may suit his paltry purposes to worship and idolize. Of Mr Southey we at all times think, and shall speak, with respect and admiration; but his open adversaries are, like Mr Jeffrey, less formidable than his unprincipled Friends. When Greek and Trojan meet on the plain, there is an interest in the combat; but it is hateful and painful to think, that a hero should wounded behind his back, and by a poisoned stiletto in the hand of a false Friend.[1]
The concluding chapter of this Biography is perhaps the most pitiful of the whole, and contains a most surprising mixture of the pathetic and the ludicrous.
"Strange," says he, "as the delusion may appear, yet it is most true, that three years ago I did not know or believe that I had an enemy in the world; and now even my strongest consolations of gratitude are mingled with fear, and I reproach myself for being too often disposed to ask,—one friend?"
We are thus prepared for the narration of some grievous cruelty, or ingratitude, or malice,—some violation of his peace, or robbery of his reputation; but our readers will start when they are informed, that this melancholy lament is occasioned solely by the cruel treatment which his poem of Christabel received from the Edinburgh Review and other periodical Journals! It was, he tells us, universally admired in manuscript—he recited it many hundred times to men, women, and children, and always with an electrical effect—it was bepraised by most of the great Poets of the day—and for twenty years he was urged to give it to the world. But alas! no sooner had the Lady Christabel "come out," than all the rules of good-breeding and politeness were broken through, and the loud laugh of scorn and ridicule from every quarter assailed the ears of the fantastic Hoyden. But let Mr Coleridge be consoled. Mr Scott and Lord Byron are good-natured enough to admire Christabel, and the Public have not forgotten that his Lordship handed her Ladyship upon the stage. It is indeed most strange, that Mr Coleridge is not satisfied with the praise of those he admires, but pines away for the commendation of those he contemns.
Having brought down his literary life to the great epoch of the publication of Christabel, he there stops short; and that the world may compare him as he appears at that aera to his former self, when "he set sail from Yarmouth on the morning of the 10th September 1798, in the Hamburg Packet," he has republished, from his periodical work the "Friend," seventy pages of Satyrane's Letters. As a specimen of his wit in 1798, our readers may take the following:—
"We were all on the deck, but in a short time I observed marks of dismay. The Lady retired to the cabin in some confusion; and many of the faces round me assumed a very doleful and frog-coloured appearance; and within an hour the number of those on deck was lessened by one half. I was giddy, but not sick; and the giddiness soon went away, but left a feverishness and want of appetite, which I attributed, in great measure, to the "sœva mephitis" of the bilge-water; and it was certainly not decreased by the exportations from the cabin. However, I was well enough to join
- ↑ In the Examiner of April 6th, 1817, there is a letter, signed " Vindex," from which the following extract is taken.
"The author of the 'Friend' is troubled at times and seasons with a treacherous memory; but perhaps he may remember a visit to Bristol. He may remember—(I allude to no confidential whisperings—no unguarded private moments,—but to facts of open and ostentatious notoriety)—He may remember, publicy, before several strangers, and in the midst of a public library, turning into the most merciless ridicule 'the dear Friend' whom he now calls Southey the Philologist, 'Southey the Historian,' Southey the Poet of Thalaba, the Madoc, and the Roderic. Mr Coleridge recited an Ode of his dear Friend, in the hearing of these persons, with a tone and manner of the most contemptuous burlesque, and accused him of having stolen from Wordsworth images which he knew not how to use. Does he remember, that he also took down 'the Joan of Arc,' and recited, in the same ridiculous tone (I do not mean his usual tone, but one which he meant should be ridiculous) more than a page of the poem, with the ironical comment, 'This, gentlemen, is Poetry?' Does he remember that he then recited, by way of contrast, some forty lines of his own contribution to the same poem, in his usual bombastic manner? and that after this disgusting display of egotism and malignity, he observed, 'Poor fellow, he may be a Reviewer, but Heaven bless the man if he thinks himself a Poet?'
'Absentem qui rodit amicum
Hic niger est: hunc tu Romane caveto.'
Vindex."
