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BIOGRAPHIA EPISTOLARIS - VOLUME 1.
BIOGRAPHIA EPISTOLARIS - VOLUME 1. COLERIDGE Jonathan Ingram Clytie Siddall
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
Samuel Taylor Coleridge's
BIBLIOGRAPHIA EPISTOLARIS
comprising 33 letters
and being
the Biographical Supplement of
Coleridge's BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA
with additional letters etc. edited by
A. TURNBULL
Vol. 1.
"On the whole this was surely the mightiest genius since Milton. In
poetry there is not his like when he rose to his full power; he was
a philosopher the immensity of whose mind cannot be gauged by
anything he has left behind; a critic the subtlest and most
profound of his time. Yet these vast and varied powers flowed away
in the shifting sands of talk; and what remains is but what the few
land-locked pools are to the receding ocean which has left them
casually behind without sensible diminution of its
waters."
Academy 3d October 1903.
PREFACE
The work known as the Biographical Supplement of the Biographia
Literaria of S. T. Coleridge and published with the latter in 1847 was
begun by Henry Nelson Coleridge and finished after his death by his
widow Sara Coleridge. The first part concluding with a letter dated
5th November 1796 is the more valuable portion of the Biographical
Supplement. What follows written by Sara Coleridge is more
controversial than biographical and does not continue like the first
part to make Coleridge tell his own life by inserting letters in the
narrative. Of 33 letters quoted in the whole work 30 are contained in
the section written by Henry Nelson Coleridge. Of these 11 were drawn
from Cottle's Early Recollections seven being letters to Josiah Wade
four to Joseph Cottle and the remainder are sixteen letters to Poole
one to Benjamin Flower one to Charles E Heath and one to Henry Martin.
From this I think it is evident that Henry Nelson Coleridge intended
what was published as a Supplement to the Biographia Literaria to be a
Life of Coleridge either supplementary to the Biographia Literaria or
as an independent narrative in which most of the letters published by
Cottle in 1837 and unpublished letters to Poole and other correspondents
were to form the chief material. Sara Coleridge in finishing the
fragment did not attempt to carry out the original intention of her
husband. A few letters in Cottle were perhaps not acceptable to her
taste and in rejecting them she perhaps resolved to reject all
remaining letters in Cottle. She thus finished the fragmentary Life of
Coleridge left by her husband in her own way.
But Henry Nelson Coleridge had begun to build on another plan. His
intention was simply to string all Coleridge's letters available on a
slim biographical thread and thus produce a work in which the poet would
have been made to tell his own life. His beginning with the five
Biographical Letters to Thomas Poole is a proof of this. He took these
as his starting point; and as far as he went his "Life of Coleridge"
thus constructed is the most reliable of all the early biographies of
Coleridge.
This edition of the Biographical Supplement is meant to carry out as far
as possible the original project of its author. The whole of his
narrative has been retained and also what Sara Coleridge added to his
writing; and all the non-copyright letters of Coleridge available from
other sources have been inserted into the narrative and additional
biographical matter explanatory of the letters has been given. [1] By
this retention of authentic sources I have produced as faithful a
picture of the Poet-Philosopher Coleridge as can be got anywhere for
Coleridge always paints his own character in his letters. Those desirous
of a fuller picture may peruse along with this work the letters
published in the Collection of 1895 the place of which in the narrative
is indicated in footnotes.
[Footnote: What has been added is enclosed in square brackets.]
The letters are drawn from the following sources:
"Biographical Supplement" 1847 ............................................ 33
Cottle's "Reminiscences" 1847 ............................................. 78
The original "Friend" 1809 ................................................. 5
"The Watchman" 1796 ........................................................ 1
Gillman's "Life of Coleridge" 1838 ......................................... 7
Allsop's "Letters Conversations etc. of S. T. C". 1836 (1864) .......... 45
"Essays on his Own Times" 1850 ............................................. 1
"Life and Correspondence of R. Southey" 1850 ............................... 7
Editorials of Poems etc .................................................... 8
"Literary Remains of S. T. C. 1836 etc" ................................... 3
"Blackwood's Magazine" October 1821 ....................................... 1
"Fragmentary Remains of Humphry Davy" 1858 ................................ 15
"Macmillan's Magazine" 1864 (Letters to W. Godwin) ......................... 9
Southey's "Life of Andrew Bell" 3 vols. 1844 .............................. 2
"Charles Lamb and the Lloyds" by E. V. Lucas ............................... 3
"Anima Poetae" by E. H. Coleridge 1895 .................................... 1
The letters of Coleridge have slowly come to light. Coleridge was always
fond of letter-writing and at several periods of his career he was more
active in letter-writing than at others. He commenced the publication of
his letters himself. The epistolary form was as dear to him in prose as
the ballad or odic form in verse. From his earliest publications we can
see he loved to launch a poem with "A letter to the Editor" or to the
recipient as preface. The "Mathematical Problem" one of his juvenile
facetiae in rhyme was thus heralded with a letter addressed to his
brother George explaining the import of the doggerel. His first printed
poem "To Fortune" (Dykes Campbell's Edition of the "Poems" p. 27) was
also prefaced by a short letter to the editor of the "Morning
Chronicle". Among Coleridge's letters are several of this sort and each
affords a glimpse into his character. Those with the "Raven" and
"Talleyrand to Lord Grenville" are characteristic specimens of his
drollery and irony.
Coleridge's greatest triumphs in letter-writing were gained in the field
of politics. His two letters to Fox his letters on the Spaniards and
those to Judge Fletcher are his highest specimens of epistolary
eloquence and constitute him the rival of Rousseau as an advocate of
some great truth in a letter addressed to a public personage. In
clearness of thought and virile precision of language they surpass the
most of anything that Coleridge has written. They never wander from the
point at issue; the evolution of their ideas is perfect their idiom the
purest mother-English written since the refined vocabulary of Hooker
Jeremy Taylor and Harrington was coined.
Besides the political letters Coleridge published during his lifetime
four important letters of great length written during his sojourn in
Germany. Three of these appeared in the "Friend" of 1809 and indeed
were the finest part of that periodical; and one was first made public
in the "Amulet" of 1829. Six letters published in "Blackwood's Magazine"
of 1820-21 and a few others of less importance brought up the number
of letters published by Coleridge to 46. The following is a list of them:
7th Nov. 1793 "To Fortune" Ed. "Morning Chronicle" ................ 1
22nd Sept. 1794 Dedication to "Robespierre" to H. Martin ........... 1
1st April 1796 Letter to "Caius Gracchus" "The Watchman" ........... 1
26th Dec. 1796 Dedication to the "Ode to the Departing Year"
to T. Poole ........... 1
1798 Ed. "Monthly Magazine re Monody on Chatterton"................. 1
1799 Ed. "Morning Post" with the "Raven" ........................... 1
21 Dec. 1799 Ed. "Morning Post" with "Love" ........................ 1
10th Jan. 1800 Ed. "Morning Post Talleyrand to Lord Grenville" ..... 1
18th Nov. 1800 "Monthly Review" on "Wallenstein" ................... 1
1834 To George Coleridge with "Mathematical Problem" ............... 1
Political Letters to the "Morning Post" and "Courier" ................ 21
1809 Letters of Satyrane etc. in the "Friend" ..................... 8
1820-21 Letters to "Blackwood's Magazine" ........................... 6
1829 "The Amulet" "Over the Brocken" .............................. 1
--
46
The "Literary Remains" published in 1836 added ..................... 4
Allsop in his "Letters Conversations etc." gave to the world ..... 46
Cottle followed in 1837 with his "Early Recollections" in which .... 84
letters or fragments of letters made their appearance
Gillman in 1838 published 11 letters or fragments 4 of which had
already appeared in the works of Allsop and Cottle and in the
"Friend" leaving a contribution of ................................. 7
The "Gentleman's Magazine" followed in 1838
with letters to Daniel Stuart ........................................17
Cottle in 1847 re-cast his "Early Recollections" and called his
work "Reminiscences of Coleridge and Southey" and added the
splendid Wedgwood series of 19 letters and a few others of less
importance in all ...................................................25
The "Biographical Supplement" to the 1847 edition of the "Biographia
Literaria" contained 33 letters 11 of which were from Cottle;
leaving a contribution of ............................................22
In 1850 Coleridge's "Essays on his Own Times" consisting of his
magazine and newspaper articles contained in the Preface (p. 91)
a fragment of a letter to Poole .......................................1
Making ..............................................................252
published up to 1850 by Coleridge himself and his three early
biographers; and these continued to be quoted and alluded to by writers
on Coleridge until 1895 when Mr. E. H. Coleridge gave to the world a
collection of 260 letters.
Meantime numerous biographies memoirs and magazines continued to
throw in a contribution now and then. The following as far as I have
been able to ascertain is the number of letters or fragments of letters
contributed by the various works enumerated:
1836-8 Lockhart's "Life of Sir Walter Scott" 1
1841 "Life of Charles Mathews" 1
" "The Mirror" Letter to George Dyer 1
1844 Southey's "Life of Dr. Andrew Bell" 5
1847 "Memoir of Carey" (Translator of Dante) 1
1848 "Memoir of William Collins R.A." 1
1849 "Life and Correspondence of R. Southey" 7
1851 "Memoirs of W. Wordsworth" 8
1858 "Fragmentary Remains of Sir H. Davy" 15
1860 "Autobiography of C. R. Leslie" 1
1864 "Macmillan's Magazine" (Letters to Win. Godwin) 9
1869 "H. Crabb Robinson's Diary" 5
1870 "Westminster Review" (Letters to Dr. Brabant) 11
1871 Meteyard's "Group of Englishmen" 2
1873 Sara Coleridge's "Memoirs" 1
1874 "Lippincott's Magazine" 10
1876 "Life of William Godwin" by C. Regan Paul (16
less 7 of those which appeared in "Macmillan's
Magazine" 1864) 9
1878 "Fraser's Magazine" (letters to Matilda Betham) 5
1880 Macmillan's Edition of "Coleridge's Poems" 1
1882 "Journals of Caroline Fox" 1
1884 "Life of Alaric Watts" 5
1886 Brandl's "Life of Coleridge" 10
1887 "Memorials of Coleorton" 20
1888 "Thomas Poole and his Friends" (Mrs. Sandford) 75
1889 Professor Knight's "Life of Wordsworth" 12
1889 "Rogers and his Contemporaries" 1
1890 "Memoir of John Murray" 4
1891 "De Quincey Memorials" 4
1893 "Life of Washington Allston" (Flagg) 4
" "Friends' Quarterly Magazine" 1
" "Illustrated London News" 19
1893 J. Dykes Campbell's Edition of "Coleridge's Poems" 8
1894 " " " Life of Coleridge" (fragments) 36
1894 "The Athenaeum" (3 letters to Wrangham) 3
1895 "Letters" of S. T. Coleridge (edited by E. H.
Coleridge) 174
" "Anima Poetae" (E. H. C.) Letter to J. Tobin. 1
" "The Gillmans of Highgate" (A. W. Gillman) 3
" "Athenaeum" of 18 May 1895 1
1897 "William Blackwood and his Sons" by Mrs. Oliphant 6
1898 "Charles Lamb and the Lloyds" (E. V. Lucas) 3
1899 "J. H. Frere and his Friends" 7
1903 "Tom Wedgwood" by R. B. Litchfield 1
1907 "Christabel" edited by E. H. Coleridge 1
1910 "The Bookman" May 1
Total 747
Besides these there are privately printed letters and letters not yet
published to be taken account of. The chief collection of these is
"Letters from the Lake Poets" (edited by E. H. Coleridge) containing 87
letters to Daniel Stuart some of which are republished in the
"Letters" 1895. The remainder of letters not published from the
information given by Mr. E. H. Coleridge in his Preface I make out to
be about 300.
Nor does this exhaust the list of letters written by Coleridge. In
Ainger's Collection of the Letters of Charles Lamb are 62 letters by
Lamb to Coleridge most of which are in answer to letters received. We
may therefore estimate the letters of Coleridge to Lamb at not less than
62. In Dorothy Wordsworth's "Grasmere Journal" there are no less than 32
letters to the Wordsworths[1] mentioned as having been received during
the period 1800-1803 not represented among the letters in Professor
Knight's "Life of Wordsworth". The total number of letters known to have
been written by Coleridge is therefore between 1100 and 1200. Other
correspondents of Coleridge not appearing among the recipients of
letters in publications are probably as follows:
V. Le Grice.
Sam. Le Grice.
T. F. Middleton.
Robert Allen.
Robert Lovell.
Ch. Lloyd Jr.
John Cruickshank.
Dr. Beddoes.
Edmund Irving.
Mr. Clarkson.
Mrs. Clarkson (except one small fragment in "Diary of H. C. Robinson").
[Footnote 1:
The letters to Lamb and Miss Wordsworth do not now exist.]
The letters of Coleridge taken as a whole are one of the most
important contributions to English Letter-writing. They are gradually
coming to light and with every letter or group of letters put forth
the character and intellectual development of Coleridge is becoming
clearer. His poems and prose works great as these are are not
comprehensible without a study of his letters which join together the
"insulated fragments" of that grand scheme of truth which he called his
"System" ("Table Talk" 12th Sept. 1831 and 26th June 1834).
Coleridge in his letters has written his own life for his life after
all was a life of thought and his finest thoughts and his most
ambitious aspirations are given expression to in his letters to his
numerous friends; and the true biography of Coleridge is that in which
his letters are made the main source of the narrative. A Biographia
Epistolaris is what we want of such a man.
Coleridge's letters are often bizarre in construction and quite
regardless of the conventions of style and abound in the most curious
freaks of emphasis and imagery. They resemble the letters of Cowper in
that they were not written for publication; and like Cowper's they
have a character of their own. But they far surpass the epistles of the
poet of Olney in spiritual vision and intellectuality. The eighteenth
century from Pope and Swift down to Cowper is extremely
rich in
letter-writing. Bolingbroke Lord Chesterfield Lady Mary Wortley
Montagu Gray Mason Johnson Beattie Burns and Gibbon among
literary personages have contributed to the great Epistolick Art as
Dr. Johnson called it; and this list does not include the letters of the
politicians Horace Walpole Junius and others. The eighteenth century
in fact was a letter-writing age; and while the bulk of the poetry of
its 300 poets with the exception of a few masterpieces of monumental
quality has gradually gone out of fashion its letters have risen into
greater repute. Even among the poets whose verse is still read there is
a hesitation in public opinion as to whether the verses or letters are
superior. There are readers not a few who would not scruple to place
Cowper's letters above his poems who believe that Gray's letters are
much more akin to the modern spirit than the "Elegy" and the "Ode
to Eton College" and who think that Swift's fly-leaves to his
friends will outlive the fame of "Gulliver" and the "Tale of a
Tub".
Coleridge who stands between the eighteenth and the nineteenth
centuries was like the poets of the former age a multiform
letter-writer. He was often seized with letter-writing when unable to
write poetry or execute those unpublished masterpieces in the
composition of some of which he was engaged.
Coleridge's letters are of the utmost importance as a part of the
literature of the opening of the nineteenth century. It is in the
letters that we see better than elsewhere the germs of the speculations
which afterwards came to fruition between 1817 and 1850 when the
poetical and critical principles of the Lake School gradually took the
place of the Classicism of the eighteenth century and the theology of
Broad Churchism began to displace the old theology and the school of
Paley in Evidences and Locke in Philosophy gave way before the inroad of
Transcendentalism.
As the record of the phases of an intellectual development the letters
of Coleridge stand very high; and indeed I do not know anything equal
to them except it be the "Journal of Amiel".
The resemblance between Coleridge and Amiel is very striking. Both
valetudinarians and barely understood by the friends with whom they came
into contact they took refuge in the inner shrine of introspection and
clothed the most abstruse ideas in the most beautiful forms of language
and imagery that is only not poetry because it is not verse. While one
wrote the story of his own intellectual development in secret and
retained the record of it hidden from all eyes the other scattered his
to the winds in the shape of letters which thus widely distributed
kept his secret until they were gathered together by later hands. The
letters of Coleridge as a collection is one of the most engaging
psychological studies of the history of an individual mind.
The text of the letters in the present volume is reproduced from the
original sources the "Biographical Supplement" Cottle Gillman
Allsop and the "Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey". Fuller
texts of some of the letters will be found in "Letters of S. T. C." of
1895 Litchfield's "Tom Wedgwood" and other recent publications. One of
the objects of the present work is to preserve the text of the letters
as presented in these authentic sources of the life of Coleridge.
Letters Nos. 44 45 and 46 from "Charles Lamb and the Lloyds" by Mr.
E. V. Lucas (Smith Elder and Co.); No. 130 from "Anima Poetae" (W.
Heinemann) are printed here by arrangement with the poet's grandson
Ernest Hartley Coleridge Esq. to whom my sincere thanks are also due
for his kindness in reading the proofs. Mr. Coleridge of course is not
responsible for any of the opinions expressed in this work; but he has
taken great pains in putting me right regarding certain views of others
who had written on Coleridge and also on some of the mistakes made by
Henry Nelson Coleridge and Sara Coleridge who had insufficient data on
the matters on which they wrote and definite information on which
indeed could not be ascertainable in 1847. Coming from Mr.
Coleridge--the chief living authority on the life letters and
published and unpublished writings of S. T. Coleridge--the corrections
in the footnotes and elsewhere may be taken as authoritative; and I have
to acknowledge my indebtedness to him accordingly
ARTHUR TURNBULL.
KIRKCALDY
31st January 1911.
WORKS RELATING TO COLERIDGE
"Early Years and Late Reflections". By Clement Carlyon M.D. 4 vols.
1836-1858.
"Letters Conversations and Recollections of S. T. Coleridge". With a
Preface by the Editor. Moxon 1836. 2 vols. Second Edition. By Thomas
Allsop. 1858. Third Edition 1864.
"Early Recollections chiefly relating to the late S. T. Coleridge
during his long residence in Bristol". By Joseph Cottle. 2 vols. 1837.
"The Letters of Charles Lamb with a Sketch of his Life". By Sir Thomas
Noon Talfourd 1837; and "Final Memorials" 1848.
"Reminiscences of S. T. Coleridge and Robert Southey". By Joseph Cottle.
1847. 1 vol.
"Biographia Literaria or Biographical Sketches of my Literary Life and
Opinions". By S. T. Coleridge. Second Edition prepared for publication
in part by the late H. N. Coleridge: completed and published by his
widow. 2 vols. 1847.
"The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey". 6 vols. 1849-1850.
"Essays on his own Times". By Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Edited by his
daughter. London: William Pickering. 3 vols. 1850.
"Memoirs of William Wordsworth". By Christopher Wordsworth D.D. 2 vols.
1851.
"The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge". New York: Harper and
Brothers. 7 vols. 1853.
"Oxford and Cambridge Essays". Professor Hort on Coleridge. 1856.
"Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey". 4 vols. 1856.
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