COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. [OCTOBER 1834.] POETS win to themselves by their works a personal regard and affection from all who have derived delight from their genius. All their readers may be said to be their friends; and admiration is almost always mingled with love. Nor is it wonderful that it should be so. We converse with them in their purest and highest and holiest moods; we are familiar. only with the impress of their character, stamped, without alloy of baser matter, on gold. We speak now, it is manifest, but of those poets-and thank heaven the greatest are among the number-who have been faithful to their calling on earth-have not profaned the god-given strength by making it subservient to unworthy or unhallowed endsnor kindled any portion of the sacred fire on the altars of impurity or superstition. Genius and imagination do not save their possessors from sin. That fatal disease is in all human veins-and circulates with the blood from all human hearts. But genius and imagination can beautify even virtue —that is the noblest work they were intended to perform for man-and poetry has performed it far beyond any other power that spiritualises life. A great or good poet, in his hours of inspiration-and that word has been allowed by the wisest― is as free as mortal man may be—except when under the still holier influence of religion, its services, and its ministrations -from all that ordinarily pollutes, or degrades, or enslaves our moral being;—and we are willing, not without deep reason, to believe that the revelations he then makes before our eyes of the constitution of his soul are true—that by them he is to be judged on earth what manner of man he is;-so that should aught at other times appear perplexing in his character or conduct, and inconsistent with that ideal which his own genius, in its purest apparition, induced and enabled us to form of him in our fancy, we are bound—unless all belief be baseless-in spite of much that may trouble us in what we cannot understand or reconcile to hold fast our faith in the virtue of the superior powers of his being-nor fear that the glory is but "false glitter," because, like everything beneath the sun, it may for a while be clouded or eclipsed. 66 The personal character of our most illustrious poets has, with very few exceptions - and in those cases there are mournful mysteries never perhaps to be understood in this unintelligible world"been all that we who owe them an unappreciable debt of gratitude-best paid in brotherly love and Christian charity-could desire; and if some flaws and frailties have been shown by the light of genius, that would have been invisible or unnoticed in ordinary men, it is worse than weak, it is wicked, to point with pleasure to stains on the splendour. "Blessings be with them and eternal praise," is the high sentiment of enlightened humanity towards the memory of all such benefactors. There is no wisdom in weighing in scales misnamed of justice, and neither of gold nor diamond, the virtues against the vices of any one of our fellow-creatures. The religion of nature prompts no such balancing of praise and blame, even with the living—therefore surely not with the dead; nor does the religion of the New Testament. Yet unholy inquisition is too often made even into the secrets hidden in the heart of genius—and from wan cheek, or troubled eye, or distracted demeanour, or conduct outwardly "wanting grace," have unjust inferences been cruelly drawn, calculated to lower what was in truth highest, and to cloud what was in truth brightest in the nature of some glorious creature, who, if clearly known to the whole world, would have been held worthy of the whole world's love. "Call it not vain! they do not err, Mute Nature mourns her worshipper, And celebrates his obsequies!" Mute nature mourns not; but with the tears in our eyes for some great loss-she seems to weep with us-with sobs in our heart, every whisper in the woods sounds like a sigh. The day our Minstrel was buried, there was no melancholy thinking on his death, to Another great poet-and Yet a little while, and upon Dryburgh tower or woods. Yet us Scotland even now seems sad. another have since disappeared. lights no less resplendent will go out in dust. Scott, Crabbe, Coleridge-names for so many years pronounced with a proud, kind emphasis, as if it raised us in our own estimation to love and honour such compatriots-now but names, and with almost a mournful sound! "Nor draw their frailties from their dread abode." That line has lost not a breath of its holy power by perpetual repetition from millions of lips. Frailties, no doubt, had those Sons of the Morning, though framed in "all the pomp and prodigality of heaven even like the humblest of their brethren, whose lot it was in life to live like paupers in mind on the alms of niggard nature. The frailties of the low obscure are safe in the grave. Some love-planted flowers flourish awhile over their dust, and then fade away for ever, like their memories, that live but in a few simple and unrepining hearts. But the famous tombs of the Genii are sometimes visited by pilgrims that are not worshippers-and who come not there in entire reverence. All eyes are not devoutly dim that read the letters on such monuments-all hearts are not holily inspired when dreaming on such dust-and Envy, that knows not itself to be Envy, sometimes seeks in vain to believe that the genius, now sanctified by death, was not in life but another name for transcendent virtue. No man was ever more beloved by his friends—and among them were many of the great as well as the good-than the poet Coleridge. We so call him; for he alone perhaps of all men that ever lived was always a poet-in all his moods-and they were many-inspired. His genius never seemed to burn low-to need fuel or fanning; but gently stirred, uprose the magic flame—and the flame was fire. His waking thoughts had all the vividness of visions, all the variousness of dreams —but the Will, whose wand in sleep is powerless, reigned over all those beautiful reveries, which were often like revelations; while Fancy and Imagination, still obedient to Reason, the lawgiver, arrayed earth and life in such many-coloured radiance that they grew all divine. But others are better privileged than we are to speak of those wonderful displays, spontaneous as breathing, of those wonderful endowments; and therefore we now refrain from giving further utterance to our admiration of the only eloquence we ever heard that deserved the name-and assuredly from no lack of love. A holier duty is incumbent on them who were nearest and dearest to him; ere long we know it will be worthily done; and then it will be confessed by all who have an ear to hear and a heart to feel "The still sad music of humanity," that he who was so admirable a poet, was one of the most That he, who many a year, with toil of breath, Mercy for praise-to be forgiven for fame, He asked, and hoped, through Christ. Do thou the same." Nor are we going now to compose a critical essay on the genius of Coleridge. For many years it has been understood by all who know what poetry is; and all that future ages can do for his fame, will be to extend it. His exquisite sensibilities of human affection will continue to charm, as they have charmed, all kindred spirits—who feel that the common chords of the heart, touched by a fine finger, can discourse most excellent music; but in coarser natures, though kind—“ and peace be to them, for there are many such "- -some even of his loveliest lays will awaken no answering emotion of delight -though “Like unto an angel's song That bids the heavens be mute!' The imagery he raises before their eyes will be admired-for almost all eyes communicate with some inner sense of beauty; but the balmy breath in which it is enveloped, adding sweetness to the Spring, will escape unfelt-and so will the ethereal colouring that belongs not to the common day; for to be aware of the presence of that air and that light-so spiritual -you must," in a wise passiveness," be yourself a poet. Thus "Oft, with patient ear, Long listening to the viewless skylark's note, Unearthly minstrelsy! then only heard, When the soul seeks to hear; when all is hush'd, Even his Love Poems, though full of fondness and tenderness, to overflowing, nor yet unimpassioned, are not for the multitude; they are either so spiritualised as to be above their sympathies, or so purified as not to meet them; but to all those who are imaginative in all their happiness-to whom delight cannot be delusion-where in Poetry is there another such Lay of Love as Genevieve? "All thoughts, all passions, all delights, Whatever stirs this mortal frame, All are but ministers of Love, And feed his sacred flame!" All Poets who have held close communion with what is called inanimate nature, have given her, not only life, but a mind, a heart, and a soul; and though Philosophers, for doing so, have been very generally called Atheists, few have accused of irreligion the mere poetical creed. Only think of calling Wordsworth an Atheist! He, far beyond one and all of all other men, has illustrated the Faith of Universal Feeling. In Coleridge there are many fine touches of the same attributive Fancy; but his conceptive power, though strong and bright, was not equal to that of his Master-" that mighty Orb of Song." It is a strange assertion to make at this time of day, "that no writer has ever expressed the great truth, that man makes his world, or that it is the imagination which shapes and colours all things, more vividly than Coleridge. Indeed, he is the poet who, in the age in which we live, brought forward that position into light and action." The writer had surely forgot Shakespeare; nor, had he remembered him, could he well have said this in the glorious face of Wordsworth. That Imagination |