[98] John Williams, described by Macaulay as “a filthy and malignant baboon,” who wrote under the pseudonym of “Anthony Pasquin,” emigrated to America early in this century. In 1804 he published a work in Boston, and there is, apparently, no reason to suppose that he subsequently returned to England. Either Coleridge was in error or he uses the term generally for a scurrilous critic.
[99] This note-book must have passed out of Coleridge’s possession in his lifetime, for it is not among those which were bequeathed to Joseph Henry Green, and subsequently passed into the hands of my father. The two folio volumes of the Greek Poets were in my father’s library, and are now in my possession.
[100] “Mr. Colridge (sic) will not, we fear, be as much entertained as we were with his ‘Playhouse Musings,’ which begin with characteristic pathos and simplicity, and put us much in mind of the affecting story of old Poulter’s mare.”
[101] The motto “Sermoni propriora,” translated by Lamb “properer for a sermon,” was prefixed to “Reflections on having left a Place of Retirement.” The lines “To a Young Ass” were originally published in the Morning Chronicle, December 30, 1794, under the heading, “Address to a Young Jack Ass, and its tethered Mother. In Familiar Verse.” Poetical Works, pp. 35, 36, Appendix C, p. 477. See, too, Biographia Literaria, Coleridge’s Works, 1853, iii. 161.
[102] The words, “Obscurest Haunt of all our mountains,” are to be found in the first act of “Remorse,” lines 115, 116. Their counterpart in Wordsworth’s poems occurs in “The Brothers,” l. 140. (“It is the loneliest place of all these hills.”) “De minimis non curat lex,” especially when there is a plea to be advanced, or a charge to be defended. Poetical Works, p. 362; Works of Wordsworth, p. 127.
[103] Many theories have been hazarded with regard to the broken friendship commemorated in these lines. My own impression is that Coleridge, if he had anything personal in his mind, and we may be sure that he had, was looking back on his early friendship with Southey and the bitter quarrel which began over the collapse of pantisocracy, and was never healed till the summer of 1799. In the late autumn of 1800, when the second part of “Christabel” was written, Southey was absent in Portugal, and the thought of all that had come and gone between him and his “heart’s best brother” inspired this outburst of affection and regret.
[104] The annuity of £150 for life, which Josiah Wedgwood, on his own and his brother Thomas’ behalf, offered to Coleridge in January, 1798. The letter expressly states that it is “an annuity for life of £150 to be regularly paid by us, no condition whatsoever being annexed to it.” “We mean,” he adds, “the annuity to be independent of everything but the wreck of our fortune.” It is extraordinary that a man of probity should have taken advantage of the fact that the annuity, as had been proposed, was not secured by law, and should have struck this blow, not so much at Coleridge, as at his wife and children, for whom the annuity was reserved. It is hardly likely that a man of business forgot the terms of his own offer, or that he could have imagined that Coleridge was no longer in need of support. Either in some fit of penitence or of passion Coleridge offered to release him, or once again “whispering tongues had poisoned truth,” and some one had represented to Wedgwood that the money was doing more harm than good. But a bond is a bond, and it is hard to see, unless the act and deed were Coleridge’s, how Wedgwood can escape blame. Thomas Poole and his Friends, i. 257-259.
[105] Dr. Southey, the poet’s younger brother Henry, and Daniel Stuart were afterwards neighbours in Harley Street. A close intimacy and lifelong friendship arose between the two families.
[106] Treaty of Vienna, October 9, 1809.
[107] This could only have been carried out in part. A large portion of the books which Coleridge possessed at his death consisted of those which he had purchased during his travels in Germany in 1799, and in Italy in 1805-1806.