John Oxenham - "Bees in Amber"

Maurice Joblin - "Cleveland Past and Present"

L. Frank Baum - "The Patchwork Girl of Oz"

William Painter - "The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey

J >> Joseph Cottle >> Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey




* * * * *

Now I had better take the small parcel with me to Gunville; if I send it
by the post, besides the heavy expense, I cannot rely on the Stowey
carriers, who are a brace of as careless and dishonest rogues as ever had
claims on that article of the hemp and timber trade, called the gallows.
Indeed I verily believe that if all Stowey, Ward excepted, does not go to
hell, it will be by the supererogation of Poole's sense of
honesty.--Charitable!

We will have a fair trial of Bang. Do bring down some of the Hyoscyamine
pills, and I will give a fair trial of Opium, Henbane, and Nepenthe.
By-the-by I always considered Homer's account of the Nepenthe as a
_Banging_ lie.

God bless you, my dear friend, and

S. T. Coleridge."


"Keswick, September 16, 1803.

My dear Wedgewood,

I reached home on yesterday noon. William Hazlitt, is a thinking,
observant, original man; of great power as a painter of
character-portraits, and far more in the manner of the old painters than
any living artist, but the objects must be before him. He has no
imaginative memory; so much for his intellectuals. His manners are to
ninety nine in one hundred singularly repulsive; brow-hanging;
shoe-contemplating--strange. Sharp seemed to like him, but Sharp saw him
only for half an hour, and that walking. He is, I verily believe,
kindly-natured: is very fond of, attentive to, and patient with children,
but he is jealous, gloomy, and of an irritable pride. With all this there
is much good in him. He is disinterested; an enthusiastic lover of the
great men who have been before us. He says things that are his own, in a
way of his own: and though from habitual shyness, and the outside of bear
skin, at least of misanthropy, he is strangely confused and dark in his
conversation, and delivers himself of almost all his conceptions with a
_Forceps_, yet he _says_ more than any man I ever knew (you yourself only
excepted) of that which is his own, in a way of his own: and often times
when he has wearied his mind, and the juice is come out, and spread over
his spirits, he will gallop for half an hour together, with real
eloquence. He sends well-feathered thoughts straight forward to the mark
with a twang of the bow-string. If you could recommend him as a portrait
painter, I should be glad. To be your companion, he is, in my opinion
utterly unfit. His own health is fitful.

I have written as I ought to do: to you most freely. You know me, both
head and heart, and I will make what deductions your reasons may dictate
to me. I can think of no other person [for your travelling
companion]--what wonder? For the last years, I have been shy of all new
acquaintance.

'To live beloved is all I need,
And when I love, I love indeed.'

I never had any ambition, and now, I trust I have almost as little
vanity.

For five months past my mind has been strangely shut up. I have taken the
paper with the intention to write to you many times, but it has been one
blank feeling;--one blank idealess feeling. I had nothing to say;--could
say nothing. How dearly I love you, my very dreams make known to me. I
will not trouble you with the gloomy tale of my health. When I am awake,
by patience, employment, effort of mind, and walking, I can keep the
Fiend at arm's length, but the night is my Hell!--sleep my tormenting
Angel. Three nights out of four, I fall asleep, struggling to lie awake,
and my frequent night-screams have almost made me a nuisance in my own
house. Dreams with me are no shadows, but the very calamities of my
life....

In the hope of drawing the gout, if gout it should be, into my feet, I
walked previously to my getting into the coach at Perth, 263 miles, in
eight days, with no unpleasant fatigue; and if I could do you any service
by coming to town, and there were no coaches, I would undertake to be
with you, on foot in seven days. I must have strength somewhere. My head
is equally strong: my limbs too are strong: but acid or not acid, gout or
not gout, something there is in my stomach....

To diversify this dusky letter, I will write an _Epitaph_, which I
composed in my sleep for myself while dreaming that I was dying. To the
best of my recollection I have not altered a word.

'Here sleeps at length poor Col. and without screaming
Who died, as he had always lived, a dreaming:
Shot dead, while sleeping, by the gout within,
Alone, and all unknown, at E'nbro' in an Inn.'

It was Tuesday night last, at the 'Black Bull,' Edinburgh. Yours, dear
Wedgewood, gratefully, and

Most affectionately,

S. T. Coleridge.

Thomas Wedgewood, Esq."


"16, Abingdon Street, Westminster, Jan. 1804.

My dear friend,

Some divines hold, that with God to think, and to create, are one and the
same act. If to think, and even to compose had been the same as to write
with me, I should have written as much too much as I have written too
little. The whole truth of the matter is, that I have been very, very
ill. Your letter remained four days unread, I was so ill. What effect it
had upon me I cannot express by words. It lay under my pillow day after
day. I should have written forty times, but as it often and often happens
with me, my heart was too full, and I had so much to say that I said
nothing. I never received a delight that lasted longer upon me--'Brooded
on my mind and made it pregnant,' than (from) the six last sentences of
your last letter,--which I cannot apologize for not having answered, for
I should be casting calumnies against myself; for the last six or seven
weeks, I have both thought and felt more concerning you, and relating to
you, than of all other men put together.

Somehow or other, whatever plan I determined to adopt, my fancy,
good-natured pander of our wishes, always linked you on to it; or I made
it your plan, and linked myself on. I left my home, December 20, 1803,
intending to stay a day and a half at Grasmere, and then to walk to
Kendal, whither I had sent all my clothes and viatica; from thence to go
to London, and to see whether or no I could arrange my pecuniary matters,
so as leaving Mrs. Coleridge all that was necessary to her comforts, to
go myself to Madeira, having a persuasion, strong as the life within me,
that one winter spent in a really warm, genial climate, would completely
restore me. Wordsworth had, as I may truly say, forced on me a hundred
pounds, in the event of my going to Madeira; and Stewart had kindly
offered to befriend me. During the days and affrightful nights of my
disease, when my limbs were swollen, and my stomach refused to retain the
food--taken in in sorrow, then I looked with pleasure on the scheme: but
as soon as dry frosty weather came, or the rains and damps passed off,
and I was filled with elastic health, from crown to sole, then the
thought of the weight of pecuniary obligation from so many people
reconciled me; but I have broken off my story.

I stayed at Grasmere (Mr. Wordsworth's) a month; three fourths of the
time bed-ridden;--and deeply do I feel the enthusiastic kindness of
Wordsworth's wife and sister, who sat up by me, one or the other, in
order to awaken me at the first symptoms of distressful feeling; and even
when they went to rest, continued often and often to weep and watch for
me even in their dreams. I left them January the 14th, and have spent a
very pleasant week at Dr. Crompton's, at Liverpool, and arrived in
London, at Poole's lodgings, last night at eight o'clock.

Though my right hand is so much swollen that I can scarcely keep my pen
steady between my thumb and finger, yet my stomach is easy, and my
breathing comfortable, and I am eager to hope all good things of my
health. That gained, I have a cheering, and I trust prideless confidence
that I shall make an active, and perseverant use of the faculties and
requirements that have been entrusted to my keeping, and a fair trial of
their height, depth, and width.[108] Indeed I look back on the last four
months with honest pride, seeing how much I have done, with what steady
attachment of mind to the same subject, and under what vexations and
sorrows, from without, and amid what incessant sufferings. So much of
myself. When I know more, I will tell you more.

I find you are still at Cote-house. Poole tells me you talk of Jamaica as
a summer excursion. If it were not for the voyage, I would that you would
go to Madeira, for from the hour I get on board the vessel, to the time
that I once more feel England beneath my feet, I am as certain as past
and present experience can make me, that I shall be in health, in high
health; and then I am sure, not only that I should be a comfort to you,
but that I should be so without diminution of my activity, or
professional usefulness. Briefly, dear Wedgewood! I truly and at heart
love you, and of course it must add to my deeper and moral happiness to
be with you, if I can be either assistance or alleviation. If I find
myself so well that I defer my Madeira plan, I shall then go forthwith to
Devonshire to see my aged mother, once more before she dies, and stay two
or three months with my brothers.[109] But, wherever I am, I never suffer
a day, (except when I am travelling) to pass without doing something.

Poole made me promise that I would leave one side for him. God bless him!
He looks so worshipful in his office, among his clerks, that it would
give you a few minutes' good spirits to look in upon him. Pray you as
soon as you can command your pen, give me half a score lines, and now
that I am _loose,_ say whether or no I can be any good to you.

S. T. Coleridge."


"16, Abingdon Street, Westminster, Jan. 28, 1804.

My dear friend,

It is idle for me to say to you, that my heart and very soul ache with
the dull pain of one struck down and stunned. I write to you, for my
letter cannot give you unmixed pain, and I would fain say a few words to
dissuade you. What good can possibly come of your plan? Will not the very
chairs and furniture of your room be shortly more, far more intolerable
to you than new and changing objects! more insufferable reflectors of
pain and weariness of spirit? Oh, most certainly they will! You must
hope, my dearest Wedgewood; you must act as if you hoped. Despair itself
has but that advice to give you. Have you ever thought of trying large
doses of opium, a hot climate, keeping your body open by grapes, and the
fruits of the climate?[110]

Is it possible that by drinking freely, you might at last produce the
gout, and that a violent pain and inflammation in the extremities might
produce new trains of motion and feeling in your stomach, and the organs
connected with the stomach, known and unknown? Worse than what you have
decreed for yourself cannot well happen. Say but a word and I will come
to you, will be with you, will go with you to Malta, to Madeira, to
Jamaica, or (if the climate, of which, and its strange effects, I have
heard wonders, true or not) to Egypt.

At all events, and at the worst even, if you do attempt to realize the
scheme of going to and remaining at Gunville, for God's sake, my dear
dear friend, do keep up a correspondence with one or more; or if it were
possible for you, with several. I know by a little what your sufferings
are, and that to shut the eyes, and stop up the ears, is to give one's
self up to storm and darkness, and the lurid forms and horrors of a
dream. I scarce know why it is; a feeling I have, and which I can hardly
understand. I could not endure to live if I had not a firm faith that
the life within you will pass forth out of the furnace, for that
you have borne what you have borne, and so acted beneath such
pressure--constitutes you an awful moral being. I am not ashamed to pray
aloud for you.

Your most affectionate friend,

S. T. Coleridge."


"March, 1804.

My dear friend,

Though fearful of breaking in upon you after what you have written to me,
I could not have left England without having written both to you and your
brother, at the very moment I received a note from Sharp, informing me
that I must instantly secure a place in the Portsmouth mail for Tuesday,
and if I could not, that I must do so in the light coach for Tuesday's
early coach.

I am agitated by many things, and only write now because you desired an
answer by return of post. I have been dangerously ill, but the illness is
going about, and not connected with my immediate ill health, however it
may be with my general constitution. It was the cholera-morbus. But for a
series of the merest accidents I should have been seized in the streets,
in a bitter east wind, with cold rain; at all events have walked through
it struggling. It was Sunday-night.

I have suffered it at Tobin's; Tobin sleeping out at Woolwich. No fire,
no wine or spirits, or medicine of any kind, and no person being within a
call, but luckily, perhaps the occasion would better suit the word
providentially, Tuffin, calling, took me home with him.... I tremble at
every loud sound I myself utter. But this is rather a history of the past
than of the present. I have only enough for memento, and already on
Wednesday I consider myself in clear sunshine, without the shadow of the
wings of the destroying angel.

What else relates to myself, I will write on Monday. Would to heaven you
were going with me to Malta, if it were but for the voyage! With all
other things I could make the passage with an unwavering mind. But
without cheerings of hope, let me mention one thing; Lord Cadogan was
brought to absolute despair, and hatred of life, by a stomach complaint,
being now an old man. The symptoms, as stated to me, were strikingly like
yours, excepting the nervous difference of the two characters; the
flittering fever, &c. He was advised to reduce lean beef to a pure jelly,
by Papin's digester, with as little water as could secure it from
burning, and of this to take half a wine glass 10 or 14 times a day. This
and nothing else. He did so. Sir George Beaumont saw, within a few weeks
a letter from himself to Lord St. Asaph, in which he relates the
circumstance of his perseverance in it, and rapid amelioration, and final
recovery. 'I am now,' he says, 'in real good health; as good, and in as
cheerful spirits as I ever was when a young man.'

May God bless you, even here,

S. T. Coleridge."


Mr. Coleridge, in the preceding letters, refers to the different states
of his health. In the letter dated January, 1800, he observed, "I have my
health perfectly;" and in the same letter he clearly indicates that he
was no stranger to opium, by remarking, "I have a stomach sensation
attached to all my thoughts, like those which succeed to the pleasurable
operations of a dose of opium." I can testify, that during the four or
five years in which Mr. C. resided in or near Bristol, no young man could
enjoy more robust health. Dr. Carlyon[111] also, verbally stated that Mr.
C; both at Cambridge, and at Gottingen, "possessed sound health." From
these premises the conclusion is fair, that Mr. Coleridge's unhappy use
of narcotics, which commenced thus early, was the true cause of all his
maladies, his languor, his acute and chronic pains, his indigestion, his
swellings, the disturbances of his general corporeal system, his
sleepless nights, and his terrific dreams!

* * * * *

Extracts, concerning Mr. Coleridge, from letters of the late Thomas
Poole, Esq., to the late Thomas Wedgewood, Esq.


"Stowey, Nov. 14, 1801.

... I expect Coleridge here in a week or ten days. He has promised to
spend two or three months with me. I trust this air will re-establish his
health, and that I shall restore him to his family and his friends a
perfect man."


"Stowey, Nov. 24, 1801.

I now expect daily to see Coleridge. He is detained I fear, by a thorn,
which he unfortunately took in his heel a day or two before he wrote to
me his last letter. He comes alone. As soon as he is here he shall write
to you."


"Stowey, Nov. 27, 1799.

... Coleridge went hence to Bristol as you know, to collect material for
his 'School-book.' (Qy.) There he received a letter concerning
Wordsworth's health, which he said agitated him deeply. He set off
immediately for Yorkshire. He has since been to the lakes. I suppose we
shall soon see him.

T. P."


"Stowey, March 15, 1804.

... Coleridge is still here with Tobin. He has taken his passage for
Malta and paid half the money, so I conclude his going is fixed. They are
waiting for convoy--the 'Lapwing' frigate.

T. P."


"16, Abingdon Street, April 3, 1804.

My dear Sir,

... Poor _Col_. left London, as I suppose you know, and is now at
Portsmouth, waiting for convoy. He was in a miserable state of health
when he left town. Heaven grant that this expedition may establish him,
body and mind. Northcote has been painting his picture for Sir George
Beaumont. I am told it is a great likeness. Davy is gone to Hungerford
for the holiday's fishing....

T. Poole.

T. Wedgewood, Esq."


Mr. Coleridge remarks, in his letter to Mr. T. Wedgewood, dated "16,
Abingdon Street, London:" "Poole looks so worshipful in his office among
his clerks, that it would give you a few minutes' good spirits to look in
upon him." The following letter will explain this allusion.


"Stowey, Sept. 14, 1803.

My dear Sir,

... I thank you heartily for your kindness, and I will tell you all about
my going to London. I became acquainted with Rickman, whom you saw, when
you set off from Cote-house with Coleridge and myself, to London, to hear
Davy's lectures at the Royal Institution. It was last January
twelvemonths. I liked Rickman, and if I may judge from his conduct since,
he liked me. I saw him frequently when I was in London in May and June
last. We often talked about the poor laws, the sin of their first
principle, their restraints, their contradictions, their abuses, their
encouragement to idleness, their immense burdens to those who pay, and
their degradation to those who receive. On this subject also some letters
have passed between us.

I have long imagined that the principles of benefit societies may be
extended and modified, so as to remedy the greater part of those evils,
and I have long had a plan in my mind which attempted something of this
sort, and which as soon as I had leisure I meant to detail in writing,
and perhaps to publish. I mentioned this to Coleridge when he was last
with me. He mentioned it to Rickman, who wrote to me on the subject.

Soon after this Sir George Eose introduced a bill into parliament for
obtaining information from the overseers of every parish, concerning the
poor, benefit societies, &c. He applied to Rickman to assist him in
framing the bill; and finally requested him to get some one to make an
abstract, to present to parliament, of the returns made by the overseers.
This office Rickman has desired me to undertake. He states to me a
variety of inducements; such as my being in London, getting much
information on a subject which interests me; and in short, I have agreed
to undertake it. Rickman says it will take me three months. I am to have
eight clerks under me, or more if I can employ them. He says there will
be twenty thousand returns. He proposes that my expenses should be paid
with a douceur of three or otherwise four hundred pounds. I stipulated
for the former, but told him the douceur would be the pleasure, I
trusted, of being useful to the poor....

T. P."


This was a rare instance of noble disinterestedness, especially in
respect of government transactions.


"London, 16, Abingdon Street, May 24, 1804.

I saw a letter this morning from Coleridge. It was written to Lamb, from
Gibraltar. He says his health and spirits are much improved, yet still he
feels alarming symptoms about him. He made the passage from England in
eleven days. If the wind permitted, they were to sail in two days for
Malta. He says he is determined to observe a strict regimen, as to eating
and drinking. He has drunk lately only lemonade, with a very small
quantity of bottled porter. He anticipates better health than he has
enjoyed for many years.

I heard by accident that Giddy was at Davy's. I have not seen Davy for
some time.

T. P."

* * * * *

[Illustration: Portrait of S. T. Coleridge]

* * * * *

If the public "bide their time," there is one memorial, resembling the
following, which will infallibly, if not soon, be attached to the busiest
and the most celebrated name.

"On Sept. 8, 1837, died at Nether Stowey, Somersetshire, Thomas
Poole, Esq. He was one of the magistrates for that county, the duties
of which station he discharged through a long course of years with
distinguished reputation. In early life the deceased was intimately
associated with Coleridge, Lamb, Sir H. Davy, Wordsworth, Southey,
and other men of literary endowments, who occasionally made long
sojournments at his hospitable residence, and in whose erudite and
philosophical pursuits he felt a kindred delight. His usefulness and
benevolence have been long recognized, and his loss will be
deplored."--_Exeter Paper_.

It appears that in the spring of 1816, Mr. Coleridge left Mr. Morgan's
house at Calne, and, in a desolate state of mind, repaired to London;
when the belief remaining strong on his mind, that his opium habits would
never be effectually subdued till he had subjected himself to medical
restraint, he called on Dr. Adams, an eminent physician, and disclosed to
him the whole of his painful circumstances, stating what he conceived to
be his only remedy. The doctor being a humane man, sympathized with his
patient, and knowing a medical gentleman who resided three or four miles
from town, who would be likely to undertake the charge, he addressed the
following letter to Mr. Gillman.


"Hatton Garden, April 9, 1816.

Dear sir,

A very learned, but in one respect an unfortunate gentleman, has applied
to me on a singular occasion. He has for several years been in the habit
of taking large quantities of opium. For some time past he has been
endeavouring to break himself of it. It is apprehended his friends are
not firm enough, from a dread, lest he should suffer by suddenly leaving
it off, though he is conscious of the contrary; and has proposed to me to
submit himself to any regimen, however severe. With this view he wishes
to fix himself in the house of some medical gentleman, who will have
courage to refuse him any laudanum, and under whose assistance, should he
be the worse for it, he may be relieved. As he is desirous of retirement,
and a garden, I could think of no one so readily as yourself. Be so good
as to inform me whether such a proposal is inconsistent with your family
arrangements. I should not have proposed it, but on account of the great
importance of the character, as a literary man. His communicative temper
will make his society very interesting, as well as useful. Have the
goodness to favor me with an immediate answer, and believe me, dear sir,

Your faithful humble servant,

Joseph Adams."


The next day Mr. Coleridge called on Mr. Gillman, who was so much pleased
with his visitor, that it was agreed he should come to Highgate the
following day. A few hours before his arrival, he sent Mr. G. a long
letter; the part relating to pecuniary affairs was the following: "With
respect to pecuniary remuneration, allow me to say, I must not at least
be suffered to make any addition to your family expenses, though I cannot
offer anything that would be in any way adequate to my sense of the
service; for that indeed there could not be a compensation, as it must be
returned in kind by esteem and grateful affection."

This return of esteem and grateful affection for his lodging and board,
was generously understood and acceded to, by Mr. Gillman, which, to a
medical man in large practice, was a small consideration. Mr. G.'s
admiration of Mr. Coleridge's talents soon became so enthusiastic,
equally creditable to both parties, that he provided Mr. Coleridge with a
comfortable home for nineteen years, even unto his death.

My original intention was, to prepare a memoir as a contribution to Mr.
Gillman's "Life of Mr. Coleridge." On my sending the MS. to Mr. Southey,
he observed, in his reply, "I apprehend if you send what you have written
about Coleridge and opium, it will not be made use of, and that
Coleridge's biographer will seek to find excuse for the abuse of that
drug."

I afterwards sent the MS. to my friend Mr. Foster, who had ever taken a
deep interest in all that concerns Mr. Coleridge. On returning it he thus
wrote.


"Stapleton, Dec. 19, 1835.

My dear sir,

I have read through your MS. volume, very much to the cost of my eyes,
but it was impossible to help going on, and I am exceedingly obliged to
you for favouring me with it;--the more so as there is no prospect of
seeing any large proportion of it in print. It is I think about as
melancholy an exhibition as I ever contemplated. Why was such a sad
phenomenon to come in sight on earth? Was it to abase the pride of human
intellect and genius?

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