Biographia Epistolaris Part 31

ILL HEALTH; SOUTHEY COMES TO KESWICK

On 13th April 1801 Coleridge wrote to Southey the following letter, and Southey replied in cordial terms, from which it will be gathered a reconciliation had been made since the Lloyd and Lamb quarrel. [1]

[Footnote 1: See "Letters", vol. i, 304.]

LETTER 106. TO ROBERT SOUTHEY, ESQ.

Greta Hall, Keswick; April 13. 1801.

My dear Southey,

I received your kind letter on the evening before last, and I trust that this will arrive at Bristol just in time to rejoice with them that rejoice. Alas! you will have found the dear old place sadly "minus"ed by the removal of Davy. It is one of the evils of long silence, that when one recommences the correspondence, one has so much to say that one can say nothing. I have enough, with what I have seen, and with what I have done, and with what I have suffered, and with what I have heard, exclusive of all that I hope and all that I intend--I have enough to pa.s.s away a great deal of time with, were you on a desert isle, and I your "Friday". But at present I purpose to speak only of myself relatively to Keswick and to you.

Our house stands on a low hill, the whole front of which is one field and an enormous garden, nine-tenths of which is a nursery garden. Behind the house is an orchard, and a small wood on a steep slope, at the foot of which flows the river Greta, which winds round and catches the evening lights in the front of the house. In front we have a giant's camp--an encamped army of tent-like mountains, which by an inverted arch gives a view of another vale. On our right the lovely vale and the wedge-shaped lake of Ba.s.senthwaite; and on our left Derwent.w.a.ter and Lodore full in view, and the fantastic mountains of Borrodale. Behind us the ma.s.sy Skiddaw, smooth, green, high, with two chasms and a tentlike ridge in the larger. A fairer scene you have not seen in all your wanderings. Without going from our own grounds we have all that can please a human being. As to books, my landlord, who dwells next door,[1]

has a very respectable library, which he has put with mine; histories, encyclopaedias, and all the modern gentry. But then I can have, when I choose, free access to the princely library of Sir Guilfred Lawson, which contains the n.o.blest collection of travels and natural history of, perhaps, any private library in England; besides this, there is the Cathedral library of Carlisle, from whence I can have any books sent to me that I wish; in short, I may truly say that I command all the libraries in the county. ...

Our neighbour is a truly good and affectionate man, a father to my children, and a friend to me. He was offered fifty guineas for the house in which we are to live, but he preferred me for a tenant at twenty-five; and yet the whole of his income does not exceed, I believe, 200 a year. A more truly disinterested man I never met with; severely frugal, yet almost carelessly generous; and yet he got all his money as a common carrier[2], by hard labour, and by pennies. He is one instance among many in this country of the salutary effect of the love of knowledge--he was from a boy a lover of learning. The house is full twice as large as we want; it hath more rooms in it than Allfoxden; you might have a bed-room, parlour, study, etc., etc., and there would always be rooms to spare for your or my visitors. In short, for situation and convenience,--and when I mention the name of Wordsworth, for society of men of intellect,--I know no place in which you and Edith would find yourselves so well suited.

S. T. C.

[Footnote 1: Greta Hall was at this time divided into two houses, which were afterwards thrown together.]

[Footnote 2: This person, whose name was Jackson, was the "master" in Wordsworth's poem of 'The Waggoner', the circ.u.mstances of which are accurately correct.]

The remainder of this letter, as well as another of later date, was filled with a most gloomy account of his own health, to which Southey refers in the commencement of his reply.

SOUTHEY TO COLERIDGE

Bristol, July 11, 1801.

Yesterday I arrived, and found your letters; they did depress me, but I have since reasoned or dreamt myself into more cheerful antic.i.p.ations. I have persuaded myself that your complaint is gouty; that good living is necessary, and a good climate. I also move to the south; at least so it appears: and if my present prospects ripen, we may yet live under one roof. ...

You may have seen a translation of "Persius", by Drummond, an M.P. This man is going amba.s.sador, first to Palermo and then to Constantinople: if a married man can go as his secretary, it is probable that I shall accompany him. I daily expect to know. It is a scheme of Wynn's to settle me in the south, and I am returned to look about me. My salary will be small--a very trifle; but after a few years I look on to something better, and have fixed my mind on a consuls.h.i.+p. Now, if we go, you must join us as soon as we are housed, and it will be marvellous if we regret England. I shall have so little to do, that my time may be considered as wholly my own: our joint amus.e.m.e.nts will easily supply us with all expenses. So no more of the Azores; for we will see the Great Turk, and visit Greece, and walk up the Pyramids, and ride camels in Arabia. I have dreamt of nothing else these five weeks. As yet every thing is so uncertain, for I have received no letter since we landed, that nothing can be said of our intermediate movements. If we are not embarked too soon, we will set off as early as possible for c.u.mberland, unless you should think, as we do, that Mahomet had better come to the mountain; that change of all externals may benefit you; and that bad as Bristol weather is, it is yet infinitely preferable to northern cold and damp. Meet we must, and will.

You know your old Poems are a third time in the press; why not set forth a second volume? * * * Your "Christabel", your "Three Graces",[1] which I remember as the very consummation of poetry. I must spur you to something, to the a.s.sertion of your supremacy; if you have not enough to muster, I will aid you in any way--manufacture skeletons that you may clothe with flesh, blood, and beauty; write my best, or what shall be bad enough to be popular;--we will even make plays "a-la-mode"

Robespierre. * * * Drop all task-work, it is ever unprofitable; the same time, and one twentieth part of the labour, would produce treble emolument. For "Thalaba" I received 115; it was just twelve months'

"intermitting" work, and the after-editions are my own. ...

I feel here as a stranger; somewhat of Leonard's feeling. G.o.d bless Wordsworth for that poem![2] What tie have I to England? My London friends? There, indeed, I have friends. But if you and yours were with me, eating dates in a garden at Constantinople, you might a.s.sert that we were in the best of all possible places; and I should answer, Amen: and if our wives rebelled, we would send for the chief of the black eunuchs, and sell them to the Seraglio. Then should Moses [3] learn Arabic, and we would know whether there was anything in the language or not. We would drink Cyprus wine and Mocha coffee, and smoke more tranquilly than ever we did in the s.h.i.+p in Small Street.

Time and absence make strange work with our affections; but mine are ever returning to rest upon you. I have other and dear friends, but none with whom the whole of my being is intimate--with whom every thought and feeling can amalgamate. Oh! I have yet such dreams! Is it quite clear that you and I were not meant for some better star, and dropped, by mistake, into this world of pounds, s.h.i.+llings, and pence? ...

G.o.d bless you!

ROBERT SOUTHEY.

[Footnote 1: "The Three Graves".]

[Footnote 2: "The Brothers" is the t.i.tle of this poem.]

[Footnote 3: Hartley Coleridge.]

SOUTHEY TO COLERIDGE

July 25.

In about ten days we shall be ready to set forward for Keswick; where, if it were not for the rains, and the fogs, and the frosts, I should, probably, be content to winter; but the climate deters me. It is uncertain when I may be sent abroad, or where, except that the south of Europe is my choice. The appointment hardly doubtful, and the probable destination Palermo or Naples. We will talk of the future, and dream of it, on the lake side. * * * I may calculate upon the next six months at my own disposal; so we will climb Skiddaw this year, and scale Etna the next; and Sicilian air will keep us alive till Davy has found out the immortalising elixir, or till we are very well satisfied to do without it, and be immortalised after the manner of our fathers. My pocket-book contains more plans than will ever be filled up; but whatever becomes of those plans, this, at least, is feasible. * * * Poor H----, he has literally killed himself by the law: which, I believe, kills more than any disease that takes its place in the bills of mortality. Blackstone is a needful book, and my c.o.ke is a borrowed one; but I have one law book whereof to make an auto-da-fe; and burnt he shall be: but whether to perform that ceremony, with fitting libations, at home, or fling him down the crater of Etna directly to the Devil, is worth considering at leisure.

I must work at Keswick; the more willingly, because with the hope, hereafter, the necessity will cease. My Portuguese materials must lie dead, and this embarra.s.ses me. It is impossible to publish any thing about that country now, because I must one day return there,--to their libraries and archives; otherwise I have excellent stuff for a little volume; and could soon set forth a first vol. of my History, either civil or literary. In these labours I have incurred a heavy and serious expense. I shall write to Hamilton, and review again, if he chooses to employ me. * * * It was Cottle who told me that your Poems were reprint"ing" in a "third" edition: this cannot allude to the "Lyrical Ballads", because of the number and the participle present. * * * I am bitterly angry to see one new poem [1] smuggled into the world in the "Lyrical Ballads", where the 750 purchasers of the first can never get at it. At Falmouth I bought Thomas Dermody's "Poems", for old acquaintance sake; alas! the boy wrote better than the man! * * * Pye's "Alfred" (to distinguish him from Alfred the pious [2]) I have not yet inspected; nor the wilful murder of Bonaparte, by Anna Matilda; nor the high treason committed by Sir James Bland Burgess, Baronet, against our lion-hearted Richard. Davy is fallen stark mad with a play, called the "Conspiracy of Gowrie", which is by Rough; an imitation of "Gebir", with some poetry; but miserably and hopelessly deficient in all else: every character reasoning, and metaphorising, and metaphysicking the reader most nauseously. By the by, there is a great a.n.a.logy between hock, laver, pork pie, and the "Lyrical Ballads",--all have a "flavour", not beloved by those who require a taste, and utterly unpleasant to dram-drinkers, whose diseased palates can only feel pepper and brandy. I know not whether Wordsworth will forgive the stimulant tale of "Thalaba",--'tis a turtle soup, highly seasoned, but with a flavour of its own predominant. His are sparagra.s.s (it ought to be spelt so) and artichokes, good with plain b.u.t.ter, and wholesome.

I look on "Madoc" with hopeful displeasure; probably it must be corrected, and published now; this coming into the world at seven months is a bad way; with a Doctor Slop of a printer's devil standing ready for the forced birth, and frightening one into an abortion. * * * Is there an emigrant at Keswick, who may make me talk and write French? And I must sit at my almost forgotten Italian, and read German with you; and we must read Ta.s.so together.

G.o.d bless you!

Yours,

R. S.

[Footnote 1: Coleridge's poem of "Love".]

[Footnote 2: This alludes to Mr. Cottle's "Alfred".]

The next two letters to Davy indicate that Coleridge's health was now of the worst, and that he was thinking seriously of emigrating for some time.

LETTER 107. TO DAVY

Monday, May 4, 1801.

My dear Davy,