The satire was singularly cutting. I can recall but two unconnected lines:
"With eye that looks around with asking gaze,
And tongue that traffics in the trade of praise."[76]
Mr. Coleridge now told us of the most remarkable of his Cambridge eccentricities, that of his having enlisted as a soldier. He had previously stated to me many of the following particulars, yet not the whole; but (having taken a deep interest in this singular adventure,) in addition to that which I heard from Mr. C., who never told all the incidents of his military life to any one person, but on the contrary, detailed some few to one, and some few to another, I made a point of collecting from different friends, every scattered fact I could obtain, and shall now throw the whole into one narrative.
But before I proceed, I must take some notice of a statement on this subject, communicated to the public, by Mr. Bowles, wherein his account appears to clash with mine. Of this gentleman (with whose name and writings I have connected so many pleasant remembrances, from early life,) I wish to speak with the utmost respect; but the truth Mr. B. himself will be glad to learn.
Mr. Bowles states a circumstance relating to what he calls, "The most correct, sublime, chaste, and beautiful of Mr. Coleridge's poems; the 'Religious Musings;'" namely, that "it was written, non inter sylvas academi, but in the tap-room at Reading." This information could not have been received from Mr. C. but perhaps was derived from the imperfect recollection of Captain O.; but whoever the informant may have been, the assertion has not the merit of being founded on a shadow of accuracy. The poem of the "Religious Musings" was not written "in the tap-room at Reading," nor till long after Mr. C. had quitted his military life. It was written partly at Stowey; partly on Redcliff Hill; and partly in my parlour, where both Mr. Coleridge and Mr. Southey occasionally wrote their verses. This will have sufficiently appeared by Mr. C.'s own letters; to which I could add other decisive evidence, if the subject were of more consequence.
I now proceed with the narrative of Mr. Coleridge's military adventures, chiefly collected from himself, but not inconsiderably from the information of other of his more intimate friends; particularly R. Lovell; although I must apprise the reader that after a lapse of forty years, I cannot pledge myself for every individual word: a severity of construction which neither my memoranda nor memory would authorize. In order not to interrupt the reader, by stating that this was derived from one source, and that from another, (at this time hardly to be separated in my own mind) I shall narrate it as though Mr. Coleridge had related the whole at once, to Mr. Davy and myself.
* * * * *
Mr. Coleridge now told us of one of his Cambridge eccentricities which highly amused us. He said that he had paid his addresses to a Mary Evans, who, rejecting his offer, he took it so much in dudgeon, that he withdrew from the University to London, when, in a reckless state of mind, he enlisted in the 15th, Elliot's Light Dragoons. No objection having been taken to his height or age, he was asked his name. He had previously determined to give one that was thoroughly Kamschatkian, but having noticed that morning over a door in Lincoln's Inn Fields, (or the Temple) the name of "Cumberbatch," (not Comberback) he thought this word sufficiently outlandish, and replied "Silas Tomken Cumberbatch,"[77] and such was the entry in the regimental book.
Here, in his new capacity, laborious duties devolved on Mr. C. He endeavoured to think on Caesar, and Epaminondas, and Leonidas, with other ancient heroes, and composed himself to his fate; remembering, in every series, there must be a commencement: but still he found confronting him no imaginary inconveniences. Perhaps he who had most cause for dissatisfaction, was the drill sergeant, who thought his professional character endangered; for after using his utmost efforts to bring his raw recruit into something like training, he expressed the most serious fears, from his unconquerable awkwardness, that he never should be able to make a soldier of him!
Mr. C. it seemed, could not even rub down his own horse, which, however, it should be known, was rather a restive one, who, like Cowper's hare, "would bite if he could," and in addition, kick not a little. We could not suppose that these predispositions in the martial steed were at all aggravated by the unskilful jockeyship to which he was subjected, but the sensitive quadruped did rebel a little in the stable, and wince a little in the field! Perhaps the poor animal was something in the state of the horse that carried Mr. Wordsworth's "Idiot Boy," who, in his sage contemplations, "wondered"—"What he had got upon his back!" This rubbing down his horse was a constant source of annoyance to Mr. C., who thought that the most rational way was,—to let the horse rub himself down, shaking himself clean, and so to shine in all his native beauty; but on this subject there were two opinions, and his that was to decide carried most weight. If it had not been for the foolish and fastidious taste of the ultra precise sergeant, this whole mass of trouble might be avoided, but seeing the thing must be done, or punishment! he set about the herculean task with the firmness of a Wallenstein; but lo! the paroxysm was brief, in the necessity that called it forth. Mr. C. overcame this immense difficulty, by bribing a young man of the regiment to perform the achievement for him; and that on very easy terms; namely, by writing for him some "Love Stanzas," to send to his sweetheart!