Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1.
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Coleridge, ed. Turnbull >> Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1.
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Yours affectionately,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
[The Mr. Morgan referred to in the above letter was John James Morgan
with whom Coleridge afterwards lived in London, at Hammersmith, and at
Calne. Dr. Beddoes was the founder of the Pneumatic Institution, and the
friend of the Wedgwoods and Humphry Davy; and it was he who was
instrumental in introducing Coleridge to these acquaintances.]
The monthly anxiety of a Magazine justly alarmed Coleridge on the 7th of
October; yet in the December following he courageously engaged to
conduct a weekly political Miscellany. This was _The Watchman_, of
which the following Prospectus was in that month printed and circulated.
"To supply at once the places of a Review, Newspaper, and Annual
Register.
"On Tuesday, the ist of March, 1796, will be published No. 1. price
fourpence, of a Miscellany, to be continued every eighth day, under the
name of "The Watchman", by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. This Miscellany
will be comprised in two sheets, or thirty-two pages, closely printed in
8vo; the type, long primer. Its contents, 1:--A history of the domestic
and foreign policy of the preceding days. 2:--The speeches in both
Houses of Parliament; and, during the recess, select parliamentary
speeches from the commencement of the reign of Charles I. to the present
aera, with notes historical and biographical. 3:--Original essays and
poetry. 4:--Review of interesting and important publications. Its
advantages, 1. There being no advertisements, a greater quantity of
original matter will be given, and the speeches in Parliament will be
less abridged. 2. From its form it may be bound up at the end of a year,
and become an Annual Register. 3. This last circumstance may induce men
of letters to prefer this Miscellany to more perishable publications as
the vehicle of their effusions. 4. Whenever the Ministerial and
Opposition prints differ in their accounts of occurrences, etc. such
difference will always be faithfully stated."
Mr. C. went to Bristol in the beginning of December for the purpose of
arranging the preliminaries of this undertaking, and at the close of
the month he set off upon the tour mentioned in Chapter X of the
"Biographia Literaria", to collect subscribers. It will be
remembered that he was at this time a professed Unitarian; and the
project of becoming a minister of that persuasion seems to have passed
through his head. He had previously preached, for the first time, two
sermons at Mr. Jardine's Chapel in Bath, the subjects being the Corn
Laws and the Hair Powder Tax. He appeared in the pulpit in a blue coat
and white waistcoat, and, according to Mr. Cottle's testimony, who was
present, Coleridge delivered himself languidly, and disappointed every
one. But there is no doubt that he subsequently preached upon many
occasions with very remarkable effect. The following extracts are from
letters written by Mr. C. in the month of January, 1796, during his tour
to his early and lasting friend, Mr. Josiah Wade of Bristol, and may
serve as a commentary on parts of the accounts given of the same tour in
the Biographia Literaria.
LETTER 17. To JOSIAH WADE
Worcester, January, 1796.
My dear Wade,
We were five in number, and twenty-five in quantity. The moment I
entered the coach, I stumbled on a huge projection, which might be
called a belly with the same propriety that you might name Mount Atlas a
mole-hill. Heavens! that a man should be unconscionable enough to enter
a stage coach, who would want elbow room if he were walking on Salisbury
Plain.
The said citizen was a most violent aristocrat, but a pleasant humorous
fellow in other respects, and remarkably well informed in agricultural
science; so that the time passed pleasantly enough. We arrived at
Worcester at half-past two: I, of course, dined at the inn, where I met
Mr. Stevens. After dinner I christianized myself, that is, washed and
changed, and marched in finery and clean linen to High Street. With
regard to business, there is no chance of doing anything at Worcester.
The aristocrats are so numerous, and the influence of the clergy is so
extensive, that Mr. Barr thinks no bookseller will venture to publish
"The Watchman". ***
S. T. COLERIDGE.
P.S.--I hope and trust the young citizeness is well, and also Mrs. Wade.
Give my love to the latter, and a kiss for me to Miss Bratinella.
LETTER 18
Birmingham, January, 1796.
My dear Friend,
*** My exertions here have been incessant, for in whatever company I go,
I am obliged to be the figurante of the circle. Yesterday I preached
twice, and, indeed, performed the whole service, morning and afternoon.
There were about 1,400 persons present, and my sermons, (great part
extempore,) were preciously peppered with politics. I have here at least
double the number of subscribers I had expected. * * *
[It was at Birmingham that Coleridge met the Tallow Chandler whom he has
immortalized in his "Biographia Literaria". The sketch of the "taperman
of lights" is one of the masterpieces of English humour.]
LETTER 19. To JOSIAH WADE
Nottingham, January, 1796.
My dear Friend,
You will perceive by this letter I have changed my route. From
Birmingham on Friday last (four o'clock in the morning), I proceeded to
Derby, stayed there till Monday morning, and am now at Nottingham. From
Nottingham I go to Sheffield; from Sheffield to Manchester; from
Manchester to Liverpool; from Liverpool to London; from London to
Bristol. Ah, what a weary way! My poor crazy ark has been tossed to and
fro on an ocean of business, and I long for the Mount Ararat on which it
is to rest. At Birmingham I was extremely unwell; a violent cold in my
head and limbs confined me for two days. Business succeeded very
well;--about a hundred subscribers I think.
At Derby, also, I succeeded tolerably well. Mr. (Joseph) Strutt, the
successor of Sir Richard Arkwright, tells me I may count on forty or
fifty in Derby. Derby is full of curiosities;--the cotton and silk
mills; Wright the painter, and Dr. Darwin,[l] the every thing
but Christian. Dr. Darwin possesses, perhaps, a greater range of
knowledge than any other man in Europe, and is the most inventive of
philosophical men. He thinks in a new train on all subjects but
religion. He bantered me on the subject of religion. I heard all his
arguments, and told him it was infinitely consoling to me, to find that
the arguments of so great a man, adduced against the existence of a God,
and the evidences of revealed religion, were such as had startled me at
fifteen, but had become the objects of my smile at twenty. Not one new
objection--not even an ingenious one! He boasted "that he had never read
one book in favour of such stuff, but that he had read all the works of
Infidels!"
What would you think, Mr. Wade, of a man who, having abused and
ridiculed you, should openly declare that he had heard all that your
enemies had to say against you, but had scorned to inquire the truth
from any one of your friends? Would you think him an honest man? I am
sure you would not. Yet such are all the Infidels whom I have known.
They talk of a subject, yet are proud to confess themselves profoundly
ignorant of it. Dr. Darwin would have been ashamed to reject Hutton's
theory of the Earth without having minutely examined it;--yet what is
it to us, how the earth was made, a thing impossible to be known? This
system the Doctor did not reject without having severely studied it;
but all at once he makes up his mind on such important subjects, as
whether we be the outcasts of a blind idiot called Nature,[2] or the
children of an All wise and Infinitely Good God!--whether we spend a
few miserable years on this earth, and then sink into a clod of the
valley; or endure the anxieties of mortal life, only to fit us for the
enjoyment of immortal happiness! These subjects are unworthy a
philosopher's investigation! He deems that there is a certain self-
evidence in Infidelity, and becomes an Atheist by intuition. Well did
St. Paul say, "ye have an evil heart of unbelief".
* * * What lovely children Mr. Barr of Worcester has! After church, in
the evening, they sat round and sang hymns so sweetly that they
overpowered me. It was with great difficulty that I abstained from
weeping aloud; and the infant in Mrs. B.'s arms leaned forward, and
stretched his little arms, and stared, and smiled. It seemed a picture
of heaven, where the different Orders of the blessed join different
voices in one melodious hallelujah; and the babe looked like a young
spirit just that moment arrived in heaven, startled at the seraphic
songs, and seized at once with wonder and rapture. * * *
From your affectionate friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
[Footnote 1: Erasmus Darwin, 1731-1802.]
[Footnote 2: See poem, "Human Life", written about 1815.]
LETTER 20
Sheffield, January, 1796.
My very dear Friend,
I arrived at this place late last night by the mail from Nottingham,
where I have been treated with kindness and friendship, of which I can
give you but a faint idea. I preached a charity sermon there last
Sunday. I preached in coloured clothes. With regard to the gown at
Birmingham (of which you inquire), I suffered myself to be
over-persuaded. First of all, my sermon being of so political a
tendency, had I worn my blue coat, it would have impugned Edwards. They
would have said, he had stuck a political lecturer in his pulpit.
Secondly, the society is of all sorts,--Socinians, Arians, Trinitarians,
etc., and I must have shocked a multitude of prejudices. And thirdly,
there is a difference between an inn and a place of residence. In the
first, your example is of little consequence; in a single instance only,
it ceases to operate as example; and my refusal would have been imputed
to affectation, or an unaccommodating spirit.
Assuredly I would not do it in a place where I intended to preach often.
And even in the vestry at Birmingham, when they at last persuaded me, I
told them I was acting against my better knowledge, and should possibly
feel uneasy afterwards. So these accounts of the matter you must
consider as reasons and palliations, concluding, "I plead guilty, my
Lord!" Indeed I want firmness; I perceive I do. I have that within me
which makes it difficult to say, No, repeatedly to a number of persons
who seem uneasy and anxious. * * *
My kind remembrances to Mrs. Wade. God bless her and you, and (like a
bad shilling slipped in between two guineas), your faithful and
affectionate friend, S. T. COLERIDGE.
[Note 1: Letter LIII is our 19.]
LETTER 21
Manchester, January 7, 1796. My dear Friend,
I arrived at Manchester last night from Sheffield, to which place I
shall only send about thirty numbers. I might have succeeded there, at
least equally well with the former towns, but I should injure the sale
of the "Iris", the editor of which paper, (a very amiable and
ingenious young man of the name of James Montgomery)[1] is now in prison
for a libel on a bloody-minded magistrate there. Of course I declined
publicly advertising or disposing of "The Watch man" in that town.
This morning I called on Mr. -------- with H.'s letter. Mr. ---------
received me as a rider, and treated me with insolence that was really
amusing from its novelty. "Overstocked with these articles. "---------"
People always setting up some new thing or other. "---------" I read the
"Star" and another paper: what could I want with this paper, which
is nothing more?"--"Well, well, I'll consider of it." To these
entertaining "bons mots" I returned the following repartee--"Good
morning, Sir." * * *
God bless you, S. T. C.
[Footnote 1: The Poet, 1771-1854.]
Mr. C. went to Liverpool and was as successful there as elsewhere
generally in procuring subscribers to "The Watchman". The late Dr.
Crompton found him out, and became his friend and patron. His exertions,
however, at Liverpool were suddenly stopped by news of the critical
state of Mrs. C.'s health, and a pressing request that he would
immediately return to Bristol, whither Mrs. C. had now gone from
Clevedon. Coleridge accordingly gave up his plan of visiting London, and
left Liverpool on his homeward trip. From Lichfield he wrote to Mr. Wade
the following letter:
LETTER 22
Lichfield, January, 1796.
My dear Friend,
* * * I have succeeded very well here at Lichfield. Belcher, bookseller,
Birmingham; Sutton, Nottingham; Pritchard, Derby; and Thomson,
Manchester; are the publishers. In every number of "The Watchman" there
will be printed these words, "Published in Bristol by the Author, S. T.
Coleridge, and sold, etc."
I verily believe no poor fellow's idea-pot ever bubbled up so vehemently
with fears, doubts, and difficulties, as mine does at present. Heaven
grant it may not boil over, and put out the fire! I am almost heartless.
My past life seems to me like a dream, a feverish dream--all one gloomy
huddle of strange actions and dim-discovered motives;--friendships lost
by indolence, and happiness murdered by mismanaged sensibility. The
present hour I seem in a quick-set hedge of embarrassments. For shame! I
ought not to mistrust God; but, indeed, to hope is far more difficult
than to fear. Bulls have horns, lions have talons:
The fox and statesman subtle wiles ensure,
The cit and polecat stink and are secure;
Toads with their venom, doctors with their drug,
The priest and hedgehog in their robes are snug.
Oh, Nature! cruel step-mother and hard
To thy poor naked, fenceless child, the bard!
No horns but those by luckless Hymen worn,
And those, alas! not Amalthaea's horn!
With naked feelings, and with aching pride,
He bears the unbroken blast on every side;
Vampire booksellers drain him to the heart,
And scorpion critics cureless venom dart.
S. T. C.
Coleridge on his return to Bristol resided for a short time on Redcliff
Hill, in a house occupied by Mrs. C.'s mother. He had procured upwards
of a thousand subscribers' names to "The Watchman", and had certainly
some ground for confidence in his future success. His tour had been a
triumph; and the impression made by his personal demeanour and
extraordinary eloquence was unprecedented, and such as was never effaced
from the recollection of those who met with him at this period. He seems
to have employed the interval between his arrival in Bristol and the 1st
of March--the day fixed for the appearance of "The Watchman"--in
preparing for that work, and also in getting ready the materials of his
first volume of poems, the copyright of which was purchased by Mr.
Cottle for thirty guineas. Coleridge was a student all his life; he was
very rarely indeed idle in the common sense of the term; but he was
constitutionally indolent, averse from continuous exertion externally
directed, and consequently the victim of a procrastinating habit, the
occasion of innumerable distresses to himself and of endless solicitude
to his friends, and which materially impaired, though it could not
destroy, the operation and influence of his wonderful abilities. Hence,
also, the fits of deep melancholy which from time to time seized his
whole soul, during which he seemed an imprisoned man without hope of
liberty. In February, 1796, whilst his volume was in the press, he wrote
the following letter to Mr. Cottle:
LETTER 23
My dear Cottle,
I have this night and to-morrow for you, being alone, and my spirits
calm. I shall consult my poetic honour, and of course your interest,
more by staying at home than by drinking tea with you. I should be happy
to see my poems out even by next week, and I shall continue in stirrups,
that is, shall not dismount my Pegasus, till Monday morning, at which
time you will have to thank God for having done with your affectionate
friend always, but author evanescent,
S. T. C.
[The last letter is one of many short notes to Cottle explaining why he
was not making progress with the proposed volume of Poems. The next is
the concluding letter of the series, still apologizing for the delay.
LETTER 24. To COTTLE.
Stowey, (--Feb. 1796.)
My dear Cottle,
I feel it much, and very uncomfortable, that, loving you as a brother,
and feeling pleasure in pouring out my heart to you, I should so seldom
be able to write a letter to you, unconnected with business, and
uncontaminated with excuses and apologies. I give every moment I can
spare from my garden and the Reviews (i.e.) from my potatoes and meat to
the poem ("Religious Musings"), but I go on slowly, for I torture the
poem and myself with corrections; and what I write in an hour, I
sometimes take two or three days in correcting. You may depend on it,
the poem and prefaces will take up exactly the number of pages I
mentioned, and I am extremely anxious to have the work as perfect as
possible, and which I cannot do, if it be finished immediately. The
"Religious Musings" I have altered monstrously, since I read them to you
and received your criticisms. I shall send them to you in my next. The
Sonnets I will send you with the "Musings". God love you!
From your affectionate friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.]
Shortly afterwards, mistaking the object of a message from Mr. Cottle
for an application for "copy" for the press, Coleridge wrote the
following letter with reference to the painful subject:
LETTER 25
Redcliff Hill, February 22, 1796.
My dear Sir,
It is my duty and business to thank God for all his dispensations, and
to believe them the best possible; but, indeed, I think I should have
been more thankful, if He had made me a journeyman shoemaker, instead of
an author by trade. I have left my friends; I have left plenty; I have
left that ease which would have secured a literary immortality, and have
enabled me to give to the public works conceived in moments of
inspiration, and polished with leisurely solicitude; and, alas! for what
have I left them? For--who deserted me in the hour of distress, and for
a scheme of virtue impracticable and romantic! So I am forced to write
for bread--write the flights of poetic enthusiasm, when every minute I
am hearing a groan from my wife! Groans, and complaints, and sickness!
The present hour I am in a quick-set hedge of embarrassment, and,
whichever way I turn, a thorn runs into me. The future is cloud and
thick darkness. Poverty, perhaps, and the thin faces of them that want
bread looking up to me! Nor is this all. My happiest moments for
composition are broken in upon by the reflection that I must make haste.
"I am too late." "I am already months behind." "I have received my pay
beforehand."----O wayward and desultory spirit of Genius, ill can'st
thou brook a taskmaster! The tenderest touch from the hand of obligation
wounds thee like a scourge of scorpions!
I have been composing in the fields this morning, and came home to write
down the first rude sheet of my Preface, when I heard that your man had
brought a note from you. I have not seen it, but I guess its contents. I
am writing as fast as I can. Depend on it, you shall not be out of
pocket for me. I feel what I owe you, and, independently of this, I love
you as a friend,--indeed so much that I regret, seriously regret, that
you have been my copyholder.
If I have written petulantly, forgive me. God knows I am sore all over.
God bless you! and believe me that, setting gratitude aside, I love and
esteem you, and have your interest at heart full as much as my own.
S. T. COLERIDGE. [1]
On the 1st of March, 1796, "The Watchman" was published; it ended with
the tenth number on the 13th of May following. In March Mr. C. removed
to a house in Oxford Street in Kingsdown, and thence wrote the following
letter to Mr. Poole:
[1: Letter LIV is our 25.]
LETTER 26
30th March, 1796.
My dear Poole,
For the neglect in the transmission of "The Watchman", you must blame
George Burnett, who undertook the business. I however will myself see it
sent this week with the preceding Numbers. I am greatly obliged to you
for your communication--(on the Slave Trade in No. V);--it appears in
this Number. I am anxious to receive more from you, and likewise to know
what you dislike in "The Watchman", and what you like, but particularly
the former. You have not given me your opinion of "The Plot Discovered".
Since you last saw me, I have been well nigh distracted. The repeated
and most injurious blunders of my printer out of doors, and Mrs.
Coleridge's danger at home--added to the gloomy prospect of so many
mouths to open and shut, like puppets, as I move the string in the
eating and drinking way;--but why complain to you? Misery is an article
with which every market is so glutted that it can answer no one's
purpose to export it.
I have received many abusive letters, post-paid, thanks to the friendly
malignants! But I am perfectly callous to disapprobation, except when it
tends to lessen profit. Then indeed I am all one tremble of sensibility,
marriage having taught me the wonderful uses of that vulgar commodity,
yclept Bread. "The Watchman" succeeds so as to yield a
"bread-and-cheesish" profit. Mrs. Coleridge is recovering apace, and
deeply regrets that she was deprived of the pleasure of seeing you. We
are in our new house, where there is a bed at your service whenever you
will please to delight us with a visit. Surely in Spring you might force
a few days into a sojourning with us.
Dear Poole, you have borne yourself towards me most kindly with respect
to my epistolary ingratitude. But I know that you forbade yourself to
feel resentment towards me, because you had previously made my neglect
ingratitude. A generous temper endures a great deal from one whom it has
obliged deeply.
My poems are finished. I will send you two copies the moment they are
published. In No. III of "The Watchman" there are a few lines entitled,
"The Hour when we shall meet again" ("Dim Hour! that sleep'st on
pillowing clouds afar"), which I think you will like. I have received
two or three letters from different "Anonymi", requesting me to give
more poetry. One of them writes thus:--
"Sir, I detest your principles; your prose I think very
so so; but your poetry is so beautiful that I take in your
"Watchman" solely on account of it. In justice therefore
to me and some others of my stamp, I entreat you to give us
more verse, and less democratic scurrility. Your Admirer,--not
Esteemer."
Have you read over Dr. Lardner on the Logos? It is I think, scarcely
possible to read it, and not be convinced. I find that "The Watchman"
comes more easy to me, so that I shall begin about my Christian Lectures
(meaning a publication of the course given in the preceding year). I
will immediately order for you, unless you immediately countermand it,
Count Rumford's Essays; in No. V of "The Watchman" you will see why.
(That number contained a critique on the Essays.) I have enclosed Dr.
Beddoes's late pamphlets; neither of them as yet published. The Doctor
sent them to me.... My dutiful love to your excellent Mother, whom,
believe me, I think of frequently and with a pang of affection. God
bless you. I'll try and contrive to scribble a line and half every time
the man goes with "The Watchman" to you.
N.B. The Essay on Fasting I am ashamed of--(in No. II of "The
Watchman");--but it is one of my misfortunes that I am obliged to
publish ex tempore as well as compose. God bless you.
S. T. COLERIDGE.[1]
[Footnote 1: Letter LV is our 26.]
Two days afterwards Mr. Coleridge wrote to Mr. B. Flower, then the
editor of the "Cambridge Intelligencer", with whom he had been
acquainted at the University:
LETTER 27
April 1, 1796.
Dear Sir,
I transmitted to you by Mr. B---- a copy of my "Conciones ad Populum",
and of an Address against the Bills (meaning "The Plot Discovered"). I
have taken the liberty of enclosing ten of each, carriage paid, which
you may perhaps have an opportunity of disposing of for me;--if not,
give them away. The one is an eighteen-penny affair;--the other
ninepence. I have likewise enclosed the Numbers which have been hitherto
published of "The Watchman";--some of the Poetry may perhaps be
serviceable to you in your paper. That sonnet on the rejection of Mr.
Wilberforce's Bill in your Chronicle the week before last was written by
Southey, author of "Joan of Arc", a year and a half ago, and sent to me
per letter;-how it appeared with the late signature, let the plagiarist
answer.... I have sent a copy of my Poems--(they were not yet
published):--will you send them to Lunn and Deighton, and ask of them
whether they would choose to have their names on the title page as
publishers; and would you permit me to have yours? Robinson and, I
believe, Cadell, will be the London publishers. Be so kind as to send an
immediate answer.
Please to present one of each of my pamphlets to Mr. Hall--(the late
Robert Hall, the Baptist). I wish I could reach the perfection of his
style. I think his style the best in the English language; if he have a
rival, it is Mrs. Barbauld.
You have, of course, seen Bishop Watson's Apology for the Bible. It is a
complete confutation of Paine; but that was no difficult matter. The
most formidable Infidel is Lessing, the author of "Emilia Galotti";--I
ought to have written, "was", for he is dead. His book is not yet
translated, and is entitled, in German, "Fragments of an Anonymous
Author". It unites the wit of Voltaire with the subtlety of Hume and the
profound erudition of "our" Lardner. I had some thoughts of translating
it with an Answer, but gave it up, lest men, whose tempers and hearts
incline them to disbelief, should get hold of it; and, though the
answers are satisfactory to my own mind, they may not be equally so to
the minds of others.
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