Biographia Epistolaris Part 37

My dear Wedgwood,

I reached home on yesterday noon. William Hazlitt, is a thinking, observant, original man; of great power as a painter of character-portraits, and far more in the manner of the old painters than any living artist, but the objects must be before him. He has no imaginative memory; so much for his intellectuals. His manners are to ninety-nine in one hundred singularly repulsive; brow-hanging; shoe-contemplating--strange. Sharp seemed to like him, but Sharp saw him only for half an hour, and that walking. He is, I verily believe, kindly-natured: is very fond of, attentive to, and patient with children, but he is jealous, gloomy, and of an irritable pride. With all this there is much good in him. He is disinterested; an enthusiastic lover of the great men who have been before us. He says things that are his own, in a way of his own: and though from habitual shyness, and the outside of bear skin, at least of misanthropy, he is strangely confused and dark in his conversation, and delivers himself of almost all his conceptions with a "Forceps", yet he "says" more than any man I ever knew (you yourself only excepted) of that which is his own, in a way of his own; and often times when he has warmed his mind, and the juice is come out, and spread over his spirits, he will gallop for half an hour together, with real eloquence. He sends well-feathered thoughts straight forward to the mark with a tw.a.n.g of the bow-string. If you could recommend him as a portrait painter, I should be glad. To be your companion, he is, in my opinion utterly unfit. His own health is fitful.

I have written as I ought to do: to you most freely. You know me, both head and heart, and I will make what deductions your reasons may dictate to me. I can think of no other person (for your travelling companion)--what wonder? For the last years, I have been shy of all new acquaintance.

To live beloved is all I need, And when I love, I love indeed.

I never had any ambition, and now, I trust I have almost as little vanity.

For five months past my mind has been strangely shut up. I have taken the paper with the intention to write to you many times, but it has been one blank feeling;--one blank idealess feeling. I had nothing to say;--could say nothing. How dearly I love you, my very dreams make known to me. I will not trouble you with the gloomy tale of my health.

When I am awake, by patience, employment, effort of mind, and walking, I can keep the Fiend at arm's length, but the night is my h.e.l.l!--sleep my tormenting Angel. Three nights out of four, I fall asleep, struggling to lie awake, and my frequent night-screams have almost made me a nuisance in my own house. Dreams with me are no shadows, but the very calamities of my life. * * *

In the hope of drawing the gout, if gout it should be, into my feet, I walked previously to my getting into the coach at Perth, 263 miles, in eight days, with no unpleasant fatigue; and if I could do you any service by coming to town, and there were no coaches, I would undertake to be with you, on foot in seven days. I must have strength somewhere.

My head is indefatigably strong: my limbs too are strong: but acid or not acid, gout or not gout, something there is in my stomach. * * *

To diversify this dusky letter, I will write an "Epitaph", which I composed in my sleep for myself while dreaming that I was dying. To the best of my recollection I have not altered a word.

Here sleeps at length poor Col. and without screaming Who died, as he had always lived, a dreaming: Shot dead, while sleeping, by the gout within, Alone, and all unknown, at E'nbro' in an Inn.

It was Tuesday night last, at the Black Bull, Edinburgh. Yours, dear Wedgwood, gratefully, and

Most affectionately,

S. T. COLERIDGE.

Thomas Wedgwood, Esq.

The character of Hazlitt in this letter is as good as anything in La Bruyere. The next letter (without date in Cottle's "Reminiscences", but which must be 1803) is to Miss Cruikshank, of Nether Stowey. The Penelope referred to is Penelope Poole, the cousin of Tom Poole.

LETTER 123. To MISS CRUIKSHANK

(No date, supposed to be 1803.[1])

My dear Miss Cruikshank,

With the kindest intentions, I fear you have done me some little disservice, in borrowing the first edition of my poems from Miss B--. I never held any principles indeed, of which, considering my age, I have reason to be ashamed. The whole of my public life may be comprised in eight or nine months of my 22nd year; and the whole of my political sins during that time, consisted in forming a plan of taking a large farm in common, in America, with other young men of my age. A wild notion indeed, but very harmless.

As to my principles, they were, at all times, decidedly anti-jacobin and anti-revolutionary, and my American scheme is a proof of this. Indeed at that time, I seriously held the doctrine of pa.s.sive obedience, though a violent enemy of the first war. Afterwards, and for the last ten years of my life, I have been fighting incessantly in the good cause, against French ambition, and French principles; and I had Mr. Addington's suffrage, as to the good produced by my Essays, written in the "Morning Post", in the interval of the peace of Amiens, and the second war, together with my two letters to Mr. Fox. [2]

Of my former errors, I should be no more ashamed, than of my change of body, natural to increase of age; but in that first edition, there was inserted (without my consent!) a Sonnet to Lord Stanhope, in direct contradiction, equally, to my "then", as to my present principles. A Sonnet written by me in ridicule and mockery of the bloated style of French jacobinical declamation, and inserted by Biggs, (the fool of a printer,) in order forsooth, that he might send the book, and a letter to Earl Stanhope; who, to prove that he was not mad in all things, treated both book and letter with silent contempt. I have therefore sent Mr. Poole's second edition, and if it be in your power, I could wish you to read the "dedication to my brother," at the beginning, to Lady E.

Perceval, to obtain whose esteem, so far at least as not to be confounded with the herd of vulgar mob flatterers, I am not ashamed to confess myself solicitous.

I would I could be with you, and your visitors. Penelope, you know, is very high in my esteem. With true warmth of heart, she joins more strength of understanding; and, to steady principle, more variety of accomplishments, than it has often been my lot to meet with among the fairer s.e.x. When I praise one woman to another I always mean a compliment to both. My tenderest regards to your dear mother, whom I really long to spend a few hours with, and believe me with sincere good wishes,

Yours, etc.,

S. T. COLERIDGE [3]

[Footnote 1: Dated "1807" in "Early Recollections".]

[Footnote 2: It appears from Sir James Macintosh's Life, published by his son, that a diminution of respect towards Sir James was entertained by Mr. Fox, arising from the above two letters of Mr. Coleridge, which appeared in the "Morning Post". Some enemy of Sir James had informed Mr.

Fox that these two letters were written by Macintosh, and which exceedingly wounded his mind. Before the error could be corrected, Mr.

Fox died. This occurrence was deplored by Sir James, in a way that showed his deep feeling of regret, but which, as might be supposed, did not prevent him from bearing the amplest testimony to the social worth and surpa.s.sing talents of that great statesman. Mr. Coleridge's Bristol friends will remember that once Mr. Fox was idolized by him as the paragon of political excellence; and Mr. Pitt depressed in the same proportion. [Note by Cottle.]]

[Footnote 3: Letter CXLIII follows 123.]

In the beginning of 1804 we find Coleridge in London, whither Poole, too, had gone to superintend the compilation of an Abstract on the condition of the Poor Laws.

LETTER 124. TO THOMAS WEDGWOOD

16, Abingdon Street, Westminster, Jan. 1804.

My dear friend,

Some divines hold, that with G.o.d to think, and to create, are one and the same act. If to think, and even to compose had been the same as to write with me, I should have written as much too much as I have written too little. The whole truth of the matter is, that I have been very, very ill. Your letter remained four days unread, I was so ill. What effect it had upon me I cannot express by words. It lay under my pillow day after day. I should have written forty times, but as it often and often happens with me, my heart was too full, and I had so much to say that I said nothing. I never received a delight that lasted longer upon me--"Brooded on my mind and made it pregnant," than (from) the six last sentences of your last letter,--which I cannot apologize for not having answered, for I should be casting calumnies against myself; for, for the last six or seven weeks, I have both thought and felt more concerning you, and relating to you, than of all other men put together.

Somehow or other, whatever plan I determined to adopt, my fancy, good-natured pander of our wishes, always linked you on to it; or I made it your plan, and linked myself on. I left my home, December 20, 1803, intending to stay a day and a half at Grasmere, and then to walk to Kendal, whither I had sent all my clothes and viatica; from thence to go to London, and to see whether or no I could arrange my pecuniary matters, so as leaving Mrs. Coleridge all that was necessary to her comforts, to go myself to Madeira, having a persuasion, strong as the life within me, that one winter spent in a really warm, genial climate, would completely restore me. Wordsworth had, as I may truly say, forced on me a hundred pounds, in the event of my going to Madeira; and Stuart had kindly offered to befriend me. During the days and affrightful nights of my disease, when my limbs were swollen, and my stomach refused to retain the food--taken in in sorrow, then I looked with pleasure on the scheme: but as soon as dry frosty weather came, or the rains and damps pa.s.sed off, and I was filled with elastic health, from crown to sole, then the thought of the weight of pecuniary obligation from so many people reconciled me; but I have broken off my story.

I stayed at Grasmere (Mr. Wordsworth's) a month; three fourths of the time bed-ridden;--and deeply do I feel the enthusiastic kindness of Wordsworth's wife and sister, who sat up by me, one or the other, in order to awaken me at the first symptoms of distressful feeling; and even when they went to rest, continued often and often to weep and watch for me even in their dreams. I left them January the 14th, and have spent a very pleasant week at Dr. Crompton's, at Liverpool, and arrived in London, at Poole's lodgings, last night at eight o'clock.

Though my right hand is so much swollen that I can scarcely keep my pen steady between my thumb and finger, yet my stomach is easy, and my breathing comfortable, and I am eager to hope all good things of my health. That gained, I have a cheering, and I trust prideless confidence that I shall make an active, and perseverant use of the faculties and requirements that have been entrusted to my keeping, and a fair trial of their height, depth, and width. Indeed I look back on the last four months with honest pride, seeing how much I have done, with what steady attachment of mind to the same subject, and under what vexations and sorrows, from without, and amid what incessant sufferings. So much of myself. When I know more, I will tell you more.

I find you are still at Cote-house. Poole tells me you talk of Jamaica as a summer excursion. If it were not for the voyage, I would that you would go to Madeira, for from the hour I get on board the vessel, to the time that I once more feel England beneath my feet, I am as certain as past and present experience can make me, that I shall be in health, in high health; and then I am sure, not only that I should be a comfort to you, but that I should be so without diminution of my activity, or professional usefulness. Briefly, dear Wedgwood! I truly and at heart love you, and of course it must add to my deeper and moral happiness to be with you, if I can be either a.s.sistance or alleviation. If I find myself so well that I defer my Madeira plan, I shall then go forthwith to Devons.h.i.+re to see my aged mother, once more before she dies, and stay two or three months with my brothers. But, wherever I am, I never suffer a day, (except when I am travelling) to pa.s.s without doing something.

Poole made me promise that I would leave one side for him. G.o.d bless him! He looks so wors.h.i.+pful in his office, among his clerks, that it would give you a few minutes' good spirits to look in upon him. Pray you as soon as you can command your pen, give me half a score lines, and now that I am loose, say whether or no I can be any good to you.

S. T. COLERIDGE. [1]

[Footnote 1: Letters CXLIV-CXLVI follow 124.]

LETTER 125. TO THOMAS WEDGWOOD

16, Abingdon Street, Westminster, Jan. 28, 1804.