eridge's relations with a world outside his own. _A
House of Letters_ (Jarrolds--N.D.), containing a selection of the
memoirs and correspondence of Miss Mary Matilda Betham, includes a
good many letters from Coleridge, and some few from Charles Lamb which
have not so far been recorded elsewhere. Miss Betham, who was born
in 1776, was a miniature painter by profession, and so far as can be
judged by reproductions a good one. She was a poetess, too, and the
compiler of a Biographical Dictionary of Celebrated Women. In 1797 she
published a volume of _Elegies_, which in 1802 was sent to Coleridge
by his friend Lady Boughton, and of which a short piece, "On a Cloud,"
transported him. He addressed immediately a blank-verse exhortation
"To Matilda Betham, from a Stranger," dated it Keswick, September 9th,
1802, signed it "S.T.C.," and sent it off.

Matilda! I have heard a sweet tune play'd
On a sweet instrument--thy Poesie,

it began; and went on to hope--

That our own Britain, our dear mother Isle,
May boast one Maid, a poetess indeed,
Great as th' impassioned Lesbian, in sweet song,
And O! of holier mind, and happier fate.

That was what he called twining her vernal wreath around the brows of
patriot Hope. He concluded with some cautionary lines whose epithets
are irresistibly comic:

Be bold, meek Woman! but be wisely bold!
Fly, ostrich-like, firm land beneath thy feet.

And for her ultimate reward--

What nobler meed, Matilda! canst thou win
Than tears of gladness in a Boughton's eyes,
And exultation even in strangers' hearts?

It is a wonderful thing indeed that, having composed _The Ancient
Mariner_ (1797), _Love_ (1799), _Christabel_ (1797-1800), and _Kubla
Khan_ (1798), he should slip back into this eighteenth-century
flatulence--but Coleridge could do such things and not turn a hair.

Nevertheless, to a young poetess, a bad poem is still a poem, and
means a reader. An acquaintance invited in such terms will thrive, and
that of Miss Betham and the Stranger ripened into a friendship. She
went to stay at Greta Hall, painted portraits of Mrs. Coleridge
and Sara, and of some of the Southeys too. Through them she became
acquainted with the Lambs, and if never one of their inner circle,
was a familiar correspondent, and had relations with George Dyer, the
Morgans, the Thelwalls, Montagues, Holcrofts and others. Altogether
Lady Boughton's bow at a venture brought down a goodly quarry for Mi