It is a strange thing, and could hardly have happened in any country but England, that there is to this day no complete collection or edition of the works of Coleridge—one of the most poetical of our poets, one of the most important of our critics, and one of the most influential, if one of the least methodical and conclusive, of our philosophers. Indeed we never knew what good prose he could write till the fragments called Anima Poetae were published, two-thirds of a century after his death. But that no collected edition of his letters appeared till very shortly before this is explicable without any difficulty. Coleridge's temperament was not heroic, and his correspondence as well as his conduct justified, in regard to much more than his nonage, the ingenious phrase of an American lady-essayist that he must have been "a very beatable child." To a certain extent, however, the correspondence does also justify our adoption (see Introduction) of the charitable theory that enlargement of understanding brings about extension of pardon. And putting this aside, the letters sometimes give us an idea of what his admittedly marvellous conversation (or rather monologue) must have been like. They are not very easy to select from, for their author's singular tendency to divagation affects them. But they sometimes display that humour which he undoubtedly possessed, though his best-known published writings seldom admit of it: and the divagation itself has its advantages. In the following Coleridge appears in curiously different lights. After joking at his own Pantheism he becomes amazingly practical, for it was, as Scott points out somewhere, a fault of Southey's to cling to the system of "half-profits," a fault which often made his enormous labours altogether unprofitable. "I-rise to I-set" = "getting-up to bed-time" seems to have been a favourite quip of his. "Stuart," the Editor of the Morning Post for which Coleridge was then writing. "The Anthology"—an Annual one edited by Southey. As for the Anti-Jacobin libel it was, admirable as was the wit that accompanied it, utterly indefensible; for it accused Coleridge of having at this time "left his poor children fatherless and his wife destitute" (the extraordinary thing is that he actually did this later!) Of course he never executed the Life of Lessing.[115] "The Wedgwoods" had given him an annuity. The assault on "Mr. Gobwin" is one of poor Hartley Coleridge's most delightful feats. Had he been a little older, he might have pointed out to the author of Political Justice that lecturing his mother for his, Hartley's, fault was quite unjustifiable: and indeed that objecting to it at all was improper. The right way (according to that great work itself) would have been to discuss with Hartley whether the advantage in physical exercise and animal spirits derived by him from wielding the nine-pin, outweighed the pain experienced by Gobwin, and so was justifiable on the total scheme of things. ("Moshes," as indeed is obvious, was Hartley's pet-name).
29. To Robert Southey
Tuesday night, 12 o'clock
(December 24) 1799.
My dear Southey,
My Spinosism (if Spinosism it be, and i' faith 'tis very like it) disposed me to consider this big city as that part of the supreme One which the prophet Moses was allowed to see—I should be more disposed to pull off my shoes, beholding Him in a Bush, than while I am forcing my reason to believe that even in theatres He is, yea! even in the Opera House. Your "Thalaba" will beyond all doubt bring you two hundred pounds, if you will sell it at once; but do not print at a venture, under the notion of selling the edition. I assure you that Longman regretted the bargain he made with Cottle concerning the second edition of the "Joan of Arc," and is indisposed to similar negotiations; but most and very eager to have the property of your works at almost any price. If you have not heard it from Cottle, why, you may hear it from me, that is, the arrangement of Cottle's affairs in London. The whole and total copyright of your "Joan," and the first volume of your poems (exclusive of what Longman had before given), was taken by him at three hundred and seventy pounds. You are a strong swimmer, and have borne up poor Joey with all his leaden weights about him, his own and other people's! Nothing has answered to him but your works. By me he has lost somewhat—by Fox, Amos, and himself very much. I can sell your "Thalaba" quite as well in your absence as in your presence. I am employed from I-rise to I-set (that is, from nine in the morning to twelve at night), a pure scribbler. My mornings to booksellers' compilations, after dinner to Stuart, who pays all my expenses here, let them be what they will; the earnings of the morning go to make up an hundred and fifty pounds for my year's expenditure; for, supposing all clear, my year's (1800) allowance is anticipated. But this I can do by the first of April (at which time I leave London). For Stuart I write often his leading paragraphs on Secession, Peace, Essay on the new French Constitution, Advice to Friends of Freedom, Critiques on Sir W. Anderson's Nose, Odes to Georgiana D. of D. (horribly misprinted), Christmas Carols, etc., etc.—anything not bad in the paper, that is not yours, is mine. So if any verses there strike you as worthy the "Anthology," "do me the honour, sir!" However, in the course of a week I do mean to conduct a series of essays in that paper which may be of public utility. So much for myself, except that I long to be out of London; and that my Xstmas Carol is a quaint performance, and, in as strict a sense as is possible, an Impromptu, and, had I done all I had planned, that "Ode to the Duchess" would have been a better thing than it is—it being somewhat dullish, etc. I have bought the "Beauties of the Anti-jacobin," and attorneys and counsellors advise me to prosecute, and offer to undertake it, so as that I shall have neither trouble or expense. They say it is a clear case, etc. I will speak to Johnson about the "Fears in Solitude." If he gives them up they are yours. That dull ode has been printed often enough, and may now be allowed to "sink with deep swoop, and to the bottom go," to quote an admired author; but the two others will do with a little trimming.
My dear Southey! I have said nothing concerning that which most oppresses me. Immediately on my leaving London I fall to the "Life of Lessing"; till that is done, till I have given the Wedgwoods some proof that I am endeavouring to do well for my fellow-creatures, I cannot stir. That being done, I would accompany you, and see no impossibility of forming a pleasant little colony for a few years in Italy or the South of France. Peace will come soon. God love you, my dear Southey! I would write to Stuart, and give up his paper immediately. You should do nothing that did not absolutely please you. Be idle, be very idle! The habits of your mind are such that you will necessarily do much; but be as idle as you can.
Our love to dear Edith. If you see Mary, tell her that we have received our trunk. Hartley is quite well, and my talkativeness is his, without diminution on my side. 'Tis strange but certainly many things go in the blood, beside gout and scrophula. Yesterday I dined at Longman's and met Pratt, and that honest piece of prolix dullity and nullity, young Towers, who desired to be remembered to you. To-morrow Sara and I dine at Mister Gobwin's, as Hartley calls him, who gave the philosopher such a rap on the shins with a ninepin that Gobwin in huge pain lectured Sara on his boisterousness. I was not at home. Est modus in rebus. Moshes is somewhat too rough and noisy, but the cadaverous silence of Gobwin's children is to me quite catacombish, and, thinking of Mary Wollstonecraft, I was oppressed by it the day Davy and I dined there.
God love you and
S. T. Coleridge.
[115] I cannot remember whether anybody has ever made a list of the books that Coleridge did not write. It would be the catalogue of a most interesting library in Utopia.
