Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey Part 24

"April, 26, 1797.

"... I have finished Necker this morning, and return again to my regular train of occupation. Would that digging potatoes were amongst them! and if I live a dozen years, you shall eat potatoes of my digging: but I must think now of the present.

Some Mr. ---- sent me a volume of his poems, last week. I read his book: it was not above mediocrity. He seems very fond of poetry and even to a superst.i.tious reverence of Thompson's 'old table,' and even of Miss Seward, whose MS. he rescued from the printer. I called on him to thank him, and was not sorry to find him not at home. But the next day a note arrived with more praise. He wished my personal acquaintance, and 'trusts I shall excuse the frankness which avows, that it would gratify his feelings to receive a copy of 'Joan of Arc, from the author.' I thought this, to speak tenderly, not a very modest request, but there is a something in my nature which prevents me from silently displaying my sentiments, if that display can give pain, and so I answered his note, and sent him the book. He writes sonnets to Miss Seward, and Mr. Hayley; enough to stamp him 'blockhead.'

Carlisle and I, instead of our neighbours' 'Revolutionary Tribunal,' mean to erect a physiognomical one, and as transportation is to be the punishment, instead of guillotining, we shall put the whole navy in requisition to carry off all ill-looking fellows, and then we may walk London streets without being jostled. You are to be one of the Jury, and we must get some good limner to take down the evidence. Witnesses will be needless. The features of a man's face will rise up in judgment against him; and the very voice that pleads 'Not Guilty,' will be enough to convict the raven-toned criminal.

I sapped last night with Ben. Flower, of Cambridge, at Mr. P.'s, and never saw so much coa.r.s.e strength in a countenance. He repeated to me an epigram on the dollars which perhaps you may not have seen.

To make Spanish dollars with Englishmen pa.s.s, Stamp the head of a fool, on the tail of an a.s.s.[54]

This has a coa.r.s.e strength rather than a point. Danvers tells me that you have written to Herbert Croft. Give me some account of your letter. Let me hear from you, and tell me how you all are, and what is going on in the little world of Bristol. G.o.d bless you.

Yours affectionately,

Robert Southey.

"... We dine with Mary Wolstoncroft (now G.o.dwin) to-morrow. Oh! he has a foul nose! I never see it without longing to cut it off. By the by, Dr.

Hunter (the murderer of St. Pierre) [55] told me that I had exactly Lavater's nose, to my no small satisfaction, for I did not know what to make of that protuberance, or promontory of mine. I could not compliment him. He has a very red drinking face: little good humoured eyes, with the skin drawn up under them, like cunning and short-sightedness united. I saw Dr. Hunter again yesterday. I neither like him, nor his wife, nor his son, nor his daughter, nor any thing that is his. To night I am to meet Opie. G.o.d bless you. Edith's love.

Yours affectionately,

Robert Southey."

"May, 1797.

My dear Cottle,

... Opie indeed is a very extraordinary man. I have now twice seen him.

Without any thing of politeness, his manners are pleasing, though their freedom is out of the common; and his conversation, though in a half-uttered, half-Cornish, half-croak, is interesting. There is a strange contrast between his genius, which is not confined to painting, and the vulgarity of his appearance, --his manners, and sometimes of his language. You will however easily conceive that a man who can paint like Opie, must display the same taste on other subjects. He is very fond of Spenser. No author furnishes so many pictures, he says. You may have seen his 'Britomart delivering Amoret.' He has begun a picture from Spenser,--which he himself thinks his best design, but it has remained untouched for three years. The outline is wonderfully fine. It is the delivery of Serena from the Salvages, by Calepine. You will find the story in the 6th book of the 'Fairy Queen.' The subject has often struck me as being fit for the painter.

I saw Dr. Gregory (Biographer of Chatterton) to-day; a very brown-looking man, of most pinquescent, and full-moon cheeks. There is much tallow in him. I like his wife, and perhaps him too, but his Christianity is of an intolerant order, and he affects a solemnity when talking of it, which savours of the high priest. When he comes before the physiognomical tribunal, we must melt him down. He is too portly. G.o.d bless you....

Yours truly,

Robert Southey."

May, 1797.

"... I fancy you see no hand-writing so often as mine. I have been much pleased with your letter to Herbert Croft. I was at Dr. Gregory's last night. He has a nasal tw.a.n.g, right priestly in its note. He said he would gladly abridge his life of Chatterton, if I required it. But it is a bad work, and Coleridge should write a new one, or if he declines it, let it devolve on me.[56] They knew Miss Wesley, daughter of Charles Wesley, with whom I once dined at your house. She told them, had he not prematurely died, that she was going to be married to John Henderson. Is this true?[57]

I have a treasure for you. A 'Treatise on Miracles,' written by John Henderson, your old tutor, for Coleridge's brother George, and given to me by a pupil of his, John May, a Lisbon acquaintance, and a very valuable one. John May is anxious for a full life of John Henderson. You should get Agutter's papers. You ought also to commit to paper all you know concerning him, and all you can collect, that the doc.u.ments may remain, if you decline it. If the opportunity pa.s.s, he will die without his fame.

I have lost myself in the bottomless profundity of Gilbert's papers.

Fire, and water, and cubes, and sybils, and Mother Church, &c. &c. Poor fellow. I have been introduced to a man, not unlike him in his ideas,--Taylor the Pagan, a most devout Heathen! who seems to have some hopes of me. He is equally unintelligible, but his eye has not that inexpressible wildness, which sometimes half-terrified us in Gilbert."

"Christ Church, June 14, 1797.

"... I am in a place I like: the awkwardness of introduction over, and the acquaintance I have made here pleasant.... Your letter to Herbert Croft has made him some enemies here. I wish much to see you on that business. Bad as these times are for literature, a subscription might be opened now with great success, for Mrs. Newton (Chatterton's sister) and the whole statement of facts ought to be published in the prospectus.

Time gallops with me. I am at work now for the Monthly Magazine, upon Spanish poetry. If we are unsuccessful here (in suiting ourselves with a house) I purpose writing to Wordsworth, and asking him if we can get a place in his neighbourhood. If not, down we go to Dorsetshire. Oh, for a snug island in the farthest of all seas, surrounded by the highest of all rocks, where I and some ten or twelve more might lead the happiest of all possible lives, totally secluded from the worst of all possible monsters, man...."

"Christ Church, June 18, 1797.

"... The main purport of my writing is to tell you that we have found a house for the next half year. If I had a mind to affect the pastoral style, I might call it a cottage; but, in plain English, it is exactly what it expresses. We have got a sitting-room, and two bed-rooms, in a house which you may call a cottage if you like it, and that one of these bed-rooms is ready for you, and the sooner you take possession of it the better. You must let me know when you come that I may meet you.

So you have had Kosciusco with you, (in Bristol) and bitterly do I regret not having seen him. If he had remained one week longer in London, I should have seen him; and to have seen Kosciusco would have been something to talk of all the rest of one's life.

We have a congregation of rivers here, the clearest you ever saw: plenty of private boats too. We went down to the harbour on Friday, in Mr.

Rickman's;[58] a sensible young man, of rough, but mild manners, and very seditious. He and I rowed, and Edith was pilot.

G.o.d bless you.

Yours affectionately.

Robert Southey."

Mr. Rickman afterwards acquired some celebrity. He became private secretary to the prime minister, Mr. Perceval, and afterwards for many years, was one of the clerks of the House of Commons. He published also, in 4to, a creditable Life of Telford, the great engineer, and officially conducted the first census, (1800) a most laborious undertaking. The second census, (1810) was conducted in a very efficient way, by Mr.

Thomas Poole, whose name often appears in this work, appointed through the influence of Mr. Rickman.

"London, Dec. 14, 1797.

My dear Cottle,

I found your parcel on my return from a library belonging to the Dissenters, (Dr. Williams's Library) in Redcross-street, from which, by permission of Dr. Towers, I brought back books of great importance for my 'Maid of Orleans.' A hackney coach horse turned into a field of gra.s.s, falls not more eagerly to a breakfast which lasts the whole day, than I attacked the old folios, so respectably covered with dust. I begin to like dirty rotten binding, and whenever I get among books, pa.s.s by the gilt c.o.xcombs, and disturb the spiders. But you shall hear what I have got. A latin poem in four long books; on 'Joan of Arc;' very bad, but it gives me a quaint note or two, and Valerandus Valerius is a fine name for a quotation. A small 4to, of the 'Life of the Maid', chiefly extracts from forgotten authors, printed at Paris, 1712, with a print of her on horseback. A sketch of her life by Jacobus Philippus Bergomensis,--bless the length of his erudite name.

John May, and Carlisle, (surgeon) were with me last night, and we struck out a plan, which, if we can effect it, will be of great use. It is to be called the 'Convalescent Asylum'; and intended to receive persons who are sent from the hospitals; as the immediate return to unwholesome air, bad diet, and all the loathsomeness of poverty, destroys a very great number.

The plan is to employ them in a large garden, and it is supposed in about three years, the inst.i.tution would pay itself, on a small scale for forty persons. The success of one, would give birth to many others. C. W. W.

Wynn enters heartily into it. We meet on Sat.u.r.day again, and as soon as the plan is at all digested, Carlisle means to send it to Dr. Beddoes, for his inspection. We were led to this by the circ.u.mstance of finding a poor woman, almost dying for want, who is now rapidly recovering in the hospital, under Carlisle.

Yours affectionately,

Robert Southey."

"1798.

My dear Cottle,

In the list of the killed and wounded of the 'Mars,' you saw the name of Bligh, a midshipman. I remember rejoicing at the time, that it was not a name I knew. Will you be surprised that the object of this letter is to require your a.s.sistance in raising some little sum for the widow of this man.