“Bampfylde published his Sonnets at a very early age; they are some of the most original in our language. He died in a private mad-house, after twenty years’ confinement.” Specimens of the Later English Poets, 1808, iii. 434.
[214] “A sister of General McKinnon, who was killed at Ciudad Rodrigo.” In the same letter to Coleridge (see above) Southey says that he looked up to her with more respect because the light of Buonaparte’s countenance had shone upon her.
[215] Dr. Cookson, Canon of Windsor and Rector of Forncett, Norfolk. Dorothy Wordsworth passed much of her time under his roof before she finally threw in her lot with her brother William in 1795.
[216] The journal, or notes for a journal, of this first tour in the Lake Country, leaves a doubt whether Coleridge and Wordsworth slept at Keswick on Sunday, November 10, 1799, or whether they returned to Cockermouth. It is certain that they passed through Keswick again on Friday, November 15, as the following entry testifies:—
“1 mile and ½ from Keswick, a Druidical circle. On the right the road and Saddleback; on the left a fine but unwatered vale, walled by grassy hills and a fine black crag standing single at the terminus as sentry. Before me, that is, towards Keswick, the mountains stand, one behind the other, in orderly array, as if evoked by and attentive to the white-vested wizards.” It was from almost the same point of view that, thirty years afterwards, his wife, on her journey south after her daughter’s marriage, took a solemn farewell of the Vale of Keswick once so strange, but then so dear and so familiar.
[217] George Fricker, Mrs. Coleridge’s younger brother.
[218] A gossiping account of the early history and writings of “Mr. Robert Southey” appeared in Public Characters for 1799-1800, a humble forerunner of Men of the Time, published by Richard Phillips, the founder of the Monthly Magazine, and afterwards knighted as a sheriff of the city of London. Possibly Coleridge was displeased at the mention of his name in connection with Pantisocracy, and still more by the following sentence: “The three young poetical friends, Lovel, Southey, and Coleridge, married three sisters. Southey is attached to domestic life, and, fortunately, was very happy in his matrimonial connection.” It was Sir Richard Phillips, the “knight” of Coleridge’s anecdote, who told Mrs. Barbauld that he would have given “nine guineas a sheet for the last hour and a half of his conversation.” Letters, Conversations, etc., 1836, ii. 131, 132.
[219] “These various pieces were rearranged in three volumes under the title of Minor Poems, in 1815, with this motto, Nos hæc novimus esse nihil.” Poetical Works of Robert Southey, 1837, ii., xii.
[220] Mary Hayes, a friend of Mary Wollstonecraft, whose opinions she advocated with great zeal, and whose death she witnessed. Among other works, she wrote a novel, Memoirs of Emma Courtney, and Female Biography, or Memoirs of Illustrious and Celebrated Women. Six volumes. London: R. Phillips. 1803.
[221] He used the same words in a letter to Poole dated December 31, 1799. Thomas Poole and his Friends, i. 1.