Читать книгу The Letters Volume 2 - Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Страница 16

Favoured by Captain Maxwell of the Artillery.—N. B., an amiable mild man, who is prepared to give you any information.

Malta, April 20, 1805.

Dear Stuart,—The above is a duplicate, or rather a sex or septem-plicate of an order sent off within three weeks after my draft on you had been given by me; and very anxious I have been, knowing that all or almost all of my letters have failed. It seems like a judgment on me. Formerly, when I had the sure means of conveying letters, I neglected my duty through indolence or procrastination. For the last year, when, having all my heart, all my hope in England, I found no other gratification than that of writing to Wordsworth and his family, his wife, sister, and wife’s sister; to Southey, to you, to T. Wedgwood, Sir. G. Beaumont, etc. Indeed, I have been supererogatory in some instances—but an evil destiny has dogged them—one large and (forgive my vanity!) rather important set of letters to you on Sicily and Egypt were destroyed at Gibraltar among the papers of a most excellent man, Major Adye, to whom I had entrusted them on his departure from Sicily, and who died of the Plague four days after his arrival at Gibraltar. But still was I afflicted (shame on me! even to violent weeping) when all my many, many letters were thrown overboard from the Arrow, the Acheron, and a merchant vessel, to all which I had entrusted them; the last through my own over care. For I delivered them to the captain with great pomp of seriousness, in my official character as Public Secretary of the Islands.^[27] He took them, and considering them as public papers, on being close chased and expecting to be boarded, threw them overboard; and he, however, escaped, steering for Africa, and returned to Malta. But regrets are idle things.

In my letter, which will accompany this, I have detailed my health and all that relates to me. In case, however, that letter should not arrive, I will simply say, that till within the last two months or ten weeks my health had improved to the utmost of my hopes, though not without some intrusions of sickness; but latterly the loss of my letters to England, the almost entire non-arrival of letters from England, not a single one from Mrs. Coleridge or Southey or you; and only one from the Wordsworths, and that dated September, 1804! my consequent heart-saddening anxieties, and still, still more, the depths which Captain John Wordsworth’s death^[28] sunk into my heart, and which I heard abruptly, and in the very painfullest way possible in a public company—all these joined to my disappointment in my expectation of returning to England by this convoy, and the quantity and variety of my public occupations from eight o’clock in the morning to five in the afternoon, having besides the most anxious duty of writing public letters and memorials which belongs to my talents rather than to my pro-tempore office; these and some other causes that I cannot mention relative to my affairs in England have produced a sad change indeed on my health; but, however, I hope all will be well.... It is my present intention to return home over-land by Naples, Ancona, Trieste, etc., on or about the second of next month.

The gentleman who will deliver this to you is Captain Maxwell of the Royal Artillery, a well-informed and very amiable countryman of yours. He will give you any information you wish concerning Malta. An intelligent friend of his, an officer of sense and science, has entrusted to him an essay on Lampedusa,^[29] which I have advised him to publish in a newspaper, leaving it to the Editor to divide it. It may, perhaps, need a little softening, but it is an accurate and well-reasoned memorial. He only wishes to give it publicity, and to have not only his name concealed, but every circumstance that could lead to a suspicion. If after reading it you approve of it, you would greatly oblige him by giving it a place in the “Courier.” He is a sensible, independent man. For all else to my other letter.—I am, dear Stuart, with faithful recollections, your much obliged and truly grateful friend and servant,

S. T. Coleridge.

April 20, 1805.