481. To Mrs. S. T. Coleridge Address: Mrs Coleridge | Greta Hall | Keswick | Cumberland by favor of Agatha Fleming. MS. Lord Latymer. Pub. E.L.G. i. 237. The bottom of pages 1 and 2 and the top and bottom of pages 8 and 4 of the manuscript have been cut off. Glenridden, Jan. 5. 1802. -- [ 1803] Wednesday night My dear Wife & dear Love I considered it as more than usually unlucky that the both times, that Letters went from Grasmere to Keswick, I should have been -907- in Bed & unfit to write to you. I say unfit; because I was so low & so unwell, that if I had written, I must either have deceived or depressed you. And yet still I was vexed after Wards that I had not added one Line or so -- lest you should think me neglectful, or unaffectionate. And heaven knowst I build up my best hopes on my attempts to conciliate your Love, & to call it forth into hourly exercise, & gentle compliances, by setting you the example of respectful & attentive manners. We cannot get rid of our faulty Habits all at once; but I am fully sensible, that I have been faulty in many things; tho' justice to myself compels me to add, not without provocation. But I wish to confine my whole attention to my own faults -- & it is my hourly & serious Resolve to endeavor to correct all little overflows of Temper, & offensive vehemence of manner, look, & language -- & above all things never, never either to blame you, or banter you in the presence of a third person. On the other hand, you must make up your mind to receive with love & a ready & docile mind any thing that I say seriously & lovingly to you, when we are alone: because, my dear Love! I must needs grow desperate, if I should find, that it is not only the manner of being found fault with that i[rritated you, but I canno]t & will not endure to. . . . . . encourage every Thought & Feeling that may tend to make me love you more -- & make a merit to myself of bearing with your little corrosions, & apparent unimpressibilities. You are a good woman with a pleasing person, & a healthy understanding -superior certainly to nine women in ten, of our own rank, or the rank above us -- & I will be not only contented but grateful, if you will let me be quite tranquil -- & above all, my dear dear Sara! have confidence in my honor & virtue -- & suffer me to love & to be beloved without jealousy or pain. Depend on it, my dear Wife! that the more you sympathize with me in my kind manners & kind feelings to those of Grasmere, the more I shall be likely to sympathize with you in your opinions respecting their faults & imperfections. I am no Idolater at present; & I solemnly assure you, that if I prefer many parts of their characters, opinions, feelings, & habits to the same parts of your's, I do likewise prefer much, very much of your character to their's -- Of course, I speak chiefly of Dorothy & William -- because Mrs Wordsworth & her Sister are far less remote from you than they -- & unless I am grievously deceived, will in some things become less so still. -- God send us Peace & Love -- My dear Love! what a new year's Blessing it would be -- O & surely it shall be. My heart is full of Hope & full of Love! -- I walked on Sunday with William, Mary & Sara to John Stanley's -908- to meet Dorothy -- got wet in my feet, & half forgetful, half stupid, suffered them to smoke & steam away, while on my feet, holding them close by the Fire. I was not well when I came home as Dorothy informed you -- indeed, I was. . . . . . which is 3 miles of the road -- the whole Distance being 13 miles. But these 8 miles are almost as much as the other ten. I arrived safe & well. How I found T. Wedgewood, & what his Plans are, I would rather tell you by word of mouth -- I fear, that I shall leave you in a week perhaps -- & go to Gunville. -- / At all events, I must consult with Wordsworth on a very important subject -- & then finally consult with you, & with you arrange it -- I go therefore from hence to Grasmere tomorrow morning -- & shall strive to be at Keswick tomorrow night -- / & possibly may come in on a double horse, with Sara Hutchinson -- whom I have some few reasons for wishing to be with you immediately, which I will inform you of -- but one of the least, & yet the most ostensible, is the necessity of one or more of her Teeth being drawn without Delay -- for I never saw a human Being's Health so much affected generally by the Tooth ache as her's appears to be -- / yet this Tooth ache I suspect to be in part nervous -- & the cause, which, I more than suspect, has called this nervousness into action, I will tell you when I am alone with you. 1 In one thing, my dear Love! I do prefer you to any woman, I ever knew -- I have the most unbounded Confidence in your Discretion, & know it to be well grounded. Mr Wedgewood will certainly not come back to Keswick. O my dear Love! I have very much to say respecting our children -- indeed, indeed, some very vigorous & persevering measures must be taken. Sitting up till 11 o clock at night -- coffee in the morning -- &c &c &c -- and this for a child whose nerves are as wakeful as the Strings of an Eolian Harp, & as easily put out of Tune! What. . . . . . Trash & general irregularity of Diet! -- know, you will say that you were dieted, & yet had worms. But this is no argument at all -- for first it remains to be proved that you were properly dieted -- secondly, it is as notorious as the Sun in heaven, that bad Diet will & does bring worms -- & lastly, Derwent has been manifestly tea-poisoned -- as well as Hartley -- & both of them are eat up by worms. Mary would not say, that Derwent had no Tea given him -- she only said, that he had but little. Good God! what in- ____________________ 1 'What was Coleridge going to tell his wife?' asks Chambers; and suggests that Coleridge probably believed and intended to tell her that ' Sara Hutchinson was likely to become the wife of John Wordsworth'. Life, 164. In 1808 Coleridge wrote to Stuart: 'Had Captn Wordsworth lived, I had hopes of seeing her blessedly married, as well as prosperously.' -909- fatuation! -- as if a little child could know the difference between Tea, & warm milk & water -- & out of mere laziness, because the Tea is in the cup, to give or. . . & their mother -- if I have twenty children, Tea. . . 482. To Robert Southey Address: Robert Southey Esqre | St James's Parade | Kingsdown | Bristol MS. Lord Latymer. Pub. with omis. E.L.G. i. 240. Postmark: 11 January 1808. Stamped: Keswick. Keswick, Saturday Evening, Jan. [ 8,] 1808 My dear Southey Your whole conduct to George Burnet has been that of a kind & truly good man. For myself, I have no heart to spare for a Coxcomb mad with vanity & stupified with opium. He may not have a bad heart; but he wants a good one. With much sorrow from without, much pain, & disease, & not a little self-dissatisfaction, & with some real distresses of valuable men in my immediate view, I verily can scarcely afford even to pity a fool. Yet better stars be with him! -- I grieve sincerely that there should be such helpless self-tormenting Tormentors; tho' I cannot say, that it adds much to my grief, that one of them is called George Burnet. -- At least, if it does, it is for his friends & not for his own sake. -- Believe me, dear Southey! your account of your improved health & eyesight was a real comfort to me. I love my Milton / & will not endure any other Poet's addresses to his Blindness -- Yet of the two fearful evils I would rather, you were blind, than stomach-deranged to any high degree. You know enough, dear friend! of this latter to guess what it must be, when in the excess in which T. Wedgewood has it. Your diet is, I am persuaded by my own experience, a wise one. I take the chalybeated Aquafortis, with benefit -- & find considerable benefit from eating nothing at breakfast, & taking only a single cup of strong Coffee -then at eleven o'clock I take a couple of eggs, kept in boiling water one minute, folded up in a napkin for a minute & a half, & then put into the boiling water, which is now to be removed from the fire, & kept there with the saucepan covered from 4 to 6 minutes, according to the size of the eggs, & quantity of water in the saucepan. -- The superiority of eggs thus boiled to those boiled in the common way proves to me the old proverb -- there is reason in roasting of Eggs. -- I empty the eggs out into a glass or tea cup, & eat them with a little salt & cayenne peper -- but no bread. -- What a pretty Book one might write, entitled 'Le petite Soulagement, or -910- Little Comforts, by a Valetudinarian['] -- comprizing cookery, sleeping, travelling, conversation, self-discipline -- poetry, morals, metaphysics -- all the alleviations, that reason & well-regulated self-indulgence, can give to a good sick man. -- Sara sends her best Love to you & Edith & Margaret -- & she will write as soon as she has strength. She is in a middling way -- nothing to lament, nothing to boast of. The Sariola is well -- save the Thrush in her mouth -- of which I have noted nothing but that it does not sing, from whence I conclude it is a different kind of Thrush from the Turdus Communis or Throstle of the South Counties -- / On the 30th of Dec. I accompanied Wedgewood to Patterdale, at the head of Ullswater, to Mr Luff's-whom he has some thoughts, I believe, of getting as a companion. On New year's Day I walked over Kirkstone, an awful Road over a sublime mountain by Tairn & waterfall, to Ambleside & Grasmere -- the next day, I walked more than halfway to Keswick to meet Miss Wordsworth, & back again / but unfortunately got wet in my feet -- & on the day after, Monday, Jan. 3. in the evening I had an attack of Dysentery, in kind the same, & in degree nearly equal, to that which I had at Keswick when Stoddart & Edith were there. Dear Edith will remember it well. The same deadly sweats -- the same frightful Profluvium of burning Dregs, like melted Lead -- with quantities of bloody mucus from the Coats of the Intestines. -- I was better after -- & had a good night -- & was so well the next day, that I determined to perform the promise, I had made -- & accordingly walked back again to Mr Luff's over Kirkstone, just 15 miles from Grasmere -- I stayed Wednesday at Luff's -- & on Thursday Wedgewood seemed to have made up his plans, & I found I could go to my home, for a week or so -- but having something of importance to talk to Wordsworth about concerning Luff I was forced to go by Grasmere -- but took a little Poney & a woman to bring it back again, to take me to the top of the mountain; but before I got half way up, the storm was so horrid & pitiless that the woman seemed frightened -- & I thought it unmanly to let her go on. So I dismounted, & sent her home with the Storm to her Back. I am no novice in Storms; but such as this I never before witnessed, combining the violence of the wind & rain with the intensity of the cold. My hands were shrivelled like a Washer-woman's: & the rain was pelted, or rather slung, by the wind against my face, like splinters of Flint; and seemed to cut my flesh. -- A violent pain attacked my right eye -which, I own, greatly alarmed me --. On turning the mountain, at the first step of descent, all was calm, breathless -- it seemed as if there was a great Fountain of wind & Tempest at the summit that rolled down a Niagara of Air to Wards Patterdale -- I arrived at -911- Grasmere, soaked thro' -- & the next day walked to Keswick -- but in consequence of all this, I have had another attack of disentery, & am very poorly. -- I have been thus prolix -- because it will give you a good idea of the nature of my health -- & what a degree & scrupulousness of care it requires to Ward off fits of Distemper from my Bowels. -- My plans are these -- or rather Wedgewood's -- to go to Gunville, to his Brother's, in about ten days -- stay there a month or so -& then to go together to Paris, thro' Switzerland, to Rome, Naples, & perhaps Sicily. -- I am indifferent -- this is well -- & to stay at home would perhaps be better. God knows my heart! it is for my wife's & children's sakes that I go far more than for my own. Yet I could be well-content to try what great care, scrupulous Diet, & a perfect system of cloathing would do, at Keswick. For I love the place with a perfect Love. -- Next to Keswick I would live at Bristol beyond any other place in the Island & of course am glad that you are to live there. -- I have a great deal more to say; but I am getting weak. -- The Ode on Switzerland? -- O! -- you must mean the old Ode, entitled France -- which Stuart has reprinted. 1 As to my politics, given in the Letters to Fox, & in the Essays on France, they are quite my own -- & Stuart's chiefly in consequence of my conversations with him. So far from writing those Letters under Stuart's influence, he kept them 8 weeks -- afraid to publish them -- & at last did it, roused to indignation by an account given him by one of Fox's warmest Friends of Fox's conduct in Paris. -As to Switzerland I know nothing -- if you can procure me any information from King, I would thank you. You well know, that all valuable information may [be] compressed into a very moderate Letter. As to my Letters to Fox, I wish, you had read them -- You would have seen, that only a few conciliatory Passages were Stuartian, but all the reprehensory parts I myself I --. If I have erred, how gladly should I have it pointed out to me! But men of all parties have read the Letters with a compleat Sympathy of Faith -- & what am I to understand by your remark, my dear Southey? -- Have you heard any thing from France, which inclines you to think favorably of Bonaparte, of the French Government, or of Fox's apparent Adulation? -- But I shall write two or three more Essays -- & then collect them into a Pamphlet -- & so I shall have your opinion cool[l]y. -- I heard of the Edingburgh review, 2 & heard the name of your Reviewer -- but forgot it --. Reviews may, sell 50 or 100 copies in the first three months -- & there their Influence ends. Depend on it, no living Poet possesses the general ____________________ 1 Morning Post, 16 Apr 1798; reprinted 14 Oct. 1802. 2 See Edinburgh Review, Oct 1802, p. 68, for a review of Thalaba. -912- reputation, which you possess. Blomfield is the Farmer's Boy, not a Poet -- in the mind of the Public -- and Rogers is never thought of, tho' every School Girl has his pleasures. of memory. W. Wordsworth's reputation is hitherto sectarian -- my name is perhaps nearly as well known & as much talked of as your's -- but I am talked of, as the man of Talents, the splendid Talker, & as a Poet too -- but not, as you are, as a Poet, κατ' ἒμ?ϕασ+̂ιV -- I rejoice that Madoc is to be published speedily. -- God bless you! -- write to me here -- & if I go, your Letter will be sent after me -- & I will endeavor to write more livelily. -- I am become a gentle & tranquillized Being, but, O Southey! I am not the Coleridge, which you knew me. S. T. C. -- My AFFECTIONATE ESTEEM to C. Danvers. God bless him!! 483. To Thomas Wedgwood Address: T. Wedgewood Esqre | C. Luff's Esqre | Glenridden | Ulswater. MS. Wedgwood Museum. Pub. with orals. Letters, i. 417. Stamped: Keswick. Greta Hall, Keswick. Sunday, Jan. 9th. 1803 My dear Wedgewood I send you two Letters, one from your dear Sister, the latter half of which relates to business of your's -- & the second from Sharp -by which you will see, at what short notice I must be off, if I go to the Canaries. If your last plan continue in full force in your mind, of course, I have not even the phantom of a Wish thitherWard struggling; but if aught have happened to you, in the things without, or in the world within, to induce you to change the plan in itself or the plan relatively to me, I think, I should raise the money at all events, & go & see. But I would a thousandfold rather go with you, whithersoever you go. -- I shall be anxious to hear how you have gone on since I left you --. I have been in much dread respecting your long detention of the faeces -- that alone seems to me to decide in favor of a hotter climate, somewhere or other. The best scheme, I can think of, is that in some part of Italy or Sicily, which we both liked, I would look about for two houses -- Wordsworth & his family would take the one, & I the other -- & then you might have a home, either with me, or if you thought of Mr & Mrs Luff, under this modification, one of your own -- & in either case you would have neighbors -- & so return to England when the homesickness pressed heavy on you, & back to Italy, when it was abated, & the climate of England began to poison your comforts. So you would have abroad in a genial climate a certain comfort of society among simple & enlightened -913- men & women, your country folks; & I should be an alleviation of the pang, which you will necessarily feel always, as often as you quit your own family. I know no better plan: for travelling in search of objects is at best a dreary business, and whatever excitement it might have had, you must have exhausted it. -- God bless you, my dear friend! I write with dim eyes: for indeed, indeed, my heart is very full of affectionate sorrowful thoughts to Wards you. I found Mrs Coleridge not so well, as I expected; but she is better to day. And I myself write with difficulty, with all the fingers, but one, of my right hand very much swoln. Before I was half up' Kirkstone, the storm had wetted me thro' & thro' -- & before I reached the Top, it was so wild & outrageous, that it would have been unmanly to have suffered the poor woman to continue pushing on her Face & Breasts up against such a torrent of wind & rain. So I dismounted, & sent her home with the storm to her Back. I am no novice in mountain-mischiefs; but such a storm as this was I never witnessed, combining the intensity of the Cold with the violence of the wind & rain. The rain-drops were pelted, or rather slung, against my face, by the Gusts, just like splinters of Flint; & felt, as if every drop cut my flesh. My hands were all shrivelled up, like a washerwoman's; & so benumbed, that I was obliged to carry my stick under my arm. O it was a wild business! Such hurry-skurry of Clouds, such volleys of sound! In spite of the wet & the cold I should have had some pleasure in it, but for two vexations -- first, an almost intolerable pain came into my right eye, a smarting & burning pain / & secondly, in consequence of riding with such cold water under my fork extremely uneasy & burthensome Feelings attacked my Groin & right Testicle -- so that what with the pain from the one, & the alarm from both, I had no enjoyment at all. Just on the brow of the Hill I met a man, dismounted who could not keep on horse-back -- he seemed quite scared by the uproar -- & said to me with much feeling -- O Sir! it is a perilous Buffeting, but it is worse for you than for me-for I have it at my Back. -- However I got safely over -- and immediately on the Descent all was calm & breathless, as if it was some mighty Fountain just on the summit of Kirkstone, that shot forth it's volcano of Air, & precipitated a huge stream of invisible Lava down the Road to Patterdale. -- I called at Wilcock's, delivered your orders respecting the Trout -- & on to Grasmere -- I was not at all unwell when I arrived there, tho' wet of course to the Skin, & my right eye had nothing the matter with it, either to the sight of others, or to my own Feeling -- / but I had a bad night, with distressful Dreams, chiefly about my eye, & awaking often in the dark I thought, it was the effect of mere recollection / but it -914- appeared in the morning, that my right eye was blood-shot, & the Lid swoln --. That morning however I walked home -- & before I reached Keswick, my eye was quite well -- but I felt unwell all over -- & yesterday afternoon I had another sad bowel-attack -- & continued unusually unwell all over me till about 8 o/clock in the evening. I took no opium or laudanum /; but at 8 o/clock, unable to bear the stomach uneasiness & the bowel threatenings, & the achings of my Limbs, I took two large Tea spoonfuls of Ether in a wine glass of Camphorated Gum water / and a third Tea spoonful at 10 o/clock-I received compleat relief, my body calmed, my sleep placid; but when I awoke in the morning, my right hand, with three of the Fingers was swoln & inflamed. The swelling of the Hand is gone down; & of two of the fingers somewhat abated -- but the middle finger is still twice it's natural size -- so that I write with some difficulty. This has been a very rough attack; but tho' I am much weakened by it, & look sickly & hagged, yet I am not out of heart: for such a Bout, such a 'perilous Buffeting' was enough to have hurt the health of a strong man -- Few Constitutions can bear to be long wet thro' in intense Cold. -- I fear, it will tire you to death to read this prolix scrawled Story -- but my health, I know, interests you. -- Do contrive to send me a few lines by the market people on Tuesday -- I shall receive it on Tuesday Evening. Affectionately, dear friend! | your's ever S. T. Coleridge. It is most unlucky that Aggy did not go -- it is as far to Penrith or farther, as to Keswick-so if you have any thing to communicate, you had better send a lad at once to Keswick. -- [I] send this by the Post, lest Aggy should be detained tomorrow too. -- I am sic sic, i.e. so so. 484. To Thomas Wedgwood Address: T. Wedgewood Esqre | C. Luff's Esqre | Glenridden | Ulswater -MS. Wedgwood Museum. Pub. with omis. Tom Wedgwood, 132. Friday Night, Jan. 14. 1803 Dear Friend I was glad at heart to receive your Letter (which came to me on Thursday morning, I do not know how) and still more gladdened by the reading of it. The exceeding kindness, which it breathed, was literally medicinal to me; & I firmly believe, cured me of a nervous rheumatism in my head & teeth. -- I daresay, that you mixed up the scolding & the affection, the acid & the oil, very -915- compleatly at Patterdale; but by the time, it came to Keswick, the oil was all atop. -- You ask, in God's name, why I did not return when I saw the state of the weather? The true reason is simple, tho' it may be somewhat strange -- the thought never once entered my head. The cause of this I suppose to be, that (I do not remember it at least) I never once in my whole life turned back in fear of the weather. Prudence is a plant, of which I, no doubt, possess some valuable specimens -- but they are always in my hot-house, never out of the glasses -- & least of all things would endure the climate of the mountains. In simple earnest, I never find myself alone within the embracement of rocks & hills, a traveller up an alpine road, but my spirit courses, drives, and eddies, like a Leaf in Autumn: a wild activity, of thoughts, imaginations, feelings, and impulses of motion, rises up from within me -- a sort of bottom-wind, that blows to no point of the compass, & comes from I know not whence, but agitates the whole of me; my whole Being is filled with waves, as it were, that roll & stumble, one this way, & one that way, like things that have no common master. I think, that my soul must have pre-existed in the body of a Chamois-chaser; the simple image of the old object has been obliterated -- but the feelings, & impulsive habits, & incipient actions, are in me, & the old scenery awakens them. The farther I ascend from animated Nature, from men, and cattle, & the common birds of the woods, & fields, the greater becomes in me the Intensity of the feeling of Life; Life seems to me then a universal spirit, that neither has, nor can have, an opposite. God is every where, I have exclaimed, & works every where; & where is there room for Death? In these moments it has been my creed, that Death exists only because Ideas exist / that Life is limitless Sensation; that Death is a child of the organic senses, chiefly of the Sight; that Feelings die by flowing into the mould of the Intellect, & becoming Ideas; & that Ideas passing forth into action re-instate themselves again in the world of Life. And I do believe, that Truth lies inveloped in these loose generalizations. -- I do not think it possible, that any bodily pains could eat out the love & joy, that is so substantially part of me, towards hills, & rocks, & steep waters! And I have had some Trial. On Monday Night I had an attack in my stomach, & right side, which in pain,& the length of it's continuance appeared to me by the far the severest, I ever had -- I was under the necessity of having a person set up with me till 3 in the morning / tho' about one o/clock the pain passed out of my stomach, like Lightning from a cloud, into the extremities of my right foot -- my Toe swelled & throbbed -- & I was in a state of delicious ease, which the pain in my Toe did not seem at all to interfere with. On Tuesday I was uncommonly -916- well all the morning, & eat an excellent dinner; but playing too long & too rompingly with Hartley & Derwent I was very unwell that evening-- on Wednesday I was well-- & after dinner wrapt myself up warm, & walked with Sara Hutchinson to Lodore-- I never ld any thing more impressive than the wild outline of the black masses of mountain, over Lodore & so on to the Gorge of Borrodale seen thro' the bare Twigs of a grove of Birch Trees, thro' which the road passes -- and on emerging from the Grove, a red planet, (so very red that I never saw a star so red, being clear & bright at the same time) stood on the edge of the point where I have put an Asterisk / it seemed to have sky behind it -- it started, as it were, from the Heaven, like an eye-ball of Fire. I wished aloud for you to have been with me at that moment. The walk appeared to have done me good; but I had a wretched Night -- had shocking pains in my head, occiput, & teeth -- & found in the morning that I had two blood-shot eyes. But almost immediately after the receipt & perusal of your Letter the pain left me, & I have bettered to this hour -- & am now indeed as well as usual, saving that my left eye is still very much blood-shot. It is a sort of duty with me to be particular respecting facts that relate to my health / I am myself not at all dispirited. I have retained a good sound appetite thro' the whole of it-- without any craving after exhilarants or narcotics -- & I have got well, as in a moment. Rapid recovery is constitutional with me; but the two former circumstances I can with certainty refer to the system of Diet, abstinence from vegetables, wine, spirits, & beer, which I have adopted by your advice. I have no dread or anxiety respecting any fatigue which either of us are at all likely to undergo even in continental Travelling. Many a healthy man would have been layed up with such a Bout of thorough Wet & intense Cold at the same time, as I had on Kirkstone. Would to God that also for your sake I were a stronger man; but I have strong wishes to be with you, & love your society; & receiving much comfort from you, & believing that I receive likewise much improvement, I find a delight (very great, my dear friend! indeed it is) when I have reason to imagine that I am in return an alleviation of your destinies, & a comfort to you. I have no fears: & am ready to leave home at a two days' warning -- / for myself I should say 2 hours; but bustle & hurry might disorder Mrs Coleridge. She & the three children are quite well. -- I grieve, that there is a lowring in politics --. The Moniteur contains almost daily some bitter abuse on our ministers & -917- parliament -- & in London there is great anxiety & omening. I have dreaded war from the time, that the disastrous fortunes of the Expedition to St Domingo under Le Clerc was known in France. 1 -- I have sent some Ginger -- & have tried to cater some thing for you at Keswick -- but could not succeed -- I could get neither Fish nor Hare. My kind remembrances to Mr & Mrs Luff. I have sent my three Razors, which I beg, Luff will regenerate for me upon the Golding -- & I will give him a Draft to any amount on the first Banking House, he will point out to me, on any part of Parnassus. -- The newspapers have been sent, while I was in bed, to Grasmere -- I will send a whole parcel of them to Penrith on Monday Night -- & if I can send any thing else, you will write me word by the man / at all events, write me one or two lines-as few, as you like -- only just how you are. -- Pray, is the Lake opposite to Glenridden frozen over? -- I am afraid, that in a few days there will be a great Fall of Snow. -- At the end of 5 days we shall have two beds vacant, for you -- & for Mr & Mrs Luff -- if it would be any change to you to come over to Keswick --. -- Heaven bless us all! -- I remain, | my dear Wedgewood | with most affectionate esteem & | grateful attachment | your sincere Friend S. T. Coleridge 485. To Samuel Purkis Address: Samuel Purkis Esqre | Brentford | Middlesex MS. Huntington Lib. Pub. E. L. G. i. 244. Postmark: 2 February 1803. Southey's, St James's Parade, Kingsdown, Bristol. Feb. 1. 1803 My dear Purkis For the last 5 months of my Life I seem to have annihilated the present Tense with regard to place -- you can never say, where is he? -- but only -- where was he? where will he be? -- From Keswick -- to London -- Bristol -- Pembroke -- Birmingham -- Manchester / Keswick -- Etruria -- Bristol -- & in a few days to Blandford -probably, Stowey, Exeter -- possibly, the Land's End. I am with ____________________ 1 In Dec. 1801 General Leclerc, Napoleon's brother-in-law, left France for Hispaniola at the head of a large expedition to conquer the island. Leclerc died of yellow fever in Nov. 1802 and was succeeded by General Rochambeau. His troops decimated by sickness and the ferocious resistance of the Negroes, Rochambeau capitulated to Dessalines in Nov. 1803. Thus France lost for ever the rich colony of Saint-Domingue. See Henry Christophe and Thomas Clarkson, ed. by E. L. Griggs and C. H. Prator, 1952, pp. 21-82. -918- Mr T. Wedgewood -- and expect after six weeks' stay w ith him in England to go thro' France, & Italy -- & to winter in Sicily -- but I am a Comet tied to a Comet's Tail, & our combined Path must needs be damnably eccentric, & a defying Puzzle to all Astronomers from La Lande & Herschell to YZ, who with 20 more Alphabetonymists likewise gave a solution to an astronomical problem in the last Lady's Diary. -- If I had not gone with Wedgewood, or if I should not go, I shall probably go to Gran Canaria or Teneriffe -for my health is miserable. While in warm rooms, all goes well; but any exposure inevitably diseases, almost disorganizes me. Cold & Wet are my He and She Devil. I am however better tho' not stronger / for I abstain, & have for the last 4 months, from all wine, spirits, beer -- & from all narcotics & exhilarants, whether from the Vintner's Shop or the Apothecary's -- My appetite is very keen in consequence-but I am not stronger / nor at all more hardy. -- I shall shortly publish a second Volume of Poems 1 -- My Poverty, & not my Will consenting -- I have likewise written a Tragedy & a Farce / & have planned out a long comic Poem / of regular & epic construction / as long as Hudibras; but tho' with infinitely less Wit, yet I trust with more humour, more variety of character, & a far, far more entertaining, & interesting Tale. Each book will be in a different metre / but all in rhyme -- & each book a regular metre. It seems to me, that a comic Epic Poem lies quite new & untouched to me -- Hudibras is rather a series of Satires than a comic Poem. -- My plan does not exclude the utmost beauty of Imagery & poetic Diction / and some parts will be serious & pathetic. -- So much of myself -- only let me add as interesting to dear Mrs Purkis -- that a day or two before last Christmas Day Mrs Coleridge was safely delivered of a fine Girl, whom we have baptized Sara. -- My wife & all my children are well. -- I write now to ask a little favor of you. There is a preparation of the Indian Hemp, called Bhang, or àang, or Banghee -- the same Drug, which the Malays take, & under it's influence become most pot-valiant Drawcansirs, run a muck, &c. My friend, T. Wedgewood, is exceedingly desirous to obtain a small specimen of it: from what he has heard of it, he conceives it possible that it may afford some alleviation to his most hopeless malady -- which is a dreadful inirritability of the intestinal Canal. Now I know that Sir Joseph Banks has a quantity of it -- and if you should see him sḥortly, & could procure a small quantity of it -- (you may mention, if you choose, for whom you want it -- & Sir Joseph was an intimate ____________________ 1 Cf. Letter 505. -919- Friend of old Mr Wedgewood's, & no stranger to T. Wedgewood) you would oblige me greatly -- For my poor Friend's Spirits are so very low, that he has no heart even to write half a dozen Lines himself. O Purkis! Purkis! -- what an awful Sight is this! A man of Genius (I know not his superior) of exquisite & various Taste, of extensive Information & subtle & inventive faculties -- active beyond example from nature -- add to these most affectionate Dispositions, a man loving many, & beloved by many -- deeply attached to a prosperous Family, who deserve & return his attachment / & deriving honors & cheering recollections from his noble Father, and crown all these things with a large Fortune, a fine person, a most benevolent Heart, which a calm & comprehensive & acute understanding organizes into genuine Beneficence / -- and what more can you think, as constituent of compleat Happiness! -All these Things unite in T. Wedgewood: & all these things are blasted by -- a thickening of the Gut! -- O God! Such a Tree, in full blossom -- it's fruits all medicinal & foodful -- & a grub -- a grub at the root! -- I am sad to hear of T. Poole's Health! O I yearn to be with him. -- Remember me kindly to Mrs Purkis -- & my best wishes attend your little ones. -- If you could succeed in your request, be so good as to send it by Coach to me, Josiah Wedgewood's Esqre, Gunville, Blandford, Dorset. God bless you & S. T. Coleridge 486. To Thomas Poole Address: Thos Poole Esqre | Nether Stowey| Bridgewater MS. British Museum. Hitherto unpublished. Postmark: 3 February 1803. Stamped: Bristol. St James's Parade Bristol. Wednesday Evening [ 2 February 1803] My dear Poole We arrived at Cote, on the afternoon of the Tuesday of last week -- I did not stay there, but went immediately to Southey's -where I now am. Mrs Wedgewood is very unwell -- & John Wedgewood is no favorite of mine / & T. Wedgewood is in very low Spirits -- too low to move out -- I have therefore determined to come by myself to Stowey-- & Wedgewood will write to me where & when I am to join him. I have been, & still am, miserably afflicted by the Cold -- incapable of stirring out of the House without immediate ill effects -- I must beg of you therefore to let me have a fire in a tolerably roomy bedroom. I shall leave this place on Friday morning -- & be at Bridgewater on Friday Noon / if you send in for me, well & good -- if not, I must take a post-chaise. -More when we meet. -- God bless you & S. T. Coleridge -920- 487. To Thomas Wedgwood MS. Wedgwood Maseum. Pub. E. L. G. i. 247. Nether Stowey, Bridgewater. Feb. 10th. 1803. Thursday Dear Wedgewood Last night Poole & I fully expected a few lines from you -- & when the newspaper came in without it, we felt as if a dull Bore of a Neighbour had been ushered in after a knock of the Door, which had made us all rise up, & start forward to welcome some longabsent Friend. Indeed in Poole's case this Simile is less overswoln than in mine: for in contempt of my convictions & assurances to the contrary Poole (passing off the Brommagem Coin of his Wishes for sterling Reasons) had persuaded himself fully, that he should really see you in propritl personâ. -- The truth is, we had no right to expect a letter from you / & I should have attributed your not writing to your having nothing to write, to your bodily dislike to writing -- or (tho' with reluctance) to low Spirits -- but that I have been haunted with the fear, that your Sister is worse -- & that you are at Cote in the mournful office of comforter to your Brother. -God keep us from idle Dreams! Life has enough of real pains. -- I wrote to Captn Wordsworth about the Chinese or India Drawings, from 50£ to 100£ -- as you desired me -- & desired him likewise to get me some Bang --. Wordsworth, in an affectionate Letter, answers me -- 'Mr Wedgewood shall have the pictures if we return to bring them home. Indeed, I should find the greatest pleasure in serving or pleasing him in any thing. But I hope, I shall be able to get some for him before we sail. The Bang if possible shall also be sent: if any country Ship arrives, I shall certainly get it. We have not got any thing of the Kind in our China Ships.' -- Now the words Italicized may perhaps not be what you wish. If so -- if you would much rather that they should be brought by Wordsworth himself from China -- give me a line, that I may write & tell him not to get any before he sails. -- We shall hope for a letter from you to night --. I need not say, dear Wedgewood, how anxious I am to hear the particulars of your Health & Spirits. -- On Saturday I had a Διαρρ'hoea diarrhoeissima, et con furore, which continued on me for about 18 hours; & left me, weak indeed, but free from rheumatic pains & the accompanying feverishness. I am now pretty well -- if I continue as well, all will do! -- Poole's account of his Conversations &c in France are very interesting & instructive -- If your inclinations led you hither, you would be very comfortable here -- but I am ready at an hour's warning, ready in heart & mind, as well as body & moveables. -- -921- With respectful remembrances & affectionate good wishes to your Brother & Sister I am, | dear Wedgewood, | Your's most truly ever, S. T. Coleridge 488. To Thomas Wedgwood Address: Thos Wedgewood Esqre | Cote House | Bristol MS. Wedgwood Museum. Pub. with omis. Tom Wedgwood, 135. Stamped: Bridgewater. Feb. 10th, 1808. Thursday Night. Stowey My dear Wedgewood The Boy, who will take this Letter to Bridgewater time enough for the morning's mail, will carry a letter to Captn J. Wordsworth, & prevent him from thinking further of the Drawings. -- I will likewise, as on my own account, ask, what you desire, of Seeds &c. -- You ibid Poole not reply to your letter. Dear Friend! I could not -- if I had wished it. Only with regard to myself & my accompanying you, let me say thus much. My health is not worse, than it was in the North / indeed, it is much better. I have no fears. But if you feel that my health being what you know it to be, the inconveniences of my being with you will be greater than the advantages, feel no reluctance in telling me so. It is so entirely an affair of Spirits, that the conclusion must be made by you, not in your reason, but purely in your Spirits, & Feelings. Sorry indeed should I be to know, that you had gone abroad with one, to whom you were comparatively indifferent -- Sorry, if there should be no one with you, who could by fellow-feeling & general like mindedness yield you sympathy in your sunshiny moments. Dear Wedgewood! my heart swells within me, as it were ---- I have no other wish to accompany you, than what arises immediately from my personal attachment to you, and a deep sense in my own heart that let us be as dejected as we will, a week together cannot pass in which a mind, like your's, would not feel the want of affection, or be wholly torpid to it's pleasurable influences. ---- I can not bear to think of your going abroad with a mere travelling companion -- with one, at all influenced by Salary or personal conveniences. You will not suspect me of flattering you -- but indeed, dear Wedgewood! you are too good & too valuable a man to deserve to receive tendance from a Hireling, even for a month together, in your present state. ---- If I do not go with you, I shall stay in England only such time, as may be necessary for me to raise the travelling money -& go immediately to the South of France. -- I should probably cross the Pyrenees to Bilboa, [sic] see the Country of Biscay, & cross the North of Spain to Perpignan, & so on to the North of -922- Italy -- & pass my next winter at Nice. I have every reason to believe, that I can live, even as a Traveller, as cheap as I do in England. -- Poole & Ward are Maltsters, & will send Mr Wedgewood 50 bushels of as good malt as can be had any where; but Poole wishes to know whether it is to be for Ale or Beer, that is, high-coloured, or pale-- as in this Neighbourhood Beer is made with pale malt -likewise whether he wishes it ground or unground -- & whether he wishes Hops to be sent with it, & what quantity. -- There is fine Flour to be had here, of which Poole will send any quantity, your Brother wishes. -I will write to Gunville tomorrow. -God bless you! ---- I will repeat no professions even in the subscription of a Letter. -- You know me -- & that it is my serious simple wish, that in every thing respecting me you would think altogether of yourself, & nothing of me -- & be assured, that no Resolve of your's, however suddenly adopted, or however nakedly communicated, will give me any pain -- any at least arising from my own Bearings -- Your's ever, S. T. Coleridge P.S. I have been so overwhelmed that I have said nothing of Poole -- what indeed can or ought I to say? -- You know what his feelings are, even to men whom he loves & esteems far less than you. -- He is deeply affected. ---- Perhaps, Leslie would accompany you. 489.To Robert Southey Address: Robert Southey Esqre | St James's Parade I Kingsdown | Bristol Single Sheet MS. Lord Latymer. Pub. with omis. E. L. G. i. 248. Stamped: Bridgewater Nether Stowey, Tuesday, Feb. 15. 1803 My dear Southey I arrived in safety -- and after many days of anxious suspense have at length received a Letter from T. Wedgewood, written in dreadful gloom of spirit, desiring me to go by myself to Gunville -and adding that he thinks, my Health incapacitates me for accompanying him to the Continent -- whither he intends going in May. -For myself, I should wish that he may continue to think so; but as my Health is rather better than what he knew it to be, when he last took me from the North, expressly under the idea of going with him to Italy in the middle of March, I conclude that this last -923- Thought is the mere child of unusually low spirits, & that when I meet him at Gunville, he will recur to his former plan. Poor fellow! my whole Heart aches for him. -- If I went by myself, I should go to Bordeaux -- Bayonne -- over the Pyrenees to Bilboa -- to Pampelona -- & so on, keeping as close under the Pyrenees as possible to Perpignan, & so on into Italy -- from Italy, if the year permitted, into Switzerland -- & pass my next winter at Nice. I go to Gunville on Friday next -- but probably shall not reach it till Saturday. My address, ' Josiah Wedgewood, Esqre, Gunville, near Blandford, Dorset, for Mr Coleridge.' -- I understood you to say, that the Southerliest part of France was equally southerly as, or more so, than, the South of Spain. If I did not grossly misunderstand you, do, my dear fellow! turn to a map of Europe, & stare a bit at the State of your geographical knowlege. I stared & doubted, as you must remember; but gave up at last to you & Tom, being indeed on all occasions the humblest Creature on earth. Spain in all it's Latitudes runs parallel with Italy & Sicily. Surely I must have misunderstood you -- yet [if] so, I cannot imagine what the Dispute could have been. -- I shall stay at Gunville from six [weeks] to two months, as I at present suppose. T. Poole' is nearly well: his account[s] of his Travels & Conversations in France & Switzerland are exceedingly interesting & instructive: he became acquainted with Reding, Zelviger, 1 & the other Swiss Chieftains. He desires to be kindly remembered to you; & to Mrs Southey. We will take care that some Laver shall be procured as soon as possible. You promised Poole the 2nd Volume of the Anthology, which he has not received. -- My health is at it's average. The Saturday before last I had a Διβρρ○+̶ια diarrhoeissima, con furore / What a poor syllable the Greek OKVT is to our Squ[i]t -- and the Greek σλισσλɜB+̶ς -- to our Shlishshlosh!! -- It held upon me nearly 18 hours, & left me, weak indeed, but freed from rheumatic pains & feverishness. Since then I have been pretty middling, as the phrase goes; I do not stir out of the House; & as I have a delicious Wood fire in my bedroom, I am very comfortable here. A little boy, about 9 years old, a sharp Child, waits on me. I dearly love to be waited on by children. A penny, & cheerful Praise, mills them like chocolate.-Besides, it is right & isocratic! ---- I promised to write to Mrs Lovell from this place. But on re- ____________________ 1 Coleridge refers to Aloys, baron de Reding ( 1765-1818), and Jakob Zellweger ( 1770-1821). 2 S.T. C. wrote phlosh bosh immediately below. -924- flection I find that I can write nothing from hence which I did not say to her at Bristol / & that I had better, of course, go first to Gunville -- & see what can be done. Mrs Coleridge suggests to me her apprehensions, that the circumstance of her having been on a stage may be an objection. I fear, that it may. Yet would to Heaven, there were no greater. If only I could say with Truth, that Mrs Lovell is of a cheerful unrepining Disposition & fond of children, I should not fear of success. But indeed, indeed, Southey! it is necessary to impress on Mrs Lovell's mind the conviction, that all must ultimately depend on herself. If she could derive from the thought, that by her own exertions she was about to make herself truly independent, [and exhibit] pleasure & a lightness & joyousness of Heart, there can be little doubt, that situations of some kind or other, & respectable ones, might be found. But if she goes into the affair with a predetermination to be offended -- to meet with Pride, proud condeseensions, &c &c &c -- what can be done? Pride in a person, on whom I was really dependent, receiving without returning, would be indeed intolerable to me; but Pride in those, for whose guinea I still gave a Guinea's worth, I should think little of -- except to laugh at it. Those who feel very differently from me, must have a great deal of Pride of their own; & then the Quere is, whether they are not as likely to fancy it, as to meet with it. Mrs Lovell not understanding French or Drawing or any of the ordinary [Gover]ness-accomplishments, it becomes more needful tha[t I sh]ould speak warmly of her good sense & prudent & irreproachable conduct (& this I can do with pleasure & satisfaction to myself) & of her sweetness of Disposition, & Temper; which how can I do? -- If I do not succeed -- if Mr W. is provided, or Mrs L. will not suit the place -- & I can hear of no other, I assuredly, were I she, would advertise for a situation, either as a Governess, or as a Companion. But again & again she ought to be sensible, that unless she accord in her feelings, all must needs be baffled. Now for Keswick. I still think, that it will answer most admirably, that is to say, if there be only Edith, & you, & the Passionate Pearl. Not that there will not be room for any Visitors, you may have at any time, but inter nos, I know from Mrs Coleridge that it would make her unhappy to live as House-mate with Mary: & loved & honoured, as you will be, by some very good & pleasant people at Keswick, I should be sorry that such impressions should be blended with the Feelings, which your Brother will inspire -- / not when he is by himself, but from his disrespectful & unbrotherly spirit of thwarting & contradicting you. Indeed, I cannot help saying that I have not for a very long time met with a young man -925- who has made so unpleasant an impression on my mind. -- But if you are only your own happy Selves, I do warmly recommend you to go to Keswick / I shall certainly be absent -- even if I live -two years. There will be a good Nursery-room -- & I should think that, if the Infants are healthy, the two Mothers may very well contrive to do with one Nurse maid, & one House-maid. When the children are both awake at the same time, the Mothers can take it by turns to take one child. -- You will have no furniture to buy -- & all your Books, & if you chose, yourselves too might go by water. -- And you might go to Lisbon from Liverpool. You would save at least a 100£ in the two years -- & all the interest of the furniture money -- & Mrs Southey & Mrs Coleridge will, I doubt not, be great Comforts to each other. Of course you being but 8 in family, you would live in common, as Mrs Southey could come to you, in your Study, whenever she wished to be alone with you --. The annual expences of the whole family, Servants & every thing, will be short of 200£ -- so that you will live, House rent & all, for a little more than 100£ a year -- you are paying half at least of your whole Keswick Expences at your present House. N.B. -- I would by no means thwart Bella's wish -- to stay in Bristol: but on the contrary encourage her. She will not be happy at Keswick. -Before I leave England, I shall -- if my phiz. will pass muster -make myself a member of the Equitable [Assuran]ce Society, & by an annual payment of 27£ during my Life ensure [100]0£ to Mrs C. at my Death. I fear, I must rouge a little. God b[less you] & S. T. Coleridge. Kisses to the Pearl -- & remembrances to the Mother of Pearl. -- P.S. If the Equitables won't pass me, I shall ask the Wedgewoods to allow me 120£ instead of 150£ during Mrs Fricker's Life, & after her death 100£, & to allow Mrs Coleridge 50 or 60£ a year after my Death. I do not like this, simply because I could ask it only for Mrs C's widowhood; whereas nothing would give me greater pleasure on my Death bed, than the probability of her marrying a second time, happily. ---- 490. To Samuel Purkis Pub. The Life of Sir Humphry Davy, by John A. Paris, 2 vols., 1831, i. 173. This letter is not included in a one-volume edition of the same work also issued in 1831. Nether Stowey, Feb. 17, 1803 My dear Purkis, I received your parcel last night, by post, from Gunville, whither (crossly enough) I am going with our friend Poole to-morrow -926- morning. I do from my very heart thank you for your prompt and friendly exertion, and for your truly interesting letter. I shall write to Wedgwood by this post; he is still at Cote, near Bristol; but I shall take the Bang back with me to Gunville, as Wedgwood will assuredly be there in the course of ten days. Jos. Wedgwood is named the Sheriff of the County. When I have heard from Wedgwood, or when he has tried this Nepenthe, I will write to you. I have been here nearly a fortnight; and in better health than usual. Tranquillity, warm rooms, and a dear old friend, are specifics for my complaints. Poole is indeed a very, very good man. I like even his incorrigibility in small faults and deficiencies: it looks like a wise determination of Nature to let well alone; and is a consequence, a necessary one perhaps, of his immutability in his important good qualities. His journal, with his own comments, has proved not only entertaining but highly instructive to me. I rejoice in Davy's progress. There are three Suns recorded in Scripture: -- Joshua's, that stood still; Hezekiah's, that went backward; and David's, that went forth and hastened on. his course, like a bridegroom from his chamber. May our friend's prove the latter! It is a melancholy thing to see a man, like the Sun in the close of the Lapland summer, meridional in his horizon; or like wheat in a rainy season, that shoots up well in the stalk, but does not kern. As I have hoped, and do hope, more proudly of Davy than of any other man; and as he has been endeared to me more than any other man, by the being a Thing of Hope to me (more, far more than myself to my own self in my most genial moments,) -- so of course my disappointment would be proportionally severe. It were falsehood, if I said that I think his present situation most calculated, of all others, to foster either his genius, or the clearness and incorruptness of his opinions and moral feelings. I see two Serpents at the cradle of his genius, Dissipation with a perpetual increase of acquaintances, and the constant presence of Inferiors and Devotees, with that too great facility of attaining admiration, which degrades Ambition into Vanity -- but the Hercules will strangle both the reptile monsters. I have thought it possible to exert talents with perseverance, and to attain true greatness wholly pure, even from the impulses of ambition; but on this subject Davy and I always differed. When you used the word 'gigantic', you meant, no doubt, to give me a specimen of the irony I must expect from my PhiloLockian critics. I trust, that I shall steer clear of almost an offence. My book is not, strictly speaking, metaphysical, but historical. It perhaps will merit the title of a History of Metaphysics in England from Lord Bacon to Mr. Hume, inclusive. I confine myself to facts -927- in every part of the work, excepting that which treats of Mr. Hume: -- him I have assuredly besprinkled copiously from the fountains of Bitterness and Contempt. As to this, and the other works which you have mentioned, 'have patience, Lord! and I will pay thee all!' Mr. T. Wedgwood goes to Italy in the first days of May. Whether I accompany him is uncertain. He is apprehensive that my health may incapacitate me. If I do not go with him, (and I shall be certain, one way or the other, in a few weeks,) I shall go by myself, in the first week of April, if possible. Poole's kindest remembrances I send you on my own hazard; for he is busy below, and I must fold up my letter. Whether I remain in England or am abroad, I will occasionally write you; and am ever, my dear Purkis, with affectionate esteem, Your's sincerely, S. T. Coleridge. Remember me kindly to Mrs. Purkis and your children. T. Wedgwood's disease is not painful: it is a complete taedium vitae; nothing pleases long, and novelty itself begins to cease to act like novelty. Life and all its forms move, in his diseased moments, like shadows before him, cold, colourless, and unsubstantial. 491. To Robert Southey Address: Robert Southey Esqre | St James's Parade | Kingsdown | Bristol Single Sheet MS. Lord Latymer. Pub. E. L. G. i. 253. Stamped: Bridgewater. Nether Stowey, Thursday Morning, Feb. 17. 1803 My dear Southey I received your Letter at ten o'clock last night: it occasioned me a restless night. Partly, I was greatly oppressed to think, that there should hang such weights from your wings -- & partly, I harrassed myself by the apprehension that I had expressed myself abruptly in my last Letter, & not with sufficient delicacy, as to your living at Keswick -- making previous conditions, as in a Bargain. But I was heavy with thought & with want of Sleep, tho' not with the desire of it: and one is apt to say bluntly what must be said & cannot be said without pain. I feel myself awkwardly situated; I shall either be guilty of a Breach of Confidence to Mrs Coleridge or I must request of you not to mention what I say to Mrs Southey -- & I am not certain, that this Latter is not in the teeth of part of your marriage Code. But Mrs Coleridge, who would be too happy, -928- as the phrase [goes], if you & Mrs Southey & the Pearl were with her, has most expressly in a Letter to me declared that she will not live with Mrs Lovell; nor with Tom. This last article is not altogether in consequence of the opinion & feelings, I expressed to her, respecting him, & his unbrotherly manners to you; but from the necessity of an additional Servant, & the consequent crowding of the House, to which Mr Jackson has objected, for his own Quiet's sake, & to which Mrs C. objects for her own. Assuredly, I have no right to do any thing that will in the least degree diminish Mrs Coleridge's Comforts & Tranquillity. In an evil Day for me did I first pay attentions to Mrs Coleridge; in an evil day for me did I marry her; but it shall be my care & my passion, that it shall not be an evil day for her; & that whatever I may be, or may be represented, as a Husband, I may yet be unexceptionable, as her Protector & Friend. -- O dear Southey! I am no Elm! -- I am a crumbling wall, undermined at the foundation! Why should the Vine with all it's clusters be buried in my rubbish? -- As to my returning to Keswick, it is not to be calculated on. -- I advise you at all events to emancipate yourself. Allow Mrs Lovell 20£ a year, till she can get a situation; & let her live in some family, where she will make herself in some way useful, so as to make up for the small Allowance. If nothing better can be done (& I will try my very utmost) do this -- but I conjure you, at all events, & whatever it cost you, emancipate yourself. -- Good heaven! what a shocking Thing that there should be such unnecessary canker worms in your Happiness! -- You only need a little courage to give a little pain. You are happy in your marriage Life; & greatly to the honor of your moral self-government, Qualities & manners are pleasant to, & sufficient for, you, to which my Nature is utterly unsuited: for I am so weak, that warmth of manner in a female House mate is as necessary to me, as warmth of internal attachment. This is weakness; / but on the other hand I ought to say, in justice to myself, that I am happy & contented in solitude, or only with the common Inhabitants of a Batchelor's House: / -- an old woman, and a sharp Child. -- But you, who want nothing to be happy -- who are prevented from happiness, & consequent Greatness, only by unnecessary Appendages -- I cannot endure to think of it ---- Go to Keswick -- or to the South of France -- first, compleatly clear yourself -- & then live within your income, & do nothing but great works. ---- My Disease is probably anomalous. If it can be called any thing, by a lucky Guess, it may be called irregular scrophulous Gout. But as to King's notion, that if it be irregular Gout, change of -929- climate is no remedy -- this is in the teeth of every medical writer of Note on the gout, who have all prescribed hot Climates for gouty people -- & what weighs more with me, in the teeth of particular facts in my own knowlege. -- Besides, what gouty Medicines are there that I have not used? What gouty regimen? Have I not wholly abandoned wine, spirits, & all fermented Liquors? And taken Ginger in superabundance? 'Tis true, I have not taken Dr Beddoes's North American Fruit -- nor do I intend to do it. -What can I want more decisive than my own experience-in hot rooms I am well -- in hot weather I am well -- Cold, wet, & change of weather uniformly disease me. -- It is astonishing how well I was three hot weeks in last summer -- a cold rain came on, & I was ill as instantly as if it had poisoned me. I should be an ideot, if I wished any thing more decisive than this. My Disease, whatever it may be called, consists in an undue sensibility with a deficient irritability -- muscular motion is languid with me, & venous action languid-my nerves are unduly vivid -- the consequence is, a natural tendency to obstructions in the glands, &c; because glandular secretion requires the greatest vigor of any of the secretories. My only medicine is an universal & regular Stimulus -Brandy, Laudanum, &c &c make me well, during their first operation; but the secondary Effects increase the cause of the Disease. Heat in a hot climate is the only regular & universal Stimulus of the external world; to which if I can add Tranquillity, the equivalent, & Italian climate, of the world within, I do not despair to be a healthy man. When I shall see you, I cannot tell -- certainly not for 5 weeks. I go to Taunton on Friday; and leave it on Saturday morning 5 o'clock -- & shall be at Gunville, on Saturday evening. Josiah Wedgewood is high Sheriff of the County. -- You will see by my Letter that T. Wedgewood wrote to me what Tobin told you. Selfishly speaking, I should wish he might continue of that mind; but I love & honor him so much, that on the whole I do not wish it. For I am desirous above all things, that he should make a fair Trial of a good climate; which he cannot do, unless he has both a field companion with him, and a man who in the sum of his faculties is his Equal -- & one who is with him purely from affectionate Esteem. -- Do not mind the Cid. I do not think, I shall be able to do any thing in the poetry Line. -- God bless you | & S. T. Coleridge. Poole's kind remembrances -- & will send you Laver quam citissime. -- I have opened the Letter to beg that you will procure -930- (me from King a Bottle of the red Sulfat, and one of the Compound Acid -- & to send them well secured to Mr T. Wedgewood, Cote -for me: & this must be within a week. -- 492. To Thomas Wedgwood Address: [T. Wedge]wood Esqre | Cote House | Bristol MS. Wedgwood Museum. Pub. with omis, Tom Wedgwood, 137. Stamped: Bridgewater. Poole's, Thursday, Feb. 17. 1808 My dear Wedgewood) I do not know that I have any thing to say that justifies me in troubling you with the Postagé & Perusal of this Scrawl. -- I received a short & kind Letter from Josiah last night -- he is named the Sheriff -- Poole, who has received a very kind Invitation from your Brother in a Letter of last Monday, and which was repeated in the last night's Letter, goes with me, I hope, in the full persuasion, that you will be there before he is under the necessity of returning home. He has settled both his Might-have-been-lawsuits in a perfectly pleasant way, exactly to his own wish. He bids me say, what there is no occasion of saying, with what anxious affection his Thoughts follow you. -- Poole is a very, very good man. I like even his incorrigibility in little faults, & deficiencies -- it looks like a wise determination of Nature 'to let well alone.' -- Are you not laying out a scheme that will throw your Travelling in Italy into an unpleasant & unwholesome part of the year? From all, I can gather, you ought to leave this country in the first days of April, at the latest. But no doubt, you know these things better than I. -- If I do not go with you, it is very probable that we shall meet somewhere or other / at all events, you will know where I am / & I can come to you if you wish it. And if I do go with you, there will be this advantage, that you may drop me where you like, if you should meet any Frenchman, Italian, or Swiss, whom you liked -- & who would be pleasant & profitable to you --. -- But this we can discuss at Gunville. As to Mackintosh, I never doubted that he means to fulfil his engagements with you; but he is one of those weak-moraled men, with whom the meaning to do a thing means nothing. He promises with 99\100 of his whole Heart; but there is always a little speck of cold felt at the core, that transubstantiates the whole Resolve into a Lie, even in his own consciousness. -- But what I most fear is that he will in some way or other embroider himself upon your Thoughts; but you, no doubt, will see the Proof Sheets, & will prevent this from extending to the injury of your meaning. Would to Heaven, -931- it were done! 1 I may with strictest truth say, that I have thirsted for it's appearance. -- I have written to Captn Wordsworth, by the yesterday's Post. His address is 'Mr Wordsworth, Staples Inn, Holborn, London. For Captn J. Wordsworth.' His own Lodgings were, & probably are, No 9 Southampton Buildings; but the former Address is sure to find him. -- I remain in comfortable Health. Warm Rooms, an old Friend, & Tranquillity, are specifies for my Complaint. -- With all my ups & downs I have a deal of Joyous feeling, that I would with gladness give a good part of to you, my dear Friend! -- God grant, that Spring may come to you with healing on her wings! -- My respectful remembrances to your Brother, and Mrs J. Wedgewood -- & desire Mrs J. Wedgewood, when she writes to Crescelly, to remember me with affection to Miss Allen, & Fanny, & Emma -- & to say, how often I think with pleasure on them & the weeks, I passed in their society. When you come to Gunville, please not to forget my Pens. Poole & I quarrel once a day about Pens. / God bless you, my dear Wedgewood! I remain with most affectionate esteem & regular attachment & good wishes Your's ever, S. T. Coleridge If Southey should send a couple of Bottles, one of the red Sulfat, & one of the Compound Acid, to Cote for me, will you be so good as to bring them with you to Gunville. -- If Poole goes with [me to Gunville, we will hire a one] 2 horse chair -- ----- 493. To Thomas Wedgwood Address: T. Wedgewood Esqre | Cote | Bristol MS. Wedgwood Museum, Pub. with omis. E. L. G. i. 252. Stamped: Bridgewater. Nether Stowey -- Thursday, Feb. 17. 1803 My dear Wedgewood Last night I received a four ounce parcel-Letter by the Post, ____________________ 1 Coleridge again refers to an abortive plan whereby Mackintosh was to prepare an essay incorporating Tom Wedgwood's philosophical opinions. It was this work for which Coleridge had earlier agreed to write a preface. See Letter 486. When Mackintosh sailed for India in Feb. 1804, he took with him Tom Wedgwood's manuscripts. 'The first moment after my books are placed on their shelves', he promised, 'shall be devoted to Time and Space.' Tom Wedgwood, 157-9. 2 MS. torn. See letter 494 for Coleridge's mode of travel. -932- which, Poole & I concluded, was the mistake or carelessness of the Servant, who had put the parcel, your Sister gave him, into the Post Office instead of the Coach Office. I should have been indignant, if dear Poole's Squirt of Indignation had not set me a laughing. -On opening it it contained my Letter from Gunville, & a parcel, a small one, of Bang from Purkis. I will transcribe the parts of his Letter which relate to it -- but I have been harrassed by the apprehension that you may be vexed at Purkis's having mentioned your name. 1 -- Feb. 7. 1803. Brentford. 'My dear C. I thank you for your Letter, & am happy to be the means of obliging you. Immediately on the Receipt of your's I wrote to Sir Joseph Banks (who, I verily believe, is one of the most excellent and most useful men of this Country) requesting a small Quantity of Bang, & saying that it was for the use of Mr Wedgewood. I yesterday received the parcel which I now send -- accompanied with a very kind Letter, & as part of it will be interesting to you & your Friend, I will transcribe it. "The Bang, you ask for, is the powder of the Leaves of a kind of Hemp that grows in the Hot Climates. It is prepared, and used, I believe, in all parts of the East, from Morocco to China. In Europe, it is found to act very differently on different Constitutions. Some it elevates in the extreme: others it renders torpid & scarcely observant of any evil that may befall them. In Barbary it is always taken, if it can be procured, by Criminals condemned to suffer amputations, & it is said to enable these Miserables to bear the rough operations of an unfeeling Executioner more than we Europeans can the keen knife of our most skilful Chirurgeons. This it may be necessary to have said to my friend, Mr Wedgewood, whom I respect as much as his Virtues deserve, & I know them well. I send a small quantity only, because I possess but little: if however it is found to agree, I will instantly forward the whole of my Stock, & write without delay to Barbary, from whence it came, for more." [']Sir Joseph adds in a postscript -- "It seems almost beyond a doubt, that the Nepenthe was a preparation of the Bang known to the Ancients." [']Sir J. B. has not given me any directions or hints as to the quantity of Bang to be taken at a time; but it will occur to Mr W. that it is to be taken in very small Doses, & with the utmost caution &c &c &c -- ['] Now I had better take the small parcel with me to Gunville. If I send it by the Post, besides the heavy expence, I can not rely ____________________ 1 Coleridge had authorized Purkis to use Wedgwood's name. See Letter 485. -933- on the Stowey Carriers of Letters, who are a brace of as careless & dishonest Rogues, as had ever claims on that article of the Hemp & Timber Trade, called the Gallows. -- Indeed, I verily believe that if all Stowey (Ward excepted) does not go to Hell, it will be by the supererogation of Poole's Sense & Honesty. -- Charitable! We go off early to morrow morning. I shall hear from you of course. -- Respectful Remembrances to the Family at Cote. -- We will have a fair Trial of Bang -- Do bring down some of the Hyoscyamine Pills -- & I will give a fair Trial of opium, Hensbane, & Nepenthe. Bye by the bye, I always considered Homer's account of the Nepenthe as a Banging lie. ----- God bless you, | I my dear Friend, | & S. T. Coleridge 494. To Robert Southey Address: Robert Southey Esqre | St James's Parade | Kingsdown | Bristol Single Sheet. MS. Lord Latymer. Pub. E. L. G. i. 257. Stamped: Blandford. Thursday, Feb. 24. 1803. ' Josiah Wedgwood's Esqre, Gunville, Blandford, Dorset.' Dear Southey I have delayed writing in expectation of a Letter from you: & I still hope, that I shall receive one this evening -- & shall therefore send this Letter by tomorrow's Post. I left Stowey with Poole on Friday Morning: instead of taking a Post-chaise & arriving at Gunville the same evening Poolewould hire a one horse Chair (that Pandora Box of Accidents) & all happened as I most minutely foretold -- breakings down, delays, wettings, & arrival at Gunville late on Sunday Afternoon. Here I shall remain a month at least. I need not say, that I am up to my chin in comforts. -- And now for Mrs Lovell. -- It is as I feared. Mr Wedgwood had already opened a negociation for a Governess. -- I have felt the less -- at least the less immediate regret -- from this circumstance / because I seem to have perceived, that Mrs L. & the Wedgwoods would not have suited each other. Indeed, Mr W. layed such stress, & so repeatedly, on good & even temper, & good and even spirits, that I could not have had the courage to have said any thing about it / And I think it possible to meet with situations, where the Governess lives on more familiar Terms with the Master & Mistress of the Family. I have it in my mind to write to Dr Crompton. -- My health is, as the weather is: & my spirits low indeed. -934- I do not feel convinced that the block-stamping of Cards had any connection whatever with the Discovery of Printing. -- If this could have led to it, Sealing Letters, with engraved Seals, would have done it some 10 centuries before -- & Common Coinage of money would have done it. -- There is no strength in the affair in my mind, unless the whole process can be traced historically -- nay more, with legal evidence such as is used & held valid, in quashing a Patent. -- In the early parts of your History be careful to collect with care all that can be known, & all that can even be guessed, about the Dresses, Manufactures, commerce, domestic Habits, & modifications of the feudal Government &c -- or else your History will have the air & the character of a Story-Book. You do not need the Advice, I almost know; but needless Advice is no very unpleasant thing in a world, where there is such plenty of useless Advice. The Letters are come in. I had no other particular wish to hear from you at present, than what arose from the Apprehension that what I had written concerning Keswick, might have wounded you. Yet as to the matter at least, it is impossible that I could with propriety write otherwise. But I am in no spirits to talk of these Things. -- Hartley has had both the Scarlet Fever & the Croup. He is tolerably well at present; but my mind misgives me, that I shall never see him more. God bless you | & S. T. Coleridge. 495. To Robert Southey Address: Robert Southey Esqre | St James's Parade | Kingsdown | Bristol Single Sheet MS. Lord Latymer. Pub. E. L. G. i. 258. Stamped: Blandford. Saturday Night, 12 o clock. March 12. [1803] My dear Southey I received your Letter this evening, & was very glad to receive it. -- Before I speak of it's contents, let me refer to a former Letter. You surely misunderstood my argument respecting the Cards -- I layed no Stress on the Figures; but I contended that if stamping Cards with Texts was printing, Stamping Metal Medals with Figures & Inscriptions (many of them long Inscriptions) was Printing -every Seal with words in it was a species of Printing. You say, that the Figures led to the Texts -- so be it! But still you have to prove that this led to our Printing or had any thing to do with it. Between these Stereotypes & moveable Types there is as great a distance as -935- between -- I will not say, picture-writing and Alphabetical Language; for that would be too much -- but precisely as great as between the Chinese character Language & Alphabetical Language. -- That Coins & Seals did not lead the Greeks & Romans to printing, first their Laws, & then their great Authors ( Homer &c) by Stereotypes, does appear strange. Luck & Accident must be taken into the account, tho' it is impossible to ascertain the degree & weight of their action -- but I think, that the multitude of Slaves, & the circumstance that the manuscript Trade was in the Hands of the wealthiest Nobles will of itself account for the phaenomenon / What Instrument for shortening field-labor was ever invented in the W. Indies? There were none in Europe, till the commercial Feeling extended itself to Agriculture. -- Your prophecy concerning the Edingburgh Review did credit to your penetration. The second number is altogether despicable -- the hum-drum of pert attorneys' Clerks, very pert & yet prolix & dull as a superannuated Judge. The passage you quote has been a slang Quotation at Gunville for the last week. The whole Pamphlet on the Balance of Power is below all Criticism -- & the first article on Kant you may believe on my authority to be impudent & senseless Babble. I rejoice at your account of Ritson's Book. 1 -- Do you read Italian? Whether or no (for there exists a good old English Translation) I conjure you to read thro' the historical & political Works of Machiavel. I prefer him greatly to Tacitus. -- Now for myself -- T. Wedgwood arrived here the Tuesday before last, hopeless, heartless, planless. There seemed to be no thought at all of my accompanying him / & I accordingly settled every thing for going without him. On Sunday last I wrote to London, to make inquiries for him respecting a young man, who has been lately on the continent, for his companion / for his objections to me were, my health, & my ignorance of French & Italian, & the absolute necessity of his having some one to take the whole business of the road off his hands. Yet still he could not bear to come to the point -- & Jos. was anxious, I believe, that Tom should not go without me -- however, on Wednesday Jos. came to me & said -- that T. W. could not bear the idea of losing me -- that he would dismiss his present Servant, & at any price procure a capapee accomplished Travelling Gentleman Servant, &c -- & that we would go together to London on Monday, March 14 -- & to France as soon as the Servant was procured -- / -- Of course, I assented / for I had promised that till the second week of April I would be at his Service, & that I would ____________________ 1 Joseph Ritson ( 1752-1803), Ancient Engleish Metrical Romanceës, 3 vols., 1802. -936- accomodate myself to his resolutions however rapidly changed or nakedly communicated -- / All being thus settled, pounce! comes this damned War-business! -- However, we still go on Monday. Josiah Wedgwood goes with us -- he has a [Dorset?] Address to present, as High Sheriff --. Where I shall be, I do not know -- for there is no bed for me at York St. However a letter will find me there -- 'Messrs Wedgwood & Byerley, York Street, St James's Place, London' -- & I intreat you, mention to no soul alive that I am in London / & communicate no part of this Letter to Tobin. ----- You would greatly oblige me, if you would immediately gain from Mr King or Dr Beddoes information, where in London I can procure a Bottle of the Gout medicine. I admire Dr Beddoes's part of the Pamphlet very much. It is far superior to the Hygeia 1 in Style, & Reasoning. And yet with the exception of the Essay on Mania the Hygeia is a valuable & useful work. Indeed when I think how Beddoes bestirs himself, I take shame to myself for having suffered tittle-tattle Stories respecting him to warp my personal feelings -- especially as to me he has always behaved with uncommon kindness. I do think, that Tobin's maxim of conduct is wise & good -- always keep on the best terms, you can, with an acquaintance, as long as, & in proportion as, he is an active & useful Man -- & this not only in your outward demeanour, but in your inner feelings. -- I wish from my heart's heart, that you were at Keswick -- & that Mary were pensioned off. My heart bleeds for her often / in my deepest conviction, her real misfortune is her heart & temper. Could I have dared answer Wedgwood's Question in the affirmative -- 'Is she kind, gentle, of a sweet & affectionate Temper?' I will not disguise from you, that I could have procured the Situation for her -- & she would never, never have been abandoned by them. But in proportion as Mr & Mrs Wedgwood are delightful in their own domestic character -- the children delightful -- & their intentions to a Governess, who should prove another mother & guardian to the children, in the highest degree liberal & grateful -- in the same proportion, you feel, that I could not dare recommend any one without my warmest & sanest Convictions. Indeed, it would have been as silly as wicked. For their penetration is fully equal to their goodness of Heart. -- Would to Heaven, you were at Keswick. Wordsworth means to reside ½ a mile from it -- & you & he would agree far better now, than you might perhaps have done 4 or 5 years ago -- & he is now ____________________ 1 Thomas Beddoes, Hygëia: or Essays Moral and Medical, on the Causes affecting the Personal State of our Middling and Affluent Classes, 8 vols., 1802-3. -937- fonder of conversation & more open. -- Kiss the Pearl, the dispassionate Pearl for me -- Little Darling! I have a Father's Heart for all of her age -- how much more for a child of your's, linked together as we have been, by good & evil, ple[asure] & pain. Would to God, to God, that in one thing, in which I am most unlik[e you,] that I were like you altogether! But the Time is past. -- S. T. Coleridge. 496. To Thomas Poole Address: Single Sheet. | T. Poole Esqre | Nether Stowey | Bridgwater | Somerset MS. British Museum. Hitherto unpublished. Stamped: Blandford. Sunday March 13 1808. Gunville My dear Poole I have not written to you -- excepting Mrs C. I have written to no one -- because I have been in bad health & worse Spirits. -- T. W. arrived the Tuesday after you quitted us, worse than I ever saw him both in health & spirits -- hopeless, heartless, planless! He recovered however in a few days -- on Sunday last I wrote to town for him, on the beat up for a companion -- & on Wednesday wrote home positively that I was not to accompany T. W. but should immediately go off myself for Bilboa -- but that Evening Tom sent Jos. to me to say, that he would dismiss his present Servant, and at any price however high procure a perfect Travelling Servant, who could take the whole business of the road upon him -- that he could not think of giving me up, &c, & claimed my former promise -- &c. Tom had had thoughts of [T. R.] 1 Underwood -- & I wrote to Davy about it, by his desire (& Davy has never thought fit to answer the Letter, which for his sake I trust in God has miscarried) -BUT THIS MUST BE A SECRET. -- JOS. was uneasy manifestly -- and communicated Tom's last message to me in a manner that sufficiently shewed how much it had been at his heart that his Brother should not go without me. -- As to myself, it was a matter made wholly indifferent to me only by my affection for T. W. -- Otherwise I would rather have gone on my own Bottom. However of course I assented -- & it was settled that we should leave this place on Monday (i.e tomorrow) for London --. T. W. fitted me out with clothes &c / when lo! pounce comes down the King's Message, & a War! -However, we still go to London tomorrow -- Jos. goes with us, to carry up the Dorset Address as High Sheriff -- & stays as long as we stay. There are but two Beds at York St -- & where I shall lodge, I cannot say -- I have some thoughts of stopping at Purkis's -- I have a mortal Dread of London Society. -- When any thing is concluded, ____________________ 1 Initials heavily inked out in manuscript. -938- I will write to you of course. T. W. has been much better since he settled his plan -- he talks of taking a covered Gig or something of that kind with one strong Horse -- & to have a good Saddle-horse -& so to walk & ride & be carried, as one's feelings direct. In this way we should be 8 months perhaps in reaching Naples -- I should like the plan extremely -- but I am prepared for all & every thing to burst like a Bubble. 1 There is nothing to be done at present with Mr W.'s Life. -There are no materials at present -- & whether any can be collected, seems doubtful. A most valuable work might be made, I have no doubt. -- But this, if ever, is for a future time. -- Remember me to Ward. -- Whenever I feel my heart thawing, & my state of feeling pleasurable, I will not fail to write to you -- at present I am a bottle of Brandy in Lapland. -- God bless you / My dear Friend! & S. T. Coleridge I have torn open my Letter -- Jos. & Mrs W. & T. W. would be outrageous if I should say, I had written to you, & not remembered them [most] kindly to you. I conjure you mention to no Soul alive, not t[o] Purkis, not to Davy, not to any one, that I am in London, for if it be possible, I shall try to see no one. I am quite menschenscheu, as the Germans say -- i.e. man -- shy ----- Oblitusque meorum, obliviscendus et illis! 2 497. To Mrs. S. T. Coleridge Address: Mrs . . . MS. Dove Cottage. Hitherto unpublished. The holograph of this letter contains only a portion of pages 8 and 4. The original hangs on the wall in Dove Cottage. Postmark: 24 March 1803. . . . If there should be War, I shall immediately come to Keswick -- & if there be any little things, you wish me to bring, write, & I will do it. Tell Wordsworth, that I have seen John 3 or 4 times -tho' he is so busy, that it has been only for an hour or less at a time. I had some notion that I should hear from them to day. Remember me affectionately to Mr Jackson and Mrs Wilson -and my love to Mary -- and make my best respects to Mr and Mrs Wilkinson, & Mr and Mrs Calvert -- and I remain with affectionate anxiety your's &c S. T. Coleridge ____________________ 1 T. Wedgwood finally left for France on 25 Mar. 1803, taking with him as a companion not Coleridge but T. R. Underwood. He returned to England on 16 May, just at the outbreak of war. Tom Wedgwood, 141. 2 Horace, Epis. 1. xi. 9. -939- [P.S.] . . . & drink beer. If you do not, leave off your Beer at Supper, and take instead, a glass of warm brandy and water -- not with your supper, nor immediately after, but just, as you are going to bed. -- Of what kind are the Dreams? I mean, are they accompanied with distinct bodily feelings -- whizzings up into the Head, fear of strangulation -- &c -- or simply great Fear from fearful Forms and Combinations -- or both at once? -- 498. To Mrs. S. T. Coleridge Address: Mrs Coleridge | Greta Hall | Keswick | Cumberland MS. Lord Latymer, Pub. with omis. Letters, i. 420. Postmark: 4 April 1803. Monday, April 4 1803 My dear Sara I have taken my place for Wednesday Night; & barring accidents, shall arrive at Penrith on Friday Noon. If Friday be a fine morning, i.e. if it do not rain / you will get Mr Jackson to send a lad with a horse or poney to Penruddock / and my Trunk must come by the Carrier. I will walk to Penruddock. -- The boy ought to be at Penruddock by 12 o clock, that his Horse may bait & have a feed of Corn. -- But if it be rain, there is no choice but that I must take a chaise -- at all events, if it please God, I shall be with you by Friday, 5 o'clock, at the latest --. You had better dine early -- I shall take an egg or two at Penrith / & drink Tea at home. -- For more than a fortnight we have had burning July Weather / the effect on my Health was manifest -- but Lamb objected very sensibly -- how do you know, what part may not be owing to the excitement of bustle & company? -- On Friday Night I was unwell & restless -- & uneasy in limbs & stomach / tho' I had been extremely regular -- I told Lamb on Saturday morning, that I guessed that the weather had changed. But there was no mark of it -- it was hotter than ever -- on Saturday evening my right knee, & both my ancles swelled, & were very painful -- & within an hour after there came on a storm of wind & rain / it continued raining the whole night -Yesterday it was a fine day, but cold -- to day the same / but I am a great deal better / & the swelling in my ancles is gone down, & that in my right knee much decreased. -- Lamb observed, that he was glad he had seen all this with his own eyes -- he now knew, that my illness was truly linked with the weather / & no whim or restlessness of disposition in me. -- It is curious; but I have found that the Weather glass changed on Friday Night, the very hour that I found myself unwell. -- I will try to bring down something -940- for Hartley; tho' Toys are so outrageously dear -- & I so short of money -- that I shall be puzzled. -- To day I dine again with Sotheby. He ha[s] informed me, that ten gentlemen, who have met me at his House, desired him to solicit me to finish the Christabel, & to permit them to publish it for me / & they engaged that it should be in paper, printing, & decorations the most magnificent Thing that had hitherto appeared. -- Of course, I declined it. The lovely Lady shan't come to that pass! -- Many times rather would I have it printed at Soulby's on the true Ballad Paper / -----However, it was civil -- and Sotheby is very civil to me. I had purposed not to speak of Mary Lamb -- but I had better write it than tell it. The Thursday before last she met at Rickman's a Mr Babb, an old old Friend & Admirer of her Mother / the next day she smiled in an ominous way -- on Sunday she told her Brother that she was getting bad, with great agony -- on Tuesday morning she layed hold of me with violent agitation, & talked wildly about George Dyer / I told Charles, there was not a moment to lose / and I did not lose a moment -- but went for a Hackney Coach, & took her to the private Madhouse at Hogsden / She was quite calm, & said -- it was the best to do so -- but she wept bitterly two or three times, yet all in a calm way. Charles is cut to the Heart. -- You will send this note to Grasmere -- or the contents of it / tho' if I have time I shall probably write myself to them to d[ay or] tomorrow. Your's affectionately S. T. Coleridge 499. To William Godwin MS. Lord Abinger. Hitherto unpublished. Tuesday Morning -- [ 5 April 1803] 1 Dear Godwin I am going to day to the equitable Assurance Society with Mr Ridout, one of the Managers, to ensure my Life for 1000£ -- Mr Ridout, who is a medical man, is my chief Affidavit / but as I must give reference to two persons, I shall refer them to you / it is simply a matter of form, to state that I have no distemper that tends to the shortening of Life -- taken in the popular sense of the words. -- ____________________ 1 Coleridge's Equitable Assurance Policy, T20743, is dated ' 7th April 1803', and this letter, therefore, was probably written on the Tuesday preceding. Furthermore, Godwin's son was born on 28 Mar. 1803, and Mary Lamb was taken to an asylum on 29 Mar. (See Letter 498.) She was much improved by 13 Apr. ( Lamb Letters, i. 344.) -941- If I find that persons living in chambers may be Referees, I shall not trouble you; but shall refer to Mr White, or Mr Wordsworth. With all kind wishes for Mrs Godwin, & the least of your little ones, I am, dear Godwin, yours with much esteem & much affection S. T. Coleridge P.S. I hope, that Mary Lamb is rather better / her indisposition will prevent Charles from calling to know how Mrs Godwin is -- for some days. -- 499 A. To J. G. Ridout MS. Mr. F. H. Harrop (transcribed by Miss Helen Darbishire). Hitherto unpublished. Although the address sheet of this manuscript is missing, it seems certain that the letter was intended for J. G. Ridout, one of the managers of the Equitable Assurance Society. See Letter 499. Greta Hall, Keswick, Friday Night April 15, 1802 [ 1803] My dear Sir I have been rather anxious from the not having heard from you, or received the Assurance Policy. I begin to suspect, that your Letter must have miscarried. -- Do, be so good as to give me a couple of Lines -- I arrived here safe on Good Friday Evening, 1 but caught the Influenza in the coach / I cured myself immediately by a grain of opium taken with Camphor & Rhubarb. -- I heard briefly from James Tobin / Remember me most affectionately to John Tobin, whom I like & esteem more & more / the more I know him. -- The Influenza spares no one at Keswick & in the circumjacency -Farewell! I am, | my dear Sir, | with no every day feeling of esteem | your obliged & | sincere Friend S. T. Coleridge 500. To Robert Southey [Addressed by Mrs. S. T. Coleridge.] To | R. Southey Esqre | Saint-James's place. | Kingsdown | Bristol MS. Lord Latymer. Hitherto unpublished. Postmark: 20 May 1808. Stamped: Keswick. 17th May. [1803] My dear Southey What mouldering Temples we seem to be! I arrived at Keswick on Good Friday, with the Influenza which I caught of an old man ____________________ 1 8 Apr. -942- in the Mail. It affected my eyes & stupified my Head, in a perfectly new way to me -- However, I had nearly got rid of it, tho' my faculties were in a state of confusion & unexampled weakness, when I caught cold by some accident; & the Influenza returned in the shape of a rheumatic fever, severer for it's continuance (3 fits in the 24 hours) than any attack since my first terrific one at Xt Hospital -- it was sufficiently distinguished however from simple Rheumatic Fever by the immediate & total Prostration of Strength, confusion of senses & faculties, long tearing fits of coughing with great expectoration, & clammy treacle-sweats on awaking. -- At the same time we were all layed up, but Hartley / Maid, Mistress, Baby, & Derwent: so that we had a [h]ouse of Squawling as well as of Mourning. Again I a[m] raising myself up -- and again I have a relapse -- a[nd] that I write you this Letter is literally, my dear Friend! the extent & stretched Tether of my Powers. -- Poor Mrs Danvers! -- dear old Mrs Poole! -- Old People, good dear old Ladies, are like Infants, that die at 9 months old / they gain by Death an unchangeable sort of Being in the minds of the Survivors. I did not love Mrs Danvers, as I loved Mrs Poole -- but I loved her so well, that I understood compleatly how you loved her / & thinking of old Mrs Poole, I not only understood -- but I had -- your identical Feeling. -- If I had such a mother, infirm, but her infirmity threatening nothing, methinks, I could go on with a full & an unyearning Heart ----- I will write as soon as I am able / I will do all I can respecting Robert Lovell. You were mistaken as to the Essay on the men who had risen from the Dead not existing in Plutarch / Lamb had your Plutarch from Rickman / old Philemon 1 / & I found it immediately / So little ought we to rely on a negation of our memory against another's Positive. -- My Plans remain the same / if Spain can continue neuter, I shall go in the late Autumn to Valencia / otherwise I must go to Madeira / which will be our's in some shape or other. -- No one who lived a month with me could have the least doubt as to the barometrical nature of my Health. I am weary & ashamed of talking about my intended works I am still in hopes that this summer will not pass away without something worthy of me. -- If you are in London, by all means insure your Life for 1000£ at the equitable Insurance Society. It will cost you 31£, for the first year, & 27£ for every succeeding one / and at your Death your widow &c have a 1000£, & besides an equal proportionate Share of the Profits of the Society for the whole time of your Membership. ----- I have ____________________ 1 Philemon Holland, The Philosophie, commonly called the Morals, written by the learned Philosopher Plutarch of Chaeronea, translated out of Greek into English, and conferred with Latin and French, 1603. -943- done it -- & I cannot express what a comfort it has been to me / what a weight off my mind. Rickman objects to the value, it makes you set upon your Life, in case of going out on a water-party, or a Sea voyage / for this sort of Death, Hanging, & Suicide deprive you of the Benefits -- I answer, the care you have in every other circumstance / mail coaches overturn & break necks, as well as Boats overset & drown / Every body (attorneys & men of the world) agrees, that it is the best possible way of saving money. -- Bless you & S. T. Coleridge. 501. To Mrs. Thomas Clarkson MS. Mr. Basil Cottle. Hitherto unpublished fragment. [ May 1803] 1 . . . exceedingly precious -- in a prudential as well as moral view. -I have not alluded to your dear Mother. On these occasions the impression on me is so nakedly an idealess feeling, that I have nothing to say save only that I feel. -- For you, and Mr Clarkson, and for all whose Happiness . . . . . . interruptions have thrown me so dreadfully behind hand. -Again & again may God bless & restore you! -- Your sincere Friend, S. T. Coleridge Mrs Coleridge joins in my anxious wishes for you. -P.S. I should greatly wish Mr C. to write to Kendal immediately to know, if any of the Schoolmen were in that Library -- speci . . . 2 502. To Thomas Poole Address: Thomas Poole, Esqre | Nether Stowey | Bridgewater | Somerset -- MS. British Museum. Pub. E. L. G. i. 262. Postmark: 23 May 1803. Stamped: Keswick. May 20, 1803. Keswick My dear Poole Since Good Friday, the time of my arrival at Keswick, I have been not only very ill -- & for a large part of the time actually bedridden -- but the Disorder seized in my head in such a way, that the ____________________ 1 Having been ill for some time, Mrs. Clarkson left the Lake Country for Bury St. Edmunds in July 1803. Her mother died a year later, after a protracted illness, when Coleridge was in Malta. This letter was probably written in May, before Mrs. Clarkson's departure. The first sentence seems to refer to Coleridge's insurance policy, which, he wrote to both Southey and Poole, had been so great a comfort to him during his illness. See Letters 500 and 502. 2 Possibly the result of this inquiry led Coleridge to request Thelwall to bring Duns Scotus's De Sententiis on the way from Kendal to Keswick. See Letter 528. -944- very idea of writing became terrible to me. -- It was the Influenza, which shewed itself in the form of rheumatic Fever -- crippling my loins -- but distinguished from it by immediate prostration of Strength, confusion of Intellect on any attempt to exert it, a tearing Cough with constant expectoration, & clammy honey-dew sweats on awaking from my short Sleeps. -- I am now only somewhat better / & feel the infinite Importance of the deepest Tranquillity. -- It has been an inconceivable Comfort to me during my illness that when in London I had made myself a member of the Eq. Ass. Society for 1000£, which cost me 31£ -- but henceforward it will only be 27£. I made my will too, bequeathing the Interest of the Sum to Mrs C. -- and after her Death the Sum itself to my Daughter if she be alive / if not, to my two boys or the one who is alive --. I ventured without writing to you to take the liberty of leaving the money to you in trust -- & in case of your Death, to Wordsworth. But I shall employ the first months of my returning Health in arranging my MSS, to be published in case I should be taken off -& I will send you instructions with respect to my Letters &c -which should be collected -- & I shall leave it entirely to you & Wordsworth to choose out of them such as with necessary omissions, & little corrections of grammatical inaccuracies may be published -----; but if God grant me only tolerable Health this summer, I pledge myself to all who love me, that by next Christmas the last three years of my Life shall no longer appear a Blank. -- I wish exceedingly that you could come to me this Summer, or Autumn / and God knows my heart, I wish very few things. -- Dear Poole! in the present Instance I have been incapable of writing to you / but at no time judge of my affection & esteem by the frequency or infrequency of my Letters. While I live, I shall always hold you dear in the first degree. -- Farewelll S. T. Coleridge At one time every Soul in my house was confined to bed, & we were tended on by strange faces. Many have died of the complaint in & about Keswick / & no one has been quite as well since as before. -- Love to Ward. Mrs Coleridge's Love to you. ----- 503. To Francis Freeling 1 MS. Mr. Walter T. Spencer. Hitherto unpublished. Greta Hall, Keswick Friday Night, May 20, 1803 Sir In consequence of a request, expressed to me by Mr Stuart of the Morning Post Office, I take the Liberty of informing you, that my ____________________ 1 Francis Freeling ( 1764-1836), of the London Post Office. -945- paper, the Morning Post, did not arrive yesterday Afternoon -- the paper for Tuesday, May 17th I waited till this evening, in case two papers should come together, as they often do; but the paper for Wednesday, 18th, arrived by itself. It is very seldom, that for so many Days together my paper should have come so regularly as it has done for the last fortnight -- on an average of some months it has missed once a week. I am, / Sir, / with great respect, / Your ob. humb. Servant, S. T. Coleridge 504. To William Godwin Address: Mr Godwin | Polygon | Sommers' Town | London MS. Lord Abinger. Pub. with omis. William Godwin, ii. 92. As the preceding letters show, Coleridge had been planning a philosophical work since early 1801, and in this letter he proposes an 'Instrument of practical Reasoning'. No such work was published during his lifetime, but there is evidence that he had begun his task at this time. 'In the possession of the Coleridge family at Leatherhead', Miss Alice Snyder notes in her Coleridge on Logic and Learning, 1929, pp. 52-53, 'is a partly filled notebook that contains a section of the "familiar introduction to the common system of Logic", the first four chapters of the History, and a part of the fifth chapter. Moreover, the text offers clear evidence that the continuation of the manuscript was to follow in general the outline for the remaining chapters sketched in the letter to Godwin. . . . The fragment must . . . be tentatively assigned to 1803.' Miss Snyder prints the notebook in full. Ibid. 54-66 and 139-52. In Letter 505 Coleridge says 'the work is half-written out, & the materials of the other Half are all on paper -- or rather, on papers'. Postmark: 7 June 1803. Saturday Night, June 4, 1803. Greta Hall, Keswick My dear Godwin I trust, that my dear Friend, C. Lamb, will have informed [you] how seriously ill I have been. I arrived at Keswick on Good Friday -- caught the Influenza, have struggled on in a series of convalescence & relapse, the disease still assuming new shapes & symptoms -- and tho' I am certainly better than at any former period of the Disease, and more steadily convalescent; yet it is not mere Low Spirits that makes me doubt, whether I shall ever wholly surmount the effects of it. -- I owe this explanation to you: for I quitted Town with strong feelings of affectionate Esteem toward you, & a firm resolution to write to you within a short time after my arrival at my home. During my illness I was exceedingly affected by the Thought, that month had glided away after month, & year after year, & still had found & left me only preparing for the experiments, which are to ascertain whether the Hopes of those, who have hoped proudly of me, have been auspicious Omens, or mere Delusions -- -946- and the anxiety to realize something, & finish something has, no doubt, in some measure retarded my Recovery. -- I am now however ready to go to the Press, with a work which I consider as introductory to a System, tho' to the public it will appear altogether a Thing by itself. I write now to ask your advice respecting the Time & manner of it's Publication, & the choice of a Publisher. -- I entitle it Organum verè Organum, or an Instrument of practical Reasoning in the business of real Life: to which will be prefixed 1. a familiar INTRODUCTION to the common System of Logic, namely, that of Aristotle & the Schools. 2. a concise and simple, yet full, Statement of the Aristotelean Logic, with references annexed to the Authors, & the name & page of the work, to which each part may be tra[ced,] so that it may be at once seen, what is Aristotle's, what Porphyry, wh[at] the addition of the Greek Commentators, & what of the Schoolmen. -- 3. Outline of the History of Logic in general. 1. Chapt. -- The origin of Philosophy in general, and of Logic speciatim. 2 Chapt. Of the Eleatic & Megaric Logic. 3. of the Platonic Logic. 4. of Aristotle, containing a fair account [of] the 'Oργaννoν of which Dr Reid in Kaimes' Sketches of man 1 has given a most false, & not only erroneous, but calumnious Statement -- as far as this account had not been anticipated in the second Part of my work -- namely, the concise & simple, yet full, &c &c. -- 5. a philosophical Examination of the Truth, and of the Value, of the Aristotelean System of Logic, including all the after additions to it. 6. on the characteristic Merits & Demerits of Aristotle & Plato, as Philosophers in general, & an attempt to explain the fact of the vast influence of the former during so many ages; and of the influence of Plato's works on the restoration of the Belles Lettres, and on the reformation. -- 7. Raymund Lully. 8. Peter Ramus 2. 9. Lord Bacon -- or the Verulamian Logic. 10. Examination of the same, & comparison of it with the Logic of Plato (in wćh I attempt to make it probable, that tho' considered by Bacon himself as the antithesis & Antidote of Plato, it is bonâ fide the same, & that Plato has been grossly misunderstood.) 3 10 [sic]. -- Des Cartes / 11. Condillac -- & a philosophical examination of his Logic, i.e. the Logic, which he basely purloined from Hartley. -- Then follows my own Organum verè Organum -- which consists of a Σ↕σ+̂ɣημα of all possible modes of true, probable, & false reasoning, arranged philosophically, i.e. on a strict analysis of those operations & passions of the mind, in which they originate, & by which they act, with one or more ____________________ 1 Coleridge refers to Thomas Reid "A Brief Account of Aristotle's Logic", which was published in Lord Kames Sketches of the History of Man, 1774. 2 Raymond Lully (1235?-1315) and Petrus Ramus ( 1515-72). 3 Cf. The Friend, 1818, iii. 193-216. -947- striking instances annexed to each from authors of high Estimation -- and to each instance of false reasoning, the manner in which the Sophistry is to be detected, & the words, in which it may be exposed. -- The whole will conclude with considerations of the value of the work, & it's practical utility -- in scientific Investigations; especially, the first part, which contains the strictly demonstrative reasonings, and the analysis of all the acts & passions of the mind, which may be employed to the discovery of Truth -- in the arts of healing, especially, in those parts that contain a catalogue &c of probable reasoning --: lastly, to the Senate, the Pulpit, & our Law courts, to whom the whole, but especially in the latter ¾ths of the work -- viz. the probable & the false, will be useful -- and finally, instructions, how to form a commonplace Book by the aid of this Instrument, so as to read with practical advantage -- & (supposing average Talents) to ensure a facility & rapidity in proving & in confuting. / -- I have thus amply detailed the contents of my work, which has not been the labour of one year or of two / but the result of many years' meditations, & of very various Reading. -- The size of the work will, printed at 30 lines a page, form one Volume Octavo / 500 pages to the Volume -- & I shall be ready with the first half of the work for the Printer, at a fortnight's notice. -- Now, my dear Friend! give me your Thoughts on the subject -- would you have me offer it to the Booksellers, or by the assistance of my Friends print & publish on my own account --? if the former, would you advise me to sell the copyright at once, or only one or more Editions? Can you give me a general notion, what terms I have a right to insist on / in either case? And lastly, to whom would you advise me to apply? -- Longman & Rees are very civil; but they are not liberal / and they have no notion of me, except as of a Poet -- nor any sprinklings of philosophical knowlege that could in the least enable them to judge of the value, or probable success, of such a Work. -- Phillips is a pushing man, & a book is sure to have fair play, if it be his Property -- & it could not be other than pleasant to me to have the same Publisher with yourself -- but. -Now if there be any thing of importance, that with truth & justice ought to follow that 'but,' you will inform me. -- It is not my habit to go to work so seriously about matters of pecuniary business; but my ill-health makes my Life more than ordinarily uncertain / & I have a wife, & 3 little ones. If your judgment led you to advise me to offer it to Phillips, would you take the trouble of talking with him on the subject? & give him your real opinion, whatever it may be, of the work, and of the powers of the Author. ----- When this Book is fairly off my hands, I shall, if I live & have sufficient health, set seriously to work -- in arranging what I have -948- already written, and in pushing forward my Studies, & my Investigations relative to the omne scibile of human Nature -- what we are, & how we become what we are; so as to solve the two grand Problems, how, being acted upon, we shall act; how, acting, we shall be acted upon. But between me & this work there may be Death. I hope, that your wife & little ones are well. -- I have had a sick family -- at one time, every Individual, Master, Mistress, children, & servants were all layed up in bed; & we were waited on by persons hired from the Town for the week. But now all are well, I only excepted. -- If you find my paper smell, or my Style savour, of scholastic quiddity, you must attribute it to the infectious quality of the Folio, on which I am writing -- namely, Jo. Scotus Erigena de divisione Naturae, the fore runner, by some centuries, of the Schoolmen. -- I cherish all kind & honorable feelings toward you, & am, dear Godwin, your's most sincerely, S. T. Coleridge. You know the high character, & present scarcity of Search's Light of Nature. 1 'I have found in this writer (says PALEY in his Preface to his Mor. & Pol. Phil.) more original thinking & observation upon the several subjects, he has taken in hand, than in any other, not to say, in all others put together. His Talent also for illustration is unrivalled. But his Thoughts are diffused thro' a long, various, & irregular work,' &c. A friend of mine, every way calculated by his Taste, & prior Studies for such a work is willing to abridge & systematize that work from 8 to 2 Vol. -- in the words of Paley 'to dispose into method, to collect into heads, & articles, and to exhibit in more compact & tangible masses, what, in that otherwise excellent performance, is spread over too much surface.' -- I would prefix to it an Essay containing the whole substance of the first Volume of Hartley, entirely defecated from all the corpuscular hypotheses -- with new illustrations -- & give my name to the Essay. 2 Likewise, I will revise every sheet of the Abridgement. I should think, the character of the work, & the above quotation from so high an Authority (with the present Public, I mean) as Paley, would ensure it's success. -- If you will read (or transcribe & send) this to Mr Phillips, or to Mr Mawman, or to any other Publisher ( Longman & Rees excepted) you would greatly oblige me -that is to say, my dear Godwin, you would essentially serve a ____________________ 1 Abraham Tucker published The Light of Nature Pursued, in four volumes, under the name Edward Search in 1768. Three posthumous volumes appeared in 1778. 2 Coleridge refers to William Hazlitt, who was apparently in the north at this time. Hazlitt one-volume Abridgement of The Light of Nature Pursued was published in 1807, but without Coleridge's proposed essay. -949- young man of profound Genius and original mind, who wishes to get his Sabine Subsistence by some Employment from the Booksellers, while he is employing the remainder of his Time in nursing up his Genius for the destiny, which he believes appurtenant to it. Qui cito facit, bis facit. Impose any Task on me in return. 505. To William Godwin Address: Mr Godwin | Polygon | Sommers' Town | London MS. Lord Abinger. Pub. Macmillan's Magazine, April 1864, p. 532. Postmark: 18 June 1808. Stamped: Keswick. Friday, June 10, 1808. Greta Hall My dear Godwin Your Letter has this moment reached me, & found me writing for Stuart, to whom I am under a positive engagement to produce three Essays by the beginning of next week. 1 To promise therefore to do, what I could not do, would be somewhat worse than idle: & to attempt to do, what I could not do well, from distraction of mind, would be trifling with my Time, & your patience. -- If I could convey to you any tolerably distinct notion of the state of my Spirits of late, & the train & the sort of my ideas consequent on that state, you would feel instantly, that my non-performance of the promise is matter of Regret with me indeed, but not of Compunction. It was my full intention to have prepared immediately a second volume of poems for the Press; 2 but tho' the poems are all either written, or composed, excepting only the conclusion of one Poem (= to 4 days' common work) & a few corrections, & tho' I had the most pressing motives for sending them off; yet after many attempts I was obliged to give up the very Hope -- the attempts acted so perniciously on my disorder. -- Wordsworth too wished, & in a very particular manner expressed the wish, that I should write to him at large on a poetic subject, which he has at present sub malleo ardentem et ignitum -- I made the attempt -- but I could not command my recollections. It seemed a Dream, that I had ever thought on Poetry -- or had ever written it -- so remote were my Trains of Ideas from Composition, or Criticism on Composition. -- These two instances will in some measure explain my non-performance; but indeed I have been VERY ILL -- & that I have done any thing in any way is a subject of wonder to ____________________ 1 No such contributions to the Morning Post have been identified. 2 Although Coleridge did not issue a 'second volume', the third edition of his Poem was published by Longman and Rees in 1803. It was seen through the press by Charles Lamb. ( Lamb Letters, i. 346-50.) -950- myself, and of no causeless Self-complacency. -- Yet I am anxious to do something, which may convince you of my sincerity & Zeal; and if you think that it will be of any service to you, & will send down the Work, I will instantly give it a perusal con amore -- & partly by my reverential Love of Chaucer, & partly from my affectionate Esteem for his Biographer, the summer too bringing increase of Health with it, I doubt not, that my old mind will recur to me; and I will FORTHWITH write a series of Letters containing a critique on Chaucer, & on the Life of Chaucer by W. Godwin, 1 and publish them with my name either at once in a small volume -- or in the Morning Post in the first instance -- & republish them afterwards --. The great Thing to be done is to present Chaucer stripped of all his adventitious matter -- his Translations & -- to analyse his own real productions -- to deduce his Province, & his Rank / then to compare him with his Contemporaries, or immediate both Prede-and Successors, first as an Englishman, & secondly as a Europaean -- then with Spencer, & with Shakespere, between whom he seems to stand mid way, with however a manner of his own which belongs to neither -- both a manner & an excellence -- lastly, to compare Dante, & Chaucer, (& inclusively Spencer, & Shakespere) with the Ancients, to abstract the characteristic Differences, & to develope the causes of such Differences. -- (For instance, in all the writings of the ancients I recollect nothing that strictly examined can be called Humour -- yet Chaucer abounds with it -- and Dante too, tho' in a very different way -- Thus too, the passion for Personifications -- & me judice, strong sharp practical good Sense, which I feel to constitute a strikingly characteristic Difference in favor of the feudal Poets.) As to information, I could give you a critical sketch of Poems, written by contemporaries of Chaucer, in Germany -- [an] Epic, to compare with his Palamon & Arcite -- Tales with his Tales ----- descriptive & fanciful with those of the same kind in our own Poet --. In short, a Life of Chaucer ought in the work itself, & in the appendices of the work, to make the Poet explain his Age, & to make the Age both explain the Poet, & evince the superiority of the Poet over his Age. ----- I think that the publication of such a work would do your work some little service in more ways than one / it would occasion necessarily a double Review of it in all the Reviews -- & there is a large Class of fashionable men, who have been pleased of late to take me into high favor, & among whom even my name might have some influence, & my praises of you some Weight. -- But let me hear from you on the Subject. -- Now for my own business. -- As soon as you possibly can do ____________________ 1 Godwin Life of Chaucer was published in Oct 1803. -951- something respecting the Abridgement of Search, do so: you will, on my honor, be doing good, in the best sense of the word. -- Of course, I cannot wish you to do any thing till after the 24th -unless it should lie pat in your way to read that part of [my] Letter to Phillips. As to my own work, let me correct one or two imperfect conceptions of your's respecting it. -- I could, no doubt, induce my friends to publish the work for me: but I am possessed of facts, that deter me -- I know, that the Booksellers not only do not encourage, but that they use unjustifiable artifices to injure works published on the Author's own account -- It never answered, as far as I can find, in any instance. And even the sale of a first Edition is not without Objections, on this Score -- to this however I should certainly adhere -- & it is my resolution. -- But I must do something immediately/ Now if I knew that any Bookseller would purchase the first Edition of this work, as numerous as he pleases, I should put the work out of hand at once, totus in illo -- but it was never my intention to send one single sheet to the Press, till the whole was bonâ fide ready for the Printer, that is, both written, & fairly written. -- The work is half-written out; & the materials of the other Half are all on paper -- or rather, on papers -- &c in my Hand. I should not expect one farthing, till the work was delivered entire -- and I would deliver it all at once, if it were wished. But if I cannot engage with a Bookseller for this, I must do something else first -- which I should be sorry for. ----- Your Division of the sorts of works acceptable to Booksellers is just -- & what has been always my own notion -- or rather knowlege -- but tho' I detailed the whole of the contents of my work so fully to you, I did not mean to lay any Stress with the Bookseller on the first Half, but simply state it as preceded by a familiar Introduction, & critical History of Logic -- on the Work itself I meant to lay all the Stress, as a work really in request -- & non-existent, either well or ill-done -- & to put the work in the same class with Guthrie, & Books of practical Instruction -- for the Universities, first Classes of Schools, Lawyers, &c &c ----- It's profitable Sale will greatly depend on the Pushing of the Bookseller, and on it's being considered as a practical Book -- Organum verè organum -- a book, by which the Reader is to acquire not only Knowlege, but likewise Power. -- I fear, that it may extend to 700 pages -- & would it be better to publi[sh] the Introduction & History separately, either after or before? -- God bless you -- & all Hon[or] to you & your Chaucer -- all Happiness [to] you, your Wife, & your -- S. T. C. P.S. If you read to Phillips any part of my Letter respecting my -952- own work, or rather detailed it to him, you would lay all the Stress on the Practical. 506. To Robert Southey Address: Mr Southey | St James's Place | Kingsdown | Bristol MS. Lord Latymer. Pub. Letters, i. 422. Postmark: 2 July 1808. Stamped: Keswick. Wednesday -- Keswick. [ 29 June 1803] My dear Southey You have had much illness as well as I, but I thank God for you, you have never been equally diseased in voluntary power with me. I knew a Lady, who was seized with a sort of asthma, which she knew would be instantly relieved by a dose of Ether -- she had the full use of her Limbs -- & was not an arm's length from the Bell -yet could not command voluntary power sufficient to pull it -- & might have died but for the accidental Coming-in of her Daughter. -- From facts such as these the doctrines of Materialism, & mechanical necessity have been deduced; & it is some small argument against the Truth of these Doctrines, that I have perhaps had a more various experience, a more intuitive knowlege, of such facts than most men ----- yet do not believe these Doctrines. -- My health is middling. If this hot weather continue, I hope to go on endurably -- and O! for peace! -- for I forebode a miserable Winter in this country. Indeed, I am rather inclined to determine on wintering in Madeira, rather than staying at home. -- I have inclosed 10£ for Mrs Fricker. Tell her, that I wish it were in my power to increase this poor half-year's Mite; but ill-health keeps me poor. ----- Della is with us: & seems likely to recover. -- I have not seen the Edingburgh Review -- the truth is, that Edingburgh is a place of literary Gossip -- & even I have had my portion of Puff there -- & of course, my portion of Hatred & Envy. -- One man puffs me up -- he has seen & talked with me -- another hears him, goes & reads my poems, written when almost a boy -- & candidly & logically hates me, because he does not admire my poems in the proportion in which one of his acquaintances had admired me. -- It is difficult to say whether these Reviewers do you harm or good. -- You read me at Bristol a very interesting piece of Casuistry from Father Somebody, the Author, I believe, of the Theatro Critico, respecting a double Infant -- If you do not immediately want it, or if my using it in a book of Logic, with proper acknowlegement, will not interfere with your use of it -- I should be extremely obliged to you, if you would send it me without delay. -- I rejoice to hear of the Progress of your History. The only Thing, I dread, is the -953- division of the Europaean & Colonial History --. In style, you have only to beware of short, biblical, & pointed Periods. Your general Style is delightfully natural & yet striking. You may expect certain Explosions in the Morning Post, Coleridge versus Fox -- in about a week. It grieved me to hear (for I have a sort of affection for the man) from Sharp, that Fox had not read my two Letters; 1 but had heard of them, & that they were mine -- & had expressed himself more wounded by the circumstance than any thing that had happened since Burke's Business. Sharp told this to Wordsworth -- & told Wordsworth, that he had been so affected by Fox's manner, that he himself had declined reading the two Letters -- Yet Sharp himself thinks my opinions right & true: but Fox is not to be attacked -- & why? Because he is an amiable man -- & not by me -- because he had thought highly of me -- &c &c -- O Christ I this is a pretty age in the article, "Morality"! -- When I cease to love Truth best of all things; & Liberty, the next best; may I cease to live -- nay, it is my creed, that I should thereby cease to live / for as far as any thing can be called probable in a subject so dark, it seems most probable to me, that our Immortality is to be a work of our own Hands. -- All the children are well -- & I love to hear Bella talk of Margaret. Love to Edith -- & to Mary. God bless you, | & S. T. Coleridge I have received great delight & instruction from Scotus Erigena. He is clearly the modern founder of the School of Pantheism -indeed he expressly defines the divine Nature, as quae fit et facit, et creat et creatur -- & repeatedly declares Creation to be manifestation -- the Epiphany of Philosophers. ----- The eloquence with which he writes, astonished me, but he had read more Greek than Latin -- and was a Platonist rather than an Aristotelean. -- There is a good deal of omne meus oculus in the notion of the dark Ages, 2 &c, taken intensively -- in extension it might be true --. They had Wells; we are flooded, ancle-high -- & what comes of it but grass rank or rotten? Our age eats from that Poison-tree of Knowlege, yclept, Too much and too little. -- Have you read Paley's last Book? 3 Have you it to review? -- I could make a dashing Review of it. -- ____________________ 1 Except for Coleridge's two Letters to Charles James Fox of 4 and 9 Nov. 1802, no further contributions concerning Fox have been identified. 2 ' Coleridge says there has never been a single line of common-sense written about the dark ages. He was speaking of the knowledge and philosophy of that period; and I believe his assertion is true in a more extensive sense.' Southey to Rickman, Southey Letters, i. 228. 3 William Paley, Natural Theology; or Evidence of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity collected from the Appearances of Nature, 1802. -954- 507. To Robert Southey Pub. Life and Corres. ii. 217. Keswick, July, 1803 My dear Southey, . . . I write now to propose a scheme, or rather a rude outline of a scheme, of your grand work. What harm can a proposal do? If it be no pain to you to reject it, it will be none to me to have it rejected. I would have the work entitled Bibliotheca Britannica, or an History of British Literature, bibliographical, biographical, and critical. 1 The two last volumes I would have to be a chronological catalogue of all noticeable or extant books; the others, be the number six or eight, to consist entirely of separate treatises, each giving a critical biblio-biographical history of some one subject. I will, with great pleasure, join you in learning Welsh and Erse: and you, I, Turner, and Owen, 2 might dedicate ourselves for the first half year to a complete history of all Welsh, Saxon, and Erse books that are not translations, that are the native growth of Britain. If the Spanish neutrality continues, I will go in October or November to Biscay, and throw light on the Basque. Let the next volume contain the history of English poetry and poets, in which I would include all prose truly poetical. The first half of the second volume should be dedicated to great single names, Chaucer and Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton and Taylor, Dryden and Pope; the poetry of witty logic, -- Swift, Fielding, Richardson, Sterne: I write par hazard, but I mean to say all great names as have either formed epochs in our taste, or such, at least, as are representative; and the great object to be in each instance to determine, first, the true merits and demerits of the books; secondly, what of these belong to the age -- what to the author quasi peculium. The second half of the second volume should be a history of poetry and romances, everywhere interspersed with biography, but more flowing, more consecutive, more biblio- ____________________ 1 The idea for Southey's 'Bibliotheca Britannica' arose from conversations between Coleridge and Southey. Coleridge and I have often talked of making a great work upon English literature'. Southey wrote to Taylor on 28 June 1803. ( Memoir of William Taylor, i461.) Late in June, Southey set forth for London to make business arrangements for his venture, and he probably communicated his plans to Coleridge while there. Soon after his return to Bristol on 12 July he must have received this extraordinary letter from Coleridge. In Aug. 1808 Longman decided not to publish the work for the present, and it fell through, to be realized, perhaps, a century later in the Cambridge History of English Literature. 2 Sharon Turner ( 1768-1847), author of the History of England from the earliest period to the Norman Conquest, 4 vols., 1799-1805; and William Owen, later Pughe ( 1759-1835), Welsh antiquary and lexicographer. -955- graphical, chronological, and complete. The third volume I would have dedicated to English prose, considered as to style, as to eloquence, as to general impressiveness; a history of styles and manners, their causes, their birth-places and parentage, their analysis. . . . These three volumes would be so generally interesting, so exceedingly entertaining, that you might bid fair for a sale of the work at large. Then let the fourth volume take up the history of metaphysics, theology, medicine, alchemy, common, canon, and Roman law, from Alfred to Henry VII; in other words, a history of the dark ages in Great Britain. The fifth volume -- carry on metaphysics and ethics to the present day in the first half; the second half, comprise the theology of all the reformers. In the fourth volume there would be a grand article on the philosophy of the theology of the Roman Catholic religion. In this (fifth volume), under different names, -- Hooker, Baxter, Biddle, and Fox, -- the spirit of the theology of all the other parts of Christianity. The sixth and seventh volumes must comprise all the articles you can get, on all the separate arts and sciences that have been treated of in books since the Reformation; and, by this time, the book, if it answered at all, would have gained so high a reputation, that you need not fear having whom you liked to write the different articles -- medicine, surgery, chemistry, &c. &c., navigation, travellers, voyagers, &c. &c. If I go into Scotland, shall I engage Walter Scott to write the history of Scottish poets? Tell me, however, what you think of the plan. It would have one prodigious advantage: whatever accident stopped the work, would only prevent the future good, not mar the past; each volume would be a great and valuable work per se. Then each volume would awaken a new interest, a new set of readers, who would buy the past volumes of course; then it would allow you ample time and opportunities for the slavery of the catalogue volumes, which should be at the same time an index to the work, which would be, in very truth, a pandect of knowledge, alive and swarming with human life, feeling, incident. By the by, what a strange abuse has been made of the word encyclopaedia! It signifies, properly, grammar, logic, rhetoric, and ethics and metaphysics, which last, explaining the ultimate principles of grammar -- log., rhet., and eth. -- formed a circle of knowledge. . . . To call a huge unconnected miscellany of the omne scibile, in an arrangement determined by the accident of initial letters, an encyclopaedia, is the impudent ignorance of your Presbyterian bookmakers. Good night! God bless you! S. T. C. -956- 508. To William Wordsworth MS. Dove Cottage. Pub. E. L. G. i. 266. Saturday -- [ 28 July 1803] 1 My dearest William You would be as much astonished at Hazlitt's coming, as I at his going. -- Sir G. & Lady B. 2 who are half-mad to see you -- (Lady B. told me, that the night before last as she was reading your Poem on Cape RASH JUDGEMENT, had you entered the room, she believes she should have fallen at your feet) Sir G. & his wife both say, that the Picture 3 gives them an idea of you as a profound strong-minded Philosopher, not as a Poet -- I answered (& I believe, truly --) that so it must needs do, if it were a good Portrait -- for that you were a great Poet by inspirations, & in the Moments of revelation, but that you were a thinking feeling Philosopher habitually -- that your Poetry was your Philosophy under the action of strong winds of Feeling -- a sea rolling high. -- What the Devil to do about a Horse! -- I cannot hear of one/ Keswick is not the Place/ & Mr Moore has sent me a Letter which makes it scarcely possible for me to buy the Jaunting Car under 15£. He expresses the utmost sorrow, that his finances relatively even to mine would make it unjust & pusillanimous in him to give way to his habitual Feelings, which would impel him to insist on my accepting it -- that he had repeatedly refused 15£ -- but that I might deduct from that what I chose --. Dearest dearest dearest Friends -- I will have 3 dearests, that there may be one for each -(and Godson John 4 shall have one for himself) I begin to find that a Horse & Jaunting Car is an anxiety -- & almost to wish that we ____________________ 1 This letter must have been written on 23 July 1803, for on 17 July Nathaniel M. Moore, whose letter Coleridge mentions, wrote from Devonshire as follows: 'I had the Pleasure of receiving your Letter this Morning and now rejoice very sincerely in what I once felt as a great Disappointment, my not being able to sell the Jaunting Car. It is much at your Service. I wish I was able to do as my Heart would dictate. Is it worth £15 -- that I often refused -deduct from it what you please -- . . . A Sale between you and me is very repugnant to my Feelings.' The jaunting car was purchased for the Scotch tour, which began on 15 Aug. 2 Sir George Beaumont ( 1753-1827), artist and art patron, and his wife lodged with Jackson at Greta Hall in the summer of 1803 and soon became Coleridge's friends. Through Coleridge they came to know Wordsworth. 3 Hazlitt, who was in the Lake Country at this time, executed portraits of Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Hartley Coleridge. P. P. Howe notes that the Wordsworth portrait was destroyed and that the whereabouts of the other two is unknown. The Life of William Hazlitt, 1947, p. 395. 4 ' Godson John' Wordsworth was born 18 June 1803, and baptized 15 July 1803, Coleridge and Richard and Dorothy Wordsworth were the god-parents. -957- had adopted our first thought, & walked: with one pony & side saddle for our Sister Gift-of-God. -- I was on horse just now with Sir O. & Lady B. -- when Lord Lowther came riding up to us -- so of course all dismounted -- & he is now with his Jockey Phiz in with Sir G. -- But I looked at him -- & gave him a downright & heart-deep kind feeling for behaving honestly to all you ----- Lady Beamont -- I can describe her to you in few words -- She is a miniature of Madame Guion / A deep Enthusiast, sensitive, Trembles & cannot keep the Tears in her eye -- Such ones do love the marvellous too well Not to believe it. You may wind her up With any Music! -- 1 but music it must be, of some sort or other. -- I have not as yet received any thing from Fletcher but the Side Portrait, which I shall prize deeply. -- I am quoad health in excellent Trim for our Journey -- foot or horse --. The children are all well -- & Sara is an engaging meek Baby. -- Yesterday evening we had a Cram -- Mrs Wilkinson, General & Mrs Peché, 2 and two Andersons, Mrs Dauber & Miss Hodgins -- Mrs Wilkinson swears, that your Portrait is 20 years too old for you -- & mine equally too old, & too lank 3 / -- Every single person without one exception cries out! -- What a likeness! -but the face is too long! you have a round face! -- Hazlitt knows this; but he will not alter it. Why? -- because the Likeness with him is a secondary Consideration -- he wants it to be a fine Picture -- Hartley knew your's instantly -- & Derwent too / but Hartley said -- it is very like; but Wordsworth is far handsomer. -- Our Mary says -- it is very leek; but it is not canny enough -- tho' Mr Wordsworth is not a canny man, to be sure. -- She thinks Mr Cook's face, I believe, the ideal of Beauty -- but you & I, dear William, pass for an ugly Pair with the lower order / which I foretel, Dorothy will not admit. -- The two defects of it as a likeness are that the eyes are TOO OPEN & FULL -- & there is a heaviness given to the forehead, from parting the Hair so greasily & pomatumish -- there should have been a few straggling hairs left. -- Hazlitt's paints are come from London / -- God love you all W. D. M + dearest John. -- [No signature on MS.] ____________________ 1 Osorio, ii. i. 32-36. Poem, ii. 536. 2 Coleridge refers to General John Peché, an East Indian officer. See Southey, Life and Corres. ii. 245. 3 In 1805 Wordsworth wrote to Beaumont: 'We think, as far as mere likeness goes, Hazlitt's is better [than Northcote's portrait of Coleridge]; but the expression in Hazlitt's is quite dolorous and funereal.' Early Letters, 497. Southey said that Hazlitt'made a very fine picture of Coleridge for Sir George Beaumont, which is said to be in Titian's manner'. Life and Cortes. ii. 288. -958- 509. To Robert Southey Address: Mr Southey | St James's Parade | Kingsdown | Bristol MS. Lord Latymer. Pub. E. L. G. i. 263. Postmark: 5 August 1803. Stamped: Keswick. Monday Evening, August 1. 1803 My dear old friend On whatever plan you determine, I will be your faithful Servant and Fellow-Servant. If you were with me, and Health were not far away, I could now rely on myself; but my Health is a very weighty, perhaps insuperable, Objection. Else the sense of responsibility to my own mind is growing deeper & deeper with me from many causes -- chiefly, from the knowlege that I am not of no signiflance, relatively to, comparatively with, other men, my contemporaries. -- I was thought vain / if there be no better word, to express what I was, so let it be / but if Cottle be vain, Dyer be vain, J. Jennings be vain, the word is a vague one / -- it was in me the heat, bustle, and overflowing of a mind, too vehemently pushed on from within to be regardful of the object, upon which it was moving -- an instinct to have my power proved to me by transient evidences, arising from an inward feeling of weakness, both the one & other working in me unconsciously -- above all, a faulty delight in the being beloved, without having examined my heart, whether, if beloved, I had any thing to give in return beyond general kindness & general Sympathy -- both indeed unusually warm, but which, being still general, were not a return in kind, for that which I was unconsciously desiring to inspire / -- All this added together might possibly have been a somewhat far worse than Vanity -- but it would still have been different from it -- far worse if it had not existed in a nature where better Things were indigenous. -- A sense of weakness -- a haunting sense, that I was an herbaceous Plant, as large as a large Tree, with a Trunk of the same Girth, & Branches as large & shadowing -- but with pith within the Trunk, not heart of Wood / -- that I had power not strength -- an involuntary Imposter -that I had no real Genius, no real Depth / -- / This on my honor is as fair a statement of my habitual Haunting, as I could give before the Tribunal of Heaven/How it arose in me, I have but lately discovered/ -- Still it works within me / but only as a Disease, the cause & meaning of which I know / the whole History of this Feeling would form a curious page in a Nosologia Spiritualis -- / ----- Your other objection is not equally well-founded -- My plan would take in all & every body. I undertake for this -- that every page which your plan would admit, mine should / neither is it accurate, that the greater part could only be done by me / -- However, I give it up as -959- contentedly as I offered it quietly / if any part I should desire you to retain, it would be the first Volume -- to make that exhaust all Welch, Saxon, & Erse Literature. However, let me know as soon as is convenient your plan, whatever it be / -- Good heavens! if you & I, Rickman & Lamb, were to put our Shoulders to one volume / a compleat History of the Dark Ages -- if Rickman would but take the physics, you the Romances & Legendary Theology, I the Metaphysics, and Lamb be left to say what he liked in his own way -what might not be done / as to the Canon & Roman Law, it is done admirably for all Countries by Hugo of Göttingen, & I would abridge his Book -- / This alone would immortalize us -- in Physics I comprehend Alchemy & Medicine / -- Enough of all this. -- I write only to say, that my zealous & continued Services are your's, on any plan -- tho' as to Longman, I have assuredly a right to demand more than four guineas a sheet for the Copy right of so compleat a work as my Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespear, Milton, Taylor, &c &c will be -- without boasting, a great Book of Criticism respecting Poetry & Prose -- He ought to consider, that every Syllable which I shall write in the work is not for that work merely, but might every page be published in a work per se ----- &c &c. -- If no strange Accident intervene, I leave Home on Monday Next for my Scotch Tour / -- We shall be 5 or 6 days in getting to Glasgow -- and after that I know no place of Direction but Edingburgh. If therefore you wish to write within a day or two, direct to the Post Office, Glasgow / if not, I shall expect a Letter in a month or 5 weeks at Edingburgh. -- We are all pretty well. Sara is a quiet Creature -- Derwent a great Beauty -- both sadly nettle-rashy; but I am afraid to do any thing with it, it seems to keep them both in high health. Hartley is his own Self -- piscis rarissima [sic]. Young Hazlitt has taken masterly Portraits of me & Wordsworth, very much in the manner of Titian's Portraits -- he wishes to take Lamb -- & you. -- S. T. Coleridge -- 510. To Robert Southey Address: Mr Southey | St James's Parade | Kingsdown | Bristol -- MS. Lord Latymer. Pub. with omis. Letters, i. 427. Postmark: 1 <0> August < 1803.> Stamped: Keswick. Sunday, Keswick -- / [ 7 August 1803] Read the last Lines first. -- I send this Letter merely to shew you, how anxious I have been about your Work. -- My dear Southey The last 3 days I have been fighting up against a restless wish to -960- write to you. I am afraid, lest I should infect you with my fears rather than furnish you with any new arguments -- give you impulses rather than motives -- and prick you with spurs, that had been dipt in the vaccine matter of my own cowardliness--. While I wrote that last sentence, I had a vivid recollection -- indeed an ocular Spectrum -- of our room in College Street -- / a curious instance of association / you remember how incessantly in that room I used to be compounding these half-verbal, half-visual metaphors. It argues, I am persuaded, a particular state of general feeling -- & I hold, that association depends in a much greater degree on the recurrence of resembling states of Feeling, than on Trains of Idea / that the recollection of early childhood in latest old age depends on, & is explicable by this -- & if this be true, Hartley's System totters. -- If I were asked, how it is that very old People remember visually only the events of early childhood -- & remember the intervening Spaces either not at all, or only verbally -- I should think it a perfectly philosophical answer / that old age remembers childhood by becoming 'a second childhood.' This explanation will derive some additional value if you would look into Hartley's solution of the phaenomena / how flat, how wretched! -- Believe me, Southey! a metaphysical Solution, that does not instantly tell for something in the Heart, is grievously to be suspected as apocry[p]hal. I almost think, that Ideas never recall Ideas, as far as they are Ideas -- any more than Leaves in a forest create each other's motion -- The Breeze it is that runs thro' them / it is the Soul, the state of Feeling --. If I had said, no one Idea ever recalls another, I am confident that I could support the assertion.-----And this is a Digression. -- My dear Southey, again & again I say, that whatever your Plan be, I will continue to work for you with equal zeal if not with equal pleasure / -- But the arguments against your plan weigh upon me the more heavily, the more I reflect -- & it could not be otherwise than that I should feel a confirmation of them from Wordsworth's compleat coincidence -- I having requested his deliberate opinion without having communicated an Iota of my own. -- You seem to me, dear friend! to hold the dearness of a scarce work for a proof, that the work would have a general Sale -- if not scarce. -- Nothing can be more fallacious than this. Burton's anatomy used to sell for a guinea to two guineas -- it was republished / has it payed the expence of reprinting? Scarcely. -- Literary History informs us, that most of those great continental Bibliographies &c were published by the munificence of princes, or nobles, or great monasteries. -- A Book from having had little or no sale, except among great Libraries, may become so scarce, that the number of competitors for it, tho' few, may be proportionally very great. I have -961- observed, that great works are now a days bought -- not for curiosity, or the amor proprius -- but under the notion that they contain all the knowlege, a man may ever want / and if he has it on his Shelf, why there it is, as snug as if it were in his Brain. This has carried off the Encyclopaedia, -- & will continue to do so /. I have weighed most patiently what you have said respecting the persons, & classes likely to purchase a Catalogue of all British Books -- I have endeavored to make some rude calculation of their numbers according to your own numeration table -- & it falls very short of an adequate number --. Your scheme appears to be, in short, faulty -- 1. because every where the generally uninteresting -- the catalogue part, will overlay the interesting parts / -- 2. because the first Volume will have nothing in it tempting or deeply valuable -- for there is not time or room for it. -- 3. because it is impossible, that any one of the volumes can be executed as well as they would otherwise be, from the to & fro, now here now there, motion of the mind & employment of the Industry -- O how I wish to be talking, not writing -for my mind is so full, that my thoughts stifle & jam each other / & I have presented them as shapeless Jellies / so that I am ashamed of what I have written, it so imperfectly expresses what I meant to have said. -- My advice certainly would be -- that at all events / you should make some Classification / Let all the Law Books form a catalogue per se / & so forth / otherwise it is not a book of reference / without an Index half as large as the work itself. -- I see no wellfounded Objection to the plan, which I first sent / the two main advantages are, that stop where you will, you are in Harbouryou sail in an Archipelago so thickly clustered -- at each Island you take in a compleatly new Cargo / & the former cargo is in safe Housage: & 2ndly, that each Labourer working by the Piece, & not by the Day, can give an undivided attention, in some instances for 3 or four years -- & bring to the work the whole weight of his Interest & Reputation. / One half, or at least one third, of every volume would be exactly what you have so well described / a delightful miscellany of noticeable Books, briefly characterized, & when they are worthy of it, & have not been anticipated in the former part of the volume, analyzed -- striking the Line wherever you clause -- & going on to another with no other bond of connection than that of time/ -- & differing from your plan only in this -- that it will be all interesting -- all readable -- / & the two last Volumes will be bought of necessity -- & be truly valuable / all the books treated of in the preceding eight Volumes being here printed in small Capitals, the vol. & page mentioned in which they are treated of --. An encyclopaedia appears to me a worthless monster. What Surgeon, or Physician, professed Student of pure or mixed Mathe- -962- matics, what Chemist, or Architect, would go to an Encyclopaedia, for his Books ? -- If valuable Treatises exist on these subjects in an Encycl., they are out of their place -- an equal hardship on the general Reader, who pays for whole volumes which he cannot read, and on the professed Student of that particular Subject, who must buy a great work which he does not want in order to possess a valuable Treatise, which he might otherwise have had for six or seven Shillings. You omit those things only from your Encyclop. which are excrescences -- each volume will set up the reader, give him at once connected trains of thought & facts, & a delightful miscellany for lownge-reading --. Your Treatises will be long in exact proportion to their general Interest. -- Think what a strange confusion it will make, if you speak of each book, according to it's Date, passing from an Epic Poem to a Treatise on the Treatment of Sore Legs? No body can become an enthusiast in favor of the work /. I feel myself -- but that is nothing -- I have heard from more, than I remember ever to have heard any one observation / what wearisome & unrememberable Reading Reviews are. Considering how much Talent has been employed in Reviews, it is astonishing -- till you perceive the cause of it -- how little of one's knowlege one can distinctly trace back to these books -- whereas Hayley's Notes on his Epic Poems & Historical Works almost every literary man speaks of with pleasure & gratitude. -- In short, do what you will -- only put together all the books, palpably of the same Class -- & let the absolutely uninstructive (-- tho' curious & useful as a Catalogue to be referred to) come all together, at the bottom of the Pottle. -- When I know your final & total Plan, I will within a few weeks inform you in detail what articles I will attempt to furnish you with -- & at what time. -- A great change of weather has come on / heavy rains & wind / & I have been very ill -- & still I am in uncomfortable restless Health / I am not even certain whether I shall not be forced to put off my Scotch Tour / -- but if I go, I go on Tuesday -- I shall not send off this Letter, till this is decided. -- God bless you & S. T. C. -- Sunday Night. I have this moment received your Letter. I have nothing to say. God grant that it may not put both you & Longman into ill-humour with each other -- all I have to observe for myself is -- that if all the Schoolmen, nay, if all the Centuries from Alfred to Edward 6th are to be crowded into one volume, it is not in my nature to do any thing in that volume /. However I will write to you, stating what I will do -- & what space I must have. I can rely with the most heartfelt confidence, that you will not suffer me to hurt the work, or the work to hurt me / both which would take place, if my Quota were heterogeneous, & out of the Plan of the -963- Work at large. -- Your Letter has answered some of my objections -- yet I cannot for my Life see the advantage of having something of each in each volume -- instead of putting down the whole of each subject at once. -- My Health is an insuperable Objection to my plan, I admit -- & one insuper. Ob. is enough. Else the Plan [is] feasible -- & equally adapted to you, as to me. -- God bless you & your affect. S. T. [C.] 511. To Sir George and Lady Beaumont Address: Sir George Beaumont, Baronet, | at the | Right Honorable Lord Lowther's, | Lowther Hall | Penrith -- MS. Pierpont Morgan Lib. Pub. with omis. Memorials of Coleorton, ed. by William Knight, 2 vols., 1887, i. 1. Greta Hall, Keswick. Friday, Aug. 12. 1803 Dear Sir George and Lady Beaumont I returned, an hour and a half after your departure, with Hartley and Derwent, & with Wordsworth, his Wife, Sister, and the Baby. On Wednesday Afternoon, just when the Weather had cleared up, & we were preparing to set off, Miss Wordsworth was taken ill -- one of her bilious Attacks brought on by the hurry & bustle of packing &c: and I myself was too unwell to walk home. There is a something in all the good & deep emotions of our nature, that would ever prevent me from purposely getting out of the way of them -- it was painful to me to anticipate that you would be gone, painful to find that you were gone; and I only endeavored to satisfy myself with the thought, that it would have been more painful to have taken leave of you --. It will give a lasting Interest to the Drawing of the Waterfall, that I first saw it through tears. I was indeed unwell and sadly nervous; and I must not be ashamed to confess to you, my honoured Friends! that I found a bodily relief in weeping, and yielded to it. -- On Tuesday Evening Mr Rogers, the author of the Pleasures of Memory, drank Tea & spent the evening, with us at Grasmere -- & this had produced a very unpleasant effect on my Spirits. Wordsworth's mind & body are both of a stronger texture than mine; & he was amused with the envy, the jealousy, & the other miserable Passions, that have made their Pandaemonium in the crazy Hovel of that poor Man's Heart -- but I was downright melancholy at the sight. If to be a Poet or a Man of Genius entailed on us the necessity of housing such company in our bosoms, I would pray the very flesh off my knees to have a head as dark and unfurnished, as Wordsworth's old Molly has, if only I might have a heart as careless & as loving. -- But God be praised! -964- these unhappy Beings are neither Poets, nor men of Sense -- Enough of them! -- Forgive me, dear Sir George! but I could not help being pleased, that the Man disliked you & your Lady -- & he lost no time in letting us know it. If I believed it possible that the man liked me, upon my soul I should feel exactly as if I were tarred & feathered. -- I have a cowardly Dread of being hated even by bad men; but in this instance Disgust comes in to my assistance, & the greater Dread of being called Friend. -- I do seriously believe, that the chief cause of Wordsworth's & Southey's having been classed with me, as a School, originates entirely in our not hating or envying each other / it is so unusual, that three professed Poets, in every respect unlike each other, should nevertheless take pleasure in each other's welfare -- & reputation. What a refreshment of heart did I not find last night in Cowper's Letters. Their very defects suited me. Had they been of a higher class, as exhibitions of Intellect, they would have less satisfied the then craving of my mind. I had taken up the Book merely as connected with you; & had I hunted thro' all the Libraries of Oxford & Cambridge I should have found no one that would have been so delightful on it's own account. -- The Wordsworths are gone to Applethwait with Mrs Coleridge/ it would be no easy matter to say, how much they were delighted with the two Drawings, as two poems, how much affected by them, as marks of your kindness & attention. -- O dear Sir George! indeed, indeed my heart is very full toward you, & Lady Beaumont -- it is a very mixed feeling -- & Gratitude expresses but a small part of it. -- Poor little Derwent has been in such a Crowd, that he did not seem to know that you were gone, till this afternoon; when we two had the House to ourselves. Then he went to your Room, & he has been crying piteously -- 'Lady Beaumont's gone away, & I WILL be a naughty boy -- Lady Beaumont's gone away!' He is a very affectionate little fellow --. If my health permit, we are to commence our [to]ur on Monday/ but this is very uncertain. I have now no doubt, that my Complaint is atonic Gout -- & tho' the excitement & exercise, which the Journey will afford, would be of service to me, yet the chance of Rainy Weather & damp Beds is a very serious Business. I am rather better this evening; but I incline still to go to Malta with Stoddart, or to Madeira -- which I can do at the same expense as I can make the Scotch Tour. I shall settle this in the course of to morrow -- & by tomorrow's night post shall send you a large coarse Sheet, containing the Leech Gatherer which Miss Wordsworth has copied out -- & such of my own verses as appeared to please you --. I have written a strange rambling Letter -- for in truth I have written under a sort of perplexity of moral feeling -- my head prompting respect, -965- my heart confident affectionateness -- the one tells me, it is my first Letter to you, the other lets me know that unless I write to you as old friends I can not write to you at all. -- Be so good therefore as with your wonted kindness to think of this Letter as of a sort of awkward Bow on entering a room/ I shall find myself more at my ease when I have sate down. -- Believe me, I write every day words with no every day feeling when I subscribe myself, dear Sir George, and dear Lady Beaumont, with affectionate Esteem your obliged and grateful S. T. Coleridge 512. To Sir George and Lady Beaumont Address: Single Sheet. | Sir George Beaumont, Baronet, | at the | Right Honorable Lord Lowther's | Lowther Hall | Penrith. MS. Pierpont Morgan Lib. Pub. B. Ifor Evans, Coleorton Manuscripts of "Resolution and Independence" and "Ode to Dejection", Modern Language Review, July-October 1951, p. 355. Coleridge's letter is preceded by a copy of Resolution and Independence transcribed by Dorothy Wordsworth and an incomplete version of Dejection in Coleridge's handwriting. Mr. Evans points to 'the confirmation of the close relationship of Wordsworth's poem with that of Coleridge by their presentation in this joint form to the Beaumonts'; while Professor Meyer, in a careful study of the first draft of Dejection, composed on 4 April 1802, and of Resolution and Independence, begun on 8 May 1802, suggests that Wordsworth's poem 'is an answer to Coleridge's'. (Cf. B. Ifor Evans, op. cit. 355, and George W. Meyer , Resolution and Independence: Wordsworth's Answer to Coleridge Dejection: An Ode', Tulane Studies in English, ii, 1950, p. 66.) Stamped: Keswick. Saturday Night. [ 13 August 1803] There was a roaring in the wind all night; 1 The rain came heavily, & fell in floods; But now the sun is rising calm and bright, The birds are singing in the distant woods; Over his own sweet voice the stock dove broods, The jay makes answer as the magpie chatters; And all the air is fill'd with pleasant noise of waters. All things that love the sun are out of doors; The sky rejoices in the morning's birth, The grass is bright with rain-drops, on the moors The hare is running races in her mirth, And with her feet she from the plashy earth Raises a mist, which, glittering in the sun, Runs with her all the way wherever she doth run. ____________________ 1 Poet. Works, ii. 285. This version of Resolution and Independence differs considerably from that of the published text. -966- I was a Traveller then upon the Moor, I saw the hare that rac'd about with joy, I heard the woods and distant waters roar, Or heard them not, as happy as a Boy; The pleasant season did my heart employ, My old remembrances went from me wholly, And all the ways of men so vain and melancholy. But, as it sometimes chanceth from the might Of joy in minds that can no farther go, As high as we have mounted in delight In our dejection do we sink as low To me that morning did it happen so; And fears and fancies thick upon me came, Dim sadness & blind thoughts I knew not, nor could name. I heard the sky-lark singing in the sky And I bethought me of the playful hare; Even such a happy Child of earth am I, Even as these happy creatures do I fare; Far from the world I walk & from all care But there may come another day to me; Solitude, pain of heart, distress and poverty. My whole life I have liv'd in pleasant thought As if life's business were a summer mood, And they who liv'd in genial faith found nought That grew more willingly than genial good But how can he expect that others should Build for him, sow for him, and at his call Love him who for himself will take no heed at all. I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous Boy, The sleepless soul who perish'd in his pride: Of him who walk'd in glory and in joy Behind his plough upon the mountain side; By our own spirits are we deified: We Poets in our youth begin in gladness; But thereof comes in the end despondency & madness. Now whether it was by peculiar grace, A leading from above, a something given, Yet it befel that in that lonely place, When up and down my fancy thus was driven, -967- And I with these untoward thoughts had striven, I spied a Man before me unawares; The oldest Man lie seem'd that ever wore grey hairs. My course I stopp'd as soon as I espied The Old Man in that naked wilderness; Close by a Pond upon the hither side He stood alone: a minute's space, [I gue]ss, I watch'd him, he continuing motionless. To the Pool's further margin then I drew, He all the while before me being full in view. As a huge stone is sometimes seen to lie Couch'd on the bald top of an eminence, Wonder to all that do the same espy, By what means it could thither come & whence; So that it seems a thing endued with sense, Like a Sea-beast crawl'd forth, which on a Shelf Of rock or sand reposeth, there to sun itself. Such seem'd this Man, not all alive nor dead, Nor all asleep; in his extreme old age His body was bent double, feet and head Coming together in their pilgrimage; As if some dire constraint of pain, or rage Of sickness felt by him in times long past A more than human weight upon his age had cast. Himself he propp'd, both body, [limb, and face,] 1 Upon a long grey staff of shaven woo[d], And still as I drew near with gentle pace Beside the little Pond or moorish flood Motionless as a cloud the Old Man stood, That heareth not the loud winds when they call, And moveth altogether if it moves at all. He wore a Cloak the same as women wear As one whose blood did needful comfort lack; His face look'd pale as if it had grown fair, And furthermore he had upon his back Beneath his Cloak a round & bulky Pack, A load of wool or raiment as might seem That on his shoulders lay as if it clave to him. ____________________ 1 MS. torn. -968- At length, himself unsettling, he the Pond Stirr'd with his staff, & fixedly did look Upon the muddy water which he conn'd As if he had been reading in a book; And now such freedom as I could I took And, drawing to his side, to him did say, 'This morning gives us promise of a glorious day.' A gentle answer did the Old Man make In courteous speech which forth he slowly drew; And him with further words I thus bespake, 'What kind of work is that which you pursue? 'This is a lonesome place for one like you.' He answerd me with pleasure & surprize, And there was while he spake a fire about his eyes. His words came feebly from a feeble chest, Yet each in solemn order follow'd each With something of a pompous utterance drest, Choice word & measur'd phrase, beyond the reach Of ordinary men, a stately speech, Such as grave livers do in Scotland use, Religious Men who give to God & Man their dues. He told me that he to the Pond had come To gather Leeches, being old and poor, That 'twas his calling, better far than some, Though he had many hardships to endure: From Pond to Pond he roam'd, from Moor to Moor, Housing with God's good help by choice or chance, And in this way he gain'd an honest maintenance. The Old Man still stood talking by my side, But soon his voice to me was like a stream Scarce heard, nor word from word could I divide, And the whole body of the Man did seem Like [one w]hom I had met with in a dream; Or like a Man from some far region sent To give me human strength, & strong admonishment. My former thoughts return'd, the fear that kills, The hope that is unwilling to be fed, Cold, pain, and labour, & all fleshly ills, And mighty Poets in their misery dead; -969- And now, not knowing what the Old Man had said, My question eagerly did I renew, 'How is it that you live? & what is it you do?' He with a smile did then his words repeat And said, that wheresoe'er they might be spied He gather'd Leeches, stirring at his feet The waters in the Ponds where they abide. Once he could meet with them on every side; But fewer they became from day to day, And so his means of life before him died away. While he was talking thus the lonely place, The Old Man's shape & speech all troubl'd me; In my mind's eye I seem'd to see him pace About the weary Moors continually, Wandering about alone and silently. While I these thoughts within myself pursu'd, He, having made a pause, the same discourse renew'd. And now with this he other matter blended Which he deliver'd with demeanor kind, Yet stately in the main; & when he ended I could have laugh'd myself to scorn to find In that decrepit Man so firm a mind; 'God,' said I, 'be my help & stay secure! 'I'll think of the Leech-gatherer on the lonely Moor.['] Dejection, an Ode. 1 -- (Imperfect) April 4th, 1802 'Late, late yestreen I saw the new Moon 'With the old Moon in her Arm, And I fear, I fear, my dear Mastér, 'We shall have a deadly Storm.['] THE BALLAD OF SIR PAT. SPENCE. 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 and rakes Amid the Strings of this Eolian Lute, Which better far were mute! ____________________ 1 Poems, i. 362. -970- 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 and squally Blast! And O! that even now the Gust were swelling, And the slant Night-shower driving loud & fast! Those Sounds which oft have rais'd me while they aw'd And sent my Soul abroad, Might now perhaps their wonted Influence give, Might startle this dull Pain, and make it move and live. A Grief without a Pang, void, dark, and drear, A stifled, drowsy, unimpassion'd Grief, That finds no natural Outlet, no Relief In Word, or Sigh, or Tear -- O dearest William! in this heartless Mood To other Thoughts by yonder Throstle woo'd, All this long Eve, so balmy and serene, Have I been gazing on the western sky And it's celestial Tint of yellow green -- And still I gaze! and with how blank an eye! And those thin Clouds, above, in flakes and bars, That give away their motions to the Stars; Those Stars, that glide behind them or between, Now sparkling, now bedimmd, but always seen; Yon crescent moon, as fix'd as if it grew In it's own starless cloudless Lake of Blue; 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 and the Life, whose Fountains are within! O William! we receive but what we give: And in our Life alone does Nature live. Our's is her Wedding-garment, our's her Shroud! -971- And would we aught behold of higher Worth Than that inanimate cold World allow'd To the poor loveless ever-anxious Crowd -- Ah! 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 potent 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 doth it exist, This Light, this Glory, this fair luminous Mist, This beautiful, and beauty-making Power? Joy, dearest Bard! but such as ne'er was given Save to the Pure, and in their purest Hour, Joy, effluent, & mysterious, is the Power 1 Which wedding Nature to us gives in Dower A new Earth and new Heaven Undreamt of by the Sensual and the Proud! This 2 is the sweet Voice, This2 the luminous Cloud, Our hidden Selves rejoice! 3 And thence flows all that charms or Ear or Sight, All Melodies the echoes of that Voice, All Colours a Suffusion from that Light! Yes, dearest William! Yes! There was a Time, when tho' my Path was rough, This 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 Fruits and Foliage, not my own, seem'd mine. But now Afflictions bow me down to Ear[th:] Nor care 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! ____________________ 1 Joy, is the Spirit and mysterious Power [Cancelled version of line above.] 2 Joy [Cancelled word in line above.] 3 We, we ourselves, rejoice! [Cancelled version of line above.] -972- I am so weary of this doleful Poem that I must leave off / & the other Poems I will transcribe in a Sheet by themselves. 1 -- I have been very ill -- & it is well for those about me, that in these visitations of the Stomach my Disgusts combine with myself & my own Compositions -- not with others or the works of others.------I received the Applethwaite Writings from the Lawyer, made over to W. Wordsworth in due form, with much parchment Parade. 2 -- I have consulted Mr Edmondson as to the safety & propriety of my going into Scotland in an open Carriage. He is confident, that he can relieve me by the use of Carminative Bitters -- & that the Exercise &c will be highly beneficial. I shall probably try it therefore / but shall stay two days to enable myself to guess at the effect of the Bitters -- & the Steel Medicine. -- All are well: & Wordsworth['s] most respectful & affectionate Remembrances I am to convey to you, in terms as warm as respect & propriety will permit me. But Heaven bless me! I am a wretched Hand at apportioning these Things! -- I trust, that you are both pretty well -- My wishes, my prayers, are your's -- and I remain, dear Sir George, and | dear Lady, Beaumont, | with affectionate & grateful respect & esteem | Your's most sincerely, S. T. Coleridge John Fisher, Wordsworth's Neighbour, on reading Lord Lowther's circulatory Paper exclaimed to me -- [']Well, Mr Coleridge! they shall do me na Injury, till they have kill't me! I'll feet (fight) till I dee (die) -- & I'll dé with Honor.' He is a Shoemaker -- a fine enthusiastic noble minded Creature -- who has got a Son, his only one, in the Army. -- Peggy Ashburner, another Neighbour, on reading the little Pamphlet sent to the Minister of the Parish -- cries out -- Lord bless a' (pronounce it as au) -- Lord bless a', and pray God! why, it is eneugh to freeten yan to Deeth! -- And truly that Pamphlet is an over-dose of Stimulus. -- ____________________ 1 See Letter 521. 2 Beaumont had 'purchased a small property at Applethwaite, about three miles to the west [north] of Greta Hall, . . . and presented it to Wordsworth, whom as yet he had not seen'. Writing to Wordsworth in Oct. 1808, Beaumont says; 'I had a most ardent desire to bring you and Coleridge together. I thought with pleasure on the increase of enjoyment you would receive from the beauties of Nature, by being able to communicate more frequently your sensations to each other.' Memorials of Coleorton, i, pp. xii-xiii. -973- 513. To Robert Southey Address: Mr Southey | St James's Parade | Kingsdown | Bristol MS. Lord Latymer. Pub. with omis. E. L. G. i. 268. Stamped: Penrith. Sunday, Aug. 14. 1808 My dear Southey Your Letter affected me very deeply: I did not feel it so much the two first Days, as I have since done. I have been very ill, & in serious dread of a paralytic Stroke in my whole left Side. Of my disease there now remains no Shade of Doubt: it is a compleat & almost heartless Case of Atonic Gout. If you would look into the Article Medicine, in the Encyc. Britt. Vol. XI. Part 1. -- No 213. -p. 181. -- & the first 5 paragraphs of the second Column / you will read almost the very words, in which, before I had seen this Article, I had described my case to Wordsworth. -- The only nonagreement is -- 'an imaginary aggravation of the slightest Feelings, & an apprehension of danger from them.' -- The first sentence is unphilosophically expressed / there is a state of mind, wholly unnoticed, as far as I know, by any Physical or Metaphysical Writer hitherto, & which yet is necessary to the explanation of some of the most important phaenomena of Sleep & Disease / it is a transmutation of the succession of Time into the juxtaposition of Space, by which the smallest Impulses, if quickly & regularly recurrent, aggregate themselves -- & attain a kind of visual magnitude with a correspondent Intensity of general Feeling. -- The simplest Illustration would be the circle of Fire made by whirling round a live Coal -- only here the mind is passive. Suppose the same effect produced ab intra -- & you have a clue to the whole mystery of frightful Dreams, & Hypochondriacal Delusions. -- I merely hint this; but I could detail the whole process, complex as it is. -Instead of 'an imaginary aggravation &c' it would be better to say -- 'an aggregation of slight Feelings by the force of a diseasedly retentive Imagination.' -- As to the apprehension of Danger -- it would belong to my Disease, if it could belong to me. But Sloth, Carelessness, Resignation -- in all things that have reference to mortal Life -- is not merely in me; it is me. (Spite of Grammar -i.e. Lowth's 1 -- for I affirm, that in such instances 'it is me,' is genuine English & philosophical Grammar.) -- Mr Edmondson, whom I have consulted on the possibility or propriety of my tour into Scotland, recommends it. He is confident -- O that I were -that by the use of Carminative Bitters I may get rid of this truly poisonous, & body-&-soul-benumming Flatulence and Inflation: ____________________ 1 Robert Lowth, A Short Introduction to English Grammar, 1762. -974- & that if I can only get on, the Exercise & the Excitement will be of so much service as to outweigh the chances of Injury from Wet or Cold. I will therefore go: tho' I never yet commenced a Journey with such inauspicious Heaviness of Heart before. We -Wordsworth, Dorothy, and myself -- leave Keswick tomorrow morning. 1 We have bought a stout Horse -- aged but stout & spirited -- & an open vehicle, called a Jaunting Car -- there is room in it for 8 on each side, on hanging seats -- a Dicky Box for the Driver / & a space or hollow in the middle, for luggage -- or two or three Bairns. -- It is like half a long Coach, only those in the one seat sit with their back to those in the other / instead of face to face. -- Your feet are not above a foot -- scarcely so much -- from the ground / so that you may get off & on while the Horse is moving without the least Danger / there are all sorts of Conveniences in it /. We came from Grasmere last Thurday in it -- Wordsworth in the Dicky -- Dorothy, Mrs Wordsworth, our Mary, I, Hartley, Derwent, & Johnney Wordsworth / & this morning the same party -- only instead of me Mrs Coleridge & Sara / are gone to set Mrs Wordsworth 7 miles of the way on to Grasmere. -- What a nice Thing for us, if you & Edith were to take the other half of this House -- & my Health gave any probability of my stay in England. But I swear by my Maker, that I will no longer trifle. I will try this Tour / if I cannot bear it -- I shall return from Glasgow/ -- will try the new Gout Medicine / & you would be doing me an essential Service, if you would call on Dr Beddoes -- say, that I had long meditated a very long Letter to him on subjects, which have interested us both, in the shape of friendly remarks on his Hygeia / but I was hurried off from Gunville, where the Book was -- & partly the not having the Book to refer to, tho' I have the most thing-like Recollections of it's contents -- & far far more, the miserable State of my Health -- & the quantity, I wished to say -- have prevented me/ -- & now I am ashamed to write on a mere selfish Concern. -- I read his Pamphlet on the new Medicine with sincere admiration/. With the single exception of the last Page, it seemed to me to have all the character- ____________________ 1 In a letter postmarked 25 Aug. 1803 Mrs. Coleridge has this to say to Southey: 'Last Monday [15 Aug.] my husband, W. Wordsworth, and D. W. set off for Scotland in an Irish-Car and one horse -- W. is to drive all the way, for poor Samuel is too weak to undertake the fatigue of driving -- he was very unwell when he went off, and was to return in the Mail if he grew worse. . . . I hope he will be able to go for if the weather be tolerable it will do him much good, so Mr. Edmondson thinks. . . . My husband is a good man -- his prejudices -and his prepossessions sometimes give me pain, but we have all a somewhat to encounter in this life -- I should be a very, very happy Woman if it were not for a few things -- and my husband's ill health stands at the head of these evils!' MS. Lord Latymer. -975- istic excellencies of his manner clarified from his characteristic Defects -- I have been made to understand, that this new medicine is not to be procured without great Difficulty from the Empiric, nor without very heavy Expence / however whatever the expence be, I will give it one Trial -- & should be very greatly obliged to Dr Beddoes if he would desire Mr Wells to send down a sufficient Quantity of the Medicine, if he think it likely to be serviceable in a clear Case of atonic Gout / a case of capricious Appetite -indigestion / costiveness that makes my evacuations at times approach in all the symptoms to the pains of Labor -- viz -- distortion of Body from agony, profuse & streaming Sweats, & fainting -- at other times, looseness with griping -- frightful Dreams with screaming -- breezes of Terror blowing from the Stomach up thro' the Brain / always when I am awakened, I find myself stifled with wind / & the wind the manifest cause of the Dream / frequent paralytic Feelings -- sometimes approaches to Convulsion fit -- three times I have wakened out of these frightful Dreams, & found my legs so locked into each other as to have left a bruise -- / Sometimes I am a little giddy; but very seldom have the Headach / And on the whole my Head is wonderfully clear, considering -- tho' less so than in an earlier Stage of the Disease / & this being the strongest part of my Constitution, when that goes, all goes -- / My hands & fingers occasionally swell -- my feet are often inflamed / with pulsations in the Toes -- & twice last week I was lame in my left Leg, & the ancle was swoln / but these inflammatory Symptoms soon go off. My Mouth is endlessly full of water -- itself no small Persecution -- but above all, the asthmatic Stuffing -- which forms a true suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. -- I live very temperately -- drinking only one tumbler of Brandy & Water in the 24 hours / -- but when I awake screaming, I take Tea or Coffee, with an egg & a good deal of Cayenne Pepper / which seems to procure me ease & sometimes Sleep -- tho' no doubt it injures me in the long run. But what can I do ? -- I am sure, if Dr Beddoes lived near me, or in the same house with me, he would soften down his opinions respecting the inefficiency of Climate in Gout Cases. The effects of weather are to the full as palpable upon me, as upon the little Old Lady & Gentleman in the weather Box -- or on the Sea Weed in the Barber's Shop. However, my dear Southey! do call on Dr Beddbes -- & read such parts of this Letter to him, as you think fit -- Say, that I would have written to him formally as to a Physician; but that never having done so, if I should send a fee, it would seem as if I were willing to forget all his prior kindness to me, & all my Obligations to him for the many Letters of medical advice which he has heretofore sent me, as the richer Man to the Poorer. It is neither my -976- Theory nor my Practice to do any thing from Gratitude; but if I live & regain my powers of manifesting my Powers, I will act with Gratitude: for indeed Dr Beddoes has been very kind to me / & I am often uncomfortable in my inner feelings at having permitted myself to be affected by little calumnious tittle-tattle respecting him -- instead of daring to tell him with equal simplicity & honest zeal, wherein he is truly great & useful, & wherein he manifestly injures his own powers of benefiting his Fellow-Creatures.-----What I want is to have a quantity of the Gout Medicine sent to Greta Hall, Keswick, Cumberland -- by the waggon either from London or Bristol -- so that on my return from Scotland I may find it here. Whatever the expence may be, do you defray it for me / & I will remit you the money within a week of the receipt of your Letter which shall inform me of the Amount. -- If this fail, I then, by God! go off to Malta or Madeira / Madeira is the better place; but Stoddart is gone to Malta with a wife, with a place of 1500£ a year -- & has given me a very kind Invitation/ -- You had better write to me, the Post Office, Edingburgh. -- I shall write to you from Glasgow. -- Mrs C. is but middling: the children are quite well -- Derwent & Sara are as beautiful as Angels. I never saw a child so improved, as Sara is -- & she is quietness itself -- very lively, & joyous; but all in a quiet way of her own / She feeds on her Quietnesst, & 'has the most truly celestial expression of countenance, I ever beheld in a human Face.' -- Now I have set you the example, & you may give loose to the Father, & write about dear little Margaret. -- Only let me say, the words 'quoted' are Wordsworth's, not mine -- & Wordsworth's words always mean the whole of their possible Meaning. She h[as larg]e blue eyes.-- S. T. C. 514. To Mrs. S. T. Coleridge Address: Mrs Coleridge | Greta Hall | Keswick | Cumberland | S. Britain MS. Lord Latymer. Pub.with omis. Letters, i. 431. Stamped: Fort William. Friday Afternoon, 4 o clock. Sept. [ 2 1803] My dear Sara I write from the Ferry of Ball[achulish;] here a Letter may be lucky enough to go, & arrive at it's destination. This is the first Post, since the Day I left Glasgow-----we went thence to Dumbarton (look at Stoddart's Tour, where there is a very good view of Dumbarton Rock & Tower) thence to Loch Lomond, and a single House, called Luss -- horrible Inhospitality & a fiend of a Landlady! -- thence 8 miles up the Lake to E. Tarbet -- where the Lake is so like Ulswater, that I could scarcely see a difference / -977- crossed over the Lake, & by a desolate Moorland walked to another Lake, Loch Ketterin, up to a place called Trossachs, the Borrodale of Scotland & the only thing which really beats us -- You must conceive the Lake of Keswick pushing itself up, a mile or two, into Borrodale, winding round Castle Crag, & in & out among all the nooks & promontories -- & you must imagine all the mountains more detachedly built up, a general Dislocation -- every rock it's own precipice, with Trees young & old -- & this will give you some faint Idea of the Place -- of which the character is extreme intricacy of effect produced by very simple means -- one rocky high Island, four or 5 promontories, & a Castle Crag, just like that in the Gorge of Borrodale but not so large-- / ----. It rained all the way -- all the long long day -- we slept in a hay loft, that is, Wordsworth, I, and a young man who came in at the Trossachs & joined us -Dorothy had a bed in the Hovel which was varnished so rich with peat smoke, an apartment of highly polished [oak] would have been poor to it: it would have wanted the metallic Lustre of the smokevarnished Rafters. -- This was [the pleasantest] Evening, I had spent, since my Tour: for [ Wordsworth's] Hypochondriacal Feelings keep him silent, & [self]-centered --. The next day it still was rain & rain / the ferry boat was out for the Preaching -- & we stayed all day in the Ferry [house] to dry, wet to the skin / O such a wretched Hovel! -- but two highland Lasses who kept house in the absence of the Ferry man & his Wife, were very kind -- & one of them was beautiful as a Vision / & put both me & Dorothy in mind of the Highland Girl in William's Peter Bell. -- We returned to E. Tarbet, I with the rheumatism in my head / and now William proposed to me to leave them, & make my way on foot, to Loch Ketterin, the Trossachs, whence it is only 20 miles to Stirling, where the Coach runs thro' for Edingburgh -- He & Dorothy resolved to fight it out -- I eagerly caught at the Proposal: for the sitting in an open Carriage in the Rain is Death to me, and somehow or other I had not been quite comfortable. So on Monday I accompanied them to Arrochar, on purpose to see THE COB[B]LER, which had impressed me so much in Mr Wilkinson's Drawings -- & there I parted with them, having previously sent on all my Things to Edinburgh by a Glasgow Carrier who happened to be at E. Tarbet. The worst thing was the money -- they took 29 Guineas, and I six -- all our remaining Cash! I returned to E. Tarbet, slept there that night -the next day walked to the very head of Loch Lomond to Glen Falloch -- where I slept at a Cottage Inn, two degrees below John Stanley's but the good people were very kind -- meaning from hence to go over the mountain to the Head of Loch Ketterin again -- but hearing from the gude man of the House that it was -978- [40] miles to Glen Coe, of which I had formed an Idea from Wilkinson's Drawings -- & having found myself so happy alone -- such blessing is there in perfect Liberty! -- that I walked off -- and have walked 45 miles since then -- and except the last mile, I am sure, I may say, I have not met with ten houses. For 18 miles there are but 2 Habitations! -- and all that way I met no Sheep, no Cattle -only one Goat! -- all thro' Moorlands with huge mountains, some craggy & bare, but the most green with deep pinky channels worn by Torrents --. Glen Coe interested me; but rather disappointed me -- there was no superincumbency of Crag, the Crags not so bare or precipitous, as I had expected / -- / I am now going to cross the Ferry for Fort William -- for I have resolved to eke out my Cash by all sorts of self-denial, & to walk along the whole line of the Forts. I am unfortunately shoeless -- there is no Town where I can get a pair, & I have no money to spare to buy them -- so I expect to enter Perth Barefooted -- I burnt my shoes indrying them at the Boatman's Hovel on Loch Ketterin/ and I have by this mean hurt my heel -likewise my left Leg is a little inflamed / & the Rheumatism in the right of my head afflicts me sorely when I begin to grow warm in my bed, chiefly, my right eye, ear, cheek, & the three Teeth / but nevertheless, I am enjoying myself, having Nature with solitude & liberty; the liberty natural & solitary, the solitude natural & free! -----But you must contrive somehow or other to borrow 10£ -- or if that cannot be -- 5£, for me -- & send it without delay, directed to me at [the Pos]t office, Perth. I guess, I shall be there [in 7] days, or 8 at the furthest -- & your Letter will be two days getting thither (counting the day you put it in to the Office at Keswick as nothing) -- so you must calculate / and if this Letter does not reach you in time -- i.e. within 5 days from the Date hereof -- you must then direct the Letter to Edingburgh / (I will make 5£ do. You must borrow it of Mr Jackson. --) & I must beg my way for the last 3 or 4 days! -- It is useless repining; but if I had set off myself, in the Mail for Glasgow or Stirling, & so gone by foot as I am now doing, I should have saved 25£; but then Wordsworth would have lost it.-----. I have said nothing of you or my dear Children -- God bless us all! -I have but one untried misery to go thro' -- the Loss of Hartley or Derwent -- aye, or dear little Sara!-----In my health I am middling -- While I can walk 24 miles a day, with the excitement of new objects, I can support myself -- but still my Sleep & Dreams are distressful -- & I am hopeless; I take no opiates but when the Looseness with colic comes on; nor have [I] any Temptation: for since my Disorder has taken this asthm[atic turn,] opiates produce none but positively unplea[sant effects. S. T. C.] -979- 515. To Mrs. S. T. Coleridge Address: Mrs Coleridge | Greta Hall | Keswick | Cumberland | S. Britain. Single MS. Lord Latymer. Pub. E. L. G. i. 272. The bottom of each page of the holograph has been cut off. Stamped: Fort William. Saturday, Sept. 8. -- Fort William. 1803 My dear Sara I learnt at the Ferry that it would be safer to take my Letter with me to this place, as the same Post took it, & did not go off till early on Sunday Morning. -- I walked on very briskly, when now Night came on / my road lay all the way by a great Sea Lake, Rocks or Woods, or Rocks among woods close by my right hand, great mountains across the Sea on my left/ -- and now I had walked 28 miles in the course of the Day, when being thirsty I drank repeatedly in the palm of my hand, & thinking of writing to Sir G. Beaumont I was saying to myself -- this using one hand instead of a Cup has one disadvantage that one literally does not know when one has had enough -- and we leave off not because the Thirst is quench'd but because we are tired of Stooping. -- Soon after (in less than a furlong) -- a pain & intense sense of fatigue fell upon me, especially within my Thighs -- & great Torture in my bad Toe -- However I dragged myself along; but when I reached the Town, I was forced to lean on the man that shewed me my Inn (to which I had been recommended by a Dr Hay Drummond who met me at Kingshouse, & created an acquaintance in the most farcical manner imaginable --) Mrs Munro, the Landlady, had no room at all -- and I could not stand -- however she sent a boy with me to another little Inn, which I entered -- & sitting down. . . an affair altogether of the Body, not of the mind -- that I had, it was true, a torturing pain in all my limbs, but that this had nothing to do with my Tears which were hysterical & proceeded from the Stomach -- / Just as I had said this, a kind old man came in to me, who had crossed the Ferry with me, & being on horseback had been here half an hour before me / and I had had some chat with him in the Boat, told him of the Gout in my Stomach, & that this Tour was an experiment for Exercise -- &c -- / ['] I never saw a man, ['] says he, ['] walk so well or so briskly as this young Gentleman did -- and indeed he must have done so, for I rode as hard as I could, & yet have not been in much more than ½ an hour -- or three quarters.' -I told him with faltering voice that I should have been in half an hour sooner, but that the last mile & a half I could scarcely drag my Limbs along: & that the Fatigue had come upon me all at once. -- 'WHOO! WHOO! WHOO!' says the old man -- ['] you drank water -980- by the road-side then ?['] -- I said, yes I-----'And you have Gout in the Stomach -- / indeed, but you are in peril.' -- By this time they had gotten me a dish of Tea; but before I could touch it, my Bowels were seized violently, & there. . . Gallon of nasty water-----and so went to bed. Had a Bason of hot Tea brought up to me -- slept very soon, and more soundly than I have done since I have been in Scotland. I find myself a little stiffish, this morning / 30 miles was perhaps too much for one day -- yet I am positive, I should not have felt it, but for that unfortunate Drench of Water! -- I might have gone on; but I wished to have a Shirt & Stockings washed / I have but one pair of Stockings -- & they were so clotted & full of holes that it was a misery to sit with them on/. So I have sent them, & sit with none. -- I had determined to buy a pair of Shoes whatever befell me, in the way of money distresses; but there are none in the Town ready made -- so I shall be obliged to go as far as Inverness with these -- perhaps to Perth / & I speak in the simplest earnest when I say, that I expect I shall be forced to throw them away before I get to Inverness, & to walk barefoot -- My bad great Toe, on my left Foot, is a sore Annoyance to me. -- I am bepuzzled about this money. This Letter will not reach you, I fear, till Wednesday Night -- However, you must at all events send me the money (I can & will make 5£ do) Mr Coleridge, to be left at the Post Office, Perth, N. Britain. -- I have been so particular in my account of that hysterical Attack, because this is now the third seizure / & the first from mere physical causes. The two former were the effect of agitated Feelings. -- I am sure, that neither Mr Edmondson nor you have any adequate notion, how seriously ill I am. If the Complaint does not settle -- & very soon too -- in my extremities, I do not see how it will be possible for me to avoid a paralytic or apoplectic Stroke. . . .moment. . . 1 I have no heart to speak of the Children! -- God have mercy on them; & raise them up friends when I am in the Grave. -- Remember me affectionately to Mr Jackson and to Mrs Wilson. -- Remember me too to Mr Wilkinson & Mrs W. -- & tell Mr W. that if I return in tolerable Health, I anticipate a high Feast in looking over his [Drawings.]. . . him for flattering. . . ____________________ 1 Five and a half lines heavily inked out at the top of page 4 of the manuscript. -981- 516. To Robert Southey Address: Single Sheet | Mrs Coleridge | Greta Hall | Keswick | Cumberland | S. Britain For Mr Southey. MS. Lord Latymer. Pub.with omis. Letters, i. 434. This letter and the one following were written on the same sheet. Coleridge wrote to both Southey and Mrs. Coleridge from Perth; then on his arrival in Edinburgh the next day, he added a postscript to his letter to Mrs. Coleridge and posted the sheet containing both letters. Postmark: 12 September 1803. [ Perth,] Sunday Night, 9 o clock -- Sept. 10 [11]. 1803 My dearest Southey I arrived here half an hour ago -- & have only read your Letters -- scarce read them. -- O dear friend! it is idle to talk of what I feel -- I am stunned at present -- & this beginning to write makes a beginning of living feeling within me. Whatever Comfort I can be to you, I will. -- I have no Aversions, no dislikes, that interfere with you -- whatever is necessary or proper for you, becomes ipso facto agreeable to me. I will not stay a day in Edinburgh -- or only one to hunt out my clothes. I can[not] chit chat with Scotchmen, while you are at Keswick, childless. -- Bless you, my dear Southey I I will knit myself far closer to you than I have hitherto done -- & my children shall be your's till it please God to send you another.----- I have been a wild Journey -- taken up for a spy & clapped into Fort Augustus -- & I am afraid, they may [have] frightened poor Sara, by sending her off a scrap of a Letter, I was writing to her. -- I have walked 268 miles in eight Days -- so I must have strength somewhere / but my spirits are dreadful, owing entirely to the Horrors of every night -- I truly dread to sleep / it is no shadow with me, but substantial Misery foot-thick, that makes me sit by my bedside of a morning, & cry --. I have abandoned all opiates except Ether be one; & that only in fits -- & that is a blessed medicine! -- & when you see me drink a glass of Spirit & Water, except by prescription of a physician, you shall despise me -- but still I can not get quiet rest -- When on my bed my limbs I lay, 1 It hath not been my use to pray With moving Lips or bended Knees; But silently, by slow degrees, My spirit I to Love compose, In humble trust my eyelids close, ____________________ 1 Poems, i. 889. These lines, in revised form, were first published in the Christabel volume of 1816 as The Pains of Sleep. -982- With reverential Resignation, No Wish conceiv'd, no Thought exprest, Only a Sense of Supplication, A Sense o'er all my soul imprest That I am weak, yet not unblest: Since round me, in me, every where, Eternal Strength & Goodness are! -- But yesternight I pray'd aloud In Anguish & in Agony, Awaking from the fiendish Crowd Of Shapes & Thoughts that tortur'd me! Desire with Loathing strangely mixt, On wild or hateful Objects fixt: Pangs of Revenge, the powerless Will, Still baffled, & consuming still, Sense of intolerable Wrong, And men whom I despis'd made strong Vain-glorious Threats, unmanly Vaunting, Bad men my boasts & fury taunting 1 Rage, sensual Passion, mad'ning Brawl, And Shame, and Terror over all! Deeds to be hid that were not hid, Which, all confus'd I might not know, Whether I suffer'd or I did: For all was Horror, Guilt & Woe, My own or others, still the same, Life-stifling Fear, Soul-stifling Shame! Thus two nights pass'd: the Night's Dismay Sadden'd and stunn'd the boding Day. I fear'd to sleep: Sleep seem'd to be Disease's worst malignity. The third night when my own loud Scream Had freed 2 me from the fiendish Dream, O'ercome by Sufferings dark & wild, I wept as I had been a Child -- And having thus by Tears subdued My Trouble to a milder mood -- ____________________ 1 Sense of intolerable Wrong, Vain-glorious Threats, unmanly Vaunting, Revenge still baffled by a Throng Of insults then my fury taunting; [Cancelled version of the four lines above.] 2 wak'd [Cancelled word in line above.] -983- Such Punishment[s], I thought, were due To Natures, deepliest stain'd with Sin, Still to be stirring up anew The self-created Hell within; The Horror of their Crimes to view, To know & loathe, yet wish & do! With such let Fiends make mockery -- But I--O wherefore this on me? Frail is my Soul, yea, strengthless wholly, Unequal, restless, melancholy; But free from Hate, & sensual Folly! To live belov'd is all I need, And whom I love, I love indeed 1 " -- & &c &c &c &c &c -- I do not know how I came to scribble down these verses to you -- my heart was aching, my head all confused -- but they are, doggrels as they may be, a true portrait of my nights. -- What to do, I am at a loss: -- for it is hard thus to be withered, having the faculties & attainments, which I have. -- We will soon meet -- & I will do all I can to console poor dear Edith. -- O dear dear Southey! my head is sadly confused. After a rapid walk of 33 miles your Letters have had the effect of perfect intoxication on my head & eyes -- Change! change! change! -- O God of Eternity! when shall we all be at rest in thee ? -- S. T. Coleridge. 517. To Mrs. S. T. Coleridge MS. Lord Latymer. Pub. E. L. G. i. 274. Postmark: 12 September 1803. [ Perth, 11 September 1803] For Mrs Coleridge. 2 My dearest Sara I was writing to you from Fort Augustus when the Governor & his wise Police Constable seized me & my Letter -- Since then I have ____________________ 1 In an unpublished letter of 1814 Coleridge quotes a fragment of this poem in greatly amended form. He says the lines are from a poem entitled Diseased Sleep and composed in 1803, and adds that they were 'part of a long letter in verse written to a friend, while I yet remained ignorant that the direful sufferings, I so complained of, were the mere effects of Opium, which I even to that hour imagined a sort of Guardian Genius to me!' In the 1814 letter Coleridge says the lines are 'an exact and most faithful portraiture of the state of my mind under influences of incipient bodily derangement from the use of Opium, at the time that I yet remained ignorant of the cause, & still mighty proud of my supposed grand discovery of Laudanum, as the Remedy or Palliative of Evils, which itself had mainly produced'. 2 See headnote to preceding letter. -984- written to nobody. On my return, if God grant! we will take the Map of Scotland, & by help of my pocket Book I will travel my rout over again, from place to place. It has been an instructive tho' melancholy Tour. -- At Fort Augustus I got a pair of Shoes -- the day before I had walked 36 miles, 20 the WORST in conception, & up a Mountain -- so that in point of effort it could not be less than 46 miles / the shoes were all to pieces / and three of my Toes were skinless, & I had a very promising Hole in my Heel. -- Since the new Shoes I have walked on briskly -- from 80 to 85 miles a day, day after day -- & three days I lived wholly on Oat cake, Barley Bannock, Butter, & the poorest of all poor Skim-milk Cheeses -- & still I had horrors at night! -- I mention all this to shew you, that I have strength somewhere -- and at the same time, how deeply this Disease must have rooted itself. -- I wrote you my last Letter, overclouded by Despondency -- say rather, in a total eclipse of all Hope & Joy -- and as all things propagate their Like, you must not wonder, that Misery is a Misery-maker. But do you try, & I will try; & Peace may come at last, & Love with it. -- I have not heard of Wordsworth; nor he of me. He will be wondering what can have become of me --. --I have only read the first Letter -- & that part of Southey's, containing the 10£ note, which relates to himself -for they have stunned me -- and I am afraid of Hysterics, unless a fit of vomiting which I feel coming on, should as I hope it will, turn it off -- I must write no more / it is now 10 o clock / & I go off in the Mail at 4 in the Morning --. It went against the Grain to pay 18 shillings for what I could have made an easy Day's walk of: & but for my eagerness to be with dear Southey, I should certainly have walked from Edinburgh home / -- O Sara! dear Sara! -- try for all good Things in the spirit of unsuspecting Love / for miseries gather upon us. I shall take this Letter with me to Edinburgh -- & leave a space to announce my safe arrival, if so it please God. -- Good night, my sweet Children! S. T. Coleridge Monday Morning, 12 o clock. I am safe in Edinburgh -- & now going to seek out news about the Wordsworths & my Cloathes -- I do not expect to stay here above this Day -- Dear Southey's Letter had the precise effect of intoxication by an overdose of some narcotic Drug -- weeping -vomiting -- wakefulness the whole night, in a sort of stupid sensuality of Itching from my Head to my Toes, all night. -- I had drunken only one pint of weak Porter the whole Day. -- This morning I have felt the soberness of grief. God bless you all, & S. T. Coleridge -- -985- 518. To A. Welles MS. New York Public Lib. Pub. E. L. G. i. 276. The condition of the manuscript indicates that it is a rough draft of the letter sent to Welles. Obviously Coleridge was pleased with his letter, for he told Southey: 'I was very much amused by Welles's Letter -- & have written him a droll one enough in returnof which, if I am not too lazy, I will take a Copy.' Letter 519. Welles's letter, which drew forth Coleridge's reply, reads in part: 'It is seldom that I feel more satisfaction in any action than I do in the one I am now ingaged in. A letter from Dr. Beddoes yesterday informed me you were gouty -- he need not have added that you wished to be cured -- for I should have supposed it. I have in my possession a kind of Nectar / for it removes pain, & of course promotes pleasure -- & may in the end immortalize -- me / which I freely offer to you. I will further add the prediction, founded on experience, that you may be relieved from the gout, & your general health improved into the bargain. For confirmation of this you may consult Sir Wilfred Lawson Bart. Brayton Hall Cockermouth, who is near you.' Tuesday: Feb. [September] 13. 1803. Edinburgh Dear Sir I have, but even now, received your very obliging Letter, which comforted as well as amused me. I will give the medicine the fullest, and fairest Trial, yield the most implicit obedience to your Instructions, and add to both every possible attention to Diet and Exercise. My Disorder I believe to be atonic Gout: my Sufferings are often sufficiently great by day; but by patience, effort of mind, and hard walking I can contrive to keep the Fiend at arm's length, as long as I am in possession of Reason & Will. But with Sleep my Horrors commence; & they are such, three nights out of four, as literally to stun the intervening Day, so that more often than otherwise I fall asleep, struggling to remain awake. Believe me, Sir! Dreams are no Shadows with me; but the real, substantial miseries of Life. If in consequence of your Medicine I should be at length delivered from these sore Visitations, my greatest uneasiness will then [be], how best & most fully I can evince my gratitude: -should I commence Preacher, raise a new Sect to your honor, & make, in short, a greater clamour in your favor, as the Antipodagra, 'that was to come, and is already in the world', than ever the Puritans did against the poor Pope, as the Antichrist -- Ho! all ye, who are heavy laden -- come, and draw waters of Healing from the Wells of Salvation. This in my own opinion I might say without impiety, for if to clear men's body [bodies] from Torture, Lassitude & Captivity, their understandings from mists & broodings, & their very hearts & souls from despair, if to enable them to go about their Duty steadily & quietly, to love God, & be chearful -- if all this be not a work of Salvation, I would fain be informed, what is. -- -986- Or I have thought of becoming theorizing Physician of demonstrations, (for that is the fashionable word) that all Diseases are to be arranged under Gout, as the Genus generalissimum / that all our faulty Laws, Regulations, national mismanagements, Rebellions, Invasions, Heresies, Seditions, not to mention public Squabbles & commissions of Bankruptcies have originated in the false Trains of Ideas introduced by diseased Sensations from the Stomach into the Brains of our Senators, Priests, & Merchants -- of our great & little men / hence to deduce, that all Diseases being Gout & your M. curing the G. your medicine must cure all Diseases -- then, joining party with Thomas Taylor, the Pagan (for whom I have already a sneaking affection on account of his devout Love of Greek) to re-introduce the Heathen Mythology, to detect in your per[son] another descent & metamorphosis of the God of the Sun, to erect a Temple to you, as Phoebo Sanatori; & if you have a Wife, to have her deified, by act of Parliament, under the name of the Nymph, Panacea. But probably it would not be agreeable to you to be taken up, like the Tibetan Delha Llama [Dalai Lama], and to be imprisoned during life * for a God. You would rather, I doubt not, find your deserved reward in an ample independent fortune, & your sublunary Immortalization in the praises, & thanks of good and sensible men: of all who have suffered in themselves or for others. -- And in sober earnest, my dear Sir! (dropping All Joke, to which your lively & enlivening Letter has led me) to this last reward I shall be most happy to become instrumental, by being first a proof, & ever after an evidence & zealous Witnesser, of the powers & virtues of your discovery. -- I leave Edinburgh tomorrow morning, having walked 263 miles in eight days in the hope of forcing the Disease into the extremities: & if the Coachman does not put an end to all my earthly Ills by breaking my neck, I shall be at Greta Hall, Keswick, Thursday Afternoon -- at which place I shall wait, with respectful Impatience, for a Letter & Parcel from you. In the mean time, dear Sir! accept the best Thanks & warmest wishes of your obliged & grateful | humble Servant S. T. Coleridge ____________________ * P.S. Great & well-founded however as your objection may be to my proposed national apotheosis of your Person, yet as whatever, Verse or Prose, I write hereafter, would be chiefly owing to the cure by you performed, at all events 'eris mihi magnus Apollo.['] -- [Note by S. T. C.] -987- 519. To Robert Southey Address: Robert Southey Esqre | Greta Hall | Keswick | Cumberland | S. Britain. MS. Lord Latymer. Pub.with omis. Letters, i. 437. Postmark: 13 September 1803. Edinburgh Tuesday Morning [ 18 September 1803] My dear Southey I wrote you a strange Letter, I fear: but in truth your's affected my wretched Stomach, & that my head in such a way, that I wrote mechanically in the wake of the first vivid Idea. No Conveyance left or leaves this place for Carlisle earlier than to morrow morning -- for which I have taken my place. If the Coachman do not turn Panaceist, and cure all my Ills by breaking my neck, I shall be at Carlisle on Wednesday Midnight -- & whether I shall go on in the Coach to Penrith, & walk from thence, or walk off from Carlisle at once, depends on 2 circumstances -- whether the Coach goes on with no other than a common Bait to Penrith, & whether -- if it should not do so -- I can trust my cloathes &c to the Coachman safely, to be left at Penrith -- There is but 8 miles difference in the walk -- & eight or nine Shillings difference in the expence. At all events, I trust, that I shall be with you on Thursday by dinner time, if you dine at ½ past 2 or 3 o clock. -- God bless you! I will go call on Elmsley. 1 -- What a wonderful City Edinburgh is! -- What alternation of Height & Depth! -- a city looked at in the polish'd back of a Brobdignag Spoon, held lengthways -- so enormously stretched-up are the Houses! -- When I first looked down on it, as the Coach drove in on the higher Street, I cannot express what I felt -- such a section of a wasp's nest, striking you with a sort of bastard Sublimity from the enormity & infinity of it's littleness -the infinity swelling out the mind, the enormity striking it with wonder. I think I have seen an old Plate of Montserrat, that struck me with the same feeling -- and I am sure, I have seen huge Quarries of Lime or Free-Stone, in which the Shafts or Strata have stood perpendicularly instead of horizontally, with the same high Thin Slices, & corresponding Interstices! -- I climbed last night to the Crags just below Arthur's Seat, itself a rude triangle-shaped bare Cliff, & looked down on the whole City & Firth, the Sun then setting behind the magnificent rock, crested by the Castle / -- the Firth was full of Ships, & I counted 54 heads of mountains, of which at last 44 were cones or pyramids -- the smokes rising up from ten thousand houses, each smoke from some one family -- it ____________________ 1 Peter Elmsley ( 1773-1825), classical scholar and college friend of Southey's. -988- was an affecting sight to me! -- I stood gazing at the setting Sun, so tranquil to a passing Look, & so restless & vibrating to one who looks stedfast; & then all at once turning my eyes down upon the City, it & all it's smokes & figures became all at once dipped in the brightest blue-purple -- such a sight that I almost grieved when my eyes recovered their natural Tone! -- Meantime Arthur's Crag, close behind me, was in dark blood-like Crimson -- and the Sharpshooters were below, exercising minutely, & had chosen that place on account of the fine Thunder-Echo, which indeed it would be scarcely possible for the Ear to distinguish from Thunder. The passing a day or two, quite unknown, in a strange City, does a man's heart good -- He rises 'a sadder and a wiser man.' -- I had not read that part in your second Letter requesting me to call on Elmsley -- else perhaps I should have been talking away instead of learning & feeling. Walter Scott is at Laswade, 5 or 6 miles from Edinburgh -- his House in Edinburgh is divinely situated -- it looks up a street, a new magnificent Street, full upon the Rock & the Castle, with it's zig-zag Walls like Painters' Lightning -- the other way down upon cultivated Fields, a fine expanse of water, either a Lake or not to be distinguished from one, & low pleasing Hills beyond -- the Country well-wooded & chearful. I faith, I exclaimed, the Monks formerly, but the Poets now, know where to fix their Habitations. -- There are about four Things worth going into Scotland for, to one who has been in Cumberland & Westmoreland / -- the view of all the Islands at the Foot of Loch Lomond from the Top of the highest Island, called Inch devannoc [Inchtavannach]: 2. the Trossachs at the foot of Loch Ketterin 3. The Chamber & anti-chamber of the Falls of Foyers -- (the Fall itself is very fine -- & so after Rain is White water Dash -- 7 miles below Keswick & very like it -- & how little difference in the feeling a great real difference in height makes, you know as well as I -- no Fall, of itself, perhaps can be worth go[ing] a long Journey to see, to him who has seen any Fall of Water, but the Pool, & whole Rent of the Mountain is truly magnificent --) 4th & lastly, the City of Edinburgh. -- Perhaps, I might add Glen Coe: it is at all events a good Make-weight -- & very well worth going to see, if a Man be a Tory & hate the memory of William the Third -- which I am very willing to do -- for the more of these fellows, dead & living, one hates, the less Spleen & Gall there remains for those, with whom one is likely to have any thing to do, in real Life. I was very much amused by Welles's Letter -- & have written him a droll one enough in return -- of which, if I am not too lazy, I will take a Copy. -- I am tolerably well, meaning, the Day Time, for my last night was just such a noisy night of horrors, as 8 nights -989- out of 4 are, with me. O God! when a man blesses the loud Scream of Agony that awakes him, night after night; night after night! -& when a man's repeated Night-screams have made him a nuisance in his own House, it is better to die than to live. I have a Joy in Life, that passeth all Understanding; but it is not in it's present Epiphany & Incarnation. Bodily Torture! all who have been with me can bear witness that I bear it, like an Indian / it is constitutional with me to sit still & look earnestly upon it, & ask it, what it is ? -- Yea often & often, the seeds of Rabelaism germinating in me, I have laughed aloud at my own poor metaphysical Soul. -- But these Burrs, by Day, of the Will & the Reason, these total Eclipses by night -- O it is hard to bear them. I am complaining bitterly when I should be administering Comfort; but even this is one way of comfort. There are States of mind, in which even a Distraction is still a Diversion. We must none of us brood: we were not made to be Brooders. --God bless you, dear Friend, & S. T. Coleridge Mrs C. will get clean Flannels ready for me. 520. To Thomas Wedgwood Address: T. Wedgwood Esqre | Mr Allen's Chambers | 12. Paper Buildings | Temple | London MS. Wedgwood Museum. Pub. E. L. G. i. 278. Postmark: 19 September 1803. Stamped: Keswick. Greta Hall, Keswick. Sept. 16. [ 1803.] Friday My dear Wedgwood I reached home on yesterday noon; & it was not a Post Day. -William Hazlitt is a thinking, observant, original man, of great power as a Painter of Character Portraits, & far more in the manner of the old Painters, than any living Artist, but the Object must be before him / he has no imaginative memory. So much for his Intellectuals. -- His manners are to 99 in 100 singularly repulsive --: brow-hanging, shoe-contemplative, strange / Sharp seemed to like him / but Sharp saw him only for half an hour, & that walking -- he is, I verily believe, kindly-natured -- is very fond of, attentive to, & patient with, children / but he is jealous, gloomy, & of an irritable Pride -- & addicted to women, as objects of sexual Indulgence. 1 With all this, there is much good in him -- he is dis- ____________________ 1 Coleridge's judgement was soon confirmed, for Hazlitt involved himself in an amatory escapade during his 1803 visit to the Lakes. See Letter 531. Both Coleridge and Wordsworth have left accounts of the sequel, in which -990- interested, an enthusiastic Lover of the great men, who have been before us -- he says things that are his own in a way of his own -- & tho' from habitual Shyness & the Outside & bearskin at least of misanthropy, he is strangely confused & dark in his conversation & delivers himself of almost all his conceptions with a Forceps, yet he says more than any man, I ever knew, yourself only excepted, that is his own in a way of his own -- & oftentimes when he has warmed his mind, & the synovial juice has come out & spread over his joints he will gallop for half an hour together with real Eloquence. He sends well-headed & well-feathered Thoughts straight forwards to the mark with a Twang of the Bow-string. -- If you could recommend him, as a Portrait-painter, I should be glad. To be your Companion he is, in my opinion, utterly unfit. His own Health is fitful. -- I have written, as I ought to do, to you most freely imo ex corde / you know me, both head & heart, & will make what deductions, your reason will dictate to you. I can think of no other person. What wonder? For the last years I have been shy of all mere acquaintances -- To live belov'd is all, I need, And whom I love, I love indeed. 1 I never had any ambition; & now, I trust, I have almost as little Vanity. -- For 5 months past my mind has been strangely shut up. I have taken the paper with an intention to write to you many times / but it has been all one blank Feeling, one blank idealess Feeling. I had nothing to say, I could say nothing. How deeply I love you, my very Dreams make known to me. -- I will not trouble you with the gloomy Tale of my Health. While I am awake, by patience, employment, effort of mind, & walking I can keep the fiend at Arm's length; but the Night is my Hell, Sleep my tormenting Angel. Three Nights out of four I fall asleeep, struggling to lie awake -- & my frequent Night-screams have almost made me a nuisance in my own House. Dreams with me are no Shadows, but the very Substances & footthick Calamities of my Life. Beddoes, who has been to me ever a very kind man, suspects that my Stomach 'brews Vinegar' -- it may be so -- but I have no other symptom but that of Flatulence / shewing itself by an asthmatic Puffing, & transient paralytic Affections / this Flatulence has never any acid Taste in my mouth / I have now ____________________ they were instrumental in helping Hazlitt to escape the vengeance of the local residents. See E. L. G. ii. 178-9, 196-7; Henry Crabb Robinson on Books and their Writers, ed. by Edith J. Morley, 8 vols., 1938, i. 169-70; and Chambers, Life, 176. 1 These are the concluding lines of The Pains of Slep. -991- no bowel-rumblings. I am too careful of my Diet -- the supercarbonated Kali does me no service, nor magnesia -- neither have I any headach. But I am grown hysterical. -- Meantime my Looks & Strength have improved. I myself fully believe it to be either atonic, hypochondriacal Gout, or a scrophulous affection of the mesenteric Glands. In the hope of driving the Gout, if Gout it should be, into the feet, I walked, previously to my getting into the Coach at Perth, 268 miles in eight Days, with no unpleasant fatigue: & if I could do you any service by coming to town, & there were no Coaches, I would undertake to be with you, on foot, in 7 days. -- I must have strength somewhere / My head is indefatigably strong, my limbs too are strong -- but acid or not acid, Gout or Scrofula, Something there is [in] my stomach or Guts that transubstantiates my Bread & Wine into the Body & Blood of the Devil -- Meat & Drink I should say -- for I eat but little bread, & take nothing, in any form, spirituous or narcotic, stronger than Table Beer. -- I am about to try the new Gout Medicine / & if it cures me, I will turn Preacher, form a new Sect in honor of the Discoverer, & make a greater clamour in his Favor, as the Antipodagra, 'that was to come & is already in the world', than ever the Puritans did against the poor Pope, as Anti-christ. -- All my Family are well. Southey, his Wife & Mrs Lovell are with us. He has lost his little Girl, the unexpected Gift of a long marriage, & stricken to the very Heart is come hither for such poor comforts as my society can afford him. -- To diversify this dusky Letter I will write in a Post-script an Epitaph, which I composed in my Sleep for myself, while dreaming that I was dying. To the best of my recollection I have not altered a word -- Your's, dear Wedgwood, and of all, that are dear to you at Gunville, gratefully & most affectionately, S. T. Coleridge Epitaph 1 Here sleeps at length poor Col, & without Screaming, Who died, as he had always liv'd, a dreaming: Shot dead, while sleeping, by the Gout within, Alone, and all unknown, at E'nbro' in an Inn. It was on Tuesday Night last at the Black Bull, Edinburgh -- ____________________ 1 Poems, ii, 970. -992- 521. To Sir George and Lady Beaumont Address: Sir G. Beaumont, Bart | Dunmow | Essex MS. Pierpont Morgan Lib. Pub. with orals. Memorials of Coleorton, i. 6and26. Postmark: 26 September 1803. Stamped: Keswick. Greta Hall, Keswick. Sept. 22. 1808 My dear Sir George | and | Dear Lady Beaumont I reached my home this day week. Need I say that I have been ill or that I should have written immediately? The attacks of the Gout, now no longer doubtful, have become formidable in the Stomach, & my nature is making continual tho' hitherto alas! fruitless efforts to throw the Disease into the Extremities / and as it never rains but it pours I have an intermittent Fever with severe Hemicrania, which returns every evening at ½ past 5, & has hitherto baffled the use of Bark. Yet I am strong, & have far better appetite than usual, & never in my Life looked so well, which is owing in part to the Tan from Sun, wind, & Rain. At Perth I received two Letters from Southey, the first informing me of his approaching Loss, the second of his arrival at Keswick / I altered my plans immediately -- took my place in the Mail, & hastened home to yield him what small comfort, my society might afford. Previously to my taking the Coach, I had walked 268 miles in 8 days, in the hope of forcing the Disease into the extremities -- and so strong am I, that I would undertake at this present time to walk 50 miles a day for a week together. In short, while I am in possession of my will & my Reason, I can keep the Fiend at arm's Length; but with the Night my Horrors commence -- during the whole of my Journey three nights out of four I have fallen asleep struggling & resolving to lie awake, & awaking have blest the Scream which delivered me from the reluctant Sleep. Nine years ago I had three months' Visitation of this kind, and I was cured by a sudden throwing-off of a burning corrosive acid -- these Dreams with all their mockery of Guilt, Rage, unworthy Desires, Remorse, Shame, & Terror formed at that time the subject of some Verses, which I had forgotten till the return of the Complaint, & which I will send you in my next as a curiosity. 1 -- But God be praised! tho' it be hard to bear up, I do bear up, in the deep faith that all things work together for Good to him who in the simplicity of his Heart desires Good. -- To morrow I expect to receive the new Gout medicine from Welles, who in consequence of a Request ____________________ 1 There is no corroboration of a 'three months' Visitation' in 1794, nor is there any evidence, beyond the statement here, that Coleridge composed The Pains of Sleep at that time. See Letter 516. -993- from my friend, Dr Beddoes, has written me a very obliging Letter. If he cure me, I will raise up a new Sect in his honor, & make a greater clamour in his favor as the Anti-podagra, 'that was to come & is already in the World' than ever the Puritans did against the poor Pope, as the Anti-christ. -- I left Wordsworth & his Sister at Loch Lomond / I was so ill that I felt myself a Burthen on them / & the Exercise was too much for me, & yet not enough. -- I sent my cloathes &c forward to Edinburgh / & walked myself to Glen Coe, & so on as far as Cullen, then back again to Inverness, & thence over that most desolate & houseless Country by Aviemore, Dalnacardoch, Dalwhinny, Tummel Bridge, Kenmore, to Perth, with various Digressions & mountain climbings. -- At the Bridge of the Sark, which divides England from Scotland I determined to write to you -- at the foot of Loch Ketterin, under the agitation of Delight produced by the Trossachs, I began a Letter to you / but my fits became so violent & alarming, that I was truly incapable of doing more, than taking a few notes in my pocket-book. At Fort William on entering the public House I fell down in an hysterical Fit with long & loud weeping to my own great metaphysical amusement, & the unutterable consternation & bebustlement of the Landlord, his Wife, children, & Servants, who all gabbled Gaelic to each other, & sputtered out short-winded English to me in a strange Style. -- So much 'all about myself'. I will send you my whole Tour in the course of the ensuing fortnight, in two or three successive Letters. -- Wordsworths will be home, Deo volente, on Saturday. -- Poor Mrs Southey droops, but not so much as I expected: & I suspect & hope, that the best consolation is about to be given them /. Southey who is a very amiable man & very much improved in every respect, bears it well -- it is a Loss which will never leave his memory, nor master his fortitude & resignation. My dear & honored Friends! my spirit has been with you day after day. Yesterday Afternoon I found among Southey's Books a Tetraglott Edition of Paschal's Provincial Letters / I seized it, O how eagerly! It seemed to me as if I saw Lady Beaumont with my very eyes; and heard over again the very sounds of those words, in which she had expressed her enthusiastic Admiration of him. Tho' but a wretched French Scholar, I did not go to bed before I had read the Preface & the two first Letters. They are not only excellent; but the excellence is altogether of a new kind to me. Wit, Irony, Humour, Sarcasm, Scholastic Subtilty, & profound Metaphysics all combined -- & this strange combination still more strangely co-existing with child-like Simplicity, Innocence, unaffected Charity, & the very soul of Christian Humility. -- And the Style is a robe of pure Light. -- -994- We have Mr Clarkson here / so that we have a houseful -- & my wife is chin-deep in occupation with the children & the meals -- for we have but one Servant, & can procure no other till November. She will however write to Lady B. in answer to her kind Letter of to day as speedily as possible. -- I send with this a Sheet full of Verses, that I had promised / your kindness, my dear Sir G., will make you think them almost worth the Postage. -- In a few weeks I shall, if I live & am tolerably well, send you three Specimens of my Translations from your Drawings. If you should really like them, I will go on & make a Volume / I cannot help saying, & it seems as if I had more Love toward you than toward myself in my heart while I am saying it, that I myself have been unusually pleased with what I have done -- My honored Friends! [with un-] affected esteem, gratitude & affectionate Admirati[on,] [Y]our's, S. T. C. -- Mont Blanc, the summit of the Vale of Chámouny, an Hour before Sunrise -- An Hymn. 1 Hast thou a charm to stay the Morning Star In his steep Course? So long he seems to pause On thy bald awful Top, O Chamouny! The Arve and Arveiron at thy Base Rave ceaselessly; but thou, dread Mountain Form! Risest from out thy silent Sea of Pines, How silently! Around thee, and above, Deep is the Sky and black! transpicuous, black, An ebon Mass I Methinks, thou piercest it, As with a Wedge! ----- But when I look again, It is thy own calm Home, thy chrystal Shrine, Thy Habitation from Eternity! O dread and silent Form! I gaz'd upon thee, Till thou, still present to my bodily sense, Didst vanish fr6m my Thought -- entranc'd in prayer, I worshipp'd the Invisible alone. Yet thou meantime wast working on my Soul, Even like some deep enchanting Melody, So sweet, we know not, we are list'ning to it: Now I awake I and with a busier mind And active Will self-conscious, offer now Not, as before, involuntary Prayer And passive Adoration! ____________________ 1 Poems, i. 376. See Letters 456 and 459. -995- Hand and Voice, Awake, awake! And thou, my Heart, awake! Green Fields and icy Cliffs! all join my Hymn! And thou, thou silent Mountain, lone and bare! O * struggling with the Darkness all the Night And visited all night by Troops of Stars, Or when they climb the Sky, or when they sink; Companion of the Morning Star at Dawn, Thyself Earth's rosy Star, and of the Dawn Co-herald -- wake, O wake, and utter praise! Who sank thy sunless Pillars deep in Earth? Who fill'd thy Countenance with rosy Light? Who made thee Father of perpetual Streams? And You, ye five wild Torrents, fiercely glad! Who call'd you forth from Night and utter Death, From Darkness let you loose and icy Dens, Down those precipitous, black, jagged Rocks For ever shatter'd, and the same for ever! Who gave you your invulnerable Life, Your Strength, your Speed, your Fury, and your Joy, Eternal Thunder, and unceasing Foam? And who commanded (and the Silence came) Here shall your Billows stiffen and have rest? Ye Iee-falls! Ye that from the Mountain's brow Adown † enormous RAVINES steeply slope, Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty Voice And stopp'd at once amid their maddest Plunge, Motionless Torrents! silent Cataracts! Who made you glorious, as the Gates of Heaven, Beneath the keen full Moon? Who bade the Sun Cloathe you with Rainbows? who with ‡ lovely Flowers Of living Blue spread garlands at your Feet? ____________________ * I had written a much finer Line when Sca' Fell was in my Thoughts -viz -- O blacker than the Darkness all the Night, And visited &c -- [Note by S. T. C.] † a bad line; & I hope to be able to alter it. [ S. T. C.] ‡ The Gentiana major grows in large companies a stride's distance from the foot of several of the Glaciers -- It's blue Flower, the Colour of Hope -- is it not a pretty Emblem of Hope creeping onward even to the edge of the Grave -to the very Verge of utter Desolation? [Note by S. T. C.] -996- God! let the Torrents, like a Shout of Nations, Utter! Thou Ice-plain, burst, and answer, God! God, sing, ye Meadow-streams with gladsome Voice, Ye Pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like Sound! And ye too have a Voice, ye Towers of Snow! Ye perilous Snow-towers, fall and thunder, God! Ye azure Flowers, that skirt the eternal Frost! Ye wild-goats bounding by the eagle's Nest! Ye Eagles, play-mates of the Mountain Storm! Ye Lightnings, the dread Arrows of the Clouds! Ye Signs and Wonders of the Element -- Utter forth, God1 and fill the Hills with Praise! And thou, thou silent Mountain, lone and bare! Whom as I lift again my Head, bow'd low In Adoration, I again behold! And from thy Summit upward to thy Base Sweep slowly with dim Eyes suffusd with Tears! Rise, mighty Form! even as thou seem'st to rise! Rise, like a Cloud of Incense, from the Earth! Thou kingly Spirit thron'd among the Hills, Thou dread Ambassador from Earth to Heaven, Great Hierarch! tell thou the silent Stars, Tell the blue Sky, and tell the rising Sun, Earth with her thousand Voices calls on God! 4 last Stanzas of an Ode to Tranquillity. 1 Tranquillity! thou better Name Than all the Family of Fame! Thou ne'er wilt leave my riper Age To low Intrigue and factious Rage: For O! dear child of thoughtful Truth! To Thee I gave my early Youth, And left the Bark, and blest the stedfast Shore, Ere yet the Tempest rose and scar'd me with it's roar! Who late and lingering seeks thy Shrine, On him but seldom, Power divine! Thy Spirit rests! -- Satiety And Sloth, poor Counterfeits of Thee, Mock the tir'd Worldling: idle Hope And dire Remembrance interlope, And scare the fev'rish Slumbers of his Mind -- The Bubble floats before, the Spectre stalks behind! ____________________ 1 Poems, i. 360. -997- But me the Power divine will lead At Morning thro' th' accustom'd Mead; And in the sultry summer Heat Will build me up a mossy Seat; And when the Gust of Autumn crowds And breaks the busy moonlight Clouds -- Thee best the thought will lift, the heart attune, Light as the busy Clouds, calm as the gliding Moon. The feeling Heart, the searching Soul, To HER I dedicate the Whole! And while within myself I trace The greatness of some future Race, Aloof with hermit eye I scan The present Works of present Man -- A wild and dream-like Trade of Blood & Guile, Too foolish for a Tear, too wicked for a Smile! S. T. Coleridge Extempore -- to a Child of six years old -- 1 Do you ask what the Birds say? The Linnet, the Dove, The Blackbird, the Thrush, say, I love and I love! In the Winter they're silent, the Wind is so strong -- What It says, I don't know, but it sings a loud Song. But green Leaves, and blossoms, and sunny warm weather, And singing and loving all come back together. I love and I love almost all the Birds say From Sunrise to Star-rise, so gladsome are they; But the Lark is so brimful of Gladness and Love, The green fields below him, the blue Sky above, That he sings and he sings and for ever sings he -- I love my Love, and my Love loves me! S. T. Coleridge -- 522. To Sir George and Lady Beaumont Address: Single Sheet | Sir George Beaumont, Bart | Dunmow | Essex [Readdressed in another hand] Coleorton | hall | Ashby De la Zouch | Lastershire MS. Pierpont Morgan Lib. Pub. with omis. Memorials of Coleorton, i. 12. Postmark: 4 October 1803. Grieta Hall, Keswick. Oct. 1. 1803. -- 11 o/clock My dear & honored Friends I received your kind Letter this afternoon; and yet have but this moment read it -- I have been fighting up against so severe a tooth ____________________ 1 Poems, i. 386. -998- & face ache / Every morning, since my last, I have risen calculating on the pleasure -- & indeed & indeed it is a very great one -- of writing a long Letter to you; but what with the Disease & what with the medicine, I have been unable to do any thing but read in silence, or listen to my friend's recitations. Mr Edmondson has no doubt, that I have Gout; but Very serious doubts whether my worst sufferings do not originate in an affection of the mesenteric Glands. However, I shall give a fair Trial to this new Gout medicine; 1 tho' it is a very rough Handler of my inner man, dies me thro' & thro' -- makes a stir & push & bustle in my Legs & Feet, so that I nightly expect a full fit; but hitherto it has gone off in a profuse perspiration. These Lines I have written with the new medicine -- a good Ink for an Author, if it stands -- (at least, according to a Printer's patter) his pages would continue to be thoroughly medicinal! -- I have thought of writing an Ode on Punning, of which the first words were to be, SPELLING . . . state. O dear Sir George! you bid me 'above all things abstain from reading by night.' Believe me, nine times out of ten I have transgressed in this way, only from the dread of falling asleep; & I contracted the Habit from awaking in terrors about an hour after I had fallen asleep, & from the being literally afraid to trust myself again out of the leading-strings of my Will & Reason. So I have lit my Candle, stirred up my fire, & studied till day light. I fear, I fear, that a hot climate is my only medicine; & it seems better to die than to live out of England. I have been extremely affected by the death of young Emmett 2 -- just 24! -- at that age, dear Sir George! I was retiring from Politics, disgusted beyond measure by the manners & morals of the Democrats, & fully awake to the inconsistency of my practice with my speculative Principles. My speculative Principles were wild as Dreams -- they were 'Dreams linked to purposes of Reason'; but they were perfectly harmless -a compound of Philosophy & Christianity. They were Christian, for they demanded the direct reformation & voluntary act of each Individual prior to any change in his outward circumstances, & my whole Plan of Revolution was confined to an experiment with a dozen families in the wilds of America: they were philosophical, because I contemplated a possible consequent amelioration of the Human Race in it's present state & in this world; yet christian still, because I regarded this earthly amelioration as important chiefly for it's effects on the future State of the Race of man so ____________________ 1 The remainder of this paragraph, which Coleridge wrote with his gout medicine instead of ink, has faded and is all but illegible. 2 Robert Emmet ( 1778-1803), the Irish patriot, was executed on 20 Sept. 1803 for leading an uprising in which Lord Kilwarden was murdered. -999- ameliorated. Dear good Mrs Carter thought wisely and accurately as well as charitably. For what is the nature & the beauty of Youth? Is it not this -- to know what is right in the abstract, by a living feeling, by an intuition of the uncorrupted Heart? To body forth this abstract right in beautiful Forms? And lastly to project this phantom-world into the world of Reality, like a catoptrical mirror? Say rather, to make ideas & realities stand side by side, the one as vivid as the other, even as I have often seen in a natural well of translucent water the reflections of the lank weeds, that hung down from it's sides, standing upright, and like Substances, among the substantial water-plants, that were growing on the bottom. -And thus far all was well -- the mists of the Dawn of Reason coloured by the rich clouds, that precede the rising Sun. But my relations, & the Churchmen & 'Aristocrats,' to use the phrase of the Day -- these too conceited my phantoms to be substances / only what I beheld as Angels they saw as Devils, & tho' they never ceased to talk of my Youth as a proof of the falsehood of my opinions they never introduced it as an extenuation of the error. My opinions were the Drivel of a Babe, but the Guilt attached to them, this was the Grey Hair & rigid Muscle of inveterate Depravity. To such Bigotry what was an enthusiastic young man likely to oppose? They abhorred my person, I abhorred their actions: they set up the long howl of Hydrophoby at my principles, & I repayed their Hatred & Terror by the bitterness of Contempt. Who then remained to listen to me? to be kind to me? to be my friends -- to look at me with kindness, to shake my hand with kindness, to open the door, & spread the hospitable board, & to let me feel that I was a man well-loved -- me, who from my childhood have had no avarice, no ambition -- whose very vanity in my vainest moments was 9/10ths of it the desire, & delight, & necessity of loving & of being beloved? -- These offices of Love the Democrats only performed to me; my own family, bigots from Ignorance, remained wilfully ignorant from Bigotry. What wonder then, if in the heat of grateful affection & the unguarded Desire of sympathizing with these who so kindly sympathized with me, I too often deviated from my own Principles? And tho' I detested Revolutions in my calmer moments, as attempts, that were necessarily baffled & made blood-horrible by the very causes, which could alone justify Revolutions (I mean, the ignorance, superstition, profligacy, & vindictive passions, which are the natural effects of Despotism & false Religion) -- and tho' even to extravagance I always supported the Doctrine of absolute unequivocal non-resistance -- yet with an ebullient Fancy, a flowing Utterance, a light & dancing Heart, & a disposition to catch fire by the very rapidity of my -1000- own motion, & to speak vehemently from mere verbal associations, choosing sentences & sentiments for the very reason, that would have made me recoil with a dying away of the Heart & an unutterable Horror from the actions expressed in such sentences & sentiments-namely, because they were wild, & original, & vehement & fantastic! -- I aided the Jacobins, by witty sarcasms & subtle reasonings & declamations full of genuine feeling against all Rulers & against all established Forms! -- Speaking in public at Bristol I adverted to a public Supper which had been given by Lord ----I forget his name, in honor of a victory gained by the Austrians, & after a turbid Stream of wild Eloquence I said -- 'This is a true Lord's Supper in the communion of Darkness! This is a Eucharist of Hell! A sacrament of Misery! -- Over each morsel & each Drop of which the Spirit of some murdered Innocent cries aloud to God, This is my Body! & this is my Blood! --' -- These words form alas I a faithful specimen of too many of my Declamations at that Time / fortunately for me, the Government, I suppose, knew that both Southey & I were utterly unconnected with any party or club or society -- (& this praise I must take to myself, that I disclaimed all these Societies, these Imperia in Imperio, these Ascarides in the Bowels of the State, subsisting on the weakness & diseasedness, & having for their final Object the Death of that State, whose Life had been their Birth & growth, & continued to be their sole nourishment --. All such Societies, under whatever name, I abhorred as wicked Conspiracies -- and to this principle I adhered immoveably, simply because it was a principle, & this at a time when the Danger attached to the opposite mode of conduct would have been the most seducing Temptation to it -- at a time when in rejecting these secret associations, often as I was urged to become a member now of this & now of that, I felt just as a religious young officer may be supposed to feel, who full of courage dares refuse a challenge -- & considered as a Coward by those around him often shuts his eyes, & anticipates the moment when he might leap on the wall & stand in the Breach, the first & the only one. --) This insulation of myself & Southey, I suppose, the Ministers knew / knew that we were Boys: or rather, perhaps, Southey was at Lisbon, & I at Stowey, sick of Politics, & sick of Democrats & Democracy, before the Ministers had ever heard of us: for our career of Sedition, our obedience to Sympathy & pride of Talent in opposition to our own -- certainly, to my own -- uniform principles, lasted but 10 months. Yet if in that time I had been imprisoned, as in the rigor of the Law, I doubt not, I might have been 50 times -- for the very clank of the Chains, that were to be put about my Limbs, would not at that time have deterred me from a strong -1001- Phrase or striking Metaphor, altho' I had had no other inducement to the use of the same except the wantonness of luxuriant Imagination, & my aversion to abstain from any thing simply because it was dangerous -- yet if in that time I had been imprisoned, my health & constitution were such as that it would have been almost as certain Death to me, as the Executioner has been to poor young Emmett. Like him, I was very young, very enthusiastic, distinguished by Talents & acquirements & a sort of turbid Eloquence; like him, I was a zealous Partisan of Christianity, a Despiser & Abhorrer of French Philosophy & French Morals; like him, I would have given my body to be burnt inch by inch, rather than that a French Army should have insulted my native Shores / & alas! alas! like him, I was unconsciously yet actively aiding & abetting the Plans, that I abhorred, & the men, who were more, far more unlike me, in every respect, in education, habits, principles & feelings, than the most anathematized Aristocrat among my opponents. Alas I alas I unlike me, he did not awake! the country, in which he lived, furnished far more plausible arguments for his active Zeal than England could do; the vices of the party, with whom he acted, were so palpably the effect of darkest Ignorance & foulest oppression, that they could not disgust him / the worse the vices, & the more he abhorred them, the more he loved the men themselves, abstracting the men from their vices, the vices from the men, & transferring them, with tenfold Guilt, to the state of Society & to the Orange Faction holding together that State of Society, which he believed to be the cause of these Vices! Ah woe is me! & in this mood the poor young Enthusiast sent forth that unjustifiable Proclamation, one sentence of which clearly permitted unlimited assassination -- the only sentence, beyond all doubt, which Emmett would gladly have blotted out with his Heart's Blood, & of which at the time he wrote it he could not have seen the Import -- & the only sentence, which was fully realized in action --! This moment it was a few unweighed words of an empassioned Visionary, in the next moment it became the foul Murder of Lord Kilwarden! -- O my heart give praise, give praise! -- not that I was preserved from Bonds, or Ignominy or Death! But that I was preserved from Crimes that it is almost impossible not to call Guilt! -- And poor young Emmet[t!] O if our Ministers had saved him, had taken his Oath & word of honor, to have remained in America or some of our Colonies for the next 10 years of his Life, we might have had in him a sublimely great man, we assuredly sh[ould] have had in him a good man, & heart & soul an Englishman! -- Think of Lord Mansfield! 1 -- About the Age of poor Emmett he drank the Pre- ____________________ 1 William Murray ( 1705-93), later Earl of Mansfield, was accused of 'toast- -1002- tender's Health on his Knees, & was obnoxious to all the pains & penalties of high Treason. And where lies the Difference between the two? Murray's Plot had for it's object a foul Slave[ry] under the name of Loyalty; Emmett's as foul a Slavery under the nam[e of] Liberty & Independence. -- But whatever the Ministers. may have done, Heaven h[as] dealt kindly with the young man. He has died, firm, & in the height & heat of his Spirit, beholding in his Partizans only the wickedly oppressed, in his enemies the wicked oppressors. -- O if his mad mad Enterprize had succeeded /! -- Thou most mistaken & bewildered young Man, if other Punishment than the Death thou hast suffered, be needful for thy deadly Error, what better Punishment, what fitter Purgatory can be imagined, than a Vision presented to thee & conceived as real, a Vision of all the Massacres, the furious Passions, the Blasphemies, Sensualities, Superstitions, the bloody Persecutions, and mutual Cannibalism of Atheist & Papist, that would have rushed in, like a Torrent of Sulphur & burning Chaos, at the Breach which thou thyself hadst made -- till thou, yea, even thou thyself hadst called out in agony to the merciless Gaul, & invoked an army of Slavefiends to crush the more enormous evil of a mob of Fiends in Anarchy. -- My honored Friends! as I live, I scarcely know what I have been writing; but the very circumstance of writing to you, added to the recollection of the unwise & unchristian feelings, with which at poor Emmett's Age I contemplated all persons of your rank in Society, & that recollection confronted with my present Feelings towards you -- it has agitated me, dear Friends I and I have written, my Heart at a full Gallop adown Hill. -- And now, good night -- I will finish this Letter tomorrow morning. The moon is in the very height & 'keystone' of the Sky, & all the mountains thro' the whole vale are, in consequence, things of the Earth: a few Hours ago when the Moon was rising from behind Latterig, & when the clouds on Causa & Grisedale Pikes, opposite my study window, caught it's Light; then all the mountains belonged to the Sky. -No one who has not suffered what I suffer in my sleep can conceive the depth & fervor, with which I wish that you may be asleep, dreamless or with such Dreams as leave no other trace behind them but the dim recollection that you had been dreaming! -- Sunday Morning -- I o clock. Sunday Noon. -- I was much affected by the beautiful passage, which Lady Beaumont was so good as to extract from her Sister's Letter. I would, that she & you two, were all here, even now, & looking out from my Study window. Great indeed is the charm, ____________________ ing the Pretender in old days at the house of a Jacobite mercer in Ludgate', but in 1752-3 his denial was accepted by the Cabinet. -1003- which yearning memory gives to the Forms of Things; yet the Present would plead it's cause most eloquently from Skiddaw & Swinside, rich with all the hues of decaying Fern, the colour of the unripe Lime, of the ripe Lemon, of the bright orange, even to the depth of dried orange Peel / & when the whole shall have become of this last colour, then [the] decaying Birches will have put on the very same lovely Lemon-colour, which the Ferns have in their middle Stage of Decay. How kind Nature is to us -- ! where Decay is pernicious, she renders it offensive, as in all animal substances / but where it is innocuous, she makes it rival the Spring-tide Growth in Beauty. I use the word 'Nature' partly to avoid the too frequent use of a more awful name, & partly to indulge the sense of the motherliness of general Providence -- when the Heart is not strong enough to lift itself up to a distinct contemplation of the Father of all things. -- It gives me sincere pleasure, that my Ode has pleased you -sometime or other I hope to finish it. I have sent Lady Beaumont the poems entitled Chamouny, the Inscription for the Fountain, 1 & Tranquillity. -- Of the poems on your Sketches, dear Sir George! I hope thus much / that they will give evidence that the Drawings acted upon my mind as Nature does, in it's after workings -- they have mingled with my Thoughts, & furnished Forms to my Feelings. -- Southey seems very happy, at present. His eyes plague him; but he is a hard Task-master to them. He is the most industrious man, I know or have ever known. His present occupations are, the re-composition of his Madoc, an epic Poem / & his great History of Portugal -- of which he has written considerably more than a Quarto Volume. ----- We have not heard of or from Hazlitt. He is at Manchester, we suppose: & has both Portraits with him. 2 -- The children are all well / & Derwent is a cube of Fat. Little Sara must be on the brink of Teething -- she is 9 months old, & has no signs of a Tooth / the next 2 months will probably be a hard Time for her. -- The pain & dangerous Diseases incident to Teething I have ever regarded as the most anomalous of the Dispensations of Nature, & their final cause the most obscure. -- Bless me, what a Letter! ----- I am almost ashamed to send it -- unless I might dare to say with St Augustine, Ep. 72. A tedious Length! sed non ____________________ 1 Actually Coleridge had sent Extempore instead. 2 Hazlitt returned to Keswick in October. Notebook entries show that he was there by 24 Oct. and that Coleridge again sat for his portrait on 27 Oct. (Information kindly supplied from Coleridge's notebook by Miss Kathleen Coburn.) Apparently Hazlitt had returned to put some finishing touches on Coleridge's portrait. See P. P. Howe, The Life of William Hazlitt, 1947, p. 71. -1004- apud te, cui nulla est pagina gratior quam quae me loquaciorem. apportat tibi. -- I remain, my honored Friends, with grateful & affectionate Esteem your's ever & truly, S. T. Coleridge. P.S. How does your Health bear up under the bustle of military Preparation? Are you much engaged in it? -- 523. To George Coleridge Address: Reverend G. Coleridge | Ottery St Mary | Honiton | Devon. MS. Lady Cave and Victoria University Lib. Pub. E. L. G. i. 281. After filling four pages of a letter to his brother and not having exhausted himself, Coleridge wrote the conclusion on a sheet containing a letter from his wife to Mrs. George Coleridge. Postmark: 5 <1803.> Stamped: Keswick. Greta Hall, Keswick. Oct. 2. 1803. Sunday Evening My dear Brother I have this moment received your's of Sept. 28th /. It is indeed very long since I have written to you -- the sole reason has been, that I had nothing to communicate that was not of a depressing nature: & I am sick to the very soul of speaking or writing concerning my bodily miseries. My Disorder is supposed to be atonic Gout; in addition to which my medical friends suspect a scrofulous affection of the mesenteric Glands. While I am awake, & retain possession of my Will & Reason, I can contrive to keep the Fiend at Arm's length; but Sleep throws wide open all the Gates of the beleaguered City -- & such an Host of Horrors rush in -- that three nights out of four I fall asleep struggling to lie awake, and start up & bless my own loud Screams, that have awakened me. In the Hope that change of Scene might relieve me, & that hard Exercise might throw the Disease into the Extremities, I left my Home on August 15th & made the Tour of Scotland / -- and I am certainly better since my return, tho' I have a troublesome intermittent fever, that recurs with very severe Hemicrania, about 5 o clock every afternoon -- & which has hitherto baffled the use of Bark. -- Meantime I am neither weakened nor emaciated. The last 8 days of my walk I walked 263 miles -- about 34 miles a day on an average. Since my return I have been trying the celebrated new Gout medicine, & have had less affrightful Nights, & some symptoms of a disease ripening in the feet. No Bridegroom ever longed for rapture with more impatience than I do for Torture. So much of myself -- which I have written not without reluctance. -- Just before my arrival at Perth my heart had been visited with many tender Yearnings -1005- toward you & your family -- and indeed to all my Kin. I resolved if my Health should be endurable, & if I could arrange my moneymatters so as to make such a journey right & convenient -- to leave this place in the latter end of October with my family, & having passed a week or so with Sir G. Beaumont at Dunmow to push forward for Ottery -- & there to stay till Spring. But at Perth I found Letters from Southey -- his little Girl, an unexpected Gift after a 7 years' marriage, died of water on the Brain from teething -- and Southey & his Wife, almost heart-broken, immediately left Bristol, & came to Keswick, Southey for the comforts, he expected from my society, & Mrs Southey to be with her Sister. -- Still it is not improbable, that I may spend my Christmas among you -- only I shall come alone. ----- These, dear Brother! are awful Times; but I really see no reason for any feelings of Despondency. If it be God's will, that the commercial Gourd should be canker-killed -- if our horrible Iniquities in the W. India Islands & on the coasts of Guinea call for judgment on us -- God's will be done! -- Yet Providence seldom destroys a nation without first degrading it -- the Romans were effeminate, cowardly, basely oblivious of all public virtues, & below all comparison inferior to their barbarian Overwhelmers in domestic virtues, when Rome fell before the Huns -- Now bad as we may be, we assuredly are the best among the nations -- in strength & individual Valour superior to our enemies, & not so much their inferior in military Skill as to counterbalance our vast advantage in point of numbers. The times are awful -- I keep my spirit still & in a kind of devotional Calm; & I trust, would meet 'the sweet & Graceful Death pro patrig with as high an enthusiasm, as ever Spartan did. But I seriously think, that this Invasion, if attempted in vehement good earnest by the Corsican Tippoo Saib, 1 will be a Blessing to this Country & to Europe. Let us be humble before our Maker, but not spirit-palsied before our blood-thirsty Enemies. We will tremble at the possible punishment, which our national crimes may have made us worthy of, from retributive Providence; we will tremble at what God may do; but not at what our enemies can do, of themselves. When were we a more united People? When so well prepared? The very nature of the Invasion will cut off from the French army most of the opportunities of military Tactics -- & bring the affair, man to man, bayonet against bayonet. -- That this day was coming, I foresaw at the conclusion of the Peace -- & have not ceased in various ways & in various publications to warn & alarm the country -- & it is a comfort to me, far ____________________ 1 Tippoo Sahib, Sultan of Mysore, long a foe of the British, was finally killed at the storming of Seringapatam, 4 May 1799. -1006- beyond all the little vanities of Authorship, that my Essays & Alarum-trumpets in the Morning Post had an immediate & very extensive effect. Heaven knows! what a sacrifice I made in thus forcing myself away from the abstruse Researches, in which I am engaged, to embark on this stormy Sea of Politics -- but I felt it my Duty, the more especially as my former Essays during the Peace were those that had so extravagantly irritated the First Consul. In March, 1800, I published in the Morning Post a long & very severe ' Character of Mr Pitt,' promising at the same time a Character of Bonaparte. Since the Time of Junius no single Essay ever made more noise in a newspaper than this -- & day after day my character of Bonaparte was promised. I did not do it for reasons that appeared very forcible to me / in somewhat more than a month after the appearance of 'PITT,' Otto 1 sent privately to Stuart, & inquired when the character of Bonaparte would appear -- Stuart returned some evasive answer -- & Otto then sent a confidential friend to Stuart to beg a particular answer, & this Friend communicated to Stuart, that the question was asked at the instance of Bonaparte himself, who had been extremely impressed with the character of Pitt, & very anxious to see his own -- which, no doubt he expected, would be a pure eulogy. -- Stuart immediately came to me, & was in very high spirits on the occasion -- I turned sad, & answered him -- ['] Stuart, that man will prove a Tyrant, & the deadliest enemy of the Liberty of the Press.' -- 'Indeed?' -- ['] Yes! a man, the Dictator of a vast Empire, to be so childishly solicitous for the panegyric of a Newspaper Scribbler --! will he not be equally irritable at the Abuse of newspaper Scribblers! -- I am sick & sad, to feel how important little men become, when madmen are in power.' -- Stuart has often talked of publishing this conversation of mine as an instance of political prophecy. -- This will remind you of the Memoirs of P. P. Clerk of this Parish! 2 -- alas! that were no Burlesque in the present Day: & poor Dennis's request to the D. of Ma[r]lborough would now have nothing ridiculous in it. 3 The mad Vanity, & low Detail of vindictive Plans, of the first Consul are almost incredible. I will finish in my Wife's Letter. -- Continuation of my Letter. Enough of Politics -- at least, in words! I should have wholly ab- ____________________ 1 Louis-Guillaume Otto, French diplomat, who was sent to London in 1800 to arrange for the exchange of prisoners of war. 2 For Pope's burlesque of Bishop Burnet, ' Memoirs of P. P. Clerk of This Parish', see Works of Pope, ed. by W. Elwin and W. J. Courthope, 10 vols., 1871-89, x. 435. 3 John Dennis is said to have told the Duke of Marlborough of his fear that the French would make a stipulation for his extradition at the Peace of Utrecht. -1007- stained from a subject that is truly wearisome to my Spirit, if your Letter, dear Friend of my Childhood, had not appeared to me to breathe despondency beyond the occasion. -- I am sincerely & not slightly grieved that I have been silent so long. It is but a wretched Excuse to say, that all my friends have the same complaint to make: & in very truth my heart has been strangely shut up within itself. '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 wisest Plan! And that, which suits a Part, infects the Whole, And now is almost grown the Habit of my Soul! -----' I have sometimes derived a comfort from the notion, that possibly these horrid Dreams with all their mockery of Crimes, & Remorse, & Shame, & Terror, might have been sent upon me to arouse me out of that proud & stoical Apathy, into which I had fallen -- it was Resignation indeed, for I was not an Atheist; but it was Resignat[ion] -- witho[ut] religion because it was without struggle, without d[iff]iculty -- because it originated in the Understanding & a stealing Sp[irit of] Contempt, not in the affections. ----- But amid all my [struggles I] have been a severe, perhaps, too severe a Student -[I have written] much & prepared materials for more -- yet I trus[t that I do not) deceive myself when I say, that I could leave a[[1 I have done] without a pang --. I have not read on an average less than 8 hours a day for the last three years -- but all is vanity -I feel it more & more -- all is vanity that does not lead to Quietness & Unity of Heart, and to the silent aweful idealess Watching of that living Spirit, & of that Life within us, which is the motion of that Spirit -- that Life, which passeth all understanding. ----- Before I finish, let me say that there is yet one other cause of my silence -- Your last Letter on Faith & Reason had affected me very deeply -- I was sure, that we agreed in the depth & bottoms of our meaning -- yet I thought that you had expressed yourself inaccurately -- & began to reflect & make notes on the true Boundaries of Faith & Reason -- till I found that I should have written a Treatise instead of a Letter. -- However, it is my firm Intention, that in future no such unbrotherly Silence shall take place, on my part. You I have always loved & honored as more than mere Brother: & it was not my fault, that the mere names of Brother & of Kindred were of necessity less powerful in my feelings, than in those of other men who with perhaps vastly less Sensibility have had the good fortune to have been more domestically reared. But what I am is in con- -1008- sequence of what I have been; & there is enough in that, which I am, to be honorable & useful to my fellow-men, if the great Giver of all things give me the grace & the perseverance to call it forth wisely, & to apply it prudently. -- I shall hope to hear soon again from you -- in the mean time present my best Duty to our venerable Mother -- my kindest Love to your Wife & fatherly wishes for your Children -- to the Colonel, & all of his Family, & to Edward & those of his Household, a Brother's Love ----- & the same to Mrs Luke. My Derwent appears to me very like what William was when of the same age -- With affectionate Esteem & grateful & rememb'ring Love I am, my dearest Brother, ever your's, S. T. C. ----- 524. To Thomas Poole Address: T. Poole, Esqre | Nether Stowey | Bridgewater | Somersetsingle Sheet MS. British Museum. Pub. E. L. G. i. 286. Postmark: 6 October 1808. Oct. 8. 1808. Keswick My dearest Friend Tho' I should write but half a dozen Lines, I will write; for my long Silence affects [me] almost with a sense of Guilt. Continual Ill-health, & Discomforts almost worse than that, have shut me up strangely -- I have written to no one -- God forbid that my worst Enemy should ever have the Nights & the Sleeps that I have had, night after night -- surprized by Sleep, while I struggled to remain awake, starting up to bless my own loud Screams that had awakened me -- yea, dear friend I till my repeated Night-yells had made me a Nuisance in my own House. As I live & am a man, this is an unexaggerated Tale -- my Dreams became the Substances of my Life -- A lurid Light, a ghastly Throng -- 1 Sense of insufferable wrong -- And whom I scorn'd, they only strong! -- Thirst of Revenge, the powerless will Still baffled, & yet burning still -- Tempestuous pride, vain-glorious Vaunting, Base Men my vices justly taunting ----- Desire with Loathing strangely mixt, On wild or hateful Objects fix'd -- Fantastic Passions, mad'ning Brawl, And Shame & Terror over all! -- ____________________ 1 An amended version of The Pains of Sleep, lines 18-32. See Poems, i. 389. -1009- Deeds to be hid, that were not hid, Which, all confus'd I might not know, Whether I suffer'd or I did: For all was Guilt, & Shame, & Woe -- My own or others', still the same, Life-stifling Fear, soul-stifling Shame! -- All symptoms conspired to prove that I had Gout, atonic stomach Gout, for one Disease -- & my medical attendant suspected Mesenteric Scrofula, in addition. -- I went into Scotland with Wordsworth & his Sister; but I soon found that I was a burthen on them / & Wordsworth, himself a brooder over his painful hypochondriacal Sensations, was not my fittest companion / so I left him & the Jaunting Car, & walked by myself far away into the Highlands -- in the hopes of forcing the Disease into my extremities -- at what a rate, you may guess, when I tell you, that the last eight Days I had walked 268 miles. At Perth I received two Letters from Southey, the first informing me of the certain Death of his Infant Child, & of the deplorable heart-stricken State in which he & his Wife were -- & of their wish to be at Keswick, he expecting comfort from me, Edith from her Sister / the second informed me of their arrival at Keswick -- I accordingly took a place in the Mail & hastened home / -- Soon after I received a large Cag of the new Gout medicine / & assuredly, it has been of manifest service to me -- & I write with my left hand swoln, & with strong symptoms of a fair full fit of the Gout in my Feet. No Bridegroom ever longed for Rapture more impatiently than I for Torture -- It is wonderful, how this has relieved me! how balsam-sweet & profound my Sleep has been -- how freely I breathe -- how freely my Spirits seem to move within me! ----- So much of myself. Southey seems very happy in my society -- & tho' overpowered at moments, acts like a man. -- How are you employed? what part have you taken in this Alarm? -- As to me, I think, the Invasion must be a Blessing. For if we do not repel it, & cut them to pieces, we are a vile sunken race / & it is good, that our Betters should crack us -- And if we do act as Men, Christians, Englishmen -- down goes the Corsican Miscreant, & Europe may have peace. At all events, dulce & decorum est pro patriâ mori -- & I trust, I shall be found rather seeking than shunning it, if the French army should maintain it's footing, even for a fortnight. -- Let me hear from you. It is not possible that you can feel any resentment now you know how calamitously I have been environed / Tell me all about yourself -- what you are doing, what meditating -- whether you can infuse any simple plain sense into -1010- the cerebellum of that foolish, well meaning Driveller, the Minister. -- Southey tells me, that Rickman meant to apply to you 1 -- Love to Ward -- S. T. Coleridge 525. To Thomas Poole Address: T. Poole Esqre | N. Stowey | Bridgewater | SomersetSingle Sheet MS. British Museum. Pub. with orals. E. L. G. i. 288. Friday, Oct. 14. 1803. Greta Hall, Keswick My dearest Poole I received your letter this evening, thank you for your kindness in answering it immediately, and will prove my thankfulness by doing the same. In answer to your Question respecting Leslie & T. Wedgwood, 2 I say -- to the best of my Knowlege, Not a word, at any time. I have examined & cross-examined my recollective Faculty with no common earnestness; and I cannot produce in myself even the dimmest Feeling of any such conversation. Yet I talk so much & so variously, that doubtless I say a thousand Things that exist in the minds of others, when to my own consciousness they are as if they had never been. I lay too many Eggs in the hot Sands with Ostrich Carelessness & Ostrich oblivion -- And tho' many are luckily trod on & smashed; as many crawl forth into Life, some to furnish Feathers for the Caps of others, and more alas! to plume the Shafts in the Quivers of my Enemies and of them 'that lie in wait against my Soul.' But in the present instance, if I had mentioned any thing of the Kind, T. Wedgwood has so great a Love for you, as well as respect & affectionate Regard for Leslie, that he would have both suffered & expressed great Pain / I should have instantly felt that I had done wrong -- & events of this sort I never forget. Likewise, I admire Leslie, & cherish high Hopes of him; & thought at the time, that part of your Dislike had been ill-founded, & that you had disliked him for a cause which had made you more than once treat me very harshly -- namely, a supposed disposition in me to detract from the merits of two or three, whom you from childhood had been taught to contemplate with religious awe; but whom I thought very second rate Men / not sufficiently considering, that for one man whom Leslie or myself might lower in the Symposium of Genius, there are 10 faces unknown at present to you, whom we ____________________ 1 In Dec. 1803 Poole came to London on Rickman's invitation to prepare an abstract of returns concerning the poor ordered by the House of Commons from the parish overseers. 2 Poole had asked Coleridge in a letter dated 9 Oct. 1803: 'Did you ever mention to T.W. that I disliked Leslie? tell me and what you said.' -1011- should place at the head of the Table & in the places of Honor -- in other words, that there is perhaps a larger mass (& a more frequent calling of it into activity) of awe & love of the great departed in my mind than in your's -- This was in my Heart -- for I suffered a great deal from your Expressions between Blandford & Gunville -- & would. of itself, have restrained me from making your Dislike a subject of Conversation / & as to the other cause of your Dislike, it is so very serious a Thing, that I should have thought myself downright a Rogue if I had mentioned it. -- I think therefore, that without the least rashness I may assert at once, that I never did speak to T. W. on the subject. If any thing of this nature have come to his ears from me, it must have been thro' some third or fourth Person -- Tobin for instance, who is an exceeding mischiefmaker, his Blindness, poor Fellow I making this sort of Gossip a high Treat to him / but I do not recollect having mentioned it to him -- or to any one, but, I believe, to Wordsworth / and I hope therefore, that it will not have originated in me at all. It would be very, very painful to me. But I cannot be as confident of this, as of the former. 1 Since I finished the Letter, I seem to have some dim, very dim, Feeling of having mentioned it once to Davy. I seem to feel, as if I had not mentioned it to Wordsworth -- but that it was Davy. But this is very likely to be all the mere straining of the memory -colours in the eyes from staring in the Dusk & rubbing them. Whoever mentioned [it] to T. W. acted a very unwise part -- to use the mildest phrase. If I mentioned your Dislike of Leslie to T. W., it would have been assuredly mentioned as common to myself & to Leslie [you?] -- and as arising from the same Cause -- tho' the Dislike in my instance was only for the moment, a bubble broken by the agitation that gave it Birth. -- O deeply, deeply do I detest this rage for Personality: & it is among the clamours of my Conscience, that I have so long delayed the Essay, which for so many years I have planned & promised! ----- Wordsworth is in good health, & all his family. He has one LARGE Boy, christened John. He has made a Beginning to his Recluse. He was here on Sunday last: his Wife's Sister, 2 who is on a visit at Grasmere, was in a bad hysterical way, & he rode in to consult our excellent medical men. I now see very little of Wordsworth: my own Health makes it inconvenient & unfit for me to go thither one third as often, as I used to do -- and Wordsworth's Indolence, &c keeps him at home. Indeed, were I an irritable man, and an unthinking one, I should probably have considered myself as having ____________________ 1 The three following sentences are interlined here in the MS. 2 This refers to Joanna Hutchinson. See Early Letters, 836, for an account of her illness. -1012- been very unkindly used by him in this respect -- for I was at one time confined for two months, & he never came in to see me / me, who had ever payed such unremitting attentions to him. But we must take the good & the ill together; & by seriously & habitually reflecting on our own faults & endeavouring to amend them we shall then find little difficulty in confining our attention as far as it acts on our Friends' characters, to their good Qualities. -- Indeed, I owe it to Truth & Justice as well as to myself to say, that the concern, which I have felt in this instance, and one or two other more crying instances, of Self-involution in Wordsworth, has been almost wholly a Feeling of friendly Regret, & disinterested Apprehension -- I saw him more & more benetted in hypochondriacal Fancies, living wholly among Devotees -- having every the minutest Thing, almost his very Eating & Drinking, done for him by his Sister, or Wife -- & I trembled, lest a Film should rise, and thicken on his moral Eye. -- The habit too of writing such a multitude of small Poems was in this instance hurtful to him -- such Things as that Sonnet of his in Monday's Morning Post, about Simonides & the Ghost 1 -- / I rejoice therefore with a deep & true Joy, that he has at length yielded to my urgent & repeated -- almost unremitting-requests & remonstrances -- & will go on with the Recluse exclusively. -- A Great Work, in which he will sail; on an open Ocean, & a steady wind; unfretted by short tacks, reefing, & hawling & disentangling the ropes ----- great work necessarily comprehending his attention & Feelings within the circle of great objects & elevated Conceptions -- this is his natural Element -- the having been out of it has been his Disease -- to return into it is the specific Remedy, both Remedy & Health. It is what Food is to Famine. I have seen enough, positively to give me feelings of hostility towards the plan of several of the Poems in the L. Ballads: & I really consider it as a misfortune, that Wordsworth ever deserted his former mountain Track to wander in Lanes & allies; tho'in the event it may prove to have been a great Benefit to him. He will steer, I trust, the middle course. -- But he found himself to be, or rather to be called, the Head & founder of a Sect in Poetry: & assuredly he has written -- & published in the M. Post, as W. L: D. 2 & sometimes with no signature -- poems written with a sectarian spirit, & in a sort of Bravado. -I know, my dear Poole, that you are in the habit of keeping my Letters; but I must request of you, & do rely on it, that you will be so good as to destroy this Letter -- & likewise, if it be not already ____________________ 1 Poet. Works, iii. 408. Wordsworth never reprinted the sonnet. 2 In 1803 Wordsworth printed seven sonnets in the Morning Post with the signature W.L.D. The initials, Thomas Hutchinson suggests, stand for Wordsworthius Libertati dedicavit. Poet. Works, iii. 452. -1013- done, that Letter which in the ebulliency of indistinct Conceptions I wrote to you respecting Sir Isaac Newton's Optics -- & which to my Horror & Shame I saw that Ward had transcribed -- a Letter which if I were to die & it should ever see the Light would damn me forever, as a man mad with Presumption. -- 1 Hartley is what he always was -- a strange strange Boy -- 'exquisitely wild'! 2 An utter Visionary! like the Moon among thin Clouds, he moves in a circle of Light of his own making -- he alone, in a Light of his own. Of all human Beings I never yet saw one so utterly naked of Self -- he has no Vanity, no Pride, no Resentment / and tho' very passionate, I never yet saw him angry with any body. He is, tho' now 7 years old, the merest Child, you can conceive -and yet Southey says, that the Boy keeps him in perpetual Wonderment-his Thoughts are so truly his own. [He is] not generally speaking an affectionate Child / but his Dispositions are very sweet. A great Lover of Truth, and of the finest moral nicety of Feeling -- apprehension all over -- & yet always Dreaming. He said very prettily about half a year ago -- on my reproving him for some inattention, & asking him if he did not see something -- [']My Father!['] quoth he with flute-like Voice -- 'I see it -- I saw it -- I see it now -- & tomorrow I shall see it when I shut my eyes, and when my eyes are open & I am looking at other Things; but Father! it's a sad pity -- but it can't be helped, you know -- but I am always being a bad Boy, because I am always thinking of my Thoughts.' -He is troubled with Worms -- & to night has had a clyster of oil & Lime water, which never fails to set him to rights for a month or two --. If God preserve his Life for me, it will be interesting to know what he will be -- for it is not my opinion, or the opinion of two or of three -- but all who have been with him, talk of him as of a thing that cannot be forgotten / Derwent, & my meek little Sara, the former is just recovering of a very bad epidemic Intermittent Fever, with tearing cough -- & the other sweet Baby is even now suffering ____________________ 1 Coleridge was so disturbed over his letter of 23 Mar. 1801 (Letter 388) that he wrote again about it on 30 Jan. 1804 (Letter 544). Despite his wishes, both the original letter and Ward's copy still exist. 2 Cf. To H.C. Six Years Old: O blessed vision I happy child! Thou art so exquisitely wild, I think of thee with many fears For what may be thy lot in future years. . . . . . . . Nature will either end thee quite; Or, lengthening out thy season of delight, Preserve for thee, by individual right, A young lamb's heart among the full-grown flocks. Wordsworth Poet. Works, i. 247. -1014- under it --. He is a fat large lovely Boy -- in all things but his Voice very unlike Hartley -- very vain, & much more fond & affectionate -- none of his Feelings so profound -- in short, he is just what a sensible Father ought to wish for -- a fine, healthy, strong, beautiful child, with all his senses & faculties as they ought to be -- with no chance, as to his person, of being more than a good-looking man, & as to his mind, no prospect of being more or less than a man of good sense & tolerably quick parts. -- Sara is a remarkably interesting Baby, with the finest possible Skin & large blue eyes -- & she smiles, as if she were basking in a sunshine, as mild as moonlight, of her own quiet Happiness. 1 She has had the Cow-pock. Mrs Coleridge enjoys her old state of excellent Health. We go on, as usual -- except that tho' I do not love her a bit better, I quarrel with her much less. We cannot be said to live at all as Husband & Wife / but we are peaceable Housemates. -- Mrs Lovell & Mrs Southey have miserable Health; but Mrs Southey, I hope, is breeding -- & Mrs Lovell never can be well, while there exist in the world such Things as Tea, and Lavender & Hartshorn Slops, & the absence of religious, & the presence of depressing, Passions. -- Southey I like more & more / he is a good man / & his Industry stupendous! Take him all in all, his regularity & domestic virtues, Genius, Talents, Acquirements, & Knowlege -- & he stands by himself. -But Mrs S. & Mrs Lovell are a large, a very large Bolus! -- but it is astonishing, how one's Swallow is enlarged by the sense of doing one's Duty -- at least where the Pill is to pass off some time or other -- & the Medicine to be discontinued. -- But scarcely can even the sense of Duty reconcile one to taking Jalap regularly instead of Breakfast, Ipecacuanha for one's Dinner, Glauber's salt in hot water for one's Tea, & the whole of the foregoing in their different Metempsychoses after having passed back again thro' the mouth, or onwards thro' the Bowels, in a grand Maw-wallop for one's Supper. -- My own Health is certainly improved by this new Gout medicine / I cannot however get delivered in a full natural way of this child of Darkness & Discomfort -- always threatening & bullying -- but the swelling never inflames sufficiently & all is commonly carried off in a violent Sweat -- a long sudden soaking Sweat. But God be praised! my Nights since I last wrote have been astonishingly improved & I am confident now that my Complaint is nothing but flying Gout with a little Gravel. -- This Letter I meant to be ____________________ 1 These descriptions of Hartley, Derwent, and Sara in some measure prognosticate the future of each child. Hartley was to become a poet and one of fortune's ne'er-do-wells, Derwent a successful clergyman and schoolmaster, and Sara a children's poet and editor, who with her husband strove to put her father's house in order. See E. L. Griggs, Hartley Coleridge, 1929, and Coleridge Fille, 1940. -1015- about myself -- O that I could but be in London with you. It seems to me that you are entering on the porch of a Temple, for which Nature has made & destined you to be the Priest. But more of this hereafter. I have been, to use a mild word, agitated by two INFAMOUS atrocious Paragraphs in the Morning Post of Thursday & Friday last -- I believe them to be Mackintosh's - -O that they were! I would hunt him into Infamy. -- I am now exerting myself to the utmost on this Subject. Do write me instantly what you think of them / or rather, what you thought, what you felt, what you said! -- S. T. Coleridge Many articles in the M. P. not mine are attributed to me. Very probably, those infamous articles may -- Stuart has sold the paper for 15000£ -- he netted 8000£ a year -- it was scarcely 2 years' purchase. -- Do write instantly on the subject of this No Quarter! ------ I have written twice to Stuart who still, I believe, superintends the paper in part -- & can get no answer from him. -- Ever & for ever, dearest Friend, gratefully & with affectionate Esteem your's -- 526. To Sir George Beaumont Address: Sir G. Beaumont, Bart. | Dunmow | Essex [Readdressed in another hand] Sir Geo. Beaumont, Bart. | North Aston | Near Woodstock | Oxfordshire. MS. Cornell University Lib. Pub. Some Letters of the Wordsworth Family, ed. by L. N. Broughton, 1942, p. 101. Postmark: 22 October 1803. Stamped: Penrith. Keswick, Monday, Oct. 16 [17]. 1803 Dear Sir George I have had a large Sheet of Verses lying on my Desk for the last ten days, intended for Lady Beaumont: and I have wanted the heart to correct & send them off. They seemed so flat in themselves -- and so unseasonable in the present awful crisis. I have been haunted with anxieties concerning you -- my eyes ever & anon on the Map, now on Essex, & now on the Coast of France. -- Dear Sir George, you are not a military man, nor possessed of military Science -- night after night, I have been framing wishes that you were in Leicestershire, doing there what no one but yourself can do so well, namely, raising and organizing your Tenantry & Colliers -- instead of remaining in the very heart of the Danger & the Anxiety, and where, I presume, all the Good has been done which your Presence was calculated to do. The form of Lady Beaumont & the imagined Form of your venerable Mother, are present to me / and I cannot help wishing & wishing that they were farther inland. -1016- Do forgive me, dear Sir George! if I have presumed too far, in giving words to my feelings; but I am convinced, that there is no real Danger that threatens G. Britain as an Empire; but that the Plan of the Miscreant is that of a man mad with Hatred of Englishmen as Englishmen, & that he anticipates a relief to this infernal Passion by spreading Bloodshed & pitiless Devastation over particular Tracts -- whatever part he may be able to disgorge his Troops on/ tho' at the certainty of their final Destruction. If contrary to my deepest conviction, I find the Country in real Danger, I will stand or fall with it -- and I trust, that I should not be found in my Study if the French remained even 10 days on British Ground. But merely to place one's self close by the Sluice-gate of the Stream, with no chance of doing any good that ten thousand cannot do better than you, 10,000 men, who can do nothing else, on whom their Country have no other Call, and Posterity no Claims -- but I write in pain -- my nature turns away with Terror from the Idea of appearing obtrusive or presumptuous to you. ------ I received last night two Volumes of Dr Barrow 1 -- the admirable Passage on Wit, in which Lady Beaumont had put a paper, is an old friend & favorite of mine. Beyond any other passage in any Language it carries along a regular Admiration with a still increasing Surprize, till the mind rests at length in pure Wonder. -- I pray, that I may read these excellent Sermons to such an effect, as will be considered by her Ladyship as the best possible Thanks. -We have quite a sick House -- Southey's Eyes are very bad, Mrs Southey & her Sister are very poorly -- Derwent is just recovering of a bad epidemic Cough & Fever, & poor little Sara is at this moment very ill indeed with it -- tho' Mr Edmondson hopes & believes, that there is no danger. Mrs Coleridge is well: & I am better than usual. -- I am very anxious to hear from you, and am with respectful affection your obliged & grateful, S. T. Coleridge. 527. To Mrs. John Thelwall Address: Mrs Thelwall I Kendal MS. Pierpont Morgan Lib. Pub. E.L.G. i. 295. Stamped: Keswick. Tuesday Night. [ 22 November 1803.] 2 Greta Hall, Keswick Dear Mrs Thelwall I did not receive your Husband's Letter, &c till the day before yesterday, when Mr Clarkson delivered it to me / I was vexed at ____________________ 1 Isaac Barrow's theological works were published posthumously under the editorship of Tillotson in four volumes, 1688-9. 2 Clarkson was at Greta Hall on 19 Nov. 1803, for Southey, writing to John -1017- the delay -- as Thelwall would naturally think my silence a proof of neglect & forgetfulness of past kindness. -- To all other purposes the Delay did no harm / for I have been so VERY, VERY ill, with such a complication of bodily miseries, for the last 8 weeks that I could not possibly have come over to Kendal --. As Thelwall is a Land-Nautilus & drives on in his own Shell, there can be no reason why he should not go from Kendal to Ambleside, to Grasmere (where he will see Wordsworth) & thence to Keswick / from Keswick to Carlisle by Newmarket Hesket, which is 25 miles -- the whole journey from Kendal to Carlisle thro' Keswick is 55 miles -- [a]bout 12 miles or so round about, as I guess. The road from Keswick to Carlisle I myself travelled this year in an Irish Car. -- If your Husband adopt this plan, & immediately on his arrival at Kendal will give me a few Lines, stating the day, on which he intends to leave it, &c, I will -- if my miserable Carcase be in any tolerable state of subservience to my wishes -- walk to Kendal, & so return with him, in order to see you & your family -- & to have the more of his Conversation. Believe me, I have never ceased to think with tenderness -- & have often thought with an anxious tenderness -- of him, & his -- & sincerely do I rejoice in his Well-doing & Well-being -- sincerely rejoice that (to use the words of Milton a little altered) he has disembarked from a troubled Sea of Noises and hoarse disputes, to behold the bright countenance of Truth in the quiet and still Air of delightful Disquisition. -- I could not guess at his System from his Syllabus 1 / and my curiosity therefore has still it's first edge on it. -- I dread at Edingburgh the effects of the inordinate Self-sufficiency & Disputatiousness that deform the character of the literary part of it's Inhabitants / if report is not a Liar. Unanswerable Truth is a Torment to a mind, that has formed it's whole Taste & habit of pleasure in answering -- to men, who have dubbed the monosyllable 'But', gentleman-usher to all their Sentences. -- I have seen hitherto little Truth struck out by the so much boast[ed] Collision of Sentiment, in Conversation. I have 3 children, 2 boys & a girl -- & they & my Wife are well. I sincerely wish, we were near Kendal -- or rather that Kendal were very near to this Heaven upon Earth / that the two families might be comforts to each other. I shall be too late for the Post, if ____________________ King of Bristol on that day, says his letter 'will be delivered to you by Mr., once the Reverend Thomas Clarkson.' Southey Letters, i. 245. The next day, so Dorothy reports, Clarkson arrived at Grasmere and stayed a few hours, before leaving to join his wife in Bristol. Later Years, iii. 1844. This letter, then, must have been written on 22 Nov. 1 Presumably a syllabus for the lectures on elocution Thelwall was delivering at this time. See Southey Letters, i. 255. -1018- I write more / & my Health is so precarious, that what I do not write this Hour I may be unable to write the next ----- With my kindest Remembrances to your Husband & yourself, & ardent well-wishing for you, I remain, | dear Mrs Thelwall, | with simple & sincere Esteem & Affection | Your faithful Friend S. T. Coleridge 528. To John Thelwall Address: Mr John Thelwall | Kendal MS. Pierpont Morgan Lib. Pub. E.L.G. i. 296. Nov. 26th [25], 1803. Friday Night My dear Thelwall I received your Wife's kind & very interesting Letter; but was too ill to answer it by return of Post. I cannot without the most culpable Imprudence attempt to reach Kendal; especially, as I could not possibly arrive there time enough to spend any time at all with your Family -- but I will go to Grasmere, & meet you there, if you come that way -- as by Mrs Thelwall's Letter I promise myself, that you will. -- I shall very soon -- certainly in a week or ten days -- leave this Country, to seek a vessel either for Malta or Madeira -- for I dare stay no longer in this climate. But I will assuredly see Mrs Thelwall -- & her friend -- whose attachment to one unknown or at least unseen, affected & pleased me -- not for myself -- Heaven knows! she might easily have found a less unworthy object of her favorable opinion -- but because such feelings of Esteem & Affection for persons, who are known to us only in spirit, are the exclusive property of minds at once fervent & pure & formative: -minds untamed by 'the dreary Intercourse' of common Life, & inspired by their own natures to believe, & have a Joy in the goodness of others. -- My Health is in a most distressful State; my Bowel & Stomach attacks frequent & alarming. But I bear Pain with a woman's Fortitude/ it is constitutional with me to look quietly and steadily in it's face, as it were, & to ask it -- What & whence it is? ----- If this Letter reach you in time, you will oblige me by going to the best Druggist in Kendal for me, & purchasing an Ounce of crude opium, & 9 ounces of Laudanum, the Latter put in a stout bottle & so packed up as that it may travel a few hundred miles with safety. -- The whole will cost, I believe, half a guinea -- & you will bring them with you in your gig. -- Robert Southey is with me at -1019- present. He is a good man, a faithful Lover of all that good men once hoped for & must for ever desire / & he has a great respect & kindness for you ----- Wordsworth is likewise here / he came in last night to see me, I being very ill -- but to day I am a good deal better / & hope to derive from you a stimulus strong enough to make your all too short Sojourn with us pleasant to you & representative of old Times. With best good wishes for you & your's I am as ever, dear Thelwall, | your's S. T. Coleridge P.S. Do you know G. Braithwaite, Junr -- a Quaker of our friend, Clarkson's, Acquaintance ? -- If you do, I wish you would call on him, present my regards, & in my name request him to procure for me Scotus in Sententias from the Sandys' Library, 1 which you can bring with you / -- You will laugh heartily at travelling in a Gig with old Duns Scotus for your Companion / -- God bless the old Schoolmenl they have been my best comforts, & most instructive Companions for the last 2 years. ----- Could you have believed, that I could have come to this? -- 529. To Matthew Coates Address: M. M. Cotes, Esqre | Mall I Clifton | BristolSingle Sheet MS. Mr. Merl P. Renz. Pub. with omis. Letters, i. 441. Postmark: 8 December 1803. Stamped: Keswick. Greta Hall, Keswick. Dec. 5, 1803 Dear Sir After a time of Sufferings great, as mere bodily Afflictions can well be conceived to be, and which the Horrors of my Sleep, and Night-screams (so loud & so frequent as to make me almost a ____________________ 1 Mr. Robert H. Pilling of the Kendal Grammar School has given me the following information concerning the Sandes Library in Kendal: 'Thomas Sandes founded in 1659 the Sandes Hospital "for the use of eight poor widows -- and for the use of a schoolmaster to read prayers to the said widows twice a day and to teach poor children --". He left to the care of the schoolmaster the library which he had accumulated with instructions to allow "men of quality and learning" to be admitted thereto. The books were chained and so remained until at least 1722. In 1886 the endowments of the Sandes School (commonly called "the Blue Coat School") were amalgamated with those of the Grammar School. The Sandes School was then closed and the library transferred to the Grammar School, where it still remains. The library consists for the most part of the writings of the Early Fathers, Biblical commentators, religious controversialists, and ecclesiastical historians. In addition there are a number of secular histories and cosmographies.' Among the books in the Sandes Library is Scotus, Super tertio Sententiarum, 1505. -1020- Nuisance in my own house [)] seemed to carry beyond mere Body -- counterfeiting, as it were, the Tortures of Guilt, and what we are told of the Punishments of a spiritual World -- I am at length a Convalescent -- but dreading such another Bout as much as I dare dread a Thing which has no immediate connection with my Conscience. My left Hand is swoln, & inflamed; and the least attempt to bend the Fingers very painful, tho' not half so much as I could wish: for if I could but fix this Jack o'Lanthorn of a Disease in my Hand or Foot, I should expect a year or two's Furlow. But tho' I have no hope of this, yet I have a Persuasion, strong as Fate, that from 12 to 18 months' Residence & perfect Tranquillity in a genial Climate would send me back to dear old England, a sample of the first Resurrection. W. Wordsworth, who has seen me in all my Illnesses for nearly four years, and noticed their strange dependence on the state of my moral Feelings and the State of the Atmosphere conjointly, is decisively of the same opinion. -- Accordingly, after many sore Struggles of mind from reluctance to quit my children, for so long a Time, I have arranged my affairs fully and finally, and hope to set sail for Madeira in the first Vessel that clears out from Liverpool for that Place: tomorrow or next day I expect a Letter from Dr Crompton, with particular Information. Robert Southey, who lives with us at present, informed me, that Mrs M. Cotes had a near Relation -- a Brother, I believe, on the Island -the Dr Adams, who wrote a very nice little Pamphlet on Madeira relatively to the different sorts of Consumptions, & which I have now on my Desk. 1 I need not say, that it would be a great Comfort to me to be introduced to him by a Letter from you or Mrs C., intreating him to put me in the way of living as cheaply as possible. I have no Appetites, Passions, or Vanities that lead to expense: it is now absolute Habit with me indeed to consider my Eating & Drinking, as a course of Medicine: in Books only am I intemperate. They have been both Bane & Blessing to me. For the last 3 years, I have not read less than 8 hours a day, whenever I have been well enough to be out of Bed, or even to sit up in it -- Quiet, therefore, a comfortable Bed and Bed room; and that [still] bett[er] Comfort of kind Faces -- English Tongues & English Hearts -- now and then -- this is the Sum Total of my Wants. The last article indeed is not so much a Want, as it is a Thing, which I need. I am far too contented with Solitude. The same Fullness of Mind, the same ____________________ 1 Dr. Joseph Adams ( 1756-1818) obtained his M.D. degree at Aberdeen and settled in Madeira as a physician. In 1801 he published A Guide to the Island of Madeira. In 1805, after his return to England, he was elected physician to the Small-pox Hospital. It was Dr. Adams 'who in 1816 recommended Coleridge to the care of Mr. James Gillman'. Letters, i. 442 n. -1021- Crowding of Thoughts, & Constitutional Vivacity of Feeling, w[hich] makes me sometimes the First Fiddle, & too often [a] Watchman's Rattle, in Society, renders me likewise [independent] of it. -- However, I am wondrously calmed down, si[nce] you knew m[e -- c]hiefly perhaps by unremitting Disease, [and] somewhat, I would fain hope, [by] Reflection and Self-discipline. Mrs Coleridge desires me to remember her with respectfu[l regards] to Mrs Cotes, and to enquire into the History of your little [family. I] have three Children living, Hartley Coleridge, 7 years ol[d, Derwent,] 3 years old, and Sara a year old, on the 23rd of this Month. Hartley is considered as a Genius by Wordsworth, & Southey -- indeed, by every one who has seen much of him -- / but (what is of much more consequence, & much less doubtful) he has the sweetest Temper & the most awakened moral Feelings of any Child, I ever saw. He is very backward in his Book-learning -- cannot write at all, and a very lame Reader. We have never been anxious about it, taking it for granted that loving me & seeing how I love books, he would come to it of his own accord. And so it has proved. For in the last month he has made more progress than in all his former life. Having learnt every thing almost from the mouths of People, whom he loves, he has connected with his Words & notions a Passion & a Feeling which would appear strange to those who had seen no Children but such as had been taught almost every thing in Books. -- Derwent is a large, fat, beautiful Child, quite the Pride of the Village, as Hartley is the Darling -- Southey says, that all Hartley's Guts are in his Brains, and all Derwent's Brains in his Guts. -- Verily, the constitutional Differences in Children are great indeed. From earliest Infancy Hartley was absent, a mere Dreamer, at his meals; put the food into his mouth by one effort, and made a second effort to remember that it was there & to swallow it -- With little Derwent [it] is a time of Rapture & Jubilee -- and any Story, that has no Pie or Cake in it, comes very flat to him. -- Our Girl is a Darling little Thing with large blue eyes, a quiet Creature that as I have often said, seems to bask in a Sunshine, as mild as Moonlight, of her own Happiness. -- O bless them! next to the Bible, Shakespere, & Milton, they are the three Books from which I have learnt the most -- and the most important -& with the greatest Delight. I have been thus prolix about me & mine, purposely, to induce you to tell me something of yourself & your's. Believe me, I have never ceased to think of you with respect & a sort of yearning -- you were the first man, from whom I heard that article of my Faith distinctly enunciated, which is the nearest to my Heart, the pure Fountain of all [my] moral & religious Feelings & [C]omforts -- I mean, the absolute Impersonality of the -1022- [D]eity. The Many would deem me an Atheist; alas! I know them to be Idolaters. -- I remain, my dear Sir, with unfeigned Esteem & kind Wishes, Your's, &c, S. T. Coleridge. -- P.S. -- Be so good as to direct me as above: if I should be at Liverpool, the Letter (and, if I have not idly flattered myself, the Letters) will be forwarded to me. Do you know, whether there is any Trade from any Devonshire Port, any Vessels that go to, or touch at, Madeira? -- I have not been without some Fears, while writing this Letter, lest you should have received some gloomy Intelligence from Madeira -- but Dr Adams is so well known, that if there had been, it would assuredly have been mentioned -- have escaped in the very first Boiling-up of the News. -- There have been in the memory of middle-aged Persons two 'Borsten Clouds' in the mountains round Keswick; & have left the History of their Doings -- one of them, in naked Rock adown the whole side of a high Mountain, in aforetime covered with vegetations: -- but now written over with Vees, Ys and Ws, of no easy erasure -- in winter time & after hard Rains they become Literae vocales with a vengeance -each one the bed of a Torrent. -- S.T.C. 530. To Sara Hutchinson MS. Dove Cottage. Hitherto unpublished fragment. [Circa 19 December 1803] 1 . . . Sum, to be repayed by Wordsworth at the end of the Year in case I should not be able to do it 2 / & the plan which I had lit on, of taking up the money by a Draft on my own Annuity, W. to let Mrs C. have it by Installments quarterly, did not suit William / -- & to confess the Truth to you, I am heart-sick and stomach-sick of talking, writing, and thinking about myself. -- Besides all this, I found that I had been wandering in a mist; that there are so many Bills to pay, & heavy ones too, in addition to the 28 or 29£. . .& Mrs C's Mother's annual Pittance, that 1509 will not. . . ____________________ 1 In this letter Coleridge speaks 'of going to Grasmere tomorrow'. Since he went on 20 Dec. 1803, this letter was probably written the day before. See Letter 539. 2 Writing to Coleridge about this time Dorothy Wordsworth says: 'As to the money William bids me say that whatever best accommodates you he should best like, only that it would be more pleasant to us (other things being nearly equal) to have nothing to pay till the end of next summer as John will then be at home, and our affairs settled.' Early Letters, 852. In Mar. 1804 William Sotheby gave Coleridge £100 for which Wordsworth stood security. See Letter 569. -1023- . . . Dear little Derwent! he is a sad naughty Boy, but very beautiful. I forgot to tell a sweet anecdote of him, that happened some months before we went into Scotland / He was whirling round & round in the Kitchen, till (and no doubt for the first time in his conscious Life) he made himself compleatly giddy -- he turned pale with fear, his pretty Lips began to quiver, and pawing with his two arms as if he was pulling something back, he cries out repeatedly with trembling Voice, The Kisshen is running away from Derwent! The Kishen (Kitchen) is running away from Derwent! -- you never saw so pretty a sight. -- To this Hour Derwent believes that there are two Derwents, & believes that the Reflection in the Looking-Glass is a real Being / & when I endeavored to convince him of his mistake by shewing him that he could not feel it / [']Well!['] says little Cumbria -- ['] but you know, the Glass an't broke, & that's the reason, I can't get at him.' -- Dear Hartley is just what he was -- if possible, more thoughtful, joyous, and loveworthy than ever. He has afforded me a striking instance of the effect of local association / Since we have moved Houses, Hartley has been 9 times with us where he came once before, & has shewn most manifestly a great increase of affection to me -- & to his Mother. -- I think of going to Grasmere tomorrow -- to stay there a couple of Days, & if possible to take Derwent & leave him there -& thence to London. . . . or Wednesday -- . . .thence. . .Bath, & Exeter -- . . . [S.T.] C.