Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey Part 26

We are at Cintra: I am well and active, in better health than I have long known, and till to-day, in uninterrupted gaiety at heart. I am finis.h.i.+ng the eleventh book of 'Thalaba' and shall certainly have written the last before this reaches you. My Bristol friends have neglected me. Danvers has not written, and Edith is without a line from either of her sisters.

My desk is full of materials for the literary history which will require only the labour of arrangement and translation, on my return. I shall have the knowledge for the great work; and my miscellaneous notes will certainly swell into a volume of much odd and curious matter. Pray write to me. You know not how I hunger and thirst for Bristol news. I long to be among you. If I could bring this climate to Bristol, it would make me a new being: but I am in utter solitude of all rational society; in a state of mental famine, save that I feed on rocks and woods, and the richest banquet nature can possibly offer to her wors.h.i.+ppers. G.o.d bless you.

Abuse Danvers for me. Remember me to Davy, and all friendly inquirers.

Yours affectionately,

Robert Southey.

P. S.--.... The zeal of the Methodists and their itinerant preachers, has reprieved for half a century the system; but you must be aware, that sooner or later, the Church of England will absorb all those sects that differ only in discipline. The comfortable lat.i.tude that takes in the Calvinist and the Arminian, must triumph. The Catholic system will perhaps, last the longest; and bids fair to continue as a political establishment, when all its professors shall laugh at its absurdity.

Destroy its monastic orders, and marry the priests, and the rest is a pretty puppet-show, with the idols, and the incense, and the polytheism, and the pomp of paganism. G.o.d bless you.

R. S."

"Bristol, Aug. 1802.

Dear Cottle,

Well done good and faithful editor. I suspect that it is fortunate for the edition of Chatterton, that its care has devolved upon you.

The note with which you preface 'Burgum's Pedigree' need not come to me, as the M.S. is yours, whatever inferences may be drawn from it, will be by you. Add your name at the end to give it the proper authority. I shall know how to say enough, in the preface, about all other aiders and abetters, but it will not be easy to mention such a ringleader as yourself in words of adequate acknowledgment.

What you have detected in the 'Tournament' I have also observed in Barrett, in the omission of a pa.s.sage of bombast connected with one of the accounts of the Bristol churches. Your copy of the 'Tournament' being in Chatterton's own hand-writing is surely the best authority. We are now of one opinion, that Chatterton and Rowley are one.

I am glad to hear that you have discovered anything worth printing in the British Museum. Doubtless, if you think it worth printing, others will do the same, and it is not our fault, if it be dull or an imperfect work. I transcribed page after page of what would have been worth little if genuine, and not being genuine, is worth nothing. This refers only to the local antiquities, and false deeds of gift, &c. I made a catalogue, and left it with you. Why say, 'I hope you will not take it amiss.' I am as ready to thank you for supplying any negligence of mine, as any one else can be. I should have wished for more engravings, but we have gone to the bounds of expense and trouble, in this gratuitous, but pleasant effort to benefit the family of Bristol's most ill.u.s.trious bard. Why did you not sign your notes? I can now only say, that much, indeed most of the trouble has devolved on yon. J. C. at the end of each note, would have showed how much.

I have seen Cattcott.[62] Chatterton had written to Clayfield that he meant to destroy himself. Clayfield called on Barrett to communicate his uneasiness about the young lad. 'Stay,' said Barrett, 'and hear what he will say to me.' Chatterton was sent for. Barrett talked to him on the guilt and folly of suicide. Chatterton denied any intention of the kind, or any conversation to that import. Clayfield came from the closet with the letter in his hand, and asked, 'Is not this your hand-writing?'

Chatterton then, in a state of confusion, fell upon his knees, and heard in sullen silence, the suitable remarks on his conduct. G.o.d bless you.

Yours affectionately,

Robert Southey."

"Bristol, Sept. 1802.

Dear Cottle,

I was from home, looking out for a habitation[63] in Wales, when your letter arrived. My journey was so far successful, that I am in treaty for a house, eight miles from Neath, in the mountains, a lovely spot, exactly such as will suit my wishes...."

In a letter received from Mr. Southey, Aug. 25, 1805, he says, "I have neither seen, nor heard, of 'Foster's Essays'; nor do I remember to have heard you mention him. Certainly, on your recommendation, I shall either buy or borrow the work. But no new book ever reaches these mountains, except such as come to me to be killed off."

Mr. Southey mentioned to me the last time I saw him, the jeopardy in which he had recently been placed, through his 'killing off'; and from which danger he was alone saved by his anonymous garb. He said he had found it necessary in reviewing a book, written by a native of the emerald isle, to treat it with rather unwonted severity, such as it richly deserved. A few days after the critique had appeared, he happened to call on a literary friend, in one of the inns of court. They were conversing on this work, and the incompetence of the writer, when the author, a gigantic Irishman entered the room, in a great rage, and vowing vengeance against the remorseless critic. Standing very near Mr. Southey, he raised his huge fist, and exclaimed, "And, if I knew who it was, I'd hate him!" Mr. S. observed a very profound silence, and not liking the vicinity of a volcano, quietly retired, reserving his laugh for a less hazardous occasion.

Mr. Southey in a letter, June 18, 1807, thus expresses himself. "...

Beyond the fascinations of poetry, there is a calmer and steadier pleasure in acquiring and communicating the knowledge of what has been, and of what is. I am pa.s.sionately fond of history, even when I have been delighted with the act of poetical composition. The recollection that all was fable in the story with which I have exerted myself, frequently mingled with the delight. I am better pleased in rendering justice to the mighty dead; with the holding up to the world, of kings, conquerors, heroes, and saints, not as they have been usually held up, but as they really are, good or evil, according to the opinion formed of them, by one who has neither pa.s.sion, prejudice, nor interest, of any kind to mislead his mind.

There is a delight in recording great actions, and, though of a different kind, in execrating bad ones, beyond anything which Poetry can give, when it departs from historical truth. There is also a sense of power, even beyond what the poet, creator as he is, can exercise. It is before _my_ earthly tribunal, that these mighty ones are brought for judgment.

Centuries of applause, trophies, and altars, or canonizations, or excommunications, avail nothing with me. No former sentences are cognizable in my court. The merits of the case are all I look to, and I believe I have never failed to judge of the actions by themselves, and of the actor by his motives; and to allow manners, opinions, circ.u.mstances, &c., their full weight in extenuation. What other merit my historical works may have, others must find out for themselves, but this will I vouch for, that never was the heart of any historian fuller of purer opinions; and that never any one went about his work with more thorough industry, or more thorough good-will.

Your account of Churchey is very amusing, I should like to see the pamphlet of which you speak.[64] G.o.d bless you.

Yours affectionately,

Robert Southey."

"Keswick, March 16, 1810.

My dear Cottle,

I cannot express to you how much it has affected me to hear of your affliction, [a long continued inflammation of the eyes, subdued ultimately, after bleeding, blistering, and cupping, by Singleton's eye ointment,] for though I am sure there is no one who would bear any sufferings with which it should please G.o.d to visit him, more patiently and serenely, than yourself, this nevertheless, is an affliction of the heaviest kind. It is very far from being the habit of my mind to indulge in visionary hopes, but from what I recollect of the nature of your complaint, it is an inveterate inflammation, and this I believe to be completely within the reach of art...."

In the year 1814, after an hemorrhage from the lungs, and consequent debility, I relieved my mind by writing a kind, serious, and faithful letter to my friend Southey, under an apprehension that it might be my last; to which Mr. Southey returned the following reply.

"Keswick, May 13, 1814.

My dear Cottle,

I have seen so dreadful a case of hemorrhage from the lungs terminate favorably, that your letter alarms me less than otherwise it would have done. Basil Montague the younger, continued to bleed at intervals for six weeks, in January and February last, and he has this day left Keswick without any dangerous symptoms remaining upon him. Two other instances have occurred within my knowledge, I will therefore hope for a favorable termination. Your letter comes upon me when I am like a broken reed, so deeply has the loss of Danvers wounded me. Were I to lose you also, I should never have heart to visit Bristol again.

What answer shall I make to your exhortations? We differ, if indeed there be a difference, more in appearance than reality; more in the form than in the substance of our belief. I have already so many friends on the other side of the grave, that a large portion of my thoughts and affections are in another world, and it is only the certainty of another life, which could make the changes and insecurity of this life endurable.

May G.o.d bless you, and restore you, my dear old friend, is the sincere prayer of

Your affectionate

Robert Southey."

In the year 1816, Mr. Southey sustained a great loss in the death of his youngest son, a boy of promising talent, and endued with every quality which could attach a father's heart. Mr. S. thus announced the melancholy tidings.

"Keswick, May 23, 1816.

My dear Cottle,

I know not whether the papers may have informed you of the severe affliction with which we have been visited,--the death of my son; a boy who was in all things after my own heart. You will be gratified to hear, however, that this sorrow produces in both our cases, that beneficial purpose for which such visitations were appointed: and in subtracting so large a portion of our earthly happiness, fixes our hearts and hopes with more earnestness on the life to come. Nothing else I am well a.s.sured, could have supported me, though I have no ordinary share of fort.i.tude.

But I know where to look for consolation, and am finding it where only it can be found. My dear Cottle, the instability of human prospects and enjoyments! You have read my proem to the 'Pilgrimage,' and before the book was published, the child of whom I had thus spoken, with such heartfelt delight, was in his grave! But of this enough. We have many blessings left, abundant all, and of this, which was indeed the flower of all our blessings, we are deprived for a time, and that time must needs be short...."

In the year 1817, Mr. Southey's juvenile drama of "Wat Tyler," was surrept.i.tiously published; written during the few months of his political excitement, when the specious pretensions of the French, carried away, for a brief period, so many young and ardent minds. He thus noticed the circ.u.mstance.

"My dear Cottle,

You will have seen by the papers, that some villain, after an interval of three and twenty years, has published my old uncle, 'Wat Tyler.' I have failed in attempting to obtain an injunction, because a false oath has been taken, for the purpose of defeating me....