The first letter to Southey was written from Gloucester on 6th July
1794, and it shows the degree of intimacy on which the two
undergraduates stood at this time. They had met only about a month
before, for Southey writes on 12th June to his friend Grosvenor Bedford:
"Allen is with us daily and his friend from Cambridge, Coleridge, whose
poems you will oblige me by subscribing to, either at Hookam's or
Edward's. He is of most uncommon merit, of the strongest genius, the
clearest judgment, the best heart. My friend he already is, and must
hereafter be yours," ("Life and Correspondence of Southey", i, 210). The
poems mentioned were a projected volume of "Imitations from Modern Latin
Poets", of which an ode after Casimir is the only relic. Coleridge's
first letter to Southey reads as follows:
LETTER 7. TO SOUTHEY
6 July 1794.
You are averse to gratitudinarian flourishes, else would I talk about
hospitality, attention, &c. &c.; however, as I must not thank you, I
will thank my stars. Verily, Southey, I like not Oxford, nor the
inhabitants of it. I would say thou art a nightingale among owls; but
thou art so songless and heavy towards night that I will rather liken
thee to the matin lark, thy "nest" is in a blighted cornfield, where the
sleepy poppy nods its red-cowled head, and the weak-eyed mole plies his
dark work; but thy soaring is even unto heaven.
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