Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert SoutheyCottle, Joseph
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Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey
Cottle, Joseph
Authors, English -- 19th century -- Biography; Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834; Southey, Robert, 1774-1843
What else relates to myself, I will write on Monday. Would to heaven you
were going with me to Malta, if it were but for the voyage! With all
other things I could make the passage with an unwavering mind. But
without cheerings of hope, let me mention one thing; Lord Cadogan was
brought to absolute despair, and hatred of life, by a stomach complaint,
being now an old man. The symptoms, as stated to me, were strikingly like
yours, excepting the nervous difference of the two characters; the
flittering fever, &c. He was advised to reduce lean beef to a pure jelly,
by Papin's digester, with as little water as could secure it from
burning, and of this to take half a wine glass 10 or 14 times a day. This
and nothing else. He did so. Sir George Beaumont saw, within a few weeks
a letter from himself to Lord St. Asaph, in which he relates the
circumstance of his perseverance in it, and rapid amelioration, and final
recovery. 'I am now,' he says, 'in real good health; as good, and in as
cheerful spirits as I ever was when a young man.'
May God bless you, even here,
S. T. Coleridge."
Mr. Coleridge, in the preceding letters, refers to the different states
of his health. In the letter dated January, 1800, he observed, "I have my
health perfectly;" and in the same letter he clearly indicates that he
was no stranger to opium, by remarking, "I have a stomach sensation
attached to all my thoughts, like those which succeed to the pleasurable
operations of a dose of opium." I can testify, that during the four or
five years in which Mr. C. resided in or near Bristol, no young man could
enjoy more robust health. Dr. Carlyon[111] also, verbally stated that Mr.
C; both at Cambridge, and at Gottingen, "possessed sound health." From
these premises the conclusion is fair, that Mr. Coleridge's unhappy use
of narcotics, which commenced thus early, was the true cause of all his
maladies, his languor, his acute and chronic pains, his indigestion, his
swellings, the disturbances of his general corporeal system, his
sleepless nights, and his terrific dreams!
* * * * *
Extracts, concerning Mr. Coleridge, from letters of the late Thomas
Poole, Esq., to the late Thomas Wedgewood, Esq.
"Stowey, Nov. 14, 1801.
... I expect Coleridge here in a week or ten days. He has promised to
spend two or three months with me. I trust this air will re-establish his
health, and that I shall restore him to his family and his friends a
perfect man."
"Stowey, Nov. 24, 1801.
I now expect daily to see Coleridge. He is detained I fear, by a thorn,
which he unfortunately took in his heel a day or two before he wrote to
me his last letter. He comes alone. As soon as he is here he shall write
to you."
"Stowey, Nov. 27, 1799.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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