God bless you,
and S. T. Coleridge.”
This letter requires a few explanations. In recommending that Biggs, the printer, should choose the paper, it was not designed for him to provide it, which, had he been so requested, he would not have done, but merely to select one, out of different samples to be submitted to him, as that which he, as a printer, thought the best. This was explained to Mr. C. It will be perceived, that Mr. Coleridge’s two proposals were virtually one: as, if I ordered the paper for myself or for another, the responsibility would rest with me. The plain fact is, I purchased the whole of the paper for the “Watchman,” allowing Mr. C. to have it at prime cost, and receiving small sums from him occasionally, in liquidation. I became responsible, also, to Mr. B. for printing the work, by which means I reduced the price per sheet, as a bookseller, (1000) from fifty shillings to thirty five shillings. Mr. C. paid me for the paper in fractions, as he found it convenient, but from the falling off of his own receipts, I never received the whole. It was a losing concern altogether, and I was willing to bear, uncomplaining, my proportion of the loss. There is some difference between this statement, and that of Mr. Coleridge in his “Biographia Literaria.” A defect of memory must have existed, arising out of the lapse of twenty two years; but my notices, made at that time, did not admit of mistake.
My loss was also augmented from another cause. Mr. C. states in the above work, that his London publisher never paid him “one farthing,” but “set him at defiance.” I also was more than his equal companion in this misfortune. The thirty copies of Mr. C.’s poems, and the six “Joans of Arc” (referred to in the preceding letter) found a ready sale, by this said “indefatigable London publisher,” and large and fresh orders were received, so that Mr. Coleridge and myself participated in two very opposite feelings, the one of exultation that our publications had found so good a sale; and the other of depression, that the time of payment never arrived!
All the copies also, of Mr. C.’s Poems, and the “Joan’s of Arc,” which were sent to the North, so far as I am concerned, shared the same fate. I do not know that they were ever paid for. If they were, in combination with other things, it was my wish that the entanglement should never be unravelled, for who could take from Mr. C. any portion of his slender remittances.
The most amusing appendage to this unfortunate “Miscellany,” will now be presented to the reader, in the seven following letters of Mr. Coleridge, addressed to his friend Mr. Josiah Wade, and written in the progress of his journey to collect subscribers for the “Watchman.”
“Worcester, Jan. 1796.
My dear Wade,
We were five in number, and twenty-five, in quantity. The moment I entered the coach, I stumbled on a huge projection, which might be called a belly, with the same propriety that you might name Mount Atlas a mole-hill. Heavens! that a man should be unconscionable enough to enter a stage coach, who would want elbow room if he were walking on Salisbury Plain!
This said citizen was a most violent aristocrat, but a pleasant humourous fellow in other respects, and remarkably well-informed in agricultural science; so that the time passed pleasantly enough. We arrived at Worcester at half-past two: I of course dined at the inn, where I met Mr. Stevens. After dinner I christianized myself; that is, washed and changed, and marched in finery and cleanliness to High-Street. With regard to business, there is no chance of doing any thing at Worcester. The aristocrats are so numerous, and the influence of the clergy so extensive, that Mr. Barr thinks no bookseller will venture to publish the ‘Watchman.’
P.S. I hope and trust that the young citizeness is well, and also Mrs.
Wade. Give my love to the latter, and a kiss for me to little Miss
Bratinella.
S. T. Coleridge.”
“Birmingham, Jan. 1796.
My dear friend,
… My exertions have been incessant, for in whatever company I go, I am obliged to be the figurante of the circle. Yesterday I preached twice, and, indeed, performed the whole service, morning and afternoon. There were about fourteen hundred persons present, and my sermons (great part extempore) were preciously peppered with Politics. I have here, at least, double the number of subscribers, I had expected….”
“Nottingham, Jan. 7, 1796.
My dear friend,
You will perceive by this letter I have changed my route. From Birmingham, on Friday last, (four o’clock in the morning) I proceeded to Derby, stayed there till Monday morning, and am now at Nottingham. From Nottingham I go to Sheffield; from Sheffield to Manchester; from Manchester to Liverpool? from Liverpool to London, from London to Bristol. Ah, what a weary way! My poor crazy ark has been tossed to and fro on an ocean of business, and I long for the Mount Ararat on which it is to rest. At Birmingham I was extremely unwell; a violent cold in my head and limbs confined me for two days. Business succeeded very well; about a hundred subscribers, I think.
At Derby, also, I succeeded tolerably well. Mr. Strutt, the successor of Sir Richard Arkwright, tells me, I may count on forty or fifty in Derby. Derby is full of curiosities; the cotton and silk mills; Wright, the painter, and Dr. Darwin, the every thing but Christian! Dr. Darwin possesses, perhaps, a greater range of knowledge than any other man in Europe, and is the most inventive of philosophical men. He thinks in a new train on all subjects but religion. He bantered me on the subject of religion. I heard all his arguments, and told him, it was infinitely consoling to me — to find that the arguments of so great a man, adduced against the existence of a God and the evidences of revealed religion, were such as had startled me at fifteen, but had become the objects of my smile at twenty. Not one new objection; not even an ingenious one! He boasted ‘that he had never read one book in favour of such stuff! but that he had read all the works of infidels.’
What would you think, Mr. Wade, of a man, who having abused and ridiculed you, should openly declare, that he had heard all that your enemies had to say against you, but had scorned to inquire the truth from any one of your friends? Would you think him an honest man? I am sure you would not. Yet such are all the infidels whom I have known. They talk of a subject, yet are proud to confess themselves profoundly ignorant of it. Dr. Darwin would have been ashamed to reject ‘Hutton’s Theory of the Earth,’ without having minutely examined it: yet what is it to us, how the earth was made, a thing impossible to be known. This system the Dr. did not reject without having severely studied it; but all at once he makes up his mind on such important subjects, as, whether we be the outcasts of a blind idiot, called Nature, or, the children of an All-wise and Infinitely Good God! Whether we spend a few miserable years on this earth, and then sink into a clod of the valley; or, endure the anxieties of mortal life, only to fit us for the enjoyment of immortal happiness. These subjects are unworthy a philosopher’s investigation! He deems that there is a certain self-evidence in Infidelity, and becomes an Atheist by intuition! Well did St. Paul say, ‘Ye have an evil heart of unbelief.’
… What lovely children Mr. Barr, of Worcester has! After church, in the evening, they sat round and sung hymns, so sweetly that they overpowered me. It was with great difficulty that I abstained from weeping aloud! and the infant, in Mrs. B.’s. arms, leant forward, and stretched his little arms, and stared, and smiled! It seemed a picture of heaven, where the different orders of the blessed, join different voices in one melodious hallelulia! and the babe like a young spirit just that moment arrived in heaven, startled at the seraphic songs, and seized at once with wonder and rapture!…
From your affectionate friend,
S. T. Coleridge.”
“Sheffield, Jan. 1796.
My very dear friend,
I arrived at this place, late last night, by the mail from Nottingham, where I have been treated with kindness and friendship, of which I can give you but a faint idea. I preached a charity sermon there last sunday; I preached in colored clothes. With regard to the gown at Birmingham (of which you inquire) I suffered myself to be over-pers
uaded: — first of all, my sermon being of so political a tendency, had I worn my blue coat, it would have impugned Edwards. They would have said, he had stuck a political lecturer in his pulpit. Secondly, — the society is of all sorts. Unitarians, Arians, Trinitarians, &c.! and I must have shocked a multitude of prejudices. And thirdly, — there is a difference between an Inn, and a place of residence. In the first, your example, is of little consequence; in a single instance only, it ceases to operate as example; and my refusal would have been imputed to affectation, or an unaccommodating spirit. Assuredly I would not do it in a place where I intended to preach often. And even in the vestry at Birmingham, when they at last persuaded me, I told them, I was acting against my better knowledge, and should possibly feel uneasy after. So these accounts of the matter you must consider as reasons and palliations, concluding, ‘I plead guilty my Lord!’ Indeed I want firmness. I perceive I do. I have that within me which makes it difficult to say, No! (repeatedly) to a number of persons who seem uneasy and anxious….
My kind remembrances to Mrs. Wade. God bless her, and you, and (like a bad shilling slipped in between two guineas.)
Your faithful and affectionate friend,
S. T. Coleridge.”
Mr. Coleridge, in the course of his extensive journey, having had to act the tradesman on rather an extended scale; conferring and settling with all the booksellers in the respective towns, as to the means of conveyance, allowance, remittances, &c. he thus wrote in a dejected mood, to his friend Mr. Wade, — an unpropitious state of mind for a new enterprise, and very different from those sanguine hopes which he had expressed on other occasions.
“My dear friend,
… I succeeded very well here at Litchfield. Belcher, bookseller,
Birmingham; Sutton, Nottingham; Pritchard, Derby; and Thomson,
Manchester, are the publishers. In every number of the ‘Watchman,’ there
be printed these words, ‘Published in Bristol, by the Author, S. T.
Coleridge, and sold, &c. &c.’
I verily believe no poor fellow’s idea-pot ever bubbled up so vehemently with fears, doubts and difficulties, as mine does at present. Heaven grant it may not boil over, and put out the fire! I am almost heartless! My past life seems to me like a dream, a feverish dream! all one gloomy huddle of strange actions, and dim-discovered motives! Friendships lost by indolence, and happiness murdered by mismanaged sensibility! The present hour I seem in a quickset hedge of embarrassments! For shame! I ought not to mistrust God! but indeed, to hope is far more difficult than to fear. Bulls have horns, Lions have talons.
The Fox, and Statesman subtle wiles ensure,
The Cit, and Polecat stink and are secure:
Toads with their venom, Doctors with their drug,
The Priest, and Hedgehog, in their robes are snug!
Oh, Nature! cruel step-mother, and hard,
To thy poor, naked, fenceless child the Bard!
No Horns but those by luckless Hymen worn,
And those, (alas! alas!) not Plenty’s Horn!
With naked feelings, and with aching pride,
He bears th’ unbroken blast on every side!
Vampire booksellers drain him to the heart,
And Scorpion critics cureless venom dart!
S. T. C.”
“Manchester, Jan. 7, 1796.
My dear friend,
I arrived at Manchester, last night, from Sheffield, to which place I shall only send about thirty numbers. I might have succeeded there, at least, equally well with the former towns, but I should injure the sale of the ‘Iris.’ the editor of which Paper (a very amiable and ingenious young man, of the name of ‘James Montgomery’) is now in prison, for a libel on a bloody-minded magistrate there. Of course, I declined publicly advertising or disposing of the ‘Watchman’ in that town.
This morning I called on Mr. —— with H’s letter. Mr. —— received me as a rider, and treated me with insolence that was really amusing from its novelty. ‘Overstocked with these Articles.’ ‘People always setting up some new thing or other.’ ‘I read the Star and another paper; what can I want with this paper, which is nothing more.’ ‘Well, well, I’ll consider of it.’ To these entertaining bon mots, I returned the following repartee,—’Good morning, sir.’ …
God bless you, S. T. C.”
“Mosely, near Birmingham, 1796.
My very dear Wade,
Will it be any excuse to you for my silence, to say that I have written to no one else, and that these are the very first lines I have written?
I stayed a day or two at Derby, and then went on in Mrs. —— carriage to see the beauties of Matlock. Here I stayed from Tuesday to Saturday, which time was completely filled up with seeing the country, eating, concerts, &c. I was the first fiddle, not in the concerts, but everywhere else, and the company would not spare me twenty minutes together. Sunday I dedicated to the drawing up my sketch of education, which I meant to publish, to try to get a school.
Monday I accompanied Mrs. E. to Oakover, with Miss W. — , to the thrice lovely valley of Ham; a vale hung by beautiful woods all round, except just at its entrance, where, as you stand at the other end of the valley, you see a bare, bleak mountain, standing as it were to guard the entrance. It is without exception, the most beautiful place I ever visited, and from thence we proceeded to Dove-Dale, without question tremendously sublime. Here we dined in a cavern, by the side of a divine little spring. We returned to Derby, quite exhausted with the rapid succession of delightful emotions.
I was to have left Derby on Wednesday; but on the Wednesday, Dr. Crompton, who had been at Liverpool, came home. He called on me, and made the following offer. That if I would take a house in Derby, and open a day-school, confining my number to twelve, he would send his three children. That, till I had completed my number, he would allow me one hundred a year; and and when I had completed it, twenty guineas a year for each son. He thinks there is no doubt but that I might have more than twelve in a very short time, if I liked it. If so, twelve times twenty guineas is two hundred and forty guineas per annum; and my mornings and evenings would be my own: the children coming to me from nine to twelve, and from two to five: the two last hours employed with the writing and drawing masters, in my presence: so that only four hours would be thoroughly occupied by them. The plan to commence in November. I agreed with the Doctor, he telling me, that if, in the mean time, anything more advantageous offered itself, I was to consider myself perfectly at liberty to accept it. On Thursday I left Derby for Burton. Prom Burton I took chaise, slept at Litchfield, and in the morning arrived at my worthy friend’s, Mr. Thomas Hawkes, at Mosely, three miles from Birmingham, in whose shrubbery I am now writing. I shall stay at Birmingham a week longer.
I have seen a letter from Mr. William Roscoe, (Author of the life of Lorenzo the magnificent; a work in two quarto volumes, of which the whole first edition sold in a month) it was addressed to Mr. Edwards, the minister here, and entirely related to me. Of me, and my composition, he writes in terms of high admiration, and concludes by desiring Mr. Edwards to let him know my situation and prospects, and saying, if I would come and settle at Liverpool, he thought a comfortable situation might be procured for me. This day Edwards will write to him.
God love you, and your grateful and affectionate friend, S. T. Coleridge.
N. B. I preached yesterday.”
Mr. Coleridge, in the preceding letters, states his having preached occasionally. There must have been a first sermon. It so happened that I heard Mr. C. preach his first and also his second sermon, with some account of which I shall now furnish the reader; and that without concealment or embellishment. But it will be necessary, as an illustration of the whole, to convey some previous information, which, as it regards most men, would be too unimportant to relate.
When Mr. Coleridge first came to Bristol, he had evidently adopted, at least to some considerable extent, the sentiments of Socinus. By persons of that persuasion, therefore, he wa
s hailed as a powerful accession to their cause. From Mr. C.’s voluble utterance, it was even believed that he might become a valuable Unitarian minister, (of which class of divines, a great scarcity then existed, with a still more gloomy anticipation, from most of the young academicians at their chief academy having recently turned infidels.) But though this presumption in Mr. Coleridge’s favour was confidently entertained, no certainty could exist without a trial, and how was this difficulty to be overcome? The Unitarians in Bristol might have wished to see Mr. C. in their pulpit, expounding and enforcing their faith; but, as they said, “the thing, in Bristol, was altogether impracticable,” from the conspicuous stand which he had taken in free politics, through the medium of his numerous lectures.
It was then recollected by some of his anxious and importunate friends, that Bath was near, and that a good judge of requisite qualifications was to be found therein in the person of the Rev. David Jardine, with whom some of Mr. C.’s friends were on terms of intimacy; so that it was determined that Mr. Coleridge, as the commencement of his brilliant career, should be respectfully requested to preach his inaugural discourse in the Unitarian chapel at Bath.
The invitation having been given and accepted, I felt some curiosity to witness the firmness with which he would face a large and enlightened audience, and, in the intellectual sense, grace his canonical robes. No conveyance having been provided, and wishing the young ecclesiastic to proceed to the place of his exhibition with some decent respectability, I agreed with a common friend, the late Mr. Charles Danvers, to take Mr. C. over to Bath in a chaise.
The morning of the important day unfolded, and in due time we arrived at the place of our destination. When on the way to the chapel, a man stopped Charles Danvers, and asked him if he could tell where the Rev. Mr. Coleridge preached. “Follow the crowd,” said Danvers, and walked on. Mr. C. wore his blue coat and white waistcoat; but what was Mr. Jardine’s surprise, when he found that his young probationer peremptorily refused to wear the hide-all sable gown! Expostulation was unavailing, and the minister ascended to the pulpit in his coloured clothes!
Complete Poetical Works of Robert Southey Page 321