CHAPTER III
THE WATCHMAN (1795 to 1796)
Ah! quiet dell! dear cot, and mount sublime!
I was constrained to quit you. Was it right,
While my unnumbered brethren toiled and bled,
That I should dream away th' entrusted hours
On rose-leaf beds pampering the coward heart
With feelings all too delicate for use?
* * * * *
I therefore go, and join head, heart and hand
Active and firm, to fight the bloodless fight
Of science, freedom, and the truth in Christ.
Coleridge had in the course of the summer of 1795 become acquainted with that excellent and remarkable man, the late Thomas Poole of Nether Stowey, Somerset. In a letter written to him on the 7th of October, C. speaks of the prospect from his cottage, and of his future plans in the following way:
LETTER 14. To THOMAS POOLE
My Dear Sir,
God bless you-or rather God be praised for that he has blessed you! On Sunday morning I was married at St. Mary's, Redcliff—from Chatterton's church. The thought gave a tinge of melancholy to the solemn joy which I felt, united to the woman, whom I love best of all created beings. We are settled, nay, quite domesticated, at Clevedon,—our comfortable cot! * * * The prospect around is perhaps more various than any in the kingdom: mine eye gluttonizes. The sea, the distant islands, the opposite coast!—I shall assuredly write rhymes, let the nine Muses prevent it if they can. * * * I have given up all thoughts of the Magazine for various reasons. It is a thing of monthly anxiety and quotidian bustle. To publish a Magazine for one year would be nonsense, and, if I pursue what I mean to pursue, my school-plan, I could not publish it for more than one year. In the course of half a year I mean to return to Cambridge—having previously taken my name off from the University's control—and, hiring lodgings there for myself and wife, finish my great work of "Imitations" in two volumes. My former works may, I hope, prove somewhat of genius and of erudition; this will be better; it will show great industry and manly consistency. At the end of it I shall publish proposals for a School. * * * My next letter will be long and full of something;—this is inanity and egotism. * * Believe me, dear Poole, your affectionate and mindful—friend, shall I so soon have to say? Believe me my heart prompts it. [1] S. T. COLERIDGE!
In spite of this letter Coleridge had not abandoned the project of starting a magazine. His school-plan, as well as a project to become tutor to the sons of the Earl of Buchan at Edinburgh (see Letter to George Dyer, "Bookman" for May 1910), came to nothing. A meeting was held among his chief friends "one evening," says Cottle, "at the Rummer Tavern, to determine on the size, price, and time of publishing, with all other preliminaries essential to the launching this first-rate vessel on the mighty deep. Having heard of the circumstance the next day, I rather wondered at not having also been requested to attend, and while ruminating on the subject, I received from Mr. C. the following communication."
[Footnote 1: Letter LI is our No. 14. LII is dated 13 November 1795.]
LETTER 15. To COTTLE