Thomas Poole

“ Thomas and Josiah Wedgwood, sons of the famous potter and friends of Thomas Poole, offered him an equal sum annually as a free gift. They were wealthy men, well able to afford it; they attached no condition to the gift except that he should devote himself entirely to the study of poetry and philosophy, which was precisely what he wanted to do; and he was not long in determining to accept the offer. "I accepted it," he wrote to Wordsworth while still at Shrewsbury, "on the presumption that I had talents, honesty, and propensities to perseverant effort." ”

“ Southey be with you, remember me with all kindness and thankfulness for their attention to you and Hartley. To dear Mrs. Poole give my filial love. My love to Ward. Why should I write the name of Tom Poole, except for the pleasure of writing it? It grieves me to the heart that Nanny is not with you—I cannot bear changes—Death makes enough!
God bless you, my dear, dear wife, and believe me with eagerness to clasp you to my heart, your ever faithful husband,
S. T. Coleridge.
XCVIII. TO THOMAS POOLE. May 6, 1799, Monday morn.
My dear Poole, my dear Poole!—I am homesick. Society is a burden to me ”

“ Anybody who has read Thomas Poole and his Friends must have seen how not merely Coleridge, of whose known liability to the weakness the book furnished new proofs, but even, to some extent and vicariously, the austere Wordsworth, cherished the idea. But for the most part, men kept it to themselves. Leigh Hunt never could keep anything to himself, and he has left record on record of the easy manner in which he acted on his beliefs. ”

“ C. TO THOMAS POOLE. Exeter, Southey’s Lodgings, Mr. Tucker’s, Fore Street Hill,
September 16, 1799. [206]
My dear Poole,—Here I am just returned from a little tour [207] of five days, having seen rocks and waterfalls, and a pretty river or two; some wide landscapes, and a multitude of ash-tree dells, and the blue waters of the “roaring sea,” as little Hartley says, who on Friday fell down stairs and injured his arm. ’Tis swelled and sprained, but, God be praised, not broken. The views of Totness and Dartmouth are among the most impressive things I have ever seen ”

“ The occasion of this “burst of affectionate feeling” was a communication from Poole that seven or eight friends had undertaken to subscribe a sum of £35 or £40 to be paid annually to the “author of the monody on the death of Chatterton,” as “a trifling mark of their esteem, gratitude, and affection.” The subscriptions were paid in 1796-97, but afterwards discontinued on the receipt of the Wedgwood annuity. See Thomas Poole and his Friends, i. 142. ”

“ Thomas Poole of Nether Stowey, near Bridgewater, whose acquaintance he had made as early as 1794, now found Coleridge a small house at Nether Stowey for 71. a year, and Coleridge, with Lloyd, settled there in the winter of 1796-7. Poole, a man of plain exterior, was engaged in business in a tannery at Nether Stowey. He had acquired much knowledge of literature and economics, and was beloved in the district in spite of his strong political views. He got up a subscription to provide Coleridge with a small annuity, and remained one of his best friends. ”

“ He is a very extraordinary [Pg 344] creature, and if he live will, I doubt not, prove a great genius. Derwent is a fat, pretty child, healthy and hungry. I deliberated long whether I should not call him Thomas Poole Coleridge, and at last gave up the idea only because your nephew is called Thomas Poole, and because if ever it should be my destiny once again to live near you, I believed that such a name would give pain to some branches of your family. You will scarcely exact a very severe account of what a man has been doing who has been obliged for days and days together to keep his bed. ”

“ N. B.—Direct your letters, S. T. Coleridge, Mr. Cottle’s, High Street, Bristol.
LXIX. TO THOMAS POOLE. Sunday morning [? December 18, 1796.]
My dear Poole,—I wrote to you with improper impetuosity; but I had been dwelling so long on the circumstance of living near you, that my mind was thrown by your letter into the feelings of those distressful dreams [149] where we imagine ourselves falling from precipices. I [Pg 209] seemed falling from the summit of my fondest desires, whirled from the height just as I had reached it.
We shall want none of the Woman’s furniture ”

“ GERVASE of Canterbury (Gervasius Dorobornensis) (fl. 1188) , chronicler, was born, apparently of a Kentish family, about 1141. As he had a brother Thomas in his monastery, who is conjectured to be identical with one Thomas of Maidstone, we have a possible clue to his birthplace; but the information is too imperfect to warrant more than an hypothesis. Gervase became a monk of Christ Church, Canterbury, on the first Saturday in Lent, 16 Feb. 1163 (Hist. Works, i. 173) . The new archbishop, Thomas Becket, received his profession, and it was he who conferred holy orders upon him (p. 231) . ”

“ The temporary substitute was tacitly kept on by the indulgent University magnates, and the Thomasschule lost that connexion with the University which gave the only promise for its revival. Moreover, Goerner, who was also organist at S. Nicholas’—afterwards, in 1730, at S. Thomas’s, under Bach’s own authority, which he disregarded—had a Collegium Musicum of his own, for which he arrogated a rank superior to the Thomasschule, the latter, in fact, being (as he explained) merely preparatory to his. It seemed as though the old school were destined to lose all weight in the town. ”

“ For 'no' Collier's folio reads to, which seems to be right.
Act IV. Sc. 1.
"Yes, Poole.—Poole?—Poole, sir Poole, lord Poole."
"Jove sometime went disguis'd, and why not I?"
This line, so essential to the sense, is not in the folio; to obtain it recourse has been had to The Contention.
"As hating thee, are rising up in arms."
For 'are,' Rowe's correction, the folio has and.
"Advance our half-fac'd sun, striving to shine."
For 'our' we should read a or an; for the Captain does not seem to have had any connexion with the House of York. See on Hen. V. ii. Chor. ”

“ He resided in Genoa a number of years, engaged in the erection of various edifices, the laying-out of streets, and the restoration of the walls of the city. On the Carignano Hill he built the church of the Madonna. ”

“ There is a considerable general coasting trade, and clay is exported to the Staffordshire potteries. Some shipbuilding is carried on, and there are manufacturers of cordage, netting and sailcloth. The town also possesses potteries, decorative tile works, iron foundries, agricultural implement works and flour-mills. Poole Park, containing 40 acres of land and 62 acres of water, was acquired in 1887 and 1889, and Branksome Park, of 40 acres, in 189 5. The borough is under a mayor, 6 aldermen and 18 councillors. ”

“ Poole in 1803, "is a strange, strange boy, exquisitely wild, an utter visionary; like the moon among thin clouds, he moves in a circle of light of his own making. He alone is a light of his own." And of his daughter in the same poetic strain: "My meek little Sara is a remarkably interesting baby, with the finest possible skin, and large blue eyes, and she smiles as if she were basking in a sunshine as mild as moonlight of her own quiet happiness." ”

“ Poole's style, or what I imagine to be his style, there is the home belief in fairies, spirits, and ghosts, and the reading of omens. Who amongst us does not remember the old nurse who told him stories of magic and witchcraft? Nor can it be denied that things happen that seem in contradiction to all we know of Nature's laws. Moreover, these unusual occurrences have a knack of happening to men at the moment of their setting out on some irrevocable enterprise.
'You who are so sympathetic will understand how my will has been affected by Father Moran's visit. ”

“ The authoress can very well afford to rest her claim to popularity on her own merits; and we prefer to follow her, in her own peculiar sphere, into those mysterious recesses of an Oriental establishment, whither no male footstep can ever penetrate. Mrs Poole is probably the first English lady who has been admitted, not merely as a passing visitor, but as a privileged friend, into the hareems of those of the highest rank in the Egyptian capital. ”

“ I, for one, was glad to hear that Carle had gone. He isn't the stuff good men are made of. If he had stayed, he'd have played us some worse trick. Poole doesn't think so, but Poole doesn't know such fellows as well as I do. Another thing Poole doesn't know is that you're really a better catcher than Borland. It's up to you to go straight ahead and play your game as well as you can, and he'll see what you are before the season's over. When he does see, he'll chuck Borland in a minute. Poole is as straight a fellow as ever breathed, but he makes mistakes like the rest of us. ”

“ Some can express themselves on paper, and are more real in the words they write than in the words they speak. But hardly anything of his idea of her transpired in that letter—only in her desire of new ideas and new people. She was interested in everything—in his projected book about the raiders faring forth from the island castles, and now in the source of the Christian River; and he began to meditate a destructive criticism of Mr. Poole's ideas in a letter addressed to the editor of Illustrated England, losing heart suddenly, he knew not why, feeling the task to be beyond him. ”

“ I love and honour you, Poole, for many things—scarcely for anything more than that, trusting firmly in the rectitude and simplicity of your own heart, and listening with faith to its revealing voice, you never suffered either my subtlety, or my eloquence, to proselytize you to the pernicious doctrine of Necessity. [4] All praise to the Great Being who has graciously enabled me to find my way out of that labyrinth-den of sophistry, and, I would fain believe, to bring with me a better clue than has hitherto been known, to enable others to do the same. I have convinced Southey and Wordsworth ”

“ Now they were young again in the house. They were eating their suppers, three small girls, chattering like magpies. From her end of the table their mother smiled quietly across at him. "Come children," she was saying, "that will do for a little while." But Roger said, "Oh, let them talk."... Then he saw new-comers. Bruce came in with Edith, and George and young Elizabeth, and Allan came with Deborah who had a baby in her arms, and Laura stood beside them. ”

“ SIR RICHARD POLE, THE FATHER OF CARDINAL POLE. (Vol. v., pp. 105. 163.)
Without presuming to contravene the high authorities quoted by J. G. N. on the pedigree of Sir Richard Pole, the father of the celebrated Cardinal Pole, I am inclined to the belief that he descended from a common ancestor with the Cheshire family of "Poole," as suggested by your correspondent I. J. H. H. Wotton [6] says, in his pedigree of "Poole, baronets of Poole" (from whom, by the way, the Poles of Shute collaterally derived) :
"Robert Pull, alias Poole, alias De la Poole, lord of Barretspoole, 8 Edw. ”

“ The most life-like picture of Tom Hill is to be found in Hook's ‘Gilbert Gurney,’ where he figures as ‘Hull.’ The scenes in which he appears were read over to him before publication. He was always thought to be the original of Poole's ‘Paul Pry,’ immortalised by Liston, although Poole himself insisted that the character was never intended ‘as the representative of any one individual’ (New Monthly Magazine, xxxi. 280) . ”

“ Poole escaped with difficulty, with many broken bones. They afterwards got a passage to England in the Hopewell of Hull, which Edge chartered to carry home the oil. In 1612 Poole again went to Spitzbergen, but apparently only for the fishing, and, having killed a great many whales, brought home a full cargo. ”

“ It was in order to be in daily intercourse with Poole that he moved to Stowey; and Poole's hesitation about securing the cottage for him, arising, Coleridge seemed to fear, from imperfect confidence and friendship, was a source of agonized apprehension to the sensitive poet. When we consider that Poole was a self-educated man, a Somersetshire tanner with no claim to literary genius or philosophical acquirements, Coleridge's devotion to him and dependence on him bring out in a strong light the substantial, elemental character of the man. ”

“ Poole and others, in later life; but let it be remembered that, as yet, their writer had never enjoyed the advantages of literary correspondence. For the defects, however, of style, there is more than sufficient 63 compensation; they speak from the heart;—they carry with them internal evidence of the honest simplicity of his mind, and they throw a light upon the peculiarities of his genius, which without such aid might be less perfectly understood; above all, they evince an ardour which no difficulties could repress, and a confidence which no failures could extinguish. ”

“ Say there are a million people over here in America who've got either friends or relations in the armies over there. Say that all of 'em want to get news—not just this stuff about battles, but real live news of what's happened to Bill. Has Bill still got his legs and arms? Can he hold down a job when he gets home? News which counts for something! See? A big new market! Business for us! So I tried to [274] see what I could do!" John excitedly shifted his crutches. Roger was watching intently.
"Go on, Johnny."
"Sure, I'll go on! One night I went to a library where they have English papers. ”

“ The piquancy of Poole’s ancient repose being p. 262neighboured by Bournemouth’s wide-awake life is italicised when that port—the “Havenpool” of To Please his Wife—is entered. It would not be correct to say that the days of Poole as a port are over, but with the growth in size of modern ships, the shallowness of Poole Harbour in whose recesses it is tucked rather obscurely away, prevents any but vessels of slight draught coming up to its quays. ”