Yet, it is supposed, they knew nothing of the Susquehana more than of any other American river, except that its name was musical and sonorous; and far from having anything wherewith to convey themselves and their moveables across the Atlantic, they had to borrow five pounds to make up their lodging bill. This sum was advanced them, with unalloyed pleasure, by Mr. Cottle, a bookseller in the town, a benevolent and worthy man, who seems almost to have been located there for no other purpose than to introduce the three chief Lake Poets to the world.
“The bubble of the Susquehana, or, as it was called, Pantisocracy, was exploded, by Southey, Coleridge, and Lovell, all getting into the bonds of matrimony, which have a miraculous virtue in testing the solidity of schemes of life. They married three sisters of the name of Fricker. It was the perpetual restlessness of Coleridge which first brought him and his companions into contact with Wordsworth. The former wonderful man, in capabilities perhaps the mightiest of that illustrious group, and in his mental constitution one of the most puzzling psychological phenomena which human nature has ever presented, was the originator of the Pantisocratic proposal. He was a man of luxurious imagination, deep emotiveness, various learning, and an exquisite nervous susceptibility. In 1795, he was making excursions through the lovely and tranquil scenery of Somersetshire, when he became acquainted with a most worthy and excellent man, Mr. Poole, resident in the quiet village of Stowey. On his return to Bristol, where he was married, he still exhibited his uneasiness. First he removed to his immortal rose-bound cottage at Clevedon, then back to the pent-up houses at Redcliff Hill, and from these again to the more open situation of Kingsdown. Nothing would then satisfy him but he must set up a serial, to be called ‘The Watchman;’ and his own sketches of his travelling canvass for that periodical, might take rank with some chapters of Don Quixote. Take, for instance, this picture of a great patriot at Birmingham, to whom he applies for his magnificent patronage:—He was ‘a rigid Calvinist, a tallow-chandler by trade. He was a tall, dingy man, in whom length was so predominant over breadth, that he might almost have been borrowed for a foundry poker! Oh, that face!—I have it before me at this moment. The lank, black, twine-like hair, pinguinitescent, cut in a straight line along the black stubble of his thin, gunpowder eyebrows, that looked like a scorched aftermath from a last week’s shaving. His coat-collar behind, in perfect unison, both of colour and lustre, with the coarse yet glib cordage which I suppose he called his hair, and which, with a bend inward at the nape of the neck—the only approach to flexure in his whole figure—slunk in behind his waistcoat; while the countenance, lank, dark, very hard, and with strong, perpendicular furrows—gave me a dim notion of some one looking at me through a gridiron,—all soot, grease, and iron.’ This thoroughbred lover of liberty, who had proved that Mr. Pitt was one of the horns of the second beast in the ‘Revelations’ that spake as a dragon, nevertheless declined to take ‘The Watchman’; and in short, after a disastrous career, that serial died a natural death. The disappointed editor took refuge, for a brief season, with Mr. Poole, at Stowey, and there, for the first time, he met Wordsworth, who then resided about twenty miles off, at Racedown, in Dorsetshire.
“Coleridge returned for a short time to Bristol, but in January, 1797, he removed to Stowey, where he rented a small cottage. This must have been a pleasant episode in the lives of the gifted individuals whom it brought together in that sweet village. Wordsworth, who was now twenty-seven, had come with his sister to Alfoxden, which was within two miles of Stowey. Charles Lloyd, a young man of most sensitive and graceful mind, and of great poetical susceptibility, resided in the family with Coleridge. Charles Lamb, then in the spring-time of his life, was also a frequent inmate; and often afterwards, under the cloud which lowered over his noble devotedness in London, his fancy wandered back to that happy valley.—Why, says he to Charles Lloyd, who unexpectedly looked in upon him in the great Babylon:
‘Why seeks my Lloyd the stranger out?
What offering does the stranger bring
Of social scenes, home-bred delights,
That him in aught compensate may
For Stowey’s pleasant winter nights,
For loves and friendships far away?’
The Pantisocratist, George Burnet, was also a visitor. Mrs. Coleridge herself had a poetical taste, and there is one very graceful piece of hers written on the receipt of a thimble from her kind friend Mr. Cottle. Just such a thimble, sings Sarah Coleridge—
‘Just such a one, mon cher ami
(The finger-shield of industry),
The inventive gods, I deem, to Pallas gave,
What time the vain Arachne, madly brave,
Challenged the blue-eyed virgin of the sky
A duel in embroidered work to try.
And hence the thimbled finger of grave Pallas
To the erring needle’s point was more than callous.
But, ah! the poor Arachne! she, unarmed,
Blundering through hasty eagerness, alarmed
With all a rival’s hopes, a mortal’s fears,
Still missed the stitch, and stained the web with tears.’
Hartley Coleridge, the ærial child who awakened the fears and sympathies of Wordsworth, was a fine boy, rejoicing his parents’ hearts; and the happy pair had cut a road into their neighbours’ orchards, that they might pass to their firesides under the arches of blossoms, with a speed suiting to their affections. Alas! that sweet Stowey. Cottle, in his old age, has painted one or two pictures of it and of its gifted habitants, now in their graves, that go to the heart. Take the scene with Coleridge in the jasmine arbour, where the tripod table was laden with delicious bread and cheese, and a mug of the true brown Taunton ale. ‘While the dappled sunbeams,’ says the old man, calling up kindly memories, ‘played on our table through the umbrageous canopy, the very birds seemed to participate in our felicities, and poured forth selectest anthems. As we sat in our sylvan hall of splendour, a company of the happiest mortals, the bright blue heavens, the sportive insects, the balmy zephyrs, the feathered choristers, the sympathy of friends, all augmented the pleasurable to the highest point this side the celestial.... While thus elevated in the universal current of our feelings, Mrs. Coleridge approached with her fine Hartley; we all smiled, but the father’s eye beamed transcendental joy. But all things have an end! Yet pleasant it is for Memory to treasure up in her choicest depository a few such scenes (those sunny spots in existence), on which the spirit may repose when the rough adverse winds shake and disfigure all besides.’ Or take the more lively visit to Alfoxden, on Wordsworth’s invitation. Away they all went from Stowey; the poet and Emmeline, Coleridge and Cottle. They were to dine on philosopher’s fare—a bottle of brandy, a loaf, a piece of cheese, and fresh lettuces from Wordsworth’s garden. The first mishap was a theftuous abstraction of the cheese; and, on the back of it, Coleridge, in the very act of praising the brandy as a substitute, upset the bottle, and knocked it to pieces. They all tried to take off the harness from the horse. Cottle tried it, then the bard of Rydal; but in vain. Coleridge, who had served his apprenticeship as Silas Comberbatch in the cavalry, then twisted the poor animal’s neck almost to strangulation; but was at last compelled to pronounce that the horse’s head must have grown since the collar was put on! It was useless, he said, to try to force so huge an os frontis through so narrow a collar. All had given up, when lo! the servant girl turned the collar upside down, and slipped it off in an instant, to the inconceivable wonder and humiliation of the poets, who proceeded to solace themselves with the brown bread, the lettuces, and a jug of sparkling water. Who, knowing the subsequent fate of the tenants of Stowey, would not love to dwell on these delightful pictures of their better days?
“It must not be supposed, however, that the tempter never entered into this Eden; but when he did so, it was generally through the mischief-making pranks of Coleridge, who constantly kept his friends in hot water. He and Lamb had just published a joint volume of poems, and Coleridge could not refrain from satirising and parodying their offspring in the newspapers. Take this epigram as a specimen:—
‘TO THE AUTHOR OF THE ANCIENT MARINER.
‘Your poem must eternal be—
Dear Sir, it cannot fail;
For ’tis incomprehensible,
And without head or tail.’