Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey Part 2

THIRD. The Fanaticism of the first English and French Revolutionists.

English Sectaries. French Parties. Feuillans. Girondists. Faction of Hebert. Jacobins. Moderants. Royalists.

FOURTH. 1st, Characters of Charles the First, and Louis the Sixteenth. 2nd, of Louis the Fourteenth and the present Empress of Russia. 3rd, Life and Character of Ess.e.x and Fayette.

FIFTH. Oliver Cromwell, and Robespierre.--Cardinal Mazarine, and William Pitt.--Dundas, and Barrere.

SIXTH. On Revolution in general. Its moral causes, and probable effects on the Revolutionary People, and surrounding nations.

It is intended that the Lectures should be given once a week; on Tuesday Evenings, at eight o'clock, at the a.s.sembly Coffee House, on the Quay. The First Lecture, on Tuesday, June 23d, 1795. As the author wishes to ensure an audience adequate to the expenses of the room, he has prepared subscription tickets for the whole course, price Six Shillings, which may be had at the Lecture Room, or of Mr.

Cottle, or Mr. Reed, Booksellers.

Mr. Coleridge's Theological lectures succeeded, of which the following is the prospectus.

Six Lectures will be given by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, on Revealed Religion, its Corruptions, and its Political Views.

These Lectures are intended for two cla.s.ses of men, Christians and Infidels; to the former, that they be able to give a reason for the hope that is in them; to the latter, that they may not determine against Christianity, from arguments applicable to its corruptions only.

The subjects of the FIRST LECTURE, are--The Origin of Evil. The Necessity of Revelation deduced from the Nature of man. An Examination and Defence of the Mosaic Dispensation.

SECOND.--The Sects of Philosophy, and the Popular Superst.i.tions of the Gentile World, from the earliest times to the Birth of Christ.

THIRD.--Concerning the Time of the Appearance of Christ. The Internal Evidences of Christianity. The External Evidences of Christianity.

FOURTH.--The External Evidences of Christianity continued. Answers to Popular and Philosophical objections.

FIFTH.--The Corruptions of Christianity, in Doctrines. Political Application.

SIXTH.--The grand Political Views of Christianity--far beyond other Religions, and even Sects of Philosophy. The Friend of Civil Freedom.

The probable state of Society and Governments, if all men were Christians.

Tickets to be had of Mr. Cottle, Bookseller.

Sometimes a single Lecture was given. The following is an Advertis.e.m.e.nt of one of them.

To-morrow Evening, Tuesday, June 16th, 1795, S. T. Coleridge will deliver (by particular desire) a Lecture on the Slave Trade, and the duties that result from its continuance.

To begin at 8 o'clock, at the a.s.sembly Coffee House, on the Quay.

Admittance, One Shilling.

It may be proper to state that all three of my young friends, in that day of excitement, felt a detestation of the French war then raging, and a hearty sympathy with the efforts made in France to obtain political ameliorations. Almost every young and unprejudiced mind partic.i.p.ated in this feeling; and Muir, and Palmer, and Margarot, were regarded as martyrs in the holy cause of freedom. The successive enormities, however, perpetrated in France and Switzerland by the French, tended to moderate their enthusiastic politics, and progressively to produce that effect on them which extended also to so many of the soberest friends of rational freedom. Mr. Coleridge's zeal on these questions was by far the most conspicuous, as will appear by some of his Sonnets, and particularly by his Poem of "Fire, Famine, and Slaughter;" though written some considerable time after. When he read this Poem to me, it was with so much jocularity as to convince me that, without bitterness, it was designed as a mere joke.

In conformity with my determination to state occurrences, plainly, as they arose, I must here mention that strange as it may appear in Pantisocritans, I observed at this time a marked coolness between Mr.

Coleridge and Robert Lovell, so inauspicious in those about to establish a "Fraternal Colony;" and, in the result, to renovate the whole face of society! They met without speaking, and consequently appeared as strangers. I asked Mr. C. what it meant. He replied, "Lovell, who at first, did all in his power to promote my connexion with Miss Fricker, now opposes our union." He continued, "I said to him, 'Lovell! you are a villain!'" "Oh," I replied, "you are quite mistaken. Lovell is an honest fellow, and is proud in the hope of having you for a brother-in-law. Rely on it he only wishes you from prudential motives to delay your union." In a few days I had the happiness of seeing them as sociable as ever.

This is the last time poor Robert Lovell's name will be mentioned in this work, as living. He went to Salisbury, caught a fever, and, in eagerness to reach his family, travelled when he ought to have lain by; reached his home, and died! We attended his funeral, and dropt a tear over his grave!

Mr. Coleridge, though at this time embracing every topic of conversation, testified a partiality for a few, which might be called stock subjects.

Without noticing his favorite Pantisocracy, (which was an everlasting theme of the laudatory) he generally contrived, either by direct amalgamation or digression, to notice in the warmest encomiastic language, Bishop Berkeley, David Hartley, or Mr. Bowles; whose sonnets he delighted in reciting. He once told me, that he believed, by his constant recommendation, he had sold a whole edition of some works; particularly amongst the fresh-men of Cambridge, to whom, whenever he found access, he urged the purchase of three works, indispensable to all who wished to excel in sound reasoning, or a correct taste;--Simpson's Euclid; Hartley on Man; and Bowles's Poems.

In process of time, however, when reflection had rendered his mind more mature, he appeared to renounce the fanciful and brain-bewildering system of Berkeley; whilst he sparingly extolled Hartley; and was almost silent respecting Mr. Bowles. I noticed a marked change in his commendation of Mr. B. from the time he paid that man of genius a visit. Whether their canons of criticisms were different, or that the personal enthusiasm was not mutual; or whether there was a diversity in political views; whatever the cause was, an altered feeling toward that gentleman was manifested after his visit, not so much expressed by words, as by his subdued tone of applause.

The reflux of the tide had not yet commenced, and Pantisocracy was still Mr. Coleridge's favourite theme of discourse, and the banks of the Susquehannah the only refuge for permanent repose. It will excite great surprise in the reader to understand that Mr. C.'s cooler friends could not ascertain that he had received any specific information respecting this notable river. "It was a grand river;" but there were many other grand and n.o.ble rivers in America; (the Land of Rivers!) and the preference given to the Susquehannah, seemed almost to arise solely from its imposing name, which, if not cla.s.sical, was at least poetical; and it probably by mere accident became the centre of all his pleasurable a.s.sociations. Had this same river been called the Miramichi or the Irrawaddy, it would have been despoiled of half its charms, and have sunk down into a vulgar stream, the atmosphere of which might have suited well enough Russian boors, but which would have been pestiferous to men of letters.

The strong hold which the Susquehannah had taken on Mr. Coleridge's imagination may be estimated by the following lines, in his Monody on Chatterton.

"O, Chatterton! that thou wert yet alive; Sure thou would'st spread the canva.s.s to the gale, And love with us the tinkling team to drive O'er peaceful freedom's UNDIVIDED dale; And we at sober eve would round thee throng, Hanging enraptured on thy stately song!

And greet with smiles the young-eyed POSEY All deftly masked, as h.o.a.r ANTIQUITY.

Alas, vain phantasies! the fleeting brood Of woe self-solaced in her dreamy mood!

Yet I will love to follow the sweet dream, Where Susquehannah pours his untamed stream, And on some hill, whose forest-frowning side Waves o'er the murmurs of his calmer tide; And I will build a cenotaph to thee, Sweet harper of time-shrouded minstrelsy!

And there soothed sadly by the dirgeful wind, Muse on the sore ills I had left behind."

In another poem which appeared only in the first edition, a reference is again made to the American "undivided dell," as follows:

TO W. J. H.

While playing on his flute.

Hush! ye clamorous cares! be mute.

Again, dear Harmonist! again, Through the hollow of thy flute, Breathe that pa.s.sion-warbled strain:

Till memory each form shall bring The loveliest of her shadowy throng; And hope that soars on sky-lark whig, Carol wild her gladdest song!

O skill'd with magic spell to roll The thrilling tones, that concentrate the soul!

Breathe through thy flute those tender notes again, While near thee sits the chaste-eyed maiden mild; And bid her raise the poet's kindred strain In soft empa.s.sioned voice, correctly wild.

"In freedom's UNDIVIDED DELL Where toil and health, with mellowed love shall dwell, Far from folly, far from men, In the rude romantic glen, Up the cliff, and through the glade, Wand'ring with the dear-loved maid, I shall listen to the lay, And ponder on thee far away."

Mr. Coleridge had written a note to his Monody on Chatterton, in which he caustically referred to Dean Milles. On this note being shown to me, I remarked that Captain Blake, whom he occasionally met, was the son-in-law of Dean Milles. "What," said Mr. Coleridge, "the man with the great sword?" "The same," I answered. "Then," said Mr. C. with an a.s.sumed gravity, "I will suppress this note to Chatterton; the fellow might have my head off before I am aware!" To be sure there was something rather formidable in his huge dragoon's sword, constantly rattling by his side!

This Captain Blake was a member of the Bristol Corporation, and a pleasant man, but his sword, worn by a short man, appeared prodigious!--Mr. C. said, "The sight of it was enough to set half a dozen poets scampering up Parna.s.sus, as though hunted by a wild mastodon."

In examining my old papers I found this identical note in Mr. Coleridge's hand writing, and which is here given to the reader; suggesting that this note, like the Sonnet to Lord Stanhope, was written in that portion of C.'s life, when it must be confessed, he really was hot with the French Revolution. Thus he begins:

By far the best poem on the subject of Chatterton, is, "Neglected Genius, or Tributary Stanzas to the memory of the unfortunate Chatterton." Written by Rushton, a blind sailor.

Walpole writes thus. "All the House of Forgery are relations, although it be but just to Chatterton's memory to say, that his poverty never made him claim kindred with the more enriching branches; yet he who could so ingeniously counterfeit styles, and the writer believes, hands, might easily have been led to the more facile imitation of Prose Promissory Notes!" O, ye who honor the name of man, rejoice that this Walpole is called a Lord! Milles, too, the editor of Rowley's Poem's, a priest; who (though only a Dean, in dulness and malignity was most episcopally eminent) foully calumniated him.--An Owl mangling a poor dead nightingale! Most injured Bard!

"To him alone in this benighted age Was that diviner inspiration given Which glows in Milton's, and in Shakspeare's page, The pomp and prodigality of heaven!"

Mr. Southey's course of Historical Lectures, comprised the following subjects, as expressed in his prospectus.

Robert Southey, of Baliol College, Oxford, proposes to read a course of Historical Lectures in the following order.

1st. Introductory: on the origin and Progress of Society.

2nd. Legislation of Solon and Lycurgus.

3rd. State of Greece, from the Persian War to the Dissolution of the Achaian League.

4th. Rise, Progress, and Decline of the Roman Empire.

5th. Progress of Christianity.

6th. Manners and Irruptions of the Northern Nations.