Coulter

“ Our tory captain freely indulged them in the practice. He himself played with them when the humor suited. The four upon whom Coulter came were not on duty, though they wore their swords. Their holsters lay with their saddles across a neighboring log, not far off, but not immediately within reach. Coulter saw his opportunity; the temptation was great; but these were not exactly his prey—not yet, at all events. To place one man, well armed with rifle and pair of pistols, in a situation to cover the group at any moment, and between them and the farmstead, was his plan ”

“ Coulter’s rifle dropt Clymes, just as he was about to ascend the steps of the piazza. A second shot from one of his companions tumbled the provost, having in charge old Sabb. His remaining keeper let fall the rope and fled in terror, while the old Dutchman, sinking to his knees, crawled rapidly to the opposite side of the tree which had been chosen for his gallows, where he crouched closely, covering his ears with his hands, as if, by shutting out the sounds, he could shut out all danger from the shot. Here he was soon joined by Brough, the African. ”

“ And on more than one occasion, the crew of the Hound found themselves engaged as allies in the civil wars of constant occurrence amongst the bellicose barbarians of the Pacific. Dr Coulter, especially, greatly distinguished himself as an amateur warrior. He is a most adventurous fellow, and assuredly made a mistake when he devoted himself to the study of the healing art, instead of to some more martial profession. ”

“ But patience and courage, when sustained by love, become wonderful powers; and Richard Coulter, whose moans increased with his increasing sensibility, was finally laid down in the bottom of the dug-out, his head resting in the lap of Frederica. The boat could hold no more. The faithful Brough, pushing her out into the stream, with his hand still resting on stern or gunwale, swam along with her, as she quietly floated with the currents. We have seen the narrow escape which the little vessel had as she rounded the headland below, just as Dunbar came down upon the beach. ”

“ CHAPTER XI. We must briefly retrace our steps. We left Richard Coulter, in ambush, having so placed his little detachments as to cover most of the groups of dragoons—at least such as might be immediately troublesome. It was with the greatest difficulty that he could restrain himself during the interval which followed the entry of Elijah Fields into the house. Nothing but his great confidence in the courage and fidelity of the preacher could have reconciled him to forbearance, particularly as, at the point which he occupied, he could know nothing of what was going on within. ”

“ I am grinding away at “Flora,” and probably shall be found so doing when I am called for.
Very well! I have a most comfortable and happy old age. Wishing you the same,
Yours ever,
A. Gray.
TO J. D. HOOKER.
Cambridge, September 15, 1886.
... Has Ball returned to England? If so, please tell him that he promised to look up in Dublin, and give from his own knowledge, some details of Coulter’s life. Alphonse de Candolle has sent me copies of what letters he has, and they enable me to trace Coulter’s movements and whereabouts, which is helpful. ”

“ Coulter, for whom you work, may have sent you a Christmas basket there is not one shred of anything to link him up with us. Mr. McGregor, it is true, was in Davis and Coulter's employ many years; but he was only one of many hundred workmen and scarcely knew old Mr. Coulter by sight. Since the old gentleman has died and the son has come into the firm the last thread that bound us to the company has been snapped. Old Mr. Coulter is gone, and McGregor, with his twenty-five years of service in the mills, is forgotten. ”

“ To him Richard Coulter, now a captain among the partisans of Sumter, had unfolded the narrative of his escape from Dunbar. They had taken their evening meal; their three companions were busy with their arms and horses, grouped together in the centre of the camp. Our two principal persons occupied a little headland on the edge of the river, looking up the stream. They were engaged in certain estimates with regard to the number of recruits expected daily, by means of which Coulter was in hopes to turn the tables on his rival; becoming the hunter instead of the fugitive. ”

“ He was a member of the Lewis and Clark expedition, which was sent out to explore the sources of the Missouri and Columbia Rivers. He was naturally an adventurer, and a man who had no idea of the meaning of the word "danger." The party had a glimpse of Yellowstone Park, and Coulter was so enamored with the hunting prospects that he either deserted from the expedition party or obtained permission to remain behind. ”

“ So Doctor Coulter allowed himself to be persuaded, and making an appointment to meet the Stratford, Deo volente, at Tahiti in the month of November, he remained under the care of the Spanish padre at the Mission, much to his own satisfaction, but probably not quite so much to that of any unlucky mariner upon whose fractured limb or diseased body Captain Lock may subsequently have found it necessary to practise. ”

“ Coulter, from the Central States of the Republic of Mexico has arrived here, with the intention of taking all he can find to De Candolle at Geneva. He is a man eminently calculated to work, full of zeal, very amiable, and I hope may do much good to Science. ”

“ This coulter-beam has likewise 6 circular holes at one end, and 6 round iron staples fixed into the edge of the other part of it: into these are inserted the ends of the tin flues, which intersect each other, and convey the seed from the bottom of the box into the drills or furrows, when the coulters are properly arranged in the square holes. The person guiding the machine can raise these coulters, or hoes, out of the ground, when passing to or from the field, or in turning at the end of the land ”

“ But whence this sudden revolution in your opinions, my dear Poole? You saw the cottage that was to be our temporary residence, and thought we might be happy in it, and now you hurry to tell me that we shall not even be comfortable in it. You tell me I shall be “too far from my friends,” that is, Cottle and Estlin, for I have no other in Bristol. In the name of Heaven, what can Cottle or Estlin [do] for me? They do nothing who do not teach me how to be independent of any except the Almighty Dispenser of sickness and health. ”

“ S. T. Coleridge.
To Miss Cottle, Brunswick Square."
"Friday, 27th May, 1814.
My dear Cottle,
Gladness be with you, for your convalescence, and equally so, at the hope which has sustained and tranquillized you through your imminent peril. Far otherwise is, and hath been, my state; yet I too am grateful; yet I cannot rejoice. I feel, with an intensity, unfathomable by words, my utter nothingness, impotence, and worthlessness, in and for myself. I have learned what a sin is, against an infinite imperishable being, such as is the soul of man. ”

“ You ask me if you did wrong in writing to him. A man with your feelings and principles never does wrong. There are parts which would have been expunged had I been at your elbow, but in all, and in every part it is strictly applicable.
I hope your next will tell me that he is going to T. Poole's—I have communicated none of your letters to Mrs. Coleridge, who you know resides with us. Her spirits and health are beginning to sink under it. God bless you.
Yours affectionately,
Robert Southey. ”

“ Now I am touching so deeply upon poetry, can I forget that I have just received from Cottle a magnificent copy of his Guinea Epic. [2] Four-and-twenty books to read in the dog days! I got as far as the Mad Monk the first day, and fainted. Mr, Cottle's genius strongly points him to the Pastoral, but his inclinations divert him perpetually from his calling. He imitates Southey, as Rowe did Shakspeare, with his "Good morrow to ye, good master Lieutenant," Instead of a man, a woman, a daughter, he constantly writes "one a man," "one a woman," "one his daughter." ”

“ Down at Bristol, the ancestral town of both Longman and Rees, Joseph Cottle had been doing honest service—without, we fear, much profit—in issuing the earliest works of young men who were to take the highest rank among their fellows. Cottle had published Southey’s Joan of Arc in 1796, and in 1798 had issued the Lyrical Ballads, the joint composition of Coleridge and Wordsworth. ”

“ Coleridge, in the midst of all his deficiencies, it appeared, was liked by the men, although he was the butt of the whole company; being esteemed by them as next of kin to a natural, though of a peculiar kind—a talking natural. This fancy of theirs was stoutly resisted by the love-sick swain, but the regimental logic prevailed; for, whatever they could do, with masterly dexterity, he could not do at all, ergo, must he not be a natural? There was no man in the regiment who met with so many falls from his horse, as Silas Tomken Cumberbatch! ”

“ Coleridge, 1807, he says—speaking of his friend Mr. W. "He is one, whom God knows, I love and honour as far beyond myself, as both morally and intellectually he is above me."
"Stowey, 1797.
My dear Cottle,
Wordsworth and his exquisite sister are with me. She is a woman indeed! in mind I mean, and heart; for her person is such, that if you expected to see a pretty woman, you would think her rather ordinary; if you expected to see an ordinary woman, you would think her pretty! but her manners are simple, ardent, impressive. ”

“ Coleridge, and cherished something of an indignant feeling. Strange as it may appear, C. Lamb determined to desert the inglorious ground of neutrality, and to commence active operations against his late friend; but the arrows were taken from his own peculiar armoury; tipped, not with iron, but wit. He sent Mr. Coleridge the following letter. Mr. Coleridge gave me this letter, saying, "These young visionaries will do each other no good." The following is Charles Lamb's letter to Mr. C.
"THESES QUAEDAM THEOLOGICAE. 1st. Whether God loves a lying angel better than a true man? ”

“ He specified as points on which they were uncomfortable, Coleridge's own letter, or letters, respecting opium, and the circumstances of a gift of three hundred pounds from Mr. De Quincey.
The truth is, that Coleridge's relations are placed in a most uncomfortable position. They cannot say that any one of themselves will bring out a full and authentic account of C. because they know how much there is, which all who have any regard for Coleridge's memory, would wish to be buried with him. But we will talk over the subject when we meet. ”

“ It would then, he said, become manifest that he was not a projector raw from his cloister, but a cool calculating reasoner, whose efforts and example would secure to him and his friends the permanent gratitude of mankind.
From the sentiments thus entertained, I shall represent Mr. Coleridge, in the section of his days which devolves on me to exhibit, just as he was, and that with a firm belief that by so doing, without injuring his legitimate reputation, I shall confer an essential benefit on those to come, who will behold in Mr. C. much to admire and imitate ”

“ O, I do pray inwardly to be able to pray; but indeed to pray, to pray with a faith to which a blessing is promised, this is the reward of faith, this is the gift of God to the elect. Oh! if to feel how infinitely worthless I am, how poor a wretch, with just free-will enough to be deserving of wrath, and of my own contempt, and of none to merit a moment’s peace, can make a part of a Christian’s creed; so far I am a Christian.
S. T. C.
April 26, 1814.
Cottle informs us that Coleridge had now resolved to put himself under constraint in the asylum of Dr. Fox, in the neighbourhood of Bristol. ”

“ If this domestic affliction had not fallen upon us, it was my intention to have seen you in October 1834, and have brought my son Cuthbert with me; and if it please God that I should ever be able to leave home for a distant journey, this I still hope to do, and if you are not then in a better place than Bedminster, I am selfish enough to wish you may stay there till we meet; and indeed for the sake of others, that it may be to the utmost limits which may be assigned us. I would give a great deal to pass a week with you in this world. ”

“ The unworthiness of such conduct is even aggravated by an attempt to represent it as the fulfilment of an injunction of Coleridge's own, wrung from him by the extremity of mental and bodily anguish. Cottle erred from sheer obtuseness and want of moral delicacy, and hurt himself much more than Coleridge, whose failings would have become sufficiently known from other sources, while even Cottle's poems would have given a very inadequate idea of his stupidity without his memoirs. ‘The confusion in Cottle's “Recollections” is greater than any one would think possible,’ says Southey. ”

“ Southey:—
"Keswick, Oct. 10, 1836.
My dear Cottle,
I have long foreseen that poor S. T. Coleridge would leave a large inheritance of uneasiness to his surviving friends, and those who were the most nearly connected with him.
The Head of the Family being in these parts, I have heard more concerning the affair of your Memoir, as it respects the feelings of that family than I should otherwise. He is a thoroughly good man; mild, unassuming, amiable, and judicious beyond most men. This matter interests him greatly, on account of his brother having married Mr. S. T. Coleridge's daughter. ”