(May, 1798.)

My dear Cottle,

You know what I think of a letter, how impossible it is to argue in it. You must therefore take simple statements, and in a week or two, I shall see you, and endeavour to reason with you.

Wordsworth and I have duly weighed your proposal, and this is an answer.
He would not object to the publishing of "Peter Bell" or the "Salisbury
Plain", singly; but to the publishing of his poems in two volumes, he is
decisively repugnant and oppugnant.

He deems that they would want variety, etc., etc. If this apply in his case, it applies with ten-fold more force to mine. We deem that the volumes offered to you, are, to a certain degree, one work in kind, though not in degree, as an ode is one work; and that our different poems are, as stanzas, good, relatively rather than absolutely: mark you, I say in kind, though not in degree. As to the Tragedy, when I consider it in reference to Shakespeare's, and to "one" other Tragedy, it seems a poor thing, and I care little what becomes of it. When I consider it in comparison with modern dramatists, it rises: and I think it too bad to be published, too good to be squandered. I think of breaking it up; the planks are sound, and I will build a new ship of the old materials.

The dedication to the Wedgwoods, which you recommend, would be indelicate and unmeaning. If, after four or five years, I shall have finished some work of importance, which could not have been written, but in an unanxious seclusion, to them I will dedicate it; for the public will have owed the work to them who gave me the power of that unanxious seclusion.

As to anonymous publications, depend on it, you are deceived. Wordsworth's name is nothing to a large number of persons; mine stinks. The "Essay on Man", the "Botanic Garden", the "Pleasures of Memory", and many other most popular works, were published anonymously. However, I waive all reasoning, and simply state it as an unaltered opinion, that you should proceed as before, with the "Ancient Mariner".

The picture shall be sent.[1] For your love gifts and bookloans accept our hearty love. The "Joan of Arc" is a divine book; it opens lovelily. I hope that you will take off some half dozen of our "Poems" on great paper, even as the "Joan of Arc".

Cottle, my dear Cottle, I meant to have written you an Essay on the Metaphysics of Typography, but I have not time. Take a few hints, without the abstruse reasons for them, with which I mean to favour you. 18 lines in a page, the line closely printed, certainly more closely printed than those of the "Joan";[2] ("Oh, by all means, closer, "W. Wordsworth"") equal ink, and large margins; that is beauty; it may even, under your immediate care, mingle the sublime! And now, my dear Cottle, may God love you and me, who am, with most unauthorish feelings,

Your true friend,

S. T. COLERIDGE.

P.S.—I walked to Linton the day after you left us, and returned on
Saturday. I walked in one day, and returned in one.[3]

[Footnote 1: A portrait of Mr. Wordsworth, correctly and beautifully executed, by an artist then at Stowey; now in my possession. [Cottle's note.]]

[Footnote 2: "Joan of Arc", 4to first edition, had twenty lines in a page. [Cottle.]]

[Footnote 3: Letters LXXXVI-XCII follow 81.]

Coleridge has given his account of the origin of the "Lyrical Ballads" in the fourteenth chapter of the "Biographia Literaria", and Wordsworth's account is found in the Fenwick Note to "We are Seven".

An estrangement with Charles Lamb and Charles Lloyd at this time took place which has been the subject of many surmises as to its origin among the biographers of Coleridge. The coldness with Lamb passed off by the beginning of 1800 when Charles wrote to Coleridge in his customary humorous vein; but Lloyd was not so soon taken back to favour. Southey joined the cabal against Coleridge and encouraged the estrangement; but he too was on friendly terms with Coleridge in the autumn of 1799.

On the l4th May Coleridge's second child was born, named Berkeley, after the idealist philosopher who had now displaced Hartley, who had been in the ascendant when the first child was born.

With the adoption of Berkeley as his pet philosopher, we can understand Coleridge's determination to visit Germany. He had heard rumours of the Kantean Philosophy, and wished to acquire thoroughly a knowledge of the language of the Germans principally to be able to read Kant in the original. This project Coleridge speaks of as early as 6th May, 1796 (Letter 33); but it was only now when he enjoyed the support of the Wedgwoods that he could afford to put it into execution. The volume of "Lyrical Ballads" was published in the early part of the autumn of 1798; and along with William and Dorothy Wordsworth, Coleridge set sail from Yarmouth. John Chester, a resident of Stowey, also accompanied them.

Coleridge arrived at Cuxhaven on 19th September, from which place he wrote Mrs. Coleridge an account of the voyage and his first impressions of Germany. This account is more fully given in the "Letters of Satyrane" in the "Biographia Literaria". He took up his quarters at Ratzeburg, staying with the pastor of that town; while Wordsworth and his sister went to Goslar. From Ratzeburg Coleridge repaired to Gttingen on 12th February, 1799, to attend lectures at the University. He worked hard while in GÖttingen to acquire a knowledge of the literature of Germany, and made himself proficient in the dialects as well as of classical German. He met two of the Parrys, brothers of the Arctic explorer, at Gttingen; and, later, Clement Carlyon, an Englishman from Pembroke College, joined the group. Carlyon afterwards in later life, in his "Early Years and Late Reflections", depicted Coleridge as the life and soul of the party, incessantly talking, discussing, and philosophizing, and diving into his pocket German Dictionary for the right word. Carlyon devotes 270 pages of the first volume of his book to Coleridge.

Berkeley Coleridge died in February, and the news depressed Coleridge and threw his studies for some time into disorder; but the Wordsworths visited him at Gttingen, and they had some talk about the future place of their abode in England. The Wordsworths were desirous of staying in the North of England; but Coleridge at this time had resolved to remain at Stowey, to be near Poole, in whom he felt his "anchor", as he expressed it. (J. Dykes-Campbell's "Life", chap, v.)

Coleridge during his stay in Germany wrote a good many letters to his wife, to Poole, and the Wedgwoods. We can quote only two fragments from those to his wife, and the long one, "Over the Brocken".