CHAPTER III

THE STOWEY PERIOD

1797-1798

LXXI. TO REV. J. P. ESTLIN.

[STOWEY, 1797.]

MY DEAR FRIEND,--I was indeed greatly rejoiced at the first sight of a letter from you; but its contents were painful. Dear, dear Mrs. Estlin! Sara burst into an agony of tears that she _had_ been so ill. Indeed, indeed, we hover about her, and think and talk of her, with many an interjection of prayer. I do not wonder that you have acquired a distaste to London--your associations must be painful indeed. But God be praised! you shall look back on those sufferings as the vexations of a dream! Our friend, T. Poole, particularly requests me to mention how deeply he condoles with you in Mrs. Estlin’s illness, how fervently he thanks God for her recovery. I assure you he was extremely affected. We are all remarkably well, and the child grows fat and strong. Our house is better than we expected--there is a comfortable bedroom and sitting-room for C. Lloyd, and another for us, a room for Nanny, a kitchen, and outhouse. Before our door a clear brook runs of very soft water; and in the back yard is a nice _well_ of fine spring water. We have a very pretty garden, and large enough to find us vegetables and employment, and I am already an expert gardener, and both my hands can exhibit a callum as testimonials of their industry. We have likewise a sweet orchard, and at the end of it T. Poole has made a gate, which leads into his garden, and from thence either through the tan yard into his house, or else through his orchard over a fine meadow into the garden of a Mrs. Cruikshank, an old acquaintance, who married on the same day as I, and has got a little girl a little younger than David Hartley. Mrs. Cruikshank is a sweet little woman, of the same size as my Sara, and they are extremely cordial. T. Poole’s mother behaves to us as a kind and tender mother. She is very fond indeed of my wife, so that, you see, I ought to be happy, and, thank God, I am so....

LXXII. TO JOHN THELWALL.

STOWEY NEAR BRIDGEWATER, SOMERSET. February 6, 1797.

I thank you, my dear Thelwall, for the parcel, and your letters. Of the contents I shall speak in the order of their importance. First, then, of your scheme of a school, I approve it; and fervently wish, that you may find it more easy of accomplishment than my fears suggest. But try, by all means, try. Have hopes without expectations to hazard disappointment. Most of our patriots are tavern and parlour patriots, that will not avow their principles by any decisive action; and of the few who would wish to do so, the larger part are unable, from their children’s expectancies on rich relations, etc., etc. May these remain enough for your Stella to employ herself on! Try, by all means, try. For your comfort, for your progressiveness in literary excellence, in the name of everything that is happy, and in the name of everything that is miserable, I would have you do anything honest rather than lean with the whole weight of your necessities on the Press. Get bread and cheese, clothing and housing independently of it; and you may then safely trust to it for beef and strong beer. You will find a country life a happy one; and you might live comfortably with an hundred a year. Fifty pounds you might, I doubt not, gain by _reviewing_ and furnishing miscellanies for the different magazines; you might safely speculate on twenty pounds a year or more from your compositions published separately--50 + 20 = £70; and by severe economy, a little garden labour, and a pigstye, this would do. And, if the education scheme did not succeed, and I could get _engaged_ by any one of the Reviews and the new “Monthly Magazine,” I would _try_ it, and begin to farm by little and slow degrees. You perceive that by the Press I mean merely _writing without a certainty_. The other is as secure as anything else could be to _you_. With health and spirits it would stand; and without health and spirits every other mode of maintenance, as well as reviewing, would be impracticable. You are going to Derby! I shall be with you in spirit. Derby is no common place; but where you will find _citizens_ enough to fill your lecture-room puzzles me. Dr. Darwin will no doubt excite your respectful curiosity. On the whole, I think, he is the first _literary_ character in Europe, and the most original-minded man. Mrs. Crompton is an angel; and Dr. Crompton a truly honest and benevolent man, possessing good sense and a large portion of humour. I never think of him without respect and tenderness; never (for, thank Heaven! I abominate Godwinism) without gratitude. William Strutt[153] is a man of stern aspect, but strong, very strong abilities. Joseph Strutt every way amiable. He deserves his wife--which is saying a great deal--for she is a sweet-minded woman, and one that you would be apt to recollect whenever you met or used the words lovely, handsome, beautiful, etc. “While smiling Loves the shaft display, And lift the playful torch elate.” Perhaps you may be so fortunate as to meet with a Mrs. Evans whose seat is at Darley, about a mile from Derby. Blessings descend on her! emotions crowd on me at the sight of her name. We spent five weeks at her house, a sunny spot in our life. My Sara sits and thinks and thinks of her and bursts into tears, and when I turn to her says, “I was thinking, my dear, of Mrs. Evans and Bessy” (that is, her daughter). I mention this to you, because things are characterized by their effects. She is no common being who could create so warm and lasting an interest in _our_ hearts; for _we_ are no common people. Indeed, indeed, Thelwall, she is without exception the greatest _woman_ I have been fortunate enough to meet with in my brief pilgrimage through life.

[Illustration]

At Nottingham you will surely be more likely to obtain audiences; and, I doubt not, you will find a hospitable reception there. I was treated by many families with kindliness, by some with a zeal of affection. Write me if you go and when you go. Now for your pamphlet. It is well written, and the doctrine sound, although sometimes, I think, deduced falsely. For instance (p. iii.): It is _true_ that all a man’s children, “however begotten, whether in marriage or out,” are his heirs in nature, and ought to be so in true policy; but, instead of tacitly allowing that I meant by it to encourage what Mr. B.[154] and the priests would call licentiousness (and which surely, Thelwall, in the _present state of society_ you must allow to be injustice, inasmuch as it deprives the woman of her respectability in the opinions of her neighbours), I would have shown that such a law would of all others operate most powerfully in _favour_ of _marriage_; by which word I mean not the effect of spells uttered by conjurers, but permanent cohabitation useful to society as the best conceivable means (in the present state of society, at least) of ensuring nurture and systematic education to infants and children. We are but frail beings at present, and want such motives to the practice of our duties. Unchastity may be no vice,--I think it is,--but it may be no vice, abstractly speaking; yet from a variety of causes unchaste women are almost without exception careless mothers. _Wife_ is a solemn name to me because of its influence on the more solemn duties of _mother_. Such passages (p. 30 is another of them) are offensive. They are mere _assertions_, and of course can convince no person who thinks differently; and they give pain and irritate. I write so frequently to you on this subject, because I have reason to _know_ that passages of this order did give very general offence in your first part, and have operated to retard the sale of the second. If they had been arguments or necessarily connected with your main argument, I am not the man, Thelwall, who would oppose the filth of prudentials merely to have it swept away by the indignant torrent of your honesty. But as I said before, they are mere _assertions_; and certainly their truth is not self-evident. With the exception of these passages, the pamphlet is the best I have read since the commencement of the war; warm, not fiery, well-seasoned without being dry, the periods harmonious yet avoiding metrical harmony, and the ornaments so dispersed as to set off the features of truth without turning the attention on themselves. I account for its slow sale partly from your having compared yourself to Christ in the first (which gave great offence, to my knowledge, although very foolishly, I confess), and partly from the sore and fatigued state of men’s minds, which disqualifies them for works of principle that exert the intellect without agitating the passions. But it has not been reviewed yet, has it? I read your narrative and was almost sorry I had read it, for I had become much interested, and the abrupt “no more” jarred me. I never heard before of your variance with Horne Tooke. Of the poems, the two Odes are the best. Of the two Odes, the last, I think; it is in the best style of Akenside’s best Odes. Several of the sonnets are pleasing, and whenever I was pleased I paused, and imaged you in my mind in your captivity.... _My Ode_[155] by this time you are conscious that you have praised too highly. With the exception of “I unpartaking of the evil thing,” which line I do not think _injudiciously_ weak, I accede to all your remarks, and shall alter accordingly. Your remark that the line on the Empress had more of Juvenal than Pindar _flashed itself_ on my mind. I had admired the line before, but I became immediately of your opinion, and that criticism has convinced me that your nerves are exquisite _electrometers_[156] of taste. You forgot to point out to me that the whole childbirth of Nature is at once ludicrous and disgusting, an epigram smart yet bombastic. The review of Bryant’s pamphlet is good--the sauce is better than the fish. Speaking of Lewis’s death, surely you forget that the legislature of France were to act by _laws_ and not by general morals; and that they violated the law which they themselves had made. I will take in the “Corresponding Society Magazine.” That good man, James Losh, has just published an admirable treatise translated from the French of Benjamin Constant,[157] entitled, “Consideration on the Strength of the Present Government of France.” “Woe to that country when crimes are punished by crimes, and where men murder in the name of justice.” I apply this to the death of the mistaken but well-meaning Lewis.[158] I never go to Bristol. From seven till half past eight I work in my garden; from breakfast till twelve I read and compose, then read again, feed the pigs, poultry, etc., till two o’clock; after dinner work again till tea; from tea till supper, _review_. So jogs the day, and I am happy. I have society--_my friend_ T. Poole, and as many acquaintances as I can dispense with. There are a number of very pretty young women in Stowey, all musical, and I am an immense favourite: for I pun, conundrumize, _listen_, and dance. The last is a recent acquirement. We are very happy, and my little David Hartley grows a sweet boy and has high health; he laughs at us till he makes us weep for very fondness. You would smile to see my eye rolling up to the ceiling in a lyric fury, and on my knee a diaper pinned to warm. I send and receive to and from Bristol every week, and will transcribe that part of your last letter and send it to Reed.

I raise potatoes and all manner of vegetables, have an orchard, and shall raise corn with the spade, enough for my family. We have two pigs, and ducks and geese. A cow would not answer the keep: for we have whatever milk we want from T. Poole. God bless you and your affectionate

S. T. COLERIDGE.

LXXIII. TO JOSEPH COTTLE.[159]

June, 1797.

MY DEAR COTTLE,--I am sojourning for a few days at Racedown, the mansion of our friend Wordsworth, who has received Fox’s “Achmed.” He returns you his acknowledgments, and presents his kindliest respects to you. I shall be home by Friday--not to-morrow--but the next Friday. If the “Ode on the Departing Year” be not reprinted, please to _omit_ the lines from “When shall scepter’d slaughter cease,” to “For still does Madness roam on Guilt’s bleak dizzy height,” inclusive.[160] The first epode is to end at the words “murderer’s fate.” Wordsworth admires my tragedy, which gives me great hopes. Wordsworth has written a tragedy himself. I speak with heartfelt sincerity, and (I think) unblinded judgment, when I tell you that I feel myself _a little man by his side_, and yet do not think myself the less man than I formerly thought myself. His drama is absolutely wonderful. You know I do not commonly speak in such abrupt and unmingled phrases, and therefore will the more readily believe me. There are in the piece those _profound_ touches of the human heart which I find three or four times in “The Robbers” of Schiller, and often in Shakespeare, but in Wordsworth there are no _inequalities_. T. Poole’s opinion of Wordsworth is that he is the greatest man he ever knew; I coincide.

It is not impossible, that in the course of two or three months I may see you. God bless you, and

S. T. COLERIDGE.

Thursday.--Of course, with the lines you omit the notes that relate to them.

MR. COTTLE, Bookseller, High Street, Bristol.

LXXIV. TO ROBERT SOUTHEY.

July, 1797.

DEAR SOUTHEY,--You are acting kindly in your exertions for Chatterton’s sister; but I doubt the success. Chatterton’s or Rowley’s poems were never popular. The very circumstance which made them so much talked of, their _ancientness_, prevented them from being generally read, in the degree, I mean, that Goldsmith’s poems or even Rogers’ thing upon memory has been. The sale was _never_ very great. Secondly, the London Edition and the Cambridge Edition, which are now both of them the property of London booksellers, are still in hand, and these booksellers will “hardly exert their interest for a rival.” _Thirdly, these are bad times._ Fourthly, all who are sincerely zealous for Chatterton, or who from knowledge of her are interested in poor Mrs. Newton, will come forwards first, and if others should drop in but slowly, Mrs. Newton will either receive no benefit at all from those her friends, or one so long procrastinated, from the necessity of waiting for the complement of subscribers, that it may at last come too late. For these reasons I am almost inclined to think a _subscription_ simply would be better. It is unpleasant to cast a damp on anything; but that benevolence alone is likely to be beneficent which _calculates_. If, however, you continue to entertain higher hopes than I, believe me, I will shake off my sloth, and use my best muscles in gaining subscribers. I will certainly write a preliminary essay, and I will _attempt_ to write a poem on the life and death of Chatterton, but the Monody _must not be reprinted_. Neither this nor the Pixies’ Parlour would have been in the second edition, but for dear Cottle’s solicitous importunity. Excepting the last eighteen lines of the Monody, which, though deficient in chasteness and severity of diction, breathe a pleasing spirit of romantic feeling, there are not five lines in either poem which might not have been written by a man who had lived and died in the self-same St. Giles’ cellar, in which he had been first suckled by a drab with milk and gin. The Pixies is the least disgusting, because the subject leads you to expect nothing, but on a life and death so full of heart-going _realities_ as poor Chatterton’s, to find such shadowy nobodies as cherub-winged _Death_, Trees of _Hope_, bare-bosomed _Affection_ and simpering _Peace_, makes one’s blood circulate like ipecacuanha. But so it is. A young man by strong feelings is impelled to write on a particular subject, and this is all his feelings do for him. They set him upon the business and then they leave him. He has such a high idea of what poetry ought to be, that he cannot conceive that such things as his natural emotions may be allowed to find a place in it; his learning therefore, his fancy, or rather conceit, and all his powers of buckram are put on the stretch. It appears to me that strong feeling is not so requisite to an author’s being profoundly pathetic as taste and good sense.

Poor old Whag! his mother died of a dish of clotted cream, which my mother sent her as a present.

I rejoice that your poems are all sold. In the ballad of “Mary the Maid of the Inn,” you have properly enough made the diction colloquial, but “_engages_ the eye,” applied to a gibbet, strikes me as _slipshoppish_ from the unfortunate meaning of the word “engaging.” Your praise of my Dedication[161] gave me great pleasure. From the ninth to the fourteenth the five lines are flat and prosish, and the versification ever and anon has too much of the rhyme couplet cadence, and the metaphor[162] on the diverse sorts of friendship is _hunted down_, but the poem is dear to me, and in point of taste I place it next to “Low was our pretty Cot,” which I think the best of my poems.

I am as much a Pangloss as ever, only less contemptuous than I used to be, when I argue how unwise it is to feel contempt for anything.

I had been on a visit to Wordsworth’s at Racedown, near Crewkerne, and I brought him and his sister back with me, and here I have _settled them_. By a combination of curious circumstances a gentleman’s seat, with a park and woods, elegantly and completely furnished, with nine lodging rooms, three parlours, and a hall, in the most beautiful and romantic situation by the seaside, four miles from Stowey,--this we have got for Wordsworth at the _rent of twenty-three pounds a year, taxes included_! The park and woods are _his_ for all purposes _he_ wants them, and the large gardens are altogether and entirely his. Wordsworth is a very great man, the only man to whom _at all times_ and _in all modes of excellence_ I feel myself inferior, the only one, I mean, whom _I have yet met with_, for the London _literati_ appear to me to be very much like little potatoes, that is, _no great things_, a compost of nullity and dullity.

Charles Lamb has been with me for a week.[163] He left me Friday morning. The second day after Wordsworth came to me, dear Sara accidentally emptied a skillet of boiling milk on my foot, which confined me during the whole time of C. Lamb’s stay and still prevents me from all _walks_ longer than a furlong. While Wordsworth, his sister, and Charles Lamb were out one evening, sitting in the arbour of T. Poole’s garden[164] which communicates with mine I wrote these lines, with which I am pleased. (I heard from C. Lamb of Favell and Le Grice.[165] Poor Allen! I knew nothing of it.[166] As to Rough,[167] he is a _wonderful fellow_; and when I returned from the army, _cut_ me for a month, till he saw that other people _were as much_ attached as before.)

Well, they are gone, and here must I remain, Lam’d by the scathe of fire, lonely and faint, This lime-tree bower my prison! They, meantime My Friends,[168] whom I may never meet again, On springy[169] heath, along the hill-top edge Wander delighted, and look down, perchance, On that same rifted Dell, where many an ash Twists its wild limbs beside the ferny[170] rock Whose plumy ferns forever nod and drip, Spray’d by the waterfall. But chiefly thou My gentle-hearted _Charles_! thou who had pin’d And hunger’d after Nature many a year, In the great City pent, winning thy way With sad yet bowed soul, through evil and pain And strange calamity! Ah! slowly sink Behind the western ridge, thou glorious Sun! Shine in the slant heaven of the sinking orb, Ye purple heath-flowers! richlier burn, ye clouds Live in the yellow Light, ye distant groves! Struck with joy’s deepest calm, and gazing round On[171] the wide view, may gaze till all doth seem Less gross than bodily; a living thing That acts upon the mind, and with such hues As clothe the Almighty Spirit, when He makes Spirits perceive His presence! A delight Comes sudden on my heart, and I am glad As I myself were there! nor in the bower Want I sweet sounds or pleasing shapes. I watch’d The sunshine of each broad transparent leaf Broke by the shadows of the leaf or stem. Which hung above it: and that walnut-tree Was richly ting’d, and a deep radiance lay Full on the ancient ivy, which usurps Those fronting elms, and now with blackest mass Makes their dark foliage gleam a lighter hue Through the late twilight: and though the rapid bat Wheels silent by, and not a swallow titters, Yet still the solitary humble bee Sings in the bean-flower! Henceforth I shall know That Nature ne’er deserts the wise and pure; No scene so narrow, but may well employ Each faculty of sense, and keep the heart Awake to Love and Beauty! and sometimes ’Tis well to be bereav’d of promised good, That we may lift the soul and contemplate With lively joy the joys we cannot share. My Sister and my Friends! when the last rook Beat its straight path along the dusky air Homewards, I bless’d it! deeming its black wing Cross’d like a speck the blaze of setting day While ye stood gazing; or when all was still, Flew creaking o’er your heads, and had a charm For you, my Sister and my Friends, to whom No sound is dissonant which tells of Life.

I would make a shift by some means or other to visit you, if I thought that you and Edith Southey would return with me. I think--indeed, I am almost certain--that I could get a one-horse chaise free of all expense. I have driven back Miss Wordsworth over forty miles of execrable roads, and have been always very cautious, and am now no inexpert whip. And Wordsworth, at whose house I now am for change of air, has commissioned me to offer you a suite of rooms at this place, which is called “All-foxen;” and so divine and wild is the country that I am sure it would increase your stock of images, and three weeks’ absence from Christchurch will endear it to you; and Edith Southey and Sara may not have another opportunity of seeing one another, and Wordsworth is very solicitous to know you, and Miss Wordsworth is a most exquisite young woman in her mind and heart. I pray you write me immediately, directing Stowey, near Bridgewater, as before.

God bless you and your affectionate

S. T. COLERIDGE.

LXXV. TO JOHN THELWALL.

Saturday morning [October 16], 1797.

MY DEAR THELWALL,--I have just received your letter, having been absent a day or two, and have already, before I write to you, written to Dr. Beddoes. I would to Heaven it were in my power to serve you; but alas! I have neither money or influence, and I suppose that at last I must become a Unitarian minister, as a less evil than starvation. For I get nothing by literature.... You have my wishes and, what is very liberal in me for such an atheist reprobate, my prayers. I can _at times_ feel strongly the beauties you describe, in themselves and for themselves; but more frequently _all things_ appear _little_, all the knowledge that can be acquired child’s play; the universe itself! what but an immense heap of _little_ things? I can contemplate nothing but _parts_, and parts are all _little_! My mind feels as if it ached to behold and know something _great_, something _one_ and _indivisible_. And it is only in the faith of that that rocks or waterfalls, mountains or caverns, give me the sense of sublimity or majesty! But in this faith _all things_ counterfeit infinity.

“Struck with the deepest calm of joy,”[172] I stand Silent, with swimming sense; and gazing round On the wide landscape, gaze till all doth seem Less gross than bodily, a living Thing Which acts upon the mind and with such hues As clothe th’ Almighty Spirit, where He makes Spirits perceive His presence!...

It is but seldom that I raise and spiritualize my intellect to this height; and at other times I adopt the Brahmin creed, and say, “It is better to sit than to stand, it is better to lie than to sit, it is better to sleep than to wake, but Death is the best of all!” I should much wish, like the Indian Vishnu, to float about along an infinite ocean cradled in the flower of the Lotus, and wake once in a million years for a few minutes just to know that I was going to sleep a million years more. I have put this feeling in the mouth of Alhadra, my Moorish Woman. She is going by moonlight to the house of Velez, where the band turn off to wreak their vengeance on Francesco, but

She moved steadily on, Unswerving from the path of her resolve.

A Moorish priest, who has been with her and then left her to seek the men, had just mentioned the owl, “Its note comes dreariest in the fall of the year.” This dwells on her mind, and she bursts into this soliloquy:--

The[173] hanging woods, that touch’d by autumn seem’d As they were blossoming hues of fire and gold,-- The hanging woods, most lovely, in decay, The many clouds, the sea, the rock, the sands, Lay in the silent moonshine; and the owl, (Strange! very strange!) the scritch owl only waked, Sole voice, sole eye of all that world of beauty! Why such a thing am I? Where are these men? I need the sympathy of human faces To beat away this deep contempt for all things, Which quenches my revenge. Oh! would to Alla The raven and the sea-mew were appointed To bring me food, or rather that my soul Could drink in life from universal air! It were a lot divine in some small skiff, Along some ocean’s boundless solitude, To float for ever with a careless course, And think myself the only being alive!

I do not wonder that your poem procured you kisses and hospitality. It is indeed a very sweet one, and I have not only admired your genius more, but I have loved _you_ better since I have read it. Your sonnet (as you call it, and, being a freeborn Briton, who shall prevent you from calling twenty-five blank verse lines a sonnet, if you have taken a bloody resolution so to do)--your sonnet I am much pleased with; but the epithet “downy” is probably more applicable to Susan’s upper lip than to her bosom, and a mother is so holy and divine a being that I cannot endure any _corporealizing_ epithets to be applied to her or any body of her--besides, damn epithets! The last line and a half I suppose to be miswritten. What can be the meaning of “Or scarce one leaf to cheer,” etc.? “Cornelian virtues”--pedantry! The “melancholy fiend,” villainous in itself, and inaccurate; it ought to be the “fiend that makes melancholy.” I should have written it thus (or perhaps something better), “but with matron cares _drives away heaviness_;” and in your similes, etc., etc., a little _compression_ would make it a beautiful poem. _Study compression!_

I presume you mean decorum by _Harum_ Dick. An affected fellow at Bridgwater called truces “trusses.” I told him I admired his pronunciation, for that lately they had been found “to suspend ruptures without curing them.”

There appeared in the “Courier” the day before yesterday a very sensible vindication of the conduct of the Directory. Did you see it?

Your news respecting Mrs. E. did not surprise me. I saw it even from the first week I was at Darley. As to the other event, our non-settlement at Darley, I suspect, had little or nothing to do with it--but the _cause_ of our non-settlement there might perhaps--O God! O God! I wish (but what is the use of _wishing_?)--I wish that Walter Evans may have talent enough to appreciate Mrs. Evans, but I suspect his intellect is not tall enough even to measure hers.

Hartley is well, and _will not_ walk or run, having discovered the art of crawling with wonderful ease and rapidity. Wordsworth and his sister are well. I want to see your wife. God bless her!...

Oh, my Tragedy! it is finished, transcribed, and to be sent off to-day; but I have no hope of its success, or even of its being acted.

God bless, etc.,

S. T. COLERIDGE.

MR. JOHN THELWALL, Derby.

LXXVI. TO THE SAME.

Saturday morning, Bridgwater. [Autumn, 1797.]

MY DEAR THELWALL,--Yesterday morning I miss’d the coach, and was ill and could not walk. This morning the coach was completely full, but I was not ill, and so did walk; and here I am, footsore very, and weary somewhat. With regard to the business, I mentioned it at Howell’s; but I perceive he is absolutely powerless. Chubb I would have called on, but there are the Assizes, and I find he is surrounded in his own house by a mob of visitors whom it is scarcely possible for him to leave, long enough at least for the conversation I want with him. I will write him to-morrow morning, and shall have an answer the same day, which I will transmit to you on Monday, but you _cannot_ receive it till Tuesday night. If, therefore, you leave Swansea before that time, or, in case of accident, before Wednesday night, leave directions with the postmaster to have your letter forwarded.

I go for Stowey immediately, which will make my walk forty-one miles. The Howells desire to be remembered to you kindly.

I am sad at heart about you on many accounts, but chiefly anxious for this present business. The aristocrats seem to persecute _even Wordsworth_.[174] But we will at least not yield without a struggle; and if I cannot get you near me, it shall not be for want of a trial on my part. But perhaps I am passing the worn-out spirits of a _fag_-walk for the real aspect of the business.

God love you, and believe me affectionately your friend,

S. T. COLERIDGE.

MR. THELWALL, To be left at the Post Office, Swansea, Glamorganshire.

LXXVII. TO THE SAME.

[Autumn, 1797.]

DEAR THELWALL,--This is the first hour that I could write to you anything decisive. I have received an answer from Chubb, intimating that he will undertake the office of procuring you a cottage, provided it was thought _right_ that you should settle _here_; but this (that is the whole difficulty) he left for T. Poole and me to settle, and he acquainted Poole with this determination. Consequently, the whole returns to its former situation; and the hope which I had entertained, that you could have settled without any the remotest interference of Poole, _has vanished_. To such interference on his part there are insuperable difficulties: the whole malignity of the aristocrats will converge to him as to the one point; his tranquillity will be perpetually interrupted, his business and his credit hampered and distressed by vexatious calumnies, the ties of relationship weakened, perhaps broken; and, lastly, his poor old mother made miserable--the pain of the stone aggravated by domestic calamity and quarrels betwixt her son and those neighbours with whom and herself there have been peace and love for these fifty years. Very great odium T. Poole incurred by bringing _me_ here. My peaceable manners and known attachment to Christianity had almost worn it away when Wordsworth came, and he, likewise by T. Poole’s agency, settled here. You cannot conceive the tumult, calumnies, and apparatus of threatened persecutions which this event has occasioned round about us. If _you_, too, should come, I am afraid that even riots, and dangerous riots, might be the consequence. Either of us separately would perhaps be tolerated, but _all three_ together, what can it be less than plot and damned conspiracy--a school for the propagation of Demagogy and Atheism? And it deserves examination, whether or no as moralists we should be justified in hazarding the certain evil of calling forth malignant passions for the contingent good, that might result from our living in the same neighbourhood? Add to which, that in point of the _public interest_, we must take into the balance the Stowey Benefit Club. Of the present utility of this T. Poole thinks highly; of its possible utility, very, very highly indeed; but the interests, nay, perhaps the existence of this club, is interwoven with his character as a peaceable and _undesigning_ man; certainly, any future and greater excellence which he hopes to realize in and through the society will vanish like a dream of the morning. If, therefore, you can get the land and cottage near Bath of which you spoke to me, I would advise it on many accounts; but if you still see the arguments on the other side in a stronger light than those which I have stated, come, but not yet. Come in two or three months--take lodgings at Bridgwater--familiarise the people to your name and appearance, and, when the _monstrosity_ of the thing is gone off, and the people shall have begun to consider you as a man whose mouth won’t eat them, and whose pocket is better adapted for a bundle of sonnets than the transportation or ambush place of a French army, then you may take a house; but indeed (I say it with a very sad but a very clear conviction), at _present_ I see that much evil and little good would result from your settling here.

I am unwell. This business has, indeed, preyed much on my spirits, and I have suffered for you more than I hope and trust you will suffer yourself.

God love you and yours.

S. T. COLERIDGE.

MR. THELWALL, To be left at the Post Office, Swansea, Glamorganshire.

LXXVIII. TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

Tuesday morning, January, 1798.

MY DEAR WORDSWORTH,--You know, of course, that I have accepted the magnificent liberality of Josiah and Thomas Wedgwood.[175] I accepted it on the presumption that I had talents, honesty, and propensities to perseverant effort. If I have hoped wisely concerning myself, I have acted justly. But dismissing severer thoughts, believe me, my dear fellow! that of the pleasant ideas which accompanied this unexpected event, it was not the least pleasant, nor did it pass through my mind the last in the procession, that I should at least be able to trace the spring and early summer at Alfoxden with you, and that wherever your after residence may be, it is probable that you will be within the reach of my tether, lengthened as it now is. The country round Shrewsbury is rather tame. My imagination has clothed it with all its summer attributes; but I still can see in it no possibility beyond that of _beauty_. The Society here were sufficiently eager to have me as their minister, and, I think, would have behaved kindly and respectfully, but I perceive clearly that without great courage and perseverance in the use of the monosyllabic _No!_ I should have been plunged in a very Maelstrom of visiting--whirled round, and round, and round, never changing yet always moving. Visiting with all its pomp and vanities is the mania of the place; and many of the congregation are both rich and expensive. I met a young man, a Cambridge undergraduate. Talking of plays, etc., he told me that an acquaintance of his was printing a translation of one of Kotzebue’s tragedies, entitled, “Benyowski.”[176] The name startled me, and upon examination I found that the story of my “Siberian Exiles” has been already dramatized. If Kotzebue has exhibited no greater genius in it than in his negro slaves, I shall consider this as an unlucky circumstance; but the young man speaks enthusiastically of its merits. I have just read the “Castle Spectre,” and shall bring it home with me. I will begin with its defects, in order that my “But” may have a charitable transition. 1. Language; 2. Character; 3. Passion; 4. Sentiment; 5. Conduct. (1.) Of styles, some are pleasing durably and on reflection, some only in transition, and some are not pleasing at all; and to this latter class belongs the “Castle Spectre.”[177] There are no felicities in the humorous passages; and in the serious ones it is Schiller Lewis-ized, that is, a flat, flabby, unimaginative bombast oddly sprinkled with colloquialisms. (2.) No character at all. The author in a postscript lays claim to _novelty_ in _one_ of his characters, that of Hassan. Now Hassan is a negro, who _had_ a warm and benevolent heart; but having been kidnapped from his country and barbarously used by the Christians, becomes a misanthrope. This is all!! (3.) Passion--horror! agonizing pangs of conscience! Dreams full of hell, serpents, and skeletons; starts and attempted murders, etc., but positively, not _one_ line that marks even a superficial knowledge of human feelings could I discover. (4.) Sentiments are moral and humorous. There is a book called the “Frisky Songster,” at the end of which are two chapters: the first containing _frisky_ toasts and sentiments, the second, “_Moral_ Toasts,” and from these chapters I suspect Mr. Lewis has stolen all his sentimentality, moral and humorous. A very fat friar, renowned for gluttony and lubricity, furnishes abundance of jokes (all of them abdominal _vel si quid infra_), jokes that would have stunk, had they been fresh, and alas! they have the very _sæva mephitis_ of _antiquity_ on them. _But_ (5.) the Conduct of the Piece is, I think, _good_; except that the first act is _wholly_ taken up with explanation and narration. This play proves how accurately you conjectured concerning _theatric_ merit. The merit of the “Castle Spectre” consists wholly in its _situations_. These are all borrowed and all absolutely _pantomimical_; but they are admirably managed for stage effect. There is not much bustle, but _situations_ for ever. The whole plot, machinery, and incident are borrowed. The play is a mere patchwork of plagiarisms; but they are very well worked up, and for stage effect make an excellent _whole_. There is a pretty little ballad-song introduced, and Lewis, I think has great and peculiar excellence in these compositions. The simplicity and naturalness is his own, and not imitated; for it is made to subsist in congruity with a language perfectly modern, the language of his own times, in the same way that the language of the writer of “Sir Cauline” was the language of _his_ times. This, I think, a rare merit: at least, I find, _I_ cannot attain this innocent nakedness, except by _assumption_. I resemble the Duchess of Kingston, who masqueraded in the character of “Eve before the Fall,” in flesh-coloured Silk. This play struck me with utter hopelessness. It would [be easy] to produce these situations, but not in a play so [constructed] as to admit the permanent and closest beauties of style, passion, and character. To admit pantomimic tricks, the plot itself must be pantomimic. Harlequin cannot be had unaccompanied by the Fool.

I hope to be with you by the middle of next week. I must stay over next Sunday, as Mr. Row is obliged to go to Bristol to seek a house. He and his family are honest, sensible, pleasant people. My kind love to Dorothy, and believe me, with affectionate esteem, yours sincerely,

S. T. COLERIDGE.[178]

LXXIX. TO JOSEPH COTTLE.

STOWEY, March 8, 1798.

MY DEAR COTTLE,--I have been confined to my bed for some days through a fever occasioned by the stump of a tooth.... I thank you, my dear friend, for your late kindness, and in a few weeks will either repay you in money or by verses, as you like. With regard to Lloyd’s verses, it is curious that _I_ should be applied to to be “persuaded to resign, and in hope that I might” _consent_ to _give up_ a number of poems which were published at the earnest request of the author, who assured me that the circumstance was “of no trivial import to his happiness.” Times change and people change; but let us keep our souls in quietness! I have no objection to any disposal of C. Lloyd’s poems, except that of their being republished with mine. The motto which I had prefixed, “Duplex,” etc.,[179] from Groscollius, has placed me in a ridiculous situation; but it was a foolish and presumptuous start of affectionateness, and I am not unwilling to incur punishments due to my folly. By past experiences we build up our moral being. How comes it that I have never heard from dear Mr. Estlin, my fatherly and brotherly friend? This idea haunted me through my sleepless nights, till my sides were sore in turning from one to the other, as if I were hoping to turn from the idea. The Giant Wordsworth--God love him! Even when I speak in the terms of admiration due to his intellect, I fear lest those terms should keep out of sight the amiableness of his manners.... He has written more than 1,200 lines of a blank verse, superior, I hesitate not to aver, to anything in our language which any way resembles it. Poole (whom I feel so consolidated with myself that I seem to have no occasion to speak of him out of myself) thinks of it as likely to benefit mankind much more than anything Wordsworth has yet written. With regard to my poems, I shall prefix the “Maid of Orleans,” 1,000 lines, and three blank verse poems, making all three about 200, and I shall utterly leave out perhaps a larger quantity of lines; and I should think it would answer to you in a pecuniary way to print the third edition humbly and cheaply. My alterations in the “Religious Musings” will be considerable, and will lengthen the poem. Oh, Poole desires you _not_ to mention his house to any one unless you hear from him again, as since I have been writing a thought has struck us of letting it to an inhabitant of the village, which we should prefer, as we should be certain that his manners would be severe, inasmuch as he would be a Stow-ic.

God bless you and

S. T. C.

LXXX. TO THE REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE.

April, 1798.

MY DEAR BROTHER,--An illness, which confined me to my bed, prevented me from returning an immediate answer to your kind and interesting letter. My indisposition originated in the stump of a tooth over which some matter had formed; this affected my eye, my eye my stomach, my stomach my head, and the consequence was a general fever, and the sum of pain was considerably increased by the vain attempts of our surgeon to extract the offending member. Laudanum gave me repose, not sleep; but you, I believe, know how divine that repose is, what a spot of enchantment, a green spot of fountain and flowers and trees in the very heart of a waste of sands! God be praised, the matter has been absorbed; and I am now recovering apace, and enjoy that newness of sensation from the fields, the air, and the sun which makes convalescence almost repay one for disease. I collect from your letter that our opinions and feelings on political subjects are more nearly alike than you imagine them to be. Equally with you (and perhaps with a deeper conviction, for my belief is founded on actual experience), equally with you I deprecate the moral and intellectual habits of those men, both in England and France, who have modestly assumed to themselves the exclusive title of Philosophers and Friends of Freedom. I think them at least _as_ distant from greatness as from goodness. If I know my own opinions, they are utterly untainted with French metaphysics, French politics, French ethics, and French theology. As to _the Rulers_ of France, I see in their views, speeches, and actions nothing that distinguishes them to their advantage from other animals of the same species. History has taught me that rulers are much the same in all ages, and under all forms of government; they are as bad as they dare to be. The vanity of ruin and the curse of blindness have clung to them like an hereditary leprosy. Of the French Revolution I can give my thoughts most adequately in the words of Scripture: “A great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire; and the Lord was not in the fire;” and now (believing that no calamities are permitted but as the means of good) I wrap my face in my mantle and wait, with a subdued and patient thought, expecting to hear “the still small voice” which is of God. In America (I have received my information from unquestionable authority) the morals and domestic habits of the people are daily deteriorating; and one good consequence which I expect from revolution is that individuals will see the necessity of individual effort; that they will act as good Christians, rather than as citizens and electors; and so by degrees will purge off that error, which to me appears as wild and more pernicious than the πάγχρυσον and panacea of the alchemists, the error of attributing to governments a talismanic influence over our virtues and our happiness, as if governments were not rather effects than causes. It is true that all effects react and become causes, and so it must be in some degree with governments; but there are other agents which act more powerfully because by a nigher and more continuous agency, and it remains true that governments are more the _effect_ than the cause of that which we are. Do not therefore, my brother, consider me as an enemy to government and its rulers, or as one who says they are evil. I do not say so. In my opinion it were a species of blasphemy! Shall a nation of drunkards presume to babble against sickness and the headache? I regard governments as I regard the abscesses produced by certain fevers--they are necessary consequences of the disease, and by their pain they increase the disease; but yet they are in the wisdom and goodness of Nature, and not only are they physically necessary as effects, but also as causes they are morally necessary in order to prevent the utter dissolution of the patient. But what should we think of a man who expected an absolute cure from an ulcer that only prevented his dying. Of guilt I say nothing, but I believe most steadfastly in original sin; that from our mothers’ wombs our understandings are darkened; and even where our understandings are in the light, that our organization is depraved and our volitions imperfect; and we sometimes see the good without wishing to attain it, and oftener _wish_ it without the energy that wills and performs. And for this inherent depravity I believe that the _spirit_ of the Gospel is the sole cure; but permit me to add, that I look for the spirit of the Gospel “neither in the mountain, nor at Jerusalem.”

You think, my brother, that there can be but two _parties_ at present, for the Government and against the Government. It may be so. I am of no party. It is true I think the present Ministry weak and unprincipled men; but I would not with a safe conscience vote for their removal; I could point out no substitutes. I think very seldom on the subject; but as far as I have thought, I am inclined to consider the aristocrats as the most respectable of our three factions, because they are more decorous. The Opposition and the Democrats are not only vicious, they wear the _filthy garments_ of vice.

He that takes Deep in his soft credulity the stamp Design’d by loud declaimers on the part Of liberty, themselves the slaves of lust, Incurs derision for his easy faith And lack of knowledge, and with cause enough: For when was public virtue to be found Where private was not? Can he love the whole Who loves no part? He be a _nation’s_ friend, Who is, in truth, the friend of _no_ man there? Can he be strenuous in his country’s cause Who slights the charities, for whose dear sake That country, if at all, must be belov’d? COWPER.[180]

I am prepared to suffer without discontent the consequences of my follies and mistakes; and unable to conceive how that which I am of Good could have been without that which I have been of evil, it is withheld from me to regret anything. I therefore consent to be deemed a Democrat and a Seditionist. A man’s character follows him long after he has ceased to deserve it; but I have snapped my squeaking baby-trumpet of sedition, and the fragments lie scattered in the lumber-room of penitence. I wish to be a good man and a Christian, but I am no Whig, no Reformist, no Republican, and because of the multitude of fiery and undisciplined spirits that lie in wait against the public quiet under these titles, because of them I chiefly accuse the present ministers, to whose folly I attribute, in a great measure, their increased and increasing numbers. You think differently, and if I were called upon by you to prove my assertions, although I imagine I could make them appear plausible, yet I should feel the insufficiency of my data. The Ministers may have had in their possession facts which alter the whole state of the argument, and make my syllogisms fall as flat as a baby’s card-house. And feeling this, my brother! I have for some time past withdrawn myself totally from the consideration of _immediate causes_, which are infinitely complex and uncertain, to muse on fundamental and general causes the “causæ causarum.” I devote myself to such works as encroach not on the anti-social passions--in poetry, to elevate the imagination and set the affections in right tune by the beauty of the inanimate impregnated as with a living soul by the presence of life--in prose to the seeking with patience and a slow, very slow mind, “Quid sumus, et quidnam victuri gignimus,”--what our faculties are and what they are capable of becoming. I love fields and woods and mountains with almost a visionary fondness. And because I have found benevolence and quietness growing within me as that fondness has increased, therefore I should wish to be the means of implanting it in others, and to destroy the bad passions not by combating them but by keeping them in inaction.

Not useless do I deem These shadowy sympathies with things that hold An inarticulate Language; for the Man-- Once taught to love such objects as excite No morbid passions, no disquietude, No vengeance, and no hatred--needs must feel The joy of that pure principle of love So deeply, that, unsatisfied with aught Less pure and exquisite, he cannot choose But seek for objects of a kindred love In fellow-nature and a kindred joy. Accordingly he by degrees perceives His feelings of aversion softened down; A holy tenderness pervade his frame! His sanity of reason not impair’d, Say, rather, that his thoughts now flowing clear From a clear fountain flowing, he looks round, He seeks for good; and finds the good he seeks. WORDSWORTH.[181]

I have laid down for myself two maxims, and, what is more I am in the habit of regulating myself by them. With regard to others, I never controvert opinions except after some intimacy, and when alone with the person, and at the happy time when we both seem awake to our own fallibility, and then I rather state my reasons than argue against his. In general conversation to find out the opinions common to us, or at least the subjects on which difference of opinion creates no uneasiness, such as novels, poetry, natural scenery, local anecdotes, and (in a serious mood and with serious men) the general evidences of our religion. With regard to myself, it is my habit, on whatever subject I think, to endeavour to discover all the good that has resulted from it, that does result, or that can result. To this I bind down my mind, and after long meditation in this tract slowly and gradually make up my opinions on the quantity and nature of the evil. I consider this as the most important rule for the regulation of the intellect and the affections, as the only means of preventing the passions from turning reason into a hired advocate. I thank you for your kindness, and propose in a short time to walk down to you: but my wife must forego the thought, as she is within five or six weeks of lying-in. She and my child, whose name is David Hartley, are remarkably well. You will give my duty to my mother, and love to my brothers, to Mrs. S. and G. Coleridge.

Excuse my desultory style and illegible scrawl, for I have written you a long letter, you see, and am in truth too weary to write a fair copy of it, or rearrange my ideas, and I am anxious you should know me as I am.

God bless you, from your affectionate brother,

S. T. COLERIDGE.

LXXXI. TO REV. J. P. ESTLIN.[182]

May [? 1798].

MY DEAR FRIEND,--I write from Cross, to which place I accompanied Mr. Wordsworth, who will give you this letter. We visited Cheddar, but his main business was to bring back poor Lloyd, whose infirmities have been made the instruments of another man’s darker passions. But Lloyd (as we found by a letter that met us in the road) is off for Birmingham. Wordsworth proceeds, lest possibly Lloyd may not be gone, and likewise to see his own Bristol friends, as he is so near them. I have now known him a year and some months, and my admiration, I might say my awe, of his intellectual powers has increased even to this hour, and (what is of more importance) he is a tried good man. On one subject we are habitually silent; we found our data dissimilar, and never renewed the subject. It is his practice and almost his nature to convey all the truth he knows without any attack on what he supposes falsehood, if that falsehood be interwoven with virtues or happiness. He loves and venerates Christ and Christianity. I wish he did more, but it were wrong indeed if an incoincidence with one of our wishes altered our respect and affection to a man of whom we are, as it were, instructed by one great Master to say that not being against us he is for us. His genius is most _apparent_ in poetry, and rarely, except to me in _tête-à-tête_, breaks forth in conversational eloquence. My best and most affectionate wishes attend Mrs. Estlin and your little ones, and believe me, with filial and fraternal friendship, your grateful

S. T. COLERIDGE.

REV. J. P. ESTLIN, St. Michael’s Hill, Bristol.

LXXXII. TO THE SAME.

Monday, May 14, 1798.

MY DEAR FRIEND,--I ought to have written to you before; and have done very wrong in not writing. But I have had many sorrows and some that bite deep; calumny and ingratitude from men who have been fostered in the bosom of my confidence! I pray God that I may sanctify these events by forgiveness and a peaceful spirit full of love. This morning, half-past one, my wife was safely delivered of a fine boy;[183] she had a remarkably good time, better if possible than her last, and both she and the child are as well as can be. By the by, it is only three in the morning now. I walked in to Taunton and back again, and performed the divine services for Dr. Toulmin. I suppose you must have heard that his daughter, in a melancholy derangement, suffered herself to be swallowed up by the tide on the sea-coast between Sidmouth and Bere. These events cut cruelly into the hearts of old men; but the good Dr. Toulmin bears it like the true practical Christian,--there is indeed a tear in his eye, but _that_ eye is lifted up to the Heavenly Father. I have been too neglectful of practical religion--I mean, actual and stated prayer, and a regular perusal of scripture as a morning and evening duty. May God grant me grace to amend this error, for it is a grievous one! Conscious of frailty I almost wish (I say it confidentially to you) that I had become a stated minister, for indeed I find true joy after a sincere prayer; but for want of habit my mind wanders, and I cannot _pray_ as often as I ought. Thanksgiving is pleasant in the performance; but prayer and distinct confession I find most serviceable to my spiritual health when I can do it. But though all my doubts are done away, though Christianity is my _passion_, it is too much my _intellectual_ passion, and therefore will do me but little good in the hour of temptation and calamity.

My love to Mrs. E. and the dear little ones, and ever, O ever, believe me, with true affection and gratitude,

Your filial friend, S. T. COLERIDGE.

LXXXIII. TO THOMAS POOLE.

Monday, May 14, 1798. Morning, 10 o’clock.

MY DEAREST FRIEND,--I have been sitting many minutes with my pen in my hand, full of prayers and wishes for you, and the house of affliction in which you have so trying a part to sustain--but I know not what to _write_. May God support you! May he restore your brother--but above all, I pray that he will make us able to cry out with a fervent sincerity: Thy will be done! I have had lately some sorrows that have cut more deeply into my heart than they ought to have done, and I have found religion, and _commonplace religion_ too, my restorer and my comfort, giving me gentleness and calmness and dignity! Again and again, may God be with you, my best, dear friend! and believe me, my Poole! dearer, to my understanding and affections unitedly, than all else in the world!

It is almost painful and a thing of fear to tell you that I have another boy; it will bring upon your mind the too affecting circumstance of poor Mrs. Richard Poole! The prayers which I have offered for her have been a relief to my own mind; I would that they could have been a consolation to her. Scripture seems to teach us that our fervent prayers are not without efficacy, even for others; and though my reason is perplexed, yet my internal feelings impel me to a humble faith, that it is possible and consistent with the divine attributes.

Poor Dr. Toulmin! he bears his calamity like one in whom a faith through Jesus is the _Habit_ of the whole man, of his affections still more than of his convictions. The loss of a dear child in so frightful a way cuts cruelly with an old man, but though there is a tear and an anguish in his eye, that eye is raised to heaven.

Sara was safely delivered at half past one this morning--the boy is already almost as large as Hartley. She had an astonishingly good time, better if possible than her last; and excepting her weakness, is as well as ever. The child is strong and shapely, and has the paternal beauty in his upper lip. God be praised for all things.

Your affectionate and entire friend, S. T. COLERIDGE.

LXXXIV. TO THE SAME.

Sunday evening [May 20, 1798].

MY DEAREST POOLE,--I was all day yesterday in a distressing perplexity whether or no it would be wise or consolatory for me to call at your house, or whether I should write to your mother, as a Christian friend, or whether it would not be better to wait for the exhaustion of that grief which must have its way.

So many unpleasant and shocking circumstances have happened to me in my immediate knowledge within the last fortnight, that I am in a nervous state, and the most trifling thing makes me weep. Poor Richard! May Providence heal the wounds which it hath seen good to inflict!

Do you wish me to see you to-day? Shall I call on you? Shall I stay with you? or had I better leave you uninterrupted? In all your sorrows as in your joys, I am, indeed, my dearest Poole, a true and faithful sharer!

May God bless and comfort you all!

S. T. COLERIDGE.

LXXXV. TO CHARLES LAMB.[184]

[Spring of 1798.]

DEAR LAMB,--Lloyd has informed me through Miss Wordsworth that you intend no longer to correspond with me. This has given me little pain; not that I do not love and esteem you, but on the contrary because I am confident that your intentions are pure. You are performing what you deem a duty, and humanly speaking have that merit which can be derived from the performance of a painful duty. Painful, for you would not without struggles abandon me in behalf of a man[185] who, wholly ignorant of all but your name, became attached to you in consequence of my attachment, caught _his_ from _my_ enthusiasm, and learned to love you at my fireside, when often while I have been sitting and talking of your sorrows and afflictions I have stopped my conversations and lifted up wet eyes and prayed for you. No! I am confident that although you do not think as a wise man, you feel as a good man.

From you I have received little pain, because for you I suffer little alarm. I cannot say this for your friend; it appears to me evident that his feelings are vitiated, and that his ideas are in their combination merely the creatures of those feelings. I have received letters from him, and the best and kindest wish which, as a Christian, I can offer in return is that he may feel remorse.

Some brief resentments rose in my mind, but they did not remain there; for I began to think almost immediately, and my resentments vanished. There has resulted only a sort of fantastic scepticism concerning my own consciousness of my own rectitude. As dreams have impressed on him the sense of reality, my sense of reality may be but a dream. From his letters it is plain that he has mistaken the heat and bustle and swell of self-justification for the approbation of his conscience. I am certain that _this_ is not the case with me, but the human heart is so wily and inventive that possibly it may be cheating me, who am an older warrior, with some newer stratagem. When I wrote to you that my Sonnet to Simplicity[186] was not composed with reference to Southey, you answered me (I believe these were the words): “It was a lie too gross for the grossest ignorance to believe;” and I was not angry with you, because the assertion which the grossest ignorance would believe a lie the Omniscient knew to be truth. This, however, makes me cautious not too hastily to affirm the falsehood of an assertion of Lloyd’s that in Edmund Oliver’s[187] love-fit, leaving college, and going into the army he had no sort of allusion to or recollection of my love-fit, leaving college, and going into the army, and that he never thought of my person in the description of Oliver’s person in the first letter of the second volume. This cannot appear stranger to me than my assertion did to you, and therefore I will suspend my absolute faith.

I wrote to you not that I wish to hear from you, but that I wish you to write to Lloyd and press upon him the propriety, nay the necessity, of his giving me a meeting either _tête-à-tête_ or in the presence of all whose esteem I value. This I owe to my own character; I owe it to him if by any means he may even yet be extricated. He assigned as reasons for his rupture my vices; and he is either right or wrong. If right, it is fit that others should know it and follow his example; if wrong, he has acted very wrong. At present, I may expect everything from his heated mind rather than continence of language, and his assertions will be the more readily believed on account of his former enthusiastic attachment, though with wise men this would cast a hue of suspicion over the whole affair; but the number of wise men in the kingdom would not puzzle a savage’s arithmetic--you may tell them in every [community] on your fingers. I have been unfortunate in my connections. Both you and Lloyd became acquainted with me when your minds were far from being in a composed or natural state, and you clothed my image with a suit of notions and feelings which could belong to nothing human. You are restored to comparative saneness, and are merely wondering what is become of the Coleridge with whom you were so passionately in love; _Charles Lloyd’s_ mind has only changed his disease, and he is now arraying his ci-devant Angel in a flaming San Benito--the whole ground of the garment a dark brimstone and plenty of little devils flourished out in black. Oh, me! Lamb, “even in laughter the heart is sad!” My kindness, my affectionateness, he deems wheedling; but, if after reading all my letters to yourself and to him, you can suppose him wise in his treatment and correct in his accusations of me, you think worse of human nature than poor human nature, bad as it is, deserves to be thought of.

God bless you and S. T. COLERIDGE.

## CHAPTER IV A VISIT TO GERMANY

1798-1799

##