It must have been in anticipation of this visit to Sicily, or after some communication with Coleridge, that Wordsworth, after alluding to his friend's abode,--
"Where Etna over hill and valley casts His shadow stretching towards Syracuse, The city of Timoleon,"
gives utterance to that unusual outburst of feeling:--
"Oh! wrap him in your shades, ye giant woods, On Etna's side; and thou, O flowery field Of Enna! is there not some nook of thine, From the first play-time of the infant world Kept sacred to restorative delight, When from afar invoked by anxious love?"
Wordsworth's _Poetical Works_, 1889, "The Prelude," Book XI. p. 319.
[23] A short treatise entitled _Observations on Egypt_, which is extant in MS., may have been among the papers sent to Stuart with a view to publication.
[24] Shakespeare, _Richard III._, Act I. Scene 4.
[25] He had, perhaps, something more than a suspicion that Southey disliked these protestations. In the letter of friendly remonstrance (February, 1804), which Southey wrote to him after the affair with Godwin, he admits that he may be "too intolerant of these phrases," but, indeed, he adds, "when they are true, they may be excused, and when they are not, there is no excuse for them." _Life and Correspondence_, ii. 266.
[26] Cynocephalus, Dog-visaged. Compare Milton's "Hymn on the Nativity:"--
"The brutish gods of Nile as fast, Isis and Orus and the dog Anubis haste."
[27] A printed slip, cut off from some public document, has been preserved in one of Coleridge's note-books. It runs thus: "Segreteria del Governo li 29 Gennajo 1805. Samuel T. Coleridge Seg. Pub. del. Commis. Regio. G. N. Zammit Pro segretario." His actual period of office extended from January 18 to September 6, 1805.
[28] John Wordsworth, the poet's younger brother, the original of Leonard in "The Brothers," and of "The Happy Warrior," was drowned off the Bill of Portland, February 5, 1805. In a letter to Sir G. Beaumont, dated February 11, 1805, Wordsworth writes: "I can say nothing higher of my ever-dear brother than that he was worthy of his sister, who is now weeping beside me, and of the friendship of Coleridge; meek, affectionate, silently enthusiastic, loving all quiet things, and a poet in everything but words." "We have had no tidings of Coleridge. I tremble for the moment when he is to hear of my brother's death; it will distress him to the heart, and his poor body cannot bear sorrow. He loved my brother, and he knows how we at Grasmere loved him." The report of the wreck of the Earl of Abergavenny and of the loss of her captain did not reach Malta till the 31st of March. It was a Sunday, and Coleridge, who had been sent for to the Palace, first heard the news from Lady Ball. His emotion at the time, and, perhaps, a petition to be excused from his duties brought from her the next day "a kindly letter of apology." "Your strong feelings," she writes, "are too great for your health. I hope that you will soon recover your spirits." But Coleridge took the trouble to heart. It was the first death in the inner circle of his friends; it meant a heavy sorrow to those whom he best loved, and it seemed to confirm the haunting presentiment that death would once more visit his family during his absence from home. Ten days later he writes (in a note-book): "O dear John Wordsworth! What joy at Grasmere that you were made Captain of the Abergavenny! now it was next to certain that you would in a few years settle in your native hills, and be verily one of the _concern_. Then came your share in the brilliant action at Linois. I was at Grasmere in spirit only! but in spirit I was one of the rejoicers ... and all these were but decoys of death! Well, but a nobler feeling than these vain regrets would become the friend of the man whose last words were, 'I have done my duty! let her go!' Let us do our duty; all else is a dream--life and death alike a dream! This short sentence would comprise, I believe, the sum of all profound philosophy, of ethics and metaphysics, and conjointly from Plato to Fichte. S. T. C."