Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1.

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

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The road on which we walked was weedy with infant fir-trees, an inch or
two high; and now, on our left hand, came before us a most tremendous
precipice of yellow and black rock, called the Rehberg, that is, the
Mountain of the Roe. Now again is nothing but firs and pines above,
below, around us! How awful is the deep unison of their undividable
murmur; what a one thing it is--it is a sound that impresses the dim
notion of the Omnipresent! In various parts of the deep vale below us,
we beheld little dancing waterfalls gleaming through the branches, and
now, on our left hand, from the very summit of the hill above us, a
powerful stream flung itself down, leaping and foaming, and now
concealed, and now not concealed, and now half concealed by the
fir-trees, till, towards the road, it became a visible sheet of water,
within whose immediate neighbourhood no pine could have permanent
abiding place. The snow lay every where on the sides of the roads, and
glimmered in company with the waterfall foam, snow patches and
waterbreaks glimmering through the branches in the hill above, the deep
basin below, and the hill opposite. Over the high opposite hills, so
dark in their pine forests, a far higher round barren stony mountain
looked in upon the prospect from a distant country. Through this scenery
we passed on, till our road was crossed by a second waterfall, or
rather, aggregation of little dancing waterfalls, one by the side of the
other for a considerable breadth, and all came at once out of the dark
wood above, and rolled over the mossy rock fragments, little firs,
growing in islets, scattered among them. The same scenery continued till
we came to the Oder Seich, a lake, half made by man, and half by nature.
It is two miles in length, and but a few hundred yards in breadth, and
winds between banks, or rather through walls, of pine trees. It has the
appearance of a most calm and majestic river. It crosses the road, goes
into a wood, and there at once plunges itself down into a most
magnificent cascade, and runs into the vale, to which it gives the name
of the "Vale of the Roaring Brook." We descended into the vale, and
stood at the bottom of the cascade, and climbed up again by its side.
The rocks over which it plunged were unusually wild in their shape,
giving fantastic resemblances of men and animals, and the fir-boughs by
the side were kept almost in a swing, which unruly motion contrasted
well with the stern quietness of the huge forest-sea every where else.

* * * * *

In nature all things are individual, but a word is but an arbitrary
character for a whole class of things; so that the same description may
in almost all cases be applied to twenty different appearances; and in
addition to the difficulty of the thing itself, I neither am, nor ever
was, a good hand at description. I see what I write, but, alas! I cannot
write what I see. From the Oder Seich we entered a second wood; and now
the snow met us in large masses, and we walked for two miles knee-deep
in it, with an inexpressible fatigue, till we came to the mount called
Little Brocken; here even the firs deserted us, or only now and then a
patch of them, wind-shorn, no higher than one's knee, matted and
cowering to the ground, like our thorn bushes on the highest sea-hills.
The soil was plashy and boggy; we descended and came to the foot of the
Great Brocken without a river--the highest mountain in all the north of
Germany, and the seat of innumerable superstitions. On the first of May
all the witches dance here at midnight; and those who go may see their
own ghosts walking up and down, with a little billet on the back, giving
the names of those who had wished them there; for "I wish you on the top
of the Brocken," is a common curse throughout the whole empire. Well, we
ascended--the soil boggy--and at last reached the height, which is 573
toises [1] above the level of the sea. We visited the Blocksberg, a sort of
bowling-green, enclosed by huge stones, something like those at
Stonehenge, and this is the witches' ball-room; thence proceeded to the
house on the hill, where we dined; and now we descended. In the evening
about seven we arrived at Elbingerode. At the inn they brought us an
album, or stammbuch, requesting that we would write our names, and
something or other as a remembrance that we had been there. I wrote the
following lines, which contain a true account of my journey from the
Brocken to Elbingerode.

I stood on Brocken's sovran height, and saw
Woods crowding upon woods, hills over hills;
A surging scene, and only limited
By the blue distance. Wearily my way
Downward I dragged, through fir groves evermore
Where bright green moss moved in sepulchral forms,
Speckled with sunshine; and, but seldom heard,
The sweet bird's song become a hollow sound;
And the gale murmuring indivisibly,
Reserved its solemn murmur, more distinct
From many a note of many a waterbreak,
And the brook's chatter; on whose islet stones
The dingy kidling, with its tinkling bell,
Leapt frolicksome, or old romantic goat
Sat, his white beard slow waving. I moved on
With low and languid thought, for I had found
That grandest scenes have but imperfect charms
Where the eye vainly wanders, nor beholds
One spot with which the heart associates
Holy remembrances of child or friend,
Or gentle maid, our first and early love,
Or father, or the venerable name
Of our adored country. O thou Queen,
Thou delegated Deity of Earth,
O "dear, dear" England! how my longing eyes
Turned westward, shaping in the steady clouds
Thy sands and high white cliffs! Sweet native isle,
This heart was proud, yea, mine eyes swam with tears
To think of thee; and all the goodly view
From sovran Brocken, woods and woody hills
Floated away, like a departing dream,
Feeble and dim. Stranger, these impulses
Blame thou not lightly; nor will I profane,
With hasty judgment or injurious doubt,
That man's sublimer spirit, who can feel
That God is every where, the God who framed
Mankind to be one mighty brotherhood,
Himself our Father, and the world our home.

We left Elbingerode, May 14th, and travelled for half a mile through a
wild country, of bleak stony hills by our side, with several caverns, or
rather mouths of caverns, visible in their breasts; and now we came to
Rubilland,--Oh, it was a lovely scene! Our road was at the foot of low
hills, and here were a few neat cottages; behind us were high hills,
with a few scattered firs, and flocks of goats visible on the topmost
crags. On our right hand a fine shallow river about thirty yards broad,
and beyond the river a crescent hill clothed with firs, that rise one
above another, like spectators in an amphitheatre. We advanced a little
farther,--the crags behind us ceased to be visible, and now the whole
was one and complete. All that could be seen was the cottages at the
foot of the low green hill, (cottages embosomed in fruit trees in
blossom,) the stream, and the little crescent of firs. I lingered here,
and unwillingly lost sight of it for a little while. The firs were so
beautiful, and the masses of rocks, walls, and obelisks started up among
them in the very places where, if they had not been, a painter with a
poet's feeling would have imagined them. Crossed the river (its name
Bodi), entered the sweet wood, and came to the mouth of the cavern, with
the man who shews it. It was a huge place, eight hundred feet in length,
and more in depth, of many different apartments; and the only thing that
distinguished it from other caverns was, that the guide, who was really
a character, had the talent of finding out and seeing uncommon
likenesses in the different forms of the stalactite. Here was a
nun;--this was Solomon's temple;--that was a Roman Catholic
Chapel;--here was a lion's claw, nothing but flesh and blood wanting to
make it completely a claw! This was an organ, and had all the notes of
an organ, etc. etc. etc.; but, alas! with all possible straining of my
eyes, ears, and imagination, I could see nothing but common stalactite,
and heard nothing but the dull ding of common cavern stones. One thing
was really striking;--a huge cone of stalactite hung from the roof of
the largest apartment, and, on being struck, gave perfectly the sound of
a death-bell. I was behind, and heard it repeatedly at some distance,
and the effect was very much in the fairy kind,--gnomes, and things
unseen, that toll mock death-bells for mock funerals. After this, a
little clear well and a black stream pleased me the most; and multiplied
by fifty, and coloured ad libitum, might be well enough to read of in a
novel or poem. We returned, and now before the inn, on the green plat
around the Maypole, the villagers were celebrating Whit-Tuesday. This
Maypole is hung as usual with garlands on the top, and, in these
garlands, spoons, and other little valuables, are placed. The high
smooth round pole is then well greased; and now he who can climb up to
the top may have what he can get,--a very laughable scene as you may
suppose, of awkwardness and agility, and failures on the very brink of
success. Now began a dance. The women danced very well, and, in general,
I have observed throughout Germany that the women in the lower ranks
degenerate far less from the ideal of a woman, than the men from that of
man. The dances were reels and waltzes; but chiefly the latter. This
dance is, in the higher circles, sufficiently voluptuous; but here the
emotions of it were far more faithful interpreters of the passion,
which, doubtless, the dance was intended to shadow; yet, ever after the
giddy round and round is over, they walked to music, the woman laying
her arm, with confident affection, on the man's shoulders, or around his
neck. The first couple at the waltzing was a very fine tall girl, of two
or three and twenty, in the full bloom and growth of limb and feature,
and a fellow with huge whiskers, a long tail, and woollen night-cap; he
was a soldier, and from the more than usual glances of the girl, I
presumed was her lover. He was, beyond compare, the gallant and the
dancer of the party. Next came two boors: one of whom, in the whole
contour of his face and person, and, above all, in the laughably
would-be frolicksome kick out of his heel, irresistibly reminded me of
Shakespeare's Slender, and the other of his Dogberry. Oh! two such
faces, and two such postures! O that I were an Hogarth! What an enviable
gift it is to have a genius in painting! Their partners were pretty
lasses, not so tall as the former, and danced uncommonly light and airy.
The fourth couple was a sweet girl of about seventeen, delicately
slender, and very prettily dressed, with a full-blown rose in the white
ribbon that went round her head, and confined her reddish-brown hair;
and her partner waltzed with a pipe in his mouth, smoking all the while;
and during the whole of this voluptuous dance, his countenance was a
fair personification of true German phlegm. After these, but, I suppose,
not actually belonging to the party, a little ragged girl and ragged
boy, with his stockings about his heels, waltzed and danced;--waltzing
and dancing in the rear most entertainingly. But what most pleased me,
was a little girl of about three or four years old, certainly not more
than four, who had been put to watch a little babe, of not more than a
year old (for one of our party had asked), and who was just beginning to
run away, the girl teaching him to walk, and who was so animated by the
music, that she began to waltz with him, and the two babes whirled round
and round, hugging and kissing each other, as if the music had made them
mad. There were two fiddles and a bass viol. The fiddlers,--above all,
the bass violer,--most Hogarthian phizzes! God love them! I felt far
more affection for them than towards any other set of human beings I
have met with since I have been in Germany, I suppose because they
looked so happy!

[Footnote 1: marked with an asterisk in the proofing (not the original
text), but not explained further.]

CHAPTER VIII

RETURN TO ENGLAND; "WALLENSTEIN", AND
THE "MORNING POST"

On the 21st May, Coleridge wrote the following letter in which he
informs Josiah Wedgwood what he had done in Germany, and what he
expected to do with the knowledge which he had acquired there.

LETTER 85. TO JOSIAH WEDGWOOD

May 21st, 1799. Gottingen.

My dear sir,

I have lying by my side six huge letters, with your name on each of
them, and all, excepting one, have been written for these three months.
About this time Mr. Hamilton, by whom I send this and the little parcel
for my wife, was, as it were, setting off for England; and I seized the
opportunity of sending them by him, as without any mock-modesty I really
thought that the expense of the postage to me and to you would be more
than their worth. Day after day, and week after week, was Hamilton
going, and still delayed. And now that it is absolutely settled that he
goes to-morrow, it is likewise absolutely settled that I shall go this
day three weeks, and I have therefore sent only this and the picture by
him, but the letters I will now take myself, for I should not like them
to be lost, as they comprise the only subject on which I have had an
opportunity of making myself thoroughly informed, and if I carry them
myself, I can carry them without danger of their being seized at
Yarmouth, as all my letters were, yours to ---- excepted, which were,
luckily, not sealed. Before I left England, I had read the book of which
you speak. [1] I must confess that it appeared to me exceedingly
illogical. Godwin's and Condorcet's extravagancies were not worth
confuting; and yet I thought that the Essay on "Population" had not
confuted them. Professor Wallace, Derham, and a number of German
statistic and physico-theological writers had taken the same ground,
namely, that population increases in a geometrical, but the accessional
nutriment only in arithmetical ratio--and that vice and misery, the
natural consequences of this order of things, were intended by
providence as the counterpoise. I have here no means of procuring so
obscure a book, as Rudgard's; but to the best of my recollection, at the
time that the Fifth Monarchy enthusiasts created so great a sensation in
England, under the Protectorate, and the beginning of Charles the
Second's reign, Rudgard, or Rutgard (I am not positive even of the name)
wrote an Essay to the same purpose, in which he asserted, that if war,
pestilence, vice, and poverty, were wholly removed, the world could not
exist two hundred years, etc. Seiffmilts, [2] in his great work
concerning the divine order and regularity in the destiny of the human
race, has a chapter entitled a confutation of this idea; I read it with
great eagerness, and found therein that this idea militated against the
glory and goodness of God, and must therefore be false,--but further
confutation found I none!--This book of Seiffmilts has a prodigious
character throughout Germany; and never methinks did a work less deserve
it. It is in three huge octavos, and wholly on the general laws that
regulate the population of the human species--but is throughout most
unphilosophical, and the tables, which he has collected with great
industry, prove nothing. My objections to the Essay on Population you
will find in my sixth letter at large--but do not, my dear sir, suppose
that because unconvinced by this essay, I am therefore convinced of the
contrary. No, God knows, I am sufficiently sceptical, and in truth more
than sceptical, concerning the possibility of universal plenty and
wisdom; but my doubts rest on other grounds. I had some conversation
with you before I left England, on this subject; and from that time I
had purposed to myself to examine as thoroughly as it was possible for
me, the important question. Is the march of the human race progressive,
or in cycles? But more of this when we meet.

What have I done in Germany? I have learned the language, both high and
low German, I can read both, and speak the former so fluently, that it
must be a fortune for a German to be in my company, that is, I have
words enough and phrases enough, and I arrange them tolerably; but my
pronunciation is hideous. 2ndly, I can read the oldest German, the
Frankish, and the Swabian. 3rdly. I have attended the lectures on
Physiology, Anatomy, and Natural History, with regularity, and have
endeavoured to understand these subjects. 4thly, I have read and made
collections for a history of the "Belles Lettres," in Germany, before
the time of Lessing: and 5thly, very large collections for a "Life of
Lessing"; to which I was led by the miserably bad and unsatisfactory
biographies that have been hitherto given, and by my personal
acquaintance with two of Lessing's friends. Soon after I came into
Germany, I made up my mind fully not to publish anything concerning my
Travels, as people call them; yet I soon perceived that with all
possible economy, my expenses would be greater than I could justify,
unless I did something that would to a moral certainty repay them. I
chose the "Life of Lessing" for the reasons above assigned, and because
it would give me an opportunity of conveying under a better name than my
own ever will be, opinions which I deem of the highest importance.
Accordingly, my main business at Gottingen has been to read all the
numerous controversies in which Lessing was engaged, and the works of
all those German poets before the time of Lessing, which I could not
afford to buy. For these last four months, with the exception of last
week, in which I visited the Hartz, I have worked harder than I trust in
God Almighty I shall ever have occasion to work again: this endless
transcription is such a body-and-soul-wearying purgatory. I shall have
bought thirty pounds' worth of books, chiefly metaphysics, and with a
view to the one work, to which I hope to dedicate in silence, the prime
of my life; but I believe and indeed doubt not, that before Christmas I
shall have repaid myself. [3]

I never, to the best of my recollection, felt the fear of death but
once; that was yesterday when I delivered the picture to Hamilton. I
felt, and shivered as I felt it, that I should not like to die by land
or water before I see my wife and the little one; that I hope yet
remains to me. But it was an idle sort of feeling, and I should not like
to have it again. Poole half mentioned, in a hasty way, a circumstance
that depressed my spirits for many days:--that you and Thomas were on
the point of settling near Stowey, but had abandoned it. "God Almighty!
what a dream of happiness it held out to me!" writes Poole. I felt
disappointment without having had hope.

In about a month I hope to see you. Till then may heaven bless and
preserve us! Believe me, my dear sir, with every feeling of love,
esteem, and gratitude,

Your affectionate friend,

S. T. COLERIDGE.

(Josiah Wedgwood, Esq.) [4]

[Footnote l: Malthas on Population, 1798.]

[Footnote 2: Should be Syssmilch.]

[Footnote 3: Cottle here omits a part of this letter about pecuniary
matters.]

[Footnote 4: Letters XCIX-CIII follow Letter 85.]

It is interesting to compare this letter with that to Poole of 6th May
1796; it will be seen that Coleridge thus carried out his project of
three years before. He had been able to convince the Wedgwoods of the
desirability of introducing a knowledge of the German philosophy into
England to refute the philosophy of Hume and expose the shallowness of
the metaphysics of Locke and the Paley School of Theology. Tom Wedgwood
was himself a philosopher, and saw in Coleridge the champion of a new
basis of faith, and hence the friendship between them, and the support
of the Wedgwoods to Coleridge in carrying out his self-education.

Coleridge returned to England about a month after the Wordsworths, in
July, 1799, and he reached Stowey before the 29th, when he wrote to
Southey, and the two worked in concert for the publication of an annual
started as the 'Annual Anthology', of which two volumes appeared,
one in 1799 and one in 1800, Coleridge contributing some of his poems to
the latter. 'The Devil's Thoughts', a conjoint squib which caused
some sensation was sent to the 'Morning Post' on 6th September.

Coleridge spent a part of the Autumn of 1799 at Ottery St. Mary visiting
his mother and brothers. Coleridge then went to Southey at Exeter, and
they visited the ash dells round about Dartmoor together
('Letters', 305). Coleridge also saw Josiah Wedgwood at his seat of
Upcott on his way home; and on 15th October we find him back at Stowey
('Letters', 307). Still later he went north to see Wordsworth who
was staying at Sockburn on the Tees with the Hutchinsons. Cottle
accompanied them as far as Greta Bridge, where John Wordsworth joined
their company. Coleridge and William and John Wordsworth then went on
tour to the Lake District, visiting Grasmere, when Wordsworth made
arrangements to take a house at Townend (now known as Dove Cottage), and
came back to Sockburn (Knight's 'Life of Wordsworth', chap. xii).
It was at Sockburn that Coleridge first met Sarah Hutchinson; and here
it is conjectured he wrote his beautiful poem 'Love', which
appeared in its first form in the 'Morning Post', on 21st December
1799, prefaced with the following letter.

LETTER 86. TO THE EDITOR OF THE 'MORNING POST' WITH
THE POEM 'LOVE', FIRST PUBLISHED AS 'INTRODUCTION TO
THE TALE OF THE DARK LADIE'.

21 December, 1799.

Sir,

The following poem is the introduction to a somewhat longer one, for
which I shall solicit insertion on your next open day. The use of the
old ballad word 'Ladie' for Lady, is the only piece of obsoleteness
in it; and as it is professedly a tale of ancient times, I trust that
"the affectionate lovers of venerable antiquity," (as Cambden says) will
grant me their pardon, and perhaps may be induced to admit a force and
propriety in it. A heavier objection may be adduced against the Author,
that in these times of fear and expectation, when novelties
'explode' around us in all directions, he should presume to offer
to the public a silly tale of old-fashioned love; and five years ago, I
own, I should have allowed and felt the force of this objection. But,
alas! explosion has succeeded explosion so rapidly that novelty itself
ceases to appear new; and it is possible that now, even a simple story
wholly unspiced with politics or personality, may find some attention
amid the hubbub of Revolutions, as to those who have remained a long
time by the falls of Niagara, the lowest whispering becomes distinctly
audible.

S. T. COLERIDGE.[1]

[Footnote 1: Letter CIV follows 86.]

This was followed on 10th January 1800 by the political verses
'Talleyrand to Lord Grenville', heralded by a letter as good as, if
not better than, the verses.

LETTER 87. TO THE EDITOR OF THE 'MORNING POST'.
WITH 'TALLEYRAND TO LORD GRENVILLE', A METRICAL
EPISTLE.

10 January, 1800.

Mr. Editor,

An unmetrical letter from Talleyrand to Lord Grenville has already
appeared, and from an authority too high to be questioned: otherwise I
could adduce some arguments for the exclusive authenticity of the
following metrical epistle. The very epithet which the wise ancients
used, "'aurea carmina'" might have been supposed likely to have
determined the choice of the French minister in favour of verse; and the
rather when we recollect that this phrase of "golden verses" is applied
emphatically to the works of that philosopher who imposed 'silence'
on all with whom he had to deal. Besides, is it not somewhat improbable
that Talleyrand should have preferred prose to rhyme, when the latter
alone 'has got the chink'? Is it not likewise curious that in our
official answer no notice whatever is taken of the Chief Consul,
Bonaparte, as if there had been no such person existing; notwithstanding
that his existence is pretty generally admitted, nay that some have been
so rash as to believe that he has created as great a sensation in the
world as Lord Grenville, or even the Duke of Portland? But the Minister
of Foreign Affairs, Talleyrand, 'is' acknowledged, which, in our
opinion, could not have happened had he written only that insignificant
prose letter, which seems to precede Bonaparte's, as in old romances a
dwarf always ran before to proclaim the advent or arrival of knight or
giant. That Talleyrand's character and practices more resemble those of
some 'regular' Governments than Bonaparte's I admit; but this of
itself does not appear a satisfactory explanation. However, let the
letter speak for itself. The second line is supererogative in syllables,
whether from the oscitancy of the transcriber, or from the trepidation
which might have overpowered the modest Frenchman, on finding himself in
the act of writing to so 'great' a man, I shall not dare to
determine. A few notes are added by,

Your servant,

GNOME.

P.S.--As mottoes are now fashionable, especially if taken from out of
the way books, you may prefix, if you please, the following lines from
Sidonius Apollinaris:

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