Chapter XI: A Journalist, a Lecturer, a Playwright (1)

1810-1813

CLXXIX. TO HIS WIFE.

Spring, 1810.

MY DEAR LOVE,--I understand that Mr. De Quincey is going to Keswick to-morrow; though between ourselves he is as great a _to-morrower_ to the full as your poor husband, and without his excuses of anxiety from latent disease and external pressure.

Now as Lieutenant Southey is with you, I fear that you could not find a bed for me if I came in on Monday or Tuesday. I not only am desirous to be with you and Sara for a while, but it would be of great importance to me to be within a post of Penrith for the next fortnight or three weeks. How long Mr. De Quincey may stay I cannot guess. He (Miss Wordsworth says) talks of a week, but Lloyd of a _month_! However, put yourself to no violence of inconvenience, only be sure to write to me (N. B.--to me) by the carrier to-morrow.

I am middling, but the state of my spirit of itself requires a change of scene. Catherine W. [the Wordsworths’ little daughter] has not recovered the use of her arm, etc., but is evidently recovering it, and in all other respects in better health than before,--indeed, so much better as to confirm my former opinion that nature was weak in her, and can more easily supply vital power for two thirds of her nervous system than for the whole.

May God bless you, my dear! and

S. T. COLERIDGE.

Hartley looks and behaves all that the fondest parent could wish. He is really handsome; at least as handsome as a face so original and intellectual can be. And Derwent is “a nice little fellow,” and no lack-wit either. I read to Hartley out of the German a series of very masterly arguments concerning the startling gross improbabilities of Esther (fourteen improbabilities are stated). It really _surprised_ me, the acuteness and steadiness of judgment with which he answered more than half, weakened many, and at last determined that two only were not to be got over. I then read for myself and afterwards to him Eichhorn’s solution of the fourteen, and the coincidences were surprising. Indeed, Eichhorn, after a lame attempt, was obliged to give up the two which H. had declared as desperate.

CLXXX. TO THE MORGANS.

December 21, “1810.”

MY DEAR FRIENDS,--I am at present at Brown’s Coffee House, Mitre Court, Fleet Street. My objects are to settle something by which I can secure a certain sum weekly, sufficient for lodging, maintenance, and physician’s fees, and in the mean time to look out for a suitable place near Gray’s Inn. My _immediate_ plan is not to trouble myself further about any introduction to Abernethy, but to write a plain, honest, and full account of my state, its history, causes, and occasions, and to send it to him with two or three pounds enclosed, and asking him to take me under his further care. If I have raised the money for the enclosure, this I shall do to-morrow. For, indeed, it is not only useless but unkind and ungrateful to you and all who love me, to trifle on any longer, depressing your spirits, and, spite of myself, gradually alienating your esteem and chilling your affection toward me. As soon as I have heard from Abernethy, I will walk over to you, and spend a few days before I enter into my lodging, and on my dread ordeal--as some kind-hearted Catholics have taught, that the soul is carried slowly along close by the walls of Paradise on its way to Purgatory, and permitted to breathe in some snatches of blissful airs, in order to strengthen its endurance during its fiery trial by the foretaste of what awaits it at the conclusion and final gaol-delivery.

I pray you, therefore, send me immediately all my books and papers with such of my linen as may be clean, in my box, by the _errand cart_, directed--“Mr. Coleridge, Brown’s Coffee House, Mitre Court, Fleet Street.” A couple of nails and a rope will sufficiently secure the box.

Dear, dear Mary! Dearest Charlotte! I entreat you to believe me, that if at any time my manner toward you has appeared unlike myself, this has arisen wholly either from a sense of self-dissatisfaction or from apprehension of having given you offence; for at no time and on no occasion did I ever see or imagine anything in your behaviour which did not awaken the purest and most affectionate esteem, and (if I do not grossly deceive myself) the sincerest gratitude. Indeed, indeed, my affection is both deep and strong toward you, and such too that I am proud of it.

“And looking towards the Heaven that bends above you,
Full oft I bless the lot that made me love you!”

Again and again and for ever may God bless you, and love you.

S. T. COLERIDGE.

J. J. MORGAN, Esq., No. 7, Portland Place, Hammersmith.

CLXXXI. TO W. GODWIN.

March 15, 1811.

MY DEAR GODWIN,--I receive twice the pleasure from my recovery that it would have otherwise afforded, as it enables me to accept your kind invitation, which in this instance I might with perfect propriety and manliness thank you for, as an honour done to me. To sit at the same table with Grattan, who would not think it a memorable honour, a red letter day in the almanac of his life? No one certainly who is in any degree worthy of it. Rather than not be in the same room, I could be well content to wait at the table at which I was not permitted to sit, and this not merely for Grattan’s undoubted great talents, and still less from any entire accordance with his political opinions, but because his great talents are the tools and vehicles of his genius, and all his speeches are attested by that constant accompaniment of true genius, a certain moral bearing, a moral dignity. His love of liberty has no snatch of the mob in it.

Assure Mrs. Godwin of my anxious wishes respecting her health. The scholar Salernitanus[65] says:--

“Si tibi deficiant medici, medici tibi fiant
Hæc tria: mens hilaris, requies, moderata diæta.”

The regulated diet she already has, and now she must contrive to call in the two other doctors. God bless you.

S. T. COLERIDGE.

CLXXXII. TO DANIEL STUART.

Tuesday, June 4, 1811.

DEAR STUART,--I brought your umbrella in with me yester-morning, but, having forgotten it at leaving Portland Place, sent the coachman back for it, who brought what _appeared_ to me not the same. On returning, however, with it, I could find no other, and it is certainly as good or better, but looks to me as if it were not equally new, and as if it had far more silk in it. I will, however, leave it at Brompton, and if by any inexplicable circumstance it should not prove the same, you must be content with the substitute. The family at Portland Place caught at my doubts as to the identity of it. I had hoped to have seen you this morning, it being a leisurely time in respect of fresh tidings, to have submitted to you two Essays,[66] one on the Catholic Question, and the other on Parliamentary Reform, addressed as a letter (from a correspondent) to the noblemen and members of Parliament who had associated for this purpose. The former does not exceed two columns; the latter is somewhat longer. But after the middle of this month it is probable that the Paper will be more open to a series of Articles on less momentary, though still contemporary, interests. Mr. Street seems highly pleased with what I have written this morning on the battle[67] of the 16th (May), though I apprehend the whole cannot be inserted. I am as I ought to be, most cautious and shy in recommending anything; otherwise, I should have requested Mr. Street to give insertion to the paragraphs respecting Holland, and the nature of Buonaparte’s resources, ending with the necessity of ever re-fuelling the moral feelings of the people, as to the monstrosity of the giant fiend that menaces them; [with an] _allusion_ to Judge Grose’s opinion[68] on Drakard[69] before the occasion had passed away from the public memory. So, too, if the Duke’s return is to be discussed at all, the Article should be published before Lord Milton’s motion.[70] For though in a complex and widely controverted question, where hundreds rush into the field of combat, it is wise to defer it till the Debates in Parliament have shown what the arguments are on which most stress is laid by men in common, as in the Bullion Dispute; yet, generally, it is a great honour to the London papers, that for one argument they borrow from the parliamentary speakers, the latter borrow two from them, at all events are _anticipated_ by them. But the true prudential rule is, to defer only when any effect of _freshness_ or novelty is impracticable; but in most other cases to consider _freshness_ of effect as the point which belongs to a _Newspaper_ and distinguishes it from a library book; the former being the Zenith, and the latter the Nadir, with a number of intermediate degrees, occupied by pamphlets, magazines, reviews, satirical and occasional poems, etc., etc. Besides, in a daily newspaper, with advertisements proportioned to its sale, what is deferred must, four times in five, be extinguished. A newspaper is a market for flowers and vegetables, rather than a granary or conservatory; and the drawer of its editor, a common burial ground, not a catacomb for embalmed mummies, in which the defunct are preserved to serve in after times as medicines for the living. To turn from the Paper to myself, as candidate for the place of _auxiliary_ to it. I drew, with Mr. Street’s consent and order, ten pounds, which I shall repay during the week as soon as I can see Mr. Monkhouse of Budge Row, who has collected that sum for me. This, therefore, I put wholly aside, and indeed expect to replace it with Mr. Green to-morrow morning. Besides this I have had five pounds from Mr. Green,[71] chiefly for the purposes of coach hire. All at once I could not venture to walk in the heat and other accidents of weather from Hammersmith to the Office; but hereafter I intend, if I continue here, to return on foot, which will reduce my coach hire for the week from eighteen shillings to nine shillings. But to walk in, I know, would take off all the blossom and fresh fruits of my spirits. I trust that I need not say, how pleasant it would be to me, if it were in my power to consider everything I could do for the “Courier,” as a mere return for the pecuniary, as well as other obligations I am under to you; in short as working off old scores. But you know how I am situated; and that by the daily labour of the brain I must acquire the daily demands of the other parts of the body. And it now becomes necessary that I should form some settled system for my support in London, and of course know what my weekly or monthly means may be. Respecting the “Courier,” I consider you not merely as a private friend, but as the Co-proprietor of a large concern, in which it is your duty to regulate yourself with relation to the interests of that concern, and of your partner in it; and so take for granted, and, indeed, wish no other, than that you and he should weigh whether or no I can be of any material use to a Paper already so flourishing, and an Evening Paper. For, all mock humility out of the question (and when I write to you, every other sort of insincerity), I see that such services as I might be able to afford, would be more important to a rising than to a risen Paper; to a morning, perhaps, more than to an evening one. You will however decide, after the experience hitherto afforded, and modifying it by the temporary circumstances of debates, press of foreign news, etc.; how far I can be of actual use by my attendance, in order to help in the things of the day, as are the paragraphs, which I have for the most part hitherto been called [upon] to contribute; and, by my efforts, to sustain the literary character of the Paper, by large articles, on open days, and [at] more leisure times.

My dear Stuart! knowing the foolish mental cowardice with which I slink off from all pecuniary subjects, and the particular weight I must feel from the sense of existing obligations to you, you will be convinced that my only motive is the desire of settling with others such a plan for myself, as may, by setting my mind at rest, enable me to realize whatever powers I possess, to as much satisfaction to those who employ them, and to my own sense of duty, as possible. If Mr. Street should think that the “Courier” does not require any auxiliary, I shall then rely on your kindness, for putting me in the way of some other paper, the principles of which are sufficiently in accordance with my own; for while cabbage stalks rot on dung hills, I will never write what, or for what, I do not think right. All that prudence can justify is NOT to write what at certain times one may yet think. God bless you and

S. T. COLERIDGE.

CLXXXIII. TO SIR G. BEAUMONT.

J. J. Morgan’s, Esq., 7, Portland Place, Hammersmith,
Saturday morning, December 7, 1811.

DEAR SIR GEORGE,--On Wednesday night I slept in town in order to have a mask[72] taken, from which, or rather with which, Allston means to model a bust of me. I did not, therefore, receive your letter and the enclosed till Thursday night, eleven o’clock, on my return from the lecture; and early on Friday morning, I was roused from my first sleep by an agony of toothache, which continued almost without intermission the whole day, and has left my head and the whole of my trunk, “not a man but a bruise.”[73] What can I say more, my dear Sir George, than that I deeply feel the proof of your continued friendship, and pray from my inmost soul that more perseverance in efforts of duty may render me more worthy of your kindness than I at present am? Ingratitude, like all _crimes_ that are at the same time _vices_--bad as malady, and worse as symptom--is of so detestable a nature that an honest man will mourn in silence under real injuries, [rather] than hazard the very suspicion of it, and will be slow to avail himself of Lord Bacon’s remark[74] (much as he may admire its profundity),--“Crimen ingrati animi, quod magnis ingeniis haud raro objicitur, sæpius nil aliud est quam perspicacia quædam in causam beneficii collati.” Yet that man has assuredly tenfold reason to be grateful who can be so, both head and heart, who, at once served and honoured, knows himself more delighted by the motive that influenced his friend than by the benefit received by himself; were it only perhaps for this cause--that the consciousness of always repaying the former in kind takes away all regret that he is incapable of returning the latter.

Mr. Dawe, Royal Associate, who plastered my face for me, says that he never saw so excellent a mask, and so unaffected by any expression of pain or uneasiness. On Tuesday, at the farthest, a cast will be finished, which I was vain enough to desire to be packed up and sent to Dunmow. With it you will find a chalk drawing of my face,[75] which I think far more like than any former attempt, excepting Allston’s full-length portrait of me,[76] which, with all his casts, etc., two or three valuable works of the Venetian school, and his Jason--almost finished, and on which he had employed eighteen months without intermission--are lying at Leghorn, with no chance of procuring them. There will likewise be an epistolary essay for Lady Beaumont on the subject of religion in reference to my own faith; it was too long to send by the post.

Dawe is engaged on a picture (the figures about four feet) from my poem of LOVE.

She leaned beside the armed man,
The statue of the armed knight;
She stood and listened to my harp
Amid the lingering light.
His dying words--but when I reached, etc.
All impulses of soul and sense, etc.

His sketch is very beautiful, and has more expression than I ever found in his former productions--excepting, indeed, his Imogen.

Allston is hard at work on a large Scripture piece--the dead man recalled to life by touching the bones of the Prophet. He models every figure. Dawe, who was delighted with the Cupid and Psyche, seemed quite astonished at the facility and exquisiteness with which Allston modelled. Canova at Rome expressed himself to me in very warm terms of admiration on the same subject. He means to exhibit but two or at the most three pictures, all poetical or history painting, in part by my advice. It seemed to me impolitic to appear to be _trying_ in half a dozen ways, as if his mind had not yet discovered its main current. The longer I live the more deeply am I convinced of the high importance, as a _symptom_, of the love of _beauty_ in a young painter. It is neither honourable to a young man’s heart or head to attach himself year after year to old or deformed objects, comparatively too so easy, especially if bad drawing and worse colouring leaves the spectator’s imagination at lawless liberty, and he cries out, “How very like!” just as he would at a coal in the centre of the fire, or at a frost-figure on a window pane. It is on this, added to his quiet unenvious spirit, to his lofty feelings concerning his art, and to the religious purity of his moral character, that I chiefly rest my hopes of Allston’s future fame. His best productions seem to please him principally because he sees and has learnt something which enables him to promise himself, “I shall do better in my next.”

I have not been at the “Courier” office for some months past. I detest writing politics, even on the right side, and when I discovered that the “Courier” was not the independent paper I had been led to believe, and had myself over and over again asserted, I wrote no more for it. Greatly, indeed, do I prefer the present Ministers to the leaders of any other party, but indiscriminate support of any class of men I dare not give, especially when there is so easy and honourable an alternative as not to write politics at all, which, henceforth, nothing but blank necessity shall compel me to do. I will write for the PERMANENT, or not at all. “The Comet” therefore I have never seen or heard of it, yet most true it is that I myself have composed some verses on the comet, but I am quite certain that no one ever saw them, for the best of all reasons, that my own brain is the only substance on which they have been recorded. I will, however, consign them to paper, and send them to you with the “Courier” poem as soon as I can procure it, for the curiosity of the thing....

My most affectionate respects to Lady Beaumont, and believe me, dear Sir George, with heartfelt regard,

Your obliged and grateful friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.

P. S. Were you in town, I should be very sorry, indeed, to see you in Fetter Lane.[77] The lectures were meant for the young men of the City. Several of my friends join to take notes, and if I can correct what they can shape out of them into any tolerable form, I will send them to you. On Monday I lecture on “Love and the Female Character as displayed by Shakespeare.” Good Dr. Bell is in town. He came from Keswick, all delight with my little Sara, and quite enchanted with Southey. Some flights of admiration in the form of questions to me (“Did you ever see anything so finely conceived? so profoundly thought? as this passage in his review on the Methodists? or on the Education?” etc.) embarrassed me in a very ridiculous way; and, I verily believe, that my odd way of hesitating left on Bell’s mind some shade of a suspicion, as if I did not like to hear my friend so highly extolled. Half a dozen words from Southey would have precluded this, without diminution to his own fame--I mean, in conversation with Dr. Bell.

CLXXXIV. TO J. J. MORGAN.

KESWICK,[78] Sunday, February 28, 1812.

MY DEAR MORGAN,--I stayed a day in Kendal in order to collect the reprint of “The Friend,” and reached Keswick on Tuesday last before dinner, having taken Hartley and Derwent with me from Ambleside. Of course the first evening was devoted _Laribus domesticis_, to Southey and his and my children. My own are all the fondest father could pray for; and little Sara does honour to her mother’s anxieties, reads French tolerably, and Italian fluently, and I was astonished at her acquaintance with her native language. The word “hostile” occurring in what she read to me, I asked her what “hostile” meant? and she answered at once, “Why! inimical; only that ‘inimical’ is more often used for things and measures and not, as ‘hostile’ is, to persons and nations.” If I had dared, I should have urged Mrs. C. to let me take her to London for four or five months, and return with Southey, but I feared it might be inconvenient to you, and I knew it would be presumptuous in me to bring her to you. But she is such a sweet-tempered, meek, blue-eyed fairy and so affectionate, trustworthy, and really serviceable! Derwent is the self-same, fond, small, Samuel Taylor Coleridge as ever. When I went for them from Mr. Dawes,[79] he came in dancing for joy, while Hartley turned pale[80] and trembled all over,--then after he had taken some cold water, instantly asked me some questions about the connection of the Greek with the Latin, which latter he has just begun to learn. Poor Derwent, who has by no means strong health (having inherited his poor father’s tenderness of bowels and stomach, and consequently capriciousness of animal spirits), has complained to me (having no other possible grievance) “that Mr. Dawes does not _love_ him, because he can’t help crying when he is scolded, and because he ain’t such a genius as Hartley--and that though Hartley should have done the same thing, yet all the others are punished, and Mr. Dawes only _looks_ at Hartley and never scolds _him_, and that _all_ the boys think it very unfair--he _is_ a genius.” This was uttered in low spirits and a tenderness brought on by my petting, for he adores his brother. Indeed, God be praised, they all love each other. I was delighted that Derwent, of his own accord, asked me about little Miss Brent that used to play with him at Mr. and Mrs. Morgan’s, adding that he had almost forgot what sort of a lady she was, “only she was littler,--less I mean--(this was said hastily and laughing at his blunder) than Mama.” A gentleman who took a third of the chaise with me from Ambleside, and whom I found a well-informed and thinking man, said after two hours’ knowledge of us, that the two boys united would be a perfect representation of myself.

I trust I need not say that I should have written on the second day if nothing had happened; but from the dreadful dampness of the house, worse than it was in the rudest state when I first lived in it, and the weather, too, all storm and rain, I caught a violent cold which almost blinded me by inflammation of both my eyes, and for three days bore all the symptoms of an ague or intermittent fever. Knowing I had no time to lose, I took the most Herculean remedies, among others a solution of arsenic, and am now as well as when I left you, and see no reason to fear a relapse. I passed through Grasmere; but did not call on Wordsworth. I hear from Mrs. C. that he treats the affair as a trifle, and only wonders at my resenting it, and that Dorothy Wordsworth before my arrival expressed her confident hope that I should come to them at once! I who “for years past had been an ABSOLUTE NUISANCE in the family.” This illness has thrown me behindhand; so that I cannot quit Keswick till the end of the week. On Friday I shall return by way of Ambleside, probably spend a day with Charles Lloyd.... It will not surprise you that the statements respecting me and Montagu and Wordsworth have been grossly perverted: and yet, spite of all this, there is not a friend of Wordsworth’s, I understand, who does not severely blame him, though they execrate the Montagus yet more heavily. But the tenth part of the truth is not known. Would you believe it possible that Wordsworth himself stated my _wearing powder_ as a proof positive that I never could have suffered any pain of mind from the affair, and that it was all pretence!! God forgive him! At Liverpool I shall either give lectures, if I can secure a hundred pounds for them, or return immediately to you. At all events, I shall not remain there beyond a fortnight, so that I shall be with you before you have changed houses. Mrs. Coleridge seems quite satisfied with my plans, and abundantly convinced of my obligations to your and Mary’s kindness to me. Nothing (she said) but the circumstance of my residing with you could reconcile her to my living in London. Southey is the _semper idem_. It is impossible for a good heart not to esteem and to love him; but yet the love is one fourth, the esteem all the remainder. His children are, 1. Edith, seven years; 2. Herbert, five; 3. Bertha, four; 4. Catharine, a year and a half.

I had hoped to have heard from you by this time. I wrote from Slough, from Liverpool, and from Kendal. Why need I send my kindest love to Mary and Charlotte? I would not return if I had a doubt that they believed me to be in the very inmost of my being their and your affectionate and grateful and constant friend,

S. T. COLERIDGE.

CLXXXV. TO HIS WIFE.

71, Berners Street, Tuesday, April 21, 1812.

MY DEAR LOVE,--Everything is going on so very well, so much beyond my expectation, that I will not revert to anything unpleasant to damp good news with. The last receipt for the insurance is now before me, the date the 4th of May. Be assured that before April is past, you shall _receive_ both receipts, this and the one for the present year, in a frank.

In the first place, my health, spirits, and disposition to activity have continued such since my arrival in town, that every one has been struck with the change, and the Morgans say they had never before seen me _myself_. I feel myself an altered man, and dare promise you that you shall never have to complain of, or to apprehend, my not opening and reading your letters. Ever since I have been in town, I have never taken any stimulus of _any_ kind, till the moment of my getting into bed, except a glass of British white wine after dinner, and from three to four glasses of port, when I have dined out. Secondly, my lectures have been taken up most warmly and zealously by Sir Thomas Bernard,[81] Sir George Beaumont, Mr. Sotheby, etc., and in a few days, I trust that you will be agreeably surprised with the mode in which Sir T. B. hopes and will use his best exertions to have them announced. Thirdly, Gale and Curtis are in high spirits and confident respecting the sale of “The Friend,”[82] and the call for a second edition, after the complemental numbers have been printed, and not less so respecting the success of the other work, the Propædia (or Propaideia) Cyclica, and are desirous to have the terms properly ratified, and signed as soon as possible. Nothing intervenes to overgloom my mind, but the sad state of health of Mr. Morgan, a more faithful and zealous friend than whom no man ever possessed. Thank God! my safe arrival, the improvement of my health and spirits, and my smiling prospects have already exerted a favourable influence on him. Yet I dare not disguise from myself that there is cause for alarm to those who love and value him. But do not allude to this subject in your letters, for to be thought ill or to have his state of health spoken of, agitates and depresses him.

As soon as ever I have settled the lecture room, which perhaps will be Willis’s in Hanover Square, the price of which is at present ten guineas a time, I will the very first thing pay the insurance and send off a parcel of books for Hartley, Derwent, and dear Sara, whom I kissed seven times in the shape of her pretty letterlet.

My poor darling Derwent! I shall be most anxious to receive a letter from you, or from himself, about him.

In giving my love to Mrs. Lovell, tell her that I have not since the day after my arrival been able to go into the city, my business having employed me wholly either in writing or in traversing the West End of the town. I dined with Lady Beaumont and her sister on Saturday, for Sir George was engaged to Sir T. Bernard. He however came and sat with us to the very last moment, and I dine with him to-day, and Allston is to be of the party. The bust and the picture from Genevieve are at the Royal Academy, and already are talked of. Dawe and I will be of mutual service to each other. As soon as the pictures are settled, that is, in the first week of May, he means to treat himself with a fortnight’s relaxation at the Lakes. He is a very modest man, his manners not over polished, and his worst point is that he is (at least, I have found him so) a fearful questionist, whenever he thinks he can pick up any information, or ideas, poetical, historical, topographical, or artistical, that he can make bear on his profession. But he is sincere, friendly, strictly _moral_ in every respect, I firmly believe even to _innocence_, and in point of cheerful indefatigableness of industry, in regularity, and temperance--in short, in a glad, yet quiet, devotion of his whole being to the art he has made choice of, he is the only man I ever knew who goes near to rival Southey--gentlemanly address, person, physiognomy, knowledge, learning, and genius being of course wholly excluded from the comparison. God knows my heart! and that it is my full belief and conviction, that taking all _together_, there does not exist the man who could without flattery or delusion be called Southey’s equal. It is quite delightful to hear how he is spoken of by all good people. Dawe will doubtless _take_ him. Were S. and I rich men, we would have ourselves and all of you, short and tall, in one family picture. Pray receive Dawe as a friend. I called on Murray, who complained that by Dr. Bell’s delays and irresolutions and scruples, the book “On the Origin,”[83] etc., instead of 3,000 in three weeks, which he has no doubt would have been the sale had it been brought out at the fit time, will not now sell 300. I told him that I believed otherwise, but much would depend on the circumstance whether temper or prudence would have most influence on the Athenian critic and his friend Brougham. If, as I hoped, the former, and the work should be reviewed in the “Edinburgh Review,” if they took up the gauntlet thrown at them, then there was no doubt but that a strong tide of sale would set in. Though verily this gauntlet was of weighty metal, though of polished steel, and being thrown _at_ rather than _down_, it was challenging a man to fight by a blow that threatened to brain him. I have seen Dr. Bell and shall dine with him at Sir T. Bernard’s on Monday next. The venerable Bishop of Durham[84] has sent me a very kind message, that though he cannot himself appear in a hired lecture room, yet he will be not only my subscriber but use his best influence with his acquaintance. I am very anxious that my books should be sent forward as soon as possible. They may be sent at three different times, with a week’s intervention. But there is one, scarcely a book, but a collection of loose sheets tied up together at Grasmere, which I want immediately, and, if possible, would have sent up by the coach from Kendal or Penrith. It is a German Romance with some name beginning with an A, followed by “oder Die Glückliche Inseln.” It makes two volumes, but several of the sheets are missing, at least were so when I put them together. If sent off immediately, it would be of serious benefit to me in my lectures. Miss Hutchinson knows them, and will probably recollect the sheets I allude to, and these are what I especially want.

One pair only of breeches were in the parcel, and I am sadly off for stockings, but the white and under ones I can buy here cheap, but if young Mr. White could procure half a dozen or even a dozen pair of black silk made as stout and weighty as possible, I would not mind giving seventeen shillings per pair, if only they can be _relied_ on, which one cannot do in London. A double knock. I meant to read over your letter again, lest I should have forgot anything. If I have, I will answer it in my next.

God bless you and your affectionate husband,

S. T. COLERIDGE.

Has Southey read “Childe Harold”? All the world is talking of it. I have not, but from what I hear it is exactly on the plan that I myself had not only conceived six years ago, but have the whole scheme drawn out in one of my old memorandum books. My dear Edith, and my dear Moon![85] Though I have scarce room to write it, yet I love you very much.

CLXXXVI. TO THE SAME.

71, Berners Street, April 24, 1812.

MY DEAR SARA,--Give my kind love to Southey, and inform him that I have, _egomet his ipsis meis oculis_, seen _Nobs_, alive, well, and in full fleece; that after the death of Dr. Samuel Dove,[86] of Doncaster, who did not survive the loss of his faithful wife, Mrs. Dorothy Dove, more than eleven months, Nobs was disposed of by his executors to Longman and Clements, Musical Instrument Manufacturers, whose grand pianoforte hearses he now draws in the streets of London. The carter was astonished at the enthusiasm with which I intreated him to stop for half a minute, and the embrace I gave to _Nobs_, who evidently understood me, and wistfully with _such_ a sad expression in his eye, seemed to say, “Ah, my kind old master, Doctor Daniel, and ah! my mild mistress, his dear duteous Dolly Dove, my gratitude lies deeper than my obligation; it is not merely skin-deep! Ah, what I _have_ been! Oh, what I _am_! his naked, neighing, night-wandering, new-skinned, nibbling, noblenursling, _Nobs_!”

His legs and hoofs are more than half sheepified, and his fleece richer than one ever sees in the Leicester breed, but not so fine as might have been the case had the merino cross been introduced before the surprising accident and _more_ surprising remedy took place. _More_ surprising I say, because the first happened to St. Bartholomew (for there were skinners even in the days of St. Bartholomew), but the other never before there was no Dr. Daniel Dove. I trust that Southey will now not hesitate to record and transmit to posterity so remarkable a fact. I am delighted, for now malice itself will not dare to attribute the story to my invention. If I can procure the money, I will attempt to purchase Nobs, and send him down to Keswick by short journeys for Herbert and Derwent to ride upon, provided you can get the field next us.

I have not been able to procure a frank, but I daresay you will be glad to receive the enclosed receipt even with the drawback of postage.

Everything, my dear, goes on as prosperously as you could yourself wish. Sir T. Bernard has taken Willis’s Rooms, King Street, St. James’s, for me, at only four guineas a week, fires, benches, etc., included, and I expect the lectures to commence on the first Tuesday in May. But at the present moment I need both the advice and the aid of Southey. The “Friends” have arrived in town. I am at work on the Supplemental Numbers, and it is of the last importance that they should be brought out as quickly as possible during the flush and fresh breeze of my popularity; but this I cannot do without knowing whether Mr. Wordsworth will transmit to me the two finishing Essays on Epitaphs.[87] It is, I know and feel, a very delicate business; yet I wish Southey would immediately write to Wordsworth and urge him to send them by the coach, either to J. J. Morgan, Esq., 71, Berners Street, or to Messrs. Gale and Curtis, Booksellers, Paternoster Row, with as little delay as possible, or if he decline it, that Southey should apprize me as soon as possible.

S. T. COLERIDGE.

The Morgans desire to be kindly remembered, and Charlotte Brent (tell Derwent) hopes he has not forgot his old playfellow.

CLXXXVII. TO CHARLES LAMB.

May 2, 1812.

MY DEAR CHARLES,--I should almost deserve what I have suffered, if I refused even to put my life in hazard in defence of my own honour and veracity, and in satisfaction of the honour of a friend. I say _honour_, in the latter instance, _singly_, because I never felt as a matter of serious complaint, _what_ was stated to have been said (for this, though painfully aggravated, was yet substantially true)--but _by_ WHOM it was said, and _to_ whom, and _how_ and _when_. Grievously unseasonable therefore as it is, that I should again be overtaken and hurried back by the surge, just as I had begun to feel the firm ground under my feet--just as I had flattered myself, and given reason to my hospitable friends to flatter themselves, that I had regained tranquillity, and had become quite myself--at the time, too, when every thought should be given to my lectures, on the success or failure of my efforts in which no small part of my reputation and future prospects will depend--yet if Wordsworth, upon reflection, adheres to the plan proposed, I will not draw back. It is right, however, that I should state one or two things. First, that it has been my constant desire that evil should not propagate evil--or the unhappy accident become the means of _spreading_ dissension. (2) That I never quarrelled with Mr. Montagu--say rather, for that is the real truth, that Mr. Montagu never was, or appeared to be, a man with whom I could, without self-contempt, allow myself to quarrel--and lastly, that in the present business there are but three possible cases--either (1) Mr. Wordsworth said what I solemnly aver that I most distinctly recollect Mr. Montagu’s representing him as having said, and which _I_ understood, not merely as great unkindness and even cruelty, but as an intentional means of putting an end to our long friendship, or to the terms at least, under which it had for so long a period subsisted--or (2), Mr. Montagu has grossly misrepresented Wordsworth, and most cruelly and wantonly injured me--or (3), I have wantonly invented and deliberately persevered in atrocious falsehoods, which place me in the same relation to Mr. Montagu as (in the second case) Mr. Montagu would stand in to me. If, therefore, Mr. Montagu declares to my face that he did not say what I solemnly aver that he did--what must be the consequence, unless I am a more abject coward than I have hitherto suspected, I need not say. Be the consequences what they may, however, I will not shrink from doing my duty; but previously to the meeting I should very much wish to transmit to Wordsworth a statement which I long ago began, with the intention of sending it to Mrs. Wordsworth’s sister,--but desisted in consequence of understanding that she had already decided the matter against me. My reason for wishing this is that I think it right that Wordsworth should know, and have the means of ascertaining, some conversations which yet I could not publicly bring forward without hazarding great disquiet in a family known (though slightly) to Wordsworth--(2) Because common humanity would embarrass me in stating before a man what I and others think of his wife--and lastly, certain other points which my own delicacy and that due to Wordsworth himself and his family, preclude from being talked of. For Wordsworth ought not to forget that, whatever influence old associations may have on his mind respecting Montagu, yet that _I_ never respected or liked him--for if I had ever in a _common_ degree done so, I should have quarrelled with him long before we arrived in London. Yet all these facts ought to be known--because supposing Montagu to affirm what I am led to suppose he has--then nothing remains but the comparative probability of our two accounts, and for this the state of my feelings towards Wordsworth and his family, my opinion of Mr. and Mrs. Montagu, and my previous intention not to lodge with them in town, are important documents as far as they do not rely on my own present assertions. Woe is me, that a friendship of fifteen years should come to this! and such a friendship, in which I call God Almighty to be my witness, as I ever thought it no more than my duty, so did I ever feel a readiness to prefer him to myself, yea, even if life and outward reputation itself had been the pledge required. But this is now vain talking. Be it, however, remembered that I have never wandered beyond the one single complaint, that I had been cruelly and unkindly treated--that I made no charge against my friend’s veracity, even in respect to his charges against me--that I have explained the circumstance to those only who had already more or less perfectly become acquainted with our difference, or were certain to hear of it from others, and that except on this one point, no word of reproach, or even of subtraction from his good name, as a good man, or from his merits as a great man, ever escaped me. May God bless you, my dear Charles.

S. T. COLERIDGE.

CLXXXVIII. TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

71, Berners Street. Monday, May 4, 1812.