Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey
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Joseph Cottle >> Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey
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What you have detected in the 'Tournament' I have also observed in
Barrett, in the omission of a passage of bombast connected with one of
the accounts of the Bristol churches. Your copy of the 'Tournament' being
in Chatterton's own hand-writing is surely the best authority. We are now
of one opinion, that Chatterton and Rowley are one.
I am glad to hear that you have discovered anything worth printing in the
British Museum. Doubtless, if you think it worth printing, others will do
the same, and it is not our fault, if it be dull or an imperfect work. I
transcribed page after page of what would have been worth little if
genuine, and not being genuine, is worth nothing. This refers only to the
local antiquities, and false deeds of gift, &c. I made a catalogue, and
left it with you. Why say, 'I hope you will not take it amiss.' I am as
ready to thank you for supplying any negligence of mine, as any one else
can be. I should have wished for more engravings, but we have gone to the
bounds of expense and trouble, in this gratuitous, but pleasant effort to
benefit the family of Bristol's most illustrious bard. Why did you not
sign your notes? I can now only say, that much, indeed most of the
trouble has devolved on yon. J. C. at the end of each note, would have
showed how much.
I have seen Cattcott.[62] Chatterton had written to Clayfield that he
meant to destroy himself. Clayfield called on Barrett to communicate his
uneasiness about the young lad. 'Stay,' said Barrett, 'and hear what he
will say to me.' Chatterton was sent for. Barrett talked to him on the
guilt and folly of suicide. Chatterton denied any intention of the kind,
or any conversation to that import. Clayfield came from the closet with
the letter in his hand, and asked, 'Is not this your hand-writing?'
Chatterton then, in a state of confusion, fell upon his knees, and heard
in sullen silence, the suitable remarks on his conduct. God bless you.
Yours affectionately,
Robert Southey."
"Bristol, Sept. 1802.
Dear Cottle,
I was from home, looking out for a habitation[63] in Wales, when your
letter arrived. My journey was so far successful, that I am in treaty for
a house, eight miles from Neath, in the mountains, a lovely spot, exactly
such as will suit my wishes...."
In a letter received from Mr. Southey, Aug. 25, 1805, he says, "I have
neither seen, nor heard, of 'Foster's Essays'; nor do I remember to have
heard you mention him. Certainly, on your recommendation, I shall either
buy or borrow the work. But no new book ever reaches these mountains,
except such as come to me to be killed off."
Mr. Southey mentioned to me the last time I saw him, the jeopardy in
which he had recently been placed, through his 'killing off'; and from
which danger he was alone saved by his anonymous garb. He said he had
found it necessary in reviewing a book, written by a native of the
emerald isle, to treat it with rather unwonted severity, such as it
richly deserved. A few days after the critique had appeared, he happened
to call on a literary friend, in one of the inns of court. They were
conversing on this work, and the incompetence of the writer, when the
author, a gigantic Irishman entered the room, in a great rage, and vowing
vengeance against the remorseless critic. Standing very near Mr. Southey,
he raised his huge fist, and exclaimed, "And, if I knew who it was, I'd
hate him!" Mr. S. observed a very profound silence, and not liking the
vicinity of a volcano, quietly retired, reserving his laugh for a less
hazardous occasion.
Mr. Southey in a letter, June 18, 1807, thus expresses himself. "...
Beyond the fascinations of poetry, there is a calmer and steadier
pleasure in acquiring and communicating the knowledge of what has been,
and of what is. I am passionately fond of history, even when I have been
delighted with the act of poetical composition. The recollection that all
was fable in the story with which I have exerted myself, frequently
mingled with the delight. I am better pleased in rendering justice to the
mighty dead; with the holding up to the world, of kings, conquerors,
heroes, and saints, not as they have been usually held up, but as they
really are, good or evil, according to the opinion formed of them, by one
who has neither passion, prejudice, nor interest, of any kind to mislead
his mind.
There is a delight in recording great actions, and, though of a different
kind, in execrating bad ones, beyond anything which Poetry can give, when
it departs from historical truth. There is also a sense of power, even
beyond what the poet, creator as he is, can exercise. It is before _my_
earthly tribunal, that these mighty ones are brought for judgment.
Centuries of applause, trophies, and altars, or canonizations, or
excommunications, avail nothing with me. No former sentences are
cognizable in my court. The merits of the case are all I look to, and I
believe I have never failed to judge of the actions by themselves, and of
the actor by his motives; and to allow manners, opinions, circumstances,
&c., their full weight in extenuation. What other merit my historical
works may have, others must find out for themselves, but this will I
vouch for, that never was the heart of any historian fuller of purer
opinions; and that never any one went about his work with more thorough
industry, or more thorough good-will.
Your account of Churchey is very amusing, I should like to see the
pamphlet of which you speak.[64] God bless you.
Yours affectionately,
Robert Southey."
"Keswick, March 16, 1810.
My dear Cottle,
I cannot express to you how much it has affected me to hear of your
affliction, [a long continued inflammation of the eyes, subdued
ultimately, after bleeding, blistering, and cupping, by Singleton's eye
ointment,] for though I am sure there is no one who would bear any
sufferings with which it should please God to visit him, more patiently
and serenely, than yourself, this nevertheless, is an affliction of the
heaviest kind. It is very far from being the habit of my mind to indulge
in visionary hopes, but from what I recollect of the nature of your
complaint, it is an inveterate inflammation, and this I believe to be
completely within the reach of art...."
In the year 1814, after an hemorrhage from the lungs, and consequent
debility, I relieved my mind by writing a kind, serious, and faithful
letter to my friend Southey, under an apprehension that it might be my
last; to which Mr. Southey returned the following reply.
"Keswick, May 13, 1814.
My dear Cottle,
I have seen so dreadful a case of hemorrhage from the lungs terminate
favorably, that your letter alarms me less than otherwise it would have
done. Basil Montague the younger, continued to bleed at intervals for six
weeks, in January and February last, and he has this day left Keswick
without any dangerous symptoms remaining upon him. Two other instances
have occurred within my knowledge, I will therefore hope for a favorable
termination. Your letter comes upon me when I am like a broken reed, so
deeply has the loss of Danvers wounded me. Were I to lose you also, I
should never have heart to visit Bristol again.
What answer shall I make to your exhortations? We differ, if indeed there
be a difference, more in appearance than reality; more in the form than
in the substance of our belief. I have already so many friends on the
other side of the grave, that a large portion of my thoughts and
affections are in another world, and it is only the certainty of another
life, which could make the changes and insecurity of this life endurable.
May God bless you, and restore you, my dear old friend, is the sincere
prayer of
Your affectionate
Robert Southey."
In the year 1816, Mr. Southey sustained a great loss in the death of his
youngest son, a boy of promising talent, and endued with every quality
which could attach a father's heart. Mr. S. thus announced the melancholy
tidings.
"Keswick, May 23, 1816.
My dear Cottle,
I know not whether the papers may have informed you of the severe
affliction with which we have been visited,--the death of my son; a boy
who was in all things after my own heart. You will be gratified to hear,
however, that this sorrow produces in both our cases, that beneficial
purpose for which such visitations were appointed: and in subtracting so
large a portion of our earthly happiness, fixes our hearts and hopes with
more earnestness on the life to come. Nothing else I am well assured,
could have supported me, though I have no ordinary share of fortitude.
But I know where to look for consolation, and am finding it where only it
can be found. My dear Cottle, the instability of human prospects and
enjoyments! You have read my proem to the 'Pilgrimage,' and before the
book was published, the child of whom I had thus spoken, with such
heartfelt delight, was in his grave! But of this enough. We have many
blessings left, abundant all, and of this, which was indeed the flower of
all our blessings, we are deprived for a time, and that time must needs
be short...."
In the year 1817, Mr. Southey's juvenile drama of "Wat Tyler," was
surreptitiously published; written during the few months of his political
excitement, when the specious pretensions of the French, carried away,
for a brief period, so many young and ardent minds. He thus noticed the
circumstance.
"My dear Cottle,
You will have seen by the papers, that some villain, after an interval of
three and twenty years, has published my old uncle, 'Wat Tyler.' I have
failed in attempting to obtain an injunction, because a false oath has
been taken, for the purpose of defeating me....
I am glad to see, and you will be very glad to hear, that this business
has called forth Coleridge, and with the recollections of old times,
brought back something like old feelings. He wrote a very excellent paper
on the subject in the 'Courier,' and I hope it will be the means of his
rejoining us ere long; so good will come out of evil, and the devil can
do nothing but what he is permitted.[65]
I am well in health, and as little annoyed by this rascality as it
becomes me to be. The only tiling that has vexed me, is the manner in
which my counsel is represented in talking about my being ashamed of the
work as a wicked performance! "Wicked! My poor 'old uncle' has nothing
wicked about him. It was the work of a right-honest enthusiast, as you
can bear witness; of one who was as upright in his youth as he has been
in his manhood, and is now in the decline of his life; who, blessed be
God, has little to be ashamed before man, of any of his thoughts, words,
or actions, whatever cause he may have for saying to his Maker, 'God be
merciful to me a sinner.' God bless you, my old and affectionate friend,
Robert Southey.
I am writing a pamphlet, in the form of a letter, to Wm. Smith. Fear not,
but that I shall make my own cause good, and set my foot on my enemies.
This has been a wicked transaction. It can do me no other harm than the
expense to which it has put me."
"Keswick, Sept. 2, 1817.
My dear Cottle,
... I have made a long journey on the continent, accompanied with a
friend of my own age, and with Mr. Nash, the architect, who gave me the
drawings of Waterloo. We went by way of Paris to Besancon, into
Switzerland: visited the Grand Chartreuse, crossed Mont Cenis; proceeded
to Turin, and Milan, and then turned back by the lakes Como, Lugano, and
Maggiore, and over the Simplon. Our next business was to see the
mountainous parts of Switzerland. From Bern we sent our carriage to
Zurich, and struck off what is called the Oberland (upper-land.) After
ten days spent thus, in the finest part of the country, we rejoined our
carriage, and returned through the Black Forest. The most interesting
parts of our homeward road were Danaustrugen, where the Danube rises.
Friburg, Strasburg, Baden, Carlsruhe, Heidelburg, Manheim, Frankfort,
Mentz, Cologne, and by Brussels and Lisle, to Calais.
I kept a full journal, which might easily be made into an amusing and
useful volume, but I have no leisure for it. You may well suppose what an
accumulation of business is on my hands after so long an absence of four
months. I have derived great advantage both in knowledge and health. God
bless you, my dear Cottle.
Yours most affectionately,
Robert Southey.
P.S.--Hartley Coleridge has done himself great credit at Oxford. He has
taken what is called a second class, which, considering the disadvantages
of his school education, is as honourable for him as a first class for
any body else. In all the higher points of his examination, he was
excellent, and inferior only in those minuter points, wherein he had not
been instructed. He is on the point of taking his degree."
"Keswick, Nov. 26,1819.
My dear Cottle,
Last night I received a letter from Charles Lamb, telling me to what a
miserable condition poor John Morgan is reduced: not by any extravagance
of his own, but by a thoughtless generosity, in lending to men who have
never repaid him, and by ----, who has involved him in his own ruin; and
lastly by the visitation of providence. Every thing is gone!
In such a case, what is to be done? 'but to raise some poor annuity
amongst his friends.' It is not likely to be wanted long. He has an
hereditary disposition to a liver complaint, a disease of all others,
induced by distress of mind, and he feels the whole bitterness of his
situation. The palsy generally comes back to finish what it has begun.
Lamb will give ten pounds a year. I will do the same, and we both do
according to our means, rather tham our will. I have written to Michael
Castle to exert himself; and if you know where his friend Porter is, I
pray you communicate this information to him. We will try what can be
done in other quarters...."[66]
"Keswick, June 25, 1823.
My dear Cottle,
... I must finish my 'Book of the Church.' Under this title a sketch of
our ecclesiastical history is designed. One small volume was intended,
and behold it will form two 8vos. The object of the book is, to give
those who come after us a proper bias, by making them feel and
understand, how much they owe to the religious institutions of their
country.
Besides this, I have other works in hand, and few things would give me
more pleasure than to show you their state of progress, and the
preparations I have made for them. If you would bring your sister to pass
a summer with us, how joyfully and heartily you would be welcomed, I
trust you both well know. Our friendship is now of nine and twenty years'
standing, and I will venture to say, for you, or for us, life cannot have
many gratifications in store greater than this would prove. Here are
ponies accustomed to climb these mountains which will carry you to the
summit of Skiddaw, without the slightest difficulty, or danger. And here
is my boat, the 'Royal Noah,' in the lake, in which you may exercise your
arms when you like. Within and without I have much to show you. You would
like to see my children; from Edith May, who is taller than her mother,
down to Cuthbert, who was four years old in February last. Then there are
my books, of which I am as proud as you are of your bones.[67] They are
not indeed quite so old, but then they are more numerous, and I am sure
Miss C. will agree with me that they are much better furniture, and much
pleasanter companions.
Not that I mean to depreciate your fossil remains. Forbid it all that is
venerable. I should very much like to see your account of them. You gave
me credit for more than is my due, when you surmised that the paper in
the Quarterly (on the presumed alteration in the plane of the ecliptic)
might have been mine. I write on no subject on which I have not bestowed
considerable time and thought; and on all points of science, I confess
myself to be either very superficially informed, or altogether ignorant.
Some day I will send you a list of all my papers in that Journal, that
you may not impute to me any thing which is not mine; and that, if you
have at any time such a desire, you may see what the opinions are that I
have there advanced. Very few I believe in which you would not entirely
accord with me. God bless you.
Yours affectionately,
Robert Southey."
"Keswick, April 7, 1825.
My dear Cottle,
You have indeed had a severe loss,[68] I know not how the heart could
bear, if it were not for the prospect of eternity, and the full sense of
the comparative nothingness of time, which that prospect produces. If I
look on the last thirty years, things seem as but yesterday; and when I
look forward, the end of this mortal journey must be near, though the
precise point where it will terminate is not in sight. Yet were you under
my roof, as I live in hope that one day you will be, you would recognize
just as much of the original Robert Southey as you would wish to see
remaining;--though the body is somewhat the worse for wear.
I thought I had written to thank you for your 'Strictures on the Plymouth
Antinomians;' which were well deserved, and given in a very proper
spirit. Ultra-Calvinism is as little to my liking as it is to yours. It
may be, and no doubt is held by many good men, upon whom it produces no
worse effects than that of narrowing charity. But Dr. Hawker, and such as
the Hawkers, only push it to its legitimate consequences.
At present I am engaged in a war with the Roman Catholics, a war in which
there will be much ink shed, though not on my part, for when my
'Vindiciae' are finished, I shall leave the field. When you see that
book, you will be surprised at the exposure of sophistries,
disingenuousness, and downright falsehoods, which it will lay before the
world; and you will see the charge of systematic imposture proved upon
the papal church.
I must leave my home by the middle of next month, and travel for some
weeks, in the hope of escaping an annual visitation of Catarrh, which now
always leaves cough behind it, and a rather threatening hold of the
chest. I am going therefore to Holland, to see that country, and to look
for certain ecclesiastical books, which I shall be likely to obtain at
Brussels, or Antwerp, or on the way thither.
A young friend, in the Colonial office, is to be one of my companions,
and I expect that Neville White will be the other. It is a great effort
to go from home at any time, and a great inconvenience, considering the
interruption which my pursuits must suffer; still it is a master of duty
and of economy to use every means for averting illness. If I can send
home one or two chests of books, the pleasure of receiving them on my
return is worth some cost.
How you would like to see my library, and to recognize among them some
volumes as having been the gift of Joseph Cottle, seven or eight and
twenty years ago. I have a great many thousand volumes, of all sorts,
sizes, languages, and kinds, upon all subjects, and in all sorts of
trims; from those which are displayed in 'Peacock Place,' to the ragged
inhabitants of 'Duck Row.' The room in which I am now writing contains
two thousand four hundred volumes, all in good apparel; many of them of
singular rarity and value. I have another room full, and a passage full;
book-cases in both landing places, and from six to seven hundred volumes
in my bed-room. You have never seen a more cheerful room than my study;
this workshop, from which so many works have proceeded, and in which
among other things, I have written all those papers of mine, in the
Quarterly Review, whereof you have a list below.[69]
The next month will have a paper of mine on the 'Chuch Missionary
Society,' and the one after, upon the 'Memoir of the Chevalier Bayard,'
which Sarah Coleridge, daughter of S. T. Coleridge, has translated.
Write to me oftener, as your letters will always have a reply, let whose
may go unanswered. God bless you, my dear old friend.
Yours most affectionately,
Robert Southey."
"Keswick, Feb. 26, 1826.
My dear Cottle,
I have sent you my Vindication of the 'Book of the Church,' in which
though scarcely half of what was intended to be comprised, enough is done
to prove the charge of superstition, impostures, and wickedness, upon the
Romish Church. Whether I shall pursue the subject, in that form, depends
on circumstances. I have employment enough in other ways, and would
rather present my historical recollections in any form than that of
controversy.... The revelations of sister Nativity are mentioned in my
'Vindiciae.' You will see an account of this impious Romish imposture in
the next Quarterly. Such an exposure ought to open the eyes of those who
are duped with the belief that the Roman Catholic religion is become
innocent and harmless.
Have I written to you since I was bug-bitten in France, and laid up in
consequence, under a surgeon's hands in Holland? This mishap brought with
it much more immediate good than evil. Bilderdyk, whose wife translated
'Don Roderic' into Dutch, and who is himself confessedly the best poet,
and the most learned man in that country, received me into his house,
where I was nursed for three weeks by two of the very best people in the
world. But the effects of the accident remain. On my way home, owing
perhaps to the intense heat of the weather, erysipelas showed itself on
the wounded part. The foot also has been in a slight degree swollen, and
there is just enough sense of uneasiness to show that something is amiss.
My last year's journey succeeded in cutting short the annual catarrh,
which had for so many years laid me up during the summer months. I shall
try the same course as soon as the next summer commences.
Will you never come and visit me, and see how that hair looks, which I
doubt not keeps its colour so well in Vandyke's portrait? now it is three
parts grey, but curling still as strong as in youth. I look at your
portrait every day and see you to the life, as you were thirty years ago!
What a change should we see in each other now, and yet how soon should we
find that the better part remains unchanged.
The day before yesterday I received your two volumes of 'Malvern Hills,
Poems, and Essays,' fourth edition, forwarded to me from Sheffield, by
James Montgomery. You ask my opinion on your ninth essay (on the supposed
alteration in the planes of the equator and the ecliptic suggested by an
hypothesis in the Quarterly). I am too ignorant to form one. The
reasoning seems conclusive, taking the scientific part for granted, but
of that science, or any other, I know nothing. This I can truly say, that
the essays in general please me very much. That I am very glad to see
those concerning Chatterton introduced there;--and very much admire, the
manner, and the feeling, with which you have treated Psalmanazar's story.
You tell me things respecting Chatterton which were new to me, and of
course interested me much. It may be worth while, when you prepare a copy
for republication, to corroborate the proof of his insanity, by stating
that there was a constitutional tendency to such a disease, which places
the fact beyond all doubt....
Thank you, for the pains you have taken about 'Bunyan.' The first edition
we cannot find, nor even ascertain its date. The first edition of the
Second part we have found. An impudent assertion, I learn from
'Montgomery's Essay,' was published, that the 'Pilgrim's Progress' was a
mere translation from the Dutch. I have had the Dutch book, and have read
it, which he who made this assertion could not do. The charge of
plagiarism is utterly false, not having the slightest foundation. When
you and I meet in the next world, we will go and see John Bunyan, and
tell him how I have tinkered the fellow, for tinker him I will, who has
endeavoured to pick a hole in his reputation. God bless you, my dear old
friend,
Robert Southey.
P. S. There are two dreams that may be said to haunt me, they recur so
often. The one is, that of being at Westminster school again, and not
having my books. The other is, that I am at Bristol, and have been there
some indefinite time; and unaccountably, have never been to look for you
in Brunswick Square, for which I am troubled in conscience. Come to us,
and I will pledge myself to visit you in return when next I travel to the
south."
In a letter to Mr. Southey, I mentioned that a relation of Wm. Gilbert
had informed me that he was hurt with Mr. S. for having named him, in his
'Life of Wesley,' as being tinctured with insanity; a fact notorious. Mr.
G. had often affirmed that there was a nation of the Gilbertians in the
centre of Africa, and expressed a determination of one day visiting them.
In the year 1796, he suddenly left Bristol, without speaking to any one
of his friends; and the inference drawn, was that he was about to
commence his African expedition. I had also mentioned that Sir James
Mackintosh had expressed an opinion that Mr. Southey had formed his style
on the model of Horace Walpole. These preliminary remarks are necessary
to the understanding of the following letter.
"Keswick, Feb. 26.
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