Literary Lives

Founding Editor: Richard Dutton, Professor of English, Lancaster University This series offers stimulating accounts of the literary careers of the most admired and influential English-language authors. Volumes follow the outline of the writer's working lives, not in the spirit of traditional biography, but aiming to trace the professional, publishing and social contexts which shaped their writing.

Published titles include: Clinton Machann Harold Pagliaro MATTHEW ARNOLD HENRY FIELDING Jan Fergus Andrew Hook JANE AUSTEN F. SCOTT FITZGERALD John Beer Mary Lago WILLIAM BLAKE E. M. FORSTER Tom Winnifrith and Edward Chitham Shirley Foster CHARLOTTE AND EMILY BRONTE ELIZABETH GASKELL Sarah Wood Neil Sinyard ROBERT BROWNING GRAHAM GREENE Janice Farrar Thaddeus James Gibson FRANCES BURNEY THOMAS HARDY Caroline Franklin Cristina Malcolmson BYRON GEORGE HERBERT Sarah Gamble Gerald Roberts ANGELA CARTER GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS Nancy A. Walker Kenneth Graham KATE CHOPIN HENRY JAMES Roger Sales W David Kaye JOHN CLARE BEN JONSON William Christie Phillip Mallett RUDYARD KIPLING Cedric Watts John Worthen JOSEPH CONRAD D. H. LAWRENCE Grahame Smith Angela Smith CHARLES DICKENS KATHERINE MANSFIELD George Parfitt Lisa Hopkins JOHN DONNE CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE Paul Hammond Cedric C. Brown JOHN DRYDEN JOHN MILTON Kerry McSweeney Peter Davison GEORGE ELIOT GEORGE ORWELL Tony Sharpe Linda Wagner-Martin T. S. ELIOT SYLVIA PLATH Felicity Rosslyn Joseph McMinn ALEXANDER POPE JONATHAN SWIFT Ira B. Nadel Leonee Ormond EZRA POUND ALFRED TENNYSON Richard Dutton Peter Shillingsburg WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY John Williams David Wykes MARY SHELLEY EVELYN WAUGH Michael O'Neill Caroline Franklin MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT Gary Waller John Mepham EDMUND SPENSER VIRGINIA WOOLF Tony Sharpe John Williams WALLACE STEVENS William Gray Alasdair D. F. Macrae ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON W. B. YEATS

Literary Lives Series Standing Order ISBN 978-0-333-71486-7 hardcover Series Standing Order ISBN 978-0-333-80334-9 paperback (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and one of the ISBNs quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England Samuel Taylor Coleridge A Literary Life

William Christie © William Christie 2007 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2007978-1-4039-4066-7 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the * Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London wn 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published in 2007 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world. PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin's Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 978-0-230-S8096-1 ISBN 978-0-230-62785-7 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-0-230-62785-7 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Christie, William, 1952- Samuel Taylor Coleridge: a literary life /William Christie. p. cm. - (Literary lives) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4039-4066-7 (cloth) 1. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834.2. Poets, English - 19th century- Biography. I. Title. II. Series: Literary lives (Palgrave Macmillan (Firm)) PR4483.C524 2006 821'.7-dc22 2006046063 [B] 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07

Transferred to digital printing in 2007. For my mother Diana Christie (nee Silcock) with love Contents

Acknowledgements ix

Abbreviations x Chronology xiv

Prologue: Literary Life, 1815 1 1. 'The Discipline of His Taste at School': Christ's Hospital and Cambridge 14 2. 'The Progress of His Opinions in Religion and Politics': The Radical Years 35 3. 'A Known and Familiar Landscape': Conversations 59 4. 'The Poet, Described in Ideal Perfection': Annus Mirabilis 85 5. 'The Toil of Thinking': Private Notes and Public Newspapers 116 6. 'To Rust Away': The Lost Years 1800-6 139 7. 'The One Proteus of the Fire and the Flood': Critic for Hire 165 8. 'To Preserve the Soul Steady': The Sage of Highgate 188

Epilogue 212 Notes 215 Further Reading 232 Index 238

vii Acknowledgements

My greatest debts are to Coleridge's biographers: to Coleridge himself, in his autobiographical letters to Tom Poole of 1797-8 and in the Biographia Literaria, and thereafter to a host of dedicated Coleridgeans, from Joseph Cottle and James Gillman through to Richard Holmes's generous double vol­ ume biography, which straddles Rosemary Ashton's scrupulous account in the Blackwell Critical Biographies series. To these last two, in particular, and to the many editors of The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Bollingen Series LXXV, I am deeply indebted. This could not have been written without the advice and encouragement of many of my colleagues here at the University of Sydney, but again I single out two: Deirdre Coleman and Margaret Harris have been especially atten­ tive and generous. I am also indebted to the Research Institute in the Humanities and Social Sciences (RIHSS) here at the University of Sydney for a fellowship granting me relief from some of my teaching during a vital period of the study's gestation. Paula Kennedy at Palgrave Macmillan has been enthusiastic about the pro­ ject from the beginning and helped make it all worthwhile, and myoid teacher, Geoffrey Little, kindly offered to read through the final draft. Finally, thanks to my wife Patrice and daughter Ellen for (on top of every­ thing else) making the trip to the UK without me to allow me to finish the book, and to my other daughters, Francesca and Vita, and to my grandson Archie, for putting up with less time than they deserve.

ix Abbreviations

References to the following will be found in parentheses within the body of the text: BL Biographia Literaria or Biographical Sketches of My Literary Life and Opinions, The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 7, ed. James Engell and W. Jackson Bate, in 2 vols (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983). CL The Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ed. Earl Leslie Griggs, in 6 vols (Oxford: Clarendon, 1956-71). CN Collected Notebooks of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Bollingen Series L, ed. Kathleen Coburn, with Merton Christensen and Anthony John Harding, in 5 double vols (New York, Princeton, and London: Princeton University Press and Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1957-2002). N Coleridge's Notebooks: A Selection, ed. Seamus Perry (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002) [the text of Perry's edition is preferred for all those notes included in his selection].

References to the following will be found in the endnotes: Ashton Rosemary Ashton, The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996). Church and State (cq On the Constitution of the Church and State, The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 10, ed. John Colmer (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976). Coleridge: The Critical Coleridge: The Critical Heritage, ed. ]. R. de Heritage ]. Jackson (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970). Essays on His Times (cq Essays on His Times in The Morning Post and The Courier, The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 3, ed. David V. Erdman, in 3 vols (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978). The Friend (cq The Friend, The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 4, ed. Barbara E. Rooke, in 2 vols (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969). Gillman James Gillman, The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (London: William Pickering, 1838).

x Abbreviations xi

HCR Henry Crabb Robinson on Books and Their Writers, ed. Edith ]. Morley, in 3 vols (London:]. M. Dent & Sons, 1938). Holmes, Darker Reflections Richard Holmes, Coleridge: Darker Reflections (London: HarperCollins, 1998). Holmes, Early Visions Richard Holmes, Coleridge: Early Visions (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1989). Lamb Letters The Letters of Charles and Mary Anne Lamb, ed. Edwin W. Marrs Jr, in 3 vols (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1975-8). Lay Sermons (cq Lay Sermons, The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 6, ed. R. J. White (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1972). Lectures 1795 (cq Lectures 1795 On Politics and Religion, The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1, ed. Lewis Patton and Peter Mann (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971). Lectures on Literature (cq Lectures 1808-1819 On Literature, The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge,S, ed. R. A. Foakes, in 2 vols (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987). Lectures on Philosophy (cq Lectures 1808-1819 On the History of Philosophy, The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 8, ed.]. R. de]. Jackson, in 2 vols (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000). Marginalia (cq Marginalia, The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 12, ed. H. ]. Jackson and George Whalley, in 6 vols (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980-2001). Opus Maximum (cq Opus Maximum, The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 15, ed. Thomas McFarland, with Nicholas Halmi (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002). Oxford Companion to the An Oxford Companion to the Romantic Age: Romantic Age British Culture 1776-1832, ed. lain McCalman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). Poetical Works (cq Poetical Works, The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 16, ed.]. C. C. Mays, xii Abbreviations

in 6 vols (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001) [All quotations from Coleridge's poetry are taken from this edition]. The Prelude William Wordsworth, The Prelude, 1799, 1805, 1850, ed. Jonathan Wordsworth, M. H. Abrams, and Stephen Gill (New York: Norton, 1979) [All quotations from The Prelude are taken from this edition]. Shorter Works (cq Shorter Works and Fragments, The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, II, ed. H. J. Jackson and]. R. de]. Jackson, in 2 vols (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995). Table Talk (cq Table Talk Recorded by Henry Nelson Coleridge (and John Taylor Coleridge), The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 14, ed. Carl Woodring, in 2 vols (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990). Thomas Poole and His Mrs Henry [Margaret E.] Sandford, Thomas Friends Poole and His Friends, in 2 vols (London: Macmillan, 1888). The Watchman (cq The Watchman, The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 2, ed. Lewis Patton (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971). Wordsworth Letters: The Letters of William and Dorothy The Early Years Wordsworth, I, The Early Years 1787-1805, second edition, ed. Ernest de Selin court, rev. Chester L. Shaver (Oxford: Clarendon, 1967). Wordsworth Letters: The Letters of William and Dorothy The Middle Years 1 Wordsworth, II, The Middle Years, Part 1, 1806-1811, second edition, ed. Ernest de Selincourt, rev. Mary Moorman (Oxford: Clarendon, 1969). Wordsworth Letters: The Letters of William and Dorothy The Middle Years 2 Wordsworth, III, The Middle Years, Part 2, 1812-1820, second edition, ed. Ernest de Selin court, rev. Mary Moorman and Alan G. Hill (Oxford: Clarendon, 1970). Wordsworth Letters: The Letters of William and Dorothy The Later Years 1 Wordsworth, III [for IV], The Later Years, Part 1, 1821-1828, second edition, ed. Ernest de Selin court, rev. Alan G. Hill (Oxford: Clarendon, 1978). Abbreviations xiii

Wordsworth Letters: The Letters of William and Dorothy The Later Years 2 Wordsworth, V, The Later Years, Part 2, 1829-1834, second edition, ed. Ernest de Selin court, rev. Alan G. Hill (Oxford: Clarendon, 1979). Wordsworth Poetical Works The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, revised edition, ed. Ernest de Selincourt and Helen Darbishire, in 5 vols (Oxford: Clarendon, 1952-9) [All quotations from Wordsworth's poetry, other than from The Prelude, are taken from this edition]. Wordsworth Prose Works The Prose Works of William Wordsworth, ed. W. ]. B. Owen and Jane Worthington Smyser, in 3 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974). Chronology

1772 (21 October) Coleridge born William Wordsworth two years old; Ottery St Mary, Devonshire one year old 1774 born 1775 born; Jane Austen born 1776 American Declaration of Independence 1778 Coleridge attends Ottery born Grammar School 1781 Coleridge's father dies 1782 Coleridge to Christ's Hospital 1785 born 1787 Coleridge's elder brother John, an army captain, dies in Madras 1788 George Gordon (later ) born 1789 Coleridge introduced to The Fall of the Bastille initiates Bowles' sonnets at school the French Revolution by Thomas Middleton 1790 Coleridge's elder brother Luke, Edmund Burke Reflections on the a surgeon, dies Revolution in France published 1791 Coleridge's sister Ann (Nancy) dies; Tom Paine Rights ofMan published; enters Jesus College, Cambridge mobs attack Joseph Priestley's house in Birmingham 1792 Coleridge's brother Francis, a Percy Bysshe Shelley born; Mary lieutenant in the army, dies in Wollstonecraft Rights of Woman India; Coleridge wins Browne published medal for an ode on the slave trade 1793 Trial of William Frend at Cambridge; Louis XVI of France executed; war Coleridge enlists in 15th Light declared on England and Holland by Dragoons as Silas Tomkyn France; William Godwin Political Comberbache Justice published; Marie Antoinette (French queen) executed 1794 Coleridge meets Robert Southey Robespierre executed; state trials for at Oxford; pantisocracy planned; treason of Thomas Hardy, John Coleridge to London for treason Horne Tooke, John Thelwall trials; begins publishing 'Sonnets (acquitted) on Eminent Characters' in Morning Chronicle; to London and the Salutation and Cat with Charles Lamb xiv Chronology xv

1795 Coleridge brought back to Bristol born; the 'gagging by Southey from London; delivers acts' introduced in parliament his lectures on politics, on revealed religion, and on the slave trade; pantisocracy abandoned; A Moral and Political Lecture, Conciones ad Populum, The Plot Discovered published; Coleridge marries Sara Fricker 1796 Coleridge launches his periodical England threatened with invasion The Watchman; Poems on Various Subjects published; son born; Sonnets from Various Authors published (with Lamb and Charles Lloyd); Coleridge to Nether Stowey 1797 Coleridge to Racedown, Wordsworth and Dorothy to Alfoxden House near Nether Stowey; Lamb and John Thelwall visit Stowey; ann us mirabilis begins 1798 Coleridge meets William Hazlitt; Irish uprising; Napoleon invades accepts the Wedgwood annuity; Egypt; Nelson wins the Battle of Fears in Solitude etc. published; the Nile son Berkeley Coleridge born; Lyrical Ballads published; to Germany with the Wordsworths 1799 Coleridge's son Berkeley dies; Napoleon becomes First Consul of Coleridge to the University at France Gottingen; returns to Stowey; Coleridge's first tour of the ; meets and falls in love with Sara Hutchinson; to London to begin work for the Morning Post 1800 Coleridge's translation of Schiller's Highland clearances; the Union of The Piccolimini and The Death of Great Britain and Ireland Wallenstein published; Coleridge moves to Greta Hall, near Keswick; son Derwent Coleridge born 1801 a second edition of Lyrical Ballads Prime Minister William Pitt resigns; ('by William Wordsworth') Henry Addington's ministry begins; published; Coleridge in London Napoleon signs Concordat with the (briefly) writing for Morning Post Pope 1802 Coleridge at Humphry Davy's Peace of Amiens (peace with the lectures on chemistry in London; French); Napoleon becomes Consul writing for Morning Post; 'Dejection: for life; foundation of the Edinburgh An Ode' published on William and Review and of William Cobbett's xvi Chronology

Mary Wordsworth's wedding day Weekly Political Register; French (4 October); tour of Wales with Tom army invades Switzerland Wedgwood; daughter born 1803 Coleridge in Somerset with Tom Britain declares war on France Poole and the Wedgwoods; Poems (1803) published; visits by Hazlitt, Sir George and Lady Beaumont at Greta Hall; tour of Scotland begun with Wordsworth and Dorothy, completed alone 1804 Coleridge to London; embarks for Code Napoleon; Spain declares war Malta; private secretary to on Britain; Pitt's second ministry Sir Alexander Ball, governor of Malta; visits Sicily 1805 Coleridge appointed Acting Napoleon declared King of Italy; Public Secretary in Malta; Nelson's victory at the Battle of learns of death at sea of Trafalgar John Wordsworth; tourist in Naples and Rome 1806 Coleridge in Rome, befriends Pitt dies; 'Ministry of all the Talents' American painter Washington formed under Lord Grenville; Allston; visits Florence and Pisa; Charles James Fox dies returns to England, lingers in the south; to Keswick to effect separation from his wife; joins Wordsworths at Cole orton 1807 Coleridge at Coleorton hears Portland ministry; abolition of the Wordsworth read the 13-book slave trade; bombardment of Prelude; to London, then Bristol Copenhagen by British fleet; war on and Stowey; meets De Quincey; the Spanish peninsula begins returns to London 1808 Coleridge's first literary lectures Convention of Cintra signed; at the Royal Institution; Napoleon invades Spain Wordsworth to London; Wordsworths moves to Allan Bank, ; Coleridge to Allan Bank 1809 Coleridge begins publishing Foundation of the Quarterly Review; his periodical The Friend Spencer Perceval forms ministry 1810 The Friend folds; Coleridge to Napoleon annexes Holland; London; quarrel with George III goes mad Wordsworth; moves in with John and Mary Morgan and Charlotte Brent 1811 Coleridge contributes to The Prince of Wales declared Regent; Courier; literary lectures at Luddite uprisings begin Scot's Corporation Hall Chronology xvii

1812 Coleridge makes last journey Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, cantos I to the Lake District; literary and II; prime minister Perceval shot; lectures in Willis's Rooms; United States declares war on Britain relations with Wordsworth over trade restrictions; Napoleon resumed invades Russia, then retreats 1813 Remorse opens at Drury Lane Austria declares war on Napoleon; for 23 nights; Remorse published Southey becomes Poet Laureate; (3 editions); Morgan bankrupt, Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice escapes to Ireland; Coleridge to published; Leigh Hunt imprisoned Bristol, lecturing; suffers for libel; Wellington's peninsular major breakdown campaign successful 1814 Coleridge under medical care Allies invade France; treaty with for his opium addiction; literary Austria, Prussia, and Russia against lectures in Bristol; rejoins the Napoleon; Napoleon defeated and Morgans, and they move to exiled to Elba; Wordsworth The CaIne in Wiltshire Excursion published; Waverley, Byron The Corsair published; Congress of Vienna; America and Britain at peace 1815 Coleridge dictates his literary life Napoleon escapes from Elba (The Hundred Days); the Battle of Waterloo; Napoleon imprisoned on St Helena 1816 Coleridge accepted as patient and Byron goes into exile; Roman boarder by Dr James Gillman at Catholic relief rejected in Lords; Highgate; Christabel Kubla Khan, Jane Austen Emma published; Spa and Pains of Sleep published; Fields riot Statesman's Manual published; attacked by the reviewers, notably Hazlitt 1817 A Lay Sermon (Coleridge's second) Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine published; Biographia Literaria and ('Maga') founded; Roman Catholic Sybilline Leaves published; meets relief rejected in Lords again; disciple and amanuensis Jane Austen dies Joseph Henry Green; Zapyola published 1818 Coleridge publishes a preliminary Agitation and vote (rejected) for 'Treatise on Method' in the reform of electoral system; Mary Encyclopcedia Metropolitana; Shelley Frankenstein published literary lectures at the London Philosophical Society; meets disciple Thomas Allsop; a new, reorganized and rewritten Friend issued; lectures on the history of philosophy and on literature at the Crown and Anchor Tavern, Strand 1819 Coleridge's lectures continue Byron Don Juan begins; the Peterloo Massacre xviii Chronology

1820 George III dies; accession of George IV; Cato Street conspiracy; revolution in Spain and Portugal; trial of Queen Caroline; Keats Lamia and Other Poems, Shelley Prometheus Unbound, Wordsworth The River Duddon son­ nets published 1821 Keats dies in Rome; Napoleon dies; Greek War of Liberation begins 1822 Coleridge's 'Thursday-evening Shelley drowns in Italy; Castlereagh class' begins; Mrs Coleridge suicides; Protestants and Catholics and daughter Sara visit clash in Ireland Coleridge at Highgate; nephew (later son-in-law) Henry Nelson Coleridge begins recording Coleridge's table talk 1823 Coleridge sets himself up in the War between France and Spain attic bed and bookroom in the Gillmans' new house 1824 Coleridge elected Royal Associate Byron dies at Missolonghi in Greece of the Royal Society of Literature, with 100 guinea annuity 1825 Coleridge Aids to Reflection published; lecture 'On the Prometheus of Aeschylus' delivered to Royal Society of Literature and published 1826 First crossing of the Atlantic under steam 1828 Coleridge Poetical Works Repeal of Test and Corporation Acts (in 3 volumes) published 1829 Coleridge On the Constitution Agitation for Catholic Emancipation; of the Church and State published third Catholic Relief Bill passed by Lords; Humphry Davy dies in Switzerland 1831 Royal Society of Literature Bill for reform of the electoral system annuity withdrawn (the famous Reform Bill) introduced into parliament and preoccupies the nation 1832 Reform Bill finally passes through both houses 1834 Coleridge dies at Highgate Lamb dies five months later (25 July)