Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey | Page 2

the Supreme with a lavish
portion of intellectual strength, as well as with proportionate capacities
for doing good? How serious therefore is the obligation to fidelity,
when the portraiture of a man is to be presented, like Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, in whom such diversified and contrary qualities alternately
predominated! Yet all the advantages to be derived from him, and
similar instructors of mankind, must result from a faithful exhibition of
the broad features of their earthly conduct and character, so that they

might stand out as landmarks, and pharos-towers, to guide, or warn, or
encourage, all succeeding voyagers on the Ocean of Life.
In preparing the following work, I should gladly have withheld that one
letter of Mr. Coleridge to Mr. Wade, had not the obligation to make it
public been imperative. But concealment would have been injustice to
the living, and treachery to the dead. This letter is the solemnizing
voice of conscience. Can any reflecting mind, deliberately desire the
suppression of this document, in which Mr. Coleridge, for the good of
others, generously forgets its bearing on himself, and makes a full and
voluntary confession of the sins he had committed against "himself, his
friends, his children, and his God?" In the agony of remorse, at the
retrospection, he thus required that this his confession should hereafter
be given to the public. "AFTER MY DEATH, I EARNESTLY
ENTREAT, THAT A FULL AND UNQUALIFIED NARRATIVE OF
MY WRETCHEDNESS, AND ITS GUILTY CAUSE, MAY BE
MADE PUBLIC, THAT AT LEAST SOME LITTLE GOOD MAY BE
EFFECTED BY THE DIREFUL EXAMPLE." This is the most
redeeming letter Samuel Taylor Coleridge ever penned. A callous heart
could not have written it. A Christian, awaking from his temporary
lethargy, might. While it powerfully propitiates the reader, it almost
converts condemnation into compassion.
No considerate friend, it might be thought, would have desired the
suppression of this letter, but rather its most extended circulation; and
that, among other cogent reasons, from the immense moral lesson,
enforced by it, in perpetuity, on all consumers of opium; in which they
will behold, as well as in some of the other letters, the "tremendous
consequences," (to use Mr. Coleridge's own expressions) of such
practices, exemplified in his own person; and to which terrible effects,
he himself so often, and so impressively refers. It was doubtless a deep
conviction of the beneficial tendencies involved in the publication, that
prompted Mr. C. to direct publicity to be given to this remarkable letter,
after his decease.
The incidents connected with the lives of Mr. Coleridge and Mr.
Southey, are so intimately blended, from relationship, association, and
kindred pursuits, that the biography of one, to a considerable extent,
involves that of the other. The following narrative, however, professes
to be annals of, rather than a circumstantial account of these two

remarkable men.
Some persons may be predisposed to misconstrue the motive for giving
publicity to the following letter, but others, it is hoped, will admit that
the sole object has been, not to draw the reader's attention to the writer,
but to confer credit on Southey. Many are the individuals who would
have assisted, to a greater extent than myself, two young men of
decided genius, like Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Robert Southey,
who required, at the commencement of their literary career,
encouragement, and a little assistance. Few however, would have
exhibited the magnanimity which Southey displayed, in seasons of
improved circumstances, by referring to slender acts of kindness, long
past, and scarcely remembered but by himself. Few are the men, who,
after having surmounted their difficulties by honourable exertion,
would have referred to past seasons of perplexity, and have
desired--that occurrences "might be seen hereafter," which little minds
would sedulously have concealed, as discredit, rather than as conferring
conspicuous honour.
Ten years after the incidents had occurred to which the following letter
refers, in writing to Mr. Southey, among other subjects, I casually
expressed a regret, that when I quitted the business of a bookseller, I
had not returned him the copy-rights of his "Joan of Arc;" of his two
volumes of Poems; and of his letters from Spain and Portugal. The
following was his reply.
"Wednesday evening, Greta Hall, April 28, 1808.
My dear Cottle,
... What you say of my copy-rights affects me very much. Dear Cottle,
set your heart at rest on that subject. It ought to be at rest. They were
yours; fairly bought, and fairly sold. You bought them on the chance of
their success, what no London bookseller would have done; and had
they not been bought, they could not have been published at all. Nay, if
you had not published 'Joan of Arc,' the poem never would have existed,
nor should I, in all probability, ever have obtained that reputation
which is the capital on