are both well. -- I was at Cote in the beginning of November -- and of course had calculated on seeing you & above all on seeing little Edith's physiognomy, among the certain things of my expedition -- but I had no sooner arrived at Cote, than I was forced to quit it-T. Wedgewood having engaged to go into Wales with his Sister -- I arrived at Cote in the afternoon, & till late evening did not know or conjecture that we were to go off early on the next morning. -- I do not say this for you -- you must know, how earnestly I yearn to see you -- but for Mr Estlin, who expressed himself wounded by the circumstance. When you see him therefore, be so good as to mention this to him. -- I was much affected by Mrs Coleridge's account of your health & eyes. God have mercy on us! -- We are all sick, all mad, all slaves I -- It is a theory of mine that Virtue & Genius are Diseases of the Hypochondriacal & Scrofulous Genus -- & exist in a peculiar state of the. Nerves, & diseased Digestion -- analogous to the beautiful Diseases, that colour & variegate certain Trees. -- However, I add by way of comfort, that it is my Faith that the Virtue & Genius produce the Disease, not the Disease the Virtue &c -- tho' when present, it fosters them. Heaven knows I there are fellows who have more vices than scabs, & scabs countless -- with fewer Ideas than Plaisters. ---- As to my own Health, it is very indifferent. I am exceedingly temperate in every thing -- abstain wholly from wine, spirits, or fermented Liquors -- almost wholly from Tea -- abjure all fermentable & vegetable food -- bread excepted -- & use that sparingly-live almost entirely on Eggs, Fish, Flesh, & Fowl -- & thus contrive not to be ill -- but well I am not -- & in this climate never shall be. -902- A deeply ingrained, tho' mild Scrofula, is diffused thro' me: & is a very Proteus. I am fully determined to try Teneriffe or Gran Canaria, influenced to prefer them to Madeira solely by the superior cheapness of living. The Climate & Country are heavenly -the Inhabitants Papishes, all of whom I would burn with fire & faggot -- for what didn't they do to us Christians under bloody Queen Mary? 0 the Devil sulphur-roast them --! I would have no mercy on them, unless they drowned all their Priests -- & then spite of the Itch (which they have in an inveterate degree, Rich & Poor, Gentle & simple, old & young, Male & female) would shake hands with them unglov'd. -- By way of one impudent HalfLine in this meek & mild Letter -- will you go with me? -- 'I' & 'you' mean mine & your's -- of course. ---- Remember, you are to give me Thomas Aquinas & Scotus Erigena. 1 -- God bless you | & S. T. Coleridge I can have the best Letters of recommendation. ---- My Love & their Sister's to Edith & Mary -- & if you see Mrs Fricker, be so good as to tell her that she will hear from me or Sara in the course of ten days. ---- 479. To Mary Robinson Address: Miss Robinson| Englefield Cottage | Windsor | London MS. Dove Cottage. Pub. E.L.G. i. 232. Greta Hall, Keswick. Dec. 27. 1802 My dear Miss Robinson I was in Wales when your Letter arrived; and am even now returned to my Home. The cause of the Delay in answering your Letter will be my apology. -- If I were writing to a mere Stranger, or to one with whose name I had connected nothing serious or interesting, it would be sufficient for me to say (& I could say it with strict Truth) that I have almost wholly weaned myself from the habit of making Verses, and for the last three years uninterruptedly devoted myself to studies only not quite incompatible with poetic composition. Poetic composition has become laborious & painful to me. -- The Gentlemen, with whose names you would wish to associate mine, are of such widely diffused literary celebrity, that no one will accuse me of mock humility, or an affectation of ____________________ 1 A copy of Johannes Scotus Erigena De Divisione Naturae, 1681, with marginal notes by Coleridge is in the British Museum. Coleridge was reading the volume in 1808. See Letters 504 and 506. -903- modesty, when I say (confining my meaning exclusively to literary celebrity) that my name would place their's in company below their rank. But I, you know, am not a man of the World: and there are other qualities which I value infinitely higher than Talents or the fame arising from them -- among other things the use, to which those Talents have been applied. -- Much solitude, & absence from cities & from the manners of cities, naturally make a man somewhat serious -- & in this mood I cannot help writing to you. Your dear Mother is more present to my eyes, than the paper on which I am writing-which indeed swims before my sight -- for I can not think of your Mother without Tears. Let not what I say offend you -- I conjure you, in the name of your dear Mother! let it not do so. Others flattered her -- I admired her indeed, as deeply as others -- but I likewise esteemed her much, and yearned from my inmost soul to esteem her altogether. Flowers, they say, smell sweetest at eve; it was my Hope, my heart-felt wish, my Prayer, my Faith, that the latter age of your Mother would be illustrious & redemptory -- that to the Genius & generous Virtues of her youth she would add Judgement, & Thought -- whatever was correct & dignified as a Poetess, & all that was matronly as Woman. Such, you best know, were her own aspirations -- One of her poems written in sickness breathes them so well & so affectingly, that I never read it without a strange mixture of anguish & consolation. -- In this Feeling I cultivated your Mother's acquaintance, thrice happy if I could have soothed her sorrows, or if the feeble Lamp of my Friendship could have yielded her one ray of Hope & Guidance. Your Mother had indeed a good, a very good, heart -- and in my eyes, & in my belief, was in her latter life a blameless Woman. -- Her memoirs I have not seen -- I understood that an excessively silly copy of Verses, which I had absolutely forgotten the very writing of, disgraced me & the volumes 1 -- this publication of a private Letter (an act so wholly unjustifiable, & in it's nature subversive of all social confidence) I attributed altogether to the Man, at whose Shop the Volumes were published --. I was sorry, no doubt, that so very silly a Poem had been published -- for your mother's sake still more than for my own-yet I was not displeased to see my Name joined to your Mother's-I have said every where & aloud, that I thought highly both of her Talents & of her Heart, & that I hoped still more highly of both. I was not grieved at an occasion, which compelled me often to ____________________ 1 Coleridge poem, A Stranger Minstrel, was published in Mrs. Robinson posthumous Memoirs, 4 vols., 1801, iv. 141. The work also contained poetical contributions by Peter Pindar and others. Miss Robinson included Coleridge The Mad Monk in her Wild Wreath, 1804. -904- stand forth, as her Defender, Apologist, & Encomiast. But, my dear Miss Robinson! (I pray you, do not be wounded -- rather consider what I am about to say as a pledge of my esteem, & confidence in your honor & prudence, a confidence beyond the dictates of worldly caution) -- but I have a wife, I have sons, I have an infant Daughter -- what excuse could I offer to my own conscience if by suffering my name to be connected with those of Mr Lewis, or Mr Moore, I was the occasion of their reading the Monk, or the wanton poems of Thomas Little Esqre? Should I not be an infamous Pander to the Devil in the seduction of my own offspring? -- My head turns giddy, my heart sickens, at the very thought of seeing such books in the hands of a child of mine. I neither have or profess an excess of religious Faith or Feeling -- I write altogether from the common feelings of common Honesty. The mischief of these misery-making Writings laughs at all calculation. On my own account therefore I must in the most emphatical manner decline all such connection. But I cannot stop here --! Indeed, indeed, I write with Tears on my cheek. What, dear Miss Robinson! ought you to feel for yourself -- & for the memory of a MOTHER -- of all names the most awful, the most venerable, next to that of God! On your conduct, on your prudence, much of her reputation, much of her justification will ultimately depend. Often & proudly have I spoken of you, as being in your manners, feelings, & conduct a proof of the inherent purity of your Mother's mind -- Such, I am sure, you will always remain --. But is it not an oversight -- a precipitancy -- is it not to ṗevive all which Calumny & the low Pride of Women (who have no other chastity than that of their mere animal frames) love to babble of your dear Mother, when you connect her posthumous writings with the poems of men, whose names are highly offensive to all good men & women for their licentious exercise of their Talents? It is usual in certain countries to plant the Night violet on Graves -- because it sends forth it's odours most powerfully during the Darkness, & absence of the Sun. O dear Miss Robinson! exert your own Talents -- do you plant the night violets of your own Genius & Goodness on the Grave of your dear Parent -- not Hensbane, not Hemlock! Do not mistake me! I do not suspect, that the Poems, you mean to publish, have themselves aught in the least degree morally objectionable --; but the names are those of men, who have sold provocatives to vulgar Debauchees, & vicious School boys ---- in no otlier Light can many of their writings be regarded by a Husband & a Father. -As to Peter Pindar --!-- By all the Love & Honor, I bear to your dear Parent's memory, by the anguish & the indignation at my inmost heart, I swear to you that my flesh creeps at his name!! -- -905- You have forgotten, dear Miss Robinson! -- yes, you had altogether forgotten, that in a published Poem he called an infamous & mercenary Strumpet ' the Mrs Robinson of Greece' --. Will you permit the world to say -- her own Daughter does not resent it -her own Daughter connects the fame of her Mother with that of the man, who thus assassinated her reputation? -- No! No! -- I am sure, you had forgotten it --. I feel that I should insult you if I supposed the possibility of this Letter's being read by any but yourself. It has long been my intention to write a poem of some length expressly in honor of your mother, which I meant to have addressed to you -- having previously requested your permission. I mention this merely to prove to you, how much I am interested in, how gladly I should assent to, any plan that I could think truly honorable to your Mother or yourself. I remain most sincerely your Friend & Well wisher, S. T. Coleridge 480. To Thomas Poole Address: T. Poole Esqre | N. Stowey I Bridgewater | Somerset MS. British Museum, Pub. E.L.G. i. 235. Postmark: ≪1≫ January 180≪3≫. Stamped: Keswick. Wednesday, Dec. 29. [1802] My dear Friend I have such a mass of Letters to answer, that I can write you but a few Lines. We arrived safely on Friday afternoon -- and on the morning before, at ½ past six, Mrs Coleridge was brought to bed of a healthy Girl, who is to be called Sarah. Both Mother & Babe are well. -- I am middling --. My plans are these -- it is probable, that I shall return with our Friend, either to Gunville or Trewern, & there employ myself for six weeks or 2 months -- at the end of which time it is my firm resolution to go myself to the Canary Islands & see them -- & know whether a comfortable House & the common Comforts of Life are to be had in Gran Canaria or Teneriffe -- if so, I shall return, & by the next vessel transport my family, myself, & my books. If not, I shall attempt to see Sicily and the South of Italy -- for the same purposes. -T. Wedgewood. is much as usual -- his Spirits indifferent, his appetite tolerable. He leaves Keswick with me tomorrow morning, & goes to Ulswater -- whether he returns to Keswick, or goes on to Newcastle upon Tyne, is uncertain. At all events, he means to have come back to the South before the last week of January. -After I had last written you, & sent off the Letter, my heart -906- misgave me that I had written triflingly, & in a tone unworthy of you & of myself -- in a first Letter on your return to your native Country after your first absence -- & that too on so unpleasant a necessity, & in ill health to boot. But I was not writing for myself only -- & this writing ½ for myself, & ½ as a kind of Amanuensis untuned my feelings. -- I found your Letter here: both T. W. & myself mourn, that your ill-health clings about you. -- I doubt not, I shall see you soon. -- As you know, I often joke with a Tear in my eye -- so I could not help saying, that as your digestive organs were disordered, it was no wonder, that the Cream turned sour on your Stomach. -- I received a Letter from Sharp a few days ago with this Post script -- 'I like your friend, Poole, Most EXCEEDINGLY.' Sharp is a clever ready-cut-& dried-speech-retailer, and a friendly man who, tho' he has no heart, has a neat thing enough of a cardioeiděs Automaton, that answers all the purposes of a heart to all the demands & interests of simple acquaintanceship. As your Greek is not French or Latin or English, I must lexiconize my 'Cardioeidous['] -- which signifies something in the likeness of a Heart -- / a puppet Heart ---- What a misery that the Canarians are Catholics! O the Devil sulphur-roast all Papishes! I would burn every Mother's child of them with Fire & Faggot in remembrance of what they did to us Christians in the time of bloody Queen Mary. -- T. W.'s Love. ---- To Ward, & to his Sister remember me kindly -- And when you write to Bristol, do be so good as to remember [me] in more than common terms to your Sister & Mr King. -- God bless you, my dear Poole! | & | Your affectionate & | faithful -- S. T. Coleridge T. Wedgewood sent you a dozen Pound of Honey -- at least, left word to have sent to you -- before he left Gunville. --