In a former letter I have mentioned M^rs Sergeant,

who had been Miss Tylers school-mistress. My Aunt kept up an acquaintance with her as long as she lived, & after her death with her two daughters,

who lived together in a house on Redclift Parade, – the pleasantest situation in Bristol, if there had been even a tolerable approach to it. One of these sisters was unmarried, the other a widow with one son, who was just of my age – Jem Thomas

was his name. M^r Lewis,

the clergyman with under whom I was placed either at the end of 1786 or the beginning of 1787, lodged & boarded with these sisters. He had been Usher at the Grammar school, & having engaged to educate this boy was willing to take a few more pupils, who should come to him from the hours of ten till two. He had two others when I went to him, Cooper

& Rawlins,

both xx my seniors by three or four years. The former I used to call Caliban,

– he might have played that character without a mask, that is supposing he could have learnt the part, but he was for the resemblance held good in mind as well as in appearance his disposition being something between pig & baboon. The latter was a favourite with Lewis, his father had formerly been a surgeon but had succeeded to an estate of some value;

he was little & mannish, somewhat vain of superficial talents & with a spice of conceit <both> in his manners <& in his dress>; but there was no harm in him. He took an honorary Masters degree at the Duke of Portlands Installation in 1793

– which was the only time I ever saw him after we ceased to be fellow pupils. He married about that time

& died young. Caliban had a sister whom I shall not libel when I call her Sycorax,

for she was a most loathsome person. Wade

a Bristol tradesman & a great friend of S.T.Cs married her for her money, & the only thing I ever heard of Caliban in after life was a story which reached me of her every where proclaiming that her brother was a very superior man to M^r Coleridge, & had confuted him <one evening> seven & twenty times in one argument. The word which C. uses as a listener, when he is expected to say something xxx throw in xxxx <something> with or without meaning to show that he is listening – is – or used to be as I well remember – “undoubtedly”. The foolish woman had given <understood> it <in> its literal meaning, & kept account with her fingers that he pronounced it seven & twenty times while enduring the bestial utterances of an creature <animal> in comparison with whom a Satyr or a Centaur would deserve to be called human, & a Satyr rational.

Jem Thomas was a common place lad, with a fine handsome person, but by no means a good physiognomy: <& I cannot remember the time when I was not a physiognomist.> He was educated for a surgeon, & ruined by having at his disposal as soon as he came of age something between 2 & 3000 £ which his grandmother imprudently left to him instead of his mother in trust for him. This he presently squandered, – & th went out professionally to the E Indies, & died there. So much for my three companions <among whom it was not possible that I could find a friend> there came a fourth, a few weeks only before I withdrew, – he was a well-minded boy & has made a very respectable man. Harris was his name, & he married Betsy Petrie,

who was once one of my fellow travellers in Portugal.

I profited by this years tuition less than I should have done at a good school. It is not easy to remedy the ill effects of bad teaching, & the farther the pupil has advanced in it the greater the difficulty must be <of bringing him into a better way>. Lewis too had been accustomed to the mechanical movements of a large school, & was at a loss how to proceed with a pupil <boy> who stood alone. I began Greek under him, made nonsense verses, <read Horace’s Odes>

advanced a little in writing Latin, & composed English themes. C’est le premier pas qui coute

I was in as great tribulation when I had the first theme to write, as when Williams

required me to produce a letter. The text of course had been given me, but <how to begin,> what to say, or how to say it, I knew not. No one who had witnessed my perplexity upon this occasion would have supposed that these poor brains how much was afterwards to be spun from these poor brains. My Aunt at last in compassion wrote the theme for me. Lewis questioned me if it was my own, & I told him the truth. He then encouraged me sensibly enough, & put me in the way of composing the commonplaces of which themes are manufactured, <(indeed he made me transcribe some rules, for theme making, a regular receit, as for making a pudding.)> & he had no reason afterwards to complain of any want of aptitude in his scholar. For when I had learnt that it was not more difficult to write in prose than in verse, the ink dribbled as daintily from my pen as ever it did from John Bunyans.

One of these exercises I remember sufficiently well to know that its main fault it was too much like poetry, & that the fault was of a hopeful kind, consisting less in inflated language than in <poetical> imagery than <&> sentiment. But this was not pointed out, & luckily I was left to myself, – otherwise like a good horse I might have been spoilt by being broken in too soon.

It was still more fortunate that there was none to direct me in my own favourite <xxxxxx> pursuit, certain as <it is that> any instructor would have beco to have interfered with the natural & healthy growth of that poetical spirit, which was taking its own course.*

<That spirit was like a plant which required no forcing, nor artificial culture, – xx xxxxx only air & sunshine & the rains & the dews of heaven.> I do not remember during <in> any part of my life to have been so conscious of intellectual improvement as I was during the year & half before I was placed at Westminster; – an improvement derived not from books or instruction, but from constantly exercising myself in English verse, & <from> the development of mind which that exercise produced. I can distinctly trace my progress by help of a list made thirty years ago of all my compositions in verse which were then in existence, or which I had at that xxxx time destroyed.

Early as my hopes had been directed toward the drama, they received a more decided & more fortunate direction from the frequent perusal of Tasso, Ariosto & Spenser.

I had read also Mickles Lusiad, & Pope’s Homer.

If xx you add to these an extensive acquaintance with the novels of the day & with the Arabian & mock-Arabian tales,

– the whole works of Josephus,

taken in by me with my pocket money in threescore sixpenny numbers – (which I now possess)

– such acquaintance with Greek & Roman history as a school boy picks up from his lessons & from Goldsmiths abridged histories,

& such acquaintance with their fables as may be learnt from Ovid

<from the old Pantheon>, & above all from the end of Littletons dictionary,

you will have a fair account of the stock upon which I began. But Shakespere & Beaumont & Fletcher

must not be forgotten: <nor Sidneys Arcadia,>

nor Rowleys Poems

– for Chattertons history was fresh in remembrance, & that story which would have affected one of my disposition any where, acted with decided acted upon me with all the force of local associations.

The first of my epic dreams was created by Ariosto. I meant to graft a story upon the Orlando Furioso – not knowing how often this had been done by Italian & Spanish imitators.

Arcadia was to have been the title & the scene, thither I meant to carry the Moors under Marsilius

after their overthrow in France, & then to have overthrown them again by a hero of my own named Alphonso, who had caught the Hippogriff.

This must have been when I was between nine & ten, – for some xxx verses of it were written on the cover of my Phaedrus.

They were in the <heroic> couplet as verse. Among my Aunts books was the first volume of Bysshe’s Art of Poetry,

which worthless as it is taught me at that age the common law principle upon which blank verse is constructed. I soon learnt to prefer that metre, not because it was easier than rhyme (which was easy enough) but because I felt in it a greater freedom & range of language. My second subject was the Trojan Brutus,

– the defeat of K Richard & the union of the two Roses,

was my third. In neither of these did I make much progress, but with the story of Egbert

I was more persevering, & fairly transcribed several folio sheets the sight of which <these> was an encouragement to proceed, & I often looked at them with solitary delight in the anticipation of future fame. This was a sacred solitary feeling, for my ambition or vanity (whichever it may deserve to be called) was not greater than the shyness which accompanied it. My port-folio was of course held sacred. One day however it was profaned by an acquaintance of my Aunt who called to pay a morning visit: she was shown into the parlour & I who was sent to say my Aunt would presently wait upon her, found her with my precious Egbert in her hand. Her compliments had no effect in abating my deep resentment at this unf unpardonable impertinence <curiosity>, & tho she was a good natured woman I am afraid I never quite forgave her. Determining however never to incur the risk of a second exposure, I immediately composed a set of characters for my own use.

In my twelfth & thirteenth years besides these loftier attempts, I wrote three heroic epistles in rhyme, the one was from Diomede to Egiale,

the second from Octavia to Anthony,

the third from Alexander to his father Herod,

– a xxx subject with which Josephus supplied me. I made also some translations from Ovid, Virgil & Horace,

& composed a satirical description of English manners, as delivered by Omai

to his countrymen on his return. On the thirteenth anniversary of my birth, supposing by an error which appeared to be common enough at the end of the century that I was then only entering <the first year> my teens <instead of compleating it.> & looking upon that as an aweful sort of step in life I wrote some verses in a strain of reflection upon mortality grave enough to provoke a smile when I then recollect them. Among my attempts at this time were two descriptive pieces entitled Morning in the Country & Morning in the Town, in eight syllable rhyme & in imitation of Cunningham.

There was also a satirical Peep into Plutos dominions

in rhyme – I remember only the conclusion only – & that because it exhibits a singular xxx indication how strongly at that <& how> early age my heart was set upon that peculiar line of poetry which I have pursued with most ardour. It described the Elysium

of the poets, & that more sacred part of it in which Homer, Virgil, Tasso, Spenser, Camoens & Milton

were assembled. While I was regarding them Fame came hastening by with her arms full of laurels, & asking in an indignant voice if there was any <no Poet> who would deserve these, upon which I reached out my hands – & awoke snatched at them – & awoke.

One of these juvenile efforts was wholly original in its design. It was an attempt to relat <exhibit> the story of the Trojan war in a dramatic form, laying the scene in Elysium where the events that had happened were related by the souls of the several heroes as they successively descended. The opening was a dialogue between Laodamia & Protesilaus

in couplets, the best rhymes which I had as yet written. But I did not proceed far in <probably> because the design was too difficult, & this would have been reason enough for abandoning it, if I had not entered with more than usual ardour upon an a new heroic subject, taken of which Cassibelan

was the hero. I had written finished three books of this poem & advanced far in the fourth before I went to Westminster. All was written fairly out in my own private characters, & in my best hands <writing>, if one may talk of calligraphy in an unknown hand, which looked something like Greek, but more like conjuration from the number of trines & squares which it contained These characters however proved fatal to the poem: for it was not possible for me to continue it at school for want of privacy, & disuse made the characters cypher so difficult that I could not read it without almost spelling as I went on, & at last in very vexation I burnt the manuscript

I wonder whether Spurzheim

could at that time have discovered an organ of constructiveness in my xxxxxxx pericranium. The Elysian drama might seem to indicate that I possessed <that> the faculty <was there>, but not a trace of it was to be found in any of the heroic poems which I attempted. They were all begun with <upon> a mere general notion of the subject, without any prearrangement – & almost without one little preconception of the incidents by which the catastrophe was to be brought about. When I sate down to write I had to look as much for the incidents as for the thoughts & language in which they were to be clothed. I expected them to occur just as readily, & so indeed, such as they were, they did. My reading in <the old> Chivalrous romances has been extensive enough to justify me in asserting that <the greater number of> those romances were written just in the same way, without the slightest plan or forethought: & I am much mistaken if many of the Italian romantic poems were not composed in the same inartificial manner. This I am sure that it is more difficult to plan than to execute well, & that abundance of good poetry <true poetical power> has been squandered for want of a constructive talent in the poet. I have felt this <want> in some of the Spanish & Portugueze writers even more than their want of taste. The progress of my own mind towards attaining it (so far as I may be thought to have attained it) I am able to trace distinctly, not merely by the works themselves, & by my own recollections of the views with which they were <undertaken &> composed, but by the various sketches & memoranda <for for four poems>

made from the first conception of every poem <each>, till its completion. At present the facility & pleasure with which I can plan a long poem, a drama, & a comprehensive <an> historical or biographical work however comprehensive, is ever a temptation to me: – it seems as if I caught the bearings of a subject at first sight, just as Telford sees from an eminence xx with a glance in which direction his road must be carried. But it was long before I acquired this power, – not fairly indeed till I was about five & thirty:

& it was acquired by practice, by the gradual perception of my own defects in the course of which I learnt to perceive wherein I had been deficient.

There was one point in which these <premature> early <attempts> exhibited <afforded> a hopeful indication <omen>, & that was the industry with which I endeavoured to acquire all the historical information within my reach relating to the subject in hand. Forty years ago I could have given you a better account of the birth & parentage of Egbert, & the state of the Heptarchy

in his youth, that I could do now, without referring to my books; & when Cassibelan was my hero, I was as well acquainted with the division of the Island among its ancient tribes, as <I am now> with the relative situation of its counties. It was perhaps fortunate for me that these pursuits were solitary & unassisted, by thus working a way for myself I acquired a habit & a love for pursu investigation & nothing appeared uninteresting which gave me any of the information I wanted. The pleasure I took in these pursuits <such researches & in composition> rendered me in a great degree independent of other amusements & no systematic education could have so well fitted me for my present course of life so well as the circumstances which allowed me thus to feel & follow my own impulses.