Spenser's Epithalamion is truly sublime; and pray mark the swan-like
movement of his exquisite Prothalamion.
movement of his exquisite Prothalamion.
Coleridge - Table Talk
1824.
LORD BYRON'S VERSIFICATION, AND DON JUAN.
How lamentably the _art_ of versification is neglected by most of the
poets of the present day! --by Lord Byron, as it strikes me, in particular,
among those of eminence for other qualities. Upon the whole, I think the
part of Don Juan in which Lambro's return to his home, and Lambro himself,
are described, is the best, that is, the most individual, thing in all I
know of Lord B. 's works. The festal abandonment puts one in mind of
Nicholas Poussin's pictures. [1]
[Footnote 1:
Mr. Coleridge particularly noticed, for its classical air, the 32d stanza
of this Canto (the third):--
"A band of children, round a snow-white ram,
There wreathe his venerable horns with flowers,
While, peaceful as if still an unwean'd lamb,
The patriarch of the flock all gently cowers
His sober head, majestically tame,
Or eats from out the palm, or playful lowers
His brow, as if in act to butt, and then
Yielding to their small hands, draws back again. "
But Mr. C. said that _then_, and _again_, made no rhyme to his ear. Why
should not the old form _agen_ be lawful in verse? We wilfully abridge
ourselves of the liberty which our great poets achieved and sanctioned for
us in innumerable instances. --ED. ]
_June_ 10. 1824.
PARENTAL CONTROL IN MARRIAGE. --MARRIAGE OF
COUSINS. --DIFFERENCE OF CHARACTER.
Up to twenty-one, I hold a father to have power over his children as to
marriage; after that age, authority and influence only. Show me one couple
unhappy merely on account of their limited circumstances, and I will show
you ten that are wretched from other causes.
* * * * *
If the matter were quite open, I should incline to disapprove the
intermarriage of first cousins; but the church has decided otherwise on the
authority of Augustine, and that seems enough upon such a point.
* * * * *
You may depend upon it, that a slight contrast of character is very
material to happiness in marriage.
_February_ 24. 1827.
BLUMENBACH AND KANT'S RACES. --IAPETIC AND SEMITIC. --HEBREW. --SOLOMON.
Blumenbach makes five races; Kant, three. Blumenbach's scale of dignity may
be thus figured:--
1. Caucasian or European.
2. Malay ================= 2. American
3. Negro ========================== 3. Mongolian, Asiatic
There was, I conceive, one great Iapetic original of language, under which
Greek, Latin, and other European dialects, and, perhaps, Sanscrit, range as
species. The Iapetic race, [Greek: Iaones]; separated into two branches;
one, with a tendency to migrate south-west,--Greeks, Italians, &c. ; and the
other north-west,--Goths, Germans, Swedes, &c. The Hebrew is Semitic.
* * * * *
Hebrew, in point of force and purity, seems at its height in Isaiah. It is
most corrupt in Daniel, and not much less so in Ecclesiastes; which I
cannot believe to have been actually composed by Solomon, but rather
suppose to have been so attributed by the Jews, in their passion for
ascribing all works of that sort to their _grand monurque_.
_March_ 10. 1827.
JEWISH HISTORY. --SPINOZISTIC AND HEBREW SCHEMES.
The people of all other nations, but the Jewish, seem to look backwards and
also to exist for the present; but in the Jewish scheme every thing is
prospective and preparatory; nothing, however trifling, is done for itself
alone, but all is typical of something yet to come.
* * * * *
I would rather call the book of Proverbs Solomonian than as actually a work
of Solomon's. So I apprehend many of the Psalms to be Davidical only, not
David's own compositions.
* * * * *
You may state the Pantheism of Spinosa, in contrast with the Hebrew or
Christian scheme, shortly, as thus:--
Spinosism.
W-G = 0; _i. e. _ the World without God is an impossible idea.
G-W = 0; _i. e. _ God without the World is so likewise.
Hebrew or Christian scheme.
W-G = 0; _i. e. _ The same as Spinosa's premiss.
But G-W = G; _i. e. _ God without the World is God the self-subsistent.
* * * * *
_March_ 12. 1827.
ROMAN CATHOLICS. --ENERGY OF MAN AND OTHER ANIMALS. --SHAKSPEARE _IN
MINIMIS_. --PAUL SARPI. --BARTRAM'S TRAVELS.
I have no doubt that the real object closest to the hearts of the leading
Irish Romanists is the destruction of the Irish Protestant church, and the
re-establishment of their own. I think more is involved in the manner than
the matter of legislating upon the civil disabilities of the members of the
church of Rome; and, for one, I should he willing to vote for a removal of
those disabilities, with two or three exceptions, upon a solemn declaration
being made legislatively in parliament, that at no time, nor under any
circumstances, could or should a branch of the Romish hierarchy, as at
present constituted, become an estate of this realm. [1]
[Footnote 1: See Church and State, second part, p. 189. ]
* * * * *
Internal or mental energy and external or corporeal modificability are in
inverse proportions. In man, internal energy is greater than in any other
animal; and you will see that he is less changed by climate than any
animal. For the highest and lowest specimens of man are not one half as
much apart from each other as the different kinds even of dogs, animals of
great internal energy themselves.
* * * * *
For an instance of Shakspeare's power _in minimis_, I generally quote James
Gurney's character in King John. How individual and comical he is with the
four words allowed to his dramatic life! [1] And pray look at Skelton's
Richard Sparrow also!
Paul Sarpi's History of the Council of Trent deserves your study. It is
very interesting.
[Footnote 1:
"_Enter Lady FALCONBRIDGE and JAMES GURNEY. _
BAST. O me! it is my mother:--How now, good lady?
What brings you here to court so hastily?
LADY F. Where is that slave, thy brother? where is he?
That holds in chase mine honour up and down?
BAST. My brother Robert? Old Sir Robert's son?
Colbrand the giant, that same mighty man?
Is it Sir Robert's son that you seek so?
LADY F. Sir Robert's son! Ay, thou unreverend boy,
Sir Robert's son: why scorn'st thou at Sir Robert?
He is Sir Robert's son; and so art thou.
BAST. James Gurney, wilt thou give us leave a while?
GUR. _Good leave, good Philip. _
BAST. Philip? --Sparrow! James,
There's toys abroad; anon I'll tell thee more.
[_Exit_ GURNEY. "
The very _exit Gurney_ is a stroke of James's character. --ED. ]]
* * * * *
The latest book of travels I know, written in the spirit of the old
travellers, is Bartram's account of his tour in the Floridas. It is a work
of high merit every way. [1]
[Footnote 1:
"Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida,
the Cherokee Country, the extensive territories of the Muscogulges, or
Creek Confederacy, and the Country of the Chactaws, &c. By William
Bartram. " Philadelphia, 1791. London, 1792. 8vo. The expedition was made at
the request of Dr. Fothergill, the Quaker physician, in 1773, and was
particularly directed to botanical discoveries. --ED. ]
* * * * *
_March_ 13. 1827.
THE UNDERSTANDING.
A pun will sometimes facilitate explanation, as thus;--the Understanding is
that which _stands under_ the phenomenon, and gives it objectivity. You
know _what_ a thing is by it. It is also worthy of remark, that the Hebrew
word for the understanding, _Bineh_, comes from a root meaning _between_ or
_distinguishing_.
* * * * *
_March_ 18. 1827.
PARTS OF SPEECH. --GRAMMAR.
There are seven parts of speech, and they agree with the five grand and
universal divisions into which all things finite, by which I mean to
exclude the idea of God, will be found to fall; that is, as you will often
see it stated in my writings, especially in the Aids to Reflection[1]:--
Prothesis.
1.
Thesis. Mesothesis. Antithesis.
2. 4. 3.
Synthesis.
5.
Conceive it thus:--
1. Prothesis, the noun-verb, or verb-substantive, _I am_, which is the
previous form, and implies identity of being and act.
2. Thesis, the noun.
3. Antithesis, the verb.
Note, each of these may be converted; that is, they are only opposed to
each other.
4. Mesothesis, the infinitive mood, or the indifference of the verb and
noun, it being either the one or the other, or both at the same time, in
different relations.
5. Synthesis, the participle, or the community of verb and noun; being and
acting at once.
Now, modify the noun by the verb, that is, by an act, and you have--
6. The adnoun, or adjective.
Modify the verb by the noun, that is, by being, and you have--
7. The adverb.
Interjections are parts of sound, not of speech. Conjunctions are the same
as prepositions; but they are prefixed to a sentence, or to a member of a
sentence, instead of to a single word.
The inflections of nouns are modifications as to place; the inflections of
verbs, as to time.
The genitive case denotes dependence; the dative, transmission. It is
absurd to talk of verbs governing. In Thucydides, I believe, every case has
been found absolute. [2]
Dative:--[Greek: ----]
Thuc. VIII. 24. This is the Latin usage.
Accusative. --I do not remember an instance of the proper accusative
absolute in Thucydides; but it seems not uncommon in other authors:
[Greek: ----]
Yet all such instances may be nominatives; for I cannot find an example of
the accusative absolute in the masculine or feminine gender, where the
difference of inflexion would show the case. --ED. ]
The inflections of the tenses of a verb are formed by adjuncts of the verb
substantive. In Greek it is obvious. The E is the prefix significative of a
past time.
[Footnote 1: P. 170. 2d edition. ]
[Footnote 2:
Nominative absolute:--[Greek: theon de phozos ae anthropon nomos, oudeis
apeirge, to men krinontes en homoio kai sezein kai mae--ton de
hamartaematon. ]--Thuc. II. 53. ]
_June 15. 1827.
MAGNETISM. --ELECTRICITY. --GALVANISM.
Perhaps the attribution or analogy may seem fanciful at first sight, but I
am in the habit of realizing to myself Magnetism as length; Electricity as
breadth or surface; and Galvanism as depth.
_June 24. 1827. _
SPENSER. --CHARACTER Of OTHELLO. --HAMLET. --POLONIUS. --PRINCIPLES AND
MAXIMS. --LOVE. --MEASURE FOR MEASURE. --BEN JONSON. --BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. --
VERSION OF THE BIBLE. --SPURZHEIM. --CRANIOLOGY.
Spenser's Epithalamion is truly sublime; and pray mark the swan-like
movement of his exquisite Prothalamion. [1] His attention to metre and
rhythm is sometimes so extremely minute as to be painful even to my ear,
and you know how highly I prize good versification.
[Footnote 1:
How well I remember this Midsummer-day! I shall never pass such another.
The sun was setting behind Caen Wood, and the calm of the evening was so
exceedingly deep that it arrested Mr. Coleridge's attention. We were alone
together in Mr. Gillman's drawing-room, and Mr. C. left off talking, and
fell into an almost trance-like state for ten minutes whilst contemplating
the beautiful prospect before us. His eyes swam in tears, his head inclined
a little forward, and there was a slight uplifting of the fingers, which
seemed to tell me that he was in prayer. I was awestricken, and remained
absorbed in looking at the man, in forgetfulness of external nature, when
he recovered himself, and after a word or two fell by some secret link of
association upon Spenser's poetry. Upon my telling him that I did not very
well recollect the Prothalamion: "Then I must read you a bit of it," said
he; and, fetching the book from the next room, he recited the whole of it
in his finest and most musical manner. I particularly bear in mind the
sensible diversity of tone and rhythm with which he gave:--
"Sweet Thames! run softly till I end my song,"
the concluding line of each of the ten strophes of the poem.
When I look upon the scanty memorial, which I have alone preserved of this
afternoon's converse, I am tempted to burn these pages in despair. Mr.
Coleridge talked a volume of criticism that day, which, printed verbatim as
he spoke it, would have made the reputation of any other person but
himself. He was, indeed, particularly brilliant and enchanting; and I left
him at night so thoroughly _magnetized_, that I could not for two or three
days afterwards reflect enough to put any thing on paper,--ED. ]
* * * * *
I have often told you that I do not think there is any jealousy, properly
so called, in the character of Othello. There is no predisposition to
suspicion, which I take to be an essential term in the definition of the
word. Desdemona very truly told Emilia that he was not jealous, that is, of
a jealous habit, and he says so as truly of himself. Iago's suggestions,
you see, are quite new to him; they do not correspond with any thing of a
like nature previously in his mind. If Desdemona had, in fact, been guilty,
no one would have thought of calling Othello's conduct that of a jealous
man. He could not act otherwise than he did with the lights he had; whereas
jealousy can never be strictly right. See how utterly unlike Othello is to
Leontes, in the Winter's Tale, or even to Leonatus, in Cymbeline! The
jealousy of the first proceeds from an evident trifle, and something like
hatred is mingled with it; and the conduct of Leonatus in accepting the
wager, and exposing his wife to the trial, denotes a jealous temper already
formed.
* * * * *
Hamlet's character is the prevalence of the abstracting and generalizing
habit over the practical. He does not want courage, skill, will, or
opportunity; but every incident sets him thinking; and it is curious, and
at the same time strictly natural, that Hamlet, who all the play seems
reason itself, should he impelled, at last, by mere accident to effect his
object. I have a smack of Hamlet myself, if I may say so.
* * * * *
A Maxim is a conclusion upon observation of matters of fact, and is merely
retrospective: an Idea, or, if you like, a Principle, carries knowledge
within itself, and is prospective. Polonius is a man of maxims. Whilst he
is descanting on matters of past experience, as in that excellent speech to
Laertes before he sets out on his travels, he is admirable; but when he
comes to advise or project, he is a mere dotard. [1] You see Hamlet, as the
man of ideas, despises him.
[Footnote 1: Act i. sc. 3]
* * * * *
A man of maxims only is like a Cyclops with one eye, and that eye placed in
the back of his head.
* * * * *
In the scene with Ophelia, in the third act,[1] Hamlet is beginning with
great and unfeigned tenderness; but, perceiving her reserve and coyness,
fancies there are some listeners, and then, to sustain his part, breaks out
into all that coarseness.
Love is the admiration and cherishing of the amiable qualities of the
beloved person, upon the condition of yourself being the object of their
action. The qualities of the sexes correspond. The man's courage is loved
by the woman, whose fortitude again is coveted by the man. His vigorous
intellect is answered by her infallible tact. Can it be true, what is so
constantly affirmed, that there is no sex in souls? --I doubt it, I doubt it
exceedingly. [2]
[Footnote 1: Sc. 1. ]
[Footnote 2: Mr. Coleridge was a great master in the art of love, but he
had not studied in Ovid's school. Hear his account of the matter:--
"Love, truly such, is itself not the most common thing in the world, and
mutual love still less so. But that enduring personal attachment, so
beautifully delineated by Erin's sweet melodist, and still more touchingly,
perhaps, in the well-known ballad, 'John Anderson, my Jo, John,' in
addition to a depth and constancy of character of no every-day occurrence,
supposes a peculiar sensibility and tenderness of nature; a constitutional
communicativeness and utterancy of heart and soul; a delight in the detail
of sympathy, in the outward and visible signs of the sacrament within,--to
count, as it were, the pulses of the life of love. But, above all, it
supposes a soul which, even in the pride and summer-tide of life, even in
the lustihood of health and strength, had felt oftenest and prized highest
that which age cannot take away, and which in all our lovings is _the_
love; I mean, that willing sense of the unsufficingness of the self for
itself, which predisposes a generous nature to see, in the total being of
another, the supplement and completion of its own; that quiet perpetual
seeking which the presence of the beloved object modulates, not suspends,
where the heart momently finds, and, finding again, seeks on; lastly, when
'life's changeful orb has passed the full,' a confirmed faith in the
nobleness of humanity, thus brought home and pressed, as it were, to the
very bosom of hourly experience; it supposes, I say, a heartfelt reverence
for worth, not the less deep because divested of its solemnity by habit, by
familiarity, by mutual infirmities, and even by a feeling of modesty which
will arise in delicate minds, when they are conscious of possessing the
same, or the correspondent, excellence in their own characters. In short,
there must be a mind, which, while it feels the beautiful and the excellent
in the beloved as its own, and by right of love appropriates it, can call
goodness its playfellow; and dares make sport of time and infirmity, while,
in the person of a thousand-foldly endeared partner, we feel for aged
virtue the caressing fondness that belongs to the innocence of childhood,
and repeat the same attentions and tender courtesies which had been
dictated by the same affection to the same object when attired in feminine
loveliness or in manly beauty. " (Poetical Works, vol. ii. p. 120. )--ED. ]
Measure for Measure is the single exception to the delightfulness of
Shakspeare's plays. It is a hateful work, although Shakspearian throughout.
Our feelings of justice are grossly wounded in Angelo's escape. Isabella
herself contrives to be unamiable, and Claudio is detestable.
* * * * *
I am inclined to consider The Fox as the greatest of Ben Jonson's works.
But his smaller works are full of poetry.
* * * * *
Monsieur Thomas and the little French Lawyer are great favourites of mine
amongst Beaumont and Fletcher's plays. How those plays overflow with wit!
And yet I scarcely know a more deeply tragic scene any where than that in
Rollo, in which Edith pleads for her father's life, and then, when she
cannot prevail, rises up and imprecates vengeance on his murderer. [1]
[Footnote 1: Act iii. sc. 1. :--
"ROLLO. Hew off her hands!
HAMOND. Lady, hold off!
EDITH. No! hew 'em;
Hew off my innocent hands, as he commands you!
They'll hang the faster on for death's convulsion. --
Thou seed of rocks, will nothing move thee, then?
Are all my tears lost, all my righteous prayers
Drown'd in thy drunken wrath? I stand up thus, then,
Thou boldly bloody tyrant,
And to thy face, in heav'n's high name defy thee!
And may sweet mercy, when thy soul sighs for it,--
When under thy black mischiefs thy flesh trembles,--
When neither strength, nor youth, nor friends, nor gold,
Can stay one hour; when thy most wretched conscience,
Waked from her dream of death, like fire shall melt thee,--
When all thy mother's tears, thy brother's wounds,
Thy people's fears, and curses, and my loss,
My aged father's loss, shall stand before thee--
ROLLO. Save him, I say; run, save him, save her father;
Fly and redeem his head!
EDITH. May then that pity," &c. ]
* * * * *
Our version of the Bible is to be loved and prized for this, as for a
thousand other things,--that it has preserved a purity of meaning to many
terms of natural objects. Without this holdfast, our vitiated imaginations
would refine away language to mere abstractions. Hence the French have lost
their poetical language; and Mr. Blanco White says the same thing has
happened to the Spanish.
* * * * *
I have the perception of individual images very strong, but a dim one of
the relation of place. I remember the man or the tree, but where I saw them
I mostly forget. [1]
[Footnote 1:
There was no man whose opinion in morals, or even in a matter of general
conduct in life, if you furnished the pertinent circumstances, I would have
sooner adopted than Mr. Coleridge's; but I would not take him as a guide
through streets or fields or earthly roads. He had much of the geometrician
about him; but he could not find his way. In this, as in many other
peculiarities of more importance, he inherited strongly from his learned
and excellent father, who deserves, and will, I trust, obtain, a separate
notice for himself when his greater son's life comes to be written. I
believe the beginning of Mr. C. 's liking for Dr. Spurzheim was the hearty
good humour with which the Doctor bore the laughter of a party, in the
presence of which he, unknowing of his man, denied any _Ideality_, and
awarded an unusual share of _Locality_, to the majestic silver-haired head
of my dear uncle and father-in-law. But Mr. Coleridge immediately shielded
the craniologist under the distinction preserved in the text, and perhaps,
since that time, there may be a couple of organs assigned to the latter
faculty. --ED. ]
* * * * *
Craniology is worth some consideration, although it is merely in its
rudiments and guesses yet. But all the coincidences which have been
observed could scarcely be by accident. The confusion and absurdity,
however, will be endless until some names or proper terms are discovered
for the organs, which are not taken from their mental application or
significancy. The forepart of the head is generally given up to the higher
intellectual powers; the hinder part to the sensual emotions.
* * * * *
Silence does not always mark wisdom. I was at dinner, some time ago, in
company with a man, who listened to me and said nothing for a long time;
but he nodded his head, and I thought him intelligent. At length, towards
the end of the dinner, some apple dumplings were placed on the table, and
my man had no sooner seen them, than he burst forth with--"Them's the
jockies for me! " I wish Spurzheim could have examined the fellow's head.
* * * * *
Some folks apply epithets as boys do in making Latin verses. When I first
looked upon the Falls of the Clyde, I was unable to find a word to express
my feelings. At last, a man, a stranger to me, who arrived about the same
time, said:--"How majestic! "--(It was the precise term, and I turned round
and was saying--"Thank you, Sir! that _is_ the exact word for it"--when he
added, _eodem flatu_)--"Yes! how very _pretty_! "
* * * * *
_July_ 8. 1827.
BULL AND WATERLAND. --THE TRINITY.
Bull and Waterland are the classical writers on the Trinity. [1]
In the Trinity there is, 1. Ipseity. 2. Alterity. 3. Community. You may
express the formula thus:--
God, the absolute Will or Identity, = Prothesis. The Father = Thesis. The
Son = Antithesis. The Spirit = Synthesis.
[Footnote 1:
Mr. Coleridge's admiration of Bull and Waterland as high theologians was
very great. Bull he used to read in the Latin Defensio Fidei Nicaenae,
using the Jesuit Zola's edition of 1784, which, I think, he bought at Rome.
He told me once, that when he was reading a Protestant English Bishop's
work on the Trinity, in a copy edited by an Italian Jesuit in Italy, he
felt proud of the church of England, and in good humour with the church of
Rome. --ED. ]
* * * * *
The author of the Athanasian Creed is unknown. It is, in my judgment,
heretical in the omission, or implicit denial, of the Filial subordination
in the Godhead, which is the doctrine of the Nicene Creed, and for which
Bull and Waterland have so fervently and triumphantly contended; and by not
holding to which, Sherlock staggered to and fro between Tritheism and
Sabellianism. This creed is also tautological, and, if not persecuting,
which I will not discuss, certainly containing harsh and ill-conceived
language.
* * * * *
How much I regret that so many religious persons of the present day think
it necessary to adopt a certain cant of manner and phraseology as a token
to each other. They must _improve_ this and that text, and they must do so
and so in a _prayerful_ way; and so on. Why not use common language? A
young lady the other day urged upon me that such and such feelings were the
_marrow_ of all religion; upon which I recommended her to try to walk to
London upon her marrow-bones only.
* * * * *
_July_ 9. 1827.
SCALE OF ANIMAL BEING.
In the very lowest link in the vast and mysterious chain of Being, there is
an effort, although scarcely apparent, at individualization; but it is
almost lost in the mere nature. A little higher up, the individual is
apparent and separate, but subordinate to any thing in man. At length, the
animal rises to be on a par with the lowest power of the human nature.
There are some of our natural desires which only remain in our most perfect
state on earth as means of the higher powers' acting. [1]
[Footnote 1:
These remarks seem to call for a citation of that wonderful passage,
transcendant alike in eloquence and philosophic depth, which the readers of
the Aids to Reflection have long since laid up in cedar:--
"Every rank of creatures, as it ascends in the scale of creation, leaves
death behind it or under it. The metal at its height of being seems a mute
prophecy of the coming vegetation, into a mimic semblance of which it
crystallizes. The blossom and flower, the acme of vegetable life, divides
into correspondent organs with reciprocal functions, and by instinctive
motions and approximations seems impatient of that fixture, by which it is
differenced in kind from the flower-shaped Psyche that flutters with free
wing above it. And wonderfully in the insect realm doth the irritability,
the proper seat of instinct, while yet the nascent sensibility is
subordinate thereto,--most wonderfully, I say, doth the muscular life in
the insect, and the musculo-arterial in the bird, imitate and typically
rehearse the adaptive understanding, yea, and the moral affections and
charities of man. Let us carry ourselves back, in spirit, to the mysterious
week, the teeming work-days of the Creator, as they rose in vision before
the eye of the inspired historian "of the generations of the heaven and
earth, in the days that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. " And
who that hath watched their ways with an understanding heart, could, as the
vision evolving still advanced towards him, contemplate the filial and
loyal bee; the home building, wedded, and divorceless swallow; and, above
all, the manifoldly intelligent ant tribes, with their commonwealth and
confederacies, their warriors and miners, the husband-folk, that fold in
their tiny flocks on the honied leaf, and the virgin sisters with the holy
instincts of maternal love, detached and in selfless purity, and not say to
himself, Behold the shadow of approaching Humanity, the sun rising from
behind, in the kindling morn of creation! Thus all lower natures find their
highest good in semblances and seekings of that which is higher and better.
All things strive to ascend, and ascend in their striving. And shall man
alone stoop? Shall his pursuits and desires, the reflections of his inward
life, be like the reflected image of a tree on the edge of a pool, that
grows downward, and seeks a mock heaven in the unstable element beneath it,
in neighbourhood with the slim water-weeds and oozy bottom-grass that are
yet better than itself and more noble, in as far as substances that appear
as shadows are preferable to shadows mistaken for substance? No! it must be
a higher good to make you happy. While you labour for any thing below your
proper humanity, you seek a happy life in the region of death. Well saith
the moral poet:--
'Unless above himself he can
Erect himself, how mean a thing is man! '"
P. 105. 2d ed. --ED. ]
July 12. 1827.
POPEDOM. --SCANDERBEG. --THOMAS A BECKET. --PURE AGES OF GREEK, ITALIAN, AND
ENGLISH. --LUTHER. --BAXTER. --ALGERNON SIDNEY'S STYLE. --ARIOSTO AND TASSO. --
PROSE AND POETRY. --THE FATHERS. --RHENFERD. --JACOB BEHMEN.
What a grand subject for a history the Popedom is! The Pope ought never to
have affected temporal sway, but to have lived retired within St. Angelo,
and to have trusted to the superstitious awe inspired by his character and
office. He spoiled his chance when he meddled in the petty Italian
politics.
* * * * *
Scanderbeg would be a very fine subject for Walter Scott; and so would
Thomas a Becket, if it is not rather too much for him. It involves in
essence the conflict between arms, or force, and the men of letters.
* * * * *
Observe the superior truth of language, in Greek, to Theocritus
inclusively; in Latin, to the Augustan age exclusively; in Italian, to
Tasso exclusively; and in English, to Taylor and Barrow inclusively.
* * * * *
Luther is, in parts, the most evangelical writer I know, after the apostles
and apostolic men.
* * * * *
Pray read with great attention Baxter's Life of himself. It is an
inestimable work. [1] I may not unfrequently doubt Baxter's memory, or even
his competence, in consequence of his particular modes of thinking; but I
could almost as soon doubt the Gospel verity as his veracity.
[Footnote 1:
This, a very thick folio of the old sort, was one of Mr. Coleridge's text
books for English church history. He used to say that there was _no_
substitute for it in a course of study for a clergyman or public man, and
that the modern political Dissenters, who affected to glory in Baxter as a
leader, would read a bitter lecture on themselves in every page of it. In a
marginal note I find Mr. C. writing thus: "Alas! in how many respects does
my lot resemble Baxter's! But how much less have my bodily evils been, and
yet how very much greater an impediment have I suffered them to be! But
verily Baxter's labours seem miracles of supporting grace.
LORD BYRON'S VERSIFICATION, AND DON JUAN.
How lamentably the _art_ of versification is neglected by most of the
poets of the present day! --by Lord Byron, as it strikes me, in particular,
among those of eminence for other qualities. Upon the whole, I think the
part of Don Juan in which Lambro's return to his home, and Lambro himself,
are described, is the best, that is, the most individual, thing in all I
know of Lord B. 's works. The festal abandonment puts one in mind of
Nicholas Poussin's pictures. [1]
[Footnote 1:
Mr. Coleridge particularly noticed, for its classical air, the 32d stanza
of this Canto (the third):--
"A band of children, round a snow-white ram,
There wreathe his venerable horns with flowers,
While, peaceful as if still an unwean'd lamb,
The patriarch of the flock all gently cowers
His sober head, majestically tame,
Or eats from out the palm, or playful lowers
His brow, as if in act to butt, and then
Yielding to their small hands, draws back again. "
But Mr. C. said that _then_, and _again_, made no rhyme to his ear. Why
should not the old form _agen_ be lawful in verse? We wilfully abridge
ourselves of the liberty which our great poets achieved and sanctioned for
us in innumerable instances. --ED. ]
_June_ 10. 1824.
PARENTAL CONTROL IN MARRIAGE. --MARRIAGE OF
COUSINS. --DIFFERENCE OF CHARACTER.
Up to twenty-one, I hold a father to have power over his children as to
marriage; after that age, authority and influence only. Show me one couple
unhappy merely on account of their limited circumstances, and I will show
you ten that are wretched from other causes.
* * * * *
If the matter were quite open, I should incline to disapprove the
intermarriage of first cousins; but the church has decided otherwise on the
authority of Augustine, and that seems enough upon such a point.
* * * * *
You may depend upon it, that a slight contrast of character is very
material to happiness in marriage.
_February_ 24. 1827.
BLUMENBACH AND KANT'S RACES. --IAPETIC AND SEMITIC. --HEBREW. --SOLOMON.
Blumenbach makes five races; Kant, three. Blumenbach's scale of dignity may
be thus figured:--
1. Caucasian or European.
2. Malay ================= 2. American
3. Negro ========================== 3. Mongolian, Asiatic
There was, I conceive, one great Iapetic original of language, under which
Greek, Latin, and other European dialects, and, perhaps, Sanscrit, range as
species. The Iapetic race, [Greek: Iaones]; separated into two branches;
one, with a tendency to migrate south-west,--Greeks, Italians, &c. ; and the
other north-west,--Goths, Germans, Swedes, &c. The Hebrew is Semitic.
* * * * *
Hebrew, in point of force and purity, seems at its height in Isaiah. It is
most corrupt in Daniel, and not much less so in Ecclesiastes; which I
cannot believe to have been actually composed by Solomon, but rather
suppose to have been so attributed by the Jews, in their passion for
ascribing all works of that sort to their _grand monurque_.
_March_ 10. 1827.
JEWISH HISTORY. --SPINOZISTIC AND HEBREW SCHEMES.
The people of all other nations, but the Jewish, seem to look backwards and
also to exist for the present; but in the Jewish scheme every thing is
prospective and preparatory; nothing, however trifling, is done for itself
alone, but all is typical of something yet to come.
* * * * *
I would rather call the book of Proverbs Solomonian than as actually a work
of Solomon's. So I apprehend many of the Psalms to be Davidical only, not
David's own compositions.
* * * * *
You may state the Pantheism of Spinosa, in contrast with the Hebrew or
Christian scheme, shortly, as thus:--
Spinosism.
W-G = 0; _i. e. _ the World without God is an impossible idea.
G-W = 0; _i. e. _ God without the World is so likewise.
Hebrew or Christian scheme.
W-G = 0; _i. e. _ The same as Spinosa's premiss.
But G-W = G; _i. e. _ God without the World is God the self-subsistent.
* * * * *
_March_ 12. 1827.
ROMAN CATHOLICS. --ENERGY OF MAN AND OTHER ANIMALS. --SHAKSPEARE _IN
MINIMIS_. --PAUL SARPI. --BARTRAM'S TRAVELS.
I have no doubt that the real object closest to the hearts of the leading
Irish Romanists is the destruction of the Irish Protestant church, and the
re-establishment of their own. I think more is involved in the manner than
the matter of legislating upon the civil disabilities of the members of the
church of Rome; and, for one, I should he willing to vote for a removal of
those disabilities, with two or three exceptions, upon a solemn declaration
being made legislatively in parliament, that at no time, nor under any
circumstances, could or should a branch of the Romish hierarchy, as at
present constituted, become an estate of this realm. [1]
[Footnote 1: See Church and State, second part, p. 189. ]
* * * * *
Internal or mental energy and external or corporeal modificability are in
inverse proportions. In man, internal energy is greater than in any other
animal; and you will see that he is less changed by climate than any
animal. For the highest and lowest specimens of man are not one half as
much apart from each other as the different kinds even of dogs, animals of
great internal energy themselves.
* * * * *
For an instance of Shakspeare's power _in minimis_, I generally quote James
Gurney's character in King John. How individual and comical he is with the
four words allowed to his dramatic life! [1] And pray look at Skelton's
Richard Sparrow also!
Paul Sarpi's History of the Council of Trent deserves your study. It is
very interesting.
[Footnote 1:
"_Enter Lady FALCONBRIDGE and JAMES GURNEY. _
BAST. O me! it is my mother:--How now, good lady?
What brings you here to court so hastily?
LADY F. Where is that slave, thy brother? where is he?
That holds in chase mine honour up and down?
BAST. My brother Robert? Old Sir Robert's son?
Colbrand the giant, that same mighty man?
Is it Sir Robert's son that you seek so?
LADY F. Sir Robert's son! Ay, thou unreverend boy,
Sir Robert's son: why scorn'st thou at Sir Robert?
He is Sir Robert's son; and so art thou.
BAST. James Gurney, wilt thou give us leave a while?
GUR. _Good leave, good Philip. _
BAST. Philip? --Sparrow! James,
There's toys abroad; anon I'll tell thee more.
[_Exit_ GURNEY. "
The very _exit Gurney_ is a stroke of James's character. --ED. ]]
* * * * *
The latest book of travels I know, written in the spirit of the old
travellers, is Bartram's account of his tour in the Floridas. It is a work
of high merit every way. [1]
[Footnote 1:
"Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida,
the Cherokee Country, the extensive territories of the Muscogulges, or
Creek Confederacy, and the Country of the Chactaws, &c. By William
Bartram. " Philadelphia, 1791. London, 1792. 8vo. The expedition was made at
the request of Dr. Fothergill, the Quaker physician, in 1773, and was
particularly directed to botanical discoveries. --ED. ]
* * * * *
_March_ 13. 1827.
THE UNDERSTANDING.
A pun will sometimes facilitate explanation, as thus;--the Understanding is
that which _stands under_ the phenomenon, and gives it objectivity. You
know _what_ a thing is by it. It is also worthy of remark, that the Hebrew
word for the understanding, _Bineh_, comes from a root meaning _between_ or
_distinguishing_.
* * * * *
_March_ 18. 1827.
PARTS OF SPEECH. --GRAMMAR.
There are seven parts of speech, and they agree with the five grand and
universal divisions into which all things finite, by which I mean to
exclude the idea of God, will be found to fall; that is, as you will often
see it stated in my writings, especially in the Aids to Reflection[1]:--
Prothesis.
1.
Thesis. Mesothesis. Antithesis.
2. 4. 3.
Synthesis.
5.
Conceive it thus:--
1. Prothesis, the noun-verb, or verb-substantive, _I am_, which is the
previous form, and implies identity of being and act.
2. Thesis, the noun.
3. Antithesis, the verb.
Note, each of these may be converted; that is, they are only opposed to
each other.
4. Mesothesis, the infinitive mood, or the indifference of the verb and
noun, it being either the one or the other, or both at the same time, in
different relations.
5. Synthesis, the participle, or the community of verb and noun; being and
acting at once.
Now, modify the noun by the verb, that is, by an act, and you have--
6. The adnoun, or adjective.
Modify the verb by the noun, that is, by being, and you have--
7. The adverb.
Interjections are parts of sound, not of speech. Conjunctions are the same
as prepositions; but they are prefixed to a sentence, or to a member of a
sentence, instead of to a single word.
The inflections of nouns are modifications as to place; the inflections of
verbs, as to time.
The genitive case denotes dependence; the dative, transmission. It is
absurd to talk of verbs governing. In Thucydides, I believe, every case has
been found absolute. [2]
Dative:--[Greek: ----]
Thuc. VIII. 24. This is the Latin usage.
Accusative. --I do not remember an instance of the proper accusative
absolute in Thucydides; but it seems not uncommon in other authors:
[Greek: ----]
Yet all such instances may be nominatives; for I cannot find an example of
the accusative absolute in the masculine or feminine gender, where the
difference of inflexion would show the case. --ED. ]
The inflections of the tenses of a verb are formed by adjuncts of the verb
substantive. In Greek it is obvious. The E is the prefix significative of a
past time.
[Footnote 1: P. 170. 2d edition. ]
[Footnote 2:
Nominative absolute:--[Greek: theon de phozos ae anthropon nomos, oudeis
apeirge, to men krinontes en homoio kai sezein kai mae--ton de
hamartaematon. ]--Thuc. II. 53. ]
_June 15. 1827.
MAGNETISM. --ELECTRICITY. --GALVANISM.
Perhaps the attribution or analogy may seem fanciful at first sight, but I
am in the habit of realizing to myself Magnetism as length; Electricity as
breadth or surface; and Galvanism as depth.
_June 24. 1827. _
SPENSER. --CHARACTER Of OTHELLO. --HAMLET. --POLONIUS. --PRINCIPLES AND
MAXIMS. --LOVE. --MEASURE FOR MEASURE. --BEN JONSON. --BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. --
VERSION OF THE BIBLE. --SPURZHEIM. --CRANIOLOGY.
Spenser's Epithalamion is truly sublime; and pray mark the swan-like
movement of his exquisite Prothalamion. [1] His attention to metre and
rhythm is sometimes so extremely minute as to be painful even to my ear,
and you know how highly I prize good versification.
[Footnote 1:
How well I remember this Midsummer-day! I shall never pass such another.
The sun was setting behind Caen Wood, and the calm of the evening was so
exceedingly deep that it arrested Mr. Coleridge's attention. We were alone
together in Mr. Gillman's drawing-room, and Mr. C. left off talking, and
fell into an almost trance-like state for ten minutes whilst contemplating
the beautiful prospect before us. His eyes swam in tears, his head inclined
a little forward, and there was a slight uplifting of the fingers, which
seemed to tell me that he was in prayer. I was awestricken, and remained
absorbed in looking at the man, in forgetfulness of external nature, when
he recovered himself, and after a word or two fell by some secret link of
association upon Spenser's poetry. Upon my telling him that I did not very
well recollect the Prothalamion: "Then I must read you a bit of it," said
he; and, fetching the book from the next room, he recited the whole of it
in his finest and most musical manner. I particularly bear in mind the
sensible diversity of tone and rhythm with which he gave:--
"Sweet Thames! run softly till I end my song,"
the concluding line of each of the ten strophes of the poem.
When I look upon the scanty memorial, which I have alone preserved of this
afternoon's converse, I am tempted to burn these pages in despair. Mr.
Coleridge talked a volume of criticism that day, which, printed verbatim as
he spoke it, would have made the reputation of any other person but
himself. He was, indeed, particularly brilliant and enchanting; and I left
him at night so thoroughly _magnetized_, that I could not for two or three
days afterwards reflect enough to put any thing on paper,--ED. ]
* * * * *
I have often told you that I do not think there is any jealousy, properly
so called, in the character of Othello. There is no predisposition to
suspicion, which I take to be an essential term in the definition of the
word. Desdemona very truly told Emilia that he was not jealous, that is, of
a jealous habit, and he says so as truly of himself. Iago's suggestions,
you see, are quite new to him; they do not correspond with any thing of a
like nature previously in his mind. If Desdemona had, in fact, been guilty,
no one would have thought of calling Othello's conduct that of a jealous
man. He could not act otherwise than he did with the lights he had; whereas
jealousy can never be strictly right. See how utterly unlike Othello is to
Leontes, in the Winter's Tale, or even to Leonatus, in Cymbeline! The
jealousy of the first proceeds from an evident trifle, and something like
hatred is mingled with it; and the conduct of Leonatus in accepting the
wager, and exposing his wife to the trial, denotes a jealous temper already
formed.
* * * * *
Hamlet's character is the prevalence of the abstracting and generalizing
habit over the practical. He does not want courage, skill, will, or
opportunity; but every incident sets him thinking; and it is curious, and
at the same time strictly natural, that Hamlet, who all the play seems
reason itself, should he impelled, at last, by mere accident to effect his
object. I have a smack of Hamlet myself, if I may say so.
* * * * *
A Maxim is a conclusion upon observation of matters of fact, and is merely
retrospective: an Idea, or, if you like, a Principle, carries knowledge
within itself, and is prospective. Polonius is a man of maxims. Whilst he
is descanting on matters of past experience, as in that excellent speech to
Laertes before he sets out on his travels, he is admirable; but when he
comes to advise or project, he is a mere dotard. [1] You see Hamlet, as the
man of ideas, despises him.
[Footnote 1: Act i. sc. 3]
* * * * *
A man of maxims only is like a Cyclops with one eye, and that eye placed in
the back of his head.
* * * * *
In the scene with Ophelia, in the third act,[1] Hamlet is beginning with
great and unfeigned tenderness; but, perceiving her reserve and coyness,
fancies there are some listeners, and then, to sustain his part, breaks out
into all that coarseness.
Love is the admiration and cherishing of the amiable qualities of the
beloved person, upon the condition of yourself being the object of their
action. The qualities of the sexes correspond. The man's courage is loved
by the woman, whose fortitude again is coveted by the man. His vigorous
intellect is answered by her infallible tact. Can it be true, what is so
constantly affirmed, that there is no sex in souls? --I doubt it, I doubt it
exceedingly. [2]
[Footnote 1: Sc. 1. ]
[Footnote 2: Mr. Coleridge was a great master in the art of love, but he
had not studied in Ovid's school. Hear his account of the matter:--
"Love, truly such, is itself not the most common thing in the world, and
mutual love still less so. But that enduring personal attachment, so
beautifully delineated by Erin's sweet melodist, and still more touchingly,
perhaps, in the well-known ballad, 'John Anderson, my Jo, John,' in
addition to a depth and constancy of character of no every-day occurrence,
supposes a peculiar sensibility and tenderness of nature; a constitutional
communicativeness and utterancy of heart and soul; a delight in the detail
of sympathy, in the outward and visible signs of the sacrament within,--to
count, as it were, the pulses of the life of love. But, above all, it
supposes a soul which, even in the pride and summer-tide of life, even in
the lustihood of health and strength, had felt oftenest and prized highest
that which age cannot take away, and which in all our lovings is _the_
love; I mean, that willing sense of the unsufficingness of the self for
itself, which predisposes a generous nature to see, in the total being of
another, the supplement and completion of its own; that quiet perpetual
seeking which the presence of the beloved object modulates, not suspends,
where the heart momently finds, and, finding again, seeks on; lastly, when
'life's changeful orb has passed the full,' a confirmed faith in the
nobleness of humanity, thus brought home and pressed, as it were, to the
very bosom of hourly experience; it supposes, I say, a heartfelt reverence
for worth, not the less deep because divested of its solemnity by habit, by
familiarity, by mutual infirmities, and even by a feeling of modesty which
will arise in delicate minds, when they are conscious of possessing the
same, or the correspondent, excellence in their own characters. In short,
there must be a mind, which, while it feels the beautiful and the excellent
in the beloved as its own, and by right of love appropriates it, can call
goodness its playfellow; and dares make sport of time and infirmity, while,
in the person of a thousand-foldly endeared partner, we feel for aged
virtue the caressing fondness that belongs to the innocence of childhood,
and repeat the same attentions and tender courtesies which had been
dictated by the same affection to the same object when attired in feminine
loveliness or in manly beauty. " (Poetical Works, vol. ii. p. 120. )--ED. ]
Measure for Measure is the single exception to the delightfulness of
Shakspeare's plays. It is a hateful work, although Shakspearian throughout.
Our feelings of justice are grossly wounded in Angelo's escape. Isabella
herself contrives to be unamiable, and Claudio is detestable.
* * * * *
I am inclined to consider The Fox as the greatest of Ben Jonson's works.
But his smaller works are full of poetry.
* * * * *
Monsieur Thomas and the little French Lawyer are great favourites of mine
amongst Beaumont and Fletcher's plays. How those plays overflow with wit!
And yet I scarcely know a more deeply tragic scene any where than that in
Rollo, in which Edith pleads for her father's life, and then, when she
cannot prevail, rises up and imprecates vengeance on his murderer. [1]
[Footnote 1: Act iii. sc. 1. :--
"ROLLO. Hew off her hands!
HAMOND. Lady, hold off!
EDITH. No! hew 'em;
Hew off my innocent hands, as he commands you!
They'll hang the faster on for death's convulsion. --
Thou seed of rocks, will nothing move thee, then?
Are all my tears lost, all my righteous prayers
Drown'd in thy drunken wrath? I stand up thus, then,
Thou boldly bloody tyrant,
And to thy face, in heav'n's high name defy thee!
And may sweet mercy, when thy soul sighs for it,--
When under thy black mischiefs thy flesh trembles,--
When neither strength, nor youth, nor friends, nor gold,
Can stay one hour; when thy most wretched conscience,
Waked from her dream of death, like fire shall melt thee,--
When all thy mother's tears, thy brother's wounds,
Thy people's fears, and curses, and my loss,
My aged father's loss, shall stand before thee--
ROLLO. Save him, I say; run, save him, save her father;
Fly and redeem his head!
EDITH. May then that pity," &c. ]
* * * * *
Our version of the Bible is to be loved and prized for this, as for a
thousand other things,--that it has preserved a purity of meaning to many
terms of natural objects. Without this holdfast, our vitiated imaginations
would refine away language to mere abstractions. Hence the French have lost
their poetical language; and Mr. Blanco White says the same thing has
happened to the Spanish.
* * * * *
I have the perception of individual images very strong, but a dim one of
the relation of place. I remember the man or the tree, but where I saw them
I mostly forget. [1]
[Footnote 1:
There was no man whose opinion in morals, or even in a matter of general
conduct in life, if you furnished the pertinent circumstances, I would have
sooner adopted than Mr. Coleridge's; but I would not take him as a guide
through streets or fields or earthly roads. He had much of the geometrician
about him; but he could not find his way. In this, as in many other
peculiarities of more importance, he inherited strongly from his learned
and excellent father, who deserves, and will, I trust, obtain, a separate
notice for himself when his greater son's life comes to be written. I
believe the beginning of Mr. C. 's liking for Dr. Spurzheim was the hearty
good humour with which the Doctor bore the laughter of a party, in the
presence of which he, unknowing of his man, denied any _Ideality_, and
awarded an unusual share of _Locality_, to the majestic silver-haired head
of my dear uncle and father-in-law. But Mr. Coleridge immediately shielded
the craniologist under the distinction preserved in the text, and perhaps,
since that time, there may be a couple of organs assigned to the latter
faculty. --ED. ]
* * * * *
Craniology is worth some consideration, although it is merely in its
rudiments and guesses yet. But all the coincidences which have been
observed could scarcely be by accident. The confusion and absurdity,
however, will be endless until some names or proper terms are discovered
for the organs, which are not taken from their mental application or
significancy. The forepart of the head is generally given up to the higher
intellectual powers; the hinder part to the sensual emotions.
* * * * *
Silence does not always mark wisdom. I was at dinner, some time ago, in
company with a man, who listened to me and said nothing for a long time;
but he nodded his head, and I thought him intelligent. At length, towards
the end of the dinner, some apple dumplings were placed on the table, and
my man had no sooner seen them, than he burst forth with--"Them's the
jockies for me! " I wish Spurzheim could have examined the fellow's head.
* * * * *
Some folks apply epithets as boys do in making Latin verses. When I first
looked upon the Falls of the Clyde, I was unable to find a word to express
my feelings. At last, a man, a stranger to me, who arrived about the same
time, said:--"How majestic! "--(It was the precise term, and I turned round
and was saying--"Thank you, Sir! that _is_ the exact word for it"--when he
added, _eodem flatu_)--"Yes! how very _pretty_! "
* * * * *
_July_ 8. 1827.
BULL AND WATERLAND. --THE TRINITY.
Bull and Waterland are the classical writers on the Trinity. [1]
In the Trinity there is, 1. Ipseity. 2. Alterity. 3. Community. You may
express the formula thus:--
God, the absolute Will or Identity, = Prothesis. The Father = Thesis. The
Son = Antithesis. The Spirit = Synthesis.
[Footnote 1:
Mr. Coleridge's admiration of Bull and Waterland as high theologians was
very great. Bull he used to read in the Latin Defensio Fidei Nicaenae,
using the Jesuit Zola's edition of 1784, which, I think, he bought at Rome.
He told me once, that when he was reading a Protestant English Bishop's
work on the Trinity, in a copy edited by an Italian Jesuit in Italy, he
felt proud of the church of England, and in good humour with the church of
Rome. --ED. ]
* * * * *
The author of the Athanasian Creed is unknown. It is, in my judgment,
heretical in the omission, or implicit denial, of the Filial subordination
in the Godhead, which is the doctrine of the Nicene Creed, and for which
Bull and Waterland have so fervently and triumphantly contended; and by not
holding to which, Sherlock staggered to and fro between Tritheism and
Sabellianism. This creed is also tautological, and, if not persecuting,
which I will not discuss, certainly containing harsh and ill-conceived
language.
* * * * *
How much I regret that so many religious persons of the present day think
it necessary to adopt a certain cant of manner and phraseology as a token
to each other. They must _improve_ this and that text, and they must do so
and so in a _prayerful_ way; and so on. Why not use common language? A
young lady the other day urged upon me that such and such feelings were the
_marrow_ of all religion; upon which I recommended her to try to walk to
London upon her marrow-bones only.
* * * * *
_July_ 9. 1827.
SCALE OF ANIMAL BEING.
In the very lowest link in the vast and mysterious chain of Being, there is
an effort, although scarcely apparent, at individualization; but it is
almost lost in the mere nature. A little higher up, the individual is
apparent and separate, but subordinate to any thing in man. At length, the
animal rises to be on a par with the lowest power of the human nature.
There are some of our natural desires which only remain in our most perfect
state on earth as means of the higher powers' acting. [1]
[Footnote 1:
These remarks seem to call for a citation of that wonderful passage,
transcendant alike in eloquence and philosophic depth, which the readers of
the Aids to Reflection have long since laid up in cedar:--
"Every rank of creatures, as it ascends in the scale of creation, leaves
death behind it or under it. The metal at its height of being seems a mute
prophecy of the coming vegetation, into a mimic semblance of which it
crystallizes. The blossom and flower, the acme of vegetable life, divides
into correspondent organs with reciprocal functions, and by instinctive
motions and approximations seems impatient of that fixture, by which it is
differenced in kind from the flower-shaped Psyche that flutters with free
wing above it. And wonderfully in the insect realm doth the irritability,
the proper seat of instinct, while yet the nascent sensibility is
subordinate thereto,--most wonderfully, I say, doth the muscular life in
the insect, and the musculo-arterial in the bird, imitate and typically
rehearse the adaptive understanding, yea, and the moral affections and
charities of man. Let us carry ourselves back, in spirit, to the mysterious
week, the teeming work-days of the Creator, as they rose in vision before
the eye of the inspired historian "of the generations of the heaven and
earth, in the days that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. " And
who that hath watched their ways with an understanding heart, could, as the
vision evolving still advanced towards him, contemplate the filial and
loyal bee; the home building, wedded, and divorceless swallow; and, above
all, the manifoldly intelligent ant tribes, with their commonwealth and
confederacies, their warriors and miners, the husband-folk, that fold in
their tiny flocks on the honied leaf, and the virgin sisters with the holy
instincts of maternal love, detached and in selfless purity, and not say to
himself, Behold the shadow of approaching Humanity, the sun rising from
behind, in the kindling morn of creation! Thus all lower natures find their
highest good in semblances and seekings of that which is higher and better.
All things strive to ascend, and ascend in their striving. And shall man
alone stoop? Shall his pursuits and desires, the reflections of his inward
life, be like the reflected image of a tree on the edge of a pool, that
grows downward, and seeks a mock heaven in the unstable element beneath it,
in neighbourhood with the slim water-weeds and oozy bottom-grass that are
yet better than itself and more noble, in as far as substances that appear
as shadows are preferable to shadows mistaken for substance? No! it must be
a higher good to make you happy. While you labour for any thing below your
proper humanity, you seek a happy life in the region of death. Well saith
the moral poet:--
'Unless above himself he can
Erect himself, how mean a thing is man! '"
P. 105. 2d ed. --ED. ]
July 12. 1827.
POPEDOM. --SCANDERBEG. --THOMAS A BECKET. --PURE AGES OF GREEK, ITALIAN, AND
ENGLISH. --LUTHER. --BAXTER. --ALGERNON SIDNEY'S STYLE. --ARIOSTO AND TASSO. --
PROSE AND POETRY. --THE FATHERS. --RHENFERD. --JACOB BEHMEN.
What a grand subject for a history the Popedom is! The Pope ought never to
have affected temporal sway, but to have lived retired within St. Angelo,
and to have trusted to the superstitious awe inspired by his character and
office. He spoiled his chance when he meddled in the petty Italian
politics.
* * * * *
Scanderbeg would be a very fine subject for Walter Scott; and so would
Thomas a Becket, if it is not rather too much for him. It involves in
essence the conflict between arms, or force, and the men of letters.
* * * * *
Observe the superior truth of language, in Greek, to Theocritus
inclusively; in Latin, to the Augustan age exclusively; in Italian, to
Tasso exclusively; and in English, to Taylor and Barrow inclusively.
* * * * *
Luther is, in parts, the most evangelical writer I know, after the apostles
and apostolic men.
* * * * *
Pray read with great attention Baxter's Life of himself. It is an
inestimable work. [1] I may not unfrequently doubt Baxter's memory, or even
his competence, in consequence of his particular modes of thinking; but I
could almost as soon doubt the Gospel verity as his veracity.
[Footnote 1:
This, a very thick folio of the old sort, was one of Mr. Coleridge's text
books for English church history. He used to say that there was _no_
substitute for it in a course of study for a clergyman or public man, and
that the modern political Dissenters, who affected to glory in Baxter as a
leader, would read a bitter lecture on themselves in every page of it. In a
marginal note I find Mr. C. writing thus: "Alas! in how many respects does
my lot resemble Baxter's! But how much less have my bodily evils been, and
yet how very much greater an impediment have I suffered them to be! But
verily Baxter's labours seem miracles of supporting grace.
