Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey Part 57

Dear Sir,

In answer to your inquiry, the first edition of the first part of the Pilgrim's Progress is the property of J. S. Holford, Esq., a gentleman of large possessions in this county. It was first made known I believe, by the Art Union, that this unique volume was in existence. Some time last summer I applied to Mr. H. for liberty to inspect it, and if agreeable to him, to reprint it. This he at once most liberally granted, and at the request of the council of the Hanserd Knollys' Society, George Offer, Esq., one of our members undertook the task of editor. The book is in a high state of preservation; both the paper and binding being as fresh as they left the hands of the binder. Mr. Offer has most laboriously collated it with subsequent editions, and has found many curious and singular discrepancies.

I remain, yours most truly,

Edwd. B. Underhill.

Jos. Cottle."

In this publication will be found all the desired information on this interesting subject.

Letter from Mr. Offer to Mr. Cottle, on transmitting to him Mr. O.'s correspondence with Mr. Southey, relating to a charge of Plagiarism in John Bunyan.

"Hackney, March 6, 1847.

Dear sir,

Enclosed I send you copies of the correspondence relative to 'Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress,' with Mr. Southey.

About the year 1825, two gentlemen called to see my book rarities, and among them a copy of 'Duyfken's ande Willemynkyns Pilgrimagee,' with five cuts by Bolswert, published at Antwerp, 1627, the year before Bunyan's birth. The first plate represents a man asleep--a pilgrim by his bed-side--in the perspective two pilgrims walking together, they are then seen on the ground by some water--in the extreme distance the sun setting. Another plate represents the two pilgrims in a fair, Punch and Judy, &c. A third, one pilgrim under a rock, within a circle of candles, a magician with his wand, smoke and demons over the dismayed pilgrim's head. A fourth, two pilgrims ascending a steep hill, one of them falling head-long down. From a glance of a few moments at this curious book, there shortly afterwards appeared in a newspaper in the North, an account of Banyan's having borrowed some of his plot from this work. This was answered by Mr. Montgomery, and others. Upon Mr. Southey not being able to find the book, when he had undertaken to write the 'Life and Times of Bunyan,' he addressed a letter to his publisher, Mr. Major, in which he says, 'Can you give me Mr. Donce's direction, that I may ask him for some account of the French poem? Cottle refers me to 'Dunlop's History of Fiction,' for an account of a German book, which is of the same character. Bunyan I am sure knew nothing either of the one or the other.

If the allegory was not an extension of the most common and obvious of all similitudes--the _germ_ of it might be found in his own works.' Major asked my advice, and I shewed him the book and gave him some little account of it; and soon after I received from Dr. Southey the following letter.

'Keswick, 16 April, 1829.

Sir,--Mr. Major has favoured me with your account of the Dutch work in your possession, which in many parts bears a remarkable resemblance to the 'Pilgrim's Progress.' It would require the strongest possible evidence to convince me, against my will, that Bunyan is not an original writer. The book we know he could not have read in the original; and if there had been a translation of it, it is hardly likely that it should have remained undiscovered till this time; it being almost impossible that it should come into the hands of any one who had not read the Pilgrim's Progress. This is possible, that Bunyan may have heard an account of the book from some Dutch baptist in England, or some English one who had seen it in Holland. I do not think that his obligations to it can have been more than this; but of this I can better judge when I have perused the book, which my knowledge of the language enables me to do, if you favor me with it.

Great men have sometimes been plagiarists; a grave charge of this kind has recently been proved upon Lord Bacon,--no less than that of having taken the fundamental principle of his philosophy from his name-sake, Roger, and claimed it as his own. Bunyan, I am fully persuaded, was too honest and too righteous a man to be guilty of any such baseness. He was in a beaten path of Allegory,--a name, a hint he may have taken, but I think nothing more. You will judge from this, sir, how very far from my intentions or inclination, it would be, in the slightest respect, to depreciate John Bunyan, whose book I have loved from my childhood. And whatever his obligations to the Dutchman may have been, if any there should prove to be, it is surely better that they should be stated by one who loves and honours his memory, than brought forward hereafter by some person in a different spirit; for nothing of this kind can long escape discovery now. My present persuasion is, that he owes nothing to it directly. Something perhaps, indirectly, but not much. And I promise you that I will do him no wrong.

Should you favor me by entrusting me with the book, I shall of course make due mention of the obligation you have conferred.

I remain, sir, yours with respect,

Robert Southey.

To George Offer, Esq.'

The book was immediately sent, and shortly returned with the following note and letter.

'Keswick, 25 April, 1829.

Sir,--Your book has been four and twenty hours in my possession, and I return it with many thanks, having perused it carefully, made notes from it, and satisfied myself most completely, that there is not the slightest reason for supposing Bunyan had ever heard of it, nor that he could ever have taken even a hint from it, if he had read it.

I remain, sir, yours truly,

Robert Southey.

To George Offer, Esq.'

The following letter was addressed to Mr. Major.

'Keswick, April 25,1829.

Dear Sir,

You will perceive by the return of one of your treasures, that the precious parcel arrived safely. I have read through the 'Dutch Original,'

and made notes from it;--there is not the slightest resemblance in it to anything in the 'Pilgrim's Progress. The three striking circ.u.mstances which you mentioned of the 'Hill of Difficulty,' the 'Slough of Despond,'

and 'Vanity Fair,' do not afford any ground for supposing that Bunyan had ever heard of this book; or that even if he had read it, he should have taken one hint from it. Here the incidents are, 1st that the wilful Pilgrim stops in a village crowd to see some juggler's tricks at a fair, and certain vermin in consequence shift their quarters from some of the rabble close to her, to her person. 2nd. That by following a cow's track instead of keeping the high road, she falls into a ditch. And 3rd. That going up a hill at the end of their journey, from whence Jerusalem is in sight, she climbs too high in a fit of presumption, is blown down, and falls into the place whence there is no deliverance. I am very glad to have had an opportunity of comparing it with the French translation, in which, as you may suppose, every thing which is national, and peculiar, and racy, is lost.

The author's name is not to be found in 'Poppen's Bibliotheca Belgica.'

Another and larger bible of the same country, ought to be on its way to me from Brussels at this time, and there I shall no doubt find an account of him. But the inquiry is not worth much trouble, seeing how completely all imitation or even resemblance will be disproved by an account of the book. By the by, it cannot be very rare in its own country, seeing it was popular enough for a French translation to be _re_-printed more than a hundred years after its first appearance. Believe me, dear sir,

Yours faithfully,

Robert Southey.'

The volume contains 294 pages in Dutch. Read, a.n.a.lysed, and a very correct account of it completed in 24 hours!!

I am, my dear sir, yours truly,

George Offer.

Joseph Cottle."

[71] Mr. Southey in a letter to me, dated May 13, 1799, thus writes: "Arch, who purchased of you the first edition of Wordsworth's 'Lyrical Ballads,' tells me, that he expects to lose by them!"

It reflects credit on Hannah More, to whom I had presented the first volume, that she immediately perceived the merits of the "Lyrical Ballads." On my visiting Barley Wood soon after, she said to me, "Your young friend Wordsworth, surpa.s.ses all your other young friends," when producing the book, she requested me to read several of the poems, which I did, to the great amus.e.m.e.nt of the ladies. On concluding, she said, "I must hear 'Harry Gill,' once more." On coming to the words, "O, may he never more be warm!" she lifted up her hands, in smiling horror.

[72] The house of the Pneumatic Inst.i.tution was situated in Dowry Square, Hotwells; the house in the corner, forming the north-east angle of the Square.

[73] Mr. Davy often asked me to attend his experiments, at the Wells, and as an evidence of the zeal with which he wished to induce as many as he could to pursue his favourite chemistry, in consequence of my taking great interest in his proceedings, he urged me to pursue chemistry, as a science. To prove that he was in earnest, he bought for me a box of chemical tests, acids, alkalies, gla.s.s tubes, retorts, blow-pipe, trough, &c. &c. and a.s.sisted me in some of my first experiments. The trough I occasionally use at the present time.

[74] This young Philosopher was suspected to be Mr. Davy, himself.

[75] The late Archdeacon Wrangham.

[76] Afterwards incorporated in another poem.

[77] These three initials would be the proper S. T. C. affixed to his garments.

[78] This account of Mr. Coleridge's military life, I read to Mr. Wade, who remarked that the greater part of what he had heard, Mr. Coleridge had, at different times, repeated to him. Mr. W. having been an old and steady friend of Mr. C. I expressed a desire that, he would read the whole MS. Memoir thoughtfully, in my presence, on successive mornings, and, without hesitation, dissent, if he thought it needful, from any of my statements. He afterwards remarked, "I have read deliberately the whole ma.n.u.script with intense interest, as all who knew Coleridge will, and, I think, those who knew him not. It is Coleridge himself, undisguised. All the statements I believe to be correct. Most of them I know to be such. There is nothing in this Memoir of our friend to which I object; nothing which I could wish to see omitted." He continued, "With respect to those letters relating to opium, I think you would be unfaithful, if you were to suppress them: but that letter addressed to me, must be published, (according to Mr. Coleridge's solemn injunction,) either by you, or myself. The instruction to be derived from this and his penitential letters addressed to you, is incalculable. All my friends unite with me in this opinion."