I have read through your MS. volume, very much to the cost of my eyes, but it was impossible to help going on, and I am exceedingly obliged to you for favouring me with it;—the more so as there is no prospect of seeing any large proportion of it in print. It is I think about as melancholy an exhibition as I ever contemplated. Why was such a sad phenomenon to come in sight on earth? Was it to abase the pride of human intellect and genius?
You have done excellently well to collect into a permanent substance what must else have gone into oblivion, for no one else could have exhibited even a shadow of it. But now, my dear sir, I hope you are prepared with the philosophy, or by whatever name I should designate the fortitude,—that can patiently bear the frustration of the main immediate purpose of your long and earnest labour.—For you may lay your account that the compiler of the proposed life of Coleridge will admit but a very minor part of what you have thus furnished at his request:—that especially he will not admit what you feel to be the most important, as an emphatic moral lesson, and what it has cost you the most painful resolution to set faithfully forth.
No, my dear sir, the operator of the work will not, will not, will not, let the illustrious philosopher, genius, and poet, so appear. He will get over that stage with a few general expressions, and a few indistinctly presented facts. And then as to the dreadful tragical parts, he will promptly decide that it would be utter profanation to expose them to view in any such unveiled prominence as you have exhibited in your narrative. And then the solemn warning and example will be nearly kept out of sight. Quite naturally that this would be the course adopted, unless the compiler were, like yourself, intent, as his first and highest obligation, on doing faithful homage to truth, virtue, and religion. How I despise biography, as the business is commonly managed. I cannot believe that Coleridge's dreadful letters of confession will be admitted in their own unmodified form; though they ought to be. Most truly yours,
John Foster."
These combined intimations led me to stipulate that, whatever else was omitted, the opium letters should be printed verbatim. But this being promptly refused, I determined to throw my materials into a separate work.
As this is the last time in which Mr. Southey's name will be mentioned, it is a debt of justice to subjoin the following honourable testimonials.
As an evidence of the estimation in which Mr. Southey was held,—the distinctions awarded to his memory have had few parallels. His friends at Keswick, among whom he resided for thirty years, erected to him in their Church a noble monument, as a permanent memorial of their respect. His friends, in London, placed his bust in Westminster Abbey. Whilst another set of his friends in Bristol (his native city) from respect to his genius, and in admiration of his character, placed a bust of him in their own Cathedral.
PRAYER OF S. T. COLERIDGE, WRITTEN IN 1831.
Almighty God, by thy eternal Word, my Creator, Redeemer, and Preserver! who hast in thy communicative goodness glorified me with the capability of knowing thee, the only one absolute God, the eternal I Am, as the author of my being, and of desiring and seeking thee as its ultimate end;—who when I fell from thee into the mystery of the false and evil will, didst not abandon me, poor self-lost creature, but in thy condescending mercy didst provide an access and a return to thyself, even to the Holy One, in thine only begotten Son, the way and the truth from everlasting, and who took on himself humanity, yea, became flesh, even the man Christ Jesus, that for man he might be the life and resurrection!—O, Giver of all good gifts, who art thyself the only absolute Good, from whom I have received whatever good I have; whatever capability of good there is in me, and from thee good alone,—from myself and my own corrupted will all evil, and the consequences of evil,—with inward prostration of will, mind, and affections I adore thy infinite majesty; I aspire to love thy transcendant goodness!
In a deep sense of my unworthiness, and my unfitness to present myself before thee, of eyes too pure to behold iniquity, and whose light, the beatitude of spirits conformed to thy will, is a consuming fire to all vanity and corruptions;—but in the name of the Lord Jesus, of the dear Son of thy love, in whose perfect obedience thou deignest to behold as many as have received the seed of Christ into the body of this death;—I offer this my bounden nightly sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, in humble trust that the fragrance of my Saviour's righteousness may remove from it the taint of my mortal corruption. Thy mercies have followed me through all the hours and moments of my life; and now I lift up my heart in awe and thankfulness for the preservation of my life through the past day, for the alleviation of my bodily sufferings and languors, for the manifold comforts which thou hast reserved for me, yea, in thy fatherly compassion hast rescued from the wreck of my own sins or sinful infirmities;—for the kind and affectionate friends thou hast raised up for me, especially for those of this household, for the mother and mistress of this family, whose love to me has been great and faithful, and for the dear friend, the supporter and sharer of my studies and researches; but above all for the heavenly Friend, the crucified Saviour, the glorified Mediator, Christ Jesus, and for the heavenly Comforter, source of all abiding comforts, thy Holy Spirit! that I may with a deeper faith, a more enkindled love, bless thee, who through thy Son hast privileged me to call thee Abba Father! O thou who hast revealed thyself in thy word as a God that hearest prayer; before whose infinitude all differences cease, of great and small; who like a tender parent foreknowest all our wants, yet listenest, well-pleased, to the humble petitions of thy children; who hast not alone permitted, but taught us to call on thee in all our needs,—earnestly I implore the continuance of thy free mercy, of thy protecting providence through the coming night.