Biographia Epistolaris Part 6

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 mult.i.tude 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.

a.s.suredly 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. G.o.d 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 b.l.o.o.d.y-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." * * *

G.o.d 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 embarra.s.sments. For shame! I ought not to mistrust G.o.d; 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 const.i.tutionally 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 G.o.d 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". G.o.d 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: