to low fever. If my Father sought more from opium than the mere absence of pain, I feel assured that it was not luxurious sensations or the glowing phantasmagoria of passive dreams; but that the power of the medicine might keep down the agitations of his nervous system, like a strong hand grasping the jangled strings of some shattered lyre, -that he might once more lightly flash along "Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore, On winding lakes and rivers wide, That ask no aid of sail or oar, That fear no spite of wind or tide," released, for a time at least, from the tyranny of ailments, which, by a spell of wretchedness, fix the thoughts upon themselves, perpetually drawing them inwards, as into a stifling gulf. A letter of his has been given in this Supplement, which records his first experience of opium: he had recourse to it in that instance for violent pain in the face, afterwards he sought relief in the same way from the suffering of rheumatism. I shall conclude this chapter with a poetical sketch drawn from my Father by a friend, who knew him during the latter years of his life, after spending a few days with him at Bath, in the year 1815.6 "Proud lot is his, whose comprehensive soul, Keen for the parts, capacious for the whole, Thought's mingled hues can separate, dark from bright, The passage belongs to him as far as "heart's deep fervency." It concluded, when first written, with a reference to the unhappy thraldom of his powers, of which I have been speaking; for at that time, says the writer, in a private communication, " he was not so well regulated in his habits and labors afterwards." The verses are from a Rhymed Plea for Tolerance: in two dialogues, by John Kenyon. I wish that I had space to quote the sweet lines that follow, relating to the author's own character and feelings, and his childhood passed "in our Carib isle." They do justice to Mr. Kenyon's humility and cheerfulness, in what they say of himself, but not to his powers. Yet kindling ever on the side of truth; Genius for him asserts the unthwarted claim, σ CHAPTER VI. By what I have effected, am I to be judged by my fellow-men; what I could have done is a question for my own conscience."-S. T. C. As the Biographia Literaria does not mention all Mr. Coleridge's writings, it will be proper, in conclusion, to give some account of them here. The Poetical Works, in three volumes, include the Juvenile Poems, Sibylline Leaves, Ancient Mariner, Christabel, Remorse, Zapolya, and Wallenstein. The first volume of Juvenile Poems was published in the Spring of 1796. It contains three sonnets by Charles Lamb, and a poetical Epistle which he called " Sara's," but of which my Mother told me she wrote but little. Indeed, it is not very like some simple, affecting verses, which were wholly by herself, on the death of her beautiful infant, Berkeley, in 1799. In May, 1797, Mr. C. put forth a collection of poems, containing all that were in his first edition, with the exception of twenty pieces, and the addition of ten new ones, and a considerable number by his friends, Lloyd and Lamb. The Ancient Mariner, Love, The Nightingale, The Foster Mother's Tale, first appeared with the Lyrical Ballads of Mr. Wordsworth, in the summer of 1798. There was a third edition of the Juvenile Poems, by themselves, 1803, with the original motto from Statius, Felix curarum, &c. Silo. Lib. iv. A spirit of almost child-like sociability seemed to reign among these young poets-they were fond of joint publications. Wallenstein, a play, translated from the German of Schiller, appeared in 1800. Christabel was not published till April, 1816, but written, the first part at Stowey in 1797, the second at Keswick in 1800. It went into a third edition in the first year. The fragment called Kubla Khan, composed in 1797, and the Pains of Sleep, which was annexed to the former by way of contrast, were published with the first edition of Christabel, in 1816. The tragedy called Remorse was written in the summer and autumn of 1797, but not represented on the stage till 1813, when it was performed at Drury Lane-on the authority of an old play-bill of the Calne Theatre-" with unbounded applause thirty successive nights." On the "success of the Remorse," Mr. Coleridge wrote thus to his friend Mr. Poole, on the 14th of February, 1813: "The reciept of your heart-engendered lines were sweeter than an unexpected strain of sweetest music; or, in humbler phrase, it was the only pleasurable sensation which the success of the Remorse has given me. I have read of, or, perhaps, only imagined, a punishment in Arabia, in which the culprit was so bricked up as to be unable to turn his eyes to the right or to the left, while in front was placed a high heap of barren sand glittering under the vertical sun. Some slight analogue of this I have myself suffered from the mere unusualness of having my attention forcibly directed to a subject which permitted neither sequence of imagery nor series of reasoning. No grocer's apprentice, after his first month's permitted riot, was ever sicker of figs and raisins than I of hearing about the Remorse. The endless rat-a-tat-tat at our black-and-blue bruised door, and my three master fiends, proof-sheets, letters (for I have a raging epistolophobia), and worse than these-invitations to large dinners, which I cannot refuse without offence and imputation of pride, nor accept without disturbance of temper the day before, and a sick aching stomach for two days after-oppress me so that my spirits quite sink under it. "I have never seen the play since the first night. It has been a good thing for the Theatre. They will get 8,000l. or 10,000l. by it, and I shall get more than all my literary labors put together, nay, thrice as much, subtracting my heavy losses in The Watchman and The Friend, including the copyright." The manuscript of the Remorse, immediately after it was written, was shown to Mr. Sheridan, "who," says my Father, in the Preface to the first edition, "by a twice-conveyed recommendation (in the year 1797), had urged me to write a Tragedy for his theatre; who, on my objection that I was utterly ignorant of all stage tactics, had promised that he would himself make the necessary alterations if the piece should be at all representable." He, however, neither gave him any answer, nor returned him the manuscript, which he suffered to wander about the town from his house; and my Father goes on to say, "not only asserted that the play was rejected because I would not submit to the alteration of one ludicrous line, but finally, in the year 1806, amused and delighted (as who was ever in his society, if I may trust the universal report, without being amused and delighted?) a large company at the house of a highly respectable Member of Parliament, with the ridicule of the Tragedy, as a fair specimen of the whole of which he adduced a line: "Drip! drip! drip! there's nothing here but dripping.”7 "In the original copy of the play, in the first scene of the fourth act, Isidore had commenced his soliloquy in the cavern, with the words: 66 Drip! drip! a ceaseless sound of water-drops," as far as I can at present recollect; for, on the possible ludicrous association being pointed out to me, I instantly and thankfully struck out the line." I repeat this story as told by Mr. C. himself, because it has been otherwise told by others. I have little doubt that it was more pointedly than faithfully told to him, and can never believe that Mr. S. represented a ludicrous line as a fair specimen of the whole play, or his tenacious adherence to it as the reason for its rejection. I dare say he thought it, as Lord Byron afterwards thought Zapolya, "beautiful but not practicable." Mr. Coleridge felt that he had some claim to a friendly spirit of criticism in that quarter, because he had "devoted the firstlings of his talents," as he says in a marginal note, "to the celebration of Sheridan's genius;" and, after the treatment described, "not only never spoke unkindly or resentfully of it, but actually was zealous and frequent in defending and praising his public principles and conduct in the Morning Post" of which, perhaps, Mr. S. knew nothing. However, in lighter moods, my Father laughed at Sheridan's joke as much as any of his auditors could have done in 1806, and repeated, with great effect and mock solemnity, "Drip!-Drip !-Drip-nothing but dripping." I suppose it was at this time-the winter of 1806-7-that he made an unsuccessful attempt to bring out the tragedy at Drury Lane. When first written this play had been called Osorio, from the principal 7 A certain fair poetess, encore resplendissante de beauté, if she ever casts her eye on this page, will take no offence at its contents, nor will her filial feelings quarrel angrily with mine. The "dripping," whatever its unction may once have been, is stale enough now; but the story has freshness in it yet. Such neglects, as that of Mr. S. in not returning the MS. of Remorse, are always excusable in public men of great and various occupation; but the lesson to the literary aspirant is just the same as if he had been ever so blamable. My Father's whole history is a lesson to the professors of literature, and that which relates to the Remorse is a small but significant part of it, teaching patience and hope, while it may serve to repress the expectation, that money and credit can soon and certainly be obtained, even by writers possessed of genius not wholly unaccompanied with popular ability, and who have been favored with an introduction to some of the leaders and guides of the public, men of taste and talent and general influence. 8 See his Sonnet to Sheridan. P. W., i., p. 65. |