Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1.

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BIOGRAPHIES OF COLERIDGE

John Thomas Cox. Memoir prefixed to Edition of the Poems of S. T.
Coleridge. 1836.

Life of Coleridge prefixed to Edition of the Poems by Milner and
Sowerby. (No date.)

James Gillman. "Life of S. T. Coleridge". Vol. I. 1838.

Biographical Supplement to the Second Edition of the "Biographia
Literaria". By Henry Nelson Coleridge and Sara Coleridge. 1847.

F. Freiligrath. Memoir to the "Tauchnitz Edition" of the Poems of S. T.
Coleridge. 1860.

E. H. Norton. Poetical and Dramatic Works, with Life of the Author. 3
vols. Boston, 1864.

Derwent Coleridge, Introductory Essay to Poems of S. T. C. Moxon and
Sons. 1870.

W. M. Rossetti. Critical Memoir to the Edition of Poems of S. T. C. in
Moxon's "Popular Poets." 1872.

William Bell Scott. Introduction to Edition of the Poems in "Routledge's
Poets."

Memoir prefixed to the Edition of the Poems of S. T. C. in "Lansdown"
Poets. F. Warne and Co. 1878.

R. Herne Shepherd. Life of S. T. C. prefixed to Macmillan's Edition of
the Poems of S. T. C. 4 vols. 1877-1880.

Memoir prefixed to the "Landscape Edition" of the Poems of S. T.
Coleridge. Edinburgh, 1881.

"Life of S. T. Coleridge". By H. Traill, "English Men of Letters
Series." 1884.

Thomas Ashe. "Life of S. T. Coleridge" prefixed to the "Aldine Edition"
of the Poems of S. T. C. 2 vols. 1885.

Professor Alois Brandl, Prague. "Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the English
Romantic School". English Edition by Lady Eastlake. 1887.

"The Life of S. T. Coleridge". By Hall Caine. "Great Writers Series."
1887.

Introductory Memoir by J. Dykes Campbell, prefixed to "Poetical Works of
S. T. C." Macmillan. 1893.

"Samuel Taylor Coleridge". A narrative of the events of his Life. By
James Dykes Campbell. 1894.

"Coleridge". Bell's "Miniature Series of Great Writers." By Richard
Garnett. 1904.

"La Vie d'un Poete--Coleridge". Par Joseph Aynard. Paris, 1907.

INTRODUCTIONS TO SELECTIONS OF THE POEMS OF S. T. C., 1869-1908

Algernon C. Swinburne. "Christabel and the Lyrical and Imaginative Poems
of S. T. Coleridge" (Sampson Low, and Co.). 1869.

Joseph Skipsey. Prefatory Notice to the "Canterbury Edition" of
Coleridge's Poems (Walter Scott).

Stopford A. Brooke. Introduction to the Golden Book of Coleridge (Dent
and Co.).

Andrew Lang. Introduction to Poems of S. T. C. (Longmans).

Richard Garnett. "The Poetry of Samuel Taylor Coleridge". The "Muses"
Library (Lawrence and Bullen, now Routledge). 1888.

"Coleridge's Select Poems". Edited by Andrew J. George, M. A. (Heath,
publisher.)

"Poems". Edited by E. H. Coleridge (Heinemann).

"Poems". Edited by Alice Meynell. "Red Letter Library" (Blackie).

"Poems of S. T. C." Edited by Professor Knight (Newnes).

"Poems of Coleridge", selected and arranged. Edited by Arthur Symons
(Methuen and Co.).

"The Poems of Coleridge". Illustrated by Gerald Metcalfe. With an
Introduction by E. Hartley Coleridge (John Lane). 1907.

"The Poems of S. T. Coleridge". "The World's Classics" (Frowde). Edited
by T. Quiller-Couch. 1908.

"Poems of Coleridge". "The Golden Poets." With an Introduction by
Professor Edward Dowden, LL.D. (Caxton Publishing Company).

BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATIONS

1865. Article in the "North British Review" for December of this year.

1903. "From Ottery to Highgate, the story of the childhood and later
years of Samuel Taylor Coleridge". By Wilfred Brown (Coleberd and Co.,
Ltd., Ottery St. Mary).

CONTENTS

PART I.--POETRY

Page
CHAPTER I. EARLY YEARS I, 3
Letter 1. To Thomas Poole. -- Feby. 1797 5
2. " -- Mch. 1797 7
3. " 9 Oct. 1797 11
4. " 16 Oct. 1797 15
5. " 19 Feby. 1798 19

CHAPTER II. CAMBRIDGE AND PANTISOCRACY 29
Letter 6. To George Coleridge. 31 Mch. 1791 29
7. Robert Southey. 6 July, 1794 34
8. Henry Martin. 22 July, 1794 35
9. Southey. 6 Sept. 1794 42
10. " 18 Sept. 1794 43
11. Charles Heath. -- -- 1794 44
12. Henry Martin. 22 Sept. 1794 46
13. Southey. -- Dec. 1794 47

CHAPTER III. "THE WATCHMAN" 50
Letter 14. To Thomas Poole. 7 Oct. 1795 50
15. Joseph Cottle. -- Dec. 1795 52
16. " 1 Jany. 1796 52
17. Josiah Wade. -- Jany. 1796 55
18. " -- -- 1796 55
19. " -- -- 1796 56
20. " -- -- 1796 58
21. " 7 Jany. 1796 59
22. " -- Jany. 1796 60
23. Cottle. -- Feby. 1796 62
24. " -- -- 1796 62
25. " 22 Feby. 1796 63
26. Poole. 30 Mch. 1796 65
27. Benjamin Flower. 1 April, 1796
28. Caius Gracchus. 1 April, 1796
29. Poole. 11 April, 1796
30. Cottle. 15 April, 1796
31. " -- April, 1796
32. " -- April, 1796
33. Poole. 6 May, 1796
34. " 12 May, 1796
35. " 29 May, 1796
36. " 4 July, 1796
37. " -- Aug. 1796
38. Wade. -- Sept. 1796
39. Poole. 24 Sept. 1796
40. Charles Lamb. 29 Sept. 1796
41. Cottle. 18 Oct. 1796
42. Poole. 1 Nov. 1796
43. " 5 Nov. 1796
44. Charles Lloyd, Senr. 15 Oct. 1796
45. " 14 Nov. 1796
46. " 4 Dec. 1796
47. Poole. 26 Dec. 1796

CHAPTER IV. CONTEMPORARY PORTRAITS OF COLERIDGE

CHAPTER V. STOWEY
Letter 48. To Cottle. Jany. 1797
49. " 3 Jany. 1797
50. " 10 Jany. 1797
51. " Jany. 1797
52. " Jany. --
53. " Jany. --
54. " Feby. or Mch. 1797
55. " May, 1797
56. " -- --
57. " -- --
58. Wade. -- --
59. Cottle. -- --
60. " -- June, 1797
61. " 8 June, 1797
62. " 29 -- --
63. " 3-17 July, 1797
64. Wade. 17-20 July, 1797
Letter 65. To Cottle. --Sept. 1797
66. " 3 Sept. 1797
67. " 10-15 Sept. 1797
68. " 28 Nov. 1797
69. " 2 Dec. 1797
70. " --Jany. 1798
71. Wedgwood. --Jany. 1798
72. Cottle. 24 Jany. 1798
73. the Editor, "Monthly Mag." --Jany. 1798

CHAPTER VI. THE LYRICAL BALLADS AND GERMANY

Letter 74. To Cottle. 18 Feb. 1798
75. the Editor, "Morning Post." 10 Mch. 1798
76. Cottle. 8 Mch. 1798
77. Wade. 21 Mch. 1798
78. Cottle. Mch. or Apl. 1798
79. " 14 April, 1798
80. " --April, 1798
81. " --May, 1798
82. Mrs. Coleridge. 14 Jany. 1799
83. " 23 April, 1799

CHAPTER VII. THE RELIGION OF THE PINEWOODS

Letter 84. To Mrs. Coleridge. 17 May, 1799

CHAPTER VIII. RETURN TO ENGLAND, "WALLENSTEIN", AND
THE "MORNING POST"

Letter 85. To Josiah Wedgwood. 21 May, 1799
86. "the Editor, Morning Post." 21 Dec. 1799
87. " 10 Jany. 1800
88. Thomas Wedgwood. --Jany. 1800
89. Josiah Wedgwood. --Feby. 1800
90. Thomas Poole. --Mch. 1800

CHAPTER IX KESWICK

Letter 91. To William Godwin. 21 May, 1800
92. Humphry Davy. --June, 1800
93. Josiah Wedgwood. 24 July, 1800
94. Davy. 25 July, 1800
95. Godwin. 22 Sept. 1800
96. Davy. 9 Oct. 1800
97. Godwin. 13 Oct. 1800
98. Davy. 18 Oct. 1800
99. Josiah Wedgwood. 1 Nov. 1800
100. " 12 Nov. 1800
101. the Editor, "Monthly Review."18 Nov. 1800
102. Davy. 2 Dec. 1800
103. " 3 Feby. 1801
104. Wade. 6 March, 1801
105. Godwin. 25 March, 1801

PART II.--THE PERMANENT

CHAPTER X. ILL HEALTH; SOUTHEY COMES TO KESWICK

Letter 106. To Southey. 13 April, 1801
107. Davy. 4 May, 1801
108. " 20 May, 1801
109. Godwin. 23 June, 1801
110. Davy. 31 Oct. 1801
111. Thos. Wedgwood. 20 Oct. 1802
112. " 3 Nov. 1802
113. " 9 Jany. l803
114. " 14 Jany. 1803
115. " 10 Feby. 1803
116. " 10 Feby. 1803
117. " 17 Feby. 1803
118. " 17 Feby. 1803
119. Godwin. 4 June, 1803
120. " 10 July, 1803
121. Southey. -- July, 1803
122. Thos. Wedgwood. 16 Sept. 1803
123. Miss Cruikshank. -- -- 1803
124. Thos. Wedgwood. -- Jany. 1804
125. " 28 Jany. 1804
126. Davy. 6 Mch. 1804
127. Sarah Hutchinson. 10 March, 1804
128. Wedgwood. 24 March, 1804
129. Davy. 25 March, 1804

PART I

POETRY

BIOGRAPHIA EPISTOLARIS

CHAPTER I

EARLY YEARS
[1772 to 1791]

While here, thou fed'st upon etherial beams,
As if thou had'st not a terrestrial birth;--
Beyond material objects was thy sight;
In the clouds woven was thy lucid robe!
"Ah! who can tell how little for this sphere
That frame was fitted of empyreal fire!" [1]

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was the youngest child of the Reverend John
Coleridge, Chaplain-Priest and Vicar of the parish of Ottery St. Mary,
in the county of Devon, and Master of the Free Grammar, or King's
School, as it is called, founded by Henry VIII in that town. His
mother's maiden name was Ann Bowdon. He was born at Ottery on the 21st
of October 1772, "about eleven o'clock in the forenoon," as his father,
the Vicar, has, with rather unusual particularity, entered it in the
register.

John Coleridge, who was born in 1719, and finished his education at
Sidney-Sussex College, Cambridge,[2] was a country clergyman and
schoolmaster of no ordinary kind. He was a good Greek and Latin scholar,
a profound Hebraist, and, according to the measure of his day, an
accomplished mathematician. He was on terms of literary friendship with
Samuel Badcock, and, by his knowledge of Hebrew, rendered material
assistance to Dr. Kennicott, in his well known critical works. Some
curious papers on theological and antiquarian subjects appear with his
signature in the early numbers of "The Gentleman's Magazine", between
the years 1745 and 1780; almost all of which have been inserted in the
interesting volumes of Selections made several years ago from that work.
In 1768 he published miscellaneous Dissertations arising from the 17th
and 18th chapters of the Book of Judges; in which a very learned and
ingenious attempt is made to relieve the character of Micah from the
charge of idolatry ordinarily brought against it; and in 1772 appeared a
"Critical Latin Grammar", which his son called "his best work," and
which is not wholly unknown even now to the inquisitive by the proposed
substitution of the terms "prior, possessive, attributive, posterior,
interjective, and quale-quare-quidditive," for the vulgar names of the
cases. This little Grammar, however, deserves a philologer's perusal,
and is indeed in many respects a very valuable work in its kind. He also
published a Latin Exercise book, and a Sermon. His school was
celebrated, and most of the country gentlemen of that generation,
belonging to the south and east parts of Devon, had been his pupils.
Judge Buller was one. The amiable character and personal eccentricities
of this excellent man are not yet forgotten amongst some of the elders
of the parish and neighbourhood, and the latter, as is usual in such
cases, have been greatly exaggerated. He died suddenly in the month of
October 1781, after riding to Ottery from Plymouth, to which latter
place he had gone for the purpose of embarking his son Francis, as a
midshipman, for India. Many years afterwards, in 1797, S. T. Coleridge
commenced a series of Letters to his friend Thomas Poole, of Nether
Stowey, in the county of Somerset, in which he proposed to give an
account of his life up to that time. Five only were written, and
unfortunately they stop short of his residence at Cambridge. This series
will properly find a place here.

[Footnote 1: From a Sonnet To Coleridge by Sir Egerton Brydges--written
16th Feb. 1837. S. C.]

[Footnote 2: He was matriculated at Sidney a sizar on the 18th of March
1748, but does not appear to have taken any degree at the University. S.
C.]

LETTER 1. TO MR. POOLE

My Dear Poole,

I could inform the dullest author how he might write an interesting
book. Let him relate the events of his own life with honesty, not
disguising the feelings that accompanied them. I never yet read even a
Methodist's "Experience" in the Gospel Magazine without receiving
instruction and amusement; and I should almost despair of that man who
could peruse the Life of John Woolman without an amelioration of heart.
As to my Life, it has all the charms of variety,--high life and low
life, vices and virtues, great folly and some wisdom. However, what I am
depends on what I have been; and you, my best friend, have a right to
the narration. To me the task will be a useful one. It will renew and
deepen my reflections on the past; and it will perhaps make you behold
with no unforgiving or impatient eye those weaknesses and defects in my
character, which so many untoward circumstances have concurred in
planting there.

My family on my Mother's side can be traced up, I know not how far. The
Bowdons inherited a good farm and house thereon in the Exmoor country,
in the reign of Elizabeth, as I have been told; and to my knowledge they
have inherited nothing better since that time. My Grandfather was in the
reign of George I a considerable woollen trader in Southmolton; so that
I suppose, when the time comes, I shall be allowed to pass as a
"Sans-culotte" without much opposition. My Father received a better
education than the rest of his family in consequence of his own
exertions, not of his superiour advantages. When he was not quite
sixteen years of age, my grandfather, by a series of misfortunes, was
reduced to great distress. My Father received the half of his last crown
and his blessing, and walked off to seek his fortune. After he had
proceeded a few miles, he sate him down on the side of the road, so
overwhelmed with painful thoughts that he wept audibly. A gentleman
passed by who knew him, and, inquiring into his sorrow, took him home
and gave him the means of maintaining himself by placing him in a
school. At this time he commenced being a severe and ardent student. He
married his first wife, by whom he had three daughters, all now alive.
While his first wife lived, having scraped up money enough, he at the
age of twenty walked to Cambridge, entered himself at Sidney College,
distinguished himself in Hebrew and Mathematics, and might have had a
fellowship if he had not been married. He returned and settled as a
schoolmaster in Southmolton where his wife died. In 1760 he was
appointed Chaplain-Priest and Master of the School at Ottery St. Mary,
and removed to that place; and in August, 1760, Mr. Buller, the father
of the present Judge, procured for him the living from Lord Chancellor
Bathurst. By my Mother, his second wife, he had ten children, of whom I
am the youngest, born October 20th,[1] 1772.

These facts I received from my Mother; but I am utterly unable to fill
them up by any further particulars of times, or places, or names. Here I
shall conclude my first Letter, because I cannot pledge myself for the
accuracy of the accounts, and I will not therefore mingle it with that
for the truth of which, in the minutest parts, I shall hold myself
responsible. You must regard this Letter as a first chapter devoted to
dim traditions of times too remote to be pierced by the eye of
investigation.

Yours affectionately, S. T. COLERIDGE.

Feb. 1797. Monday.

[Footnote 1: A mistake, should be October 21st.]

LETTER 2. To MR. POOLE

My Dear Poole,

My Father (Vicar of, and Schoolmaster at, Ottery St. Mary, Devon) was a
good mathematician, and well versed in the Greek, Latin, and Hebrew
languages. He published, or rather attempted to publish, several
works;--1st, Miscellaneous Dissertations arising from the 17th and 18th
chapters of the Book of Judges; 2d, "Sententiae Excerptcae" for the use
of his own School; and 3d, his best work, a Critical Latin Grammar, in
the Preface to which he proposes a bold innovation in the names of the
cases. My Father's new nomenclature was not likely to become popular,
although it must be allowed to be both sonorous and expressive. "Exempli
gratia", he calls the ablative case "the quare-quale-quidditive case!"
He made the world his confidant with respect to his learning and
ingenuity, and the world seems to have kept the secret very faithfully.
His various works, uncut, unthumbed, were preserved free from all
pollution in the family archives, where they may still be for anything
that I know. This piece of good luck promises to be hereditary; for all
"my" compositions have the same amiable home-staying propensity. The
truth is, my Father was not a first-rate genius; he was, however, a
first-rate Christian, which is much better. I need not detain you with
his character. In learning, goodheartedness, absentness of mind, and
excessive ignorance of the world, he was a perfect Parson Adams.

My Mother was an admirable economist, and managed exclusively. My
eldest brother's name was John. He was a Captain in the East India
Company's service; a successful officer and a brave one, as I have
heard. He died in India in 1786. My second brother William went to
Pembroke College, Oxford. He died a clergyman in 1780, just on the eve
of his intended marriage. My brother James has been in the army since
the age of fifteen, and has married a woman of fortune, one of the old
Duke family of Otterton in Devon. Edward, the wit of the family, went
to Pembroke College, and is now a clergyman. George also went to
Pembroke. He is in orders likewise, and now has the same School, a very
flourishing one, which my Father had. He is a man of reflective mind
and elegant talent. He possesses learning in a greater degree than any
of the family, excepting myself. His manners are grave, and hued over
with a tender sadness. In his moral character he approaches every way
nearer to perfection than any man I ever yet knew. He is worth us all.
Luke Herman was a surgeon, a severe student, and a good man. He died in
1790, leaving one child, a lovely boy still alive. [1] My only sister,
Ann, died at twenty-one, a little after my brother Luke:--

Rest, gentle Shade! and wait thy Maker's will; Then rise unchang'd, and
be an angel still!

Francis Syndercombe went out to India as a midshipman under Admiral
Graves. He accidentally met his brother John on board ship abroad, who
took him ashore, and procured him a commission in the Company's army. He
died in 1792, aged twenty-one, a Lieutenant, in consequence of a fever
brought on by excessive fatigue at and after the siege of Seringapatam,
and the storming of a hill fort, during all which his conduct had been
so gallant that his Commanding Officer particularly noticed him, and
presented him with a gold watch, which my Mother now has. All my
brothers are remarkably handsome; but they were as inferiour to Francis
as I am to them. He went by the name of "the handsome Coleridge." The
tenth and last child was Samuel Taylor, the subject and author of these
Epistles.

From October 1772 to October 1773. Baptized Samuel Taylor, my
Godfather's name being Samuel Taylor, Esquire. I had another called
Evans, and two Godmothers, both named Munday.

From October 1773 to October 1774. In this year I was carelessly left by
my nurse, ran to the fire, and pulled out a live coal, and burned myself
dreadfully. While my hand was being drest by Mr. Young, I spoke for the
first time, (so my Mother informs me) and said, "nasty Dr. Young!" The
snatching at fire, and the circumstance of my first words expressing
hatred to professional men--are they at all ominous? This year I went to
school. My Schoolmistress, the very image of Shenstone's, was named Old
Dame Key. She was nearly related to Sir Joshua Reynolds.

From October 1774 to 1775. I was inoculated; which I mention, because I
distinctly remember it, and that my eyes were bound; at which I
manifested so much obstinate indignation, that at last they removed the
bandage, and unaffrighted I looked at the lancet, and suffered the
scratch. At the close of this year I could read a chapter in the Bible.

Here I shall end, because the remaining years of my life all assisted to
form my particular mind;--the first three years had nothing in them that
seems to relate to it.

God bless you and your sincere S. T. COLERIDGE.

Sunday, March, 1797.

[Footnote 1: William Hart Coleridge, Bishop of Barbadoes and the Leeward
Islands.

(He was appointed to that See in 1824, retired from it in 1842; and
afterwards accepted the Wardenship of St. Augustine's College,
Canterbury. S. C.) [He died in 1849.] ]

A letter from Francis S. Coleridge to his sister has been preserved in
the family, in which a particular account is given of the chance
meeting of the two brothers in India, mentioned shortly in the
preceding Letter. There is something so touching and romantic in the
incident that the Reader will, it is hoped, pardon the insertion of the
original narrative here.

Dear Nancy,

You are very right, I have neglected my absent friends, but do not
think I have forgot them, and indeed it would be ungrateful in me if I
did not write to them.

You may be sure, Nancy, I thank Providence for bringing about that
meeting, which has been the cause of all my good fortune and happiness,
which I now in fulness enjoy. It was an affectionate meeting, and I
will inform you of the particulars. There was in our ship one Captain
Mordaunt, who had been in India before, when we came to Bombay. Finding
a number of his friends there he went often ashore. The day before the
Fleet sailed he desired one Captain Welsh to go aboard with him, who
was an intimate friend of your brother's. "I will," said Welsh, "and
will write a note to Coleridge to go with us." Upon this Captain
Mordaunt, recollecting me, said there was a young midshipman, a
favourite of Captain Hicks, of that name on board. Upon that they
agreed to inform my brother of it, which they did soon after, and all
three came on board. I was then in the lower deck, and, though you
won't believe it, I was sitting upon a gun and thinking of my brother,
that is, whether I should ever see or hear anything of him; when seeing
a Lieutenant, who had been sent to inform me of my brother's being on
board, I got up off the gun: but instead of telling me about my
brother, he told me that Captain Hicks was very angry with me and
wanted to see me. Captain Hicks had always been a Father to me, and
loved me as if I had been his own child. I therefore went up shaking
like an aspen leaf to the Lieutenant's apartments, when a Gentleman
took hold of my hand. I did not mind him at first, but looked round for
the Captain; but the Gentleman still holding my hand, I looked, and
what was my surprise, when I saw him too full to speak and his eyes
full of tears. Whether crying is catching I know not, but I began a
crying too, though I did not know the reason, till he caught me in his
arms, and told me he was my brother, and then I found I was paying
nature her tribute, for I believe I never cried so much in my life.
There is a saying in Robinson Crusoe, I remember very well,
viz.--sudden joy like grief confounds at first. We directly went ashore
having got my discharge, and having took a most affectionate leave of
Captain Hicks, I left the ship for good and all.

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