Chapter IV (2)

"In looking at objects of nature, while I am thinking, as at yonder
moon dim-glimmering through the dewy window-pane, I seem rather to be
seeking, as it were 'asking', a symbolical language for something
within me that already and for ever exists, than observing any thing
new. Even when that latter is the case, yet still I have always an
obscure feeling, as if that new phoenomenon were the dim awaking of a
forgotten or hidden truth of my inner nature.--It is still interesting
as a word, a symbol! It is the [Greek: logos], the Creator! and the
Evolver! What is the right, the virtuous feeling and consequent
action, when a man having long meditated and perceived a certain truth
finds another, a foreign writer, who has handled the same with an
approximation to the truth, as he had previously conceived it? Joy!
Let truth make her voice audible! While I was preparing the pen to
write this remark I lost the train of thought which had led me to it.
I meant to have asked something else, now forgotten for the above
answers itself--it needed no new answer, I trust, in my heart."

'15th April, 1805'.

Coleridge, who was an honest man, was equally honest in literature; and had he thought himself indebted to any other author, he would have acknowledged the same.

Born a poet, and a philosopher, by reflection, the mysterious depths of nature and the enquiry into these depths were among his chief delights. And from boyhood he had felt that it was the business of this life, to prepare for that which is to come. His schoolfellow, Lamb, also observed, that from his youth upward, "he hungered for eternity," sincerely and fervently praying to be so enlightened as to attain it.

Though usually described "as doing nothing,"--"an idler," "a dreamer," and by many such epithets--he sent forth works which, though they had cost him years of thought, never brought him any suitable return. In a note written in 1825, speaking of himself, he says,

"A man of letters, friendless, because of no faction: repeatedly, and
in strong language inculpated of hiding his light under a bushel, yet
destined to see publication after publication abused by the Edinburgh
Review, as the representative of one party, and not even noticed by
the Quarterly Review, as the representative of the other--and to
receive as the meed of his labours for the cause of freedom against
despotism and jacobinism, of the church against infidelity and schism;
and of principle against fashion and sciolism, slander, loss, and
embarrassment."

If, however, we were to collect the epithets applied to Milton in his time, they would now appear incredible;--so when the misconceptions arising from slander shall have ceased, the name of Coleridge will be enrolled among those of our most illustrious men. The poet has said of Gay, "in wit, a 'man'; simplicity, a 'child'."

But such was the extent and grasp of Coleridge's intellectual powers, that of him it may be said, "In wit, a giant; in simplicity, a very child." Though conscious of his own powers, with other men, he walked most humbly, and whatever their station or acquirements, he would talk to them as equals. He seemed but slightly connected with the things of the world, for which, save the love of those dear to him, he cared but little, living in this affection for his friends, and always feeling and acting in the spirit of that humility he has so beautifully described. "That humility which is the mother of charity," and which was in-woven in his being, revealing itself in all his intercourse throughout the day--for he looked on man as God's creature. All that he thought and taught was put forth in the same spirit and with the strongest sense of duty, so that they might learn of him with pleasure. Whatever be considered the faulty part of his own character, he freely acknowledged to others, with an admonition to avoid the like. His sensitive nature induced a too great proneness to a self-accusing spirit; yet in this was there no affected humility, though it might unfortunately dispose some to think evil of him where little or none existed, or form an excuse to others for their neglect of him. With respect to other men, however, all his feelings and judgments ever gave proof of the very reverse. The natural piety of his mind, led him most frequently to dwell on the thought of time and eternity, and was the cause of his discussions 'ending' generally with theology.

During the first week of his residence at Highgate, he conversed frequently on the Trinity and on Unitarianism, and in one of these conversations, his eye being attracted by a large cowry, very handsomely spotted:

"Observe," said he, "this shell, and the beauty of its exterior here
pourtrayed. Reverse it and place it to your ear, you will find it
empty, and a hollow murmuring sound issuing from the cavity in which
the animal once resided. This shell, with all its beautiful spots, was
secreted by the creature when living within it, but being plucked out,
nothing remains save the hollow sound for the ear. Such is
Unitarianism; it owes any beauty it may have left to the Christianity
from which it separated itself. The teachers of Unitarianism have
severed from 'their' Christianity its 'Life', [8] by removing the
doctrine of St. John; and thus mutilated, 'they' call the residue the
religion of Christ, implying the whole of the system, but omitting in
their teaching the doctrine of redemption."

This illustration reminds me of what took place between two men well known in the literary world, who were at a dinner party together, both dissenters,--one a Unitarian. In the evening, tea was brought on a large silver waiter. They were popular writers of the day. One of them observing the salver facetiously cried out, "See how we authors swim." "Read the inscription on it," said the kindhearted Unitarian: his friend did so, and seeing that it had been presented in token of satisfaction for his friend's labours in the "Improved Version of the New Testament," emphatically exclaimed, "Take it away! I am a Unitarian, because I am a Trinitarian; you have hitherto at least adopted a misnomer." Twenty-five years since the Unitarians were of two creeds; one class materialists, the other immaterialists, but both agreeing that Christ was only an inspired 'man'. If I am rightly informed, they are not more orthodox at the present day.

When Coleridge was among the Unitarians, his deeper course of reasoning had not yet commenced. During his school education he became a Socinian; the personality of the Trinity had staggered him, and he in consequence preached for a short time at different Unitarian meetings; but in the course of examination, he found that the doctrines he had to deliver were mere moral truths, while he was "craving for a 'faith'," his heart being with Paul and John, though his head was with Spinoza. In after life, speaking of his conversion to Christianity, he often repeated--He did not believe in the Trinity, because to him at that time, the belief seemed contradictory to reason and scripture. "What care I," said he, "for Rabbi Paul, or Rabbi John, if they be opposed to moral sense." This was going a step beyond the Socinians, but this step was the means of his being reclaimed from error, for having by his course of reasoning gradually diminished "even this faith," that which remained with him was so small, that it altogether sank into unbelief; and he then felt compelled to retrace his steps from the point whence he had started. Led by further enquiries after truth, deeper meditation revealed to him the true value of the scriptures; and at the same time his philosophic views enlarging, he found that the doctrine of the Trinity was not contrary to reason--to reason in its highest sense; and he then discovered how far he had misbelieved, or had been, as he stated, puffed up by Socinian views. On quitting Shrewsbury and returning to Bristol, he seceded from the Unitarians, and observed, that if they had attempted to play the same tricks with a neighbour's will, which they had done with the New Testament, they would deserve to be put in the pillory. He continued attached to the writings of St. John and St. Paul, for thirty-four years of his life, [9] and having grown in strength with increase of years, he died in the faith of these apostles. And yet but lately did it appear in print, that "he was ever shifting his opinions."

When at Cambridge, his acquaintance with Mr. Frend led him to study the philosophy of Hartley, and he became one of his disciples. Perhaps the love of Coleridge for his college, "the ever honoured Jesus," might have had some share in the cause of his early predilection in favour of Hartley. He too was the son of a clergyman, was admitted to Jesus at the age of fifteen, and became a fellow in 1705. According to the account given of him by his biographer, Coleridge in several respects seems to have resembled him. All his early studies were intended to fit him for the church, but scruples arose in his mind, because he could not conscientiously subscribe to the thirty-nine articles: he therefore gave up all thoughts of the clerical profession, and entered the medical, for which, as Coleridge himself states, he also had had the most ardent desire. Hartley, when he had taken his degree, practised physic; and his knowledge, his general acquirements, his sensibility, and his benevolence, made him an ornament to the profession. In this profession too, Coleridge, had circumstances allowed him to enter it, must have been pre-eminent. Hartley, like Coleridge, was formed for sympathy and all the charities of life--his countenance was benign--his manners were gentle--and his eloquence pathetic and commanding. He first practised at Newark, and afterwards removed to Bury St. Edmonds, where he ended his career, dying in 1757, at the age of fifty-two. He was much afflicted with stone, and was in part the means of procuring from the government five thousand pounds for Mrs. Stevens, as a reward for the secret of preparing the solvent, sold and advertised in her name. In 1740, he published the work on which his fame rests, under the title of 'Observations on Man, his frame, his duty, and his expectations.' In it he expounded his doctrine of vibrations, and attempted by reasoning to explain the origin and propagation of sensation, built on gratuitous assumption of certain vibrations of the brain and nerves, coupled by association. Coleridge on his visit to Germany, soon made himself master of this subject. In his Biographia Literaria, he devotes a chapter to the examination of the work, and having seen the hollowness of the argument, abandoned it. While in Germany, Coleridge also studied Des Cartes, and saw the source of Locke's Theory, from which he entirely differed. He next turned his attention to Spinoza, but with a mind so logically formed, and so energetic in the search after truth, it was impossible for him to dwell long on a philosophy thus constructed--and Coleridge was still left to yearn for a resting place on which to base his faith. After he had successively studied in the schools of Locke, Berkeley, Leibnitz, and Hartley, and could find in one of them an abiding place for his reason;

"I began," says he, "to ask myself, Is a system of philosophy, as
differing from mere history and classification, possible? If possible,
what are its necessary conditions? I was for a while disposed to
answer the first question in the negative, and to admit that the sole
practicable employment for the human mind was to observe, to
recollect, and to classify. Christianity however is not a theory, or a
speculation, but a life--not a philosophy of life, but a life and a
living process." [10]

Spinoza being one of the writers which Coleridge, in his passage from Socinianism to Christianity, had studied, the reader will probably be interested with the following note, written by himself on the subject:

"Paradoxical, as it assuredly is, I am convinced that Spinoza's
innocence and virtue, guarded and matured into invincible habit of
being, by a life of constant meditation and of intellectual pursuit,
were the conditions or temptations, 'sine quibus non' of his forming
and maintaining a system subversive of all virtue. He saw so clearly
the 'folly' and 'absurdity' of wickedness, and felt so weakly and
languidly the passions tempting to it, that he concluded, that nothing
was wanting to a course of well-doing, but clear conceptions and the
'fortitudo intellectualis'; while his very modesty, a prominent
feature in his character, rendered him, as it did Hartley, less averse
to the system of necessity. Add to these causes his profound
admiration of pure mathematics, and the vast progress made in it so
unspeakably beneficial to mankind, their bodies as well as souls, and
souls as well as bodies; the reflection that the essence of
mathematical science consists in discovering the absolute properties
of forms and proportions, and how pernicious a bewilderment was
produced in this 'sublime' science by the wild attempt of the
Platonists, especially the later (though Plato himself is far from
blameless in this respect,) to explain the 'final' cause of
mathematical 'figures' and of numbers, so as to subordinate them to a
principle of origination out of themselves; and the further comparison
of the progress of this SCIENCE, ('pura Mathesis') which excludes all
consideration of final cause, with the unequal and equivocal progress
of those branches of literature which rest on, or refer to final
causes; and that the uncertainty and mixture with error, appeared in
proportion to such reference--and if I mistake not, we shall have the
most important parts of the history of Spinoza's mind. It is a duty
which we owe to truth, to distinguish Spinoza from the Voltaires,
Humes, and the whole nest of 'popular' infidels, to make manifest how
precious a thing is the sincere thirst of truth for the sake of truth
undebased by vanity, appetite, and the ambition of forming a sect of
'arguescents' and trumpeters--and that it is capable, to a wonderful
degree, of rendering innoxious the poisonous pangs of the worst
errors--nay, heaven educing good out of the very evil--the important
advantages that have been derived from such men. Wise and good men
would never have seen the true basis and bulwark of the right cause,
if they had not been made to know and understand the whole weight and
possible force of the wrong cause; nor would have even purified their
own system from these admissions, on which the whole of Spinozism is
built, and which admissions were common to all parties, and therefore
fairly belonging to Spinoza.--Now I affirm that none but an eminently
pure and benevolent mind could have constructed and perfected such a
system as that of the ethics of Spinoza. Bad hearted men always 'hate'
the religion and morality which they attack--but hatred dims and
'inturbidates' the logical faculties. There is likewise a sort of
lurking terror in such a heart, which renders it far too painful to
keep a steady gaze on the being of God and the existence of
immortality--they dare only attack it as Tartars, a hot valiant
inroad, and then they scour off again. Equally painful is
self-examination, for if the wretch be 'callous', the 'facts' of
psychology will not present themselves--if not, who could go on year
after year in a perpetual process of deliberate self-torture and
shame. The very torment of the process would furnish facts subversive
of the system, for which the process was instituted. The mind would at
length be unable to disguise from itself the unequivocal 'fact' of its
own shame and remorse, and this once felt and distinctly acknowledged,
Spinozism is blown up as by a mine."

Coleridge had a great abhorrence of vice, and Spinoza having, in his writings, strongly marked its debasing effects, he was from sympathy on these points led to study his philosophy: but when on further research, he discovered that his ethics led to Pantheism and ended in the denial of the Deity--he abandoned these views, and gave up the study of Spinoza. Perhaps the contemplation of such writers led him to compose the following lines:

But some there are who deem themselves most free,
When they within this gross and visible sphere
Chain down the winged thought, scoffing ascent,
Proud in their meanness: and themselves they cheat
With noisy emptiness of learned phrase,
Their subtle fluids, impacts, essences,
Self-working tools, uncaused effects, and all
Those blind Omniscients, those Almighty slaves,
Untenanting creation of its GOD.

SIBYLLINE LEAVES--('Destiny of Nations'.)

The errors of this writer, however, as before observed, produced this great advantage; he recommenced his studies with greater care and increased ardour, and in the Gospel of St. John, discovered the truth--the truth, as Wordsworth powerfully sings,

"That flashed upon that inward eye,
Which is the bliss of solitude."

Having now discovered in the Scriptures this truth, to him at that time new and important, he pursued his philosophical researches--continually finding what he sought for in the one, borne out and elucidated by the other.

After he had corrected the proof sheets of the 'Christabel', the 'Sibylline Leaves', and the 'Biographia Literaria'; they were brought to London, and published by Rest Fenner, Paternoster Row. [11]

One of those periodical distresses, which usually visit this country about once in nine years, took place about this time, 1816,--and he was in consequence requested by his publisher to write on the subject. He therefore composed two Lay Sermons, addressed to the higher and to the middle classes of society, and had the intention of addressing a third to the lower classes. The first sermon he named "the Statesman's Manual, or the Bible the best guide to political skill and foresight." The pamphlet was as might have been expected, "cut up." He was an unpopular writer on an unpopular subject. Time was, when reviews directed the taste of the reading public, now, on the contrary, they judge it expedient to follow it.

But it may be well to place before the reader the expression of Coleridge's own feelings, written after these several attacks, it may also serve to show the persecution to which he was liable:

"I published a work a large portion of which was professedly
metaphysical. (First Lay Sermon.) [12]

A delay," said he, "occurred between its first annunciation and its
appearance; and it was reviewed by anticipation with a malignity, so
avowedly and so exclusively personal, as is, I believe, unprecedented
even in the present contempt of all common humanity that disgraces and
endangers the liberty of the press. 'After' its appearance the author
of this lampoon was chosen to review it in the Edinburgh Review: and
under the single condition, that he should have written what he
himself really thought, and have criticised the work as he would have
done had its author been indifferent to him, I should have chosen that
man myself, both from the vigour and the originality of his mind, and
from his particular acuteness in speculative reasoning, before all
others. But I can truly say, that the grief with which I read this
rhapsody of predetermined insult, had the rhapsodist himself for its
whole and sole object: and that the indignant contempt which it
excited in me was as exclusively confined to his employer and
suborner. I refer to this Review at present, in consequence of
information having been given me, that the innuendo of my 'potential
infidelity,' grounded on one passage of my first Lay Sermon, has been
received and propagated with a degree of credence, of which I can
safely acquit the originator of the calumny. I give the sentences as
they stand in the Sermon, premising only that I was speaking
exclusively of miracles worked for the outward senses of men. It was
only to overthrow the usurpation exercised in and through the senses,
that the senses were miraculously appealed to. REASON AND RELIGION ARE
THEIR OWN EVIDENCE. The natural sun is in this respect a symbol of the
spiritual: Ere he is fully arisen, and while his glories are still
under veil, he calls up the breeze to chase away the usurping vapours
of the night season, and thus converts the air itself into the
minister of its own purification: not surely in proof or elucidation
of the light from heaven, but to prevent its interception. Wherever,
therefore, similar circumstances coexist with the same moral causes,
the principles revealed, and the examples recorded, in the inspired
writings, render miracles superfluous: and if we neglect to apply
truths in the expectation of wonders, or under pretext of the
cessation of the latter, we tempt God and merit the same reply which
our Lord gave to the Pharisees on a like occasion.'

In the sermon and the notes both the historical truth and the
necessity of the miracles are strongly and frequently asserted. 'The
testimony of books of history (namely, relatively to the signs and
wonders with which Christ came,) is one of the strong and stately
'pillars' of the church; but it is not the 'foundation'.' Instead,
therefore, of defending myself, which I could easily effect by a
series of passages, expressing the same opinion, from the fathers and
the most eminent protestant divines, from the Reformation to the
Revolution, I shall merely state what my belief is, concerning the
true evidences of Christianity.

1st. Its consistency with right reason, I consider as the outer court
of the temple, the common area within which it stands.

2ndly. The miracles, with and through which the religion was first
revealed and attested, I regard as the steps, the vestibule, the
portal of the temple.

3rdly. The sense, the inward feeling, in the soul of each believer, of
its exceeding 'desirableness'--the experience, that he 'needs'
something, joined with the strong foretokening, that the redemption
and the graces propounded to us in Christ are 'what' he needs--this I
hold to be the true foundation of the spiritual edifice.

With the strong 'a priori' probability that flows in from 1 and 3, on
the correspondent historical evidence of 2, no man can refuse or
neglect to make the experiment without guilt. But,

4thly, it is the experience derived from a practical conformity to the
conditions of the gospel--it is the opening eye; the dawning light;
the terrors and the promises of spiritual growth; the blessedness of
loving God as God, the nascent sense of sin hated as sin, and of the
incapability of attaining to either without Christ; it is the sorrow
that still rises up from beneath, and the consolation that meets it
from above; the bosom treacheries of the principal in the warfare, and
the exceeding faithfulness and long-suffering of the uninterested
ally;--in a word, it is the actual _trial_ of the faith in Christ,
with its accompaniments and results, that must form the arched roof,
and the faith itself is the completing keystone. In order to an
efficient belief in Christianity, a man must have been a Christian,
and this is the seeming argumentum in circulo, incident to all
spiritual truths, to every subject not presentable under the forms of
time and space, as long as we attempt to master by the reflex acts of
the understanding, what we can only 'know' by the act of 'becoming'.
'Do the will of my Father, and ye shall know whether I am of God.'

These four evidences I believe to have been, and still to be, for the
world, for the whole church, all necessary, all equally necessary; but
that at present, and for the majority of Christians born in Christian
countries, I believe the third and the fourth evidences to be the most
operative, not as superseding, but as involving a glad undoubting
faith in the two former. Credidi, ideóque intellexi, appears to me the
dictate equally of philosophy and religion, even as I believe
redemption to be the antecedent of sanctification, and not its
consequent. All spiritual predicates may be construed indifferently as
modes of action, or as states of being. Thus holiness and blessedness
are the same idea, now seen in relation to act, and now to existence."

Biog. Liter. Vol. ii. p. 303.

His next publication was the 'Zapolya', which had a rapid sale, and he then began a second edition of the 'Friend'--if, indeed, as he observes,

"a work, the greatest part of which is new in substance, and the whole
in form and arrangement, can be described as an edition of the former."

At the end of the autumn of 1817, Coleridge issued the following prospectus, and hoped by delivering the proposed lectures to increase his utility; they required efforts indeed which he considered it a duty to make, notwithstanding his great bodily infirmities, and the heartfelt sorrow by which he had, from early life, been more or less oppressed:--

"There are few families, at present, in the higher and middle classes
of English society, in which literary topics and the productions of
the Fine Arts, in some one or other of their various forms, do not
occasionally take their turn in contributing to the entertainment of
the social board, and the amusement of the circle at the fire-side.
The acquisitions and attainments of the intellect ought, indeed, to
hold a very inferior rank in our estimation, opposed to moral worth,
or even to professional and specific skill, prudence, and industry.
But why should they be opposed, when they may be made subservient
merely by being subordinated? It can rarely happen that a man of
social disposition; altogether a stranger to subjects of taste (almost
the only ones on which persons of both sexes can converse with a
common interest), should pass through the world without at times
feeling dissatisfied with himself. The best proof of this is to be
found in the marked anxiety which men, who have succeeded in life
without the aid of these accomplishments, shew in securing them to
their children. A young man of ingenuous mind will not wilfully
deprive himself of any species of respect. He will wish to feel
himself on a level with the average of the society in which he lives,
though he may be ambitious of 'distinguishing' himself only in
his own immediate pursuit or occupation.

Under this conviction, the following Course of Lectures was planned.
The several titles will best explain the particular subjects and
purposes of each; but the main objects proposed, as the result of all,
are the two following:

I. To convey, in a form best fitted to render them impressive at the
time, and remembered afterwards, rules and principles of sound
judgment, with a kind and degree of connected information, such as the
hearers, generally speaking, cannot be supposed likely to form,
collect, and arrange for themselves, by their own unassisted studies.
It might be presumption to say, that any important part of these
Lectures could not be derived from books; but none, I trust, in
supposing, that the same information could not be so surely or
conveniently acquired from such books as are of commonest occurrence,
or with that quantity of time and attention which can be reasonably
expected, or even wisely desired, of men engaged in business and the
active duties of the world.

II. Under a strong persuasion that little of real value is derived by
persons in general from a wide and various reading; but still more
deeply convinced as to the actual 'mischief' of unconnected and
promiscuous reading, and that it is sure, in a greater or less degree,
to enervate even where it does not likewise inflate; I hope to satisfy
many an ingenuous mind, seriously interested in its own development
and cultivation, how moderate a number of volumes, if only they be
judiciously chosen, will suffice for the attainment of every wise and
desirable purpose: that is, 'in addition' to those which he studies
for specific and professional purposes. It is saying less than the
truth to affirm, that an excellent book (and the remark holds almost
equally good of a Raphael as of a Milton) is like a well-chosen and
well-tended fruit-tree. Its fruits are not of one season only. With
the due and natural intervals, we may recur to it year after year, and
it will supply the same nourishment and the same gratification, if
only we ourselves return with the same healthful appetite.

The subjects of the Lectures are indeed very 'different', but not (in
the strict sense of the term) 'diverse': they are 'various', rather
than 'miscellaneous'. There is this bond of connexion common to them
all,--that the mental pleasure which they are calculated to excite is
not dependant on accidents of fashion, place or age, or the events or
the customs of the day; but commensurate with the good sense, taste,
and feeling, to the cultivation of which they themselves so largely
contribute, as being all in 'kind', though not all in the same
'degree', productions of GENIUS.

What it would be arrogant to promise, I may yet be permitted to
hope,--that the execution will prove correspondent and adequate to the
plan. Assuredly my best efforts have not been wanting so to select and
prepare the materials, that, at the conclusion of the Lectures, an
attentive auditor, who should consent to aid his future recollection
by a few notes taken either during each Lecture or soon after, would
rarely feel himself, for the time to come, excluded from taking an
intelligent interest in any general conversation likely to occur in
mixed society.

S.T. COLERIDGE."

SYLLABUS OF THE COURSE.

LECTURE I. 'Tuesday Evening, January' 27, 1818.--On the manners,
morals, literature, philosophy, religion, and the state of society in
general, in European Christendom, from the eighth to the fifteenth
century (that is, from A.D. 700 to A.D. 1400), more particularly in
reference to England, France, Italy, and Germany: in other words, a
portrait of the (so called) dark ages of Europe.

II. On the tales and metrical romances common, for the most part, to
England, Germany, and the North of France; and on the English songs
and ballads; continued to the reign of Charles the First.--A few
selections will be made from the Swedish, Danish, and German
languages, translated for the purpose by the Lecturer.

III. Chaucer and Spenser; of Petrarch; of Ariosto, Pulci, and Boiardo.

IV. V. and VI. On the Dramatic Works of SHAKSPEARE. In these Lectures
will be comprised the substance of Mr. Coleridge's former Courses on
the same subject, enlarged and varied by subsequent study and
reflection.

VII. On Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and Massinger; with the
probable causes of the cessation of Dramatic 'Poetry' in England with
Shirley and Otway, soon after the Restoration of Charles the Second.

VIII. Of the Life and 'all' the Works of CERVANTES, but chiefly of his
Don Quixote. The Ridicule of Knight-Errantry shewn to have been but a
secondary object in the mind of the Author, and not the principal
Cause of the Delight which the Work continues to give in all Nations,
and under all the Revolutions of Manners and Opinions.

IX. On Rabelais, Swift, and Sterne: on the Nature and Constituents of
genuine Humour, and on the Distinctions of the Humorous from the
Witty, the Fanciful, the Droll, the Odd, &c.

X. Of Donne, Dante, and Milton.

XI. On the Arabian Nights Entertainments, and on the 'romantic' use of
the supernatural in Poetry, and in works of fiction not poetical. On
the conditions and regulations under which such Books may be employed
advantageously in the earlier Periods of Education.

XII. On tales of witches, apparitions, &c. as distinguished from the
magic and magicians of asiatic origin. The probable sources of the
former, and of the belief in them in certain ages and classes of men.
Criteria by which mistaken and exaggerated facts may be distinguished
from absolute falsehood and imposture. Lastly, the causes of the
terror and interest which stories of ghosts and witches inspire, in
early life at least, whether believed or not.

XIII. On colour, sound, and form, in nature, as connected with POESY:
the word, 'Poesy' used as the 'generic' or class term, including
poetry, music, painting, statuary, and ideal architecture, as its
species. The reciprocal relations of poetry and philosophy to each
other; and of both to religion, and the moral sense.

XIV. On the corruptions of the English language since the reign of
Queen Anne, in our style of writing prose. A few easy rules for the
attainment of a manly, unaffected, and pure language, in our genuine
mother-tongue, whether for the purposes of writing, oratory, or
conversation. Concluding Address."

These lectures, from his own account, were the most profitable of any he had before given, though delivered in an unfavorable situation; but being near the Temple, many of the students were his auditors. It was the first time I had ever heard him in public. He lectured from notes, which he had carefully made; yet it was obvious, that his audience was more delighted when, putting his notes aside, he spoke extempore;--many of these notes were preserved, and have lately been printed in the Literary Remains. In his lectures he was brilliant, fluent, and rapid; his words seemed to flow as from a person repeating with grace and energy some delightful poem. If, however, he sometimes paused, it was not for the want of words, but that he was seeking the most appropriate, or their most logical arrangement.

The attempts to copy his lectures verbatim have failed, they are but comments. Scarcely in anything could he be said to be a mannerist, his mode of lecturing was his own. Coleridge's eloquence, when he gave utterance to his rich thoughts, flowing like some great river, which winds its way majestically at its own "sweet will," though occasionally slightly impeded by a dam formed from its crumbling banks, but over which the accumulated waters pass onward with increased force, so arrested his listeners, as at times to make them feel almost breathless. Such seemed the movement of Coleridge's words in lecture or in earnest discourse, and his countenance retained the same charms of benignity, gentleness, and intelligence, though this expression varied with the thoughts he uttered, and was much modified by his sensitive nature. His quotations from the poets, of high character, were most feelingly and most luminously given, as by one inspired with the subject. In my early intimacy with this great man, I was especially struck with the store of knowledge he possessed, and on which I ever found one might safely rely. I begged him to inform me by what means the human mind could retain so much, to which he always gave the following answer:

"The memory is of two kinds," (a division I have ever found useful),
"the one kind I designate the passive memory, the other the creative,
with the first I retain the names of 'things', 'figures', and
'numbers', &c. and this in myself I believe to be very defective. With
the other I recall facts, and theories, &c. by means of their law or
their principle, and in tracing these, the images or facts present
themselves to me."

Coleridge, as a motto to the first essay in 'The Friend', quotes the following observation from the life of Petrarch:

"Believe me," says this writer, "it requires no little confidence to
promise help to the struggling, counsel to the doubtful, light to the
blind, hope to the desponding, refreshment to the weary; these are
great things if they are accomplished, trifles if they exist but in
promise. I, however, aim not so much to prescribe a law for others, as
to set forth the law of my own mind." At this Coleridge always aimed,
and continuing the quotation from Petrarch, "Let the man who shall
approve of it, abide, and let him to whom it shall appear not
reasonable, reject it. 'Tis my earnest wish, I confess, to employ my
understanding and acquirements in that mode and direction in which I
may be able to benefit the largest number possible of my
fellow-creatures."

Such was Coleridge's wish, and with this view, and with this end, he constantly employed his time.

His mind was occupied with serious thoughts--thoughts connected with the deep truths he was endeavouring to inculcate. His heart was from his early youth full of sympathy and love, and so remained till his latest hour. To his friend, when in trouble or sorrow, this sympathy and solace were freely given; and when he received, or thought he received, a benefit, or a kindness, his heart overflowed with gratitude--even slight services were sometimes over-valued by him. I have selected the following from among many letters written at different periods, as characteristic of the man, and evincing those religious, grateful, and affectionate feelings which are so strongly marked in all he has ever written, for, from his youth upward, he was wedded to the lovely and the beautiful. In his letters, these feelings were occasionally expressed with much liveliness, terseness, and originality.

In doing this, I believe, I must anticipate some of the incidents of his life; the first letter written was addressed to a friend, who was in great anguish of mind from the sudden death of his mother, and was written thirty years before his decease:

"Your letter, my friend, struck me with a mighty horror. It rushed
upon me and stupified my feelings. You bid me write you a religious
letter; I am not a man who would attempt to insult the greatness of
your anguish by any other consolation. Heaven knows that in the
easiest fortunes there is much dissatisfaction and weariness of
spirit; much that calls for the exercise of patience and resignation;
but in storms, like these, that shake the dwelling and make the heart
tremble, there is no middle way between despair and the yielding up of
the whole spirit unto the guidance of faith. And surely it is a matter
of joy, that your faith in Jesus has been preserved; the Comforter
that should relieve you is not far from you. But as you are a
Christian, in the name of that Saviour, who was filled with bitterness
and made drunken with wormwood, I conjure you to have recourse in
frequent prayer to 'his God and your God,' [13] the God of mercies,
and father of all comfort. Your poor father is, I hope, almost
senseless of the calamity; the unconscious instrument of Divine
Providence knows it not, and your mother is in heaven. It is sweet to
be roused from a frightful dream by the song of birds, and the
gladsome rays of the morning. Ah, how infinitely more sweet to be
awakened from the blackness and amazement of a sudden horror, by the
glories of God manifest, and the hallelujahs of angels.

As to what regards yourself, I approve altogether of your abandoning
what you justly call vanities. I look upon you as a man, called by
sorrow and anguish and a strange desolation of hopes into quietness,
and a soul set apart and made peculiar to God; we cannot arrive at any
portion of heavenly bliss without in some measure imitating Christ.
And they arrive at the largest inheritance who imitate the most
difficult parts of his character, and bowed down and crushed under
foot, cry in fulness of faith, 'Father, thy will be done.'

I wish above measure to have you for a little while here--no visitants
shall blow on the nakedness of your feelings--you shall be quiet, and
your spirit may be healed. I see no possible objection, unless your
father's helplessness prevent you, and unless you are necessary to
him. If this be not the case, I charge you write me that you will
come.

I charge you, my dearest friend, not to dare to encourage gloom or
despair--you are a temporary sharer in human miseries, that you may be
an eternal partaker of the Divine nature. I charge you, if by any
means it be possible, come to me. I remain, your affectionate,

S.T. COLERIDGE."

"MY DEAR SIR,

Accept my thanks for your kind remembrance of me, and for the proof of
it in the present of your tribute of friendship, I have read it with
uninterrupted interest, and with satisfaction scarcely less
continuous. In adding the three last words, I am taking the word
satisfaction in its strictest sense: for had I written pleasure, there
would have been no ground for the limitation. Indeed as it was, it is
a being scrupulous over much. For at the two only passages at which I
made a moment's 'halt' (viz. p. 3, [14], and p. 53, last line but
five,) she had seldom--oppressive awe, my not 'objection' but
'stoppage' at the latter amounted only to a doubt, a 'quære', whether
the trait of character here given should not have been followed by
some little comment, as for instance, that such a state of feeling,
though not desirable in a regenerate person, in whom belief had
wrought love, and love obedience, must yet be ranked amongst those
constitutional differences that may exist between the best and wisest
Christians, without any corresponding difference in their spiritual
progress. One saint fixes his eyes on the 'palm', another saint thinks
of the previous 'conflict', and closes them in prayer. Both are waters
of the same fountain--'this' the basin, 'that' the salient column,
both equally dear to God, and both may be used as examples for men,
the one to invite the thoughtless sceptic, the other to alarm the
reckless believer. You will see, therefore, that I do not object to
the sentence itself; but as a matter of 'feeling', it met me too
singly and suddenly. I had not anticipated such a trait, and the
surprise counterfeited the sensation of perplexity for a moment or
two. On as little objection to any thing you have said, did the
'desiderium' the sense of not being quite satisfied, proceed in regard
to the 44. p. 3. In the particular instance in the application of the
sentiment, I found nothing to question or qualify. It was the rule or
principle which a certain class of your readers might be inclined to
deduce from it, it was the possible generalization of the particular
instance that made me pause. I am jealous of the disposition to turn
Christianity or Religion into a particular 'business' or line. 'Well,
Miss, how does your pencil go on, I was delighted with your last
landscape.' 'Oh, sir, I have quite given 'up' that, I have got into
the religious line.' Now, my dear sir, the rule which I have deduced
from the writings of St. Paul and St. John, and (permit me also to
add) of Luther, would be this. Form and endeavour to strengthen into
an habitual and instinct-like feeling, the sense of the utter
incompatibility of Christianity with every thing wrong or unseemly,
with whatever betrays or fosters the mind of flesh, the predominence
of the 'animal' within us, by having habitually present to the mind,
the full and lively conviction of its perfect compatibility with
whatever is innocent of its harmony, with whatever
contra-distinguishes the HUMAN from the animal; of its sympathy and
coalescence with the cultivation of the faculties, affections, and
fruitions, which God hath made 'peculiar' to 'man', either wholly or
in their ordained 'combination' with what is peculiar to humanity, the
blurred, but not obliterated signatures of our original title deed,
(and God said, man will we make in our own image.) What?--shall
Christianity exclude or alienate us from those powers, acquisitions,
and attainments, which Christianity is so pre-eminently calculated to
elevate and enliven and sanctify?

Far, very far, am I from suspecting in you, my dear sir, any
participation in these prejudices of a shrivelled proselyting and
censorious religionist. But a numerous and stirring faction there is,
in the so called Religious Public, whose actual and actuating
principles, with whatever vehemence they may disclaim it in words, is,
that redemption is a something not yet effected--that there is neither
sense nor force in our baptism--and that instead of the Apostolic
command, 'Rejoice, and again I say unto you, rejoice'; baptized
Christians are to be put on sackcloth and ashes, and try, by torturing
themselves and others, to procure a rescue from the devil. Again, let
me thank you for your remembrance of me, and believe me from the hour
we first met at Bristol, with esteem and regard,

Your sincere friend,

S. T. COLERIDGE."

Ramsgate, 28th Oct. 1822.

DEAR FRIEND,

Words I know are not wanted between you and me. But there are
occasions so awful, there may be instances and manifestations of
friendship so affecting, and drawing up with them so long a train from
behind, so many folds of recollection as they come onward on one's
mind, that it seems but a mere act of justice to oneself, a debt we
owe to the dignity of our moral nature to give them some record; a
relief which the spirit of man asks and demands to contemplate in some
outward symbol, what it is inwardly solemnizing. I am still too much
under the cloud of past misgivings, too much of the stun and stupor
from the recent peals and thunder-crush still remains, to permit me to
anticipate others than by wishes and prayers. What the effect of your
unwearied kindness may be on poor M.'s mind and conduct, I pray
fervently, and I feel a cheerful trust that I do not pray in vain,
that on my own mind and spring of action, it will be proved not to
have been wasted. I do inwardly believe, that I shall yet do something
to thank you, my dear--in the way in which you would wish to be
thanked--by doing myself honour.--Dear friend and brother of my soul,
God only knows how truly, and in the depth, you are loved and prized
by your affectionate friend,

S. T. COLERIDGE."

During the first lecture of the course in 1817, a young man of modest demeanor sent him a letter, and afterwards introduced himself, stating ti that he was a student in literature, and from his conversation, he struck Coleridge as one much more attached to the better part of our nature than to the love of gain. An intimacy consequently took place, and Coleridge addressed many letters to him, from which will be selected such as are critical or autobiographical. Fortunately they have been preserved, and are too valuable not to form a part of this volume.

The following is an answer to the first letter Coleridge received from him:

"Wednesday Morning, Jan. 28th, 1818.

DEAR SIR,

Your friendly letter was first delivered to me at the lecture-room
door on yesterday evening, ten minutes before the lecture, and my
spirits were so sadly depressed by the circumstance of my hoarseness,
that I was literally incapable of reading it. I now express my
acknowledgments, and with them the regret that I had not received the
letter in time to have availed myself of it.

When I was young I used to laugh at flattery, as, on account of its
absurdity, I now abhor it, from my repeated observations of its
mischievous effects. Amongst these, not the least is, that it renders
honourable natures more slow and reluctant in expressing their real
feelings in praise of the deserving, than, for the interests of truth
and virtue, might be desired. For the weakness of our moral and
intellectual being, of which the comparatively strongest are often the
most, and the most painfully, conscious, needs the confirmation
derived from the coincidence and sympathy of the friend, as much as
the voice of honour within us denounces the pretences of the
flatterer. Be assured, then, that I write as I think, when I tell you
that, from the style and thoughts of your letter, I should have drawn
a very different conclusion from that which you appear to have done,
concerning both your talents and the cultivation which they have
received. Both the matter and manner are manly, simple, and correct.

Had I the time in my own power, compatibly with the performance of
duties of immediate urgency, I would endeavour to give you, by letter,
the most satisfactory answer to your questions that my reflections and
the experience of my own fortunes could supply. But, at all events, I
will not omit to avail myself of your judicious suggestion in my last
lecture, in which it will form a consistent part of the subject and
purpose of the discourse. Meantime, believe me, with great respect,

Your obliged fellow-student of the true and the beseeming

S. T. COLERIDGE."

"Sept. 20th, 1818.

DEAR SIR,

Those who have hitherto chosen to take notice of me, as known to them
only by my public character, have for the greater part taken out, not,
indeed, a poetical, but a critical, license to make game of me,
instead of sending game to me. Thank heaven! I am in this respect more
tough than tender. But, to be serious, I heartily thank you for your
polite remembrance; and, though my feeble health and valetudinarian
stomach force me to attach no little value to the present itself, I
feel still more obliged by the kindness that prompted it.

I trust that you will not come within the purlieus of Highgate without
giving me the opportunity of assuring you personally that I am, with
sincere respect,

Your obliged,

S. T. COLERIDGE."

Following the chronological order I proposed, I am led to speak again of Lamb, who having at this time collected many little poems and essays, scattered in different publications, he reprinted and published them in two small volumes, which he dedicated to Coleridge; and those of my readers who have not seen this work will, doubtless, find it interesting. The simplicity of this dedication, and above all the biographical portion of it, seem to render it appropriate to this work, and it is therefore subjoined.

TO S. T. COLERIDGE, Esq.

MY DEAR COLERIDGE,

You will smile to see the slender labors of your friend designated by
the title of 'Works'; but such was the wish of the gentlemen who have
kindly undertaken the trouble of collecting them, and from their
judgment could be no appeal.

It would be a kind of disloyalty to offer to any one but yourself, a
volume containing the 'early pieces' which were first published among
your poems, and were fairly derivatives from you and them. My friend
Lloyd and myself came into our first battle (authorship is a sort of
warfare) under cover of the greater Ajax. How this association, which
shall always be a dear and proud recollection to me, came to be
broken;--who snapped the three-fold cord,--whether yourself (but I
know that was not the case,) grew ashamed of your former
companions,--or whether (which is by much the more probable) some
ungracious bookseller was author of the separation, I cannot
tell;--but wanting the support of your friendly elm, (I speak for
myself,) my vine has, since that time, put forth few or no fruits; the
sap (if ever it had any) has become in a manner dried up and extinct:
and you will find your old associate in his second volume, dwindled
into prose and criticism. Am I right in assuming this as the cause? or
is it that, as years come upon us, (except with some more
healthy-happy spirits,) life itself loses much of its poetry for us?
we transcribe but what we read in the great volume of Nature: and, as
the characters grow dim, we turn of and look another way. You,
yourself, write no Christabels, nor Ancient Marriners, now. Some of
the Sonnets, which shall be carelessly turned over by the general
reader, may happily awaken in you remembrances, which I should be
sorry should be ever totally extinct--the memory

Of summer days and of delightful years.

Even so far back as to those old suppers at our old----Inn, when
life was fresh, and topics exhaustless,--and you first kindled in me,
if not the power, yet the love of poetry, and beauty and kindliness,

What words have I heard Spoke at the Mermaid?

The world has given you many a shrewd nip and gird since that time,
but either my eyes are grown dimmer, or my old friend is the same, who
stood before me three-and-twenty years ago--his hair a little
confessing the hand of time, but still shrouding the same capacious
brain,--his heart not altered, scarcely where it "alteration finds."

One piece, Coleridge, I have ventured to publish in its original form,
though I have heard you complain of a certain over-imitation of the
antique in the style. If I could see any way of getting rid of the
objection, without re-writing it entirely, I would make some
sacrifices. But when I wrote John Woodville, I never proposed to
myself any distinct deviation from common English. I had been newly
initiated in the writings of our elder dramatists; Beaumont, and
Fletcher, and Massinger, were then a 'first love'; and from what I was
so freshly conversant in, what wonder if my language imperceptibly
took a tinge? The very 'time', which I had chosen for my story, that
which immediately followed the Restoration, seemed to require in an
English play, that the English should be of rather an older cast, than
that of the precise year in which it happened to be written. I wish it
had not some faults which I can less vindicate than the language.

I remain, my dear Coleridge, Yours, with unabated esteem, C. LAMB.