Of the Profanation of the Sacred Word "The People."
"Every brutal mob, assembled on some drunken St. Monday of faction, is 'the People' forsooth, and now each leprous ragamuffin, like a circle in geometry, is at once one and all, and calls his own brutal self 'us the People.' And who are the friends of the People? Not those who would wish to elevate each of them, or at least, the child who is to take his place in the flux of life and death, into something worthy of esteem, and capable of freedom, but those who flatter and infuriate them as they do. A contradiction in the very thought. For if really they are good and wise, virtuous and well-informed, how weak must be the motives of discontent to a truly moral being! — but if the contrary, and the motives for discontent proportionally strong, how without guilt and absurdity appeal to them as judges and arbiters! He alone is entitled to a share in the government of all, who has learnt to govern himself — there is but one possible ground of a right to freedom, viz. to understand and revere its duties."
As specimens of his political writings I select the following, and leave party men to criticise them — Coleridge being of no party, but guided, as will sufficiently appear to those who have read his works with attention, solely by philosophical principles, from which he never swerved. Nor did he desire the praise of men, merely because they were in power; still less that of the multitude. For this reason, I repeat, these fragments are given, as illustrative of Coleridge's political views, and to shew how easily the harmony of the constitutional balance may be disturbed by party zeal. His opinions were often misunderstood even sometimes by kindly-disposed individuals, when
theirs
were not founded on certain data, because their principles were not derived from permanent sources. The doctrine of expediency was one he highly censured, and it had existed long enough to prove to him that it was worthless. What one set of well-intentioned men may effect, and which for a time may have produced good, another set of men by the same doctrine,
i.e.
of expediency may effect, and then produce incalculable mischief, and, therefore, Coleridge thought there was neither guide nor safety, but in the permanent and uncontrovertible truths of the sacred writings, so that the extent of this utility will depend on faith in these truths, and with these truths, his name must
live or perish
. But some part of Coleridge's writings requiring too much effort of thought to be at once thoroughly understood, may therefore have been found distasteful, and consequently have exposed his name to ridicule, in some cases even to contempt; but the application Coleridge has made of these truths to the duties and various circumstances of life will surely be found an inestimable blessing. They were truly his rock of support, and formed the basis of the building he was endeavouring to raise.
In the year 1807, he wrote those weekly
Essays of the Friend
, which were published about this time, and thus gave to the world some of his rich intellectual stores. The following letter, which he addressed to Mr. Cottle, will shew the progress of his mind from Socinian to Trinitarian belief at that period of his life:—
"Bristol, 1807.
Dear Cottle,
To pursue our last conversation. Christians expect no outward or sensible miracles from prayer. Its effects, and its fruitions are spiritual, and accompanied, says that true Divine, Archbishop Leighton, 'not by reasons and arguments but by an inexpressible kind of evidence, which they only know who have it.'
To this I would add, that even those who, like me I fear, have not attained it, may yet presume it. First, because reason itself, or rather mere human nature, in any dispassionate moment, feels the necessity of religion, but if this be not true there is no religion, no religation, or binding over again; nothing added to reason, and therefore Socinianism (misnamed Unitarianism) is not only not Christianity, it is not even religion, it does not religate; does not bind anew. The first outward and sensible result of prayer, is, a penitent resolution, joined with a consciousness of weakness in effecting it, yea even a dread, too well grounded, lest by breaking and falsifying it, the soul should add guilt to guilt; by the very means it has taken to escape from guilt; so pitiable is the state of unregenerate man.
Are you familiar with Leighton's Works? He resigned his archbishoprick, and retired to voluntary poverty on account of the persecution of the Presbyterians, saying, 'I should not dare to introduce Christianity itself with such cruelties, how much less for a surplice, and the name of a bishop.' If there could be an intermediate space between inspired, and uninspired writings, that space would be occupied by Leighton. No show of learning, no appearance, or ostentatious display of eloquence; and yet both may be shown in him, conspicuously and holily. [There] is in him something that must be felt, even as the scriptures must be felt.[15]
You ask me my views of the Trinity. I accept the doctrine, not as deduced from human reason, in its grovelling capacity for comprehending spiritual things, but as the clear revelation of Scripture. But perhaps it may be said, the Socinians do not admit this doctrine as being taught in the Bible. I know enough of their shifts and quibbles, with their dexterity at explaining away all they dislike, (and that is not a little) but though beguiled once by them, I happily, for my own peace of mind, escaped from their sophistries, and now, hesitate not to affirm, that Socinians would lose all character for honesty, if they were to explain their neighbour's will with the same latitude of interpretation, which they do the Scriptures.
I have in my head some floating ideas on the Logos, which I hope, hereafter, to mould into a consistent form; but it is a gross perversion of the truth, in Socinians, to declare that we believe in Three Gods, and they know it to be false. They might, with equal justice, affirm that we believe in three suns. The meanest peasant, who has acquired the first rudiments of Christianity, would shrink back from a thought so monstrous. Still the Trinity has its difficulties. It would be strange if otherwise. A Revelation that revealed nothing, not within the grasp of human reason! — no religation, no binding over again, as before said: but these difficulties are shadows, contrasted with the substantive, and insurmountable obstacles with which they contend who admit the Divine authority of Scripture, with the superlative excellence of Christ, and yet undertake to prove that these Scriptures teach, and that Christ taught, his own pure humanity!
If Jesus Christ was merely a Man, — if he was not God as well as Man, be it considered, he could not have been even a good man. There is no medium. The Saviour in that case was absolutely a deceiver! one, transcendently unrighteous! in advancing pretensions to miracles, by the 'Finger of God,' which he never performed; and by asserting claims, (as a man) in the most aggravated sense, blasphemous!
These consequences, Socinians, to be consistent, must allow, and which impious arrogation of Divinity in Christ, (according to their faith,) as well as his false assumption of a community of 'glory' with the Father, 'before the world was,' even they will be necessitated to admit, completely exonerated the Jews, according to their law, in crucifying one, who 'being a man,' 'made himself God!' But, in the Christian, rather than in the Socinian, or Pharisaic view, all these objections vanish, and harmony succeeds to inexplicable confusion. If Socinians hesitate in ascribing unrighteousness to Christ, the inevitable result of their principles, they tremble, as well they might, at their avowed creed, and virtually renounce what they profess to uphold.
The Trinity, as Bishop Leighton has well remarked, is, 'a doctrine of faith, not of demonstration,' except in a moral sense. If the New Testament declare it, not in an insulated passage, but through the whole breadth of its pages, rendering, with any other admission, the Book, which is the Christian's anchor-hold of hope, dark and contradictory, then it is not to be rejected, but on a penalty that reduces to an atom, all the sufferings this earth can inflict.
Let the grand question be determined; Is, or is not the Bible inspired? No one Book has ever been subjected to so rigid an investigation as the Bible, by minds the most capacious, and, in the result, which has so triumphantly repelled all the assaults of Infidels. In the extensive intercourse which I have had with this class of men, I have seen their prejudices surpassed only by their ignorance. This I found conspicuously the case in Dr. D. (Vol. i. p. 167) the prince of their fraternity. Without, therefore, stopping to contend on what all dispassionate men must deem, undebatable ground, I may assume inspiration as admitted; and, equally so, that it would be an insult to man's understanding to suppose any other Revelation from God than the Christian Scriptures. If these Scriptures, impregnable in their strength; sustained in their pretensions by undeniable prophecies and miracles; and by the experience of the inner man, in all ages, as well as by a concatenation of arguments, all bearing upon one point, and extending, with miraculous consistency, through a series of fifteen hundred years; if all this combined proof does not establish their validity, nothing can be proved under the sun; but the world and man must be abandoned, with all its consequences to one universal scepticism! Under such sanctions, therefore, if these Scriptures, as a fundamental truth, do inculcate the doctrine of the Trinity; however surpassing human comprehension; then I say, we are bound to admit it on the strength of moral demonstration.
The supreme Governor of the world, and the Father of our spirits, has seen fit to disclose to us, much of his will, and the whole of his natural and moral perfections. In some instances he has given his word only, and demanded our faith; while, on other momentous subjects, instead of bestowing a full revelation; like the Via Lactea, he has furnished a glimpse only, through either the medium of inspiration, or by the exercise of those rational faculties with which he has endowed us. I consider the Trinity as substantially resting on the first proposition, yet deriving support from the last.
I recollect when I stood on the summit of Etna, and darted my gaze down the crater; the immediate vicinity was discernible, till, lower down, obscurity gradually terminated in total darkness. Such figures exemplify many truths revealed in the Bible. We pursue them, until, from the imperfection of our faculties, we are lost in impenetrable night. All truths, however, that are essential to faith, honestly interpreted; all that are important to human conduct, under every diversity of circumstance, are manifest as a blazing star. The promises also of felicity to the righteous, in the future world, though the precise nature of that felicity may not be defined, are illustrated by every image that can swell the imagination: while the misery of the lost, in its unutterable intensity, though the language that describes it is all necessarily figurative, is there exhibited as resulting chiefly, if not wholly, from the withdrawment of the light of God's countenance, and a banishment from his presence! — best comprehended in this world, by reflecting on the desolations which would instantly follow the loss of the sun's vivifying and universally diffused warmth.
You, or rather all, should remember, that some truths, from their nature, surpass the scope of man's limited powers, and stand as the criteria of faith, determining, by their rejection, or admission, who among the sons of men can confide in the veracity of heaven. Those more ethereal truths, of which the Trinity is conspicuously the chief, without being circumstantially explained, may be faintly illustrated by material objects. — The eye of man cannot discern the satellites of Jupiter, nor become sensible of the multitudinous stars, the rays of which have never reached our planet, and, consequently, garnish not the canopy of night; yet, are they the less real, because their existence lies beyond man's unassisted gaze? The tube of the philosopher, and the celestial telescope, — the unclouded visions of heaven, will confirm the one class of truths, and irradiate the other.
The Trinity is a subject on which analogical reasoning may advantageously be admitted, as furnishing, at least, a glimpse of light, and with this, for the present, we must be satisfied. Infinite Wisdom deemed clearer manifestations inexpedient; and is man to dictate to his Maker? I may further remark, that where we cannot behold a desirable object distinctly, we must take the best view we can; and I think you, and every candid and inquiring mind, may derive assistance from such reflections as the following.
Notwithstanding the arguments of Spinosa, and Descartes, and other advocates of the Material system, (or, in more appropriate language, the Atheistical system!) it is admitted by all men not prejudiced, not biassed by sceptical prepossessions, that mind is distinct from matter. The mind of man, however, is involved in inscrutable darkness, (as the profoundest metaphysicians well know) and is to be estimated, (if at all) alone, by an inductive process; that is, by its effects. Without entering on the question, whether an extremely circumscribed portion of the mental process, surpassing instinct, may, or may not, be extended to quadrupeds, it is universally acknowledged, that the mind of man, alone, regulates all the voluntary actions of his corporeal frame. Mind, therefore, may be regarded as a distinct genus, in the scale ascending above brutes, and including the whole of intellectual existences; advancing from thought, (that mysterious thing!) in its lowest form, through all the gradations of sentient and rational beings, till it arrives at a Bacon, a Newton, and then, when unincumbered by matter, extending its illimitable sway through Seraph and Archangel, till we are lost in the Great Infinite!
Is it not deserving of notice, as an especial subject of meditation, that our limbs, in all they do, or can accomplish, implicitly obey the dictation of the mind? that this operating power, whatever its name, under certain limitations, exercises a sovereign dominion, not only over our limbs, but over all our intellectual pursuits? The mind of every man is evidently the moving force, which alike regulates all his limbs and actions; and in which example, we find a strong illustration of the subordinate nature of mere matter. That alone which gives direction to the organic parts of our nature, is wholly mind; and one mind, if placed over a thousand limbs, could, with undiminished ease, control and regulate the whole.
This idea is advanced on the supposition, that one mind could command an unlimited direction over any given number of limbs, provided they were all connected by joint and sinew. But suppose, through some occult and inconceivable means, these limbs were dis-associated, as to all material connexion; suppose, for instance, one mind, with unlimited authority, governed the operations of two separate persons, would not this, substantially, be only one person, seeing the directing principle was one? If the truth, here contended for, be admitted, that two persons, governed by one mind, is incontestably one person; the same conclusion would be arrived at, and the proposition equally be justified, which affirmed that, three, or, otherwise, four persons, owning also necessary and essential subjection to one mind, would only be so many diversities, or modifications of that one mind, and therefore the component parts, virtually collapsing into one whole, the person would be one. Let any man ask himself, whose understanding can both reason, and become the depository of truth, whether, if one mind thus regulated, with absolute authority, three, or, otherwise, four persons, with all their congeries of material parts, would not these parts, inert in themselves, when subjected to one predominant mind, be, in the most logical sense, one person? [Are] ligament and exterior combination indispensable pre-requisites to the sovereign influence of mind over mind? or mind over matter?[16]
But perhaps it may be said, we have no instance of one mind governing more than one body. This may be, but the argument remains the same. With a proud spirit, that forgets its own contracted range of thought, and circumscribed knowledge, who is to limit the sway of Omnipotence? or, presumptuously to deny the possibility of that Being, who called light out of darkness, so to exalt the dominion of one mind, as to give it absolute sway over other dependent minds, or (indifferently) over detached, or combined portions of organized matter? But if this superinduced quality be conferable on any order of created beings, it is blasphemy to limit the power of God, and to deny his capacity to transfuse his own Spirit, when, and to whom he will.
This reasoning may now be applied in illustration of the Trinity. We are too much in the habit of viewing our Saviour Jesus Christ, through the medium of his body. 'A body was prepared for him,' but this body was mere matter; as insensible in itself, as every human frame when deserted by the soul. If therefore the Spirit that was in Christ, was the Spirit of the Father: if no thought, no vibration, no spiritual communication, or miraculous display, existed in, or proceeded from Christ, not immediately and consubstantially identified with Jehovah, the Great First cause; if all these operating principles were thus derived, in consistency alone with the conjoint divine attributes; of this Spirit of the Father ruled and reigned in Christ as his own manifestation, then, in the strictest sense, Christ exhibited 'the God-head bodily,' and was undeniably 'one with the Father;' confirmatory of the Saviour's words; 'Of myself,' (my body) 'I can do nothing, the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.'
But though I speak of the body, as inert in itself, and necessarily allied to matter, yet this declaration must not be understood as militating against the Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the body. In its grosser form, the thought is not to be admitted, for, 'flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God,' but, that the body, without losing its consciousness, and individuality, may be subjected, by the illimitable power of Omnipotence, to a sublimating process, so as to be rendered compatible with spiritual association, is not opposed to reason, in its severe abstract exercises, while in attestation of this exhilarating belief, there are many remote analogies in nature exemplifying the same truth, while it is in the strictest accordance with that final dispensation, which must, as Christians, regulate all our speculations. I proceed now to say, that:
If the postulate be thus admitted, that one mind influencing two bodies, would only involve a diversity of operations, but in reality be one in essence; or otherwise, (as an hypothetical argument, illustrative of truth) if one preeminent mind, or spiritual subsistence, unconnected with matter, possessed an undivided and sovereign dominion over two or more disembodied minds, so as to become the exclusive source of all their subtlest volitions and exercises, the unity, however complex the modus of its manifestation, would be fully established; and this principle extends to Deity itself, and shows the true sense, as I conceive, in which Christ and the Father are one.
In continuation of this reasoning, if God who is light, the Sun of the Moral World, should in his union of Infinite Wisdom, Power, and Goodness, and from all Eternity, have ordained that an emanation from himself (for aught we know, an essential emanation, as light is inseparable from the luminary of day) should not only have existed in his Son, in the fulness of time to be united to a mortal body, but that a like emanation from himself (also perhaps essential) should have constituted the Holy Spirit, who, without losing his ubiquity, was more especially sent to this lower earth, by the Son, at the impulse of the Father, then, in the most comprehensive sense, God, and his Son, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost, are One. 'Three Persons in one God,' and thus form the true Trinity in Unity.
To suppose that more than One Independent Power, or Governing mind exists in the whole universe, is absolute Polytheism, against which the denunciations of all the Jewish, and Christian Canonical books were directed. And if there be but One directing Mind, that Mind is God! — operating, however, in Three Persons, according to the direct and uniform declarations of that inspiration which 'brought life and immortality to light.' Yet this divine doctrine of the Trinity is to be received, not because it is, or can be clear to finite apprehension, but, (in reiteration of the argument) because the Scriptures, in their unsophisticated interpretation expressly state it. The Trinity, therefore, from its important aspects, and Biblical prominence, is the grand article of faith, and the foundation of the whole Christian system.
[Who] can say, as Christ[17] and the Holy Ghost proceeded from, and are still one with the Father, and as all the disciples of Christ derive their fulness from him, and, in spirit, are inviolately united to him as a branch is to the vine, who can say, but that, in one view, what was once mysteriously separated, may, as mysteriously, be recombined, and, (without interfering with the everlasting Trinity, and the individuality of the spiritual and seraphic orders) the Son, at the consummation of all things, deliver up his mediatorial kingdom to the Father, and God, in some peculiar, and infinitely sublime sense, become All in All!
[God] love you,
S. T. Coleridge."[18]
Those who are acquainted with Mr. Coleridge's maturer view of the doctrine of the Trinity, will not need to be informed that this letter does not convey his later conviction in regard to this awful mystery, and will know that his philosophic meditations rested essentially in the same faith that dictated the Article of the Church of England on this subject.
Mr. De Quincey has made several mistatements in a memoir on Mr. Coleridge, which he wrote in
Tait's Magazine
; but it may be only fair first to quote a few interesting remarks, with which he begins:
"In the summer season of 1807 I first saw this illustrious man, the largest and most spacious intellect in my judgment that has ever yet existed amongst men. My knowledge of his works as a most original genius began about the year 1799."
A little before that time, Wordsworth published the
Lyrical Ballads,
in which was the
Ancient Mariner
of Coleridge, and to which Mr. De Quincey attributes the unfolding of his own mind; this confession is by no means humiliating, for many persons of the highest reputation have made similar acknowledgments, and some there are still living who have the courage and integrity to do so now.
"I found (says this gentleman) that Professor Wilson, as well as myself, saw in these poems 'the ray of a new morning;' — and to these names may be added that of the celebrated Sir Walter Scott."
The admiration of Mr. De Quincey was so great that inquiring where Coleridge was to be found, and learning that he was in Malta, he contemplated an immediate visit to that island, but the fear of a French prison reconciled him to remaining in England. When on a visit in 1807 (to a relation), at the Hot Wells, he learnt that Coleridge was staying with a friend not far from Bristol. This friend was Mr. Poole of Nether Stowey, and thither he bent his steps. In this house Mr. De Quincey spent two days, and gives, from his own knowledge, a sketch of Mr. Poole's person and character very descriptive of the original. Coleridge often remarked that he was the best "ideal for a useful member of parliament he ever knew;"
"a plain dressed man leading a bachelor life," as Mr. De Quincey observes, "in a rustic old fashioned house, amply furnished with modern luxuries, and a good library. Mr. Poole had travelled extensively, and had so entirely dedicated himself to his humble fellow countrymen, who resided in his neighbourhood, that for many miles round he was the general arbiter of their disputes, the guide and counsellor of their daily life; besides being appointed executor and guardian to his children by every third man who died in or about the town of Nether Stowey."
in few words was the individual whom Coleridge, in his social hours and in the full warmth of friendship, would most eloquently and feelingly describe.
Mr. De Quincey having been informed that Coleridge was at Bridgewater, left Nether Stowey for that place, in search of him. The meeting and the description recall him forcibly to the minds of those who twenty years after were so intimately acquainted with him:
"In Bridgewater I noticed a gateway, standing under which was a man corresponding to the description given me of Coleridge whom I shall presently describe. In height he seemed to be five feet eight inches, (he was in reality about an inch and a half taller,) though in the latter part of life, from a lateral curvature in the spine, he shortened gradually from two to three inches. His person was broad and full, and tended even to corpulence; his complexion was fair, though not what painters technically style fair, because it was associated with black hair; his eyes were large and soft in their expression, and it was by the peculiar appearance of haze or dreaminess which mixed with their light that I recognized my object. This was Coleridge; I examined him steadily for a moment or more, and it struck me he neither saw myself, nor any other object in the street. He was in a deep reverie; for I had dismounted, made two or three trifling arrangements at the inn door, and advanced close to him, before he seemed apparently conscious of my presence. The sound of my voice announcing my name first awoke him; he started, and for a moment seemed at a loss to understand my purpose, or his own situation, for he repeated rapidly a number of words which had no relation to either of us; very likely trying a metre, or making verse, a frequent practice of his, and of Mr. Wordsworth's. There was no mauvaise haute in his manner, but simple perplexity, and an apparent difficulty in recovering his position amongst daylight realities. This little scene over, he received me with a kindness of manner so marked, that it might be called gracious. The hospitable family, with whom he was domesticated, were distinguished for their amiable manners, and enlightened understandings; they were descendants from Chubb, the philosophic writer, and bore the same name. For Coleridge they all testified deep affection and esteem, sentiments which the whole town of Bridgewater seemed to share, for in the evening, when the heat of the day had declined, [I] walked out with him; and rarely, perhaps never, have I seen a person so much interrupted in one hour's space as Coleridge on this occasion, by the courteous attentions of young and old."[20]
This appears so faithful a portraiture of Coleridge that it is impossible to read it without once more beholding him as in a mirror. Continuing his description, he speaks again of his extreme courtesy, and of his easy and gentlemanly manner of receiving strangers. A friend of mine seldom speaks of the past in connexion with Coleridge's name, but he reminds me of a visit he once made to me during my absence at the sea shore, and of the courteous grace he displayed in doing the honours of the house.
In every thing wherein the comfort or happiness of others were concerned, Coleridge ever evinced how entirely he could devote himself to those he loved or who might require his sympathy:
His own fair countenance, his kingly forehead,
His tender smiles, love's day-dawn on his lips —
The sense, the spirit, and the light divine,
At the same moment in his steadfast eye
Were virtue's native crest, the innocent soul's
Unconscious meek self-heraldry — to man
Genial, and pleasant to his guardian angel!
He suffered, nor complained; though oft with tears
He mourned the oppression of his helpless brethren;
Yea with a deeper and yet holier grief
Mourned for th' oppressor; but this
In sabbath hours — a solemn grief,
Most like a cloud at sunset,
Was but the veil of purest meditation,
Pierced through and saturate with the intellectual rays
It softened.
Literary Remains, vol. i. 277.
These were characteristic beauties, that shone forth in Coleridge, and were deeply felt by all who were attached to him.
With regard to the charge made by Mr. De Quincey, of Coleridge's so borrowing the property of other writers as to be guilty of 'petty larceny'; with equal justice might we accuse the bee which flies from flower to flower in quest of food, and which, by means of the instinct bestowed upon it by the all-wise Creator, extracts its nourishment from the field and the garden, but
digests
and
elaborates
it by its own
native
powers.
Coleridge
began
the use of opium from bodily pain (rheumatism), and for the same reason
continued
it, till he had acquired a habit too difficult under his own management to control. To him it was the thorn in the flesh, which will be seen in the following notes
"I have never loved evil for its own sake: no! nor ever sought pleasure for its own sake, but only as the means of escaping from pains that coiled around my mental powers, as a serpent around the body and wings of an eagle! My sole sensuality was not to be in pain." Note from Pocket Book, "The History of my own mind for my own improvement," Dec. 23, 1804.
"[I] wrote a few stanzas[21] three and twenty years ago, soon after my eyes had been opened to the true nature of the habit into which I had been ignorantly deluded by the seeming magic effects of opium, in the sudden removal of a supposed rheumatic affection, attended with swellings in my knees, and palpitations of the heart, and pains all over me, by which I had been bed-ridden for nearly six months. Unhappily, among my neighbour's and landlord's books were a large parcel of medical reviews and magazines. I had always a fondness (a common case, but most mischievous turn with reading men who are at all dyspeptic) for dabbling in medical writings; and in one of these reviews I met a case, which I fancied very like my own, in which a cure had been effected by the Kendal Black Drop. In an evil hour I procured it: — it worked miracles — the swellings disappeared, the pains vanished; I was all alive, and all around me being as ignorant as myself, nothing could exceed my triumph. I talked of nothing else, prescribed the newly-discovered panacea for all complaints, and carried a bottle about with me, not to lose any opportunity of administering 'instant relief and speedy cure' to all complainers, stranger or friend, gentle or simple. Need I say that my own apparent convalescence was of no long continuance; but what then? — the remedy was at hand and infallible. Alas! it is with a bitter smile, a laugh of gall and bitterness, that I recall this period of unsuspecting delusion, and how I first became aware of the Maelstrom, the fatal whirlpool, to which I was drawing just when the current was already beyond my strength to stem. The state of my mind is truly portrayed in the following effusion, for God knows! that from that moment I was the victim of pain and terror, nor had I at any time taken the flattering poison as a stimulus, or for any craving after pleasurable sensations. I needed none; and oh! with what unutterable sorrow did I read the Confessions of an Opium-eater, in which the writer with morbid vanity, makes a boast of what was my misfortune, for he had been faithfully and with an agony of zeal warned of the gulf, and yet wilfully struck into the current! — Heaven be merciful to him!"
April, 1826.
"Oh! (will a vain imagination whisper) that in the outset of life I could have felt as well as known the consequences of sin and error before their tyranny had commenced! Though, compared with the average of my fellow men, not a sinful man, yet I feel enough to be assured that few indeed are there who might not from their sins or sinful infirmities gain a tongue of flame, wherewith to warn men of the deadly poison of all, even the least offence. Of all divines, Luther felt most deeply the terrors of the Law; and for that reason, the unutterable goodness and love of the dispensation of grace! — To be one with God the Father — an awful thought beyond all utterance of the awe which it inspires, but by no means wild or mystical. On the contrary, all our experience moves in this direction. In reason, in science, who shall set bounds to the possible progress of man, as long as he is no longer in himself, but in the truth and power of truth. The moment that disease reduces himself to himself, the sage who was able to weigh the planets, and foresee their movements centuries and millenniums to come, trembles in his ignorance of the next five minutes, whether it shall be pain and terror, or relief and respite, and in spirit falls on his knees and prays. Prayer is the mediation, or rather the effort to connect the misery of self with the blessedness of God; and its voice is — Mercy! mercy! for Christ's sake, in whom thou hast opened out the fountain of mercy to sinful man. It is a sore evil to be, and not in God; but it is a still more dreadful evil and misery to will to be other than in God; and yet in every act, in which the gratification of the sensual life is the ultimate end, is the manifestation of such a will. Imagine a — — , first in his noblest hours, in the laboratory or the observatory — an unfolder and discoverer — and then on a sick bed, from the consequences of his own indiscretions. Place both states of the same man, that of the spirit and that of the self-seeking self, clearly and in detail before your mind: — if you can do this, you need no more."
January 7, 1830.
"There is a passage in the Samson Agonistes, in which Milton is supposed on sufficient grounds to have referred to himself, that in which the chorus speaks of strictly temperate man 'causelessly suffering' the pains and penances of inordinate days. O! what would I not give to be able to utter with truth this complaint! O! if he had or rather if he could have presented to himself truly and vividly the aggravation of those pains, which the conscience of their having originated in errors and weaknesses of his own. I do not say that he would not have complained of his sufferings, for who can be in those most trying sufferances of miserable sensations and not complain of them, but his groans for the pain would have been blended with thanksgivings to the sanctifying Spirit. Even under the direful yoke of the necessity of daily poisoning by narcotics it is somewhat less horrible, through the knowledge that it was not from any craving for pleasurable animal excitement, but from pain, delusion, error, of the worst ignorance, medical sciolism, and when (alas! too late the plea of error was removed from my eyes,) from terror and utter perplexity and infirmity; — sinful infirmity, indeed, but yet not a wilful sinfulness that I brought my neck under it. Oh, may the God to whom I look for mercy through Christ, show mercy on the author of the Confessions of an Opium Eater, if, as I have too strong reason to believe, his book has been the occasion of seducing others into this withering vice through wantonness. From this aggravation I have, I humbly trust, been free, as far as acts of my free will and intention are concerned; even to the author of that work I pleaded with flowing tears, and with an agony of forewarning. He utterly denied it, but I fear that I had even then to deter perhaps not to forewarn. [My] own contrasted feelings soon after I saw the Maelstrom to which the current was absorbing me, are written in one of my paper books."[22]
Jan. 7, 1830.
Having referred to the accusations of plagiarism brought against Coleridge, it will not, I trust, be deemed inappropriate, to introduce from the
British Magazine
, No. 37, the concluding part of a critique ably written by the Rev. Julius Hare, who has selected with great discrimination several passages from the
Friend
, which must come home to the heart of every good man, and this I feel the more impelled to do, as it is a moral lesson to biographers — perhaps to us all:
An inquisitiveness into the minutest circumstances and casual sayings of eminent contemporaries is indeed quite natural: but so are all our follies: and the more natural they are the more caution should we exert in guarding against them. To scribble trifles, even on the perishable glass of an inn window, is the mark of an idler: but to engrave them on the marble monument sacred to the memory of the departed great, is something worse than idleness. The spirit of genuine biography is in nothing more conspicuous than in the firmness with which it withstands the cravings of worthless curiosity, as distinguished from the thirst after useful knowledge. For in the first place, such anecdotes as derive their whole and sole interest from the great name of the person concerning whom they are related, and neither illustrate his general character nor his particular actions, would scarcely have been noticed or remembered, except by men of weak minds. It is not unlikely, therefore, that they were misapprehended at the time; and it is most probable that they have been related as incorrectly, as they were noticed injudiciously. Nor are the consequences of such garrulous biography merely negative. For as insignificant stories can derive no real respectability from the eminence of the person who happens to be the subject of them, but rather an additional deformity of disproportion, they are apt to have their insipidity seasoned by the same bad passions that accompany the habit of gossiping in general: and the misapprehensions of weak men, meeting with the misinterpretations of malignant men, have not seldom formed the ground work of the most grievous calamities. In the second place, those trifles are subversive of the great end of biography, which is to fix the attention and to interest the feelings of men on those qualities and actions which have made a particular life worthy of being recorded. It is no doubt the duty of an honest biographer to portray the prominent imperfections as well as excellencies of his hero. But I am at a loss to conceive how this can be deemed an excuse for heaping together a multitude of particulars, which can prove nothing of any man, that might not be safely taken for granted of all men. In the present age — emphatically the age of personality — there are more than ordinary motives for withholding all encouragement from the mania of busying ourselves with the names of others, which is still more alarming as a symptom, than it is troublesome as a disease. The reader must be still less acquainted with contemporary literature than myself, if he needs me to inform him that there are men who, trading in the silliest anecdotes, in unprovoked abuse and senseless eulogy, think themselves nevertheless employed both worthily and honourably if only all this be done in good set terms, and from the press, and of public characters, — a class which has increased so rapidly of late, that it becomes difficult to discover what characters are to be considered as private. Alas! if these wretched misusers of language and the means of giving wings to thought, and of multiplying the presence of an individual mind, had ever known how great a thing the possession of any one simple truth is, and how mean a thing a mere fact is, except as seen in the light of some comprehensive truth — if they had but once experienced the unborrowed complacency, the inward independence, the homebred strength, with which every clear conception of the reason is accompanied, — they would shrink from their own pages as at the remembrance of a crime. — For a crime it is (and the man who hesitates in pronouncing it such, must be ignorant of what mankind owe to books, what he himself owes to them in spite of his ignorance) thus to introduce the spirit of vulgar scandal, and personal inquietude into the closet and the library, environing with evil passions the very sanctuaries to which we should flee for refuge from them. For to what do these publications appeal, whether they present themselves as biography or as anonymous criticism, but to the same feelings which the scandal bearers, and time-killers of ordinary life seem to gratify in themselves and their listeners; and both the authors and admirers of such publications, in what respect are they less truants and deserters from their own hearts, and from their appointed task of understanding and amending them, than the most garrulous female chronicler of the goings-on of yesterday in the families of her neighbours and townsfolk?
'As to my own attempt to record the life and character of the late Sir Alexander Ball, I consider myself deterred from all circumstances not pertaining to his conduct or character as a public functionary, that involve the names of the living for good or for evil. Whatever facts and incidents I relate of a private nature must, for the most part, concern Sir Alexander Ball exclusively, and as an insulated individual. But I needed not this restraint. It will be enough for me, as I write, to recollect the form and character of Sir Alexander Ball himself, to represent to my own feelings the inward contempt with which he would have abstracted his mind from worthless anecdotes and petty personalities; a contempt rising into indignation if ever an illustrious name were used as a thread to string them upon. If this recollection be my Socratic Demon, to warn and to check me, I shall, on the other hand, derive encouragement from the remembrance of the tender patience, the sweet gentleness, with which he was wont to tolerate the tediousness of well meaning men; and the inexhaustible attention, the unfeigned interest, with which he would listen for hours, when the conversation appealed to reason, and like the bee, made honey, while it murmured.' I have transcribed this passage from the original edition of the Friend, No. 21, and not from the reprint, where it stands in vol. ii. pp. 303-307; because in the latter, the last paragraph, in itself a beautiful one, and to our present purpose particularly appropriate, is left out. For if Coleridge could imagine 'the inward contempt with which Sir Alexander Ball would have abstracted his mind from worthless anecdotes and petty personalities, — a contempt rising into indignation, if ever an illustrious name was used as a thread to string them on,' well may those who knew Coleridge conceive the grief, the grief and pity, he would have felt, at seeing eminent powers and knowledge employed in ministering to the wretched love of gossip — retailing paltry anecdotes in dispraise of others, intermingled with outflowings of self-praise — and creeping into the secret chambers of great men's houses to filch out materials for tattle — at seeing great powers wasting and debasing themselves in such an ignoble task — [above] all, at seeing that the person who thus wasted and debased them was a scholar, and a philosopher whose talents he admired, with whom he had lived familiarly, and whom he had honoured with his friendship."[23]
There is one part of Coleridge's character not to be passed by, although so overlaid by his genius as rarely to be noticed, namely, his love of humour and of wit, of which he possessed so large a share. As punsters, his dear friend Lamb and himself were inimitable. Lamb's puns had oftener more effect, from the impediment in his speech their force seemed to be increased by the pause of stuttering, and to shoot forth like an arrow from a strong bow — but being never poisoned nor envenomed, they left no pain behind. Coleridge was more humorous than witty in making puns — and in repartee, he was, according to modern phraseology, "smart and clever." Staying a few days with two friends at a farm-house, they agreed to visit a race-course in the neighbourhood. The farmer brought from his stud a horse low in stature, and still lower in flesh — a bridle corresponding in respectability of appearance, with a saddle equally suitable — stirrups once bright, but now deeply discoloured by rust. All this was the contrivance of the farmer, and prudently intended for his safety. He had heard previously of Coleridge's want of skill in riding, and had therefore provided him with a beast not likely to throw him. On this Rosinante the poet mounted, in his accustomed dress, namely, a black coat, black breeches, with black silk stockings and shoes. His friends being trusted with more active steeds, soon outstripped him. Jogging on leisurely he was met by a long-nosed knowing-looking man, attired in a
sporting
dress, and an excellent equestrian. Seeing this whimsical horseman in shoes, he writhed, as Coleridge observed, his lithe proboscis, and thus accosted him:
Pray, sir, did you meet a tailor along the road?"
"A tailor?" answered Coleridge; "yes!"
"Do you see, sir! he rode just such a horse as you ride! and for all the world was just like you!"
"Oh! oh!" answered Coleridge, "I did meet a person answering such a description, who told me he had dropped his goose, that if I rode a little farther I should find it; and I guess by the arch-fellow's looks, he must have meant you."
"Caught a tartar!" replied the man, and suddenly spurring his horse, left him to pursue his road. At length Coleridge reached the race-course, when threading his way through the crowd, he arrived at the spot of attraction to which all were hastening. Here he confronted a barouche and four, filled with smart ladies and attendant gentlemen. In it was also seated a baronet of sporting celebrity, steward of the course, and member of the House of Commons, well known as having been bought and sold in several parliaments. The baronet eyed the figure of Coleridge as he slowly passed the door of the barouche, and thus accosted him:
"A pretty piece of blood, sir, you have there?"
"Yes!" answered Coleridge.
"Rare paces, I have no doubt, sir!"
"Yes," said Coleridge he brought me here a matter of four miles an hour."
He was at no loss to perceive the honourable member's drift, who wished to shew off before the ladies: so he quietly waited the opportunity of a suitable reply.
"What a fore-hand he has!" continued Nimrod, "how finely he carries his tail! Bridle and saddle well suited! and appropriately appointed!"
"Yes," said Coleridge.
"Will you sell him?" asked the sporting baronet.
"Yes!" was the answer, "if I can have my price."
"Name your price, then, putting the rider into the bargain!"
This was too pointed to be passed over by a simple answer, and Coleridge was ready.
"My price for the
horse, sir
, if I sell him, is
one hundred
guineas, — as to the
rider
, never having been in parliament, and never intending to go,
his
price is not yet fixed."
The baronet sat down more suddenly than he had risen — the ladies began to titter — while Coleridge quietly left him to his chagrin, and them to the enjoyment of their mirth.
We are now arrived at that period of Coleridge's life, in which it may be said, he received his first great warning of approaching danger. But it will be necessary to review his previous state of health. From childhood he discovered strong symptoms of a feeble stomach. As observed in the account of his school experience, when compelled to turn over the shoes in the shoe closet, exhausted by the fatigue, and overpowered by the scent, he suffered so much, that in after years the very remembrance almost made him shudder. Then his frequent bathing in the New River was an imprudence so injurious in its consequences, as to place him for nearly twelve months in the sick ward in the hospital of the school, with rheumatism connected with jaundice. These, to a youthful constitution, were matters of so serious a nature, as to explain to those acquainted with disease the origin and cause of his subsequent bodily sufferings. His sensitiveness was consequent on these, and so was his frequent incapability of continuous sedentary employment — an employment requiring far stronger health in an individual whose intellectual powers were ever at work. When overwhelmed at College, by that irresistible alarm and despondency which caused him to leave it, and to enlist as a soldier in the army, he continued in such a state of bodily ailment as to be deprived of the power of stooping, so that
Cumberback
, — a thing unheard of before, — was compelled to depute another to perform this part of his duty. On his voyage to Malta, he had complained of suffering from shortness of breath; and on returning to his residence at the Lakes, his difficulty of breathing and his rheumatism increased to a great degree. About the year 1809, ascending Skiddaw with his younger son, he was suddenly seized in the chest, and so overpowered as to attract the notice of the child. After the relation of these circumstances to some medical friend, he was advised by him not to bathe in the sea. The love, however, which he had from a boy, for going into the water, he retained till a late period of life. Strongly impressed with this feeling, he seems to have written the poem, entitled
[On] Revisiting the Sea Shore:
"Dissuading spake the mild physician,
Those briny waves for thee are death,
But my soul fulfilled her mission,
And lo! I breathe untroubled breath."[24]
In the year 1810, he left the Lakes, in company with Mr. Basil Montagu, whose affectionate regard for Mr. Coleridge, though manifested upon every occasion, was more particularly shown in seasons of difficulty and affliction. By Coleridge, Mr. Montagu's friendship was deeply felt, — and his gentle manners and unremitted kindness had the most soothing effect upon the sensitive and grateful mind of Coleridge. He remained for some time at Mr. Montagu's house. He afterwards resided at Hammersmith, with an amiable and common friend of his and Mr. Southey's, — Mr. Morgan, with whom they had formed an intimacy in Bristol. Whilst here he delivered a course of lectures at the London Philosophical Society. The prospectus was as follows:—
"Mr. Coleridge will commence, on Monday, November 18, 1811, a Course of Lectures on Shakspeare and Milton, in illustration of the principles of poetry, and their application, as grounds of criticism, to the most popular works of later English Poets, those of the living included. After an introductory lecture on False Criticism (especially in poetry), and on its causes; two thirds of the remaining course will be assigned,
1st, to a philosophical analysis, and explanation of all the principal characters of our great dramatist, as Othello, Falstaff, Richard the Third, Iago, Hamlet, &c.; and
2nd, to a critical comparison of Shakspeare, in respect of diction, imagery, management of the passions, judgment in the construction of his dramas, in short, of all that belongs to him as a poet, and as a dramatic poet, with his contemporaries or immediate successors, Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Ford, Massinger, &c. in the endeavour to determine what of Shakspeare's merits and defects are common to him, with other writers of the same age, and what remain peculiar to his own genius.
The course will extend to fifteen lectures, which will be given on Monday and Thursday evenings successively."
Mr. Coleridge afterwards delivered another course of lectures at the Royal Institution.
. Dibdin, one of his auditors, gives the following account of the lecturer:
"[It] was during my constant and familiar intercourse with Sir T. Bernard, while 'The Director' was going on, that I met the celebrated Mr. Coleridge — himself a lecturer. He was not a constant lecturer — not in constant harness like others for the business of the day. Indisposition was generally preying upon him,[26] and habitual indolence would now and then frustrate the performance of his own better wishes. I once came from Kensington in a snow-storm, to hear him lecture upon Shakspeare. I might have sat as wisely and more comfortably by my own fire-side — for no Coleridge appeared. And this I think occurred more than once at the Royal Institution. I shall never forget the effect his conversation made upon me at the first meeting. It struck me as something not only quite out of the ordinary course of things, but as an intellectual exhibition altogether matchless. The viands were unusually costly, and the banquet was at once rich and varied; but there seemed to be no dish like Coleridge's conversation to feed upon — and no information so varied and so instructive as his own. The orator rolled himself up, as it were, in his chair, and gave the most unrestrained indulgence to his speech, and how fraught with acuteness and originality was that speech, and in what copious and eloquent periods did it flow! The auditors seemed to be rapt in wonder and delight, as one conversation, more profound or clothed in more forcible language than another, fell from his tongue. A great part of the subject discussed at the first time of my meeting Mr. Coleridge, was the connexion between Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton. The speaker had been secretary to Sir Alexander Ball, governor of Malta — and a copious field was here afforded for the exercise of his colloquial eloquence. For nearly two hours he spoke with unhesitating and uninterrupted fluency. As I retired homewards (to Kensington), I thought a second Johnson had visited the earth, to make wise the sons of men; and regretted that I could not exercise the powers of a second Boswell, to record the wisdom and the eloquence which had that evening flowed from the orator's lips. It haunted me as I retired to rest. It drove away slumber: or if I lapsed into sleep, there was Coleridge — his snuffbox, and his 'kerchief before my eyes! — his mildly beaming looks — his occasionally deep tone of voice — and the excited features of his physiognomy. — The manner of Coleridge was rather emphatic than dogmatic, and thus he was generally and satisfactorily listened to. It might be said of Coleridge, as Cowper has so happily said of Sir Philip Sidney, that he was 'the warbler of poetic prose.' There was always this characteristic feature in his multifarious conversation — it was delicate, reverend, and courteous. The chastest ear could drink in no startling sound; the most serious believer never had his bosom ruffled by one sceptical or reckless assertion. Coleridge was eminently simple in his manner. Thinking and speaking were his delight; and he would sometimes seem, during the more fervid movements of discourse, to be abstracted from all and every thing around and about him, and to be basking in the sunny warmth of his own radiant imagination."
The manuscript of
The Remorse
was sent to Mr. Sheridan, who did not even acknowledge the receipt of the letter which accompanied the drama; he however observed to a friend, that he had received a play from Coleridge, but that there was one extraordinary line in the Cave Scene,
drip, drip
— which he could not understand: "in short," said he, "it is all dripping." This was the only notice he took of the play; but the comment was at length repeated to the author, through the medium of a third party. The theatre falling afterwards into the hands of Lord Byron and Mr. Whitbread, his Lordship sent for Coleridge, was very kind to his brother poet, and requested that the play might be represented: this desire was complied with, and it received his support.
Mr. Whitbread
did not give it the advantage of a single new scene, yet the popularity of the play was such, that the principal actor, who had performed in it with great success, made choice of it for his benefit-night, and it brought an overflowing house.
In consequence of the interest Lord Byron took in the success of this tragedy, Coleridge was frequently in his company, and on one occasion, in my presence, his Lordship said, "Coleridge, there is one passage in your poems, I have parodied fifty times, and I hope to live long enough to parody it five hundred." That passage I do not remember; but it may strike some reader.
In a letter of Coleridge's to a friend, written April 10th, 1816, he thus speaks of Byron:
"If you had seen Lord Byron, you could scarcely disbelieve him — so beautiful a countenance I scarcely ever saw — his teeth so many stationary smiles — his eyes the open portals of the sun — things of light, and for light — and his forehead so ample, and yet so flexible, passing from marble smoothness into a hundred wreathes and lines and dimples correspondent to the feelings and sentiments he is uttering."
Coleridge, in the preface to
The Remorse
, states that the
"tragedy was written in the summer and autumn of the year 1797, at Nether Stowey, in the county of Somerset. By whose recommendation, and of the manner in which both the play and the author were treated by the recommender, let me be permitted to relate: that I knew of its having been received only from a third person; that I could procure neither answer nor the manuscript; and that but for an accident, I should have had no copy of the work itself. That such treatment would damp a young man's exertions may be easily conceived: there was no need of after-misrepresentation and calumny, as an additional sedative."
Coleridge contributed many pieces to Southey's
Omniana
, (all marked with an asterisk,) and was engaged in other literary pursuits; he had notwithstanding much bodily suffering. The
cause
of this was the organic change slowly and gradually taking place in the structure of the heart itself.
it was so masked by other sufferings, though at times creating despondency, and was so generally overpowered by the excitement of animated conversation, as to leave its real cause undiscovered.
Notwithstanding this sad state, he rolled forth volumes from a mind ever active — at times intensely so, — still he required the support of those sympathies which "free the hollow heart from paining."
Soon after the performance of
The Remorse
, he retired with his kind friend, Mr. Morgan, to the village of Calne, partly to be near the Rev. W.L. Bowles, whose sonnets so much attracted his attention in early life. While residing here, he opened a communication with Mr. Gutch, a bookseller, at Bristol, and in consequence, he collected the poems published by the title of
The Sibylline Leaves
, and also composed the greater part of the
Biographia Literaria
. Here he likewise dictated to his friend, Mr. Morgan, the
Zapolya
, which was submitted to Mr. Douglas Kinnaird, who was then the critic for Drury Lane. — Mr. Kinnaird rejected the play, assigning some ludicrous objections to the metaphysics. The subject is alluded to by Coleridge at the end of the Biographia Literaria, and with that allusion I close the present chapter:
O we are querulous creatures! Little less
Than all things can suffice to make us happy:
And little more than nothing is enough
To make us wretched.
Alas! for myself at least I know and feel, that wherever there is a wrong not to be forgiven, there is a grief that admits neither of cure nor comforting.
Private Record, 1806.
It appears that Mr. Alexander Macauley, the secretary, an honest and amiable man, died suddenly, without "moan or motion," and Coleridge filled his situation till the arrival of a new secretary, appointed and confirmed by the ministers in England.
1805.
"For months past so incessantly employed in official tasks, subscribing, examining, administering oaths, auditing," &c.
April 22, 1804.
"I was reading when I was taken ill, and felt an oppression of my breathing, and convulsive snatching in my stomach and limbs. Mrs. Ireland noticed this laborious breathing."
I would fain request the reader to peruse the poem, entitled
A Tombless Epitaph,
to be found in Coleridge's
Poetical Works
, 1834, page 200.
Coleridge when asked what was the difference between fame and reputation, would familiarly reply, "Fame is the fiat of the good and wise," and then with energy would quote the following beautiful lines from Milton: —
Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,
Nor in the glistering foil
Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies:
But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes,
And perfect witness of all-judging Jove;
As he pronounces lastly on each deed,
Of so much fame in Heaven expect thy meed.
Lycidas
.
"The following memoranda written in pencil, and apparently as he journeyed along, but now scarcely legible, may perhaps have an interest for some readers: —
"Sunday, December 15th, 1805.
"Naples, view of Vesuvius, the Hail-mist — Torre del Greco — bright amid darkness — the mountains above it flashing here and there from their snows; but Vesuvius, it had not thinned as I have seen at Keswick, but the air so consolidated with the massy cloud curtain, that it appeared like a mountain in basso relievo, in an interminable wall of some pantheon."
The order for Coleridge's arrest had already been sent from Paris, but his escape was so contrived by the good old Pope, as to defeat the intended indulgence of the Tyrant's vindictive appetite, which would have preyed equally on a Duc D'Enghien, and a contributor to a public journal. In consequence of Mr. Fox having asserted in the House of Commons, that the rupture of the Truce of Amiens had its origin in certain essays written in the
Morning Post
, which were soon known to have been Coleridge's, and that he was at Rome within reach, the ire of Buonaparte was immediately excited.
Though his Note Books are full of memoranda, not an entry or date of his arrival at Rome is to be found. To Rome itself and its magnificence, he would often refer in conversation. Unfortunately there is not a single document to recall the beautiful images he would place before your mind in perspective, when inspired by the remembrance of its wonder-striking and splendid objects. He however preserved some short essays, which he wrote when in Malta, Observations on Sicily, Cairo, &c. &c. political and statistical, which will probably form part of the literary remains in train of publication.
Malta, on a first view of the subject, seemed to present a situation so well fitted for a landing place, that it was intended to have adopted this mode, as in
The Friend,
of dividing the present memoir; but this loss of MS. and the breaches of continuity, render it impracticable.
At this time all his writings were strongly tinctured with Platonism.
Each party claimed him as their own; for party without principles must ever be shifting, and therefore they found his opinions sometimes in accordance with their own, and sometimes at variance. But he was of no party — his views were purely philosophical.
The character of Buonaparte was announced in the same paper.
Those who spoke after Pitt were Wilberforce, Tierney, Sheridan, &c.
This speech of Mr. Pitt's is extracted from the
Morning Post,
February 18th, 1800.
The following exquisite image on Leighton was found in one of Coleridge's note books, and is also inserted in his
Literary Remains
:
"Next to the inspired Scriptures, yea, and as the vibration of that once struck hour remaining on the air, stands Archbishop Leighton's commentary on the first epistle of Peter."
In his later days, Mr. Coleridge would have renounced the opinions and the incorrect reasoning of this letter.
Article ii:
The Son which is the word of the Father, begotten from Everlasting of the Father, &c.
Art. v:
The Holy Ghost proceeding from the Father and the Son, &c.
It was a favourite citation with Mr. Coleridge,
"I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one."
Vide
St. John, xvii. 2.
At Mr. Poole's house, Mr. De Quincey remained two days. Of his visit he gives a full account; at the same time charging Coleridge with the meanness of plagiarism, but which charges since their publication have been ably refuted in an article in the
British Magazine
, signed J. C. H.
Vide
No. 37, page 15.
Vide Tait's Magazine
, No. 8.
These have not been found.
This little Paper Book has not yet been found.
In the
Quarterly Review
for July, 1837, will be found an able article on the
Literary Remains of S.T. Coleridge,
and on "Mr. Cottle's Early Recollections," in which are extracted these very paragraphs from the
Friend
, but which had been sent to the press before this number appeared.
This poem is supposed to have been written in 1813, when on a visit to some friends at Bexhill, Sussex.
Reminiscences of a Literary Life
, Vol. i. p. 253.
If "indisposition were generally preying upon him," as at this time was indeed the fact, could this occasional failure in the delivery of a lecture (though naturally very disappointing to his audience,) be fairly attributed to indolence?
About this time, when party spirit was running high, Coleridge was known to be the author of the following Jeu d'Esprit,
"Dregs half way up and froth half way down, form Whitbread's Entire."
It was Mr. Rae who took it for his benefit, some time after Mr. Coleridge's residence at Highgate.
"My heart, or some part about it, seems breaking, as if a weight were suspended from it that stretches it, such is the bodily feeling, as far as I can express it by words."
Letter addressed to Mr. Morgan.
[Chapter IV]
Coleridge's Arrival at Highgate — Publication of 'Christabel' — 'Biographia Literaria', &c.
I now approach one of the most eventful epochs in the
Life
of Coleridge, and, I may well add, of my own.
the year 1816, the following letter was addressed to me by a physician
:
Hatton Garden, 9th April, 1816.
Dear Sir, A very learned, but in one respect an unfortunate gentleman, has applied to me on a singular occasion. He has for several years been in the habit of taking large quantities of opium. For some time past, he has been in vain endeavouring to break himself off it. It is apprehended his friends are not firm enough, from a dread, lest he should suffer by suddenly leaving it off, though he is conscious of the contrary; and has proposed to me to submit himself to any regimen, however severe. With this view, he wishes to fix himself in the house of some medical gentleman, who will have courage to refuse him any laudanum, and under whose assistance, should he be the worse for it, he may be relieved. As he is desirous of retirement, and a garden, I could think of no one so readily as yourself. Be so good as to inform me, whether such a proposal is absolutely inconsistent with your family arrangements. I should not have proposed it, but on account of the great importance of the character, as a literary man. His communicative temper will make his society very interesting, as well as useful. Have the goodness to favour me with an immediate answer; and believe me, dear sir, your faithful humble servant,
Joseph Adams.
I had seen the writer of this letter but twice in my life, and had no intention of receiving an inmate into my house. I however determined on seeing Dr. Adams, for whether the person referred to had taken opium from choice or necessity, to me he was equally an object of commiseration and interest. Dr. Adams informed me that the patient had been warned of the danger of discontinuing opium by several eminent medical men, who, at the same time, represented the frightful consequences that would most probably ensue. I had heard of the failure of Mr. Wilberforce's case, under an eminent physician at Bath, in addition to which, the doctor gave me an account of several others within his own knowledge. After some further conversation it was agreed that Dr. Adams should drive Coleridge to Highgate the following evening. On the following evening came Coleridge
himself
and alone. An old gentleman, of more than ordinary acquirements, was sitting by the fireside when he entered. — We met, indeed, for the first time, but as friends long since parted, and who had now the happiness to see each other again. Coleridge took his seat — his manner, his appearance, and above all, his conversation were captivating. We listened with delight, and upon the first pause, when courtesy permitted, my visitor withdrew, saying in a low voice, "I see by your manners, an old friend has arrived, and I shall therefore retire." Coleridge proposed to come the following evening, but he
first
informed me of the painful opinion which he had received concerning his case, especially from one medical man of celebrity. The tale was sad, and the opinion given unprofessional and cruel — sufficient to have deterred most men so afflicted from making the attempt Coleridge was contemplating, and in which his whole soul was so deeply and so earnestly engaged. In the course of our conversation, he repeated some exquisite but desponding lines of his own. It was an evening of painful and pleasurable feeling, which I can never forget. We parted with each other, understanding in a few minutes what perhaps under different circumstances, would have cost many hours to arrange; and I looked with impatience for the morrow, still wondering at the apparent chance that had brought him under my roof. I felt indeed almost spell-bound, without the desire of release. My situation was new, and there was something affecting in the thought, that one of such amiable manners, and at the same time so highly gifted, should seek comfort and medical aid in our quiet home. Deeply interested, I began to reflect seriously on the duties imposed upon me, and with anxiety to expect the approaching day. It brought me the following letter:
42, Norfolk Street, Strand, Saturday Noon.
[April 13, 1816.]
"My Dear Sir,
The first half hour I was with you convinced me that I should owe my reception into your family exclusively to motives not less flattering to me than honourable to yourself. I trust we shall ever in matters of intellect be reciprocally serviceable to each other. Men of sense generally come to the same conclusions; but they are likely to contribute to each other's enlargement of view, in proportion to the distance or even opposition of the points from which they set out. Travel and the strange variety of situations and employments on which chance has thrown me, in the course of my life, might have made me a mere man of observation, if pain and sorrow and self-miscomplacence had not forced my mind in on itself, and so formed habits of meditation. It is now as much my nature to evolve the fact from the law, as that of a practical man to deduce the law from the fact.
With respect to pecuniary remuneration, allow me to say, I must not at least be suffered to make any addition to your family expences — though I cannot offer any thing that would be in any way adequate to my sense of the service; for that indeed there could not be a compensation, as it must be returned in kind, by esteem and grateful affection.
And now of myself. My ever wakeful reason, and the keenness of my moral feelings, will secure you from all unpleasant circumstances connected with me save only one, viz. the evasion of a specific madness. You will never hear any thing but truth from me: — prior habits render it out of my power to tell an untruth, but unless carefully observed, I dare not promise that I should not, with regard to this detested poison, be capable of acting one. No sixty hours have yet passed without my having taken laudanum, though for the last week comparatively trifling doses. I have full belief that your anxiety need not be extended beyond the first week, and for the first week, I shall not, I must not be permitted to leave your house, unless with you. Delicately or indelicately, this must be done, and both the servants and the assistant must receive absolute commands from you. The stimulus of conversation suspends the terror that haunts my mind; but when I am alone, the horrors I have suffered from laudanum, the degradation, the blighted utility, almost overwhelm me. [If] (as I feel for the first time a soothing confidence it will prove) I should leave you restored to my moral and bodily health, it is not myself only that will love and honour you; every friend I have, (and thank God! in spite of this wretched vice[2] I have many and warm ones, who were friends of my youth, and have never deserted me,) will thank you with reverence. I have taken no notice of your kind apologies. If I could not be comfortable in your house, and with your family, I should deserve to be miserable. If you could make it convenient, I should wish to be with you by Monday evening, as it would prevent the necessity of taking fresh lodgings in town.
With respectful compliments to Mrs. Gillman and her sister, I remain, dear sir,
Your much obliged,
S. T. Coleridge."
On the evening appointed, Coleridge came, bringing in his hand the proof sheets of
Christabel
, which was now for the first time printed. The fragment in manuscript was already known to many, for to many had Coleridge read it, who had listened to it with delight — a delight so marked that its success seemed certain. But the approbation of those whom, in the worldly acceptation of the term, we call
friends
, is not always to be relied upon. Among the most plausible connexions, there is often a rivalship, both political and literary, which constrains the sacrifice of sincerity, and substitutes secret for open censure. Of this melancholy fact Coleridge had seen proof. The Fragment had not long been published before he was informed, that an individual had been selected (who was in truth a great admirer of his writings; and whose very life had been saved through the exertions of Coleridge and Mr. Southey,) to "
cut up
" Christabel in the
Edinburgh Review
. The subject being afterwards mentioned in conversation, the reviewer confessed that he was the writer of the article, but observed, that as he wrote for the
Edinburgh Review
, he was compelled to write in accordance with the character and tone of that periodical. This confession took place after he had been extolling the Christabel as the finest poem of its kind in the language, and ridiculing the public for their want of taste and discrimination in not admiring it. — Truly has it been said,
"Critics upon all writers there are many,
Planters of truth or knowledge scarcely any."
Sir Walter Scott always spoke in high praise of the
Christabel
, and more than once of his obligations to Coleridge; of this we have proof in his
Ivanhoe
, in which the lines by Coleridge, entitled
The Knight's Tomb,
were quoted by Scott before they were published, from which circumstance, Coleridge was convinced that Sir Walter was the author of the
Waverly
Novels. The lines were composed as an experiment for a metre, and repeated by him to a mutual friend — this gentleman the following day dined in company with Sir Walter Scott, and spoke of his visit to Highgate, repeating Coleridge's lines to Scott, and observing at the same time, that they might be acceptable to the author of
Waverley
.
Where is the grave of Sir Arthur O'Kellyn?
Where may the grave of that good man be? —
By the side of a spring, on the breast of Helvellyn,
Under the twigs of a young birch tree!
The Oak that in summer was sweet to hear,
And rustled its leaves in the fall of the year;
And whistled and roar'd in the winter alone,
Is gone, — and the birch in its stead is grown. —
The Knight's bones are dust,
And his good sword rust; —
His soul is with the saints, I trust.
Poetical Works, Vol. ii. p. 64.
The late Mr. Sotheby informed me, that, at his house in a large party, Sir Walter made the following remark:
"I am indebted to Coleridge for the mode of telling a tale by question and answer. This was a new light to me, and I was greatly struck by it."
Yet when Sir Walter said this, he must surely have forgotten many of our ancient and most beautiful ballads, in which the questions are so significant, and are made to develope the progress of the fable more clearly than could be affected by the ordinary course of narration. In fact every lover of our old poetry will recollect a hundred pieces in which the same form of evolution is observed. Thus in
Johnie of Breadis Lee
:
"What news, what news, ye grey-headed carle,
What news bring ye to me?"
And in
Halbert the Grim
:
"There is pity in many, —
Is there any in him?
No! ruth is a strange guest
To Halbert the Grim."
Scott particularly admired Coleridge's management of the supernatural. The "flesh and blood reality," given to Geraldine, the life, the power of appearing and disappearing equally by day as by night, constitutes the peculiar merit of the
Christabel
: and those poets who admire, and have reflected much on the supernatural, have ever considered it one of the greatest efforts of genius. But the effect has ever been degraded by unnatural combinations. Thus on the stage, where such creations are the most frequent, it has been the custom for stage-managers to choose
male
actors for the female parts. In
Macbeth
, men are called on to stir the caldron and other witcheries requiring muscular power. Again, when Macbeth listens to those extraordinary beings, who, with muttering spells, with charms, foreknowledge and incantations imperfectly announced to him his fate; he, with an air of command, says, "Speak!" &c. They shew their power, and give their best answer by disappearing. The manner of representing this is unnatural, as exhibited by our managers.
observed, that it would be better to withdraw the light from the stage, than to exhibit these miserable attempts at vanishing
, though could the thought have been well executed, he considered it a master-stroke of Shakspeare's.
it should be noticed, that Coleridge's opinion was, that some of the plays of our "myriad-minded" bard ought never to be acted, but looked on as poems to be read, and contemplated; and so fully was he impressed with this feeling, that in his gayer moments he would often say, "There should be an Act of Parliament to prohibit their representation."
Here
he
excelled: he has no incongruities, no gross illusions. In the management of the supernatural, the only successful poets among our own countrymen have been Shakspeare and Coleridge. Scott has treated it well in the
Bride of Lammermoor
, and in one or two other works.
Of the
Christabel
, as now published, Coleridge says, "The first part was composed in 1797." This was the
Annus Mirabilis
of this great man; in it he was in his best and strongest health. He returned from Germany in 1799, and in the year following wrote the
second
part, in the preface to which he observes, "Till very lately my poetic powers have been in a state of suspended animation." The subject indeed remained present to his mind, though from bad health and other causes, it was left as a mere fragment of his poetic power. When in health he sometimes said, "This poem comes upon me with all the loveliness of a vision;" and he declared, that though contrary to the advice of his friends, he should finish it: At other times when his bodily powers failed him, he would then say, "I am reserved for other works than making verse."
In the preface to the
Christabel
, he makes the following observation:
"It is probable," he says, "that if the poem had been finished at either of the former periods, i.e. 1797 and 1800, or if even the first and second part of this fragment had been published in the year 1800, the impression of its originality would have been much greater than I dare at present expect. But for this, I have only my own indolence to blame. The dates are mentioned for the exclusive purpose of precluding charges of plagiarism or servile imitation from myself. For there is among us a set of critics who seem to hold, that every possible thought and image is traditional; who have no notion that there are such things as fountains in the world, small as well as great; and who would therefore charitably derive every rill, they behold flowing, from a perforation made in some other man's tank. I am confident, however, that as far as the present poem is concerned, the celebrated poets whose writings I might be suspected of having imitated, either in particular passages, or in the tone and the spirit of the whole, would be among the first to vindicate me from the charge, and who, on any striking coincidence, would permit me to address them in this dogged version of two monkish Latin hexameters:
I have only to add, that the metre of the Christabel is not, properly speaking, irregular, though it may seem so from its being founded on a new principle; namely, that of counting in each line the accents, not the syllables. Though the latter may vary from seven to twelve, yet in each line the accents will be found to be only four. Nevertheless, this occasional variation in the number of syllables is not introduced wantonly, or for the mere ends of convenience, but in correspondence with some transition in the nature of the imagery or passion."'Tis mine and it is likewise your's,
But an if this will not do;
Let it be mine, good friend! for I
Am the poorer of the two."
'Tis mine and it is likewise your's,
But an if this will not do;
Let it be mine, good friend! for I
Am the poorer of the two."
In conversation many of his brother poets would, like the reviewer, echo his praises, while in secret, they were trying to deprive him of his fair fame. It has been said, that "Coleridge never explained the story of Christabel."
his friends he did explain it; and in the
Biographia Literaria
, he has given an account of its origin
.
The story of the
Christabel
is partly founded on the notion, that the virtuous of this world save the wicked. The pious and good Christabel suffers and prays for
"The weal of her lover that is far away,"
exposed to various temptations in a foreign land; and she thus defeats the power of evil represented in the person of Geraldine. This is one main object of the tale.
At the opening of the poem all nature is laid under a spell:—
'Tis the middle of night by the castle clock,
And the owls have awak'ned the crowing cock;
Tu-whit! — Tu-whoo!
And hark, again! The crowing cock,
How drowsily it crew —
Sir Leoline, the Baron rich,
Hath a toothless mastiff-bitch,
From her kennel beneath the rock
Maketh answer to the clock,
Four for the quarters, and twelve for the hour;
Ever and aye, by shine and shower,
Sixteen short howls, not over loud;
Some say, she sees my lady's shroud.
Is the night chilly and dark?
The night is chilly, but not dark.
The thin gray cloud is spread on high,
It covers but not hides the sky.
The moon is behind, and at the full;
And yet she looks both small and dull.
The night is chill, the cloud is gray:
'Tis a month before the month of May,
And the Spring comes slowly up this way.
The spell is laid by an evil being, not of this world, with whom Christabel, the heroine, is about to become connected; and who in the darkness of the forest is meditating the wreck of all her hopes
The lovely lady, Christabel,
Whom her father loves so well,
What makes her in the wood so late,
A furlong from the castle gate?
She had dreams all yesternight
Of her own betrothed knight;
And she in the midnight wood will pray
For the weal of her lover that's far away.
She stole along, she nothing spoke,
The sighs she heaved were soft and low,
And naught was green upon the oak,
But moss and rarest misletoe:
She kneels beneath the huge oak tree,
And in silence prayeth she.
There are persons who have considered the description of Christabel in the act of praying, so far from the baron's castle, too great a poetical license. He was fully aware that all baronial castles had their chapels and oratories attached to them, — and that in these lawless times, for such were the middle ages, the young lady who ventured unattended beyond the precincts of the castle, would have endangered her reputation. But to such an imaginative mind, it would have been scarcely possible to pass by the interesting image of Christabel, presenting itself before him, praying by moonlight at the old oak tree. But to proceed:
The lady sprang up suddenly,
The lovely lady Christabel!
It moaned as near, as near can be,
But what it is, she cannot tell. —
On the other side it seems to be,
Of the huge, broad-breasted, old oak tree.
The night is chill; the forest bare;
Is it the wind that moaneth bleak?
There is not wind enough in the air
To move away the ringlet curl
From the lovely lady's cheek —
There is not wind enough to twirl
The one red leaf, the last of its clan,
That dances as often as dance it can,
Hanging so light, and hanging so high,
On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky.
Hush, beating heart of Christabel!
Jesu, Maria, shield her well!
She folded her arms beneath her cloak,
And stole to the other side of the oak.
What sees she there?
There she sees a damsel bright,
Drest in a silken robe of white,
That shadowy in the moonlight shone:
The neck that made that white robe wan,
Her stately neck and arms were bare;
Her blue-veined feet unsandal'd were.
And wildly glittered here and there
The gems entangled in her hair.
I guess, 'twas frightful there to see
A lady so richly clad as she —
Beautiful exceedingly!
This description is exquisite. Now for the mystic demon's tale of art:
Mary mother, save me now!
(Said Christabel,) And who art thou?
The lady strange made answer meet,
And her voice was faint and sweet: —
Have pity on my sore distress,
I scarce can speak for weariness:
Stretch forth thy hand, and have no fear!
Said Christabel, How camest thou here?
And the lady, whose voice was faint and sweet,
Did thus pursue her answer meet: —
My sire is of a noble line,
And my name is Geraldine:
Five warriors seized me yestermorn,
Me, even me, a maid forlorn:
They chok'd my cries with force and fright,
And tied me on a palfrey white.
The palfrey was as fleet as wind,
And they rode furiously behind.
They spurred amain, their steeds were white:
And once we crossed the shade of night.
As sure as Heaven shall rescue me,
I have no thought what men they be;
Nor do I know how long it is
(For I have lain entranced I wis)
Since one, the tallest of the five,
Took me from the palfrey's back,
A weary woman, scarce alive.
Some muttered words his comrades spoke
He placed me underneath this oak,
He swore they would return with haste;
Whither they went I cannot tell —
I thought I heard, some minutes past,
Sounds as of a castle bell.
Stretch forth thy hand (thus ended she)
And help a wretched maid to flee.
Then Christabel stretched forth her hand
And comforted fair Geraldine:
O well, bright dame! may you command
The service of Sir Leoline;
And gladly our stout chivalry
Will he send forth and friends withal,
To guide and guard you safe and free
Home to your noble father's hall.
She rose: and forth with steps they passed
That strove to be, and were not, fast.
Her gracious stars the lady blest
And thus spake on sweet Christabel:
All our household are at rest,
The hall as silent as the cell;
Sir Leoline is weak in health,
And may not well awakened be,
But we will move as if in stealth,
And I beseech your courtesy,
This night, to share your couch with me.
They crossed the moat, and Christabel
Took the key that fitted well;
A little door she opened straight,
All in the middle of the gate;
The gate that was ironed within and without,
Where an army in battle array had marched out.
The lady sank, belike through pain,
And Christabel with might and main
Lifted her up, a weary weight,
Over the threshold of the gate:
Then the lady rose again,
And moved, as she were not in pain.
So free from danger, free from fear,
They crossed the court: right glad they were.
Following the popular superstition that dogs are supposed to see ghosts, and therefore see the supernatural, the mastiff yells, when Geraldine appears:—
Outside her kennell, the mastiff old
Lay fast asleep, in moonshine cold.
The mastiff old did not awake,
Yet she an angry moan did make!
And what can ail the mastiff bitch?
Never till now she uttered yell,
Beneath the eye of Christabel.
Geraldine had already worked upon the kindness of Christabel, so that she had lifted her over the threshold of the gate, which Geraldine's fallen power had prevented her passing of herself, the place being holy and under the influence of the Virgin.
"Praise we the Virgin all divine,
Who hath rescued thee from thy distress,
Alas! Alas! said Geraldine,
I cannot speak for weariness.
They pass the hall that echoes still,
Pass as lightly as you will!
The brands were flat, the brands were dying,
Amid their own white ashes lying;
But when the lady passed there came
A tongue of light, a fit of flame;
And Christabel saw the lady's eye,
And nothing else saw she thereby
Save the boss of the shield of Sir Leoline tall,
Which hung in a murky old nitch in the wall.
O! softly tread, said Christabel,
My father seldom sleepeth well."
Geraldine, who affects to be weary, arrives at the chamber of Christabel — this room is beautifully ornamented,
"Carved with figures strange and sweet,
All made out of the carver's brain,
For a lady's chamber meet
The lamp with twofold silver chain
Is fasten'd to an angel's feet."
Such is the mysterious movement of this supernatural lady, that all this is visible, and when she passed the dying brands, there came a fit of flame, and Christabel saw the lady's eye.
The silver lamp burns dead and dim;
But Christabel the lamp will trim.
She trimm'd the lamp and made it bright,
And left it swinging to and fro,
While Geraldine, in wretched plight,
Sank down upon the floor below.
O weary lady Geraldine,
I pray you drink this cordial wine,
It is a wine of virtuous powers;
My mother made it of wild flowers.
And will your mother pity me,
Who am a maiden most forlorn?
Christabel answer'd — Woe is me!
She died the hour that I was born,
I have heard the grey-hair'd friar tell,
How on her death-bed she did say,
That she should hear the castle bell
Strike twelve upon my wedding-day.
O mother dear! that thou wert here!
I would, said Geraldine, she were!
The poet now introduces the real object of the supernatural transformation: the spirit of evil struggles with the deceased and sainted mother of Christabel for the possession of the lady. To render the scene more impressive, the mother instantly appears, though she is invisible to her daughter. Geraldine exclaims in a commanding voice
"Off, wandering mother! Peak and pine!
I have power to bid thee flee?"
Alas! what ails poor Geraldine?
Why stares she with unsettled eye
Can she the bodiless dead espy?
And why with hollow voice cries she,
"Off, woman, off! this hour is mine —
Though thou her guardian spirit be,
"Off, woman, off! 'tis given to me."
Here, Geraldine seems to be struggling with the spirit of Christabel's mother, over which for a time she obtains the mastery.
Then Christabel knelt by the lady's side,
And rais'd to heaven her eyes so blue —
Alas! said she, this ghastly ride —
Dear lady! it hath wilder'd you!
The lady wiped her moist cold brow,
And faintly said, "'Tis over now!"
Again the wild-flower wine she drank,
Her fair large eyes 'gan glitter bright,
And from the floor whereon she sank,
The lofty lady stood upright
She was most beautiful to see,
Like a lady of a far countrée.
And thus the lofty lady spake —
All they who live in the upper sky,
Do love you, holy Christabel!
And you love them, and for their sake
And for the good which me befell,
Even I in my degree will try,
Fair maiden to requite you well.
But now unrobe yourself: for I
Must pray, ere yet in bed I lie.
Quoth Christabel, so let it be!
And as the lady bade, did she.
Her gentle limbs did she undress,
And lay down in her loveliness.
But all this had given rise to so many different thoughts and feelings, that she could not compose herself for sleep, so she sits up in her bed to look at Geraldine who drew in her breath aloud, and unbound her cincture. Her silken robe and inner vest then drop to her feet, and she discovers her hideous form:
A sight to dream of, not to tell!
O shield her, shield sweet Christabel!
Yet Geraldine nor speaks — nor stirs;
Ah! what a stricken look was hers!
She then lies down by the side of Christabel, and takes her to her arms, saying in a low voice these words:—
In the touch of this bosom there worketh a spell,
Which is lord of thy utterance, Christabel!
Thou knowest to-night, and wilt know to-morrow,
This mark of my shame, this seal of my sorrow;
But vainly thou warrest,
For this is alone in
Thy power to declare,
That in the dim forest
Thou heardst a low moaning,
And found'st a bright lady, surpassingly fair
And didst bring her home with thee in love and in charity,
To shield her and shelter her from the damp air.
The conclusion to part the first is a beautiful and well drawn picture, slightly recapitulating some of the circumstances of the opening of the poem.