Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey by Joseph Cottle

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God love you,

S. T. C."

TO AN UNFORTUNATE YOUNG WOMAN.
WHOM I HAD KNOWN IN THE DAYS OF HER INNOCENCE.

Maiden! that with sullen brow,
Sitt'st behind those virgins gay;
Like a scorched, and mildew'd bough,
Leafless mid the blooms of May.

Inly gnawing, thy distresses
Mock those starts of wanton glee;
And thy inmost soul confesses
Chaste Affection's majesty.

Loathing thy polluted lot,
Hie thee, Maiden! hie thee hence!
Seek thy weeping mother's cot,
With a wiser innocence!

Mute the Lavrac[28] and forlorn
While she moults those firstling plumes
That had skimm'd the tender corn,
Or the bean-field's od'rous blooms;

Soon with renovating wing,
Shall she dare a loftier flight,
Upwards to the day-star sing,
And embathe in heavenly light.

ALLEGORICAL LINES ON THE SAME SUBJECT.

Myrtle Leaf, that, ill besped,
Pinest in the gladsome ray,
Soiled beneath the common tread,
Far from thy protecting spray;

When the scythes-man o'er his sheaf,
Caroll'd in the yellow vale,
Sad, I saw thee, heedless leaf,
Love the dalliance of the gale.

Lightly didst thou, poor fond thing!
Heave and flutter to his sighs
While the flatterer on his wing,
Woo'd, and whisper'd thee to rise.

Gaily from thy mother stalk
Wert thou danced and wafted high;
Soon on this unsheltered walk,
Hung to fade, and rot, and die!

The two poems as printed in Mr. Coleridge's edition of 1835, here follow,
which by being compared with the same poems, in their preceding original
form, will exhibit a study, particularly to the Poet.[29]

ON AN UNFORTUNATE WOMAN AT THE THEATRE.

_With Mr. Coleridge's last corrections_.

Maiden, that with sullen brow
Sitt'st behind those virgins gay,
Like a scorched and mildew'd bough,
Leafless mid the blooms of May.

Him who lured thee and forsook,
Oft I watch'd with angry gaze,
Fearful saw his pleading look,
Anxious heard his fervid phrase.

Soft the glances of the youth,
Soft his speech, and soft his sigh;
But no sound like simple truth,
But no true love in his eye.

Loathing thy polluted lot,
Hie thee, maiden, hie thee hence!
Seek thy weeping mother's cot,
With a wiser innocence.

Thou hast known deceit and folly,
Thou hast felt that vice is woe;
With a musing melancholy,
Inly armed, go, maiden! go.

Mother, sage of self dominion,
Firm thy steps, O melancholy!
The strongest plume in wisdom's pinion
Is the memory of past folly.

Mute the sky-lark and forlorn
While she moults the firstling plumes,
That had skimm'd the tender corn,
Or the bean-field's odorous blooms.

Soon with renovated wing,
Shall she dare a loftier flight,
Upward to the day-star spring,
And embathe in heavenly light.

ON AN UNFORTUNATE WOMAN,
Whom The Author Had Known In The Days Of Her Innocence.

(_With Mr. Coleridge's last corrections_.)

Myrtle-leaf that ill-besped,
Pinest in the gladsome ray;
Soiled beneath the common tread,
Far from thy protecting spray!

When the partridge o'er the sheaf
Whirred along the yellow vale,
Sad I saw thee, heedless leaf!
Love the dalliance of the gale.

Lightly didst thou, foolish thing!
Heave and flutter to his sighs,
While the flatterer on his wing,
Woo'd and whispered thee to rise.

Gaily from thy mother stalk
Wert thou danced and wafted high--
Soon upon this sheltered walk,
Flung to fade, to rot, and die.

Mr. Coleridge having requested me to decide concerning the introduction
into his volume of the two preceding Poems, I approved of the second,
with certain alterations, (which was accordingly printed,) and rejected
the first, for the reasons assigned in the following letter. This letter
is introduced for the sake of Mr. C.'s reply, and to exhibit the candid
and untenacious quality of his mind. As a mark of Mr. Coleridge's
solicitude to obtain the observations of another, without surrendering
his own ultimate judgment, he always encouraged my remarks on his
compositions. When about to send the second edition of his Poems to the
press, he thus wrote to me.

"My dear Cottle,

... On Thursday morning, by Milton, the Stowey carrier, I shall send you
a parcel, containing the book of my Poems interleaved, with the
alterations, and likewise the prefaces, which I shall send to you, for
your criticisms...."

This is mentioned as an apology for the freedom of the remarks I then
took, for it was always my principle not to spare a friend through
mistaken kindness;--however much I might spare myself.

"Dear Coleridge,

You have referred your two last Poems to my judgment. I do not think your
first, 'Maiden! that with sullen brow,' admissible, without a little more
of your nice picking.

The first verse is happy, but two objections apply to the second. To my
ear, (perhaps too fastidious) 'inly,' and 'inmost,' are too closely
allied for the same stanza; but the first line presents a more serious
objection, in containing a transition verb, (or rather a participle, with
the same government) without an objective:

'Inly gnawing, thy distresses
Mock those starts of sudden glee.'

Gnawing what? surely not distresses; though the bar of a comma can hardly
keep them apart. In order to give it any decent meaning, a tortuous
ellipsis is necessary; to pursue which, gives the reader too much toil.
Rejecting the first horse in the team, the three last are beautiful
animals.

To the last line in the third stanza, I rather object; 'With a wiser
innocence.' The meaning, it appears to me, would be more definite and in
character, if you were to say, as you do not represent her utterly
debased, 'With thy wreck of innocence.' The apostrophe to the 'Weeping
mother's cot,' is then impressive. In the fourth stanza, why do you
introduce the old word 'Lavrac' a word requiring an explanatory note? Why
not say at once, sky-lark? A short poem, _you_ know better than _I_,
should be smooth as oil, and lucid as glass. The two last stanzas, with
their associates, will require a few of your delicate touches, before you
mount them on the nautilus which is to bear them buoyant round the world.
These two last stanzas, about the 'Lavrac' though good in themselves,
(with the exception of one line, which I will not point out, its
roughness absolutely reminds one of 'Bowling-green Lane!') appear to me
to be awkward appendages. The illustration is too much extended. It is
laboured; far-fetched. It is an infelicitous attempt to blend sportive
fancy with fact that has touched the heart, and which, in this its
sobered mood, shrinks from all idle play of imagination. The transition
is too abrupt from truth to fancy. This simile of two stanzas, also, out
of five, is a tail disproportioned to the size of so small a body:--A
thought elongated, ramified, attenuated, till its tendril convolutions
have almost escaped from their parent stem. I would recommend you to let
this Lavrac fly clean away, and to conclude the Poem with the third
affecting stanza, unless you can continue the same train of feeling. This
you might readily effect, by urging the 'unfortunate' in seeking her
'weeping mother's cot' to cheer that mother by moral renovation.

I now come to the second Poem, 'Allegorical lines.' This poem has sound
materials, but it wants some of your hard tinkering. Pardon my
unceremonious language. I do not like that affected old word,
'ill-besped' in the first line. To ascribe human feelings to a leaf, as
you have done through the whole Poem, notwithstanding your authority, as
I conceive, offensively violates reason. There is no analogy; no
conceivable bond of union between thought and inanimate things, and it is
about as rational as though, in sober reasoning, you were to make the
polished shoe remonstrate with its wearer, in being soiled so soon after
it had received its lustre. It is the utmost stretch of human concession,
to grant thought and language to living things;--birds, beasts, and
fishes; rights which the old fablers have rendered inalienable, as
vehicles of instruction; but here, as I should think, the liberty ends.
It is always a pity when sense and poetry cannot go together. They are
excellent arm-in-arm companions, but quarrelsome neighbours, when a stile
separates them. The first line in the second stanza I do not like.

'When the scythesman o'er his sheaf.'

Two objections apply to this line. The word scythesman, for a short poem,
is insufferably rough; and furthermore requires the inhalation of a good
breath, before it can be pronounced; besides which, as the second
objection, by connecting sheaves with scythesman, it shows that the
scythe is cutting wheat, whereas, wheat is cut with a hook or sickle. If
my agricultural knowledge be correct, barley and oats are cut with a
scythe, but these grains are not put into sheaves. Had you not better
substitute rustic, for scythesman?

The first line in the third stanza is not happy. The spondee, in a
compound word, sometimes gives a favourable emphasis; but to my taste,
rarely, when it is formed of a double epithet. It has the appearance of
labour, like tugging against a hill. Would not 'foolish' be simpler and
better than 'poor fond?' I have one other objection, and that,
unfortunately, is in the last line.

'Flung to fade, and rot, and die!'

Surely, if it rots, it must die, or have died.

Query. 'Flung to wither and to die.'

I am astonished at my own temerity. This is reversing the order of
things; the pupil correcting his master. But, candidly speaking, I do
think these two poems the most defective of any I ever saw of yours,
which, usually, have been remarkably free from all angles on which the
race of snarlers can lay hold.

From, &c. &c.,

Joseph Cottle."

Mr. Coleridge's reply to the preceding letter.

"Wednesday morning, 10 o'clock.

My dearest Cottle,

... 'Ill besped' is indeed a sad blotch; but after having tried at least
a hundred ways, before I sent the Poem to you, and often since, I find it
incurable. This first Poem is but a so so composition. I wonder I could
have been so blinded by the ardour of recent composition, as to see
anything in it.

Your remarks are _perfectly just_ on the 'Allegorical lines,' except
that, in this district, corn is as often cut with a scythe, as with a
hook. However, for '_Scythesman_' read _Rustic_. For '_poor fond thing_'
read _foolish thing_, and for '_flung to fade, and rot, and die_,' read
_flung to wither and to die_.[30]

* * * * *

Milton (the carrier) waits impatiently.

S. T. C."

Having once inquired of Mr. Coleridge something respecting a nicety in
hexameters, he asked for a sheet of paper, and wrote the following. These
hexameters appear in the last edition of Mr. C.'s Poems, though in a less
correct form, and without the condensed and well-expressed preliminary
remarks. Two new lines are here also added.

"The Hexameter consists of six feet, or twelve times. These feet, in the
Latin and Greek languages, were always either dactyls, or spondees; the
time of a dactyl, being only that of a spondee. In modern languages,
however, metre being regulated by the emphasis, or intonation of the
syllables, and not by the position of the letters, spondees can scarcely
exist, except in compound words, as dark-red. Our dissyllables are for
the most part, either iambics, as desire; or trochees, as languid. These
therefore, but chiefly the latter, we must admit, instead of spondees.
The four first feet of each line may be dissyllable feet, or dactyls, or
both commingled, as best suits the melody, and requisite variety; but the
two last feet must, with rare exceptions, be uniformly, the former a
dactyl, the latter a dissyllable. The amphimacer may, in English, be
substituted for the dactyl, occasionally.

EXAMPLES.

Oh, what a life is the eye! What a fine and inscrutable essence!
He that is utterly blind, nor glimpses the fire that warms him;
He that never beheld the swelling breast of his mother,
He that smiled at the bosom, the babe that smiles in its slumber,
Even to him it exists. It moves, and stirs in its prison;
Lives with a separate life, and "Is it a spirit?" he murmurs,
Sure it has thoughts of its own, and to see is only a language.

ANOTHER SPECIMEN, DESCRIBING HEXAMETERS IN HEXAMETERS.

Strongly it tilts us along, o'er leaping and limitless billows,
Nothing before, and nothing behind, but the sky and the ocean.

ANOTHER SPECIMEN.

In the Hexameter rises the fountain's silvery column
In the Pentameter still, falling melodious down.

* * * * *

THE ENGLISH DUODECASYLLABLE.

This consists of two dactyls, and three trochees; the two dactyls first;
and the trochees following.

Hear, my beloved! an old Milesian story;
High and embosomed in congregated laurels,
Glimmered a temple, upon a breezy headland
In the dim distance, amid the skyey billows,
Rose a fair island; the God of flocks had blest it:
From the dim shores of this bleak resounding island,
Oft in the moon-light a little boat came floating,
Came to the sea-cave beneath the breezy headland,
Where between myrtles a path-way stole in mazes,
Up to the groves of the high embosomed temple.
There in a thicket of consecrated roses,
Oft did a Priestess, as lovely as a vision,
Pouring her soul to the son of Cytherea,
Pray him to hover around the light canoe boat,
And with invisible pilotage to guide it
Over the dusky waves, till the nightly sailor
Shiv'ring with ecstacy sank upon her bosom.
Now, by the immortals! he was a beauteous stripling,
Worthy to dream the sweet dream of young Endymion."

In the last edition of Mr. Coleridge's poems, (3 vols., 1835) there is a
poem, called "The Destiny of Nations, a Vision;"--a sounding title, with
which the contents but ill accord. No note conveys information to the
reader, what was the origin of this poem; nor does any argument show its
object, or train of thought. Who the maid is, no one can tell, and if
there be a vision respecting the destiny of nations, it is nearly as
confused and incoherent as a true vision of the night; exciting in the
mind some such undefined wonderment, as must have accompanied the descent
of one of Peter Wilkins' winged Aerials.

The reader may here be informed, that the Second book of Mr. Southey's
"Joan of Arc," to line 452, as acknowledged, was written by Mr.
Coleridge, with the intermixture of 97 lines, written by Mr. Southey, in
which there are noble sentiments, expressed in the loftiest poetical
diction; and in which also there is a tutelary spirit introduced to
instruct and counsel the Maid of Orleans. In the second edition of "Joan
of Arc," Mr. Southey omitted the whole of these lines, and intimated to
Mr. C. his intention so to do, as early as the autumn of 1795. I advised
Mr. Coleridge, from the intrinsic merit of the lines, to print them in
the second edition of his poems. To this he assented, but observed, that
he must greatly extend them.

Some considerable time after, he read me the poem in its enlarged state,
calling it "The Progress of Liberty, or the Visions of the Maid of
Orleans." After hearing it read, I at once told him, it was all very
fine, but what it was all about, I could not tell: that it wanted, I
thought, an obvious design, a definite purpose, a cohesion of parts, so
as to make it more of a whole, instead of its being, as it then was,
profuse, but detached splendour, and exhibiting in the management,
nothing like construction. Thus improved, I told him the poem would be
worthy of him. Mr. C. was evidently partial to the lines, and said, "I
shall consider of what you say, and speak again about them."

Amongst my papers I find two or three notes from Mr. C. on this subject,
subsequently received.

"Stowey.

My dear Cottle,

If you delay the press it will give me the opportunity I so much wish, of
sending my "Visions of the Maid of Arc" to Wordsworth, who lives[31] not
above twenty miles from this place; and to Charles Lamb, whose taste and
judgment, I see reason to think more correct and philosophical than my
own, which yet I place pretty high...."

In a succeeding letter Mr. Coleridge says,

"My dear Cottle,

The lines which I added to my lines in the 'Joan of Arc' have been so
little approved by Charles Lamb, to whom I sent them, that although I
differ from him in opinion, I have not heart to finish the poem." Mr.
Coleridge in the same letter, thus refers to his "Ode to the Departing
Year."

"... So much for an 'Ode,' which some people think superior to the 'Bard'
of Gray, and which others think a rant of turgid obscurity; and the
latter are the more numerous class. It is not obscure. My 'Religious
Musings' I know are, but not this 'Ode.'"

Mr. C. still retained a peculiar regard for these lines of the "Visions"
and once meant to remodel the whole, as will appear from the following
letter.

"Stowey, 1797.

My dear Cottle,

I deeply regret, that my anxieties and my slothfulness, acting in a
combined ratio, prevented me from finishing my 'Progress of Liberty, or
Visions of the Maid of Orleans' with that Poem at the head of the volume,
with the 'Ode' in the middle, and the 'Religious Musings' at the end.

... In the 'Lines on the Man of Ross' immediately after these lines,

'He heard the widow's heaven-breathed prayer of praise,
He mark'd the shelter'd orphan's tearful gaze.'

Please to add these two lines.

'And o'er the portioned maiden's snowy cheek,
Bade bridal love suffuse its blushes meek.'

And for the line,

'Beneath this roof, if thy cheer'd moments pass.'

I should be glad to substitute this,

'If near this roof thy wine-cheer'd moments pass.'

These emendations came too late for admission in the second edition; nor
have they appeared in the last edition. They will remain therefore for
insertion in any future edition of Mr. Coleridge's Poems.[32]

"Stowey, 1797.

My dear Cottle,

... Public affairs are in strange confusion. I am afraid that I shall
prove, at least, as good a Prophet as Bard. Oh, doom'd to fall, my
country! enslaved and vile! But may God make me a foreboder of evils
never to come!

I have heard from Sheridan, desiring me to write a tragedy. I have no
genius that way; Robert Southey has. I think highly of his 'Joan of Arc'
and cannot help prophesying, that he will be known to posterity, as
Shakspeare's great grandson. I think he will write a tragedy or
tragedies.

Charles Lloyd has given me his Poems, which I give to you, on condition
that you print them in this Volume, after Charles Lamb's Poems; the title
page, 'Poems, by S. T. Coleridge. Second Edition; to which are added
Poems, by C. Lamb, and C. Lloyd.' C. Lamb's poems will occupy about forty
pages; C. Lloyd's at least one hundred, although only his choice fish.

P. S. I like your 'Lines on Savage.'[33]

God bless you,

S. T. Coleridge."

In a letter received from Mr. Coleridge soon after, he says, "I shall now
stick close to my tragedy (called Osorio,) and when I have finished it,
shall walk to Shaftesbury to spend a few days with Bowles. From thence I
go to Salisbury, and thence to Christchurch, to see Southey."

This letter, as was usual, has no date, but a letter from Mr. Wordsworth
determines about the time when Mr. C. had nearly finished his Tragedy.

"September 13, 1797.

... Coleridge is gone over to Bowles with his Tragedy, which he has
finished to the middle of the 5th Act. He set off a week ago."

Mr. Coleridge, in the summer of 1797 presented me with an extract from
his "Osorio," which is here given to the reader, from Mr. C.'s own
writing.

FOSTER-MOTHER'S TALE.

_Scene, Spain._

FOSTER-MOTHER.

Now blessings on the man, whoe'er he be,
That joined your names with mine! O my sweet lady
As often as I think of those dear times,
When you two little ones would stand, at eve,
On each side of my chair, and make me learn
All you had learnt in the day, and how to talk
In gentle phrase, then bid me sing to you--
'Tis more like heaven to come than what _has_ been.

MARIA.

O my dear mother! this strange man has left us,
Troubled with wilder fancies than the moon
Breeds in the love-sick maid who gazes at it,
Till lost in inward vision, with wet eye
She gazes idly!--But that _entrance_, Mother!

FOSTER-MOTHER.

Can no one hear? It is a perilous tale!

MARIA.

No one.

FOSTER-MOTHER.

My husband's father told it me,
Poor Old Leoni--Angels rest his soul!
He was a woodman, and could fell and saw
With lusty arm. You know that huge round beam
Which props the hanging wall of the old Chapel.
Beneath that tree, while yet it was a tree
He found a baby wrapt in mosses, lined
With thistle beards, and such small locks of wool
As hang on brambles. Well, he brought him home,
And reared him at the then Lord Velez' cost.
And so the babe grew up a pretty boy,
A pretty boy but most unteachable--
And never learnt a prayer nor told a bead,
But knew the names of birds, and mocked their notes,
And whistled, as he were a bird himself.
And all the autumn 'twas his only play
To get the seeds of wild flowers and to plant them
With earth and water on the stumps of trees.
A Friar who gathered simples in the wood,
A grey-haired man--he loved this little boy,
The boy loved him--and, when the Friar taught him,
He soon could write with the pen; and from that time
Lived chiefly at the Convent or the Castle.
So he became a very learned man.
But O! poor youth!--he read, and read, and read,
'Till his brain turned--and ere his twentieth year,
He had unlawful thoughts of many things:
And though he prayed, he never loved to pray
With holy men, nor in a holy place--
But yet his speech, it was so soft and sweet,
The late Lord Velez ne'er was wearied with him.
And once as by the north side of the Chapel
They stood together, chained in deep discourse,
The earth heaved under them with such a groan,
That the wall tottered, and had well-nigh fallen
Right on their heads. My Lord was sorely frightened:
A fever seized the youth; and he made confession
Of all the heretical and lawless talk
Which brought this judgment: so the youth was seized,
And cast into that hole. My husband's father
Sobbed like a child--it almost broke his heart:
And once, as he was working in the cellar,
He heard a voice distinctly; 'twas the youth's,
Who sung a doleful song about green fields,
How sweet it were on lake or wild savannah
To hunt for food, and be a naked man,
And wander up and down at liberty.
He always doated on the youth, and now
His love grew desperate; and defying death,
He made that cunning _entrance_ I described:
And the young man escaped.

MARIA.

'Tis a sweet tale:
Such as would lull a listening child to sleep,
His rosy face besoiled with unwiped tears.
And what became of him?

FOSTER-MOTHER.

He went on ship-board
With those bold voyagers, who made discovery
Of golden lands: Leoni's younger brother
Went likewise, and when he returned to Spain,
He told Leoni, that the poor mad youth,
Soon after they arrived in that new world,
In spite of his dissuasion, seized a boat,
And all alone set sail by silent moonlight,
Up a great river, great as any sea,
And ne'er was heard of more: but 'tis supposed,
He lived and died among the savage men.

The following letter of Mr. C. was in answer to a request for some
long-promised copy, and for which the printer importuned.

"Stowey, 1797.

My dear, dear Cottle,

Have patience, and everything shall be done. I think now entirely of your
brother:[34] in two days I will think entirely for you. By Wednesday next
you shall have Lloyd's other Poems, with all Lamb's, &c. &c....

S. T. C."

A little before this time, a singular occurrence happened to Mr. C.
during a pedestrian excursion into Somersetshire, as detailed in the
following letter to Mr. Wade.

"My dear friend,

I am here after a most tiresome journey; in the course of which, a woman
asked me if I knew one Coleridge, of Bristol, I answered, I had heard of
him. 'Do you know, (quoth she) that that vile jacobin villain drew away a
young man of our parish, one Burnet' &c. and in this strain did the woman
continue for near an hour; heaping on me every name of abuse that the
parish of Billingsgate could supply. I listened very particularly;
appeared to approve all she said, exclaiming, 'dear me!' two or three
times, and, in fine, so completely won the woman's heart by my
civilities, that I had not courage enough to undeceive her....

S. T. Coleridge.

P. S. You are a good prophet. Oh, into what a state have the scoundrels
brought this devoted kingdom. If the House of Commons would but melt down
their faces, it would greatly assist the copper currency--we should have
brass enough."

To refer now to another subject. Robert Burns had died in 1796. Finding
that his family had little more than their father's fame to support them,
I consulted with Mr. Coleridge, whether it would not be possible to add
to the fund then being raised, by promoting a subscription in Bristol, in
furtherance of such design. It being deemed feasible, while Mr. C.
undertook to write a Poem on the subject for a Bristol paper, I sent the
following advertisement to the same vehicle.

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