by Cottle), T. Poole's opinion of Wordsworth is that he is the greatest man he ever knew. I coincide.' This seems to point to a previous visit or visits to Stowey paid by Wordsworth of which direct record is lacking. Curiously enough the letter makes no mention of Miss Wordsworth. Yet in 1845-across the mists of nearly half-acentury-she as well as her brother retained the liveliest possible image of 'Coleridge's appearance' on his arrival at Racedown, how 'he did not keep to the high road, but leapt over a gate and bounded down the pathless field, by which he cut off an angle.' This is the portrait of Coleridge she drew at the time: He is a wonderful man. His conversation teems with soul, mind, and spirit. Then he is so benevolent, so good-tempered and cheerful, and, like William, interests himself so much about every little trifle. At first thought him very plain, that is for about three minutes: he is pale, thin, has a wide mouth, thick lips, and not very good teeth, longish, loosegrowing, half-curling, rough black hair. But, if you hear him speak for five minutes, you think no more of them. His eye is large and full, and not very dark, but grey -such an eye as would receive from a heavy soul the dullest expression; but it speaks every emotion of his animated mind; it has more of "the poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling" than I ever witnessed. He has fine dark eyebrows, and an over hanging forehead.'* If Coleridge carried out his first intention of returning to Stowey on the 16th June, he must soon have gone back, for he appears to have arrived again at Stowey from Racedown on the 28th, and again on the 2nd July, on the last occasion bringing with him 2 the two Wordsworths on that famous visit to the Quantock country, which was destined to be prolonged for a whole year. The visitors spent a fortnight with Coleridge, and it was then that he drew his famous portrait of Wordsworth's exquisite sister.' 3 And it was in the course of the same fortnight that Charles Lamb came and spent his week's holiday at the cottage-the visit * Memoirs of Wordsworth, i. 99. About six months earlier Coleridge sent this portrait of him. self to Thelwall: Your portrait of yourself interests me. [The two men had not yet met.] As to me, my face, unless animated by immediate eloquence, expresses great sloth, and great, indeed almost idiotic, good nature. "Tis a mere carcase of a face: fat, flabby, and expressive chiefly of inexpression. Yet I am told that my eyes, eyebrows, and forehead are physiognomically good; but of this the Deponent knoweth not. As to my shape, 'tis a good shape enough, if measured-but my gait is awkward, and the walk of the whole man indicates indolence capable of energies. . . . I cannot breathe through my nose, so my mouth with sensual thick lips is almost always open.' It is curious to find Carlyle noting, in 1824, the same indication in Coleridge's general appearance, -'weakness under possibility of strength' (Life of J. Sterling, p. 69). The self-portrait may be compared with the oil-sketch by Hancock done in the same year, and engraved in Cottle's books. The much more attractive drawing by Peter Vandyke, a reproduction of which forms the frontispiece to the present volume, was done for Cottle a year earlier, in 1795. It was about this time that the second edition of the Poems appeared. A full account of the contents of the volume will be found in 'APPENDIX K,' pp. 539-544- Lamb's contributions took the second place on the title, and the third in the book-regarding which changed order, and the feelings it occasioned, sec Lamb's letter to S. T. C. of June 13, 1797 (Ainger's ed. i. 77). Cottle pretends to remember that the beautiful and touching dedication to the poet's brother George was prompted by himself, but the reasons he assigns for his alleged suggestion are so absurd that his memory most probably was at fault throughout. The 'Ode on the Departing Year' took the first place in the volume, vice 'The Visions of the Maid of Arc,' abandoned in deference to the criticisms of Lamb-possibly also to those of Wordsworth. See Note 102,' p. 584, post. which the host commemorated in This Lime-tree Bower my Prison* (p. 92). In this poem Coleridge addresses his guests as- 'Friends whom I never more may meet again: Lamb, of course, was a bird of passage, and so, to all appearance on that evening, were the Wordsworths, for Alfoxden had not yet been seen, or if seen had not yet been secured. But the delay was short. On the 14th August, Dorothy Wordsworth wrote thus from Alfoxden: We spent a fortnight at Coleridge's; in the course of that time we heard that this house was to let, applied for it, and took it. Our principal inducement was Coleridge's society. It was a month yesterday since we came to Alfoxden.'1 The Coleridges' guests had scarcely quitted them— Lamb for London, and the Wordsworths for Alfoxden-when, on the 17th July, a new claimant for hospitality, in the person of John Thelwall,† arrived at the cottage. It was nine o'clock in the evening, and he found only Sara, who had left' her husband at Alfoxden for a day or two that she might superintend the washtub. In the morning, between five and six, Sara and her guest walked over to Alfoxden-a distance of about three miles-to breakfast.' 2 Faith, we are a most philosophical party' (he writes to his wife), 'the enthusiastic group consisting of Coleridge and his Sara, Wordsworth and his sister, and myself, without any servant, male or female. An old woman, who lives in an adjoining cottage, does what is requisite for our simple wants.' The party remained there for three days. It was at this time, and in one of Alfoxden's romantic glens, that (as Wordsworth remembered long afterwards) Coleridge exclaimed, 'This is a place to reconcile one to all the jarrings and conflicts of the wide world!' and Thelwall replied, 'Nay, to make one * The marginal note which Coleridge in 1834 wrote on the explanatory introduction to the poem (see 'Note 110,' p. 592) has led to the assumption that Mary Lamb accompanied her brother to Stowey in 1797. There can be little doubt that Coleridge's memory- after thirty-seven years- had failed him. In none of Lamb's letters to him, written either before or after the visit, is there any indication that he was to be, or had been, accompanied by his sister. Mary Lamb was at that period in a very precarious state of health, and living apart from her father and brother; and when six months later (Jan. 1798) Coleridge invited the Lambs to visit Stowey, Lamb replied: Your invitation went to my very heart; but you have a power of exciting interest, of leading all hearts captive, too forcible to admit of Mary's being with you' (Ainger's ed. i. 86. In other editions this letter is misdated and misplaced). + Known as 'Citizen Thelwall' in those days, and hardly known at all in these. Coleridge and he had been carrying on an extensive correspondence for about a year, but they had now met for the first time. By this time Thelwall had abandoned his somewhat silly, but always honourably conducted career of political martyrdom, and desired to settle as meditative and poetical farmer in some remote part of the country. In quest of a suitable retreat he had travelled, mostly on foot, from London, and had now arrived at Stowey in acceptance of an invitation from the ever-hospitable Coleridge. 1 The agreement, dated 14th July 1797, is printed in full in T. Poole and his Friends, i. 225. It provided for a year's tenancy of the furnished house, etc., from Midsummer to Midsummer at the rent of £23, including all rates and taxes. Wordsworth may retain the house, etc., for an indefinite period beyond Midsummer 1798 at the same rent. In Thomas Poole and his Friends also is to be found the first accurate account of all the circumstances attending Wordsworth's occupation and forced quittance of Alfoxden-circumstances which have been the subject of much misrepresentation. 2 The details respecting Thelwall are partly taken from a letter to his wife printed in T. Poole and his Friends (i. 232); and partly from Thelwall's MS. Diary, now in my own possession.-'Sarah' had now become 'Sara.' The Wordsworths forget them altogether! '1 A few days at Stowey succeeded. saw their guests part of the way, and they talked of the 'moral character of Democrats' (meaning their immoral character), and of pursuits proper for literary men -unfit for management of pecuniary affairs-Rousseau, Bacon, Arthur Young!' 2 This visit of Thelwall shocked the neighbourhood, which considered Poole responsible, and he was called upon to answer for Wordsworth to the owner of Alfoxden. This Poole did manfully,3 but a Government spy was sent down to watch the poets and their patron.4 Most of the stories of the spy's proceedings wear a dubious complexion, but there is no room for doubt that it was Thelwall's visit which brought about the cessation of Wordsworth's tenancy of Alfoxden. In late life he stated, in reply to assertions that he had been refused a renewal, that he had never asked for one-but his memory had failed, and the truth was that he either received notice to quit, or did not think it worth while to attempt to assert the right to remain which the agreement accorded him. Coleridge's friendship with Thelwall, begun by correspondence, was cemented by personal intercourse, and continued for some years; but later on, when the ex-citizen had become temporarily prosperous, he showed himself the poor creature he was by alternately patronising and sneering at Coleridge. After leaving Stowey, he asked Coleridge to interest Poole in securing him a farm in their neighbourhood, but the passing visit had caused Poole trouble enough, and Thelwall had to move into Wales. He ultimately procured a farm at Llyswen, in Brecon, where he was visited by the Wordsworths and Coleridge in 1798.5 The intercourse between Coleridge and the Wordsworths was almost daily. Coleridge says somewhere that they were three people but one soul.' The character of the intimacy is fully shown in The Nightingale: a Conversation Poem, and in Dorothy Wordsworth's 'Alfoxden Journal.' 7 The entries cover the first four months of 1798, but doubtless illustrate equally the whole year during which the two families were neighbours. 'Feb. 11th. Walked with Coleridge near to Stowey. 12th. Walked alone to Stowey. Returned in the evening with Coleridge. 13th. Walked with Coleridge through a wood.' On the 17th they walked together. On the 19th Dorothy walked to Stowey. On the 21st 'Coleridge came in the morning. ... William went through the wood with him towards Stowey: a very stormy night. 22nd. Coleridge came in the morning to dinner.. 23rd. William walked with Coleridge in the morning. 26th. Coleridge came in the morning walked with Coleridge nearly to Stowey after dinner'-and so on. They saw as much of one another as if the width of a street instead of a pair of coombs had separated their several abodes. It was a rich and fruitful time for all three-seedtime at once and harvest; and its happy influences spread far beyond their own individual selves. The gulf-stream which rose in the Quantocks warmed and is still warming distant shores. Although Dorothy Wordsworth produced nothing directly, her influence on both men was of the highest importance. Coleridge answered to many a touch which the slower Wordsworth could not feel; but Dorothy's quiet sympathy, keen observation, and rapid suggestion-qualities she possessed in greater measure than her brother were invaluable to both. 1 Memoirs of Wordsworth, i. 105. 2 MS. Diary of Thelwall, July 21, 1797. 5 Fenwick-note to Anecdote for Fathers. 'Note 121, p. 611, post. 6 Page 131. The best work of both poets was done, alike by the Quantocks and by the Lakes, under the direct influence of her companionship. Nor was the influence, in action and reaction, of the men on one another less potent. Coleridge's was by far the most active, as well as the finer and more penetrating, and the immense receptiveness of Wordsworth must have acted as a strong incentive to its exercise. And this is true, I believe, notwithstanding that there are more distinct traces of Wordsworth's influence on Coleridge's poetry than of the converse, for Coleridge, by virtue of his quicker sense, was the more imitative, while in Wordsworth's case, influences from without never reacted directly, but permeated his whole being, and were so completely assimilated as to have become part of himself before any of their results came to the surface.1 There are several indications that this summer of 1797 was not to Coleridge one of unmingled happiness. The letter of Poole to Charles Lloyd, written on 5th June, already quoted, seems to show that Lloyd was then no longer ‘domesticated’ with Coleridge. The particular date at which domestication ceased, and with it the payment of the £80 a year, is unknown; but although Lloyd came and went until the final rupture in the spring of 1798, he probably ceased to contribute regularly to Coleridge's household expenses after the summer of 1797. This probably caused the fit of 'depression too dreadful to be described,' of which he wrote in an undated letter to Cottle 2: 'A sort of calm hopelessness diffuses itself over my heart. Indeed every mode of life which has promised me bread and cheese, has been, one after another, torn away from me; but God remains. I have no immediate pecuniary distress, having received ten pounds from Lloyd. I employ myself now on a book of morals in answer to Godwin, and on my tragedy.' We have already seen that, in June, Coleridge was accepting pecuniary aid from Poole and other friends. Poole at that time describes him as 'industrious, considering the exertion of his mind necessary when he works,' adding that three acts of the tragedy are completed.3 6 About the 6th of September, having completed Osorio to the middle of the fifth act, he took it over to Shaftesbury to exhibit it to the god of his idolatry, Bowles.' 4 Idol and worshipper then met for the first time, and if we may believe Cottle, some disillusion must have resulted-on Coleridge's part, at all events. A month later Osorio was completed and sent off to Drury Lane, without much hope that it would be accepted. Although Coleridge's memory so far failed him that, during all his later life, he made it his pet grievance that Sheridan returned him neither MS. nor reply, he really received the reply by the beginning of December. It was to the effect that Osorio was rejected on account of the obscurity of Acts III., IV., and V. The history of the play, both as Osorio and as Remorse, and of the author's views respecting it, are so fully treated in other parts of this * During his residence at Calne in 1814-1816, Coleridge saw much of Bowles, whose parsonage at Bremhill was not far off. Coleridge showed Bowles the first chapter of his Biographia, and wondered what Bowles thought of it-'if, indeed, he collated the passages concerning himself, with his own speeches, etc., concerning me. Alas! I injured myself irreparably with him by devoting a fortnight [probably about 1815] to the correction of his poems. He took the corrections, but never forgave the corrector. Nihil volume,1 that nothing need be said here. Wordsworth stated that in November 1797 Osorio was offered with his own tragedy to Covent Garden, but his statement is made doubtfully, and there is no corroborative evidence. Both tragedies were about this time proposed to Cottle for publication, and he offered thirty guineas for each, but the offer was declined from the hope' (says Cottle) of introducing one or both on the stage.' 3 The air, as usual, was full of projects. An epic, to which at least twenty years should be devoted, was not, strictly speaking, one of them, but the necessary preparations were suggested-ten years for collecting material, five in composition, five in correction-'So would I write, haply not unhearing of that divine and nightly whispering voice, which speaks to mighty minds, of predestinated garlands, starry and unwithering.' 4 A great poem on Man and Nature and Society, to be symbolised by a brook in its course from upland source to sea, was planned in conversation with Wordsworth, and a translation of Wieland's Oberon seems to have been actually undertaken.5 This was in November 1797. On the 13th of that month, at half-past four in the afternoon,' Coleridge and the two Wordsworths set off to walk to Watchet en route to Linton and the Valley of Stones a little tour the expense of which they meant to defray (solvitur ambulando) by a joint composition of the two poets, to be sold for £5 to the editor of the Monthly Magazine. Before the first eight miles had been covered the attempt at joint composition broke down, and Coleridge took the business into his own hands. The magnificent result was The Ancient Mariner. But it was not sent to the Monthly Magazine, and the travellers' expenses must have come from some other fund. It grew and grew' (says Wordsworth) until March came round. On the 23rd of that month (1798), Dorothy records: 'Coleridge dined with us; he brought his ballad finished. We walked with him to the miner's house. A beautiful evening, very starry, the horned moon.' No doubt the poet read the poem to his friends-his one perfect and complete achievement-' inimitable,' as with just pride he affirmed. 6 Of Christabel, which, he tells us, was begun at Stowey in 1797, there is no contemporary record. But the originals of the thin gray cloud,' which made the moon both small and dull,' and the one red leaf the last of its clan,' appear in Dorothy's 'Journal' for January 31 and March 7, 1798, respectively.'7 Sometime in 1797, possibly earlier, Coleridge had been introduced by Poole to Thomas and Josiah Wedgwood, sons of the great potter. Their brother John resided at Cote House, Westbury, near Bristol; Thomas was a patient of Dr. Beddoes, and the combined circumstances made the brothers, Thomas and Josiah, frequent visitors to Bristol. Coleridge probably often met them there and at Poole's, and both being cultivated men they could not fail to be greatly interested in the poet. In December 1797, and during the absence of the Wordsworths in London, Coleridge received an invitation to preach at the Unitarian chapel at Shrewsbury, with the view of succeeding to its pastoral charge, about to become vacant by the retirement of the Rev. Mr. Rowe. In spite of old prejudices against the preaching of the Gospel for hire, he was tempted by the emolument of £150 per 1 'APPENDIX K,' p. 545; and Note 230,' p. 649, post. 2 Fenwick-note to The Borderers. 3 Rem. pp. 166, 167. 4 To Cottle. Rem. p. 103. 5 Sec Coleridge's account of the project in Biog. Lit. chap. x. 6 A full account of the circumstances will be found in 'Note 112,' pp. 593-598, post. 7 For the history of Christabel--the first part of which, only, was written at Stowey - see 'Note 116, pp. 601-607, post. |