Miscellanies, Aesthetic and Literary - The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia (2024)

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

Miscellanies, aesthetic and literary: to which is added The theory of life by Coleridge. Collected and arranged by Thomas Ashe.

EDITOR'S NOTE.

N Coleridge's Table Talk, under the date Jan. 1 , 1834,we find the following remark: -" I exceedingly regretthe loss of those essays on beauty, which I wrote ina Bristol newspaper. I would give much to recoverthem. "Coleridge's son- in- law and editor, Henry Nelson Coleridge, appends a note to this passage in his first edition, of1835:-" I preserve the conclusion of this passage, in thehope of its attracting the attention of some person whomay have local or personal advantages in making a searchfor these essays, upon which Mr. C. set a high value. Hehad an indistinct recollection of the subject, but told methat, to the best of his belief, the Essays were publishedin the Bristol Mercury, a paper belonging to Mr. Gutch.The years in which the inquiry should be made, would be,I presume, 1807 and 1808.”

As Coleridge was in Bristol in 1807, his nephew's guessis reasonable; but it is strange that Coleridge himselfshould have been so oblivious, even though now in a dyingcondition, of 1813-14, when he stayed so long in Bristol,and delivered so many lectures.However, Cottle of Bristol evidently took the hint. Hefound the Essays in Felix Farley's Bristol Journal, for 1814,4 ESSAYS ON THE FINE ARTS .and reprinted them, in 1837, in his book-" Early Recollections, chiefly relating to S. T. Coleridge. "The editor of the Bristol Journal thus announced theappearance of the Essays, Aug. 6, 1814:-

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" The termination of the calamities of war having at lengthfurnished us with more vacant room than we have been accustomed to find unoccupied, it is our intention next week todiversify our columns by the commencement of a series of Essayson the Fine Arts; particularly on that of Painting: illustratedby criticisms upon the pictures now exhibited by Mr. Allston, inthis city, as well as on other works of merit, in the possession ofseveral gentlemen well known in our vicinity. The pleasure tobe derived from the perusal of these Essays will readily beanticipated, when we inform our readers, that they are furnishedus by the pen of Mr. Coleridge."We have added to this division of our volume two fragments of Essays on Taste and Beauty, one of an earlier,and one of a later date than the Bristol Essays. We havealso judged it appropriate to place here the valuable lectureof 1818, " On Poesy or Art."ON THE PRINCIPLES OF SOUND CRITICISMCONCERNING THE FINE ARTS, DEDUCED FROM THOSE WHICHANIMATE AND GUIDE THE TRUE ARTIST IN THE PRODUCTIONOF HIS WORKS.PRELIMINARY ESSAY."Unus ergo idemque perpetuo Sol perseverans atque manensaliis atque aliis , aliter atque aliter dispositis , alius efficitur atquealius. Haud secus de hac solari arte varii varie sentiunt, diversidiversa dic*nt: quot capita, tot sententiae—et tot voces. Hinccorvi crocitant, cuculi cuculant, lupi ululant, sues grundiunt, ovesbalant, hinniunt equi , mugiunt boves, rudunt asini. Turpe est,dixit Aristoteles, solicitum esse ad quemlibet interrogantemrespondere. Boves bobus admugiant, equi equis adhinniant,asinis adrudant asini! Nostrum est hominibus aliquid circahominum excellentissimorum inventiones pertentare." —JORDAN:BRUNUS de Umbris Idearum.IT will not appear complimentary to liken the Editorsof Newspapers, in one respect, to galley- slaves; but thelikeness is not the less apt on that account, and a simile isnot expected to go on all fours . When storms blow highin the political atmosphere, the events of the day fill thesails, and the writer may draw in his oars, and let his brainrest; but when calm weather returns, then comes too "thetug of toil, " hard work and little speed . Yet he not onlysympathizes with the public joy, as a man and a citizen ,but will seek to derive some advantages even for his editorial functions, from the cessation of battles and revolutions. He cannot indeed hope to excite the same keen and6ESSAYS ON THE FINE ARTS.promiscuous sensation as when he had to announce events,which by the mere bond of interest brought home themovements of monarchs and empires to every individual'scounting-house and fire- side; but he consoles himself bythe reflection, that these troublesome times occasionedthousands to acquire a habit, and almost a necessity, ofreading, which it now becomes his object to retain by thegradual substitution of a milder stimulant, which thoughless intense is more permanent, and by its greater divergency no less than duration, even more pleasurable.-Andhow can he hail and celebrate the return of peace moreworthily or more appropriately, than by exerting his bestfaculties to direct the taste and affections of his readers tothe noblest works of peace? The tranquillity of nationspermits our patriotism to repose. We are now allowed tothink and feel as men, for all that may confer honour onhuman nature; not ignorant, meantime, that the greatnessof a nation is by no distant links connected with the celebrity of its individual citizens -that whatever raises ourcountry in the eyes of the civilized world, will make thatcountry dearer and more venerable to its inhabitants, andthence actually more powerful, and more worthy of loveand veneration. Add to (what in a great commercial citywill not be deemed trifling or inappertinent) the certainreaction of the Fine Arts on the more immediate utilitiesof life. The transfusion of the fairest forms of Greece andRome into the articles of hourly domestic use by Mr. Wedgwood; the impulse given to our engravings by Boydell;the superior beauty of our patterns in the cotton manufactory, of our furniture and musical instruments, hold ashonourable a rank in our archives of trade, as in those oftaste.Regarded from these points of view, painting and statuary call on our attention with superior claims. All thefine arts are different species of poetry. The same spiritON THE PRINCIPLES OF SOUND CRITICISM.speaks to the mind through different senses by manifestations of itself, appropriate to each. They admit thereforeof a natural division into poetry of language (poetry in theemphatic sense, because less subject to the accidents andlimitations of time and space); poetry of the ear, or music;and poetry of the eye, which is again subdivided into plastic.poetry, or statuary, and graphic poetry, or painting. Thecommon essence of all consists in the excitement of emotionfor the immediate purpose of pleasure through the mediumof beauty; herein contra- distinguishing poetry from science,the immediate object and primary purpose of which is truthand possible utility. (The sciences indeed may and willgive a high and pure pleasure; and the Fine Arts mayleadto important truth, and be in various ways useful in theordinary meaning of the word; but these are not thedirect and characteristic ends, and we define things by theirpeculiar, not their common properties. )Of the three sorts of poetry each possesses both exclusiveand comparative advantages. The last (i. e. the plasticand graphic) is more permanent, and incomparably lessdependent, than the second, i. e. music; and thoughyielding in both these respects to the first, yet it regains itsbalance and equality of rank by the universality of itslanguage. Michael Angelo and Raphael are for allbeholders; Dante and Ariosto only for the readers ofItalian. Hence though the title of these essays proposes,as their subject, the Fine Arts in general, which as far asthe main principles are in question, will be realized, inproportion to the writer's ability; yet the application andillustration of them will be confined to those of Paintingand Statuary, and of these, chiefly to the former,"Which like a second and more lovely nature,Turns the blank canvas to a magic mirror;That makes the absent present, and to shadowsGives light, depth, substance, bloom, yea thought, and motion. "8 ESSAYS ON THE FINE ARTS.To this disquisition two obstacles suggest themselves—enough has been already written on the subject, (this wemay suppose an objection on the part of the reader, ) andthe writer's own feeling concerning the grandeur anddelicacy of the subject itself. As to the first, he wouldconsider himself as having grossly failed in his duty to thepublic, if he had not carefully perused all the works on theFine Arts known to him; and let it not be rashly attributedto self-conceit, if he dares avow his conviction that muchremains to be done; a conviction indeed, which every authormust entertain, who, whether from disqualifying ignoranceor utterwant of thought, does not act with the full consciousness of acting to a wise purpose. / The works that havehitherto appeared, have been either technical, and usefulonly to the Artist himself (if indeed useful at all) , oremployed in explaining by the laws of association theeffects produced on the spectator by such and such impressions. In the latter, as in Alison, &c. , much has been saidwell and truly; but the principle itself is too vague forpractical guidance. —Association in philosophy is like theterm stimulus in medicine; explaining every thing, itexplains nothing; and above all, leaves itself unexplained .It is an excellent charm to enable a man to talk about andabout any thing he likes, and to make himself and hishearers as wise as before. Besides, the specific object ofthe present attempt is to enable the spectator to judge in ·the same spirit in which the Artist produced, or ought tohave produced.To the second objection, derived from the author's ownfeelings, he would find himself embarrassed in the attemptto answer, if the peculiar advantages of the subject itselfdid not aid him. His illustrations of his principles do nothere depend on his own ingenuity-he writes for those,who can consult their own eyes and judgments. Thevarious collections, as of Mr. Acraman (the father of theON THE PRINCIPLES OF SOUND CRITICISM. 91Fine Arts in this city) , of Mr. Davies, Mr. Gibbons, &c.;to which many of our readers either will have had, or mayprocure, access; and the admirable works exhibiting nowby Allston; whose great picture, with his Hebe, landscape, and sea- piece, would of themselves suffice toelucidate the fundamental doctrines of colour, ideal form,and grouping; assist the reasoner in the same way as thediagrams aid the geometrician, but far more and morevividly. The writer therefore concludes this his preparatory Essay by two postulates, the only ones, he deemsnecessary for his complete intelligibility: the first, that thereader would steadily look into his own mind to knowwhether the principles stated are ideally true; the second,to look at the works or parts of the works mentioned , asillustrating or exemplifying the principle, to judge whetheror how far it has been realized.For " themselves " read " itself."INESSAY SECOND.N Mathematics the definitions, of necessity, precede notonly the demonstrations, but likewise the postulatesand axioms: they are the rock, which at once forms thefoundation and supplies the materials of the edifice.Philosophy, on the contrary, concludes with the definition:it is the result, the compendium, the remembrancer of allthe preceding facts and inferences. Whenever, therefore,it appears in the front, it ought to be considered as a faintoutline, which answers all its intended purposes, if only itcirc*mscribe the subject, and direct the reader's anticipationtoward the one road, on which he is to travel.Examined from this point of view, the definition¹ ofpoetry, in the preliminary Essay, as the regulative idea ofall the Fine Arts, appears to me after many experimentalapplications of it to general illustrations and to individualinstances, liable to no just logical reversion, or complaint:66 the excitement¹of emotion for the purpose of immediatepleasure, through the medium of beauty. "-But like allprevious statements in Philosophy (as distinguished fromMathematics) it has the inconvenience of presuming conceptions which do not perhaps consciously or distinctly.exist. Thus, the former part of my definition mightappear equally applicable to any object of our animalappetites, till by after reasonings the attention has beendirected to the full force of the word " immediate; " and1 Compare with this definition Coleridge's earlier attempt to definepoetry, in his second Lecture, in the Course of 1811-12. -See Lecturesand Notes on Shakspere, &c. , p. 47.ON THE PRINCIPLES OF SOUND CRITICISM. 11till the mind, by being led to refer discriminatingly to itsown experience, has become conscious that all objects ofmere desire constitute an interest, ( i . e. aliquid quod est interhoc et aliud, or that which is between the agent and hismotive, ) and which is therefore valued only as the meansto the end. To take a trivial but unexceptionable instance,the venison is agreeable because it gives pleasure; whilethe Apollo Belvidere is not beautiful because it pleases,but it pleases us because it is beautiful. The term,pleasure, is unfortunately so comprehensive, as frequentlytobecome equivocal and yet it is hard to discover a substitute. Complacency, which would indeed better expressthe intellectual nature of the enjoyment essentially involvedin the sense of the beautiful, yet seems to preclude allemotion: and delight, on the other hand, conveys a comparative degree of pleasurable emotion, and is thereforeunfit for a general definition, the object of which is toabstract the kind. For this reason, we added the words"through the medium of beauty. " But here the samedifficulty recurs from the promiscuous use of the term,Beauty. Many years ago¹ the writer, in company with anaccidental party of travellers, was gazing on a cataract ofgreat height, breadth, and impetuosity, the summit ofwhich appeared to blend with the sky and clouds, while thelower part was hidden by rocks and trees; and on hisobserving, that it was, in the strictest sense of the word, asublime object, a lady present assented with warmth to theremark, ådding-" Yes! and it is not only sublime, butbeautiful and absolutely pretty.":And let not these distinctions be charged on the writer,as obscurity and needless subtlety; for it is in the nature¹ One of Coleridge's stock anecdotes. He visited the falls of theClyde, with Wordsworth and his sister, in the summer of 1803. SeeColeridge's Lectures and Notes on Shakspere, &c. , p. 41 , for a more elaborate version.12 ESSAYS ON THE FINE ARTS .of all disquisitions on matters of taste, that the reasonermust appeal for his very premises to facts of feeling and ofinner sense, which all men do not possess, and which many,who do possess and even act upon them, yet have neverreflectively adverted to, have never made them objects of afull and distinct consciousness. The geometrician refersto certain figures in space, and to the power of describingcertain lines , which are intuitive to all men, as men; andtherefore his demonstrations are throughout compulsory.The Moralist and the philosophic critic lay claim to nopositive, but only to a conditional necessity. It is notnecessary, that A or B should judge at all concerningpoetry; but if he does, in order to a just taste, such andsuch faculties must have been developed in his mind. ( If aman upon questioning his own experience, can detect nodifference in kind between the enjoyment derived from theeating of turtle, and that from the perception of a newtruth; if in his feelings a taste for Milton is essentially thesame as the taste of mutton, he may still be a sensible anda valuable member of society; but it would be desecrationargue with him on the Fine Arts;) and should he himselfdispute on them, or even publish a book (and such bookshave been perpetrated within the memory of man) , we cananswer him only by silence, or a courteous waiving of thesubject. To tell a blind man, declaiming concerning lightand color, " you should wait till you have got eyes to seewith," would indeed be telling the truth, but at the sametime be acting a useless as well as an inhuman part. AnEnglish critic, who assumes and proceeds on the identityin kind of the pleasures derived from the palate and fromthe intellect, and who literally considers taste to mean oneand the same thing, whether it be the taste of venison, ora taste for Virgil, and who, in strict consistence with hisprinciples, passes sentence on Milton as a tiresome poet,because he finds nothing amusing in the Paradise LosttoON THE PRINCIPLES OF SOUND CRITICISM . 13(i. e. damnat Musas, quia animum a musis non divertunt) -—this taste-meter to the fashionable world , gives a ludicrousportrait of an African belle, and concludes with a triumphant exclamation, " such is the ideal of beauty inDahoma! " Now it is curious, that a very intelligenttraveller, describing the low state of the human mind inthis very country, gives as an instance, that in their wholelanguage they have no word for beauty, or the beautiful;but say either it is nice, or it is good; doubtless , says he,because this very sense is as yet dormant, and the idea ofbeauty as little developed in their minds, as in that of aninfant. I give the substance of the meaning, not thewords; as I quote both writers from memory.There are few mental exertions more instructive, orwhich are capable of being rendered more entertaining,than the attempt to establish and exemplify the distinctmeaning of terms, often confounded in common use, andconsidered as mere synonyms. Such are the words, agreeable, beautiful, picturesque, grand, sublime: and to attacha distinct and separate sense to each of these, is a previousstep of indispensable necessity to a writer, who wouldreason intelligibly, either to himself or to his readers, concerning the works of poetic genius, and the sources andthe nature of the pleasure derived from them.But moreespecially on the essential difference of the beautiful andthe agreeable, rests fundamentally the whole question,which assuredly must possess no vulgar or feeble interestfor all who regard the dignity of their own nature:whether the noblest productions of human genius (such asthe Iliad, the works of Shakspere and Milton, the Pantheon, Raphael's Gallery, and Michael Angelo's SistineChapel, the Venus de Medici and the Apollo Belvidere,involving of course the human forms that approximate tothem in actual life, ) delight us merely by chance, fromaccidents of local associations-in short, please us because14 ESSAYS ON THE FINE ARTS.they please us (in which case it would be impossible eitherto praise or to condemn any man's taste, however oppositeto our own, and we could be no more justified in assigninga corruption or absence of just taste to a man, who shouldprefer Blackmore to Homer or Milton, or the CastleSpectre to Othello, than to the same man for preferring ablack-pudding to a sirloin of beef; ) or whether there existsin the constitution of the human soul a sense, and a regulative principle, which may indeed be stifled and latent insome, and be perverted and denaturalized in others, yet isnevertheless universal in a given state of intellectual andmoral culture; which is independent of local and temporary circ*mstances, and dependent only on the degree inwhich the faculties of the mind are developed; and which,consequently, it is our duty to cultivate and improve, assoon as the sense of its actual existence dawns upon us.The space allotted to these Essays obliges me to deferthis attempt to the following week: and I will nowconclude by requesting the candid reader not altogether tocondemn this second Essay, without having considered,that the ground- works of an edifice cannot be as sightly asthe superstructure, and that the philosopher, unlike thearchitect, must lay his foundations in sight; unlike themusician, must tune his instruments in the hearing of hisaudience. Taste is the intermediate faculty whichconnects the active with the passive powers of our nature,the intellect with the senses; and its appointed function isto elevate the images of the latter, while it realizes theideas of the former. We must therefore have learned whatis peculiar to each, before we can understand that " thirdsomething," which is formed by a harmony of both.ESSAY THIRD."Sat vero, in hac vitae brevitate et naturae obscuritate, rerumest, quibus cognoscendis tempus impendatur, ut confusis et multivocis sermonibus intellegendis illud consumere non opus est.Eheu! quantas strages paravere verba nubila, quae tot dic*nt,ut nihil dicant-nubes potius, e quibus et in rebus politicis et inecclesia turbines et tonitrua erumpunt! Et proinde recte dictumputamus a Platone in Gorgia: ὃς ἂν τὰ ὀνόματα ἐιδῇ εἴσεται καὶτὰ πράγματα: et ab Epicteto-ἀρχὴ παιδεύσεως ἡ τῶν ὀνομάτωνἐπίσκεψις: et prudentissime Galenus scribitἡ τῶν ὀνομάτωνχρῆσις παραχθεῖσα καὶ τὴν τῶν πραγμάτων ἐπιταράττει γνῶσιν.Egregie vero J. C. Scaliger in Lib. I. de Plantis: Est primum,inquit, sapientis officium, bene sentire, ut sibi vivat: proximum,bene loqui, ut patriae vivat. "SENNERTUS de Puls. Different."Animadverte, quám sit ab improprietate verborum pronumhominibus prolabi in errores circa res.'99HOBBES Exam. et Emend. hod. Math."Si tenebris sibilet Criticus sine dente malignus,Stultorum adrudat si invidiosa Cohors;Fac, fugias! Si nulla tibi sit Copia eundi,Contemnas tacitè, scommata quæque ferens.Frendeat, allatret, vacuas gannitibus auresImpleat, haud cures: his placuisse nefas! "BURTON, Anat. ofMelanch.PEDANTRY consists in the use of words unsuitable to the time, place, and company. The language of themarket would be as pedantic in the schools as that of theschools in the market. The mere man of the world, who16 ESSAYS ON THE FINE ARTS.insists that in a philosophic investigation of principles andgeneral laws, no other terms should be used, than occur incommon conversation, and with no greater definiteness, isat least as much a pedant, as the man of learning, who,perhaps overrating the acquirements of his auditors, ordeceived by his own familiarity with technical phrases,talks at the wine-table with his eye fixed on his study orlaboratory; or even though instead of desiring his wife tomake the tea, he should bid her add to the usual quantumsufficit of Thea Simensis the Oxyd of Hydrogen, saturatedwith Calorique. If (to use the old metaphor) both smellof the shop, yet the odour from the Russia- leather bindingsof the good old authentic-looking folios and quartos is lessannoying, than the steams from the tavern or tallow- vat.Nay, though the pedantry should originate in vanity, yet agood natured man would more easily tolerate the fox-brushof ostentatious erudition (“ the fable is somewhat musty")than the Sans-culotterie of a contemptuous ignorance, thatassumes a merit from mutilation by a self-consoling grinat the pompous incumbrance of tails .In a philosophic disquisition, besides the necessity ofconfining many words of ordinary use to one definite sense,the writer has to make his choice between two difficulties,whenever his purpose requires him to wean his reader's/ attention from the degrees of things, which alone form thedictionary of common life, to the kind, independent ofdegree as when, for instance, a chemist discourses on theheat in ice, or of latent or fixed light. In this case, hemust either use old words with new meanings, the planadopted by Dr. Darwin ' in his Zoonomia; or he must1 This is Dr. Erasmus Darwin, the poet, the father of Dr. RobertWaring Darwin, who married a sister of the Wedgwoods, Coleridge'spatrons, and was himself the father of the Darwin all the world knows;-three men unique in their way, if only as proving that genius doesat times descend from father to son.}ON THE PRINCIPLES OF SOUND CRITICISM. 17borrow from the schools, or himself coin a nomenclatureexclusively appropriated to his subject, after the exampleof the French chemists, and indeed of all eminent naturalphilosophers and historians in all countries. There seemsto me little ground for hesitation as to which of the twoshall be preferred: it being clear, that the former is a twofold exertion of mind in one and the same act. The readeris obliged, not only to recollect the new definition, but—which is incomparably more difficult and perplexing-tounlearn and keep out of view, the old and habitual meaning:,an evil, for which the semblance of eschewing pedantry, isa very poor and inadequate compensation. I have, therefore, in two or three instances ventured on a disused orscholastic term, where without it I could not have avoidedconfusion or ambiguity. Thus, to express in one word whatbelongs to the senses or the recipient and more passivefaculty of the soul, I have re-introduced the word sensuous,used among many others of our elder writers, by Milton,in his exquisite definition of poetry, as " simple, sensuous,passionate: " because the term, sensual, is seldom used atpresent, except in a bad sense, and sensitive would conveya different meaning. Thus too I have restored the words,intuition and intuitive, to their original sense-"" an intuition," says Hooker, " that is, a direct and immediate beholding or presentation of an object to the mind throughthe senses or the imagination. " -Thus geometrical truthsare all intuitive, or accompanied by an intuition . Nay, inorder to express " the many," as simply contra- distinguishedfrom " the one, " I have hazarded the smile of the reader,by introducing to his acquaintance, from the forgottenterminology of the old schoolmen, the phrase, multëity, because I felt that I could not substitute multitude, withoutmore or less connecting with it the notion of “ a greatmany." Thus the philosopher of the later Platonic, orAlexandrine school, named the triangle the first- born ofC18 . ESSAYS ON THE FINE ARTS.1beauty, it being the first and simplest symbol of multëityin unity. These are, I believe, the only liberties of this kindwhich I have found it necessary to attempt in the presentessay partly, because its object will be attained sufficientlyfor my present purpose, by attaching a clear and distinctmeaning to the different terms used by us, in our appreciation of works of art, and partly because I am about to putto the press a large volume on the LoGos, or the communicative intelligence in nature and in man, together with, andas preliminary to, a Commentary¹on the Gospel of St. John;and in this work I have laboured to give real and adequatedefinitions of all the component faculties of our moral andintellectual being, exhibiting constructively the origin,development, and destined functions of each. And nowwith silent wishes, that these explanatory pre- notices maybe attributed to their true cause, a sense of respect for theunderstanding of my reflecting readers, I proceed to mypromised and more amusing task, that of establishing,illustrating, and exemplifying the distinct powers of thedifferent modes of pleasure excited by the works of natureor of human genius with their exponent and appropriableterms. "Harum indagatio subtilitatum etsi non est utilisad machinas farinarias conficiendas, exuit animum tameninscitiæ rubigine, acuitque ad alia. " -Scaliger, Exerc.307. § 3.AGREEABLE. -We use this word in two senses; in thefirst for whatever agrees with our nature, for that which iscongruous with the primary constitution of our senses. Thusgreen is naturally agreeable to the eye. In this sense theword expresses, at least involves, a pre- established harmonybetween the organs and their appointed objects . In thesecond sense, we convey by the word agreeable, that the1 The manuscript of neither of these extensive and important works has been found.ON THE PRINCIPLES OF SOUND CRITICISM . 19thing has by force of habit (thence called a second nature)been made to agree with us; or that it has become agreeable to us by its recalling to our minds some one or morethings that were dear and pleasing to us; or lastly, onaccount of some after pleasure or advantage, of which it hasbeen the constant cause or occasion. Thus by force ofcustom men make the taste of tobacco, which was at firsthateful to the palate, agreeable to them; thus too, as ourShakspere observes,"Things base and vile , holding no quantity,Love can transpose to form and dignity—”the crutch that had supported a revered parent, after thefirst anguish of regret, becomes agreeable to the affectionatechild; and I once knew a very sensible and accomplishedDutch gentleman, who, spite of his own sense of the ludicrousnature of the feeling, was more delighted by the first grandconcert of frogs he heard in this country, than he had beenby Catalina singing in the compositions of Cimarosa. Thelast clause needs no illustrations, as it comprises all theobjects that are agreeable to us, only because they are themeans by which we gratify our smell, touch, palate, andmere bodily feeling.The BEAUTIFUL, contemplated in its essentials, that is, inkind and not in degree, is that in which the many, still seenas many, becomes one. Take a familiar instance, one of athousand. The frost on a window- pane has by accidentcrystallized into a striking resemblance of a tree or a seaweed. With what pleasure we trace the parts, and theirrelations to each other, and to the whole! Here is the stalkor trunk, and here the branches or sprays-sometimes eventhe buds or flowers. Nor will our pleasure be less, shouldthe caprice of the crystallization represent some objectdisagreeable to us, provided only we can see or fancy the20 ESSAYS ON THE FINE ARTS.component parts each in relation to each, and all forminga whole. A lady would see an admirably painted tiger withpleasure, and at once pronounce it beautiful, -nay, an owl,a frog, or a toad, who would have shrieked or shudderedat the sight of the things themselves. So far is theBeautiful from depending wholly on association, that itis frequently produced by the mere removal of associations.Many a sincere convert to the beauty of various insects, asof the dragon-fly, the fangless snake, &c . , has NaturalHistory made, by exploding the terror or aversion that hadbeen connected with them.The most general definition of beauty, therefore, is—thatI may fulfil my threat of plaguing my readers with hardwords-Multëity in Unity. Now it will be always found,that whatever is the definition of the kind, independentof degree, becomes likewise the definition of the highestdegree of that kind. An old coach-wheel lies in thecoachmaker's yard, disfigured with tar and dirt ( I purposely take the most trivial instances):—if I turn awaymy attention from these, and regard the figure abstractly," still," I might say to my companion, " there is beautyin that wheel, and you yourself would not only admit,but would feel it, had you never seen a wheel before.See how the rays proceed from the centre to the circumferences, and how many different images are distinctlycomprehended at one glance, as forming one whole, andeach part in some harmonious relation to each and to all . "But imagine the polished golden wheel of the chariot ofthe Sun, as the poets have described it: then the figure,and the real thing so figured, exactly coincide. There isnothing heterogeneous, nothing to abstract from: by itsperfect smoothness and circularity in width, each part is ( ifI may borrow a metaphor from a sister sense) as perfect amelody, as the whole is a complete harmony. This, weshould say, is beautiful throughout. Of all " the many,"ON THE PRINCIPLES OF SOUND CRITICISM .1276

which I actually see, each and all are really reconciled intounity while the effulgence from the whole coincides with,and seems to represent, the effluence of delight from myown mind in the intuition of it.It seems evident then, first, that beauty is harmony, andsubsists only in composition, and secondly, that the firstspecies of the Agreeable can alone be a component part ofthe beautiful, that namely which is naturally consonant withour senses by the pre- established harmony between natureand the human mind; and thirdly, that even of thisspecies , those objects only can be admitted (accordingto rule the first) which belong to the eye and ear, becausethey alone are susceptible of distinction of parts. Shouldan Englishman gazing on a mass of cloud rich with therays of the rising sun exclaim, even without distinction of,or reference to its form, or its relation to other objects,how beautiful! I should have no quarrel with him. First,because by the law of association there is in all visualbeholdings at least an indistinct subsumption of form andrelation: and secondly, because even in the coincidencebetween the sight and the object there is an approximationto the reduction of the many into one. But who, thatheard a Frenchman call the flavour of a leg of mutton abeautiful taste, would not immediately recognize him for aFrenchman, even though there should be neither grimaceor characteristic nasal twang? ¹ The result, then , of thewhole is that the shapely ( i . e. formosus) joined with thenaturally agreeable, constitutes what, speaking acccurately,we mean by the word beautiful (i. e. pulcher) .But we are conscious of faculties far superior to thehighest impressions of sense; we have life and free- will.-What then will be the result, when the beautiful, arisingfrom regular form, is so modified by the perception of lifeand spontaneous action, as that the latter only shall be the1 We have erased the note we had at first made on this sentence.22 ESSAYS ON THE FINE ARTS.object of our conscious perception, while the former merelyacts, and yet does effectively act, on our feelings? Withpride and pleasure I reply by referring my reader to thegroup in Mr. Allston's grand picture of the " Dead Manreviving from the touch of the bones of the Prophet Elisha,"beginning with the slave at the head of the reviving body,then proceeding to the daughter clasping her swooningmother; to the mother, the wife of the reviving man; thento the soldier behind who supports her; to the two figureseagerly conversing and lastly, to the exquisitely gracefulgirl who is bending downward, and whose hand nearlytouches the thumb of the slave! You will find, what youhad not suspected, that you have here before you a circular group. But by what variety of life, motion, andpassion is all the stiffness, that would result from an obviousregular figure, swallowed up, and the figure of the group asmuch concealed by the action and passion, as the skeletonwhich gives the form of the human body, is hidden by theflesh and its endless outlines!In Raphael's admirable Galatea, (the print of which isdoubtless familiar to most of myreaders, ) the circle is perceived at first sight; but with what multiplicity of raysand chords within the area of the circular group, with whatelevations and depressions of the cirumference, with whatan endless variety, and sportive wildness in the componentfigure, and in the junctions of the figures, is the balance,the perfect reconciliation , effected between these two conflicting principles of the FREE LIFE , and of the confiningFORM! How entirely is the stiffness that would have resulted from the obvious regularity of the latter, fused and(if I may hazard so bold a metaphor) almost volatilized bythe interpenetration and electrical flashes of the former.)But I shall recur to this consummate workfor more specificillustrations hereafter: and have indeed in some measureoffended already against the laws of method, by anticipatingON THE PRINCIPLES OF SOUND CRITICISM . 23materials which rather belong to a more advanced stageof the disquisition. It is time to recapitulate, as brieflyas possible, the arguments already advanced, and havingsummed up the result, to leave behind me this, the onlyportion of these essays, which, as far as the subject itself isconcerned, will demand any effort of attention from a reflecting and intelligent reader. And let me be permittedto remind him, that the distinctions which it is my objectto prove and elucidate, have not merely a foundation innature and the noblest faculties of the human mind, butare likewise the very ground-work, nay, an indispensablecondition, of all rational enquiry concerning the arts . Forit is self- evident, that whatever may be judged of differently by different persons, in the very same degree ofmoral and intellectual cultivation, extolled by one and condemned by another, without any error being assignable toeither, can never be an object of general principles: andvice versa, that whatever can be brought to the test ofgeneral principles, pre- supposes a distinct origin from thesepleasures and tastes, which, for the wisest purposes, aremade to depend on local and transitory fashions, accidentalassociations, and the peculiarities of individual temperament:to all which the philosopher, equally with the well- bredman of the world, applies the old adage, de gustibus non estdisputandum. Be it, however, observed, that " de gustibus "is by no means the same as de gustu," nor will it escapethe scholar's recollection, that taste, in its metaphorical use,was first adopted by the Romans, and unknown to the lessluxurious Greeks, who designated this faculty, sometimes bythe word αἴσθησις, and sometimes by φιλοκαλία— ἀνδρῶντῶν καθ᾿ ἡμᾶς φιλοκαλώτατος γεγονώς—i . e. endowed bynature with the most exquisite taste of any manof our age,'says Porphyry of his friend, Castricius. Still, this metaphor, borrowed fromthe pre-gustatores of the old Romanbanquets, is singularly happy and appropriate. In the666624 ESSAYS ON THE FINE ARTS .palate, the perception of the object and its qualities is involved in the sensation, in the mental taste it is involvedin the sense. Wehave a sensation of sweetness, in a healthypalate, from honey; a sense of beauty, in an uncorruptedtaste, from the view of the rising or setting sun.RECAPITULATION. Principle the First. That which hasbecome, or which has been made agreeable to us, fromcauses not contained in its own nature, or in its originalconformity to the human organs and faculties; that whichis not pleasing for its own sake, but by connection orassociation with some other thing, separate or separablefrom it, is neither beautiful, nor capable of being a component part of beauty: though it may greatly increase thesum of our pleasure, when it does not interfere with thebeauty of the object, nay, even when it detracts from it. Amoss- rose, with a sprig of myrtle and jasmine, is not morebeautiful from having been plucked from the garden, or presented to us by the hand of the woman we love, but isabundantly more delightful. The total pleasure receivedfrom one of Mr. Bird's finest pictures may, without any impeachment of our taste, be the greater from his having introduced into it the portrait of one of our friends, or fromour pride in him as our townsman, or from our knowledgeof his personal qualities; butthe amiable artist wouldrightlyconsider it a coarse compliment, were it affirmed, that thebeauty of the piece, or its merit as a work of genius, wasthe more perfect on this account. I am conscious that Ilook with a stronger and more pleasurable emotion at Mr.Allston's large landscape, in the spirit of Swiss scenery,from its having been the occasion of my first acquaintance'with him in Rome. This may or may not be a complimentto him; but the true compliment to the picture was madebya lady of high rank and cultivated taste, who declared, inmyhearing, that she never stood before that landscape with1 In 1806.ON THE PRINCIPLES OF SOUND CRITICISM . 25out seeming to feel the breeze blow out of it upon her.Butthe most striking instance is afforded by the portrait ofa departed or absent friend or parent; which is endearedto us, and more delightful , from some awkward position ofthe limbs, which had defied the contrivances of art to renderit picturesque, but which was the characteristic habit of theoriginal.iPrinciple the Second. That which is naturally agreeableand consonant to human nature, so that the exception maybe attributed to disease or defect; that, the pleasure fromwhich is contained in the immediate impression; cannotindeed, with strict propriety, be called beautiful, exclusiveof its relations, but one among the component parts ofbeauty, in whatever instance it is susceptible of existing asa part of a whole. This of course excludes the mere objectsof the taste, smell, and feeling, though the sensation fromthese, especially from the latter when organized into touch,may secretly and without our consciousness, enrich andvivify the perceptions and images of the eye and ear; whichalone are true organs of sense, their sensations in a healthyor uninjured state being too faint to be noticed bythe mind.We may, indeed, in common conversation, call purple abeautiful color, or the tone of a single note on an excellentpiano-forte a beautiful tone; but if we were questioned, weshould agree that a rich or delightful color; a rich, orsweet, or clear tone; would have been more appropriateand this with less hesitation in the latter instance than in theformer, because the single tone is more manifestly of thenature of a sensation, while color is the medium which seemsto blend sensation and perception, so as to hide, as it were,the former in the latter; the direct opposite of which takesplace in the lower senses of feeling, smell, and taste. (Instrictness, there is even in these an ascending scale. Thesmell is less sensual and more sentient, than mere feeling,the taste than the smell, and the eye than the ear: but26 ESSAYS ON THE FINE ARTS.between the ear and the taste exist the chasm or break,which divides the beautiful and the elements of beauty fromthe merely agreeable. ) When I reflect on the manner inwhich smoothess, richness of sound, &c., enter into theformation of the beautiful, I aminduced to suspect that theyactnegatively rather than positively. Something there mustbe to realize the form, something in and by which theformainformans reveals itself: and these, less than any that couldbe substituted, and in the least possible degree, distract theattention, in the least possible degree obscure the idea, ofwhich they (composed into outline and surface) are thesymbol. An illustrative hint may be taken from a purecrystal, as compared with an opaque, semi- opaque, or cloudedmass, on the one hand, and with a perfectly transparentbody, such as the air, on the other. The crystal is lost inthe light, which yet it contains, embodies, and gives ashape to; but which passes shapeless through the air, andin the ruder body, is either quenched or dissipated .Principle the Third. The safest definition , then, ofBeauty, as well as the oldest, is that of Pythagoras: THEREDUCTION OF MANY TO ONE-or, as finely expressed by thesublime disciple of Ammonius, τὸ ἄμερες ὄν, ἐν πολλοῖςφανταζόμενον, of which the following may be offered as bothparaphrase and corollary. The sense of beauty subsists insimultaneous intuitive of the relation of parts, each to each,and of all to a whole: exciting an immediate and absolutecomplacency, without intervenence, therefore, of any interest,sensual or intellectual. The Beautiful is thus at once distinguished both from the agreeable, which is beneath it,and from the GOOD, which is above it: for both these havean interest necessarily attached to them: both act on theWill, and excite a desire for the actual existence of theimage or idea contemplated: while the sense of beauty restsgratified in the mere contemplation or intuitive, regardlesswhether it be a fictitious Apollo, or a real Antinous.ON THE PRINCIPLES OF SOUND CRITICISM . 27The Mystics meant the same, when they define beauty,as the subjection of matter to spirit so as to be transformedinto a symbol, in and through which the spirit reveals itself;and declare that the most beautiful, where the mostobstacles to a full manifestation have been most perfectlyovercome. I would that the readers, for whom alone Iwrite(intelligibilia enim, non intellectum adfero, ) had Raphael'sGalatea, or his School of Athens, before them! or thatthe Essay might be read by some imaginative student,warm from admiration of the King's College Chapel atCambridge, or of the exterior and interior of York Cathedral! I deem the sneers of a host of petty critics, unalphabeted in the life and truth of things, and as devoid ofsound learning as of intuitive taste, well and wiselyhazarded for the prospect of communicating the pleasure,which to such minds the following passage of Plotinus willnot fail to give-Plotinus, a name venerable even to religionwith the great Cosmus, Lorenzo de Medicis, Ficinis, Politian, Leonardo da Vinci, and Michael Angelo, but nowknown only as a name to the majority even of our mostlearned Scholars! -Plotinus, difficult indeed, but under arough and austere rind concealing fruit worthy of Paradise;and if obscure, "at tenet umbra Deum! " "Orav ovv kaì ǹαἴσθησις τὸ ἐν σώμασιν εἶδος ἴδῃ συνδησάμενον καὶ κρατῆσαν τῆςφύσεως τῆς ἐναντίας, καὶ μορφὴν ἐπ' ἄλλαις μορφαῖς ἐκπρεπῶςἐποχουμένην, συνελουσα αθρόον αὐτὸ τὸ πολλαχῆ, ἀνήνεγκέ τεκαὶ ἔδωκε τῷ ἔνδον σύμφωνον καὶ συναρμόττον καὶ φίλον. Αdivine passage, faintly represented in the following lines,written many years ago by the writer, though withoutreference to, or recollection of, the above."O lady! ' we receive but what we give,And in our life alone does nature live!AThe quotation, as well as the following one, is from Coleridge's poem,Dejection: an Ode. The poem is dated by Sara Coleridge " Keswick:28 ESSAYS ON THE FINE ARTS.Ours is her wedding- garment, ours her shroud!And would we aught behold of higher worth,Than that inanimate cold world allow'dTo the poor, loveless, ever-anxious crowd:Ah! from the soul itself must issue forthA light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud,Enveloping the earth!And from the soul itself must there be sentA sweet and powerful voice, of its own birth,Of all sweet sounds the life and element!O pure of heart! thou need'st not ask of me,What this strong music in the soul may be;What and wherein it doth subsist,This light, this glory, this fair luminous mist,This beautiful, and beauty-making power!Joy, O beloved! joy, that ne'er was given ,Save to the pure and in their purest hour,Life of our life, the parent and the birth,Which, wedding nature, to us gives in dower A new heaven and new earth,Undreamt of by the sensual and the proudAug. 4, 1802." It was published in 1817 , in Sibylline Leaves, whichvolume was in type some two years before it appeared .earlier version in the text, but note the later variations."O lady! we receive but what we give,"We leave the The lines fromto " element," now form Stanza IV. The lines which follow, to"All colours a suffusion from that light,"constitute Stanza V.; but we read"Joy, virtuous lady, joy " ...This would be Dora Wordsworth, the poet's sister;—66 ... purest hour,Life, and life's effluence, cloud at once and shower,Joy, lady, is the spirit and the power,Which, wedding".66 ...Joy is the sweet voice, joy the luminous cloud!We in ourselves rejoice. "The remainder of the first quotation now follows the second, as StanzaON THE PRINCIPLES OF SOUND CRITICISM . 29This is the strong voice, this the luminous cloud!Our inmost selves rejoice:And thence flows all that glads or ear or sight,All melodies the echoes of that voice,All colours a suffusion from that light,And its celestial tint of yellow-green:And still I gaze-and with how black an eye!And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars,That give away their motion to the stars;Those stars, that glide behind them or between,Now sparkling, now bedimm'd, but always seen;Yon crescent moon, that seems as if it grewIn its own starless, cloudless lake of blueI see them all , so excellently fair!Isee, not feel, how beautiful they are."S. T. C. MS. Poem.SCHOLIUM. We have sufficiently distinguished the beautiful from the agreeable, by the sure criterion, that whenwe find an object agreeable, the sensation of pleasure alwaysprecedes the judgment, and is its determining cause. Wefind it agreeable. But when we declare an object beautiful,the contemplation or intuition of its beauty precedes thefeeling of complacency, in order of nature at least: nay, ingreat depression of spirits may even exist without sensiblyproducing it.-II.66"A grief without a pang, void, dark, and dear!Astifled, drowsy, unimpassion'd grief,That finds no natural outlet, no reliefIn word, or sigh, or tear!O dearest lady! in this heartless mood,To other thoughts by yon sweet throstle woo'd!All this long eve, so balmy and serene ,Have I been gazing at the western sky. "

with “ peculiar tint, ” “ blank ” for “ black” (probably a misprint) ,

as fixed as if it grew, '" " cloudless, starless,” and"O Lady, in this wan and heartless mood."30 ESSAYS ON THE FINE ARTS .1Now the least reflection convinces us, that our sensations,whether of pleasure or of pain, are the incommunicableparts of our nature; such as can be reduced to no universal rule; and in which therefore we have no right to expectthat others should agree with us, or to blame them for disagreement. That the Greenlander prefers train oil to oliveoil, and even to wine, we explain at once by our knowledge of the climate and productions to which he has beenhabituated. Were the man as enlightened as Plato, hispalate would still find that most agreeable to which it hadbeen most accustomed. But when the Iroquois Sachem,after having been led to the most perfect specimens ofarchitecture in Paris, said that he saw nothing so beautiful as the cook's shops, we attribute this without hesitationto savagery of intellect, and infer with certainty that thesense of the beautiful was either altogether dormant in hismind, or at best very imperfect. The Beautiful, therefore, not originating in the sensations, must belong to theintellect and therefore we declare an object beautiful, andfeel an inward right to expect that others should coincidewith us. But we feel no right to demand it: and thisleads us to that, which hitherto we have barely touchedupon, and which we shall now attempt to illustrate morefully, namely, to the distinction of the Beautiful from theGood.Let us suppose Milton in company with some stern andprejudiced Puritan, contemplating the front of York Cathedral, and at length expressing his admiration of its beauty.We will suppose it too at that time of his life, when hisreligious opinions, feelings, and prejudices most nearly coincided with those of the rigid Anti-prelatists. -P. Beauty;I am sure, it is not the beauty of holiness. M. True; butyet it is beautiful. -P. It delights not me. What is it1 This passage, to the end of the Essay, will be found in T. Allsop'sLetters, Conversations, and Recollections of S. T. Coleridge, 1837.ON THE PRINCIPLES OF SOUND CRITICISM. 31good for? Is it of any use but to be stared at?—M. Perhaps not! but still it is beautiful. -P. But call to mindthe pride and wanton vanity of those cruel shavelings, thatwasted the labour and substance of so many thousand poorcreatures in the erection of this haughty pile.-M. I do.But still it is very beautiful. -P. Think how many score ofplaces of worship, incomparably. better suited both forprayer and preaching, and how many faithful ministersmight have been, maintained, to the blessing of tens ofthousands, to them and their children's children, with thetreasures lavished on this worthless mass of stone andcement. —M. Too true! but nevertheless it is very beautiful.—P. And it is not merely useless; but it feeds thepride of the prelates, and keeps alive the popish and carnalspirit among the people. -M. Even so! and I presumenot to question the wisdom, nor detract from the piouszeal, of the first reformers of Scotland, who for these reasonsdestroyed so many fabrics, scarce inferior in beauty to thisnow before our eyes. But I did not call it good, nor haveI told thee, brother! that if this were levelled with theground, and existed only in the works of the modeller orengraver, that I should desire to reconstruct it . The GOODconsists in the congruity of a thing with the laws of thereason and the nature of the will, and in its fitness to determine the latter to actualize the former: and it is alwaysdiscursive. The Beautiful arises from the perceived harmony of an object, whether sight or sound, with the inbornand constitutive rules of the judgment and imagination:and it is always intuitive. As light to the eye, even suchis beauty to the mind, which cannot but have complacencyin whatever is perceived as pre- configured to its livingfaculties . Hence the Greeks called a beautiful objectKaλóv, quasi kaλovv, i. e. calling on the soul, which receivesinstantly, and welcomes it as something connatural. Πάλινοὖν ἀναλαβόντες, λέγωμεν τί δῆτα ἐστὶ τὸ ἐν τοῖς Σώμασι καλόν.32 ESSAYS ON THE FINE ARTS.Πρῶτον ἔστι μὲν γάρ τι καὶ βολῇ τῇ πρώτῃ αἰσθητὸν γινόμενον,καὶ ἡ ψυχὴ ὥσπερ συνεῖσα λέγει , καὶ ἐπιγνοῦσα ἀποδέχεται,καὶ οἷον συναρμόττεται. Πρὸς δὲ τὸ ἀἰσχρὸν προσβαλοῦσαανίλλεται, καὶ ἀρνεῖται καὶ ἀνανευει ἐπ᾿ αὐτοῦ οὐ συμφωνοῦσα,Kai ȧλλотριovμέvn.-PLOTIN: Ennead. I. Lib. 6.66APPENDIX.' He, (Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk) knowing thatlearning hath no enemy but ignorance, did suspect alwaysthe want ofit in those men who derided the habit of it in others,like the fox in the fable, who being, by mischance or degeneracy,without a tail, persuaded others to cut theirs off as a burden.But he liked well the philosopher's division of men into threeranks; some who knew good and were willing to teach others.—These he said, were like gods among men; others who thoughthey knew not much, yet were willing to learn and thankful forinstruction. These, he said, were like men among beasts; andsome who knew not truth or good, and yet despised and maligned such as would teach them. -These he esteemed as beasts amongmen. "-Lloyd's State Worthies, p. 33.san.THUS then let us at once sum up and exemplify thewhole. Its ambrosial odour renders the rose more agreeable to us, but it is not by this addition, that nature wreststhe palm of beauty from the flower. -Pieres of Van HuyThe patient strength and laboriousness of the ox andthe ass, invaluable as we rightly deem them, can yet by noinfluence of association, bribe us to compare them incharm of form, and disposition of colours, with the fierceand untameable zebra. The rough sheep- dog is almostindispensable to the civilization of the human race. Heappears to possess not valuableness only, but even worth!ON THE PRINCIPLES OF SOUND CRITICISM. 33His various moral qualities, which seem above the effectsof mere instinct devoid of will, compel our respect andregard, and excite our gratitude to him, as well as for him.Yet neither his paramount utility, no, nor even his incorruptible fidelity and disinterested affection, enable us toequal him , in outward beauty, with the cruel and cowardlypanther, or leopard, or tiger, the hate and horror of theflock and of the shepherd.But may not the sense of beauty originate in our perception of the fitness of the means to the end in and forthe animal itself? Or may it not depend on a law of proportion? No! The shell of the oyster, rough and unshapely,is its habitation and strong hold, its defence and organ oflocomotion: the pearl, the beautiful ornament of thebeautiful, is its disease. How charming the moss rosewith its luxuriancy of petals! That moss, that luxuriancy,are the effects of degeneracy, and unfit the flower for themultiplication of its kind. Disproportion indeed may incertain cases preclude the sense of beauty, and will do sowherever it destroys or greatly disturbs the wholeness andsimultaneousness of the impression. But still proportionis not the positive cause, or the universal and necessarycondition of beauty, were it only that proportion impliesthe perception of the coincidence of quantities with a preestablished rule of measurement, and is therefore alwaysaccompanied with an act of discursive thought. Wedeclare at first sight the swan beautiful, as it floats on withits long arching neck and protruding breast, which unitingto their reflected image in the watery mirror, present to ourdelighted eye the stringless bow of dazzling silver, whichthe poets and painters assign to the God of Love. We asknot what proportion the neck bears to the body; -throughall the changes of graceful motion it brings itself into unity,as an harmonious part of an harmonious whole. The veryword " part " imperfectly conveys what we see and feel;D34 ESSAYS ON THE FINE ARTS.for the moment we look at it in division, the charm ceases.In this spirit the lover describing the incidents of a walkon the river- banks by moonlight is made by the poet toexclaim,"The pairing swans have heard my tread,And rustle from their reedy bed.O beauteous birds! methinks, ye measureYour movements to some heavenly tune!O beauteous birds! ' tis such a pleasureTo see you move beneath the moon,I would it were your true delightTo rest by day and wake all night. '"" 1The long neck of the ostrich is in exact and evident proportion to the height of the animal, and is of manifestutility and necessity to the bird, as it stoops down to grazeand still walks on. But not being harmonized with thebody by plumage or color, it seems to run along the grasslike a serpent before the headless tall body that still stalksafter it, inspiring at once the sense of the deformed andthe fantastic.I here close my metaphysical Preliminaries, in which Ihave confined myself to the beauty of the senses, and bythe good have chiefly referred to the relatively good. Ofthe supersensual beauty, the beauty of virtue and holiness,and of its relation to the absolutely good, distinguishable,not separable (even such relation as that of color to thelight of heaven, and as the light itself bears to the knowledge, which it awakens, ) I discourse not now, waiting fora loftier mood, a nobler subject, a more appropriateaudience, warned from within and from without, that itis profanation to speak of these mysteries. Tois μndéπotεφαντασθεῖσιν, ὡς καλὸν τὸ τῆς διχαιοσύνης καὶ σωφρο- το1 From Coleridge's own poem, Lewti, or the Circassian Love- Chaunt,printed in 1798. The latest reading is "the river-swans."ON THE PRINCIPLES OF SOUND CRITICISM . 35σύνης πρόσωπον, καὶ ὡς οὔτε ἕσπερος οὔτε ' εῶος οὕτω καλά .Τὸν γὰρ ὁρῶντα πρὸς τὸ ὁρώμενον συγγενὲς καὶ ὁμοῖον ποιησάμενον, δεῖ ἐπιβάλλειν τῇ θεα· όν γὰρ ἂν πώποτε εἶδεν Οφθαλμοςἥλιον, ἡλιοειδης μὴ γεγενημένος, οὓδε τὸ καλὸν ἄν ἴδη ψυχὴμὴ γενομένη.FRAGMENT OF AN ESSAY ON TASTE. ' 1810.THE' HE same arguments that decide the question, whethertaste has any fixed principles, may probably lead to adetermination of what those principles are. First then,what is taste in its metaphorical sense, or, which will bethe easiest mode of arriving at the same solution, what isthere in the primary sense of the word, which may give toits metaphorical meaning an import different from that ofsight or hearing, on the one hand, and of touch or smell onthe other? And this question seems the more natural,because in correct language we confine beauty, the mainsubject of taste, to objects of sight and combinations ofsounds, and never, except sportively or by abuse of words,speak of a beautiful flavour or a beautiful scent .Now the analysis of our senses in the commonest booksof anthropology has drawn our attention to the distinctionbetween the perfectly organic, and the mixed senses;-thefirst presenting objects, as distinct from the perception, —the last as blending the perception with the sense of theobject. Our eyes and ears- (I am not now consideringwhat is or is not the case really, but only that of which weare regularly conscious as appearances, ) our eyes mostoften appear to us perfect organs of the sentient principle,and wholly in action, and our hearing so much more sothan the three other senses, and in all the ordinary exertions of that sense, perhaps, equally so with the sight, thatall languages place them in one class, and express theirdifferent modifications by nearly the same metaphors . The' From " The Literary Remains of S. T. Coleridge," vol. i. , 1836.ON TASTE . 37three remaining senses appear in part passive, and combinewith the perception of the outward object a distinct senseof our own life. Taste, therefore, as opposed to vision andsound, will teach us to expect in its metaphorical use acertain reference of any given object to our own being, andnot merely a distinct notion of the object as in itself, or inits independent properties. From the sense of touch, onthe other hand, it is distinguishable by adding to thisreference to our vital being some degree of enjoyment, orthe contrary, some perceptible impulse from pleasure orpain to complacency or dislike. The sense of smell, indeed,might perhaps have furnished a metaphor of the same.import with that of taste; but the latter was naturallychosen by the majority of civilized nations on account ofthe greater frequency, importance, and dignity of its employment or exertion in human nature.By taste, therefore, as applied to the fine arts, we mustbe supposed to mean an intellectual perception of anyobject blended with a distinct reference to our own sensibility of pain or pleasure, or vice versa, a sense of enjoymentor dislike co- instantaneously combined with, and appearingto proceed from, some intellectual perception of theobject;-intellectual perception, I say; for otherwise it would be adefinition of taste in its primary rather than in its metaphorical sense. Briefly, taste is a metaphor taken fromone of our mixed senses, and applied to objects of the morepurely organic senses, and of our moral sense, when wewould imply the co- existence of immediate personal dislikeor complacency. In this definition of taste, therefore, isinvolved, the definition of fine arts, namely, as being suchthe chief and discriminative purpose of which it is togratify the taste, —that is, not merely to connect, but tocombine and unite, a sense of immediate pleasure in ourselves, with the perception of external arrangement.The great question, therefore, whether taste in any one38 ESSAYS ON THE FINE ARTS .888of the fine arts has any fixed principle or ideal, will find itssolution in the ascertainment of two facts: -first, whetherin every determination of the taste concerning any work ofthe fine arts, the individual does not, with or even againstthe approbation of his general judgment, involuntarilyclaim that all other minds ought to think and feel thesame; whether the common expressions, ' I dare say Imay be wrong, but that is my particular taste, ' areuttered as an offering of courtesy, as a sacrifice to theundoubted fact of our individual fallibility, or are spokenwith perfect sincerity, not only of the reason but of thewhole feeling, with the same entireness of mind and heart,with which we concede a right to every person to differfrom another in his preference of bodily tastes and flavours.If we should find ourselves compelled to deny this, and toadmit that, notwithstanding the consciousness of ourliability to error, and in spite of all those many individualexperiences which may have strengthened the consciousness,each man does at the moment so far legislate for all men,as to believe of necessity that he is either right or wrong,and that if it be right for him, it is universally right, —wemust then proceed to ascertain: -secondly, whether thesource of these phenomena is at all to be found in thoseparts of our nature, in which each intellect is representativeof all, and whether wholly or partially. No person ofcommon reflection demands even in feeling, that whattastes pleasant to him ought to produce the same effect onall living beings; but every man does and must expect anddemand the universal acquiescence of all intelligent beingsin every conviction of his understanding.

FRAGMENT OF AN ESSAY ON BEAUTY.¹ 1818.THE' HE only necessary, but this the absolutely necessary,pre-requisite to a full insight into the grounds of thebeauty in the objects of sight, is the directing of theattention to the action of those thoughts in our own mindwhich are not consciously distinguished . Every man mayunderstand this, if he will but recall the state of his feelingsin endeavouring to recollect a name, which he is quitesure that he remembers, though he cannot force it backinto consciousness. This region of unconscious thoughts,oftentimes the more working the more indistinct they are,may, in reference to this subject, be conceived as formingan ascending scale from the most universal associations ofmotion with the functions and passions of life, —as when,on passing out of a crowded city into the fields on a dayin June, we describe the grass and king- cups as noddingtheir heads and dancing in the breeze, -up to the halfperceived, yet not fixable, resemblance of a form to someparticular object of a diverse class, which resemblance weneed only increase but a little, to destroy, or at least injure,its beauty-enhancing effect, and to make it a fantasticintrusion of the accidental and the arbitrary, and consequently a disturbance of the beautiful. This might beabundantly exemplified and illustrated from the paintingsof Salvator Rosa.I am now using the term beauty in its most comprehensive sense, as including expression and artistic interest, -that is, I consider not only the living balance, but likewise1 Also from vol. i. of the " Remains. "40 ESSAYS ON THE FINE ARTS."all the accompaniments that even by disturbing are necessary to the renewal and continuance of the balance. Andin this sense I proceed to show, that the beautiful in theobject may be referred to two elements,-lines and colours;the first belonging to the shapely (forma, formalis, formosus) ,and in this, to the law, and the reason; and the second, tothe lively, the free, the spontaneous, and the self- justifying.As to lines, the rectilineal are in themselves the lifeless,the determined ab extra, but still in immediate union withthe cycloidal, which are expressive of function. The curveline is a modification of the force from without by the forcefrom within, or the spontaneous. These are not arbitrarysymbols, but the language of nature, universal and intuitive,by virtue of the law by which man is impelled to explainvisible motions by imaginary causative powers analogousto his own acts, as the Dryads, Hamadryads, Naiads, &c .The better way of applying these principles will be by abrief and rapid sketch of the history of the fine arts, —inwhich it will be found, that the beautiful in nature has beenappropriated to the works of man, just in proportion as thestate of the mind in the artists themselves approached tothe subjective beauty. Determine what predominance inthe minds of the men is preventive of the living balance ofexcited faculties, and you will discover the exact counterpart in the outward products. Egypt is an illustration ofthis. Shapeliness is intellect without freedom; but coloursare significant. The introduction of the arch is not less anepoch in the fine than in the useful arts.Order is beautiful arrangement without any purpose adextra; —therefore there is a beauty of order, or order maybe contemplated exclusively as beauty.The form given in every empirical intuition, —the stuff,that is, the quality of the stuff, determines the agreeable:but when a thing excites us to receive it in such and sucha mould, so that its exact correspondence to that mould isON BEAUTY. 41what occupies the mind, this is taste or the sense ofbeauty. Whether dishes full of painted wood or exquisiteviands were laid out on a table in the same arrangement,would be indifferent to the taste, as in ladies ' patterns; butsurely the one is far more agreeable than the other. Henceobserve the disinterestedness of all taste; and hence alsoa sensual perfection with intellect is occasionally possiblewithout moral feeling. So it may be in music and painting, but not in poetry. How far it is a real preferenceof the refined to the gross pleasures, is another question,upon the supposition that pleasure, in some form or other,is that alone which determines men to the objects of theformer; —whether experience does not show that if thelatter were equally in our power, occasioned no more troubleto enjoy, and caused no more exhaustion of the power ofenjoying them by the enjoyment itself, we should in realpractice prefer the grosser pleasure. It is not, therefore,any excellence in the quality of the refined pleasures themselves, but the advantages and facilities in the means ofenjoying them, that give them the pre- eminence.This is, of course, on the supposition of the absence of allmoral feeling. Suppose its presence, and then there willaccrue an excellence even to the quality of the pleasuresthemselves; not only, however, of the refined, but also ofthe grosser kinds, -inasmuch as a larger sweep of thoughtswill be associated with each enjoyment, and with eachthought will be associated a number of sensations; and so ,consequently, each pleasure will become more the pleasureof the whole being. This is one of the earthly rewards ofour being what we ought to be, but which would be annihilated, if we attempted to be it for the sake of thisincreased enjoyment. Indeed it is a contradiction to suppose it . Yet this is the common argumentum in circulo,in which the eudæmonists flee and pursue.

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ON POESY OR ART.¹MAN communicates by articulation of sounds, and paramountly by the memory in the ear; nature bythe impression of bounds and surfaces on the eye, andthrough the eye it gives significance and appropriation,and thus the conditions of memory, or the capability ofbeing remembered, to sounds, smells, &c. Now Art, usedcollectively for painting, sculpture, architecture and music,is the mediatress between, and reconciler of, nature andman. It is , therefore, the power of humanizing nature,of infusing the thoughts and passions of man into everything which is the object of his contemplation; colour,form , motion, and sound, are the elements which it combines,and it stamps them into unity in the mould of a moral idea.The primary art is writing; -primary, if we regard thepurpose abstracted from the different modes of realizing it,those steps of progression of which the instances are stillvisible in the lower degrees of civilization. First, there ismere gesticulation; then rosaries or wampun; then picturelanguage; then hieroglyphics, and finally alphabetic letters.These all consist of a translation of man into nature, of asubstitution of the visible for the audible.1 From vol. i. of the " Remains," where it represents the XIIIthLecture ofthe Course of 1818. See the Introductory Note to our ThirdDivision.We see that Coleridge's ideas have at length become matured, and aremore adequately set forth in this paper. In fact, however tentative theymay be, in some respects, the subtle genius of Coleridge is nowhere morefinely exhibited than in these art-essays.ON POESY OR ART. 431The so called music of savage tribes as little deservesthe name of art for the understanding as the ear warrantsit for music. Its lowest state is a mere expression ofpassion by sounds which the passion itself necessitates; -the highest amounts to no more than a voluntary reproduction of these sounds in the absence of the occasioningcauses, so as to give the pleasure of contrast, -for example,by the various outcries of battle in the song of security andtriumph. Poetry also is purely human; for all its materials、 are from the mind, and all its products are for the mind.But it is the apotheosis of the former state, in which byexcitement of the associative power passion itself imitatesorder, and the order resulting produces a pleasurablepassion, and thus it elevates the mind by making its feelings the object of its reflexion. So likewise, whilst itrecalls the sights and sounds that had accompanied theoccasions of the original passions, poetry impregnates themwith an interest not their own by means of the passions,and yet tempers the passion by the calming power whichall distinct images exert on the human soul. In this waypoetry is the preparation for art, inasmuch as it availsitself of the forms of nature to recall, to express, and tomodify the thoughts and feelings of the mind. Still,however, poetry can only act through the intervention ofarticulate speech, which is so peculiarly human, that in alllanguages it constitutes the ordinary phrase by which manand nature are contradistinguished . It is the originalforce of the word ' brute, ' and even ' mute, ' and ' dumb ' ,do not convey the absence of sound, but the absence ofarticulated sounds.As soon as the human mind is intelligibly addressed byan outward image exclusively of articulate speech, so soondoes art commence. But please to observe that I havelaid particular stress on the words ' human mind, ' —meaning to exclude thereby all results common to man and all44 ESSAYS ON THE FINE ARTS.other sentient creatures, and consequently confining myselfto the effect produced by the congruity of the animal impression with the reflective powers of the mind; so thatnot the thing presented, but that which is re-presented bythe thing, shall be the source of the pleasure. In this sensenature itself is to a religious observer the art of God; andfor the same cause art itself might be defined as of amiddle quality between a thought and a thing, or as I saidbefore, the union and reconciliation of that which is naturewith that which is exclusively human. It is the figuredlanguage of thought, and is distinguished from nature bythe unity of all the parts in one thought or idea. Hencenature itself would give us the impression of a work of art,if we could see the thought which is present at once in thewhole and in every part; and a work of art will be just in,proportion as it adequately conveys the thought, and richin proportion to the variety of parts which it holds in unity. )If, therefore, the term ' mute ' be taken as opposed notto sound but to articulate speech, the old definition ofpainting will in fact be the true and best definition of theFine Arts in general, that is, muta poesis, mute poesy, andso of course poesy. And, as all languages perfect themselvesby a gradual process of desynonymizing words originallyequivalent, I have cherished the wish to use the word' poesy ' as the generic or common term, and to distinguishthat species of poesy which is not muta poesis by its usualname ' poetry; while of all the other species which collectively form the Fine Arts, there would remain this as thecommon definition, —that they all, like poetry, are toexpress intellectual purposes, thoughts, conceptions, andsentiments which have their origin in the human mind,-not, however, as poetry does, by means of articulate speech,but as nature or the divine art does, by form, colour,magnitude, proportion, or by sound, that is, silently ormusically.-ON POESY OR ART. 45"Well! it may be said—but who has ever thought otherwise? We all know that art is the imitatress of nature.And, doubtless, the truths which I hope to convey wouldbe barren truisms, if all men meant the same by the words' imitate ' and ' nature. ' But it would be flattering mankind at large, to presume that such is the fact. First, toimitate. The impression on the wax is not an imitation,but a copy, of the seal; the seal itself is an imitation. But,further, in order to form a philosophic conception, we mustseek for the kind, as the heat in ice, invisible light, &c . ,whilst, for practical purposes, we must have reference tothe degree. It is sufficient that philosophically we understand that in all imitation two elements must coexist, andnot only coexist, but must be perceived as coexisting.These two constituent elements are likeness and unlikeness,or sameness and difference, and in all genuine creations ofart there must be a union of these disparates. The artistmay take his point of view where he pleases, provided thatthe desired effect be perceptibly produced,—that there belikeness in the difference, difference in the likeness, and areconcilement of both in one. If there be likeness tonature without any check of difference, the result is disgusting, and the more complete the delusion, the moreloathsome the effect . Why are such simulations of nature,as wax- work figures of men and women, so disagreeable?Because, not finding the motion and the life which weexpected, we are shocked as by a falsehood, every circ*mstance of detail, which before induced us to be interested,making the distance from truth more palpable. You setout with a supposed reality and are disappointed and disgusted with the deception; whilst, in respect to a work ofgenuine imitation, you begin with an acknowledged totaldifference, and then every touch of nature gives you thepleasure of an approximation to truth. The fundamentalprinciple of all this is undoubtedly the horror of falsehood46 ESSAYS ON THE FINE ARTS.and the love of truth inherent in the human breast. TheGreek tragic dance rested on these principles, and I candeeply sympathize in imagination with the Greeks in thisfavourite part of their theatrical exhibitions, when I call tomind the pleasure I felt in beholding the combat of theHoratii and Curiatii most exquisitely danced in Italy to themusic of Cimarosa.Secondly, as to nature. We must imitate nature! yes,but what in nature, -all and every thing? No, the beautiful in nature. And what then is the beautiful? What isbeauty? It is, in the abstract, the unity of the manifold,the coalescence of the diverse; in the concrete, it is theunion of the shapely (formosum) with the vital. In thedead organic it depends on regularity of form, the first andlowest species of which is the triangle with all its modifications, as in crystals, architecture, &c.; in the living organicit is not mere regularity of form, which would produce asense of formality; neither is it subservient to any thingbeside itself. It may be present in a disagreeable object,in which the proportion of the parts constitutes a whole;it does not arise from association, as the agreeable does,but sometimes lies in the rupture of association; it is notdifferent to different individuals and nations, as has beensaid, nor is it connected with the ideas of the good, or thefit , or the useful. The sense of beauty is intuitive, andbeauty itself is all that inspires pleasure without, and alooffrom, and even contrarily to, interest.If the artist copies the mere nature, the natura naturata,what idle rivalry! If he proceeds only from a given form,which is supposed to answer to the notion of beauty, whatan emptiness, what an unreality there always is in his productions, as in Cipriani's pictures! Believe me, you mustmaster the essence, the natura naturans, which presupposesa bond between nature in the higher sense and the soul ofman.ON POESY OR ART. 47The wisdom in nature is distinguished from that in manby the co-instantaneity of the plan and the execution; thethought and the product are one, or are given at once; butthere is no reflex act, and hence there is no moral responsibility. In man there is reflexion, freedom, and choice;he is, therefore, the head of the visible creation. In theobjects of nature are presented, as in a mirror, all thepossible elements, steps, and processes of intellect antecedent to consciousness, and therefore to the full developmentof the intelligential act; and man's mind is the very focusof all the rays of intellect which are scattered throughoutthe images of nature. Now so to place these images,totalized, and fitted to the limits of the human mind, as toelicit from, and to superinduce upon, the forms themselvesthe moral reflexions to which they approximate, to makethe external internal, the internal external, to make naturethought, and thought nature, this is the mystery of geniusin the Fine Arts. Dare I add that the genius must act onthe feeling, that body is but a striving to become mind, -that it is mind in its essence!In every work of art there is a reconcilement of theexternal with the internal; the conscious is so impressedon the unconscious as to appear in it; as compare mereletters inscribed on a tomb with figures themselves constituting the tomb. He who combines the two is the man ofgenius; and for that reason he must partake of both.Hence there is in genius itself an unconscious activity;nay, that is the genius in the man of genius. And this isthe true exposition of the rule that the artist must firsteloign himself from nature in order to return to her withfull effect. Why this? Because if he were to begin by merepainful copying, he would produce masks only, not formsbreathing life . He must out of his own mind create formsaccording to the severe laws of the intellect, in order togenerate in himself that co- ordination of freedom and law,48 ESSAYS ON THE FINE ARTS .that involution of obedience in the prescript, and of theprescript in the impulse to obey, which assimilates him tonature, and enables him to understand her. He merelyabsents himself for a season from her, that his own spirit,which has the same ground with nature, may learn herunspoken language in its main radicals, before he approachesto her endless compositions of them. Yes, not to acquirecold notions-lifeless technical rules—but living and lifeproducing ideas, which shall contain their own evidence,the certainty that they are essentially one with the germinalcauses in nature, —his consciousness being the focus andmirror of both, —for this does the artist for a time abandonthe external real in order to return to it with a complete sympathy with its internal and actual. For of all we see, hear,feel and touch the substance is and must be in ourselves;and therefore there is no alternative in reason between thedreary (and thank heaven! almost impossible) belief thatevery thing around us is but a phantom, or that the lifewhich is in us is in them likewise; and that to know is toresemble, when we speak of objects out of ourselves, evenas within ourselves to learn is, according to Plato, only torecollect; the only effective answer to which, that I havebeen fortunate to meet with, is that which Pope has con- secrated for future use in the line-"And coxcombs vanquish Berkeley with a grin!99The artist must imitate that which is within the thing,that which is active through form and figure, and discourses to us by symbols-the Natur-geist, or spirit of nature,as we unconsciously imitate those whom we love; for soonly can he hope to produce any work truly natural in theobject and truly human in the effect. The idea which putsthe form together cannot itself be the form. It is aboveform, and is its essence, the universal in the individual, orON POESY OR ART. 49the individuality itself, -the glance and the exponent ofthe indwelling power.Each thing that lives has its moment of self- exposition,and so has each period of each thing, if we remove thedisturbing forces of accident. To do this is the businessof ideal art, whether in images of childhood, youth, or age,in man or in woman. Hence a good portrait is the abstractof the personal; it is not the likeness for actual comparison,but for recollection . This explains why the likeness of avery good portrait is not always recognized; because somepersons never abstract, and amongst these are especially tobe numbered the near relations and friends of the subject,in consequence of the constant pressure and check exercisedon their minds by the actual presence of the original . Andeach thing that only appears to live has also its possibleposition of relation to life, as nature herself testifies, who,where she cannot be, prophesies her being in the crystallizedmetal, or the inhaling plant.The charm, the indispensable requisite, of sculpture isunity of effect. But painting rests in a material remoterfrom nature, and its compass is therefore greater. Lightand shade give external, as well internal, being even withall its accidents, whilst sculpture is confined to the latter.And here I may observe that the subjects chosen for worksof art, whether in sculpture or painting, should be such asreally are capable of being expressed and conveyed withinthe limits of those arts. Moreover they ought to be suchas will affect the spectator by their truth, their beauty, ortheir sublimity, and therefore they may be addressed to thejudgment, the senses, or the reason. The peculiarity ofthe impression which they may make, may be derivedeither from colour and form, or from proportion and fitness ,or from the excitement of the moral feelings; or all thesemay be combined. Such works as do combine thesesources of effect must have the preference in dignity.E50 ESSAYS ON THE FINE ARTS .Imitation of the antique may be too exclusive, and mayproduce an injurious effect on modern sculpture; --1st,generally, because such an imitation cannot fail to have atendency to keep the attention fixed on externals ratherthan on the thought within; -2ndly, because, accordingly,it leads the artist to rest satisfied with that which is alwaysimperfect, namely, bodily form, and circ*mscribes his viewsof mental expression to the ideas of power and grandeuronly;-3rdly, because it induces an effort to combine together two incongruous things, that is to say, modernfeelings in antique forms; -4thly, because it speaks in alanguage, as it were, learned and dead, the tones of which,being unfamiliar, leave the common spectator cold andunimpressed;-and lastly, because it necessarily causes aneglect of thoughts, emotions and images of profounderinterest and more exalted dignity, as motherly, sisterly,and brotherly love, piety, devotion, the divine becomehuman, —the Virgin, the Apostle, the Christ. The artist'sprinciple in the statue of a great man should be the illustration of departed merit; and I cannot but think that askilful adoption of modern habiliments would, in manyinstances, give a variety and force of effect which abigoted adherence to Greek or Roman costume precludes.It is, I believe, from artists finding Greek models unfit forseveral important modern purposes, that we see so manyallegorical figures on monuments and elsewhere. Paintingwas, as it were, a new art, and being unshackled by oldmodels it chose its own subjects, and took an eagle'sflight. And a new field seems opened for modernsculpture in the symbolical expression of the ends oflife, as in Guy's monument, Chantrey's children inWorcester Cathedral, &c.Architecture exhibits the greatest extent of the differencefrom nature which may exist in works of art. It involvesall the powers of design, and is sculpture and paintingON POESY OR ART. 51inclusively. It shews the greatness of man, and shouldat the same time teach him humility.Music is the most entirely human of the fine arts, andhas the fewest analoga in nature. Its first delightfulnessis simple accordance with the ear; but it is an associatedthing, and recalls the deep emotions of the past with anintellectual sense of proportion. Every human feeling isgreater and larger than the exciting cause, a proof, I think,that man is designed for a higher state of existence; and thisis deeply implied in music in which there is always something more and beyond the immediate expression.With regard to works in all the branches of the fine arts,I may remark that the pleasure arising from novelty mustof course be allowed its due place and weight. Thispleasure consists in the identity of two opposite elements,that is to say-sameness and variety. If in the midst ofthe variety there be not some fixed object for the attention,the unceasing succession ofthe variety will prevent themind from observing the difference of the individualobjects; and the only thing remaining will be the succession, which will then produce precisely the same effect assameness. This we experience when we let the trees orhedges pass before the fixed eye during a rapid movementin a carriage, or on the other hand, when we suffer a fileof soldiers or ranks of men in procession to go on beforeus without resting the eye on any one in particular. Inorder to derive pleasure from the occupation of the mind,the principle of unity must always be present, so that inthe midst of the multeity the centripetal force be never-suspended, nor the sense be fatigued by the predominanceof the centrifugal force. This unity in multeity I have elsewhere stated as the principle of beauty. It is equally thesource of pleasure in variety, and in fact a higher termincluding both. What is the seclusive or distinguishingterm between them?52 ESSAYS ON THE FINE ARTS.Remember that there is a difference between form asproceeding, and shape as superinduced; -the latter is eitherthe death or the imprisonment of the thing; —the formeris its self- witnessing and self- effected sphere of agency.Art would or should be the abridgment of nature. Nowthe fulness of nature is without character, as water ispurest when without taste, smell, or colour; but this is thehighest, the apex only, it is not the whole. The object ofart is to give the whole ad hominem; hence each step ofnature hath its ideal, and hence the possibility of a climaxup to the perfect form of a harmonized chaos.To the idea of life victory or strife is necessary; asvirtue consists not simply in the absence of vices, but inthe overcoming of them. So it is in beauty. The sightof what is subordinated and conquered heightens thestrength and the pleasure; and this should be exhibited bythe artist either inclusively in his figure, or else out of it,and beside it to act by way of supplement and contrast.And with a view to this, remark the seeming identity ofbody and mind in infants, and thence the loveliness of theformer; the commencing separation in boyhood, and thestruggle of equilibrium in youth: thence onward the bodyis first simply indifferent; then demanding the translucencyof the mind not to be worse than indifferent; and finallyall that presents the body as body becoming almost of anexcremental nature.¹Even this Essay, it would seem, is incomplete. It is, however, unmistakably, Coleridge's own writing, and in his best vein.ON THE PROMETHEUS OF ESCHYLUS.

ON THE PROMETHEUS OF ÆSCHYLUS:An Essay, preparatory to a series of disquisitions ' respecting theEgyptian, in connection with the sacerdotal, theology, and in contrastwith the mysteries of ancient Greece. Read at the Royal Society ofLiterature,2 May 18, 1825.THEHE French savans who went to Egypt in the train ofBuonaparte, Denon, Fourrier, and Dupuis, ( it hasbeen asserted) , triumphantly vindicated the chronology ofHerodotus, on the authority of documents that cannotlie;-namely, the inscriptions and sculptures on thoseenormous masses of architecture, that might seem to havebeen built in the wish of rivalling the mountains, and atsome unknown future to answer the same purpose, that is,to stand the gigantic tombstones of an elder world. It isdecided, say the critics, whose words I have before cited,that the present division of the zodiac had been alreadyarranged by the Egyptians fifteen thousand years beforethe Christian era, and according to an inscription ' whichcannot lie ' the temple of Esne is of eight thousand yearsstanding.Now, in the first place, among a people who had placed¹ This " series of disquisitions " is heard no more of.2 "In 1821 or 1822 ," says H. N. Coleridge, in a note in the firstedition only of the Table Talk ( 1835) ,—“ George the Fourth foundedthe Royal Society of Literature, which was incorporated by charter in1825. The King gave a thousand guineas a year out of his own privatepocket, to be distributed amongst ten literary men, to be called RoyalAssociates, and to be selected at the discretion of the Council. " Coleridgewas one of the ten selected, and received £105 a year, up to the date ofGeorge IVth's death, in 1830.56 THE PROMETHEUStheir national pride in their antiquity, I do not see theimpossibility of an inscription lying; and, secondly, aslittle can I see the improbability of a modern interpretermisunderstanding it; and lastly, the incredibility of aFrench infidel's partaking of both defects, is still lessevident to my understanding. The inscriptions may be, andin some instances, very probably are, of later date than thetemples themselves, the offspring of vanity or priestlyrivalry, or of certain astrological theories; or the templesthemselves may have been built in the place of former andruder structures, of an earlier and ruder period, and notimpossibly under a different scheme of hieroglyphic orsignificant characters; and these may have been intentionally, or ignorantly, miscopied or mistranslated.But more than all the preceding, —I cannot but persuademyself, that for a man of sound judgment and enlightenedcommon sense- -a man with whom the demonstrable lawsof the human mind, and the rules generalized from thegreat mass of facts respecting human nature, weigh morethan any two or three detached documents or narrations,of whatever authority the narrator may be, and howeverdifficult it may be to bring positive proofs against theantiquity of the documents—I cannot but persuade myself,I say, that for such a man, the relation preserved in thefirst book of the Pentateuch, and which, in perfectaccordance with all analogous experience, with all thefacts of history, and all that the principles of politicaleconomy would lead us to anticipate, conveys to us therapid progress in civilization and splendour from Abrahamand Abimelech to Joseph and Pharaoh, —will be worth awhole library of such inferences.I am aware that it is almost universal to speak of thegross idolatry of Egypt; nay, that arguments have beengrounded on this assumption in proof of the divine originof the Mosaic monotheism. But first, if by this we are toOF ESCHYLUS. 57understand that the great doctrine of the one SupremeBeing was first revealed to the Hebrew legislator, his owninspired writings supply abundant and direct confutationof the position. Of certain astrological superstitions, —ofcertain talismans connected with star-magic, -plates andimages constructed in supposed harmony with the movements and influences of celestial bodies, -there doubtlessexist hints, if not direct proofs, both in the Mosaic writings,and those next to these in antiquity. But of plain idolatryin Egypt, or the existence of a polytheistic religion, represented by various idols, each signifying a several deity, Ican find no decisive proof in the Pentateuch, and when Icollate these with the books of the prophets, and the otherinspired writings subsequent to the Mosaic, I cannot butregard the absence of any such proof in the latter, comparedwith the numerous and powerful assertions, or evidentimplications, of Egyptian idolatry in the former, both asan argument of incomparably greater value in support ofthe age and authenticity of the Pentateuch, and as a strongpresumption in favour of the hypothesis on which I shallin part ground the theory which will pervade this series ofdisquisitions; -namely, that the sacerdotal religion ofEgypt had, during the interval from Abimelech to Moses,degenerated from the patriarchal monotheism into a pantheism, cosmotheism, or worship of the world as God.The reason, or pretext, assigned by the Hebrew legislatorto Pharaoh for leading his countrymen into the wildernessto join with their brethren, the tribes who still sojournedin the nomadic state, namely, that their sacrifices would bean abomination to the Egyptians, may be urged as inconsistent with, nay, as confuting this hypothesis. But to thisI reply, first, that the worship of the ox and cow was not,in and of itself, and necessarily, a contravention of thefirst commandment, though a very gross breach of thesecond;—for it is most certain that the ten tribes wor-58 THE PROMETHEUSshipped the Jehovah, the God of Abraham, Isaac, andJacob, under the same or similar symbols:-secondly, thatthe cow, or Isis, and the Io ofthe Greeks, truly represented,in the first instance, the earth or productive nature, andafterwards the mundane religion grounded on the worshipof nature, or the rò πãv, as God. In after times, the ox orbull was added, representing the sun, or generative forceof nature, according to the habit of male and female deities ,which spread almost over the whole world, the positiveand negative forces in the science of superstition; —for thepantheism of the sage necessarily engenders polytheism asthe popular creed . But lastly, a very sufficient reasonmay, I think, be assigned for the choice of the ox or cow,as representing the very life of nature, by the first legislators of Egypt, and for the similar sacred character in theBrachmanic tribes of Hindostan. The progress fromsavagery to civilization is evidently first from the huntingto the pastoral state, a process which even now is going on,within our own times, among the South American Indiansin the vast tracts between Buenos Ayres and the Andes:but the second and the most important step, is from thepastoral, or wandering, to the agricultural, or fixed, state.Now, if even for men born and reared under Europeancivilization, the charms of a wandering life have been foundso great a temptation, that few who have taken to it havebeen induced to return, ( see the confession in the preambleto the statute respecting the gipsies); '—how much greatermust have been the danger of relapse in the first formationof fixed states with a condensed population? And whatstronger prevention could the ingenuity of the priestly" The Act meant is probably the 5. Eliz. c. 20, enforcing the twoprevious Acts of Henry VIII. , and Philip and Mary, and reciting thatnatural born Englishmen had become of the fellowship of the saidvagabonds, by transforming or disguising themselves in their apparel ,'&c."-H. N. C.OF ESCHYLUS. 59kings (for the priestly is ever the first form of government)-devise, than to have made the ox or cow therepresentatives of the divine principle in the world, and,as such, an object of adoration, the wilful destruction ofwhich was sacrilege? -For this rendered a return to thepastoral state impossible; in which the flesh of theseanimals and the milk formed almost the exclusive food¹of mankind; while, in the meantime, by once compellingand habituating men to the use of a vegetable diet, itenforced the laborious cultivation of the soil, and bothproduced and permitted a vast and condensed population.In the process and continued subdivisions of polytheism ,this great sacred Word, -for so the consecrated animalswere called iɛpoì Xóyo , 2-became multiplied, till almostevery power and supposed attribute of nature had itssymbol in some consecrated animal from the beetle to thehawk. Wherever the powers of nature had found a cyclefor themselves, in which the powers still produced thesame phenomenon during a given period, whether in themotions of the heavenly orbs, or in the smallest livingorganic body, there the Egyptian sages predicated life andmind. Time, cyclical time, was their abstraction of thedeity, and their holidays were their gods.The diversity between theism and pantheism may bemost simply and generally expressed in the followingformula, in which the material universe is expressed by W,and the deity by G.W- G=0;or the World without God is an impossible conception.This position is common to theist and pantheist. But thepantheist adds the converseG- W= 0;¹ Has not Coleridge forgotten the sheep?2 The Logos is Coleridge's fetish.60 THE PROMETHEUSfor which the theist substitutesor thatG- W= G;G= G, anterior and irrelative to the existence of theworld, is equal to G+W.¹Before the mountains were, Thou art. —I am not about tolead the society beyond the bounds of my subject intodivinity or theology in the professional sense. But without a precise definition of pantheism, without a clearinsight into the essential distinction between it and thetheism of the Scriptures, it appears to me impossible tounderstand either the import or the history of the polytheism of the great historical nations. I beg leave, therefore, to repeat, and to carry on my former position, thatthe religion of Egypt, at the time of the Exodus of theHebrews, was a pantheism, on the point of passing intothat polytheism, of which it afterwards afforded a specimen,gross and distasteful even to polytheists themselves of othernations.The objects which, on my appointment as Royal Associate of the Royal Society of Literature, I proposed tomyself were, 1st . The elucidation of the purpose of theGreek drama, and the relations in which it stood to themysteries on the one hand, and to the state or sacerdotalreligion on the other:-2nd. The connection of the Greektragic poets with philosophy as the peculiar offspring ofGreek genius:-3rd. The connection of the Homeric and" Mr. Coleridge was in the constant habit of expressing himself onpaper by the algebraic symbols. They have an uncouth look in thetext of an ordinary essay, and I have sometimes ventured to renderthem by the equivalent words. But most ofthe readers of these volumes will know that means less by, or without; +more by, or in additionto; equal to, or, the same as."-H. N. C.The paragraph, somewhat differently put, will be found in the TableTalk, May 10, 1827.OF ESCHYLUS . 61cyclical poets with the popular religion of the Greeks: and,lastly, from all these, —namely, the mysteries, the sacerdotalreligion, their philosophy before and after Socrates, thestage, the Homeric poetry and the legendary belief of thepeople, and from the sources and productive causes in thederivation and confluence of the tribes that finally shapedthemselves into a nation of Greeks-to give a juster andmore distinct view of this singular people, and of the placewhich they occupied in the history of the world, and thegreat scheme of divine providence, than I have hithertoseen, -—or rather let me say, than it appears to me possibleto give by any other process .The present Essay, however, I devote to the purpose ofremoving, or at least invalidating, one objection that Imay reasonably anticipate, and which may be conveyed inthe following question:-What proof have you of the factof any connection between the Greek drama, and eitherthe mysteries, or the philosophy, of Greece? What proofthat it was the office of the tragic poet, under a disguise ofthe sacerdotal religion, mixed with the legendary orpopular belief, to reveal as much of the mysteries interpreted by philosophy, as would counteract the demoralizingeffects of the state religion, without compromising thetranquillity of the state itself, or weakening that paramount reverence, without which a republic (such, I mean,as the republics of ancient Greece were) could not exist?I know no better way in which I can reply to thisobjection, than by giving, as my proof and instance, thePrometheus of Eschylus, accompanied with an expositionof what I believe to be the intention of the poet, and themythic import of the work; of which it may be truly said,that it is more properly tragedy itself in the plenitude ofthe idea, than a particular tragic poem; and as a prefaceto this exposition, and for the twin purpose of rendering itintelligible, and of explaining its connexion with the whole.62 THE PROMETHEUSscheme of my Essays, I entreat permission to insert aquotation from a work of my own, which has indeed beenin print for many years, but which few of my auditors willprobably have heard of, and still fewer, if any, have read."As the representative of the youth and approachingmanhood of the human intellect we have ancient Greece,from Orpheus, Linus, Museus, and the other mythologicalbards, or, perhaps, the brotherhoods impersonated underthose names, to the time when the republics lost their independence, and their learned men sank into copyists of,and commentators on, the works of their forefathers.That we include these as educated under a distinct providential, though not miraculous, dispensation will surpriseno one, who reflects, that in whatever has a permanentoperation on the destinies and intellectual condition ofmankind at large, -that in all which has been manifestlyemployed as a co-agent in the mightiest revolution of themoral world, the propagation of the Gospel, and in theintellectual progress of mankind in the restoration ofphilosophy, science, and the ingenuous arts - it wereirreligion not to acknowledge the hand of divine providence. The periods, too, join on to each other. Theearliest Greeks took up the religious and lyrical poetry ofthe Hebrews; and the schools of the prophets were,however partially and imperfectly, represented by themysteries derived through the corrupt channel of thePhoenicians. With these secret schools of physiologicaltheology, the mythical poets were doubtless in connexion,and it was these schools which prevented polytheism fromproducing all its natural barbarizing effects.The mysteries and the mythical hymns and peans shaped themselves gradually into epic poetry and history on the onehand, and into the ethical tragedy and philosophy on theother. Under their protection, and that of a youthfulliberty, secretly controlled by a species of internal theo-OF ESCHYLUS. 63cracy, the sciences, and the sterner kinds of the fine arts,that is, architecture and statuary, grew up together,followed, indeed, by painting, but a statuesque, andausterely idealized, painting, which did not degenerate intomere copies of the sense, till the process for which Greeceexisted had been completed. "1The Greeks alone brought forth philosophy in the properand contra-distinguishable sense of the term, which we maycompare to the coronation medal with its symbolic characters, as contrasted with the coins, issued under the samesovereign, current in the market. In the primary sense,philosophy had for its aim and proper subject the rà πɛpìȧpxwv, de originibus rerum, as far as man proposes todiscover the same in and by the pure reason alone. This,I say, was the offspring of Greece, and elsewhere adoptedonly. The predisposition appears in their earliest poetry.The first object, (or subject matter) of Greek philosophizing was in some measure philosophy itself; —not,indeed, as the product, but as the producing power—theproductivity. Great minds turned inward on the fact ofthe diversity between man and beast; a superiority ofkind in addition to that of degree; the latter, that is, thedifference in degree comprehending the more enlargedsphere and the multifold application of faculties commonto man and brute animals; -even this being in greatmeasure a transfusion from the former, namely, from thesuperiority in kind; for only by its co-existence withreason, free will, self- consciousness, the contra-distinguishing attributes of man, does the instinctive intelligencemanifested in the ant, the dog, the elephant, &c. becomehuman understanding. It is a truth with which Heracl*tus, the senior, but yet contemporary, of Eschylus,appears, from the few genuine fragments of his writings1 Friend, III. Essay, 9.-H. N. C.64 THE PROMETHEUSthat are yet extant, to have been deeply impressed, —thatthe mere understanding in man, considered as the powerof adapting means to immediate purposes, differs, indeed,from the intelligence displayed by other animals, and notin degree only; but yet does not differ by any excellencewhich it derives from itself, or by any inherent diversity,but solely in consequence of a combination with far higherpowers of a diverse kind in one and the same subject.Long before the entire separation of metaphysics frompoetry, that is, while yet poesy, in all its several species ofverse, music, statuary, &c. continued mythic; -while yetpoetry remained the union of the sensuous and the philosophic mind; the efficient presence of the latter in thesynthesis of the two, had manifested itself in the sublimemythus περὶ γενέσεως τοῦ νοῦ ἐν ἀνθρωποῖς concerning thegenesis, or birth of the vous or reason in man. This themost venerable, and perhaps the most ancient, of Grecianmythi, is a philosopheme, the very same in subject matterwith the earliest record of the Hebrews, but most characteristically different in tone and conception;-for thepatriarchal religion, as the antithesis of pantheism, wasnecessarily personal; and the doctrines of a faith, the firstground of which and the primary enunciation, is theeternal I AM, must be in part historic and must assume thehistoric form . Hence the Hebrew record is a narrative,and the first instance of the fact is given as the origin ofthe fact.That a profound truth-a truth that is, indeed, the grandand indispensable condition of all moral responsibility—isinvolved in this characteristic of the sacred narrative, I amnot alone persuaded, but distinctly aware. This, however,does not preclude us from seeing, nay, as an additionalmark of the wisdom that inspired the sacred historian, itrather supplies a motive to us, impels and authorizes us, tosee, in the form of the vehicle of the truth, an accommoda-OF ESCHYLUS. 65tion to the then childhood of the human race. Under thisimpression we may, I trust, safely consider the narration, -introduced, as it is here introduced, for the purpose ofexplaining a mere work of the unaided mind of man bycomparison, as an erros iepoyλupikov, -and as such (apparently, I mean, not actually, ) a synthesis of poesy andphilosophy, characteristic of the childhood of nations.In the Greek we see already the dawn of approachingmanhood. The substance, the stuff, is philosophy: theform only is poetry. The Prometheus is a philosophemaTaντηyoρikov,-the tree of knowledge of good and evil, -anallegory, a πроraidevμa, though the noblest and the mostpregnant of its kind.

6The generation of the vous, or pure reason in man . 1 .It was superadded or infused, a supra to mark that it wasno mere evolution of the animal basis; —that it could nothave grown out of the other faculties of man, his life, sense,understanding, as the flower grows out of the stem, havingpre-existed potentially in the seed: 2. The vous, or fire,was ' stolen, ' -to mark its hetero-or rather its allo-geneity,that is, its diversity, its difference in kind, from thefaculties which are common to man with the nobleranimals 3. And stolen from Heaven, '-to mark itssuperiority in kind, as well as its essential diversity: 4.And it was a ' spark, ' -to mark that it is not subject toany modifying reaction from that on which it immediatelyacts; that it suffers no change, and receives no accession,from the inferior, but multiplies itself by conversion, without being alloyed by, or amalgamated with, that which itpotentiates, ennobles, and transmutes: 5. And lastly, ( inorder to imply the hom*ogeneity of the donor and of thegift, ) it was stolen by a ' god, ' and a god of the race beforethe dynasty of Jove, -Jove the binder of reluctant powers,the coercer and entrancer of free spirits under the fettersof shape, and mass, and passive mobility; but likewise byF66 THE PROMETHEUSa god of the same race and essence with Jove, and linkedof yore in closest and friendliest intimacy with him. This,to mark the pre-existence, in order of thought, of the nous,as spiritual, both to the objects of sense, and to their products, formed as it were, by the precipitation, or, if I maydare adopt the bold language of Leibnitz, by a coagulationof spirit. In other words this derivation of the spark fromabove, and from a god anterior to the Jovial dynasty-(that is, to the submersion of spirits in material forms, ) —was intended to mark the transcendency of the nous, thecontra- distinctive faculty of man, as timeless, äxpovóv т ,and, in this negative sense, eternal. It signified , I say, itssuperiority to, and its diversity from, all things that subsist in space and time, nay, even those which, thoughspaceless, yet partake of time, namely, souls or understandings. For the soul, or understanding, if it be definedphysiologically as the principle of sensibility, irritability,and growth, together with the functions of the organs,which are at once the representatives and the instrumentsof these, must be considered in genere, though not indegree or dignity, common to man and the inferioranimals. It was the spirit, the nous, which man alonepossessed. And I must be permitted to suggest that thisnotion deserves some respect, were it only that it can shewa semblance, at least, of sanction from a far higherauthority.The Greeks agreed with the cosmogonies of the East inderiving all sensible forms from the indistinguishable.The latter we find designated as the τὸ ἄμορφον, the ὕδωρTρокоσμkov, the xáos, as the essentially unintelligible, yetnecessarily presumed, basis or sub- position of all positions .That it is, scientifically considered, an indispensable ideafor the human mind, just as the mathematical point, &c.for the geometrician; —of this the various systems of ourgeologists and cosmogonists, from Burnet to La Place,OF ESCHYLUS . 67-afford strong presumption. As an idea, it must be interpreted as a striving of the mind to distinguish being fromexistence, or potential being, the ground of being containing the possibility of existence, from being actualized . Inthe language of the mysteries, it was the esurience, the τółosor desideratum , the unfuelled fire, the Ceres, the ever- seekingmaternal goddess, the origin and interpretation of whosename is found in the Hebrew root signifying hunger, andthence capacity. It was, in short, an effort to representthe universal ground of all differences distinct or opposite,but in relation to which all antithesis as well as all antitheta, existed only potentially. This was the containerand withholder, (such is the primitive sense of the Hebrewword rendered darkness ( Gen. 1. 2. ) ) out of which light,that is, the lux lucifica, as distinguished from lumen seu luxphænomenalis, was produced; -say, rather, that which,producing itself into light as the one pole or antagonistpower, remained in the other pole as darkness , that is,gravity, or the principle of mass, or wholeness without distinction of parts.And here the peculiar, the philosophic, genius of Greecebegan its fœtal throb. Here it individualized itself incontra- distinction from the Hebrew archology, on the oneside, and from the Phoenician, on the other. The Phoenician confounded the indistinguishable with the absolute,the Alpha and Omega, the ineffable causa sui.It confounded, I say, the multeity below intellect, that is, unintelligible from defect of the subject, with the absoluteidentity above all intellect, that is, transcending comprehension by the plenitude of its excellence. With the Phonician sages the cosmogony was their theogony and viceversa. Hence, too, flowed their theurgic rites, their magic,their worship (cultus et apotheosis) of the plastic forces,chemical and vital, and these, or their notions respectingthese, formed the hidden meaning, the soul , as it were, of68888THE PROMETHEUSwhich the popular and civil worship was the body with itsdrapery.The Hebrew wisdom imperatively asserts an unbeginning creative One, who neither became the world; nor isthe world eternally; nor made the world out of himself byemanation, or evolution; —but who willed it, and it was!Τὰ ἄθεα ἐγένετο, καὶ ἐγένετο χάος,—and this chaos, theeternal will, by the spirit and the word, or express fiat,—again acting as the impregnant, distinctive, and ordonnantpower, -enabled to become a world-кooμεiobaι. So mustit be when a religion, that shall preclude superstition onthe one hand, and brute indifference on the other, is to betrue for the meditative sage, yet intelligible, or at least apprehensible, for all but the fools in heart.The Greek philosopheme, preserved for us in theEschylean Prometheus, stands midway betwixt both, yetis distinct in kind from either. With the Hebrew or purerSemitic, it assumes an X Y Z,¹-(I take these letters intheir algebraic application) —an indeterminate Elohim,antecedent to the matter of the world, Aŋ åкoσμos—noless than to the λn Kekoσμnμévn. In this point, likewise,the Greek accorded with the Semitic, and differed fromthe Phoenician-that it held the antecedent X Y Z to besuper- sensuous and divine. But on the other hand, itcoincides with the Phoenician in considering this antecedentground of corporeal matter, -τῶν σωμάτων καὶ τοῦ σωματικοῦ ,-not so properly the cause of the latter, as the occasionand the still continuing substance. Materia substat adhuc.The corporeal was supposed co-essential with the antecedentof its corporeity. Matter, as distinguished from body, wasa non ens, a simple apparition, id quod mere videtur; but tobody the elder physico-theology of the Greeks allowed aparticipation in entity. It was spiritus ipse, oppressus, dor1 This trinity of algebraic symbols for the unknown would seem, fromthe conclusion of the paragraph, to be intentional.OF ESCHYLUS . 69miens, et diversis modis somnians. In short, body was theproductive power suspended, and as it were, quenched inthe product. This may be rendered plainer by reflecting,that, in the pure Semitic scheme there are four termsintroduced in the solution of the problem, 1. the beginning,self- sufficing, and immutable Creator; 2. the antecedentnight as the identity, or including germ, of the light anddarkness, that is, gravity; 3. the chaos; and 4. thematerial world resulting from the powers communicatedby the divine fiat. In the Phoenician scheme there are infact but two-a self- organizing chaos, and the omniformnature as the result. In the Greek scheme we have threeterms, 1. the hyle, λn, which holds the place of the chaos,or the waters, in the true system; 2. rà owμara, answeringto the Mosaic heaven and earth; and 3. the SaturnianXρóvοι vπερxρóvioi, —which answer to the antecedent darkness of the Mosaic scheme, but to which the elder physicotheologists attributed a self-polarizing power-a naturagemina quæ fit et facit, agit et patitur. In other words, theElohim of the Greeks were still but a natura deorum, TÒOɛov, in which a vague plurality adhered; or if any unitywas imagined, it was not personal-not a unity of excellence, but simply an expression of the negative—thatwhich was to pass, but which had not yet passed, intodistinct form.All this will seem strange and obscure at first reading, —perhaps fantastic. But it will only seem so. Dry andprolix, indeed, it is to me in the writing, full as much asit can be to others in the attempt to understand it. But Iknow that, once mastered, the idea will be the key to thewhole cypher of the Æschylean mythology. The sum statedin the terms of philosophic logic is this: First, what Mosesappropriated to the chaos itself: what Moses made passiveand a materia subjecta et lucis et tenebrarum, the containingpоléμεvov of the thesis and antithesis; -this the Greek70 THE PROMETHEUSplaced anterior to the chaos; -the chaos itself being thestruggle between the hyperchronia, the idéau póvoμo , as theunevolved , unproduced, prothesis, of which idéa kaì vóµos—(idea and law) —are the thesis and antithesis. (I use theword ' produced ' in the mathematical sense, as a pointelongating itself to a bipolar line. ) Secondly, what Mosesestablishes, not merely as a transcendent Monas, but as anindividual Evàs likewise; —this the Greek took as a harmony, θεοὶ ἀθάνατοι , τὸ θεῖον, as distinguished from ὁ θεὸς—or, to adopt the more expressive language of the Pythagoreans and cabalists, numen numerantis; and these are tobe contemplated as the identity.Now according to the Greek philosopheme or mythus, inthese, or in this identity, there arose a war, schism, ordivision, that is, a polarization into thesis and antithesis.In consequence of this schism in the To Oɛov, the thesisbecomes nomos, or law, and the antithesis becomes idea, butso that the nomos is nomos, because, and only because, theidea is idea: the nomos is not idea , only because the ideahas not become nomos. And this not must be heedfullyborne in mind through the whole interpretation of thismost profound and pregnant philosopheme. The nomos isessentially idea, but existentially it is idea substans, that is,id quod stat subtus, understanding sensu generalissimo. Theidea, which now is no longer idea, has substantiated itself,become real as opposed to idea, and is henceforward, therefore, substans in substantiato. The first product of its energyis the thing itself: ipsa se posuit etjamfacta est ens positum.Still, however, its productive energy is not exhausted inthis product, but overflows, or is effluent, as the specificforces, properties, faculties, of the product. It reappears ,in short, in the body, as the function of the body. As asufficient illustration, though it cannot be offered as aperfect instance, take the following.' In the world we see every where evidences of a unity,OF ESCHYLUS. 71which the component parts are so far from explaining, thatthey necessarily pre-suppose it as the cause and conditionof their existing as those parts, or even of their existing atall. This antecedent unity, or cause and principle of eachunion, it has since the time of Bacon and Kepler beencustomary to call a law. This crocus, for instance, or anyflower the reader may have in sight or choose to bringbefore his fancy; -that the root, stem, leaves, petals, &c.cohere as one plant, is owing to an antecedent power orprinciple in the seed, which existed before a single particleof the matters that constitute the size and visibility of thecrocus had been attracted from the surrounding soil , air,and moisture. Shall we turn to the seed? Here too thesame necessity meets us, an antecedent unity ( I speak notof the parent plant, but of an agency antecedent in orderof operance, yet remaining present as the conservative andreproductive power; ) must here too be supposed. Analyzethe seed with the finest tools, and let the solar microscopecome in aid of your senses,- -what do you find?-means andinstruments, a wondrous fairy- tale of nature, magazines offood, stores of various sorts, pipes, spiracles,. defences, —ahouse of many chambers, and the owner and inhabitantinvisible. " Now, compare a plant, thus contemplated , withan animal. In the former, the productive energy exhaustsitself, and as it were, sleeps in the product or organismusin its root, stem, foliage, blossoms, seed. Its balsams, gums,resins, aromata, and all other bases of its sensible qualities ,are, it is well known, mere excretions from the vegetable,eliminated, as lifeless, from the actual plant. The qualitiesare not its properties, but the properties, or far rather, thedispersion and volatilization of these extruded and rejectedbases. But in the animal it is otherwise. Here the ante-" Aids to Reflection. Moral and Religious Aphorisms. AphorismVI.” — H . N. C.72THEPROMETHEUScedent unity-the productive and self-realizing ideastrives, with partial success to re-emancipate itself from itsproduct, and seeks once again to become idea: vainly, indeed:for in order to this, it must be retrogressive, and it hathsubjected itself to the fates, the evolvers of the endlessthread—to the stern necessity of progression. Idea itselfit cannot become, but it may in long and graduated processbecome an image, an ANALOGON, an anti-type of IDEA. Andthis ɛidwλov may approximate to a perfect likeness. Quodost simile, nequit esse idem. Thus, in the lower animals, wesee this process of emancipation commence with the intermediate link, or that which forms the transition from properties to faculties, namely, with sensation. Then thefaculties of sense, locomotion, construction, as, for instance,webs, hives, nests, &c. Then the functions; as of instinct,memory, fancy, instinctive intelligence, or understanding,as it exists in the most intelligent animals. Thus the idea(henceforward no mere idea, but irrecoverable by its ownfatal act, ) commences the process of its own transmutation,as substans in substantiato, as the enteleche, or the vis formatrix, and it finishes the process as substans e substantiato ,that is, as the understanding.If, for the purpose of elucidating this process, I mightbe allowed to imitate the symbolic language of the algebraists, and thus to regard the successive steps of the processas so many powers and dignities of the nomos or law, thescheme would be represented thus:-

Nomos' Product: N2 = Property: N³ Faculty: N4 =Function: N5 = Understanding;-which is, indeed, in one sense, itself a nomos, inasmuch asit is the index of the nomos, as well as its highest function;but, like the hand of a watch, it is likewise a nomizomenon.It is a verb, but still a verb passive.On the other hand, idea is so far co-essential with nomos,that byits co-existence (not confluence) -with the nomosOF ESCHYLUS. 73But,ἐν νομιζομένοις (with the organismus and its faculties andfunctions in the man, ) it becomes itself a nomos.observe, a nomos autonomos, or containing its law in itselflikewise; —even as the nomos produces for its highestproduct the understanding, so the idea, in its oppositionand, of course, its correspondence to the nomos, begets initself an analogon to product; and this is self- consciousness.But as the product can never become idea, so neither canthe idea (if it is to remain idea) become or generate a distinct product. This analogon of product is to be itself;but were it indeed and substantially a product, it wouldcease to be self. It would be an object for a subject, not,(as it is and must be) an object that is its own subject, andvice versa; a conception which, if the uncombining and infusile genius of our language allowed it, might be expressedby the term subject- object. Now, idea, taken in indissoluble connection with this analogon of product, is mind,that which knows itself, and the existence of which maybe inferred, but cannot appear or become a phenomenen.By the benignity of Providence, the truths of most importance in themselves, and which it most concerns us toknow, are familiar to us, even from childhood . Well forus if we do not abuse this privilege, and mistake the familiarity of words which convey these truths for a clear understanding of the truths themselves! If the preceding disquisition, with all its subtlety and all its obscurity, shouldanswer no other purpose, it will still have been neitherpurposeless, nor devoid of utility, should it only lead us tosympathize with the strivings of the human intellect,awakened to the infinite importance of the inward oracleγνῶθι σεαυτόν—and almost instinctively shaping its courseof search in conformity with the Platonic intimation:-ψυχῆς φύσιν ἀξίως λόγου κατανοῆσαι οἴεῖ δυνατὸν εἶναι, ἄνευτῆς τοῦ ὅλου φύσεως; but be this as it may, the groundwork of the Eschylean mythus is laid in the definition of

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74 THE PROMETHEUSidea and law, as correlatives that mutually interpret eachthe other; an idea, with the adequate power of realizingitself being a law, and a law considered abstractedly from,or in the absence of, the power of manifesting itself in itsappropriate product, being an idea. Whether this be truephilosophy, is not the question. The school of Aristotlewould, of course, deny, the Platonic affirm it; for in thisconsists the difference of the two schools . Both acknowledge ideas as distinct from the mere generalizations from objects of sense: both would define an idea as an ensrationale, to which there can be no adequate correspondentin sensible experience. But, according to Aristotle, ideasare regulative only, and exist only as functions of themind:—according to Plato, they are constitutive likewise,and one in essence with the power and life of nature; -ἐν λόγῳ ζωὴ ἦν, καὶ ἡ ζωὴ ἦν τὸ φῶς τῶν ἀνθρώπων. And thisI assert, was the philosophy of the mythic poets, who, likeEschylus, adapted the secret doctrines of the mysteries asthe (not always safely disguised) antidote to the debasinginfluences of the religion of the state .But to return and conclude this preliminary explanation.We have only to substitute the term will, and the termconstitutive power, for nomos or law, and the process is the same. Permit me to represent the identity or prothesis bythe letter Z and the thesis and antithesis by X and Y respectively. Then I say X by not being Y, but in consequence of being the correlative opposite of Y, is will; andY, by not being X, but the correlative and opposite of X,is nature, —natura naturans, vóµos puσiкós. Hence we maysee the necessity of contemplating the idea now as identicalwith the reason, and now as one with the will, and now asboth in one, in which last case I shall, for conveniencesake, employ the term Nous, the rational will, the practicalreason.We are now out of the holy jungle of transcendentalOF ÆSCHYLUS. 75metaphysics: if indeed, the reader's patience shall havehad strength and persistency enough to allow me to exclaim-"Ivimus amboPer densas umbras: at tenet umbra Deum."Not that I regard the foregoing as articles of faith , or asall true;-I have implied the contrary by contrasting itwith, at least, by shewing, its disparateness from, theMosaic, which, bona fide, I do regard as the truth . But Ibelieve there is much, and profound, truth in it, supracaptum iooopwv, qui non agnosc*nt divinum, ideoque necnaturam, nisi nomine, agnosc*nt; sed res cunctas ex sensualicorporeo cogitant, quibus hac ex causa interiora clausa manent,et simul cum illis exteriora quæ proxima interioribus sunt!And with no less confidence do I believe that the positionsabove given, true or false, are contained in the Prometheanmythus.In this mythus, Jove is the impersonated representationor symbol of the nomos-Jupiter est quodcunque vides. Heis the mens agitans molem, but at the same time, the molemcorpoream ponens et constituens. And so far the Greekphilosopheme does not differ essentially from the cosmotheism, or identification of God with the universe, in whichconsisted the first apostacy of mankind after the flood,when they combined to raise a temple to the heavens, andwhich is still the favored religion of the Chinese. Prometheus, in like manner, is the impersonated representativeof Idea, or of the same power as Jove, but contemplated .as independent and not immersed in the product, —as lawminus the productive energy. As such it is next to beseen what the several significances of each must or may be,according to the philosophic conception; and of whichsignificances, therefore, should we find in the philosophemea correspondent to each, we shall be entitled to assert thatsuch are the meanings of the fable. And first of Jove:-76 THE PROMETHEUSJove represents 1. Nomos generally, as opposed to Idea orNous: 2. Nomos archinomos, now as the father, now as thesovereign, and now as the includer and representative ofthe νόμοι οὐράνιοι κοσμικοί, or dii majores, who, had joined or come over to Jove in the first schism: 3. Nomosδαμνητής -the subjugator of the spirits, of the ιδέαι πρόνομοι,who, thus subjugated, became νόμοι υπονόμιοι υποσπόνδοι ,Titanes pacati, dii minores, that is, the elements consideredas powers reduced to obedience under yet higher powersthan themselves: 4. Nomos Toλɩɩкóç, law in the Paulinesense, νόμος αλλοτριόνομος in antithesis to νόμος αὐτόνομος.COROLLARY.It is in this sense that Jove's jealous, ever- quarrelsome,spouse represents the political sacerdotal cultus, the church,in short, of republican paganism; -a church by law established for the mere purposes of the particular state,unennobled by the consciousness of instrumentality tohigher purposes; -at once unenlightened and uncheckedby revelation. Most gratefully ought we to acknowledgethat since the completion of our constitution in 1688, wemay, with unflattering truth, elucidate the spirit and character of such a church by the contrast of the institution, towhich England owes the larger portion of its superiorityin that, in which alone superiority is an unmixed blessing,-the diffused cultivation of its inhabitants. But, previously to this period, I shall offend no enlightened man ifI say without distinction of parties-intra muros peccaturet extra; —that the history of Christendom presents us withtoo many illustrations of this Junonian jealousy, this factious harassing of the sovereign power as soon as the latterbetrayed any symptoms of a disposition to its true policy,namely, to privilege and perpetuate that which is best, -toOF ESCHYLUS. 77tolerate the tolerable, —and to restrain none but those whowould restrain all, and subjugate even the state itself. Butwhile truth extorts this confession, it, at the same time,requires that it should be accompanied by an avowal of thefact, that the spirit is a relic of Paganism; and with abitter smile would an Eschylus or a Plato in the shades,listen to a Gibbon or a Hume vaunting the mild and tolerantspirit of the state religions of ancient Greece or Rome.Here we have the sense of Jove's intrigues with Europa,Io, &c. whom the god, in his own nature a general lover,had successively taken under his protection. And here,too, see the full appropriateness of this part of the mythus, inwhich symbol fades away into allegory, but yet in referenceto the working cause, as grounded in humanity, and alwaysexisting either actually or potentially, and thus never ceaseswholly to be a symbol or tautegory.Prometheus represents, 1. sensu generali, Idea πρóvoμos ,and in this sense he is a 0ɛòs oµóquλos, a fellow- tribesmanboth of the dii majores, with Jove at their head, and of theTitans or dii pacati: 2. He represents Idea piλóvóμos,voμodεíkтns; and in this sense the former friend and counsellor of Jove or Nous uranius: 3. Aóyos piλávОρwños, thedivine humanity, the humane God, who retained unseen,kept back, or (in the catachresis characteristic of the Phoenicio- Grecian mythology) stole, a portion or ignicula fromthe living spirit of law, which remained with the celestialgods unexpended ἐν τῷ νομίζεσθαι. He gave that which,according to the whole analogy of things, should have existed either as pure divinity, the sole property and birthright of the Dii Joviales, the Uranions, or was conceded toinferior beings as a substans in substantiato. This sparkdivine Prometheus gave to an elect, a favored animal, notas a substans or understanding, commensurate with, andconfined by, the constitution and conditions of this particular organism, but as aliquid superstans, liberum, non78 THE PROMETHEUSsubactum, invictum, impacatum, un voμlóμevov. This gift,by which we are to understand reason theoretical andpractical, was therefore a vóμoc avтóvoμoc-unapproachableand unmodifiable by the animal basis -that is, by the preexisting substans with its products, the animal organismuswith its faculties and functions; but yet endowed with thepower of potentiating, ennobling, and prescribing to, thesubstance; and hence, therefore, a vóμos voμожεions, lexlegisuada: 4. By a transition, ordinary even in allegory,and appropriate to mythic symbol, but especially significantin the present case—-the transition, I mean, from the giverto the gift-the giver, in very truth, being the gift, ‘ whencethe soul receives reason; and reason is her being, ' says ourMilton. Reason is from God, and God is reason, mensipsissima.5. Prometheus represents, Nous ἐν ἀνθρώπῳνοῦς ἀγωνιστTs. Thus contemplated, the Nous is of necessity, powerless; for, all power, that is, productivity, or productiveenergy, is in Law, that is, vóμos νόμος áλλorpióvoμoç ἀλλοτριόνομος: still,however, the Idea in the Law the numerus numerans become vóμos, is the principle of the Law; and if with Lawdwells power, so with the knowledge or the Idea scientialisof the Law, dwells prophecy and foresight. A perfectastronomical time-piece in relation to the motions of theheavenly bodies, or the magnet in the mariner's compassin relation to the magnetism of the earth, is a sufficientillustration.6. Both vóμos and Idea (or Nous) are the verbum; but,as in the former, it is verbum fiat ' the Word of the Lord, '-in the latter it must be the verbum fiet, or, ' the Word ofthe Lord in the mouth of the prophet. ' Pari argumento, asthe knowledge is therefore not power, the power is not1 " I scarcely need say, that I use the word aλλorpióvoμoç as a participleactive, as exercising law on another, not as receiving law from another,though the latter is the classical force ( I suppose) of the word.—C.”OF ESCHYLUS. 79knowledge. The νόμος, the Ζευς παντοκράτωρ, seeks to learn,and, as it were, to wrest the secret, the hateful secret, of hisown fate, namely, the transitoriness adherent to all antithesis; for the identity or the absolute is alone eternal .This secret Jove would extort from the Nous, or Prometheus,which is the sixth representment of Prometheus.7. Introduce but the least of real as opposed to ideal, theleast speck of positive existence, even though it were butthe mote in a sunbeam, into the sciential contemplamen ortheorem, and it ceases to be science. Ratio desinit esse puraratio et fit discursus, stat subter et fit ¿ãÓÐεтɩкòν: —non superstat. The Nous is bound to a rock, the immovable firmnessof which is indissolubly connected with its barrenness, itsnon- productivity. Were it productive it would be Nomos;but it is Nous, because it is not Nomos.8. Solitary ἀβάτῳ aẞár év épnµią. Now I say that the Nous,notwithstanding its diversity from the Nomizomeni, is yet,relatively to their supposed original essence, πᾶσι τοῖς νομιŽoμÉvois TAVTOYEVǹs, of the same race or radix: though inanother sense, namely, in relation to the πãν Oɛov-thepantheistic Elohim, it is conceived anterior to the schism,and to the conquest, and enthronization of Jove whosucceeded . Hence the Prometheus of the great tragedianis Oɛòs ovyyεvýs. The kindred deities come to him, someto soothe, to condole; others to give weak, yet friendly,counsels of submission; others to tempt, or insult. Themost prominent of the latter, and the most odious to theimprisoned and insulated Nous, is Hermes, the impersonation of interest with the entrancing and serpentine Caduceus,and, as interest or motives intervening between the reasonand its immediate self- determinations, with the antipathiesto the νόμος αυτονόμος. The Hermes impersonates theeloquence of cupidity, the cajolement of power regnant;and in a larger sense, custom, the irrational in language,ῥήματα τὰ ῥητόρικα, the fluent from ῥέω—the rhetorical in80 THE PROMETHEUSopposition to λóyo , τà voŋτá. But, primarily, the Hermesis the symbol of interest . He is the messenger, the internuncio, in the low but expressive phrase, the go- between,to beguile or insult. And for the other visitors of Prometheus, the elementary powers, or spirits of the elements,Titanes pacati, Oɛoì ómovóμioi, vassal potentates, and theirsolicitations, the noblest interpretation will be given, if Irepeat the lines of our great contemporary poet:-"Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own:Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind,And even with something of a mother's mind,And no unworthy aim,The homely nurse doth all she canTo make her foster- child, her inmate, Man,Forget the glories he hath known,And that imperial palace whence he came:- دوWORDSWORTH.¹which exquisite passage is prefigured in coarser clay, indeed,and with a less lofty spirit, but yet excellently in theirkind, and even more fortunately for the illustration andornament of the present commentary, in the fifth, sixth , andseventh stanzas of Dr. Henry More's poem on the Preexistence of the Soul:-"Thus groping after our own center's nearAnd proper substance, we grew dark, contract,Swallow'd up of earthly life! Ne what we wereOf old, thro' ignorance can we detect.Like noble babe , by fate or friends ' neglectLeft to the care of sorry salvage wight,Grown up to manly years cannot conjectHis own true parentage, nor read arightWhat father him begot, what womb him brought to light.So we, as stranger infants elsewhere born,Cannot divine from what spring we did flow;From the Ode " Intimations of Immortality," &c.OF ESCHYLUS. 81Ne dare these base alliances to scorn,Nor lift ourselves a whit from hence below;Ne strive our parentage again to know,Ne dream we once of any other stock,Since foster'd upon Rhea's knees we growIn Satyrs' arms with many a mow and mockOft danced; and hairy Pan our cradle oft hath rock'd!But Pan nor Rhea be our parentage!We been the offspring of the all seeing Nous, &c."To express the supersensual character of reason, its abstraction from sensation, we find the Prometheus άτερπñ‚—while in the yearnings accompanied with the remorse incident to, and only possible in consequence of the Nousbeing, the rational, self- conscious, and therefore responsiblewill, he is γυπὶ διακναιόμενος.If to these contemplations we add the control and despotism exercised on the free reason by Jupiter in his symbolical character, as vóμos toλitikòs; —by custom (Hermes);by necessity, Bíα каì кρатòs; by the mechanic arts andpowers, σvyyɛveis T Now though they are, and which aresymbolized in Hephaistos , —we shall see at once the propriety of the title, Prometheus, deoµwτns.9. Nature, or Zeus as the vóuos év voμiloμévoic, knowsherself only, can only come to a knowledge of herself, inman! And even in man, only as man is supernatural,above nature, noetic. But this knowledge man refuses tocommunicate; that is, the human understanding alone isat once self- conscious and conscious of nature. And thishigh prerogative it owes exclusively to its being an assessor1"Rhea (from pew, fluo), that is, the earth as the transitory, the everflowing nature, the flux and sum of phenomena, or objects of the outwardsense, in contradistinction from the earth as Vesta, as the firmamentallaw that sustains and disposes the apparent world! The Satyrs represent the sports and appetences of the sensuous nature (opóvnμa oаρкòç)-Pan, or the total life of the earth, the presence of all in each, the universal organismus of bodies and bodily energy. "—C,G82 THE PROMETHEUSof the reason. Yet even the human understanding in itsheight of place seeks vainly to appropriate the ideas of thepure reason, which it can only represent by idola. Here,then, the Nous stands as Prometheus avriπaλos renuens—inhostile opposition to Jupiter Inquisitor.10. Yet finally, against the obstacles and even under thefostering influences of the Nomos, тov voµíµov, a son of Jovehimself, but a descendant from Io, the mundane religion, ascontra- distinguished from the sacerdotal cultus, or religionof the state, an Alcides Liberator will arise, and the Nous,or divine principle in man, will be Prometheus ¿λɛv0ɛρwμενος.Did mylimits or time permit me to trace the persecutions ,wanderings, and migrations of the Io, the mundane religion,through the whole map marked out by the tragic poet, thecoincidences would bring the truth, the unarbitrariness,of the preceding exposition as near to demonstration ascan rationally be required on a question of history, thatmust, for the greater part, be answered by combination ofscattered facts. But this part of my subject, together witha particular exemplification of the light which my theorythrows both on the sense and the beauty of numerous passages of this stupendous poem, I must reserve for a futurecommunication.NOTES.¹v. 15. pápayyı:-' in a coomb, or combe. 'v. 17.ἐξωριάζειν γὰρ πατρὸς λόγους βαρύ.εvwpιážεiv, as the editor confesses, is a word introduced1 These two notes, which H. N. C. appends, have no connection with theessay. They are merely marginal notes found in Coleridge's copy ofEschylus,-" Bp. Blomfield's Edition."OF ESCHLYUS . 83into the text against the authority of all editions and manuscripts. I should prefer wpιášεv, notwithstanding itsbeing a ἅπαξ λεγόμενον . The εὐ-seems to my tact ' toofree and easy a word; —and yet our ' to trifle with ' appearsthe exact meaning.¹ Would seem to be a misprint for " taste."

FRAGMENTS AND NOTES, MAINLYFROM THE LECTURES OF 1818 .

FRAGMENTS AND NOTES, MAINLY FROMTHE LECTURES OF 1818.EDITOR'S NOTE.AFULL account of Coleridge's Lectures of 1818 is given in our earlier volume, Lectures and Notes on Shakspere,andother English Poets. There will be found the Prospectusand the Syllabus of the Course, as well as all the fragmentsand notes which relate to Chaucer, Spenser, Milton, Jonson,Beaumont, Fletcher, Massinger, and Shakspere.present Division supplies the remainder.66OurWe showed, in the former volume, that the lectures andnotes on Shakspere, produced by H. N. Coleridge in theRemains," had no necessary connection with the threelectures on Shakspere, in the Course of 1818: -nor, for thatmatter, does he say that they have.It is much the same with the remaining portion ofH. N. Coleridge's materials. Under the head of Lecture I.,Lecture II. , &c. , he displays-for we cannot say, arranges,—all the matter he has found on the subject each lecturehandled.So that we may have an essay, or fragment of an essay,by Coleridge, used-or not used-in 1818, written before,88 EDITOR'S NOTE.or written after; we may have mere memoranda, by him,made for or not made for the lectures, or reports, ormemoranda, made by others, who heard them; or, lastly,marginal notes, collected out of books, by the editor or hisfriends.Under these circ*mstances we have not hesitated todiscard the division into Lectures for a more convenientarrangement.SECTION I.THE MIDDLE AGES.General Character of the Gothic Mind in the Middle Ages.¹MR. COLERIDGE began by treating of the races of mankind as descended from Shem, Ham, andJaphet, and therein of the early condition of man in hisantique form . He then dwelt on the pre-eminence of theGreeks in Art and Philosophy, and noticed the suitableness of polytheism to small insulated states, in whichpatriotism acted as a substitute for religion, in destroyingor suspending self . Afterwards, in consequence of the extension of the Roman empire, some universal or commonspirit became necessary for the conservation of the vast body,and this common spirit was, in fact, produced in Christianity.The causes of the decline of the Roman empire were inoperation longbefore the time of the actual overthrow; thatoverthrow had been foreseen by many eminent Romans,especially by Seneca. In fact, there was under the empirean Italian and a German party in Rome, and in the endthe latter prevailed .He then proceeded to describe the generic character of theReport of Lecture I., by Professor Green, -" Member of the RoyalCollege of Surgeons, the approved Friend of Coleridge," as the Dedication of the " Remains " to him describes him, —and Coleridge's executor.90 THE LECTURES OF 1818.Northern nations, and defined it as an independence of thewhole in the freedom of the individual, noticing their respect for women, and their consequent chivalrous spirit inwar; and how evidently the participation in the generalcouncil laid the foundation of the representative form ofgovernment, the only rational mode of preserving individualliberty in opposition to the licentious democracy of the .ancient republics.He called our attention to the peculiarity of their art,and showed how it entirely depended on a symbolical expression of the infinite, —which is not vastness, nor immensity, nor perfection, but whatever cannot be circ*mscribedwithin the limits of actual sensuous being . In the ancientart, on the contrary, every thing was finite and material.Accordingly, sculpture was not attempted by the Gothicraces till the ancient specimens were discovered, whilstpainting and architecture were of native growth amongstthem . In the earliest specimens of the paintings ofmodern ages, as in those of Giotto and his associates in thecemetery at Pisa, this complexity, variety, and symbolicalcharacter are evident, and are more fully developed in themightier works of Michel Angelo and Raffael.The contemplation of the works of antique art excites a feeling ofelevated beauty, and exalted notions of the human self; butthe Gothic architecture impresses the beholder with a senseof self- annihilation; he becomes , as it were, a part of thework contemplated . An endless complexity and varietyare united into one whole, the plan of which is not distinctfrom the execution. A Gothic cathedral is the petrefactionof our religion. The only work of truly modern sculptureis the Moses of Michel Angelo.The Northern nations were prepared by their ownprevious religion for Christianity; they, for the most part,received it gladly, and it took root as in a native soil . Thedeference to woman, characteristic of the Gothic races,THE MIDDLE AGES . 91combined itself with devotion in the idea of the VirginMother, and gave rise to many beautiful associations.Mr. C. remarked how Gothic an instrument in origin andcharacter the organ was.He also enlarged on the influence of female character onour education, the first impressions of our childhood being derived from women. Amongst oriental nations, he said,the only distinction was between lord and slave. Withthe antique Greeks, the will of every one conflicting withthe will of all, produced licentiousness; with the moderndescendants from the northern stocks, both these extremeswere shut out, to reappear mixed and condensed into thisprinciple or temper; -submission, but with free choice, —illustrated in chivalrous devotion to women as such, inattachment to the sovereign, &c.General Character of the Gothic Literature and Art.¹TheIn my last lecture I stated that the descendants ofJaphet and Shem peopled Europe and Asia, fulfilling intheir distribution the prophecies of Scripture, while thedescendants of Ham passed into Africa, there also actuallyverifying the interdiction pronounced against them.Keltic and Teutonic nations occupied that part of Europe,which is now France, Britain, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, &c. They were in general a hardy race, possessinggreat fortitude, and capable of great endurance. TheRomans slowly conquered the more southerly portion oftheir tribes, and succeeded only by their superior arts, theirpolicy, and better discipline. After a time, when theGoths, to use the name of the noblest and most historicalof the Teutonic tribes, -had acquired some knowledge of1 Report of Lecture II. , by Mr. William Hammond.92 THE LECTURES OF 1818.these arts from mixing with their conquerors, they invadedthe Roman territories . The hardy habits, the steady perseverance, the better faith of the enduring Goth, renderedhim too formidable an enemy for the corrupt Roman, whowas more inclined to purchase the subjection of his enemy,than to go through the suffering necessary to secure it.The conquest of the Romans gave to the Goths theChristian religion as it was then existing in Italy; and thelight and graceful building of Grecian, or Roman- Greekorder, became singularly combined with the massy architecture of the Goths, as wild and varied as the forest ,vegetation which it resembled. The Greek art is beautiful.When I enter a Greek church, my eye is charmed, and mymind elated; I feel exalted, and proud that I am a man.But the Gothic art is sublime. On entering a cathedral,I am filled with devotion and with awe; I am lost to theactualities that surround me, and my whole being expandsinto the infinite; earth and air, nature and art, all swellup into eternity, and the only sensible impression left, is,' that I am nothing! ' This religion, while it tended tosoften the manners of the Northern tribes, was at the sametime highly congenial to their nature. The Goths are freefrom the stain of hero worship. Gazing on their ruggedmountains, surrounded by impassable forests, accustomedto gloomy seasons, they lived in the bosom of nature, andworshipped an invisible and unknown deity. Firm in hisfaith, domestic in his habits, the life of the Goth wassimple and dignified, yet tender and affectionate.The Greeks were remarkable for complacency and completion; they delighted in whatever pleased the eye; tothem it was not enough to have merely the idea of adivinity, they must have it placed before them, shaped inthe most perfect symmetry, and presented with the nicestjudgment; and if we look upon any Greek production ofart, the beauty of its parts, and the harmony of their union,THE MIDDLE AGES. 93the complete and complacent effect of the whole are thestriking characteristics. It is the same in their poetry.In Homer you have a poem perfect in its form , whetheroriginally so, or from the labour of after critics , I knownot; his descriptions are pictures brought vividly before.you, and as far as the eye and understanding are concerned,I am indeed gratified. But if I wish my feelings to beaffected, if I wish my heart to be touched, if I wish tomelt into sentiment and tenderness, I must turn to theheroic songs of the Goths, to the poetry of the middleages. The worship of statues in Greece had, in a civilsense, its advantage, and disadvantage; advantage, inpromoting statuary and the arts; disadvantage, in bringingtheir gods too much on a level with human beings, andthence depriving them of their dignity, and graduallygiving rise to scepticism and ridicule . But no statue, noartificial emblem, could satisfy the Northman's mind; thedark wild imagery of nature, which surrounded him, andthe freedom of his life, gave his mind a tendency to theinfinite, so that he found rest in that which presented noend, and derived satisfaction from that which wasindistinct.We have few and uncertain vestiges of Gothic literaturetill the time of Theodoric, who encouraged his subjects towrite, and who made a collection of their poems. Theseconsisted chiefly of heroic songs, sung at the Court; for atthat time this was the custom. Charlemagne, in thebeginning of the ninth century, greatly encouraged letters,and made a further collection of the poems of his time,among which were several epic poems of great merit; orrather in strictness there was a vast cycle of heroic poems,or minstrelsies, from and out of which separate poems werecomposed. The form of poetry was, however, for the mostpart, the metrical romance and heroic tale . Charlemagne'sarmy, or a large division of it, was utterly destroyed in the94 THE LECTURES OF 1818.Pyrenees, when returning from a successful attack on theArabs of Navarre and Arragon; yet the name of Roncesvalles became famous in the songs of the Gothic poets .The Greeks and Romans would not have done this; theywould not have recorded in heroic verse the death anddefeat of their fellow- countrymen. But the Goths, firm intheir faith, with a constancy not to be shaken, celebratedthose brave men who died for their religion and theircountry! What though they had been defeated, they diedwithout fear, as they had lived without reproach; they leftno stain on their names, for they fell fighting for theirGod, their liberty, and their rights; and the song thatsang that day's reverse animated them to future victoryand certain vengeance.I must now turn to our great monarch, Alfred, one ofthe most august characters that any age has ever produced;and when I picture him after the toils of government andthe dangers of battle, seated by a solitary lamp, translatingthe holy scriptures into the Saxon tongue, —when I reflecton his moderation in success, on his fortitude and perseverance in difficulty and defeat, and on the wisdom andextensive nature of his legislation, I am really at a losswhich part of this great man's character most to admire.Yet above all, I see the grandeur, the freedom, the mildness, the domestic unity, the universal character of themiddle ages, condensed into Alfred's glorious institution ofthe trial by jury. I gaze upon it as the immortal symbolof that age; an age called indeed dark; —but how couldthat age be considered dark, which solved the difficultproblem of universal liberty, freed man from the shacklesof tyranny, and subjected his actions to the decision oftwelve of his fellow countrymen? The liberty of theGreeks was a phenomenon, a meteor, which blazed for ashort time, and then sank into eternal darkness . It was acombination of most opposite materials, slavery and liberty.THE MIDDLE AGES. 95Such can neither be happy nor lasting. The Goths on theother hand said, You shall be our Emperor; but we mustbe Princes on our own estates, and over them you shallhave no power! The Vassals said to their Prince, Wewill serve you in your wars, and defend your castle; butwe must have liberty in our own circle, our cottage, ourcattle, our proportion of land. The Cities said, We acknowledge you for our Emperor; but we must have ourwalls and our strong holds, and be governed by our ownlaws. Thus all combined, yet all were separate; all served,yet all were free. Such a government could not exist in adark age. Our ancestors may not indeed have been deepin the metaphysics of the schools; they may not have shonein the fine arts; but much knowledge of human nature,much practical wisdom, must have existed amongst them,when this admirable constitution was formed; and Ibelieve it is a decided truth, though certainly an awfullesson, that nations are not the most happy at the timewhen literature and the arts flourish the most among them .The translations I had promised in my syllabus I shalldefer to the end of the course, when I shall give a singlelecture of recitations illustrative of the different ages ofpoetry. There is one Northern tale I will relate, as it isone from which Shakspere derived that strongly markedand extraordinary scene between Richard III. and theLady Anne. It may not be equal to that in strength andgenius, but it is, undoubtedly, superior in decorum anddelicacy.A Knight had slain a Prince, the lord of a strong castle,in combat. He afterwards contrived to get into the castle,where he obtained an interview with the Princess's attendant, whose life he had saved in some encounter; he toldher of his love for her mistress, and won her to his interest .How pleased we should have been to have this lecture!96 THE LECTURES OF 1818.She then slowly and gradually worked on her mistress'smind, spoke of the beauty of his person, the fire of hiseyes, the sweetness of his voice, his valour in the field, hisgentleness in the court; in short, by watching her opportunities, she at last filled the Princess's soul with this oneimage; she became restless; sleep forsook her; hercuriosity to see this Knight became strong; but her maidstill deferred the interview, till at length she confessed shewas in love with him; -the Knight is then introduced, andthe nuptials are quickly celebrated.In this age there was a tendency in writers to the drolland the grotesque, and in the little dramas which at thattime existed, there were singular instances of these. Itwas the disease of the age. It is a remarkable fact thatLuther and Melancthon, the great religious reformers ofthat day, should have strongly recommended for the education of children, dramas, which at present would beconsidered highly indecorous, if not bordering on a deepersin. From one which they particularly recommended, Iwill give a few extracts; more I should not think it rightto do. The play opens with Adam and Eve washing anddressing their children to appear before the Lord, who iscoming from heaven to hear them repeat the Lord'sPrayer, Belief, &c . In the next scene the Lord appearsseated like a schoolmaster, with the children standinground, when Cain, who is behindhand, and a sad pickle,comes running in with a bloody nose and his hat on.Adam says, " What, with your hat on! " Cain then goesup to shake hands with the Almighty, when Adam says(giving him a cuff) , “ Ah, would you give your left handto the Lord? " At length Cain takes his place in theclass, and it becomes his turn to say the Lord's Prayer.At this time the Devil (a constant attendant at that time)makes his appearance, and getting behind Cain, whispersin his ear; instead of the Lord's Prayer, Cain gives it soTHE MIDDLE AGES. 97changed by the transposition of the words, that the meaningis reversed; yet this is so artfully done by the author, thatit is exactly as an obstinate child would answer, whoknows his lesson, yet does not choose to say it. In thelast scene, horses in rich trappings and carriages coveredwith gold are introduced, and the good children are toride in them and be Lord Mayors, Lords, &c.; Cain andthe bad ones are to be made cobblers and tinkers, and onlyto associate with such.This, with numberless others, was written by HansSachs. Our simple ancestors, firm in their faith, and purein their morals, were only amused by these pleasantries , asthey seemed to them, and neither they nor the reformersfeared their having any influence hostile to religion.When I was many years back in the north of Germany,there were several innocent superstitions in practice .Among others at Christmas, presents used to be given tothe children by the parents, and they were delivered onChristmas day by a person who personated , and wassupposed by the children to be, Christ: early on Christmasmorning he called, knocking loudly at the door, and (having received his instructions) left presents for the goodand a rod for the bad. Those who have since been inGermany have found this custom relinquished; it wasconsidered profane and irrational. Yet they have notfound the children better, nor the mothers more careful oftheir offspring; they have not found their devotion morefervent, their faith more strong, nor their morality morepure.¹1 "See this custom of Knecht Rupert more minutely described in Mr.Coleridge's own letter from Germany, published in the 2nd vol. of theFriend, p. 320."-H. N. C. The reference is to p. 243 of the StandardLibrary Edition of " The Friend. " We have but a fragment of a letter.H8889THELECTURESOF1818.The Troubadours.¹The last Lecture was allotted to an investigation into theorigin and character of a species of poetry, the least influenced of any by the literature of Greece and Rome, —that in which the portion contributed by the Gothic conquerors, the predilections and general tone or habit ofthought and feeling, brought by our remote ancestors withthem from the forests of Germany, or the deep dells androcky mountains of Norway, are the most prominent. Inthe present Lecture I must introduce you to a species ofpoetry, which had its birth- place near the centre of Romanglory, and in which, as might be anticipated, the influencesof the Greek and Roman muse are far more conspicuous, ―as great, indeed, as the efforts of intentional imitation onthe part of the poets themselves could render them. Buthappily for us and for their own fame, the intention of thewriters as men is often at complete variance with the geniusof the same men as poets. To the force of their intentionwe owe their mythological ornaments, and the greaterdefiniteness of their imagery; and their passion for thebeautiful, the voluptuous, and the artificial, we must in partattribute to the same intention, but in part likewise to theirnatural dispositions and tastes. Forthe same climate andmany of the same circ*mstances were acting on them, whichhad acted on the great classics, whom they were endeavouring to imitate. But the love of the marvellous, the deepersensibility, the higher reverence for womanhood, the characteristic spirit of sentiment and courtesy, —these were theheir-looms of nature, which still regained the ascendant,whenever the use of the living mother-language enabledthe inspired poet to appear instead of the toilsome scholar.1¹ The rest of Section I. belongs to the Third Lecture.THE MIDDLE AGES. 99From this same union, in which the soul ( if I may dareso express myself) was Gothic, while the outward forms anda majority of the words themselves, were the reliques of theRoman, arose the Romance, or romantic language, inwhich the Troubadours or Love- singers of Provence sangand wrote, and the different dialects of which have beenmodified into the modern Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese;while the language of the Trouveurs, Trouveres, or Norman-French poets, forms the intermediate link between theRomance or modified Roman and the Teutonic, includingthe Dutch, Danish, Swedish, and the upper and lowerGerman, as being the modified Gothic. And as the northernmost extreme of the Norman- French, or that part of thelink in which it formed on the Teutonic, we must take theNorman- English minstrels and metrical romances, from thegreater predominance of the Anglo- Saxon Gothic in thederivation of the words . I mean, that the language of theEnglish metrical romance is less romanized, and has fewerwords, not originally of a northern origin, than the sameromances in the Norman- French; which is the morestriking, because the former were for the most part translated from the latter; the authors of which seem to haveeminently merited their name of Trouveres, or inventors.Thus then we have a chain with two rings or staples:-at the southern end there is the Roman or Latin; at thenorthern end the Keltic, Teutonic, or Gothic; and the linksbeginning with the southern end, are the Romance, including the Provençal, the Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese,with their different dialects; then the Norman- French, andlastly the English.

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Boccaccio.My object in adverting to the Italian poets, is not so muchfor their own sakes, in which point of view Dante and100 THE LECTURES OF 1818.Ariosto alone would have required separate Lectures, but forthe elucidation of the merits of our countrymen, as to whatextent we must consider them as fortunate imitators of theirItalian predecessors, and in what points they have thehigher claims of original genius. Of Dante I am to speakelsewhere. Of Boccaccio, who has little interest as ametrical poet in any respect, and none for my present purpose, except, perhaps, as the reputed inventor or introducerof the octave stanza in his Teseide, it will be sufficient tosay, that we owe to him the subjects of numerous poemstaken from his famous tales, the happy art of narration, andthe still greater merit of a depth and fineness in the workings of the passions, in which last excellence, as likewisein the wild and imaginative character of the situations, hisalmost neglected romances appear to me greatly to excel hisfar famed Decameron. To him, too, we owe the moredoubtful merit of having introduced into the Italian prose,and by the authority of his name and the influence of hisexample, more or less throughout Europe, the long interwoven periods, and architectural structure which arosefrom the very nature of their language in the Greek writers,but which already, in the Latin orators and historians, hadbetrayed a species of effort, a foreign something, which hadbeen superinduced on the language, instead of growing outof it; and which was far too alien from that individualizingand confederating, yet not blending, character of the North,to become permanent, although its magnificence and stateliness were objects of admiration and occasional imitation.This style diminished the control of the writer over theinner feelings of men, and created too great a charmbetween the body and the life; and hence especially it wasabandoned by Luther.But lastly, to Boccaccio's sanction we must trace a largeportion of the mythological pedantry and incongruouspaganisms, which for so long a period deformed the poetry,THE MIDDLE AGES. 101even of the truest poets. To such an extravagance didBoccaccio himself carry this folly, that in a romance ofchivalry, he has uniformly styled God the Father Jupiter,our Saviour Apollo, and the Evil Being Pluto. But forthis there might be some excuse pleaded. I dare makenone for the gross and disgusting licentiousness, the daringprofaneness, which rendered the Decameron of Boccacciothe parent of a hundred worse children, fit to be classedamong the enemies of the human race: which poisonsAriosto, for that I may not speak oftener than necessaryof so odious a subject, I mention it here once for all , —whichinterposes a painful mixture in the humour of Chaucer,and which has once or twice seduced even our pure- mindedSpenser into a grossness, as heterogeneous from the spiritof his great poem, as it was alien to the delicacy of hismorals.Petrarch.Born at Arezzo, 1304.-Died 1374.Petrarch was the final blossom and perfection of theTroubadours. See Biog. Lit. vol. ii . p. 27, &c.1Notes on Petrarch's' Sonnets, Canzones, &c.Good. SONNET 1 .7.11.VOL. I." Voi, ch' ascoltate," &c ."La gola e ' l sonno," &c." Se la mia vita," &c.66 12. Quando fra l'altre," &c.“ These notes, by Mr. C. , are written in a Petrarch in my possession,and are of some date before 1812. It is hoped that they will not seemill placed here. "-H. N. C.102 THE LECTURES OF 1818.18.25.28.29."Vergognando talor," &c."Quanto più m' avvicino," &c."Solo e pensoso," &c."S' io credessi," &c.CANZ. 14. " Sì è debile il filo," &c.Pleasing. BALL. 1 . "Lassare il velo," &c.CANZ. 1. "Nel dolce tempo," &c.This poem was imitated by our old Herbert; ¹ it is ridiculous in the thoughts, but simple and sweet in diction.Dignified. CAnz. 2.9."O aspettata in ciel," &c."Gentil mia Donna," &c.The first half of this ninth canzone is exquisite; and inCanzone 8, the nine lines beginning" O poggi, o valli, " &c.to cura, are expressed with vigour and chastity.CANZ. 9.66Note.Daquel dì innanzi a me medesmo piacqui,Empiendo d'un pensier' alto , e soaveQuel core, ond' hanno i begli occhi la chiave."1O that the Pope would take these eternal keys,which so for ever turn the bolts on the finest passages oftrue passion!VOL. II.CANZ. 1. " Che debb' io far? " &c.Very good; but not equal, I think, to Canzone 2, -"Amor, se vuoi ch' i' torni, " &c.—though less faulty. With the omission of half- a- dozenconceits and Petrarchisms of hooks, baits, flames, and torches,this second canzone is a bold and impassioned lyric, andleaves no doubt in my mind of Petrarch's having possesseda true poetic genius. Utinam deleri possint sequentia:-1 "If George Herbert is meant, I can find nothing like an imitation ofthis canzone in his poems. "-H. N. C.THE MIDDLE AGES. 103L. 17-19.L. 54-56.L. 76-79."e la soave fiammaCh' ancor, lasso! m'infiammaEssendo spenta, or che fea dunque ardendo? ""ov' erano a tutt' oreDisposti gli ami ov' io fui preso e l'esca Ch'i' bramo sempre.""onde l' acceseSaette uscivan d' invisibil foco,E ragion temean poco;Chè contra ' l ciel non val difesa umana."And the linesL. 86, 87, " Poser' in dubbio, a cuiDevesse il pregio di più laude darsi,”—are rather flatly worded.Luigi Pulci.Born at Florence, 1431.-Died about 1487.Pulci was of one of the noblest families in Florence,reported to be one of the Frankish stocks which remainedin that city after the departure of Charlemagne:-" Pulcia Gallorum soboles descendit in urbem,Clara quidem bello, sacris nec inhospita Musis ."Verino De illustrat. Cort. Flor. III. v. 118.Members of this family were five times elected to thePriorate, one of the highest honours of the republic.Pulci had two brothers, and one of their wives, Antonia,who were all poets:-"Carminibus patriis notissima Pulcia proles;Quis non hanc urbem Musarum dicat amicam,Si tres producat fratres domus una poetas?"Ib. II. v. 241.1 Let the reader set down the clumsiness of this sentence to thereporter.104 THE LECTURES OF 1818.Luigi married Lucrezia di Uberto, of the Albizzi family,and was intimate with the great men of his time, but moreespecially with Angelo Politian, and Lorenzo the Magnificent. His Morgante has been attributed, in part at least, ¹to the assistance of Marsilius Ficinus, and by others thewhole has been attributed to Politian. The first conjectureis utterly improbable; the last is possible, indeed, on account of the licentiousness of the poem; but there are nodirect grounds for believing it. The Morgante Maggiore isthe first proper romance; although, perhaps, Pulci had theTeseide before him. The story is taken from the fabuloushistory of Turpin; and if the author had any distinct object,it seems to have been that of making himself merry withthe absurdities of the old romancers. The Morgante sometimes makes you think of Rabelais. It contains the mostremarkable guess or allusion upon the subject of Americathat can be found in any book published before the discovery. The well known passage in the tragic Seneca is 21 "Meaning the 25th canto. "—H. N. C.2 "The reference is , of course, to the following stanzas: -'Disse Astarotte: un error lungo e fiocoPer molti secol non ben conosciuto,Fa che si dice d' Ercol le colonne,E che più là molti periti sonne.Sappi che questa opinione è vana;Perchè più oltre navicar si puote,Però che l'acqua in ogni parte è piana,Benchè la terra abbi forma di ruote:Era più grossa allor la gente humana;Falche potrebbe arrosirne le goteErcule ancor d' aver posti que' segni,Perchè più oltre passeranno i legni.E puossi andar giù ne l'altro emisperio,Però che al centro ogni cosa reprime;Sì che la terra per divin misterioSospesa sta fra le stelle sublime,THE MIDDLE AGES . 105not to be compared with it. The copia verborum of themother Florentine tongue, and the easiness of his style,afterwards brought to perfection by Berni, are the chiefmerits of Pulci; his chief demerit is his heartless spirit ofjest and buffoonery, by which sovereigns and their courtierswere flattered by the degradation of nature, and the impossibilification of a pretended virtue.¹E là giù son città, castella, e imperio;Ma nol cognobbon quelle genti prime:Vedi che il sol di camminar s' affretta,Dove io ti dico che là giù s' aspetta.E come un segno surge in Oriente,Un altro cade con mirabil arte,Come si vede qua ne l' Occidente ,Però che il ciel giustamente comparte;Antipodi appellata è quella gente;Adora il sole è Jupiterre e Marte,E piante e animal come voi hanno,E spesso insieme gran battaglie fanno. 'C. XXV. st. 228, &c."The Morgante was printed in 1488 ."-H. N. C.¹ The notes on Chaucer and Spenser, which follow here in the " Remains," the reader will find in the Appendix to " Lectures and Notes onShakspere, " &c.SECTION II.CERVANTES.'Cervantes.ORN at Madrid, 1547; -Shakspere, 1564; both put offmortality on the same day, the 23rd of April, 1616, -the one in the sixty-ninth, the other in the fifty- second,year of his life. The resemblance in their physiognomiesis striking, but with a predominance of acuteness in Cervantes, and of reflection in Shakspere, which is the specificdifference between the Spanish and English characters ofmind.I. The nature and eminence of Symbolical writing; -II. Madness, and its different sorts (considered withoutpretension to medical science);-To each of these, or at least to my own notions respecting them, I must devote a few words of explanation, inorder to render the after critique on Don Quixote, themaster work of Cervantes' and his country's genius, easilyand throughout intelligible. This is not the least valuable,though it may most often be felt by us both as the heaviestand least entertaining portion of these critical disquisitions:for without, I must have foregone one at least of the two1 Treated of in Lecture VIII. Lectures IV. , V. , and VI. were onShakspere, Lecture VII. on Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, andMassinger. See Lectures and Notes on Shakspere, &c.CERVANTES . 107appropriate objects of a Lecture, that of interesting youduring its delivery, and of leaving behind in your mindsthe germs of after-thought, and the materials for futureenjoyment. To have been assured by several of my intelligent auditors that they have reperused Hamlet orOthello with increased satisfaction in consequence of thenew points of view in which I had placed those characters-is the highest compliment I could receive or desire; andshould the address of this evening open out a new sourceof pleasure, or enlarge the former in your perusal of DonQuixote, it will compensate for the failure of any personalor temporary object.I. The Symbolical cannot, perhaps, be better defined indistinction from the Allegorical, than that it is alwaysitself a part of that, of the whole of which it is the representative. "Here comes a sail " —that is, a ship , —is asymbolical expression. " Behold our lion! ", when wespeak of some gallant soldier, is allegorical. Of most importance to our present subject is this point, that the latter(the allegory) cannot be other than spoken consciously; —whereas in the former (the symbol) it is very possible thatthe general truth represented may be working unconsciously in the writer's mind during the construction ofthe symbol; -and it proves itself by being produced out ofhis own mind, -as the Don Quixote out of the perfectlysane mind of Cervantes, and not by outward observation,or historically. The advantage of symbolical writing overallegory is, that it presumes no disjunction of faculties, butsimple predominance.II. Madness may be divided as1. hypochondriasis; or, the man is out of his senses.2. derangement of the understanding; or, the man isout of his wits.3. loss of reason.4. frenzy, or derangement of the sensations.108 THE LECTURES OF 1818.Don Quixote.Cervantes's own preface to Don Quixote is a perfectmodel of the gentle, every where intelligible, irony in thebest essays of the Tatler and the Spectator. Equallynatural and easy, Cervantes is more spirited than Addison;whilst he blends with the terseness of Swift an exquisiteflow and music of style, and, above all, contrasts with thelatter by the sweet temper of a superior mind, which sawthe follies of mankind, and was even at the moment suffering severely under hard mistreatment; ¹ and yet seemsevery where to have but one thought as the undersong—"Brethren! with all your faults I love you still! -or asa mother that chides the child she loves, with one handholds up the rod, and with the other wipes off each tearas it drops!Don Quixote was neither fettered to the earth by want,nor holden in its embraces by wealth; -of which, with thetemperance natural to his country, as a Spaniard, he hadboth far too little, and somewhat too much, to be underany necessity of thinking about it. His age too, fifty ,may be well supposed to prevent his mind from beingtempted out of itself by any of the lower passions; —whilehis habits, as a very early riser and a keen sportsman,were such as kept his spare body in serviceable subjectionto his will, and yet by the play of hope that accompaniespursuit, not only permitted, but assisted, his fancy inshaping what it would . Nor must we omit his meagrenessand entire featureliness, face and frame, which Cervantes1 "Bien como quien se engendrò en una carcel, donde toda incomodidadtiene su assiento, y todo triste ruido hace su habitacion. Like one you maysuppose born in a prison, where every inconvenience keeps its residence ,and every dismal sound its habitation. Pref. Jarvis's Tr. "- H. N. C.CERVANTES. 109gives us at once: " It is said that his surname was Quixadaor Quesada, " &c. —even in this trifle showing an exquisitejudgment; just once insinuating the association of lanternjaws into the reader's mind, yet not retaining it obtrusivelylike the names in old farces and in the Pilgrim's Progress, —but taking for the regular appellative one which had theno meaning of a proper name in real life, and which yetwas capable of recalling a number of very different, but allpertinent, recollections, as old armour, the precious metalshidden in the ore, &c. Don Quixote's leanness andfeatureliness are happy exponents of the excess of theformative or imaginative in him, contrasted with Sancho'splump rotundity, and recipiency of external impression.He has no knowledge of the sciences or scientific artswhich give to the meanest portions of matter an intellectualinterest, and which enable the mind to decipher in theworld of the senses the invisible agency, —that alone, ofwhich the world's phenomena are the effects and manifestations,—and thus, as in a mirror, to contemplate its ownreflex, its life in the powers, its imagination inthe symbolicforms, its moral instincts in the final causes, and its reasonin the laws of material nature: but-estranged from allthe motives to observation from self- interest-the personsthat surround him too few and too familiar to enter intoany connection with his thoughts, or to require any adaptation of his conduct to their particular characters or relations to himself—his judgment lies fallow, with nothing toexcite, nothing to employ it. Yet, —and here is the point,where genius even of the most perfect kind, allotted but tofew in the course of many ages, does not preclude thenecessity in part, and in part counterbalance the cravingby sanity of judgment, without which genius either cannotbe, or cannot at least manifest itself, the dependency ofour nature asks for some confirmation from without,though it be only from the shadows of other men's fictions.110 THE LECTURES OF 1818.Too uninformed, and with too narrow a sphere of powerand opportunity, to rise into the scientific artist, or to behimself a patron of art, and with too deep a principle andtoo much innocence to become a mere projector, DonQuixote has recourse to romances: —"His curiosity and extravagant fondness herein arrived at thatpitch, that he sold many acres of arable land to purchase booksof knight- errantry, and carried home all he could lay hands on ofthat kind!" C. 1 .The more remote these romances were from the languageof common life, the more akin on that very account werethey to the shapeless dreams and strivings of his ownmind; ——a mind, which possessed not the highest order ofgenius which lives in an atmosphere of power over mankind, but that minor kind which, in its restlessness , seeksfor a vivid representative of its own wishes, and substitutesthe movements of that objective puppet for an exercise ofactual powerin and byitself. The more wild and improbablethese romances were, the more were they akin to his will,which had been in the habit of acting as an unlimitedmonarch over the creations of his fancy! Hence.. observehow the startling of the remaining common sense, like aglimmering before its death, in the notice of the impossibleimprobable of Don Belianis, is dismissed by Don Quixoteas impertinent:-" He had some doubt as to the dreadful wounds which DonBelianis gave and received: for he imagined, that notwithstanding the most expert surgeons had cured him, his face and wholebody must still be full of seams and scars. Nevertheless² hecommended in his author the concluding his book with a promiseof that unfinishable adventure! " C. 1 .Hence also his first intention to turn author; but who," No estaba muy bien con. " -H. N. C. 2 Pero con todo."-H. N. C.CERVANTES. 111with such a restless struggle within him, could contenthimself with writing in a remote village among apathistsand ignorants? During his colloquies with the villagepriest and the barber surgeon, in which the fervour ofcritical controversy feeds the passion and gives reality to itsobject, —what more natural than that the mental strivingshould become an eddy? Madness may perhaps be definedas the circling in a stream which should be progressive andadaptive. Don Quixote grows at length to be a man outof his wits; his understanding is deranged; and hence,without the least deviation from the truth of nature, without losing the least trait of personal individuality, he becomes a substantial living allegory, or personification of thereason and the moral sense, divested of the judgment and theunderstanding. Sancho is the converse. He is the commonsense without reason or imagination; and Cervantes notonly shows the excellence and power of reason in DonQuixote, but in both him and Sancho the mischiefs resulting from a severance of the two main constituents of soundintellectual and moral action. Put him and his master together, and they form a perfect intellect; but they areseparated and without cement; and hence each having aneed of the other for its own completeness, each has attimes a mastery over the other.For the common sense,although it may see the practical inapplicability of thedictates of the imagination or abstract reason, yet cannothelp submitting to them. These two characters possessthe world, alternately and interchangeably the cheater. andthe cheated. To impersonate them, and to combine thepermanentwith the individual, is one of the highest creationsof genius, and has been achieved by Cervantes and Shakspere, almost alone.112 THE LECTURES OF 1818.Observations on Particular Passages ofDon Quixote.B. I. c. 1. "But not altogether approving of his havingbroken it to pieces with so much ease, to secure himself from thelike danger for the future, he made it over again, fencing it withsmall bars of iron within, in such a manner, that he rested satisfied ofits strength; and without caring to make a fresh experimenton it, he approved and looked upon it as a most excellent helmet."His not trying his improved scull-cap is an exquisitetrait of human character, founded on the oppugnancy ofthe soul in such a state to any disturbance by doubt of itsown broodings. Even the long deliberation about hishorse's name is full of meaning; -for in these day-dreamsthe greater part of the history passes and is carried on inwords, which look forward to other words as what will besaid of them.Ib. " Near the place where he lived, there dwelt a verycomely country lass, with whom he had formerly been in love;though, as it is supposed, she never knew it, nor troubled herselfabout it. "The nascent love for the country lass, but without anyattempt at utterance, or an opportunity of knowing her,except as the hint—the ori σT —of the inward imagination,is happily conceived in both parts; -first, as confirmativeof the shrinking back of the mind on itself, and its dreadof having a cherished image destroyed by its own judgment;and secondly, as showing how necessarily love is the passionof novels. Novels are to love as fairy tales to dreams. Inever knew but two men of taste and feeling who could notunderstand why I was delighted with the Arabian Nights'Tales, and they were likewise the only persons in my knowledge who scarcely remembered having ever dreamed.CERVANTES. 113Magic and war-itself a magic-are the day- dreams ofchildhood; love is the day-dream of youth and early manhood.C. 2. 66 Scarcely had ruddy Phœbus spread the golden tressesof his beauteous hair over the face of the wide and spacious earth;and scarcely had the little painted birds, with the sweet andmellifluous harmony of their forked tongues, saluted the approachof rosy Aurora, who, quitting the soft couch of her jealous husband, disclosed herself to mortals through the gates of theMauchegan horizon; when the renowned Don Quixote," &c.How happily already is the abstraction from the senses,from observation, and the consequent confusion of thejudgment, marked in this description! The knight is describing objects immediate to his senses and sensationswithout borrowing a single trait from either. Would it bedifficult to find parallel descriptions in Dryden's plays andin those of his successors?C. 3. The host is here happily conceived as one who fromhis past life as a sharper, was capable of entering into andhumouring the knight, and so perfectly in character, thathe precludes a considerable source of improbability in thefuture narrative, by enforcing upon Don Quixote thenecessity of taking money with him.C. 3. " Ho, there, whoever thou art, rash knight, that approachest to touch the arms of the most valorous adventurerthat ever girded sword," &c.Don Quixote's high eulogiums on himself—" the mostvalorous adventurer! " -but it is not himself that he hasbefore him, but the idol of his imagination, the imaginarybeing whom he is acting. And this, that it is entirely athird person, excuses his heart from the otherwise inevitable charge of selfish vanity; and so by madness itself hepreserves our esteem, and renders those actions natural bywhich he, the first person, deserves it .I114 THE LECTURES OF 1818.C. 4. Andres and his master.The manner in which Don Quixote redressed this wrong,is a picture of the true revolutionary passion in its firsthonest state, while it is yet only a bewilderment of the understanding. You have a benevolence limitless in its prayers ,which are in fact aspirations towards omnipotence: butbetween it and beneficence the bridge of judgment—thatis, of measurement of personal power-intervenes, andmust be passed. Otherwise you will be bruised bythe leapinto the chasm, or be drowned in the revolutionary river,and drag others with you to the same fate.C. 4. Merchants of Toledo."When they were come so near as to be seen and heard,Don Quixote raised his voice, and with arrogant air cried out:' Let the whole world stand; if the whole world does not confessthat there is not in the whole world a damsel more beautifulthan,"" &c.Now mark the presumption which follows the self- complacency of the last act! That was an honest attempt toredress a real wrong; this is an arbitrary determination toenforce a Brissotine or Rousseau's ideal on all his fellowcreatures."Let the whole world stand! "'If there had been any experience in proof of the excellence of our code, where would be our superiority in thisenlightened age?'"No! the business is that without seeing her, you believe,confess , affirm, swear, and maintain it; and if not, I challenge you all to battle."1991Next see the persecution and fury excited by opposition"Donde no, conmigo sois en batalla, gente descomunal! "--H. N. C.CERVANTES. 115however moderate! The only words listened to are those,that without their context and their conditionals, andtransformed into positive assertions, might give someshadow of excuse for the violence shown! This rich storyends, to the compassion of the men in their senses, in asound rib-roasting of the idealist by the muleteer, the mob.And happy for thee, poor knight! that the mob wereagainst thee! For had they been with thee, by the changeof the moon and of them, thy head would have been off.C. 5. first part―The idealist recollects the causes thathad been necessary to the reverse and attempts to removethem too late. He is beaten and disgraced.C. 6. This chapter on Don Quixote's library proves thatthe author did not wish to destroy the romances, but tocause them to be read as romances—that is, for their meritsas poetry.C. 7. " Among other things, Don Quixote told him, he shoulddispose himself to go with him willingly; —for some time or othersuch an adventure might present, that an island might be won,in the turn of a hand, and he be left governor thereof. "At length the promises of the imaginative reason beginto act on the plump, sensual, honest common sense accomplice, but unhappily not in the same person, andwithout the copula of the judgment, -in hopes of the substantial good things, of which the former contemplatedonly the glory and the colours.C. 7. " Sancho Panza went riding upon his ass, like any patriarch, with his wallet and leathern bottle, and with a vehementdesire to find himself governor of the island which his master hadpromised him."The first relief from regular labour is so pleasant to poorSancho!116 THE LECTURES OF 1818.C. 8. " I no gentleman! I swear by the great God, thou liest,as I am a Christian. Biscainer by land, gentleman by sea,gentleman for the devil, and thou liest look then if thou hastany thing else to say.'999This Biscainer is an excellent image of the prejudicesand bigotry provoked by the idealism of a speculator .This story happily detects the trick which our imaginationplays in the description of single combats: only change thepreconception of the magnificence of the combatants, and allis gone.B. II. c. 2. "" Be pleased, my lord Don Quixote, to bestow upon me the government of that island,' " &c.Sancho's eagerness for his government, the nascent lustof actual democracy, or isocracy!C. 2. " But tell me, on your life, have you ever seen a morevalorous knight than I, upon the whole face of the known earth?Have you read in story of any other, who has, or ever had, morebravery in assailing, more breath in holding out, more dexterityin wounding, or more address in giving a fall? ' —'The truth is , 'answered Sancho, ' that I never read any history at all; for I canneither read nor write; but what I dare affirm is, that I neverserved a bolder master,' " &c.This appeal to Sancho, and Sancho's answer, are exquisitely humorous. It is impossible not to think ofthe French bulletins and proclamations . Remark thenecessity under which we are of being sympathized with,fly as high into abstraction as we may, and how constantly the imagination is recalled to the ground of ourcommon humanity! And note a little further on, theknight's easy vaunting of his balsam, and his quietlydeferring the making and application of it.C. 3. The speech before the goatherds:666' Happy times and happy ages ,', " 1 &c.1 "Dichosa edad y siglos dichosos aquellos, &c.” —H. N. C.CERVANTES. 117Note the rhythm of this, and the admirable beauty andwisdom of the thoughts in themselves, but the total wantof judgment in Don Quixote's addressing them to such anaudience.B. III. c. 3. Don Quixote's balsam, and the vomitingand consequent relief; an excellent hit at panacea nostrums,which cure the patient by his being himself cured of themedicine by revolting nature.C. 4. " Peace! and have patience; the day will come,'The perpetual promises of the imagination!Ib. "" " &c." Your Worship,' said Sancho, ' would make a betterpreacher than knight errant! 'Exactly so. This is the true moral.C. 6. The uncommon beauty of the description in thecommencement of this chapter. In truth, the whole of itseems to put all nature in its heights and its humiliations,before us.Ib. Sancho's story of the goats:" Make account, he carried them all over, ' said Don Quixote,' and do not be going and coming in this manner; for at thisrate, you will not have done carrying them over in a twelvemonth.' ' How many are passed already? ' said Sancho," &c.Observe the happy contrast between the all-generalizingmind of the mad knight, and Sancho's all - particularizingmemory. How admirable a symbol of the dependence ofall copula on the higher powers of the mind, with the singleexception of the succession in time and the accidental relations of space. Men of mere common sense have no theoryor means of making one fact more important or prominentthan the rest; if they lose one link, all is lost. CompareMrs. Quickly and the Tapster.¹ And note also Sancho's"See the Friend, vol. iii. p. 138 .” —H. N. C.118 THE LECTURES OF 1818.good heart when his master is about to leave him. DonQuixote's conduct upon discovering the fulling- hammers,proves he was meant to be in his senses . Nothing can bebetter conceived than his fit of passion at Sancho's laughing ,and his sophism of self-justification by the courage he hadshown.Sancho is by this time cured, through experience, as faras his own errors are concerned; yet still is he lured on bythe unconquerable awe of his master's superiority, evenwhen he is cheating him.C. 8. The adventure of the Galley- slaves. I think thisis the only passage of moment in which Cervantes slips themask of his hero, and speaks for himself.C. 9. “ Don Quixote desired to have it , and bade him take themoney, and keep it for himself. Sancho kissed his hands for thefavour," &c.Observe Sancho's eagerness to avail himself of the permission of his master, who, in the war sports of knighterrantry, had, without any selfish dishonesty, overlookedthe meum and tuum. Sancho's selfishness is modified byhis involuntary goodness of heart, and Don Quixote'sflighty goodness is debased by the involuntary or unconscious selfishness of his vanity and self-applause.C. 10. Cardenio is the madman of passion, who meetsand easily overthrows for the moment the madman ofimagination. And note the contagion of madness of anykind, upon Don Quixote's interruption of Cardenio's story.C. 11. Perhaps the best specimen of Sancho's proverbializing is this:“ And I (Don Q.) say again, they lie, and will lie two hundred times more, all who say, or think her so .' ' I neither say, northink so , ' answered Sancho; ' let those who say it, eat the lie ,and swallow it with their bread:. whether they were guilty or no,they have given an account to God before now: I come from myCERVANTES. 119vineyard, I know nothing; I amno friend to inquiring into othermen's lives; for he that buys and lies shall find the lie left in hispurse behind; besides, naked was I born, and naked I remain: Ineither win nor lose; if they were guilty, what is that to me?Many think to find bacon, where there is not so much as a pin tohang it on but who can hedge in the cuckoo? Especially, dothey spare God himself? ' "Ib. " And it is no great matter, if it be in another hand: forby what I remember, Dulcinea can neither write nor read, ' " &c.The wonderful twilight of the mind! and mark Cervantes's courage in daring to present it, and trust to adistant posterity for an appreciation of its truth to nature.P. II. B. III. c. 9. Sancho's account of what he hadseen on Clavileno is a counterpart in his style to DonQuixote's adventures in the cave of Montesinos. This lastis the only impeachment of the knight's moral character;Cervantes just gives one instance of the veracity failing before the strong cravings of the imagination for somethingreal and external; the picture would not have been complete without this; and yet it is so well managed, that thereader has no unpleasant sense of Don Quixote having tolda lie. It is evident that he hardly knows whether it was adream or not; and goes to the enchanter to inquire the realnature of the adventure.Summary on Cervantes.A Castilian of refined manners; a gentleman, true toreligion, and true to honour.A scholar and a soldier, and fought under the banners ofDon John of Austria, at Lepanto, lost his arm and wascaptured.Endured slavery not only with fortitude, but with mirth;120 THE LECTURES OF 1818.and by the superiority of nature, mastered and overawedhis barbarian owner.Finally ransomed, he resumed his native destiny, theawful task of achieving fame; and for that reason diedpoor and a prisoner, while nobles and kings over their gobletsof gold gave relish to their pleasures by the charms of hisdivine genius. He was the inventor of novels for theSpaniards, and in his Persilis and Sigismunda, the Englishmay find the germ of their Robinson Crusoe.The world was a drama to him. His own thoughts, inspite of poverty and sickness, perpetuated for him thefeelings of youth. He painted only what he knew and hadlooked into, but he knew and had looked into much indeed;and his imagination was ever at hand to adapt and modifythe world of his experience. Of delicious love he fabled ,yet with stainless virtue.SECTION III.WIT AND HUMOUR.¹On the Distinctions of the Witty, the Droll, the Odd, and theHumourous. The Nature and Constituents ofHumour.I.PERHAPS the most important of our intellectual operations are those of detecting the difference in similar,and the identity in dissimilar, things. Out of the latteroperation it is that wit arises; and it, generically regarded,consists in presenting thoughts or images in an unusualconnection with each other, for the purpose . of excitingpleasure by the surprise. This connection may be real; andthere is , in fact, a scientific wit; though where the object,consciously entertained, is truth, and not amusem*nt, wecommonly give it some higher name. But in wit popularlyunderstood, the connection may be, and for the most partis, apparent only, and transitory; and this connection maybe by thoughts, or by words, or by images. The first isour Butler's especial eminence; the second, Voltaire's;the third, which we oftener call fancy, constitutes thelarger and more peculiar part of the wit of Shakspere.1 This Third Section covers Lecture IX.Lecture X.وو " Donne ran over into122 THE LECTURES OF 1818.You can scarcely turn to a single speech of Falstaff's, without finding instances of it. Nor does wit always cease todeserve the name by being transient, or incapable of analysis.I may add that the wit of thoughts belongs eminently tothe Italians, that of words to the French, and that of imagesto the English.II. Where the laughable is its own end, and neither inference nor moral is intended, or where at least the writerwould wish it so to appear, there arises what we call drollery.The pure, unmixed, ludicrous or laughable belongs exclusively to the understanding, and must be presented under theform of the senses; it lies within the spheres of the eye andthe ear, and hence is allied to the fancy. It does not appertain to the reason or the moral sense, and accordingly is aliento the imagination I think Aristotle has already excellentlydefined the laughable, rò yɛλotov, as consisting of, or depending on, what is out of its proper time and place, yet withoutdanger or pain. Here the impropriety-rò årоTO -is thepositive qualification; the dangerlessness-rò dкívdvvov-thenegative. Neither the understanding without an object ofthe senses, as for example, a mere notional error, or idiocy;-nor any external object, unless attributed to the understanding, can produce the poetically laughable. Nay, evenin ridiculous positions of the body laughed at by the vulgar,there is a subtle personification always going on, which actsonthe, perhaps, unconscious mind of the spectator as a symbolof intellectual character. And hence arises the imperfectand awkward effect of comic stories of animals; becausealthough the understanding is satisfied in them, the sensesare not. Hence too, it is, that the true ludicrous is its ownend. When serious satire commences, or satire that is feltas serious, however comically drest, free and genuinelaughter ceases; it becomes sardonic. This you experiencein reading Young, and also not unfrequently in Butler.The true comic is the blossom of the nettle .WIT AND HUMOUR. 123III. When words or images are placed in unusual juxtaposition rather than connection, and are so placed merelybecause the juxta- position is unusual, we have the odd orthe grotesque; the occasional use of which in the minorornaments of architecture, is an interesting problem for astudent in the psychology of the Fine Arts.NoIV. In the simply laughable there is a mere disproportion between a definite act and a definite purpose or end, ora disproportion of the end itself to the rank or circ*mstancesof the definite person; but humour is of more difficult description. I must try to define it in the first place by itspoints of diversity from the former species. Humour doesnot, like the different kinds of wit, which is impersonal,consist wholly in the understanding and the senses.combination of thoughts, words, or images will of itselfconstitute humour, unless some peculiarity of individualtemperament and character be indicated thereby, as thecause of the same. Compare the comedies of Congrevewith the Falstaff in Henry IV. , or with Sterne's CorporalTrim, Uncle Toby, and Mr. Shandy, or with some ofSteele's charming papers in the Tatler, and you will feelthe difference better than I can express it. Thus, again,(to take an instance from the different works of the samewriter) , in Smollett's Strap, his Lieutenaut Bowling, hisMorgan the honest Welshman, and his Matthew Bramble,we have exquisite humour, -while in his Peregrine Picklewe find an abundance of drollery, which too often degenerates into mere oddity; in short, we feel that a number ofthings are put together to counterfeit humour, but thatthere is no growth from within . And this indeed is theorigin of the word, derived from the humoral pathology,and excellently described by Ben Jonson:"So in every human body,The choler, melancholy, phlegm, and blood,· 124 THE LECTURES OF 1818.By reason that they flow continuallyIn some one part, and are not continent,Receive the name of humours.It may, by metaphor, apply itselfUnto the general disposition:Now thus farAs when some one peculiar qualityDoth so possess a man, that it doth drawAll his effects, his spirits, and his powers,In their confluctions, all to run one way,This may be truly said to be a humour. " 1Hence we may explain the congeniality of humour withpathos, so exquisite in Sterne and Smollett, and hence alsothe tender feeling which we always have for, and associatewith, the humours or hobby- horses of a man. First, werespect a humourist, because absence of interested motiveis the ground- work of the character, although the imagination of an interest may exist in the individual himself, as ifa remarkably simple-hearted man should pride himself onhis knowledge of the world, and how well he can manageit -and secondly, there always is in a genuine humour anacknowledgment of the hollowness and farce of the world,and its disproportion to the godlike within us. And it follows immediately from this, that whenever particular actshave reference to particular selfish motives, the humourousbursts into the indignant and abhorring; whilst all folliesnot selfish are pardoned or palliated . The danger of thishabit, in respect of pure morality, is strongly exemplifiedin Sterne.This would be enough, and indeed less than this haspassed, for a sufficient account of humour, if we did notrecollect that not every predominance of character, evenwhere not precluded by the moral sense, as in criminaldispositions, constitutes what we mean by a humourist, orthe presentation of its produce, humour. What then is it?1 "Every Man Out Of His Humour." Prologue.-H. N. C.WIT AND HUMOUR. 125Is it manifold? Or is there some one humorific pointcommon to all that can be called humourous?-I am notprepared to answer this fully, even if my time permitted;but I think there is; -and that it consists in a certainreference to the general and the universal, by which thefinite great is brought into identity with the little, or thelittle with the finite great, so as to make both nothing incomparison with the infinite . The little is made great, andthe great little, in order to destroy both; because all isequal in contrast with the infinite. "It is not withoutreason, brother Toby, that learned men write dialogues onlong noses .' I would suggest, therefore, that whenever afinite is contemplated in reference to the infinite, whetherconsciously or unconsciously, humour essentially arises . Inthe highest humour, at least, there is always a reference to,and a connection with, some general power not finite, in theform of some finite ridiculously disproportionate in our feelings to that of which it is, nevertheless, the representative,orbywhich it is to be displayed. Humourous writers , therefore, as Sterne in particular, delight, after much preparation,to end in nothing, or in a direct contradiction.99 1That there is some truth in this definition, or originationof humour, is evident; for you cannot conceive a humourousman who does not give some disproportionate generality, oreven a universality to his hobby-horse, as is the case with Mr. Shandy; or at least there is an absence of any interestbut what arises from the humour itself, as in my UncleToby, and it is the idea of the soul, of its undefined capacity and dignity, that gives the sting to any absorption ofit by any one pursuit, and this not in respect of thehumourist as a mere member of society for a particular,however mistaken, interest, but as a man.The English humour is the most thoughtful, the Spanish1 " Trist. Sh. vol. iii. c. 37 .” —H. N. C.126 THE LECTURES OF 1818.the most etherial-the most ideal -of modern literature.Amongst the classic ancients there was little or no humourin the foregoing sense of the term. Socrates, or Plato underhis name, gives some notion of humour in the Banquet, whenheargues that tragedy and comedy restupon thesame ground.But humour properly took its rise in the middle ages; andthe Devil, the Vice of the mysteries, incorporates the modernhumour in its elements. It is a spirit measured by disproportionate finites . The Devil is not, indeed, perfectlyhumourous; but that is only because he is the extreme ofall humour.

Rabelais.1

Born at Chinon, 1483-4.-Died 1553.

One cannot help regretting that no friend of Rabelais, (and surely friends he must have had ) , has left an authentic account of him. His buffoonery was not merely Brutus' rough stick, which contained a rod of gold; it was necessary as an amulet against the monks and bigots. Beyond a doubt, he was among the deepest, as well as boldest, thinkers of his age. Never was a more plausible, and seldom, I am persuaded, a less appropriate line, than the thousand times quoted, "Rabelais laughing in his easy chair "- of Mr. Pope. The caricature of his filth and zanyismproves how fully he both knew and felt the danger in which"No note remains of that part of this Lecture which treated ofRabelais. This seems, therefore, a convenient place for the receptionof some remarks written by Mr. C. in Mr. Gillman's copy of Rabelais,about the year 1825. See Table Talk, vol. i. p. 177. "-H. N. C. Thepassage in the Table Talk here alluded to, will be found under date, June 15, 1830.WIT AND HUMOUR. 127he stood. I could write a treatise in proof and praise ofthe morality and moral elevation of Rabelais' work, whichwould make the church stare and the conventicle groan,and yet should be the truth and nothing but the truth. Iclass Rabelais with the creative minds of the world, Shakspere, Dante, Cervantes, &c.All Rabelais' personages are phantasmagoric allegories ,but Panurge above all. He is throughout the Tavovрyía πανουργία,-the wisdom, that is, the cunning of the human animal, —the understanding, as the faculty of means to purposeswithout ultimate ends, in the most comprehensive sense,and including art, sensuous fancy, and all the passions ofthe understanding. It is impossible to read Rabelais without an admiration mixed with wonder, at the depth andextent of his learning, his multifarious knowledge, andoriginal observation beyond what books could in that agehave supplied him with.B. III. c. 9. " How Panurge asketh counsel of Pantagruel ,whether he should marry, yea or no."Note this incomparable chapter. Pantagruel stands forthe reason as contradistinguished from the understandingand choice, that is, from Panurge; and the humour consistsin the latter asking advice of the former on a subject inwhich the reason can only give the inevitable conclusion,the syllogistic ergo, from the premises provided by theunderstanding itself, which puts each case so as of necessity to predetermine the verdict thereon. This chapter,independently of the allegory, is an exquisite satire on thespirit in which people commonly ask advice.128 THE LECTURES OF 1818.Swift.¹Born in Dublin, 1667.-Died 1745.In Swift's writings there is a false misanthropy, groundedupon an exclusive contemplation of the vices and follies ofmankind, and this misanthropic tone is also disfigured orbrutalized by his obtrusion of physical dirt and coarseness.I think Gulliver's Travels the great work of Swift. In thevoyages to Lilliput and Brobdingnag he displays the littleness and moral contemptibility of human nature; in thatto the Houyhnhnms he represents the disgusting spectacleof man with the understanding only, without the reasonor the moral feeling, and in his horse he gives the misanthropic ideal of man—that is, a being virtuous from ruleand duty, but untouched by the principle of love.Sterne.Born at Clonmel, 1713.-Died 1768.With regard to Sterne, and the charge of licentiousnesswhich presses so seriously upon his character as a writer, Iwould remark that there is a sort of knowingness, the witof which depends-1st, on the modesty it gives pain to; or,2dly, on the innocence and innocent ignorance over whichit triumphs; or, 3dly, on a certain oscillation in the individual's own mind between the remaining good and the encroaching evil of his nature—a sort of dallying with thedevil-a fluxionary act of combining courage and cowardice,as when a man snuffs a candle with his fingers for the firsttime, or better still, perhaps, like that trembling daring1 " From Mr. Green's note."-H. N. C.WIT AND HUMOUR. 129with which a child touches a hot tea urn, because it hasbeen forbidden; so that the mind has in its own white andblack angel the same or similar amusem*nt, as may be supposed to take place between an old debauchee and a prude,--she feeling resentment, on the one hand, from a prudentialanxiety to preserve appearances and have a character, and,on the other, an inward sympathy with the enemy /Wehave only to suppose society innocent, and then nine- tenthsof this sort of wit would be like a stone that falls in snow,making no sound because exciting no resistance; the remainder rests on its being an offence against the goodmanners of human nature itself.•This source, unworthy as it is, may doubtless be combined with wit, drollery, fancy, and even humour, and wehave only to regret the misalliance; but that the latter arequite distinct from the former, may be made evident byabstracting in our imagination the morality of the charactersof Mr. Shandy, my Uncle Toby, and Trim, which are allantagonists to this spurious sort of wit, from the rest ofTristram Shandy, and by supposing, instead of them, thepresence of two or three callous debauchees. The resultwill be pure disgust. Sterne cannot be too severely censured for thus using the best dispositions of our nature asthe panders and condiments for the basest.The excellencies of Sterne consist―1. In bringing forward into distinct consciousness thoseminutiae of thought and feeling which appear trifles, yethave an importance for the moment, and which almostevery man feels in one way or other. Thus is producedthe novelty of an individual peculiarity, together with theinterest of a something that belongs to our common nature.In short, Sterne seizes happily on those points, in whichevery man is more or less a humourist. And, indeed, tobe a little more subtle, the propensity to notice these thingsdoes itself constitute the humourist, and the superaddedK130- THE LECTURES OF 1818.power of so presenting them to men in general gives us theman of humour. Hence the difference of the man ofhumour, the effect of whose portraits does not depend onthe felt presence of himself, as a humourist, as in theinstances of Cervantes and Shakspere-nay, of Rabelais,too; and of the humourist, the effect of whose works doesvery much depend on the sense of his own oddity, as inSterne's case, and perhaps Swift's; though Swift againwould require a separate classification.2. In the traits of human nature, which so easily assumea particular cast and colour from individual character.Hence this excellence and the pathos connected with itquickly pass into humour, and form the ground of it. Seeparticularly the beautiful passage, so well known, of UncleToby's catching and liberating the fly:" Go,' says he, one day at dinner, to an overgrown onewhich had buzzed about his nose, and tormented him cruelly alldinner- time, and which, after infinite attempts, he had caught atlast, as it flew by him; -' I'll not hurt thee, ' says my Uncle Toby,rising from his chair, and going across the room, with the fly inhis hand, —' I'll not hurt a hair of thy head: -Go, ' says he,lifting up the sash, and opening his hand as he spoke, to let it escape; -go, poor devil, get thee gone, why should I hurt thee?This world is surely wide enough to hold both thee and me. 'Vol. ii. ch. 12.Observe in this incident how individual character maybe given by the mere delicacy of presentation and elevationin degree of a common good quality, humanity, which initself would not be characteristic at all .3. In Mr. Shandy's character, the essence of which is acraving for sympathy in exact proportion to the oddity andunsympathizability of what he proposes; -this coupledwith an instinctive desire to be at least disputed with, orrather both in one, to dispute and yet to agree, and holding,WIT AND HUMOUR. 131as worst of all, to acquiesce, without either resistance orsympathy. This is charmingly, indeed, profoundly conceived, and is psychologically and ethically true of all Mr.Shandies. Note, too , how the contrasts of character,which are always either balanced or remedied , increase thelove between the brothers.4. No writer is so happy as Sterne in the unexaggeratedand truly natural representation of that species of slander,which consists in gossiping about our neighbours, as whetstones of our moral discrimination; as if they were conscience-blocks which we used in our apprenticeship, inorder not to waste such precious materials as our own consciences in the trimming and shaping of ourselves by self- examination:-"Alas o'day! -had Mrs. Shandy (poor gentlewoman! ) hadbut her wish in going up to town just to lie in and come downagain; which, they say, she begged and prayed for upon her bareknees, and which, in my opinion, considering the fortune whichMr. Shandy got with her, was no such mighty matter to havecomplied with; the lady and her babe might both of them have been alive at this hour." Vol. i. c. 18.5. When you have secured a man's likings and prejudicesin your favour, you maythen safely appeal to his impartialjudgment. In the following passage not only is acute senseshrouded in wit, but a life and a character are added whichexalt the whole into the dramatic: -6666·--" I see plainly, Sir, by your looks ' (or as the case happened)my father would say that you do not heartily subscribe to thisopinion of mine—which, to those, ' he would add, ' who have notcarefully sifted it to the bottom, I own has an air more of fancythan ofsolid reasoning in it; and yet, my dear Sir, if I may presumeto know your character, I am morally assured, I should hazardlittle in stating a case to you, not as a party in the dispute, but asa judge, and trusting my appeal upon it to your good sense andcandid disquisition in this matter; you are a person free from as132 THE LECTURES OF 1818 .many narrow prejudices of education as most men; and, if I maypresume to penetrate farther into you, of a liberality of geniusabove bearing down an opinion, merely because it wants friends.Your son, your dear son, —from whose sweet and open temperyou have so much to expect, your Billy, Sir! -would you, forthe world, have called him JUDAS? Would you, my dear Sir, ' hewould say, laying his hand upon your breast, with the genteelestaddress, —and in that soft and irresistible piano of voice which thenature of the argumentum ad hominem absolutely requires, —' Would you, Sir, if a Jew of a godfather had proposed the namefor your child, and offered you his purse along with it, would youhave consented to such a desecration of him? O my God! ' hewould say, looking up, ' if I know your temper rightly, Sir, you areincapable of it; —you would have trampled upon the offer; -youwould have thrown the temptation at the tempter's head withabhorrence. Your greatness of mind in this action, which Iadmire, with that generous contempt of money, which you showme in the whole transaction, is really noble; -and what rendersit more so, is the principle of it; —the workings of a parent's loveupon the truth and conviction of this very hypothesis, namely, thatwere your son called Judas, -the sordid and treacherous idea, soinseparable from the name, would have accompanied him throughlife like his shadow, and in the end made a miser and a rascalof him, in spite, Sir, of your example." " Vol. i. c. 19.66. There is great physiognomic tact in Sterne. See itparticularly displayed in his description of Dr. Slop , accompanied with all that happiest use of drapery and attitude,which at once give reality by individualizing and vividnessby unusual, yet probable; combinations:-"Imagine to yourself a little squat, uncourtly figure of a DoctorSlop, of about four feet and a half perpendicular height, with abreadth of back, and a sesquipedality of belly, which might havedone honour to a sergeant in the horse-guards."66

• * * * *

Imagine such a one; -for such I say, were the outlines ofDr. Slop's figure, coming slowly along, foot by foot, waddlingthrough the dirt upon the vertebræ of a little diminutive pony, ofa pretty colour-but of strength, ―alack! scarce able to haveWIT AND HUMOUR. 133made an amble of it, under such a fardel , had the roads been inan ambling condition; -they were not. Imagine to yourselfObadiah mounted upon a strong monster of a coach-horse, prickedinto a full gallop, and making all practicable speed the adverseway." Vol. ii, c. 9.7. I think there is more humour in the single remark,which I have quoted before—“ Learned men, brother Toby,don't write dialogues upon long noses for nothing! "-thanin the whole Slawkenburghian tale that follows, which ismere oddity interspersed with drollery.8. Note Sterne's assertion of, and faith in, a moral goodin the characters of Trim, Toby, &c. , as contrasted with thecold scepticism of motives which is the stamp of the Jacobinspirit. Vol. v. c. 9.9. You must bear in mind, in order to do justice toRabelais and Sterne, that by right of humouristic universality each part is essentially a whole in itself. Hence thedigressive spirit is not mere wantonness, but in fact the veryform and vehicle of their genius. The connection, such aswas needed, is given by the continuity of the characters .1 nstances of different forms of wit, taken largely66

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66 1. Why are you reading romances at your age? ” ——“ Why,I used to be fond of history, but I have given it up, —it was sogrossly improbable. "2. " Pray, sir, do it! although you have promised me.”3. Spartan mother's—"Return with, or on, thy shield. "99 "My sword is too short! -“ Take a step forwarder. "4. The Gasconade:-“ I believe you, Sir! but you will excuse my repeating it, onaccount ofmy provincial accent. "134 THE LECTURES OF 1818.5. Pasquil on Pope Urban, who had employed a committeeto rip up the old errors of his predecessors.Some one placed a pair of spurs on the heels of thestatue of St. Peter, and a label from the opposite statue ofSt. Paul, on the same bridge; —St. Paul. " Whither are you then bound? ”St. Peter. " I apprehend danger here; -they'll soon call me inquestion for denying my Master."St. Paul. " Nay, then, I had better be off, too; for they'llquestion me for having persecuted the Christians, before my con- version."6. Speaking of the small German potentates, I dictatedthe phrase, -officious for equivalents. This my amanuensiswrote,-fishing for elephants; -which, as I observed at thetime, was a sort of Noah's angling, that could hardly haveoccurred, except at the commencement of the Deluge.1 66Donne.¹Born in London, 1573.-Died, 1631.I."With Donne, whose muse on dromedary trots,Wreathe iron pokers into true-love knots;Rhyme's sturdy cripple, fancy's maze and clue,Wit's forge and fire-blast, meaning's press and screw.'Nothing remains of what was said on Donne in this Lecture X.Here, therefore, as in previous like instances, the gap is filled up with somenotes written by Mr. Coleridge in a volume of Chalmers' Poets, belong- ing to Mr. Gillman. The verses were added in pencil to the collection ofcommendatory lines; No. I. is Mr. C.'s; the publication of No. II. , I trustthe all -accomplished author will, under the circ*mstances, pardon. "—H. N. C.WIT AND HUMOUR. 135II."See lewdness and theology combin'd , -Acynic and a sycophantic mind;A fancy shared party per pale between Death's heads and skeletons and Aretine!-Not his peculiar defect or erime,But the true current mintage of the time.Such were the establish'd signs and tokens givenTo mark a loyal churchman, sound and even,Free from papistic and fanatic leaven. ”The wit of Donne, the wit of Butler, the wit of Pope, thewit of Congreve, the wit of Sheridan, —how many disparatethings are here expressed by one and the same word, Wit!-Wonder- exciting vigour, intenseness and peculiarity ofthought, using at will the almost boundless stores of a capacious memory, and exercised on subjects, where we haveno right to expect it, this is the wit of Donne! The fourothers I am just in the mood to describe and inter - distinguish -what a pity that the marginal space will not let me!"My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;Where can we find two fitter hemispheresWithout sharp north, without declining west? "Good Morrow, v. 15, &c .The sense is;-Our mutual loves may in many respectsbe fitly compared to corresponding hemispheres; but as nosimile squares (nihil simile est idem) , so here the simile fails ,for there is nothing in our loves that corresponds to thecold north, or the declining west, which in two hemispheresmust necessarily be supposed. But an eclipse of suchlength will scarcely rescue the line from the charge ofnonsense or a bull. January, 1829.Woman's constancy.A misnomer. The title ought to beMutual Inconstancy.136 THE LECTURES OF 1818 ."Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine," &c.Sun Rising, v. 17."And see at night thy western land of mine," &c.Progress ofthe Soul, 1 Song, 2. st.This use of the word mine specifically for mines of gold ,silver, or precious stones, is, I believe, peculiar to Donne.SECTION IV.DANTE.¹Born at Florence, 1265.-Died, 1321.SI remarked in a former Lecture on a different subject AS(for subjects the most diverse in literature have stilltheir tangents) , the Gothic character, and its good and evilfruits, appeared less in Italy than in any other part ofEuropean Christendom . There was accordingly much lessromance, as that word is commonly understood; or, perhaps, more truly stated, there was romance instead ofchivalry. In Italy, an earlier imitation of, and a moreevident and intentional blending with, the Latin literaturetook place than elsewhere. The operation of the feudalsystem, too, was incalculably weaker, of that singularchain of independent interdependents, the principle ofwhich was a confederacy for the preservation of individual,consistently with general, freedom. In short, Italy, in thetime of Dante, was an after - birth of eldest Greece, a renewal or a reflex of the old Italy, under its kings and firstRoman consuls, a net- work of free little republics, with thesame domestic feuds, civil wars, and party spirit, —the same .Lecture X. included Donne, Dante, and Milton. The notes onMilton, which H. N. Coleridge gives, under the head of Lecture X. , will be found in the Appendix to Lectures and Notes on Shakspere, &c. , or inthe next division of the present volume.138 THE LECTURES OF 1818.vices and virtues produced on a similarly narrow theatre, —the existing state of things being, as in all small democracies, under the working and direction of certain individuals,to whose will even the laws were swayed; —whilst at thesame time the singular spectacle was exhibited amidst allthis confusion of the flourishing of commerce, and theprotection and encouragement of letters and arts . Neverwas the commercial spirit so well reconciled to the noblerprinciples of social polity as in Florence. It tended thereto union and permanence and elevation, —not, as the overbalance of it in England is now doing, to dislocation, change,and moral degradation. The intensest patriotism reignedin these communities, but confined and attached exclusivelyto the small locality of the patriot's birth and residence,whereas in the true Gothic feudalism, country was nothingbut the preservation of personal independence. But then,on the other hand, as a counter-balance to these disunitingelements, there was in Dante's Italy, as in Greece, a muchgreater uniformity of religion common to all than amongstthe northern nations.Upon these hints the history of the republican æras ofancient Greece and modern Italy ought to be written.There are three kinds or stages of historic narrative:—1.that of the annalist or chronicler, who deals merely in factsand events arranged in order of time, having no principleof selection, no plan of arrangement, and whose workproperly constitutes a supplement to the poetical writingsof romance or heroic legends:-2, that of the writer whotakes his stand on some moral point, and selects a seriesof events for the express purpose of illustrating it, and inwhose hands the narrative of the selected events is modifiedby the principle of selection; -as Thucydides, whose objectwas to describe the evils of democratic and aristocratic partizanships; or Polybius, whose design was to show thesocial benefits resulting from the triumph and grandeur ofDANTE. 139Rome, in public institutions and military discipline; ——orTacitus, whose secret aim was to exhibit the pressure andcorruptions of despotism;-in all which writers and otherslike them, the ground- object of the historian colours withartificial lights the facts which he relates: -3. and which inidea is the grandest, -the most truly founded in philosophy,there is the Herodotean history, which is not composedwith reference to any particular causes, but attempts todescribe human nature itself on a great scale as a portionof the drama of providence, the free will of man resistingthe destiny of events,—for the individuals often succeedingagainst it, but for the race always yielding to it, and in theresistance itself invariably affording means towards thecompletion of the ultimate result. Mitford's history is agood and useful work: but in his zeal against democraticgovernment, Mitford forgot, or never saw, that ancientGreece was not, nor ought ever to be considered, a permanent thing, but that it existed, in the disposition of providence, as a proclaimer of ideal truths, and that everlastingproclamation being made, that its functions were naturallyat an end.However, in the height of such a state of society in Italy,Dante was born and flourished; and was himself eminentlya picture of the age in which he lived . But of moreimportance even than this , to a right understanding ofDante, is the consideration that the scholastic philosophywas then at its acme even in itself; but more especially inItaly, where it never prevailed so exclusively as northwardof the Alps. It is impossible to understand the genius ofDante, and difficult to understand his poem, without someknowledge of the characters, studies, and writings of theschoolmen of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenthcenturies. For Dante was the living link between religionand philosophy; he philosophized the religion andchristianized the philosophy of Italy; and, in this poetic140 THE LECTURES OF 1818.union of religion and philosophy, he became the ground oftransition into the mixed Platonism and Aristotelianism ofthe Schools, under which, by numerous minute articles offaith and ceremony, Christianity became a craft of hairsplitting, and was ultimately degraded into a completefetisch worship, divorced from philosophy, and made up ofa faith without thought, and a credulity directed by passion.Afterwards, indeed, philosophy revived under condition ofdefending this very superstition; and, in so doing, itnecessarily led the way to its subversion, and that in exactproportion to the influence of the philosophic schools.Hence it did its work most completely in Germany, thenin England, next in France, then in Spain, least of all inItaly. We must, therefore, take the poetry of Dante aschristianized, but without the further Gothic accession ofproper chivalry. It was at a somewhat later period, thatthe importations from the East, through the Venetiancommerce and the crusading armaments, exercised apeculiarly strong influence on Italy.In studying Dante, therefore, we must consider carefullythe differences produced, first, by allegory being substitutedfor polytheism; and secondly and mainly, by the oppositionof Christianity to the spirit of pagan Greece, which receivingthe very names of its gods from Egypt, soon deprived themof all that was universal. The Greeks changed the ideasinto finites, and these finites into anthropomorphi, or formsof men. Hence their religion, their poetry, nay, their verypictures, became statuesque. With them the form was theend. The reverse of this was the natural effect of Christianity; in which finites, even the human form, must, inorder to satisfy the mind, be brought into connexion with,and be in fact symbolical of, the infinite; and must beconsidered in some enduring, however shadowy and indistinct, point of view, as the vehicle or representative ofmoral truth.DANTE . 141Hence resulted two great effects; a combination of poetrywith doctrine, and, by turning the mind inward on its ownessence instead of letting it act only on its outward circ*mstances and communities, a combination of poetry withsentiment. And it is this inwardness or subjectivity ,which principally and most fundamentally distinguishesall the classic from all the modern poetry . Compare thepassage in the Iliad ( Z' . vi . 119–236. ) in which Diomedand Glaucus change arms,-Χεῖράς τ' ἀλλήλων λαβέτην καὶ πιστώσαντο(" They took each other by the hand, and pledged friendship,")—with the scene in Ariosto ( Orlando Furioso, c . i . st . 20-22 . ) ,where Rinaldo and Ferrauto fight and afterwards make itup:-" Al Pagan la proposta non dispiacque:Così fu differita la tenzone;E tal tregua tra lor subito nacque,Si l'odio e l' ira va in oblivione,Che 'l Pagano al partir dalle fresche acqueNon lasciò a piede il buon figliuol d' Amone:Con preghi invita, e al fin lo toglie in groppa,E per l' orme d' Angelica galoppa."Here Homer would have left it. But the Christian poethas his own feelings to express, and goes on: —"Oh gran bontà de' cavalieri antiqui!Eran rivali, eran di fè diversi,E si sentían degli aspri colpi iniquiPer tutta la persona anco dolersi;E pur per selve oscure e calli obbliquiInsieme van senza sospetto aversi! "And here you will observe, that the reaction of Ariosto'sown feelings on the image or act is more fore- grounded ( touse a painter's phrase) than the image or act itself.142 THE LECTURES OF 1818.The two different modes in which the imagination isacted on by the ancient and modern poetry, may be illustrated by the parallel effects caused by the contemplationof the Greek or Roman- Greek architecture, compared withthe Gothic. In the Pantheon, the whole is perceived in aperceived harmony with the parts which compose it; andgenerally you will remember that where the parts preserveany distinct individuality, there simple beauty, or beautysimply, arises; but where the parts melt undistinguishedinto the whole, there majestic beauty, or majesty, is theresult. In York Minster, the parts, the grotesques, are inthemselves very sharply distinct and separate, and this distinction and separation of the parts is counterbalanced onlyby the multitude and variety of those parts, by which theattention is bewildered; —whilst the whole, or that there isa whole produced, is altogether a feeling in which theseveral thousand distinct impressions lose themselves as ina universal solvent. Hence in a Gothic cathedral, as in aprospect from a mountain's top, there is, indeed, a unity,an awful oneness;-but it is, because all distinction evadesthe eye. And just such is the distinction between theAntigone of Sophocles and the Hamlet of Shakspere.The Divina Commedia is a system of moral, political, andtheological truths, with arbitrary personal exemplifications,which are not, in my opinion, allegorical. I do not evenfeel convinced that the punishments in the Inferno arestrictly allegorical. I rather take them to have been inDante's mind quasi-allegorical, or conceived in analogy topure allegory.I have said, that a combination of poetry with doctrines,is one of the characteristics of the Christian muse; but Ithink Dante has not succeeded iu effecting this combinationnearly so well as Milton.This comparative failure of Dante, as also some otherpeculiarities of his mind, in malam partem, must be im-DANTE. 143mediately attributed to the state of North Italy in his time,which is vividly represented in Dante's life; a state ofintense democratical partizanship, in which an exaggeratedimportance was attached to individuals, and which whilst itafforded a vast field for the intellect, opened also a boundlessarena for the passions, and in which envy, jealousy, hatred,and other malignant feelings, could and did assume the formof patriotism, even to the individual's own conscience.All this common, and, as it were, natural partizanship,was aggravated and coloured by the Guelf and Ghibellinefactions; and, in part explanation of Dante's adherence tothe latter, you must particularly remark, that the Pope hadrecently territorialized his authority to a great extent, andthat this increase of territorial power in the church was byno means the same beneficial movement for the citizens offree republics, as the parallel advance in other countrieswas for those who groaned as vassals under the oppressionof the circumjacent baronial castles.¹By way of preparation to a satisfactory perusal of theDivina Commedia, I will now proceed to state what I consider to be Dante's chief excellences as a poet. And Ibegin with I. Style-the vividness, logical connexion,strength and energy of which cannot be surpassed . Inthis I think Dante superior to Milton; and his style is accordingly more imitable than Milton's, and does to this dayexercise a greater influence on the literature of his country.You cannot read Dante without feeling a gush of manlinessof thought within you. Dante was very sensible of hisown excellence in this particular, and speaks of poets asguardians of the vast armory of language, which is theintermediate something between matter and spirit:-1 " Mr. Coleridge here notes: ' I will, if I can, here make an historicalmovement, and pay a proper compliment to Mr. Hallam. " "-H. N. C.So we have here an outline sketch of his lecture, written out by Coleridge before delivery.144 THE LECTURES OF 1818.6"Or se' tu quel Virgilio, e quella fonte,Che spande di parlar sì largo fiume?Risposi lui con vergognosa fronte.O degli altri poeti onore e lume,Vagliami ' l lungo studio e ' l grande amore,Che m' han fatto cercar lo tuo volume.Tu se' lo mio maestro, e 'l mio autore:Tu se solo colui, da cu' io tolsiLo bello stile, che m' ha fatto onore."Inf. c. 1. v. 79." And art thou then that Virgil, that well- spring,From which such copious floods of eloquenceHave issued? ' I, with front abash'd , replied:Glory and light of all the tuneful train!May it avail me, that I long with zealHave sought thy volume, and with love immenseHave conn'd it o'er. My master, thou , and guide!Thou he from whom I have alone derivedThat style, whichfor its beauty into fame Exalts me. " CARY.Indeed there was a passion and a miracle of words in thetwelfth and thirteenth centuries, after the long slumberof language in barbarism , which gave an almost romanticcharacter, a virtuous quality and power, to what was readin a book, independently of the thoughts or images contained in it. This feeling is very often perceptible inDante.II. The Images in Dante are not only taken from obviousnature, and are all intelligible to all, but are ever conjoinedwith the universal feeling received from nature, and therefore affect the general feelings of all men. And in thisrespect, Dante's excellence is very great, and may be contrasted with the idiosyncracies of some meritorious modernpoets, who attempt an eruditeness, the result of particularfeelings. Consider the simplicity, I may say plainness, ofthe following simile, and how differently we should in allprobability deal with it at the present day:DANTE. 145"Quale i fioretti dal notturno geloChinati e chiusi, poi che 'l sol gl' imbianca,Si drizzan tutti aperti in loro stelo, -Fal mi fec' io di mia virtute stanca."Inf. c. 2. v. 127."As florets, by the frosty air of nightBent down and closed , when day has blanch'd their leaves,Rise all unfolded on their spiry stems , -So was my fainting vigour new restored. "CARY.¹III. Consider the wonderful profoundness of the wholethird canto of the Inferno; and especially of the inscriptionover Hell gate:66 Per me si va," &c.—which can only be explained by a meditation on the truenature of religion; that is, -reason plus the understanding.I say profoundness, rather than sublimity; for Dante doesnot so much elevate your thoughts as send them downdeeper. In this canto all the images are distinct, and evenvividly distinct; but there is a total impression of infinity;the wholeness is not in vision or conception, but in aninner feeling of totality, and absolute being .•IV. In picturesqueness, Dante is beyond all other poets,modern or ancient, and more in the stern style of Pindar,than of any other. Michel Angelo is said to have made adesign for every page of the Divina Commedia. As superexcellent in this respect, I would note the conclusion ofthe third canto of the Inferno:" Ed ecco verso noi venir per naveUn vecchio bianco per antico peloGridando guai a voi anime prave:99 &c.Ver. 82. &c." And lo! toward us in a barkComes on an old man, hoary white with eld,Crying, Woe to you wicked spirits! " " &c.CARY.1 " Mr. Coleridge here notes: Here to speak of Mr. Cary's trans- lation. ""-H. N. C.L146 THE LECTURES OF 1818."Caron dimonio con occhi di bragiaLoro accennando, tutte le raccoglie:Batte col remo qualunque s' adagia.Come d'autunno si levan le foglieL'una appresso dell altra, infin che ' l ramoRende alla terra tutte le sue spoglie;Similemente il mal seme d' Adamo,Gittansi di quel lito ad una ad unaPer cenni, com' augel per suo richiamo. "Ver. 100, &c." Charon, demoniac form,With eyes of burning coal, collects them all,Beckoning, and each that lingers, with his oarStrikes. As fall off the light autumnal leaves,One still another following, till the boughStrews all its honours on the earth beneath; -E'en in like manner Adam's evil broodCast themselves one by one down from the shoreEach at a beck, as falcon at his call. " CARY.And this passage, which I think admirably picturesque:"Ma poco valse, che l' ale al sospettoNon potero avanzar: quegli andò sotto,E quei drizzò, volando, suso il petto:Non altrimenti l' anitra di botto,Quando l' falcon s' appressa, giù s' attuffa,Ed ei ritorna su crucciato e rotto.Irato Calcabrina della buffa,Volando dietro gli tenne, invaghito,Che quei campasse, per aver la zuffa:E come ' l barattier fu disparito,Così volse gli artigli al suo compagno,E fu con lui sovra ' l fosso ghermito.Ma 'l altro fu bene sparvier grifa*gnoAd artigliar ben lui , e amedueCadder nel mezzo del bollente stagno.Lo caldo sghermidor subito fue:Ma però di levarsi era niente ,Sì aveano inviscate l' ale sue."Infer. c. xxii. ver. 127, &c.DANTE . 147"But little it avail'd: terror outstripp'dHis following flight: the other plunged beneath,And he with upward pinion raised his breast:E'en thus the water-fowl, when she perceivesThe falcon near, dives instant down, while heEnraged and spent retires. That mockeryIn Calcabrina fury stirr'd , who flewAfter him, with desire of strife inflamed;And, for the barterer had ' scap'd, so turn'dHis talons on his comrade. O'er the dykeIn grapple close they join'd; but th' other provedAgoshawk, able to rend well his foe;And in the boiling lake both fell. The heatWas umpire soon between them, but in vainTo lift themselves they strove, so fast were gluedTheir pennons."CARY.V. Very closely connected with this picturesqueness, isthe topographic reality of Dante's journey through Hell.You should note and dwell on this as one of his greatcharms, and which gives a striking peculiarity to his poeticpower. He thus takes the thousand delusive forms of anature worse than chaos, having no reality but from thepassions whichthey excite, and compels them into the serviceof the permanent. Observe the exceeding truth of theselines:"Noi ricidemmo ' l cerchio all' altra riva,Sovr' una fonte che bolle, e riversa,Per un fossato che da lei diriva.L'acqua era buja molto più che persa:E noi in compagnia dell' onde bigeEntrammo giù per una via diversa.Una palude fa, ch' ha nome Stige,Questo tristo ruscel, quando è discesoAl piè delle maligne piagge grige.Ed io che di mirarmi stava inteso, -Vidi genti fangose in quel pantanoIgnude tutte, e con sembiante offeso.Questi si percotean non pur con mano,Ma con la testa, e col petto, e co' piedi,148 THE LECTURES OF 1818 .Troncandosi co' denti a brano a brano. "

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"Cosi girammo della lorda pozzaGrand' arco tra la ripa secca e ' l mezzo,Con gli occhi volti a chi del fango ingozza:Venimmo appiè 'd una torre al dassezzo. ”"We the circle cross'dTo the next steep, arriving at a well,That boiling pours itself down to a fossC. vii. ver. 100 and 127.Sluiced from its source. Far murkier was the waveThan sablest grain: and we in companyOf th' inky waters, journeying by their side,Enter'd, though by a different track, beneath .Into a lake, the Stygian named, expands The dismal stream, when it hath reach'd the footOf the grey wither'd cliffs. Intent I stoodTo gaze, and in the marish sunk, descriedAmiry tribe, all naked, and with looksBetokening rage. They with their hands aloneStruck not, but with the head, the breast, the feet,Cutting each other piecemeal with their fangs."

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"Our routeThus compass'd, we a segment widely stretch'dBetween the dry embankment and the coveOf the loath'd pool, turning meanwhile our eyesDownward on those who gulp'd its muddy lees;Nor stopp'd, till to a tower's low base we came."-CARY.VI. For Dante's power, his absolute mastery over,although rare exhibition of, the pathetic, I can do no morethan refer to the passages on Francesca di Rimini ( Infer.C. v. ver. 73 to the end) , and on Ugolino ( Infer. C. xxxiii.ver. 1. to 75) . They are so well known, and rightly soadmired, that it would be pedantry to analyze their composition; but you will note that the first is the pathos ofpassion, the second that of affection; and yet even in thefirst, you seem to perceive that the lovers have sacrificedDANTE.149their passion to the cherishing of a deep and rememberableimpression.VII. As to going into the endless subtle beauties ofDante, that is impossible; but I cannot help citing the firsttriplet of the 29th canto of the Inferno:"La molta gente e le diverse piaghe Avean le luci mie sì inebriate,Che dello stare a piangere eran vaghe.""So were mine eyes inebriate with the viewOf the vast multitude, whom various woundsDisfigured, that they long'd to stay and weep. "CARY.Nor have I now room for any specific comparison of Dantewith Milton. But if I had, I would institute it upon theground of the last canto of the Inferno from the 1st to the69th line, and from the 106th to the end . And in thiscomparison I should notice Dante's occasional fault ofbecoming grotesque from being too graphic without imagination; as in his Lucifer compared with Milton's Satan.Indeed he is sometimes horrible rather than terrible, —falling into the μconròv instead of the davor of Longinus; ¹in other words, many of his images excite bodily disgust,and not moral fear. But here, as in other cases, you mayperceive that the faults of great authors are generally excellencies carried to an excess.1 " De Subl. 1. ix." -H. N. C.ASECTION V.MYTHOLOGY, IMAGINATION, ANDSUPERSTITION. 'Asiatic and Greek Mythologies.CONFOUNDING of God with Nature, and an incapacity of finding unity in the manifold and infinityin the individual, these are the origin of polytheism.The most perfect instance of this kind of theism is that ofearly Greece; other nations seem to have either transcended,or come short of, the old Hellenic standard, —a mythology initself fundamentally allegorical, and typical of the powersand functions of nature, but subsequently mixed up with adeification of great men and hero- worship, -so that finallythe original idea became inextricably combined with theform and attributes of some legendary individual. In Asia,probably from the greater unity of the government andthe still surviving influence of patriarchal tradition, theidea of the unity of God, in a distorted reflection of theMosaic scheme, was much more generally preserved; andaccordingly all other super or ultra-human beings couldonly be represented as ministers of, or rebels against, hiswill. The Asiatic genii and fairies are, therefore, alwaysendowed with moral qualities, and distinguishable as malignant or benevolent to man. It is this uniform attributionOur Fifth Section includes Lectures XI. and XII.MYTHOLOGY, IMAGINATION, AND SUPERSTITION. 151offixed moral qualities to the supernatural agents of easternmythology that particularly separates them from the divinities of old Greece.Yet it is not altogether improbable that in the Samothracian or Cabeiric mysteries the link between the Asiaticand Greek popular schemes of mythology lay concealed.Of these mysteries there are conflicting accounts, and,perhaps, there were variations of doctrine in the lapse ofa*ges and intercourse with other systems. But, upon a review of all that is left to us on this subject in the writingsof the ancients, we may, I think, make out thus much ofan interesting fact, —that Cabiri, impliedly at least, meantsocii, complices, having a hypostatic or fundamental unionwith, or relation to, each other; that these mysteriousdivinities were, ultimately at least, divided into a higherand lower triad; that the lower triad, primi quia infimi,consisted of the old Titanic deities or powers of nature,under the obscure names of Axieros, Axiokersos, and Axiokersa, representing symbolically different modifications ofanimal desire or material action, such as hunger, thirst, andfire, without consciousness; that the higher triad, ultimiquia superiores, consisted of Jupiter, ( Pallas, or Apollo, orBacchus, orMercury, mystically called Cadmilos, ) and Venus,representing, as before, the vous or reason, the Xóyos orword or communicative power, and the pws or love; thatthe Cadmilos or Mercury, the manifested, communicated, orsent, appeared not only in his proper person as second ofthe higher triad, but also as a mediator between the higherand lower triad, and so there were seven divinities; and,indeed, according to some authorities, it might seem thatthe Cadmilos acted once as a mediator of the higher, andonce of the lower, triad, and that so there were eight Cabeiric divinities . The lower or Titanic powers being subdued, chaos ceased, and creation began in the reign ofthedivinities of mind and love; but the chaotic gods still existed152 THE LECTURES OF 1818.in the abyss, and the notion of evoking them was the origin,the idea, of the Greek necromancy.These mysteries, like all the others, were certainly inconnection with either the Phoenician or Egyptian systems,perhaps with both. Hence the old Cabeiric powers weresoon made to answer to the corresponding popular divinities; and the lower triad was called by the uninitiated,Ceres, Vulcan or Pluto, and Proserpine, and the Cadmilosbecame Mercury. It is not without ground that I directyour attention, under these circ*mstances, to the probablederivation of some portion of this most remarkable systemfrom patriarchal tradition, and to the connection of theCabeiri with the Kabbala.The Samothracian mysteries continued in celebrity tillsome time after the commencement of the Christian era.¹But they gradually sank with the rest of the ancient systemof mythology, to which, in fact, they did not properly belong.The peculiar doctrines, however, were preserved in thememories of the initiated , and handed down by individuals .No doubt they were propagated in Europe, and it is notimprobable that Paracelsus received many of his opinionsfrom such persons, and I think a connection may be tracedbetween him and Jacob Behmen.The Arabian Nights, the Milesian Tales, and De Foe.The Asiatic supernatural beings are all produced byimagining an excessive magnitude, or an excessive smallness combined with great power; and the broken associations, which must have given rise to such conceptions, arethe sources of the interest which they inspire, as exhibiting,1 " In the reign of Tiberius, A.D. 18, Germanicus attempted to visitSamothrace; -illum in regressu sacra Samothracum visere nitentem obviiaquilones depulere. Tacit. Ann. II. c. 54. "-H. N. C.MYTHOLOGY, IMAGINATION, AND SUPERSTITION. 153through the working of the imagination, the idea of powerin the will. This is delightfully exemplified in the ArabianNights' Entertainments, and indeed, more or less, in otherworks of the same kind. In all these there is the sameactivity of mind as in dreaming, that is—an exertion of thefancy in the combination and recombination of familiarobjects, so as to produce novel and wonderful imagery.To this must be added that these tales cause no deep feelingof a moral kind—whether of religion or love; but an impulse of motion is communicated to the mind withoutexcitement, and this is the reason of their being so generally read and admired.I think it not unlikely that the Milesian Tales contained the germs of many of those now in the Arabian Nights;indeed it is scarcely possible to doubt that the Greek empire must have left deep impression on the Persian intellect .So also many of the Roman Catholic legends are taken fromApuleius. In that exquisite story of Cupid and Psyche,the allegory is of no injury to the dramatic vividness ofthe tale. It is evidently a philosophic attempt to parryChristianity with a quasi- Platonic account of the fall andredemption of the soul.The charm of De Foe's works, especially of RobinsonCrusoe, is founded on the same principle. It alwaysinterests, never agitates. Crusoe himself is merely arepresentative of humanity in general; neither his intellectual nor his moral qualities set him above the middledegree of mankind; his only prominent characteristic isthe spirit of enterprise and wandering, which is, nevertheless, a very common disposition . You will observe thatall that is wonderful in this tale is the result of externalcirc*mstances of things which fortune brings to Crusoe'shand.154 THE LECTURES OF 1818.Notes on Robinson Crusoe.1Vol. i . p. 17. "But my ill fate pushed me on now with anobstinacy that nothing could resist; and though I had severaltimes loud calls from my reason, and my more composed judgment,to go home, yet I had no power to do it. I know not what tocall this, nor will I urge that it is a secret over- ruling decree that hurries us on to be the instruments of our own destruction, eventhough it be before us, and that we rush upon it with our eyesopen."The wise only possess ideas; the greater part of mankindare possessed by them. Robinson Crusoe was not consciousof the master impulse, even because it was his master, andhad taken, as he says, full possession of him. When oncethe mind, in despite of the remonstrating conscience, hasabandoned its free power to a haunting impulse or idea,then whatever tends to give depth and vividness to thisidea or indefinite imagination, increases its despotism, andin the same proportion renders the reason and free willineffectual. Now, fearful calamities, sufferings, horrors,and hair-breadth escapes will have this effect, far morethan even sensual pleasure and prosperous incidents.Hence the evil consequences of sin in such cases, insteadof retracting or deterring the sinner, goad him on to hisdestruction. This is the moral of Shakspere's Macbeth,and the true solution of this paragraph, -not anyoverrulingdecree of divine wrath, but the tyranny of the sinner's ownevil imagination, which he has voluntarily chosen as hismaster.Compare the contemptuous Swift with the contemnedDe Foe, and how superior will the latter be found! But"These notes were written by Mr. C. in Mr. Gillman's copy ofRobinson Crusoe, in the summer of 1830. The references in the textare to Major's edition, 1831 . "-H. N. C.MYTHOLOGY, IMAGINATION, AND SUPERSTITION. 155by what test?-Even by this; that the writer who makesme sympathize with his presentations with the whole of mybeing, is more estimable than he who calls forth, and appealsbut to, a part of my being-my sense of the ludicrous, forinstance. De Foe's excellence it is, to make me forget myspecific class, character, and circ*mstances, and to raise mewhile I read him, into the universal man.P. 80. " I smiled to myself at the sight of this money: " Odrug! ' said I aloud, &c. However, upon second thoughts, I tookit away; and wrapping all this in a piece of canvas," &c.Worthy of Shakspere! —and yet the simple semicolonafter it, the instant passing on without the least pause ofreflex consciousness, is more exquisite and masterlike thanthe touch itself. A meaner writer, a Marmontel, wouldhave put an (! ) after ' away, ' and have commenced a freshparagraph. 30th July, 1830.P. 111. “ And I must confess, my religious thankfulness toGod's providence began to abate too, upon the discovering thatall this was nothing but what was common; though I ought tohave been as thankful for so strange and unforeseen a providence,as if it had been miraculous."To make men feel the truth of this is one characteristicobject of the miracles worked by Moses; -in them theprovidence is miraculous, the miracles providential.P. 126. " The growing up of the corn, as is hinted in myJournal, had, at first, some little influence upon me, and beganto affect me with seriousness, as long as I thought it had something miraculous in it," &c.By far the ablest vindication of miracles which I havemet with. It is indeed the true ground, the proper purposeand intention of a miracle.156 THE LECTURES OF 1818.P. 141. " To think that this was all my own, that I was kingand lord of all this country indefeasibly," &c.By the by, what is the law of England respecting this?Suppose I had discovered, or been wrecked on an uninhabited island, would it be mine or the king's?P. 223. "I considered-that as I could not foresee what theends of divine wisdom might be in all this, so I was not to dispute his sovereignty, who, as I was his creature, had an undoubtedright, by creation, to govern and dispose of me absolutely as hethought fit," &c.I could never understand this reasoning, grounded on acomplete misapprehension of St. Paul's image of the potter,Rom. ix. , or rather I do fully understand the absurdity ofit. The susceptibility of pain and pleasure, of good andevil, constitutes a right in every creature endowed therewith in relation to every rational and moral being, afortiori, therefore, to the Supreme Reason, to the absolutelygood Being. Remember Davenant's verses;—" Doth it our reason's mutinies appeaseTo say, the potter may his own clay mouldTo every use, or in what shape he please,At first not counsell'd nor at last controll'd?Power's hand can neither easy be, nor strictTo lifeless clay, which ease nor torment knows,And where it cannot favour or afflict,It neither justice or injustice shows.But souls have life , and life eternal too:Therefore, if doom'd before they can offend,It seems to show what heavenly power can do,But does not in that deed that power commend."-Death of Astragon, 88 , &c.P. 232-3. “ And this I must observe with grief too, that thediscomposure of my mind had too great impressions also upon thereligious parts of my thoughts, -praying to God being properlyan act of the mind, not of the body."MYTHOLOGY, IMAGINATION, AND SUPERSTITION . 157As justly conceived as it is beautifully expressed. Anda mighty motive for habitual prayer; for this cannot butgreatly facilitate the performance of rational prayer even inmoments of urgent distress.P. 244. “ That this would justify the conduct of the Spaniardsin all their barbarities practised in America."De Foe was a true philanthropist, who had risen abovethe antipathies of nationality; but he was evidently partialto the Spanish character, which, however, it is not, I fear,possible to acquit of cruelty. Witness the Netherlands,the Inquisition, the late Guerilla warfare, " &c.P. 249. "That I shall not discuss, and perhaps cannot accountfor; but certainly they are a proof of the converse of spirits," &c .This reminds me of a conversation I once overheard."How a statement so injurious to Mr. A. and so contraryto the truth, should have been made to you by Mr. B. , I donot pretend to account for; -only I know of my own knowledge that B. is an inveterate liar, and has long bornemalice against Mr. A.; and I can prove that he has repeatedly declared that in some way or other he would doMr. A. a mischief."P. 254. " The place I was in was a most delightful cavity orgrotto of its kind, as could be expected, though perfectly dark;the floor was dry and level, and had a sort of small loose gravel on it," &c.How accurate an observer of nature De Foe was! Thereader will at once recognize Professor Buckland's cavesand the diluvial gravel.P. 308. " I entered into a long discourse with him about thedevil, the original of him, his rebellion against God, his enmity toman, the reason of it, his setting himself up in the dark parts ofthe world to be worshipped instead of God," &c.158 THE LECTURES OF 1818.I presume that Milton's Paradise Lost must have beenbound up with one of Crusoe's Bibles; otherwise I shouldbe puzzled to know where he found all this history of theOld Gentleman. Not a word of it in the Bible itself, I amquite sure. But to be serious. De Foe did not reflect thatall these difficulties are attached to a mere fiction, or, at thebest, an allegory, supported by a few popular phrases andfigures of speech used incidentally or dramatically by theEvangelists, and that the existence of a personal, intelligent, evil being, the counterpart and antagonist of God,is in direct contradiction to the most express declarations ofHoly Writ. " Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lordhath not done it? " Amos iii. 6. I make peace and createevil." Isa. xlv. 7. This is the deep mystery of the abyssof God.Vol. ii. p. 3.

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66"I have often heard persons of good judgmentthat there is no such thing as a spirit appearing,a ghost walking, and the like, " &c.say,I cannot conceive a better definition of Body than " spiritappearing, " or of a flesh-and- blood man than a rationalspirit apparent. But a spirit per se appearing is tantamount to a spirit appearing without its appearances. Andas for ghosts, it is enough for a man of common sense toobserve, that a ghost and a shadow are concluded in thesame definition, that is, visibility without tangibility.P. 9. " She was, in a few words, the stay of all my affairs, thecentre of all my enterprises," &c.The stay of his affairs, the centre of his interests, theregulator of his schemes and movements, whom it soothedhis pride to submit to , and in complying with whose wishesthe conscious sensation of his acting will increased the impulse, while it disguised the coercion, of duty! -the clingingdependent, yet the strong supporter-the comforter, theMYTHOLOGY, IMAGINATION, AND SUPERSTITION. 159comfort, and the soul's living home! This is De Foe'scomprehensive character of the wife, as she should be;and, to the honour of womanhood be it spoken, there arefew neighbourhoods in which one name at least mightnot be found for the portrait.The exquisite paragraphs in this and the next page, inaddition to others scattered, though with a sparing hand,through his novels, afford sufficient proof that De Foe wasa first-rate master of periodic style; but with sound judgment, and the fine tact of genius, he has avoided it asadverse to, nay, incompatible with, the every- day matter offact realness, which forms the charm and the character ofall his romances. The Robinson Crusoe is like the visionof a happy night-mare, ' such as a denizen of Elysium mightbe supposed to have from a little excess in his nectar andambrosia supper. Our imagination is kept in full play,excited to the highest; yet all the while we are touching,or touched by, common flesh and blood.P. 67. "The ungrateful creatures began to be as insolent andtroublesome as before," &c.Howshould it be otherwise? They were idle; and whenwe will not sow corn, the devil will be sure to sow weeds,night-shade, henbane, and devil's- bit.P. 82. "That hardened villain was so far from denying it,that he said it was true, and him, they would do it stillbefore they had done with them. ”Observe when a man has once abandoned himself towickedness, he cannot stop, and does not join the devils tillhe has become a devil himself. Rebelling against his conscience he becomes the slave of his own furious will.1 Coleridge writes the word night-mair, -more accurately. Mahr, andkindred forms, mean "spectre," in the Icelandic, and other northerndialects.160 THE LECTURES OF 1818.One excellence of De Foe, amongst many, is his sacrificeof lesser interest to the greater because more universal.Had he (as without any improbability he might have done)given his Robinson Crusoe any of the turn for natural history, which forms so striking and delightful a feature inthe equally uneducated Dampier; -had he made him findout qualities and uses in the before ( to him) unknown plantsof the island, discover, for instance, a substitute for hops,or describe birds, &c . - many delightful pages and incidentsmight have enriched the book; -but then Crusoe wouldhave ceased to be the universal representative, the person,for whom every reader could substitute himself. But nownothing is done, thought, suffered , or desired, but whatevery man can imagine himself doing, thinking, feeling, orwishing for. Even so very easy a problem as that of finding a substitute for ink, is with exquisite judgment madeto baffle Crusoe's inventive faculties . And in what he does,he arrives at no excellence; he does not make basket worklike Will Atkins; the carpentering, tailoring, pottery, &c. ,are all just what will answer his purposes, and those areconfined to needs that all men have, and comforts that allmen desire. Crusoe rises only to the point to which allmen may be made to feel that they might, and that theyought to, rise in religion, —to resignation, dependence on,and thankful acknowledgment of, the divine mercy and.goodness.Use of Works of Fiction in the Education of Children.In the education of children, love is first to be instilled,and out of love obedience is to be educed. Then impulseand power should be given to the intellect, and the ends ofa moral being be exhibited . For this object thus muchis effected by works of imagination; -that they carry theMYTHOLOGY, IMAGINATION, AND SUPERSTITION. 161mind out of self, and show the possible of the good andthe great in the human character. The height, whateverit may be, of the imaginative standard will do no harm; weare commanded to imitate one who is inimitable. Weshould address ourselves to those faculties in a child's mind,which are first awakened by nature, and consequentlyfirst admit of cultivation, that is to say, the memory andthe imagination. The comparing power, the judgment,is not at that age active, and ought not to be forcibly excited,as is too frequently and mistakenly done in the modern.systems of education, which can only lead to selfish views,debtor and creditor principles of virtue, and an inflatedsense of merit. In the imagination of man exist the seedsof all moral and scientific improvement; chemistry wasfirst alchemy, and out of astrology sprang astronomy. Inthe childhood of those sciences the imagination opened away, and furnished materials, on which the ratiocinativepowers in a maturer state operated with success. Theimagination is the distinguishing characteristic of man asa progressive being; and I repeat that it ought to be carefully guided and strengthened as the indispensable meansand instrument of continued amelioration and refinement.Men of genius and goodness are generally restless in theirminds in the present, and this, because they are by a law oftheir nature unremittingly regarding themselves in thefuture, and contemplating the possible of moral and intellectual advance towards perfection. Thus we live by hopeand faith; thus we are for the most part able to realizewhat we will, and thus we accomplish the end of our being.The contemplation of futurity inspires humility of soul inour judgment of the present.I think the memory of children cannot, in reason, be toomuch stored with the objects and facts of natural history.God opens the images of nature, like the leaves of a book,before the eyes of his creature, Man-and teaches him allM162 THE LECTURES OF 1818.that is grand and beautiful in the foaming cataract, theglassy lake, and the floating mist.The common modern novel, in which there is no imagination, but a miserable struggle to excite and gratify merecuriosity, ought, in my judgment, to be wholly forbiddento children. Novel- reading of this sort is especially injurious to the growth of the imagination, the judgment, andthe morals, especially to the latter, because it excites merefeelings without at the same time ministering an impulseto action . Womenare good novelists, but indifferent poets;and this because they rarely or never thoroughly distinguishbetween fact and fiction . In the jumble of the two lies thesecret of the modern novel, which is the medium aliquidbetween them, having just so much of fiction as to obscurethe fact, and so much of fact as to render the fiction insipid. The perusal of a fashionable lady's novel is to mevery much like looking at the scenery and decorations of atheatre by broad daylight. The source of the commonfondness for novels of this sort rests in that dislike ofvacancy and that love of sloth, which are inherent in thehuman mind; they afford excitement without producingreaction. By reaction I mean an activity of the intellectualfaculties, which shows itself in consequent reasoning andobservation, and originates action and conduct according toa principle. Thus, the act of thinking presents two sidesfor contemplation, -that of external causality, in which thetrain of thought may be considered as the result of outwardimpressions, of accidental combinations, of fancy, or theassociations of the memory, —and on the other hand, thatof internal causality, or of the energy of the will on themind itself. Thought, therefore, might thus be regardedas passive or active; and the same faculties may in a popularsense be expressed as perception or observation, fancy orimagination, memory or recollection .MYTHOLOGY, IMAGINATION, AND SUPERSTITION. 163Dreams and Apparitions.It is a general, but, as it appears to me, a mistakenopinion, that in our ordinary dreams we judge the objectsto be real. I say our ordinary dreams; -because as to thenight-mare the opinion is to a considerable extent just. Butthe night-mare is not a mere dream, but takes place whenthe waking state of the brain is recommencing, and mostoften during a rapid alternation, a twinkling, as it were, ofsleeping and waking; -while either from pressure on, orfrom some derangement in, the stomach or other digestiveorgans acting on the external skin ( which is still in sympathy with the stomach and bowels) , and benumbing it , thesensations sent up to the brain by double touch ( that is,when my own hand touches my side or breast) , are so faintas to be merely equivalent to the sensation given by singletouch, as when another person's hand touches me. Themind, therefore, which, at all times, with and without ourdistinct consciousness, seeks for, and assumes, some outwardcause for every impression from without, and which in sleep ,by aid of the imaginative faculty, converts its judgmentsrespecting the cause into a personal image as being the cause,-the mind, I say, in this case, deceived by past experience ,attributes the painful sensation received to a correspondentagent, an assassin, for instance, stabbing at the side, or agoblin sitting on the breast. Add too that the impressionsof the bed, curtains, room, &c. , received by the eyes in thehalf- moments of their opening, blend with, and give vividness and appropriate distance to, the dream image whichreturns when they close again; and thus we unite the actualperceptions, or their immediate reliques, with the phantomsof the inward sense; and in this manner so confound thehalf- waking, half- sleeping, reasoning power, that we actually164 THE LECTURES OF 1818.do pass a positive judgment on the reality of what we see andhear, though often accompanied by doubt and self- questioning, which, as I have myself experienced, will at times become strong enough, even before we awake, to convince usthat it is what it is—namely, the night- mare.In ordinary dreams we do not judge the objects to be real;- -we simply do not determine that they are unreal.The sensations which they seem to produce, are in truththe causes and occasions of the images; of which there aretwo obvious proofs: first, that in dreams the strangest andmost sudden metamorphoses do not create any sensation ofsurprise and the second, that as to the most dreadfulimages, which during the dream were accompanied withagonies of terror, we merely awake, or turn round on theother side, and off fly both image and agony, which wouldbe impossible if the sensations were produced by the images.This has always appeared to me an absolute demonstrationof the true nature of ghosts and apparitions—such I meanof the tribe as were not pure inventions. Fifty years ago,(and to this day in the ruder parts of Great Britain andIreland, in almost every kitchen and in too many parloursit is nearly the same, ) you might meet persons who wouldassure you in the most solemn manner, so that you couldnot doubt their veracity at least, that they had seen an apparition of such and such a person, -in many cases, thatthe apparition had spoken to them; andthey would describethemselves as having been in an agony of terror. Theywould tell you the story in perfect health. Now take theother class of facts, in which real ghosts have appeared; —I mean, where figures have been dressed up for the purposeof passing for apparitions:-in every instance I have knownor heard of (and I have collected very many) the consequence has been either sudden death, or fits, or idiocy, ormania, or a brain fever. Whence comes the difference?evidently from this , that in the one case the whole of theMYTHOLOGY, IMAGINATION, AND SUPERSTITION. 165nervous system has been by slight internal causes graduallyand all together brought into a certain state, the sensationof which is extravagantly exaggerated during sleep, and ofwhich the images are the mere effects and exponents, as themotions of the weather- co*ck are of the wind; —while in theother case, the image rushing through the senses upon anervous system, wholly unprepared, actually causes thesensation, which is sometimes powerful enough to producea total check, and almost always a lesion or inflammation.Who has not witnessed the difference in shock when wehave leaped down half- a- dozen steps intentionally, andthat of having missed a single stair? How comparativelysevere the latter is! The fact really is, as to apparitions, that the terror produces the image instead of thecontrary; for in omnem actum perceptionis influit imaginatio,as says Wolfe.O, strange is the self- power of the imagination—whenpainful sensations have made it their interpreter, or returning gladsomeness or convalescence has made its chilled andevanished figures and landscape bud, blossom, and live inscarlet, green, and snowy white (like the fire- screen inscribed with the nitrate and muriate of cobalt, ) —strange isthe power to represent the events and circ*mstances, even tothe anguish or the triumph of the quasi- credent soul, whilethe necessary conditions, the only possible causes of suchcontingencies, are known to be in fact quite hopeless; -yea,when the pure mind would recoil from the eve- lengthenedshadow of an approaching hope, as from a crime; —and yetthe effect shall have place, and substance, and living energy,and, on a blue islet of ether, in a whole sky of blackestcloudage, shine like a firstling of creation!To return, however, to apparitions, and by way of anamusing illustration of the nature and value of even contemporary testimony upon such subjects, I will presentyou with a passage, literally translated by my friend, Mr.166 THE LECTURES OF 1818.Southey, from the well known work of Bernal Dias, one ofthe companions of Cortes, in the conquest of Mexico:"Here it is that Gomara says , that Francisco de Morla rodeforward on a dappled grey horse, before Cortes and the cavalrycame up, and that the apostle St. Iago, or St. Peter, was there.I must say that all our works and victories are by the hand ofour Lord Jesus Christ, and that in this battle there were for eachof us so many Indians, that they could have covered us withhandfuls of earth, if it had not been that the great mercy of Godhelped us in every thing. And it may be that he of whomGomara speaks, was the glorious Santiago or San Pedro, and I,as a sinner, was not worthy to see him; but he whom I sawthere and knew, was Francisco de Morla on a chesnut horse,who came up with Cortes. And it seems to me that now whileI am writing this, the whole war is represented before thesesinful eyes, just in the manner as we then went through it.And though I, as an unworthy sinner, might not deserve to seeeither of these glorious apostles, there were in our companyabove four hundred soldiers , and Cortes, and many other knights;and it would have been talked of and testified, and they wouldhave made a church, when they peopled the town, which wouldhave been called Santiago de la Vittoria, or San Pedro de la Vittoria, as it is now called , Santa Maria de la Vittoria. Andif it was, as Gomara says, bad Christians must we have been,when our Lord God sent us his holy apostles, not to acknowledgehis great mercy, and venerate his church daily. And would toGod, it had been , as the Chronicler says! —but till I read hisChronicle, I never heard such a thing from any of the conquerorswho were there."Now, what if the odd accident of such a man as BernalDias ' writing a history had not taken place! Gomara'saccount, the account of a contemporary, which yet musthave been read by scores who were present, would haveremained uncontradicted. I remember the story of a man,whom the devil met and talked with, but left at a particular lane; the man followed him with his eyes, andwhen the devil got to the turning or bend of the lane, heMYTHOLOGY, IMAGINATION, AND SUPERSTITION. 167" And how do you" How do I know, "vanished! The devil was upon this occasion drest in ablue coat, plush waistcoat, leather breeches and boots, andtalked and looked just like a common man, except as to aparticular lock of hair which he had.know then, that it was the devil? "replied the fellow, —“ why, if it had not been the devil,being drest as he was, and looking as he did, why should Ihave been sore stricken with fright, when I first saw him?and why should I be in such a tremble all the while hetalked? And, moreover, he had a particular sort of akind of a lock, and when I groaned and said, upon everyquestion he asked me, Lord have mercy upon me! or,Christ have mercy upon me! it was plain enough that hedid not like it, and so he left me! "-The man was quitesober when he related this story; but as it happened tohim on his return from market, it is probable that he wasthen muddled . As for myself, I was actually seen inNewgate, in the winter of 1798; -the person who saw methere, said he had asked my name of Mr. A. B., a knownacquaintance of mine, who told him that it was youngColeridge, who had married the eldest Miss66"Willyou go to Newgate, Sir? " said my friend; "for I assureyou that Mr. C. is now in Germany." Very willingly,"replied the other, and away they went to Newgate, andsent for A. B. " Coleridge," cried he, " in Newgate! Godforbid! " I said, young Col who married the eldestThe names were something similar. Andyet this person had himself really seen me at one of mylectures .Miss 9966I remember, upon the occasion of my inhaling thenitrous oxide at the Royal Institution, about five minutesafterwards, a gentleman came from the other side of thetheatre and said to me, " Was it not ravishingly delightful, Sir? "—" It was highly pleasurable, no doubt. "-"Was it not very like sweet music? "-" I cannot say I168 THE LECTURES OF 1818.perceived any analogy to it. "-" Did you not say it wasvery like Mrs. Billington singing by your ear? "—" No,Sir, I said that while I was breathing the gas, there was asinging in my ears. "To return, however, to dreams, I not only believe, forthe reasons given, but have more than once actually experienced, that the most fearful forms, when producedsimply by association, instead of causing fear, operate noother effect than the same would do if they had passedthrough my mind as thoughts, while I was composing afaery tale; the whole depending on the wise and graciouslaw in our nature, that the actual bodily sensations, calledforth according to the law of association by thoughts andimages of the mind, never greatly transcend the limits ofpleasurable feeling in a tolerably healthy frame, unlesswhere an act of the judgment supervenes and interpretsthem as purporting instant danger to ourselves.The Alchemists.1There have been very strange and incredible stories toldof and by the alchemists. Perhaps in some of them theremay have been a specific form of mania, originating in theconstant intension of the mind on an imaginary end, associated with an immense variety of means, all of themsubstances not familiar to men in general, and in formsstrange and unlike to those of ordinary nature. Sometimes,it seems as if the alchemists wrote like the Pythagoreanson music, imagining a metaphysical and inaudible music asthe basis of the audible. It is clear that by sulphur theymeant the solar rays or light, and by mercury the principleof ponderability, so that their theory was the same withthat of the Heracl*tic physics, or the modern German1 " From Mr. Green's Note."-H. N. C.MYTHOLOGY, IMAGINATION, AND SUPERSTITION . 169=Naturphilosophie, which deduces all things from light andgravitation, each being bipolar; gravitation = north andsouth, or attraction and repulsion; light east and west,or contraction and dilation; and gold being the tetrad, orinterpenetration of both, as water was the dyad of light,and iron the dyad of gravitation.It is, probably, unjust to accuse the alchemists generallyof dabbling with attempts at magic in the common senseof the term . The supposed exercise of magical poweralways involved some moral guilt, directly or indirectly, asin stealing a piece of meat to lay on warts, touchinghumours with the hand of an executed person, &c. Ritesof this sort and other practices of sorcery have always beenregarded with trembling abhorrence by all nations, even themost ignorant, as by the Africans, the Hudson's Bay people,and others. The alchemists were, no doubt, often considered as dealers in art magic, and many of them were notunwilling that such a belief should be prevalent; and themoreearnest among them evidently looked at their association ofsubstances, fumigations, and other chemical operations, asmerely ceremonial, and seem, therefore, to have had a deepermeaning, that of evoking a latent power. It would be profitable to make a collection of all the cases of cures by magicalcharms and incantations; much useful information might,probably, be derived from it; for it is to be observed thatsuch rites are the form in which medical knowledge wouldbe preserved amongst a barbarous and ignorant people.The Book of Tobit. The Fallen Spirits. The EgyptianMusicians. The Possessed, in the Gospels.¹The apocryphal book of Tobit consists of a very simple,but beautiful and interesting, family-memoir, into which1 "Written in a copy of Mr. Hillhouse's Hadad. " -H. N. C. DatedJune, 1827.170 THE LECTURES OF 1818.some later Jewish poet or fabulist of Alexandria wovethe ridiculous and frigid machinery, borrowed from thepopular superstitions of the Greeks (though, probably,of Egyptian origin) , and accommodated, clumsily enough,to the purer monotheism of the Mosaic law. The Rape ofthe Lock is another instance of a simple tale thus enlargedat a later period, though in this case by the same author,and with a very different result. Now unless Mr. Hillhouseis Romanist enough to receive this nursery-tale garnish ofa domestic incident as grave history and holy writ (forwhich, even from learned Roman Catholics, he would gainmore credit as a very obedient child of the Church than asa biblical critic ) , he will find it no easy matter to supportthis assertion of his by the passages of Scripture here referred to, consistently with any sane interpretation of theirimport and purpose.1. The Fallen Spirits.This is the mythological form, or, if you will, the symbolical representation, of a profound idea necessary as thepræ-suppositum of the Christian scheme, or a postulate ofreason, indispensable, if we would render the existence of aworld of finites compatible with the assumption of a supermundane God, not one with the world. In short, this ideais the condition under which alone the reason of man canretain the doctrine of an infinite and absolute Being, andyet keep clear of pantheism as exhibited by BenedictSpinoza.II. The Egyptian Magicians.This whole narrative is probably a relic of the old diplomatic lingua-arcana, or state-symbolique-in which theprediction of events is expressed as the immediate causingof them. Thus the prophet is said to destroy the city, thedestruction of which he predicts . The word which ourversion renders by " enchantments " signifies "flames orburnings, " by which it is probable that the Egyptians wereMYTHOLOGY, IMAGINATION, AND SUPERSTITION. 171able to deceive the spectators, and substitute serpents forstaves. See Parkhurst in voce.And with regard to the possessions in the Gospels, bearin mind, first of all, that spirits are not necessarily soulsor I's (ich-heiten or self- consciousnesses) , and that the mostludicrous absurdities would follow from taking them as suchin the Gospel instances; and secondly, that the Evangelist,who has recorded the most of these incidents, himself speaksof one of these possessed persons as a lunatic (reλnvíážetαi—ἐξῆλθεν απ' αὐτοῦ τὸ δαιμόνιον. Matt. xvii. 15. 18. );—whileSt. John names them not at all, but seems to include themunder the description of diseased or deranged persons.That madness may result from spiritual causes, and notonly or principally from physical ailments, may readilybe admitted. Is not our will itself a spiritual power? Isit not the spirit of the man? The mind of a rationaland responsible being (that is , of a free- agent, ) is a spirit,though it does not follow that all spirits are minds. Whoshall dare determine what spiritual influences may notarise out of the collective evil wills of wicked men?Even the bestial life, sinless in animals and their nature,may when awakened in the man and by his own actadmitted into his will, become a spiritual influence. Hereceives a nature into his will, which by this very actbecomes a corrupt will; and vice versa, this will becomeshis nature, and thus a corrupt nature. This may be conceded; and this is all that the recorded words of ourSaviour absolutely require in order to receive an appropriatesense; but this is altogether different from making spiritsto be devils, and devils self-conscious individuals .172 THE LECTURES OF 1818.The Personality ofthe Devil.¹"A Christian's conflicts and conquests, p . 459. By the devilwe are to understand that apostate spirit which fell from God, and is always designing to hale down others from God also . The OldDragon (mentioned in the Revelation) with his tail drew downthe third part of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. ”How much is it to be regretted, that so enlightened andable a divine as Smith, had not philosophically and scripturally enucleated this so difficult yet important question,-respecting the personal existence of the evil principle;that is, whether as rò Otiov of paganism is ó eos in Christianity, so the τὸ πονηρὸν is to be ὁ πονηρὸς,—and whetherthis is an express doctrine of Christ, and not merely aJewish dogma left undisturbed to fade away under theincreasing light of the Gospel, instead of assuming theformer, and confirming the position by a verse from apoetic tissue of visual symbols, —a verse alien from thesubject, and by which the Apocalypt enigmatized theNeronian persecutions and the apostacy through fear occasioned by it in a large number of converts.Ib. p. 463. "When we say, the devil is continually busy withus, I mean not only some apostate spirit as one particular being,but that spirit of apostacy which is lodged in all men's natures;and this may seem particularly to be aimed at in this place, if weobserve the context: -as the scripture speaks of Christ not onlyas a particular person, but as a divine principle in holy souls .Indeed the devil is not only the name of one particular thing,but a nature. "May I not venture to suspect that this was Smith's ownbelief and judgment? And that his conversion of the Satan,6"Written in a copy of Select Discourses by John Smith, ofQueen's College, Cambridge, 1660,' and communicated by the Rev.Edward Coleridge." -H. N. C. Dated March, 1824.MYTHOLOGY, IMAGINATION, AND SUPERSTITION. 173that is, circuitor, or minister of police (what our Sterne callsthe accusing angel) , in the prologue to Job into the devilwas a mere condescension to the prevailing prejudice?Here, however, he speaks like himself, and like a truereligious philosopher, who felt that the personality of evilspirits is a trifling question, compared with the personalityof the evil principle. This is indeed most momentous.Soul and Body.¹The defect of this and all similar theories that I am acquainted with, or rather, let me say, the desideratum, is theneglect of a previous definition of the term " body." Whatdo you mean by it? The immediate grounds of a man'ssize, visibility, tangibility, &c? —But these are in a continualflux even as a column of smoke. The material particles ofcarbon, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, lime, phosphorus, sulphur, soda, iron, that constitute the ponderable organismin May, 1827, at the moment of Pollio's death in his 70thyear, have no better claim to be called his " body, " than thenumerical particles of the same names that constituted theponderable mass in May, 1787, in Pollio's prime of manhoodin his 30th year; —the latter no less than the former gointo the grave, that is, suffer dissolution , the one in a series,the other simultaneously. The result to the particles isprecisely the same in both, and of both therefore we mustsay with holy Paul,-" Thou fool! that which thou sowest,thou sowest not that body that shall be," &c . Neither thisnor that is the body that abideth. Abideth, I say; forthat which riseth again must have remained, though perhaps in an inert state. It is not dead, but sleepeth; -that1 " Note on a Passage in the Life of Henry Earl of Morland. 20thJune, 1827." -H. N. C. The reader may also consult the notes to Henry More's Poems, in our fifth Division.174 THE LECTURES OF 1818.is, it is not dissolved any more than the exterior or phenomenal organism appears to us dissolved when it lieth inapparent inactivity during our sleep .Sound reasoning this, to the best of my judgment, as faras it goes. But how are we to explain the reaction of thisfluxional body on the animal? In each moment the particlesby the informing force of the living principle constitute anorgan not only of motion and sense, but of consciousness .The organ plays on the organist. How is this conceivable?The solution requires a depth, stillness, and subtlety ofspirit not only for its discovery, but even for the understanding of it when discovered, and in the most appropriatewords enunciated . I can merely give a hint. The particlesthemselves must have an interior and gravitative being, andthe multeity must be a removable or at least suspensibleaccident.SECTION VI.STYLE.¹IHAVE, I believe, formerly observed with regard to thecharacter of the governments of the East, that theirtendency was despotic, that is, towards unity; whilst thatof the Greek governments, on the other hand, leaned to themanifold and the popular, the unity in them being purelyideal, namely of all as an identification of the whole. Inthe northern or Gothic nations the aim and purpose of thegovernment were the preservation of the rights and interestsof the individual in conjunction with those of the whole.The individual interest was sacred. In the character andtendency of the Greek and Gothic languages there is precisely the same relative difference. In Greek the sentencesare long, and the structure architectural, so that each partor clause is insignificant when compared with the whole.The result is every thing, the steps and processes nothing.But in the Gothic and, generally, in what we call themodern, languages, the structure is short, simple, and complete in each part, and the connexion of the parts with thesum total of the discourse is maintained by the sequency ofthe logic, or the community of feelings excited between thewriter and his readers. As an instance equally delightful1 The remains of Lecture XIV. , -the last. For Lecture XIII. , see thefragment " On Poesy or Art " in our first Division.176 THE LECTURES OF 1818.and complete, of what may be called the Gothic structureas contra- distinguished from that of the Greeks, let me citea part of our famous Chaucer's character of a parish priestas he should be. Can it ever be quoted too often?"A good man thér was of religiöunThat was a pouré Parsone of a toun,But riche he was of holy thought and werk;He was alsó a lerned man, a clerk,That Cristés gospel trewély wolde preche;His párishens¹ devoutly wolde he teche;Benigne he was, and wonder 2 diligent,And in adversite ful patient,And swiche³ he was ypreved often sithes";Ful loth were him to cursen for his tithes,But rather wolde he yeven out of doute 6Unto his pouré párishens abouteOf his offring, and eke of his substance;He coude in litel thing have suffisance:11Wide was his parish, and houses fer asonder,But he ne left nought for no rain neⓇ thonder,In sikenesse and in mischief to visíteThe ferrest in his parish moche and lite 10Upon his fete, and in his hand a staf:This noble ensample to his shepe he yaf,¹¹That first he wrought, and afterward he taught,Out ofthe gospel he the wordés caught,And this figúre he added yet thereto,That ifgold rusté, what should iren do.He setté not his benefice to hire,And lette 12 his shepe accombred 13 in the mire,And ran untó Londón untó Seint Poules,To seken him a chantérie for soules,Or with a brotherhede to be withold,But dwelt at home, and kepté wel his fold,So that the wolf ne made it not miscarie:1 Parishioners. 2 Wondrous.4 Proved. 5 Times.7 Not.8 Nor.10 Great and small. 11 Gave.13 Encumbered.3 Such.6 Give or have given.9 Farthest12 Left.STYLE. 177He was a shepherd and no mercenarie;And though he holy were and vertuous,He was to sinful men not dispitous ,¹Ne of his speché dangerous ne digne,2But in his teching discrete and benigne,To drawen folk to heven with fairénesse,By good ensample was his besinesse;But it were any persone obstinat,What so he were of high or low estat,Him wolde he snibben³ sharply for the nones:Abetter preest I trowe that no wher non is;He waited after no pompe ne reverence,He maked him no spiced conscience,But Cristés love and his apostles' twelveHe taught, but first he folwed it himselve.4 "Such change as really took place in the style of ourliterature after Chaucer's time is with difficulty perceptible,on account of the dearth of writers, during the civil warsof the 15th century. But the transition was not verygreat; and accordingly we find in Latimer and our othervenerable authors about the time of Edward VI. , as inLuther, the general characteristics of the earliest manner; —that is , every part popular, and the discourse addressed toall degrees of intellect; -the sentences short, the tone vehement, and the connexion of the whole produced by honestyand singleness of purpose, intensity of passion, and pervadingimportance of the subject.Another and a very different species of style is thatwhich was derived from, and founded on, the admirationand cultivation of the classical writers, and which was moreexclusively addressed to the learned class in society. Ihave previously mentioned Boccaccio as the original Italianintroducer of this manner, and the great models of it inEnglish are Hooker, Bacon, Milton, and Taylor, although1 Despiteous.2 Proud.• Prologue to Canterbury Tales.3 Reprove.N178 THE LECTURES OF 1818.it may be traced in many other authors of that age. Inall these the language is dignified but plain, genuine English, although elevated and brightened by superiority ofintellect in the writer. Individual words themselves arealways used by them in their precise meaning, withouteither affectation or slipslop . The letters and state papersof Sir Francis Walsingham are remarkable for excellencein style ofthis description. In Jeremy Taylor the sentencesare often extremely long, and yet are generally so perspicuous, in consequence of their logical structure, that theyrequire no reperusal to be understood; and it is for themost part the same in Milton and Hooker.Take the following sentence as a specimen of the sort ofstyle to which I have been alluding:66

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Concerning Faith, the principal object whereof is that eternalverity which hath discovered the treasures of hidden wisdom inChrist; concerning Hope, the highest object whereof is that everlasting goodness which in Christ doth quicken the dead; concerning Charity, the final object whereof is that incomprehensiblebeauty which shineth in the countenance of Christ, the Son of the living God: concerning these virtues, the first of whichbeginning here with a weak apprehension of things not seen,endeth with the intuitive vision of God in the world to come;the second beginning here with a trembling expectation of things far removed, and as yet but only heard of, endeth with real and actual fruition of that which no tongue can express;the third beginning here with a weak inclination of heart towardshim unto whom we are not able to approach, endeth with end- less union, the mystery whereof is higher than the reach of thethoughts of men; concerning that Faith, Hope, and Charity,without which there can be no salvation, was there ever anymention made saving only in that Law which God himself hath from Heaven revealed? There is not in the world a syllablemuttered with certain truth concerning any of these three, morethan hath been supernaturally received from the mouth of the eternal God. "Eccles. Pol. I. s . 11 .STYLE . 179The unity in these writers is produced by the unity ofthe subject, and the perpetual growth and evolution of thethoughts, one generating, and explaining, and justifying ,the place of another, not, as it is in Seneca, where thethoughts, striking as they are, are merely strung togetherlike beads, without any causation or progression. Thewords are selected because they are the most appropriate,regard being had to the dignity of the total impression, andno merely big phrases are used where plain ones wouldhave sufficed, even in the most learned of their works.There is some truth in a remark, which I believe wasmade by Sir Joshua Reynolds, that the greatest man ishe who forms the taste of a nation, and that the nextgreatest is he who corrupts it. The true classical style ofHooker and his fellows was easily open to corruption; andSir Thomas Browne it was, who, though a writer of greatgenius, first effectually injured the literary taste of thenation by his introduction of learned words, merely becausethey were learned. It would be difficult to describe Browneadequately; exuberant in conception and conceit, dignified,hyper-latinistic, a quiet and sublime enthusiast; yet afantast, a humourist, a brain with a twist; egotistic likeMontaigne, yet with a feeling heart and an active curiosity,which, however, too often degenerates into a hunting afteroddities. In his Hydriotaphia and, indeed, almost all hisworks, the entireness of his mental action is very observable;he metamorphoses every thing, be it what it may, into thesubject under consideration. But Sir Thomas Browne¹ withall his faults had a genuine idiom; and it is the existenceof an individual idiom in each, that makes the principalwriters before the Restoration the great patterns or integersof English style. In them the precise intended meaningof a word can never be mistaken; whereas in the later1 See notes on Sîr T. Browne in our fifth Division.180 THE LECTURES OF 1818.writers, as especially in Pope, the use of words is for themost part purely arbitrary, so that the context will rarelyshowthe true specific sense, but only that something of thesort is designed . A perusal of the authorities cited byJohnson in his dictionary under any leading word, willgive you a lively sense of this declension in etymologicaltruth of expression in the writers after the Restoration, orperhaps, strictly, after the middle of the reign of Charles II.The general characteristic of the style of our literaturedown to the period which I have just mentioned, wasgravity, and in Milton and some other writers of his daythere are perceptible traces of the sternness of republicanism .Soon after the Restoration a material change took place,and the cause of royalism was graced, sometimes disgraced,by every shade of lightness of manner.A free and easystyle was considered as a test of loyalty, or at all events,as a badge of the cavalier party; you may detect it occasionally even in Barrow, who is , however, in general, remarkable for dignity and logical sequency of expression;but in L'Estrange, Collyer, and the writers of that class,this easy manner was carried out to the utmost extreme ofslang and ribaldry. Yet still the works, even of theselast authors, have considerable merit in one point of view;their language is level to the understandings of all men;it is an actual transcript of the colloquialism of the day,and is accordingly full of life and reality. Roger North'slife of his brother the Lord Keeper, is the most valuablespecimen of this class of our literature; it is delightful,and much beyond any other of the writings of his contemporaries.From the common opinion that the English style attainedits greatest perfection in and about Queen Anne's reign Ialtogether dissent; not only because it is in one species alonein which it can be pretended that the writers of that ageexcelled their predecessors, but also because the specimensSTYLE. 181themselves are not equal, upon sound principles of judgment, to much that had been produced before. The classical structure of Hooker --the impetuous, thought- agglomerating, flood of Taylor—to these there is no pretence ofa parallel; and for mere ease and grace, is Cowley inferior to Addison, being as he is so much more thoughtfuland full of fancy? Cowley, with the omission of a quaintness here and there, is probably the best model of style formodern imitation in general. Taylor's periods have beenfrequently attempted by his admirers; you may, perhaps,just catch the turn of a simile or single image, but to writein the real manner of Jeremy Taylor would require asmighty a mind as his. Many parts of Algernon Sidney'streatises afford excellent exemplars of a good modernpractical style; and Dryden in his prose works, is a stillbetter model, if you add a stricter and purer grammar. Itis, indeed, worthy of remark that all our great poets havebeen good prose writers, Chaucer, Spenser, and Milton; andthis probably arose from their just sense of metre.For atrue poet will never confound verse and prose; whereas itis almost characteristic of indifferent prose writers that theyshould be constantly slipping into scraps of metre. Swift'sstyle is, in its line, perfect; the manner is a completeexpression of the matter, the terms appropriate, and the artifice concealed. It is simplicity in the true sense of the word.After the Revolution, the spirit of the nation becamemuch more commercial than it had been before; a learnedbody, or clerisy, as such, gradually disappeared, and literature in general began to be addressed to the commonmiscellaneous public. That public had become accustomedto, and required, a strong stimulus; and to meet the requisitions of the public taste, a style was produced whichbycombiningtriteness of thought with singularity and excessof manner of expression, was calculated at once to sootheignorance and to flatter vanity. The thought was carefully182 THE LECTURES OF 1818.kept down to the immediate apprehension of the commonestunderstanding, and the dress was as anxiously arranged forthe purpose of making the thought appear something veryprofound. The essence of this style consisted in a mockantithesis, that is, an opposition of mere sounds, in a ragefor personification, the abstract made animate, far-fetchedmetaphors, strange phrases, metrical scraps, in every thing,in short, but genuine prose. Style is, of course, nothingelse but the art of conveying the meaning appropriatelyand with perspicuity, whatever that meaning may be, andone criterion of style is that it shall not be translateablewithout injury to the meaning. Johnson's style has pleasedmanyfrom the very fault of being perpetually translateable;he creates an impression of cleverness by never saying anything in a common way. The best specimen of this manneris in Junius, because his antithesis is less merely verbal thanJohnson's. Gibbon's manner is the worst of all; it hasevery fault of which this peculiar style is capable. Tacitusis an example of it in Latin; in coming from Cicero youfeel the falsetto immediately.In order to form a good style, the primary rule and condition is, not to attempt to express ourselves in languagebefore we thoroughly know our meaning; —when a manperfectly understands himself, appropriate diction willgenerally be at his command either in writing or speaking.In such cases the thoughts and the words are associated. Inthe next place preciseness in the use of terms is required, andthe test is whether you can translate the phrase adequatelyinto simpler terms, regard being had to the feeling of thewhole passage. Try this upon Shakspere, or Milton, andsee if you can substitute other simpler words in any givenpassage without a violation of the meaning or tone. Thesource of bad writing is the desire to be something morethan a man of sense, the straining to be thought agenius; and it is just the same in speech- making. If menSTYLE. 183would only say what they have to say in plain terms, howmuch more eloquent they would be! Another rule is to avoidconverting mere abstractions into persons. I believe youwill very rarely find in any great writer before the Revolution the possessive case of an inanimate noun used in proseinstead of the dependent case, as ' the watch's hand,' for' the hand of the watch.' The possessive or Saxon genitivewas confined to persons, or at least to animated subjects.And I cannot conclude this Lecture without insisting on theimportance of accuracy of style as being near akin to veracityand truthful habits of mind; he who thinks loosely willwrite loosely, and, perhaps, there is some moral inconveniencein the common forms of our grammars which give childrenso many obscure terms for material distinctions. Let mealso exhort you to careful examination of what you read,if it be worth any perusal at all; such examination will bea safeguard from fanaticism, the universal origin of whichis in the contemplation of phenomena without investigationinto their causes.Wonderfulness ofProse.¹It has just struck my feelings that the Pherecydeanorigin of prose being granted, prose must have struck menwith greater admiration than poetry. In the latter, it wasthe language of passion and emotion: it is what they themselves spoke and heard in moments of exultation, indignation, &c. But to hear an evolving roll, or a succession ofleaves, talk continually the language of deliberate reasonin a form of continued preconception, of a Z alreadypossessed when A was being uttered, -this must haveappeared godlike. I feel myself in the same state, whenFrom vol. ii. of the " Remains," and without date. The note may find a place here, as too curious to be lost.184 THE LECTURES OF 1818."in the perusal of a sober, yet elevated and harmonious,succession of sentences and periods, I abstract my mindfrom the particular passage, and sympathize with thewonder of the common people who say of an eloquent man'He talks like a book! ' *MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.

THOVER THE BROCKEN.¹HROUGH roads no way rememberable, we came toGieloldshausen, over a bridge, on which was a mitredstatue 2 with a great crucifix in its arms. The village, longand ugly; but the church, like most Catholic churches, interesting; and this being Whitsun Eve, all were crowding66¹ We extract this narrative, by Coleridge, of his excursion in theHarz Mountains,-unfortunately, only a fragment, —from Gillman's Life of Coleridge. It was written, Gillman tells us, soon after hisreturn from Germany." Whenever it was Coleridge arranged them, theaccount is made up of extracts from two letters to Mrs. Coleridge,written from the Harz. They will be found in full, with a third to hisfriend Poole, in the New Monthly Magazine, Oct. , 1835. The article ,in the form in which Gillman gives it, was printed in The Amulet, 1829 .The little tour-on foot, and in student fashion, -came off in May,1799. Coleridge was then at Göttingen. Other fellow-students accompanied him, mostly younger than he, who was at this time twenty-six.The principal of these were Dr. Parry, afterwards of Bath, his brother,the Arctic Navigator, and Dr. Carlyon, of Truro. Dr. Carlyon, in hisEarly Years and Late Reflections, vol. i . , 1836, has given a graphicaccount of their excursion, to which the reader is referred. He mayalso consult our Introduction to Coleridge's Poems, 1885 ( Aldine Edition) ,the Biographia Literaria, and Coleridge's Letters from Germany, abovementioned, in the New Monthly Magazime.At the end of June, when Coleridge quitted Germany, his friendsaccompanied him as far as Brunswick, and again they ascended theBrocken. They hoped, this time, to see the famous Spectre, —but in vain.2 "An image of our Saviour, as it proved," says Dr. Carlyon. Coleridge, we regret to record, inquired of an indignant peasant, " whether itwas not intended for the Elector of Mentz," in whose domains they thenwere.188 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.to it, with their mass books and rosaries, the little babiescommonly with coral crosses hanging on the breast. Herewe took a guide, left the village, ascended a hill, and nowthe woods rose up before us in a verdure which surprised uslike a sorcery. The spring had burst forth with the suddenness of a Russian summer. As we left Göttingen therewere buds, and here and there a tree half green; but herewere woods in full foliage, distinguished from summer onlyby the exquisite freshness of their tender green .We entered the wood through a beautiful mossy path; the moonabove us blending ' with the evening light, and every nowand then a nightingale would invite the others to sing, andsome or other commonly answered, and said, as we suppose,' It is yet somewhat too early! ' for the song was not continued. We came to a square piece of greenery, completelywalled on all four sides by the beeches; again entered thewood, and having travelled about a mile, emergedfrom it intoa grand plain-mountains in the distance, but ever by ourroad the skirts of the green woods. A very rapid river ranby our side; and now the nightingales were all singing, andthe tender verdure grew paler in the moonlight, only thesmooth parts of the river were still deeply purpled withthe reflections from the fiery light in the west.So surrounded and so impressed, we arrived at Prele, a dear littlecluster of houses in the middle of a semicircle of woodyhills; the area of the semicircle scarcely broader than thebreadth of the village.

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We afterward ascended another hill, from the top ofwhich a large plain opened before us with villages. Alittle village, Neuhoff, lay at the foot of it: we reached it,and then turned up through a valley on the left hand. The¹ Compare Love (written only a short time after Coleridge's return)::--" The moonlight, stealing o'er the scene,Had blended with the lights of eve."OVER THE BROCKEN. 189hills on both sides the valley were prettily wooded, and arapid lively river ran through it. So we went for abouttwo miles, and almost at the end of the valley, or ratherof its first turning, we found the village of Lauterberg.Just at the entrance of the village, two streams come outfromtwo deep and woody coombs, close by each other, meet, andrun into a third deep woody coomb opposite; before you awild hill, which seems the end and barrier of the valley; onthe right hand, low hills, now green with corn, and nowwooded; and on the left a most majestic hill indeed-theeffect of whose simple outline painting could not give, andhow poor a thing are words! We pass through this neat littletown-the majestic hill on the left hand soaring over thehouses, and at every interspace you see the whole of it—its beeches, its firs , its rocks, its scattered cottages, and theone little pastor's house at the foot embosomed in fruit- trees.all in blossom, the noisy coomb-brook dashing close by it.We leave the valley, or rather, the first turning on the left,following a stream; and so the vale winds on, the river stillat the foot of the woody hills, with every now and thenother smaller valleys on right and left crossing our vale,and ever before you the woody hills running like groves oneinto another. We turned and turned, and entering thefourth curve of the vale, we found all at once that we hadbeen ascending. The verdure vanished! All the beechtrees were leafless, and so were the silver birches, whoseboughs always, winter and summer, hang so elegantly.But low down in the valley, and in little companies on eachbank of the river, ' a multitude of green conical fir trees,with herds of cattle wandering about, almost every onewith a cylindrical bell around its neck, of no inconsiderablesize, and as they moved-scattered over the narrow vale,and up among the trees on the hill-the noise was like that.1 Insert " you could see," or the like..190 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.of a great city in the stillness of a sabbath morning, whenthe bells all at once are ringing for church.The whole wasa melancholy and romantic scene, that was quite new tome. Again we turned, passed three smelting houses, whichwe visited; -a scene of terrible beauty is a furnace ofboiling metal, darting, every moment, blue, green, andscarlet lightning, like serpents' tongues! -and now weascended a steep hill, on the top of which was St. AndriasBerg, a town built wholly of wood.We descended again, to ascend far higher; and now wecame to a most beautiful road, which winded on the breastof the hill, from whence we looked down into a deep valley,or huge basin, full of pines and firs; the opposite hillsfull of pines and firs; and the hill above us, on whosebreast we were winding, likewise full of pines and firs.The valley, or basin, on our right hand, into which welooked down, is called the Wald Rauschenbach, that is,the Valley of the Roaring Brook; and roar it did, indeed,most solemnly! The road on which we walked was weedywith infant fir- trees, an inch or two high; ¹ and now, onour left hand, came before us a most tremendous precipice of yellow and black rock, called Rehberg, that is,the Mountain of the Roe. Now again is nothing but firsand pines, above, below, around us! How awful is thedeep unison oftheir undividable murmur; what a one thingit is—it is a sound that impresses the dim notion of theOmnipresent! In various parts of the deep vale below us,we beheld little dancing waterfalls gleaming through thebranches, and now, on our left hand, from the very summitof the hill above us, a powerful stream flung itself down,leaping and foaming, and now concealed, and now notconcealed, and now half concealed by the fir-trees, till,towards the road, it became a visible sheet of water, within1 No one but a poet could have added this exquisite touch.OVER THE BROCKEN. 191whose immediate neighbourhood no pine could have permanent abiding place. The snow lay everywhere on thesides of the roads, and glimmered in company with thewaterfall foam, snow patches and waterbreaks glimmeringthrough the branches in the hill above, the deep basinbelow, and the hill opposite. Over the high opposite hills ,so dark in their pine forests, a far higher round barrenstony mountain looked in upon the prospect from a distantcountry. Through this scenery we passed on, till our roadwas crossed by a second waterfall, or rather, aggregation oflittle dancing waterfalls, one by the side of the other for aconsiderable breadth, and all came at once out of the darkwood above, and rolled over the mossy rock fragments, littlefirs, growing in islets, scattered among them. The samescenery continued till we came to the Oder Seich, a lake, halfmadeby man, and half by nature. It is two miles in length,and but a fewhundred yards in breadth, and winds betweenbanks, or rather through walls, of pine trees. It has theappearance of a most calm and majestic river. It crossesthe road, goes into a wood, and there at once plunges itselfdown into a most magnificent cascade, and runs into thevale, to which it gives the name of the ' Vale of the RoaringBrook. ' We descended into the vale, and stood at the bottomof the cascade, and climbed up again by its side. Therocks over which it plunged were unusually wild in theirshape, giving fantastic resemblances of men and animals,and the fir-boughs by the side were kept almost in aswing, which unruly motion contrasted well with the sternquietness of the huge forest- sea every where else.

• * * * *

In nature all things are individual, but a word is but anarbitrary character for a whole class of things; so that thesame description may in almost all cases be applied totwenty different appearances; and in addition to the difficulty of the thing itself, I neither am, nor ever was, a good192 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.hand at description. I see what I write, but, alas! I cannotwrite what I see. From the Oder Seich we entered a secondwood; and now the snow met us in large masses, and wewalked for two miles knee- deep in it, with an inexpressiblefatigue, till we came to the mount called Little Brocken;here even the firs deserted us, or only now and then a patchof them, wind- shorn, no higher than one's knee, matted andcowering to the ground, like our thorn bushes on thehighest sea-hills . The soil was plashy and boggy; we descended and came to the foot of the Great Brocken withouta river-the highest mountain in all the north of Germany,and the seat of innumerable superstitions. On the first ofMay all the witches dance here at midnight; and those whogo may see their own ghosts walking up and down, with alittle billet on the back, giving the names of those whohad wished them there; for ' I wish you on the top of theBrocken, ' is a common curse throughout the whole empire.Well, we ascended—the soil boggy—and at last reached theheight, which is 573 toises above the level of the sea. Wevisited the Blocksberg, a sort of bowling-green, inclosed byhuge stones, something like those at Stonehenge, and thisis the witches' ball- room; thence proceeded to the house onthe hill, where we dined; and now we descended . In theevening about seven we arrived at Elbingerode. At theinn they brought us an album, or stamm-buch, requestingthat we would write our names, and something or other asa remembrance that we had been there. I wrote the following lines, which contain a true account of my journeyfrom the Brocken to Elbingerode."I stood on Brocken's sovran height, and sawWoods crowding upon woods, hills over hills;A surging scene, and only limitedBy the blue distance. Wearily my wayDownward I dragg'd, through fir groves evermore,Where bright green moss moved in sepulchral forms,OVER THE BROCKEN. 193Speckled with sunshine; and, but seldom heard,The sweet bird's song become a hollow sound;And the gale murmuring indivisibly,Reserved its solemn murmur, more distinctFrom many a note of many a waterbreak,And the brook's chatter; on whose islet stonesThe dingy kidling, with its tinkling bell ,Leapt frolicksome, or old romantic goatSat, his white beard slow waving. I moved onWith low and languid thought, for I had foundThat grandest scenes have but imperfect charmsWhere the eye vainly wanders, nor beholdsOne spot with which the heart associatesHoly remembrances of child or friend,Or gentle maid, our first and early love,Or father, or the venerable nameOf our adored country. O thou Queen,Thou delegated Deity of Earth,O'dear, dear ' England! how my longing eyesTurn'd westward, shaping in the steady cloudsThy sands and high white cliffs! Sweet native isle,This heart was proud, yea, mine eyes swam with tearsTo think of thee; and all the goodly viewFrom sovran Brocken, woods and woody hills ,Floated away, like a departing dream,Feeble and dim. Stranger, these impulsesBlame thou not lightly; nor will I profane,With hasty judgment or injurious doubt,That man's sublimer spirit, who can feelThat God is every where, the God who framedMankind to be one mighty brotherhood,Himself our Father, and the world our home." ¹¹ The poem has been somewhat altered. We leave the original versionin the text, and subjoin the later variations.In line 4, for “ wearily " read heavily; heaves for " moved,” inline;6;in line 8, became for " become " (probably a misprint); breeze forgale," below; and 66"Preserved its solemn murmur most distinct; "and " mid whose islet stones." Further on, substitute"In low and languid mood; for I had foundThat outward forms, the loftiest, still receive194 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.We left Elbingerode, May 14th, and travelled for half amile through a wild country, of bleak stony hills by our side,with several caverns, or rather mouths of caverns, visible intheir breasts; and now we came to Rubilland, —Oh, it wasa lovely scene! Our road was at the foot of low hills, andhere were a few neat cottages; behind us were high hills,with a few scattered firs, and flocks of goats visible on thetopmost crags. On our right hand a fine shallow riverabout thirty yards broad, and beyond the river a crescent hillclothed with firs, that rise one above another, like spectatorsin an amphitheatre. We advanced a little farther, the cragsbehind us ceased to be visible, and now the whole was oneand complete. All that could be seen was the cottages atthe foot of the low green hill, (cottages embosomed in fruittrees in blossom, ) the stream, and the little crescent of firs .I lingered here, and unwillingly lost sight of it for a littlewhile. The firs were so beautiful, and the masses of rocks,walls, and obelisks started up among them in the veryplaces where, if they had not been, a painter with a poet'sfeeling would have imagined them. Crossed the river (itsname Bodi) , entered the sweet wood, and came to themouth of the cavern, with the man who shews it . It was ahuge place, eight hundred feet in length, and more in depth,of many different apartments; and the onlything that distinguished it from other caverns was, that the guide, whoTheir finer influence from the life within; —Fair ciphers else; fair, but ofimport vagueOr unconcerning, where the heart not findsHistory or prophecy offriend, or child,Or gentle maid. "Finally, we have " longing eyes," and after " cliffs دو"My native land!Fill'd with the thought of thee , this heart was proud,Yea, mine eye swam with tears that all the viewFrom ... ";and family for " brotherhood. "1 OVER THE BROCKEN. 195was really a character, had the talent of finding out andseeing uncommon likenesses in the different forms of thestalactite. Here was a nun; this was Solomon's temple;-that was a Roman Catholic Chapel; -here was a lion'sclaw, nothing but flesh and blood wanting to make it completely a claw! This was an organ, and had all the notesof an organ, &c. &c. &c.; but, alas! with all possiblestraining of my eyes, ears, and imagination , I could seenothing but common stalactite, and heard nothing but thedull ding of common cavern stones. One thing was reallystriking;—a huge cone of stalactite hung from the roof ofthe largest apartment, and, on being struck, gave perfectlythe sound of a death-bell . I was behind, and heard it repeatedly at some distance, and the effect was very much inthe fairy kind, -gnomes, ¹ and things unseen, that toll mockdeath- bells for mock funerals . After this, a little clearwell and a black stream pleased me the most; and multiplied by fifty, and coloured ad libitum, might be well enoughto read of in a novel or poem. We returned, and now before the inn, on the green plat around the Maypole, thevillagers were celebrating Whit- Tuesday. This Maypoleis hung as usual with garlands on the top, and, in thesegarlands, spoons, and other little valuables, are placed.The high smooth round pole is then well greased; and nowhe who can climb up to the top may have what he can get,―a very laughable scene as you may suppose, of awkwardness and agility , and failures on the very brink of success.Now began a dance. The women danced very well, and,in general, I have observed throughout Germany that thewomen in the lower ranks degenerate far less from the idealof a woman, than the men from that of man. The dances1 The words should evidently be printed as verse: —"Gnomes, and things unseen,That toll mock death-bells for mock funerals. "196 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.were reels and waltzes; but chiefly the latter. This danceis, in the higher circles, sufficiently voluptuous; but herethe emotions of it were far more faithful interpreters ofthe passion, which, doubtless, the dance was intended toshadow; yet, after the giddy round and round is over, theywalked to music, the woman laying her arm, with confidentaffection, on the man's shoulders, or around his neck. Thefirst couple at the waltzing was a very fine tall girl, of twoor three and twenty, in the full bloom and growth of limband feature, and a fellowwith huge whiskers, a long tail, andwoollen night- cap; he was a soldier, and from the more thanusual glances of the girl, I presumed was her lover. Hewas, beyond compare, the gallant and the dancer of theparty. Next came two boors: one of whom, in the wholecontour of his face and person, and , above all, in the laughably would-be frolicksome kick out of his heel, irresistiblyreminded me of Shakspere's Slender, and the other of hisDogberry. Oh! two such faces, and two such postures!O that I were an Hogarth! What an enviable gift it is tohave a genius in painting! Their partners were prettylasses, not so tall as the former, and danced uncommonlylight and airy. The fourth couple was a sweet girl ofabout seventeen, delicately slender, and very prettilydressed, with a full-blown rose in the white ribbon thatwent round her head, and confined her reddish- brown hair;and her partner waltzed with a pipe in his mouth, smokingall the while; and during the whole of this voluptuous dance,his countenance was a fair personification of true Germanphlegm. After these, but, I suppose, not actually belonging to the party, a little ragged girl and ragged boy, withhis stockings about his heels, waltzed and danced; —waltzing and dancing in the rear most entertainingly. But whatmost pleased me, was a little girl of about three or fouryears old, certainly not more than four, who had been putto watch a little babe of not more than a year old (for oneOVER THE BROCKEN. 197of our party had asked) , and who was just beginning to runaway, the girl teaching himto walk, and who was so animatedby the music, that she began to waltz with him, and thetwo babes whirled round and round, hugging and kissingeach other, as if the music had made them mad. Therewere two fiddles and a bass viol. The fiddlers ,—above all,the bass violer, —most Hogarthian phizzes! God love them!I felt far more affection for them than towards any otherset of human beings I have met with since I have been inGermany, I suppose because they looked so happy!"OF UNMEASURED LANGUAGE ANDINTOLERANCE,INCLUDING A PARALLEL BETWEEN MILTON AND BISHOPTAYLOR.1" Me dolor incautum, me lubrica duxerit ætas,Me tumor impulerit, me devius egerit ardor:Te tamen haud decuit paribus concurrere telis.En adsum: veniam, confessus crimina, posco. "CLAUD. Epist. ad Had." There is one that slippeth in his speech, but not from his heart; andwho is he that hath not offended with his tongue? "-Ecclesiasticus,xix. 16.AT2T the house of a gentleman, who by the principles andcorresponding virtues of a sincere Christian consecratesa cultivated genius and the favourable accidents of birth,opulence, and splendid connexions, it was my good fortune66 1 This is the " Apologetic Preface," which Coleridge prefixed, in 1817 ,in Sibylline Leaves," to his poem, Fire, Famine, and Slaughter. Itwas retained in all later editions. Coleridge's abuse of Pitt, in 1795, inhis lectures, was even more outrageous than the verses of 1796. Dr.Carlyon justly considers this Preface an unsatisfactory substitute for the apology due. We are responsible for the heading above.2 This " gentleman " was Mr. Sotheby, the " illustrious poet " wasSir Walter Scott, and the friend " who would have established himselfin the first rank of England's living poets, if, &c. ," must have been SirHumphry Davy.OF UNMEASURED LANGUAGE. 199to meet, in a dinner- party, with more men of celebrity inscience or polite literature, than are commonly found collected round the same table. In the course of conversation,one of the party reminded an illustrious Poet, then present,of some verses which he had recited that morning, and whichhad appeared in a newspaper under the name of a WarEclogue, in which Fire, Famine, and Slaughter, wereintroduced as the speakers. The gentleman so addressedreplied, that he was rather surprised that none of us shouldhave noticed or heard of the poem, as it had been, at thetime, a good deal talked of in Scotland. It may be easilysupposed, that my feelings at this moment were not of themost comfortable kind . Of all present, one only knew, orsuspected me to be the author; a man who would have established himself in the first rank of England's living poets,if the Genius of our country had not decreed that he shouldrather be the first in the first rank of its philosophers andscientific benefactors . It appeared the general wish to hearthe lines. As my friend chose to remain silent, I chose tofollow his example, and Mr. recited the Poem. Thishe could do with the better grace, being known to have everbeen not only a firm and active Anti- Jacobin and Anti- Gallican, but likewise a zealous admirer of Mr. Pitt, both as agood man and agreat statesman. As a poet exclusively, hehad been amused with the Eclogue; as a poet, he recited it;and in a spirit, which made it evident, that he would haveread and repeated it with the same pleasure, had his ownname been attached to the imaginary object or agent.After the recitation, our amiable host observed, that inhis opinion Mr. had over- rated the merits of thepoetry; but had they been tenfold greater, they could nothave compensated for that malignity of heart, which couldalone have prompted sentiments so atrocious. I perceivedthat my illustrious friend became greatly distressed on myaccount; but fortunately I was able to preserve fortitude200 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.and presence of mind enough to take up the subject without exciting even a suspicion how nearly and painfully itinterested me.What follows, is substantially the same as I then replied,but dilated and in language less colloquial. It was not myintention, I said, to justify the publication, whatever itsauthor's feelings might have been at the time of composingit. That they are calculated to call forth so severe a reprobation from a good man, is not the worst feature of suchpoems. Their moral deformity is aggravated in proportionto the pleasure which they are capable of affording to vindictive, turbulent, and unprincipled readers. Could it be supposed, though for a moment, that the author seriously wishedwhat he had thus wildly imagined, even the attempt to palliate an inhumanity so monstrous would be an insult to thehearers. But it seemed to me worthy of consideration,whether the mood of mind, and the general state of sensations, in which a poet produces such vivid and fantasticimages, is likely to co-exist, or is even compatible with, thatgloomy and deliberate ferocity which a serious wish torealize them would pre-suppose. It had been often observed, and all my experience tended to confirm theobservation, that prospects of pain and evil to others, andin general, all deep feelings of revenge, are commonly expressed in a few words, ironically tame, and mild. Themind under so direful and fiend- like an influence, seems totake a morbid pleasure in contrasting the intensity of itswishes and feelings, with the slightness or levity of theexpressions by which they are hinted; and indeed feelingsso intense and solitary, if they were not precluded (as inalmost all cases they would be) by a constitutional activityof fancy and association, and by the specific joyousness combined with it, would assuredly themselves preclude suchactivity. Passion, in its own quality, is the antagonist ofaction; though in an ordinary and natural degree theOF UNMEASURED LANGUAGE. 201former alternates with the latter, and thereby revives andstrengthens it. But the more intense and insane the passion is, the fewer and the more fixed are the correspondentforms and notions . A rooted hatred, an inveterate thirstof revenge, is a sort of madness, and still eddies round itsfavourite object, and exercises as it were a perpetual tautology of mind in thoughts and words, which admit of noadequate substitutes. Like a fish in a globe of glass, itmoves restlessly round and round the scanty circumference,which it cannot leave without losing its vital element.There is a second character of such imaginary representations as spring from a real and earnest desire of evil toanother, which we often see in real life, and might evenanticipate from the nature of the mind. The images, Imean, that a vindictive man places before his imagination,will most often be taken from the realities of life: they willbe images of pain and suffering which he has himself seeninflicted on other men, and which he can fancy himself asinflicting on the object of his hatred . I will suppose thatwe had heard at different times two common sailors , eachspeaking of some one who had wronged or offended him;that the first with apparent violence had devoted everypart of his adversary's body and soul to all the horridphantoms and fastastic places that ever Quevedo dreamtof, and this is a rapid flow of those outrageous and wildlycombined execrations, which too often with our lower classesserve for escape- valves to carry off the excess of their passions, as so much superfluous steam that would endangerthe vessel if it were retained. The other, on the contrary,with that sort of calmness of tone which is to the ear whatthe paleness of anger is to the eye, shall simply say, “ If Ichance to be made boatswain, as I hope I soon shall, andcan but once get that fellow under my hand (and I shall beupon the watch for him) , I'll tickle his pretty skin! I won'thurt him! oh no! I'll only cut the to the liver! "202 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.I dare appeal to all present, which of the two they wouldregard as the least deceptive symptom of deliberate malignity? nay, whether it would surprise them to see the firstfellow, an hour or two afterwards, cordially shaking handswith the very man, the fractional parts of whose body andsoul he had been so charitably disposing of; or even perhapsrisking his life for him. What language Shakspere considered characteristic of malignant disposition, we see inthe speech of the good-natured Gratiano, who spoke " aninfinite deal of nothing more than any man in all Venice; 'Too wild, too rude and bold of voice,"the skipping spirit, whose thoughts and words reciprocallyran away with each other;6666 O be thou damn'd , inexorable dog!And for thy life let justice be accused! """and the wild fancies that follow, contrasted with Shylock'stranquil " I stand here for Law. "Or, to take a case more analogous to the present subject,should we hold it either fair or charitable to believe it tohave been Dante's serious wish, that all the persons mentioned by him, (many recently departed, and some evenalive at the time, ) should actually suffer the fantastic andhorrible punishments, to which he has sentenced them inhis Hell and Purgatory? Or what shall we say of the passages in which Bishop Jeremy Taylor anticipates the stateof those who, vicious themselves, have been the cause ofvice and misery to their fellow- creatures? Could we endurefor a moment to think that a spirit, like Bishop Taylor's,burning with Christian love; that a man constitutionallyoverflowing with pleasurable kindliness; who scarcely evenin a casual illustration introduces the image of woman,child, or bird, but he embalms the thought with so rich atenderness, as makes the very words seem beauties andfragments of poetry from a Euripides or Simonides; -canOF UNMEASURED LANGUAGE. 203we endure to think, that a man so natured and so disciplined, did at the time of composing this horrible picture,attach a sober feeling of reality to the phrases? or that hewould have described in the same tone of justification , inthe same luxuriant flow of phrases, the tortures about to beinflicted on a living individual by a verdict of the StarChamber? or the still more atrocious sentences executedon the Scotch anti- prelatists and schismatics, at the command, and in some instances under the very eye of theDuke of Lauderdale, and of that wretched bigot who afterwardsdishonoured and forfeited the throne of Great Britain?Or do we not rather feel and understand , that these violentwords were mere bubbles, flashes and electrical apparitions,from the magic cauldron of a fervid and ebullient fancy,constantly fuelled by an unexampled opulence of language?Were I now to have read by myself for the first timethe poem in question, my conclusion, I fully believe, wouldbe, that the writer must have been some man of warmfeelings and active fancy; that he had painted to himselfthe circ*mstances that accompany war in so many vivid andyet fantastic forms, as proved that neither the images northe feelings were the result of observation, or in any wayderived from realities. I should judge, that they were theproduct of his own seething imagination, and thereforeimpregnated with that pleasurable exultation which isexperienced in all energetic exertion of intellectual power;that in the same mood he had generalized the causes of thewar, and then personified the abstract, and christened it bythe name which he had been accustomed to hear most oftenassociated with its management and measures . I shouldguess that the minister was in the author's mind at themoment of composition, as completely ἀπαθὴς, αναιμόσαρκος,as Anacreon's grasshopper, and that he had as little notionof a real person of flesh and blood,66' Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb,"204 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.as Milton had in the grim and terrible phantoms (half person, half allegory, ) which he has placed at the gates of Hell.I concluded by observing, that the poem was not calculatedto excite passion in any mind, or to make any impressionexcept on poetic readers; and that from the culpable levity,betrayed at the close of the Eclogue by the grotesque unionof epigrammatic wit with allegoric personification, in theallusion to the most fearful of thoughts, I should conjecturethat the " rantin Bardie, " instead of really believing, muchless wishing, the fate spoken of in the last line, in applicationto any human individual, would shrink from passing theverdict even on the Devil himself, and exclaim with poorBurns," But fare ye weel, auld Nickie- ben!Oh! wad ye tak a thought an' men!Ye aiblins might-I dinna ken- Still hae a stakeI'm wae to think upon yon den,Ev'n for your sake! ”I need not say that these thoughts, which are here dilated ,were in such a company only rapidly suggested. Our kindhost smiled, and with a courteous compliment observed,that the defence was too good for the cause. My voicefaltered a little, for I was somewhat agitated; though notso much on my own account as for the uneasiness that sokind and friendly a man would feel from the thought thathe had been the occasion of distressing me. At length Ibrought out these words: " I must now confess, Sir! thatI am the author of that poem. It was written some yearsago.¹ I do not attempt to justify my past self, young as Ithen was; but as little as I would now write a similar poem,so far was I even then from imagining, that the lines wouldbe taken as more or less than a sport of fancy. At all1 In 1796.OF UNMEASURED LANGUAGE. 205events, if I know my own heart, there was never a momentin my existence in which I should have been more ready,had Mr. Pitt's person been in hazard, to interpose my ownbody, and defend his life at the risk of my own. '1""I have prefaced the poem with this anecdote, because tohave printed it without any remark might well have beenunderstood as implying an unconditional approbation onmy part, and this after many years' consideration . But ifit be asked why I republished it at all, I answer, that thepoem had been attributed at different times to differentother persons; and what I had dared beget, I thought itneither manly nor honourable not to dare father. Fromthe same motives I should have published perfect copies oftwo poems, the one entitled The Devil's Thoughts, and theother The Two Round Spaces on the Tomb- Stone, but thatthe first three stanzas of the former, which were worth allthe rest of the poem, and the best stanza of the remainder,were written by a friend of deserved celebrity; 2 and becausethere are passages in both, which might have given offenceto the religious feelings of certain readers. I myself indeedsee no reason why vulgar superstitions, and absurd conceptions that deform the pure faith of a Christian, shouldpossess a greater immunity from ridicule than stories ofwitches, or the fables of Greece and Rome. But there arethose who deem it profaneness and irreverence to call anape an ape, if it but wear a monk's cowl on its head; andI would rather reason with this weakness than offend it.The passage from Jeremy Taylor to which I referred, isfound in his second Sermon on Christ's Advent to Judgment; which is likewise the second in his year's course ofsermons. Among many remarkable passages of the samecharacter in those discourses, I have selected this as the1 The first of these poems was afterwards included among Coleridge's.Poems, in the edition of 1828, and both of them in the edition of 1834.2 Southey.206 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.most so. "But when this Lion of the tribe of Judah shallappear, then Justice shall strike and Mercy shall not holdher hands; she shall strike sore strokes, and Pity shall notbreak the blow. As there are treasures of good things, sohath God a treasure of wrath and fury, and Scourges andscorpions; and then shall be produced the shame of lustand the malice of envy, and the groans of the oppressed andthe persecutions of the saints, and the cares of covetousnessand the troubles of ambition, and the insolencies of traitorsand the violences of rebels, and the rage of anger and theuneasiness of impatience, and the restlessness of unlawfuldesires; and by this time the monsters and diseases will benumerous and intolerable, when God's heavy hand shallpress the sanies and the intolerableness, the obliquity andthe unreasonableness, the amazement and the disorder, thesmart and the sorrow, the guilt and the punishment, outfrom all our sins, and pour them into one chalice, andmingle them with an infinite wrath, and make the wickeddrink off all the vengeance, and force it down their unwilling throats with the violence of devils and accursedspirits ."That this Tartarean drench displays the imaginationrather than the discretion of the compounder; that, inshort, this passage and others of the same kind are in abad taste, few will deny at the present day. It woulddoubtless have more behoved the good bishop not to bewise beyond what is written, on a subject in which Eternityis opposed to Time, and a death threatened, not the negative,but the positiveOpposite of Life; a subject, therefore,which must of necessity be indescribable to the humanunderstanding in our present state. But I can neitherfind nor believe, that it ever occurred to any reader toground on such passages a charge against Bishop Taylor'shumanity, or goodness of heart. I was not a little surprisedtherefore to find, in the Pursuits of Literature and otherOF UNMEASURED LANGUAGE. 207works, so horrible a sentence passed on Milton's moralcharacter, for a passage in his prose-writings, as nearlyparallel to this of Taylor's as two passages can well beconceived to be. All his merits, as a poet, forsooth-allthe glory of having written the Paradise Lost, are light inthe scale, nay, kick the beam, compared with the atrociousmalignity of heart expressed in the offensive paragraph.I remembered, in general, that Milton had concluded oneof his works on Reformation, written in the fervour of hisyouthful imagination, in a high poetic strain , that wantedmetre only to become a lyrical poem. I remembered thatin the former part he had formed to himself a perfect idealof human virtue, a character of heroic, disinterested zealand devotion for Truth, Religion, and public Liberty, inact and in suffering, in the day of triumph and in the hourof martyrdom. Such spirits, as more excellent than others,he describes as having a more excellent reward, and asdistinguished by a transcendent glory: and this reward andthis glory he displays and particularizes with an energyand brilliance that announced the Paradise Lost as plainly,as ever the bright purple clouds in the east announced thecoming of the Sun. Milton then passes to the gloomycontrast, to such men as from motives of selfish ambitionand the lust of personal aggrandizement should, againsttheir own light, persecute truth and the true religion, andwilfully abuse the powers and gifts entrusted to them, tobring vice, blindness, misery, and slavery on their nativecountry, on the very country that had trusted, enriched,and honoured them. Such beings, after that speedy andappropriate removal from their sphere of mischief whichall good and humane men must of course desire, will, hetakes for granted by parity of reason, meet with a punishment, an ignominy, and a retaliation, as much severer thanother wicked men, as their guilt and its consequences weremore enormous. His description of this imaginary punish-208 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.ment presents more distinct pictures to the fancy than theextract from Jeremy Taylor; but the thoughts in the latterare incomparably more exaggerated and horrific . All thisI knew; but I neither remembered, nor by reference andcareful re- perusal could discover, any other meaning, eitherin Milton or Taylor, but that good men will be rewarded,and the impenitent wicked punished, in proportion to theirdispositions and intentional acts in this life; and that ifthe punishment of the least wicked be fearful beyond conception, all words and descriptions must be so far true, thatthey must fall short of the punishment that awaits thetranscendently wicked. Had Milton stated either his idealof virtue, or of depravity, as an individual or individualsactually existing? Certainly not! Is his representationworded historically, or only hypothetically? Assuredly thelatter! Does he express it as his own wish, that afterdeath they should suffer these tortures? or as a generalconsequence, deduced from reason and revelation, that suchwill be their fate? Again, the latter only! His wish isexpressly confined to a speedy stop being put by Providenceto their power of inflicting misery on others! But did hename or refer to any persons, living or dead? No! Butthe calumniators of Milton dare say (for what will calumnynot dare say? ) that he had Laud and Strafford in his mind,while writing of remorseless persecution, and the enslavement of a free country, from motives of selfish ambition.Now, what if a stern anti- prelatist should dare say, that inspeaking of the insolencies of traitors and the violences ofrebels, Bishop Taylor must have individualized in his mind,Hampden, Hollis, Pym, Fairfax, Ireton, and Milton? Andwhat if he should take the liberty of concluding, that in theafter- description the Bishop was feeding and feasting hisparty-hatred, and with those individuals before the eyes ofhis imagination enjoying, trait by trait, horror after horror,the picture of their intolerable agonies? Yet this bigotOF UNMEASURED LANGUAGE. 209""would have an equal right thus to criminate the one goodand great man, as these men have to criminate the other.Milton has said, and I doubt not but that Taylor withequal truth could have said it, " that in his whole life henever spake against a man even that his skin should begrazed. ' He asserted this when one of his opponents(either Bishop Hall or his nephew) had called upon thewomen and children in the streets to take up stones andstone him (Milton) . It is known that Milton repeatedlyused his interest to protect the royalists; but even at atime when all lies would have been meritorious againsthim, no charge was made, no story pretended, that he hadever directly or indirectly engaged or assisted in theirpersecution. Oh! methinks there are other and far betterfeelings, which should be acquired by the perusal of ourgreat elder writers. When I have before me on the sametable, the works of Hammond and Baxter; when I reflectwith what joy and dearness their blessed spirits are nowloving each other: it seems a mournful thing that theirnames should be perverted to an occasion of bitternessamong us, who are enjoying that happy mean which thehuman too- much on both sides was perhaps necessary toproduce. "The tangle of delusions which stifled and distorted the growing tree of our well- being has been tornaway; the parasite weeds that fed on its very roots havebeen plucked up with a salutary violence. To us thereremain only quiet duties, the constant care, the gradualimprovement, the cautious unhazardous labours of theindustrious though contented gardener-to prune, tostrengthen, to engraft, and one by one to remove from itsleaves and fresh shoots the slug and the caterpillar. Butfar be it from us to undervalue with light and senselessdetraction the conscientious hardihood of our predecessors,or even to condemn in them that vehemence, to which theblessings it won for us leave us now neither temptation norP210 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.pretext. We ante- date the feelings, in order to criminatethe authors, of our present liberty, light and toleration. ”(The Friend, p. 54) .¹If ever two great men might seem, during their wholelives, to have moved in direct opposition, though neitherof them has at any time introduced the name of the other,Milton and Jeremy Taylor were they. The former commenced his career by attacking the Church-Liturgy and allset forms of prayer; the latter, but far more successfully,by defending both. Milton's next work was then againstthe Prelacy and the then existing Church- GovernmentTaylor's, in vindication and support of them. Miltonbecame more and more a stern republican, or rather anadvocate for that religious and moral aristocracy which, inhis days, was called republicanism, and which, even morethan royalism itself, is the direct antipode of modernJacobinism. Taylor, as more and more sceptical concerning the fitness of men in general for power, became moreand more attached to the prerogatives of monarchy. FromCalvinism, with a still decreasing respect for Fathers,Councils, and for Church-antiquity in general, Miltonseems to have ended in an indifference, if not a dislike, toall forms of ecclesiastic government, and to have retreatedwholly into the inward and spiritual church- communion ofhis own spirit with the Light, that lighteth every man thatcometh into the world. Taylor, with a growing reverencefor authority, an increasing sense of the insufficiency of theScriptures without the aids of tradition and the consent ofauthorized interpreters, advanced as far in his approaches(not indeed to Popery, but) to Roman- Catholicism, as aconscientious minister of the English Church could wellventure. Milton would be, and would utter the same, toall, on all occasions: he would tell the truth, the wholetruth, and nothing but the truth. Taylor would become¹ Coleridge's reference is to the earliest edition of The Friend. Hehas altered the wording somewhat, in the text.OF UNMEASURED LANGUAGE. 211all things to all men, if by any means he might benefit any;hence he availed himself, in his popular writings, ofopinions and representations which stand often in strikingcontrast with the doubts and convictions expressed in hismore philosophical works. He appears, indeed, not tooseverely to have blamed that management of truth (istamfalsitatem dispensativam) authorized and exemplified byalmost all the fathers: Integrum omnino Doctoribus etcœtus Christiani antistitibus esse, ut dolos versent, falsaveris intermisceant et imprimis religionis hostes fallant,dummodo veritatis commodis et utilitati inserviant.The same antithesis might be carried on with theelements of their several intellectual powers. Milton,austere, condensed, imaginative, supporting his truth bydirect enunciation of lofty moral sentiment and by distinctvisual representations, and in the same spirit overwhelmingwhat he deemed falsehood by moral denunciation and asuccession of pictures appalling or repulsive. In his prose,so many metaphors, so many allegorical miniatures.Taylor, eminently discursive, accumulative, and (to useone of his own words) agglomerative; still more rich inimages than Milton himself, but images of fancy, and presented to the common and passive eye, rather than to theeye of the imagination. Whether supporting or assailing,he makes his way either by argument or by appeals to theaffections, unsurpassed even by the schoolmen in subtlety,agility and logical wit, and unrivalled by the most rhetoricalof the fathers in the copiousness and vividness of his expressions and illustrations. Here words that convey feelings, and words that flash images, and words of abstractnotion, flow together, and at once whirl and rush onwardlike a stream, at once rapid and full of eddies; and yetstill, interfused here and there, we see a tongue or islet ofsmooth water, with some picture in it of earth or sky,landscape or living group of quiet beauty.Differing, then, so widely, and almost contrariantly,212 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.wherein did these great men agree? wherein did they resemble each other? In genius, in learning, in unfeignedpiety, in blameless purity of life, and in benevolent aspirations and purposes for the moral and temporal improvementof their fellow-creatures! Both of them wrote a Latin Accidence, to render education more easy and less painful tochildren; both of them composed hymns and psalms proportioned to the capacity of common congregations; bothnearly at the same time, set the glorious example of publiclyrecommending and supporting general toleration, and theliberty both of the pulpit and the press! In the writingsof neither shall we find a single sentence, like those meekdeliverances to God's mercy, with which Laud accompaniedhis votes for the mutilations and loathsome dungeoning ofLeighton and others! -nowhere such a pious prayer as wefind in Bishop Hall's memoranda of his own life, concerningthe subtle and witty atheist that so grievously perplexedand gravelled him at Sir Robert Drury's, till he prayed tothe Lord to remove him, and behold! his prayers wereheard; for shortly afterward this philistine- combatant wentto London, and there perished of the plague in great misery!In short, nowhere shall we find the least approach, in thelives and writings of John Milton or Jeremy Taylor, to thatguarded gentleness, to that sighing reluctance, with whichthe holy brethren of the Inquisition deliver over a condemned heretic to the civil magistrate, and hoping thatthe magistrate will treat the erring brother with all possible mildness! —the magistrate, who too well knows whatwould be his own fate, if he dared offend them by acting ontheir recommendation.The opportunity of diverting the reader from myself tocharacters more worthy of his attention, has led me farbeyond my first intention; but it is not unimportant toexpose the false zeal which has occasioned these attacks onour elder patriots. It has been too much the fashion, firstOF UNMEASURED LANGUAGE. 213to personify the Church of England, and then to speak ofdifferent individuals, who in different ages have been rulersin that church, as if in some strange way they constitutedits personal identity. Why should a clergyman of thepresent day feel interested in the defence of Laud or Sheldon? Surely it is sufficient for the warmest partizan ofour establishment, that he can assert with truth, -whenour Church persecuted, it was on mistaken principles heldin common by all Christendom; and at all events, far lessculpable was this intolerance in the Bishops, who weremaintaining the existing laws, than the persecuting spiritafterwards shown by their successful opponents, who hadno such excuse, and who should have been taught mercyby their own sufferings, and wisdom by the utter failure ofthe experiment in their own case.We can say, that ourChurch, apostolical in its faith, primitive in its ceremonies,unequalled in its liturgical forms; that our Church, whichhas kindled and displayed more bright and burning lightsof genius and learning than all other protestant churchessince the reformation, was (with the single exception of thetimes of Laud and Sheldon) least intolerant, when allChristians unhappily deemed a species of intolerance theirreligious duty; that Bishops of our Church were amongthe first that contended against this error; and finally, thatsince the reformation, when tolerance became a fashion,the Church of England, in a tolerating age, has shownherself eminently tolerant, and far more so, both in spiritand in fact, than many of her most bitter opponents, whoprofess to deem toleration itself an insult on the rights ofmankind! As to myself, who not only know the ChurchEstablishment to be tolerant, but who see in it the greatest,if not the sole safe bulwark of toleration, I feel no necessity of defending or palliating oppressions under the twoCharleses, in order to exclaim with a full and fervent heart,Esto perpetua!AALLEGORIC VISION.¹FEELING of sadness, a peculiar melancholy, is wont totake possession of me alike in spring and in autumn.But in spring it is the melancholy of hope: in autumn itis the melancholy of resignation. As I was journeying onfoot through the Apennine, I fell in with a pilgrim inwhom the spring and the autumn and the melancholy ofboth seemed to have combined . In his discourse therewere the freshness and the colours of April:"Qual ramicel a ramo,Tal da pensier pensieroIn lui germogliava."But as I gazed on his whole form and figure, I bethoughtme of the not unlovely decays, both of age and of thelate season, in the stately elm, after the clusters have beenplucked from its entwining vines, and the vines are asbands of dried withies around its trunk and branches.Even so there was a memory on his smooth and ampleforehead, which blended with the dedication of his steadyeyes, that still looked —I know not, whether upward, or faronward, or rather to the line of meeting where the skyrests upon the distance. But how may I express thatdimness of abstraction which lay on the lustre of thepilgrim's eyes like the flitting tarnish from the breath of a1 Found only in the edition of Coleridge's poems of 1834.ALLEGORIC VISION. 215sigh on a silver mirror! and which accorded with theirslow and reluctant movement, whenever he turned them toany object on the right hand or on the left? It seemed,methought, as if there lay upon the brightness a shadowypresence of disappointments now unfelt, but never forgotten. It was at once the melancholy of hope and ofresignation.66We had not long been fellow- travellers, ere a suddentempest ofwind and rain forced us to seek protection in thevaulted door- way of a lone chapelry; and we sate faceto face each on the stone bench along- side the low, weatherstained wall, and as close as possible to the massy door.After a pause of silence: even thus, " said he, "liketwo strangers that have fled to the same shelter from thesame storm, not seldom do Despair and Hope meet for thefirst time in the porch of Death! ""All extremes meet, "I answered; "but yours was a strange and visionarythought. " "The better, then, doth it beseem both theplace and me, " he replied . " From a Visionary wilt thouhear a Vision? Mark that vivid flash through this torrentof rain! Fire and water. Even here thy adage holds true,and its truth is the moral of my Vision. " I entreated himto proceed. Sloping his face toward the arch and yetaverting his eye from it, he seemed to seek aud prepare hiswords: till , listening to the wind that echoed within thehollow edifice, and to the rain without,"Which stole on his thoughts with its two-fold sound,The clash hard by and the murmur all round,”he gradually sank away, alike from me and from his ownpurpose, and amid the gloom of the storm and in theduskiness of that place, he sate like an emblem on a richman's sepulchre, or like a mourner on the sodded grave ofan only one-an aged mourner, who is watching the wanedmoon and sorroweth not. Starting at length from his216 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.brief trance of abstraction, with courtesy and an atoningsmile he renewed his discourse, and commenced hisparable.“ During one of those short furloughs from the service ofthe body, which the soul may sometimes obtain even in thisits militant state, I found myself in a vast plain, which Iimmediately knew to be the Valley of Life. It possessedan astonishing diversity of soils: here was a sunny spot,and there a dark one, forming just such a mixture of sunshine and shade, as we may have observed on the mountains'side in an April day, when the thin broken clouds arescattered over heaven. Almost in the very entrance of thevalley stood a large and gloomy pile, into which I seemedconstrained to enter. Every part of the building wascrowded with tawdry ornaments and fantastic deformity.On every window was portrayed, in glaring and inelegantcolours, some horrible tale, or preternatural incident, so thatnot a ray of light could enter, untinged by the mediumthrough which it passed. The body of the building wasfull of people, some of them dancing, in and out, in unintelligible figures, with strange ceremonies and anticmerriment, while others seemed convulsed with horror, orpining in mad melancholy. Intermingled with these, Iobserved a number of men, clothed in ceremonial robes,who appeared now to marshal the various groups, and todirect their movements; and now with menacing countenances, to drag some reluctant victim to a vast idol,framed of iron bars intercrossed, which formed at thesame time an immense cage, and the shape of a humanColossus."I stood for a while lost in wonder what these thingsmight mean; when lo! one of the directors came up tome, and with a stern reproachful look bade me uncover myhead, for that the place into which I had entered was thetemple of the only true Religion, in the holier recesses ofALLEGORIC VISION. 217which the great Goddess personally resided. Himself toohe bade me reverence, as the consecrated minister of herrites. Awe- struck by the name of Religion, I bowedbefore the priest, and humbly and earnestly intreated himto conduct me to her presence. He assented. Offeringshe took from me, with mystic sprinklings of water andwith salt he purified, and with strange sufflations heexorcised me; and then led me through many a dark andwinding alley, the dew-damps of which chilled my flesh,and the hollow echoes under my feet, mingled, methought,with moanings, affrighted me. At length we entered alarge hall, without window, or spiracle, or lamp. Theasylum and dormitory it seemed of perennial night—onlythat the walls were brought to the eye by a number of selfluminous inscriptions in letters of a pale sepulchral light,which held strange neutrality with the darkness, on theverge of which it kept its rayless vigil. I could read them,methought; but though each of the words taken separatelyI seemed to understand, yet when I took them in sentences,they were riddles and incomprehensible. As I stoodmeditating on these hard sayings, myguide thus addressedme- Read and believe: these are mysteries! '-At theextremity of the vast hall the Goddess was placed .features, blended with darkness, rose out to my view,terrible, yet vacant. I prostrated myself before her, andthen retired with my guide, soul-withered, and wondering,and dissatisfied .Her"As I re-entered the body of the temple, I heard a deepbuzz as of discontent. A few whose eyes were bright, andeither piercing or steady, and whose ample foreheads, withthe weighty bar, ridge-like, above the eyebrows, bespokeobservation followed by meditative thought; and a muchlarger number, who were enraged by the severity andinsolence of the priests in exacting their offerings, hadcollected in one tumultuous group, and with a confused218 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.6outcry of This is the Temple of Superstition! ' after muchcontumely, and turmoil, and cruel mal-treatment on allsides, rushed out of the pile: and I, methought, joined them."We speeded from the Temple with hasty steps, andhad now nearly gone round half the valley, when we wereaddressed by a woman, tall beyond the stature of mortals,and with a something more than human in her countenanceand mien, which yet could by mortals be only felt, notconveyed by words or intelligibly distinguished . Deepreflection, animated by ardent feelings, was displayed inthem and hope, without its uncertainty, and a somethingmore than all these, which I understood not, but which yetseemed to blend all these into a divine unity of expression.Her garments were white and matronly, and of thesimplest texture. We inquired her name. ' My name, ' shereplied, ' is Religion.'

A" The more numerous part of our company, affrightedby the very sound, and sore from recent impostures orsorceries, hurried onwards and examined no farther.few of us, struck by the manifest opposition of her formand manners to those of the living Idol, whom we had sorecently abjured, agreed to follow her, though with cautious circ*mspection. She led us to an eminence in themidst of the valley, from the top of which we couldcommand the whole plain, and observe the relation of thedifferent parts to each other, and of each to the whole, andof all to each. She then gave us an optic glass whichassisted without contradicting our natural vision, andenabled us to see far beyond the limits of the Valley ofLife; though our eye even thus assisted permitted us onlyto behold a light and a glory, but what we could notdescry, save only that it was, and that it was most glorious." And now with the rapid transition of a dream, I hadovertaken and rejoined the more numerous party, who hadabruptly left us, indignant at the very name of religion.ALLEGORIC VISION. 219They journeyed on, goading each other with remembrancesof past oppressions, and never looking back, till in theeagerness to recede from the Temple of Superstition theyhad rounded the whole circle of the valley. And lo! therefaced us the mouth of a vast cavern, at the base of a loftyand almost perpendicular rock, the interior side of which,unknown to them, and unsuspected, formed the extremeand backward wall of the Temple. An impatient crowd,we entered the vast and dusky cave, which was the onlyperforation of the precipice. At the mouth of the cavesate two figures; the first, by her dress and gestures, Iknew to be Sensuality; the second form, from the fierceness of his demeanour, and the brutal scornfulness of hislooks, declared himself to be the monster Blasphemy. Heuttered big words, and yet ever and anon I observed thathe turned pale at his own courage. We entered . Someremained in the opening of the cave, with the one or theother of its guardians. The rest, and I among them,pressed on, till we reached an ample chamber, that seemedthe centre of the rock. The climate of the place was unnaturally cold.In the furthest distance of the chamber sate an old dimeyed man, poring with a microscope over the torso of astatue, which had neither basis, nor feet, nor head; but onits breast was carved Nature! To this he continually applied his glass, and seemed enraptured with the variousinequalities which it rendered visible on the seeminglypolished surface of the marble. -Yet evermore was thisdelight and triumph followed by expressions of hatred, andvehement railing against a Being, who yet, he assured us,had no existence . This mystery suddenly recalled to mewhat I had read in the holiest recess of the temple ofSuperstition. The old man spake in divers tongues, andcontinued to utter other and most strange mysteries.Among the rest he talked much and vehemently concern-220 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.ing an infinite series of causes and effects, which he explained to be a string of blind men, the last of whomcaught hold of the skirt of the one before him, he of thenext, and so on till they were all out of sight; and thatthey all walked infallibly straight, without making onefalse step, though all were alike blind . Methought I borrowed courage from surprise, and asked him-Who thenis at the head to guide them? He looked at me with ineffable contempt, not unmixed with an angry suspicion, andthen replied, ' No one. ' The string of blind men went onfor ever without any beginning; for although one blindman could not move without stumbling, yet infinite blindness supplied the want of sight. I burst into laughter,which instantly turned to terror-for as he started forwardin rage, I caught a glimpse of him from behind; and lo! Ibeheld a monster bi- form and Janus-headed, in the hinderface and shape of which I instantly recognised the dreadcountenance of Superstition-and in the terror I awoke. " ¹1 The reader will decide for himself if this be a mere fragment or acomplete whole.THE IMPROVISATORE;66 OR JOHN ANDERSON, MY JO, JOHN . "NEW THOUGHTS ON OLD SUBJECTS.¹Scene-A spacious drawing-room, with music-room adjoining.Katharine. What are the words?Eliza. Ask our friend, the Improvisatore; here he comes.Kate has a favor to ask of you, Sir; it is that you will repeat the ballad that Mr. sang so sweetly.Friend. It is in Moore's Irish Melodies; but I do notrecollect the words distinctly. The moral of them, however, I take to be this:-"Love would remain the same if true,When we were neither young nor new;Yea, and in all within the will that came,By the same proofs would show itself the same. "Eliz. What are the lines you repeated from Beaumontand Fletcher, which my mother admired so much? Itbegins with something about two vines so close that theirtendrils intermingle.Fri. You mean Charles' speech to Angelina, in " TheElder Brother. "¹ This piece, also, only appears in the edition of 1834. Coleridge, orH. N. Coleridge, prints the supplementary title at the top of the page.In the index is given no other.222 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES."We'll live together, like two neighbour vines,Circling our souls and loves in one another!We'll spring together, and we'll bear one fruit;One joy shall make us smile, and one grief mourn;One age go with us, and one hour of death¹1Shall close our eyes, and one grave make us happy."Kath. A precious boon, that would go far to reconcile oneto old age-this love-if true! But is there any such truelove?Fri. I hope so.Kath. But do you believe it?Eliz. (eagerly) . I am sure he does.Fri. From a man turned of fifty," Katharine, I imagine,expects a less confident answer.Kath. A more sincere one, perhaps.Fri. Even though he should have obtained the nick- nameof Improvisatore, by perpetrating charades and extemporeverses at Christmas- times?Eliz. Nay, but be serious.Fri. Serious! Doubtless. A grave personage of myyears giving a love- lecture to two young ladies , cannotwell be otherwise. The difficulty, I suspect, would be forthem to remain so. It will be asked whether I am not the"elderly gentleman " who sate " despairing beside a clearstream, " with a willow for his wig- block.Eliz. Say another word, and we will call it downrightaffectation .Kath. No! we will be affronted, drop a courtesy, and askpardon for our presumption in expecting that Mr.would waste his sense on two insignificant girls.66' The poets endlessly repeat this idea, and Tennyson also repeats it, -"We two will die the self- same day. "2 It is quite possible that 1823, at which date Coleridge himself wasa man turned of fifty ", may be the date of the composition of thispiece.THE IMPROVISATORE . 223Fri. Well, well, I will be serious. Hem! Now, then,commences the discourse; Mr. Moore's song being the text.Love, as distinguished from Friendship, on the one hand, andfrom thepassion that too often usurps its name, ontheother—Lucius (Eliza's brother, who had just joined the trio, in awhisper to the Friend) . But is not Love the union of both?Fri. (aside to Lucius) . He never loved who thinks so.Eliz. Brother, we don't want you. There! Mrs. H. cannot arrange the flower- vase without you. Thank you, Mrs.Hartman.Luc. I'll have my revenge! I know what I will say!Eliz. Off! off! Now, dear sir,-Love, you were saying, -Fri. Hush! Preaching, you mean, Eliza.Eliz. (impatiently) . Pshaw!Fri. Well, then, I was saying that love, truly such, isitself not the most common thing in the world: and mutuallove still less so. But that enduring personal attachment,so beautifully delineated by Erin's sweet melodist, and stillmore touchingly, perhaps, in the well-known ballad, " JohnAnderson, my Jo, John, " in addition to a depth and constancy of character of no every- day occurrence, supposes apeculiar sensibility and tenderness of nature; a constitutional communicativeness and utterancy of heart andsoul; a delight in the detail of sympathy, in the outwardand visible signs of the sacrament within-to count, as itwere, the pulses of the life of love. But above all it supposes a soul which, even in the pride and summer- tide oflife—even in the lustihood of health and strength, had feltoftenest and prized highest that which age cannot takeaway, and which, in all our lovings, is the Love;-Eliz . There is something here (pointing to her heart) thatseems to understand you, but wants the word that wouldmake it understand itself.Kath. I, too, seem to feel what you mean. Interpret thefeeling for us.224 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.Fri. I mean that willing sense of the unsufficingness of the self for itself, which predisposes a generous nature to see, in the total being of another, the supplementand completion of its own; -that quiet perpetual seekingwhich the presence of the beloved object modulates, notsuspends, where the heart momently finds, and, finding,again seeks on; -lastly, when " life's changeful orb haspass'd the full, " a confirmed faith in the nobleness ofhumanity, thus brought home and pressed, as it were, tothe very bosom of hourly experience; it supposes, I say, aheartfelt reverence for worth, not the less deep becausedivested of its solemnity by habit, by familiarity, bymutual infirmities, and even by a feeling of modesty whichwill arise in delicate minds, when they are conscious ofpossessing the same or the correspondent excellence intheir own characters. In short, there must be a mind,which, while it feels the beautiful and the excellent in thebeloved as its own, and by right of love appropriates it,can call Goodness its playfellow; and dares make sport oftime and infirmity, while, in the person of a thousandfoldly endeared partner, we feel for aged virtue the caressing fondness that belongs to the innocence of childhood,and repeat the same attentions and tender courtesieswhich had been dictated by the same affection to thesame object when attired in feminine loveliness or in manlybeauty.Eliz. What a soothing-what an elevating thought!Kath. If it be not only a mere fancy.Fri. At all events, these qualities which I have enumerated, are rarely found united in a single individual. Howmuch more rare must it be, that two such individuals shouldmeet together in this wide world under circ*mstances thatadmit of their union as Husband and Wife. A person maybe highly estimable onthe whole, nay, amiable as neighbour,friend, housemate-in short, in all the concentric circles ofTHE IMPROVISATORE. 2253attachment save only the last and inmost; and yet from howmany causes be estranged from the highest perfection inthis! Pride, coldness, or fastidiousness of nature, worldlycares, an anxious or ambitious disposition, a passion for display, a sullen temper, —one or the other—too often proves"the dead fly in the compost of spices, " and any one isenough to unfit it for the precious balm of unction . Forsome mighty good sort of people, too, there is not seldom asort of solemn saturnine, or, if you will, ursine vanity, thatkeeps itself alive by sucking the paws of its own self- importance. And as this high sense, or rather sensation of theirown value is, for the most part, grounded on negativequalities, so they have no better means of preserving thesame but by negatives—that is, by not doing or saying anything, that might be put down for fond, silly, or nonsensical;-or (to use their own phrase) by never forgetting themselves, which some of their acquaintance are uncharitableenough to think the most worthless object they could beemployed in remembering.Eliz. (in answer to a whisper from Katharine) . To ahair! He must have sate for it himself. Save me fromsuch folks! But they are out of the question.Fri. True! but the same effect is produced in thousandsby the too general insensibility to a very important truth;this, namely, that the misery of human life is made up oflarge masses, each separated from the other by certainintervals. One year, the death of a child; years after, afailure in trade; after another longer or shorter interval,a daughter may have married unhappily; -in all but thesingularly unfortunate, the integral parts that compose thesum total of the unhappiness of a man's life, are easilycounted, and distinctly remembered. The happiness oflife, on the contrary, is made up of minute fractions-thelittle, soon- forgotten charities of a kiss, a smile, a kindlook, a heartfelt compliment in the disguise of playful226 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES .raillery, and the countless other infinitesimals of pleasurable thought and genial feeling.Kath. Well, Sir; you have said quite enough to makeme despair of finding a " John Anderson, my Jo, John,"with whom to totter down the hill of life .Fri. Not so! Good men are not, I trust, so much scarcerthan good women, but that what another would find in you,you may hope to find in another. But well, however, maythat boon be rare, the possession of which would be morethan an adequate reward for the rarest virtue.Eliz. Surely, he, who has described it so well, must havepossessed it?Fri. If he were worthy to have possessed it, and hadbelievingly anticipated and not found it, how bitter thedisappointment! ( Then, after a pause of a few minutes) ,ANSWER, ex improviso.Yes, yes! that boon, life's richest treat,He had, or fancied that he had;Say, ' twas but in his own conceit, -The fancy made him glad!Crown of his cup, and garnish of his dish,The boon, prefigured in his earliest wish,The fair fulfilment of his poesy,When his young heart first yearn'd for sympathy!But e'en the meteor offspring of the brain Unnourish'd wane;Faith asks her daily bread,And Fancy must be fed.Now so it chanced, -from wet or dry,It boots not how, -I know not why, -She miss'd her wonted food; and quicklyPoor Fancy stagger'd and grew sickly.Then came a restless state, ' twixt yea and nay,His faith was fix'd , his heart all ebb and flow;Or like a bark, in some half- shelter'd bay,Above its anchor driving to and fro.THE IMPROVISATORE . 227That boon, which but to have possestIn a belief, gave life a zest, —Uncertain both what it had been,And if by error lost, or luck;And what it was: -an evergreenWhich some insidious blight had struck,Or annual flower, which, past its blow,No vernal spell shall e'er revive;Uncertain, and afraid to know,Doubts toss'd him to and fro;Hope keeping Love, Love Hope alive ,Like babes bewilder'd in the snow,That cling and huddle from the cold In hollow tree or ruin'd fold.Those sparkling colours, once his boast,Fading one by one away,Thin and hueless as a ghost,Poor Fancy on her sick-bed lay;Ill at distance, worse when near,Telling her dreams to jealous Fear!Where was it then, the sociable spriteThat crown'd the Poet's cup and deck'd his dish!Poor shadow cast from an unsteady wish,Itself a substance by no other rightBut that it intercepted Reason's light;It dimm'd his eye, it darken'd on his brow,A peevish mood, a tedious time, I trow!Thank Heaven! ' tis not so now.O bliss of blissful hours!The boon of Heaven's decreeing,While yet in Eden's bowers Dwelt the first husband and his sinless mate!The one sweet plant, which, piteous Heaven agreeing,They bore with them thro ' Eden's closing gate!Of life's gay summer tide the sovran rose!Late autumn's amaranth, that more fragrant blowsWhen passion's flowers all fall or fade;If this were ever his, in outward being,Or but his own true love's projected shade,Now that at length by certain proof he knows,228 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.That whether real or a magic show,Whate'er it was, it is no longer so;Though heart be lonesome, hope laid low,Yet, Lady! deem him not unblest:The certainty that struck hope dead,Hath left contentment in her stead:And that is next to best!IFON THE CHOICE OF A HUSBAND.LETTER TO A YOUNG LADY.1F there be any one subject which it especially concerns ayoung woman to understand, both in itself generally,and in its application to her own particular habits and circ*mstances, it is that of marriage; and if there be any onesubject of more perplexing delicacy than any other to advisea young woman about, above all for one of a different sex,and of no marked inequality in respect of age, however theattempt may seem authorised by intimacy and nearness ofkindred; if there be one that at once attracts by its importance and repels by its difficulty, it is that of marriage. Toboth sexes, indeed, it is a state of deep and awful interest ,and to enter into it without proportionate forethought is inboth alike an act of folly and self- degradation. But in awoman, if she have sense and sensibility enough to deservethe name, it is an act tantamount to suicide-for it is astate which, once entered into, fills the whole sphere of awoman's moral and personal being, her enjoyments and herduties, dismissing none, adding many, and modifying all.Even those duties (if such there be) which it may seem toleave behind, it does but transfer; say rather, it re-imposesand re- consecrates them under yet dearer names (though1 From Allsop's Letters, Conversations, and Recollections, of S. T. Coleridge, 1836. The date of the letter would seem, from Allsop, to be1822; but if stress is to be laid on the words-" of no marked inequalityin respect of age," it must be put earlier, as Coleridge was then fifty.230 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.names more dear than those of daughter and sister it is noteasy to imagine); at all events, with obligations, additionally binding on her conscience, because undertaken by anact of her own free will. A woman-mark me! in usingthat term I still have before my mind the idea of womanhood, and suppose the individual to possess its characteristic constituents—a woman in a single state may be happyand may be miserable; but most happy, most miserablethese are epithets which, with rare exceptions, belong exclusively to a wife. The tree of full life, and that " whosemortal taste brings death " into the heart, these, my dear"grow in the probationary Eden of courtship alone.To the Many of both sexes I am well aware this Eden ofmatrimony is but a kitchen-garden, a thing of profit andconvenience, in an even temperature between indifferenceand liking; where the beds, bordered with thrift, reject allhigher attractions than the homely charms of marygold.and penny-royal, or whatever else is good to boil in thepot, or to make the pot boil; or if there be aught of richerfragrance and more delicate hues, it is put or suffered therenot for the blossom but for the pod. But this, my dearis neither the soil, climate, nor aspect, in which your"Heart's- ease " or your " Herbs of grace " would bloom orburgeon. To be happy in Marriage Life, nay (unless youmarry with the prospect of sinking into a lower state ofmoral feeling, and of gradually quenching in yourself allhope and all aspiration that looks beyond animal comfortsand the outside shows of worldly respectability) , in ordernot to be miserable, you must have a soul-mate as well asa house or a yoke-mate: you must have a husband whombefore the altar, making yourself at that moment distinctlyconscious of the presence of the Almighty God to whomyou appeal, you can safely, that is, according to your confident belief, grounded on sufficient opportunities of observation, conscientiously vow to love, honour, and respect.ON THE CHOICE OF A HUSBAND. 231With what disgust would you not turn from a sordid, withwhat horror would you not recoil from a contagious or infectious garment offered to you? You would not suffer itto come near your skin. And would you surrender yourperson, would you blend your whole personality, as far asGod has put it in your power to do so, all that you call “ I ”-soul, body, and estate, —with one, the contagion of whoseprinciples, the infection or sordidness of whose habits andconversation, you would have to guard against in behalf ofyour own soul; and the insidious influence of which on thetone and spirit of your thoughts, feelings, objects, and unconscious tendencies and manners, would be as the atmosphere in which you lived! Or were the man's charactermerely negative in these respects, were he only incapableof understanding the development of your moral being,including all those minor duties and objects of quiet pursuitand enjoyment which constitute the moral taste; were heonly indifferent to the interest you felt for his and your ownsalvation, and for the conditions of your re-union in theworld to come, —still it would be a benumbing influence,and the heart may be starved where it is neither stabbednor poisoned. God said that it was not well for the humanbeing to be alone; to be what we ought to be, we needsupport, help, communion in good. What, then, if insteadof a helpmate we take an obstacle, a daily counteraction?But the mere want of what God has rendered necessary ormost desirable for us is itself an obstacle . Virtue sickensin the air of the marshes, loaded with poisonous effluvia;but even where the air is merely deficient in the due quantity.of its vital element, and where there is too little, thoughwhat there is may be faultless, human virtue lives but apanting and anxious life. For as to a young woman'smarrying in the hope of reforming the man's principles, youwill join with me in smiling at the presumption, or moreprobably the pretext; as if the man was likely to appreciate232 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.as of very serious importance a danger which the wife hadnot feared to risk on so slender a chance, or be persuadedby her to feel as hateful the very qualities which she hadtaken to her bosom, as a few weeds in a nosegay that shemight pick out at leisure .Well (you will perhaps reply) , you would have convincedme, if I had not been convinced before, of the misery attendant on an unfit choice, and the criminal folly of a rash andcareless one. But by what marks am I to distinguish thesuitable from the unsuitable? What are the criteria, or atleast the most promising signs, of a man likely to prove agood husband to a good wife; and as far as you can judgefrom your knowledge of my character, principles, andtemper, likely to find his happiness in me, and to make mehappy and deserving to be so? For perfection can beexpected on neither side.Most true; and whilst the defects are both in their kindand their degree within the bounds of that imperfectionwhich is common to all in our present state, the best andwisest way that a wife can adopt, is to regard even faultytrifles as serious faults in herself, and yet to bear with thesame or equivalent faults as trifles in her husband. If thefault is removable, well and good; if not, it is a speck in adiamond-set the jewel in the marriage ring with the speckdownmost. But it is one thing to choose for the companionof our life a man troubled with occasional headaches or indigestions , and another to run into the arms of inveterategout, or consumption (even though the consequent hecticshould render the countenance still more winning and beautiful) , or of hemiplegia, that is, of palsy on one side. For,as you will see that I am speaking figuratively, and underthe names of bodily complaints am really thinking, andmeaning you to think, of moral and intellectual defects anddiseases, I have hazarded the hard word " Hemiplegia; " asI can conceive no more striking and appropriate image orON THE CHOICE OF A HUSBAND . 233symbol of an individual with one- half of his being, that is,his person, manners, and circ*mstances, well and as itshould be, while the other and inestimably more precioushalf is but half alive, blighted and insensate. Now for theprevention of the perilous mistake, into which a personalprepossession is too apt to seduce the young and marriageable, and females more often, perhaps, than males, from thevery gentleness of their sex, the mistake of looking throughthe diminishing end of the Glass and confounding vices withfoibles, -I know no better way than by attempting to answerthe questions, which I have supposed you to put, overleaf;viz. What are the marks, &c. , first, generally, and, secondly,in particular application to yourself? In the latter I canof course only speak conjecturally, except as your outwardcirc*mstances and relative duties are concerning; in all elseyou must be both querist and respondent. But the former,the knowledge of which will be no mean assistance to youin solving the latter for your own satisfaction , I think Ican answer distinctly and clearly; and with this, therefore,we will begin.You would have reason to regard your sex affronted, if Isupposed it necessary to warn any good woman againstopen viciousness in a lover, or avowed indifference to thegreat principles of moral obligation, religious, social, ordomestic.By " religious " I do not here mean matters of opinionor differences of belief in points where good and wise menhave agreed to differ. Religion (in my present use of theword) , is but morality in reference to all that is permanentand imperishable, God and our souls, for instance; andmorality is Religion in its application to individuals, circ*mstances, the various relations and spheres in which wehappen to be placed; in short, to all that is contingent andtransitory, and passes away, leaving no abiding trace butthe conscience of having or not having done our duty ineach.234 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES .I would fain, if the experience of life would permit me,think it no less superfluous to dissuade a woman of commonforesight and information, from encouraging the addressesof one, however unobjectionable or even desirable in allother respects, who, she knew, or had good reason to believe,was by acquired or hereditary constitution affected bythose mournful complaints, which, it is well known, areordinarily transmitted to the offspring, to one or more, orall. But, alas! it often happens, that afflictions of thisnature are united with the highest worth and the mostwinning attractions of head, heart, and person; nay, thatthey often add to the native good qualities of the individuala tenderness, a sensibility, a quickness of perception , and avivacity of principle, that cannot but conciliate an interestin behalf of the possessor in the affections of a woman,strong in proportion to the degree in which she is herselfcharacterised by the same excellences . Manly virtues andmanly sense, with feminine manners without effeminacy,form such an assemblage, a tout ensemble so delightful tothe womanly heart, that it demands a hard, a cruel struggleto find in any ground of objection an effective counterpoise,a decisive negative. Yet the struggle must be made, andmust end in the decisive and, if possible, the preventive"NO; " or all claims to reason and conscience, and to thatdistinctive seal and impress of divinity on womanhood, theMaternal Soul, must be abandoned. The probable misfortunes attendant on the early death of the head of the familyare the least fearful of the consequences that may rationally,and therefore ought, morally, to be expected from such achoice. The mother's anguish, the father's heart- wastingself-reproach, the recollection of that Innocent lost, thesight of this darling suffering, the dread of the future, —infine, the conversion of Heaven's choicest blessings intosources of anguish and subjects of remorse.I have seenall this in more than one miserable, and most miserableON THE CHOICE OF A HUSBAND . 235because amiable and affectionate couple, and have seen thatthe sound constitution of one parent has not availed againstthe taint on the other. Would to God the picture I havehere exhibited were as imaginary in itself as its exhibitionis unnecessary and the reality of improbable occurrence foryou.Dismissing, therefore, as taken for granted or altogetherinapplicable, all objections grounded on gross and palpableunfitness for a state of moral and personal union and lifelong interdependence, —and less than this is not marriage,whether the unfitness result from constitutional or frommoral defect or derangement; and with these, and only notquite so bad, dismissing too the objections from want ofcompetence, on both sides, in worldly means, proportionalto their former rank and habits; and yet what worse ormore degradingly selfish (yea, the very dregs and sedimentof selfishness, after the more refined and human portion ofit, the sense of self- interest, has been drawn off) , whatworse, I repeat, can be said of the beasts of the field, without reflection, without forethought, of whom and for whoseoffspring, Nature has taken the responsibility upon herself?-Putting all these aside, as too obvious to require argumentor exposition, I will now pass to those marks which toofrequently are overlooked, however obvious in themselvesthey may be; but which ought to be looked for, and lookedafter, by every woman who has ever reflected on the words,' my future husband " with more than girlish feelings andfancies. And if the absence of these marks in an individualfurnishes a decisive reason for the rejection of his addresses,there are others the presence of which forms a sufficientground for hesitation, and I will begin with an instance.66When you hear a man making exceptions to any fundamental law of duty in favour of some particular pursuit orpassion, and considering the dictates of honour as neithermore nor less than motives of selfish prudence in respect of236 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.character; in other words, as conventional and ever- changing regulations, the breach of which will, if detected, blackball the offender, and send him to Coventry in that particularrank and class of society of which he was born or has become a member; when, instead of giving instantaneousand unconditional obedience to the original voice fromwithin, a man substitutes for this, and listens after, themere echo of the voice from without; his knowledge, Imean, of what is commanded by fashion and enforced bythe foreseen consequences of non- compliance on his worldlyreputation (thus I myself heard a buckish clergyman, aclerical Nimrod, at Salisbury avow, that he would cheat hisown Father in a HORSE) , then I say, that to smile, or showyourselves smiling angry, as if a tap with your fan was asufficient punishment, and a "for shame! you don't thinkso, I am sure, ' or " you should not say so, " a sufficientreproof, would be an ominous symptom either of your ownlaxity of moral principle and deadness to true honour, andthe unspeakable contemptibleness of this gentlemanlycounterfeit of it, or of your abandonment to a blind passion,kindled by superficial advantages and outside agreeables,and blown and fuelled by that most base and yet frequentthought, one must not be over nice, or a woman may sayNo till no one asks her to say Yes." And what does thisamount to (with all the other pretty common places, as,"What right have I to expect an angel in the shape of aman? " &c. , &c . ) but the plain confession, " I want to bemarried, the better the man the luckier for me; I havemade up my mind to be the mistress of a family; in short,I want to be married! "66""Under this head you may safely place all the knowingprinciples of action, so often and so boastingly confessed byyour clever fellows-" I take care of number one; hey,neighbour what say you? "-" Each for himself, and Godfor us all that's my maxim." And likewise, as the very:ON THE CHOICE OF A HUSBAND. 237same essentially though in a more dignified and seemlyform, the principle of determining whether a thing is rightor wrong, by its supposed consequences.There are men who let their life pass away without asingle effort to do good, either to friend or neighbour, totheir country or their religion, on the strength of thequestion “ What good will it do? " But woe to the manwho is incapable of feeling, that the greatest possible goodhe can do for himself or for others, is to do his duty and toleave the consequences to God. But it will be answered,"How can we ascertain that it is our duty but by weighingthe probable consequences? Besides, no one can act without motives; and all motives must at last have respect tothe agent's own self- interest; and that is the reason why Religion is so useful, because it carries on our Self-interest beyondthe grave! "O my dear .! so many worthy persons, whor*ally, though unconsciously, both act from, and are actuatedby, far nobler impulses, are educated to talk in this language,that I dare not expose the folly, turpitude, immorality, andirreligion of this system, without premising the necessity oftrying to discover, previous to your forming a fixed opinionrespecting the true character of the individuals from whomyou may have heard declarations of this kind, whether thesentiments proceed from the tongue only, or at worst, froma misinstructed understanding, or are the native growth ofhis heart."•

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ON THE SORTS AND USES OF LITERARYPRAISE.1IFF I have but little appetite for literary applause, I havenot however cheated myself into mistaking a weakstomach for strength of mind, nor made a merit of an indifference which it is a misfortune to feel, and the sickliestvanity to affect. But there is a sympathy, that, in its conscious independence on person and accident, dares disclaimall individuality, and confers on us, or seems to confer, aright of demanding the same feeling from others; and toPraise, that springs up from such a root, to the buds andblossoms of such a judgment, God forbid that I should beotherwise than alive. I understand its value, my dear Sir,even from the desiderium which its rare and transientpossession has left behind; and I know that, without itssupport, the hopes and purposes of genius sink back on theheart, like a sigh on the tightened chest of a sick man.What then should we think of those who feel the full worthof such a tribute in their own case, yet withhold it in thatof others? Such is Atticus; for Mr. Pope's was not thelast any more than he was the first of the breed. An eager,A portion of a " Letter to Peter Morris, M.D.," printed in Blackwood's Magazine, Sep. , 1820. " On no account," writes Dr. Morris tothe editor, " omit one word of the letter, and I will be answerable to Coleridge for the making public thereof." The concluding portion we havenot reproduced. It is merely personal, and unsuited to our pages.LITERARY PRAISE . 239a fervid sympathy, is an indispensable condition of hisregard. The admiration of his writings is not merely hisguage of men's taste-he reads it as the index of theirmoral character. And yet in his commendations of friendor contemporary, this same Atticus is as nice and deliberatea balancer as if his judgment were at that moment passingits ordeal before the eye of the whole world,"And to o'ercross a current, roaring loud,On the unstedfast footing of a spear. "With the same comfortless discretion does he communicate to the author his opinion, grounded on the specimensof an unfinished work. The ideal of the art, or the giantswho have approached nearest to its attainments , the foci ofwhole centuries of Nature's energies, are brought forwards-to enlighten? to enkindle? No! but to wither and dryup. The phrase is not too strong. There are differenttempers in genius; and there are men richly gifted, whoyet, after each successive effort of composition, lose theinward courage that should enable them to decide rightlyon the degree of their success, and who seek the judgmentof an admired friend with a timid and almost girlish bashfulness. On such a temper, and in such a mood, this chilly,doubting, qualifying wiseness, may check and inhibit theinfant buds of power for months-nay, should the haplesswight continue so long under the spray, for the wholesummer of his life! Principles of criticism drawn fromphilosophy, are best employed to illustrate the works ofthose whose fame is already a fatum among mankind, andto confirm, augment, and enlighten our admiration of thesame. The living, on the other hand, ought always to beappreciated comparatively-their works with those of theircontemporaries, each in its kind, and in proportion to thekind. We will not equal the wren with the nightingale insong, nor the sparrow with the eagle in flight; yet both240 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.shall take precedence of the ostrich, who can neither singnor fly-though he manages his wings so adroitly, and sowell helps out his natural prose with his analogon of poeticpower, as to make no worse speed in the world's eye, andperhaps a greater figure. It should not be forgotten, too,that one characteristic beauty outweighs a score of imperfections, which latter are of importance only as far as theyinterfere with the effect of the former. But, above all, andas of especial interest in the case supposed, let it be considered, that for the unhatched egg the blindest admiration, if ensouled with genial warmth, is of more worththan all the mere light in the universe, though the satellitesof Jupiter and Saturn should club their moonshine. Oh,what a heartless, hopeless, almost wishless barrenness ofspirit, may not an affectionate and believing mind bereduced to by another, not perhaps the superior in the totalsum of their gifts, but whom he has accustomed himself toidolize—because, only too conscious of the baser mixturein himself, he had separated that friend's excellencies fromtheir dross or alloy, in the glow of his attachment, andthen recast them into a whole, in the mould of his own imagination. It is a downright Marattan, my dear Sir! a sandblast from the desert, that in its passage shrivels up thevery marrow in a man's bones, like the pith in a bakedquill! And then, to blend the ludicrous with the bitter,the vinegar with the gall, comes (too late! ) the reflection,that our Atticus's capacity of this moral heat ( if praise andsympathy may be so called ) , is in the inverse ratio of hisdisposition to radicate the same: tam capax quam malignalaudis.I will not suppose it possible, that among our acquaintance, unknown and nameless, but not quite unconjecturedfriend! I will not, I say, distemper my own habit of contemplation, by recalling the practical comment, which morethan one literary man's experience has supplied, on theLITERARY PRAISE . 241paradox, — = +: i . e. that the negative is occasionally themost effective form of the positive—the silence¹ of a supposed friend the most decisive confirmation of an enemy'sslander-No! I will rather find an explanation in my ownhypochondriacal fancies and fretfulness, than believe thatmen of original genius can play the part of luminous clouds ,that retain their lustre no longer than they can conceal itssource, and shine only by intercepted light. ' Ei dè Tis avτοῦτος ᾖ, Λόγε αξιος μηδαμώς ειη! As to my unfriends, theEdinburgh Reviewers, they are foreign to my present purpose. The object of their articles is to prevent or retardthe sale of a work, and this they seem to pursue with mostinveteracy where, from the known circ*mstances of theauthor, the injury will fall heaviest: as in the case of Mr.Montgomery and others, in addition to my own. Still theinjury is such as ought not to affect, directly at least, theheart of a man of genius-though I have heard of onemelancholy case, in which a bee 2 from the muses' hive wasstung to death by these literary hornets, who, unable tocollect honey from the flowers, destroy and deform thefruits. The allegory is more perfect than I intended. Forcompare the criticism with the moral doctrines advanced in¹ In a letter to Allsop, of Jan. 1821 , Coleridge speaks of himself as"with more effective enmity undermined by the utter silence or occasional detractive compliments " of the Quarterly Review. " Neither myLiterary Life," he adds, " nor Sibylline Leaves, nor Lay Sermons, norZapolya, nor Christabel, have ever been noticed by the Quarterly Review,of which Southey is yet the main support. "We fear that Southey is the ostrich so cruelly enlarged on above. Asickness of heart would steal over him, thinking of what epics he hadwritten, when he read his old friend's letter. It is only fair to Coleridge to remember that it was not meant for publication.2 Is not the allusion to Keats? Coleridge, who had seen him at Highgate, knew him to be dying, at this date, though he actually lived till Feb. 1821." Bee " is as happy a word, to hit off Keats, as " ostrich " to describeSouthey.R242 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.the 1st, 2d, or 3d volumes only, of the Edinburgh Review,and let sense and common honesty decide, whether they donot bear evidence against the writers, as men who, withoutpower to collect, or skill to elaborate, the fair and innocentmeans of gratifying the public taste, from the fancy andfeeling, from the flower and fragrancy, of our natures, haveshewn themselves only too well armed, and too successfulin attacking and stealing away, piecemeal, the main truthsand principles by which the moral being is to be fed andsupported. But peace be with them-though I do notknow, indeed, what right I have to wish the good lady suchquarrelsome company.But there is one class of literary besetters, who, likean ancestor of the tribe immortalized by Horace, are highlyamusing to all but the unlucky patient himself; and perhaps to him too, except while under the operation. I meanyour advice-mongers; whose requests to hear your lastfinished MSS. must be complied with, if you would not havethem sorry in all companies, really sorry, that they shouldhave forfeited your regard by their sincerity. Gil Blas andthe archbishop should have taught them, &c. &c .; andwhose critical minimism, when the attempt is made to readthe poem, too impatient to wait even for the next semicolon,might remind one of those tiny night- flies, that, as theyhurry across one's book, contrive, with self and shadow, tocover a word at a time.I trust that the purport of these remarks will not escapeyou. I would at all times have my feelings deduced frommy opinions rather than from my professions; while thepainful reluctance with which I connect the former withthe individuals whose manners and conduct had raised themfrom opinions into experiences, and the sensation and perplexity with which I shrink from all personal recollections,have, I find, by casting a hasty glance over the precedingscrawl, beguiled me into a whimsical medley of similesLITERARY PRAISE . 243and metaphors, that will probably start a doubt in yourmind whether even the masquerade eloquence of that preeminent figurante, Counsellor Philipps himself, presentscommon-place thoughts in a more lunatic variety of masks.and fancy- dominos. Never mind. It is enough, if I havebut conveyed the fact, that I not only feel, but appreciate,the honours I have received from you. To my warmestwell-willers you will appear to have so brimmed the cupof praise, that scarcely a rose-leaf could be added withoutrisk of loss by overflow.OF THINKING AND REFLECTION.¹I.OFTEN, mydear young friend! often, and bitterly, do I regret the stupid prejudice that made me neglectmy mathematical studies, at Jesus. There is something tome enigmatically attractive and imaginative in the genera-.tion of curves, and in the whole geometry of motion. Iseldom look at a fine prospect or mountain landscape, oreven at a grand picture, without abstracting the lines witha feeling similar to that with which I should contemplateTwo letters " To a Junior Soph, at Cambridge," printed in Blackwood's Magazine, Oct. 1821. There appear in all five letters-four byColeridge-in the number, besides one to Mr. Blackwood, forwardingthe five. These are headed " Selection from Mr. Coleridge's LiteraryCorrespondence with Friends and Men of Letters. No. 1." The othertwo of Coleridge's, which we omit, are wholly of a philosophical, orephemeral nature.In his letter to Mr. Blackwood Coleridge promises, among otherthings, for succeeding numbers: "The First Book of my True Historyfrom Fairy Land, or the World Without and the World Within.2. The commencement of the Annals and Philosophy of Superstition;for the completion of which I am only waiting for a very curious folio,in Mr. * * * * * * * * * **?'s "-clearly, Mr. Wordsworth's-" possession.3. The Life of Holtz, a German poet, of true genius, who died inearly manhood; with specimens of his poems, translated, or freely imitated in English Verse. " None of these productions saw the light,unless it be that the first of them is represented by " The Historie andGests of Maxilian. "OF THINKING AND REFLECTION. 245the graven or painted walls of some temple or palace inMid Africa,-doubtful whether it were mere Arabesque,or undecyphered characters of an unknown tongue, framedwhen the language of men was nearer to that of nature, —a language of symbols and correspondences. I am, therefore, far more disposed to envy, than join in the laughagainst your fellow- collegiate, for amusing himself in thegeometrical construction of leaves and flowers.Since the receipt of your last, I never take a turn roundthe garden without thinking of his billow- lines and shelllines, under the well- sounding names of Cumäids andConchöids; they have as much life and poetry for me astheir elder sisters, the Naiads, Nereids, and Hamadryads.I pray you, present my best respects to him, and tell him,that he brought to my recollection the glorious passage inPlotinus, " Should any one interrogate Nature how sheworks, if graciously she vouchsafe to answer, she willsay, It behoves thee to understand me (or better, and moreliterally, to go along with me) in silence, even as I amsilent, and work without words; "--but you have a Plotinus,and may construe it for yourself (Ennead 3. 1. 8. c. 3. ) , -attending particularly to the comparison of the processpursued by Nature, with that of the geometrician. Andnow for your questions respecting the moral influence ofW.'s minor poems. Of course, this will be greatly modified by the character of the recipient. But that in themajority of instances it has been most salutary, I cannotfor a moment doubt. But it is another question, whetherverse is the best way of disciplining the mind to thatspiritual alchemy, which communicates a sterling value toreal or apparent trifles, by using them as moral diagrams,as your friend uses the oak and fig- leaves as geometricalones. To have formed the habit of looking at every thing,not for what it is relative to the purposes and associationsof men in general, but for the truths which it suited to246 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.represent to contemplate objects as words and pregnantsymbols—the advantages of this, my dear D., are so many,and so important, so eminently calculated to excite andevolve the power of sound and connected reasoning, of distinct and clear conception, and of genial feeling, that thereare few of W.'s finest passages—and who, of living poets,can lay claim to half the number?-that I repeat so often,as that homely quatrain,66 "O reader! had you in your mindSuch stores as silent thought can bring;gentle reader! you would findA tale in every thing. "You did not know my revered friend and patron; orrather, you do know the man, and mourn his loss , fromthe character I have¹ lately given of him. -The followingsupposed dialogue actually took place, in a conversationwith him; and as, in part, an illustration of what I havealready said, and in part as text and introduction to muchI would wish to say, I entreat you to read it with patience,spite of the triviality of the subject, and mock- heroic ofthe title .Substance of a Dialogue, with a Commentary on the Same.A. I never found yet, an ink- stand that I was satisfiedwith.B. What would you have an ink-stand to be? Whatqualities and properties would you wish to have combinedin an ink-stand? Reflect! Consult your past experience;taking care, however, not to desire things demonstrably,or self-evidently, incompatible with each other; and the1 In the 8th number of the Friend, as first circulated by the post. 1dare assert that it is worthy of preservation, and will send a transcriptin my next.-C. The 8th number of the earliest issue of the Friend isdated Oct. 5 , 1809. It contains a noble eulogy of Thomas Wedgwood,who had died in 1805.OF THINKING AND REFLECTION. 247union of these desiderata will be your ideal of an ink- stand.A friend, perhaps, suggests some additional excellence thatmight rationally be desired, till at length the cataloguemay be considered as complete, when neither yourself, norothers, can think of any desideratum not anticipated orprecluded by some one or more of the points alreadyenumerated; and the conception of all these, as realizedin one and the same artéfact, may be fairly entitled, theIdeal of an Ink- stand.That the pen should be allowed, without requiring anyeffort or interruptive act of attention from the writer, todip sufficiently low, and yet be prevented, without injuringits nib, from dipping too low, or taking up too much ink:that the ink- stand should be of such materials as not todecompose the ink, or occasion a deposition or discolorationof its specific ingredients, as, from what cause I know not,is the fault of the black Wedgwood- ware ink- stands; thatit should be so constructed, that on being overturned, theink cannot escape; and so protected, or made of such stuff,that in case of a blow or a fall from any common height,the ink-stand itself will not be broken; -that from boththese qualities, and from its shape, it may be safely andcommodiously travelled with, and packed up with books,linen, or whatever else is likely to form the contents of theportmanteau, or travelling trunk; -that it should standsteadily and commodiously, and be of as pleasing a shapeand appearance as is compatible with its more importantuses; and lastly, though of minor regard, and non- essential, that it be capable of including other implements orrequisites, always, or occasionally connected with the artof writing, as pen-knife, wafers, &c. , without any additionto the size and weight otherwise desirable, and withoutdetriment to its more important and proper advantages.248 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES .Now (continued B. ) that we have an adequate notion ofwhat is to be wished, let us try what is to be done! Andmyfriend actually succeeded in constructing an ink- stand,in which, during the twelve years 1 that have elapsed sincethis conversation, alas! I might almost say, since hisdeath, I have never been able, though I have put my witson the stretch, to detect any thing wanting that an inkstand could be rationally desired to possess; or even toimagine any addition, detraction, or change, for use orappearance, that I could desire, without involving a contradiction.Here! (methinks I hear the reader exclaim) here's ameditation on a broom- stick with a vengeance!Now, inthe first place, I am, and I do not care who knows it , noenemy to meditations on broom- sticks; and though Boylehad been the real author of the article so waggishly passedoff for his on poor Lady Berkley; and though that goodman had written it in grave good earnest, I am not certainthat he would not have been employing his time as creditably to himself, and as profitably for a large class ofreaders, as the witty dean was while composing the Draper'sLetters, though the muses forbid that I should say thesame of Mary Cooke's Petition, Hamilton's Bawn, or eventhe rhyming correspondence with Dr. Sheridan. In hazarding this confession, however, I beg leave to put in a provided always, that the said Meditation on Broom- stick,or aliud quidlibet ejusdem farinæ, shall be as truly a meditation as the broom- stick is verily a broom- stick-and thatthe name be not a misnomer of vanity, or fraudulentlylabelled on a mere compound of brain- dribble and printer'sink. For meditation, I presume, is that act of the mind,by which it seeks within either the law of the phenomena,which it had contemplated without (meditatio scientifica) , or¹ Coleridge sailed for Italy in April, 1804 , and did not see T. Wedgwood again. So that our two letters were not written later than 1816.OF THINKING AND REFLECTION. 2491semblances, symbols, and analogies, corresponsive to thesame (meditatio ethica) . At all events, therefore it impliesthinking, and tends to make the reader think; and whatever does this, does what in the present over- excited stateof society is most wanted, though perhaps least desired .Between the thinking of a Harvey or Quarles, and thethinking of a Bacon or a Fenelon, many are the degrees ofdifference, and many the differences in degree of depthand originality; but not such as to fill up the chasm ingenere between thinking and no- thinking, or to render thediscrimination difficult for a man of ordinary understanding, not under the same contagion of vanity as thewriter. Besides, there are shallows for the full-grown,that are the maximum of safe depth for the younglings.There are truths, quite common-place to you and me, thatfor the unconstructed many would be new and full ofwonder, as the common day- light to the Lapland child atthe re-ascension of its second summer. Thanks andhonour in the highest to those stars of the first magnitudethat shoot their beams downward, and while in their properform they stir and invirtuate the sphere next below them,and natures pre-assimilated to their influence, yet callforth likewise, each after its own norm or model, whateveris best in whatever is susceptible to each, even in the lowest.But, excepting these, I confess that I seldom look atHarvey's Meditations or Quarles ' Emblems, 3 without feel2" Verily, to ask, what meaneth this? is no Herculean labour. Andthe reader languishes under the same vain- glory as his author, and hathlaid his head on the other knee of Omphale, if he can mistake the thinvocables of incogitance for the consubstantial words which thought begetteth and goeth forth in. "-Sir T. Browne, MSS.-C.2 The word is intelligible, —even suggestive, —and we leave it in thetext, but decidedly think it a mere misprint for “ uninstructed. ”3 A full collection, a Bibliotheca Specialis, of the books of emblemsand symbols, of all sects and parties, moral, theological, or political,including those in the Centenaries and Jubilee volumes published by the250 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.ing that I would rather be the author of those books -ofthe innocent pleasure, the purifying emotions, and genialawakenings of the humanity through the whole man, whichthose books have given to thousands and tens of thousands-than shine the brightest in the constellation of fameamong the heroes and Dii minores of literature. But Ihave a better excuse, and if not a better, yet a less generalmotive, for this solemn trifling, as it will seem, and onethat will, I trust, rescue my ideal of an ink- stand frombeing doomed to the same slu*t's corner with the de tribusCapellis, or de umbra asini, by virtue of the process whichit exemplifies; though I should not quarrel with the allotment, if its risible merits allowed it to keep company withthe ideal immortalized by Rabelais in his disquisition inquisitory De Rebus optime abstergentibus.Dared I mention the name of my Idealizer, a name dearto science, and consecrated by discoveries of far- extendingutility, it would at least give a biographical interest to thistrifling anecdote, and perhaps entitle me to claim for it ayet higher, as a trait in minimis, characteristic of a classof powerful and most beneficent intellects . For to thesame process of thought we owe whatever instruments ofpower have been bestowed on mankind by science andgenius; and only such deserve the name of inventions ordiscoveries. But even in those, which chance may seemto claim, " quæ homini obvenisse videantur potius quamhom*o venire in ea, " —which come to us rather than we toJesuit and other religious orders, is a desideratum in our library literature that would well employ the talents of our ingenious masters inwood- engraving, etching, and lithography, under the superintendence ofa Dibdin, and not unworthy of royal and noble patronage, or the attention of a Longman and his compeers. Singly or jointly undertaken, it would do honour to these princely merchants in the service of the muses. What stores might not a Southey contribute as notesor interspersed prefaces? I could dream away an hour on the subject.-C.OF THINKING AND REFLECTION. 251them, this process will most often be found as the indispensable antecedent of the discovery-as the condition, without which the suggesting accident would have whisperedto deaf ears, unnoticed; or, like the faces in the fire, orthe landscapes made by damp on a white- washed wall,noticed for their oddity alone. To the birth of the tree aprepared soil is as necessary as the falling seed . A Danielwas present; or the fatal characters in the banquet- hall ofBelshazzar might have struck more terror, but would havebeen of no more import than the trail of a luminous worm.In the far greater number, indeed, of these asserted boonsof chance, it is the accident that should be called thecondition, and often not so much, but merely the occasion, —while the proper cause of the invention is to besought for in the co- existing state and previous habit ofthe observer's mind. I cannot bring myself to account forrespiration from the stimulus of the air, without ascribingto the specific stimulability of the lungs a yet more important part in the joint product. To how many myriadsof individuals had not the rise and fall of the lid in a boiling kettle been familiar, an appearance daily and hourlyin sight? But it was reserved for a mind that understoodwhat was to be wished and knew what was wanted inorder to its fulfilment-for an armed eye, which meditationhad made contemplative, an eye armed from within, withan instrument of higher powers than glasses can give,with the logic of method, the only true Organum Flevristicum which possesses the former and better half of knowledge in itself as the science of wise questioning, ¹ and theother half in reversion-it was reserved for the Marquisof Worcester to see and have given into his hands, from" Prudens questio dimidium scientiæ, " says our Verulam, the secondfounder of the science, and the first who on principle applied it to theideas in nature, as his great compeer Plato had before done to the lawsin the mind.-C.252 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.the alternation of expansion and vacuity, a power mightierthan that of Vulcan and all his Cyclops; a power thatfound its practical limit only where nature could supplyno limit strong enough to confine it. For the genial spirit,that saw what it had been seeking, and saw because itsought, was it reserved in the dancing lid of a kettle orcoffee-urn, to behold the future steam- engine, the Talus,with whom the Britomart of science is now gone forth tosubdue and humanize the planet! When the bodily organ,steadying itself on some chance thing, imitates, as it were,the fixture of " the inward eye on its ideal shapings, thenit is that Nature not seldom reveals her close affinity withmind, with that more than man which is one and the samein all men, and from which99" the soul receivesReason and reason is her being! "99

Par. Lost.If, inThen it is, that Nature, like an individual spirit or fellowsoul, seems to think and hold commune with us.the present contempt of all mental analysis not containedin Locke, Hartley, or Condillac, it were safe to borrow from"scholastic lore a technical term or two, for which Ihave not yet found any substitute equally convenient andserviceable, I should say, that at such moments Nature, asanother subject veiled behind the visible object without us,solicits the intelligible object hid, and yet struggling beneath the subject within us, and like a helping Lucina,brings it forth for us into distinct consciousness and common light. Who has not tried to get hold of some halfremembered name, mislaid as it were in the memory, andyet felt to be there? And who has not experienced, howat length it seems given to us, as if some other unperceivedhad been employed in the same search? And what arethe objects last spoken of, which are in the subject ( i.e. theindividual mind), yet not subjective, but of universalOF THINKING AND REFLECTION. 253validity, no accidents of a particular mind resulting fromits individual structure, no, nor even of the human mind,as a particular class or rank of intelligences, but of imperishable subsistence; and though not things, (i.e. shapesin outward space, ) yet equally independent of the beholder, and more than equally real-what, I say, are thosebut the names of nature? the nomina quasi voμɛva, opposedby the wisest of the Greek schools to phenomena, asthe intelligible correspondents or correlatives in themind to the invisible supporters of the appearances inin the world of the senses, the upholding powers that cannot be seen, but the presence and actual being of whichmust be supposed-nay will be supposed, in defiance ofevery attempt to the contrary by a crude materialism, soalien from humanity, that there does not exist a languageon earth, in which it could be conveyed without a contradiction between the sense, and the words employed toexpress it!Is this a " mere random flight in etymology, hunting abubble, and bringing back the film? I cannot think socontemptuously of the attempt to fix and restore the trueimport of any word; but, in this instance, I should regardit as neither unprofitable, nor devoid of rational interest,were it only that the knowledge and reception of the import here given, as the etymon, or genuine sense of theword, would save Christianity ¹ from the reproach of containing a doctrine so repugnant to the best feelings ofhumanity, as is inculcated in the following passage, among1 In our last division we shall find Dr. Watson assuming that Coleridge died a devout Christian. See his Preface to The Theory ofLife.On the other hand, we have T. Allsop maintaining, that he remained ,practically, Unitarian to the last. The conflict of opinion is surprising,in the face of Coleridge's own assertions, that he early sawthe hollownessof Unitarianism, and the preciousness of "the truth as it is in Jesus."We think, however, that a careful study of the observations in the text.will throw a little light on the matter.254 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.a hundred others to the same purpose, in earlier and inmore recent works, sent forth by professed Christians." Most of the men, who are now alive, or that have beenliving for many ages, are Jews, Heathens, or Mahometans,strangers and enemies to Christ, in whose name alone we can be saved. This consideration is extremely sad, whenwe remember how great an evil it is, that so manymillions of sons and daughters are born to enter into thepossession of devils to eternal ages. " -Taylor's Holy Dying,p. 28. Even Sir T. Browne, while his heart is evidentlywrestling with the dogma grounded on the trivial interpretation of the word, nevertheless receives it in this sense,and expresses most gloomy apprehensions "of the ends ofthose honest worthies and philosophers, " who died beforethe birth of our Saviour: " It is hard, " says he, " to placethose souls in hell, whose worthy lives did teach us virtueon earth. How strange to them will sound the history ofAdam, when they shall suffer for him they never heardof! " Yet he concludes by condemning the insolence ofreason in daring to doubt or controvert the verity of thedoctrine, or "to question the justice of the proceeding, "which verity, he fears, the woeful lot of "these great examplesof virtue must confirm. '99II.The philosophic poet, whom I quoted in my last, mayhere and there have stretched his prerogative in a war ofoffence on the general associations of his contemporaries.Here and there, though less than the least of what theBuffoons of parody, and the Zanies of anonymous criticism ,would have us believe, he may be thought to betray a preference of mean or trivial instances for grand morals, acapricious predilection for incidents that contrast with thedepth and novelty of the truths they are to exemplify.OF THINKING AND REFLECTION. 255But still to the principle, to the habit of tracing the presence of the high in the humble, the mysterious Dii Cabiri,in the form of the dwarf Miner, with hammer and spade,and week- day apron, we must attribute Wordsworth'speculiar power, his leavening influence on the opinions, feelings, and pursuits of his admirers, most on the young ofmost promise and highest acquirements; and that, whileothers are read with delight, his works are a religion . Acase still more in point occurs to me, and for the truth ofwhich I dare pledge myself. The art of printing aloneseems to have been privileged with a Minerval birth, tohave risen in its zenith; but next to this, perhaps the rapidand almost instantaneous advancement of pottery from thestate in which Mr. Wedgwood found the art, to its demonstrably highest practicable perfection, is the most strikingfact in the history of modern improvements achieved by individual genius. In his early manhood, an obstinate andharassing complaint confined him to his room for morethan two years and to this apparent calamity Mr. Wedgwood was wont to attribute his after unprecedented success. For a while, as was natural, the sense of thus losingthe prime and vigour of his life and faculties, preyed onhis mind incessantly-aggravated, no doubt, by the thoughtof what he should have been doing this hour and this, had henot been thus severely visited . Then, what he should like totake in hand; and lastly, what it was desirable to do, andhow far it might be done, till generalizing more and more,the mind began to feed on the thoughts, which, at their first evolution (in their larva state, may I say?) , had preyedon the mind. We imagine the presence of what we desirein the very act of regretting its absence, nay, in order toregret it the more livelily; but while, with a strange wilfulness, we are thus engendering grief on grief, naturemakes use of the product to cheat us into comfort andexertion. The positive shapings, though but of the fancy,256 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.will sooner or later displace the mere knowledge of thenegative. All activity is in itself pleasure; and accordingto the nature, powers, and previous habits of the sufferer,the activity of the fancy will call the other faculties of thesoul into action. The self-contemplative power becomesmeditative, and the mind begins to play the geometricianwith its own thoughts-abstracting from them the accidental and individual, till a new and unfailing source ofemployment, the best and surest nepentha of solitary pain,is opened out, in the habit of seeking the principle andultimate aim in the most imperfect productions of art, inthe least attractive products of nature; of beholding thepossible in the real; of detecting the essential form in theintentional; above all, in the collation and constructiveimagining of the outward shapes and material forces thatshall best express the essential form in its coincidence withthe idea, or realize most adequately that power, which isone with its correspondent knowledge, as the revealing bodywith its indwelling soul.Another motive will present itself, and one that comesnearer home, and is of more general application, if we reflect on the habit here recommended, as a source of supportand consolation in circ*mstances under which we mightotherwise sink back on ourselves, and for want of colloquywith our thoughts, with the objects and presentations ofthe inner sense, lie listening to the fretful ticking of oursensations. A resource of costless value has that man,who has brought himself to a habit of measuring the objects around him by their intended or possible ends, andthe proportion in which this end is realized in each. It isthe neglect of thus educating the senses, of thus disciplining, and, in the proper and primitive sense of the word,informing the fancy, that distinguishes at first sight theruder states of society. Every mechanic tool, the commonest and most indispensable implements of agriculture,OF THINKING AND REFLECTION. 257might remind one of the school-boy's second stage inmetrical composition, in which his exercise is to containsense, but he is allowed to eke out the scanning by the interposition, here and there, of an equal quantity of nonsense. And even in the existing height of national civilization, how many individuals may there not be found, forwhose senses the non- essential so preponderates, thatthough they may have lived the greater part of their livesin the country, yet, with some exceptions for the productsof their own flower and kitchen garden, all the names inthe Index to Withering's Botany are superseded for themby the one name, a weed! " It is only a weed! " And ifthis indifference stopt here, and this particular ignorancewere regarded as the disease, it would be sickly to complainof it. But it is as a symptom that it excites regret—it isthat, except only the pot-herbs of lucre, and the barrendouble flowers of vanity, their own noblest faculties bothof thought and action are but weeds-in which, shouldsickness or misfortune wreck them on the desert islandof their own mind, they would either not think of seeking, or be ignorant how to find, nourishment or medicine. As it is good to be provided with work for rainydays, winter industry is the best cheerer of winter gloom,and fire- side contrivances for summer use bring summersunshine and a genial inner warmth, which the friendlyhearth-blaze may conspire with, but cannot bestow or compensate.A splenetic friend of mine, who was fond of outraginga truth by some whimsical hyperbole, in his way of expressing it, gravely gave it out as his opinion, that beautyand genius were but diseases of the consumptive andscrofulous order. He would not carry it further; but yet,he must say, that he had observed that very good people,persons of unusual virtue and benevolence, were in generalafflicted with weak or restless nerves! After yieldingS258 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES .him the expected laugh for the oddity of the remark, Ireminded him, that if his position meant any thing, theconverse must be true, and we ought to have Helens,Medicæan Venuses, Shaksperes, Raphaels, Howards, Clarksons, and Wilberforces by thousands; and the assembliesand pump-rooms at Bath, Harrowgate, and Cheltenham ,rival the conversazioni in the Elysian Fields. Since then,however, I have often recurred to the portion of truth, thatlay at the bottom of my friend's conceit. It cannot bedenied, that ill health, in a degree below direct pain, yetdistressfully affecting the sensations, and depressing theanimal spirits, and thus leaving the nervous system toosensitive to pass into the ordinary state of feeling, andforcing us to live in alternating positives, is ¹ a hot- bed forwhatever germs, and tendencies, whether in head or heart,have been planted there independently.1Surely, there is nothing fanciful in considering this as aprovidential provision, and as one of the countless proofsiPerhaps it confirms while it limits this theory, that it is chieflyverified in men whose genius and pursuits are eminently subjective,where the mind is intensely watchful of its own acts and shapings,thinks, while it feels , in order to understand, and then to generalize thatfeeling; above all, where all the powers of the mind are called intoaction, simultaneously, and yet severally, while in men of equal, andperhaps deservedly equal celebrity, whose pursuits are objective and universal, demanding the energies of attention and abstraction , as inmechanics, mathematics, and all departments of physics and physiology,the very contrary would seem to be exemplified. Shakspere died at53, and probably of a decline; and in one of his sonnets he speaks of himself as grey and prematurely old; and Milton , who suffered frominfancy those intense head-aches which ended in blindness, insinuatesthat he was never free from pain, or the anticipation of pain. On theother hand, the Newtons and Leibnitzes have, in general, been not only long-lived, but men of robust health. -C.That Shakspere died " probably of a decline " is interesting,—thougha man who died of a decline at fifty-three, would have no great reason tocomplain. Unhappily for Coleridge's theory, Shakspere's will describeshim as " in perfect health; " and yet it had not been made four weeks,OF THINKING AND REFLECTION. 259that we are most benignly, as well as wonderfully constructed! The cutting and irritating grain of sand, whichby accident or incaution has got within the shell, incitesthe living inmate to secrete from its own resources themeans of coating the intrusive substance. And is itnot, or may it not be, even so, with the irregularities andunevennesses of health and fortune in our own case? We,too, may turn diseases into pearls. The means and materials are within ourselves; and the process is easilyunderstood. By a law common to all animal life, we are incapable of attending for any continuance to an object, theparts of which are indistinguishable from each other, orto a series, where the successive links are only numericallydifferent. Nay, the more broken and irritating, (as, forinstance, the fractious noise of the dashing of a lake on itsborder, compared with the swell of the sea on a calmevening, ) the more quickly does it exhaust our power ofnoticing it . The tooth-ache, where the suffering is notextreme, often finds its speediest cure in the silent pillow;and gradually destroys our attention to itself by preventing us from attending to any thing else. From the samecause, many a lonely patient listens to his moans, till heforgets the pain that occasioned them. The attention attenuates, as its sphere contracts. But this it does even to apoint, where the person's own state of feeling, or any particular set of bodily sensations, are the direct object.at his death. As to his being " grey and prematurely old," when he wrote,for example, Sonnet LXXIII. ,-"That time of year thou may'st in me beholdWhen yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hangUpon those boughs which shake against the cold,”—he was but forty-five when it was published, and it had been written longbefore. Such language must not be interpreted too literally.In the opening lines of his note, it is plain that Coleridge has himself in mind. We have inserted " never" in the last line but two.260 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.The slender thread winding in narrower and narrowercircles round its source and centre, ends at length in achrysalis, a dormitory within which the spinner undresseshimself in his sleep, soon to come forth quite a new creature.So it is in the slighter cases of suffering, where suspension is extinction, or followed by long intervals of ease. Butwhere the unsubdued causes are ever on the watch to renewthe pain, that thus forces our attention in upon ourselves,the same barrenness and monotony of the object that inminor grievances lulled the mind into oblivion, now goadsit into action by the restlessness and natural impatience ofvacancy. We cannot perhaps divert the attention; ourfeelings will still form the main subject of our thoughts.But something is already gained, if, instead of attendingto our sensations, we begin to think of them. But in orderto this, we must reflect on these thoughts—or the samesameness will soon sink them down into mere feeling. Andin order to sustain the act of reflection on our thoughts,we are obliged more and more to compare and generalizethem, a process that to a certain extent implies, and in astill greater degree excites and introduces, the act andpower of abstracting the thoughts and images from theiroriginal cause, and of reflecting on them with less and lessreference to the individual suffering that had been theirfirst subject. The vis medicatrix of Nature is at work forus in all our faculties and habits, the associate, reproductive,comparative, and combinatory.That this source of consolation and support may beequally in your power as in mine, but that you may neverhave occasion to feel equally grateful for it, as I have, anddo, in body and estate, is the fervent wish of your affec- tionateS. T. COLERIDGE.THE HISTORIE AND GESTS OF MAXILIAN.¹SundrySelect ChaptersFrom the Book of theTwo Worlds,Translated from the Original ESOTERIC into theLanguage of theBorder Land:Comprizing the Historie and Gestsof MAXILIAN, agnominatedCOSMENCEPHALUS, and and a CousinGerman of SATYRANE,2 the IDO-.LOCLAST- a very true Novelfounded on Acts, aptly dividedand diversely digested into Fyttes,Flights, Stations (or Landing-places)Floors and Stories-completein Numeris, more or less.1 Reprinted from Blackwood's Magazine, January, 1822. We havethought it worth while to reproduce the original form in which theheading appeared in that periodical.2 In his poem, A Tombless Epitaph, Coleridge explains why his friends so named him: -"To characterHis wild- wood fancy and impetuous zeal. ”His letters from Germany, in 1799, to be found in the BiographiaLiteraria, he entitles " Satyrane's Letters."262 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.OTA BENE.-By default of the decipherer, we are INOTAforced to leave the blank space before " Numeris "unfilled; a part of the work, we fear, still remaining in theEncephalic character, a sort of SANS- SCRIPT, much used, weunderstand, by adepts in the occult sciences, as likewise forpromissory notes. We should also apologize for the indiscretion of our author in his epistolary preface (seduced by thewish of killing two birds with one stone) , in shutting up visà-vis, as it were, so respectable and comprehensive (not to saysynodical) a personage as The Reader with Dick Proof,corrector of what press, we know not, unless, as wegrievously suspect, he is in the employ of Messrs Dash,Asterisk, Anon, and Company. Nor is this all; this impropriety being aggravated by sundry passages, exclusivelyrelating and addressed to this Mr. Proof, which have aneffect on the series of thoughts common to both the parties,not much unlike that, which a parenthesis or two of links,made of dandelion stems, might be supposed to produce inmy Lord Mayor or Mr. Sheriff's gold chain. In one flagran instance, with which the first paragraph in the MSS.concluded, we have, by virtue of our editorial prerogative,degraded the passage to the place and condition of a Note.-EDITOR. ']MOTTO I.2"How wishedly will some pity the case of ARGALUS andPARTHENIA, the patience of GRYSELD in Chaucer, the miseryand troublesome adventures of the phanatic (phrenetic?)This " Nota Bene " by " Editor " is evidently Coleridge's own.2 Which Posterity is requested to reprint at the back of the titlepage, for the present, Quod North, quod Blackwood, quod concessêre Columna.-C. Blackwood's Magazine was printed in double columns,but these mottoes were allowed to extend across the page.MAXILIAN. 263lovers in Cleopatra, Cassandra, Amadis de Gaul, Sidney, andsuch like! Yet all these are as mere romantic as Rabelaishis Garagantua. And yet with an unmoved apprehension,can peruse the very dolorous and lamentable murder ofMILCOLUMB the First, the cutting off the head of good KINGALPINUS, the poisoning of FERGUSIUS the Third by his ownqueen, and the throat- cutting of KING FETHELMACHUS by afiddler! nay, and moreover, even the martyrdom of oldQUEEN KETABAN in Persia, the stabbing of Henry Fourth inFrance, the sacrilegious poisoning of Emperor HenrySeventh in Italy, the miserable death of MAURICIUS theEmperor, with a wife and five children, by wicked PHOCAS,-can read, I say, these and the like fatal passages, recordedby holy fathers and grave chroniclers, with less pity andcompassion than the shallow loves of Romeo for his Julietin Shakespeare his deplorable tragedies, or shun the pitifulwanderings of Lady Una in search of her stray Red- cross,in Master Spenser his quaint rhymes. Yea, the famousdoings, and grievous sufferings of our own anointed kings,maybe far outrivalled in some men's minds by the hardshipsof some enchanted innamorato in Ariosto, Parismus, or thetwo Palmerins. "FOULIS'S History of the Wicked Plots and Conspiracies, &c .66MOTTO II.Pray, why is it that people say that men are not suchfools now-a-days as they were in days of yore? I wouldfain know, whether you would have us understand by thissame saying, as indeed you logically may, that formerly menwere fools, and in this generation are grown wise. Howmany, and what dispositions made themfools? How many,and what dispositions were wanting to make ' em wise?Why were those fools? Howshould these be wise? Pray,264 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.how came you to know that men were formerly fools?How did you find that they are now wise? Who madethem fools? Who in Heaven's name made them wise?Who d'ye think are most, those that loved mankind foolish,or those that love it wise? How long has it been wise?How long otherwise? Whence proceeded the foregoingfolly? Whence the following wisdom? Why did the oldfolly end now and no later? Why did the modern wisdombegin now and no sooner? What were we the worse forthe former folly? What the better for the succeeding wisdom? How should the ancient folly have come to nothing?How should this same new wisdom be started up andestablished? Now answer me, an't please you."FRANCIS RABELAIS ' Preface to his Fifth Book.66EPISTLEPremonitory for THE READER; but contra-monitory andin reply to DICK PROOF, Corrector.Of the sundry sorts of vice, Richard, that obtain in thissinful world, one of the most troublesome is advice, and noless an annoyance to my feelings, than a pun is to thine.Lay your scene further off!! " Was ever historianbefore affronted by so wild a suggestion? If, indeed, themoods, measures, and events of the last six years, insularand continental, or the like of that, had been the title andsubject matter of the work; and you had then advised thetransfer of the scene to Siam and Borneo, or to Abyssiniaand the Isle of Ormus-there would be something to say forit, verisimilitudinis causâ, or on the ground of lessening theimprobability of the narrative. But in the history ofMaxilian!-Why, the locality, man, is an essential part ofthe a priori evidence of its truth! * * * *MAXILIAN. 2651In a biographical work, the proprieties of place are indispensable, Dick. To prove this, you need only changethe scene in the History of Rob Roy from the precipicesof Ben Lomond, and the glens and inlets of the Trossachs(the Trossachs, worthy to have made a W. S. , but that aW. S. is only of God's making, -nascitur non fit) , to SnowHill, Breckneck Stairs, or Little Hell in Westminster-bygoing to which last named place, Dick, when we were at theschool, you evaded the guilt of foreswearing for tellingof me to our master, after you had sworn that you wouldgo to —, if you did-well knowingwhereyou meantmeto understand you, and where in honour you ought to havegone but this may be mended in time.And lay the time further back! But why, Richard?I pray thee tell me, why? The present, you reply, is not theage ofthe supernatural. Well, and if I admit, that the ageat present is so fully attached to the unnatural in taste, thepræternatural in life, and the contra- natural in philosophy,as to have little room left for the super- natural-yet what isthis to the purpose? I cannot antedate the highly respectable personage, into whose company I have presumed tobring you; —I may make The Reader sleep, but I cannotmake him one of the Seven Sleepers, to awake at my requestfor the first time since he fell into his long nap over theGolden Legend, or the Vision of Alberic! Or does the reader,thinkst thou, believe that witch and wizard, gnome,nymph, sylph, and salamander, did exist in those days;but that, like the mammoth and megatherium, the race isextinct? Will he accept as fossiles, what he would reject1 In biography, ( which, by the bi , reminds me of a rejoinder made tome, nigh 30 years ago, by Parsons the Bookseller, on my objecting tosundry anecdotes in a MS. Life, that did more credit to the wit andinvention of the author, than to his honesty and veracity. "Ina professedbiography, Mr. P.,” quoth I, pleadingly, and somewhat syllabically, —" Biography, sir," interrupted he! " Sellography is what I want." -C.266 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.as specimens fresh caught-herein differing widely fromthe old woman, who, as thethings were said to havehappened so far off and so long ago, hoped, in God'smercy, there was not a word of truth in them? Thoumayst think this, Richard, but I will neither affront thereader by attributing to him a faith so dependent on dates,nor myself, whose history is a concave mirror, not a glasscase of mummies, stuffed skins of defunct monsters, andthe anomalous accidents of nature.Thus, Richard, might I multiply thy objection, but thatI detest the cui bono, when it is to be a substitute for thequid veri. Nor will I stop at present to discuss thy insinuation against the comparative wisdom of the sires ofour great grandsires, though at some future time I wouldfain hear thy answers to the doubts and queries in mysecond motto, originally started by Master Rabelais, inthat model of true and perpetual history, the Travels ofGaragantua and his friends.Without condescending to non-suit you by the flaws inyour indictment, I assert the peculiar fitness of this age, inwhich, by way of compromising the claims of memory andhope, the rights both of its senior and of its junior members,I comprise the interval from 1770 to 1870.An adventurous position, but for which the age, I trust,will be " my good masters "-the more so, that I mustforego one main help towards establishing the characteristicepithets rightfully appertaining to its emblazonmentnamely, an exposè of its own notions of its own morals andphilosophy. But Truth, I remember, is reported to havealready lost her front teeth ( dentes incisores et prehensiles) bybarking too close at the heels of a restive fashion: a secondblow might leave her blind as well as toothless. Besides,a word in your ear, Richard Proof, I do not half trust you.I mean, therefore, to follow Petrarch's¹ example, and con1 The passage here alluded to, I should, as an elevated strain ofMAXILIAN. 267fine my confidence on these points to a few dear friends andrevered benefactors, to whom I am in the habit of openingout my inner man in the world of spirits a world whichthe eyes of " the profane vulgar " would probably mistakefor a garret floored and wainscoated with old books;tattered folios , to wit, and massive quartos in no betterplight. For the due nutriment, however, of scorn and vanity-which are in fact much the same; for contempt is nothingbut egotism turned sour-for the requisite supply, I say, ofour social wants (Reviews, Anecdotes of Living Authors,Table-Talk, and such like provender, ) it will suffice if Ihereby confess, that with rare exceptions these friends ofmine were all born and bred before the birth of CommonSense by the obstetric skill of Mr. Locke, nay, prior to thefirst creation of intellectual Light in the person of Sir IsaacNewton-which latter event ( we have Mr. Pope's positiveassurance of the fact) may account for its universal andequable diffusion at present, the Light not having had timeto collect itself into individual luminaries, the future suns,moons, and stars of the mundus intelligibilis. This, however,may be hoped for on or soon after the year 1870, which, ifmy memory does not fail me, is the date apocalyptically deduced by the Reverend G. S. Faber, for the commencementof the Millennium .But though my prudential reserve on these points musteloquence warm from the heart of a great and good man, compare to any passage of equal length in Cicero. I have not the folio edition ofPetrarch's works by me ( by the bye, the worst printed book in respect ofblunders I know of, not excepting even Anderson's British Poets) , andcannot therefore give any particular reference. But it is my purpose tooffer you some remarks on the Latin Works of Petrarch, with a fewselections, at a future opportunity. It is pleasing to contemplate in thisillustrious man, at once the benefactor of his own times, and the delightof the succeeding, and working on his contemporaries most beneficiallyby that portion of his works which is least in account with hisposterity. -C.268 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.Lsubtract from my forces numerically, this does not abatemy reliance on the sufficing strength of those that remain.No! with confidence and secular pride I affirm, there isno age you could suggest, the characteristic of which isnot to be found in the present—that we are the quintessenceof all past ages, rather than an age of our own.You recommend, you say, the Dark Ages; and that the presentboasts to be the contrary. Indeed? I appeal then to theoracle that pronounces Socrates the most enlightened ofmen because he professed himself to be in the dark. Theconverse, and the necessary truth of the converse, are alikeobvious: besides, as already hinted, in time all light mustneeds be in the dark, as having neither reflection norabsorption; yet may, nevertheless, retain its prenomenwithout inconsistency, by a slight change in the lastsyllable, by a mere-for " ed " read " ing. " For whateverscruples may arise as to its being an enlightened age, therecan be no doubt that it is an enlightening one-an eraof enlighteners, from the Gas Light Company to the dazzlingIlluminati in the Temple of Reason-not forgetting thediffusers of light from the Penny-Tract- Pedlary, northe numberless writers of the small, but luminous workson arts, trades, and sciences, natural history, and astronomy,all for the use of children from three years old to seven,interwoven with their own little biographies and nurseryjournals, to the exclusion of Goody Two Shoes , as favouringsuperstition, by one party; and of Jack the Giant-killer ,as a suspicious parody of David and Goliah, by the other."Far, far around, where'er my eye- balls stray,By Lucifer! ' tis all one milky way!دوOr, as Propria Quæ Maribus, speaking (more prophetico, etproleptice) of the Irradiators of future ( i. e . our) Times,long ago observed, they are common, quite a commonthing!MAXILIAN. 269"Sunt commune Parens, Auctorque; Infans, Adolescens;Dux; Exlex; Bifrons; Bos, Fur, Sus atque Sacerdos."So far, at least, you will allow me to have made out myposition. But if by a dark age you mean an age concerningwhich we are altogether in the dark; and as, in applyingthis to our own, the Subject and Object, we and the age,become identical and commutable terms; I bid adieu to allreasoning by implication, to all legerdemain of inferentiallogic, and at once bring notorious facts to bear out myassertion. Could Hecate herself, churning the nightdamps for an eye- salve, wish for an age more in the darkrespecting its own character, than we have seen exemplifiedin our next- door neighbour, the Great Nation, when, on thebloodless altar of Gallic freedom, she took the oath of peaceand good-will to all mankind, and abjured all conquestsbut those of reason? Or in the millions throughout thecontinent, who believed her? Or than in the two component parties in our own illustrious isle, the one of whomhailed her revolution as 66 a stupendous monument of humanwisdom and human happiness; " and the other calculatedon its speedy overthrow by an act of bankruptcy, to bebrought about or accelerated by a speculation in assignats,corn, and Peruvian bark? Or than in the more recent constitutional genius of the Peninsula-"What time it rose, o'er-peering, from behind,The mountainous experience, high upheap'd,Of Gallic legislation—"and " taught by others' harms " a very ungallic respect forthe more ancient code, vulgarly called the Ten Commandments, left the lands as it found them, content with excluding their owners-owners of four parts out of five, atleast, the church and nobility-from all share in theirrepresentation? Or when the same genius, the emblemand vice-gerent of the present age in Spain, poising theold indigenous loyalty with the newly- imported state- craft,270 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.secured to the monarch the revenue of a caliph, with thepower of a constable? But Piedmont! but Naples-theNeapolitans! the age of patriotism, the firm, the disinterested the age of good faith and hard fighting-of libertyor death -yea! and the age of newspapers and speechesin Britain, France, and Germany-the uncorrupted, I mean;(and the rest, you know, as mere sloughs, rather than aliving and component part, need not be taken into thecalculation) —were of the same opinion! A dream forMomus to wake out of with laughing!But enough! You are convinced on this point, —at leastyou retract your objection. And now what else? Does myhistory require, in the way of correspondency, a time ofwonders, a revolutionary period? Does it demand a nondescript age? Should it, above all (as I myself admit thatit should), be laid in an age " without a name, " and which,therefore, it will be charity in me to christen by the nameof the Polypus? An age, where the inmost may be turnedoutside-and " Inside out and outside in " I at one timeintended for the title of my history-where the very tails,inspired by the spirit of independence, shoot out heads oftheir own? (Thanks, with three times three, to Ellis andTrembley, the first historiographers of the Polypus realm,for this beautiful emblem and natural sanction of the SOVEREIGNTY OF THE PEOPLE! ) All, all are to be found in the agewe live in-whose attributes to enumerate would exhaustthe epithets of an Orphic hymn, and beggar the Gradus adParnassum! -All, all, and half besides-the feasibility ofwhich I first learnt during the last war, at two publicdinners severally given, one by Scottish, and the other byIrish patriots, where each assigned to their countrymenthree-fourths of our whole naval and military success.each case, a priori, the thing was possible, nay, probable;at each meeting the assertion passed nem. con. , thoughthere were eye-witnesses, if not pars- maximists presentInMAXILIAN. 271and both were so much in earnest, that I could not find itin my heart to disbelieve either. But this is a digression.Or it may be printed as a parenthesis . All close thinkers,you know, are apt to be parenthetic.One other point, and I conclude. You are a mightyman for parallel passages, Dick! a very ferret in huntingout the pedigree and true parentage of a thought, phrase,or image. So far from believing in equivocal generation,or giving credit to any idea as an Autochthon, i. e. as selfsprung out of the individual brain, or natale solum, whence(like Battersea cabbages, Durham mustard, Stilton cheese,&c. ) it took its market name, I verily suspect you of theheresy of the Præ-Adamites! Nay, I would lay a wagerthat the Thesis for your Doctor's Degree, should you everdescend from your correctorship of typical errata to thatof misprints in the substance, would be: quod fontes sintnullibi. In self- defence, therefore, by warrantable anticipation, -a pregnant principle, Richard! by virtue of which(as you yourself urged at the time) the demagogues thatthrew open the election of the Mayor of Garrett, hithertovested in the blackguards of Brentford exclusively, to theblackguards of the country at large, exposed us to an invasion from the aristocracies of Tunis and Algiers! N.B.Clarendon and the Quarterly are of the same opinion- prospectively, I say, for informers, and informatively for thereader, I make known the following:Some ten or twelve years ago, as the Vassals of theSun, i.e. the Bodies, count their time, being in the worldof spirits, as above mentioned, and in the Parnassianquarter, in literary chit- chat with Lucian, Aristophanes,Swift, Rabelais, and Molière, over a glass of green gooseberry wine (since the departure of the last-named spirit,articles of French produce have been declared contrabandin the spiritual Parnassia) , -I read them a rough preexistent, or as we say here, copy, of Maxilian. When who272 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.should be standing behind my chair, and peeping over myshoulder, ( I had a glimpse of his face when it was too late,and I never saw a more Cervantic one, ) but a spirit fromThought-land, ( North Germany, I should say, ) who, itseems, had taken a trip thither, during the furlough of amagnetic crisis, into which his Larva had been thrown byNic, senior, M. D. ', and a Mesmerist still in greaterpractice. Well! there would have been no harm in this,for in such cases it was well known, that the spirit, on itsreturn to the body, used to forget all that had happened toit during its absence, and became as ignorant of all thewondrous things it had seen, said, heard and done, as Ba- laam's ass. Γίνεται δ'αῦ ὄνος ὁ ὄνος ἐξαγγελιζόμενος. Butunluckily, and only a few months before, Mr. Van Ghert,(who, as privy counsellor to the King of the Netherlands,ought to have known better, ) had, by metaphysical skill,discovered the means of so softening the waxen tablet inthe patient's cranium, that it not only received, but retained,the impression from the movements of the soul, during hertrance, re-suggesting them to the patient sooner or later,sometimes as dreams, and sometimes as orignal fancies.Thus it chanced, that the great idea, and too many of thesub-ideas, of my ideal work awoke, in the consciousnessof this Prussian or Saxon, -Frederic Miller is the name hegoes by, -soon after the return of the spirit to its oldchambers in his brain. Alas! my unfortunate intimacy1 See " Archiv des thierischen Magnetismus," edited by ProfessorEschenmiyer and Co. I mentioned one of Dr. Nic's cases, with a few ofDoctors Kieser's and Nasse's, andof Mr. Van Ghert's, to Lemuel Gulliver;but I found him strangely incredulous. He (he said) had never seenany thing like it . But what is that to the purpose? What does any one man's experience go for, in proving a negative at least? I could not evenlearn from him, that he had ever met with a single Meteorolith, or skystone, on its travels from the volcanos of Jupiter, or the moon, to our earth. -C.MAXILIAN. 273with a certain¹ well- known " Thief of Time," for which myoriginality had suffered on more than one former occasion,was part in fault! But, be this as it may, so it chanced,however, that before I had put a single line on paper(my time being, indeed, occupied in determining whichof ten or twelve pre- existents I should transcribe first, )out came the surreptitious duplicate, with such changes innames, scene of action, thought, images, and language,as the previous associations and local impressions of theunweeting plagiarist had clothed my ideas in. But whatI take most to heart, it so nearly concerning the creditof Great Britain, is, that it came out in another country,and in high Dutch! I foresee what my anticipator'scompatriots will say that admitting the facts as hererelated, yet the Anselmus is no mere transcript or version, but at the lowest a free imitation of the Maxilian: orrather that the English and German works are like twopaintings by different masters from the same sketch, thecredit of which sketch, secundum leges et consuetudines mundicorpuscularis, must be assigned to the said Frederic Millerby all incarnate spirits, held at this present time in theirsenses, and as long as they continue therein; but which Ishall claim to myself, if ever I get out of them . And sofarewell, dear Corrector! for I must now adjust myselftoretire bowing, face or frontispiece, towards The Reader,with the respect due to so impartial and patient an Arbiterfrom the AUTHOR.¹ Coleridge is recalling the line of Young,—"Procrastination is the thief of time."As to the way in which, as he considered, his credit for originalityhad more than once suffered, read the introductory note to Christabel.T274 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.MAXILIAN.Flight I.-It was on a Whitsunday afternoon-the clocks strikingfive, and while the last stroke was echoing in the nowemptychurches and just at the turn of one of the open streetsin the outskirts of Dublin-that a young man, swinginghimself round the corner, ran full butt on a basket of cakesand apples, which an old barrow- wife was offering for sale; ´and with such force, that the contents shot abroad, like thewater-rays of a trundled mop, and furnished extempore—onthe spur of the occasion, as we say, a glorious scramble tothe suburban youngsters, that were there making or marringthis double holiday. But what words can describe thedesperate outburst, the blaze of sound, into which thebeldam owner of the wares exploded! or the " boil andbubble " of abuse and imprecation, with which theneighbourgossips, starting from their gingerbread and whisky stands,and clustering round him, astounded the ears and senses ofthe ill- starred aggressor! A tangle- knot of adders, with allits beads protruded towards him, would not have been moreterrific. Reeling with surprise and shame, with the lookand gesture of a child, that, having whirled till it was giddyblind, is now trying to stop itself, he held out his purse,which the grinning scold with one snatch transferred to herown pocket. At the sight of this peace-offering , the circleopened, and made way for the young man, who instantlypursued his course with as much celerity as the fulness ofthe street, and the dread of a second mishap, would permit.The flame of Irish wrath soon languishes and goes out, whenit meets with no fuel from resistance . The rule holds truein general. But no rule is of universal application; and itMAXILIAN. 275was far from being verified by the offended principal in thisaffray. Unappeased, or calling in her fury only to sendit out again condensed into hate, the implacable beldamhobbled after the youth, determined that though she herselfcould not keep up with him, yet that her curses should, aslong at least as her throat and lungs could supply powderfortheir projection. Alternately pushing her limbs onward,and stopping not so much to pant as to gain afulcrum for amore vehement scream, she continued to pursue her victimwith " vocal shafts, " as Pindar has it, or is ρīvos éµπρησαεlsi.e. spitting fire like a wet candle-wick, as Aristophanes!And well if this had been all-an intemperance, a gustof crazy ' cankered old age, not worth recording. But,alas! these jets and flashes of execration no sooner reachedthe ears of the fugitive, but they became articulate sentences, the fragments, it seemed, of some old spell, or wickedwitch-rhyme:-"Ay!―run, run, run,Off flesh, off bone!Thou Satan's son,Thou Devil's own!Into the glass Pass!The glass! the glass!The crystal glass! "Though there is reason to believe that this transformation of sound, like the burst of a bomb, did not take effect tillit had reached its final destination, the youth's own meatusauditorius; and that for others, the scold's passionate outcrydid not verbally differ from the usual outcries of a scold ina passion yet there was a something in the yell andthrottle of the basket- woman's voice so horrific, that thegeneral laugh, which had spread round at the young man'sexpense, was suspended. The passengers halted, as1 We have " grazy " in the original.276 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.wonder- struck; and when they moved on, there was ageneral murmur of disgust and aversion.The student Maxilian, -for he it was, and no other, who,following his nose, without taking counsel of his eyes, hadthus plunged into conflict with the old woman's wares, -though he could attach no sense or meaning to the wordshe heard, felt himself, nevertheless, seized with involuntaryterror, and quickened his steps, to get as soon as possibleout of the crowd, who were making their way to thepleasure-gardens, the Vauxhall of the Irish metropolis, andwhose looks and curiosity converged towards him. Hisanxious zig- zag, however, marked the desire of haste,rather than its attainment: and still as he pushed andwinded through the press of the various gay parties, allin holiday finery, he heard a whispering and murmuring," The poor young man! Outon the frantic old hag!The ominous voice and the wicked looks which the beldamseemed to project, together with the voice, —and we are all,more or less, superstitious respecting looks, —had given asort of sentimental turn to this ludicrous incident. Thefemales regarded the youth with increasing sympathyand in his well- formed countenance, (to which the expression of inward distress lent an additional interest , ) andhis athletic growth, they found an apology, and, for themoment, a compensation, for the awkwardness of his gait ,and the more than most unfashionable cut of his clothes.""It can never be proved, that no one of the Seven Sleeperswas a tailor by trade; neither do I take on myself to demonstrate the affirmative. But this I will maintain, that atailor, disenthralled from a trance of like duration, withconfused and fragmentary recollections of the fashions atthe time he fell asleep, blended with the images hastilyabstracted from the dresses that passed before his eyes whenhe first reopened them, might, by dint of conjecture, havecome as near to a modish suit, as the ambulatory artist hadMAXILIAN. 277done, who made his circuit among the recesses of Macgillicuddy's Reeks, and for whose drapery the person ofour luckless student did at this present time perform theoffice of Layman. ' A pepper- and- salt frock, that mightbe taken for a greatcoat, —but whether docked, or only outgrown, was open to conjecture; a black satin waistcoat, withdeep and ample flaps, rimmed with rose-colour embroidery;green plush smallclothes, that on one limb formed a tightcompress on the knee joint, and on the other buttonedmidway round the calf of a manly and well-proportionedleg. Round his neck a frilled or laced collar with a ribbonround it, sufficiently alien indeed from the costume below,yet the only article in the inventory and sum total of hisattire that harmonized, or, as our painters say, was insome keeping, with the juvenile bloom, and [ mark, gentleReader! I am going to raise my style an octave or more] —and ardent simplicity of his face; or withthe auburnringlets that tempered the lustre of his ample forehead!-like those fleecy cloudlets of amber, which no writer orlover of sonnets but must some time or other, in some sweetMidsummer Night's Dream of poetic or sentimentalsky-gazing, have seen astray on the silver brow of thecelestial Dian! or as I myself, once on a time, in a dell of¹ The jointed image, or articulated doll , as large, in some instances, asa full-grown man or woman, which artists employ for the arrangementand probation of the drapery and attitudes of the figures in theirpaintings, is called Layman. PosTSCRIPT. Previously to his perusal ofthe several particulars of the student's tout-ensemble, I am anxious toinform the reader, that having looked somewhat more heedfully into mydocuments, I more than suspect that the piece, since it came from thehands of the Sartor of Macgillicuddy, had been most licentiously interpolated by genii of more mischievous propensities--the boni socii of theEtruscan and Samothracian breed; the " Robin Good Fellows " ofEngland; the " Good Neighbours " of North Britain; and the " Practical Jokers " of all places, but of special frequency in clubs, schools , anduniversities. -C.278 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.lazy Sicily, down a stony side¹ of which a wild vine wascreeping tortuous, saw the tendrils of the vine pencillingwith delicate shadows the brow of a projecting rock of purestalabaster, that here gleamed through from behind thetendrils, and here glittered as the interspace.Yes, gentle Reader! -the diction, similes, and metaphors,of the preceding paragraph, are somewhat motley andheterogene. I am myself aware of it. But such was theimpression it was meant to leave. A harmony that neitherexisted in the original, nor is to be found in any portraiturethereof, presents itself in the exact correspondence of theone to the other. My friend Panourgos, late of thePoultry Counter, but at present in the King's Bench, -a descendant of the Rabelaisean Panurge, but with a trickof Friar John in his composition, acted on this principle.He sent an old coat to be dyed; the dyer brought it homeblue and black: he beat the dyer black and blue: andthis, he justly observed, produced a harmony. Discordiaconcors!-the motto, gentle Reader! prefixed by themasters of musical counterpoint, to the gnarled and quarrelsome notes which the potent fist of the Royal Amazon,our English Queen Bess, boxed into love and good neighbourhood on her own virginals. Besides, I wished toleave your fancy a few seconds longer in the tyring- room.¹ The author asks credit for his having, here and elsewhere, resistedthe temptation of substituting " whose " for " of which ",-the misuse ofthe said pronoun relative " whose," where the antecedent neither is,nor is meant to be represented as, personal or even animal, he wouldbrand, as one among the worst of those mimicries of poetic diction, bywhich imbecile writers fancy they elevate their prose; -would, but that, tohis vexation, he meets with it, of late, in the compositions of men thatleast of all need such artifices, and who ought to watch over the purityandprivileges of their mother-tongue with all the jealousy of high-priests,set apart by nature for the pontificate. Poor as our language is in terminations and inflections significant of the genders, to destroy the few itpossesses is most wrongful.- C.MAXILIAN. 279And here she comes! The whole figure of the studentShe has dressed the character to a hair. -You have it nowcomplete before your mind's eye, as if she had caught itflying.And in fact, with something like the feeling of one flyingin his sleep, the poor youth neither stopped nor stayed, tillhe had reached and passed into the shade of the alley oftrees that leads to the gardens-his original destination, as hesallied forth from his own unlightsome rooms. Andscarcely,even now, did he venture to look up, or around him. Theeruption from the basket, the air- dance of cakes and apples,continued still before his eyes. In the sounds of distantglee he heard but a vibration of the inhuman multitudinoushorse-laugh (áváрioμov yeλaoμa) at the street corner. Yea,the restrained smile, or the merry glance of pausing orpassing damsel, were but a dimmer reflection of thebeldam's haggish grin. He was now at the entrance gate.Group after group, all in holiday attire, streamed forward.The music of the wind instruments sounded from thegallery; and louder and thicker came the din of the merrymakers from the walks, alcoves, and saloon.At the veryedge of the rippling tide I once saw a bag-net lying, and apoor fascinated haddock with its neb through one of themeshes: and once from the garrison at Villette, I witnesseda bark of Greece, a goodly Idriote, tall and lustily manned;its white dazzling cotton sails all filled out with the breeze,and even now gliding into the grand port (Porto Grande) ,forced to turn about and beat round into the sullen harbourof quarantine. Hapless Maxilian! the havens of pleasurehave their quarantine, and repel with no less aversion theplague of poverty. The Prattique boat hails, and whereis his bill of health? In the possession of the Corsair.Then first he recovered his thoughts and senses sufficientlyto remember that he had given away-to comprehend andfeel the whole weight of his loss . And if a bitter curse on280 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.his malignant star gave a wildness to the vexation, withwhich he looked upward," Let us not blame him: for against such chancesThe heartiest strife of manhood is scarce proof.We may read constancy and fortitudeTo other souls-but had ourselves been struck,Even in the height and heat of our keen wishing,It might have made our heart- strings jar, like his! ”Old Play.Hapless Maxilian! hard was the struggle between thetears that were swelling into his eyes and the manly shamethat would fain restrain them. Whitsunday was the highholiday of the year for him, the family festival from whichhe had counted and chronicled his years from childhood upwards. With this vision before him, he had confined himself for the last four or five weeks to those feasts of hopeand fancy, from which the guest is sure to rise with animproved appetite; and yet had put into his purse a largerproportion of his scanty allowance than was consistent withthe humblest claims of the months ensuing. But theWhitsunday, the alba dies, comes but once a-year: -to keepit, to give it honour due, he had pinched close and workedhard. Yes, he was resolved to make much of himself, toindulge his genius, even to a bottle of claret, —a plate ofFrench olives , or should he meet, as was not improbable,his friend, Hunshman, the Professor of Languages-i. e. amiddle-aged German, who taught French and Italian:excellent, moreover, in pork, hams, and sausages, though theanti-judaic part of the concern, the pork-shop, was ostensiblymanaged by Mrs. Hunshman, and since her decease, byMiss Lusatia, his daughter-or should he fall in with theProfessor, and the fair Lusatia, why then, a bowl of Arrackpunch, (it is the ladies' favourite, he had heard the Professorsay, adding with a smile, that the French called it contradiction)-Yes, a bowl of punch, a pipe-his friend, aMAXILIAN. 281townsman and maternal descendant of the celebrated JacobBehmen, had taught him to smoke, and was teaching himTheosophy-coffee, and a glass of Inniskillen to crown thesolemnity. In this broken and parenthetic form did thebill of fare ferment in the anticipator's brain: and in thesame form, with some little interpolation, by way of gloss,for the Reader's information, have we, sacrificing eleganceof style to faith of History, delivered it.Maxilian was no ready accountant; but he had acted overthe whole expenditure, had rehearsed it in detail, from theadmission to the concluding shilling and pence throwndown with an uncounting air for the waiter. VoluptuousYouth!But, ah! that fatal incursion on the apple- basket—allwas lost! The brimming cup had even touched his lips-itleft its froth on them, when it was dashed down, untasted,from his hand. The music, the gay attires, the trippingstep and friendly nod of woman, the volunteer service, therewarding smile, perhaps, the permitted pressure of thehand, felt warm and soft within the glove, —all shattered, as so many bubbles, by that one malignant shock!In fits and irregular pulses of locomotion, hurrying yetlingering, he forced himself alongside the gate, and withmany a turn, heedless whither he went, if only he left thehaunts and houses of men behind him, he reached at lengththe solitary banks of the streamlet that pours itself into thebay south of the Liffey. Close by, stood the rude andmassy fragment of an inclosure, or rather the angle wherethe walls met that had once protected a now desertedgarden,"And still where many a garden-flower grew wild."Here, beneath a bushy elder- tree, that had shot forth fromthe crumbling ruin, something higher than midway fromthe base, he found a grassy couch, a sofa or ottoman of282 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.sods, overcrept with wild- sage and camomile. Of all hisproposed enjoyments, one only remained, the present of hisfriend, itself almost a friend-a Meerschaum pipe, whosehigh and ample bole was filled and surmounted by tobacco ofLusatian growth, made more fragrant by folded leafits ofspicy or balsamic plants. For a thing was dear to Maxilian,not for what it was, but for that which it represented orrecalled to him: and often, while his eye was passing"O'er hill and dale, through Cloudland, gorgeous land! "had his spirit clomb the heights of Imaus, and descendedinto the vales of Iran, on a pilgrimage to the sepulchre ofHafiz, or the bowers of Mosellara. Close behind himplashed and murmured the companiable ¹ stream beyondwhich the mountains of Wicklow hung floating in the dimhorizon while full before him rose the towers and pinnacles of the metropolis, now softened and airy-light, asthough they had been the sportive architecture of air andsunshine. Yet Maxilian heard not, saw not-or, worse still ,"He saw them all, how excellently fairHe saw, not felt, how beautiful they were."The pang was too recent, the blow too sudden. Fretfullystriking the fire- spark into the nitred sponge, with glazedeye idly fixed, he transferred the kindled fragment to hispipe. True it is, and under the conjunction of friendlierorbs, when, like a captive king, beside the throne of hisyouthful conqueror, Saturn had blended his sullen shinewith the subduing influences of the star of Jove, often hadMaxilian experienced its truth-that¹ The word may be a misprint for " companionable.”» 22 A modification of Coleridge's own lines (see p. 29) in his poemDejection: an Ode: -"I see them all so excellently fair,I see, not feel, how beautiful they are."MAXILIAN. 283" The poet in his lone yet genial hourGives to his eye a magnifying power:Or rather he emancipates his eyesFrom the black shapeless accidents of size—In unctuous cones of kindling coal,Or smoke upwreathing from the pipe's trim bowl,His gifted ken can see Phantoms of sublimity."MSS.But the force and frequence with which our student nowcommingled its successive volumes, were better suited, intheir effects, to exclude the actual landscape, than to furnishtint or canvas for ideal shapings. Like Discontent, fromamid a cloudy shrine of her own outbreathing, he at lengthgave vent and utterance to his feelings in sounds moreaudible than articulate, and which at first resembled notesof passion more nearly than parts of speech, but graduallyshaped themselves into words, in the following soliloquy:"Yes! I am born to all mishap and misery!-that is thetruth of it! Child and boy, when did it fall to my lotto draw king or bishop on Twelfth Night? Never! JerrySneak or Nincompoop, to a dead certainty! When did I everdrop my bread and butter—and it seldom got to my mouthwithout some such circuit-but it fell on the butteredside? When did I ever cry, Head! but it fell tail? DidI ever once ask, Even or odd, but I lost? And no wonder;for I was sure to hold the marbles so awkwardly, that theboy could count them between my fingers! But this is tolaugh at! though in my life I could never descry muchmirth in any laugh I ever set up at my own vexations,past or present. And that's another step- dame trickof Destiny! My shames are all immortal! I do believe,Nature stole me from my proper home, and made a blightof me, that I might not be owned again! For I never getolder. Shut my eyes, and I can find no more differencebetween eighteen me and eight me, than between to- day and284 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.yesterday! But I will not remember the miseries that doggedmy earlier years, from the day I was first breeched! ( Nay,the casualties, tears, and disgraces of that day I never canforget. ) Let them pass, however-school-tide and holidaytide, school hours and play hours, griefs, blunders and mischances. For all these I might pardon my persecutingNemesis! Yea, I would have shaken hands with her, asforgivingly as I did with that sworn familiar of hers, andUsher of the Black Rod, my old schoolmaster, who used toread his newspaper, when I was horsed, and flog mebetweenthe paragraphs! I would forgive her, I say, if, like him, shewould have taken leave of me at the School Gate. But now,vir et togatus, a seasoned academic-that now, that still,that evermore, I should be the whipping- stock of Destiny,the laughing- stock of fortune."

[We must take Mr. Coleridge as he chooses to offerhimself. We certainly expected to have had a great dealmore of this article for the present Number, when we sentthe MS. to our Printer; but we suppose it may very safelybe taken for granted that nobody will complain of us foropening our monthly sheets with a fragment indeed-butsuch a fragment as we are sure nobody but Mr. Coleridgecould have written." 1In case there should be any reader of ours unfortunateenough never to have read Mr. Coleridge's " Friend, westrongly advise him to betake himself to that singular storehouse of scattered genius, and make himself master of the¹ Prof. Wilson, whose note we preserve, is alluding to the First Editionof " The Friend ,” 1809-10 , in which Satyrane's Letters, as we now havethem, originally appeared , with other matter not reprinted. The Biographia Literaria, however, which now contains them, and the SecondEdition of The Friend, which omitted them, were already in existence when the note was written.MAXILIAN. 285beautiful letters in which the early history of IdoloclastesSatyrane's mind is displayed . He will then come with infinitely more advantage to the Historie and Gests ofMaxilian, and their rich Prologomena.Mr. Coleridge will be behaving ' himself " somethingamiss," if we have not the continuation of these " SelectChapters " ere next month. C. N.]¹ Coleridge was above such indirect prompting. No " continuation "was ever heard of. It is plain that Christopher North had misgivingswith regard to the sequel.

MISCELLANEOUS NOTES ON BOOKSAND AUTHORS.

CHAPMAN'S HOMER.¹1807.Extract of a Letter sent with the Volume.²CHAPMAN I have sent in order that you might read the Odyssey; the Iliad is fine, but less equal in thetranslation, as well as less interesting in itself. What isstupidly said of Shakspere, is really true and appropriateof Chapman; mighty faults counterpoised by mightybeauties. Excepting his quaint epithets which he affectsto render literally from the Greek, a language above allothers blest in the happy marriage of sweet words, andwhich in our language are mere printer's compound epithets-such as quaffed divine joy-in-the- heart- of- man- infusingwine, (the undermarked is to be one word, because onesweet mellifluous word expresses it in Homer); —exceptingthis, it has no look, no air, of a translation. It is as trulyan original poem as the Faery Queene; —it will give yousmall idea of Homer, though a far truer one than Pope'sepigrams, or Cowper's cumbersome most anti- HomericMiltonism. For Chapman writes and feels as a poet,—asHomer might have written had he lived in England in thereign of Queen Elizabeth. In short, it is an exquisite1 Except when the contrary is stated, the notes in our Fifth Division are taken from the first two volumes of " The Remains."2 "Communicated through Mr. Wordsworth. " -H. N. C. The letterand book were probably sent to Wordsworth's sister.U290 NOTES ON BOOKS AND AUTHORS.poem, in spite of its frequent and perverse quaintnessesand harshnesses, which are, however, amply repaid byalmost unexampled sweetness and beauty of language, allover spirit and feeling. In the main it is an English heroicpoem, the tale of which is borrowed from the Greek. Thededication to the Iliad is a noble copy of verses, especiallythose sublime lines beginning, -" O! ' tis wondrous much(Though nothing prisde) that the right vertuous touch Of a well written soule, to vertue moves.Nor haue we soules to purpose, if their lovesOf fitting objects be not so inflam'd.How much then, were this kingdome's maine soule maim'd,To want this great inflamer of all powersThat move in humane soules! All realmes but yours,Are honor'd with him; and hold blest that stateThat have his workes to reade and contemplate.In which, humanitie to her height is raisde;Which all the world (yet, none enough) hath praisde.Seas, earth, and heaven, he did in verse comprize;Out sung the Muses, and did equaliseTheir king Apollo; being so farre from causeOf princes light thoughts, that their gravest lawesMay finde stuffe to be fashiond by his lines.Through all the pompe of kingdomes still he shinesAnd graceth all his gracers. Then let lieYour lutes, and viols , and more loftily Make the heroiques of your Homer sung,To drums and trumpets set his Angels tongue:And with the princely sports of haukes you use,Behold the kingly flight of his high Muse:And see how like the Phoenix she renuesHer age, and starrie feathers in your sunne;Thousands ofyeares attending; everie oneBlowing the holy fire, and throwing in Their seasons, kingdomes, nations that have binSubverted in them; lawes, religions, allOfferd to change, and greedie funerall;Yet still your Homer lasting, living, raigning."-CHAPMAN'S HOMER.291and likewise the 1st, the 11th, and last but one, of the prefatory sonnets to the Odyssey. Could I have foreseen anyother speedy opportunity, I should have begged your acceptance of the volume in a somewhat handsomer coat; butas it is, it will better represent the sender, -to quote frommyself, a man—“ Disherited, in form and face,By nature and mishap, of outward grace. "Dedication to Prince Henry.Chapman in his moral heroic verse, as in this dedicationand the prefatory sonnets to his Odyssey, stands above BenJonson; there is more dignity, more lustre, and equalstrength; but not midway quite between him and thesonnets of Milton. I do not know whether I give him thehigher praise, in that he reminds me of Ben Jonson witha sense of his superior excellence, or that he brings Miltonto memory notwithstanding his inferiority. His moralpoems are not quite out of books like Jonson's, nor yet dothe sentiments so wholly grow up out of his own naturalhabit and grandeur of thought, as in Milton. The sentiments have been attracted to him by a natural affinity ofhis intellect, and so combined; —but Jonson has takenthem by individual and successive acts of choice.Epistle Dedicatorie to the Odyssey.All this and the preceding is well felt and vigorously,though harshly, expressed, respecting sublime poetry ingenere; but in reading Homer, I look about me, and askhow does all this apply here. For surely never was thereplainer writing; there are a thousand charms of sun andmoonbeam, ripple, and wave, and stormy billow, but all onthe surface. Had Chapman read Proclus and Porphyry?292 NOTES ON BOOKS AND AUTHORS .--and did he really believe them, or even that theybelieved themselves? They felt the immense power of aBible, a Shaster, a Koran. There was none in Greece orRome, and they tried therefore by subtle allegorical accommodations to conjure the poem of Homer into the ßißλiovθεοπαράδοτον of Greek faith.Epistle Dedicatorie to the Batrachomyomachia.Chapman's identification of his fate with Homer's, andhis complete forgetfulness of the distinction between Christianity and idolatry, under the general feeling of somereligion, is very interesting. It is amusing to observe, howfamiliar Chapman's fancy has become with Homer, his lifeand its circ*mstances, though the very existence of anysuch individual, at least with regard to the Iliad and theHymns, is more than problematic. N.B. The rude engraving in the page was designed by no vulgar hand. Itisfull of spirit and passion.Batrachomyomachia.I am so dull, that neither in the original nor in anytranslation could I ever find any wit or wise purpose inthis poem. The whole humour seems to lie in the names.The frogs and mice are not frogs or mice, but men, and yetthey do nothing that conveys any satire. In the Greekthere is much beauty of language, but the joke is very flat.This is always the case in rude ages;—their serious vein isinimitable, —their comic low and low indeed. The psychological cause is easily stated, and copiously exemplifiable.CHALMERS'S LIFE OF DANIEL." The justice of these remarks cannot be disputed, thoughsome of them are rather too figurative for sober criticism . "MoOST genuine! A figurative remark! If this strangewriter had any meaning, it must be:-Headly'scriticism is just throughout, but conveyed in a style toofigurative for prose composition. Chalmers's own remarksare wholly mistaken; -too silly for any criticism, drunkor sober, and in language too flat for anything. In Daniel'sSonnets there is scarcely one good line; while his Hymen'sTriumph,' of which Chalmers says not one word, exhibits acontinued series of first- rate beauties in thought, passion,and imagery, and in language and metre is so faultless,that the style of that poem may without extravagance bedeclared to be imperishable English. 1820.IBISHOP CORBET.ALMOST wonder that the inimitable humour, and therich sound and propulsive movement of the verse, havenot rendered Corbet a popular poet. I am convinced thata reprint of his poems, with illustrative and chit- chat biographical notes, and cuts by Cruikshank, would take thepublic uncommonly well. September, 1823.1 The reader will find some more elaborate criticisms on Daniel in theTable Talk,-under dates Sept. 11 , 1831 , and March 15, 1834.BARCLAY'S ARGENIS.1803.¹HEAVEN forbid that this work should not exist in its present form and language! Yet I cannot avoid thewish that it had, during the reign of James I., been mouldedinto an heroic poem in English octave stanza, or epic blankverse;—which, however, at that time had not been invented,and which, alas! still remains the sole property of the inventor, as if the Muses had given him an unevadible patentfor it. Of dramatic blank verse we have many and variousspecimens;-for example, Shakspere's as compared withMassinger's, both excellent in their kind:-of lyric, andof what may be called Orphic, or philosophic, blank verse,perfect models may be found in Wordsworth: of colloquialblank verse there are excellent, though not perfect, examples in Cowper; -but of epic blank verse, since Milton,there is not one.It absolutely distresses me when I reflect that this work,admired as it has been by great men of all ages, and lately, 'I hear, by the poet Cowper, should be only not unknownto general readers. It has been translated into Englishtwo or three times-how, I know not, wretchedly, I doubtnot. It affords matter for thought that the last translation1 "Communicated by the Rev. Derwent Coleridge." -H. N. C.¹ Perhaps this comma is an interpolation. A life of Cowper, whodied in 1800, appeared in 1803.BARCLAY'S ARGENIS. 295(or rather, in all probability, miserable and faithless abridgment of some former one) was given under another name.What a mournful proof of the incelebrity of this great andamazing work among boththe public and the people! For asWordsworth, the greater of the two great men of this age,-(at least, except Davy and him, I have known, read of, heardof, no others, ) -for as Wordsworth did me the honour ofonce observing to me, the people and the public are two distinct classes, and, as things go, the former is likely to retaina better taste, the less it is acted on by the latter. YetTelemachus is in every mouth, in every schoolboy's andschoolgirl's hand! It is awful to say of a work like theArgenis, the style and Latinity of which, judged (not according to classical pedantry, which pronounces every sentence right which can be found in any book prior to Boetius,however vicious the age, or affected the author, and everysentence wrong, however natural and beautiful, which hasbeen of the author's own combination, -but) according tothe universal logic of thought as modified by feeling, isequal to that of Tacitus in energy and genuine conciseness, and is as perspicuous as that of Livy, whilst it is freefrom the affectations, obscurities, and lust to surprise ofthe former, and seems a sort of antithesis to the slownessand prolixity of the latter; —this remark does not, however,impeach even the classicality of the language, which, whenthe freedom and originality, the easy motion and perfectcommand of the thoughts, are considered, is truly wonderful):—of such a work it is awful to say, that it wouldhave been well if it had been written in English or Italianverse! Yet the event seems to justify the notion. Alas!it is now too late. What modern work, even of the size ofthe Paradise Lost-muchless of the Faery Queene—wouldbe read in the present day, or even bought or be likely tobe bought, unless it were an instructive work, as the phraseis, like Roscoe's quartos of Leo X., or entertaining like296 NOTES ON BOOKS AND AUTHORS.Boswell's three of Dr. Johnson's conversations. It maybe fairly objected-what work of surpassing merit has giventhe proof? -Certainly, none. Yet still there are ominousfacts, sufficient, I fear, to afford a certain prophecy of itsreception, if such were produced.ΤΗSELDEN'S • TABLE TALK.¹`HERE is more weighty bullion sense in this book,than I ever found in the same number of pages ofany uninspired writer.66Opinion.Opinion and affection extremely differ. I may affect awoman best, but it does not follow I must think her the handsomest woman in the world. * * * Opinion is somethingwherein I go about to give reason why all the world shouldthink as I think. Affection is a thing wherein I look after thepleasing ofmyself. "Good! This is the true difference betwixt the beautifuland the agreeable, which Knight and the rest of thatπλñОoç ã¤εoν have so beneficially confounded, meretricibusscilicet et Plutoni.O what an insight the whole of this article gives into awise man's heart, who has been compelled to act with themany, as one of the many! It explains Sir ThomasMore's zealous Romanism, &c.Parliament.Excellent! O! to have been with Selden over his glassof wine, making every accident an outlet and a vehicle ofwisdom!1 "Communicated by Mr. Cary. "-H. N. C.298 NOTES ON BOOKS AND AUTHORS.Poetry."The old poets had no other reason but this, their verse wassung to music; otherwise it had been a senseless thing to havefettered up themselves. "No one man can know all things: even Selden here talksignorantly. Verse is in itself a music, and the naturalsymbol of that union of passion with thought and pleasure,which constitutes the essence of all poetry, as contradistinguished from science, and distinguished from historycivil or natural. To Pope's Essay on Man, -in short, towhatever is mere metrical good sense and wit, the remarkapplies.Ib."Verse proves nothing but the quantity of syllables; they arenot meant for logic."True; they, that is, verses, are not logic; but they are,or ought to be, the envoys and representatives of that vitalpassion, which is the practical cement of logic, and without which logic must remain inert.SIR THOMAS BROWNE.Religio Medici.Notes made in 1802.¹STRONG feeling and an active intellect conjoined, lead almost necessarily, in the first stage² of philosophising,to Spinozism . Sir T. Browne was a Spinozist withoutknowing it.If I have not quite all the faith that the author of theReligio Medici possessed, I have all the inclination to it;it gives me pleasure to believe.The postscript at the very end of the book is well worthreading. Sir K. Digby's observations, however, are thoseof a pedant in his own system and opinion. He oughtto have considered the R. M. in a dramatic, and not in ametaphysical, view, as a sweet exhibition of character andpassion, and not as an expression, or investigation, of positive truth. The R. M. is a fine portrait of a handsomeman in his best clothes; it is much of what he was at alltimes, a good deal of what he was only in his best moments.I have never read a book in which I felt greater similarityto my own make of mind-active in inquiry, and yet with1 " Communicated by Mr. Wordsworth. ” -H. N. C.Coleridge's observations on Sir Thomas Browne, on page 179.See, also,2 Could Spinoza have read this remark, and Coleridge's poem, MyBaptismal Birthday,-written in his last stage, -it is possible he mighthave inwardly smiled.300 NOTES ON BOOKS AND AUTHORS.an appetite to believe-in short an affectionate¹ visionary!But then I should tell a different tale of my own heart;for I would not only endeavour to tell the truth (which Idoubt not Sir T. B. has done) , but likewise to tell thewhole truth, which most assuredly he has not done. However, it is a most delicious book.His own character was a fine mixture of humourist,genius, and pedant. A library was a living world to him,and every book a man, absolute flesh and blood! and thegravity with which he records contradictory opinions isexquisite.Part I. sect. 9. "Now contrarily, I bless myself, and amthankful that I lived not in the days of miracles, that I neversaw Christ nor his disciples, &c. "So say I.S. 15. " I could never content my contemplation with thosegeneral pieces of wonder, the flux and reflux of the sea, theincrease of Nile, the conversion of the needle to the north; andhave studied to match and parallel those in the more obviousand neglected pieces of nature; which without further travel Ican do in the cosmography of myself; we carry with us the wonders we seek without us. There is all Africa and her prodigies in us; we are that bold and adventurous piece of nature,which he that studies wisely learns in a compendium what otherslabour at in a divided piece and endless volume. ”This is the true characteristic of genius; our destiny andinstinct is to unriddle the world, and he is the man ofgenius who feels this instinct fresh and strong in his nature;who perceiving the riddle and the mystery of all things, eventhe commonest, needs no strange and out- of- the- way talesor images to stimulate him into wonder and a deep interest.1 This autobiographical touch is more precious than the casual readermay think at first reading. Another of Coleridge's estimates of himself,on quite different lines, will be found in the notes on Junius, later on.SIR THOMAS BROWNE. 301S. 16, 17. All this is very fine philosophy, and the bestand most ingenious defence of revelation. Moreover, I dohold and believe that a toad is a comely animal; but nevertheless a toad is called ugly by almost all men, and it isthe business of a philosopher to explain the reason of this.S. 19. This is exceedingly striking. Had Sir T. B.lived now-a-days, he would probably have been a veryingenious and bold infidel in his real opinions, though thekindness of his nature would have kept him aloof fromvulgar¹ prating obtrusive infidelity.S. 35. An excellent burlesque on parts of the Schoolmen, though I believe an unintentional one.S. 36. Truly sublime-and in Sir T. B.'s very bestmanner.S. 39. This is a most admirable passage. Yes, thehistory of a man for the nine months preceding his birth,would, probably, be far more interesting, and contain eventsof greater moment, than all the three score and ten years that follow it.S. 48. " This is made good by experience, which can from theashes of a plant revive the plant, and from its cinders recall itinto its stalks and leaves again. "Stuff. This was, I believe, some lying boast of Paracelsus, which the good Sir T. B. has swallowed for a fact.Part II. s. 2. "I give no alms to satisfy the hunger of mybrother, but to fulfil and accomplish the will and command of my God."We ought not to relieve a poor man merely because ourown feelings impel us, but because these feelings are justand proper feelings. My feelings might impel me torevenge with the same force with which they urge meto¹ We must read " vulgarly," or " prating of," to make this English.302 NOTES ON BOOKS AND AUTHORS.charity. I must therefore have some rule by which I mayjudge ' my feelings, and this rule is God's will.S. 5, 6. "I never yet cast a true affection on a woman; butI have loved my friend as I do virtue, my soul, my God."We cannot love a friend as a woman; but we may lovea woman as a friend. Friendship satisfies the highestparts of our nature; but a wife, who is capable of friendship, satisfies all. The great business of real unostentatiousvirtue is —not to eradicate any genuine instinct or appetiteof human nature; but-to establish a concord and unitybetwixt all parts of our nature, to give a feeling and apassion to our purer intellect, and to intellectualize ourfeelings and passions. This a happy marriage, blest withchildren, effectuates in the highest degree of which ournature is capable, and is therefore chosen by St. Paul asthe symbol of the union of the church with Christ; that is,of the souls of all good men with God. " I scarcely distinguish," said once a good old man,"the wife of my oldage from the wife of my youth; ' for when we were bothyoung, and she was beautiful, for once that I caressed herwith a meaner passion, I caressed her a thousand timeswith love-and these caresses still remain to us." Besides,there is another reason why friendship is of somewhatless value than love, which includes friendship, it is this—we may love many persons, all very dearly; but we991 How absurdly, sometimes, these philosophers allow themselves totalk! Never mind about " God's will. " Share your last shilling withanyone who needs it as much as you, and analyse your feelings after- wards at leisure.2 Compare Coleridge's remarks in the " The Improvisatore," on anearlier page. Consult, also, the index, under " love " and the like, toColeridge's Lectures and Notes on Shakspere, &c. , as well as that to hisTable Talk and Omniana, to find numerous lucubrations of our author on these intricate matters.SIR THOMAS BROWNE. 303cannot love many persons all equally dearly. There will bedifferences, there will be gradations . But our nature imperiously asks a summit, a resting-place; it is with the affections in love as with the reason in religion , we cannot diffuseand equalize; we must have a supreme, a one, the highest.What is more common than to say of a man in love, ‘ heidolizes her, ' ' he makes a god of her? ' Now, in order thata person should continue to love another better than allothers, it seems necessary that this feeling should be reciprocal. For if it be not so, sympathy is broken off in thevery highest point. A. (we will say by way of illustration)loves B. above all others, in the best and fullest sense ofthe word, love, but B. loves C. above all others. Either,therefore, A. does not sympathize with B. in this most important feeling; and then his love must necessarily be incomplete, and accompanied with a craving after somethingthat is not, and yet might be; or he does sympathizewith B. in loving C. above all others—and then, of course,he loves C. better than B. Now it is selfishness , at least itseems so to me, to desire that your friend should love youbetter than all others, -but not to wish that a wife should .S. 6. "Another misery there is in affection, that whom wetruly love like ourselves, we forget their looks , nor can ourmemory retain the idea of their faces: and it is no wonder:for they are ourselves, and our affection makes their looks ourown.99A thought I have often had, and once expressed it inalmost the same language. The fact is certain, but theexplanation here given is very unsatisfactory. For why dowe never have an image of our own faces-an image offancy, I mean?S. 7. " I can hold there is no such thing as injury; that ifthere be, there is no such injury as revenge, and no such revengeas the contempt of an injury; that to hate another, is to malign304 NOTES ON BOOKS AND AUTHORS .himself, and that the truest way to love another is to despise ourselves. "I thank God that I can, with a full and unfeigning heart,utter Amen to this passage.S. 10. “ In brief, there can be nothing truly alone, and byitself, which is not truly one; and such is only God."Reciprocity is that which alone gives stability to love.It is not mere selfishness that impels all kind natures todesire that there should be some one human being, to whomthey are most dear. It is because they wish some one beingto exist, who shall be the resting- place and summit of theirlove; and this in human nature is not possible, unless thetwo affections coincide. The reason is, that the object ofthe highest love will not otherwise be the same in bothparties .S. 11. " I thank God for my happy dreams, &c."I am quite different from Sir T. B. in this; for all,or almost all, the painful and fearful thoughts that Iknow, are in my dreams; ¹ -so much so, that when I amwounded by a friend, or receive an unpleasant letter, itthrows me into a state very nearly resembling that of adream.S. 13. "Statists that labour to contrive a commonwealthwithout any poverty, take away the object of our charity, notonly not understanding the commonwealth of a Christian, butforgetting the prophecies of Christ. "O, for shame! for shame! Is there no fit object ofcharity but abject poverty? And what sort of a charitymust that be which wishes misery in order that it may havethe credit of relieving a small part of it, -pulling downthe1 See Coleridge's poem, The Pains of Sleep, and our notes to it, inthe Aldine Edition of Coleridge's Poems.SIR THOMAS BROWNE. 305comfortable cottages of independent industry to build almshouses out of the ruins!This book paints certain parts of my moral and intellectual being, (the best parts, no doubt, ) better than anyother book I have ever met with; -and the style is throughout delicious.Notes made during a Second Perusal. 'PART I. S. 1.1808."For my religion, though there be several circ*mstances thatmight perswade the world I have none at all, as the generallscandall of myprofession, &c."The historical origin of this scandal, which in nine casesout of ten is the honour of the medical profession, may,perhaps, be found in the fact, that Ænesidemus and SextusEmpiricus, the sceptics, were both physicians, about theclose of the second century. Afragment from the writingsof the former has been preserved by Photius, and such aswould leave a painful regret for the loss of the work, hadnot the invaluable work of Sextus Empiricus been stillextant.S. 7." A third there is which I did never positively maintaine orpractise, but have often wished it had been consonant to truth,and not offensive to my religion, and that is, the prayer for thedead, &c. "Our church with her characteristic Christian prudencedoes not enjoin prayer for the dead, but neither does she1 "Communicated by Mr. Wordsworth."-H. N. C. 2 "A mistake as to Enesidemus, who lived in the age of Augustus."-H. N. C.X306 NOTES ON BOOKS AND AUTHORS.prohibit it. In its own nature it belongs to a private aspiration; and being conditional, like all religious acts notexpressed in Scripture, and therefore not combinable witha perfect faith, it is something between prayer and wish,-an act of natural piety sublimed by Christian hope, thatshares in the light, and meets the diverging rays, of faith ,though it be not contained in the focus.S. 13.“ He holds no counsell, but that mysticall one of the Trinity,wherein, though there be three persons, there is but one mindthat decrees without contradiction, &c."-1,Sir T. B. is very amusing. He confesses his part heresies, which are mere opinions, while his orthodoxy is fullof heretical errors. His Trinity is a mere trefoil, a 3which is no mystery at all, but a common object of thesenses. The mystery is, that one is three, that is, eachbeing the whole God.S. 18."'Tis not a ridiculous devotion to say a prayer before a gameat tables, &c. "But a great profanation, methinks, and a no less absurdity. Would Sir T. Browne, before weighing two pigs oflead, A. and B., pray to God that A. might weigh theheavier? Yet if the result of the dice be at the timeequally believed to be a settled and predetermined effect,where lies the difference? Would not this apply againstall petitionary prayer?-St. Paul's injunction involves theanswer:-Pray always.S. 22."They who salve this would make the deluge particular, pro- ceed upon a principle that I can no way grant, &c."But according to the Scripture, the deluge was so gentleas to leave uncrushed the green leaves on the olive tree.SIR THOMAS BROWNE. 307If then it was universal, andif (as with the longevity ofthe antediluvians it must have been ) the earth was fullypeopled, is it not strange that no buildings remain in thesince then uninhabited parts-in America for instance?That no human skeletons are found may be solved from thecirc*mstance of the large proportion of phosphoric acid inhuman bones. But cities and traces of civilization? —Ido not know what to think, unless we might be allowed toconsider Noah a hom*o repræsentativus, or the last andnearest of a series taken for the whole.S. 33.66 They that to refute the invocation of saints, have denied thatthey have any knowledge of our affairs below, have proceeded toofarre, and must pardon my opinion, till I can throughly answerthat piece of Scripture, At the conversion of a sinner the angels ofHeaven rejoyce."Take any moral or religious book, and, instead of understanding each sentence according to the main purpose andintention, interpret every phrase in its literal sense as conveying, and designed to convey, a metaphysical verity, orhistorical fact: —what a strange medley of doctrines shouldwe not educe? And yet this is the way in which we areconstantly in the habit of treating the books of the NewTestament.S. 34." And, truely, for the first chapters of Genesis I must confesse a. great deal of obscurity; though divines have to the power ofhumane reason endeavoured to make all go in a literall meaning,yet those allegoricall interpretations are also probable, and perhaps, the mysticall method of Moses bred up in the hieroglyphi- call schooles of the Egyptians."The second chapter of Genesis from v. 4, and the thirdchapter, are to my mind as evidently symbolical as thefirst chapter is literal. The first chapter is manifestly byMoses himself; but the second and third seem to me of far308 NOTES ON BOOKS AND AUTHORS.higher antiquity, and have the air of being translated intowords from graven stones.S. 48. This section is a series of ingenious paralogisms.S. 49."Moses, that was bred up in all the learning of the Egyptians,committed a grosse absurdity in philosophy, when with these eyesof flesh he desired to see God, and petitioned his maker, that is,truth itself, to a contradiction. "Bear in mind the Jehovah Logos, the Ὁ ὪΝ ἐν κόλπῳTarpos-the person ad extra, -and few passages in the OldTestament are more instructive, or of profounder import.Overlook this, or deny it, and none so perplexing or soirreconcilable with the known character of the inspiredwriter.S. 50."For that mysticall metall of gold, whose solary and celestiallnature I admire, &c."Rather anti- solar and terrene nature! For gold, mostof all metals, repelleth light, and resisteth that power andportion of the common air, which of all ponderable bodiesis most akin to light, and its surrogate in the realm ofavrious or gravity, namely, oxygen. Gold is tellurian Kar'ox and if solar, yet as in the solidity and dark nucleusof the sun.S. 52."I thank God that with joy I mention it, I was never afraid ofhell, nor never grew pale at the description of that place; I haveso fixed my contemplations on heaven, that I have almost forgot the idea of hell, &c. "Excellent throughout. The fear of hell may, indeed, insome desperate cases, like the moxa, give the first rousefrom the moral lethargy, or like the green venom of copper,by evacuating poison or a dead load from the inner man,SIR THOMAS BROWNE. 309prepare it for nobler ministrations and medicines from therealm of light and life, that nourish while they stimulate.S. 54."There is no salvation to those that believe not in Christ, &c."This is plainly confined to such as have had Christpreached to them; -but the doctrine, that salvation is inand by Christ only, is a most essential verity, and an articleof unspeakable grandeur and consolation . Name¹-nomen,that is, vouμevov, in its spiritual interpretation, is the sameas power, or intrinsic cause. What? Is it a few lettersof the alphabet, the hearing of which in a given succession,that saves?S. 59.66' Before Abraham was, I am, is the saying of Christ; yet isit true in some sense if I say it of myself, for I was not only before myself, but Adam, that is, in the idea of God, and thedecree of that synod held from all eternity. And in this sense,I say, the world was before the creation, and at an end before ithad a beginning; and thus was I dead before I was alive;-though my grave be England, my dying-place was Paradise , andEve miscarried of me before she conceived of Cain. "Compare this with s . 11, and the judicious remark thereon the mere accommodation in the pro of predestination.But the subject was too tempting for the rhetorician.Part II. s. 1 ."But as in casting account, three or four men together comeshort in account of one man placed by himself below them,&c."Thus 1,965. But why is the 1 said to be placed belowthe 965? 2S. 7.1 Read again page 253.2 Because " in casting account, " Sir Thomas Browne, like a schoolboy, set down, under, the figure he had to " carry. " Or are we, perhaps,too fanciful?310 NOTES ON BOOKS AND AUTHORS."Let me be nothing, if within the compass of myself, I donot finde the battaile of Lepanto, passion against reason, reasonagainst faith, faith against the devil, and my conscience against all."It may appear whimsical, but I really feel an impatientregret, that this good man had so misconceived the natureboth of faith and reason as to affirm their contrariety toeach other.Ib." For my originale sin, I hold it to bee washed away in mybaptisme; for my actual transgressions, I compute and reckonwith God, but from my last repentance, &c."This is most true as far as the imputation of the sameis concerned. For where the means of avoiding its consequences have been afforded, each after transgression isactual, by a neglect of those means.S. 14.66 God, being all goodnesse, can love nothing but himself; heloves us but for that part which is, as it were, himselfe, and the traduction of his Holy Spirit."This recalls a sublime thought of Spinoza. Every truevirtue is a part of that love, with which God loveth himself.The Garden of Cyrus,or the Quincuncial, etc. , Plantations of the Ancients, etc.Ch. III."That bodies are first spirits, Paracelsus could affirm, &c. "Effects purely relative from properties merely comparative, such as edge, point, grater, &c. , are not proper qualities; for they are indifferently producible ab extra, bySIR THOMAS BROWNE. 311grinding, &c. , and ab intra, from growth. In the latterinstance, they suppose qualities as their antecedents. Now,therefore, since qualities cannot proceed from quantity,but quantity from quality, and as matter opposed to spiritis shape by modification of extension, or pure quantity, -Paracelsus's dictum is defensible.Ib." The æquivocall production of things, under undiscernedprinciples, makes a large part of generation, &c. "Written before Harvey's ab ovo omnia. Since his work,and Lewenhock's Microscopium, the question is settled inphysics; but whether in metaphysics, is not quite so clear.Ch. IV." And mint growing in glasses of water, until it arriveth at theweight of an ounce, in a shady place, will sometimes exhaust apound of water."How much did Browne allow for evaporation?Ib."Things entering upon the intellect by a pyramid from without, and thence into the memory by another from within, thecommon decussation being in the understanding, &c. "This nearly resembles Kant's intellectual mechanique.The Platonists held three knowledges of God; —first,Tapovσía, his own incommunicable self- comprehension; -second, karà vónov-by pure mind, unmixed with thesensuous;-third, Kar' iπiorýμnv-by discursive intelligential act. Thus a Greek philosopher:-roùs ETLOTημOVIKOVSλόγους μύθους ἡγήσεται συνοῦσα τῷ πατρὶ καὶ συνεστιωμένηἡ ψυχὴ ἐν τῇ ἀληθείᾳ τοῦ ὄντος, καὶ ἐν αὐγῇ καθαρᾷ. -Thosenotions of God which we attain by processes of intellect,the soul will consider as mythological allegories, when itexists in union with the Father, and is feasting with him312 NOTES ON BOOKS AND AUTHORS.in the truth of very being, and in the pure, unmixed,absolutely simple and elementary, splendor. Thus expoundExod. c. xxxiii. v. 10. And he said, thou canst not see myface: for there shall no man see me, and live. By the ' face ofGod, ' Moses meant the idea vontin, which God declaredincompatible with human life, it implying ἐπαφὴ τοῦ νοητοῦ,or contact with the pure spirit.DR. PRIMROSE.1Vulgar Errors.Address to the Reader.Is not this the same person as the physician mentioned byMrs. Hutchinson in her Memoirs of her husband?Book I. c. 8. s. 1. The veracity and credibility of Herodotus have increased and increase with the increase ofour discoveries. Several of his relations deemed fabulous,have been authenticated within the last thirty years fromthis present 1808.Ib. s. 2."Sir John Mandevill left a book of travels; -herein he oftenattesteth the fabulous relations of Ctesias. "Many, if not most, of these Ctesian fables in Sir J.Mandevill were monkish interpolations.Ib. s. 13."Cardanus-is of singular use unto a prudent reader; butunto him that only desireth hoties, or to replenish his head with varieties,-he may become no small occasion of error.Hoties-öri s-' whatevers, ' that is, whatever is written,¹ Dr. James Primrose, who published his book, De Vulgi Erroribus in Medicina, in 1651 , died about the same year as Mrs. Hutchinson, 1659.His father was Gilbert Primrose, D.D., " a Scotch divine, minister ofthe French Church in London, and Chaplain to James I."SIR THOMAS BROWNE. 3136no matter what, true or false, ―omniana; all sorts ofvarieties, ' as a dear young lady once said to me:Ib. c. ix." If Heracl*tus with his adherents will hold the sun is nobigger than it appeareth. "It is not improbable that Heracl*tus meant merely toimply that we perceive only our own sensations, and theyof course are what they are; -that the image of the sunis an appearance, or sensation in our eyes, and, of course,an appearance can be neither more nor less than what itappears to be; -that the notion of the true size of the sunis not an image, or belonging either to the sense, or to thesensuous fancy, but is an imageless truth of the understanding obtained by intellectual deductions. He couldnot possibly mean what Sir T. B. supposes him to havemeant; for if he had believed the sun to be no more thana mile distant from us, every tree and house must haveshown its absurdity.In the following books I have endeavoured, wherever theauthor himself is in a vulgar error, as far as my knowledgeextends, to give in the margin, either the demonstrateddiscoveries, or more probable opinions, of the presentnatural philosophy; -so that, independently of the entertainingness of the thoughts and tales, and the force andsplendor of Sir Thomas Browne's diction and manner, youmay at once learn from him the history of human fanciesand superstitions, both when he detects them, and when hehimself falls into them, and from my notes, the real truthof things, or, at least, the highest degree of probability, atwhich human research has hitherto¹ arrived.That is, up to 1808.314 NOTES ON BOOKS AND AUTHORS.Book II. c. i . Production of crystal. Cold is the attractive or astringent power, comparatively uncounteracted bythe dilative, the diminution of which is the proportionalincrease of the contractive. Hence the astringent, orpower of negative magnetism, is the proper agent in cold ,and the contractive, or oxygen, an allied and consequentialpower. Crystallum, non ex aqua, sed ex substantia metallorum communi confrigeratum dico. As the equator, or midpoint of the equatorial hemispherical line, is to the centre,so water is to gold. Hydrogen is to the electrical azote, asazote to the magnetic hydrogen.Ib."Crystal-will strike fire-and upon collision with steel sendforth its sparks, not much inferiourly to a flint. "It being, indeed, nothing else but pure flint.C. iii.“ And the magick thereof (the lodestone) as not safely to bebelieved, which was delivered by Orpheus, that sprinkled withwater it will upon a question emit a voice not much unlike an infant. "That is:-to the twin counterforces of the magneticpower, the equilibrium of which is revealed in magneticiron, as the substantial, add the twin counterforces or positiveand negative poles of the electrical power, the indifferenceof which is realized in water, as the superficial- (whenceOrpheus employed the term ' sprinkled, ' or rather affusedor superfused) —and you will hear the voice of infantnature; —that is, you will understand the rudimental products and elementary powers and constructions of the phenomenal world. An enigma this not unworthy of Orpheus,quicunque fuit, and therefore not improbably ascribed toN. B. Negative and positive magnetism are toattraction and repulsion, or cohesion and dispersion, ashim.SIR THOMAS BROWNE. 315negative and positive electricity are to contraction anddilation.C. vii. s . 4.“ That camphire begets in men τὴν ἀναφροδισίαν, observationwill hardly confirm, &c. "There is no doubt of the fact as to a temporary effect;and camphire is therefore a strong and immediate antidoteto an overdose of cantharides. Yet there are, doubtless,sorts and cases of avappodioia, which camphire might relieve. Opium is occasionally an aphrodisiac, but faroftener the contrary. The same is true of bang, or powderedhemp leaves, and, I suppose, of the whole tribe of narcoticstimulants.Ib. s. 8."The yew and the berries thereof are harmless, we know."The berries are harmless, but the leaves of the yew areundoubtedly poisonous. See Withering's British Plants.Taxus.Book III. c. xiii."For although lapidaries and questuary enquirers affirm it,&c."6Questuary '-having gain or money for their object.B. VI. c. viii.“ The river Gihon, a branch of Euphrates and river of Para- dise. "The rivers from Eden were, perhaps, meant to symbolize,or rather expressed only, the great primary races of mankind. Sir T. B. was the very man to have seen this; butthe superstition of the letter was then culminant.Ib. c. x.316 NOTES ON BOOKS AND AUTHORS ." The chymists have laudably reduced their causes--unto sal, sulphur, and mercury, &c. "

---(of colors)Even now, after all the brilliant discoveries fromScheele, Priestley, and Cavendish, to Berzelius and Davy,no improvement has been made in this division, —not ofprimary bodies (those idols of the modern atomic chemistry), but of causes, as Sir T. B. rightly expresses them,-that is, of elementary powers manifested in bodies. Letmercury stand for the bi-polar metallic principle, bestimaged as a line or axis from north to south, —the north ornegative pole being the cohesive or coherentific force, andthe south or positive pole being the dispersive or incoherentific force the first is predominant in, and therefore represented by, carbon, the second by nitrogen; and the seriesof metals are the primary and, hence, indecomponiblesyntheta and proportions of both. In like manner, sulphurrepresents the active and passive principle of fire: the contractive force, or negative electricity-oxygen -producesflame; and the dilative force, or positive electricity-hydrogen-produces warmth. And lastly, salt is the equilibriumor compound of the two former. So taken, salt, sulphur,and mercury are equivalent to the combustive, the combustible, and the combust, under one or other of which allknown bodies, or ponderable substances, may be classed anddistinguished .The difference between a great mind's and a little mind'suse of history is this. The latter would consider, for instance, what Luther did, taught, or sanctioned: the former,what Luther, a Luther, would now do, teach, and sanction. This thought occurred to me at midnight, Tuesday,the 16th of March, 1824, ' as I was stepping into bed, -myeye having glanced on Luther's Table Talk.¹ Probably a misprint for 1804. See below.SIR THOMAS BROWNE. 317If you would be well with a great mind, leave him witha favourable impression of you; -if with a little mind, leavehim with a favourable opinion of himself.It is not common to find a book of so early date as this(1658) , at least among those of equal neatness of printing,that contains so many gross typographical errors; —withthe exception of our earliest dramatic writers, some of whichappear to have been never corrected, but worked off at onceas the types were first arranged by the compositors . Butthe grave and doctrinal works are, in general, exceedinglycorrect, and form a striking contrast to modern publications, of which the late edition of Bacon's Works would beparamount in the infamy of multiplied unnoticed errata,were it not for the unrivalled slovenliness of Anderson'sBritish Poets, in which the blunders are at least as numerous as the pages, and many of them perverting the sense,or killing the whole beauty, and yet giving or affording ameaning, however low, instead. These are the most execrable of all typographical errors.[ The volume from which the foregoing notes have beentaken, is inscribed in Mr. Lamb's writing- 6C. Lamb, 9th March, 1804. Bought for S. T. Coleridge. ' Under which in Mr. Coleridge's hand is written-' N. B. It was on the 10th; on which day I dined andpunched at Lamb's, and exulted in the having procured theHydriotaphia, and all the rest lucro apposita. S. T. C.'That same night, the volume was devoted as a gift to adear friend¹ in the following letter. -H. N. C. ]¹ This must be Dora Wordsworth, the poet's sister. Coleridge hadjust parted with the Wordsworths, and was on his way to Malta. Wehave seen that Wordsworth communicated the notes. We observe, also,that the notes were written in 1808, when Coleridge was residing with the Wordsworths at Grasmere.318 NOTES ON BOOKS AND AUTHORS.MY DEARMarch 10th, 1804,Sat. night, 12 o'clock.SIR Thomas Browne is among my first favorites, rich invarious knowledge, exuberant in conceptions and conceits,contemplative, imaginative; often truly great and magnificent in his style and diction, though doubtless too oftenbig, stiff, andhyperlatinistic: thus I might without admixture of falsehood, describe Sir T. Browne, and my description would have only this fault, that it would be equally,or almost equally, applicable to half a dozen other writers,from the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth to the end ofCharles II. He is indeed all this; and what he has morethan all this peculiar to himself, I seem to convey to myown mind in some measure by saying, —that he is a quietand sublime enthusiast with a strong tinge of the fantast,-the humourist constantly mingling with, and flashingacross, the philosopher, as the darting colours in shot silkplay upon the main dye. In short, he has brains in hishead, which is all the more interesting for a little twist inthe brains. He sometimes reminds the reader of Montaigne, but from no other than the general circ*mstancesof an egotism common to both; which in Montaigne is toooften a mere amusing gossip, a chit- chat story of whimsand peculiarities that lead to nothing, —but which in SirThomas Browne is always the result of a feeling heart conjoined with a mind of active curiosity, the natural andbecoming egotism of a man, who, loving other men ashimself, gains the habit and the privilege of talking abouthimself as familiarly as about other men. Fond of thecurious, and a hunter of oddities and strangenesses, whilehe conceived himself, with quaint and humourous gravity, auseful inquirer into physical truth and fundamental science,-he loved to contemplate and discuss his own thoughtsand feelings, because he found by comparison with otherSIR THOMAS BROWNE. 319men's, that they too were curiosities, and so with a perfectly graceful and interesting ease he put them too intohis museum and cabinet of varieties. In very truth he wasnot mistaken: —so completely does he see every thing in alight of his own, reading nature neither by sun, moon, norcandle light, but by the light of the faery glory around hisown head; so that you might say that nature had grantedto him in perpetuity a patent and monopoly for all histhoughts. Read his Hydriotaphia above all; -and in addition to the peculiarity, the exclusive Sir Thomas- Browneness of all the fancies and modes of illustration, wonder atand admire his entireness in every subject which is beforehim—he is totus in illo; he follows it; he never wandersfrom it,—and he has no occasion to wander; -for whateverhappens to be his subject, he metamorphoses all nature intoit. In that Hydriotaphia or Treatise on some Urns dug upin Norfolk-how earthy, how redolent of graves and sepulchres is every line! You have now dark mould, now athigh-bone, now a scull, then a bit of mouldered coffin! afragment of an old tombstone with moss in its hic jacet;a ghost or a winding- sheet-or the echo of a funeral psalmwafted on a November wind! and the gayest thing youshall meet with shall be a silver nail or gilt Anno Dominifrom a perished coffin top. The very same remark appliesin the same force to the interesting, through the far lessinteresting, Treatise on the Quincuncial Plantations of theAncients. There is the same attention to oddities, to theremoteness and minutie of vegetable terms, —the same entireness of subject. You have quincunxes in heaven above,quincunxes in earth below, and quincunxes in the water beneath the earth; quincunxes in deity, quincunxes in the mindof man, quincunxes in bones, in the optic nerves, in rootsof trees, in leaves, in petals, in every thing. In short, firstturn to the last leaf of this volume, and read aloud to yourself the last seven paragraphs of Chap. v. beginning with the-320 NOTES ON BOOKS AND AUTHORS.words More considerables, ' &c. But it is time for me tobe in bed, in the words of Sir Thomas, which will serve you,my dear, as a fair specimen of his manner. But the quincunx of heaven-(the Hyades or five stars about the horizonat midnight at that time) —runs low, and ' tis time we closethe five ports of knowledge: we are unwilling to spin outour waking thoughts into the phantasmes of sleep, whichoften continueth præcogitations, -making tables of cobwebbes, and wildernesses of handsome groves. To keepour eyes open longer were but to act our Antipodes . Thehuntsmen are up in America, and they are already pasttheir first sleep in Persia . ' Think you, my dear Friend, thatthere ever was such a reason given before for going to bedat midnight; -to wit, that if we did not, we should be acting the part of our Antipodes! And then the huntsmenare up in America.'—What life, what fancy! —Does thewhimsical knight give us thus a dish of strong green tea,and call it an opiate! I trust that you are quietly asleepand that6"All the stars hang bright above your dwelling,Silent as tho' they watch'd the sleeping earth! "FULLER.Holy State.B. I. c. 9. Life of Eliezer."He will not truant it now in the afternoon, but with convenientspeed returns to Abraham, who onely was worthy of such a servant, who onely was worthy of such a master."On my word, Eliezer did his business in an orderly andsensible manner; but what there is to call forth this hyperencomiastic-' who only '—I cannot see.B. II. c. 3. Life of Paracelsus . It is matter of regretwith me, that Fuller (whose wit, alike in quantity, quality,and perpetuity, surpassing that of the wittiest in a wittyage, robbed him of the praise not less due to him for anequal superiority in sound, shrewd, good sense, and freedomof intellect, ) had not looked through the two Latin foliosof Paracelsus's Works. It is not to be doubted that a richand delightful article would have been the result. For wholike Fuller could have brought out and set forth thissingular compound of true philosophic genius with themorals of a quack and the manners of a king of the gypsies!Nevertheless, Paracelsus belonged to his age—the dawn ofexperimental science; and a well written critique on hislife and writings would present, through the magnifyingglass of a caricature, the distinguishing features of theHelmonts, Kirchers, &c. , in short, of the host of naturalistsY322 NOTES ON BOOKS AND AUTHORS.of the sixteenth century. The period might begin withParacelsus and end with Sir Kenelm Digby.N. B. The potential (Aóyos Odv0pwrоs) , the ground ofthe prophetic, directed the first thinkers (the Mystœ) tothe metallic bodies, as the key of all natural science . Thethen actual blended with this instinct all the fancies andfond desires and false perspective of the childhood of intellect. The essence was truth, the form was folly: and thisis the definition of alchemy. Nevertheless, the very termsbear witness to the veracity of the original instinct. Theworld of sensible experience cannot be more luminouslydivided than into the modifying powers, rò άλλo, —thatwhich differences, makes this other than that; and the μET'ǎ^^o, —that which is beyond, or deeper than the modification. Metallon is strictly the base of the mode; and suchhave the metals been determined to be by modern chemistry.And what are now the great problems of chemistry? Thedifference of the metals themselves, their origin, the causesof their locations, of their co-existence in the same oreas, for instance, iridium, osmium, palladium, rhodium, andiron with platinum . Were these problems solved, theresults who dare limit? In addition to the méchaniquecéleste, we might have a new department of astronomy, thechymie céleste, that is, a philosophic astrology. And to thisI do not hesitate to refer the whole connection betweenalchemy and astrology, the same divinity in the idea, thesame childishness in the attempt to realize it . Nay, thevery invocations of spirits were not without a ground oftruth. The light was for the greater part suffocated andthe rest fantastically refracted, but still it was light struggling in the darkness. And I am persuaded, that to thefull triumph of science, it will be necessary that natureshould be commanded more spiritually than hitherto, thatis, more directly in the power of the will.B. IV. c. 19. The Prince.FULLER. 323" He sympathizeth with him that by a proxy is corrected forhis offence."See Sir W. Scott's Fortunes of Nigel. In an orientaldespotism one would not have been surprised at findingsuch a custom, but in a Christian court, and under the lightof Protestantism, it is marvellous . It would be well toascertain, if possible, the earliest date of this contrivance;whether it existed under the Plantagenets , or whether firstunder the Tudors, or lastly, whether it was a precious importfrom Scotland with gentle King Jamie.Ib. c. 21. The King."He is a mortal god."Compare the fulsome flattery of these and other passagesin this volume (though modest to the common language ofJames's priestly courtiers) with the loyal but free and manlytone of Fuller's later works, towards the close of Charles theFirst's reign and under the Commonwealth and Protectorate. And doubtless this was not peculiar to Fuller: but agreat and lasting change was effected in the mind of thecountry generally. The bishops and other church dignitaries tried for a while to renew the old king- goddingmumpsimus; but the second Charles laughed at them, andthey quarrelled with his successor, and hated the hero whodelivered them from him too thoroughly to have flatteredhim with any unction, even if William's Dutch phlegm hadnot precluded the attempt by making its failure certain.Profane State.B. V. c. 2." God gave magistrates power to punish them, else they bearthe sword in vain. They may command people to serve God,who herein have no cause to complain."324 NOTES ON BOOKS AND AUTHORS.And elsewhere. The only serious macula in Fuller'smind is his uniform support of the right and duty of thecivil magistrate to punish errors in belief. Fuller would,indeed, recommend moderation in the practice; but ofupas, woorara, and persecution, there are no moderate dosespossible.Part I. c . 5.Appeal of Injured Innocence."Yet there want not learned writers (whom I need not name)ofthe opinion that even the instrumental penmen of the Scripturemight commit ἁμαρτήματα μνημόνικα: though open that windowto profaneness, and it will be in vain to shut any dores; Let Godbe true, and every man a lyer. ”It has been matter of complaint with hundreds, yea, it isan old cuckoo song of grim saints, that the Reformationcame to its close long before it came to its completion. Butthe cause of this imperfection has been fully laid open byno party, scilicet, that in divines of both parties of theReformers, the Protestants and the Detestants, there wasthe same relic of the Roman lues, —the habit of decidingfor or against the orthodoxy of a position, not according toits truth or falsehood, not on grounds of reason or of history,but by the imagined consequences of the position. Thevery same principles on which the pontifical polemics vindicate the Papal infallibility, Fuller et centum alii apply tothe (if possible ) still more extravagant notion of the absolute truth and divinity of every syllable of the text of thebooks of the Old and New Testament as we have it.Ib."Sure I am, that one of as much meekness, as some are ofmoroseness, even upright Moses himself, in his service of theessential and increated truth (of higher consequence than thehistorical truth controverted betwixt us) had notwithstanding arespect to the reward. Heb. xi. 26."FULLER. 325In religion the faith pre- supposed in the respect, and asits condition, gives to the motive a purity and an elevationwhich of itself, and where the recompense is looked for intemporal and carnal pleasures or profits, it would not have.B. I. cent. 5.PELAGIUS:--Church History." Let no foreiner insult on the infelicity of ourland in bearing this monster."It raises, or ought to raise, our estimation of Fuller'sgood sense and the general temperance of his mind, whenwe see the heavy weight of prejudices, the universal code ofhis age, incumbent on his judgment, and which neverthelessleft sanity of opinion the general character of his writings:this remark was suggested by the term ' monster ' attachedto the worthy Cambrian Pelagius-the teacher Arminianismiante Arminium.B. II. cent. 6. s . 8."Whereas in Holy Writ, when the Apostles (and the Papistscommonly call Augustine the English apostle, how properly weshall see hereafter, ) went to a foreign nation, God gave them thelanguage thereof, &c."What a loss that Fuller has not made a reference tohis authorities for this assertion! I am sure he could havefound none in the New Testament, but facts that imply,and, in the absence of all such proof, prove the contrary.Ib. s. 6."Thus we see the whole week bescattered with Saxon idols,whose pagan gods were the godfathers of the days, and gave them their names. This some zealot may behold as the object ofa necessary reformation, desiring to have the days of the weeknew dipt, and called after other names. Though indeed thissupposed scandal will not offend the wise, as beneath theirnotice, and cannot offend the ignorant, as above their knowedge."326 NOTES ON BOOKS AND AUTHORS.A curious prediction fulfilled a few years after in theQuakers, and well worthy of being extracted and addressedto the present Friends. Memorandum. —It is the error ofthe Friends, but natural and common to almost all sects , —the perversion of the wisdom of the first establishers oftheir sect into their own folly, by not distinguishing between the conditionally right and the permanently andessentially so. For example: It was right conditionallyin the Apostles to forbid black puddings even to the Gentile Christians, and it was wisdom in them; but to continuethe prohibition would be folly and Judaism in us. Theelder church very sensibly distinguished episcopal fromapostolic inspiration; the episcopal spirit, that whichdictated what was fit and profitable for a particular community or church at a particular period, from the apostolicand catholic spirit which dictated truth and duties of permanent and universal obligation.Ib. cent. 7.This Latin dedication is remarkably pleasing and elegant. Milton in his classical youth, the era of Lycidas,might have written it-only he would have written it in Latin verse.B. x. cent. 17.Bp. of London. "May your Majesty be pleased, that theancient canon may be remembered, Schismatici contra episcoposnon sunt audiendi. And there is another decree of a very ancientcouncil, that no man should be admitted to speak against thatwhereunto he hath formerly subscribed.And as for you, Doctor Reynolds, and your sociates , howmuch are you bound to his Majestie's clemencye, permitting youcontrary to the statute primo Elizabethæ, so freely to speak against the liturgie and discipline established. Faine would Iknow the end you aime at, and whether you be not of Mr. Cartwright's minde, who affirmed, that we ought in ceremonies ratherto conforme to the Turks than to the Papists . I doubt you approve his position, because here appearing before his Majesty inFULLER. 327Turkey-gownes, not in your scholastic habits, according to theorder of the Universities. "If any man, who like myself hath attentively read theChurch history of the reign of Elizabeth, and the conference before, and with, her pedant successor, can shewme any essential difference between Whitgift and Bancroftduring their rule, and Bonner and Gardiner in the reign ofMary, I will be thankful to him in my heart and for himin my prayers. One difference I see, namely, that theformer professing the New Testament to be their rule andguide, and making the fallibility of all churches and individuals an article of faith , were more inconsistent, andtherefore less excusable, than the Popish persecutors. 30Aug. 1824.N. B. The crimes, murderous as they were, were thevice and delusion of the age, and it is ignorance to lackcharity towards the persons, Papist or Protestant; but thetone, the spirit, characterizes, and belongs to, the individual:for example, the bursting spleen of this Bancroft, not sosatisfied with this precious arbitrator for having pre- condemned his opponents, as fierce and surly with him for nothanging them up unheard.At the end.Next to Shakspere, I am not certain whether ThomasFuller, beyond all other writers, does not excite in methe sense and emotion of the marvellous; —the degreein which any given faculty or combination of faculties ispossessed and manifested, so far surpassing what one wouldhave thought possible in a single mind, as to give one'sadmiration the flavour and quality of wonder! Wit wasthe stuff and substance of Fuller's intellect . It was theelement, the earthen base, the material which he workedin, and this very circ*mstance has defrauded him of hisdue praise for the practical wisdom of the thoughts, for328 NOTES ON BOOKS AND AUTHORS.the beauty and variety of the truths, into which he shapedthe stuff. Fuller was incomparably the most sensible, theleast prejudiced, great man of an age that boasted a galaxyof great men. He is a very voluminous writer, and yet inall his numerous volumes on so many different subjects,it is scarcely too much to say, that you will hardly find apage in which some one sentence out of every three doesnot deserve to be quoted for itself—as motto or as maxim.God bless thee, dear old man! may I meet with thee!-which is tantamount to-may I go to heaven! July,1829.MILTON.1807.¹Hayley, p . 95. "The sincerest friends of Milton may hereagree with Johnson, who speaks of his controversial merriment asdisgusting."The man who reads a work meant for immediate effecton one age with the notions and feelings of another, maybe a refined gentleman, but must be a sorry critic . He whopossesses imagination enough to live with his forefathers,and, leaving comparative reflection for an after moment, togive himself up during the first perusal to the feelings of acontemporary, if not a partizan, will, I dare aver, rarelyfind any part of Milton's prose works disgusting.(Hayley, p. 104. Hayley is speaking of the passage inMilton's Answer to Icon Basilice, in which he accusesCharles of taking his Prayer in captivity from Pamela'sprayer in the 3rd book of Sidney's Arcadia. The passagebegins,-"But this king, not content with that which, although in athing holy, is no holy theft, to attribute to his own making othermen's whole prayers, &c." Symmons' ed. 1806, p. 407.-H. N. C.²)1 Notes written in a copy of Hayley's Life of Milton ( 4to. 1796),belonging to Mr. Poole, from whom H. N. Coleridge received them. Aportion of these notes we have already given in Lectures and Notes onShakspere, &c. Some remarks on Milton will also be found in ourFourth Division, -" on Unmeasured Language and Intolerance, &c. "2 H. N. C. , or T. P.330 NOTES ON BOOKS AND AUTHORS.1Assuredly, I regret that Milton should have writtenthis passage; and yet the adoption of a prayer from aromance on such an occasion does not evince a delicateor deeply sincere mind. We are the creatures of association. There are some excellent moral and even seriouslines in Hudibras; but what if a clergyman should adornhis sermon with a quotation from that poem! Would theabstract propriety of the verses leave him " honourablyacquitted? " The Christian baptism of a line in Virgil isso far from being a parallel, that it is ridiculously inappropriate, —an absurdity as glaring as that of the bigotedPuritans, who objected to some of the noblest and mostscriptural prayers ever dictated by wisdom and piety,simply because the Roman Catholics had used them.Hayley, p. 107. "The ambition of Milton, " &c.I do not approve the so frequent use of this word relatively to Milton. Indeed the fondness for ingrafting agood sense on the word " ambition, " is not a Christianimpulse in general.Hayley, p. 110. "Milton himself seems to have thought itallowable in literary contention to vilify, &c. , the character of anopponent; but surely this doctrine is unworthy," &c.So.If ever it were allowable, in this case it was especiallyBut these general observations, without meditation.on the particular times and the genius of the times, aremost often as unjust as they are always superficial.(Hayley, p. 133. Hayley is speaking of Milton's panegyricon Cromwell's government:-)Besides, however Milton might and did regret the immediate necessity, yet what alternative was there? Wasit¹ Before the reader pronounces judgment, we ask him to read the prayer for himself. We have read it.MILTON. 331not better that Cromwell should usurp power, to protectreligious freedom at least, than that the Presbyteriansshould usurp it to introduce a religious persecution, -

• extending the notion of spiritual concerns so far as to leave

no freedom even to a man's bedchamber?HENRY MORE'S POEMS.¹Written on the fly-leaf at the beginning of the volume: —AH! what strength might I gather, what comfort might we derive, from these Proclo- plotinian Platonists' doctrine of the Soul, if only they or their Spinozistic imitators,the Natur- philosophers of present Germany, had told orcould tell us what they meant by I and we, by Pain andRemorse. Poor we are nothing in act but everything insuffering.A manuscript note in a different hand, with Coleridge'sadded remark:-" Dr. More uses many words that are obsolete, many that areprovincial, and many that are entirely his own coinage, which thenovelty of the subject may in some degree have rendered necesHis elisions appear to be more licentious than have eitherbeen adopted before or since.sary.66' Spenser he acknowledges in his Dedication was a favouriteauthor with him from childhood, and his partiality is sufficientlyobvious from following his antiquated diction , and from writing inthe same octave stanza, which Spenser borrowed from the Italianpoets."1 For the following notes, by Coleridge, written in a copy of HenryMore's Poems, we are indebted to H. J. Roby, M.A. Some remarks by Coleridge on the same subject will be found in the Table Talk andOmniana, pp. 392-3 . See, also, the Essay On the Prometheus ofEschylus,p. 80.HENRY MORE'S POEMS. 333Which is not an octave but an ennead (i.e. a stanza ofnine lines) and which Spenser did not borrow from theItalians, but after many and various experiments inventedfor himself, as a perfect whole, as it is indeed, and it only.

• That, I mean, to which nothing can be added and from

which nothing can be removed.Psychozoia: cant. iii . 55.Of very"So bravely we went on withouten dread,Till at the last we came whereas a hillWith steep ascent highly lift up his head."ancient usage for to where.Ib. notes to cant. i. , including the following passage:“ Ahad, Aeon, Psyche, the Platonick Triad, is rather the TòJelov than Jeos, the Divinity rather than the Deity. For Godis but one indivisible immovable self-born Unity, and his firstborn creature is wisdome, Intellect, Aeon, On or Autocalon, or ina word the intellectual world, whose measure himself is , that is,simple and perfect Goodnesse. Τὸ δε εστιν ἀνενδεὲς, ἱκανὸνἑαυτῷ, μηδενὸς δεόμενον, μέτρον πάντων καὶ πέρας , δοὺς ἐξαὑτοῦ νοῦν καὶ οὐσίαν καὶ ψυχήν; that is,—for he is withoutneed, self sufficient, wanting nothing, the measure and term ofall things, yeilding out of himself Intellect or On and Psyche. "The 3 or 4 preceding pages convince me that H. Morewas a poetical philosophist who amused himself in callingAristophelian abstractions by the names of Platonic Ideas;but by no means a philosophic poet, framing in the lifelight of a guiding Idea. The very phrase, a first- born creature, which is a contradiction in terms, and the applying ofcreature to the Logos, sophia, and o wv are *** (sic) ,Psychathanasia: Preface."So a tender mother if she see a knife stuck to her child'sheart, would shreek and swound as if her selfe had been smit;when as if her eye had not beheld that spectacle, she had not334 NOTES ON BOOKS AND AUTHORS.been moved though the thing were surely done. So I do verilythink that the mind being takenup in some higher contemplation,if it should please God to keep it in that ecstasie, the body mightbe destroyed without any disturbance to the soul, for how canthere be or sense or pain without animadversion?99Doubtless! but what is that in the body which enforceththe soul to attend? and where is the middle term betweenthe act of attention and the pass of Pain or Pleasure?Ib. Bk. i . , cant. 3., 23-6.23" This number suits well with the universe:The number's eight of the Orbs general,From whence things flow or wherein they converse,The first we name Nature Monadicall ,The second hight Life Intellectuall,Third Psychicall; the fourth Imaginative,Fifth Sensitive, the sixth Spermaticall,The seventh be fading forms Quantitative,The eighth Hyle or Ananke perverse, coactive .24That last is nought but potentiality,Which in the lower creature causeth strife,Destruction by incompossibilityIn some, as in the forms Quantitative.All here depend on the Orb Unitive,Which also hight Nature Monadicall;As all those lights and colours did deriveThemselves from lively Phoebus life centrall.Nought therefore but vain sensibles we see caducall.25And that the first Every-where- UnitieIs the true root of all the living creatures,As they descend in each distinct degree,That God's the sustentacle of all Natures;And though those outward forms & gawdy featuresMay quail like rainbowes in the roseid sky,Or glistring Parelies or other meteors;Yet the clear light doth not to nothing flie:Those six degrees of life stand sure, and never die.HENRY MORE'S POEMS. 33526So now we plainly see that the dark matter Is not that needfull prop to hold up life;And though deaths engins this grosse bulk do shatterWe have not lost our Orb conservative,Of which we are a ray derivative.The body sensible so garnishedWith outward forms these inward do relieve,Keep up in fashion and fresh lively- hed;But this grosse bulk those inward lives stands in no sted."What mere logomachy! All is first assumed in the definition of body, and then proved by applying the impossibleof the definition to 6 or 7 particular instances of this impossibility. The Materialist need make no other answerthan: Aye! but this is not what I mean by matter of body:or I defy the truth of your definition.Ib.: Bk. iii. , cant. 1. , 21 ."But if't be so, how doth Psyche hear or see,That hath not eyes nor eares? she sees more clear Than we that see but secondarily.We see at distance by a circularDiffusion of that spright of this great sphearOf th' universe: Her sight is tactuall.The Sun and all the Starres that do appearShe feels them in herself, can distance all ,For she is at each one purely presentiall."Still we and in contradistinction from our Soul.Written on the fly- leaf at the end of the volume:-It would be no trifling convenience in close reasoning onmetaphysical subjects if we might dare coin the word passor pasch, as the antithet or corresponding opposite of act.The 5 main faults characteristic of our elder poets not ofthe first class, and of none more than of H. More, are:1. That in the pursuit of strength and vigour they fallinto, nay eagerly rush upon, the hateful and loathsome, andparticularly the offensive to the sense of smell, aggravated336 NOTES ON BOOKS AND AUTHORS.by moral disgust and associations of disease, " fed withstinking gore suck'd from corrupted corse " (Psychathanasia,Bk. i. , cant. i . v. 5.) .2. That from a predilection for the lively and exact insimilitudes and descriptions, they recur to the mean, theludicrous, and the odd.3. That generally they are regardless of the influence ofassociations, not merely such as are the accidental growthof a particular age and fashion, but of those that aregrounded on the nature of man and his circ*mstances.4. That they sacrifice the grand keeping and total impression to particular effects, and if it only be bene sonansper se, care not though it should be dissonant in the concert.5. That they construct their metre in correspondence totheir own passionate humouring and often peculiar andmannered mode of reading or reciting their verses—a modealways more influenced by what they intended the words tomean than by the necessary or obvious sense of the wordsthemselves.FIELDING.¹1832.Tom Jones.MANNERS change from generation to generation, and with manners morals appear to change, actuallychange with some, but appear to change with all but theabandoned. A young man of the present day who shouldact as Tom Jones is supposed to act at Upton, with LadyBellaston, &c . , would not be a Tom Jones; and a Tom Jonesof the present day, without perhaps being in the ground abetter man, would have perished rather than submit to bekept by a harridan of fortune. Therefore this novel is, and,indeed, pretends to be, no exemplar of conduct. But, notwithstanding all this , I do loathe the cant which can recommend Pamela and Clarissa Harlowe as strictly moral,though they poison the imagination of the young with continued doses of tinct. lytta, while Tom Jones is prohibitedas loose. I do not speak of young women;-but a youngman whose heart or feelings can be injured , or even hispassions excited, by aught in this novel, is already thoroughlycorrupt. There is a cheerful, sun- shiny, breezy spirit, thatprevails everywhere, strongly contrasted with the close,hot, day- dreamy continuity of Richardson . Every indiscretion, every immoral i act, of Tom Jones, (and it must beremembered that he is in every one taken by surprise1 " Communicated by Mr. Gillman.” —H. N. C.Z338 NOTES ON BOOKS AND AUTHORS.his inward principles remaining firm-) is so instantlypunished by embarrassment and unanticipated evil consequences of his folly, that the reader's mind is not left for amoment to dwell or run riot on the criminal indulgenceitself. In short, let the requisite allowance be made forthe increased refinement of our manners, —and then I darebelieve that no young man who consulted his heart andconscience only, without adverting to what the world wouldsay-could rise from the perusal of Fielding's Tom Jones,Joseph Andrews, or Amelia, without feeling himself a betterman;-at least, without an intense conviction that he couldnot be guilty of a base act.If I want a servant or mechanic, I wish to know whathe does:-but of¹ a friend , I must know what he is. Andin no writer is this momentous distinction so finely broughtforward as by Fielding. We do not care what Blifil does;-the deed, as separate from the agent, may be good or ill;—but Blifil is a villain; —and we feel him to be so from thevery moment he, the boy Blifil, restores Sophia's poorcaptive bird to its native and rightful liberty.Book xiv. ch. 8."Notwithstanding the sentiment of the Roman satirist, whichdenies the divinity of fortune; and the opinion of Seneca to thesame purpose; Cicero, who was, I believe, a wiser man thaneither of them, expressly holds the contrary; and certain it isthere are some incidents in life so very strange and unaccountable,that it seems to require more than human skill and foresight inproducing them."Surely Juvenal, Seneca, and Cicero, all meant the samething, namely, that there was no chance, but instead of itprovidence, either human or divine.Book xv. ch. 9. —The Rupture with Lady Bellaston.Even in the most questionable part of Tom Jones, I can1 Possibly a misprint for "if."FIELDING. 339not but think, after frequent reflection, that an additionalparagraph, more fully and forcibly unfolding Tom Jones'ssense of self- degradation on the discovery of the true character of the relation in which he had stood to Lady Bellaston, and his awakened feeling of the dignity of manlychastity, would have removed in great measure any justobjections, —at all events relatively to Fielding himself, andwith regard to the state of manners in his time.Book xvi. ch. 5."That refined degree of Platonic affection which is absolutelydetached from the flesh, and is indeed entirely and purelyspiritual, is a gift confined to the female part of the creation;many of whom I have heard declare ( and doubtless with greattruth) that they would, with the utmost readiness, resign a loverto a rival, when such resignation was proved to be necessary forthe temporal interest of such lover. "I firmly believe that there are men capable of such asacrifice, and this, without pretending to, or even admiringor seeing any virtue in, this absolute detachment from theflesh.Jonathan Wild.Jonathan Wild is assuredly the best of all the fictions inwhich a villain is throughout the prominent character. Buthow impossible it is by any force of genius to create a sustained attractive interest for such a groundwork, and howthe mind wearies of, and shrinks from, the more thanpainful interest, the μonròv, of utter depravity, -Fieldinghimself felt and endeavoured to mitigate and remedy bythe (on all other principles) far too large a proportion, andtoo quick recurrence, of the interposed chapters of moralreflection, like the chorus in the Greek tragedy, —admirablespecimens as these chapters are of profound irony and philo-340 NOTES ON BOOKS AND AUTHORS.sophic satire. Chap. VI. Book 2, on Hats, ¹-brief as it is,exceeds any thing even in Swift's Lilliput, or Tale of theTub. How forcibly it applies to the Whigs, Tories, andRadicals of our own times!Whether the transposition of Fielding's scorching wit(as B. III. c. xiv. ) to the mouth of his hero be objectionable on the ground of incredulus odi, or is to be admired asanswering the author's purpose by unrealizing the story,in order to give a deeper reality to the truths intended, -I must leave doubtful, yet myself inclining to the latterjudgment. 27th Feb. 1832 .1 ' In which our hero makes a speech well worthy to be celebrated;and the behaviour of one of the gang, perhaps more unnatural than anyother part ofthis history.'JUNIUS.1807.Stat nominis umbra.As he never dropped the mask, so he too often used the poisoned dagger of an assassin.Dedication to the English Nation.The whole of this dedication reads like a string of aphorisms arranged in chapters, and classified by a resemblanceof subject, or a cento of points.Ib. " Ifan honest, and I may truly affirm a laborious, zeal forthe public service has given me any weight in your esteem, letme exhort and conjure you never to suffer an invasion ofyourpolitical constitution, however minute the instance may appear,to pass by, without a determined persevering resistance."A longer sentence and proportionately inelegant.Ib. " Ifyou reflect that in the changes of administration whichhave marked and disgraced the present reign, although yourwarmest patriots have, in their turn, been invested with thelawful and unlawful authority of the crown, and though otherreliefs or improvements have been held forth to the people, yetthat no one man in office has ever promoted or encouraged a billfor shortening the duration of parliaments, but that (whoeverwas minister) the opposition to this measure, ever since the septennial act passed, has been constant and uniform on the part ofgovernment."342 NOTES ON BOOKS AND AUTHORS.Long, and as usual, inelegant. Junius cannot manage along sentence; it has all the ins and outs of a snappishfigure- dance.Preface.An excellent preface, and the sentences not so snipt as inthe dedication. The paragraph near the conclusion, beginning with " some opinion may now be expected, " &c. , andending with " relation between guilt and punishment," deserves to be quoted as a master-piece of rhetorical ratiocination in a series of questions that permit no answer; or(as Junius says) carry their own answer along with them.The great art of Junius is never to say too much, and toavoid with equal anxiety a common-place manner, and】matter that is not common-place. If ever he deviatesinto any originality of thought, he takes care that itshall be such as excites surprise for its acuteness, ratherthan admiration for its profundity. He takes care? sayrather, that nature took care for him. It is impossibleto detract from the merit of these Letters: they aresuited to their purpose, and perfect in their kind. Theyimpel to action, not thought. Had they been profound orsubtle in thought, or majestic and sweeping in composition ,they would have been adapted for the closet of a Sidney,or for a House of Lords such as it was in the time of LordBacon; but they are plain and sensible whenever theauthor is in the right, and whether right or wrong, alwaysshrewd and epigrammatic, and fitted for the coffee-house ,the exchange, the lobby of the House of Commons, and tobe read aloud at a public meeting. When connected, dropping the forms of connection, desultory without abruptness or appearance of disconnection, epigrammatic andantithetical to excess, sententious and personal, regardlessof right or wrong, yet well- skilled to act the part of an1JUNIUS. 343-honest warm-hearted man, and even when he is in theright, saying the truth but never proving it, much lessattempting to bottom it, this is the character of Junius;-and on this character, and in the mould of these writings,must every man cast himself, who would wish in factioustimes to be the important and long remembered agent of afaction. I believe that I could do all that Junius has done,and surpass him by doing many things which he has notdone for example, -by an occasional induction of startlingfacts, in the manner of Tom Paine, and lively illustrationsand witty applications of good stories and appropriateanecdotes in the manner of Horne Tooke. I believe Icould do it if it were in my nature to aim at this sort ofexcellence, or to be enamoured of the fame, and immediateinfluence, which would be its consequence and reward .But it is not in my nature. I not only love truth, butI have a passion for the legitimate investigation of truth.The love of truth conjoined with a keen delight in a strictand skilful yet impassioned argumentation, is my masterpassion, and to it are subordinated even the love of libertyand all my public feelings-and to it whatever I labourunder of vanity, ambition, and all my inward impulses.Letter I. From this Letter all the faults and excellenciesof Junius may be exemplified. The moral and politicalaphorisms are just and sensible, the irony in which his personal satire is conveyed is fine, yet always intelligible; butit approaches too nearly to the nature of a sneer; thesentences are cautiously constructed without the formsof connection; the he and it everywhere substituted forthe who and which; the sentences are short, laboriouslybalanced, and the antitheses stand the test of analysismuch better than Johnson's. These are all excellencies intheir kind; —where is the defect? In this;-there is toomuch of each, and there is a defect of many things, thepresence of which would have been not only valuable for1T344 NOTES ON BOOKS AND AUTHORS.their own sakes, but for the relief and variety which theywould have given. It is observable too that every Letteradds to the faults of these Letters, while it weakens theeffect of their beauties.L. III. A capital letter, addressed to a private person,and intended as a sharp reproof for intrusion . Its shortsentences, its witty perversions and deductions, its questions and omissions of connectives, all in their proper places,are dramatically good.L. V. " For my own part, I willingly leave it to the public todetermine whether your vindication of your friend has been asable and judicious as it was certainly well intended; and you,I think, may be satisfied with the warm acknowledgments healready owes you for making him the principal figure in a piecein which, but for your amicable assistanee, he might have passedwithout particular notice or distinction. "A long sentence and, as usual, inelegant and cumbrous.This Letter is a faultless composition with exception of theone long sentence.L. VII. “ These are the gloomy companions of a disturbedimagination; the melancholy madness of poetry, without theinspiration."The rhyme is a fault. ' Fancy ' had been better; thoughbut for the rhyme, imagination is the fitter word.Ib. " Such a question might perhaps discompose the gravity ofhis muscles, but I believe it would little affect the tranquillity of his conscience."A false antithesis, a mere verbal balance; there are far, fartoo many of these. However, with these few exceptions ,this Letter is a blameless composition. Junius may besafely studied as a model for letters where he truly writesletters . Those to the Duke of Grafton and others, aresmall pamphlets in the form of letters.JUNIUS. 345L. VIII. "To do justice to your Grace's humanity, you feltfor Mac Quick as you ought to do; and, if you had been contented to assist him indirectly, without a notorious denial ofjustice, or openly insulting the sense of the nation, you might havesatisfied every duty of political friendship, without committingthe honour of your sovereign, or hazarding the reputation of hisgovernment. "An inelegant cluster of withouts. Junius asks questionsincomparably well; -but ne quid nimis.L. IX. Perhaps the fair way of considering these Letterswould be as a kind of satirical poems; the short, and forever balanced, sentences constitute a true metre; and theconnection is that of satiric poetry, a witty logic, an association of thoughts by amusing semblances of cause andeffect, the sophistry of which the reader has an interest innot stopping to detect, for it flatters his love of mischief,and makes the sport.L. XII. One of Junius's arts, and which gives me a highnotion of his genius, as a poet and satirist, is this: -hetakes for granted the existence of a character that neverdid and never can exist, and then employs his wit, and surprises and amuses his readers with analyzing its incompatibilities.L. XIV. Continual sneer, continual irony, all excellent,if it were not for the ' all; '-but a countenance, witha malignant smile in statuary fixure on it, becomes atlength an object of aversion, however beautiful the face,and however beautiful the smile. We are relieved, in somemeasure, from this by frequent just and well expressedmoral aphorisms; but then the preceding and followingirony gives them the appearance of proceeding from thehead, not from the heart. This objection would be lessfelt, when the Letters were first published at considerableintervals; but Junius wrote for posterity.L. XXIII. Sneer and irony continued with such gross346 NOTES ON BOOKS AND AUTHORS.violation of good sense, as to be perfectly nonsense. Theman who can address another on his most detestable vicesin a strain of cold continual irony, is himself a wretch.L. XXXV. " To honour them with a determined predilectionand confidence in exclusion ofyour English subjects, who placedyour family, and, in spite of treachery and rebellion, have supported it upon the throne, is a mistake too gross even for theunsuspecting generosity of youth. "6The words upon the throne, ' stand unfortunately for theharmonious effect of the balance of ' placed ' and ' supported .'This address to the king is almost faultless in composition, and has been evidently tormented with the file .But it has fewer beauties than any other long letter ofJunius; and it is utterly undramatic. There is nothing inthe style, the transitions, or the sentiments, which represents the passions of a man emboldening himself to addresshis sovereign personally. Like a Presbyterian's prayer,you may substitute almost every where the third for thesecond person without injury. The newspaper, his closet,and his own person, were alone present to the author'sintention and imagination. This makes the compositionvapid. It possesses an Isocratic correctness, when it shouldhave had the force and drama of an oration of Demosthenes .From this, however, the paragraph beginning with thewords ' As to the Scotch, ' and also the last two paragraphs,must be honourably excepted. They are, perhaps, thefinest passages in the whole collection.BARRY CORNWALL.¹1819.ARRY CORNWALL is a poet, me saltem judice; and BARRY in that sense of the term, in which I apply it to C.Lamb and W. Wordsworth. There are poems of greatmerit, the authors of which I should yet not feel impelledso to designate.The faults of these poems are no less things of hope,than the beauties; both are just what they ought to be,-—that is, now.If B. C. be faithful to his genius, it in due time willwarn him, that as poetry is the identity of all other knowledges, so a poet cannot be a great poet, but as being likewise inclusively an historian and naturalist, in the light, aswell as the life, of philosophy: all other men's worlds arehis chaos.Hints obiter: are-not to permit delicacy and exquisiteness to seduce into effeminacy. Not to permit beauties byrepetition to become mannerisms. To be jealous of fragmentary composition, -as epicurism of genius, and apple-piemade all of quinces. Item, that dramatic poetry must bepoetry hid in thought and passion, -not thought or passiondisguised in the dress of poetry. Lastly, to be economicand withholding in similes, figures, &c. They will all findtheir place, sooner or later, each as the luminary of a sphere1 "Written in Mr. Lamb's copy of the Dramatic Scenes." "-H. N.C.348 NOTES ON BOOKS AND AUTHORS.of its own. There can be no galaxy in poetry, because it islanguage, ergo processive, -ergo every the smallest starmust be seen singly.There are not five metrists in the kingdom, whose worksare known by me, to whom I could have held myselfallowed to have spoken so plainly. But B. C. is a man ofgenius, and it depends on himself (competence protectinghim from gnawing or distracting cares) -to become a rightful poet, that is, a great man.-Oh! for such a man worldly prudence is transfiguredinto the highest spiritual duty! How generous is selfinterest in him, whose true self is all that is good andhopeful in all ages, as far as the language of Spenser,Shakspere, and Milton shall become the mother-tongue!A map of the road to Paradise, drawn in Purgatory, onthe confines of Hell, by S. T. C., July 30, 1819.THE THEORY OF LIFE.

EDITOR'S NOTE.THE Essay with which we conclude our Volume was firstpublished in 1848. It was edited by, and was, and still is ,the property of " Seth B. Watson, M.D., of St. John'sCollege, and formerly one of the Physicians to the Hospitalat Oxford. " In his " Advertisem*nt " the editor returnshis "best acknowledgments to Sir John Stoddart, LL.D., tothe Rev. James Gillman, Incumbent of Trinity, Lambeth,and to Henry Lee, Esq. , Assistant Surgeon to King's College Hospital, for their great kindness, in regard to " hispublication.In a " Postscript " added to some copies—not all—of hislittle work, Dr. Watson sets forth that the Manuscript wasgiven to him, " with other papers, " by an intimate friend ofColeridge, and that, " from internal evidence, " he had been“ induced to attribute to that gentleman the entire authorship; " but adds that, when the work was on the eve ofpublication, circ*mstances had arisen, " which led to thebelief that the work might with more propriety be considered as the joint production of Coleridge and the lateJames Gillman, of Highgate."Gillman may have made some verbal changes, or filledup some lacunæ, in the Essay, but we strongly incline to352 THE THEORY OF LIFE .think that it contains extremely little by his hand. SaraColeridge seems to have had no suspicion of anything ofthe kind, —she must have had a copy without the " Postscript. " We think it in place to give here a letter shewrites to Miss Fenwick, March 29, 1849: —666My dear Friend-Is it to you that I am indebted forthe Guardian ' of March 21st, containing a review of myfather's ' Idea of Life? ' If it be, my thanks."The best review of the ' Idea of Life, ' or what I likethe best, as showing most insight into and agreementwith my father's views, was in the Athenæum. ' Anothercritique has been sent me from America, where, at Philadelphia, the Essay has been republished . This little work,of which we have been deprived, has made a more immediate impression than almost any philosophical productionof my father's." I marvel at the objections of the ' Guardian ' and Dr.W- to my father's personification of Nature. Thisseems to me rather old- womanish. Do they suppose myfather meant that Nature was an independent, self- subsisting Power, like a pagan deity, walking about the visibleuniverse in a green robe, a sky- blue bonnet, and earthcoloured petticoat? "-Memoir andLetters of Sara Coleridge,1873, vol. ii. , 162-3.Dr. Watson's publication perplexes us with no less thanfive leading headings. We seem to have Gillman's on thetop of Coleridge's, and the editor's superadded to his. Onthe fly- leaf we have " The Idea of Life; on the title-page,"Hints towards the Formation of a more comprehensiveTheory of Life; " on the first page, " The Theory of Life;-then, beneath, " Physiology of Life; " and, finally, after""EDITOR'S NOTE. 353the Introduction, " The Nature of Life. " Among so manytitles, after much hesitation, we have contented ourselveswith one. We should have preferred " The Physiology ofLife, " but have chosen " The Theory of Life," as the onethe book is best known by.The motto, which follows, figures on Dr. Watson's titlepage, and probably is of his choosing.AA.66' Magna sunt opera DOMINI exquisita in omnes voluntates ejus."DR. WATSON'S PREFACE.¹'HE accompanying pages contain the unfinished Sketchof a Theory of Life by S. T. Coleridge. Everythingthat fell from the pen of that extraordinary man bore latent,as well as more obvious indications of genius, and of itsinseparable concomitant—originality. To this general remark the present Essay is far from forming an exception.No one can peruse it, without admiring the author's comprehensive research and profound meditation; but at thesame time, partly from the exuberance of his imagination,and partly from an apparent want of method (though, intruth, he had a method of his own, by which he marshalledhis thoughts in an order perfectly intelligible to himself) ,a first perusal will, to many readers, prove unsatisfactory,unless they are prepared for it by an introduction of a morepopular character. This purpose, therefore, I shall endeavour to accomplish; it being to be understood that I by nomeans make myself responsible either for Mr. Coleridge'sspeculations, or for the manner in which they are enunciated; and that, on the contrary, I shall occasionally indicate views from which I dissent, and expressions whichperhaps the author himself, on revision, would have seenreason to correct.It is clear that Mr. Coleridge considers the unity of humannature to result from two combined elements, Body and1 We have Dr. Watson's permission to reprint, or omit, his Preface.We certainly prefer to reprint it.356 THE THEORY OF LIFE .Soul; that he regards the latter as the principle of Reasonand of Conscience ( both which he has largely treated in hispublished works), and that the " Life, " which he here investigates, concerns, in relation to mankind, only the Body.He is far, however, from confining the term “ Life ” to itsaction on the human body; on the contrary, he disclaimsthe division of all that surrounds us into things with life,and things without life; and contends, that the term Lifeis no less applicable to the irreducible bases of chemistry ,such as sodium, potassium, &c . , or to the various forms ofcrystals, or the geological strata which compose the crustof our globe, than it is to the human body itself, the acmeand perfection of animal organization. I admit that thereare certain great powers, such as magnetism, electricity,and chemistry, whose action may be traced, even by thelimited means which science at present possesses, in admirable gradation, from purely unorganized to the most highlyorganized matter: and, I think, that Mr. Coleridge hasdone this with great ingenuity and striking effect; butwhat I object to is, that he applies to the combined operation of these powers, in all cases, the term Life. If welook back to the early history of language, we shall probablyfind that this word, and its synonymes in other tongues,were first employed to denote human life, that is, the durationof a human being's existence from birth to the grave. Asthis existence was marked by actions, many of which werecommon to man with other animals, those animals also weresaid to " live: " but the extension of the notion of Life tothe vegetable creation is comparatively a recent usage, andhitherto (in this country at least) no writer before Mr.Coleridge, so far as I know, has maintained that rocks andmountains, nay, "the great globe itself, " share with mankind the gift of Life. On the other hand, there are wellknown and energetic uses of the word " Life, " to whichMr. Coleridge's speculations, as contained in the accom-DR. WATSON'S PREFACE. 357panying pages, are wholly inapplicable. Almost all nations,even the most savage, agree in the belief that individualsof the human race, after they have ceased to exist in thismortal life, will exist in another state, to which also theword Life is universally applied; but to this latter Mr.Coleridge's views of magnetism, electricity, &c. , can hardlybe thought applicable. Still less can they apply to " Life "in its spiritual sense; as, when Moses says to the Jews,"the words of the law are your life, " (Deut. xxxii. 47, )and when our Saviour says, "the words that I speak untoyou, they are spirit, and they are life; " (John, vi. 63; ) andagain, “ I am the resurrection and the life, " (John, xi. 25. )Upon the whole, therefore, I think it would have beenadvisable in Mr. Coleridge to have adopted a differentphraseology, in tracing the operation of certain naturalagencies first on unorganized, and then on organized bodies .Another word, of which I consider an improper use to bemade in this Essay, is " Nature. " I find this imaginarybeing introduced on all occasions, and invested with attributes of personality, which may be extremely apt to makea false impression on young or thoughtless minds. At onetime, "the life of Nature " is spoken of; then we areinformed that " Nature has succeeded. She has createdthe intermediate link between the vegetable world and theanimal." Again, it is said that " Nature seems to fallback, and to re- exert herself on the lower ground , which shehad before occupied; " —and elsewhere we are told that"Nature never loses what she has once learnt; though inthe acquirement of each new power she intermits or performs less energetically the act immediately preceding.She often drops a faculty, but never fails to pick it upagain. She may seem forgetful and absent; but it is onlyto recollect herself with additional as well as recruited vigourin some after and higher state." Nowthe word " Nature, "in any intelligible sense, means nothing but that method358 THE THEORY OF LIFE .and order by which the Almighty regulates the commoncourse of things. Nature is not a person; it is not active;it neither creates nor performs actions more or less energetically, nor learns, nor forgets, nor reexerts itself, nor recruitsits vigour. Perhaps it will be said that all this is merelyfigurative language. Figurative language is very muchmisplaced in strict philosophical investigations; and theseparticular figures, which might be quite consistent with theatheistical philosophy of Lucretius, sound ill in the mouthof a pious Christian , which Mr. Coleridge undoubtedly was.He probably adopted them unconsciously from Bacon; butBacon's use of the word Nature ought rather to have servedas a warning than an example; for it has contributed, inno small degree, to the atheistical philosophy of recent times.The prevalent natural philosophy of the present day isthat which is called corpuscular, because it assumes the existence of a first matter, consisting of corpuscula or atoms,which are supposed to be definite, though extremely small,quantities, invested with the qualities of extension, impenetrability, and the like; and from certain combinations ofthese qualities, Life is considered, by some persons, to be anecessary result. This philosophy Mr. Coleridge combats.The supposed atoms, he says, are mere abstractions of the mind; and Life is not a thing, the result of atomic arrangement or action, but is itself an act, ¹ or process . He refutesvarious definitions of Life, such as, that it is the sum of allthe functions by which death is resisted; or, that it dependson the faculty of nutrition, or of antiputrescence. His owndefinition he proposes merely as an hypothesis . Life, he' The third stanza of Coleridge's poem Youth and Age, on its first appearance in print, in " Blackwood's Magazine," June, 1832 , concluded with these lines:-" O! might Life cease! and Selfless Mind,Whose total Being is Act, alone remain behind! "DR. WATSON'S PREFACE . 359says, is " the principle of Individuation, " that is to say, itis a power which discloses itself from within, combiningmany qualities into one individual thing. This individualising principle unites, as he conceives, with the cooperatingaction of magnetism, electricity, and chemistry. At least,such is the inference to be drawn from the present state ofscience; though it is easily conceivable that future discoveries may bring us acquainted with powers more directlyconnected with Life. The most general law governing theaction of Life, as a tendency to individuation, is here designated polarity; for instance, the power termed magnetism(not meaning that there is necessarily an actual tangiblemagnet in the case) has two poles, the negative, answeringto attraction, rest, carbon, &c. , and the positive, answeringto repulsion, mobility, azote, &c .; and as the magneticneedle which points to the north necessarily indicatesthereby the south, so the power disposing to rest has necessarily a counteracting influence disposing to mobility, between which lies the point of indifference. Now thisquality, to which Mr. Coleridge gives the name of polarity,is in truth nothing more than an exemplification of thedoctrine of opposites, the πρός ἂλληλα ἀντικειμένων ἀντίθεσις,which the Eleatic Philosopher, in Plato's ' Sophist, ' applies tothe idea of existence, and non- existence, and which accompanies every other idea as its shadow, whether in physics, inintellect, or in morals; for the finite is opposed to the infinite,the false to the true, the evil to the good, and so forth;which we say, not to derogate from the value of Mr. Coleridge's application of the doctrine, of which he has veryably availed himself; but merely to explain the termpolarity, by referring it, as a species, to a higher genus ofintellectual conceptions.Reverting to the three powers before mentioned, it isnot to be understood, that on Mr. Coleridge's hypothesis ofLife, they ever act separately; but in the different modifi-360 THE THEORY OF LIFE.as, nerve.cations of Life, at one time the power of magnetism predominates, at another that of electricity, and at anotherthat of chemistry. Magnetism is stated to act as a line,electricity as a surface, and chemistry as a solid; for allwhich Mr. Coleridge refers to certain physical experiments .The predominance of magnetism is characterised by reproduction, that of electricity by irritability; an irritability,which first appears as muscle, gradually rises into sensibilityThe limits of a mere introduction will not permitmeto examine Mr. Coleridge's first principles more in detail;and I can but briefly notice their application to the successivestages of ascent, from the first rudiments of individualisedLife, in the lowest classes of the mineral, vegetable, andanimal creation, to its crown and consummation in thehuman body. Beginning with magnetism, by which, in itswidest sense, he means what he improperly calls the firstand simplest differential act of Nature (he should ratherhave said the first and simplest conception that we can formof a differential act of God, in the work of creation) , hesupposes the pre-existence of chaos, not, indeed, in the Miltonic sense-" For hot, cold, moist, and dry, four champions fierce,Strive there for mastery, and to battle bringTheir embryon atoms, -"but rather as one vast hom*ogeneous fluid, and even thathe suggests not as a historical fact, but as the appropriatesymbol of a great fundamental truth. The first effort ofmagnetic power, the first step from indifference to difference, from formless hom*ogeneity to independent existence,is seen in the tranquil deposition of crystals; and anincreasing tendency to difference is observable in the increasing multitude of strata, till we come to organic life;of which the vegetable and animal worlds may be regardedas opposite poles; carbon prevailing in the former andazote in the latter; and vegetation being characterised byDR. WATSON'S PREFACE . 361the predominance of magnetism in its highest power, asreproduction; whilst the animal tribes evince the power ofelectricity, as shown in irritability and sensibility. Passingover the forms of vegetation, we come to the polypi, corallines, &c. , in which individuality appears in its first dawn;for a multitude of animals form, as it were, a commonanimal, and different genera pass into each other, almostindistinguishably. The tubipora of the corals connectswith the serpula of the conchylia. In the mollusca theseparation of organs becomes more observable; in thehigher species there are rudiments of nerves, and an exponent, though scarcely distinguishable, of sensibility. Inthe snail, and mussel, the separation of the fluid from thesolid is more marked, yet the prevalence of the carbonicprinciple connects these and the preceding classes, in a certain degree, with the vegetable creation. " But the insectworld, taken at large (says Mr. Coleridge) , appears as anintense Life, that has struggled itself loose, and becomeemancipated from vegetation-Floræ liberti, et libertini! "In insects we first find the distinct commencement of aseparation between the muscular system, that is, organs ofirritability, and the nervous system, that is, organs of sensibility; the former, however, maintaining a preeminencethroughout, and the nerves themselves being probably subservient to the motory power. With the fishes begins aninternal system of bones, but these are the results of a comparatively imperfect formation, being in general little morethan mere gristle. In birds we find a sort of synthesis ofthe powers of fish and insects. In all three, the powers areunder the predominance of irritability; but sensibility, whichis dormant in the insect, begins to awaken in the fish, and,though still subordinate, is quite awake in the bird, of whichno better proof can be given than its power of sound, withthe rudiments of modulation, in the large class of singingbirds, and in some others a tendency to acquire and to362 THE THEORY OF LIFE .imitate articulate speech. The next step of ascent bringsus to the mammalia; and in these, including beasts and men,the complete and universal presence of a nervous systemraises sensibility to its due place and rank among the animalpowers. Finally, in Man the whole force of organic powerattains an inward and centripetal direction, and the " apexof the living pyramid " becomes a fit receptacle for Reasonand Conscience.It is much to be regretted, that the estimable author didnot live to put a finishing hand to this Essay; but the partcompleted involves speculations of so interesting a nature,and presents such striking marks of deep and originalthought, that the Editor, to whose hands it was committed,did not feel himself justified in withholding it from thejudgment of the public.THE THEORY OF LIFE.INTRODUCTION.HEN we stand before the bust of John Hunter, or as WHENwe enter the magnificent museum furnished by hislabours, and pass slowly, with meditative observation,through this august temple, which the genius of one greatman has raised and dedicated to the wisdom and uniformworking of the Creator, we perceive at every step theguidance, we had almost said, the inspiration, of those profound ideas concerning Life, which dawn upon us, indeed,through his written works, but which he has here presentedto us in a more perfect language than that of words -thelanguage of God himself, as uttered by Nature.That the true idea of Life existed in the mind of JohnHunter I do not entertain the least doubt; but it may,perhaps, be doubted whether his incessant occupation, andhis stupendous industry in the service, both of his contemporaries and of posterity, added to his comparatively slightacquaintance with the arts and aids of logical arrangement,permitted him fully to unfold and arrange it in distinct,clear, and communicable conceptions. Assuredly, however, I may without incurring the charge of arrogance ordetraction, venture to assert that, in his writings the lightwhich occasionally flashes upon us seems at other times,and more frequently, to struggle through an unfriendly364 THE THEORY OF LIFE .medium, and even sometimes to suffer a temporary occultation. At least, in order to dissipate the undeniable obscurities, and to reconcile the apparent contradictions foundin his works, —to distinguish, in short, the numerous passages in which without, perhaps, losing sight internally ofhis own peculiar belief, he yet falls into the phraseologyand mechanical solutions of his age, -we must distinguishsuch passages from those in which the form corresponds tothe substance, and in which, therefore, the nature andessential laws of vital action are expressed, as far as hisresearches had unveiled them to his own mind, withoutdisguise. To effect this, we must, as it were, climb up onhis shoulders, and look at the same objects in a distincterform, because seen from the more commanding point ofview furnished by himself. This has, indeed, been morethan once attempted already, and, in one instance, with soevident a display of power and insight as announces in theasserter and vindicator of the Hunterian Theory a congenial intellect, and a disciple in whom Hunter himselfwould have exulted . Would that this attempt had beenmade on a larger scale, that the writer to whom I refer ¹had in consequence developed his opinions systematically,and carried them yet further back, even to their ultimateprinciple!2But this the scientific world has yet to expect; or it ismore than probable that the present humble endeavourwould have been superseded, or confined, at least, to thetask of restating the opinion of my predecessor with suchmodifications as the differences that will always exist between men who have thought independently, and each for1 Mr. Abernethy. -C.2 Abernethy died in 1831 , -three years before Coleridge. So thatColeridge's Essay was written before that date, and wilfully-as so muchelse-left unfinished.INTRODUCTION. 365himself, have never failed to introduce, even on problemsof far easier and more obvious solution.Without further preface or apology, therefore, I shallstate at once my objections to all the definitions that havehitherto been given of Life, as meaning too much or toolittle, with an exception, however, in favour of those whichmean nothing at all; and even these last must, in certaincases, receive an honour they do not merit, and be confuted,or rather detected, on account of their too general acceptance, and the incalculable power of words over the mindsof men in proportion to the remoteness of the subject fromthe cognizance of the senses.It would be equally presumptuous and unreasonableshould I, with a late writer on this subject, " exhort thereader to be particularly on his guard against loose andindefinite expressions; " but I perfectly agree with himthat they are the bane of all science, and have been remarkably injurious in the different departments of physiology.¹ Wesuspect some leaven of Gillman in the " Introduction ," —the firstparagraph is certainly his, —but this one as assuredly is not.ON THE DEFINITIONS OF LIFE HITHERTORECEIVED. HINTS TOWARDS A MORETHECOMPREHENSIVE THEORY.'HE attempts to explain the nature of Life, which havefallen within my knowledge, presuppose the arbitrarydivision of all that surrounds us into things with life, andthings without life—a division grounded on a mere assumption. At the best, it can be regarded only as a hasty deduction from the first superficial notices of the objects thatsurround us, sufficient, perhaps, for the purpose of ordinarydiscrimination, but far too indeterminate and diffluent to betaken unexamined by the philosophic inquirer. The positions of science must be tried in the jeweller's scales, ¹ notlike the mixed commodities of the market, on the weighbridge of common opinion and vulgar usage. Such, however, has been the procedure in the present instance, andthe result has been answerable to the coarseness of theprocess. By a comprisal of the petitio principii with theargumentum in circulo, —in plain English, by an easy logic,1 Coleridge probably remembered a proverbial expression among thepoets of Shakspere's day: -as, for example, in Fletcher's The Wild- Goose-Chase,-" One that weighs her words and her behavioursIn the gold-weights of discretion."THE THEORY OF LIFE . 367which begins with begging the question, and then movingin a circle, comes round to the point where it began,-each of the two divisions has been made to define theother by a mere reassertion of their assumed contrariety.The physiologist has luminously explained y plus x by informing us that it is a somewhat that is the antithesis ofY minus x; and if we ask, what then is Y-x? the answeris, the antithesis of Y+x,- a reciprocation of great service,that may remind us of the twin sisters in the fable of theLamiæ, with but one eye between them both, which eachborrowed from the other as either happened to want it;but with this additional disadvantage, that in the presentcase it is after all but an eye of glass . The definitionsthemselves will best illustrate our meaning. I will beginwith that given by Bichat. " Life is the sum of all thefunctions by which death is resisted, " in which I havein vain endeavoured to discover any other meaning thanthat life consists in being able to live. This author,with a whimsical gravity, prefaces his definition with theremark, that the nature of life has hitherto been sought forin abstract considerations; as if it were possible that fourmore inveterate abstractions could be brought together inone sentence than are here assembled in the words, life,death, function, and resistance. Similar instances might becited from Richerand and others. The word Life is translated into other more learned words; and this paraphraseof the term is substituted for the definition of the thing , andtherefore ( as is always the case in every real definition, ascontra-distinguished from a verbal definition , ) for at least apartial solution of the fact. Such as these form the firstclass. -The second class takes some one particular functionof Life common to all living objects, -nutrition, for instance; or, to adopt the phrase most in vogue at present,assimilation, for the purposes of reproduction and growth.Now this, it is evident, can be an appropriate definition368 THE THEORY OF LIFE .1 only of the very lowest species, as of a Fungus or aMollusca; and just as comprehensive an idea of the mysteryof Life, as a Mollusca might give, can this definition afford.But this is not the only objection. For, first, it is not pretended that we begin with seeking for an organ evidentlyappropriated to nutrition, and then infer that the substancein which such an organ is found lives. On the contrary,in a number of cases among the obscurer animals andvegetables we infer the organ from the pre-established factof its life . Secondly, it identifies the process itself with acertain range of its forms, those, namely, by which it ismanifested in animals and vegetables. For this, too, noless than the former, presupposes the arbitrary division ofall things into not living and lifeless, on which as I beforeobserved, all these definitions are grounded. But it issorry logic to take the proof of an affirmative in one thingas the proof of the negative in another. All animals thathave lungs breathe, but it would be a childish oversight todeduce the converse, viz . all animals that breathe havelungs. The theory in which the French chemists organized the discoveries of Black, Cavendish, Priestley, Scheele,and other English and German philosophers, is still, indeed,the reigning theory, but rather, it should seem, from theabsence of a rival sufficiently popular to fill the throne inits stead, than from the continuance of an implicit belief inits own stability. We no longer at least cherish that intensity of faith which, before Davy commenced his brilliantcareer, had not only identified it with chemistry itself, buthad substituted its nomenclature, even in common conversation, for the far more philosophic language which thehuman race had abstracted from the laboratory of Nature.¹ That is , " one of the Mollusca." The expression is as awkward assaying “ a Beetles." A naturalist would now say " a Mollusk ” or “ aMollusc. "2 This " not " would seem to be an intrusion.THE THEORY OF LIFE . 369I may venture to prophesy that no future Beddoes willmake it the corival of the mathematical sciences in demonstrative evidence. I think it a matter of doubt whether,during the period of its supposed infallibility, physiologyderived more benefit from the extension, or injury from themisdirection, of its views. Enough of the latter is freshin recollection to make it but an equivocal complimentto a physiological position, that it must stand or fall withthe corpuscular philosophy, as modified by the Frenchtheory of chemistry. Yet should it happen (and the eventis not impossible, nor the supposition altogether absurd, )that more and more decisive facts should present themselves in confirmation of the metamorphosis of elements,the position that life consists in assimilation would eithercease to be distinctive, or fall back into the former class asan identical proposition, namely, that Life, meaning by theword that sort of growth which takes place by means of apeculiar organization, consists in that sort of growth whichis peculiar to organized life. Thirdly, the definition involvesa still more egregious flaw in the reasoning, namely, thatof cum hoc, ergo propter hoc (or the assumption of causationfrom mere coexistence); and this, too, in its very worstform . For it is not cum hoc solo, ergo propter hoc, whichwould in many cases supply a presumptive proof by induction, but cum hoc, et plurimis aliis, ergo propter hoc! Shell ,of some kind or other, is common to the whole order oftestacea, but it would be absurd to define the vis vitæ oftestaceous animals as existing in the shell, though we knowit to be the constant accompaniment, and have everyreason to believe the constant effect, of the specific life thatacts in those animals. Were we (argumenti causá) toimagine shell coextensive with the organized creation, thiswould produce no abatement in the falsity of the reasoning.Nor does the flaw stop here; for a physiological, that is areal, definition, as distinguished from the verbal definitionsB B370 THE THEORY OF LIFE.of lexicography, must consist neither in any single propertyor function of the thing to be defined, nor yet in all collectively, which latter, indeed, would be a history, not a definition. It must consist, therefore, in the law of the thing, or insuch an idea of it, as, being admitted , all the properties andfunctions are admitted by implication. It must likewisebe so far causal, that a full insight having been obtained ofthe law, we derive from it a progressive insight into thenecessity and generation of the phenomena of which it is thelaw. Suppose a disease in question, whichappeared alwaysaccompanied with certain symptoms in certain stages, andwith some one or more symptoms in all stages-sayderanged digestion, capricious alternation of vivacity andlanguor, headache, dilated pupil, diminished sensibility tolight, &c.-neither the man who selected the one constantsymptom, nor he who enumerated all the symptoms, wouldgive the scientific definition talem scilicet, quali scientia fitvel datur, but the man who at once named and defined thedisease hydrocephalus, producing pressure on the brain.For it is the essence of a scientific definition to be causative, not by introduction of imaginary somewhats, naturalor supernatural, under the name of causes, but by announcing the law of action in the particular case, in subordination to the common law of which all the phenomena aremodifications or results.Now in the definition on which, as the representative of awhole class, we are now animadverting, a single effect isgiven as constituting the cause. For nutrition by digestionis certainly necessary to life, only under certain circ*mstances, but that life is previously necessary to digestion isabsolutely certain under all circ*mstances. Besides, whatother phenomenon of Life would the conception of assimilation, per se, or as it exists in the lowest order of animals,involve or explain? How, for instance, does it includesensation, locomotion, or habit? or if the two former shouldTHE THEORY OF LIFE . 371be taken as distinct from life, toto genere, and supervenientto it, we then ask what conception is given of vital assimilation as contradistinguished from that of the nucleus of acrystal?Lastly, this definition confounds the Law of Life, or theprimary and universal form of vital agency, with the conception, Animals. For the kind, it substitutes the representative of its degrees and modifications. But the firstand most important office of science, physical or physiological, is to contemplate the power in kind, abstractedfrom the degree. The ideas of caloric, whether as substanceor property, and the conceptions of latent heat, the heat inice, &c. , that excite the wonder or the laughter of the vulgar,though susceptible of the most important practical applications, are the result of this abstraction: while the onlypurpose to which a definition like the preceding couldbecome subservient, would be in supplying a nomenclaturewith the character of the most common species of a genus-its genus generalissimum, and even this would be uselessin the present instance, inasmuch as it presupposes theknowledge of the things characterised.The third class, and far superior to the two former,selects some property characteristic of all living bodies,not merely found in all animals alike, but existing equallyin all parts of all living things, both animals and plants.Such, for instance, is the definition of Life, as consistingin anti-putrescence, or the power of resisting putrefaction.Like all the others, however, even this confines the idea ofLife to those degrees or concentrations of it, which manifestthemselves in organized beings, or rather in those theorganization of which is apparent to us. Consequently, itsubstitutes an abstract term, or generalization of effects,for the idea, or superior form of causative agency. Atbest, it describes the vis vitæ by one only of its many influences. It is however, as we have said before, preferable372 THE THEORY OF LIFE .to the former, because it is not, as they are, altogetherunfruitful, inasmuch as it attests, less equivocally thanany other sign, the presence or absence of that degree ofthe vis vitæ which is the necessary condition of organic orself- renewing power. It throws no light, however, on thelaw or principle of action; it does not increase our insightinto the other phenomena; it presents to us no inclusive form,out of which the other forms may be developed, and finally,its defect as a definition may be detected by generalizing itinto a higher formula, as a power which, during its continuance, resists or subordinates heterogeneous and adversepowers. Now this holds equally true of chemical relativelyto the mechanical powers; and really affirms no more ofLife than may be equally affirmed of every form of being,namely, that it tends to preserve itself, and resists, to acertain extent, whatever is incompatible with the laws thatconstitute its particular state for the time being. For it isnot true only of the great divisions or classes into whichwe have found it expedient to distinguish, while we generalize, the powers acting in nature, as into intellectual,vital, chemical, mechanical; but it holds equally true ofthe degrees, or species of each of these genera relatively toeach other as in the decomposition of the alkalies by heat,or the galvanic spark. Like the combining power of Life,the copula here resists for awhile the attempts to dissolveit, and then yields, to reappear in new phenomena.It is a wonderful property of the human mind, that whenonce a momentum has been given to it in a fresh direction,it pursues the new path with obstinate perseverance, in allconceivable bearings, to its utmost extremes. And by thestartling consequences which arise out of these extremes,it is first awakened to its error, and either recalled to someformer track, or receives some fresh impulse, which itfollows with the same eagerness, and admits to the samemonopoly. Thus in the 13th century the first scienceTHE THEORY OF LIFE. 373which roused the intellects of men from the torpor ofbarbarism, was, as in all countries ever has been, and evermust be the case, the science of Metaphysics and Ontology.We first seek what can be found at home, and what wonderif truths, that appeared to reveal the secret depths of ourown souls, should take possession of the whole mind, andall truths appear trivial which could not either be evolvedout of similar principles, by the same process, or at leastbrought under the same forms of thought, by perceived or imagined analogies? And so it was. For more than acentury men continued to invoke the oracle of their ownspirits, not only concerning its own forms and modes ofbeing, but likewise concerning the laws of external nature.All attempts at philosophical explication were commencedby a mere effort of the understanding, as the power ofabstraction; or by the imagination, transferring its ownexperiences to every object presented from without. Bythe former, a class of phenomena were in the first placeabstracted, and fixed in some general term: of course thiscould designate only the impressions made by the outwardobjects, and so far, therefore, having been thus metamorphosed, they were effects of these objects; but thenmade to supply the place of their own causes, under thename of occult qualities . Thus the properties peculiar togold, were abstracted from those it possessed in commonwith other bodies, and then generalized in the term Aureity:and the inquirer was instructed that the Essence of Gold,or the cause which constituted the peculiar modification ofmatter called gold, was the power of aureity. By thelatter, i.e. by the imagination, thought and will weresuperadded to the occult quality, and every form of naturehad its appropriate Spirit, to be controlled or conciliatedby an appropriate ceremonial. This was entitled its SUBSTANTIAL FORM. Thus, physic became a sort of dull poetry,and the art of medicine (for physiology could scarcely be374 THE THEORY OF LIFE.said to exist) was a system of magic, blended with traditional empiricism. Thus the forms of thought proceededto act in their own emptiness, with no attempt to fill orsubstantiate them by the information of the senses, andall the branches of science formed so many sections of logicand metaphysics. And so it continued, even to the timethat the Reformation sounded the second trumpet, and theauthority of the schools sank with that of the hierarchy,under the intellectual courage and activity which this greatrevolution had inspired . Power, once awakened, cannotrest in one object. All the sciences partook of the newinfluences. The world of experimental philosophy wassoon mapped out for posterity by the comprehensive andenterprising genius of Bacon, and the laws explained bywhich experiment could be dignified into experience.¹ Butno sooner was the impulse given, than the same propensitywas made manifest of looking at all things in the one pointof view which chanced to be of predominant attraction.Our Gilbert, a man of genuine philosophical genius, had nosooner multiplied the facts of magnetism, and extended ourknowledge concerning the property of magnetic bodies, butall things in heaven, and earth, and in the waters beneaththe earth, were resolved into magnetic influences.Shortly after a new light was struck by Harriott andDescartes, with their contemporaries, or immediate predecessors, and the restoration of ancient geometry, aided bythe modern invention of algebra, placed the science ofmechanism on the philosophic throne. How widely thisdomination spread, and how long it continued, if, indeed,even now it can be said to have abdicated its pretensions,the reader need not be reminded . The sublime discoveriesof Newton, and, together with these, his not less fruitful1 Experiment, as an organ of reason, not less distinguished from theblind or dreaming industry of the alchemists, than it was successfullyopposed to the barren subleties of the schoolmen. -C.THE THEORY OF LIFE . 375than wonderful application of the higher mathesis to themovements of the celestial bodies, and to the laws oflight, gave almost a religious sanction to the corpuscularsystem and mechanical theory. It became synonymouswith philosophy itself. It was the sole portal at whichtruth was permitted to enter. The human body was treatedof as an hydraulic machine, the operations of medicine weresolved, and alas! even directed, by reference partly togravitation and the laws of motion, and partly by chemistry,which itself, however, as far as its theory was concerned,was but a branch of mechanics working exclusively byimaginary wedges, angles, and spheres. Should the readerchance to put his hand on the ' Principles of Philosophy,'by La Forge, an immediate disciple of Descartes, he maysee the phenomena of sleep solved in a copper-plate engraving, with all the figures into which the globules of theblood shaped themselves, and the results demonstrated bymathematical calculations. In short, from the time ofKepler¹ to that of Newton, and from Newton to Hartley, notonly all things in external nature, but the subtlest mysteriesof life and organization, and even of the intellect and moralbeing, were conjured within the magic circle of mathematical formulæ. And now a new light was struck by thediscovery of electricity, and, in every sense of the word,both playful and serious, both for good and for evil, it maybe affirmed to have electrified the whole frame of naturalphilosophy. Close on its heels followed the momentousdiscovery of the principal gases by Scheele and Priestley,the composition of water by Cavendish, and the doctrine oflatent heat by Black. The scientific world was preparedfor a new dynasty; accordingly, as soon as Lavoisier hadreduced the infinite variety of chemical phenomena to theactions, reactions, and interchanges of a few elementary1 Whose own mind, however, was not comprehended in the vortex;where Kepler erred it was in the other extreme. -C.376 THE THEORY OF LIFE.substances, or at least excited the expectation that thiswould speedily be effected, the hope shot up, almost instantly,into full faith, that it had been effected . Henceforwardthe new path, thus brilliantly opened, became the commonroad to all departments of knowledge: and, to this moment,it has been pursued with an eagerness and almost epidemicenthusiasm which, scarcely less than its political revolutions, characterise the spirit of the age. Many and inauspicious have been the invasions and inroads of this newconqueror into the rightful territories of other sciences;and strange alterations have been made in less harmlesspoints than those of terminology, in homage to an artunsettled, in the very ferment of imperfect discoveries, andeither without a theory, or with a theory maintained onlyby composition and compromise. Yet this very circ*mstance has favoured its encroachments, bythe gratificationswhich its novelty affords to our curiosity, and by the keenerinterest and higher excitement which an unsettled andrevolutionary state is sure to inspire. He who supposesthat science possesses an immunity from such influencesknows little of human nature. How, otherwise, could menof strong minds and sound judgments have attempted topenetrate by the clue of chemical experiment the secretrecesses, the sacred adyta of organic life, without beingaware that chemistry must needs be at its extreme limits,when it has approached the threshold of a higher power?Its own transgressions, however, and the failure of its enterprises, will become the means of defining its absoluteboundary, and we shall have to guard against the oppositeerror of rejecting its aid altogether as analogy, because wehave repelled its ambitious claims to an identity with thevital powers.Previously to the submitting my own ideas on the subject of life, and the powers into which it resolves itself, orTHE THEORY OF LIFE. 377rather in which it is manifested to us, I have hazarded thisapparent digression, from the anxiety to preclude certainsuspicions, which the subject itself is so fitted to awaken,and while I anticipate the charges, to plead in answer toeach a full and unequivocal-not guilty!In the first place, therefore, I distinctly disclaim allintention of explaining life into an occult quality; andretort the charge on those who can satisfy themselves withdefining it as the peculiar power by which death is resisted .Secondly. Convinced-by revelation, by the consentingauthority of all countries, and of all ages, by the imperative voice of my own conscience, and by that wide chasmbetween man and the noblest animals of the brute creation,which no perceivable or conceivable difference of organization is sufficient to overbridge, —that I have a rational andresponsible soul, I think far too reverentially of the same todegrade it into an hypothesis, and cannot be blind to thecontradiction I must incur, if I assign that soul which Ibelieve to constitute the peculiar nature of man as the causeof functions and properties, which man possesses iu commonwith the oyster and the mushroom.¹Thirdly, while I disclaim the error of Stahl in derivingthe phenomena of life from the unconscious actions ofthe rational soul, I repel with still greater earnestnessthe assertion and even the supposition that the functionsare the offspring of the structure, and " Life ' the result of1 But still less would I avail myself of its acknowledged inappropriateness to the purposes of physiology, in order to cast a self- compla- cent sneer on the soul itself, and on all who believe in its existence .First, because in my opinion it would be impertinent; secondly, becauseit would be imprudent and injurious to the character of my profession;and, lastly, because it would argue an irreverence to the feelings of mankind, which I deem scarcely compatible with a good heart, and a degree of arrogance and presumption which I have never found, except in company with a corrupt taste and a shallow capacity.-C.2 Vide Lawrence's Lecture. -C.378 THE THEORY OF LIFE .organization," connected with it as effect with cause. Nay,the position seems to me little less strange, than as ifa manshould say, that building with all the included handicraft,of plastering, sawing, planing, &c. , were the offspring ofthe house; and that the mason and carpenter were theresult of a suite of chambers, with the passages and staircases that lead to them. To make a the offspring of B,when the very existence of B as в presupposes the existenceof A, is preposterous in the literal sense of the word, and aconsummate instance of the hysteron proteron in logic. Butif I reject the organ as the cause of that, of which it is theorgan, though I might admit it among the conditions of itsactual functions; for the same reason, I must reject fluidsand ethers of all kinds, magnetical, electrical, and universal,to whatever quintessential thinness they may be treble distilled, and (as it were) super- substantiated. With these, Iabjure likewise all chemical agencies, compositions, and decompositions, were it only that as stimulants they supposea stimulability sui generis, which is but another paraphrasefor life. Or if they are themselves at once both the excitant and the excitability, I miss the connecting linkbetween this imaginary ether and the visible body, whichthen becomes no otherwise distinguished from inanimatematter, than by its juxtaposition in mere space, with anheterogeneous inmate, the cycle of whose actions revolveswithin itself. Besides which I should think that I wasconfounding metaphors and realities most absurdly, if Iimagined that I had a greater insight into the meaning andpossibility of a living alcohol, than of a living quicksilver.In short, visible SURFACE and power of any kind, much morethe power of life, are ideas which the very forms of thehuman understanding make it impossible to identify. Butwhether the powers which manifest themselves to us undercertain conditions in the forms of electricity, or chemicalattraction, have any analogy to the power which manifestsTHE THEORY OF LIFE . 379

itself in growth and organization, is altogether a differentquestion, and demands altogether a different chain ofreasoning if it be indeed a tree of knowledge, it will beknown by its fruits, and these will depend not on the mereassertion, but on the inductions by which the position issupported, and by the additions which it makes to ourinsight into the nature of the facts it is meant to illustrate.To account for Life is one thing; to explain Life another.In the first we are supposed to state something prior (ifnot in time, yet in the order of Nature, ) to the thingaccounted for, as the ground or cause of that thing, or(which comprises the meaning and force of both words) asits sufficient cause, quæ et facit, et subest. And to this , inthe question of Life, I know no possible answer, but GOD.To account for a thing is to see into the principle of itspossibility, and from that principle to evolve its being. Thusthe mathematician demonstrates the truths of geometry byconstructing them. It is an admirable remark of Joh.Bapt. a Vico, in a Tract published at Naples, 1710,1 " Geometrica ideò demonstramus, quia facimus; physica si demonstrare possimus, faceremus. Metaphysici veri claritas eademac lucis, quam non nisi per opaca cognoscimus; nam nonlucem sed lucidas res videmus. Physica sunt opaca, nempeformata et finita, in quibus Metaphysici veri lumenvidemus. "The reasoner who assigns structure or organization as theantecedent of Life, who names the former a cause, and thelatter its effect, he it is who pretends to account for life.Now Euclid would, with great right, demand of such a philosopher to make Life; in the same sense, I mean, in whichEuclid makes an Icosaedron, or a figure of twenty sides,namely, in the understanding or by an intellectual con1 Joh. Bapt: a Vico, Neapol. Reg. eloq. Professor, de antiquissimaItalorum sapientia ex lingua Latina originibus eruendâ: libri tres.Neap. , 1710.-C.380 THE THEORY OF LIFE .struction: —an argument which, of itself, is sufficient toprove the untenable nature of Materialism .To explain a power, on the other hand, is (the poweritself being assumed, though not comprehended, ut quidatur, nonintelligitur, ) to unfold or spread it out: ex implicitoplanum facere. In the present instance, such an explanation would consist in the reduction of the idea of Lifeto its simplest and most comprehensive form or mode ofaction; that is, to some characteristic instinct or tendency,evident in all its manifestations, and involved in the ideaitself. This assumed as existing in kind, it will be requiredto present an ascending series of corresponding phenomenaas involved in, proceeding from, and so far therefore explained by, the supposition of its progressive intensity andof the gradual enlargement of its sphere, the necessity ofwhich again must be contained in the idea of the tendencyitself. In other words, the tendency having been given inkind, it is required to render the phenomena intelligible asits different degrees and modifications. Still more perfectwill the explanation be, should the necessity of this progression and of these ascending gradations be contained inthe assumed idea of life, as thus defined by the generalform and common purport of all its various tendencies.This done, we have only to add the conditions common toall its phenomena, and those appropriate to each place andrank, in the scale of ascent, and then proceed to determinethe primary and constitutive forms, i . e. the elementarypowers in which this tendency realizes itself under differentdegrees and conditions.¹The object I have proposed to myself, and wherein its distinctionexists, may be thus illustrated. A complex machine is presented to the common view, the moving power of which is hidden. Of those who arestudying and examining it , one man fixes his attention on some oneapplication of that power, on certain effects produced by that particularapplication, and on a certain part of the structure evidently appropriatedTHE THEORY OF LIFE . 381What is Life? Were such a question proposed , we shouldbe tempted to answer, what is not Life that really is? Ourreason convinces us that the quantities of things, takenabstractedly as quantity, exist only in the relations theybear to the percipient; in plainer words, they exist only inour minds, ut quorum esse est percipi . For if the definitequantities have a ground, and therefore a reality, in theexternal world, and independent of the mind that perceivesthem, this ground is ipso facto a quality; the very etymonof this world showing that a quality, not taken in its ownnature but in relation to another thing, is to be definedcausa sufficiens, entia, de quibus loquimur; esse talia, qualia sunt.Either the quantities perceived exist only in the perception,or they have likewise a real existence. In the former caseto the production of these effects, neither the one or other of which hehad discovered in a neighbouring machine , which he at the same timeasserts to be quite distinct from the former, and to be moved by a poweraltogether different, though many of the works and operations are, he admits, common to both machines. In this supposed peculiarity heplaces the essential character of the former machine, and defines it bythe presence of that which is, or which he supposes to be, absent in the latter. Supposing that a stranger to both were about to visit the twomachines, this peculiarity would be so far useful as that it might enablehim to distinguish the one from the other, and thus to look in the properplace for whatever else he had heard remarkable concerning either; notthat he or his informant would understand the machine any better orotherwise, than the common character of a whole class in the nomenclature of botany would enable a person to understand all, or any one ofthe plants contained in that class. But if, on the other hand, the machinein question were such as no man was a stranger to, if even the supposedpeculiarity, either by its effects, or by the construction of that portion ofthe works which produced them, were equally well known to all men, inthis case we can conceive no use at all of such a definition; for at thebest it could only be admitted as a definition for the purposes of nonienclature, which never adds to knowledge, although it may often facilitateits communication. But in this instance it would be nomenclature misplaced, and without an object. Such appears to me to be the case withall those definitions which place the essence of Life in nutrition, con-382 THE THEORY OF LIFE.the quality (the word is here used in an active sense) thatdetermines them belongs to Life, per ipsam hypothesin; andin the other case, since by the agreement of all parties Lifemay exist in other forms than those of consciousness, oreven of sensibility, the onus probandi falls on those whoassert of any quality that it is not Life. For the analogy ofall that we know is clearly in favour of the contrary supposition, and if a man would analyse the meaning of hisown words, and carefully distinguish his perceptions andsensations from the external cause exciting them, and atthe same time from the quantity or superficies under whichthat cause is acting, he would instantly find himself, if wetractility, &c. As the second instance, I will take the inventor and maker of the machine himself, who knows its moving power, or perhapshimself constitutes it, who is , as it were, the soul of the work, and inwhose mind all its parts, with all their bearings and relations, had preexisted long before the machine itself had been put together. In him therefore there would reside, what it would be presumption to attempt toacquire, or to pretend to communicate, the most perfect insight not onlyofthe machine itself, and of all its various operations, but of its ultimateprinciple and its essential causes. The mysterious ground, the efficientcauses of vitality, and whether different lives differ absolutely or onlyin degree, He alone can know who not only said, " Let the earth bringforth the living creature, the beast of the earth after his kind, and it wasso; " but who said, “ Let us make man in our image,” who himself"breathed into his nostrils the breath of Life, and man became a livingsoul. "The third case which I would apply to my own attempt would be thatof the inquirer, who, presuming to know nothing of the power thatmoves the whole machine, takes those parts of it which are presented tohis view, seeks to reduce its various movements to as few and simple lawsof motion as possible, and out of their separate and conjoint action proceeds to explain and appropriate the structure and relative positions of the works. In obedience to the canon, -" Principia non esse multiplicanda præter summam necessitatem cui suffragamur non ideo quia causalem in mundo unitatem vel ratione vel experientiâ perspiciamus,sed illam ipsam indagamus impulsu intellectûs, qui tantundem sibi inexplicatione phænomenorum profecisse videtur quantum ab eodem principio ad plurima rationata descendere ipsi concessum est. ”—C.THE THEORY OF LIFE . 383mistake not, involuntarily identifying the ideas of Qualityand Life. Life, it is admitted on all hands, does not necessarily imply consciousness or sensibility; and we, for ourparts, cannot see that the irritability which metals manifestto galvanism, can be more remote from that which may besupposed to exist in the tribe of lichens, or in the helvellæ,pezizee, &c. , than the latter is from the phenomena of excitability in the human body, whatever name it may be calledby, or in whatever way it may modify itself. That themere act of growth does not constitute the idea of Life, orthe absence of that act exclude it, we have a proof in every eggbefore it is placed under the hen, and in every grain of cornbefore it is put into the soil. All that could be deduced byfair reasoning would amount to this only, that the life ofmetals, as the power which effects and determines theircomparative cohesion, ductility, &c. , was yet lower on thescale than the Life which produces the first attempts oforganization, in the almost shapeless tremella, or in suchfungi as grow in the dark recesses of the mine.If it were asked, to what purpose or with what view weshould generalize the idea of Life thus broadly, I shouldnot hesitate to reply that, were there no other use conceivable, there would be some advantage in merely destroyingan arbitrary assumption in natural philosophy, and inreminding the physiologists that they could not hear thelife of metals asserted with a more contemptuous surprisethan they themselves incur from the vulgar, when theyspeak of the Life in mould or mucor. But this is not theThis wider view not only precludes a groundlessassumption, it likewise fills up the arbitrary chasm betweenphysics and physiology, and justifies us in using the formeras means of insight into the latter, which would be contrarycase.1 The arborescent forms on a frosty morning, to be seen on the windowand pavement, must have some relation to the more perfect formsdeveloped in the vegetable world. -C.384 THE THEORY OF LIFE.to all sound rules of ratiocination if the powers working inthe objects of the two sciences were absolutely and essentially diverse. For as to abstract the idea of kind from thatof degrees, which are alone designated in the language ofcommon use, is the first and indispensable step in philosophy, so are we the better enabled to form a notion of thekind, the lower the degree and the simpler the form is inwhich it appears to us. We study the complex in thesimple; and only from the intuition of the lower can wesafely proceed to the intellection of the higher degrees.The only danger lies in the leaping from low to high, withthe neglect of the intervening gradations. But the sameerror would introduce discord into the gamut, et ab abusucontra usum non valet consequentia.. That these degrees willthemselves bring forth secondary kinds sufficiently distinctfor all the purposes of science, and even for common sense,will be seen in the course of this inquisition: for this is oneproof of the essential vitality of nature, that she does notascend as links in a suspended chain, but as the steps in aladder; or rather she at one and the same time ascends asby a climax, and expands as the concentric circles on thelake from the point to which the stone in its fall had giventhe first impulse. At all events, a contemptuous rejectionof this mode of reasoning would come with an ill gracefrom a medical philosopher, who cannot combine any threephenomena of health or of disease without the assumptionof powers, which he is compelled to deduce without beingable to demonstrate; nay, even of material substances asthe vehicles of these powers, which he can never expect toexhibit before the senses.From the preceding it should appear, that the most comprehensive formula to which life is reducible, would be thatof the internal copula of bodies, or (if we may venture toborrow a phrase from the Platonic school) the power whichdiscloses itself from within as a principle of unity in theTHE THEORY OF LIFE. 385many. But that there is a physiognomy in words, which,without reference to their fitness or necessity, make unfavourable as well as favourable impressions, and that everyunusual term in an abstruse research incurs the risk ofbeing denominated jargon, I should at the same time haveborrowed a scholastic term , and defined life absolutely, asthe principle of unity in multeity, as far as the former, theunity to wit, is produced ab intra; but eminently (sensueminenti) , I define life as the principle of individuation, or the power which unites a given all into a whole that is presupposed by all its parts. The link that combines the two,and acts throughout both, will, of course, be defined by thetendency to individuation . Thus, from its utmost latency, inwhich life is one with the elementary powers of mechanism,that is, with the powers of mechanism considered as qualitative and actually synthetic, to its highest manifestation, (inwhich, as the vis vitæ vivida, or life as life, it subordinatesand modifies these powers, becoming contra-distinguishedfrom mechanism, ' ab extra, under the form of organization, )there is an ascending series of intermediate classes , and ofanalogous gradations in each class . To a reflecting mind,indeed, the very fact that the powers peculiar to life inliving animals include cohesion, elasticity, &c. (or, in thewords of a late publication, " that living matter exhibitsthese physical properties," " would demonstrate that, in the1 Thus we may say that whatever is organized from without, is aproduct of mechanism; whatever is mechanized from within, is a production of organization. -C.2 " The matter that surrounds us is divided into two great classes,living and dead; the latter is governed by physical laws, such as attraction, gravitation, chemical affinity; and it exhibits physical properties,such as cohesion, elasticity, divisibility, &c. Living matter also exhibitsthese properties, and is subject, in great measure, to physical laws. But living bodies are endowed moreover with a set of properties altogether different from these, and contrasting with them very remarkably. "(Vide Lawrence's Lectures, p. 121 . ) -C.сс386 THE THEORY OF LIFE.truth of things, they are hom*ogeneous, and that both theclasses are but degrees and different dignities of one andthe same tendency. For the latter are not subjected tothe former as a lever or walking- stick to the muscles;the more intense the life is, the less does elasticity, forinstance, appear as elasticity. It sinks down into thenearest approach to its physical form by a series of degreesfrom the contraction and elongation of the irritable muscleto the physical hardness of the insensitive nail. Thelower powers are assimilated, not merely employed, andassimilation presupposes the hom*ogeneous nature of thething assimilated; else it is a miracle, only not the sameas that of a creation, because it would imply that additionaland equal miracle of annihilation. In short, all the impossibilities which the acutest of the reformed Divineshave detected in the hypothesis of transubstantiation wouldapply, totidem verbis et syllabis, to that of assimilation, ifthe objects and the agents were really heterogeneous.Unless, therefore, a thing can exhibit properties which donot belong to it, the very admission that living matterexhibits physical properties, includes the further admission,that those physical or dead properties are themselves vitalin essence, really distinct but in appearance only different;or in absolute contrast with each other.In all cases that which, abstractly taken, is the definitionof the kind, will, when applied absolutely, or in its fullestsense, be the definition of the highest degree of that kind.If life, in general, be defined vis ab intra, cujus proprium estcoadunare plura in rem unicam, quantùm est res unica, theunity will be more intense in proportion as it constituteseach particular thing a whole of itself; and yet more, again,in proportion to the number and interdependence of theparts, which it unites as a whole. But a whole composed,ab intra, of different parts, so far interdependent that eachis reciprocally means and end, is an individual, and theTHE THEORY OF LIFE. 387individuality is most intense where the greatest dependenceof the parts on the whole is combined with the greatestdependence of the whole on its parts; the first (namely,the dependence of the parts on the whole) being absolute;the second (namely, the dependence of the whole on itsparts) being proportional to the importance of the relationwhich the parts have to the whole, that is, as their actionextends more or less beyond themselves. For this spiritof the whole is most expressed in that part which derivesits importance as an End from its importance as a Mean,relatively to all the parts under the same copula.Finally, of individuals, the living power will be most intense in that individual which, as a whole, has the greatestnumber of integral parts, presupposed in it; when, moreover, these integral parts, together with a proportional increase of their interdependence, as parts, have themselvesmost the character of wholes in the sphere occupied bythem. A mathematical point, line, or surface, is an ensrationis, for it expresses an intellectual act; but a physicalatom is ens fictitium, which may be made subservient, asciphers are in arithmetic, to the purposes of hypotheticalconstruction, per regulam falsi; but transferred to Nature,it is in the strictest sense an absurd quantity; for extension,and consequently divisibility, or multeity, ' ( for space cannotbe divided, ) is the indispensable condition, under whichalone anything can appear to us, or even be thought of, as athing. But if it should be replied, that the elementaryparticles are atoms not positively, but by such a hardness¹ Much against my will I repeat this scholastic term, multeity, but Ihave sought in vain for an unequivocal word of a less repulsive character, that would convey the notion in a positive and not comparativesense in kind , as opposed to the unum et simplex, not in degree, as contrasted with the few. We can conceive no reason that can be adduced injustification of the word caloric, as invented to distinguish the externalcause of the sensation heat, which would not equally authorise the introduction of a technical term in this instance. -C. See p. 17.388 THE THEORY OF LIFE .communicated to them as is relatively invincible, I shouldremind the assertor that temeraria citatio supernaturaliumest pulvinar intellectûs pigri, and that he who requires meto believe a miracle of his own dreaming, must first work amiracle to convince me that he had dreamt by inspiration .Add, too, the gross inconsistency of resorting to an immaterial influence in order to complete a system of materialism, by the exclusion of all modes of existence which thetheorist cannot in imagination, at least, finger and peep at!Each of the preceding gradations, as above defined, mightbe represented as they exist, and are realised in Nature.But each would require a work for itself, co- extensive withthe science of metals, and that of fossils (both as geologically applied); of crystallization; and of vegetable andanimal physiology, in all its distinct branches. The natureof the present essay scarcely permits the space sufficient toillustrate our meaning. The proof of its probability (forto that only can we arrive by so partial an application ofthe hypothesis) is to be found in its powers of solving theparticular class of phenomena, that form the subjects of thepresent inquisition, more satisfactorily and profitably thanhas been done, or even attempted before.Exclusively, therefore, for the purposes of illustration , Iwould take as an instance of the first step, the metals,those, namely, that are capable of permanent reduction.For, by the established laws of nomenclature, the others(as sodium, potassium, calcium, silicium, &c. ) would beentitled to a class of their own, under the name of bases.It is long since the chemists have despaired of decomposingthis class of bodies. They still remain, one and all, aselements or simple bodies, though, on the principles of thecorpuscularian philosophy, nothing can be more improbablethan that they really are such; and no reason has or canbe assigned on the grounds of that system, why, in no oneinstance, the contrary has not been proved. But this is atTHE THEORY OF LIFE. 389once explained, if we assume them as the simplest form ofunity, namely, the unity of powers and properties. For these,it is evident, may be endlessly modified, but can never bedecomposed. If I were asked by a philosopher who hadpreviously extended the attribute of Life to the Byssusspeciosa, and even to the crustaceous matter, or outward bonesof a lobster, &c. , whether the ingot of gold expressed life, Ishould answer without hesitation, as the ingot of goldassuredly not, for its form is accidental and ab extra. Itmay be added to or detracted from without in the leastaffecting the nature, state, or properties in the specificmatter of which the ingot consists. But as gold, as thatspecial union of absolute and of relative gravity, ductility ,and hardness, which, wherever they are found, constitutegold, I should answer no less fearlessly, in the affirmative.But I should further add, that of the two counteractingtendencies of nature, namely, that of detachment from theuniversal life, which universality is represented to us bygravitation, and that of attachment or reduction into it, thisand the other noble metals represented the units in whichthe latter tendency, namely, that of identity with the life ofnature, subsisted in the greatest overbalance over the former.It is the form of unity with the least degree of tendency toindividuation.Rising in the ascent, I should take, as illustrative of thesecond step, the various forms of crystals as a union, notof powers only, but of parts, and as the simplest forms ofcomposition in the next narrowest sphere of affinity. Herethe form, or apparent quantity, is manifestly the result ofthe quality, and the chemist himself not seldom admitsthem as infallible characters of the substances united in thewhole of a given crystal.In the first step, we had Life, as the mere unity ofpowers; in the second we have the simplest forms of totalityevolved. The third step is presented to us in those vast390 THE THEORY OF LIFE .formations, the tracing of which generically would formthe science of Geology, or its history in the strict sense ofthe word, even as their description and diagnostics constitute its preliminaries.Their claim to this rank I cannot here even attempt tosupport. It will be sufficient to explain my reason forhaving assigned it to them, by the avowal, that I regardthem in a twofold point of view: 1st, as the residue andproduct of vegetable and animal life; 2d, as manifestingthe tendencies of the Life of Nature to vegetation oranimalization. And this process I believe-in one instanceby the peat morasses of the northern, and in the other instance by the coral banks of the southern hemisphere-tobe still connected with the present order of vegetable andanimal Life, which constitute the fourth and last step inthese wide and comprehensive divisions.In the lowest forms of the vegetable and animal worldwe perceive totality dawning into individuation, while inman, as the highest of the class, the individuality is notonly perfected in its corporeal sense, but begins a newseries beyond the appropriate limits of physiology. Thetendency to individuation, more or less obscure, more orless obvious, constitutes the common character of all classes ,as far as they maintain for themselves a distinction fromthe universal life of the planet; while the degrees, both ofintensity and extension, to which this tendency is realized,form the species, and their ranks in the great scale of ascentand expansion.In the treatment of a subject so vast and complex, withinthe limits prescribed for an essay like the present, where itis impossible not to say either too much or too little ( andtoo much because too little) , an author is entitled to makelarge claims on the candour of his judges. Many thingshe must express inaccurately, not from ignorance or oversight, but because the more precise expression would haveTHE THEORY OF LIFE. 391involved the necessity of a further explanation, and thisanother, even to the first elements of the science. This isan inconvenience which presses on the analytic method, onhowever large a scale it may be conducted, compared withthe synthetic; and it must bear with a tenfold weight inthe present instance, where we are not permitted to availourselves of its usual advantages as a counterbalance to itsinherent defects. I shall have done all that I dared propose to myself, or that can be justly demanded of me byothers, if I have succeeded in conveying a sufficiently clear,though indistinct and inadequate notion, so as of its manyresults to render intelligible that one which I am to applyto my particular subject, not as a truth already demonstrated, but as an hypothesis, which pretends to no highermerit than that of explaining the particular class of phenomena to which it is applied, and asks no other reward thana presumption in favour of the general system of which itaffirms itself to be a dependent though integral part. ByLife I everywhere mean the true Idea of Life, or that mostgeneral form under which Life manifests itself to us, whichincludes all its other forms . This I have stated to be thetendency to individuation, and the degrees or intensities ofLife to consist in the progressive realization of this tendency. The power which is acknowledged to exist, wherever the realization is found, must subsist wherever thetendency is manifested . The power which comes forth andstirs abroad in the bird, must be latent in the egg. Ihaveshown, moreover, that this tendency to individuate cannotbe conceived without the opposite tendency to connect, evenas the centrifugal power supposes the centripetal, or as thetwo opposite poles constitute each other, and are the constituent acts of one and the same power in the magnet.We might say that the life of the magnet subsists in theirunion, but that it lives (acts or manifests itself) in theirstrife. Again, if the tendency be at once to individuate392 THE THEORY OF LIFE.and to connect, to detach, but so as either to retain or toreproduce attachment, the individuation itself must be atendency to the ultimate production of the highest andmost comprehensive individuality. This must be the onegreat end of Nature, her ultimate object, or by whateverother word we may designate that something which bearsto a final cause the same relation that Nature herself bearsto the Supreme Intelligence.According to the plan I have prescribed for this inquisition, we are now to seek for the highest law, or mostgeneral form, under which this tendency acts, and then topursue the same process with this, as we have already donewith the tendency itself, namely, having stated the law inits highest abstraction, to present it in the different formsin which it appears and reappears in higher and higherdignities . I restate the question. The tendency havingbeen ascertained, what is its most general law? I answer-polarity, or the essential dualism of Nature, arising outof its productive unity, and still tending to reaffirm it,either as equilibrium, indifference, or identity. In its productive power, of which the product is the only measure,consists its incompatibility with mathematical calculus.For the full applicability of an abstract science ceases, themoment reality begins.¹ Life, then, we consider as the1 For abstractions are the conditions and only subject of all abstractsciences. Thus the theorist (vide Dalton's Theory) , who reduces thechemical process to the positions of atoms, would doubtless therebyrender chemistry calculable, but that he commences by destroying thechemical process itself, and substitutes for it a mote dance of abstractions; for even the powers which he appears to leave real , those of attraction and repulsion, he immediately unrealizes by representing them asdiverse and separable properties. We can abstract the quantities andthe quantitative motion from masses, passing over or leaving for othersciences the question of what constitutes the masses, and thus apply notto the masses themselves, but to the abstractions therefrom, —the lawsTHE THEORY OF LIFE. 393copula, or the unity of thesis and antithesis, position andcounterposition, -Life itself being the positive of both; as,on the other hand, the two counterpoints are the necessaryconditions of the manifestations of Life. These, by the samenecessity, unite in a synthesis; which again, by the law ofdualism, essential to all actual existence, expands, or producesitself, from the point into the line, in order again to converge,as the initiation of the same productive process in someintenser form of reality. Thus, in the identity of the twocounter- powers, Life subsists; in their strife it consists: andin their reconciliation it at once dies and is born again intoa new form, either falling back into the life of the whole,or starting anew in the process of individuation.Whence shall we take our beginning? From Space,istud litigium philosophorum, which leaves the mind equallydissatisfied, whether we deny or assert its real existence.To make it wholly ideal, would be at the same time toidealize all phenomena, and to undermine the very conception of an external world. To make it real, would be toassert the existence of something, with the properties ofof geometry and universal arithmetic. And where the quantities arethe infallible signs of real powers, and our chief concern with the massesis as SIGNS, sciences may be founded thereon of the highest use anddignity. Such, for instance, is the sublime science of astronomy, havingfor its objects the vast masses which “ God placed in the firmament ofthe heaven to be for signs and for seasons, for days and years. " Forthe whole doctrine of physics may be reduced to three great divisions:First, quantitative motion, which is proportioned to the quantity ofmatter exclusively. This is the science of weight or statics. Secondly,relative motion as communicated to bodies externally by impact. Thisis the science of mechanics. Thirdly, qualitative motion, or that whichis accordant to properties of matter. And this is chemistry. Now it isevident that the first two sciences presuppose that which forms theexclusive object of the third, namely, quality; for all quantity in nature iseither itself derived, or at least derives its powers from some quality, asthat of weight, specific cohesion , hardness, &c.; and therefore the attemptto reduce to the distances or impacts of atoms, under the assumptions of394 THE THEORY OF LIFE.nothing. It would far transcend the height to which aphysiologist must confine his flights, should we attempt toreconcile this apparent contradiction . It is the duty andthe privilege of the theologian to demonstrate, that space isthe ideal organ by which the soul of man perceives theomnipresence of the Supreme Reality, as distinct from theworks, which in him move, and live, and have their being;while the equal mystery of Time bears the same relation tohis Eternity, or what is fully equivalent, his Unity.Physiologically contemplated, Nature begins, proceeds,and ends in contradiction; for the moment of absolutesolution would be that in which Nature would cease to beNature, i.e. a scheme of ever- varying relations; and physiology, in the ambitious attempt to solve phenomena intoabsolute realities, would itself become a mere web of verbalabstractions .But it is in strict connexion with our subject, that weshould make the universal FORMS as well as the not lessuniversal LAW of Life, clear and intelligible in the exampletwo powers, which are themselves declared to be no more than meregeneral terms for those quantities of motion and impact ( the atom itselfbeing a fiction formed by abstraction, and in truth a third occult qualityfor the purpose of explaining hardness and density ), amounts to anattempt to destroy chemistry itself, and at the same time to exclude thesole reality and only positive contents of the very science into whichthat of chemistry is to be degraded. Now what qualities are to chemistry,productiveness is to the science of Life; and this being excluded, physiology or zoonomy would sink into chemistry, chemistry by the sameprocess into mechanics, while mechanics themselves would lose the substantial principle, which, bending the lower extreme towards its apex,produces the organic circle of the sciences, and elevates them all into different arcs or stations of the one absolute science of Life.This explanation , which in appearance only is a digression, was indispensably requisite to prevent the idea of polarity, which has been givenas the universal law of Life, from being misunderstood as a mere refinement on those mechanical systems of physiology, which it has been mymain object to explode. -C.THE THEORY OF LIFE. 395of Time and Space, these being both the first specificationof the principle, and ever after its indispensable symbols .First, a single act of self- inquiry will show the impossibility of distinctly conceiving the one without some involution of the other; either time expressed in space, in theform of the mathematical line, or space within time, as inthe circle. But to form the first conception of a real thing,we state both as one in the idea, duration. The formula is:A=B +B=A=A=A, or the oneness of space and time, is thepredicate of all real being.But as little can we conceive the oneness , except as themid-point producing itself on each side; that is , manifesting itself on two opposite poles. Thus, from identity wederive duality, and from both together we obtain polarity,synthesis, indifference, predominance. The line is TimeSpace, under the predominance of Time: Surface isSpace +Time, under the predominance of Space, while Line+ Surface as the synthesis of units, is the circle in the firstdignity; to the sphere in the second; and to the globe inthe third. In short, neither can the antagonists appear butas two forces of one power, nor can the power be conceivedby us but as the equatorial point of the two counteractingforces; of which the hypomochlion of the lever is as goodan illustration as anything can be that is thought ofmechanically only, and exclusively of life. To make itadequate, we must substitute the idea of positive production for that of rest, or mere neutralization . To the fancyalone it is the null- point, or zero, but to the reason it is thepunctum saliens, and the power itself in its eminence.Even in these, the most abstract and universal forms of allthought and perception-even in the ideas of time andspace, we slip under them, as it were, a substratum; for wecannot think of them but as far as they are co- inherent,and therefore as reciprocally the measures of each other.Nor, again, can we finish the process without having the396 THE THEORY OF LIFE .idea of motion as its immediate product. Thus we say,that time has one dimension, and imagine it to ourselvesas a line. But the line we have already proved to be theproductive synthesis of time, with space under the predomi- nance of time. If we exclude space by anabstract assumption, the time remains as a spaceless point, and representsthe concentered power of unity and active negation, i.e.retraction, determination, and limit, ab intra. But if weassume the time as excluded, the line vanishes, and weleave space dimensionless, an indistinguishable ALL, andtherefore the representative of absolute weakness andformlessness, but, for that very reason, of infinite capacityand formability.We have been thus full and express on this subject,because these simple ideas of time, space, and motion, oflength, breadth, and depth, are not only the simplest anduniversal, but the necessary symbols of all philosophic construction. They will be found the primary factors andelementary forms of every calculus and of every diagramin the algebra and geometry of a scientific physiology.Accordingly, we shall recognize the same forms underother names; but at each return more specific and intense;and the whole process repeated with ascending gradations ofreality, exempli gratiâ: Time +space motion; ™m + spaceline breadth = depth; depth + motion force;LfBfDfDƒ; LDƒ + BDfƒ = attraction + repulsiongravitation; and so on, even till they pass into outwardphenomena, and form the intermediate link between productive powers and fixed products in light, heat, and electricity . If we pass to the construction of matter, we findit as the product, or tertium aliud, of antagonist powers ofrepulsion and attraction . Remove these powers, and theconception of matter vanishes into space-conceive repulsion only, and you have the same result. For infiniterepulsion, uncounteracted and alone, is tantamount to in-=THE THEORY OF LIFE . 397finite, dimensionless diffusion, and this again to infiniteweakness; viz. , to space. Conceive attraction alone, andas an infinite contraction, its product amounts to the absolute point, viz. , to time. Conceive the synthesis of both,and you have matter as a fluxional antecedent, which, inthe very act of formation, passes into body by its gravity,and yet in all bodies it still remains as their mass, which,being exclusively calculable under the law of gravitation,gives rise, as we before observed, to the science of statics,most improperly called celestial mechanics .proIn strict consistence with the same philosophy which,instead of considering the powers of bodies to have beenmiraculously stuck into a prepared and pre- existing matter,as pins into a pin-cushion, conceives the powers as theductive factors, and the body or phenomenon as the fact,product, or fixture; we revert again to potentiated lengthin the power of magnetism; to surface in the power ofelectricity; and to the synthesis of both, or potentiateddepth, in constructive, that is, chemical affinity. But whilethe two factors are as poles to each other, each factor haslikewise its own poles, and thus in the simple crossMf\ƒEd -CEm/ mMM M being the magnetic line, with ƒƒits northern pole,or pole of attraction; and m m its south, or pole of repul-398 THE THEORY OF LIFE .sion, and E E one of the lines that spring from each point ofM м, with its east, or pole of contraction, and d its west, orpole of diffluence and expansion-we have presented to usthe universal quadruplicity, or four elemental forms ofpower; in the endless proportions and modifications ofwhich, the innumerable offspring of all-bearing Nature consist. Wisely docile to the suggestions of Nature herself,the ancients significantly expressed these forces under thenames of earth, water, air, and fire; not meaning anytangible or visible substance so generalized, but the powerspredominant, and, as it were, the living basis of each,which no chemical decomposition can ever present to thesenses, were it only that their interpenetration and coinherence first constitutes them sensible, and is the condition and meaning of a-thing. Already our more trulyphilosophical naturalists (Ritter, for instance) have begun togeneralize the four great elements of chemical nomenclature,carbon, azote, oxygen, and hydrogen: the two former asthe positive and negative pole of the magnetic axis, or asthe power of fixity and mobility; and the two latter as theopposite poles, or plus and minus states of cosmical electricity, as the powers of contraction and dilatation, or ofcomburence and combustibility. These powers are to eachother as longitude to latitude, and the poles of each relatively as north to south, and as east to west. For surelythe reader will find no distrust in a system only becauseNature, ever consistent with herself, presents us everywhere with harmonious and accordant symbols of her consistent doctrines. Nothing would be more easy than, bythe ordinary principles of sound logic and common sense,to demonstrate the impossibility and expose the absurdityof the corpuscularian or mechanic system, or than to provethe intenable nature of any intermediate system . But wecannot force any man into an insight or intuitive possessionof the true philosophy, because we cannot give him abstrac-THE THEORY OF LIFE. 399tion, intellectual intuition, or constructive imagination;because we cannot organize for him an eye that can see, anear that can listen to, or a heart that can feel, the harmonies of Nature, or recognize in her endless forms, thethousand-fold realization of those simple and majestic laws,which yet in their absoluteness can be discovered only inthe recesses of his own spirit, -not by that man, therefore,whose imaginative powers have been ossified by the continual reaction and assimilating influences of mere objectson his mind, and who is a prisoner to his own eye and itsreflex, the passive fancy! —not by him in whom an unbroken familiarity with the organic world, as if it weremechanical, with the sensitive, but as if it were insensate,has engendered the coarse and hard spirit of a sorcerer.The former is unable, the latter unwilling, to master theabsolute prerequisites . There is neither hope nor occasion for him " to cudgel his brains about it, he has no feeling of the business. " If he do not see the necessity fromwithout, if he have not learned the possibility from within,of interpenetration, of total intussusception, of the existence of all in each as the condition of Nature's unity andsubstantiality, and of the latency under the predominanceof some one power, wherein subsists her life and its endlessvariety, as he must be, by habitual slavery to the eye, or itsreflex, the passive fancy, under the influences of the corpuscularian philosophy, he has so paralysed his imaginativepowers as to be unable or by that hardness and hearthardening spirit of contempt, which is sure to result froma perpetual commune with the lifeless, he has so far debased his inward being-as to be unwilling to comprehendthe pre-requisite, he must be content, while standing thusat the threshold of philosophy, to receive the results,though he cannot be admitted to the deliberation—inother words, to act upon rules which he is incapable ofunderstanding as LAWS, and to reap the harvest with the400 THE THEORY OF LIFE.sharpened iron for which others have delved for him in themine.It is not improbable that there may exist, and even bediscovered, higher forms and more akin to Life than thoseof magnetism, electricity, and constructive (or chemical)affinity appear to be, even in their finest known influences.It is not improbable that we may hereafter find ourselvesjustified in revoking certain of the latter, and unappropriating themto a yet unnamed triplicity; or that, being thusassisted, we mayattain a qualitative instead of a quantitativeinsight intovegetable animation, as distinct from animal, andthat of the insect world from both. But in the present stateof science, the magnetic, electric, and chemical powers arethe last and highest of inorganic nature. These, therefore,we assume as presenting themselves again to us, in their nextmetamorphosis, as reproduction (i.e. growth and identityof the whole, amid the change or flux of all the parts) ,irritability and sensibility; reproduction corresponding tomagnetism, irritability to electricity, and sensibility toconstructive chemical affinity.But before we proceed further, it behoves us to answerthe objections contained in the following passage, or withdraw ourselves in time fromthe bitter contempt in whichit would involve us. Acting under such a necessity, weneed not apologise for the length of the quotation.1. "If," says Mr. Lawrence, " the properties of livingmatter are to be explained in this way, why should not weadopt the same plan with physical properties, and accountfor gravitation, or chemical affinity, by the supposition ofappropriate subtile fluids? Why does the irritability ofa muscle need such an explanation, if explanation it can becalled, more than the elective attraction of a salt? "THE THEORY OF LIFE . 4012. "To makethe matter more intelligible, this vital principle is compared to magnetism, to electricity, and togalvanism; or it is roundly stated to be oxygen. 'Tis likea camel, or like a whale, or like what you please. ”3. "You have only to grant that the phenomena of thesciences just alluded to depend on extremely fine andinvisible fluids , superadded to the matters in which theyare exhibited, and to allow further that Life, and magnetic,galvanic, and electric phenomena correspond perfectly;the existence of a subtile matter of Life will then be a veryprobable inference. "4. "On this illustration you will naturally remark, thatthe existence of the magnetic, electric, and galvanic fluids,which is offered as a proof of the existence of a vitalfluid, is as much a matter of doubt as that of the vital fluiditself."5. " It is singular, also, that the vital principle shouldbe like both magnetism and electricity, when these two arenot like each other. "6. "It would have been interesting to have had thisillustration prosecuted a little further. We should havebeen pleased to learn whether the human body is more likealoadstone, a voltaic pile, or an electrical machine; whetherthe organs are to be regarded as Leyden jars, magneticneedles, or batteries ."7. " The truth is, there is no resemblance, no analogy,between Electricity and Life; the two orders of phenomena are completely distinct; they are incommensurable.Electricity illustrates life no more than life illustrateselectricity.'99 11 I apprehend that by men of a certain school it would be deemed nodemerit, even though they should never have condescended to look intoD D402 THE THEORY OF LIFE.To avoid unnecessary description, I shall refer to thepassages by the numbers affixed to them, for that purpose,in the margin.In reply to No. 1, I ask whether, in the nature of themind, illustration and explanation must not of necessityproceed from the lower to the higher? or whether a boyis to be taught his addition, subtraction, multiplication,and division, by the highest branches of algebraic analysis?Is there any better way of systematic teaching, than thatof illustrating each new step , or having each new step illustrated to him by its identity in kind with the step the nextbelow it? though it be the only mode in which this objection can be answered, yet it seems affronting to remind theobjector, of rules so simple as that the complex must evenbe illustrated by the more simple, or the less scrutible bythat which is more subject to our examination.In reply to No. 2, I first refer to the author's eulogy onMr. Hunter, p. 163, in which he is justly extolled for havingany system of Aristotelian logic. It is enough for these gentlemen thatthey are experimentalists! Let it not, however, be supposed that theymake more experiments than their neighbours, who consider inductionas a means and not an end; or have stronger motives for making them,unless it can be believed that Tycho Brähe must have been urged torepeat his sweeps of the heavens with greater accuracy and industrythan Herschel, for no better reason than that the former flourishedbefore the theory of gravitation was perfected. No, but they have thehonour of being mere experimentalists! If, however, we may not referto logic, we may to common sense and common experience. It is notimprobable, however, that they have both read and studied a book ofhypothetical psychology on the assumptions of the crudest materialism ,stolen too without acknowledgment from our David Hartley's essay onMan, which is well known under the whimsical name of Condillac'sLogic. But, as Mr. Brand has lately observed, “ the French are aqueer people," and we should not be at all surprised to hear of a book offresh importation from Paris, on determinate proportions in chemistry,announced by the author in his title-page as a new and improved systemeither of arithmetic or geometry. -C.THE THEORY OF LIFE . 4036699But if tosurveyed the whole system of organized beings, from plantsto man: of course, therefore, as a system; and thereforeunder some one common law. Now in the very same sense,and no other, than that in which the writer himself by implication compares himself as a man to the dermestes typographicus, or thefucus scorpioides, do I compare the principleof Life to magnetism, electricity, and constructive affinity,-or rather to that power to which the two former are thethesis and antithesis, the latter the synthesis.compare involve the sense of its etymon, and involve thesense of parity, I utterly deny that I do at all comparethem; and, in truth, in no conceivable sense of the wordisit applicable, any more than a geometrician can be affirmedto compare a polygon to a point, because he generates theline out of the point. The writer attributes to a philosophy essentially vital the barrenness of the mechanicsystem, with which alone his imagination has been familiarized, and which, as hath been justly observed by a contemporary writer, is contradistinguished from the formerprincipally in this respect; that demanding for every modeand act of existence real or possible visibility, it knowsonly of distance and nearness, composition ( or rather compaction) and decomposition, in short, the relations of unproductive particles to each other; so that in every instancethe result is the exact sum of the component qualities, asin arithmetical addition. This is the philosophy of Death,and only of a dead nature can it hold good. In Life, andin the view of a vital philosophy, the two componentcounter- powers actually interpenetrate each other, and generate a higher third, including both the former, " ita tamenut sit alia et major."As a complete answer to No. 3, I refer the reader tomany passages in the preceding and following pages, inwhich, on far higher and more demonstrative groundsthan the mechanic system can furnish, I have exposed the404 THE THEORY OF LIFE.unmeaningness and absurdity of these finer fluids, as applied even to electricity itself; unless, indeed, they areassumed as its product. But in addition I beg leave toremind the author, that it is incomparably more agreeableto all experience to originate the formative process in thefluid, whether fine or gross, than in corporeal atoms, inwhich we are not only deserted by all experience, but contradicted by the primary conception of body itself .Equally inapplicable is No. 4: and of No. 5 I can onlyrepeat, first, that I do not make Life like magnetism, orlike electricity; that the difference between magnetism andelectricity, and the powers illustrated by them, is anessential part of my system, but that the animal Life ofman is the identity of all three. To whatever other systemthis objection may apply, it is utterly irrelevant to thatwhich I have here propounded: though from the narrowlimits prescribed to me, it has been propounded with aninadequacy painful to my own feelings .The ridicule in No. 6 might be easily retorted; but as itcould prove nothing, I will leave it where I found it, in apage where nothing is proved.A similar remark might be sufficient for the bold andblank assertion ( No. 7) with which the extract concludes;but that I feel some curiosity to discover what meaning theauthor attaches to the term analogy. Analogy implies adifference in sort, and not merely in degree; and it is thesameness of the end, with the difference of the means,which constitutes analogy. No one would say the lungsof a man were analogous to the lungs of a monkey, but anyone might say that the gills of fish and the spiracula ofinsects are analogous to lungs. Now if there be any philosophers who have asserted that electricity as electricity isthe same as Life, for that reason they cannot be analogousto each other; and as no man in his senses, philosopher ornot, is capable of imagining that the lightning whichTHE THEORY OF LIFE. 405destroys a sheep, was a means to the same end with theprinciple of its organization; for this reason, too, the twopowers cannot be represented as analogous. Indeed, Iknow of no system in which the word, as thus applied,would admit of an endurable meaning, but that whichteaches us, that a mass of marrow in the skull is analogousto the rational soul, which Plato and Bacon, equally withthe "poor Indian, " believe themselves to have receivedfrom the Supreme Reason.It would be blindness not to see, or affectation to pretendnot to see, the work at which these sarcasms were levelled .The author of that work is abundantly able to defend hisown opinions; yet I should be ambitious to address him atthe close of the contest in the lines of the great Romanpoet:" Et nos tela, Pater, ferrumque haud debile dextrâSpargimus, et nostro sequitur de vulnere sanguis. "In Mr. Abernethy's Lecture on the Theory of Life, it isimpossible not to see a presentiment of a great truth . Hehas, if I may so express myself, caught it in the breeze:and we seem to hear the first glad opening and shout withwhich he springs forward to the pursuit. But it is equallyevident that the prey has not been followed through itsdoublings and windings, or driven out from its brakes andcovers into full and open view. Many of the least tenablephrases may be fairly interpreted as illustrations, ratherthan precise exponents of the author's meaning; at least,while they remain as a mere suggestion or annunciation ofhis ideas, and till he has expanded them over a largersphere, it would be unjust to infer the contrary. But it isnot with men, however strongly their professional meritsmay entitle them to reverence, that my concern is at present. If the opinions here supported are the same withthose of Mr. Abernethy, I rejoice in his authority. If they406 THE THEORY OF LIFE .are different, I shall wait with an anxious interest for anexposition of that difference.·Having reasserted that I no more confound magnetismwith electricity, or the chemical process, than the mathematician confounds length with breadth, or either withdepth; I think it sufficient to add that there are two viewsof the subject, the former of which I do not believe attributable to any philosopher, while both are alike disclaimedby me as forming any part of my views. The first is thatwhich is supposed to consider electricity identical with life,as it subsists in organized bodies. The other considerselectricity as everywhere present, and penetrating all bodiesunder the image of a subtile fluid or substance, which, inMr. Abernethy's inquiry, I regard as little more than amere diagram on his slate, for the purpose of fixing theattention on the intellectual conception, or as a possibleproduct, (in which case electricity must be a compositepower, ) or at worst, as words quæ humana incuria fudit.This which, in inanimate Nature, is manifested now asmagnetism, now as electricity, and nowas chemical agency,is supposed, on entering an organized body, to constituteits vital principle, something in the same manner as thesteam becomes the mechanic power of the steam-engine, inconsequence of its compression bythe steam- engine; or as thebreeze that murmurs indistinguishably in the forest becomesthe element, the substratum, of melody in the Eolianharp, and of consummate harmony in the organ. Nowthis hypothesis is as directly opposed to my view as supervention is to evolution, inasmuch as I hold the organizedbody itself, in all its marvellous contexture, to be the PRODUCT and representant of the power which is here supposedto have supervened to it. So far from admitting atransfer,I do not admit it even in electricity itself, or in the phenomena universally called electrical; among other points Iground my explanation of remote sympathy on the directlycontrary supposition.THE THEORY OF LIFE. 407But my opinions will be best explained by a rapid exemplification in the processes of Nature, from the first rudiments of individualized life in the lowest classes of its twogreat poles, the vegetable and animal creation, to its crownand consummation in the human body; thus illustratingat once the unceasing polarity of life, as the form ofits process, and its tendency to progressive individuation as the law ofits direction.Among the conceptions, of the mere ideal character ofwhich the philosopher is well aware, and which yet becomenecessary from the necessity of assuming a beginning,the original fluidity of the planet is the chief. Under someform or other it is expressed or implied in every system ofcosmogony and even of geology, from Moses to Thales, andfrom Thales to Werner. This assumption originates inthe same law of mind that gave rise to the prima materiaof the Peripatetic school. In order to comprehend andexplain the forms of things, we must imagine a state antecedent to form. A chaos of heterogeneous substances, suchas our Milton has described, is not only an impossible state(for this may be equally true of every other attempt) ,but it is palpably impossible. It presupposes, moreover,the thing it is intended to solve; and makes that an effectwhich had been called in as the explanatory cause. Therequisite and only serviceable fiction , therefore, is the representation of CHAOS as one vast hom*ogeneous drop! In thissense it may be even justified, as an appropriate symbol ofthe great fundamental truth that all things spring from,and subsist in, the endless strife between indifference anddifference. The whole history of Nature is comprised inthe specification of the transitional states from the one tothe other. The symbol only is fictitious: the thing signified is not only grounded in truth-it is the law and actuating principle of all other truths, whether physical orintellectual.408 THE THEORY OF LIFE .Now, by magnetism in its widest sense, I mean thefirst and simplest differential act of Nature, as the powerwhich works in length, and produces the first distinctionbetween the indistinguishable by the generation of a line.Relatively, therefore, to fluidity, that is, to matter, the partsof which cannot be distinguished from each other byfigure,magnetism is the power of fixity; but, relatively to itself,magnetism, like every other power in Nature, is designatedby its opposite poles, and must be represented as the magnetic axis, the northern pole of which signifies rest, attraction, fixity, coherence, or hardness; the element of EARTHin the nomenclature of observation and the CARBONIC principle in that of experiment; while the southern pole, as itsantithesis, represents mobility, repulsion, incoherence, andfusibility; the element of air in the nomenclature of observation (that is, of Nature as it appears to us when unquestioned by art) , and azote or nitrogen in the nomenclatureof experiment (that is , of Nature in the state so beautifullyallegorized in the Homeric fable of Proteus bound down,and forced to answer by Ulysses, after having been pursuedthrough all his metamorphoses into his ultimate form. ' )That nothing real does or can exist corresponding to eitherpole exclusively, is involved in the very definition of a THINGas the synthesis of opposing energies. That a thing is, isowing to the co- inherence therein of any two powers; butthat it is that particular thing arises from the proportions inwhich these powers are co- present, either as predominanceor as reciprocal neutralization; but under the modificationof twofold power to which magnetism itself is, as the thesisto its antithesis .The correspondent, in the world of the senses, to the¹ Such is the interpretation given by Lord Bacon. To which of thetwo gigantic intellects, the poet's or philosophic commentator's, theallegory belongs, I shall not presume to decide. Its extraordinarybeauty and appropriateness remains the same in either case.-C.THE THEORY OF LIFE. 409magnetic axis, exists in the series of metals. The metalleity, as the universal base of the planet, is a necessarydeduction from the principles of the system. From theinfusible, though evaporable, diamond to nitrogen itself,the metallic nature of which has been long suspected bychemists, though still under the mistaken notion of anoxyde, we trace a series of metals from the maximum ofcoherence to positive fluidity, in all ordinary temperatures,we mean. Though, in point of fact, cold itself is but asuperinduction of the one pole, or, what amounts to thesame thing, the subtraction of the other, under the modifications afore described; and therefore are the metals indecomposible, because they are themselves the decompositionsof the metallic axis, in all its degrees of longitude andlatitude. Thus the substance of the planet from which itis, is metallic; while that which is ever becoming, is in likemanner produced through the perpetual modification of thefirst by the opposite forces of the second; that is, by theprinciple of contraction and difference at the easternextreme-the element of fire, or the oxygen of the chemists; and by the elementary power of dilation, or universality at its western extreme-the vdwp v údarı of theancients, and the hydrogen of the laboratory.It has been before noticed that the progress of Natureis more truly represented by the ladder, than by the suspended chain, and that she expands as by concentric circles .This is, indeed, involved in the very conception of individuation, whether it be applied to the different species orto the individuals. In what manner the evident interspaceis reconciled with the equally evident continuity of the lifeof Nature, is a problem that can be solved by those mindsalone which have intuitively learnt that the whole actuallife of Nature originates in the existence, and consists in theperpetual reconciliation, and as perpetual resurgency of theprimary contradiction, of which universal polarity is the410 THE THEORY OF LIFE.result and the exponent. From the first moment of thedifferential impulse-(the primeval chemical epoch of theWernerian school) -when Nature, by the tranquil deposition of crystals, prepared, as it were, the fulcrum of herafter-efforts, from this, her first, and in part irrevocable,self-contraction, we find, in each ensuing production, moreand more tendency to independent existence in the increasing multitude of strata, and in the relics of the lowestorders, first of vegetable and then of animal life. In theschistous formations, which we must here assume as ingreat measure the residua of vegetable creations, that havesunk back into the universallife, and in the later predominant calcareous masses, which are the caput mortuumof animalized existence, we ascend from the laws of attraction and repulsion, as united in gravity, to magnetism,electricity, and constructive power, till we arrive at thepoint representative of a new and far higher intensity.For from this point flow, as in opposite directions, the twostreams of vegetation and animalization, the former cha- ·racterised by the predominance of magnetism in its highestpower, as reproduction, the other by electricity intensified-as irritability, in like manner. The vegetable andanimal world are the thesis and antithesis, or the oppositepoles of organic life. We are not, therefore, to seek ineither for analogies to the other, but for counterpoints.On the same account, the nearer the common source, thegreater the likeness; the farther the remove, the greaterthe opposition. At the extreme limits of inorganic Nature,we may detect a dim and obscure prophecy of her ensuingprocess in the twigs and rude semblances that occur incrystallization of some of the copper ores, and in thewell- known arbor Dianæ, and arbor Veneris. These latterRitter has already ably explained by considering the obliquebranches and their acute angles as the result of magneticrepulsion, from the presentation of the same poles, &c. InTHE THEORY OF LIFE . 411the CORALS and CONCHYLIA, the whole act and purpose oftheir existence seems to be that of connecting the animalwith the inorganic world by the perpetual formation ofcalcareous earth. For the corals are nothing but polypi,which are characterised by still passing away and dissolving into the earth, which they had previously excreted, asif they were the first feeble effort of detachment. Thepower seems to step forward from out the inorganic worldonly to fall back again upon it, still, however, under a newform, and under the predominance of the more active poleof magnetism. The product must have the same connexion ,therefore, with azote, which the first rudiments of vegetation have with carbon: the one and the other exist not fortheir own sakes, but in order to produce the conditionsbest fitted for the production of higher forms. In thepolypi, corallines, &c. , individuality is in its first dawn;there is the same shape in them all, and a multitude ofanimals form, as it were, a common animal. And as theindividuals run into each other, so do the different genera.They likewise pass into each other so indistinguishably,that the whole order forms a very network.As the corals approach the conchylia, this interramification decreases. The tubipora forms the transition to theserpula; for the characteristic of all zoophytes, namely,the star shape of their openings, here disappears, and thetubiporæ are distinguished from the rest of the corals bythis very circ*mstance, that the hollow calcareous pipesare placed side by side, without interbranching. In theserpula they have already become separate. How feeblethis attempt is to individuate, is most clearly shown intheir mode of generation. Notwithstanding the report ofProfessor Pallas, it still remains doubtful whether thereexists any actual copulation among the polypi. The mereexistence of a polypus suffices for its endless multiplication.They may be indefinitely propagated by cuttings, so412 THE THEORY OF LIFE .languid is the power of individuation, so boundless that ofreproduction. But the delicate jelly dissolves, as lightlyas it was formed, into its own product, and it is probablethat the Polynesia, as a future continent, will be thegigantic monument, not so much of their life, as of thelife of Nature in them. Here we may observe the firstinstance of that general law, according to which Naturestill assimilates her extreme points. In these, her first andfeeblest attempts to animalize organization, it is latent,because undeveloped, and merely potential; while, in thehuman brain, the last and most consummate of her combinedenergies, it is again lost or disguised in the subtlety¹ andmultiplicity of its evolution.9966In the class immediately above ( Mollusca) we find theindividuals separate, a more determinate form, and in thehigher species, the rudiment of nerves, as the first scarcedistinguishable impress and exponent of sensibility; still ,however, the vegetative reproduction is the predominantform; and even the nerves which float in the same cavitywith the other viscera,' are probably subservient to it,and extend their power in the increased intensity of thereproductive force. Still prevails the transitional statefrom the fluid to the solid; and the jelly, that rudiment inwhich all animals, even the noblest, have their commencement, constitutes the whole sphere of these rudimentalanimals.In the snail and mussel, the residuum of the coral reappears, but refined and ennobled into a part of the animal.The whole class is characterised by the separation of thefluid from the solid. On the one side, a gelatinous semifluid; on the other side, an entirely inorganic, thoughoften a most exquisitely mechanised, calcareous excretion!Animalization in general is, we know, contra- distinguished1 The Anatomical Demonstrations of the Brain, by Dr. Spurzheim,which I have seen, presented to me the most satisfactory proof of this.—C.THE THEORY OF LIFE . 413from vegetables in general by the predominance of azotein the chemical composition, and of irritability in theorganic process. But in this and the foregoing classes, asbeing still near the common equator, or the punctumindifferentiæ , the carbonic principle still asserts its claims,and the force of reproduction struggles with that ofirritability. In the unreconciled strife of these two forcesconsists the character of the Vermes, which appear to bethe preparatory step for the next class . Hence the difficulties which have embarrassed the naturalists, who adoptthe Linnæan classification, in their endeavours to discoverdeterminate characters of distinction between the vermesand the insecta.But no sooner have we passed the borders, than endlessvariety of form and the bold display of instincts announce,that Nature has succeeded. She has created the intermediate link between the vegetable world, as the productof the reproductive or magnetic power, and the animal asthe exponent of sensibility . Those that live and arenourished, on the bodies of other animals, are comparatively few, with little diversity of shape, and almost all ofthe same natural family. These we may pass by as exceptions. But the insect world, taken at large, appears as anintenser life, that has struggled itself loose and becomeemancipated from vegetation, Floræ liberti, et libertini! Iffor the sake of a moment's relaxation we might indulge aDarwinian¹ flight, though at the risk of provoking a smile,(not, I hope, a frown) from sober judgment, we mightimagine the life of insects an apotheosis of the petals,stamina, and nectaries, round which they flutter, or of thestems and pedicles, to which they adhere. Beyond andabove this step, Nature seems to act with a sort of freeagency, and to have formed the classes from choice andbounty. Had she proceeded no further, yet the whole1 See note to p. 16.414 THE THEORY OF LIFE.vegetable, together with the whole insect creation , wouldhave formed within themselves an entire and independentsystem of Life. All plants have insects, most commonlyeach genus of vegetables its appropriate genera of insects;and so reciprocally interdependent and necessary to eachother are they, that we can almost as little think of vegetation without insects, as of insects without vegetation.Though probably the mere likeness of shape, in the papilio,and the papilionaceous plants, suggested the idea of theformer, as the latter in a state of detachment, to our late¹poetical and theoretical brother; yet a something, thatapproaches to a graver plausibility, is given to this fancyof a flying blossom, when we reflect how many plantsdepend upon insects for their fructification . Be it remembered, too, that with few and very obscure exceptions, theirritable power and an analogon of voluntary motion firstdawn on us in the vegetable world, in the stamina, andanthers, at the period of impregnation. Then, as if Naturehad been encouraged by the success of the first experiment,both the one and the other appear as predominance andgeneral character. THE INSECT WORLD IS THE EXPONENT OFIRRITABILITY, AS THE VEGETABLE IS OF REPRODUCTION.With the ascent in power, the intensity of individuationkeeps even pace; and from this we may explain all thecharacteristic distinctions between this class and that ofthe vermes. The almost hom*ogeneous jelly of the animalcula infusoria became, by a vital oxydation, granular inthe polypi. This granulation formed itself into distinctorgans in the molluscæ; while for the snails, which are thenext step, the animalized lime, that seemed the sole finalcause of the life of the polypi, assumes all the characters ofan ulterior purpose. Refined into a horn- like substance, it21 Dr. Erasmus Darwin died in 1802.2 Coleridge, it seems, regards mollusca as of the singular number, and would thus object to our note on p. 368.THE THEORY OF LIFE. 415becomes to the snails the substitute of an organ, and theiroutward skeleton. Yet how much more manifold anddefinite, the organization of an insect, than that of the preceding class, the patient researches of Swammerdam andLyonnet have evinced, to the delight and admiration ofevery reflecting mind.In the insect, for the first time, we find the distinct commencement of a separation between the exponents of sensibility and those of irritability; i.e. between the nervous andthe muscular system. The latter, however, asserts its preeminence throughout. The prodigal provision of organsfor the purposes of respiration, and the marvellous powerswhich numerous tribes of insects possess, of accommodatingthe most corrupted airs, for a longer or shorter period, tothe support of their excitability, would of itself lead us topresume, that here the vis irritabilis is the reigning dynasty.There is here no confluence of nerves into one reservoir,as evidence of the independent existence of sensibility assensibility;—and therefore no counterpoise of a vascularsystem, as a distinct exponent of the irritable pole. Thewhole muscularity of these animals, is the organ of irritability; and the nerves themselves are probably feedersof the motory power. The petty rills of sensibility flowinto the full expanse of irritability, and there lose themselves . The nerves appertaining to the senses, on theother hand, are indistinct, and comparatively unimportant.The multitude of immovable eyes appear not so much conductors of light, as its ultimate recipient. We are almosttempted to believe that they constitute, rather than subserve, their sensorium.These eye-facets form the sense of light, rather thanorgans of seeing . Their almost paradoxical number atleast, and the singularity of their forms, render it probablethat they impel the animal by some modification of itsirritability, herein likewise containing a striking analogy416 THE THEORY OF LIFE.to the known influence of light on plants, than as excitements of sensibility. The sense that is nearest akin toirritability, and which alone resides in the muscular system,is that of touch, or feeling. This, therefore, is the firstsense that emerges . Being confined to absolute contact,it occupies the lowest rank; but for that very reason it isthe ground of all the other senses, which act, accordingto the ratio of their ascent, at still increasing distances,and become more and more ideal, from the tentacles of thepolypus, to the human eye; which latter might be definedthe outward organ of the identity, or at least of the indifference, of the real and ideal. But as the calcareousresiduum of the lowest class approaches to the nature ofhorn in the snail, so the cumbrous shell of the snail hasbeen transformed into polished and moveable plates of defensive armour in the insect. Thus, too, the same powerof progressive individuation articulates the tentacula ofthe polypus and holothuria into antennæ; thereby manifesting the full emersion and eminency of irritability as apower which acts in, and gives its own character to, thatof reproduction. The least observant must have noticedthe lightning-like rapidity with which the insect tribesdevour and eliminate their food, as by an instinctive necessity, and in the least degree for the purposes of the animal'sown growth or enlargement. The same predominance ofirritability, and at the same time a new start in individuation, is shown in the reproductive power as generation.There is now a regular projection, ab intra ad extra, forwhich neither sprouts nor cuttings can any longer be thesubstitutes. We have not space for further detail; butthere is one point too strikingly illustrative and even confirmative of the proposed system to be omitted altogether.We mean the curious fact, that the same characteristictendency, ad extra, which in the males and females ofcertain insect tribes is realized in the functions of genera-•THE THEORY OF LIFE . 417tion, conception, and parturiency, manifests and expandsitself in the sexless individuals (which are always in thiscase the great majority of the species) , as instincts of art,and in the construction of works completely detached andinorganic; while the geometric regularity of these works,which bears an analogy to crystallization, is demonstrablyno more than the necessary result of uniform action in acompressed multitude.Again, as the insect world, averaging the whole, comesnearest to plants, (whose very essence is reproduction, ) inthe multitude of their germs; so does it resemble plants inthe sufficiency of a single impregnation for the evolution ofmyriads of detached lives. Even so, the metamorphoses ofinsects, from the egg to the maggot and caterpillar, andfrom these, through the nympha and aurelia into the perfect insect, are but a more individuated and intenser formof a similar transformation of the plant from the seedleaflets , or cotyledons, through the stalk, the leaves, andthe calyx, into the perfect flower, the various colours ofwhich seem made for the reflection of light, as the antecedent grade to the burnished scales, and scale- like eyes ofthe insect. Nevertheless, with all this seeming prodigalityof organic power, the whole tendency is ad extra, and thelife of insects, as electricity in the quadrate, acts chiefly onthe superficies of their bodies, to which we may add thenegative proof arising from the absence of sensibility. Itis well known, that the two halves of a divided insect havecontinued to perform, or attempt, each their separate functions, the trunkless head feeding with its accustomedvoracity, while the headless trunk has exhibited its appropriate excitability to the sexual influence.The intropulsive force, that sends the ossification inwardas to the centre, is reserved for a yet higher step, and thiswe find embodied in the class of fishes. Even here, however, the process still seems imperfect, and (as it were)E E418 THE THEORY OF LIFE .initiatory. The skeleton has left the surface, indeed, butthe bones approach to the nature of gristle. To feel thetruth of this, we need only compare the most perfect boneof a fish with the thigh-bones of the mammalia, and the distinctness with which the latter manifest the co-presenceof the magnetic power in its solid parietes, of the electricalin its branching arteries, and of the third greatest power,viz., the qualitative and interior, in its marrow. The sensesof fish are more distinct than those of insects. Thus, theintensity of its sense of smell has been placed beyond doubt,and rises in the extent of its sphere far beyond the irritablesense, or the feeling, in insects. I say the feeling, not the touch; for the touch seems, as it were, a supervention tothe feeling, a perfection given to it by the reaction of thehigher powers. As the feeling of the insect, in subtletyand virtual distance, rises above the solitary sense of taste¹in the mollusca, so does the smell of the fish rise above thefeeling of the insect. In the fish, likewise, the eyes aresingle and moveable, while it is remarkable that the onlyinsect that possesses this latter privilege, is an inhabitant ofthe waters. Finally, here first, unequivocally, and on alarge scale, (for I pretend not to control the freedom, inwhich the necessity of Nature is rooted, by the preciselimits of a system, ) -here first, Nature exhibits, in thepower of sensibility, the consummation of those vital forms(the nisus formativi) the adequate and the sole measure ofwhich is to be sought for in their several organic products.But as if a weakness of exhaustion had attended this advance in the same moment it was made, Nature seemsnecessitated to fall back, and re-exert herself on the lowerground which she had before occupied, that of the vital1 The remark on the feeling of the antennæ, compared with the touchofman, or even of the half- reasoning elephant, is yet more applicable to the taste, which in these gelatinous animals might, perhaps not inappropriately, be entitled the gastric sense. -C.THE THEORY OF LIFE. 419magnetism, or the power of reproduction. The intensityof this latter power in the fishes, is shown both in theirvoracity and in the number of their eggs, which we areobliged to calculate by weight, not by tale. There is anequal intensity both of the immanent and the projectivereproduction, in which, if we take in the comparativenumber of individuals in each species, and likewise thedifferent intervals between the acts, the fish (it is probable)would be found to stand in a similar relation to the insect,as the insect, in the latter point, stands to the system ofvegetation. Meantime, the fish sinks a step below theinsect, in the mode and circ*mstances of impregnation.To this we will venture to add, the predominance of length,as theform of growth in so large a proportion of the knownorders of fishes, and not less of their rectilineal path ofmotion. In all other respects, the correspondence combined with the progress in individuation, is striking in thewhole detail. Thus the eye, in addition to its moveability,has besides acquired a saline moisture in its higher development, as accordant with the life of its element. Addto these the glittering covering in both, the splendour ofthe scales in the one answering to the brilliant plates inthe other, the luminous reservoirs of the fire- flies, thephosphorescence and electricity of many fishes, the sameanaloga of moral qualities, in their rapacity, boldness, modesof seizing their prey by surprise, their gills, as presentingthe intermediate state between the spiracula of the gradenext below, and the lungs of the step next above, bothextremes of which seem combined in the structure of birdsand of their quill- feathers; but above all, the convexity ofthe crystalline lens, so much greater than in birds, quadrupeds, and man, and seeming to collect, in one powerfulorgan, the hundredfold microscopic facettes of the insect'slight organs; and it will not be easy to resist the conviction,that the same power is at work in both, and reappears—420 THE THEORY OF LIFE.under higher auspices. The intention of Nature is repeated;but, as was to have been expected, with two main differences. First, that in the lower grade the reproductionsthemselves seem merged in those of irritability, from thevery circ*mstance that the latter constitutes no pole, eitherto the former, or to sensibility. The force of irritabilityacts, therefore, in the insect world, in full predominance;while the emergence of sensibility in the fish calls forth theopposite pole of reproduction, as a distinct power, and causestherefore the irritability to flow, in part, into the power ofreproduction. The second result of this ascent is the direction of the organizing power, ad intra, with the consequentgreater simplicity of the exterior form, and the substitutionof condensed and flexible force, with comparative unity ofimplements, for that variety of tools, almost as numerousas the several objects to which they are to be applied,which arises from , and characterises, the superficial life ofthe insect creation. This grade of ascension, however, likethe former, is accompanied by an apparent retrogrademovement. For from this very accession of vital intensitywe must account for the absence in the fishes of all the formative, or rather (if our language will permit it) fabricative instincts. How could it be otherwise? These instinctsare the surplus and projection of the organizing power inthe direction ad extra, and could not, therefore, have beenexpected in the class of animals that represent the firstintuitive effort of organization, and are themselves the product of its first movement in the direction ad intra. ButNature never loses what she has once learnt, though in theacquirement of each new power she intermits, or performsless energetically, the act immediately preceding. Sheoften drops a faculty, but never fails to pick it up again.She may seem forgetful and absent, but it is only to recollect herself with additional, as well as recruited vigour, insome after and higher state; as if the sleep of powers, asTHE THEORY OF LIFE. 421well as of bodies, were the season and condition of theirgrowth. Accordingly, we find these instincts again, andwith them a wonderful synthesis of fish and insect, as ahigher third, in the feathered inhabitants of the air. Nay,she seems to have gone yet further back, and having givenB+C D in the birds, so to have sported with one solitaryinstance of B+D A in that curious animal the dragon, ¹ theanatomy of which has been recently given to the public byTiedemann; from whose work it appears, that this creaturepresents itself to us with the wings of the insect, and withthe nervous system, the brain, and the cranium of the bird ,in their several rudiments.The synthesis of fish and insect in the birds, might beillustrated equally in detail with the former; but it will besufficient for our purpose, that as in both the former cases ,the insect and the fish, so here in that of the birds, thepowers are under the predominance of irritability; thesensibility being dormant in the first, awakening in thesecond, and awake, but still subordinate, in the third. Ofthis my limits confine me to a single presumptive proof,viz. , the superiority in strength and courage of the femalein the birds of prey. For herein, indeed, does the difference of the sexes universally consist, wherever both theforces are developed, that the female is characterised byquicker irritability, and the male by deeper sensibility.How large a stride has been now made by Nature in theprogress of individuation, what ornithologist does notknow? From a multitude of instances we select the most¹ We should enjoy risking an encounter with this dragon. Coleridge,however, is alluding to the flying lizards of the Indian Archipelago, described by F. Tiedemann, in his Anatomie und Natur-geschichte desDrachens, Nürnburg, 1811; and which have, to quote Van der Hoeven,a duplicature of skin on each side of the body, supported by the anteriorfalse ribs, which are elongate, straight; " also " canine teeth large, subulate," and so on. Van der Hoeven's plain prose is reassuring.66422 THE THEORY OF LIFE .impressive, the power of sound, with the first rudiments ofmodulation! That all languages designate the melody ofbirds as singing (though according to Blumenbach manonly sings, while birds do but whistle) , demonstrates thatit has been felt as, what indeed it is, a tentative and prophetic prelude of something yet to come. With this conjoin the power and the tendency to acquire articulation,and to imitate speech; conjoin the building instinct andthe migratory, the monogamy of several species, and thepairing of almost all; and we shall have collected newinstances of the usage (I dare not say law) according towhich Nature lets fall, in order to resume, and steps backward the furthest, when she means to leap forwards withthe greatest concentration of energy.For lo! in the next step of ascent the power of sensibilityhas assumed her due place and rank: her minority is at anend, and the complete and universal presence of a nervoussystem unites absolutely, by instanteity of time what, withthe due allowances for the transitional process, had beforebeen either lost in sameness , or perplexed by multiplicity,or compacted by a finer mechanism. But with this, allthe analogies with which Nature had delighted us in thepreceding step seem lost, and, with the single exception ofthat more than valuable, that estimable philanthropist, thedog, and, perhaps, of the horse and elephant, the analogiesto ourselves, which we can discover in the quadrupeds orquadrumani, are of our vices, our follies, and our imperfections. The facts in confirmation of both the propositionsare so numerous and so obvious, the advance of Nature,under the predominance of the third synthetic power, bothin the intensity of life and in the intenseness and extensionof individuality, is so undeniable, that we may leap forwardat once to the highest realization and reconciliation of bothher tendencies, that of the most perfect detachment withthe greatest possible union, to that last work, in whichTHE THEORY OF LIFE. 423Nature did not¹ assist as handmaid under the eye of hersovereign Master, who made Man in his own image, bysuperadding self- consciousness with self-government, andbreathed into him a living soul .The class of Vermes deposit a calcareous stuff, as if it hadtorn loose from the earth a piece of the gross mass whichit must still drag about with it. In the insect class thisresiduum has refined itself. In the fishes and amphibiait is driven back or inward, the organic power begins to beintuitive, and sensibility appears. In the birds the boneshave become hollow; while, with apparent proportionalrecess, but, in truth, by the excitement of the opposite pole,their exterior presents an actual vegetation . The bones ofthe mammalia are filled up, and their coverings have becomemore simple. Man possesses the most perfect osseous structure, the least and most insignificant covering. The wholeforce of organic power has attained an inward and centripetal direction. He has the whole world in counterpointto him, but he contains an entire world within himself.Now, for the first time at the apex of the living pyramid,it is Man and Nature, but Man himself is a syllepsis, acompendium of Nature-the Microcosm! Naked andhelpless cometh man into the world. Such has been thecomplaint from eldest time; but we complain of our chiefprivilege, our ornament, and the connate mark of oursovereignty. Porphyrigeniti sumus! In Man the centripetal and individualizing tendency of all Nature is itselfconcentred and individualized he is a revelation ofNature! Henceforward, he is referred to himself, delivered up to his own charge; and he who stands the moston himself, and stands the firmest, is the truest, becausethe most individual, Man. In social and political life thisacme is inter-dependence; in moral life it is independence;in intellectual life it is, genius. Nor does the form of1 We think this " not "should be " but."424 THE THEORY OF LIFE.polarity, which has accompanied the law of individuationup its whole ascent, desert it here. As the height, so thedepth. The intensities must be at once opposite and equal.As the liberty, so must be the reverence for law. As theindependence, so must be the service and the submission tothe Supreme Will! As the ideal genius and the originality, in the same proportion must be the resignation tothe real world, the sympathy and the inter- communion withNature. In the conciliating mid- point, or equator, doesthe Man live, and only by its equal presence in both itspoles can that life be manifested!If it had been possible, within the prescribed limits ofthis essay, to have deduced the philosophy of Life synthetically, the evidence would have been carried over fromsection to section, and the quod erat demonstrandum at theconclusion of one section would appear as the principle ofthe succeeding the goal of the one would be the startingpost of the other. Positions arranged in my own mind, asintermediate and organic links of administration, must bepresented to the reader in the first instance, at least, as amere hypothesis. Instead of demanding his assent as aright, I must solicit a suspension of his judgment as acourtesy; and, after all, however firmly the hypothesismay support the phenomena piled upon it, we can deduceno more than a practical rule, grounded on a strong presumption. The license of arithmetic, however, furnishesinstances that a rule may be usefully applied in practice,and for the particular purpose may be sufficiently authenticated by the result, before it has itself been duly demonstrated. It is enough, if only it hath been rendered fullyintelligible.In a system where every position proceeds from a scientific preconstruction, a power acting exclusively in length,would be magnetism by virtue of our own definition of theTHE THEORY OF LIFE . 425term. In like manner, a surface power would be electricity ,as far as that system was concerned, whether it accordedor not with the facts ordinarily so called . But it is incumbent on us, who must treat the subject analytically, to showby experiment that magnetism does in fact act longitudinally, and electricity superficially; and that, consequently,the former is distinguished from, and yet contained in, thelatter, as a straight line is distinguished from, yet contained in, a superficies.First, that magnetism, in its conductors, seeks andfollows length only, and by the length is itself conducted,has been proved by Brugmans, in his philosophical Essayon the Matter of Magnetism, where he relates that a magnetcapable of supporting a body four times heavier than itself,and which acted as a magnetic needle at the distance oftwenty inches, was so weakened by the interposition ofthree cast-iron plates of considerable thickness, as scarcelyto move the magnetic needle from its place at a distance ofonly three inches. A similar experiment had been madeby Descartes. I concluded, therefore, said Brugmans, thatif the iron plates were interposed between the magnet andthe needle lengthways, instead of breadthways or rightacross, the action of the magnet on the magnetic needlewould, in consequence of this great increase of resistance,become still weaker, or perhaps evanescent. But not lessto my surprise than my admiration, I found that the powerof the magnet was so far from being diminished by thischange in the relative position of the iron-plates; that, onthe contrary, it now extended to a far greater distance thanwhen no iron at all was interposed . Some time after thesame philosopher, out of several iron bars, the sides ofwhich were an inch broad each, composed a single bar ofthe length of more than ten feet, and observed the magnetism make its way through the whole mass. But, inorder to try whether the action could be propagated to any426 THE THEORY OF LIFE.length indefinitely, after several experiments with bars ofintermediate lengths, in all of which he had succeeded , hetried a four-cornered iron rod, more than twenty feet long,and it was at this length that the magnetic power firstbegan to be diminished. So far Brugmans.But the shortest way for any one to convince himself ofthis relation of the magnetic power would be, in one andthe same experiment, to interpose the same piece of ironbetween the magnet and the compass needle first breadthways; and in this case it will be found that the needle,which had been previously deflected by the magnet from itsnatural position at one of its poles, will instantly resume thesame, either wholly or very nearly so then to interpose thesame piece of iron lenghthways; in which case the positionof the compass needle will be scarcely or not at all affected .The assertion of Bernoulli and others, that the absoluteforce of the artificial magnet increases in the ratio of itssuperficies, stands corrected in the far more accurate experiments of Coulomb (published in his Treatise on Magnetism) ,which proves that the increase takes place ( in a far greaterdegree) in the ratio of its length . The same naturalisteven found means to determine that the directing powersof the needle, which he had measured by help of his balancede tortion, stand to the length of the needle in such a ratioas that, provided only the length of the needle is from fortyto fifty times its diameter, the momenta of these directingpowers will increase in the very same direct proportion asthe length is increased . Nor is this all that may be deducedfrom the experiment last mentioned. If only the magnetbe strong enough, it will show likewise that magnetismseeks the length. The proof is contained in the remarkablefact, that the iron interposed between the magnet and themagnetic needle breadthways constantly acquires its twoopposite poles at both ends lengthways. Though the preceding experiments are abundantly sufficient to prove theTHE THEORY OF LIFE . 427position, yet the following deserves mention for the beautifulclearness of its evidence. If the magnetic power is determined exclusively by length, it is to be expected that it willmanifest no force, where the piece of iron is of such a shapethat no one dimension predominates. Bring a cube of ironnear the magnetic needle and it will not exert the slightestdegree of power beyond what belongs to it as mere iron.By the perfect equality of the dimensions, the magnetism ofthe earth appears, as it were, perplexed and doubtful .Now, then attach a second cube of iron to the first, andthe instantaneous act of the iron on the magnetic needlewill make it manifest that with the length thus given, themagnetic influence is given at the same moment.That electricity, on the other hand, does not act in lengthmerely, is clear, from the fact that every electric body iselectric over its whole surface. But that electricity actsboth in length and breadth, and only in length and breadth,and not in depth; in short, that the ( so-called) electricalfluid in an electrified body spreads over the whole surfaceof that body without penetrating it, or tending ad intra,may be proved by direct experiment. Take a cylinder ofwood, and bore an indefinite number of holes in it, each ofthem four lines in depth and four in diameter. Electrifythis cylinder, and present to its superficies a small squareof gold- leaf, held to it by an insulating needle of gum lac ,and bring this square to an electrometer of great sensibility.The electrometer will instantly show an electricity in thegold-leaf, similar to that of the cylinder which had beenbrought into contact with it. The square of gold-leafhaving thus been discharged of its electricity, put it carefully into one of the holes of the cylinder, so, namely, thatit shall touch only the bottom of the hole, and present itagain to the electrometer. It will be then found that theelectrometer will exhibit no signs of electricity whatsoever.From this it follows, that the electricity which had been428 THE THEORY OF LIFE .communicated to the cylinder had confined itself to thesurface. If the time and the limit prescribed would admit,we could multiply experiments, all tending to prove thesame law; but we must be content with the barely sufficient. But that the chemical process acts in depth, and first,therefore, realizes and integrates the fluxional power ofmagnetism and electricity, is involved in the term composition; and this will become still more convincing when wehave learnt to regard decomposition as a mere co- relative,i.e. as decomposition relatively to the body decomposed,but composition actually and in respect of the substances,into which it was decomposed. The alteration in thespecific gravity of metals in their chemical amalgams,interesting as the fact is in all points, is decisive in the present; for gravity is the sole inward of inorganic bodies—itconstitutes their depth.I can now, for the first time, give to my opinions thatdegree of intelligibility, which is requisite for their introduction as hypotheses; the experiments above related,understood as in the common mode of thinking, prove thatthe magnetic influence flows in length, the electric fluid bysuffusion, and that chemical agency (whatever the mainagent may be) is qualitative and in intimis. Now myhypothesis demands the converse of all this . I affirm thata power, acting exclusively in length, is ( wherever it befound) magnetism; that a power which acts both in lengthand in breadth, and only in length and breadth, is ( whereverit be found) electricity; and finally, that a power which,together with length and breadth , includes depth likewise,is (wherever it be found) constructive agency. That is butone phenomenon of magnetism, to which we have appropriated and confined the term magnetism; because of allthe natural bodies at present known, iron, and one or twoof its nearest relatives in the family of hard yet coherentmetals, are the only ones, in which all the conditionsTHE THEORY OF LIFE. 429are collected, under which alone the magnetic agency canappear in and during the act itself. When, therefore, Iaffirm the power of reproduction in organized bodies to bemagnetism, I must be understood to mean that this power,as it exists in the magnet, and which we there (to use astrong phrase) catch in the very act, is to the same kindof power, working as reproductive, what the root is to thecube of that root. We no more confound the force in thecompass needle with that of reproduction , than a man canbe said to confound his liver with a lichen, because heaffirms that both of them grow.The same precautions are to be repeated in the identification of electricity with irritability; and the power ofdepth, for which we have yet no appropriated term, with´sensibility. How great the distance is in all, and that thelowest degrees are adopted as the exponent terms, not fortheir own sakes, but merely because they may be used withless hazard of diverting the attention from the kind bypeculiar properties arising out of the degree, is evidentfrom the third instance, unless the theorist can be supposedinsane enough to apply sensation in good earnest to theeffervescence of an acid or an alkali, or to sympathise withthe distresses of a vat of new beer when it is working. Inwhatever way the subject could be treated, it must haveremained unintelligible to men who, if they think of spaceat all, abstract their notion of it from the contents of anexhausted receiver. With this, and with an ether, suchmen may work wonders; as what, indeed, cannot be donewith a plenum and a vacuum, when a theorist has privilegedhimself to assume the one, or the other, ad libitum? —inall innocence of heart, and undisturbed by the reflectionthat the two things cannot both be true. That both timeand space are mere abstractions I am well aware; but Iknow with equal certainty that what is expressed by themas the identity of both is the highest reality, and the root of430 THE THEORY OF LIFE.all power, the power to suffer, as well as the power to act.However mere an ens logicum space may be, the dimensionsof space are real, and the works of Galileo, in more thanone elegant passage, prove with what awe and amazementthey fill the mind that worthily contemplates them. Dismissing, therefore, all facts of degrees, as introduced merelyfor the purposes of illustration, I would make as littlereference as possible to the magnet, the charged phial, orthe processes of the laboratory, and designate the threepowers in the process of our animal life, each by two corelative terms, the one expressing the form, and the otherthe object and product of the power. My hypothesis will,therefore, be thus expressed, that the constituent forces oflife in the human living body are-first, the power oflength,or REPRODUCTION; second, the power of surface (that is,length and breadth) , or IRRITABILITY; third, the power ofdepth, or SENSIBILITY. With this observation I may conclude¹ these remarks, only reminding the reader that Lifeitself is neither of these separately, but the copula of allthree-that Life, as Life, supposes a positive or universalprinciple in Nature, with a negative principle in every particular animal, the latter, or limitative power, constantlyacting to individualize, and, as it were, figure the former.Thus, then, Life itself is not a thing—a self- subsistenthypostasis-but an act and process; which, pitiable as theprejudice will appear to the forts esprits, is a great dealmore than either my reason would authorise or my conscience allow me to assert-concerning the Soul, as theprinciple both of Reason and Conscience.11 The first line of Dr. Watson's Preface misled us into making ournote on p. 364. Coleridge's essay is intended by him to be perfectly complete, and, in fact , is so.INDEX.

ABERNETHY, 364, 405.INDEX .Addison and Cervantes, 108.Style of, 181 .Advice-Mongers, 242 , 264.Eschylus, The Prometheus of, 55.Affection and Opinion, 297.Platonic, 339 .Age, Our, and Past Ages, 264, 268 .Ages, The Dark, 268.Agreeable, The, 13 , 18, 21 , 26.Alchemists, The, 168.Alfred, 94.Algebra, 374.Allegorical, The, and the Symbolical, 107.Allston, 9 , 22, 24.Alms-giving, 301 .Analogy, 404.Angelo, Michel, 90.his " Moses," 90.his Designs for Dante's " Divina Commedia," 145.Animal World, 390.Animalization , Electricity , and Irritability, 410.Anne, Queen, English Languageduring Reign of, 180.Antithesis and Thesis, 70Apparitions and Dreams, 163.Arabian Nights, The, 152.Arch, The 40.Architecture, 50.66 Argenis " of Barclay, 294.Aristotle , 74.122.his Definition of theLaughable ,Art, 42, 47.and Nature, 45.Ancient and Modern, compared , 90.Arts, Fine, The, Essays on, 3.and Poetry, 6.and Ordinary Life, 6.Treatises on, 8.Assimilation, 367 , 369 , 386.Association, 8.Atoms, 387.Attention, Power of, 259.Attraction and Repulsion, 396.Aureity, 373, 308.Azote, 360, et passim.Bacon and Method, 251 .and his Use of the Word'Nature,' 358.374.and Experimental Philosophy,and the Allegory of Proteus,408.F FBarclay's " Argenis," 294.Barrow, Style of, 180.Bases in Chemistry, 388.434 INDEX.Beautiful, The, 13, 19, 25, 26, 29,31, 33, 39.Bichat, his Definition of Life, 367.Birds, 421 .Blank Verse, Various Kinds of, 294.Blocksberg, The, 192.Blumenbach, 422,Boccaccio, 99.his Tales, 100.his " Decameron," 100.his Paganism, 101 .his Style, 178.Body and Soul, 173 , 333.Brocken, The, 187 , 192.Browne, Sir T. , 179 , 299, 318 .Corrupt Style of, 179.on Thinking, 249.on the Salvation of the Heathen , 255.319.seq.a Spinozist, 299.his " Religio Medici," 299, et seq.his " Garden of Cyrus," 311 ,his " Vulgar Errors," 312, ethis " Hydriotaphia," 319.Brugmans on Magnetism, 425.Burns, his remarkable Spirit ofCharity, 204.Butler's " Hudibras," 121 .Cain, as a Pickle, 96 .Caloric , 371 .Camphire Aphrodisiac, 315 .Carbon, 360.Carlyon, Dr., 187 , 198.Century, Thirteenth, Metaphysics ofthe, 373.Ceres, Significance of the Myth of,67.Cervantes, 106, 119 .and Shakspere, 106.Cervantes and " Don Quixote," 106.See " Don Quixote."and Addison, 108.Chaos, 407.Chapman as a Poet, 289, 291 .his " Odyssey," 289.his Paganism, 292 .Charlemagne, 93.Chemical Affinity and Volume, 397.and Sensibility, 400.Nomenclature, 398.Chemistry, 360.Children and Works of Fiction, 160.Education of, 160.Christianity a Cohesive Element inSociety, 89.and Paganism, 140 .Christmas in Germany, 97.Church Architecture, Greek andGothic, 92.213.306.of England, and Persecution ,and Prayer for the Dead,and the Salvation of theHeathen, 253, 254, 309.and its Leaders , underMary and Elizabeth , 327.Cipriani's Pictures unreal, 46.Civilization, Origin of, 58.Clyde, Falls of The, 11.Coleridge, H. N. C., 3.Coleridge, S. , 27.on " The Theory of Life, " 352.Coleridge, S. T. C. , Proposed Workson the Logos, and St. John'sGospel, 18.and Allston, 24.Earlier Version of " Dejection,an Ode," 28.andthe Royal Society of Literature, 55 .INDEX. 435Coleridge, his Lines on Donne, 134.supposed in Newgate, 167.his Harz Journey, 187.Earlier Version of " Lineswritten in the Album at Elbingerode," 192.66 and his abuse of Pitt, 198.Apologetic Preface to Fire,Famine, and Slaughter," 198.- and his Poems, " The Devil'sThoughts," and " The Two RoundSpaces on the Tomb- stone," 205.and the " Quarterly Review,"241.244.and Southey, 241 .244.and Mathematics, 244.some contemplated Works of,Letter of, to Mr. Blackwood,in what Sense a Christian, 253,309.his Genius subjective , 259.why called " Satyrane,” 260.proposed Work on Petrarch,267.and Frederic Miller, 272.and his Procrastination, 273.describes himself as 66 an affectionate visionary," 300.and Miracles, 300.on Alms-giving, 301 .and his painful Dreams, 304.and Lamb, 317.and Dora Wordsworth, 317.on his capability of rivallingJunius, 343 .states what is his Master- Passion, 343.his Method, 355 .Commerce in Medieval Italy, 138 .in Modern England, 138 .Complacency produced by theBeautiful, 29.Conchylia, 411 .Condillac, 402 .Corals, 411.Corbet, Bp. , worthy to become apopular Poet, 293.Cornwall, Barry, 347 .Costume in Sculpture, 50.Cottle, 3.Coulomb on Magnetism, 426.Cowand Ox, Worship of, 59.Cowley, Style of, 181 .Criticism , On the Principles ofSound, 5.Literary, What it too often is ,and what it should be, 239, et seq.Cromwell, 331.66' Crusoe, Robinson," The germ ofit in Cervantes , 120.commented on, 153 , 154.Crystals, 314 , 360, 389.Curve, The, in Geometry, 40.Dahoma, and the Beautiful, 13 .Daniel, 292.his " Sonnets," 292.his " Hymen's Triumph," 292.Dante, 136 , 202.his " Divina Commedia, " 142 ,202.and Milton, 142 , 143, 149 .his " Purgatorio," 202.Darwin, Dr. E. , 16 , 413, 414.Davenant, and Man's Rights, 156 .Davy, Sir H. , as Poet, 198 .and Wordsworth, the two greatMen of their Age, 295.and his Experiments, 368.Dead, The, Prayer for, 305.Descartes and Geometry, 375.436 INDEX.Definition, The Essence of a Scientific , 370.Deluge, The, Missing Relics of, 306.Demoniacs, 171 .Devil, The, in the Middle Ages, 96 .in " Robinson Crusoe," 158.Personality of, 172.204.Burns's Tenderness towards,Disease and Genius, 257, 259.Donne, 134.Dragon, The, 421 .Drama, Greek, 60.A Gothic, described, 96.Dreams and Apparitions, 163.Droll, The, 122.Dryden, Style of, 181 .Eden, Rivers of, 315.Editors of Newspapers, 5.Education, Influence of Female Character on, 91 .Egypt, and the French Savans, 55.and the Mosaic Records , 56.Polytheism of, its true Nature,57.Electricity, 360, 375 , 397, 427.and Irritability, 400, 429 .and Life, 401 , 404, 406.and Magnetism, 401 , 404.Irritability, and Animalization,410.Elementary Substances, 316, 322 ,387.Eliezer of Damascus, 321.Emblems and Symbols, A Work on,desirable, 249.Faber, Rev. G. S. , on the Millennium,267.Fiction, Works of, Use of in theEducation of Children, 160.Fielding, as a Moral Writer, 337.his "Tom Jones," 337.his "Jonathan Wild," 339.Fishes, 361 , 417.and Insects, 419.Flattery of Kings in the StuartPeriod, 323.Fluidity and Magnetism, 408 .Foe, De, 153, 157 , 160.Form , 22 , 40.Freedom, French Idea of, 269.Spanish Idea of, 269.French Savans in Egypt, 55.Idea of Freedom, 269 .Friendship and Love, 302.Fuller, 323, 327.his " Holy State ," 321 .his " Profane State," 323.his " Appeal of Injured Innocence ," 324.- his " Church History," 325.Gases, 375.Genesis," Book of, Opening Chapters of, 307.Genius and Disease, 257, 259.Geology, 390.Geometry, 374.Gibbon, Style of, 182 .Gilbert, 374.Giotto, 90.God, Knowledge of, and the Platonists, 311.394.Omnipresence of, and Space,Unity or Eternity of, and Time,394.Gold, 308, 373.Good, The, 28.Gothic and Greek Styles compared,175.Art, 90, 92.INDEX. 437Gothic Literature, 91 .System of Society and Government, 95.96.Dramas, Their Grotesqueness,Goths, The, 91.Grand, The, 13.Greece, Ancient, 139 .Greek Art, 90, 92.Drama, 60.Philosophy, 63.Mythology, 151 .and Gothic Style compared,175 .Greeks and Hebrews, 62.The, and Cosmogonies of theEast, 66 .and Phoenicians, 67.Green, Professor, 89.Hall, Bp. , and Milton, 209.--a pious Prayer of, 212.Harmony, 21 , 22.Harvey's " Meditations," 249.Harz, The, 187 , et seq.Heathen, The, and Christianity, 253.Hebrews and Greeks, 62.Hell, Fear of, 308.Heracl*tus, 63, 313.Hermes, 79.Herodotus, 55 , 139 , 312.History, Different Ways of Writing,138.Modes of making Use of, 316.Holtz, German Poet, ProposedWork by Coleridge on, 244.Homer, 93.as treated by Proclus and Porphyry, 291.his" Batrachomyomachia," 292 .Hooker, his Style, 178, 181 .Humour and Wit, 121 , 123, 125.Hunter, John, 363 , 402.Husband, Advice on the Choice of a,229.Idea and Nomos, 70.Substance, 71 .Imitation , 45.Individuation, 390, et passim.Inkstand, Ideal of an, 247 .Insects, 361 , 413 , 415.and Irritability , 414.Eyes of, 415.Metamorphoses of 417.and Fishes, 419.Intuition and Intuitive, 17.Invention, 251 .Io and Isis, 58.Irreligion, Supposed of the MedicalProfession, 305.Irritability, 361 .410.and Electricity, 400.Electricity, and Animalization,and the Insect World, 414.Italy, More Greek than Gothic, 137 .James I. , 203, 323.John, St. , and the Demoniacs, 171 .Jonson, Ben, his Description of aHumour, 123.Jove, as a Mythical Conception, 66,75.Junius, 341, et seq.his Style, 182, 341 ,Juno, as the Church, 76.Jury, Trial by, 94.Keats, 241.Kelt and Teuton, 91 .Kepler, 375.et seq.Kings, Flattery of, in the StuartPeriod, 323.438 INDEX.Language, 44.Abuse and Use of, 199 .Latimer, his Style, 177.Latinity, Pedantic Views of pure, 295.Lavoisier, 375.Law, Definition of a, 71 .Lawrence on the Vital Principle,400, et seq.Length and Magnetism, 397 , 408.Life, Misery of Human, 225.Coleridge's extended Definitionofthe Term, 356 , 367 , 377 , et seq.,384.Probable Original Meaning ofit, 356.Spiritual Meaning of it , 357.is an Act, 358, 430.is the Principle of Individuation, 359, 384, 391 , 407.Bichat's Definition of, 367 , 377.as Antiputrescence, 371 .of Man, as including a Soul,377, 430.and Organization, 377.and Chemical Agency, 378.and God, 379.and Consciousness, 382 , 383.of Metals, 383.as Unity in Multeity, 385.Polarity of 393, 407.and Electricity, 401 , 404, 406.and Magnetism, 404.Line, The, in Geometry, 40.Idea of, 395.Literature and Politics, 6.Livy, 295.Locke, 267.Logos, The, 58, 308, 322 .Love, 221 , et seq. , 297.and Friendship, 221 , et seq. , 302.and Marriage, 221 , et seq. , 229,et seq. , 302.Lucretius, 358.Luther and Indecorum, 96.his Style, 177.Madness, Kinds of, 107 .Magicians, The Egyptian, 170.Magnetism, 314, 360, 374 , 397, 408.and Reproduction , 400, 429.and Electricity, 401 , 404.and Fluidity, 408.Reproduction, and Vegetation,410.Brugmans on, 425.Coulomb on, 426 .Mammalia, 362.Man, 362.his Nature and Rights , 156 .and Nature, 423.Mandeville, Sir John, 312.Marriage, 229.Mathematics and Philosophy, 10 , 12 .Matter, 385, 396.Maypole, The, in the Harz Mountains, 195 .Mechanism, 385.Meditation, 248.Meditations on Broomsticks , 248.Men, Three Classes of, 32.Origin of the Various Racesof, 89.Metalleity the Base of our Planet,409.Metals, 388.Life of, 383.Metaphysics and Poetry, 64, 65.of the Thirteenth Century, 373.Method, 251 .of Bacon and Plato, 251.Middle Ages, General Characters of Gothic Mind in the, 89.Gothic Literature and Art, 91 .Milesian Tales , The, 153.INDEX. 439Millennium, Rev. G. S. Faber on the,267.Milton, 207.and the Feeling for the Beautiful, 30.and Dante, 142 , 143, 149 .Style of, 180.and Taylor contrasted, 210,et seq.Health of, 258.and his coarse Language, 329.Mind and Nature, 252.The, and its Impulses, 372.Miracles, 300.Mitford's History of Greece, 139 .Mollusca, The, 361 , 368 , 412.Montaigne, 179, 318.Moore, his " Irish Melodies " quoted,221 .Morality and Religion, 233.More, Henry, 80, 332, et seq.Moses and Monotheism, 56.and " Genesis,” 307.at Fault, 308, 312.Motion, 396, et passim.Multitude and Multëity, 17 , 20 , 385.Music, 7 , 51.of Savage Tribes, 43.Mysteries, The, in Greece, 62.The Samothracian , 151 , 152.Mystics, The, How they defineBeauty, 27.Myth of Prometheus, 64, 68 .Mythologies of Greece and Asia, 150.Nature, 40, 42, 46.the Art of God, 44.and God, 219, 352.her Mode of Working, 245.and Mind, 252.works for us within us, 260.Personification of, 352 , 357.Nature, Unity of Human, what itconsists in, 355.Bacon's Use of the Word, 358.and Man, 423.Newton, 267, 374.Nomina and Phenomena , 253, 309.Nomos and Idea, 71 .North, Roger, Style of, 180.Nous, The, or pure Reason , 65 .Novels, Modern, 162 .Novelty in Art, 51 .Nutrition, 370.Odd, The, 123.Opinion and Affection, 297 .Order, 40.Orpheus, 314.Ox and Cow, Worship of, 59.Pain, Exercise of the Mind as aSource of Relief in, 256.Painting, 7, 44.and Statuary, 6 , 7 , 49 .Pan, 81 .Pantagruel, 127.Pantheism and Theism, 59.Pantheon, The, 142.Panurge, 127.Paracelsus, 301 , 311 , 321 .Parry, Dr., of Bath, 187.The Navigator, 187.Pasch, The Word, A Desideratum,335.Patriarchs, Religion of the, 64 .Paul, St., his Image of the Potter,156.Pedantry, 15.Pelagius, 325.Pentateuch, The, 56 .Persecution, as encouraged by theChurch of England, 213.Petrarch, 101 , 267.440 INDEX.Petrarch, Notes on his Works, 101 .Phenomena and Nomina, 253.Philosophy and Mathematics, 10, 12.of Greek Origin, 63.Scholastic, 139.The Corpuscular, why SOcalled, 358 , 369.Phoenicians, Religion of the, 67 , 152.Physicians and Religion, 305.Physics, 393.and Physiology, 383.Picturesque, The, 13.Pitt and Coleridge, 198.Plato, 74.his Use of Method, 251.Platonists, and Knowledge of God,311.Pleasure, 41 .Plotinus, 27.on Nature, 245.Poesy, 44.Poet, The, and his Pipe-bowl, 283.and the Universality of hisKnowledge, 347.at Work, Hints to, 347.in Purgatory, 348 .Poetry, 10, 43, 63, 298.and the Arts, 7.and Metaphysics, 64, 65.Ancient and Modern, and Imagination, 142.Selden on, 298.Dramatic, 346.Poets Good Writers of Prose, 181 .Faults ofour Second- rate Elder,335.Polarity, 359, 392, 409.Politics and Literature, 6.Polybius, 138.Polypi, The, 361.Propagation in, 411 .Porphyry and Homer, 291 .Possessed, The, in the Gospels , 171 .Poverty, Advantages of, 304.Praise, Literary, Sorts and Uses of,228, et seq.Prayer, 305.for the Dead, 305.Priestley, 368 , 375.Primrose, Dr. James, 312.Printers, Inaccuracy of Early, 317 .Proclus and Homer, 291.Prometheus, 64, 68, 75.Prophets, The Schools of the, andthe Greek Mysteries , 62.Proportion, and the Sense of Beauty,33.Prose of Poets, 181 .278.Wonderfulness of, 183.Use of whose for of which in,Proteus, Allegory of, 408.Providence, and Juvenal, &c . , 338.Pulci, 103.his "Morgante Maggiore," 104.Puritan Attitude towards Beauty,30.Pythagoras, his Definition of Beauty,26.Quakers, Errors of the, 326.Quarles' Emblems," 249.Questuary, 315.Quevado, 201.Quixote, Don, 106 , 108 .Rabelais, 127.Some Queries by, 264.Raffael, 90.his Galatea, 22.Reason, 252.of the Medical Profession, 305.Reflection and Suffering, 260.Reformation, The, 374.INDEX. 441Religion and Superstition , 216, etseq.and Morality, 233.Reproduction and Magnetism, 400.Magnetism, and Vegetation,410.and the Vegetable World, 414 .Repulsion and Attraction, 396.Restoration , The, Change of Stylein Writing after, 180.Revenge, 303.Revolution, The, Style after, 181.Reynolds, Sir J. , Remarks on Taste,179.Rhea, 81 .Richardson's " Clarissa," 337.Richerand, 367.Roman Empire, Decline of the, 89.Romance Languages, 99.The first , 104.Rosa, Salvator, 39.Rupert, Knecht, 97.Sachs, Hans, 97.Saxon Possessive Case, 183.Scott, Sir W. eulogised, 265 .Sculpture, 49 , 50.Costume in, 50.Selden, 297.Seneca, 89.his Style, 179.Sensations, 30.Senses, The, 25 , 36.Sensibility, 418.and Chemical Affinity, 400.Sensuous and Sensual , 17.Serpula, The, 411 .Shakspere, Gothic Source of a Scenein Richard III. , 95.258.and Cervantes compared, 106.his Wit and Humour, 121 .Possible Cause of his Death,G GShapely, The, 21 , 33.Sin, 310.Smollett, 123.Sotheby eulogised, 198.Soul and Body, 173, 333.Southey, 241 , 250.quoted, 166.Space, 393.and Time, 395, 429.Spain, and Liberty, 269.Spenserian Stanza, 333 .Spinoza, 299, 310.Spirits, The Fallen, 170.Statuary and Painting, 6, 7, 49.Statues, Worship of, 193 .Sterne, 124, 128.Style, 175.and Truth- speaking, 183.Sublime, The, 13.Substance, Idea and Matter, 71 .Substances, Nature of Elementary,316.Suffering and Reflection, 260.Superstition and Religion , 216 , et seq.Surface, Idea of, 395.and Electricity, 397..Swift, 128.his Style, 181 .Symbolical, The, and the Allegori- cal, 107.Symbols and Emblems, Desirable Work on, 249."Table Talk," Coleridge's, 3.Tacitus, 139 , 295.Taste, 12 , 14, 23, 36 .Taylor, Bishop, 203, 206.seq.and Milton contrasted, 210, ethis Style, 178 , 181 .on the Salvation ofthe Heathen,254.442 INDEX.Terminology, 16.Terms, Distinction of, 13.Testacea, The, 369.Teuton and Kelt, 91 .Theism and Pantheism, 59 .Theoderic , 93.Thesis and Antithesis , 70.Thing, Definition of a, 408.Thinking, Of Systematic, 244, et seq.and No- Thinking, 249.— a Relief for Pain, 256.Thucydides, 138.Time, 394.and Space, 395, 429.Tobit, Book of, 169.Tongues, Gift of, 325.Trinity, Doctrine of the, 306.Troubadours, The, 98 , 101 .Truth and Fashion, 266.Truth- speaking and Style, 183.Tubipora, The, 411 .Vegetable World, 390.and Reproduction, 414.Vegetation, Magnetism, and Reproduction, 410.Vermes, 413.Verse, Blank, Different Kinds of, 294.Vesta, 8.Vital Principle, Lawrence on the400, et seq. , 406.Voltaire, 121 .Volume and Chemical Affinity , 397.Wedgwood, T., 246, 248 , 250 , 255 .Whose for of which, in Prose Composition, 278.Wilson, Professor, on Coleridge's " Friend," 284.Wit, 135 .and Humour, 121 , 123.Women, as Novelists and Poets, 162 .Worcester, Marquis of, 251 .Words, 16, 17 , 385.Wordsworth, Dora, Letter of Coleridge to, 318.Wordsworth, W. , Influence of, 245,255.his Blank Verse, 294.and Davy, the two Great Menof their Age, 295.Writing, Art of, 42.Yew, 315.York Cathedral, 27 , 30, 90, 92, 142.Zoophytes, The, 411 .CHISWICK PRESS:-C. 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Front matter

MISCELLANIES, ESTHETIC AND LITERARY,OFSAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

MISCELLANIES,ESTHETIC AND LITERARY:TO WHICH IS ADDEDTHE THEORY OF LIFE.BYSAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.COLLECTED AND ARRANGEDBYT. ASHE, B.A.,OF ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE,Editor of Coleridge's " Table Talk and Omniana,” etc.LONDON: GEORGE BELL AND SONS,YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN.1885.LIBRARYOF THELELAND STANFORD JUNIORUNIVERSITY.A6035CHISWICK PRESS:-C. WHITTINGHAM AND CO. , TOOKS COURT,CHANCERY LANE.OUEDITOR'S PREFACE.UR volume collects together a variety of scatteredEssays, Notes, and Articles, by Coleridge, covering aperiod of more than thirty years. It contains, along withother matter, some Marginalia not hitherto printed; theprose pieces originally included in his " Poetical Works; "and the " Essays on the Fine Arts, " which he so oftenregretted the loss of. Anything wholly of a theological orpolitical nature has been reserved . Our best acknowledgments are due to Dr. Seth Watson, for permission toreprint " The Theory of Life. "

CONTENTS.ESSAYS ON THE FINE ARTS.Editor's NoteON THE PRINCIPLES OF SOUND CRITICISM CONCERNING THE FINEPAGE3ARTSPreliminary EssayEssay SecondEssay ThirdAppendix ·5101532FRAGMENT OF AN ESSAY ON TASTE. 1810 36FRAGMENT OF AN ESSAY ON BEAUTY. 1818 39ON POESY OR ART 42ON THE PROMETHEUS OF ÆSCHYLUS .Notes .8888253FRAGMENTS AND NOTES, MAINLY FROM THE LECTURES OF 1818.Editor's Note 87SECTION I. THE MIDDLE AGESGeneral Character of the Gothic Mind in the Middle Ages General Character of the Gothic Literature and ArtThe Troubadours899198BoccaccioPetrarch• 99101viii CONTENTS.Notes on Petrarch's Sonnets, Canzones, &c. .Luigi PulciSECTION II. CERVANTESPAGE101103106· 108112• 119CervantesDon QuixoteObservations on Particular Passages of Don Quixote Summary on CervantesSECTION III. WIT AND HUMOUROn the Distinctions of the Witty, the Droll, the Odd, and the Humorous. The Nature and Constituents of HumourRabelais• 121126Swift 128Sterne 128Donne 134SECTION IV. DANTE 137SECTION V. MYTHOLOGY, IMAGINATION, AND SUPERSTITION—Asiatic and Greek Mythologies 150The Arabian Nights, the Milesian Tales, and De Foe 152Notes on Robinson Crusoe · · 154Use of Works of Fiction in the Education of Children 160Dreams and Apparitions 163The Alchemists . 168The Book of Tobit. The Fallen Spirits. The EgyptianMusicians. The Possessed, in the GospelsThe Personality of the Devil169172Soul and BodySECTION VI. STYLE•✓ Wonderfulness of Prose173175• 183MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.OVER THE BROCKEN •ON UNMEASURED LANGUAGE AND INTOLERANCE, INCLUDING APARALLEL BETWEEN MILTON AND BISHOP TAYLOR .ALLEGORIC VISION • •THE IMPROVISATORE; OR " JOHN ANDERSON, MY Jo, JOHN."NEW THOUGHTS ON OLD SUBJECTSON THE CHOICE OF A HUSBAND.187· 198214· · 221ADVICE TO A Young Lady • 229• 238· 244261ON THE SORTS AND USES OF LITERARY PRAISE .OF THINKING AND REFLECTION .THE HISTORIE AND GESTS OF MAXILIAN ·CONTENTS. ixMISCELLANEOUS NOTES ON BOOKS AND AUTHORS.CHAPMAN'S HOMER •CHALMERS'S LIFE OF DANIELBISHOP CORBETBARCLAY'S ARGENIS•SELDEN'S TABLE TALKSIR THOMAS BROWNEFULLERMILTONHENRY MORE'S POEMSFIELDINGJUNIUSBARRY CORNWALLPAGE• 289293· 293294297299321329332 L 337341347THE THEORY OF LIFE.Editor's Note 351Dr. Watson's Preface 355Introduction 363ON THE DEFINITIONS OF LIFE HITHERTO RECEIVED.TOWARDS A MORE COMPREHENSIVE THEORYHINTS366b

ESSAYS ON THE FINE ARTS.B

IN