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
2. It has only within a comparatively recent period been ascertained
that the visit of the Wordsworths to Germany was itself another result
of Thomas Wedgwood's generous appreciation of literary merit. It
appears, on the incontrovertible testimony of the Wedgwoods' accounts
with their agents at Hamburg, that the expenses of all three travellers
were defrayed by their friend at home. The credits opened for them
amounted, during the course of their stay abroad, to some £260.--Miss
Meteyard's _A Group of Englishmen_, p. 99.
3. After quoting the two concluding lines of the poem, "Fire's" rebuke
of her inconstant sisters, in the words
"I alone am faithful, I
Cling to him everlastingly,"
De Quincey proceeds: "The sentiment is diabolical; and the question
argued at the London dinner-table (Mr. Sotheby's) was 'Could the writer
have been other than a devil?'... Several of the great guns among the
literary body were present--in particular Sir Walter Scott, and he, we
believe, with his usual good nature, took the apologetic side of the
dispute; in fact, he was in the secret. Nobody else, barring the
author, knew at first whose good name was at stake. The scene must have
been high. The company kicked about the poor diabolic writer's head as
though it had been a tennis-ball. Coleridge, the yet unknown criminal,
absolutely perspired and fumed in pleading for the defendant; the
company demurred; the orator grew urgent; wits began to smoke the case
as an active verb, the advocate to smoke as a neuter verb; the 'fun
grew fast and furious,' until at length the delinquent arose, burning
tears in his eyes, and confessed to an audience now bursting with
stifled laughter (but whom he supposed to be bursting with fiery
indignation), 'Lo, I am he that wrote it.'"
4. _Sic_ in _Essays on his own Times_ by S. T. C., the collection of
her father's articles made by Mrs. Nelson (Sara) Coleridge; but without
attributing strange error to Coleridge's own estimate (in the
_Biographia Literaria_) of the amount of his journalistic work, it is
impossible to believe that this collection, forming as it does but two
small volumes, and a portion of a third, is anything like complete.
5. Alas, that the facts should be so merciless to the most excellent
arguments! Coleridge could not foresee that Napoleon would, years
afterwards, admit in his own Memoirs the insincerity of his overtures.
"I had need of war; a treaty of peace...would have withered every
imagination." And when Mr. Pitt's answer arrived, "it filled me with a
secret satisfaction."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account