Unrecorded Coleridge Variants:
Additions and
Corrections
by
David V. Erdman, Lucyle Werkmeister, and R.
S. Woof
Publication in Studies in Bibliography, XI (1958), 143-162 of a
chronological report, by David V. Erdman, of uncollected variant readings
and occurrences of Coleridge's verse in British newspapers has elicited a
good deal of helpful response from the Coleridgeans of three countries.
Professor J. R. MacGillivray has come forward with a discovery that
pushes back the date of the first known Coleridge publication from 1793 to
1790, and subsequently Mrs. Lucyle Werkmeister has located another
appearance of the same poem even five days earlier. Mrs. Werkmeister
(whose research at the British Museum was supported by a grant from the
Johnson Fund, American Philosophical Society) has also discovered that the
Horne Tooke poem of 1796, destined for the Morning
Chronicle
but never found there, actually was published in the
Telegraph.
She is responsible for the new listings of 1794, 1795, and 1797; and she
has brought home in triumph a lost Coleridge poem (see January 3, 1798)
at the end of a hunt that engaged also Professor Carl Woodring and all the
others named in this paragraph. Mr. R. S. Woof, working from the
Coleridge Notebooks to the
Morning Post, has rescued from
oblivion a considerable list of Coleridge "epigrams"; his are most of the
new discoveries of 1799 (September 2, 3, 19, November 4, December 9)
and 1800 (January 1, February 5, August 22) and 1801 (December 21). He
and Mr. Morchard Bishop and the original compiler are responsible for
corrections of errors and ambiguities in the original list. Its compiler is
responsible for there having been need of correction—and for most
of the
additions from the
Courier and the
Albion and Evening
Advertiser.
The limited nature of the original survey, as regards the
Courier, was not made quite plain: "all items have been
attended to" meant that all poems known to have appeared in the
Courier had been collated, not that an exhaustive search of
a
complete run of that paper had been made. More precisely: exhaustive
search had been made of the Courier for the years
1804-1820;
of the Morning Post for the years 1797-1804 (except that no
papers of January 3, April 5, May 15, or December 8, 1798, have been
located); of the Morning Chronicle only for the years
1794-96;
and of the Cambridge Intelligencer (with the exception of
several missing numbers) for 1792-1803.
An exhaustive survey of the Courier has now been
extended to the years 1797-1803 (except for missing issues of February 27,
March 16, May 19, June 1, August 15, September 12-14, 1797, and
October 20, November 7, 23, December 7, 1798). The Morning
Chronicle has been examined up through 1798. And a survey has
been made of the few extant copies of the Albion (May
26-December 27, 1800, incomplete; June 29-July 2, 4-10, 1801). Most of
the new items from these two surveys are merely reprintings from
Coleridge's Poems or his Schiller or the Lyrical
Ballads—or the Morning Post. But a peculiar
interest
attaches to the reprintings in the Courier. After the summer
of
1799 (and perhaps secretly much earlier) Daniel Stuart owned both
Post and Courier. As the mocking editor of the
Albion observed (October 3, 1800), the evening paper was
considered but "a supernumerary" of the morning one; puns and paragraphs
and verses
were often carried over from one to the other. If a text appearing in the
Morning Post during Coleridge's contributorship may be
considered an authorized text, so may a modification of it appearing in the
Courier (see June 21 and August 22, 1800).
It may be noted here that two sonnets itemized in the first list as
tentative and possible attributions (January 29 and February 21, 1795) were
examined in detail by Mr. Erdman and the first, a Sonnet. To Mrs.
Siddons, found to be intimately related to the known work of
Coleridge. ("Newspaper Sonnets Put to the Concordance Test: Can They
be Attributed to Coleridge?" Bulletin of The New York Public
Library, LXI, 508-516, 611-620; LXII, 46-49.)
Signs and Abbreviations
- * Asterisk marks a publication first noted in the present
list.
- † Dagger marks a poem not previously ascribed to
Coleridge.
- E. H. C. Ernest Hartley Coleridge edition of The Complete
Poetical Works (2 vols.), Oxford, 1912.
-
Notebooks. The Notebooks of Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, ed. Kathleen Coburn, vol. I, 1794-1804, New York,
1957.
- Wise. T. J. Wise, A Bibliography of the Writings in Prose
and Verse, London, 1913.
-
BNYPL. Bulletin of The New York Public
Library.
- Letters are cited from Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, ed. Earl Leslie Griggs, vol. I, Oxford, 1956.
-
A. Albion
-
C. Courier
-
MC. Morning Chronicle
-
MP. Morning Post
Chronology of Variants
1790
- *†July 26. London World. The Abode of Love.
"Ask you, Chloe, charming fair!" Signed "S.T.C." Four five-line stanzas.
Discovered in this newspaper by L. Werkmeister. See next entry.
- *†July 31. Cambridge Chronicle. The Abode of
Love. Signed "S.T.C." Identical with preceding. Discovered by J.
R.
MacGillivray. Coleridge was still a schoolboy in London; his poem
preceded him to Cambridge by a year. For text and attribution see
MacGillivray, "A New and Early Poem by Coleridge,"
BNYPL, LXIII (March, 1959), 153-154.
1794
- ?*†June 28. MC. Sonnet. On Reading Miranda's Sonnet
to a Sigh. "Thy plaintive voice, so eloquent and meek" Unsigned.
Enough like Coleridge's effusions to be worth considering. Dated "Dec. 9,
1793," by which time he was already Comberbache in the Dragoons in
Reading; but December 9 may be taken as the date of the occasion
(Miranda's [Mrs. Mary Robinson's?] Sonnet to a Sigh
published
that day in the MC); the writing could have been done in the
ensuing 7 months. But we list this sonnet with misgivings; the concordance
test yields only a neutral answer: possible.
- ?*†July 25. MP. Sonnet To an Infant at the
Breast.
"Dear, lovely Babe! equal in birth to all" Signed "C." This equalitarian
effusion by a war-widow contains sentiments and language which the
Coleridge of 1794 might have put into a female vagrant's
mouth
(see letter to Southey July 6). But "C." is too general a signature, by
one-third. Neither this nor the preceding item could be admitted into the
canon without compelling external evidence.
1795
1796
-
*July 9. Telegraph. Poetical Address. Written for the Late
Meeting of Mr. Tooke's Friends. By S. T. COLERIDGE. 53 lines,
with three footnotes. This must be the draft which Charles Lamb, in a letter
of July 1, expected to see in the June 30 MC; it differs much
from the obviously later draft which Coleridge sent in a letter of July 4 to
Estlin (Griggs, I, 224-225; E.H.C. pp. 150-151).
The title in E.H.C. is made up from phrases in the letter; otherwise
E.H.C. and Griggs give the same Estlin text (E) except for
punctuation, the use of ampersands, "lightning's" in line 24, a mistake in
E.H.C. for "lightning," and a footnote in Greek not given in E.H.C. For
the following collation we use Griggs for E.
The Telegraph version (T) omits the
footnotes
of E but has three of its own, attached respectively to
"when*"
in line 1, "whose†" in line 13, and "bore,‡" in the third line from the
end, thus:
- *Alluding to Horne Tooke's first contest for Westminster, and the
comparatively small numbers, which he then polled.
- †Diversions of Purley. [E gives the Greek
title.]
- ‡Jun. Brutus.
T has only two words in italics, "superstition's"
and
"determin'd", as against 15 in E. Instead of
E's numerous capitalized words within the line,
T
has only Genii, TOOKE, Corruption's, Calumny's, Senate, Justice,
Freedom's, not counting proper names. Except for punctuation, the other
variants follow. (We use the line numbers of E but give the
drafts in order of growth, from T to E.)
- 3 dimly T] dim it E 4 Hush'd
T] E'en E
- 9 mattin bird] Matin-bird
- 13 [preceded by a space and indented]
- Yes, patriot sage! whose cleansing spirit first
T
- Patriot & Sage! whose breeze-like Spirit* first
E
- 14 wordy pedant's lazy mist] lazy mists of Pedantry
(Next a four-line parenthesis in T is compacted to two lines,
15-16, in E.)
- (That mist, within whose dim deceitful shade,
Blighting with clammy dews each pleasant glade,
Decrepit superstition's pigmy band
Seem'd giant forms, the Genii of the land!) T
- (Mists, in which Superstition's pigmy band
Seem'd Giant Forms, the Genii of the Land!) E
(The next four lines, 17-20 in E, have the order 19, 20, 17,
18
in T.)
- 17 waken'd] wak'ning
- 32 brother's] brothers'
- 34 faulter] falter
- 35 awful] aweful 39 secret] unwholesome
- 40 precious] sacred
(Next, a bracketed triplet in T is expanded to two couplets in
E:)
- 41-44 Shall bid thee with recov'ring vigor shew }
Disease's gnawing pang unseen and slow, }
And the worse bodings of parental woe: } T
- Shall bid thee with recover'd strength relate
How dark & deadly is a Coward's Hate:
What seeds of Death by wan Confinement sown
When prison-echoes mock'd Disease's groan! E
- 45 Bid thy indignant spirit] Shall bid th' indignant Father
- 47 Woe to the sport] Who to the sports
(Here T was obviously a misprint.)
- 48 The helpless virgins] Two lovely Mourners
- 51 the reeking] her reeking
- 52 To strike . . . and] Not to . . . but
1797
- *Jan. 5. MC. Lines to a Young Man of Fortune, Who
Abandoned Himself to an Indolent and Causeless Melancholy.
Unsigned. Text identical, except for mechanics, to that in the Cambridge
Intelligencer of Dec. 17, 1796, as reported in previous
list.
- Dec. 12. MP. Melancholy. A Fragment. E.H.C. (p.
74) gives the MP variants by mistake to
"M.C."
(for lines 7 and 13-16).
- *Dec. 16. MC. Sonnets Attempted in the Manner of
'Cotemporary Writers.' Signed "NEHEMIAH HIGGINBOTTOM."
Sonnet I only (E.H.C. pp. 209-210) reprinted from the Monthly
Magazine of November, as in our previous list, with "befel" for
"befell" in line 10, and with this headnote:
The inundation of Sonnets with which we have been for
the last ten years overrun, has justly made our sentimental Sonnetteers
objects of ridicule. Nehemiah Higginbottom, in the Monthly Magazine,
imitates their insipidities with good effect in the following specimen.
1798
- *Jan. 3. MP. The APOTHEOSIS, or the
SNOW-DROP.
Signed "FRANCINI." 72 lines, a variant of the 64-line "Snow-drop" poem
in E.H.C. pp. 356-358, there mistakenly dated 1800.
As noted above, this day's issue of the Morning Post
is
not extant; but on the following day "the beautiful poem, by
Francini, in our paper of yesterday" is commended; and Mrs. Werkmeister
has now located, in the thrice-weekly Express and Evening
Chronicle of January 6-9 (No. 516) the full text of the poem. For
the
text and an account of the collaboration that led to its discovery, see a
forthcoming issue of BNYPL.
(There remains a remote possibility that the MP text
differed in some respect from the reprint in the Express, but
authorial revision is ruled out by the fact that Coleridge was not in London
at the time.)
1798
- April 16. MP. The Recantation. An Ode. Line 95
reads "priesthood's" (as 4° and Poetical Register) and not
"Priestcraft's" (E.H.C. p. 247).
- July 30. MP. A Tale. Line 88 reads "And" not
"Till"
(E.H.C. p. 302).
1799
1800
- ? * † Jan. 1. MP. Impromptu. On Candles Being
Introduced While a Young Lady Was Singing. Signed "J.P."
Wherefore, wherefore, most unwise,
Did you bring the candles here?
Why remind us we have eyes,
When we wish'd to be all ear?
(Seems to be identified as Coleridge's by the signature, which is that of his
"Billy Brown" verses of Feb. 5. The internal evidence is at least not
negative.)
- * Feb. 5. MP. On a Supposed Son. "Billy Brown,
how
like his Father". Signed "J.P." Not previously collected. 4 lines, identical
to the undeleted lines in Notebooks, I, 625, No. 31;
"but
thinks not so!" in italics.
- * June 21. C. Song, from the German of Lessing
[sic].
"I ask'd my fair, one happy day," Unsigned. Curious not only because
appearing ten months after first printing in MP (Aug. 27,
1799:
see previous list) but also because the text is independent, a half-way
version between MP and the text in Poetical
Register for 1803 (correct in E.H.C. pp. 318-319). This
Courier version agrees with PR in lines 4, 6,
10-12,
but has this unique reading in line 5: "Laura, Lesbia, Delia,
Doris,"
- * Aug. 22. C. City News. "Last Monday all the
Papers said" Unsigned. A reprint of the 12 lines in MP Sept.
18, 1799 (as in E.H.C. p. 956) with new title and the following variants:
- 2 Mr.--- was] Billy Pitt was surely C
- 3 Why, then] Ah—then
- 4 tenth part . . . their] tenth part . . . the
- 7 said report] sad report
- 9 Why, then] Ah—then
- 10 nine parts . . . their] nine parts . . . the
- * Sept. 6. MP, also A. and
C.
Air, from the Piccolomini of Schiller. Thekla (plays and
sings)
"The cloud doth gather, the greenwood roar". "Translated by S. T.
Coleridge." 10 lines as in E.H.C. p. 653. Coleridge's translation of
"Schiller's New Dramas" was advertised in MP June 17,
1800.
Thekla's song was promptly (reprinted and) parodied in the
Sun, September 13, 1800.
- * Sept. 12. C. The Dungeon. (From the
Lyrical
Ballads).
- * Sept. 27. A. The Dungeon, Recommended to the Perusal
of the Defenders of Bastiles in Every Country. (From the
Lyrical Ballads.). The subtitle is the Albion's
contribution, evidently.
- Dec. 4. MP. The Two Round Spaces.
Unsigned. E.H.C. (pp. 353-355) misses these MP readings:
- 31 those] these MP
- 32 sat] sate MP
1801
- * July 16. C. To an Old Man. "By Mr. Coleridge."
Follows 1797 text (as E.H.C. p. 93) except in mechanics and "Sarah" for
"Sara."
- Sept. 22, 25, 26 and Dec. 1. MP. The transposition
of the Greek letters in the signatures is a typographical error of our first list
and not of the printers of the MP.
- Nov. 28. MP. Translation of a Greek Ode on
Astronomy. It should have been stated that the original Greek text
is
given in Coleridge's Poetical Works, ed. James Dykes
Campbell, London, 1903, pp. 476-477.
- * † Dec. 21. MP. Pastoral from
Gesner.
[sic] "See I the Shepherd," Unsigned. Not previously collected, but the
German original appears in Notebooks, I, 396. It seems fairly
safe to deduce that the translation is Coleridge's:
See I the Shepherd,
The bold brown Shepherd,
I tell him, "Shepherd!
"I will not love thee!"
Ah tell me, Maidens!
Who've lov'd already,
There's nothing, think you,
In this to alarm me,
That I say it sighing,
Whene'er I tell him,
"Thou bold brown Shepherd,
"I will not love thee."
- ? Dec. 26. MP. The Compliment Qualified.
(Vide Thursday's Paper.) Signed "P." Woof queries the
attribution to Coleridge: Why not equally the epigram of Dec. 24 signed
"O"? And then along comes one on Jan. 29, 1802, signed "Q" (with
address: "British Coffee-House, Jan. 26, 1802").
1802
- Oct. 7. MP. An Ode to the Rain. Signed
"EΣTHΣE." A misprint appeared in the first list: "* Here is seems"
should have read "* Here it seems". There was also a mixup of the variant
given for line 25 of the Wallenstein quotation, which should have read: 25
Fast fly the clouds 1800] Fast sail
MP
- * Oct. 14. C. France.—An
Ode. "By S.
T. Coleridge." Text identical to MP of same day, but
unleaded.
The note ("The following Ode . . . corrected copy") is omitted.
1803
- The 1803 entry in the first list should be queried; at least see
above, Nov. 9, 1799.