Chapter III (3)

"I wrote a few stanzas [21] three and twenty years ago, soon after my
eyes had been opened to the true nature of the habit into which I had
been ignorantly deluded by the seeming magic effects of opium, in the
sudden removal of a supposed rheumatic affection, attended with
swellings in my knees, and palpitations of the heart, and pains all
over me, by which I had been bed-ridden for nearly six months.
Unhappily, among my neighbour's and landlord's books were a large
parcel of medical reviews and magazines. I had always a fondness (a
common case, but most mischievous turn with reading men who are at all
dyspeptic) for dabbling in medical writings; and in one of these
reviews I met a case, which I fancied very like my own, in which a
cure had been effected by the Kendal Black Drop. In an evil hour I
procured it:--it worked miracles--the swellings disappeared, the pains
vanished; I was all alive, and all around me being as ignorant as
myself, nothing could exceed my triumph. I talked of nothing else,
prescribed the newly-discovered panacea for all complaints, and
carried a bottle about with me, not to lose any opportunity of
administering 'instant relief and speedy cure' to all complainers,
stranger or friend, gentle or simple. Need I say that my own apparent
convalescence was of no long continuance; but what then?--the remedy
was at hand and infallible. Alas! it is with a bitter smile, a laugh
of gall and bitterness, that I recall this period of unsuspecting
delusion, and how I first became aware of the Maelstrom, the fatal
whirlpool, to which I was drawing just when the current was already
beyond my strength to stem. The state of my mind is truly portrayed in
the following effusion, for God knows! that from that moment I was the
victim of pain and terror, nor had I at any time taken the flattering
poison as a stimulus, or for any craving after pleasurable sensations.
I needed none; and oh! with what unutterable sorrow did I read the
'Confessions of an Opium-eater,' in which the writer with morbid
vanity, makes a boast of what was my misfortune, for he had been
faithfully and with an agony of zeal warned of the gulf, and yet
wilfully struck into the current!--Heaven be merciful to him!"

'April, 1826'.

"Oh! (will a vain imagination whisper) that in the outset of life I
could have 'felt' as well as known the consequences of sin and error
before their tyranny had commenced! Though, compared with the average
of my fellow men, not a sinful man, yet I feel enough to be assured
that few indeed are there who might not from their sins or sinful
infirmities gain a tongue of flame, wherewith to warn men of the
deadly poison of all, even the least offence. Of all divines, Luther
felt most deeply the terrors of the LAW; and for that reason, the
unutterable goodness and love of the dispensation of grace!--To be one
with God the Father--an awful thought beyond all utterance of the awe
which it inspires, but by no means wild or mystical. On the contrary,
all our experience moves in this direction. In reason, in science, who
shall set bounds to the possible progress of man, as long as he is no
longer in himself, but in the truth and power of truth. The moment
that disease reduces himself to himself, the sage who was able to
weigh the planets, and foresee their movements centuries and
millenniums to come, trembles in his ignorance of the next five
minutes, whether it shall be pain and terror, or relief and respite,
and in spirit falls on his knees and prays. Prayer is the mediation,
or rather the effort to connect the misery of self with the
blessedness of God; and its voice is--Mercy! mercy! for Christ's sake,
in whom thou hast opened out the fountain of mercy to sinful man. It
is a sore evil to be, and not in God; but it is a still more dreadful
evil and misery to will to be other than in God; and yet in every act,
in which the gratification of the sensual life is the 'ultimate end',
is the manifestation of such a will. Imagine a----, first in his
noblest hours, in the laboratory or the observatory--an unfolder and
discoverer--and then on a sick bed, from the consequences of his own
indiscretions. Place both states of the same man, that of the spirit
and that of the self-seeking self, clearly and in detail before your
mind:--if you can do this, you need no more."

'January 7, 1830'.

"There is a passage in the Samson Agonistes, in which Milton is
supposed on sufficient grounds to have referred to himself, that in
which the chorus speaks of strictly temperate man 'causelessly
suffering' the pains and penances of inordinate days. O! what would I
not give to be able to utter with truth this complaint! O! if he had
or rather if he 'could' have presented to himself truly and vividly
the aggravation of those pains, which the conscience of their having
originated in errors and weaknesses of his own. I do not say that he
would not have complained of his sufferings, for who can be in those
most trying sufferances of miserable sensations and not complain of
them, but his groans for the pain would have been blended with
thanksgivings to the sanctifying Spirit. Even under the direful yoke
of the necessity of daily poisoning by narcotics it is somewhat less
horrible, through the knowledge that it was not from any craving for
pleasurable animal excitement, but from pain, delusion, error, of the
worst ignorance, medical sciolism, and when (alas! too late the plea
of error was removed from my eyes,) from terror and utter perplexity
and infirmity;--sinful infirmity, indeed, but yet not a wilful
sinfulness that I brought my neck under it. Oh, may the God to whom I
look for mercy through Christ, show mercy on the author of the
'Confessions of an Opium Eater,' if, as I have too strong reason to
believe, his book has been the occasion of seducing others into this
withering vice through wantonness. From this aggravation I have, I
humbly trust, been free, as far as acts of my free will and intention
are concerned; even to the author of that work I pleaded with flowing
tears, and with an agony of forewarning. He utterly denied it, but I
fear that I had even then to 'deter' perhaps not to forewarn. My own
contrasted feelings soon after I saw the Maelstrom to which the
current was absorbing me, are written in one of my paper books." [22]

'Jan. 7, 1830'.

Having referred to the accusations of plagiarism brought against Coleridge, it will not, I trust, be deemed inappropriate, to introduce from the British Magazine, No. 37, the concluding part of a critique ably written by the Rev. Julius Hare, who has selected with great discrimination several passages from the "Friend," which must come home to the heart of every good man, and this I feel the more impelled to do, as it is a moral lesson to biographers--perhaps to us all:

"An inquisitiveness into the minutest circumstances and casual sayings
of eminent contemporaries is indeed quite natural: but so are all our
follies: and the more natural they are the more caution should we
exert in guarding against them. To scribble trifles, even on the
perishable glass of an inn window, is the mark of an idler: but to
engrave them on the marble monument sacred to the memory of the
departed great, is something worse than idleness. The spirit of
genuine biography is in nothing more conspicuous than in the firmness
with which it withstands the cravings of worthless curiosity, as
distinguished from the thirst after useful knowledge. For in the first
place, such anecdotes as derive their whole and sole interest from the
great name of the person concerning whom they are related, and neither
illustrate his general character nor his particular actions, would
scarcely have been noticed or remembered, except by men of weak minds.
It is not unlikely, therefore, that they were misapprehended at the
time; and it is most probable that they have been related as
incorrectly, as they were noticed injudiciously. Nor are the
consequences of such garrulous biography merely negative. For as
insignificant stories can derive no real respectability from the
eminence of the person who happens to be the subject of them, but
rather an additional deformity of disproportion, they are apt to have
their insipidity seasoned by the same bad passions that accompany the
habit of gossiping in general: and the misapprehensions of weak men,
meeting with the misinterpretations of malignant men, have not seldom
formed the ground work of the most grievous calamities. In the second
place, those trifles are subversive of the great end of biography,
which is to fix the attention and to interest the feelings of men on
those qualities and actions which have made a particular life worthy
of being recorded. It is no doubt the duty of an honest biographer to
portray the prominent imperfections as well as excellencies of his
hero. But I am at a loss to conceive how this can be deemed an excuse
for heaping together a multitude of particulars, which can prove
nothing of any man, that might not be safely taken for granted of all
men. In the present age--emphatically the age of personality--there
are more than ordinary motives for withholding all encouragement from
the mania of busying ourselves with the names of others, which is
still more alarming as a symptom, than it is troublesome as a disease.
The reader must be still less acquainted with contemporary literature
than myself, if he needs me to inform him that there are men who,
trading in the silliest anecdotes, in unprovoked abuse and senseless
eulogy, think themselves nevertheless employed both worthily and
honourably if only all this be done in good set terms, and from the
press, and of public characters,--a class which has increased so
rapidly of late, that it becomes difficult to discover what characters
are to be considered as private. Alas! if these wretched misusers of
language and the means of giving wings to thought, and of multiplying
the presence of an individual mind, had ever known how great a thing
the possession of any one simple truth is, and how mean a thing a mere
fact is, except as seen in the light of some comprehensive truth--if
they had but once experienced the unborrowed complacency, the inward
independence, the homebred strength, with which every clear conception
of the reason is accompanied,--they would shrink from their own pages
as at the remembrance of a crime.--For a crime it is (and the man who
hesitates in pronouncing it such, must be ignorant of what mankind owe
to books, what he himself owes to them in spite of his ignorance) thus
to introduce the spirit of vulgar scandal, and personal inquietude
into the closet and the library, environing with evil passions the
very sanctuaries to which we should flee for refuge from them. For to
what do these publications appeal, whether they present themselves as
biography or as anonymous criticism, but to the same feelings which
the scandal bearers, and time-killers of ordinary life seem to gratify
in themselves and their listeners; and both the authors and admirers
of such publications, in what respect are they less truants and
deserters from their own hearts, and from their appointed task of
understanding and amending them, than the most garrulous female
chronicler of the goings-on of yesterday in the families of her
neighbours and townsfolk?

'As to my own attempt to record the life and character of the late Sir
Alexander Ball, I consider myself deterred from all circumstances not
pertaining to his conduct or character as a public functionary, that
involve the names of the living for good or for evil. Whatever facts
and incidents I relate of a private nature must, for the most part,
concern Sir Alexander Ball exclusively, and as an insulated
individual. But I needed not this restraint. It will be enough for me,
as I write, to recollect the form and character of Sir Alexander Ball
himself, to represent to my own feelings the inward contempt with
which he would have abstracted his mind from worthless anecdotes and
petty personalities; a contempt rising into indignation if ever an
illustrious name were used as a thread to string them upon. If this
recollection be my Socratic Demon, to warn and to check me, I shall,
on the other hand, derive encouragement from the remembrance of the
tender patience, the sweet gentleness, with which he was wont to
tolerate the tediousness of well meaning men; and the inexhaustible
attention, the unfeigned interest, with which he would listen for
hours, when the conversation appealed to reason, and like the bee,
made honey, while it murmured.'

I have transcribed this passage from the original edition of the
Friend, No. 21, and not from the reprint, where it stands in vol. ii.
pp. 303-307; because in the latter, the last paragraph, in itself a
beautiful one, and to our present purpose particularly appropriate, is
left out. For if Coleridge could imagine 'the inward contempt with
which Sir Alexander Ball would have abstracted his mind from worthless
anecdotes and petty personalities,--a contempt rising into
indignation, if ever an illustrious name was used as a thread to
string them on,' well may those who knew Coleridge conceive the grief,
the grief and pity, he would have felt, at seeing eminent powers and
knowledge employed in ministering to the wretched love of
gossip--retailing paltry anecdotes in dispraise of others,
intermingled with outflowings of self-praise--and creeping into the
secret chambers of great men's houses to filch out materials for
tattle--at seeing great powers wasting and debasing themselves in such
an ignoble task--above all, at seeing that the person who thus wasted
and debased them was a scholar, and a philosopher whose talents he
admired, with whom he had lived familiarly, and whom he had honoured
with his friendship."[23]

There is one part of Coleridge's character not to be passed by, although so overlaid by his genius as rarely to be noticed, namely, his love of humour and of wit, of which he possessed so large a share. As punsters, his dear friend Lamb and himself were inimitable. Lamb's puns had oftener more effect, from the impediment in his speech their force seemed to be increased by the pause of stuttering, and to shoot forth like an arrow from a strong bow--but being never poisoned nor envenomed, they left no pain behind. Coleridge was more humorous than witty in making puns--and in repartee, he was, according to modern phraseology, "smart and clever." Staying a few days with two friends at a farm-house, they agreed to visit a race-course in the neighbourhood. The farmer brought from his stud a horse low in stature, and still lower in flesh--a bridle corresponding in respectability of appearance, with a saddle equally suitable--stirrups once bright, but now deeply discoloured by rust. All this was the contrivance of the farmer, and prudently intended for his safety. He had heard previously of Coleridge's want of skill in riding, and had therefore provided him with a beast not likely to throw him. On this Rosinante the poet mounted, in his accustomed dress, namely, a black coat, black breeches, with black silk stockings and shoes. His friends being trusted with more active steeds, soon outstripped him. Jogging on leisurely he was met by a long-nosed knowing-looking man, attired in a 'sporting' dress, and an excellent equestrian. Seeing this whimsical horseman in shoes, he writhed, as Coleridge observed, his lithe proboscis, and thus accosted him:

Pray, sir, did you meet a tailor along the road?"

"A tailor?" answered Coleridge; "yes!"

"Do you see, sir! he rode just such a horse as you ride! and for all the world was just like you!"

"Oh! oh!" answered Coleridge, "I did meet a person answering such a description, who told me he had dropped his goose, that if I rode a little farther I should find it; and I guess by the arch-fellow's looks, he must have meant you."

"Caught a tartar!" replied the man, and suddenly spurring his horse, left him to pursue his road. At length Coleridge reached the race-course, when threading his way through the crowd, he arrived at the spot of attraction to which all were hastening. Here he confronted a barouche and four, filled with smart ladies and attendant gentlemen. In it was also seated a baronet of sporting celebrity, steward of the course, and member of the House of Commons, well known as having been bought and sold in several parliaments. The baronet eyed the figure of Coleridge as he slowly passed the door of the barouche, and thus accosted him:

"A pretty piece of blood, sir, you have there?"

"Yes!" answered Coleridge.

"Rare paces, I have no doubt, sir!"

"Yes," said Coleridge he brought me here a matter of four miles an hour."

He was at no loss to perceive the honourable member's drift, who wished to shew off before the ladies: so he quietly waited the opportunity of a suitable reply.

"What a fore-hand he has!" continued Nimrod, "how finely he carries his tail! Bridle and saddle well suited! and appropriately appointed!"

"Yes," said Coleridge.

"Will you sell him?" asked the sporting baronet.

"Yes!" was the answer, "if I can have my price."

"Name your price, then, putting the rider into the bargain!"

This was too pointed to be passed over by a simple answer, and Coleridge was ready.

"My price for the 'horse, sir', if I sell him, is 'one hundred' guineas,--as to the 'rider', never having been in parliament, and never intending to go, 'his' price is not yet fixed."

The baronet sat down more suddenly than he had risen--the ladies began to titter--while Coleridge quietly left him to his chagrin, and them to the enjoyment of their mirth.

We are now arrived at that period of Coleridge's life, in which it may be said, he received his first great warning of approaching danger. But it will be necessary to review his previous state of health. From childhood he discovered strong symptoms of a feeble stomach. As observed in the account of his school experience, when compelled to turn over the shoes in the shoe closet, exhausted by the fatigue, and overpowered by the scent, he suffered so much, that in after years the very remembrance almost made him shudder. Then his frequent bathing in the New River was an imprudence so injurious in its consequences, as to place him for nearly twelve months in the sick ward in the hospital of the school, with rheumatism connected with jaundice. These, to a youthful constitution, were matters of so serious a nature, as to explain to those acquainted with disease the origin and cause of his subsequent bodily sufferings. His sensitiveness was consequent on these, and so was his frequent incapability of continuous sedentary employment--an employment requiring far stronger health in an individual whose intellectual powers were ever at work. When overwhelmed at College, by that irresistible alarm and despondency which caused him to leave it, and to enlist as a soldier in the army, he continued in such a state of bodily ailment as to be deprived of the power of stooping, so that 'Cumberback',--a thing unheard of before,--was compelled to depute another to perform this part of his duty. On his voyage to Malta, he had complained of suffering from shortness of breath; and on returning to his residence at the Lakes, his difficulty of breathing and his rheumatism increased to a great degree. About the year 1809, ascending Skiddaw with his younger son, he was suddenly seized in the chest, and so overpowered as to attract the notice of the child. After the relation of these circumstances to some medical friend, he was advised by him not to bathe in the sea. The love, however, which he had from a boy, for going into the water, he retained till a late period of life. Strongly impressed with this feeling, he seems to have written the poem, entitled "On Revisiting the Sea Shore:"

"Dissuading spake the mild physician,
Those briny waves for thee are death,
But my soul fulfilled her mission,
And lo! I breathe untroubled breath." [24]

In the year 1810, he left the Lakes, in company with Mr. Basil Montagu, whose affectionate regard for Mr. Coleridge, though manifested upon every occasion, was more particularly shown in seasons of difficulty and affliction. By Coleridge, Mr. Montagu's friendship was deeply felt,--and his gentle manners and unremitted kindness had the most soothing effect upon the sensitive and grateful mind of Coleridge. He remained for some time at Mr. Montagu's house. He afterwards resided at Hammersmith, with an amiable and common friend of his and Mr. Southey's,--Mr. Morgan, with whom they had formed an intimacy in Bristol. Whilst here he delivered a course of lectures at the London Philosophical Society. The prospectus was as follows:

"Mr. Coleridge will commence, on Monday, November 18, 1811, a Course
of Lectures on Shakspeare and Milton, in illustration of the
principles of poetry, and their application, as grounds of criticism,
to the most popular works of later English Poets, those of the living
included. After an introductory lecture on False Criticism (especially
in poetry), and on its causes; two thirds of the remaining course will
be assigned,

1st, to a philosophical analysis, and explanation of all the principal
'characters' of our great dramatist, as Othello, Falstaff, Richard the
Third, Iago, Hamlet, &c.; and

2nd, to a critical 'comparison' of Shakspeare, in respect of diction,
imagery, management of the passions, judgment in the construction of
his dramas, in short, of all that belongs to him as a poet, and as a
dramatic poet, with his contemporaries or immediate successors,
Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Ford, Massinger, &c. in the endeavour
to determine what of Shakspeare's merits and defects are common to
him, with other writers of the same age, and what remain peculiar to
his own genius.

The course will extend to fifteen lectures, which will be given on
Monday and Thursday evenings successively."

Mr. Coleridge afterwards delivered another course of lectures at the Royal Institution. Dr. Dibdin, one of his auditors, gives the following account of the lecturer: [25]

"It was during my constant and familiar intercourse with Sir T.
Bernard, while 'The Director' was going on, that I met the celebrated
Mr. Coleridge--himself a lecturer. He was not a 'constant'
lecturer--not in constant harness like others for the business of the
day. Indisposition was generally preying upon him, [26] and habitual
indolence would now and then frustrate the performance of his own
better wishes. I once came from Kensington in a snow-storm, to hear
him lecture upon Shakspeare. I might have sat as wisely and more
comfortably by my own fire-side--for no Coleridge appeared. And this I
think occurred more than once at the Royal Institution. I shall never
forget the effect his conversation made upon me at the first meeting.
It struck me as something not only quite out of the ordinary course of
things, but as an intellectual exhibition altogether matchless. The
viands were unusually costly, and the banquet was at once rich and
varied; but there seemed to be no dish like Coleridge's conversation
to feed upon--and no information so varied and so instructive as his
own. The orator rolled himself up, as it were, in his chair, and gave
the most unrestrained indulgence to his speech, and how fraught with
acuteness and originality was that speech, and in what copious and
eloquent periods did it flow! The auditors seemed to be rapt in wonder
and delight, as one conversation, more profound or clothed in more
forcible language than another, fell from his tongue. A great part of
the subject discussed at the first time of my meeting Mr. Coleridge,
was the connexion between Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton. The speaker
had been secretary to Sir Alexander Ball, governor of Malta--and a
copious field was here afforded for the exercise of his colloquial
eloquence. For nearly two hours he spoke with unhesitating and
uninterrupted fluency. As I retired homewards (to Kensington), I
thought a second Johnson had visited the earth, to make wise the sons
of men; and regretted that I could not exercise the powers of a second
Boswell, to record the wisdom and the eloquence which had that evening
flowed from the orator's lips. It haunted me as I retired to rest. It
drove away slumber: or if I lapsed into sleep, there was
Coleridge--his snuffbox, and his 'kerchief before my eyes!--his mildly
beaming looks--his occasionally deep tone of voice--and the excited
features of his physiognomy.--The manner of Coleridge was rather
emphatic than dogmatic, and thus he was generally and satisfactorily
listened to. It might be said of Coleridge, as Cowper has so happily
said of Sir Philip Sidney, that he was 'the warbler of poetic prose.'

There was always 'this' characteristic feature in his multifarious
conversation--it was delicate, reverend, and courteous. The chastest
ear could drink in no startling sound; the most serious believer never
had his bosom ruffled by one sceptical or reckless assertion.
Coleridge was eminently simple in his manner. Thinking and speaking
were his delight; and he would sometimes seem, during the more fervid
movements of discourse, to be abstracted from all and every thing
around and about him, and to be basking in the sunny warmth of his own
radiant imagination."

The manuscript of 'The Remorse' was sent to Mr. Sheridan, who did not even acknowledge the receipt of the letter which accompanied the drama; he however observed to a friend, that he had received a play from Coleridge, but that there was one extraordinary line in the Cave Scene, 'drip, drip'--which he could not understand: "in short," said he, "it is all dripping." This was the only notice he took of the play; but the comment was at length repeated to the author, through the medium of a third party. The theatre falling afterwards into the hands of Lord Byron and Mr. Whitbread, his Lordship sent for Coleridge, was very kind to his brother poet, and requested that the play might be represented: this desire was complied with, and it received his support. Although Mr. Whitbread [27] did not give it the advantage of a single new scene, yet the popularity of the play was such, that the principal actor, who had performed in it with great success, made choice of it for his benefit-night, and it brought an overflowing house. [28]

In consequence of the interest Lord Byron took in the success of this tragedy, Coleridge was frequently in his company, and on one occasion, in my presence, his Lordship said, "Coleridge, there is one passage in your poems, I have parodied fifty times, and I hope to live long enough to parody it five hundred." That passage I do not remember; but it may strike some reader.

In a letter of Coleridge's to a friend, written April 10th, 1816, he thus speaks of Byron:

"If you had seen Lord Byron, you could scarcely disbelieve him--so
beautiful a countenance I scarcely ever saw--his teeth so many
stationary smiles--his eyes the open portals of the sun--things of
light, and for light--and his forehead so ample, and yet so flexible,
passing from marble smoothness into a hundred wreathes and lines and
dimples correspondent to the feelings and sentiments he is uttering."

Coleridge, in the preface to 'The Remorse', states that the

"tragedy was written in the summer and autumn of the year 1797, at
Nether Stowey, in the county of Somerset. By whose recommendation, and
of the manner in which both the play and the author were treated by
the recommender, let me be permitted to relate: that I knew of its
having been received only from a third person; that I could procure
neither answer nor the manuscript; and that but for an accident, I
should have had no copy of the work itself. That such treatment would
damp a young man's exertions may be easily conceived: there was no
need of after-misrepresentation and calumny, as an additional
sedative."

Coleridge contributed many pieces to Southey's 'Omniana', (all marked with an asterisk,) and was engaged in other literary pursuits; he had notwithstanding much bodily suffering. The 'cause' of this was the organic change slowly and gradually taking place in the structure of the heart itself. But it was so masked by other sufferings, though at times creating despondency, and was so generally overpowered by the excitement of animated conversation, as to leave its real cause undiscovered. [29] Notwithstanding this sad state, he rolled forth volumes from a mind ever active--at times intensely so,--still he required the support of those sympathies which "free the hollow heart from paining."

Soon after the performance of 'The Remorse', he retired with his kind friend, Mr. Morgan, to the village of Calne, partly to be near the Rev. W.L. Bowles, whose sonnets so much attracted his attention in early life. While residing here, he opened a communication with Mr. Gutch, a bookseller, at Bristol, and in consequence, he collected the poems published by the title of 'The Sibylline Leaves', and also composed the greater part of the 'Biographia Literaria'. Here he likewise dictated to his friend, Mr. Morgan, the 'Zapolya', which was submitted to Mr. Douglas Kinnaird, who was then the critic for Drury Lane.--Mr. Kinnaird rejected the play, assigning some ludicrous objections to the metaphysics. The subject is alluded to by Coleridge at the end of the Biographia Literaria, and with that allusion I close the present chapter:

O we are querulous creatures! Little less
Than all things can suffice to make us happy:
And little more than nothing is enough
To make us wretched.

[Footnote 1:

Alas! for myself at least I know and feel, that wherever there is a
wrong not to be forgiven, there is a grief that admits neither of cure
nor comforting.

'Private Record, 1806.']

[Footnote 2: It appears that Mr. Alexander Macauley, the secretary, an honest and amiable man, died suddenly, without "moan or motion," and Coleridge filled his situation till the arrival of a new secretary, appointed and confirmed by the ministers in England.]

[Footnote 3: 1805.

"For months past so incessantly employed in official tasks,
subscribing, examining, administering oaths, auditing," &c.]

[Footnote 4: April 22, 1804.

"I was reading when I was taken ill, and felt an oppression of my
breathing, and convulsive snatching in my stomach and limbs. Mrs.
Ireland noticed this laborious breathing."]

[Footnote 5: I would fain request the reader to peruse the poem, entitled "A Tombless Epitaph," to be found in Coleridge's 'Poetical Works', 1834, page 200.]

[Footnote 6: Coleridge when asked what was the difference between fame and reputation, would familiarly reply, "Fame is the fiat of the good and wise," and then with energy would quote the following beautiful lines from Milton:--

Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,
Nor in the glistering foil
Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies:
But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes,
And perfect witness of all-judging Jove;
As he pronounces lastly on each deed,
Of so much fame in Heaven expect thy meed.

'Lycidas.']

[Footnote 7: "The following memoranda written in pencil, and apparently as he journeyed along, but now scarcely legible, may perhaps have an interest for some readers:--

"Sunday, December 15th, 1805.

"Naples, view of Vesuvius, the Hail-mist--Torre del Greco--bright amid
darkness--the mountains above it flashing here and there from their
snows; but Vesuvius, it had not thinned as I have seen at Keswick, but
the air so consolidated with the massy cloud curtain, that it appeared
like a mountain in basso relievo, in an interminable wall of some
pantheon."]

[Footnote 8: The order for Coleridge's arrest had already been sent from Paris, but his escape was so contrived by the good old Pope, as to defeat the intended indulgence of the Tyrant's vindictive appetite, which would have preyed equally on a Duc D'Enghien, and a contributor to a public journal. In consequence of Mr. Fox having asserted in the House of Commons, that the rupture of the Truce of Amiens had its origin in certain essays written in the Morning Post, which were soon known to have been Coleridge's, and that he was at Rome within reach, the ire of Buonaparte was immediately excited.]

[Footnote 9: Though his Note Books are full of memoranda, not an entry or date of his arrival at Rome is to be found. To Rome itself and its magnificence, he would often refer in conversation. Unfortunately there is not a single document to recall the beautiful images he would place before your mind in perspective, when inspired by the remembrance of its wonder-striking and splendid objects. He however preserved some short essays, which he wrote when in Malta, Observations on Sicily, Cairo, &c. &c. political and statistical, which will probably form part of the literary remains in train of publication.

Malta, on a first view of the subject, seemed to present a situation so well fitted for a landing place, that it was intended to have adopted this mode, as in 'The Friend', of dividing the present memoir; but this loss of MS. and the breaches of continuity, render it impracticable.]

[Footnote 10: At this time all his writings were strongly tinctured with Platonism.]

[Footnote 11: Each party claimed him as their own; for party without principles must ever be shifting, and therefore they found his opinions sometimes in accordance with their own, and sometimes at variance. But he was of no party--his views were purely philosophical.]

[Footnote 12: The character of Buonaparte was announced in the same paper.]

[Footnote 13: Those who spoke after Pitt were Wilberforce, Tierney, Sheridan, &c.]

[Footnote 14: This speech of Mr. Pitt's is extracted from the 'Morning Post', February 18th, 1800.]

[Footnote 15: The following exquisite image on Leighton was found in one of Coleridge's note books, and is also inserted in his Literary Remains:

"Next to the inspired Scriptures, yea, and as the vibration of that
once struck hour remaining on the air, stands Archbishop Leighton's
commentary on the first epistle of Peter."]

[Footnote 16: In his later days, Mr. Coleridge would have renounced the opinions and the incorrect reasoning of this letter].

[Footnote 17: Article ii.

The Son which is the word of the Father, 'begotten' from
Everlasting of the Father, &c.

Art. v.

The Holy Ghost 'proceeding' from the Father and the Son, &c.]

[Footnote 18: It was a favourite citation with Mr. Coleridge,

"I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one."

Vide St. John, xvii. 2.]

[Footnote 19: At Mr. Poole's house, Mr. De Quincey remained two days. Of his visit he gives a full account; at the same time charging Coleridge with the meanness of plagiarism, but which charges since their publication have been ably refuted in an article in the British Magazine, signed J.C.H. Vide No. 37, page 15.]

[Footnote 20: Vide 'Tait's Magazine', No. 8.]

[Footnote 21: These have not been found.]

[Footnote 22: This little Paper Book has not yet been found.]

[Footnote 23: In the 'Quarterly Review' for July, 1837, will be found an able article on the 'Literary Remains of S.T. Coleridge,' and on "Mr. Cottle's Early Recollections," in which are extracted these very paragraphs from the "Friend," but which had been sent to the press before this number appeared.]

[Footnote 24: This poem is supposed to have been written in 1813, when on a visit to some friends at Bexhill, Sussex.]

[Footnote 25: 'Reminiscences of a Literary Life', Vol. i. p. 253.]

[Footnote 26: If "indisposition were generally preying upon him," as at this time was indeed the fact, could this occasional failure in the delivery of a lecture (though naturally very disappointing to his audience,) be fairly attributed to indolence?]

[Footnote 27: About this time, when party spirit was running high, Coleridge was known to be the author of the following Jeu d'Esprit,

"Dregs half way up and froth half way down, form Whitbread's Entire."]

[Footnote 28: It was Mr. Rae who took it for his benefit, some time after Mr. Coleridge's residence at Highgate.]

[Footnote 29:

"'My heart', or 'some part' about it, seems breaking, as if
a weight were suspended from it that stretches it, such is the
'bodily feeling', as far as I can express it by words."

Letter addressed to Mr. Morgan.]