a happy man; and a happy man not from natural temperament, for therein lies his main obstacle, not by enjoyment of the good things of this world—for even to this day, from the first dawn of his manhood, he has purchased independence, and leisure for greatly good pursuits, by austere frugality and daily self-denials-nor yet by an accidental confluence of amiable and happy-making friends and relatives, for every one near to his heart has been placed there by choice, and after knowledge and deliberation; but he is a happy man, because he is a Philosopher, because he knows the intrinsic value of the different objects of human pursuit, and regulates his wishes in strict subordination to that knowledge; because he feels, and with a practical faith, the truth of that which you more than any, my dear sir, have with great good sense and kindness pressed upon me, that we can do but one thing well, and that therefore we must make a choice. He has made that choice from his early youth, has pursued, and is pursuing it; and certainly no small part of his happiness is owing to this unity of interest, and that homogeneity of character which is the natural consequence of it, and which that excellent man, the poet Sotheby, noticed to me as the characteristic of Wordsworth. Wordsworth is a poet, a most original poet. He no more resembles Milton, than Milton resembles Shakespeare. He no more resembles Shakespeare, than Shakespeare resembles Milton. He is himself; and I dare affirm that he will hereafter be admitted as the first and greatest philosophical poet, the only man who has effected a complete and constant synthesis of thought and feeling, and combined them in poetic form, with the music of pleasurable passion, and with Imagination, or the modifying power, in the highest sense of the word, in which I venture to oppose it to Fancy, or the aggregating power, in that sense in which it is a dim analogue of creation-not all that we can believe, but all that we can conceive of creation. Wordsworth is a poet, and I feel myself a better poet in knowing how to honour him, than in all my own poetic compositions, all I have done or hope to do; and I prophesy immortality to his Recluse as the first and finest philosophical poem, if only it be, as it undoubtedly will be, a faithful transcript of his own most august and innocent life, of his own habitual feelings, and modes of seeing and hearing." [He then describes his walk from Grasmere to Kendal on the previous day,-January 14,-a distance of nineteen miles, in four hours thirty-five minutes; and speaks of his hope of spending a winter in Malta.] The other letters were written from Dunmow-Sir George Beaumont's residence in Essex-and from Portsmouth, to the Wordsworth family jointly. + an admirable, because most minute Journal of his Sights, Doings, and Done-untos in Sicily. As to money, I shall avail myself of an £105 to be repayed by you on the 1st of January 1805, and another £100, to be employed in paying the Life Assurance, the bills at Keswick, Mrs Fricker, next half year; and, if any remain, to buy me comforts for my voyage, &c., Dante and a dictionary. I shall borrow part from my brothers, and part from Stuart. I can live a year at Catania (for I have no plan or desire of travelling except up and down Ætna) for £100, and the getting back I shall trust to chance. O my dear, dear friends! if Sicily should become a British Island-as all the inhabitants intensely desire it to be, and if the climate agree with you as well as I doubt not it will with me, and if it be as much cheaper than even Westmoreland, as Greenough reports, and if I could get a Vice-Consulship-of which I have little doubt-O what a dream of happiness could we not realize? But mortal life seems destined for no continuous happiness, save that which results from the exact performance of duty; and blessed are you, dear William! whose path of duty lies through vine-trellised elm-groves, through love and joy and grandeur. O for one hour of Dundee !' How often shall I sigh, Oh! for one hour of The Recluse !' I arrived at Dunmow on Tuesday, and shall stay till Tuesday morning; you will direct No. 116 Abingdon Street, Westminster. I was not received here with mere kindness; I was welcomed almost as you welcomed me when first I visited you at Racedown. And their solicitude and attention is enough to effeminate one. Indeed, indeed, they are kind and good people; and old Lady Beaumont, now eighty-six, is a sort of miracle for beauty, and clear understanding and cheerfulness. The house is an old house by a tan-yard, with nothing remarkable but its awkward passages. We talked by the long hours about you and Hartley, Derwent, Sara, and Johnnie; and few things, I am persuaded, would delight them more than to live near you. I wish you would write out a sheet of verses for them, and I almost promised for you that you should send that delicious poem on the Highland Girl at Inversnade. S. T. COLERIDGE.” "DUNMOW, ESSEX, Wednesday, Feb. 16, 1804. MY DEAREST FRIENDS,- . O! I conjure you, my dearest Dorothy and Mary! as you love me, as you value my utilities when absent from you, to set about making a copy of all William's MS. poems. I solemnly promise that no English eye shall behold a line of them, either before or after my Sicilian tour. OI feel, I feel, what a treasure, what an inspiring Deity they will be to me when I am absent. I would not talk thus warmly if I did not know how much I am asking, therefore it is fit I should express how great the good will be. I leave this place on Friday morning. I assure you that Sir George Beaumont has often talked of William, his domestic happiness, and his height of uniqueness of poetic genius, till the tears have been in his eyes, and on Lady Beaumont's cheeks, who verily has a soul in point of quick enthusiastic feeling, so much like to Dorothy's, only not Dorothy's powers. Yet she has mentioned many things, to me very very interesting, concerning her early life and feelings." "MR J. C. MOTLEY'S, PORTSMOUTH, MY DEAREST FRIENDS,revered William! I seem to grow weaker and weaker in my moral feelings, and everything that forcibly awakes me to person and contingency, strikes fear into me, sinkings and misgivings, alienation from the spirit of hope, obscure withdrawings out of life, and a wish to retire into stoniness and to stir not, or to be diffused upon the winds and have no individual existence. I most eagerly wish to have my beloved Dorothy's tour. . . . If, however, Southey should hot go, and you should not have it ready, then send it exactly in the same letter-form, and in letters, each short of an ounce and three-quarters, inclusive of the two envelopes, directed-1. S. T. Coleridge, Esqre., Mr J. C. Motley's, Portsmouth. 2. Inclose this in an envelope, directed simply, Jno. Rickman, Esqre. 3. Inclose this in another cover, and direct it to The Right Honorble. the Speaker, Palace Yard, Westminster. N.B.-Whatever you do, do not forget the second cover to Rickman, lest the Speaker should find himself letter-smuggler to Squire Coleridge; and secondly, send them not altogether, nor even day after day, but interpose four or five days between each letter, and after this once every month or six weeks. If dear William have written any verses, more than will go in a single sheet to Lamb, you will send an ounce and three-quarters to me at Motley's O dear, dear friends! I love you, even to anguish love you; and I know no difference, I feel no difference between my love of little Sara and dear little John. Being equally with me, I could not but love them equally; how could I-the child of the man, for whom I must find another name than friend, if I call any others but him by the name of friend-Mary and Dorothy's own darling, the first free hope of you all! . . . S. T. C." Every one who is familiar with the literary history of England at the beginning of this century knows the closeness of the tie which bound Wordsworth and Coleridge to each other. It was a tie of more than ordinary friendship, growing out of a community of thought, feeling, sympathy, and affection; but this profound, and in some respects unparalleled friendship, was quite consistent with a keen sense of the limitations of each other's genius, and even with a vivid critical exposure of these. It is a total mistake to suppose that the literary coterie at Grasmere, Keswick, &c., a group to which Southey and Lamb (though resident in London) belonged, as well as Wordsworth and Coleridge, was a "mutual admiration society." Southey's criticism of Wordsworth was as trenchant, as his eulogy was just: Lamb's satire on his weaknesses as arrowy and true, as his appreciation of his merits was far-reaching; and Coleridge's discernment of faults in the poetic work of his |