reptile’s lot, much toil, much blame,
Manifold motions making little speed,
And to deform and kill the things whereon we feed.83
Yet he also wondered if the Greek doctrine of the separation of soul and body implied that his mind could never be truly corrupted, even by opium. Indeed, perhaps opium was the source of his inspiration, despite its terrible physical effects. “Need we wonder at Plato’s opinions concerning the Body; at least, need that man wonder whom a pernicious Drug shall make capable of conceiving & bringing forth Thoughts, hidden in him before, which shall call forth the deepest feelings of his best, greatest & sanest Contemporaries?…That the dire poison for a delusive time has made the body, the unknown somewhat, a fitter Instrument for the all-powerful Soul.”84
His Notebooks (“alas, my only Confidants”)85 of May and June are full of such questioning, about the nature of love, genius, imaginative power and self-destruction. As he lay “musing” on his sofa, his literary speculations from the lectures feeding back into his private ruminations, he often felt overwhelmed by the sheer activity of his mind: “My Thoughts crowd each other to death”.86 He was never free of painful broodings on Wordsworth, shimmering memories of Asra, or “fantastic pangs of imagination” about Charlotte Brent, either.87
7
Meanwhile the Royal Institution lectures came to an end as dramatically as they had begun. Coleridge was due to close the series with a final five lectures in the first fortnight of June on “Contemporary Poets”, and most notably on Wordsworth. Whether he ever gave this one, or any of them, is wrapped in mystery. According to his own account, he became violently ill again at the beginning of June, and also suffered the loss of his crucial Notebook containing all his headings and quotations. He postponed, and then extemporized for at least one lecture, probably on 10 June, and then abruptly the whole series was terminated. What exactly occurred, and why, is problematic.
Edward Jerningham gave one sufficiently theatrical explanation, though without revealing if Wordsworth was ever mentioned. “He looked sullen and told us that He previously had prepared and written down Quotations from different Authors to illustrate the present Lecture. These Quotations he had put among the leaves of his Pocket Book which was stolen as he was coming to the Institution. This narrative was not indulgently received, and he went through his Lecture heavily and without advancing anything that was spirited or animated. The next day he received an Intimation from the Managers that his Lectures were no longer expected.”88
The theft, though, really did occur. De Quincey, down from Oxford for the summer, told his sister shortly afterwards: “This day week he lectured at the Institution, and had his pocket picked as he walked from the Strand; but, having notes, he managed to get through it very well.”90 Moreover, the Institution was keen for him to continue. It was only when the Secretary received a desperate note from Coleridge on 13 June, that they regretfully accepted his demission on the grounds of ill-health.
The Secretary took the highly unusual step of recording the letter in full in the Institution minutes. “I find my health in such a state as to make it almost death to me to give any further Lectures. I beg that you would acquaint the Managers that instead of expecting any remuneration, I shall, as soon as I can, repay the sum I have received. I am indeed more likely to repay it by my executors than myself. If I could quit my Bed-room, I would have hazarded everything rather than not have come, but I have such violent Fits of Sickness and Diarrhoea that it is literally impossible.”89
The Committee, headed by Thomas Bernard, refused to accept Coleridge’s gallant offer to return the £40 advance, but instead voted to make “a proportional payment” for the twenty lectures actually given, a sum calculated at £60. It was unfortunate that owing to the Institution’s own financial difficulties, this was not made until ten months later in April 1809. Coleridge remained in friendly touch with Bernard, who clearly admired his work, and later advised him on a journalistic scheme. But later literary lectures were thereafter placed in more conventional hands (the Reverend Mr Dibdin and John Campbell, otherwise unknown to fame).
It was not till long after that the Institution came to regard Coleridge’s series as one of the most remarkable it had ever sponsored, and commissioned retrospective lectures to celebrate it in the same theatre. It came to be seen as a historic linkage between philosophies of poetry and science, as essentially experimental disciplines “performed with the passion of Hope”. It was the series that launched Coleridge into a new career as lecturer over the next decade, and always connected him in the public mind with the star scientific performer of the age, Humphry Davy. Indeed Davy, after his grim forebodings of February, was inspired to write a celebratory poem on the subject.*
But the puzzle of Coleridge’s collapse in June 1808 remains. The real explanation seems to have been personal unhappiness, increased to the pitch of paranoia by opium-taking. In these weeks he wrote a series of dangerously emotional letters, not only to Wordsworth, but to his brother George Coleridge, reproaching them for their behaviour over the past months. To Wordsworth he wrote of Asra, and to George of the unfeeling cruelty of the Ottery Coleridges. To both he was bitter in his reproaches with an intensity he had never previously expressed.
To George he said it was his last ever communication: “when Brothers can exert themselves against an Orphan Brother, the latter must be either a mere monster, or the former must be warped by some improper Passion.” He now asked merely for a copy of his birth certificate, so he could increase his life assurance policy so that all his family debts could be paid off on his death.90
What exactly he wrote to Wordsworth is not known, because Wordsworth destroyed the letter. Coleridge’s feelings are, however, partly revealed in his Notebooks. He was overwhelmed with anger and self-pity; he felt that none of his friends or family understood the efforts he had made, or the loneliness of his situation in London. He felt isolated, rejected and disapproved of, by people who were far happier and better established than he would ever be.
Driven on, no doubt by opium dosing late at night, he surrendered to lament and wild accusation. “In short, I have summoned courage sfogarmi to give vent to my poor stifled Heart – to let in air upon it: Cruelly have I been treated by almost everyone – by T. Poole, all my Brothers, by the Wedgwoods, by Southey…but above all by [the Fates] and by Wordsworth…A blessed Marriage for him & for her it has been! But O! wedded Happiness is the intensest sort of Prosperity, & all Prosperity, I find, hardens the Heart – and happy people become so very prudent & far-sighted…O human Nature! – I tremble, lest my own tenderness of Heart, my own disinterested enthusiasm for others, and eager Spirit of Self-sacrifice, should be owing almost wholly to my being & ever having been an unfortunate unhappy Man.”91
Coleridge’s complaints were hysterical and self-pitying, and could easily be dismissed as wholly unjustified, the paranoia of opium addiction. (It is difficult to see what he could have held against the faithful T. Poole.) But the envious cry against Wordsworth had its meaning, and probably lay at the root of his outburst. It was triggered by a strictly practical matter. After all his efforts over the “White Doe”, Longman suddenly informed him that Wordsworth had withdrawn the
