“Now, if you are not angry (and, on my soul, I believe you and anger to be perfectly heterogeneous), you will write to me very shortly; if you are, why you must remain so for a fortnight: then, it is probable, I shall pass two days in London, on my way to Cambridge; and, as one of them will be purely to be with you, if I do not remove all cause of complaint you have against Robert Southey, you shall punish him with your everlasting displeasure.

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“From Horace, too, I hear nothing. Were I on the Alleghany Mountains, or buried in the wilds of Caernarvonshire, I could not have less intercourse with you. Perhaps you are weaning me, like a child. And now, Bedford, I shall shortly see G. S.*, if he be in London or at Trinity. Two days in London: one with you, when I shall call on him; the other with some friends of Coleridge, and correspondents of mine, admirable poets and Pantisocrats. How will G. S. receive me? is he altered? will he be reserved, and remember only our difference? Or is there still the same goodness of heart in him as when we first met? I feel some little agitation at the thought. G. S. was the first person I ever met with, who at all assimilated with my disposition. I was a physiognomist without knowing it. He was my substance. I loved him as a brother once: perhaps he is infected with politesse; is polite to all, and affectionate to none.

“Coleridge is a man who has every thing of —— but his vices; he is what —— would have been, had he given up that time to study, which he consumed you know how lamentably.

* A schoolfellow with whom he had once been very intimate. † Here follows “The Pauper’s Funeral,” printed among my father’s minor poems.

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“Bedford, I can sing eight songs;—1. The antique and exhilarating Bacchanalian, Back and Sides go Bare. 2. The Tragedy of the Mince Pie, or the Cruel Master Cook. 3. The Comical Jest of the Farthing Rushlight. 4. The Bloody Gardener’s Cruelty. 5. The Godly Hymn of the Seven Good Joys of the Virgin Mary; being a Christmas Carol. 6. The Tragedy of the Beaver Hat; or, as newly amended, The Brunswick Bonnet; containing three apt Morals. 7. The Quaint Jest of the Three Crows. 8. The Life and Death of Johnny Bulan.

“Now I shall outdo Horace! . . . . Farewell, and believe me always

“I have been reading the four first numbers of ‘The Flagellant:’ they are all I possess. My dearest Grosvenor, they have recalled past times forcibly to my mind, and I could almost weep at the retrospect. Why have I not written to you before? Because I could only have told you of uncertainty and suspense. There is nothing more to say now. The next six months will afford more variety of incidents. But, my dear Bedford, though you will not love me the less, you will shake your head, and lament the effects of what you call enthusiasm. Would to God that we agreed in sentiment! for then you could enter

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into the feelings of my heart, and hold me still dearer in your own.

“There is the strangest mixture of cloud and of sunshine! an outcast in the world! an adventurer I living by his wits! yet happy in the full conviction of rectitude, in integrity, and in the affection of a mild and lovely woman: at once the object of hatred and admiration: wondered at by all; hated by the aristocrats; the very oracle of my own party. Bedford! Bedford! mine are the principles of peace, of non-resistance; you cannot burst our bonds of affection. Do not grieve that circumstances have made me thus; you ought to rejoice that your friend acts up to his principles, though you think them wrong.

“Coleridge is writing at the same table; our names are written in the book of destiny, on the same page.

“Grosvenor, I must put your brains in requisition. We are about to publish a magazine on a new plan. One of the prospectuses, when printed, shall be forwarded to you. ’Tis our intention to say in the titlepage, S. T. C. and R. S., Editors; and to admit nothing but what is good. A work of the kind must not be undertaken without a certainty of indemnification, and then it bids very fair to be lucrative, so the booksellers here tell us. To be called The Provincial Magazine, and published at Bristol if we settle here. We mean to make it the vehicle of all our poetry: will you not give us some essays, &c. &c.? We can undoubtedly make it the best thing of the kind ever published; so, Bedford, be very wise and very witty. Send us whole essays, hints, good things,

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&c. &c., and they shall cut a most respectable figure. The poetry will be printed so as to make a separate volume at the end of the year.

“I am in treaty with The Telegraph, and hope to be their correspondent. Hireling writer to a newspaper! ’Sdeath! ’tis an ugly title: but, n’importe, I shall write truth, and only truth. Have you seen, in Friday’s Telegraph, a letter to Canning, signed Harrington? ’Twas the specimen of my prose.

“You will be melancholy at all this, Bedford; I am so at times, but what can I do? I could not enter the Church; nor had I finances to study physic; for public offices I am too notorious. I have not the gift of making shoes, nor the happy art of mending them. Education has unfitted me for trade, and I must, perforce, enter the muster roll of authors.”

“My days are disquieted, and the dreams of the night only retrace the past to bewilder me in vague visions of the future. America is still the place to which our ultimate views tend; but it will be years before we can go. As for Wales, it is not practicable. The point is, where can I best subsist? . . . . London is certainly the place for all who, like me, are on the world. . . . . London must be the place: if I and Coleridge can only get a fixed salary of 100l. a-year

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between us, our own industry shall supply the rest. I will write up to ‘The Telegraph:’ they offered me a reporter’s place, but nightly employments are out of the question. My troublesome guest, called honesty, prevents my writing in The True Briton. God knows I want not to thrust myself forward as a partisan: peace and domestic life are the highest blessings I could implore. Enough! this state of suspense must soon be over: I am worn and wasted with anxiety; and, if not at rest in a short time, shall be disabled from exertion, and sink to a long repose. Poor Edith! Almighty God protect her!

“You can give me no advice, nor point out any line to pursue; but you can write to me, and tell me how you are, and of your friends. Let me hear from you as soon as possible: moralise, metaphysicise, pun, say good things, promise me some aid in the magazine, and shake hands with me as cordially by letter, as when we parted in the Strand. I look over your letters, and find but little alteration of sentiment from the beginning of ’92 to the end of ’94. What a strange mass of matter is in mine during those periods! I mean to write my own life, and a most useful book it will be. You shall write the Paraleipomena; but do not condole too much over my mistaken principles, for such pity will create a mutiny in my sepulchred bones, and I shall break prison to argue with you, even from the grave. God love you! I think soon to be in London, if I can get a situation there: sometimes the prospect smiles upon me. I want but fifty pounds a-year certain, and can trust myself for enough beyond that. . . . .

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Fare you well, my dear Grosvenor! Have you been to Court? quid Romæ facias? O thou republican aristocrat! thou man most worthy of republicanism! what hast thou to do with a laced coat, and a chapeau, and a bag wig, and a sword?

Ah spirit pure That error’s mist had left thy purged eye! . . . . . . .

“You and Wynn could not more enjoy the idea of seeing me than I anticipated being with you; as for coming now, or fixing any particular time, it may not be. My mind, Bedford, is very languid; I dare not say I will go at any fixed period; if you knew the fearful anxiety with which I sometimes hide

* March 21. 1795.

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myself to avoid an invitation, you would perhaps pity, perhaps despise me. There is a very pleasant family here, literary and accomplished, that I have almost offended by never calling on. Coleridge is there three or four times in the course of the week; the effort to join in conversation is too painful to me, and the torpedo coldness of my phizmahogany has no right to chill the circle; by the by, my dear Grosvenor, if you know any artist about to paint a group of banditti, I shall be very fit to sit for a young cub of ferocity; I have put on the look at the glass so as sometimes to frighten myself. . . . .

“Well, but there is no difficulty in discovering the assiduities of affection; the eye is very eloquent, and women are well skilled in its language. I asked the question. Grosvenor, you will love your sister Edith. I look forward with feelings of delight that dim my eyes to the day when she will expect you, as her brother, to visit us—brown bread, wild Welsh raspberries, heigh ho! this schoolboy anticipation follows us through life, and enjoyments uniformly disappoint expectation. . . . .

“Poetry softens the heart, Grosvenor. No man ever tagged rhyme without being the better for it. I write but little. The task of correcting Joan is a very great one; but as the plan is fundamentally bad, it is necessary the poetry should be good. The Convict, for which you asked, is not worth reading, I think of sometime rewriting it. If I could be with you another eight weeks, I believe I should write another epic poem, so essential is it to be happily situated.

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“I shall copy out what I have done of Madoc and send you ere long; you will find more simplicity in it than in any of my pieces, and of course it is the best. I shall study three works to write it—the Bible, Homer, and Ossian

“Grosvenor, I cannot describe to you what I felt;

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the man thought I had lost a relation; it was with great difficulty I could resolve on proceeding to see him; however, I thought it a kind of duty and went.—Guess my delight on finding another Mr. Perkins, to whom I had been directed by mistake!

“I am dragged into a party of pleasure to-morrow* for two days. An hour’s hanging would be luxury to me compared with these detestable schemes.—Party of pleasure! Johnson never wrote a better tale than that of the Ethiopian king. Here is the fire at home, and a great chair, and yet I must be moving off for pleasure. Grosvenor, I will steal Cadman’s† long pipe, chew opium, and learn to be happy with the least possible trouble.

* An account of this party of pleasure is given in Cottle’s Reminiscences of Coleridge. Apparently the reality was not more agreeable than the anticipation. † The name of a mutual acquaintance.

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“Coleridge’s remembrances to you. He is applying the medicine of argument to my misanthropical system of indifference.—It will not do, a strange dreariness of mind has seized me. I am indifferent to society, yet I feel my private attachments growing more and more powerful, and weep like a child when I think of an absent friend.

“Bedford—he is dead; my dear Edmund Seward! after six weeks’ suffering.

“These, Grosvenor, are the losses that gradually wean us from life. May that man want consolation in his last hour, who would rob the survivor of the belief, that he shall again behold his friend! You know not, Grosvenor, how I loved poor Edmund: he taught me all that I have of good. When I went with him into Worcestershire, I was astonished at the general joy his return occasioned—the very dogs ran out to him. In that room where I have so often seen him, he now lies in his coffin!

“It is like a dream, the idea that he is dead—that his heart is cold—that he, whom but yesterday morning I thought and talked of as alive—as the friend I knew and loved—is dead! When these things come home to the heart, they palsy it. I am

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sick at heart; and, if I feel thus acutely, what must his sisters feel? what his poor old mother, whose life was wrapped up in Edmund? I have seen her look at him till the tears ran down her cheek.

“There is a strange vacancy in my heart. The sun shines as usual, but there is a blank in existence to me. I have lost a friend, and such a one! God bless you, my dear, dear Grosvenor! Write to me immediately. I will try, by assiduous employment, to get rid of very melancholy thoughts. I am continually dwelling on the days when we were together: there was a time when the sun never rose that I did not see Seward. It is very wrong to feel thus; it is unmanly.

“P.S. I wrote to Edmund on receiving your last: my letter arrived the hour of his death, four o’clock on Wednesday last. Perhaps he remembered me at that hour.

“Grosvenor, I am a child; and all are children who fix their happiness on such a reptile as man;—this great, this self-ennobled being called man, the next change of weather may blast him.

1. Not to the grave, not to the grave, my Soul, Descend to contemplate The form that once was dear! The Spirit is not there Which kindled that dead eye, Which throb’d in that cold heart, Which in that motionless hand Hath met thy friendly grasp. The Spirit is not there! It is but lifeless, perishable flesh That moulders in the grave; Earth, air, and water’s ministering particles Now to the elements Resolved, their uses done. Not to the grave, not to the grave, my Soul, Follow thy friend beloved. The spirit is not there!

2. Often together have we talk’d of death; How sweet it were to see All doubtful things made clear; How sweet it were with powers Such as the Cherubim, To view the depth of Heaven! O Edmund! thou hast first Begun the travel of Eternity! I look upon the stars, And think that thou art there, Unfetter’d as the thought that follows thee.

3. And we have often said how sweet it were, With unseen ministry of angel power, To watch the friends we loved. Edmund! we did not err! Sure I have felt thy presence! Thou hast given A birth to holy thought, Hast kept me from the world unstain’d and pure.

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Edmund! we did not err! Our best affections here They are not like the toys of infancy; The Soul outgrows them not; We do not cast them off; Oh if it could be so, It were indeed a dreadful thing to die!

4. Not to the grave, not to the grave, my Soul, Follow thy friend beloved! But in the lonely hour, But in the evening walk, Think that he companies thy solitude; Think that he holds with thee Mysterious intercourse; And though remembrance wake a tear, There will be joy in grief. Westbury, 1799.

His poem of Joan of Arc, as we have seen, had been written in the summer of 1793, and he had for some time ardently desired to publish it; but, for want of means, was unable to do so. Towards the close of the following year it had been announced for publication by subscription; but subscribers came slowly forward, and it seemed very doubtful whether a sufficient number could be obtained. Shortly afterwards, his acquaintance with Mr. Cottle commenced. For the result I will quote his own words, as commemorating, in a very interesting manner, when he had almost arrived at the close of his literary career, that which may be called its commencement, and which was so important an epoch in his troubled early life.

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“One evening I read to him part of the poem, without any thought of making a proposal concerning it, or expectation of receiving one. He, however, offered me fifty guineas for the copyright, and fifty copies for my subscribers, which was more than the list amounted to; and the offer was accepted as promptly as it was made. It can rarely happen, that a young author should meet with a bookseller as inexperienced and as ardent as himself; and it would be still more extraordinary, if such mutual indiscretion did not bring with it cause for regret to both. But this transaction was the commencement of an intimacy which has continued without the slightest shade of displeasure at any time on either side, to the present day. At that time few books were printed in the country, and it was seldom, indeed, that a quarto volume issued from a provincial press. A font of new type was ordered, for what was intended to be the handsomest book that Bristol had ever yet sent forth; and, when the paper arrived, and the printer was ready to commence his operations, nothing had been done towards preparing the poem for the press, except that a few verbal alterations had been made.

“I was not, however, without misgivings; and, when the first proof sheet was brought me, the more glaring faults of the composition stared me in the face. But the sight of a well-printed page, which was to be set off with all the advantages that fine wove paper and hot pressing could impart, put me in spirits, and I went to work with good will. About half the

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first book was left in its original state; the rest of the poem was recast, and recomposed while the printing went on. This occupied six months.”*

In this work of correction my father was now occupied, having laid aside “Madoc,” which had been commenced in the autumn of the previous year, for that purpose. Meantime, the scheme of Pantisocracy was entirely abandoned, and the arrival from Lisbon of Mr. Hill changed the current of his thoughts. “My uncle is in England,” he writes to Mr. Bedford: “I am in daily expectation of seeing him again. . . . . Grosvenor, when next I see you it will not be for a visit: I shall fix my residence near you to study the law!!! My uncle urges me to enter the church; but the gate is perjury, and I am little disposed to pay so heavy a fine at the turnpike of orthodoxy. . . . . On seeing my uncle I shall communicate to him my intentions concerning the law. If he disapproves of them, I have to live where I can, and how I can, for fifteen months. I shall then be enabled to enter and marry. If he approves, why then, Grosvenor, my first business will be to write to you, and request you to procure me lodgings somewhere at Stockwell, or Newington, or any where as far from London, and as near your road, as possible. I cannot take a house till my finances will suffer me to furnish it; and for this I depend upon my Madoc, to which, after Christmas, I shall apply with assiduity, always remembering John Doe and Richard Roe. And now will you permit me, in

* Preface to Joan of Arc, Collected Edition of the Poems, 1837.

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a volume of poems which go to the press to-morrow, to insert your ‘Witch of Endor,’ either with your name or initials, and to be corrector plenipotent? This is an office Coleridge and I mutually assume, and we both of us have sense enough, and taste enough, to be glad of mutual correction. His poems and mine will appear together; two volumes elegant as to type and hot-pressed paper, and for his, meo periculo, they will be of more various excellence* than any one volume this country has ever yet seen. I will rest all my pretensions to poetical taste on the truth of this assertion.”!

It does not appear that this idea of publishing conjointly with Mr. Coleridge was carried into effect, probably owing to a temporary estrangement, which now took place between himself and my father, in consequence of the latter being the first to abandon the Pantisocratic scheme. This had greatly disturbed and excited Mr. Coleridge, who was by no means sparing in his reproaches, and manifested, by the vehemence of his language, that he must have felt for the time no common disappointment.

My father’s next letter to Mr. Bedford gives an interesting sketch of the progress of his own mind.

* In one of Mr. Coleridge’s letters to my father (Sept. 18. 1794), after some verbal criticism on several of his sonnets combined with much praise, he thus prefaces the quotation of one of his own:—“I am almost ashamed to write the following, it is so inferior. Ashamed! no Southey; God knows my heart. I am delighted to feel you superior to me in genius as in virtue.” Here was an honourable rivalry of praise! † August 22. 1795.

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To Grosvenor C. Bedford, Esq.

“Bath, October 1. 1795.

“I have been living over three years and a half in your letters, Grosvenor, with what variety of reflections you may imagine, from the date of the ‘Flagellant,’ through many a various plan! You asked Collins, when you first saw him after his residence at Oxford, if I was altered, and his ‘No’ gave you pleasure. I have been asking myself the same question, and, alas! in truth, must return the same answer. No, I am not altered. I am as warm-hearted and as open as ever. Experience never wasted her lessons on a less fit pupil; yet, Bedford, my mind is considerably expanded, my opinions are better grounded, and frequent self-conviction of error has taught me a sufficient degree of scepticism on all subjects to prevent confidence. The frequent and careful study of Godwin was of essential service. I read, and all but worshipped. I have since seen his fundamental error,—that he theorises for another state, not for the rule of conduct in the present. . . . . I can confute his principles, but all the good he has done me remains: ’tis a book I should one day like to read with you for our mutual improvement; when we have been neighbours six months our opinions will accord—a bold prophecy, but it will be fulfilled.

“My poetical taste was much meliorated by Bowles, and the constant company of Coleridge. . . . . For religion, I can confute the Atheist, and

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baffle him with his own weapons; and can, at least, teach the Deist that the arguments in favour of Christianity are not to be despised; metaphysics I know enough to use them as defensive armour, and to deem them otherwise difficult trifles.

“You have made me neglect necessary business. I was busy with this huge work of mine, when your letters tempted me, and gave me an appetite for the pen; somehow they have made me low-spirited, and I find a repletion of the lachrymal glands. Apropos: do kill some dozen men for me anatomically, any where except in the head or heart. Hang all wars! I am as much puzzled to carry on mine at Orleans as our admirable minister is to devise a plan for the next campaign Pardonnez moi! my republican royalist! my philanthropic aristocrat.

“I am obliged to Nares for a very handsome review. It is my intention to write a tragedy; the subject from the Observer,—the Portuguese accused before the Inquisition of incest and murder. Read the story.

“Madoc is to be the pillar of my reputation; how many a melancholy hour have I beguiled by writing poetry! . . . .

“Friday, October 9.

“I found your letter an my arrival to-day. My uncle writes not to me, and I begin to think he is so displeased at my rejecting a good settlement, for the foolish prejudice I have against perjuring myself, that he gives me up. Aussi bien! so be it, any thing but

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this terrible suspense. Zounds, Grosvenor, suspense shall be the subject of my tragedy. Indeed, indeed, I have often the heartache. Cannot you come to Bath for a week? I have so much to say to you, and I will never quit Edith: every day endears her to me. I am as melancholy here at Bath as you can imagine, and yet I am very little here; not two days in the week: the rest I pass with Cottle that I may be near her. Cottle offered me his house in a letter which you shall see when we meet, and for which he will ever hold a high place in your heart. I bear a good face, and keep all uneasiness to myself: indeed, the port is in view, and I must not mind a little sickness on the voyage. . . . . Bedford, I have beheld that very identical tiger. There’s a grand hexameter for you!

“Bedford, I have beheld that very identical tiger who stopt the mail coach on the king’s highway, not having the fear of God and the king before his eyes,—no, nor of the guard and his blunderbuss. What a pity, Grosvenor, that that blunderbuss should be levelled at you! how it would have struck a Democrat! Never mind, ’tis only a flash, and you, like a fellow whose uttermost upper grinder is being torn out by the roots by a mutton-fisted barber, will grin and endure it.

“Gaiety suits ill with me; the above extempore witticisms are as old as six o’clock Monday morning last, and noted down in my pocket-book for you.

“God bless you! Good night.

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“Oct. 10.

“I visited Hannah More, at Cowslip Green, on Monday last, and seldom have I lived a pleasanter day. She knew my opinions, and treated them with a flattering deference; her manners are mild, her information considerable, and her taste correct. There are five sisters, and each of them would be remarked in a mixed company. Of Lord Orford they spoke very handsomely, and gave me a better opinion of Wilberforce than I was accustomed to entertain. They pay for and direct the education of 1000 poor children; and for aristocracy, Hannah More is much such an aristocrat as a certain friend of mine. . . . .

God love you, my dear friend!

Robert Southey.”

The long expected, and perhaps somewhat dreaded meeting with Mr. Hill soon took place; but there was no diminution of kindness on his part, notwithstanding the great disappointment he felt at his nephew’s determination not to enter the church, in which it would have been in his power immediately and effectually to have assisted him. He now seems to have given up all hope of prevailing upon him to change his resolution; and it was soon arranged that my father should accompany him to Lisbon for a few months, and then return to England, in order to qualify himself for entering the legal profession. Mr. Hill’s object in this was partly to take him out of the arena of political discussion into which he had thrown

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himself by his lectures, and bring him round to more moderate views, and also to wean him if possible from what he considered an “imprudent attachment.” In the former object he partly succeeded; in attempting to gain the latter, he had not understood my father’s character. He was too deeply and sincerely attached to the object of his choice to be lightly turned from it; and the similarity of her worldly circumstances to his own would have made him consider it doubly dishonourable even to postpone the fulfilment of his engagement.

When the day was fixed for the travellers to depart, my father fixed that also for his wedding-day; and on the 14th of November, 1795, was united at Radcliff church, Bristol, to Edith Fricker. Immediately after the ceremony they parted. My mother wore her wedding-ring hung round her neck, and preserved her maiden name until the report of the marriage had spread abroad. The following letters will explain these circumstances, and fill up the interval until his return:—

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To Joseph Cottle, Esq.

“29 Nov. 1795.

“Bedford, our summons arrived this morning, the vessel goes Tuesday, and when you receive this I shall be casting up my accounts with the fishes.

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“Grosvenor, you have my will, if the ship founders, or any other chance sends me to supper. All my papers are yours: part are with my mother, and part with Edith. Relic worship is founded upon human feelings, and you will value them. There is little danger of accidents, but there can be no harm in these few lines. All my letters are at your disposal; and if I be drowned, do not you be surprised if I pay you a visit; for if permitted, and if it can be done without terrifying or any ways injuring you, I certainly will do it.

“But I shall visit you in propriâ personâ in the summer.

“Would you had been with me on the 14th! ’twas a melancholy day, yet mingled with such feelings.

“You will get a letter from Madrid—write you to Lisbon. I expect to find letters there, and this expectation will form the pleasantest thought I shall experience in my journey.

“I should like to find your Musæus at Bristol on my return; if you will direct it to Miss Fricker (heighho! Grosvenor), at Mr. Cottle’s, High Street, Bristol, he will convey it to her; and, I believe, next to receiving anything from me, something for me and from my friend, will be the most agreeable occurrence during my absence. I give you this direction as it will be sure to reach her. Edith will be as a parlour boarder with the Miss Cottles (his sisters), two women of elegant and accomplished manners. The eldest lived as governess in Lord Derby’s family a little while; and you will have some opinion of them

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when I say that they make even bigotry amiable. They are very religious, and the eldest (who is but twenty-three) wished me to read good books—the advice comes from the heart: she thinks very highly of me, but fancies me irreligious, because I attend no place of worship, and indulge speculations beyond reason.

“God bless and prosper you, and grant I may find you as happy on my arrival as I hope and expect to be.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Southey.”

“Falmouth, Monday evening,

“Well, Grosvenor, here I am, waiting for a wind. Your letter arrived a few hours before me. . . . . Edith you will see and know and love; but her virtues are of the domestic order, and you will love her in proportion as you know her. I hate your daffydowndilly women, aye, and men too;— the violet is ungaudy in the appearance, though a sweeter flower perfumes not the evening gale. ’Tis equally her wish to see you. Oh! Grosvenor, when I think of our winter evenings that will arrive, and then look at myself arrayed for a voyage in an inn parlour! I scarcely know whether the tear that starts into my eye proceeds from anticipated pleasure or present melancholy. I am never comfortable at an inn; boughten hospitalities are two ill connected ideas.

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Grosvenor, I half shudder to think that a plank only will divide the husband of Edith from the unfathomed ocean! and did I believe its efficacy, could burn a hecatomb to Neptune with as much devotion as ever burned or smoked in Phæacia.

Farewell!

Robert Southey.”