Click to embiggen. Poems on Various Subjects was STC's first collection of poetry, published by his friend Cottle (Bristol, 1796) and including those of his early poems of which Coleridge was proudest (there are also four sonnets by Charles Lamb, marking his first appearance in print). I have to say, though, I'd not seen this errata slip before. James Cummins, a US rare book dealer, has it on his website and notes that it is very rare to find a first edition including it. You can buy said first edition, errata slip and all, for a trifling $6000 if you want it. For me, it's enough to enjoy this slightly pompous but inadvertently charming page on its own. It's like a poem in its own right. For Antic huge read antic small, indeed!
Slipping in "obeisance" for obedience may have been foreign to Cottle, who couldnt read a word of French and didnt know Malebranche from a local woman named Moll Branch. But the word is old English and shows up in Chatterton. The characteristically despicable Byron called Cottle something like "Boeotian Cattle, Bristowa's Roast" (Boeotian shares the root of Boeuf or beef) https://www.etymonline.com/word/*gwou-
ReplyDeleteI didn't know that, about Cottle's lack of French! Not that STC was overly fond of French himself, of course.
DeleteCN V 6856 Coleridge writes: "... there had been so many poetesses, female Paintersm naym Sculptors, many She-Composers of music, Memoirs, Romances, Novels &c--but that I did not think there could be found a single celebrated philosopher, or Metaphysician. Surely, retorted Cottle! There was Moll Branch. I have not myself read her Works; but the French, I understand, think very highly of them - STC
DeleteAs for French, Coleridge wasnt overly good at reading it, but he was attempting to digest Dupuis's Origine de Tous les Cultes in 1797 around the time he composed Rime. Southey, on the other hand, may as well have been a francophone - he was definitely a francophile.
When Wordsworth and Coleridge first arrived in Germany they went to see the elderly Klopstock. Since STC had yet to pick up his later fluency in German, and since Klopstock didn't speak English, the entire conversation had to be mediated through Wordsworth as the two of them chatted in French.
DeleteI remember vaguely hearing the story of Wordsworth mediating in French. What a fascinating conversation that must have been between a German and and Englishman mediated by the Sage of Rydal Mount in French. I think they also tried to converse in the Latin.
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