Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey Part 9

S. T. Coleridge."

Mr. Coleridge, in the course of his extensive journey, having had to act the tradesman on rather an extended scale; conferring and settling with all the booksellers in the respective towns, as to the means of conveyance, allowance, remittances, &c. he thus wrote in a dejected mood, to his friend Mr. Wade,--an unpropitious state of mind for a new enterprise, and very different from those sanguine hopes which he had expressed on other occasions.

"My dear friend,

... I succeeded very well here at Litchfield. Belcher, bookseller, Birmingham; Sutton, Nottingham; Pritchard, Derby; and Thomson, Manchester, are the publishers. In every number of the 'Watchman,' there be printed these words, 'Published in Bristol, by the Author, S. T.

Coleridge, and sold, &c. &c.'

I verily believe no poor fellow's idea-pot ever bubbled up so vehemently with fears, doubts and difficulties, as mine does at present. Heaven grant it may not boil over, and put out the fire! I am almost heartless!

My past life seems to me like a dream, a feverish dream! all one gloomy huddle of strange actions, and dim-discovered motives! Friends.h.i.+ps lost by indolence, and happiness murdered by mismanaged sensibility! The present hour I seem in a quickset hedge of embarra.s.sments! For shame! I ought not to mistrust G.o.d! but indeed, to hope is far more difficult than to fear. Bulls have horns, Lions have talons.

The Fox, and Statesman subtle wiles ensure, The Cit, and Polecat stink and are secure: Toads with their venom, Doctors with their drug, The Priest, and Hedgehog, in their robes are snug!

Oh, Nature! cruel step-mother, and hard, To thy poor, naked, fenceless child the Bard!

No Horns but those by luckless Hymen worn, And those, (alas! alas!) not Plenty's Horn!

With naked feelings, and with aching pride, He bears th' unbroken blast on every side!

Vampire booksellers drain him to the heart, And Scorpion critics cureless venom dart![19]

S. T. C."

"Manchester, Jan. 7, 1796.

My dear friend,

I arrived at Manchester, last night, from Sheffield, to which place I shall only send about thirty numbers. I might have succeeded there, at least, equally well with the former towns, but I should injure the sale of the 'Iris.' the editor of which Paper (a very amiable and ingenious young man, of the name of 'James Montgomery') is now in prison, for a libel on a b.l.o.o.d.y-minded magistrate there. Of course, I declined publicly advertising or disposing of the 'Watchman' in that town.

This morning I called on Mr. ---- with H's letter. Mr. ---- received me as a rider, and treated me with insolence that was really amusing from its novelty. 'Overstocked with these Articles.' 'People always setting up some new thing or other.' 'I read the Star and another paper; what can I want with this paper, which is nothing more.' 'Well, well, I'll consider of it.' To these entertaining bon mots, I returned the following repartee,--'Good morning, sir.' ...

G.o.d bless you, S. T. C."

"Mosely, near Birmingham, 1796.

My very dear Wade,

Will it be any excuse to you for my silence, to say that I have written to no one else, and that these are the very first lines I have written?

I stayed a day or two at Derby, and then went on in Mrs. ---- carriage to see the beauties of Matlock. Here I stayed from Tuesday to Sat.u.r.day, which time was completely filled up with seeing the country, eating, concerts, &c. I was the first fiddle, not in the concerts, but everywhere else, and the company would not spare me twenty minutes together. Sunday I dedicated to the drawing up my sketch of education, which I meant to publish, to try to get a school.

Monday I accompanied Mrs. E. to Oakover, with Miss W.--, to the thrice lovely valley of Ham; a vale hung by beautiful woods all round, except just at its entrance, where, as you stand at the other end of the valley, you see a bare, bleak mountain, standing as it were to guard the entrance. It is without exception, the most beautiful place I ever visited, and from thence we proceeded to Dove-Dale, without question tremendously sublime. Here we dined in a cavern, by the side of a divine little spring. We returned to Derby, quite exhausted with the rapid succession of delightful emotions.

I was to have left Derby on Wednesday; but on the Wednesday, Dr.

Crompton, who had been at Liverpool, came home. He called on me, and made the following offer. That if I would take a house in Derby, and open a day-school, confining my number to twelve, he would send his three children. That, till I had completed my number, he would allow me one hundred a year; and and when I had completed it, twenty guineas a year for each son. He thinks there is no doubt but that I might have more than twelve in a very short time, if I liked it. If so, twelve times twenty guineas is two hundred and forty guineas per annum; and my mornings and evenings would be my own: the children coming to me from nine to twelve, and from two to five: the two last hours employed with the writing and drawing masters, in my presence: so that only four hours would be thoroughly occupied by them. The plan to commence in November. I agreed with the Doctor, he telling me, that if, in the mean time, anything more advantageous offered itself, I was to consider myself perfectly at liberty to accept it. On Thursday I left Derby for Burton. Prom Burton I took chaise, slept at Litchfield, and in the morning arrived at my worthy friend's, Mr. Thomas Hawkes, at Mosely, three miles from Birmingham, in whose shrubbery I am now writing. I shall stay at Birmingham a week longer.

I have seen a letter from Mr. William Roscoe, (Author of the life of Lorenzo the magnificent; a work in two quarto volumes, of which the whole first edition sold in a month) it was addressed to Mr. Edwards, the minister here, and entirely related to me. Of me, and my composition, he writes in terms of high admiration, and concludes by desiring Mr. Edwards to let him know my situation and prospects, and saying, if I would come and settle at Liverpool, he thought a comfortable situation might be procured for me. This day Edwards will write to him.

G.o.d love you, and your grateful and affectionate friend, S. T. Coleridge.

N. B. I preached yesterday."

Mr. Coleridge, in the preceding letters, states his having preached occasionally. There must have been a first sermon. It so happened that I heard Mr. C. preach his first and also his second sermon, with some account of which I shall now furnish the reader; and that without concealment or embellishment. But it will be necessary, as an ill.u.s.tration of the whole, to convey some previous information, which, as it regards most men, would be too unimportant to relate.

When Mr. Coleridge first came to Bristol, he had evidently adopted, at least to some considerable extent, the sentiments of Socinus. By persons of that persuasion, therefore, he was hailed as a powerful accession to their cause. From Mr. C.'s voluble utterance, it was even believed that he might become a valuable Unitarian minister, (of which cla.s.s of divines, a great scarcity then existed, with a still more gloomy antic.i.p.ation, from most of the young academicians at their chief academy having recently turned infidels.) But though this presumption in Mr.

Coleridge's favour was confidently entertained, no certainty could exist without a trial, and how was this difficulty to be overcome? The Unitarians in Bristol might have wished to see Mr. C. in their pulpit, expounding and enforcing their faith; but, as they said, "the thing, in Bristol, was altogether impracticable," from the conspicuous stand which he had taken in free politics, through the medium of his numerous lectures.[20]

It was then recollected by some of his anxious and importunate friends, that Bath was near, and that a good judge of requisite qualifications was to be found therein in the person of the Rev. David Jardine, with whom some of Mr. C.'s friends were on terms of intimacy; so that it was determined that Mr. Coleridge, as the commencement of his brilliant career, should be respectfully requested to preach his inaugural discourse in the Unitarian chapel at Bath.

The invitation having been given and accepted, I felt some curiosity to witness the firmness with which he would face a large and enlightened audience, and, in the intellectual sense, grace his canonical robes. No conveyance having been provided, and wis.h.i.+ng the young ecclesiastic to proceed to the place of his exhibition with some decent respectability, I agreed with a common friend, the late Mr. Charles Danvers, to take Mr. C.

over to Bath in a chaise.

The morning of the important day unfolded, and in due time we arrived at the place of our destination. When on the way to the chapel, a man stopped Charles Danvers, and asked him if he could tell where the Rev.

Mr. Coleridge preached. "Follow the crowd," said Danvers, and walked on.

Mr. C. wore his blue coat and white waistcoat; but what was Mr. Jardine's surprise, when he found that his young probationer peremptorily refused to wear the hide-all sable gown! Expostulation was unavailing, and the minister ascended to the pulpit in his coloured clothes!

Considering that it had been announced on the preceding Sunday, that "the Rev. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, from Cambridge University" would preach there on this day, we naturally calculated on an overflowing audience, but it proved to be the most meagre congregation I had ever seen. The reader will but imperfectly appreciate Mr. C.'s discourse, without the previous information that this year (1796) was a year of great scarcity, and consequent privation, amongst the poor; on which subject the sermon was designed impressively to bear. And now the long-expected service commenced.

The prayer, without being intended, was formal, unimpressive, and undevotional; the singing was languid; but we expected that the sermon would arouse the inattentive, and invigorate the dull. The moment for announcing the text arrived. Our curiosity was excited. With little less than famine in the land, our hearts were appalled at hearing the words, "When they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, and curse their king, and their G.o.d, and look upward." (Isaiah viii. 21.) Mr.

Winterbotham, a little before, had been thrown into prison for the freedom of his political remarks in a sermon at Plymouth, and we were half fearful whether in his impetuous current of feeling, some stray expressions might not subject our friend to a like visitation. Our fears were groundless. Strange as it may appear in Mr. Coleridge's vigorous mind, the whole discourse consisted of little more than a Lecture on the Corn Laws! which some time before he had delivered in Bristol, at the a.s.sembly Boom.

Returning from our edifying discourse to a tavern dinner, we were privileged with more luminous remarks on this inexhaustible subject: but something better (or worse, as the reader's taste may be) is still in reserve. After dinner, Mr. Coleridge remarked that he should have no objection to preach another sermon that afternoon. In the hope that something redeeming might still appear, and the best be retained for the last, we encouraged his proposal, when he rang the bell, and on the waiter appearing, he was sent, with Mr. Coleridge's compliments, to the Rev. Mr. Jardine, to say "If agreeable, Mr. C. would give his congregation another sermon, this afternoon, on the Hair Powder Tax!"[21]

On the departure of the waiter, I was fully a.s.sured that Mr. Jardine would smile, and send a civil excuse, satisfied that he had had quite enough of political economy, with blue coat and white waistcoat, in the morning; but to my great surprise, the waiter returned with Mr. Jardine's compliments, saying, "he should be happy to hear Mr. Coleridge!"

Now all was hurry lest the concourse should be kept waiting. What surprise will the reader feel, on understanding that, independently of ourselves and Mr. Jardine, there were but seventeen persons present, including men, women, and children! We had, as we expected, a recapitulation of the old lecture, with the exception of its humorous appendages, in reprobation of the Hair Powder Tax; and the twice-told tale, even to the ear of friends.h.i.+p, in truth sounded rather dull!

Two or three times Mr. C. looked significantly toward our seat, when fearful of being thrown off my guard into a smile, I held down my head, from which position I was aroused, when the sermon was about half over, by some gentleman throwing back the door of his pew, and walking out of the chapel. In a few minutes after, a second individual did the same; and soon after a third door flew open, and the listener escaped! At this moment affairs looked so very ominous, that we were almost afraid Mr.

Jardine himself would fly, and that none but ourselves would fairly sit it out. A little before, I had been in company with the late Robert Hall, and S. T. Coleridge, when the collision of equal minds elicited light and heat; both of them ranking in the first cla.s.s of conversationalists, but great indeed was the contrast between them in the pulpit. The parlour was the element for Mr. Coleridge, and the politician's lecture, rather than the minister's harangue. We all returned to Bristol with the feeling of disappointment;--Mr. C. from the little personal attention paid to him by Mr. Jardine; and we, from a dissatisfying sense of a Sunday desecrated.

Although no doubt can be entertained of Mr. Coleridge having, in the journey before noticed, surpa.s.sed his first essay, yet, with every reasonable allowance, the conviction was so strong on my mind that Mr. C.

had mistaken his talent, that my regard for him was too genuine to entertain the wish of ever again seeing him in a pulpit.

It is unknown when the following letter was received, (although quite certain that it was not the evening in which Mr. Coleridge wrote his "Ode to the Departing Year,") and it is printed in this place at something of an uncertainty.[22]

"January 1st.

My dear Cottle,

I have been forced to disappoint not only you, but Dr. Beddoes, on an affair of some importance. Last night I was induced by strong and joint solicitation, to go to a card-club, to which Mr. Morgan belongs, and, after the playing was over, to sup, and spend the remainder of the night: having made a previous compact, that I should not drink; however just on the verge of twelve, I was desired to drink only one wine gla.s.s of punch, in honour of the departing year; and, after twelve, one other in honour of the new year. Though the gla.s.ses were very small, yet such was the effect produced during my sleep, that I awoke unwell, and in about twenty minutes after had a relapse of my bilious complaint. I am just now recovered, and with care, I doubt not, shall be as well as ever to-morrow. If I do not see you then, it will be from some relapse, which I have no reason, thank heaven, to antic.i.p.ate.

Yours affectionately,

S. T. Coleridge."

In consequence of Mr. Coleridge's journey to the north, to collect subscribers for the "Watchman," an incident occurred, which produced a considerable effect on his after life. During Mr. C.'s visit to Birmingham, an accident had introduced him to the eldest son of Mr.

Lloyd, the eminent banker of that town. Mr. Lloyd had intended his son Charles to unite with him in the bank, but the monotonous business of the establishment, ill accorded with the young man's taste, which had taken a decidedly literary turn. If the object of Charles Lloyd had been to acc.u.mulate wealth, his disposition might have been gratified to the utmost, but the tedious and unintellectual occupation of adjusting pounds, s.h.i.+llings, and pence, suited, he thought, those alone who had never, eagle-like, gazed at the sun, or bathed their temples in the dews of Parna.s.sus. The feelings of this young man were ardent; his reading and information extensive; and his genius, though of a peculiar cast, considerable. His mind appeared, however, subject to something of that morbid sensibility which distinguished Cowper. The admiration excited in Mr. L. by Mr. Coleridge's pre-eminent talents, induced him to relinquish his connexion with the bank; and he had now arrived in Bristol to seek Mr. C. out, and to improve his acquaintance with him.