[214] Admirers of Dr. Magee, 1765-1831, who was successively Bishop of Raphoe, 1819, and Archbishop of Dublin, 1822. He was the author of Discourses on the Scriptural Doctrines of the Atonement. He was grandfather of the late Archbishop of York, better known as Bishop of Peterborough.
[215] I am indebted to Mr. John Henry Steinmetz, a younger brother of Coleridge’s friend and ardent disciple, for a copy of this letter. It was addressed, he informs me, to his brother’s friend, the late Mr. John Peirse Kennard, of Hordle Cliff, Hants, father of the late Sir John Coleridge Kennard, Bart., M. P. for Salisbury, and of Mr. Adam Steinmetz Kennard, of Crawley Court Hants, at whose baptism the poet was present, and to whom he addressed the well-known letter (Letter CCLX.), “To my Godchild, Adam Steinmetz Kennard.”
[216] See Table Talk, August 14, 1832.
[217] So, too, of Keats. See Table Talk, etc., Bell & Sons. 1884, Talk for August 14, 1832. Table p. 179.
[218] “The sot would reject the poisoned cup, yet the trembling-hand with which he raises his daily or hourly draught to his lips has not left him ignorant that this, too, is altogether a poison.” The Friend, Essay xiv.; Coleridge’s Works, ii. 100.
[219] The motto of this theme, (January 19, 1794), of which I possess a transcript in Coleridge’s handwriting, or perhaps the original copy, is—
Quid fas
Atque nefas tandem incipiunt sentire peractis
Criminibus.
The theme was selected by Boyer for insertion in his Liber Aureus of school exercises in prose and verse, now in the possession of James Boyer, Esq., of the Coopers’ Company. The sentence to which Coleridge alludes ran thus: “As if we were in some great sea-vortex, every moment we perceive our ruin more clearly, every moment we are impelled towards it with greater force.”
The essay was printed for the first time in the Illustrated London News, April 1, 1893.
[220] This letter, which is addressed in Coleridge’s handwriting, “Mrs. Aders, favoured by H. Gillman,” and endorsed in pencil, “S. T. C.’s letter for Miss Denman,” refers to the new edition of his poetical works which Coleridge had begun to see through the press. Apparently he had intended that the “Epitaph” should be inscribed on the outline of a headstone, and that this should illustrate, by way of vignette, the last page of the volume.