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19476.355.35

WILLIAM RICHARDS

CASTL

A GIFT TO THE VERI

HARVARD COLLEGE
LIBRARY
MUSTANGGOBUWIE 497
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BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA

OR BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES

OF MY LITERARY LIFE AND OPINIONS

BY SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

SECOND EDITION PREPARED FOR PUBLICATION IN PART

BY THE LATE HENRY NELSON COLERIDGE
COMPLETED AND PUBLISHED
BY HIS WIDOW

ALDI
DISCIP
ANGLVS

VOL. I. 241

LONDON

WILLIAM PICKERING
1847
19-7635535X
1247 必

D COL
VAR LEG
HAR E
JUN 11 1918
LIBRARY

CHISWICK :
PRINTED BY C. WHITTINGHAM , COLLEGE HOUSE.
 ΤΟ

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, Esq. P. L.

MY DEAR MR. Wordsworth ,

HAVE received with great pleasure your permission to

inscribe to you this new edition of my Father's Biogra
phia Literaria. You will find in it some ofthe latest writings
of my dear departed Husband ; —some too of my own, to
which I know you will be indulgent ; but my chief reason
for dedicating it to you is, that it contains, though only in a
brief and fragmentary form, an account of the Life and
Opinions of your friend , S. T. Coleridge, in which I feel
assured that, however you may dissent from portions of the
latter, you take a high and peculiar interest. His name was
early associated with your's from the time when you lived as
neighbours, and both together sought the Muse, in the lovely
Vale of Stowey. That this association may endure as long
as you are both remembered,—that not only as a Poet, but
as a Lover and a Teacher of Wisdom, my Father may con
tinue to be spoken of in connection with you, while your
writings become more and more fully and widely appre
ciated, is the dearest and proudest wish that I can form for
his memory.
I remain , dear Mr. Wordsworth,
With deep affection, admiration, and respect,
Your Child in heart and faithful Friend,
SARA COLERIDGE .

REGENT'S PARK,
January 30, 1847.
 ADVERTISEMENT.

HIS new edition of my Father's Biographia Literaria

THIS
was partly prepared for publication by his late Editor.
The corrections of the text in the first nine or ten chapters of
Vol . I. and in the first three or four of Vol . II. are by his
hand ; the notes signed “ Editor ” were written by him ; and
he drew up the Biographical Supplement, (the first three chap
ters of it containing the Letters) , which is placed at the end
of the second volume. His work it has fallen to me to com
plete , and the task has been interesting, though full of af
fecting remembrances, and brought upon me by the deepest
sorrow of my life. The biographical sketch I have pub
lished as I found it, with trifling alterations and omissions,
filling up a few gaps and supplying the mottoes. Had the
writer himself taken it up again, he would probably have
improved and continued it.
I have only to add that my thanks are due to many kind
friends, who have assisted me in my part of the undertaking
with advice, information, or loan of books ; especially my
Father's dear Friend and Fellow Student, Mr. Green, Arch
deacon Hare, and my brother-in-law, Mr. Justice Coleridge.
I am also much indebted for help toward my work to Mr.
Pickering, by whom a great number of the books referred to
in the notes were placed in my hands.
 CONTENTS.

PAGE
INTRODUCTION V
CHAP. I. Motives to the present work- Reception of
the Author's first publication- Discipline of his taste
at school -Effect of contemporary writers on youth
ful minds- Bowles's Sonnets- Comparison between
the poets before and since Pope . •
CHAP. II. Supposed irritability of men of genius brought
to the test of facts-Causes and occasions of the
charge-Its injustice 29
CHAP. III. The Author's obligations to Critics, and the
probable occasion-Principles of modern Criticism
Mr. Southey's works and character 48
CHAP. IV. The Lyrical Ballads with the Preface- Mr.
Wordsworth's earlier poems On Fancy and Imagi
nation-The investigation of the distinction important
to the Fine Arts . 65
CHAP. V. On the law of Association- Its history traced
from Aristotle to Hartley · 87
CHAP. VI. That Hartley's system, as far as it differs from
that of Aristotle, is neither tenable in theory, nor
founded in facts · 112
CHAP. VII . Of the necessary consequences of the Hart
leian Theory- Of the original mistake or equivoca
tion which procured its admission - Memoria technica 120
CHAP. VIII. The system of Dualism introduced by Des
Cartes- Refined first by Spinoza and afterwards by
Leibnitz into the doctrine of Harmonia præstabilita—
Hylozoism-Materialism- None of these systems,
or any possible theory of Association, supplies or su
persedes a theory of Perception , or explains the forma
tion of the Associable • 130
 CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAP. IX. Is Philosophy possible as a science, and what
are its conditions ?-Giordano Bruno-Literary Aris
tocracy, or the existence of a tacit compact among
the learned as a privileged order-The Author's
obligations to the Mystics-to Immanuel Kant-The
difference between the letter and the spirit of Kant's
writings, and a vindication of prudence in the teach
ing of Philosophy- Fichte's attempt to complete the
Critical system-Its partial success and ultimate
failure-Obligations to Schelling ; and among Eng
lish writers to Saumarez 141
CHAP. X. A Chapter of digression and anecdotes, as an
interlude preceding that on the nature and genesis of
the Imagination or Plastic Power-On Pedantry and
pedantic expressions- Advice to young authors re
specting publication- Various anecdotes of the Au
thor's literary life, and the progress of his opinions
in Religion and Politics 173
CHAP. XI. An affectionate exhortation to those who in
early life feel themselves disposed to become authors 230
CHAP. XII . A Chapter of requests and premonitions
concerning the perusal or omission of the chapter
that follows 241
CHAP. XIII. On the Imagination, or Esemplastic power 287
APPENDIX 299
 INTRODUCTION.

Mr. Coleridge's obligations to Schelling, and the

unfair view ofthe subject presented in Black
wood's Magazine.

OME years ago, when the late Editor of

my Father's works was distantly contem
plating a new edition ofthe Biographia
Literaria, but had not yet begun to exa
mine the text carefully with a view to
this object, his attention was drawn to an article in
Blackwood's Magazine of March 1840, in which "the
very large and unacknowledged appropriations it con
tains from the great German Philosopher Schelling "
are pointed out ; and by this paper I have been di
rected to those passages in the works of Schelling and
of Maasz, to which references are given in the following
pages, to most ofthem immediately, and to a few more
through the strict investigation which it occasioned.
Whether or no my Father's obligations to the great
German Philosopher are virtually unacknowledged
to the extent and with the unfairness which the writer
of that article labours to prove, the reader of the pre
sent edition will be able to judge for himself; the facts
of the case will be all before him, and from these, when
the whole of them are fully and fairly considered, I feel
1 b
vi Inconsistent Language

assured that by readers in general, —and I have had

some experience on this point already, -no such in
jurious inferences as are contained in that paper will
ever be drawn. The author, it must be observed,
before commencing his argument, thinks fit to disclaim
the belief, that conscious intentional plagiarism is im
putable to the object of his censure ; nevertheless,
throughout great part of it, Mr. Coleridge is treated
as an artful purloiner and selfish plunderer, who know
ingly robs others to enrich himself, both the tone and
the language of the article expressing this and no
other meaning. Such aspersions will not rest, I think
they never have rested, upon Coleridge's name ; the
protest here entered is a duty to his memory from
myself rather than a work necessary to his vindication ,
and the remarks that follow are made less with a view
to influence the opinions of others than to record my
own.
The charge brought against my Father by the au
thor of the article appears to be this, that, having
borrowed largely from Schelling, ' he has made no
adequate acknowledgments of obligation to that philo
sopher, only such general admissions as are quite in
sufficient to cover the extent of his debt ; that his
anticipatory defence against a charge of " ungenerous
concealment or intentional plagiarism " is no defence
at all ; and that his particular references are too few
and inaccurate to vindicate him from having dealt

The passages borrowed by my Father from Schelling and

Maasz are pointed out in this edition in notes at the foot of
the pages where they occur. For the particulars and amount of
the debt, therefore, readers are referred to the body of the work,
chapters v. vii. viii. ix. xii. in the first volume.
 of Mr. Coleridge's Accuser. vii

unfairly toward the author from whom he has taken

so much. The plaintiff opens his case with giving as
the whole of this defence of my Father's,- (that it is
not the whole will appear in the sequel, ) — certain
parts of a passage upon Schelling that occurs in the
ninth chapter of the Biographia Literaria ; and al
though, in that passage, the author desires, that, " what
ever in this or any future work of his resembles or
coincides with the doctrines of his German prede
cessor though contemporary be wholly attributed to
him," yet he insists that Coleridge has defrauded
Schelling of his due, and seeks to support the im
peachment on these two grounds, first that very " ab
sence of distinct references to his books," which he
himself plainly admits and particularly accounts for ;
or, in the accuser's own words, his omission of specific
acknowledgments in the instances in which he was
indebted to him ; secondly, his having affirmed that
he had in some sort anticipated the system which he
proposed to teach .
Now it must be remarked, by way of preliminary,
that no man can properly be said to defraud another,
nor ought to be so spoken of, who has not a fraudulent
intention but it never yet has been proved, after all
the pains that have been taken to this effect, that Mr.
Coleridge intended to deprive Schelling of any part of
the honour that rightfully belongs to him, or that he
has, by Mr. Coleridge's means, been actually deprived
of it, even for an hour. With regard to the first
ground of accusation , it is doubtless to be regretted
by every friend of the accused, that he should have
adopted so important a portion of the words and
thoughts of Schelling without himself making those
distinct and accurate references , which he might have
BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA

OR BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES

OF MY LITERARY LIFE AND OPINIONS

BY SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

SECOND EDITION PREPARED FOR PUBLICATION IN PART

BY THE LATE HENRY NELSON COLERIDGE
COMPLETED AND PUBLISHED
BY HIS WIDOW

ALDI
DISCIP
ANGLVS

VOL. I. 2+ 1

LONDON

WILLIAM PICKERING
1847
19476.355.35 X
19477.43.9

D CO
VAR LL
HAR EGE

JUN 11 1918
LIBRARY

-keed

CHISWICK :
PRINTED BY C. WHITTINGHAM , COLLEGE HOUSE.
911 22
.0
 ΤΟ

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, Esq. P. L.

MY DEAR MR. Wordsworth,

I HAVE received with great pleasure your permission to

inscribe to you this new edition of my Father's Biogra
phia Literaria. You will find in it some of the latest writings
of my dear departed Husband ;-some too of my own, to
which I know you will be indulgent ; but my chief reason
for dedicating it to you is, that it contains, though only in a
brief and fragmentary form, an account of the Life and
Opinions of your friend, S. T. Coleridge, in which I feel
assured that, however you may dissent from portions of the
latter, you take a high and peculiar interest. His name was
early associated with your's from the time when you lived as
neighbours, and both together sought the Muse, in the lovely
Vale of Stowey. That this association may endure as long
as you are both remembered,—that not only as a Poet, but
as a Lover and a Teacher of Wisdom, my Father may con
tinue to be spoken of in connection with you, while your
writings become more and more fully and widely appre
ciated , is the dearest and proudest wish that I can form for
his memory .
I remain, dear Mr. Wordsworth,
With deep affection, admiration, and respect,
Your Child in heart and faithful Friend,
SARA COLERIDGE.

REGENT'S PARK,
January 30, 1847.
 ADVERTISEMENT.

HIS new edition of my Father's Biographia Literaria

THIS
was partly prepared for publication by his late Editor.
The corrections of the text in the first nine or ten chapters of
Vol. I. and in the first three or four of Vol. II . are by his
hand ; the notes signed " Editor " were written by him ; and
he drew up the Biographical Supplement, (the first three chap
ters of it containing the Letters), which is placed at the end
of the second volume. His work it has fallen to me to com
plete, and the task has been interesting, though full of af
fecting remembrances, and brought upon me by the deepest
sorrow of my life. The biographical sketch I have pub
lished as I found it, with trifling alterations and omissions,
filling up a few gaps and supplying the mottoes. Had the
writer himself taken it up again, he would probably have
improved and continued it.
I have only to add that my thanks are due to many kind
friends, who have assisted me in my part of the undertaking
with advice, information , or loan of books ; especially my
Father's dear Friend and Fellow Student, Mr. Green, Arch
deacon Hare, and my brother-in-law, Mr. Justice Coleridge .
I am also much indebted for help toward my work to Mr.
Pickering, by whom a great number of the books referred to
in the notes were placed in my hands.
 CONTENTS .

PAGE
INTRODUCTION V
CHAP. I. Motives to the present work- Reception of
the Author's first publication- Discipline of his taste
at school - Effect of contemporary writers on youth
ful minds- Bowles's Sonnets-Comparison between
the poets before and since Pope . . 1
CHAP. II. Supposed irritability of men of genius brought
to the test of facts-Causes and occasions of the
charge-Its injustice 29
CHAP. III . The Author's obligations to Critics, and the
probable occasion- Principles of modern Criticism
Mr. Southey's works and character 48
CHAP. IV. The Lyrical Ballads with the Preface- Mr.
Wordsworth's earlier poems
sOn Fancy and Imagi
nation-The investigation ofthe distinction important
to the Fine Arts . 65
CHAP. V. On the law of Association-Its history traced
from Aristotle to Hartley • 87
CHAP. VI. That Hartley's system, as far as it differs from
that of Aristotle, is neither tenable in theory, nor
founded in facts • 112
CHAP. VII. Of the necessary consequences of the Hart
leian Theory- Of the original mistake or equivoca
tion which procured its admission- Memoria technica 120
CHAP. VIII . The system of Dualism introduced by Des
Cartes- Refined first by Spinoza and afterwards by
Leibnitz into the doctrine of Harmonia præstabilita—
Hylozoism- Materialism-None of these systems,
or any possible theory of Association, supplies or su
persedes atheory of Perception, or explains the forma
tion of the Associable • 130
 CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAP. IX. Is Philosophy possible as a science, and what
are its conditions ?-Giordano Bruno -Literary Aris
tocracy, or the existence of a tacit compact among
the learned as a privileged order- The Author's
obligations to the Mystics-to Immanuel Kant-The
difference between the letter and the spirit of Kant's
writings, and a vindication of prudence in the teach
ing of Philosophy-Fichte's attempt to complete the
Critical system-Its partial success and ultimate
failure-Obligations to Schelling ; and among Eng
lish writers to Saumarez 141
CHAP. X. A Chapter of digression and anecdotes, as an
interlude preceding that on the nature and genesis of
the Imagination or Plastic Power- On Pedantry and
pedantic expressions- Advice to young authors re
specting publication- Various anecdotes of the Au
thor's literary life, and the progress of his opinions
in Religion and Politics · 173
CHAP. XI. An affectionate exhortation to those who in
early life feel themselves disposed to become authors 230
CHAP. XII. A Chapter of requests and premonitions
concerning the perusal or omission of the chapter
that follows • 241
CHAP. XIII. On the Imagination, or Esemplastic power 287
APPENDIX 299
 Obe

INTRODUCTION,

Mr. Coleridge's obligations to Schelling, and the

unfair view of the subject presented in Black
wood's Magazine.

OME years ago, when the late Editor of

my Father's works was distantly contem
plating a new edition of the Biographia
S
Literaria, but had not yet begun to exa
mine the text carefully with a view to
this object, his attention was drawn to an article in
Blackwood's Magazine of March 1840, in which "the
very large and unacknowledged appropriations it con
tains from the great German Philosopher Schelling "
are pointed out ; and by this paper I have been di
rected to those passages in the works of Schelling and
ofMaasz, to which references are given in the following
pages, to most ofthem immediately, and to a few more
· through the strict investigation which it occasioned.
Whether or no my Father's obligations to the great
German Philosopher are virtually unacknowledged
to the extent and with the unfairness which the writer
of that article labours to prove, the reader of the pre
sent edition will be able to judge for himself; the facts
of the case will be all before him, and from these , when
the whole of them are fully and fairly considered, I feel
1 b
 vi Inconsistent Language

assured that by readers in general, -and I have had

some experience on this point already, -no such in
jurious inferences as are contained in that paper will
ever be drawn. The author, it must be observed,
before commencing his argument, thinks fit to disclaim
the belief, that conscious intentional plagiarism is im
putable to the object of his censure ; nevertheless ,
throughout great part of it, Mr. Coleridge is treated .
as an artful purloiner and selfish plunderer, who know
ingly robs others to enrich himself, both the tone and
the language of the article expressing this and no
other meaning. Such aspersions will not rest, I think
they never have rested, upon Coleridge's name ; the
protest here entered is a duty to his memory from
myself rather than a work necessary to his vindication ,
and the remarks that follow are made less with a view
to influence the opinions of others than to record my
own.
The charge brought against my Father by the au
thor of the article appears to be this, that, having
borrowed largely from Schelling, ' he has made no
adequate acknowledgments of obligation to that philo
sopher, only such general admissions as are quite in
sufficient to cover the extent of his debt ; that his
anticipatory defence against a charge of " ungenerous
concealment or intentional plagiarism " is no defence
at all ; and that his particular references are too few
and inaccurate to vindicate him from having dealt

The passages borrowed by my Father from Schelling and

Maasz are pointed out in this edition in notes at the foot of
the pages where they occur. For the particulars and amount of
the debt, therefore , readers are referred to the body of the work,
chapters v. vii. viii. ix. xii. in the first volume.

#
 of Mr. Coleridge's Accuser. vii

unfairly toward the author from whom he has taken

so much. The plaintiff opens his case with giving as
the whole of this defence of my Father's,-(that it is
not the whole will appear in the sequel, ) - certain
parts of a passage upon Schelling that occurs in the
ninth chapter of the Biographia Literaria ; and al
though, in that passage, the author desires, that , " what
ever in this or any future work of his resembles or
coincides with the doctrines of his German prede
cessor though contemporary be wholly attributed to
him," yet he insists that Coleridge has defrauded
Schelling of his due, and seeks to support the im
peachment on these two grounds, first that very " ab
sence of distinct references to his books," which he
himself plainly admits and particularly accounts for ;
or, in the accuser's own words, his omission of specific
acknowledgments in the instances in which he was
indebted to him ; secondly, his having affirmed that
he had in some sort anticipated the system which he
proposed to teach .
Now it must be remarked, by way of preliminary,
that no man can properly be said to defraud another,
nor ought to be so spoken of, who has not a fraudulent
intention but it never yet has been proved, after all
the pains that have been taken to this effect, that Mr.
Coleridge intended to deprive Schelling of any part of
the honour that rightfully belongs to him, or that he
has, by Mr. Coleridge's means, been actually deprived
of it, even for an hour. With regard to the first
ground of accusation, it is doubtless to be regretted
by every friend of the accused, that he should have
adopted so important a portion of the words and
thoughts of Schelling without himself making those
distinct and accurate references, which he might have
O

BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA

OR BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHE
SKETCHES

OF MY LITERARY LIFE AND OPINIONS

BY SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

SECOND EDITION PREPARED FOR PUBLICATION IN PART

BY THE LATE HENRY NELSON COLERIDGE
COMPLETED AND PUBLISHED
BY HIS WIDOW

ALDI
DISCIP
ANGLVS

VOL. I. 241

LONDON

WILLIAM PICKERING
1847
19476.355.35K
19477.43.7

D CO
VAR LL
HAR EGE

JUN 11 1918
LIBRARY

leseed

( mm2)

CHISWICK :
PRINTED BY C. WHITTINGHAM, COLLEGE HOUSE.
07.
C
0

}
72
 ΤΟ

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, Esq. P. L.

MY DEAR MR. Wordsworth,

I HAVE received with great pleasure your permission to

inscribe to you this new edition of my Father's Biogra
phia Literaria. You will find in it some ofthe latest writings
of my dear departed Husband ;-some too of my own, to
which I know you will be indulgent ; but my chief reason
for dedicating it to you is, that it contains, though only in a
brief and fragmentary form, an account of the Life and
Opinions of your friend, S. T. Coleridge, in which I feel
assured that, however you may dissent from portions of the
latter, you take a high and peculiar interest. His name was
early associated with your's from the time when you lived as
neighbours, and both together sought the Muse, in the lovely
Vale of Stowey. That this association may endure as long
as you are both remembered , —that not only as a Poet, but
as a Lover and a Teacher of Wisdom, my Father may con
tinue to be spoken of in connection with you, while your
writings become more and more fully and widely appre
ciated, is the dearest and proudest wish that I can form for
his memory.
I remain, dear Mr. Wordsworth,
With deep affection , admiration, and respect,
Your Child in heart and faithful Friend,
SARA COLERIDGE.

REGENT'S PARK ,
January 30, 1847.
 ADVERTISEMENT.

HIS new edition of my Father's Biographia Literaria

THIS
was partly prepared for publication by his late Editor.
The corrections of the text in the first nine or ten chapters of
Vol . I. and in the first three or four of Vol. II . are by his
hand ; the notes signed " Editor " were written by him ; and
he drew up the Biographical Supplement, (the first three chap
ters of it containing the Letters), which is placed at the end
of the second volume. His work it has fallen to me to com
plete, and the task has been interesting, though full of af
fecting remembrances, and brought upon me by the deepest
sorrow of my life. The biographical sketch I have pub
lished as I found it, with trifling alterations and omissions,
filling up a few gaps and supplying the mottoes. Had the
writer himself taken it up again, he would probably have
improved and continued it.
I have only to add that my thanks are due to many kind
friends, who have assisted me in my part of the undertaking
with advice, information, or loan of books ; especially my
Father's dear Friend and Fellow Student, Mr. Green, Arch
deacon Hare, and my brother-in-law, Mr. Justice Coleridge.
I am also much indebted for help toward my work to Mr.
Pickering, by whom a great number of the books referred to
in the notes were placed in my hands.
 CONTENTS.

PAGE
INTRODUCTION V
CHAP. I. Motives to the present work- Reception of
the Author's first publication- Discipline of his taste
at school - Effect of contemporary writers on youth
ful minds- Bowles's Sonnets- Comparison between 4
the poets before and since Pope .
CHAP. II. Supposed irritability of men of genius brought
to the test of facts-Causes and occasions of the
charge-Its injustice 29
CHAP. III. The Author's obligations to Critics, and the
probable occasion-Principles of modern Criticism
Mr. Southey's works and character 48
a r IV. The Lyrical Ballads with the Preface-Mr.
CHAP.
t
S .
Wordsworth's earlier poemss On Fancy and Imagi
nation-The investigation of the distinction important
to the Fine Arts 6.5
CHAP. V. On the law of Association- Its history traced
from Aristotle to Hartley • 87
CHAP. VI. That Hartley's system, as far as it differs from
that of Aristotle, is neither tenable in theory, nor
founded in facts 112
CHAP. VII. Of the necessary consequences of the Hart
leian Theory-Of the original mistake or equivoca
tion which procured its admission- Memoria technica 120
CHAP. VIII. The system of Dualism introduced by Des
Cartes-Refined first by Spinoza and afterwards by
Leibnitz into the doctrine of Harmonia præstabilita—
Hylozoism- Materialism-None of these systems,
or any possible theory of Association, supplies or su
persedes atheory of Perception, or explains the forma
tion of the Associable • 130
 CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAP. IX. Is Philosophy possible as a science, and what
are its conditions ?-Giordano Bruno -Literary Aris
tocracy, or the existence of a tacit compact among
the learned as a privileged order-The Author's
obligations to the Mystics- to Immanuel Kant-The
difference between the letter and the spirit of Kant's
writings, and a vindication of prudence in the teach
ing of Philosophy-Fichte's attempt to complete the
Critical system-Its partial success and ultimate
failure-Obligations to Schelling ; and among Eng
lish writers to Saumarez · 141
CHAP. X. A Chapter of digression and anecdotes, as an
interlude preceding that on the nature and genesis of
the Imagination or Plastic Power- On Pedantry and
pedantic expressions- Advice to young authors re
specting publication- Various anecdotes of the Au
thor's literary life, and the progress of his opinions
in Religion and Politics • 173
CHAP. XI. An affectionate exhortation to those who in
early life feel themselves disposed to become authors 250
CHAP. XII. A Chapter of requests and premonitions
concerning the perusal or omission of the chapter
that follows · • 241
CHAP. XIII. On the Imagination, or Esemplastic power 287
APPENDIX 299
 OB

INTRODUCTION.

Mr. Coleridge's obligations to Schelling, and the

unfair view of the subject presented in Black
wood's Magazine.

OME years ago, when the late Editor of

my Father's works was distantly contem
plating a new edition of the Biographia
Cle Literaria, but had not yet begun to exa
mine the text carefully with a view to
this object, his attention was drawn to an article in
Blackwood's Magazine of March 1840 , in which " the
very large and unacknowledged appropriations it con
tains from the great German Philosopher Schelling "
are pointed out ; and by this paper I have been di
"
rected to those passages in the works of Schelling and
ofMaasz, to which references are given in the following
pages, to most ofthem immediately , and to a few more
. through the strict investigation which it occasioned.
Whether or no my Father's obligations to the great
German Philosopher are virtually unacknowledged
to the extent and with the unfairness which the writer
of that article labours to prove, the reader of the pre
sent edition will be able to judge for himself ; the facts
of the case will be all before him, and from these, when
the whole of them are fully and fairly considered , I feel
1 b
vi Inconsistent Language

assured that by readers in general, -and I have had

some experience on this point already, -no such in
jurious inferences as are contained in that paper will
ever be drawn. The author, it must be observed,
before commencing his argument, thinks fit to disclaim
the belief, that conscious intentional plagiarism is im
putable to the object of his censure ; nevertheless,
throughout great part of it, Mr. Coleridge is treated
as an artful purloiner and selfish plunderer, who know
ingly robs others to enrich himself, both the tone and
the language of the article expressing this and no
other meaning. Such aspersions will not rest, I think
they never have rested, upon Coleridge's name ; the
protest here entered is a duty to his memory from
myself rather than a work necessary to his vindication,
and the remarks that follow are made less with a view
to influence the opinions of others than to record my
own.
The charge brought against my Father by the au
thor of the article appears to be this, that, having
borrowed largely from Schelling, ' he has made no
adequate acknowledgments of obligation to that philo
sopher, only such general admissions as are quite in
sufficient to cover the extent of his debt ; that his
anticipatory defence against a charge of " ungenerous
concealment or intentional plagiarism " is no defence
at all ; and that his particular references are too few
and inaccurate to vindicate him from having dealt

1 The passages borrowed by my Father from Schelling and

Maasz are pointed out in this edition in notes at the foot of
the pages where they occur. For the particulars and amount of
the debt, therefore, readers are referred to the body of the work,
chapters v. vii. viii . ix. xii. in the first volume.
 of Mr. Coleridge's Accuser. vii

unfairly toward the author from whom he has taken

so much. The plaintiff opens his case with giving as
the whole of this defence of my Father's,-(that it is
not the whole will appear in the sequel, ) — certain
parts of a passage upon Schelling that occurs in the
ninth chapter of the Biographia Literaria ; and al
though, in that passage, the author desires, that, " what
ever in this or any future work of his resembles or
coincides with the doctrines of his German prede
cessor though contemporary be wholly attributed to
him," yet he insists that Coleridge has defrauded
Schelling of his due, and seeks to support the im
peachment on these two grounds, first that very " ab
sence of distinct references to his books," which he
himself plainly admits and particularly accounts for ;
or, in the accuser's own words, his omission of specific
acknowledgments in the instances in which he was
indebted to him ; secondly, his having affirmed that
he had in some sort anticipated the system which he
proposed to teach.
Now it must be remarked, by way of preliminary ,
that no man can properly be said to defraud another,
nor ought to be so spoken of, who has not a fraudulent
intention : but it never yet has been proved, after all
the pains that have been taken to this effect, that Mr.
Coleridge intended to deprive Schelling of any part of
the honour that rightfully belongs to him, or that he
has, by Mr. Coleridge's means, been actually deprived
of it, even for an hour. With regard to the first
ground of accusation , it is doubtless to be regretted
by every friend of the accused, that he should have
adopted so important a portion of the words and
thoughts of Schelling without himself making those
distinct and accurate references, which he might have
viii Mr. C's Literary Habits indicative of
known would eventually be required as surely as he
succeeded in his attempt to recommend the metaphy
sical doctrines contained in them to the attention of
students in this country. Why did Mr. Coleridge act
thus, subjecting himself, as he might well have anti
cipated, aware as he was of the hostile spirit against
his person and principles, that existed in many quar
ters, to suspicion from the illiberal, and contumelious
treatment at the hands of the hard and unscrupulous ?
Why he so acted those who best knew him can well
understand, without seeing in his conduct evidence of
unconscientiousness : they see the truth of the matter
to be this, that to give those distinct and accurate
references, for the neglect of which he is now so
severely arraigned, would have caused him much
trouble of a kind to him peculiarly irksome, and that
he dispensed himself from it in the belief, that the
general declaration which he had made upon the sub
ject was sufficient both for Schelling and for himself.
This will be the more intelligible when it is borne in
mind, that, as all who knew his literary habits will
believe, the passages from Schelling, which he wove
into his work, were not transcribed for the occasion,
but merely transferred from his note-book into the
text, some of them, in all likelihood, not even from
his note-book immediately, but from recollection of
its contents. It is most probable that he mistook
some of these translated passages for compositions of
his own, and quite improbable, as all who know his
careless ways will agree, that he should have noted
down accurately the particular works and portions of
works from which they came.
" But even with the fullest conviction," says Arch
deacon Hare, " that Coleridge cannot have been guilty
 Bodily Languor and an incautious Mind. ix

of intentional plagiarism, the reader will, probably,

deem it strange, that he should have transferred half
a dozen pages of Schelling into his volume without
any reference to their source. And strange it un
doubtedly is. The only way I can see of accounting
for it is from his practice of keeping note-books or
journals of his thoughts, filled with observations and
brief dissertations on such matters as happened to
strike him, with a sprinkling now and then of extracts
and abstracts from the books he was reading. If the
name of the author from whom he took an extract was
left out, he might easily, years after, forget whose pro
perty it was, especially when he had made it in some
measure his own, by transfusing it into his own Eng
lish. That this may happen I know from experience,
having myself been lately puzzled by a passage which
I had translated from Kant some years ago, and which
cost me a good deal of search, before I ascertained
that it was not my own." "2

My Father says himself, in the ninth chapter of this

work, " I have not indeed (eheu ! res angusta domi !)
been hitherto able to procure more than two of his
books, viz. the first volume of his collected Tracts, and
his System of Transcendental Idealism ; to which,
however, I must add a small pamphlet against Fichte,
the spirit of which was to my feelings painfully incon
gruous with the principles, and which ( with the usual
allowance afforded to an antithesis ) displayed the love
of wisdom rather than the wisdom of love." From
this pamphlet (entitled Darlegung &c . Exposition of
the true relation of the Philosophy of Nature to the

2 From Mr. Hare's defence of Coleridge in the British Ma

gazine of January 1835, pp . 20, 21 .
 X Mr. C. accused of Disingenuousness

improved doctrine ofFichte, ) he had just cited a strik

ing passage, and it is represented as strangely disin
genuous, that he should have given that extract merely
as "observations from a contemporary writer of the
continent," without specifying the particular work from
which it was taken, or even the writer's name. So
indeed it may appear on an examination undertaken
ostensibly for the love ofwisdom, but a still closer one ,
conducted in the wisdom of love, will convince any
reader that there was as little of self-regard in this
transaction as of accuracy. At that stage of his work,
at which the citation is made, my Father had not yet
introduced Schelling to his readers, readers unac
quainted, as he doubtless imagined, with the German
philosopher and his writings. He immediately pro
ceeds, however, to give an account of the authors
whom he successively studied , when he had " found no
abiding place for his reason " in the " schools of Locke,
Berkeley, Leibnitz, and Hartley ; " and then, after do
ing honour to Kant and justice to Fichte, he speaks
of Schelling by name, and mentions every work of
his to which he ever owed anything. The " Vorle
sungen über die Methode des Academischen Stu
V dium ," which, as well as the Darlegung, is men
tioned as containing the word In- eins- bildung, the
original, as is supposed, of his " esemplastic," he never
possessed and probably never saw. In mentioning the
pamphlet against Fichte he, naturally enough, described
its general character, and probably either forgot, while
he was so doing, that from this same work his pre
vious citation had been made, or felt that for readers,

3 See vol. i . p. 146. Of the use made by the writer in Bl .

of this passage I shall have to speak again further on.
 not very ingenuously. xi

to whom the very name of Schelling was new, such

particularity as that of reciting its long title, and re
ferring to it the passage he had brought forward, was
superfluous.
Ideen zu einer Philosophie der Natur was one of L
the works of Schelling which my Father had not in
his possession, when he composed the Biographia
Literaria, and it is remarked that he entitled it Schel
ling's Natur-Philosophie ! —that he had presumed to
contract the proper name of a book he had once read,
from its fuller form in the title-page, to that abridged
one, which it probably wore upon its back. No com-
ment is made, indeed, upon this important fact, but
that is supplied by the strain of the article.
His accuser urges against him that he did not ela
borate over again what he had borrowed and thus
make it, in some sense , his own. It is not easy to see
how that which is borrowed can ever, strictly speak
ing, become the property of the borrower, so as to
cease to be that of the original possessor ; the new
form in which he invests it, or the fresh matter which
he engrafts upon it, will be his, but the debt to him
who has furnished the substance, in the one case, or
the nucleus, in the other, is not cancelled because of
these additions, and honesty as well as gratitude would
equally require its acknowledgment, though the obli
gation will be less apparent to the general reader.
And surely if there had been any design of appro
priating in my Father's mind, he would have sought
to make the borrowed passages appear his own, by
change of expression at least. It has been well said
of the genuine Plagiary that his
66 easy vamping talents lies
1 . First wit to pilfer, then disguise."
xii True Nature of Plagiarism

This is the plan which all crafty plagiarists adopt ; this

is the way in which numberless writers have dealt with
my Father himself, the major part of them, however,
not craftily or selfishly, but doubtless unawares to them
selves ; there being far less of conscious, far more of
unconscious, plagiarism among authors than the world
is apt to suppose. But Coleridge repeated the very
words of Schelling, and in so doing made it an easy
task for the German to reclaim his own , or for the
dullest wight that could read his books to give it him
back again . Must he not have been careless of the
meum at least as much as of the tuum, when he took
whole pages and paragraphs, unaltered in form, from
a noted author - whose writings, though unknown in
this country, when he first brought them forward,
were too considerable in his own to be finally merged
in those of any other man , -at the same time that
he was doing all that in him lay to lead Englishmen
to the study of that author, and was referring readers
to his works both generally, and in some instances,
and those the most important, particularly ? From
his accuser's blustering conclusion , " Plagiarism ,
like murder, will out ! " it might be supposed that
Mr. Coleridge had taken pains to prevent his " pla
giarisms " from coming out,-that with the " stealthy
pace " of the murderer he had " moved towards his
design like a ghost." Verily, if no man ever tried to
murder an author's good name with more of malice
prepense than he to steal one, the literary world would
be freer from felonious practices than it is at pre
sent.4

4 " Of a truth," says Mr. Hare, " if he had been disposed to

purloin, he never would have stolen half a dozen pages from
the head and front of that very work of Schelling's which was
 alien from the Nature of Coleridge.
One of the largest extracts my Father accomp
with these words in a parenthesis ( See Schel
handl. zur Erlaüter, des Id. der Wissenschaftslehre.)
"But from this reference," asks the censor, " would not
a reader naturally deduce the inference that C. was
here referring to Schelling in support of his own views,
and not literally translating and appropriating the
German's?"
There are some who have eyes to see and micro
scopically too, but only in certain directions. To those
whose vision is more catholic I address the plain ques
tion, Did not my Father say fully enough to put every
reader of a studious turn , every reader able to take up
his philosophical views in earnest, ― ( and to whom else
were these borrowed passages more than strange words,
or Schelling's claims of the slightest consequence ?) —
into the way of consulting their original source ? The
longer extracts are all either expressly acknow
ledged, as that from the Darlegung in chap. ix. and
that beginning at p. 255 ; or taken from the Trans
cendental Idealism, which he speaks of more than
once, or from the above-mentioned treatise, of which
he gives the long title.

the likeliest to fall into his reader's hands ; and the first sen
tence of which one could not read without detecting the pla
giarism. Would any man think of pilfering a column from the
porch of St. Paul's ? The high praise which Coleridge bestows
on Schelling would naturally excite a wish in such of his
readers as felt an interest in his philosophy, to know more of the
great German. The first books of his they would take up would
be his Natur-Philosophie and his Transcendental Idealism ; these
are the works which Coleridge himself mentions ; and the
latter, from its subject, would attract them the most. "-Brit.
Mag. of 1835, p. 20.
* See p. 255.
 CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAP. IX. Is Philosophy possible as a science, and what
are its conditions ?-Giordano Bruno- Literary Aris
tocracy, or the existence of a tacit compact among
the learned as a privileged order-The Author's
obligations to the Mystics-to Immanuel Kant-The
difference between the letter and the spirit of Kant's
writings, and a vindication of prudence in the teach
ing of Philosophy- Fichte's attempt to complete the
Critical system- Its partial success and ultimate
failure-Obligations to Schelling ; and among Eng
lish writers to Saumarez 141
CHAP. X. A Chapter of digression and anecdotes, as an
interlude preceding that on the nature and genesis of
the Imagination or Plastic Power-On Pedantry and
pedantic expressions- Advice to young authors re
specting publication- Various anecdotes of the Au
thor's literary life, and the progress of his opinions
in Religion and Politics 173
CHAP. XI. An affectionate exhortation to those who in
early life feel themselves disposed to become authors 230
CHAP. XII. A Chapter of requests and premonitions
concerning the perusal or omission of the chapter
that follows · 241
CHAP. XIII. On the Imagination , or Esemplastic power 287
APPENDIX 299
 INTRODUCTION.

Mr. Coleridge's obligations to Schelling, and the

unfair view of the subject presented in Black
wood's Magazine .

OME years ago, when the late Editor of

my Father's works was distantly contem
S plating a new edition of the Biographia
Literaria, but had not yet begun to exa
mine the text carefully with a view to
this object, his attention was drawn to an article in
Blackwood's Magazine of March 1840, in which " the
very large and unacknowledged appropriations it con
tains from the great German Philosopher Schelling "
are pointed out ; and by this paper I have been di
rected to those passages in the works of Schelling and
ofMaasz, to which references are given in the following
pages, -to most ofthem immediately, and to a few more
through the strict investigation which it occasioned.
Whether or no my Father's obligations to the great
German Philosopher are virtually unacknowledged
to the extent and with the unfairness which the writer
of that article labours to prove, the reader of the pre
sent edition will be able to judge for himself; the facts
of the case will be all before him, and from these, when
the whole of them are fully and fairly considered, I feel
1 b
vi Inconsistent Language

assured that by readers in general, -and I have had

some experience on this point already, -no such in
jurious inferences as are contained in that paper will
ever be drawn. The author, it must be observed,
before commencing his argument, thinks fit to disclaim
the belief, that conscious intentional plagiarism is im
putable to the object of his censure ; nevertheless ,
throughout great part of it, Mr. Coleridge is treated
as an artful purloiner and selfish plunderer, who know
ingly robs others to enrich himself, both the tone and
the language of the article expressing this and no
other meaning. Such aspersions will not rest, I think
they never have rested, upon Coleridge's name ; the
protest here entered is a duty to his memory from
myself rather than a work necessary to his vindication,
and the remarks that follow are made less with a view
to influence the opinions of others than to record my
own.
The charge brought against my Father by the au
thor of the article appears to be this, that, having
borrowed largely from Schelling, ' he has made no
adequate acknowledgments of obligation to that philo
sopher, only such general admissions as are quite in
sufficient to cover the extent of his debt ; that his
anticipatory defence against a charge of " ungenerous
concealment or intentional plagiarism " is no defence
at all ; and that his particular references are too few
and inaccurate to vindicate him from having dealt

The passages borrowed by my Father from Schelling and

Maasz are pointed out in this edition in notes at the foot of
the pages where they occur. For the particulars and amount of
the debt, therefore, readers are referred tothe body of the work,
chapters v. vii. viii. ix. xii. in the first volume.
 of Mr. Coleridge's Accuser. vii

unfairly toward the author from whom he has taken

so much. The plaintiff opens his case with giving as
the whole of this defence of my Father's,-(that it is
not the whole will appear in the sequel, ) - certain
parts of a passage upon Schelling that occurs in the
ninth chapter of the Biographia Literaria ; and al
though, in that passage, the author desires, that, " what
ever in this or any future work of his resembles or
coincides with the doctrines of his German prede
cessor though contemporary be wholly attributed to
him," yet he insists that Coleridge has defrauded
Schelling of his due , and seeks to support the im
peachment on these two grounds, first that very “ ab
sence of distinct references to his books," which he
himself plainly admits and particularly accounts for ;
or, in the accuser's own words, his omission of specific
acknowledgments in the instances in which he was
indebted to him ; secondly, his having affirmed that
he had in some sort anticipated the system which he
proposed to teach .
Now it must be remarked, by way of preliminary,
that no man can properly be said to defraud another,
nor ought to be so spoken of, who has not a fraudulent
intention : but it never yet has been proved, after all
the pains that have been taken to this effect, that Mr.
Coleridge intended to deprive Schelling of any part of
the honour that rightfully belongs to him, or that he
has, by Mr. Coleridge's means, been actually deprived
of it, even for an hour. With regard to the first
ground of accusation, it is doubtless to be regretted
by every friend of the accused, that he should have
adopted so important a portion of the words and
thoughts of Schelling without himself making those
distinct and accurate references, which he might have
xiv Perverse Interpretation,
Most of these extracts the Writer in Blackwood re
fers, not to the treatise, which my Father did name,
but to the collection at large -the Philosophische
Schriften- which it so happened that he did not ; and
moreover he asserts , that it would be next to impossi
ble for a reader to find the tract referred to by this
same long title, for that it is " buried among a good
many others in Schelling's Phil. Schrift." of which
it occupies 137 pages out of 511-as if it could not
possibly enter his head or the head of any bookseller
that he might employ, to look for it in the " volume
of Schelling's collected Tracts " which my Father
speaks of in chapter ix. If the works of Schelling
were as good as dead and buried for all here, that was
not through any fault of his ; had he named every one
of their titles at full length, and given an abstract of
all they contained , the bill of fare, at that time, would
have attracted no guests. Grill would be Grill, and
have his unmetaphysic mind.
Fairly considered his conduct in this matter does
but help to prove the truth of his assertion, that he
"regarded Truth as a divine ventriloquist, not caring
from whose mouth the sounds are supposed to proceed,
if only the words are audible and intelligible."
The Writer in Blackwood, however, takes a very dif
ferent view of it : he rather supposes the true inter
pretation of my Father's conduct to be that he would
have nothing ascribed to Schelling, which appeared in
the works of both, though he desires that everything
may be, and that this expression was used to provide a
refuge for himself, should he ever be discovered to
have " cabbaged from his works ad libitum." The
style of these strictures resembles the reasoning
things look rough and coarse on the wrong side, and
 for the sake of Detraction. XV

the reasoning they contain is of that kind, which turns

things wrong side out. It represents my Father's
apology as being penned under a notion that he should
gain credit for the transcendentalism contained in his
book, while at the same time no comparison betwixt
his writings and those of the original transcendentalist
would for years, if ever, be made. It was the fact
that for years his obligations to Schelling were not
discovered ; but it is ridiculous to suppose that he
calculated on this, with the amount of those obliga
tions distinctly present to his mind, for this could only
have happened through the failure of the attempt he
was making to interest his countrymen in the trans
cendental system. When a doctrine comes into credit,
in days like these, the first teacher of it is as soon dis
covered as the lake that feeds the glittering brook and
sounding waterfall is traced out, when they have gained
the traveller's eye. It is not true, that to the end of
his life my father enjoyed the credit of originality :—
originality was not denied him, simply because he had
no enjoyment and no credit.
The fact is, that these " borrowed plumes " drest him
out but poorly in the public eye, and Sir Walter Scott
made a just observation on the fate of the Biographia
Literaria, when he said that it had made no impres
sion upon the public. Instead of gaining reputation as
a metaphysical discoverer, at the expense of Germany,
the author was generally spoken of as an introducer
of German metaphysics into this country, in which
light he had represented himself, -a man of original
power, who had spoiled his own genius by devoting
himself to the lucubrations of foreigners. It is the
pleasure of the Writer in Blackwood to give him a vast
metaphysical reputation, founded on the Biographia
xvi Undue Attributions to this Work,

Literaria, and, at the end of one of his paragraphs , he

implies, that the passages taken from Schelling had
been " paraded for upwards of twenty years as speci
mens ofthe wonderful powers of the English philoso
pher." Some, perhaps, have been weary enough of
hearing him called wonderful, but the friends of
Coleridge well know, that the work was generally
neglected till the author's name began to rise by vari
ous other means ; and that although passages of his wri
tings have been often quoted of late years, and some
in the B. L. have been in the mouths of many, while
the book itself was in the hands of a very few, yet that
the transcendental portions of it were unknown to his
admirers in general, till some of them, after his de
cease, were declared to be the property of Schelling in
Tait's Magazine. If the transcendentalism adopted
in the Biographia be a jewel of great price, no gem
lodged in a dark unfathomed cave of ocean was ever
more unseen and unknown than this was for many a
year. In making an estimate of a man's intellectual
wealth we cannot abstract the influence upon his
thoughts of other thinkers, precedent or contemporary ;
but all Mr. Coleridge's direct debts to the great Trans
cendentalist may be refunded, and whatever obligations
reflective men of this age have felt and acknowledged
that they owe to him, the sum of them will not be
sensibly diminished .
In other quarters Mr. Coleridge has been accused
of denying his obligations to Schlegel ; yet he never
denied having borrowed those illustrations and de
tached thoughts, which are brought forward in sup
port of the charge. His words on the subject neither
say nor imply, in assertion of his originality, more
than this, that, in his first course of lectures, which
 for the sake oflowering its Author. xvii

were delivered " before Mr. Schlegel gave his on the

same subjects at Vienna," - (I believe it was in 1804,
previously to his departure for Malta, ) -he put forth
the same general principles of criticism as in the fol
lowing courses ; so that whatever substantial agree
ment there might be between them, on this head, must
be co-incidence.
It was said of my Father by his late Editor, that,
"in thinking passionately of the principle, he forgot
the authorship- and sowed beside many waters, if
peradventure some chance seedling might take root
and bear fruit to the glory of God and the spirituali
zation of man." 6 He was ever more intent upon
the pursuit and enunciation of truth than alive to the
collateral benefits that wait upon it, as it is the ex
clusive property of this or that individual. The in
cautious way in which he acted upon this impulse
was calculated to bring him under suspicion with
those to whose minds any such feeling was alien and
inconceivable. Yet no unprejudiced person , who re
views my Father's life, on an intimate acquaintance
with it, will deny that he showed an unusual disregard
of this property in thought, where his own interests
were concerned , and that he spent in letters and mar
ginal notes, and in discourse at all times and to all
auditors a great deal both of thought and brilliant
illustration, which a more prudential and self-interested
man would have kept back and presented in a form
better fitted to procure for himself a permanent re
ward ; that he would spend time and labour on a
critical examination of the works of others, and earnest

Preface to the Table Talk of S. T. Coleridge, pp . 18-19,

2nd edition.
xviii The World misunderstood Mr. C.

consideration of their affairs, for their sakes only, in a

manner almost peculiar to himself. If he was not al
ways sufficiently considerate of other men's property,
he was profuse of his own ; and, in truth, such was
his temper in regard to all property, of what kind
soever ; he did not enough regard or value it whether
for himself or his neighbour. Nor is it proof to the
contrary that he did at times speak of his share in the
promulgation of truth and awakening of reflection , and
ofthe world's unthankfulness . This he did, rather in
self defence, when he was accused of neglecting to em
ploy or of misemploying his natural gifts, than from
an inordinate desire to parade and exalt them. He
was goaded into some degree of egotism by the charges
continually brought against him, that he suffered his
powers to lie dormant, or to spend themselves in a
fruitless activity. But they who spoke thus on the
one hand under-rated his actual achievements, the im
portance of which time and trial were to discover,
since speculations like his shew what they are worth
in the using, and come into use but slowly ; and on the
other hand, over-rated his powers of literary execution.
They were struck by his marked intellectual gifts , but
took no note of his intellectual impediments,- were
not aware that there was a want of proportion in the
faculties of his mind, which would always have pre
vented him from making many or good books ; for,
even had he possessed the ordinary amount of skill in
the arranging and methodizing of thought with a view
to publication and in reference to the capacities of a
volume, this would have been inadequate to the needs
of one whose genius was ever impelling him to trace
things down to their deepest source, and to follow
them out in their remotest ramifications. His powers,
 ""
And his " Body did him grievous wrong.' xix

compounded and balanced as they were, enabled him

to do that which he did , and possibly that alone.
Great as was the activity of his intellect in its own
congenial sphere, he wanted that agility of mind,
which can turn the understanding from its wonted
mode of movement to set it upon new tasks necessary
to the completeness and efficiency of what has been
produced of another kind, but uninteresting in them
selves to the mind of the producer. He loved to go
forward, expanding and ennobling the soul of his
teaching, and hated the trouble of turning back to look
after its body. To the healthful and vigorous such
trouble appears nothing, simply because they are
healthful and vigorous ; but to feel all exertion a la
bour, all labour pain and weariness, this is the very
symptom of disease and its most grievous consequence.
The nerveless languor, which, after early youth, be
came almost the habit of his body and bodily mind,
which to a great degree paralysed his powers both of
rest and action, precluding by a torpid irritability their
happy vicissitude, -rendered all exercises difficult to
him except of thought and imagination flowing onward
freely and in self-made channels ; for these brought
with them their own warm atmosphere to thaw the
chains of frost that bound his spirit. Soon as that
spontaneous impulse was suspended, the apathy and
sadness induced by his physical condition reabsorbed
his mind, as sluggish mists creep over the valley when
the breeze ceases to blow ; and to counteract it he
lacked any other sufficient stimulus :

With lips unbrightened, wreathless brow, I stroll ;

y And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul !
Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve,
And hope, without an object, cannot live.
XX Despondence from want of Sympathy.
He had no hope of gainful popularity, even from
the most laborious efforts that he was capable of
making ; nor would this in itself have been an ade
quate object of hope to him, without a further one,
more deeply satisfying , a dream of which was ever un
bracing his mind , but which life, such as he had made
it, and such as it was given him from above, had not
afforded. Then the complaints and warnings from " all
quarters," of the obscurity of his prose writings, were,
as he expressed it, like " cold water poured " upon him.
It may be questioned whether they who thus com
plained were making any attempt to meet him half
way, whether they had done their part toward un
derstanding what they called unintelligible. It is the
chief use and aim of writings of such a character as
his to excite the reader to think,-to draw out of his
mind a native flame rather than to make it bright for
a moment by the reflection of alien fires. All literary
productions indeed demand some answering movement
on the part of readers, but, in common cases, the mo
tion required is so easy, so much in known ways and
smooth well-beaten tracks, that it seems spontaneous
and is more like rest than labour. This is the diffi
culty with which introducers of new thought have to
contend ; the minds that are to receive these acces
sions must themselves, in order to their reception of
them, be renewed proportionately, renewed not from
without alone, but by co-operation from within ,-a
process full of conflict and struggle, like the fermenting
of raw juices into generous wines. Though my Father
understood this well in the end, he was by no means
prepared for it, and for all its consequences, in the
beginning ; coming upon him as it did, it acted as a
narcotic, and by deepening his despondency increased
 Theory in Nubibus . xxi

his literary inertness. Speaking of " The Friend " he

observes, " Throughout these Essays the want of illus
trative examples and varied exposition is the main de
fect, and was occasioned by the haunting dread of
being tedious.”
The Biographia Literaria he composed at that pe
riod of his life when his health was most deranged, and
his mind most subjected to the influence of bodily dis
order. It bears marks of this throughout, for it is even
less methodical in its arrangement than any of his other
works. Up to a certain point the author pursues his
plan of writing his literary life, but, in no long time
his " slack hand " abandons its grasp of the subject,
and the book is filled out to a certain size, with such
miscellaneous contents of his desk as seem least re
mote from it. To say, with the writer in Blackwood,
that he stopped short in the process of unfolding a
theory of the imagination , merely because he had
come to the end of all that Schelling had taught con
cerning it, and thus to account for the abrupt termina
tion of the first volume, is to place the matter in a per
fectly false light ; he broke down in the prosecution of his
whole scheme, the regular history of his literary life
and opinions, and this not for want of help in one par
ticular line, but because his energies for regular com
position in any line were deserting him, at least for a
time. It is suggested, that " interspersed throughout
the works of Schelling, glimpses and indications are
to be found of some stupendous theory on the subject
ofthe imagination ; " that Coleridge expected to " catch
and unriddle these shadowy intimations," but that,
finding himself unable to do this, he " had nothing else
for it but to abandon his work altogether, and leave
his readers in the lurch." What these glimpses of a
1 C
xxii True Account ofthe sudden Conclusion
"stupendous theory" are, and where they are, except
66
throughout the works of Schelling," the announcer
does not inform us : his own imagination may have
discovered to him what was never discerned by Cole
ridge, in all whose notes upon Schelling not a hint is
given of this stupendous theory in embryo. In the
last part of the Transcendental Idealism, which relates
to the Philosophy of Art, at p. 473, a passage occurs in
which the poetic faculty and the productive intuition
are identified, and that which is active in both, that
one and the same, declared to be the Imagination :
but this appears to be the crown and completion of a
system already laid down , not a germ of a system to
be evolved in future. The Imagination is also cha
racterized in aphorisms 34 , 35, of Schelling's Wissen
schaftliche Abhandlungen ; but we must strain our
eyes very much to find any indications of a grand
philosophical design there. I suspect that this " stu
pendous theory" has its habitation in the clouds of the
accuser's fancy, -clouds without water, though black
as if they were big with showers of rain.
The extent of Schelling's teaching on the subject of
the Imagination my father well knew before he com
menced the Biographia Literaria, and he must also
have known how far he was able to " catch and unrid
dle his shadowy intimations ; " what he did not know
or sufficiently consider was the space, which such a
disquisition ought to occupy in his work, and the re
lation which it had to his undertaking. But for the
failure of his powers, he might have recast what he

7 I have asked two students of Schelling ifthey ever met with

this theory in traversing his works , but could learn nothing of it
from either of them.
 of Mr. Coleridge's " Literary Life.” xxiii
had already written, and given it such shape and pro
portions, as would have made it seem suitable to the
work in which he was engaged. Of this effort he
felt incapable, and the letter was devised in order to
enable him to print what he had already written with
out farther trouble. But he still cherished the inten
tion of continuing the subject, thus commenced, in a
future work, which was to explain his system of thought
at large, and to this object he devoted much time and
thought, during the latter years of his life, with what
fruit will, it is to be hoped, hereafter appear in a phi
losophical work by his friend and fellow student Mr.
Green.
The second great ground of accusation against my
father is his having laid claim to " the main and funda
mental ideas " of Schelling's system . " We ourselves,"
says the critic, " in our day have had some small deal
ings with ' main and fundamental ideas, ' and we know
thus much about them, that it is very easy for any
man or for every man to have them ; the difficulty is
in bringing them intelligibly, effectively, and articu
lately out,-in elaborating them into clear and intel
ligible shapes." He proceeds to illustrate his argu
ment, on the hint of an expression used by Mr. Gill
man, in his Life of Coleridge, with a choice simile.
66
Wasps, " says he, " and even "-other insects, which I
decline naming after him, " are, we suppose, capable
of collecting the juice of flowers, and this juice may be
called their fundamental ideas ; ' but the bee alone is
a genius among flies, because he alone can put forth
his ideas in the shape of honey, and make the break
fast-table glad." True or false, all this has little to
do with anything that my father has said in the Bio
graphia Literaria. As for the bare " raw material,"
xxiv Honey and Honey- makers of Literature.
(to use the critic's own expression, ) out of which intel
lectual systems are formed, it is possessed by every
human being, from Adam to his children of the pre
sent day, by one just as much as another. Clodpates,
who draw no lines save with the plough across the
field, have all the geometry folded up in their minds
that Euclid unfolded in his book ; Kant's doctrine of
pure reason is a web woven out of stuff that is in every
man's brain ; and the simplest Christian is implicitly
as great a divine as Thomas Aquinas. But when a
man declares that the fundamental ideas of a system
are born and matured in his mind, he evidently means,
not merely that he possesses the mere material or
elements of the system, but that the system itself, as
to its leading points and most general positions, has
been evolved from the depths of his spirit by his own
independent efforts ; this has certainly more relation
to the wrought honey than to the raw. My father's
allegation, that the principal points of Schelling's sys
tem were not new to him when he found them uttered
in Schelling's words shall be considered presently ; his
own full belief of what he asserted, I, of course, do not
make matter of question or debate.
First however, reverting for a moment to the simile
of the " wasps," I beg to observe, that even if such
insects might suck the juice of flowers if they would,
mechanically might, (though their organs are not
adapted for the purpose like those of bees, ) yet it is
certain that instinctively they never do. In vain for
them not only the " violets blow," but all the breathing
spring beside. On the other hand, a habit of search
ing the nectaries of delicate blossoms, far sought on
heights or in hidden glades , has been found by natu
ralists to be generally connected with honey-making
 1 曜 XXV
Wasps and Flies.
faculties ; and thus, without admitting any proper an
alogy betwixt flower- juice and fundamental ideas, I
will so far avail myself of the illustration as to suggest
that, in like manner, he who sought truth far and near,
amid the pages of abstruse and neglected metaphysi
cians of former times, and discovered the merits of new
ones, just sprung up in a foreign country, before they
were recognized in his own , was probably led to such
researches by some special aptitude for studies of this
nature and powers of thought in the same line . The
wasps and baser flies of literature neither collect juice
nor make honey ; they only buzz and sting, flitting
around the well spread board, to which they have
never furnished one wholesome morsel, to the dis
turbance of those who sit thereat ; a meddlesome but
not, like certain wasps of old, the manliest race,8 for
they most attack those who have the powers of the
world least on their side, or, being gone out of this
world altogether, can neither resist nor return their
violence. Time was that when a lion died bees depo
sited their sweets in his carcase ; but now, too often,
wasps and vulgar flies gather about the dead lion , to
shed upon his motionless remains only what is bitter
and offensive !?

8· ἀνδρικώτατον γένος.
Runa , v. 1077 .
9"No sooner is the lion dead than these hungry flesh-flies
swarm about him, verifying a part only of Samson's riddle, they
find meat, but they produce no sweetness." Omniana, I. p.
234. I certainly did not recollect this sentence when I wrote
the sentence above . My father did not recollect Samson Ago
nistes, l. 136,
" When insupportably his foot advanced-"
at the time of his writing in the France,
xxvi Claims to a new System in this Work
To insects of this class too much countenance is
given by the tone and spirit in which Mr. Coleridge's
censor conducts his argument . In order to find full
matter of accusation against him, he puts into his
words a great deal which they do not of themselves
contain. According to him my Father's language in
timates, that what he was about to teach of the trans
cendental system in the Biographia Literaria was
not only his own by some degree of anticipation, but
his own and no one's else —that " he was prepared to
pour from the lamp of an original, though congenial,
thinker a flood of new light upon the dark doctrines in
which he so genially coincided." Now so far from
pretending to pour a flood of new light upon the doc
trines of Schelling, he not only speaks of him as "the
founder of the Philosophy of Nature and most suc
cessful improver of the Dynamic system," "10 but de
clares that to him " we owe the completion, and the
most important victories of this revolution in phi
losophy." " He calls Schelling his predecessor though
contemporary. Predecessor in what ? Surely in those

"When insupportably advancing

Her arm made mockery of the warriour's tramp."
Mr. Dequincey represented him as denying the debt to Milton.
Now I verily think that I had never read the passage in the
Omniana, when the lion illustration occurred to me; I never
yet have read the book through, though I have had it within
reach all my life. It is not worth acknowledging like the other ;
but this and a thousand similar facts make me feel how much of
co-incidence in such matters is possible. If my father had read
Samson Agonistes, still he may have thought that he should have
written the line even if he had not.
10 Biog. Lit. vol. 1. chap. ix. I'
11 Ib.
 \"relate principally to the Future. } xxvii
same doctrines which he was about to unfold. That
he had not originally learned the general conceptions
of this philosophy from Schelling he does indeed af
firm, but he expressly ascribes them to Schelling as
their discoverer and first teacher, nor does he claim to
be considered the author of the system in any sense or
in any degree. All he lays claim to, and that only by
anticipation, as what he hoped to achieve, is " the ho
nour of rendering it intelligible to his countrymen,"
and of applying it to " the most awful of subjects for
the most important of purposes : " and certainly in the
application of philosophical principles to the explana
tion, and, as he believed, support of the Catholic faith,
by which means the soundness of the principles them
selves is tested, he had a walk of his own in which " no
German that ever breathed " has preceded or out
stripped him.12
Plainly enough it was the sum of his future labours
in the furtherance of truth, not his metaphysical doc
trines alone, but his entire system of thought that he
had in contemplation , when he intimated a confident
belief, that the work he should produce would " appear
to be the offspring of his own spirit by better tests
than the mere reference to dates : " and although his
actual performance fell very far short of what he was
ever expecting to perform, yet surely his writings at
large contain an amount of original thought sufficient
to render this anticipatory pretension at least not ridi

12 Mr. Dequincey said of him, with reference to another ap

plication of his thoughts, that " he spun daily, from the loom of
his own magical brain, theories more gorgeous by far, and sup
ported by a pomp and luxury of images, such as no German that
ever breathed could have emulated in his dreams."
xxviii The "genial Coincidences " between

culous . That his meaning was thus general more

clearly appears from the circumstance that, just be
fore this appeal concerning his originality of author
ship, he refers to his design of applying philosophy to
religion ; and without doubt his religious philosophy
differed materially from that of the great German.
In connexion too with the same subject he mentions
" this or any future work of his ;" so that to suppose
him, when he thus expressed himself, to have had in
his mind's eye just that portion of his teaching in the
B. L. which he had borrowed or was to borrow from
Schelling, is gratuitous indeed. 13 Is it conceivable
that Mr. Coleridge would have appealed to tests of
originality, which his future writings were to furnish,
had he not believed in his heart that they would fur
nish those tests ?-that he would have defied a com
parison of dates, had he been claiming originality
merely on the score of what he had consciously bor
rowed ?
But that pretension of his to having anticipated
much of what Schelling taught has been treated with
vehement scorn, as a mere pretence.
His accordance with the German Philosopher, it is
peremptorily asserted, could not have been co- inci
dence, because he gave forth Schelling's own doctrine
in Schelling's own words, without any important ad
dition or variation. " Genial coincidences, forsooth !

18 His good friend in the Ed. Review of Aug. 1817, sees this
matter in a truer light, for he says Mr. C. " proceeds to defend
himself against the charge of plagiarism, of which he suspects
that he may be suspected by the readers of Schlegel and Schel
ling, when he comes to unfold, infulness of time, the mysterious
laws of the drama and the human mind," Fas est et ab hoste
juvari.
1 Coleridge and Schelling considered. xxix

1 where every one word of the one author tallies with

every one word of the other ! ". That it is ill-judged
in any man to tell the world, in his own favour, one
tittle more than he is prepared to prove, I have no in
tention to dispute, nor is it for the sake of maintain
ing my father's claims as a metaphysical seer, that I
10 trouble myself with the above position : for another
yi reason, more deeply concerning, I must contend, that
‫ المال‬his having neither added to, nor varied from, the doc
trines of Schelling does not make it clear as noon-day,
that he had not some original insight into them, nor is
even his adoption of Schelling's words any absolute
proof, that he had in no degree anticipated their sense.
There can be no reasonable doubt, that he was at least
in the same line of thought with him,—was in search of
what Schelling discovered- before he met with his wri
tings ; and on this point it is to be remarked, that the
writer in Blackwood, though he professes to give the
whole of Mr. Coleridge's defence, omits a very impor
tant part of it, that in which he accounts for his aver
red co-incidence with the German writer, and thus
14
establishes its probability. True enough it is that the
transcendental doctrine contained in the Biographia
Literaria is conveyed for the most part in the lan
guage of Schelling, and this seems to shew, that he had
not formed into a regular composition any identical
views of his own before he read that author's works ; 15

14 See, in the ninth chapter of this work, the passage begin

ning, " We had studied in the same school- " vol. 1. p. 164.
15 This admission refers to such parts of the book as expressly
convey the transcendental doctrine. Certain observations on
religious philosophy cited by Mr. Coleridge he declares him
self to have anticipated in writing. A few sentences with
which he prefaces the extract in the ninth chapter, which have
xxx Possible Anticipation of the Expansion
but that the main conceptions of Schelling's system
were wholly new to his mind, when he met with them
there, cannot be determined by any such test.
Coincidences in the discoveries of science are more
common, especially among contemporaries, than in the
products of fancy and imagination, because these are
not, like the last, mere arbitrary combinations of ma
terials drawn from the storehouse of the universe,
capable of being infinitely varied ; but revelations of
truths which manifest themselves, one and the same,
to every inquirer who goes far enough in a certain
direction of thought to meet with them-which lie in

been strongly animadverted upon , I give here, together with the

defence of them, in order to avoid any recurrence to the present
subject hereafter : " While I in part translate the following ob
servations from a contemporary writer of the Continent, let me
be permitted to premise, that I might have transcribed the
substance from memoranda of my own, which were written
many years before his pamphlet was given to the world ; and
that I prefer another's words to my own, partly as a tribute due
to priority of publication ; but still more from the pleasure of
sympathy in a case where co-incidence only was possible."
" This passage," says my Father's late Editor, " is noted with
particular acrimony by the writer in Blackwood, as " outraging
common sense and the capacities of human belief," with more
about " cool assurance," and " taking upon him to say," and the
like. And why all this ? Is there anything in the substance
or leading thought in the following paragraph so peculiar and
extraordinary, as to make it incredible, that the same may
have passed through the mind of such a man as even this wri
ter seems to admit Mr. Coleridge to have been ? He studied in
Germany in 1798 , and Schelling's pamphlet was published in
1806. The writer cannot comprehend how Mr. C. could take
upon him to say, " that co-incidence only was possible " in the
case, " except on the ground, that it was impossible for any hu
man being to write anything but what he ( Mr. C. ) had written
 and Improvement ofa philosophical System. xxxi
the path of the human intellect, and must be arrived at,
when it has made a certain progress in its pre-appointed
course. In all scientific product two factors are re
quired ; energy of thought in the discoverer, and a
special state of preparation for the particular advance
in the state of science itself. Real Idealism could
never have dawned on the mind of Schelling had he
not been born into the meridian light of the Idealism
of Kant, which was surely founded on the Idealism of
Berkeley. Is it anything then so very incredible,
that a man, from his childhood an ardent metaphysical
inquirer, who had gone through the same preparatory

before." And yet no human being but one could ever suppose
that Mr. Coleridge meant any such folly. What can be simpler?
He says he had before 1806 noted down- and his friends and
his enemies (that he should have such still ! )- know his habit
in this particular- the substance, that is, as most people under
stand it, the general thought of the paragraph. If that were so,
there having been no personal intercourse between Schelling
and Coleridge, coincidence, in Italics or Roman, was only pos
sible in the case .
A complaint is also made that a passage of 49 lines com
prising six only of original writing, should be said to be only in
part translated ; which Coleridge never said. " The following
observations " very obviously extend to the words 66 William
Law," two pages beyond the 49 lines ; of the whole it is truly
said, that it is partly translated, about one half of it, in differ J
ent parts, not being so. H. N. C.
V Upon this false supposition that my father referred only to
1
the 49 lines in his acknowledgment, he is not only attacked
for having spoken of them as in part translated, but declared
to have taken without acknowledginent " two other long sen
tences from the Darlegung," which occur in the following para.
graph, and which, because he altered them a little for the
occasion, he is reproached with having " curiously transmog
rified." !
xxxii Charity believeth all things , not blindly,
discipline with Schelling, by reflection upon the doc
trines of Kant, their perfect reasonableness, so far
as they advanced beyond all previous thought, their
unsatisfactoriness where they stopped short, and clung,
in words at least, to the old dogmatism, might have
been led into modes of rectifying and completing his
system similar to those which Schelling adopted ?
That Coleridge does not appear to have gone beyond
the subtle German in the path of discovery is insuffi
cient to prove, that he might not independently have
gone as far ; for we do not commonly see that more
than one important advance is made in metaphysical
science at any one period. Berkeleyanism presented
itself to the mind of Arthur Collier before he had
read a syllable of Berkeley's metaphysical writings,
and he maintained the non-existence of matter by
arguments substantially the same as those employed
in the Principles of Human Knowledge and " Dia
logues between Hylas and Philonous, without com
munication, as we may reasonably suppose, with their
admirable author.16 Let us suppose Collier to have
been a man careless and immethodical in his habits,
continually diverted from regular scientific inquiry by
a 66 shaping spirit of imagination ,"-one whose dis
position led him to be ever seeking matter for new
thought, rather than labouring to reduce into present
able order that which he had already acquired ; let us
further suppose that, before he had given expression
to his views in a regular treatise, the works of Berke
ley had fallen in his way ; would it not almost inevi
tably have happened, that the conceptions, floating in
his mind, but not yet fixed in language, would have

16 See Mr. Benson's Memoirs of Collier, pp. 18, 19.

 but by discovering their Credibility. xxxiii
mixed themselves up indistinguishably with those of
the older author, and assumed the same form ? But if
the form into which his thoughts were thrown had been
the same with that adopted by his " predecessor though
contemporary," the philosophy of the two would have
been identical, for Collier's view neither materially
added to Berkeley's nor varied from it. On such con
siderations as these it may surely be deemed possible,
that my Father did not wholly deceive himself, much
less wilfully seek to deceive others, when he affirmed
that " the main and fundamental ideas " of Schelling's
system were born and matured in his mind before he
read the works of Schelling ; and if such a belief would
do no great discredit to the head of any inquirer into
this question, how much more honourable to his heart
would be the readiness to think thus, especially of one
whose services in the cause of truth are at this time
wholly denied by none but his personal or party ene
mies, than the impulse to fling it aside with a scornful
"credat Judæus Apella, non ego !" Those were the
words of a Heathen Satirist. We Christians know,
that it was not credulity, but want of faith and of a
spirit quicker to discern truth and goodness than to
suspect imposture and evil, by which they of the cir
cumcision were most painfully characterized.¹

-17 When I had written thus far I received a letter from Mr.
Green, containing the following remarks : " It would not be
difficult, I apprehend, to shew that he ( Coleridge) might have
worked out a system , not dissimilar to Schelling's in its essen
tial features. What however did Coleridge himself mean by
the fundamental truths of Schelling's scheme ? It is very true
that the reader of the Biographia is under the necessity of
supposing, that he meant the doctrines, which he has adopted
in the passages taken from Schelling's works : but I confess that
xxxiv Odd Notions of Zeal for Justice,
But the writer in Blackwood, out ofhis great zeal
in behalf ofthe plundered and aggrieved, would not
only deprive Coleridge of his whole credit as a philo
sopher-he would fain take from him " some of the

I strongly doubt that such was the meaning of Coleridge . My

acquaintance with S. T. C. commenced with the intention of
studying the writings of Schelling ; but after a few interviews
the design was given up, in consequence of Coleridge declaring
his dissent from Schelling's doctrines ; and he began imme
diately the exposition of his own views.
" This perhaps renders the Biographia more inexplicable. For
herein S. T. C. assumes the originality of Schelling - which
can only be received with great qualifications — and is content to
have it admitted , that the agreements between himself and
Schelling were the coincidences of two minds working on the
same subject and in the same direction. Now this is the more
remarkable, that it may be shewn, that many or most of the
views entertained by Coleridge, at least at the period of our first
acquaintance, might have been derived from other sources, and
that his system differs essentially from that of Schelling. Some
light might perhaps be thrown upon this interesting question
by a knowledge, which unfortunately I do not possess , of the
circumstances under which the fragment called the Biographia
was drawn up. It is possible, no doubt, that Coleridge's opi
nions might have undergone a change between the period, at
which the B. L. was published , and that at which I had the
happiness of becoming acquainted with him. But at the latter
period his doctrines were based upon the self same principles,
which he retained to his dying hour, and differing as they do
fundamentally from those of Schelling, I cannot but avow my con
viction, that they were formed at a much earlier period , nay that
they were growths of his own mind, growing with his growth,
strengthening with his strength, the result of a Platonic spirit,
the stirrings of which had already evinced themselves in his
early boyhood, and which had been only modified, and indi
rectly shaped and developed by the German school."
" That in the B. L. when developing his own scheme of
thought, he adopted the outward form, in which Schelling had
clothed his thoughts, knowing, that is to say, that the formula
 and on Poetic Jewellery. XXXV

brightest gems in his poetic wreath itself." It is thus

that two couplets , exemplifying the Homeric and
Ovidian metres ,19 are described by his candid judge ;
and in the same spirit he describes my Father as hav

was Schelling's, though forgetting that it was also the language

of Schelling, may be attributed to idleness, carelessness , or to
any fault of the kind which deserves a harsher name ; but cer
tainly not to dishonesty, not to any desire of obtaining reputa
tion at the expense, and by the spoliation , of the intellectual
labours of another —and can form no ground for denying to him
the name of a powerful and original thinker. And the unac
knowledged use of the quotations from Schelling in the B. L.
which have been the pretext for branding him with the oppro
brious name of plagiarist, are only evidences, in my humble
judgment at least, of his disregard to reputation , and of a self
lessness, (if I may be allowed such a term, in order to mark an
absence of the sense of self, which constituted an inherent de
fect in his character,) which caused him to neglect the means
of vindicating his claim to the originality of the system, which
was the labour of his life and the fruit of his genius."
19 He pronounces them in part worse, in no respect a whit
better than the originals.
Im pentameter drauf fällt sie melodisch herab.
In the pentameter aye falling in melody buck.
To my ear, as Ifancy, the light dactylic flow of the latter half of
the pentameter, is still more exquisite in the English than in the
German, though the spondee which commences the latter is an
advantage. The English line is rather the more liquid of the
two, and the word " back," with which it closes, almost imitates
the plash of the refluent water against the ground.
Even from the sentence on the inferiority of Coleridge's
Homeric verses there might perhaps be an appeal : but neither
in German nor in English could a pair of hexameters be made
to present such variety in unity, such a perfect little whole, as
the elegiac distich.
Readers may compare the translated verses with the original
in the last edition of Coleridge's Poems in one volume ; where
they will also find the poem of Stolberg, which suggested ,
and partly produced, my Father's Lines on a Cataract.
xxxvi Fair Play a Jewel
ing sought to conceal the fact, that they were trans
lated from Schiller, a poet whose works are perhaps
as generally read here as those of Shakespeare in
Germany.
The expression " brightest gems " however is meant
to include Lines on a Cataract, which are some
what more conspicuous in Coleridge's poetic wreath
than the pair of distiches ; in these he is said to have
closely adopted the metre, language and thoughts of
another man. Now the metre, language and thoughts
of Stolberg's poem are all in Coleridge's expansion of
it, but those of the latter are not all contained in the
former, any more than the budding rose contains all
the riches of the rose full blown. " It is but a sha
dow," says the critic, " a glorified shadow perhaps,"
but still only a shadow cast from another man's " sub
stance." Is not such glory the substance, or part of
the substance, of poetic merit ? How much of ad
mired poetry must we not unsubstantialize, if the
reproduction of what was before, with additions and
improvements, is to be made a shadow of? That
which is most exquisite in the Lines on a Cataract is
Coleridge's own though some may even prefer Stol
berg's striking original. These and the verses from
Schiller were added to the poetical works of Mr. Cole
ridge by his late Editor. Had the author superin
tended the edition, into which they were first inserted,
himself, he would, perhaps, have made references to
Schiller and Stolberg in these instances , as he had done
in others ; if he neglected to do so, it could not have
been in any expectation of keeping to himself what he
had borrowed from them.
Lastly, Mr. Coleridge's obligations to Schelling in
Lecture VIII. on Poesy and Art are spoken of by the
writer in Blackwood, after his own manner.
 Defrauding without meaning to cheat . xxxvii
It is true, that the most important principles deli
vered in that Lecture are laid down by the German
Sage in his Oration on the relationship ofthe Plastic
Arts to Nature,20 -yet I cannot think it quite correct
to say that it is " closely copied and in many parts
translated " from Schelling's discourse. It not only
omits a great deal that the other contains, but adds, and,
as it seems to me, materially, to what is borrowed :
neither, as far as I can find, after a second careful
perusal of the latter, has it any passage translated
from Schelling, only a few words here and there be
ing the same as in that great philosopher's treatise.
Let me add, that Mr. Coleridge did not publish
this Lecture himself. Whenever it is re-published,
what it contains of Schelling's will be stated precisely.
Would that an equal restitution could be made in all
quarters of all that has been borrowed, with change of
shape but little or no alteration of substance ! In this
case, not a few writers, whose originality is now un
questioned, would lose more weight from their coinage
than my Father will do, by subtraction of that which
he took without disguise from Schelling and others :—
for how commonly do men imagine themselves pro
ducing and creating, when they are but metamor
phosing !
" That Coleridge was tempted into this course by
vanity," says the writer in Blackwood toward the end
of his article ; " by the paltry desire of applause, or
by any direct intention to defraud others of their due,
we do not believe ; this never was believed and never
will be believed." Truly I believe not ; but no thanks
to the accuser who labours to convict him of “ want

21 Phil. Schrift . p. 343.

1 d
xxxviii Schelling's own Opinion ofhis Wrongs
ing rectitude and truth ; " who reads his apologies the
wrong way, as witches say their prayers backward ;
-who hatches a grand project for Schelling in order
to bring him in guilty of a design to steal it ; who
uses language respecting him which the merest vanity
and dishonesty alone could deserve. This never has
been or will be believed by the generous and intel
ligent, though men inclined to fear and distrust his
opinions are strengthened in their prejudices by such
imputations upon their maintainer, and many are pre
vented from acquiring a true knowledge of him and
of them . What Schelling himself thought on the sub
ject will be seen from the following extract of a letter
of Mr. Stanley, author of the Life of Dr. Arnold,
kindly communicated to me by Archdeacon Hare.
66
Schelling's remarks about Coleridge were too gene
rally expressed, I fear, to be of any use in a vindica
tion of him, except so far as proving his own friendly
feeling toward him. But as far as I can reconstruct
his sentence it was much as follows, being in answer
to a question whether he had known Coleridge per
sonally. “Whether I have seen Coleridge or not, I
cannot tell ; if he called upon me at Jena, it was be
fore his name had become otherwise known to me, and
amongst the numbers of young Englishmen, whom I
then saw, I cannot recall the persons of individuals.
But I have read what he has written with great plea
sure, and I took occasion in my lectures to vindicate
him from the charge, which has been brought against
him, of plagiarising from me , and I said that it was I
rather who owed much to him, and that, in the Essay
on Prometheus, Coleridge in his remark, that " My
thology was not allegorical but tautegorical,""¹ had con

21 Remains, II. p. 352.

 and of the Wrong-doer. xxxix

centrated in one striking expression (in einem schla

genden Ausdruck) what I had been labouring to re
present with much toil and trouble. This is all that I
can be sure of."
Such was this truly great Man's feeling about the
wrongs that he had sustained from my Father. Had
the writer in Blackwood pointed out his part in the
Biographia Literaria without one word of insult to
the author's memory, he would have proved his zeal
for the German Philosopher, and for the interests of
literature more clearly than now, because more purely,
and deserved only feelings of respect and obligation from
all who love and honour the name of Coleridge.
It will already have been seen, that no attempt is
here made tojustify my Father's literary omissions and
inaccuracies, or to deny that they proceeded from any
thing defective in his frame of mind ; I would only
maintain that this fault has not been fairly reported or
becomingly commented upon. That a man who has
been " more highly gifted than his fellows," is there
fore to have less required of him in the way of " recti
tude and truth," that he is to be " held less amenable
to the laws which ought to bind all human beings,"
is a proposition which no one sets up except for the
sake of taking it down again, and some man of genius
along with it ; but there is another proposition, con
founded by some perhaps with the aforesaid, which is
true, and ought, in justice and charity, to be borne in
mind ; I mean that men of " peculiar intellectual
conformation," who have peculiar powers of intellect
are very often peculiar in the rest of their constitution ,
to such a degree that points in their conduct, which,
in persons of ordinary faculties and habits of mind,
could only result from conscious wilful departure from
 xl Origin of Mr. C's Inaccuracies stated.
the rule of right, may in their case have a different
origin, and though capable, more or less, of being con
trolled by the will may not arise out of it. Marked
gifts are often attended by marked deficiencies even in
the intellect those best acquainted with my Father
are well aware that there was in him a special intellec
tual flaw ; Archdeacon Hare has said, that his me
mory was " notoriously irretentive ; " and it is true
that, on a certain class of subjects, it was extraordi
narily confused and inaccurate ; matter of fact, as such,
laid no hold upon his mind ; of all he heard and saw,
he readily caught and well retained the spirit, but the
letter escaped him ; he seemed incapable of paying the
due regard to it. That it is the duty of any man, who
has such a peculiarity, to watch over it and endeavour
to remedy it, is unquestionable ; I would only suggest
that this defect, which belonged not to the moral being
of Coleridge but to the frame of his intellect, and was
in close connection with that which constituted his pe
culiar intellectual strength, his power of abstracting and
referring to universal principles, often rendered him
unconscious of incorrectness of statement, of which
men in general scarcely could have been unconscious,
and that to it, and not to any deeper cause, such neg
lects and transgressions of established rules as have
been alleged against him, ought to be referred.22

22 At all times his incorrectness of quotation and of reference

and in the relation of particular circumstances was extreme ; it
seemed as if the door betwixt his memory and imagination was
always open, and though the former was a large strong room,
its contents were perpetually mingling with those of the adjoin
ing chamber. I am sure that if I had not had the facts of my
" Father's life at large before me , from his letters and the rela
tions of friends, I should not have believed such confusions as
 Mr. C. has been known to cheat himself. xli
A certain infidelity there was doubtless in the mir
ror of his mind, so strong was his tendency to overlook
the barrier between imagination and actual fact. No

his possible in a man of sound mind. To give two out of num

berless instances,—in a manuscript intended to be perused by
his friend Mr. Green, he speaks of a composition by Mr. Green
himself, as if he, S. T. Coleridge, were the author of it. A
man, who thus forgets, will oftener ascribe the thoughts of an
other, when they have a great cognateness with, and a deep
interest for, his own mind, to himself, than such cognate and
interesting thoughts to another ; but my Father's forgetfulness
was not alwaysin the way of appropriation, as this story, written
to me by Mrs. Julius Hare, will shew. She says, it was "told him
(Archdeacon Hare, ) many years ago by the Rev. Robert Ten
nant, who was then his Curate, but afterwards went to Florence
and died there. He had a great reverence and admiration for
Mr. Coleridge, and used occasionally to call upon him. During
one of these visits, Mr. C. spoke of a book, ( Mr. Hare thinks it
was on Political Economy, ) in which there were some valuable
remarks bearing upon the subject of their conversation. Mr.
Tennant immediately purchased the book on this recommenda
tion, but on reading it was surprised to find no such passages as
Mr. C. had referred to. Some time after he saw the same book
at the house of a friend , and mentioned the circumstance to him ;
upon which his friend directed him to the margin of the volume
before him, and there he found the very remarks in Mr. C.'s
own writing, which he had written in as marginalia, and forgot
ten that they were his own and not the author's. Mr. Hare
had always intended asking Mr. T. to give him this story in
detail in writing, but unfortunately delayed it too long till Mr.
T.'s very sudden death prevented it altogether ; but he can
vouch for its general correctness. "
My Father trusted to his memory, knowing it to be powerful
and not aware that it was inaccurate, in order to save his legs
and his eyes. I suspect that he quoted even longish passages in
Greek without copying them, by the slight differences that oc
cur. Another phænomenon of his memory was its curious way
of interchanging properties ; as when he takes from Hobbes
xlii Small Translations and Adoptions from

man had a keener insight into character than he, or

saw moral and mental distinctions more clearly; yet
his judgments of particular persons were often rela

and gives to Des Cartes, what is not to be found in the latter and
is to be found in the former. ( See chapter v. ) This he did în
the face of Sir James Mackintosh, one of the most clear-headed
and accurately learned men of the day, after inciting him to ex
amine his own positions by contradiction ; so incautious and
dreamy was he. It seems as if he was ever dreaming of blows
and caring for them no more than for the blows of a dream.
How much strength of memory may co-exist with weakness,
the intellect remaining quite sound in the main, may often be
observed in old men. Just so many a nervous man can walk
twenty miles when he cannot walk straight into a room, or lift a
cup to his lips without shaking it.
It was from this same mixture of carelessness and confused
ness that my Father neglected all his life long to make regular
literary acknowledgments. He did it when he happened to
think of it, sometimes disproportionately, at other times not, but
without the slightest intention, and in some cases without the
possibility of even temporary concealment. He published The
Fall of Robespierre as An Historic Drama by S. T. Coleridge,
without joining Mr. Southey's name with his in the title page,
though my Uncle and all his many friends knew that he wrote
the second and third act of it ; and in a note to the Conciones
he spoke ofthe first act only as his own. He did not call the Ca
tullian Hendecasyllables a translation, though at any hour I
might have seen the original in the copy of Matthisson's poems
which he had given me, and in which he had written, after the
presentation, " Die Kinderjahre, p. 15-29 ; der-Schmetterling, p.
50 ; and the Alpenreise, p. 75, will be especial favourites with
you, I dare anticipate. 9th May, 1820, Highgate." His Hen
decasyllables contain twelve syllables, and as metre are, to my
ear, a great improvement, on Matthisson's eleven-syllable lines.
He acted in the same way with regard to two epigrams of
Lessing's, one in the Poetic Works, ii . p. 78, called Names,
and another on Rufa and her Lapdog, which has been printed
somewhere, (Die Namen and An die Dorilis. Works of Les
sing, vol. i. p. 19. and p. 46. ) He had spoken of them as trans
 Casimir, Cotton, Lessing and other Poets. xliii

tively wrong ; not that he ascribed to them qualities

which they did not possess, or denied them those which
they had, but that his feelings and imagination height

lations to Mr. Cottle. Mr. Green tells methat in the Confessions

are a few phrases borrowed from Lessing, which will be pointed
out particularly hereafter. My Father once talked of translating
all that author's works. An epigram printed in the Remains,
Hoarse Mævius is also from the German ; he seems to have
spoken ofit as such to Mr. Cottle. The fourth and sixth stanzas
of Separation (P. W. i. p. 262. ) are adopted from Cotton's Chlo
rinda. The late Mr. Sidney Walker thought that my Father was
indebted to Casimir's xiiith 'Ode for the general conception of his
Lines in answer to a melancholy Letter, one of the Juvenile Poems.
The second stanza looks like an expansion of the commence
ment :
Non si sol semel occidit,
Non rubris iterum surget ab Indiis.
I see no likeness elsewhere, except of subject. Mr. S. W. also
pointed out to me an image taken from the opening of Ossian's
War of Inisthoma, in Lines on an Autumnal Evening, " As when
the Savage," &c. (P. W. I. p. 39.) The Rose (Ib. p . 40.) is, I
believe, from the French.
" And I the while, the sole unbusy thing
Nor honey make, nor build , nor pair, nor sing," (Ib. ii. p. 72.)
would probably have been written, even if Herbert had not
written, as Mr. Walker reminded me,
All things are busy ; only I
Neither bring honey with the bees,
Nor flowers to make that, nor the husbandry
To water these. (Employment, Poems, p. 53. )
J I think it will hardly be supposed that Mr. Coleridge meant
to cheat Casimir, Cotton, Lessing and Matthisson of the arti
cles he borrowed from them . The two former he celebrated
in his writings, when they were not much in the world's eye
the two latter are popular and well known authors, whose works
are in every hand in Germany, and here in the hands of many .
Mr. Dequincey says he relied " too much upon the slight know
xliv. 1711 Truthfulness and Deceitfulness

ened and magnified that side or aspect of a mind,

which was most present to him at the time when his
estimate was drawn ; the good and the beautiful, which
he beheld at the moment, appeared in his eyes the very
type of goodness and beauty : the subjects of it were
transfigured before him and shone with unearthly hues
and lineaments. Of principles he had the clearest in
tuition, for that which is without degree is in no dan
ger of being exaggerated ; nor was he liable, from his
peculiar temperament, to miss poetic truth ; because
nature, as she lends to imagination all her colours, can
never be mis-represented by the fullest expenditure of
her own gifts upon herself. And even in his view of
the particular and individual, —though, as has been
said of him in his literary character, " often like the
sun, when looking at the planets, he only beheld his
own image in the objects of his gaze, and often, when
his eye darted on a cloud, would turn it into a rain
bow," 23-yet possibly even here far more of truth re

ledge of German literature in this country ; "-a blind remark !

Who relies for concealment on a screen which he is doing his
best to throw down ? Had my Father calculated at all he would
have done it better ; but to calculate was not in his nature,
Ifhe ever deceived others it was when he was himself deceived
first. Hazlitt said he " always carried in his pocket a list of
the Illustrious Obscure." I think he made some writers, who
were obscure when he first noticed them, cease to be so ; and
it will be found, that he did not generally borrow from the little
known without declaring his obligations ; that most of his adop
tions were from writers too illustrious to be wronged by pla
giarism. It is true that Maasz , from whom he borrowed some
things, never was famous : but had he " relied " on the world's'
ignorance of him he would not have mentioned him as a writer
on mental philosophy at all.
23 See Guesses at Truth, 2nd. edit. p. 241.
 ofMr. C's Memory and Imagination . xlv
vealed itself to his earnest gaze than the world, which
ever observes too carelessly and superficially, was aware
of. Many of his poems, in which persons are des
cribed in ecstatic language were suggested by indivi
duals, and doubtless did but pourtray them as they
were constantly presented to him by his heart and im
agination. ti
Such a temper is ever liable to be mistaken for one
of fickleness, insincerity, and lightness of feeling ; and
even so has Coleridge at times been represented by
persons, who judging partially and superficially, con
ceived him to be wanting in depth of heart and substan
tial kindness, whose depths they had never explored
and with whose temperament and emotions there was
no congeniality in their own. But it is not true, as
others will eagerly testify, that the affections of Cole
ridge were slight and evanescent, his intellectual facul
ties alone vigorous and steadfast ; though it is true
that, in persons constituted like him, the former will
be more dependent on the latter, more readily excited
and determined through the powers of thought and
imagination than in ordinary cases. His heart was as
warm as his intellectual being was lifesome and active,
nay it was from warmth of heart and keenness of
feeling that his imagination derived its glow and viva
city, the condition of the latter, at least, was intimately
connected with that of the former. He loved to share
all he had with others ; and it is the opinion of one
who knew him well and early, that, had he possessed
wealth in his earlier years, he would have given great
part of it away. If there are any who conceive that his
affections were apt to evaporate in words, I think it
right to protest against such a notion of his character.
Kind words are not to be contrasted with good deeds,
xlvi Mr. Coleridge's Heart
except where they are substituted for them, and those
kindly feelings which, in the present instance, so often
overflowed in words were just as ready to shape them
selves into deeds, as far as the heart was concerned ;
how far the hand can answer to the heart depends on
circumstances with which the last has no concern.
Had there been this tenuity and shallowness in his
spirit, he could never have made that sort of impres
sion as an author, which many thoughtful persons have
received from his works, much less as a man have in
spired such deep love and esteem as still waits upon
his memory from some who are themselves loved and
honoured by all that know them well. That the ob
jects of his affections oftener changed than consisted
with, or could have arisen in, a happy even tenour of life,
was, in his case, no symptom of that variableness which
results from the union of a lively fancy with a shallow
heart ; if he soon formed attachments, this arose from
the quickness of his sympathies,-the ease with which
he could enter into each man's individual being, loving
and admiring whatever it contained of amiable or ad
mirable; from a " constitutional communicativeness and
utterancy of heart and soul," which, speedily attracting
others to him, rendered them again on this account
doubly interesting in his eyes ; if he " stood aloof,"
during portions of his life, from any once dear to him,
this was rather occasioned by a morbid intensity and
tenacity of feeling than any opposite quality of mind,

24 Some persons appear to have confounded the general

courtesy and bland overflowing of his manners with the state of
his affections, and because the feelings which prompted the
former flitted over the surface of his heart, to suppose that the
latter were flitting and superficial too.
 no mere Foil to his Head. xlvii

the same disposition which led him to heighten the

lights of every object, while its bright side was turned
toward himself, inclining him to deepen its shadows,
when the chances and changes of life presented to him
its darker aspect, the same temper which led him to
over-estimate marks of regard, rendering him too
keenly sensible of, or quick to imagine, short-comings
of love and esteem, his claims to which he not un
naturally reckoned by his readiness to bestow, which
was boundless, rather than his fitness to receive, which
he ever acknowledged to be limited . He was apt to
consider affection as due simply to affection, irrespec
tively of merit in any other shape, and felt that such a
"fund of love " as his, and that too from one so highly
endowed as few denied him to be, ought " almost " to
"supply desert." He too much desired to idolize and
be idolized, to fix his eye, even in this mortal life,
only on perfection, to have the imperfections which he
recognised in himself severely noted by himself alone.
66 For to be loved is all I need,
And whom I love, I love indeed."
This turn of mind was at least partly the cause of
such change and fluctuation in his attachments through
life as may have subjected his conduct to unfavourable
construction ; another cause he himself indicated, at
an early period of his career, when, after speaking of
the gifts assigned him by heaven, he sadly exclaims,
"
- and from my graspless hand
Drop friendship's precious pearls like hour-glass sand ! "

Some of these precious pearls he let fall, not from

wanting a deep sense of their value, or any lightness
of feeling, but because he lacked resolution to hold
them fast, or " stoop " to recover what he yet “ wept ”
xlviii • **
Causes that predispose the Public
to lose. Still it was but a cruel half truth, when one
strangely converted from a friend into an enemy, ever
shooting out his arrows even bitter words , spoke of him
thus : " There is a man all intellect but without a
will ! " Sometimes indeed to will was present with him
when he found not how to perform ; all the good that
he would he did not ; but his performance, taken upon
the whole, his involuntary defects considered, inspired
his many friends with the belief that he was not only a
wise, but humanly speaking, a good man. " Good and
great " some say : whether or no he was the latter, and
how far, let others declare, time being the umpire ; it
signifies, comparatively, nothing to the persons most
interested in and for him what the decision on this
point may be ; but the good qualities of his heart
must be borne witness to by those in the present day
who knew him best in private. Thus much may be
said for the correctness of his intuitions and the clear
ness of his moral sense, that, through life, his associ
ates, with few exceptions, were distinguished by high
qualities of head and heart ; from first to last of his
course here below he was a discoverer and a proclaimer
of excellence both in books and men.

Mr. Coleridge's Religious Opinions ; their for

mation ; misconceptions and misrepresentations
on the subject.
UCH imputations as those I have had the painful
SUCH
meet a ready credence from part of the public, when
they concern a writer whose opinions are obnoxious to
various parties in politics and religion, and who has
never secured the favour and admiration of the light
reading and little thinking world. For one man who
 to credit Evil of independent Thinkers. xlix
will, fully and deeply examine any portion of the opi
nions, religious or philosophical, of a full and deep
thinker, there are hundreds capable of comparing the
run of sentences and paragraphs and being entertained
by a charge of plagiarism : if some are grateful to him
for light thrown, as their eyes tell them, upon truth,
far more are offended because this same light reveals
to them the untruth which they would fain not see in
its proper hues and proportions ; who not being pre
pared to overthrow his reasonings by a direct attack
are glad to come at them obliquely, by lowering his per
sonal character and thereby weakening his authority.
The whole Romish world was bent on convicting Lu
ther of Antinomianism, and as they could not discover
it in his writings, they were resolved, if possible, to
find it in his life, and as it was not forthcoming in
either, they put it into both ; they took all his rhetoric
the wrong way up and hunted for unsoundness in his
mind and libertinism in his conduct, as vultures hunt
for things corrupt in nature. The spirit evidenced in
this procedure,-- that " ancient spirit is not dead ; " reli
gious writers, even at the present day, are far too
prone to discredit a man's opinions at second-hand by

1 I believe that Bayle's article caused a dead silence on the

subject ofthe great Reformer's personal " carnality " for ages. Of
late years it has been revived and there is a faint attempt to bring
up some ofthe old stories circulated against him to the effect
that he made liberty a cloakfor licentiousness. (See on Luther's
Life and opinions Hare's Mission of the Comforter, vol. ii . pp.
656-878.) It was an " easy feat " to put Pantheism into the
"bottom of Luther's doctrine and personal character," (Essay
on Developement, p . 84. ) because the bottom of doctrine is one
knows not where, and Pantheism, as modern polemics employ
the term, one knows not what ; but to fasten dissoluteness on
his conduct is by no means easy.
1 Unfair and uncertain Methods
tracing them to some averred evil source in his cha
racter, or perverting influence in the circumstances
of his life. This seems exceptionable however gently
done, first because it is a very circuitous and uncertain
mode of arriving at truth ; a man's opinions we know
on his own statements of them ; but in attempting to
discover the means through which they have been
formed, we are searching in the dark, or the duskiest
and most deceptive twilight, and, having no clear light
to guide us, are apt to be led astray by some ignisfa
tuus of our own prejudices and delusions . Let the opi
nions be tried on their own merits, and if this is beside
the inquirer's purpose, and he chooses to assume the
truth of those he himself holds, considering them too
certain and too sacred to be made a question of, in the
same spirit let him disdain to snatch an argument in
their favour, out of themselves, from doubtful consi
derations. Alas ! how many of those who hold this
lofty tone, calling their own belief the truth, and other
men's belief mere opinion , only because they have an
opinion of the validity of a certain test of truth which
others cannot assent to, will yet resort to questionable
methods of recommending this their unquestionable
creed, and bring elaborate sophisms and partial repre
sentations, fit only to impose upon prepossessed and
ductile readers, to the aid of " practical infallibility ! "
But the second and even stronger objection to this
mode of proceeding is, that the desire to find the origin
of a man's way of thinking in the facts of his history,
brings the inquirer under great temptation to depart
from strict truth in regard to the facts themselves,
to mould them, often perhaps unconsciously, into such
a shape as best suits his purpose.
Now in order to show that these inconveniences do
 of examining into the Truth of Opinions. li
attach to the principle itself, I will take my example of
its operation from a respectable quarter, where no un
kindly spirit is manifested in tone or language. The
seventh number of the Christian Miscellany of July
1842 contains fifteen or sixteen pages of short extracts
from Mr. Coleridge's writings, which are entitled " Con
tributions of S. T. Coleridge to the Revival of Catholic
Truths." I would suggest, by the way, that if my Father
had taught only as such eclectics from his works would
have him appear to have taught, his contributions to
catholic truth would have been meagre enough, and
might even have told in favour of much that he con
sidered most uncatholic falsehood ; had his views been
compressed within the bounds into which an implicit
faith in the formal theology of early times must have
compressed them, his system would have been lifeless
and unreal as that which he was ever seeking to en
liven and organize ; he would have done little toward
enlighteninghis generation, though he might have aided
others to strengthen particular parties by bringing up
again for current use obsolete religious metaphysics and
neglected arguments-a very different process from that
of a true revival, which, instead of raising up the dead
body of ancient doctrine, calls forth the life and sub
stance that belong to it, clothed in a newer and more
spiritual body, and gives to the belief of past ages an
expansion and extension commensurate with the de
veloped mind of our progressive race. Such was the re
vival of catholic truth at which he aimed, with what
ever success, and to bring him in as an assistant in
one of an opposite character, is, in my opinion, to do
him injustice.
My immediate purpose, however, was not to notice
the extracts themselves, but certain observations, re
 lii The Tree, or the Soil and Air in which it grew,

specting my Father, prefixed to them. They are con

tained in
41 the little introduction, which speaks as fol
lows bo sto ? In pour eft quis up to 2 gal
These excerpts are not brought forward as giving
an accurate representation of Mr. Coleridge's opinions
in all their modifications, or as specimens his writings
generally ; they are rather the chance metal of a mine,
rich indeed, but containing ores of every degree of
value. They may however serve to shew, how much
: he contributed by his elimination of powerful truths,
in the then unhealthy state of literature, to the revival
of sounder principles. In doing this it is not sur
prising that one, who relied so much on himself, and
was so little guided, at least directly, by external au
thority, should have fallen into some inconsistencies.
These inconsistencies are rather the result of an undue
development of certain parts of Christian philosophy,
than the holding of opinions immediately heretical."
" } "The circumstances in his Christian course, which we
may regard as having impaired his power of duly appre
ciating the relative value of certain Catholic truths,
were his profession of literature, his having edited a
newspaper, and having been engaged in a course of
heretical and schismatical teaching. That he was res
cuedfrom these dangers and crimes, and to a great extent
saved from their effects, is, it is not improbable, owing
to the circumstances of his early education. He was
the son of a clergyman , admitted into the Church, and
taught its doctrines by his pious and simple-hearted
father, was impressed by his instructor, the Rev. James
Bowyer, with the unrealities and hollowness of modern
literature, and during his whole life was the subject of
severe afflictions, which he received in patience, ex
pressing for his past and often confessed sins, peni
 made the Criterion of the Fruits. liii

tence inword, and doubtless penance in deeds. Through

those means he may have attained his happy priví
lege, of uttering the most important truths, and cloth
ing them in such language as rendered their reception
more easy to minds not entirely petrified by the ma
terialism ofthe day."
彩
For Mr. Coleridge's sake alone it might be thought
scarcely worth while to discuss the accuracy of remarks ,
which are perhaps at this time remembered by few,
and, like a thousand others of similar tendency, cannot
fail to be counteracted in their drift, so far as it is er
roneous, by the ever renewed influence of his writings,
as the returning waters sweep from the sea shore what
children have scattered there during the ebb.¹ For the
sake of right principle, I must observe, that in seeking
to strengthen our own faith by casting any measure of
discredit on minds which have not received it, we ra
ther shew our zeal in its behalf, than any true sense of
its intrinsic excellence or confidence in its power,
When a critic or biographer has a man's whole life,
whole body of opinions - under review, he may fairly
enough, though it is always a most difficult process,P
attempt to show how, and to what extent, his charac
ter and modes of thought were affected by external
circumstances ; but I cannot help thinking it very un
fair to pre-occupy a reader's mind with two or three

1 The reader will perceive that I use this simile of the Sea
to denote, not the size or importance, but the comparative per
manence of my Father's writings. That he has achieved a per
manent place in literature, ( I do not say what or where,) I cer
tainly believe ; and I also believe that no persons well acquainted
with his writings will be disposed to deny the ' position, except
those who represent the Edinburgh Review of twenty and thirty
years ago.
1 e
liv Mr.Wordsworth's Correction ofthe Statement
points of a man's life selected out of his personal his
tory, previously to introducing a few of his opinions to
their notice. Every man who is in error, who cannot
see the truth when it is before him, labours under
some defect, intellectual or moral, and this may have
been brought out,-I think such defects are never
caused or implanted, by circumstances ; but it is
hardly fair play to impute such defects to a writer or
describe them as having corrupted his opinions, when
the nature of the opinions themselves is adhuc sub
lite among Christians and good men.2
My principal objection however to the statements I
I have quoted is, that they are incorrect either in the
letter or the spirit or both. It is plain enough that
the real aim of the Miscellanist was not to exhibit the
amount of Catholicity in an individual mind, but to
spread what he considered to be Catholic truth, and to
this my Father's character as a man was made subser
vient. On first reading his prefix I regarded one of
its assertions as a pure mistake, and on this subject re
ceived the following testimonial from Mr. Wordsworth,
with whose great and honoured name it must ever be
the pride and pleasure of the friends of Coleridge to
associate his.

2 I wish the reader to observe that I attach little or no im

portance to the remarks of the Chr. Miscellany in themselves ;
as an index of a state of feeling in certain quarters and an in
stance of what is daily practised , to the production of injury and
irritation more than any real good, they are not insignificant.
Personality is a poisoned weapon in religious warfare ; and all
religious statements in these days are necessarily a warfare,
open or undeclared . Personal character should never be dealt
with at second hand ; it should be left to those who undertake
the trouble and responsibility, while they possess the zeal, of
the biographer.
 that Mr. C. had been a Newspaper Editor. Iv

" I feel absolutely certain that your Father never

was Editor of any periodical publication whatsoever
except The Watchman and The Friend, neither of
which, as you know, was long continued, and The
Friend expressly excluded even allusion to temporary
topics ; nor, to the best of my remembrance, had The
Watchman anything of the character of a newspaper .
When he was very young he published several sonnets
in a London newspaper. Afterwards he was in strict
connexion with the editors or at least proprietors of
one or more newspapers, The Courier and The Morn
ing Post ; and in one of these, I think it was the
latter, your Father wrote a good deal.”–
" So convinced was I of the great service that your
Father rendered Mr. Stuart's paper, that I urged him
to put in his claim to be admitted a proprietor ; but
this he declined, having a great disinclination to any
tie of the kind. In fact he could not bear being
shackled in any way. have heard him say that he
should be sorry, if any one offered him an estate, for
he should feel the possession would involve cares and
duties that would be a clog to him.” —³
The " Newspaper " which is supposed to have re
tarded my Father's growth in Catholicism, it now oc
curs to me, may have been The Watchman, as in that
miscellany the domestic and foreign policy of the pre
ceding days was reported and discussed ; but I still
think, that the impression which this statement, to
gether with the inference drawn from it, is calculated
to convey, is far from just. To be for any length of
time the editor of a periodical work, which is the suc

3 The reader is referred to chap . v. of the Biographical Sup

plement for an account of Mr. C.'s connection with Mr. Stuart.
Ivi ‫ܝ‬ Mr. C. not made uncatholic 21 Vd
cessful organ of a party, whatever principles that party
may profess, nay even if they call themselves Catholic,
is" indeed to be in a situation of some danger to the
moral and spiritual sense : but such was never my fa
ther's situation. When he is described as18 having been
impaired in his religious mind by editing a newspaper,
would any one guess the fact to be this, that, in his
youth, he put forth ten numbers of a miscellaneous
work, one portion of which was devoted to the politics
of the times, and was unable to make it..answer be
cause he would not adapt it to the ways of the world
and of newspapers in general ? Let those who have
been led to think that Mr. Coleridge's services to pub
lic journals may have deadened his religious suscepti
bilities consider, not only the principles which he pro
fesses and the frame of mind which he displays, on I
this very subject in the tenth chapter of the present
work, but the character of his newspaper essays them
selves ; had the writer, to whose remarks I refer, done
this, before he pronounced judgment, I think he could
not have failed to see that my Father conformed the
publications he aided to himself and his own high
views, in proportion to the extent of his connection
with them, not himself to vulgar periodical writing.
The Edinburgh Reviewers indeed, in the year 1817,
flung in his teeth, "Ministerial Editor." With them.
the reproach lay in the word Ministerial. Tempora
mutantur-but the change of times has not yet brought
truth to the service of my Father, or made him gene
rally understood. d0%
Not however the connection with newspapers merely,
but the profession of literature is specified as 7 one
among other causes, which alienated my Father's mind
from Catholicity. The peculiar disadvantages of the
 by Newspaper or Professional Literature. lvii

trade of authorship " Mr. Coleridge has himself de

scribed in this biographical fragment ; he has shewn
T
that literature can scarcely be made the means of
living without being debased ; but he himself failed in
it , as the rmeans of living, because he would not thus
debase it, would not sacrifice higher aims for the
sake of immediate popularity. Literature, pursued not
ás a mere trade, is naturally the ally, rather than the
adversary, of religion. It is indeed against our blessed
Lord, if not for him ; but though it has its peculiar
danger, inasmuch as it satisfies the soul more than
any other, and is thus more liable to become a per
manent substitute for religion with the higher sort of
characters, yet surely, by exercising the habits of ab
straction and reflection, it better disciplines the mind
for that life which consists in seeking the things that
are above while we are yet in the flesh, than worldly
business or pleasure. Inferiour pursuits may sooner
weary and disgust, but during their continuance they
more unfit the mind for higher ones ; and the departure
of one set of guests does not leave the soul an empty
apartment, swept and garnished for the reception of
others more worthy.
And how should literature indispose men toward
Catholic views in religion ? The common argument in
behalf of those which are commonly so called rests
upon historical testimony and outward evidence ; why
should the profession of literature render men less
able to estimate proof of this nature ? A pursuit it is
which leads to reflection and inquiry, and what can be
said for the soundness of that system to which these
are adverse ? Some indeed maintain that our persua
sions in such matters depend little upon argument ;
that none can truly enter into the merits of the Church
 Iviii Implicit Faith in the Fathers rather opposed
system, save those who have been in the habit of obeying
it, and that from their youth up. Nowit is not, of course,
contended that my Father was, during his whole life,
in the best position for appreciating Catholicity and
⚫ becoming attached to it ; but this may be fairly main
tained, that he never was so circumstanced, as to be
precluded from drawing nigh to any truthful system ,
existing in the world, and in due time coming under
its habitual sway . 1

Again in what sense can it be truly said of Cole

ridge that he disregarded authority ? It would be dif
ficult to instance a thinker more disposed to weigh the
thoughts of other thinkers, more ready to modify his
views by consideration of their's or the grounds on
which they rest. Can those who bring the charge against
him substantiate of it more than this, that he had
not their convictions respecting the authority attribut
able to a certain set of writers of a certain age ? And
does it not appear that this theory of the consentient
teaching of the Fathers and its " practical infallibility "
involves the depreciation of authority, at least in one
very important sense ? He who binds himself by it,
strictly, must needs hold human intelligence to be of
little avail in the determination of religious questions,
since it is the leading principle of this theory of faith,
that our belief has been fixed by an outward revelation,
-the commentary of tradition upon Scripture, -and
that we are not to look upon the reason and conscience
of man, interpreted by the understanding, as the ever
lasting organ of the Spirit of Truth ? The weakest in
tellect can receive doctrine implicitly as well as the
strongest, and to hand on that which has been already
settled and defined requires no great depth or subtlety
1
of intellect. If the weightiest matters on which the
 to Confidence in Wise Men of all Ages. lix
thoughts of man can be employed are already so de
termined by an outward oracle, that all judgment upon
them is precluded, and the highest faculties of the
human mind have no concern in establishing or con
firming their truth, authority, as the weight which the
opinion of the good and wise carries along with it, in
regard to the most important questions, is susperseded
and set aside. And the fact is, I believe, that profes
sors of this sort of Catholicity, whether for good or
for bad, whether from narrowness or from exaltedness,
are by no means remarkable for a spirit of respect to
ward highly endowed men, or for entering into the
merits of a large proportion of those who have concili
ated the esteem and gratitude of earnest and thought
ful persons. None are burning and shining lights for
them except such as exclusively irradiate their own
sphere, (which is none of the widest ;) and their radiance
appears the stronger to their eyes because they see
nothing but darkness elsewhere. Let it be clearly un
derstood that I here refer to that antiquarian theory,
according to which every doctrine bearing upon reli
gion, held by the Fathers, even though the matter of
the doctrine be rather scientific and metaphysical than
directly spiritual and practical, -as for instance the
doctrine of free will,-constitutes Catholic consent, is
the voice ofthe Holy Catholic Church, and therefore the
voice of its heavenly Head ; that the early Christian
writers, where they agree, are to be considered practi
cally infallible, on account of their external position in
reference to the Apostles ; that succeeding writers are
of no authority, except so far as they deliver what is
agreeable to " Catholic doctrine," so understood, and
in so far as they differ from it are at once to be consi
dered unsound and unworthy of attention. If such a
1x Mr. Coleridge's Freedomfrom Bias
theory is not, as I imagine, maintained- by a certain
class of High Churchmen, I shall be very glad to find 6
that it is only a shadow ; though in this case I should be
more than ever perplexed to understand what it isz
that the Catholic and orthodox so much disapprove ins
the opinion of my Father on the subject in questionsɗ
or why he should be accused of disregarding authority,//
because, though he thought the consentient teaching.
of the early Christian writers worthy of deep consider,
ation, he did not hold it to be absolutely conclusive :
upon theological questions, or certainly the voice of
God. Something very different was, to his mind, imm
plied in the promise of Christ to his Church ; for
without His presence in any special sense, as the life
giving Light, a fully developed system of doctrine, ca
pable of being received implicitly, might have been
transmitted from age to age. He saw the fulfilment
of it, partly at least, in the power given to individual
minds to be what the prophets were of old, by whom
the Holy Ghost spake, religious instructors of their
generation . " J.
Literature, liberally pursued, has no other bearing
on a man's religious opinions than as it leaves him
more at liberty to form them for himself than any.
other. Looking at the matter in another point of view
I readily admit, that, so far as it is the want of any

* I find the same argument in Dr. Arnold's Fragment on the

Church. He words it thus : " The promise of the Spirit of
Truth to abide for ever with his Church, implies surely that !
clearer views of truth should be coutinually vouchsafed to us ;
and if the work were indeed fully complete when the Apostles .
entered into their rest, what need was there for the Spirit of
Wisdom, as well as of Love, to be ever present even unto the
end ofthe world ?"
 of Interest, of Party, or of Situation] lxi

regular profession at all, it may be in some degree in

jurious to the man, and consequently to the thinkers
But if a regular calling tends to steady the mind, re
straining it from too tentative a direction of thought,
and what may prove to be a vain activity, it tends perd
haps in an equal degree to fix and petrify the spirit, of
which I believe abundant evidence may be found in
the writings of professional men. Perhaps there isd
no fixed occupation which does not in some measure
tend to disturb the balance of the soul ; the want of
one permits a man to commune with human naturęm
more variously and freely than is possible for those to
whom a stated " routine presents persons and things
with a certain uniformity of aspect ; it is not mere ex-~
perience that gives knowledge, but a diversified expe
rience, and the power of beholding the diversity itq
contains through the absence of a particular bias and
leisure for contemplation. So far, therefore, as it pre-o
sents facilities for the acquirement of the philosophic n
mind, even the want of a regular calling may in some †
degree facilitate the acquirement of truthful views in
religion. It is scarcely possible," said my Father
himself, addressing Mr. Frere, " to conceive an in-.
dividual less under the influence of the ordinary dis
turbing forces of the judgment than your poor friend ;
or from situation, pursuits, and habits of thinking,

• After speaking in warm eulogy, according to his wont, of

S. T. C. Dr. Arnold says, " But yet there are marks enough
that his mind was a little diseased by the want of a profession,
and the consequent upsteadiness of his mind and purposes ; it
always seems to me, that the very power of contemplation be
comes impaired or diverted, when it is made the main employ
ment oflife." See Arnold's Life and Correspondence, vol.ii.
p. 57. 210 "
Ixii Relation of Party Union and Compact

from age, state of health, and temperament, less likely

to be drawn out of his course by the under-currents of
hope or fear, of expectation or wish. But least of all
by predilection for any particular sect or party ; fór
wherever I look, in religion or in politics, I seem to
see a world of power and talent wasted on the support
of half truths, too often the most mischievous because
"6
least suspected of errors."
It was the natural consequence of his having no
predilection for any sect or party that parties and
party organs have either neglected or striven against
him ; they were indeed his natural opponents, as they
must ever be of any man, whose vocation it is to examine
the truth of modes of thought in general, while an
assumption of the truth of certain modes of thought is
the ground of their existence as parties, and the band
that keeps them together. It has been observed by
Mr. Newman, in condemnation of " the avowed disdain
of party religion ;" that " Christ undeniably made a
party the vehicle of his doctrine, and did not cast it at
random on the world, as men would now have it ; " 7
and undeniable it surely is, that there is nothing radi
cally wrong in the union of members for the support
or propagation of truth. But then, from the weakness
of human hearts and fallibility of human understand
ings it comes to pass, that while party union is right
in the abstract, parties are generally more or less
wrong, both in principle and conduct, and do more or
less depart from truth in their resolution to maintain
some particular portion or representation of it. The

6 Church and State. Advertisement, pp. 4, 5.

7 Sermons preached before the University of Oxford. Serm. viii.
p. 165.
 to the guarding and advancing of Truth. xiii
party that has our Lord at its head and fights for Him
and Him onlyis one with the Church of Christ, consi
dered as still militant ; but this host, like the fiery one
that surrounded Elisha, is invisible. The party which
Christ instituted was not invisible, but it differs essen
tially from all parties within the precincts of Christen
dom for this very reason, that it was undeniably in
stituted by Him, and that they who composed it had
to defend the moral law in its depth and purity, theism
itself in its depth and purity-(the acknowledgment of
God as a Spirit, one and personal, with the relations
to each other of the Creator and the creature—a faint
distorted shadow of which was alone preserved by Poly
theists )—against a popular religion , which, though
pious and spiritual in comparison with utter want of
faith in the things that are bove, was the very world
and the flesh, as opposed to Christianity. Thus they
were striving for the life and soul which animates the

Heathenism in Scripture is represented as one with sen

suality, profaneness and disregard of the life to come ; to work
the will of the Gentiles was to run to every kind of evil excess ;
and almost the same, suppose, may be said of the monstrous
heresies, against which the Apostles and their successors spoke
in terms of unqualified reprobation. In his Fragment on the
Church, Dr. Arnold remarks, that " the heresies condemned by
the Apostles were not mere erroneous opinions on some theo
retical truth, but absolute perversions of Christian holiness ;
that they were not so much false as wicked . And further,
where there was a false opinion in the heresy, it was of so mon
strous a character, and so directly connected with profligacy of
life, that it admits of no comparison with the so-called heresies
of later ages." pp. 89, 90. Does it appear that our Lord ever
rebuked either unbelief or misbelief, except as one and the same
with worldliness and wickedness, or at least, as in the case of
Thomas, subjection of the mind to the flesh ?
Ixiv Mr. C. sought, as a religious Teacher,
religion of Christ, whereas I would fain believe, that
the contentions among parties of Christians are less for
this life and soul than for the forms in which they
severally hold that it is most fitly clothed, and with
which they identify it. And this is no unworthy sub
ject of contention, because the life and spirit are best
preserved and most fully expressed in the truest forms,
a correct and distinct intellectual system is the best
preservative of the essential portion of faith ; but yet,
because they are forms, the strife concerning them will
be more apt to degenerate into an unholy warfare than
a struggle pro aris et focis, -for the very ideas of a
spiritual religion and for a pure and pregnant morality,
the testimony to which every soul may find at home,ti if
it looks deep into its own retirements.
In reference to the present subject, however, I need
only observe that party compact operates chiefly for
the preserving and extending of truth, considered as
already established, while the discovery or develop
ment of it is only to be achieved by individual efforts ;
it even tends to retard such progress in the beginning ,

To take the extreme case, Socinianism, I have long thought

that a man may, that many a man does, athwart the negative
lines of this creed, which in some cases appear to be quite ne
gative in operation, behold in heart and spirit every deep truth
on which Christians around them are dwelling, every truth
meet to bring forth the fruit of good living, and to fit the soul
for a higher life than the present. I hope and believe that such
persons do practically embrace the divinity of Christ, because
they worship, serve and obey Him,-they address their reli
gious thoughts to Him habitually-they attribute to Him that
which is properly divine , the work of Creation and Redemption,
although they have wrong conceptions of the method of this
work. On the other hand I should suppose that many Ro
 to expand andstrengthen divine Knowledge. Ixv
because, as essentially conservative, it ventures upon
no experiments, but is bound to consider every depar
ture from that form of teaching, which has hitherto
served to convey and preserve spiritual truth, as en
dangering its purity and stability ; and thus it may
easily happen that, although religious doctrine may
and must be diffused and maintained by men acting in
concert, yet they who are labouring to advance the
truth, to reform and expand the stock of divine know
ledge, may be in continual antagonism and collision
with those who are intent only on keeping it from go
ing back. My Father's vocation, if he had any in
this province, was to defend the Holy Faith by deve
loping it, and shewing its accordance and identity with
ideas of reason ; he has described himself as one who
"feels the want, the necessity of religious support ;
who cannot afford to lose any the smallest buttress ;
who not only loves Truth even for itself, and when it
reveals itself aloof from all interest, but who loves it
with an indescribable awe "-which causes him to
66
' creep toward the light, even though it draw him

manists must practically impute divinity to the blessed Mother

of Jesus, from the addresses which they make to her, and the
extent to which they seem to devote their religious minds to
her. At best they appear to make her one with our Saviour,
and not merely with the man Christ Jesus but with the Eternal
Son of the Father, extending His attributes to her, and making
of the twain two persons and one God. How awfully danger
ous would it be to address Christ as the Mediator betwixt God
and man if he were not himself both God and Man ! It will
not, I trust, be supposed that I am here instituting any general
comparison between Socinianism and Romanism with a prefer
ence of the former. I am merely considering what either may
possibly be to the heart and mind of the professor.
lxvi Mr. C's Connection with the Unitarians

away from the more nourishing warmth." " Yea, I

should do so," he adds, " even if the light had made
its way through a rent in the wall of the Temple." 1
But the gravest allegation contained in the passage
I have quoted, is, that Mr. Coleridge was once en
gaged in " a course of heretical and schismatical teach
ing :"- -a statement which seems to imply, that he
had been at one time pledged to teach a particular set
of doctrines, as a man is pledged upon undertaking
the charge of a spiritual congregation, who expect that
he shall confine himself within certain lines in his
teaching, and will listen to him no longer than he
keeps faith with them on that point. In such a casei
as this, supposing the doctrines false, to be engaged in.
a course of teaching them, must tend to confirm the
man's mind in alienation from truth ; because it weds
him to the false doctrines, not by inward love and pre
ference only, but by an outward and formal union.
That Mr. Coleridge was never bound to Heresy and
Schism by any such bonds as these might be gathered
from the present work alone, and would be fully mani
fest to any one who considered the matter with care.
Soon after leaving Cambridge he delivered lectures on
revealed religion, in which he set forth such views as
he entertained at the time : after this he preached oc
casionally at Bath, at Taunton, and as an " hireless
volunteer " in most of the great towns which he passed
through on a tour from Bristol to Sheffield. Once
indeed he entertained thoughts of taking upon him the
charge ofan Unitarian congregation ; but after preaching

To It is best to peruse his fuller exposition ofthis sentiment

in the passage itself, which occurs in the Confessions of an In
quiring Spirit. Letter I.
 a Stage in his Way tofull explicit Faith. lxvii
one sermon, in which, from the account of an ear-wit
ness, there seems to have been more of poetry and the
general principles of religion than of vulgar heresy and
schism, he abandoned the prospect that had been held
out to him. Not that the offer, by which he was sud
denly called away from it, tended to bias his opinions
in an opposite direction ; it left them free as air, ope
rating solely to detach him from all outward connection
with religious bodies, and exempt him from the least
temptation to place himself in binding relations with
them, or any sort of dependence upon them. To this
indeed it is unlikely that he would ever have submitted ;
for, as he mentioned to an acquaintance at the time,
had he preached a second sermon at Shrewsbury, it
would have been such an one as must " effectually have
disqualified him for the object in view ;" so little was
he disposed to keep within the lines of doctrine marked
out by any sect, or to let the body of his opinions live
and grow under external form and pressure. It is ex
travagant to suppose that my Father was impaired for
life in the power of religious discernment by a course
of teaching, which taught himself to perceive the defi
ciencies and errors of the creed in which he had sought
refuge that he was perverted by the very process
which his mind went through in order to arrive at a
more explicit knowledge of the truth. That which to
the passive and inert may be a tainting experience, to
minds like his, full of activity and resistency, is but a
strengthening experiment : he doubted and denied in
order to believe earnestly and intelligently. His Uni
tarianism was purely negative ; not a satisfaction in
the positive formal divinity of the Unitarians, but what
remained with him to the last, a revulsion from cer
tain explanations of the Atonement commonly received
lxviii His Opinions not governedfrom without.
as orthodox, together with that insight which he be
lieved himself afterwards to have attained into the
whole scheme of Redemption, so far as it can be seen
into by man, and its deep and perfect harmony with
the structure of the human mind as it is revealed to
the eye of Philosophy.
1 1 Against those, on the one hand, who describe him
as " intellectually bold but educationally timid, " 12 those
on the other who suppose him to have been indebted
to his early education for all that is consonant with the
true faith and fear of the Lord in his religious creed,
and lay to the account of after circumstances all that
they disapprove in it, I must firmly maintain, that what
they are so anxious, from the way in which their own
spirit has been moulded, to cast upon outward things
in the formation of his opinions, was, in the main, the
result and product of his own intellect and will. When
the years of childhood were past, he left behind him
the Eden, as some consider it, of implicit faith : the
world of belief was all before him where to chuse, and

11 See his own remarks on this subject in the middle of the

tenth chapter of the Biographia.
12 Quoted from a volume of poetical selections and criticisms
by Leigh Hunt, entitled " Imagination and Fancy." Having
referred to this agreeable book I cannot refrain from expressing
my belief that, had the author gone as deep into Coleridge's
theosophy as into his poetry, or made himself as well acquainted
with his religious writings as with his poems, he could never
have said that " nine-tenths of his theology would apply equally
to their own creeds in the mouths of a Brahmin or a Mussul
man." On the contrary, nothing more characterizes the reli
gious conceptions of Coleridge than the ever present aim and
endeavour to shew that Christianity is religion itself, religion in
its deepest, highest and fullest expression, the very ground as
well as the summit of divine truth.
 Embraced neither Pantheism nor Mysticism . Ixíx
for a time he sojourned with the Unitarians, behold
ing in them Conly the firm and honest rejectors vof! a
creed, which, as yet, he rcould not receive explicitly.
When he had 1 once entered their ranks no circum
stances existed to prevent him from remaining a Psi
lanthropist and becoming more and more confirmed in
opposition to the sum of tenets and opinions commonly
called Catholic many men so situated, even if they
Shad been nurtured as he was in the bosom of the
Church, would either have abode finally within those
[precincts or left them only to proceed in an opposite
direction to that which he took, and combined German
metaphysies with an atheistic Pantheism, instead of
1bringing them to the service of revealed religion. On
? the other hand, when he had quitted the Unitarians,
what outward influence was there to prevent him from
adopting High Church doctrine, as it is taught either
by Anglican or by Romish divines ? Some men have
passed from a deeper and earlier training in " heresy
and schism" than his to that Church theory which ex
hibits an earthly and visible system and proclaims it
the shrine of a mystic and heavenly one, not simply as
God's instrument, whereby the spirit is awakened in
man's heart and mind by communion with Him, but as
being in itself, independently of all such effects and
prior to them, a receptacle of the divine Spirit ; and
calls upon men to receive it as thus divine not princi
pally on internal evidence, the harmony of the whole
scheme within itself, attested by its proper moral and
spiritual effects, but on an outward historic proof,
reaching no higher than probability, yet assumed to be
that which only the unspiritual mind can reject,
That he did neither the one nor the other, that he
came to consider the notions of the Church entertained
1 f
lxx The way backward to Mediavalism

by ordinary Protestants inadequate and unspiritual,

without adopting the Romish doctrines respecting the
clergy and the nature of their intervention betwixt
God and man in the mode of salvation ; that he exalted
the spirituality of sacraments without admitting the
primitive materialism, by many styled Catholic, that
he saw the very mind of St. Paul, in the teaching of
Luther on the Law and Justification by Faith, yet was
open-eyed to the misuse of that teaching and the prac
tical falsities deduced out of it by modern Methodists
-all this and much more in his system of religious
opinion, distinguishing it equally from over-sensualized,
and from " minimifidian " Christianity, ought not to
be traced to peculiar circumstances and to accident as
its principal cause. Doubtless it was a blessing to
" the Christian philosopher " that he had a good
Christian for his father- that he had in him the
pattern of " an Israelite without guile." But of his
Churchmanship I believe that he was himself almost
wholly the Father ; and I verily think, that even if he
had been born in the Church of Rome, or in the bosom
of some Protestant sect, he would have burst all bonds
asunder, have mastered the philosophy of his age, and
arrived at convictions substantially the same as those
which now appear on the face of his writings.
There are some, perhaps, among the intelligent
readers of Coleridge, who take a different view of the
character of his opinions from that which I have ex
pressed who believe that, during his latter years, he
became in the main what High Churchmen consider
Catholic and orthodox, whilst any notions he still held
of a different character were anomalies, remnants of
his early creed, which would have been worked out
of his mind had his years been prolonged . There are
 was never begun in the Aids to Reflection. Ixxi
others amongst the proselytes to the Oxford theology,
who see nothing more in his teaching than a stunted
Anglo -catholicism ; some of these aver that, in the
beginning of their course they were conducted for a
little way by the writings of Mr. Coleridge ; that he
first led them out of the dry land of negative Protes
tantism ; but that now, by help of newer guides, they
have advanced far beyond him, and can look down on
his lower station from a commanding eminence. They
view the Aids to Reflection as a half-way house to
Anglo-catholic orthodoxy, just as others , who have got
beyond them, in a certain direction , consider their An
glo-catholic doctrine a half-way house to what they con
sider the true Catholicism,—namely that of the Church
of Rome. My own belief is, that such a view of my Fa
ther's theological opinions is radically wrong ; that al
thoughan unripe High Church theology is all that some
readers have found or valued in his writings, it is by
no means what is there ; and that he who thinks he
has gone a little way with Coleridge, and then pro
ceeded with Romanizing teachers further still, has
never gone along with Coleridge at all, or entered
deeply into any of his expositions of Christian doc
trine ; though there may be in many of them a tone
and a spirit with which he has sympathized, and an
emphatic condemnation of certain views of religion,
which has gratified his feelings. But, though I con
ceive my Father's religious system, considered as to its
intellectual form, to be different throughout from that
of Anglo or Roman Catholic, as commonly expounded,
that it coincided in substance with that which these
parties both agree to consider Catholic doctrine, I en.
tirely believe. If they are steering Northward, his
course is to the North as much as theirs, but while
 lxxii Mr. C's doctrine no semi-Catholicism,

they seek it by the West he reaches it by an Easterly

voyage ; I mean that he is as consistently and regu
larly opposed to them in his rationale of doctrine as
consentient with them respecting the great objects of
faith, viewed in their essence ; at least in his own
opinion, though not in theirs ; for he was accustomed
to make a distinction between religious ideas and the
intellectual notions with which they have been con
nected, or the dogmas framed in relation to them,
to which they appear strangers. His Christian divi
nity agreed more with " Catholicism " than with the
doctrines of any sect, since according to his judg
ment and feelings that contains, whether in a right
or wrong form, the spiritual ideas in which the true
substance of Christianity consists, more completely :
on some points it coincided with the " Catholicism " of
Rome rather than with that of Anglicans ; he recognised
for instance the idea of the immanence of spiritual
power and light in the Church, independently of the
authority of a revelation completed in past ages, op
posed as he was to the application of that idea made
by Papists. His religious system, according to his own
view of it, might be described as exhibiting the uni
versal ideas of Christianity, not those which have been
consciously recognised always, everywhere and by all,
but those which the reason and spiritual sense of all
men, when sufficiently developed, bear witness to, ex
plained according to a modern philosophy, which pur
ports to be no mere new thinking, but inclusively, all
the thought that has been and now is in the world.
Such was the aim and design of his doctrine. How
far he made it good is not to be determined here.13

13 Since the chief part of this preface was written I have

become acquainted with Archdeacon's Hare's Mission of the
 but a philosophical Catholicity. lxxiii

They who differ from me on this question may have

gone deeper into my Father's mind than myself. I will
only say in support of my own impressions, that they
are derived from a general survey of his writings, late
and early, such as few beside myself can have taken,
and that I came to the study of them with no interest
but the common interest in truth, which all mankind
possess, to bias my interpretation. Indeed I can con
ceive of no influence calculated to affect my judgment,
except the natural wish, in my mind sufficiently strong,
to find my Father's opinions as near as may be to
established orthodoxy, —as little as possible out of har
mony with the notions and feelings of the great body
of pious and reflective persons in his own native land.
To me, with this sole bias on my mind, it is manifest,
that his system of belief, intellectually considered, dif
fers materially from " Catholic " doctrine as commonly
understood, and that this difference during the latter
years of his meditative life, instead of being shaded off,
became more definite and boldly developed. How

Comforter, which I dare to pronounce a most valuable work,

meaning that I find it so, without the presumption, which in me
would be great indeed, of pretending to enter fully into its
merits. I have had the satisfaction of meeting with remarks
upon my Father in the preface and in the notes of which the
second volume consists, confirmatory of some which I have ven
tured to make myself. Even the dedication coincides with the
views given above, for it is this : " To the honoured memory of
S. T. Coleridge, the Christian philosopher, who through dark
and winding paths of speculation was led to the light, in order
that others by his guidance might reach that light, without
passing through the darkness, these Sermons on the Work of
the Spirit are dedicated , with deep thankfulness and reverence,
by one of the many pupils, whom his writings have helped to
discern the sacred concord and unity of human and divine
truth."
lxxiv How his Christian Philosophy differsfrom

should it have been otherwise, unless he had aban

doned that modern philosophy, which he had adopted
on the deepest and fullest deliberation ; and how, with
out such abandonment, could he have embraced a doc
trinal system based on a philosophy fundamentally
different ? How could he who believed that " a desire
to bottom all our convictions on grounds of right rea
son is inseparable from the character of a Christian,"
acquiesce in a system, which suppresses the exercise of
the individual reason and judgment in the determina
tion of faith, as to its content ; would have the whole
matter, for the mass of mankind, decided by feeling
and habit apart from conscious thought ; and bids the
soul take refuge in a home of Christian truth, in
which its higher faculties are not at home, but reside
like slaves and aliens in the land of a conqueror ? To
his latest hour, though ever dwelling with full faith on
the doctrines of Redemption and original sin, in what
he considered the deepest and most real sense attain
able by man, he yet, to his latest hour, put from him
some of the so-called orthodox notions and modes of
explaining those doctrines. My Father's whole view
of what theologians term grace-the internal spiritual
relations of God with man , his conception of its nature
in a theoretical point of view, differs from that which
most " Catholics " hold themselves bound to receive
unaltered from the primitive and mediæval Christian
writers ; for in my Father's belief, the teachers of those
days knew not what spirit was, or what it was not, meta
physically considered ; in no wise therefore could he
receive their explanations of the spiritual as sound
divinity, readily as he might admit that many of them
had such insight into the Christian scheme as zeal and
the ardour of a new love secure to the student of Holy
 Catholic doctrine as commonly explained. lxxv

Writ. Religion must have some intellectual form ;

must be viewed through the medium of intellect ; and
if the medium is clouded the object is necessarily ob
scured. The great aim and undertaking of modern
mental philosophy is to clarify this inward eye, rather
than to enlarge its sphere of vision, except so far as
the one involves the other- to shew what spiritual
things are not, and thus to remove the obstructions
which prevent men from seeing, as mortals may see,
what they are.
Those who maintain certain doctrines, or rather
metaphysical views of doctrine, and seek to prove
them Scriptural, simply because they were doctrines
of early Christian writers, ought to look in the face the
plain fact that some of the most influential of those
early writers were materialists, -not as holding the
soul to be the mere result of bodily organization ,
but as holding the soul itself to be material ; -ought
gravely to consider , whether it is reasonable to reject
the philosophy of a certain class of divines, and yet
cling " limpet-like" to their forms of thought on reli
gious questions, forms obviously founded upon, and
conformed to, that philosophy. They believed the
soul to be material, -corporeal. Of this assertion,
the truth of which is well known to men who have
examined into the history of metaphysical and psy
chological opinion," I cannot give detailed proofs in
this place ; but in passing I refer the reader to Ter
tullian De Resurr. Carn. cap. xvii. and De Anima,
cap. ix.; to Irenæus, Contra Hæreses, Lib. ii. cap.

14 Mr. Scott, in his impressive Lectures on the evolution of

Philosophy out of Religion, maintained the materialism of the
early Christian writers.
lxxvi He did not admit the religious Psychology
xix. 6. and to the preface of the learned Benedictine
to the latter, p . 161. Artic. XI . De Animarum¸
natura et statu post mortem. What ! are we to
be governed in religious metaphysique and the ra
tionale of belief by men who thought that the soul
was poured into the body and there thickened like
jelly in a mould ? -that the inner man took the form
of the outer, having eyes and ears and all the other
members, like unto the body, only of finer stuff ? -its
corpulency being consolidated by densation and its
effigy formed by expression ? This was the notion of
Cyprian's master, the acute Tertullian, and that of
Irenæus was like unto it. He compares the soul to
water frozen in a vessel, which takes the form of the
vessel in which it freezes, 15 evidently supposing, with
Tertullian, that the firm substantial body moulded the
fluent and aerial soul 16 -that organization was the or
ganizer. It appears that in those days the vulgar
held the soul to be incorporeal," according to the views
of Plato and other stupid philosophers, combated in
the treatise De Anima ; but that orthodox Christian
divines looked upon that as an impious unscriptural

15 Contra Hæreses. Lib. ii . cap. xix. 6.

16 A primordio enim in Adam concreta et configurata corpori
anima, ut totius substantiæ , ita et conditionis istius semen efficit.
Tertull. De Anima. Cap. ix. ad finem.
17 Tertull. De Res. Car. Cap. xvii . in initio. — aliter anima
non capiat passionem tormenti seu refrigerii, utpote incorpora
lis : hoc enim vulgus existimat. Nos autem animam corporalem
et hic profitemur et in suo volumine probamus, &c. On this
passage Dr. Pusey observes in a note, that it attests "the imma
teriality of the soul " to have been " the general belief." I
think it attests it to have been the belief of the common people,
but not that it was the prevailing opinion with Christian divines
of that age.
 of the ancient Christian Materialists. lxxvii

opinion. Justin Martyr argues against Platonic notions

of the soul in his Dialogue with Trypho.18 As for the
vulgar, they have ever been in the habit of calling the J
soul incorporeal, yet reasoning and thinking about it,
as if it had the properties of body. The common
conception of a ghost accords exactly with Tertullian's
description of the soul —a lucid aerial image of the out
ward man. Thus did these good Fathers change soul
into body, and condense spirit into matter ; thus did
they reverse the order of nature, contradict the wisdom
of ages, and even run counter to the instinctive belief
of mankind, in recoiling from Gnosticism ; thus deeply
did they enter into the sense of St. Paul's high sayings
about the heavenly body and the utter incompatibility
of flesh and blood with the Kingdom of Heaven ! As
they conceived the soul to be material, so they may
very naturally have conceived it capable of receiving
and retaining the Spirit, as a material vessel may re
ceive and retain a liquid or any other substance ; and,
in their conception, within the soul may no more have
implied any affection of the soul itself, than within the
box or bason implies any change in the stone or metal
of which the receptacle was made. Indeed this sen
suous way of conceiving spiritual subjects is apparent in
some of the passages from old writers that are appealed
to in support of what Archdeacon Hare happily calls,
66
' baptismal transubstantiation ; " as, for instance, one
cited in the Tract for the Times called, by a misnomer,
as I think, Scriptural views of Holy Baptism,19 the

18 Ven. 1747. pp. 106 and 111. Justin Martyr and Tatian
denied the original immortality of the soul on religious grounds,
and the former affirms that it is not simple, but consists of many
parts, p, 271 .
19 " If the sun being without, and fire by being near or at a
lxxviii Influence of the primitive Materialism
author whereof is so fervent, so scriptural in spirit and
intention, that he almost turns all he touches into
Scripture, as Midas turned all he touched into gold.
How the gold looked when Midas was away I know
not; but to me Dr. Pusey's Scriptural views, apart
from his persuasive personal presence, which ever
pervades his discourses and constitutes their great
effect upon the heart,--seem but brass beside the pure
gold of Holy Writ ; his alien piety gilds and hides
them. The more we polish brass the more brassy it
appears ; and so, these views only seem to my mind
the more discrepant from Holy Writ, the more clearly
and learnedly they are set forth. In Scripture faith is
required as the condition of all spiritual influence for
purely spiritual and moral effects, and that primary
regeneration, which precedes a moral one in time, and

little distance from bodies, warmeth our bodies, what must we

say of the Divine Spirit, which is indeed the most vehement
fire, kindling the inner man, although it dwell not within but
be without ? It is possible then, in that all things are possible
to God, that one may be warmed, although that which warmeth
him be not in himself." From Ammonius. Scriptural Views,
p. 264, 4th edit. This writer evidently supposes the proper
Indwelling to be distinct from influence. My Father, in his
MS. remains, declares against the opinion of those who make
"the indwelling of the Spirit an occupation of a place, by a
vulgar equivoque of the word within, inward, &c." " For exam
ple," says he, "a bottle of water let down into the sea.- The
water contained and the surrounding water are both alike in
fact outward or without the glass, but the antithetic relation of
the former to the latter is expressed by the preposition in or
within and this improper, sensuous, merely relative sense of
within, indwelling, &c. it is alas ! but too plain that many of
our theological Routiniers apply, though without perhaps any
distinct consciousness of their Thought, to spiritual Presence ! "
 on the development ofChristian Doctrine. lxxix
is not necessarily the ground of a change of heart and
life, was never derived from the Word of God, but has
been put into it by a series of inferences, and is sup
ported principally by an implicit reliance on the gene
ral enlightenment of the early Christian writers. The
doctrine may not be directly injurious to morality, since
it allows actual faith to be a necessary instrument in
all moral renovation ; but the indirect practical conse
quences of insisting upon shadows as if they were rea
lities, and requiring men to accept as a religious verity
of prime importance a senseless dogma, the offspring
of false metaphysics, must be adverse to the interests
of religion. Such dogmatism has a bad effect on the
habits of thought by weakening the love and perception
of truth, and it is also injurious by producing disunion
and mutual distrust among Christians.
The subtlest matter has all the properties of matter
as much as the grossest. Let us see how this notion,
that the soul consists of subtle matter, affects the form
of doctrine, by trying it on that of baptism. The doc
trine insisted on as primitive by a large party in the
Church, nay set forth as the very criterion stantis vel
cadentis Ecclesiæ Anglicana, by some of them, is
this, that, in the moment of baptism, the soul receives
the Holy Spirit within it ; that the Holy Spirit remains
within the soul, even though the baptized, as soon as
he becomes capable of moral acts, proves faithless and
wicked, until it is expelled for ever by a large but inde
finite amount of wickedness, entitled utter reprobacy.
How intolerable this doctrine is in its moral and spi
ritual aspect, how it evacuates the Scriptural phrase,
Christ in us, of its emphatic meaning, it is useless to
urge upon those, who believe it to have been taught by
the Apostles. I now only allege that no man origi
lxxx His ultimate scheme of Baptism substan

nally could have framed such a conception as this, who

had our modern conceptions of spirit, or had consi
dered what is the idea involved in the words, presence
of the Holy Spirit to our spirit. When the doctrine
is unfolded and presented to the masters and doctors
of it, they fly off to the notion of an inward potential
righteousness. But this mere capability of being saved
and sanctified, we have from our birth, nor can it be
increased, because it is essentially, extragradum, -not
a thing of degrees. Our capability of being spiritua
lized by divine grace is unlimited. Who are they
that explain away the baptismal gift into a sha
dow ? 20
My Father, in his latter years, looked upon baptism
as a formal and public reception into a state of spiri
tual opportunities, (at least so I understand him),.
which is equivalent, I suppose, to the doctrine of some
of our divines , Waterland among others, that it is a
consignment of grace to the soul . It is conceivable
that in consequence of such consignment, the soul, by
the will of God, may have more outward means of re
ceiving spiritual influence than it would otherwise have
had ; if prayer can affect the course and complex of
events in favour of those who are not praying, so may
the rite of baptism influence it in favour of the bap
tized, though he be passive in baptism. The objec
tion to the Antiquitarian doctrine is not that it implies
a mystery, not that it implies the reception of a spiri
tual opportunity independently of the will of the re
ceiver, but that, as it is commonly stated, it contradicts
the laws of the human understanding, and either af

20 See remarks on this subject in the Mission of the Comforter,

pp. 476-7.
 tially accordant with that of the Church. lxxxi
firms what cannot be true, -what brings confusion into
our moral and spiritual ideas,—or else converts the doc
trine into an ineffectual vapour-" a potentiality in a
potentiality or a chalking of chalk to make white
white." My Father, as I understand him, continued
to deny that the gift of baptism is a spiritual re-creation

21 See this whole argument given at greater length in the

Essay on Rationalism appended to the 5th edition of the Aids
to Reflection.
Two fallacies are current on the subject of momentary baptis
mal transubstantiation. First- men say, that as we are passive
in our original creation, so we are passive in our spiritual re
creation. The answer may be given from the Angelical Doctor,
who teaches that we are not passive in our original creation ;
and indeed it needs not the wisdom of an angel to see, that
neither man nor any other animal can become alive without
a corresponsive act on his part-a sub-co-operation. If we
throw a stone into the still unmoving pool, the waters leap up :
the pool has not stirred itself, but it co-operates in the produc
tion of motion. The second commonplace fallacy is this -as
a seed is set in the ground and remains inert and latent for a
time, then germinates, shoots up and bears fruit, so grace may
be poured into the soul of a child incapable of moral acts, may
remain latent for a time, then, when reason and the moral sense
have come into play, may produce good thoughts and good
works, the fruit of the Spirit. The objection to this is that
a spiritual being is not in a spiritual being as a material thing is
in a material thing ; it is in it or present to it only inasmuch as
it acts upon it. It is the heart itself which, by the power of
the Spirit, must bear the fruit of virtue, not a something lodged
within it, as the seed in the ground . Spiritual effects in the
soulmay exist unperceived by men,-may not produce outward
works of holiness till long after they have been produced ; but
when the deeds are evil, as they are in many who were baptized
in infancy, we may fairly say that the effects were not produced
-in other words, that the person who shews such an unspiri
tual mind, was not piritually regenerated in baptism.
lxxxii The true Import of the Doctrine stated
preceding actual faith or any moral capability, —an in
troduction of the spirit into the soul, which it passively
undergoes, as the dead cage receives the living bird,
or a lodgement of the Spirit within it irrespectively of
its own moral state ; a total change wrought all in a
moment conferring upon it no positive moral meliora
tion but only a power unto righteousness,-a capabi
lity of being renewed by grace in addition to that
which inheres in man from the first ; or on the other
hand a partial and incipient spiritual change ; since
regeneration ex vi termini is something total and
general ; to be born again, re-natus, implies a new
nature ; is so described in Scripture and was so under
stood in the early Church. He looked upon it as an
external grant, called regeneration in virtue of that
which it is its object to promote and secure, a grant
which comes into effect gradually, as the will yields to
the pressure of the Spirit from without, but which may
be made of none effect by the will's resistance. Such
a view of the effect of baptism is well expressed by
George Herbert in these lines
" O blessed streams ! either ye do prevent
" And stop our sins from growing thick and wide,
" Or else give tears to drown them as they grow

and is explained by himself in this passage from some

of his manuscript remains :
"I see the necessity of greatly expanding and clear
ing up the chapter on Baptism in the Aids to Reflec
tion, and of proving the substantial accordance of my
scheme with that of our Church. I still say, that an
act of the Spirit in time, as that it might be asserted,
at the moment of the uttering of the words, I baptize
thee in the name, &c.— now the Spirit begins to act-
 by himselfin his Manuscript Remains . lxxxiii
is false in Philosophy and contrary to Scripture, and
that our Church service needs no such hypothesis.
Further, I still say, that the communication of the
Spirit as of a power or principle not yet possessed, to
an unconscious agent by human ministry, is without
precedent in Scripture, and that there is no Scripture
warrant for the doctrine-and that the nature of the
Holy Spirit communicated by the Apostles by laying
on of hands is a very difficult question -and that the
reasons for supposing it to be certain miraculous gifts
of the Spirit peculiar to the first age of Christianity
and during the formation of the Church, are neither
few nor insignificant .
"Observe, I do not deny (God forbid ! ) the possibility
or the reality of the influence of the Spirit on the soul
of the infant. His first smile bespeaks a Reason, (the
Light from the Life of the Word, ) as already existent,
and where the Word is, there will the Spirit act. Still
less do I think lightly of the Graces which the child
receives as a living Part of the Church, and whatever
flows from the Communion of Saints, and the περ
χώρησις of the Spirit.
"The true import is this. The operations of the
Spirit are as little referable to Time as to Space ; but
in reference to our principles of conduct toward, and
judgment concerning, our neighbour, the Church de
clares, that before the time of the baptism there is no
authority for asserting, and that since the time there
is no authority for denying, the gift and regenerative
presence of the Holy Spirit, promised, by an especial
covenant, to the members of Christ's mystical Body
-consequently, no just pretence for expecting or re
quiring another new Inition or Birth into the state of
Grace."
 lxxxiv His View ofthe Eucharist. ·
My Father denied not that the Spirit may influence
the soul of an infant, but he still refused to separate
the presence of the Holy Spirit from spiritual effects,
and these from reason and the moral being. Those
' whom he differed from are wont to argue, not that the
infant is capable of moral effects in virtue of its
awakening reason, but that it may be spiritually reno
vated in its whole soul before it is morally renewed at
all: to this opinion he was ever wholly opposed. The
new birth, as the change of the soul itself, is out of
time ; viewed phenomenally in its manifestations, it
takes place, as my Father conceived, gradually, as a
' man becomes gradually a new creature, different from
what he was by nature, (or in other words a good
Christian,) the new birth indicating the spiritual
ground, the new creature the effect and change pro
duced. 1
$
Mr. Coleridge's view of the Eucharist with his view
of Sacraments generally has been adopted and ex
plained by his younger son.22 Would that all my la
bours in explaining our Father's views and clearing
them from misrepresentation, could be so superseded !
But my brother's present avocations are all engross
ing, and more indispensable than the defence of opi
nions, however serviceable those may be deemed to the
cause of truth. In connection however with the subject
just touched upon, of primitive religious metaphysique,
I am desirous, in times like these, to specify, what my
Father's notion of the real presence was not: that

22 See the Scriptural Character of the English Church, &c. by

the Rev. Derwent Coleridge, M.A. now Principal of St. Mark's
College, Chelsea. Last six sermons, passim. See also Cole
ridge's Remains, III. 344. iv. 41.
 Real Spirituality of the Presence. lxxxv
was not the notion of a real presence in bread and wine.
My Father has been called a Pantheist by the blunderers
of the day, because he believed in the real presence of
God throughout Creation animate and inanimate ; that
He is present to every blade of grass and clod of the
valley, as well as to all things that breathe and live ;
that were He to hide his face, that is, withdraw his
power, the World would vanish into nothing. But the
presence in the Eucharist is a spiritual presence or
agency for the production of spiritual effects. God
sustains mere material things by his power, but is he
present to them as the Spirit of Holiness, the life
giving Word? Can bread and wine become holy and
spiritual and be nourished to everlasting life ? What
do we gain by this strange self-contradictory dogma,
except an articulation of air ? The sacrament is not
for the bread and wine but for the soul of the receiver,
and if we hope to receive the Spirit by means of the
hallowed elements, have we not all that the doctrine
can give us in the way of spiritual advantage ? When
I have urged this consideration upon a maintainer of
the ancient view, the reply has been, " We must not
rationalize—must not reason à priori on these mat
ters, but receive faithfully what the voice of God has
declared." Alas ! that men should thus separate the
voice of God from reason and the moral sense, which
God has given us as an inward Holy of Holies, where
in He may appear to us, if we repair thither meetly
prepared, our souls being washed with pure water !
Alas ! that they should so absolutely identify it with
the voice of early Christian writers, men zealous and
simple-hearted, but nursled for the most part in Pa
ganism and all kinds of " sensuous and dark " imagi
nations on the subject of religion ! One of these early
1 g
lxxxvi Anachronisms in the Interpretation
writers, if not more, believed in transubstantiation,
that doctrine so condemned in our Church as not
only irrational, but impious. Waterland interprets the
passage in the ancient Father,22 to which I refer, in
his own way, only allowing him to be " inaccurate in
superinducing the Logos upon the symbols themselves,
rather than upon the recipients ; " 23 but I think if we
attend, as the Benedictine editor requires, to the series
of the holy Doctor's whole argumentation, we can
not fail to perceive that the conception present to his
mind was at least nearer to trans, than to any kind
of con substantiation.24 He teaches that the Eucha
rist consists of two parts, an earthly and a heavenly ;
I think that by the earthly he understood not mere
bread, but the material body of Christ ; while by the

22 Irenæus Contra Hæreses, L. iv. c. 18. p. 251. Ed. Bened .

Waterland's Review of the Doctrine of the Eucharist, chap. vii.
p. 221 - et seq.
23 The same Divine, after explaining the holiness of the con
secrated symbols to be " a relative holiness ," and declaring
himself to be of the opinion judiciously expressed by Mr.
Hooker, that grace is not to be sought in the sacrament, but in
the worthy receiver of the sacrament, presently adds, " not that
I conceive there is any absurdity in supposing a peculiar pre
sence of the Holy Ghost to inanimate things, any more than in
God's appearing in a burning bush ." Surely this is no parallel
case . Who imagines that Jehovah was joined or united with
the burning bush, or that the Omnipresent Creator was present
there as a man is present in a place ? The luminous appearance
in the bush and in the pillar of fire and in the Holy of Holies
was a sensuous sign of a supersensual reality, of the special
agency, favour and protection of Almighty God to the chosen
people. Has this any thing to do with a spiritual presence in
bread and wine ?
24 Diss. Præv. in Iren. Lib. Art. xiv. 83-84-85. The Bene
dictine refers to Fisher's argument against Ecolampadius in
which the same view of the passage in Irenæus is taken.
 of early Christian Writers. lxxxvii

heavenly he meant Christ's quickening spirit : for he

was contending against heretics who denied that our
Lord was one with the Creator, and that the Word of
God had assumed a true corporeal frame of substantial
flesh and blood, and he uses the doctrine of the sacra
mental mystery as an illustrative argument against
them.25 But what becomes of this argument if the
earthly part of the Eucharist is just that which it ap
pears to be and nothing more ? Waterland's inter
pretation of Irenæus on that point is, in my opinion,
a perfect anachronism ; it imputes to him modern
immaterializing views, quite alien from the general
frame of his mind ; and is not an equal forgetfulness of
the state ofthought in those times evinced by his saying,
that " the Christians despised the Pagans for imagin
ing that Christ's body and blood were supposed to be
literally eaten in the Eucharist " ? 26 What the Pagans
accused them of and what they " rejected with abhor
rence " was probably this, that instead of bread and wine
they placed upon the table real human flesh and blood
and partook of it under the name of their Lord's body.
Irenæus, who understood literally the saying of our
Saviour, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of
the vine till I drink it new with you in my Father's
kingdom, need scarcely be supposed to have been more
refined than modern Romanists on the subject of the
27
Eucharist. Just in the same way Waterland mo

25 Tertullian expresses this plainly. He " proves the truth or

reality of the Lord's body and blood against the phantasm of
Marcion by the sacraments of the bread and the cup." Advers.
Marcion, L. v. cap. 8.
26 He supports this assertion by referring to a "" fragment of
Irenæus, p. 343, concerning Blandina," which does not, I think,
really support it.
Contra Hæreses. Lib. v. cap. xxxiii. 1. He proves by the
lxxxviii Sensualism of the ancient Fathers
dernizes Tertullian ; just so he refines upon a sentence
in that unrefined treatise De Resurrectione Carnis.
Toward the end of an epigrammatic passage enumerat
ing the benefits that accrue to the soul through the
body C of flesh, and declaring, that as the Flesh and
the Spirit are fellow workmen here so they shall be
partners in bliss hereafter, the ancient writer speaks
thus : Caro corpore et sanguine Christi vescitur, ut
et anima de deo saginetur. The Anglican Divine un
derstands this " in a mystical and constructional sense,"
and for no other reason, apparently, than that any
other would be gross and puerile. Yet who that reads
Tertullian can imagine that he was not gross and pue
rile in his philosophy, however refined in the play of
fancy and exercise of logic, unless he is predeter
mined to find him otherwise ? Doubtless Tertullian
thought, that the bread which our Lord held in his
hand at the last Supper was but " a figure ofhis body; "
the bread in the Eucharist, I verily think, he took to
be the material body of our Lord. The sixth chapter
of St. John many of the ancients seem to have under
stood spiritually, because the meaning is expressly de
clared to be spiritual in the text itself : (verse 63. ) and
I think that the primitive Fathers always kept close to
the text, though, when figurative, it sometimes led
them away from the sense.
Our divines have generally rejected transubstantia
tion as irrational and unspiritual. Any one who rejects it

literal sense of Matt. xxvi. 29. the carnal resurrection of the

disciples and millennial reign of Christ upon earth. Of course
he takes Isaiah xi. vi. literally too, and presses into the ser
vice of his opinion of a future earthly Paradise every prophetic
text about eating and drinking and sensuous delights that
he can gather out of Holy Writ.
 " not admitted by 1 lxxxix
Hookers
on this ground yet holds the presence of the redeeming
Spirit in bread and wine, strains at a gnát after swal
lowing a camel. " If on all sides it be confessed,"
says Hooker, "that the grace of baptism is poured into
the soul of man, that by water we receive it, although it
be neither seated in the water nor the water changed
into it, what should induce men to think that the grace
of the Eucharist must needs be in the Eucharist before
it be in us that receive it ?" 28 But it was the ancient
wbie !
28. Can any one who reads what Hooker has written on this
subject before and after the sentence I have quoted, in Bk. V.
ch. lxvii. ( pp. 445-51 of vol. ii. of Mr. Keble's ed. ) imaginė
that he himself held what he describes as utterly vain and up
necessary, and which is out of analogy with his doctrine of
baptism ?
Of all the doctrines which suppose a presence in the elements
my Father thought transubstantiation the best, and would have
agreed, I believe, with Mr. Ward in denying the charge of
rationalism brought against it by divines of the school of Dr.
Pusey. How does it explain the mystery a whit more than
their own view ? It does but affirm what that denies, that the
bread and wine are gone without pretending to say how it
neither rationalizes nor reasons, internally at least ; but bluntly
affirms a senseless proposition without throwing a gauze veil
over its face.
The attempt made by Mr. W. to reconcile it with our article,
however, appears to me one of the most sophistical parts of the
whole Tract Ninety Argument-which is saying a good deal.
The article declares against "the change of the substance of
bread and wine in the Supper of the Lord." Mr. Ward affirms
that it speaks popularly , and hence does not conflict with the
Romish metaphysique of the Eucharist, according to which the
accidents of bread and wine remain while the substance is
changed ; it being assumed in his argument that to speak po
pularly, in the language of the plain Christian, who knows no
thing of philosophy, is to identify accidents with substance ' so
as to do away with the latter entirely. Now not to mention
XC The early Christians better Moralists

opinion that the spirit descended upon the water before

it entered the soul of the baptized. It is not easy for
a sensible man, like Hooker, to stick to ancient opi
nions on the subject of spirit.
Yet Irenæus is an evangelical writer when he is not
theologizing, and loses sight of his Anti- Gnostic, which
are often Anti- Platonic, metaphysics. Indeed he at all
times leans with his whole weight upon Scripture and
Reason, according to his notions of both, just as a Ra
tionalist like S. T. C. may do nowadays. He seems to
have no horror of rationalism at all, but looks as far into
the internal consistency of things as he is able. Viewed
in their place in the history of thought these primitive
writers are interesting and venerable. The attempt
to make them practically our masters on earth in doc
trine, under a notion that they received their whole

the gross improbability, that the framer of the article was igno
rant of, or had no respect to the metaphysique, of the doctrine
current in the schools of Rome, and controverted in the schools
of the Reformed, it is surely quite wrong to say, that the
unmetaphysical man means nothing more by an object of sense
than its sensible qualities. It is true that he identifies the
qualities with the substance, but yet he has the idea of substance
too. The notion that a thing is only a congeries of accidents
is the notion of the idealizing philosopher in his study ; while
the idea of a substrate or support of accidents is common to all
mankind, and indeed is an original form of the human intellect.
This is admitted in the reasonings of Berkeley, Schelling and
every other Idealist. By the substance of bread the plain man
means not the mere qualities of bread, but a thing which has
those qualities : he means the bread itself with all that belongs
to it. Mr. Ward pretends to considerable knowledge of the
nature and history of thought- and, I believe , not without rea
son ; but he did not shew his knowledge of it by this argument.
Indeed he is rather apt to use his logical skill and metaphysical
acumen for the purpose of cleverly confound: a subject in
stead ofmaking it clear.
 than Metaphysical Divines . xci

structure of religious intellectualism ready built from

the Apostles- this it is which anti-patricians of my
Father's mind contemn. Belief in the phoenix was
no sign that the early Christians were incapable of re
ceiving a spiritual religion ; but surely it is one among
a hundred signs , that their intellectual development of
it might be incorrect ; that they had reflected but little
on the nature and laws of evidence.
I believe that the whole of the opinions which my
Father expresses on the Eucharist 29 may be reduced
to this, that both transubstantiation and Luther's doc
trine of consubstantiation may be so stated as not to
involve a contradiction in terms ; but that neither doc
trine is necessary, that there is no real warrant for
either in Scripture, and that the spiritual doctrine of
the Supper of the Lord involves a different statement.
The gift and effect of the Eucharist he believed to be
66
' an assimilation of the spirit of a man to the divine
humanity." How he sympathized with one who fought
against the old sensualism appears in his poem on the
dying words of Berengarius . But Berengarius cer
tainly taught a presence in the elements, for he said
that the true body is placed on the table. To the im
perfection of light vouchsafed in that day my Father
seems to refer in the last lines of his poem :
The ascending day star with a bolder eye
Hath lit each dew-drop on our trimmer lawn !
Yet not for this, if wise, shall we decry
The spots and struggles of the timid dawn ;
Lest so we tempt th' approaching noon to scorn
The mists and painted vapours of our morn.

29 Remains, iii. pp. 78-111-254-285-336-338-345-350-379,

and iv. 41-186. The Romish dogma involves the supposition
that a sensible thing can be abstracted from its accidents. This
may not be false logic and yet may be false philosophy. The sub
xcii 256View ofthe Transmission of Grace *

That my Father, though an ardent maintainer of the

Church as a spiritual power, organized in an outward
body, co-ordinate with the Spirit and the Scriptures, did
not admit the ordinary mysticism on the subject of
Apostolical succession, seems clear from this passage
from some of his manuscript writings, dated 1827.
"When I reflect on the great stress which the Catholic
or more numerous Party of Christians laid on the unin
terrupted succession of the Bishops of every Church
from the Apostles, the momentous importance attached
by the Bishops themselves at the first general council
to this unbroken chain of the spiritual lightning, ever
present to illumine in the decisions and to scathe in
the anathemas of the Church when I read, that on
this articulated continuum which evacuated the time
which it measured, and reduced it to a powerless acci
dent, a mere shadow from the carnal nature intercept
ing the light, a shadow that existed only for the eye of
flesh, between which and the luminary the carnal na
ture intervened, so that every Bishop of the true
Church, speaking in and from the Spirit, might say,
' Before Peter was, or Paul, I am ! 30- -Well !-Let
all this pass for the poetry of the claims of the Bishops

stance of the material body could do nothing for our souls : the
substance of the divine humanity can be present to our souls
alone. So it seems to many of the faithful. 1
30 After describing Episcopal succession as a " fixed outward
mean by which the identity of the visible Church, as co-ordinate
with the written Word, is preserved , as the identity of an indivi
dual man is symbolized by the continuous reproduction of the
same bodily organs," as, " more than this, not merely one leading
symbol of permanent visibility, but a co-efficient in every other,"
my brother says, " Yet it must be examined according tothis idea.
I dare not affect to think of it, in order to render it intelligible
 in an unbroken Line from the Apostles. xciti

to the same Spirit, and, consequently, to the same au

thority as the Apostles, unfortunately for the V claim,
enough of the writings of Bishops, ay, and of canon
ized Bishops too, are extant to enable us to appreciate
it and to know and feel the woful difference between
the Spirit that guided the pen of Tertullian, Irenæus,
Epiphanius, &c. and the Spirit by which John and
Paul spake and wrote ! Descending into the cooler
element of prose, I confine myself to the fact of an
uninterrupted succession of Bishops in each Church,
and the apparent human advantages consequent on
such a means of preserving and handing down the me
mory of important events and the stedfast form of
sound words, and when I find it recorded that on
this fact the Fathers of the Nicene Council grounded
their main argument against the Arians, &c. I cannot
help finding a great and perplexing difficulty in the
entire absence of all definite Tradition concerning the
composition and delivery of the Gospels." He then
goes on to suggest a solution of this perplexity.
Noscitur a sociis is a maxim very generally applied :
we trust and love those who honour whom we honour,
condemn whom we disapprove. My Father's affec
tionate respect for Luther is enough to alienate from
him the High Anglican party, and his admiration of
Kant enough to bring him into suspicion with the
anti-philosophic part of the religious world,-which is

and persuasive to faithless and mechanical minds, as of a mere

physical continuity, by which the spiritual powers of the pas
torate are conveyed, like a stream of electricity along a metal
wire." Mybrother had never seen the passage from my Father's
MS. Remains which I have given in the text when he wrote
this, and I believe it to be a perfect co-incidence.
xciv Mr. C.'s Admiration of Luther.

the whole of it except a very small portion indeed. My

Father was a hero-worshipper in the harmless sense of
Mr. Carlyle ; and his worship of these two heroes,
though the honours he paid to the one were quite dif
ferent from those he offered to the other, was so deli
berate and deep seated, that it must ever be a promi
nent feature on the face of his opinions. He thought
the mind of Luther more akin to St. Paul's than that
of any other Christian teacher, and I believe that our
early divines , including Hooker and Field, would not
have suspected his catholicity on this score. Indeed
it is clear to my mind that in Luther's doctrines of
grace, (no one has ever doubted his orthodoxy on the
subject of the divine nature, but his doctrine of the
dealings of God with man in the work of salvation,)
there is nothing which ever would mortally have
offended High Churchmen, Romish or Anglican ; that
they tried to find heresy in these because of the practi
cal consequences he drew from them to the discredit
ing and discomfiture of their spiritual polity . On the
doctrine of Justification he has been represented as a
mighty corrupter ; let us see how and how far he dif
fers on that subject from his uncompromising adver
saries.31 There are but three forms in which that
doctrine can possibly be presented to the mind, I
mean there are but three ways in which St. Paul's

31 My authorities for the following statements are the Decrees

and Canons of Trent, Luther's Commentary on Galatians, and
Table Talk, Bishop Bull's Harmonia with his thick volume of
replies to the censures of it, and Mr. Newman's Lectures on
Justification , all of which I have dwelt on a good deal. I have
not yet read St. Augustine on the subject, but suspect from ex
tracts , that his view was the same as Luther's so far as he
developed it.
 Three Forms ofthe Doctrine ofJustification . xcv

justified byfaith without the deeds ofthe law can be

scientifically explained or translated into the language
of metaphysical divinity ;-namely the Tridentine, or
that set forth by the Council of Trent,—the Anglican
or High Church Protestant, set forth by Bishop Bull ;—
and that of Luther. Nay, I think that, really and sub
stantially, there are but two, namely the Tridentine
and High Anglican or doctrine of justification by faith
and works as the condition of obtaining it, and Lu
ther's solifidianism or doctrine of justification by
means of faith alone, -a faith the necessary parent
of works. All parties agree that God is the efficient,
Christ, in His sacrifice, the meritorious cause ofsal
vation : all profess this in words, all the pious of
all the different parties believe it in their hearts.
The dispute is not about the proper cause of salvation,
but only concerning the internal condition on our
part, or what that is in us whereon justification en
sues, -- which connects the individual man with the re
demption wrought by Christ for all mankind. Bull
teaches that this link within us to the redemption

Mr. Newman says in his Appendix-" I have throughout

these remarks implied that the modern controversy on the sub
ject ofjustification is not a vital one , inasmuch as all parties are
agreed that Christ is the sole justifier, and that He makes holy
those whom He justifies." Yet one who professed to hold Mr.
Newman's religious opinions in general, could talk of Luther's
doctrine as a doctrine too bad for devils to hold consistently,
contrary to natural religion , corruptive of the heart and at war
with reason. It should be remembered that the state of mind
in the justified is precisely the same in all the different schemes.
The dispute is only about the name to he given to certain con
stituents of it ; whether they are to be called justifying or only
inseparable from, or the necessary product of, the justifying
principle.
xcvi Substantial Identity

without us is faith informed with love and works- faith

quickened by love and put forth in the shape of obedi
ence. The Tridentine teaches, in like manner, that
we are justified directly upon our holiness and works
wrought in us by the Spirit, that faith and all other
graces of which it is the root, are the condition of ac
ceptance with God. Between this statement and
Bull's I see no real difference at all ; it is but the same
thought expressed in different words. The Anglican
chooses to add that our holiness and works, in order to
be thus justifying, must be sprinkled with the blood of
the covenant; the Tridentine declines that well sound
ing phrase : perhaps he thinks it a tautology offensive
to Him who forbade vain repetitions ; and, for my
own part, I cannot think that his Saviour requires it
of him, whatever divines may do. His anathemas
against those who say either more or less than he says
on these points are, in my opinion, the only anti-christian
part of his doctrine of justification. Drive the thing
as far back as we may, still there must be something in
us-in our very selves which connects us with salva
tion ; it seems rather nonsensical to say that this is the
blood of Christ. We should never have obtained this
something without Him ; He created it in us and to
Him it tends ; what more can we say without nulli
fying the human soul as a distinct being altogether,
and thus slipping into the gulf of Pantheism in back
ing away from imaginary Impiety and Presumption ?
Even if with Luther we call Christ the form of our
faith, and hence the formal cause of our salvation, still
there must be that in our very selves which at least
negatively secures our union with him ; to that we
must come at last as the personal sine qua non of jus
tification, whether we call it the proximate cause, or
 of the several Schemes. xcvii

interpose another, (the Holy Ghost dwelling in our

hearts by faith, ) betwixt ourselves and heaven. The
Anglican may call our holiness inchoate and imperfect,
and may insist that only as sanctified and completed by
Christ's merits is it even the conditional cause of sal
vation ; still this holiness, if it connects us with the
Saviour or precludes the impediment to such connec
tion is, in one sense, complete and perfect, for it does this
all important work perfectly ; it is no slight matter, for
it is all the difference between salvation and perdition,
as being indispensable to our gaining the first and
escaping the last. Now in what other sense can the
Romanist imagine that our holiness is perfect and
complete ? Does he think that it is perfect as God is
perfect, or that it is more than a beginning even in
reference to that purity which human nature may
finally attain when freed from a temptible body and
the clog of the flesh ? 32
I am even bold enough to say, after all South's
valiant feats against the windmill giant, Human Merit,
that the dispute on this subject seems to me a mere
dispute about words. That in us which even nega
tively, (by preventing the prevention of it,) unites us
with Christ, may be said to deserve Christ, and hence
to be unspeakably meritorious. The Romanist has
declared that all the merit ofprocuring salvation is
in Christ-surely then he only leaves to man- what
no man should seek to deprive him of,-the being ren
dered bythe Holy Spirit a meet receptacle and worthy

32 To call our inherent righteousness inchoate in reference to

the power of justifying would be incorrect, would it not ?-for
it is the beginning and end of what we contribute toward our
salvation, and certainly not the commencement of what is done
for us.
xcviii The Doctrine of Meriting Heaven
dwelling-place for Itself. As for grace of congruity
and condignity-our Lord says that he who hath to
him shall be given-does not this imply that he who
hath grace deserves more, that it is due to his internal
condition raised and purified by the Holy Spirit ? Or
does this notion really interfere with the Scriptural
truth, that we are unprofitable servants, and in our
best performances can do no more than we are bound
to do ? 33 Is it essential to the idea of deserving re
ward, that he who deserves should be the original au
thor and source of the services by which he deserves
it ? If it be, then the language of the Council of
Trent is incorrect ; but its doctrine is not incorrect,
because the very same sentence which affirms the
good works of the justified to be merits declares them
previously to be gifts of God. Very indefensible is

33 My Father says " I am persuaded, that the practice of the

Romish Church tendeth to make vain the doctrine of salvation
by faith in Christ alone ; but judging by her most eminent di
vines I can find nothing dissonant from the truth in her express
decisions on this article. Perhaps it would be safer to say :
Christ alone saves us , working in us by the faith which includes
love and hope. Rem . iii. p . 53. I neither do nor can think,
that any pious member of the Church of Rome did ever in his
heart attribute any merit to any work as being his work. A
grievous error and a mischievous error there was practically in
mooting the question at all of the condignity of works and their
rewards." Ib. p. 54.
Canons 24 and 32 of the 6th Session of the Council of Trent
are given in a note at the foot of the page to be compared with
this opinion. I think there is no harm in them ; they affirm
that the good works of the justified are both gifts of God and
merits of the justified person himself, that they deserve increase
of grace and eternal life. Now in the only sense in which a
believer in the primary merits of Christ can mean to affirm this
I do not see how any rational Christian ca leny it. There is
 means no more than Meetness for Heaven. xcix
the next sentence which anathematizes him who calls
them only signs of justification obtained and fears to
add that they are merits.
The Tridentine and the Anglican statements of
Justification are tantamount to each other, may be
resolved into each other ; but there is a third way of
stating the matter-between this and the other two
there is perhaps a logical, though, I believe, no prac
tical difference whatever. I allude to the notion of
Luther that faith alone is that in us which connects
us with Christ, and consequently is our sole personal
righteousness, (or that which entitles us to freedom
from the penal consequences of sin ; ) that faith justi
fies, (in this conditional and instrumental way, ) in its
own right, not as informed with or accompanied by
or productive of love and works, but as apprehending
Christ. Luther maintained that faith , although it
is righteous and the necessary parent of righteous

a notion connected with this subject, which is taught not only in

the Romish schools, but I grieve to say in some of our own
schools too of late years, which does seem to me both presump
tuous and unscriptural ; I mean the notion, that a man can do
more in the way of good works and saintliness than he is bound
to do as a Christian, —or at least that there is a kind and degree
of holiness which some men may and ought to seek and obtain,
which the generality of the faithful cannot attain and ought not
to strive after. This seems to me both false and fraught with
corruptive consequences to religion . When Peter said to Ana
nias respecting his land , was it not thine own — in thine own power?
-he surely did not mean that in offering it Ananias did more
than he was bound to do, as a Christian before God , but only
that, as he was not compelled to surrender it by any outward
force or authority, his pretending to give and yet not giving the
whole of it, was a gratuitous piece of hypocrisy -something
worse than a simple falsehood extorted by fear.
C Mr. Newman agrees with Luther
works, justifies only in bringing Christ to dwell in the
34
heart, and that the righteousness which flows from
this inhabitation, is not our justification but the fruit
of it, or in other words that faith not love is the jus
tifying principle. Now I think it is a notable fact
in favour of my Father's opinion that these different
views are all but different aspects of the same truth,
and are not substantially different one from another,
that Mr. Newman's splendid work on justification,
which is generally considered by the High Anglican
party as an utter demolition of Luther's teaching in
the Commentary, and perhaps was intended to be so,
is, in fact, a tacit establishment of it, or at least of its
most important position ; since on this cardinal point,
this hinge of the question, whether faith justifies alone,
as uniting us with Christ, or as informed with love and
works, and as itself a work and a part of Christian holi
ness, he decides with Luther, not with Tridentines or
High Anglicans.35 For he expressly states that faith
does in one sense, (the sense of uniting us with Christ,
which is the same as Luther's sense , ) justify alone ; that
it is the " only inward instrument " ofjustification ; that,
as such inward instrument, it is one certain property,
act, or habit of the mind, distinct from love and other
graces, not a mere name for them all ; that there is
66
a certain extraordinary and singular sympathy be
tween faith and the grant of Gospel privileges, such as

34 Galatians, ii. 3.
35 Lecture X, throughout, p . 256–87 .
36 Ib. p. 258-9.—“ when it ” (faith) is called the sole instru
ment of justification, it must stand in contrast to them, (trust,
hope, etc.) and be contemplated in itself, as being one certain
property, habit, or act of the mind.”
 on the Cardo of Justification. ci

to constitute it, in a true sense, an instrument of it,

that is of justification, which includes them all , " that
"it alone coalesces with the sacraments, &c . and
through them unites the soul to God." >> 37 Further he
identifies his doctrine with that of our Homilies which
declares that repentance, hope, love and the fear of
God are shut out from the office of justifying. ' It
seems as if, while he contended against Luther, the
Lutheran doctrine laid hold of him, and held him and
would not let him go, till it brought him home to
its own habitation .
Surely after all this Mr. Newman's apparent hosti
'lity to Luther, in the matter of justification, is a mere
shadow-fight. He may dislike his tone and language,
and disapprove some subordinate parts of his view,
either as false or half true, but on the main point he
has adopted theyReformer's doctrine ; and his newHar
monia, which was to be the ruin of solifidianism, is soli
fidian itself, in the only sense in which any systematic
divine ever was so. It is true that, while thus embracing
Luther, unwillingly, he tries to fling the old giant
away from him, by declaring that he holds an antece
dent external instrument, even Baptism ; that Baptism
gives to faith all its justifying power. But this does
not in reality separate him one hair's-breadth from his
unhonoured master. Luther held the doctrine of re
generation in baptism as well as himself; he bids men
eling fast to their baptism, recur to it as to a ground
of confidence, and in the comment on verse 27 of
chapter iii. of Galatians, he speaks of the " majesty
of baptism " as highly as the Highest Churchman

37 Ib. pp. 58-9, 270-71 , 286, 333.

38 Sermon of Salvation, Part i.
h
 cii Potency of Luther's Doctrine

could speak of it, at the same time observing " these

things I have handled more largely in another place,
therefore I pass them over briefly here." 39 Luther
believed in baptismal regeneration and must therefore
have believed that every spiritual principle in the soul
was derived from it : he taught that faith was the work
of the Spirit and that the Spirit was given in baptism :
his solifidianism is not incompatible with a sound belief
on that subject , unless Mr. Newman's is so too, for
they are one and the same.
What Luther fought against was not an external in
strument of salvation preceding actual faith and produc
ing it he saw no harm in that notion ; what he fought
against with all his heart and soul and strength, was jus
tification by charity and the deeds of charity, or what is
commonly called a good life. He saw that practically

39 Luther received baptismal regeneration as it had been

handed down to him ; he taught that " the renewing of the in
ward man is done in baptism." Would that he had been a re.
former in this article also-had renewed the form of the doc
trine, while he maintained its life and substance ! -then probably
disbelievers in " baptismal transubstantiation " would not have
been disquieted by the wording of our Liturgy. Dr. Pusey did
once cite Luther' in his Scriptural Views, p . 28, as a witness to
the true doctrine of regeneration in baptism ; why is not this re
membered by writers of Dr. Pusey's school when Luther's doc
trine ofjustification under review ?
Luther taught indeed that men are born again of the Word of
God, that the Holy Ghost changes the heart and mind by faith
in or through the hearing of the external word ; but if the say
ings of St. Peter and St. Paul and St. James, affirming the same
thing, can be reconciled with inward renewal in baptism, so
can Luther's, for he went not beyond Scripture on this point.
There are certainly comings of the Holy Spirit spoken of in the
N. T. unconnected with baptism. See among other places
John xiv. 23.
 against Antinomianism . ciii

salvation was given to outward works and money gifts,

which might proceed from evil men, while, in theory,
it was ascribed to love and the works of the Spirit. He
thought to preclude this abuse and establish Scripture
at the same time by declaring faith alone the means of
salvation, and good works the necessary offspring of
faith in the heart. And how could such a doctrine en
courage Antinomianism, for is it not plain, that if good
works flow necessarily from saving faith, where the
works are not good, the mind whence they spring can
not have saving faith ?40 This Luther expressly states.
" Whoso obeyeth the flesh," says he, " and continueth
without any fear of God or remorse of conscience in
accomplishing the desires and lusts thereof, let him
know that he pertaineth not unto Christ." 41 The
whole strain of his commentary on chapters v. and vi.
of Galatians is an utter shattering of Antinomianism,
which indeed is precluded by the doctrine of the com
mentary from beginning to end. In one respect a
Solifidian like Luther is a more effectual opponent to
Antinomians than a teacher of justification by faith and
works, because he more completely wrests out of their
hands those sayings of St. Paul which seem to deny
that works of any sort do in any sense justify.— But it
is an insult to the apostolic man's memory to defend
him from the charge of Antinomianism. He knocked
down with his little finger more Antinomianism than
his accusers with both hands. If his doctrine is the
jaw bone of an ass, he must have been a very Samson,
for he turned numbers with this instrument from the

40 Burnet urges this plea for solifidians, though not one him
self.
41 Commentary on Galatians, chap. v. verse 18.
civ Luther didfull Justice
evil of their lives ; and the same instrument in the
hands of mere pygmies in comparison with him has
wrought more amendment of life among the Poor than
the most eloquent and erudite preachers of works and
rites have to boast, by their preaching . For this doc
trine presents hope and fear more sharply to the mind
than any other ; it supplies the steam of encouragement
and propels from behind while it draws on from before.
The following charges are brought against Luther.
It has been said that he denied the power of Christians
to fulfil the law or produce really good works ; that
he denied the use of conscience in keeping Christians
from sin and wickedness ; and that he separated justi
fying faith from love.
That he denied the good works of Christians is just
as true as that he denied the sun in heaven. He beauti
fully compares them to stars in the night, the night and
darkness of surrounding unjustification ; and beautifully
too does he say, that even as the stars do not make
heaven, but only trim and adorn it, so the charity of
works does not constitute blessedness but makes it
shine to the eyes of men, that they may glorify the
Father of Lights.42 That Luther denied the work of
the Spirit to be really good is one of the many charges
against him which sound loud and go off in smoke. He
considered them relatively good, just as any man else
does,-saw a wide world of difference betwixt the deeds
of the justified and of the unjustified . If he thought
that, as sin remains in the best men, so likewise some
thing of human infirmity clings about the best deeds,
who shall convict him of error ? That he denied any
portion or quality of real goodness to be in the soul in

42 Table Talk, chap. 14, p. 232.

 to the good Works of the Justified. CV

which Christ lives, I cannot find and do not believe.

But when Luther said that because our righteousness
is imperfect, therefore it cannot be the ground of ac
ceptance with God, he drew, in my opinion a wrong
inference from his premiss. Our faith is as imper
fect as our works ; but if it unites us with Christ, it is,
(not ofcourse the deepest ground, Christ alone is that,)
but the intermediate ground or condition of our ac
ceptance. The question is, shall we call faith alone,
or faith, love, obedience, all Gospel graces, the " con
necting bond" between us and Christ ? If faith alone,
then faith alone is our intermediate ground of accept
ance ; and repentance, love and obedience are not ex
cluded because they are imperfect, but because of their
posteriority to faith.
That Luther denied the power of Christians to ful
fil the law is the self-same charge in another shape and
false in that shape as in the other. He reiterates that
the faithful do fulfil the law and that they alone fulfil it ;
that by faith they receive the Holy Ghost and then
accomplish the law.43 " I come with the Lord Him
self," says Luther ; " on Him I lay hold, Him I stick
to, and leave works unto thee : which notwithstanding
thou never didst." He shews that against the righte
ous there is no law, because he is a law to himself.
"For the righteous," says he, " liveth in such wise
that he hath no need of any law to admonish or
constrain him, but without constraint of the law, he
willingly doeth those things which the law requireth." **

43 Comm. Gal. v. 23.

44 Mr. Ward thinks the Commentary on the Galatians such
a "silly" work ! Shakespeare has been called silly by Puritans,
Milton worse than silly by Prelatists and Papists, Wordsworth
cvi Luther not extravagant

What more would we have a teacher of the Gospel

say? Ought a Christian to perform the law unwil
lingly by a force from without ? Luther teaches that
in the justified there is an inward law superseding
the outward : that the outward law remains, but only
for the sinner : that it either drives him to Christ
or bridles him in his carnality. This is the idea ex
pressed in that passage at the end of the introduction
to his commentary, which sets forth the argument
of the Epistle. " When I have this righteousness
reigning in my heart, I descend from heaven, as the
rain maketh fruitful the earth : that is to say, I come
forth into another kingdom, and I do good works how
and whensoever occasion is offered." What is there
in this that is worthy of condemnation or of sarcasm ?
Is it not true Pauline philosophy to say, that the
realm of outward works is another kingdom from the
realm of grace ? -that the true believer is freed from
the compulsion of the law ? -to call the sum of out
ward things and all deeds, considered as outward, the
Flesh ? To me this animated passage seems the
very teaching of the Apostle to the Gentiles uttered
with a voice of joy. It is the unconfusing intoxica
tion of Gospel triumph and gladness. Some say

was long called silly by Buonaparteans ; what will not the

odium theologicum or politicum find worthless and silly ? To me,
perhaps from my silliness, his Commentary appears the very
Iliad of Solifidianism ; all the fine and striking things that have
been said upon the subject are taken from it ; and if the author
preached a novel doctrine, or presented a novel development of
Scripture in this work, as Mr. Newman avers, I think he de
serves great credit for his originality. The Commentary con
tains, or rather is, a most spirited Siege of Babylon, and the
friends of Rome like it as well as the French like Wellington
and the battle of Waterloo.
 unless St. Paul is so too . cvii

mocking, The man is full of new wine ; but Luther

was not really drunk when he spoke thus ; he spoke it
in the noon day of his vigorous life, with all his wits,
and they were sound ones, about him.45
It is affirmed that Luther denied the use of con
science in religion, and this is the grand engine which
Mr. Ward brings to bear upon him in his Ideal; you
would think from the account of the Gospel hero's
doctrine therein contained that he was a very advocate
for unconscientiousness, and would have men go on
sinning that grace may abound ; would have them
" wallow and steep in all the carnalities of the world,
under pretence of Christian liberty," and continue
without anyfear of God or remorse ofconscience in
accomplishing the desires ofthe flesh ; or at least that
his teaching involved this : I wonder how men can
have the conscience to write thus of Luther on the
strength of a few misconstrued passages, while the
broad front of his massive fortress of Gospel doctrine,
a stronghold against Antinomianism, must present it
self to their eyes unless they are stone blind.46 Luther

45 Mr. Newman points out that fine passage on faith in Gal. ii.
16, and 334 Puulus his verbis, &c. and he quotes that admirable
exposition of his on " incarnate faith or believing deeds," in
Gal. vii. 10, in which he brings in the analogy ofthe Incarnation.
46 I have read Mr. Ward's Ideal with so much interest, and,
I humbly hope, benefit, that I am far more grieved by the chap
ter on Justification than if the writer were a narrow,sstupid, un
charitable man. I have heard persons say it was the clever
part of the book ; the whole of the book is clever, but this part
has no other merit than cleverness, and that is a sorry com
mendation of a discourse upon morals and religion : as the au
thor himselfwould readily admit in general. It is the force with
which he has made this and other cognate truths apparent, the
way in which he has vitalized and, to use Luther's phrase, " en
cviii His Doctrine of Conscience
teaches that the constraints and terrors of the law re
main to keep the flesh in subjection ; what he says

grossed " them, for which I have to thank him. But he special
pleads against Luther, and in a way which no pleader could
venture upon in a court of Justice. He presents his doctrines
upside down- wrong side before. If we tear up the rose tree
and place it root upward, with all its blossoms crushed upon the
earth, where are its beauty and its fragrance ?—if we take the
mirror and turn its leaden side to the spectator, where are its
clear reflections and its splendour ?
By the bye it struck me that Mr. Ward , in his searches for
Socinianism, after he had done demonizing the doctrine of
Luther, slipped himself into something like heresy on the hu
man nature of our Lord. His words seemed, (seem, for there
they are still, ) to imply that our Saviour had not, while upon
earth , a human mind as well as a human body. He introduces
the Godhead into the Manhood so as to destroy, as it seems to
me, the character of the latter. Certainly Pearson and South,
who were ever held orthodox on the Incarnation , and good Patri
cians, teach that our Lord, while upon earth , had the “ finite un
derstanding" of a man ; that he " stooped to the meanness ofour
faculties ;" and indeed it is evidentfrom the language ofthe Evan
gelists, that they supposed Him to arrive at the knowledge of or
dinary things in an ordinary way ; to have grown in wisdom and
knowledge, an expression not applicable to Omnipotence . If He
foreknew all that was to happen to him in one matter, so Abra
ham and Isaiah foreknew the future. Doubtless He knew far
more of the mind of God than they, even as a man. Perhaps
Mr. Ward was led to this error, as I believe it to be, from fol
lowing too heedlessly certain remarks ofthe Tract for the Times
against Jacob Abbott. But surely it is a great and fundamental
error to deny by implication, the real humanity of our Lord
that he assumed the very soul of man ; which he must have done
in order to redeem it ; --a worse error than that of the Phantas
mists, who denied his fleshly body. How he could be very God
and very Man at the same time is an inscrutable mystery, but
no less than this is the Catholic Faith of the Incarnation, and to
deny it is the heresy of Apollinaris. Shall " Catholics " ration.
alize away a mystery ?
 not to be demoniacally interpreted. cix

concerning conscience relates to sins that are past, not

sins to come. He exhorts men to lay hold of Christ :
not to let the sense of their ungodliness which afore
time they have committed make them doubt of his
power to save them and purify their souls by the Holy
Spirit. His reasons for insisting on this doctrine are
obvious ; it was to prevent men from trusting for the
washing out of sin to penance, the fearful abuse, or ra
ther use, of which he had witnessed . His doctrine is, that
in those who are in a state of grace through a living
faith, the flesh remains, and is to be bruised, exercised
and kept down bythe Law,-(be it observed, that by the
Law he always means the Law viewed carnally or as a
force from without) —while the spirit rejoices in God
its Saviour, the conscience sleeping securely on the
bosom of Christ. And surely, so far as we can con
template man in a state of grace at all, having firm
faith in the Redeemer and His power to save, he must
be contemplated as free and joyful, confident of salva
tion notwithstanding the infirmity of his mortal nature,
not paralyzed by the Law in the conscience or agon
ized by a fearful looking back upon sins that are past .
Surely the conscience may sleep on the bosom of Christ ,
if it be really His bosom on which it is resting ; that
is, if we know that upon the whole our heart is set upon
the things that are above we may safely cast our eye
forward, in peace and gladness, hoping and striving
through grace to live better from day to day ; not back
ward upon the detail of our past transgressions, with
a soul-subduing solicitude to balance them by penance
exactly proportioned to their amount.
Luther affirmed that we must make a god of the law
out of the conscience, but that in the conscience it is a
very devil. Doubtless he had seen fatal effects of the
CX It proclaims the Peace of God

tyranny of the law in the conscience, had seen how,

like the basilisk's eye, it benumbed the gazer, and pre
vented him from flying at once to Christ for pardon
and purification and power to follow His steps ; how it
threw him into the hands of the priest, who, in those
days, too often, instead of preaching faith in the Sa
viour and fulfilment of the law by faith, prescribed a
certain set of outward observances , which never could
take away sins, but which the terrified yet unrepentant
spirit rested in, and substituted for general renovation.
Looking at the Law in this point of view he called it
with great force and truth the very diabolus, the ma
lignant accuser, who by its informations and treacher
ous representations kept the soul separate and estranged
from the Prince of Life. Bunyan has worked upon
this thought powerfully in the Pilgrim's Progress,
and he too makes the murderous Moses give way to
Christ when He appears, and " depart out of the con
science." "Luther," says Mr. Newman contrasting
him with the ancient Father, declares that " the Law
and Christ cannot dwell together in the heart ; Augus
tine, that the Law is Christ." Well ! but what Law?
Surely not the outward Law, which St. Paul declares
dead for the Christian ,47 which Luther declares incom
patible with Christ, but the inward law, " the law of
grace, the law of the law, the law of liberty, righteous
ness, and everlasting life," which Luther identifies with

47 I know not whether there remains upon the face of the

earth any of that generation of Scripture interpreters, who were
wont to affirm, that, when St. Paul declared the law dead, he
meant only the ceremonial law of Moses ! That such people
existed in Bishop Bull's time seems clear from his taking the
pains to refute the notion methodically . See Harmonia, cap.
vii. Diss. Post. Oxford edit. vol. iii . 120-21 .
 and Joy inthe Holy Ghost. cxi

Christ from first to last of his evangelical commentary .

Luther's language on the exceeding difficulty of
believing unto salvation, on the relics of sin that cling
even to the justified, does but shew how searchingly,
how earnestly he looked on these subjects-how hard
he was to be pleased in matters that pertain to jus
tification. Perhaps he should have taught more dis
tinctly that all men are sinners and require the co
ercions of the law more or less. Still it was but the
remnants of sin which Luther spoke of, when he said,
prospectively, that sin should not be imputed to the jus
tified."48 His fault as a teacher was that he stuck too
close to Scripture in his mode of expression, and re
peated without explanation, or imitated too closely, its
strong figurative language. But this doctrine of his
that the enormity of sin must not make the sinner de
spair is no figure ; it is literal Gospel truth. Though
your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow.
Did Luther in all his strong language on the power of
faith, that is of Christ dwelling in the heart by faith,
go beyond this glad message of salvation ? Blessed
be his name for the courage wherewith he re-proclaimed
a saving truth, which a self- serving, self-exalting clergy
were putting out of sight - were hiding bythe complica
ted superstructure of outward ways and means, which
they erected upon it ! Luther's a lax system !-No
man will find it such who tries to understand and prac
tise rather than to criticise it.
But the grand charge against Luther's doctrine re

48 See Commentary, chap. xi. ver. 17. " But it followeth

not therefore that thou shouldst make a light matter of sin, be
cause God doth not impute it ; " and many other places in the
Commentary.
 cxii Luther severed not saving Faith
mains behind. He is said to have separated saving
faith from love.49 The anti-Lutherans are never weary
of harping upon this string. Having failed to convict
him of Antinomianism on one side—the denial of good
works to Christians, they try to thrust it upon him on
the other, to find it in his definition of faith. But after
all where has he said, speaking analytically, that
saving faith exists apart from love as a mere habit of
the mind? " Luther confesses , in so many words,"
says Mr Newman, " that the faith that justifies is ab
stract fides as opposed to concrete, in Gal. iii. 10."
But if we look at Gal. iii. 10 , I think we shall find, that
by abstract faith as opposed to concrete he meant faith

49 Mr. Newman in Lecture XI. argues that faith is not a virtue

or grace in its abstract nature, that it is " but an instrument,
acceptable when its possessor is acceptable." Faith apart from
love is not a virtue, but this seems to be no proof that it is not
a distinct grace ; faith is not mere belief, though it includes
belief ; no one in common parlance would say, that he had faith
in that which he merely believed. Faith is of the heart, not of
the head only, or it is not faith. Nor can I think that it " differs
from other graces " in that " it is not an excellence except it be
grafted into a heart that has grace." Love, humility, meek
ness are all in the same case ; abstract from these their direc
tion, their object, and you leave a caput mortuum of mere human
feeling. Love of God is excellent ; love of man for God's sake,
is excellent ; but the mere adhesion of the soul to a certain ob
ject has no excellence in it. So humility, as a low estimation
of ourselves is not necessarily virtuous ; it is only a virtue when
it arises from a clear view of our relations to divine perfection,
-a clear view of the relative goodness of others, which the mists
of self-love and pride are apt to conceal from our sight. Have
we any natural good acts or habits of mind ; do not all our af
fections require to be raised and purified by divine grace before
they can be acceptable ? To say the contrary is Pelagianism.
• Love is as little a virtue without faith as faith without love, for
 from Love in the Heart. cxiii

considered as a spiritual principle in opposition to faith

ful works, and that by works he meant not mere acts
of the mind but outward actions. This is quite evident
from his language, from the whole strain of his argu
ment, and from all his illustrations . Let the reader, if
he cares about the matter, look and see. Referring to
the 11th chapter of Hebrews, he speaks of David who
slew Goliath. The sophister , says he looks upon no
thing but the outward appearance of the work ; but
we must consider what manner of person David was
before he did this work-that he was a righteous man,
beloved of God, strong and constant in faith. Luther
could hardly have thought that David was without love

no man can love as Christ commands except he believe in God.

It is not easy, indeed , to define Faith as a property of the will ;
but who can define primary feelings ?
Consistently with the notion that Faith, in its abstract nature,
is only Belief, Mr. Newman denies that it is to be identified
with Trust : Yet surely Faith and Trust are only different
attitudes of the same habit, the difference being in the tense
or time of the habit. Faith believes that there is an Infi
nitely Good Being, and that he is good to us : Trust believes
that he will be good to us. The devils believe ; but they have
not religious faith : for this binds us to its object. No man
owes fealty except for benefit and protection . It is unwise to
separate the idea of love of God or faith in Him from that of
advantage to ourselves ; they are reciprocal and co-inherent ;
the love of God is its own reward , its fruition union with Him.
Mr. Newman teaches that faith in is own abstract nature is no
grace ; that it is merely such a sense of the spiritual as belongs
to the devils ; that union with love and all the graces of a reli
gious spirit alone makes it virtuous ; my Father looked upon
Faith as that in the will which corresponds to belief in the un
derstanding ; he thought that faith includes belief, but is more
than belief; that it is a grace distinct from love though insepa
rable from it.
cxiv Faith saving though unloving
when he was beloved of God. Mr. N. represents it
as a monstrous extravagance 50 in the Reformer to
teach that faith justifies before and without charity.
Yet it is evident enough, and must have been plain as
noon-day to simple hearers, that when Luther speaks
of charity he speaks of this virtue as it is manifested
in the outward and visible course oflife. Works he
described as the bright children of salvation not the
parents of it. He insisted that a man must believe in
God before he could perform godly actions, must lay
hold on Christ before he could walk as a Christian.
His commentary is practical, popular, and highly rhe
torical in form, not scientific, though I think that
every word of it may be scientifically defended. Where
does he say that justifying faith, apart from love,-faith
in the shape of bare belief, such as devils may have,—
comes first, lays hold of Christ, and then becomes the
parent of all graces ? He merely explains the saying
of St. Paul, that by faith we have access to grace.
His doctrine amounts to no more than what Mr. New
man himself confesses when he calls faith the " sole in
ward instrument of justification." That pale phantom
of justifying faith, which flits about, a mere outline, a
line without breadth or thickness, is not to be found
in Luther's pages, but only in the pages of Luther's
adversaries. Nor knew he aught of that other meagre
51
shadow, justification by imputed righteousness alone ; 5

50 That Luther never " renounced 99 any of his "' extravagan

ces " directly or " indirectly," early or late , is a point strongly
insisted on by Archdeacon Hare, in note W, p. 712-13. His er
travagances were strictly within the bounds of Scripture.
51 Mr. N. does not give this, I believe to Luther, but calls it the
high Protestant doctrine. High indeed in the heaven of absur
 a Phantom of Lutherophobia. CXV

he said that those three things, Faith, Christ, and im

putation should always go together, and that faith and
52
works should never be separated. They who say that
Luther's scheme presents but half of the Gospel, know
but half of his mind and that not rightly.53
Surely no one can think that the sentences quoted
in the Lectures on Justification at p. 10, from Luther's
Commentary, contain any proof that he thought or
taught that " justifying faith is without love when it

dity. It should be sent to Milton's Limbo with a living Faith

apart intimefrom Love-and should not Mr. Newman's own Jus.
tification precedent tojustifying Faith, go along with them ? In
deed I think this last is the Queen Chimæra of the whole tribe.
52 The confusion respecting the priority of justifying faith to
love perhaps arises in this way. Faith includes belief, or the
mere assent of the understanding to divine truth ; though it is
more than belief ; and intellectual assent or perception is the
means whereby we obtain the faith of the heart, which is joined
with love. The one may not indeed precede the other in time ;
we may perceive the truth and embrace it spiritually at the
same moment ; the willingness of the heart clearing the head
and the head opening the heart ; still there is a priority offaith
to love in idea. Fides est humanæ salutis initium, fundamentum
et radix omnis justificationis, says the Council of Trent. The
Homily of Salvation shuts out love from the office of justifying ;
whyis this, except that faith is conceived to have come first and
done the work ? Of course we make the notion both absurd and
mischievous, if we suppose that justification is obtained by some
one act of faith once acted. Faith is always coming first in the
soul of the Christian , laying hold of Christ, (or in Mr. Newman's
words, uniting the soul to God ), and producing good works.
53 Luther preaches the whole Gospel with an emphasis on
particular parts to suit the exigences of the day. So in our
Tracts for the Times there is an emphasis on sacraments, out
ward works, all kinds of ecclesiastical visibilities , and what
ever can be brought forward relative to priestly power and au
thority.
cxvi Austin, Luther & Newman harmonized.

justifies," which Mr. N. declares to be plainly his doc

trine, and no matter of words." Luther, in them,
shews that faith not love is the root of good works,
since Paul said Faith worketh by Love, not Love
worketh ; he shews that charity or following works do
not inform faith, that is, do not impart to it its justify
ing power, but that faith informs charity, and is "the
sun or sun-beam of this shining." What is this more
than Mr. N. himself asserts in Lecture X. when he
teaches that faith, as faith, in its distinct character, unites
the soul with God, or as he expresses it elsewhere, is
"the only connecting bond between the soul and
Christ." I say again, that every where in the Com
mentary Luther connects charity with works and the
outward life, and nowhere describes justifying faith as
existing apart from the habit of love. His doctrine on
this point is merely an expansion of St. Austin's sound
maxim : per fidem (hominem ) posse justificari
etiamsi Legis opera non præcesserint ; sequuntur
enim justificatum non præcedunt justificandum.
(Quoted by Mr. N. himself p. 438. )
Mr. Newman has beautifully described Luther's con
ception of justifying faith in his first Lecture. It was
then perhaps that he fell in love with it, though he did
not tell his love at the time, but acted the lover in
Lecture X. taking it for better for worse. I hope he will
never divorce it. Yes ! Luther thought of faith as the
mere turning or adhering of the soul to Christ, which
66
' may be said " not " by a figure of speech " but lite
rally and truly to " live in Him in whose image it
rests ." He thought that love lost itself in the object,
Christ dwelling in the soul ; that love of our neigh
bour, charity, and all the family of outward works,
when set up as our justification or a part of it, were as
 Christ Himselfthe Forma Fidei. cxvii

a solid screen betwixt us and the Saviour, while the

former was a medium like the fluid air, colourless and
transparent. St. Paul's language in the fourth of
Romans prima facie favours Luther's view, because
it so pointedly calls faith our righteousness, as if we
had no other justifying principle within us ; and declares
salvation to be of grace not of debt, and if it were ob
tained, even in a conditional sense, by our virtues, it
would seem to be in some sort our due. But, on second
thoughts, we perceive that what is true of faith may be
safely ascribed to the sanctification that is one with it,
and that salvation is of grace if secured by the graces
given us from above. St. Paul's only object was to
shew that men cannot save themselves, and Luther's
only object was to prevent the practical recurrence of
this trust in self-salvation by detached and outside
performances.
The great opponent of Luther, on the article of Jus
tification, agrees with him on the following points, which,
I think, are all the points of this high game. First,
in holding Christ living in the heart to be the true
form of our righteousness . This is the idea which is at
the bottom of his whole theory, and it is very distinctly
set forth in the comments on chap. ii. verses 16 and
20. Secondly, in holding faith to be the sole inward

54 Mr. Newman gives him credit for this, in Lecture I , p. 22,

and appendix, pp. 405 and 409.-" the bold, nay correct lan
guage of Luther, that Christ himself is theform of our justifica
tion," My Father's deep satisfaction in this thought may be
seen from the following passage in the Remains, vol . iv. pp. 33-4.
" And I, my loving Brentius, to the end I may better under
stand this case, do use to think in this manner, namely, as if in
my heart were no quality or virtue at all, which is called faith,
and love (as the Sophists do speak and dream thereof, ) but I set
i
cxviii Seven Scriptural Agreements

instrument by which the conjunction of the soul with

Christ is effected. That Christ dwells in the heart by
55
faith is directly affirmed in Scripture. Thirdly, in
holding works necessary,56 in the order of salvation ,
as necessarily flowing from saving faith or rather from
the Holy Ghost, united by faith with the soul, and
the proper signs and manifestations of grace “ im
petrated by faith." Fourthly, in holding that the out
ward law for the righteous is superseded by the in
ward law of the mind, though it remains to keep the
flesh in subjection. Fifthly, which might have been
firstly, that saving faith is itself produced by the Holy
Ghost.57 Sixthly, that the Holy Ghost is given, and
the soul renewed, in baptism. Seventhly, that conver
sion is wrought, and I suppose I may add, since " St.
James says so," and St. Peter too, that we are divinely
begotten or born again, in some spiritual sense, by the
Word of God.

all on Christ, and say, my formalis justitia, that is, my sure, my

constant and complete righteousness (in which is no want nor
failing, but is, as before God it ought to be) is Christ my Lord
and Saviour." (Luther's Table Talk, p. 213. )
66
Aye ! this, this is indeed to the purpose. In this doctrine
my soul can find rest. I hope to be saved by faith, not by my
faith, but by the faith of Christ in me." S. T. C.
55 Gal. ii. 20. Eph. iii. 17.
56 Commentary, chap . iii. verse 11, and elsewhere, Luther
teaches that the righteousness which saves is a passive righteous
ness given us from above. Had he taught that we were saved
by faith, as an act of our own taking us to Christ and laying
hold of Him, this would have been as false and injurious as to
ascribe salvation to outward works. The faith which accepts
grace is itself the effect of grace.
57 Ib. chap. iii . verses 27, 28. Chap. iv. verse 6.
 and a self-contradictory Disagreement. cxix
Wherein then do they differ ? why truly in this.
Luther denies that we are justified by the graces and
works that flow out of our justification ; Mr. Newman
affirms that we are justified by them, that they help to
justify together with the faith which makes them what
they are. This appeared to Luther a hysteron pro
teron ; and it certainly does look like a contradiction
in Mr. Newman's scheme, that after confessing faith
to be the sole inward instrument of justification he
should call graces and works instruments also ; -that
after agreeing with the Homilist to shut them out from
the office of justifying, he should think it essential to
+
a sound belief to shut them in again. Granted that
the dispute is a verbal one, still if we decide that one
form of words is the correct form, we surely ought not
to adopt another form which directly contradicts it.
As for St. James, when he said that man is not justi
fied byfaith alone, he evidently meant by faith not what
Luther defines it, a gift and a present ofGod in our
hearts, the substance whereof is our will,58 but what
Antinomians mean by it, mere belief; for this is a
common art of rhetorical argument to adopt the ad
versary's expressions and turn them against him.
With him works stood for a working spirit, by that

58 Talk Talk, chap. 13. Of Faith and the cause thereof. Lu

ther was vacillating in his definitions of faith, for he sometimes
placed it in the understanding and sometimes in the will,
whereas it is in both ; but he always described it as a work of
the Holy Ghost, ( Comm. chap. iii. ver. 11. ) he calls it a be
lieving with the heart, and he declares that it cannot be sepa
rated from Hope which resteth in the will, the two having re
spect to the other, as the two cherubims of the mercy seat,
which could not be divided. My Father says he discoursed best
on Faith in his Postills. Remains, iv. p. 36.
CXX Objection to the term Apprehensive
common figure which puts the effect for the cause, as
a man might say, this " spring was health to me,"
meaning the cause of health. The outward act of
Abraham was nothing ; in the mind of Abraham were
an act of faith and an act of obedience intimately uni
ted. Now Luther taught that the faith in this joint
act alone justified ; and Mr. N. seems to say the
same, when he calls faith the sole inward instrument
of justification. Luther's opponents maintain, that the
obedience, which is one with the faith, helps to justify,
and this Mr. Newman affirms also : but how can he
make it consist with the sole instrumentality of faith?
Surely that which alone joins us to Christ alone justi
fies us. Now Mr. Newman declares that faith is "the
only instrument or connecting bond between the soul.
and Christ." What signifies it, as against Luther, to
say, that according to St. James, we are " justified in
good works ?" Luther only denied that we are justi
fied by them .
Mr. Newman has a great objection to Luther's ex
planatory phrase apprehensive ; he will not say that
faith justifies by laying hold of Christ and applying
Him to the soul, though this is said in our Homilies,
with which he yet seeks, in his work on Justification, to
be in accordance. He calls this way of speaking a hu
man subtlety and alleges that such words are not in
Scripture: yet surely there is quite as much of human
subtlety andextra- scriptural language in his own scheme:
where can we find it said by the Saviour or his Apostles,
that faith is " but the secondary or representative instru
ment ofjustification," or its " sustaining cause," " not
the initiation of the justified-state," or that " it justifies
as including all other graces in and under it," as having
66
an unexplained connexion with the invisible world,"
 with Admission of the Sense. cxxi

or five hundred sayings of like sort ? These are but in

ferences from Scripture - not Scripture itself. Luther's
term laying hold of Christ seems to me a mere
translation into figurative language of what Scripture
repeatedly affirms, namely that Christ dwells in the
heart by faith ; and the very same thing appears to be
implied in Mr. N.'s own admission that it alone unites
the soul to God as the inward instrument of justifica
tion. Even if faith and works of faith are all one and
what is true of the parent is true of the offspring, still if
Christ alone is the meritorious cause of salvation, our
personal righteousness justifies as connecting us with
Him, that is as apprehensive, and not merely as puri
fying our souls in his sight. Luther denied that it
justified in the latter sense at all, and whether he was
right or wrong in this,- this is the doctrine of our Ar
ticles and Homilies, which certainly intimate that not
the faithful work, but faith in the work justifies, by
laying hold on Christ. They who condemn his teaching
in the present day, copy his only fault, unfairness to his
opponents-casting into one condemnation practical
perverters with theoretic teachers— while they hide all
his merits behind a bushel.
Many of Luther's opponents remind one of Jack
the Giant-killer's doughty host, they think they are
belabouring Jack, while they are but beating a stuffed
bolster. Mr. Newman is too skilful a combatant for
this ; but his fight against Luther is not more effectual ;
he keeps gazing at him with a look of deep hostility,
but rather makes feints than really strikes him, and
when he does aim a stroke at the old swordsman it de
scends upon his shield or his breast armour. There
is one point in Mr. Newman's scheme, and one alone,
which seems to me utterly false, not in words alone but
cxxii Practical Aims of the Sacred Writers.

in sense : I mean his assertion that justification pre

cedes justifying faith ; that faith does but take up and
sustain a spiritual state already established in the soul ;
that the faith which is our access to grace is unjusti
fied and unjustifying ; contrary to the doctrine of
Aquinas who teaches that the Spirit produces its own
recipient, that it enters by the avenue of faith which it
first opens out. Luther's own view of baptism implies
as much undoubtedly, and it seems to me that he is
wrong in too much agreement with Patrician theology
not in too much departure from it.
As for the Apostolic teaching, I believe that it is
quite on one side of these contentions ; that the object
of St. Paul was to refute Judaism, the notion that men
can save themselves by the mere direction and com
pulsion of an outward law, without Christ in the
heart ; not to combat such an opinion as Bishop Bull's
or that set forth in the Council of Trent ; that the ob
ject of St. James was to put down Antinomianism ,
not such a Solifidian view as Luther's. I believe these
inspired teachers would have assented to the statement
of either party, and when they heard each confess
Christ crucified and salvation by His merits, would
have inquired no further. It is grievous to hear
Christians accuse each other of irreligion and impiety
on such grounds as their different views on this ques
tion.59 " Satanic influence ! " cry the parties one against

59 Bishop Bull observes that there is but the difference ofa qua
and a que between his view and the Solifidian, when you come
to the bottom of the latter ; but is it not strange that he should
ridicule the Lutheran because he fights fiercely for quæ (the opi
nion that faith alone which worketh by love justifies, ) yet fight
himself for qua (the opinion that faith inasmuch as it worketh
by love justifieth, ) as if the safety of the Church depended on
 Practicality of Luther. cxxiii

another :-as if Satan was simple enough to spend his

time in weaving webs of justification ! The nets with
which he catches souls are of very different make and
materials.60
It was not these bubbles which my Father was
thinking of when he called " Luther, in parts, the
most evangelical writer he knew after the apostles and
99
apostolic men : it was the depth of his insight into
the heart of man and into the ideas of the Bible, the
fervour and reality of his religious feelings, the manli
ness and tenderness of his spirit, the vehement elo
quence with which he assails the Romish practical
fallacies and abuses. He even contends with Luther
when he lays too much stress on his Solifidian dogma,
the exclusion of charity from the office of justifying ;
and on the certainty and perpetuity of faith in the
elect preferred the notions of Hooker to those of the
earlier assertor of faith.61 Perhaps it may be ob

the decision. I think if he had fought with Luther himself in

stead of certain narrow-minded disciples of Luther's school, he
would have been brought to see that the Solifidian statement
was at least as good as his own. If quæ can be wrested into
Antinomianism more easily than qua, on the other hand qua
more readily slips into Judaism than quæ.
60 Either the Romanist or the Lutheran doubtless may add to
his belief of Redemption by the merits of Christ what over
throws or overshadows it, in practice. But these practical
falsehoods and heresies do not appear in formal schemes of Jus
tification ; let them be hunted out and exposed, but not con
founded with theories and confessions of faith.
61 Remains, iv. p. 32. His views on this subject are given in
his note on Fenelon , Remains, ii. p. 368.— in the notes on a
Sermon ofHooker's, Ib. iii. p. 49- on Donne, p.122 2-on Luther's
Table Talk, Ib.iv. p. 1 -on A Barrister's Hints, p. 320. - on The
Pilgrim's Progress, p. 401 - and in his Essay on Faith, p. 425.
 cxxiv Contest of the Flesh and the Spirit.

jected to Luther's teaching, that he does not expressly

enough distinguish between the ideal and the actual,
the abstract and the realized. Luther declares, after
St. Paul, that the outward law remains for the out
ward man, is dead for the spiritual man : but in actual
men and women the carnal and spiritual exist together
in different proportions. If any Christian on the face
of the earth should apply to himself without reserve
what St. Paul and what Luther say of the spiritual
man, he will fall into spiritual error of the deepest
kind. There have been great disputes whether St.
Paul in the viiith chapter of Romans, and in Gala
tians, v. 19, refers to the state of the justified or the
unjustified. The disputants never seemed to ask
themselves whether it appeared on the face of St.
Paul's teaching, that he divided the world into the
justified and unjustified, the regenerate and the un
regenerate, as the shepherd divideth the sheep from
the goats, after the manner of modern schools . But
surely to suppose, that in describing those contests
between the flesh and the spirit, he spoke of the
absolutely unjustified, of persons in the main under
the dominion of sin, and of them exclusively, is fur
ther from the truth than Luther's interpretation,
namely, that the desires of the flesh will remain even
in those who are believers unto salvation, and for
the most part are walking in the light. There was a
tendency in his time to understand fleshly desires of
sensuality alone. He set himself to combat this no
tion and to show, that though one set of vices might be
wholly kept down in this life, the flesh was never wholly
subdued. Again in Luther's language, copied from
Scripture, theflesh sometimes is to be understood in a
neutral sense, and means the sum of outward things
 Luther's Warfare against Rome. CXXV

that " other kingdom ": distinct from the kingdom of

grace. This way of speaking offended Romanists, who
were bent on exalting the outward. They sought to
christen the whole visible creation, and I think they
introduced flesh and blood too much into the kingdom
of heaven.
These were practical points, though they seemed
to be theory, and Luther's sins against Rome were of
a practical description. His rationale of grace never
made Catholic divines his fierce opponents. As for the
"heroic man's " rhetorical atrocities, his " tiger-lilies " of
speech, as my Father called them, they are all capable
of an innocent meaning at least ; they are but " sheep in
wolves' clothing," silly sheep enough perhaps , yet harm
less to the persons to whom they were addressed, who
took them as they were meant, knowing the speaker's
mind at large. Now, adversaries of Lutheranism take
up these spent rockets, and fling them into the arena of
religious contention !-of course they look black and
smell sulphureously. What makes the host of catholic
divines a host of enemies to Luther is his enmity to the
mediæval Church system with all the net-work and
ramification of doctrine developed for the temporal
advantage of the clergy-all the branchery of mystic
beliefs and superstitious practices, works , vows, reli
gious abstinences, self tortures which supported, -all
the mummeries rehearsed by Hans Sachs in his Nach
tigall, which adorned, this clerical polity- his deter
mination that men should read the Word of God itself,
though with every help to the understanding of it
his determination, powerfully carried out, to simplify
the access of the soul to God, -not to make the nar
row a broad way, as, in common with St. Paul, he is
falsely reported, but a straight and short passage,
cxxvi His Influence in Christendom.

though a passage through which no man could squeeze

the bloated body of licentiousness to batter down for
as many as possible that labyrinth of priestly salvation,
in the mazy windings of which the timid and tender
conscienced wander weary and distressed, while for the
worldling and careless liver there lies a primrose path
outside its gloomy walls, through which, if he will pay
for salvation, he may saunter pleasantly to a better
world; with many a short cut, such as Milton describes,62
and which, my Father, when he visited Sicily knew, as
other sojourners in Roman Catholic countries have
known, to be actually provided by or in a church,
which is rather too much all things to all men.
It is for these things that staunch " Catholics " hate,
for these things that my Father loved and honoured,
Luther's name. The Lutheran Church has not pros
pered well. But how would Christendom have fared
without a Luther ?-what would Rome have done and
dared but for the Ocean of the Reformed that rounds
her ? Luther lives yet,-not so beneficially in the
Lutheran Church as out of it- an antagonist spirit to
Rome, and a purifying and preserving spirit in Chris
tendom at large.63

62" And they, who to be sure of Paradise,

Dying, put on the weeds of Dominick,
Or in Franciscan think to pass disguised ."
Par. Lost, B. iii. 1. 478.
63 After describing the Papacy, or " the Papal Hierarchy,
which is, in truth the dilated Pope," as 66 a power in the Chris
tian Church, which in the name of Christ, and at once pretend
ing and usurping his authority, is systematically subversive of
the essential and distinguishing characters and purposes of the
Christian Church," my Father, in his Church and State, proceeds
to say, " It is my full conviction, that the rights and doctrines,
the agenda et credenda of the Roman Catholics, could we separate
 Power ofcoarse Religious Systems. cxxvii
I do not deny but that the Romish system, with its
low checks and coarse incentives, may have some
special effect in moralizing the Poor, while Protestant
ism, except as Methodism, is apt to fly above them, or
to fleet before them, like a cold and formless vapour.
Paganism was more effectual upon the minds of the
many than Platonism ; Judaism or self salvation by out
ward works will restrain a few who care not for Pauline
doctrine : Montanism did more for some than the dis
cipline of the Church. Nevertheless whatever is the
purest, highest and most spiritual form of faith, to that
must men be raised up if possible. Make them but spi
ritual enough to embrace it, and there will be no lack
of power or of substance in a philosophical Christianity
to fill the deepest and the widest soul that ever yet ap
peared among the sons of men.
Mr. Coleridge's love and respect for Luther I might
well have allowed to vindicate itself, had I not felt so
strong a desire to shew how deeply I sympathize with

them from the adulterating ingredients combined with, and the

use made of them, by the sacerdotal Mamelukes of the Romish
monarchy, for the support of the Papacy and Papal hierarchy,
would neither have brought about, nor have sufficed to justify,
the convulsive separation under Leo X. Nay, that if they were
fairly, and in the light of a sound philosophy, compared with
either of the two main divisions of Protestantism, as it now
exists in this country, that is, with the fashionable doctrines
and interpretations of the Arminian and Grotian school on the
one hand, and with the tenets and language of the modern Cal
vinists on the other, an enlightened disciple of John and of Paul
would be perplexed which of the three to prefer as the least
unlike the profound and sublime system he had learned from
his great masters. And in this comparison I leave out of view
the extreme sects of Protestantism, whether of the frigid or the
torrid zone, Socinian or fanatic." pp. 145-6.
cxxviii Mr. C.'s Opposition to Infidel Teachers,
him on that subject ; his esteem and admiration of an
other great German, of a totally different spirit, a re
former of philosophy, I wish to set in the true light,
lest it be mistaken for what it is not. My Father
himself supposed that he had fallen into suspicion
64
through his partial advocacy of Spinoza ; I believe he
has done himself harm with those who, as Archdeacon
Hare says, talk of Germany as if its history belonged
to that of Kamschatka, by his language respecting
Immanuel Kant.65 Let the reader bear in mind that

64 My Father alludes to the defects of Spinoza's system in

several of his writings. His ultimate opinion of that philoso
pher has been published in Mr. Gillman's Life of Coleridge, p.
319-22.
65 " He calls Calvin a great man ! "-I have seen specified
as a charge in a religious indictment. I cannot sympathize
with that " catholicity " which looks upon Luther as a " bold
had man," and thinks it a crime to call Calvin great one ;
defames the characters of our noble Reformers, and disparages
the glorious poetry of Milton ; holds the memory of King Wil
liam infamous, and that of Cromwell execrable ; contemplates
coldly the flames that consumed Latimer, and fires at remem
brance of the axe that beheaded Laud ; finds out that Dr.
Arnold was over happy to be a saint, and attributes the power
of Mr. Carlyle's writings to the Prince of the Air. Mr. Car
lyle's "irreligion " * as well as Mr. Irving's " religion " the author
of The Doctor reckons among those non-entities which pass for
substance with a misjudging world . To the religion of Irving
Mr. Carlyle himself has paid a most beautiful and affecting
tribute, (see his Miscellanies, vol . v. p. 1-6. ) He quotes this
saying of one who knew him well ; " His was the freest, bro
therliest, bravest human soul mine ever came in contact with :

* I find, on referring to the passage in The Doctor, that I

have mistaken " Mr. Carlisle's irreligion," seriously meant for
" Mr. Carlyle's irreligion " in the sense of irony. But the mis
take is no misreport of my Uncle's opinion of Mr. Carlyle.
 and Approval of Kant's Metaphysics. cxxix
he spoke and felt thus at the same period when he was
ardently defending Christianity among the Germans
against those whom he deemed undoubtedly its op
ponents. 66 The truth was that he never beheld in
Kant the foe of Christianity ; he kept his eye on the
great characteristic parts of Kant's teaching, and these,
he maintained, might be brought to the service of
Christianity, as far as they went ; might strengthen
the faith by purifying it and bringing it into co-inci
dence with reason. They who pronounce the writings

I call him, on the whole, the best man I have ever, after trial
enough, found in this world, or now hope to find." But my
dear Uncle saw Irving under the most unfavourable circum
stances, when he had drunk that " foulest Circean draught, the
poison of Popular Applause ; " when " Fashion crowded round
him with her meteor lights and Bacchic dances," and he seemed
himself, perhaps, in some respects, like one of the empty, gaudy,
intoxicated and intoxicating throng. -But who holds all this
cluster of opinions ? I know not whether any man holds them
all, but the spirit of exclusiveness in the religious partisan has
maintained every one of them, and earnestly too. Mr. Maurice's
remark, in his Boyle Lectures, on one strong point in Mr. Car
lyle's writings, the sense they exhibit of an Absolute Will and
the necessity of absolute submission to it on the part of man ,
which they bring out with special force in a practical way, is
an instance of that power of recognising the substance of religion
wherever it be, and under whatever form, which is so charac
teristic of his own genius,
66 This is an extract from a letter of Dr. Parry, printed by
Dr. Carlyon in his recollections of my Father in Germany.
" Eichorn, one of the principal theologists in Germany, and a
lecturer here, seems, from all accounts, to be doing his utmost to
destroy the evidences on which we ground our belief. He is a
good man and extremely charitable, but this attempt speaks
neither for his head nor for his heart. Coleridge, an able vin
dicator of these important truths, is well acquainted with
Eichorn, but this latter is a coward, who dreads his arguments
cxxx Tendency of the Critical Doctrines.

of this great genius directly and positively adverse to

pure religion, whether right or wrong, are but setting
their judgment of what Christianity, historical as well
as ideal, is and involves, of what Kant's doctrine is
and involves, against my Father ; they cannot accuse
him of supporting a system of infidelity without first
begging the question against him on both points. Kant
is called an Atheist : yet who but he overthrew the
grand atheistical argument of Hume ? he is called a
1
Pantheist, yet he it was who first discovered and clearly
stated the fundamental error in the Pantheistic system
of Spinoza : others had abused it as impious ; he alone
proved it to be irrational.67

and his presence. Even atheism is not altogether unfashion

able here, in the higher, and sometimes among the lower classes
of society. The priests are generally weak and ignorant men,
who pay little attention to their flocks, at least, out of the pul
pit. They are, however, paid badly. I have twice mentioned
Coleridge, and much wish you were acquainted with him. It
is very delightful to hear him sometimes discourse on religi
ous topics for an hour together. His fervour is particularly
agreeable when contrasted with the chilling speculations ofthe
German philosophers. I have had occasion to see these suc
cessively abandon all their strong-holds when he brought to the
attack his arguments and his philosophy." (Early Years and
Late Recollections, pp . 100-101 .)
Dr. Carlyon himself, in my opinion , misunderstood my Fa
ther in many things, as he misunderstood some of his favourite
authors : but I am obliged to him for his testimony on this
point.

67 " Zimmermann," says Dr. Carlyon, " gave us his opinion

freely of Kant's philosophy, and no one could have more cor
dially reprobated its general tendency. After maintaining,
as Kant has done, that the existence of a God can never be
proved ; to what purpose, asked Z. is it to tell the world that
Nature and Effect of German Speculation. cxxxi
Everything that the Germans teach requires to be
substantiated by the English mind, to be enlivened
and spiritualized . They are analyzers, -all, more or
less, what Kant was pre-eminently, Alles-zermalmen
dern- shatterers to pieces. But this process is a
necessary preliminary to the construction of what is
sound —a necessary work toward pure religion. They
can overthrow permanently only what is ready to fall,
or incapable by its nature of re-construction . They
cannot extinguish the spiritual instincts of mankind,
or blot out the records of history. The draining of
marshes will never render a country dry and barren ,
while there are yet springs in the mountains whence

the best argument which can be adduced in its favour is this

very impossibility of proving it ? The generality of mankind ,
he said, would recollect the possibility, but forget the infer
ence. " Dr. C. adds, " Coleridge attended to what he said,
without showing any desire to defend the Philosopher of Kö
nigsburg on this occasion. "
My Father perhaps thought it good economy to save his
breath on that occasion , and to judge from the comments upon his
writings of some who were present, very wisely. But I think
I know what he would have said to this smart shallow objection
of Zimmermann's, that if good for any thing it is good against
every philosophical and religious argument that ever was pub
lished. What is there in the way of reasoning that may not
be made false and injurious by being cut in half? That treatise
of Kant's was addressed and adapted to students, and, if stu
dents had not misrepresented it the world would not have
misunderstood it. So it is with the teaching of Luther : the
simple hearers, who expect that the teacher will bring forth
what is true rather than what is false, what accords with their
moral ideas rather than what contradicts them, these found
him scriptural enough I dare say. It was the systematic di
vines, the Romish and Romanizing sophisters, that turned his
commentary into Antinomianism.
cxxxii Hallam on the Philosophy of Kant.
clear streams may flow. If Germans disbelieve, it is
not from their activity of intellect ; their clear search
ing glances ; it is more from what they leave undone
than from what they do ; from what they have not than
from what they possess . Some of their marked writers
want that imaginative power,-so necessary in reli
gious speculation,-which brings the many into one,
and judges the parts with reference to the whole.
Mr. Arthur Hallam, whose Remains inspire some
who knew him not with deep regret that they are re
mains, not first fruits, and commencements, has said
on this subject : 68 "" I do not hesitate to express my
conviction, that the spirit of the critical philosophy, as
seen by its fruits in all the ramifications of art, litera
ture, and morality, is as much more dangerous than
the spirit of mechanical philosophy, as it is fairer in
appearance, and more capable of alliance with our na
tural feelings of enthusiasm and delight. Its danger

68 Remains in Verse and Prose, p. 189. I think that Mr. A.

Hallam might perhaps have modified his opinion ofthe Critical
Philosophy, had he lived and thought longer. As a substitute
for Christianity it is indeed but a beautiful shadow ; unite the
two and it becomes substantial. A really searching system can
be injurious to none but those who are undone already, and
adopt it as a goodly cloak for their own bare and hideous heart
unbelief. There will ever be in the world born Mechanicians,
Pelagians, Psilanthropists, Antinomians, Judaizers, who will
have systems that suit their feelings. But these systems are
positively false and tend to corrupt the heart ; while the Critical
philosophy, considered apart from the religious opinions of Kant
and some of his followers, has never yet been proved so by syste
matic and searching argument. See remarks in the Mission of
the Comforter, vol . ii . pp. 799-800, on injustice done to German
writers by party judges, slightly acquainted with their writings,
whose irrelevant fine sayings are taken for confutations oftheir
untouched adversaries.
 Relation of the System to Religion . cxxxiii
ous tendency is this, that it perverts those very minds,
whose office it was to resist the perverse impulses of
society, and to proclaim truth under the dominion of
falsehood." The difference between the critical and
the mechanical philosophy is this, that the latter is
incongruous and inconsonant with Christianity ; while
the former (as far as it goes,) is capable of flowing
along with it in one channel and even blending with it
in one stream, as I contend that it does in the Christian
philosophy of my Father. The latter blunts the reli
gious susceptibilities -perverts the habits of thought
suppresses the inward fire which, at the impulse of the
external revelation, springs upward into a living flame,
as the flint draws the hidden fire from the rock. But
the critical philosophy cultivates the moral sense while
it clears the eye of reason ; its positions are compatible
with every spiritual truth, and to the spiritual are spi
ritual themselves. It is like the highest poetry -- like
the poetry of Mr. Wordsworth, not religion itself, much
less dogmatic divinity, but cognate with it and harmo
niously co-operative.
Let it be understood, however, that by the critical
philosophy, I mean the really critical part of Kant's
teaching, -all his purely philosophical and metaphy

69 I do not speak here of the Ecclesiastical Sonnets, or parts of

The Excursion expressly Christian and Catholic , but of Mr.
Wordsworth's poetry in general, including much of an earlier
date than those productions, in which formal religion is not ap
parent, but in which the spirit of Christianity is " the spirit of
the whole." I do not say so much as this of the Critical Philo
sophy, but still I think it has been evolved by Christianity, (that
is, bythe general spirit of the religion surrounding men's mjuds
as an atmosphere,) and agrees with it, though by itself it is not
Christianity.
1 k
cxxxiv Kant's Metaphysical Doctrines
sical doctrines, which have a most important bearing
on religious belief a posteriori, but do not treat of it
directly of which the bulk of his works consist. I
speak particularly of his Logic, Prolegomena to every
future system of Metaphysics, Critique of the Pure
Reason, (his greatest production), Critiques of the
Judgment and of the Practical Reason, Only pos
sible ground of prooffor demonstrating the Exist
ence of God, and Metaphysical Elements ofNatural
Philosophy. I do not speak of his Religion within
the bounds of pure Reason so far as the doctrine of
that work really conflicts with all outward Revelation
and Historical Christianity. The treatise just men
tioned, -which forms scarcely more than a four or
five and twentieth part of the author's whole writings,
though in the minds of some persons it seems to form
the whole- contains an application of the critical phi
losophy, which many, who embrace the philosophy
itself, may and do reject —which certainly my Father
never adopted. His argument in the first Lay Ser
mon on miracles supposes the historical truth of the
miracles recorded in the Bible, and the admiration he
expresses of the treatise above-mentioned refers not to
any portion of it, which is irreconcilable with the sub
stance ofthe Catholic Faith, but to that part only which
serves to place it in more complete accordance with
Practical Reason, (the moral-intelligential mind, ) than
the primitive or mediæval conceptions. The general
character and aim of the critical philosophy has been
described by my Father, when he speaks of " that logical
προπαιδεία δοκιμαστική, that critique of the human intel
lect, which previously to the weighing and measuring of
this or that, begins by assaying the weights, measures,
and scales themselves ; that fulfilment of the heaven
 separablefrom his Views of Revelation. cxxxv
descended nosce teipsum, in respect to the intellective
part of man, which was commenced in a sort of tenta
tive broad cast way by Lord Bacon in his Novum
Organum, and brought to a systematic completion by
Immanuel Kant in his Kritik der reinen Vernunft,
Kritik der Urtheilskraft, and Metaphysische An
fangs-gründe der Naturwissenschaft." "It was of
the Kantean Philosophy considered in this point of view
that Schiller said, in his correspondence with Goethe,
though its " form shall one day be destroyed, its foun
dations will not have this destiny to fear ; for ever since
mankind has existed, and any reason among mankind,
these same first principles have been admitted and on
the whole acted upon."
Mr. Dequincey has spoken with horror of Kant's
table talk infidelity. What authority he has for
such a horrid charge I know not : he does not write
well on personal points, though admirably always,
when he keeps away from the Maremma or Snake
Marsh of private anecdote. This is certain, that Kant's
disciples and commentators in general are a most si
lent and discreet set of men if their master " planted
his glory in the grave and was ambitious of rotting for
ever." They seem profoundly ignorant of this part
of his creed. This also is certain that he has amongst
the admirers of his writings Churchmen and good
Christians, who have found a coincidence between the
more important parts of his teaching and the ideas of
the Catholic faith, together with suggestions, that
throw light on some of the dark places of divinity by
clearly exhibiting the structure and limits of the human

70 Works. Leipzig, 1839. vol. ii. —vol. vii . p. 1-364.— vol.

viii.
ii. p. 441-559. — Remains III. p. 157.
cxxxvi Peculiar Services of Kant
mind,-which enlighten the object by pouring light
into the subject. Is it of no use to religion to clear
and correct its intellectual form ? A great deal of
superstition may hold a great deal of spiritual truth,
as the wax of the honeycomb holds the pure nourishing
honey. The honey may be drawn off into a glass
bason ; and how necessary would this be if the comb
were not merely insipid and innutritious but unwhole
some or even poisonous ! It should ever be remem
bered that intellectual error in religion injures those
least who are least intellectual ; and hence it is a fal
lacy to argue that because men in past times, or simple
Christians at all times, have lived holy lives though
their creed may be challenged as in part irrational,
therefore contradiction to the laws of the understand
ing in theological articles is of no consequence. It is
of the more consequence the clearer-sighted we be
come ; it is one thing to shut our eyes to falsehood,
and quite another not to see it.
Most desirable is it that philosophy should be inde
pendent of religious shackles in its operations in order
that it may confirm religion. It is even a benefit to the
world, however great a loss to himself, that Kant, with
his mighty powers of thought and analysis, was not reli
giously educated. Had he been brought up a Church
man he could never have divested himself of dogmatic
divinity ; he could never have given the a priori map
of the human mind as independently as he has given
it ; and, if it had been less independently and abstractly
given, the correlation of Christianity with the mental
constitution of man could never have been so evident
as it now is to those who have studied his writings,
and who know and love and revere the Bible. I do
not, of course, mean that mere spirituality interferes
 to the Cause of Religion . cxxxvii

with speculative philosophy, but only that religious

persons are generally such as have come early under
the sway of some dogmatic system, which has guided
their thoughts from the first ; nor do I mean, that a
man dogmatically educated may not become a great
philosopher ; but that it is an advantage to religious
philosophy to obtain the undirected thoughts ofa power
ful investigator, who has considered the human mind
by its own light alone ; because thus the harmony of
the outward revelation with our internal conformation
is most incontrovertibly ascertained. No fervent de
votee of the outward revelation could have done reli
gion this particular service, or shewn how perfectly the
reports of the mere intellectual explorer in the region
of mental metaphysics coincide with the spiritual be
liever's scheme of faith ; and, as on a clear view of
this coincidence all correctness of religious theory de
pends, they who value such correctness ought not to
despise the labours of a subtle analyst like Immanuel
Kant, or deny, before examination, that they may be
important "contributions to Catholic Truth." There
is a maxim current among religious Exclusives, that he
who is wrong positively or negatively in his creed can
have no true insight into any province of human thought
connected with Morals and Religion. This opinion if
acted on would be most injurious to the cause of both,
because great powers of thought belong to some who,
unhappily for themselves, are not devout or spiritual
minded . Truth is advanced by the efforts of various
minds, and what an irreligious man throws out may be
converted to a use he little dreamed of by the religious.
Mr. Dequincey has said finely of Kant contrasting him .
with my Father : "He was the Gog and he was
the Magog of Hunnish desolation to the existing
cxxxviii His System furnishes a Base
schemes of philosophy. He probed them ; he shewed
the vanity of vanities which besieged their founda
tions, the rottenness below, the hollowness above.
But he had no instincts of creation or restoration
within his Apollyon mind ; for he had no love, no faith,
no self-distrust, no humility, no child-like docility ;
all which qualities belonged essentially to Coleridge's
mind, and waited only for manhood and for sorrow to
bring them forward." It was because my Father had
these qualities that to him the philosophy of Kant was
religion ; and, indeed, I think it may be maintained, that
although Kant's process was analytic rather than syn
thetic, and was occupied in clearing away rather than
in erecting, it was by no means purely destructive, but,
after the clearance, had materials enough left wherewith
to construct the base of a philosophy co-incident with a
spiritual Christianity.
It was affirmed by Hume that religion must rest on
faith that reason could not prove its truth. This
proposition was re-affirmed by Kant, but with an
utterly opposite inference from that which Hume
drew from it, for he saw what Hume saw not, that
there is a power in the human mind sufficient to
support and substantiate religion, apart from the
mere speculative faculty ; that spiritual truths must
have their own specific evidence ; that if there is no
absolute demonstration in these matters for the mere
understanding, none is needed , none would serve any
purpose of religion ; that theoretic reason has per
formed her whole office in religious proof when she
has shewn the impossibility of disproving the objects
of faith. Reason cannot oblige us to receive, said Kant,
more than reason can prove. But what mere Speculative
Reason cannot oblige us to receive, the Moral and
 for a true Christian Philosophy. cxxxix

Spiritual within us may. This is the doctrine of the

Aids to Reflection ; I believe that my Father, in his
latter years, added something to it, on the subject of
Ideas, which will appear, I trust, hereafter.
The question for us is not, did Kant himself accept
the outward Revelation, but does his teaching over
throw or does it establish the religion of the heart and
conscience ? If it establishes the law written in the
heart it will assuredly strengthen the outward Reve
lation, when rightly used. There are some who say,
that God and Christ and Law and Nature and Scrip
ture have all placed religion on the rock of external
evidence. The larger and stronger this rock can be
made to appear so much the better. To rest the
whole structure of the faith upon it my Father ever
held to be a most venturous and blind proceeding.
He held that beneath this rock there is a broad and
deep foundation, out of which the rock grows and with
which it coheres as one,-that this foundation was laid
by the Creator himself—that His voice, both as it speaks
in the heart and reasonable mind, and as it is uttered
in the Written Word, refers us to internal evidence as
the only satisfying and adequate evidence of religion ;—
that on this foundation, the accordance of the Bible
with our spiritual wants and aspirations, the internal
coherency ofthe whole scheme of Revelation within itself
to the eye of Reason and the Spirit, Christianity ever
has been and ever must be supported and maintained.
They who term external evidence the rock of the
Faith, its only secure foundation, never scruple to adopt
from those whom they condemn as Rationalists, be
cause they hold the internal evidence indispensable,
thoughts and sentiments which they, with their pro
fessions, have but little right to. They make themselves
cxl What is the deepest Ground
fine with borrowed plumes, and talk of spiritual ideas,
instincts, needs, aptitudes, preconfigurations of the soul
to religion and correspondences of the heart and spirit
to doctrine." They say that religion is to be known
by its fruits, the nobleness, the blessedness, the inward
peace and beauty that it produces. Now if these deep
ideas, these harmonies of the human spirit with objects
of faith, presented by the Written Word and Tradi
tion, exist, must not they be the rock that underlies
the structure of external evidence and substantiates it ?
Can we think that it is in the power of any appearance
to the outward sense, any vision or voice, to implant
the ideas of God or of any spiritual reality ? Can
these outward signs do more than excite it ? Main
tainers of external evidence, as the rock of the faith,
insist that religion must first be proved historically,
and then brought home to the heart by its internal
merits. It never can be proved historically unless, as
a whole, it be ideally true, and if the power of ideas

71 Mr. Allies in his Church of England cleared from the charge

of Schism, and Mr. Archer Butler in his Letters on Mr. New
man's Essay on Development, have treated in a searching and
masterly way certain portions of the external evidence against
Romanism in defence of our church. A man who clearly and
learnedly sets forth historical records must throw light on the
truth ; but no good is done to the cause of religion by those de
claimers , who exalt outward evidence without bringing it for
ward, and condemn the demand for internal evidence while they
are presupposing the need and existence of it in their whole
argument ; who look one way and row another ; who rave at
Rationalism while they are picking her pocket, and jumble
together whatever is most specious in different systems, without
regard to consistency . This kind of writing pleases the mob
of the would-be orthodox-the Majoritarians ; but it is of no
service to religion .
 whereon Religion is supported. cxli

within us shew it to be such, this must be the deepest

and only sufficient proof of its reality. To say that
Reason and the Moral Sense may speak, but only after
outward evidence has been given to the Understanding,
is to annul the very being of Reason . For that is a spi
ritual eye analogous to the bodily one. What should we
say of an eye that could not be sure whether a particular
object was black or blue, round or square, till it was
declared to be so by authority? Should we not say that
it had no power of sight at all ? Let the maintainers of
external evidence and historical proof guard this rock
and make as much of it as they may ; but let them not
cry out angrily against those who seek to probe and exa
mine it; for assuredly if it will not bear the hammers
of all the Inquisitors in Christendom it is no true granite
but crumbly sandstone. Doubtless religion , as far as it
is outward history, and involves facts and events, must
be outwardly proved and attested : but how insignifi
cant would be the mere historical and outward part of
religion, how unmeaning and empty, if it were not
filled and quickened by spiritual ideas, which no out
ward evidence can prove ; which must be seen by the
eyes of the spirit within us ; must be embraced by the
will, not blindly and passively received ! Mr. Archer
Butler, in his Letters on Development, observes : " A
man who should affect to discard all revealed testimo
nies, and to prove the divinity of Christ or the Doc
trine of the Trinity exclusively by internal reason,
would be a rationalist, though his conclusion be not a
negative, but a most positive dogmatic truth." Here
the misemployment of reason , in which the formal na
ture of rationalism had just been declared to consist,72

72 " The formal nature of rationalism is the undue employment

cxlii Indispensability of Internal Evidence.
is assumed, and we are told that rationalism is the dis
carding revealed testimonies and trusting solely to the
internal ; and indeed the term is constantly applied in
a manner that begs the question, -applied to those
who insist upon the paramount necessity of internal
evidence in the things of religion. Certainly he who
should discard all external testimonies of the Gospel
Revelation, would be irrational and ungrateful to God
who has given them ; but the endeavour to shew, that
by the light within us alone we may perceive their
truth, is no misemployment of reason or evasion
of the obedience of faith. Faithless far rather are
they, who mistrust internal evidence and seek prefer
ably the external ; how must they want the spiritual
mind, which sees what it believes and knows in what
it is trusting ! The question is this, Can external tes

of reason in the things of religion, with a view to evade in some

way the simplicity of the obedience of faith ." Rationalism in
one of the Tracts for the Times was called “ asking for reasons
out of place." According to these definitions rationalism is as
general a term as impiety or presumption, with which indeed it
is commonly identified . Now I think, that a man can be guilty
of this error only in this way ; he may ask for a kind of reasons
in spiritual matters, which are inappropriate to such matters ;
he may ask for positive logical proof of spiritual verities, or out
ward evidence of that to which the spirit within can alone bear
witness ; but I believe, first that there is no religious article for
the reception of which we are not bound to give a sufficient rea
son ; secondly that sufficient reason for the reception of any reli
gious article can never be found extrinsically ; that its internal
character, tried by the religious faculties given us by our Maker,
ought to determine its acceptance or rejection. Leibnitz' Dis
cours de la Conformité de la Foi avec la Raison, contains a very
clear view of this subject, as far at it goes. He maintains that
the Fathers never simply rejected reason as modern teachers
have done, both in the High Church and Puritan Schools, s. 51 .
 Its Relation to External Testimony. cxliii

timony by itself or principally and primarily prove the

truth of revelation ? The " rationalism " of my Father
assigns to outward testimony and internal evidence
independent functions in the instruction of man ; he
conceived that the former must prove religious truth,
so far as it is historical and logical ; the latter must
evidence it, so far as it is spiritual and ideal. Out
ward evidence can apply only to the outward event or
appearance, and this, apart from the ideas of which it
is the symbol, could never constitute an article of reli
gion. The only office of external testimony with re
spect to the spiritual substance of the faith, in my
Father's view, was that of exciting and evolving the
ideas, which are the sole sufficient evidence of it,—at
once the ground that supports it and the matter of
which it is formed. The Incarnation and Atonement
he believed to be both spiritual facts, eternal and in
comprehensible, and also events that came to pass in
the outward world of Time ; he believed therefore, that
in the proof of both, external and internal evidence
must work together, but that the work of the last is
the deeper and more essential. Before the publication
of the Gospel no man could have discovered that the
Son of God was to come in the flesh ; nevertheless it
is reason and the spirit that has, in one sense, shewn
to men those deep truths of religion, the Redemption
of mankind, the Divinity of the Redeemer, and the
Tri-unity of Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Out
ward appearances have led men to the knowledge of
them, but the recognition itself, which constitutes
saving faith, is from within. To this rationalism
Professor Butler himself draws very nigh when he
says, that "the fundamental error " (of Mr. N.'s whole
Development system, ) " consists in this very thing ,
cxliv Demandfor Internal Evidence
that it conceives Christianity is to be investigated as a
mere succession of historical events in order to deter
mine faith." " This," he says, " is to confound the
knowledge of Church history as a succession of events,
with the knowledge of Christianity as a Rule of Duty :
to confound Christianity as a mixed earthly Reality
with Christianity as a pure heavenly Ideal. " Can we
attain the knowledge of a pure heavenly Ideal, or a
Rule of Duty, by outward attestation ? Is it not the
law written in the heart that interprets and substanti
ates the teaching of the Scriptures ?-and ifthe divinity
of the Bible did not shine forth by its own light, could
the belief of a certain number of persons, that it was
the Word of God, have imposed it upon the world and
sustained it in credit from age to age ? This error
of substituting historical for internal evidence runs
through the whole Antiquarian theory of faith ; that
theory proposes to establish all religious doctrines by
the former alone or chiefly, whereas but for the latter,
the structure of external evidence would fall into a
shapeless heap, as a brick wall would do if all the
mortar were withdrawn. I will conclude this subject
by referring the reader to a passage on the relations of
evidence a posteriori and a priori in the notes to the
First Lay Sermon, Appendix E. pp. 293-4 ; and re
questing that it may be read in connection with the
statement of belief on the evidences of Christianity
contained in the last chapter of Vol. II . of this work.
The whole is too long to quote, but this is a part
of it :
" In each article of faith embraced on conviction,
the mind determines, first intuitively, on its logical
possibility ; secondly discursively, on its analogy to
doctrines already believed, as well as on its corres
 no Evasion ofthe Obedience of Faith. cxlv
pondence to the wants and faculties of our nature ;
and thirdly, historically, on the direct and indirect evi
dences. But the probability of an event is a part of
its historic evidence, and constitutes its presumptive
proof, or the evidence a priori. Now as the degree
of evidence a posteriori, requisite in order to a satis
factory proof of the actual occurrence of any fact, stands
in an inverse ratio to the strength or weakness of the
evidence a priori, (that is, a fact probable in itself
may be believed on slight testimony), it is manifest
that of the three factors, by which the mind is deter
mined to the admission or rejection of the point in
question, the last, the historical, must be greatly in
fluenced by the second, analogy, and that both depend
on the first, logical congruity, not indeed, as their
cause or preconstituent, but as their indispensable con
dition ; so that the very inquiry concerning them is
preposterous, ( σόφισμα τοῦ ὑστέρου προτέρου ) as long
as the first remains undetermined ." 73
Lest what has been said on my Father's view of the
Atonement should be misconstrued, I would say a few
words more upon that point. It is too common , I fear,
to confound a denial, that the language in which " the
nature and extent of the consequences and effects of
the Redemptive act " is described in Scripture, ought to
be literally understood, with a denial that these terms
stand for a real act on God's part. Thus they who
mean only to deny, that "the essential character of the
causative act of Redemption can be exactly defined by
the metaphors used in Scripture to describe its effects

73 Mr. Newman's Presumptive character of the Proof, in his

Essay on Developement, p . 131. coincides, as far as it goes, with
my Father's positions in the above passage.
cxlvi Strange Misrepresentation
and consequences, are spoken of as if they had denied
the causative act itself,—the remonstrance of those who
humbly but firmly maintain that, this act being truly
transcendent and mysterious, it can be known to us
only in and through these effects and consequences ;
that the human conceptions in which the Sacred Wri
ters present it to us do but shadow it forth, not pro
perly express it ; that we are not bound to receive as
Gospel all that divines have laid down respecting the
vindictive justice of God, ofthis justice being satisfied by
a substitution of the sufferings ofthe innocent for those
of the guilty, and of the divine wrath being transferred
from the sinful to the sinless, -that " change of pur
pose " cannot be properly predicated of the eternal,
omniscient, omnipotent God, any more than arms or
wings or bowels ofmercy, is strangely supposed to im
ply a notion, that Atonement is true only in a subjec
tive sense, that instead of Redemption having been
wrought for us by the act of God and our Saviour
Christ, only the phantom of such a thing is made to
play before our eyes, —a scenic representation of it set
forth upon the theatre of Holy Writ in order to pro
duce certain effects on the souls of spectators ! For
proof that the two views are wholly distinct and that
the latter was foreign to the mind of Coleridge, I re
fer readers to the Aids to Reflection.74
I believe too that it is foreign to other minds to which
it has been imputed, " Thus Christ is emphatically said
to be our Atonement ; not that we may attribute to
God any change of purpose towards man by what
Christ has done ; but that we may know that we have

74 On Spiritual Religion . Comment on Aphorism, xix. p.

241, edit. 4, vol. 1, p. 248, edit. 5.
 of Mr. C.'s View ofthe Atonement. cxlvii
passed from the death of sin to the life of righteousness
by him ; and that our hearts may not condemn us."
This passage has often been cited to fix a charge of
deepest heterodoxy upon the writer, a living divine.
It is conceived to contain a denial of the Atonement in
any but a subjective sense, although it affirms that by
what Christ has done we have passed from the death
of sin to the life of righteousness ; but further, that this
mystery has been presented to us under a certain
figure, in order that we may judge rightly of its effects
and consequences for them that believe. Thus to speak
and think is, in the apprehensions of some, to deny
Redemption objectively considered ! To believe that
by what Christ has done we have passedfrom death
unto life is nothing,--a mere shadow of faith, unless
we are ready to say also, that the eternal Redemption,
fore-ordained before the foundation of the world,75 ac
tually produced a change in the mind of Him who
willed it, the Eternal, with whom is no variableness
nor shadow of turning ! -that after a manifestation
made in these last times the designs of the Infinite
were altered , and He began to consider that pardon
able which before he had considered unpardonable.
What has this latter doctrine beyond the former, save
a contradiction ? Can we ascribe change ofpurpose,
in the literal sense, to the omniscient God without con
tradicting the very idea of a God ? We might indeed
believe that a something, veiled not revealed by those
words, is true, had we assurance to that effect ; but
this would not be what seems to be contended for,

75 See 1 Peter, i. 20. Who verily wasfore-ordained before the

foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for
you.
cxlviii Spirituality ofhis Scheme of Faith.
namely an admission , that they are true in the literal
sense.) I suppose there is no Christian who doubts
that the mystery of Redemption has more in it than
man can fathom. When I see how some men impreg
nate the writings of others with the products of their
own swarming brains, supposititious heresies, felonies,
fantasies, fooleries, false philosophies, demoniacal doe
trines and so forth, I often recall a couplet of Dryden's
respecting perversions of the Bible :+
The fly-blown text conceives an alien brood, ⠀
it And turns to maggots what was meant for food.76
I would fain learn of those, who look upon my Fa
ther's scheme of faith as something less satisfactory to
a religious mind than that which they have embraced,
if they can point out any important moral truth, any
great spiritual idea, any soul- sustaining belief, any doc
trine unquestionably necessary or highly helpful to the
support and safety of the Christian faith, which was
rejected or unrecognised by him. Can they shew that
his “ rationalizing," as some designate the efforts he
made to free the minds of Christians from schemes of
doctrine, which seemed to him " absolutely irrational,"
and therefore derogatory to God and injurious to man,
excluded him from participating in any practical re
sults, that can be deemed favourable to a pure, deep,
earnest Christianity. If they are unable to do this,
and neither on the doctrine of the Church, of Original
Sin, of the Inspiration of Scripture, of Sacraments, of
Justification, as far as I am aware, has any opponent
of his Christian philosophy hitherto even attempted
to shew that his conceptions were not as pregnant

76 Religio Laici . This pungent couplet was pointed out to

me, some years ago, by my friend, Mr. H. C. Robinson.
 Contemplative Habit of Mind. cxlix

and spiritual, as deeply pervaded with the sense of

the relations betwixt the creature and the Creator
as those to which they adhere ; instead of asserting
that his creed is less pious and religious than their
own, they should try to prove that it is less reasonable
and stands upon a less secure foundation. When they
have shewn this they will have inclusively proved, that,
whatever spiritual ideas he may have possessed, his
system did not properly contain them. But such a
proof can only be furnished by strict logical processes ;
there can be no short cut to it by assumption, or re
presentations concerning his state of mind, and the in
fluences upon it, calculated to lessen the value of his
testimony.
I cannot quit the subject of my Father's competency
for the investigation of religious questions, without
noticing another suggestion which has been thrown
out on this same point, and which, from its partial
truth, seems likely to confirm or convey what is very
far from true. It has been observed that Coleridge
was given to contemplation rather than to action, and
that he even resembled Hamlet in carrying to excess
the habit of abstracting. But religious doctrine is to
be tried by its capability of practical application, its
relation to appointed ends, and hence the speculative
mind is ill qualified to judge truly on a subject of this
nature ; instead of acquiescing in a sound and pious
creed, persons of such a character are apt to prefer a
shallow, unsubstantial and fantastic one, framed by
their limited understanding and human imagination.
The following is part of a passage once applied to my
Father in a striking article in the Quarterly Review.
"When a religious creed is presented, say to a disputa
tious and subtle mind, in which the action of the critical
1 1
el His Belief that the Evidence of Religion

facultyoverbears and absorbs all other energies, that fa

culty regards the creed proposed polemically, considers
it with reference to logical and technical precision, and
not in respect to its moral characteristics and tenden
cies, and wastes upon this theoretic handling of sacred
themes all the sedulity which ought to be employed
in seeking to give effect to the proffered means of spi
ritual amelioration." 77 35
All this may be true enough of the mere intellectus
alist; but who that was well acquainted with Coleridge,
as an author or as a man, could suppose that such was
his character, or speak of views like his as the product
of understanding unirradiated by reason, and fancy
uninspired by the spiritual sense ? Of all men in the
present age he was among the first and ever among the
most earnest to maintain, that " religion must have a
moral origin, so far at least that the evidence of its
doctrines cannot, like the truths of abstract science, be
wholly independent of the will : "78 that religion is de
signed to improve the nature and faculties of man, and
that every part of religion is to be judged by its rela
tion to this main end."79 These maxims he insisted on
during his whole course as a religious writer ; they
plainly had a deep hold on his mind, and were uttered
by him, not with the lip only, as if learned from
others, but as if they had indeed been drawn from
" the fountain-head of genuine self-research."f If he
then tried a religious creed " with reference to logical
and technical precision, and not in respect to its moral

77 See the Quarterly Review for December, 1841 , pp. 11-12.

The passage is from Mr. Gladstone's " Church Principles con
sidered in their results," p. 68.
78 Biog. Literaria, vol . i. pp. 206-7.
79 Aids to Reflection, p. 138. edit. 5.
 *1.11.
rests in the Moral Being of Man . \ cli
characteristics and tendencies, " how strangely must
he have deserted a principle which his own experience
had established ! -how unaccountably shut his eyes to
the light of a " safety lamp," 80 which his own hands
had hung up for the guidance of others ! Let any
candid reader consult on this subject the Aids to
Reflection, especially that portion in which the author
maintains, that revealed truths are to be judged of by
us, as far as they are grounds of practice, or in some
way connected with our moral and spiritual interests,"
that "the life, the substance, the hope, the love, in
one word, the faith, these are derivatives from the
practical, moral and spiritual nature and being of man ; ”
and then ask himself whether he who wrote thus could
be capable of falling into the error described above.
And again let him see whether he can cite a single
passage from his writings in which he appears to be
trying a creed according to logical precision alone,
without regard to its deeper bearings. So far from
being apt to consider articles of belief exclusively in
their intellectual aspect, in his departures from re
ceived orthodoxy he was chiefly influenced by moral
considerations, by his sense of the discrepancy be
twixt the tenet, in its ordinary form, and the teachings
of conscience, - his conviction that the doctrine, as com
monly understood, either meant nothing or something
which opposed the spiritual sense and practical reason.81

80 See the Airls to Reflection on Spiritual Religion. Com

ment on Aph. II. p. 124, edit 4. p. 127 , edit. 5.
The interesting Article on Development in the Christ.
Remembrancer for January, which has just come into my hands,
and in which I find a confirmation of some remarks of mine,
in this Introduction, on the Romish doctrine of the Eucharist,
contains the following sentences, which I take the liberty to
clii Certainty of Spiritual Ideas and
The mere intellectualists, who try divine things by
human measures, had in my Father a life-long oppo
nent. 1 Why then is a charge of mere intellectualism
brought against himself? Is it because he resisted the
甫
insidious sophism which splits the complex being of
man ; separates the moral in his nature from the ra

quote for the sake of explaining more clearly my Father's mode

of thought on the relation of divine truth to the mind of man ;
" Our ideas on mysterious subjects are necessarily superficial ;
they are intellectually paper-ideas ; they will not stand exami
nation ; they vanish into darkness if we try to analyze them.
A child, on reading in fairy tales about magical conversions and
metamorphoses, has most simple definite ideas instantly of
things, of which the reality is purely unintelligible. His ideas
are paper ones ; a philosopher may tell him that he cannot have
them really, because they issue, when pursued , in something
self-contradictory and absurd ; that he is mistaken and only
thinks he has them ; but the child has them, such as they
are, and they are powerful ones, and mean something real at
the bottom. Our ideas, in the region of religious mystery,
have this childish character ; the early Church had such. It
held a simple, superficial, childlike idea of an absolute conver
sion of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood ; and with
this idea, as with an hieroglyphic emblem of some mysterious
and awful reality, it stopped short," pp. 135-6. Our ideas on
the supersensual and spiritual are without the sphere of the
understanding, the forms of which are adapted to a world of
sense, though it is by the mediation of the understanding alone,
byits " hieroglyphic emblems," that we can take any cognizance
of them or bring them into the light of consciousness : still to
describe these ideas as " superficial," and as merely indicating
66 some mysterious and awful reality," appears to be scarcely
doing them justice. There is indeed a background of mere mys
tery and undefined reality in all our religious beliefs ; exeunt
omnes in mysterium ; but they have a foreground too, a substance
apprehensible by faith, visible to the eye of reason and the
spirit, as truly and actually as the things of sense are percep
tible by our senses. A vague belief that something, referred to
 Definiteness of Religious Conceptions. cliii
tional, the spiritual from conscience and reason ; thrusts
aside the understanding from its necessary office of
organizing and evolving the whole mind, and thus
brings half truth and confusion into every department
of thought ? Did he shew himself unspiritual in de
claring that superstition is not, as some will have it,

by the words " conversion of bread and wine into the Body and
Blood," is a religious reality, can this be dignified with the
name of an Idea ? What can verify or attest the truth of a vague
spiritual Something ? What spiritual benefit can such vague be
lief confer upon our spirits ? If religious ideas are vague and su
perficial, what ideas are positive and profound ? Again, is it true
that the ideas of children and of the early Church were of this
description? I more than doubt that. A child who reads of
magical metamorphoses has very definite conceptions before his
mind, and so had the early Church in regard to the Eucharist.
The early Fathers seem to have held, that the consecrated ele
ments became the material body and blood of Christ ; that, his
body being immortal, to feed upon it immortalized our bodies,
even as his Word and Spirit gave eternal life to our souls ; that
by miracle the divine Body and Blood were multiplied as the
loaves and fishes had been, and retained the phenomena of bread
and wine. This ancient sensuous notion of the Real Presence
is definite enough ; and equally definite is the modern spiritual
notion, that by the Body and Blood we are to understand the
life-giving power and influence of the Redeemer upon our whole
being, body and soul, and that this power of eternal life is con
veyed to us in an especial manner when we receive the ap
pointed symbols in faith. The sensuous tenet has been ex
changed for the spiritual doctrine because that sensuous tenet
was no mere mystery but a plain absurdity,-a poor, weak,
grovelling, shallow conception. Yet this low conception pre
served the substantial truth ; it was a cocoon in which the spi
ritual idea was contained , as in a tomb-cradle, buried , yet kept
alive. The spiritual ideas contained in the doctrine of the Eu
charist, and the intellectual statement of the doctrine, are of
course different things ; the former ought to be positive and
certain, the latter intelligible and distinct.
cliv ·Practical Aim and Bearing

a debased form of faith, but a disguised infidelity,

since men become superstitious inasmuch as they are
66
sensuous and dark, slaves by their own compulsion ; "
or heartless because he refused to establish faith on
feeling and fancy, apart from reflection, and to adopt
the slavish maxim, that forms of doctrine, which have
been associated with religious ideas are to be received
implicitly, are not to be examined whether they stifle
the truth or convey it rightly ? No ! it is not from a
strict and careful examination of his writings that these
notions have arisen, but from a partial view of his
life and its bearing upon his character. It has been
thought that he led too exclusively a life of contem
plation to be thoroughly well qualified for a moral
preceptor, that he dwelt too much on the speculative
side of philosophy to have, in fullest measure, a true
philosopher's wisdom. It has been affirmed that he
dealt with " thoughts untried in action, unverified by
application, mere exercises of the thinking faculty re
volving into itself : " that he "lived a life of thinking
for thinking's sake." I cannot admit that this is true.
Whether or no it would have been better for Mr.
Coleridge's own mind and character had he exercised
a regular profession, and been less withdrawn from
family cares, it not for me to determine : but this I
can affirm , that to represent him as having spent a life
of inaction, or of thinking without reference to prac
tical ends, is an injustice both to him and to the pro
ducts of his mind. To write and to think were his
chief business in life ; contemplation was the calling to
which his Maker called him ; but to think merelyfor
thinking's sake, merely for the excitement and pas
time of the game, is no man's calling ; it is an occupa
tion utterly unworthy of a rational and immortal being.
 of Mr. C.'s Poetry and Prose. cly

Whether or no he deserves such a judgment let men

determine by a careful survey of his writings ; in con
nection with all those studies which are necessary.in
order to make them understood ; let them pronounce
upon his character afterwards ; perhaps they will see it
with different eyes, and with clearer ones when they
have finished the course. I cannot of course attempt
here to vindicate his claim to some " gift of genuine
insight," as an ethical writer ; but in reference to the
remarks lately cited I ask, of what sort are the thoughts
dealt with in The Friend, the Aids to Reflection,
the Lay Sermons, the Church and State, the Lite
rary Remains ? May it not be said that, of the
thoughts they contain, one large class, that relating
to politics, cannot, by their nature, " issue out ofacts,"
out of the particular acts of an individual life,—or
be tried and applied in action by the individual who
treats of them, though they tend to acts and are to
have practical consequences ; seeing that they relate to
national movements, interests of bodies, dealings of
communities ; while another still larger class, which
concern the moral and spiritual being of man, are capa
ble of being tried and verified in the life of every Chris
tian, whether he be given to outward action, or whether
activities of an inward character, have been his chief
Occupation upon earth ? To deny their author this prac
tical knowledge and experience would be a satire on his
personal character rather than a review of his philoso
phic mind . All the poetry, all the poetical criticism
which my Father produced has a practical end ; for
poetry is a visible creation, the final aim of which is
to benefit man by means of delight. As for his moral
and religious writings, if practical wisdom is not in
them, they are empty indeed, for their whole aim is
clvi Undesirable Effect ofa

practical usefulness- the regulation of action, the ac

tions of the heart and mind with their appropriate mani
festations -the furtherance of man's well being here and
hereafter. This remark, that my Father lived a life of
thinking for thinking's sake is either the severest of
judgments, more severe than his worst and most pre
judiced enemies ever passed on him in the heat of con
flict, or it is no censure at all, but rather a commenda
tion ; inasmuch as the soul is better than the body and
mental activity nobler than corporeal.
It may interest the reader to see in conclusion , Mr.
Coleridge's own opinion of an excessive practicality,
or what is commonly so called, for the term is com
monly, though I believe incorrectly, applied to a mere
outward activity.82 Thus he spoke of an excellent

82 Men who are given to outward action think all else idleness
or worse, while men of thought can estimate their usefulness and
do them honour, when they are consistent and at one with them
selves. But thought is the active business of a certain part of
mankind. Literary men and teachers who affect to be men of
the world and unite a great deal of ordinary practicality with
their peculiar vocation, are apt to become low in their aims'
and superficial in execution. A poet is, in my opinion, far
better employed in perfecting an ode, if it be worth writing at
all, or conforming a drama to the rules of art, than in direct
ing a farm or regulating a railway or arranging a public spec
tacle. If his poetry is what poetry ought to be, it is worth
the devotion of all his time and energies, save what are required
for the charities of life, or for procuring the means of subsistence.
The article in the Quarterly, referred to above, speaks so well,
and powerfully of Mr. Wordsworth, that I the more regret its
containing anything calculated to strengthen misunderstandings
in regard to my Father. They who best understand the Poet
and Philosopher best understand the Philosophic Poet his
Friend. Let them not be contrasted, but set side by side to
throw light and lustre upon each other.
 certain sort of Practicality. clvii

man, whom he deeply honoured and loved, to his

friend Mr. Stutfield : bris 要是 Contio6 ,1
" I was at first much amused with your clever ac
count of our old and valued Friend's occupations but
after a genial laugh, I read it again and was affected
by its truth, and by the judicious view you have
taken. My poetical predilections have not, I trust,
indisposed me to value utility, or to reverence the be
nevolence, which leads a man of superiour talents to
devote himself to the furtherance of the Useful, how
ever coarse or homely a form it may wear, provided,
I am convinced that it is, first, actually useful in itself,
and secondly, comparatively so, in reference to the
objects on which he would or might otherwise employ
himself. It seems to me impossible but that
this incessant bustle about little things, and earnestness
in the removal of stupid impediments, with the irrita
tions arising out of them, must have an undesirable
effect on any mind constituted for nobler aims ;-and
this unquiet routine is, in my judgment, the very con
trary to what I should deem a salutary alterative to
the qualities in our friend's nature, of which the pec
cant excess is most to be apprehended . It is really
grievous, that with a man of such a head and such a
heart, of such varied information and in easy circum
stances too, the miracle of Aaron should be reversed,
a swarm of little snakes eat up the great one, the sa
cred serpent, symbol of intellect, dedicated to the God
of Healing. I could not help thinking, when I last
saw him, that he looked more aged than the interval
between that and his former visit could account for."
clviii Reasons for withdrawing some passages

Mr. Coleridge's " Remarks on the present mode of

conducting Public Journals."
bri J
HERE is one other subject, on which, after going
1
paring it for the press, I have found it necessary to 1
give some explanation . Throughout this edition I have
abstained from interference with the text, as far as the
sense was concerned, though the changes wrought in
the course of thirty years would probably have led the
author to make many alterations in it himself, had he
republished the work at all in its present form. In 1
one or two sentences only I have altered or removed 1
a few words affecting the import of them, in order to 1
do away with unquestionable mistakes respecting lite ་
rary facts of slight importance. But from the end of
the last chapter of the critique on Mr. Wordsworth's
poetry I have withdrawn a paragraph concerning the
detractors from his merits-the mode in which they
carried on their critical warfare against him and some
others for the same reason which led the late editor
to suppress a note on the subject in Vol. I.— namely
this ; that as those passages contain personal remarks,
right or wrong, they were anomalies in my Father's
writings, unworthy of them and of him, and such as I
feel sure he would not himself have reprinted. This
reason indeed is so obvious, that no explanation or
comment on the subject would have been given, if I
had not been told that Lord Jeffrey had of late years
republished his reply to those remarks of Mr. Cole
ridge ; this makes me feel it proper to say, that I sup
press the passages in question, and should have done
 from the present Edition of this Work.
so if no contradiction had been offered to them, si
because they are personal, and now also because I
lieve that some parts of them, conveying details
fact, are inaccurate as to the letter ; but at the same
time with an assurance that in spirit they are just and
true. They may be inaccurate in the letter : the
speeches referred to may never have been uttered just
as they were told to my Father and repeated by him ;
Mr. Jeffrey's language to himself he may not have re
called correctly ; and I am quite willing to allow that in
the way of hospitality he received more than he gave, the
fact of apparent cordiality, however, being equally at
tested whether Mr. Jeffrey asked Mr. Coleridge to din
ner or received a similar invitation from him. By the
mention ofthese particulars my Fatherinjured, as I think,
agood cause ; a volume of such anecdotes, true or false,
would never have convinced men of the party which
he had opposed, or brought them to confess, that the
criticisms of the E. Review were in great measure
dictated by party spirit ; to men not of the party, who
should take the trouble of referring to them, I have
little doubt, that this would be apparent on the face of
those writings themselves, -from the manner and from
the matter of them. I must repeat, that I believe the
suppressed passages to be neither mistaken nor un
truthful as to their main drift, which I understand to
be this : that the E. Reviewers expressed a degree of
contempt for the poetical productions of their oppo
nents in politics, which it is scarcely conceivable that
they could have really felt, or would have felt had
politics been out of the question- more especially with
regard to the poems of Mr. Wordsworth, that they
imputed a character to them, and as far as in them lay,
stamped that character upon them to the eye of the
clx Main Drift of the Author's Language
public, which those productions never could have borne
to the mind of any unprejudiced, careful, and compe
tent critic- indeed such characters at once of utter
imbecility and striking eccentricity as appear at first
sight to be the coinage of an ingenious brain, rather
than the genuine impression which any actual body of
poetry could make upon any human mind, that was
not itself either imbecile or highly eccentric. This
charge was, indeed, not capable of a precise proof, and
Mr. C. acted with his usual incaution in openly de
claring what he felt quite certain of but could not
regularly demonstrate. Whether or no he had good
reason to feel this certainty- waiving his personal re
collections, even those that have not been denied - I
willingly leave to the judgment of all who are capable
of comparing the critiques in question with the poems
of Mr. Wordsworth, and with the general estimate of
them in the minds of thoughtful readers and lovers of
poetry in general, from the time when the Lyrical
Ballads first appeared till the present day. There was
doubtless a petitio principi on Mr. Coleridge's part
in this dispute ; he assumed the merits of his friend's
poetry ; for though this was a point which he often
sought to prove, by shewing that, taken at large,
it treated of the most important and affecting themes
that can interest the heart of man, and, for the most
part, in a manner that would stand the test of any
poetical rule or principle that could be applied to it,
and this without contradiction from any one meeting
him on his own ground, not merely baffling him by rude,
reasonless irony, and boisterous banter-those heavy
blunt weapons of disputants who abound more in scorn
than in wisdom, -still questions of poetical merit are
so fine and complex, that they can hardly be decided
 respecting his Critical Opponents. clxi

altogether by rule, but must be determined, as spiri

tual matters are to be determined, by specific results
and experiences, which are, in this case, the effects
produced on the poetic mind of the community. 1 Be
fore this proof was complete he in some sort assumed
the point at issue ; he knew the critic to be possessed
of superiour sense and talent, and he felt sure that
though it might be possible for a man of good under
standing and cultivated taste not to love and admire
the poetry of Mr. Wordsworth, it was almost morally
impossible that the great body of it could appear to
such a person as it was presented in the pages of The
Ed. Review, a thing to be yawned or hissed off the
stage at once and for ever. Such strains of verse as
Tintern Abbey, The Old Cumberland Beggar, Ad
dress to myinfantDaughter, Boyof Wynander-mere,
Lines left upon a Yew-tree seat, Character of the
Happy Warriour ; -such poems as the Ode to
Duty, Evening Walk, Rob Roy's Grave, Highland
Girl, Yarrow revisited, Ruth, Landamin, The Bro
thers, Female Vagrant, Forsaken Indian Woman,

This Complaint of the perishing mother may be compared

with Schiller's admired Nadowessische Todtenklage ; but I think
that both in poetry and in pathos the English poem strikes a far
deeper note. The anguish of a bereaved mother's heart no
other poet, I think, has ever so powerfully pourtrayed as Mr.
Wordsworth.
Warmly as I admire the poetry of Keats I can imagine, that
an intelligent man might read the Endymion with care, yet think
that it was not genuine poetry ; that it shewed a sheer misuse of
abundantfancy and rhythmical power. For its range is narrow ;
like the artificial comedy it has a world of its own, and this world
is most harmonious within itself, made up of light rich materials ;
but it is not deep enough or wide enough to furnish satisfaction
for the general heart and mind. The passion of love excited by
clxii >Treatment of Mr. Wordsworth's Poetry
The two April Mornings, The Fountain, Yew-trees,
Nutting, Peel Castle, 'Tis thought that some have
died for love, Lines to H. M. ; —such sonnets as that!
Composed on 71Westminster I Bridge, On 1 the Eve
of a Friend's Marriage, The World is too much
with us, Milton ! thou shouldst be living at this
hour, those four called Personal Talk, so frequently
quoted- could any cultivated and intelligent man
read these productions attentively without feeling that
in them the author had shewn powers as a poet
which entitled him at least to a certain respect and
even deference ? Is there anything very strange or
startling in these compositions ? Or are they flat and
empty, with nothing in them- no freshness of thought
or feeling ? Seen through a fog the golden beaming
sun looks like a dull orange or a red billiard ball ; the
fog that could rob these poems of all splendour must
have been thick indeed ! I have not mentioned all the
most admirable of Mr. Wordsworth's poems ; but those
which a general acquaintance with poetry, and general
sense of the poetical might enable any one to under
stand ; for we may understand and respect what we do
not deeply enjoy. The multitude of laughers knew
nothing of the Wordsworthian poetry but what they
saw in the pages of the Review, through the Re
viewer's tinted spectacles ; the Reviewer himself must
have known it all, in its length and breadth. If he
seriously avows that the pages of that Journal give a

beauty is the deepest thing it contains, and therefore, though

its imagery is so richly varied, we have a sense of the mono
tonous in reading it long together. It is toujours perdrix or
something still more dainty delicate, and we long for more solid
diet, when we have had this fare for a little while. But if ever
a poet addressed the common heart and universal reason it is
Mr. Wordsworth.
 and of Mr. Coleridge's Prose in the E. R. clxiii

correct view of his notion of Mr. Wordsworth's poetry,

nothing more can be said than that it is a curious fact
in the history of the human mind ; -Mr. Coleridge
could but judge by appearances, and I think he has not
misrepresented them.
In regard to the review of the Lay Sermon, I am
not surprised that the Editor saw nothing in it to dis
approve ; though few, I think, who, at this hour, stand
ing without the charmed circle of party, perused that
article, would fail to see, that it is not so much a cri
tique of the Sermon as a personal pasquinade- (what
are "caprice, indolence, vanity," but personal charges ?)
penned by one, who had scanned the author nar
rowly, in order to abuse him scientifically, and with a
certain air of verisimilitude. He had enjoyed special
opportunities of taking those observations, which he
afterwards recurred to for such an ill purpose. My
Father had received him, (at Stowey and, I believe,
once again at Keswick) , with frank hospitality under
his own roof ; had extolled his talents when others saw
no lustre in the rough diamond ; had furnished his
mind with pregnant hints -intellectual seed, which, as
the soil was very capable, bore, in due time, a harvest
777
This air of verisimilitude is less in that article than in the
parent lampoon, ( in Mr. Hazlitt's Political Essays), any dis
torted resemblance which the latter may be thought to contain,
being frittered away, in the Edinboro' copy, by an evident desire
that the portrait should be pure deformity. In the former Mr.
Coleridge is described as 40' belonging to all parties," and " of
service to none." This might be favourably interpreted ; he
who belongs to all parties at one and the same time, belongs to
none in particular and can serve none in particular ; but he may
serve his country all the more. This feature was not copied ;
but the portion that follows, " he gives up his independence of
hind," in which there was no truth at all, was carefully trans
fused, the spirit of it at least,-into the second portrait. Both
 clxiv Lord Jeffrey's own Representation
of fruit for his own enrichment. I think he did not
deny these obligations, even while he was privately
expressing that personal pique and hostile feeling,
which he vented to the public under cover of patriot
ism and concern for the people. Under cover, I say,
without impugning his sincerity and earnestness in
either ; the former, the angry feeling against Mr. Cole
ridge, he made no secret of among his associates in
general. Under the circumstances my Father was to
be excused for supposing that this gentleman of "judg
ment and talents " had been employed to run down the
Lay Sermon inthe E. Review, on account of his known
talents for satire, and the severe judgments he had
already published on himself in particular ; but, as this
has been denied, I have withdrawn two expressions
which contain the imputation ; the passage concern
ing the satirist himself I have not thought fit to with
draw.
Mr. Jeffrey's demeanour at the Lakes in 1810 should
never have been brought into this question ; but from a
natural wish to maintain the general truthfulness , if
not the prudence and propriety, of my Father's lan

contain the same insinuation respecting my Father's fundamental

religious principles- the same attempt to cast them into suspi
cion with the unphilosophic world- upon which I need make no
remark. At that time it may perhaps have brought some additional J
discredit upon his name, that he imputed catholicity to his mo 1
ther church. " The Church of England , which he sometimes,
by an hyperbole of affectation, affects to call the Catholic
Church " !!!
These things are said in the supposition that my Father was
I
not wrong in believing the anthor of the critique in the E. R.
and the writer ofthe two critiques in the Pol. Essays, to be the
same person. Either they are identical, or the one is a close
copyist of the other, his spleen the same, only colder and more
unrelenting.
 ofhis Behaviour to Mr. Coleridge. clxv
guage on the subject, I cannot help saying, that Lord
Jeffrey's own account of it serves quite as well as Mr.
Coleridge's, to illustrate the difference, -I think I may
say the discrepancy, between the gentleman conduct
ing himself kindly and courteously in social life, and the
same gentleman performing his duty as a reviewer.
My Father had undergone no essential change, in the
interval, either as a poet, a politician, or a man, nor
had he shewn any. The Friend was before the public.
To pay compliments, even when they are no more than
the genuine overflow of the soul, is a mark of compla
cency ; but to have made efforts to " gratify " a gentle
man under a notion that he " liked to receive compli
ments," was a still greater exercise of politeness.
The critique of Christabel did not seem quite sym
phonious with compliments paid to the poetic mind of
him who was best known to the public as the author
of The Ancient Mariner, a poem which, equally with
that and on very similar grounds, deserved to be called
a "mixture of raving and drivelling."4 " I cheerfully

4 An article on Coleridge in the Penny Cyclopædia, which,

together with some misstatements of fact, contains the Ed . Re
view opinions on my Father's merits as an author, to wit, that
he had next to none at all, and seems to have been written by a
disciple of the critic who pronounced Christabel worthless with
the exception of one passage, after referring to what was pointed
out on this subject by Mr. Dequincey, proceeds thus : " Of this
habit," (that of " trusting to others for suggestions which he
improved, and for ideas which he elaborated,") another in
stance is supplied by Alvar's dungeon soliloquy in the Remorse
(Act. v. Scene 1. ) the ideas, and, to a certain extent, the words
of which are derived from Caleb's prison soliloquy in Caleb
Williams." Impressive writer in his own line as I knew Mr.
Godwin to be, I was surprised to learn that he had written any
thing so poetical as Alvar's dungeon soliloquy. Anxious how
1 m
 clxvi . Tests of Originality in Poets

acquit " the writer of any the least perception of merit

in the poem ; although Scott and Byron, the most ad

ever to give him his due I took up Caleb Williams, and for
pleasure, as well as duty, read it all through for the second time
in my life. I perused with special care the three powerful
chapters in which Caleb describes his imprisonment ; I found
that he dwells upon the " squalid solitude " of his forced abode,
and Alvar mentions " friendless solitude ;" that he speaks of a
" groan " uttered in sleep, and Alvar speaks of " groaning and
tears ;" but with these exceptions I found neither the ideas nor
the words of Alvar's soliloquy in Caleb Williams. My Father
may possibly have been led to make the reflections and form
the images of that soliloquy by Godwin's striking novel, as
Thomson was led to write The Seasons by the perusal of Nature ;
but he certainly did not borrow them ready-made therefrom.
The closest resemblance to Caleb Williams that I can find in the 1
Remorse is not in Act. v. but in Act. i. where Alvar says, 1
" My own life wearied me !
And but for the imperative voice within,
With mine own hand I had thrown off the burthen."
At the end of Chap. xi. Vol. ii. Caleb says, "I meditated sui
cide and ruminated, in the bitterness of my soul, upon the dif
ferent means of escaping from the load of existence ." Caleb
is restrained from self-murder, not by " an imperative voice
• within," a voice which " calmed " while it " quelled ;" his words
are, "still some inexplicable suggestion withheld my hand . I
clung with desperate fondness to this shadow of existence, its
mysterious attractions and its hopeless prospects." The three
preceding pages are very fine in their way, but have nothing
in common with the Remorse except of the most general de
scription. Indeed unless my Father had been the first man that
ever described imprisonment, he could not have avoided some
general similarity with former describers.
The whole article I would recommend as a study to those
who are desirous of acquiring the art of depreciation ; the prin
ciple of which rests on the force of contrast with a pretence
of candour, and may be thus thrown into the form of a rule ;
give the man praise a minori in order to take away all the
 and their different ways of borrowing. clxvii
mired poets of the day, were known to have expressed
admiration of it, he naturally preferred his own judg

credit commonly given him a majori : exalt other men, in

order to pull him down from his seat, although these other
men would themselves be the first to replace him in it. The
Cyclopædist denies my Father originality of mind on plau
sible grounds, perhaps, and yet, I think, on insufficient ones.
The habit of obtaining from others " suggestions to improve "
and " ideas to elaborate " may be almost called common to the
genus vatum. Dante is esteemed a vigorous and original writer :
yet it has been clearly shewn that the vision of the boy monk
Alberico "served as a model for the entire edifice of his poem,"
and furnished him with some of his striking details.* Dante
adopted everything in the Vision that he could turn to advan
tage, and left it to his commentators to make his acknowledg
ments to the youthful Visionary. Milton borrowed from all
quarters, as may be seen in Todd's edition of his works. Tasso
took wholesale from preceding Italian poets and from the
Classics. Gray's Elegy in a Country Churchyard contains
scarcely a single image or sentiment that is entirely new, and
in all his other poems he helps himself without scruple to the
ideas and sometimes to the words of other poets . Shakespeare
is full of borrowed pegs to hang his thoughts upon. Lord Byron
declared that these charges of plagiarism against particular
poets were a folly, since all poets are guilty of it. I think that
almost all poets borrow a good deal in one way or another ; but
there is a difference in the mode of their borrowing ; some take
the thoughts and images of other writers and combine them
with new matter ; some take a great deal of what constitutes
the substance and brilliancy of their compositions from historical
or descriptive books in prose. Writers of a rich and ornate
style borrow more than those of a severer cast : Byron borrowed
far more from books than Crabbe, and Mr. Wordsworth has
borrowed less, I believe, than any other great poet . Nature is

See the Essay on this subject, extracted from an ancient

manuscript, prefixed to Zotti's Dante, p. 19-42.
clxviii Character of the Anti- Jacobin Poets
ment ; but I will take upon me to say, however true
this may be, that no mere poetical demerits ever called
forth such a vehement explosion of hisses as that with
which Christabel was greeted in the E. Review ; that
the hisses were at the author, because his " daily prose"
was "understood to be dedicated to the support of all

the book that he has studied the most. The Penny Cyclopædist
has added nothing but a mare's nest to Mr. Dequincey's in
stances of borrowing in my Father, of which Mr. Dequincey
himself thought so little, that in spite of them all, he " most
heartily believed " my Father " as entirely original in all his
capital pretensions, as any one man that ever has existed ; as
Archimedes in ancient days, or as Shakespeare in modern."
An author is to be judged, in respect of original power, by
the total result of his productions. Is the whole a new thing,
or is there in the whole a something new interfused ? Can you
find the like elsewhere ? By this test my Father's writings must
be tried, and perhaps they will be found to stand it better than
those of many an author, who has carefully abstained from any
formal or avoidable borrowing. That his are " the works of
one who requires something from another whereon to hang
whatever he may himself have to say," is just such a specious
objection as the former. But it should be considered that every
writer, in moral or religious disquisition, starts in fact from pre
vious thought, whether he expressly produces it or not. In the
Aids to Reflection and in the Remains my Father has given his
thoughts in the form of comments on passages in the works of
other men ; and this he did, not from want of originality of mind,
but from physical languor,-the want of continuous energy,
together with the exhaustive intensity, with which he entered
into that particular portion of a subject to which his attention was
directed. I do not believe, however, that the value of what he
has left behind is so much impaired by its immethodical form
as people at first sight imagine. The method and general plan
of a literary work are often quite arbitrary, and sometimes, for
the sake of preserving regularity of structure in the architecture
of a book, a writer is obliged to say a great deal which is but in
troductory to that of his own which he has to impart.
 in the Ed. Review of thirty years since. clxix
that courtiers think should be supported : " 5 what Mr.
Coleridge endeavoured to support being first, the war
against the would-be invader and subjugator of his
country; secondly, the Church ofEngland. No mat
ter for the " compliments ; " now in 1847 ; no, nor the
disparagements either ; " not of a pin ; "—as the tedious
man says in Measure for Measure. I do not recur to
them on their own account. Perhaps an editor may "law
fully" make himself pleasant to gentlemen whom after
wards he shall be obliged to expose as 66 whining and
hypochondriacal poets " in his review : but it does seem
rather a special, and somewhat pliant and elastic law,
that can permit a gentleman to be sociable and friendly
in his private behaviour toward persons, whom, some
years afterwards, casting his eye back on their literary
and political career, it will be his duty to stigmatize,
not only as men of " inordinate vanity and habitual
effeminacy,” —that is a trifle, -but-upon whose heads
he is bound to pour that dark flood of politico-personal
accusations which may be seen and analyzed at this
day in pages 314-15 of vol. xxviii. of the Ed. Review.
Utter disregard of consequences to the public, -vanity
and effeminacy, -violence and vulgarity, -fantastic
trickery,―a morbid appetite for infamy with an ardent
love of corruption, -folly that reels with a sickening

5 Ed. Review, vol. xxvii. p. 67.

6 This fine specimen of a modern Philippic,- -an Edinboro',
Anti-Lakiad,—is contained in the review of the Literary Life of
August, 1817. I would wish any reader who has the oppor
tunity, to compare it with the language, tone, and character of
Remarks on the present mode of conducting Critical Journals,
contained in the second volume of this work. The reviewer
adds, " This is the true history of our reformed Anti-Jacobin
poets, the life of one of whom is here recorded;" and then takes
 clxx Literary Criticism made subservient

motion from one absurdity to another,-adherence to

notions that are audacious and insane, revolting and
nonsensical, entire want of charity, common sense,
wisdom and humanity, -romantic servility,-heartless
vice, these are attributes of the man-they cannot
be confined solely to the politician. We may chari
tably presume, indeed, that he who penned this tirade,
(one stroke of which I have passed by as too " rank”
for my pen, ) never imagined that the characters he
was blackening in effigy would look a single shade
the darker to any one who beheld them as a neigh
bour of flesh and blood in actual life-the life of truth
and reality ; but is it not a strange state of things,
when we must believe respecting an organ of public
opinion, that it is not most unconscientious only be
cause it is out of the domain of conscience altogether,
and declaims upon virtue and vice, wisdom and folly,
-the vice and folly of individuals-without any ear
nest feeling or belief on subjects, which demand the
utmost earnestness and carefulness from all who think
or speak of them ? Thirty years ago many things were
done by honourable men which honourable men would
not do now, or would gain great dishonour by doing ;
money intended for the benefit of the Public, especially
for making men living members of the Church and

up Mr. C. by himself again, still more in that style, which is

described in the B. L., where it speaks of the critic losing
himselfin the pasquillant.
The readers of the E. R. of that day were not fond of subtle.
ties or fine-drawn sketches ; otherwise we might say of the
writers :
Νήπιοι, οὐκ ἴσασιν ὄσῳ πλέον ἥμισυ πάντος .
Such criticism prevents the assailed from seeing their real
faults, while it precludes others from any knowledge of their
excellencies.
 to the Interests of Political Party. clxxi
followers of Christ, public functionaries too often
thought they might employ according to their own
private fancies ; and such a notion has even been acted
on by men undoubtedly public-spirited and disinter
ested. A dimness of vision on the subject of duty pre
vailed among the servants of the public in general ; and
reviewers were more clear-sighted than the rest ;
they thought themselves quite at liberty to make the
public taste in literature subservient to their own pur
poses as members of a party ; to choke up with rubbish
and weeds the streams of Parnassus , if a political ad
versary might be annoyed thereby, though all parties
alike had an interest in the water ;-to bring the most
sweeping and frightful charges against their opponents
in general terms, whether they had or had not the
slightest power to verify them in particulars. Against
this system the Biographia Literaria contains a strong
protest, a protest to which private feeling has given a
piquancy, but which in the main it has not corrupted
or falsified. I regret that my Father, in exposing what
he held to be wrong methods of acting on the public
mind, should have been betrayed into any degree of
discomposure in his own ; but I feel confident, that he
would not have given way to indignation on these sub
jects, if he had not believed his cause to be the cause
of the public also ; that the things of which he com
plained were parts of a system, the offences of which
against principle it was matter of principle to point out.
I have not brought forward these grounds of com
plaint out of any resentment against those who shewed
so much against my Father, or,-(I say it for my own
sake not as deeming it important to others,)-in any
feeling of disrespect for their characters in the main.
I make no doubt of their possessing all the wit, worth
 clxx Literary Criticism made subservient

motion from one absurdity to another, -adherence to

notions that are audacious and insane, revolting and
nonsensical, entire want of charity, common sense,
wisdom and humanity, -romantic servility,-heartless
vice, these are attributes of the man-they cannot
be confined solely to the politician. We may chari
tably presume, indeed, that he who penned this tirade,
(one stroke of which I have passed by as too " rank"
for my pen, ) never imagined that the characters he
was blackening in effigy would look a single shade
the darker to any one who beheld them as a neigh
bour of flesh and blood in actual life-the life of truth
and reality ; but is it not a strange state of things,
when we must believe respecting an organ of public
opinion, that it is not most unconscientious only be
cause it is out of the domain of conscience altogether,
and declaims upon virtue and vice, wisdom and folly,
-the vice and folly of individuals- without any ear
nest feeling or belief on subjects, which demand the
utmost earnestness and carefulness from all who think
or speak of them ? Thirty years ago many things were
done by honourable men which honourable men would
not do now, or would gain great dishonour by doing ;
money intended for the benefit of the Public, especially
for making men living members of the Church and

up Mr. C. by himself again, still more in that style, which is

described in the B. L., where it speaks of the critic losing
himself in the pasquillant.
The readers of the E. R. of that day were not fond of subtle.
ties or fine-drawn sketches ; otherwise we might say of the
writers :
Νήπιοι, οὐκ ἴσασιν ὄσῳ πλέον ἥμισυ πάντος .
Such criticism prevents the assailed from seeing their real
faults, while it precludes others from any knowledge of their
excellencies.
 to the Interests of Political Party. clxxi
followers of Christ, public functionaries too often
thought they might employ according to their own .
private fancies ; and such a notion has even been acted
on by men undoubtedly public-spirited and disinter
ested. A dimness of vision on the subject of duty pre
vailed among the servants of the public in general ; and
reviewers were not more clear-sighted than the rest ;
they thought themselves quite at liberty to make the
public taste in literature subservient to their own pur
poses as members of a party ; to choke up with rubbish
and weeds the streams of Parnassus, if a political ad
versary might be annoyed thereby, though all parties
alike had an interest in the water ;-to bring the most
sweeping and frightful charges against their opponents
in general terms , whether they had or had not the
slightest power to verify them in particulars. Against
system the Biographia Literaria contains a strong
protest, a protest to which private feeling has given a
piquancy, but which in the main it has not corrupted
or falsified. I regret that my Father, in exposing what
he held to be wrong methods of acting on the public
mind, should have been betrayed into any degree of
discomposure in his own ; but I feel confident, that he
would not have given way to indignation on these sub
jects, if he had not believed his cause to be the cause
of the public also ; that the things of which he com
plained were parts of a system, the offences of which
against principle it was matter of principle to point out.
I have not brought forward these grounds of com
plaint out of any resentment against those who shewed
so much against my Father, or,- (I say it for my own
sake not as deeming it important to others, )- in any
feeling of disrespect for their characters in the main.
I make no doubt of their possessing all the wit, worth
clxxii Unjust Criticism injurious to the
and wisdom which their friends ascribe to them, and am
better pleased to think that my Father was beset and
hindered on his way by lions than by assailants of a
more ignoble kind. I have recurred to those grounds
of complaint in justification of the language used in this
work on the " present mode of conducting public jour
nals," and also to justify the children of Coleridge in
republishing it, aware as we are, that it will have an
interest and even an importance as a voice from the
grave of one whom, now that he is removed from all
eyes in this world, many desire to have heard and
looked upon, which it had not when the author was
still struggling through his earthly career. Some per
sons will say, that hostility which so little succeeded
in its object of casting my Father's works into general
contempt and oblivion, is unworthy of present regard.
But there is a little anachronism in this. It is like
saying, that because a few storms or an inclement
season did not ruin a nascent colony, and years after
wards the colony is in a flourishing state, it was there
fore of no consequence to the colonist and not worth
mentioning in his history. The colony lives and blooms,
like the baytree by the river-side, while the poor worn
colonist moulders in the grave. What is literary re
putation now to the author of Christabel and the Lay
Sermon ?? Those works are read by many at this

7 My Father has observed, that an insignificant work was

sometimes reviewed for the sake of attacking the author; on
the other hand the more important works of obnoxious authors
were often absolutely unnoticed. Some of his own were never
reviewed in any leading journal ; but Christabel, the Lay Sermon,
and the Biographia were caught up and violently twisted into
whipcord to lash him who had written them, and drive him if
possible out of the temple.
 Man personally, if not to the Author. clxxiii

time with as much pleasure as if they had never been

declared worse than waste paper by the E. Review ;
they could not be slain by arrows of criticism if they
had any vitality of their own ; if they had it not, who
would wish to give them a galvanized life - the only
life which some productions ever have to sustain
them—a mere emanation from the hot orb of party
spirit ? But he who wrote those works wanted a
" little here below" ere he went hence and was no more
seen : he wanted a little encouragement from friends,
a little fair play from adversaries, a little sympathy,
and a little money. That he wanted these things was
at least a grievance, whether it was most the fault of
others or chiefly his own. But I think it will be
granted by impartial persons, that there was some fault
and deficiency on this score in others ; an honest ar
gumentative review, if ever so severe, would have done
my Father's works good, had the reviewer strained
every nerve to convict them of absurdity. But he was
reviewed in a way not to expose his errors but to pre
vent people from attending to him at all ; not to make
him understood but to stamp upon him a character of
hopeless unintelligibility ; with an artful shew of con
tempt, and a sort of ridicule, that might have been
employed with equal success upon Plato or upon
Shakespeare. A searching criticism, even from a de
termined opponent, would have been to him like that
excellent oil of reproof, concerning which the Psalmist
says that it breaks not the head nor depresses it.
A few words in conclusion on Mr. Coleridge's
" abuse of his contemporaries ;" for on this score he

• The same method of shooting at him from a distance and

declining close fight is practised even now by writers of a newer
 lxxiv Mr. C.'s " Abuse of his Contemporaries "
1
was assailed in the review of the Biographia, with a
particular reference to his critique on Bertram ; though
without a syllable to shew that the censures it con
tained were unjust, or not rather a service to his con
temporaries in general. This " abuse " was not, I
think, of the same nature as that which he condemned
in others. It was of two or three different kinds : the
first, to which belong the Letters to Fox , Letters to
Fletcher, strictures on Lord Grenville, character of
Pitt, sketches of Buonaparte, consists in examinations
of the public conduct and published opinions of emi
nent men under the light of principles ; not a pre
judging of their acts and opinions by supposed circum
stances made to cast their colouring upon the former,
as stained lamps dye the radiance of the flames they
inclose ; but an examination of the acts and opinions
themselves, and only in due subordination to the
former, if at all, a notice of circumstances which
may have tended to produce their peculiar character."

school, who dispose of him en passant, in their way to other

objects of attack, by settling that he was certainly a man of
some genius, and had a modicum of light to dispense, going
before the torch-bearers of their party with his little fancy lamp
in his hand ; but that he is by no means a safe or sound writer ;
though where, how, and why, he is unsafe and unsound they are
far too much in a hurry to state. They seem indeed to consi
der him not only unsafe, but so dangerous, that prudence re
quires them to keep a good way off; as if the poor old steed,
though uusound and superannuated, might still give an uncom
fortable kick, if you came too close to his heels.
The Character of Pitt, which I like the least of my Father's
political writings, except certain passages against the same
minister in his youthful Conciones ad Populum, the general drift
of which, however, he has shewn to be strictly in consonance
with all his later politics,—and in these passages it is the tone
 and his Contemporaries ' Abuse of him. clxxv
These treatises are chiefly composed of close reasoning
and illustration ; the censures they contain are ex
pressed in stern and vehement, but not in coarse or
bitter language ; and they burst forth from a carefully
constructed argument like strong keen flames from a
well heaped funeral pile. If they quiver as they stream
upward-those flames of censure it is from a medi
tative emotion, not from the turbulence of a spirit
agitated by personal or party rage. Could any speci
men of " abuse" be extracted from his writings at all
similar to that " true history of the Anti-Jacobin
poets," referred to above, in which three men of dif
ferent characters and courses of life are put into a heap
and conjointly accused of every turpitude which a
politician can be guilty of, the language of the E.
Review respecting his " abuse of his contemporaries "
would so far not be unmerited. The strictures on
that Journal in this work are also pieces of reasoning,
and, when cleared from a few excrescences of personal

and language not the opinions that he would ever have wished
to retract, commences with an account of Mr. Pitt's education
and its effect on the formation of his mind ; " he was cast," my
Father says, " rather than grew." But this is only a subordi
nate part of a general survey of his character as evinced in his
public conduct. There is no attempt to characterize opinions
not under examination by conjectures respecting the circumstances
under which they may have been formed . The Character con
tains also a few sentences relating to Mr. Pitt's private life ;
but it should be remembered that some parts of a Prime Mi
nister's private life, or what is private life in other cases, are
necessarily before the public. My Father referred to tastes
and habits of Mr. Pitt which were matters of notoriety. Still
that passage is a blot in the essay, and I doubt not that, though
interesting as a psychological analysis, the whole Character is
too unmodified and severe.
clxxvi Character of Mr. C.'s Satire.
anecdote and complaint, are not unworthy of a writer
who ever strove to keep principle in view. Of the
Critique ofBertram I have spoken elsewhere.
The second sort of " abuse " that he dealt in, and
which it were to be wished that all men would refrain
from, consisted in pointed remarks, made in private re
specting private things and persons. Some ofthese were
as strictly true as they were clever and rememberable ;
some were just in themselves, but sounded unjust as
well as unkind, when repeated unaccompanied by what
should have gone along with them to take off their
edge, expressed or understood by the utterer. Some,
I dare say, were not wholly just ; few men are wise or
just at all hours ; my Father had fits of satirizing with
a habit of praising. I have heard a friend of his and
mine remark, that some men "talk their gall cleverly,"
while there are others, who will shew their cleverness
though at the expense of being, for the moment, ill
natured. My Father's sharp speeches were not mere
improvements of gall. But I do not defend them.
Psychological analysis on the living individual subject
is an operation that can with difficulty be kept within
the bounds of Christian justice and charity ; even if
we have a right to cut the pound of flesh at all, how
can we be sure of cutting it exactly ? But most to be
blamed are they who repeat these keen sayings,—
treasuring up the darts which they have not the skill to
forge, and bring them to the ears of those very per
sons, who are least likely to see their truth and most
liable to feel their sharpness, the persons of whom
they are said.
There is a third part of this subject, respecting
which I refer the reader to an apology by Mr. C. him
self, placed at the end of vol. i. of the Poetical Works ;
 and his Contemporaries' Abuse of him . clxxv
These treatises are chiefly composed of close reasoning
and illustration ; the censures they contain are ex
pressed in stern and vehement, but not in coarse or
bitter language ; and they burst forth from a carefully
constructed argument like strong keen flames from a
well heaped funeral pile. If they quiver as they stream
upward-those flames of censure— -it is from a medi
tative emotion, not from the turbulence of a spirit
agitated by personal or party rage. Could any speci
men of " abuse " be extracted from his writings at all
similar to that " true history of the Anti-Jacobin
poets," referred to above, in which three men of dif
ferent characters and courses of life are put into a heap
and conjointly accused of every turpitude which a
politician can be guilty of, the language of the E.
Review respecting his " abuse of his contemporaries "
would so far not be unmerited . The strictures on
that Journal in this work are also pieces of reasoning,
and, when cleared from a few excrescences of personal

and language not the opinions that he would ever have wished
to retract, commences with an account of Mr. Pitt's education
and its effect on the formation of his mind ; " he was cast," my
Father says, " rather than grew." But this is only a subordi
nate part of a general survey of his character as evinced in his
public conduct. There is no attempt to characterize opinions
not under examination by conjectures respecting the circumstances
under which they may have been formed. The Character con
tains also a few sentences relating to Mr. Pitt's private life ;
but it should be remembered that some parts of a Prime Mi
nister's private life, or what is private life in other cases, are
necessarily before the public. My Father referred to tastes
and habits of Mr. Pitt which were matters of notoriety. Still
that passage is a blot in the essay, and I doubt not that, though
interesting as a psychological analysis, the whole Character is
too unmodified and severe.
clxxvi Character of Mr. C.'s Satire.

anecdote and complaint, are not unworthy of a writer

who ever strove to keep principle in view. Of the
Critique ofBertram I have spoken elsewhere.
The second sort of " abuse " that he dealt in, and
which it were to be wished that all men would refrain
from , consisted in pointed remarks, made in private re
specting private things and persons. Some of these were
as strictly true as they were clever and rememberable ;
some were just in themselves, but sounded unjust as
well as unkind, when repeated unaccompanied by what
should have gone along with them to take off their
edge, expressed or understood by the utterer. Some,
I dare say, were not wholly just ; few men are wise or
just at all hours ; my Father had fits of satirizing with
a habit of praising. I have heard a friend of his and
mine remark, that some men " talk their gall cleverly,"
while there are others, who will shew their cleverness
though at the expense of being, for the moment, ill
natured. My Father's sharp speeches were not mere
improvements of gall. But I do not defend them.
Psychological analysis on the living individual subject
is an operation that can with difficulty be kept within
the bounds of Christian justice and charity ; even if
we have a right to cut the pound of flesh at all, how
can we be sure of cutting it exactly ? But most to be
blamed are they who repeat these keen sayings,—
treasuring up the darts which they have not the skill to
forge, and bring them to the ears of those very per
sons, who are least likely to see their truth and most
liable to feel their sharpness, the persons of whom
they are said.
There is a third part of this subject, respecting
which I refer the reader to an apology by Mr. C. him
self, placed at the end of vol. i. of the Poetical Works ;
 Regrets on the Subject. clxxvii

I mean his flights of extravagant satire, the real ob

jects of which existed no where but in the Limbo of
wild imagination. These extravagancies of his early
day, though I believe his own account of them to be
strictly true-indeed can see the truth of it on the face
of the productions themselves, -have given me great
pain ; not for the vials of wrath that have been poured
forth on occasion of them ; they were filled, I well
knew, mainly from another cistern ; 10 but because I see
in these productions, though inspired by a petulant
fancy rather than by an angry heart, the one stain upon
the face of my Father's literary character. Yet though
I deeply regret in regard to both, but by far the most
in regard to one of them, that he should ever have

10 It is not my Father's rash sayings, but his conscientious

and well weighed ones, his warm opposition to the " anti-na
tional" policy, his free opinion of the philosophy of certain
Northern schools,—his venturing to find fault with some of their
Most Profound and Irrefragable Doctors-that ever has excited ,
and still does excite, the animosity of the Northern critics against
him. His politics were a reproach, his philosophy a dispa
ragement to theirs, and the B. L. added vinegar to the bitters
ofthe cup. What my Father said of Hume in the Lay Sermon,
p. 222, is styled by the E. Reviewer, (who puts on the Scotch
mantle for the nonce, ) " a mean 39and malignant fabrication,"99 66 a
66
transition from cant to calumny,' a sting, the venom of which
returned into his own bosom, to exhaust itself in a bloated
passage," &c. Supposing the anecdote untrue, of which the
reviewer gives no proof, (his calling it a fabrication of my
Father's is a " gratuitous assertion " on his own part, ) where
was the deep malignity of ascribing to Hume at his death a
sentiment undeniably consonant with the tenour of his life ?
The reviewer could not deny that he " devoted his life to
undermining the Christian religion ; " why then should he rage
so at the second clause of the sentence, " expended his last
breath in a blasphemous regret that he had not survived it ?"
 clxxviii The Apologetic Preface
penned such pieces or suffered them to get abroad, I
do not blame him for including them in his works
when it was plain that they could not be suppressed .
The wine was coarse and burning, but it was the same,
however bad a sample, as that which glows in Kubla
Khan and The Ancient Mariner, and no produc
tion, marked with a peculiar genius, if short and
rememberable, will perish, though of small merit,—
especially when other more considerable fruits of that

Was it more discreditable to wish Christianity extinct than to

have deliberately endeavoured to destroy it ? However if there
be no authority for the anecdote reported in the Lay Sermon, a
mark shall be set against it in future.
Mr. Coleridge's " ignorant petulance " on the subject of
Hume's history has been amply confirmed by examiners on op
posite sides in politics since the opinion was expressed. If that
history be faulty at all, it is not superficially so but internally
and radically—it is to a considerable extent virtually faithless
and misleading ; no one less cool, calm, and able than Hume
could have given so misleading a representation of a certain most
'important part of English history . Like Hobbes, because he
had no eye for a spiritual law, and because man must find firm
ground to rest on somewhere, Hume rested his whole weight
on human authority and kingship-an earthly divine right.
Every one must admire his fine talents, must like his kindly and
gentle nature ; but is not an Infidel writer's hand against every
Christian, and must not every Christian's hand be against him ,
-notof course to write a word that is untrue concerning his life
and actions, but to struggle with him when he strives against
eternal hopes, -nay to trample on him, when, like Caiaphas in
Dante's penal realm, he lies across the way—if that be the way
of faith and salvation ? Surely the Scotch may well afford to let
Hume be judged according to his works, —I should rather say to
let his works bejudged according to their contents. They are not
so deficient in worthies whom a Christian can approve that they
must vehemently patronize the patron of despotism and infide
lity. My Father did not abuse him because he was a Scotch
 not meant for a Vindication. clxxix

genius are before the world. It will ever be a grief

to those interested in my Father's name that, when
a young man, he wrote a lampoon, in sport, upon
a good and gifted contemporary ; but I scarce know
what he could do more, after shooting off an arrow,
which others would preserve on account of its curious
make or some antastic plumage with which its shaft
was adorned, than try to blunt its point, and beg that
it might be considered only as a plaything.

man ; he had contended warmly against Infidels in Germany,

partial as he was to Germans and German writers. One thing
I regret in Mr. Carlyle's admirable essay on Johnson, that deep
hearted essay ! —the parallel at the end between Johnson and
Hume. Oh ! surely Hume should not have been set over
against Johnson , who could not have looked him in the face
without shuddering, and turning pale for sorrow !
Right loth should I be to consider these Boreal blasts and
Scotch mists, that have so outraged and obscured the Exteesian
domain, as coming from bonny Scotland at large. The man
of genius- the wise and liberal critic- is always a true Briton
-neither English, Irish, nor Scotch. Acer Septentrio to S. T.C.
-but this is a synecdoche- part for the whole. I have ne
cessarily been looking of late more at the bad weather of my
Father's literary life, —the rough gales and chilling snow-falls,
-than at its calm and sunshine : but these were not present
always, and I trust they will henceforth be infrequent.
Non semper imbres dulce-poeticos
Manant in agros ; nec mare lucidum
Vexant inæquales procellæ
Usque ; nec atheriis in oris,
Esteese Parens, stat glacies iners
Menses per omnes ; aut Aquilonibus
Myrteta Colerigi laborant
Vitibus et viduantur ulmi.
The twining vines are popularity and usefulness : the elms
literary productions of slow growth and stately character.
clxxx Difference between petulant Satire
The Apologetic Preface has been much misrepre
sented : it has been represented as a defence and a
sophistical one ; if it were intended as a defence or vin
dication it would be sophistical indeed ; but it is no
such thing : it is an apology in the modern sense of
the term ; that is an excuse. "It was not my inten
tion, I said, to justify the publication, whatever its
author's feelings might have been at the time of com
posing it. That they are calculated to call forth so
severe a reprobation from a good man, is not the worst
feature of such poems. Their moral deformity is ag
gravated in proportion to the pleasure which they are
capable of affording to vindictive, turbulent and un
principled readers ." Notwithstanding this declaration,
an admirer of Mr. Pitt has affirmed that " the Apology
is throughout defensive." As this charge is made in
the shape of mere assertion " to refute it with not "
will perhaps be sufficient. This and other assertions of
the Pittite may be met with the counter-assertion, that
the Preface contains neither " metaphysical jargon,"
"unphilosophical sentimentality," nor " wire-drawn ar
gumentation," but expresses in clear language, and
illustrates, I think, with some eloquence, the simple but
not uninteresting psychological fact, that the wilder
and more extravagant a satire appears, the more it
contains of devious irrelevant fancy, and the less of
individual application, or any attempt to give an air of
reality and truth of fact to the representation, the less
harm it does and the less of deliberate malice it shews.12

11 Poet Works. vol. i. p. 275. The next sentence shews im

pliedly that palliation is the writer's aim. See also p. 280.
12 Mere outward marks for the identifying of the object, as
'letters four do form his name," are distinct from individual
izing features of mind.
The admirer of Mr. Pitt, who is so dissatisfied with the Apo
 and the Spirit of malicious Libel. clxxxi
Such attacks may indeed be insults, but they are very
seldom injuries, except so far as the one is the other.
Had no one said worse of Mr. Coleridge himself than
that the Old One was sure of him at last, he would
never have complained so bitterly as he sometimes
did of the mischiefs of the tongue. When Mr. Hate
light and Mr. Enmity employ a skilful artist to paint
their enemy's portrait, he does not take a plain like
ness of Satan and put the enemy's name under it ; he
takes the enemy's face as a foundation and superinduces
that of Satan upon it ; there are perhaps few strongly
marked minds that may not, with pains and skill, be
made to assume somewhat of a Satanic aspect. On
these points I think indeed that my Father, upon the
whole, was more sinned against than sinning ; but I
should be far from attempting to vindicate all the con
demnatory parts even of his serious writings. Since
he was laid in the grave there have been vehement
renewals of former attacks upon him ; but if I had not
been called upon to republish his Literary Life per
sonalities of this sort would not have engaged my
thoughts for more than a passing moment. He is at
rest ; no longer to be disquieted by injustice or capa

logetic Preface, is highly displeased because Mr. Coleridge did

not express the deepest contrition for his censures of that mi
nister, without sufficiently considering, that, as Mr. Coleridge's
opinion of the Pitt policy continued pretty much the same
throughout his life, he could not repent of it, to please Mr. Pitt's
devotees ; and that he expressed quite as much regret for, and
disapproval of, his " flame-coloured " language on the subject
as may suffice to satisfy any but partisans and bigots, whom
he never considered it his duty to conciliate. Let them pour
out their streams of " trash," " nonsense," " jargon," " muddy
metaphysics " over his pages ; of the abundance of the head the
mouth speaketh when it speaks at this rate.
1 n
clxxxii Reports of Lovers and Friends

ble of being harmed by it ; "the storms, reproaches

and vilifyings " of this angry world come not nigh his
dwelling. But some willingly hear his voice, as it yet
speaks in his written remains, and will read with plea
sure the following extract from the Aids to Reflection,
66
on the keen and poisoned shafts of the tongue," which
I give in conclusion, as applicable to the subject that
has been discussed, but without intending any parti
cular application whatever.
" The slanders, perchance, may not be altogether
forged or untrue ; they may be the implements, not
the inventions, of malice. But they do not on this
account escape the guilt of detraction. Rather it is
characteristic of the evil spirit in question, to work by
the advantage of real faults ; but these stretched and
aggravated to the utmost. It is not expressible how
deep a wound a tongue sharpened to the work will
give, with no noise and a very little word. This is
the true white gunpowder, which the dreaming pro
jectors of silent mischiefs and insensible poisons sought
for in the laboratories of art and nature, in a world of
good ; but which was to be found in its most destruc
tive form, in " the World of Evil, the Tongue."1

I have heard it said that the lives and characters of

men ought never to be handled by near relations and
friends, whose pride and partial affection are sure to
corrupt their testimony. This is like saying that
animal food should never come to table because it is
liable, in warm weather, to become tainted ; reports of

13 Edit. 5. vol . i. p. 78.

 the best Materials for Biography. clxxxiii
friends and relations are the flesh diet of the Bio
graphical Muse, whereby she is kept in health and
strength ; without them her form would become at
tenuated and her complexion sallow and wan. Con
temporary biography can only proceed either from
friends, from enemies, or from indifferent persons ; the
last class may be the most unbiassed in their testi
mony, but for the most part they have little testimony
to give ; they know nothing and care nothing about
him whose life is to be recorded, till the task of writing
it falls into their hands. It should be remembered too
that a man's enemies,-(and it is wonderful how many
enemies men of mark are sure to acquire-among the
vulgar-minded, who hate genius, for its own sake,
while they envy its outward rewards-among the high
minded and strong-headed, who are in violent anta
gonism to an individual genius through the bent of
their own,)—that these will give their testimony against
him gratuitously, and that unconcerned persons will
adopt it for mere amusement's sake, -will carelessly
repeat the severest judgments, insensible as the " two
handed engine " itself, that cares not whether it de
scends upon a reprobate or a royal martyr. The tes
timony of friends is needed, if only to balance that
of adversaries ; and indeed what better grounds for
judging of a man's character, upon the whole, can the
world have, than the impression it has made on those
who have come the nearest to him, and known him the
longest and the best ? I, for my part, have not striven
to conceal any of my natural partialities, or to separate
my love of my Father from my moral and intellectual
sympathy with his mode of thought. I have endea
voured to give the genuine impressions of my mind
respecting him, believing that if reporters will but be
clxxxiv Blindness of Love denied.

honest, and study to say that and that alone, which

they really think and feel, the colour, which their opi
nions and feelings may cast upon the subject they have
to treat of, will not finally obscure the truth. Of this
I am sure, that no one ever studied my Father's writ
ings earnestly and so as to imbibe the author's spirit,
who did not learn to care still more for Truth than for
him, whatever interest in him such a study may have
inspired.
These few lines are an attempt to bring out a senti
ment, which my Father once expressed to me on the
common saying that " Love is blind."
Passion is blind not Love : her wond'rous might
Informs with three-fold pow'r man's inward sight :
To her deep glance the soul at large display'd
Shews all its mingled mass of light and shade :—
Men call her blind when she but turns her head,
Nor scans the fault for which her tears are shed.
Can dull Indifference or Hate's troubled gaze
See through the secret heart's mysterious maze ?—
Can Scorn and Envy pierce that " dread abode,"
Where true faults rest beneath the eye of God?
Not their's, 'mid inward darkness, to discern
The spiritual splendours how they shine and burn.
All bright endowments of a noble mind
They, who with joy behold them , soonest find ;
And better none its stains of frailty know
Than they who fain would see it white as snow.

OMISSA.
66
principles in no danger of being exag
gerated." Introd . p. xliv. Principles cannot go too far,
because they have the boundless realm of spirit to move in :
manifestations,-thoughts, words, deeds, (for thoughts are
manifestations to the mind of the subject,)- are in that other
kingdom of Space and Time, which is essentially limited ;
 Omissa. clxxxv

and hence they may exceed in degree, even if they correspond

to what is right. We cannot really possess any virtue in
excess. Rashness, for example, is not exaggerated courage ;
it is courage unattended by good sense, consequently wrong
in the mode, and possibly extreme in the measure, of its
manifestations ; and the same may be said of every vice
which appears to be the wrong side of a virtue ; it is a vice,
not from intensity of degree, but from the want of true dis
cernment and just feeling, quoad hoc, in the subject. For
surely the prodigal giver is not more liberal than the gene
rous man ; neither are the rash more courageous than the
truly brave. To be rash is to befool-hardy ; to be prodigal
is to be a spendthrift. The truth is, that the matter of every
virtue and vice is simply indifferent ; it is the form alone
that constitutes it good or evil. The mere natural disposi
tion, which may be called the base of a virtue or a vice, is
neutral ; it becomes good by the direction which it receives
from the Practical Reason ; or evil from the obliquity which
it is sure to assume in the silence of the Divine Light. Com
pare with our 9th and 13th Articles.
"Waterland modernizes Tertullian ." Ib .
p. lxxxviii. Dr. Pusey does the same, I think, when he
argues that the ancient writer could not have separated the
new birth from reception of the Spirit. (Script. Views, pp.
152-4 and Lib. ofthe Fathers, 10, p . 263. ) From T.'s own
language it seems clear enough that he did separate them ;
that he believed the soul to be reformed by water and super
nal virtue first, informed by the Spirit afterwards ; the tene
ment to be prepared before the Divine Tenant entered . His
words are, ( I give Dr. P.'s own translation , only changing
water for waters, as more literal, ) " Thus man, who had
aforetime been in the image of God, will be restored to God
after his likeness, &c. For he receiveth again that Spirit of
God, which he had then received by his breathing upon
him, but had afterwards lost by sin. Not that we obtain
the Holy Spirit in the waters, but being cleansed in the
water, under the Angel, we are prepared for the Holy Spirit."
To make his plain meaning doubly plain he adds, " For
thus was John aforetime the forerunner of the Lord , pre
paring his way." I do not forget that, in those days,
Anointing and Imposition of hands were immediate adjuncts
of Baptism, and T. affirms that in them " the Spirit descends
upon the flesh ;" but to call them parts of Baptism, is surely
to use a deceptive phrase ; if they were component parts, the
clxxxvi Omissa.

Church could not have detached them from that which they
helped to constitute ; they are either distinct sacraments or
no sacraments, in the higher sense here in question, at all.
On this and other points Tertullian's doctrine of baptism
differs essentially, as it seems to me, from that which is now
set forth as the doctrine of the Fathers,-which was the doc
trine of some of them. True it is, that such a separation of
ideas as I have ascribed to Tertullian, argues an utter want
of metaphysical insight into the ideas themselves ; but I be
lieve that in the early times of Christianity there was this
want of insight in Christian writers ; Hermas, the inspired
Shepherd, as Irenæus and others then thought him, separates
ideas still more strangely, and his strange separation seems
to be adopted by Clemens Alexandrinus ! (Hefele's edit.
p. 224. with extract in note from Strom. II . p. 452.)
"tacit establishment." Ib . p. c. I mean
silent as to its coincidence with Luther's doctrine. But Mr.
N. expressly admits that Luther is " inthe right " with regard
to " the exact and philosophical relation of justification to
sanctification," and " prefers" his statement scientifically
considered, to that of St. Austin ; Luther himself considered
St. Augustine to be substantially of his mind in the matter.
See Table Talk, p. 211. Truly as now Mr. N. teaches a
" rationalistic Romanism," so formerly he taught a Lu
therano-Anglicanism : he never has succeeded in blinding
his mind's eye to one whole side of truth . His literary
genius and intellectual power are as apparent in his last work
as ever ; but it is one thing to walk in the high road, and
quite another to make paths in an untrodden territory.
"faith justifies before and without cha
rity.' Ib. cxiv. In Gal. ii. 16, the grace, charity, is so
connected with deeds of charity, bona opera, that it is not easy
to tell, from the author's mere words, whether he meant the
former by itself, or as incarnated in the latter, when he says,
hæc fides sine et ante charitatem justificat. But even if he
meant that faith justifies before the inward grace of charity,
this is but asserting that priority of faith, in the order of
thought, which the mind cannot reject, which is involved
in the Tridentine saying, that faith is the root of all justifica
tion; for the root is before the stem and branches. Faith
justifies before outward charity in time ; before inward cha
rity in order of nature. Mr. Newman asks, in reference to
Melancthon's and Calvin's statements on this point, " what
 Omissa. clxxxvii

is the difference between saying, that faith is not justifying

unless love or holiness be with it, or with Bellarmine that it is
not so, unless love be in it ? " Answer, none at all, if in be
taken merely to denote the relative situation of love and
faith in the human mind. But that is not the point ; the
point is, does the justifying power belong to faith, as faith,
or does love help it to justify? By denying that faith is in
formed with charity, Luther only meant to deny that it is
rendered justifying by charity. Mr. N. himself teaches that
faith has the exclusive privilege of connecting the soul with
Christ, and thus implicitly denies, that love is in it for the
purpose of such connection ; while to works he seems to
ascribe another sort of justifying power. What Luther
meant to insist upon is, that it is the apprehension of Christ
that justifies rather than any quality of the mind considered
as such.
"substituted for general renovation ." Ib.
p. cx. Mr. Ward holds it a sure sign of moral corruptness
in Luther's doctrine of faith that it is proposed as affording
relief to the conscience . But how does it propose this ? By
deadening the conscience ? No but by giving it rest. He
giveth his beloved rest ; but they must be His beloved who
can obtain this rest, according to Luther. It proposes to
relieve the conscience by substituting simple faith in Christ
as the means and instrument ofjustification, which includes
righteousness and spiritual peace, for outward works of pe
nance as the preparatory means. His opponents affirm that
such performances are the way to true Faith ; but this Luther
denied ; he thought that men might go on all their lives
obeying a priest's prescriptions, yet never turn to God with
their whole heart and soul, but be kept walking to and fro in
a vain shadow ; he saw too that spiritual physicians often
acted selfishly, making a worldly profit of the means without
the least real desire to promote the end, or render the patient
independent of their costly services ; that they even hid the
Gospel, lest men should see by its light how, under God ,
to heal themselves. He denounced the whole system not
merely as liable to corruption, but as certainly, in the long
run, involving it, being based on untruth and mere human
policy. The cross of the Christian profession, in the Bible,
is wrapped up in Christian duty strictly performed ; the
Papist makes a separate thing of it, and thus converts it into
an engine of superstition .
 So wenig er auch bestimmt seyn mag, andere zu belehren, so
wünscht er doch sich denen mitzutheilen , die er sich gleichgesinnt
weiss, (oder hofft, ) deren Anzahl aber in der Breite der Welt zer
streut ist ; er wünscht sein Verhältniss zu den áltesten Freunden
dadurch wieder anzuknüpfen, mit neuen es fortzusetzen, und in der
letzen Generation sich wieder andere für seine übrige Lebenszeit zu
gewinnen. Er wünscht der Jugend die Umwege zu ersparen, auf
denen er sich selbst verirrte.
(Goethe. Einleitung in die Propyläen.)

TRANSLATION. Little call as he may have to instruct others,

he wishes nevertheless to open out his heart to such as he
either knows or hopes to be of like mind with himself, but who
are widely scattered in the world : he wishes to knit anew his
connections with his oldest friends, to continue those recently
formed, and to win other friends among the rising generation
for the remaining course of his life . He wishes to spare the
young those circuitous paths, on which he himself had lost his
way.
 Cam

BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA.

CHAPTER I.

Motives to the present work- Reception of the Au

thor's first publication -Discipline of his taste at
school-Effect of contemporary writers on youth
ful minds- Bowles's Sonnets- Comparison be
tween the poets before and since Pope.

T has been my lot to have had my name

introduced both in conversation, and in
print, more frequently than I find it easy
T to explain, whether I consider the few
ness, unimportance, and limited circula
tion of my writings, or the retirement and distance, in
which I have lived, both from the literary and political
world. Most often it has been connected with some
charge which I could not acknowledge, or some prin
ciple which I had never entertained. Nevertheless,
had I had no other motive or incitement, the reader
would not have been troubled with this exculpation.
What my additional purposes were, will be seen in the
following pages. It will be found, that the least of
what I have written concerns myself personally. I
have used the narration chiefly for the purpose of giv
1 B
2 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA .

ing a continuity to the work, in part for the sake of

the miscellaneous reflections suggested to me by par
ticular events, but still more as introductory to a state
ment of my principles in Politics, Religion, and Philo
sophy, and an application of the rules, deduced from
philosophical principles, to poetry and criticism. But
of the objects, which I proposed to myself, it was not
the least important to effect, as far as possible, a set
tlement of the long continued controversy concerning
the true nature of poetic diction ; and at the same time
to define with the utmost impartiality the real poetic
character of the poet, by whose writings this contro
versy was first kindled, and has been since fuelled and
fanned.¹
In the spring of 1796, when I had but little passed
the verge of manhood, I published a small volume of
juvenile poems.2 They were received with a degree
of favour, which, young as I was, I well know was be
stowed on them not so much for any positive merit,

1 [The first volume of the Lyrical Ballads was published in

the summer of 1798, by Mr. Joseph Cottle, of Bristol, who pur
chased the copyright for thirty guineas. That copyright was
afterwards transferred with others to Messrs Longman and Co.
And it is related by Mr. Cottle, that in estimating the value
the Lyrical Ballads were reckoned as nothing by the head of
that firm. This copyright was subsequently given back to Mr.
Cottle, and by him restored to Mr. Wordsworth. Would that
he and his might hold it for ever !
The second volume, with Mr. Wordsworth's Preface, appear
ed in 1800. Ed .]
2 [This volume was published by Mr. Cottle at Bristol in the
Spring of 1796, in conjunction with the Messrs . Robinson in
London. It contained fifty-one small pieces, of which the best
known at the present day are the Religious Musings, Monody
on Chatterton, Song of the Pixies, and the exquisite lines writ
ten at Clevedon, beginning, " My pensive Sara, &c." To this
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 3
as because they were considered buds of hope, and
promises of better works to come. The critics of that
day, the most flattering, equally with the severest, con
curred in objecting to them obscurity, a general tur
gidness of diction, and a profusion of new coined dou
ble epithets. The first is the fault which a writer is
the least able to detect in his own compositions : and
my mind was not then sufficiently disciplined to receive
the authority of others, as a substitute for my own
conviction. Satisfied that the thoughts, such as they
were, could not have been expressed otherwise, or at
least more perspicuously, I forgot to inquire, whether
the thoughts themselves did not demand a degree of
attention unsuitable to the nature and objects of poe
try. This remark however applies chiefly, though not
exclusively, to the Religious Musings. The remain
der of the charge I admitted to its full extent, and not
without sincere acknowledgments both to my private
and public censors for their friendly admonitions. In

poem Mr. Coleridge many years afterwards added the magnifi

cent passage
the one life within us and abroad,
*
and the mute still air
Is Music slumbering on her instrument.
Poet. Works, I. p. 191 .
He was then twenty-three years and a half old . Ed . ]
3 The authority of Milton and Shakespeare may be usefully
pointed out to young authors. In the Comus and other early
poems ofMilton there a superfluity of double epithets ; while
in the Paradise Lost we find very few, in the Paradise Regained
scarce any. The same remark holds almost equally true ofthe
Love's Labour Lost, Romeo and Juliet, Venus and Adonis, and
Lucrece, compared with the Lear, Macbeth, Othello, and Ham
let of our great Dramatist. The rule for the admission of dou
4 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA.

the after editions, I pruned the double epithets with

no sparing hand, and used my best efforts to tame the
swell and glitter both of thought and diction ; though
in truth, these parasite plants of youthful poetry had
insinuated themselves into my longer poems with such

ble epithets seems to be this : either that they should be already

denizens of our language, such as blood-stained, terror-stricken,
self-applauding: or when a new epithet, or one found in books
only, is hazarded, that it, at least, be one word, not two words
made one by mere virtue of the printer's hyphen. A language
which, like the English, is almost without cases, is indeed in
its very genius unfitted for compounds. If a writer, every time
a compounded word suggests itself to him, would seek for some
other mode of expressing the same sense, the chances are always
greatly in favour of his finding a better word. Ut tanquam sco
pulum sic fugias insolens verbum, is the wise advice of Cæsar to
the Roman Orators,* and the precept applies with double force
to the writers in our own language. But it must not be forgot
ten, that the same Cæsar wrote a Treatiset for the purpose of
reforming the ordinary language by bringing it to a greater ac
cordance with the principles of logic or universal grammar.
4 [The second edition appeared in May 1797 with the same
publishers' names. Upwards of twenty ofthe pieces contained
in the first edition were omitted in this, and ten new poems
were added. Amongst these latter were the Dedication to his
brother, the Reverend George Coleridge, the Ode on the De
parting Year, and the Reflections on having left a place of
Retirement. (Poet. Works, I.) The volume comprised poems
by Lamb and Lloyd , and on the title page was printed the pro
phetic aspiration : -Duplex nobis vinculum, et amicitiæ juncta
rumque Camanarum ; —quod utinam neque mors solvat ; neque
temporis longinquitas ! Ed.]

* [The expression is so given by A. Gellius (Noct. Att. I.

10) . Macrobius says, infrequens atque insolens verbum. (Saturn .
I. 5. ) Ed . ]
+ [De Analogia Libri duo, the first of which contained the
precept above mentioned. Ed.]
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA . 5
intricacy of union, that I was often obliged to omit
disentangling the weed, from the fear of snapping the
flower. From that period to the date of the present
work I have published nothing, with my name, which
could by any possibility have come before the board of
anonymous criticism . Even the three or four poems,
printed with the works of a friend, as far as they were
censured at all, were charged with the same or similar
defects, (though I am persuaded not with equal jus
tice),— with an excess of ornament, in addition to strain
ed and elaborate diction. I must be permitted to add,
that, even at the early period of my juvenile poems, I
saw and admitted the superiority of an austerer and
more natural style, with an insight not less clear, than
I at present possess. My judgment was stronger than
were my powers of realizing its dictates ; and the faults
of my language, though indeed partly owing to a wrong
choice of subjects, and the desire of giving a poetic

5 [This is certainly not strictly accurate, if the date of the

publication of the Biographia ( 1817) be taken as the period
intended. The Remorse appeared in 1813 , and Christabel in
1816. Zapolya, the two Lay Sermons, and the Sibylline Leaves,
all came out nearly contemporaneously with this work. I be
lieve the fact to be, that Mr. Coleridge wrote the passage in
the text several years before 1817 , and never observed the mis
statement which lapse of time had caused at the date of publi
cation. The first Essays of The Friend, indeed, came out in
1809 ; but he probably did not consider them as constituting a
published work in the ordinary sense of the term. Ed. ]
6 See the criticisms on the Ancient Mariner, in the Monthly
and Critical Reviews ofthe first volume ofthe Lyrical Ballads *

* [The first volume of the Lyrical Ballads contained The

Ancient Mariner, Love, The Nightingale, and The Foster Mo
ther's Tale. Ed . ]
6 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA.

colouring to abstract and metaphysical truths, in which

a new world then seemed to open upon me, did yet, in
part likewise, originate in unfeigned diffidence of my
own comparative talent. —During several years of my
youth and early manhood, I reverenced those who had
re-introduced the manly simplicity of the Greek, and
of our own elder poets, with such enthusiasm as made
the hope seem presumptuous of writing successfully in
the same style. Perhaps a similar process has hap
pened to others ; but my earliest poems were marked
by an ease and simplicity, which I have studied, per
haps with inferior success, to impress on my later com
positions .
At school, ( Christ's Hospital, ) I enjoyed the inesti
mable advantage of a very sensible, though at the same
time, a very severe master, the Reverend James Bow
yer. He early moulded my taste to the preference of
Demosthenes to Cicero, of Homer and Theocritus to
Virgil, and again of Virgil to Ovid. He habituated
me to compare Lucretius, (in such extracts as I then
read, ) Terence, and above all the chaster poems of
Catullus, not only with the Roman poets of the, so
called, silver and brazen ages ; but with even those of
the Augustan æra : and on grounds of plain sense and
universal logic to see and assert the superiority of the
former in the truth and nativeness both of their
thoughts and diction. At the same time that we
were studying the Greek tragic poets, he made us read
Shakespeare and Milton as lessons : and they were
the lessons too, which required most time and trouble
to bring up, so as to escape his censure. I learned

7 [See the Table Talk, p. 185, 2nd edit. and Lamb's ex

quisite Essay, Christ's Hospital five and thirty years ago. Prose
Works, II . p. 26. Ed. ]
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 7
from him, that poetry, even that of the loftiest and,
seemingly, that of the wildest odes, had a logic of its 1
own, as severe as that of science ; and more difficult,
because more subtle, more complex, and dependent on
more, and more fugitive causes. In the truly great
< sú
poets, he would say, there is a reason assignable, not
only for every word, but for the position of every
word ; and I well remember that, availing himself of
the synonymes to the Homer of Didymus, he made us
attempt to show, with regard to each, why it would not
have answered the same purpose ; and wherein con
sisted the peculiar fitness of the word in the original
text.
In our own English compositions, (at least for the
last three years of our school education, ) he showed no
mercy to phrase, metaphor, or image, unsupported by
a sound sense, or where the same sense might have
been conveyed with equal force and dignity in plainer
words. Lute, harp, and lyre, Muse, Muses, and in
spirations, Pegasus, Parnassus, and Hippocrene
were all an abomination to him . In fancy I can
almost hear him now, exclaiming " Harp ? Harp ?
" Lyre ? Pen and ink, boy, you mean ! Muse, boy,
Muse ? Your nurse's daughter, you mean ! Pierian
spring ? Oh aye ! the cloister-pump, I suppose ! "
Nay certain introductions, similes, and examples, were
placed by name on a list of interdiction. Among the
similes, there was, I remember, that of the manchineel
fruit, as suiting equally well with too many subjects ;

8 This is worthy of ranking as a maxim, (regula maxima, ) of

criticism. Whatever is translatable in other and simpler words
of the same language, without loss of sense or dignity, is bad.
N. B. By dignity I mean the absence of ludicrous and debas
ng associations.
8 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA .

in which however it yielded the palm at once to the

example of Alexander and Clytus, which was equally
good and apt, whatever might be the theme. Was it
ambition ? Alexander and Clytus !-Flattery ? Alex
ander and Clytus ! -Anger-drunkenness - pride
friendship- ingratitude -late repentance ? Still, still
Alexander and Clytus ! At length, the praises of agri
culture having been exemplified in the sagacious obser
vation that, had Alexander been holding the plough, he
would not have run his friend Clytus through with a
spear, this tried, and serviceable old friend was ba
nished by public edict in sæcula sæculorum. I have
sometimes ventured to think, that a list of this kind,
or an index expurgatorius of certain well known and
ever returning phrases, both introductory, and transi
tional, including a large assortment of modest ego
isms, and flattering illeisms, and the like, might be
hung up in our Law-courts, and both Houses of Par
liament, with great advantage to the public, as an
important saving of national time, an incalculable
relief to his Majesty's ministers, but above all, as in
suring the thanks of country attornies, and their
clients, who have private bills to carry through the
House.
Be this as it may, there was one custom of our mas
ter's, which I cannot pass over in silence, because I
think it imitable and worthy of imitation . He would

9 [" This lecture he enriched with many valuable quotations

from the ancients, particularly from Seneca ; who hath, indeed,
so well handled this passion , that none but a very angry man
can read him without great pleasure and profit. The Doctor
concluded his harangue with the famous story ofAlexander and
Clytus ; but, as I find that entered in my Common-place under
title Drunkenness, I shall not insert it here." The History of a
Foundling, by Henry Fielding, Book vi . chap. ix. Ed . ]
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 9

often permit our exercises, under some pretext of want

of time, to accumulate, till each lad had four or five to
be looked over. Then placing the whole number
abreast on his desk, he would ask the writer, why this
or that sentence might not have found as appropriate
a place under this or that other thesis : and if no sa
tisfying answer could be returned, and two faults of
the same kind were found in one exercise, the irre
vocable verdict followed, the exercise was torn up, and
another on the same subject to be produced, in addi
tion to the tasks of the day. The reader will, I trust,
excuse this tribute of recollection to a man, whose
severities, even now, not seldom furnish the dreams ,
by which the blind fancy would fain interpret to the
mind the painful sensations of distempered sleep ; but
neither lessen nor dim the deep sense of my moral
and intellectual obligations. He sent us to the Uni
versity excellent Latin and Greek scholars, and tolera
ble Hebraists. Yet our classical knowledge was the
least of the good gifts, which we derived from his
zealous and conscientious tutorage. He is now gone
to his final reward, full of years, and full of honours,
even of those honours, which were dearest to his
heart, as gratefully bestowed by that school, and still
binding him to the interests of that school, in which he
had been himself educated, and to which during his
whole life he was a dedicated thing.
From causes, which this is not the place to investi
gate, no models of past times, however perfect, can
have the same vivid effect on the youthful mind, as
the productions of contemporary genius. The disci
pline, my mind had undergone, Ne falleretur rotundo
sono et versuum cursu, cincinnis, et floribus ; sed ut
inspiceret quidnam subesset, quæ sedes, quodfirma
mentum, quisfundus verbis ; an figuræ essent mera
 1

IO BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA.

ornatura et orationis fucus ; vel sanguinis e materiæ

ipsius corde effluentis rubor quidam nativus et inca
lescentia genuina ; 10-removed all obstacles to the
appreciation of excellence in style without diminishing
my delight. That I was thus prepared for the perusal
of Mr. Bowles's sonnets and earlier poems, at once in
creased their influence, and my enthusiasm . The great
works of past ages seem to a young man things of
another race, in respect to which his faculties must
remain passive and submiss, even as to the stars and
mountains. But the writings of a contemporary , per
haps not many years older than himself, surrounded
by the same circumstances, and disciplined by the same
manners, possess a reality for him, and inspire an ac
tual friendship as of a man for a man. His very ad
miration is the wind which fans and feeds his hope.
The poems themselves assume the properties of flesh
and blood. To recite, to extol, to contend for them
is but the payment of a debt due to one, who exists to
receive it.
There are indeed modes of teaching which have
produced, and are producing, youths of a very different
stamp ; modes of teaching, in comparison with which
we have been called on to despise our great public
schools, and universities,
in whose halls are hung
Armoury of the invincible knights of old- 11
modes, by which children are to be metamorphosed
into prodigies. And prodigies with a vengeance have

10 [I presume this Latin to be Mr. Coleridge's own- not be

ing able to find the passage in any other author, and believing
that incalescentia is a good word not countenanced by any classic
writer of Rome. Ed.]
11 [Wordsworth. Poet. W. III. p . 190. Ed.]
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. II

I known thus produced ;-prodigies of self-conceit,

shallowness, arrogance, and infidelity ! Instead of stor- me
ing the memory, during the period when the memory
is the predominant faculty, with facts for the after ex miche
ercise of the judgment ; and instead of awakening by
the noblest models the fond and unmixed love and ad
miration, which is the natural and graceful temper of
early youth ; these nurslings of improved pedagogy
are taught to dispute and decide ; to suspect all but
their own and their lecturer's wisdom ; and to hold
nothing sacred from their contempt, but their own con
temptible arrogance ;-boy-graduates in all the tech
nicals, and in all the dirty passions and impudence of
anonymous criticism. To such dispositions alone can
the admonition of Pliny be requisite, Neque enim
debet operibus ejus obesse, quod vivit. An si inter
eos, quos nunquam vidimus, floruisset, non solum
libros ejus, verum etiam imagines conquireremus,
ejusdem nunc honor præsentis, et gratia quasi sa
tietate languescet ? At hoc pravum, malignumque
est, non admirari hominem admiratione dignissi
mum, quia videre, complecti, nec laudare tantum,
verum etiam amare contingit.¹2
I had just entered on my seventeenth year, when
the sonnets of Mr. Bowles, twenty in number, and just
then published in a quarto pamphlet, ¹³ were first made
known and presented to me, by a schoolfellow who
had quitted us for the University, and who, during the

12 [Epist. I. p. 16. Ed . ]
13 [The volume here mentioned appears to have been the se
cond edition of Mr. Bowles's Sonnets, published in 1789, and
containing twenty-one in number. The first edition with four
teen sonnets only had been published half a year previously.
Ed.]
'12 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA.

whole time that he was in our first form , (or in our

school language a Grecian, ) had been my patron and
protector. I refer to Dr. Middleton, the truly learned,
and every way excellent Bishop of Calcutta :
qui laudibus amplis
Ingenium celebrare meum, calamumque solebat,
Calcar agens animo validum. Non omnia terræ
Obruta ; vivit amor, vivit dolor ; ora negatur
Dulcia conspicere ; atflere et meminisse relictum est.¹4
It was a double pleasure to me, and still remains a
tender recollection, that I should have received from
a friend so revered the first knowledge of a poet, by
whose works, year after year, I was so enthusiastically
delighted and inspired. My earliest acquaintances will
not have forgotten the undisciplined eagerness and im
petuous zeal, with which I laboured to make prose
lytes, not only of my companions, but of all with whom
I conversed, of whatever rank, and in whatever place.
As my school finances did not permit me to purchase
copies, I made, within less than a year and a half, more
than forty transcriptions, as the best presents I could
offer to those, who had in any way won my regard.
And with almost equal delight did I receive the three
or four following publications of the same author.
Though I have seen and known enough of mankind
to be well aware, that I shall perhaps stand alone in
my creed, and that it will be well, if I subject myself
to no worse charge than that of singularity ; I am not
therefore deterred from avowing, that I regard, and
ever have regarded the obligations of intellect among
the most sacred of the claims of gratitude. A valua

14 [Petrarc. Epist. I. 1. Barbato Subnonensi. Bishop Middle

ton left Christ's Hospital on the 26th of September, 1788, on
having been elected to Pembroke College, Cambridge. Ed . ]
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 13
ble thought, or a particular train of thoughts, gives me
additional pleasure, when I can safely refer and attri
bute it to the conversation or correspondence of another.
My obligations to Mr. Bowles were indeed important,
and for radical good. At a very premature age, even
before my fifteenth year, I had bewildered myself in
metaphysics, and in theological controversy.15 Nothing
else pleased me. History, and particular facts, lost all
interest in my mind. Poetry-(though for a school-boy
of that age, I was above par in English versification,
and had already produced two or three compositions
which, I may venture to say, without reference to my
age, were somewhat above mediocrity, and which had
gained me more credit than the sound, good sense of
my old master was at all pleased with, )—poetry itself,
yea, novels and romances, became insipid to me. In
my friendless wanderings on our leave-days," (for I

15 [" Come back into memory," says Lamb, " like as thou
wast in the day-spring of thy fancies, with hope like a fiery co
lumn before thee-the dark pillar not yet turned- Samuel Taylor
Coleridge. -Logician , Metaphysician, Bard ! -How have I seen
the casual passer through the cloister stand still, intranced with
admiration, (while he weighed the disproportion between the
speech and the gurb of the young Mirandula, ) to hear thee unfold,
in thy deep and sweet intonations, the mysteries of Iamblichus,
of Plotinus (for even in those years thou waxedst not pale at
such philosophic draughts, ) or reciting Homer in his Greek,
or Pindar, —while the walls of the old Grey Friars re- echoed to
the accents of the inspired charity-boy !"
Prose Works, II. p. 46. Ed. ]
16 [See amongst his Juvenile Poems the lines entitled, Time
real and imaginary, (Poet. Works, I. p. 5. ) which is the first
decided indication of his poetic and metaphysical genius toge
ther, and was written in his sixteenth year. Ed .]
17 The Christ's Hospital phrase, not for holidays altogether,
but for those on which the boys are permitted to go beyond the
precincts of the school.
14 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA .

was an orphan , and had scarcely any connections in

London, ) highly was I delighted, if any passenger, es
pecially if he were dressed in black, would enter into
conversation with me. For I soon found the means
of directing it to my favourite subjects
Of providence, fore-knowledge, will, and fate,
Fixed fate, free will , fore-knowledge absolute,
And found no end in wandering mazes lost.

This preposterous pursuit was, beyond doubt, injurious

both to my natural powers, and to the progress of my
education. It would perhaps have been destructive,
had it been continued ; but from this I was auspiciously
withdrawn, partly indeed by an accidental introduction
1
to an amiable family, chiefly however, by the genial in
fluence of a style of poetry, so tender and yet so manly,
so natural and real, and yet so dignified and harmo
nious, as the sonnets and other early poems of Mr.
Bowles. Well would it have been for me, perhaps,
had I never relapsed into the same mental disease ; if
I had continued to pluck the flower and reap the har
vest from the cultivated surface, instead of delving in
the unwholesome quicksilver mines of metaphysic lore.
And if in after time I have sought a refuge from bo
dily pain and mismanaged sensibility in abstruse re
searches, which exercised the strength and subtilty of
the understanding without awakening the feelings of
the heart ; still there was a long and blessed interval,
during which my natural faculties were allowed to ex
pand, and my original tendencies to develope them
selves ;-my fancy, and the love of nature, and the
sense of beauty in forms and sounds.18

18 [For not to think of what I needs must feel,

But to be still and patient, all I can ;
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 15

The second advantage, which I owe to my early pe

And haply by abstruse research to steal

From my own nature all the natural man
This was my sole resource, my only plan :
Till that which suits a part infects the whole,
And now is almost grown the habit of my soul.
Poet. Works, I. p. 238.
The passage in the text has been more than once cited by those
who cite nothing else from the writings of Coleridge, as warning
authority against the pursuit of metaphysic science. With what
candour or good sense let those judge, who know and appreciate
the persistent labour of his life, and recollect that all the great
verities of religion are ideas, the practical apprehension of, and
faith in, which have in every age of the Church been, as from
the constitution of the human mind they must necessarily be, vi
tally affected by the metaphysic systems from time to time pre
vailing. It is indeed to be observed that those who are so zea
lous in decrying metaphysic, and more especially psychological
investigations, and spend entire sermons in reasoning against
reason, have nevertheless invariably a particular system of me
taphysics and even of psychology of their own, which they will
as little surrender as examine. And what system ?- In nine
cases out of ten, a patchwork of empirical positions, known his
torically to be directly repugnant to the principles maintained
as well by the Reformers as the Fathers of the Catholic Church,
and leading legitimately to conclusions subversive of the fun
damental articles of the Christian faith . That those conclu
sions indeed have not been able to obtain a fixed footing within
our Church as they have long since done, to a fearful extent
elsewhere, is, under God's providence, mainly attributable to the
reading of the Liturgy and Scriptures in the ears of the people.
Yet who will not tremble at the dilemma in the case of an indi
vidual clergyman, who either sees the contrariety between his
philosophical and religious creeds, and continues to hold both,
or not seeing it, is at the mercy of the first Socinian reasoner
who helps him to perceive it?
This vulgar scorn of the science of the human mind, its pow
ers, capacities, and objects, as an essential part or fore-ground
of the science of theology, is to be found passim in the written
and oral teaching of those who, to use a confessedly inaccurate
 16 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA.

rusal, and admiration of these poems, ( to which let me

but very significant phrase, lead the Calvinistic and Arminian

parties within the Church in England. To the former it seems
more natural in respect of their being, upon the whole, men of
lower education, meaner attainments and more limited abilities :
-in the latter, and especially in the most eminent of the latter,
it is selfcontradiction, and has the appearance, to calm observers,
of mere wilfulness. For in the perusal of the many eloquent vo
lumes which have proceeded of late years from the latter, there
may be found metaphysic and even psychological arguments,
which shew a knowledge of Aristotle, and also- quod minime re
ris-an acquaintance with Coleridge,-the last, however, with
out recognition by name, and speedily atoned for in a following
page by some religious dehortation , or sullen dogma of contrary
import. It is evident, therefore, that the particular system is
the object of dislike . Would it not be more agreeable to the
sincerity of lovers of truth, and to the courtesy of men of letters,
to meet, cominend , or censure, adopt or reject, what stands in
their path in a perfectly questionable shape, than to pass by on
the other side in affected ignorance or contempt ? Can the Aids
to Reflection be honestly pretermitted by a divine of this day, or
ought the only use made of it by a gentleman to be—to borrow
from it without acknowledgment ?-But it is a true saying, that
they who begin by loving Christianity better than truth , will
proceed by loving their own sect or church better than Christi
anity, and end in loving themselves better than all.
This is something of a digression , but it is needed .
It can hardly be necessary to remark, that Mr. Coleridge is
only speaking relatively to his youth, and his vocation as a poet,
and the proportion which metaphysical studies should bear in a
well ordered education to the exercise of the imagination , and
the observation of external nature. Something also was, no
doubt, intended against particular books and lines of research,
which, in his almost limitless range, he had perused or followed.
There are unwholesome books in metaphysics as there are in
divinity and romance, but not so many or so injurious by half;
and it is just as wise to proscribe the former on account of Spi
nóza or Hume, as it would be to prohibit the latter for Socinus
or Paul de Kock. No man could be a great metaphysician , or
make an epoch in the history of the science, without an acquain
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 17

add, though known to me at a somewhat later period,

the Lewesdon Hill of Mr. Crowe 19 bears more imme
diately on my present subject. Among those with
whom I conversed, there were, of course, very many
who had formed their taste, and their notions of poetry,
from the writings of Pope and his followers ; or to
speak more generally, in that school of French poetry,
condensed and invigorated by English understanding,
which had predominated from the last century. I was
not blind to the merits of this school, yet, as from in
experience of the world, and consequent want of sym
pathy with the general subjects of these poems, they
gave me little pleasure, I doubtless undervalued the
kind, and with the presumption of youth withheld from
its masters the legitimate name of poets . I saw that
the excellence of this kind consisted in just and acute
observations on men and manners in an artificial state
of society, as its matter and substance ; and in the lo
gic of wit, conveyed in smooth and strong epigram
matic couplets, as its form : that even when the sub
ject was addressed to the fancy, or the intellect, as in
the Rape of the Lock, or the Essay on Man ; nay, when
it was a consecutive narration, as in that astonishing
product of matchless talent and ingenuity, Pope's Trans
lation of the Iliad ; still a point was looked for at the

tance as extensive as Mr. C's with all that had been done or
attempted before him ; but such a course is not more necessary
to the education of the mind in general, to which the elements
of metaphysic knowledge are essential, than five years' attend
ance at the State Paper Office to the accomplishment of a gen
tleman in the history of England ; and it may perhaps be admitted
that the philosophic spell which overmastered Coleridge's ad
vancing manhood for ever slacked the strings of the enchanting
lyre of his youth. But on this we can only speculate. Ed. ]
19 [Lewesdon Hill was first published in 1786 ; there was a
second edition in 1788, and a third in 1804. Ed.]
1 C
18 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA.
end of each second line, and the whole was, as it were,
a sorites, or, if I may exchange a logical for a gram
matical metaphor, a conjunction disjunctive, of epi
grams . Meantime the matter and diction seemed to
me characterized not so much by poetic thoughts, as
by thoughts translated into the language of poetry.
On this last point, I had occasion to render my own
thoughts gradually more and more plain to myself, by
frequent amicable disputes concerning Darwin's Bota
nic Garden,20 which, for some years, was greatly extolled,
not only by the reading public in general, but even by
those, whose genius and natural robustness of under
standing enabled them afterwards to act foremost in
dissipating these " painted mists " that occasionally
rise from the marshes at the foot of Parnassus. During
my first Cambridge vacation," I assisted a friend in a
contribution for a literary society in Devonshire : and
in this I remember to have compared Darwin's work
to the Russian palace of ice, glittering, cold and tran
sitory. In the same essay too,22 I assigned sundry rea
sons, chiefly drawn from a comparison of passages in
the Latin poets with the original Greek, from which
they were borrowed, for the preference of Collins's odes
to those of Gray ; and of the simile in Shakespeare
How like a younker or a prodigal,
The scarfed bark puts from her native bay,
Hugg'd and embraced by the strumpet wind !
How like the prodigal doth she return,
With over-weather'd ribs and ragged sails ,

20 [The Botanic Garden was published in 1781. Ed .]

21 [ Mr. Coleridge entered at Jesus College, Cambridge, on
the 5th of February , 1791. Ed .]
22 [I have never been able to discover any traces of this essay,
which I presume was not printed. Ed.]
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 19
Lean, rent, and beggar'd by the strumpet wind !
(Merch. of Ven. Act II. sc. 6. )
to the imitation in the Bard ;
Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows
While proudly riding o'er the azure realm
In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes,
Youth at the prow and pleasure at the helm ;
Regardless ofthe sweeping whirlwind's sway,
That hush'd in grim repose, expects it's evening prey.

(in which, by the bye, the words " realm " and " sway "
are rhymes dearly purchased)-I preferred the original
on the ground, that in the imitation it depended wholly
on the compositor's putting, or not putting, a small ca
pital, both in this, and in many other passages of the
same poet, whether the words should be personifica
tions, or mere abstractions. I mention this, because,
in referring various lines in Gray to their original in
Shakespeare and Milton, and in the clear perception
how completely all the propriety was lost in the trans
fer, I was, at that early period, led to a conjecture,
which, many years afterwards was recalled to me from
the same thought having been started in conversation,
but far more ably, and developed more fully, by Mr.
Wordsworth ;-namely, that this style of poetry, which
I have characterized above, as translations of prose
thoughts into poetic language, had been kept up by, if
it did not wholly arise from, the custom of writing La
tin verses, and the great importance attached to these
exercises, in our public schools. Whatever might have
been the case in the fifteenth century, when the use of
the Latin tongue was so general among learned men,
that Erasmus is said to have forgotten his native lan
guage ; yet in the present day it is not to be supposed,
that a youth can think in Latin, or that he can have
any other reliance on the force or fitness of his phrases,
20 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA.

but the authority of the writer from whom he has a

dopted them. Consequently he must first prepare his
thoughts, and then pick out, from Virgil, Horace, Ovid,
or perhaps more compendiously from his Gradus,23
halves and quarters of lines, in which to embody them.24
I never object to a certain degree of disputatious

23 [In the Rusticus of Politian* there occurs this line :

Pura coloratos interstrepit unda lapillos.
Casting my eye on a University prize-poem, I met this line,
Lactea purpureos interstrepit unda lapillos.
Now look out in the Gradus for purus, and you find as the
first synonime, lacteus ; for coloratus, and the first synonime is
purpureus. I mention this by way of elucidating one ofthe most
ordinary processes in the ferrumination of these centos.]
24 [The description in the text may betrue of those who never
in any proper sense succeed in writing Latin verse. But the
experience of many scholars in England, amongst boys, would
enable them with sincerity to deny its universal application .
The chief direct use of the practice of Latin verse composition
consists in the mastery which it gives over the vocabulary
and constructive powers of the language. But it is, perhaps,
greatly to be regretted that spoken and written Latin has to
so great a degree ceased to be a mean of communication be
tween liberally educated Europeans. The pretence that the
extended knowledge of modern languages is an adequate substi
tute, is in five cases out of ten generally, and in the pre- eminent
instances of Germany and England , in three out of four, noto
riously untrue. Mere school editions of the Classics may pro
perly enough be accompanied with notes in a modern language,
but every work designed for the promotion of scholarship gene
rally ought, by literary comity, to be published in a language
which every scholar can read. This remark does not touch the
question of dictionaries ; as to which nothing but necessity can
justify the ordinary use of any interpretation but into the native
idiom of the student. Ed.]

* Angelus Politianus was born July 14, 1454, at Monte Pul

ciano in Tuscany ; died at Florence, Sept. 24, 1494. The line
quoted is the fourteenth of the Silva cui titulus Rust S. C.
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 21

ness in a young man fromthe age of seventeen to that

of four or five and twenty, provided I find him always
arguing on one side of the question. The controversies,
occasioned by my unfeigned zeal for the honour of a
favourite contemporary, then known to me only by his
works, were of great advantage in the formation and
establishment of my taste and critical opinions. In
my defence of the lines running into each other, in
stead of closing at each couplet ; and of natural lan
guage, neither bookish, nor vulgar, neither redolent of
the lamp, nor of the kennel, such as I will remember
thee ; instead of the same thought tricked up in the
rag-fair finery of,
thy image on her wing
Before my fancy's eye shall memory bring,

I had continually to adduce the metre and diction of

the Greek poets from Homer to Theocritus inclu
sively ; and still more of our elder English poets from
Chaucer to Milton. Nor was this all. But as it was
my constant reply to authorities brought against me
from later poets of great name, that no authority
could avail in opposition to Truth, Nature, Logic, and
the Laws of Universal Grammar ; actuated too by my
former passion for metaphysical investigations ; I la
boured at a solid foundation, on which permanently to
ground my opinions, in the component faculties of the
human mind itself, and their comparative dignity and
importance. According to the faculty or source, from
which the pleasure given by any poem or passage was
derived, I estimated the merit of such poem or pas
sage. As the result of all my reading and meditation, I
abstracted two critical aphorisms, deeming them to
comprise the conditions and criteria of poetic style ;
first, that not the poem which we have read, but that
22 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA.

to which we return, with the greatest pleasure, pos

sesses the genuine power, and claims the name of
essential poetry ;-secondly, that whatever lines can
be translated into other words of the same language,
without diminution of their significance, either in sense
or association, or in any worthy feeling, are so far
vicious in their diction. Be it however observed, that
I excluded from the list of worthy feelings, the plea
sure derived from mere novelty in the reader, and the
desire of exciting wonderment at his powers in the
author. Oftentimes since then, in perusing French
tragedies, I have fancied two marks of admiration at
the end of each line, as hieroglyphics of the author's
own admiration at his own cleverness . Our genuine
admiration of a great poet is a continuous under
current of feeling ; it is every where present, but sel
dom any where as a separate excitement. I was wont
boldly to affirm, that it would be scarcely more dif
ficult to push a stone out from the Pyramids with the
bare hand, than to alter a word, or the position of a
word, in Milton or Shakespeare, (in their most impor
tant works at least, ) without making the poet say
something else, or something worse, than he does say.
One great distinction, I appeared to myself to see
plainly between even the characteristic faults of our
elder poets, and the false beauty of the moderns. In
the former, from Donne to Cowley, we find the most
fantastic out-of-the-way thoughts, but in the most pure
and genuine mother English ; in the latter the most
obvious thoughts, in language the most fantastic and
arbitrary. Our faulty elder poets sacrificed the pas
sion and passionate flow of poetry to the subtleties of
intellect and to the starts of wit ; the moderns to the
glare and glitter of a perpetual, yet broken and hete
rogeneous imagery, or rather to an amphibious some
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 23
thing, made up, half of image, and half of abstract 25
meaning. The one sacrificed the heart to the head ;
the other both heart and head to point and drapery./
The reader must make himself acquainted with the
general style of composition that was at that time
deemed poetry, in order to understand and account
for the effect produced on me by the Sonnets, the
Monody at Matlock, and the Hope, 26 of Mr. Bowles ;
for it is peculiar to original genius to become less and
less striking, in proportion to its success in improving
the taste and judgment of its contemporaries. The
poems of West,27 indeed, had the merit of chaste and
manly diction ; but they were cold, and, if I may so

25 I remember a ludicrous instance in the poem of a young

tradesman :
" No more will I endure love's pleasing pain,
Or round my heart's leg tie his galling chain."
26 [The Monody at Matlock was published in 1791 , and the
Vision of Hope in 1796. Ed.]
27 [Meaning of course, Gilbert West, the Translator of Pin
dar ; to whose merit as a poet, it may be doubted whether the
author does full justice in the text. West's two imitations of
Spenser are excellent, not merely, as Johnson seems to say,
for their ingenuity, but for their fulness of thought and vigour of
expression. The following stanza is but one of many other
passages of equal felicity :—
Custom he hight, and aye in every land
Usurp'd dominion with despotic sway
O'er all he holds ; and to his high command
Constrains e'en stubborn Nature to obey ;
Whom dispossessing oft he doth assay
To govern in her right ; and with a pace
So soft and gentle doth he win his way
That she unwares is caught in his embrace,
And tho' deflower'd and thrall'd noughtfeels herfoul disgrace.
Education . Ed .]
24 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA.
express it, only dead-coloured ; while in the best of
Warton's 28 there is a stiffness, which too often gives
them the appearance of imitations from the Greek.
Whatever relation, therefore, of cause or impulse
Percy's collection of Ballads may bear to the most
popular poems of the present day ; yet in a more sus
tained and elevated style, of the then living poets

28 [Thomas Warton ; whose English poems, taken generally,

seem as inferior to G. West's in correctness of diction as in
strength of conception. Some of his Latin verse is beautiful ;.
and, if he had written nothing else, his epigram addressed to
Sleep would perpetuate his name at least among scholars :
Somne veni ; et quanquam certissima mortis imago es,
Consortem cupio te tamen esse tori.
Huc ades, haud abiture cito : nam sic sine vita
Vivere quam suave est- sic sine morte mori !
A few stray lines of Warton's have crept into familiar use and
application without ever being attributed to their author, such
as :
while with uplifted arm
Death stands prepared , but still delays, to strike.
Ode to Sleep.
O what's a table richly spread
Without a woman at its head !
Progress of Discontent.
Nor rough, nor barren are the winding ways
Of hoar Antiquity, but strown with flowers.
In Dugdale's Monasticon.
Warton's best poem, as a whole, is the Inscription in a Her
mitage :______
Beneath this stony roof reclin'd, &c.
But his great work is the History of English Poesy, imperfect
and inadequate as it is : τὸν τελοῦντα μένει.
It is somewhat remarkable that Mr. C. should not upon this
occasion have mentioned Akenside, and, as compared with
Warton, the beautiful Hymn to the Naiads. Ed .]
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 25
Cowper and Bowles 29 were, to the best of my know
ledge, the first who combined natural thoughts with
natural diction ; the first who reconciled the heart with
the head.
It is true, as I have before mentioned, that from
diffidence in my own powers, I for a short time adopted
a laborious and florid diction , which I myself deemed,
if not absolutely vicious, yet of very inferior worth.
Gradually, however, my practice conformed to my
better judgment ; and the compositions of my twenty
fourth and twenty-fifth years—(for example, the shorter
blank verse poems, the lines, which now form the
middle and conclusion of the poem entitled the Des
tiny of Nations,30 and the tragedy of Remorse) " —are
not more below my present ideal in respect of the
general tissue of the style than those of the latest
date. Their faults were at least a remnant of the

29 Cowper's Task * was published some time before the Son

nets of Mr. Bowles ; but I was not familiar with it till many
years afterwards. The vein of satire which runs through that
excellent poem, together with the sombre hue of its religious
opinions, would probably, at that time, have prevented its lay
ing any strong hold on my affections. The love of nature seems
to have led Thomson to a cheerful religion ; and a gloomy reli
gion to have led Cowper to a love of nature. The one would
carry his fellow-men along with him into nature ; the other flies
to nature from his fellow men. In chastity of diction however,
and the harmony of blank verse, Cowper leaves Thomson im
measurably below him ; yet still I feel the latter to have been
the born poet.
30 [Poet. Works, I. 98. Ed. ]
31 [ Poet. Works, II . 153. Ed. ]

[Cowper's Task was first published in 1785- his Table

Talk in 1782. Ed. Thomson was born in 1700 ; published his
works, collected in 4to, in 1730. The Castle of Indolence, his
last piece, appeared in 1746. S. C. ]
26 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA.

former leaven, and among the many who have done

me the honour of putting my poems in the same class
with those of my betters, the one or two, who have
pretended to bring examples of affected simplicity
from my volume, have been able to adduce but one
instance, and that out of a copy of verses half ludi
crous, half splenetic, which I intended, and had my
self characterized, as sermoni propiora.32
Every reform, however necessary, will by weak
minds be carried to an excess, which will itself need
reforming. The reader will excuse me for noticing,
that I myself was the first to expose risu honesto the
three sins of poetry, one or the other of which is the
most likely to beset a young writer. So long ago as
the publication of the second number of the Monthly
Magazine, under the name of Nehemiah Higginbottom ,
I contributed three sonnets, the first of which had for
its object to excite a good-natured laugh at the spirit
of doleful egotism, and at the recurrence of favourite
phrases, with the double defect of being at once trite
and licentious ;—the second was on low creeping lan
guage and thoughts, under the pretence of simplicity ;
the third, the phrases of which were borrowed en
tirely from my own poems, on the indiscriminate use
of elaborate and swelling language and imagery. The
reader will find them in the note 33 below, and will I

32 [Not meaning of course the exquisite Reflections on hav

ing left a place of Retirement, to which Coleridge himself
affixed the motto from Horace. Poet. Works, I. 193. Ed .]
33 SONNET I.
PENSIVE at eve, on the hard world I mused,
And my poor heart was sad ; so at the Moon
I gazed, and sighed, and sighed ; for ah how soon
Eve saddens into night ! mine eyes perused
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 27

trust regard them as reprinted for biographical pur

poses alone, and not for their poetic merits. So gene
ral at that time, and so decided was the opinion con

With tearful vacancy the dampy grass

That wept and glitter'd in the paly ray :
And I did pause me on my lonely way
And mused me on the wretched ones that pass
O'er the bleak heath of sorrow. But alas !
Most of myself I thought ! when it befel,
That the soothe spirit of the breezy wood
Breath'd in mine ear : " All this is very well ,
But much of one thing, is for no thing good."
Oh my poor heart's inexplicable swell !
SONNET II.
On I do love thee, meek Simplicity !
For of thy lays the lulling simpleness
Goes to my heart, and soothes each small distress,
Distress tho' small, yet haply great to me.
'Tis true on Lady Fortune's gentlest pad
I amble on ; and yet I know not why
So sad I am! but should a friend and I
Frown, pout and part, then I am very sad.
And then with sonnets and with sympathy
My dreamy bosom's mystic woes I pall ;
Now of my false friend plaining plaintively,
Now raving at mankind in general ;
But whether sad or fierce, 'tis simple all,
All very simple, meek Simplicity !
SONNET III.
AND this reft house is that , the which he built,
Lamented Jack ! and here his malt he pil'd,
Cautious in vain ! these rats, that squeak so wild,
Squeak not unconscious of their father's guilt.
Did he not see her gleaming thro' the glade !
Belike 'twas she, the maiden all forlorn.
What tho' she milk no cow with crumpled horn,
Yet, aye she haunts the dale where erst she stray'd :
And aye, beside her stalks her amorous knight !
28. BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA .

cerning the characteristic vices of my style, that a cele

brated physician (now, alas ! no more) speaking of
me in other respects with his usual kindness to a
gentleman, who was about to meet me at a dinner
party, could not however resist giving him a hint not
to mention The house that Jack built in my presence,
for " that I was as sore as a boil about that sonnet ;"
he not knowing that I was myself the author of it.

Still on his thighs their wonted brogues are worn,

And thro' those brogues, still tatter'd and betorn,
His hindward charms gleam an unearthly white.
Ah! thus thro' broken clouds at night's high noon
Peeps in fair fragments forth the full-orb'd harvest-moon !
The following anecdote will not be wholly out of place here,
and may perhaps amuse the reader. An amateur performer in
verse expressed to a common friend a strong desire to be intro
duced to me, but hesitated in accepting my friend's immediate
offer, on the score that " he was, he must acknowledge, the
author of a confounded severe epigram on my Ancient Mariner,
which had given me great pain." I assured my friend that, if
the epigram was a good one, it would only increase my desire
to become acquainted with the author, and begged to hear it
recited when, to my no less surprise than amusement, it proved
to be one which I had myself some time before written and
inserted in the Morning Post, to wit—
To the Author of the Ancient Mariner.
Your poem must eternal be,
Dear sir ! it cannot fail,
For 'tis incomprehensible,
And without head or tail.

T
1
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 29

CHAPTER II.

Supposed irritability of men ofgenius brought to

the test of facts- Causes and occasions of the
charge-Its injustice.

HAVE often thought, that it would be

neither uninstructive nor unamusing to
analyze, and bring forward into distinct
consciousness, that complex feeling, with
which readers in general take part against
the author, in favour of the critic ; and the readiness
with which they apply to all poets the old sarcasm of
Horace upon the scribblers of his time :
genus irritabile vatum .

A debility and dimness of the imaginative power, and

a consequent necessity of reliance on the immediate
impressions of the senses, do, we know well, render
the mind liable to superstition and fanaticism. Hav
ing a deficient portion of internal and proper warmth,
minds of this class seek in the crowd circum fana for
a warmth in common, which they do not possess singly.
Cold and phlegmatic in their own nature, like damp
hay, they heat and inflame by co-acervation ; or like
bees they become restless and irritable through the
increased temperature of collected multitudes. Hence
the German word for fanaticism, ( such at least was its
original import, ) is derived from the swarming of bees,
namely, schwärmen, schwärmerey. The passion being
in an inverse proportion to the insight,—that the more
vivid, as this the less distinct- anger is the inevitable
consequence. The absence of all foundation within
30 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA.

their own minds for that, which they yet believe both
true and indispensable to their safety and happiness,
cannot but produce an uneasy state of feeling, an in
voluntary sense of fear from which nature has no
means of rescuing herself but by anger. Experience
informs us that the first defence of weak minds is to
recriminate.
There's no philosopher but sees,
That rage and fear are one disease ;
Tho' that may burn, and this may freeze,
They're both alike the ague.
But where the ideas are vivid, and there exists an end
less power of combining and modifying them, the feel
ings and affections blend more easily and intimately
with these ideal creations than with the objects of the
senses ; the mind is affected by thoughts, rather than
by things ; and only then feels the requisite interest
even for the most important events and accidents,
when by means of meditation they have passed into
thoughts. The sanity of the mind is between super
stition with fanaticism on the one hand, and enthu
siasm with indifference and a diseased slowness to
action on the other. For the conceptions of the mind
may be so vivid and adequate, as to preclude that im
pulse to the realizing of them, which is strongest and
most restless in those, who possess more than mere
talent, (or the faculty of appropriating and applying
the knowledge of others , ) —yet still want something of
the creative, and self-sufficing power of absolute ge
nius. For this reason therefore, they are men of
commanding genius . While the former rest content
between thought and reality, as it were in an inter
mundium of which their own living spirit supplies the
substance, and their imagination the ever-varying
form ; the latter must impress their preconceptions on
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 31
the world without, in order to present them back to
their own view with the satisfying degree of clearness,
distinctness, and individuality. These in tranquil
times are formed to exhibit a perfect poem in palace,
or temple, or landscape-garden ; or a tale of romance
in canals that join sea with sea, or in walls of rock,
which, shouldering back the billows, imitate the power,
and supply the benevolence of nature to sheltered
navies ; or in aqueducts that, arching the wide vale
from mountain to mountain, give a Palmyra to the
desert. But alas ! in times of tumult they are the
men destined to come forth as the shaping spirit of
ruin, to destroy the wisdom of ages in order to sub
stitute the fancies of a day, and to change kings and
kingdoms, as the wind shifts and shapes the clouds .'
The records of biography seem to confirm this theory.
The men of the greatest genius, as far as we can
judge from their own works or from the accounts of
their contemporaries, appear to have been of calm and
tranquil temper in all that related to themselves. In
the inward assurance of permanent fame, they seem
to have been either indifferent or resigned with regard
to immediate reputation . Through all the works of
Chaucer there reigns a cheerfulness, a manly hilarity,

1 Of old things all are over old ,

Of good things none are good enough :
We'll show that we can help to frame
A world of other stuff.
I too will have my kings, that take
From me the sign of life and death :
Kingdoms shall shift about, like clouds,
Obedient to my breath.
Wordsworth's Rob Roy.*

* Poet. Works. vol. III . p. 127.

32 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA.

which makes it almost impossible to doubt a corres

pondent habit of feeling in the author himself." Shakes
peare's evenness and sweetness of temper were almost
proverbial in his own age. That this did not arise
from ignorance of his own comparative greatness, we
have abundant proof in his Sonnets, which could
scarcely have been known to Pope,³ when he asserted,
that our great bard—

2 [ I take unceasing delight in Chaucer. His manly cheerful

ness is especially delicious to me in my old age. How exqui
sitely tender he is, and yet how perfectly free from the least
touch of sickly melancholy or morbid drooping ! The sympathy
of the poet with the subjects of his poetry is particularly re
markable in Shakespeare and Chaucer ; but what the first ef
fects by a strong act of imagination and mental metamorphosis,
the last does without any effort, merely by the inborn kindly
joyousness of his nature. Table Talk, March 15, 1834, p. 290,
2nd edit. Ed.]
› Pope was under the common error of his age, an error far
from being sufficiently exploded even at the present day. It
consists (as I explained at large, and proved in detail in my
public lectures,* ) in mistaking for the essentials of the Greek
stage certain rules, which the wise poets imposed upon them
selves, in order to render all the remaining parts of the drama
consistent with those, that had been forced upon them by cir
cumstances independent of their will ; out of which circum
stances the drama itself arose. The circumstances in the time
of Shakespeare, which it was equally out of his power to alter,
were different, and such as, in my opinion, allowed a far wider
sphere, and a deeper and more human interest. Critics are too
apt to forget, that rules are but means to an end ; consequently,
where the ends are different, the rules must be likewise so.
We must have ascertained what the end is, before we can de
termine what the rules ought to be. Judging under this im

[See the Author's Literary Remains, vol. II. p. 60, and

generally the fragments of his lectures and notes on Shakespeare
collected in that volume. Ed.]
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 33
-grew immortal in his own despite.*
Speaking of one whom he had celebrated, and con
trasting the duration of his works with that of his
personal existence, Shakespeare adds :

Your name from hence immortal life shall have,

Tho' I once gone to all the world must die ;
The earth can yield me but a common grave,
When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie.
Your monument shall be my gentle verse,
Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read ;
And tongues to be your being shall rehearse,
When all the breathers of this world are dead :
You still shall live, such virtue hath my pen,
Where breath most breathes, e'en in the mouth of men.
SONNET LXXXI.5

pression, I did not hesitate to declare my full conviction, that

the consummate judgment of Shakespeare, not only in the ge
neral construction , but in all the details, of his dramas, impressed
me with greater wonder, than even the might of his genius, or
the depth of his philosophy.* The substance of these lectures
I hope soon to publish ; and it is but a debt ofjustice to myself
and my friends to notice, that the first course of lectures, which
differed from the following courses only, by occasionally varying
the illustrations of the same thoughts, was addressed to very
numerous, and I need not add, respectable audiences at the
Royal Institution, before Mr. Schlegel gave his lectures on the
same subjects at Vienna.
Epist. to Augustus.
[These extraordinary sonnets form, in fact, a poem of so
many stanzas offourteen lines each ; and, like the passion which
inspired them, the sonnets are always the same, with a variety
of expression,-continuous, if you regard the lover's soul,—
distinct, ifyou listen to him, as he heaves them sigh after sigh.
These sonnets, like The Venus and Adonis, and the Rape of
Lucrece, are characterised by boundless fertility , and laboured

* See note on preceding page.

D
34 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA.

I have taken the first that occurred ; but Shakes

peare's readiness to praise his rivals, ore pleno, and
the confidence of his own equality with those whom
he deemed most worthy of his praise, are alike mani
fested in another Sonnet.

Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,

Bound for the praise of all-too-precious you,
That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,
Making their tomb, the womb wherein they grew ?
Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write
Above a mortal pitch that struck me dead ?
No, neither he, nor his compeers by night
Giving him aid, my verse astonished.
He, nor that affable familiar ghost,
Which nightly gulls him with intelligence,
As victors of my silence cannot boast ;
I was not sick of any fear from thence !
But when your countenance fill'd up his line,
Then lack'd I matter, that enfeebled mine.
S. LXXXVI.

In Spenser, indeed, we trace a mind constitution

ally tender, delicate, and, in comparison with his three
great compeers, I had almost said, effeminate ; and
this additionally saddened by the unjust persecution
of Burleigh, and the severe calamities, which over
whelmed his latter days. These causes have diffused
over all his compositions " a melancholy grace," and
have drawn forth occasional strains, the more pathetic
from their gentleness. But no where do we find the
least trace of irritability, and still less of quarrelsome
or affected contempt of his censurers.

condensation of thought, with perfection of sweetness in rhythm

and metre. These are the essentials in the budding of a great
poet. Afterwards habit and consciousness of power teach more
ease-præcipitandum liberum spiritum. Table Talk, May 14,
1835, p. 231, 2nd. edit. Ed. ]
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 35
The same calmness , and even greater self-posses
sion, may be affirmed of Milton, as far as his poems,
and poetic character are concerned. He reserved his
anger for the enemies of religion, freedom, and his
country. My mind is not capable of forming a more
august conception , than arises from the contemplation
of this great man in his latter days ;-poor, sick, old,
blind, slandered, persecuted, - "
Darkness before, and danger's voice behind,—
in an age in which he was as little understood by the

6 [In illustration of Milton's magnanimity of patience I can

not refrain from quoting the conclusion of his letter to Leonard
Philaras, the Athenian :
" At present every species of illumination being, as it were,
extinguished, there is diffused around me nothing but darkness,
or darkness mingled and streaked with an ashy brown . Yet
the darkness in which I am perpetually immersed, seems always,
both by night and day, to approach nearer to white than black,
and when the eye is rolling in its socket, it admits a little par
ticle of light as through a chink. And though this may perhaps
offer to your physician a like ray of hope, yet I make up my mind
to the malady as quite incurable ; and I often reflect, that as the
wise man admonishes, days of darkness are destined to each
of us, the darkness which I experience, less oppressive than
that ofthe tomb, is, owing to the singular goodness of the Deity,
passed amid the pursuits of literature and the cheering saluta
tions of friendship. But if, as is written, man shall not live
by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth from the
mouth of God, why may not any one acquiesce in the privation
of his sight, when God has so amply furnished his mind and his
conscience with eyes ? While He so tenderly provides for me,
while He so graciously leads me by the hand and conducts me
on the way, I will, since it is his pleasure, rather rejoice than
repine at being blind. And, my dear Philaras, whatever may
be the event, I wish you adieu with no less courage and com
posure than if I had the eyes of a lynx."
Westminster, September 28 , 1654.
What a proof is it ofthe firmness of Milton's mind to the last
 APHIA ARIA
36 BIOGR LITER .

party, for whom, as by that against whom, he had

contended ; and among men before whom he strode
so far as to dwarf himself by the distance ; yet still
listening to the music of his own thoughts, or if addi
tionally cheered, yet cheered only by the prophetic
faith of two or three solitary individuals, he did never
theless
argue not
Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot
Of heart or hope ; but still bore up and steer'd
Right onward .

From others only do we derive our knowledge that

Milton, in his latter day, had his scorners and detrac
tors ; and even in his day of youth and hope, that he
had enemies would have been unknown to us, had they
not been likewise the enemies of his country."
I am well aware, that in advanced stages of litera
ture, when there exist many and excellent models, a
high degree of talent, combined with taste and judg
ment, and employed in works of imagination, will ac
quire for a man the name of a great genius ; though

that, when driven into a late marriage by the ill treatment of his
daughters, who, inheriting, as appears, their mother's unworthy
temper, - without either devotion of spirit or even the commoner
sense of duty, tyrannized over him in his days of darkness ;
though blind and infirm and in all the dependence which blind
ness brings, he could yet resist the entreaties of a wife whom he
loved, and who was properly indulgent to him, that he should
accept the royal offer of the restitution of his place, because
he must " live and die an honest man !"
See Symmons's Life of Milton, confirmed on these points by
Todd, in his edition of the great man's Poetical Works of 1826.
S. C.]
7 ["In Milton's mind there were purity and piety absolute,
an imagination to which neither the past nor the present were
interesting, except as far as they called forth and enlivened the
great ideal in which and for which he lived ; a keen love of
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 37
even that analogon of genius, which, in certain states
of society, may even render his writings more popular
than the absolute reality could have done, would be
sought for in vain in the mind and temper of the author
himself. Yet even in instances of this kind, a close
examination will often detect, that the irritability,
which has been attributed to the author's genius as its
cause, did really originate in an ill conformation of
body, obtuse pain, or constitutional defect of pleasu
rable sensation. What is charged to the author, be
longs to the man, who would probably have been still
more impatient, but for the humanizing influences of
the very pursuit, which yet bears the blame of his
irritability.
How then are we to explain the easy credence ge
nerally given to this charge, if the charge itself be not,
as I have endeavoured to show, supported by expe
rience ? This seems to me of no very difficult solution.
In whatever country literature is widely diffused, there
will be many who mistake an intense desire to possess
the reputation of poetic genius, for the actual powers,

truth, which, after many weary pursuits, found a harbour in a

sublime listening to the still voice in his own spirit, and as keen
a love of his country, which, after a disappointment still more
depressive , expanded and soared into a love of man as a pro
bationer of immortality. These were, these alone could be,
the conditions under which such a work as the Paradise Lost
could be conceived and accomplished . By a life-long study
Milton had known
what was of use to know,
What best to say could say, to do had done.
His actions to his words agreed, his words
To his large heart gave utterance due, his heart
Contain'd of good, wise, fair the perfect shape :
and he left the imperishable total, as a bequest to the ages com
ing, in the Paradise Lost." Lit. Rem. I. p . 170. Ed.]
38 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA .

and original tendencies which constitute it. But men,

whose dearest wishes are fixed on objects wholly out
of their own power, become in all cases more or less
impatient and prone to anger. Besides, though it
may be paradoxical to assert, that a man can know
one thing and believe the opposite, yet assuredly a
vain person may have so habitually indulged the wish,
and persevered in the attempt, to appear what he is
not, as to become himself one of his own proselytes.
Still, as this counterfeit and artificial persuasion must
differ, even in the person's own feelings, from a real
sense of inward power, what can be more natural,
than that this difference should betray itself in suspi
cious and jealous irritability ? Even as the flowery
sod, which covers a hollow, may be often detected by
its shaking and trembling.
But, alas ! the multitude of books, and the general
diffusion of literature, have produced other and more
lamentable effects in the world of letters, and such as
are abundant to explain, though by no means to jus
tify, the contempt with which the best grounded com
plaints of injured genius are rejected as frivolous, or
entertained as matter of merriment. In the days of
Chaucer and Gower, our language might (with due
allowance for the imperfections of a simile) be com
pared to a wilderness of vocal reeds, from which the
favourites only of Pan or Apollo could construct even
the rude syrinx ; and from this the constructors alone
could elicit strains of music. But now, partly by the
labours of successive poets, and in part by the more
artificial state of society and social intercourse, lan
guage, mechanized as it were into a barrel-organ, sup
plies at once both instrument and tune. Thus even
the deaf may play, so as to delight the many. Some
times (for it is with similes, as it is with jests at a
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 39
wine table, one is sure to suggest another) I have at
tempted to illustrate the present state of our language,
in its relation to literature, by a press-room of larger
and smaller stereotype pieces, which, in the present
Anglo-Gallican fashion of unconnected, epigrammatic
periods, it requires but an ordinary portion of inge
nuity to vary indefinitely, and yet still produce some
thing, which, if not sense, will be so like it as to do as
well. Perhaps better : for it spares the reader the
trouble of thinking ; prevents vacancy, while it in
dulges indolence ; and secures the memory from all
danger of an intellectual plethora. Hence of all
trades, literature at present demands the least talent or
information ; and, of all modes of literature, the manu
facturing of poems. The difference indeed between
these and the works of genius is not less than between
an egg and an egg-shell ; yet at a distance they both
look alike.
Now it is no less remarkable than true, with how
little examination works of polite literature are com
monly perused, not only by the mass of readers, but
by men of first rate ability, till some accident or
chance discussion have roused their attention, and

In the course of one of my Lectures, I had occasion to

point out the almost faultless position and choice of words, in
Pope's original compositions, particularly in his Satires and
moral Essays, for the purpose of comparing them with his trans
lation of Homer, which, I do not stand alone in regarding as
the main source of our pseudo-poetic diction. And this, by the
bye, is an additional confirmation of a remark made, I believe,
by Sir Joshua Reynolds, that next to the man who forms and
elevates the taste of the public, he that corrupts it, is commonly
the greatest genius. Among other passages, I analyzed sen
tence by sentence, and almost word by word, the popular lines,
As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night, &c.
(Iliad. B. viii. )
 PHIA IA
40 BIOGRA LITERAR .

put them on their guard. And hence individuals be

low mediocrity not less in natural power than in ac
quired knowledge ; nay, bunglers who have failed in

much in the same way as has been since done, in an exellent

article on Chalmers's British Poets in the Quarterly Review.*
The impression on the audience in general was sudden and
evident : and a number of enlightened and highly educated per
sons, who at different times afterwards addressed me on the
subject, expressed their wonder, that truth so obvious should
not have struck them before ; but at the same time acknow
ledged (so much had they been accustomed, in reading poetry,
to receive pleasure from the separate images and phrases suc.
cessively, without asking themselves whether the collective
meaning was sense or nonsense)—that they might in all proba
bility have read the same passage again twenty times with un
diminished admiration, and without once reflecting, that
ἄστρα φαεινὴν ἀμφὶ σελήνην
φαίνετ᾽ ἀριπρεπέα
(that is, the stars around , or near the full moon , shine pre-emi
nently bright)—conveys a just and happy image of a moonlight
sky: while it is difficult to determine whether, in the lines,
Around her throne the vivid planets roll,
And stars unnumber'd gild the glowing pole,
the sense or the diction be the more absurd . My answer was;
that, though I had derived peculiar advantages from my school
discipline, and though my general theory of poetry was the
same then as now, I had yet experienced the same sensations
myself, and felt almost as if I had been newly couched, when,
by Mr. Wordsworth's conversation , I had been induced to re
examine with impartial strictness Gray's celebrated Elegy. I
had long before detected the defects in The Bard ; but the
Elegy I had considered as proof against all fair attacks ; and to

[The article to which the Author refers was written by

Mr. Southey, and may be found in Vol . XI. of the Quarterly
Review, p. 480. But it contains nothing corresponding to Mr.
Coleridge's remark, whose reference is evidently mistaken . Ed .]
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA . 4I
the lowest mechanic crafts, and whose presumption
is in due proportion to their want of sense and sensi
bility ; men, who being first scribblers from idleness

this day I cannot read either without delight, and a portion of

enthusiasm. At all events, whatever pleasure I may have lost
by the clearer perception of the faults in certain passages, has
been more than repaid to me by the additional delight with
which I read the remainder.
Another instance in confirmation of these remarks occurs to
me in the Faithful Shepherdess. Seward first traces Fletcher's
lines ;
More foul diseases than e'er yet the hot
Sun bred thro' his burnings, while the dog
Pursues the raging lion, throwing the fog
And deadly vapour from his angry breath,
Filling the lower world with plague and death,
to Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar,
The rampant lion hunts he fast
With dogs of noisome breath ;
Whose baleful barking brings, in haste,
Pine, plagues, and dreary death !
He then takes occasion to introduce Homer's simile of the ap
pearance of Achilles ' mail to Priam compared with the Dog
Star ; literally thus
66
For this indeed is most splendid, but it was made an evi
sign, and brings many a consuming disease to wretched mor
tals." * Nothing can be more simple as a description, or more
accurate as a simile ; which, (says Seward, ) is thus finely trans
lated by Mr. Pope :
Terrific Glory ! for his burning breath
Taints the red air with fevers, plagues, and death !
Now here (not to mention the tremendous bombast)—the
Dog Star, so called, is turned into a real dog, a very odd dog, a

• [λαμπρότατος μὲν ὅδ᾽ ἐστί, κακὸν δέ τε σῆμα τέτυκται,

καί τε φέρει πολλὸν πυρετὸν δειλοῖσι βροτοῖσιν .
Iliad xxii. 30. S. C.]
42 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA .
and ignorance, next become libellers from envy and
malevolence, have been able to drive a successful
trade in the employment of the booksellers, nay, have
raised themselves into temporary name and reputation
with the public at large, by that most powerful of all
adulation, the appeal to the bad and malignant pas
sions of mankind. But as it is the nature of scorn,
envy, and all malignant propensities to require a quick
change of objects, such writers are sure, sooner or
later, to awake from their dream of vanity to disap
pointment and neglect with embittered and envenomed
feelings. Even during their short-lived success, sen
sible in spite of themselves on what a shifting founda
tion it rests, they resent the mere refusal of praise as
a robbery, and at the justest censures kindle at once
into violent and undisciplined abuse ; till the acute
disease changing into chronical, the more deadly as
the less violent, they become the fit instruments of
literary detraction and moral slander. They are then
no longer to be questioned without exposing the com
plainant to ridicule, because, forsooth, they are anony
mous critics, and authorized, in Andrew Marvell's

fire, fever, plague, and death-breathing, red-air-tainting dog : and

the whole visual likeness is lost, while the likeness in the effects
is rendered absurd by the exaggeration . In Spenser and
Fletcher the thought is justifiable ; for the images are at least
consistent, and it was the intention of the writers to mark the
seasons by this allegory of visualized puns.
• Especially in this age of personality, this age of literary
and political gossiping, when the meanest insects are worshipped
with a sort of Egyptian superstition, if only the brainless head
be atoned for by the sting of personal malignity in the tail ;
when the most vapid satires have become the objects of a keen
public interest, purely from the number of contemporary cha
racters named in the patch-work notes, (which possess, how
ever, the comparative merit of being more poetical than the
text, ) and because, to increase the stimulus, the author has sa
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 43
phrase, as " synodical individuals " to speak of them
selves plurali majestatico ! As if literature formed a
caste, like that of the Paras in Hindostan, who, how
ever maltreated, must not dare to deem themselves
wronged ! As if that, which in all other cases adds a
deeper dye to slander, the circumstance of its being
anonymous, here acted only to make the slanderer in
violable ! 10 Thus, in part, from the accidental tempers
of individuals-(men of undoubted talent, but not men
of genius )-tempers rendered yet more irritable by
their desire to appear men of genius ; but still more.
effectively by the excesses of the mere counterfeits
both of talent and genius ; the number too being so
incomparably greater of those who are thought to be,
than of those who really are men of genius ; and in
part from the natural, but not therefore the less par
tial and unjust distinction, made by the public itself
between literary and all other property ;-I believe
the prejudice to have arisen, which considers an un
usual irascibility concerning the reception of its pro
ducts as characteristic of genius.
It might correct the moral feelings of a numerous

gaciously left his own name for whispers and conjectures.

[From The Friend, Vol. II . Essay 1. On the Errors of Party
Spirit, pp. 9-10. 4th edit. S. C.]
10 If it were worth while to mix together, as ingredients, half
the anecdotes which I either myself know to be true, or which
I have received from men incapable of intentional falsehood,
concerning the characters, qualifications, and motives of our
anonymous critics, whose decisions are oracles for our reading
public ; I might safely borrow the words of the apocryphal
Daniel ; " Give me leave, O SOVEREIGN PUBLIC, and I shall slay
this dragon without sword or staff." For the compound would be
as the " pitch, and fat, and hair, which Daniel took, and did seethe
them together, and made lumps thereof; this he put in the dragon's
mouth, and so the dragon burst in sunder ; and Daniel said, Lo,
THESE ARE THE Gods ye worSHIP."
44 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA.

class of readers, to suppose a Review set on foot, the

object of which should be to criticise all the chief
works presented to the public by our ribbon-weavers ,
calico-printers, cabinet-makers, and china-manufactu
rers ; which should be conducted in the same spirit,
and take the same freedom with personal character,
as our literary journals. They would scarcely, I think,
deny their belief, not only that the genus irritabile
would be found to include many other species besides
that of bards ; but that the irritability of trade would
soon reduce the resentments of poets into mere
shadow-fights in the comparison . Or is wealth the
only rational object of human interest ? Or even if
this were admitted, has the poet no property in his
works ? Or is it a rare, or culpable case, that he who
serves at the altar of the Muses, should be compelled
to derive his maintenance from the altar, when too he
has perhaps deliberately abandoned the fairest pros
pects of rank and opulence in order to devote himself,
an entire and undistracted man, to the instruction or
refinement of his fellow-citizens ? Or, should we pass
by all higher objects and motives, all disinterested be
nevolence, and even that ambition of lasting praise
which is at once the crutch and ornament, which at
once supports and betrays, the infirmity of human vir
tue, —is the character and property of the man, who
labours for our intellectual pleasures, less entitled to a
share of our fellow feeling, than that of the wine-mer
chant or milliner ? Sensibility indeed, both quick and
deep, is not only a characteristic feature, but may be
deemed a component part, of genius. But it is not
less an essential mark of true genius, that its sensibi
lity is excited by any other cause more powerfully than
by its own personal interests ; for this plain reason ,
that the man of genius lives most in the ideal world,
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 45

in which the present is still constituted by the future

or the past ; and because his feelings have been ha
bitually associated with thoughts and images, to the
number, clearness , and vivacity of which the sensation
of self is always in an inverse proportion. And yet,
should he perchance have occasion to repel some false
charge, to rectify some erroneous censure, nothing
is more common than for the many to mistake the
general liveliness of his manner and language, what
ever is the subject, for the effects of peculiar irritation
from its accidental relation to himself."
For myself, if from my own feelings , or from the
less suspicious test of the observations of others, I had
been made aware of any literary testiness or jealousy ;
I trust, that I should have been, however, neither
silly nor arrogant enough to have burthened the im
perfection on genius. But an experience (and I
should not need documents in abundance to prove my

" This is one instance among many of deception, by the tel

ling the half of a fact, and omitting the other half, when it is
from their mutual counteraction and neutralization , that the
whole truth arises, as a tertium aliquid different from either.
Thus in Dryden's famous line
Great wit (meaning genius) to madness sure is near allied .
Now if the profound sensibility, which is doubtless one of the
components of genius, were alone considered, single and un
balanced, it might be fairly described as exposing the indi
vidual to a greater chance of mental derangement ; but then a
more than usual rapidity of association, a more than usual power
of passing from thought to thought, and image to image, is
a component equally essential ; and in the due modification of
each by the other the genius itself consists ; so that it would be
just as fair to describe the earth, as in imminent danger of ex
orbitating, or of falling into the sun, according as the assertor
of the absurdity confined his attention either to the projectile or
to the attractive force exclusively.
46 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA .

words, if I added)-a tried experience of twenty years,

has taught me, that the original sin of my character
consists in a careless indifference to public opinion,
and to the attacks of those who influence it ; that
praise and admiration have become yearly less and
less desirable, except as marks of sympathy ; nay that
it is difficult and distressing to me to think with any
interest even about the sale and profit of my works,
important as, in my present circumstances, such con
siderations must needs be. Yet it never occurred to
me to believe or fancy, that the quantum of intellec
tual power bestowed on me by nature or education was
in any way connected with this habit of my feelings ;
or that it needed any other parents or fosterers than
constitutional indolence, aggravated into languor by
ill-health ; the accumulating embarrassments of pro
crastination ; the mental cowardice, which is the inse
parable companion of procrastination , and which makes
us anxious to think and converse on any thing rather
than on what concerns ourselves ; in fine, all those
close vexations, whether chargeable on my faults or
my fortunes, which leave me but little grief to spare
for evils comparatively distant and alien.
Indignation at literary wrongs I leave to men born
under happier stars. I cannot afford it. But so far
from condemning those who can , I deem it a writer's
duty, and think it creditable to his heart, to feel and
express a resentment proportioned to the grossness
of the provocation , and the importance of the object.
There is no profession on earth , which requires an at
tention so early, so long, or so unintermitting as that
of poetry ; and indeed as that of literary composition
in general, if it be such as at all satisfies the demands
both of taste and of sound logic. How difficult and
delicate a task even the mere mechanism of verse is,
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 47
may be conjectured from the failure of those, who
have attempted poetry late in life. Where then a
man has, from his earliest youth, devoted his whole
being to an object, which by the admission of all civi
lized nations in all ages is honourable as a pursuit, and
glorious as an attainment ; what of all that relates to
himself and his family, if only we except his moral
character, can have fairer claims to his protection, or
more authorize acts of self-defence, than the elaborate
products of his intellect and intellectual industry ?
Prudence itself would command us to show, even if
defect or diversion of natural sensibility had prevented
us from feeling, a due interest and qualified anxiety
for the offspring and representatives of our nobler
being. I know it, alas ! by woful experience. I have
laid too many eggs in the hot sands of this wilderness,
the world, with ostrich carelessness and ostrich obli
vion. The greater part indeed have been trod under
foot, and are forgotten ; but yet no small number have
crept forth into life, some to furnish feathers for the
caps of others, and still more to plume the shafts in
the quivers of my enemies, of them that unprovoked
have lain in wait against my soul.

Sic vos, non vobis, mellificatis, apes !¹²

12 [" He was one of those who with long and large arm
still collected precious armfuls, in whatever direction he pressed
forward, yet still took up so much more than he could keep to
gether, that those who followed him gleaned more from his con
tinual droppings than he himself brought home ;—nay, made
stately corn-ricks therewith, while the reaper himself was still
seen only with his armful of newly-cut sheaves." Lit. Rem. 1 .
p. 13. ED. ]
 IA A
RAPH RARI
48 BIOG LITE .

CHAPTER III.

The Author's obligations to Critics, and the probable

occasion- Principles of modern Criticism- Mr.
Southey's works and character.

O anonymous critics in reviews, magazines,

and news-journals of various name and
rank, and to satirists with or without a
name, in verse or prose, or in verse-text
aided by prose-comment, I do seriously
believe and profess, that I owe full two-thirds of what
ever reputation and publicity I happen to possess.
For when the name of an individual has occurred so
frequently, in so many works, for so great a length of
time, the readers of these works- (which with a shelf
or two of Beauties, elegant Extracts and Anas, form
nine-tenths of the reading of the reading Public ')--

For as to the devotees of the circulating libraries, I dare

not compliment their pass-time, or rather kill-time, with the
name of reading. Call it rather a sort of beggarly day-dream
ing, during which the mind of the dreamer furnishes for itself
nothing but laziness, and a little mawkish sensibility ; while the
whole materiel and imagery ofthe doze is supplied ab extra by a
sort of mental camera obscura manufactured at the printing office,
which pro tempore fixes, reflects, and transmits the moving
phantasms of one man's delirium, so as to people the barrenness
of a hundred other brains afflicted with the same trance or sus
pension of all common sense and all definite purpose. We
should therefore transfer this species of amusement,-(if indeed
those can be said to retire a musis, who were never in their
company, or relaxation be attributable to those, whose bows are
never bent)-from the genus, reading, to that comprehensive
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 49
cannot but be familiar with the name, without distinctly
remembering whether it was introduced for eulogy or
for censure. And this becomes the more likely, if (as
I believe) the habit of perusing periodical works may
2
be properly added to Averroes' catalogue of 1 Anti
Mnemonics, or weakeners of the memory. But where
this has not been the case, yet the reader will be apt
to suspect, that there must be something more than
usually strong and extensive in a reputation, that could
either require or stand so merciless and long-continued
a cannonading. Without any feeling of anger there

class characterized by the power of reconciling the two contrary

yet co-existing propensities of human nature, namely, indul
gence of sloth, and hatred of vacancy. In addition to novels
and tales of chivalry in prose or rhyme, (by which last I mean
neither rhythm nor metre) this genus comprises as its species,
gaming, swinging, or swaying on a chair or gate ; spitting over
a bridge ; smoking ; snuff-taking ; tête à tête quarrels after din
ner between husband and wife ; conning word by word all the
advertisements of a daily newspaper in a public house on a
rainy day, &c. &c. &c.
2 [The true polyonomous appellative of Averroes was Abul
Walid Mohammed Ebn Achmed Ebn Mohammed Ebn Raschid.
He was born at Cordova about 1150, and died in Morocco in
1206 or 1207. Ed.]
3 Ex gr. Pediculos e capillis excerptos in arenamjacere incon
tusos ; eating of unripe fruit ; gazing on the clouds, and (in ge
nere) on movable things suspended in the air ; riding among a
multitude of camels ; frequent laughter ; listening to a series of
jests and humourous anecdotes,— -as when (so to modernize the
learned Saracen's meaning ) one man's droll story of an Irish
man inevitably occasions another's droll story of a Scotchman ,
which again, by the same sort of conjunction disjunctive, leads
to some étourderie of a Welshman, and that again to some sly
hit of a Yorkshireman ;—the habit of reading tomb-stones in
church-yards, &c. By the bye, this catalogue, strange as it
may appear, is not insusceptible of a sound psychological com
mentary.
E
50 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA.

fore (for which indeed, on my own account, I have

no pretext)-I may yet be allowed to express some
degree of surprise, that, after having run the critical
gauntlet for a certain class of faults which I had,
nothing having come before the judgment-seat in the
interim, I should , year after year, quarter after quar
ter, month after month-(not to mention sundry petty
periodicals of still quicker revolution, " or weekly or
diurnal")-have been, for at least seventeen years con
secutively, dragged forth by them into the foremost
ranks of the proscribed, and forced to abide the brunt
of abuse, for faults directly opposite, and which I cer
tainly had not. How shall I explain this ?
Whatever may have been the case with others, I
certainly cannot attribute this persecution to personal
dislike, or to envy, or to feelings of vindictive ani
mosity. Not to the former, for, with the exception of
a very few who are my intimate friends, and were so
before they were known as authors, I have had little
other acquaintance with literary characters, than what
may be implied in an accidental introduction , or casual
meeting in a mixed company . And as far as words
and looks can be trusted, I must believe that, even in
these instances, I had excited no unfriendly disposi
tion. Neither by letter, nor in conversation, have I
ever had dispute or controversy beyond the common
social interchange of opinions. Nay, where I had
reason to suppose my convictions fundamentally diffe
rent, it has been my habit, and I may add, the impulse
of my nature, to assign the grounds of my belief, rather
than the belief itself ; and not to express dissent, till I
could establish some points of complete sympathy,
some grounds common to both sides, from which to
commence its explanation.
Still less can I place these attacks to the charge of
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 51
envy. The few pages which I have published, are of
too distant a date, and the extent of their sale a proof
too conclusive against their having been popular at
any time, to render probable, I had almost said pos
sible, the excitement of envy on their account ; and
the man who should envy me on any other, verily
he must be envy-mad !
Lastly, with as little semblance of reason, could I
suspect any animosity towards me from vindictive feel
ings as the cause. I have before said, that my ac
quaintance with literary men has been limited and dis
tant ; and that I have had neither dispute nor contro
versy. From my first entrance into life, I have, with
few and short intervals, lived either abroad or in re
tirement. My different essays on subjects of national
interest, published at different times, first in the
Morning Post and then in the Courier, with my
courses of Lectures on the principles of criticism' as
applied to Shakespeare and Milton , constitute my

4 [" Mr. Coleridge's courses of Lectures on literary and

other subjects between 1800 and 1819 were numerous, but the
Editor is unable to record them accurately. They were de
livered at the Royal Institution, the Crown and Anchor, the
Surrey Institution , the London Philosophical Society, Willis's
Rooms, and, it is believed, in several other places in London.
The subjects were Shakespeare and the Drama generally , parti
cular plays of Shakespeare, the history of English and Italian
Literature, the history of Philosophy, Education of Women,
connection of the Fine Arts with education and improvement of
the mind, and many others of which the Editor can learn nothing
certain. The most remarkable of his contributions to the news
papers mentioned in the text, were the character of Mr. Pitt in
the Morning Post in 1800, and the Series of Letters on the
Spanish War in the Courier in 1809. What the Author says
as to these exertions constituting his whole publicity, must not
be taken too strictly ; for besides The Friend, the Remorse,
52 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA.

whole publicity ; the only occasions on which I could

offend any member of the republic of letters. With
one solitary exception in which my words were first
misstated and then wantonly applied to an individual,
I could never learn that I had excited the displeasure
of any among my literary contemporaries. Having
announced my intention to give a course of Lectures
on the characteristic merits and defects of English
poetry in its different æras ; 5 first, from Chaucer to
Milton ; second, from Dryden inclusively to Thomson ;
and third, from Cowper to the present day ; I changed
my plan, and confined my disquisition to the former
two periods, that I might furnish no possible pretext
for the unthinking to misconstrue, or the malignant to
misapply my words, and having stamped their own
meaning on them, to pass them as current coin in the
marts of garrulity or detraction.
Praises of the unworthy are felt by ardent minds as
robberies of the deserving ; and it is too true, and too T
frequent, that Bacon, Harrington, Machiavel, and
Spinoza, are not read, because Hume, Condillac, and
Voltaire are. But in promiscuous company no pru
dent man will oppugn the merits of a contemporary in
his own supposed department ; contenting himself with
praising in his turn those whom he deems excellent.
If I should ever deem it my duty at all to oppose the
pretensions of individuals, I would oppose them in
books which could be weighed and answered, in which

Christabel and his other Poems published before the date of

this work, Mr. Coleridge had made his name well known long
before by his courses of Lectures at Bristol on the French Re
volution, Christianity, Slavery, and other subjects, some of
which were printed. ED.]
5 [This alludes to the Lectures at the London Philosophical
Society, which began on the 18th of November, 1811, En.]
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 53
I could evolve the whole of my reasons and feelings,
with their requisite limits and modifications ; not in
irrecoverable conversation, where however strong the
reasons might be, the feelings that prompted them
would assuredly be attributed by some one or other to
envy and discontent. Besides I well know, and, I
trust, have acted on that knowledge, that it must be
the ignorant and injudicious who extol the unworthy ;
and the eulogies of critics without taste or judgment
are the natural reward of authors without feeling or
genius. Sint unicuique sua præmia.
How then, dismissing, as I do, these three causes,
am I to account for attacks, the long continuance and
inveteracy of which it would require all three to ex
plain ? The solution seems to be this,—I was in habits
ofintimacy with Mr. Wordsworth and Mr. Southey !
This , however, transfers, rather than removes the dif
ficulty. Be it, that, by an unconscionable extension
of the old adage, noscitur a socio, my literary friends
are never under the water-fall of criticism, but I must
be wet through with the spray ; yet how came the tor
rent to descend upon them ?
First then, with regard to Mr. Southey. I well re
member the general reception of his earlier publica
tions ; namely, the poems published with Mr. Lovell
under the names of Moschus and Bion ; the two
volumes of poems under his own name, and the Joan
of Arc. The censures of the critics by profession are
extant, and may be easily referred to :-careless lines ,
inequality in the merit of the different poems, and (in

6 [The joint volume appeared in 1795. Bion was Southey,

Moschus, Lovell. It contained " the Retrospect," in its origi
nal form. Joan of Arc appeared in 1796- the " two volumes"
in 1797 -both published by Mr. Cottle. ED. ]
54 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA .

the lighter works) a predilection for the strange

and whimsical ; in short, such faults as might have
been anticipated in a young and rapid writer, were
indeed sufficiently enforced. Nor was there at that
time wanting a party spirit to aggravate the defects of
a poet, who with all the courage of uncorrupted youth
had avowed his zeal for a cause, which he deemed that
of liberty, and his abhorrence of oppression by what
ever name consecrated. But it was as little objected
by others, as dreamed of by the poet himself, that he
preferred careless and prosaic lines on rule and of
forethought, or indeed that he pretended to any other
art or theory of poetic diction, except that which we
may all learn from Horace, Quinctilian , the admirable
dialogue, De Oratoribus, generally attributed to Taci
tus, or Strada's Prolusions ; if indeed natural good
sense and the early study of the best models in his
own language had not infused the same maxims more
securely, and, if I may venture the expression, more
vitally. All that could have been fairly deduced was,
that in his taste and estimation of writers Mr. Southey
agreed far more with Thomas Warton, than with Dr.
Johnson. Nor do I mean to deny, that at all times
Mr. Southey was of the same mind with Sir Philip
Sidney' in preferring an excellent ballad in the hum
blest style of poetry to twenty indifferent poems that
strutted in the highest. And by what have his works,
published since then, been characterized , each more
strikingly than the preceding, but by greater splendour,
a deeper pathos , profounder reflections, and a more
sustained dignity of language and of metre ? Distant

7 [" I never heard the old song of Percie and Douglas that I
found not my heart moved more than with a trumpet." Defence
ofPoesie. ED.].
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 55
may the period be, but whenever the time shall come,
when all his works shall be collected by some editor
worthy to be his biographer, I trust that an appendix
of excerpta of all the passages, in which his writings,
name, and character have been attacked, from ..the
pamphlets and periodical works of the last twenty
years, may be an accompaniment . Yet that it would
prove medicinal in after times I dare not hope ; for
as long as there are readers to be delighted with
calumny, there will be found reviewers to calumniate.
And such readers will become in all probability more
numerous, in proportion as a still greater diffusion of
literature shall produce an increase of sciolists, and
sciolism bring with it petulance and presumption. In
times of old, books were as religious oracles ; as lite
rature advanced, they next became venerable precep
tors ; they then descended to the rank of instructive
friends ; and, as their numbers increased, they sank
still lower to that of entertaining companions ; and at
present they seem degraded into culprits to hold up
their hands at the bar of every self-elected, yet not the
less peremptory, judge, who chooses to write from hu
mour or interest, from enmity or arrogance, and to
abide the decision " of him that reads in malice, or him
that reads after dinner."
The same retrograde movement may be traced, in
the relation which the authors themselves have assumed
towards their readers. From the lofty address of
Bacon : " these are the meditations of Francis of Ve
rulam, which that posterity should be possessed of, he
deemed their interest :" or from dedication to Monarch

[§ Franciscus de Verulamio sic cogitavit ; talemque apud se

rationem instituit, quam viventibus et posteris notam fieri, ipsorum
interesse putavit. Nov. Org. ED.]
56 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA .

or Pontiff, in which the honour given was asserted in

equipoise to the patronage acknowledged : from Pin
dar's
'επ' ἄλλοι
-σι δ᾽ἄλλοι μεγάλοι : τὸ δ᾽ἔσχατον κορυ
-φᾶται βασιλέυσι Μηκέτι
πάπταινε πόρσιον .
εἴη σέ τε τέτον
ὑψῶ χρόνον πατεῖν , ἐμὲ
τε τοσσάδε νικαφόροις·
ὁμιλεῖν , πρόφαντον σοφίᾳν καθ' Ελ
-λανας έόντα παντᾶ,
OLYMP. OD. 1.

there was a gradual sinking in the etiquette or allowed

style of pretension.
Poets and Philosophers, rendered diffident by their
very number, addressed themselves to " learned
readers ;" then aimed to conciliate the graces of " the
candid reader ;" till, the critic still rising as the author
sank, the amateurs of literature collectively were
erected into a municipality of judges, and addressed as
the Town ! And now, finally, all men being supposed
able to read, and all readers able to judge, the multi
tudinous Public, shaped into personal unity by the
magic of abstraction, sits nominal despot on the throne
of criticism. But, alas ! as in other despotisms, it but
echoes the decisions of its invisible ministers, whose
intellectual claims to the guardianship of the Muses
seem, for the greater part, analogous to the physical
qualifications which adapt their oriental brethren for
the superintendence of the Harem. Thus it is said,
that St. Nepomuc was installed the guardian of
bridges, because he had fallen over one, and sunk out
of sight ; thus too St. Cecilia is said to have been first
propitiated by musicians, because, having failed in her
own attempts, she had taken a dislike to the art and
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA . 57
all its successful professors. But I shall probably
have occasion hereafter to deliver my convictions more
at large concerning this state of things, and its in
fluences on taste, genius and morality.
In the Thalaba, the Madoc, and still more evidently
in the unique Cid, in the Kehama, and, as last, so
best, the Roderick ; Southey has given abundant proof,
se cogitare quam sit magnum dare aliquid in manus
hominum : nec persuadere sibi posse, non sæpe trac
tandum quod placere et semper et omnibus cupiat.10
But on the other hand, I conceive, that Mr. Southey
was quite unable to comprehend, wherein could con
sist the crime or mischief of printing half a dozen or
more playful poems ; or to speak more generally, com
positions which would be enjoyed or passed over, ac
cording as the taste and humour of the reader might
chance to be ; provided they contained nothing immoral.
In the present age perituræ parcere chartæ is em
phatically an unreasonable demand. The merest trifle
he ever sent abroad had tenfold better claims to its
ink and paper than all the silly criticisms on it, which
proved no more than that the critic was not one of
those, for whom the trifle was written ; and than all
the grave exhortations to a greater reverence for the

9 I have ventured to call it unique ; not only because I know

no work of the kind in our language, ( if we except a few chap
ters of the old translation of Froissart) -none, which uniting the
charms of romance and history, keeps the imagination so con
stantly on the wing, and yet leaves so much for after reflection ;
but likewise, and chiefly, because it is a compilation, which, in
the various excellencies of translation, selection, and arrange
ment, required and proves greater genius in the compiler, as
living in the present state of society, than in the original com
posers.
10
[Accommodated from Pliny the younger. L. vii. Ep. 17.
En. ]
58 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA .

public-as ifthe passive page of a book, by having an

epigram or doggrel tale impressed on it, instantly as
sumed at once loco-motive power and a sort of ubi
quity, so as to flutter and buz in the ear of the public
to the sore annoyance of the said mysterious personage.
But what gives an additional and more ludicrous ab
surdity to these lamentations is the curious fact, that
if in a volume of poetry the critic should find poem or
passage which he deems more especially worthless, he
is sure to select and reprint it in the review ; by which,
on his own grounds, he wastes as much more paper
than the author, as the copies of a fashionable review
are more numerous than those of the original book ;
in some, and those the most prominent instances, as
ten thousand to five hundred. I know nothing that
surpasses the vileness of deciding on the merits of a
poet or painter, (not by characteristic defects ; for
where there is genius, these always point to his cha
racteristic beauties ; but)-by accidental failures or
faulty passages ; except the impudence of defending it,
as the proper duty, and most instructive part, of criti
cism. Omit or pass slightly over the expression,
grace, and grouping of Raffael's figures ; but ridicule
in detail the knitting-needles and broom-twigs, that
are to represent trees in his back grounds ; and never
let him hear the last of his galli-pots ! Admit, that
the Allegro and Penseroso of Milton are not without
merit ; but repay yourself for this concession, by re
printing at length the two poems on the University
Carrier ! As a fair specimen of his Sonnets, quote
" A Book was writ of late called Tetrachordon ;"
and, as characteristic of his rhythm and metre, cite his
literal translation of the first and second Psalm ! In or
der to justify yourself, you need only assert, that had you
dwelt chiefly on the beauties and excellencies of the
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 59
poet, the admiration of these might seduce the atten
tion of future writers from the objects of their love
and wonder, to an imitation of the few poems and pas
sages in which the poet was most unlike himself.
But till reviews are conducted on far other prin
ciples, and with far other motives ; till in the place of
arbitrary dictation and petulant sneers, the reviewers
support their decisions by reference to fixed canons of
criticism, previously established and deduced from the
nature of man ; reflecting minds will pronounce it arro
gance in them thus to announce themselves to men of
letters, as the guides of their taste and judgment. To
the purchaser and mere reader it is, at all events, an
injustice. He who tells me that there are defects in a
new work, tells me nothing which I should not have
taken for granted without his information. But he,
who points out and elucidates the beauties of an origi
nal work, does indeed give me interesting information,
such as experience would not have authorized me in
anticipating. And as to compositions which the au
thors themselves announce with

Hæc ipsi novimus esse nihil,¹¹

why should we judge by a different rule two printed
works, only because the one author is alive, and the
other in his grave ? What literary man has not re
gretted the prudery of Spratt in refusing to let his
friend Cowley appear in his slippers and dressing
gown? I am not perhaps the only one who has de
rived an innocent amusement from the riddles, conun
drums, tri-syllable lines, and the like, of Swift and his
correspondents, in hours of languor, when to have
read his more finished works would have been useless

" [The motto prefixed by Mr. Southey to his Minor Poems.

Ed . ]
60 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA .

to myself, and, in some sort, an act of injustice to the

author. But I am at a loss to conceive by what per
versity of judgment, these relaxations of his genius
could be employed to diminish his fame as the writer
of Gulliver, or the Tale of a Tub. Had Mr. Southey
written twice as many poems of inferior merit, or par
tial interest, as have enlivened the journals of the day,
they would have added to his honour with good and
wise men, not merely or principally as proving the
versatility of his talents, but as evidences of the purity
of that mind, which even in its levities never dictated
a line which it need regret on any moral account.
I have in imagination transferred to the future bio
grapher the duty of contrasting Southey's fixed and
well-earned fame, with the abuse and indefatigable
hostility of his anonymous critics from his early youth
to his ripest manhood. But I cannot think so ill of
human nature as not to believe, that these critics have
already taken shame to themselves, whether they con
sider the object of their abuse in his moral or his lite
rary character. For reflect but on the variety and
extent of his acquirements ! He stands second to no
man, either as an historian or as a bibliographer ; and
when I regard him as a popular essayist,-(for the
articles of his compositions in the reviews are, for the
greater part, essays on subjects of deep or curious in
terest rather than criticisms on particular works )—I
look in vain for any writer, who has conveyed so much
information, from so many and such recondite sources,
with so many just and original reflections, in a style
so lively and poignant, yet so uniformly classical and
perspicuous ; no one, in short, who has combined so
much wisdom with so much wit ; so much truth and
knowledge with so much life and fancy. His prose
is always intelligible and always entertaining. In
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA, 61

poetry he has attempted almost every species of com

position known before, and he has added new ones ;
and if we except the highest lyric, - (in which how
few, how very few even of the greatest minds have
been fortunate)-he has attempted every species suc
cessfully;-from the political song of the day, thrown
off in the playful overflow of honest joy and patriotic
exultation, to the wild ballad ; from epistolary ease
and graceful narrative, to austere and impetuous moral
declamation ; from the pastoral charms and wild stream
ing lights of the Thalaba, in which sentiment and
imagery have given permanence even to the excite
ment of curiosity ; and from the full blaze of the Ke
hama,-(a gallery of finished pictures in one splendid
fancy piece, in which, notwithstanding, the moral gran
deur rises gradually above the brilliance of the colour
ing and the boldness and novelty of the machinery) C
to the more sober beauties of the Madoc ; and lastly,
from the Madoc to his Roderick, in which, retaining all
his former excellencies of a poet eminently inventive
and picturesque, he has surpassed himself in language
and metre, in the construction of the whole, and in the
splendour of particular passages.
Here then shall I conclude ? No ! The characters
of the deceased, like the encomia on tombstones, as
they are described with religious tenderness, so are
they read, with allowing sympathy indeed, but yet
with rational deduction . There are men, who deserve
a higher record ; men with whose characters it is the
interest of their contemporaries, no less than that of
posterity, to be made acquainted ; while it is yet pos
sible for impartial censure, and even for quick-sighted
envy, to cross -examine the tale without offence to the
courtesies of humanity ; and while the eulogist, de
tected in exaggeration or falsehood, must pay the full
62 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA.

penalty of his baseness in the contempt which brands

the convicted flatterer. Publicly has Mr. Southey
been reviled by men, who, as I would fain hope for
the honour of human nature, hurled fire-brands against
a figure of their own imagination ; publicly have his
talents been depreciated, his principles denounced ; as
publicly do I therefore, who have known him intimately,
deem it my duty to leave recorded, that it is Southey's
almost unexampled felicity, to possess the best gifts of
talent and genius free from all their characteristic de
fects. To those who remember the state of our public
schools and universities some twenty years past, it will
appear no ordinary praise in any man to have passed
from innocence into virtue, not only free from all
vicious habit, but unstained by one act of intem
perance, or the degradations akin to intemperance.
That scheme of head, heart, and habitual demean
our, which in his early manhood, and first controver
sial writings, Milton, claiming the privilege of self
defence, asserts of himself, and challenges his ca
lumniators to disprove ; 12 this will his school-mates,
his fellow-collegians, and his maturer friends, with a
confidence proportioned to the intimacy of their know
ledge, bear witness to, as again realized in the life of
Robert Southey. But still more striking to those,
who by biography or by their own experience are fami

12 [Ad me quod attinet, te testor, Deus, mentis intima cogita

tionumque omnium indagator, me nullius rei (quanquam hoc apud
me sæpius et, quam maxime potui , serio quæsivi, et recessus vitæ om
nes excussi,) nullius vel recens vel olim commissi mihimet conscium
esse, cujus atrocitas hanc mihi præ cæteris calamitatem creare, aut
accersisse merito potuerit.- Def. Sec.
Tu senties eam esse vitæ meæ et apud me conscientiam, et apud
bonos existimationem, eam esse et præteritæ fiduciam et reliquæ spem
bonam, ut nihil impedire me, aut absterrere possit, quo minusfiagitia
tua, si pergis lacessere, etiam liberius adhuc et diligentius persequar.
-Def. cont. Alex. Morum. Ed .]
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 63
liar with the general habits of genius, will appear the
poet's matchless industry and perseverance in his pur
suits ; the worthiness and dignity of those pursuits ;
his generous submission to tasks of transitory interest,
or such as his genius alone could make otherwise ; and
that having thus more than satisfied the claims of affec
tion or prudence, he should yet have made for himself
time and power, to achieve more, and in more various
departments, than almost any other writer has done,
though employed wholly on subjects of his own choice
and ambition. But as Southey possesses, and is not
possessed by, his genius, even so is he master even of
his virtues. The regular and methodical tenor of his
daily labours, which would be deemed rare in the most
mechanical pursuits, and might be envied by the mere
ınan of business , loses all semblance of formality in
the dignified simplicity of his manners, in the spring
and healthful cheerfulness of his spirits. Always em
ployed, his friends find him always at leisure. No less
punctual in trifles, than steadfast in the performance
of highest duties, he inflicts none of those small pains
and discomforts which irregular men scatter about
them, and which in the aggregate so often become
formidable obstacles both to happiness and utility ;
while on the contrary he bestows all the pleasures, and
inspires all that ease of mind on those around him or
connected with him, which perfect consistency, and (if
such a word might be framed) absolute reliability,
equally in small as in great concerns, cannot but in
spire and bestow ; when this too is softened without
being weakened by kindness and gentleness. I know
few men who so well deserve the character which an
antient attributes to Marcus Cato, namely, that he was
likest virtue, in as much as he seemed to act aright,
not in obedience to any law or outward motive, but by
64 BIOGRA LITERA ,
PHIA RIA
the necessity of a happy nature, which could nct act
otherwise .13 As son, brother, husband, father, mas
ter, friend, he moves with firm yet light steps, alike
unostentatious , and alike exemplary. As a writer, he
has uniformly made his talents subservient to the best
interests of humanity, of public virtue, and domestic
piety ; his cause has ever been the cause of pure reli
gion and of liberty, of national independence and of
national illumination . When future critics shall weigh
out his guerdon of praise and censure, it will be
Southey the poet only, that will supply them with the
scanty materials for the latter. They will likewise
not fail to record, that as no man was ever a more
constant friend, never had poet more friends and
honourers among the good of all parties ; and that
quacks in education, quacks in politics, and quacks in
criticism were his only enemies.¹

13 [-homo virtuti simillimus, et per omnia ingenio Diis quam

hominibus propior, qui nunquam recte fecit, ut facere videretur,
sed quia aliter facere non poterat. - Vell. Paterc. II. 35. Ed . ]
14 It is not easy to estimate the effects which the example of
a young man as highly distinguished for strict purity of disposi
tion and conduct, as for intellectual power and literary acquire
ments, may produce on those of the same age with himself, es
pecially on those of similar pursuits and congenial minds. For
many years, my opportunities of intercourse with Mr. Southey
have been rare, and at long intervals ; but I dwell with un
abated pleasure on the strong and sudden , yet I trust not fleet
ing, influence, which my moral being underwent on my acquaint
ance with him at Oxford , whither I had gone at the commence
ment of our Cambridge vacation on a visit to an old school-fel
low. Not indeed on my moral or religious principles, for they
had never been contaminated ; but in awakening the sense of
the duty and dignity of making my actions accord with those
*
[Mr. Coleridge first became acquainted with Mr. Southey,
then an under-graduate at Balliol College, in June 1794. Ed.]
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 65

e
e CHAPTER IV.
t
C The Lyrical Ballads with the Preface-Mr. Words
worth's earlier poems- On Fancy and Imagina
tion- The investigation of the distinction impor
tant to the Fine Arts.
e
e HAVE wandered far from the object in
e view, but as I fancied to myself readers
e who would respect the feelings that had
1 tempted me from the main road ; so I
t dare calculate on not a few, who will
1 warmly sympathize with them. At present it will be
sufficient for my purpose, if I have proved, that Mr.

principles, both in word and deed. The irregularities only not

universal among the young men of my standing, which I always
knew to be wrong, I then learned to feel as degrading ; learned
to know that an opposite conduct, which was at that time con
sidered by us as the easy virtue of cold and selfish prudence,
might originate in the noblest emotions, in views the most dis
interested and imaginative. It is not however from grateful
recollections only, that I have been impelled thus to leave these
! my deliberate sentiments on record ; but in some sense as a
P debt of justice to the man, whose name has been so often con
nected with mine for evil to which he is a stranger. As a spe
4
cimen I subjoin part of a note, from The Beauties of the Anti
+ jacobin, in which, having previously informed the public that I
had been dishonoured at Cambridge for preaching Deism, at a
time when, for my youthful ardour in defence of Christianity, I
was decried as a bigot by the proselytes of French phi- (or to
speak more truly, psi-)-losophy, the writer concludes with these
words ; " since this time he has left his native country, com
5 menced citizen of the world, left his poor children fatherless, and
リ his wife destitute. Ex bis disce his friends, LAMB and Sou
1 F
66 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA.

Southey's writings no more than my own furnished

the original occasion to this fiction of a new school of
poetry, and to the clamours against its supposed foun
ders and proselytes.

THEY." With severest truth it may be asserted, that it would

not be easy to select two men more exemplary in their domestic
affections than those whose names were thus printed at full
length as in the same rank of morals with a denounced infidel
and fugitive, who had left his children fatherless and his wife
destitute! Is it surprising, that many good men remained longer
than perhaps they otherwise would have done adverse to a
party, which encouraged and openly rewarded the authors of
such atrocious calumnies ? Qualis es, nescio ; sed per quales agis,
scio et doleo.

* [Of this now harmless injustice Mr. Talfourd speaks as fol

lows, in his interesting sketch of the life, accompanying the de
lightful Letters of Charles Lamb. " It was surely rather too
much, even for partisans, when denouncing their political oppo
nents," (in the poem of the New Morality ' published in the
' Anti-Jacobin ,' ) --" as men who ' dirt on private worth and vir
tue threw,' thus to slander two young men of the most exem
plary character- one of an almost puritanical exactness of de
meanour and conduct and the other persevering in a life of
noble self-sacrifice, chequered only by the frailties of a sweet
nature, which endeared him even to those who were not ad
mitted to the intimacy necessary to appreciate the touching ex
ample of his severer virtues." Vol . i. p. 120.
This passage I quote not, of course, for the sake of refuting
The Anti-Jacobin of 1798, but for its warm testimony to the
virtues of my father's friend, Mr. Lamb. Having quoted it, I
cannot but observe, as regards the terms in which it speaks of
Mr. Southey, (my revered uncle, ) that his purity, -a pureness
of heart and spirit, far beyond any that mere exactitude of de
meanour and conduct could evidence or express,-was utterly
unmixed, as to me it seems, with puritanism, either in opinion
or in spirit. May we not say that the deepest and most per
vading purity is preclusive of puritanism ? On this point he
might be favourably contrasted with Cowper, as well as honour
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 67
As little do I believe that Mr. Wordsworth's Lyri
cal Ballads were in themselves the cause. I speak ex
clusively of the two volumes so entitled.' A careful and
repeated examination of these confirms me in the belief,
that the omission of less than a hundred lines would
have precluded nine-tenths of the criticism on this
work. I hazard declaration , however, on the sup
position, that the reader has taken it up, as he would
have done any other collection of poems purporting to
derive their subjects or interests from the incidents of
domestic or ordinary life, intermingled with higher
strains of meditation which the poet utters in his own
person and character ; with the proviso, that these
poems were perused without knowledge of, or reference
to, the author's peculiar opinions, and that the reader
had not had his attention previously directed to those
peculiarities. In that case, as actually happened with
Mr. Southey's earlier works, the lines and passages
which might have offended the general taste, would
have been considered as mere inequalities, and attri
buted to inattention, not to perversity of judgment.
The men of business who had passed their lives chiefly

ably compared to him in moral strictness, and perhaps raised

above him on the score of that deeper purity which is a nature
rather than a principle.
Of Mr. Lamb's character in this respect Mr. Coleridge gave
a brief description which has been preserved in the specimens
of his Table Talk . It was of Charles Lamb that he said, " No
thing ever left a stain on that gentle creature's mind, which
looked upon the degraded men and things around him like
moonshine on a dunghill, which shines and takes no pollution.
All things are shadows to him, except those which move his
affections." (P. 107 , 2nd edit. )
Some further account of Mr. Lamb will be found in the bio
graphical supplement at the end of the second volume. S. C.]
[See ante note p. 2. Ed .]
68 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA.

in cities, and who might therefore be expected to derive

the highest pleasure from acute notices of men and
manners conveyed in easy, yet correct and pointed
language ; and all those who, reading but little poetry,
are most stimulated with that species of it, which
seems most distant from prose, would probably have
passed by the volumes altogether. Others more catho
lic in their taste, and yet habituated to be most pleased
when most excited, would have contented themselves
with deciding, that the author had been successful in
proportion to the elevation of his style and subject.
Not a few, perhaps, might, by their admiration of the
Lines written near Tintern Abbey, on revisiting the
Wye, those Left upon a Yew Tree Seat, The Old
Cumberland Beggar, and Ruth, have been gradually
led to peruse with kindred feeling The Brothers, the
Hart-leap Well, and whatever other poems in that col
lection may be described as holding a middle place
between those written in the highest and those in the
humblest style ; as for instance between the Tintern
Abbey, and The Thorn, or Simon Lee.2 Should
their taste submit to no further change, and still re
main unreconciled to the colloquial phrases, or the
imitations of them, that are, more or less, scattered
through the class last mentioned ; yet even from the
small number of the latter, they would have deemed
them but an inconsiderable subtraction from the merit
of the whole work ; or, what is sometimes not un
pleasing in the publication of a new writer, as serving
to ascertain the natural tendency, and consequently
the proper direction of the author's genius.

2 [The poems here mentioned are now found in the collected

edition of Mr. Wordsworth's Works as follows : II . p. 161. V.
p . 7.—p. 282. II . p. 106. I. p. 109. II. p. 141.—p. 124.
V. p. 17. Ed.]
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 69
In the critical remarks, therefore, prefixed and an
nexed to the Lyrical Ballads,³ I believe, we may safely
rest, as the true origin of the unexampled opposition
which Mr. Wordsworth's writings have been since
doomed to encounter. The humbler passages in the
poems themselves were dwelt on and cited to justify
the rejection of the theory. What in and for them
selves would have been either forgotten or forgiven as
imperfections, or at least comparative failures , pro
voked direct hostility when announced as intentional,
as the result of choice after full deliberation . Thus
the poems, admitted by all as excellent, joined with
those which had pleased the far greater number,
though they formed two-thirds of the whole work, in
stead of being deemed (as in all right they should have
been, even if we take for granted that the reader
judged aright) an atonement for the few exceptions,
gave wind and fuel to the animosity against both the
poems and the poet. In all perplexity there is a por
tion of fear, which predisposes the mind to anger. Not.
able to deny that the author possessed both genius and
a powerful intellect, they felt very positive, —but yet
were not quite certain that he might not be in the
right, and they themselves in the wrong ; an unquiet
state of mind, which seeks alleviation by quarrelling
with the occasion of it, and by wondering at the per
verseness of the man, who had written a long and ar
gumentative essay to persuade them, that
Fair is foul, and foul is fair ;
in other words, that they had been all their lives ad
miring without judgment, and were now about to cen
sure without reason.*

[This Preface, published in 1800, is now printed II. p. 303.

Ed.]
In opinions of long continuance, and in which we have
70 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA.

That this conjecture is not wide from the mark, I

am induced to believe from the noticeable fact, which

never before been molested by a single doubt, to be suddenly

convinced of an error, is almost like being convicted of a fault.
There is a state of mind, which is the direct antithesis of that,
which takes place when we make a bull . The bull namely con
sists in the bringing together two incompatible thoughts, with
the sensation, but without the sense, of their connection. The
psychological condition, or that which constitutes the possibility,
of this state, being such disproportionate vividness of two dis
tant thoughts, as extinguishes or obscures the consciousness of
the intermediate images or conceptions, or wholly abstracts the
attention from them. Thus in the well known bull, " I was a
fine child, but they changed me ;" the first conception expressed
in the word " I," is that of personal identity-Ego contemplans:
the second expressed in the word " me," is the visual image or
object by which the mind represents to itself its past condition,
or rather, its personal identity under the form in which it ima
gined itself previously to have existed,-Ego contemplatus.
Now the change of one visual image for another involves in
itself no absurdity, and becomes absurd only by its immediate
juxta-position with the first thought, which is rendered possible
by the whole attention being successively absorbed in each
singly, so as not to notice the interjacent notion , changed , which
by its incongruity with the first thought, I, constitutes the bull.
Add only, that this process is facilitated by the circumstance of
the words I, and me, being sometimes equivalent, and sometimes
having a distinct meaning ; sometimes, namely, signifying the
act of self-consciousness, sometimes the external image in and
by which the mind represents that act to itself, the result and
symbol of its individuality. Now suppose the direct contrary
state, and you will have a distinct sense of the connection be
tween two conceptions , without that sensation of such connec
tion which is supplied by habit. The man feels as if he were
standing on his head, though he cannot but see that he is truly
standing on his feet. This, as a painful sensation, will of course
have a tendency to associate itself with him who occasions it ;
even as persons, who have been by painful means restored from
derangement, are known to feel an involuntary dislike towards
their physician.
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 71

I can state on my own knowledge, that the same gene

ral censure has been grounded by almost every different
person on some different poem. Among those, whose
candour and judgment I estimate highly, I distinctly
remember six who expressed their objections to the
Lyrical Ballads almost in the same words, and alto
gether to the same purport, at the same time admitting,
that several of the poems had given them great plea
sure ; and, strange as it might seem, the composition
which one cited as execrable, another quoted as his
favourite. I am indeed convinced in my own mind,
that could the same experiment have been tried with
these volumes, as was made in the well known story
of the picture, the result would have been the same ;
the parts which had been covered by black spots on
the one day, would be found equally albo lapide no
tata on the succeeding.
However this may be, it was assuredly hard and un
just to fix the attention on a few separate and insulated
poems with as much aversion, as if they had been so
many plague-spots on the whole work, instead of pass
ing them over in silence, as so much blank paper, or
leaves of a bookseller's catalogue ; especially, as no one
pretended to have found in them any immorality or
indelicacy ; and the poems, therefore, at the worst,
could only be regarded as so many light or inferior
coins in a rouleau of gold, not as so much alloy in a
weight of bullion. A friend whose talents I hold in
the highest respect, but whose judgment and strong
sound sense I have had almost continued occasion to
revere, making the usual complaints to me concerning
both the style and subjects of Mr. Wordsworth's minor
poems ; I admitted that there were some few of the
tales and incidents, in which I could not myself find a
sufficient cause for their having been recorded in metre.
72 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA .

mentioned Alice Fells as an instance ; " Nay," replied

my friend with more than usual quickness of manner,
" I cannot agree with you there !—that, I own, does
seem to me a remarkably pleasing poem." In the Ly
rical Ballads, ( for my experience does not enable me
to extend the remark equally unqualified to the two
subsequent volumes, ) I have heard at different times ,
and from different individuals , every single poem ex
tolled and reprobated, with the exception of those of
loftier kind, which as was before observed, seem to
have won universal praise. This fact of itself would
have made me diffident in my censures, had not a still
stronger ground been furnished by the strange con
trast of the heat and long continuance of the opposi
tion, with the nature of the faults stated as justifying
it. The seductive faults, the dulcia vitia of Cowley,
Marini," or Darwin might reasonably be thought ca
pable of corrupting the public judgment for half a cen
tury, and require a twenty years war, campaign after
campaign, in order to dethrone the usurper and re
establish the legitimate taste. But that a downright
simpleness, under the affectation of simplicity, prosaic
words in feeble metre, silly thoughts in childish phrases,
and a preference of mean, degrading, or at best trivial
associations and characters, should succeed in forming
a school of imitators, a company of almost religious

5 [Poet. Works, I. 13. Ed.]

6 [John Baptist Marini or Marino, a celebrated poet , known
by the name of Il Cavalier Marino, was born at Naples, Oct. 18,
1569, died in the same city, March 21 , 1625. He wrote a
poem called Adonice, which was dedicated to Louis XIII . and
first published at Paris in folio, 1651. He left many other
poems, among them, La Strage de gl'Innocenti, Ven. 1633, 4to,
and La Lira, Rime Amorose, Maritime, Boscherecce, &c. 16to,
Ven. 1629. S. C.]
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 73
admirers, and this too among young men of ardent
minds, liberal education, and not
with academic laurels unbestowed ;
and that this bare and bald counterfeit of poetry,
which is characterized as below criticism, should for
nearly twenty years have well-nigh engrossed criticism,
as the main, if not the only, butt of review, magazine,
pamphlet, poem, and paragraph ;—this is indeed mat
ter of wonder. Of yet greater is it, that the contest
should still continue as 7 undecided as that between

7 Without however the apprehensions attributed to the Pa

gan reformer of the poetic republic. If we may judge from the
preface to the recent collection of his poems, Mr. W. would
have answered with Xanthias
σὺ δ᾽ ἐκ ἔδεισας τὸν ψόφον τῶν ῥημάτων,
καὶ τὰς ἀπειλάς; ΞΑΝ . ἔ μα Δί' , ἐδ᾽ ἐφρόντισα.*
And here let me bint to the authors of the numerous parodies,
and pretended imitations of Mr. Wordsworth's style, that at
once to conceal and convey wit and wisdom in the semblance of
folly and dulness, as is done in the Clowns and Fools, nay even
in the Dogberry, of our Shakespeare, is doubtless a proof of ge

* Rana, 492-3.
[" And if, bearing in mind the many Poets distinguished by
this prime quality, whose names I omit to mention ; yet jus
tified by recollection of the insults which the ignorant, the
incapable, and the presumptuous, have heaped upon these and
my other writings, I may be permitted to anticipate the judg
ment of posterity upon myself, I shall declare (censurable, I
grant, if the notoriety of the fact above stated does not justify
me) that I have given in these unfavourable times, evidence
of exertions of this faculty upon its worthiest objects, the ex
ternal universe , the moral and religious sentiments of Man,
his natural affections, and his acquired passions ; which have
the same ennobling tendency as the productions of men, in this
kind, worthy to be holden in undying remembrance.”—Preface
to Wordsworth's Poems, 1815. Ed.]
74 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA .

Bacchus and the frogs in Aristophanes ; when the

former descended to the realms of the departed to
-
bring back the spirit of old and genuine poesy ;
Χ. βρεκεκεκὲξ, κοὰξ, κοάξ.
Δ. ἀλλ᾽ ἐξόλοισθ᾽ ἀυτῶ κοάξ .
ἐδὲν γὰρ ἕς' ἄλλ᾽, ἢ κοάξ.
οἰμώζετ · ἐ γάρ μοι μέλει.
Χ. ἀλλὰ μὴν κεκραξόμεσθά
γ᾽, ὁπόσον ἡ φάρυγξ ἂν ἡμῶν
χανδάνῃ δι᾽ ἡμέρας,
βρεκεκεκὲξ, κοὰξ, κοάξ !
Δ. τέτῳ γὰρ ἐ νικήσετε.
Χ. ἐδὲ μὲν ἡμᾶς σὺ πάντως.
Δ. ἑδὲ μὴν ὑμεῖς γε δή μ'
οὐδέποτε . κεκράξομαι γὰρ,
κἂν με δέῃ, δι᾿ ἡμέρας,
ἕως ἂν ὑμῶν ἐπικρατήσω τοῦ κοάξ !
Χ. βρεκεκεκὲξ, ΚΟ`ΑΞ, ΚΟΑΞ ! 8

During the last year of my residence at Cambridge,

1794, I became acquainted with Mr. Wordsworth's

nius, or at all events of satiric talent ; but that the attempt to

ridicule a silly and childish poem , by writing another still sillier
and still more childish, can only prove (if it prove any thing at
all ) that the parodist is a still greater blockhead than the origi
nal writer, and, what is far worse, a malignant coxcomb to boot.
The talent for mimicry seems strongest where the human race
are most degraded . The poor, naked half human savages of
New Holland were found excellent mimics : and , in civilized so
ciety, minds of the very lowest stamp alone satirize by copying.
At least the difference which must blend with and balance the
likeness, in order to constitute a just imitation , existing here
merely in caricature , detracts from the libeller's heart, without
adding an iota to the credit of his understanding.
8 [ Rana, 225-7,257-66. Ed .]
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 75
first publication entitled Descriptive Sketches ; and
seldom, if ever, was the emergence of an original
poetic genius above the literary horizon more evidently
announced. In the form, style, and manner of the
whole poem, and in the structure of the particular
lines and periods, there is a harshness and acerbity
connected and combined with words and images
all a-glow, which might recall those products of the
vegetable world, where gorgeous blossoms rise out of
a hard and thorny rind and shell, within which the
rich fruit is elaborating. The language is not only
peculiar and strong, but at times knotty and contorted,
as by its own impatient strength ; while the novelty
and struggling crowd of images, acting in conjunction
with the difficulties of the style, demands always a
greater closeness of attention , than poetry, -at all
events, than descriptive poetry- has a right to claim.
It not seldom therefore justified the complaint of ob
scurity. In the following extract I have sometimes
fancied, that I saw an emblem of the poem itself, and
of the author's genius as it was then displayed.—

'Tis storm ; and hid in mist from hour to hour,

All day the floods a deepening murmur pour ;
The sky is veiled, and every cheerful sight :
Dark is the region as with coming night;
Yet what a sudden burst of overpowering light !
Triumphant on the bosom of the storm ,
Glances the fire-clad eagle's wheeling form ;
Eastward, in long perspective glittering, shine
The wood-crowned cliffs that o'er the lake recline ;
Those Eastern cliffs a hundred streams unfold,
At once to pillars turned that flame with gold ;
Behind his sail the peasant strives to shun
The west, that burns like one dilated sun,

9 [Published in 1793. Ed .]
 PHIA RIA
76 BIOGRA LITERA .
Where in a mighty crucible expire
The mountains, glowing hot, like coals of fire." 10
The poetic Psyche, in its process to full develop
ment, undergoes as many changes as its Greek name
sake, the butterfly. " And it is remarkable how soon
genius clears and purifies itself from the faults and
errors of its earliest products ; faults which, in its ear
liest compositions, are the more obtrusive and con
fluent, because as heterogeneous elements, which had
only a temporary use, they constitute the very ferment,
by which themselves are carried off. Or we may com
pare them to some diseases, which must work on the
humours, and be thrown out on the surface, in order
to secure the patient from their future recurrence. I
was in my twenty-fourth year, when I had the happi
ness of knowing Mr. Wordsworth personally, and
while memory lasts, I shall hardly forget the sudden
effect produced on my mind, by his recitation of a
manuscript poem, which still remains unpublished, but
of which the stanza and tone of style were the same
as those of The Female Vagrant, as originally printed
in the first volume of the Lyrical Ballads.¹2 There
was here no mark of strained thought, or forced dic

10 [Poet. Works, I. p. 80. Ed.]

11 The Butterfly the ancient Grecians made
The soul's fair emblem, and its only name
But of the soul, escaped the slavish trade
Of mortal life ! For in this earthly frame
Our's is the reptile's lot, much toil , much blame,
Manifold motions making little speed,
And to deform and kill the things whereon we feed .
12 [The poem to which reference is here made was intituled
" An Adventure on Salisbury Plain." Mr. Wordsworth after
wards broke it up, and " The Female Vagrant " is composed out
of it. Ed.]
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA , 77
tion, no crowd or turbulence of imagery ; and, as the
poet hath himself well described in his Lines on re
visiting the Wye, manly reflection and human associa
tions had given both variety, and an additional interest
to natural objects, which, in the passion and appetite
of the first love, they had seemed to him neither to
need nor permit.13 The occasional obscurities, which
had risen from an imperfect control over the resources
of his native language, had almost wholly disappeared,
together with that worse defect of arbitrary and illogi

13 [For nature then

(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days,
And their glad animal movements all gone by)
To me was all in all.-I cannot paint
What then I was. The sounding cataract J
Haunted me like a passion : the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colours and their forms, were then to me
An appetite, a feeling, and a love,
That had no need of a remoter charm,
By thought supplied, nor any interest
Unborrowed from the eye.-That time is past,
And all its aching joys are now no more,
And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this
Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur ; other gifts
Have followed ; for such loss, I would believe,
Abundant recompence. For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts ; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suus,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man :
78 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA .

cal phrases, at once hackneyed and fantastic, which

hold so distinguished a place in the technique of ordi
nary poetry, and will, more or less, alloy the earlier
poems of the truest genius, unless the attention has
been specifically directed to their worthlessness and in
congruity." I did not perceive any thing particular in

A motion and a spirit, that impels

All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.
II. pp. 164-5. Ed .]
14 Mr. Wordsworth, even in his two earliest poems, The
Evening Walk and the Descriptive Sketches, is more free from
this latter defect than most of the young poets his contempora
ries. It may however be exemplified, together with the harsh
and obscure construction , in which he more often offended , in
the following lines :
" Mid stormy vapours ever driving by,
Where ospreys, cormorants, and herous cry ;
Where hardly given the hopeless waste to cheer,
Denied the bread of life the foodful ear,
Dwindles the pear on autumn's latest spray,
And apple sickens pale in summer's ray ;
Ev'n here content has fixed her smiling reign
With independence, child of high disdain."
I hope, I need not say, that I have quoted these lines for no
other purpose than to make my meaning fully understood. It
is to be regretted that Mr. Wordsworth has not republished
these two poems entire. *

* [The passage stands thus in the last and corrected edition :*

Where ospreys, cormorants, and herons cry,
'Mid stormy vapours ever driving by,
Or hovering over wastes too bleak to rear
That common growth of earth the foodful ear ;
Where the green apple shrivels on the spray,
And pines the unripened pear in summer's kindliest ray ;
Even here Content has fixed her smiling reign
With Independence, child of high Disdain.
I. p. 80. Ed .]
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 79
the mere style of the poem alluded to during its reci
tation, except indeed such difference as was not sepa
rable from the thought and manner ; and the Spenserian
stanza, which always, more or less , recalls to the rea
der's mind Spenser's own style, would doubtless have
authorized, in my then opinion, a more frequent descent
to the phrases of ordinary life, than could without an ill
effect have been hazarded in the heroic couplet. It
was not however the freedom from false taste, whether
as to common defects, or to those more properly his
own, which made so unusual an impression on my
feelings immediately, and subsequently on my judg
ment. It was the union of deep feeling with profound
thought ; the fine balance of truth in observing, with
the imaginative faculty in modifying, the objects ob
served ; and above all the original gift of spreading
the tone, the atmosphere, and with it the depth and
height of the ideal world around forms, incidents, and
situations, of which, for the common view, custom had
bedimmed all the lustre, had dried up the sparkle and
the dew drops .
This excellence, which in all Mr. Wordsworth's
writings is more or less predominant, and which con
stitutes the character of his mind, I no sooner felt,
than I sought to understand. Repeated meditations
led me first to suspect,―(and a more intimate analysis
of the human faculties, their appropriate marks, func
tions, and effects matured my conjecture into full con
viction, ) that Fancy and Imagination were two dis
tinct and widely different faculties, instead of being,
according to the general belief, either two names with
one meaning, or, at furthest, the lower and higher de
gree of one and the same power. It is not, I own,
easy to conceive a more opposite translation of the
Greek pavraoía than the Latin imaginatio ; but it is
80 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA .

equally true that in all societies there exists an instinct

of growth, a certain collective, unconscious good sense
working progressively to desynonymize ' those words
originally of the same meaning, which the conflux of
dialects supplied to the more homogeneous languages,
as the Greek and German : and which the same cause,
joined with accidents of translation from original works
of different countries, occasion in mixed languages like
our own. The first and most important point to be
proved is, that two conceptions perfectly distinct are
confused under one and the same word, and—this
done to appropriate that word exclusively to the one

15 This is effected either by giving to the one word a gene

ral, and to the other an exclusive use ; as " to put on the back"
and "to indorse ;" or by an actual distinction of meanings, as
" naturalist," and " physician ; " or by difference of relation, as
" I " and "6'Me " (each of which the rustics of our different
provinces still use in all the cases singular of the first personal
pronoun). Even the mere difference, or corruption, in the pro
nunciation of the same word, if it have become general, will
produce a new word with a distinct signification ; thus " pro
perty" and " propriety ;" the latter of which, even to the time
of Charles II. was the written word for all the senses of both .
There is a sort of minim immortal among the animalcula infu
soriu, which has not naturally either birth, or death , absolute be
ginning, or absolute end : for at a certain period a small point
appears on its back , which deepens and lengthens till the crea
ture divides into two, and the same process recommences in
each of the halves now become integral. This may be a fanci
ful, but it is by no means a bad emblem of the formation of
words, and may facilitate the conception, how immense a no
menclature may be organized from a few simple sounds by
rational beings in a social state. For each new application , or
excitement of the same sound, will call forth a different sensa
tion, which cannot but affect the pronunciation. The after
recollection of the sound, without the same vivid sensation, will
modify it still further ; till at length all trace of the original like
ness is worn away.
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA, 81

meaning, and the synonyme, should there be one, to

the other. But if, -( as will be often the case in the
arts and sciences,) -no synonyme exists, we must
either invent or borrow a word. In the present in
stance the appropriation has already begun, and been
legitimated in the derivative adjective : Milton had a
highly imaginative, Cowley a veryfanciful mind. If
therefore I should succeed in establishing the actual
existence of two faculties generally different, the no
menclature would be at once determined. To the
faculty by which I had characterized Milton , we should
confine the term ' imagination ;' while the other would
be contra-distinguished as ' fancy.' Now were it once
fully ascertained, that this division is no less grounded
in nature than that of delirium from mania , 16 or
Otway's

16 [" You may conceive the difference in kind between the

Fancy and the Imagination in this way ;-that, if the check of
the senses and the reason were withdrawn, the first would be
come delirium and the last mania, The fancy brings together
images which have no connection natural or moral, but are
yoked together by the poet by means of some accidental coin
cidence ; as in the well-known passage in Hudibras ;
The Sun had long since in the lap
Of Thetis taken out his nap,
And like a lobster boil'd, the morn
From black to red began to turn.
The Imagination modifies images, and gives unity to variety;
it sees all things in one, il più nell' uno. There is the epic ima
gination, the perfection of which is in Milton ; and the dramatic,
of which Shakespeare is the absolute master. The first gives
unity by throwing back into the distance ; as after the magnifi
cent approach of the Messiah to battle, the poet, by one touch
from himself,
Far off their coming shone
makes the whole one image. And so at the conclusion of the
1 G
82 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA .
Lutes, laurels, seas of milk , and ships of amber, 17
from Shakespeare's
18
What ! have his daughters brought him to this pass?
or from the preceding apostrophe to the elements ; the
theory of the fine arts, and of poetry in particular,
could not but derive some additional and important
light. It would in its immediate effects furnish a torch
of guidance to the philosophical critic ; and ultimately
to the poet himself. In energetic minds, truth soon
changes by domestication into power ; and from direct
ing in the discrimination and appraisal of the product,
becomes influencive in the production. To admire on
principle, is the only way to imitate without loss of
originality.
It has been already hinted, that metaphysics and
psychology have long been my hobby-horse. But to
have a hobby-horse, and to be vain of it, are so com
monly found together, that they pass almost for the

description of the entranced Angels, in which every sort of

image from all the regions of earth and air is introduced to di
versify and illustrate, the reader is brought back to the simple
image by
He called so loud , that all the hollow deep
Of Hell resounded.
The dramatic imagination does not throw back but brings
close ; it stamps all nature with one, and that its own, meaning,
as in Lear throughout." Table Talk, p. 305. - 2nd edit.
There is more of imagination in it-that power which draws
all things to one, -which makes things animate and inanimate,
beings with their attributes, subjects and their accessories, take
one colour and serve to one effect ! Lamb's Essay on the
Genius of Hogarth. Prose Works, I. p. 189. Ed .]
[See also Mr. Wordsworth's Preface, pp. 29-30. S. C.]
17 [Venice Preserved. Act V. Ed .]
18 Lear. Act III. Sc. 4.- 1 . Ed .]
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 83

same. I trust therefore, that there will be more good

humour than contempt, in the smile with which the
reader chastises my self-complacency, if I confess my
self uncertain, whether the satisfaction from the per
ception of a truth new to myself may not have been
rendered more poignant by the conceit, that it would
be equally so to the public. There was a time, cer
tainly, in which I took some little credit to myself, in
the belief that I had been the first of my countrymen,
who had pointed out the diverse meaning of which the
two terms were capable, and analyzed the faculties to
which they should be appropriated. Mr. W. Taylor's
19
recent volume of synonymes ¹º I have not yet seen ; 20

19 [" British Synonyms discriminated, by W. Taylor." Ed .]

20 I ought to have added, with the exception of a single
sheet which I accidentally met with at the printer's. Even
from this scanty specimen, I found it impossible to doubt the
talent, or not to admire the ingenuity, of the author. That his
distinctions were for the greater part unsatisfactory to my mind,
proves nothing against their accuracy ; but it may possibly be
serviceable to him, in case of a second edition, if I take this op
portunity of suggesting the query ; whether he may not have
been occasionally misled, by having assumed, as to me he ap
pears to have done, the non-existence of any absolute syno
nymes in our language ? Now I cannot but think, that there
are many which remain for our posterity to distinguish and ap
propriate, and which I regard as so much reversionary wealth
in our mother tongue. When two distinct meanings are con
founded under one or more words, - (and such must be the case,
as sure as our knowledge is progressive and of course imperfect)
-erroneous consequences will be drawn, and what is true in
one sense of the word will be affirmed as true in toto. Men of
research, startled by the consequences, seek in the things them
selves--- (whether in or out of the mind ) —for a knowledge ofthe
fact, and having discovered the difference, remove the equivo
cation either by the substitution of a new word, or by the appro
priation ofone of the two or more words, which had before been
used promiscuously. When this distinction has been so natu
 84 BIOGR LITER
APHIA ARIA .
but his specification of the terms in question has been
clearly shown to be both insufficient and erroneous by
Mr. Wordsworth in the Preface added to the late collec
tion of his Poems. The explanation which Mr. Words

ralized and of such general currency that the language does as

it were think for us-( like the sliding rule which is the mecha
nic's safe substitute for arithmetical knowledge ) -we then say,
that it is evident to common sense. Common sense, therefore,
differs in different ages. What was born and christened in the
Schools passes by degrees into the world at large, and becomes
the property of the market and the tea-table. At least I can
discover no other meaning of the term , common sense, if it is to
convey any specific difference from sense and judgment in genere,
and where it is not used scholastically for the universal reason .
Thus in the reign of Charles II. the philosophic world was
called to arms by the moral sophisms of Hobbes, and the ablest
writers exerted themselves in the detection of an error, which a
school-boy would now be able to confute by the mere recollec
tion, that compulsion and obligation conveyed two ideas perfectly
disparate, and that what appertained to the one, had been falsely
transferred to the other by a mere confusion of terms .*

* [See Hobbes's Treatise on Liberty and Necessity. (Eng.

Works, IV. Sir W. Molesworth's edit. ) The term obligation
is not used by Hobbes. His position is that some actions are
not compelled, hut that all are necessitated. (Pp. 261-2. ) " Na
tural efficacy of objects,' he says, ' does determine voluntary
agents, and necessitates the Will and consequently the Action ;
but for moral efficacy, I understand not what he means. (P.
247 .)-" When first a man hath an appetite or will to some
thing, to which immediately before he had no appetite nor will,
the cause of his will is not the will itself, but something else not
in his own disposing. So that whereas it is out of controversy
that of voluntary actions the will is the necessary cause, and by
this whichis said, the will is also caused by other things whereof
it disposeth not, it followeth that voluntary actions have all of
them necessary causes, and therefore are necessitated. ” ( P.
274.)
A voluntary action , therefore, with Hobbes, is an action
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 85

worth has himself given, will be found to differ from

mine, chiefly, perhaps as our objects are different. It
could scarcely indeed happen otherwise, from the ad
vantage I have enjoyed of frequent conversation with
him on a subject to which a poem of his own first

necessarily consequent on or identical with , the last opinion, judg

ment, ordictate of the understanding,—which last opinion, judg
ment, or dictate of the understanding is necessarily determined
by the presentation of certain external objects to a man of such
or such a temperature.' (P. 267. ) Of course Obligation, or a
law of Duty grounded on conviction of a universal Right and
Wrong, True and False, has no place in Hobbes's system ; nor
can that system be consistently defended against the charge
that it destroys the very foundations of all morality properly
understood . It is true that Hobbes himself in this Treatise de
nies the imputed consequence ; but his reasoning in this respect
is so weak,-depending upon a covert use of the terms ' will'
and willingly' in a sense inconsistent with that necessarily at
tached to them in the previous positions,-that it cannot but be
suspected that Hobbes himself felt the legitimacy of the charge
that upon his principles Morality, in any shape but that of posi
tive Law, was an empty name. Practically, what other conclu
sion can be drawn ?
This Treatise is one of the least agreeable of all Hobbes's
Works. It contains in all its naked terrors that frightful dogma,
which, strange to say, has with scarcely any modification but
in form been reproduced and advocated with zealous reiteration
in the sermons and other writings of those popular divines who
have so largely influenced the public mind for the last seven or
6
eight years . I say,' says Hobbes, that the power of God
alone , without other helps, is sufficient justification of any action
he doth.' (P. 249.) Power irresistible justifies all actions,
really and properly, in whomsoever it be found.'-' This I know;
-God cannot sin, because his doing a thing makes it just, and
consequently no sin-and therefore it is blasphemy to say, God
can sin ; but to say God can so order the world, as a sin may
be necessarily caused thereby in a man, I do not see how it is any
dishonour to Him.' . ( Pp. 250-1 . ) If this is true, God— the
Good-differs from Moloch in nothing but power. Ed.]
86 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA.
directed my attention, and my conclusions concerning
which he had made more lucid to myself by many
happy instances drawn from the operation of natural
objects on the mind . But it was Mr. Wordsworth's
purpose to consider the influences of fancy and imagi
nation as they are manifested in poetry, and from the
different effects to conclude their diversity in kind ;
while it is my object to investigate the seminal prin
ciple, and then from the kind to deduce the degree.
My friend has drawn a masterly sketch of the branches
with their poetic fruitage. I wish to add the trunk,
and even the roots as far as they lift themselves above
ground, and are visible to the naked eye of our com
mon consciousness.
Yet even in this attempt I am aware that I shall be
obliged to draw more largely on the reader's attention,
than so immethodical a miscellany as this can autho
rize ; when in such a work (the Ecclesiastical Policy)
of such a mind as Hooker's, the judicious author,
though no less admirable for the perspicuity than for
the port and dignity of his language, and though he
wrote for men of learning in a learned age,—saw
nevertheless occasion to anticipate and guard against
" complaints of obscurity," as often as he was to trace
his subject " to the highest well-spring and fountain."
Which, (continues he) " because men are not accus
tomed to, the pains we take are more needful a great
deal, than acceptable ; and the matters we handle,
seem by reason of newness (till the mind grow better
acquainted with them) dark and intricate." I would
gladly therefore spare both myself and others this
labour, if I knew how without it to present an in
telligible statement of my poetic creed, not as my

21 [B. I. ch. i . s. 2. Ed. ]

 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 87

opinions, which weigh for nothing, but as deductions

from established premises conveyed in such a form, as
is calculated either to effect a fundamental conviction,
or to receive a fundamental confutation. If I may
dare once more adopt the words of Hooker, " they,
unto whom we shall seem tedious, are in no wise in
jured by us, because it is in their own hands to spare
that labour, which they are not willing to endure." 22
Those at least, let me be permitted to add, who have
taken so much pains to render me ridiculous for a per
version of taste, and have supported the charge by at
tributing strange notions to me on no other authority
than their own conjectures, owe it to themselves as
well as to me not to refuse their attention to my own
statement of the theory which I do acknowledge ; or
shrink from the trouble of examining the grounds on
which I rest it, or the arguments which I offer in its
justification.

CHAPTER V.

On the law of Association- Its history traced from

Aristotle to Hartley.

HERE have been men in all ages, who

have been impelled as by an instinct to
propose their own nature as a problem,
and who devote their attempts to its solu
tion. The first step was to construct a
table of distinctions, which they seem to have formed
on the principle of the absence or presence of the
J

22 [B. I. ch. i. s . 2. Ed .]
88 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA .

Will. Our various sensations, perceptions, and move

ments were classed as active or passive, or as media
partaking of both. A still finer distinction was soon
established between the voluntary and the spontaneous.
In our perceptions we seem to ourselves merely pas
sive to an external power, whether as a mirror reflect
ing the landscape, or as a blank canvass on which some
unknown hand paints it. For it is worthy of notice,
that the latter, or the system of Idealism may be traced
to sources equally remote with the former, or Mate
rialism ; and Berkeley can boast an ancestry at least as
venerable as Gassendi ' or Hobbes. These conjec
tures, however, concerning the mode in which our
perceptions originated, could not alter the natural dif
ference of Things and Thoughts. In the former, the
cause appeared wholly external, while in the latter,
sometimes our will interfered as the producing or de
termining cause, and sometimes our nature seemed to
act by a mechanism of its own, without any conscious

1 [Pierre Gassendi, a philosopher whose aim it was to revive,

reform, and improve the system of Epicurus, and who wrote
against Des Cartes, was born in 1592, at Chantersier in Pro
vence and died at Paris in 1656. S. C.]
2 [Thomas Hobbes was born at Malmesbury, in 1588, died
1679, aged ninety-one. His works, which are philosophical and
political, moral and mathematical, and translations, are now
first collected and edited by Sir Wm. Molesworth-the Latin
works in five vols. 8vo.; of the English 9 vols. 8vo. have ap
peared. Cousin observes that the speculative philosophy of
Hobbes, who was a materialist in doctrine, has not attracted as
much attention as the practical . His style is very excellent,
condensed, yet with all the ease and freedom of diffuse writing.
It is sharp and sparkling as a diamond. Sir James Mackintosh
praises it highly in his well known Dissertation on the Progress
of Ethical Philosophy. He says of it ; " short, clear, precise,
pithy, his language never has more than one meaning, which
never requires a second thought to find." See his whole cha
racter of it at p. 40. S. C.]
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 89
effort of the will, or even against it. Our inward ex
periences were thus arranged in three separate classes,
the passive sense, or what the School-men call the
merely receptive quality of the mind ; the voluntary ;
and the spontaneous, which holds the middle place
between both. But it is not in human nature to medi
tate on any mode of action, without inquiring after the
law that governs it ; and in the explanation of the
spontaneous movements of our being, the metaphysi
cian took the lead of the anatomist and natural philo
sopher. In Egypt, Palestine, Greece, and India the
analysis of the mind had reached its noon and man
hood, while experimental research was still in its dawn
and infancy. For many, very many centuries, it has
been difficult to advance a new truth, or even a new
error, in the philosophy of the intellect or morals.
With regard, however, to the laws that direct the
spontaneous movements of thought and the principle
of their intellectual mechanism there exists, it has been
asserted, an important exception most honourable to
the moderns, and in the merit of which our own coun
try claims the largest share. Sir James Mackintosh,
-(who, amid the variety of his talents and attain
ments, is not of less repute for the depth and accuracy
of his philosophical inquiries than for the eloquence
with which he is said to render their most difficult re
sults perspicuous, and the driest attractive, )-affirmed
in the Lectures, delivered by him in Lincoln's Inn
Hall, that the law of association as established in the
contemporaneity of the original impressions, formed
the basis of all true psychology ; and that any ontolo
gical or metaphysical science, not contained in such
(that is, an empirical) psychology, was but a web of
abstractions and generalizations. Of this prolific truth,
of this great fundamental law, he declared Hobbes to
have been the original discoverer, while its full appli
90 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA.

cation to the whole intellectual system we owed to

Hartley ; who stood in the same relation to Hobbes
as Newton to Kepler ; the law of association being
that to the mind, which gravitation is to matter.
Of the former clause in this assertion, as it respects
the comparative merits of the ancient metaphysicians,
including their commentators, the School-men, and of
the modern British and French philosophers from
Hobbes to Hume, Hartley, and Condillac, this is not
the place to speak. So wide indeed is the chasm be
tween Sir James Mackintosh's philosophical creed and
mine, that so far from being able to join hands, we
could scarcely make our voices intelligible to each
other and to bridge it over would require more time,
skill, and power than I believe myself to possess. But
the latter clause involves for the greater part a mere
question of fact and history, and the accuracy of the
statement is to be tried by documents rather than
reasoning.
First then, I deny Hobbes's claim in toto : for he
had been anticipated by Des Cartes, whose work De
Methodo, preceded Hobbes's De Natura Humana,
by more than a year. But what is of much more im
portance, Hobbes builds nothing on the principle which

3 [ Hobbes's Treatise, “ Human Nature,” written by him in

English, was published in 1650, although his dedication of it
to the Earl of Newcastle is dated in 1640. Des Cartes (born at
La Haye, in Touraine, in 1596) died in Sweden, to which coun
try he had been called by Queen Christina, in 1650. His trea
tise, De Methodo, was originally written in French, and pub
lished in 1637 ; the Latin version, revised and augmented by
Des Cartes himself, appeared in 1644. But neither the one nor
the other contains any thing upon the subject mentioned in the
text. The incident, to which Mr. Coleridge afterwards refers, as
toldin the De Methodo, is to be found in the Philosophia,
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 91
he had announced . He does not even announce it, as
differing in any respect from the general laws of ma

Part IV. s. 196. This latter work was published in 1644. But
neither in the Principia is the law of the contemporaneity of
impressions stated. In another and posthumous work, however,
Tractatus de Homine, Part V. s. 73, Des Cartes certainly does, in
a short incidental paragraph, mention the fact and the ground
of it :
Quinetiam notandum est, quod si tantum aliqua ejusmodi fora
mina recluderentur, ut A. et B., hoc unum in causa esse posset, ut
etiam alia, puta C. et D. eodem tempore recludantur ; præcipue si
sæpius omnia simul reclusa fuissent, nec solita sint una sine aliis
seorsum aperiri. Quod ostendit, quo pacto recordatio rei unius ex
citari possit per recordationem alterius, quæ aliquando una cum ea
memoriæ impressa fuit. Ut si videam duos oculos cum naso, con
tinuo frontem, et os, omnesque alias faciei partes imaginor, quia
assuetus non sum unas sine aliis videre. Et cum video ignem, re
cordor colorem ejus, quem viso igne percepi aliquando.
That Hobbes was not the discoverer or first propounder of
this law of association is, indeed , clear enough ; but it does not
appear that he was indebted to Des Cartes for his knowledge of
it ; and it must be admitted that he states the rule with dis
tinctness.
" The cause of the coherence or consequence of one concep
tion to another, is their first coherence or consequence at that
time when they are produced by sense." H. N. c. iv . 2. See
also Leviathan, Pt. I. c. iii.
Neither is it, perhaps, quite correct to say that Hobbes
builds nothing on this law. He at least clearly saw its connec
tion with speech.
" It is the nature almost of every corporal thing, being often
moved in one and the same manner, to receive continually a
greater and greater easiness and aptitude to the same motion, in
somuch as in time the same becometh so habitual, that to beget
it there needs no more than to begin it. The passions of man, as
they are the beginning of voluntary motions, so are they the begin
ning of speech, which is the motion of the tongue. And men
desiring to show others the knowledge, opinions, conceptions,
and passions, which are in themselves, and to that end having
invented language, have by that means transferred all that dis
92 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA .

terial motion and impact : nor was it, indeed, possible

for him so to do, compatibly with his system, which
was exclusively material and mechanical. Far other
wise is it with Des Cartes ; greatly as he too in his
after writings (and still more egregiously his followers
De la Forge, and others ) obscured the truth by their
attempts to explain it on the theory of nervous fluids,
and material configurations. But, in his interesting
work, De Methodo, Des Cartes relates the circum
stance which first led him to meditate on this subject,
and which since then has been often noticed and em
ployed as an instance and illustration of the law. A
child who with its eyes bandaged had lost several of
his fingers by amputation, continued to complain for
many days successively of pains, now in this joint and

cursion of their mind mentioned in the former chapter, by the

motion of their tongues, into discourse of words : and ratio now
is but oratio, for the most part, wherein custom hath so great a
power, that the mind suggesteth only the first word ; the rest
follow habitually, and are not followed by the mind," &c. H.
N. c. v. 14. Ed . ]
[It may well be doubted whether Mr. Coleridge is not
more indulgent here to Des Cartes than the truth of the case
warrants. The Tractatus de Homine is, no doubt, a part of the
great Work of which he gives an account in his De Methodo, as
being then written ; and in it the nervous fluids and material
configurations are displayed as precisely, if not as copiously, as
by his commentator De la Forge himself. The " animal spirits"
move mind and body. See De Hom. P. IV. s. 55, &c. See
even in the De Methodo itself. Denique id quod hic super omnia
observari meretur, generatio est spirituum animalium, quæ aut in
star venti subtilissimi, aut potiusfiammæ purissimæ ; quæ continue e
corde magna copia in cerebrum ascendens, inde per nervos in mus
culos penetrat, et omnibus membris motum dat, &c. P. 30. edit.
1664. See Spectator, No 417. And indeed their agency is dis
tinctly recognized in the same part of the Principia, in which
the story of the child is related . Ed .]
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 93
now in that, of the very fingers which had been cut
off.5 Des Cartes was led by this incident to reflect on
the uncertainty with which we attribute any particular
place to any inward pain or uneasiness, and proceeded
after long consideration to establish it as a general
law ; that contemporaneous impressions, whether im
ages or sensations, recall each other mechanically.
On this principle, as a ground work, he built up the
whole system of human language, as one continued
process of association . He showed in what sense not
only general terms, but generic images,-under the
name of abstract ideas,-actually existed, and in what
consist their nature and power. As one word may
become the general exponent of many, so by associa
tion a simple image may represent a whole class. But

5 This story is told by Des Cartes in these words as one of

many proofs that animam, non quatenus est in singulis membris,
sed tantum quatenus est in cerebro, ea quæ corpori occidunt in sin
gulis membris, nervorum ope sentire. -
Cum puellæ cuidam, manum gravi morbo affectum habenti, vela
rentur oculi, quoties chirurgus accedebat, ne curationis apparatu
turbaretur, eique, post aliquot dies brachium ad cubitum usque, ob
gangrenam in eo serpentem, fuisset amputatam, et panni in ejus
locum ita substituti , ut eo se privatum esse plane ignoraret, ipsa in
terim varios dolores, nunc in uno ejus manus quæ abscissa erat
digito, nunc in alio se sentire querebatur. Quod sane aliunde con
tingere non poterat, quam ex eo, quod nervi, qui prius ex cerebro ad
manum descendebant, tuncque in brachio juxta cubitum termina
bantur, eodem modo ibi moverentur, ac prius moveri debuissent in
manu, ad sensum hujus vel illius, digiti dolentis animæ in cerebro
residenti imprimendum . Princ . IV, 196. Ed. ]
6 [The Editor has never been able to find in the writings of
Des Cartes any thing coming up to the statement in the text.
Certainly nothing of the sort follows the paragraph containing
the story of the amputated hand. That Des Cartes was a Nomi
ualist is clear from the following passage :
94 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA .

in truth Hobbes himself makes no claims to any dis

covery, and introduces this law of association, or (in
his own language) discursion of mind, as an admitted
fact, in the solution alone of which, and this by causes
purely physiological, he arrogates any originality. His
system is briefly this ; whenever the senses are im
pinged on by external objects, whether by the rays of
light reflected from them, or by effluxes of their finer
particles, there results a correspondent motion of the
innermost and subtlest organs. This motion consti
tutes a representation, and there remains an impres
sion of the same, or a certain disposition to repeat the
same motion. Whenever we feel several objects at
the same time, the impressions that are left, (or in the
language of Mr. Hume, the ideas, ) are linked together.
Whenever therefore any one of the movements, which
constitute a complex impression, is renewed through
the senses, the others succeed mechanically. It fol
lows of necessity, therefore, that Hobbes, as well as
Hartley and all others who derive association from the
connection and interdependence ofthe supposed matter,
the movements of which constitute our thoughts, must
have reduced all its forms to the one law of Time. But
even the merit of announcing this law with philosophic

Et optime comprehendimus, qua pacto a varia magnitudine,

figura et motu particularum unius corporis, varii motus locales in
alio corpore excitentur ; nullo autem modo possumus intelligere, quo
pacto ab iisdem (magnitudine scilicet, figura, et motu, ) aliquid
aliud producatur, omnino diversæ ab ipsis naturæ, quales sunt ille
forma substantiales et qualitates reales, quas in rebus esse multi sup
ponunt; nec etiam quo pacto postea istæ qualitates aut forma vim
habeant in aliis corporibus motus locales excitandi. Princip . IV.
198. Ed. ]
7 [See Human Nature. C. ii . 111 . Leviathan ubi supra.
Ed.]
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 95
precision cannot be fairly conceded to him . For the
objects of any two ideas need not have co-existed in

8 I here use the word idea in Mr. Hume's sense on account

of its general currency amongst the English metaphysicians ;
though against my own judgment, for I believe that the vague
use of this word has been the cause of much error and more
confusion . The word , ἰδέα, in its original sense as used by Pin
dar, Aristophanes, and in the Gospel of St. Matthew , repre
sented the visual abstraction of a distant object, when we see
the whole without distinguishing its parts.* Plato adopted it
as a technical term , and as the antithesis to εἴδωλον, or sensuous
image ; the transient and perishable emblem , or mental word ,
of the idea. Ideas themselves he considered as mysterious
powers, living, seminal, formative, and exempt from time.t In
* [ τὸν εἶδον
κρατέοντα χερὸς ἀλκᾷ, βωμὸν παρ᾽ Ολύμπιον
κεῖνον κατὰ χρόνον γ' ἰδέα τε καλὸν
ὥρᾳ τε κεκραμένον, -Olymp. XI. ( Χ . ) 121 .
οὐ γινώσκων, ὅτι τοῦ Πλούτου παρέχω βελτίονας ἄνδρας,
καὶ τὴν γνώμην , καὶ τὴν ἰδέαν. -Αristoph . Plut. 558-9.
ἦν δὲ ἡ ἰδέα αὐτοῦ ὡς ἀστραπὴ , καὶ τὸ ἔνδυμα αὐτοῦ λευκὸν
ὡσεὶ χιών .---Matt. xxviii. 3. Ed.]
+ [See the Timæus. ( Bekk. III . ii. 23.) ὅτου μὲν οὖν ἂν ὁ
δημιουργὸς πρὸς τὸ κατὰ ταὐτὰ ἔχον βλέπων ἀεί, τοιούτῳ τινὶ
προσχρώμενος παραδείγματι, τὴν ἰδέαν αὐτοῦ καὶ δύναμιν
ἀπεργάζηται, καλὸν ἐξ ἀνάγκης οὕτως ἀποτελεῖσθαι πᾶν. But
the word idea is used by Plato in several senses, modified ac
cording to the natures, divine or human, in which he represents
the ideas as placed . See the fine moral passage in the Repub
lic ( vii. 3.) —ἐν τῷ γνωστῷ τελευταία ἡ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ ἰδέα καὶ
μόγις ὁρᾶσθαι, ὀφθεισα δὲ συλλογιστέα εἶναι ὡς ἄρα πᾶσι πάν
των αὕτη ὀρθῶν τε καὶ καλῶν αἰτία , ἔν τε ὁρατῷ φῶς καὶ τὸν
τούτου κύριον τεκοῦσα , ἔν τε νοητῷ αὐτὴ κυρία ἀλήθειαν καὶ
νοῦν παρασχομένη, καὶ ὅτι δεῖ ταύτην ἰδεῖν τὸν μέλλοντα ἐμ
φρόνως πράξειν ἢ ἰδία ἢ δημοσίᾳ.
The notes appended by the enthusiastic Thomas Taylor to
his translation of the Metaphysics of Aristotle are full of learned
illustration upon this subject. Ed.]
 96 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA .

the same sensation in order to become mutually asso

ciable. The same result will follow when one only of

this sense the word Idea became the property of the Platonic
school ; and it seldom occurs in Aristotle, without some such
phrase annexed to it, as according to Plato, or as Plato says.
Our English writers to the end of the reign of Charles II . or
somewhat later, employed it either in the original sense, or Pla
tonically, or in a sense nearly correspondent to our present use
of the substantive, Ideal ; always however opposing it, more or
less to image, whether of present or absent objects. The reader
will not be displeased with the following interesting exemplifi
Ication from Bishop Jeremy Taylor. " St. Lewis the King sent
Ivo Bishop of Chartres on an embassy, and he told, that he met
a grave and stately matron on the way with a censer of fire in
one hand, and a vessel of water in the other ; and observing her
to have a melancholy , religious, and phantastic deportment and
look, he asked her what those symbols meant, and what she
meant to do with her fire and water ; she answered, My purpose
is with the fire to burn paradise, and with my water to quench
the flames of hell, that men may serve God purely for the love
of God. But we rarely meet with such spirits which love vir
tue so metaphysically as to abstract her from all sensible composi
tions, and love the purity of the idea." Des Cartes having in
troduced into his philosophy the fanciful hypothesis of material
ideas,--or certain configurations of the brain, which were as so
many moulds to the influxes of the external world,-Locke
adopted the term, but extended its signification to whatever is
the immediate object of the mind's attention or conscious
ness. Hume, distinguishing those representations which are

p [The passage here ascribed to Bishop Taylor I cannot find

Ap (1 in his works, nor have I been able to light upon the expression,
32 >) " him that reads in malice or him that reads after dinner," also
attributed to him by Mr. Coleridge, in any of his writings.
S. C. ]
t ["It (Idea) being that term which, I think, serves best to
stand for whatsoever is the object of the understanding, when a
man thinks ; I have used it to express whatever is meant by
phantasm, notion, species, or what is which the mind can
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 97
the two ideas has been represented by the senses, and
the other by the memory.
Long⁹ however before either Hobbes or Des Cartes

accompanied with a sense of a present object from those repro

duced by the mind itself, designated the former by impressions,
and confined the word idea to the latter.*
9 [For the substance of the following paragraph, and in part
for the remarks upon the doctrine of association of ideas as re
presented in the writings of Aristotle, Mr. Coleridge is in
debted to the very interesting and excellent treatise of J. G. E.
Maasz, On the Imagination, Versuch über die Einbildungskraft,
pp. 343-4-5-6. A copy of this work, ( 1797 , ) richly annotated
on the margins and blank spaces, was found amongst Mr. Cole
ridge's books ; and in so " immethodical a miscellany of literary
opinions" as this the insertion of these notes may not be out of
place.
" In Maasz's introductory chapters," says Mr. Coleridge,
46
my mind has been perplexed by the division of things into
matter (sensatio ab extra ) and form (i. e. per-et-con-ceptio ab in
tra ). Now as Time and Space are evidently only the univer
sals, or modi communes, of sensation and sensuous Form, and
consequently appertain exclusively to the sensuous Einbildungs
kraft, (=Eisemplasy, tλátteiv eiç ëv) which we call Imagina
tion, Fancy, &c. all poor and inadequate terms, far inferiour to
the German, Einbildung, the Law of Association derived ab ex
tra from the contemporaneity of the impressions, or indeed any
other difference of the characterless Manifold (das Mannichfal
tige) except that of plus and minus of impingence, becomes in
comprehensible, if not absurd . I see at one instant of time a
Rose and a Lily.- Chemistry teaches me that they differ only

be employed about in thinking." Human Understand . I. i .

s. 8. Ed .]
* [" By the term, Impression , then, I mean all our more lively
perceptions, when we hear, or see, or feel, or love, or hate, or
desire, or will. And impressions are distinguished from Ideas,
which are the less lively perceptions, of which we are conscious ,
when we reflect on any of those sensations or movements above
mentioned." Inquiry concerning the Hum. Under, S. 2. Ed .]
1 H
98 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA .

the law of association had been defined, and its impor

tant functions set forth by Ludovicus Vives.10 Phan
tasia, it is to be noticed, is employed by Vives to ex
press the mental power of comprehension, or the active

in form, being both reducible to the same elements. If then

form be not an external active power, if it be wholly transfused
into the object by the esemplastic or imaginative faculty of the
percipient, or rather creator, where and wherein shall I find
the ground of my perception, that this is the Rose and that the
Lily. In order to render the creative activity of the imagina
tion at all conceivable , we must necessarily have recourse to
the Harmonia præstubilita of Spinoza and Leibnitz : in which
case the automatism of the Imagination and Judgment would
he perception in the same sense as a self-conscious watch
would be a percipient of Time, and inclusively of the apparent
motion of the sun and stars. But, as the whole is but a choice
of incomprehensibles, till the natural doctrine of physical in
flux, or modification of each by all, have been proved absurd, I
shall still prefer it : and not doubt, that the pencil of rays forms
pictures on the retina, because I cannot comprehend how this
picture can excite a mental fac-simile."
Maasz, Introd . S. 1. Denn die Merkmale, wodurch ein Objekt
angestellt wird, müssen entweder individuelle oder gemeinsame
seyn.
Coleridge. " Deceptive. The mark in itself is always indi
vidual. By an act of the reflex understanding it may be ren
dered a sign or general term. The word Vorstellung has been
as often mischievous as useful in German philosophy." Ed.]
10 [Originally thus-" by Melancthon, Ammerbach, and L.
Vives ; more especially by the last ;"-part of which statement
appears to have been an imperfect recollection by Mr. C. of the
words of Maasz, who, after observing that in the sixteenth cen
turythe spirit of inquiry took a new turn, and that men then came
forth who knew the value of empirical psychology, and took
pains to enforce and elucidate its truths, proceeds as follows :
66
Among the first to whom this merit belongs were Melanc
thon, Ammerbach, and Lud . Vives, whose psychological wri
tings were published all together by Getzner (Zurich 1662 ).
But far the most was done by Vives. He has brought together
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA . 99

function of the mind ; and imaginatio for the recepti

vity (vis receptiva ) of impressions, or for the passive
perception." The power of combination he appro
priates to the former : " quæ singula et simpliciter

many important observations upon the human soul, and made

striking remarks thereon. More especially in the theory ofthe
association of representations, which Melancthon and Ammer
bach do not bring forward at all, he displays no ordinary know
ledge." Transl. p. 343.
Philip Melancthon, a Reformer in Philosophy as well as in
Religion, published , among other philosophical works, a book
De Anima, 1540, in 8vo.
Vitus Amerbach, a learned author and Professor of Philoso
phy at Ingolstadt,—was born at Wedinguen in Bavaria, and
died in 1557 at the age of seventy. He also published, amongst
other works, one on the Soul- De Anima, libb. iv. Lugd. Bat.
1555, 8vo, and one on Natural Philosophy- De Philosophia Na
turali, libb. vi. 8vo.
John Lewis Vives was born in 1492 at Valencia in Spain,
died at Bruges, according to Thuanus in 1541 : was first pa
tronized by Henry VIII. of England, who made him preceptor
in Latin to the Princess Mary, and afterwards persecuted by him
foropposing his divorce. He was a follower of Erasmus and op
ponent of the Scholastic Philosophy. His works, which are of
various kinds, theological, devotional, grammatical, critical, as
well as philosophical, were printed at Basle in 1555, in two
vols. fol. The Treatise De Anima et Vita is contained in vol. ii.
p. 497-593. S. C.]
11 [Et quemadmodum in altrice facultate videre est inesse vim
quandum, quæ cibum recipiat, aliam quæ contineat, aliam quæ con
ficiat, quæque distribuat et dispenset : ita in animis et hominum et
brutorum est functio, quæ imagines sensibus impressas recipit,
quæ inde Imaginativa dicitur : est quæ continet hæc, Memoria ;
quæ conficit, Phantasia : quæ distribuit ad assensum aut dissen
sum, Extrimatrix . Sunt enim spiritalia imagines Dei, corporalia
vero spiritalium quædum veluti simulachra : ut mirandum non sit,
ex corporalibus spiritalia colligi, ceu ab umbris aut picturis corpora
expressa. Imaginativæ actio est in animo, quæ oculi in corpore,
recipere imagines intuendo : estque velut orificium quoddam
100 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA.

acceperat imaginatio , ea conjungit et disjungitphan

tasia."" 12 And the law by which the thoughts are
spontaneously presented follows thus ; " quequæ simul
sunt a phantasia comprehensa, si alterutrum occur
rat, solet secum alterum representare.” 13 To time
therefore he subordinates all the other exciting causes
66
of association. The soul proceeds a causa ad ef

vasis, quod est Memoria . Phantasia verò conjungit et disjungit

ea, quæ singula et simplicia Imaginatio acceperat. Equidem
haud sum nescius, confundi duo hæc a plerisque, ut Imaginationem
Phantasiam, et vice versa hanc Imaginationem nominent, et eandem
essefunctionem quidam arbitrentur. Sed nobis tum ad rem aptius,
tum ad docendum accommodatius visum est ita partiri : propterea
quod actiones videmus distinctas, undefacultates censentur. Tametsi
nihil eritquandoque periculi, si istis utamur promiscue. Accedit his
sensus, qui ab Aristotele communis dicitur, quo judicantur sensilia·
absentia : et discernuntur ea, quæ variorum sunt sensuum : hic sub
Imaginationem et Phantasiam venire potest. Phantasia est mirifice
expedita et libera : quicquid collibitum est,fingit, refingit, componit,
devincit, dissolvit, res disjunctissimas connectit, conjunctissimas au
tem longissime separat. Itaque nisi regatur, et cohibeatur a ratione,
haud secus animum percellit ac perturbat, quam procella mare. Jo.
Ludovici Vivis, De Anima et Vita. Lib. I. Opera, Tom . II. p .
509. Basil. 1555. S. C.]
12 [ Maasz, p. 344. Note. Vives De Anim. I. s. d. cogn .
intern. Phantasia conjungit et disjungit ea, quæ singula et sim
pliciter, acceperat imaginatio. Imagination , according to Vives,
says Maasz, is the capability of perceiving an impression.
S. C. ]
13 [De Anima I. sect. d. cited by Maasz in a note ibid. Vives
proceeds thus- unde sedes illæ existunt in artificio memoriæ, quippe
ad aspectum loci de eo venit in mentem, quod in loco scimus evenisse,
aut situm esse : quando etiam cum voce aut sono aliquo quippiam
contingit lætum, eodem sono audito delectamur : si triste tristamur.
Quod in brutis quoque est annotare : quæ si quo sono vocata gratum
aliquid accipiunt, rursum ad eundem sonum facile ac libenter ac
currunt : sin cædantur, sonitum eundem deinceps reformidant, ex
plagarum recordatione .- Lib. II . Opera, Tom. II. p. 519. S. C.]
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA . IOI
" 14
fectum, ab hoc ad instrumentum, aparte ad totum ; '
thence to the place, from place to person, and from
this to whatever preceded or followed, all as being
parts of a total impression, each of which may recall
the other. The apparent springs " saltus vel tran
situs etiam longissimos," 15 he explains by the same
thought having been a component part of two or more
total impressions . Thus " ex Scipione venio in cogi
tationem potentiæ Turcicæ, propter victorias ejus de
Asia, in qua regnabat Antiochus.” 16
But from Vives I pass at once to the source of his
doctrines, and (as far as we can judge from the re
mains yet extant of Greek philosophy) as to the first,
so to the fullest and most perfect enunciation of the
associative principle, namely, to the writings of Aris
totle ; and of these in particular to the treatises De
Anima, and " De Memoria," which last belongs to the
series of essays entitled in the old translations Parva
Naturalia.¹ In as much as later writers have either
deviated from, or added to his doctrines, they appear
to me to have introduced either error or groundless
supposition.
In the first place it is to be observed , that Aristotle's

14 [De Anima II . sect. d . mem. et record.― Cited by Maasz in

a note, ibid. S. C.]
15 [ Ibid. ibid . See Maasz, pp . 345-6. That the springs are
only "apparent" is explained by Maasz, commenting on the
words of Vives, Sunt (in phantasia) transitus quidam longissimi,
immo saltus. S.C.]
16 [Cited by Maasz from the same place, p. 346. S. C.]
17 [This collection, τὰ μικρὰ καλούμενα Φυσικά, which is
connected with the treatise in three books, on the Soul , (as
Trendelenburg distinctly shows in the Preface to his elaborate
commentary on that work of Aristotle,) contains the books On
Sense and Things Sensible, On Memory and Recollection, On
Sleep, On Dreams, On Divination in Sleep, (кα0' vπνον, ) On
 102 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA .

positions on this subject are unmixed with fiction.18

The wise Stagyrite speaks of no successive particles
propagating motion like billiard balls, as Hobbes ;¹9 nor
of nervous or animal spirits, where inanimate and irra
tional solids are thawed down, and distilled, or filtrated
by ascension, into living and intelligent fluids, that
etch and re-etch engravings on the brain, as the fol
lowers of Des Cartes, and the humoral pathologists in
general ; nor of an oscillating ether which was to
effect the same service for the nerves of the brain con
sidered as solid fibres, as the animal spirits perform
for them under the notion of hollow tubes, as Hartley
teaches-nor finally, (with yet more recent dreamers)
of chemical compositions by elective affinity, or of an
electric light at once the immediate object and the úl
timate organ of inward vision, which rises to the brain

Length and Shortness of Life, On Youth and Old Age, On Re

spiration, and On Life and Death. S. C. ]
18 [Maasz has also said , ( p. 345 ) speaking of Vives, that,
though he set forth correctly the theory of association, he yet
did not exhibit it with such entire purity as Aristotle. Mr.
Coleridge, however is comparing the wise Stagyrite with
Hobbes, Des Cartes , Hartley and others -Maasz is comparing
him with Vives-observing that this author not only came after
Aristotle in perceiving and expressing the general law of imagi
nation, but, what is the principal thing, did not state the theory
of association so consistently and purely as the former, because
he made exceptions to the same, which are such in appearance
only though he thinks it may be assumed in his favour, that
his language is incorrect rather than his conception of the sub
ject. Mr. Coleridge, on the other hand, is objecting to the phy
sical dreams, which modern metaphysicians introduced into the
survey ofpsychological facts delivered by the sager ancient. He
imputes to them an error in principle, while Maasz remarks upon
a statement at variance with a law correctly laid down. S. C.]
19 [See Human Nature, chaps. ii. and iii. Hobbes does not
use the expressions in which Mr. C. describes his doctrine, but
speaks much of motions produced in the brain by objects . S. C.]
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 103
like an Aurora Borealis, and there, disporting in
various shapes, as the balance of plus and minus, or
negative and positive, is destroyed or re-established, —
images out both past and present. Aristotle delivers
a just theory without pretending to an hypothesis ; or
in other words a comprehensive survey of the different
facts, and of their relations to each other without sup
position, that is, a fact placed under a number of
facts, as their common support and explanation ; though
in the majority of instances these hypotheses or sup
positions better deserve the name of ὑποποιησεῖς , or
20
suffictions. He uses indeed the word kivŋotis, to
express what we call representations or ideas, but he
carefully distinguishes them from material motion, de
signating the latter always by annexing the words εv
τοπῳ, or κατὰ τόπον.21 On the contrary in his trea

20 [The discussion of Maasz on the part performed by Aris

totle in explaining the general law of the Imagination extends
from p. 319 to p. 335, from sect. 90 to 94 inclusively. S. C. ]
21 [See Maasz, p. 321. He refers generally to the treatise
De Anima, Lib. II. Cap. iii. and in particular to the words in
5. 5. ᾿Ενίοις δὲ πρὸς τούτοις ὑπάρχει καὶ τὸ κατὰ τόπον κινη
τικόν . 66 But some, beside these things, have also the faculty of
motion according to place."
In the third and fourth chapters of the first book the subject
of motion, karà тóñоv, is discussed, and the opinions of other
philosophers that it is properly attributable to the soul refuted.
Sections 3 and 4 of Lib. I. cap. iii. speak distinctly on this
point : and so do sections 8-11 of cap , iv. In the latter the philo.
sopher says ; " That the soul cannot possibly be harmony, neither
can be turned about in a circle is manifest, from the aforesaid.
But that it may be removed per accidens -contingently, -may
so move itself, even as we have declared , is possible : inasmuch
as that, in which it is, is capable of being moved , and that (in
which it is) may be moved by the soul : but in no other way is
it possible for the soul to be moved according to place."
Maasz discusses Aristotle's use of the term kivnog in sections
91-2, pp. 321-333. He observes that it was not unusual with
 104 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA .

tise De Anima, he excludes place and motion from all

the operations of thought, whether representations or
volitions, as attributes utterly and absurdly heteroge
neous.22
The general law of association, or, more accurately,
the common condition under which all exciting causes
act, and in which they may be generalized, according
to Aristotle is this.23 Ideas by having been together

the Greek philosophers to use the word for changes of the soul,
and that Plato, for example, says expressly kivyoig kará тe 4v
Xǹv kai karà owµa, in the Theætetus, § 27. (Opera Bekker.
Lond. Sumpt. R. Priestley, 1826. Vol. iii. p. 412.) S. C. ]
22 [ I. c . 3 in initio. ἴοως γὰρ οὐ μόνον ψεῦδός ἐστι τὸ τὴν
οὐσίαν αὐτῆς τοιαύτην εἶναι , οἵαν φασὶν οἱ λέγοντες ψυχὴν
εἶναι τὸ κινοῦν ἑαυτὸ , ἣ δυνάμενον κινεῖν, ἀλλ᾽ ἕν τι τῶν ἀδυ·
νάτων τὸ ὑπάρχειν αὐτῆ κίνησιν . Cited by Maasz, p. 322.
Ed.]
[ For perhaps not only it is false that the being of the soul is
such as they suppose, who affirm that it is a thing which moves
or is able to move itself; but it may be that it is a thing to which
motion cannot possibly belong. Translation. S. C.]
23 [See Maasz, pp. 324-5-6. In proof that Aristotle had a
right conception of the common law of Association, though he
did not call it by that name, and had not discovered all its fruit
fulness, he cites from the treatise De Memoria, cap. ii, the fol
lowing sentences :-συμβαίνουσι δ᾽ αἱ ἀναμνήσεις, ἐπειδὴ πέ
φυκεν ἡ κίνησις ἥδε μενέσθαι μετὰ τήνδε-- thus translated or
paraphrased by Maasz-“ The Representations come after one
another to the consciousness, when the changes" (or movements)
"of the soul thereto belonging are of such a nature that one
arises after the other." (I believe the stricter rendering to be
-Recollections take place because it is the nature of the mind
that its motions follow one another.)- ἔνια ἰδόντες ἅπαξ μᾶλ
λον μνημονεύομεν, ἢ ἕτερα πολλάκις .
" But such a connection among the changes of the soul,
whereby one succeeds another, arises, though it be not neces
sary, through a kind of custom. For the production of this,
however, it is sufficient, if we have only once perceived the ob
jects of the representation together." (This is a collection from
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 105
acquire a power of recalling each other ; or every par
tial representation awakes the total representation of
which it had been a part.24 In the practical determi
nation of this common principle to particular recollec
tions, he admits five agents or occasioning causes : 1st,
connection in time, whether simultaneous, preceding,
or successive ; 2nd, vicinity or connection in space ;
3rd, interdependence or necessary connection, as cause

the words of Aristotle rather than their direct sense, which

seems to be as follows : " The sequence of the mental motions
is sometimes a necessary one, and this , as is evident, must
always take place ; sometimes it is one that arises from custom ,
and this takes place only for the most part. Some men, by once
thinking of a thing, acquire a habit, more than others by think
ing ever so often. Therefore we remember some things, that we
have seen but once, better than other things, that we have seen many
a time.")
66
Still plainer perhaps," says he, " speaks the place which
follows the above ; as thus : ὅταν οὖν ἀναμιμνησκώμεθα, κι
νούμεθα τῶν προτέρων τινά κινήσεων, ἕως ἂν κινηθῶμεν ,
µɛd' ηv ékeivŋ čiw0ε.—“ A representation is called up, (we re
member it, ) as soon as changes of the soul arise, with which that "
(change or movement) " belonging to the said representation has
been associated ." S. C.]
24 [See Maasz, p . 326. " Thus, representations which have
been together, call forth each other, or : Every partial repre
sentation awakens its total representation ."
66 This rule holds good for the succession of representations
generally, as well when we reflect upon a thing and strive to
remember it, as when that is not the case ; it avails, as I have
just now expressed , for the voluntary and involuntary series of
imaginations. This Aristotle expressly asserts, and hereby
we see, in what universality he had conceived the law of asso
ciation." He quotes in support of this the following sentence
from the treatise De Memoria , cap. ii. Znrovσi µèv ovv ovτæ,
καὶ μὴ ζητοῦντες δ' οὕτως ἀναμιμνήσκονται, ὅταν μεθ' ἑτέρων
κίνησιν ἐκείνη γίνηται . In this way men try to recollect, and ,
' when not trying, it is thus they remember ; some particular
movement (of mind ) arising after some other. S. C. ]
106 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA.

and effect ; 4th, likeness ; and 5th, contrast.25 As an

additional solution of the occasional seeming chasms
in the continuity of reproduction he proves, that move

25 [ Maasz (at p. 327) shows that Aristotle gives " four dis
tinct rules for Association"-that is to say, connexion in time,
in space, resemblance, and opposition or contrast-in proof of
which he cites the following passage- διὸ καὶ τὸ ἐφεξῆς θηρεύο
μεν νοήσαντες ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν , ἢ ἀλλου τινὸς , καὶ ἀφ᾽ ὁμοίου, ἢ
ἐναντίου, ἢ τοῦ σύνεγγυς . Διὰ τοῦτο γίνεται ἡ ἀνάμνησις.
Therefore in trying to remember we search (our minds) in
regular order, proceeding from the present or some other time
(to the time in which what we want to recollect occurred) ; or
from something like, or directly opposite, or near in place. De
Mem . cap. ii.
At pp. 27-8, Maasz writes thus : " That B. should be really
immediately associated, with A. it is not necessary, that the
whole representation B. should have been together with the
whole representation A .; if only some mark of A. say M. has
been associated with some mark of B., that is sufficient. Ifthen
A. being given, m. is consequently represented, n . is likewise
associated therewith, because both have been already together ;
and then with n. are associated the remaining marks belonging
to B. because these have been already together with m. in the
representation B. Thus the whole representation B. is called
up through A." " This seems to me a proof," says Mr. Cole
ridge in a marginal note on the passage, " that Likeness, as co
ordinate with, but not always subordinate to, Time, exerts an
influence per se on the association . Thus too as to Cause and
Effect ;-they cannot of course be separated from Contempora
neity, but yet they act distinctly from it. Thus too, Contrast,
and even Order. In short , whatever makes certain parts of a
total impression more vivid or distinct will determine the mind
to recall these rather than others. Contemporaneity seems to
me the common condition under which all the determining
powers act rather than itself the effective law. Maasz some
times forgets, -as Hartley seems never to have remembered,—
that all our images are abstractions ; and that in many cases of
likeness the association is merely an act of recognition." MS.
note. S. C.]
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA . 107
ments or ideas possessing one or the other of these
five characters had passed through the mind as inter
mediate links, sufficiently clear to recall other parts of
the same total impressions with which they had co
existed, though not vivid enough to excite that degree
of attention which is requisite for distinct recollection,
or as we may aptly express it, after consciousness 26
In association then consists the whole mechanism of
the reproduction of impressions, in the Aristotelian
Psychology. It is the universal law of the passive
fancy and mechanical memory ; that which supplies to
all other faculties their objects, to all thought the ele
ments of its materials.
In consulting the excellent commentary of St. Tho 414
mas Aquinas on the Parva Naturalia of Aristotle, I 12
was struck at once with its close resemblance to Hume's
326
Essay on Association. The main thoughts were the
same in both, the order of the thoughts was the same,
and even the illustrations differed only by Hume's oc
casional substitution of more modern examples. I
mentioned the circumstance to several of my literary
acquaintances, who admitted the closeness of the re
semblance, and that it seemed too great to be explained
by mere coincidence ; but they thought it improbable
that Hume should have held the pages of the Angelic
Doctor worth turning over. But some time after Mr.
Payne showed Sir James Mackintosh some odd volumes
of St. Thomas Aquinas, partly perhaps from having
heard that he had in his Lectures passed a high en
comium on this canonized philosopher ; but chiefly

26 [This is set forth at some length by Maasz, whose exposi

tions of the present subject Mr. Coleridge seems to have mixed
up in his mind with those of Aristotle. See Versuch über die
Einbildungskraft. p. 27. S. C.]
108 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA.

from the fact, that the volumes had belonged to Mr.

Hume, and had here and there marginal marks and
notes of reference in his own hand writing. Among
these volumes was that which contains the Parva
Naturalia, in the old Latin version, swathed and
swaddled in the commentary afore mentioned ! 27
It remains then for me, first to state wherein Hart

27 [This Commentary of Aquinas is contained in the third

volume of the edition of his works, printed at Venice, in 1593-4,
and in the Antwerp edition of 1612, end of tom. iii. It sur
rounds two translations of the text, one of which is the Antiqua
Translatio.
When Mr. C. spoke of " Hume's Essay on Association," as
closely resembling it, he must have had in his mind, not merely
the short section on the Association of Ideas, but generally
whatever relates to the subject in the Inquiry concerning Hu
man Understanding, from sections ii . to vii. inclusively. The
similar thoughts and ancient illustrations are to be found in that
part of the commentary which belongs to the treatise De Memo
ria et Reminiscentia ( the second of the Parva Naturalia), parti
cularly in sections v. and vi. pp. 25-6 of the Antwerp edit.
There the principles of connection amongst ideas, and " the
method and regularity " with which they present themselves to
the mind, are set forth at some length, for the purpose of ex
plaining the nature of memory and describing our mental pro
cesses in voluntary recollection and unintentional remembrance.
'I think however that the likeness to Hume's treatise, wherein
Association of Ideas is subordinate and introductory to another
speculation , which it was the author's principal aim to bring for
ward, may have been somewhat magnified in Mr. C.'s mind from
the circumstance, that the commentary, in addition to what it
sets forth on connections of ideas, dwells much on certain other
topics which are dwelt upon also in the Inquiry-as, the in
fluence of custom in producing mental habits and becoming a
sort of second nature ; the liveliness and force of phantusmata,
or images impressed on the mind by sensible things ; and the
distinctness and orderliness of mathematical theorems. These
topics Hume handles somewhat differently from Aquinas, as his
drift was different ; but it is possible that the older disquisition
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 109

ley differs from Aristotle ; then, to exhibit the grounds

of my conviction, that he differed only to err ; and
next as the result, to show, by what influences of the
choice and judgment the associative power becomes
either memory or fancy ; and, in conclusion, to appro
priate the remaining offices of the mind to the reason,
and the imagination. With my best efforts to be as

may have suggested his thoughts on these points, though it can

not have exactly formed them.
It is rather remarkable, if Hume had indeed read this com
mentary before composing his own work, that he should have
expressed himself thus at p . 22.-" Though it be too obvious to
escape observation, that different ideas are connected together,
I do not find that any philosopher hus attempted to enumerate or
class all the principles of Association, a subject, however, that
seems worthy of curiosity." Aquinas, in the commentary, does
certainly attempt to enumerate them, though he does not classify
them exactly as Hume and other modern philosophers have done.
He does not make Cause and Effect a principle of Association
over and above Contiguity in Time and Place ; and he mentions,
as a separate influence, direct Dissimilarity or Contrast, which
Hume refers to Causation and Resemblance, as a mixture ofthe
two in both which particulars he does but follow the leading of
his text.
I will just add that, in commenting on two sentences of Aris
totle, quoted in a former note, -explaining why some men re
member, and some things are remembered , better than others
under similar circumstances of association ,-Aquinas observes,
that this may happen through closer attention and profounder
knowledge, because whatever we most earnestly attend to re
mains most firmly impressed on the memory ; and again, in ac
counting for false and imperfect remembrance, he states the
converse fact, that by distraction of the imagination the mental
impression is weakened . Lects. v. a. and vi. h. These remarks
tend the same way with those in the Biographia, toward the
end of chap. vii. concerning the superiour vividness of certain
parts of a total impression, and the power of the will to give
vividness to any object whatsoever by intensifying the attention.
Mr. Coleridge's aim was to show that these agents or occasion
 110 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA .

perspicuous as the nature of language will permit on

such a subject, I earnestly solicit the good wishes and

ing causes of particular thoughts which have been specified , are

themselves subject to a deeper law, to the determination of
the will, reason, judgment, understanding. S. C.]
[ It was not till the new edition of this work was in the press
that I became aware of a note, relating to chapter v. of the
B. L. at the end of the Dissertation on the progress of Ethical
Philosophy, by Sir J. Mackintosh, in which the author speaks
as follows: " I have already acknowledged the striking resem
blance of Mr. Hume's principles of association to those of Aris
totle." After showing that the story of Mr. Hume was a mis
take, and how the mistake arose, he proceeds to say "It
* * is
certain that Aristotle explains recollection as de
pending on a general law, -that the idea of an object will re
mind us of the objects which immediately preceded or followed
when originally perceived. But what Mr. Coleridge has not
told us is, that the Stagyrite confines the application of this
law exclusively to the phenomena of recollection alone, without
any glimpse of a more general operation extending to all con
nections of thought and feeling, a wonderful proof indeed,
even so limited, of the sagacity of the great philosopher, but
which for many ages continued barren of further conse
quences." Perhaps Mr. C. thought, as Maasz appears to have 1
done, that to discover the associative principle in respect of
memory was obviously to discover the general law of mental
'association, since all connections of thought and feeling are de
pendent on memory. It is difficult to conceive a man writing a
treatise on Memory and Recollection without hitting on this
law of association, by observing the manner in which he hunts
in his mind for any thing forgotten : but perhaps this remark
savours of simplicity, for simple folks, when a truth is once
clearly presented to them, can never again so abstract their
minds from it as to conceive the possibility of its being unrecog
nized. " The illustrations of Aquinas," Sir James adds, " throw
light on the original doctrine, and show that it was unenlarged
in his time, &c." (Yet Aquinas almost touches the doctrine of
Hobbes when he says reminiscentia habet similitudinem cujusdam
syllogismi, quare sicut in syllogismo pervenitur ad conclusionem ex
aliquibus principiis, ita etiam in reminiscendo aliquis quodammodo
 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. III

friendly patience of my readers, while I thus go " sound

ing on my dim and perilous way."

syllogizat, &c.) " Those of L. Vives, as quoted by Mr. C. extend

no farther."
" But if Mr. Coleridge will compare the parts of Hobbes on
Human Nature, which relate to this subject, with those which
explain general terms, he will perceive that the philosopher of
Malmesbury builds on these two foundations a general theory of
the human understanding, of which reasoning is only a particular
case."" This has been already admitted in note 2. Sir James
seems to refer to the whole of chap. v. which begins thus :
" Seeing the succession of conceptions in the mind are caused
by the succession they had one to another when they
were produced by the senses," &c. He points out the forgetful
statements of Mr. C. respecting the De Methodo, and expresses
an opinion that Hobbes * and Hume might each have been un
conscious that the doctrine of association was not originally his
own. Either I should think had quite sagacity enough to dis
cover it for himself ; but the question is whether Hobbes was
more sagacious on this part of the subject than any preceding
philosopher.
Sir James makes an interesting reply to Mr. C.'s remark that
he was unable to bridge over the chasm between their philoso
phical creeds, which I do not quote only from want of space.
That Sir James was one of Mr. C.'s most intelligent readers is
undeniable ; yet I think it is not quite conclusive against the
German doctrines,-either as to their internal character or the
mode in which they have been enunciated-that they found no

* The language of Hobbes has somewhat of a Peripatetical

sound, and when he discourses of the motions of the mind, re
minds one of the Aristotelian commentator-Causa autem remi
niscendi est ordo motuum, qui relinquuntur in anima ex prima im
pressione ejus, quod primo apprehendimus. Sir James says “ the
term Onpeúw is as significant as if it had been chosen by Hobbes."
This term may have led Hobbes to talk about " hunting,"
44 tracing," and " ranging," in the Human Nature.
112 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA .
entrance into his mind ; or at least no welcome there, or entire
approval ; for are not all new doctrines, even such as are ulti
mately established, opposed, on their first promulgation, by
some of the strongest-headed persons of the age ? S. C.]

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