The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Volume 4 (Part I): The Friend 9781400882786

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THE COLLECTED WORKS OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE · 4

THE FRIEND · I

General Editor: KATHLEEN COBURN Associate Editor: BART WINER

THE

COLLECTED

WORKS

1. LECTURES 1795: ON POLITICS AND R E L I G I O N 2. THE WATCHMAN 3. ESSAYS ON HIS TIMES 4. THE F R I E N D 5. LECTURES 1808-1819: ON LITERATURE 6. LAY SERMONS 7. BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA 8. LECTURES 1818-1819: ON PHILOSOPHY 9. AIDS TO R E F L E C T I O N 10. ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH AND STATE 11. SHORTER WORKS AND F R A G M E N T S 12. MARGINALIA 13. THE LOGIC 14. TABLE TALK 15. OPUS MAXIMUM 16. POETICAL WORKS G E N E R A L INDEX

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE from a portrait painted by Thomas Phillips in the summer of 1818, now in the possession of Sir John Murray and reproduced by his kind permission.

THE COLLECTED WORKS OF

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The Friend I EDITED BY

Barbara E. Rooke

ROUTLEDGE & KEGAN PAUL ogo BOLLINGEN SERIES LXXV PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

This edition of the text by Samuel Taylor Coleridge is copyright © 1969 by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd The Collected Works, sponsored by Bollingen Foundation, is published in Great Britain by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd Broadway House, 68-74 Carter Lane, London EC4 and in the United States of America by Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey The Collected Works constitutes the seventy-fifth publication in Bollingen Series The present work, number 4 of the Collected Works, is in two volumes, this being 4: ι

Designed by Richard Garnett Printed in Great Britain by Butler and Tanner Ltd, Frome and London

THIS EDITION OF THE WORKS OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE IS DEDICATED IN GRATITUDE TO THE FAMILY EDITORS IN EACH GENERATION

CONTENTS .

1

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS EDITOR'S FOREWORD

. page xi xiii

E D I T O R I A L P R A C T I C E , SYMBOLS, A N D ABBREVIATIONS C H R O N O L O G I C A L TABLE EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

Xvii XXV XXXV

The Friend (1818) Volume ι Title-page (1818) Advertisement Dedication Essay ι Essay n Essay in Essay rv Essay ν Essay vi Essay vii Essay viu Essay ix Essay χ Essay xi Essay xii Essay xm Essay xrv Essay xv Essay xvi The Landing-PIace, or Essays Interposed for Amusement, Retrospect, and Preparation

1 3 4 7 14 18 25 34 44 51 58 67 70 77 83 91 100 107 114 127

VlIl

The Friend Essay ι Essay n Essay in Essay iv Essay ν Section the First: On the Principles of Political Knowledge Essay i: On the Principles of Political Philo­ sophy Essay π Essay in Essay iv: On the Grounds of Government as Laid Exclusively in the Pure Reason

129 135 144 148 154 163 165 169 176 186

The Friend (1818) Volume n Title-page (1818) Section the First [Continued] Essay v: On the Errors of Party Spirit: or Extremes Meet Essay Vi Essay vii: On the Vulgar Errors Respecting Taxes and Taxation Essay vm Essay ix Essay χ Essay xi Essay xn Essay xm: On the Law of Nations Essay xiv Essay xv Essay xvi The Second Landing-PIace, or Essays Interposed for Amusement, Retrospect and Preparation Essay ι Essay n Essay in Essay iv

203

205 223 228 245 251 263 276 282 289 298 313 326 339 341 356 363 370

Contents

ix

The Friend (1818) Volume ill Title-page (1818) Introduction Section the Second: On the Grounds of Morals and Religion, and the Discipline of the Mind Requisite for a True Understanding of the Same Essay ι Essay n Essay m: On the Origin and Progress of the Sect of Sophists in Greece Essay iv Essay ν Essay vi Essay VH Essay vm Essay ix Essay χ Essay xi The Third Landing-Place, or Essays Miscellaneous Essay ι Essay π Essay in Essay iv Essay ν Essay vi

375 377 407 409 424 436 448 458 464 472 482 488 496 507 525 527 532 539 547 551 565

π APPENDIXES A. The Friend (1809-10, 1812) volume II, page 1 B. Colophons of The Friend (1809-10, 1812) 371 C. 1. The Manuscript of The Friend 377 2. Annotated Copies 388 D. Collation Tables 393 E. Subscribers to the Periodical Friend 405 F. Letters Concerning The Friend 469 G. The Fable of the Madning Rain 505 INDEX 511

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

------------------1----------------1. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, from a portrait painted by Thomas Phillips in the summer of 1818 frontispiece

2. The Prospectus of The Friend sent to Daniel Stuart, with a letter written on the flyleaf between pages xl-xli 3. The Friend (1818). Title-page of volume

I

facing page xcii

4. A leaf from the manuscript of The Friend (1809-10) facing page 178

5. Corrected pages (III 262-3) of The Friend (1818), from the annotated copy Coleridge sent to John Gibson Lockhart between pages 520-1

----------------11---------------1. The Friend (1809-10). Title-page of the periodical facing page 2

2. The Friend (1812). Title-page

facing page 4

EDITOR'S FOREWORD T is a pleasure to thank those who have contributed to this edition of The Friend. To two in particular so much is owed that mere acknowledgment is inadequate. Miss Kathleen Coburn has gone far beyond her duties as General Editor of the Collected Works. It was indeed she who started me working on The Friend, and this edition owes an immense debt to her scholarship, guidance, and unfailing energy. To a very great deal of practical help, Mr Bart Winer, associate editor, has added the results of his learning and wide experience in producing books. There are others to whom a special acknowledgment is due: Mr Rupert Hart-Davis, who not only helped,in large and small matters connected with the manuscript, but supplied the imagination and enthusiasm without which this collected edition might never have come into existence; Professor George Whalley, who, besides being an adviser and translator, has been of great general assistance since this research was in its earliest stages; the late Father Denomy, SJ., and his colleagues of the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies in Toronto, who located several passages in theological works; and Professor Edmund Blunden, who has contributed the material for several notes and much valuable advice and information. Several others have provided translations, and I should like particularly to thank Mr A. G. Carrington of the University of the West Indies and Dr D. E. Rhodes of the British Museum. I received further assistance with the Latin and Greek from Professor Gordon Keyes of the University of Toronto and Mrs G. J. R. Arnold of the British Museum; and with the German, from Professor E. M. Wilkinson. The index is the work of Dr Robert Collison. For permission to see and sometimes to quote from manuscripts and annotated books, I am indebted to Mr A. H. B. Coleridge, Mr and Mrs Walter Coleridge, the Reverend A. D. Coleridge, and the Reverend N. F. D. Coleridge. Mr J. K. Wordsworth, Exeter College, Oxford, provided corrections to his published account of an annotated copy of The Friend. xiii

I

XlV

The Friend

Many libraries and museums and their staffs also have my gratitude: the British Museum and its staff, so helpful that I wish it were possible to make individual acknowledgments; the Victoria and Albert Museum, which houses the manuscript of The Friend, and its staff; the Wordsworth Library at Dove Cottage, its trustees, and two of its librarians, Miss Nesta Clutterbuck and Miss Phoebe Johnson; the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, and particularly Mr Herbert Cahoun and his staff; the New York Public Library, especially the curator of the Berg Collection, Dr John D. Gordan, and his staff; the Bristol Public Library, especially Mr W. S. Haugh and his staff; the Manchester College Library, Oxford, especially Mr H. L. Short; the Harvard College Library, the Bodleian Library, and the Victoria College Library and their staffs. Among the many who have given advice or factual information, who have solved puzzles or answered questions, I am grateful to Mr John Beer, Peterhouse, Cambridge; Miss Heather Bremer; Mr Wallace Brockway of the Editorial Board of Bollingen Series; Mr John Colmer, University of Adelaide; Professor J. CranmerByng, University of Toronto; Professor A. B. Cunningham, Simon Fraser University; Mr David V. Erdman, New York Public Library; Professor R. S. Foakes, University of Kent; Mr Joseph Galea of the Royal Archives, Malta; Mr Richard Garnett; Professor E. L. Griggs, University of California; Mr Robin Maneely, University of Hong Kong; Mr Oliver Morchard Bishop; the late Mr Kenneth Povey, Liverpool University Library; Mr Stanley Rubinstein; Professor Manfred M. Sandmann, University of California; Mr James Thornton; Miss Vera Watson; Mrs Lucyle Werkmeister; Professor Mary E. White, University of Toronto; Professor Carl R. Woodring, Columbia University. For skilful typing and practical assistance at various stages of this research I should like to thank Mrs Anne Renier, Mrs Sheila Yuan, Mrs Anna Parker-Rees, and Miss Alison Hodgson, and for able assistance with proof-reading, Mrs H. D. Talbot. For much advice and encouragement through many years I should like to record my gratitude to Professor Bruce Pattison, Professor James A. Roy, Miss Jean Royce, and the late Professor A. S. P. Woodhouse. To the record of those institutions and persons who have helped in a scholarly and personal way must be added those bodies which have assisted financially. Of these, the first in time

Editor s Foreword

XV

were the Marty Memorial Trust of Queen's University and the Royal Society of Canada, both of which awarded grants during the early stages of the research, the results of which were submitted as a Ph.D. thesis to the University of London in 1949. At a later stage the University of the West Indies granted study leave at a critical period. Finally, it is a very great pleasure to thank the Bollingen Foundation, the Editorial Board and Trustees of which are doing so much to make Coleridge available as never before. BARBARA E.

University of Hong Kong January 1967

ROOKE

EDITORIAL PRACTICE, SYMBOLS, AND ABBREVIATIONS HE text follows that of the 1818 edition; spelling, capitalisation, and paragraphing as well as numbering of essays and sections have not been changed, except for obvious errors. The corrections in the list of errata prefaced to vol ι of the 1818 edition have been silently incor­ porated into the text. "Corrections" in Coleridge's annotated copies and letters are given in footnotes. Passages in foreign languages are given as printed in 1818, except for the accenting of the Greek, which seems to follow the printer's caprice rather than Coleridge's known practice. Coleridge's few square brackets have been changed to parentheses; square brackets enclose editorial interpolations.

T

Coleridge's footnotes are indicated by symbols (*, t . etc) and are printed full measure. Editor's footnotes are numbered; they are printed in double columns except when there is a single footnote too short to run to two lines. The order of the editor's footnotes follows (perhaps Coleridgean) logic: i.e. it is assumed that when the text contains an asterisk or dagger indicating a footnote the reader then turns from text to note and then goes back again. The editor's footnotes, which are sometimes notes on Coleridge's footnotes, follow that order. Thus the footnote indicators within the text may leap from 1 to 5, notes 2-4 being notes on Coleridge's footnotes. The editions referred to in the editor's footnotes are, where possible, those Coleridge used; "see" before the edition indicates that it is not necessarily the edition C cites or quotes (though it may be an edition he is known to have used). Coleridge manuscripts, where quoted, are printed literatim, including cancellations, except that "it's", "its' ", "your's", and "yours' " have been standardised to "its" and "yours". The following symbols are also used in quoting from mss (with "wild" as an example): [wild] [ ? wild] [ ? wild I world] Twild1

A reading supplied by the editor. An uncertain reading. Possible alternative readings. A tentative reading (owing to obliterations, torn paper, etc). [...] An illegible word or phrase.

A later insertion by Coleridge. Strokes, dashes, and other symbols are Coleridge's. T F-B

xvii

XVlll

The Friend ABBREVIATIONS

(In the works listed, place of publication is London unless otherwise noted) AC Alumni Cantabrigienses ed J. A. Venn (6 vols Cambridge 1940-54). Allsop [Thomas Allsop] Letters, Conversations and Recollections of S. T. Coleridge (2 vols 1836). AO Alumni Oxonienses ... 1715-1886 ed Joseph Foster (4 vols 1887-8). AP Anima Poetae ed E. H. Coleridge (1895). AR (1825) S. T. Coleridge Aids to Reflection (1825). BCG Boyle's Court Guide (1808-10). BL (1817) S. T. Coleridge Biographia Literaria (2 voIs 1817). BL (1907) S. T. Coleridge Biographia Literaria ed John Shawcross (2 vols Oxford 1907). BLG John Burke and Sir John Bernard Burke A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland (3 vols 1846-9 [1843-9]). Blackwood's Magazine (Edinburgh and London BIMag 1817- ). BM British Museum BNPL New York Public Library. Bulletin (New York 1897- ). B Poets The Works of the British Poets ed Robert Anderson 13 vols Edinburgh 1792-5; vol XIV 1807). Bristol LB George Whalley "The Bristol Library Borrowings of Southey and Coleridge" Library IV (Sept 1949) 114-31. The Works of George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne ed B Works A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessop (9 vols 1948-57). Samuel Taylor Coleridge C S. T. Coleridge On the Constitution of the Church and C&S State, According to the Idea of Each (1830). Clement Carlyon Early Years and Late Reflections (4 Carlyon vols 1836-58). J. L. Haney A Bibliography of Samuel Taylor Coleridge C Bibl (Haney (1903). 1903) J. L. Haney A Bibliography of Samuel Taylor Coleridge C Bibl (Haney 1934) (1934). The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (LonCC don and New York 1967- ). Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge ed Earl CL Leslie Griggs (Oxford and New York 1956- ).

Abbreviations

xix

C Life (G)

James Gillman The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1838). C Life (H) Lawrence Hanson The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the Early Years (1938). C Life (JDC) James Dykes Campbell Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1894).

CN

The Notebooks of Samuel Taylor Coleridge ed Kathleen Coburn (New York and London 1957- ).

Coleorton

Memorials of Coleorton ed William Knight (2 vols Edinburgh 1887). S. T. Coleridge Condones ad Populum. Or Addresses to the People (1795). The Friend (3 vols 1818), inscribed to Thomas Allsop and annotated by Coleridge. The Friend (3 vols 1818), containingDerwent Coleridge's bookplate and annotated by Coleridge.

Condones Copy A Copy D Copy H Copy L

Copy M

Copy R Cottle Rem CRB CRC

CRD C 17th C DC DCL De Q De Q to W

The Friend (3 vols 1818), inscribed to the Rev Joseph Hughes and annotated by Coleridge. The Friend (3 vols 1818), inscribed to "the Author of 'Peter's Letters to his kinsfolks' "—i.e. John Gibson Lockhart—and annotated by Coleridge. The Friend (3 vols 1818), inscribed to the Rev Samuel Mence, with Coleridge annotations copied by another hand. The Friend (1812), inscribed to Hugh J. Rose and anno­ tated by Coleridge. Joseph Cottle Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey (1847). Henry Crabb Robinson on Books and Their Writers ed Edith J. Morley (3 vols 1938). The Correspondence of Henry Crabb Robinson with the Wordsworth Cirde ed Edith J. Morley (2 vols Oxford 1927). Diary, Reminiscences, and Correspondence of Henry Crabb Robinson ed Thomas Sadler (2 vols Boston n.d.). Coleridge on the Seventeenth Century ed R. F. Brinkley (Durham, N.C. 1955). Derwent Coleridge Dove Cottage Library Thomas De Quincey John E. Jordan De Quincey to V/ordsworth. A Bio­ graphy of a Relationship (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1962).

XX

The Friend

De Q Works

The Collected Writings of Thomas De Quincey ed David Masson (14 vols Edinburgh 1889-90).

DMD

Deans & Co.'s Manchester and Salford Directory (Man­ chester 1808-9).

DNB

Dictionary of National Biography (1885-

).

DW

Dorothy Wordsworth

DWJ

Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth ed Ernest de Selincourt (2 vols Oxford 1941).

Ed Rev

The Edinburgh Review (Edinburgh and London 1802 1929).

EM

Encyclopaedia Metropolitana (29 vols 1817-45).

Eng Div

S. T. Coleridge Notes on English Divines ed Derwent Coleridge (2 vols 1853).

EOT

S. T. Coleridge Essays on His Own Times, Forming a Second Series of "The Friend" ed Sara Coleridge (3 vols 1850).

E P-O

The Post-Office Annual Directory . . . in ... Edinburgh (Edinburgh 1813).

Farington

Joseph Farington The Farington Diary ed James Greig (8 vols 1922-8).

G

Gore's Directory of Liverpool and Its Environs (Liver­ pool 1810).

GD

The Glasgow Directory (Glasgow 1813).

G Mag

The Gentleman"s Magazine (1731-1907).

Grounds . . . Peel's Bill HAD

S . T . C o l e r i d g e The Grounds of Sir Robert Peel's Bill Vindicated [1818]. Holden's Annual Directory . . . Comprising .. . London and Separate Towns in England, Scotland, and Wales (1814-16).

HC

Hartley Coleridge

HCR

Henry Crabb Robinson

HLQ

The Henry E. Huntington Library Quarterly (San Marino, Cal. 1937- ).

HNC

Henry Nelson Coleridge

H Works

The Complete Works of William Hazlitt ed P. P. Howe (21 vols 1930-4).

House

Humphry House Coleridge (1953).

IS

Inquiring Spirit, a New Presentation of Coleridge from His Published and Unpublished Prose Writings ed Kath­ leen Coburn (1951).

J

Johnstone's London and Commercial Guide and Street Directory (1817).

Abbreviations

xxi

LCL

Jollie S Cumberland Guide and Directory (Carlisle 1811). James Dykes Campbell Journal of English and Germanic Philology (Bloomington, 111. 1897- ). Kent's Directory .. .for 1808 (1808). Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge ed Ε. H. Coleridge (2 vols 1895). Coleridge on Logic and Learning ed Alice D. Snyder (1929). William Wordsworth [and S. T. Coleridge] Lyrical Bal­ lads with Other Poems (2 vols 1800). Loeb Classical Library

Lects (1795)

Lectures 1795: On Politics and Religion ed Lewis Patton and Peter Mann (CC i).

LL

The Letters of Charles Lamb to Which Are Added Those of His Sister Mary Lamb ed Ε. V. Lucas (3 vols 1935).

LLP

Letters from the Lake Poets to Daniel Stuart [ed Mary Stuart and Ε. H. Coleridge] (1889).

L P-O

The [London] Post-Office Annual Directory (1808-10).

LR

The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge ed H. N. Coleridge (4 vols 1836-9).

LS

"Blessed Are Ye That Sow Beside All Waters!" ALay Sermon, Addressed to the Higher and Middle Classes, on the Existing Distresses and Discontents (1817).

MBD M Chron Meteyard Method

Matthew's Complete Bristol Directory (Bristol 1813). The Morning Chronicle (1769-1862). Eliza Meteyard A Group of Englishmen (1871). S. T. Coleridge's Treatise on Method as Published in the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana ed Alice D. Snyder (1934). Patriologiae cursus completus ... Series Graeca ed J. P. Migne (162 vols Paris 1857-1912). Patriologiae cursus completus ... Series Latina ed J. P. Migne (221 vols Paris 1844-64). S. T. Coleridge Miscellanies, Aesthetic and Literary; to Which Is Added iiThe Theory of Life" ed T. Ashe (1885). Coleridge's Miscellaneous Criticism ed T. M. Raysor (Cambridge, Mass. 1936). Modern Language Notes (Baltimore 1886- ). Modern Phililogy (Chicago 1903- ). The Morning Post (1772-1937). Sara (Fricker) Coleridge

JCG JDC JEGP K L L&L LB (1800)

Migne PG Migne PL Misc Misc C MLN MPhil M Post Mrs C

1

The Friend

xxii MTA

Register of Admissions to the . .. Middle Temple ed H. A. G. Sturgess, vol II 1782-1909 (1949).

MW

Mary Wordsworth Notebook (numbered or lettered) of S. T. Coleridge Notes and Queries (1849- ). S. T. Coleridge Notes, Theological, Political and Miscellaneous ed Derwent Coleridge (1853). New York Public Library Oxford English Dictionary (13 vols Oxford 1933).

N

N&Q NTP

NYPL OED Omniana

Omniana, or Horae Otiosiores ed Robert Southey with articles by S. T. Coleridge (2 vols 1812).

PD

S. T. Coleridge The Plot Discovered; or, An Address to the People Against Ministerial Treason (Bristol 1795).

Phil Trans P Lects (1949)

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (16651886). The Philosophical Lectures of Samuel Taylor Coleridge ed Kathleen Coburn (London and New York 1949).

PML

Pierpont Morgan Library

PMLA

Publications of the Modern Language Association (Baltimore 1886- ).

Poole

M. E. Sandford Thomas Poole and His Friends (2 vols

PW(EHC)

The Complete Poetical Works ofSamuel Taylor Coleridge ed E. H. Coleridge (2 vols Oxford 1912).

PW(JDC)

The Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge ed J. D. Campbell (1893).

Remarks ... Peel's Bill

S. T. Coleridge Remarks on the O~jections which have been urged against the Principle of Sir Robert Peel's Bill

1888).

[1818].

RS

Robert Southey

RX

John Livingston Lowes The Road to Xanadu (rev ed

SC SCB

Sara Coleridge Southey's Common-Place Book ed J. W. Warter (4 vols

SH Sh C

Sara Hutchinson Coleridge's Shakespearean Criticism ed T. M. Raysor (2 vols 1930). The Letters of Sara Hutchinson ed Kathleen Coburn (London and Toronto 1954).

1930).

1849-51).

SHL SL

S. T. Coleridge Sibylline Leaves (1817).

Abbreviations S Letters (Curry) S Letters (Warter) S Life (CS) SM (1816)

Studies

T TL (1848) T Lects TLS TT UL V &A VCL WL (L) WL (M) WPW WW

xxiii

New Letters of Robert Southey ed Kenneth Curry (2 vols New York and London 1965). A Selection from the Letters of Robert Southey ed J. W. Warter (4 vols 1856). Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey ed C. C. Southey (6 vols 1849-50). S. T. Coleridge The Statesman's Manual; or, the Bible, the Best Guide to Political Skill and Foresight. A LaySermon Addressed to the Higher Classes of Society (1816). Coleridge: Studies by Several Hands on the Hundredth Anniversary of His Death ed Edmund Blunden and Earl Leslie Griggs (1934). Holders Triennial Directoryfor 1809,1810,1811 (1811). S. T. Coleridge Hints Towards the Formation of a More Comprehensive Theory ofLife ed Seth B. Watson (1848). S. T. Coleridge Theological Lectures (1795; ms transcript by E. H. Coleridge). The Times Literary Supplement (1902- ). Specimens of the Table Talk of the Late Samuel Taylor Coleridge ed H. N. Coleridge (2nd ed 1836). Unpublished Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge ed Earl Leslie Griggs (2 vols 1932). Victoria and Albert Museum Victoria College Library, University of Toronto Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth; the Later Years ed Ernest de Selincourt (3 vols Oxford 1939). Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth; the Middle Years ed Ernest de Selincourt (2 vols Oxford 1937). The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth ed Ernest de Selincourt and Helen Darbishire (5 vols Oxford 1940-9). William Wordsworth

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 1772-1834 (public events to the final publication of The Friend) 1772 (21 Oct) C b at Ottery St Mary, Devonshire, to Rev John and Ann (Bowdon) Coleridge, youngest of their 10 children 1774 1775

1776

1778 1781

1782

1783 1784 1785

George in king Wordsworth 2 years old Scott 1 year old M Post began Southey b American War of Indepen­ dence C. Lamb b Adam Smith Wealth of Nations Gibbon Decline and Fall Hazlitt b Rousseau and Voltaire d (Oct) Death of C s father Kant Kritik der reinen Vernunft Schiller Die Rauber (Jul) Enrolled at Christ's Hospital Priestley Corruptions of preparatory school for girls and Christianity boys, Hertford Rousseau Confessions (Sept) Christ's Hospital School, Lon­ don, with C. Lamb, G. Dyer, T. F. Middleton, Robert Allen, J. M. Gutch, Le Grice brothers; met Evans family

Pitt's first ministry (-1801) Samuel Johnson d De Quincey b Paley Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy 1789 (14 Jul) French Revolution Blake Songs of Innocence Bowles Sonnets 1790 Burke Reflections on the Revo­ lution in France 1791 (Sept) Jesus College, Cambridge, (Mar) John Wesley d Exhibitioner, Sizar, Rustat Scholar; Paine Rights of Man pt ι (pt π met S. Butler, Frend, Porson, C. 1792) Wordsworth, Wrangham Boswell Life of Johnson xxv

XXVl

The Friend

1791 1792 (3 July) Encaenia, C s prize-winning Greek Sapphic Ode on the SlaveTrade 1793 (May) Attended Cambridge trial of Frend (8 Nov) first poem in Morning Chronicle (2 Dec) enlisted in 15th Light Dragoons as Silas Tomkyn Comberbache

1794 (7-10 Apr) Back at Cambridge (Jun) poems in Cambridge Intelligencer; set out with Joseph Hucks to Oxford (met Southey), pantisocracy hatched; Welsh tour (Aug-Sept) met Thomas Poole, engaged to Sara Fricker (Sept) with RS published The Fall of Robespierre (Cambridge); Monody on Cliatterton published with Rowley Poems (Cambridge) (Dec) left Cambridge; sonnet in M Chron (24 Dec) began Religious Musings 1795 (Jan) Bristol lodgings with George Burnett, RS (Feb) Political lectures (May-Jun) Lectures on Revealed Religion (16 Jun) Lecture on the Slave Trade (Aug-Sept) Quarrel with RS, pantisocracy abandoned (4 Oct) married Sara Fricker (26 Nov)Lecture on the Two Bills (8 Dec) Condones ad Populum published (Dec) An Answer to "A Letter to Edward Long Fox" and Plot Discoveredpublished; Watchman planned 1796 (9 Jan-13 Feb) Tour to Midlands to sell The Watchman; met Erasmus Darwin, Joseph Wright (painter) (1 Mar-13 May) The Watchman in ten numbers (16 Apr) Poems on Various Subjects (19 Sept) Hartley b; reconciliation with RS

Anti-Jacobin riots at Birmingham Pitt's attack on the slavetrade Fox's Libel Bill (21 Jan) Louis xvi executed (1 Feb) France declared war on England and Holland (Mar-Dec) Revolt of La Vendee (16 Oct) Marie Antoinette executed (16 Oct) John Hunter d Godwin Political Justice Wordsworth An Evening Walk and Descriptive Sketches (17 May) Suspension of Habeas Corpus Robespierre executed, end of the Terror (Oct-Dec) State Trials: Tooke and Thelwall acquitted of charge of treason (-1795) Paine Age of Reason Paley Evidences of Christianity

(Jun-Jul) Quiberon expedition (26 Sept) WW and DW at Racedown (Nov) Directory begins (6 Nov) Treason and Convention Bills introduced (18 Dec) Two Acts put into effect Lewis Ambrosio, or the Monk

(Jul) Robert Burns d (Sept) Mary Lamb's violent illness (Nov) Catherine of Russia d England treating for peace with France Threats of invasion of England

Chronological Table

XXVIl

1796

(31 Dec) Ode to the Departing Year in Jenner performs first smallpox vaccination Cambridge Intelligencer; move to Nether Stowey

1797

(Mar) WW at Stowey (5 Jun) at Racedown (Jul) DW, WW, and Lamb at Stowey; DW and WW in Alfoxden House (16 Oct) Osorio finished; Poems, to Which Are Now Added, Poems by Charles Lamb and Charles Lloyd (13-16 Nov) C s and WW's walk to Lynton and Ancient Mariner begun

(Feb) Bank of England sus­ pended cash payments (Apr-Jun) mutinies in the British Navy (9 Jul) Burke d (17 Oct) France and Austria sign peace treaty (Nov) Frederick William II of Prussia d (Nov) Anti-Jacobin began

1798

(Jan) C s Unitarian sermons at Shrewsbury; Wedgwood annuity £150 accepted (Mar) Ancient Mariner completed (Apr) Fears in Solitude (18 Sept) Lyrical Ballads published; WW, DW, and C to Hamburg; met Klopstock (Oct) C to Ratzeburg

(Feb-Oct) Irish rebellion (Apr) Helvetic Republic (12 Jun) Malta taken by French (Jul) Bonaparte invades Egypt (9 Jul) Anti-Jacobin last num­ ber (1-2 Aug) Nelson's victory in Battle of the Nile Lloyd Edmund Oliver Bell introduces Madras sys­ tem of education in England

1799

(Apr) C had news of death of Ber­ (9 Nov) Bonaparte First Con­ keley; C at University of Gottingen sul under new constitution (May) ascent of Brocken Schiller Die Piccolomini and (29 Jul) in Stowey again Wallensteins Tod published (Sept-Oct) Devon walking tour with Royal Institution founded RS; met Humphry Davy in Bristol; experiments with nitrous oxide (Oct-Nov) first Lakes tour, with WW (26 Oct) met Sara Hutchinson (27 Nov) arrived in London to accept M Post offer (Dec) DW and WW at Town End (later Dove Cottage)

1800 (Jan-27 Mar) M Post reporter and leader-writer; translating Wallenstein at Lamb's (Apr) to Grasmere and WW (May-Jun) in Stowey and Bristol (24 Jul) move to Greta Hall, Keswick (Sept-Oct) superintends printing of Lyrical Ballads (2nd ed)

(Mar-Apr) Pius να Pope (25 Apr) Cowper d (14 Jun) Battle of Marengo Burns Works ed Currie Union of Great Britain and Ireland (5 Sept) Malta after long siege falls to English

1801 (Jan) Lyrical Ballads (1800) published; Addington ministry (-1804) prolonged illnesses Davy lecturer at Royal In­ (Jul-Aug) with SH at Stockton stitution Southey Thalaba

The Friend

XXVHl

1801 (15 Nov) in London writing for M Post

Christmas at Stowey 1802 (Jan) In London; attends Davy's lectures at Royal Institution; writing for M Post (Mar-Nov) in Lakes, severe domestic discord (Apr) Dejection (Aug) Scafell climb; visit of the Lambs (Sept-Oct) writing for M Post (Nov) tour of S Wales with Tom and Sally Wedgwood (23 Dec) Sara C b

(25 Mar) Peace of Amiens (18 Apr) Erasmus Darwin d (8 May) Bonaparte Life Consul (2 Oct) WW married Mary Hutchinson (Oct) French army enters Switzerland Edinburgh Review founded Cobbett's Weekly Political Register founded Paley Natural Theology Spinoza Opera ed Paulus (1802-3)

1803

(Feb) Act of Mediation in Switzerland (30 Apr) Louisiana bought by U.S. from France (18 May) England declared war on France (25 May) Emerson b (Sept) Emmet's execution in Ireland Cobbett Parliamentary Debates (later Hansard) Hayley Life and Posthumous Writings of Cowper Chatterton Works ed RS and Cottle Malthus Principles of Population (2nd ed)

(Jan-Feb) In Somerset with Wedgwoods, Poole; with Lamb in London; made his will (JiIn)POeTOi (1803) (summer) visits by Hazlitt, Beaumonts, and S. Rogers to Lakes; Hazlitt's portrait of C (15-29 Aug) Scottish tour with DW and WW (30 Aug-15 Sept) alone

1804 (Jan) 111 at Grasmere, then to London; (12 Feb) Kant d

portrait by Northcote (9 Apr) in convoy to Malta (Aug-Nov) Sicily, two ascents of Etna; stayed with G. F. Leckie; private secretary to Alexander Ball, British High Commissioner at Malta 1805

(Mar) Code Napoleon (Apr) 2nd Pitt ministry (-1806) (18 May) Napoleon made Emperor (12 Dec) Spain declared war on Britain Blake Jerusalem

(Jan) Appointed Acting Public Sec- (Apr) Third Coalition against retary in Malta; news of loss of France John Wordsworth on Abergavenny (9 May) Schiller d (Sept-Dec) in Sicily (26 May) Napoleon King of (Dec) to Naples and Rome Italy (17 Oct) Napoleon's victory at UIm (21 Oct) Nelson's victory at Trafalgar

Chronological Table

(2 Dec) Austerlitz Hazlitt Principles of Human Action Knight Principles of Taste Scott Lay of the Last Minstrel Southey Madoc

1805

1806

XXlX

(Jan) In Rome, met Washington AUston, the Humboldts, L. Tieck, and Schlegel; to Florence, Pisa (23 Jun) sailed from Leghorn (17 Aug) landed in England; London, job-hunting, Parndon with the Clarksons and to Cambridge (26 Oct) in Kendal (Nov) Keswick, determined on separa­ tion from Mrs C (Dec) at Coleorton with WW and SH, crisis of jealous disillusionment with them

(Jan) Pitt d, "Ministry of all the Talents" (6 Aug) Holy Roman Empire ended (26 Aug) Palm executed (13 Sept) Fox d British blockade (Oct) Jena (Nov) Berlin Decree and Continental System Arndt Geist der Zeit (-1818

1807 Coleorton; heard WW read Prelude and wrote Lines to William Words­ worth (Jun) with C family at Stowey (Aug) met De Quincey; in Bristol (Nov) in London

(Mar) Portland ministry (-1809) (25 Mar) Abolition of slavetrade (Jul) Peace of Tilsit (2 Sept) Bombardment of Copenhagen by British fleet (Dec) Peninsular War began Davy and oxymuriatic acid WW Poems in Two Volumes RS Letters from England by Don Espriella; Specimens of the Later English Poets C. and M. Lamb Tales from Shakespeare

1808 (15 Jan-Jun) In rooms at Courier office, Strand; lectures at Royal Institution on Poetry and Principles of Taste; illnesses, Bury St Ed­ munds (Jun-Aug) Bristol, Leeds, Keswick (Jul) review of Clarkson's History of the Abolition of the Slave-Trade (1 Sept) arrived Allan Bank, Grasmere (Nov) first Prospectus of The Friend; Kendal

Bell-Lancaster controversy Sir Arthur Wellesley to Portu­ gal Crabb Robinson Times cor­ respondent in Peninsula (1 May) Hazlitt married Sarah Stoddart (30 Aug) Convention of Cintra signed (Dec) Dr T. Beddoes d Dalton New System of Chemi­ cal Philosophy and pub of atomic theory Lamb Specimens of English Dramatic Poets Scott Marmion John and Leigh Hunt's Ex­ aminer began Goethe Faust pt ι

The Friend

XXX

1809 (1 Jun) The Friend No 1 published (8 Jun) Friend No 2 (10 Aug) Friend No 3 (7 Sept) Friend No 4 (14 Sept) Friend No 5 (21 Sept) Friend No 6 (28 Sept) Friend No 7 (5 Oct) Friend No 8 (12 Oct) Friend No 9 (19 Oct) Friend No 10 (26 Oct) Friend No 11 (4 Nov) C's mother d (9 Nov) Friend No 12 (16 Nov) Friend No 13 (23 Nov) Friend No 14 (30 Nov) Friend No 15 (7 Dec) Friend No 16 (7 Dec-20 Jan 1810) "Letters on the Spaniards" in Courier (14 Dec) Friend No 17 (21 Dec) Friend No 18 (28 Dec) Friend No 19

(Jan) Sir John Moore d; victories in the peninsula; Duke of York-Mrs Clarke scandal (Feb) Quarterly Review founded (9 Mar) Byron English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (11 Apr) Cochrane destroyed French fleet at Aix (Mar-Apr) Revolt in the Tirol (Mar) Revolution in Sweden (May) Napoleon's capture of Vienna and his excommunication; Pius vn imprisoned WW Convention of Cintra pamphlet (27 Jul) Battle of Talavera (Jul-Nov) Walcheren expedition (Aug) attack on Flushing (21 Sept) Canning-Castlereagh duel Perceval ministry (-1812) (14 Oct) Peace of Schonbrunn (20 Oct) Alexander Ball d in Malta Schlegel Vber dramatische Kunst und Literatur (-1811)

1810 (4 Jan) Friend No 20

(Mar) Battle over admission of press to House of Commons (May) First Reform Bill since 1797 introduced (Jul) Napoleon annexed Holland George m recognised as insane WW Guide to the Lakes Mme de Stael De I'Allemagne Scott Lady of the Lake RS Curse of Kehama

(11 Jan) Friend supernumerary (25 Jan) Friend No 21 (31 Jan) Friend No 22 (8 Feb) Friend No 23 (15 Feb) Friend No 24 (22 Feb) Friend No 25 (1 Mar) Friend No 26 (Mar) SH left for Wales (15 Mar) The Friend No 27, the last number (Oct) to London; Montagu precipitates WW-C quarrel; with Morgans in Hammersmith (Nov) personal association with H. Crabb Robinson begins

1811

(Mar-Apr) Miniature painted by M. (5 Feb) Prince of Wales made Betham Regent (Mar-Apr) met Grattan (Nov to 1815) Luddite vp(20 Apr) first Table Talk recorded by risings John Taylor Coleridge Shelley Necessity of Atheism

Chronological Table

XXXl

1811 (Apr-Sept) contributions to Courier; J. Payne Collier met C (18 Nov-27 Jan 1812) lectures on Shakespeare and Milton at Scot's Corporation Hail, Collier, Byron, Rogers, Robinson attending (Dec) George Dawe bust of C 1812 (Feb-Mar) Last journey to the Lakes to collect copies of Friend (Apr) with the Morgans, Berners Street, Soho (May-Aug) lectures on drama in Willis's Rooms; portrait by Dawe (May) Lamb and HCR patch WW quarrel (Jun) Catherine Wordsworth d (Jun) The Friend reissued (3 Nov-26 Jan 1813) Shakespeare lectures in Surrey Institution (Nov) half Wedgwood annuity withdrawn; RS and C Omniana (Dec) Thomas Wordsworth d

(11 May) Perceval shot, Liverpool PM (18 Jun) U.S. declared war on Great Britain (22 Jun) Napoleon opened war on Russia (Oct-Dec) The retreat from Moscow Combe Tour of Dr Syntax in Search of the Picturesque

1813 (23 Jan) Drury Lane reopened with Remorse (2 Sept) met Mme de Stael (Oct-Nov) Bristol lectures on Shakepeare and education; with Morgans at Ashley

(Jul-Aug) Peace Congress at Prague failure (10 Aug) Austria declared war on Napoleon (Sept) RS Poet Laureate (autumn) Wellington successful in Peninsula; Switzerland, Holland, Italy, Rhineland, Spain, Trieste, DaImatia freed of French rule RS Life of Nelson Northcote Memoirs of Reynolds Leigh Hunt imprisoned for libel (1813-15)

1814 (5 Apr) Lectures at Bristol on Milton, Cervantes, Taste; lecture on French Revolution and Napoleon; under medical care of Dr Daniel for addiction and suicidal depression (3 May) Charles Danvers d (1 Aug) Remorse performed in Bristol (Aug-Sept) Allston portrait of C; Allston's exhibition of paintings; essays "On the Principles of Genial Criticism" published in Felix Farley's Bristol Journal (Sept) at Ashley with the Morgans (20 Sept-10 Dec) "Letters to Mr. Justice Fletcher" in Courier

(1 Jan) Invasion of France by Allies (1 Mar) Castlereagh's treaty with Austria, Prussia, and Russia against Napoleon (6 Apr) Napoleon's abdication (May) First Treaty of Paris; Napoleon exiled to Elba; Restoration of the Bourbons (8-9 Jun) Cochrane perjury trial (Sept-Jun 1815) Congress of Vienna

xxxii

The Friend

1814

(24 Dec) Peace of Ghent signed by Britain and U.S. Inquisition re-established in Spain WW Excursion Scott Waverley Gary's Dante completed

1815 (Mar) At Calne with the Morgans (Jun) Remorse performed at Calne (Jul-Sept) dictating Biographia Literaria (Aug-Sept) Sibylline Leaves and Bwgraphia Literaria sent for publication in Bristol

(Mar-Jun) The Hundred Days: Napoleon escaped Elba, returned to France (6 Apr) Allies mobilise vs Napoleon (18 Jun) Waterloo Restoration of Louis xvni Napoleon from Plymouth to St Helena (20 Nov) Second Treaty of Paris WW Poems of 1815; The White Doe of RyIstone Scott Guy Mannering

1816 (Feb) Grant from Literary Fund, also from Byron (Mar) London: illness (10 Apr) sent Zapolya to Byron (15 Apr) accepted as patient and house-mate by Dr Gillman, Moreton House, Highgate (May-Jun) Christabel published (three editions); renews acquaintance with Hookham Frere (Dec) Statesman's Manual published Hazlitt's antagonistic reviews in Examiner (Jun, Sept, Dec) and Edinburgh Review (Dec)

(24 Apr) Byron's departure from England (21 Jun) Motion for relief of Roman Catholics rejected in the Lords (7 Jul) Sheridan d Parliamentary Committee on Education of the Poor (2 Dec) Spa Fields Riot Shelley Alastor and Other Poems Peacock Headlong Hall Maturin Bertram J. H. Frere ms tr of Aristophanes

1817 (Apr) Second Lay Sermon published (14 Apr) Remorse revived (Jul) Biographia Literaria, Sibylline Leaves published (summer) met J. H. Green (Sept) met Henry Cary (Nov) Zapolya published; C s tr of Hurwitz's Hebrew Dirge for Princess Charlotte; Tieck visited C

(13 Feb) RS Wat Tyler (4 Mar) Habeas Corpus suspended (4 Mar) Cobbett's Political Register reduced price to 2d (27 Mar) Sidmouth Circular on libels (Apr) Blackwood's Magazine founded as Edinburgh Monthly Magazine (6 Nov) Death of Princess Charlotte Elgin Marbles purchased by government and put in BM Keats Poems

Chronological Table 1817

1818

1819

1820 1821 1822

1823 1824

1825

1827

χχχΐϋ

Hazlitt The Characters of Shakespeare's Plays Moore Lalla Rookh Ricardo Principles of Political Economy Cuvier Le Regne animal (Jan) "Treatise on Method" in En- (28 Jan) Habeas Corpus recyclopaedia Metropolitana pubstored and never again lished suspended (Jan-Mar) lectures on poetry and (1 Jun) Parliamentary motion drama for universal suffrage and (Jan) met T. Allsop annual parliaments defeated (Apr) two pamphlets supporting Peel's (Jun) Westmorland election Bill against exploitation of child- Keats Endymion labour (Aug) Blackwood's and Quar(Nov) The Friend (3-voI edition) terly attacks on Keats (Dec) Lectures on the History of Hallam Middle Ages Philosophy (Dec-Mar 1819); liter- Hazlitt Lectures on the English ary lectures (Dec-Mar 1819) Poets Lamb Collected Works (dedicated to C) Peacock Nightmare Abbey (Mar) Financial losses in bankruptcy of Rest Fenner (29 Mar) lectures end (11 Apr) met Keats in Millfield Lane; HC elected Fellow of Oriel; revived interest in chemistry; occasional contributionsto Blackwood's to 1822 (May) HC deprived of his Oriel Fellowship (Oct) DC to St John's, Cambridge (Jul) reunion with brother Rev George C (autumn) invitation to lecture in Dublin refused (spring) C s "Thursday-evening class" began; SCs tr of Martin Dobrizhoffer An Account of the Abipones, an Equestrian People of Paraguay (Nov-Feb 1823) wife and daughter visit C, Highgate (29 Dec) HNC began recording his Table Talk Edward Irving's first visit DC left Cambridge prematurely (Sept) Youth and Age begun (Dec) Gillmans and C move to 3, The Grove (Mar) elected FRSL, annuity of £100 (Jun) Carlyle and Gabriele Rossetti called at Highgate DC B.A. Cambridge (May) Aids to Reflection published (18 May) Royal Society of Literature essay on the Prometheus of Aeschylus Proposed three lectures on projected London University DC ordained (10 May) Thomas Chalmers called at Highgate; C s serious illness: his first communion since Cambridge; visit from Poole DC married Mary Pridham Sir George Beaumont d, leaving £100 to Mrs C

xxxiv

The Friend

1828 (22 Apr) Fenimore Cooper met C (21 Jun-7 Aug) Netherlands and Rhine tour with Dora and WW (Aug) Poetical Works (3 vols); John Sterling called at Highgate 1829 Poetical Works (2nd ed) Poetical Works of Coleridge, Shelley, and Keats (Galignani, Paris) (Sept) SC married cousin HNC; Lady Beaumont left C £50; Poole visited Highgate (Dec) On the Constitution of the Church and State 1830 On the Constitution of the Church and State (2nd ed) (Jun) HNC and SC settled in Hampstead (Jul) C makes his will Republication of The Devil's Walk "by Professor Porson" 1831 Last meetings with WW; Aids to Reflection (2nd ed) (Sept) attended British Association, first meetings 1832 Legacy of £300 from Steinmetz 1833 H C s Poems dedicated to C (24-9 Jun) to Cambridge for meetings of British Association (5 Aug) Emerson called at Highgate H C s Biographia Borealis 1834 (Jul) proofs οι Poetical Works (3rd ed) (25 Jul) Death at Highgate

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION At least, were it in my power, my works should be confined to the second volume of my "Literary Life", the Essays of the third volume of the "Friend", from page 67 to page 265, with about fifty or sixty pages from the two former volumes, and some half-dozen of my poems. HUS Coleridge, in typical self-depreciation, assessed his work inFebruary 1819.1 TheFriend, however, occupies a central posi­ tion not only in Coleridge's life, but also in his thought. Until 1808, he told his friends, he had laid his eggs with ostrich carelessness and ostrich oblivion, to be crushed underfoot or, if they crawled forth into life, to feather the caps of others. 2 Now, however, at the age of thirty-six, he intended to be more careful; he would lay a main pipe through which to play off the whole reservoir of his collected knowledge and genius.3 He was not exaggerating, for that main pipe, The Friend, was an outlet for many of the ideas that had appeared in his former lectures and writings, and from its pages would come ideas for his later works. The Friend remained of prime importance for him after its original publication. It is the only one of his prose works that he saw through three editions. Letters, annotated copies, and manuscript fragments show that his interest in both its content and style continued almost to the end of his life.

T

The earliest glimmer of The Friend seems to be a notebook jot­ ting of 1804: " I should like to dare look forward to the Time, when Wordsworth & I with contributions from Lamb & Southey —& from a few others . . . should publish a Spectator".* The same year, in letters and notebooks, he mentions a projected work to be called "Comforts and Consolations". Although this was perhaps to be an answer to and counterpart of such a work as The Miseries of Human Life,s he describes it in phrases that reappear ι Letter to J. Britton 28 Feb 1819: 3 ibid. CL iv 925. 4 CN H 2074. 2 To Thomas Poole 4 Dec 1808: 5 See below, n 185 and η 1. CL m 131. xxxv

xxxvi

Editor s Introduction

in the Prospectus of The Friend. In a letter of 15 January 1804 he gives the title as Consolations and Comforts from the exercise and right application of the Reason, the Imagination, and the Moral Feelings, addressed especially to those in Sickness, Adversity, or Distress of mind, from Speculative Gloom, etc.1 Five years later, in the Prospectus, he listed among the "chief Subjects" of his essays: Sources of Consolation to the afflicted in Misfortune, or Disease, or speculative Gloom, from the Exertion and right Application of the Reason, the Imagination, and the Moral Sense . . . 2 The notebook jottings for the "Comforts and Consolations" run into 1807. That year Joseph Cottle found him "full of future activity, projecting new works, and particularly a 'New Review', of which he himself was to be the Editor!" 3 Some months later he was planning a periodical to be called the "Upholder" or the "Advocate", 4 of which nothing specific is heard except that in May 1808 he wrote to Wordsworth that he was "fast ripening a plan, which secures from 12 to 20£ a week—(the Prospectus indeed going to the Press, as soon as Mr Sotheby and Sir G. Beaumont had read it.)". 5 From the beginning, The Friend was to differ markedly from his periodical, The Watchman (1796), which had been avowedly con­ cerned with events of the day and current politics. Even at the risk of losing three quarters of his readers, he planned to exclude just those things. In the last number of The Watchman he had written: "Henceforward I shall cease to cry the State of the politi­ cal Atmosphere",6 and he meant to keep that vow with The Friend. The new periodical was to be a work of broader, more philo­ sophical, interest: " I do not write in this Work for the Multitude; but for those, who by Rank, or Fortune, or official Situation, or Talents and Habits of Reflection, are to influence the Multitude. I ι To Thomas Poole: CL n 1036. from The Friend would make it un­ 2 The original Kendal Prospectus; necessary for Wordsworth to spend cf below, π 18. his time and talent in journalism. Cf also CRB it 505 (24 Oct 1836): ". . 3 Cottle Rem 306. 4 Mrs. Montagu . . . said . . . that he CA^ in 3390, 3366 and nn. 5 CL m 111. From this letter, and [Wordsworth] was to have shared the Dorothy Wordsworth's letter to profit of the Friend". Thomas De Quincey 1 May [1809] 6 Watchman (1796) 324 (No 10). (WL—M—i 294), it appears that He was to confine those cries to Coleridge hoped that the income articles in newspapers.

Editor s Introduction

xxxvii

write to found true PRINCIPLES, to oppose false PRINCIPLES, in Criticism, Legislation, Philosophy, Morals, and International Law".1 That such a periodical was needed at this crucial time was voiced, ironically enough, by Leigh Hunt's Examiner, a periodical whose principles Coleridge often found wanting: "What is needed is the habit οι referring every thing to pure principle, of making truly great men and great virtues the standards of comparison with regard to character, and sacrificing party interests, or at least making them subservient to the great interests of truth and philosophy. But as periodical works are now conducted, neither genius nor virtue are likely to be found among them, for pride will prevent the one, and conscience the other. "2 An anecdote, of the days when Cole­ ridge was canvassing subscribers for The Watchman, underlines the policy for his new periodical. "Sir", he had said in a roomful of possible subscribers, " I am far from convinced, that a christian is permitted to read either newspapers or any other works of merely political and temporary interest".3 PLAN INTO PROSPECTUS Coleridge's plan for the periodical began to take shape in the late spring of 1808, when he was lecturing on literature at the Royal Institution. William Savage, printer to the Royal Institution, approached him in June about producing a periodical work.4 When their negotiations began to founder because of differences over terms, Coleridge, to whom "bargaining was hateful", called in some "disinterested friends" as arbiters.s The friends were Thomas Bernard, a founder of the Royal Institution, Humphry Davy the chemist, who had sponsored the lectures, and, later, the Bishop of Durham. Coleridge may also have considered as a possible publisher Thomas Longman, with whom he was then 1

To Humphry Davy 14 Dec [1808]: CL m 143. It is still the tersest description of the theme and content of The Friend. 2 "Newspaper Principle" Examiner 6 Aug 1809. 3 51,(1907)1118(chl0). 4 Two letters from Daniel Stuart contradict the view usually held that C approached Savage. "From your conversation, if I recollect rightly he [Savage] was the Projector of the work & though there was in reality nothing in that, yet he might say you

had adopted his plan, leaving him out of it": Stuart to C 16 Dec 1808: DCL "Letters Concerning The Friend" Folder B. "He [Savage] . . . complained of having been prevented by you from continu­ ing his work, but said he would con­ tinue it. I told him yours would be quite a distinct work not interfering with his . . .": to C 17 Dec 1808: ibid. For the full text of the letters, see below, App F, n 474-8. 5 C to Savage c 12 Dec 1808: CL in 140.

xxxviii

Editor s Introduction

negotiating the publication of Wordsworth's White Doe of RyIstoney According to Thomas Clarkson, a Quaker friend, Coleridge had in July reported that "he had engaged with Longman to publish his Weekly Essays".2 In any event, Coleridge understood that Davy and Bernard had settled that Savage "was to be paid for the Paper & Printing at the Trade Price, with 5 per cent for the publication",^ and be printer and publisher of all later editions of the periodical. After visiting Clarkson and his wife in July, Coleridge travelled north, stopping for a time in Leeds, where he was acutely ill, and arrived on the first of September at Grasmere, to stay with the Wordsworths in their new house, Allan Bank.4 He was in better health and spirits than he had been for some time,5 and began to busy himself with his forthcoming "Weekly Essays". The atmos­ phere at the Wordsworth home was harmonious, and the con­ flict between Coleridge and Wordsworth over Sara Hutchinson seemed settled.6 Presumably Coleridge accepted Wordsworth's vow that he and his sister had not tried to infuse into Sara's mind the notion that Coleridge's attachment to her had been a curse on all his happiness.7 By the first week in November, Coleridge had arranged for a local printer, W. Pennington of Kendal, to set up a "Prospectus of The Friend, A Weekly Essay, By S. T. Coleridge. (Extracted from a Letter to a Correspondent.)" 8 In it he confessed to "an ITo Wordsworth [21 May 1808]: 219-20. This was but one episode CL in 113. illustrative of the underlying tension. 2 An unpublished letter of Clark? Ibid, son to Daniel Stuart 4 Feb 1809: 8 See illustration between pp xl-xli BM Add MS 34046 ff 72-3. For and cf n 16-20 below. Stuart felt more of the matter see below, ι xlv. that in so heading the Prospectus 3ToStuart[18Janl809]:CZ,ml66. C did "not treat the Public with * See below, letter of John Broad- proper respect": letter to C 16 head to WW 25 Aug 1808, App F, Dec 1808: DCL Folder B. C replied π 471-2. that he wanted "to cover the in5 WW to Francis Wrangham 2 delicacy of speaking of myself to Oct 1808: WL (M) ι 246. Strangers and to the Public": to «Coleridge had accused Words- Stuart 28 Dec 1808: CL in 151. worth and his wife Mary, Sara's Southey said that C carried the sister, of reading Sara's letters to him. Prospectus "wet from the pen to the "She is 34 years of age", Wordsworth printer" and that it "looks too much wrote C in late May or early June like what it intends to be, talks con1808, "and what have I to do with fidently to the public about what the overlooking her letters?" But his sis- public cares not a curse for": RS to ter Dorothy, "looking for one thing", John Rickman 18 Jan 1809: S Letters had "unfortunately glanc[ed] her eye (Warter) π 120. Pennington later upon another; the sentence she printed a slightly revised version. But asked Sara to explain": WL (M) I as early as c 7 Nov Coleridge was

Editor s Introduction

χχχίχ

Over-activity of Thought, modified by a constitutional Indolence", which yet did not prevent him from daily noting down in his memorandum books incidents and observations. The number and tendency of these notesfirstencouraged him to undertake a weekly essay, in which he perceived "the most likely Means of winning, instead of forcing" his way.1 He then listed the object and chief subjects of his essays, his aim being to entertain as well as to instruct, and called for communications and subscriptions. The Prospectus is the first evidence of the title. Perhaps the key to its meaning is in an early letter to Southey: "I love my Friend—such as he is, all mankind are or might be!" 2 Together with a list of potential subscribers, Coleridge sent a copy of the Prospectus to Savage, asking him to print a thousand or more, "adding his own name & address, as the Publisher", and to distribute them. 3 While awaiting his reply, Coleridge, as well as Wordsworth and Southey, wrote letters to friends in northern England and Scotland, enclosing parcels of the Kendal Prospectus; friends in the Midlands and southern England were promised copies of the Prospectus Savage was assumed to be printing in London.4 Coleridge was well and in good spirits, "writing letters to all his Friends and acquaintances, dispatching prospectuses, and fully prepared to begin his work", but "with no one essay written, no beginning made".5 No 1 had been promised for the first Saturday in January 1809. "There came this morning", Charles Lamb wrote to William Hazlitt,6 "a printed prospectus from S. T. Coleridge, Grasmere, of a weekly paper, to be called The Friend—a flaming prospectus—I have no time to give the heads of it—to commence first Saturday in January. There came also a notice of a Turkey from Mr. able to send Jeffrey, the editor of the Edinburgh Review, "a small parcel of Prospectuses": CL m 126. ι See below, App A, π 16-20 and nn. 2 13 Jul [1794]: CL ι 86. It was not lost on at least one of the recipi­ ents of the Prospectus that the title Friend would be peculiarly appealing to Quakers: ". . . it seems to me as if the Title of your Work had excited no little curiosity amongst that sect": William Wray to C 4 May 1809: DCL Folder D. In a letter to his Quaker friend Thomas Wilkinson, C claimed that he had left out, as one of his subjects in the Prospectus,

"On the transition of natural religion into revelation, or the principle of internal guidance", for fear his argument "would proclaim [him] to be a Quaker, and 'The Friend' as intended to propagate peculiar and sectarian principles. . . . I say aloud everywhere, that in the essentials of their faith, I believe as the Quakers do . . .": 31 Dec 1808: CL m 155-7. 3To Davy 7 Dec 1808: CL m 134-5. 4 Ibid πι 135. 5DW to Mrs Clarkson 8 Dec [1808]: WL (M) ι 255. «Dec 1808: LL Il 60-1.

xl

Editor s Introduction

Clarkson, which I am more sanguine in expecting the accom­ plishment of than I am of Coleridge's prophecy". Other friends, and friends of theirs, however, were busy on The Friend's behalf. Basil Montagu sent Coleridge a list of ten subscribers and promised another ten every week. Clarkson collected names and wrote to his friends to collect names and soon had fortyone subscribers. J. J. Morgan of Bristol sent in a list of six; the Reverend George Caldwell of Jesus College, Cambridge, seven; Robert Grahame of Glasgow, nine; William Ford, a Manchester bookseller, eight. Coleridge's brothers and nephews joined in.i A month after sending Savage the Prospectus, Coleridge finally heard from him. Savage offered new suggestions and the old financial terms originally unsatisfactory to Coleridge.2 Dismayed, Coleridge turned for help to his friend Daniel Stuart, now pro­ prietor of the Courier! "If he have printed the Prospectus", he wrote Stuart, "and sent it off according to my directions, well & good—If he have not, use the copy I sent to you or Mr Street,4 and have a thousand or so printed off immediately. It is my Wish to take the whole at once out of his Hands".5 Stuart answered: "Savage's proposals would have led you into a gulph of debt or obligation; they are most ruinous. You would have been like a young girl who gets into a House of ill fame, & whom the old Bawd always keeps in Debt, stripping her of every Shilling 1

For further details of subscribers, see below, ι lxviii-lxxi, and App E, π 407-67. 2 In a letter of 7 Dec 1808 Savage recommended printing an additional 10,000 Prospectuses for publicity (with another 2000 each month for the first year), selling copies "through the Booksellers hands", printing on "demy Octavo", and selling for sixpence an issue. He would pay for paper, printing, and advertising, to be repaid out of the first proceeds of the sale, "then the profits to be equally divided between us": DCL Folder E (a copy by C is in BM Add MS 34046 f 56, in a letter to Stuart); for the full text, see below, App F, η 473-4. In other words, Savage pro­ posed publishing a periodical that would reach the widest possible pub­ lic—"the Multitude", as C had put it,

the very public for which he was not writing The Friend. And after making his profit as printer, Savage proposed to divide the putative remaining profits. 3 Stuart (1766-1846), formerly pro­ prietor and editor of the Morning Post, to which Coleridge had contri­ buted heavily, was now co-owner of the Courier, but not its active man­ ager. 4 T. G. Street, Stuart's partner in the Courier and its managing editor. In 1809, unknown to Stuart, he was in the pay of the Treasury, having accepted as much as £2000 for the Courier's support of the Perceval ministry: A. Aspinall Politics and the Press (1949) 88-9, 207-8. 5 In the same letter (c 14 Dec 1808: CL in 142) C suggested George Ward —brother of Thomas Ward, business

Editor s Introduction

xli

she gets for prostitution".! He then called on Savage, dis­ covered that no Prospectus had been printed, and ended the connexion.

WEEKLY OR MONTHLY? The Prospectus had promised publication of the first number of The Friend for the first Saturday of January 1809, provided that a

sufficient number of subscribers had been procured. By that date Coleridge's subscribers numbered 180,2 but he had neither pub­ lisher nor printer, and The Friend had been classified a pamphlet rather than a newspaper by the Stamp Office.3 As a pamphlet it could be printed on unstamped paper and sent, like a bookseller's parcel, by coach to the towns where subscribers lived. Stuart may have preferred to see The Friend published in this way, but Cole­ ridge protested that many of his subscribers lived in isolated places where such a parcel was delivered once a month at most, not weekly. How could a weekly be delivered to them unless stamped and posted ? Perhaps the decision of the Stamp Office was more far-reaching than has been realised: Coleridge began to think of printing The Friend in Kendal rather than in London and of "send[ing] it off as a Provincial [paper]".4 Coleridge's plan was to print The Friend on one stamped sheet (at first, a sheet and a quarter),5 charge one shilling a copy, and partner of Tom Poole, C's friend and patron—as a possible publisher. Π7 Dec 1808: DCL Folder B. For the full text see below, App F, Ii 474-6. 2 Letter to Stuart [8 Jan 1809]: CL m 164. 3 Stuart wrote to the Stamp Office 19 Dec 1808, enclosing a Prospectus, to resolve the "doubt" that had arisen in his mind "whether it will not be considered by your honorable Board as a Newspaper, be obliged to pay the Stamp Duty, and the Proprietor, Printer & Publisher be obliged to Register &c. You will oblige me by solving this doubt; & saying, whether, if published every second week, instead of every Satur­ day, it would still be regarded by you as a Newspaper ?": BM Add MS

34046 f 58. On the back of the letter (ibid f 59v) the Stamp Office wrote: "If the Proposed Plan be strictly ad­ hered to it is not a Newspaper—it must Pay Duty as a Pamphlet accord­ ing to its Number of Sheets, and the Duty for the several Advertisements published therein. S.O. Decr. 23, 1808".

4 To Stuart [8 Jan 1809]: CL in 163. He had some concern about provincial newspapers: "Among the ways and means of being useful in country gentlemen, the management &c of Provincial Newspapers—Now in whose hands are they?": see CN in 3454. 5 Stuart advised one sheet, the duty on a sheet and a quarter being 7d: letter to C 17 Dec 1808: DCL Folder B; below, Ii 477.

xlii

Editor s Introduction

send it free through the post1 once a week to subscribers.2 "Instead of four shillings at once", as a non-stamped pamphlet would arrive, he foresaw "the comfort of having a thing come as a News­ paper, & with the Newspapers", wielding the influence of a news­ paper^ Yet at the same time, he claimed, "it is not to be a News­ paper—it is not even a work meant to attract and amuse the ordinary crowd of Readers".4 From the many references to it in Coleridge's letters,5 Cobbetfs Weekly Political Register (begun in 1802 as Cobbetfs Annual Register) may have influenced plans for The Friend. Both were printed on one sheet (numbering sixteen pages), stamped, and sold weekly to subscribers. Whereas the Political Register was militantly partisan, the aim of The Friend was to establish principles by which individuals would judge the issues of the day. "Now he [Cobbett] differs from me in two things mainly", Coleridge wrote,6 "—He applies to the Passionfs that] are gratified by Curiosity, sharp & often calumnious Personality, the Politics and the Events of the Day, and the names and characters of notorious Contem­ poraries. From all these Topics I not only abstain as from guilt; but to strangle these Passions by the awakening of the nobler Germ in human nature is my express and paramount Object". He rea­ lised that by such a plan he gave up three fourths of the readers of periodical works.? If he could succeed in capturing even part of that other fourth, he must have realised as well that he would have not only a profitable but also an influential journal. Cobbetfs Political Register had not yet reached the vast audience it was to have in later years, after Cobbett reduced the price to twopence, but it wielded considerable power. It contained parliamentary reports, reprints from the daily newspapers, letters from such correspondents as Major John Cartwright the reformer, and politi­ cal letters by Cobbett—to Coleridge, "the careless passionate Talk of a Man of robust common sense, but grossly ignorant and under ι J. C. Curwen, MP for Carlisle, "an honest Country Member, always on the right side" (to Poole 11 Apr 1809: CL in 191-2), had offered to frank The Friend (to Stuart 28 Dec 1808: CLm. 151), thus saving the expense of posting the issues—an offer Coleridge accepted. For Stu­ art's remarks on the abuse of franking, see below, App F, π 482-3, letter of 26 Jan 1809. 2 To Stuart 28 Dec 1808, [18 Jan

1809]: CLm 151, 167. 3 To Stuart [8 Jan 1809]: CL in 165. 4To Stuart [18 Jan 1809]: CL in 168. See below, ι 11. 5To Stuart c 14 Dec 1808, to Davy 14 Dec [1808], to Stuart c 4 Apr 1809, to Brown c 9 Apr 1809, to George Coleridge [18 Apr 1809], etc: Ciiii 141, 143-4, 189, 191, 197. 6 To Stuart c 14 Dec 1808: CL in 141. 7 Ibid 141-2.

Editor s Introduction

xliii

the warp of Heat & Prejudice".1 Cobbett charged tenpence a copy, whereas Coleridge would charge a shilling: the twopence more, he felt, was justified: "/bring the Results of a Life of intense Study, and unremitted Meditation—of Toil, and Travel".2 Like Cobbett's periodical too, extra copies of The Friend were to be printed on unstamped paper, these to "be kept in some safe place by themselves, till a sufficient number for a Volume—26 probably. It is thus that Cobbett manages it".3 Stuart first opposed Coleridge's newspaper plan.4 Coleridge argued that "If the work were printed at Kendal, stamped as the provincial papers are, I could easily procure a young steady man to devote one day in the week, to send them off... as the Couriers from your office".5 Thus it was no whim that led him from London to the Lake country as the place of publication. Nor did he overlook matters of payment. In the same letter to Stuart he proposed printing an advertisement in The Friend, asking sub­ scribers to send him a pound after the first twenty issues or two pounds after the first forty. 6 He was also aware that subscribers might remit their payments in letters not post-paid, thus "swallow­ ing] up the Profits",7 and intended to take precautions against this by having the payments remitted to agents and friends.8 THE PRINTER Toward the end of January, with Stuart's approval,^ Coleridge settled for "the Newspaper Plan to be printed at Kendal".1» More ι To Stuart c 14 Dec 1808: CL m 142. 2 Ibid. 3 To John Brown c 9 Apr 1809: CL in 190-1. 4 See e.g. CL in 150-1, 163, 165, 166-8. 5To Stuart [18 Jan 1809]: CL m 167. 6 Ibid. Cf CL in 170. Savage had warned him of the difficulty and trouble of obtaining payment from subscribers residing far away: it was, he said, like opening "500 accounts with people who are perfect stran­ gers": DCL Folder E; below, n 474. ι ToStuartc4 Apr 1809: CLm 188. 8 For further details on subscribers and payments see below, ι lxviii-lxxi. 9 ". . . it having met with your concurrence & having been con­

firmed by unanswerable arguments adduced by you in addition to my own reasonings": C to Stuart [11 Feb 1809]: CL m 180. " I see you prefer the Newspaper to the Pam­ phlet,—quite with my concurrence": Stuart to C 26 Jan 1809: DCL Folder B. (For the rest of the letter see below, App F, η 480-4). Yet a few weeks later, 14 Feb, Stuart was writing C: " I still think the Pamphlet plan has its advantages, {I do not say beyond the Newspaper Plan).... For my own part I cannot decide": DCL Foider B. See below, π 485. io To Stuart 23 Jan 1809: CL in 169. "The Friend will be stamped as a Newspaper, and under the News­ paper Act—which will take 3i d from each Shilling but enable the Essay to pass into all parts & corners of the

xliv

Editor s Introduction

than a m o n t h h a d gone by since Stuart was t o see about printing additional Prospectuses in London. When they finally appeared, dated 2 February, ι printed by C. and R. Baldwin, London,2 the first number was promised for the first or second Saturday of March. N o w that he was to be the proprietor of a Newspaper, Coleridge must give a bond for 400£ for Libels—my Printer & Publisher a double bond as Pr. and Pubr.—and two Friends (W.W. & Southey) each a security of 200£ for Stamp Advertisement Duties—tho' my Work excludes Politics & Advertisements. 3 Wordsworth and Southey were willing t o stand security, b u t Coleridge still needed a printer and publisher. He had hoped that Pennington, who h a d printed the Kendal Prospectus, would agree to publish The Friend. But because of age, Pennington "ultimately declined". 4 Coleridge then asked P o o l e : " W h a t think you of a Press at Grasmere ?" A letter written to Stuart a few days later shows that this was not a sudden wild idea: Old Mr Pennington, of Kendal, has finally declined the being Printer and Publisher of "The Friend": and I have every reason to believe that no one else nearer than Liverpool is capable of undertaking the Work without sending for new Types etc from London. Consequently, my Alternative lies between two Plans, as the only ones possible: the first, that of having the Work printed and published in London, which would occasion a serious deduction from the profits—(for at Kendal the Publishing, Wrapping up, Directing, and sending off per Post would not have cost me Sixpence) and the second, the setting up a Press at Grasmere, and the procuring a good steady young Man from Liverpool, or London, who would be at once . . . Compositor and Pressman. Independently of "the Friend", we had intended to do this.5 Coleridge explained that the plan for a press of their own at Grasmere grew out of a visit from D e Quincey, who had been with the Wordsworths and Coleridge at Allan Bank for three months Empire without expence or trouble": C to Poole 3 Feb 1809: CL m 173. Cf CL m 179 (to Stuart [11-16 Feb 1809]): " . . . it was & I trust, is to be a Newspaper", 1 Yet c 7 Feb Coleridge was still unsupplied with them: CL in 176 (to Stuart). On that day Stuart wrote him that they would be out the following day: DCL Folder B. The bill Baldwin sent to Stuart for print­ ing the Prospectuses is dated 11 Feb:

BM Add MS 34046 f 121. And as late as 14 Feb Stuart, finally en­ closing a Prospectus, began a letter to C: "The Prospectuses are out": DCL Folder B. 2 The printers of Wordsworth's Convention ofCintra pamphlet, which was published May 1809. 3 To Poole 3 Feb 1809: CL in 175. * Ibid. 5 [8 Feb 1809]: CL in 176-7.

Editor s Introduction

xlv

that winter. "Besides his erudition, he has a great turn for manual operations", and it was "his determination to have printed under his own Eye immaculate Editions of such of the eminently great Classics, English and Greek as most need it". 1 Of Coleridge's "scheme of printing at Grasmere", Stuart "approve[d] highly. The great difficulty will be in finding a good steady Printer As to the Plan itself, if/were in your Situation, I would adopt it with delight; of all things it would please me".2 There were, however, as many difficulties attending this plan as any other. A press had to be ordered, and none could be secured second-hand or ready-made. Type had to be ordered, and Cole­ ridge was informed that delays of from four months to a year were to be expected. It was therefore not surprising that he sought elsewhere for the ways and means of printing The Friend, though "sick at Heart with these Alps upon Alps of Hindrances, and Uncertainties". 3 A few days after posting the letter about a press in Grasmere, Coleridge was again writing to Stuart, answering Clarkson's charge that he had promised The Friendto Longman. "Coleridge", Clarkson had written to Stuart 4 Feb 1809, told me at my House, that he had engaged with Longman to publish his Weekly Essays. 1 was therefore much surprized to hear that he had found another Publisher. On the report of this I waited upon Longman, to whom I delicately stated the report, adding at the same time that I did not believe it. His answer was, that he was sure it was false; for that Mf Coleridge, after what had passed between them on the Subject, could never apply to another to publish his new Work—Now as I understand that you are looking out for a Person to print the said Work for him, I have to desire that you will hold your Hand; as I fear our Friend['s] reputation will suffer much both with Longman and others; add to which that he will lose the friendship of the former, who may be serviceable to him on other Occasions—Had he gone to Longman at first, he would have had no Trouble about the Publication; as they would have taken the proper Steps and ensured 10,000 Copies at a time only for 3 Shillings Duty.4 Coleridge ridiculed the idea; except for his translation of Schiller's Wallenstein, he wrote, he had never once in his life "touched ι Ibid. They were to begin with derson's British Poets and a recent Milton. This may have been Cole­ twelve-volume edition of Bacon, ridge's idea, since earlier in 1808 he both "absolutely infamous for their had written in theflyleafof a copy of errata": LLP 80-1. Milton's prose bought for Daniel 2 Stuart to C 14 Feb 1809: DCL Stuart 28 Mar 1808 that their own Folder B; below, π 486. century was "notorious" for badly 3 ToStuart[8Febl809]:C£nil78. edited classics, citing especially An­ 4 BM Add MS 34046 ff 72-3.

xlvi

Editor's Introduction

Longman's Plutus, or He my Minerva". 1 Longman could only distribute The Friend through booksellers every four weeks, and this, Coleridge claimed, "would destroy the very character of the publication".2 Besides, he was well aware of the "rapacity" of London publishers.3 Having eliminated Longman, Coleridge was listing other possible publishers for Stuart, when he suddenly broke off in mid-thought with "To have it printed at Penrith, where there is a very clever young". Several days later, on 16 February, he continued from Penrith: While writing the last Sentence, I received a letter from Penrith, that Brown was both able and willing to print & publish the Friend—in consequence on Sunday I walked from Grasmere over the Mountains (O Heaven! what a Journey!) hither—and arrived at last limping, having sprained my knee in leaping a Brook & slipping on the opposite bank twisted my left leg outward—However, I am perfectly satisfied with Brown's character, proposals, & capability, and have accordingly agreed with him to be my Printer & Publisher—His name is Mr John Brown, Printer & Stationer, Penrith—4 His next letter to Stuart gave more details: he was to pay Brown £1.3.0. to print five hundred sheets, and £1.7.0. for a number not exceeding one thousand ;5 he was to provide Brown with the proofpaper, wrappers, and stamped paper. 6 THE

PAPER

Now that he had a printer, Coleridge called upon Stuart's kindness to procure him a supply of large octavo paper, stamped; to find out whether "as a Newspaperist, I should have a drawback of 16 per cent", and to send him information on negotiations with and payments to paper merchants and Stamp Office.'' Stuart, being a newspaper proprietor, presumably had such information 8 at his finger-tips. Coleridge also informed Stuart that he had ι To Stuart [11-16 Feb 1809]: CL ml79. 2 Ibid. 3 " I have quite a horror of Book­ sellers, whose mode of carrying on Trade in London is absolute rapacity —Longman secures full 40 per cent for letting his Lads lift a book over his Counter—& then calls the XYZ that remains of 30 per cent after advertising expences &c &c the Author's Half of the profits . . .": to Stuart 13 Jun 1809: CL m 213.

4 CL in 180. 5 [27 Feb]: CLm 181. 6 C to Brown 4 Apr, c 9 Apr 1809: CL m 187, 190. ι 16 Feb, [27 Feb 1809]: CLm 180, 181. 8 The detailed nature of Stuart's letters to C (now in DCL) seems to indicate that he had agreed to give advice in practical matters con­ nected with the publication of The Friend.

Editor's Introduction

xlvii

written to Davy to have the £60 the Royal Institution still owed him in lecture fees paid to Stuart at his office; this would cover the cost of paper and stamps.i Perhaps he also hoped that, because Stuart was such a prominentfigurein the newspaper world, paper could be had on credit.2 Coleridge had written to the local distributor of stamps, William Wilkin of Appleby, about the bonds the Stamp Oifice required him, his securities, and his printer to sign, only to be told by this "Knight of the Empty Skull" that "7 must apply to the Stamp Office in London to send HIM down the necessary directions". He delegated the task to Stuart.3 Not inappropriately, Coleridge now set the publication date for 1 April.4 Within a few weeks the bonds were drawn up, 5 and later signed by Coleridge, Brown, Southey, and Wordsworth.6 Everything was ready, Coleridge announced to Stuart, "with Essays full & written out", except the stamped paper, which Stuart had been asked a month earlier to procure. He even informed Stuart of the name of a likely stationer who would supply the paper—Fourdrinier.-? Could he begin "the first of May T^ A new note of desperation was brought on this time not by dis­ appointment but by disease. He had come down with the mumps,9 a depressive illness especially serious in adults, but then lightly regarded; it left him with a temporary deafness in one ear. In the meantime his first shipment of paper was on the way to Penrith by wagon: Stuart had sent 1250 sheets of stamped paper 25 March, 116 Feb [1809]: CL m 180. From an account sheet among Stuart's papers (BM Add MS 34046 f 119), listing C's credits and debits, the initial 1250 stamps and paper are billed at £24.9.2. This agrees with C's statement that each sheet of stamped paper cost him between fourpence halfpenny and fivepence: CL πι 197, 199. Earlier, 10 Jan, Stuart had estimated the cost at £19-20: DCL Folder B. 2 It is interesting that Stuart paid a later paper-bill of Coleridge's six months after purchase-date—2500 sheets bought 24 Jun (BM Add MS 34046 ff 108, 119) were paid for 13 Dec (ibid f 116). 3 [27 Feb 1809]: CL ra 181-2. 4 Ibid. 5ToStuartl7Mar[1809]:CLml83.

«To Stuart [28 Mar 1809]: CL HI 186. The signing took place in Appleby two days later. WW was later appointed Wilkin's successor as distributor of stamps. 7 Stuart did indeed buy the first 1250 sheets from Fourdrinier (1250 sheets was the minimum order taken by the firm). Coleridge then dele­ gated his friends Montagu and Clarkson to arrange with Fourdrinier "for the regular Supply" (to Stuart 18 Apr 1809: CL in 200), which he mistakenly assumed could be had on credit (to Stuart [11 Sept 1809]: CL m 221-2). 8 To Stuart 17 Mar [1809]: CL m 183. 9To Basil Montagu [28 Mar 1809]: C i i i i 183.

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Editor's Introduction

"assured it would reach Penrith in 8 days".i More than a month later, 2 May, Coleridge was still informing him: "No news of the Paper—none !"2 The trouble, Coleridge discovered from his wife, who had it from her grocer, was that nothing was more irregular than deliveries by wagon to Penrith via the Yorkshire Road; the grocer always sent his goods by the Kendal wagon.3 Finally, 5 May, Coleridge wrote with Biblical fervour: "The Paper is come. I have this moment received the tidings".* Relatively few writers are also good business-men, and Coleridge was no exception. However, in "setting up shop"5 for The Friend, he was far from unastute. True, he had Stuart's help. But the facts remain: he printed the Prospectus and organised its distribution through friends; he fought and won the battle to have The Friend sent as a neAvspaper through the post, franked; he settled on size and quantity of paper and even located the stationer who sold it; he found his securities and signed the Stamp Office bonds; he found a printer, determined the full particulars of the type-page—size of type, number of characters per line, number of lines to the page, width of margins.6 Coleridge's weakness lay in a chronic inability to collect money. He knew enough not to sign a contract with a printer that would ruin him,? but he would in canvassing subscribers tell them that "the act of Subscription binds to nothing" ;8 taken literally, this would have ruined him. Although the Royal Institution owed him at least £60 above the 1 Letter from Stuart to C 30 Mar: CLnil87n. 2 CL in 206. 3 To Stuart 18 Apr 1809: CLm 201. * To Stuart: CL m 207. This was the Fourdrinier paper. The following shipments from Stuart were filled by the London firm of John Morgan and Sons: BM Add MS 34046 ff 102, 108, 115, 116, 117, Morgan bills to and receipts from Stuart. 5 To Stuart [27 Feb 1809]: CLm 182. SHe asked John Monkhouse to find out if Brown, the Penrith printer, had "good Types of the size or little different from those, with which this Prospectus is printed, and in quantity sufficient to compose at once a whole Sheet octavo, consisting of 40 lines in each page and 40 letters in each line, consequently 1600 letters the page, and 25,600 for the whole Sheet, subtracting nothing for Breaks,

Paragraphs, Verse, Heads, and Tails": 8 Feb 1809: CL ni 178. When it turned out that Brown did not have the right type, Coleridge made him order a new fount. It was typically his misfortune to have the bill run to over £38 when it was supposed to be about £25: CL m 184. In fact The Friend appeared with 44 lines on the page, with an average of slightly over 40 letters a line—but Coleridge was responsible for the increase: "I am convinced that we must lessen the Margin, and add at least 4 or 5 letters to each page. I tremble at the Idea of an enormous Margin in a weekly Paper—": to Brown c May 1809: CL m 209. 1 See below, 11—Ii, his negotiations with Longman for two volumes of poetry. «To Pim Nevins c 31 Dec 1808: CL m l 59.

Editor s Introduction

xlix

£40 already paid him in lecture-fees, he could only write: "I have received £40 from the R. Institution—If they think more due to me, the Directors will be so good as to order it to be payed to Mr Green, the Clerk of the Courier Office . . ."Λ Perhaps it was an impractical one, but Coleridge did have a scheme forfinancingThe Friend. He expected to begin with at least 500 subscribers.2 These would pay him a shilling a copy, due after the twentieth number, when they would remit one pound direct to him or his agents (booksellers and the friends who had got the subscribers).^ His margin of profit, he realised from the start, would be small,4 but he expected it to grow as The Friend caught on, and he hoped to rely, like other business-men, on credit to keep him going. Also, from the start he planned to collect the numbers and publish them in book form, thus bringing in addi­ tional income.s ι To Davy 30 Jan 1809: CL m 172. Bernard had written to Coleridge 16 Dec 1808: "We are in your debt at the Royal Institution. The balance due to you . . . is £60; which will be paid with some other Sums, as soon as a Sum of Money comes in which ought to have been paid us in June last": DCL Folder D. But the Royal Institution receipt authorising pay­ ment did not reach Coleridge until four months later (letter to Stuart 15 Apr 1809: CL in 194), owing, accord­ ing to Bernard, to Stuart's negli­ gence: " I informed him what was to be done about the Receipt of your Money; but from your Letter I presume he has done Nothing": letter from Bernard to C 2 Apr 1809: DCL Folder D. 2To Stuart [28 Mar 1809]: CL in 186. There were eventually be­ tween 630 and 650 subscribers; see below, ι lxviii, and App E, Ii 407. 3 Coleridge's plan was far from unusual practice; Stuart wrote to C [10 Jan 1809]: " I disapprove of your having many Persons, say Book­ sellers for receiving subscriptions & selling the Work. They will lead to confusion & loss. The Post office will do all. . . . If a man at Norwich wants the Work let him write to you for it, & you must send it from Ken­ dall directed to him. At the end of T F—D

the quarter, half year, or year you may call on him for the price. This is precisely the way, these are the grounds on which the London Papers are served all over the Kingdom by the Newsmen. . . . Persons living in retired Places may either remit to you, or to your London or Kendall Agent, a 20 shilling note for so many weeks, or may pay in the Money to the nearest Post office.... You can say nothing in the Advertisement respecting the mode of payment. It is quite unusual to call for money before hand, & such a call would not be attended to . . . " : DCL Folder B; below, π 479. In a later letter [19 Apr 1809] Stuart advised C to "ask payment at the end of 20 weeks & give notice of your intention so to do": ibid; below, π 489. 4 "After paying the Stamp Duty, the Publisher, the Newsman, three pence halfpenny will remain to me of the Shilling received; out of which . . . I have to pay all the expences of the Paper, the Printing, the Advertis­ ing, &c—-with all the contingent Losses of neglect, fraud, bad debts & Waste": to Pirn Nevins c 31 Dec 1808: CL in 159. Coleridge's eyes were open. 5 To Brown c 9 Apr 1809: CL in 190-1.

1

Editor's Introduction

The first twenty weeks, then, Coleridge knew, would be the hardest. Though he assured Stuart that he could procure the necessary money for the paper for that period,1 he expected the £60 from the Royal Institution and his or Stuart's credit with the stationers to be sufficient.2 If, after that time, "the Work did not then move forward on it's own legs", he planned "either [to] give it up or alter the form & plan of publication".3 There is little doubt that he also hoped that Stuart would advance him the money for paper and stamps if needed. Not only were they friends, but also Coleridge had performed past services for Stuart's news­ papers and would (and did) perform future ones.4 The initial ship­ ment of paper seems to have been accepted by both sides either as a gift or as payment for advice or perhaps for securing Words­ worth's articles on the Convention of Cintra, which ran in the Courier before being printed as a pamphlet.5 For when Stuart re­ ceived the Royal Institution receipt, he assured Coleridge that "the £60 will buy nearly 4000", or enough for six numbers—this almost a month after sending the initial shipment of 1250 sheets.6 Before he had printed even one number, then, Coleridge believed he had sufficient paper for eight numbers. Feeling under an obligation to Stuart, he offered Longman the copyright of two volumes of poems for £120 to repay an earlier debt of £100 he owed Stuart.7 Longman offered only £100, and Coleridge "declined U 6 Feb 1809: CLm 180-1. 2To Stuart [11 Sept 1809]: CL m 221. As early as 10 Jan Stuart had written to Coleridge: "The Stamp money is always ready money . . . but the Distributor may trust you if he chooses": DCL Folder B; below, π 479. 3 To Stuart 2 Oct 1809, three days before No 8 was published: CL in 229. Even before that time he had considered "stamp [ing] at first, and then after 8 or 10 numbers to adopt the other [pamphlet] plan, if a great majority of the Sale was found to be in London, and the great Cities": to Stuart [8 Jan 1809]: CL ra 165. 4 Even from C s letters Stuart was able to write "a paragraph or two" for the Courier, so filled were they with opinions on current events: Stuart to C19 Apr 1809: DCL Folder B; below, π 488. 5 I n the account among Stuart's

papers headed "Mf Coleridge (BM Add MS 34046 f 119), in a clerkly hand, with dates and exact figures for the cost of stamps, paper, and brown paper and cord, the 25 Mar shipment is not included in the figures determining a balance owing to Stuart. Below the statement, in another hand, there is the notation: "1250 Stamps & Paper previously 24 9 2", along with a note beginning: "By this Memorandum it appears DS advanced upwards of 100£ for Stamps & Paper for Coleridge . . .". Cf C to Stuart 2 Oct 1809: ". . . as you had kindly made me a present of thefirst1250sheets...": CLm229. 6 Stuart to C 19 Apr 1809: DCL Folder B; below, π 489. ι". . . wholly thro' an uneasy desire to repay you . . . the only sum of my Debt that lay heavy on my heart": C to Stuart 4 Jun 1809: CL HI 210. (The half-page preceding

Editor's Introduction

Μ

concluding . . . a most injurious bargain both for himself and his family.. ."i. The first number of The Friend was published on 1 June; the second on 8 June. Coleridge printed 620 of No 1 and 650 of No 2, and, with the number demanded for reprints of these two numbers, had enough paper left for only another issue.2 " I take for granted", he wrote to Stuart, "that more than the poor 60£ has been expended in the paper."3 It had not: on 8 May Stuart had debited Coleridge's account with £34.11.4 for an additional 1250 stamped sheets, and for brown paper and cord.4 The next order for stamped paper—2500 sheets—is dated 24 June in Stuart's accounts;5 it was not sent until the first week in July,6 although delivery to Penrith took a fortnight. Coleridge could have printed No 3 on time, but No 4 would have beenfiveweeks late. Perhaps Stuart did not, after all, consider the first shipment of paper as a gift. Or perhaps he thought he was saving Coleridge needless expense in purchasing paper that would never be used, for Coleridge's friends, while supporting him to his face, had been undermining him behind his back. Southey wrote to Stuart that he had "many fears about The Friend. . . . The main and, as it appears to me, the insuperable difficulty... is the unlikelihood, or rather the impossibility, of his carrying on any periodical work with regularity My advice to him is that he publish a number of half-crown, or five shillings worth, whenever he is ready with it. A 'This day is published' in the newspapers will be sufficient prospectus, and it will find its way with the other periodicals.. . . But I have a strong fear—almost a conviction—that, in any other shape, the thing would soon drop".? Eight months later he knew "no more of The Friend than" Stuart did, "except that, when a number comes out, I see it some days sooner, because the proof is sent to me to correct. It will, I suppose, intermit in this way, till subscribers enough drop off to give a good reason for discontinuing it".8 Wordsworth warned Poole not to be this sentence, from a collection of letters bequeathed to the BM by Stuart's daughter Mary, has been cut off.) ι WW to Stuart [15 Jun 1809]: WL (M) ι 328-9. 2 To Stuart 13 Jun 1809: CL ra 213. 3 Ibid 212. 4BM Add MS 34046 f 119.

5 Ibid. «Stuart to C 7 Jul 1809: DCL Folder B; below, π 491. 7 13 Jan 1809: LLP 402-3. 8 10 Sept 1809, written, as he says, after "a proof of the fifth number has just arrived": LLP 409. The rest of the letter is filled with politics— and an idea for a Courier article.

Hi

Editors introduction

"disappointed if the 'Friend' should not last long; but do not hint a word of this to anybody, as any thing of that kind should it come to his ears would completely dash him.—But I must say to you to prevent mortification on your part that I have not much hope".1 To Stuart, Wordsworth wrote: "Of Coleridge or the Friend I can say nothing satisfactory; it is nearly 3 months since he has left us, and I have not heard from him lately".2 A week later to Stuart: "Of the Friend and Coleridge I hear nothing, and am sorry to say I hope nothing. It is I think too clear that Cole­ ridge is not sufficiently master of his own efforts to execute any­ thing which requires a regular course of application to one object. I fear so—indeed I am of opinion that it is so—to my great sorrow".3 To Poole perhaps the same day: "I am sorry to say that nothing appears to me more desirable than that his periodical should never commence. It is in fact impossible—utterly impos­ sible—that he should carry it on; and, therefore, better never begin it; far better, and if begun, the sooner it stops, also the better—the less will be the loss, and not greater the disgrace. . . . I give it to you as my deliberate opinion, formed upon proofs which have been strengthening for years, that he neither will nor can execute any tiling of important benefit either to himself his family or man­ kind" Λ That day The Friend, No 1, was published. When he saw it, Wordsworth wrote to Stuart: "The Friend has at last appeared. I am sorry for it as I have not the least hope that it can proceed".5 Less than a week later thefirmof Longman had sold their whole stock of The Friend and reordered a dozen more of No 1 and two dozen of No 2. Clement the bookseller had also sold all his.6 Wordsworth now wrote to Stuart, "I now think it right to say that such appear to be the present dispositions, resolutions, and em­ ployments of Coleridge, that I am encouraged to entertain more favourable hopes of his exerting himself steadily than I ever have had at any other period of this business. I confess that it looks ill that he should have interrupted the regular publication so early as even the third number; but there is one circumstance which makes me not sorry that this has been done, as I understand that there is no quantity of paper yet arrived to enable him to carry it on 1 30 Mar [1809]: WL (Af) ι 280, a letter in which he asks Poole to promote his pamphlet on the Cintra Convention. 2 25 May [1809]: ibid ι 314. 3 [31 May 1809]: ibid ι 319.

4 [31 May or 1 Jun 1809]: ibid I 322. WW advised Poole to burn the letter. 5 4 Jun [1809]: ibid ι 323. « Longman & Co to C 10 Jun 1809: DCL Folder E.

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regularly for any length of time".1 Soon after receiving this letter Stuart ordered the third shipment of paper.2 "AN IRREGULAR P U B L I C A T I O N " Even in his Prospectus Coleridge had confessed that "the Number of my unrealized Schemes, and the Mass of my miscellaneous Fragments, have often furnished my Friends with a Subject of Raillery, and sometimes of Regret and Reproof "3—an odd admis­ sion when soliciting subscribers, except that he was soliciting them among friends who knew about his promises and their unfulfilment. Poole wrote that he "need not suggest the NECESSITY of your always having 5 or 6 papers ready for the press beforehand. Then if a fit of languor comes you may cherish it". 4 Montagu advised "3 or 4 Essays ready for the Press".5 Clarkson advised writing "at least 36 Essays" before printing one.6 If Dorothy Wordsworth is right, a month before he had originally scheduled publication Coleridge had "no one essay written";7 by the end of February he had written to her "that he had finished his first Essay, all but one passage about Dr. Johnson".8 Stuart printed the entire Prospectus in the Courier of 5 April, announcing publi­ cation for the first or second Saturday of May.9 A week later Coleridge wrote to Poole that he was enjoying "the delight of composing the Numbers".1·) When he learned that a zealous friend had inserted advertisements in two Yorkshire papers, announcing publication of No 1 on 7 May, Coleridge grew alarmed;11 he asked ι [15 Jim 1809]: WL (M) ι 328. According to Stuart's account (BM Add MS 34046 f 119), C was now debited with £73.13.6, thus owing Stuart £13.13.6. 3 See below, π 16. 4 Letter to C 17 Dec 1808: DCL Folder B. 5 Letter to C Good Friday 1809: ibid. β Letter to C 20 Jan 1809: ibid. 7 See above, ι xxxix and η 5. 8 DW to Thomas De Quincey [28 Feb 1809]: WL (M) ι 261. There is nothing about Dr Johnson in No 1, as it appeared. 9 A small advertisement on the front page of the Courier read: " M R COLERIDGE'S Weekly Essay, entitled THE FRIEND, will be published, No 1, on the first Saturday of May.—For 2

the Prospectus, and further particu­ lars, see the last page of this Paper". The full Prospectus, on ρ 4, ended: "The first Number will be published on the first or second Saturday of May". Felix Farley's Bristol Journal printed the Prospectus 8 Apr 1809. i o i l Apr 1809: CLm 191. n William Wray, an attorney in Malton, wrote to C 4 May 1809 that he had inserted a short advertise­ ment of The Friend in the York Herald and had begged "a very particular Friend" in Hull to have it also inserted once in the Rockingham newspaper: DCL Folder D. The advertisements appeared the same day, 22 Apr, in the York Herald and the Rockingham and Hull Weekly Advertiser, both weeklies.

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Stuart to advertise in the Courier that The Friend would appear 13 May, "or else I shall be charged with making fools of my Subscribers".1 Since the paper finally reached Penrith during the first week of May, Coleridge could have met his mid-May dead­ line. He put down the delay to his printer's inexperience, a multitude of errors in type-setting, and his own alteration of the introductory essays after his arrival at Penrith.2 Because of Coleridge's irregular habits,3 his illnesses, his fits of depression, his addiction to drugs—-and his past performances— The Friend has acquired among biographers an unfair reputation for irregularity in publication. These are the facts. No 1 was late to appear, owing to a multitude of reasons involving printer and paper and the beginning of a new work. No 2 was on time, with, however, a notice on the last page that No 3 would be a week late: "His reason for this is that many orders have been sent in from booksellers, and he wants to have the names, that the papers may be sent addressed to the respective persons".* So he told the Wordsworths when, after crossing "our most perilous & difficult Alpine Pass,"5 he arrived at Grasmere, from supervising the print­ ing of the first two numbers at Penrith. He said that he had left the copy for No 3 with the printer, who was setting it.6 But his main reason, as he told his readers at the opening of No 3—which ap­ peared more than a month late, 10 August—had been "owing to disappointments in the receipt of, and an unexpected derangement in his plans of procuring, the Paper and Stamps";? this was not an overstatement. There is no reason to doubt his word for the delay. Dorothy Wordsworth, not always a favourable witness, found Coleridge "in good spirits, and going on with his work" at the end of June;8 at the beginning of August, being "very busy of late . . . 12 May 1809: C L m 206. 2 To Stuart 13 Jun 1809: C L m 213. 3 D W wrote Mrs Clarkson 8 Dec [1808] that she found C "obliged to lie in bed more than half of the day. . . . Today . . . he did not rise till near two o'clock": WL (M) ι 255. Six months later he was telling Stuart that he rose "every morning at 5, and work[ed] 3 hours before breakfast"; 13 Jun 1809: CL m 212. Two days later D W wrote Mrs Clarkson: " H e says he rises at 6 o'clock in the morning; that is, he has done so for more than a week, nay, I believe a fortnight": WL (M) ι 325.

•*DW to Mrs Clarkson 15 Jun [1809]: ibid ι 324. 5 That is, Kirkstone Pass; C to Stuart 13 Jun 1809: CL m 211. e DW's letter above. Cf C s letter to Stuart 13 Jun 1809: " T h e proof Sheet of N o . 3 goes back to day, & with it the Copy of No. 4 " : CL ra213. 7 See below, App A, π 38. To Thomas W. Smith he wrote that " t h e Whale of self-offered Services, which I had mistaken for an Island, plunged away from under m e " : 22 Jun 1809: CL πι 217. 8 To De Q 25 Jun [1809]: WL (M) I 331.

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he has sent off the 3rd and 4th numbers of The Friend, and is at work daily" ;i and, 26 or 27 August, "going on well at present. The 4th essay will come out next week, and I know that he has the 5th, and more, ready".2 With the fourth number, Sara Hutchinson became Coleridge's amanuensis, taking the essays down from his dictation. 3 With enough paper on hand to print eight numbers, and the promise from Stuart of paper for two more, it seems difficult to explain the lateness of No 4. Coleridge had written to Brown that if there was too much copy for No 3 he should "leave off with (to be continued)".4 Brown took him literally: No 3 ended in midsentence. No 4, headed "(Continuedfrom page 48.)",s completed the sentence—one month later, 7 September. It was three weeks late.6 Lamb, not knowing that No 4 was not out, wrote to Brown to send it and "all succeeding numbers" to him, as well as the whole series to John Rickman and Captain Burney. "They have been ordered at Clement's in the Strand, & MT. Clement refuses to send them, because he says it is an irregular publication".7 Clement and Longman were acting as London agents for The Friend. When Brown asked if Coleridge wanted to continue with Clement,8 he was told to send Clement's copies to Longman instead, and to add Longman's name after his own at the bottom of each number.9 ι To De Q 1 Aug 1809: ibid I 334. The date on which C sent off the copy for Nos 3 and 4 remains puzzling. The note to his printer Brown that accompanied the copy of the last three and a quarter pages of No 3 and the first four pages of No 4 (dated "[Late M y ] " in CL in 217) is postmarked "Keswick". These pages, now in The Friend ms in the V & A (Forster MS 112), are in C s own hand. If he went to Keswick in M y (there is no record), DW would have had no firsthand knowledge of C s copy; furthermore, she had been in Kendal c 15-17 M : DW to Richard Wordsworth 22 M [1809]: WL (M) I 332-3. In any event, there is a possibility that he was being quite accurate when he wrote to Stuart that "The proof Sheet of No. 3 goes back to day, & with it the Copy of No. 4": 13 Jun 1809: CL m 213. 2DW to Mrs Clarkson: WL (M) ι 340.

3 DW to Lady Beaumont 28 Feb [1810]: ibid ι 358. In the extant ms Sara's hand begins at the end of No 4. See App C, below, π 381. 4 CL m 217. 5 See below, App A, η 51. e Southey wrote to William Taylor of Norwich 7 Sept 1809: "Coleridge has sent out a fourth number to-day. I have always expected every number to be the last: he may, however, possibly go on in this intermitting way till subscribers enough withdraw their names (partly in anger at its irregularity, more because they find it heathen Greek) to give him an ostensible reason for stopping short": J. W. Robberds A Memoir of the Life and Writings of the Late William Taylor of Norwich (2 vols 1843) π 284. ^ 24 Aug 1809: DCL Folder C. 8 Brown to C n.d.: ibid. 9 [11 Sept 1809]: CL HI 220. The first four numbers end with "PEN-

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Editor's Introduction

When Clement heard of this he protested "most unequivocally" that he "never made such an assertion"; it was his shopman who had said: "Mr Coleridge is very irregular with his Friends". The instant Clement was aware of the circumstance he gave orders "that nothing should be said but refer [enquirers] to Longmans". In fact, far from injuring Coleridge's work, he said he had kept The Friend on display in his window from the beginning and even ad­ vertised, in the Courier and the Morning Post, the arrival of No 4.1 With No 5, The Friend resumed weekly publication. Some copies of No 8 were late because the printer ran out of paper.2 Brown printed 644 copies—a dozen above the names on the sub­ scription lists—and the supply of paper that Stuart had sent in July therefore did not quite make eight numbers. Coleridge begged for more paper: "I feel all over me like a Bird whose plumage is beclammied and wings glued to it's body with Bird­ lime".4 Stuart replied that he doubted the wisdom of the plan of publication "more now than [he] did at first" and advised monthly publication, which would "remove all the difficulties in the way of your continuing the work from want of stamped Paper", but he wrote not a word about the paper he had promised for two further numbers.5 Two days after Stuart's letter had been posted, Coleridge was writing to him again, begging, "For God's sake do not abandon me now—need I say, that one of my great Objects in carrying on this work is to enable me to repay by degrees what I owe you—? ... At all events, do send to Brown immediately Sc per coach stamps for two numbers—that I may have time to beg pecuniary assis­ tance elsewhere . . . ".6 Before he received an answer he received Stuart's reply to his previous letter, and addressed another letter to RITH: PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY

J. BROWN". Beginning with No 5, that legend is followed by "AND SOLD BY MESSRS. LONGMAN & CO. PATER­ NOSTER ROW, LONDON". For a com­ parison of these colophons in the 1809-10 and "1812" editions, see below, App B, π 373-5. ι Clement to C 7 Oct 1809: DCL Folder E. The Courier and M Post advertisements had appeared 12 Sept. From Clement's account, dated 19 Jan 1810 (DCL Folder E), his shop sold twenty-four copies each of Nos 1, 2, 3, and 4. He did not re­ ceive The Friend again until No 9, and

sold a dozen each of Nos 9-20. Stuart intervened to reinstate Clem­ ent as London agent; see his letter to C 25 Sept (below, App F, n 492). 2 Brown seems to have printed as many copies of No 8 as he had paper. De Quincey received his copy on time: see CL in 244 η 1. 3 Brown to C c 22 Sept 1809: DCL Folder E; cf C to Stuart 27 Sept [1809]: CL m 226. 4To Stuart [11 Sept 1809]: CL in 222. 5 25 Sept 1809: DCL Folder B; below, Ii 491-2. 6 27 Sept [1809]: CL in 226.

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Stuart, to Cheltenham, where he had been staying the past two months. In his earlier letter he had told Stuart of an interesting article he had written for the Courier, which Sara Hutchinson was copying out. Now he said he would send it to Street—obviously, to pay for the supply of paper.1 "You are at Cheltenham—I think of writmg immediately to Street, asking him on my own account to send off paper for two numbers per coach"; he would then try to raise the money from his brother or Poole, though his "very bowels quiver[ed] at the thought of begging it". 2 On 5 October, the publication date of No 8, both Street and Stuart answered Coleridge's appeal. Stuart wrote to Coleridge that he had asked the clerk at the Courier "to send you 1250 Stamps for 2 numbers as I promised".3 Street wrote: " I could not get any Paper stamped for you till today: having been obliged to send it into the Stamp Office—It is gone off by the Coach this Afternoon & I hope you will receive it safe—I am much obliged to you for the Article you promise me which I expect with Impati­ ence". After political talk, he added: "I am glad to see you go on with Spirit in your publication—Fame & Fortune will be the Recompense of your Perseverance—".4 Coleridge now had enough paper to print No 10. Most of No 8, then, appeared on time; No 9 was late "owing to a ridiculous cause. The rats eat up the motto at the printer's",5 and copies of the motto, entrusted to two separate chaise-drivers, never reached Brown.6 But both Nos 8 and 9 were only days late and were dated when they should have appeared, 5 and 12 October. ι This was the first of the "Letters on the Spaniards", eight articles that ran in instalments in the Courier 7 Dec 1809-20 Jan 1810. Cf C s letter to Stuart 2 Oct 1809: " I should have been right glad to have worked for THE COURIER & have sent it two Essays weekly on a variety of subjects too much connected with persons & immediate Events to fit them for my own work—so as to have greatly reduced at least the final balance at the 20th week—& Street will see from the Article sent to him how far I should be likely to serve the paper": CL πι 230. Stuart's account shows C s total indebtedness, as of 27 Oct 1809, to be £44.15.11. The eight long articles, together with the long extracts excerpted from The Friend

and printed in the Courier, may have cancelled C s debt. 2 30 Sept 1809: CLm 228. 3 DCL Folder B; below, n 493. 4 DCL Folder D. Street sent 1500 stamped sheets; the cost was entered in Stuart's account (BM Add MS 34046 f119): Oct 4 Stamps 1500 20.16.1 —27 Paper D° 8.11.Brown Paper &c .2.4 (27 Oct was the date Morgan & Sons' bill was paid: ibid f 115). sSouthey to Stuart 22 Oct 1809: LLP 415. At the end of No 10, C put it more delicately to his readers; see below, App A, π 145. e C to Brown c 14 Oct 1809: CL m 246.

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Editor s Introduction

With No 10, which appeared on time, 19 October, Coleridge had reached the halfway mark to his goal of twenty numbers, after which The Friend would be able "to move on it's own legs".1 Of the eighteen numbers that followed, only three were late, and then by a week only.2 To De Quincey complaints of delay in publica­ tion seemed the most unreasonable of all: "No one, it seems to me, has any right to complain that he does not receive a No. regularly once a week—so long as he is not required to pay a shilling once a week".3 Besides the mighty Alp of paper-supply, Coleridge had had other Alps to cross in that journey which, as early as February 1809, had made him "faint and sick at Heart".4 Besides securing subscribers, he had to see that they were regularly supplied, that back-numbers were sent, subscriptions cancelled, accounts kept, addresses changed, and that agents sent out their copies. Between himself and his printer stretched a physical Alp, twenty-eight mountainous miles, including Kirkstone Pass. More than once Coleridge walked over the mountains, in rain and fair weather. There was no direct post between Grasmere, where he lived, and Penrith, whence his printer sent out copies; communications went via Kendal or Ambleside, unless a chance traveller carried a letter or a packet to Keswick. From Keswick there was a regular coach service to Penrith, which partly explains why Coleridge stayed in Keswick before thefirstFriend. Because he had no direct post, Coleridge was forced to rely on others for proof-reading. The first two numbers he proof-read himself, while superintending the press in Penrith.5 The third number, and possibly the fourth, were proof-read by Anthony Harrison, the attorney with whom he had stayed in Penrith.^ By the fifth number—possibly by the fourth—Southey had assumed the responsibility.? He continued as proof-reader of all the num­ bers except the tenth and eleventh, which Harrison or Brown him­ self corrected.8 Coleridge "groan[ed] beneath the Errata . . . Southey . . . has been strangely oscitant—or—which I believe is ι To T. W. Smith22 Jun 1809: CL in 217; to Stuart 2 Oct 1809: CL in 229. 2 See below, ι lxx. 3 To DW 16 Aug [1809]: De Q to W 245. 4ToStuart[8Febl809]:CXinl78. 5 DW to De Q 1 May [1809]: WL (M) ι 294.

«C to Brown [late July]: CL in 218. 7 LLP 415. 8 "Ncrt to make any further delay, I must entrust the correction of these Numbers to yourself—if Mr A. Harrison should not be at home or too much engaged—": C to Brown c 14 Oct 1809: CL m 246.

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sometimes the case, has not understood the sentences, & thought, they might have a meaning for me tho' they had not for him".1 " T H E PROCRUSTES BED OF 16 P A G E S " Southey was not the only reader who sometimes did not under­ stand The Friend. Dorothy Wordsworth found that there were "beautiful passages in both Essays [Nos 1 and 2] and everywhere the power of thought and the originaUty of a great mind are visible, but there is wanting a happiness of manner; and the first number is certainly very obscure".2 She also objected to Cole­ ridge's praise of her brother as "the one poet of his own time" and found it foolish of him "to talk of his homesickness as a husband".* Coleridge's sister-in-law, on receipt of No 1, expected The Friend would be "a most inteligent & interesting Work and I hope to gain some information from your Essays (if I could retain any I read)",4 and though Francis Wrangham feared "the Paper . . . perhaps not quite light enough" for its subscribers, he meant by this "to express [his] own approbation of its weight".? De Quincey, hear­ ing complaints "of the great obscurity of the Friend", for his part could not agree: "it certainly requires some attention . . . to follow the course of the thought; but I could not find anything that was . . . unintelligible—if a man took pains to understand it". Yet his mother was "the only person that [he had] seen who sincerely and thoroughly like[d] the Friend hereabouts"^ ι To Poole 9 Oct 1809: CL m 234. 2 To Mrs Clarkson 15 Jim [1809]: WL (M) ι 325. 3 Ibid. But, ironically, C had not called Wordsworth "the one poet"; in explaining why he would not often quote his own poetry—"I have felt and deeply felt, that the Poet's high Functions were not my proper assign­ ment"—he wrote that he felt it "a Blessing, that even among my Con­ temporaries I know one at least, who has been deemed worthy of the Gift": Friend (1809-10) 13; below, App A, Ii 15. DWs second point was better taken: C had been separated from Mrs C since the spring of 1807, though they remained friends, visit­ ing each other and often living under the same roof. See his letter to his brother George explaining the sepa­ ration, 2 Apr [1807] (CL m 6-8):

with her "many excellent qualities" Mrs C had "a temper & general tone of feeling, which after a long—& for six years at least—a patient Trial I have found wholly incompatible with even an endurable Life, & such as to preclude all chance of my ever developing [my] talents. . . . The few friends, who have been Wit­ nesses of my domestic Life, have long advised separation . . . nor does Mrs Coleridge herself state or pre­ tend to any objection on the score of attachment to me;—that it will not look respectable for her, is the sum into which all her objections resolve themselves". 4 Martha Fricker to C 12 Jun 1809: DCL Folder B. 5To C 12 Aug 1809: ibid. 6 To DW 16 Aug [1809]: De Q to IF 244-5. Later De Quincey found it

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Editor s Introduction

From the start Coleridge was aware of the weaknesses of the first two essays, vowing to Stuart that "the Numbers to come are in a very superior style of Polish & easy Intelligibility".! Indeed, Stuart agreed: ". . . your 3. 4. & 5. Numbers [on freedom of the press]... I have read with great satisfaction, particularly the 3