Colerige's Letters---Biographia Epistolaris

怀抱花朵的孩子

I found the book Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. by Samuel Taylor Coleridge this afternoon which contents many coleridge's letters. And this book was edited as a addition to his BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA, which as we know is very important for modern criticism history. As Coleridge said in the initially of this book: "It will be found, that the least of what I have written concerns myself personally. I have used the narration chiefly for the purpose of giving a continuity to the work, in part for the sake of the miscellaneous reflections suggested to me by particular events, but still more as introductory to a statement of my principles in Politics, Religion, and Philosophy, and an application of the rules, deduced from philosophical principles, to poetry and criticism. But of the objects, which I proposed to myself, it was not the least important to effect, as far as possible, a settlement of the long continued controversy concerning the true nature of poetic diction; and at the same time to define with the utmost impartiality the real poetic character of the poet, by whose writings this controversy was first kindled, and has been since fuelled and fanned."

Indeed there is very little passage concerning Coleridge's private life in BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. But when reading  Biographia Epistolaris, I found these letters by Coleridge gave us very interesting and detailed records and comments on the life of his own and his friends'. I found Coleridge is a so intreseting and charming person, not like pepole's commom sensation about him. And this book can help us know better about Coleridge and his literatue thoery, especially BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA.

here is just part of the whole book, I you are interested in it, you can download it here http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/8210


LETTER 1. TO MR. POOLE

My Dear Poole,

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 them. I never yet read even a
Methodist's "Experience" in the Gospel Magazine without receiving
instruction and amusement; and I should almost despair of that man who
could peruse the Life of John Woolman without an amelioration of heart.
As to my Life, it has all the charms of variety,--high life and low
life, vices and virtues, great folly and some wisdom. However, what I am
depends on what I have been; and you, my best friend, have a right to
the narration. To me the task will be a useful one. It will renew and
deepen my reflections on the past; and it will perhaps make you behold
with no unforgiving or impatient eye those weaknesses and defects in my
character, which so many untoward circumstances have concurred in
planting there.

My family on my Mother's side can be traced up, I know not how far. The
Bowdons inherited a good farm and house thereon in the Exmoor country,
in the reign of Elizabeth, as I have been told; and to my knowledge they
have inherited nothing better since that time. My Grandfather was in the
reign of George I a considerable woollen trader in Southmolton; so that
I suppose, when the time comes, I shall be allowed to pass as a
"Sans-culotte" without much opposition. My Father received a better
education than the rest of his family in consequence of his own
exertions, not of his superiour advantages. When he was not quite
sixteen years of age, my grandfather, by a series of misfortunes, was
reduced to great distress. My Father received the half of his last crown
and his blessing, and walked off to seek his fortune. After he had
proceeded a few miles, he sate him down on the side of the road, so
overwhelmed with painful thoughts that he wept audibly. A gentleman
passed by who knew him, and, inquiring into his sorrow, took him home
and gave him the means of maintaining himself by placing him in a
school. At this time he commenced being a severe and ardent student. He
married his first wife, by whom he had three daughters, all now alive.
While his first wife lived, having scraped up money enough, he at the
age of twenty walked to Cambridge, entered himself at Sidney College,
distinguished himself in Hebrew and Mathematics, and might have had a
fellowship if he had not been married. He returned and settled as a
schoolmaster in Southmolton where his wife died. In 1760 he was
appointed Chaplain-Priest and Master of the School at Ottery St. Mary,
and removed to that place; and in August, 1760, Mr. Buller, the father
of the present Judge, procured for him the living from Lord Chancellor
Bathurst. By my Mother, his second wife, he had ten children, of whom I
am the youngest, born October 20th,[1] 1772.

These facts I received from my Mother; but I am utterly unable to fill
them up by any further particulars of times, or places, or names. Here I
shall conclude my first Letter, because I cannot pledge myself for the
accuracy of the accounts, and I will not therefore mingle it with that
for the truth of which, in the minutest parts, I shall hold myself
responsible. You must regard this Letter as a first chapter devoted to
dim traditions of times too remote to be pierced by the eye of
investigation.

Yours affectionately, S. T. COLERIDGE.

Feb. 1797. Monday.

[Footnote 1: A mistake, should be October 21st.]



LETTER 2. To MR. POOLE

My Dear Poole,

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 attempted to publish, several
works;--1st, Miscellaneous Dissertations arising from the 17th and 18th
chapters of the Book of Judges; 2d, "Sententiae Excerptcae" for the use
of his own School; and 3d, his best work, a Critical Latin Grammar, in
the Preface to which he proposes a bold innovation in the names of the
cases. My Father's new nomenclature was not likely to become popular,
although it must be allowed to be both sonorous and expressive. "Exempli
gratia", he calls the ablative case "the quare-quale-quidditive case!"
He made the world his confidant with respect to his learning and
ingenuity, and the world seems to have kept the secret very faithfully.
His various works, uncut, unthumbed, were preserved free from all
pollution in the family archives, where they may still be for anything
that I know. This piece of good luck promises to be hereditary; for all
"my" compositions have the same amiable home-staying propensity. The
truth is, my Father was not a first-rate genius; he was, however, a
first-rate Christian, which is much better. I need not detain you with
his character. In learning, goodheartedness, absentness of mind, and
excessive ignorance of the world, he was a perfect Parson Adams.

My Mother was an admirable economist, and managed exclusively. My
eldest brother's name was John. He was a Captain in the East India
Company's service; a successful officer and a brave one, as I have
heard. He died in India in 1786. My second brother William went to
Pembroke College, Oxford. He died a clergyman in 1780, just on the eve
of his intended marriage. My brother James has been in the army since
the age of fifteen, and has married a woman of fortune, one of the old
Duke family of Otterton in Devon. Edward, the wit of the family, went
to Pembroke College, and is now a clergyman. George also went to
Pembroke. He is in orders likewise, and now has the same School, a very
flourishing one, which my Father had. He is a man of reflective mind
and elegant talent. He possesses learning in a greater degree than any
of the family, excepting myself. His manners are grave, and hued over
with a tender sadness. In his moral character he approaches every way
nearer to perfection than any man I ever yet knew. He is worth us all.
Luke Herman was a surgeon, a severe student, and a good man. He died in
1790, leaving one child, a lovely boy still alive. [1] My only sister,
Ann, died at twenty-one, a little after my brother Luke:--

Rest, gentle Shade! and wait thy Maker's will; Then rise unchang'd, and
be an angel still!

Francis Syndercombe went out to India as a midshipman under Admiral
Graves. He accidentally met his brother John on board ship abroad, who
took him ashore, and procured him a commission in the Company's army. He
died in 1792, aged twenty-one, a Lieutenant, in consequence of a fever
brought on by excessive fatigue at and after the siege of Seringapatam,
and the storming of a hill fort, during all which his conduct had been
so gallant that his Commanding Officer particularly noticed him, and
presented him with a gold watch, which my Mother now has. All my
brothers are remarkably handsome; but they were as inferiour to Francis
as I am to them. He went by the name of "the handsome Coleridge." The
tenth and last child was Samuel Taylor, the subject and author of these
Epistles.

From October 1772 to October 1773. Baptized Samuel Taylor, my
Godfather's name being Samuel Taylor, Esquire. I had another called
Evans, and two Godmothers, both named Munday.

From October 1773 to October 1774. In this year I was carelessly left by
my nurse, ran to the fire, and pulled out a live coal, and burned myself
dreadfully. While my hand was being drest by Mr. Young, I spoke for the
first time, (so my Mother informs me) and said, "nasty Dr. Young!" The
snatching at fire, and the circumstance of my first words expressing
hatred to professional men--are they at all ominous? This year I went to
school. My Schoolmistress, the very image of Shenstone's, was named Old
Dame Key. She was nearly related to Sir Joshua Reynolds.

From October 1774 to 1775. I was inoculated; which I mention, because I
distinctly remember it, and that my eyes were bound; at which I
manifested so much obstinate indignation, that at last they removed the
bandage, and unaffrighted I looked at the lancet, and suffered the
scratch. At the close of this year I could read a chapter in the Bible.

Here I shall end, because the remaining years of my life all assisted to
form my particular mind;--the first three years had nothing in them that
seems to relate to it.

God bless you and your sincere S. T. COLERIDGE.

Sunday, March, 1797.


[Footnote 1: William Hart Coleridge, Bishop of Barbadoes and the Leeward
Islands.

(He was appointed to that See in 1824, retired from it in 1842; and
afterwards accepted the Wardenship of St. Augustine's College,
Canterbury. S. C.) [He died in 1849.] ]

A letter from Francis S. Coleridge to his sister has been preserved in
the family, in which a particular account is given of the chance
meeting of the two brothers in India, mentioned shortly in the
preceding Letter. There is something so touching and romantic in the
incident that the Reader will, it is hoped, pardon the insertion of the
original narrative here.

Dear Nancy,

You are very right, I have neglected my absent friends, but do not
think I have forgot them, and indeed it would be ungrateful in me if I
did not write to them.

You may be sure, Nancy, I thank Providence for bringing about that
meeting, which has been the cause of all my good fortune and happiness,
which I now in fulness enjoy. It was an affectionate meeting, and I
will inform you of the particulars. There was in our ship one Captain
Mordaunt, who had been in India before, when we came to Bombay. Finding
a number of his friends there he went often ashore. The day before the
Fleet sailed he desired one Captain Welsh to go aboard with him, who
was an intimate friend of your brother's. "I will," said Welsh, "and
will write a note to Coleridge to go with us." Upon this Captain
Mordaunt, recollecting me, said there was a young midshipman, a
favourite of Captain Hicks, of that name on board. Upon that they
agreed to inform my brother of it, which they did soon after, and all
three came on board. I was then in the lower deck, and, though you
won't believe it, I was sitting upon a gun and thinking of my brother,
that is, whether I should ever see or hear anything of him; when seeing
a Lieutenant, who had been sent to inform me of my brother's being on
board, I got up off the gun: but instead of telling me about my
brother, he told me that Captain Hicks was very angry with me and
wanted to see me. Captain Hicks had always been a Father to me, and
loved me as if I had been his own child. I therefore went up shaking
like an aspen leaf to the Lieutenant's apartments, when a Gentleman
took hold of my hand. I did not mind him at first, but looked round for
the Captain; but the Gentleman still holding my hand, I looked, and
what was my surprise, when I saw him too full to speak and his eyes
full of tears. Whether crying is catching I know not, but I began a
crying too, though I did not know the reason, till he caught me in his
arms, and told me he was my brother, and then I found I was paying
nature her tribute, for I believe I never cried so much in my life.
There is a saying in Robinson Crusoe, I remember very well,
viz.--sudden joy like grief confounds at first. We directly went ashore
having got my discharge, and having took a most affectionate leave of
Captain Hicks, I left the ship for good and all.

My situation in the army is that I am one of the oldest Ensigns, and
before you get this must in all probability be a Lieutenant. How many
changes there have been in my life, and what lucky ones they have been,
and how young I am still! I must be seven years older before I can
properly style myself a man, and what a number of officers do I command,
who are old enough to be my Father already!



LETTER 3. To MR. POOLE

October 9th, 1797.

My Dearest Poole,

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 you.

From October 1775 to October 1778. These three years I continued at the
Reading School, because I was too little to be trusted among my Father's
schoolboys. After break-fast I had a halfpenny given me, with which I
bought three cakes at the baker's shop close by the school of my old
mistress; and these were my dinner every day except Saturday and Sunday,
when I used to dine at home, and wallowed in a beef and pudding dinner.
I am remarkably fond of beans and bacon: and this fondness I attribute
to my Father's giving me a penny for having eaten a large quantity of
beans on Saturday. For the other boys did not like them, and, as it was
an economic food, my Father thought my attachment to it ought to be
encouraged. He was very fond of me, and I was my Mother's darling: in
consequence whereof I was very miserable. For Molly, who had nursed my
brother Francis, and was immoderately fond of him, hated me because my
Mother took more notice of me than of Frank; and Frank hated me because
my Mother gave me now and then a bit of cake when he had none,--quite
forgetting that for one bit of cake which I had and he had not, he had
twenty sops in the pan, and pieces of bread and butter with sugar on
them from Molly, from whom I received only thumps and ill names.

So I became fretful, and timorous, and a tell-tale; and the schoolboys
drove me from play, and were always tormenting me. And hence I took no
pleasure in boyish sports, but read incessantly. I read through all
gilt-cover little books that could be had at that time, and likewise all
the uncovered tales of Tom Hickathrift, Jack the Giant Killer, and the
like. And I used to lie by the wall, and mope; and my spirits used to
come upon me suddenly, and in a flood;--and then I was accustomed to run
up and down the churchyard, and act over again all I had been reading on
the docks, the nettles, and the rank grass. At six years of age I
remember to have read Belisarius, Robinson Crusoe, and Philip Quarles;
and then I found the Arabian Nights' Entertainments, one tale of which,
(the tale of a man who was compelled to seek for a pure virgin,) made so
deep an impression on me, (I had read it in the evening while my mother
was at her needle,) that I was haunted by spectres, whenever I was in
the dark: and I distinctly recollect the anxious and fearful eagerness,
with which I used to watch the window where the book lay, and when the
sun came upon it, I would seize it, carry it by the wall, and bask, and
read. My father found out the effect which these books had produced, and
burned them.

So I became a dreamer, and acquired an indisposition to all bodily
activity; and I was fretful, and inordinately passionate; and as I could
not play at anything, and was slothful, I was despised and hated by the
boys: and because I could read and spell, and had, I may truly say, a
memory and understanding forced into almost unnatural ripeness, I was
flattered and wondered at by all the old women. And so I became very
vain, and despised most of the boys that were at all near my own age,
and before I was eight years old I was a "character". Sensibility,
imagination, vanity, sloth, and feelings of deep and bitter contempt for
almost all who traversed the orbit of my understanding, were even then
prominent and manifest.

From October 1778 to 1779. That which I began to be from three to six, I
continued to be from six to nine. In this year I was admitted into the
Grammar School, and soon outstripped all of my age. I had a dangerous
putrid fever this year. My brother George lay ill of the same fever in
the next room. My poor brother, Francis, I remember, stole up in spite
of orders to the contrary, and sat by my bedside, and read Pope's Homer
to me. Frank had a violent love of beating me; but whenever that was
superseded by any humour or circumstances, he was always very fond of
me, and used to regard me with a strange mixture of admiration and
contempt. Strange it was not, for he hated books, and loved climbing,
fighting, playing, and robbing orchards, to distraction. My Mother
relates a story of me, which I repeat here, because it must be reckoned
as my first piece of wit.--During my fever, I asked why Lady Northcote,
our neighbour, did not come and see me. My Mother said she was afraid of
catching the fever. I was piqued, and answered, "Ah! Mamma! the four
Angels round my bed a'n't afraid of catching it!" I suppose you know the
old prayer:--

          Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
          Bless the bed that I lie on!--
          Four good Angels round me spread,
          Two at my feet and two at my head.

This "prayer" I said nightly, and most firmly believed the truth of it.
Frequently have I, (half-awake and half-asleep; my body diseased, and
fevered by my imagination,)--seen armies of ugly things bursting in upon
me, and these four Angels keeping them off.

In my next I shall carry on my life to my Father's death.

God bless you, my dear Poole,

And your affectionate, S.T. COLERIDGE.

In a note written in after life Mr. Coleridge speaks of this period of
his life in the following terms:

"Being the youngest child, I possibly inherited the weakly state of
health of my Father, who died, at the age of sixty-two, before I had
reached my ninth year; and from certain jealousies of old Molly, my
brother Frank's dotingly fond nurse--and if ever child by beauty and
loveliness deserved to be doted on, my brother Francis was that
child--and by the infusion of her jealousies into my brother's mind, I
was in earliest childhood huffed away from the enjoyments of muscular
activity in play, to take refuge at my Mother's side on my little stool,
to read my little book, and to listen to the talk of my elders. I was
driven from life in motion to life in thought and sensation. I never
played except by myself, and then only acted over what I had been
reading or fancying, or half one, half the other, with a stick cutting
down weeds and nettles, as one of the "Seven Champions of Christendom."
Alas! I had all the simplicity, all the docility of the little child,
but none of the child's habits. I never thought as a child, never had
the language of a child." [1]

[Footnote 1: Gillman's "Life of Coleridge", p. 10.]


LETTER 4.  TO MR. POOLE

Dear Poole,

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 however did it. I went into the
garden for something or other, and in the mean time my brother Frank
minced my cheese, to "disappoint the favourite." I returned, saw the
exploit, and in an agony of passion flew at Frank. He pretended to have
been seriously hurt by my blow, flung himself on the ground, and there
lay with outstretched limbs. I hung over him mourning and in a great
fright; he leaped up, and with a horse-laugh gave me a severe blow in
the face. I seized a knife, and was running at him, when my Mother came
in and took me by the arm. I expected a flogging, and, struggling from
her, I ran away to a little hill or slope, at the bottom of which the
Otter flows, about a mile from Ottery. There I staid; my rage died away,
but my obstinacy vanquished my fears, and taking out a shilling book,
which had at the end morning and evening prayers, I very devoutly
repeated them--thinking at the same time with a gloomy inward
satisfaction--how miserable my Mother must be! I distinctly remember my
feelings, when I saw a Mr. Vaughan pass over the bridge at about a
furlong's distance, and how I watched the calves in the fields beyond
the river. It grew dark, and I fell asleep. It was towards the end of
October, and it proved a stormy night. I felt the cold in my sleep, and
dreamed that I was pulling the blanket over me, and actually pulled over
me a dry thorn-bush which lay on the ground near me. In my sleep I had
rolled from the top of the hill till within three yards of the river,
which flowed by the unfenced edge of the bottom. I awoke several times,
and finding myself wet, and cold, and stiff, closed my eyes again that I
might forget it.

In the meantime my Mother waited about half an hour, expecting my return
when the "sulks" had evaporated. I not returning, she sent into the
churchyard, and round the town. Not found! Several men and all the boys
were sent out to ramble about and seek me. In vain! My Mother was almost
distracted; and at ten o'clock at night I was 'cried' by the crier
in Ottery, and in two villages near it, with a reward offered for me. No
one went to bed;--indeed I believe half the town were up all the night.
To return to myself. About five in the morning, or a little after, I was
broad awake, and attempted to get up, and walk; but I could not move. I
saw the shepherds and workmen at a distance, and cried, but so faintly,
that it was impossible to hear me thirty yards off. And there I might
have lain and died;--for I was now almost given over, the ponds and even
the river, near which I was lying, having been dragged. But
providentially Sir Stafford Northcote, who had been out all night,
resolved to make one other trial, and came so near that he heard me
crying. He carried me in his arms for nearly a quarter of a mile, when
we met my father and Sir Stafford Northcote's servants. I remember, and
never shall forget, my Father's face as he looked upon me while I lay in
the servant's arms--so calm, and the tears stealing down his face; for I
was the child of his old age. My Mother, as you, may suppose, was
outrageous with joy. Meantime in rushed a young lady, crying out--"I
hope you'll whip him, Mrs. Coleridge." This woman still lives at Ottery;
and neither philosophy nor religion has been able to conquer the
antipathy which I feel towards her, whenever I see her. I was put to
bed, and recovered in a day or so. But I was certainly injured; for I
was weakly and subject to ague for many years after.

My Father--who had so little parental ambition in him, that, but for my
Mother's pride and spirit, he would certainly have brought up his other
sons to trades--had nevertheless resolved that I should be a parson. I
read every book that came in my way without distinction; and my Father
was fond of me, and used to take me on his knee, and hold long
conversations with me. I remember, when eight years old, walking with
him one winter evening from a farmer's house, a mile from Ottery; and he
then told me the names of the stars, and how Jupiter was a thousand
times larger than our world, and that the other twinkling stars were
suns that had worlds rolling round them; and when I came home, he showed
me how they rolled round. I heard him with a profound delight and
admiration, but without the least mixture of wonder or incredulity. For
from my early reading of fairy tales and about genii, and the like, my
mind had been habituated "to the Vast"; and I never regarded "my senses"
in any way as the "criteria" of my belief. I regulated all my creeds by
my conceptions, not by my sight, even at that age. Ought children to be
permitted to read romances, and stories of giants, magicians, and genii?
I know all that has been said against it; but I have formed my faith in
the affirmative. I know no other way of giving the mind a love of the
Great and the Whole. Those who have been led to the same truths step by
step, through the constant testimony of their senses, seem to me to want
a sense which I possess. They contemplate nothing but parts, and all
parts are necessarily little, and the universe to them is but a mass of
little things. It is true, the mind may become credulous and prone to
superstition by the former method;--but are not the experimentalists
credulous even to madness in believing any absurdity, rather than
believe the grandest truths, if they have not the testimony of their own
senses in their favour? I have known some who have been rationally
educated, as it is styled. They were marked by a microscopic acuteness;
but when they looked at great things, all became a blank, and they saw
nothing, and denied that anything could be seen, and uniformly put the
negative of a power for the possession of a power, and called the want
of imagination, judgment, and the never being moved to rapture,
philosophy.

Towards the latter end of September 1781, my Father went to Plymouth
with my brother Francis, who was to go out as midshipman under Admiral
Graves, who was a friend of my Father's. He settled Frank as he wished,
and returned on the 4th of October, 1781. He arrived at Exeter about six
o'clock, and was pressed to take a bed there by the friendly family of
the Harts; but he refused; and to avoid their entreaties he told them
that he had never been superstitious, but that the night before he had
had a dream, which had made a deep impression on him. He dreamed that
Death had appeared to him, as he is commonly painted, and had touched
him with his dart. Well, he returned home; and all his family, I
excepted, were up. He told my Mother his dream; but he was in high
health and good spirits; and there was a bowl of punch made, and my
Father gave a long and particular account of his travel, and that he had
placed Frank under a religious Captain, and so forth. At length he went
to bed, very well and in high spirits. A short time after he had lain
down, he complained of a pain in his bowels, to which he was subject,
from wind. My Mother got him some peppermint water, which he took, and
after a pause, he said, "I am much better now, my dear!"--and lay down
again. In a minute my Mother heard a noise in his throat, and spoke to
him, but he did not answer; and she spoke repeatedly in vain. Her shriek
awaked me, and I said--"Papa is dead!" I did not know my Father's
return; but I knew that he was expected. How I came to think of his
death, I cannot tell; but so it was. Dead he was. Some said it was gout
in the heart;--probably it was a fit of apoplexy. He was an Israelite
without guile, simple, generous, and, taking some Scripture texts in
their literal sense, he was conscientiously indifferent to the good and
the evil of this world. God love you and

S.T. COLERIDGE.


He was buried at Ottery on the 10th of October 1781. "O! that I might so
pass away," said Coleridge, thirty years afterwards, "if, like him, I
were an Israelite without guile! The image of my Father, very reverend,
kind, learned, simple-hearted Father is a religion to me."

At his Father's death Coleridge was nearly nine years old. He continued
with his Mother at Ottery till the spring of 1782, when he was sent to
London to wait the appointed time for admission into Christ's Hospital,
to which a presentation had been procured from Mr. John Way through the
influence of his father's old pupil Sir Francis Buller. Ten weeks he
lived in London with an Uncle, and was entered in the books on the 8th
of July 1782.

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