Southey's admiration was reciprocated by Coleridge; and what it might fall short of in homage to his genius, it more than made up for in its testimony to his moral nature. We are tempted to extract from the "Biographia Literaria," (of which we are glad to have a new edition, though we should have preferred it less burdened with commentary), a portion of an eloquent eulogium on Southey, to which his nephew informs us that Coleridge referred in his will, as expressing his latest feelings. It is a pity that Southey should have ever heard of anything to the contrary. longer to let their affections dictate to them more than a qualified version of the life of Coleridge. It is a It is a brother-in-law who writes; and that brother-in-law, Southey. The facts cannot be got rid of. But we must bear in mind that incidents arising out of their family connexion probably aggravated his asperity of feeling: and that a hasty letter to a friend would not be likely to contain the calm and comprehensive review of the character of his departed brother-in-law, for which he would wish to be held responsible to the world. They had become brothers-in-law forty years before. There arose, even then, a misunderstanding between them, and for several "To those who remember the state of our pubmonths an estrangement. In 1796, they lic schools and universities some twenty years were living in Bristol, on opposite sides of past, it will appear no ordinary praise in any man the same street, holding no intercourse. only free from all vicious habit, but unstained by to have passed from innocence into virtue, not Southey made the first overture for reconone act of intemperance, or the degradations akin ciliation, by sending across the street a slip to intemperance. That scheme of head, heart, of paper with these words from Schiller's and habitual demeanor, which in his early manConspiracy of Fiesco written upon it; hood and first controversial writings, Milton, "Fiesco! Fiesco! thou leavest a void in claiming the privilege of self-defence, asserts of my bosom, which the human race thrice himself, and challenges his calumniators to dis told will never fill up.' Forty years, what-prove; this will his schoolmates, his fellow-collegians, and his maturer friends, with a confidence ever may have happened to excite wrath, proportioned to the intimacy of their knowledge, would not have utterly effaced such feel-bear witness to as again realized in the life of ings. His admiration of the intellectual Robert Southey. But still more striking to those, powers of his friend was even greater. who by biography or by their own experience are Some years after, when he thought Cole- familiar with the general habits of genius, will ridge was dying, he could not help express- appear the poet's matchless industry and persevering it to William Taylor-a less partial of those pursuits; his generous submission to ance in his pursuits; the worthiness and dignity judge :tasks of transitory interest, or such as his genius thus more than satisfied the claims of affection or alone could make otherwise; and that having prudence, he should yet have made for himself time and power to achieve more, and in more vari. ous departments, than almost any other writer has done, though employed wholly on subjects of his own choice and ambition. But as Southey possesses, and is not possessed by, his genius, even so is he master even of his virtues. The regular and methodical tenor of his daily labors, which would be deemed rare in the most mechanical pursuits, and might be envied in the mere man of business, loses all semblance of formality in the dignified simplicity of his manners, in the spring and healthful cheerfulness of his spirits. Always employed, his friends find him always at leisure. No less punctual in trifles than steadfast in the “Coleridge and I have often talked of making a great work upon English literature: but Coleridge only talks; and, poor fellow! he will not do that long, I fear; and then I shall begin, in my turn, to feel an old man-to talk of the age of little inen, and complain like Ossian. It provokes me when I hear a set of puppies yelping at him, upon whom he, a great, good-natured mastiff, if he came up to them, would just lift up his leg and pass on. It vexes and grieves me to the heart, that when he is gone, as go he will, nobody will believe what a mind goes with him-how infinitely and ten thousand-thousand fold, the mightiest of his generation." This was written in June, 1803 in December he was still desponding about Cole-performance of highest duties, he inflicts none of ridge's health. "I know not when any of his works will appear, and tremble lest an untimely death should leave me the task of putting together the fragments of his materials: which, in sober truth, I do believe would be a more serious loss to the world of literature, than it ever suffered from the wreck of ancient science." those small pains and discomforts which irregular men scatter about them, and which, in the aggregate, so often become formidable obstacles both to happiness and utility: while, on the contrary, he bestows all the pleasures, and inspires all that ease of mind in those around him, or connected with him, which perfect consistency, and (if such a word might be framed) absolute reliability, equally in small as in great concerns, cannot but ness. character which an ancient attributes to Marcus inspire and bestow; when this, too, is softened, This is the scheme known by the imposwithout being weakened, by kindness and gentle- ing name of Pantisocracy. The original I know few men who so well deserve the idea was Coleridge's; he had mentioned it Cato, namely, that he was likest virtue, inasmuch to Southey at Oxford, and the scheme was as he seemed to act aright, not in obedience to any reproduced at Bristol, when the two friends law or outward motive, but by the necessity of a determined on emigration. Southey had happy nature, which could not act otherwise. As found two other companions; George Burson, brother, husband, father, master, friend, he net, an Oxford friend, the son of a Somermoves with firm yet light steps, alike unostenta setshire gentleman-farmer, and Robert Lotious and alike exemplary. As a writer, he has uni- vell, a young Quaker residing at Bath. formly made his talents subservient to the best interests of humanity, of public virtue, and domes-Eight more recruits at least were wanted. tic piety: his cause has ever been the cause of Coleridge was to write a quarto volume expure religion and of liberty, of national indepen-planatory of the project; which, besides dence, and of national illumination."-(Vol. i., filling up their numbers, was expected by p. 62.) its sale to augment the colonial exchequer. were much needed. Ways and means "With regard to pecuniary matters," Coleridge wrote to a friend whom he was anxious to enlist in the service, "it is found necessary, if twelve men with their families emigrate on this system, that £2000 should be the aggregate of their contributions; but infer not from hence that each man's quota is to be settled with the littleness of was Coleridge and Southey first met in the summer of 1794 at Oxford. Southey was at that time an undergraduate at Baliol, and in his twentieth year. Coleridge was two years older, and an undergraduate of Jesus College, Cambridge. Coleridge was then at Cambridge for the second time, after having been discharged by his friends from the regiment in which he had enlisted; and at the beginning of the long vaca-arithmetical accuracy." ("Biographia Littion he happened to take Oxford on his eraria," new edition, vol. ii., p. 344.) way to Wales, where he was going on a pe- Southey and Coleridge, who had no money, destrian tour with some Cambridge friends. were to strain every nerve to raise funds by He was introduced to Southey. Their ac- writing. At the end of the long vacation quaintance soon ripened into friendship. Coleridge returned to Cambridge, to comThey had many points of common interest; plete a series of "Translations of Modern besides both being poets and philosophers, Latin Poems," for which he had issued while all around them were tasking their proposals, and had already obtained a large faculties by academic rule. The young en-number of Cambridge subscribers: while thusiasm of both had been kindled by the Southey staid at Bristol, to see what he French Revolution. "Wat Tyler could do with "Joan of Arc," and to written about this time; "Joan of Arc" write more poetry. had been composed the year before. Both had abjured university orthodoxy, and declared themselves Unitarians. Southey, who had gone to Oxford with a view to the Church, was now on the point of quitting it without a degree, because he had become an Unitarian. Coleridge had imbibed Unitarianism at Cambridge from Frend, who was a Fellow of his college, and he had narrowly escaped rustication the year before for shouting at Frend's trial. The two new friends soon parted. Southey went home to his mother at Bath, bidding good bye to Oxford; Coleridge made his Welsh tour, at the end of which he too was to have gone home to Ottery St. Mary; but instead of this he diverged to Bristol, and remained there and at Bath, planning with Southey a colony of choice spirits on the banks of the Susquehannah, where all property was to be held in common, and vice and misery to be unknown. Both, in the meantime, had taken steps. to provide themselves with one requisite for the founders of a new colony--a wife. They were engaged to be married to two sisters living at Bath-Edith and Sarah Fricker. A third Miss Fricker was already married to their fellow-Pantisocratist, Lovell. Coleridge went to Cambridge, and published there the "Fall of Robespierre," a joint production by himself and Southey; but nothing was done with the projected "Translations:" they shared the fate of innumerable other projects, and were never finished. At the end of the term he went up to London; and there, in the pleasant society of Charles Lamb, and other old Christ's Hospital school-fellows, Miss Fricker and Pantisocracy seemed for awhile forgotten. "Coleridge did not come back again to Bristol," Southey writes, "till January, 1795; nor would Lovell and I Near Marlbo he, I believe, have come back at all, if I had not | same terms: and some lectures which they gone to London to look for him: for, having got gave at Bristol, were well attended and there from Cambridge, at the beginning of the winter, there he remained without writing either to profitable. Pantisocracy seemed now in Miss Fricker or myself. At last I wrote to Fa- the ascendant. Coleridge was the first to vell (a Christ's Hospital boy, whose name I marry. He married in October, 1795, and knew as one of his friends, and whom he had set retired with his wife to a small cottage at down as one of our companions), to inquire con- Clevedon, of the humble rent of five pounds cerning him; and learnt, in reply, that S. T. a year; this was to be their temporary Coleridge was at the "Cat and Salutation," in abode until everything was arranged for Newgate street. Thither I wrote. He answered emigration to the Susquehannah. Southey, my letter and said that on such a day he should set off for Bath by the wagon. meanwhile, was cooling upon the plan; and walked from Bath to meet him. when he married, a month after Coleridge, rough we met with the appointed wagon; but no he had renounced Pantisocracy. A tempoS. T. Coleridge was therein. A little while af-rary quarrel, in consequence, ensued. terwards I went to London, and not finding him Southey was married on the morning of at the Cat and Salutation," called at Christ's the 14th of November, 1795, without the Hospital, and was conducted by Favell to the "Angel Inn," Butcher Hall street, whither Cole knowledge of his family, no other persons ridge had shifted his quarters. I brought him being present than Cottle and Cottle's sisthen to Bath, and in a few days to Bristol," ter. On the afternoon of the same day he (Cottle, p. 405.) started for Lisbon by way of Corunna and and Madrid. He went with his uncle, the Charles Lamb's readers will remember Rev. Herbert Hill, who had supplied the his fond and frequent references to the even-place of father to him, had educated him ings spent with Coleridge at the "Cat at Westminster and Oxford, and was now and Salutation," when they sat together, chaplain to the British embassy at Lisbon. reading poetry and "speculating on Panti- Southey deposited his wife with Cottle's socracy and golden days to come on earth," and "drinking egg-hot and smoking Oronooko." Lamb did not then know the pain which every additional day of Coleridge's lingering in London was giving to an affectionate and trusting heart at Bath. sisters. He had just corrected the last proof-sheet of Joan of Arc,' and left it to be published in his absence. A letter to Cottle from Falmouth before embarkation, explains his clandestine marriage. The conscientions sense of duty, so predominant in it, promised ill for his union with Coleridge, whatever it might do for that with Mrs. Southey : Southey, since they parted, had been working earnestly and to some purpose. He and Lovell had published a small volume of poems together; and he had struck "My dear friend,-I have learnt from Lovell a bargain with a Bristol bookseller for the the news from Bristol, public and private, and publication of "Joan of Arc," such a bar- both of an interesting nature. My marriage is gain as, probably, was never made before become public. You know that its publicity can or since, by a young and unknown author give me no concern. I have done my duty. Perfor a first epic. The bookseller was Jo-haps you may think my motives for marrying (at seph Cottle, the author of the "Reminis- to me of great weight, I believe was not mentionthat time) not sufficiently strong. One, and that cences" at that time a bookseller at Bris-ed to you. There might have arisen feelings of tol, of about four years' standing. South- an unpleasant nature at the idea of receiving supey, who had already announced "Joan of port from one not legally a husband and (do not Are" for publication by subscription, was introduced to him by Lovell. On reading some parts of it one evening to Cottle, he was astonished by the generous offer of fifty guineas for it, and fifty copies for his subscribers-more than the subscription list amounted to. Coleridge, on his return, was speedily introduced to their new Mecænas; and can have had little difficulty in closing with an offer of thirty guineas, to be paid immediately, for a volume of small poems, a great part of which was still to be written. Besides this, Southey was also to furnish a volume of small poems on the l for the bar. show this to Edith) should I perish by shipwreck or any other casualty, I have relations whose prejudices would then yield to the anguish of affection, and who would then love and cherish, and yield all possible consolation to my widow. Of such an evil there is but a possibility; but against possibility it was my duty to guard. Farewell." In six months Southey returned to his deferred honeymoon, and to hear of the success of Joan of Arc.' In November, 1796, he went up to London, entered at Gray's Inn, took lodgings at Newington Butts, and began to keep terms and read On arriving in town he wrote to Cottle with characteristic energy. to combine poetry with law baffled Southey :-- I am "I am now entering on a new way of life, which will lead me to independence. You know that I neither lightly undertake any scheme, nor lightly abandon what I have undertaken. happy because I have no want, and because the independence I labor to attain, and of attaining which my expectations can hardly be disappointed, will leave me nothing to wish. I am indebted to you, Cottle, for the comforts of my later time. In my present situation I feel a pleasure in saying thus much. But, prevent him. After a long series of most even amusing notes of this description, and after many delays and disappointments, the long expected volume was, at last, published in the spring of 1796. Before his marriage, Cottle had promised him a guinea and a half for every hundred lines of poetry he might bring him after the volume was finished; and on the strength of this promise Coleridge married. Alas! little did he know himself. He could sketch out books in his head, and compose rapidly in thought, but it was with the utmost difficulty that he could force himself to write. Some of the visions which were floating through his head at the time of his marriage, found their way into a letter to his friend Mr. Poole three days afterwards:— I "Thank God! Edith comes on Monday next. say thank God, for I have never, since my return from Portugal, been absent from her so long before, and sincerely hope and intend never to be again. On Tuesday we shall be settled, and on Wednesday my legal studies begin in the morning, and I shall begin with Madoc' in the evening. Of this it is needless to caution you to say nothing, as I must have the character of a lawyer; and though I can and will unite the two pursuits, no one would credit the possibility of the union. In two years the poem shall be finished, and the many years it must lie by will afford ample time for correction. "I have declined being a member of a literary club, which meet at the Chapter Coffee House, and of which I have been elected a member. Surely a man does not do his duty who leaves his wife to evenings of solitude; and I feel duty and happiness to be inseparable. I am happier at home than any other society can possibly make me. With Edith I am alike secure from the wea: risomeness of solitude, and the disgust which I cannot help feeling at the contemplation of mankind, and which I do not wish to suppress." sons. Muses prevent it if they can. In a None of all this came to pass. short time Coleridge found Clevedon too far from men and books, and moved to Bristol. In the beginning of 1796 he projected a weekly newspaper called the Disgust at mankind, is strange language, except in the mouth of Swift. It represents a feeling which no sensible man will ever countenance, and which no good man could Watchman,' travelled to most of the harbor and be happy so leaving Southey chief towns in the manufacturing districts till he is in better humor with his fellow- for subscribers, preaching wherever he stayereatures, we are the less sorry to return to ed a Sunday in the Unitarian chapels, and Coleridge in his cot at Clevedon. His na- returned to Bristol with a subscription list ture was not such as to justify us in expect-full of promise. The first number of the ing to find him happy, however favorable Watchman' was published on the 1st of his outward circumstances: but, unfortunate- March; it was dropped at the tenth numly, his first year of married life was cloud-ber with a loss. The management of a ed by continual uneasiness about the means periodical publication was the last thing of living, and by continually changing for Coleridge to succeed in. Soon afterschemes of subsistence. He had not Sou-wards, an accidental visit of Mr. Perry to they's determination, perseverance, and Bristol opened a prospect of profitable conself-reliance. The volume of poems, which nexion with the Morning Chronicle,' and Cottle had been unwary enough to pay for Coleridge made up his mind to establish beforehand, had made little progress when himself in London. This went off. He he married; he engaged to furnish copy sustained another disappointment in the every day, but every day brought some loss of a situation, which had been offered new excuse for postponing writing till to him, of private tutor to the sons of Mrs. morrow, when, of course, nothing should Evans, a widow lady living in Derbyshire. Mr. He had actually gone with Mrs. Coleridge | shire hills, discussed the principles of poeto stay in Mrs. Evans's house. It was try, and planned and produced the famous then suggested to him, with offers of pa- Lyrical Ballads.' Each wrote a tragedy: tronage, to take a house at Derby, and re- Coleridge undertook his at the suggestion ceive pupils; he engaged for a house: but of Sheridan, who, when it was sent to him, this plan was also given up, why does not took no notice of it; it was 'Remorse,' appear. At the end of a year of restless and was not published till 1813. and feverish uncertainty, Coleridge settled Wordsworth's is still unpublished. Makhimself, towards the close of 1796, in a ing every allowance for the enthusiasm of small cottage at Nether Stowey, in Somer-youthful friendship, Coleridge's testimony, setshire, adjoining the ground of Mr. Poole. in a letter to Cottle, of the impression He had now a child, whom, in the height which it made upon him at the time is of his admiration of Hartley's Metaphy- certainly remarkable; more especially as sics, he christened Hartley. At this time, the warmest admirers of Mr. Wordsworth too, his means were increased by receiving have never considered his genius dramatic: as an inmate a Cambridge friend and brother poet, Charles Lloyd, the son of a wealthy Birmingham banker, who had been led by the mere force of love and admiration to propose living with him. Here Coleridge remained till he went to Germany in the autumn of 1798. This is the residence referred to in the beautiful lines to his brother: "Beside one friend Beneath the impervious covert of one oak "I speak with heartfelt sincerity and I think, feel myself a little man by his side, and yet I do with unblinded judgment, when I tell you that I not think myself a less man than I formerly thought myself. His drama is absolutely wonderful. You know I do not commonly speak in such abrupt and unmingled phrases, and therefore will the more readily believe me, there are in the piece those profound touches of the human heart, which I find three or four times in the " Robbers" of Schiller, and often in Shakspeare, but in Wordsworth there are no inequalities." Through the Wedgewoods Coleridge became acquainted with Mackintosh, and by him was introduced to Stuart, Mackintosh's brother-in-law, then editor of the "Morning Post;" in consequence of which he Mr. Poole was a Somersetshire country afterwards wrote occasional poetry for it. gentleman and magistrate, a man of great In the beginning of 1798 he received an benevolence, and combining considerable invitation to settle as an Unitarian minister practical talent with a highly cultivated at Shrewsbury; Thomas Wedgewood heartaste: Southey and Coleridge had become ing of it wrote to dissuade him, and sent acquainted with him accidentally, while him a present of a hundred pounds; but, they were meditating Pantisocracy' at as the Shrewsbury invitation opened to him Bristol; and he took a great interest in for the first time the prospect of a certain their fortunes ever afterwards. He had income he determined to entertain it,—and lately circulated among some friends a returning Wedgewood his cheque, he went proposal for a subscription for an annuity off to Shrewsbury to preach the probation for Coleridge; which, by relieving him from sermon. Among his auditors on that occaactual want, might set his mind more at sion was William Hazlitt, whose father was ease for the prosecution of works worthy of Unitarian minister at Wem, and who has his talents; not succeeding in this, he in-published a vivid account of the delight and vited Coleridge to take up his residence in admiration, which the sermon kindled in a cottage by his house. To Mr. Poole him. The impression was universal. But Coleridge owed three friendships, which the Shrewsbury Unitarians were to be dishad a great effect on his after life; those of appointed of their preacher; for the William Wordsworth and the two brothers Wedgewoods, bent on securing Coleridge Thomas and Josiah Wedgewood. Words- for literature, wrote to him at Shrewsbury, worth, at the time of Coleridge's settling at and offered him, if he would come back, an Stowey, was about twenty miles off, at annuity of a hundred and fifty pounds for Racedown, in Dorsetshire; and in the sum- life. The offer was immediately and gratemer of 1797 he moved to a place called fully accepted. The first volume of the Allfoxden, close to Stowey. The two "Lyrical Ballads," containing the "Anpoets rambled together over the Somerset- cient Mariner" and a few other small poems |