AN IMPORTANT COLERIDGE LETTER To students of Coleridge's politics, a letter addressed to Benjamin Flower, editor of the Cambridge Intelligencer, and bearing the date 1796, cannot but be of deep interest. The letter has been printed only once in the Monthly Repository of 1834 although it is noted by Haney in his Bibliography of Coleridge. For some inexplicable reason it has never been included in editions of Coleridge correspondence. The reprinting of the letter now seems justified by the relative inaccessibility of the Monthly Repository, and opportunity may be taken to point out reasons why it may be considered of more than ordinary importance. My Much-Esteemed Friend, I truly sympathize with you in your severe loss, and pray to God that He may give you a sanctified use of your affliction. The death of a young person of high hopes and opening faculties, impresses me less gloomily than the departure of the old. To my mere natural reason, the former appears like a transition; there seems an incompleteness in the life of such a person, contrary to the general order of nature; and it makes the heart say, 'this is not all.' But when an old man sinks into the grave, we have seen the bud, blossom, and the fruit, and the unassisted mind droops in melancholy, as if the whole had come and gone. But God hath been merciful to us, and strengthened our eyes through faith, and Hope may cast her anchor in a certain bottom, and the young and old may rejoice before God and the Lamb, weeping as though they wept not, and crying in the spirit of faith, 'Art thou not from everlasting, O Lord God, my Holy One? We shall not die!' I have known affliction. Yea, my friend, I have been sorely afflicted; I have rolled my dreary eye from earth to heaven; I found no comfort, till it pleased the unimaginable high and lofty One, to make my heart more tender in regard of religious feelings. My philosophical refinements, and metaphysical theories, lay by me in the hour of anguish as toys by the bedside of a child deadly sick. May God continue his visitations to my soul, bowing it down, till the pride and Laodicean self-confidence of human reason be utterly done away, and I cry with deeper and yet deeper feelings, O my soul thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor and blind and naked! -whose soul is almost wrapped up in-hath his heart purified by the horrors of desolation, and prostrates his spirit at the throne of God in believing silence. The terrors of the Almighty are the whirlwind, the earthquake, and the fire that precede the still, small voice of his love. The pestilence of our lusts must be scattered; the strong-laid foundations of our pride blown up, and the 1 Bibliography of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Phil. 1903, p. 51. Monthly Repository, 1834, p. 653. stubble and chaff of our little vanities burnt, ere we can give ear to the in-speaking voice of mercy. 'Why will ye die?' My answer to Godwin will be a six-shilling octavo; and is designed to show, not only the absurdities and wickedness of his system, but to depict what appear to me the defects of all the systems of morality before and since Christ; and to show, that wherein they have been right, they have exactly coincided with the gospel, and that each has erred exactly in proportion as he has deviated from that perfect canon. My last chapter will attack the creduilty, superstition, calumnies, and hypocrisy of the present race of infidels. Many things have fallen out to retard the work; but I hope that it will appear shortly after Christmas, at the farthest. I have endeavored to make it a cheap book; and it will contain such matter as is usually sold for eight shillings. I perceive that in the New Monthly Magazine the infidels have it all hollow. How our ancestors would have lifted up their hands at that modest proposal for making experiments in favour of idolatry! Before the 24th of this month I will send you my poetic endeavors. It shall be as good as I can make it. The following lines are at your service, if you approve of them-(The lines are those addressed "To a Young Man of Fortune," Works, Globe Edition, London, 1909, p. 68.) . . . I seldom see any paper. Indeed I am out of heart with the French. In one of the numbers of my 'Watchman,' I wrote a remonstrance to the French legislators; it contained my politics; and the splendid victories of the French since that time have produced no alteration in them. I am tired of reading butcheries; and, although I should be unworthy of the name of man, if I did not feel my head and heart awfully interested in the final event, yet, I confess, my curiosity is worn out with regard to the particulars of the process. The paper which contained an account of the departure of your friend, had in it a sonnet, written during a thunderstorm. In thought and diction it was sublime and fearfully impressive. I do not remember to have ever read so fine a sonnet. Surely, I thought, this burst from no common feelings, agitated by no common sorrow! Was it yours? A young man of fortune (his name- -) wrote and published a book of horrible blasphemies, asserting that our blessed Lord deserved his fate more than any malefactor ever did Tyburn (I pray heaven I may not incur guilt by transcribing it.) And after a fulsome panegyric, adds, that the name of will soon supersede that of Christ. wrote a letter to this man, thanking him for his admirable work, and soliciting the honour of his personal friendship!!! With affectionate esteem, yours sincerely, S. T. COLERIDGE. It is clearly seen that the letter falls naturally into two parts, one of a very personal nature which demonstrates Coleridge's intimacy with Benjamin Flower, the other showing us new and valuable side lights on the writer's politics at this Benjamin Flower (1755-1829) came into some prominence in 1792 by the publication of a work on the French Constitution.2 This probably attracted Coleridge to him. At any rate, it had something to do with Flower's being selected about this time to edit the Cambridge Intelligencer, a liberal newspaper which his brother Richard helped to establish. The Intelligencer was the only "provincial" newspaper in the kingdom that denounced the war with France as "absurd and wicked." Coleridge, who expressed much the same opinion of the War, in the Watchman (see especially No. 1), when that unique periodical became defunct with the issue of May 13, 1796, urged his readers to peruse the Intelligencer. It stood for the "rational liberty" Coleridge had advocated. Later in 1797, Flower was imprisoned by order of the House of Lords for an attack on the Bishop of Llandaff, but was liberated at the end of the session. And he has always been regarded as one of the authors who wrote weekly articles for the Dispatch over the pseudonym "Publicola." The intimacy of Coleridge with such a man, at this stage of his career, is revealing. It is well known that the "Ode on the Departing Year" was first printed in The Intelligencer (December 31, 1796) in an abbreviated form, and that the poem was written to Flower's order.1 The second part of Coleridge's letter is the more important, however. His references to the never-published answer to Godwin; his characterization of the New Monthly Magazine as a stronghold of infidelity; his unqualifiedly orthodox religious attitude; his superlative praise of his friend's third-rate sonnet 2 The French Constitution, with remarks on some of its principal articles, etc., London, 1792. › See Andrews, British Journalism, London, 1859, II, 286. Works, Globe Edition, p. 586, note 103. Also Intro. xxxii. Haney lists six other pieces published in the Intelligencer (Bibliography of S. T. C., p. 44). Authority for the last statement is found in the Estlin Letters (Philobiblon Society Pub.) Lon. 1884, p. 26. 5 Compare letter to Thelwall, Dec. 32 (Letters, ed. of E. H. Coleridge, London, 1895, I, 210). See also Cottle's Reminiscences, 347, note. To the Wind: Written in a Stormy Night. Roar, boistrous element! and howling send Thy imps of havoc through the low'ring skies, Upon thy breath as desolation flies, Led to her mischief by the lightning's glare; The general wreck accords with my dispair: these are valuable side lights on the writer's life and feelings at this time. But most interesting of all is his reference to his "Remonstrance to the French Legislators" in the Watchman, as a statement of his politics. Since the address has never been reprinted, and since the Watchman itself is practically inaccessible to the average student of Coleridge, the "Remonstrance" is here quoted in full. Guardians of the LIBERTY of EUROPE! the Individual, who has devoted his Joys and Sorrows to the Interests of the whole, partakes of the importance of the object which he has accustomed himself to contemplate. He addresses you therefore with that dignity with which his subject invests him: for he speaks in the name of HUMAN KIND. When America emancipated herself from the oppressive capriciousness of her old and doting Foster-Mother, we beheld an instructive speculation on the probable Loss and Gain of unprotected and untributary Independence; and considered the Congress as a respectable body of Tradesmen deeply versed in the ledgers of Commerce, who well understood their own worldly concerns, and adventurously improved them. France presented a more interesting spectacle. Her great men with a profound philosophy investigated the interests common to all intellectual beings, and legislated for the WORLD. The lovers of Mankind were every where fired and exalted by their example: each heart proudly expatriated itself, and we heard with transport of the victories of Frenchmen, as the victories of Human Nature. But the effects of despotism could not be instantly removed with the cause: and the Vices and Ignorance, and the Terrors of the multitude conspired to subject them to the tyranny of a bloody and fanatic faction. The fortune of France prevailed; and a Government has been established, which without counteracting the progressiveness, gratifies the more importunate frailties of our present nature. To give stability to such a Constitution, it is needful only that its effects should be experienced. Peace therefore is necessary. At this season, when all the creative powers of nature are in action, and all things animated and inanimate inspire the human heart with joy and kindliness, at this season, your executive Department have transmitted a paper, which, they knew would be the signal for recommencing the horrors of War. Legislators of France! if you had been nursed amid the insolent splendour of heredi In whirling eddy, as the leaves descend, And from its twig the ring-dove's nest is torn; By cloud of meancholy overcast, Loves the dark pauses when the thunders roll; For then, each peal seems awfully to toll The knell of all my happy moments past! This sonnet is reprinted with the letter in the Monthly Respository, 1834. tary prosperity, ignorant of the misery and unsympathizing with the miserable, I should not dare repeat to you the common-place pleadings of humanity.—But you are from among your countrymen. But you were nursed upon the self-same hills, Fed the same flocks by fountains, shades, or rills: You ought to tremble and weep beneath the stern necessity, that should command you to issue the mandate for the death of even one man-alas! what if for the death of perhaps half-a-MILLION? Permit me then to examine whether or no this necessity existed.-The Directory assign as their motives for rejecting his Britannic Majesty's overtures, first, their doubts respecting the sincerity of the English Court, and secondly, "the constitutional act, which does not permit it to consent to any alienation of that which according to the existing laws, constitutes the Territory of the Republic."-The Directory doubt the sincerity of the English Court because Mr. Wickham who transmitted the overture, was not himself authorized to negotiate.—If a disposition favorable to Peace had been discovered in the French Government a man of greater name and dignity than the Minister to the Swiss Cantons, would have been appointed to treat with the August Legislature of France; but it ought not to have been expected that the English Court would send a special messenger of high rank on an uncertain errand. To enquire concerning the intentions of the French Government, Mr. Wickham was well qualified by his being on the spot with the French Ambassador. They doubt it likewise because a congress was proposed, "of which the necessary result would be to render all negotiations endless." The English Court on the other hand wished "for the establishment of a congress, which has been so often and so happily the means of restoring Peace to Europe." A mere assertion opposed to a mere assertion, and therefore both without force. But the Directory did communicate the general grounds of a pacification: they inform the contending Powers, that France is determined to retain her most important conquests: That an act of the Constitution forbids their restoration.-How are other Nations dependent on your internal regulations? What if in a paroxysm of victory ye had passed an act for the junction of England to France? But the inhabitants of the Netherlands themselves wish this union: and it would be unworthy a generous Republic to yield them up to their former Despotism. We should not use these arguments, of which our adversaries may equally avail themselves. To the same motives expressed in the same words the horrors of La Vendee are to be attributed. No nation has the right of interfering with the affairs of another Country, is a general law: and general laws must not be dispensed with in compliment to the supposed justice of a particular case. The detention of the Netherlands cannot therefore be defended on the ground of Justice: its Policy alone remains to be considered! O France! have thy Legislators already degenerated into such abject court-craft, as to know any distinction between Justice and Policy?-But wherein does this Policy consist? Your Commissioners have informed you that these Provinces, reserving an ample supply for themselves, produce Corn enough to supply a third France. Surely the toil and treasures, which must be wasted in another campaign might enable France not to need this supply. Or even if this were impracticable |