Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert SoutheyCottle, Joseph
General
Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey
Cottle, Joseph
Authors, English -- 19th century -- Biography; Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834; Southey, Robert, 1774-1843
It is proper additionally to remark, that some apology or propitiation
may be necessary toward those who regard every approximation to poverty,
not as a misfortune, but a crime. Pecuniary difficulties, especially such
as occur in early life, and not ascribable to bad conduct, reflect no
discredit on men of genius. Many of them, subsequently, surmounted their
first embarrassments by meritorious exertion; and some of our first men
(like travellers, after having successfully passed through regions of
privation and peril) delight even to recall their former discouragements,
and, without the shame that luxuriates alone in little minds,
undisguisedly to tell of seasons, indelible in their memories, when, in
the prostration of hope, the wide world appeared one desolate waste! but
they ultimately found, that these seasons of darkness, (however
tenaciously retained by memory) in better times often administer a new
and refreshing zest to present enjoyment. Despair, therefore ill becomes
one who has follies to bewail, and a God to trust in. Johnson and
Goldsmith, with numerous others, at some seasons were plunged deep in the
waters of adversity, but halcyon days awaited them: and even those sons
of merit and misfortune whose pecuniary troubles were more permanent, in
the dimness of retrospection, only stand out invested in softer hues.
Cervantes is not the less read, because the acclamations of praise were
heard by him in his abode of penury. Butler, Otway, Collins, Chatterton,
and Burns, and men like them, instead of suffering in public estimation
from the difficulties they encountered, absolutely challenge in every
generous mind an excess of interest from the very circumstances that
darkened the complexion of their earthly prospects.
In corroboration of this remark, in our own day, the son of Crabbe, who
must have cherished the deepest solicitude for his father's reputation,
has laid bare to general inspection his parent's early perplexities, by
which impartial disclosures we behold the individual in his deepest
depressions; worth enriched by trial, and greatness, by a refining
process, struggling successfully with adversity. Does the example of such
a man nobly bearing up against the pressures that surrounded him inflict
obduracy on our hearts? On the contrary, while we feelingly sympathize
with the poet, and deplore the tardy hand of deliverance, we pause only
to transfer a reflex portion of praise to him whose magnanimous conduct
has furnished so ample a scope for the tenderest emotions of our nature.
This reflection will induce me not to withhold from false delicacy,
occurrences, the disclosure of which none but the inconsiderate will
condemn; and by which all the features of Mr. Coleridge's character will
be exhibited to the inspection of the inquisitive and philosophical mind.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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