Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1

7. Robert Southey. 6 July, 1794 34 8. Henry Martin. 22 July, 1794 35 9. Southey. 6 Sept. 1794 42 10. " 18 Sept. 1794 43 11. Charles Heath. -- -- 1794 44 12. Henry Martin. 22 Sep...

15. Joseph Cottle. -- Dec. 1795 52 16. " 1 Jany. 1796 52 17. Josiah Wade. -- Jany. 1796 55 18. " -- -- 1796 55 19. " -- -- 1796 56 20. " -- -- 1796 58 21. " 7 Jany. 1796 59 22....

49. " 3 Jany. 1797 50. " 10 Jany. 1797 51. " Jany. 1797 52. " Jany. -- 53. " Jany. -- 54. " Feby. or Mch. 1797 55. " May, 1797 56. " -- -- 57. " -- -- 58. Wade. -- -- 59. Cottle...

66. " 3 Sept. 1797 67. " 10-15 Sept. 1797 68. " 28 Nov. 1797 69. " 2 Dec. 1797 70. " --Jany. 1798 71. Wedgwood. --Jany. 1798 72. Cottle. 24 Jany. 1798 73. the Editor, "Monthly M...

75. the Editor, "Morning Post." 10 Mch. 1798 76. Cottle. 8 Mch. 1798 77. Wade. 21 Mch. 1798 78. Cottle. Mch. or Apl. 1798 79. " 14 April, 1798 80. " --April, 1798 81. " --May, 1...

92. Humphry Davy. --June, 1800 93. Josiah Wedgwood. 24 July, 1800 94. Davy. 25 July, 1800 95. Godwin. 22 Sept. 1800 96. Davy. 9 Oct. 1800 97. Godwin. 13 Oct. 1800 98. Davy. 18 O...

107. Davy. 4 May, 1801 108. " 20 May, 1801 109. Godwin. 23 June, 1801 110. Davy. 31 Oct. 1801 111. Thos. Wedgwood. 20 Oct. 1802 112. " 3 Nov. 1802 113. " 9 Jany. l803 114. " 14...

While here, thou fed'st upon etherial beams, As if thou had'st not a terrestrial birth;-- Beyond material objects was thy sight; In the clouds woven was thy lucid robe! "Ah! who...

I could inform the dullest author how he might write an interesting book. Let him relate the events of his own life with honesty, not disguising the feelings that accompanied th...

My Father (Vicar of, and Schoolmaster at, Ottery St. Mary, Devon) was a good mathematician, and well versed in the Greek, Latin, and Hebrew languages. He published, or rather at...

From March to October--a long silence! But it is possible that I may have been preparing materials for future Letters, and the time cannot be considered as altogether subtracted...

From October 1779 to 1781. I had asked my Mother one evening to cut my cheese entire, so that I might toast it. This was no easy matter, it being a "crumbly" cheese. My Mother h...

From October 1781 to October 1782. After the death of my Father, we, of course, changed houses, and I remained with my Mother till the spring of 1782, and was a day scholar to P...

Come back into memory, like as thou wert in the day-spring of thy fancies, with Hope like a fiery column before thee--the dark pillar not yet turned--Samuel Taylor Coleridge--Lo...

I have often been surprised that Mathematics, the quintessence of Truth, should have found admirers so few and so languid. Frequent consideration and minute scrutiny have at len...

You are averse to gratitudinarian flourishes, else would I talk about hospitality, attention, &c. &c.; however, as I must not thank you, I will thank my stars. Verily, Southey,...

From Oxford to Gloucester,+ to Ross,+ to Hereford, to Leominster, to Bishop's Castle,+ to Montgomery, to Welshpool, Llanvelling,+ Llangunnog, Bala,+ Druid House,+ Llangollin, Wr...

The day after my arrival I finished the first act: I transcribed it. The next morning Franklin (of Pembroke Coll. Cam., a "ci-devant Grecian" of our school--so we call the first...

Since I quitted this room what and how important events have been evolved! America! Southey! Miss Fricker!... Pantisocracy! Oh! I shall have such a scheme of it! My head, my hea...

Your brother has introduced my name to you; I shall therefore offer no apology for this letter. A small but liberalized party have formed a scheme of emigration on the principle...

Accept as a small testimony of my grateful attachment, the following Dramatic Poem, in which I have endeavoured to detail, in an interesting form, the fall of a man whose great...

For God's sake, my dear fellow, tell me what we are to gain by taking a Welsh farm? Remember the principles and proposed consequences of Pantisocracy, and reflect in what degree...

Ah! quiet dell! dear cot, and mount sublime! I was constrained to quit you. Was it right, While my unnumbered brethren toiled and bled, That I should dream away th' entrusted ho...

God bless you-or rather God be praised for that he has blessed you! On Sunday morning I was married at St. Mary's, Redcliff--from Chatterton's church. The thought gave a tinge o...

I am fearful that you felt hurt at my not mentioning to you the proposed "Watchman", and from my not requesting you to attend the meeting. My dear friend, my reasons were these....

I have been forced to disappoint not only you, but Dr. Beddoes, on an affair of some importance. Last night I was induced by strong and joint solicitation, to go to a cardclub t...

We were five in number, and twenty-five in quantity. The moment I entered the coach, I stumbled on a huge projection, which might be called a belly with the same propriety that...

*** My exertions here have been incessant, for in whatever company I go, I am obliged to be the figurante of the circle. Yesterday I preached twice, and, indeed, performed the w...

You will perceive by this letter I have changed my route. From Birmingham on Friday last (four o'clock in the morning), I proceeded to Derby, stayed there till Monday morning, a...

I arrived at this place late last night by the mail from Nottingham, where I have been treated with kindness and friendship, of which I can give you but a faint idea. I preached...

I arrived at Manchester last night from Sheffield, to which place I shall only send about thirty numbers. I might have succeeded there, at least equally well with the former tow...

* * * I have succeeded very well here at Lichfield. Belcher, bookseller, Birmingham; Sutton, Nottingham; Pritchard, Derby; and Thomson, Manchester; are the publishers. In every...

I have this night and to-morrow for you, being alone, and my spirits calm. I shall consult my poetic honour, and of course your interest, more by staying at home than by drinkin...

I feel it much, and very uncomfortable, that, loving you as a brother, and feeling pleasure in pouring out my heart to you, I should so seldom be able to write a letter to you,...

It is my duty and business to thank God for all his dispensations, and to believe them the best possible; but, indeed, I think I should have been more thankful, if He had made m...

For the neglect in the transmission of "The Watchman", you must blame George Burnett, who undertook the business. I however will myself see it sent this week with the preceding...

I transmitted to you by Mr. B---- a copy of my "Conciones ad Populum", and of an Address against the Bills (meaning "The Plot Discovered"). I have taken the liberty of enclosing...

You have attacked me because I ventured to disapprove of Mr. Godwin's Works: I notice your attack because it affords me an opportunity of expressing more fully my sentiments res...

I have sent the 5th, 6th, and part of the 7th Number--all as yet printed. Your censures are all right: I wish your praises were equally so. The Essay on Fasts I am ashamed of. I...

On the blank leaf of my Poems I can most appropriately write my acknowledgments to you for your too disinterested conduct in the purchase of them. Indeed, if ever they should ac...

Since I last conversed with you on the subject, I have been thinking over again the plan I suggested to you, concerning the application of Count Rumford's plan to the city of Br...

I will wait on you this evening at nine o'clock, till which hour I am on "Watch." Your Wednesday's invitation I of course accept, but I am rather sorry that you should add this...

The heart is a little relieved, when vexation converts itself into anger. But from this privilege I am utterly precluded by my own epistolary sins and negligences. Yet in very t...

Poole! The Spirit, who counts the throbbings of the solitary heart, knows that what my feelings ought to be, such they are. If it were in my power to give you anything, which I...

This said caravan does not leave Bridgewater till nine. In the market-place stand the hustings. I mounted, and pacing the boards, mused on bribery, false swearing, and other foi...

Do not attribute it to indolence that I have not written to you. Suspense has been the real cause of my silence. Day after day I have confidently expected some decisive letter,...

I was at Matlock, the place monodized by Bowles, when your letter arrived at Darley, and I did not receive it till near a week afterwards. My very dear Poole, I wrote to you the...

"I was the first fiddle;--not in the concerts--but every where else, and the company would not spare me twenty minutes together. Sunday I dedicated to the drawing up my sketch o...

The heart thoroughly penetrated with the flame of virtuous friendship is in a state of glory; but lest it should be exalted above measure, there is given to it a thorn in the fl...

Your letter, my friend, struck me with a mighty horror. It rushed upon me and stupified my feelings. You bid me write you a religious letter; I am not a man who would attempt to...

I have no mercenary feelings, I verily believe; but I hate bartering at any time, and with any person; with you it is absolutely intolerable. I clearly perceive that by giving m...

Many "causes" have concurred to prevent my writing to you, but all together they do not amount to a "reason". I have seen a narrow-necked bottle, so full of water, that when tur...

Thanks, my heart's warm thanks to you, my beloved Friend, for your tender letter! Indeed I did not deserve so kind a one; but by this time you have received my last. To live in...

As the father of Charles Lloyd you are of course in some measure interested in any alteration of my schemes of life; and I feel it a kind of Duty to give you my reasons for any...

I received your letter, and thank you for that interest which you take in my welfare. The reasons which you urge against my present plan are mostly well-founded; but they would...

I think it my duty to acquaint you with the nature of my connection with your Son. If he be to stay with me, I can neither be his tutor or fellow-student, nor in any way impart...

Soon after the commencement of this month, the editor of the 'Cambridge Intelligencer' (a newspaper conducted with so much ability, and such unmixed and fearless zeal for the in...

With him there often walked in friendly guise, Or lay upon the moss by brook or tree, A noticeable Man with large grey eyes, And a pale face that seemed undoubtedly As if a bloo...

Learning, power, and time, (Too much of all) thus wasting in vain war Of fervid colloquy. "Sickness,'tis true, 'Whole years of weary days, besieged him close, Even to the gates...

I write under great agony of mind, Charles Lloyd being very ill. He has been seized with his fits three times in the space of seven days: and just as I was in bed last night, I...

If you delay the press it will give me the opportunity I so much wish, of sending my "Visions of the Maid of Arc" to Wordsworth, who lives [1] not above twenty miles from this p...

The lines which I added to my lines in the "Joan of Arc", have been so little approved by Charles Lamb, to whom I sent them, that although I differ from him in opinion, I have n...

* * * On Thursday morning, by Milton, the Stowey carrier, I shall send you a parcel, containing the book of my Poems interleaved, with the alterations, and likewise the prefaces...

* * * If you do not like the following verses, or if you do not think them worthy of an edition in which I profess to give nothing but my choicest fish, picked, gutted, and clea...

* * * "Ill besped" is indeed a sad blotch; but after having tried at least a hundred ways, before I sent the Poem to you, and often since, I find it incurable. This first Poem i...

* * * Public affairs are in strange confusion. I am afraid that I shall prove, at least, as good a Prophet as Bard. Oh, doom'd to fall, my country! enslaved and vile! But may Go...

I have sent a curious letter to George Catcott. He has altogether made me pay five shillings! for postage, by his letters sent all the way to Stowey, requiring me to return book...

I love and respect you as a brother, and my memory deceives me woefully, if I have not evidenced, by the animated tone of my conversation when we have been tete-a-tete, how much...

Have patience, and everything shall be done. I think now entirely of your brother:[1] in two days I will think entirely for you. By Wednesday next you shall have Lloyd's other P...

I am here after a most tiresome journey; in the course of which, a woman asked me if I knew one Coleridge, of Bristol. I answered, I had heard of him. "Do you know, (quoth she)...

Remind Mrs. Coleridge of the kittens, and tell her that George's brandy is just what smuggled spirits might be expected to be, execrable! The smack of it remains in my mouth, an...

I deeply regret, that my anxieties and my slothfulness, acting in a combined ratio, prevented me from finishing my "Progress of Liberty, or Visions of the Maid of Orleans", with...

Wordsworth admires my tragedy, which gives me great hopes. Wordsworth has written a tragedy himself. I speak with heartfelt sincerity, and I think, unblinded judgment, when I te...

***Charles Lamb will probably be here in about a fortnight. Could you not contrive to put yourself in a Bridgwater coach, and T. Poole would fetch you in a one-horse chaise to S...

Wordsworth and his exquisite sister are with me. She is a woman indeed! in mind I mean, and heart; for her person is such, that if you expected to see a pretty woman, you would...

* * * John Thelwall is a very warm-hearted, honest man; and disagreeing as we do, on almost every point of religion, of morals, of politics, and philosophy, we like each other u...

Herbert Croft is in Exeter gaol! This is unlucky. Poor devil! He must now be unpeppered. We are all well. Wordsworth is well. Hartley sends a grin to you? He has another tooth!

I shall now stick close to my tragedy (called "Osorio"), and when I have finished it, shall walk to Shaftesbury to spend a few days with Bowles. From thence I go to Salisbury, a...

If Mrs. Coleridge be in Bristol, pray desire her to write to me immediately, and I beg you, the moment you receive this letter, to send to No. 17, Newfoundland Street, to know w...

I have procured for Wordsworth's tragedy, an introduction to Harris, the manager of Covent Garden, who has promised to read it attentively, and give his answer immediately; and...

I have heard nothing of my Tragedy, except some silly remarks of Kemble's, to whom a friend showed it; it does not appear to me that there is a shadow of probability that it wil...

This last fortnight has been very eventful. I received one hundred pounds from Josiah Wedgwood, in order to prevent the necessity of my going into the ministry. I have received...

If kindly feeling can be repaid by kindly feeling, I am not your debtor. I would wish to express the same thing which is big at my heart, but I know not how to do it without ind...

The next letter is an amusing one coming from Coleridge. It is an apology for the "Monody on the Death of Chatterton", which he wished to discard from the second edition of his...

I hope this letter may arrive time enough to answer its purpose. I cannot help considering myself as having been placed in a very ridiculous light by the gentlemen who have rema...

Cottle's acquaintance with Coleridge led to his making friends with Wordsworth, and in his "Early Recollections" and "Reminiscences", the Bristol bookseller tells a few amusing...

I have finished my Ballad, it is 340 lines; I am going on with my "Visions": altogether (for I shall print two scenes of my Tragedy, as fragments) I can add 1500 lines; now what...

but a learned Antiquarian of my acquaintance has given it as his opinion that it resembles Spenser's minor poems as nearly as "Vortigern" and "Rowena" the Tragedies of William S...

I have been confined to my bed for some days, through a fever occasioned by the stump of a tooth, which baffled chirurgical efforts to eject, and which, by affecting my eye, aff...

I have even now returned from a little excursion that I have taken for the confirmation of my health, which had suffered a rude assault from the anguish of the stump of a tooth...

I regret that aught should have disturbed our tranquillity; respecting Lloyd, I am willing to believe myself in part mistaken, and so let all things be as before. I have no wish...

Your letter supplied only one in a link of circumstances, that informed me of some things, and perhaps deceived me in others. I shall write to-day to Lloyd. I do not think I sha...

Neither Wordsworth nor myself could have been otherwise than uncomfortable, if any but yourself had received from us the first offer of our Tragedies, and of the volume of Words...

You know what I think of a letter, how impossible it is to argue in it. You must therefore take simple statements, and in a week or two, I shall see you, and endeavour to reason...

The whole Lake of Ratzeburg is one mass of thick transparent ice--a spotless Mirror of nine miles in extent! The lowness of the Hills, which rise from the shores of the Lake, pr...

There is a Christmas custom here which pleased and interested me.--The Children make little presents to their Parents, and to each other; and the Parents to the Children. For th...

Coleridge called the letters from Germany which he published in "The Friend" of 1809 the "Letters of Satyrane". He was fond of masquerading under the name of this allegorical pe...

Through roads no way rememberable, we came to Gieloldshausen, over a bridge, on which was a mitred statue with a great crucifix in its arms. The village, long and ugly; but the...

On the 21st May, Coleridge wrote the following letter in which he informs Josiah Wedgwood what he had done in Germany, and what he expected to do with the knowledge which he had...

I have lying by my side six huge letters, with your name on each of them, and all, excepting one, have been written for these three months. About this time Mr. Hamilton, by whom...

The following poem is the introduction to a somewhat longer one, for which I shall solicit insertion on your next open day. The use of the old ballad word 'Ladie' for Lady, is t...

An unmetrical letter from Talleyrand to Lord Grenville has already appeared, and from an authority too high to be questioned: otherwise I could adduce some arguments for the exc...

I am sitting by a fire in a rug great coat. Your room is doubtless to a greater degree air tight than mine, or your notions of Tartarus would veer round to the Greenlander's cre...

Your brother's health (Mr. Thomas Wedgwood) outweighs all other considerations. Beyond a doubt he has made himself acquainted with the degree of heat which he is to experience t...

If I had the least love of money I could make almost sure of £2,000 a year, for Stuart has offered me half shares in the two papers, the "Morning Post" and "Courier", if I would...

Coleridge had determined not to live in London; his engagement with Stuart he regarded as only a temporary shift to clear off some debt which he had incurred in his visit to Ger...

I received your letter this morning, and had I not, still I am almost confident that I should have written to you before the end of the week. Hitherto the translation of the "Wa...

I received a very kind letter from Godwin, in which he says that he never thinks of you but with a brother's feeling of love and expectation. Indeed, I am sure he does not.

I find your letter on my arrival at Grasmere, namely, dated on the 29th of June, since which time to the present, with the exception of the last few days, I have been more unwel...

Work hard, and if success do not dance up like the bubbles in the salt (with the spirit lamp under it), may the Devil and his dam take success! My dear fellow! from the window b...

Your tragedy [2] to be exhibited at Christmas! I have, indeed, merely read through your letter; so it is not strange that my heart continues beating out of time. Indeed, indeed...

I was right glad, glad with a "stagger" of the heart, to see your writing again. Many a moment have I had all my France and England curiosity suspended and lost, looking in the...

I have been myself too frequently a grievous delinquent in the article of letter-writing to feel any inclination to reproach my friends when, peradventure, they have been long s...

Our mountains northward end in the mountain Carrock--one huge, steep, enormous bulk of stones, desolately variegated with the heath plant; at its foot runs the river Calder, and...

I would fain believe that the experiment which your brother has made in the West Indies is not wholly a discouraging one. If a warm climate did nothing but only prevented him fr...

I received your kind letter, with the £20. My eyes are in such a state of inflammation that I might as well write blindfold, they are so blood-red. I have had leeches twice, and...

In the review of my translation of Schiller's "Wallenstein" ("Rev". for October), I am numbered among the partisans of the German theatre. As I am confident there is no passage...

By an accident I did not receive your letter till this evening. I would that you had added to the account of your indisposition the probable causes of it. It has left me anxious...

I can scarcely reconcile it to my conscience to make you pay postage for another letter. O, what a fine unveiling of modern politics it would be if there were published a minute...

I have even now received your letter. My habits of thinking and feeling, have not hitherto inclined me to personify commerce in any such shape, so as to tempt me to turn pagan,...

I fear your tragedy [1] will find me in a very unfit state of mind to sit in judgment on it. I have been during the last three months undergoing a process of intellectual exsicc...

I will write for "The Permanent", or not at all." (Letter to Sir G. Beaumont, "Coleorton Memorials", ii, 162.) "Woe is me! that at 46 I am under the necessity of appearing as a...

On 13th April 1801 Coleridge wrote to Southey the following letter, and Southey replied in cordial terms, from which it will be gathered a reconciliation had been made since the...

I received your kind letter on the evening before last, and I trust that this will arrive at Bristol just in time to rejoice with them that rejoice. Alas! you will have found th...

I heard from Tobin the day before yesterday--nay, it was Friday. From him I learn that you are giving lectures on galvanism. Would to God I were one of your auditors! My motive...

Though we of the north must forego you, yet I shall rejoice when I receive a letter from you from Cornwall. I must believe that you have made some important discoveries in galva...

I have had, during the last three weeks, such numerous interruptions of my "uninterrupted rural retirement," such a succession of visitors, both indigenous and exotic, that veri...

I do not know by what fatality it has happened, but so it is; that I have thought more often of you, and I may say, "yearned" after your society more for the last three months t...

This is my birthday, my thirtieth. It will not appear wonderful to you, when I tell you, that before the arrival of your letter, I had been thinking with a great weight of diffe...

It is now two hours since I received your letter; and after the necessary consultation, Mrs. Coleridge herself is fully of opinion that to lose time is merely to lose spirits. A...

I send you two letters, one from your dear sister, the second from Sharp, by which you will see at what short notice I must be off, if I go to the "Canaries", If your last plan...

I was glad at heart to receive your letter, and still more gladdened by the reading of it. The exceeding kindness which it breathed was literally medicinal to me, and I firmly b...

Last night Poole and I fully expected a few lines from you. When the newspaper came in, without your letter, we felt as if a dull neighbour had been ushered in after a knock at...

With regard to myself and my accompanying you, let me say thus much. My health is not worse than it was in the North; indeed it is much better. I have no fears. But if you fear...

I do not know that I have anything to say that justifies me in troubling you with the postage and perusal of this scrawl. I received a short and kind letter from Josiah last nig...

Last night I received a four ounce parcel letter, by the post, which Poole and I concluded was the mistake or carelessness of the servant, who had put the letter into the post o...

I trust that my dear friend, C. Lamb, will have informed you how seriously ill I have been. I arrived at Keswick on Good Friday, caught the influenza, have struggled on in a ser...

Your letter has this moment reached me, and found me writing for Stuart, to whom I am under a positive engagement to produce three essays by the beginning of next week. To promi...

... I write now to propose a scheme, or rather a rude outline of a scheme, of your grand work. What harm can a proposal do? If it be no pain to you to reject it, it will be none...

I reached home on yesterday noon. William Hazlitt, is a thinking, observant, original man; of great power as a painter of character-portraits, and far more in the manner of the...

With the kindest intentions, I fear you have done me some little disservice, in borrowing the first edition of my poems from Miss B--. I never held any principles indeed, of whi...

Some divines hold, that with God to think, and to create, are one and the same act. If to think, and even to compose had been the same as to write with me, I should have written...

It is idle for me to say to you, that my heart and very soul ache with the dull pain of one struck down and stunned. I write to you, for my letter cannot give you unmixed pain,...

I trusted my cause last Sunday, I fear, to an unsympathizing agent. To Mr. Tuffin I can scarcely think myself bound to make a direct apology, as my promise was wholly conditiona...

Sir Thomas Browne is among my first favorites, rich in various knowledge, exuberant in conceptions and conceits, contemplative, imaginative; often truly great and magnificent in...

Though fearful of breaking in upon you after what you have written to me, I could not have left England without having written both to you and your brother, at the very moment I...

I returned from Mr. Northcote's, having been diseased by the change of weather too grievously to permit me to continue sitting, for in those moods of body brisk motion alone can...