The preceding letter of Mr. Coleridge led me to anticipate a worse state of health, on his arrival in Bristol, than appearances authorized. I knew nothing of opium, and was pleased to notice the clearness of his understanding, as well as much struck with the interesting narratives he gave of Malta, Italy, and his voyage to England. I knew that Mr. C. was somewhat in the habit of accommodating his discourse to the sentiments of the persons with whom he was conversing; but his language was now so pious and orthodox, that the contrast between his past and present sentiments was most noticeable. He appeared quite an improved character, and was about, I thought, to realise the best hopes of his friends. I found him full of future activity, projecting new works, and particularly a 'New Review,' of which he himself was to be the Editor! At this time not one word was said about opium, Colerton, Ottery, or Mrs. Coleridge, and I thought the prospect never appeared so cheering.
In my state of exultation, I invited Mr. Foster to come to Bristol, from
Frome, to renew his acquaintance with the improved and travelled Mr.
Coleridge. Mr. Tester's reply is here given.
"Frome, June, 1807.
My dear sir,
I am very unfortunate in having made an engagement, two or three weeks back, to go just at this time on a very particular occasion, to a distant place in this county, and therefore being deprived of the very high luxury to which you so kindly invite me. I shall be unavoidably detained, for a very considerable time, and my imagination will strongly represent to me the pleasure and advantage of which an inevitable necessity deprives me. But I will indulge the hope, that I shall sometime be known to Mr. Coleridge, under more favourable circumstances, in a literary respect, than I can at present, after a regular application to the severer order of studies shall in some measure have retrieved the consequences of a very loose and indolent intellectual discipline, and shall have lessened a certain feeling of imbecility which always makes me shrink from attempting to gain the notice of men whose talents I admire.
No man can feel a more animated admiration of Mr. Coleridge than I have retained ever since the two or three times that I was a little while in his company; and during his absence in the south and the east, I have very often thought with delight of the immense acquisitions which he would at length bring back to enrich the works, which I trust the public will in due time receive from him, and to which it has an imperious claim. And still I trust he will feel the solemn duty of making his very best and continued efforts to mend as well as delight mankind, now that he has attained the complete mastery and expansion of his admirable powers. You do not fail, I hope, to urge him to devote himself strenuously to literary labour. He is able to take a station amongst the most elevated ranks, either of the philosophers or the poets. Pray tell me what are his immediate intentions, and whether he has any important specific undertaking in hand. For the sake of elegant literature, one is very glad, that he has had the opportunity of visiting those most interesting scenes and objects which you mention. Will you express to him in the strongest terms, my respect and my animated wishes for his health, his happiness, and his utility. You can inform me what is the nature of that literary project to which you allude. Tell me also, what is the state and progress of your own literary projects, and, I hope I may say, labours. I behaved shabbily about some slight remarks which I was to have ventured on Mr. Southey's 'Madoc,' in the 'Eclectic Review.' On reading the critiques in the 'Edinburgh Review,' on 'Thalaba' and 'Madoc,' I found what were substantially my own impressions, so much better developed than I could have done, that I instantly threw my remarks away. Let me hear from you when you have half an hour of leisure, and believe me to be, with every kind remembrance to your most excellent, family, my dear sir,
Most cordially yours,
John Foster.
To Joseph Cottle."
Some weeks after, Mr. Coleridge called on me; when, in the course of conversation, he entered into some observations on his own character, that made him appear unusually amiable. He said that he was naturally very arrogant; that it was his easily besetting sin; a state of mind which he ascribed to the severe subjection to which he had been exposed, till he was fourteen years of age, and from which, his own consciousness of superiority made him revolt. He then stated that he had renounced all his Unitarian sentiments; that he considered Unitarianism as a heresy of the worst description; attempting in vain, to reconcile sin and holiness; the world and heaven; opposing the whole spirit of the Bible; and subversive of all that truly constituted christianity. At this interview he professed his deepest conviction of the truth of Revelation; of the Fall of Man; of the Divinity of Christ, and redemption alone through his blood. To hear these sentiments so explicitly avowed, gave me unspeakable pleasure, and formed a new, and unexpected, and stronger bond of union.