chapter xii

. of the _Biographia Literaria_: “In the Biographical Sketch of my Literary Life I may be excused if I mention here that I had translated the eight Hymns of Synesius from the Greek into English Anacreontics before my fifteenth year.” The edition referred to may be that published at Basle in 1567. _Interprete G. Cantero._ Bentley’s Quarto Edition was probably the Quarto Edition of Horace, published in 1711.

[47] Charles Clagget, a musical composer and inventor of musical instruments, flourished towards the close of the eighteenth century. I have been unable to ascertain whether the songs in question were ever published. _Dictionary of Music and Musicians_, edited by George Grove, D. C. L., 1879, article “Clagget,” i. 359.

[48] The entry in the College Register of Jesus College is brief and to the point: “1794 Apr.: _Coleridge admonitus est per magistrum in præsentiâ sociorum_.”

[49] A letter to George Coleridge dated April 16, 1794, and signed J. Plampin, has been preserved. The pains and penalties to which Coleridge had subjected himself are stated in full, but the kindly nature of the writer is shown in the concluding sentence: “I am happy in adding that I thought your brother’s conduct on his return extremely proper; and I beg to assure you that it will give me much pleasure to see him take such an advantage of his experience as his own good sense will dictate.”

[50] A week later, July 22, in a letter addressed to H. Martin, of Jesus College, to whom, in the following September, he dedicated “The Fall of Robespierre,” Coleridge repeated almost verbatim large portions of this _lettre de voyage_. The incident of the sentiment and the Welsh clergyman takes a somewhat different shape, and both versions differ from the report of the same occurrence contained in Hucks’ account of the tour, which was published in the following year. Coleridge’s letters from foreign parts were written with a view to literary effect, and often with the half-formed intention of sending them to the “booksellers.” They are to be compared with “letters from our own correspondent,” and in respect of picturesque adventure, dramatic dialogue, and so forth, must be judged solely by a literary standard. _Biographia Literaria_, 1847, ii. 338-343; J. Hucks’ _Tour in North Wales_, 1795, p. 25.

[51] The lines are from “Happiness,” an early poem first published in 1834. See _Poetical Works_, p. 17. See, too, Editor’s Note, p. 564.

[52] Quoted from a poem by Bowles entitled, “Verses inscribed to His Grace the Duke of Leeds, and other Promoters of the Philanthropic Society.” Southey adopted the last two lines of the quotation as a motto for his “Botany Bay Eclogues.” _Poetical Works of Milman, Bowles, etc._, Paris, 1829, p. 117; Southey’s _Poetical Works_, 1837, ii. 71.

[53] Southey, we may suppose, had contrasted Hucks with Coleridge. “H. is on my level, not yours.”

[54] _Poetical Works_, p. 33. See, too, Editor’s Note, p. 570.

[55] Hucks records the incident in much the same words, but gives the name of the tune as “Corporal Casey.”

[56] The letter to Martin gives further particulars of the tour, including the ascent of Penmaen Mawr in company with Brookes and Berdmore. Compare _Table Talk_ for May 31, 1830: “I took the thought of _grinning for joy_ in that poem (_The Ancient Mariner_) from my companion’s remark to me, when we had climbed to the top of Plinlimmon, and were nearly dead with thirst. We could not speak from the constriction till we found a little puddle under a stone. He said to me, ‘You grinned like an idiot.’ He had done the same.” The parching thirst of the pedestrians, and their excessive joy at the discovery of a spring of water, are recorded by Hucks. _Tour in North Wales_, 1795, p. 62.

[57] Southey’s _Poetical Works_, 1837, ii. 93.

[58] Southey’s _Poetical Works_, 1837, ii. 94.

[59] See Letter XLI. p. 110, note 1.

[60] “A tragedy, of which the first act was written by S. T. Coleridge.” See footnote to quotation from “The Fall of Robespierre,” which occurs in the text of “An Address on the Present War.” _Conciones ad Populum_, 1795, p. 66.

[61] One of six sisters, daughters of John Brunton of Norwich. Elizabeth, the eldest of the family, was married in 1791 to Robert Merry the dramatist, the founder of the so-called Della Cruscan school of poetry. Louisa Brunton, the youngest sister, afterwards Countess of Craven, made her first appearance at Covent Garden Theatre on October 5, 1803, and at most could not have been more than twelve or thirteen years of age in the autumn of 1794. Coleridge’s Miss Brunton, to whom he sent a poem on the French Revolution, that is, “The Fall of Robespierre,” must have been an intermediate sister less known to fame. It is curious to note that “The Right Hon. Lady Craven” was a subscriber to the original issue of _The Friend_ in 1809. _National Dictionary of Biography_, articles “Craven” and “Merry.” _Letters of the Lake Poets_, 1885, p. 455.

[62] This sonnet, afterwards headed, “On a Discovery made too late,” was “first printed in _Poems_, 1796, as Effusion XIX., but in the Contents it was called, ‘To my own Heart.’” _Poetical Works_, p. 34. See, too, Editor’s Note, p. 571.

[63] “The Race of Banquo.” Southey’s _Poetical Works_, 1837, ii. 155.

[64] The Editor of the _Cambridge Intelligencer_.

[65] “To a Young Lady, with a Poem on the French Revolution.” _Poetical Works_, p. 6.

[66] Compare “Sonnet to the Author of The Robbers.” _Poetical Works_, p. 34.

[67] The date of this letter is fixed by that of Thursday, November 6, to George Coleridge. Both letters speak of a journey to town with Potter of Emanuel, but in writing to his brother he says nothing of a projected visit to Bath. There is no hint in either letter that he had made up his mind to leave the University for good and all. In a letter to Southey dated December 17, he says that “they are making a row about him at Jesus,” and in a letter to Mary Evans, which must have been written a day or two later, he says, “I return to Cambridge to-morrow.” From the date of the letter to George Coleridge of November 6 to December 11 there is a break in the correspondence with Southey, but from a statement in Letter XLIII. it appears plain that a visit was paid to the West in December, 1794. But whether he returned to Cambridge November 8, and for how long, is uncertain.

[68] “Lines on a Friend who died of a Frenzy Fever,” etc. _Poetical Works_, p. 35. A copy of the same poem was sent on November 6 to George Coleridge.

[69] “The Sigh.” _Poetical Works_, p. 29.

[70] Probably Thomas Edwards, LL. D., a Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, editor of Plutarch, _De Educatione Liberorum_, with notes, 1791, and author of “A Discourse on the Limits and Importance of Free Inquiry in Matters of Religion,” 1792. _Natural Dictionary of Biography_, xvii. 130.

[71] Compare “Lines on a Friend,” etc., which accompanied this letter.

To me hath Heaven with liberal hand assigned Energic reason and a shaping mind,

* * * * *

Sloth-jaundiced all! and from my graspless hand Drop Friendship’s precious pearls, like hour-glass sand.

_Poetical Works_, p. 35.

[72] The lines occur in Barrère’s speech, which concludes the third act of the “Fall of Robespierre.” _Poetical Works_, p. 225.

[73] “Fall of Robespierre,” Act I. l. 198.

O this new freedom! at how dear a price We’ve bought the seeming good! The peaceful virtues And every blandishment of private life, The father’s care, the mother’s fond endearment All sacrificed to Liberty’s wild riot.

_Poetical Works_, p. 215.

[74] See “Fall of Robespierre,” Act I. l. 40. _Poetical Works_, p. 212.

[75] For full text of the “Lines on a Friend who died of a Frenzy Fever,” see Letter XXXVIII. See, too, _Poetical Works_, p. 35.

[76] Southey’s _Poetical Works_, 1837, ii. 263.

[77] See _Poems by Robert Lovell, and Robert Southey of Balliol College_. Bath. Printed by A. Cruttwell, 1795, p. 17. “Ode to Lycon,” p. 77.

The last stanza runs thus:--

Wilt thou float careless down the stream of time, In sadness borne to dull oblivious shore, Or shake off grief, and “build the lofty rhyme,” And live till time shall be no more? If thy light bark have met the storms, If threatening cloud the sky deforms, Let honest truth be vain; look back on me, Have I been “sailing on a Summer sea”? Have only zephyrs fill’d my swelling sails, As smooth the gentle vessel glides along? Lycon! I met unscar’d the wintry gales, And sooth’d the dangers with the song: So shall the vessel sail sublime, And reach the port of fame adown the stream of time. BION [_i. e._ R. S.].

Compare the following unpublished letter from Southey to Miss Sarah Fricker:--

October 18, 1794.

“Amid the pelting of the pitiless storm” did I, Robert Southey, the Apostle of Pantisocracy, depart from the city of Bristol, my natal place--at the hour of five in a wet windy evening on the 17th of October, 1794, wrapped up in my father’s old great coat and my own cogitations. Like old Lear I did not call the elements unkind,--and on I passed, musing on the lamentable effects of pride and prejudice--retracing all the events of my past life--and looking forward to the days to come with pleasure.

Three miles from Bristol, an old man of sixty, most royally drunk, laid hold of my arm, and begged we might join company, as he was going to Bath. I consented, for he wanted assistance, and dragged this foul animal through the dirt, wind, and rain!...

Think of me, with a mind so fully occupied, leading this man nine miles, and had I not led him he would have lain down under a hedge and probably perished.

I reached not Bath till nine o’clock, when the rain pelted me most unmercifully in the face. I rejoiced that my friends at Bath knew not where I was, and was once vexed at thinking that you would hear it drive against the window and be sorry for the way-worn traveller. Here I am, well, and satisfied with my own conduct....

My clothes are arrived. “I will never see his face again [writes Miss Tyler], and, if he writes, will return his letters unopened;” to comment on this would be useless. I feel that strong conviction of rectitude which would make me smile on the rack.... The crisis is over--things are as they should be; my mother vexes herself much, yet feels she is right. Hostilities are commenced with America! so we must go to some neutral fort--Hambro’ or Venice.

Your sister is well, and sends her love to all; on Wednesday I hope to see you. Till then farewell,

ROBERT SOUTHEY.

Bath, Sunday morning.

Compare, also, letter to Thomas Southey, dated October 19, 1794. _Southey’s Life and Correspondence_, i. 222.

[78] _Poems_, 1795, p. 123.

[79] See Southey’s _Poetical Works_, 1837, ii. 91:--

“If heavily creep on one little day, The medley crew of travellers among.”

[80] _Poems_, 1795, p. 67.

[81] _Poetical Works_, 1837, ii. 92.

[82] “Rosamund to Henry; written after she had taken the veil.” _Poems_, 1795, p. 85.

[83] _Poetical Works_, 1837, ii. 216. Southey appears to have accepted Coleridge’s emendations. The variations between the text of the “Pauper’s Funeral” and the _editio purgata_ of the letter are slight and unimportant.

[84] In a letter from Southey to his brother Thomas, dated October 21, 1794, this sonnet “on the subject of our emigration” is attributed to Favell, a convert to pantisocracy who was still at Christ’s Hospital. The first eight lines are included in the “Monody on Chatterton.” See _Poetical Works_, p. 63, and Editor’s Note, p. 563.

[85] Printed as Effusion XVI. in _Poems_, 1796. It was afterwards headed “Charity.” In the preface he acknowledges that he was “indebted to Mr. Favell for the rough sketch.” See _Poetical Works_, p. 45, and Editor’s Note, p. 576.

[86] Southey’s _Poetical Works_, ii. 143. In this instance Coleridge’s corrections were not adopted.

[87] Published in 1794.

[88] First version, printed in _Morning Chronicle_, December 26, 1794. See _Poetical Works_, p. 40.

[89] First printed as Effusion XIV. in _Poems_, 1796. Of the four lines said to have been written by Lamb, Coleridge discarded lines 13 and 14, and substituted a favourite couplet, which occurs in more than one of his early poems. See _Poetical Works_, p. 23, and Editor’s Note, p. 566.

[90] Imitated from the Welsh. See _Poetical Works_, p. 33.

[91] A parody of “Qui Bavium non odit, amet tua carmina, Mævi.” Virgil, _Ecl._ iii. 90. Gratio and Avaro were signatures adopted by Southey and Lovell in their joint volume of poems published at Bristol in 1795.

[92] Implied in the second line.

[93] Of the six sonnets included in this letter, those to Burke, Priestley, and Kosciusko had already appeared in the _Morning Chronicle_ on the 9th, 11th, and 16th of December, 1794. The sonnets to Godwin, Southey, and Sheridan were published on the 10th, 14th, and 29th of January, 1795. See _Poetical Works_, pp. 38, 39, 41, 42.

[94] First published in the _Morning Chronicle_, December 30, 1794. An earlier draft, dated October 24, 1794, was headed “Monologue to a Young Jackass in Jesus Piece. Its Mother near it, chained to a Log.” See _Poetical Works_, Appendix C, p. 477, and Editor’s Note, p. 573.

[95] Compare the last six lines of a sonnet, “On a Discovery made too late,” sent in a letter to Southey, dated October 21, 1794. (Letter XXXVII.) See _Poetical Works_, p. 34, and Editor’s Note, p. 571.

[96] The first of six sonnets on the Slave Trade. Southey’s _Poetical Works_, 1837, ii. 55.

[97] Prefixed as a dedication to Juvenile and Minor Poems. It is addressed to Edith Southey, and dated Bristol, 1796. Southey’s _Poetical Works_, 1837, vol. ii. The text of 1837 differs considerably from the earlier version. Possibly in transcribing Coleridge altered the original to suit his own taste.

[98] To a Friend [Charles Lamb], together with an Unfinished Poem [“Religious Musings”]. _Poetical Works_, p. 37.

[99] This farewell letter of apology and remonstrance was not sent by post, but must have reached Southey’s hand on the 13th of November, the eve of his wedding day. The original MS. is written on small foolscap. A first draft, or copy, of the letter was sent to Coleridge’s friend, Josiah Wade.

[100] The Rev. David Jardine, Unitarian minister at Bath. Cottle lays the scene of the “inaugural sermons” on the corn laws and hair powder tax, which Coleridge delivered in a blue coat and white waistcoat, in Mr. Jardine’s chapel at Bath. _Early Recollections_, i. 179.

[101] If we may believe Cottle, the dispute began by Southey attacking Coleridge for his non-appearance at a lecture which he had undertaken to deliver in his stead. The scene of the quarrel is laid at Chepstow, on the first day of the memorable excursion to Tintern Abbey, which Cottle had planned to “gratify his two young friends.” Southey had been “dragged,” much against the grain, into this “detestable party of pleasure,” and was, no doubt, rendered doubly sore by his partner’s delinquency. See _Early Recollections_, i. 40, 41. See, also, letter from Southey to Bedford, dated May 28, 1795. _Life and Correspondence_, i. 239.

[102] At Chepstow.

[103] A village three miles W. S. W. of Bristol.

[104] During the course of his tour (January-February, 1796) to procure subscribers for the _Watchman_, Coleridge wrote seven times to Josiah Wade. Portions of these letters have been published in Cottle’s _Early Recollections_, i. 164-176, and in the “Biographical Supplement” to the _Biographia Literaria_, ii. 349-354. It is probable that Wade supplied funds for the journey, and that Coleridge felt himself bound to give an account of his progress and success.

[105] Joseph Wright, A. R. A., known as Wright of Derby, 1736-1797. Two of his most celebrated pictures were _The Head of Ulleswater_, and _The Dead Soldier_. An excellent specimen of Wright’s work, _An Experiment with the Air Pump_, was presented to the National Gallery in 1863.

[106] Compare _Biographia Literaria_, ch. i. “During my first Cambridge vacation I assisted a friend in a contribution for a literary society in Devonshire, and in that I remember to have compared Darwin’s works to the Russian palace of ice, glittering, cold, and transitory.” Coleridge’s _Works_, Harper & Bros., 1853, iii. 155.

[107] Dr. James Hutton, the author of the Plutonian theory. His _Theory of the Earth_ was published at Edinburgh in 1795.

[108] The title of this pamphlet, which was published shortly after the _Conciones ad Populum_, was “The Plot Discovered; or, an Address to the People against Ministerial Treason. By S. T. Coleridge. Bristol, 1795.” It had an outer wrapper with this half-title: “A Protest against Certain Wills. Bristol: Printed for the Author, November 28, 1795.” It is reprinted in _Essays on His Own Times_, i. 56-98.

[109] The review of “Burke’s Letter to a Noble Lord,” which appeared in the first number of _The Watchman_, is reprinted in _Essays on His Own Times_, i. 107-119.

[110] _Ibid._ 120-126.

[111] The occasion of this “burst of affectionate feeling” was a communication from Poole that seven or eight friends had undertaken to subscribe a sum of £35 or £40 to be paid annually to the “author of the monody on the death of Chatterton,” as “a trifling mark of their esteem, gratitude, and affection.” The subscriptions were paid in 1796-97, but afterwards discontinued on the receipt of the Wedgwood annuity. See _Thomas Poole and his Friends_, i. 142.

[112] Mrs. Robert Lovell, whose husband had been carried off by a fever about two years after his marriage with my aunt.--S. C.

[113] Compare _Conciones ad Populum_, 1795, p. 22. “Such is Joseph Gerrald! Withering in the sickly and tainted gales of a prison, his healthful soul looks down from the citadel of his integrity on his impotent persecutors. I saw him in the foul and naked room of a jail; his cheek was sallow with confinement, his body was emaciated; yet his eye spake the invincible purpose of his soul, and he still sounded with rapture the successes of Freedom, forgetful of his own lingering martyrdom.”

Together with four others, Gerrald was tried for sedition at Edinburgh in March, 1794. He delivered an eloquent speech in his own defence, but with the other prisoners was convicted and sentenced to be transported for fifteen years. “In April Gerrald was removed to London, and committed to Newgate, where Godwin and his other friends were allowed to visit him.... In May, 1795, he was suddenly taken from his prison and placed on board the hulks, and soon afterwards sailed. He survived his arrival in New South Wales only five months. A few hours before he died, he said to the friends around him, ‘I die in the best of causes, and, as you witness, without repining.’” Mrs. Shelley’s Notes, as quoted by Mr. C. Kegan Paul in his _William Godwin_, i. 125. See, too, “the very noble letter” (January 23, 1794) addressed by Godwin to Gerrald relative to his defence. _Ibid._ i. 125. Lords Cockburn and Jeffrey considered the conviction of these men a gross miscarriage of justice, and in 1844 a monument was erected at the foot of the Calton Hill, Edinburgh, to their memory.

[114] Edward Williams (Iolo Morgangw), 1747-1826. His poems in two volumes were published by subscription in 1794. Coleridge possessed a copy presented to him “by the author,” and on the last page of the second volume he has scrawled a single but characteristic marginal note. It is affixed to a translation of one of the “Poetic Triades.” “The three principal considerations of poetical description: what is obvious, what instantly engages the affections, and what is strikingly characteristic.” The comment is as follows: “I suppose, rather what we recollect to have frequently seen in nature, though not in the description of it.”

[115] The allusion must be to Wordsworth, but there is a difficulty as to dates. In a MS. note to the second edition of his poems (1797) Coleridge distinctly states that he had no personal acquaintance with Wordsworth as early as March, 1796. Again, in a letter (Letter LXXXI.) to Estlin dated “May [? 1797],” but certainly written in May, 1798, Coleridge says that he has known Wordsworth for a year and some months. On the other hand, there is Mrs. Wordsworth’s report of her husband’s “impression” that he first met Coleridge, Southey, Sara, and Edith Fricker “in a lodging in Bristol in 1795,”--an imperfect recollection very difficult to reconcile with other known facts. Secondly, there is Sara Coleridge’s statement that “Mr. Coleridge and Mr. Wordsworth first met in the house of Mr. Pinney,” in the spring or summer of 1795; and, thirdly, it would appear from a letter of Lamb to Coleridge, which belongs to the summer of 1796, that “the personal acquaintance” with Wordsworth had already begun. The probable conclusion is that there was a first meeting in 1795, and occasional intercourse in 1796, but that intimacy and friendship date from the visit to Racedown in June, 1797. Coleridge quotes Wordsworth in his “Lines from Shurton Bars,” dated September, 1795, but the first trace of Wordsworth’s influence on style and thought appears in “This Lime-Tree Bower my Prison,” July, 1797. In May, 1796, Wordsworth could only have been “his very dear friend” _sensu poetico_. _Life of W. Wordsworth_, i. 111; Biographical Supplement to _Biographia Literaria_,