The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Part 15

"Mr. Coleridge will commence, on Monday, November 18, 1811, a Course of Lectures on Shakspeare and Milton, in ill.u.s.tration of the principles of poetry, and their application, as grounds of criticism, to the most popular works of later English Poets, those of the living included. After an introductory lecture on False Criticism (especially in poetry), and on its causes; two thirds of the remaining course will be a.s.signed,

1st, to a philosophical a.n.a.lysis, and explanation of all the princ.i.p.al 'characters' of our great dramatist, as Oth.e.l.lo, Falstaff, Richard the Third, Iago, Hamlet, &c.; and

2nd, to a critical 'comparison' of Shakspeare, in respect of diction, imagery, management of the pa.s.sions, judgment in the construction of his dramas, in short, of all that belongs to him as a poet, and as a dramatic poet, with his contemporaries or immediate successors, Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Ford, Ma.s.singer, &c. in the endeavour to determine what of Shakspeare's merits and defects are common to him, with other writers of the same age, and what remain peculiar to his own genius.

The course will extend to fifteen lectures, which will be given on Monday and Thursday evenings successively."

Mr. Coleridge afterwards delivered another course of lectures at the Royal Inst.i.tution. Dr. Dibdin, one of his auditors, gives the following account of the lecturer: [25]

"It was during my constant and familiar intercourse with Sir T.

Bernard, while 'The Director' was going on, that I met the celebrated Mr. Coleridge--himself a lecturer. He was not a 'constant'

lecturer--not in constant harness like others for the business of the day. Indisposition was generally preying upon him, [26] and habitual indolence would now and then frustrate the performance of his own better wishes. I once came from Kensington in a snow-storm, to hear him lecture upon Shakspeare. I might have sat as wisely and more comfortably by my own fire-side--for no Coleridge appeared. And this I think occurred more than once at the Royal Inst.i.tution. I shall never forget the effect his conversation made upon me at the first meeting.

It struck me as something not only quite out of the ordinary course of things, but as an intellectual exhibition altogether matchless. The viands were unusually costly, and the banquet was at once rich and varied; but there seemed to be no dish like Coleridge's conversation to feed upon--and no information so varied and so instructive as his own. The orator rolled himself up, as it were, in his chair, and gave the most unrestrained indulgence to his speech, and how fraught with acuteness and originality was that speech, and in what copious and eloquent periods did it flow! The auditors seemed to be rapt in wonder and delight, as one conversation, more profound or clothed in more forcible language than another, fell from his tongue. A great part of the subject discussed at the first time of my meeting Mr. Coleridge, was the connexion between Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton. The speaker had been secretary to Sir Alexander Ball, governor of Malta--and a copious field was here afforded for the exercise of his colloquial eloquence. For nearly two hours he spoke with unhesitating and uninterrupted fluency. As I retired homewards (to Kensington), I thought a second Johnson had visited the earth, to make wise the sons of men; and regretted that I could not exercise the powers of a second Boswell, to record the wisdom and the eloquence which had that evening flowed from the orator's lips. It haunted me as I retired to rest. It drove away slumber: or if I lapsed into sleep, there was Coleridge--his snuffbox, and his 'kerchief before my eyes!--his mildly beaming looks--his occasionally deep tone of voice--and the excited features of his physiognomy.--The manner of Coleridge was rather emphatic than dogmatic, and thus he was generally and satisfactorily listened to. It might be said of Coleridge, as Cowper has so happily said of Sir Philip Sidney, that he was 'the warbler of poetic prose.'

There was always 'this' characteristic feature in his multifarious conversation--it was delicate, reverend, and courteous. The chastest ear could drink in no startling sound; the most serious believer never had his bosom ruffled by one sceptical or reckless a.s.sertion.

Coleridge was eminently simple in his manner. Thinking and speaking were his delight; and he would sometimes seem, during the more fervid movements of discourse, to be abstracted from all and every thing around and about him, and to be basking in the sunny warmth of his own radiant imagination."

The ma.n.u.script of 'The Remorse' was sent to Mr. Sheridan, who did not even acknowledge the receipt of the letter which accompanied the drama; he however observed to a friend, that he had received a play from Coleridge, but that there was one extraordinary line in the Cave Scene, 'drip, drip'--which he could not understand: "in short," said he, "it is all dripping." This was the only notice he took of the play; but the comment was at length repeated to the author, through the medium of a third party. The theatre falling afterwards into the hands of Lord Byron and Mr. Whitbread, his Lordship sent for Coleridge, was very kind to his brother poet, and requested that the play might be represented: this desire was complied with, and it received his support. Although Mr.

Whitbread [27] did not give it the advantage of a single new scene, yet the popularity of the play was such, that the princ.i.p.al actor, who had performed in it with great success, made choice of it for his benefit-night, and it brought an overflowing house. [28]

In consequence of the interest Lord Byron took in the success of this tragedy, Coleridge was frequently in his company, and on one occasion, in my presence, his Lordship said, "Coleridge, there is one pa.s.sage in your poems, I have parodied fifty times, and I hope to live long enough to parody it five hundred." That pa.s.sage I do not remember; but it may strike some reader.

In a letter of Coleridge's to a friend, written April 10th, 1816, he thus speaks of Byron:

"If you had seen Lord Byron, you could scarcely disbelieve him--so beautiful a countenance I scarcely ever saw--his teeth so many stationary smiles--his eyes the open portals of the sun--things of light, and for light--and his forehead so ample, and yet so flexible, pa.s.sing from marble smoothness into a hundred wreathes and lines and dimples correspondent to the feelings and sentiments he is uttering."

Coleridge, in the preface to 'The Remorse', states that the

"tragedy was written in the summer and autumn of the year 1797, at Nether Stowey, in the county of Somerset. By whose recommendation, and of the manner in which both the play and the author were treated by the recommender, let me be permitted to relate: that I knew of its having been received only from a third person; that I could procure neither answer nor the ma.n.u.script; and that but for an accident, I should have had no copy of the work itself. That such treatment would damp a young man's exertions may be easily conceived: there was no need of after-misrepresentation and calumny, as an additional sedative."

Coleridge contributed many pieces to Southey's 'Omniana', (all marked with an asterisk,) and was engaged in other literary pursuits; he had notwithstanding much bodily suffering. The 'cause' of this was the organic change slowly and gradually taking place in the structure of the heart itself. But it was so masked by other sufferings, though at times creating despondency, and was so generally overpowered by the excitement of animated conversation, as to leave its real cause undiscovered. [29]

Notwithstanding this sad state, he rolled forth volumes from a mind ever active--at times intensely so,--still he required the support of those sympathies which "free the hollow heart from paining."

Soon after the performance of 'The Remorse', he retired with his kind friend, Mr. Morgan, to the village of Calne, partly to be near the Rev.

W.L. Bowles, whose sonnets so much attracted his attention in early life. While residing here, he opened a communication with Mr. Gutch, a bookseller, at Bristol, and in consequence, he collected the poems published by the t.i.tle of 'The Sibylline Leaves', and also composed the greater part of the 'Biographia Literaria'. Here he likewise dictated to his friend, Mr. Morgan, the 'Zapolya', which was submitted to Mr.

Douglas Kinnaird, who was then the critic for Drury Lane.--Mr. Kinnaird rejected the play, a.s.signing some ludicrous objections to the metaphysics. The subject is alluded to by Coleridge at the end of the Biographia Literaria, and with that allusion I close the present chapter:

O we are querulous creatures! Little less Than all things can suffice to make us happy: And little more than nothing is enough To make us wretched.

[Footnote 1:

Alas! for myself at least I know and feel, that wherever there is a wrong not to be forgiven, there is a grief that admits neither of cure nor comforting.

'Private Record, 1806.']

[Footnote 2: It appears that Mr. Alexander Macauley, the secretary, an honest and amiable man, died suddenly, without "moan or motion," and Coleridge filled his situation till the arrival of a new secretary, appointed and confirmed by the ministers in England.]

[Footnote 3: 1805.

"For months past so incessantly employed in official tasks, subscribing, examining, administering oaths, auditing," &c.]

[Footnote 4: April 22, 1804.

"I was reading when I was taken ill, and felt an oppression of my breathing, and convulsive s.n.a.t.c.hing in my stomach and limbs. Mrs.

Ireland noticed this laborious breathing."]

[Footnote 5: I would fain request the reader to peruse the poem, ent.i.tled "A Tombless Epitaph," to be found in Coleridge's 'Poetical Works', 1834, page 200.]

[Footnote 6: Coleridge when asked what was the difference between fame and reputation, would familiarly reply, "Fame is the fiat of the good and wise," and then with energy would quote the following beautiful lines from Milton:--

Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil, Nor in the glistering foil Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies: But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes, And perfect witness of all-judging Jove; As he p.r.o.nounces lastly on each deed, Of so much fame in Heaven expect thy meed.

'Lycidas.']

[Footnote 7: "The following memoranda written in pencil, and apparently as he journeyed along, but now scarcely legible, may perhaps have an interest for some readers:--

"Sunday, December 15th, 1805.

"Naples, view of Vesuvius, the Hail-mist--Torre del Greco--bright amid darkness--the mountains above it flashing here and there from their snows; but Vesuvius, it had not thinned as I have seen at Keswick, but the air so consolidated with the ma.s.sy cloud curtain, that it appeared like a mountain in ba.s.so relievo, in an interminable wall of some pantheon."]

[Footnote 8: The order for Coleridge's arrest had already been sent from Paris, but his escape was so contrived by the good old Pope, as to defeat the intended indulgence of the Tyrant's vindictive appet.i.te, which would have preyed equally on a Duc D'Enghien, and a contributor to a public journal. In consequence of Mr. Fox having a.s.serted in the House of Commons, that the rupture of the Truce of Amiens had its origin in certain essays written in the Morning Post, which were soon known to have been Coleridge's, and that he was at Rome within reach, the ire of Buonaparte was immediately excited.]

[Footnote 9: Though his Note Books are full of memoranda, not an entry or date of his arrival at Rome is to be found. To Rome itself and its magnificence, he would often refer in conversation. Unfortunately there is not a single doc.u.ment to recall the beautiful images he would place before your mind in perspective, when inspired by the remembrance of its wonder-striking and splendid objects. He however preserved some short essays, which he wrote when in Malta, Observations on Sicily, Cairo, &c.

&c. political and statistical, which will probably form part of the literary remains in train of publication.

Malta, on a first view of the subject, seemed to present a situation so well fitted for a landing place, that it was intended to have adopted this mode, as in 'The Friend', of dividing the present memoir; but this loss of MS. and the breaches of continuity, render it impracticable.]

[Footnote 10: At this time all his writings were strongly tinctured with Platonism.]

[Footnote 11: Each party claimed him as their own; for party without principles must ever be shifting, and therefore they found his opinions sometimes in accordance with their own, and sometimes at variance. But he was of no party--his views were purely philosophical.]

[Footnote 12: The character of Buonaparte was announced in the same paper.]

[Footnote 13: Those who spoke after Pitt were Wilberforce, Tierney, Sheridan, &c.]