Tuesday, June 4, 1811.
Dear Stuart,—I brought your umbrella in with me yester-morning, but, having forgotten it at leaving Portland Place, sent the coachman back for it, who brought what appeared to me not the same. On returning, however, with it, I could find no other, and it is certainly as good or better, but looks to me as if it were not equally new, and as if it had far more silk in it. I will, however, leave it at Brompton, and if by any inexplicable circumstance it should not prove the same, you must be content with the substitute. The family at Portland Place caught at my doubts as to the identity of it. I had hoped to have seen you this morning, it being a leisurely time in respect of fresh tidings, to have submitted to you two Essays,[66] one on the Catholic Question, and the other on Parliamentary Reform, addressed as a letter (from a correspondent) to the noblemen and members of Parliament who had associated for this purpose. The former does not exceed two columns; the latter is somewhat longer. But after the middle of this month it is probable that the Paper will be more open to a series of Articles on less momentary, though still contemporary, interests. Mr. Street seems highly pleased with what I have written this morning on the battle[67] of the 16th (May), though I apprehend the whole cannot be inserted. I am as I ought to be, most cautious and shy in recommending anything; otherwise, I should have requested Mr. Street to give insertion to the paragraphs respecting Holland, and the nature of Buonaparte’s resources, ending with the necessity of ever re-fuelling the moral feelings of the people, as to the monstrosity of the giant fiend that menaces them; [with an] allusion to Judge Grose’s opinion[68] on Drakard[69] before the occasion had passed away from the public memory. So, too, if the Duke’s return is to be discussed at all, the Article should be published before Lord Milton’s motion.[70] For though in a complex and widely controverted question, where hundreds rush into the field of combat, it is wise to defer it till the Debates in Parliament have shown what the arguments are on which most stress is laid by men in common, as in the Bullion Dispute; yet, generally, it is a great honour to the London papers, that for one argument they borrow from the parliamentary speakers, the latter borrow two from them, at all events are anticipated by them. But the true prudential rule is, to defer only when any effect of freshness or novelty is impracticable; but in most other cases to consider freshness of effect as the point which belongs to a Newspaper and distinguishes it from a library book; the former being the Zenith, and the latter the Nadir, with a number of intermediate degrees, occupied by pamphlets, magazines, reviews, satirical and occasional poems, etc., etc. Besides, in a daily newspaper, with advertisements proportioned to its sale, what is deferred must, four times in five, be extinguished. A newspaper is a market for flowers and vegetables, rather than a granary or conservatory; and the drawer of its editor, a common burial ground, not a catacomb for embalmed mummies, in which the defunct are preserved to serve in after times as medicines for the living. To turn from the Paper to myself, as candidate for the place of auxiliary to it. I drew, with Mr. Street’s consent and order, ten pounds, which I shall repay during the week as soon as I can see Mr. Monkhouse of Budge Row, who has collected that sum for me. This, therefore, I put wholly aside, and indeed expect to replace it with Mr. Green to-morrow morning. Besides this I have had five pounds from Mr. Green,[71] chiefly for the purposes of coach hire. All at once I could not venture to walk in the heat and other accidents of weather from Hammersmith to the Office; but hereafter I intend, if I continue here, to return on foot, which will reduce my coach hire for the week from eighteen shillings to nine shillings. But to walk in, I know, would take off all the blossom and fresh fruits of my spirits. I trust that I need not say, how pleasant it would be to me, if it were in my power to consider everything I could do for the “Courier,” as a mere return for the pecuniary, as well as other obligations I am under to you; in short as working off old scores. But you know how I am situated; and that by the daily labour of the brain I must acquire the daily demands of the other parts of the body. And it now becomes necessary that I should form some settled system for my support in London, and of course know what my weekly or monthly means may be. Respecting the “Courier,” I consider you not merely as a private friend, but as the Co-proprietor of a large concern, in which it is your duty to regulate yourself with relation to the interests of that concern, and of your partner in it; and so take for granted, and, indeed, wish no other, than that you and he should weigh whether or no I can be of any material use to a Paper already so flourishing, and an Evening Paper. For, all mock humility out of the question (and when I write to you, every other sort of insincerity), I see that such services as I might be able to afford, would be more important to a rising than to a risen Paper; to a morning, perhaps, more than to an evening one. You will however decide, after the experience hitherto afforded, and modifying it by the temporary circumstances of debates, press of foreign news, etc.; how far I can be of actual use by my attendance, in order to help in the things of the day, as are the paragraphs, which I have for the most part hitherto been called [upon] to contribute; and, by my efforts, to sustain the literary character of the Paper, by large articles, on open days, and [at] more leisure times.
My dear Stuart! knowing the foolish mental cowardice with which I slink off from all pecuniary subjects, and the particular weight I must feel from the sense of existing obligations to you, you will be convinced that my only motive is the desire of settling with others such a plan for myself, as may, by setting my mind at rest, enable me to realize whatever powers I possess, to as much satisfaction to those who employ them, and to my own sense of duty, as possible. If Mr. Street should think that the “Courier” does not require any auxiliary, I shall then rely on your kindness, for putting me in the way of some other paper, the principles of which are sufficiently in accordance with my own; for while cabbage stalks rot on dung hills, I will never write what, or for what, I do not think right. All that prudence can justify is NOT to write what at certain times one may yet think. God bless you and
S. T. Coleridge.
CLXXXIII. TO SIR G. BEAUMONT.
J. J. Morgan’s, Esq., 7, Portland Place, Hammersmith,
Saturday morning, December 7, 1811.
Dear Sir George,—On Wednesday night I slept in town in order to have a mask[72] taken, from which, or rather with which, Allston means to model a bust of me. I did not, therefore, receive your letter and the enclosed till Thursday night, eleven o’clock, on my return from the lecture; and early on Friday morning, I was roused from my first sleep by an agony of toothache, which continued almost without intermission the whole day, and has left my head and the whole of my trunk, “not a man but a bruise.”[73] What can I say more, my dear Sir George, than that I deeply feel the proof of your continued friendship, and pray from my inmost soul that more perseverance in efforts of duty may render me more worthy of your kindness than I at present am? Ingratitude, like all crimes that are at the same time vices—bad as malady, and worse as symptom—is of so detestable a nature that an honest man will mourn in silence under real injuries, [rather] than hazard the very suspicion of it, and will be slow to avail himself of Lord Bacon’s remark[74] (much as he may admire its profundity),—“Crimen ingrati animi, quod magnis ingeniis haud raro objicitur, sæpius nil aliud est quam perspicacia quædam in causam beneficii collati.” Yet that man has assuredly tenfold reason to be grateful who can be so, both head and heart, who, at once served and honoured, knows himself more delighted by the motive that influenced his friend than by the benefit received by himself; were it only perhaps for this cause—that the consciousness of always repaying the former in kind takes away all regret that he is incapable of returning the latter.
Mr. Dawe, Royal Associate, who plastered my face for me, says that he never saw so excellent a mask, and so unaffected by any expression of pain or uneasiness. On Tuesday, at the farthest, a cast will be finished, which I was vain enough to desire to be packed up and sent to Dunmow. With it you will find a chalk drawing of my face,[75] which I think far more like than any former attempt, excepting Allston’s full-length portrait of me,[76] which, with all his casts, etc., two or three valuable works of the Venetian school, and his Jason—almost finished, and on which he had employed eighteen months without intermission—are lying at Leghorn, with no chance of procuring them. There will likewise be an epistolary essay for Lady Beaumont on the subject of religion in reference to my own faith; it was too long to send by the post.
Dawe is engaged on a picture (the figures about four feet) from my poem of Love.
She leaned beside the armed man,
The statue of the armed knight;
She stood and listened to my harp
Amid the lingering light.
His dying words—but when I reached, etc.
All impulses of soul and sense, etc.