There is one part of Coleridge's character not to be passed by, although so overlaid by his genius as rarely to be noticed, namely, his love of humour and of wit, of which he possessed so large a share. As punsters, his dear friend Lamb and himself were inimitable. Lamb's puns had oftener more effect, from the impediment in his speech their force seemed to be increased by the pause of stuttering, and to shoot forth like an arrow from a strong bow — but being never poisoned nor envenomed, they left no pain behind. Coleridge was more humorous than witty in making puns — and in repartee, he was, according to modern phraseology, "smart and clever." Staying a few days with two friends at a farm-house, they agreed to visit a race-course in the neighbourhood. The farmer brought from his stud a horse low in stature, and still lower in flesh — a bridle corresponding in respectability of appearance, with a saddle equally suitable — stirrups once bright, but now deeply discoloured by rust. All this was the contrivance of the farmer, and prudently intended for his safety. He had heard previously of Coleridge's want of skill in riding, and had therefore provided him with a beast not likely to throw him. On this Rosinante the poet mounted, in his accustomed dress, namely, a black coat, black breeches, with black silk stockings and shoes. His friends being trusted with more active steeds, soon outstripped him. Jogging on leisurely he was met by a long-nosed knowing-looking man, attired in a
sporting
dress, and an excellent equestrian. Seeing this whimsical horseman in shoes, he writhed, as Coleridge observed, his lithe proboscis, and thus accosted him:
Pray, sir, did you meet a tailor along the road?"
"A tailor?" answered Coleridge; "yes!"
"Do you see, sir! he rode just such a horse as you ride! and for all the world was just like you!"
"Oh! oh!" answered Coleridge, "I did meet a person answering such a description, who told me he had dropped his goose, that if I rode a little farther I should find it; and I guess by the arch-fellow's looks, he must have meant you."
"Caught a tartar!" replied the man, and suddenly spurring his horse, left him to pursue his road. At length Coleridge reached the race-course, when threading his way through the crowd, he arrived at the spot of attraction to which all were hastening. Here he confronted a barouche and four, filled with smart ladies and attendant gentlemen. In it was also seated a baronet of sporting celebrity, steward of the course, and member of the House of Commons, well known as having been bought and sold in several parliaments. The baronet eyed the figure of Coleridge as he slowly passed the door of the barouche, and thus accosted him:
"A pretty piece of blood, sir, you have there?"
"Yes!" answered Coleridge.
"Rare paces, I have no doubt, sir!"
"Yes," said Coleridge he brought me here a matter of four miles an hour."
He was at no loss to perceive the honourable member's drift, who wished to shew off before the ladies: so he quietly waited the opportunity of a suitable reply.
"What a fore-hand he has!" continued Nimrod, "how finely he carries his tail! Bridle and saddle well suited! and appropriately appointed!"
"Yes," said Coleridge.
"Will you sell him?" asked the sporting baronet.
"Yes!" was the answer, "if I can have my price."
"Name your price, then, putting the rider into the bargain!"
This was too pointed to be passed over by a simple answer, and Coleridge was ready.
"My price for the
horse, sir
, if I sell him, is
one hundred
guineas, — as to the
rider
, never having been in parliament, and never intending to go,
his
price is not yet fixed."
The baronet sat down more suddenly than he had risen — the ladies began to titter — while Coleridge quietly left him to his chagrin, and them to the enjoyment of their mirth.
We are now arrived at that period of Coleridge's life, in which it may be said, he received his first great warning of approaching danger. But it will be necessary to review his previous state of health. From childhood he discovered strong symptoms of a feeble stomach. As observed in the account of his school experience, when compelled to turn over the shoes in the shoe closet, exhausted by the fatigue, and overpowered by the scent, he suffered so much, that in after years the very remembrance almost made him shudder. Then his frequent bathing in the New River was an imprudence so injurious in its consequences, as to place him for nearly twelve months in the sick ward in the hospital of the school, with rheumatism connected with jaundice. These, to a youthful constitution, were matters of so serious a nature, as to explain to those acquainted with disease the origin and cause of his subsequent bodily sufferings. His sensitiveness was consequent on these, and so was his frequent incapability of continuous sedentary employment — an employment requiring far stronger health in an individual whose intellectual powers were ever at work. When overwhelmed at College, by that irresistible alarm and despondency which caused him to leave it, and to enlist as a soldier in the army, he continued in such a state of bodily ailment as to be deprived of the power of stooping, so that
Cumberback
, — a thing unheard of before, — was compelled to depute another to perform this part of his duty. On his voyage to Malta, he had complained of suffering from shortness of breath; and on returning to his residence at the Lakes, his difficulty of breathing and his rheumatism increased to a great degree. About the year 1809, ascending Skiddaw with his younger son, he was suddenly seized in the chest, and so overpowered as to attract the notice of the child. After the relation of these circumstances to some medical friend, he was advised by him not to bathe in the sea. The love, however, which he had from a boy, for going into the water, he retained till a late period of life. Strongly impressed with this feeling, he seems to have written the poem, entitled
OnRevisiting the Sea Shore:
"Dissuading spake the mild physician,Those briny waves for thee are death,But my soul fulfilled her mission,And lo! I breathe untroubled breath."24
In the year 1810, he left the Lakes, in company with Mr. Basil Montagu, whose affectionate regard for Mr. Coleridge, though manifested upon every occasion, was more particularly shown in seasons of difficulty and affliction. By Coleridge, Mr. Montagu's friendship was deeply felt, — and his gentle manners and unremitted kindness had the most soothing effect upon the sensitive and grateful mind of Coleridge. He remained for some time at Mr. Montagu's house. He afterwards resided at Hammersmith, with an amiable and common friend of his and Mr. Southey's, — Mr. Morgan, with whom they had formed an intimacy in Bristol. Whilst here he delivered a course of lectures at the London Philosophical Society. The prospectus was as follows:—
"Mr. Coleridge will commence, on Monday, November 18, 1811, a Course of Lectures on Shakspeare and Milton, in illustration of the principles of poetry, and their application, as grounds of criticism, to the most popular works of later English Poets, those of the living included. After an introductory lecture on False Criticism (especially in poetry), and on its causes; two thirds of the remaining course will be assigned,1st, to a philosophical analysis, and explanation of all the principalcharactersof our great dramatist, as Othello, Falstaff, Richard the Third, Iago, Hamlet, &c.; and2nd, to a criticalcomparisonof Shakspeare, in respect of diction, imagery, management of the passions, judgment in the construction of his dramas, in short, of all that belongs to him as a poet, and as a dramatic poet, with his contemporaries or immediate successors, Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Ford, Massinger, &c. in the endeavour to determine what of Shakspeare's merits and defects are common to him, with other writers of the same age, and what remain peculiar to his own genius.The course will extend to fifteen lectures, which will be given on Monday and Thursday evenings successively."
Mr. Coleridge afterwards delivered another course of lectures at the Royal Institution.
Dr
. Dibdin, one of his auditors, gives the following account of the lecturer:
25
"Itwas during my constant and familiar intercourse with Sir T. Bernard, while 'The Director' was going on, that I met the celebrated Mr. Coleridge — himself a lecturer. He was not aconstantlecturer — not in constant harness like others for the business of the day. Indisposition was generally preying upon him,26and habitual indolence would now and then frustrate the performance of his own better wishes. I once came from Kensington in a snow-storm, to hear him lecture upon Shakspeare. I might have sat as wisely and more comfortably by my own fire-side — for no Coleridge appeared. And this I think occurred more than once at the Royal Institution. I shall never forget the effect his conversation made upon me at the first meeting. It struck me as something not only quite out of the ordinary course of things, but as an intellectual exhibition altogether matchless. The viands were unusually costly, and the banquet was at once rich and varied; but there seemed to be no dish like Coleridge's conversation to feed upon — and no information so varied and so instructive as his own. The orator rolled himself up, as it were, in his chair, and gave the most unrestrained indulgence to his speech, and how fraught with acuteness and originality was that speech, and in what copious and eloquent periods did it flow! The auditors seemed to be rapt in wonder and delight, as one conversation, more profound or clothed in more forcible language than another, fell from his tongue. A great part of the subject discussed at the first time of my meeting Mr. Coleridge, was the connexion between Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton. The speaker had been secretary to Sir Alexander Ball, governor of Malta — and a copious field was here afforded for the exercise of his colloquial eloquence. For nearly two hours he spoke with unhesitating and uninterrupted fluency. As I retired homewards (to Kensington), I thought a second Johnson had visited the earth, to make wise the sons of men; and regretted that I could not exercise the powers of a second Boswell, to record the wisdom and the eloquence which had that evening flowed from the orator's lips. It haunted me as I retired to rest. It drove away slumber: or if I lapsed into sleep, there was Coleridge — his snuffbox, and his 'kerchief before my eyes! — his mildly beaming looks — his occasionally deep tone of voice — and the excited features of his physiognomy. — The manner of Coleridge was rather emphatic than dogmatic, and thus he was generally and satisfactorily listened to. It might be said of Coleridge, as Cowper has so happily said of Sir Philip Sidney, that he was 'the warbler of poetic prose.' There was alwaysthischaracteristic feature in his multifarious conversation — it was delicate, reverend, and courteous. The chastest ear could drink in no startling sound; the most serious believer never had his bosom ruffled by one sceptical or reckless assertion. Coleridge was eminently simple in his manner. Thinking and speaking were his delight; and he would sometimes seem, during the more fervid movements of discourse, to be abstracted from all and every thing around and about him, and to be basking in the sunny warmth of his own radiant imagination."
The manuscript of
The Remorse
was sent to Mr. Sheridan, who did not even acknowledge the receipt of the letter which accompanied the drama; he however observed to a friend, that he had received a play from Coleridge, but that there was one extraordinary line in the Cave Scene,
drip, drip
— which he could not understand: "in short," said he, "it is all dripping." This was the only notice he took of the play; but the comment was at length repeated to the author, through the medium of a third party. The theatre falling afterwards into the hands of Lord Byron and Mr. Whitbread, his Lordship sent for Coleridge, was very kind to his brother poet, and requested that the play might be represented: this desire was complied with, and it received his support.
Although
Mr. Whitbread
27
did not give it the advantage of a single new scene, yet the popularity of the play was such, that the principal actor, who had performed in it with great success, made choice of it for his benefit-night, and it brought an overflowing house.
28
In consequence of the interest Lord Byron took in the success of this tragedy, Coleridge was frequently in his company, and on one occasion, in my presence, his Lordship said, "Coleridge, there is one passage in your poems, I have parodied fifty times, and I hope to live long enough to parody it five hundred." That passage I do not remember; but it may strike some reader.
In a letter of Coleridge's to a friend, written April 10th, 1816, he thus speaks of Byron:
"If you had seen Lord Byron, you could scarcely disbelieve him — so beautiful a countenance I scarcely ever saw — his teeth so many stationary smiles — his eyes the open portals of the sun — things of light, and for light — and his forehead so ample, and yet so flexible, passing from marble smoothness into a hundred wreathes and lines and dimples correspondent to the feelings and sentiments he is uttering."
Coleridge, in the preface to
The Remorse
, states that the
"tragedy was written in the summer and autumn of the year 1797, at Nether Stowey, in the county of Somerset. By whose recommendation, and of the manner in which both the play and the author were treated by the recommender, let me be permitted to relate: that I knew of its having been received only from a third person; that I could procure neither answer nor the manuscript; and that but for an accident, I should have had no copy of the work itself. That such treatment would damp a young man's exertions may be easily conceived: there was no need of after-misrepresentation and calumny, as an additional sedative."
Coleridge contributed many pieces to Southey's
Omniana
, (all marked with an asterisk,) and was engaged in other literary pursuits; he had notwithstanding much bodily suffering. The
cause
of this was the organic change slowly and gradually taking place in the structure of the heart itself.
But
it was so masked by other sufferings, though at times creating despondency, and was so generally overpowered by the excitement of animated conversation, as to leave its real cause undiscovered.
29
Notwithstanding this sad state, he rolled forth volumes from a mind ever active — at times intensely so, — still he required the support of those sympathies which "free the hollow heart from paining."
Soon after the performance of
The Remorse
, he retired with his kind friend, Mr. Morgan, to the village of Calne, partly to be near the Rev. W.L. Bowles, whose sonnets so much attracted his attention in early life. While residing here, he opened a communication with Mr. Gutch, a bookseller, at Bristol, and in consequence, he collected the poems published by the title of
The Sibylline Leaves
, and also composed the greater part of the
Biographia Literaria
. Here he likewise dictated to his friend, Mr. Morgan, the
Zapolya
, which was submitted to Mr. Douglas Kinnaird, who was then the critic for Drury Lane. — Mr. Kinnaird rejected the play, assigning some ludicrous objections to the metaphysics. The subject is alluded to by Coleridge at the end of the Biographia Literaria, and with that allusion I close the present chapter:
O we are querulous creatures! Little lessThan all things can suffice to make us happy:And little more than nothing is enoughTo make us wretched.
Footnote 1:
Alas! for myself at least I know and feel, that wherever there is a wrong not to be forgiven, there is a grief that admits neither of cure nor comforting.
Private Record, 1806.
return to footnote mark
Footnote 2:
It appears that Mr. Alexander Macauley, the secretary, an honest and amiable man, died suddenly, without "moan or motion," and Coleridge filled his situation till the arrival of a new secretary, appointed and confirmed by the ministers in England.
return
Footnote 3:
1805.
"For months past so incessantly employed in official tasks, subscribing, examining, administering oaths, auditing," &c.
return
Footnote 4:
April 22, 1804.
"I was reading when I was taken ill, and felt an oppression of my breathing, and convulsive snatching in my stomach and limbs. Mrs. Ireland noticed this laborious breathing."
return
Footnote 5:
I would fain request the reader to peruse the poem, entitled
A Tombless Epitaph,
to be found in Coleridge's
Poetical Works
, 1834, page 200.
return
Footnote 6:
Coleridge when asked what was the difference between fame and reputation, would familiarly reply, "Fame is the fiat of the good and wise," and then with energy would quote the following beautiful lines from Milton: —
Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,Nor in the glistering foilSet off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies:But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes,And perfect witness of all-judging Jove;As he pronounces lastly on each deed,Of so much fame in Heaven expect thy meed.
Lycidas
.
return
Footnote 7:
"The following memoranda written in pencil, and apparently as he journeyed along, but now scarcely legible, may perhaps have an interest for some readers: —
"Sunday, December 15th, 1805."Naples, view of Vesuvius, the Hail-mist — Torre del Greco — bright amid darkness — the mountains above it flashing here and there from their snows; but Vesuvius, it had not thinned as I have seen at Keswick, but the air so consolidated with the massy cloud curtain, that it appeared like a mountain in basso relievo, in an interminable wall of some pantheon."
return
Footnote 8:
The order for Coleridge's arrest had already been sent from Paris, but his escape was so contrived by the good old Pope, as to defeat the intended indulgence of the Tyrant's vindictive appetite, which would have preyed equally on a Duc D'Enghien, and a contributor to a public journal. In consequence of Mr. Fox having asserted in the House of Commons, that the rupture of the Truce of Amiens had its origin in certain essays written in the
Morning Post
, which were soon known to have been Coleridge's, and that he was at Rome within reach, the ire of Buonaparte was immediately excited.
return
Footnote 9:
Though his Note Books are full of memoranda, not an entry or date of his arrival at Rome is to be found. To Rome itself and its magnificence, he would often refer in conversation. Unfortunately there is not a single document to recall the beautiful images he would place before your mind in perspective, when inspired by the remembrance of its wonder-striking and splendid objects. He however preserved some short essays, which he wrote when in Malta, Observations on Sicily, Cairo, &c. &c. political and statistical, which will probably form part of the literary remains in train of publication.
Malta, on a first view of the subject, seemed to present a situation so well fitted for a landing place, that it was intended to have adopted this mode, as in
The Friend,
of dividing the present memoir; but this loss of MS. and the breaches of continuity, render it impracticable.
return
Footnote 10:
At this time all his writings were strongly tinctured with Platonism.
return
Footnote 11:
Each party claimed him as their own; for party without principles must ever be shifting, and therefore they found his opinions sometimes in accordance with their own, and sometimes at variance. But he was of no party — his views were purely philosophical.
return
Footnote 12:
The character of Buonaparte was announced in the same paper.
return
Footnote 13:
Those who spoke after Pitt were Wilberforce, Tierney, Sheridan, &c.
return
Footnote 14:
This speech of Mr. Pitt's is extracted from the
Morning Post,
February 18th, 1800.
return
Footnote 15:
The following exquisite image on Leighton was found in one of Coleridge's note books, and is also inserted in his
Literary Remains
:
"Next to the inspired Scriptures, yea, and as the vibration of that once struck hour remaining on the air, stands Archbishop Leighton's commentary on the first epistle of Peter."
return
Footnote 16:
In his later days, Mr. Coleridge would have renounced the opinions and the incorrect reasoning of this letter.
return
Footnote 17:
Article ii:
The Son which is the word of the Father,begottenfrom Everlasting of the Father, &c.
Art. v:
The Holy Ghostproceedingfrom the Father and the Son, &c.
return
Footnote 18:
It was a favourite citation with Mr. Coleridge,
"I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one."
Vide
St. John, xvii. 2.
return
Footnote 19:
At Mr. Poole's house, Mr. De Quincey remained two days. Of his visit he gives a full account; at the same time charging Coleridge with the meanness of plagiarism, but which charges since their publication have been ably refuted in an article in the
British Magazine
, signed J. C. H.
Vide
No. 37, page 15.
return
Footnote 20:
Vide Tait's Magazine
, No. 8.
return
Footnote 21:
These have not been found.
return
Footnote 22:
This little Paper Book has not yet been found.
return
Footnote 23:
In the
Quarterly Review
for July, 1837, will be found an able article on the
Literary Remains of S.T. Coleridge,
and on "Mr. Cottle's Early Recollections," in which are extracted these very paragraphs from the
Friend
, but which had been sent to the press before this number appeared.
return
Footnote 24: