was an early premonition of the modern physicist’s search for a “Grand Unified Theory” applicable to the entire cosmos. Coleridge’s fascination with the idea of “the one power in the world of the senses”, led him to seek for an equivalent unifying dynamic within the human mind, the “one power” of Imagination. Certainly it encouraged him to believe that his “experimental” knowledge of poetry, and his endless private reflections in the Notebooks on his own mental processes, were no longer to be lost or wasted, but could be mounted into a general body of critical theory. This belief that all was not lost, that he still had a role to play as a poet and thinker, and that his light might not in the end be hidden, proved one of the most sustaining visions of his life. Out of all his dark sufferings and failures, some brightness might still be salvaged. As he observed of a battered peacock picking quietly around Tom Poole’s yard: “The molting Peacock with only two of his long tail-feathers remaining, & those sadly in tatters, yet proudly as ever spreading out his ruined fan in the Sun & Breeze.”5
Much of the rest of Coleridge’s long and grateful letter to Davy was, of course, a lament over his troubles – among which Mrs Coleridge and the Ottery family débâcle featured in “wearying Detail”, and his own “bodily derangement” with a medical exactitude that nonetheless excluded opium. The decision to send his wife and children back to Keswick is given without regret, and one wonders how Coleridge had explained this to Hartley, the abrupt end to his “annus mirabilis” with his father. Perhaps this was one of the “far crueller Calamities” that he did not explain to Davy either.
But in general Coleridge felt his time in the Quantocks had been immensely restoring. He had received “such manifest benefit from horse exercise, a gradual abandonment of fermented & total abstinence from spirituous liquors, & by being alone with Poole & the renewal of old times by wandering about among my dear old walks, of Quantock & Alfoxden, that I have now seriously set about composition…”6
Work in hand still included the Mediterranean “Travels”, though the Longman two-volume edition of “all my poetic scraps” would be held over – as it turned out for nearly a decade. It was his serious determination “not to give a single Lecture till I have in fair writing at least one half of the whole course”. Either at Stowey, or at Bristol, he began a new Notebook7 which sketched out his preliminary themes, especially with reference to Shakespeare’s “endless activity of Thought” as the primary example of “poetic Power” exercised through language.8
Coleridge returned to Bristol in late September, hoping to be with Davy in London by the end of the month, where concentrated work could begin. But first he had to arrange for his family’s departure north, which instantly revived all the old frictions. Here young De Quincey’s reappearance as willing acolyte at College Street smoothed Coleridge’s passage. Sara Coleridge, writing privately to Poole (as she would do increasingly in coming years), gave her own wifely account of Coleridge’s exasperating behaviour. “When he at length joined us in Bristol in such excellent health and improved looks, I thought of days ‘lang syne’ and hoped and prayed it might continue. Alas! in three or four days it was all over. He said he must go to town immediately about the Lectures, yet he stayed three weeks without another word about removing, and I durst not speak lest it should disarrange him. Mr De Quincey, who was a frequent visitor to C. in College Street, proposed accompanying me and the children into Cumberland, as he wished much to pay Wordsworth and Southey a visit. This was a pleasant scheme to me…”9
Sara’s brisk practicality, which affords no mention of Coleridge’s profound professional doubts or deep anxieties about the future of those children, suggests the gulf of misunderstanding which now divided husband and wife. Yet her impatience at Coleridge’s apparent vagaries – was it really the husband or the wife who “durst not speak” about the departure? – also suggests at a deeper level some abiding, loyal affection. For her it is evident that the “separation” could not easily be acknowledged, and this too was to remain a source of pain and resentment.
Coleridge’s delay in Bristol was partly caused by the delicate negotiations, undertaken through Cottle, over De Quincey’s anonymous loan, which continued through October. Coleridge was concerned that his “unknown Benefactor” should not “transgress” his other duties; and also wanted his identity revealed “at the expiration of one year”. De Quincey told Cottle that he was drawing on an expected inheritance of £2,600, at which Cottle urged a lower sum of £300.10 This figure was eventually made over on 12 November.11
Coleridge was immediately able to pay off his debts to Wordsworth and Sotheby, and for the first time since returning from Italy to look with some calm at his future finances. He was immensely grateful, especially as Cottle had led him to believe that the benefactor was a man of suitable wealth and standing, not an undergraduate mortgaging his prospects. “I must tell you,” Cottle assured him, “that there is not a man in the Kingdom of whom you would rather accept a favour…”12 De Quincey meanwhile delivered Mrs Coleridge to Keswick, and became an immediate favourite with Hartley, Derwent and the Wordsworth children.
The other reason for delay was medical. Coleridge was again suffering from chronic stomach problems – the symptoms, “acrimony in the bowels”, sounds like Irritable Bowel Syndrome brought on by a mixture of stress and opium-taking. On 13 October he walked over to Clifton to consult Dr Beddoes. However, he still did not have the courage to make the full confession of his addiction, as he had determined with Poole at Stowey. The following February he was still resolving “instantly to put myself under Dr Beddoes, & to open to him the whole of my case”.13
In late October, on the very eve of departure, he was taken violently ill with vomiting and diarrhoea, while dining out with friends. “I was therefore a prisoner to the House, which was luckily Mr Morgan’s; where had I been a child or favourite Brother, I could not have received more affectionate attentions and indulgences.”14 Coleridge took up residence on the Morgans’ spare sofa for the next four weeks, where he was deliciously nursed and cosseted. No one outside Bristol – Poole, Davy, Mrs Coleridge, or Wordsworth – heard from him until the end of November.
2
Coleridge’s abrupt disappearance into the bosom of the Morgan household in autumn 1807 was as significant as his descent upon the Wordsworths at Grasmere in 1800. He had discovered a new adoptive family, and all his cuckoo-like propensities were at once aroused. John Morgan was a Bristol lawyer in his early thirties, a one-time pupil of Christ’s Hospital, and a friend of Charles Lamb’s. After practising briefly in the City of London (he seems to have worked at the Blackfriars office of Coleridge’s life assurance company), he had recently married a Miss Mary Brent, the wealthy daughter of a Hatton Garden silversmith. Together the young couple had moved back to an elegant house in St James’s Square, Bristol, where they were joined by Mary’s very attractive younger sister, Charlotte Brent.
The family was vivacious, fun-loving and, as events were to show, improvident. They were also childless, and had much time for books, theatre and pets (one of their favourites being a dog called “Vision”). John Morgan was a sensitive and intelligent man, having been brought up as a Unitarian, and frequently subject to relapses into religious gloom, which Coleridge was able to alleviate. He was to write of Coleridge’s first, momentous residence: “Amongst other obligations to you I feel strongly that of making me able to defend at least in my own mind the Orthodox religion against the Unitarian philosophy.”15
In return, Morgan had an unshakable admiration for Coleridge’s