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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Believe me, my dear sir, with much affection
Yours,
S. T. Coleridge.
Thomas Wedgewood, Esq."
"21, Buckingham Street, Feb. 1800.
My dear sir,
Your brother's health [Mr. Thomas Wedgewood] outweighs all other
considerations. Beyond a doubt he has made himself acquainted with the
degree of heat which he is to experience there [the West Indies]. The
only objections that I see are so obvious, that it is idle in me to
mention them: the total want of men with whose pursuits your brother can
have a fellow feeling: the length and difficulty of the return, in case
of a disappointment; and the necessity of sea-voyages to almost every
change of scenery. I will not think of the yellow fever; that I hope is
quite out of all probability. Believe me, my dear friend, I have some
difficulty in suppressing all that is within me of affection and grief.
God knows my heart, wherever your brother is, I shall follow him in
spirit; follow him with my thoughts and most affectionate wishes.
I read your letter, and did as you desired me. ---- is very cool to me.
Whether I have still any of the leaven of the _Citizen_, and visionary
about me--too much for his present zeal, or whether he is incapable of
attending.... As to his views, he is now gone to Cambridge to canvass for
a Fellowship in Trinity Hall. Mackintosh has kindly written to Dr.
Lawrence, who is very intimate with the Master, and he has other
interest. He is also trying hard, and in expectation of a
Commissionership of Bankruptcy, and means to pursue the law with all
ardour and steadiness. As to the state of his mind, it is that which it
was and will be. God love him! He has a most incurable forehead. ----
called on him and looking on his table, saw by accident a letter directed
to himself. Said he, 'Why ---- what letter is this for me? and from
----,' 'Yes I have had it some time.' 'Why did you not give it me?' 'Oh,
it wants some explanation first. You must not read it now, for I can't
give you the explanation now.' And ----, who you know is a right
easy-natured man, has not been able to get his own letter from him to
this hour! Of his success at Cambridge, Caldwell, is doubtful, or more
than doubtful....
So much of ----. All that I know, and all I suspect that is to be known.
A kind, gentlemanly, affectionate hearted man, possessed of an absolute
talent for industry. Would to God, he had never heard of Philosophy!
I have been three times to the House of Commons; each time earlier than
the former; and each time hideously crowded. The two first days the
debate was put off. Yesterday I went at a quarter before eight, and
remained till three this morning, and then sat writing and correcting
other men's writing till eight--a good twenty four hours of unpleasant
activity! I have not felt myself sleepy yet. Pitt and Fox completely
answered my pre-formed ideas of them. The elegance and high finish of
Pitt's periods, even in the most sudden replies, is _curious_, but that
is all. He argues but so so, and does not reason at all. Nothing is
rememberable of what he says. Fox possesses all the full and overflowing
eloquence of a man of clear head, clear heart, and impetuous feelings. He
is to my mind a great orator; all the rest that spoke were mere
creatures. I could make a better speech myself than any that I heard,
except Pitt and Fox. I reported that part of Pitt's which I have enclosed
in brackets, not that I report ex-officio, but my curiosity having led me
there, I did Stuart a service by taking a few notes.
I work from morning to night, but in a few weeks I shall have completed
my purpose, and then adieu to London for ever. We newspaper scribes are
true galley-slaves. When the high winds of events blow loud and frequent
then the sails are hoisted, or the ship drives on of itself. When all is
calm and sunshine then to our oars. Yet it is not unflattering to a man's
vanity to reflect that what he writes at twelve at night, will before
twelve hours are over, have perhaps, five or six thousand readers! To
trace a happy phrase, good image, or new argument, running through the
town and sliding into all the papers. Few wine merchants can boast of
creating more sensation. Then to hear a favorite and often-urged
argument, repeated almost in your own particular phrases, in the House of
Commons; and, quietly in the silent self-complacence of your own heart,
chuckle over the plagiarism, as if you were monopolist of all good
reasons. But seriously, considering that I have newspapered it merely as
means of subsistence, while I was doing other things, I have been very
lucky. 'The New Constitution'; 'The Proposal for Peace'; 'The Irish
Union'; &c. &c.; they are important in themselves, and excellent vehicles
for general truths. I am not ashamed of what I have written.
I desired Poole to send you all the papers antecedent to your own; I
think you will like the different analyses of the French constitution. I
have attended Mackintosh's lectures regularly; he was so kind as to send
me a ticket, and I have not failed to profit by it.
I remain, with grateful and most affectionate esteem,
Your faithful friend
S. T. Coleridge.
Josiah Wedgewood, Esq."
"July 24, 1800.
My dear sir,
I find your letter on my arrival at Grasmere, namely, dated on the 29th
of June, since which time to the present, with the exception of the last
few days, I have been more unwell than I have ever been since I left
school. For many days I was forced to keep my bed, and when released from
that incarceration, I suffered most grievously from a brace of swollen
eyelids, and a head into which, on the least agitation, the blood was
felt as rushing in and flowing back again, like the raking of the tide on
a coast of loose stones. However, thank God, I am now coming about again.
That Tom receives such pleasure from natural scenery strikes me as it
does you. The total incapability which I have found in myself to
associate any but the most languid feelings, with the God-like objects
which have surrounded me, and the nauseous efforts to impress my
admiration into the service of nature, has given me a sympathy with his
former state of health, which I never before could have had. I wish, from
the bottom of my soul, that he may be enjoying similar pleasures with
those which I am now enjoying with all that newness of sensation; that
voluptuous correspondence of the blood and flesh about me with breeze and
sun-heat, which makes convalescence more than repay one for disease.
I parted from Poole with pain and dejection, for him, and for myself in
him. I should have given Stowey a decided preference for a residence. It
was likewise so conveniently situated, that I was in the way of almost
all whom I love and esteem. But there was no suitable house, and no
prospect of a suitable house.
... These things would have weighed as nothing, could I have remained at
Stowey, but now they come upon me to diminish my regret. Add to this,
Poole's determination to spend a year or two on the continent, in case of
a peace and his mother's death. God in heaven bless her! I am sure she
will not live long. This is the first day of my arrival at Keswick. My
house is roomy, situated on an eminence, a furlong from the town; before
it an enormous garden, more than two-thirds of which is rented is a
garden for sale articles; but the walks are ours. Completely behind the
house are shrubberies, and a declivity planted with flourishing trees of
ten or fifteen years' growth, at the bottom of which is a most delightful
shaded walk, by the river Greta, a quarter of a mile in length. The room
in which I sit commands from one window the Bassenthwaite lake, woods,
and mountains. From the opposite, the Derwentwater and fantastic
mountains of Borrowdale. Straight before is a wilderness of mountains,
catching and streaming lights and shadows at all times. Behind the house,
and entering into all our views, is Skiddaw.
My acquaintances here are pleasant, and at some distance is Sir Guilfred
Lawson's seat, with a very large and expensive library, to which I have
every reason to hope that I shall have free access. But when I have been
settled here a few days longer, I will write you a minute account of my
situation. Wordsworth lives twelve miles distant. In about a year's time
he will probably settle at Keswick likewise. It is no small advantage
here, that for two-thirds of the year we are in complete retirement. The
other third is alive and swarms with tourists of all shapes, and sizes,
and characters. It is the very place I would recommend to a novelist or
farce writer. Besides, at that time of the year there is always hope that
a friend may be among the number and miscellaneous crowd, whom this place
attracts. So much for Keswick.
Have you seen my translation of Wallenstein. It is a dull heavy play, but
I entertain hopes that you will think the language for the greater part,
natural, and good common sense English; to which excellence, if I can lay
fair claim in any work of poetry or prose, I shall be a very singular
writer, at least. I am now working at my 'Introduction of the Life of
Lessing,' which I trust will be in the press before Christmas, that is,
the 'Introduction,' which will be published first. God bless you,
S. T. Coleridge.
Josiah Wedgewood, Esq."
"Keswick, Nov. 1, 1800.
My dear Sir,
I would fain believe that the experiment which your brother has made in
the West Indies is not wholly a discouraging one. If a warm climate did
nothing but only prevented him from getting worse, it surely evidenced
some power; and perhaps a climate equally favorable in a country of more
various interest, Italy, or the South of France, may tempt your brother
to make a longer trial. If (disciplining myself into silent cheerfulness)
I could be of any comfort to him by being his companion and attendant,
for two or three months, on the supposition that he should wish to
travel, and was at a loss for a companion more fit, I would go with him
with a willing affection. You will easily see, my dear friend, that I say
this only to increase the range of your brother's choice--for even in
choosing there is some pleasure.
There happen frequently little odd coincidences in time, that recall
momentary faith in the notion of sympathies acting in absence. I heard of
your brother's return, for the first time, on Monday last, the day on
which your letter is dated, from Stoddart. Had it rained on my naked skin
I could not have felt more strangely. The 300 or 400 miles that are
between us seemed converted into a moral distance; and I knew that the
whole of this silence I was myself accountable for; for I ended my last
letter by promising to follow it with a second and longer one, before you
could answer the first. But immediately on my arrival in this country I
undertook to finish a poem which I had begun, entitled 'Christabel,' for
a second volume of the 'Lyrical Ballads.' I tried to perform my promise,
but the deep unutterable disgust which I had suffered in the translation
of the accursed Wallenstein, seemed to have stricken me with barrenness;
for I tried and tried, and nothing would come of it. I desisted with a
deeper dejection than I am willing to remember. The wind from the Skiddaw
and Borrowdale was often as loud as wind need be, and many a walk in the
clouds in the mountains did I take; but all would not do, till one day I
dined out at the house of a neighbouring clergyman, and some how or other
drank so much wine, that I found some effort and dexterity requisite to
balance myself on the hither edge of sobriety. The next day my
verse-making faculties returned to me, and I proceeded successfully, till
my poem grew so long, and in Wordsworth's opinion so impressive, that he
rejected it from his volume, as disproportionate both in size and merit,
and as discordant in its character. In the mean time I had gotten myself
entangled in the old sorites of the old sophist,--procrastination. I had
suffered my necessary businesses to accumulate so terribly, that I
neglected to write to any one, till the pain I suffered from not writing
made me waste as many hours in dreaming about it as would have sufficed
for the letter writing of half a life. But there is something beside time
requisite for the writing of a letter--at least with me. My situation
here is indeed a delightful situation; but I feel what I have lost--feel
it deeply--it recurs more often and more painfully than I had
anticipated, indeed so much so, that I scarcely ever feel myself
impelled, that is to say, pleasurably impelled to write to Poole. I used
to feel myself more at home in his great windy parlour than in my own
cottage. We were well suited to each other--my animal spirits corrected
his inclination to melancholy; and there was something both in his
understanding and in his affections, so healthy and manly, that my mind
freshened in his company, and my ideas and habits of thinking acquired
day after day more of substance and reality. Indeed, indeed, my dear sir,
with tears in my eyes, and with all my heart and soul, I wish it were as
easy for us all to meet as it was when you lived at Upcott. Yet when I
revise the step I have taken, I know not how I could have acted otherwise
than I did act. Everything I promised myself in this country has answered
far beyond my expectation. The room in which I write commands six
distinct landscapes--the two lakes, the vale, the river and mountains,
and mists, and clouds and sunshine, make endless combinations, as if
heaven and earth were for ever talking to each other. Often when in a
deep study, I have walked to the window and remained there looking
without seeing; all at once the lake of Keswick and the fantastic
mountains of Borrowdale, at the head of it, have entered into my mind,
with a suddenness as if I had been snatched out of Cheapside and placed
for the first time, in the spot where I stood--and that is a delightful
feeling--these fits and trances of novelty received from a long known
object. The river Greta flows behind our house, roaring like an untamed
son of the hills, then winds round and glides away in the front, so that
we live in a peninsula. But besides this etherial eye-feeding we have
very substantial conveniences. We are close to the town, where we have
respectable and neighbourly acquaintance, and a most sensible and truly
excellent medical man. Our garden is part of a large nursery garden,
which is the same to us and as private as if the whole had been our own,
and thus too we have delightful walks without passing our garden gates.
My landlord who lives in the sister house, for the two houses are built
so as to look like one great one, is a modest and kind man, of a singular
character. By the severest economy he raised himself from a carrier into
the possession of a comfortable independence. He was always very fond of
reading, and has collected nearly 500 volumes, of our most esteemed
modern writers, such as Gibbon, Hume, Johnson, &c. &c. His habits of
economy and simplicity, remain with him, and yet so very disinterested a
man I scarcely ever knew. Lately, when I wished to settle with him about
the rent of our house, he appeared much affected, told me that my living
near him, and the having so much of Hartley's company were great comforts
to him and his housekeeper, that he had no children to provide for, and
did not mean to marry; and in short, that he did not want any rent at all
from me. This of course I laughed him out of; but he absolutely refused
to receive any rent for the first half-year, under the pretext that the
house was not completely furnished. Hartley quite lives at the house, and
it is as you may suppose, no small joy to my wife to have a good
affectionate motherly woman divided from her only by a wall. Eighteen
miles from our house lives Sir Guilfred Lawson, who has a princely
library, chiefly of natural history--a kind and generous, but weak and
ostentatious sort of man, who has been abundantly civil to me. Among
other raree shows, he keeps a wild beast or two, with some eagles, &c.
The master of the beasts at the Exeter 'Change, sent him down a large
bear,--with it a long letter of directions, concerning the food &c. of
the animal, and many solicitations respecting the agreeable quadrupeds
which he was desirous to send to the baronet, at a moderate price, and
concluding in this manner: 'and remain your honour's most devoted humble
servant, J. P. Permit me, sir Guilfred, to send you a buffalo and a
rhinoceros.' As neat a postscript as I ever heard--the tradesmanlike
coolness with which these pretty little animals occurred to him just at
the finishing of his letter! You will in three weeks see the letters on
the 'Rise and Condition of the German Boors.' I found it convenient to
make up a volume out of my journey, &c. in North Germany--and the letters
(your name of course erased) are in the printer's hands. I was so weary
of transcribing and composing, that when I found those more carefully
written than the rest, I even sent them off as they were....
My littlest one is a very stout boy indeed. He is christened by the name
of 'Derwent,'--a sort of sneaking affection you see for the poetical and
novelist, which I disguised to myself under the show, that my brothers
had so many children Johns, Jameses, Georges, &c. &c., that a handsome
christian-like name was not to be had except by encroaching on the names
of my little nephews. If you are at Gunville at Christmas, I hold out
hopes to myself that I shall be able to pass a week with you there. I
mentioned to you at Upcott a kind of comedy that I had committed to
writing in part. This is in the wind.
Wordsworth's second vol. of the 'Lyrical Ballads' will I hope, and almost
believe, afford you as unmingled pleasure as is in the nature of a
collection of very various poems to afford to one individual mind.
Sheridan has sent to him too--requests him to write a tragedy for Drury
Lane. But W. will not be diverted by any thing from the prosecution of
his great work.
Southey's 'Thalaba,' in twelve books, is going to the press.
Remember me with great affection to your brother, and present my kindest
respects to Mrs. Wedgwood. Your late governess wanted one thing, which
where there is health is I think indispensable in the moral character of
a young person--a light and cheerful heart. She interested me a good
deal. She appears to me to have been injured by going out of the common
way without any of that imagination, which if it be a Jack o' Lanthern to
lead us that out way, is however, at the same time a torch to light us
whither we are going. A whole essay might be written on the danger of
thinking without images. God bless you, my dear sir, and him who is with
grateful and affectionate esteem,
Yours ever,
S. T. Coleridge.
Josiah Wedgewood."
"Keswick, Oct. 20, 1802.
My dear sir,
This is my birthday, my thirtieth. It will not appear wonderful to you,
when I tell you, that before the arrival of your letter, I had been
thinking with a great weight of different feelings, concerning you, and
your dear brother, for I have good reason to believe, that I should not
now have been alive, if in addition to other miseries, I had had
immediate poverty pressing upon me. I will never again remain silent so
long. It has not been altogether indolence, or my habit of
procrastination which have kept me from writing, but an eager wish,--I
may truly say, a thirst of spirit, to have something honourable to tell
you of myself.
At present I must be content to tell you something cheerful. My health is
very much better. I am stronger in every respect, and am not injured by
study, or the act of sitting at my writing desk; but my eyes suffer if at
any time I have been intemperate in the use of candle light. This account
supposes another, namely, that my mind is calm, and more at ease. My dear
sir, when I was last with you at Stowey, my heart was often full, and I
could scarcely keep from communicating to you the tale of my distresses,
but could I add to your depression, when you were low? or how interrupt,
or cast a shade on your good spirits, that were so rare, and so precious
to you?
* * * * *
I found no comfort but in the direct speculations;--in the 'Ode to
Dejection,' which you were pleased with. These lines, in the original,
followed the line 'My shaping spirit of imagination,'--
'For not to think of what I needs must feel,
But to be still and patient, all I can,
And haply by abstruse research to steal
From my own nature all the natural man;
This was my sole resource, my only plan
And that which suits a part infests the whole,
And now is almost grown the temple of my soul.'
I give you these lines for the spirit, and not for the poetry.
* * * * *
But better days are arrived, and are still to come, I have had
visitations of--that I may yet be something of which those who love me
may be proud.
I cannot write that without recalling dear Poole. I have heard twice, and
written twice, and I fear by a strange fatality, one of the letters will
have missed him. Leslie[105] was here some time ago. I was very much
pleased with him. And now I will tell you what I am doing. I dedicate
three days in the week to the 'Morning Post,' and shall hereafter write,
for the far greater part, such things as will be of a permanent interest
as any thing I can hope to write; and you will shortly see a little essay
of mine, justifying the writing in a newspaper.
My comparison of the French with the Roman Empire was very favourably
received. The poetry which I have sent is merely the emptying out of my
desk. The epigrams are wretched indeed, but they answered Stewart's
purpose, better than better things. I ought not to have given any
signature to them whatsoever. I never dreamt of acknowledging, either
them, or the Ode to the 'Rain.' As to feeble expressions, and unpolished
lines--there is the rub! Indeed, my dear sir, I do value your opinion
very highly. I think your judgment in the sentiment, the imagery, the
flow of a poem, decisive; at least, if it differed from my own, and if
after frequent consideration mine remained different, it would leave me
at least perplexed. For you are a perfect electrometer in these
things--but in point of poetic diction, I am not so well satisfied that
you do not require a certain aloofness from the language of real life,
which I think deadly to poetry.
Very soon however I shall present you from the press with my opinions
full on the subject of style, both in prose and verse; and I am confident
of one thing, that I shall convince you that I have thought much and
patiently on the subject, and that I understand the whole strength of my
antagonist's cause. For I am now busy on the subject, and shall in a very
few weeks go to press with a volume on the prose writings of Hall,
Milton, and Taylor; and shall immediately follow it up with an essay on
the writings of Dr. Johnson and Gibbon, and in these two volumes I
flatter myself I shall present a fair history of English Prose. If my
life and health remain, and I do but write half as much, and as regularly
as I have done during the last six weeks, this will be finished by
January next; and I shall then put together my memorandum-book on the
subject of Poetry. In both I have endeavoured sedulously to state the
facts and the differences clearly and accurately; and my reasons for the
preference of one style to another are secondary to this.
Of this be assured, that I will never give any thing to the world in
_propriae personae_ in my own name which I have not tormented with the
file. I sometimes suspect that my foul copy would often appear to general
readers more polished than my fair copy. Many of the feeble and
colloquial expressions have been industriously substituted for others
which struck me as artificial, and not standing the test; as being
neither the language of passion, nor distinct conceptions. Dear sir,
indulge me with looking still further on in my literary life.
1 have, since my twentieth year, meditated an heroic poem on the 'Siege
of Jerusalem,' by Titus. This is the pride and the stronghold of my hope,
but I never think of it except in my best moods. The work to which I
dedicate the ensuing years of my life, is one which highly pleased
Leslie, in prospective, and my paper will not let me prattle to you about
it. I have written what you more wished me to write, all about myself.
Our climate (in the north) is inclement, and our houses not as compact as
they might be, but it is a stirring climate, and the worse the weather,
the more unceasingly entertaining are my study windows, and the month
that is to come is the glory of the year with us. A very warm bedroom I
can promise you, and one at the same time which commands the finest lake
and mountain view. If Leslie could not go abroad with you, and I could in
any way mould my manners and habits to suit you, I should of all things
like to be your companion. Good nature, an affectionate disposition, and
so thorough a sympathy with the nature of your complaint, that I should
feel no pain, not the most momentary, at being told by you what your
feelings require at the time in which they required it; this I should
bring with me. But I need not say that you may say to me,--'You don't
suit me,' without inflicting the least mortification. Of course this
letter is for your brother, as for you; but I shall write to him soon.
God bless you,
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