banker of that place. At Mosely they met again, and the result of an intercourse for a few days together was an ardent desire on the part of Lloyd to domesticate himself permanently with a man whose conversation was to him a revelation from Heaven. Nothing, however, was settled on this occasion, and Mr. and Mrs. C. returned to Bristol in the beginning of September. On the 24th of September he writes to Mr. Poole To Mr. Poole. "MY DEAR, VERY DEAR POOLE, "24th September, 1796. "THE heart thoroughly penetrated with the flame of virtuous friendship is in a state of glory; but lest it should be exalted above measure, there is given to it a thorn in the flesh. I mean that where the friendship of any person forms an essential part of a man's happiness, he will at times be pestered with the little jealousies and solicitudes of imbecile humanity. Since we last parted I have been gloomily dreaming that you did not leave me so affectionately as you were wont to do. Pardon this littleness of heart, and do not think the worse of me for it. Indeed my soul seems so mantled and wrapped round with your love and esteem, that even a dream of losing but the smallest fragment of it makes me shiver, as if some tender part of my nature were left uncovered and in nakedness. "Last week I received a letter from Lloyd, informing me that his parents had given their joyful concurrence to his residence with me, but that, if it were possible that I could be absent from home for three or four days, his father wished particularly to see me. I consulted Mrs. Coleridge, who advised me to go. * * Accordingly on Saturday night I went by the mail to Birmingham, and was introduced to the father, who is a mild man, very liberal in his ideas, and in religion an allegorizing Quaker. I mean that all the apparently irrational parts of his sect he allegorizes into significations, which for the most part you or I might assent to. We became well acquainted, and he expressed himself thankful to Heaven, that his son was about to be with me.' He said he would write to me concerning money matters, after his son had been some time under my roof. 6 "On Tuesday morning I was surprised by a letter from Mr. Maurice, our medical attendant, informing me that Mrs. C. was delivered on Monday, 19th September, 1796, half-past two in the morning, of a son, and that both she and the child were uncommonly well. I was quite annihilated with the suddenness of the information, and retired to my room to address myself to my Maker, but I could only offer up to Him the silence of stupified feelings. I hastened home, and Charles Lloyd re turned with me. When I first saw the child, I did not feel that thrill and overflowing of affection which I expected. I looked on it with a melancholy gaze; my mind was intensely contemplative, and my heart only sad. But when two hours after, I saw it at the bosom of its mother-on her arm-and her eye tearful and watching its little featuresthen I was thrilled and melted, and gave it the kiss of a Father. * * The baby seems strong, and the old nurse has over-persuaded my wife to discover a likeness to me in its face,-no great compliment to me; for in truth I have seen handsomer babies in my lifetime. Its name is David Hartley Coleridge. I hope that ere he be a man, if God destines him for continuance in this life, his head will be convinced of, and his heart saturated with, the truths so ably supported by that great master of Christian Philosophy. "Charles Lloyd wins upon me hourly; his heart is uncommonly pure, his affections delicate, and his benevolence enlivened, but not sicklied, by sensibility. He is assuredly a man of great genius; but it must be in a tête-à-tête with one whom he loves and esteems that his colloquial powers open; and this arises not from reserve or want of simplicity, but from having been placed in situations where, for years together, he met with no congenial minds, and where the contrariety of his thoughts and notions to the thoughts and notions of those around him induced the necessity of habitually suppressing his feelings. His joy and gratitude to Heaven for the circumstance of his domestication with me, I can scarcely describe to you; and I believe his fixed plans are of being always with me. His father told me, that if he saw that his son had formed habits of severe economy, he should not insist upon his adopting any profession, as then his fair share of his (the father's) wealth would be sufficient for him. My dearest Poole, can you conveniently receive Lloyd and me in the course of a week? I have much, very much, to say to you, and to consult with you about; for my heart is heavy respecting Derby; and my feelings are so dim and huddled, that though I can, I am sure, communicate them to you by my looks and broken sentences, I scarcely know how to convey them in a letter. C. Lloyd also wishes much to know you personally. I shall write on the other side of the paper two of his sonnets, composed by him in one evening at Birmingham. The latter of them alludes to the conviction of the truth of Christianity, which he had received from me. Let me hear from you by post immediately, and give my kind love to your sister and dear mother, and likewise my love to that young man with the soul-beaming face, which I recollect much better than I do his name." (Mr. George Ward, of Over Stowey.) "God bless you, my dear friend, and believe me, with deep affection, yours, "S. T. COLERIDGE." The reader of Coleridge's Poems will remember the beautiful lines To a young Friend, on his proposing to domesticate with the Author. (P. W., i., p. 246.) They were written at this time, and addressed to Lloyd; and it may be easily conceived what a deep impression of delight they would make on a mind and temperament so refined and enthusiastic as his. The Sonnet To a Friend who asked how I felt when the Nurse first presented my infant to me—(i., p. 252) is the metrical version of a passage in the foregoing letter. A short time before the birth of little Hartley C., Mr. Southey had returned to Bristol from Portugal, and was in lodgings nearly opposite to Mr. Coleridge's house in Oxford Street. There had been a quarrel between them on the occasion of the abandonment of the American scheme, which was first announced by Mr. Southey, and he and Coleridge had ceased to have any intercourse. But a year's absence had dissipated all angry feelings, and, after Mr. C.'s return from Birmingham in the end of September, Southey took the first step, and sent over a slip of paper with a word or two of conciliation.* This was immediately followed by an interview, and, in an hour's time, these two extraordinary youths were arm in arm again. They were, indeed, of essentially opposite tempers, powers, and habits; yet each well knew and appreciated the other,—perhaps even the more deeply from the contrast between them. Circumstances separated them in after life; but Mr. Coleridge recorded his testimony to Southey's character in this work, and in his Will referred to it as expressive of his latest convictions. 5 On the 1st of November, 1796, Coleridge wrote the following letter to his friend : "MY BELOVED POOLE, November 1, 1796. "MANY causes have concurred to prevent my writing to you, but all together they do not amount to a reason. I have seen a narrow-necked bottle so full of water, that, when turned upside down, not a drop has fallen out-something like this has been the case with me. My heart has been full, yea, crammed with anxieties about my residence near you. I so ardently desire it, that any disappointment would chill all my faculties, like the fingers of death. And, entertaining wishes so irrationally strong, I necessarily have day-mare dreams that something will prevent 4 The paper contained a sentence in English from Schiller's Conspiracy of Fiesco at Genoa. Fiesko! Fiesko! du raumst einen Platz in meiner Brust, den das Menschengeschlecht, dreifach genommen, nicht mehr besetzen wird. Fiesco! Fiesco! thou leavest a void in my bosom, which the human race, thrice told, fill never fill up. Act v., sc. 16. S. C. Chap. iii. S. C. it-so that, since I quitted you, I have been gloomy as the month which even now has begun to lower and rave on us. I verily believe, or rather I have no doubt, that I should have written to you within the period of my promise, if I had not pledged myself for a certain gift of my Muse to poor Tommy; and, alas! she has been too 'sunk on the ground in dimmest heaviness' to permit me to trifle. Yet, intending it hourly, I deferred my letter à-la-mode the procrastinator! Ah! me. I wonder not that the hours fly so swiftly by me--for they pass unfreighted with the duties which they came to demand! * * * * * 66 * * * I wrote a long letter to Dr. Compton, and received from him a very kind letter, which I will send you in the parcel I am about to convey by Milton. 66 My Poems are come to a second edition—that is, the first edition is sold. I shall alter the lines of the Joan of Arc, and make one poem, entitled Progress of European Liberty, a Vision; the first line, “Auspicious Reverence! hush all meaner song," &c., and begin the volume with it. Then the Chatterton; Pixies' Parlor; Effusions 27 and 28; To a Young Ass; Tell me on what holy ground; The Sigh; Epitaph on an Infant; The Man of Ross; Spring in a Village; Edmund; Lines with a poem on the French Revolution. Seven Sonnets, namely, those at pp. 45, 59, 60, 61, 64, 65, 66. Shurton Bars; My Pensive Sara; Low was our pretty Cot; Religious Musings; these in the order I have placed them. Then another title-page with Juvenilia on it, and an advertisement signifying that the Poems were retained by the desire of some friends, but that they are to be considered as being, in the Author's own opinion, of very inferior merit. In this sheet will be, Absence; La Fayelle ; Genevieve; Kosciusko; Autumnal Moon; To the Nightingale; Imitation of Spenser; A Poem written in early youth. All the others will be finally and totally omitted. It is strange that in the Sonnet to Schiller I should have written, that hour I would have wished to die-Lest aught more mean might stamp me mortal;' the bull never struck me till Charles Lloyd mentioned it. The sense is evident enough, but the word is ridiculously ambiguous. 66 Lloyd is a very good fellow, and most certainly a young man of great genius. He desires his kindest love to you. I will write again by Milton, for I really can write no more now, I am so depressed. But I will fill up the letter with poetry of mine, or Lloyd's, or Southey's. Is your Sister married? May the Almighty bless her! may he enable her to make all her new friends as pure, and mild, and amiable as herself!-I pray in the fervency of my soul. Is your dear Mother well? My filial respects to her. Remember me to Ward. David Hartley Coleridge is stout, healthy, and handsome. He is the very miniature of me. "Your grateful and affectionate friend and brother, "S. T. COLERIDGE." Speaking of lines by Mr. Southey, called Inscription for the Cenotaph at Ermenonville, written in his letter, Mr. C. says, “This is beautiful, but, instead of Ermenonville and Rousseau, put Valchiusa and Petrarch. I do not particularly admire Rousseau. Bishop Taylor, old Baxter, David Hartley, and the Bishop of Cloyne, are my men.' The following Sonnet, transcribed in the foregoing Letter, has not been printed. It puts in,' he says, 'no claim to poetry, but it is a most faithful picture of my feelings on a very interesting event.' See the Letter to Mr. Poole of 24th September, 1796. This Sonnet shows in a remarkable way how little the Unitarianism, which Mr. C. professed at this time, operated on his fundamental feelings as a catholic Christian. On receiving a Letter informing me of the birth of a Son. That, ere my babe youth's perilous maze have trod, And he be born again, a child of God! It was not till the summer of 1797 that the second edition of Mr. C.'s Poems actually appeared, before which time he had seen occasion to make many alterations in the proposed arrangement of, and had added some of his most beautiful compositions to, the collection. It is curious, however, that he never varied the diction of the Sonnet to Schiller in the particular to which he refers in the preceding Letter. To Mr. Poole. "5th November, 1796. "THANKS, my heart's warm thanks to you, my beloved Friend, for your • Afterwards included among the Minor Poems of Mr. S. S. C. |