Biographia Literaria

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I now devoted myself to poetry and to the study of ethics and
psychology; and so profound was my admiration at this time of
Hartley's ESSAY ON MAN, that I gave his name to my first-born. In
addition to the gentleman, my neighbour, whose garden joined on to my
little orchard, and the cultivation of whose friendship had been my
sole motive in choosing Stowey for my residence, I was so fortunate as
to acquire, shortly after my settlement there, an invaluable blessing
in the society and neighbourhood of one, to whom I could look up with
equal reverence, whether I regarded him as a poet, a philosopher, or a
man. His conversation extended to almost all subjects, except physics
and politics; with the latter he never troubled himself. Yet neither
my retirement nor my utter abstraction from all the disputes of the
day could secure me in those jealous times from suspicion and obloquy,
which did not stop at me, but extended to my excellent friend, whose
perfect innocence was even adduced as a proof of his guilt. One of the
many busy sycophants of that day,--(I here use the word sycophant in
its original sense, as a wretch who flatters the prevailing party by
informing against his neighbours, under pretence that they are
exporters of prohibited figs or fancies,--for the moral application of
the term it matters not which)--one of these sycophantic law-mongrels,
discoursing on the politics of the neighbourhood, uttered the
following deep remark: "As to Coleridge, there is not so much harm in
him, for he is a whirl-brain that talks whatever comes uppermost; but
that ------! he is the dark traitor. You never hear HIM say a syllable
on the subject."

Now that the hand of Providence has disciplined all Europe into
sobriety, as men tame wild elephants, by alternate blows and caresses;
now that Englishmen of all classes are restored to their old English
notions and feelings; it will with difficulty be credited, how great
an influence was at that time possessed and exerted by the spirit of
secret defamation,--(the too constant attendant on party-zeal)--during
the restless interim from 1793 to the commencement of the Addington
administration, or the year before the truce of Amiens. For by the
latter period the minds of the partizans, exhausted by excess of
stimulation and humbled by mutual disappointment, had become languid.
The same causes, that inclined the nation to peace, disposed the
individuals to reconciliation. Both parties had found themselves in
the wrong. The one had confessedly mistaken the moral character of the
revolution, and the other had miscalculated both its moral and its
physical resources. The experiment was made at the price of great,
almost, we may say, of humiliating sacrifices; and wise men foresaw
that it would fail, at least in its direct and ostensible object. Yet
it was purchased cheaply, and realized an object of equal value, and,
if possible, of still more vital importance. For it brought about a
national unanimity unexampled in our history since the reign of
Elizabeth; and Providence, never wanting to a good work when men have
done their parts, soon provided a common focus in the cause of Spain,
which made us all once more Englishmen by at once gratifying and
correcting the predilections of both parties. The sincere reverers of
the throne felt the cause of loyalty ennobled by its alliance with
that of freedom; while the honest zealots of the people could not but
admit, that freedom itself assumed a more winning form, humanized by
loyalty and consecrated by religious principle. The youthful
enthusiasts who, flattered by the morning rainbow of the French
revolution, had made a boast of expatriating their hopes and fears,
now, disciplined by the succeeding storms and sobered by increase of
years, had been taught to prize and honour the spirit of nationality
as the best safeguard of national independence, and this again as the
absolute pre-requisite and necessary basis of popular rights.

If in Spain too disappointment has nipped our too forward
expectations, yet all is not destroyed that is checked. The crop was
perhaps springing up too rank in the stalk to kern well; and there
were, doubtless, symptoms of the Gallican blight on it. If
superstition and despotism have been suffered to let in their wolvish
sheep to trample and eat it down even to the surface, yet the roots
remain alive, and the second growth may prove the stronger and
healthier for the temporary interruption. At all events, to us heaven
has been just and gracious. The people of England did their best, and
have received their rewards. Long may we continue to deserve it!
Causes, which it had been too generally the habit of former statesmen
to regard as belonging to another world, are now admitted by all ranks
to have been the main agents of our success. "We fought from heaven;
the stars in their courses fought against Sisera." If then unanimity
grounded on moral feelings has been among the least equivocal sources
of our national glory, that man deserves the esteem of his countrymen,
even as patriots, who devotes his life and the utmost efforts of his
intellect to the preservation and continuance of that unanimity by the
disclosure and establishment of principles. For by these all opinions
must be ultimately tried; and, (as the feelings of men are worthy of
regard only as far as they are the representatives of their fixed
opinions,) on the knowledge of these all unanimity, not accidental and
fleeting, must be grounded. Let the scholar, who doubts this
assertion, refer only to the speeches and writings of Edmund Burke at
the commencement of the American war and compare them with his
speeches and writings at the commencement of the French revolution. He
will find the principles exactly the same and the deductions the same;
but the practical inferences almost opposite in the one case from
those drawn in the other; yet in both equally legitimate and in both
equally confirmed by the results. Whence gained he the superiority of
foresight? Whence arose the striking difference, and in most instances
even, the discrepancy between the grounds assigned by him and by those
who voted with him, on the same questions? How are we to explain the
notorious fact, that the speeches and writings of Edmund Burke are
more interesting at the present day than they were found at the time
of their first publication; while those of his illustrious
confederates are either forgotten, or exist only to furnish proofs,
that the same conclusion, which one man had deduced scientifically,
may be brought out by another in consequence of errors that luckily
chanced to neutralize each other. It would be unhandsome as a
conjecture, even were it not, as it actually is, false in point of
fact to attribute this difference to the deficiency of talent on the
part of Burke's friends, or of experience, or of historical knowledge.
The satisfactory solution is, that Edmund Burke possessed and had
sedulously sharpened that eye, which sees all things, actions, and
events, in relation to the laws that determine their existence and
circumscribe their possibility. He referred habitually to principles.
He was a scientific statesman; and therefore a seer. For every
principle contains in itself the germs of a prophecy; and, as the
prophetic power is the essential privilege of science, so the
fulfilment of its oracles supplies the outward and, (to men in
general,) the only test of its claim to the title. Wearisome as
Burke's refinements appeared to his parliamentary auditors, yet the
cultivated classes throughout Europe have reason to be thankful, that
he

------went on refining,
And thought of convincing, while they thought of dining.

Our very sign-boards, (said an illustrious friend to me,) give
evidence, that there has been a Titian in the world. In like manner,
not only the debates in parliament, not only our proclamations and
state papers, but the essays and leading paragraphs of our journals
are so many remembrancers of Edmund Burke. Of this the reader may
easily convince himself, if either by recollection or reference he
will compare the opposition newspapers at the commencement and during
the five or six following years of the French revolution with the
sentiments, and grounds of argument assumed in the same class of
journals at present, and for some years past.

Whether the spirit of jacobinism, which the writings of Burke
exorcised from the higher and from the literary classes, may not, like
the ghost in Hamlet, be heard moving and mining in the underground
chambers with an activity the more dangerous because less noisy, may
admit of a question. I have given my opinions on this point, and the
grounds of them, in my letters to judge Fletcher occasioned by his
charge to the Wexford grand jury, and published in the Courier. Be
this as it may, the evil spirit of jealousy, and with it the Cerberean
whelps of feud and slander, no longer walk their rounds, in cultivated
society.

Far different were the days to which these anecdotes have carried me
back. The dark guesses of some zealous Quidnunc met with so congenial
a soil in the grave alarm of a titled Dogberry of our neighbourhood,
that a spy was actually sent down from the government pour
surveillance of myself and friend. There must have been not only
abundance, but variety of these "honourable men" at the disposal of
Ministers: for this proved a very honest fellow. After three weeks'
truly Indian perseverance in tracking us, (for we were commonly
together,) during all which time seldom were we out of doors, but he
contrived to be within hearing,--(and all the while utterly
unsuspected; how indeed could such a suspicion enter our fancies?)--he
not only rejected Sir Dogberry's request that he would try yet a
little longer, but declared to him his belief, that both my friend and
myself were as good subjects, for aught he could discover to the
contrary, as any in His Majesty's dominions. He had repeatedly hid
himself, he said, for hours together behind a bank at the sea-side,
(our favourite seat,) and overheard our conversation. At first he
fancied, that we were aware of our danger; for he often heard me talk
of one Spy Nozy, which he was inclined to interpret of himself, and of
a remarkable feature belonging to him; but he was speedily convinced
that it was the name of a man who had made a book and lived long ago.
Our talk ran most upon books, and we were perpetually desiring each
other to look at this, and to listen to that; but he could not catch a
word about politics. Once he had joined me on the road; (this
occurred, as I was returning home alone from my friend's house, which
was about three miles from my own cottage,) and, passing himself off
as a traveller, he had entered into conversation with me, and talked
of purpose in a democrat way in order to draw me out. The result, it
appears, not only convinced him that I was no friend of jacobinism;
but, (he added,) I had "plainly made it out to be such a silly as well
as wicked thing, that he felt ashamed though he had only put it on." I
distinctly remembered the occurrence, and had mentioned it immediately
on my return, repeating what the traveller with his Bardolph nose had
said, with my own answer; and so little did I suspect the true object
of my "tempter ere accuser," that I expressed with no small pleasure
my hope and belief, that the conversation had been of some service to
the poor misled malcontent. This incident therefore prevented all
doubt as to the truth of the report, which through a friendly medium
came to me from the master of the village inn, who had been ordered to
entertain the Government gentleman in his best manner, but above all
to be silent concerning such a person being in his house. At length he
received Sir Dogberry's commands to accompany his guest at the final
interview; and, after the absolving suffrage of the gentleman honoured
with the confidence of Ministers, answered, as follows, to the
following queries: D. "Well, landlord! and what do you know of the
person in question? L. I see him often pass by with maister ----, my
landlord, (that is, the owner of the house,) and sometimes with the
new-comers at Holford; but I never said a word to him or he to me. D.
But do you not know, that he has distributed papers and hand-bills of
a seditious nature among the common people? L. No, your Honour! I
never heard of such a thing. D. Have you not seen this Mr. Coleridge,
or heard of, his haranguing and talking to knots and clusters of the
inhabitants?--What are you grinning at, Sir? L. Beg your Honour's
pardon! but I was only thinking, how they'd have stared at him. If
what I have heard be true, your Honour! they would not have understood
a word he said. When our Vicar was here, Dr. L. the master of the
great school and Canon of Windsor, there was a great dinner party at
maister's; and one of the farmers, that was there, told us that he and
the Doctor talked real Hebrew Greek at each other for an hour together
after dinner. D. Answer the question, Sir! does he ever harangue the
people? L. I hope your Honour an't angry with me. I can say no more
than I know. I never saw him talking with any one, but my landlord,
and our curate, and the strange gentleman. D. Has he not been seen
wandering on the hills towards the Channel, and along the shore, with
books and papers in his hand, taking charts and maps of the country?
L. Why, as to that, your Honour! I own, I have heard; I am sure, I
would not wish to say ill of any body; but it is certain, that I have
heard--D. Speak out, man! don't be afraid, you are doing your duty to
your King and Government. What have you heard? L. Why, folks do say,
your Honour! as how that he is a Poet, and that he is going to put
Quantock and all about here in print; and as they be so much together,
I suppose that the strange gentleman has some consarn in the
business."--So ended this formidable inquisition, the latter part of
which alone requires explanation, and at the same time entitles the
anecdote to a place in my literary life. I had considered it as a
defect in the admirable poem of THE TASK, that the subject, which
gives the title to the work, was not, and indeed could not be, carried
on beyond the three or four first pages, and that, throughout the
poem, the connections are frequently awkward, and the transitions
abrupt and arbitrary. I sought for a subject, that should give equal
room and freedom for description, incident, and impassioned
reflections on men, nature, and society, yet supply in itself a
natural connection to the parts, and unity to the whole. Such a
subject I conceived myself to have found in a stream, traced from its
source in the hills among the yellow-red moss and conical glass-shaped
tufts of bent, to the first break or fall, where its drops become
audible, and it begins to form a channel; thence to the peat and turf
barn, itself built of the same dark squares as it sheltered; to the
sheepfold; to the first cultivated plot of ground; to the lonely
cottage and its bleak garden won from the heath; to the hamlet, the
villages, the market-town, the manufactories, and the seaport. My
walks therefore were almost daily on the top of Quantock, and among
its sloping coombes. With my pencil and memorandum-book in my hand, I
was making studies, as the artists call them, and often moulding my
thoughts into verse, with the objects and imagery immediately before
my senses. Many circumstances, evil and good, intervened to prevent
the completion of the poem, which was to have been entitled THE BROOK.
Had I finished the work, it was my purpose in the heat of the moment
to have dedicated it to our then committee of public safety as
containing the charts and maps, with which I was to have supplied the
French Government in aid of their plans of invasion. And these too for
a tract of coast that, from Clevedon to Minehead, scarcely permits the
approach of a fishing-boat!

All my experience from my first entrance into life to the present hour
is in favour of the warning maxim, that the man, who opposes in toto
the political or religious zealots of his age, is safer from their
obloquy than he who differs from them but in one or two points, or
perhaps only in degree. By that transfer of the feelings of private
life into the discussion of public questions, which is the queen bee
in the hive of party fanaticism, the partisan has more sympathy with
an intemperate opposite than with a moderate friend. We now enjoy an
intermission, and long may it continue! In addition to far higher and
more important merits, our present Bible societies and other numerous
associations for national or charitable objects, may serve perhaps to
carry off the superfluous activity and fervour of stirring minds in
innocent hyperboles and the bustle of management. But the poison-tree
is not dead, though the sap may for a season have subsided to its
roots. At least let us not be lulled into such a notion of our entire
security, as not to keep watch and ward, even on our best feelings. I
have seen gross intolerance shown in support of toleration; sectarian
antipathy most obtrusively displayed in the promotion of an
undistinguishing comprehension of sects: and acts of cruelty, (I had
almost said,) of treachery, committed in furtherance of an object
vitally important to the cause of humanity; and all this by men too of
naturally kind dispositions and exemplary conduct.

The magic rod of fanaticism is preserved in the very adyta of human
nature; and needs only the re-exciting warmth of a master hand to bud
forth afresh and produce the old fruits. The horror of the Peasants'
war in Germany, and the direful effects of the Anabaptists' tenets,
(which differed only from those of jacobinism by the substitution of
theological for philosophical jargon,) struck all Europe for a time
with affright. Yet little more than a century was sufficient to
obliterate all effective memory of these events. The same principles
with similar though less dreadful consequences were again at work from
the imprisonment of the first Charles to the restoration of his son.
The fanatic maxim of extirpating fanaticism by persecution produced a
civil war. The war ended in the victory of the insurgents; but the
temper survived, and Milton had abundant grounds for asserting, that
"Presbyter was but OLD PRIEST writ large!" One good result, thank
heaven! of this zealotry was the re-establishment of the church. And
now it might have been hoped, that the mischievous spirit would have
been bound for a season, "and a seal set upon him, that he should
deceive the nation no more." [33] But no! The ball of persecution was
taken up with undiminished vigour by the persecuted. The same fanatic
principle that, under the solemn oath and covenant, had turned
cathedrals into stables, destroyed the rarest trophies of art and
ancestral piety, and hunted the brightest ornaments of learning and
religion into holes and corners, now marched under episcopal banners,
and, having first crowded the prisons of England, emptied its whole
vial of wrath on the miserable Covenanters of Scotland [34]. A
merciful providence at length constrained both parties to join against
a common enemy. A wise government followed; and the established church
became, and now is, not only the brightest example, but our best and
only sure bulwark, of toleration!--the true and indispensable bank
against a new inundation of persecuting zeal--Esto perpetua!

A long interval of quiet succeeded; or rather, the exhaustion had
produced a cold fit of the ague which was symptomatized by
indifference among the many, and a tendency to infidelity or
scepticism in the educated classes. At length those feelings of
disgust and hatred, which for a brief while the multitude had attached
to the crimes and absurdities of sectarian and democratic fanaticism,
were transferred to the oppressive privileges of the noblesse, and the
luxury; intrigues and favouritism of the continental courts. The same
principles, dressed in the ostentatious garb of a fashionable
philosophy, once more rose triumphant and effected the French
revolution. And have we not within the last three or four years had
reason to apprehend, that the detestable maxims and correspondent
measures of the late French despotism had already bedimmed the public
recollections of democratic phrensy; had drawn off to other objects
the electric force of the feelings which had massed and upheld those
recollections; and that a favourable concurrence of occasions was
alone wanting to awaken the thunder and precipitate the lightning from
the opposite quarter of the political heaven?

In part from constitutional indolence, which in the very hey-day of
hope had kept my enthusiasm in check, but still more from the habits
and influences of a classical education and academic pursuits,
scarcely had a year elapsed from the commencement of my literary and
political adventures before my mind sank into a state of thorough
disgust and despondency, both with regard to the disputes and the
parties disputant. With more than poetic feeling I exclaimed:

The sensual and the dark rebel in vain,
Slaves by their own compulsion! In mad game
They break their manacles, to wear the name
Of freedom, graven on a heavier chain.
O Liberty! with profitless endeavour
Have I pursued thee many a weary hour;
But thou nor swell'st the victor's pomp, nor ever
Didst breathe thy soul in forms of human power!
Alike from all, howe'er they praise thee,
(Nor prayer nor boastful name delays thee)
From Superstition's harpy minions
And factious Blasphemy's obscener slaves,
Thou speedest on thy cherub pinions,
The guide of homeless winds and playmate of the waves!

I retired to a cottage in Somersetshire at the foot of Quantock, and
devoted my thoughts and studies to the foundations of religion and
morals. Here I found myself all afloat. Doubts rushed in; broke upon
me "from the fountains of the great deep," and fell "from the windows
of heaven." The fontal truths of natural religion and the books of
Revelation alike contributed to the flood; and it was long ere my ark
touched on an Ararat, and rested. The idea of the Supreme Being
appeared to me to be as necessarily implied in all particular modes of
being as the idea of infinite space in all the geometrical figures by
which space is limited. I was pleased with the Cartesian opinion, that
the idea of God is distinguished from all other ideas by involving its
reality; but I was not wholly satisfied. I began then to ask myself,
what proof I had of the outward existence of anything? Of this sheet
of paper for instance, as a thing in itself, separate from the
phaenomenon or image in my perception. I saw, that in the nature of
things such proof is impossible; and that of all modes of being, that
are not objects of the senses, the existence is assumed by a logical
necessity arising from the constitution of the mind itself,--by the
absence of all motive to doubt it, not from any absolute contradiction
in the supposition of the contrary. Still the existence of a Being,
the ground of all existence, was not yet the existence of a moral
creator, and governour. "In the position, that all reality is either
contained in the necessary being as an attribute, or exists through
him, as its ground, it remains undecided whether the properties of
intelligence and will are to be referred to the Supreme Being in the
former or only in the latter sense; as inherent attributes, or only as
consequences that have existence in other things through him [35].
Were the latter the truth, then notwithstanding all the pre-eminence
which must be assigned to the Eternal First from the sufficiency,
unity, and independence of his being, as the dread ground of the
universe, his nature would yet fall far short of that, which we are
bound to comprehend in the idea of GOD. For, without any knowledge or
determining resolve of its own, it would only be a blind necessary
ground of other things and other spirits; and thus would be
distinguished from the FATE of certain ancient philosophers in no
respect, but that of being more definitely and intelligibly
described."

For a very long time, indeed, I could not reconcile personality with
infinity; and my head was with Spinoza, though my whole heart remained
with Paul and John. Yet there had dawned upon me, even before I had
met with the CRITIQUE OF THE PURE REASON, a certain guiding light. If
the mere intellect could make no certain discovery of a holy and
intelligent first cause, it might yet supply a demonstration, that no
legitimate argument could be drawn from the intellect against its
truth. And what is this more than St. Paul's assertion, that by
wisdom,--(more properly translated by the powers of reasoning)--no man
ever arrived at the knowledge of God? What more than the sublimest,
and probably the oldest, book on earth has taught us,

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