CIII. TO THE SAME.
December 9, [1799].
My dear Southey,—I pray you in your next give me the particulars of your health. I hear accounts so contradictory that I know only enough to be a good deal frightened. You will surely think it your duty to suspend all intellectual exertion; as to money, you will get it easily enough. You may easily make twice the money you receive from Stuart by the use of the scissors; for your name is prodigiously high among the London publishers. I would to God your health permitted you to come to London. You might have lodgings in the same house with us. And this I am certain of, that not even Kingsdown is a more healthy or airy place. I have enough for us to do that would be mere child’s work to us, and in which the women might assist us essentially, by the doing of which we might easily get a hundred and fifty pounds each before the first of April. This I speak, not from guess but from absolute conditions with booksellers. The principal work to which I allude would be likewise a great source of amusement and profit to us in the execution, and assuredly we should be a mutual comfort to each other. This I should press on you were not Davy at Bristol, but he is indeed an admirable young man; not only must he be of comfort to you, but in whom can you place such reliance as a medical man? But for Davy, I should advise your coming to London; the difference of expense for three months could not be above fifty pounds. I do not see how it could be half as much. But I pray you write me all particulars, how you have been, how you are, and what you think the particular nature of your disease.
Now for poor George.[217] Assuredly I am ready and willing to become his bondsman for five hundred pounds if, on the whole, you think the scheme a good one. I see enough of the boy to be fully convinced of his goodness and well-intentionedness; of his present or probable talents I know little. To remain all his life an under clerk, as many have done, and earn fifty pounds a year in his old age with a trembling hand—alas! that were a dreary prospect. No creature under the sun is so helpless, so unfitted, I should think, for any other mode of life as a clerk, a mere clerk. Yet still many have begun so and risen into wealth and importance, and it is not impossible that before his term closed we might be able, if nought better offered, perhaps to procure him a place in a public office. We might between us keep him neat in clothes from our own wardrobes, I should think, and I am ready to allow five guineas this year, in addition to Mr. Savary’s twelve pounds. More I am not justified to promise. Yet still I think it matter of much reflection with you. The commercial prospects of this country are, in my opinion, gloomy; our present commerce is enormous: that it must diminish after a peace is certain, and should any accident injure the West India trade, and give to France a paramountship in the American affections, that diminution would be vast indeed, and, of course, great would be the number of clerks, etc., wholly out of employment. This is no visionary speculation; for we are consulting concerning a life, for probably fifty years. I should have given a more intense conviction to the goodness of the former scheme of apprenticing him to a printer, and would make every exertion to raise my share of the money wanting. However, all this is talk at random. I leave it to you to decide. What does Charles Danvers think? He has been very kind to George. But to whom is he not kind, that body—blood—bone—muscle—nerve—heart and head—good man! I lay final stress on his opinion in almost everything except verses; those I know more about than he does—“God bless him, to use a vulgar phrase.” This is a quotation from Godwin, who used these words in conversation with me and Davy. The pedantry of atheism tickled me hugely. Godwin is no great things in intellect; but in heart and manner he is all the better for having been the husband of Mary Wollstonecraft. Why did not George Dyer (who, by the bye, has written a silly milk-and-water life of you,[218] in which your talents for pastoral and rural imagery are extolled, and in which you are asserted to be a republican), why did not George Dyer send to the “Anthology” that poem in the last “Monthly Magazine?” It is so very far superior to anything I have ever seen of his, and might have made some atonement for his former transgressions. God love him, he is a very good man; but he ought not to degrade himself by writing lives of living characters for Phillips; and all his friends make wry faces, peeping out of the pillory of his advertisemental notes. I hold to my former opinion concerning the arrangement of the “Anthology,” and the booksellers with whom I have talked coincide with me. On this I am decided, that all the light pieces should be put together under one title with a motto[219] thus: “Nos hæc novimus esse nihil—Phillis amat Corylos.” I am afraid that I have scarce poetic enthusiasm enough to finish “Christabel;” but the poem, with which Davy is so much delighted, I probably may finish time enough. I shall probably not publish my letters, and if I do so, I shall most certainly not publish any verses in them. Of course, I expect to see them in the “Anthology.” As to title, I should wish a fictitious one or none; were I sure that I could finish the poem I spoke of. I do not know how to get the conclusion of Mrs. Robinson’s poem for you. Perhaps it were better omitted, and I mean to put the thoughts of that concert poem into smoother metre. Our “Devil’s Thoughts” have been admired far and wide, most enthusiastically admired. I wish to have my name in the collection at all events; but I should better like it to better poems than these I have been hitherto able to give you. But I will write again on Saturday. Supposing that Johnson should mean to do nothing more with the “Fears in Solitude” and the two accompanying poems, would they be excluded from the plan of your “Anthology?” There were not above two hundred sold, and what is that to a newspaper circulation? Collins’s Odes were thus reprinted in Dodsley’s Collection. As to my future residence, I can say nothing—only this, that to be near you would be a strong motive with me for my wife’s sake as well as myself. I think it not impossible that a number might be found to go with you and settle in a warmer climate. My kind love to your wife. Sara and Hartley arrived safe, and here they are, No. 21 Buckingham Street, Strand. God bless you, and your affectionate
S. T. Coleridge.
Thursday evening.
P. S. Mary Hayes[220] is writing the “Lives of Famous Women,” and is now about your friend Joan. She begs you to tell her what books to consult, or to communicate something to her. This from Tobin, who sends his love.
CIV. TO THE SAME.
Tuesday night, 12 o’clock [December 24], 1799.