Chapter XXVI: Part II: , 405 n.; (3)

[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 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_, chapter ii.; _Letters of Charles Lamb_, Macmillan, 1888, i. 6.

[116] On the side of the road, opposite to Poole’s house in Castle Street, Nether Stowey, is a straight gutter through which a stream passes. See _Thomas Poole and his Friends_, i. 147.

[117] _The Peripatetic, or Sketches of the Heart, of Nature, and of Society_, a miscellany of prose and verse issued by John Thelwall, in 1793.

[118] January 10, 1795. See _Poetical Works_, p. 41, and Editor’s Note, p. 575. Margarot, a West Indian, was one of those tried and transported with Gerrald.

[119] See _Poetical Works_, p. 66.

[120] Early in the autumn of 1796, a proposal had been made to Coleridge that he should start a day school in Derby. Poole dissuaded him from accepting this offer, or rather, perhaps, Coleridge succeeded in procuring Poole’s disapproval of a plan which he himself dreaded and disliked.

[121] Thomas Ward, at first the articled clerk, and afterwards partner in business and in good works, of Thomas Poole. He it was who transcribed in “Poole’s Copying Book” Coleridge’s letters from Germany, and much of his correspondence besides. See _Thomas Poole and his Friends_, i. 159, 160, 304, 305, etc.

[122] This letter, first printed in Gillman’s _Life_, pp. 338-340, and since reprinted in the notes to Canon Ainger’s edition of _Lamb’s Letters_ (i. 314, 315), was written in response to a request of Charles Lamb in his letter of September 27, 1796, announcing the “terrible calamities” which had befallen his family. “Write me,” said Lamb, “as religious a letter as possible.” In his next letter, October 3, he says, “Your letter is an inestimable treasure.” But a few weeks later, October 24, he takes exception to the sentence, “You are a temporary sharer in human miseries that you may be an eternal partaker of the Divine nature.” Lamb thought that the expression savoured too much of theological subtlety, and outstepped the modesty of weak and suffering humanity. Coleridge’s “religious letter” came from his heart, but he was a born preacher, and naturally clothes his thoughts in rhetorical language. I have seen a note written by him within a few hours of his death, when he could scarcely direct his pen. It breathes the tenderest loving-kindness, but the expressions are elaborate and formal. It was only in poetry that he attained to simplicity.

[123] Coleridge must have resorted occasionally to opiates long before this. In an unpublished letter to his brother George, dated November 21, 1791, he says, “Opium never used to have any disagreeable effects on me.” Most likely it was given to him at Christ’s Hospital, when he was suffering from rheumatic fever. In the sonnet on “Pain,” which belongs to the summer of 1790, he speaks of “frequent pangs,” of “seas of pain,” and in the natural course of things opiates would have been prescribed by the doctors. Testimony of this nature appears at first sight to be inconsistent with statements made by Coleridge in later life to the effect that he began to take opium in the second year of his residence at Keswick, in consequence of rheumatic pains brought on by the damp climate. It was, however, the first commencement of the secret and habitual resort to narcotics which weighed on memory and conscience, and there is abundant evidence that it was not till the late spring of 1801 that he could be said to be under the dominion of opium. To these earlier indulgences in the “accursed drug,” which probably left no “disagreeable effects,” and of which, it is to be remarked, he speaks openly, he seems to have attached but little significance.

Since the above note was written, Mr. W. Aldis Wright has printed in the _Academy_, February 24, 1894, an extract from an unpublished letter from Coleridge to the Rev. Mr. Edwards of Birmingham, recently found in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge. It is dated Bristol, “12 March, 1795” (read “1796”), and runs as follows:--

“Since I last wrote you, I have been tottering on the verge of madness--my mind overbalanced on the _e contra_ side of happiness--the blunders of my associate [in the editing of the _Watchman_, G. Burnett], etc., etc., abroad, and, at home, Mrs. Coleridge dangerously ill.... Such has been my situation for the last fortnight--I have been obliged to take laudanum almost every night.”

[124] The news of the evacuation of Corsica by the British troops, which took place on October 21, 1796, must have reached Coleridge a few days before the date of this letter. Corsica was ceded to the British, June 18, 1794. A declaration of war on the part of Spain (August 19, 1796) and a threatened invasion of Ireland compelled the home government to withdraw their troops from Corsica. In a footnote to chapter xxv. of his _Life of Napoleon Bonaparte_, Sir Walter Scott quotes from Napoleon’s memoirs compiled at St. Helena the “odd observation” that “the crown of Corsica must, on the temporary annexation of the island to Great Britain, have been surprised at finding itself appertaining to the successor of Fingal.” Sir Walter’s patriotism constrained him to add the following comment: “Not more, we should think, than the diadem of France and the iron crown of Lombardy marvelled at meeting on the brow of a Corsican soldier of fortune.”

In the _Biographia Literaria_, 1847, ii. 380, the word is misprinted Corrica, but there is no doubt as to the reading of the MS. letter, or to the allusion to contemporary history.

[125] It was to this lady that the lines “On the Christening of a Friend’s Child” were addressed. _Poetical Works_, p. 83.

[126] See Letter LXVIII., p. 206, note.

[127] The preface to the quarto edition of Southey’s _Joan of Arc_ is dated Bristol, November, 1795, but the volume did not appear till the following spring. Coleridge’s contribution to Book II. was omitted from the second (1797) and subsequent editions. It was afterwards republished, with additions, in _Sibylline Leaves_ (1817) as “The Destiny of Nations.”

[128] The lines “On a late Connubial Rupture” were printed in the _Monthly Magazine_ for September, 1796. The well-known poem beginning “Low was our pretty Cot” appeared in the following number. It was headed, “Reflections on entering into active Life. A Poem which affects not to be Poetry.”

[129] Compare the following lines from an early transcript of “Happiness” now in my possession:--

“Ah! doubly blest if Love supply
Lustre to the now heavy eye,
And with unwonted spirit grace
That fat vacuity of face.”

The transcriber adds in a footnote, “The author was at this time, at seventeen, remarkable for a plump face.”

The “Reminiscences of an Octogenarian” (The Rev. Leapidge Smith), contributed to the _Leisure Hour_, convey a different impression: “In person he was a tall, dark, handsome young man, with long, black, flowing hair; eyes not merely dark, but black, and keenly penetrating; a fine forehead, a deep-toned, harmonious voice; a manner never to be forgotten, full of life, vivacity, and kindness; dignified in person and, added to all these, exhibiting the elements of his future greatness.”--_Leisure Hour_, 1870, p. 651.

[130] _Origine de tous les Cultes, ou Religion universelle._

[131] Thelwall executed his commission. The Iamblichus and the Julian were afterwards presented by Coleridge to his son Derwent. They are still in the possession of the family.

[132] The three letters to Poole, dated December 11, 12, and 13, relative to Coleridge’s residence at Stowey, were published for the first time in _Thomas Poole and his Friends_. The long letter of expostulation, dated December 13, which is in fact a continuation of that dated December 12, is endorsed by Poole: “An angry letter, but the breach was soon healed.” Either on Coleridge’s account or his own it was among the few papers retained by Poole when, to quote Mrs. Sandford, “in 1836 he placed the greater number of the letters which he had received from S. T. Coleridge at the disposal of his literary executors for biographical purposes.” _Thomas Poole and his Friends_, i. 182-193. Mrs. Sandford has kindly permitted me to reprint it _in extenso_.

[133] “Sonnet composed on a journey homeward, the author having received intelligence of the birth of a son. September 20, 1796.”

The opening lines, as quoted in the letter, differ from those published in 1797, and again from a copy of the same sonnet sent in a letter to Poole, dated November 1, 1796. See _Poetical Works_, p. 66, and Editor’s Note, p. 582.

[134] Coleridge’s _Poetical Works_, p. 66.

[135] Compare Lamb’s letter to Coleridge, December 5, 1796. “I am glad you love Cowper. I could forgive a man for not enjoying Milton, but I would not call that man my friend who should be offended with the ‘divine chit-chat of Cowper.’” Compare, too, letter of December 10, 1796, in which the origin of the phrase is attributed to Coleridge. _Letters of Charles Lamb_, i. 52, 54. See, too, Canon Ainger’s note, i. 316.

[136] “Southey misrepresented me. My maxim was and is that the name of God should not be introduced into _Love Sonnets_.” MS. Note by John Thelwall.

[137] Revelation x. 1-6. Some words and sentences of the original are omitted, either for the sake of brevity, or to heighten the dramatic effect.

[138] Hebrews xii. 18, 19, 22, 23.

[139] “In reading over this after an interval of twenty-three years I was wondering what I could have said that looked like contempt of age. May not slobberers have referred not to age but to the drivelling of decayed intellect, which is surely an ill guide in matters of understanding and consequently of faith?” MS. Note by John Thelwall, 1819.

[140] Patience--permit me as a definition of the word to quote one sentence from my first Address, p. 20. “Accustomed to regard all the affairs of man as a process, they never hurry and they never pause.” In his not possessing _this_ virtue, all the horrible excesses of Robespierre did, I believe, originate.--MS. note to text of letter by S. T. Coleridge.

[141] Godliness--the belief, the habitual and efficient belief, that we are always in the presence of our universal Parent. I will translate literally a passage [the passage is from Voss’s _Luise_. I am enabled by the courtesy of Dr. Garnett, of the British Museum, to give an exact reference: _Luise, ein ländliches Gedicht in drei Idyllen_, von Johann Heinrich Voss, Königsberg, MDCCXCV. Erste Idylle, pp. 41-45, lines 303-339.--E. H. C.] from a German hexameter poem. It is the speech of a country clergyman on the birthday of his daughter. The _latter part_ fully expresses the spirit of godliness, and its connection with brotherly-kindness. (Pardon the harshness of the language, for it is translated _totidem verbis_.)

“Yes! my beloved daughter, I am cheerful, cheerful as the birds singing in the wood here, or the squirrel that hops among the airy branches around its young in their nest. To-day it is eighteen years since God gave me my beloved, now my only child, so intelligent, so pious, and so dutiful. How the time flies away! Eighteen years to come--how far the space extends itself before us! and how does it vanish when we look back upon it! It was but yesterday, it seems to me, that as I was plucking flowers here, and offering praise, on a sudden the joyful message came, ‘A daughter is born to us.’ Much since that time has the Almighty imparted to us of good and evil. But the evil itself was good; for his loving-kindness is infinite. Do you recollect [to his wife] as it once had rained after a long drought, and I (Louisa in my arms) was walking with thee in the freshness of the garden, how the child snatched at the rainbow, and kissed me, and said: ‘Papa! there it rains flowers from heaven! Does the blessed God strew these that we children may gather them up?’ ‘Yes!’ I answered, ‘full-blowing and heavenly blessings does the Father strew who stretched out the bow of his favour; flowers and fruits that we may gather them with thankfulness and joy. _Whenever I think of that great Father then my heart lifts itself up and swells with active impulse towards all his children, our brothers who inhabit the earth around us; differing indeed from one another in powers and understanding, yet all dear children of the same parent, nourished by the same Spirit of animation, and ere long to fall asleep, and again to wake in the common morning of the Resurrection; all who have loved their fellow-creatures, all shall rejoice with Peter, and Moses, and Confucius, and Homer, and Zoroaster, with Socrates who died for truth, and also with the noble Mendelssohn who teaches that the divine one was never crucified._’”

Mendelssohn is a German Jew by parentage, and _deist_ by election. He has written some of the most acute books possible in favour of natural immortality, and Germany deems him her profoundest metaphysician, with the exception of the most unintelligible Immanuel Kant.--MS. note to text of letter by S. T. Coleridge.

[142] 2 Peter i. 5-7.

[143] They were criticised by Lamb in his letter to Coleridge Dec. 10, 1796 (xxxi. of Canon Ainger’s edition), but in a passage first printed in the _Atlantic Monthly_ for February, 1891. The explanatory notes there printed were founded on a misconception, but the matter is cleared up in the _Athenæum_ for June 13, 1891, in the article, “A Letter of Charles Lamb.”

[144] The reference is to a pamphlet of sixteen pages containing twenty-eight sonnets by Coleridge, Southey, Lloyd, Lamb, and others, which was printed for private circulation towards the close of 1796, and distributed among a few friends. Of this selection of sonnets, which was made “for the purpose of binding them up with the sonnets of the Rev. W. L. Bowles,” the sole surviving copy is now in the Dyce Collection of the South Kensington Museum. On the fly-leaf, in Coleridge’s handwriting, is a “presentation note” to Mrs. Thelwall. For a full account of this curious and interesting volume, see Coleridge’s _Poetical and Dramatic Works_, 4 vols., 1877-1880, ii. 377-379; also, _Poetical Works_ (1893), 542-544.

[145] A folio edition of “_Poems on the Death of Priscilla Farmer_, by her grandson Charles Lloyd,” was printed at Bristol in 1796. The volume was prefaced by Coleridge’s sonnet, “The piteous sobs which choke the virgin’s breast,” and contained Lamb’s “Grandame.” As Mr. Dykes Campbell has pointed out, it is to this “magnificent folio” that Charles Lamb alludes in his letter of December 10, 1796 (incorrectly dated 1797), when he speaks of “my granny so gaily decked,” and records “the odd coincidence of two young men in one age carolling their grandmothers.” _Poetical Works_, note 99, p. 583.

[146] “To a friend (C. Lamb) who had declared his intention of writing no more poetry.” _Poetical Works_, p. 69. See, too, Editor’s Note, p. 583.

[147] Printed in the _Annual Anthology_ for 1799.

[148] These lines, which were published with the enlarged title “To a Young Man of Fortune who had abandoned himself to an indolent and causeless melancholy,” may have been addressed to Charles Lloyd.

The last line, “A prey to the throned murderess of mankind,” was afterwards changed to “A prey to tyrants, murderers of mankind.” The reference is, doubtless, to Catherine of Russia. Her death had taken place a month before the date of this letter, but possibly when Coleridge wrote the lines the news had not reached England. It is not a little strange that Coleridge should write and print so stern and uncompromising a rebuke to his intimate and disciple before there had been time for coolness and alienation on either side. Very possibly the reproof was aimed in the first instance against himself, and afterwards he permitted it to apply to Lloyd.

[149] Compare the line, “From precipices of distressful sleep,” which occurs in the sonnet, “No more my visionary soul shall dwell,” which is attributed to Favell in a letter of Southey’s to his brother Thomas, dated October 24, 1795. Southey’s _Life and Correspondence_, i. 224. See, also, Editor’s Note to “Monody on the Death of Chatterton,” _Poetical Works_, p. 563.

[150] The _Ode on the Departing Year_.

[151] Œdipus.

[152] _Poetical Works_, p. 459.