S. T. Coleridge.
Thomas Wedgewood, Esq."
"Keswick, November 3, 1802.
Dear Wedgewood,
It is now two hours since I received your letter; and after the necessary consultation, Mrs. Coleridge herself is fully of opinion that to lose time is merely to lose spirits. Accordingly I have resolved not to look the children in the face, (the parting from whom is the downright bitter in the thing) but to go to London by to-morrow's mail. Of course I shall be in London, God permitting, on Saturday morning. I shall rest that day, and the next, and proceed to Bristol by the Monday night's mail. At Bristol I will go toCote-House.[106] At all events, barring serious illness, serious fractures, and the et cetera of serious unforeseens, I shall be at Bristol, Tuesday noon, November 9.
You are aware that my whole knowledge of French does not extend beyond the power of limping slowly, not without a dictionary crutch, or an easy French book: and that as to pronunciation, all my organs of speech, from the bottom of the Larynx to the edge of my lips, are utterly and naturally anti-Gallican. If only I shall have been any comfort, any alleviation to you I shall feel myself at ease—and whether you go abroad or no, while I remain with you, it will greatly contribute to my comfort, if I know you will have no hesitation, nor pain, in telling me what you wish me to do, or not to do.
I regard it among the blessings of my life, that I have, never lived among men whom I regarded as my artificial superiors: that all the respect I have at any time paid, has been wholly to supposed goodness, or talent. The consequence has been that I have no alarms of pride; nocheval de friseof independence. I have always lived among equals. It never occurs to me, even for a moment, that I am otherwise. If I have quarrelled with men, it has been as brothers, or as school-fellows quarrel. How little any man can give me, or take from me, save in matters of kindness and esteem, is not so much a thought or conviction with me, or even a distinct feeling, as it is my very nature. Much as I dislike all formal declarations of this kind, I have deemed it well to say this. I have as strong feelings of gratitude as any man. Shame upon me if in the sickness and the sorrow which I have had, and which have been kept unaggravated and supportable by your kindness, and your brother's (Mr. Josiah Wedgewood) shame upon me if I did not feel a kindness, not unmixed with reverence towards you both. But yet I never should have had my present impulses to be with you, and this confidence, that I may become an occasional comfort to you, if, independently of all gratitude, I did not thoroughly esteem you; and if I did not appear to myself to understand the nature of your sufferings; and within the last year, in some slight degree to have felt myself, something of the same.
Forgive me, my dear sir, if I have said too much. It is better to write it than to say it, and I am anxious in the event of our travelling together that you should yourself be at ease with me, even as you would with a younger brother, to whom, from his childhood you had been in the habit of saying, 'Do this Col.' or 'don't do that.'
All good be with you,
S. T. Coleridge.
Thomas Wedgewood. Esq."
"Keswick, January 9, 1803.
My dear Wedgewood,
I send you two letters, one from your dear sister, the second from Sharp, by which you will see at what short notice I must be off, if I go to theCanaries. If your last plan continue in full force, I have not even the phantom of a wish thitherward struggling, but if aught have happened to you, in the things without, or in the world within, to induce you to change the place, or the plan, relatively to me, I think I could raise the money. But I would a thousand-fold rather go with you whithersoever you go. I shall be anxious to hear how you have gone on since I left you. You should decide in favour of a better climate somewhere or other. The best scheme I can think of, is to go to some part of Italy or Sicily, which we both liked. I would look out for two houses. Wordsworth and his family would take the one, and I the other, and then you might have a home either with me, or if you thought of Mr. and Mrs. Luff, under this modification, one of your own; and in either case you would have neighbours, and so return to England when the home sickness pressed heavy upon you, and back to Italy when it was abated, and the climate of England began to poison your comforts. So you would have abroad in a genial climate, certain comforts of society among simple and enlightened men and women; and I should be an alleviation of the pang which you will necessarily feel, as often as you quit your own family.
I know no better plan: for travelling in search of objects is at best a dreary business, and whatever excitement it might have had, you must have exhausted it. God bless you, my dear friend. I write with dim eyes, for indeed, indeed, my heart is very full of affectionate sorrowful thoughts toward you.
I write with difficulty, with all the fingers but one of my right hand very much swollen. Before I was half up theKirkstonemountain, the storm had wetted me through and through, and before I reached the top it was so wild and outrageous, that it would have been unmanly to have suffered the poor woman (guide) to continue pushing on, up against such a torrent of wind and rain: so I dismounted and sent her home with the storm in her back. I am no novice in mountain mischiefs, but such a storm as this was, I never witnessed, combining the intensity of the cold, with the violence of the wind and rain. The rain drops were pelted or slung against my face by the gusts, just like splinters of flint, and I felt as if every drop cut my flesh. My hands were all shrivelled up like a washerwoman's, and so benumbed that I was obliged to carry my stick under my arm. O, it was a wild business! Such hurry skurry of clouds, such volleys of sound! In spite of the wet and the cold, I should have had some pleasure in it, but for two vexations; first, an almost intolerable pain came into my right eye, a smarting and burning pain; and secondly, in consequence of riding with such cold water under my seat, extremely uneasy and burthensome feelings attacked my groin, so that, what with the pain from the one, and the alarm from the other, I hadno enjoyment at all!
Just at the brow of the hill I met a man dismounted, who could not sit on horse-back. He seemed quite scared by the uproar, and said to me, with much feeling, 'O sir, it is a perilous buffeting, but it is worse for you than for me, for I have it at my back.' However I got safely over, and immediately all was calm and breathless, as if it was some mighty fountain put on the summit of Kirkstone, that shot forth its volcano of air, and precipitated huge streams of invisible lava down the road to Patterdale.
I went on to Grasmere.[107] I was not at all unwell, when I arrived there, though wet of course to the skin. My right eye had nothing the matter with it, either to the sight of others, or to my own feelings, but I had a bad night, with distressful dreams, chiefly about my eye; and waking often in the dark I thought it was the effect of mere recollection, but it appeared in the morning that my right eye was blood-shot, and the lid swollen. That morning however I walked home, and before I reached Keswick, my eye was quite well, butI felt unwell all over. Yesterday I continued unusually unwell all over me till eight o'clock in the evening. I took nolaudanum or opium, but at eight o'clock, unable to bear the stomach uneasiness, and achings of my limbs, I took two large tea-spoons full of Ether in a wine-glass of camphorated gum-water, and a third tea-spoon full at ten o'clock, and I received complete relief; my body calmed; my sleep placid; but when I awoke in the morning, my right hand, with three of the fingers was swollen and inflamed. The swelling in the hand is gone down, and of two of the fingers somewhat abated, but the middle finger is still twice its natural size, so that I write with difficulty. This has been a very rough attack, but though I am much weakened by it, and look sickly and haggard, yet I am not out of heart. Such about; such a 'periless buffetting' was enough to have hurt the health of a strong man. Few constitutions can bear to be long wet through in intense cold I fear it will tire you to death to read this prolix scrawled story.
Affectionately dear friend, Yours ever,
S. T. Coleridge."
"November 12,1800.
My dear sir,
I received your kind letter, with the £20. My eyes are in such a state of inflammation that I might as well write blindfold, they are so blood-red. I have had leeches twice, and have now a blister behind my right ear. How I caught the cold, in the first instance, I can scarcely guess; but I improved it to its present glorious state, by taking long walks all the mornings, spite of the wind, and writing late at night, while my eyes were weak.
I have made some rather curious observations on the rising up of spectra in the eye, in its inflamed state, and their influence on ideas, &c., but I cannot see to make myself intelligible to you. Present my kindest remembrance to Mrs. W. and your brother. Pray did you ever pay any particular attention to the first time of your little ones smiling and laughing? Both I and Mrs. C. have carefully watched our little one, and noticed down all the circumstances, under which he smiled, and under which he laughed, for the first six times, nor have we remitted our attention; but I have not been able to derive the least confirmation of Hartley's or Darwin's Theory. You say most truly, my dear sir, that a pursuit is necessary. Pursuit, for even praiseworthy employment, merely for good, or general good, is not sufficient for happiness, nor fit for man.
I have not at present made out how I stand in pecuniary ways, but I believe that I have anticipated on the next year to the amount of Thirty or Forty pounds, probably more. God bless you, my dear sir, and your sincerely
Affectionate friend,
S. T. Coleridge.
Josiah Wedgewood, Esq."
"Friday night, Jan. 14, 1803.
Dear Friend,
I was glad at heart to receive your letter, and still more gladdened by the reading of it. The exceeding kindness which it breathed was literally medicinal to me, and I firmly believe, cured me of a nervous rheumatic affection, the acid and the oil, very completely at Patterdale; but by the time it came to Keswick, the oil was all atop.
You ask me, 'Why, in the name of goodness, I did not return when I saw the state of the weather?' The true reason is simple, though it may be somewhat strange. The thought never once entered my head. The cause of this I suppose to be, that (I do not remember it at least) I never once in my whole life turned back in fear of the weather. Prudence is a plant, of which I no doubt, possess some valuable specimens, but they are always in my hothouse, never out of the glasses, and least of all things would endure the climate of the mountains. In simple earnestness, I never find myself alone, within the embracement of rocks and hills, a traveller up an alpine road, but my spirit careers, drives, and eddies, like a leaf in autumn; a wild activity of thoughts, imaginations, feelings, and impulses of motion rises up from within me; a sort of bottom wind, that blows to no point of the compass, comes from I know not whence, but agitates the whole of me; my whole being is filled with waves that roll and stumble, one this way, and one that way, like things that have no common master. I think that my soul must have pre-existed in the body of a chamois chaser. The simple image of the old object has been obliterated, but the feelings, and impulsive habits, and incipient actions, are in me, and the old scenery awakens them.
The further I ascend from animated nature, from men, and cattle, and the common birds of the woods and fields, the greater becomes in me the intensity of the feeling of life. Life seems to me then an universal spirit, that neither has, nor can have an opposite. 'God is everywhere' I have exclaimed, and works everywhere, and where is there room for death? In these moments it has been my creed, that death exists only because ideas exist; that life is limitless sensation; that death is a child of the organic senses, chiefly of the sight; that feelings die by flowing into the mould of the intellect becoming ideas, and that ideas passing forth into action, reinstate themselves again in the world of life. And I do believe that truth lies in these loose generalizations. I do not think it possible that any bodily pains could eat out the love of joy, that is so substantially part of me, towards hills, and rocks, and steep waters; and I have had some trial.
On Monday night I had an attack in my stomach and right side, which in pain, and the length of its continuance, appeared to me by far the severest I ever had. About one o'clock the pain passed out of my stomach, like lightning from a cloud, into the extremities of my right foot. My toe swelled and throbbed, and I was in a state of delicious ease, which the pain in my toe did not seem at all to interfere with. On Tuesday I was uncommonly well all the morning, and ate an excellent dinner; but playing too long and, too rompingly with Hartley and Derwent, I was very unwell that evening. On Wednesday I was well, and after dinner wrapped myself up warm, and walked with Sarah Hutchinson, to Lodore. I never beheld anything more impressive than the wild outline of the black masses of mountain over Lodore, and so on to the gorge of Borrowdale. Even through the bare twigs of a grove of birch trees, through which the road passes; and on emerging from the grove a red planet, so very red that I never saw a star so red, being clear and bright at the same time. It seemed to have sky behind it. It started, as it were from the heavens, like an eye-ball of fire. I wished aloud at that moment that you had been with me.
The walk appears to have done me good, but I had a wretched night; shocking pains in my head, occiput, and teeth, and found in the morning that I had two blood-shot eyes. But almost immediately after the receipt and perusal of your letter the pains left me, and I am bettered to this hour; and am now indeed as well as usual saving that my left eye is very much blood-shot. It is a sort of duty with me, to be particular respecting parts that relate to my health. I have retained a good sound appetite through the whole of it, without any craving after exhilarants or narcotics, and I have got well as in a moment. Rapid recovery is constitutional with me; but the former circumstances, I can with certainty refer to the system of diet, abstinence from vegetables, wine, spirits, and beer, which I have adopted by your advice.
I have no dread or anxiety respecting any fatigue which either of us is likely to undergo, even in continental travelling. Many a healthy man would have been laid up with such a bout of thorough wet, and intense cold at the same time, as I had at Kirkstone. Would to God that also for your sake I were a stronger man, but I have strong wishes to be with you. I love your society, and receiving much comfort from you, and believing likewise that I receive much improvement, I find a delight very great, my dear friend! indeed it is, when I have reason to imagine that I am in return an alleviation to your destinies, and a comfort to you. I have no fears and am ready to leave home at a two days' warning. For myself I should say two hours, but bustle and hurry might disorder Mrs. Coleridge. She and the three children are quite well.
I grieve that there is a lowering in politics. The 'Moniteur' contains almost daily some bitter abuse of our minister and parliament, and in London there is great anxiety and omening. I have dreaded war from the time that the disastrous fortunes of the expedition to Saint Domingo, under Le Clerc, was known in France. Write me one or two lines, as few as you like.
I remain, my dear Wedgewood, with most affectionate esteem, and grateful attachment,
Your sincere friend,
S. T. Coleridge.
Thomas Wedgewood, Esq."
"Nether Stowey, Feb. 10, 1803.
Dear Wedgewood,
Last night Poole and I fully expected a few lines from you. When the newspaper came in, without your letter, we felt as if a dull neighbour had been ushered in after a knock at the door which had made us rise up and start forward to welcome some long absent friend. Indeed in Poole's case, this simile is less over-swollen than in mine, for in contempt of my convictions and assurance to the contrary, Poole, passing off the Brummagem coin of his wishes for sterling reasons, had persuaded himself fully that he should see you inpropria persona.The truth is, we had no right to expect a letter from you, and I should have attributed your not writing to your having nothing to write, to your bodily dislike of writing, or, though with reluctance, to low spirits, but that I have been haunted with the fear that your sister is worse, and that you are at Cote-House, in the mournful office of comforter to your brother. God keep us from idle dreams. Life has enough of real pains.
I wrote to Captain Wordsworth to get me some Bang. The captain in an affectionate letter answers me: 'The Bang if possible shall be sent. If any country ship arrives I shall certainly get it. We have not got anything of the kind in our China ships.' If you would rather wait till it can be brought by Captain Wordsworth himself from China, give me a line that I may write and tell him. We shall hope for a letter from you to-night. I need not say, dear Wedgewood, how anxious I am to hear the particulars of your health and spirits.
Poole's account of his conversations, &c., in Prance, are very interesting and instructive. If your inclination lead you hither you would be very comfortable here. But I am ready at an hour's warning; ready in heart and mind, as well as in body and moveables.
I am, dear Wedgewood, most truly yours,
S. T. Coleridge.
Thomas Wedgewood, Esq."
"Stowey, Feb. 10, 1803.
My dear Wedgewood,
With regard to myself and my accompanying you, let me say thus much. My health is not worse than it was in the North; indeed it is much better. I have no fears. But if you fear that, my health being what you know it to be, the inconveniences of my being with you will be greater than the advantages; (I feel no reluctance in telling you so) it is so entirely an affair of spirits and feeling that the conclusion must be made by you, not in your reason, but purely in your spirit and feeling. Sorry indeed should I be to know that you had gone abroad with one, to whom you were comparatively indifferent. Sorry if there should be no one with you, who could with fellow-feeling and general like-mindedness, yield you sympathy in your sunshiny moments. Dear Wedgewood, my heart swells within me as it were. I have no other wish to accompany you than what arises immediately from my personal attachment, and a deep sense in my own heart, that let us be as dejected as we will, a week together cannot pass in which a mind like yours would not feel the want of affection, or be wholly torpid to its pleasurable influences. I cannot bear to think of your going abroad with a mere travelling companion; with one at all influenced by salary, or personal conveniences. You will not suspect me of flattering you, but indeed dear Wedgewood, you are too good and too valuable a man to deserve to receive attendance from a hireling, even for a month together, in your present state.
If I do not go with you, I shall stay in England only such time as may be necessary for me to raise the travelling money, and go immediately to the south of France. I shall probably cross the Pyrennees to Bilboa, see the country of Biscay, and cross the north of Spain to Perpignan, and so on to the north of Italy, and pass my next winter at Nice. I have every reason to believe that I can live, even as a traveller, as cheap as I can in England. God bless you. I will repeat no professions, even in the superscription of a letter. You know me, and that it is my serious, simple wish, that in everything respecting me, you would think altogether of yourself, and nothing of me, and be assured that no resolve of yours, however suddenly adopted, or however nakedly communicated, will give me any pain, any at least arising from my own bearings. Yours ever,
S. T. Coleridge.
Thomas Wedgewood, Esq.
P. S. Perhaps Leslie will go with you."
"Poole's, Feb. 17, 1803.
My dear Wedgewood,
I do not know that I have anything to say that justifies me in troubling you with the postage and perusal of this scrawl. I received a short and kind letter from Josiah last night. He is named the sheriff. Poole, who has received a very kind invitation from your brother John, in a letter of last Monday, and which was repeated in last night's letter, goes with me, I hope in the full persuasion that you will be there (at Cote-House) before he be under the necessity of returning home. Poole is a very, very good man, I like even his incorrigibility in little faults and deficiencies. It looks like a wise determination of nature to let well alone.
Are you not laying out a scheme which will throw your travelling in Italy, into an unpleasant and unwholesome part of the year? From all I can gather, you ought to leave this country at the first of April at the latest. But no doubt you know these things better than I. If I do not go with you, it is very probable we shall meet somewhere or other. At all events you will know where I am, and I can come to you if you wish it. And if I go with you, there will be this advantage, that you may drop me where you like, if you should meet any Frenchman, Italian, or Swiss, whom you liked, and who would be pleasant and profitable to you. But this we can discuss at Gunville.
As to ——, I never doubted that he means to fulfil his engagements with you, but he is one of those weak moralled men, with whom the meaning to do a thing means nothing. He promises with ninety parts out of a hundred of his whole heart, but there is always a stock of cold at the core that transubstantiates the whole resolve into a lie.
I remain in comfortable health,—warm rooms, an old friend, and tranquillity, are specifics for my complaints. With all my ups and downs I have a deal of joyous feeling, and I would with gladness give a good part of it to you, my dear friend. God grant that spring may come to you with healing on her wings.
God bless you, my dear Wedgewood. I remain with most affectionate esteem, and regular attachment, and good wishes. Yours ever,
S. T. Coleridge.
Thomas Wedgewood, Esq.
P. S. If Southey should send a couple of bottles, one of the red sulphate, and one of the compound acids for me, will you be so good as to bring them with you?"
"Stowey, Feb. 17, 1803.
My dear Wedgewood,
Last night I received a four ounce parcel letter, by the post, which Poole and I concluded was the mistake or carelessness of the servant, who had put the letter into the post office, instead of the coach office. I should have been indignant, if dear Poole had not set me laughing. On opening it, it contained my letter from Gunville, and a small parcel of 'Bang,' from Purkis. I will transcribe the parts of his letter which relate to it.
'Brentford, Feb. 7, 1803.
My dear Coleridge,
I thank you for your letter, and am happy to be the means of obliging you. Immediately on the receipt of yours, I wrote to Sir Joseph Banks, who I verily believe is one of the most excellent and useful men of this country, requesting a small quantity of Bang, and saying it was for the use of Mr. T. Wedgewood. I yesterday received the parcel which I now send, accompanied with a very kind letter, and as part of it will be interesting to you and your friend, I will transcribe it. 'The Bang you ask for is the powder of the leaves of a kind of hemp that grows in the hot climates. It is prepared, and I believe used, in all parts of the east, from Morocco to China. In Europe it is found to act very differently on different constitutions. Some it elevates in the extreme; others it renders torpid, and scarcely observant of any evil that may befall them. In Barbary it is always taken, if it can be procured, by criminals condemned to suffer amputation, and it is said, to enable those miserables to bear the rough operations of an unfeeling executioner, more than we Europeans can the keen knife of our most skilful chirurgeons. This it may be necessary to have said to my friend Mr. T. Wedgewood, whom I respect much, as his virtues deserve, and I know them well. I send a small quantity only as I possess but little. If however, it is found to agree, I will instantly forward the whole of my stock, and write without delay to Barbary, from whence it came, for more.
Sir Joseph adds, in a postscript: 'It seems almost beyond a doubt, that the Nepenthe was a preparation of the Bang, known to the Ancients'
* * * * *
Now I had better take the small parcel with me to Gunville; if I send it by the post, besides the heavy expense, I cannot rely on the Stowey carriers, who are a brace of as careless and dishonest rogues as ever had claims on that article of the hemp and timber trade, called the gallows. Indeed I verily believe that if all Stowey, Ward excepted, does not go to hell, it will be by the supererogation of Poole's sense of honesty.—Charitable!
We will have a fair trial of Bang. Do bring down some of the Hyoscyamine pills, and I will give a fair trial of Opium, Henbane, and Nepenthe. By-the-by I always considered Homer's account of the Nepenthe as aBanginglie.
God bless you, my dear friend, and
S. T. Coleridge."
"Keswick, September 16, 1803.
My dear Wedgewood,
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 aForceps, yet hesaysmore 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 wearied 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 twang 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 Hell!—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 equally 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 anEpitaph, 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 screamingWho 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, dearWedgewood, gratefully, and
Most affectionately,
S. T. Coleridge.
Thomas Wedgewood, Esq."
"16, Abingdon Street, Westminster, Jan. 1804.
My dear friend,
Some divines hold, that with God 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 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 Stewart 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 passed 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.[108] 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 Wedgewood! 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 assistance or alleviation. If I find myself so well that I defer my Madeira plan, I shall then go forthwith to Devonshire to see my aged mother, once more before she dies, and stay two or three months with my brothers.[109] But, wherever I am, I never suffer a day, (except when I am travelling) to pass without doing something.
Poole made me promise that I would leave one side for him. God bless him! He looks so worshipful 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 amloose,say whether or no I can be any good to you.
S. T. Coleridge."
"16, Abingdon Street, Westminster, Jan. 28, 1804.
My dear friend,
It is idle for me to say to you, that my heart and very soul ache with the dull pain of one struck down and stunned. I write to you, for my letter cannot give you unmixed pain, and I would fain say a few words to dissuade you. What good can possibly come of your plan? Will not the very chairs and furniture of your room be shortly more, far more intolerable to you than new and changing objects! more insufferable reflectors of pain and weariness of spirit? Oh, most certainly they will! You must hope, my dearest Wedgewood; you must act as if you hoped. Despair itself has but that advice to give you. Have you ever thought of trying large doses of opium, a hot climate, keeping your body open by grapes, and the fruits of the climate?[110]
Is it possible that by drinking freely, you might at last produce the gout, and that a violent pain and inflammation in the extremities might produce new trains of motion and feeling in your stomach, and the organs connected with the stomach, known and unknown? Worse than what you have decreed for yourself cannot well happen. Say but a word and I will come to you, will be with you, will go with you to Malta, to Madeira, to Jamaica, or (if the climate, of which, and its strange effects, I have heard wonders, true or not) to Egypt.
At all events, and at the worst even, if you do attempt to realize the scheme of going to and remaining at Gunville, for God's sake, my dear dear friend, do keep up a correspondence with one or more; or if it were possible for you, with several. I know by a little what your sufferings are, and that to shut the eyes, and stop up the ears, is to give one's self up to storm and darkness, and the lurid forms and horrors of a dream. I scarce know why it is; a feeling I have, and which I can hardly understand. I could not endure to live if I had not a firm faith that the life within you will pass forth out of the furnace, for that you have borne what you have borne, and so acted beneath such pressure—constitutes you an awful moral being. I am not ashamed to pray aloud for you.
Your most affectionate friend,
S. T. Coleridge."
"March, 1804.
My dear friend,
Though fearful of breaking in upon you after what you have written to me, I could not have left England without having written both to you and your brother, at the very moment I received a note from Sharp, informing me that I must instantly secure a place in the Portsmouth mail for Tuesday, and if I could not, that I must do so in the light coach for Tuesday's early coach.
I am agitated by many things, and only write now because you desired an answer by return of post. I have been dangerously ill, but the illness is going about, and not connected with my immediate ill health, however it may be with my general constitution. It was the cholera-morbus. But for a series of the merest accidents I should have been seized in the streets, in a bitter east wind, with cold rain; at all events have walked through it struggling. It was Sunday-night.
I have suffered it at Tobin's; Tobin sleeping out at Woolwich. No fire, no wine or spirits, or medicine of any kind, and no person being within a call, but luckily, perhaps the occasion would better suit the word providentially, Tuffin, calling, took me home with him…. I tremble at every loud sound I myself utter. But this is rather a history of the past than of the present. I have only enough for memento, and already on Wednesday I consider myself in clear sunshine, without the shadow of the wings of the destroying angel.
What else relates to myself, I will write on Monday. Would to heaven you were going with me to Malta, if it were but for the voyage! With all other things I could make the passage with an unwavering mind. But without cheerings of hope, let me mention one thing; Lord Cadogan was brought to absolute despair, and hatred of life, by a stomach complaint, being now an old man. The symptoms, as stated to me, were strikingly like yours, excepting the nervous difference of the two characters; the flittering fever, &c. He was advised to reduce lean beef to a pure jelly, by Papin's digester, with as little water as could secure it from burning, and of this to take half a wine glass 10 or 14 times a day. This and nothing else. He did so. Sir George Beaumont saw, within a few weeks a letter from himself to Lord St. Asaph, in which he relates the circumstance of his perseverance in it, and rapid amelioration, and final recovery. 'I am now,' he says, 'in real good health; as good, and in as cheerful spirits as I ever was when a young man.'
May God bless you, even here,
S. T. Coleridge."
Mr. Coleridge, in the preceding letters, refers to the different states of his health. In the letter dated January, 1800, he observed, "I have my health perfectly;" and in the same letter he clearly indicates that he was no stranger to opium, by remarking, "I have a stomach sensation attached to all my thoughts, like those which succeed to the pleasurable operations of a dose of opium." I can testify, that during the four or five years in which Mr. C. resided in or near Bristol, no young man could enjoy more robust health. Dr. Carlyon[111] also, verbally stated that Mr. C; both at Cambridge, and at Gottingen, "possessed sound health." From these premises the conclusion is fair, that Mr. Coleridge's unhappy use of narcotics, which commenced thus early, was the true cause of all his maladies, his languor, his acute and chronic pains, his indigestion, his swellings, the disturbances of his general corporeal system, his sleepless nights, and his terrific dreams!
* * * * *
Extracts, concerning Mr. Coleridge, from letters of the late ThomasPoole, Esq., to the late Thomas Wedgewood, Esq.
"Stowey, Nov. 14, 1801.
… I expect Coleridge here in a week or ten days. He has promised to spend two or three months with me. I trust this air will re-establish his health, and that I shall restore him to his family and his friends a perfect man."
"Stowey, Nov. 24, 1801.
I now expect daily to see Coleridge. He is detained I fear, by a thorn, which he unfortunately took in his heel a day or two before he wrote to me his last letter. He comes alone. As soon as he is here he shall write to you."
"Stowey, Nov. 27, 1799.
… Coleridge went hence to Bristol as you know, to collect material for his 'School-book.' (Qy.) There he received a letter concerning Wordsworth's health, which he said agitated him deeply. He set off immediately for Yorkshire. He has since been to the lakes. I suppose we shall soon see him.
"Stowey, March 15, 1804.
… Coleridge is still here with Tobin. He has taken his passage for Malta and paid half the money, so I conclude his going is fixed. They are waiting for convoy—the 'Lapwing' frigate.
"16, Abingdon Street, April 3, 1804.
My dear Sir,
… PoorCol. left London, as I suppose you know, and is now at Portsmouth, waiting for convoy. He was in a miserable state of health when he left town. Heaven grant that this expedition may establish him, body and mind. Northcote has been painting his picture for Sir George Beaumont. I am told it is a great likeness. Davy is gone to Hungerford for the holiday's fishing….
T. Poole.
T. Wedgewood, Esq."
Mr. Coleridge remarks, in his letter to Mr. T. Wedgewood, dated "16, Abingdon Street, London:" "Poole looks so worshipful in his office among his clerks, that it would give you a few minutes' good spirits to look in upon him." The following letter will explain this allusion.
"Stowey, Sept. 14, 1803.
My dear Sir,
… I thank you heartily for your kindness, and I will tell you all about my going to London. I became acquainted with Rickman, whom you saw, when you set off from Cote-house with Coleridge and myself, to London, to hear Davy's lectures at the Royal Institution. It was last January twelvemonths. I liked Rickman, and if I may judge from his conduct since, he liked me. I saw him frequently when I was in London in May and June last. We often talked about the poor laws, the sin of their first principle, their restraints, their contradictions, their abuses, their encouragement to idleness, their immense burdens to those who pay, and their degradation to those who receive. On this subject also some letters have passed between us.
I have long imagined that the principles of benefit societies may be extended and modified, so as to remedy the greater part of those evils, and I have long had a plan in my mind which attempted something of this sort, and which as soon as I had leisure I meant to detail in writing, and perhaps to publish. I mentioned this to Coleridge when he was last with me. He mentioned it to Rickman, who wrote to me on the subject.
Soon after this Sir George Eose introduced a bill into parliament for obtaining information from the overseers of every parish, concerning the poor, benefit societies, &c. He applied to Rickman to assist him in framing the bill; and finally requested him to get some one to make an abstract, to present to parliament, of the returns made by the overseers. This office Rickman has desired me to undertake. He states to me a variety of inducements; such as my being in London, getting much information on a subject which interests me; and in short, I have agreed to undertake it. Rickman says it will take me three months. I am to have eight clerks under me, or more if I can employ them. He says there will be twenty thousand returns. He proposes that my expenses should be paid with a douceur of three or otherwise four hundred pounds. I stipulated for the former, but told him the douceur would be the pleasure, I trusted, of being useful to the poor….
This was a rare instance of noble disinterestedness, especially in respect of government transactions.
"London, 16, Abingdon Street, May 24, 1804.
I saw a letter this morning from Coleridge. It was written to Lamb, from Gibraltar. He says his health and spirits are much improved, yet still he feels alarming symptoms about him. He made the passage from England in eleven days. If the wind permitted, they were to sail in two days for Malta. He says he is determined to observe a strict regimen, as to eating and drinking. He has drunk lately only lemonade, with a very small quantity of bottled porter. He anticipates better health than he has enjoyed for many years.
I heard by accident that Giddy was at Davy's. I have not seen Davy for some time.
* * * * *
[Illustration: Portrait of S. T. Coleridge]
* * * * *
If the public "bide their time," there is one memorial, resembling the following, which will infallibly, if not soon, be attached to the busiest and the most celebrated name.
"On Sept. 8, 1837, died at Nether Stowey, Somersetshire, Thomas Poole, Esq. He was one of the magistrates for that county, the duties of which station he discharged through a long course of years with distinguished reputation. In early life the deceased was intimately associated with Coleridge, Lamb, Sir H. Davy, Wordsworth, Southey, and other men of literary endowments, who occasionally made long sojournments at his hospitable residence, and in whose erudite and philosophical pursuits he felt a kindred delight. His usefulness and benevolence have been long recognized, and his loss will be deplored."—Exeter Paper.
It appears that in the spring of 1816, Mr. Coleridge left Mr. Morgan's house at Calne, and, in a desolate state of mind, repaired to London; when the belief remaining strong on his mind, that his opium habits would never be effectually subdued till he had subjected himself to medical restraint, he called on Dr. Adams, an eminent physician, and disclosed to him the whole of his painful circumstances, stating what he conceived to be his only remedy. The doctor being a humane man, sympathized with his patient, and knowing a medical gentleman who resided three or four miles from town, who would be likely to undertake the charge, he addressed the following letter to Mr. Gillman.
"Hatton Garden, April 9, 1816.
Dear sir,
A very learned, but in one respect an unfortunate gentleman, has applied to me on a singular occasion. He has for several years been in the habit of taking large quantities of opium. For some time past he has been endeavouring to break himself of it. It is apprehended his friends are not firm enough, from a dread, lest he should suffer by suddenly leaving it off, though he is conscious of the contrary; and has proposed to me to submit himself to any regimen, however severe. With this view he wishes to fix himself in the house of some medical gentleman, who will have courage to refuse him any laudanum, and under whose assistance, should he be the worse for it, he may be relieved. As he is desirous of retirement, and a garden, I could think of no one so readily as yourself. Be so good as to inform me whether such a proposal is inconsistent with your family arrangements. I should not have proposed it, but on account of the great importance of the character, as a literary man. His communicative temper will make his society very interesting, as well as useful. Have the goodness to favor me with an immediate answer, and believe me, dear sir,
Your faithful humble servant,
Joseph Adams."
The next day Mr. Coleridge called on Mr. Gillman, who was so much pleased with his visitor, that it was agreed he should come to Highgate the following day. A few hours before his arrival, he sent Mr. G. a long letter; the part relating to pecuniary affairs was the following: "With respect to pecuniary remuneration, allow me to say, I must not at least be suffered to make any addition to your family expenses, though I cannot offer anything that would be in any way adequate to my sense of the service; for that indeed there could not be a compensation, as it must be returned in kind by esteem and grateful affection."
This return of esteem and grateful affection for his lodging and board, was generously understood and acceded to, by Mr. Gillman, which, to a medical man in large practice, was a small consideration. Mr. G.'s admiration of Mr. Coleridge's talents soon became so enthusiastic, equally creditable to both parties, that he provided Mr. Coleridge with a comfortable home for nineteen years, even unto his death.
My original intention was, to prepare a memoir as a contribution to Mr. Gillman's "Life of Mr. Coleridge." On my sending the MS. to Mr. Southey, he observed, in his reply, "I apprehend if you send what you have written about Coleridge and opium, it will not be made use of, and that Coleridge's biographer will seek to find excuse for the abuse of that drug."
I afterwards sent the MS. to my friend Mr. Foster, who had ever taken a deep interest in all that concerns Mr. Coleridge. On returning it he thus wrote.
"Stapleton, Dec. 19, 1835.
My dear sir,
I have read through your MS. volume, very much to the cost of my eyes, but it was impossible to help going on, and I am exceedingly obliged to you for favouring me with it;—the more so as there is no prospect of seeing any large proportion of it in print. It is I think about as melancholy an exhibition as I ever contemplated. Why was such a sad phenomenon to come in sight on earth? Was it to abase the pride of human intellect and genius?
You have done excellently well to collect into a permanent substance what must else have gone into oblivion, for no one else could have exhibited even a shadow of it. But now, my dear sir, I hope you are prepared with the philosophy, or by whatever name I should designate the fortitude,—that can patiently bear the frustration of the main immediate purpose of your long and earnest labour.—For you may lay your account that the compiler of the proposed life of Coleridge will admit but a very minor part of what you have thus furnished at his request:—that especially he will not admit what you feel to be the most important, as an emphatic moral lesson, and what it has cost you the most painful resolution to set faithfully forth.
No, my dear sir, the operator of the work will not, will not, will not, let the illustrious philosopher, genius, and poet, so appear. He will get over that stage with a few general expressions, and a few indistinctly presented facts. And then as to the dreadful tragical parts, he will promptly decide that it would be utter profanation to expose them to view in any such unveiled prominence as you have exhibited in your narrative. And then the solemn warning and example will be nearly kept out of sight. Quite naturally that this would be the course adopted, unless the compiler were, like yourself, intent, as his first and highest obligation, on doing faithful homage to truth, virtue, and religion. How I despise biography, as the business is commonly managed. I cannot believe that Coleridge's dreadful letters of confession will be admitted in their own unmodified form; though they ought to be. Most truly yours,
John Foster."
These combined intimations led me to stipulate that, whatever else was omitted, the opium letters should be printed verbatim. But this being promptly refused, I determined to throw my materials into a separate work.
As this is the last time in which Mr. Southey's name will be mentioned, it is a debt of justice to subjoin the following honourable testimonials.
As an evidence of the estimation in which Mr. Southey was held,—the distinctions awarded to his memory have had few parallels. His friends at Keswick, among whom he resided for thirty years, erected to him in their Church a noble monument, as a permanent memorial of their respect. His friends, in London, placed his bust in Westminster Abbey. Whilst another set of his friends in Bristol (his native city) from respect to his genius, and in admiration of his character, placed a bust of him in their own Cathedral.
Almighty God, by thy eternal Word, my Creator, Redeemer, and Preserver! who hast in thy communicative goodness glorified me with the capability of knowing thee, the only one absolute God, the eternal I Am, as the author of my being, and of desiring and seeking thee as its ultimate end;—who when I fell from thee into the mystery of the false and evil will, didst not abandon me, poor self-lost creature, but in thy condescending mercy didst provide an access and a return to thyself, even to the Holy One, in thine only begotten Son, the way and the truth from everlasting, and who took on himself humanity, yea, became flesh, even the man Christ Jesus, that for man he might be the life and resurrection!—O, Giver of all good gifts, who art thyself the only absolute Good, from whom I have received whatever good I have; whatever capability of good there is in me, and from thee good alone,—from myself and my own corrupted will all evil, and the consequences of evil,—with inward prostration of will, mind, and affections I adore thy infinite majesty; I aspire to love thy transcendant goodness!
In a deep sense of my unworthiness, and my unfitness to present myself before thee, of eyes too pure to behold iniquity, and whose light, the beatitude of spirits conformed to thy will, is a consuming fire to all vanity and corruptions;—but in the name of the Lord Jesus, of the dear Son of thy love, in whose perfect obedience thou deignest to behold as many as have received the seed of Christ into the body of this death;—I offer this my bounden nightly sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, in humble trust that the fragrance of my Saviour's righteousness may remove from it the taint of my mortal corruption. Thy mercies have followed me through all the hours and moments of my life; and now I lift up my heart in awe and thankfulness for the preservation of my life through the past day, for the alleviation of my bodily sufferings and languors, for the manifold comforts which thou hast reserved for me, yea, in thy fatherly compassion hast rescued from the wreck of my own sins or sinful infirmities;—for the kind and affectionate friends thou hast raised up for me, especially for those of this household, for the mother and mistress of this family, whose love to me has been great and faithful, and for the dear friend, the supporter and sharer of my studies and researches; but above all for the heavenly Friend, the crucified Saviour, the glorified Mediator, Christ Jesus, and for the heavenly Comforter, source of all abiding comforts, thy Holy Spirit! that I may with a deeper faith, a more enkindled love, bless thee, who through thy Son hast privileged me to call thee Abba Father! O thou who hast revealed thyself in thy word as a God that hearest prayer; before whose infinitude all differences cease, of great and small; who like a tender parent foreknowest all our wants, yet listenest, well-pleased, to the humble petitions of thy children; who hast not alone permitted, but taught us to call on thee in all our needs,—earnestly I implore the continuance of thy free mercy, of thy protecting providence through the coming night.
Thou hearest every prayer offered to thee believingly with a penitent and sincere heart. For thou in withholding grantest, healest in inflicting the wound, yea, turnest all to good for as many as truly seek thee through Christ the Mediator! Thy will be done! But if it be according to thy wise and righteous ordinances, O shield me this night from the assaults of disease, grant me refreshment of sleep, unvexed by evil and distempered dreams; and if the purpose and aspiration of my heart be upright before thee who alone knowest the heart of man, O, in thy mercy, vouchsafe me yet in this my decay of life, an interval of ease and strength, if so,—thy grace disposing and assisting—I may make compensation to thy church for the unused talents thou hast entrusted to me, for the neglected opportunities which thy loving-kindness had provided. O let me be found a labourer in thy vineyard, though of the late hour, when the Lord and Heir of the vintage, Christ Jesus calleth for his servant.—Lit. Rem.
Mr. Coleridge wrote, in his life-time, his own epitaph, as follows:—
"Stop, Christian passer-by: stop, child of God,And read, with gentle breast. Beneath this sodA poet lies, or that which once seemed he—O, lift a thought in prayer for S. T. C.That he who many a year with toil of breathFound death in life, may here find life in death;Mercy for praise-to be forgiven for fameHe asked, and hoped through Christ. Do thou the same."
A handsome tablet, erected in Highgate New Church, to his memory, bears the following inscription:—
"Sacred to the Memory of
Poet, Philosopher, Theologian.This truly great and good man resided forThe last nineteen years of his life,In this Hamlet.He quitted 'the body of his death,'July 25th, 1834,In the sixty-second year of his age.Of his profound learning and discursive genius,His literary works are an imperishable record.To his private worth,His social and Christian virtues,
The friends with whom he residedDuring the above period, dedicate this tablet.Under the pressure of a longAnd most painful disease,His disposition was unalterably sweet and angelic.He was an ever-enduring, ever-loving friend,The gentlest and kindest teacher,The most engaging home-companion.
'Oh, framed for calmer times and nobler hearts;O studious poet, eloquent fortruth!Philosopher contemning wealth and death,Yet docile, child-like, full of life and love.'
On this monumental stone, thy friends inscribe thy worth,Reader, for the world mourn.A Light has passed away from the earth!But for this pious and exalted Christian,'Rejoice, and again I say unto you, rejoice!'"UbiThesaurusibiCor.S. T. C.
* * * * *
The name of John Henderson having appeared in several parts of the preceding memoir, and as, from his early death, he is not known in the Literary World, I here present a brief notice of this extraordinary man, reduced from the longer account which appeared in my "Malvern Hills," &c.
John Henderson, was born at Limerick, but came to England early in life with his parents. From the age of three years, he discovered the presages of a great mind. Without retracing the steps of his progression, a general idea may be formed of them, from the circumstance of his havingprofessionallyTAUGHT GREEK and LATIN in a public Seminary[112] at the age of twelve years.
Some time after, his father commencing a Boarding-school in the neighbourhood of Bristol, young HENDERSON undertook to teach the classics; which he did with much reputation, extending, at the same time, his own knowledge in the sciences and general literature, to a degree that rendered him a prodigy of intelligence.
At the age of eighteen, by an intensity of application, of which few persons can conceive, he had not only thoughtfully perused all the popular English authors, of later date, but taken an extensive survey of foreign literature. He had also waded through the folios of the SCHOOLMEN, as well as scrutinized, with the minutest attention, the more obsolete writers of the last three centuries; preserving, at the same time, a distinguishing sense of their respective merits, particular sentiments, and characteristic traits; which, on proper occasions, he commented upon, in a manner that astonished the learned listener, not more by his profound remarks, than by his cool and sententious eloquence.
So surprisingly retentive was his memory, that he never forgot what he had once learned; nor did it appear that he ever suffered even an Image to be effaced from his mind; whilst the ideas which he had so rapidly accumulated, existed in his brain, not as a huge chaos, but in clear and well-organized systems, illustrative of every subject, and subservient to every call. It was this quality which made him so superior a disputant; for as his mind had investigated the various sentiments and hypotheses of men, so had his almost intuitive discrimination stripped them of their deceptive appendages, and separated fallacies from truth, marshalling their arguments, so as to elucidate or detect each other. But in all his disputations, it was an invariable maxim with him never to interrupt the most tedious or confused opponents, though, from his pithy questions, he made it evident, that, from the first, he anticipated the train and consequences of their reasonings.
His favourite studies were, Philology, History, Astronomy, Medicine, Theology, Logic, and Metaphysics, with all the branches of Natural and Experimental Philosophy; and that his attainments were not superficial, will be readily admitted by those who knew him best.—As a Linguist, he was acquainted with the Persian, Arabic, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin languages; together with the French, Spanish, Italian, and German; and he not only knew their ruling principles and predominant distinctions, so as to read them with facility, but in the greater part conversed fluently.
About the age of twenty-two, he accidentally met with the acute and learned Dr. Tucker, Dean of Gloucester, in a stage coach, who soon discovered the superiority of his companion, and after a reasonable acquaintance, in which the opinion he had at first entertained of John Henderson's surprising genius was amply confirmed, he wrote to his father, urging him to send a young man of such distinguished talents to an UNIVERSITY, where only they could expand, or be rightly appreciated; and, in the most handsome way, he accompanied this request with a present of TWO HUNDRED POUNDS. Such an instance of generosity, will confer lasting credit on the name of DEAN TUCKER.
On John Henderson's arrival at Oxford, he excited no small degree of surprise among his tutors, who very naturally inquired his reason for appearing at that place, and, as might be supposed, were soon contented to learn, where they had been accustomed to teach.[113]
It might be stated also, the late Edmund Rack, a gentleman possessed of much general knowledge, and antiquarian research, and whose materials for the "History of Somersetshire," formed the acknowledged basis of Collinson's valuable History of that county, thus expressed himself, in writing to a friend in London.
"My friend, Henderson, has lately paid me a visit, and stayed with me three weeks. I never spent a three weeks so happily, or so profitably. He is the only person I ever knew who seems to be a complete master of every subject in literature, arts, sciences, natural philosophy, divinity; and of all the books, ancient and modern, that engage the attention of the learned; but it is still more wonderful, that at the age of twelve, he should have been master of the Latin and Greek; to which he subsequently added, the Hebrew, Italian, Spanish, German, Persian, and Syriac languages; and also, all the ancient rabbinical learning of the Jews, and the divinity of the fathers; this was, however, the case. The learned DR. KENNICOTT told me, four years since, 'That the greatest men he ever knew were mere CHILDREN, compared to HENDERSON.' In company he is ever new. You never hear a repetition of what he has said before. His memory never fails, and his fund of knowledge is inexhaustible."
Dr. Kennicott, (before whom nothing superficial could have stood for a moment,) died in the year 1783, and John Henderson, at the time Dr. K, passed on him this eulogium, could have been only twenty-three years of age! One year after he had entered at Oxford.
Though not of the higher order of attainments, it may not be improper to mention his singular talent for IMITATION. He could not only assume the dialect of every foreign country, but the particular tone of every district of England so perfectly, that he might have passed for a native of either: and of the variations of the human accent in different individuals his recollection was so acute, and the modulation of his voice so varied, that, having once conversed with a person, he could most accurately imitate his gestures and articulation for ever after.[114]
No man had more profoundly traced the workings of the human heart than himself. A long observation on the causes and effects of moral action, with their external symbols, had matured his judgment in estimating the characters of men, and from the fullest evidence, confirmed him in a belief of the Science of PHYSIOGNOMY.
Though the "Physiognomical Sensation," in a greater or less degree, may exist in all, yet the data which support it are so obscure, and at all times so difficult to be defined, that if nature does not make the Physiognomist, study never will: and to be skilled in this science requires the combination of such rare talents, that it cannot excite wonder, either that the unskilful should frequently err, or that the multitude should despise, what they know they can never attain.
But John Henderson's discrimination qualified him to speak of all persons, in judging from their countenances, with an almost infallible certainty: he discovered, in his frequent decisions, not an occasional development of character, but a clear perception of the secondary as well as predominant tendencies, of the mind.
"Making his eye the inmate of each bosom."COLERIDGE.
It would appear like divination, if John Henderson's friends were to state the various instances they have known of that quick discernment which he possessed, that, as it were, penetrated the veil of sense, and unfolded to him the naked and unsophisticated qualities of the soul. There are many who will cordially admit the fact, when it is said, that, his eye was scarcely the eye of a man. There was a luminousness in it—a calm but piercing character, which seemed to partake more of the nature of spirit than of humanity.
His conversation was such as might have been expected from a man whose fancy was so creative, whose knowledge omnifarious, and whose recollection so unbounded. He combined scholastic accuracy with unaffected ease; condensed and pointed, yet rich and perspicuous. Were it possible for his numerous friends, by any energy of reminiscence, to collect his discourse, John Henderson would be distinguished as a voluminous author, who yet preserved a Spartan frugality of words.
His contemporaries at Oxford well remember, the enthusiasm with which every company received him; and his friends, in that University, consisted of all who were eminent for either talent or virtue.
It would be injustice to his memory not to mention the great marks of attention which were paid him, and the high estimation in which he was held by the late Edmund Burke and Dr. Johnson; the former of whom strenuously urged him either to apply to the bar, or to the church, and told him, that, in that case, it was impossible to doubt, but that he would become either a judge or a bishop. Such was the great lexicographer's admiration, also, of John Henderson, that in his annual visits to Oxford, to whatever company he was invited, he always stipulated for the introduction of his young friend, John Henderson,[115] which, in the result, converted a favour into an obligation. It might be named also, that many of the heads of colleges and other eminent characters, habitually attended hisevening parties; an honour unknown to have been conferred before on any otherunder-graduate.