Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey Part 15

And all the autumn 'twas his only play To get the seeds of wild flowers and to plant them With earth and water on the stumps of trees.

A Friar who gathered simples in the wood, A grey-haired man--he loved this little boy, The boy loved him--and, when the Friar taught him, He soon could write with the pen; and from that time Lived chiefly at the Convent or the Castle.

So he became a very learned man.

But O! poor youth!--he read, and read, and read, 'Till his brain turned--and ere his twentieth year, He had unlawful thoughts of many things: And though he prayed, he never loved to pray With holy men, nor in a holy place-- But yet his speech, it was so soft and sweet, The late Lord Velez ne'er was wearied with him.

And once as by the north side of the Chapel They stood together, chained in deep discourse, The earth heaved under them with such a groan, That the wall tottered, and had well-nigh fallen Right on their heads. My Lord was sorely frightened: A fever seized the youth; and he made confession Of all the heretical and lawless talk Which brought this judgment: so the youth was seized, And cast into that hole. My husband's father Sobbed like a child--it almost broke his heart: And once, as he was working in the cellar, He heard a voice distinctly; 'twas the youth's, Who sung a doleful song about green fields, How sweet it were on lake or wild savannah To hunt for food, and be a naked man, And wander up and down at liberty.

He always doated on the youth, and now His love grew desperate; and defying death, He made that cunning _entrance_ I described: And the young man escaped.

MARIA.

'Tis a sweet tale: Such as would lull a listening child to sleep, His rosy face besoiled with unwiped tears.

And what became of him?

FOSTER-MOTHER.

He went on ship-board With those bold voyagers, who made discovery Of golden lands: Leoni's younger brother Went likewise, and when he returned to Spain, He told Leoni, that the poor mad youth, Soon after they arrived in that new world, In spite of his dissuasion, seized a boat, And all alone set sail by silent moonlight, Up a great river, great as any sea, And ne'er was heard of more: but 'tis supposed, He lived and died among the savage men.

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

"Stowey, 1797.

My dear, dear Cottle,

Have patience, and everything shall be done. I think now entirely of your brother:[34] in two days I will think entirely for you. By Wednesday next you shall have Lloyd's other Poems, with all Lamb's, &c. &c....

S. T. C."

A little before this time, a singular occurrence happened to Mr. C.

during a pedestrian excursion into Somersetshire, as detailed in the following letter to Mr. Wade.

"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 Burnet' &c. 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."

To refer now to another subject. Robert Burns had died in 1796. Finding that his family had little more than their father's fame to support them, I consulted with Mr. Coleridge, whether it would not be possible to add to the fund then being raised, by promoting a subscription in Bristol, in furtherance of such design. It being deemed feasible, while Mr. C.

undertook to write a Poem on the subject for a Bristol paper, I sent the following advertis.e.m.e.nt to the same vehicle.

TO THE CITIZENS OF BRISTOL.

It will doubtless afford much pleasure to the liberal portion of the inhabitants of this city, to understand that a subscription has been set on foot in different parts of the kingdom, for the wife and five small children of poor Burns, the Scotch poet. There has already been subscribed--

At Dumfries (where the Bard lived) 104 12 0 At Edinburgh ... ... ... 64 16 0 At Liverpool ... ... ... 67 10 0

Whoever, in Bristol, from their admiration of departed genius, may wish to contribute, in rescuing from distress the family of Robert Burns, will be pleased to leave their donations with Mr. Cottle, High-Street. Mr. Nichol, of Pall-Mall, London, will publicly acknowledge the receipt of all monies subscribed in this city.

The sum we transmitted to the general fund, did credit to the liberality of Bristol.

Mr. Coleridge had often, in the keenest terms, expressed his contemptuous indignation at the Scotch patrons of the poet, in making him an exciseman! so that something biting was expected.

The Poem was ent.i.tled, "To a Friend, who had declared his intention of writing no more Poetry." In reading the Poem immediately after it was written, the rasping force which Mr. C. gave to the following concluding lines was inimitable.

"Is thy Burns dead?

And shall he die unwept, and sink to earth, Without the meed of one melodious tear?

Thy Burns, and nature's own beloved Bard, Who to 'the ill.u.s.trious of his native land,'[35]

So properly did look for patronage.

Ghost of Maecenas! hide thy blushing face!

They took him from the sickle and the plough-- To guage ale firkins!

O, for shame return!

On a bleak rock, midway the Aonian Mount, There stands a lone and melancholy tree, Whose aged branches to the midnight blast Make solemn music, pluck its darkest bough, Ere yet th' unwholesome night dew be exhaled, And weeping, wreath it round thy Poet's tomb: Then in the outskirts, where pollutions grow, Pick stinking henbane, and the dusky flowers Of night-shade, or its red and tempting fruit; These, with stopped nostril, and glove-guarded hand, Knit in nice intertexture, so to twine Th' ill.u.s.trious brow of Scotch n.o.bility!"

If Mr. C.'s nature had been less benevolent, and he had given full vent to the irascible and satirical, the restrained elements of which abounded in his spirit, he would have obtained the least enviable of all kinds of pre-eminence, and have become the undisputed modern Juvenal.

Mr. George Burnet resided sometimes with his relations, sometimes with Mr. Coleridge, at Stowey. Mr. and Mrs. C. happened to be now in Bristol, when the former was summoned home on account of Burnet's sudden and serious illness. On reaching Stowey, Mr. C. sent me the following letter.

"Stowey.

My dear friend,

I found George Burnet ill enough, heaven knows, Yellow Jaundice,---the introductory symptoms very violent. I return to Bristol on Thursday, and shall not leave till _all be done._

Remind Mrs. Coleridge of the kittens, and tell her that George's brandy is just what smuggled spirits might be expected to be, execrable! The smack of it remains in my mouth, and I believe will keep me most horribly temperate for half a century. He (Burnet) was bit, but I caught the Brandiphobia.[36] [obliterations ...]--scratched out, well knowing that you never allow such things to pa.s.s, uncensured. A good joke, and it slipped out most impromptu--ishly.

The mice play the very devil with us. It irks me to set a trap. By all the whiskers of all the p.u.s.s.ies that have mewed plaintively, or amorously, since the days of Whittington, it is not fair. 'Tis telling a lie. 'Tis as if you said, 'Here is a bit of toasted cheese; come little mice! I invite you!' when, oh, foul breach of the rites of hospitality! I mean to a.s.sa.s.sinate my too credulous guests! No, I cannot set a trap, but I should vastly like to make a Pitt--fall. (Smoke the Pun!). But concerning the mice, advise thou, lest there be famine in the land. Such a year of scarcity! Inconsiderate mice! Well, well, so the world wags.

Farewell, S. T. C.

P. S. A mad dog ran through our village, and bit several dogs. I have desired the farmers to be attentive, and to-morrow shall give them, in writing, the first symptoms of madness in a dog.

I wish my pockets were as yellow as George's phiz!"[37]

The preceding letter is about a fair example of that playful and ebullient imagination for which Mr. Coleridge, at this time, was distinguished. Subjects high and low received the same embellishment.

Figure crowded on figure, and image on image, in new and perpetual variety.

He was once reprobating the introduction of all bull and bear similes into poetry. "Well," I replied, "whatever your antipathies may be to bulls and bears, you have no objection to wolves." "Yes," he answered, "I equally abominate the whole tribe of lion, bull, bear, boar, and wolf similes. They are more thread-bare than a beggar's cast-off coat. From their rapid transition from hand to hand, they are now more hot and sweaty than halfpence on a market day. I would as soon meet a wolf in the open field, as in a friend's poem." I then rejoined, "Your objection, once at least, to wolf similes, was not quite so strong, seeing you prevailed on Mr. Southey to throw into the first book of "Joan of Arc," a five-line flaming wolf simile of yours. One could almost see the wolf leap, he was so fierce!" "Ah" said Mr. C. "but the discredit rests on him, not on me."

The simile, in question, if not a new subject, is at least, perhaps, as energetically expressed as any five lines in Mr. Coleridge's writings.

As who, through many a summer night serene Had hover'd round the fold with coward wish; Horrid with brumal ice, the fiercer wolf, From his bleak mountain and his den of snows Leaps terrible and mocks the shepherd's spear.

Book 1. L. 47.