Magazine. But on a visit to London in the later days of 1797, shortly before he went to Shrewsbury, Coleridge was introduced to Mr. Daniel Stuart, The the editor and proprietor of the Morning Morning Post, and thus commenced his long and Post. important connexion with that newspaper, a connexion which forms one of the important epochs of his life. At a stipulated annual payment Coleridge was engaged by Stuart to contribute an occasional copy of He sent five or six important pieces in 1798, before his departure for Germany, viz., verses. January 8. Fire, Famine, and Slaughter. Lewti, or Circassian's Love-Chant. April 13. April 16. The Recantation: An Ode.† death of Berkeley Here at Nether-Stowey, May 10, 1798, Birth and was born his second son, whom he named after another great philosopher, Berkeley. Coleridge. This child was destined to be taken from him in early infancy. He died while his father was in Germany, February 10, 1799. Berkeley, it appears, was an infant of a noble and * Perhaps also The Old Man of the Alps, March 8 (See vol. ii., p. 355). + This magnificent Ode, now better known as the Ode on France, and acknowledged to be one of Coleridge's master-pieces, appeared shortly afterwards in a thin quarto pamphlet together with two other pieces under the following title: Fears in Solitude, written in 1798, during the alarm of an invasion. To which are added France, an Ode, and Frost at Midnight. By S. T. Coleridge. London: printed for J. Johnson, in St. Paul's Church-yard. 1798. 4to., pp. iv. 23. lovely style of beauty, his large, soft eyes of a "London smoke" colour, exquisite complexion, regular features and goodly size. His father was very proud of him, and one day, when he saw a neighbour approaching his little cottage at Stowey, snatched him away from the nurse half-dressed, and with a broad smile of pride and delight, presented him to be admired, saying, "This is my second son." Yet when the answer was, "Well, this is something like a child!" he felt affronted on behalf of his little darling Hartley. Berkeley was of a taller make than any of the three children who survived. In the autumn of 1798 the famous volume of Lyrical Ballads, the joint production of Wordsworth and Coleridge, was published by Joseph Cottle, at Bristol, and Lyrical fell almost still-born from the press.* To this Ballads. volume Coleridge contributed The Ancient Mariner, The Nightingale, and two scenes from the rejected Tragedy of Osorio, viz. The Dungeon, and The Foster-Mother's Tale. The liberality of his friends the Wedgwoods now enabled Coleridge to carry out a cherished scheme of finishing his education at the great German universities. On the 16th of September, 1798, he sailed from Great Yarmouth to Hamburg, in company with Wordsworth and his sister, in his way to in Germany. Student-life Germany. Full and interesting notices of this important episode of Coleridge's life may be found in "Satyrane's Letters" printed in The Friend and in the Early Years and Late Recollections of his fellow-student, Dr. Carlyon, which we have had * Cottle retired from business shortly afterwards, and disposed of the remaining copies to a London bookseller of the name of Arch. occasion to quote once or twice elsewhere in the course of these volumes. Coleridge returned to England after an absence of fourteen months, and arrived in London the 27th November, 1799. His first literary occupation was the translation of Schiller's Wallenstein, which he completed in six weeks, in a lodging in Buckingham street, in the Strand; it was printed and published in 1800. The manuscript was purchased by Longman's house under the condition that the English Version and the original were to be published at the same time. Translation Coleridge truly prophesied its fate, for of Wallenwhen translating it, he said it would fall stein. dead from the press, and indeed but few of the copies were sold ;—his advice to the publishers, whom he had forewarned of this failure, was to reserve the unsold copies, and wait till it might become fashionable. They however parted with it as waste paper, though sixteen years afterwards, on the publication of Christabel, it was eagerly sought for, and the few remaining copies doubled their price.* While still in Germany, Coleridge had renewed his *The rarity of the book a few years later, before it was reprinted, is evident from the fact that Mr. Carlyle, when publishing his Life of Schiller in 1824, could not obtain access to a copy. "Mr. Coleridge's translation," he writes (London Magazine, August, 1824), "is as a whole unknown to us; but judging from many large specimens, we should pronounce it to be the best, indeed the only sufferable translation from the German with which our literature has yet been enriched." It was not reprinted until 1828, when it formed the third volume of the first Collected Edition of Coleridge's Poetical and Dramatic Works, published by the late William Pickering. intermitted connexion with the Morning Post by sending over some poetical pieces, one of which seems to have created a profound sensation on its first appearHis contributions of this period, and that immediately succeeding his return to England, were as follows: ance. 1799. Aug. 24. The British Stripling's War-Song. Names. (Song from Lessing.) The Devil's Thoughts.* Epigram. Aug. 27. Sept. 6. Sept. 7. Sept. 17. Sept. 23. Sept. 24. Lines composed in a Concert-Room. Nov. 14. Nov. 16. Lines written in the Album at Elbingerode. Dec. 9. Dec. 21. Dec. 24. Dec. 25. Epigram. Epigram. To a Young Lady on her first appearance Introduction to the Tale of the Dark Ladie. In the summer of 1800, Coleridge left London, and repaired to Keswick, in Cumberland, in the heart of the then beautiful and retired Lake District, in which his friend Wordsworth had already sought and found a Settlement at Keswick. home at Grasmere, in Westmoreland, some fifteen miles distant. At Keswick the second part of Christabel was written during this year; but Coleridge never proceeded any farther in *When this humorous piece first appeared in the Morning Post, according to the Editor of that Journal, it made so great a sensation that several hundred sheets extra were sold by them, as the paper was in request for days and weeks afterwards. it, and the Fragment of it was not published till sixteen years afterwards. Even then he had not given up all thoughts of completing it, as is evident from the Preface; but the idea, if never actually abandoned, was never destined to be carried out. In later life he observed: "The reason of my not finishing Christabel is not that I don't know how to do it-for I have, as I always had, the whole plan entire from beginning to end in my mind; but I fear I could not carry on with equal success the execution of the idea, an extremely subtle and difficult one.' Proposed plot of the unwritten portion of Christabel "The following relation," says Mr. Gillman, was to have occupied a third and fourth canto, and to have closed the tale. Over the mountains, the Bard, as directed by Sir Leoline, hastes with his disciple; but in consequence of one of those inundations supposed to be common to this country, the spot only where the castle once stood is discovered-the edifice itself being washed away. He determines to return. Geraldine being acquainted with all that is passing, like the Weird Sisters in Macbeth, vanishes. Re-appearing, however, she waits the return of the Bard, exciting in the mean time, by her wily arts, all the anger she could rouse in the Baron's breast, as well as that jealousy of which he is described to have been susceptible. The old Bard and the youth at length arrive, and therefore she can no longer personate the character of Geraldine, the daughter of Lord Roland de Vaux, but changes her appearance to that of the accepted though absent lover of Christabel. Next ensues a courtship most distressing to Christabel, *Table-Talk of S. T. Coleridge, Lond. 1835, vol. ii. pp. 221, 222 (under date July 6, 1833); see also Gillman, p. 281. |