CHAPTER VI
A LAKE POET
1800-1803
CX. TO THOMAS POOLE.
August 14, 1800.
MY DEAR POOLE,--Your two letters[235] I received exactly four days ago--some days they must have been lying at Ambleside before they were sent to Grasmere, and some days at Grasmere before they moved to Keswick.... It grieved me that you had felt so much from my silence. Believe me, I have been harassed with business, and shall remain so for the remainder of this year. Our house is a delightful residence, something less than half a mile from the lake of Keswick and something more than a furlong from the town. It commands both that lake and the lake of Bassenthwaite. Skiddaw is behind us; to the left, the right, and in front mountains of all shapes and sizes. The waterfall of Lodore is distinctly visible. In garden, etc., we are uncommonly well off, and our landlord, who resides next door in this twofold house, is already much attached to us. He is a quiet, sensible man, with as large a library as yours,--and perhaps rather larger,--well stored with encyclopædias, dictionaries, and histories, etc., all modern. The gentry of the country, titled and untitled, have all called or are about to call on me, and I shall have free access to the magnificent library of Sir Gilfrid Lawson. I wish you could come here in October after your harvesting, and stand godfather at the christening of my child. In October the country is in all its blaze of beauty.
We are well and the Wordsworths are well. The two volumes of the “Lyrical Ballads” will appear in about a fortnight or three weeks. Sara sends her best kind love to your mother. How much we rejoice in her health I need not say. Love to Ward, and to Chester, to whom I shall write as soon as I am at leisure. I was standing at the very top of Skiddaw, by a little shed of slate stones on which I had scribbled with a bit of slate my name among the other names. A lean-expression-faced man came up the hill, stood beside me a little while, then, on running over the names, exclaimed, “Coleridge! I lay my life that is the _poet Coleridge_!”
God bless you, and for God’s sake never doubt that I am attached to you beyond all other men.
S. T. COLERIDGE.
CXI. TO SIR H. DAVY.
Thursday night, October 9, 1800.
MY DEAR DAVY,--I was right glad, glad with a _stagger_ of the heart, to see your writing again. Many a moment have I had all my France and England curiosity suspended and lost, looking in the advertisement front column of the “Morning Post Gazeteer” for _Mr. Davy’s Galvanic habitudes of charcoal_.--Upon my soul I believe there is not a letter in those words round which a world of imagery does not circumvolve; your room, the garden, the cold bath, the moonlight rocks, Barristed, Moore, and simple-looking Frere, and dreams of wonderful things attached to your name,--and Skiddaw, and Glaramara, and Eagle Crag, and you, and Wordsworth, and me, on the top of them! I pray you do write to me immediately, and tell me what you mean by the possibility of your assuming a new occupation. Have you been successful to the extent of your expectations in your late chemical inquiries?
[Illustration]
As to myself, I am doing little worthy the relation. I write for Stuart in the “Morning Post,” and I am compelled by the god Pecunia--which was one name of the supreme Jupiter--to give a volume of letters from Germany, which will be a decent _lounge_ book, and not an atom more. The “Christabel” was running up to 1,300 lines,[236] and was so much admired by Wordsworth, that he thought it indelicate to print two volumes with his name, in which so much of another man’s was included; and, which was of more consequence, the poem was in direct opposition to the very purpose for which the lyrical ballads were published, viz., an experiment to see how far those passions which alone give any value to extraordinary incidents were capable of interesting, in and for themselves, in the incidents of common life. We mean to publish the “Christabel,” therefore, with a long blank-verse poem of Wordsworth’s, entitled “The Pedlar.”[237] I assure you I think very differently of “Christabel.” I would rather have written “Ruth,” and “Nature’s Lady,” than a million such poems. But why do I calumniate my own spirit by saying “I would rather”? God knows it is as delightful to me that they _are_ written. I _know_ that at present, and I _hope_ that it _will be so_; my mind has _disciplined_ itself into a willing exertion of its powers, without any reference to their comparative value.
I cannot speak favourably of W.’s health, but, indeed, he has not done common justice to Dr. Beddoes’s kind prescriptions. I saw his countenance darken, and all his hopes vanish, when he saw the _prescriptions_--his _scepticism_ concerning medicines! nay, it is not enough _scepticism_! Yet, now that peas and beans are over, I have hopes that he will in good earnest make a fair and full trial. I rejoice with sincere joy at Beddoes’s recovery.
Wordsworth is fearful you have been much teased by the printers on his account, but you can sympathise with him. The works which I gird myself up to attack as soon as money concerns will permit me are the Life of Lessing, and the Essay on Poetry. The latter is still more at my heart than the former: its title would be an essay on the elements of poetry,--it would be in reality a disguised system of morals and politics. When you write,--and do write soon,--tell me how I can get your essay on the nitrous oxide. If you desired Johnson to have one sent to Lackington’s, to be placed in Mr. Crosthwaite’s monthly parcel for Keswick, I should receive it. Are your galvanic discoveries important? What do they lead to? All this is _ultra-crepidation_, but would to Heaven I had as much knowledge as I have sympathy!
My wife and children are well; the baby was dying some weeks ago, so the good people would have it baptized; his name is Derwent Coleridge,[238] so called from the river, for, fronting our house, the Greta runs into the Derwent. Had it been a girl the name should have been Greta. By the bye, Greta, or rather Grieta, is exactly the Cocytus of the Greeks. The word, literally rendered in modern English, is “the loud lamenter;” to griet in the Cambrian dialect, signifying to roar aloud for grief or pain, and it does _roar_ with a vengeance! I will say nothing about spring--a thirsty man tries to think of anything but the stream when he knows it to be ten miles off! God bless you!
Your most affectionate S. T. COLERIDGE.
CXII. TO THE SAME.
October 18, 1800.
MY DEAR DAVY,--Our mountains northward end in the mountain Carrock,--one huge, steep, enormous bulk of stones, desolately variegated with the heath plant; at its foot runs the river Calder, and a narrow vale between it and the mountain Bowscale, so narrow, that in its greatest width it is not more than a furlong. But that narrow vale is _so_ green, _so_ beautiful, there are moods in which a man might weep to look at it. On this mountain Carrock, at the summit of which are the remains of a vast Druid circle of stones, I was wandering, when a thick cloud came on, and wrapped me in such darkness that I could not see ten yards before me, and with the cloud a storm of wind and hail, the like of which I had never before seen and felt. At the very summit is a cone of stones, built by the shepherds, and called the Carrock Man. Such cones are on the tops of almost all our mountains, and they are all called _men_. At the bottom of the Carrock Man I seated myself for shelter, but the wind became so fearful and tyrannous, that I was apprehensive some of the stones might topple down upon me, so I groped my way farther down and came to three rocks, placed on this wise [Symbol], each one supported by the other like a child’s house of cards, and in the hollow and screen which they made I sate for a long while sheltered, as if I had been in my own study in which I am now writing: there I sate with a total feeling worshipping the power and “eternal link” of energy. The darkness vanished as by enchantment; far off, far, far off to the south, the mountains of Glaramara and Great Gable and their family appeared distinct, in deepest, sablest _blue_. I rose, and behind me was a rainbow bright as the brightest. I descended by the side of a torrent, and passed, or rather crawled (for I was forced to descend on all fours), by many a naked waterfall, till, fatigued and hungry (and with a finger almost broken, and which remains swelled to the size of two fingers), I reached the narrow vale, and the single house nestled in ash and sycamores. I entered to claim the universal hospitality of this country; but instead of the life and comfort usual in these lonely houses, I saw dirt, and every appearance of misery--a pale woman sitting by a peat fire. I asked her for bread and milk, and she sent a small child to fetch it, but did not rise herself. I eat very heartily of the black, sour bread, and drank a bowl of milk, and asked her to permit me to pay her. “Nay,” says she, “we are not so scant as that--you are right welcome; but do you know any help for the rheumatics, for I have been so long ailing that I am almost fain to die?” So I advised her to eat a great deal of mustard, having seen in an advertisement something about essence of mustard curing the most obstinate cases of rheumatism. But do write me, and tell me some cure for the rheumatism; it is in her shoulders, and the small of her back chiefly. I wish much to go off with some bottles of stuff to the poor creature. I should walk the ten miles as ten yards. With love and honour, my dear Davy,
Yours, S. T. COLERIDGE.
CXIII. TO THE SAME.
GRETA HALL, Tuesday night, December 2, 1800.
MY DEAR DAVY,--By an accident I did not receive your letter till this evening. I would that you had added to the account of your indisposition the probable causes of it. It has left me anxious whether or no you have not exposed yourself to unwholesome influences in your chemical pursuits. There are _few_ beings both of hope and performance, but few who combine the “are” and the “will be.” For God’s sake, therefore, my dear fellow, do not rip open the bird that lays the golden eggs. I have not received your book. I read yesterday a sort of medical review about it. I suppose Longman will send it to me when he sends down the “Lyrical Ballads” to Wordsworth. I am solicitous to read the latter part. Did there appear to you any remote analogy between the case I translated from the German Magazine and the effects produced by your gas? Did Carlisle[239] ever communicate to you, or has he in any way published his facts concerning _pain_ which he mentioned when we were with him? It is a subject which _exceedingly interests_ me. I want to read something by somebody expressly on _pain_, if only to give an _arrangement_ to my own thoughts, though if it were well treated I have little doubt it would revolutionize them. For the last month I have been trembling on through sands and swamps of evil and bodily grievance. My eyes have been inflamed to a degree that rendered reading and writing scarcely possible; and, strange as it seems, the act of metre composition, as I lay in bed, perceptibly affected them, and my voluntary ideas were every minute passing, more or less transformed into vivid spectra. I had leeches repeatedly applied to my temples, and a blister behind my ear--and my eyes are now my own, but in the place where the blister was, six small but excruciating boils have appeared, and harass me almost beyond endurance. In the mean time my darling Hartley has been taken with a stomach illness, which has ended in the yellow jaundice; and this greatly alarms me. So much for the doleful! Amid all these changes, and humiliations, and fears, the sense of the Eternal abides in me, and preserves unsubdued my cheerful faith, that all I endure is full of blessings!
At times, indeed, I would fain be somewhat of a more tangible utility than I am; but so I suppose it is with all of us--one while cheerful, stirring, feeling in resistance nothing but a joy and a stimulus; another while drowsy, self-distrusting, prone to rest, loathing our own self-promises, withering our own hopes--our hopes, the vitality and cohesion of our being!
I purpose to have “Christabel” published by itself--this I publish with confidence--but my travels in Germany come from me now with mortal pangs. Nothing but the most pressing necessity could have induced me--and even now I hesitate and tremble. Be so good as to have all that is printed of “Christabel” sent to me per post.
Wordsworth has nearly finished the concluding poem. It is of a mild, unimposing character, but full of beauties to those short-necked men who have their hearts sufficiently near their heads--the relative distance of which (according to citizen Tourdes, the French translator of Spallanzani) determines the sagacity or stupidity of all bipeds and quadrupeds.
There is a deep blue cloud over the heavens; the lake, and the vale, and the mountains are all in darkness; only the _summits_ of all the mountains in long ridges, covered with snow, are bright to a dazzling excess. A glorious scene! Hartley was in my arms the other evening, looking at the sky; he saw the moon glide into a large cloud. Shortly after, at another part of the cloud, several stars sailed in. Says he, “Pretty creatures! they are going in to see after their mother moon.”
Remember me kindly to King. Write as often as you can; but above all things, my loved and honoured dear fellow, do not give up the idea of letting me and Skiddaw see you. God love you!
S. T. COLERIDGE.
Tobin writes me that Thompson[240] has made some lucrative discovery. Do you know aught about it? Have you seen T. Wedgwood since his return?
CXIV. TO THOMAS POOLE.
GRETA HALL, KESWICK, Saturday night, December 5, 1800.
MY DEAREST FRIEND,--I have been prevented from answering your last letter entirely by the state of my eyes, and my wish to write more fully to you than their weakness would permit. For the last month and more I have indeed been a very crazy machine.... _That_ consequence of this long-continued ill-health which I most regret is, that it has thrown me so sadly behindhand in the performance of my engagements with the bookseller, that I almost fear I shall not be able to raise money enough by Christmas to make it prudent for me to journey southward. I shall, however, try hard for it. My plan was to go to London, and make a faint trial whether or no I could get a sort of dramatic romance, which I had more than half finished, upon the stage, and from London to visit Stowey and Gunville. Dear little Hartley has been ill in a stomach complaint which ended in the yellow jaundice, and frightened me sorely, as you may well believe. But, praise be to God, he is recovered and begins to look like himself. He is a very extraordinary creature, and if he live will, I doubt not, prove a great genius. Derwent is a fat, pretty child, healthy and hungry. I deliberated long whether I should not call him Thomas Poole Coleridge, and at last gave up the idea only because your nephew is called Thomas Poole, and because if ever it should be my destiny once again to live near you, I believed that such a name would give pain to some branches of your family. You will scarcely exact a very severe account of what a man has been doing who has been obliged for days and days together to keep his bed. Yet I have not been altogether idle, having in my own conceit gained great light into several parts of the human mind which have hitherto remained either wholly unexplained or most falsely explained. To one resolution I am wholly made up, to wit, that as soon as I am a freeman in the world of money I will never write a line for the express purpose of money (but only as believing it good and useful, in some way or other). Although I am certain that I have been greatly improving both in knowledge and power in these last twelve months, yet still at times it presses upon me with a painful weight that I have not evidenced a more tangible utility. I have too much trifled with my reputation. You have conversed much with Davy; he is delighted with you. What do you think of him? Is he not a great man, think you?... I and my wife were beyond measure delighted by your account of your mother’s health. Give our best, kindest loves to her. Charles Lloyd has settled at Ambleside, sixteen miles from Keswick. I shall not see him. If I cannot come, I will write you a very, very long letter, containing the most important of the many thoughts and feelings which I want to communicate to you, but hope to do it face to face.
Give my love to Ward, and to J. Chester. How is poor old Mr. Rich and his wife?
God have you ever in his keeping, making life tranquil to you. Believe me to be what I have been ever, and am, attached to you _one_ degree more at least than to any other living man.
S. T. COLERIDGE.
CXV. TO SIR H. DAVY.
February 3, 1801.
MY DEAR DAVY,--I can scarcely reconcile it to my conscience to make you pay postage for another letter. Oh, what a fine unveiling of modern politics it would be if there were published a minute detail of all the sums received by government from the post establishment, and of all the outlets in which the sums so received flowed out again! and, on the other hand, all the domestic affections which had been stifled, all the intellectual progress that would have been, but is not, on account of the heavy tax, etc., etc. The letters of a nation ought to be paid for as an article of national expense. Well! but I did not take up this paper to flourish away in splenetic politics. A gentleman resident here, his name Calvert,[241] an idle, good-hearted, and ingenious man, has a great desire to commence fellow-student with me and Wordsworth in chemistry. He is an intimate friend of Wordsworth’s, and he has proposed to W. to take a house which he (Calvert) has nearly built, called Windy Brow, in a delicious situation, scarce half a mile from Greta Hall, the residence of S. T. Coleridge, Esq., and so for him (Calvert) to live with them, that is, Wordsworth and his sister. In this case he means to build a little laboratory, etc. Wordsworth has not quite decided, but is strongly inclined to adopt the scheme, because he and his sister have before lived with Calvert on the same footing, and are much attached to him; because my health is so precarious and so much injured by wet, and his health, too, is like little potatoes, no great things, and therefore Grasmere (thirteen miles from Keswick) is too great a distance for us to enjoy each other’s society without inconvenience, as much as it would be profitable for us both; and, likewise, because he feels it more necessary for him to have some intellectual pursuit less closely connected with deep passion than poetry, and is of course desirous, too, not to be so wholly ignorant of knowledge so exceedingly important. However, whether Wordsworth come or no, Calvert and I have determined to begin and go on. Calvert is a man of sense and some originality, and is, besides, what is well called a handy man. He is a good practical mechanic, etc., and is desirous to lay out any sum of money that is necessary. You know how long, how ardently I have wished to initiate myself in chemical science, both for its own sake and in no small degree likewise, my beloved friend, that I may be able to sympathise with all that you do and think. Sympathise blindly with it all I do even _now_, God knows! from the very middle of my heart’s heart, but I would fain sympathise with you in the light of knowledge. This opportunity is exceedingly precious to me, as on my own account I could not afford the least additional expense, having been already, by long and successive illnesses, thrown behindhand so much that for the next four or five months I fear, let me work as hard as I can, I shall not be able to do what my heart within me _burns_ to do, that is, to _concentre_ my free mind to the affinities of the feelings with words and ideas under the title of “Concerning Poetry, and the nature of the Pleasures derived from it.” I have faith that I do understand the subject, and I am sure that if I write what I ought to do on it, the work would supersede all the books of metaphysics, and all the books of morals too. To whom shall a young man utter _his pride_, if not to a young man whom he loves?
I beg you, therefore, my dear Davy, to write me a long letter when you are at leisure, informing me: Firstly, What books it will be well for me and Calvert to purchase. Secondly, Directions for a convenient little laboratory. Thirdly, To what amount apparatus would run in expense, and whether or no you would be so good as to superintend its making at Bristol. Fourthly, Give me your advice how to _begin_. And, fifthly, and lastly, and mostly, do send a _drop_ of hope to my parched tongue, that you will, if you can, come and visit me in the spring. Indeed, indeed, you ought to see this country, this beautiful country, and then the joy you would send into me!
The shape of this paper will convince you with what eagerness I began this letter; I really did not see that it was not a sheet.
I have been _thinking_ vigorously during my illness, so that I cannot say that my long, long wakeful nights have been all lost to me. The subject of my meditations has been the relations of thoughts to things; in the language of Hume, of ideas to impressions. I may be truly described in the words of Descartes: I have been “res cogitans, id est, dubitans, affirmans, negans, pauca intelligens, multa ignorans, volens, nolens, imaginans etiam, et sentiens.” I please myself with believing that you will receive no small pleasure from the result of these broodings, although I expect in you (in some points) a determined opponent, but I say of my mind in this respect: “Manet imperterritus ille hostem magnanimum opperiens, et mole suâ stat.” Every poor fellow has his proud hour sometimes, and this I suppose is mine.
I am better in every respect than I was, but am still _very feeble_. The weather has been woefully against me for the last fortnight, having rained here almost incessantly. I take quantities of bark, but the effect is (to express myself with the dignity of science) _x_ = 0000000, and I shall not gather strength, or that little suffusion of bloom which belongs to my healthy state, till I can walk out.
God bless you, my dear Davy! and your ever affectionate friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
P. S. An electrical machine, and a number of little knickknacks connected with it, Mr. Calvert has.--_Write._
CXVI. TO THOMAS POOLE.
Monday, March 16, 1801.
MY DEAR FRIEND,--The interval since my last letter has been filled up by me in the most intense study. If I do not greatly delude myself, I have not only _completely extricated the notions of time and space_, but have overthrown the doctrine of association, as taught by Hartley, and with it all the irreligious metaphysics of modern infidels--especially the doctrine of necessity. This I have _done_; but I trust that I am about to do more--namely, that I shall be able to evolve all the five senses, that is, to deduce them from one sense, and to state their growth and the causes of their difference, and in this evolvement to solve the process of life and consciousness. _I write this to you only, and I pray you, mention what I have written to no one._ At Wordsworth’s advice, or rather fervent entreaty, I have intermitted the pursuit. The intensity of thought, and the number of minute experiments with light and figure, have made me so nervous and feverish that I cannot sleep as long as I ought and have been used to do; and the sleep which I have is made up of ideas so connected, and so little different from the operations of reason, that it does not afford me the due refreshment. I shall therefore take a week’s respite, and make “Christabel” ready for the press; which I shall publish by itself, in order to get rid of all my engagements with Longman. My German
## Book I have suffered to remain suspended chiefly because the thoughts
which had employed my sleepless nights during my illness were imperious over me; and though poverty was staring me in the face, yet I dared behold my image miniatured in the pupil of her hollow eye, so steadily did I look her in the face; for it seemed to me a suicide of my very soul to divert my attention from truths so important, which came to me almost as a revelation. Likewise, I cannot express to you, dear Friend of my heart! the loathing which I once or twice felt when I attempted to write, merely for the bookseller, without any sense of the moral utility of what I was writing. I shall therefore, as I said, immediately publish my “Christabel,” with two essays annexed to it, on the “Preternatural” and on “Metre.”--This done, I shall propose to Longman, instead of my Travels (which, though nearly done, I am exceedingly anxious not to publish, because it brings me forward in a _personal_ way, as a man who relates little adventures of himself to _amuse_ people, and thereby exposes me to sarcasm and the malignity of anonymous critics, and is, besides, _beneath me_, ...) I shall propose to Longman to accept instead of these Travels a work on the originality and merits of Locke, Hobbes, and Hume, which work I mean as a _pioneer_ to my greater work, and as exhibiting a proof that I have not formed opinions without an attentive perusal of the works of my predecessors, from Aristotle to Kant.
I am confident that I can prove that the reputation of these three men has been wholly unmerited, and I have in what I have already written traced the whole history of the causes that effected this reputation entirely to Wordsworth’s satisfaction.
You have seen, I hope, the “Lyrical Ballads.” In the divine poem called “Michael,” by an infamous blunder[242] of the printer, near twenty lines are omitted in page 210, which makes it nearly unintelligible. Wordsworth means to write to you and to send them together with a list of the numerous errata. The character of the “Lyrical Ballads” is very great, and will increase daily. They have extolled them in the “British Critic.” Ask Chester (to whom I shall write in a week or so concerning his German books) for Greenough’s address, and be so kind as to send it immediately. Indeed, I hope for a _long_ letter from you, your opinion of the L. B., the preface, etc. You know, I presume, that Davy is appointed Director of the Laboratory, and Professor at the Royal Institution? I received a very affectionate letter from him on the occasion. Love to all. We are all well, except, perhaps, myself. Write! God love you and
S. T. COLERIDGE.
CXVII. TO THE SAME.
Monday, March 23, 1801.
MY DEAR FRIEND,--I received your kind letter of the 14th. I was agreeably disappointed in finding that you had been interested in the letter respecting Locke. Those which follow are abundantly more entertaining and important; but I have no one to transcribe them. Nay, three letters are written which have not been sent to Mr. Wedgwood,[243] because I have no one to transcribe them for me, and I do not wish to be without copies. Of that letter which you have I have no copy. It is somewhat unpleasant to me that Mr. Wedgwood has never answered my letter requesting his opinion of the utility of such a work, nor acknowledged the receipt of the long letter containing the evidences that the whole of Locke’s system, as far as it was a system, and with the exclusion of those parts only which have been given up _as absurdities_ by his warmest admirers, preëxisted in the writings of Descartes, in a far more pure, elegant, and delightful form. Be not afraid that I shall join the party of the _Little-ists_. I believe that I shall delight you by the detection of their artifices. _Now Mr. Locke was the founder of this sect, himself a perfect Little-ist._
My opinion is thus: that deep thinking is attainable only by a man of deep feeling, and that all truth is a species of revelation. The more I understand of Sir Isaac Newton’s works, the more boldly I dare utter to my own mind, and therefore to _you_, that I believe the souls of five hundred Sir Isaac Newtons would go to the making up of a Shakespeare or a Milton. But if it please the Almighty to grant me health, hope, and a steady mind (always the three clauses of my hourly prayers), before my thirtieth year I will thoroughly understand the whole of Newton’s works. At present I must content myself with endeavouring to make myself entire master of his easier work, that on Optics. I am exceedingly delighted with the beauty and neatness of his experiments, and with the accuracy of his _immediate_ deductions from them; but the opinions founded on these deductions, and indeed his whole theory is, I am persuaded, so exceedingly superficial as without impropriety to be deemed false. Newton was a mere materialist. _Mind_, in his system, is always _passive_,--a lazy _Looker-on_ on an external world. If the mind be not _passive_, if it be indeed made in God’s Image, and that, too, in the sublimest sense, the _Image of the Creator_, there is ground for suspicion that any system built on the passiveness of the mind must be false, as a system. I need not observe, my dear friend, how unutterably silly and contemptible these opinions would be if written to any but to another self. I assure you, solemnly assure you, that you and Wordsworth are the only men on earth to whom I would have uttered a word on this subject.
It is a rule, by which I hope to direct all my literary efforts, to let my opinions and my proofs go together. It is _insolent_ to _differ_ from the public _opinion_ in _opinion_, if it be only _opinion_. It is sticking up little _i by itself_, _i_ against the whole alphabet. But one _word_ with _meaning_ in it is worth the whole alphabet together. Such is a sound argument, an incontrovertible fact.
_Oh, for a Lodge_ in a land where human life was an end to which labour was only a means, instead of being, as it is here, a mere means of carrying on labour. I am oppressed at times with a true heart-gnawing melancholy when I contemplate the state of my poor oppressed country. God knows, it is as much as I can do to put meat and bread on my own table, and hourly some poor starving wretch comes to my door to put in his claim for part of it. It fills me with indignation to hear the _croaking_ account which the English emigrants send home of America. “The society so bad, the manners so vulgar, the servants so insolent!” Why, then, do they not seek out one another and make a society? It is arrant ingratitude to talk so of a land in which there is no poverty but as a consequence of absolute idleness; and to talk of it, too, with abuse comparatively with England, with a place where the laborious poor are dying with grass in their bellies. It is idle to talk of the seasons, as if that country must not needs be miserably governed in which an unfavourable season introduces a famine. No! no! dear Poole, it is our pestilent commerce, our unnatural crowding together of men in cities, and our government by rich men, that are bringing about the manifestations of offended Deity. I am assured that such is the depravity of the public mind, that no literary man can find bread in England except by mis-employing and debasing his talents; that nothing of real excellence would be either felt or understood. The annuity which I hold, _perhaps by a very precarious tenure_, will shortly from the decreasing value of money become less than one half what it was when first allowed to me. If I were allowed to retain it, I would go and settle near Priestley, in America. I shall, no doubt, get a certain price for the two or three works which I shall next publish, but I foresee they will not sell. The booksellers, finding this, will treat me as an unsuccessful author, that is, they will employ me only as an anonymous translator at a guinea a sheet. I have no doubt that I could make £500 a year if I liked. But then I must forego all desire of truth and excellence. I say I would go to America if Wordsworth would go with me, and we could persuade two or three farmers of this country, who are exceedingly attached to us, to accompany us. I would go, if the difficulty of procuring sustenance in this country remain in the state and degree in which it is at present; not on any romantic scheme, but merely because society has become a matter of great indifference to me. I grow daily more and more attached to solitude; but it is a matter of the utmost importance to be removed from seeing and suffering want.
God love you, my dear friend.
S. T. COLERIDGE.
CXVIII. TO ROBERT SOUTHEY.
GRETA HALL, KESWICK, [May 6, 1801].
MY DEAR SOUTHEY,--I wrote you a very, very gloomy letter; and I have taken blame to myself for inflicting so much pain on you without any adequate motive. Not that I exaggerated anything, as far as the immediate present is concerned; but had I been in better health and a more genial state of sensation, I should assuredly have looked out upon a more cheerful future. Since I wrote you, I have had another and more severe fit of illness, which has left me weak, very weak, but with so calm a mind that I am determined to believe that this fit was _bonâ fide_ the last. Whether I shall be able to pass the next winter in this country is doubtful; nor is it possible I should know till the fall of the leaf. At all events, you will (I hope and trust, and if need were, _entreat_) spend as much of the summer and autumn with us as will be in your power, and if our _healths_ should permit it, I am confident there will be no other solid objection to our living together in the same house, divided. We have ample room,--room enough, and more than enough, and I am willing to believe that the blessed dreams we dreamt some six years ago may be auguries of something really noble which we may yet perform together.
We wait impatiently, anxiously, for a letter announcing your arrival. Indeed, the article _Falmouth_ has taken precedence of the _Leading Paragraph_ with me for the last three weeks. Our best love to Edith. Derwent is the boast of the county; the little river god is as beautiful as if he had been the child of Venus Anaduomene previous to her emersion. Dear Hartley! we are at times alarmed by the state of his health, but at present he is well. If I were to lose him, I am afraid it would exceedingly deaden my affection for any other children I may have.
A little child, a limber elf Singing, dancing to itself; A faery thing with red round cheeks That always _finds_, and never _seeks_, Doth make a vision to the sight, 5 Which fills a father’s eyes with light! And pleasures flow in so thick and fast Upon his heart that he at last Must needs express his love’s excess In words of wrong and bitterness. 10 Perhaps it is pretty to force together Thoughts so all unlike each other; To mutter and mock a broken charm; To dally with wrong that does no harm. Perhaps ’tis tender, too, and pretty, 15 At each wild word to feel within A sweet recoil of love and pity; And what if in a world of sin (Oh sorrow and shame! should this be true) Such giddiness of heart and brain 20 Comes seldom, save from rage and pain, So talks as it’s most used to do.[244]
A very metaphysical account of fathers calling their children rogues, rascals, and little varlets, etc.
God bless you, my dear Southey! I need not say, Write.
S. T. COLERIDGE.
P. S. We shall have peas, beans, turnips (with boiled leg of mutton), cauliflowers, French beans, etc., etc., endless! We have a noble garden.
CXIX. TO THE SAME.
Wednesday, July 22, 1801.
MY DEAR SOUTHEY,--Yesterday evening I met a boy on an ass, winding down _as picturisk a glen_ as eye ever looked at, he and his beast no mean part of the picture. I had taken a liking to the little blackguard at a distance, and I could have downright hugged him when he gave me a letter in your handwriting. Well, God be praised! I shall surely see you once more, somewhere or other. If it be really impracticable for you to come to me, I will doubtless do anything rather than not see you, though, in simple truth, travelling in chaises, or coaches even, for one day is sure to lay me up for a week. But do, do, for heaven’s sake, come and go the shortest way, however dreary it be; for there is enough to be seen when you get to our house. If you did but know what a flutter the old moveable at my left breast has been in since I read your letter. I have not had such a fillip for many months. My dear Edith; how glad you were to see old Bristol again!
I am again climbing up that rock of convalescence from which I have been so often washed off and hurried back; but I have been so unusually well these last two days that I should begin to look the damsel Hope full in the face, instead of sheep’s-eyeing her, were it not that the weather has been so unusually hot, and that is my joy. Yes, sir! we will go to Constantinople; but as it rains there, which my gout loves as the devil does holy water, the Grand Turk shall shew the exceeding attachment he will no doubt form towards us by appointing us his viceroys in Egypt. I will be Supreme Bey of that showerless district, and you shall be my supervisor. But for God’s sake make haste and come to me, and let us talk of the sands of Arabia while we are floating in our lazy boat on Keswick Lake, with our eyes on massy Skiddaw, so green and high. Perhaps Davy might accompany you. Davy will remain unvitiated; his deepest and most recollectable delights have been in solitude, and the next to those with one or two whom he loved. He is placed, no doubt, in a perilous desert of good things; but he is connected with the present race of men by a very awful tie, that of being able to confer immediate benefit on them; and the cold-blooded, venom-toothed snake that winds around him shall be only his coat of arms, as God of Healing.
I exceedingly long to see “Thalaba,” and perhaps still more to read “Madoc” over again. I never heard of any third edition of my poems. I think you must have confused it with the L. B. Longman could not surely be so uncouthly ill-mannered as not to write to me to know if I wished to make any corrections or additions. If I am well enough, I mean to alter, with a devilish sweep of revolution, my Tragedy, and publish it in a little volume by itself, with a new name, as a poem. But I have no heart for poetry. Alas! alas! how should I? who have passed nine months with giddy head, sick stomach, and swoln knees. My dear Southey! it is said that long sickness makes us all grow selfish, by the necessity which it imposes of continuously thinking about ourselves. But long and sleepless nights are a fine antidote.
Oh, how I have dreamt about you! Times that _have been_, and never can return, have been with me on my bed of pain, and how I yearned towards you in those moments. I myself can know only by feeling it over again. But come “strengthen the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees. Then shall the lame man leap as a hart, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”
I am here, in the vicinity of Durham, for the purpose of reading from the Dean and Chapter’s Library an ancient of whom you may have heard, _Duns Scotus_! I mean to set the poor old Gemman on his feet again; and in order to wake him out of his present lethargy, I am burning Locke, Hume, and Hobbes under his nose. They stink worse than feather or assafœtida. Poor Joseph! [Cottle] he has scribbled away both head and heart. What an affecting essay I could write on that man’s character! Had he gone in his quiet way on a little pony, looking about him with a sheep’s-eye cast now and then at a short poem, I do verily think from many parts of the “Malvern Hill,” that he would at last have become a poet better than many who have had much fame, but he would be an Epic, and so
“Victorious o’er the Danes, I Alfred, preach, Of my own forces, Chaplain-General!”
... Write immediately, directing Mr. Coleridge, Mr. George Hutchinson’s,[245] Bishop’s Middleham, Rushiford, Durham, and tell me when you set off, and I will contrive and meet you at Liverpool, where, if you are jaded with the journey, we can stay a day or two at Dr. Crompton’s, and chat a bit with Roscoe and Curry,[246] whom you will like as men far, far better than as writers. O Edith; how happy Sara will be, and little Hartley, who uses the air of the breezes as skipping-ropes, and fat Derwent, so beautiful, and so proud of his three teeth, that there’s no bearing of him!
God bless you, dear Southey, and
S. T. COLERIDGE.
P. S. Remember me kindly to Danvers and Mrs. Danvers.
[Care of] MRS. DANVERS, Kingsdown Parade, Bristol.
CXX. TO THE SAME.
DURHAM, Saturday, July 25, 1801.
MY DEAR SOUTHEY,--I do loathe cities, that’s certain. I am in Durham, at an inn,--and that, too, I do not like, and have dined with a large parcel of priests all belonging to the cathedral, thoroughly ignorant and hard-hearted. I have had no small trouble in gaining permission to have a few books sent to me eight miles from the place, which nobody has ever read in the memory of man. Now you will think what follows a lie, and it is not. I asked a stupid haughty fool, who is the Librarian of the Dean and Chapter’s Library in this city, if it had Leibnitz. He answered, “We have no Museum in this Library for natural curiosities; but there is a Mathematical Instrument setter in the town, who shews such animalcula through a glass of great magnifying powers.” Heaven and earth! he understood the word “_live nits_.” Well, I return early to-morrow to Middleham; to a quiet good family that love me dearly--a young farmer and his sister, and he makes very droll verses in the northern dialects and in the metre of Burns, and is a great humourist, and the woman is so very good a woman that I have seldom indeed seen the like of her. Death! that everywhere there should be one or two good and excellent people like these, and that they should not have the power given ’em ... to whirl away the rest to Hell!
I do not approve the Palermo and Constantinople scheme, to be secretary to a fellow that would poison you for being a poet, while he is only a lame verse-maker. But verily, dear Southey! it will not suit you to be under any man’s control, or biddances. What if you were a consul? ’Twould fix you to one place, as bad as if you were a parson. It won’t do. Now mark my scheme! St. Nevis is the most lovely as well as the most healthy island in the W. Indies. Pinney’s[247] estate is there, and he has a country-house situated in a most heavenly way, a very large mansion. Now between you and me I have reason to believe that not only this house is at my service, but many advantages in a family way that would go one half to lessen the expenses of living there, and perhaps Pinney would appoint us sinecure negro-drivers, at a hundred a year each, or some other snug and reputable office, and, perhaps, too, we might get some office in which there is quite nothing to do under the Governor. Now I and my family, and you and Edith, and Wordsworth and his sister might all go there, and make the Island more illustrious than Cos or Lesbos! A heavenly climate, a heavenly country, and a good house. The seashore so near us, dells and rocks and streams. Do now think of this. But say nothing about it on account of old Pinney. Wordsworth would certainly go if I went. By the living God, it is my opinion that we should not leave three such men behind us. N. B. I have every reason to believe Keswick (and Cumberland and Westmoreland in general) full as dry a climate as Bristol. Our rains fall more certainly in certain months, but we have fewer rainy days, taking the year through. As to cold, I do not believe the difference perceptible by the human body. But I feel that there is no relief for me in _any part_ of England. Very hot weather brings me about in an instant, and I relapse as soon as it coldens.
You say nothing of your voyage homeward, or the circumstances that preceded it. This, however, I far rather hear from your mouth than your letters. Come! and come quickly. My love to Edith, and remember me kindly to Mary and Martha and Eliza and Mrs. Fricker. My kind respects to Charles and Mrs. Danvers. Is Davy with you? If he is, I am sure he speaks affectionately of me. God bless you! Write.
S. T. COLERIDGE.
CXXI. TO THE SAME.
SCARBOROUGH, August 1, 1801.
MY DEAR SOUTHEY,--On my return from Durham (I foolishly walked back), I was taken ill, and my left knee swelled “pregnant with agony,” as Mr. Dodsley says in one of his poems. Dr. Fenwick[248] has earnestly persuaded me to try horse-exercise and warm sea-bathing, and I took the opportunity of riding with Sara Hutchinson to her brother Tom, who lives near the place, where I can ride to and fro, and bathe with no other expense there than that of the bath. The fit comes on me either at nine at night, or two in the morning. In the former case it continues nine hours, in the latter five. I am often literally _sick_ with pain. In the daytime, however, I am well, surprisingly so indeed, considering how very little sleep I am able to snatch. Your letter was sent after me, and arrived here this morning, and but that my letter _can_ reach you on the 5th of this month, I would immediately set off again, though I arrived here only last night. But I am unwilling not to try the baths for one week. If, therefore, you have not made the immediate preparation you may stay one week longer at Bristol. But if you have, you must look at the lake, and play with my babies three or four days, though this grieves me. I do not like it. I want to be with you, and to meet you even to the very verge of the Lake Country. I would far rather that you would stay a week at Grasmere (which is on the road, fourteen miles from Keswick), with Wordsworth, than go on to Keswick, and I not there. Oh, how you will love Grasmere!
All I ever wish of you with regard to wintering at Keswick is to stay with me till you find the climate injurious. When I read that cheerful sentence, “We will climb Skiddaw this year and scale Etna the next,” with a right piteous and humorous smile did I ogle my poor knee, which at this present moment is larger than the thickest part of my thigh.
A little Quaker girl (the daughter of the great Quaker mathematician Slee, a friend of anti-negro-trade Clarkson, who has a house at the foot of Ulleswater, which Slee Wordsworth dined with, a pretty parenthesis!), this little girl, four years old, happened after a very hearty meal to _eructate_, while Wordsworth was there. Her mother _looked_ at her, and the little creature immediately and _formally_ observed: “Yan belks when yan’s fu, and when yan’s empty.” That is, “One belches when one’s full and when one’s empty.” Since that time this is a favourite piece of slang at Grasmere and Greta Hall, whenever we talk of poor Joey, George Dyer, and other perseverants in the noble trade of scribbleism.
Wrangham,[249] who lives near here, one of your anthology friends, has married again, a lady of a neat £700 a year. His living by the Inclosure [Act] will be something better than £600, besides what little fortune he had with his last wife, who died in the first year. His present wife’s cousin observed, “Mr. W. is a _lucky_ man: his present lady is very weakly and delicate.” I like the idea of a man’s _speculating in sickly wives_. It would be no bad character for a farce.
That letter £ was a kind-hearted, honest, well-spoken citizen. The three strokes which _did_ for him were, as I take it, (1), the Ictus Cardiacus, which devitalized his moral heart; (2ondly) the stroke of the apoplexy in his _head_; and (thirdly) a stroke of the palsy in his right hand, which produces a terrible shaking and impotence in the very attempt to reach his breeches pocket. O dear Southey! what incalculable blessings, worthy of thanksgiving in Heaven, do we not owe to our being and _having_ been _poor_! No man’s heart can wholly stand up against property. My love to Edith.
S. T. COLERIDGE.
CXXII. TO THOMAS POOLE.
KESWICK, September 19, 1801.
By a letter from Davy I have learnt, Poole, that your mother is with the Blessed. I have given her the tears and the pang which belong to her departure, and now she will remain to me forever, what she had long been--a dear and venerable image, often gazed at by me in imagination, and always with affection and filial piety. She was the only being whom I ever _felt_ in the relation of Mother; and she is with God! We are all with God!
What shall I say to _you_! I can only offer a prayer of thanksgiving for you, that you are one who has habitually connected the act of thought with that of feeling; and that your natural sorrow is so mingled up with a sense of the omnipresence of the Good Agent, that I cannot wish it to be other than what I know it is. The frail and the too painful will gradually pass away from you, and there will abide in your spirit a great and sacred accession to those solemn Remembrances and faithful Hopes in which, and by which, the Almighty lays deep the foundations of our continuous Life, and distinguishes us from the Brutes that perish. As all things pass away, and those habits are broken up which constituted our own and particular Self, our nature by a moral instinct cherishes the desire of an unchangeable Something, and thereby awakens or stirs up anew the passion to promote _permanent_ good, and facilitates that grand business of our existence--still further, and further still, to generalise our affections, till Existence itself is swallowed up in _Being_, and we are in Christ even as He is in the Father.
It is among the advantages of these events that they learn us to associate a keen and deep feeling with all the old good phrases, all the reverend sayings of comfort and sympathy, that belong, as it were, to the whole human race. I felt this, dear Poole! as I was about to write my old
God bless you, and love you for ever and ever!
Your affectionate friend, S. T. COLERIDGE.
Would it not be well if you were to change the scene awhile! Come to me, Poole! No--no--no. You have none that love you so well as I. I write with tears that prevent my seeing what I am writing.
CXXIII. TO ROBERT SOUTHEY.
NETHER STOWEY, BRIDGEWATER, December 31, 1801.
DEAR SOUTHEY,--On Xmas Day I breakfasted with Davy, with the intention of dining with you; but I returned very unwell, and in very truth in so utter a dejection of spirits as both made it improper for me to go anywhither, and a most unfit man to be with you. I left London on Saturday morning, 4 o’clock, and for three hours was in such a storm as I was never before out in, for I was atop of the coach--rain, and hail, and violent wind, with vivid flashes of lightning, that seemed almost to alternate with the flash-like re-emersions of the waning moon, from the ever-shattered, ever-closing clouds. However, I was armed cap-a-pie in a complete panoply, namely, in a huge, most huge, roquelaure, which had cost the government seven guineas, and was provided for the emigrants in the Quiberon expedition, one of whom, falling sick, stayed behind and parted with his cloak to Mr. Howel,[250] who lent it me. I dipped my head down, shoved it up--and it proved a complete tent to me. I was as dry as if I had been sitting by the fire. I arrived at Bath at eleven o’clock at night, and spent the next day with Warren, who has gotten a very sweet woman to wife and a most beautiful house and situation at Whitcomb on the Hill over the bridge. On Monday afternoon I arrived at Stowey. I am a good deal better; but my bowels are by no means de-revolutionized. So much for me. I do not know what I am to say to you of your dear mother. Life passes away from us in all modes and ways, in our friends, in ourselves. We all “die daily.” Heaven knows that many and many a time I have regarded my talents and requirements as a porter’s burthen, imposing on me the capital duty of going on to the end of the journey, when I would gladly lie down by the side of the road, and become the country for a mighty nation of maggots. For what is life, gangrened, as it is with me, in its very vitals, domestic tranquillity? These things being so, I confess that I feel for you, but not for the _event_, as for the event only by an act of thought, and not by any immediate _shock_ from the like feeling within myself. When I return to town I can scarcely tell. I have not yet made up my mind whether or no I shall move Devonward. My relations wish to see me, and I wish to avoid the uneasy feeling I shall have, if I remain so near them without gratifying the wish. No very brotherly mood of mind, I must confess--but it is, nine tenths of it at least, a work of their own doing. Poole desires to be remembered to you. Remember me to your wife and Mrs. Lovell.
God bless you and
S. T. COLERIDGE.
CXXIV. TO HIS WIFE.
KING STREET, COVENT GARDEN, [February 24, 1802.]
MY DEAR LOVE,--I am sure it will make you happy to hear that both my health and spirits have greatly improved, and I have small doubts that a residence of two years in a mild and even climate will, with God’s blessing, give me a new lease in a better constitution. You may be well assured that I shall do nothing rashly, but our journey thither I shall defray by letters to Poole and the Wedgwoods, or more probably addressed to Mawman, the bookseller, who will honour my drafts in return. Of course I shall not go till I have earned all the money necessary for the journey that I can. The plan will be this, unless you can think of any better. Wordsworth will marry soon after my return, and he, Mary, and Dorothy will be our companions and neighbours. Southey means, if it is in his power, to pass into Spain that way. About July we shall all set sail from Liverpool to Bordeaux. Wordsworth has not yet settled whether he shall be married from Gallow Hill or at Grasmere. But they will of course make a point that either Sarah shall be with Mary or Mary with Sarah previous to so long a
## parting. If it be decided that Sarah is to come to Grasmere, I shall
return by York, which will be but a few miles out of the way, and bring her. At all events, I shall stay a few days at Derby,--for whom, think you, should I meet in Davy’s lecture-room but Joseph Strutt? He behaved most affectionately to me, and pressed me with great earnestness to pass through Darley (which is on the road to Derby) and stay a few days at his house among my old friends. I assure you I was much affected by his kind and affectionate invitation (though I felt a little awkward, not knowing _whom_ I might venture to ask after). I could not bring out the word “Mrs. Evans,” and so said, “Your sister, sir? I _hope she_ is well!”
On Sunday I dined at Sir William Rush’s, and on Monday likewise, and went with them to Mrs. Billington’s Benefit. ’Twas the “Beggar’s Opera;” it was _perfection_! I seem to have acquired a new sense by hearing her. I wished you to have been there. I assure you I am quite a man of _fashion_; so many titled acquaintances and handsome carriages stopping at my door, and fine cards. And then I am such an exquisite judge of music and painting, and pass criticisms on furniture and chandeliers, and pay such very handsome compliments to all women of fashion, that I do verily believe that if I were to stay three months in town and have tolerable health and spirits, I should be a Thing in vogue,--the very _tonish_ poet and Jemmy-Jessamy-fine-talker in town. If you were only to see the tender smiles that I occasionally receive from the Honourable Mrs. Damer! you would scratch her eyes out for jealousy! And then there’s the _sweet_ (N. B. musky) Lady Charlotte ----! Nay, but I won’t tell you her name,--you might perhaps take it into your head to write an anonymous letter to her, and distrust our little innocent amour.
Oh that I were at Keswick with my darlings! My Hartley and my fat Derwent! God bless you, my dear Sarah! I shall return in love and cheerfulness, and therefore in pleasurable convalescence, if not in health. We shall try to get poor dear little Robert into Christ’s Hospital; that wretch of a Quaker will do nothing. The skulking rogue! just to lay hold of the time when Mrs. Lovell was on a visit to Southey; there was such low cunning in the thought.
Remember me most kindly to Mr. and Mrs. Wilkinson, and tell Mr. Jackson that I have not shaken a hand since I quitted him with more esteem and glad feeling than I shall soon, I trust, shake his with. God bless you, and your affectionate and faithful husband (notwithstanding the Honourable Mrs. D. and Lady Charlotte!),
S. T. COLERIDGE.
[Illustration]
CXXV. TO W. SOTHEBY.
GRETA HALL, KESWICK, Tuesday, July 13, 1802.
MY DEAR SIR,--I had written you a letter and was about to have walked to the post with it when I received yours from Luff.[251] It gave me such lively pleasure that I threw my letter into the fire, for it related chiefly to the “Erste Schiffer” of Gesner, and I could not endure that my first letter to you should _begin_ with a subject so little interesting to my heart or understanding. I trust that you are before this at the end of your journey, and that Mrs. and Miss Sotheby have so completely recovered themselves as to have almost forgotten all the fatigue except such instances of it as it may be pleasant to them to remember. Why need I say how often I have thought of you since your departure, and with what hope and pleasurable emotion? I will acknowledge to you that your very, very kind letter was not only a pleasure to me, but a relief to my mind; for, after I had left you on the road between Ambleside and Grasmere, I was dejected by the apprehension that I had been unpardonably loquacious, and had oppressed you, and still more Mrs. Sotheby, with my many words so impetuously uttered! But in simple truth, you were yourselves, in part, the innocent causes of it. For the meeting with you, the manner of the meeting, your kind attentions to me, the deep and healthful delight which every impressive and beautiful object seemed to pour out upon you; kindred opinions, kindred pursuits, kindred feelings in persons whose habits, and, as it were, walk of life, have been so different from my own,--these and more than these, which I would but cannot say, all flowed in upon me with unusually strong impulses of pleasure,--and pleasure in a body and soul such as I happen to possess “intoxicates more than strong wine.” However, _I promise to be a much more subdued creature when you next meet me_, for I had but just recovered from a state of extreme dejection, brought on in part by ill health, partly by other circumstances; and solitude and solitary musings do of themselves impregnate our thoughts, perhaps, with more life and sensation than will leave the balance quite even. But you, my dear sir! looked at a brother poet with a brother’s eyes. Oh that you were now in my study and saw, what is now before the window at which I am writing,--that rich mulberry-purple which a floating cloud has thrown on the lake, and that quiet boat making its way through it to the shore!
We have had little else but rain and squally weather since you left us till within the last three days. But showery weather is no evil to us; and even that most oppressive of all weathers, hot, small _drizzle_, exhibits the mountains the best of any. It produced such new combinations of ridges in the Lodore and Borrowdale mountains on Saturday morning that I declare, had I been blindfolded and so brought to the prospect, I should scarcely have known them again. It was a dream such as lovers have,--a wild and transfiguring, yet enchantingly lovely dream, of an object lying by the side of the sleeper. Wordsworth, who has walked through Switzerland, declared that he never saw anything superior, perhaps nothing equal, in the Alps.
The latter part of your letter made me truly happy. Uriel himself should not be half as welcome; and indeed he, I must admit, was never any great favourite of mine. I always thought him a bantling of zoneless Italian muses, which Milton heard cry at the door of his imagination and took in out of charity. However, come as you may, _carus mihi expectatusque venies_.[252] _De cœteris rebus si quid agendum est, et quicquid sit agendum, ut quam rectissime agantur omni meâ curâ, operâ, diligentiâ, gratiâ providebo._[253]
On my return to Keswick, I reperused the “Erste Schiffer” with great attention, and the result was an increasing disinclination to the business of translating it; though my fancy was not a little flattered by the idea of seeing my rhymes in such a gay livery.--As poor Giordano Bruno[254] says in his strange, yet noble poem, “De Immenso et Innumerabili,”--
“Quam Garymedeo cultu, graphiceque venustus! Narcissis referam, peramarunt me quoque Nymphæ.”
But the poem was too silly. The first conception is noble, so very good that I am spiteful enough to hope that I shall discover it not to have been original in Gesner,--he has so abominably maltreated it. First, the story is very inartificially constructed. We should have been let into the existence of the girl by her mother, through the young man, and after _his_ appearance. This, however, is comparatively a trifle. But the machinery is so superlatively contemptible and commonplace; as if a young man could not dream of a tale which had deeply impressed him without Cupid, or have a fair wind all the way to an island without Æolus. Æolus himself is a god devoted and dedicated, I should have thought, to the Muse of Travestie. His speech in Gesner is not deficient in fancy, but it is a girlish fancy, and the god of the wind, exceedingly disquieted with animal love, makes a very ridiculous figure in my imagination. Besides, it was ill taste to introduce Cupid and Æolus at a time which we positively know to have been anterior to the invention and establishment of the Grecian Mythology; and the speech of Æolus reminds me perpetually of little engravings from the cut stones of the ancients,--seals, and whatever else they call them. Again, the girl’s yearnings and conversations with him are something between the nursery and the _Veneris volgivagæ templa, et libidinem spirat et subsusurrat, dum innocentiæ loquillam, et virginiæ cogitationis dulciter offensantis luctamina simulat_.
It is not the thought that a lonely girl could have; but exactly such as a boarding-school _miss_, whose imagination, to say no worse, had been somewhat stirred and heated by the perusal of French or German pastorals, would suppose her to say. But this is, indeed, general in the German and French poets. It is easy to clothe imaginary beings with our own thoughts and feelings; but to send ourselves out of ourselves, to _think_ ourselves into the thoughts and feelings of beings in circumstances wholly and strangely different from our own, _hic labor hoc opus_; and who has achieved it? Perhaps only Shakespeare. Metaphysics is a word that you, my dear sir, are no great friend to, but yet you will agree with me that a great poet must be _implicité_, if not _explicité_, a profound metaphysician. He may not have it in logical coherence in his brain and tongue, but he must have the ear of a wild Arab listening in the silent desert, the eye of a North American Indian tracing the footsteps of an enemy upon the leaves that strew the forest, the touch of a blind man feeling the face of a darling child. And do not think me a bigot if I say that I have read no French or German writer who appears to me to have a _heart_ sufficiently pure and simple to be capable of this or anything like it. I could say a great deal more in abuse of poor Gesner’s poems, but I have said more than I fear will be creditable in your opinion to my good nature. I must, though, tell you the malicious motto which I have written in the first part of Klopstock’s “Messias:”--
“Tale tuum carmen nobis, divine poeta! Quale sopor!”
Only I would have the words _divine poeta_ translated “verse-making divine.” I have read a great deal of German; but I do dearly, dearly, dearly love my own countrymen of old times, and those of my contemporaries who write in their spirit.
William Wordsworth and his sister left me yesterday on their way to Yorkshire. They walked yesterday to the foot of Ulleswater, from thence they go to Penrith, and take the coach. I accompanied them as far as the seventh milestone. Among the last things which he said to me was, “Do not forget to remember me to Mr. Sotheby with whatever affectionate terms so slight an intercourse may permit; and how glad we shall all be to see him again!”
I was much pleased with your description of Wordsworth’s character as it appeared to you. It is in a few words, in half a dozen strokes, like one of Mortimer’s[255] figures, a fine portrait. The word “homogeneous” gave me great pleasure, as most accurately and happily expressing him. I must set you right with regard to my perfect coincidence with his poetic creed. It is most certain that the heads of our mutual conversations, etc., and the passages, were indeed partly taken from note of mine; for it was at first intended that the preface should be written by me. And it is likewise true that I warmly accord with Wordsworth in his abhorrence of these poetic licenses, as they are called, which are indeed mere tricks of convenience and laziness. _Ex. gr._ Drayton has these lines:--
“Ouse having Ouleney past, as she were waxed mad From her first stayder course immediately doth gad, And in meandered gyres doth whirl herself about, _That, this_ way, here and there, backward in and out. And like a wanton girl oft doubling in her gait In labyrinthian turns and twinings intricate,” etc.[256]
The first poets, observing such a stream as this, would say with truth and beauty, “it _strays_;” and now every stream shall _stray_, wherever it prattles on its _pebbled way_, instead of its bed or channel. And I have taken the instance from a poet from whom as few instances of this vile, commonplace, trashy style could be taken as from any writer [namely], from Bowles’ execrable translation[257] of that lovely poem of Dean Ogle’s (vol. ii. p. 27). I am confident that Bowles good-naturedly translated it in a hurry, merely to give him an excuse for printing the admirable original. In my opinion, every phrase, every metaphor, every personification, should have its justifying clause in some _passion_, either of the poet’s mind or of the characters described by the poet. But metre itself implies a passion, that is, a state of excitement both in the poet’s mind, and is expected, in part, of the reader; and, though I stated this to Wordsworth, and he has in some sort stated it in his preface, yet he has not done justice to it, nor has he, in my opinion, sufficiently answered it. In my opinion, poetry justifies as poetry, independent of any other passion, some new combinations of language and _commands_ the omission of many others allowable in other compositions. Now Wordsworth, _me saltem judice_, has in his system not sufficiently admitted the former, and in his practice has too frequently sinned against the latter. Indeed, we have had lately some little controversy on the subject, and we begin to suspect that there is somewhere or other a radical difference in our opinions. _Dulce est inter amicos rarissimâ dissensione condere plurimas consentiones_, saith St. Augustine, who said more good things than any saint or sinner that I ever read in Latin.
Bless me! what a letter! And I have yet to make a request to you. I have read your Georgics at a friend’s house in the neighbourhood, and in sending for the book, I find that it belonged to a book-club, and has been returned. If you have a copy interleaved, or could procure one for me and will send it to me per coach, with a copy of your original poems, I will return them to you with many thanks in the autumn, and will endeavour to improve my own taste by writing on the blank leaves my feelings both of the original and your translation. Your poems I want for another purpose, of which hereafter.
Mrs. Coleridge and my children are well. She desires to be respectfully remembered to Mrs. and Miss Sotheby. Tell Miss Sotheby that I will endeavour to send her soon the completion of the “Dark Ladie,” as she was good-natured enough to be pleased with the first part.
Let me hear from you soon, my dear sir! and believe me with heartfelt wishes for you and yours, in every-day phrase, but, indeed, indeed, not with every-day feeling.
Yours most sincerely, S. T. COLERIDGE.
I long to lead Mrs. Sotheby to a scene that has the grandeur without the toil or danger of Scale Force. It is called the White Water Dash.[258]
CXXVI. TO THE SAME.
KESWICK, July 19, 1802.
MY DEAR SIR,--I trouble you with another letter to inform you that I have finished the First Book[259] of the “Erste Schiffer.” It consists of 530 lines; the Second Book will be a hundred lines less. I can transcribe both legibly in three single-sheet letters; you will only be so good as to inform me whither and whether I am to send them. If they are likely to be of any use to Tomkins he is welcome to them; if not, I shall send them to the “Morning Post.” I have given a faithful translation in blank verse. To have decorated Gesner would have been, indeed, “to spice the spices;” to have lopped and pruned _somewhat_ would have only produced incongruity; to have done it sufficiently would have been to have published a poem of my own, not Gesner’s. I have aimed at nothing more than purity and elegance of English, a keeping and harmony in the colour of the style, a smoothness without monotony in the versification. If I have succeeded, as I trust I have, in these respects, my translation will be just so much better than the original as metre is better than prose, in their judgment, at least, who prefer blank verse to prose. I was probably too severe on the _morals_ of the poem, uncharitable perhaps. But I am a downright Englishman, and tolerate downright grossness more patiently than this coy and distant dallying with the appetites. “Die pflanzen entstehen aus dem saamen, gewisse thiere gehen aus dem hervor andre so, andre anders, ich hab es alles bemerkt, was hab ich zu thun.” Now I apprehend it will occur to nineteen readers out of twenty, that a maiden so _very curious_, so exceedingly _inflamed_ and harassed by a difficulty, and so _subtle_ in the discovery of even comparatively _distant_ analogies, would necessarily have seen the difference of sex in her flocks and herds, and the marital as well as maternal character could not have escaped her. Now I avow that the grossness and vulgar plain sense of Theocritus’ shepherd lads, bad as it is, is in my opinion less objectionable than Gesner’s refinement, which necessarily leads the imagination to ideas without _expressing them_. Shaped and clothed, the mind of a pure being would turn away from them from natural delicacy of taste, but in that shadowy half-being, that state of nascent existence in the twilight of imagination and just on the vestibule of consciousness, they are far more incendiary, stir up a more lasting commotion, and leave a deeper stain. The suppression and obscurity arrays a simple truth in a veil of something like guilt, that is altogether meretricious, as opposed to the matronly majesty of our Scripture, for instance; and the conceptions as they _recede_ from distinctness of _idea_ approximate to the nature of _feeling_, and gain thereby a closer and more immediate affinity with the appetites. But, independently of this, the whole passage, consisting of precisely one fourth of the whole poem, has not the least influence on the action of the poem, and it is scarcely too much to say that it has nothing to do with the main subject, except indeed it be pleaded that _Love_ is induced by compassion for this maiden to make a young man _dream_ of her, which young man had been, without any influence of the said Cupid, deeply interested in the story, and, therefore, did not need the interference of Cupid at all; any more than he did the assistance of Æolus for a fair wind all the way to an island that was within sight of shore.
I translated the poem, partly because I could not endure to appear _irresolute_ and _capricious_ to you in the first undertaking which I had connected in any way with your person; in an undertaking which I connect with our journey from Keswick to Grasmere, the carriage in which were your son, your daughter, and your wife (all of whom may God Almighty bless! a prayer not the less fervent, my dear sir! for being a little out of place here); and, partly, too, because I wished to force myself out of metaphysical trains of thought, which, when I wished to write a poem, beat up game of far other kind. Instead of a covey of poetic partridges with whirring wings of music, or wild ducks _shaping_ their rapid flight in forms always regular (a still better image of verse), up came a metaphysical bustard, urging its slow, heavy, laborious, earth-skimming flight over dreary and level wastes. To have done with poetical prose (which is a very vile Olio), sickness and some other and worse afflictions first forced me into downright metaphysics. For I believe that by nature I have more of the poet in me. In a poem written during that dejection, to Wordsworth, and the greater part of a private nature, I thus expressed the thought in language more forcible than harmonious:[260]--
Yes, dearest poet, yes! There was a time when tho’ my path was rough, The joy within me dallied with distress, And all misfortunes were but as the stuff Whence fancy made me dreams of happiness: For Hope grew round me, like the climbing vine, And fruit, and foliage, not my own, seemed mine. But now afflictions bow me down to earth: Nor care I, that they rob me of my mirth, But oh! each visitation Suspends what nature gave me at my birth, My shaping spirit of Imagination.
* * * * *
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 temper of my soul.
Thank heaven! my better mind has returned to me, and I trust I shall go on rejoicing. As I have nothing better to fill the blank space of this sheet with, I will transcribe the introduction of that poem to you, that being of a sufficiently general nature to be interesting to you. The first lines allude to a stanza in the Ballad of Sir Patrick Spence: “Late, late yestreen I saw the new moon with the old one in her arms, and I fear, I fear, my master dear, there will be a deadly storm.”
Letter, written Sunday evening, April 4.
Well! if the Bard was weatherwise, who made The dear old Ballad of Sir Patrick Spence, This night, so tranquil now, will not go hence Unrous’d by winds, that ply a busier trade Than that, which moulds yon clouds in lazy flakes, Or the dull sobbing draft, that drones and rakes Upon the strings of this Eolian lute, Which better far were mute. For lo! the New Moon, winter-bright! And overspread with phantom light (With swimming phantom light o’erspread, But rimmed 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 and fast.
* * * * *
A grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear! A stifling, drowsy, unimpassioned grief, That finds no natural outlet, no relief, In word, or sigh, or tear! This, William, well thou know’st, Is that sore evil which I dread the most, And oftnest suffer. In this heartless mood, To other thoughts by yonder throstle woo’d, That pipes within the larch-tree, not unseen, The larch, that pushes out in tassels green Its bundled leafits, woo’d to mild delights, By all the tender sounds and gentle sights Of this sweet primrose-month, and vainly woo’d! O dearest Poet, in this heartless mood, All this long eve, so balmy and serene, Have I been gazing on the Western sky, And its peculiar 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 motion to the stars; Those stars, that glide behind them, or between, Now sparkling, now bedimmed, but always seen; Yon crescent moon, as fix’d as if it grew In its own cloudless, starless lake of blue, A boat becalm’d! thy own sweet sky-canoe![261] I see them all, so exquisitely 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 endeavour, Though I should gaze for ever On that green light that lingers in the west; I may not hope from outward forms to win The passion and the life, whose fountains are within.
* * * * *
O Wordsworth! we receive but what we give, And in our life alone does Nature live; Ours is her wedding garment, ours her shroud! 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 powerful voice, of its own birth, Of all sweet sounds the life and element! O pure of heart! thou need’st not ask of me _What_ this strong music in the soul may be? What and wherein it doth exist, This light, this glory, this fair luminous mist, This beautiful and beauty-making Power. Joy, blameless poet! Joy that ne’er was given Save to the pure, and in their purest hour, Joy, William, is the spirit and the power That wedding Nature to us gives in dower, A new Earth and new Heaven, Undream’d of by the sensual and proud-- We, we ourselves rejoice! And thence comes all that charms or ear or sight, All melodies an echo of that voice! All colours a suffusion from that light! Calm, steadfast spirit, guided from above, O Wordsworth! friend of my devoutest choice, Great son of genius! full of light and love, Thus, thus, dost thou rejoice. To thee do all things live, from pole to pole, Their life the eddying of thy living Soul! Brother and friend of my devoutest choice, Thus mayst thou ever, ever more rejoice!
* * * * *
I have selected from the poem, which was a very long one and truly written only for the solace of sweet song, all that could be interesting or even pleasing to you, except, indeed, perhaps I may annex as a fragment a few lines on the “Æolian Lute,” it having been introduced in its dronings in the first stanza. I have used Yule for Christmas.
Nay, wherefore did I let it haunt my mind, This dark, distressful dream? I turn from it and listen to the wind Which long has rav’d unnotic’d! What a scream Of agony by torture lengthened out, That lute sent out! O thou wild storm without, Bare crag, or Mountain Tairn, or blasted tree, Or pine-grove whither woodman never clomb, Or lonely house, long held the witches’ home, Methinks were fitter instruments for thee Mad Lutanist! that, in this month of showers, Of dark-brown gardens, and of peeping flowers, Mak’st devil’s Yule, with worse than wintry song, The blossoms, buds, and timorous leaves among! Thou Actor, perfect in all tragic sounds! Thou mighty Poet, even to frenzy bold! What tell’st thou now about? ’Tis of the rushing of an host in rout, With many groans from men, with smarting wounds-- At once they groan with pain, and shudder with the cold! But hush! there is a pause of deeper silence! Again! but all that noise, as of a rushing crowd, With groans, and tremulous shudderings--all is over! And it has other sounds, less fearful and less loud-- A tale of less affright, And tempered with delight, As thou thyself had’st fram’d the tender lay-- ’Tis of a little child, Upon a heath wild, Not far from home, but she has lost her way-- And now moans low in utter grief and fear; And now screams loud, and hopes to make her mother _hear_.
* * * * *
My dear sir! ought I to make an apology for troubling you with such a long, verse-cramm’d letter? Oh, that instead of it, I could but send to you the image now before my eyes, over Bassenthwaite. The sun is setting in a glorious, rich, brassy light, on the top of Skiddaw, and one third adown it is a huge, enormous mountain of cloud, with the outlines of a mountain. This is of a starchy grey, but floating past along it, and upon it, are various patches of sack-like clouds, bags and woolsacks, of a shade lighter than the brassy light. Of the clouds that hide the setting sun,--a fine yellow-red, somewhat more than sandy light, and these, the farthest from the sun, are suffused with the darkness of a stormy colour. Marvellous creatures! how they pass along! Remember me with most respectful kindness to Mrs. and Miss Sotheby, and the Captains Sotheby.
Truly yours, S. T. COLERIDGE.
CXXVII. TO ROBERT SOUTHEY.[262]
GRETA HALL, KESWICK, July 29, 1802.
MY DEAR SOUTHEY,--Nothing has given me half the pleasure, these many, many months, as last week did Edith’s heralding to us of a minor Robert; for that it will be a boy, one always takes for granted. From the bottom of my heart I say it, I never knew a man that better deserved to be a father by right of virtues that eminently belonged to him, than yourself; but beside this I have cheering hopes that Edith will be born again, and be a healthy woman. When I said, nothing had given me half the pleasure, I spoke truly, and yet said more than you are perhaps aware of, for, by Lord Lonsdale’s death, there are excellent reasons for believing that the Wordsworths will gain £5,000, the share of which (and no doubt Dorothy will have more than a mere share) will render William Wordsworth and his sister quite independent. They are now in Yorkshire, and he returns in about a month _one of us_.... Estlin’s Sermons, I fear, are mere moral discourses. If so, there is but small chance of their sale. But if he had published a _volume_ of _sermons_, of the same kind with those which he has published singly, _i. e._ apologetical and ecclesiastico-historical, I _am almost_ confident, they would have a respectable circulation. To publish single sermons is almost always a foolish thing, like single sheet quarto poems. Estlin’s sermon on the Sabbath really surprised me. It was well written in style, I mean, and the reasoning throughout is not only sound, but has a cast of novelty in it. A superior sermon altogether it appeared to me. I am myself a little theological, and if any bookseller will take the risque, I shall in a few weeks, possibly, send to the press a small volume under the title of “Letters to the British Critic concerning Granville Sharp’s Remarks on the uses of the Definitive article in the Greek Text of the New Testament, and the Revd C. Wordsworth’s Six Letters, to G. Sharp Esqr, in confirmation of the same, together with a Review of the Controversy between Horsley and Priestley respecting the faith of the Primitive Christians.” This is no mere dream, like my “Hymns to the Elements,” for I have written more than half the work. I purpose afterwards to publish a book concerning Tythes and Church Establishment, for I conceit that I can throw great light on the subject. You are not apt to be much surprised at any change in my mind, active as it is, but it will perhaps please you to know that I am become very fond of History, and that I have read much with very great attention. I exceedingly like the job of Amadis de Gaul. I wish you may half as well like the job, in which I shall very shortly appear. Of its sale I have no doubt; but of its prudence? There’s the rub. “Concerning Poetry and the characteristic merits of the Poets, our contemporaries.” One volume Essays, the second Selections.--The Essays are on Bloomfield, Burns, Bowles, Cowper, Campbell, Darwin, Hayley, Rogers, C. Smith, Southey, Woolcot, Wordsworth--the Selections from every one who has written at all, any being above the rank of mere scribblers--Pye and his Dative Case Plural, Pybus, Cottle, etc., etc. The object is not to examine what is good in each writer, but what has _ipso facto_ pleased, and to what faculties, or passions, or habits of the mind they may be supposed to have given pleasure. Of course Darwin and Wordsworth having given each a defence of their mode of poetry, and a disquisition on the nature and essence of poetry in general, I shall necessarily be led rather deeper, and these I shall treat of either first or last. But I will apprise you of one thing, that although Wordsworth’s Preface is half a child of my own brain, and arose out of conversations so frequent that, with few exceptions, we could scarcely either of us, perhaps, positively say which first started any
## particular thought (I am speaking of the Preface as it stood in the second
volume), yet I am far from going all lengths with Wordsworth. He has written lately a number of Poems (thirty-two in all), some of them of considerable length (the longest one hundred and sixty lines), the greater number of these, to my feelings, very excellent compositions, but here and there a daring humbleness of language and versification, and a strict adherence to matter of fact, even to prolixity, that startled me. His alterations, likewise, in “Ruth” perplexed me, and I have thought and thought again, and have not had my doubts solved by Wordsworth. On the contrary, I rather suspect that somewhere or other there is a radical difference in our theoretical opinions respecting poetry; this I shall endeavour to go to the bottom of, and, acting the arbitrator between the old school and the new school, hope to lay down some plain and perspicuous, though not superficial canons of criticism respecting poetry. What an admirable definition Milton gives, quite in an “obiter” way, when he says of poetry, that it is “_simple, sensuous, passionate_!” It truly comprises the whole that can be said on the subject. In the new edition of the L. Ballads there is a valuable appendix, which I am sure you must like, and in the Preface itself considerable additions; one on the dignity and nature of the office and character of a Poet, that is very grand, and of a sort of Verulamian power and majesty, but it is, in parts (and this is the fault, _me judice_, of all the latter half of that Preface), obscure beyond any necessity, and the extreme elaboration and almost constrainedness of the diction contrasted (to my feelings) somewhat harshly with the general style of the Poems, to which the Preface is an introduction. Sara (why, dear Southey! will you write it always Sarah? Sar_a_, methinks, is associated with times that you and I cannot and do not wish ever to forget), Sara, said, with some acuteness, that she wished all that part of the Preface to have been in blank verse, and _vice versâ_, etc. However, I need not say, that any diversity of opinion on the subject between you and myself, or Wordsworth and myself, can only be small, taken in a _practical_ point of view.
I rejoice that your History marches on so victoriously. It is a noble subject, and I have the fullest confidence of your success in it. The influence of the Catholic Religion--the influence of national glory on the individual morals of a people, especially in the downfall of the nobility of Portugal,--the strange fact (which seems to be admitted as with one voice by all travellers) of the vileness of the Portuguese nobles compared with the Spanish, and of the superiority of the Portuguese commonalty to the same class in Spain; the effects of colonization on a small and not very fruitful country; the effects important, and too often forgotten of absolute accidents, such as the particular character of a race of Princes on a nation--Oh what awful subjects these are! I long to hear you read a few chapters to me. But I conjure you do not let “Madoc” go to sleep. Oh that without words I could cause you to _know_ all that I think, all that I feel, all that I hope concerning that Poem! As to myself, all my poetic genius (if ever I really possessed any _genius_, and it was not rather a mere general _aptitude_ of talent, and quickness in imitation) is gone, and I have been fool enough to suffer deeply in my mind, regretting the loss, which I attribute to my long and exceedingly severe metaphysical investigations, and these partly to ill-health, and partly to private afflictions which rendered any subjects, immediately connected with feeling, a source of pain and disquiet to me.
There was a Time when tho’ my Path was rough, I had a heart that dallied with distress; And all misfortunes were but as the stuff Whence Fancy made me dreams of Happiness; For Hope grew round me like the climbing Vine, And Fruits and Foliage, not my own, seemed mine! But now afflictions bow me down to earth, Nor car’d I that they robb’d me of my mirth. But oh! each visitation Suspends what Nature gave me at my Birth, My shaping Spirit of Imagination!
Here follow a dozen lines that would give you no pleasure, and then what follows:--
For not to _think_ of what I needs must feel, But to be still and patient, all I can; And haply by abstruse Research to steal From my own Nature all the Natural Man, This was my sole Resource, my wisest Plan! And that which suits a part, infects the whole, And now is almost grown the Temper of my Soul.
Having written these lines, I rejoice for you as well as for myself, that I am able to inform you, that now for a long time there has been more love and concord in my house than I have known for years before. I had made up my mind to a very awful step, though the struggles of my mind were so violent, that my sleep became the valley of the shadows of Death and my health was in a state truly alarming. It did alarm Mrs. Coleridge. The thought of separation wounded her pride,--she was fully persuaded that deprived of the society of my children and living abroad without any friends I should pine away, and the fears of widowhood came upon her, and though these feelings were wholly selfish, yet they made her _serious_, and that was a great point gained. For Mrs. Coleridge’s mind has very little that is _bad_ in it; it is an innocent mind; but it is light and _unimpressible_, warm in anger, cold in sympathy, and in all disputes uniformly _projects itself forth_ to recriminate, instead of turning itself inward with a silent self-questioning. Our virtues and our vices are exact antitheses. I so attentively watch my own nature that my worst self-delusion is a complete self-knowledge so mixed with intellectual complacency, that my quickness to see and readiness to acknowledge my faults is too often frustrated by the small pain which the sight of them gives me, and the consequent slowness to amend them. Mrs. C. is so stung with the very first thought of being in the wrong, because she never endures to look at her own mind in all its faulty parts, but shelters herself from painful self-inquiry by angry recrimination. Never, I suppose, did the stern match-maker bring together two minds so utterly contrariant in their primary and organical constitution. Alas! I have suffered more, I think, from the amiable propensities of my nature than from my worst faults and most erroneous habits, and I have suffered much from both. But, as I said, Mrs. Coleridge was made _serious_, and for the first time since our marriage she felt and acted as beseemed a wife and a mother to a husband and the father of her children. She promised to set about an alteration in her external manners and looks and language, and to fight against her inveterate habits of puny thwarting and unintermitting dyspathy, this immediately, and to do her best endeavours to cherish other feelings. I, on my part, promised to be more attentive to all her feelings of pride, etc., etc., and to try to correct my habits of impetuous censure. We have both kept our promises, and she has found herself so much more happy than she had been for years before, that I have the most confident hopes that this happy revolution in our domestic affairs will be permanent, and that this external conformity will gradually generate a greater inward likeness of thoughts and attachments than has hitherto existed between us. Believe me, if you were here, it would give you a _deep_ delight to observe the difference of our minutely conduct towards each other, from that which, I fear, could not but have disturbed your comfort when you were here last. Enough. But I am sure you have not felt it tedious.
So Corry[263] and you are off? I suspected it, but Edith never mentioned an iota of the business to her sister. It is well. It was not your destiny. Wherever you are, God bless you! My health is weak enough, but it is so far amended that it is far less dependent on the influences of the weather. The mountains are better friends in this respect. Would that I could flatter myself that the same would be the case with you. The only objection on my part is now,--God be praised!--done away. The services and benefits I should receive from your society and the spur of your example would be incalculable. The house consists--the first floor (or rather ground floor) of a kitchen and a back kitchen, a large parlour and two nice small parlours; the second floor of three bedrooms, one a large one, and one large drawing-room; the third floor or floors of three bedrooms--in all twelve rooms. Besides these, Mr. Jackson offers to make that nice outhouse or workshop either two rooms or one noble large one for a study if I wish it. If it suited you, you might have one kitchen, or (if Edith and Sara thought it would answer) we might have the two kitchens in common. You might have, I say, the whole ground floor, consisting of two sweet wing-rooms, commanding that loveliest view of Borrowdale, and the great parlour; and supposing we each were forced to have two servants, a nursemaid and a housemaid, the two housemaids would sleep together in one of the upper rooms, and the nursemaids have each a room to herself, and the long room on the ground floor must be yours and Edith’s room, and if Mary be with you, the other hers. We should have the whole second floor, consisting of the drawing-room, which would be Mrs. Coleridge’s parlour, two bedrooms, which (as I am so often ill, and when ill cannot rest at all, unless I have a bed to myself) is absolutely necessary for me, and one room for you if occasion should be, or any friend of yours or mine. The highest room in the house is a very large one intended for two, but suffered to remain one by my desire. It would be a capital healthy nursery. The outhouse would become my study, and I _have_ a couch-bed on which I am now sitting (in bed) and writing to you. It is now in the study; of course it would be removed to the outhouse when that became my study, and would be a second spare bed. I have no doubt but that Mr. Jackson would willingly let us retain my present study, which might be your library and study room. My dear Southey, I merely state these things to you. All our lot on earth is compromise. Blessings obtained by blessings foregone, or by evils undergone. I should be glad, no doubt, if you thought that your health and happiness would find a home under the same roof with me; and I am sure you will not accuse me as indelicate or obtrusive in mentioning things as they are; but if you decline it altogether, I shall know that you have good reasons for doing so, and be perfectly satisfied, for if it detracted from your comfort it could, of course, be nothing but the contrary of all advantage to me. You would have access to four or five libraries: Sir W. Lawson’s, a most magnificent one, but chiefly in Natural History, Travels, etc.; Carlton House (I am a _prodigious_ favourite of Mrs. Wallis, the owner and resident, mother of the Privy Counsellor Wallis); Carlisle, Dean and Chapter; the Library at Hawkshead School, and another (of what value I know not) at St. Bees, whither I mean to walk to-morrow to spend five or six days for bathing. It is four miles from Whitehaven by the seaside. Mrs. Coleridge is but poorly, children well. Love to Edith and May, and to whom I am at all interested. God love you. If you let me hear from you, it is among my firmest resolves--God ha’ mercy on ’em!--to be a regular correspondent of yours.
S. T. COLERIDGE.
P. S. Mrs. C. must have one room on the ground floor, but this is only putting one of your rooms on the second floor.
CXXVIII. TO THE SAME.
Monday night, August 9, 1802.
MY DEAR SOUTHEY,--Derwent can say his letters, and if you could but see his darling mouth when he shouts out Q! This is a digression.
On Sunday, August 1st,[264] after morning church, I left Greta Hall, crossed the fields to Portinscale, went through Newlands, where “Great Robinson looks down upon Marden’s Bower,” and drank tea at Buttermere, crossed the mountains to Ennerdale, and slept at a farm-house a little below the foot of the lake, spent the greater part of the next day mountaineering, and went in the evening through Egremont to St. Bees, and slept there; returned next day to Egremont, and slept there; went by the sea-coast as far as Gosforth, then turned off and went up Wasdale, and slept at T. Tyson’s at the head of the vale. Thursday morning crossed the mountains and ascended Scafell, which is more than a hundred yards higher than either Helvellyn or Skiddaw; spent the whole day among clouds, and one of them a frightening thunder-cloud; slipped down into Eskdale, and there slept, and spent a good part of the next day; proceeded that evening to Devock Lake, and slept at Ulpha Kirk; on Saturday passed through the Dunnerdale Mountains to Broughton Vale, Tarver Vale, and in upon Coniston. On Sunday I surveyed the lake, etc., of Coniston, and proceeded to Bratha, and slept at Lloyd’s house; this morning walked from Bratha to Grasmere, and from Grasmere to Greta Hall, where I now am, quite sweet and ablute, and have not even now read through your letter, which I will answer by the night’s post, and therefore must defer all account of my very interesting tour, saying only that of all earthly things which I have beheld, the view of Scafell and from Scafell (both views from its own summit) is the most heart-exciting.
And now for business. The rent of the whole house, including taxes and the furniture we have, will not be under forty, and not above forty-two, pounds a year. You will have half the house and half the furniture, and of course your share will be either twenty pounds or twenty guineas. As to furniture, the house certainly will not be wholly, that is, completely furnished by Jackson. Two rooms we must somehow or other furnish between us, but not immediately; you may pass the winter without it, and it is hard if we cannot raise thirty pounds in the course of the winter between us. And whatever we buy may be disposed of any Saturday, to a moral certainty, at its full value, or Mr. Jackson, who is uncommonly desirous that you should come, will take it. But we can get on for the winter well enough.
Your books may come all the way from Bristol either to Whitehaven, Maryport, or Workington; sometimes directly, always by means of Liverpool. In the latter case, they must be sent to Whitehaven, from whence waggons come to Keswick twice a week. You will have twenty or thirty shillings to lay out in tin and crockery, and you must bring with you, or buy here (which you may do at eight months’ credit), knives and forks, etc., and all your linen, from the diaper subvestments of the young jacobin[265] to diaper table clothes, sheets, napkins, etc. But these, I suppose, you already have.
What else I have to say I cannot tell, and indeed shall be too late for the post. But I will write soon again. I was exceedingly amused with the Cottelism; but I have not time to speak of this or of other parts of your letter. I believe that I can execute the criticisms with no offence to Hayley, and in a manner highly satisfactory to the admirers of the poet Bloomfield, and to the friends of the man Bloomfield. But there are certainly other objections of great weight.
Sara is well, and the children pretty well. Hartley is almost ill with transport at my Scafell expedition. That child is a poet, spite of the forehead, “villainously _low_,” which his mother smuggled into his face. Derwent is more beautiful than ever, but very backward with his tongue, although he can say all his letters.--N. B. Not out of the book. God bless you and yours!
S. T. COLERIDGE.
If you are able to determine, you will of course let me know it without waiting for a second letter from me; as if you determine in the affirmative[266] of the scheme, it will be a great motive with Jackson, indeed, a most infallible one, to get immediately to work so as to have the whole perfectly furnished six weeks at least before your arrival. Another reason for your writing immediately is, that we may lay you in a stock of coals during the summer, which is a saving of some pounds; when I say _determine_, of course I mean such determination as the thousand contingencies, black and white, permit a wise man to make, and which would be enough for me to act on.
Sara will write to Edith soon.
I have just received a letter from Poole; but I have found so many letters that I have opened yours only.
CXXIX. TO W. SOTHEBY.
Thursday, August 26, 1802.
MY DEAR SIR,--I was absent on a little excursion when your letter arrived, and since my return I have been waiting and making every enquiry in the hopes of announcing the receipt of your “Orestes” and its companions, with my sincere thanks for your kindness. But I can hear nothing of them. Mr. Lamb,[267] however, goes to Penrith next week, and will make strict scrutiny. I am not to find the “Welsh Tour” among them; and yet I think I am correct in referring the ode “Netley Abbey” to that collection,--a poem which I believe I can very nearly repeat by heart, though it must have been four or five years since I last read it. I well remember that, after reading your “Welsh Tour,” Southey observed to me that you, I, and himself had all done ourselves harm by suffering an admiration of Bowles to bubble up too often on the surface of our poems. In perusing the second volume of Bowles, which I owe to your kindness, I met a line of my own which gave me great pleasure, from the thought what a pride and joy I should have had at the time of writing it if I had supposed it possible that Bowles would have adopted it. The line is,--
Had melancholy mus’d herself to sleep.[268]
I wrote the lines at nineteen, and published them many years ago in the “Morning Post” as a fragment, and as they are but twelve lines, I will transcribe them:--
Upon a mouldering abbey’s broadest wall, Where ruining ivies prop the ruins steep-- Her folded arms wrapping her tatter’d pall Had Melancholy mused herself to sleep. The fern was press’d beneath her hair, The dark green Adder’s Tongue was there; And still as came the flagging sea gales weak, Her long lank leaf bow’d fluttering o’er her cheek.
Her pallid cheek was flush’d; her eager look Beam’d eloquent in slumber! Inly wrought, Imperfect sounds her moving lips forsook, And her bent forehead work’d with troubled thought.
I met these lines yesterday by accident, and ill as they are written there seemed to me a force and distinctness of image in them that were buds of promise in a schoolboy performance, though I am giving them perhaps more than their deserts in thus assuring them a reading from you. I have finished the “First Navigator,” and Mr. Tomkins[269] may have it whenever he wishes. It would be gratifying to me if you would look it over and alter anything you like. My whole wish and purpose is to serve Mr. Tomkins, and you are not only much more in the habit of writing verse than I am, but must needs have a better tact of what will offend that class of readers into whose hands a showy publication is likely to fall. I do not mean, my dear sir, to impose on you ten minutes’ thought, but often _currente oculo_ a better phrase or position of words will suggest itself. As to the ten pounds, it is more than the thing is worth, either in German or English. Mr. Tomkins will better give the true value of it by kindly accepting what is given with kindness. Two or three copies presented in my name, one to each of the two or three friends of mine who are likely to be pleased with a fine book,--this is the utmost I desire or will receive. I shall for the ensuing quarter send occasional verses, etc., to the “Morning Post,” under the signature Ἔστησε, and I mention this to you because I have some intention of translating Voss’s “Idylls” in English hexameter, with a little prefatory essay on modern hexameters. I have discovered that the poetical parts of the Bible and the best parts of Ossian are little more than slovenly hexameters, and the rhythmical prose of Gesner is still more so, and reads exactly like that metre in Boethius’ and Seneca’s tragedies, which consists of the latter half of the hexameter. The thing is worth an experiment, and I wish it to be considered merely as an experiment. I need not say that the greater number of the verses signed Ἔστησε be such as were never meant for anything else but the _peritura charta_ of the “Morning Post.”
I had written thus far when your letter of the 16th arrived, franked on the 23d from Weymouth, with a polite apology from Mr. Bedingfell (if I have rightly deciphered the name) for its detention. I am vexed I did not write immediately on my return home, but I waited, day after day, in hopes of the “Orestes,” etc. It is an old proverb that “extremes meet,” and I have often regretted that I had not noted down as they _in_curred the interesting instances in which the proverb is verified. The newest subject, though brought from the planets (or asteroids) Ceres and Pallas, could not excite my curiosity more than “Orestes.” I will write immediately to Mr. Clarkson, who resides at the foot of Ulleswater, and beg him to walk into Penrith, and ask at all the inns if any parcel have arrived; if not, I will myself write to Mr. Faulder and inform him of the failure. There is a subject of great merit in the ancient mythology hitherto untouched--I believe so, at least. But for the _mode_ of the death, which mingles the ludicrous and terrible, but which might be easily altered, it is one of the finest subjects for tragedy that I am acquainted with. Medea, after the murder of her children [having] fled to the court of the old King Pelias, was regarded with superstitious horror, and shunned or insulted by the daughters of Pelias, till, hearing of her miraculous restoration of Æson, they conceived the idea of recalling by her means the youth of their own father. She avails herself of their credulity, and so works them up by pretended magical rites that they consent to kill their father in his sleep and throw him into the magic cauldron. Which done, Medea leaves them with bitter taunts of triumph. The daughters are called Asteropæa, Autonoe, and Alcestis. Ovid alludes briefly to this story in the couplet,--
“Quid referam Peliæ natas pietate nocentes, Cæsaque virgineâ membra paterna manu?” Ovid, Epist. XII. 129, 130.
What a thing to have seen a tragedy raised on this fable by Milton, in rivalry of the “Macbeth” of Shakespeare! The character of Medea, wandering and fierce, and invested with impunity by the strangeness and excess of her guilt, and truly an injured woman on the other hand and possessed of supernatural powers! The same story is told in a very different way by some authors, and out of their narrations matter might be culled that would very well coincide with and fill up the main incidents--her imposing the sacred image of Diana on the priesthood of Iolcus, and persuading them to join with her in inducing the daughters of Pelias to kill their father; the daughters under the persuasion that their father’s youth would be restored, the priests under the faith that the goddess required the death of the old king, and that the safety of the country depended on it. In this way Medea might be suffered to escape under the direct protection of the priesthood, who may afterwards discover the delusion. The moral of the piece would be a very fine one.
Wordsworth wrote a very animated account of his difficulties and his joyous meeting with you, which he calls the happy rencontre or fortunate rainstorm. Oh! that you had been with me during a thunder-storm[270] on Thursday, August the 3d! I was sheltered (in the phrase of the country, _lownded_) in a sort of natural porch on the summit of Sca Fell, the central mountain of our Giants, said to be higher than Skiddaw or Helvellyn, and in chasm, naked crag, bursting springs, and waterfall the most interesting, without a rival. When the cloud passed away, to my right and left, and behind me, stood a great national convention of mountains which our ancestors most descriptively called Copland, that is, the Land of Heads. Before me the mountains died away down to the sea in eleven parallel ridges; close under my feet, as it were, were three vales: Wastdale, with its lake; Miterdale and Eskdale, with the rivers Irt, Mite, and Esk seen from their very fountains to their fall into the sea at Ravenglass Bay, which, with these rivers, form to the eye a perfect trident.
Turning round, I looked through Borrowdale out upon the Derwentwater and the Vale of Keswick, even to my own house, where my own children were. Indeed, I had altogether a most interesting walk through Newlands to Buttermere, over the fells to Ennerdale, to St. Bees; up Wastdale to Sca Fell, down Eskdale to Devock Lake, Ulpha Kirk, Broughton Mills, Tarver, Coniston, Windermere, Grasmere, Keswick. If it would entertain you, I would transcribe my notes and send them you by the first opportunity. I have scarce left room for my best wishes to Mrs. and Miss Sotheby, and affectionate wishes for your happiness and all who constitute it.
With unfeigned esteem, dear sir,
Yours, etc., S. T. COLERIDGE.
P. S. I am ashamed to send you a scrawl so like in form to a servant wench’s first letter. You will see that the first half was written before I received your last letter.
CXXX. TO THE SAME.
GRETA HALL, KESWICK, September 10, 1802.
MY DEAR SIR,--The books have not yet arrived, and I am wholly unable to account for the delay. I suspect that the cause of it may be Mr. Faulder’s mistake in sending them by the Carlisle waggon. A person is going to Carlisle on Monday from this place, and will make diligent inquiry, and, if he succeed, still I cannot have them in less than a week, as they must return to Penrith and there wait for the next Tuesday’s carrier. I ought, perhaps, to be ashamed of my weakness, but I must confess I have been downright vexed by the business. Every cart, every return-chaise from Penrith has renewed my hopes, till I began to play tricks with my own impatience, and say, “Well, I take it for granted that I shan’t get them for these seven days,” etc.,--with other of those half-lies that fear begets on hope. You have imposed a pleasing task on me in requesting the minutiæ of my opinions concerning your “Orestes.” Whatever these opinions may be, the disclosure of them will be a sort of _map_ of my mind, as a poet and reasoner, and my curiosity is strongly excited. I feel you a man of genius in the choice of the subject. It is my faith that the _genus irritabile_ is a phrase applicable only to bad poets. Men of great genius have, indeed, as an essential of their composition, great sensibility, but they have likewise great confidence in their own powers, and fear must always precede anger in the human mind. I can with truth say that, from those I love, mere general praise of anything I have written is as far from giving me pleasure as mere general censure; in anything, I mean, to which I have devoted much time or effort. “Be minute, and assign your reasons often, and your first impressions always, and then blame or praise. I care not which, I shall be gratified.” These are _my_ sentiments, and I assuredly believe that they are the sentiments of all who have indeed felt a _true call_ to the ministry of _song_. Of course, I, too, will act on the golden rule of doing to others what I wish others to do unto me. But, while I think of it, let me say that I should be much concerned if you applied this to the “First Navigator.” It would absolutely mortify me if you did more than look over it, and when a correction suggested itself to you, take your pen and make it, and let the copy go to Tomkins. What they have been, I shall know when I see the thing in print; for it must please the present times if it please any, and you have been far more in the fashionable world than I, and must needs have a finer and surer tact of that which will offend or disgust in the higher circles of life. Yet it is not what I should have advised Tomkins to do, and that is one reason why I cannot and will not accept more than a brace of copies from him. I do not like to be associated in a man’s mind with his losses. If he have the translation gratis, he must take it on his own judgment; but when a man pays for a thing, and he loses by it, the idea will creep in, spite of himself, that the failure was in part owing to the badness of the translation. While I was translating the “Wallenstein,” I told Longman it would never answer; when I had finished it I wrote to him and foretold that it would be waste paper on his shelves, and the dullness charitably laid upon my shoulders. Longman lost two hundred and fifty pounds by the work, fifty pounds of which had been paid to me,--poor pay, Heaven knows! for a thick octavo volume of blank verse; and yet I am sure that Longman never thinks of me but “Wallenstein” and the ghosts of his departed guineas dance an ugly waltz round my idea. This would not disturb me a tittle, if I thought well of the work myself. I should feel a confidence that it would win its way at last; but this is not the case with Gesner’s “Der erste Schiffer.” It may as well lie here till Tomkins wants it. Let him only give me a week’s notice, and I will transmit it to you with a large margin. Bowles’s stanzas on “Navigation”[271] are among the best in that second volume, but the whole volume is wofully inferior to its predecessor. There reigns through all the blank verse poems such a perpetual trick of moralizing everything, which is very well, occasionally, but never to see or describe any interesting appearance in nature without connecting it, by dim analogies, with the moral world proves faintness of impression. Nature has her proper interest, and he will know what it is who believes and feels that everything has a life of its own, and that we are all _One Life_. A poet’s heart and intellect should be _combined_, intimately combined and unified with the great appearances of nature, and not merely held in solution and loose mixture with them, in the shape of formal similes. I do not mean to exclude these formal similes; there are moods of mind in which they are natural, pleasing moods of mind, and such as a poet will often have, and sometimes express; but they are not his highest and most appropriate moods. They are “sermoni propriora,” which I once translated “properer for a sermon.” The truth is, Bowles has indeed the _sensibility_ of a poet, but he has not the _passion_ of a great poet. His latter writings all want _native_ passion. Milton here and there supplies him with an appearance of it, but he has no native passion because he is not a thinker, and has probably weakened his intellect by the haunting fear of becoming extravagant. Young, somewhere in one of his prose works, remarks that there is as profound a logic in the most daring and dithyrambic parts of Pindar as in the “Organon” of Aristotle. The remark is a valuable one.
Poetic feelings, like the flexuous boughs Of mighty oaks! yield homage to the gale, Toss in the strong winds, drive before the gust, Themselves one giddy storm of fluttering leaves; Yet, all the while, self-limited, remain Equally near the fix’d and parent trunk Of truth in nature--in the howling blast, As in the calm that stills the aspen grove.[272]
That this is deep in our nature, I felt when I was on Scafell. I involuntarily poured forth a hymn[273] in the manner of the Psalms, though afterwards I thought the ideas, etc., disproportionate to our humble mountains.... You will soon see it in the “Morning Post,” and I should be glad to know whether and how far it pleased you. It has struck me with great force lately that the Psalms afford a most complete answer to those who state the Jehovah of the Jews, as a personal and national God, and the Jews as differing from the Greeks only in calling the minor Gods Cherubim and Seraphim, and confining the word “God” only to their Jupiter. It must occur to every reader that the Greeks in their religious poems address always the Numina Loci, the Genii, the Dryads, the Naiads, etc., etc. All natural objects were _dead_, mere hollow statues, but there was a Godkin or Goddessling _included_ in each. In the Hebrew poetry you find nothing of this poor stuff, as poor in genuine imagination as it is mean in intellect. At best, it is but fancy, or the aggregating faculty of the mind, not imagination or the _modifying_ and coadunating faculty. This the Hebrew poets appear to me to have possessed beyond all others, and next to them the English. In the Hebrew poets each thing has a life of its own, and yet they are all our life. In God they move and live and _have_ their being; not _had_, as the cold system of Newtonian Theology represents, but _have_. Great pleasure indeed, my dear sir, did I receive from the latter part of your letter. If there be any two subjects which have in the very depths of my nature interested me, it has been the Hebrew and Christian Theology, and the Theology of Plato. Last winter I read the Parmenides and the Timæus with great care, and oh, that you were here--even in this howling rainstorm that dashes itself against my windows--on the other side of my blazing fire, in that great armchair there! I guess we should encroach on the morning ere we parted. How little the commentators of Milton have availed themselves of the writings of Plato, Milton’s darling! But alas, commentators only hunt out verbal parallelisms--_numen abest_. I was much impressed with this in all the many notes on that beautiful passage in “Comus” from l. 629 to 641. All the puzzle is to find out what plant Hæmony is; which they discover to be the English spleenwort, and decked out as a mere play and licence of poetic fancy with all the strange properties suited to the purpose of the drama. They thought little of Milton’s platonizing spirit, who wrote nothing without an interior meaning. “Where more is meant than meets the ear,” is true of himself beyond all writers. He was so great a man that he seems to have considered fiction as profane unless where it is consecrated by being emblematic of some truth. What an unthinking and ignorant man we must have supposed Milton to be, if, without any hidden meaning, he had described it as growing in such abundance that the dull swain treads on it daily, and yet as never _flowering_. Such blunders Milton of all others was least likely to commit. Do look at the passage. Apply it as an allegory of Christianity, or, to speak more precisely, of the Redemption by the Cross, every syllable is full of light! “_A small unsightly root._”--“To the Greeks folly, to the Jews a stumbling-block”--“_The leaf was darkish and had prickles on it_”--“If in this life only we have hope, we are of all men the most miserable,” and a score of other texts. “_But in another country, as he said, Bore a bright golden flower_”--“The exceeding weight of glory prepared for us hereafter”--“_But not in this soil; Unknown and like esteemed and the dull swain Treads on it daily with his clouted shoon_”--The promises of Redemption offered daily and hourly, and to all, but accepted scarcely by any--“_He called it Hæmony_.” Now what is Hæmony? αἷμα οἶνος, Blood-wine. “And he took the wine and blessed it and said, ‘This is my Blood,’”--the great symbol of the Death on the Cross. There is a general ridicule cast on all allegorising of poets. Read Milton’s prose works, and observe whether he was one of those who joined in this ridicule. There is a very curious passage in Josephus [De Bello Jud. 6, 7, cap. 25 (vi. § 3)] which is, in its literal meaning, more wild and fantastically absurd than the passage in Milton; so much so, that Lardner quotes it in exultation and says triumphantly, “Can any man who reads it think it any disparagement to the Christian Religion that it was not embraced by a man who would believe such stuff as this? God forbid that it should affect Christianity, that it is not believed by the learned of this world!” But the passage in Josephus, I have no doubt, is wholly allegorical.
Ἔστησε signifies “He hath stood,”[274] which, in these times of apostasy from the principles of freedom or of religion in this country, and from both by the same persons in France, is no unmeaning signature, if subscribed with humility, and in the remembrance of “Let him that stands take heed lest he fall!” However, it is, in truth, no more than S. T. C. written in Greek--Es tee see.
Pocklington will not sell his house, but he is ill, and perhaps it may be to be sold, but it is sunless all winter.
God bless you, and S. T. COLERIDGE.
CXXXI. TO THE SAME.
GRETA HALL, KESWICK, Tuesday, September 27, 1802.
MY DEAR SIR,--The river is full, and Lodore is full, and silver-fillets come out of clouds and glitter in every ravine of all the mountains; and the hail lies like snow, upon their tops, and the impetuous gusts from Borrowdale snatch the water up high, and continually at the bottom of the lake it is not distinguishable from snow slanting before the wind--and under this seeming snow-drift the sunshine _gleams_, and over all the nether half of the Lake it is _bright_ and _dazzles_, a cauldron of melted silver boiling! It is in very truth a sunny, misty, cloudy, dazzling, howling, omniform day, and I have been looking at as pretty a sight as a father’s eyes could well see--Hartley and little Derwent running in the green where the gusts blow most madly, both with their hair floating and tossing, a miniature of the agitated trees, below which they were playing, inebriate both with the pleasure--Hartley whirling round for joy, Derwent eddying, half-willingly, half by the force of the gust,--driven backward, struggling forward, and shouting his little hymn of joy. I can write thus to you, my dear sir, with a confident spirit; for when I received your letter on the 22nd, and had read the “family history,” I laid down the sheet upon my desk, and sate for half an hour thinking of you, dreaming of you, till the tear grown cold upon my cheek awoke me from my reverie. May you live long, long, thus blessed in your family, and often, often may you all sit around one fireside. Oh happy should I be now and then to sit among you--your pilot and guide in some of your summer walks!
“Frigidus ut sylvis Aquilo si increverit, aut si Hiberni pluviis dependent nubibus imbres, Nos habeat domus, et multo Lar luceat igne. Ante focum mihi parvus erit, qui ludat, Iulus, Blanditias ferat, et nondum constantia verba; Ipse legam magni tecum monumenta Platonis!”
Or, what would be still better, I could talk to you (and, if you were here now, to an accompaniment of winds that would well suit the subject) instead of writing to you concerning your “Orestes.” When we talk we are our own living commentary, and there are so many _running notes_ of look, tone, and gesture, that there is small danger of being misunderstood, and less danger of being imperfectly understood--in writing; but no! it is foolish to abuse a good substitute because it is not all that the original is,--so I will do my best and, believe me, I consider this letter which I am about to write as merely an exercise of my own judgment--a something that may make you better acquainted, perhaps, with the architecture and furniture of _my_ mind, though it will probably convey to you little or nothing that had not occurred to you before respecting your own tragedy. One thing I beg solicitously of you, that, if anywhere I appear to speak positively, you will acquit me of any correspondent feeling. I hope that it is not a frequent feeling with me in any case, and, that if it appear so, I am belied by my own warmth of manner. In the present instance it is impossible. I have been too deeply impressed by the work, and I am now about to give you, not criticisms nor decisions, but a history of my impressions, and, for the greater part, of my first impressions, and if anywhere there seem anything like a tone of warmth or dogmatism, do, my dear sir, be kind enough to regard it as no more than a way of conveying to you the _whole_ of my meaning; or, for I am writing too seriously, as the dexterous _toss_, necessary to turn an idea out of its pudding-bag, round and _unbroken_.
[No signature.]
Several pages of minute criticisms on Sotheby’s “Orestes” form part of the original transcript of the letter.
CXXXII. TO HIS WIFE.
ST. CLEAR, CAERMARTHEN, Tuesday, November 16, 1802.
MY DEAR LOVE,--I write to you from the New Passage, Saturday morning, November 13. We had a favourable passage, dined on the other side, and proceeded in a post-chaise to Usk, and from thence to Abergavenny, where we supped and slept and breakfasted--a vile supper, vile beds, and vile breakfast. From Abergavenny to Brecon, through the vale of Usk, I believe, nineteen miles of most delightful country. It is not indeed comparable with the meanest part of our Lake Country, but hills, vale, and river, cottages and woods are nobly blended, and, thank Heaven, I seldom permit my past greater pleasures to lessen my enjoyment of present charms. Of the things which this nineteen miles has in common with our whole vale of Keswick (which is about nineteen miles long), I may say that the two vales and the two rivers are equal to each other, that the Keswick vale beats the Welsh one all hollow in cottages, but is as much surpassed by it in woods and timber trees. I am persuaded that every tree in the south of England has three times the number of _leaves_ that a tree of the same sort and size has in Cumberland or Westmoreland, and there is an incomparably larger number of very large trees. Even the Scotch firs luxuriate into beauty and pluminess, and the larches are magnificent creatures indeed, in S. Wales. I must not deceive you, however, with all the advantages. S. Wales, if you came into it with the very pictures of Keswick, Ulleswater, Grasmere, etc., in your fancy, and were determined to hold them, and S. Wales together with all its richer fields, woods, and ancient trees, would needs appear flat and tame as ditchwater. I have no firmer persuasion than this, that there is no place in our island (and, saving Switzerland, none in Europe perhaps), which really equals the vale of Keswick, including Borrowdale, Newlands, and Bassenthwaite. O Heaven! that it had but a more genial climate! It is now going on for the eighteenth week since they have had any rain here, more than a few casual refreshing showers, and we have monopolized the rain of the whole kingdom. From Brecon to Trecastle--a churchyard, two or three miles from Brecon, is belted by a circle of the largest and noblest yews I ever saw--in a belt, to wit; they are not so large as the yew in Borrowdale or that in Lorton, but so many, so large and noble, I never saw before--and quite _glowing_ with those heavenly-coloured, silky-pink-scarlet berries. From Trecastle to Llandovery, where we found a nice inn, an excellent supper, and good beds. From Llandovery to Llandilo--from Llandilo to Caermarthen, a large town all whitewashed--the roofs of the houses all whitewashed! a great town in a confectioner’s shop, on Twelfth-cake-Day, or a huge snowpiece at a distance. It is nobly situated along a hill among hills, at the head of a very extensive vale. From Caermarthen after dinner to St. Clear, a little hamlet nine miles from Caermarthen, three miles from the sea (the nearest seaport being Llangan, pronounced _Larne_, on Caermarthen Bay--look in the map), and not quite a hundred miles from Bristol. The country immediately round is exceedingly bleak and dreary--just the sort of country that there is around Shurton, etc. But the inn, the _Blue Boar_, is the most comfortable little public-house I was ever in. Miss S. Wedgwood left us this morning (we arrived here at half past four yesterday evening) for Crescelly, Mr. _Allen’s_ seat (the Mrs. Wedgwood’s father), fifteen miles from this place, and T. Wedgwood is gone out cock-shooting, in high glee and spirits. He is very much better than I expected to have found him--he says, the thought of my coming, and my really coming so immediately, has sent a new life into him. He will be out all the mornings. The evenings we chat, discuss, or I read to him. To me he is a delightful and instructive companion. He possesses the _finest_, the _subtlest_ mind and taste I have ever yet met with. His mind resembles that miniature in my “Three Graves:”[275]--
A small blue sun! and it has got A perfect glory too! Ten thousand hairs of colour’d light, Make up a glory gay and bright, Round that small orb so blue!
I continue in excellent health, compared with my state at Keswick.... I have now left off beer too, and will persevere in it. I take no tea; in the morning coffee, with a teaspoonful of ginger in the last cup; in the afternoon a large cup of ginger-tea, and I take ginger at twelve o’clock at noon, and a glass after supper. I find not the least inconvenience from any quantity, however large. I dare say I take a large table-spoonful in the course of the twenty-four hours, and once in the twenty-four hours (but not always at the same time) I take half a grain of purified opium, equal to twelve drops of laudanum, which is not more than an eighth part of what I took at Keswick, exclusively of beer, brandy, and tea, which last is undoubtedly a pernicious thing--all which I have left off, and will give this regimen a _fair, complete_ trial of one month, with no other deviation than that I shall sometimes lessen the opiate, and sometimes miss a day. But I am fully convinced, and so is T. Wedgwood, that to a person with such a stomach and bowels as mine, if any stimulus is needful, opium in the small quantities I now take it is incomparably better in every respect than beer, wine, spirits, or any _fermented_ liquor, nay, far less pernicious than even tea. It _is my particular wish that Hartley and Derwent should have as little tea as possible, and always very weak, with more than half milk_. Read this sentence to Mary, and to Mrs. Wilson. I should think that ginger-tea, with a good deal of milk in it, would be an excellent thing for Hartley. A teaspoonful piled up of ginger would make a potful of tea, that would serve him for two days. And let him drink it half milk. I dare say that he would like it very well, for it is pleasant with sugar, and tell him that his dear father takes it instead of tea, and believes that it will make his dear Hartley grow. The whole kingdom is getting ginger-mad. My dear love! I have said nothing of Italy, for I am as much in the dark as when I left Keswick, indeed much more. For I now doubt very much whether we shall go or no. Against our going you must place T. W.’s improved state of health, and his exceeding dislike to continental travelling, and horror of the sea, and his exceeding attachment to his family; for our going, you must place his past experience, the transiency of his enjoyments, the craving after change, and the effect of a cold winter, especially if it should come on _wet_ or _sleety_. His determinations are made so rapidly, that two or three days of wet weather with a raw cold air might have such an effect on his spirits, that he might go off immediately to Naples, or perhaps for Teneriffe, which latter place he is always talking about. Look out for it in the Encyclopædia. Again, these latter causes make it not impossible that the pleasure he has in me as a companion may languish. I must subscribe myself in haste,
Your dear husband, S. T. COLERIDGE.
The mail is waiting.
CXXXIII. TO THE REV. J. P. ESTLIN.
CRESCELLY, near Narbarth, Pembrokeshire, December 7, 1802.
MY DEAR FRIEND,--I took the liberty of desiring Mrs. Coleridge to direct a letter for me to you, fully expecting to have seen you; but I passed rapidly through Bristol, and left it with Mr. Wedgwood immediately--I literally had _no time_ to see any one. I hope, however, to see you on my return, for I wish very much to have some hours’ conversation with you on a subject that will not cease to interest either of us while we _live_ at least, and I trust that is a synonym of “for ever!”... Have you seen my different essays in the “Morning Post”?[276]--the comparison of Imperial Rome and France, the “Once a Jacobin, always a Jacobin,” and the two letters to Mr. Fox? Are my politics yours?
Have you heard lately from America? A gentleman informed me that the progress of religious Deism in the middle Provinces is exceedingly rapid, that there are numerous congregations of Deists, etc., etc. Would to Heaven this were the case in France! Surely, religious Deism is infinitely nearer the religion of our Saviour than the _gross_ idolatry of Popery, or the more decorous, but not less genuine, idolatry of a vast majority of Protestants. If there be meaning in words, it appears to me that the Quakers and Unitarians are the only Christians, altogether pure from Idolatry, and even of these I am sometimes jealous, that some of the Unitarians make too much an _Idol_ of their _one_ God. Even the worship of one God becomes _Idolatry_ in my convictions, when, instead of the Eternal and Omnipresent, in whom we live and move and _have_ our Being, we set up a distinct Jehovah, tricked out in the _anthropomorphic_ attributes of Time and _successive_ Thoughts, and think of him as a _Person_, _from_ whom we _had_ our Being. The tendency to _Idolatry_ seems to me to lie at the root of all our human vices--it is our original Sin. When we dismiss _three Persons_ in the Deity, only by subtracting _two_, we talk more intelligibly, but, I fear, do not feel more religiously--for God is a Spirit, and must be worshipped in spirit.
O my dear sir! it is long since we have seen each other--believe me, my esteem and grateful affection for you and Mrs. Estlin has suffered no abatement or intermission--nor can I persuade myself that my opinions, fully stated and fully understood, would appear to you to differ _essentially_ from your own. My creed is very simple--my confession of Faith very brief. I approve altogether and embrace entirely the _Religion_ of the Quakers, but exceedingly dislike the _sect_, and their own notions of their own Religion. By Quakerism I understand the opinions of George Fox rather than those of Barclay--who was the St. Paul of Quakerism.--I pray for you and yours!
S. T. COLERIDGE.
CXXXIV. TO ROBERT SOUTHEY.
Christmas Day, 1802.
MY DEAR SOUTHEY,--I arrived at Keswick with T. Wedgwood on Friday afternoon, that is to say, yesterday, and had the comfort to find that Sara was safely brought to bed, the morning before, that is on Thursday, half-past six, of a healthy GIRL. I had never thought of a girl as a possible event; the words child and man-child were perfect synonyms in my feelings. However, I bore the sex with great fortitude, and she shall be called Sara. Both Mrs. Coleridge and the Coleridgiella are as well as can be. I left the little one sucking at a great rate. Derwent and Hartley are both well.
[Illustration]
I was at Cote[277] in the beginning of November, and of course had calculated on seeing you, and, above all, on seeing little Edith’s physiognomy, among the certain things of my expedition, but I had no sooner arrived at Cote than I was forced to quit it, T. Wedgwood having engaged to go into Wales with his sister. I arrived at Cote in the afternoon, and till late evening did not know or conjecture that we were to go off early in the next morning. I do not say this for you,--you must know how earnestly I yearn to see you,--but for Mr. Estlin, who expressed himself wounded by the circumstance. When you see him, therefore, be so good as to mention this to him. I was much affected by Mrs. Coleridge’s account of your health and eyes. God have mercy on us! We are all sick, all mad, all slaves! It is a theory of mine that virtue and genius are diseases of the hypochondriacal and scrofulous genera, and exist in a peculiar state of the nerves and diseased digestion, analogous to the beautiful diseases that colour and variegate certain trees. However, I add, by way of comfort, that it is my faith that the virtue and genius produce the disease, not the disease the virtue, etc., though when present it fosters them. Heaven knows, there are fellows who have more vices than scabs, and scabs countless, with fewer ideas than plaisters. As to my own health it is very indifferent. I am exceedingly temperate in everything, abstain wholly from wine, spirits, or fermented liquors, almost wholly from tea, abjure all fermentable and vegetable food, bread excepted, and use _that_ sparingly; live almost entirely on eggs, fish, flesh, and fowl, and thus contrive not to be _ill_. But well I am not, and in this climate never shall be. A deeply ingrained though mild scrofula is diffused through me, and is a very Proteus. I am fully determined to _try_ Teneriffe or Gran Canaria, influenced to prefer them to Madeira solely by the superior cheapness of living. The climate and country are heavenly, the inhabitants Papishes, all of whom I would burn with fire and faggot, for what didn’t they do to us Christians under bloody Queen Mary? Oh the Devil sulphur-roast them! I would have no mercy on them, unless they drowned all their priests, and then, spite of the itch (which they have in an inveterate degree, rich and poor, gentle and simple, old and young, male and female), would shake hands with them ungloved.
By way of _one_ impudent half line in this meek and mild letter--will you go with me? “I” and “you” mean mine and yours, of course. Remember you are to give me Thomas Aquinas and Scotus Erigena.
God bless you and S. T. COLERIDGE.
I can have the best letters and recommendation. My love and their sisters to Mary and Edith, and if you see Mrs. Fricker, be so good as to tell her that she will hear from me or Sara in the course of ten days.
CXXXV. TO THOMAS WEDGWOOD.
[The text of this letter, which was first published in Cottle’s “Reminiscences,” 1849, p. 450, has been collated with that of the original.]
KESWICK, January 9, 1803.
MY DEAR WEDGWOOD,--I send you two letters, one from your dear sister, 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 could raise the money, at all events, and go and see. But I would a thousand-fold rather go with you whithersoever you go. I shall be anxious to hear how you have gone on since I left you. Should you decide in favour of a better 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 out for two houses. Wordsworth and his family would take the one, and I the other, and then you might have a home either with me, or, if you thought of Mr. and Mrs. Luff, under this modification, one of your own; and in either case you would have neighbours, and so return to England when the homesickness pressed heavy upon you, and back to Italy when it was abated, and the climate of England began to poison your comforts. So you would have abroad, in a genial climate, certain comforts of society among simple and enlightened men and women; and 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 toward 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 swollen. Before I was half up _Kirkstone_ the storm had wetted me through and through, and before I reached the top it was so wild and outrageous, that it would have been unmanly to have suffered the poor woman (guide) to continue pushing on, up against such a torrent of wind and rain; so I dismounted and 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 and rain. The rain-drops were pelted or, rather, slung against my face by the gusts, just like splinters of flint, and I felt as if every drop _cut_ my flesh. My hands were all shrivelled up like a washerwoman’s, and so benumbed that I was obliged to carry my stick under my arm. Oh, it was a wild business! Such hurry-skurry of clouds, such volleys of sound! In spite of the wet and 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_ and _burning_ pain; and secondly, in consequence of riding with such cold water under my seat, extremely uneasy and burthensome feelings attacked my groin, so that, what with the pain from the one, and the alarm from the other, I had _no enjoyment at all_!
Just at the brow of the hill I met a man dismounted, who could not sit on horseback. He seemed quite scared by the uproar, and said to me, with much feeling, “Oh, 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, all was calm and breathless, as if it was some mighty fountain just on the summit of Kirkstone, that shot forth its volcano of air, and precipitated huge streams of invisible lava down the road to Patterdale.
I went on to Grasmere. I was not at all unwell when I arrived there, though 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 feelings, but I had a bad night, with distressful dreams, chiefly about my eye; and awaking often in the dark I thought it was the effect of mere recollection, but it appeared in the morning that my right eye was bloodshot, and the lid swollen. That morning, however, I walked home, and before I reached Keswick my eye was quite well, but _I felt unwell all over_. Yesterday I continued unusually unwell all over me till eight o’clock in the evening. I took no _laudanum or opium_, but at eight o’clock, unable to bear the stomach uneasiness and aching of my limbs, I took two large teaspoonsfull of ether in a wine-glass of camphorated gum water, and a third teaspoonfull at ten o’clock, and I received complete relief,--my body calmed, my sleep placid,--but when I awoke in the morning my right hand, with three of the fingers, was swollen and inflamed.... This has been a very rough attack, but though I am much weakened by it, and look sickly and haggard, yet I am not out of heart. 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 through 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 continue to send me a few lines by the market people on Friday--I shall receive it on Tuesday morning.
Affectionately, dear friend, yours ever, S. T. COLERIDGE.
[Addressed “T. Wedgwood, Esq., C. Luff’s Esq., Glenridding, Ulleswater.”]
CXXXVI. TO HIS WIFE.
[LONDON], Monday, April 4, 1803.
MY DEAR SARA,--I have taken my place for Wednesday night, and, barring accidents, shall arrive at Penrith on Friday noon. If Friday be a fine morning, that is, if it do not rain, you will get Mr. Jackson to send a lad with a horse or pony to Penruddock. The boy ought to be at Penruddock by twelve o’clock that his horse may bait and 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, five o’clock, at the latest. You had better dine early. I shall take an egg or two at Penrith and 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 and company?” On Friday night I was unwell and restless, and uneasy in limbs and stomach, though I had been extremely regular. I told Lamb on Saturday morning that I guessed the weather had changed. But there was no mark of it; it was hotter than ever. On Saturday evening my right knee and both my ankles swelled and were very painful; and within an hour after there came a storm of wind and 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, and the swelling in my ankle is gone down and 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, and 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 for Hartley, though toys are so outrageously dear, and I so short of money, that I shall be puzzled.
To-day I dine again with Sotheby. He had informed me that ten gentlemen who have met me at his house desired him to solicit me to finish the “Christabel,” and to permit them to publish it for me; and they engaged that it should be in paper, printing, and 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 friend and 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 laid hold of me with violent agitation and 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 and took her to the private mad-house at Hugsden. She was quite calm, and 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, though, if I have time, I shall probably write myself to them to-day or to-morrow.
Yours affectionately, S. T. COLERIDGE.
CXXXVII. TO ROBERT SOUTHEY.
KESWICK, Wednesday, July 2, 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, and was not an arm’s-length from the bell, yet could not command voluntary power sufficient to pull it, and might have died but for the accidental coming in of her daughter. From such as these the doctrines of materialism and mechanical necessity have been deduced; and it is some small argument against the truth of these doctrines that I have perhaps had a more various experience, a more intuitive knowledge of such facts than most men, and yet I do not believe these doctrines. My health is _middling_. If this hot weather continue, I hope to go on endurably, and oh, for peace! for I forbode a miserable winter in this country. Indeed, I am rather induced to determine on wintering in Madeira, rather than staying at home. I have enclosed ten pounds for Mrs. Fricker. Tell her I wish it were in my power to increase this poor half year’s mite; but ill health keeps me poor. Bella is with us, and seems likely to recover. I have not seen the “Edinburgh Review.” The truth is that Edinburgh is a place of literary gossip, and even _I_ have had my portion of puff there, and of course my portion of hatred and envy. One man puffs me up--he has seen and talked with me; another hears him, goes and reads my poems, written when almost a boy, and candidly and logically hates me, because he does not admire my poems, in the proportion in which one of his acquaintance 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 “Theatre Critic,” respecting a double infant. If you do not immediately want it, or if my using it in a book of logic, with proper acknowledgment, 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 division of the European and Colonial History. In style you have only to beware of short, biblical, and pointed periods. Your general style is delightfully natural and 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, but had heard of them, and that they were mine, and had expressed himself more wounded by the circumstance than anything that had happened since Burke’s business. Sharp told this to Wordsworth, and 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 and true; but Fox is not to be attacked, and why? Because he is an amiable man; and not by me, because he had thought highly of me, etc., etc. O Christ! this is a pretty age in the article _morality_! When I cease to love Truth best of all things, and 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 anything can be called probable in a subject so dark, it seems to me most probable that our immortality is to be a work of our own hands.
All the children are well, and love to hear Bella talk of Margaret. Love to Edith and to Mary and
S. T. COLERIDGE.
I have received great delight and instruction from _Scotus Erigena_. He is clearly the modern founder of the school of Pantheism; indeed he expressly defines the divine nature as _quæ fit et facit, et creat et creatur_; and 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 Aristotelian. There is a good deal of _omne meus oculus_ in the notion of the dark ages, etc., taken intensively; in extension it might be true. They had _wells_: we are flooded ankle high: and what comes of it but grass rank or rotten? Our age eats from that poison-tree of knowledge yclept “Too-Much and Too-Little.” Have you read Paley’s last book?[278] Have you it to review? I could make a dashing review of it.
CXXXVIII. TO THE SAME.
KESWICK, July, 1803.
MY DEAR SOUTHEY,--... I write now to propose a scheme,[279] 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. 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,[280] 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 hasard_, 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 bibliographical, 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, etc., etc., navigation, travellers, voyagers, etc., etc. 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 bye, what a strange abuse has been made of the word encyclopædia! It signifies properly, grammar, logic, rhetoric, and ethics, and metaphysics, which last, explaining the ultimate principle 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 encyclopædia is the impudent ignorance of your Presbyterian book-makers. Good night!
God bless you! S. T. C.
CXXXIX. TO THE SAME.
KESWICK, Sunday, August 7, 1803.
(Read the last lines first; I send you this letter merely to show you how anxious I have been about your work.)
MY DEAR SOUTHEY,--The last three days I have been fighting up against a restless wish to 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 dipped 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, and I hold that association depends in a much greater degree on the recurrence of resembling states of feeling than on trains of ideas, that the recollection of early childhood in latest old age depends on and is explicable by this, and 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, and 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 phenomena--how flat, how wretched! Believe me, Southey! a metaphysical solution, that does not instantly _tell_ you something in the heart is grievously to be suspected as apocryphal. 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 through 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 and again I say, that whatever your plan may be, I will contrive 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; and it could not be otherwise than that I should feel a confirmation of them from Wordsworth’s complete 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 paid the expense of reprinting? Scarcely. Literary history informs us that most of those great continental bibliographies, etc., 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, though few, may be proportionally very great. I have observed that great works are nowadays bought, not for curiosity or the _amor proprius_, but under the notion that they contain all the _knowledge_ 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 encyclopædia, and will continue to do so. I have weighed most patiently what you said respecting the persons and classes likely to purchase a catalogue of all British books. I have endeavoured to make some rude calculation of their numbers according to your own numeration table, and it falls very short of an adequate number. Your scheme appears to be in short faulty, (1) because, everywhere, 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-and-fro, now here, now there motion of the mind, and employment of the industry. Oh how I wish to be talking, not writing, for my mind is so full that my thoughts stifle and jam each other. And 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_, and so forth; otherwise it is not a book of reference, without an index half as large as the work itself. I see no well-founded objection to the plan which I first sent. The two main advantages are that, stop where you will, you are in harbour, you sail in an archipelago so thickly clustered, (that) at each island you take in a completely new cargo, and the former cargo is in safe housage; and (2dly) that each labourer working by the _piece_, and not by the _day_, can give an undivided attention in some instances for three or four years, and bring to the work the whole weight of his interest and reputation.... An encyclopædia appears to me a worthless monster. What surgeon, or physician, professed student of pure or mixed mathematics, what chemist or architect, would go to an encyclopædia for _his_ books? If valuable treatises exist on these subjects in an encyclopædia, 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 encyclopædia which are excrescences--each volume will _set up_ the reader, give him at once connected trains of thought and facts, and a delightful miscellany for lounge-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 its date, passing from an Epic Poem to a treatise on the treatment of sore legs? Nobody can become an enthusiast in favour of the work.... A great change of weather has come on, heavy rain and wind, and I have been _very_ ill, and 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 and S. T. C.
CXL. TO HIS WIFE.
Friday afternoon, 4 o’clock, Sept. (1), [1803].
MY DEAR SARA,--I write from the Ferry of Ballater.... 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 and Tower), thence to Loch Lomond, and a single house called Luss--horrible inhospitality and a fiend of a landlady! Thence eight miles up the Lake to E. Tarbet, where the lake is so like Ulleswater that I could scarcely see the difference; crossed over the lake and by a desolate moorland walked to another lake, Loch Katrine, up to a place called Trossachs, the Borrowdale of Scotland, and the only thing which really beats us. You must conceive the Lake of Keswick pushing itself up a mile or two into Borrowdale, winding round Castle Crag, and in and out among all the nooks and promontories, and you must imagine all the mountains more _detachedly_ built up, a general dislocation; every rock its own precipice, with trees young and 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 five promontories, and a Castle Crag, just like that in the gorge of Borrowdale, 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 and 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 smoke-varnished rafters. This was [the pleasantest] evening I had spent since my tour; for Wordsworth’s hypochondriacal feelings keep him silent and self-centred. The next day it still was rain and rain; the ferry-boat was out for the preaching, and we stayed all day in the ferry wet to the skin. Oh, such a wretched hovel! But two Highland lassies,[281] who kept house in the absence of the ferryman and his wife, were very kind, and one of them was beautiful as a vision, and put both Dorothy and me in mind of the Highland girl in William’s “Peter Bell.”[282] We returned to E. Tarbet, I with the rheumatism in my head. And now William proposed to me to leave them and make my way on foot to Loch Katrine, the Trossachs, whence it is only twenty miles to Stirling, where the coach runs through to Edinburgh. He and 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 _Cobbler_ which had impressed me so much in Mr. Wilkinson’s drawings; and 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 twenty-nine 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 mountains to the head of Loch Katrine again; but hearing from the gude man of the house that it was 40 miles to Glencoe (of which I had formed an idea from Wilkinson’s drawings), and having found myself so happy alone (such blessing is there in perfect liberty!) I walked off. I have walked forty-five miles since then, and, except during the last mile, I am sure I may say I have not met with ten houses. For eighteen miles there are but two habitations! and all that way I met no sheep, no cattle, only one goat! All through moorlands with huge mountains, some craggy and bare, but the most green, with deep pinky channels worn by torrents. Glencoe interested me, but rather disappointed me. There was no _superincumbency_ of crag, and 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, and to walk along the _whole line of the Forts_. I am unfortunately shoeless; there is no town where I can get a pair, and I have no money to spare to buy them, so I expect to enter Perth barefooted. I burnt my shoes in drying them at the boatman’s hovel on Loch Katrine, and I have by this means hurt my heel. Likewise my left leg is a little inflamed, and 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, and the three teeth; but, nevertheless, I am enjoying myself, having Nature with solitude and liberty--the liberty natural and solitary, the solitude natural and free! But you must contrive somehow or other to borrow ten pounds, or, if that cannot be, five pounds, for me, and send it without delay, directed to me at the Post Office, Perth. I guess I shall be there in seven days or eight at the furthest; and your letter will be two days getting thither (counting the day you put it into the office at Keswick as nothing); so you must calculate, and if this letter does not reach you in time, that is, within five days from the date hereof, you must then direct to Edinburgh. I will make five pounds do (you must borrow of Mr. Jackson), and I must _beg_ my way for the last three or four days! It is useless repining, but if I had set off myself in the Mail for Glasgow or Stirling, and so gone by foot, as I am now doing, I should have saved twenty-five pounds; 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 through, the loss of Hartley or Derwent, ay, or dear little Sara! In my health I am middling. While I can walk twenty-four miles a day, with the excitement of new objects, I can _support_ myself; but still my sleep and dreams are distressful, and I am hopeless. I take no opiates ... nor have I any temptation; for since my disorder has taken this asthmatic turn opiates produce none but positively unpl[easant effects].
[No signature.]
MRS. COLERIDGE, Greta Hall, Keswick, Cumberland, S. Britain.
CXLI. TO ROBERT SOUTHEY.
[EDINBURGH], Sunday night, 9 o’clock, September 10, 1803.
MY DEAREST SOUTHEY,--I arrived here half an hour ago, and 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 by this beginning to write, making 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 cannot chitchat with Scotchmen while you are at Keswick, childless![283] Bless you, my dear Southey! I will knit myself far closer to you than I have hitherto done, and my children shall be yours till it please God to send you another.
I have been a wild journey, taken up for a spy and clapped into Fort Augustus, and 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 263 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 and cry.--I have abandoned all opiates, except ether be one.... And when you see me drink a glass of spirit-and-water, except by prescription of a physician, you shall despise me,--but still I cannot get quiet rest.
When on my bed my limbs I lay, 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, 5 In humble trust my eyelids close, With reverential resignation, No wish conceiv’d, no thought exprest, Only a _Sense_ of supplication, A _Sense_ o’er all my soul imprest 10 That I am weak, yet not unblest, Since round me, in me, everywhere Eternal strength and Goodness are!--
But yester-night I pray’d aloud In anguish and in agony, 15 Awaking from the fiendish crowd Of shapes and thoughts that tortur’d me! Desire with loathing strangely mixt, On wild or hateful objects fixt. Sense of revenge, the powerless will, 20 Still baffled and consuming still; Sense of intolerable wrong, And men whom I despis’d made strong! Vain glorious threats, unmanly vaunting, Bad men my boasts and fury taunting; 25 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: 30 For all was Horror, Guilt, and 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. 35 I fear’d to sleep: Sleep seemed to be Disease’s worst malignity. The third night, when my own loud scream Had freed me from the fiendish dream, O’ercome by sufferings dark and wild, 40 I wept as I had been a child; And having thus by Tears subdued My Trouble to a milder mood, Such punishments, I thought, were due To Natures, deepliest stain’d with Sin; 45 Still to be stirring up anew The self-created Hell within, The Horror of the crimes to view, To know and loathe, yet wish to do! With such let fiends make mockery-- 50 But I--Oh, wherefore this _on me_? Frail is my soul, yea, strengthless wholly, Unequal, restless, melancholy; But free from Hate and sensual Folly! To live belov’d is all I need, 55 And whom I love, I love indeed, And etc., etc., etc., etc.[284]
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, doggerel 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 and attainments which I have. We will soon meet, and I will do all I can to console poor Edith.--O dear, dear Southey! my head is sadly confused. After a rapid walk of thirty-three miles your letters have had the effect of perfect intoxication in my head and eyes. Change! change! change! O God of Eternity! When shall we be at rest in thee?
S. T. COLERIDGE.
CXLII. TO THE SAME.
EDINBURGH, Tuesday morning, September 13, 1803.
MY DEAR SOUTHEY,--I wrote you a strange letter, I fear. But, in truth, yours affected my wretched stomach, and 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, and whether I shall go on in the coach to Penrith, and walk from thence, or walk off from Carlisle at once, depends on two circumstances, first, whether the coach goes on with no other than a common bait to Penrith, and secondly, whether, if it should not do so, I can trust my clothes, etc., to the coachman safely, to be left at Penrith. There is but eight miles difference in the walk, and eight or nine shillings difference in the expense. At all events, I trust that I shall be with you on Thursday by dinner time, if you dine at half-past two or three o’clock. God bless you! I will go and call on Elmsley.[285] What a wonderful city Edinburgh[286] is! What alternation of height and depth! A city looked at in the polish’d back of a Brobdingnag spoon held lengthways, so enormously _stretched-up_ are the houses! When I first looked down on it, as the coach drove up on the higher street, I cannot express what I felt--such a section of wasps’ nests striking you with a sort of bastard sublimity from the enormity and infinity of its 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 and free stone in which the shafts or strata stood perpendicularly instead of horizontally with the same high thin slices and corresponding interstices. I climbed last night to the crags just below Arthur’s Seat--itself a rude triangle-shaped-base cliff, and looked down on the whole city and firth--the sun then setting behind the magnificent rock, crested by the castle. The firth was full of ships, and I counted fifty-four heads of mountains, of which at least forty-four were cones or pyramids. The smoke was rising from ten thousand houses, each smoke from some one family. It was an affecting sight to me! I stood gazing at the setting sun, so tranquil to a passing look, and so restless and vibrating to one who looked stedfast; and then, all at once, turning my eyes down upon the city, it and all its smokes and 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 behind exercising minutely, and 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 requesting me to call on Elmsley, else perhaps I should have been talking instead of learning and feeling.
Walter Scott is at Lasswade, five or six miles from Edinburgh. His house in Edinburgh is divinely situated. It looks up a street, a new magnificent street, full upon the rock and the castle, with its zigzag 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, and low pleasing hills beyond--the country well wooded and cheerful. “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,[287] to one who has been in Cumberland and Westmoreland: First, the views of all the islands at the foot of Loch Lomond from the top of the highest island called Inch devanna (_sic_); secondly, the Trossachs at the foot of Loch Katrine; third, the chamber and ante-chamber of the Falls of Foyers (the fall itself is very fine, and so, after rain, is White-Water Dash, seven miles below Keswick and very like it); and how little difference a height makes, you know as well as I. No fall of itself, perhaps, can be worth giving a long journey to see, to him who has seen any fall of water, but the pool and whole rent of the mountain is truly magnificent. Fourthly and lastly, the City of Edinburgh. Perhaps I might add Glencoe. It is at all events a good make-weight and very well worth going to see, if a man be a Tory and hate the memory of William the Third, which I am very willing to do; for the more of these fellows dead and living one hates, the less spleen and gall there remains for those with whom one is likely to have anything to do in real life....
I am tolerably well, meaning the day. My last night was not such a noisy night of horrors as three nights out of four are with me.[288] O God! when a man blesses the loud screams of agony that awake him night after night, night after night, and 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 its present Epiphany and Incarnation. Bodily torture! All who have been with me can bear witness that I can bear it like an Indian. It is constitutional with me to sit still, and look earnestly upon it and ask it what it is? Yea, often and often, the seeds of Rabelaisism germinating in me, I have laughed aloud at my own poor metaphysical soul. But these burrs by day of the will and the reason, these total eclipses by night! Oh, it is hard to bear them. I am complaining bitterly to others, I should be administrating comfort; but even this is one way of comfort. There are states of mind in which even distraction is still a diversion; we must none of us _brood_; we are not made to be brooders.
God bless you, dear friend, and
S. T. COLERIDGE.
Mrs. C. will get clean flannels ready for me.
CXLIII. TO MATTHEW COATES.[289]
GRETA HALL, KESWICK, December 5, 1803.
DEAR SIR,--After a time of sufferings, great as mere bodily sufferings can well be conceived to be, and which the horrors of my sleep and night screams (so loud and so frequent as to make me almost a 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 punishment 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 swollen and inflamed, and the least attempt to bend the fingers very painful, though not half as much so 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 complete recovery in a year or two! But though I have no hope of this, I have a persuasion strong as fate, that from twelve to eighteen months’ residence in a genial climate would send me back to dear old England a sample of the first resurrection. Mr. Wordsworth, who has seen me in all my illnesses for nearly four years, and noticed this strange dependence on the state of my moral feelings and the state of the atmosphere conjointly, is decidedly 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. Robert Southey, who lives with us, informed me that Mrs. Matthew Coates had a near relative (a brother, I believe) in that island, the Dr. Adams[290] who wrote a very nice little pamphlet on Madeira, relative to the different sorts of consumption, and which I have now on my desk. 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. Coates, entreating him to put me in a way of living as cheaply as possible. I have no appetites, passions, or vanities which lead to expense; it is now absolute habit to me, indeed, to consider my eating and drinking as a course of medicine. In books only am I intemperate--they have been both bane and blessing to me. For the last three years I have not read less than eight 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 bedroom, and still better than that, the comfort of kind faces, English tongues, and English hearts now and then,--this is the sum total of my wants, as it is a thing which I _need_. I am far too contented with solitude. The same fullness of mind, the same crowding of thoughts and constitutional vivacity of feeling which makes me sometimes the first fiddle, and too often a watchman’s rattle in society, renders me likewise independent of its excitements. However, I am wondrously calmed down since you saw me--perhaps through this unremitting disease, affliction, and self-discipline.
Mrs. Coleridge desires me to remember her with respectful regards to Mrs. Coates, and to enquire into the history of your little family. I have three children, _Hartley_, seven years old, _Derwent_, three years, and _Sara_, one year on the 23d of this month. _Hartley_ is considered a genius by Wordsworth and Southey; indeed by every one who has seen much of him. But what is of much more consequence and much less doubtful, he has the sweetest temper and 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, and 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 everything almost from the mouths of people whom he loves, he has connected with his words and notions a passion and a feeling which would appear strange to those who had seen no children but such as had been taught almost everything in books. _Derwent_ is a large, fat, beautiful child, quite the _pride_ of the village, as Hartley is the _darling_. Southey says wickedly that “all Hartley’s guts are in his brains, and all Derwent’s brains are in his guts.” Verily the constitutional differences in the 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 it was there and swallow it. With little Derwent it is a time of rapture and jubilee, and any story that has not _pie_ or _cake_ in it comes very flat to him. Yet he is but a baby. 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. Oh! bless them! Next to the Bible, Shakespeare, and Milton, _they_ are the three books from which I have learned the most, and the most important and with the greatest delight.
I have been thus prolix about me and mine purposely, to induce you to tell me something of yourself and yours.
Believe me, I have never ceased to think of you with respect and a sort of yearning. You were the first man from whom I heard that article of my faith enunciated which is the nearest to my heart,--the pure fountain of all my moral and religious feelings and comforts,--I mean the absolute Impersonality of the Deity.
I remain, my dear sir, with unfeigned esteem and with good wishes, ever yours,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
INDEX
Abergavenny, 410.
Abergavenny, Earl of, wreck of the, 494 n.; 495 n.
Abernethy, Dr. John, 525; C. determines to place himself under the care of, 564, 565.
Achard, F. C., 299 and note.
Acland, Sir John, 523 and note.
## Acting, 621-623.
Acton, 184, 186-188, 191.
Adams, Dr. Joseph, 442 and note.
Addison’s _Spectator_, studied by C. in connection with _The Friend_, 557, 558.
_Address on the Present War, An_, 85 n.
_Address to a Young Jackass and its Tethered Mother_, 119 and note, 120.
Aders, Mrs., 701 n., 702 n., 752; letters from C., 701, 769.
Adscombe, 175, 184, 188.
Advising, the rage of, 474, 475.
Adye, Major, 493.
_Æschylus, Essay on the Prometheus of_, 740 and note.
_Aids to Reflection_, 688 n.; preparation and publication of, 734 n., 738; C. calls Stuart’s attention to certain passages in, 741; favourable opinions of, 741; 756 n.
Ainger, Rev. Alfred, 400 n.
Akenside, Mark, 197.
Albuera, the Battle of, C.’s articles on, 567 and note.
Alfoxden, 10 n.; Wordsworth settles at, 224, 227; 326, 515.
Alison’s _History of Europe_, 628 n.
Allen, Robert, 41 and note, 45, 47, 50; extract from a letter from him to C., 57 n.; 63, 75, 83, 126; appointed deputy-surgeon to the Second Royals, 225 and note; letter to C., 225 n.
Allsop, Mrs., 733 n.
Allsop, Thomas, friendship and correspondence with C., 695, 696; publishes C.’s letters after his death, 696; his _Letters, Conversations, and Recollections of S. T. Coleridge_, 41 n., 527 n., 675 n., 696 and note, 698 n., 721 n.; 711; C.’s letter of Oct. 8, 1822, 721 n.; letter from C., 696.
Allston, Washington, 523; his bust of C., 570 n., 571; his portraits of C., 572 and note; his art and moral character, 573, 574; 581, 633; his genius and his misfortunes, 650; 695 and notes; letter from C., 498.
Ambleside, 335; Lloyd settles at, 344; 577, 578.
America, proposed emigration of C. and other pantisocrats to, 81, 88-91, 98, 101-103, 146; prospects of war with England, 91; 241; progress of religious deism in, 414; C.’s letter concerning the inevitableness of a war with, 629.
Amtmann of Ratzeburg, the, 264, 268, 271.
_Amulet, The_, 257.
_Ancient Mariner, The_, 81 n.; written in a dream or dreamlike reverie, 245 n.; 696.
_Animal Vitality, Essay on_, by Thelwall, 179, 212.
_Annual Anthology_, the, edited by Southey, 207 n., 226 n., 295 n., 298 n.; C. suggests a classification of poems in, 313, 314, 317; 318, 320, 322 and note, 330, 331, 748 n.
_Annual Review_, 488, 489, 522.
_Anti-Jacobin, The Beauties of the_, its libel on C., 320 and note.
_Antiquary, The_, by Scott, C.’s portrait introduced into an illustration for, 736 and note.
_Ants, Treatise on_, by Huber, 712.
_Ardinghello_, by Heinse, 683 and note.
Arnold, Mr., 602, 603.
Arrochar, 432 and note.
Arthur’s Crag, 439.
A-seity, 688 and note.
Asgill, John, and his Treatises, 761 and note.
Ashburton, 305 n.
Ashe, Thomas, his _Miscellanies, Æsthetic and Literary_, 633 n.
Ashley, C. with the Morgans at, 631.
Ashley, Lord, and the Ten Hours Bills, 689 n.
Ashton, 140 and note.
_As late I roamed through Fancy’s shadowy vale_, a sonnet, 116 n., 118.
Atheism, 161, 162, 167, 199, 200.
_Athenæum, The_, 206 n., 536 n., 753 n.
_Atlantic Monthly_, 206 n.
Autobiographical letters from C. to Thomas Poole, 3-21.
Baader, Franz Xavier von, 683 and note.
Babb, Mr., 422.
Bacon, Lord, his _Novum Organum_, 735.
Badcock, Mr., 21.
Badcock, Harry, 22.
Badcock, Sam, 22.
Bala, 79.
Ball, Lady, 494 n., 497.
Ball, Sir Alexander John, 484, 487, 496, 497; mutual regard of C. and, 508 n.; 524, 554; C.’s narrative of his life, 579 n.; his opinions of Lady Nelson and Lady Hamilton, 637.
_Ballad of the Dark Ladie, The_, 375.
Bampfylde, John Codrington Warwick, his genius, originality, and subsequent lunacy, 309 and note; his _Sixteen Sonnets_, 309 n.
Banfill, Mr., 306.
Barbauld, Anna Lætitia, 317 n.
_Barbou Casimir, The_, 67 and notes, 68.
Barlow, Caleb, 38.
Barr, Mr., his children, 154.
Barrington, Hon. and Rt. Rev. John Shute, Bishop of Durham, 582 and note.
Bassenthwaite Lake, 335, 376 n.; sunset over, 384.
_Beard, On Mrs. Monday’s_, 9 n.
Beaumont, Lady, 459, 573, 580, 592, 593; procures subscribers to C.’s lectures, 599; 644, 645, 739, 741; letter from C., 641.
Beaumont, Sir George, 440 n., 462; his affection for C. preceded by dislike, 468; 493; extract from a letter from Wordsworth on John Wordsworth’s death, 494 n.; 496; lends the Wordsworths his farmhouse near Coleorton, 509 n.; 579-581; C. explains the nature of his quarrel with Wordsworth to, 592, 593; 595 n., 629; on Allston as an historical painter, 633; 739, 741; letter from C., 570.
_Beauties of the Anti-Jacobin, The_, its libel on C., 320 and note.
Becky Fall, 305 n.
Beddoes, Dr. Thomas, 157, 211, 338; C.’s grief at his death, 543 and note, 544 and note; his advice and sympathy in response to C.’s confession, 543 n.; his character. 544.
Bedford, Grosvenor, 400 n.
Beet sugar, 299 and note.
Beguines, the, 327 n.
Bell, Rev. Andrew, D. D., 575, 582 and note, 605; his _Origin, Nature, and Object of the New System of Education_, 581 and note, 582.
_Bell, Rev. Andrew, Life of_, by R. and C. C. Southey, 581 n.
Bellingham, John, 598 n.
Bell-ringing in Germany, 293.
Belper, Lord (Edward Strutt), 215 n.
Bennett, Abraham, his electroscope, 218 n., 219 n.
Bentley’s Quarto Edition of Horace, 68 and note.
Benvenuti, 498, 499.
_Benyowski, Count, or the Conspiracy of Kamtschatka, a Tragi-comedy_, by Kotzebue, 236 and note.
Berdmore, Mr., 80, 82.
Bernard, Sir Thomas, 579 and notes, 580, 582, 585, 595 n., 599.
_Betham, Matilda, To. From a Stranger_, 404 n.
_Bible, The_, as literature, C.’s opinion of, 200; slovenly hexameters in, 398.
Bibliography, Southey’s proposed work, 428-430.
_Bibliotheca Britannica, or an History of British Literature_, a proposed work, 425-427, 429, 430.
Bigotry, 198.
Billington, Mrs. Elizabeth Weichsel, 368.
Bingen, 751.
_Biographia Literaria_, 3, 68 n., 74 n., 152 n., 164 n., 174 n., 232 n., 257, 320 n., 498 n., 607 n., 669 n., 670 n.; C. ill-used by the printer of, 673, 674; 679, 756 n.
Birmingham, 151, 152.
Bishop’s Middleham, 358 and note, 360.
_Blackwood’s Magazine_, 756.
Blake, William, as poet, painter, and engraver, 685 n., 686 n.; C.’s criticism of his poems and their accompanying illustrations, 686-688; his _Songs of Innocence and Experience_, 686 n.
Bloomfield, Robert, 395.
Blumenbach, Prof., 279, 298.
_Book of the Church, The_, 724.
Books, C.’s early taste in, 11 and note, 12; in later life, 180, 181.
Booksellers, C.’s horror of, 548.
Borrowdale, 431.
Borrowdale mountains, the, 370.
_Botany Bay Eclogues_, by Robert Southey, 76 n., 116.
Bourbons, C.’s Essay on the restoration of the, 629 and note.
Bourne, Sturges, 542.
Bovey waterfall, 305 n.
Bowdon, Anne, marries Edward Coleridge, 53 n.
Bowdon, Betsy, 18.
Bowdon, John (C.’s uncle), C. goes to live with, 18, 19.
Bowdons, the, C.’s mother’s family, 4.
Bowles, the surgeon, 212.
_Bowles, To_, 111.
Bowles, Rev. William Lisle, C.’s admiration for his poems, 37, 42, 179; 63 n., 76 and note; C.’s sonnet to, 111 and note; 115; his sonnets, 177; his _Hope, an Allegorical Sketch_, 179, 180; 196, 197, 211; his translation of Dean Ogle’s Latin Iambics, 374 and note; school life at Winchester, 374 n.; C.’s, Southey’s, and Sotheby’s admiration of, and its effect on their poems, 396; borrows a line from a poem of C.’s, 396; his second volume of poems, 403, 404; 637, 638, 650-652.
Bowscale, the mountain, 339.
Box, 631.
Boyce, Anne Ogden, her _Records of a Quaker Family_, 538 n.
Boyer, Rev. James, 61, 113, 768 n.
Brahmin creed, the, 229.
Brandes, Herr von, 279.
Brandl’s _Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the English Romantic School_, 258, 674 n., 740 n.
Bratha, 394, 535.
Bray, near Maidenhead, 69, 70.
Brazil, Emperor of, an enthusiastic student and admirer of C., 696.
Bread-riots, 643 n.
Brecon, 410, 411.
Bremhill, 650.
Brent, Mr., 598, 599.
Brent, Miss Charlotte, 520, 524-526; C.’s affection for, 565; 577, 585, 600, 618, 643, 722 n.; letter from C., 722. _See_ Morgan family, the.
Brentford, 326, 673 n.
Bridgewater, 164.
Bright, Henry A., 245 n.
Bristol, C.’s bachelor life in, 133-135; 138, 139, 163 n., 166, 167, 184, 326, 414, 520, 572 n., 621, 623, 624.
_Bristol Journal_, 633 n.
_British Critic_, the, 350.
Brookes, Mr., 80, 82.
_Brothers, The_, by Wordsworth, the original of Leonard in, 494 n.; C. accused of borrowing a line from, 609 n.
Brown, John, printer and publisher of _The Friend_, 542 n.
Brun, Frederica, C.’s indebtedness to her for the framework of the _Hymn before Sunrise in the Vale of Chamouni_, 405 n.
Bruno, Giordano, 371.
Brunton, Miss, 86 and note, 87, 89; verses to, 94.
Brunton, Elizabeth, 86 n.
Brunton, John, 86 n., 87.
Brunton, Louisa, 86 n.
Bryant, Jacob, 216 n., 219.
Buchan, Earl of, 139.
Buclé, Miss, 136. _See_ Cruikshank, Mrs. John.
Buller, Sir Francis (Judge), 6 n.; obtains a Christ’s Hospital Presentation for C., 18.
Buonaparte, 308, 327 n., 329 and note; his animosity against C., 498 n.; 530 n.; C.’s cartoon and lines on, 642.
Burdett, Sir Francis, 598.
Burke, Edmund, C.’s sonnet to, 116 n., 118; his _Letter to a Noble Lord_, 157 and note; Thelwall on, 166; 177.
Burnett, George, 74, 121, 140-142, 144-151, 174 n., 325, 467.
Burns, Robert, 196; C.’s poem on, 206 and note, 207.
Burton, 326.
Burton’s _Anatomy of Melancholy_, 428.
Busts of C., 570 n., 571, 695 n.
Butler, Samuel (afterwards Head Master of Shrewsbury and Bishop of Lichfield), 46 and note.
Buttermere, 393.
Byron, Lord, his _Childe Harold_, 583; 666, 694, 726.
_Byron, Lord, Conversations of_, by Capt. Thomas Medwin, 735 and note.
Cabriere, Miss, 18.
Caermarthen, 411.
Caldbeck, 376 n., 724.
Calder, the river, 339.
Caldwell, Rev. George, 25 and note, 29, 71, 82.
Calne, Wiltshire, C.’s life at, 641-653.
Calvert, Raisley, 345 n.
Calvert, William, proposes to study chemistry with C. and Wordsworth, 345; his portrait in a poem of Wordsworth’s, 345 n.; proposes to share his new house near Greta Hall with Wordsworth and his sister, 346; his sense and ability, 346; 347, 348.
Cambridge, description of, 39; 137, 270.
_Cambridge, Reminiscences of_, by Henry Gunning, 24 n., 363 n.
_Cambridge Intelligencer, The_, 93 n., 218 n.
Cambridge University, C.’s life at, 22-57, 70-72, 81-129; C. thinks of leaving, 97 n.; 137.
Cameos and intaglios, casts of, 703 and note.
Campbell, James Dykes, 251 n., 337 n.; his _Samuel Taylor Coleridge_, 269 n., 527 n., 572 n., 600 n., 631 n., 653 n., 666 n., 667 n., 674 n., 681 n., 684 n., 698 n., 752 n., 753 n., 772 n.
Canary Islands, 417, 418.
Canning, George, 542, 674.
Canova, Antonio, on Allston’s modelling, 573.
Cape Esperichel, 473.
Carlisle, Sir Anthony, 341 and note.
Carlton House, 392.
Carlyle, Thomas, his portrait of C. in the _Life of Sterling_, 771 n.
Carlyon, Clement, M. D., his _Early Years and Late Recollections_, 258, 298 n.
Carnosity, Mrs., 472.
Carrock, the mountain, a tempest on, 339, 340.
Carrock man, the, 339.
Cartwright, Major John, 635 and note.
Cary, Rev. Henry, his _Memoir of H. F. Cary_, 676 n.
_Cary, H. F., Memoir of_, by Henry Cary, 676 n.
Cary, Rev. H. F., his translation of the _Divina Commedia_, 676, 677 and note, 678, 679; C. introduces himself to, 676 n.; 685, 699; letters from C., 676, 677, 731, 760.
_Casimir, the Barbou_, 67 and notes, 68.
Castlereagh, Lord, 662.
_Castle Spectre, The_, a play by Monk Lewis, C.’s criticism of, 236 and note, 237, 238; 626.
Catania, 458.
Cat-serenades in Malta, 483 n., 484 n.
Catherine II., Empress of Russia, 207 n.
Cathloma, 51.
Catholic Emancipation, C.’s Letters to Judge Fletcher on, 629 and note, 634 and note, 635, 636, 642.
Catholicism in Germany, 291, 292.
Catholic question, the, letters in the _Courier_ on, 567 and note; C. proposes to again write for the _Courier_ on, 660, 662; arrangements for the proposed articles on, 664, 665.
Cattermole, George, 750 n.; letter from C., 750.
Cattermole, Richard, 750 n.
Cattle, disposal of dead and sick, in Germany, 294.
Chalmers, Rev. Thomas, D. D., calls on C., 752 and note.
Chantrey, Mr. (afterwards Sir) Francis, R. A., C.’s impressions of, 699; 727.
Chapman, Mr., appointed Public Secretary of Malta, 491, 496.
_Character, A_, 631 n.
_Charity_, 110 n.
_Chatterton, Monody on the Death of_, 110 n., 158 n.; C.’s opinion of it in 1797, 222, 223; 620 n.
Chatterton, Thomas, unpopularity of his poems, 221, 222; Southey’s exertions in aid of his sister, 221, 222.
Chemistry, C. proposes to study, 345-347.
Chepstow, 139, 140 n.
Chester, John, accompanies C. to Germany, 259; 265, 267, 269 n., 272, 280, 281, 300.
_Childe Harold_, by Byron, 583.
Childhood, memory of, in old age, 428.
Children in cotton factories, legislation as to the employment of, 689 and note.
Christ, both God and man, 710.
_Christabel_, written in a dream or dreamlike reverie, 245 n.; 310, 313, 317, 337 and note, 342, 349; Conclusion to Part II., 355 and note, 356 n.;
## Part II., 405 n.;
a fine edition proposed, 421, 422; 437 n., 523; C. quotes from, 609, 610; the broken friendship commemorated in, 609 n.; the copyright of, 669; the _Edinburgh Review’s_ unkind criticism of, 669 and note, 670; Mr. Frere advises C. to finish, 674; 696.
_Christianity, the one true Philosophy_ (C.’s _magnum opus_), outline of, 632, 633; fragmentary remains of, 632 n.; the sole motive for C.’s wish to live, 668; J. H. Green helps to lay the foundations of, 679 n.; 694, 753; plans for, 772, 773.
_Christian Observer_, 653 n.
_Christmas Carol, A_, 330.
_Christmas Indoors in North Germany_, 257, 275 n.
_Christmas Out of Doors_, 257.
Christmas-tree, the German, 289, 290.
Christ’s Hospital, C.’s life at, 18-22; 173 n.
_Christ’s Hospital Five and Thirty Years Ago_, by Charles Lamb, 20 n.
_Christ’s Hospital, List of Exhibitioners, from 1566-1885_, 41 n.
_Chronicle, Morning_, 111 n., 114, 116 n., 119 n., 126, 162, 167, 505, 506, 606 n., 615, 616.
Chubb, Mr., of Bridgwater, 231.
_Church, The Book of the_, by Southey, 724.
Church, the English, 135, 306, 651-653, 676, 757.
Church, the Scottish, in a state of ossification, 744, 745.
Church, the Wesleyan, 769.
Cibber, Colley, and his son, Theophilus, 693.
Cibber, Theophilus, his reply to his father, 693.
Cintra, Wordsworth’s pamphlet on the Convention of, 534 and note, 543 and note; C.’s criticism of, 548-550.
Clagget, Charles, 70 and note.
Clare, Lord, 638.
Clarke, Mrs., the notorious, 543 n.
Clarkson, Mrs., 592.
Clarkson, Thomas, 363, 398; his _History of the Abolition of the Slave Trade_, 527 and note, 528-530; his character, 529, 530; C.’s review of his book, 535, 536; 538 n., 547, 548; on the second rupture between C. and Wordsworth, 599 n.
Clement, Mr., a bookseller, 548.
Clergyman, an earnest young, 691.
Clevedon, C.’s honeymoon at, 136.
Clock, a motto for a market, 553 and note, 554 n.
Coates, Matthew, 441 n.; his belief in the impersonality of the deity, 444; letter from C., 441.
Coates, Mrs. Matthew, 442, 443.
Cobham, 673 n.
Cole, Mrs., 271.
_Coleorton, Memorials of_, 369 n., 440.
Coleorton Farmhouse, C.’s visit to the Wordsworths at, 509-514.
Coleridge, Anne (sister--usually called “Nancy”), 8 and note, 21, 26.
Coleridge, Berkeley (son), birth of, 247 and note, 248, 249; taken with smallpox, 259 n., 260 n.; 262, 267, 272; death of, 247 n., 282-287, 289.
Coleridge, David Hartley (son--usually called “Hartley”), birth of, 169; 176, 205, 213, 220, 231, 245, 260-262, 267 n., 289, 296, 305, 318; his talkativeness and boisterousness at the age of three, 321; his theologico-astronomical hypothesis as to stars, 323; a pompous remark by, 332; illness, 342, 343; early astronomical observations, 342, 343; an extraordinary creature, 343, 344; 345 n., 355, 356 n., 359; a poet in spite of his low forehead, 395; 408, 413, 416, 421; at seven years, 443; plans for his education, 461, 462; 468, 508; visits the Wordsworths at Coleorton Farmhouse with his father, 509-514; as a traveller, 509; his character at ten years, 510, 512; 511; under his father’s sole care for four or five months, 511 n.; spends five or six weeks with his father and the Wordsworths at Basil Montagu’s house in London, 511 n.; portraits of, 511 n.; 521; his appearance, behavior, and mental acuteness at the age of thirteen, 564; at fifteen, 576, 577; at Mr. Dawes’s school, 576 and note, 577; 583 n.; friendly relations with his cousins, 675 and note; C. asks Poole to invite him to Stowey, 675; visits Stowey, 675 n.; 684, 721, 726; letter of advice from S. T. C., 511.
Coleridge, Derwent (son of S. T. C. and father of the editor), birth baptism of, 338 and note; 344, and 355, 359; learns his letters, 393, 395; 408, 413, 416; at three years, 443; 462, 468, 521; at nine years, 564; at eleven years, 576, 577; at Mr. Dawes’s school, 576 and note, 577; 580, 605 n., 671 n.; John Hookham Frere’s assistance in sending him to Cambridge, 675 and note; 707, 711.
Coleridge, Miss Edith, 670 n.
Coleridge, Edward (brother), 7, 53-55, 699 n.
Coleridge, Rev. Edward (nephew), 724 n.; letters from C., 724, 738, 744.
Coleridge, Frances Duke (niece), 726 and note, 740.
Coleridge, Francis Syndercombe (brother), 8, 9, 11, 12, 13; his boyish quarrel with S. T. C., 13, 14; becomes a midshipman, 17; dies, 53 and note.
Coleridge, Frederick (nephew), 56.
Coleridge, Rev. George (brother), 7, 8; his character and ability, 8; 12, 21 n., 25 n.; his lines to Genius, _Ibi Hæc Incondita Solus_, 43 n.; 59; his self-forgetting economy, 65; extract from a letter from J. Plampin, 70 n.; 95, 97 n., 98 and note, 261; visit from S. T. C. and his wife, 305 n., 306; 467, 498 n., 512; disapproves of S. T. C.’s intended separation from his wife and refuses to receive him and his family into his house, 523 and note; 699 n.; approaching death of, 746-748; S. T. C.’s relations with, 747, 748; letters from S. T. C., 22, 23, 42, 53, 55, 59, 60, 62-70, 103, 239.
_Coleridge, the Rev. George, To_, a dedication, 223 and note.
Coleridge, Rev. George May (nephew), his friendly relations with Hartley C., 675 and note; letter from C., 746.
_Coleridge, Hartley, Poems of_, 511 n.
Coleridge, Henry Nelson (nephew and son-in-law), 3, 553 n., 570 n., 579 n., 744-746; sketch of his life, 756 n.; letter from S. T. C., 756.
Coleridge, Mrs. Henry Nelson (Sara Coleridge), 9 n., 163 n.; extract from a letter from Mrs. Wordsworth, 220 n.; 320 n., 327 n., 572 n.
Coleridge, James, the younger, (nephew), his narrow escape, 56.
Coleridge, Colonel James (brother), 7, 54, 56, 61, 306, 724 n., 726 n.; letter from S. T. C., 61.
Coleridge, Mrs. James (sister-in-law), 740.
Coleridge, John (brother), 7.
Coleridge, John (grandfather), 4, 5.
Coleridge, Mrs. John (mother), 5 n., 7, 13-17, 21 n., 25, 56; letter from S. T. C., 21.
Coleridge, Rev. John (father), 5 and note, 6, 7, 10-12, 15, 16; dies, 17, 18; his character, 18.
Coleridge, John Duke, Lord Chief-Justice (great-nephew), 572 n., 699 n., 745 n.
Coleridge, Sir John Taylor (nephew), his friendly relations with Hartley C., 675 and note; editor of _The Quarterly Review_, 736 and note, 737; his judgment and knowledge of the world, 739; delighted with _Aids to Reflection_, 739; 740 n., 744, 745; letter from S. T. C., 734.
Coleridge, Luke Herman (brother), 8, 21, 22.
COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR, his autobiographical letters to Thomas Poole, 3-18; ancestry and parentage, 4-7; birth, 6, 9 and note; his brothers and sister, 7-9; christened, 9; infancy and childhood, 9-12; learns to read, 10; early taste in books, 11 and note, 12; his dreaminess and indisposition to bodily activity in childhood, 12; boyhood, 12-21; has a dangerous fever, 12-13; quarrels with his brother Frank, runs away, and is found and brought back, 13-15; his imagination developed early by the reading of fairy tales, 16; a Christ’s Hospital Presentation procured for him by Judge Buller, 18; visits his maternal uncle, Mr. John Bowdon, in London, 18, 19; becomes a Blue-Coat boy, 19; his life at Christ’s Hospital, 20-22; enters Jesus College, Cambridge, 22, 23; becomes acquainted with the Evans family, 23 and note, 24; writes a Greek Ode, for which he obtains the Browne gold medal for 1792, 43 and note; is matriculated as pensioner, 44 and note; his examination for the Craven Scholarship, 45 and note, 46; his temperament, 47; takes violin lessons, 49; enlists in the army, 57 and note; nurses a comrade who is ill of smallpox in the Henley workhouse, 58 and note; his enlistment disclosed to his family, 57 n., 58, 59; remorse, 59-61, 64, 65; arrangements resulting in his discharge, 61-70; his religious beliefs at twenty-one, 68, 69; returns to the university and is punished, 70, 71; drops his gay acquaintances and settles down to hard work, 71; makes a tour of North Wales with Mr. J. Hucks, 72-81; falls in love with Miss Sarah Fricker, 81; proposes to go to America with a colony of pantisocrats, 81, 88-91, 101-103; his interest in Miss Fricker cools and his old love for Mary Evans revives, 89; his indolence, 103, 104; on his own poetry, 112; considers going to Wales with Southey and others to found a colony of pantisocrats, 121, 122; his love for Mary Evans proves hopeless, 122-126; in lodgings in Bristol after having left Cambridge without taking his degree, 133-135; marries Miss Sarah Fricker and spends the honeymoon in a cottage at Clevedon, 136; breaks with Southey, 136-151; happiness in early married life, 139; his tour to procure subscribers for the _Watchman_, 151 and note, 152-154; poverty, 154, 155; receives a communication from Mr. Thomas Poole that seven or eight friends have undertaken to subscribe a certain sum to be paid annually to him as the author of the monody on Chatterton, 158 n.; discontinues the _Watchman_, 158; takes Charles Lloyd into his home, 168-170; birth of his first child, David Hartley, 169; considers starting a day school at Derby, 170 and note; has a severe attack of neuralgia for which he takes laudanum, 173-176; early use of opium and beginning of the habit, 173 n., 174 n.; selects twenty-eight sonnets by himself, Southey, Lloyd, Lamb, and others and has them privately printed, to be bound up with Bowles’s sonnets, 177, 206 and note; his description of himself in 1796, 180, 181; his personal appearance as described by another, 180 n., 181 n.; anxious to take a cottage at Nether Stowey and support himself by gardening, 184-194; makes arrangements to carry out this plan, 209; his partial reconciliation with Southey, 210, 211; in the cottage at Nether Stowey, 213; his engagement as tutor to the children of Mrs. Evans of Darley Hall breaks down, 215 n.; his visit at Mrs. Evans’s house, 216; daily life at Nether Stowey, 219, 220; visits Wordsworth at Racedown, 220 and note, 221; secures a house (Alfoxden) for Wordsworth near Stowey, 224; visits him there, 227; finishes his tragedy, _Osorio_, 231; suspected of conspiracy with Wordsworth and Thelwall against the government, 232 n.; accepts an annuity of £150 for life from Josiah and Thomas Wedgwood, 234 and note, 235 and note; declines an offer of the Unitarian pastorate at Shrewsbury, 235 and note, 236; writes Joseph Cottle in regard to a third edition of his poems, 239; rupture with Lloyd, 238, 245 n., 246; first recourse to opium to relieve distress of mind, 245 n.; birth of a second child, Berkeley, 247; temporary estrangement from Lamb caused by Lloyd, 249-253; goes to Germany with William Wordsworth, Dorothy Wordsworth, and John Chester, for the purpose of study and observation, 258-262; life _en pension_ with Chester in the family of a German pastor at Ratzeburg, after parting from the Wordsworths at Hamburg, 262-278; learning the German language, 262, 263, 267, 268; writes a poem in German, 263; proposes to proceed to Göttingen, 268-270; proposes to write a life of Lessing, 270; travels by coach from Ratzeburg to Göttingen, passing through Hanover, 278-280; enters the University, 281; receives word of the death of his little son, Berkeley, 282-287; learns the Gothic and Theotuscan languages, 298; reconciliation with Southey, after the return from Germany, 303, 304; with his wife and child he visits the Southeys at Exeter, 305 and note; accompanies Southey on a walking-tour in Dartmoor, 305 and note; makes a tour of the Lake Country, 312 n., 313; in London, writing for the _Morning Post_, 315-332; life at Greta Hall, near Keswick, 335-444; proposes to write an essay on the elements of poetry, 338, 347; proposes to study chemistry with William Calvert as a fellow-student, 345-347; proposes to write a book on the originality and merits of Locke, Hobbes, and Hume, 349, 350; spends a week at Scarborough, riding and bathing for his health, 361-363; divides the winter of 1801-1802 between London and Nether Stowey, 365-368; domestic unhappiness, 366; writes the _Ode to Dejection_, addressing it to Wordsworth, 378-384; discouraged about his poetic faculty, 388; a separation from his wife considered and harmony restored, 389, 390; makes a walking-tour of the Lake Country, 393 and note, 394; makes a tour of South Wales with Thomas and Sarah Wedgwood, 410-414; his regimen at this time, 412, 413, 416, 417; birth of his daughter Sara, 416; with Charles and Mary Lamb in London, 421, 422; takes Mary Lamb to the private madhouse at Hugsden, 422; his tour in Scotland, 431-441; love for and delight in his children, 443; visits Wordsworth at Grasmere and is taken ill there, 447, 448; his rapid recovery, 451; plans and preparations for going abroad, 447-469; his mental attitude towards his wife, 468; voyage to Malta, 469-481; dislike of his own first name, 470, 471; life in Malta, 481-484; a Sicilian tour, 485 and note, 486 and note, 487; in Malta again, 487-497; his duties as Acting Public Secretary at Malta, 487, 491, 493, 494 and note, 495-497; his grief at Captain John Wordsworth’s death, 494 and note, 495 and note, 497; in Italy, 498-502; returns to England, 501; remains in and about London, writing political articles for the _Courier_, 505-509; invited to deliver a course of lectures at the Royal Institution, 507; visits the Wordsworths at Coleorton Farmhouse with his son Hartley, 509-514; spends five or six weeks with Hartley in the company of the Wordsworths at Basil Montagu’s house in London, 511 n.; outlines his course of lectures at the Royal Institution, 515, 516, 522; begins his lectures, 525; a change for the better in health, habits, and spirits, the result of his placing himself under the care of a physician, 533 and note, 543 n.; with the Wordsworths at Grasmere, devoting himself to the publication of _The Friend_, 533-559; in London, 564; determines to place himself under the care of Dr. John Abernethy, 564, 565; visits the Morgans in Portland Place, Hammersmith, 566-575; life-masks, death-mask, busts, and portraits, 570 and note, 572 and notes; last visit to Greta Hall and the Lake Country, 575-578; misunderstanding with Wordsworth, 576 n., 577, 578, 586-588; visits the Morgans at No. 71 Berners Street, 579-612; preparations for another course of lectures, 579, 580, 582, 585; writes Wordsworth letters of explanation, 588-595; his Lectures on the Drama at Willis’s Rooms, 595 and notes, 596, 597, 599; reconciled with Wordsworth, 596, 597, 599; second rupture with Wordsworth, 599 n., 600 n.; Josiah’s half of the Wedgwood annuity withdrawn on account of C.’s abuse of opium, 602, 611 and note; successful production of his tragedy, _Remorse_ (_Osorio_ rewritten), at Drury Lane Theatre, 602-611; sells a part of his library, 616 and note; anguish and remorse from the abuse of opium, 616-621, 623, 624; at Bristol, 621-626; proposes to translate _Faust_ for John Murray, 624 and note, 625, 626; convalescent, 631; with the Morgans at Ashley, near Box, 631; writing at his projected great work, _Christianity, the one true Philosophy_, 632 and note, 633; with the Morgans at Mr. Page’s, Calne, Wilts, 641-653; resolves to free himself from his opium habit and arranges to enter the house of James Gillman, Esq., a surgeon, in Highgate (an arrangement which ends only with his life), 657-659; submits his drama _Zapolya_ to the Drury Lane Committee, and, after its rejection, publishes it in book form, 666 and note, 667-669; publishes _Sibylline Leaves_ and _Biographia Literaria_, 673; disputes with his publishers, Fenner and Curtis, 673, 674 and note; proposes a new Encyclopædia, 674; his reputation as a critic, 677 n.; visits Joseph Henry Green, Esq., at St. Lawrence, near Maldon, 690-693; his snuff-taking habits, 691, 692 and note; his friendship and correspondence with Thomas Allsop, 695, 696; delivers a course of Lectures on the History of Philosophy at the Crown and Anchor, Strand, 698 and note; criticises his portrait by Thomas Phillips, 699, 700; at the seashore, 700, 701; a candidate for associateship in the Royal Society of Literature, 726, 727; elected as a Royal Associate, 728; at Ramsgate, 729-731; prepares and publishes _Aids to Reflection_, 734 n., 738; reads an _Essay on the Prometheus of Æschylus_ before the Royal Society of Literature, 739, 740; another visit to Ramsgate, 742-744; takes a seven weeks’ continental tour with Wordsworth and his daughter, 751; illness, 754-756, 758; convalescence, 760, 761; begins to see a new edition of his poetical works through the press, 769 n.; writes a letter to his godchild from his deathbed, 775, 776.
_Coleridge, Early Recollections of_, by Joseph Cottle, 139 n., 140 n., 151 n., 219 n., 232 n., 251 n., 616 n., 617 n., 633 n.
_Coleridge, Life of_, by James Gillman, 3, 20 n., 23 n., 24 n., 45 n., 46 n., 171 n., 257, 680 n., 761 n.
_Coleridge, Samuel Taylor_, by James Dykes Campbell, 269 n., 527 n., 572 n., 600 n., 631 n., 653 n., 666 n., 667 n., 674 n., 681 n., 684 n., 698 n., 752 n., 753 n., 772 n.
_Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, and the English Romantic School_, by Alois Brandl, 258, 674 n., 740 n.
_Coleridge, S. T., Letters, Conversations, and Recollections of_, by Thomas Allsop, 41 n., 527 n., 675 n.; the publication of, regarded by C.’s friends as an act of bad faith, 696 and note, 721 n.; 698 n.
_Coleridge, S. T., Spiritual Philosophy, founded on the Teaching of_, by J. H. Green, 680 n.
_Coleridge’s Logic_, article in _The Athenæum_, 753 n.
_Coleridge and Southey, Reminiscences of_, by Joseph Cottle, 268 n., 269 n., 417, 456 n., 617 n.
Coleridge, Mrs. Samuel Taylor (Sarah Fricker, afterwards called “Sara”), edits the second edition of _Biographia Literaria_, 3; 136, 145, 146, 150, 151; illness and recovery of, 155, 156; 168; birth of her first child, David Hartley, 169; 174 n., 181, 188-190, 205, 213, 214, 216, 224, 245; birth of her second child, Berkeley, 247-249; 257, 258, 259 n.; extract from a letter to S. T. C., 263 n.; extract from a letter to Mrs. Lovell, 267 n.; 271, 297, 312 n., 313, 318, 321, 325, 326, 332; birth and baptism of her third child, Derwent, 338 and note; her devotion saves his life, 338 n.; 387; fears of a separation from her husband operate to restore harmony, 389, 390; her faults as detailed by S. T. C., 389, 390; 392, 393 n., 395, 396; birth of a daughter, Sara, 416; 418, 443, 457, 467, 490, 491, 521; extract from a letter to Poole, 576 n.; 578; John Kenyon a kind friend to, 639 n.; letters from S. T. C., 259-266, 271, 277, 284, 288, 367, 410, 420, 431, 460, 467, 480, 496, 507, 509, 563, 579, 583, 602; letter to S. T. C. after her little Berkeley’s death, 282 n.
Coleridge, Sara (daughter), her birth, 416; in infancy, 443; at the age of nine, 575, 576; 580, 724; marries her cousin, Henry Nelson C., 756 n. _See_ Coleridge, Mrs. Henry Nelson.
_Coleridge, Sara, Memoir and Letters of_, 461 n., 758 n.
Coleridge, the Hundred of, in North Devon, 4 and note.
Coleridge, the Parish of, 4 n.
Coleridge, William (brother), 7.
Coleridge, William Hart (nephew, afterwards Bishop of Barbadoes), befriends Hartley C., 675 n.; 707; his portrait by Thomas Phillips, R. A., 740 and note.
Coleridge, William Rennell, 699 n.
Coleridge family, origin of, 4 n.
Collier, John Payne, 575 n.
Collins, William, his _Ode on the Poetical Character_, 196; his _Odes_, 318.
Collins, William, A. R. A. (afterward, R. A.), letter from C., 693.
Colman, George, the younger, genius of, 621; his _Who wants a Guinea?_, 621 n.
Columbus, the, a vessel, 730.
Combe Florey, 308 n.
Comberbacke, Silas Tomkyn, C.’s assumed name, 62.
Comic Drama, the downfall of the, 616.
_Complaint of Ninathoma, The_, 51.
_Concerning Poetry_, a proposed book, 347, 386, 387.
_Conciones ad Populum_, 85 n., 161 n., 166, 454 n., 527 n.
_Confessions of an Enquiring Spirit_, originally addressed to Rev. Edward Coleridge, 724 n.; 756 n.
Coniston, 394.
_Connubial Rupture, On a late_, 179 n.
Consciousness of infants, 283.
Conservative Party in 1832, the, 757.
Consolation, a note of, 113.
_Consolations and Comforts, etc._, a projected book, 452, 453.
Constant, Benjamin, his tract _On the Strength of the Existing Government of France, and the Necessity of supporting it_, 219 and note.
Contempt, C.’s definition of, 198.
_Contentment, Motives of_, by Archdeacon Paley, 47.
Conversation, C.’s, 181, 752 and note; C.’s maxims of, 244.
Conversation evenings at the Gillmans’, 740, 741, 774.
Cookson, Dr., Canon of Windsor and Rector of Forncett, Norfolk, 311 and note.
Copland, 400.
Cordomi, a pseudonym of C.’s, 295 n.
_Cornhill Magazine_, 345 n.
Cornish, Mr., 66.
Corry, Right Hon. Isaac, 390 and note.
Corsham, 650, 652 n.
Corsica, 174 n.
Corsican Rangers, 554.
Cote House, Josiah Wedgwood’s residence, C. visits, 416; 455 n.
Cottle, Joseph, agrees to pay C. a fixed sum for his poetry, 136; 137; his _Early Recollections of Coleridge_, 139 n., 140 n., 151 n., 219 n., 232 n., 251 n., 616 n., 617 n., 633 n.; 144, 184, 185, 191, 192, 212; his _Reminiscences of Coleridge and Southey_, 268 n., 269 n., 417, 456 n., 617 n.; his financial difficulties, 319; 358; his _Malvern Hill_, 358; his publication of C.’s letters of confession and remorse deeply resented by C.’s family and friends, 616 n., 617 n.; convalescent after a dangerous illness, 619; letters from C., 133, 134, 154, 218 n., 220, 238, 251 n., 616, 619.
_Courier_, the, 230; C. writes for, 505, 506, 507 n., 520; 534 and note, 543; its conduct during the investigation of the charges against the Duke of York universally extolled, 545; articles and recommendations for, 567 and notes, 568; C. as a candidate for the place of auxiliary to, 568-570; 568 n.; C. breaks with, 574; 598, 629 and notes, 634 and note; change in the character of, 660-662, 664; C. proposes to write on the Catholic question for, 660, 662; arrangements for the proposed articles, 664, 665.
_Courier_ office, C. lodges at the, 505, 520.
Cowper, William, “the divine chit-chat of,” 197 and note; his _Task_, 242 n.
Craven, Countess of, 86 n.
Craven Scholarship, C.’s examination for the, 45 and note, 46.
Crediton, 5 n., 11.
_Critical Review_, 185, 489.
Criticism welcome to true poets, 402.
Crompton, Dr., of Derby, 215; letter from Thelwall on the Wedgwood annuity, 234 n.
Crompton, Mrs., of Derby, 215.
Crompton, Mrs., of Eaton Hall, 758.
Crompton, Dr. Peter, of Eaton Hall, 359 and note, 758 n.
Cruikshank, Ellen, 165.
Cruikshank, John, 136, 177, 184, 188.
Cruikshank, Mrs. John (Anna), 177; lines to, 177 n.; 213. _See_ Buclé, Miss.
Cryptogram, C.’s, 597 n.
Cunningham, Rev. J. W., his _Velvet Cushion_, 651 and note.
_Cupid turned Chymist_, 54 n., 56.
Currie, James, 359 and note.
_Curse of Kehama, The_, by Southey, 684.
Curtis, Rev. T., partner of Fenner, C.’s publisher, his ill-usage of C., 674.
Cuxhaven, 259.
Dalton, John, 457 and note.
Damer, Hon. Mrs., 368.
Dana, Miss R. Charlotte, 572 n.
Dante and his _Divina Commedia_, 676, 677 and note, 678, 679, 731 n., 732.
Danvers, Charles, his kindness of heart, 316.
_Dark Ladie, The Ballad of the_, 375.
Darnley, Earl, 629.
Dartmoor, a walking-tour in, 305 and note.
Dartmouth, 305 and note.
Darwin, Dr. Erasmus, C.’s conversation with, 152, 153; his philosophy of insincerity, 161; C.’s opinion of his poems, 164; 211; the first literary character in Europe, and the most original-minded man, 215; 386, 648.
Dash Beck, 375 n., 376 n.
Davy, Sir Humphry, 315-317, 321, 324, 326, 344, 350, 357, 365, 379 n., 448; a Theo-mammonist, 455; 456; C. attends his lectures, 462 and note, 463; C.’s esteem and admiration for, 514; his successful efforts to induce C. to give a course of lectures at the Royal Institution, 515, 516; seriously ill, 520, 521; hears from C. of his improvement in health and habits, 533 n.; 673 n.; letters from C., 336-341, 345, 514.
_Davy, Sir Humphry, Fragmentary Remains of_, edited by Dr. Davy, 343 n., 533 n.
Dawe, George, R. A., his life-mask and portrait of C., 572 and note; his funeral and C.’s epigram thereon, 572 n.; immortalized by Lamb, 572 n.; engaged on a picture to illustrate C.’s poem, _Love_, 573; his admiration for Allston’s modelling, 573; his character and manners, 581; a fortunate grub, 605.
Dawes, Rev. John, teacher of Hartley and Derwent C., 576 and note, 577.
Death, fear of, responsible for many virtues, 744; the nature of, 762, 763.
Death and life, meditations on, 283-287.
Death-mask of C., a, 570 n.
_Death of Mattathias, The_, by Robert Southey, 108 and note.
Deism, religious, 414.
_Dejection: An Ode_, 378 and note, 379 and note, 380-384, 405 n.
Della Cruscanism, 196.
Democracy, C. disavows belief in, 104-105; 134, 243. _See_ Republicanism _and_ Pantisocracy.
Denbigh, 80, 81.
Denman, Miss, 769, 770.
Dentist, a French, 40.
De Quincey, Thomas, 405 n., 525; revises the proofs and writes an appendix for Wordsworth’s pamphlet _On the Convention of Cintra_, 549, 550 n.; 563, 601, 772 n.
Derby, 152; proposal to start a school in, 170 and note; 188; the people of, 215 and note, 216.
Derwent, the river, 339.
Descartes, René, 351 and note.
_Destiny of Nations, The_, 278 n., 178 n.
_Deutschland in seiner tiefsten Erniedrigung_, by John Philip Palm, C.’s translation of, 530.
De Vere, Aubrey, extract from a letter from Sir William Rowan Hamilton to, 759 n.
_Devil’s Thoughts, The_, by Coleridge and Southey, 318.
Devock Lake, 393.
Devonshire, 305 and note.
_Devonshire, Georgiana, Duchess of, Ode to_, 320 and note, 330.
Dibdin, Mr., stage-manager at Drury Lane Theatre, 666.
_Disappointment, To_, 28.
_Dissuasion from Popery_, by Jeremy Taylor, 639.
_Divina Commedia_, C. praises the Rev. H. F. Cary’s translation of, 676, 677 and note, 678, 679; Gabriele Rossetti’s essay on the mechanism and interpretation of, 732.
_Doctor, The_, 583 n., 584 n.
Döring, Herr von, 279.
Dove, Dr. Daniel, 583 and note, 584.
Dove Cottage, Grasmere, 379 n. _See_ Grasmere.
Dowseborough, 225 n.
Drakard, John, 567 and note.
Drayton, Michael, his _Poly-Olbion_, 374 n.
Dreams, the state of mind in, 663.
Drury Lane Theatre, C.’s _Zapolya_ before the committee of, 666 and note, 667.
Dryden, John, his slovenly verses, 672.
Dubois, Edward, 705 and note.
_Duchess, Ode to the_, 320 and note, 330.
Dunmow, Essex, 456, 459.
Duns Scotus, 358.
Dupuis, Charles François, his _Origine de tous les Cultes, ou Religion Universelle_, 181 and note.
Durham, Bishop of, 582 and note.
Durham, C. reading Duns Scotus at, 358-361.
Duty, 495 n.
Dyer, George, 84, 93, 316, 317; his article on Southey in _Public Characters for 1799-1800_, 317 and note; 363, 422; sketch of his life, 748 n.; C.’s esteem and affection for, 748, 749; his benevolence and beneficence, 749; letter from C., 748.
Earl of Abergavenny, the wreck of, 494 n.; 495 n.
_Early Recollections of Coleridge_, by Joseph Cottle, 139 n., 140 n., 151 n., 219 n., 232 n., 251 n., 616 n., 617 n., 633 n.
_Early Years and Late Recollections_, by Clement Carlyon, M. D., 258, 298 n.
East Tarbet, 431, 432 and note, 433.
Echoes, 400 n.
Edgeworth, Maria, her _Helen_, 773, 774.
Edgeworth, Richard Lovell, 262.
Edgeworth’s _Essay on Education_, 261.
Edgeworths, the, very miserable when children, 262.
Edinburgh, a place of literary gossip, 423; C.’s visit to, 434-440; Southey’s first impressions of, 438 n.
_Edinburgh Review, The_, 438 n.; Southey declines Scott’s offer to secure him a place on, 521 and note, 522; its attitude towards C., 527; C.’s review of Clarkson’s book in, 527 and note, 528-530; 636, 637; severe review of _Christabel_ in, 669 and note, 670; Jeffrey’s reply to C. in, 669 n.; re-echoes C.’s praise of Cary’s _Dante_, 677 n.; its broad, predetermined abuse of C., 697, 723; its influence on the sale of Wordsworth’s books in Scotland, 741, 742.
_Edmund Oliver_, by Charles Lloyd, drawn from C.’s life, 252 and note; 311.
_Education, Practical_, by Richard Lovell Edgeworth and Maria Edgeworth, 261.
Education through the imagination preferable to that which makes the senses the only criteria of belief, 16, 17.
Edwards, Rev. Mr., of Birmingham, extract from a letter from C. to, 174 n.
Edwards, Thomas, LL. D., 101 and note.
Egremont, 393.
_Egypt, Observations on_, 486 n.
Egypt, political relations of, 492.
Eichhorn, Prof., of Göttingen, 298, 564, 707, 773.
Einbeck, 279, 280.
Elbe, the, 259, 277.
Electrometers of taste, 218 and note.
_Elegy_, by Robert Southey, 115.
Elleray, 535.
Elliot, H., Minister at the Court of Naples, 508 and note.
Elliston, Mr., an actor, 611.
Elmsley, Rev. Peter, 438 and note, 439.
_Encyclopædia Metropolitana_, a work projected by C., 674, 681.
Encyclopædias, 427, 429, 430.
Ennerdale, 393.
Epitaph, by C., 769 and note, 770, 771.
_Epitaph_, by Wordsworth, 284.
Erigena, Joannes Scotus, 417; the modern founder of the school of pantheism, 424.
Erskine, Lord, his Bill for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, 635 and note.
_Erste Schiffer, Der_ (The First Navigator), by Gesner, 369, 371, 372, 376-378, 397, 402, 403.
Eskdale, 393, 401.
_Essay on Animal Vitality_, by Thelwall, 179, 212.
_Essay on Fasting_, 157.
_Essay on the New French Constitution_, 320 and note.
_Essay on the Prometheus of Æschylus_, 740 and note.
_Essay on the Science of Method_, 681 and note.
_Essays on His Own Times_, 156 n., 157 n., 320 n., 327 n., 329 n., 335 n., 414 n., 498 n., 567 n., 629 n., 634 n.
_Essay on the Fine Arts_, 633 and note, 634.
_Essays upon Epitaphs_, by Wordsworth, 585 and note.
Estlin, Mrs. J. P., 190, 213, 214.
Estlin, Rev. J. P., 184, 185, 190, 239, 287, 288; his sermons, 385; 416; letters from C., 213, 245, 246, 414.
Ether, 420, 435.
Etna, 458, 485 n., 486 n.
Evans, Mrs., C. spends a fortnight with, 23 and note; 24; C.’s filial regard for, 26, 27; her unselfishness, 46; letters from C., 26, 39, 45.
Evans, Anne, 27, 29-31; letters from C., 37, 52.
Evans, Eliza, 78.
Evans, Mrs. Elizabeth, of Darley Hall, her proposal to engage C. as tutor to her children, 215 n.; her kindness to C. and Mrs. C., 215 n., 210; 231, 367.
Evans, Mary, 23 n., 27, 30; an acute mind beneath a soft surface of feminine delicacy, 50; C. sees her at Wrexham and confesses to Southey his love for her, 78; 97 and note; song addressed to, 100; C.’s unrequited love for, 123-125; letters from C., 30, 41, 47, 122, 124; letter to C., 87-89.
Evans, Walter, 231.
Evans, William, of Darley Hall, 215 n.
Evolution, 648.
_Examiner, The_, its notice of C.’s tragedy, _Remorse_, 606.
_Excursion, The_, by Wordsworth, 244 n., 337 n., 585 n.; C.’s opinion of, 641; the _Edinburgh Review’s_ criticism of, 642; C. discusses it in the light of his previous expectations, 645-650.
Exeter, 305 and note.
Ezekiel, 705 n.
Faith, C.’s definition of, 202; 204.
_Fall of Robespierre, The_, 85 and note, 87, 93, 104 and notes.
Falls of Foyers, the, 440.
_Farmer, Priscilla, Poems on the Death of_, by Charles Lloyd, 206 and note.
_Farmers_, 335 n.
_Farmhouse_, by Robert Lovell, 115.
_Fasting, Essay on_, 157.
_Faulkner: a Tragedy_, by William Godwin, 524 and note.
Fauntleroy’s trial, 730.
_Faust_, C.’s proposal to translate, 624 and note, 625, 626.
Favell, Robert, 86, 109 n., 110 n., 113, 225 and note.
_Fayette_, 112.
_Fears in Solitude_, published, 261 n.; 318, 321, 328, 552, 703 and note.
Fellowes, Mr., of Nottingham, 153.
_Female Biography, or Memoirs of Illustrious and Celebrated Women_, by Mary Hayes, 318 and note.
Fenner, Rest, publishes _Zapolya_ for C., 666 n.; his ill-usage of C. in regard to _Sibylline Leaves_, _Biographia Literaria_, and the projected _Encyclopædia Metropolitana_, 673, 674 and note.
Fenwick, Dr., 361 and note.
Fenwick, Mrs. E., 465 and note.
Fernier, John, 211.
Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, the philosophy of, 682, 683, 735.
Field, Mr., 93.
_Fine Arts, Essays on the_, 633 and note, 634.
_Fire, The_, by Robert Southey, 108 and note.
_Fire and Famine_, 327.
_First Landing Place, The_, 684 n.
_First Navigator, The_, translation of Gesner’s _Der Erste Schiffer_, 369, 371, 372, 376-378, 397, 402, 403.
Fitzgibbon, John, 638.
Fletcher, Judge, C.’s _Courier_ Letters to, 629 and note, 634 and note, 635, 636, 642.
Florence, 499 n.
Flower, Benjamin, editor of the _Cambridge Intelligencer_, 93 and note.
_Flower, The_, by George Herbert, 695.
Flowers, 745, 746.
Fort Augustus, 435.
_Foster-Mother’s Tale, The_, 510 n.
Fox, Charles James, his _Letter to the Westminster Electors_, 50; 327; Coleridge _versus_, 423, 424; proposed articles on, 505; 506; death of, 507 and note; 629 and note.
Fox, Dr., 619.
Foyers, the Falls of, 440.
_Fragment found in a Lecture Room, A_, 44.
_Fragments of a Journal of a Tour over the Brocken_, 257.
France, political condition of, in 1800, 329 and note.
_France, an Ode_, 261 n., 552.
Freeling, Sir Francis, 751.
French, C. not proficient in, 181.
_French Constitution, Essay on the New_, 320 and note.
French Empire under Buonaparte, C.’s essays on the, 629 and note.
French Revolution, the, 219, 240.
Frend, William, 24 and note.
Frere, George, 672.
Frere, Right Hon. John Hookham, 672 and note; advice and friendly assistance to C. from, 674, 675 and note; 698, 731, 732, 737.
Fricker, Mrs., 98, 189; C. proposes to allow her an annuity of £20, 190; 423, 458.
Fricker, Edith (afterwards Mrs. Robert Southey), 82; marries Southey, 137 n.; 163 n. _See_ Southey, Mrs. Robert.
Fricker, George, 315, 316.
Fricker, Martha, 600.
Fricker, Sarah, C. falls in love with, 81; 83-86; C.’s love cools, 89; marries C., 136; 138, 163 n.; letter from Southey, 107 n. _See_ Coleridge, Mrs. Samuel Taylor.
_Friend, The_, 11 n., 25 n., 86 n., 257, 274 n., 275 n., 351 n., 404 n., 412 n., 453 n., 454 n.; preliminary prospectus of, and its revision, 533, 536 and note, 537-541, 542 n.; arrangements for the publication of, 541, 542 and note, 544, 546, 547; its vicissitudes during its first eight months, 547, 548, 551, 552, 554-559; Addison’s _Spectator_ compared with, 557, 558; the reprint of, 575, 579 and note, 580 n., 585 and note; 606, 611, 629 and note, 630, 667 n.; J. H. Frere’s advice in regard to, 674; the object of the third volume of, 676; 684 n.; 697, 756 n., 768 and note.
Friends, C. complains of lack of sympathy on the part of his, 696, 697.
_Friend’s Quarterly Examiner, The_, 536 n., 538 n.
_Frisky Songster, The_, 237.
_Frost at Midnight_, 8 n., 261 n.
Gale and Curtis, 579 and note, 580 n.
Gallow Hill, 359 n., 362, 379 n.
Gallows and hangman in Germany, 294.
Gardening, C. proposes to undertake, 183-194; C. begins it at Nether Stowey, 213; recommended to Thelwall, 215; at Nether Stowey, 219, 220.
_Gebir_, 328.
_Gentleman’s Magazine, The_, 455 n.
_Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, Ode to_, 320 and note, 330.
German language, the, C. learning, 262, 263, 267, 268.
German philosophers, C.’s opinions of, 681-683, 735.
German playing-cards, 263.
Germans, their partiality for England and the English, 263, 264; their eating and smoking customs, 276, 277; an unlovely race, 278; their Christmas-tree and other religious customs, 289-292; superstitions of the bauers, 291, 292, 294; marriage customs of the bauers, 292, 293.
Germany, 257, 258; C.’s sojourn in, 259-300; post coaches in, 278, 279; the clergy of, 291; Protestants and Catholics of, 291, 292; bell-ringing in, 293; churches in, 293; shepherds in, 293; care of owls in, 293; gallows and hangman in, 294; disposal of dead and sick cattle in, 294; beet sugar in, 299.
Gerrald, Joseph, 161 and note, 166, 167 n.
Gesenius, Friedrich Heinrich Wilhelm, 773.
Gesner, his _Erste Schiffer_ (The First Navigator), 369, 371, 372, 376-378, 397, 402, 403; his rhythmical prose, 398.
Ghosts, 684.
Gibraltar, 469, 473, 474; description of, 475-479; 480, 493.
Gifford, William, his criticism of C.’s tragedy, _Remorse_, 605, 606; 669, 737.
Gillman, Alexander, 703 n.
Gillman, Henry, 693 n.
Gillman, James, his _Life of Coleridge_, 3, 20 n., 23 n., 24 n., 45 n., 46 n., 171 n., 257; 442 n., 680 n., 761 n.; his faithful friendship for C., 657; C. arranges to enter his household as a patient, 657-659; C.’s pecuniary obligations to, 658 n.; character and intellect of, 665; 670 n., 679, 685, 692, 704; C.’s gratitude to and affection for, 721, 722; on C.’s opium habit, 761 n.; 768; extracts from a letter from John Sterling to, 772 n.; letters from C., 657, 700, 721, 729, 742.
Gillman, James, the younger, passes his examination for ordination with great credit, 755.
Gillman, Mrs. James (Anne), her faithful friendship for C., 657; character of, 665; 679, 684, 685, 702 n., 705, 721, 722, 729, 733; illness of, 738; C.’s attachment to, 746; C.’s gratitude to and affection for, 754; 764, 774; letters from C., 690, 745, 754.
Ginger-tea, 412, 413.
Glencoe, 413, 440.
Glen Falloch, 433.
Gloucester, 72.
Gnats, 692.
Godliness, C.’s definition of, 203 n., 204; St. Peter’s paraphrase of, 204.
Godwin, William, 91, 114; C.’s sonnet to, 116 n., 117; lines by Southey to, 120; his misanthropy, 161, 162; 161 n., 167; C.’s book on, 210; 316, 321; his _St. Leon_, 324, 325; a quarrel and reconciliation with C., 457, 464-466; his _Faulkner: a Tragedy_, 524 and note; C. accepts his invitation to meet Grattan, 565, 566; letter from C., 565.
_Godwin, William: His Friends and Contemporaries_, by Charles Kegan Paul, 161 n., 324 n., 465 n.
Godwin, Mrs. William, 465, 466, 566.
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, his _Faust_, C.’s proposal to translate, 624 and note, 625, 626; his _Zur Farbenlehre_, 699.
Gosforth, 393.
Goslar, 272, 273.
Göttingen, C. proposes to visit, 268-270, 272; 268 n., 269 n.; C. calls on Professor Heyne at, 280; C. enters the University of, 281; the Saturday Club at, 281; the gallows near, 294; C.’s stay at, 281-300.
Gough, Charles, 369 n.
Governments as effects and causes, 241.
Grasmere, 335, 346, 362, 379 n., 394, 405 n., 419, 420; C. visits and is taken ill there, 447, 448; C. visits, 533-569. _See_ Kendal.
Grattan, Henry, C.’s admiration for, 566.
Greek Islands, the, 329.
Greek poetry contrasted with Hebrew poetry, 405, 406.
Greek Sapphic Ode, _On the Slave Trade_, 43 and note.
Green, Mr., clerk of the _Courier_, 568 and note.
Green, Joseph Henry, 605, 632 n.; his eminence in the surgical profession, 679 n.; C.’s amanuensis and collaborateur, 679 n.; C. appoints him his literary executor, 679 n.; his published works, 679 n., 680 n.; his character and intellect, 680 n.; his faithful friendship for C., 680 n.; his _Spiritual Philosophy, founded on the Teaching of S. T. Coleridge_, 680 n.; receives a visit from C. at St. Lawrence, near Maldon, 690-693; 753 n.; letters from C., 669, 680, 688, 699, 704, 706, 726, 728, 751, 754, 767.
Green, Mrs. Joseph Henry, 691, 692, 699, 705.
Greenough, Mr., 458 and note.
Greta, the river, 339.
Greta Hall, near Keswick, C.’s life at, 335-444; situation of, 335; description of 391, 392; C. urges Southey to make it his home, 391, 392, 394, 395; Southey at first declines but subsequently accepts C.’s invitation to settle there, 395 n.; Southey makes a visit there which proves permanent, 435; 460 n.; sold by its owner in C.’s absence, 490, 491; C.’s last visit to, 575 and note, 576-578; 724, 725. _See_ Keswick.
Grey, Mr., editor of the _Morning Chronicle_, 114.
“Grinning for joy,” 81 n.
Grisedale Tarn, 547.
Grose, Judge, 567 and note.
Grossness _versus_ suggestiveness, 377.
_Group of Englishmen, A_, by Eliza Meteyard, 269 n., 308 n.
_Growth of the Individual Mind, On the_, C.’s extempore lecture, 680 and note, 681.
Gunning, Henry, his _Reminiscences of Cambridge_, 24 n.
Gwynne, General, K. L. D., 62.
Hæmony, Milton’s allegorical flower, 406, 407.
Hague, Charles, 50.
Hale, Sir Philip, a “titled Dogberry,” 232 n.
Hall, S. C., 257, 745 n.
Hamburg, 257, 259; C.’s arrival at, 261; 268 n.
Hamilton, a Cambridge man at Göttingen, 281.
Hamilton, Lady, 637 and note.
Hamilton, Sir William Rowan, 759 and note, 760.
_Hamlet, Notes on_, 684 n.
Hancock’s house, 297.
Hangman and gallows in Germany, 294.
Hanover, 279, 280.
_Happiness_, 75 n.
_Happy Warrior, The_, by Wordsworth, the original of, 494 n.
Harding, Miss, sister of Mrs. Gillman, 703.
_Harper’s Magazine_, 570 n., 571 n.
Harris, Mr., 666.
Hart, Dick, 54.
Hart, Miss Jane, 7, 8.
Hart, Miss Sara, 8.
Hartley, David, 113, 169, 348, 351 n., 428.
_Haunted Beach, The_, by Mrs. Robinson, 322 n.; C. struck with, 331, 332.
Hayes, Mary, 318 and note; her _Female Biography_, 318 and note; her correspondence with Lloyd, 322; C.’s opinion of her intellect, 323.
Hazlitt, William, supposed to have written the _Edinburgh Review_ criticism of _Christabel_, 669 and note.
Hebrew poetry richer in imagination than the Greek, 405, 406.
Heinse’s _Ardinghello_, 683 and note.
_Helen_, by Maria Edgeworth, 773, 774.
Helvellyn, 547.
Henley workhouse, C. nurses a fellow-dragoon in the, 58 and note.
_Herald, Morning_, its notice of C.’s tragedy, _Remorse_, 603.
Herbert, George, C.’s love for his poems, 694, 695; his _Temple_, 694; his _Flower_, 695.
_Heretics of the first two Centuries after Christ, History of the_, by Nathaniel Lardner, D. D., 330.
Herodotus, 738.
Hertford, C. a Blue-Coat boy at, 19 and note.
Hess, Jonas Lewis von, 555 and note.
Hessey, Mr., of Taylor and Hessey, publishers, 739.
Hexameters, parts of the Bible and Ossian written in slovenly, 398.
Heyne, Christian Gottlob, 279; C. calls on, 280; 281.
Higginbottom, Nehemiah, a pseudonym of C.’s, 251 n.
_Highgate, History of_, by Lloyd, 572 n.
_Highland Girl, To a_, by Wordsworth, 549.
Highland lass, a beautiful, 432 and note, 459.
High Wycombe, 62-64.
Hill, Mrs. Herbert. _See_ Southey, Bertha.
Hill, Thomas, 705 and note.
_History of Highgate_, by Lloyd, 572 n.
_History of the Abolition of the Slave Trade_, by Thomas Clarkson, C.’s review of, 527 and note, 528-530, 535, 536.
_History of the Heretics of the first two Centuries after Christ_, by Nathaniel Lardner, D. D., 330.
_History of the Levelling Principle_, proposed, 323, 328 n., 330.
Hobbes, Thomas, 349, 350.
Holcroft, Mr., C.’s conversation on Pantisocracy with, 114, 115; the high priest of atheism, 162.
_Hold your mad hands!_, a sonnet by Southey, 127 and note.
Holland, 751.
Holt, Mrs., 18.
_Home-Sick, Written in Germany_, quoted, 298.
Homesickness of C. in Germany, 265, 266, 272, 273, 278, 288, 289, 295, 296, 298.
Hood, Thomas, his _Odes to Great People_, 250 n.
_Hope, an Allegorical Sketch_, by Bowles, 179, 180.
Hopkinson, Lieutenant, 62.
Horace, Bentley’s Quarto Edition of, 68 and note.
Hospitality in poverty, 340.
_Hour when we shall meet again, The_, 157.
Howe, Admiral Lord, 262 and note.
Howe, Emanuel Scoope, second Viscount, 262 n.
Howell, Mr., of Covent Garden, 366 and note.
Howick, Lord, 507.
Howley, Miss, 739.
Huber’s _Treatise on Ants_, 712.
Hucks, J., accompanies C. on a tour in Wales, 74-81; his _Tour in North Wales_, 74 n., 81 n.; 76, 77 and note, 81 and note, 306.
Hume, David, 307, 349, 350.
Hume, Joseph, M. P., a fermentive virus, 757.
Hungary, 329.
_Hunt, Leigh, Autobiography of_, 20 n., 41 n., 225 n., 455 n.
Hunter, John, 211.
Hurwitz, Hyman, 667 n.; his _Israel’s Lament_, 681 n.
Hutchinson, George, 358 and note, 359 n., 360.
Hutchinson, Joanna, 359 n.
Hutchinson, John, of Penrith, 358 n.
Hutchinson, John, of the Middle Temple, 359 n.
Hutchinson, Mary, marries William Wordsworth, 359 n.; 367.
Hutchinson, Sarah, 359 n., 360, 362, 367, 393 n.; her motherly care of Hartley C., 510; 511; C.’s amanuensis, 536 n., 542 n.; 582, 587, 590 n.
Hutchinson, Thomas, of Gallow Hill, 359 n., 362.
Hutton, James, M. D., 153 and note; his _Investigation of the Principles of Knowledge_, 167.
Hutton, Lawrence, 570 n.
Hutton Hall, near Penrith, 296.
_Hymn before Sunrise in the Vale of Chamouni_, origin of, 404 and 405 and note.
_Ibi Hæc Incondita Solus_, by George Coleridge, 43 n.
Idolatry of modern religion, the, 414, 415.
Illuminizing, 323, 324.
_Illustrated London News, The_, 258, 453 n., 497 n., 768 n.
Imagination, education of the, 16, 17.
_Imitated from the Welsh_ (a song), 112 and note, 113.
_Imitations from the Modern Latin Poets_, 67 n., 122.
Impersonality of the Deity, 444.
Indolence, a vice of powerful venom, 103, 104.
Infant, the death of an, 282-287.
_Infant, who died before its Christening, On an_, 287.
Ingratitude, C. complains of, 627-631.
Insincerity, a virtue, 161.
Instinct, definition of, 712.
_In the Pass of Killicranky_, by Wordsworth, 458.
_Ireland, Account of_, by Edward Wakefield, 638.
_Ireland, View of the State of_, by Edmund Spenser, 638 n.
Irving, Rev. Edward, 723; a great orator, 726; on Southey and Byron, 726; 741, 742, 744, 748, 752.
Isaiah, 200.
_Israel’s Lament_, by Hyman Hurwitz, C. translates, 681 and note.
Jackson, Mr., owner of Greta Hall, 335, 368, 391, 392, 394, 395, 434, 460 and note, 461; godfather to Hartley C., 461 n.; sells Greta Hall, 491; Hartley C.’s attachment for, 510.
Jackson, William, 309 and notes.
Jackstraws, 462, 468.
Jacobi, Heinrich Freidrich, 683.
Jacobinism in England, 642.
Jardine, Rev. David, 139 and note.
_Jasper_, by Mrs. Robinson, 322 n.
Jeffrey, Francis (afterwards Lord), 453 n., 521 n.; C. accuses him of being unwarrantably severe on him, 527; 536 n., 538 n.; C.’s accusation of personal and ungenerous animosity against himself and his reply thereto, 669 and note, 670; 735; his attitude toward Wordsworth’s poetry, 742; letters from C., 527, 528, 534. See _Edinburgh Review_.
Jerdan, Mr., of Michael’s Grove, Brompton, 727.
Jesus College, C.’s life at, 22-57, 70-72, 81-129.
Jews in a German inn, 280.
_Joan of Arc_, by Southey, 141, 149, 178 and note, 179; Cottle sells the copyright to Longman, 319.
John of Milan, 566 n.
Johnson, J., the bookseller, lends C. £30, 261; publishes _Fears in Solitude_, for C., 261 and notes, 318; 321.
Johnson, Dr. Samuel, on the condition of the mind during stage representations, 663.
Johnston, Lady, 731.
Johnston, Sir Alexander, 730 and note; C.’s impressions of, 731.
Josephus, 407.
Kant, Immanuel, 204 n., 351 n.; C.’s opinion of the philosophy of, 681, 682; his _Kritik der praktischen Vernunft_, 681, 682 and note; his _Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft_, 682; valued by C. more as a logician than as a metaphysician, 735; his _Critique of the Pure Reason_, 735.
Keats, John, 764 n.
Keenan, Mr., 309.
Keenan, Mrs., 309 and note.
_Kehama, The Curse of_, by Southey, 684.
Kempsford, Gloucestershire, 267 n.
Kendal, 447, 451, 452, 535, 575. _See_ Grasmere.
Kendall, Mr., a poet, 306.
Kennard, Adam Steinmetz, 762 n.; letter from C., 775.
Kennard, John Peirse, 762 n.; letter from C., 772.
Kenyon, Mrs., 639, 640.
Kenyon, John, 639 n.; letter from C., 639.
Keswick, 174 n.; C. passes through, during his first tour in the Lake Country, 312 n.; a Druidical circle near, 312 n.; C.’s house at, 335; climate of, 361; 405 n., 530, 535, 724, 725. _See_ Greta Hall.
Keswick, the lake of, 335.
Keswick, the vale of, 312 n., 313 n.; its beauties, 410, 411.
Kielmansegge, Baron, and his daughter, Mary Sophia, 263 n.
Kilmansig, Countess, C. becomes acquainted with, 262, 263.
King, Mr., 183, 185, 186.
King, Mrs., 183.
Kingsley, Rev. Charles, 771 n.
Kingston, Duchess of, her masquerade costume, 237.
Kinnaird, Douglas, 666, 667.
Kirkstone Pass, a storm in, 418-420.
_Kisses_, 54 n.
Klopstock, Friedrich Gottlieb, 257; his _Messias_, 372, 373.
Knecht, Rupert, 289 n., 290, 291.
Knight, Rev. William Angus, LL.D., his _Life of William Wordsworth_, 164 n., 220 n., 447 n., 585 n., 591 n., 596 n., 599 n., 600 n., 733 n., 759 n.
Kosciusko, C.’s sonnet to, 116 n., 117.
Kotzebue’s _Count Benyowski, or the Conspiracy of Kamtschatka, a Tragi-comedy_, 236 and note.
_Kubla Khan_, when written, 245 n.; 437 n.
Kyle, John, the Man of Ross, 77, 651 n.
Lake Bassenthwaite, 335, 376 n.; sunset over, 384.
Lake Country, the, C. makes a tour of, 312 n., 313; another tour of, 393 and note, 394; C.’s last visit to, 575 n. _See_ Grasmere, Greta Hall, Kendal, Keswick.
_Lalla Rookh_, by Moore, 672.
_Lamb, C., To_, 128 and note.
Lamb, Charles, love of Woolman’s Journal, 4 n.; visit to Nether Stowey, 10 n.; his _Christ’s Hospital Five and Thirty Years Ago_, 20 n.; a man of uncommon genius, 111; writes four lines of a sonnet for C., 111, 112 and note; and his sister, 127, 128; C.’s lines to, 128 and note; 163 n.; correspondence with C. after his (Lamb’s) mother’s tragic death, 171 and note; 182; extract from a letter to C., 197 n.; 206 n.; his _Grandame_, 206 n.; C.’s poem on Burns addressed to, 206 and note, 207; extract from a letter to C., 223 n.; visits C. at Nether Stowey, 224 and note, 225-227; temporary estrangement from C., 249-253; his relations to the quarrel between C. and Southey, 304, 312, 320 n.; visits C. at Greta Hall with his sister, 396 n.; a Latin letter from, 400 n.; 405 n., 421, 422, 460 n., 474; his _Recollections of a Late Royal Academician_, 572 n.; his connection with the reconciliation of C. and Wordsworth, 586-588, 594; on William Blake’s paintings, engravings, and poems, 686 n.; 704; his _Superannuated Man_, 740; 744; his acquaintance with George Dyer, 748 n.; 751 n., 760; letter of condolence from C., 171; other letters from C., 249, 586.
_Lamb, Charles, Letters of_, 164 n., 171 n., 197 n., 396 n., 400 n., 465 n., 466 n., 686 n., 748 n.
_Lamb’s Prose Works_, 4 n., 20 n., 25 n., 41 n.
Lamb, Mary, 127, 128, 226 n.; visits the Coleridges at Greta Hall with her brother Charles, 396 n.; becomes worse and is taken to a private madhouse, 422; 465; learns from C. of his quarrel with Wordsworth, 590, 591; endeavors to bring about a reconciliation between C. and Wordsworth, 594; 704.
Lampedusa, island, essay on, 495 and note.
Landlord at Keswick, C.’s, 335. _See_ Jackson, Mr.
Lardner, Nathaniel, D. D., his _Letter on the Logos_, 157; his _History of the Heretics of the first two Centuries after Christ_, 330; on a passage in Josephus, 407.
Latin essay by C., 29 n.
Laudanum, used by C. in an attack of neuralgia, 173 and note, 174 and note, 175-177; 193, 240, 617, 659. _See_ Opium.
Lauderdale, James Maitland, Earl of, 689 and note.
Law, human as distinguished from divine, 635, 636.
Lawrence, Miss, governess in the family of Dr. Peter Crompton, 758 n.; letter from C., 758.
Lawrence, William, 711 n.
Lawson, Sir Gilford, 270; C. has free access to his library, 336; 392.
_Lay of the Last Minstrel, The_, by Scott, 523.
_Lay Sermon_, the second, 669.
Leach, William Elford, C. meets, 711 and note.
Lecky, G. F., British Consul at Syracuse, 458; C. entertained by, 485 n.
Lectures, C.’s at the Royal Institution, 506 n., 507, 508, 511, 515, 516, 522, 525; at the rooms of the London Philosophical Society, 574 and note, 575 and note; a proposed course at Liverpool, 578; preparations for another course in London, 579, 580, 582, 585; at Willis’s Rooms on the Drama, 595 and note, 596, 597, 599; 602, 604; an extempore lecture _On the Growth of the Individual Mind_, at the rooms of the London Philosophical Society, 680 and note, 681; regarded as a means of livelihood, 694; on the History of Philosophy, delivered at the Crown and Anchor, Strand, 698 and note.
_Lectures on Shakespeare_, 575 n.
_Lectures on Shakespeare and Other Dramatists_, 756 n.
Leghorn, 498, 499 and note, 500.
Le Grice, Charles Valentine, 23, 24; his _Tineum_, 111 and note; 225 and note, 325.
Leibnitz, Gottfried Wilhelm, Baron von, 280, 360, 735.
Leighton, Robert, Archbishop of Glasgow, his genius and character, 717, 718; his orthodoxy, 719; C. proposes to compile a volume of selections from his writings, 719, 720; C. at work on the compilation, which, together with his own comment and corollaries, is finally published as _Aids to Reflection_, 734 and note.
Leslie, Charles Robert, 695 and note; his pencil sketch of C., 695 n.; introduces a portrait of C. into an illustration for _The Antiquary_, 736 and note.
_Lessing, Life of_, C. proposes to write, 270; 321, 323, 338.
Letters, C.’s reluctance to open and answer, 534.
_Letters from the Lake Poets_, 25 n., 86 n., 267 n., 366 n., 369 n., 527 n., 534 n., 542 n., 543 n., 705 n.
Letter smuggling, 459.
_Letters on the Spaniards_, 629 and note.
_Letter to a Noble Lord_, by Edmund Burke, 157 and note.
Leviathan, the man-of-war, 467; a majestic and beautiful creature, 471, 472; 477.
Lewis Monk, his play, _Castle Spectre_, 236 and note, 237, 238, 626.
_Liberty, the Progress of_, 206.
Life and death, meditations on, 283-287.
Life-masks of C., 570 and note.
_Lime-Tree Bower my Prison, this_, 225 and note, 226 and notes, 227, 228 n.
_Lines on a Friend who died of a Frenzy Fever_, 98 and note, 103 n., 106 and note.
_Lines to a Friend_, 8 n.
_Lippincott’s Magazine_, 674 n.
Lisbon, the Rock of, 473.
_Literary Life._ See _Biographia Literaria_.
_Literary Remains_, 684 n., 740 n., 756 n., 761 n.
Literature, a proposed History of British, 425-427, 429, 430.
Literature as a profession, C.’s opinion of, 191, 192.
Live nits, 360.
Liverpool, 578.
Liverpool, Lord, 665, 674.
Llandovery, 411.
Llanfyllin, 79.
Llangollen, 80.
Llangunnog, 79.
Lloyd, Mr., father of Charles, 168, 186.
Lloyd, Charles, and Woolman’s Journal, 4 n.; goes to live with C., 168-170; character and genius of, 169, 170; 184, 189, 190, 192, 205, 206; his _Poems on the Death of Priscilla Farmer_, 206 n.; 207 n., 208 n.; with C. at Nether Stowey, 213; 238; a serious quarrel with C., 238, 245 n., 246, 249-253; his _Edmund Oliver_ drawn from C.’s life, 252 and note; his relations to the quarrel between C. and Southey, 304; reading Greek with Christopher Wordsworth, 311; unworthy of confidence, 311, 312; his _Edmund Oliver_, 311; his moral sense warped, 322, 323; settles at Ambleside, 344; C. spends a night with him at Bratha, 394; 563; his _History of Highgate_, 572 n., 578.
Llyswen, 234 n., 235 n.
Loch Katrine, 431, 432 and note, 433.
Loch Lomond, 431, 432 n., 433, 440.
Locke, John, C.’s opinion of his philosophy, 349-351, 648; 713.
Lockhart, Mr., 756.
Lodore, the waterfall of, 335, 408.
Lodore mountains, the, 370.
_Logic, The Elements of_, 753 n.
_Logic, The History of_, 753 n.
_Logos, Letter on the_, by Dr. Nathaniel Lardner, 157.
London, Bishop of, 739; his favourable opinion of _Aids to Reflection_, 741.
London Philosophical Society, C.’s lectures at the rooms of, 574 and note, 575 and note, 680 n.
Longman, Mr., the publisher, 319, 321; on anonymous publications, 324, 325; 328, 329, 341, 349, 357; loses money on C.’s translation of _Wallenstein_, 403; 593.
Lonsdale, Lord, 538 n., 550, 733 n.
Losh, James, 219 and note.
Louis XVI., the death of, 219 and note.
_Love_, George Dawe engaged on a picture to illustrate C.’s poem, 573.
_Love and the Female Character_, C.’s lecture, 574 n., 575 and note.
Lovell, Robert, 75; C.’s opinion of his poems, 110; 114; his _Farmhouse_, 115, 121, 122, 139, 147, 150; dies, 159 n.; 317 n.
_Lovell, Robert, and Robert Southey of Balliol College, Bath, Poems by_, 107 n.
Lovell, Mrs. Robert (Mary Fricker), 122, 159 and note, 485.
_Lover’s Complaint to his Mistress, A_, 36.
_Low was our pretty Cot_, C.’s opinion of, 224.
Lubec, 274, 275.
Lucretius, his philosophy and his poetry, 648.
Luff, Captain, 369 and note, 547.
_Luise, ein ländliches Gedicht in drei Idyllen_, by Johann Heinrich Voss, quotation from, 203 n.; an emphatically original poem, 625; 627.
Lüneburg, 278.
Lushington, Mr., 101.
Luss, 431.
_Lycon, Ode to_, by Robert Southey, 107 n., 108.
_Lyrical Ballads_, by Coleridge and Wordsworth, 336, 337, 341, 350 and note, 387, 607, 678.
Macaulay, Alexander, death of, 491.
Mackintosh, Sir James, his rejected offer to procure a place for C. under himself in India, 454, 455; C.’s dislike and distrust of, 454 n., 455 n.; 596.
Macklin, Harriet, 751 and note, 764.
Madeira, 442, 451, 452.
_Madoc_, by Southey, C. urges its completion and publication, 314, 467; 357; C.’s enthusiasm for, 388, 489, 490; a divine passage of, 463 and note.
_Mad Ox, The_, 219 n., 327.
Magee, William, D. D., 761 n.
_Magnum Opus._ See _Christianity, the one true Philosophy_.
_Maid of Orleans_, 239.
Malta, C. plans a trip to, 457, 458; the voyage to, 469-481; sojourn at, 481-484, 487-497; army affairs at, 554, 555.
Maltese, the, 483 and note, 484 and note.
Maltese, Regiment, the, 554, 555.
_Malvern Hills_, by Joseph Cottle, 358.
Manchester Massacre, the, 702 n.
Manchineel, 223 n.
Marburg, 291.
Margarot, 166, 167 n.
Markes, Rev. Mr., 310.
Marriage as a means of ensuring the nature and education of children, 216, 217.
Marsh, Herbert, Bishop of Peterborough, his lecture on the authenticity and credibility of the books collected in the New Testament, 707, 708.
Martin, Rev. H., 74 n., 81 n.
_Mary, the Maid of the Inn_, by Southey, 223.
Massena, Marshal, defeats the Russians at Zurich, 308 and note.
Masy, Mr., 40.
Mathews, Charles, C. hears and sees his entertainment, _At Home_, 704, 705; letter from C., 621.
_Mattathias, The Death of_, by Robert Southey, 108 and note.
Maurice, Rev. John Frederick Dennison, 771 n.
Maxwell, Captain, of the Royal Artillery, 493, 495, 496.
McKinnon, General, 309 n.
Medea, a subject for a tragedy, 399.
Meditation, C.’s habits of, 658.
Medwin, Capt. Thomas, his _Conversations of Lord Byron_, 735 and note.
Meerschaum pipes, 277.
_Melancholy, a Fragment_, 396 and note, 397.
Memory of childhood in old age, 428.
Mendelssohn, Moses, 203 n., 204 n.
_Men of the Time_, 317 n.
Merry, Robert, 86 n.
Messina, 485, 486.
Metaphysics, 102, 347-352; C. proposes to write a book on Locke, Hobbes, and Hume, 349, 350; in poetry, 372; effect of the study of, 388; C.’s projected great work on, 632 and note, 633; of the German philosophers, 681-683, 735; 712, 713. See _Christianity, the One True Philosophy_, Philosophy, Religion.
Meteyard, Eliza, her _Group of Englishmen_, 269 n., 308 n.
_Method, Essay on the Science of_, 681 and note.
Methuen, Rev. T. A., 652 and note.
_Microcosm_, 43 and note.
Middleton, H. F. (afterwards Bishop of Calcutta), 23, 25, 32, 33.
Milman, Henry Hart, 737 and note.
Milton, John, 164, 197 and note; a sublimer poet than Homer or Virgil, 199, 200; the imagery in _Paradise Lost_ borrowed from the Scriptures, 199, 200; his _Accidence_, 331; on poetry, 387; his platonizing spirit, 406, 407; 678, 734.
Milton, Lord, 567 and note.
Mind _versus_ Nature, in youth and later life, 742, 743.
_Minor Poems_, 317 n.
_Miscellanies, Æsthetic and Literary_, 711 n.
_Miss Rosamond_, by Southey, 108 and note.
Mitford, Mary Russell, 63 n.
Molly, 11.
Monarchy likened to a cockatrice, 73.
_Monday’s Beard, On Mrs._, 9 n.
Money, Rev. William, 651 n.; letter from C., 651.
_Monody on the Death of Chatterton_, 110 n., 158 n., 620 n.
_Monologue to a Young Jackass in Jesus Piece_, 119 n.
_Monopolists_, 335 n.
Montagu, Basil, 363 n., 511 n.; causes a misunderstanding between C. and Wordsworth, 578, 586-591, 593, 599, 612; endeavours to have an associateship of the Royal Society of Literature conferred on C., 726, 727; his efforts successful, 728; 749.
Montagu, Mrs. Basil, her connection with the quarrel between C. and Wordsworth, 588, 589, 591, 599.
_Monthly Magazine_, the, 179 and note, 185, 197, 215, 251 n., 310, 317.
Moore, Thomas, his _Lalla Rookh_, 672; his misuse of the possessive case, 672.
Moors, C.’s opinion of, 478.
Morality and religion, 676.
Moreau, Jean Victor, 449 and note.
Morgan, Mrs., 145, 148.
Morgan, John James, 524, 526; a faithful and zealous friend, 580; C. confides the news of his quarrel with Wordsworth to, 591, 592; 596, 650, 665; letter from C., 575.
Morgan, Mrs. John James, C.’s affection for, 565; 578, 600, 618, 650, 722 n.; letter from C., 524.
Morgan family, the (J. J. Morgan, his wife, and his wife’s sister, Miss Charlotte Brent), C.’s feelings of affection, esteem, and gratitude towards, 519, 520, 524-526, 565; C. visits, 566-575 and note, 579-622; 585; C. confides the news of his quarrel with Wordsworth to, 591, 592; C. regards as his saviours, 592; 600 n.; with C. at Calne, 641-653; their faithful devotion to C., 657, 722 n.; letters from C., 519, 524, 564.
Mortimer, John Hamilton, 373 and note.
_Motion of Contentment_, by Archdeacon Paley, 47.
Motley, J. C., 467-469, 475.
Mountains, of Portugal, 470, 473; about Gibraltar, 478.
Mumps, the, 545 and note.
Murray, John, 581; proposes to publish a translation of _Faust_, 624-626; his connection with the publication of _Zapolya_, 666 and note, 667-669; offers C. two hundred guineas for a volume of specimens of Rabbinical wisdom, 667 n.; 699 n.; proposal from C. to compile a volume of selections from Archbishop Leighton, 717-720; 723; his proposal to publish an edition of C.’s poems, 787; letters from C., 624, 665, 717.
_Murray, John, Memoirs of_, 624 n., 666 n.
Music, 49.
Myrtle, praise of the, 745, 746.
Mythology, Greek and Roman, contrasted with Christianity, 199, 200.
Nanny, 260, 295.
Naples, 486, 502.
Napoleon, 308, 327 n., 329 and note; his animosity against C., 498 n.; 530 n.; C.’s cartoon and lines on, 642.
_Napoleon Bonaparte, Life of_, by Sir Walter Scott, 174 n.
_Natural Theology_, by William Paley, 424 n., 425 n.
Nature, her influence on the passions, 243, 244; Mind and, two rival artists, 742, 743.
_Natur-philosophen_, C. on the, 682, 683.
_Navigation and Discovery, The Spirit of_, by William Lisle Bowles, 403 and note.
Necessitarianism, the sophistry of, 454.
Neighbours, 186.
Nelson, Lady, 637.
Nelson, Lord, 637 and note.
Nesbitt, Fanny, C.’s poem to, 56, 57.
Netherlands, the, 751.
Nether Stowey, 165 and note; C. proposes to move to, 184-194; arrangements for moving to, 209; settled at, 213; C.’s description of his place at, 213; Thelwall urged not to settle at, 232-234; the curate-in-charge of, 267 n.; 297, 325, 366; C.’s last visit to, 405 n.; 497 n.
Neuralgia, a severe attack of, 173-177.
Newcome’s (Mr.) School, 7, 25 n.
Newlands, 393 and note, 411, 725.
_New Monthly Magazine_, 257.
Newspapers, freshness necessary for, 568.
New Testament, the, Bishop March’s lecture on the authenticity and credibility of the books collected in, 707, 708.
Newton, Mr., 48.
Newton, Mrs., sister of Thomas Chatterton, 221, 222.
Newton, Sir Isaac, 352.
_Nightingale, The, a Conversational Poem_, 296 n.
_Ninathoma, The Complaint of_, 51.
Nixon, Miss Eliza, unpublished lines of C. to, 773 n., 774 n.; letter from C., 773.
Nobs, Dr. Daniel Dove’s horse, in _The Doctor_, 583 and note, 584.
_No more the visionary soul shall dwell_, 109 and note, 208 n.
Nordhausen, 273.
Northcote, Sir Stafford, 15 and note.
Northmore, Thomas, C. dines with, 306, 307; an offensive character to the aristocrats, 310.
North Wales, C.’s tour of, 72-81.
_Notes on Hamlet_, 684 n.
_Notes on Noble’s Appeal_, 684 n.
_Notes Theological and Political_, 684 n., 761 n.
Nottingham, 153, 154, 216.
Novi, Suwarrow’s victory at, 307 and note.
Nuremberg, 555.
Objective, different meanings of the term, 755.
_Observations on Egypt_, 486 n.
Ocean, the, by night, 260.
_Ode in the manner of Anacreon, An_, 35.
_Ode on the Poetical Character_, by William Collins, 196.
_Odes to Great People_, by Thomas Hood, 250 n.
_Ode to Dejection_, 378 and note, 379 and note, 380-384, 405 n.
_Ode to Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire_, 320 and note, 330.
_Ode to Lycon_, by Robert Southey, 107 n., 108.
_Ode to Romance_, by Robert Southey, 107 and note.
_Ode to the Departing Year_, 212 n.; C.’s reply to Thelwall’s criticisms on, 218 and note; 221.
_Ode to the Duchess_, 320 and note, 330.
_O gentle look, that didst my soul beguile_, a sonnet, 111, 112 and note.
Ogle, Captain, 63 and note.
Ogle, Lieutenant, 374 n.
Ogle, Dr. Newton, Dean of Westminster, his Latin Iambics, 374 and note.
Oken, Lorenz, his _Natural History_, 736.
_Old Man in the Snow_, 110 and note.
_Omniana_, by C. and Southey, 9 n., 554 n., 718 n.
_On a Discovery made too late_, 92 and note, 123 n.
_On a late Connubial Rupture_, 179 n.
_On an Infant who died before its Christening_, 287.
_Once a Jacobin, always a Jacobin_, 414.
_On Revisiting the Sea-Shore_, 361 n.
Onstel, 97 n.
_On the Slave Trade_, 43 and note.
Opium, C.’s early use of, and beginning of the habit, 173 and note, 174 and note, 175; first recourse to it for the relief of mental distress, 245 n.; daily quantity reduced, 413; regarded as less harmful than other stimulants, 413; 420; its use discontinued for a time, 434, 435; anguish and remorse from its abuse, 616-621, 623, 624; in order to free himself from the slavery, C. arranges to live with Mr. James Gillman as a patient, 657-659; a final effort to give up the use of it altogether, 760 and note; the habit regulated and brought under control, but never entirely done away with, 760 n., 761 n.
Oporto, seen from the sea, 469, 470.
_Orestes_, by William Sotheby, 402, 409, 410.
Original Sin, C. a believer in, 242.
_Original Sin, Letter on_, by Jeremy Taylor, 640.
_Origine de tous les Cultes, ou Religion universelle_, by Charles François Dupuis, 181 and note.
_Origin, Nature, and Object of the New System of Education_, by Andrew Bell, D. D., 581 and note, 582.
_Osorio_, a tragedy, 10 n., 229 and note, 231, 284 n., 603 n. See _Remorse_.
Ossian, hexameters in, 398.
Otter, the river, 14, 15.
Ottery St. Mary, 6-8, 305 n.; C. wished by his family to settle at, 325; C.’s last visit to, 405 n.; a proposed visit to, 512, 513; 745 n.
Owen, William, 425 n.
_O what a loud and fearful shriek was there_, a sonnet, 116 n., 117.
Owls, care of, in Germany, 293.
Oxford University, C.’s feeling towards, 45, 72.
Paignton, 305 n.
_Pain_, a sonnet, 174 n.
Pain, C. interested in, 341.
_Pains of Sleep, The_, 435-437 and note.
Paley, William, Archdeacon of Carlisle, his _Motives of Contentment_, 47; his _Natural Theology_, 424 and note; 713.
Palm, John Philip, his pamphlet reflecting on Napoleon leads to his trial and execution, 530 and note; C. translates his pamphlet, 530.
Pantisocracy, 73, 79, 81, 82, 88-91, 101-103, 109 n., 121, 122, 134, 135, 138-141, 143-147, 149, 317 n., 748 n.
_Paradise Lost_, by Milton, its imagery borrowed from the Scriptures, 199, 200.
Parasite, a, 705.
Parliamentary Reform, essay on, 567.
Parndon House, 506 n., 507, 508.
Parret, the river, 165.
## Parties, political, in England, 242.
Pasquin, Antony, 603 and note.
Patience, 203 and note.
Patteson, Hon. Mr. Justice, 726 n.
Paul, Charles Kegan, his _William Godwin: His Friends and Contemporaries_, 161 n., 324 n., 465 n.
_Pauper’s Funeral_, by Robert Southey, 108 and note, 109.
_Peace and Union_, by William Friend, 24 n.
Pearce, Dr., Master of Jesus College, 23, 24, 65, 70-72.
_Pedlar, The_, former title of Wordsworth’s _Excursion_, 337 and note.
Peel, Sir Robert, 689 n.
Penche, M. de la, 49.
Penmaen Mawr, C.’s ascent of, 81 n.
Penn, William, 539.
Pennington, W., 541, 542 n., 544.
Penrith, 420, 421, 547, 548, 575 n.
Penruddock, 420, 421.
Perceval, Rt. Hon. Spencer, assassination of, 597, 598 and note.
Perdita, _see_ Robinson, Mrs. Mary.
_Peripatetic, The, or Sketches of the Heart, of Nature, and of Society_, by John Thelwall, 166 and note.
Perry, James, 114.
_Perspiration. A Travelling Eclogue_, 73.
Peterloo, 702 n.
_Philip Van Artevelde_, by Sir Henry Taylor, 774 and note.
Phillips, Elizabeth (C.’s half sister), 54 n.
Phillips, Sir Richard, 317 and note, 325, 327.
Phillips, Thomas, R. A., 699; his two portraits of C., 699 and note, 700, 740; his portrait of William Hart Coleridge, Bishop of Barbadoes and the Leeward Islands, 740 and note.
_Philological Museum_, 733 n.
Philosophy, 648-650; German, 681-683; C.’s lectures on the History of, 698 and note. _See_ Metaphysics _and_ Religion.
Pickering, W., 579 n.
_Picture, The: or The Lover’s Resolution_, 405 n., 620 n.
Pinney, Mr., of Bristol, 163 n.; his estate in the West Indies, 360, 361.
Pipes, meerschaum, 277.
Pisa, C.’s stay at, 499 n., 500 n.; his account of, 500 n.
Pitt, Rt. Hon. William, C.’s report in the _Morning Post_ of his speech on the continuance of the war with France, 327 and note; proposed articles on, 505; C.’s detestation of, 535 and note; 629 and note.
_Pixies’ Parlour, The_, 222.
Plampin, J., 70 and note.
Plato, his _gorgeous_ nonsense, 211; his theology, 406.
Playing-cards, German, 263.
Pleasure, intoxicating power of, 370.
Plinlimmon, C.’s ascent of, 81 n.
_Plot Discovered, The_, 156 and note.
_Poems by Robert Lovell and Robert Southey of Balliol College, Bath_, 107 n.
Poems and fragments of poems introduced by C. into his letters, 28, 35, 36, 51, 52, 54, 56, 73, 75, 77, 83, 92, 94, 98, 100, 111-113, 207, 212, 225, 355, 379-384, 388, 389, 397, 404, 412, 435-437, 553, 609, 620, 642, 646, 702, 770, 771.
_Poems on the Death of Priscilla Farmer_, by Charles Lloyd, 206 and note.
_Poetical Character, Ode on the_, by Collins, 196.
_Poetry, Concerning_, a proposed book, 347, 386, 387.
Poetry, C. proposes to write an essay on, 338, 347, 386, 387; Greek and Hebrew, 405, 406.
Poetry, C.’s, not obscure or mystical, 194, 195.
Poland, 329.
Political parties in England, 242.
Politics, 240-243, 546, 550, 553, 574, 702, 712, 713, 757. _See_ Democracy, Pantisocracy, Republicanism.
Poole, Richard, 249.
Poole, Mrs. Richard, 248.
Poole, Thomas, contributes to _The Watchman_, 155; collects a testimonial in the form of an annuity of £35 or £40 for C., 158 n.; C.’s gratitude, 158, 159; C. proposes to visit, 159; C.’s affection for, 168, 210, 258, 609, 610, 753; C. proposes to visit him with Charles Lloyd, 170; C.’s happiness at the prospect of living near, 173; his connection with C.’s removal to Nether Stowey, 183-193, 208-210; 213, 219, 220; his opinion of Wordsworth, 221; 232 and note, 233, 239, 257, 258, 260, 282 n., 289; effects a reconciliation between C. and Southey, 390; 308, 319; C.’s reasons for not naming his third son after, 344; death of his mother, 364; 396, 437 n.; nobly employed, 453; his rectitude and simplicity of heart, 454; 456 n.; his forgetfulness, 460; 515, 523; extract from a letter from C., 533 n.; a visit to Grasmere proposed, 545; his narrative of John Walford, 553 and note; C. complains of unkindness from, 609, 610; 639 n., 657; meets C. at Samuel Purkis’s, Brentford, 673; extract from a letter from C. about Samuel Purkis, 673 n.; autobiographical letters from C., 3-18; other letters from C., 136, 155, 158, 168, 172, 176, 183-187, 208, 248, 249, 258, 267, 282, 305, 335, 343, 348, 350, 364, 452, 454, 541, 544, 550, 556, 609, 673, 753.
_Poole, Thomas, and his Friends_, by Mrs. Henry Sandford, 158 n., 165 n., 170 n., 183 n., 232 n., 234 n., 258, 267 n., 282 n., 391 n., 335 n., 456 n., 533 n., 553 n., 673 n., 676 n.
Poole, William, 176.
Pope, the, C. leaves Rome at a warning from, 498 n.
Pope, Alexander, his _Essay on Man_, 648; a favorite walk of, 671.
Pople, Mr., publisher of C.’s tragedy, _Remorse_, 602.
Porson, Mr., 114, 115.
Portinscale, 393 and note.
Portraits of C., crayon sketch by Dawe, 572 and note; full-length portrait by Allston begun at Rome, 572 and note; portrait by Allston taken at Bristol, 572 n.; pencil sketch by Leslie, 695 n.; two portraits by Thomas Phillips, 699 and note, 700, 740; Wyville’s proofs, 770.
Portugal, C. on Southey’s proposed history of, 387, 388, 423; the coast of, 469-471, 473.
Possessive case, Moore’s misuse of the, 672.
_Post, Morning_, 310; C. writing for, 320 and note, 324, 326, 327 and note, 329 and note; 331, 335 n., 337, 376, 378 n., 379 n., 398, 404 n., 405, 414, 423, 455 n.; Napoleon’s animosity aroused by C.’s articles in, 498 n.; its notice of C.’s tragedy, _Remorse_, 603 n.
Postage, rates too high, 345.
_Posthumous Fame_, 29 n.
Potter, Mr., 97 and note, 106.
Poverty, in England, 353, 354; blessings of, 364.
Pratt, 321.
_Prelude, The_, by Wordsworth, a reference to C. in, 486 n.; C.’s lines _To William Wordsworth_ after hearing him recite, 641, 644, 646, 647 and note; C.’s admiration of, 645, 647 n.
Pride, 149.
Priestley, Joseph, C.’s sonnet to, 116 and note; his doctrine as to the future existence of infants, 286.
_Progress of Liberty, The_, 296.
_Prometheus of Æschylus, Essay on the_, 740 and note.
Property, to be modified by the predominance of intellect, 323.
Pseudonym, Ἔστησε, 398; its meaning, 407 and note, 408.
_Public Characters for 1799-1800_, published by Richard Phillips, 317 n.
_Puff and Slander_, projected satires, 630 and notes, 631 n.
Purkis, Samuel, 326, 673 n.
Quack medicine, a German, 264.
_Quaker Family, Records of a_, by Anne Ogden Boyce, 538 n.
Quaker girl, inelegant remark of a little, 362, 368.
Quakerism, 415; C.’s belief in the essentials of, 539-541; C.’s definition of, 556.
Quakers, as subscribers to _The Friend_, 556, 557.
Quakers and Unitarians, the only Christians, 415.
Quantocks, the, 405 n.
_Quarterly Review, The_, 606; its review of _The Letters of Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton_, 637 and note, 667; reëchoes C.’s praise of Cary’s Dante, 677 n.; its attitude towards C., 697, 723; John Taylor Coleridge editor of, 736 and notes, 737.
_Rabbinical Tales_, 667 and note, 669.
Racedown, C.’s visit to Wordsworth at, 163 n., 220 and note, 221.
_Race of Banquo, The_, by Southey, 92 and note.
Rae, Mr., an actor, 611, 667.
_Rainbow, The_, by Southey, 108 and note.
Ramsgate, 700, 722, 729-731, 742-744.
Ratzeburg, 257; C.’s stay in, 262-278; the Amtmann of, 264, 268, 271; description of, 273-277; C. leaves, 278; 292-294.
“Raw Head” and “Bloody Bones,” 45.
Reading, _see_ Books.
Reading, Berkshire, 66, 67.
Reason and understanding, the distinction between, 712, 713.
_Recluse, The_, a projected poem by Wordsworth of which _The Excursion_ (q. v.) was to form the second part and to which _The Prelude_ (q. v.) was to be an introduction, C.’s hopes for, 646, 647 and note, 648-650.
_Recollections of a Late Royal Academician_, by Charles Lamb, 572 n.
_Records of a Quaker Family_, by Anne Ogden Boyce, 538 n.
Redcliff, 144.
Redcliff Hill, 154.
_Reflection, Aids to_, 688 n.
_Reflections on having left a Place of Retirement_, 606 n.
Reform Bill, 760, 762.
Reich, Dr., 734, 736.
_Rejected Addresses_, by Horace and James Smith, 606.
Religion, beliefs and doubts of C. in regard to, 64, 68, 69, 88, 105, 106, 127, 135, 152, 153, 159-161, 167, 171, 172, 198-205, 210, 211, 228, 229, 235 n., 242, 247, 248, 285, 286, 342, 364, 365, 407, 414, 415, 444, 538-541, 617-620, 624, 676, 688, 694, 706-712, 746-748, 750, 754, 758-760, 762, 763, 771, 775, 776.
_Religious Musings_, 239.
_Reminiscences of Cambridge_, by Henry Gunning, 24 n., 363 n.
_Reminiscences of Coleridge and Southey_, by Cottle, 268 n., 269 n., 417, 456 n., 617 n.
Remorse, C.’s definition of, 607.
_Remorse, A Tragedy_ (_Osorio_ rewritten), rehearsal of, 600; has a brief spell of success, 600 n., 602, 604, 610, 611; business arrangements as to its publication, 602; press notices of, 603 and note, 604; William Gifford’s criticism of, 605; the underlying principle of the plot of, 607, 608; wretchedly acted, 608, 611; metres of, 608; lack of pathos in, 608; plagiarisms in, 608; labors occasioned to C. by its production and success, 610; financial success of, 611; _Quarterly Review’s_ criticism of, 630; 696.
Repentance preached by the Christian religion, 201.
Reporting the debates for the _Morning Post_, 324, 326, 327.
Republicanism, 72, 79-81, 243. _See_ Democracy, Pantisocracy.
_Retrospect, The_, by Robert Southey, 107 and note.
Revelation, 676.
Reynell, Richard, 497 and note.
Rheumatism, C.’s sufferings from, 174 n., 193, 209, 307, 308, 432, 433.
Rhine, the, 751.
Richards, George, 41 and note.
Richardson, Mrs., 145.
Richter, Jean Paul, his _Vorschule der Aisthetik_, 683 and note.
Rickman, John, 456 n., 459, 462, 542, 599.
Ridgeway and Symonds, publishers, 638 n.
_Robbers, The_, by Schiller, 96 and note, 97, 221.
Roberts, Margaret, 358 n.
Robespierre, Maximilian Marie Isidore, 203 n., 329 n.
_Robespierre, The Fall of_, 85 and note, 87, 93, 104 and notes.
Robinson, Frederick John (afterwards Earl of Ripon), his Corn Bill, 643 and note.
Robinson, Henry Crabb, 225 n., 593, 599, 670 n.; in old age, 671 n.; reads William Blake’s poems to Wordsworth, 686 n.; extract from a letter from C. to, 689 n.; his _Diary_, 225 n., 575 n., 591 n., 595 n., 686 n., 689 n.; letter from C., 671.
Robinson, Mrs. Mary (“Perdita”), contributes poems to the _Annual Anthology_, 322 and note; her _Haunted Beach_, 331, 332; her ear for metre, 332.
Roman Catholicism in Germany, 291, 292.
_Romance, Ode to_, by Southey, 107 and note.
Rome, C.’s flight from, 498 n.; 501, 502.
_Rosamund, Miss_, by Southey, 108 and note.
_Rosamund to Henry; written after she had taken the veil_, by Southey, 108 n.
Roscoe, William, 359 and note.
Rose, Sir George, 456 and note.
_Rose, The_, 54 and note.
Rose, W., 542.
Roskilly, Rev. Mr., 267 n., 270; letter from C., 267.
Ross, 77.
Ross, the Man of, 77, 651 n.
Rossetti, Gabriele, 731 and note, 732, 733.
Rough, Sergeant, 225 and note.
Royal Institution, C. obtains a lectureship at the, 506 n., 507, 508, 511; an outline of proposed lectures at the, 515, 516, 522; C.’s lectures at the, 525.
Royal Society of Literature, the, Basil Montagu’s endeavors to secure for C. an associateship of, 726, 727; C. an associate of, 728; 731; an essay for, 737, 738; C. reads an _Essay on the Prometheus of Æschylus_ before, 739, 740.
Rulers, always as bad as they dare to be, 240.
Rush, Sir William, 368.
Rushiford, 358.
Russell, Mr., of Exeter, C.’s fellow-traveller, 498 n., 500 and note.
Rustats, 24, 43.
_Ruth_, by Wordsworth, 387.
Ruthin, 78.
St. Albyn, Mrs., the owner of Alfoxden, 232 n.
St. Augustine, 375.
St. Bees, 392, 393.
St. Blasius, 292.
St. Clear, 411, 412.
St. Lawrence, near Maldon, description of, 690-692.
_St. Leon_, by Godwin, the copyright sold for £400, 324, 325.
St. Nevis, 360, 361.
St. Paul’s _Epistle to the Hebrews_, 200.
Salernitanus, 566 and note.
Salisbury, 53-55.
Samuel, C.’s dislike of the name, 470, 471.
Sandford, Mrs. Henry, 183 n.; her _Thomas Poole and his Friends_, 158 n., 165 n., 170 n., 183 n., 232 n., 234 n., 258, 267 n., 282 n., 319 n., 335 n., 456 n., 533 n., 553 n., 673 n., 676 n.
Saturday Club, the, at Göttingen, 281.
_Satyrane’s Letters_, 257, 274 n., 558.
Savage, Mr., 534.
Savory, Mr., 316.
Scafell, 393, 394; in a thunderstorm on, 400 and note; view from the summit of, 400, 401; suggests the _Hymn before Sunrise in the Vale of Chamouni_, 404 and note, 405 and note.
Scale Force, 375.
Scarborough, 361-363.
Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von, the philosophy of, 683, 735.
Schiller, his _Robbers_, 96 and note, 97, 221; C. translates manuscript plays of, 331; C.’s translation of his _Wallenstein_, 403, 608.
Scholarship examinations, 24, 43, 45 and note, 46.
Schöning, Maria Eleanora, the story of, 555 and note, 556.
Scoope, Emanuel, second Viscount Howe, 262 n.
Scotland, C.’s tour in, 431-441; the four most wonderful sights in, 439, 440.
Scott, an attorney, his manner of revenging himself on C., 310, 311.
Scott, Sir Walter, his _Life of Napoleon Bonaparte_, 174 n.; his house in Edinburgh, 439; takes Hartley C. to the Tower, 511 n.; his offer to use his influence to get a place for Southey on the staff of the _Edinburgh Review_, 522 and note, 522; his _Lay of the Last Minstrel_, 523; 605, 694; his _Antiquary_, 736 and note.
Sea-bathing, 361 n., 362 and note.
Seasickness, no sympathy for, 743, 744.
_Sermoni propriora_, 606 and note.
Shad, 82, 89, 96.
Shaftesbury, Lord, 689 n.
_Shakespeare, Lectures on_, 557 n.
_Shakespeare and other Dramatists, Lectures on_, 756 n.
Sharp, Richard, 447 n.; letter from C., 447.
Shepherds, German, 293.
_Sheridan, R. B., Esq., To_, 116 n., 118.
Shrewsbury, C. offered the Unitarian pastorate at, 235 and note, 236.
_Sibylline Leaves_, 178 n., 378 n., 379 n., 404 n.; C. ill-used by the printer of, 673, 674; 678, 770.
Sicily, C. plans to visit, 457, 458; C.’s first tour in, 485 and note, 486 and note, 487; 523.
Siddons, Mrs., 50.
Sieyès, Abbé, 329 and note.
_Sigh, The_, 100 and note.
_Simplicity, Sonnet to_, 251 and note.
Sin, original, C. a believer in, 242.
Sincerity, regarded by Dr. Darwin as vicious, 161.
_Sixteen Sonnets_, by Bampfylde, 369 n.
Skiddaw, 335, 336; sunset over, 384.
Skiddaw Forest, 376 n.
Slavery, question of its introduction into the proposed pantisocratic colony, 89, 90, 95, 96.
_Slave Trade, History of the Abolition of the_, by Thomas Clarkson, C.’s review of, 527 and note, 528-530, 535, 536.
_Slave Trade, On the_, 43 and note.
Slee, Miss, 362, 363.
Sleep, C.’s sufferings in, 435, 440, 441, 447.
Smerdon, Mrs., 21, 22.
Smerdon, Rev. Mr., Vicar of Ottery, 22, 106 and note.
Smith, Charlotte, 326.
Smith, Horace and James, their _Rejected Addresses_, 606.
Smith, James, 704.
Smith, Raphael, 701 n.
Smith, Robert Percy (Bobus), 43 and note.
Smith, William, M. P., 506 n., 507 and note.
Snuff, 691, 692 and note.
_Social Life at the English Universities_, by Christopher Wordsworth, 225 n.
_Something Childish, but Very Natural_, quoted, 294.
_Song_, 100.
_Songs of the Pixies_, 222.
_Sonnet_, an anonymous, 177, 178.
_Sonnet composed on a journey homeward, the author having received intelligence of the birth of a son_, 194 and note, 195.
Sonnets, 111, 112, and note; to Priestley, 116 and note; to Kosciusko, 116 n., 117; to Godwin, 116 n., 117; to Sheridan, 116 n., 117, 118; to Burke, 116 n., 118; to Southey, 116 n., 120; a selection of, privately printed by C., 177, 206 and note; by “Nehemiah Higginbottom,” 251 n.
_Sonnets, Sixteen_, by Bampfylde, 309 n.
_Sonnet to Simplicity_, 251 and note.
_Sonnet to the Author of the Robbers_, 96 n.
Sorrel, James, 21.
Sotheby, William, C. translates Gesner’s _Erste Schiffer_ at his instance, 369, 371, 372, 376-378, 397, 402, 403; his translation of the Georgics of Virgil, 375; his _Poems_, 375; his _Netley Abbey_, 396; his _Welsh Tour_, 396; his _Orestes_, 402, 409, 410; proposes a fine edition of _Christabel_, 421, 422; 492, 579, 595 n., 604, 605; letters from C., 369, 376, 396-408.
Sotheby, Mrs. William, 369, 375, 378.
Soul and body, 708, 709.
South Devon, 305 n.
Southey, Lieutenant, 563.
Southey, Bertha, daughter of Robert S., born, 546, 547 and note, 578.
Southey, Catharine, daughter of Robert S., 578.
Southey, Rev. Charles Cuthbert, his _Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey_, 308 n., 309 n., 327 n., 329 n., 384 n., 395 n., 400 n., 425 n., 488 n., 521 n., 584 n., 748 n.; on the date of composition of _The Doctor_, 583 n.
Southey, Edith, daughter of Robert S., 578.
Southey, Dr. Henry, 615 and note.
Southey, Herbert, son of Robert S., 578; his nicknames, 583 n.
Southey, Margaret, daughter of Robert S., born, 394 n., 395 n.; dies, 435 n.
Southey, Mrs. Margaret, mother of Robert S., 138, 147.
Southey, Robert, his and C.’s _Omniana_, 9 n., 554 n., 718 n.; his _Botany Bay Eclogues_, 76 n., 116; proposed emigration to America with a colony of pantisocrats, 81, 82, 89-91, 95, 96, 98, 101-103; his sonnets, 82, 83, 92, 108; his connection with C.’s engagement to Miss Sarah Fricker, 84-86, 126; his _Race of Banquo_, 92 and note; 97 n.; his _Retrospect_, 107 and note; his _Ode to Romance_, 107 and note; his _Ode to Lycon_, 107 n., 108; his _Death of Mattathias_, 108 and note; his sonnets, _To Valentine_, _The Fire_, _The Rainbow_, 108 and notes; his _Rosamund to Henry_, 108 and notes; his _Pauper’s Funeral_, 108 and note, 109; his _Chapel Bell_, 110 and note; C. prophesies fame for, 110; his _Elegy_, 115; C.’s sonnet to, 116 n., 120; lines to Godwin, 120; suggestion that the proposed colony of pantisocrats be founded in Wales, 121, 122; his sonnet, _Hold your mad hands!_, 127 and note; his abandonment of pantisocracy causes a serious rupture with C., 134-151; marries Edith Fricker, 137 n.; his _Joan of Arc_, 141, 149, 178 and note, 210, 319; 163 n.; the poet for the patriot, 178; 198 and note; his verses to a college cat, 207; C. compares his poetry with his own, 210; personal relations with C. after the partial reconciliation, 210, 211; his exertions in aid of Chatterton’s sister, 221, 222; his _Mary the Maid of the Inn_, 223; C.’s _Sonnet to Simplicity_ not written with reference to, 251 and note; a more complete reconciliation with C., 303, 304; visits C. at Stowey with his wife, 304; C., with his wife and child, visits him at Exeter, 305 and note; accompanies C. on a walking tour in Dartmoor, 305 and note; his _Specimens of the Later English Poets_, 309 n.; his _Madoc_, 314, 357, 388, 463 and note, 467, 489, 490; his _Thalaba the Destroyer_, 314, 319, 324, 357, 684; out of health, 314; C. suggests his removing to London, 315; George Dyer’s article on, 317 and note; _The Devil’s Thoughts_, written in collaboration with C., 318; 320 n.; thinks of going abroad for his health, 326, 329, 360, 361; an advocate of the establishment of Protestant orders of Sisters of Mercy, 327 n.; proposes the establishment of a magazine with signed articles, 328 n.; extract from a letter to C. on the condition of France, 329 n.; C. begs him to make his home at Greta Hall, 354-356, 362, 391, 392, 394, 395; 367, 379 n.; his proposed history of Portugal, 387, 388, 423; secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequer for Ireland for a short time, 390 and note; birth of his first child, Margaret, 394 n., 395 n.; his admiration of Bowles and its effect on his poems, 396; 400 n.; his prose style, 423; his proposed bibliographical work, 428-430; makes a visit to Greta Hall which proves permanent, 435; death of his little daughter, Margaret, 435 and note, 437; his first impressions of Edinburgh, 438 n.; 442; on Hartley and Derwent Coleridge, 443; 460, 463, 468, 484, 488 n.; poverty, 490; his _Wat Tyler_, 507 n.; declines an offer from Scott to secure him a place on the staff of the _Edinburgh Review_, 521 and note; 542 n.; extract from a letter to J. N. White, 545 n.; on the mumps, 545 n.; 546; birth of his daughter Bertha, 546, 547 and note; 548; corrects proofs of _The Friend_, 551 and note; 575; C.’s love and esteem for, 578; his family in 1812, 578; C.’s estimate of, 581; on the authorship of _The Doctor_, 583 n., 584 n.; 585; C. states his side of the quarrel with Wordsworth in conversation with, 592; 604, 609 n., 615, 617 n.; writes of his friend John Kenyon, 639 n.; his protection of C.’s family, 657; C.’s letter introducing Mr. Ludwig Tieck, 670; his _Curse of Kehama_, 684; 694, 718, 724; his _Book of the Church_, 724; 726; his acquaintance with George Dyer, 748 n.; letters from C., 72-101, 106-121, 125, 134, 137, 221, 251 n., 303, 307-332, 354-361, 365, 384, 393, 415, 422-430, 434, 437, 464, 469, 487, 520, 554, 597, 605, 670; letter to Miss Sarah Fricker, 107 n. See _Annual Anthology_, the, edited by Southey.
_Southey, Robert, Life and Correspondence of_, by Rev. Charles Cuthbert Southey, 108 n., 308 n., 309 n., 327 n., 329 n., 384 n., 395 n., 400 n., 425 n., 488 n., 521 n., 584 n., 736 n., 748 n.
_Southey, Robert, Selections from Letters of_, 305 n., 438 n., 447 n., 543 n., 545 n., 583 n., 584 n., 736 n.
_Southey, Robert, of Balliol College, Bath, Poems by Robert Lovell and_, 107 n.
Southey, Mrs. Robert (Edith Fricker), Southey’s sonnet to, 127 and note; 384, 385, 390-392; birth of her first child, Margaret, 394 n., 395 n.; 484; birth of her daughter Bertha, 546, 547 and note; 592.
Southey, Thomas, 108 n., 109 n., 147; a midshipman on the Sylph at the time of her capture, 308 and note.
South Molton, 5.
_Spade of a Friend (an Agriculturist), To the_, by Wordsworth, in honor of Thomas Wilkinson, 538 n.
Spaniards, C.’s opinion of, 478.
_Spaniards, Letters on the_, 629 and note.
Sparrow, Mr., head-master of Newcome’s Academy, 24, 25 n.
_Specimens of the Later English Poets_, by Southey, 309 n.
_Spectator_, Addison’s, studied by C. in connection with _The Friend_, 557, 558.
Speedwell, the brig, 467; on board, 469-481.
Spenser, Edmund, his _View of the State of Ireland_, 638 and note; quotation from, 694.
Spillekins, 462, 468.
Spinoza, Benedict, 632.
_Spirit of Navigation and Discovery, The_, by William Lisle Bowles, 403 and note.
_Spiritual Philosophy, founded on the Teaching of S. T. Coleridge_, by J. H. Green, with memoir of the author’s life, by Sir John Simon, 680 n.
Spurzheim, Johann Kaspar, his life-mask and bust of C., 570 n.
Stage, illusion of the, 663.
_Stamford News_, 567 n.
Stanger, Mrs. Joshua (Mary Calvert), 345 n.
_Stanzas written in my Pocket Copy of Thomson’s Castle of Indolence_, by Wordsworth, 345 n.
Steam vessels, 730 and note, 743.
Steffens, Heinrich, 683.
Steinburg, Baron, 279.
Steinmetz, Adam, C.’s letter to his friend, John Peirse Kennard, after his death, 762; his character and amiable qualities, 763, 764, 775.
Steinmetz, John Henry, 762 n.
Stephen, Leslie, on C.’s study of Kant, 351 n.
Stephens (Stevens), Launcelot Pepys, 25 and note.
_Sterling, Life of_, by Carlyle, 771 n., 772 n.
Sterling, John, his admiration for C., 771 n., 772 n.; letter from C., 771.
_Sternbald’s Wanderungen_, by Ludwig Tieck, 683 and note.
Stevens (Stephens), Launcelot Pepys, 25 and note.
Stoddart, Dr. (afterwards Sir) John, 477 and note, 481, 508; detains C.’s books and MSS., 523; 524.
Stoke House, C. visits the Wedgwoods at, 673 n.
Storm, on a mountain-top, 339, 340; with lightning in December, 365, 366; on Scafell, 400 and note; in Kirkstone Pass, 418-420.
Stowey, _see_ Nether Stowey.
Stowey Benefit Club, 233.
Stowey Castle, 225 n.
Street, Mr., editor of the _Courier_, 506, 533, 567, 568, 570, 616, 629, 634; his unsatisfactory conduct of the _Courier_, 661, 662.
Strutt, Mr., 152, 153.
Strutt, Edward (Lord Belper), 215 n.
Strutt, Joseph, 215 n., 216, 367.
Strutt, Mrs. Joseph, 216.
Strutt, William, 215 and note.
Stuart, Miss, a personal reminiscence of C. by, 705 n.
Stuart, Daniel, proprietor and editor of the _Morning Post_ and _Courier_, 311, 315; engages C. for the _Morning Post_, 319, 320; 321, 329; engages lodgings in Covent Garden for C., 366 n.; on C.’s dislike of Sir James Mackintosh, 454 n., 455 n.; 458, 468, 474, 486 n., 507, 508, 519, 520, 542, 543 n.; a friend of Dr. Henry Southey, 615 n.; his steadiness and independence of character, 660; his public services, 660; his knowledge of men, 660; letters from C., 475, 485, 493, 501, 505, 533, 545, 547, 566, 595, 615, 627, 634, 660, 663, 740. See _Courier_ and _Post, Morning_.
Stutfield, Mr., amanuensis and disciple of C., 753 and note.
Sugar, beet, 299 and note.
_Sun, The_, 633.
Sunset in the Lake Country, a, 384.
Supernatural, C.’s essay on the, 684.
Superstitions of the German bauers, 291, 292, 294.
Suwarrow, Alexander Vasilievitch, 307 and note.
Swedenborg, Emanuel, his _De Cultu et Amore Dei_, 684 n.; his _De Cœlo et Inferno_, 684 n.; 688, 729, 730.
Swedenborgianism, C. and, 684 n.
Swift, Jonathan, his _Drapier_ Letters, 638 and note.
Sylph, the gun-brig, capture of, 308 n.
Sympathy, C.’s craving for, 696, 697.
_Synesius_, by Canterus, 67 and note, 68.
Syracuse, Sicily, 458; C.’s visit to, 485 n., 486 n.
_Table Talk_, 81 n., 440 n., 624 n., 633 n., 684 n., 699 n., 756 n., 763 n., 764 n.
_Table Talk and Omniana_, 9 n., 554 n., 571 n., 718 n., 764 n.
Tatum, 53, 54.
Taunton, 220 n.; C. preaches for Dr. Toulmin in, 247.
Taxation, C.’s Essay on, 629 and note.
Taxes, 757.
Taylor, Sir Henry, his _Philip Van Artevelde_, 774 and note.
Taylor, Jeremy, his _Dissuasion from Popery_, 639; his _Letter on Original Sin_, 640; a complete man, 640, 641.
Taylor, Samuel, 9.
Taylor, William, 310; on double rhymes in English, 332; 488, 489.
Tea, 412, 413, 417.
Temperance, suggestions as to the furtherance of the cause of, 767-769.
_Temple, The_, by George Herbert, 694.
Teneriffe, 414, 417.
Terminology, C. wishes to form a better, 755.
_Thalaba the Destroyer_, by Southey, 414; C.’s advice as to publishing, 319; 324, 357, 684.
_The Hour when we shall meet again_, 157.
Thelwall, John, his radicalism, 159, 160; his criticisms of C.’s poetry, 163, 164, 194-197, 218; on Burke, 166; his _Peripatetic, or Sketches of the Heart, of Nature, and of Society_, 166 and note; his _Essay on Animal Vitality_, 179, 212; his _Poems_, 179, 197; his contemptuous attitude towards the Christian Religion, 198-205; two odes by, 218; C. criticises a poem and a so-called sonnet by, 230; C. advises him not to settle at Stowey, 232-234; letter to Dr. Crompton on the Wedgwood annuity, 234 n.; extract from a letter from C. on the Wedgwood annuity, 235 n.; letters from C., 159, 166, 178, 193, 210, 214, 228-232.
Thelwall, Mrs. John (Stella, first wife of preceding), 181, 205, 206 n., 207, 214.
Theology, C.’s great interest in, 406; C.’s projected great work on, 632 and note, 633.
_Theory of Life_, 711 n.
_The piteous sobs which choke the virgin’s breast_, a sonnet by C., 206 n.
_This Lime-Tree Bower my Prison_, 225 and note, 226 and notes, 227, 228 n.
Thompson, James, 343 and note.
Thornycroft, Hamo, R. A., 570 n.; his bust of C., 695 n.
_Thou gentle look, that didst my soul beguile_, see _O gentle look_, etc.
_Though king-bred rage with lawless tumult rude_, a sonnet, 116 and note.
Thought, a rule for the regulation of, 244, 245.
_Three Graves, The_, 412 and note, 551, 606.
Thunder-storm, in December, 365, 366; on Scafell, 400 and note.
Tieck, Ludwig, a letter of introduction from C. to Southey, 670; two letters to C. from, 670 n.; 671, 672, 680; his _Sternbald’s Wanderungen_, 663 and note; 699.
_Times, The_, 327 n.; its notice of C.’s tragedy _Remorse_, 603 and note.
_Tineum_, by C. Valentine Le Grice, 111 and note.
Tiverton, 56.
_To a Friend, together with an Unfinished Poem_, 128 n., 454 n.
_To a friend who had declared his intention of writing no more poetry_, 206 n.
_To a Gentleman_, 647 n. See _To William Wordsworth_.
_To a Highland Girl_, by Wordsworth, 459.
_To a Young Ass; its mother being tethered near it_, 119 and note, 120, 606 and note.
_To a Young Lady, with a Poem on the French Revolution_, 94 and note.
_To a Young Man of Fortune who had abandoned himself to an indolent and causeless melancholy_, 207 and note, 208 and note.
Tobin, Mr., his habit of advising 474, 475.
Tobin, James, 460 n.
Tobin, John, 460 n.
_To Bowles_, 111 and note.
_To Disappointment_, 28.
Tomalin, J., his _Shorthand Report of Lectures_, 11 n., 575 n.
_To Matilda Betham. From a Stranger_, 404 n.
Tomkins, Mr., 397, 402, 403.
_To my own Heart_, 92 n.
Tooke, Andrew, 455 n.; his _Pantheon_, 455 and note.
Tooke, Horne, 218.
_To one who published in print what had been intrusted to him by my fireside_, 252 n.
Torbay, 305 n.
_To R. B. Sheridan, Esq._, 116 n., 118.
_To the Spade of a Friend (an Agriculturist)_, by Wordsworth, in honor of Thomas Wilkinson, 538 n.
Totness, 305.
Toulmin, Rev. Dr., 220 n.; tragic death of his daughter, 247, 248.
_Tour in North Wales_, by J. Hucks, 74 n., 81 n.
_Tour over the Brocken_, 257.
_Tour through Parts of Wales_, by William Sotheby, 396.
_To Valentine_, by Southey, 108 and note.
Towers, 321.
_To William Wordsworth_, 641, 644; C. quotes from, 646, 647; 647 n.
Treaty of Vienna, 615 and note.
Trossachs, the, 431, 432, 440.
Tuckett, G. L., 57 n.; letter from C., 57.
Tulk, Charles Augustus, 684 n.; letters from C., 684, 712.
Turkey, 329.
Turner, Sharon, 425 n., 593.
_Two Founts, The_, 702 n.
_Two Round Spaces on a Tombstone, The_, the hero of, 455.
_Two Sisters, To_, 702 n.
Tychsen, Olaus, 398 and note.
Tyson, T., 393.
Ulpha Kirk, 393.
Understanding, as distinguished from reason, 712, 713.
Unitarianism, 415, 758, 759.
Upcott, C. visits Josiah Wedgwood at, 308.
Usk, the vale of, 410.
_Valentine, To_, by Southey, 108 and note.
Valetta, Malta, C.’s visit to, 481-484, 487-497.
Valette, General, 484; given command of the Maltese Regiment, 554, 555.
Vane, Sir Frederick, his library, 296.
_Velvet Cushion, The_, by Rev. J. W. Cunningham, 651 and note.
Vienna, Treaty of, 615 and note.
Violin-teacher, C.’s, 49.
Virgil’s _Æneid_, Wordsworth’s unfinished translation of, 733 and note, 734.
Virgil’s _Georgics_, William Sotheby’s translation, 375.
_Visions of the Maid of Orleans, The_, 192, 206.
Vital power, definition of, 712.
Vogelstein, Karl Christian Vogel von, a letter of introduction from Ludwig Tieck to C., 670 n.
Von Axen, Messrs. P. and O., 269 n.
Voss, Johann Heinrich, his _Luise_, 203 n., 625, 627; his _Idylls_, 398.
Voyage to Malta, C.’s, 469-481.
Wade, Josiah, 137 n., 145, 151 n., 152 n., 191, 288; publication by Cottle of Coleridge’s letter of June 26, 1814, to, 616 n., 617 n.; letters from C., 151, 623.
Waithman, a politician, 598.
Wakefield, Edward, his _Account of Ireland_, 638.
Wales, proposed colony of pantisocrats in, 121, 122, 140, 141.
_Wales, Tour through Parts of_, by William Sotheby, 396.
Wales, North, C.’s tour of, 72-81.
Wales, South, C.’s tour of, 410-414.
Walford, John, Poole’s narrative of, 553 and note.
Walker, Thomas, 162.
Walk into the country, a, 32, 33.
_Wallenstein_, by Schiller, C.’s translation of, 403, 608.
Wallis, Mr., 498-500, 523.
Wallis, Mrs., 392.
_Wanderer’s Farewell to Two Sisters, The_, 722 n.
Ward, C. A., 763 n.
Ward, Thomas, 170 n.
Wardle, Colonel, leads the attack on the Duke of York in the House of Commons, 543 and note.
Warren, Parson, 18.
Wastdale, 393, 401.
_Watchman, The_, 57 n.; C.’s tour to procure subscribers for, 151 and note, 152-154; 155-157; discontinued, 158; 174 n., 611.
Watson, Mrs. Henry, 698 n., 702 n.
_Wat Tyler_, by Southey, 506 n.
Wedgwood, Josiah, 260, 261, 268, 269 n.; visit from C. at Upcott, 308; his temporary residence at Upcott, 308 n.; 337 n., 350, 351 and note, 416 n.; withdraws his half of the Wedgwood annuity from C., 602, 611 and note; C.’s regard and love for, 611, 612.
Wedgwood, Josiah and Thomas, settle on C. an annuity for life of £150, 234 and note, 235 and note; 269 n., 321.
Wedgwood, Miss Sarah, 412, 416, 417.
Wedgwood, Thomas, 323, 379 n.; with C. in South Wales, 412, 413; his fine and subtle mind, 412; proposes to pass the winter in Italy with C., 413, 414, 418; 415, 416; a genuine philosopher, 448, 449; C.’s gratitude towards, 451; 456 n., 493; C.’s love for, mingled with fear, 612; letter from C., 417.
Welles, A., 462.
Wellesley, Marquis of, 674.
Welsh clergyman, a, 79, 80.
Wensley, Miss, an actress, and her father, 704.
Wernigerode Inn, 298 n.
West, Mr., 633.
Whitbread, Samuel, 598.
White, Blanco, 741, 744.
White, J. N., extract from a letter from Southey, 545 n.
White Water Dash, 375 and note, 376 n.
Wilberforce, William, 535.
Wilkie, Sir David, his portraits of Hartley C., 511 n.; his _Blind Fiddler_, 511 n.
Wilkinson, Thomas, 538 n.; letter from C., 538.
Will, lunacy or idiocy of the, 768.
Williams, Edward (Iolo Morgangw), 162 and note.
Williams, John (“Antony Pasquin”), 603 n.
Wilson, Mrs., housekeeper for Mr. Jackson of Greta Hall, 461 and note, 491; Hartley C.’s attachment for, 510.
Wilson, Professor, 756.
Windy Brow, 346.
_Wish written in Jesus Wood, February 10, 1792, A_, 35.
_With passive joy the moment I survey_, an anonymous sonnet, 177, 178.
_With wayworn feet, a pilgrim woe-begone_, a sonnet by Southey, 127 and note.
Wolf, Freiherr Johann Christian von, 735.
Wollstonecraft, Mary, 316, 318 n., 321.
Woodlands, 271.
Woolman, John, 540.
_Woolman, John, the Journal of_, 4 and note.
Worcester, 154.
Wordsworth, Catherine, 563.
Wordsworth, Rev. Christopher, D. D., 225 n.; Charles Lloyd reads Greek with, 311.
Wordsworth, Rev. Christopher, M. A., his _Social Life at the English Universities in the Eighteenth Century_, 225 n.
Wordsworth, Rt. Rev. Christopher, D. D., his _Memoirs of William Wordsworth_, 432 n., 585 n.
Wordsworth, Dorothy, 10 n.; C.’s description of, 218 n.; visits C. with her brother, 224-227; 228, 231, 245 n., 249; goes to Germany with William Wordsworth, Coleridge, and John Chester, 259; with her brother at Goslar, 272, 273; returns with him to England, 288, 296; 311 n., 346, 367, 373, 385; accompanies her brother and C. on a tour in Scotland, 431, 432 and note; 577, 599 n.
Wordsworth, John, son of William W., 545.
Wordsworth, Captain John, and the effect of his death on C.’s spirits, 494 and note, 495 and note, 497.
Wordsworth, Thomas, death of, 599 n.; C.’s love of, 600.
Wordsworth, William, 10 n., 163 and note, 164 and note, 218 n.; visit from C. at Racedown, 220 and note, 221; greatness of, 221, 224; settles at Alfoxden, near Stowey, 224; at C.’s cottage, 224-227; C. visits him at Alfoxden, 227; 228, 231, 232; suspected of conspiracy against the government, 232 n., 233; memoranda scribbled on the outside sheet of a letter from C., 238 n.; his greatness and amiability, 239; his _Excursion_, 244 n., 337 n., 585 n., 641, 642, 645-650; 245; C.’s admiration for, 246; 250 n.; accompanies C. to Germany, 259; 268, 269 n.; considers settling near the Lakes, 270; 271; at Goslar with his sister, 272, 273; an _Epitaph_ by, 284; returns to England, 288, 296; wishes C. to live near him in the North of England, 296; his grief at C.’s refusal, 296, 297; 304, 313; his and C.’s _Lyrical Ballads_, 336, 337, 341, 350 and note, 387; his admiration for _Christabel_, 337; 338, 342; proposal from William Calvert in regard to sharing his house and studying chemistry with him, 345, 346; his _Stanzas written in my Pocket Copy of Thomson’s Castle of Indolence_, 345 n.; 348, 350; marries Miss Mary Hutchinson, 359 n.; 363, 367, 370, 373; his opinion of poetic license, 373-375; C. addresses his _Ode to Dejection_ to, 378 and note, 379 and note, 380-384; 385-387; his _Ruth_, 387; 400, 418, 428; with C. on a Scotch tour, 431-434; his _Peter Bell_, 432 and note; 441, 443; receives a visit at Grasmere from C., who is taken ill there, 447; his hypochondria, 448; his happiness and philosophy, 449, 450; a most original poet, 450; 451; his _To a Highland Girl_, 459; 464, 468; his reference to C. in _The Prelude_, 386 n.; 452; his _Brothers_, 494 n., 609 n.; his _Happy Warrior_, 494 n.; extract from a letter to Sir George Beaumont on John Wordsworth’s death, 494 n.; 511 and note, 522; his essays on the Convention of Cintra, 534 and note, 543 and note, 548-550; 535; his _To the Spade of a Friend_, 558 n.; 543 and note, 546, 522, 553 n., 556; C.’s misunderstanding with, 576 n., 577, 578, 586-588, 612; his _Essays upon Epitaphs_, 585 and note; a long-delayed explanation from C., 588-595; reconciled with C., 596, 597, 599, 612; death of his son Thomas, 599 n.; second rupture with C., 599 n., 600 n.; his projected poem, _The Recluse_, 646, 647 and note, 648-650; 678; on William Blake as a poet, 686 n.; his unfinished translation of the _Æneid_, 733 and note, 734; felicities and unforgettable lines and stanzas in his poems, 734; influence of the _Edinburgh Review_ on the sale of his works in Scotland, 741, 742; 759 n.; letters from C., 234, 588, 596, 599, 643, 733.
_Wordsworth, William, Life of_, by Rev. William Angus Knight, LL. D., 164 n., 220 n., 447 n., 585 n., 591 n., 596 n., 599 n., 600 n., 733 n., 759 n.
_Wordsworth, William, Memoirs of_, by Christopher Wordsworth, 432 n., 550 n., 585 n.
_Wordsworth, William, To_, 641, 644; C. quotes from, 646, 647; 647 n.
Wordsworth, Mrs. William, extract from a letter to Sara Coleridge, 220; 525. _See_ Hutchinson, Mary.
Wordsworths, the, visit from C. and his son Hartley at Coleorton Farmhouse, 509-514; 545; letter from C., 456.
Wrangham, Francis, 363 and note.
Wrexham, 77, 78.
Wright, Joseph, A. R. A. (Wright of Derby), 152 and note.
Wright, W. Aldis, 174 n.
Wynne, Mr., an old friend of Southey’s, 639 n.
Wyville’s proofs of C.’s portrait, 770.
Yarmouth, 258, 259.
Yates, Miss, 39.
Yews near Brecon, 411.
York, Duke of, 543 n., 555 n., 567 and note.
Young, Edward, 404.
_Youth and Age_, 730 n.
_Zapolya: A Christmas Tale, in two Parts_, its publication in book form after rejection by the Drury Lane Committee, 666 and note, 667-669.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Pickering, 1838.
[2] The Journal of John Woolman, the Quaker abolitionist, was published in Philadelphia in 1774, and in London in 1775. From a letter of Charles Lamb, dated January 5, 1797, we may conclude that Charles Lloyd had, in the first instance, drawn Coleridge’s attention to the writings of John Woolman. Compare, too, _Essays of Elia_, “A Quakers’ Meeting.” “Get the writings of John Woolman by heart; and love the early Quakers.” _Letters of Charles Lamb_, 1888, i. 61; _Prose Works_, 1836, ii. 106.
[3] I have been unable to trace any connection between the family of Coleridge and the Parish or Hundred of Coleridge in North Devon. Coldridges or Coleridges have been settled for more than two hundred years in Doddiscombsleigh, Ashton, and other villages of the Upper Teign, and to the southwest of Exeter the name is not uncommon. It is probable that at some period before the days of parish registers, strangers from Coleridge who had settled farther south were named after their birthplace.
[4] Probably a mistake for Crediton. It was at Crediton that John Coleridge, the poet’s father, was born (Feb. 21, 1718) and educated; and here, if anywhere, it must have been that the elder John Coleridge “became a respectable woollen-draper.”
[5] John Coleridge, the younger, was in his thirty-first year when he was matriculated as sizar at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, March 18, 1748. He is entered in the college books as _filius Johannis textoris_. On the 13th of June, 1749, he was appointed to the mastership of Squire’s Endowed Grammar School at South Molton. It is strange that Coleridge forgot or failed to record this incident in his father’s life. His mother came from the neighbourhood, and several of his father’s scholars, among them Francis Buller, afterwards the well-known judge, followed him from South Molton to Ottery St. Mary.
[6] George Coleridge was Chaplain Priest, and Master of the King’s School, but never Vicar of Ottery St. Mary.
[7] Anne (“Nancy”) Coleridge died in her twenty-fifth year. Her illness and early death form the subject of two of Coleridge’s early sonnets. _Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge_, Macmillan, 1893, p. 13. See, also, “Lines to a Friend,” p. 37, and “Frost at Midnight,” p. 127.
[8] A mistake for October 21st.
[9] Compare some doggerel verses “On Mrs. Monday’s Beard” which Coleridge wrote on a copy of Southey’s _Omniana_, under the heading of “Beards” (_Omniana_, 1812, ii. 54). Southey records the legend of a female saint, St. Vuilgefortis, who in answer to her prayers was rewarded with a beard as a mark of divine favour. The story is told in some Latin elegiacs from the _Annus Sacer Poeticus_ of the Jesuit Sautel which Southey quotes at length. Coleridge comments thus, “_Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixere!_ What! can nothing be one’s own? This is the more vexatious, for at the age of eighteen I lost a legacy of Fifty pounds for the following Epigram on my Godmother’s Beard, which she had the _barbarity_ to revenge by striking me out of her Will.”
The epigram is not worth quoting, but it is curious to observe that, even when scribbling for his own amusement, and without any view to publication, Coleridge could not resist the temptation of devising an “apologetic preface.”
The verses, etc., are printed in _Table Talk and Omniana_, Bell, 1888, p. 391. The editor, the late Thomas Ashe, transcribed them from Gillman’s copy of the _Omniana_, now in the British Museum. I have followed a transcript of the marginal note made by Mrs. H. N. Coleridge before the volume was cut in binding. Her version supplies one or two omissions.
[10] The meaning is that the events which had taken place between March and October, 1797, the composition, for instance, of his tragedy, _Osorio_, the visit of Charles Lamb to the cottage at Nether Stowey, the settling of Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy at Alfoxden, would hereafter be recorded in his autobiography. He had failed to complete the record of the past, only because he had been too much occupied with the present.
[11] He records his timorous passion for fairy stories in a note to _The Friend_ (ed. 1850, i. 192). Another version of the same story is to be found in some MS. notes (taken by J. Tomalin) of the Lectures of 1811, the only record of this and other lectures:--
_Lecture 5th_, 1811. “Give me,” cried Coleridge, with enthusiasm, “the works which delighted my youth! Give me the _History of St. George, and the Seven Champions of Christendom_, which at every leisure moment I used to hide myself in a corner to read! Give me the _Arabian Nights’ Entertainments_, which I used to watch, till the sun shining on the
## bookcase approached, and, glowing full upon it, gave me the courage to
take it from the shelf. I heard of no little Billies, and sought no praise for giving to beggars, and I trust that my heart is not the worse, or the less inclined to feel sympathy for all men, because I first learnt the powers of my nature, and to reverence that nature--for who can feel and reverence the nature of man and not feel deeply for the affliction of others possessing like powers and like nature?” Tomalin’s _Shorthand Report of Lecture V._
[12] Compare a MS. note dated July 19, 1803. “Intensely hot day, left off a waistcoat, and for yarn wore silk stockings. Before nine o’clock had unpleasant chillness, heard a noise which I thought Derwent’s in sleep; listened and found it was a calf bellowing. Instantly came on my mind that night I slept out at Ottery, and the calf in the field across the river whose lowing so deeply impressed me. Chill and child and calf lowing.”
[13] Sir Stafford, the seventh baronet, grandfather of the first Lord Iddesleigh, was at that time a youth of eighteen. His name occurs among the list of scholars who were subscribers to the second edition of the _Critical Latin Grammar_.
[14] Compare a MS. note dated March 5, 1818. “Memory counterfeited by present impressions. One great cause of the coincidence of dreams with the event--ἡ μήτηρ ἐμή.”
[15] The date of admission to Hertford was July 18, 1782. Eight weeks later, September 12, he was sent up to London to the great school.
[16] Compare the autobiographical note of 1832. “I was in a continual low fever. My whole being was, with eyes closed to every object of present sense, to crumple myself up in a sunny corner and read, read, read; fixing myself on Robinson Crusoe’s Island, finding a mountain of plumb cake, and eating a room for myself, and then eating it into the shapes of tables and chairs--hunger and fancy.” Lamb in his _Christ’s Hospital Five and Thirty Years Ago_, and Leigh Hunt in his _Autobiography_, are in the same tale as to the insufficient and ill-cooked meals of their Bluecoat days. _Life of Coleridge_, by James Gillman, 1838, p. 20; Lamb’s _Prose Works_, 1836, ii. 27; _Autobiography of Leigh Hunt_, 1860, p. 60.
[17] Coleridge’s “letters home” were almost invariably addressed to his brother George. It may be gathered from his correspondence that at rare intervals he wrote to his mother as well, but, contrary to her usual practice, she did not, with this one exception, preserve his letters. It was, indeed, a sorrowful consequence of his “long exile” at Christ’s Hospital, that he seems to have passed out of his mother’s ken, that absence led to something like indifference on both sides.
[18] Compare the autobiographical note of 1832 as quoted by Gillman. About this time he became acquainted with a widow lady, “whose son,” says he, “I, as upper boy, had protected, and who therefore looked up to me, and taught me what it was to have a mother. I loved her as such. She had three daughters, and of course I fell in love with the eldest.” _Life of Coleridge_, p. 28.
[19] Scholarship of Jesus College, Cambridge, for sons of clergymen.
[20] At this time Frend was still a Fellow of Jesus College. Five years had elapsed since he had resigned from conscientious motives the living of Madingley in Cambridgeshire, but it was not until after the publication of his pamphlet _Peace and Union_, in 1793, that the authorities took alarm. He was deprived of his Fellowship, April 17, and banished from the University, May 30, 1793. Coleridge’s demeanour in the Senate House on the occasion of Frend’s trial before the Vice-Chancellor forms the subject of various contradictory anecdotes. See _Life of Coleridge_, 1838, p. 55; _Reminiscences of Cambridge_, Henry Gunning, 1855, i. 272-275.
[21] The Rev. George Caldwell was afterwards Fellow and Tutor of Jesus College. His name occurs among the list of subscribers to the original issue of _The Friend_. _Letters of the Lake Poets_, 1889, p. 452.
[22] “First Grecian of my time was Launcelot Pepys Stevens [Stephens], kindest of boys and men, since the Co-Grammar Master, and inseparable companion of Dr. T[rollop]e.” _Lamb’s Prose Works_, 1835, ii. 45. He was at this time Senior-Assistant Master at Newcome’s Academy at Clapton near Hackney, and a colleague of George Coleridge. The school, which belonged to three generations of Newcomes, was of high repute as a private academy, and commanded the services of clever young schoolmasters as assistants or ushers. Mr. Sparrow, whose name is mentioned in the letter, was headmaster.
[23] A Latin essay on _Posthumous Fame_, described as a declamation and stated to have been composed by S. T. Coleridge, March, 1792, is preserved at Jesus College, Cambridge. Some extracts were printed in the College magazine, _The Chanticleer_, Lent Term, 1886.
[24] _Poetical Works_, p. 19.
[25] _Ibid._ p. 19.
[26] _Poetical Works_, p. 20.
[27] Robert Allen, Coleridge’s earliest friend, and almost his exact contemporary (born October 18, 1772), was admitted to University College, Oxford, as an exhibitioner, in the spring of 1792. He entertained Coleridge and his _compagnon de voyage_, Joseph Hucks, on the occasion of the memorable visit to Oxford in June, 1794, and introduced them to his friend, Robert Southey of Balliol. He is mentioned in letters of Lamb to Coleridge, June 10, 1796, and October 11, 1802. In both instances his name is connected with that of Stoddart, and it is probable that it was through Allen that Coleridge and Stoddart became acquainted. For anecdotes concerning Allen, see Lamb’s Essay, “Christ’s Hospital,” etc., _Prose Works_, 1836, ii. 47, and _Leigh Hunt’s Autobiography_, 1860, p. 74. See, also, _Letters to Allsop_, 1864, p. 170.
[28] George Richards, a contemporary of Stephens, and, though somewhat senior, of Middleton, was a University prize-man and Fellow of Oriel. He was “author,” says Lamb, “of the ‘Aboriginal Britons,’ the most spirited of Oxford prize poems.” In after life he made his mark as a clergyman, as Bampton Lecturer (in 1800), and as Vicar of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. He was appointed Governor of Christ’s Hospital in 1822, and founded an annual prize, the “Richards’ Gold Medal,” for the best copy of Latin hexameters. _Christ’s Hospital._ _List of Exhibitioners, from 1566-1885_, compiled by A. M. Lockhart.
[29] Robert Percy (Bobus) Smith, 1770-1845, the younger brother of Sydney Smith, was Browne Medalist in 1791. His Eton and Cambridge prize poems, in Lucretian metre, are among the most finished specimens of modern Latinity. The principal contributors to the _Microcosm_ were George Canning, John and Robert Smith, Hookham Frere, and Charles Ellis. _Gentleman’s Magazine_, N. S., xxiii. 440.
[30] For complete text of the Greek Sapphic Ode, “On the Slave Trade,” which obtained the Browne gold medal for 1792, see Appendix B, p. 476, to Coleridge’s _Poetical Works_, Macmillan, 1893. See, also, Mr. Dykes Campbell’s note on the style and composition of the ode, p. 653. I possess a transcript of the Ode, taken, I believe, by Sara Coleridge in 1823, on the occasion of her visit to Ottery St. Mary. The following note is appended:--
“Upon the receipt of the above poem, Mr. George Coleridge, being vastly pleased by the composition, thinking it would be a sort of compliment to the superior genius of his brother the author, composed the following lines:--
IBI HÆC INCONDITA SOLUS.
Say _Holy Genius_--Heaven-descended Beam, Why interdicted is the sacred Fire That flows spontaneous from thy golden Lyre? Why _Genius_ like the emanative Ray That issuing from the dazzling Fount of Light Wakes all creative Nature into Day, Art thou not all-diffusive, all benign? Thy _partial_ hand I blame. For _Pity_ oft In Supplication’s Vest--a weeping child That meets me pensive on the barren wild, And pours into my soul Compassion soft, The never-dying strain commands to flow-- Man sure is vain, nor sacred Genius hears, Now speak in melody--now weep in Tears. G. C.”
[31] He was matriculated as pensioner March 31, 1792. He had been in residence since September, 1791.
[32] For the Craven Scholarship. In an article contributed to the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ of December, 1834, portions of which are printed in Gillman’s _Life of Coleridge_, C. V. Le Grice, a co-Grecian with Coleridge and Allen, gives the names of the four competitors. The successful candidate was Samuel Butler, afterwards Head Master of Shrewsbury and Bishop of Lichfield. _Life of Coleridge_, 1838, p. 50.
[33] Musical glee composer, 1769-1821. _Biographical Dictionary._
[34] _Poetical Works_, p. 20.
[35] Francis Syndercombe Coleridge, who died shortly after the fall of Seringapatam, February 6, 1792.
[36] Edward Coleridge, the Vicar of Ottery’s fourth son, was then assistant master in Dr. Skinner’s school at Salisbury. His marriage with an elderly widow who was supposed to have a large income was a source of perennial amusement to his family. Some years after her death he married his first cousin, Anne Bowdon.
[37] The husband of Coleridge’s half sister Elizabeth, the youngest of the vicar’s first family, “who alone was bred up with us after my birth, and who alone of the three I was wont to think of as a sister.” See Autobiographical Notes of 1832. _Life of Coleridge_, 1838, p. 9.
[38] The brother of Mrs. Luke and of Mrs. George Coleridge.
[39] A note to the _Poems of Samuel Taylor Coleridge_, Moxon, 1852, gives a somewhat different version of the origin of this poem, first printed in the edition of 1796 as Effusion 27, and of the lines included in Letter XX., there headed “Cupid turned Chymist,” but afterwards known as “Kisses.”
[40] G. L. Tuckett, to whom this letter was addressed, was the first to disclose to Coleridge’s family the unwelcome fact that he had enlisted in the army. He seems to have guessed that the runaway would take his old schoolfellows into his confidence, and that they might be induced to reveal the secret. He was, I presume, a college acquaintance,--possibly an old Blue, who had left the University and was reading for the bar. In an unpublished letter from Robert Allen to Coleridge, dated February, 1796, there is an amusing reference to this kindly _Deus ex Machina_. “I called upon Tuckett, who thus prophesied: ‘You know how subject Coleridge is to fits of idleness. Now, I’ll lay any wager, Allen, that after three or four numbers (of the _Watchman_) the sheets will contain nothing but parliamentary debates, and Coleridge will add a note at the bottom of the page: “I should think myself deficient in my duty to the Public if I did not give these interesting debates at _full_ length.”’”
[41] It would seem that there were alleviations to the misery and discomfort of this direful experience. In a MS. note dated January, 1805, he recalls as a suitable incident for a projected work, _The Soother in Absence_, the “_Domus quadrata hortensis_, at Henley-on-Thames,” and “the beautiful girl” who, it would seem, soothed the captivity of the forlorn trooper.
[42] In the various and varying reminiscences of his soldier days, which fell “from Coleridge’s own mouth,” and were repeated by his delighted and credulous hearers, this officer plays an important part. Whatever foundation of fact there may be for the touching anecdote that the Latin sentence, “_Eheu! quam infortunii miserrimum est fuisse felicem_,” scribbled on the walls of the stable at Reading, caught the attention of Captain Ogle, “himself a scholar,” and led to Comberbacke’s detection, he was not, as the poet Bowles and Miss Mitford maintained, the sole instrument in procuring the discharge. He may have exerted himself privately, but his name does not occur in the formal correspondence which passed between Coleridge’s brothers and the military authorities.
[43] The Compasses, now The Chequers, High Wycombe, where Coleridge was billeted just a hundred years ago, appears to have preserved its original aspect.
[44] See Notes to _Poetical Works of Coleridge_ (1893), p. 568. The “intended translation” was advertised in the _Cambridge Intelligencer_ for June 14 and June 16, 1794: “Proposals for publishing by subscription _Imitations from the Modern Latin Poets, with a Critical and Biographical Essay on the Restoration of Literature_. By S. T. Coleridge, of Jesus College, Cambridge....
“In the course of the Work will be introduced a copious selection from the Lyrics of Casimir, and a new Translation of the Basia of Secundus.”
One ode, “Ad Lyram,” was printed in _The Watchman_, No. 11, March 9, 1796, p. 49.
[45] The _Barbou Casimir_, published at Paris in 1759.
[46] Compare the note to