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Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit
CONFESSIONS OF AN INQUIRING SPIRIT AND MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS FROM "THE
FRIEND"
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Contents:
Introduction Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit Letters on the
Inspiration of the Scriptures. An Essay on Faith Notes on the Book of
Common Prayer A Nightly Prayer A Sailor's Fortune Essay I Essay II
Essay III Essay IV Essay V Essay VI
INTRODUCTION
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born on the 21st of October, 1772,
youngest of many children of the Rev. John Coleridge, Vicar of the
Parish and Head Master of the Grammar School of Ottery St. Mary, in
Devonshire. One of the poet's elder brothers was the grandfather of
Lord Chief Justice Coleridge. Coleridge's mother was a notable
housewife, as was needful in the mother of ten children, who had three
more transmitted to her from her husband's former wife. Coleridge's
father was a kindly and learned man, little sophisticated, and
distinguishing himself now and then by comical acts of what is called
absence of mind. Charles Buller, afterwards a judge, was one of his
boys, and, when her husband's life seemed to be failing, had promised
what help he could give to the anxious wife. When his father died,
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was but eight years old, and Charles Buller
obtained for him his presentation to Christ's Hospital. Coleridge's
mind delighted in far wandering over the fields of thought; from a boy
he took intense delight in dreamy speculation on the mysteries that
lie around the life of man. From a boy also he proved his subtleties
of thought through what Charles Lamb called the "deep and sweet
intonations" of such speech as could come only from a poet.
From the Charterhouse, Coleridge went to Jesus College, Cambridge,
where he soon won a gold medal for a Greek ode on the Slave Trade, but
through indolence he slipped into a hundred pounds of debt. The stir
of the French Revolution was then quickening young minds into bold
freedom of speculation, resentment against tyranny of custom, and
yearning for a higher life in this world. Old opinions that
familiarity had made to the multitude conventional were for that
reason distrusted and discarded. Coleridge no longer held his
religious faith in the form taught by his father. He could not sign
the Thirty-nine Articles, and felt his career closed at the
University. His debt also pressed upon him heavily. After a long
vacation with a burdened mind, in which one pleasant day of picnic
gave occasion to his "Songs of the Pixies," Coleridge went back to
Cambridge. But soon afterwards he threw all up in despair. He
resolved to become lost to his friends, and find some place where he
could earn in obscurity bare daily bread. He came to London, and then
enlisted as a private in the 15th Light Dragoons. After four months
he was discovered, his discharge was obtained, and he went back to
Cambridge.
But he had no career before him there, for his religious opinions then
excluded belief in the doctrine of the Trinity, and the Universities
were not then open to Dissenters. A visit to Oxford brought him into
relation with Robert Southey and fellow-students of Southey's who were
also touched with revolutionary ardour. Coleridge joined with them in
the resolve to leave the Old World and create a better in the New, as
founders of a Pantisocracy--an all-equal government--on the banks of
the Susquehannah. They would need wives, and Southey knew of three
good liberal-minded sisters at Bristol, one of them designed for
himself; her two sisters he recommended for as far as they would go.
The chief promoters of the Pantisocracy removed to Bristol, and one of
the three sisters, Sarah Fricker, was married by Coleridge; Southey
marrying another, Edith; while another young Oxford enthusiast married
the remaining Miss Fricker; and so they made three pairs of future
patriarchs and matriarchs.
Nothing came of the Pantisocracy, for want of money to pay fares to
the New World. Coleridge supported himself by giving lectures, and in
1797 published Poems. They included his "Religious Musings," which
contain expression of his fervent revolutionary hopes. Then he
planned a weekly paper, the Watchman, that was to carry the lantern of
philosophic truth, and call the hour for those who cared about the
duties of the day. When only three or four hundred subscribers had
been got together in Bristol, Coleridge resolved to travel from town
to town in search of subscriptions. Wherever he went his eloquence
prevailed; and he came back with a very large subscription list. But
the power of close daily work, by which alone Coleridge could carry
out such a design, was not in him, and the Watchman only reached to
its tenth number.
Then Coleridge settled at Nether Stowey, by the Bristol Channel,
partly for convenience of neighbourhood to Thomas Poole, from whom he
could borrow at need. He had there also a yearly allowance from the
Wedgwoods of Etruria, who had a strong faith in his future. From
Nether Stowey, Coleridge walked over to make friends with Wordsworth
at Racedown, and the friendship there established caused Wordsworth
and his sister to remove to the neighbourhood of Nether Stowey. Out
of the relations with Wordsworth thus established came Coleridge's
best achievements as a poet, the "Ancient Mariner" and "Christabel."
The "Ancient Mariner" was finished, and was the chief part of
Coleridge's contribution to the "Lyrical Ballads," which the two
friends published in 1798. "Christabel," being unfinished, was left
unpublished until 1816.
With help from the Wedgwoods, Coleridge went abroad with Wordsworth
and his sister, left them at Hamburg, and during fourteen months
increased his familiarity with German. He came back in the late
summer of 1799, full of enthusiasm for Schiller's last great work, his
Wallenstein, which Coleridge had seen acted. The Camp had been first
acted at Weimar on the 18th of October, 1798; the Piccolomini on the
30th of January, 1799; and Wallenstein's Death on the 10th of the next
following April. Coleridge, under the influence of fresh enthusiasm,
rapidly completed for Messrs. Longman his translation of Wallenstein's
Death into an English poem of the highest mark.
Then followed a weakening of health. Coleridge earned fitfully as
journalist; settled at Keswick; found his tendency to rheumatism
increased by the damp of the Lake Country; took a remedy containing
opium, and began to acquire that taste for the excitement of opium
which ruined the next years of his life. He was invited to Malta, for
the benefit of the climate, by his friend, John Stoddart, who was
there. At Malta he made the acquaintance of the governor, Sir
Alexander Ball, whose worth he celebrates in essays of the Friend,
which are included under the title of "A Sailor's Fortune" in this
little volume. For a short time he acted as secretary to Sir
Alexander, then returned to the Lakes and planned his journal, the
Friend, published at Penrith, of which the first number appeared on
the 1st of August, 1809, the twenty-eighth and last towards the end of
March, 1810.
Next followed six years of struggle to live as journalist and lecturer
in London and elsewhere, while the habit of taking opium grew year by
year, and at last advanced from two quarts of laudanum a week to a
pint a day. Coleridge put himself under voluntary restraint for a
time with a Mr. Morgan at Calne. Finally he placed himself, in April,
1816--the year of the publication of "Christabel"- -with a surgeon at
Highgate, Mr. Gillman, under whose friendly care he was restored to
himself, and in whose house he died on the 25th of July, 1834. It was
during this calm autumn of his life that Coleridge, turning wholly to
the higher speculations on philosophy and religion upon which his mind
was chiefly fixed, a revert to the Church, and often actively
antagonist to the opinions he had held for a few years, wrote, his
"Lay Sermons," and his "Biographia Literaria," and arranged also a
volume of Essays of the Friend. He lectured on Shakespeare, wrote
"Aids to Reflection," and showed how his doubts were set at rest in
these "Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit," which were first published
in 1840, after their writer's death.
H. M.