Coleridge by S.L. Bensusan — Read

A reconciliation between Southey and Coleridge marked the return of the latter to Stowey, where Mr. and Mrs. Southey came on a visit of some weeks. Following this Coleridge took his wife to Ottery St. Mary and joined the family circle for a month. In October he stayed with the Wordsworths at Sockburn-on-Tees, in the house of Mrs. Wordsworth's parents, and was with John and William Wordsworth when they lighted on the old inn that was to become Dove Cottage, the home of William Wordsworth during the period of his most fruitful labours, and in these latter days a centre of pilgrimage. By the end of the year Coleridge was in London again, living at 21 Buckingham Street in the Strand, and writing for the _Morning Post_. The association was a lengthy one, but it was not always pleasant, and it gave rise to controversy during the poet's life and when he was dead. Coleridge said in after years that Stuart had offered him a partnership and that he had declined it on the ground that any income in excess of five pounds a week was an evil. Coleridge may have said this, and doubtless believed what he said; we have seen that he was quite unable to deal authoritatively with financial matters. It is fair to say that the poet had few if any of the qualities that are demanded for daily journalism, in which a man must be safe and reliable. If he be brilliant, so much the better for those who employ him, but brilliance is not to be compared with punctuality in a newspaper office. Coleridge declared that he "wasted the prime and manhood of his intellect" on the _Morning Post_ and the _Courier_; but latter-day judgment, while acknowledging the high quality of some of his journalistic work, cannot accept the statement, which is yet another example of poetic licence. Modern Fleet Street does not treat erratic contributors as patiently or liberally as Stuart treated Coleridge; the rapid march of events and the stress of competition alike forbid.

When he gave up his regular work on the papers he stayed for some weeks with Lamb at Pentonville, then went to Stowey, and from there to Dove Cottage. The translation from Schiller, on which he had been engaged, was now finished. From Dove Cottage he moved to Greta Hall, near Keswick, a semi-detached house some twelve miles or so from the Wordsworths. His landlord, who lived next door, was the possessor of a good library. Neighbours called upon the new-comer and offered hospitality, for his work had already attracted some attention. "Christabel" was finished, but when the two volumes of _Lyrical Ballads_ were published in January 1801, Coleridge had not fulfilled his promise in regard to them. He was busy promising volumes, still unwritten, to publishers, he was anticipating his allowance from the Wedgwoods, and nursing an attack of rheumatic fever. With the road clear before him, with a certain market for his work, he was paying tribute to "the thief of time. " If at length he wrote, his writing took the form of long and brilliant letters to private friends. For relief from physical pain he was indulging in opium. The year 1801 is full of complaints and of direct or indirect appeals for money. In April 1802 came the famous "Ode to Dejection"; if space permitted it should be quoted here, for, in a couple of hundred lines, Coleridge has penned a picture of his own mental state that none can pass by with indifference, or without compassion.