|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 46
Lady Jerningham, blue mother of a bluer daughter (Lady Bedingfield)
and sister-in-law of the "Charming Man" of Walpole's and the Misses
Berry's acquaintance, was a friend of Miss Betham's of old standing.
Several letters of hers are in _A House of Letters_, but many more
of her daughter's. Whether it was her ladyship's or Miss Betham's
proposal there's no telling now; but Miss Betham, at any rate, did
not feel equal to the job, and called in Charles and Mary Lamb to help
her. Mary, in the first instance, sounded the philosopher, and with
success. I quote from Mr. Lucas's edition of the Lamb letters, as
the editor of Miss Betham's misreads and misprints his original.
"Coleridge," she writes, "has given me a very cheerful promise that he
will wait on Lady Jerningham any day you will be pleased to appoint.
He offered to write to you, but I found it was to be done _to-morrow_,
and as I am pretty well acquainted with his to-morrows, I thought good
to let you know his determination to-day. He is in town to-day, but
as he is often going to Hammersmith for a night or two, you had better
perhaps send the invitation through me, and I will manage it for
you as well as I can. You had better let him have four or five days'
previous notice, and you had better send the invitation as soon as
you can; for he seems tolerably well just now. I mention all these
betters, because I wish to do the best I can for you, perceiving, as I
do, it is a thing you have set your heart on."
Charles was next brought in. Mr. Lucas gives his letter (I. 429) to
John Morgan, which says, "There--don't read any further, because the
letter is not intended for you, but for Coleridge, who might perhaps
not have opened it directed to him _suo nomine_. It is to invite C.,
to Lady Jerningham's on Sunday."
Finally, Coleridge went to the party, and apparently in company,
though it is not clear in whose company. This is what Lady Jerningham
thought about it:--
"My dear Miss Betham,--I have been pleased with your friends,
tho' (which is not singular) they sometimes fly higher than my
imagination can follow. I think the author ought to mix
more, I will not say with Fools, but with People of Common
Comprehension. His own intellect would be as bright, and
what emanated from it more clear. This is perhaps a very
impertinent Remark for me to venture at making, but your
indulgence invited sincerity."
That letter, I think, whose capitals are particularly graphic, throws
the whole party up in a dry light. One can see the rhapsodist talking
interminably, involving himself ever deeplier in a web of his own
spinning; the great lady gazing in wonder. It is one of the very few
impartial witnesses we have to his conversational feats. Nearly all
the evidence is tainted either by predisposition in his favour or the
reverse. Hazlitt, a mainly hostile witness, says that he talked well
on every subject; Godwin on none. One suspects antithesis there. He
reports Holcroft as saying that "he thought Mr. C. a very clever man,
with a great command of language, but that he feared he did not always
affix very precise ideas to the words he used!" Then we have
Byron, who wrote for effect, and whose aim was scorn. "Coleridge is
lecturing. 'Many an old fool,' said Hannibal to some such lecturer,
'but such as this, never.'" Tom Moore, who met Coleridge at
Monkhouse's famous poets' dinner-party, goes no further than to allow
that "Coleridge told some tolerable things:" but what Tom wanted was
anecdote. Directly Coleridge began upon theory Moore was bored. He
shuts him down with a "This is absurd." Rogers was present at that
party, but we don't know what he thought about it. He admits that
Coleridge was a marvellous talker, however. "One morning when Hookham
Frere also breakfasted with me, Coleridge talked for three hours
without intermission about poetry, and so admirably that I wish every
word he uttered had been written down." But it was not always so
well. He says elsewhere that he and Wordsworth once called upon him.
Coleridge "talked uninterruptedly for about two hours, during which
Wordsworth listened with profound attention, every now and then
nodding his head. On quitting the lodging, I said to Wordsworth,
'Well, for my own part, I could not make head or tail of Coleridge's
oration; pray, did you understand it?' 'Not one syllable of it,' was
Wordsworth's reply."
Keats' account is capital. He met the Sage between Highgate and
Hampstead, he says, and "walked with him, at his alderman-after-dinner
pace, for near two miles, I suppose. In those two miles he broached
a thousand things. Let me see if I can give you
a list--nightingales--poetry--on poetical
sensation--metaphysics--different genera and species of
dreams--nightmare--a dream accompanied with a sense of touch--single
and double touch--a dream related--first and second consciousness--the
difference explained between will and volition--so say
_metaphysicians_ from a _want of smoking the second
consciousness_--monsters--the Kraken--mermaids--Southey believes
in them--Southey's belief too much diluted--a ghost story--Good
morning--I heard his voice as he came towards me--I heard it as he
moved away--I had heard it all the interval--if it may be called so."
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|