Thus hast thou shown us how our lives
And comfort are as naught,
So you may, reckless, go your way
And take your murd’ring sport!
THE COLERIDGE COTTAGE, NETHER STOWEY
The cottage at Nether Stowey occupied by Coleridge, from 1797 to 1800, stands at the further end of the village, and is, indeed, the last house on the Minehead road. It duly bears an ornamental tablet proclaiming the fact of the poet’s residence here in those critical years. Sentiment, however, is not a little dashed at finding the house to be an extremely commonplace one; now, owing to a succession of alterations, enlarged and made to look like an exceedingly unattractive specimen of a typical suburban “villa” of the first half of the nineteenth century, when stucco was rampant and red brick had not come into vogue. A scheme appears at the present time to be under contemplation by which the house is to be purchased and presented to the nation, as a memorial of the poet. It is to become something in the way of a “Coleridge Reading Room,” or Village Institute; but at the moment of writing, it is a lodging-house. A few years ago it was the “Coleridge Cottage” inn. Such have been the varied fortunes of this home, for those short four years, of “the bright-eyed Mariner,” as Wordsworth calls him. When it is further said that a storey has been added to the house, and that the thatch of Coleridge’s time has been replaced by pantiles, it will be considered, perhaps, that the value of it as a literary landmark can be but small. Coleridge himself had no love for it, as may be seen in his later references to Nether Stowey, in which he refers to it as a “miserable cottage,” and “the old hovel.” But the years he passed in this place were the most productive of his career. It was while walking along the hills to Watchet, that he composed “The Ancient Mariner” and the first part of “Christabel.” Close at hand, at Alfoxden, was Wordsworth, poetising on primroses and the infinitely trivial; and at Stowey itself was the amiable Thomas Poole, literary and political dilettante, friend and host of this circle in general. Southey sometimes came, and friends with visionary schemes for the regeneration of the social system, then in some danger of being overturned, following upon the popular upheaval of the French Revolution, severely exercised the conventional minds of the local squires and farmers with their unconventional ways and rash speech.
The habits of these friends, accustomed to discuss and severely criticise the doings of the Government, often to dress in a peculiar manner, and to take long, apparently aimless walks in lonely places, no matter what the weather, when honest country folk were cosily within doors, or asleep and snoring, presently attracted the notice of the neighbours, to the extent that whispers of those suspicious doings and this wild talk were conveyed to the local magistrates, and the Government eventually thought it worth while to send down an emissary to keep a watch. The spy chanced to be a person with a long nose. He readily enough tracked their movements along the hills and dales of Quantock, and overheard much of their talk: probably because the friends knew perfectly well that they were under suspicion and were being watched, and were humorously inclined to make the spy’s eavesdropping as fruitful as they could of incident. Prominent among their jokes was the discussion, in his hearing, of Spinosa: that philosopher’s name being pronounced for the occasion “Spynosa.” This the long-nosed one took to be an allusion to himself. Coleridge, he reported to his employers to be “a crack-brained talking fellow; but that Wordsworth is either a smuggler or a traitor, and means mischief. He never speaks to any one, haunts lonely places, walks by moonlight, and is always ‘booing’ about by himself.” The curious notion of the amiable Wordsworth being mischievous is distinctly entertaining.
NETHER STOWEY.