"Underneath a huge oak-tree, There was of swine a huge company; One acorn they left, and no more might you spy." It is a common remark, that wonderful children seldom perform the promises of their youth, and undoubtedly this fine effusion has not been followed in Mr Coleridge's riper years by works of proportionate merit. We see, then, that our author came very early into public notice; and from that time to this, he has not allowed one year to pass without endeavouring to extend his notoriety. His poems were soon followed (they may have been preceded) by a tragedy, entitled, the "Fall of Robespierre," a meagre performance, but one which, from the nature of the subject, attracted considerable attention. He also wrote a whole book, utterly incomprehensible to Mr Southey, we are sure, in that Poet's Joan of Arc; and became as celebrated for his metaphysical absurdities, as his friend had become for the bright promise of genius exhibited by that unequal but spirited poem. He next published a series of political essays, entitled, the "Watchman," and "Conciones ad Populum." He next started up, fresh from the schools of Germany, as the principal writer in the Morning Post, a strong opposition paper. He then published various outrageous political poems, some of them of a gross personal nature. He afterwards assisted Mr Wordsworth in planning his Lyrical Ballads; and contributing several poems to that collection, he shared in the notoriety of the Lake School. He next published a mysterious periodical work, "The Friend," in which he declared it was his intention to settle at once, and for ever, the principles of morality, religion, taste, manners, and the fine arts, but which died of a gallopping comsumption in the twentyeighth week of its age. He then published the tragedy of " Remorse," which dragged out a miserable existence of twenty nights, on the boards of Drury-Lane, and then expired for ever, like the oil of the orchestral lamps. He then forsook the stage for the pulpit, and, by particular desire of his congregation, published two 66 Lay-Sermons." He then walked in broad day-light into the shop of Mr VOL. II. 66 Murray, Albemarle Street, London, with two ladies hanging on each arm, Geraldine and Christabel,-a bold step for a person at all desirous of a good reputation, and most of the trade have looked shy at him since that exhibition. Since that time, however, he has contrived means of giving to the world a collected edition of all his Poems, and advanced to the front of the stage with a thick octavo in each hand, all about himself and other Incomprehensibilities. We had forgot that he was likewise a contributor to Mr Southey's Omniana, where the Editor of the Edinburgh Review is politely denominated an "ass," and then became himself a writer in the said Review. And to sum up the strange eventful history" of this modest, and obscure, and retired person, we must mention, that in his youth he held forth in a vast number of Unitarian chapels-preached his way through Bristol, and "Brummagem," and Manchester, in a "blue coat and white waistcoat;" and in after years, when he was not so much afraid of "the scarlet woman," did, in a full suit of sables, lecture on Poesy to "crowded, and, need I add, highly respectable audiences," at the Royal Institution. After this slight and imperfect outline of his poetical, oratorical, metaphysical, political, and theological exploits, our readers will judge, when they hear him talking of his retirement and distance from the literary and political world," what are his talents for autobiography, and how far he has penetrated into the mysterious nonentities of his own character. Mr Coleridge has written copiously on the Association of Ideas, but his own do not seem to be connected either by time, place, cause and effect, resemblance, or contrast, and accordingly it is no easy matter to follow him through all the vagaries of his Literary Life. We are told, "At school I enjoyed the inestimable advantage of a very sensible, though at the same time a very severe master. I learnt from him, that Poetry, even that of the loftiest and wildest odes, had a logic of its own as severe as that of science. Lute, harp, and lyre; muse, muses, and inspirations; 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! B Pierian Spring! O Aye! the cloister Pump!' *** Our classical knowledge was the least of the good gifts which we derived from his zealous and conscientious tutorage." With the then head-master of the grammar-school, Christ Hospital, we were not personally acquainted; but we cannot help thinking that he has been singularly unfortunate in his Eulogist. He seems to have gone out of his province, and far out of his depth, when he attempted to teach boys the profoundest principles of Poetry. But we must also add, that we cannot credit this account of him; for this doctrine of poetry being at all times logical, is that of which Wordsworth and Coleridge take so much credit to themselves for the discovery; and verily it is one too wilfully absurd and extravagant to have entered into the head of an honest man, whose time must have been wholly occupied with the instruction of children. Indeed Mr Coleridge's own poetical practices render this story incredible; for, during many years of his authorship, his action was wholly at variance with such a rule, and the strain of his poetry as illogical as can be well imagined. When Mr Bowyer prohibited his pupils from using, in their themes, the above-mentioned names, he did, we humbly submit, prohibit them from using the best means of purifying their taste and exalting their imagination. Nothing could be so graceful, nothing so natural, as classical allusions, in the exercises of young minds, when first admitted to the fountains of Greek and Latin Poetry; and the Teacher who could seek to dissuade their ingenuous souls from such delightful dreams, by coarse, vulgar, and indecent ribaldry, instead of deserving the name of "sensible," must have been a low-minded vulgar fellow, fitter for the Porter than the Master "Even before my fifteenth year, bewildered in metaphysicks and in theological controversy. Nothing else pleased me. History and particular facts lost all interest in my mind. Poetry itself, yea novels and posterous pursuit was beyond doubt injuriromances, became insipid to me. This preous, both to my natural powers and to the progress of my education." This deplorable condition of mind continued " even unto my seventeenth year." And now our readers must prepare themselves for a mighty and wonderful change, wrought, all on a sudden, on the moral and intellectual character of this metaphysical Greenhorn. "Mr Bowles' Sonnets, twenty in number, and just then published in a quarto volume, (a most important circumstance!) were put into my hand!" To those Sonnets, next to the Schoolmaster's lectures on Poetry, Mr Coleridge attributes the strength, vigour, and extension of his own very original Genius. "By those works, year after year, I was enthusiastically delighted and inspired. My earliest acquaintances will not have forgotten zeal with which I labour'd to make prosethe undisciplined eagerness and impetuous 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 make to those who had in any way won my regard. My obligations to Mr Bowles were indeed important, and for radical good." There must be some grevious natural defect in that mind which, even at the age of seventeen, could act so insanely; and we cannot but think, that no real and healthy sensibility could the merits of Bowles' Sonnets. They have exaggerated to itself so grossly are undoubtedly most beautiful, and ration to the genius of the amiable we willingly pay our tribute of admiwriter; but they neither did nor could of such an Establishment. But the produce any such effects as are here truth probably is, that all this is a fic-described, except upon a mind singution of Mr Coleridge, whose wit is at all times most execrable and disgust ing. Whatever the merits of his master were, Mr Coleridge, even from his own account, seems to have derived little benefit from his instruction, and for the " inestimable advantage,' of which he speaks, we look in vain through this Narrative. In spite of so excellent a teacher, we find Master Coleridge, however, take the fact as we find it; larly weak and helpless. We must, and Mr Coleridge's first step, after his worship of Bowles, was to see distinctly into the defects and deficiencies especially admires, and has edited), of Pope (a writer whom Bowles most and through all the false diction and borrowed plumage of Gray! But • There is something very offensive in the high and contemptuous tone which here Mr Coleridge drops the subject of Poetry for the present, and proceeds to other important matters. Wordsworth and Coleridge assume, when speaking of this great Poet. They employ his immortal works as a text-book, from which they quote imaginary violations of logic and sound sense, and examples of vicious poetic diction. Mr Coleridge informs us that Wordsworth" couched him," and that, from the moment of the operation, his eyes were startled with the deformities of the "Bard" and the "Elegy in the Country Church-yard!" Such despicable fooleries are perhaps beneath notice; but we must not allow the feathers of a Bird of Paradise to be pecked at by such a Daw as Coleridge. “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 ! 66 evening Prey." GRAY'S Bard. On this beautiful and sublime passage Mr Coleridge has not one word of admiration to bestow, but tells us with a sneer (for what reason we know not), that "realm" and sway" are rhymes dearly purchased. He then says, "that it depended wholly in the compositor's putting or not putting a small capital, both in this and in many other passages of the same Poet, whether the words should be personifications or mere abstracts. This vile absurdity is followed by a direct charge of Plagiarism from Shakspeare. "How like a younker or a prodigal wind!" SHAKSPEARE. Now we put it to our readers to decide between us and the Critic. We maintain that here there is no plagiarism nor imitation. Both Poets speak of a Ship, and there all likeness ends. As well might Falconer be accused of imitation in his glorious description of a vessel in full sail leaving harbour-or Scott, in his animated picture of Bruce's galley beating through the Sound of Mull-or Byron, in his magnificent sketch of the Corsair's war-ship or Wordsworth, in his fine simile of a vessel "that hath the plain of Ocean for her own domain"-or Wilson, in his vision of the moonlight vessel sailing to the Isle of Palms -or the Ettrick Shepherd, in his wild dream of the Abbot's pinnace buried in the breakers of Staffa-or Mr Coleridge himself, in his We regret that Mr Coleridge has passed over without notice all the years which he spent "in the happy quiet of ever-honoured Jesus College, Cambridge.". That must have been the most important period of his life, and was surely more worthy of record than the metaphysical dreams or the poetical extravagancies of his boyhood. He tells us, that he was sent to the University "an excellent Greek and Latin scholar, and a tolerable Hebraist;" and there might have been something rousing and elevating to young minds of genius and power, in his picture of himself, pursuits, visions, and attainments, during the bright and glorious morning of life, when he inhabited a dwelling of surpassing magnificence, guarded, and hallowed, and sublimed by the Shadows of the Mighty. We should wish to know what progress he spectre-ship in the "Ancient Mariner." For, in the first place, Shakspeare describes his ship by likening it to something else, namely, a prodigal; and upon that moral meaning depends the whole beauty of the passage. Of this there is nothing in Gray. Secondly, Shakspeare does not speak of any ship in particular, but generally. The beauty of the passage in Gray depends on its being prophetic of a particular misfortune, namely, the drowning of young Prince Henry. Thirdly, in Shakspeare, the vessel "puts from her native bay;" and upon that circumstance the whole description depends. In Gray we only behold her majestically sailing in the open sea. Fourthly, in Shakspeare" she returns;" but in Gray she is the prey of the evening whirlwind. Fifthly, in Shakspeare she returns" with Gray she is sunk into the deep, over-weather'd ribs and ragged sails." In " with all her bravery on." Sixthly, in Gray we behold a joyous company on her deck, "Youth at her prow, and Pleasure at her helm;" but in Shakspeare we never think of her deck at all. Seventhly, in Shakspeare she is a "skarfed bark ;" in Gray, a" gilded vessel." Eighthly, Shakspeare has, in the whole description, studiously employed the most plain, homely, familiar, and even unpoetical diction, and thereby produced the desired effect. Gray has laboured his description with all the resources of consummate art, and it is eminently distinguished for pomp, splendour, and magnificence. Lastly, except articles, prepositions, and conjunctions, there is not a single word common to the two passages; so that they may indeed with propriety be quoted, to shew how differently the same object can appear to different poetical minds; but Mr Coleridge has been couched," and Mr Wordsworth having performed the operation unskilfully, the patient is blind. made there in his own favourite studies; what place he occupied, or supposed he occupied, among his numerous contemporaries of talent; how much he was inspired by the genius of the place; how far he " pierced the caves of old Philosophy," or sounded the depths of the Physical Sciences.** All this unfortunately is omitted, and he hurries on to details often trifling and uninfluential, sometimes low, vile, and vulgar, and, what is worse, occasionally inconsistent with any feeling of personal dignity and self-respect. After leaving College, instead of betaking himself to some respectable calling, Mr Coleridge, with his characteristic modesty, determined to set on foot a periodical work called "The Watchman," that through it "all might know the truth." The price of this very useful article was fourpence. Off he set on a tour to the north to procure subscribers, "preaching in most of the great towns as a hireless Volunteer, in a blue coat and white waistcoat, that not a rag of the Woman of Babylon might be seen on In preaching, his object was to shew that our Saviour was the real son of Joseph, and that the Crucifixion was a matter of small importance. Mr Coleridge is now a most zealous member of the Church of England-devoutly believes every iota in the thirtynine articles, and that the Christian Religion is only to be found in its purity in the homilies and liturgy of that Church. Yet, on looking back to his Unitarian zeal, he exclaims, "O, never can I remember those days with either shame or regret! For I was me." The fact is, that Mr Coleridge made no figure at the University. He never could master the simplest elements of the mathematics. Yet in all his metaphysical, and indeed many of his critical writings, there is an ostentatious display of a familiar and profound knowledge of the principles of that science. This is dishonest quackery; for Mr Coleridge knows that he could not, if taken by surprise, demonstrate any one proposition in the first book of Euclid. His classical knowledge was found at the University to be equally superficial. He gained a prize there for a Greek Ode, which for ever blasted his character as a scholar; all the rules of that language being therein perpetually violated. We were once present in a literary company, where Porson offered to shew in it, to a gentleman who was praising this Ode, 134 examples of bad Greek. most sincere, most disinterested! Wealth, rank, life itself, then seem'd cheap to me, compared with the interests of truth, and the will of my Maker. I cannot even accuse myself of having been actuated by vanity! for in the expansion of my enthusiasm I did not think of myself at all!” This is delectable. What does he mean by saying that life seemed cheap? What danger could there be in the performance of his exploits, except that of being committed as a Vagrant? What indeed could rank appear to a person thus voluntarily degraded? Or who would expect vanity to be conscious of its own loathsomeness? During this tour he seems to have been constantly exposed to the insults of the vile and the vulgar, and to have whose persons associated with company must have been most odious to a gentleman. Greasy tallow-chandlers, and pursey woollen-drapers, and grim-featured dealers in hard-ware, were his associates at Manchester, Derby, Nottingham, and Sheffield; and among them the light of truth was to be shed from its cloudy tabernacle in Mr ColeAt the house of ridge's Pericranium. a Brummagem Patriot" he appears to have got dead drunk with strong ale and tobacco, and in that pitiable condition he was exposed to his disciples, lying upon a sofa, "with my face like a wall that is white-washing, deathy pale, and with the cold drops of perspiration running down it from my forehead." Some one having said, "Have you seen a paper to-day, Mr Coleridge?" the wretched man replied, with all the staring stupidity of his lamentable condition, "Sir! I am far from convinced that a Christian is permitted to read either newspapers, or any other works of merely political and temporary interest." This witticism quite enchanted his enlightened auditors, and they prolonged their festivities to an early hour next morning." Having returned to London with a thousand subscribers on his list, the "Watchman" appeared in all his glory; but, alas! not on the day fixed for the first burst of his effulgence; which foolish delay incensed many of his subscribers. The Watchman, on his second appearance, spoke blasphemously, and made indecent applications of Scriptural language; then, instead of abusing Government and Aristocrats, as Mr Coleridge had pledged himself to his constituents to do, he attacked his own Party; so that in seven weeks, before the shoes were old in which he travelled to Sheffield, the Watchman went the way of all flesh, and his remains were scattered "through sundry old iron shops,” where for one penny could be purchased each precious relic. To crown all, "his London Publisher was a -;" and Mr Coleridge very narrowly escaped being thrown into jail for this his heroic attempt to shed over the manufacturing towns the illumination of knowledge. We refrain from making any comments on this deplorable story. This Philosopher, and Theologian, and Patriot, now retired to a village in Somersetshire, and, after having sought to enlighten the whole world, discovered that he himself was in utter darkness. "Doubts rushed in, broke upon me from the fountains of the great deep, and fell from the windows of heaven. The fontal truths of natural Religion, and the book of Revelation, alike contributed to the flood; and it was long ere my Ark touched upon Ararat, and rested. My head was with Spinoza, though my heart was with Paul and John." At this time," by a gracious Providence, for which I can never be sufficiently grateful, the generous and munificent patronage of Mr Josiah and Mr Thomas Wedgewood enabled me to finish my education in Germany." All this is very well; but what Mr Coleridge learnt in Germany we know not, and seek in vain to discover through these volumes. He tells us that the Antijacobin wits accused him of abandoning his wife and children, and implicated in that charge his friends Mr Robert Southey and Mr Charles Lamb. This was very unjust; for Mr Southey is, and always was, a most exemplary Family-man, and Mr Lamb, we believe, is still a Bachelor. But Mr Coleridge assumes a higher tone than the nature of the case demands or justifies, and his language is not quite explicit. A man who abandons his wife and children is undoubtedly both a wicked and pernicious member of society; and Mr Coleridge ought not to deal in general and vague terms of indignation, but boldly affirm, if he dare, that the charge was false then, and would be false now, if repeated against himself. Be this as it may, Mr Coleridge has never received any apology from those by whom he was insulted and accused On his return from Germany, he We have no room here to expose, |