Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1.
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Coleridge, ed. Turnbull >> Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1.
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After receiving Lamb's answer of 5th January, in which Lamb criticises
unfavourably the "Joan of Arc" lines ("Ainger", i, 57), Coleridge writes:
LETTER 50. TO COTTLE
(10 January 1797).
My dear Cottle,
The lines which I added to my lines in the "Joan of Arc", have been so
little approved by Charles Lamb, to whom I sent them, that although I
differ from him in opinion, I have not heart to finish the poem.
"Mr. Coleridge in the same letter," says Cottle, "thus refers to his
"Ode to the Departing Year"."
* * * So much for an "Ode", which some people think superior to the
"Bard" of Gray, and which others think a rant of turgid obscurity; and
the latter are the more numerous class. It is not obscure. My "Religious
Musings" I know are, but not this "Ode".
Coleridge, in 1797, as in 1796, was invariably behind time with his
"copy" for the second edition. He thus writes Cottle:
LETTER 51. TO COTTLE
(Jany 1797).
My dear Cottle,
* * * On Thursday morning, by Milton, the Stowey carrier, I shall send
you a parcel, containing the book of my Poems interleaved, with the
alterations, and likewise the prefaces, which I shall send to you, for
your criticisms. * * *
LETTER 52. TO COTTLE
Stowey, Friday Morning (1797).
My dear Cottle.
* * * If you do not like the following verses, or if you do not think
them worthy of an edition in which I profess to give nothing but my
choicest fish, picked, gutted, and cleaned, please to get some one to
write them out and send them, with my compliments to the editor of the
"New Monthly Magazine". But if you think as well of them as I do (most
probably from parental dotage for my last born) let them immediately
follow "The Kiss".
God love you,
S. T. C.
TO AN UNFORTUNATE YOUNG WOMAN.
WHOM I HAD KNOWN IN THE DAYS OF HER INNOCENCE.
Maiden! that with sullen brow,
Sitt'st behind those virgins gay;
Like a scorched, and mildew'd bough,
Leafless mid the blooms of May.
Inly gnawing, thy distresses
Mock those starts of wanton glee;
And thy inmost soul confesses
Chaste Affection's majesty.
Loathing thy polluted lot,
Hie thee, Maiden! hie thee hence!
Seek thy weeping mother's cot,
With a wiser innocence!
Mute the Lavrac [1] and forlorn
While she moults those firstling plumes
That had skimm'd the tender corn,
Or the bean-field's od'rous blooms;
Soon with renovating wing,
Shall she dare a loftier flight,
Upwards to the day-star sing,
And embathe in heavenly light.
ALLEGORICAL LINES ON THE SAME SUBJECT.
Myrtle Leaf, that, ill besped,
Pinest in the gladsome ray,
Soiled beneath the common tread,
Far from thy protecting spray;
When the scythes-man o'er his sheaf,
Caroll'd in the yellow vale,
Sad, I saw thee, heedless leaf,
Love the dalliance of the gale.
Lightly didst thou, poor fond thing!
Heave and flutter to his sighs
While the flatterer on his wing,
Woo'd, and whisper'd thee to rise.
Gaily from thy mother stalk
Wert thou danced and wafted high;
Soon on this unsheltered walk,
Flung to fade, and rot, and die!
[Footnote 1: The Skylark.]
Cottle subjected the two poems to severe criticism, and Coleridge
replied:
LETTER 53. TO COTTLE
Wednesday morning, 10 o'clock.
(January, 1797.)
My dearest Cottle,
* * * "Ill besped" is indeed a sad blotch; but after having tried at
least a hundred ways, before I sent the Poem to you, and often since, I
find it incurable. This first Poem is but a so so composition. I wonder
I could have been so blinded by the ardour of recent composition, as to
see anything in it.
Your remarks are "perfectly just" on the "Allegorical lines", except
that, in this district, corn is as often cut with a scythe, as with a
hook. However, for ""Scythes-man"" read "Rustic". For ""poor fond
thing"," read "foolish thing", and for ""flung to fade, and rot, and
die"," read "flung to wither and to die".
* * * * *
Milton (the carrier) waits impatiently.
S. T. C. [1]
[Footnote 1: Letters LXXI-LXXII follow Letter 53.]
Only the second poem was included in the second edition. The next
letter, which contains an unrealized prophecy regarding Southey, speaks
of the joint partnership of the volume of 1797.
LETTER 54. TO COTTLE
Stowey,--(Feby. or Mch. 1797.)
My dear Cottle,
* * * Public affairs are in strange confusion. I am afraid that I shall
prove, at least, as good a Prophet as Bard. Oh, doom'd to fall, my
country! enslaved and vile! But may God make me a foreboder of evils
never to come!
I have heard from Sheridan, desiring me to write a tragedy. I have no
genius that way; Robert Southey has. I think highly of his "Joan of
Arc", and cannot help prophesying that he will be known to posterity, as
Shakspeare's great grandson. I think he will write a tragedy or
tragedies.
Charles Lloyd has given me his Poems, which I give to you, on condition
that you print them in this Volume, after Charles Lamb's Poems; the
title page, "Poems, by S. T. Coleridge. Second Edition: to which are
added Poems, by C. Lamb, and C. Lloyd". C. Lamb's poems will occupy
about forty pages; C. Lloyd's at least one hundred, although only his
choice fish.
P.S. I like your "Lines on Savage".
God bless you,
S. T. COLERIDGE."
During his stay at Stowey, Coleridge remained a subscriber to Catcott's
Library, Bristol; and the following letter to the librarian is worth
preserving.
LETTER 55. TO COTTLE
Stowey, May, 1797.
My dear Cottle,
I have sent a curious letter to George Catcott. He has altogether made
me pay five shillings! for postage, by his letters sent all the way to
Stowey, requiring me to return books to the Bristol Library. * * * *
"Mr. Catcott,
"I beg your acceptance of all the enclosed letters. You must not think
lightly of the present, as they cost me, who am a very poor man, five
shillings.
"With respect to the "Bruck. Hist. Crit." although by accident they were
registered on the 23d of March, yet they were not removed from the
Library for a fortnight after; and when I received your first letter, I
had had the books just three weeks. Our learned and ingenious Committee
may read through two quartos, that is, one thousand and four hundred
pages of close printed Latin and Greek, in three weeks, for aught I know
to the contrary. I pretend to no such intenseness of application, or
rapidity of genius.
"I must beg you to inform me, by Mr. Cottle, what length of time is
allowed by the rules and customs of our institution for each book.
Whether their contents, as well as their size, are consulted, in
apportioning the time; or whether, customarily, any time at all is
apportioned, except when the Committee, in individual cases, choose to
deem it proper. I subscribe to your library, Mr. Catcott, not to read
novels, or books of quick reading and easy digestion, but to get books
which I cannot get elsewhere,--books of massy knowledge; and as I have
few books of my own, I read with a common-place book, so that if I be
not allowed a longer period of time for the perusal of such books, I
must contrive to get rid of my subscription, which would be a thing
perfectly useless, except so far as it gives me an opportunity of
reading your little expensive notes and letters.
"Yours in Christian fellowship,
"S. T. COLERIDGE."
Whether Coleridge had given Southey the opportunity to try his skill at
the drama or not does not appear; but the following letter to Cottle
shows that he had addressed himself to the task of composing a tragedy,
evidently "Osorio".
LETTER 56. TO COTTLE
Stowey, May, 1797.
My dearest Cottle,
I love and respect you as a brother, and my memory deceives me woefully,
if I have not evidenced, by the animated tone of my conversation when we
have been tete-a-tete, how much your conversation interested me. But
when last in Bristol, the day I meant to devote to you, was such a day
of sadness, I could do nothing. On the Saturday, the Sunday, and ten
days after my arrival at Stowey, I felt a depression too dreadful to be
described.
So much I felt my genial spirits droop,
My hopes all flat; Nature within me seemed
In all her functions, weary of herself,
Wordsworth's [1] conversation aroused me somewhat, but even now I am not
the man I have been, and I think I never shall. A sort of calm
hopelessness diffuses itself over my heart. Indeed every mode of life
which has promised me bread and cheese, has been, one after another,
torn away from me, but God remains. I have no immediate pecuniary
distress, having received ten pounds from Lloyd. I employ myself now on
a book of morals in answer to Godwin, and on my tragedy...
There are some poets who write too much at their ease, from the facility
with which they please themselves. They do not often enough
Feel their burdened breast
Heaving beneath incumbent Deity.
So that to posterity their wreaths will look unseemly. Here, perhaps, an
everlasting Amaranth, and, close by its side, some weed of an hour,
sere, yellow, and shapeless. Their very beauties will lose half their
effect, from the bad company they keep. They rely too much on story and
event, to the neglect of those lofty imaginings that are peculiar to,
and definite of the Poet.
The story of Milton might be told in two pages. It is this which
distinguishes an epic poem from a romance in metre. Observe the march of
Milton; his severe application; his laborious polish; his deep
metaphysical researches; his prayer to God before he began his great
work; all that could lift and swell his intellect, became his daily
food.
I should not think of devoting less than twenty years to an epic poem.
Ten years to collect materials and warm my mind with universal science.
I would be a tolerable Mathematician. I would thoroughly understand
Mechanics; Hydrostatics; Optics and Astronomy; Botany; Metallurgy;
Fossilism; Chemistry; Geology; Anatomy; Medicine; then the mind of man;
then the minds of men, in all Travels, Voyages, and Histories. So I
would spend ten years; the next five in the composition of the poem, and
the five last in the correction of it. So would I write, haply not
unhearing of that divine and nightly-whispering voice, which speaks to
mighty minds, of predestinated garlands, starry and unwithering.
God love you.
S. T. COLERIDGE.
P.S. David Hartley is well and grows. Sara is well, and desires a
sister's love to you.
[Footnote 1: Mr. Wordsworth at this time resided at Allfoxden House, two
or three miles from Stowey.--[Note by Cottle.]]
"The following letter of Mr. C," says Cottle, "was in answer to a
request for some long-promised copy, and for which the printer
importuned."
LETTER 57. TO COTTLE
Stowey (May), 1797.
My dear, dear Cottle,
Have patience, and everything shall be done. I think now entirely of
your brother:[1] in two days I will think entirely for you. By Wednesday
next you shall have Lloyd's other Poems, with all Lamb's, etc. etc. * * *
S. T. C.
"A little before this time," says Cottle, "a singular occurrence
happened to Mr. C. during a pedestrian excursion into Somersetshire, as
detailed in the following letter to Mr. Wade."
[Footnote 1: My brother, when at Cambridge, had written a Latin poem for
the prize: the subject, "Italia, Vastata," and sent it to Mr. Coleridge,
with whom he was on friendly terms, in MS. requesting the favour of his
remarks; and this he did about six weeks before it was necessary to
deliver it in. Mr. C. in an immediate letter, expressed his approbation
of the Poem, and cheerfully undertook the task; but with a little of his
procrastination, he returned the MS. with his remarks, just one day
after it was too late to deliver the poem in!--[Note by Cottle.]]
LETTER 58. TO WADE
(May, 1797.)
My dear friend,
I am here after a most tiresome journey; in the course of which, a woman
asked me if I knew one Coleridge, of Bristol. I answered, I had heard of
him. "Do you know, (quoth she) that that vile jacobin villain drew away
a young man of our parish, one Burnett," etc. and in this strain did the
woman continue for near an hour; heaping on me every name of abuse that
the parish of Billingsgate could supply. I listened very particularly;
appeared to approve all she said, exclaiming, "dear me!" two or three
times, and, in fine, so completely won the woman's heart by my
civilities, that I had not courage enough to undeceive her. * * *
S. T. COLERIDGE.
P.S. You are a good prophet. Oh, into what a state have the scoundrels
brought this devoted kingdom. If the House of Commons would but melt
down their faces, it would greatly assist the copper currency--we should
have brass enough.
Coleridge, like all the Return-to-Nature poets of the eighteenth
century, Thomson, Cowper, Burns, and others, was given to that
humanitarian regard for the lower creatures which brought forth such
poems as Burns's "Address to a Mouse" and Coleridge's own lines to a
"Young Ass". The following letter to Cottle is an amusing sample of that
humanitarianism. George Burnett, one of the pantisocrats, occasionally
resided with Coleridge, and during the latter's temporary absence from
Stowey had taken ill. On reaching Stowey, Coleridge wrote to Cottle.
LETTER 59. TO COTTLE
Stowey (May, 1797).
My dear friend,
I found George Burnett ill enough, heaven knows, Yellow Jaundice--the
introductory symptoms very violent. I return to Bristol on Thursday, and
shall not leave till "all be done".
Remind Mrs. Coleridge of the kittens, and tell her that George's brandy
is just what smuggled spirits might be expected to be, execrable! The
smack of it remains in my mouth, and I believe will keep me most
horribly temperate for half a century. He (Burnett) was bit, but I
caught the Brandiphobia.[1] (obliterations * * * * * * *
--scratched out, well knowing that you never allow such things to pass,
uncensured. A good joke, and it slipped out most impromptu--ishly.)
The mice play the very devil with us. It irks me to set a trap. By all
the whiskers of all the pussies that have mewed plaintively, or
amorously, since the days of Whittington, it is not fair. 'Tis telling a
lie. 'Tis as if you said, "Here is a bit of toasted cheese; come little
mice! I invite you!" when, oh, foul breach of the rites of hospitality!
I mean to assassinate my too credulous guests! No, I cannot set a trap,
but I should vastly like to make a Pitt--fall. (Smoke the Pun!) But
concerning the mice, advise thou, lest there be famine in the land. Such
a year of scarcity! Inconsiderate mice! Well, well, so the world wags.
Farewell, S. T. C.
P.S. A mad dog ran through our village, and bit several dogs. I have
desired the farmers to be attentive, and tomorrow shall give them, in
writing, the first symptoms of madness in a dog.
I wish my pockets were as yellow as George's Phiz!
[Footnote 1: It appears that Mr. Burnett had been prevailed upon by
smugglers to buy some prime cheap brandy, but which Mr. Coleridge
affirmed to be a compound of Hellebore, kitchen grease, and Assafoetida!
or something as bad.--[Cottle's note.]]
The next letter must belong to the end of May or beginning of June.
Cottle's note shows that the second edition of the poems was now
published.
LETTER 60. TO COTTLE
Stowey (June), 1797.
My dear Cottle,
I deeply regret, that my anxieties and my slothfulness, acting in a
combined ratio, prevented me from finishing my "Progress of Liberty, or
Visions of the Maid of Orleans", with that Poem at the head of the
volume, with the "Ode" in the middle, and the "Religious Musings" at the
end. * * *
In the "Lines on the Man of Ross", immediately after these lines,
He heard the widow's heaven-breathed prayer of praise,
He mark'd the shelter'd orphan's tearful gaze.
Please to add these two lines.
And o'er the portion'd maiden's snowy cheek,
Bade bridal love suffuse its blushes meek.
And for the line,
Beneath this roof, if thy cheer'd moments pass.
I should be glad to substitute this,
If near this roof thy wine-cheer'd moments pass.
"These emendations," Cottle adds, "came too late for admission in the
second edition; nor have they appeared in the last edition. They will
remain therefore for insertion in any future edition of Mr. Coleridge's
Poems."
The exact date on which Coleridge and Wordsworth met in the year 1796
has not been ascertained; but Coleridge speaks in the next letter as if
he was now well acquainted with Wordsworth. Coleridge had been at
Taunton early in June ('Letters, 220). On the 8th of June he wrote
to Cottle.
LETTER 61. TO COTTLE
(8th) June, 1797.
My dear Cottle,
I am sojourning for a few days at Racedown, Dorset, the mansion of our
friend Wordsworth; who presents his kindest respects to you. * * *
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 I do not think myself a 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. * * *
God bless you, and eke [1]
S. T. COLERIDGE. [2]
[Footnote 1: The reader will have observed a peculiarity in most of Mr.
Coleridge's conclusions to his letters. He generally says, "God bless
you, and, or eke, S. T. C." so as to involve a compound
blessing.--[Cottle.]]
[Footnote 2: Letter LXXIII is our 61.]
Shakespeare evidently occupied an important place in Coleridge's mind
even at this early date. His discovery of rivals to the prince of
English dramatists in his friends Southey and Wordsworth only indicates
how largely Shakespeare already bulked in his view of the dramatic art.
The next letter to Cottle is of a milder type, and leads up to an
interesting meeting, famous in the lives of Lamb, Coleridge, and
Wordsworth.
LETTER 62. TO COTTLE
Stowey, June 29th, 1797.
My very dear Cottle,
***Charles Lamb will probably be here in about a fortnight. Could you
not contrive to put yourself in a Bridgwater coach, and T. Poole would
fetch you in a one-horse chaise to Stowey. What delight would it not
give us. ***
Still more interesting is the often quoted letter describing Dorothy
Wordsworth.
LETTER 63. TO COTTLE
Stowey (3-17 July), 1797.
My dear Cottle,
Wordsworth and his exquisite sister are with me. She is a woman indeed!
in mind I mean, and heart; for her person is such, that if you expected
to see a pretty woman, you would think her rather ordinary; if you
expected to see an ordinary woman, you would think her pretty! but her
manners are simple, ardent, impressive. In every motion, her most
innocent soul outbeams so brightly, that who saw would say,
Guilt was a thing impossible in her.
Her information various. Her eye watchful in minutest observation of
nature; and her taste, a perfect electrometer. It bends, protrudes, and
draws in, at subtlest beauties, and most recondite faults.
She and W. desire their kindest respects to you.
Give my love to your brother Amos. I condole with him in the loss of the
prize, but it is the fortune of war. The finest Greek Poem I ever wrote
lost the prize, and that which gained it was contemptible. An Ode may
sometimes be too bad for the prize, but very often too good.
Your ever affectionate friend.
S. T. C.[1]
[Footnote 1: Letter LXXIV follows 63.]
Dorothy Wordsworth's description of Coleridge whom she met now for the
first time is as follows: "You had a great loss," she wrote to a friend,
"in not seeing Coleridge. He is a wonderful man. His conversation teems
with soul, mind, and spirit. Then he is so benevolent, so good tempered
and cheerful, and, like William, interests himself so much about every
little trifle. At first I thought him very plain, that is, for about
three minutes. He is pale, thin, has a wide mouth, thick lips, and not
very good teeth, longish, loose-growing, half curling, rough, black
hair. But if you hear him speak for five minutes you think no more of
them. His eye is large and full, and not very dark, but grey, such an
eye as would receive from a heavy soul the dullest expression; but it
speaks every emotion of his animated mind: it has more of 'the poet's
eye in a fine frenzy rolling' than I ever witnessed. He has fine dark
eyebrows, and an overhanging forehead.
"The first thing that was read after he came was William's new poem,
"The Ruined Cottage", with which he was much delighted; and after tea he
repeated to us two acts and a half of his tragedy, "Osorio". The next
morning William read his tragedy, "The Borderers"." (Knight's "Life of
Wordsworth", i, 111-112.)
The line Coleridge quotes in his description of Dorothy:
Guilt is a thing impossible in her
occurs in the additional verses Coleridge had written to the "Joan of
Arc" lines sent to Lamb.
John Thelwall, one of the sturdy democrats of the time who had made no
small commotion with his Revolutionary principles, had also visited
Coleridge at Stowey in the summer of 1797. Coleridge had corresponded
with him before knowing him personally ("Letters", 202), chiefly about
politics, religion and books. Coleridge thus describes Thelwall to Wade.
LETTER 64. TO WADE
Stowey (17-20 July), 1797.
My very dear friend,
* * * John Thelwall is a very warm-hearted, honest man; and disagreeing
as we do, on almost every point of religion, of morals, of politics, and
philosophy, we like each other uncommonly well. He is a great favorite
with Sara. Energetic activity of mind and of heart, is his master
feature. He is prompt to conceive, and still prompter to execute; but I
think he is deficient in that patience of mind which can look intensely
and frequently at the same subject. He believes and disbelieves with
impassioned confidence. I wish to see him doubting, and doubting. He is
intrepid, eloquent, and honest. Perhaps, the only acting democrat that
is honest, for the patriots are ragged cattle; a most execrable herd.
Arrogant because they are ignorant, and boastful of the strength of
reason, because they have never tried it enough to know its weakness.
Oh! my poor country! The clouds cover thee. There is not one spot of
clear blue in the whole heaven!
My love to all whom you love, and believe me, with brotherly affection,
with esteem and gratitude, and every warm emotion of the heart,
Your faithful
S. T. COLERIDGE.
The next letter closes the visit of Thelwall.
LETTER 65. TO COTTLE
Stowey, Sept. 1797.
My very dear Cottle,
Your illness afflicts me, and unless I receive a full account of you by
Milton, I shall be very uneasy, so do not fail to write.
Herbert Croft is in Exeter gaol! This is unlucky. Poor devil! He must
now be unpeppered. We are all well. Wordsworth is well. Hartley sends a
grin to you? He has another tooth!
In the wagon, there was brought from Bath, a trunk, in order to be
forwarded to Stowey, directed, "S. T. Coleridge, Stowey, near
Bridgwater." This, we suppose, arrived in Bristol on Tuesday or
Wednesday, last week. It belonged to Thelwall. If it be not forwarded to
Stowey, let it be stopped, and not sent.
Give my kind love to your brother Robert, and "ax" him to put on his
hat, and run, without delay to the inn, or place, by whatever bird,
beast, fish, or man distinguished, where Parson's Bath wagon sets up.
From your truly affectionate friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
In the beginning of September Coleridge was meditating a visit to his
favourite Bowles, whom, in spite of his youthful admiration, he had not
seen since he first saw him in Salisbury when a mere boy. ("Letters",
211.)
LETTER 66. TO COTTLE
(3 Sept., 1797.)
I shall now stick close to my tragedy (called "Osorio"), and when I have
finished it, shall walk to Shaftesbury to spend a few days with Bowles.
From thence I go to Salisbury, and thence to Christchurch, to see
Southey.
"This letter," Cottle says, "as was usual, has no date, but a letter
from Wordsworth determines about the time when Mr. C. had nearly
finished his Tragedy."
September 13, 1797.
"* * * Coleridge is gone over to Bowles with his Tragedy, which he has
finished to the middle of the 5th Act. He set off a week ago."
J. Dykes Campbell in his Life of Coleridge asserts that the Tragedy of
"Osorio" was sent to Drury Lane "without much hope that it would be
accepted."[1] This, however, is inaccurate. The play was not sent;
Coleridge went to London with it, for he writes to Cottle in the
beginning of September:
[Footnote 1: "Life", p. 78.]
LETTER 67. TO COTTLE
London (10-15 Sept.) 1797.
Dear Cottle,
If Mrs. Coleridge be in Bristol, pray desire her to write to me
immediately, and I beg you, the moment you receive this letter, to send
to No. 17, Newfoundland Street, to know whether she be there. I have
written to Stowey, but if she be in Bristol, beg her to write to me of
it by return of post, that I may immediately send down some
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