The Transatlantic scheme, though still a favourite subject of conversation, was now in effect abandoned by these young Pantisocrats. Mr. C. was married at St. Mary Redcliff Church to Sarah Fricker on the 4th of October, 1795, and went to reside in a cottage at Clevedon on the Bristol Channel; and six weeks afterwards Mr. Southey was also married to Edith Fricker, and left Bristol on the same day on his route to Portugal. At Clevedon Mr. and Mrs. Coleridge resided with one of Mrs. C.'s unmarried sisters and Burnett until the beginning of December.
[Footnote 1: This statement of H. N. Coleridge, and a remark by Wordsworth in a letter to Wrangham of November 20th, 1795, are the only evidence on which rests the belief that Coleridge and Wordsworth met before 1797. The letter is quoted in the "Athenaeum" of December 8th, 1894. See also Letter LXXXI, to Estlin, May 1798.]
Ah! quiet dell! dear cot, and mount sublime! I was constrained to quit you. Was it right, While my unnumbered brethren toiled and bled, That I should dream away th' entrusted hours On rose-leaf beds pampering the coward heart With feelings all too delicate for use? * * * * * I therefore go, and join head, heart and hand Active and firm, to fight the bloodless fight Of science, freedom, and the truth in Christ.
Coleridge had in the course of the summer of 1795 become acquainted with that excellent and remarkable man, the late Thomas Poole of Nether Stowey, Somerset. In a letter written to him on the 7th of October, C. speaks of the prospect from his cottage, and of his future plans in the following way:
God bless you-or rather God be praised for that he has blessed you! On Sunday morning I was married at St. Mary's, Redcliff--from Chatterton's church. The thought gave a tinge of melancholy to the solemn joy which I felt, united to the woman, whom I love best of all created beings. We are settled, nay, quite domesticated, at Clevedon,--our comfortable cot! * * * The prospect around is perhaps more various than any in the kingdom: mine eye gluttonizes. The sea, the distant islands, the opposite coast!--I shall assuredly write rhymes, let the nine Muses prevent it if they can. * * * I have given up all thoughts of the Magazine for various reasons. It is a thing of monthly anxiety and quotidian bustle. To publish a Magazine for one year would be nonsense, and, if I pursue what I mean to pursue, my school-plan, I could not publish it for more than one year. In the course of half a year I mean to return to Cambridge--having previously taken my name off from the University's control--and, hiring lodgings there for myself and wife, finish my great work of "Imitations" in two volumes. My former works may, I hope, prove somewhat of genius and of erudition; this will be better; it will show great industry and manly consistency. At the end of it I shall publish proposals for a School. * * * My next letter will be long and full of something;--this is inanity and egotism. * * Believe me, dear Poole, your affectionate and mindful--friend, shall I so soon have to say? Believe me my heart prompts it. [1] S. T. COLERIDGE!