University of Virginia Library

COLERIDGE.

Coleridge appears to have excelled all his contemporaries
in personal impressiveness. Men of the highest
talent and cultivation have recorded, in the most enthusiastic
terms, the intellectual treat his conversation afforded.
The fancy is captivated by the mere description
of his fluent and emphatic, yet gentle and inspired language.
We are haunted with these vivid pictures of the
`old man eloquent,' as by those of the sages of antiquity,
and the renowned improvisatores of modern times.
Hazlitt and Lamb seem never weary of theme. They
make us realize, as far as description can, the affectionate
temper, the simple bearing, and earnest intelligence of
their friend. We feel the might and interest of a living
soul, and sigh that it was not our lot to partake directly of
its overflowing gifts.

Though so invaluable as a friend and companion, unfortunately
for posterity, Coleridge loved to talk and read
far more than to write. Hence the records of his mind
bear no proportion to its endowments and activity. Ill-health
early drew him from “life in motion, to life in

thought and sensation.” Necessity drove him to literary
labor. He was too unambitious, and found too much
enjoyment in the spontaneous exercise of his mind,
to assume willingly the toils of authorship. His mental
tastes were not of a popular cast. In boy-hood he “waxed
not pale at philosophic draughts,” and there was in his
soul an aspiration after truth—an interest in the deep
things of life—a `hungering for eternity', essentially
opposed to success as a miscellaneous writer. One of
the most irrational complaints against Coleridge, was his
dislike of the French. Never was there a more honest
prejudice. In literature, he deemed that nation responsible
for having introduced the artificial school of poetry,
which he detested; in politics, their inhuman atrocities,
during the revolution, blighted his dearest theory of man;
in life, their frivolity could not but awaken disgust in a
mind so serious, and a heart so tender, where faith and
love were cherished in the very depths of reflection and
sensibility. It is, indeed, easy to discover in his works
ample confirmation of the evidence of his friends, but
they afford but an unfinished monument to his genius.
We must be content with the few memorials he has left
of a powerful imagination and a good heart. Of these
his poems furnish the most beautiful. They are the
sweetest echo of his marvellous spirit;—

The eyes of the ancient Mariner holds us, in its wild
spell, as it did the wedding-guest, while we feel the truth that

The charm of regretful tenderness is upon us with as
sweet a mystery, as the beauty of the “lady of a far
countrie,” when we read these among other musical lines
of Christabel:

“No man was ever yet a great poet, without being at
the same time a profound philosopher.” True as this
may be in one sense, we hold it an unfortunate rule for a
poetical mind to act upon. It was part of the creed of
Coleridge, and his works illustrate its unfavorable influence.
His prose generally speaking, is truly satisfactory
only when it is poetical. The human mind is so constituted
as to desire completeness. The desultory character
of Coleridge's prose writings is often wearisome and disturbing.
He does not carry us on to a given point by a regular
road, but is ever wandering from the end proposed.
We are provoked at this waywardness the more, because,
ever and anon, we catch glimpses of beautiful localities,
and look down most inviting vistas. At these promising
fields of thought, and vestibules of truth, we are only permitted
to glance, and then are unceremoniously

hurried off in the direction that happens to please our
guide's vagrant humor. This desultory style essentially
mars the interest of nearly all the prose of this distinguished
man. Not only the compositions, but the opinions,
habits, and experience of Coleridge, partake of the same
erratic character. His classical studies at Christ's hospital
were interwoven with the reading of a circulating library.
He proposed to become a shoemaker while he
was studying medicine. He excited the wonder of every
casual acquaintance by his schoolboy discourse, while he
provoked his masters by starting an argument instead of
repeating a rule. He incurred a chronic rheumatism by
swimming with his clothes on, and left the sick ward to
enlist in a regiment of dragoons. He laid magnificent
plans of primitive felicity to be realized on the banks of
the Susquehanna, while he wandered penniless in the
streets of London. He was at different times a zealous
Unitarian, and a high Churchman—a political lecturer—
a metaphysical essayist—a preacher—a translator—a
traveller—a foreign secretary—a philosopher—an editor—
a poet. We cannot wonder that his productions, particularly
those that profess to be elaborate, should in a measure,
partake of the variableness of his mood. His works,
like his life, are fragmentary. He is, too, frequently
prolix, labors upon topics of secondary interest and excites
only to disappoint expectation. By many sensible readers
his metaphysical views are pronounced unintelligible,
and by some German scholars declared arrant plagiarisms.
These considerations are the more painful from our sense of
the superiority of the man. He proposes to awaken thought,
to address and call forth the higher faculties,and to vindicate
the claims of important truth. Such designs claim
respect. We honor the author who conscientiously entertains
them. We seat ourselves reverently at the feet of
a teacher whose aim is so exalted. We listen with curiosity
and hope. Musical are many of the periods, beautiful
the images, and here and there comes a single idea
of striking value; but for these we are obliged to hear
many discursive exord ums, irrelevant episodes and random
speculations. We are constantly reminded of Charles
Lamb's reply to the poet's inquiry if he had ever heard
him preach—`I never knew you do any thing else,' said Elia.
It is highly desirable that the prose writings of Coleridge
should be thoroughly winnowed. A volume of delightful
aphorisms might thus be easily gleaned. Long after we
have forgotten the general train of his observations, isolated
remarks, full of meaning and truth, linger in our
memories. Scattered through his works are many sayings,
referring to literature and human nature, which
would serve as maxims in philosophy and criticism.
Their effect is often lost from the position they occupy, in
the midst of abstruse or dry discussions that repel the
majority even of truth-seekers. His Biographia is the
most attractive of his prose productions.

It is not difficult, in a measure at least to explain, or
rather account for, these peculiarities. Coleridge himself
tells us that in early youth, he indulged a taste for metaphysical
speculations to excess. He was fond of quaint
and neglected authors. He early imbibed a love of contro
ersy, and took refuge in first principles, in the elements

of man's nature to sustain his positions. To this ground
few of his school-fellows could follow him; and we cannot
wonder that he became attached to a field of thought seldom
explored, and, from its very vague and mystical character,
congenial to him. That he often reflected to good purpose
it would be unjust to deny; but that his own consciousness,
at times, became morbid, and his speculations, in
consequence, disjointed and misty, seems equally obvious.
We are not disposed to take it for granted that this irregular
development of mental power is the least useful.
Perhaps one of Coleridge's evening conversations or
single aphorisms has more deeply excited some minds to
action, than the regular performances of a dozen inferior
men. It is this feeling which probably led him to express,
with such earnestness, the wish that the “criterion
of a scholar's utility were the number and value of the
truths he has circulated and minds he has awakened.”

A distinguishing trait of Coleridge's genius was a rare
power of comparison. His metaphors are often unique
and beautiful. Here also the poet excels the philosopher.
It may be questioned if any modern writer whose works
are equally limited, has illustrated his ideas with more
originality and interest. When encountered amid his
grave disquisitions, the similitudes of Coleridge strikingly
proclaim the poetical cast of his mind, and lead us to
regret that its energies were not more devoted to the
imaginative department of literature. At times he was
conscious of the same feeling. “Well were it for me
perhaps,” he remarks in the Biographia, “had I never
relapsed into the same mental disease; if I had continued

to pluck the flower and reap the harvest from the cultivated
surface, instead of delving in the unwholesome quicksilver
mines of metaphysic depths.” That he formed as
just an estimate of the superficial nature of political labor,
is evident from the following allusion to partizan characters:

A few examples taken at random, will suffice to show
his “dim similitudes woven in moral strains.”

“To set our nature at strife with itself for a good purpose,
implies the same sort of prudence as a priest of
Diana would have manifested, who should have proposed
to dig up the celebrated charcoal foundations of the mighty
temple of Ephesus, in order to furnish fuel for the burnt-offerings
on its altars.”

“The reader, who would follow a close reasoner to the
summit of the absolute principle of any one important
subject, has chosen a chamois-hunter for his guide. He
cannot carry us on his shoulders: we must strain our
sinews, as he has strained his; and make firm footing on
the smooth rock for ourselves, by the blood of toil from
our own feet.”

“In the case of libel, the degree makes the kind, the
circumstances constitute the criminality; and both degree
and circumstances, like the ascending shades of color, or

the shooting hues of a dove's neck, die away into each
other, incapable of definition or outline.”

“Would to Heaven that the verdict to be passed on my
labors depended on those who least needed them! The
water-lily in the midst of waters lifts up its broad leaves
and expands its petals, at the first pattering of the shower,
and rejoices in the rain with a quicker sympathy than the
parched shrub in the sandy desert.”

“Human experience, like the stern lights of a ship at
sea, illumines only the path which we have passed
over.”

“I have laid too many eggs in the hot sands of this
wilderness, the world, with ostrich carelessness and ostrich
oblivion. 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.”

The more elaborate poetical compositions of Coleridge
display much talent and a rare command of language.
His dramatic attempts, however, are decidedly inferior in
interest and power to many of his fugitive pieces. Wallenstein,
indeed, is allowed to be a master-piece of translation—and,
although others have improved upon certain
passages, as a whole it is acknowledged to be an unequalled
specimen of its kind. But to realize the true elements
of the poet's genius, we must have recourse to his minor
poems. In these, his genuine sentiments found genial
development. They are beautiful emblems of his personal
history, and admit us to the secret chambers of his heart.
We recognize, as we ponder them, the native fire of his
muse, “unmixed with baser matter.” Of the juvenile
poems, the Monody on Chatterton strikes us as the most
remarkable. It overflows with youthful sympathy, and
contains passages of singular power for the effusions of so
inexperienced a bard. Take, for instance, the following
lines, where an identity of fate is suggested from the consciousness
of error and disappointment:

Few young poets of English origin have written more
beautiful amatory poetry than this:

Nor were religious sentiments unawakened:

It is delightful to dwell upon these early outpourings
of an ardent and gifted soul. They lay bare the real

characteristics of Coleridge. Without them our sense of
his genius would be far more obscure. When these juvenile
poems were written `existence was all a feeling,
not yet shaped into a thought.' Here is no mysticism or
party-feeling, but the simplicity and fervor of a fresh
heart, touched by the beauty of the visible world, by the
sufferings of genius, and the appeals of love and religion.
The natural and the sincere here predominate over the
studied and artificial. Time enlarged the bard's views,
increased his stores of knowledge, and matured his mental
powers; but his genius, as pictured in his writings,
though strengthened and fertilized, thenceforth loses much
of its unity. Its emanations are frequently more grand
and startling, but less simple and direct. There is more
machinery, and often a confusion of appliances. We
feel that it is the same mind in an advanced state;—the
same noble instrument breathing deeper strains, but with
a melody more intricate and sad.

In the Sibylline Leaves we have depicted a later stage
of the poet's life. Language is now a more effective expedient.
It follows the thought with a clearer echo. It
is woven with a firmer hand. The subtle intellect is
evidently at work in the very rush of emotion. The poet
has discovered that he cannot hope

A new sentiment, the most solemn that visits the breast
of humanity, is aroused by this reflective process—the
sentiment of duty. Upon the sunny landscape of youth

falls the twilight of thought. A conviction has entered the
bosom of the minstrel that he is not free to wander at
will to the sound of his own music. His life cannot be
a mere revel in the embrace of beauty. He too is a man,
born to suffer and to act. He cannot throw off the responsibility
of life. He must sustain relations to his fellows.
The scenery that delights him assumes a new aspect.
It appeals not only to his love of nature, but his
sense of patriotism:

More tender ties bind the poet-soul to his native
isle—

Thus gather the many-tinted hues of human destiny
around the life of the young bard. To a mind of philosophical
cast, the transition is most interesting. It is
the distinguishing merit of Coleridge, that in his verse
we find these epochs warmly chronicled. Most just is his
vindication of himself from the charge of egotism. To
what end are beings peculiarly sensitive, and capable of
rare expression, sent into the world, if not to make us
feel the mysteries of our nature, by faithful delineations,

drawn from their own consciousness? It is the lot, not
of the individual, but of man in general, to feel the sublimity
of the mountain—the loveliness of the flower—the
awe of devotion—and the ecstacy of love; and we should
bless those who truly set forth the traits and triumphs of
our nature—the consolations and anguish of our human
life. We are thus assured of the universality of Nature's
laws—of the sympathy of all genuine hearts. Something
of a new dignity invests the existence, whose common
experience is susceptible of such portraiture. In the
keen regrets, the vivid enjoyments, the agonizing remorse
and the glowing aspirations recorded by the poet, we find
the truest reflection of our own souls. There is a nobleness
in the lineaments thus displayed, which we can
scarcely trace in the bustle and strife of the world. Self-respect
is nourished by such poetry, and the hope of immortality
rekindled at the inmost shrine of the heart. Of
recent poets, Coleridge has chiefly added to such obligations.
He has directed our gaze to Mont Blanc as to an
everlasting altar of praise; and kindled a perennial flame
of devotion amid the snows of its cloudy summit. He
has made the icy pillars of the Alps ring with solemn anthems.
The pilgrim to the Vale of Chamouni shall not hereafter
want a Hymn by which his admiring soul may
“wreak itself upon expression.”

To one other want of the heart has the muse of Coleridge
given genuine expression. Fashion, selfishness,
and the mercenary spirit of the age, have widely and deeply
profaned the very name of Love. To poetry it flies as to
an ark of safety. The English bard has set apart and
consecrated a spot sacred to its meditation—`midway on
the mount,' `beside the ruined tower;' and thither may
we repair to cool the eye fevered with the glare of art,
by gazing on the fresh verdure of nature, when