Sir Alexander Johnston[192] has payed me great attention. There is a Lady Johnston not unlike Miss Sara Hutchinson in face and mouth, only that she is taller. Sir A. himself is a fine gentlemanly man, young-looking for his age, and with exception of one not easily describable motion of his head that makes him look as if he had been accustomed to have a pen behind his ear, a sort of “Torney’s” clerk look, he might remind you of J. Hookham Frere. He is a sensible well-informed man, specious in no bad sense of the word, but (I guess) not much depth. In all probability, you will see him. We have talked a good deal together about you and me, and me and you, in consequence of occasion given. Sir A. is one of the leading men in our Royal Society of Literature, and beyond doubt, a man of influence in town. I am apt to forget superfluities, but a voice from above asks, “if I have said that we begin to be anxious to hear from you.” But probably before you can sit down to answer this, you will have received another, and, I flatter myself, more amusing, at least pleasure-giving Scripture from me. (N. B. “Coleridge’s Scriptures”—a new title.)
[No signature.]
CCXXXVII. TO THE REV. H. F. CARY.
Highgate, Monday, December 14, 1824.
My dear Friend,—The gentleman, Mr. Gabriel Rossetti,[193] whose letter to you I enclose, is a friend of my friend, Mr. J. H. Frere, with whom he lived in habits of intimacy at Malta and Naples. He seems to me what from Mr. Frere’s high opinion of him I should have confidently anticipated, a gentleman, a scholar, and a man of talents. The nature of his request you will learn from the letter, namely, a perusal of his Manuscript on the spirit of Dante and the mechanism and interpretation of the “Divina Commedia,” of which he believes himself to have the filum Ariadneum in his hand, and a frank opinion of the merits of his labours. My dear friend! I know by experience what is asked in this twofold request, and that the weight increases in proportion to the kindness and sensibility and the shrinking from the infliction of pain of the person on whom it is enjoined. The name of Mr. John Hookham Frere would alone have sufficed to make me undertake this office, had the request been directed to myself. It would have been my duty. But I would not, knowing your temper and habits and avocations, have sought to engage you, or even have put you to the discomfort of excusing yourself had I not been strongly impressed by Mr. Rossetti’s manners and conversation with the belief that the interests of literature are concerned, and that Mr. Rossetti has a claim on all the services which the sons of the Muses, and more particularly the cultivators of ancient Italian Literature, and most particularly Dante’s “English Duplicate and Re-incarnation” can render him. If your health and other duties allow your accession to this request (for the recommendation of the work to the booksellers is quite a secondary consideration, of minor importance in Mr. Rossetti’s estimation, and I have, besides, explained to him how very limited our influence is), you will be so good as to let me hear from you, and where and when Mr. Rossetti might wait on you. He will be happy to attend you at Chiswick. He understands English, and, he speaking Italian and I our own language, we had no difficulty in keeping up an animated conversation.
Make mine and all our cordial remembrances to Mrs. Cary, and believe me, dear friend, with perfect esteem and most affectionate regard, yours,
S. T. Coleridge.
P. S. Both Mrs. G. and myself have returned much benefited by our sea-sojourn. Mr. Rossetti has, I find, an additional merit in good men’s thoughts. He is a poet who has been driven into exile for the high morale of his writings. For even general sentiments breathing the spirit of nobler times are treasons in the present Neapolitan and Holy Alliance Codes! Wretches!! I dare even pray against them, even with Davidian bitterness. Do not forget to let me have an answer to this, if possible, by next day’s post.
CCXXXVIII. TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
Monday Night, ? 1824 ? 1829.