Samuel Coleridge - The Complete Essays, Lectures & Letters of S. T. Coleridge (Illustrated)

Who can say, as Christ and the Holy Ghost proceeded from, and are still one with the Father, and as all the disciples of Christ derive their fulness from him, and, in spirit, are inviolately united to him as a branch is to the vine, who can say, but that, in one view, what was once mysteriously separated, may, as mysteriously, be recombined, and, (without interfering with the everlasting Trinity, and the individuality of the spiritual and seraphic orders) the Son, at the consummation of all things, deliver up his mediatorial kingdom to the Father, and God, in some peculiar, and infinitely sublime sense, become All ‘in’ All!

God love you,

S.T. COLERIDGE.”

Those who are acquainted with Mr. Coleridge’s maturer view of the doctrine of the Trinity, will not need to be informed that this letter does not convey his later conviction in regard to this awful mystery, and will know that his philosophic meditations rested essentially in the same faith that dictated the Article of the Church of England on this subject.

Mr. De Quincey has made several mistatements in a memoir on Mr. Coleridge, which he wrote in Tait’s Magazine; but it may be only fair first to quote a few interesting remarks, with which he begins:

“In the summer season of 1807 I first saw this illustrious man, the largest and most spacious intellect in my judgment that has ever yet existed amongst men. My knowledge of his works as a most original genius began about the year 1799.”

A little before that time, Wordsworth published the “Lyrical Ballads,” in which was the Ancient Mariner of Coleridge, and to which Mr. De Quincey attributes the unfolding of his own mind; this confession is by no means humiliating, for many persons of the highest reputation have made similar acknowledgments, and some there are still living who have the courage and integrity to do so now.

“I found (says this gentleman) that Professor Wilson, as well as myself, saw in these poems ‘the ray of a new morning;’ — and to these names may be added that of the celebrated Sir Walter Scott.”

The admiration of Mr. De Quincey was so great that inquiring where Coleridge was to be found, and learning that he was in Malta, he contemplated an immediate visit to that island, but the fear of a French prison reconciled him to remaining in England. When on a visit in 1807 (to a relation), at the Hot Wells, he learnt that Coleridge was staying with a friend not far from Bristol. This friend was Mr. Poole of Nether Stowey, and thither he bent his steps. In this house Mr. De Quincey spent two days, and gives, from his own knowledge, a sketch of Mr. Poole’s person and character very descriptive of the original. Coleridge often remarked that he was the best “ideal for a useful member of parliament he ever knew;”

“a plain dressed man leading a bachelor life,” as Mr. De Quincey observes, “in a rustic old fashioned house, amply furnished with modern luxuries, and a good library. Mr. Poole had travelled extensively, and had so entirely dedicated himself to his humble fellow countrymen, who resided in his neighbourhood, that for many miles round he was the general arbiter of their disputes, the guide and counsellor of their daily life; besides being appointed executor and guardian to his children by every third man who died in or about the town of Nether Stowey.”

Such in few words was the individual whom Coleridge, in his social hours and in the full warmth of friendship, would most eloquently and feelingly describe.

Mr. De Quincey having been informed that Coleridge was at Bridgewater, left Nether Stowey for that place, in search of him. The meeting and the description recall him forcibly to the minds of those who twenty years after were so intimately acquainted with him:

“In Bridgewater I noticed a gateway, standing under which was a man corresponding to the description given me of Coleridge whom I shall presently describe. In height he seemed to be five feet eight inches, (he was in reality about an inch and a half taller,) though in the latter part of life, from a lateral curvature in the spine, he shortened gradually from two to three inches. His person was broad and full, and tended even to corpulence; his complexion was fair, though not what painters technically style fair, because it was associated with black hair; his eyes were large and soft in their expression, and it was by the peculiar appearance of haze or dreaminess which mixed with their light that I recognized my object. This was Coleridge; I examined him steadily for a moment or more, and it struck me he neither saw myself, nor any other object in the street. He was in a deep reverie; for I had dismounted, made two or three trifling arrangements at the inn door, and advanced close to him, before he seemed apparently conscious of my presence. The sound of my voice announcing my name first awoke him; he started, and for a moment seemed at a loss to understand my purpose, or his own situation, for he repeated rapidly a number of words which had no relation to either of us; very likely trying a metre, or making verse, a frequent practice of his, and of Mr. Wordsworth’s. There was no mauvaise haute in his manner, but simple perplexity, and an apparent difficulty in recovering his position amongst daylight realities. This little scene over, he received me with a kindness of manner so marked, that it might be called gracious. The hospitable family, with whom he was domesticated, were distinguished for their amiable manners, and enlightened understandings; they were descendants from Chubb, the philosophic writer, and bore the same name. For Coleridge they all testified deep affection and esteem, sentiments which the whole town of Bridgewater seemed to share, for in the evening, when the heat of the day had declined, I walked out with him; and rarely, perhaps never, have I seen a person so much interrupted in one hour’s space as Coleridge on this occasion, by the courteous attentions of young and old.”

This appears so faithful a portraiture of Coleridge that it is impossible to read it without once more beholding him as in a mirror. Continuing his description, he speaks again of his extreme courtesy, and of his easy and gentlemanly manner of receiving strangers. A friend of mine seldom speaks of the past in connexion with Coleridge’s name, but he reminds me of a visit he once made to me during my absence at the sea shore, and of the courteous grace he displayed in doing the honours of the house.

In every thing wherein the comfort or happiness of others were concerned, Coleridge ever evinced how entirely he could devote himself to those he loved or who might require his sympathy:

His own fair countenance, his kingly forehead,

His tender smiles, love’s day-dawn on his lips —

The sense, the spirit, and the light divine,

At the same moment in his steadfast eye

Were virtue’s native crest, the innocent soul’s

Unconscious meek self-heraldry — to man

Genial, and pleasant to his guardian angel!

He suffered, nor complained; though oft with tears

He mourned the oppression of his helpless brethren;

Yea with a deeper and yet holier grief

Mourned for th’ oppressor; but this

In sabbath hours — a solemn grief,

Most like a cloud at sunset,

Was but the veil of purest meditation,

Pierced through and saturate with the intellectual rays

It softened.

‘Literary Remains’, vol. i. 277.

These were characteristic beauties, that shone forth in Coleridge, and were deeply felt by all who were attached to him.

With regard to the charge made by Mr. De Quincey, of Coleridge’s so borrowing the property of other writers as to be guilty of ‘petty larceny’; with equal justice might we accuse the bee which flies from flower to flower in quest of food, and which, by means of the instinct bestowed upon it by the all-wise Creator, extracts its nourishment from the field and the garden, but ‘digests’ and ‘elaborates’ it by its own ‘native’ powers.