Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 2 / being The Biographical Supplement of Coleridge's Biographia Literaria

INDEX

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

goes to Birmingham to see the father of Charles Lloyd, 89;

his first child is born, 90;

quarrels with and is reconciled to Southey, 92;

writes his Ode to the Departing Year, and dedicates it to Thomas Poole, 112;

removes early in January 1797 to Stowey, Somersetshire, 121;

engages to publish a revised edition of his Poems, 122;

and sends poems to Cottle for his criticisms, 125;

invited by Sheridan to write a Tragedy, 127;

writes a curious letter to George Catcott of the Bristol Library, 128;

commences his tragedy Osorio, 129;

has a droll dialogue with a countrywoman, 132;

writes a humorous letter to Cottle about mice, 133;

meets Dorothy Wordsworth, and describes her to Cottle, 136;

meets John Thelwall, the democrat, 138–9;

goes to London with Osorio, 140;

meets W. Linley, Sheridan’s brother-in-law and secretary, 141;

his Osorio rejected by Sheridan, 142;

is offered but declines £100 from Thomas Wedgwood, 143;

has conferred on him a pension of £150 a year from Thomas and Josiah Wedgwood, 144;

his omnivorous reading, 146;

along with Wordsworth projects and publishes the volume of the Lyrical Ballads, 147;

anecdote of how the three bards were taught a lesson by a servant wench, 148;

projects a Third Edition of his Poems, 153–4;

has an estrangement with Charles Lamb

and Charles Lloyd, 161;

his second child born, 162;

visits Germany, 162;

ascends the Brocken, 167;

projects to write a life of Lessing, 180;

returns to England, 182;

works along with Southey and publishes The Devil’s Thoughts, 182;

visits Ottery and Stowey and Sockburn, and meets Sarah Hutchinson, 182;

contributes to the Morning Post, 185;

meets Godwin, 185;

translates Schiller’s Wallenstein, 185;

meets Horne Tooke, 188;

leaves London for Stowey, 193;

settles at Greta Hall, Keswick, 197;

adventure of, among the mountains, 210;

projects a work on the Rise and Condition of the German Boors, 216;

makes pedestrian tours with the Wordsworths, 219;

proposes to study chemistry, 222;

proposes to write an essay Concerning Poetry and the Nature of the Pleasure derived from it, 223;

meets John Stoddart and gives him a copy of Christabel, 228;

laments the loss of his Poetic Faculty, 229;

his ideal of The Permanent, 233–6;

in ill health, 243;

thinks of emigrating, 248;

visited by Samuel Rogers, 249;

goes again to London, 251;

his projected Epic, The Siege of Jerusalem, 254;

caught in a tempest among the hills, 258–9;

translates Gessner’s Erste Schiffer, 269;

publishes a Third Edition of his Poems, 270;

goes on a tour to Wales with Tom Wedgwood, 270;

goes on a tour to Scotland with William and Dorothy Wordsworth, 270;

projects a work on Logic, 271;

writes again for the Morning Post, 275;

projects a Bibliotheca Britannica, 279;

lives with the Wordsworths (1803), 288;

back to London, 289;

invited by John Stoddart to Malta, 295;

sails for Malta, ii, 1;

reaches Valetta, 18th May 1804, 3;

becomes acquainted with Sir Alexander Ball, 3;

made interim-government secretary of Malta, 3;

visits Sicily and ascends Etna, 4;

goes to Rome and meets Baron Von Humboldt, Ludwig Ticck, Washington Allston, Canova and Washington Irving, 6;

returns to England, August 1806, 6–8;

goes to Coleorton and hears Wordsworth’s Prelude read, 8;

visits Poole at Stowey in 1807, 9;

writes a long Theological Letter to Joseph Cottle, 13;

offered £300 by Thomas De Quincey, 27;

delivers Lectures in 1808 at the Royal Institution on Poetry, Shakespeare, etc., 33;

meets Dr. Andrew Bell, founder of the Madras system of Education, and injudiciously attacks Lancaster, 34;

meets Mary Evans (Mrs. Todd) his early sweetheart (1804–8), 36–7;

projects and publishes the Friend, 38–65;

writes Letters to the Courier in support of the Spaniards, 65;

has a quarrel with Wordsworth, 66–73;

his translation of Gessner’s First Mariner, 68–70;

drifts away from his wife, 100–3;

leaves the

Country in the Spring of 1812, 103;

delivers Lectures 12th May to 3rd June, at Willis’s Rooms, 116;

gives a fourth course of Lectures between 3rd November 1812 and 29th January 1813, 116;

meets Madame de StaËl, 117;

goes to Bristol and delivers his fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth courses of Lectures, October 1813-April 1814, 117;

corresponds with Cottle about his Opium habit, 117–30;

projects a translation of Goethe’s Faust, 136;

contributes Essays on the Fine Arts to Felix Farley’s Bristol Journal, 136;

physical cause of his inability to carry out his many projects, 137–9;

his political change from Radicals to temperate Conservatism, 78, 79, 136, 178, 180, 183, 219.

Matthisson’s Milesisches MÄrchen, ii, 111.

Meteyard, Miss Eliza (1816–1879), her Group of Englishmen, Preface, x, xvii; ii, 140.

Method, Essay on, ii, 165.

Meynell, Mrs. Alice, Coleridge’s Poems, Preface, xx.

Michael, poem by Wordsworth, i, 229.

Middleton, Bishop (Thomas Fanshaw), 1769–1822, at College with Coleridge, ii, 301.

Mill, John Stuart, Dissertations and Discussions, Preface, xvii.

Milner and Sowerby’s Edition of Coleridge’s Poems, Preface, xviii.

Milton, ii, 119, 153, 209, 222.

Miracles, Coleridge on, ii, 23–4.

Mirror, The, Preface, x.

MoliÈre, ii, 147.

Monkhouse, Thomas, ii, 272.

Montagu, Basil (1770–1851), Coleridge on, i, 189;
- causes the quarrel between Coleridge and Wordsworth, ii, 66–7;
- afterwards on good terms with Coleridge, 246, 262, 279, 288.

Montgomery James, Poet, 1771–1854, meets Coleridge, i, 59.

Monthly Magazine, i, 142, 145.

Monthly Review, Preface, viii; i, 218.

Moore, Dr. (1729–1802), author of Zeluco, ii, 83.

Moore, Thomas, 1779–1852, ii, 272.

Moore’s Lallah Rookh, Coleridge on, ii, 217.

Morgan, John James, Bristol Merchant, befriends Coleridge, i, 52–3; ii, 130, 140-48, 143, 146, 147, 148.

Morgan, Mrs. Mary (Brent), ii, 130, 140.

Morning Chronicle, Preface, viii;
- Coleridge negotiates to write for, i, 83, 85.

Morning Post, Preface, viii;
- Coleridge writes for, i, 183, 187, 191, 200, 205, 234, 251, 253, 270, 275, 286; ii, 77, 78, 79, 80-90, 212.

Murray, John, Publisher, Preface, x;
- Coleridge treats with, for a translation of Faust, ii, 136, 218, 267, 279.

“Myrtle Leaf, that, ill besped,” i, 126; ii, 111.

Nation, The, American Literary Journal, quoted, ii, 298.

Nativity, The, the original of Religious Musings, ii, 10.

Nature’s Lady, by Wordsworth, i, 206.

New Monthly Magazine, i, 110.

New Testament, Commentary on, ii, 298.

New Thoughts on Old Subjects, ii, 113.

Nicholson’s Journal, i, 246.

Nightingale, The, ii, 104, 111.

Night Scene, The, a Dramatic Fragment, by Coleridge, i, 270; ii, 29, 111.

Noble, Coleridge’s Note on, ii, 305.

North British Review, 1865, Biographical Appreciation of Coleridge, Preface, xx.

Northcote, J., Portrait Painter, i, 298.

Norton, E. H., Coleridge’s Poetical and Dramatic Works, Preface, xviii.

Nottingham, Coleridge proposes to settle at, i, 83.

Oberon of Wieland, i, 142.

Ode to the Departin 1.htm.html#Page_30" class="pginternal">30, 41;

on the Friend, 52–7;

on Christabel, 56, 117;

and Cottle on Coleridge’s Opium habit, 125, 131, 137, 212, 290.

Southey, R., Life and Correspondence of, Preface, x, xvi.

Southey, Robert, Selections from the Letters of, Preface, xvi.

Spaniards, Coleridge’s Letters on, ii, 65.

Spectator, The, ii, 65.

Spenser, Edmund, i, 151;
- quoted, ii, 205, 206, 208.

Spinoza, i, 197; ii, 18, 175.

StaËl, Madame De, Coleridge meets in 1813, ii, 117.

Stanhope, Sonnet to Lord, i, 286.

Sterne, Lawrence (1713–1768), ii, 184, 207.

Stoddart, Sir John, obtains a copy of Christabel and reads it to Sir Walter Scott, i, 228;
- invites Coleridge to Malta, 295; ii, 3.

Stowey, Nether, Coleridge settles at, i, 121;
- revisits, 269; ii, 9.

Street, Mr., joint proprietor with Daniel Stuart and editor of the Courier, ii, 81;
- Coleridge on, 90–93.

Stuart, Daniel, proprietor and editor of the Morning Post and Courier, Preface, xi; i, 191, 193, 202, 205, 253, 275, 288;
- Coleridge writes from Malta to, ii, 4;
- Sara Coleridge on, 76–93;
- Letter from Coleridge to, 79;
- on Coleridge, 80;
- on Coleridge and his wife, 102, 136.

Stutfield, Mr., ii, 248–9, 267.

Style, Coleridge on, ii, 65.

Sublime and Beautiful, The, ii, 223.

Sutton, Mr., ii, 219.

Swinburne, A. C., Christabel, and the Lyrical and Imaginative Poems of S. T. Coleridge, Preface, xix.

Symons, Arthur, The Poems of Coleridge, selected and arranged, Preface, xx.

Table Talk, Coleridge’s, origin of, ii, 278, 219–225.

Talfourd, J. Noon (1795–1854), Preface, xvi;
- on Coleridge, i, 115; ii, 278, 279.

Talleyrand to Lord Grenville, i, 184.

Taylor’s History of Enthusiasm, Notes on, ii, 284.

Taylor, Jeremy, Coleridge’s Notes on, ii, 305.

Taylor, Sir Henry, described by Coleridge, ii, 290.

Thalaba, by Southey, i, 240, 243.

Thelwall, John, described by Coleridge, i, 138, 139, 146.

Thomson, James (1700–1748), ii, 153.

Three Graves, The, i, 150;
- extant in 1801, 240;
- probably composed in 1797–8, ii, 112;
- one of Coleridge’s best poems, 293–4.

Tieck, J. Ludwig (1773–1853), Coleridge meets in Rome, ii, 6;
- visits Highgate in 1817, 216.

Time, Real and Imaginary, written early, ii, 110.

Tintern Abbey, by Wordsworth, i, 167.

“Titania Puckinella,” ii, 259, 261, 289, 302.

To an Unfortunate Woman, “Maiden, that with sullen brow,” i, 125.

Tobin, J., i, 244, 245, 245, 291, 296; Letter to, ii, 1.

Todd, Mr. (husband of Mary Evans), ii, 36.

Tombless Epitaph, The, i, 167; ii, CHISWICK PRESS: PRINTED BY CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO.
TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.

FOOTNOTES

[1] [Letters CLI–CXLIII follow 130.]
[2] [Drowned 5th February 1805.]
[3] [The new Secretary.]
[4] [It is quite true that he did induce an American captain to smuggle him on board.]
[5] [Stoddart had retained his MSS. in Malta (for some unaccountable reason), which had disconcerted Coleridge.]
[6] [Staying at the farmhouse near the mansion of Coleorton.]
[7] T. Poole and his Friends, ii, 174–184.
[8] Religious Musings was at first called The Nativity, and sent to Charles Lamb in December 1794 as an unfinished poem. Coleridge wrote to Cottle in one of his short notes, while his first volume of Poems was being put through the press: “The Nativity is not quite three hundred lines. It has cost me much labour in polishing; more than any poem I ever wrote, and I believe it deserves it:” Cottle’s Reminiscences, p. 66. The first 158 lines, down to “This is the Messiah’s destined victory!” were probably written in the spring of 1796. Their spirit is diametrically opposed to the remainder of the poem, in which the Messiah’s victory is to be a political one.
[9] [“Even they will be necessitated to admit, completely exonerated the Jews.”—Early Recollections.]
[10] [“Voluntary actions.”—Early Recollections.
[11] [“Over all our.”—Early Recollections.]
[12] [Perhaps “wearying.”]
[13] [Letter CLXIV is our 137. Letters CLXV–CLXVII follow.]
[14] [Southey’s Life of Bell, p. 575.]
[15] [Letters CLXVIII–CLXX follow 139.]
[16] [Edinburgh Review, No. 12, p. 394, July 1808.]
[17] Copies of Letters from Mr. Savage to Coleridge, and from the latter to the former, respecting the printing and publishing of The Friend.
[18] [Letters CLXXI–CLXXII follow 141.]]
[19] The printer with whom he had been negotiating respecting the bringing out of The Friend.
[20] [Letters CLXXIII–CLXXIV follow 142.]]
[21] [Letters CLXXV–CLXXVI follow 143.]
[22] [This argument is repeated in the next letter, printed in The Friend.]
[23] [Coleridge did not publish this answer.]
[24] [Perhaps Robert Lloyd.]
[25] [Letters CLXXVII–CLXXX follow 146.]
[26] [See Letters, p. 590, and Professor Knight’s Life of Wordsworth, ch. xxv, for full account of the misunderstanding.
[27] [Letter CLXXXI precedes our 147.]
[28] [The whole of this chapter is by Sara Coleridge, whose narrative is now resumed from the beginning of Chapter V.]
[29] In articles on Mr. Coleridge, the Poet, and his Newspaper writings, etc., in the Gentleman’s Magazine of May, June, July, August of 1838.—S. C.
[30] “Short pieces,” Mr. Stuart calls them in the Gentleman’s Magazine. But among them was France, an Ode, which was first published in the M. P. in the beginning of 1798, and republished in the same Paper some years afterwards, and must have helped to give it a decent poetical reputation, I think.—S. C.
[31] Nov. 27, 1799.—S. C.
[32] [No. IV of Gentleman’s Magazine.]
[33] [No. VII of Gentleman’s Magazine.]
[34] [For the full text of this letter, see Letters, CLXXXII.]
[35] [In the Essays on his Own Times, 1850.]
[36] [Letter, 4 June 1811.]
[37] “He never could write a thing that was immediately required of him,” says Mr. S., in the Gentleman’s Magazine, of May, 1838. “The thought of compulsion disarmed him. I could name other able literary men in this unfortunate plight.” One of the many grounds of argument against the sole profession of literature.—S. C.
[38] [Sir Archibald Alison, after having eulogized Sir Walter Scott, Byron, Campbell, Southey, and Moore, and indicated their relationship to the French Revolution, says: “But the genius of these men, great and immortal as it was, did not arrive at the bottom of things. They shared in the animation of passing events, and were roused by the storm which shook the world; but they did not reach the secret caves whence the whirlwind issued, nor perceive what spirit had let loose the tempest upon the earth. In the bosom of retirement, in the recesses of solitary thought, the awful source was discovered, and the Aeolus stood forth revealed in the original Antagonist Power of wickedness. The thought of Coleridge, even during the whirl of passing events, discovered their hidden springs, and poured forth in an obscure style, and to an unheeding age, the great moral truths which were then being proclaimed in characters of fire to mankind.”—History of Europe, chap. lxiv.]
[39] [No. XVII of Gentleman’s Magazine.]
[40] [Letter CCIX is our 151.]
[41] [Letter 32.]
[42] [Letter 43.]
[43] The passage belongs to him as far as “heart’s deep fervency.” It concluded, when first written, with a reference to the unhappy thraldom of his powers, of which I have been speaking; for at that time, says the writer, in a private communication, “he was not so well regulated in his habits and labours afterwards.” The verses are from a Rhymed Plea for Tolerance: in two dialogues, by John Kenyon. I wish that I had space to quote the sweet lines that follow, relating to the author’s own character and feelings, and his childhood passed “in our Carib isle.” They do justice to Mr. Kenyon’s humility and cheerfulness, in what they say of himself, but not to his powers.
[44] [See also Eolian Harp, and Lines written on having left a place of Retirement.]
[45] [After 1812 the pension was reduced by half.]
[46] [The above chapter is by Sara Coleridge.]
[47] [Love, not till second edition of Lyrical Ballads, 1800.]
[48] [Should be 1798. See Letters, p. 245.]
[49] [Letter CXCV is our 152. Letters CLXXXIII-CXCIV precede it in chronological order: Letter CXCVI follows.]
[50] See his Sonnet to Sheridan.—S.C.
[51] [See Letter 136.]
[52] [The original Osorio is republished in Dykes Campbell’s edition of the Poems, p. 479.]
[53] [Should be 1822–1832.]
[54] [Issued in 1834.]
[55] [Many of the dates of the Poems are now ascertained to be different from those in the text of Sara Coleridge.]
[56] [Should be 1797.]
[57] [1800.]
[58] [1797.]
[59] [1806.]
[60] [1802.]
[61] [1799.]
[62] [1797.]
[63] [Should be 1797–1798.]
[64] [1800.]
[65] [1822–1832.]
[66] [1799.]
[67] [1803.]
[68] [1829.]
[69] [1828.]
[70] [Issued in 1848.]
[71] [1795.]
[72] [1815.]
[73] The remarks in that article upon my Father’s remarks on poetic diction I have vainly tried to understand:—“a paste of rich and honeyed words, like the candied coat of the auricula, a glittering tissue of quaint conceits and sparkling metaphors, crusting over the rough stalk of homely thoughts; &c. such is the style of Pope and Gray; such very often is that of Shakespeare and Milton; and, notwithstanding Mr. Coleridge’s decision to the contrary, of Spenser’s FaËry Queen.” Homely thoughts clothed in a glittering tissue of poetic diction are but pseudo-poetry; and the powder on the auricula would be nothing, if the coat itself were not of velvet. Mr. C.’s decision respecting the FaËry Queen is equally misrepresented, for he maintains that Spenser’s language is distinct from that of prose, such language being required by his thoughts and in harmony with them. To say that he decided “the contrary,” as if he had denied poetic diction to Spenser, is not like the auricula’s coat, candid.—S. C.
[74] A Dissenting minister of Bristol [Cottle].]
[75] It is apprehended that this must be a mistake. I sent Mr. Coleridge five guineas for my Shakspeare ticket, and entertain no doubt but that some others did the same. But his remark may refer to some succeeding lectures, of which I have no distinct recollection [Cottle].
[76] A request of permission from Mr. Coleridge, to call on a few of his known friends, to see if we could not raise an annuity for him of one hundred a year, that he might pursue his literary objects without pecuniary distractions [Cottle].
[77] [Estlin.]
[78] A worthy medical Friend of Bristol, who first in that city, interested himself in the establishment of infant schools [Cottle].
[79] [I include the whole of this correspondence with Cottle because fragments only have been printed in biographies of Coleridge.]
[80] In Letters 132 and 133.
[81] This long sentence, between brackets, was struck out by Mr. Southey, in perusing the MS., through delicacy, as it referred to himself; but on the present occasion it is restored [Cottle]. [Cottle submitted the MS. of his Early Recollections to Southey before publication.]
[82] [“And such a dreadful falling abroad.”—Early Recollections.]
[83] [Letter CXCVII is our 158.]
[84] Some supplemental lecture [Cottle.]
[85] These four lines in the edition of Mr. C.’s Poems, published after his death, are oddly enough thrown into the Monody on Chatterton, and form the four opening lines. Many readers may concur with myself in thinking, that the former commencement was preferable; namely,—

“When faint and sad, o’er sorrow’s desert wild,

Slow journeys onward poor misfortune’s child;” etc. [Cottle].

[The lines were first included in the Monody in 1829.]
[86] [The Picture, or the Lover’s Resolution, 1800.]
[87] [Letter CXCVIII is our 162. CXCIX follows.]
[88] [Letter CC is our 163. CCI-CCIV follow.]
[89] [Mr. John Mackinnon Robertson, in New Essays towards a Critical Method, 1897, employs this epithet to describe Coleridge.]
[90] This statement requires an explanation, which none now can give. Was the far larger proportion of this £300 appropriated to the discharge of Opium debts? This does not seem unlikely, as Mr. C. lived with friends, and he could contract few other debts [Cottle]. [This note is most misleading. Coleridge’s receipt for the £300 is dated November 12, 1807 (De Quincey Memorials. I, 132). At this time, and for long after it, Coleridge never lived with friends except the Morgans, whom he paid. Cottle’s assumption is baseless.]
[91] “Of the truth of what I say.”—Early Recollections.
[92] [Letters CCV-CCVII follow 165.]
[93] [Coleridge gives a general acknowledgment of indebtedness; and doubtless when he wrote the Biographia he could not always discriminate in his note-books what was Schelling’s and what was his own.]
[94] This is too strong an expression. It was not idleness, it was not sensual indulgence, that led Coleridge to contract this habit. No, it was latent disease, of which sufficient proof is given in this memoir.—[Note by Gillman.]
[95] [Letter CCVIII is our 166.]
[96] [Cottle or Estlin.]
[97] [Letters CCIX-CCXVIII follow 169.]
[98] [Letters CCXIX-CCXXI follow 170.]
[99] [Letter CCXXII follows 172.]
[100] [Wordsworth.]
[101] [CCXXIII is our 173, CCXXIV follows.]
[102] [Letter CCXXV follows 175.]
[103] [Biographia Literaria.]
[104] [Letter CCXXVI follows 176.]
[105] [Letter CCXXVII follows 177.]
[106] [Bohn Library edition of the Friend, p. 344.]
[107] [Lockhart’s Life of Scott, ch. xix, also Memoir of Hartley Coleridge, xxxv, prefixed to Hartley Coleridge’s Poems, 1851.]
[108] [The date of this or Letter 179, given by Allsop, must be wrong, perhaps for 8th read 18th April.]
[109] [An echo of Schiller’s

“a deeper import

Lurks in the legend told my infant years

Than lies upon that truth we live to learn,” etc.

The Piccolomini, Act II, Scene 3.]

[110] [Letter CCXXVIII follows 180.]
[111] Here follows a detail of charges brought against one very near, and deservedly dear, to the writer, originating with, or adopted by the present Bishop of Llandaff. These charges were afterwards, I believe, withdrawn; at all events compensation was tendered to the party implicated [Allsop]. [This refers to Hartley.]
[112] Shepherd’s Calendar. October.
[113] [See Coleridge’s Miscellaneous Works, edited by T. Ashe: Bohn Library.]]
[114] Turn to Milton’s Lycidas, sixth stanza—

Alas! what boots it with incessant care

To tend the homely slighted shepherd’s trade,

And strictly meditate the thankless Muse?

Were it not better done as others use,

To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,

Or with the tangles of NeÆra’s hair?

Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise

(That last infirmity of noble mind)

To scorn delights and live laborious days;

But the fair guerdon when we hope to find,

And think to burst out into sudden blaze,

Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears,

And slits the thin-spun life. But not the praise,

Phoebus replied, and touched my trembling ears;

Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,

Nor on the glistering foil

Set 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 in each deed,

Of so much fame in heav’n expect thy meed.

The sweetest music does not fall sweeter on my ear than this stanza on both mind and ear, as often as I repeat it aloud.]
[115] Neither my Literary Life (2 vols.), nor Sibylline Leaves (1 vol.) nor Friend (3 vols.), nor Lay Sermons, nor Zapolya, nor Christabel, has ever been noticed by the Quarterly Review, of which Southey is yet the main support.
[116] [Shepherd’s Calendar: October.]]
[117] [Letter CCXXIX follows 173.]
[118] [Mrs. Aders was the daughter of Raphael Smith, the engraver. Coleridge’s poem The Two Founts was written to her.]
[119] Let it always be borne in mind, that this and other expressions in these pages were the opinions which he ever expressed to me, and are not to be taken as evidences of doubt generally, but of disbelief in the corruptions of the vulgar Christianity in vogue. [Allsop.]
[120] In after years he excepted Elliot, the smith, though he held his judgment in very slight estimation. [Allsop.]
[121] [This letter is followed in Blackwood by the two letters to a Junior Soph, at Cambridge, republished by T. Ashe in Miscellanies, Authentic and Literary, Bohn Library, pp. 244–260. As these are rather Essays than Letters they are not reproduced in this work.]
[122] Thus in original letter, (Allsop).
[123] Mercury, the god of lucre and selfish ends, patron god of thieves, tradesmen, stock-jobbers, diplomatists, pimps, harlots and go-betweens; the soothing, pacifying god.
[124] [Letter CCXXX follows 198.]]
[125] [Letter to a Young Lady on the Choice of a Husband reprinted in Miscellanies, Aesthetic and Literary, p. 229.]
[126] Great as was the shock my friend sustained from the unkind conduct of the gentlemen here alluded to, it is to me a great solace to be assured that he forgave them fully and entirely. [Allsop.]]
[127] [Perhaps Wordsworth.]
[128]

To me hath Heaven with bounteous hand assigned

Energic Reason and a shaping mind,

The daring ken of Truth, the Patriot’s part,

And Pity’s sigh, that breathes the gentle heart.

Sloth jaundiced all! and from my graspless hand

Drop Friendship’s precious pearls, like hour-glass sand.

I weep, yet stoop not! the faint anguish flows,

A dreamy pang in Morning’s feverish dose.

Is this piled earth our Being’s passless mound?

Tell me, cold grave! is Death with poppies crowned?

Tired sentinel! ’mid fitful starts I nod,

And fain would sleep, though pillowed on a clod.

[129] [The initials are probably Allsop’s.]
[130] [Letter CCXXXI is our 206.]
[131] [Letters CCXXXII-CCXXXIII follow 207.]
[132] [Letter CCXXXIV follows 210.]
[133] [Letters CCXXXV-CCXXXVIII follow 213.]
[134] [1822–23.]
[135] The particulars of this instance of Star Chamber tyranny I read in Aikman’s Life of Archbishop Laud, prefixed to his works. It is said that when he was taken out of the wretched cell in Newgate in which he was confined before his sentence, “the skin and hair had almost wholly come off his body.” This was for writing against Prelacy, not against Christianity. Any man may do the like now and not a hair of his head can be touched; yet moral offences, public or private, have far less chance of escaping with impunity than they had then. [S. C.]
[136] Clarendon, passim, especially his summary of Laud’s character. [S. C.]
[137] [Hyman Hurwitz, see Aldine Edition of the Poems, ii, 248.]
[138] [Letter CCXXXIX follows letter 214.]
[139] [The Essay for the R.S.L. referred to in letter 215 is the Disquisition on the Prometheus of Aeschylus delivered before the Royal Society of Literature on 18th May, 1825. It is one of the most mystical of all Coleridge’s productions.]
[140] [Sir Henry Taylor.]
[141] [Letters CCXL-CCLIX follow 218.]
[142] [The error “Ellen” in line 91 may have arisen from Coleridge having called the heroine Ellen, after that of Lewis’s Ellen of Eglantine, but afterwards having changed that name for Alice in the other stanzas forgetting to alter the word in line 91.]
[143] [Coleridge in his youth was about five feet ten inches in height.]
[144] Journal of a Residence in Scotland and Tour through England, France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. With a Memoir of the Author and Extracts from his Religious Papers. Compiled by Isaac McLellan, jr., Boston, 1834.]
[145] [The Gillmans of Highgate, p. 28.]
[146] [Letter CCLX of E. H. Coleridge’s Letters of S. T. C. is our No. 219.]
[147] [25th July 1834.]
[148] [For the correct dates of the Lectures see p. 167 of this volume.]
[149] [Chapter IV.]
[150] Here seems an allusion to an anti-utilitarian maxim of Bacon’s, which is very expressive of my Father’s turn of mind:—Et tamen quemadmodum luci magnam habemus gratiam, quod per eam vias inire, artes, exercere, legere, nos invicem dignoscere possimus, et nihilominus ipsa visio lucis res praestantior est et pulchrior, quam multiplex ejus usus; ita certe ipsa contemplatio rerum, prout sunt, sine superstitione aut impostura, errore aut confusione, in se ipsa magis digna est, quam universus inventorum fructus. Novum Organum, Part of Aph. CXXIX.
[151] From a volume containing The Search after Proserpine, Recollections of Greece and other Poems by Aubrey de Vere, author of The Fall of Rora.

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