CCXLI. TO DANIEL STUART.
Postmark, July 9, 1825.
My dear Sir,—The bad weather had so far damped my expectations, that, though I regretted, I did not feel any disappointment at your not coming. And yet I hope you will remember our Highgate Thursday conversation evenings on your return to town; because, if you come once, I flatter myself, you will afterwards be no unfrequent visitor.
At least, I have never been at any of the town conversazioni, literary, or artistical, in which the conversation has been more miscellaneous without degenerating into pinches, a pinch of this, and a pinch of that, without the least connection between the subjects, and with as little interest. You will like Irving as a companion and a converser even more than you admire him as a preacher. He has a vigorous and (what is always pleasant) a GROWING mind, and his character is MANLY throughout. There is one thing, too, that I cannot help considering as a recommendation to our evenings, that, in addition to a few ladies and pretty lasses, we have seldom more than five or six in company, and these generally of as many professions or pursuits. A few weeks ago we had present, two painters, two poets, one divine, an eminent chemist and naturalist, a major, a naval captain and voyager, a physician, a colonial chief justice, a barrister, and a baronet; and this was the most numerous meeting we ever had.
It would more than gratify me to know from you, what the impressions are which my “Aids to Reflection” make on your judgment. The conviction respecting the character of the times expressed in the comment on Aph. vi., page 147, contains the aim and object of the whole book. I venture to direct your notice particularly to the note, page 204 to 207, to the note to page 218, and to the sentences respecting common sense in the last twelve lines of page 252, and the conclusion, page 377.
Lady Beaumont writes me that the Bishop of London has expressed a most favourable opinion of the book; and Blanco White was sufficiently struck with it, as immediately to purchase all my works that are in print, and has procured from Sir George Beaumont an introduction to me. It is well I should have some one to speak for it, for I am unluckily ill off ... and you will easily see what a chance a poor book of mine has in these days.
Such has been the influence of the “Edinburgh Review” that in all Edinburgh not a single copy of Wordsworth’s works or of any part of them could be procured a few months ago. The only copy Irving saw in Scotland belonged to a poor weaver at Paisley, who prized them next to his Bible, and had all the Lyrical Ballads by heart—a fact which would cut Jeffrey’s conscience to the bone, if he had any. I give you my honour that Jeffrey himself told me that he was himself an enthusiastic admirer of Wordsworth’s poetry, but it was necessary that a Review should have a character.
Forgive this egotism, and be pleased to remember me kindly and with my best respects to Mrs. Stuart, and with every cordial wish and prayer for you and yours, be assured that I am your obliged and affectionate friend,
S. T. Coleridge.
Friday, July 8, 1825.