Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey | Page 5

relating to Mr. Southey
Mr. Cottle's letter to Mr. Foster, respecting Mr. Southey
Sixteen letters from Mr. Coleridge to Thomas and Josiah Wedgewood,
Esqs.
List of works promised by Mr. Coleridge, but not written
Mr. Coleridge sound in health, in 1800
--- --------- his health undermined by opium soon after
Dr. Carlyon, relating to Mr. Coleridge (Note)
Extracts from Mr. Poole's letters, respecting Mr. Coleridge
Dr. Adam's letter to Mr. Gillman, respecting Mr. Coleridge
Mr. Coleridge domesticates with Mr. Gillman
Letter of Mr. Foster, respecting Mr. Coleridge
Prayer of Mr. Coleridge, 1831
Mr. Coleridge's Epitaph on himself
Mr. Coleridge's monument
APPENDIX.
Character of John Henderson
Controversy of Rowley and Chatterton
The Weary Pilgrim, a Poem
* * * * *
REMINISCENCES.
* * * * *
Ten years ago I published "Recollections of S. T. Coleridge." This
work I have revised, and embodied in the present "Reminiscences of S.
T. Coleridge, and Robert Southey." My views and motives have been
explained in the Introduction.
If some Readers should consider that there are occasional documents
introduced into the following work, too unimportant and derogatory to
legitimate biography, I would observe, that it was designed that nothing

should be admitted which was not characteristic of the individual; and
that which illustrates character in a man of genius, cannot well be
esteemed trifling and deserving of rejection.--In preparing those
Reminiscences, some effort has been required. I have endeavoured to
forget the intervening space of forty or fifty years, and, as far as it was
practicable, to enter on the scenes and circumstances described with all
the feelings coincident with that distant period. My primary design has
been to elucidate the incidents referring to the early lives of the late Mr.
Coleridge and Mr. Southey: yet I purposed, in addition, to introduce
brief notices of some other remarkable characters, known in Bristol at
this time.
To account for my introduction to all the persons subsequently noticed,
it is necessary to apprise the Reader that I was a bookseller in Bristol
from the year 1791 to 1798; from the age of 21 to 28: and having
imbibed from my tutor and friend, the late John Henderson, (one of the
most extraordinary of men) some little taste for literature, I found
myself, during that period, generally surrounded by men of cultivated
minds.[1] With these preliminary remarks I shall commence the
narrative.
At the close of the year 1794, a clever young man, of the Society of
Friends, of the name of Robert Lovell, who had married a Miss Fricker,
informed me that a few friends of his from Oxford and Cambridge,
with himself, were about to sail to America, and, on the banks of the
Susquehannah, to form a Social Colony, in which there was to be a
community of property, and where all that was selfish was to be
proscribed. None, he said, were to be admitted into their number, but
tried and incorruptible characters; and he felt quite assured that he and
his friends would be able to realize a state of society free from the evils
and turmoils that then agitated the world, and to present an example of
the eminence to which men might arrive under the unrestrained
influence of sound principles. He now paid me the compliment of
saying that he would be happy to include me in this select assemblage
who, under a state which he called PANTISOCRACY, were, he hoped,
to regenerate the whole complexion of society; and that, not by
establishing formal laws, but by excluding all the little deteriorating
passions; injustice, "wrath, anger, clamour, and evil speaking," and
thereby setting an example of "Human Perfectibility."

Young as I was, I suspected there was an old and intractable leaven in
human nature that would effectually frustrate these airy schemes of
happiness, which had been projected in every age, and always with the
same result. At first the disclosure so confounded my understanding,
that I almost fancied myself transported to some new state of things,
while images of patriarchal and pristine felicity stood thick around,
decked in the rain-bow's colours. A moment's reflection, however,
dissolved the unsubstantial vision, when I asked him a few plain
questions.
"How do you go?" said I. My young and ardent friend instantly replied,
"We freight a ship, carrying out with us ploughs, and other implements
of husbandry." The thought occurred to me, that it might be more
economical to purchase such articles in America; but not too much to
discourage the enthusiastic aspirant after happiness, I forebore all
reference to the accumulation of difficulties to be surmounted, and
merely inquired who were to compose his company? He said that only
four had as yet absolutely engaged in the enterprise; Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, from Cambridge; (in whom I understood the plan to have
originated;) Robert Southey