Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit and Some Miscellaneous PiecesColeridge, Samuel Taylor
Religion
Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit and Some Miscellaneous Pieces
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
Bible -- Inspiration
Nothing came of the Pantisocracy, for want of money to pay fares to the
New World. Coleridge supported himself by giving lectures, and in 1797
published Poems. They included his “Religious Musings,” which contain
expression of his fervent revolutionary hopes. Then he planned a weekly
paper, the _Watchman_, that was to carry the lantern of philosophic
truth, and call the hour for those who cared about the duties of the day.
When only three or four hundred subscribers had been got together in
Bristol, Coleridge resolved to travel from town to town in search of
subscriptions. Wherever he went his eloquence prevailed; and he came
back with a very large subscription list. But the power of close daily
work, by which alone Coleridge could carry out such a design, was not in
him, and the _Watchman_ only reached to its tenth number.
Then Coleridge settled at Nether Stowey, by the Bristol Channel, partly
for convenience of neighbourhood to Thomas Poole, from whom he could
borrow at need. He had there also a yearly allowance from the Wedgwoods
of Etruria, who had a strong faith in his future. From Nether Stowey,
Coleridge walked over to make friends with Wordsworth at Racedown, and
the friendship there established caused Wordsworth and his sister to
remove to the neighbourhood of Nether Stowey. Out of the relations with
Wordsworth thus established came Coleridge’s best achievements as a poet,
the “Ancient Mariner” and “Christabel.” The “Ancient Mariner” was
finished, and was the chief part of Coleridge’s contribution to the
“Lyrical Ballads,” which the two friends published in 1798.
“Christabel,” being unfinished, was left unpublished until 1816.
With help from the Wedgwoods, Coleridge went abroad with Wordsworth and
his sister, left them at Hamburg, and during fourteen months increased
his familiarity with German. He came back in the late summer of 1799,
full of enthusiasm for Schiller’s last great work, his _Wallenstein_,
which Coleridge had seen acted. The _Camp_ had been first acted at
Weimar on the 18th of October, 1798; the _Piccolomini_ on the 30th of
January, 1799; and _Wallenstein’s Death_ on the 10th of the next
following April. Coleridge, under the influence of fresh enthusiasm,
rapidly completed for Messrs. Longman his translation of _Wallenstein’s
Death_ into an English poem of the highest mark.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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