Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey Part 18

COTTLE.

She had lost her thimble, and her complaint being accidentally overheard by her friend, he immediately sent her four others to take her choice from.

As oft mine eye, with careless glance, Has gallop'd o'er some old romance, Of speaking birds, and steeds with wings, Giants and dwarfs, and fiends, and kings: Beyond the rest, with more attentive care, I've loved to read of elfin-favor'd fair-- How if she longed for aught beneath the sky, And suffered to escape one votive sigh, Wafted along on viewless pinions airy, It kid itself obsequious at her feet: Such things I thought we might not hope to meet, Save in the dear delicious land of fairy!

But now (by proof I know it well) There's still some peril in free wishing-- Politeness is a licensed spell, And you, dear sir, the arch-magician.

You much perplexed me by the various set: They were indeed an elegant quartette!

My mind went to and fro, and wavered long; At length I've chosen (Samuel thinks me wrong) That around whose azure brim, Silver figures seem to swim, Like fleece-white clouds, that on the skyey blue, Waked by no breeze, the self-same shapes retain; Or ocean nymphs, with limbs of snowy hue, Slow floating o'er the calm cerulean plain.

Just such a one, mon cher ami (The finger-shield of industry,) The inventive G.o.ds, I deem, to Pallas gave, What time the vain Arachne, madly brave, Challenged the blue-eyed virgin of the sky A duel in embroidered work to try.

And hence the thimbled finger of grave Pallas, To th' erring needle's point was more than callous.

But, ah, the poor Arachne! she, unarmed, Blund'ring, through hasty eagerness, alarmed With all a rival's hopes, a mortal's fears, Still miss'd the st.i.tch, and stained the web with tears.

Unnumbered punctures, small, yet sore, Full fretfully the maiden bore, Till she her lily finger found Crimson'd with many a tiny wound, And to her eyes, suffused with watery woe, Her flower-embroidered web danced dim, I wist, Like blossom'd shrubs, in a quick-moving mist; Till vanquish'd, the despairing maid sank low.

O, Bard! whom sure no common muse inspires, I heard your verse that glows with vestal fires; And I from unwatch'd needle's erring point Had surely suffered on each finger joint, Those wounds, which erst did poor Arachne meet; While he, the much-loved object of my choice, (My bosom thrilling with enthusiast heat) Pour'd on my ear, with deep impressive voice, How the great Prophet of the desert stood, And preach'd of penitence by Jordan's flood: On war; or else the legendary lays, In simplest measures hymn'd to Alla's praise; Or what the Bard from his heart's inmost stores, O'er his friend's grave in loftier numbers pours: Yes, Bard polite! you but obey'd the laws Of justice, when the thimble you had sent; What wounds your thought-bewildering muse might cause, 'Tis well, your finger-shielding gifts prevent.

SARA."

"Dear Cottle,

I have heard nothing of my Tragedy, except some silly remarks of Kemble's, to whom a friend showed it; it does not appear to me that there is a shadow of probability that it will be accepted. It gave me no pain, and great pleasure, in finding that it gave me no pain.

I had rather hoped than believed that I was possessed of so much philosophical capability. Sheridan most certainly has not used me with common justice. The proposal came from himself, and although this circ.u.mstance did not bind him to accept the tragedy, it certainly bound him to every, and that the earliest, attention to it. I suppose it is snugly in his green bag, if it have not emigrated to the kitchen.

I sent to the Monthly Magazine, (1797) three mock Sonnets, in ridicule of my own Poems, and Charles Lloyd's, and Lamb's, &c. &c. exposing that affectation of unaffectedness, of jumping and misplaced accent, in common-place epithets, flat lines forced into poetry by italics, (signifying how well and mouthishly the author would read them) puny pathos, &c. &c. the instances were almost all taken from myself, and Lloyd, and Lamb.

I signed them 'Nehemiah Higginbotham.' I think they may do good to our young Bards.

G.o.d love you,

S. T. C."

P. S. I am translating the 'Oberon' of Wieland; it is a difficult language, and I can translate at least as fast as I can construe. I have made also a very considerable proficiency in the French language, and study it daily, and daily study the German; so that I am not, and have not been idle....

SONNETS.

ATTEMPTED IN THE MANNER OP CONTEMPORARY WRITERS.

SONNET I.

Pensive, at eve, on the hard world I mus'd, And my poor heart was sad: so at the moon I gazed, and sigh'd, and sigh'd! for ah! how soon Eve darkens into night! Mine eye perus'd With tearful vacancy the dampy gra.s.s, Which wept and glitter'd in the paly ray: And I did pause me on my lonely way, And muse me on those wretched ones, who pa.s.s O'er the black heath of sorrow. But alas!

Most of MYSELF I thought: when it befel That the sooth SPIRIT of the breezy wood Breath'd in mine ear--"All this is very well; But much of _one_ thing is for _no-thing_ good."

Ah! my poor heart's inexplicable swell!

NEHEMIAH HIGGINBOTHAM.

SONNET II.

TO SIMPLICITY.

O! I do love thee, meek simplicity!

For of thy lays, the lulling simpleness Goes to my heart, and soothes each small distress, Distress, though small, yet haply great to me!

'Tis true, on lady fortune's gentlest pad, I amble on; yet, though I know not why, So sad I am!--but should a friend and I Grow cool and miff, oh, I am very sad!

And then with sonnets, and with sympathy.

My dreamy bosom's mystic woes I pall; Now of my false friend 'plaining plaintively, Now raving at mankind in gener-al But whether sad or fierce, 'tis simple all, All very simple, meek SIMPLICITY!

NEHEMIAH HIGGINBOTHAM.

SONNET III.

ON A RUINED HOUSE WHICH JACK BUILT.

And this reft house is that, the which he built, Lamented Jack! and here his malt he piled, Cautious in vain! These rats that squeak'd so wild, Squeak, not unconscious of their fathers' guilt.

Did ye not see her gleaming through the glade?

Belike 'twas she, the Maiden all forlorn.

What though she milk no cow with crumpled horn, Yet, aye she haunts the dale where erst she stray'd: And, aye beside her stalks her amorous knight!

Still on his thighs his wonted brogues are worn, And through those brogues, still tatter'd and betorn, His hindward charms gleam an unearthly white; As when through broken clouds, at night's high moon.

Peeps in fair fragments forth--the full-orb'd harvest moon!

NEHEMIAH HIGGINBOTHAM.[44]

The moralist rightly says, "There is nothing permanent in this uncertain world;" and even most friendships do not partake of the "Munition of Rocks."

Alas! the spirit of impartiality now compels me to record, that the inseparable Trio; even the three "Groscolliases" themselves, had, somehow or other, been touched with the negative magnet, and their particles, in opposition, flew off "as far as from hence to the utmost pole." I never rightly understood the cause of this dissension, but shrewdly suspected that that unwelcome and insidious intruder, Mr. Nehemiah Higginbotham, had no inconsiderable share in it.

Mr. C. even determined in his third projected edition, (1798) that the production of his two late friends should be excluded. The three next letters refer to this unpleasant affair. It is hardly necessary to add, that the difference was of short continuance.

The Latin motto, prefixed to the second edition of Mr. C.'s poems, puzzled everybody to know from what author it was derived. One and another inquired of me, to no purpose, and expressed a wish that Mr. C.

had been clearer in his citation, as "no one could understand it." On my naming this to Mr. Coleridge, he laughed heartily, and said, "It was all a hoax." "Not meeting" said he, "with a suitable motto, I invented one, and with references purposely obscure," as will be explained in the next letter.[45]

"March 8th, 1798.

My dear Cottle,

I have been confined to my bed for some days, through a fever occasioned by the stump of a tooth, which baffled chirurgical efforts to eject, and which, by affecting my eye, affected my stomach, and through that my whole frame. I am better, but still weak, in consequence of such long sleeplessness and wearying pains; weak, very weak. I thank you, my dear friend, for your late kindness, and in a few weeks will either repay you in money, or by verses, as you like. "With regard to Lloyd's verses, it is curious that I should be applied to, 'to be persuaded to resign' and in hopes that I might 'consent to give up' (unknown by whom) a number of poems which were published at the earnest request of the author, who a.s.sured me, that the circ.u.mstance was of 'no trivial import to his happiness'!

Times change and people change; but let us keep our souls in quietness! I have no objection to any disposal of Lloyd's poems except that of their being republished with mine. The motto which I had prefixed--"Duplex, &c." from Groscollias, has placed me in a ridiculous situation, but it was a foolish and presumptuous start of affectionateness, and I am not unwilling to incur the punishment due to my folly. By past experiences we build up our moral being. G.o.d bless you,