Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1.

C >> Coleridge, ed. Turnbull >> Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1.

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'Your affectionate friend,

'W. WORDSWORTH.'

"A little time after, I received an invitation from Mr. Coleridge to pay
himself and Mr. Wordsworth another visit. At about the same time, I
received the following corroborative invitation from Mr. Wordsworth.

'Dear Cottle,

'We look for you with great impatience. We will never forgive you if you
do not come. I say nothing of the "Salisbury Plain" till I see you. I am
determined to finish it, and equally so that you shall publish.

'I have lately been busy about another plan, which I do not wish to
mention till I see you; let this be very, very soon, and stay a week if
possible; as much longer as you can. God bless you, dear Cottle,

'Yours sincerely,

'W. WORDSWORTH.

'Allfoxden, 9th May, 1798.'

"The following letter also on this subject, was received from Mr.
Coleridge.

LETTER 80. TO COTTLE

(April, 1798.)

My dear Cottle,

Neither Wordsworth nor myself could have been otherwise than
uncomfortable, if any but yourself had received from us the first offer
of our Tragedies, and of the volume of Wordsworth's Poems. At the same
time, we did not expect that you could with prudence and propriety,
advance such a sum as we should want at the time we specified. In short,
we both regard the publication of our Tragedies as an evil. It is not
impossible but that in happier times, they may be brought on the stage:
and to throw away this chance for a mere trifle, would be to make the
present moment act fraudulently and usuriously towards the future time.

My Tragedy employed and strained all my thoughts and faculties for six
or seven months; Wordsworth consumed far more time, and far more
thought, and far more genius. We consider the publication of them an
evil on any terms; but our thoughts were bent on a plan for the
accomplishment of which, a certain sum of money was necessary, (the
whole) at that particular time, and in order to this we resolved,
although reluctantly, to part with our Tragedies: that is, if we could
obtain thirty guineas for each, and at less than thirty guineas
Wordsworth will not part with the copyright of his volume of Poems. We
shall offer the Tragedies to no one, for we have determined to procure
the money some other way. If you choose the volume of Poems, at the
price mentioned, to be paid at the time specified, "i.e." thirty
guineas, to be paid sometime in the last fortnight of July, you may have
them; but remember, my dear fellow! I write to you now merely as a
bookseller, and intreat you, in your answer, to consider yourself only;
as to us, although money is necessary to our plan, (that of visiting
Germany) yet the plan is not necessary to our happiness; and if it were,
W. could sell his Poems for that sum to someone else, or we could
procure the money without selling the Poems. So I entreat you, again and
again, in your answer, which must be immediate, consider yourself only.

Wordsworth has been caballed against "so long and so loudly", that he
has found it impossible to prevail on the tenant of the Allfoxden
estate, to let him the house, after their first agreement is expired, so
he must quit it at Midsummer. Whether we shall be able to procure him a
house and furniture near Stowey, we know not, and yet we must: for the
hills, and the woods, and the streams, and the sea, and the shores would
break forth into reproaches against us, if we did not strain every
nerve, to keep their poet among them. Without joking, and in serious
sadness, Poole and I cannot endure to think of losing him.

At all events, come down, Cottle, as soon as you can, but before
Midsummer, and we will procure a horse easy as thy own soul, and we will
go on a roam to Linton and Linmouth, which, if thou comest in May, will
be in all their pride of woods and waterfalls, not to speak of its
august cliffs, and the green ocean, and the vast Valley of Stones, all
which live disdainful of the seasons, or accept new honours only from
the winter's snow. At all events come down, and cease not to believe me
much and affectionately your friend.

S. T. COLERIDGE. [1]

[Footnote 1: Letters LXXX-LXXXV follow letter 80.]

"In consequence of these conjoint invitations, I spent a week with Mr.
C. and Mr. W. at Allfoxden house, and during this time, (beside the
reading of MS. poems) they took me to Linmouth, and Linton, and the
Valley of Stones....

"At this interview it was determined, that the volume should be
published under the title of "Lyrical Ballads" on the terms stipulated
in a former letter: that this volume should not contain the poem of
"Salisbury Plain", but only an extract from it; that it should not
contain the poem of "Peter Bell", but consist rather of sundry shorter
poems, and, for the most part, of pieces more recently written. I had
recommended two volumes, but one was fixed on, and that to be published
anonymously. It was to be begun immediately, and with the "Ancient
Mariner"; which poem I brought with me to Bristol. A day or two after I
received the following:"

LETTER 81. TO COTTLE

(May, 1798.)

My dear Cottle,

You know what I think of a letter, how impossible it is to argue in it.
You must therefore take simple statements, and in a week or two, I shall
see you, and endeavour to reason with you.

Wordsworth and I have duly weighed your proposal, and this is an answer.
He would not object to the publishing of "Peter Bell" or the "Salisbury
Plain", singly; but to the publishing of his poems in two volumes, he is
decisively repugnant and oppugnant.

He deems that they would want variety, etc., etc. If this apply in his
case, it applies with ten-fold more force to mine. We deem that the
volumes offered to you, are, to a certain degree, one work in kind,
though not in degree, as an ode is one work; and that our different
poems are, as stanzas, good, relatively rather than absolutely: mark
you, I say in kind, though not in degree. As to the Tragedy, when I
consider it in reference to Shakespeare's, and to "one" other Tragedy,
it seems a poor thing, and I care little what becomes of it. When I
consider it in comparison with modern dramatists, it rises: and I think
it too bad to be published, too good to be squandered. I think of
breaking it up; the planks are sound, and I will build a new ship of the
old materials.

The dedication to the Wedgwoods, which you recommend, would be
indelicate and unmeaning. If, after four or five years, I shall have
finished some work of importance, which could not have been written, but
in an unanxious seclusion, to them I will dedicate it; for the public
will have owed the work to them who gave me the power of that unanxious
seclusion.

As to anonymous publications, depend on it, you are deceived.
Wordsworth's name is nothing to a large number of persons; mine stinks.
The "Essay on Man", the "Botanic Garden", the "Pleasures of Memory", and
many other most popular works, were published anonymously. However, I
waive all reasoning, and simply state it as an unaltered opinion, that
you should proceed as before, with the "Ancient Mariner".

The picture shall be sent.[1] For your love gifts and bookloans accept
our hearty love. The "Joan of Arc" is a divine book; it opens lovelily.
I hope that you will take off some half dozen of our "Poems" on great
paper, even as the "Joan of Arc".

Cottle, my dear Cottle, I meant to have written you an Essay on the
Metaphysics of Typography, but I have not time. Take a few hints,
without the abstruse reasons for them, with which I mean to favour you.
18 lines in a page, the line closely printed, certainly more closely
printed than those of the "Joan";[2] ("Oh, by all means, closer, "W.
Wordsworth"") equal ink, and large margins; that is beauty; it may even,
under your immediate care, mingle the sublime! And now, my dear Cottle,
may God love you and me, who am, with most unauthorish feelings,

Your true friend,

S. T. COLERIDGE.

P.S.--I walked to Linton the day after you left us, and returned on
Saturday. I walked in one day, and returned in one.[3]

[Footnote 1: A portrait of Mr. Wordsworth, correctly and beautifully
executed, by an artist then at Stowey; now in my possession. [Cottle's
note.]]

[Footnote 2: "Joan of Arc", 4to first edition, had twenty lines in a
page. [Cottle.]]

[Footnote 3: Letters LXXXVI-XCII follow 81.]

Coleridge has given his account of the origin of the "Lyrical Ballads"
in the fourteenth chapter of the "Biographia Literaria", and
Wordsworth's account is found in the Fenwick Note to "We are Seven".

An estrangement with Charles Lamb and Charles Lloyd at this time took
place which has been the subject of many surmises as to its origin among
the biographers of Coleridge. The coldness with Lamb passed off by the
beginning of 1800 when Charles wrote to Coleridge in his customary
humorous vein; but Lloyd was not so soon taken back to favour. Southey
joined the cabal against Coleridge and encouraged the estrangement; but
he too was on friendly terms with Coleridge in the autumn of 1799.

On the l4th May Coleridge's second child was born, named Berkeley, after
the idealist philosopher who had now displaced Hartley, who had been in
the ascendant when the first child was born.

With the adoption of Berkeley as his pet philosopher, we can understand
Coleridge's determination to visit Germany. He had heard rumours of the
Kantean Philosophy, and wished to acquire thoroughly a knowledge of the
language of the Germans principally to be able to read Kant in the
original. This project Coleridge speaks of as early as 6th May, 1796
(Letter 33); but it was only now when he enjoyed the support of the
Wedgwoods that he could afford to put it into execution. The volume of
"Lyrical Ballads" was published in the early part of the autumn of 1798;
and along with William and Dorothy Wordsworth, Coleridge set sail from
Yarmouth. John Chester, a resident of Stowey, also accompanied them.

Coleridge arrived at Cuxhaven on 19th September, from which place he
wrote Mrs. Coleridge an account of the voyage and his first impressions
of Germany. This account is more fully given in the "Letters of
Satyrane" in the "Biographia Literaria". He took up his quarters at
Ratzeburg, staying with the pastor of that town; while Wordsworth and
his sister went to Goslar. From Ratzeburg Coleridge repaired to
Gsttingen on 12th February, 1799, to attend lectures at the University.
He worked hard while in Goettingen to acquire a knowledge of the
literature of Germany, and made himself proficient in the dialects as
well as of classical German. He met two of the Parrys, brothers of the
Arctic explorer, at Gsttingen; and, later, Clement Carlyon, an
Englishman from Pembroke College, joined the group. Carlyon afterwards
in later life, in his "Early Years and Late Reflections", depicted
Coleridge as the life and soul of the party, incessantly talking,
discussing, and philosophizing, and diving into his pocket German
Dictionary for the right word. Carlyon devotes 270 pages of the first
volume of his book to Coleridge.

Berkeley Coleridge died in February, and the news depressed Coleridge
and threw his studies for some time into disorder; but the Wordsworths
visited him at Gsttingen, and they had some talk about the future place
of their abode in England. The Wordsworths were desirous of staying in
the North of England; but Coleridge at this time had resolved to remain
at Stowey, to be near Poole, in whom he felt his "anchor", as he
expressed it. (J. Dykes-Campbell's "Life", chap, v.)

Coleridge during his stay in Germany wrote a good many letters to his
wife, to Poole, and the Wedgwoods. We can quote only two fragments from
those to his wife, and the long one, "Over the Brocken".

LETTER 82. TO MRS. COLERIDGE

14 Jany., 1799.

The whole Lake of Ratzeburg is one mass of thick transparent ice--a
spotless Mirror of nine miles in extent! The lowness of the Hills, which
rise from the shores of the Lake, preclude the awful sublimity of Alpine
scenery, yet compensate for the want of it by beauties, of which this
very lowness is a necessary condition. Yester-morning I saw the lesser
Lake completely hidden by Mist; but the moment the Sun peeped over the
Hill, the mist broke in the middle, and in a few seconds stood divided,
leaving a broad road all across the Lake; and between these two Walls of
mist the sunlight "burnt" upon the ice, forming a road of golden fire,
intolerably bright! and the mist-walls themselves partook of the blaze
in a multitude of shining colours. This is our second Frost. About a
month ago, before the Thaw came on, there was a storm of wind; during
the whole night, such were the thunders and howlings of the breaking
ice, that they have left a conviction on my mind, that there are Sounds
more sublime than any Sight "can" be, more absolutely suspending the
power of comparison, and more utterly absorbing the mind's
self-consciousness in its total attention to the object working upon it.
Part of the ice which the vehemence of the wind had shattered, was
driven shore-ward and froze anew. On the evening of the next day, at
sun-set, the shattered ice thus frozen, appeared of a deep blue, and in
shape like an agitated sea; beyond this, the water, that ran up between
the great Islands of ice which had preserved their masses entire and
smooth, shone of a yellow green; but all these scattered Ice-islands,
themselves, were of an intensely bright blood colour--they seemed blood
and light in union! On some of the largest of these Islands, the
Fishermen stood pulling out their immense Nets through the holes made in
the ice for this purpose, and the Men, their Net-Poles, and their huge
Nets, were a part of the glory; say rather, it appeared as if the rich
crimson light had shaped itself into these forms, figures, and
attitudes, to make a glorious vision in mockery of earthly things.

The lower Lake is now all alive with Skaters, and with Ladies driven
onward by them in their ice cars. Mercury, surely, was the first maker
of Skates, and the wings at his feet are symbols of the invention. In
skating there are three pleasing circumstances: the infinitely subtle
particles of Ice, which the Skate cuts up, and which creep and run
before the Skate like a low mist, and in sun-rise or sun-set become
coloured; second, the shadow of the Skater in the water seen through the
transparent Ice; and third, the melancholy undulating sound from the
Skate, not without variety; and when very many are skating together, the
sounds and the noises give an impulse to the icy Trees, and the woods
all round the Lake "tinkle"![1]

[Footnote 1: Letter XCIII repeats 82, XCIV-XCVI follow.]

LETTER 83. TO MRS. COLERIDGE

Ratzeburg, 23 April, 1799.

There is a Christmas custom here which pleased and interested me.--The
Children make little presents to their Parents, and to each other; and
the Parents to the Children. For three or four months before Christmas
the Girls are all busy, and the Boys save up their pocket-money, to make
or purchase these presents. What the Present is to be is cautiously kept
secret, and the Girls have a world of contrivances to conceal it--such
as working when they are out on visits and the others are not with them;
getting up in the morning before day-light, etc. Then on the evening
before Christmas day one of the Parlours is lighted up by the Children,
into which the Parents must not go: a great yew bough is fastened on the
Table at a little distance from the wall, a multitude of little Tapers
are fastened in the bough, but not so as to burn it till they are nearly
burnt out, and coloured paper, etc. hangs and flutters from the
twigs.--Under this Bough the Children lay out in great order the
presents they mean for their Parents, still concealing in their pockets
what they intend for each other. Then the Parents are introduced--and
each presents his little Gift--and then bring out the rest one by one
from their pockets, and present them with kisses and embraces.--Where I
witnessed this scene, there were eight or nine Children, and the eldest
Daughter and the Mother wept aloud for joy and tenderness; and the tears
ran down the face of the Father, and he clasped all his Children so
tight to his breast--it seemed as if he did it to stifle the sob that
was rising within him.--I was very much affected.--The Shadow of the
Bough and its appendages on the wall, and arching over on the Ceiling,
made a pretty Picture--and then the raptures of the "very" little Ones,
when at last the twigs and their needles began to take fire and
"snap"--O it was a delight for them!--On the next day, in the great
Parlour, the Parents lay out on the table the Presents for the Children:
a scene of more sober joy succeeds, as on this day, after an old custom,
the Mother says privately to each of her Daughters, and the Father to
his Sons, that which he has observed most praise-worthy and that which
was most faulty in their conduct.--Formerly, and still in all the
smaller Towns and Villages throughout North Germany, these Presents were
sent by all the Parents to some one Fellow who in high Buskins, a white
Robe, a Mask, and an enormous flax Wig, personates Knecht Rupert, i.e.
the Servant Rupert. On Christmas Night he goes round to every House and
says, that Jesus Christ, his Master, sent him thither--the Parents and
elder Children receive him with great pomp of reverence, while the
little ones are most terribly frightened--He then enquires for the
Children, and according to the character which he hears from the Parent,
he gives them the intended Present, as if they came out of Heaven from
Jesus Christ.--Or, if they should have been bad Children, he gives the
Parents a Rod, and in the name of his Master, recommends them to use it
frequently.--About seven or eight years old the Children are let into
the secret, and it is curious how faithfully they keep it![1]

["Over the Brocken" must occupy a chapter of itself.]

[Footnote 1: Letter XCVII repeats 83, XCVIII follows.]

CHAPTER VII

THE RELIGION OF THE PINEWOODS

Coleridge called the letters from Germany which he published in "The
Friend" of 1809 the "Letters of Satyrane". He was fond of masquerading
under the name of this allegorical personage of the "Faery Queen"; and
in his "Tombless Epitaph" he described himself as Idolocrastes Satyrane.
Under this disguise he looked upon himself as the spokesman of the Idea
of the Omnipresence of the Deity. In order to appreciate the following
beautiful letter, one of the finest Coleridge ever wrote, the reader
should peruse Coleridge's "Aeolian Harp", "Lines written on leaving a
Place of Retirement", "The Lime-Tree Bower", and Wordsworth's "Tintern
Abbey". Wordsworth's sonnet, "It is a beauteous evening", and
Coleridge's own "Hymn before Sunrise in the Vale of Chamouni", also
belong to the same feeling for the God of Nature, but they were composed
after the letter "Over the Brocken".

Clement Carlyon, who is the chief authority for the life of Coleridge
during his stay at Gsttingen, gives a lively account of the ascent of
the Brocken, which took place on Whit Sunday, 12th May 1799. The party
visited the "magic circle of stones where the fairies assembled," and
halted for the first time at the village of Satzfeld, a romantic
village, "a bright moonlight at night, and the nightingale heard."
Coleridge was in high spirits, and kept talking all the way, discoursing
on his favourite topics. Sublimity was defined as a "suspension of the
powers of comparison"; "no animal but man can be struck with wonder";
Shakespeare owed his success largely to the cheering breath of popular
applause, the enthusiastic gale of admiration. The English Divines were
applauded by Coleridge, Jeremy Taylor prominently; and a play by Hans
Sachs was preferred to a play of Kotzebue; from which he launched into a
discourse on Miracle plays. Coleridge's conversation was peppered with
puns, some of which Carlyon quotes.

Carlyon also notices that their course up the mountain was impeded by
stunted firs; and he describes the dancing party of peasants with whom
Coleridge was so much taken. The party returned to Gottingen on 18th
May. Coleridge had written the day before to his wife.

LETTER 84. TO MRS. COLERIDGE

Clausthal, 17 May 1799.

Through roads no way rememberable, we came to Gieloldshausen, over a
bridge, on which was a mitred statue with a great crucifix in its arms.
The village, long and ugly; but the church, like most Catholic churches,
interesting; and this being Whitsun Eve, all were crowding to it, with
their mass-books and rosaries, the little babies commonly with coral
crosses hanging on the breast. Here we took a guide, left the village,
ascended a hill, and now the woods rose up before us in a verdure which
surprised us like a sorcery. The spring had burst forth with the
suddenness of a Russian summer. As we left Gottingen there were buds,
and here and there a tree half green; but here were woods in full
foliage, distinguished from summer only by the exquisite freshness of
their tender green. We entered the wood through a beautiful mossy path;
the moon above us blending with the evening light, and every now and
then a nightingale would invite the others to sing, and some or other
commonly answered, and said, as we suppose, "It is yet somewhat too
early!" for the song was not continued. We came to a square piece of
greenery, completely walled on all four sides by the beeches; again
entered the wood, and having travelled about a mile, emerged from it
into a grand plain--mountains in the distance, but ever by our road the
skirts of the green woods. A very rapid river ran by our side; and now
the nightingales were all singing, and the tender verdure grew paler in
the moonlight, only the smooth parts of the river were still deeply
purpled with the reflections from the fiery light in the west. So
surrounded and so impressed, we arrived at Prele, a dear little cluster
of houses in the middle of a semicircle of woody hills; the area of the
semicircle scarcely broader than the breadth of the village.

* * * * *

We afterwards ascended another hill, from the top of which a large plain
opened before us with villages. A little village, Neuhoff, lay at the
foot of it: we reached it, and then turned up through a valley on the
left hand. The hills on both sides the valley were prettily wooded, and
a rapid lively river ran through it. So we went for about two miles, and
almost at the end of the valley, or rather of its first turning, we
found the village of Lauterberg. Just at the entrance of the village,
two streams come out from two deep and woody coombs, close by each
other, meet, and run into a third deep woody coomb opposite; before you
a wild hill, which seems the end and barrier of the valley; on the right
hand, low hills, now green with corn, and now wooded; and on the left a
most majestic hill indeed--the effect of whose simple outline painting
could not give, and how poor a thing are words! We pass through this
neat little town--the majestic hill on the left hand soaring over the
houses, and at every interspace you see the whole of it--its beeches,
its firs, its rocks, its scattered cottages, and the one neat little
pastor's house at the foot, embosomed in fruit-trees all in blossom, the
noisy coomb-brook dashing close by it. We leave the valley, or rather,
the first turning on the left, following a stream; and so the vale winds
on, the river still at the foot of the woody hills, with every now and
then other smaller valleys on right and left crossing our vale, and ever
before you the woody hills running like groves one into another. We
turned and turned, and entering the fourth curve of the vale, we found
all at once that we had been ascending. The verdure vanished! All the
beech trees were leafless, and so were the silver birches, whose boughs
always, winter and summer, hang so elegantly. But low down in the
valley, and in little companies on each bank of the river, a multitude
of green conical fir trees, with herds of cattle wandering about, almost
every one with a cylindrical bell around its neck, of no inconsiderable
size, and as they moved--scattered over the narrow vale, and up among
the trees on the hill--the noise was like that of a great city in the
stillness of a sabbath morning, when the bells all at once are ringing
for church. The whole was a melancholy and romantic scene, that was
quite new to me. Again we turned, passed three smelting houses, which we
visited; a scene of terrible beauty is a furnace of boiling metal,
darting, every moment blue, green, and scarlet lightning, like serpents'
tongues!--and now we ascended a steep hill, on the top of which was St.
Andrias Berg, a town built wholly of wood.

We descended again, to ascend far higher; and now we came to a most
beautiful road, which winded on the breast of the hill, from whence we
looked down into a deep valley, or huge basin, full of pines and firs;
the opposite hills full of pines and frs; and the hill above us, on
whose breast we were winding, likewise full of pines and firs. The
valley, or basin, on our right hand, into which we looked down, is
called the Wald Rauschenbach, that is, the Valley of the Roaring Brook;
and roar it did, indeed, most solemnly!

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