With powder, which ourselves found out;
And laughs at us for fools in print,
Of which our genius was the Mint;
All this I easily admit,
For we have genius, France has wit.
But 'tis too bad, that blind and mad
To Frenchmen's wives each travelling German goes,
Expands his manly vigour by their sides,
Becomes the father of his country's foes
And turns their warriors oft to parricides.
First published in Morning Post, Oct. 11, 1802. Adapted from Wernicke's Epigrams (Bk. VIII, No. 4), Auf die Buhlerey der Deutschen in Frankreich.
Durch Pulver, welches wir erfunden.'
57
ON THE CURIOUS CIRCUMSTANCE,
THAT IN THE GERMAN LANGUAGE THE SUN IS FEMININE, AND
THE MOON IS MASCULINE
To make the Sun a male, the Moon a she.
He drives his dazzling diligence on high,
In verse, as constantly as in the sky;
And cheap as blackberries our sonnets shew
The Moon, Heaven's huntress, with her silver bow;
By which they'd teach us, if I guess aright,
Man rules the day, and woman rules the night.
In Germany, they just reverse the thing;
The Sun becomes a queen, the Moon a king.
[969] Now, that the Sun should represent the women,
The Moon the men, to me seem'd mighty humming;
And when I first read German, made me stare.
Surely it is not that the wives are there
As common as the Sun, to lord and loon,
And all their husbands hornéd as the Moon.
First published in Morning Post, Oct. 11, 1802. Adapted from Wernicke's Epigrams (Bk. VII, No. 15), Die Sonne und der Mond.
In unsrer Sprach', und kommt daher,
Weil meist die Fraun wie die gemein,
Wie der gehörnt wir Männer sein.'
58
SPOTS IN THE SUN
Mi Fili, still he cries, peccare noli.
And yet how oft I find the pious man
At Annette's door, the lovely courtesan!
Her soul's deformity the good man wins
And not her charms! he comes to hear her sins!
Good father! I would fain not do thee wrong;
But ah! I fear that they who oft and long
Stand gazing at the sun, to count each spot,
Must sometimes find the sun itself too hot.
First published in Morning Post, Oct. 11, 1802.
59
He has the weakest memory on earth!
And when his own good deeds he deigns to mention,
His memory still is no whit better grown;
But then he makes up for it, all will own,
By a prodigious talent of invention.
First published in Morning Post, Oct. 11, 1802.
60
TO MY CANDLE
THE FAREWELL EPIGRAM
Art my best friend and comforter at night,
Just snuff'd, thou look'st as if thou didst desire
That I on thee an epigram should write.
Thy own flame is an epigram of sight;
'Tis short, and pointed, and all over light,
Yet gives most light and burns the keenest at the point.
First published in Morning Post, Oct. 11, 1802.
61
EPITAPH
ON HIMSELF
Who died as he had always lived, a-dreaming:
Shot dead, while sleeping, by the Gout within—
Alone, and all unknown, at E'nbro' in an Inn.
'Composed in my sleep for myself while dreaming that I was dying' . . . at the Black Bull, Edinburgh, Tuesday, Sept. 13, 1803. Sent in a letter to Thomas Wedgwood, Sept. 16, 1803. First published Cottle's Reminiscences, 1848, p. 467. First collected in 1893.
62
THE TASTE OF THE TIMES
For talents premature 'tis now the rage:
In Music how great Handel would have smil'd
T' have seen what crowds are raptur'd with a child!
A Garrick we have had in little Betty—
And now we're told we have a Pitt in Petty!
All must allow, since thus it is decreed,
He is a very petty Pitt indeed!
? 1806.
First printed (from an autograph MS.) by Mr. Bertram Dobell in the Athenæum, Jan. 9, 1904. Now collected for the first time.
63
ON PITT AND FOX
Pitt in his Country's service lived and died:
At length resolv'd, like Pitt had done, to do,
For once to serve his Country, Fox died too!
First published by Mr. B. Dobell in the Athenæum, Jan. 6, 1904. This epigram belongs to the same MS. source as the preceding, 'On the Taste of the Times,' and may have been the composition of S. T. C.
In Fugitive Pieces (1806) (see P. W., 1898, i. 34) Byron published a reply 'for insertion in the Morning Chronicle to the following illiberal impromptu on the death of Mr. Fox, which appeared in the Morning Post [Sept. 26, 1806]:—
But bless the hour when Pitt resigned his breath:
These feelings wide let Sense and Truth unclue,
We give the palm where Justice points its due."'
I have little doubt that this 'illiberal impromptu' was published by S. T. C., who had just returned from Italy and was once more writing for the press. It is possible that he veiled his initials in the line, 'Let Sense and Truth unClue.'
64
Relate of the dead that alone which is good;
But of the great Lord who here lies in lead
We know nothing good but that he is dead.
First published in The Friend, No. 12, Nov. 9, 1809. Included in Essays, &c., iii. 986. First collected in P. and D. W., 1877, ii. 178.
65
COMPARATIVE BREVITY OF GREEK AND ENGLISH
ὅν λίπεν οὐχ εὑρὼν ἧψεν ὅν εὗρε βρόχον.
Bill missing his gold used the rope which he found.
First published in Omniana, 1812, ii. 123. First collected in P. and D. W. 1877, ii. 374.
66
EPIGRAM ON THE SECRECY OF A CERTAIN LADY
'I do; I cannot doubt it.
But 'tis a grave with tombstone on,
That tells you all about it.'
First published in The Courier, Jan. 3, 1814. Included in Essays, &c., iii. 986. Now collected for the first time.
67
MOTTO
FOR A TRANSPARENCY DESIGNED BY WASHINGTON ALLSTON AND EXHIBITED AT BRISTOL ON 'PROCLAMATION DAY'—June 29, 1814.
The rav'ning vulture's leg seems fetter'd fast!
Britons, rejoice! and yet be wary too:
The chain may break, the clipt wing sprout anew.
First published in Cottle's Early Recollections, 1836, ii. 145. First collected 1890.
ANOTHER VERSION
And Bankrupt Nap's accounts seem all now settled.
Ibid. ii. 145. First collected 1893.
68
Makes herself wings and flies away—
Ah! would she take it in her head
To make a pair for me instead.
First published (from an MS.) in 1893.
69
MODERN CRITICS
The viva sectio is its own delight!
All enmity, all envy, they disclaim,
Disinterested thieves of our good name—
Cool, sober murderers of their neighbours' fame!
First published in Biog. Lit., 1817, ii. 118. First collected in P. W., 1885, ii. 363.
70
WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM
Rhymes seeks S. T. Coleridge,
Author of Works, whereof—tho' not in Dutch—
The public little knows—the publisher too much.
First published in 1834.
71
TO A LADY WHO REQUESTED ME TO WRITE
A POEM UPON NOTHING
Shall I not one charm of thee indite?
The Muse is most unruly,
And vows to sing of what's more free,
More soft, more beautiful than thee;—
And that is Nothing, truly!
First published in the Gazette of Fashion, Feb. 22, 1822. Reprinted (by Mr. Bertram Dobell) in N. and Q., 10th Series, vol. vi, p. 145. Now collected for the first time.
72
SENTIMENTAL
Bedecks the valleys low;
And so dost thou, sweet infant corn,
My Angelina's toe.
That breeds disastrous woe;
And so dost thou, remorseless corn,
On Angelina's toe.
First published in Lit. Rem., i. 59. First collected P. and D. W., 1877, ii. 366.
73
And did a-courting go!
And Mr. Baker is a buck;
For why? he needs the doe.
First published in Letters, Conversations, &c., 1836, ii. 21. First collected in P. and D. W., 1877, ii. 373.
74
AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS
So sung Dan Pope; but 'pon my word,
He was a story-teller,
Or else the times have altered quite;
For wits, or heavy, now, or light
Hang each by a bookseller.
First published in News of Literature, Dec. 10, 1825. See Arch. Constable and his Literary Correspondents, 1873, iii. 482. First collected in 1893.
75
THE ALTERNATIVE
I of my grief were rid—
Did Enna either really love me,
Or cease to think she did.
First published in Lit. Rem., i. 59. Included in Essays, &c., iii. 987. First collected in P. W., 1885, ii. 364.
76
The thing called Wine doth come from grapes,
But on the noble River Rhine,
The thing called Gripes doth come from Wine!
First published in Memoirs of C. M. Young, 1871, p. 221. First collected in 1893.
77
INSCRIPTION FOR A TIME-PIECE
Each with its thought or deed, its Why or How:—
But know, each parting hour gives up a ghost
To dwell within thee—an eternal Now!
First published in Lit. Rem., i. 60. First collected in 1844.
78
ON THE MOST VERACIOUS ANECDOTIST, AND
SMALL-TALK MAN, THOMAS HILL, ESQ.[974:1]
As nauci—nili—pili—
What is he like, as I suppose?
Why, to be sure, a Rose—a Rose.
At least, no soul that Tom Hill knows
Could e'er recall a Li-ly.
Now first published from an MS.
79
As to speak Nothing. Come then, tell
Thy Mind in Tears, whoe'er thou be
That ow'st a name to Misery:
None can fluency deny
To Tears, the Language of the Eye.
Now first published from an MS. in the British Museum.
80
EPITAPH OF THE PRESENT YEAR ON THE
MONUMENT OF THOMAS FULLER
Both the Pope's Limbo and his fiery Laundry:
No wit e'er saw I in Original Sin,
And no Sin find I in Original Wit;
But if I'm all in the wrong, and, Grin for Grin,
Scorch'd Souls must pay for each too lucky hit,—
Oh, Fuller! much I fear, so vast thy debt,
Thou art not out of Purgatory yet;
Tho' one, eight, three and three this year is reckon'd,
And thou, I think, didst die sub Charles the Second.
Nov. 28, 1833.
Now first published from an MS.
FOOTNOTES:
[951:1] A great, perhaps the greater, number of Coleridge's Epigrams are adaptations from the German of Wernicke, Lessing, and other less known epigrammatists. They were sent to the Morning Post and other periodicals to supply the needs of the moment, and with the rarest exceptions they were deliberately excluded from the collected editions of his poetical works which received his own sanction, and were published in his lifetime. Collected for the first time by Mrs. H. N. Coleridge and reprinted in the third volume of Essays on His Own Times (1850), they have been included, with additions and omissions, in P. and D. W., 1877-1880, P. W., 1885, P. W., 1890, and the Illustrated Edition of Coleridge's Poems, issued in 1907. The adaptations from the German were written and first published between 1799 and 1802. Of the earlier and later epigrams the greater number are original. Four epigrams were published anonymously in The Watchman, in April, 1796. Seventeen epigrams, of which twelve are by Coleridge, two by Southey, and three by Tobin, were published anonymously in the Annual Anthology of 1800. Between January 2, 1798, and October 11, 1802 Coleridge contributed at least thirty-eight epigrams to the Morning Post. Most of these epigrams appeared under the well-known signature ΕΣΤΗΣΕ. Six epigrams, of which five had been published in the Morning Post, were included in The Friend (No. 11, Oct. 26, 1809). Finally, Coleridge contributed six epigrams to the Keepsake, of which four had been published in the Morning Post, and one in the Annual Anthology. Epigrams were altogether excluded from Sibylline Leaves and from the three-volume editions of 1828 and 1829; but in 1834 the rule was relaxed and six epigrams were allowed to appear. Two of these, In An Album ('Parry seeks the Polar Ridge') and On an Insignificant (''Tis Cypher lies beneath this Crust') were published for the first time.
For the discovery of the German originals of some twenty epigrams, now for the first time noted and verified, I am indebted to the generous assistance of Dr. Hermann Georg Fiedler, Taylorian Professor of the German Language and Literature at Oxford, and of my friend Miss Katharine Schlesinger.
[953:1] N.B. Bad in itself, and, as Bob Allen used to say of his puns, looks damned ugly upon paper.
[954:1] Lines 3, 4, with the heading 'On an Insignificant,' were written by S. T. C. in Southey's copy of the Omniana of 1812 [see nos. 9, 11]. See P. W., 1885, ii. 402, Note.
[961:1] The antithesis was, perhaps, borrowed from an Epigram entitled 'Posthumous Fame', included in Elegant Extracts, ii. 260.
Pity a worth like his should ever die!
If credit to his real life we give,
Pity a wretch like him should ever live.
[962:1] The first and second versions are included in Essays, &c., 1850, iii. 976: the third version was first published in 1893.
In 1830 Coleridge re-wrote (he did not publish) the second version as an Epitaph on Hazlitt. The following apologetic note was affixed:—
'With a sadness at heart, and an earnest hope grounded on his misanthropic sadness, when I first knew him in his twentieth or twenty-first year, that a something existed in his bodily organism that in the sight of the All-Merciful lessened his responsibility, and the moral imputation of his acts and feelings.' MS.
[964:1] The 'One who published' was, perhaps, Charles Lloyd, in his novel, Edmund Oliver, 2 vols. 1798. Compare the following Epigram of Prior's:—
But John unhappily thought fit
To publish it to all the nation:
Sure John and I are more than quit.
[974:1] Extempore, in reply to a question of Mr. Theodore Hook's—'Look at him, and say what you think: Is not he like a Rose?'
JEUX D'ESPRIT
1
MY GODMOTHER'S BEARD[976:1]
That men grew rude, a kiss to gain:
This so provok'd the dame that one day
To Pallas chaste she did complain:
Nor vainly to that power applied;
The goddess bade a length of hair
In deep recess her muzzle hide:
For I have your petition heard!
To snatch a kiss were vain (cried Pallas)
Unless you first should shave your beard.
? 1791
First published in Table Talk and Omniana, 1888, p. 392. The lines were inscribed by Coleridge in Gillman's copy of the Omniana of 1812. An apologetic note is attached. J. P. Collier (Old Man's Diary, 1871, March 5, 1832, Part I, p. 34) says that Coleridge 'recited the following not very good epigram by him on his godmother's beard; the consequence of which was that he was struck out of her will'. Most probably the lines, as inscribed on the margin of Omniana, were written about 1830 or 1831. First collected in Coleridge's Poems, 1907.
LINENOTES:
Pallas chaste] Wisdom's Power S. T. C.
2
LINES TO THOMAS POOLE
[Quoted in a letter from Coleridge to John Thelwall, dated Dec. 17, 1796.]
. . . . Joking apart, I would to God we could sit by a fire-side and joke vivâ voce, face to face—Stella [Mrs. Thelwall] and Sara [Mrs. S. T. Coleridge], Jack Thelwall and I!—as I once wrote to my dear friend T. Poole,—
Such verse as Bowles, heart honour'd Poet sang,
That wakes the Tear, yet steals away the Pang,
Then, or with Berkeley, or with Hobbes romance it,
Dissecting Truth with metaphysic lancet.
Or, drawn from up these dark unfathom'd wells,
In wiser folly chink the Cap and Bells.
How many tales we told! what jokes we made,
Conundrum, Crambo, Rebus, or Charade;
Ænigmas that had driven the Theban mad,
And Puns, these best when exquisitely bad;
And I, if aught of archer vein I hit,
With my own laughter stifled my own wit.
1796. First published in 1893.
3
TO A WELL-KNOWN MUSICAL CRITIC, REMARKABLE
FOR HIS EARS STICKING THROUGH HIS HAIR.
For exposing those ears to the wind and the rain.
Thy face, a huge whitlow just come to a head,
Ill agrees with those ears so raw and so red.
When he saw how his asinine honours were sprouting;
But he hid 'em quite snug, in a full friz of hair,
And the Barber alone smoked his donkeys [so] rare.
O give heed to King Midas, and take his example.
Thus to publish your fate is as useless as wrong—
You but prove by your ears, what we guessed from your tongue.
First published in the Morning Post, January 4, 1798. First collected P. and D. W., 1877-80, ii. 370.
4
TO T. POOLE
AN INVITATION
On the pinions of Abstraction,
I did quite forget to ax 'e,
Whether you have an objaction,
With us to swill 'e and to swell 'e
And make a pig-stie of your belly.
A lovely limb most dainty
Of a ci-devant Mud-raker,
I makes bold to acquaint 'e
We've trusted to the Baker:
And underneath it satis
Of the subterrene apple
By the erudite 'clep'd taties—
With which, if you'ld wish to grapple,
As sure as I'm a sloven,
The clock will not strike twice one,
When the said dish will be out of the oven,
And the dinner will be a nice one.
P.S.
Besides we've got some cabbage.
You Jew-dog, if you linger,
May the Itch in pomp of scabbage
Pop out between each finger.
January, 1797.
First published (minus the postscript) in Thomas Poole and His Friends, 1888, i. 211.
5
SONG
TO BE SUNG BY THE LOVERS OF ALL THE NOBLE LIQUORS COMPRISED
UNDER THE NAME OF ALE.
Are the Gods on Olympus so happy as we?
For why? they drink no Nappy.
Is but another name for Stingo?
And Olympus an Ale-house as good as the best!
First published in Morning Post, September 18, 1801. Included in Essays, &c., iii. 995-6. First collected P. and D. W., 1877, ii. 167.
6
DRINKING versus THINKING
OR, A SONG AGAINST THE NEW PHILOSOPHY
This fanciful Philosophy,
Pray tell me what good is it?
If antient Nick should come and take,
The same across the Stygian Lake,
I guess we ne'er should miss it.
That goes truth-hunting in the dark,
Away from our carousing!
To Pallas we resign such fowls—
Grave birds of wisdom! ye're but owls,
And all your trade but mousing!
And spicy bishop, drink divine!
Let's live while we are able.
While Mirth and Sense sit, hand in glove,
This Don Philosophy we'll shove
Dead drunk beneath the table!
First published in Morning Post, September 25, 1801. Included in Essays, &c., iii. 966-7. First collected P. and D. W., 1877, ii. 168.
7
THE WILLS OF THE WISP
A SAPPHIC
Vix ea nostra voco
Fearless I see you weave your wanton dances
Near me, far off me; you, that tempt the traveller
Onward and onward.
Groans—and 'tis dark!—This woman's wile—I know it!
Learnt it from thee, from thy perfidious glances!
Black-ey'd Rebecca!
First published in Morning Post, December 1, 1801. First collected P. and D. W., 1877, ii. 169.
8
TO CAPTAIN FINDLAY
And the vessel was tacking and veering;
Bravo! Captain Findlay,
Who foretold a fair wind
Of a constant mind;
For he knew which way the wind lay,
Bravo! Captain Findlay.
Bravo! Captain Findlay!
When we made but ill speed with the Speedwell,
Neither poets nor sheep could feed well:
Now grief rotted the Liver,
Yet Malta, dear Malta, as far off as ever!
Foretold a fair wind,
Of a constant mind,
For he knew which way the wind lay!
May 4, 1804.
Now first published from a Notebook. The rhymes are inserted between the following entries:—'Thursday night—Wind chopped about and about, once fairly to the west, for a minute or two—but now, 1/2 past 9, the Captain comes down and promises a fair wind for to-morrow. We shall see.' 'Well, and we have got a wind the right way at last!'
9
ON DONNE'S POEM 'TO A FLEA'
Henceforth in Nature's mimic World grandees.
In Phœbus' archives registered are ye,
And this your patent of Nobility.
No skip-Jacks now, nor civiller skip-Johns,
Dread Anthropophagi! specks of living bronze,
[981] I hail you one and all, sans Pros or Cons,
Descendants from a noble race of Dons.
What tho' that great ancestral Flea be gone,
Immortal with immortalising Donne,
His earthly spots bleached off a Papist's gloze,
In purgatory fire on Bardolph's nose.
1811.
Now first published from an MS.
10
[EX LIBRIS S. T. C.][981:1]
Your writing therefore I will not erase.
But now this Book, once yours, belongs to me,
The Morning Post's and Courier's S. T. C.;—
Elsewhere in College, knowledge, wit and scholarage
To Friends and Public known as S. T. Coleridge.
Witness hereto my hand, on Ashley Green,
One thousand, twice four hundred, and fourteen
Year of our Lord—and of the month November
The fifteenth day, if right I do remember.
15th Nov. 1814. Ashley, Box, Bath.
First published in Lit. Rem., iii. 57. First collected P. and D. W., 1877, ii. 387.
11
ΕΓΩΕΝΚΑΙΠΑΝ
The following burlesque on the Fichtean Egoismus may, perhaps, be amusing to the few who have studied the system, and to those who are unacquainted with it, may convey as tolerable a likeness of Fichte's idealism as can be expected from an avowed caricature. [S. T. C.]
The Categorical Imperative, or the annunciation of the New Teutonic God, ΕΓΩΕΝΚΑΙΠΑΝ: a dithyrambic Ode, by Querkopf Von Klubstick, Grammarian, and Subrector in Gymnasio. . . .
(Speak English, Friend!) the God Imperativus,
Here on this market-cross aloud I cry:
'I, I, I! I itself I!
[982] The form and the substance, the what and the why,
The when and the where, and the low and the high,
The inside and outside, the earth and the sky,
I, you, and he, and he, you and I,
All souls and all bodies are I itself I!
All I itself I!
(Fools! a truce with this starting!)
All my I! all my I!
He's a heretic dog who but adds Betty Martin!'
Thus cried the God with high imperial tone:
In robe of stiffest state, that scoff'd at beauty,
A pronoun-verb imperative he shone—
Then substantive and plural-singular grown,
He thus spake on:—'Behold in I alone
(For Ethics boast a syntax of their own)
Or if in ye, yet as I doth depute ye,
In O! I, you, the vocative of duty!
I of the world's whole Lexicon the root!
Of the whole universe of touch, sound, sight,
The genitive and ablative to boot:
The accusative of wrong, the nom'native of right,
And in all cases the case absolute!
Self-construed, I all other moods decline:
Imperative, from nothing we derive us;
Yet as a super-postulate of mine,
Unconstrued antecedence I assign,
To X Y Z, the God Infinitivus!'
1815.
First published in Biographia Literaria, 1817, i. 148n. First collected P. and D. W., 1877, ii. 370.