CONTENTS PAGE vi CONTENTS PAGE CHAPTER XVII. DANIEL STUART AND THE COURIER ... 76 Letter 150. To Daniel Stuart. 4 June, 1811 . . 79 151. ,, 8 May, 1816 . . 90 CHAPTER XVIII. MRS. COLERIDGE LAST STAY AT THE LAKE DISTRICT 100 CHAPTER XIX. REMORSE 104 Letter 152. To Poole. 13 Feby. 1813. . 105 CHAPTER XX. COTTLES DARK CHAPTER 116 Letter 166. To Gillman. 13 April, 1816 . . 150 167. - 1816... 153 168. -1816. . . 154 169. 1816... 157 viii CONTENTS PAGE Letter 212. To Allsop. 14 April, 1824 . 274 213. 27 April, 1824 . 274 CHAPTER XXVIII. THE NEW ACADEME 278 Letter 214. To Allsop. 20 Mch. 1825 . . 284 215. 30 April, 1825 . 286 216. 2 May, 1825 . . 287 217. 10 May, 1825 . . 287 218. 1825 .... 290 CHAPTER XXIX. ALARIC WATTS 292 CHAPTER XXX. THE RHINE TOUR, AND LAST COLLECTED EDITIONS OF THE POEMS 296 Letter 219. To Adam S. Kennard. 13 July, 1834 . . 302 CHAPTER XXXI. CONCLUSION 305 APPENDIX AND ADDITIONAL NOTES 313 INDEX 327 BIOGRAPHIA EPISTOLARIS CHAPTER XI MALTA AND ITALY COLERIDGE set sail from Portsmouth in the Speed- s well on gth or loth April 1804. He wrote to J.Tobin . on the loth Anima Poetae, p. 68 LETTER 130. To J. TOBIN April 10, 1804. Men who habitually enjoy robust health have, too generally, the trick, and a very cruel one it is, of imagining that they discover the secret of all their ill acquaintances health in some malpractice or other and, sometimes, by gravely asserting this, here, there, and everywhere as who likes his penetration hid under a bushel, they not only do all they can, without intending it, to deprive the poor sufferer of that sympathy which is always a comfort and, in some degree, a support to human nature, but, likewise, too often implant serious alarm and uneasiness in the minds of the persons relatives and his nearest and dearest connections. Indeed but that I have known its inutility, that I should be ridiculously sinning against my own law which I was propounding, and that those who are most fond of advising are the least able to hear advice from others, as the passion II B 2 BIOGRAPHIA EPISTOLARIS to command makes men disobedient I should often have been on the point of advising you against the two-fold rage of advising and of discussing character, both the one and the other of which infallibly generates presumption and blindness to our own faults. Nay more particularly where, from whatever cause, there exists a slowness to understand or an aptitude to mishear and consequently misunderstand what has been said, it too often renders an otherwise truly man a mischief-maker to an extent of which he is but good little aware. Our friends reputation should be a religion to us, and when it is lightly sacrificed to what self-adulation calls a love of telling the truth in reality a lust of talking something seasoned with the cayenne and capsicum of personality, depend upon it, something in the heart is warped or warping, more or less according to the greater or lesser power of the counteracting causes. I confess to you, that being exceedingly low and heart-fallen, I should have almost sunk under the operation of reproof and admonition the whole too, in my conviction, grounded on utter mis- take at the moment I was quitting, perhaps for ever my dear country and all that makes it so dear but the high esteem which I cherish towards you, and my sense of your integrity and the reality of your attachment and concern blows upon me refreshingly as the sea-breeze on the tropic islander...