Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Jerry Fairbanks, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
[The Greek transliterations throughout this file are either missing orvery suspect.]
[Illustration: F. Finden sculp.London, John Murray, Albernarle St. 1837]
[autographed:
Dear Sir,
Your obliged servant.
S. T. Coleridge]
TO
JAMES GILLMAN, ESQUIRE,
OF THE GROVE, HIGHGATE, AND TO
MRS. GILLMAN,
This Volume IS GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED.
* * * * *
It is nearly fifteen years since I was, for the first time, enabled tobecome a frequent and attentive visitor in Mr. Coleridge's domesticsociety. His exhibition of intellectual power in living discourse struck meat once as unique and transcendant; and upon my return home, on the veryfirst evening which I spent with him after my boyhood, I committed towriting, as well as I could, the principal topics of his conversation inhis own words. I had no settled design at that time of continuing the work,but simply made the note in something like a spirit of vexation that such astrain of music as I had just heard, should not last forever. What I didonce, I was easily induced by the same feeling to do again; and when, aftermany years of affectionate communion between us, the painful existence ofmy revered relative on earth was at length finished in peace, my occasionalnotes of what he had said in my presence had grown to a mass, of which thisvolume contains only such parts as seem fit for present publication. Iknow, better than any one can tell me, how inadequately these specimensrepresent the peculiar splendour and individuality of Mr. Coleridge'sconversation. How should it be otherwise? Who could always follow to theturning-point his long arrow-flights of thought? Who could fix thoseejaculations of light, those tones of a prophet, which at times have mademe bend before him as before an inspired man? Such acts of spirit as thesewere too subtle to be fettered down on paper; they live—if they can liveany where—in the memories alone of those who witnessed them. Yet I wouldfain hope that these pages will prove that all is not lost;—that somethingof the wisdom, the learning, and the eloquence of a great man's socialconverse has been snatched from forgetfulness, and endowed with a permanentshape for general use. And although, in the judgment of many persons, I mayincur a serious responsibility by this publication; I am, upon the whole,willing to abide the result, in confidence that the fame of the loved andlamented speaker will lose nothing hereby, and that the cause of Truth andof Goodness will be every way a gainer. This sprig, though slight andimmature, may yet become its place, in the Poet's wreath of honour, amongflowers of graver hue.
If the favour shown to several modern instances of works nominally of thesame description as the present were alone to be considered, it might seemthat the old maxim, that nothing ought to be said of the dead but what isgood, is in a fair way of being dilated into an understanding that everything is good that has been said by the dead. The following pages do not, Itrust, stand in need of so much indulgence. Their contents may not, inevery particular passage, be of great intrinsic importance; but they canhardly be without some, and, I hope, a worthy, interest, as coming from thelips of one at least of the most extraordinary men of the age; whilst tothe best of