English Men of Letters: ColeridgeTraill, H. D. (Henry Duff)
General
English Men of Letters: Coleridge
Traill, H. D. (Henry Duff)
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834; Critics -- Great Britain -- Biography; Poets, English -- 19th century -- Biography
Constitution of the Church and State, published in 1830, as an "aid
towards a right judgment in the late Catholic Kelief Bill," appears to
me to yield a more characteristic flavour of the author's style, and to
exhibit far more of his distinction of literary workmanship than the
earlier and more celebrated work.
Among the acquaintances made by Coleridge after his retirement to Mr.
Gillman's was one destined to be of some importance to the history of
his philosophical work. It was that of a gentleman whose name has
already been mentioned in this chapter, Mr. Joseph Henry Green,
afterwards a distinguished surgeon and Fellow of the Royal Society, who
in his early years had developed a strong taste for metaphysical
speculation, going even so far as to devote one of his hard-earned
periods of professional holiday to a visit to Germany for the sake of
studying philosophy in that home of abstract thought. To him Coleridge
was introduced by his old Roman acquaintance, Ludwig Tieck, on one of
the latter's visits to England, and he became, as the extract above
quoted from Coleridge's correspondence shows, his enthusiastic disciple
and indefatigable fellow-worker. In the pursuit of their common studies
and in those weekly reunions of admiring friends which Coleridge, while
his health permitted it, was in the habit of holding, we may believe
that a considerable portion of these closing years of his life was
passed under happier conditions than he had been long accustomed to. It
is pleasant to read of him among his birds and flowers, and surrounded
by the ever-watchful tendance of the affectionate Gillmans, tranquil in
mind at any rate, if not at ease from his bodily ailments, and
enjoying, as far as enjoyment was possible to him, the peaceful close
of a stormy and unsettled day. For the years 1825-30, moreover, his
pecuniary circumstances were improved to the extent of £105 per annum,
obtained for him at the instance of the Royal Society of Literature,
and held by him till the death of George IV.
Two incidents of his later years are, however, worthy of more special
mention--a tour up the Rhine, which he took in 1828, in company with
Wordsworth and his daughter; and, some years earlier, a meeting with
John Keats. "A loose, slack, not well dressed youth," it is recorded in
the _Table Talk,_ published after his death by his nephew, "met Mr.
----" (it was Mr. Green, of whom more hereafter) "and myself in a lane
near Highgate. Green knew him and spoke. It was Keats. He was
introduced to me, and stayed a minute or so. After he had left us a
little way, he came back and said, 'Let me carry away the memory,
Coleridge, of having pressed your hand.' 'There is death in that hand,'
I said to Green when Keats was gone; yet this was, I believe, before
the consumption showed itself distinctly."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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