The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Volume I Part 1

Literary Remains.

by Coleridge.

VOL 1.

PREFACE

Mr. Coleridge by his will, dated in September, 1829, authorized his executor, if he should think it expedient, to publish any of the notes or writing made by him (Mr. C.) in his books, or any other of his ma.n.u.scripts or writings, or any letters which should thereafter be collected from, or supplied by, his friends or correspondents. Agreeably to this authority, an arrangement was made, under the superintendence of Mr. Green, for the collection of Coleridge's literary remains; and at the same time the preparation for the press of such part of the materials as should consist of criticism and general literature, was entrusted to the care of the present Editor. The volumes now offered to the public are the first results of that arrangement. They must in any case stand in need of much indulgence from the ingenuous reader;--'multa sunt condonanda in opere postumo'; but a short statement of the difficulties attending the compilation may serve to explain some apparent anomalies, and to preclude some unnecessary censure.

The materials were fragmentary in the extreme--Sibylline leaves;--notes of the lecturer, memoranda of the investigator, out-pourings of the solitary and self-communing student. The fear of the press was not in them. Numerous as they were, too, they came to light, or were communicated, at different times, before and after the printing was commenced; and the dates, the occasions, and the references, in most instances remained to be discovered or conjectured. To give to such materials method and continuity, as far as might be,--to set them forth in the least disadvantageous manner which the circ.u.mstances would permit,--was a delicate and perplexing task; and the Editor is painfully sensible that he could bring few qualifications for the undertaking, but such as were involved in a many years' intercourse with the author himself, a patient study of his writings, a reverential admiration of his genius, and an affectionate desire to help in extending its beneficial influence.

The contents of these volumes are drawn from a portion only of the ma.n.u.scripts entrusted to the Editor: the remainder of the collection, which, under favourable circ.u.mstances, he hopes may hereafter see the light, is at least of equal value with what is now presented to the reader as a sample. In perusing the following pages, the reader will, in a few instances, meet with disquisitions of a transcendental character, which, as a general rule, have been avoided: the truth is, that they were sometimes found so indissolubly intertwined with the more popular matter which preceded and followed, as to make separation impracticable.

There are very many to whom no apology will be necessary in this respect; and the Editor only adverts to it for the purpose of obviating, as far as may be, the possible complaint of the more general reader. But there is another point to which, taught by past experience, he attaches more importance, and as to which, therefore, he ventures to put in a more express and particular caution. In many of the books and papers, which have been used in the compilation of these volumes, pa.s.sages from other writers, noted down by Mr. Coleridge as in some way remarkable, were mixed up with his own comments on such pa.s.sages, or with his reflections on other subjects, in a manner very embarra.s.sing to the eye of a third person undertaking to select the original matter, after the lapse of several years. The Editor need not say that he has not knowingly admitted any thing that was not genuine without an express declaration, as in Vol. I. p. 1; and in another instance, Vol. II. p.

379, he has intimated his own suspicion: but, besides these, it is possible that some cases of mistake in this respect may have occurred.

There may be one or two pa.s.sages--they cannot well be more--printed in these volumes, which belong to other writers; and if such there be, the Editor can only plead in excuse, that the work has been prepared by him amidst many distractions, and hope that, in this instance at least, no ungenerous use will be made of such a circ.u.mstance to the disadvantage of the author, and that persons of greater reading or more retentive memories than the Editor, who may discover any such pa.s.sages, will do him the favour to communicate the fact.

The Editor's motive in publishing the few poems and fragments included in these volumes, was to make a supplement to the collected edition of Coleridge's poetical works. In these fragments the reader will see the germs of several pa.s.sages in the already published poems of the author, but which the Editor has not thought it necessary to notice more particularly. 'The Fall of Robespierre', a joint composition, has been so long in print in the French edition of Coleridge's poems, that, independently of such merit as it may possess, it seemed natural to adopt it upon the present occasion, and to declare the true state of the authorship.

To those who have been kind enough to communicate books and ma.n.u.scripts for the purpose of the present publication, the Editor and, through him, Mr. Coleridge's executor return their grateful thanks. In most cases a specific acknowledgement has been made. But, above and independently of all others, it is to Mr. and Mrs. Gillman, and to Mr. Green himself, that the public are indebted for the preservation and use of the princ.i.p.al part of the contents of these volumes. The claims of those respected individuals on the grat.i.tude of the friends and admirers of Coleridge and his works are already well known, and in due season those claims will receive additional confirmation.

With these remarks, sincerely conscious of his own inadequate execution of the task a.s.signed to him, yet confident withal of the general worth of the contents of the following pages--the Editor commits the reliques of a great man to the indulgent consideration of the Public.

Lincoln's Inn, August 11, 1836.

L'ENVOY.

He was one who with long and large arm still collected precious armfulls in whatever direction he pressed forward, yet still took up so much more than he could keep together, that those who followed him gleaned more from his continual droppings than he himself brought home;--nay, made stately corn-ricks therewith, while the reaper himself was still seen only with a strutting armful of newly-cut sheaves. But I should misinform you grossly if I left you to infer that his collections were a heap of incoherent 'miscellanea'. No! the very contrary. Their variety, conjoined with the too great coherency, the too great both desire and power of referring them in systematic, nay, genetic subordination, was that which rendered his schemes gigantic and impracticable, as an author, and his conversation less instructive as a man.

'Auditorem inopem ipsa copia fecit'.--Too much was given, all so weighty and brilliant as to preclude a chance of its being all received,--so that it not seldom pa.s.sed over the hearer's mind like a roar of many waters.

THE FALL OF ROBESPIERRE

AND OTHER POEMS.

TO H. MARTIN, ESQ.

OF JESUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.

DEAR SIR,

Accept, as a small testimony of my grateful attachment, the following Dramatic Poem, in which I have endeavoured to detail, in an interesting form, the fall of a man, whose great bad actions have cast a disastrous l.u.s.tre on his name. In the execution of the work, as intricacy of plot could not have been attempted without a gross violation of recent facts, it has been my sole aim to imitate the impa.s.sioned and highly figurative language of the French Orators, and to develope the characters of the chief actors on a vast stage of horrors.

Yours fraternally,

S. T. COLERIDGE.

Jesus College, September 22, 1794.

THE FALL OF ROBESPIERRE.

AN HISTORIC DRAMA. 1794. [1]

[Footnote 1: The origin and authorship of "The Fall of Robespierre" will be best explained by the following extract from a letter from Mr.

Southey to the Editor:

"This is the history of The Fall of Robespierre. It originated in sportive conversation at poor Lovell's, and we agreed each to produce an act by the next evening;--S. T. C. the first, I the second, and Lovell the third. S. T. C. brought part of his, I and Lovell the whole of ours; but L.'s was not in keeping, and therefore I undertook to supply the third also by the following day. By that time, S. T. C. had filled up his. A dedication to Mrs. Hannah More was concocted, and the notable performance was offered for sale to a bookseller in Bristol, who was too wise to buy it. Your Uncle took the MSS. with him to Cambridge, and there rewrote the first act at leisure, and published it. My portion I never saw from the time it was written till the whole was before the world. It was written with newspapers before me, as fast as newspaper could be put into blank verse. I have no desire to claim it now, or hereafter; but neither am I ashamed of it; and if you think proper to print the whole, so be it."--

"The Fall of Robespierre, a tragedy, of which the first act was written by S. T. Coleridge." Mr. C.'s note in the Conciones ad Populum, 1795.

Ed.]

ACT I.

SCENE--'The Tuilleries'.

BARRERE.

The tempest gathers--be it mine to seek A friendly shelter, ere it bursts upon him.

But where? and how? I fear the tyrant's soul-- Sudden in action, fertile in resource, And rising awful 'mid impending ruins; In splendour gloomy, as the midnight meteor, That fearless thwarts the elemental war.

When last in secret conference we met, He scowl'd upon me with suspicious rage, Making his eye the inmate of my bosom.

I know he scorns me--and I feel, I hate him-- Yet there is in him that which makes me tremble!

[Exit.]

[Enter TALLIEN and LEGENDRE.]

TALLIEN.

It was Barrere, Legendre! didst thou mark him?

Abrupt he turn'd, yet linger'd as he went, And tow'rds us cast a look of doubtful meaning.

LEGENDRE.

I mark'd him well. I met his eye's last glance; It menac'd not so proudly as of yore.

Methought he would have spoke--but that he dar'd not-- Such agitation darken'd on his brow.

TALLIEN.

'Twas all-distrusting guilt that kept from bursting Th'imprison'd secret struggling in the face: E'en as the sudden breeze upstarting onwards Hurries the thunder cloud, that pois'd awhile Hung in mid air, red with its mutinous burthen.

LEGENDRE.