Biographia Epistolaris Part 9

LETTER 33. TO MR. POOLE

6th May, 1796.

My very dear Friend,

The heart is a little relieved, when vexation converts itself into anger. But from this privilege I am utterly precluded by my own epistolary sins and negligences. Yet in very troth thou must be a hard-hearted fellow to let me trot for four weeks together every Thursday to the Bear Inn--to receive no letter. I have sometimes thought that Milton the carrier did not deliver my last parcel, but he a.s.sures me he did.

This morning I received a truly fraternal letter from your brother Richard of Sherborne, containing good and acceptable advice. He deems my "Religious Musings" "too metaphysical for common readers." I answer--the poem was not written for common readers. In so miscellaneous a collection as I have presented to the Public, "singula cuique" should be the motto. There are, however, instances of vicious affectation in the phraseology of that poem;--"unshudder'd, unaghasted", for example. ("Not in the poem now".) Good writing is produced more effectually by rapidly glancing the language as it already exists than by a hasty recourse to the mint of invention. The "Religious Musings" has more mind than the Introduction of B. II. of "Joan of Arc", ("Destiny of Nations", Poet. W.

I. p. 98) but its versification is not equally rich. It has more pa.s.sages of sublimity, but it has not that diffused air of severe dignity which characterizes my epic slice. Have I estimated my own performances rightly? ...

With regard to my own affairs they are as bad as the most rampant philo-despot could wish in the moment of cursing. After No. XII I shall cease to cry the state of the political atmosphere. It is not pleasant, Thomas Poole, to have worked fourteen weeks for nothing--for nothing; nay, to have given to the Public in addition to that toil, 45. When I began the Watchman I had 40 worth of paper given to me; yet with this I shall not have received a farthing at the end of the quarter. To be sure I have been somewhat fleeced and over-reached by my London publisher. In short, my tradesmen's bills for "The Watchman", including what paper I have bought since the seventh number, the printing, etc., amount exactly to 5 more than the whole of my receipts. "O Watchman, thou hast watched in vain!"--said the Prophet Ezekiel, when, I suppose, he was taking a prophetic glimpse of my sorrow-sallowed cheeks.

My plans are reduced to two;--the first unpracticable,--the second not likely to succeed.

Plan 1. I am studying German, and in about six weeks shall be able to read that language with tolerable fluency. Now I have some thoughts of making a proposal to Robinson, the great London bookseller, of translating all the works of Schiller, which would make a portly quarto, on condition that he should pay my journey and my wife's to and from Jena, a cheap German University where Schiller resides, and allow me two guineas each quarto sheet, which would maintain me. If I could realize this scheme, I should there study chemistry and anatomy, and bring over with me all the works of Semler and Michaelis, the German theologians, and of Kant, the great German metaphysician. On my return I would commence a school for either young men at 105 each, proposing to perfect them in the following studies in this order:--1. Man as an Animal;--including the complete knowledge of anatomy, chemistry, mechanics, and optics:--2. Man as an intellectual Being;--including the ancient metaphysics, the system of Locke and Hartley--of the Scotch philosophers--and the new Kantean system:--3. Man as a Religious Being;--including an historic summary of all religions, and of the arguments for and against natural and revealed religion. Then proceeding from the individual to the aggregate of individuals, and disregarding all chronology, except that of mind, I should perfect them: 1--in the history of savage tribes; 2--of semi-barbarous nations; 3--of nations emerging from semi-barbarism; 4--of civilized states; 5--of luxurious states; 6--of revolutionary states; 7--of colonies. During these studies I should intermix the knowledge of languages, and instruct my scholars in "belles lettres", and the principles of composition.

Now, seriously, do you think that one of my scholars, thus perfected, would make a better senator than perhaps any one member in either of our Houses?--Bright bubbles of the age--ebullient brain! Gracious Heaven!

that a scheme so big with advantage to this kingdom--therefore to Europe--therefore to the world--should be demolishable by one monosyllable from a bookseller's mouth!

My second plan is to become a Dissenting Minister, and adjure politics and casual literature. Preaching for hire is not right; because it must prove a strong temptation to continue to profess what I may have ceased to believe, "if ever" maturer judgment with wider and deeper reading should lessen or destroy my faith in Christianity. But though not right in itself, it may become right by the greater wrongness of the only alternative--the remaining in neediness and uncertainty. That in the one case I should be exposed to temptation is a mere contingency; that under necessitous circ.u.mstances I am exposed to great and frequent temptations is a melancholy certainty.

Write, my dear Poole! or I will crimp all the rampant Billingsgate of Burke to abuse you. Count Rumford is being reprinted.

G.o.d bless you and

S. T. COLERIDGE.

On Friday, the 13th of May, 1796, the tenth and last number of "The Watchman" appeared--the Author having wisely accelerated the termination of a hopeless undertaking, the plan of which was as injudicious as the execution of it by him for any length of time impracticable. Of the 324 pages, of which "The Watchman" consists, not more than a hundred contain original matter by Coleridge, and this is perhaps more remarkable as a test of the marvellous spring of his mind almost immediately afterwards than for any very striking merit of its own. Still, however, the nascent philosopher may be discovered in parts; and the Essay on the Slave Trade, in the fourth number, may be justly distinguished as comprising a perfect summary of the arguments applicable on either side of that question.

In the meantime Mr. Poole had been engaged in circulating a proposal amongst a few common friends for purchasing a small annuity and presenting it to Mr. Coleridge. The plan was not in fact carried into execution;[1] but it was communicated to Mr. C. by Mr. Poole, and the following letter refers to it:--

[Footnote 1: An error. A subscription annuity of 35 or 40 was collected and paid to Coleridge in 1796 and 1797.]

LETTER 34. TO MR. POOLE

12th May, 1796.

Poole! The Spirit, who counts the throbbings of the solitary heart, knows that what my feelings ought to be, such they are. If it were in my power to give you anything, which I have not already given, I should be oppressed by the letter now before me. But no! I feel myself rich in being poor; and because I have nothing to bestow, I know how much I have bestowed. Perhaps I shall not make myself intelligible; but the strong and unmixed affection which I bear to you seems to exclude all emotions of grat.i.tude, and renders even the principle of esteem latent and inert.

Its presence is not perceptible, though its absence could not be endured.

Concerning the scheme itself I am undetermined. Not that I am ashamed to receive;--G.o.d forbid! I will make every possible exertion; my industry shall be at least commensurate with my learning and talents;--if these do not procure for me and mine the necessary comforts of life, I can receive as I would bestow, and, in either case--receiving or bestowing--be equally grateful to my Almighty Benefactor. I am undetermined therefore--not because I receive with pain and reluctance, but--because I suspect that you attribute to others your own enthusiasm of benevolence; as if the sun should say--"With how rich a purple those opposite windows are burning!" But with G.o.d's permission I shall talk with you on this subject. By the last page of No. X, you will perceive that I have this day dropped "The Watchman". On Monday morning I will go "per" caravan to Bridgewater, where, if you have a horse of tolerable meekness unemployed, you will let him meet me.

I should blame you for the exaggerated terms in which you have spoken of me in the Proposal, did I not perceive the motive. You wished to make it appear an offering--not a favour--and in excess of delicacy have, I fear, fallen into some grossness of flattery.

G.o.d bless you, my dear, very dear Friend. The widow is calm, and amused with her beautiful infant. [1] We are all become more religious than we were. G.o.d be ever praised for all things! Mrs. Coleridge begs her kind love to you. To your dear Mother my filial respects.

S. T. COLERIDGE. [2]

[Footnote 1: Mrs. Robert Lovell, whose husband had been carried off by a fever, about two years after his marriage with my Aunt. S. C.]

[Footnote 2: Letter LVI is our 34. LVII is dated 13 May, 1796.]

The visit to Mr. Poole at Stowey was paid, and Mr. C. returned to Bristol on the 20th of May, 1796. On his way back he wrote the following letter to Mr. Poole from Bridgewater:--

LETTER 35

29th May, 1796.

My dear Poole,

This said caravan does not leave Bridgewater till nine. In the market-place stand the hustings. I mounted, and pacing the boards, mused on bribery, false swearing, and other foibles of election times. I have wandered too by the river Parret, which looks as filthy as if all the parrots in the House of Commons had been washing their consciences therein. Dear Gutter of Stowey! Were I transported to Italian plains, and lying by the side of a streamlet which murmured through an orange grove, I would think of thee, dear Gutter of Stowey, and wish that I were poring on thee!

So much by way of rant. I have eaten three eggs, swallowed sundries of tea and bread and b.u.t.ter, purely for the purpose of amusing myself, and I have seen the horse fed. When at Cross, where I shall dine, I shall think of your happy dinner celebrated under the auspices of humble independence, supported by brotherly love. I am writing, you understand, for no worldly purpose but that of avoiding anxious thoughts. Apropos of honey-pie:--Caligula or Heliogabalus,[1] (I forget which,) had a dish of nightingales' tongues served up. What think you of the stings of bees?

G.o.d bless you. My filial love to your mother, and fraternity to your sister. Tell Ellen Cruikshanks, that in my next parcel to you I will send my Haleswood Poem to her. Heaven protect her, and you, and Sara, and your Mother, and--like a bad shilling pa.s.sed off in a handful of guineas--your affectionate friend and brother,

S. T. COLERIDGE.

P.S. Don't forget to send by Milton my old clothes and linen that once was clean--a pretty "periphrasis" that![2]

[Footnote 1: Elagabalus.]

[Footnote 2: Letter LVIII is our 35. LIX is dated 22 June 1796.]

The month of June, 1796, was spent in Bristol, and some negotiation took place as to Mr. C.'s settling in Nottingham, the particulars of which the Editor is unable to state. On the 4th of July Mr. Coleridge writes to Mr. Poole.

LETTER 36. TO MR. POOLE

4th July, 1796.

My very dear Poole,

Do not attribute it to indolence that I have not written to you.

Suspense has been the real cause of my silence. Day after day I have confidently expected some decisive letter, and as often have been disappointed. "Certainly I shall have one to-morrow noon, and then I will write." Thus I contemplated the time of my silence in its small component parts, forgetful into what a sum total they were swelling. As I have heard nothing from Nottingham notwithstanding I have written a pressing letter, I have, by the advice of Cottle and Dr. Beddoes, accepted a proposal of Mr. Perry's, the editor of the "Morning Chronicle",--accepted it with a heavy and reluctant heart. On Thursday Perry was at Bristol for a few hours, just time enough to attend the dying moments of his a.s.sociate in the editorship, Mr. Grey, whom Dr.

Beddoes attended. Perry desired Dr. B. to inform me that, if I would come up to London and write for him, he would make me a regular compensation adequate to the maintenance of myself and Mrs. Coleridge, and requested an immediate answer by the post. Mr. Estlin, and Charles Danvers, and Mr. Wade are or were all out of town;--I had no one to advise with except Dr. Beddoes and Cottle. Dr. B. thinks it a good opening on account of Grey's death; but I rather think that the intention is to employ me as a mere hackney without any share of the profits. However, as I am doing nothing, and in the prospect of doing nothing settled, I was afraid to give way to the "omenings" of my heart; and accordingly I accepted his proposal in general terms, requesting a line from him expressing the particulars both of my proposed occupation and stipend. This I shall receive to-morrow, I suppose; and if I do, I think of hiring a horse for a couple of days, and galloping down to you to have all your advice, which indeed, if it should be for rejecting the proposals, I might receive by post; but if for finally accepting them, we could not interchange letters in a time sufficiently short for Perry's needs, and so he might procure another person possibly. At all events I should not like to leave this part of England--perhaps for ever--without seeing you once more. I am very sad about it, for I love Bristol, and I do not love London; and besides, local and temporary politics have become my aversion. They narrow the understanding, and at least acidulate the heart; but those two giants, yclept Bread and Cheese, bend me into compliance. I must do something. If I go, farewell, Philosophy! farewell, the Muse! farewell, my literary Fame!

My "Poems" have been reviewed. The "Monthly" has cataracted panegyric on me; the "Critical" cascaded it, and the "a.n.a.lytical" dribbled it with civility. As to the "British Critic", they durst not condemn, and they would not praise--so contented themselves with commending me as a "poet", and allowed me "tenderness of sentiment and elegance of fiction." I am so anxious and uneasy that I really cannot write any further. My kind and fraternal love to your Sister, and my filial respects to your dear Mother, and believe me to be in my head, heart, and soul, yours most sincerely.

S. T. COLERIDGE.