Biographia Epistolaris Part 16

LETTER 55. TO COTTLE

Stowey, May, 1797.

My dear Cottle,

I have sent a curious letter to George Catcott. He has altogether made me pay five shillings! for postage, by his letters sent all the way to Stowey, requiring me to return books to the Bristol Library. * * * *

"Mr. Catcott,

"I beg your acceptance of all the enclosed letters. You must not think lightly of the present, as they cost me, who am a very poor man, five shillings.

"With respect to the "Bruck. Hist. Crit." although by accident they were registered on the 23d of March, yet they were not removed from the Library for a fortnight after; and when I received your first letter, I had had the books just three weeks. Our learned and ingenious Committee may read through two quartos, that is, one thousand and four hundred pages of close printed Latin and Greek, in three weeks, for aught I know to the contrary. I pretend to no such intenseness of application, or rapidity of genius.

"I must beg you to inform me, by Mr. Cottle, what length of time is allowed by the rules and customs of our inst.i.tution for each book.

Whether their contents, as well as their size, are consulted, in apportioning the time; or whether, customarily, any time at all is apportioned, except when the Committee, in individual cases, choose to deem it proper. I subscribe to your library, Mr. Catcott, not to read novels, or books of quick reading and easy digestion, but to get books which I cannot get elsewhere,--books of ma.s.sy knowledge; and as I have few books of my own, I read with a common-place book, so that if I be not allowed a longer period of time for the perusal of such books, I must contrive to get rid of my subscription, which would be a thing perfectly useless, except so far as it gives me an opportunity of reading your little expensive notes and letters.

"Yours in Christian fellowship,

"S. T. COLERIDGE."

Whether Coleridge had given Southey the opportunity to try his skill at the drama or not does not appear; but the following letter to Cottle shows that he had addressed himself to the task of composing a tragedy, evidently "Osorio".

LETTER 56. TO COTTLE

Stowey, May, 1797.

My dearest Cottle,

I love and respect you as a brother, and my memory deceives me woefully, if I have not evidenced, by the animated tone of my conversation when we have been tete-a-tete, how much your conversation interested me. But when last in Bristol, the day I meant to devote to you, was such a day of sadness, I could do nothing. On the Sat.u.r.day, the Sunday, and ten days after my arrival at Stowey, I felt a depression too dreadful to be described.

So much I felt my genial spirits droop, My hopes all flat; Nature within me seemed In all her functions, weary of herself,

Wordsworth's [1] conversation aroused me somewhat, but even now I am not the man I have been, and I think I never shall. A sort of calm hopelessness diffuses itself over my heart. Indeed every mode of life which has promised me bread and cheese, has been, one after another, torn away from me, but G.o.d remains. I have no immediate pecuniary distress, having received ten pounds from Lloyd. I employ myself now on a book of morals in answer to G.o.dwin, and on my tragedy...

There are some poets who write too much at their ease, from the facility with which they please themselves. They do not often enough

Feel their burdened breast Heaving beneath inc.u.mbent Deity.

So that to posterity their wreaths will look unseemly. Here, perhaps, an everlasting Amaranth, and, close by its side, some weed of an hour, sere, yellow, and shapeless. Their very beauties will lose half their effect, from the bad company they keep. They rely too much on story and event, to the neglect of those lofty imaginings that are peculiar to, and definite of the Poet.

The story of Milton might be told in two pages. It is this which distinguishes an epic poem from a romance in metre. Observe the march of Milton; his severe application; his laborious polish; his deep metaphysical researches; his prayer to G.o.d before he began his great work; all that could lift and swell his intellect, became his daily food.

I should not think of devoting less than twenty years to an epic poem.

Ten years to collect materials and warm my mind with universal science.

I would be a tolerable Mathematician. I would thoroughly understand Mechanics; Hydrostatics; Optics and Astronomy; Botany; Metallurgy; Fossilism; Chemistry; Geology; Anatomy; Medicine; then the mind of man; then the minds of men, in all Travels, Voyages, and Histories. So I would spend ten years; the next five in the composition of the poem, and the five last in the correction of it. So would I write, haply not unhearing of that divine and nightly-whispering voice, which speaks to mighty minds, of predestinated garlands, starry and unwithering.

G.o.d love you.

S. T. COLERIDGE.

P.S. David Hartley is well and grows. Sara is well, and desires a sister's love to you.

[Footnote 1: Mr. Wordsworth at this time resided at Allfoxden House, two or three miles from Stowey.--[Note by Cottle.]]

"The following letter of Mr. C," says Cottle, "was in answer to a request for some long-promised copy, and for which the printer importuned."

LETTER 57. TO COTTLE

Stowey (May), 1797.

My dear, dear Cottle,

Have patience, and everything shall be done. I think now entirely of your brother:[1] in two days I will think entirely for you. By Wednesday next you shall have Lloyd's other Poems, with all Lamb's, etc. etc. * * *

S. T. C.

"A little before this time," says Cottle, "a singular occurrence happened to Mr. C. during a pedestrian excursion into Somersetshire, as detailed in the following letter to Mr. Wade."

[Footnote 1: My brother, when at Cambridge, had written a Latin poem for the prize: the subject, "Italia, Vastata," and sent it to Mr. Coleridge, with whom he was on friendly terms, in MS. requesting the favour of his remarks; and this he did about six weeks before it was necessary to deliver it in. Mr. C. in an immediate letter, expressed his approbation of the Poem, and cheerfully undertook the task; but with a little of his procrastination, he returned the MS. with his remarks, just one day after it was too late to deliver the poem in!--[Note by Cottle.]]

LETTER 58. TO WADE

(May, 1797.)

My dear friend,

I am here after a most tiresome journey; in the course of which, a woman asked me if I knew one Coleridge, of Bristol. I answered, I had heard of him. "Do you know, (quoth she) that that vile jacobin villain drew away a young man of our parish, one Burnett," etc. and in this strain did the woman continue for near an hour; heaping on me every name of abuse that the parish of Billingsgate could supply. I listened very particularly; appeared to approve all she said, exclaiming, "dear me!" two or three times, and, in fine, so completely won the woman's heart by my civilities, that I had not courage enough to undeceive her. * * *

S. T. COLERIDGE.

P.S. You are a good prophet. Oh, into what a state have the scoundrels brought this devoted kingdom. If the House of Commons would but melt down their faces, it would greatly a.s.sist the copper currency--we should have bra.s.s enough.