* * * * *
Genius must have talent as its complement and implement, just as in like
manner imagination must have fancy.
Genius must have talent as its complement and implement, just as in like
manner imagination must have fancy.
Coleridge - Table Talk
Charles Lamb wrote an essay [1]
on a man who lived in past time:--I thought of adding another to it on one
who lived not in time at all, past, present, or future,--but beside or
collaterally.
[Footnote 1:
I know not when or where; but are not all the writings of this exquisite
genius the effusions of one whose spirit lived in past time? The place
which Lamb holds, and will continue to hold, in English literature, seems
less liable to interruption than that of any other writer of our day. --ED. ]
August 10. 1833.
NERVOUS WEAKNESS. ----HOOKER AND BULL. -----FAITH. ----A POET'S NEED OF
PRAISE.
A PERSON, nervously weak, has a sensation of weakness which is as bad to
him as muscular weakness. The only difference lies in the better chance of
removal.
* * * * *
The fact, that Hooker and Bull, in their two palmary works respectively,
are read in the Jesuit Colleges, is a curious instance of the power of mind
over the most profound of all prejudices.
There are permitted moments of exultation through faith, when we cease to
feel our own emptiness save as a capacity for our Redeemer's fulness.
* * * * *
There is a species of applause scarcely less genial to a poet, than the
vernal warmth to the feathered songsters during their nest-breeding or
incubation; a sympathy, an expressed hope, that is the open air in which
the poet breathes, and without which the sense of power sinks back on
itself, like a sigh heaved up from the tightened chest of a sick man.
_August_ 14. 1833.
QUAKERS. --PHILANTHROPISTS. --JEWS.
A quaker is made up of ice and flame. He has no composition, no mean
temperature. Hence he is rarely interested about any public measure but he
becomes a fanatic, and oversteps, in his irrespective zeal, every decency
and every right opposed to his course.
* * * * *
I have never known a trader in philanthropy who was not wrong in heart
somewhere or other. Individuals so distinguished are usually unhappy in
their family relations,--men not benevolent or beneficent to individuals,
but almost hostile to them, yet lavishing money and labour and time on the
race, the abstract notion. The cosmopolitism which does not spring out of,
and blossom upon, the deep-rooted stem of nationality or patriotism, is a
spurious and rotten growth.
* * * * *
When I read the ninth, tenth, and eleventh chapters of the Epistle to the
Romans to that fine old man Mr. ----, at Ramsgate, he shed tears. Any Jew
of sensibility must be deeply impressed by them.
* * * * *
The two images farthest removed from each other which can be comprehended
under one term, are, I think, Isaiah [1]--"Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O
earth! "--and Levi of Holywell Street--"Old clothes! "--both of them Jews,
you'll observe. _Immane quantum discrepant! _
[Footnote 1:
I remember Mr. Coleridge used to call Isaiah his ideal of the Hebrew
prophet. He studied that part of the Scripture with unremitting attention
and most reverential admiration. Although Mr. C. was remarkably deficient
in the technical memory of words, he could say a great deal of Isaiah by
heart, and he delighted in pointing out the hexametrical rhythm of numerous
passages in the English version:--
"Hear, O heavens, and give ear, | O earth: for the Lord hath spoken.
I have nourished and brought up children, | and they have rebelled
against me.
The ox knoweth his owner, | and the ass his master's crib:
But Israel doth not know, | my people doth not consider. "--ED. ]
_August_ 15. 1833.
SALLUST. --THUCYDIDES. --HERODOTUS. --GIBBON. --KEY TO THE DECLINE OF THE ROMAN
EMPIRE.
I consider the two works of Sallust which have come down to us entire, as
romances founded on facts; no adequate causes are stated, and there is no
real continuity of action. In Thucydides, you are aware from the beginning
that you are reading the reflections of a man of great genius and
experience upon the character and operation of the two great political
principles in conflict in the civilized world in his time; his narrative of
events is of minor importance, and it is evident that he selects for the
purpose of illustration. It is Thucydides himself whom you read throughout
under the names of Pericles, Nicias, &c. But in Herodotus it is just the
reverse. He has as little subjectivity as Homer, and, delighting in the
great fancied epic of events, he narrates them without impressing any thing
as of his own mind upon the narrative. It is the charm of Herodotus that he
gives you the spirit of his age--that of Thucydides, that he reveals to you
his own, which was above the spirit of his age.
The difference between the composition of a history in modern and ancient
times is very great; still there are certain principles upon which the
history of a modern period may be written, neither sacrificing all truth
and reality, like Gibbon, nor descending into mere biography and anecdote.
Gibbon's style is detestable, but his style is not the worst thing about
him. His history has proved an effectual bar to all real familiarity with
the temper and habits of imperial Rome. Few persons read the original
authorities, even those which are classical; and certainly no distinct
knowledge of the actual state of the empire can be obtained from Gibbon's
rhetorical sketches. He takes notice of nothing but what may produce an
effect; he skips on from eminence to eminence, without ever taking you
through the valleys between: in fact, his work is little else but a
disguised collection of all the splendid anecdotes which he could find in
any book concerning any persons or nations from the Antonines to the
capture of Constantinople. When I read a chapter in Gibbon, I seem to be
looking through a luminous haze or fog:--figures come and go, I know not
how or why, all larger than life, or distorted or discoloured; nothing is
real, vivid, true; all is scenical, and, as it were, exhibited by
candlelight. And then to call it a History of the Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire!
Was there ever a greater misnomer? I protest I do not remember a single
philosophical attempt made throughout the work to fathom the ultimate
causes of the decline or fall of that empire. How miserably deficient is
the narrative of the important reign of Justinian! And that poor
scepticism, which Gibbon mistook for Socratic philosophy, has led him to
misstate and mistake the character and influence of Christianity in a way
which even an avowed infidel or atheist would not and could not have done.
Gibbon was a man of immense reading; but he had no philosophy; and he never
fully understood the principle upon which the best of the old historians
wrote. He attempted to imitate their artificial construction of the whole
work--their dramatic ordonnance of the parts--without seeing that their
histories were intended more as documents illustrative of the truths of
political philosophy than as mere chronicles of events.
The true key to the declension of the Roman empire--which is not to be
found in all Gibbon's immense work--may be stated in two words:--the
_imperial_ character overlaying, and finally destroying, the _national_
character. Rome under Trajan was an empire without a nation.
_August_ 16. 1833.
DR. JOHNSON'S POLITICAL PAMPHLETS. --TAXATION. -DIRECT REPRESENTATION. ---
UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE. ---RIGHT OF WOMEN TO VOTE----HORNE TOOKE. ----ETYMOLOGY
OF THE FINAL IVE.
I like Dr. Johnson's political pamphlets better than any other parts of his
works:-particularly his "Taxation no Tyranny" is very clever and spirited,
though he only sees half of his subject, and that not in a very
philosophical manner. Plunder--Tribute--Taxation--are the three gradations
of action by the sovereign on the property of the subject. The first is
mere violence, bounded by no law or custom, and is properly an act only
between conqueror and conquered, and that, too, in the moment of victory.
The second supposes law; but law proceeding only from, and dictated by, one
party, the conqueror; law, by which he consents to forego his right of
plunder upon condition of the conquered giving up to him, of their own
accord, a fixed commutation. The third implies compact, and negatives any
right to plunder,--taxation being professedly for the direct benefit of the
party taxed, that, by paying a part, he may through the labours and
superintendence of the sovereign be able to enjoy the rest in peace. As to
the right to tax being only commensurate with direct representation, it is
a fable, falsely and treacherously brought forward by those who know its
hollowness well enough. You may show its weakness in a moment, by observing
that not even the universal suffrage of the Benthamites avoids the
difficulty;--for although it may be allowed to be contrary to decorum that
women should legislate; yet there can be no reason why women should not
choose their representatives to legislate;--and if it be said that they are
merged in their husbands, let it be allowed where the wife has no separate
property; but where she has a distinct taxable estate, in which her husband
has no interest, what right can her husband have to choose for her the
person whose vote may affect her separate interest? --Besides, at all
events, an unmarried woman of age, possessing one thousand pounds a year,
has surely as good a moral right to vote, if taxation without
representation is tyranny, as any ten-pounder in the kingdom. The truth, of
course, is, that direct representation is a chimera, impracticable in fact,
and useless or noxious if practicable.
Johnson had neither eye nor ear; for nature, therefore, he cared, as he
knew, nothing. His knowledge of town life was minute; but even that was
imperfect, as not being contrasted with the better life of the country.
Horne Tooke was once holding forth on language, when, turning to me, he
asked me if I knew what the meaning of the final _ive_ was in English
words. I said I thought I could tell what he, Horne Tooke himself, thought.
"Why, what? " said he. "_Vis_," I replied; and he acknowledged I had guessed
right. I told him, however, that I could not agree with him; but believed
that the final _ive_ came from _ick_--_vicus_, [Greek: --] a'txaq; the root
denoting collectivity and community, and that it was opposed to the final
_ing_, which signifies separation, particularity, and individual property,
from _ingle_, a hearth, or one man's place or seat: [Greek: --] oi'xo? ,
_vicus_, denoted an aggregation of _ingles_. The alteration of the _c_ and
_k_ of the root into the _v_ was evidently the work of the digammate power,
and hence we find the _icus_ and _ivus_ indifferently as finals in Latin.
The precise difference of the etymologies is apparent in these phrases:---
The lamb is spor_tive;_ that is, has a nature or habit of sporting: the
lamb is sport_ing;_ that is, the animal is now performing a sport. Horne
Tooke upon this said nothing to my etymology; but I believe he found that
he could not make a fool of me, as he did of Godwin and some other of his
butts.
August 17. 1833.
"THE LORD" IN THE ENGLISH VERSION OF THE PSALMS, ETC. ----SCOTCH KIRK AND
IRVING.
It is very extraordinary that, in our translation of the Psalms, which
professes to be from the Hebrew, the name Jehovah--[Hebrew: --] 'O -- The
Being, or God--should be omitted, and, instead of it, the [Hebrew: --]
Ktlpio? , or Lord, of the Septuagint be adopted. The Alexandrian Jews had a
superstitious dread of writing the name of God, and put [Greek: Kurhios]
not as a translation, but as a mere mark or sign--every one readily
understanding for what it really stood. We, who have no such superstition,
ought surely to restore the Jehovah, and thereby bring out in the true
force the overwhelming testimony of the Psalms to the divinity of Christ,
the Jehovah or manifested God. [1]
[Footnote 1:
I find the same remark in the late most excellent Bishop Sandford's diary,
under date 17th December, 1827:--"[Greek: CHairhete en t_o Kurhi_o Kurhios]
idem significat quod [Hebrew: --] apud Hebraeos. Hebraei enim nomine
[Hebrew: --] sanctissimo nempe Dei nomine, nunquam in colloquio utebantur,
sed vice ejus [Hebrew: --] pronuntiabant, quod LXX per [Greek: Kurhios]
exprimebant. "--_Remains of Bishop Sandford_, vol. i. p. 207.
Mr. Coleridge saw this work for the first time many months after making the
observation in the text. Indeed it was the very last book he ever read. He
was deeply interested in the picture drawn of the Bishop, and said that the
mental struggles and bodily sufferings indicated in the Diary had been his
own for years past. He conjured me to peruse the Memoir and the Diary with
great care:--"I have received," said he, "much spiritual comfort and
strength from the latter. O! were my faith and devotion, like my
sufferings, equal to that good man's! He felt, as I do, how deep a depth is
prayer in faith. "
In connection with the text, I may add here, that Mr. C. said, that long
before he knew that the late Bishop Middleton was of the same opinion, he
had deplored the misleading inadequacy of our authorized version of the
expression, [Greek: pr_ototokos pas_es ktise_os] in the Epistle to the
Colossians, i. 15. : [Greek: hos estin eik_on tou THeou tou aoratou,
pr_ototokos pas_es ktise_os. ] He rendered the verse in these words:--"Who
is the manifestation of God the invisible, the begotten antecedently to all
creation;" observing, that in [Greek: pr_ototokos] there was a double
superlative of priority, and that the natural meaning of "_first-born of
every creature_,"--the language of our version,--afforded no premiss for
the causal [Greek: hoti] in the next verse. The same criticism may be found
in the Stateman's Manual, p. 56. n. ; and see Bishop Sandford's judgment to
the same effect, vol. i. p. 165. --ED. ]
* * * * *
I cannot understand the conduct of the Scotch Kirk with regard to poor
Irving. They might with ample reason have visited him for the monstrous
indecencies of those exhibitions of the spirit;--perhaps the Kirk would not
have been justified in overlooking such disgraceful breaches of decorum;
but to excommunicate him on account of his language about Christ's body was
very foolish. Irving's expressions upon this subject are ill judged,
inconvenient, in had taste, and in terms false: nevertheless his apparent
meaning, such as it is, is orthodox. Christ's body--as mere body, or rather
carcass (for body is an associated word), was no more capable of sin or
righteousness than mine or yours;--that his humanity had a capacity of sin,
follows from its own essence. He was of like passions as we, and was
tempted. How could he be tempted, if he had no formal capacity of being
seduced?
It is Irving's error to use declamation, high and passionate rhetoric, not
introduced and pioneered by calm and clear logic, which is--to borrow a
simile, though with a change in the application, from the witty-wise, but
not always wisely-witty, Fuller--like knocking a nail into a board, without
wimbling a hole for it, and which then either does not enter, or turns
crooked, or splits the wood it pierces.
August 18. 1833.
MILTON'S EGOTISM. --CLAUDIAN. --STERNE.
In the Paradise Lost--indeed in every one of his poems--it is Milton
himself whom you see; his Satan, his Adam, his Raphael, almost his Eve--are
all John Milton; and it is a sense of this intense egotism that gives me
the greatest pleasure in reading Milton's works. The egotism of such a man
is a revelation of spirit.
* * * * *
Claudian deserves more attention than is generally paid to him. He is the
link between the old classic and the modern way of thinking in verse. You
will observe in him an oscillation between the objective poetry of the
ancients and the subjective mood of the moderns. His power of pleasingly
reproducing the same thought in different language is remarkable, as it is
in Pope. Read particularly the Phoenix, and see how the single image of
renascence is varied. [1]
[Footnote 1:
Mr. Coleridge referred to Claudian's first Idyll:--"Oceani summo
circumfluus cequore lucus Trans Indos Eurumque viret," &c. See the lines--
"Hic neque concepto fetu, nec semine surgit;
Sed pater est prolesque sibi, nulloque creante
Emeritos artus foecunda morte reformat,
Et petit alternam totidem per funera vitam.
. . .
Et cumulum texens pretiosa fronde Sabaeum
Componit bustumque sibi partumque futurum.
. . .
O senium positure rogo, falsisque sepulcris
Natales habiture vices, qui saepe renasci
Exitio, proprioque soles pubescere leto,
Accipe principium rursus.
. . .
Parturiente rogo--
. . .
Victuri cineres--
. . .
Qm fuerat genitor, natus nunc prosilit idem,
Succeditque novus---
. . .
O felix, haeresque tui! quo solvimur omnes,
Hoc tibi suppeditat vires; praebetur origo
Per cinerem; moritur te non pereunte senectus. "--ED. ]
* * * * *
I think highly of Sterne--that is, of the first part of Tristram Shandy:
for as to the latter part about the widow Wadman, it is stupid and
disgusting; and the Sentimental Journey is poor sickly stuff. There is a
great deal of affectation in Sterne, to be sure; but still the characters
of Trim and the two Shandies[1] are most individual and delightful.
Sterne's morals are bad, but I don't think they can do much harm to any one
whom they would not find bad enough before. Besides, the oddity and erudite
grimaces under which much of his dirt is hidden take away the effect for
the most part; although, to be sure, the book is scarcely readable by
women.
[Footnote 1:
Mr. Coleridge considered the character of the father, the elder Shandy, as
by much the finer delineation of the two. I fear his low opinion of the
Sentimental Journey will not suit a thorough Sterneist; but I could never
get him to modify his criticism. He said, "The oftener you read Sterne, the
more clearly will you perceive the _great_ difference between Tristram
Shandy and the Sentimental Journey. There is truth and reality in the one,
and little beyond a clever affectation in the other. "--ED. ]
August 20. 1833.
HUMOUR AND GENIUS. --GREAT POETS GOOD MEN. --DICTION OF THE OLD AND NEW
TESTAMENT VERSION. --HEBREW. --VOWELS AND CONSONANTS.
Men of humour are always in some degree men of genius; wits are rarely so,
although a man of genius may amongst other gifts possess wit, as
Shakspeare.
* * * * *
Genius must have talent as its complement and implement, just as in like
manner imagination must have fancy. In short, the higher intellectual
powers can only act through a corresponding energy of the lower.
* * * * *
Men of genius are rarely much annoyed by the company of vulgar people,
because they have a power of looking _at_ such persons as objects of
amusement of another race altogether.
* * * * *
I quite agree with Strabo, as translated by Ben Jonson in his splendid
dedication of the Fox[1]--that there can be no great poet who is not a good
man, though not, perhaps, a _goody_ man. His heart must be pure; he must
have learned to look into his own heart, and sometimes to look _at_ it; for
how can he who is ignorant of his own heart know any thing of, or be able
to move, the heart of any one else?
[Footnote 1:
[Greek: 'H de (arhet_e) poi_etou synezeyktai t_e tou anthrh_opou kai ouch
oion te agathon genesthai poi_et_en, m_e prhoterhon gen_ethenta angrha
agathon. ]--Lib. I. p. 33. folio.
"For, if men will impartially, and not asquint, look toward the offices and
function of a poet, they will easily conclude to themselves the
impossibility of any man's being the good poet without first being a good
man. "]
* * * * *
I think there is a perceptible difference in the elegance and correctness
of the English in our versions of the Old and New Testament. I cannot yield
to the authority of many examples of usages which may be alleged from the
New Testament version. St. Paul is very often most inadequately rendered,
and there are slovenly phrases which would never have come from Ben Jonson
or any other good prose writer of that day.
* * * * *
Hebrew is so simple, and its words are so few and near the roots, that it
is impossible to keep up any adequate knowledge of it without constant
application. The meanings of the words are chiefly traditional. The loss of
Origen's Heptaglott Bible, in which he had written out the Hebrew words in
Greek characters, is the heaviest which biblical literature has ever
experienced. It would have fixed the sounds as known at that time.
* * * * *
Brute animals have the vowel sounds; man only can utter consonants. It is
natural, therefore, that the consonants should be marked first, as being
the framework of the word; and no doubt a very simple living language might
be written quite intelligibly to the natives without any vowel sounds
marked at all. The words would be traditionally and conventionally
recognized as in short hand--thus--_Gd crtd th Hvn nd th Rth_. I wish I
understood Arabic; and yet I doubt whether to the European philosopher or
scholar it is worth while to undergo the immense labour of acquiring that
or any other Oriental tongue, except Hebrew.
_August_ 23. 1833.
GREEK ACCENT AND QUANTITY.
The distinction between accent and quantity is clear, and was, no doubt,
observed by the ancients in the recitation of verse. But I believe such
recitation to have been always an artificial thing, and that the common
conversation was entirely regulated by accent. I do not think it possible
to _talk_ any language without confounding the quantity of syllables with
their high or low tones[1]; although you may _sing_ or _recitative_ the
difference well enough. Why should the marks of accent have been considered
exclusively necessary for teaching the pronunciation to the Asiatic or
African Hellenist, if the knowledge of the acuted syllable did not also
carry the stress of time with it? If _[Greek: **anthropos]_ was to be
pronounced in common conversation with a perceptible distinction of the
length of the penultima as well as of the elevation of the antepenultima,
why was not that long quantity also marked? It was surely as important an
ingredient in the pronunciation as the accent. And although the letter
omega might in such a word show the quantity, yet what do you say to such
words as [Greek: lelonchasi, tupsasa], and the like--the quantity of the
penultima of which is not marked to the eye at all? Besides, can we
altogether disregard the practice of the modern Greeks? Their confusion of
accent and quantity in verse is of course a barbarism, though a very old
one, as the _versus politici_ of John Tzetzes [2] in the twelfth century
and the Anacreontics prefixed to Proclus will show; but these very examples
prove _a fortiori_ what the common pronunciation in prose then was.
[Footnote 1:
This opinion, I need not say, is in direct opposition to the conclusion of
Foster and Mitford, and scarcely reconcilable with the apparent meaning of
the authorities from the old critics and grammarians. Foster's opponent was
for rejecting the accents and attending only to the syllabic quantity;--Mr.
C. would, _in prose_, attend to the accents only as indicators of the
quantity, being unable to conceive any practical distinction between time
and tone in common speech. Yet how can we deal with the authority of
Dionysius of Halicarnassus alone, who, on the one hand, discriminates
quantity so exquisitely as to make four degrees of _shortness_ in the
penultimates of _[Greek: --hodos hr odos, tz opos]_ and _[Greek: --stz
ophos]_, and this expressly _[Greek: --eu logois psilois]_, or plain prose,
as well as in verse; and on the other hand declares, according to the
evidently correct interpretation of the passage, that the difference
between music and ordinary speech consists in the number only, and not in
the quality, of tones:--_[Greek: **to Poso diallattousa taes su odais kahi
oznauois, kahi ouchi to Poio_. (Pezhi Sun. c. 11. ? ]) The extreme
sensibility of the Athenian ear to the accent in prose is, indeed, proved
by numerous anecdotes, one of the most amusing of which, though, perhaps,
not the best authenticated as a fact, is that of Demosthenes in the Speech
for the Crown, asking, "Whether, O Athenians, does Aeschines appear to you
to be the mercenary (_[Greek: **misthothos]_} of Alexander, or his guest or
friend (_[Greek: **xenos]_)? " It is said that he pronounced _[Greek:
**misthothos]_ with a false accent on the antepenultima, as _[Greek:
**misthotos]_, and that upon the audience immediately crying out, by way of
correction, _[Greek: **misthothos]_, with an emphasis, the orator continued
coolly,--_[Greek: **achoueis a legousi]_--"You yourself hear what they
say! " Demosthenes is also said, whether affectedly, or in ignorance, to
have sworn in some speech by _[Greek: Asklaepios]_, throwing the accent
falsely on the antepenultima, and that, upon being interrupted for it, he
declared, in his justification, that the pronunciation was proper, for that
the divinity was _[Greek: aepios]_, mild. The expressions in Plutarch are
very striking:--"[Greek: **Thozuxon ekinaesen, omnue dhe kahi thon'
Asklaepion, pzopasoxunon' Asklaepion, kai pazedeiknuen autohn ozthos
legonta' einai gahz tohn thehon aepion' kahi epi outo polakis
hethozuzaethae. " Dec. Orat. _--Ed. ]
[Footnote 2:
See his Chiliads. The sort of verses to which Mr. Coleridge alluded are the
following, which those who consider the scansion to be accentual, take for
tetrameter catalectic iambics, like--
[Greek: ----]
(
_Chil_. I.
I 'll climb the frost | y mountains high |, and there I 'll coin | the weather;
I'll tear the rain | bow from the sky |, and tie both ends | together.
Some critics, however, maintain these verses to be trochaics, although very
loose and faulty. See Foster, p. 113. A curious instance of the early
confusion of accent and quantity may be seen in Prudentius, who shortens
the penultima in _eremus_ and _idola_, from [Greek: ezaemos] and [Greek:
eidola].
Cui jejuna _eremi_ saxa loquacibus
Exundant scatebris, &c.
_Cathemer_. V. 89.
--cognatumque malum, pigmenta, Camoenas,
_Idola_, conflavit fallendi trina potestas.
_Cont. Symm_. 47. --ED. ]
_August 24. 1833. _
CONSOLATION IN DISTRESS. ---MOCK EVANGELICALS. --AUTUMN DAY.
I am never very forward in offering spiritual consolation to any one in
distress or disease. I believe that such resources, to be of any service,
must be self-evolved in the first instance. I am something of the Quaker's
mind in this, and am inclined to _wait_ for the spirit.
* * * * *
The most common effect of this mock evangelical spirit, especially with
young women, is self-inflation and busy-bodyism.
* * * * *
How strange and awful is the synthesis of life and death in the gusty winds
and falling leaves of an autumnal day!
August 25. 1833.
ROSETTI ON DANTE. --LAUGHTER: FARCE AND TRAGEDY.
Rosetti's view of Dante's meaning is in great part just, but he has pushed
it beyond all bounds of common sense. How could a poet--and such a poet as
Dante--have written the details of the allegory as conjectured by Rosetti?
The boundaries between his allegory and his pure picturesque are plain
enough, I think, at first reading.
* * * * *
To resolve laughter into an expression of contempt is contrary to fact, and
laughable enough. Laughter is a convulsion of the nerves; and it seems as
if nature cut short the rapid thrill of pleasure on the nerves by a sudden
convulsion of them, to prevent the sensation becoming painful. Aristotle's
definition is as good as can be:--surprise at perceiving any thing out of
its usual place, when the unusualness is not accompanied by a sense of
serious danger. _Such_ surprise is always pleasurable; and it is observable
that surprise accompanied with circumstances of danger becomes tragic.
Hence farce may often border on tragedy; indeed, farce is nearer tragedy in
its essence than comedy is.
August 28. 1833.
BARON VON HUMBOLDT. --MODERN DIPLOMATISTS.
Baron von Humboldt, brother of the great traveller, paid me the following
compliment at Rome:--"I confess, Mr. Coleridge, I had my suspicions that
you were here in a political capacity of some sort or other; but upon
reflection I acquit you. For in Germany and, I believe, elsewhere on the
Continent, it is generally understood that the English government, in order
to divert the envy and jealousy of the world at the power, wealth, and
ingenuity of your nation, makes a point, as a _ruse de guerre_, of sending
out none but fools of gentlemanly birth and connections as diplomatists to
the courts abroad. An exception is, perhaps, sometimes made for a clever
fellow, if sufficiently libertine and unprincipled. " Is the case much
altered now, do you know?
* * * * *
What dull coxcombs your diplomatists at home generally are. I remember
dining at Mr. Frere's once in company with Canning and a few other
interesting men. Just before dinner Lord ---- called on Frere, and asked
himself to dinner. From the moment of his entry he began to talk to the
whole party, and in French--all of us being genuine English--and I was told
his French was execrable. He had followed the Russian army into France, and
seen a good deal of the great men concerned in the war: of none of those
things did he say a word, but went on, sometimes in English and sometimes
in French, gabbling about cookery and dress and the like. At last he paused
for a little--and I said a few words remarking how a great image may be
reduced to the ridiculous and contemptible by bringing the constituent
parts into prominent detail, and mentioned the grandeur of the deluge and
the preservation of life in Genesis and the Paradise Lost [1], and the
ludicrous effect produced by Drayton's description in his Noah's Flood:--
"And now the beasts are walking from the wood,
As well of ravine, as that chew the cud.
The king of beasts his fury doth suppress,
And to the Ark leads down the lioness;
The bull for his beloved mate doth low,
And to the Ark brings on the fair-eyed cow," &c.
Hereupon Lord ---- resumed, and spoke in raptures of a picture which he
had lately seen of Noah's Ark, and said the animals were all marching two
and two, the little ones first, and that the elephants came last in great
majesty and filled up the fore-ground. "Ah! no doubt, my Lord," said
Canning; "your elephants, wise fellows! staid behind to pack up their
trunks! " This floored the ambassador for half an hour.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries almost all our ambassadors were
distinguished men. [2] Read Lloyd's State Worthies. The third-rate men of
those days possessed an infinity of knowledge, and were intimately versed
not only in the history, but even in the heraldry, of the countries in
which they were resident. Men were almost always, except for mere
compliments, chosen for their dexterity and experience--not, as now, by
parliamentary interest.
[Footnote 1: Genesis, c. vi. vii. Par. Lost, book xi. v. 728, &c. ]
[Footnote 2:
Yet Diego de Mendoza, the author of Lazarillo de Tormes, himself a veteran
diplomatist, describes his brethren of the craft, and their duties, in the
reigns of Charles the Emperor and Philip the Second, in the following
terms:--
O embajadores, puros majaderos,
Que si los reyes quieren enganar,
Comienzan por nosotros los primeros.
_Nuestro mayor negocio es, no danar,
Y jamas hacer cosa, ni dezilla,
Que no corramos riesgo de ensenar. _
What a pity it is that modern diplomatists, who, for the most part, very
carefully observe the precept contained in the last two lines of this
passage, should not equally bear in mind the importance of the preceding
remark--_that their principal business is just to do no mischief_. --ED. ]
* * * * *
The sure way to make a foolish ambassador is to bring him up to it. What
can an English minister abroad really want but an honest and bold heart, a
love for his country and the ten commandments? Your art diplomatic is
stuff:--no truly greatly man now would negotiate upon any such shallow
principles.
August 30. 1833.
MAN CANNOT BE STATIONARY. --FATALISM AND PROVIDENCE. --SYMPATHY IN JOY.
If a man is not rising upwards to be an angel, depend upon it, he is
sinking downwards to be a devil. He cannot stop at the beast. The most
savage of men are not beasts; they are worse, a great deal worse.
* * * * *
The conduct of the Mohammedan and Western nations on the subject of
contagious plague illustrates the two extremes of error on the nature of
God's moral government of the world. The Turk changes Providence into
fatalism; the Christian relies upon it--when he has nothing else to rely
on. He does not practically rely upon it at all.
* * * * *
For compassion a human heart suffices; but for full and adequate sympathy
with joy an angel's only. And ever remember, that the more exquisite and
delicate a flower of joy, the tenderer must be the hand that plucks it.
_September_ 2. 1833.
CHARACTERISTIC TEMPERAMENT OF NATIONS. --GREEK PARTICLES. --LATIN COMPOUNDS. -
-PROPERTIUS. --TIBULLUS. --LUCAN. --STATIUS. --VALERIUS FLACCUS. --CLAUDIAN. --
PERSIUS. ------PRUDENTIUS. --HERMESIANAX.
The English affect stimulant nourishment--beef and beer. The French,
excitants, irritants--nitrous oxide, alcohol, champagne. The Austrians,
sedatives--hyoscyamus. The Russians, narcotics--opium, tobacco, and beng.
* * * * *
It is worth particular notice how the style of Greek oratory, so full, in
the times of political independence, of connective particles, some of
passion, some of sensation only, and escaping the classification of mere
grammatical logic, became, in the hands of the declaimers and philosophers
of the Alexandrian era, and still later, entirely deprived of this
peculiarity. So it was with Homer as compared with Nonnus, Tryphiodorus,
and the like. In the latter there are in the same number of lines fewer
words by one half than in the Iliad. All the appoggiaturas of time are
lost.
All the Greek writers after Demosthenes and his contemporaries, what are
they but the leavings of tyranny, in which a few precious things seem
sheltered by the mass of rubbish! Yet, whenever liberty began but to hope
and strive, a Polybius appeared. Theocritus is almost the only instance I
know of a man of true poetic genius nourishing under a tyranny.
The old Latin poets attempted to compound as largely as the Greek; hence in
Ennius such words as _belligerentes_, &c. In nothing did Virgil show his
judgment more than in rejecting these, except just where common usage had
sanctioned them, as _omnipotens_ and a few more. He saw that the Latin was
too far advanced in its formation, and of too rigid a character, to admit
such composition or agglutination. In this particular respect Virgil's
Latin is very admirable and deserving preference. Compare it with the
language of Lucan or Statius, and count the number of words used in an
equal number of lines, and observe how many more short words Virgil has.
* * * * *
I cannot quite understand the grounds of the high admiration which the
ancients expressed for Propertius, and I own that Tibullus is rather
insipid to me. Lucan was a man of great powers; but what was to be made of
such a shapeless fragment of party warfare, and so recent too! He had fancy
rather than imagination, and passion rather than fancy. His taste was
wretched, to be sure; still the Pharsalia is in my judgment a very
wonderful work for such a youth as Lucan[1] was.
I think Statius a truer poet than Lucan, though he is very extravagant
sometimes. Valerius Flaccus is very pretty in particular passages. I am
ashamed to say, I have never read Silius Italicus. Claudian I recommend to
your careful perusal, in respect of his being properly the first of the
moderns, or at least the transitional link between the Classic and the
Gothic mode of thought.
I call Persius hard--not obscure. He had a bad style; but I dare say, if he
had lived[2], he would have learned to express himself in easier language.
There are many passages in him of exquisite felicity, and his vein of
thought is manly and pathetic.
Prudentius[3] is curious for this,--that you see how Christianity forced
allegory into the place of mythology. Mr. Frere [Greek: ho philokalos, ho
kalokagathos] used to esteem the Latin Christian poets of Italy very
highly, and no man in our times was a more competent judge than he.
[Footnote 1:
Lucan died by the command of Nero, A. D. 65, in his twenty-sixth year. I
think this should be printed at the beginning of every book of the
Pharsalia. --ED. ]
[Footnote 2:
Aulus Persius Flaccus died in the 30th year of his age, A. D. 62. --ED. ]
[Footnote 3:
Aurelius Prudentius Clemens was born A. D. 348, in Spain.
on a man who lived in past time:--I thought of adding another to it on one
who lived not in time at all, past, present, or future,--but beside or
collaterally.
[Footnote 1:
I know not when or where; but are not all the writings of this exquisite
genius the effusions of one whose spirit lived in past time? The place
which Lamb holds, and will continue to hold, in English literature, seems
less liable to interruption than that of any other writer of our day. --ED. ]
August 10. 1833.
NERVOUS WEAKNESS. ----HOOKER AND BULL. -----FAITH. ----A POET'S NEED OF
PRAISE.
A PERSON, nervously weak, has a sensation of weakness which is as bad to
him as muscular weakness. The only difference lies in the better chance of
removal.
* * * * *
The fact, that Hooker and Bull, in their two palmary works respectively,
are read in the Jesuit Colleges, is a curious instance of the power of mind
over the most profound of all prejudices.
There are permitted moments of exultation through faith, when we cease to
feel our own emptiness save as a capacity for our Redeemer's fulness.
* * * * *
There is a species of applause scarcely less genial to a poet, than the
vernal warmth to the feathered songsters during their nest-breeding or
incubation; a sympathy, an expressed hope, that is the open air in which
the poet breathes, and without which the sense of power sinks back on
itself, like a sigh heaved up from the tightened chest of a sick man.
_August_ 14. 1833.
QUAKERS. --PHILANTHROPISTS. --JEWS.
A quaker is made up of ice and flame. He has no composition, no mean
temperature. Hence he is rarely interested about any public measure but he
becomes a fanatic, and oversteps, in his irrespective zeal, every decency
and every right opposed to his course.
* * * * *
I have never known a trader in philanthropy who was not wrong in heart
somewhere or other. Individuals so distinguished are usually unhappy in
their family relations,--men not benevolent or beneficent to individuals,
but almost hostile to them, yet lavishing money and labour and time on the
race, the abstract notion. The cosmopolitism which does not spring out of,
and blossom upon, the deep-rooted stem of nationality or patriotism, is a
spurious and rotten growth.
* * * * *
When I read the ninth, tenth, and eleventh chapters of the Epistle to the
Romans to that fine old man Mr. ----, at Ramsgate, he shed tears. Any Jew
of sensibility must be deeply impressed by them.
* * * * *
The two images farthest removed from each other which can be comprehended
under one term, are, I think, Isaiah [1]--"Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O
earth! "--and Levi of Holywell Street--"Old clothes! "--both of them Jews,
you'll observe. _Immane quantum discrepant! _
[Footnote 1:
I remember Mr. Coleridge used to call Isaiah his ideal of the Hebrew
prophet. He studied that part of the Scripture with unremitting attention
and most reverential admiration. Although Mr. C. was remarkably deficient
in the technical memory of words, he could say a great deal of Isaiah by
heart, and he delighted in pointing out the hexametrical rhythm of numerous
passages in the English version:--
"Hear, O heavens, and give ear, | O earth: for the Lord hath spoken.
I have nourished and brought up children, | and they have rebelled
against me.
The ox knoweth his owner, | and the ass his master's crib:
But Israel doth not know, | my people doth not consider. "--ED. ]
_August_ 15. 1833.
SALLUST. --THUCYDIDES. --HERODOTUS. --GIBBON. --KEY TO THE DECLINE OF THE ROMAN
EMPIRE.
I consider the two works of Sallust which have come down to us entire, as
romances founded on facts; no adequate causes are stated, and there is no
real continuity of action. In Thucydides, you are aware from the beginning
that you are reading the reflections of a man of great genius and
experience upon the character and operation of the two great political
principles in conflict in the civilized world in his time; his narrative of
events is of minor importance, and it is evident that he selects for the
purpose of illustration. It is Thucydides himself whom you read throughout
under the names of Pericles, Nicias, &c. But in Herodotus it is just the
reverse. He has as little subjectivity as Homer, and, delighting in the
great fancied epic of events, he narrates them without impressing any thing
as of his own mind upon the narrative. It is the charm of Herodotus that he
gives you the spirit of his age--that of Thucydides, that he reveals to you
his own, which was above the spirit of his age.
The difference between the composition of a history in modern and ancient
times is very great; still there are certain principles upon which the
history of a modern period may be written, neither sacrificing all truth
and reality, like Gibbon, nor descending into mere biography and anecdote.
Gibbon's style is detestable, but his style is not the worst thing about
him. His history has proved an effectual bar to all real familiarity with
the temper and habits of imperial Rome. Few persons read the original
authorities, even those which are classical; and certainly no distinct
knowledge of the actual state of the empire can be obtained from Gibbon's
rhetorical sketches. He takes notice of nothing but what may produce an
effect; he skips on from eminence to eminence, without ever taking you
through the valleys between: in fact, his work is little else but a
disguised collection of all the splendid anecdotes which he could find in
any book concerning any persons or nations from the Antonines to the
capture of Constantinople. When I read a chapter in Gibbon, I seem to be
looking through a luminous haze or fog:--figures come and go, I know not
how or why, all larger than life, or distorted or discoloured; nothing is
real, vivid, true; all is scenical, and, as it were, exhibited by
candlelight. And then to call it a History of the Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire!
Was there ever a greater misnomer? I protest I do not remember a single
philosophical attempt made throughout the work to fathom the ultimate
causes of the decline or fall of that empire. How miserably deficient is
the narrative of the important reign of Justinian! And that poor
scepticism, which Gibbon mistook for Socratic philosophy, has led him to
misstate and mistake the character and influence of Christianity in a way
which even an avowed infidel or atheist would not and could not have done.
Gibbon was a man of immense reading; but he had no philosophy; and he never
fully understood the principle upon which the best of the old historians
wrote. He attempted to imitate their artificial construction of the whole
work--their dramatic ordonnance of the parts--without seeing that their
histories were intended more as documents illustrative of the truths of
political philosophy than as mere chronicles of events.
The true key to the declension of the Roman empire--which is not to be
found in all Gibbon's immense work--may be stated in two words:--the
_imperial_ character overlaying, and finally destroying, the _national_
character. Rome under Trajan was an empire without a nation.
_August_ 16. 1833.
DR. JOHNSON'S POLITICAL PAMPHLETS. --TAXATION. -DIRECT REPRESENTATION. ---
UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE. ---RIGHT OF WOMEN TO VOTE----HORNE TOOKE. ----ETYMOLOGY
OF THE FINAL IVE.
I like Dr. Johnson's political pamphlets better than any other parts of his
works:-particularly his "Taxation no Tyranny" is very clever and spirited,
though he only sees half of his subject, and that not in a very
philosophical manner. Plunder--Tribute--Taxation--are the three gradations
of action by the sovereign on the property of the subject. The first is
mere violence, bounded by no law or custom, and is properly an act only
between conqueror and conquered, and that, too, in the moment of victory.
The second supposes law; but law proceeding only from, and dictated by, one
party, the conqueror; law, by which he consents to forego his right of
plunder upon condition of the conquered giving up to him, of their own
accord, a fixed commutation. The third implies compact, and negatives any
right to plunder,--taxation being professedly for the direct benefit of the
party taxed, that, by paying a part, he may through the labours and
superintendence of the sovereign be able to enjoy the rest in peace. As to
the right to tax being only commensurate with direct representation, it is
a fable, falsely and treacherously brought forward by those who know its
hollowness well enough. You may show its weakness in a moment, by observing
that not even the universal suffrage of the Benthamites avoids the
difficulty;--for although it may be allowed to be contrary to decorum that
women should legislate; yet there can be no reason why women should not
choose their representatives to legislate;--and if it be said that they are
merged in their husbands, let it be allowed where the wife has no separate
property; but where she has a distinct taxable estate, in which her husband
has no interest, what right can her husband have to choose for her the
person whose vote may affect her separate interest? --Besides, at all
events, an unmarried woman of age, possessing one thousand pounds a year,
has surely as good a moral right to vote, if taxation without
representation is tyranny, as any ten-pounder in the kingdom. The truth, of
course, is, that direct representation is a chimera, impracticable in fact,
and useless or noxious if practicable.
Johnson had neither eye nor ear; for nature, therefore, he cared, as he
knew, nothing. His knowledge of town life was minute; but even that was
imperfect, as not being contrasted with the better life of the country.
Horne Tooke was once holding forth on language, when, turning to me, he
asked me if I knew what the meaning of the final _ive_ was in English
words. I said I thought I could tell what he, Horne Tooke himself, thought.
"Why, what? " said he. "_Vis_," I replied; and he acknowledged I had guessed
right. I told him, however, that I could not agree with him; but believed
that the final _ive_ came from _ick_--_vicus_, [Greek: --] a'txaq; the root
denoting collectivity and community, and that it was opposed to the final
_ing_, which signifies separation, particularity, and individual property,
from _ingle_, a hearth, or one man's place or seat: [Greek: --] oi'xo? ,
_vicus_, denoted an aggregation of _ingles_. The alteration of the _c_ and
_k_ of the root into the _v_ was evidently the work of the digammate power,
and hence we find the _icus_ and _ivus_ indifferently as finals in Latin.
The precise difference of the etymologies is apparent in these phrases:---
The lamb is spor_tive;_ that is, has a nature or habit of sporting: the
lamb is sport_ing;_ that is, the animal is now performing a sport. Horne
Tooke upon this said nothing to my etymology; but I believe he found that
he could not make a fool of me, as he did of Godwin and some other of his
butts.
August 17. 1833.
"THE LORD" IN THE ENGLISH VERSION OF THE PSALMS, ETC. ----SCOTCH KIRK AND
IRVING.
It is very extraordinary that, in our translation of the Psalms, which
professes to be from the Hebrew, the name Jehovah--[Hebrew: --] 'O -- The
Being, or God--should be omitted, and, instead of it, the [Hebrew: --]
Ktlpio? , or Lord, of the Septuagint be adopted. The Alexandrian Jews had a
superstitious dread of writing the name of God, and put [Greek: Kurhios]
not as a translation, but as a mere mark or sign--every one readily
understanding for what it really stood. We, who have no such superstition,
ought surely to restore the Jehovah, and thereby bring out in the true
force the overwhelming testimony of the Psalms to the divinity of Christ,
the Jehovah or manifested God. [1]
[Footnote 1:
I find the same remark in the late most excellent Bishop Sandford's diary,
under date 17th December, 1827:--"[Greek: CHairhete en t_o Kurhi_o Kurhios]
idem significat quod [Hebrew: --] apud Hebraeos. Hebraei enim nomine
[Hebrew: --] sanctissimo nempe Dei nomine, nunquam in colloquio utebantur,
sed vice ejus [Hebrew: --] pronuntiabant, quod LXX per [Greek: Kurhios]
exprimebant. "--_Remains of Bishop Sandford_, vol. i. p. 207.
Mr. Coleridge saw this work for the first time many months after making the
observation in the text. Indeed it was the very last book he ever read. He
was deeply interested in the picture drawn of the Bishop, and said that the
mental struggles and bodily sufferings indicated in the Diary had been his
own for years past. He conjured me to peruse the Memoir and the Diary with
great care:--"I have received," said he, "much spiritual comfort and
strength from the latter. O! were my faith and devotion, like my
sufferings, equal to that good man's! He felt, as I do, how deep a depth is
prayer in faith. "
In connection with the text, I may add here, that Mr. C. said, that long
before he knew that the late Bishop Middleton was of the same opinion, he
had deplored the misleading inadequacy of our authorized version of the
expression, [Greek: pr_ototokos pas_es ktise_os] in the Epistle to the
Colossians, i. 15. : [Greek: hos estin eik_on tou THeou tou aoratou,
pr_ototokos pas_es ktise_os. ] He rendered the verse in these words:--"Who
is the manifestation of God the invisible, the begotten antecedently to all
creation;" observing, that in [Greek: pr_ototokos] there was a double
superlative of priority, and that the natural meaning of "_first-born of
every creature_,"--the language of our version,--afforded no premiss for
the causal [Greek: hoti] in the next verse. The same criticism may be found
in the Stateman's Manual, p. 56. n. ; and see Bishop Sandford's judgment to
the same effect, vol. i. p. 165. --ED. ]
* * * * *
I cannot understand the conduct of the Scotch Kirk with regard to poor
Irving. They might with ample reason have visited him for the monstrous
indecencies of those exhibitions of the spirit;--perhaps the Kirk would not
have been justified in overlooking such disgraceful breaches of decorum;
but to excommunicate him on account of his language about Christ's body was
very foolish. Irving's expressions upon this subject are ill judged,
inconvenient, in had taste, and in terms false: nevertheless his apparent
meaning, such as it is, is orthodox. Christ's body--as mere body, or rather
carcass (for body is an associated word), was no more capable of sin or
righteousness than mine or yours;--that his humanity had a capacity of sin,
follows from its own essence. He was of like passions as we, and was
tempted. How could he be tempted, if he had no formal capacity of being
seduced?
It is Irving's error to use declamation, high and passionate rhetoric, not
introduced and pioneered by calm and clear logic, which is--to borrow a
simile, though with a change in the application, from the witty-wise, but
not always wisely-witty, Fuller--like knocking a nail into a board, without
wimbling a hole for it, and which then either does not enter, or turns
crooked, or splits the wood it pierces.
August 18. 1833.
MILTON'S EGOTISM. --CLAUDIAN. --STERNE.
In the Paradise Lost--indeed in every one of his poems--it is Milton
himself whom you see; his Satan, his Adam, his Raphael, almost his Eve--are
all John Milton; and it is a sense of this intense egotism that gives me
the greatest pleasure in reading Milton's works. The egotism of such a man
is a revelation of spirit.
* * * * *
Claudian deserves more attention than is generally paid to him. He is the
link between the old classic and the modern way of thinking in verse. You
will observe in him an oscillation between the objective poetry of the
ancients and the subjective mood of the moderns. His power of pleasingly
reproducing the same thought in different language is remarkable, as it is
in Pope. Read particularly the Phoenix, and see how the single image of
renascence is varied. [1]
[Footnote 1:
Mr. Coleridge referred to Claudian's first Idyll:--"Oceani summo
circumfluus cequore lucus Trans Indos Eurumque viret," &c. See the lines--
"Hic neque concepto fetu, nec semine surgit;
Sed pater est prolesque sibi, nulloque creante
Emeritos artus foecunda morte reformat,
Et petit alternam totidem per funera vitam.
. . .
Et cumulum texens pretiosa fronde Sabaeum
Componit bustumque sibi partumque futurum.
. . .
O senium positure rogo, falsisque sepulcris
Natales habiture vices, qui saepe renasci
Exitio, proprioque soles pubescere leto,
Accipe principium rursus.
. . .
Parturiente rogo--
. . .
Victuri cineres--
. . .
Qm fuerat genitor, natus nunc prosilit idem,
Succeditque novus---
. . .
O felix, haeresque tui! quo solvimur omnes,
Hoc tibi suppeditat vires; praebetur origo
Per cinerem; moritur te non pereunte senectus. "--ED. ]
* * * * *
I think highly of Sterne--that is, of the first part of Tristram Shandy:
for as to the latter part about the widow Wadman, it is stupid and
disgusting; and the Sentimental Journey is poor sickly stuff. There is a
great deal of affectation in Sterne, to be sure; but still the characters
of Trim and the two Shandies[1] are most individual and delightful.
Sterne's morals are bad, but I don't think they can do much harm to any one
whom they would not find bad enough before. Besides, the oddity and erudite
grimaces under which much of his dirt is hidden take away the effect for
the most part; although, to be sure, the book is scarcely readable by
women.
[Footnote 1:
Mr. Coleridge considered the character of the father, the elder Shandy, as
by much the finer delineation of the two. I fear his low opinion of the
Sentimental Journey will not suit a thorough Sterneist; but I could never
get him to modify his criticism. He said, "The oftener you read Sterne, the
more clearly will you perceive the _great_ difference between Tristram
Shandy and the Sentimental Journey. There is truth and reality in the one,
and little beyond a clever affectation in the other. "--ED. ]
August 20. 1833.
HUMOUR AND GENIUS. --GREAT POETS GOOD MEN. --DICTION OF THE OLD AND NEW
TESTAMENT VERSION. --HEBREW. --VOWELS AND CONSONANTS.
Men of humour are always in some degree men of genius; wits are rarely so,
although a man of genius may amongst other gifts possess wit, as
Shakspeare.
* * * * *
Genius must have talent as its complement and implement, just as in like
manner imagination must have fancy. In short, the higher intellectual
powers can only act through a corresponding energy of the lower.
* * * * *
Men of genius are rarely much annoyed by the company of vulgar people,
because they have a power of looking _at_ such persons as objects of
amusement of another race altogether.
* * * * *
I quite agree with Strabo, as translated by Ben Jonson in his splendid
dedication of the Fox[1]--that there can be no great poet who is not a good
man, though not, perhaps, a _goody_ man. His heart must be pure; he must
have learned to look into his own heart, and sometimes to look _at_ it; for
how can he who is ignorant of his own heart know any thing of, or be able
to move, the heart of any one else?
[Footnote 1:
[Greek: 'H de (arhet_e) poi_etou synezeyktai t_e tou anthrh_opou kai ouch
oion te agathon genesthai poi_et_en, m_e prhoterhon gen_ethenta angrha
agathon. ]--Lib. I. p. 33. folio.
"For, if men will impartially, and not asquint, look toward the offices and
function of a poet, they will easily conclude to themselves the
impossibility of any man's being the good poet without first being a good
man. "]
* * * * *
I think there is a perceptible difference in the elegance and correctness
of the English in our versions of the Old and New Testament. I cannot yield
to the authority of many examples of usages which may be alleged from the
New Testament version. St. Paul is very often most inadequately rendered,
and there are slovenly phrases which would never have come from Ben Jonson
or any other good prose writer of that day.
* * * * *
Hebrew is so simple, and its words are so few and near the roots, that it
is impossible to keep up any adequate knowledge of it without constant
application. The meanings of the words are chiefly traditional. The loss of
Origen's Heptaglott Bible, in which he had written out the Hebrew words in
Greek characters, is the heaviest which biblical literature has ever
experienced. It would have fixed the sounds as known at that time.
* * * * *
Brute animals have the vowel sounds; man only can utter consonants. It is
natural, therefore, that the consonants should be marked first, as being
the framework of the word; and no doubt a very simple living language might
be written quite intelligibly to the natives without any vowel sounds
marked at all. The words would be traditionally and conventionally
recognized as in short hand--thus--_Gd crtd th Hvn nd th Rth_. I wish I
understood Arabic; and yet I doubt whether to the European philosopher or
scholar it is worth while to undergo the immense labour of acquiring that
or any other Oriental tongue, except Hebrew.
_August_ 23. 1833.
GREEK ACCENT AND QUANTITY.
The distinction between accent and quantity is clear, and was, no doubt,
observed by the ancients in the recitation of verse. But I believe such
recitation to have been always an artificial thing, and that the common
conversation was entirely regulated by accent. I do not think it possible
to _talk_ any language without confounding the quantity of syllables with
their high or low tones[1]; although you may _sing_ or _recitative_ the
difference well enough. Why should the marks of accent have been considered
exclusively necessary for teaching the pronunciation to the Asiatic or
African Hellenist, if the knowledge of the acuted syllable did not also
carry the stress of time with it? If _[Greek: **anthropos]_ was to be
pronounced in common conversation with a perceptible distinction of the
length of the penultima as well as of the elevation of the antepenultima,
why was not that long quantity also marked? It was surely as important an
ingredient in the pronunciation as the accent. And although the letter
omega might in such a word show the quantity, yet what do you say to such
words as [Greek: lelonchasi, tupsasa], and the like--the quantity of the
penultima of which is not marked to the eye at all? Besides, can we
altogether disregard the practice of the modern Greeks? Their confusion of
accent and quantity in verse is of course a barbarism, though a very old
one, as the _versus politici_ of John Tzetzes [2] in the twelfth century
and the Anacreontics prefixed to Proclus will show; but these very examples
prove _a fortiori_ what the common pronunciation in prose then was.
[Footnote 1:
This opinion, I need not say, is in direct opposition to the conclusion of
Foster and Mitford, and scarcely reconcilable with the apparent meaning of
the authorities from the old critics and grammarians. Foster's opponent was
for rejecting the accents and attending only to the syllabic quantity;--Mr.
C. would, _in prose_, attend to the accents only as indicators of the
quantity, being unable to conceive any practical distinction between time
and tone in common speech. Yet how can we deal with the authority of
Dionysius of Halicarnassus alone, who, on the one hand, discriminates
quantity so exquisitely as to make four degrees of _shortness_ in the
penultimates of _[Greek: --hodos hr odos, tz opos]_ and _[Greek: --stz
ophos]_, and this expressly _[Greek: --eu logois psilois]_, or plain prose,
as well as in verse; and on the other hand declares, according to the
evidently correct interpretation of the passage, that the difference
between music and ordinary speech consists in the number only, and not in
the quality, of tones:--_[Greek: **to Poso diallattousa taes su odais kahi
oznauois, kahi ouchi to Poio_. (Pezhi Sun. c. 11. ? ]) The extreme
sensibility of the Athenian ear to the accent in prose is, indeed, proved
by numerous anecdotes, one of the most amusing of which, though, perhaps,
not the best authenticated as a fact, is that of Demosthenes in the Speech
for the Crown, asking, "Whether, O Athenians, does Aeschines appear to you
to be the mercenary (_[Greek: **misthothos]_} of Alexander, or his guest or
friend (_[Greek: **xenos]_)? " It is said that he pronounced _[Greek:
**misthothos]_ with a false accent on the antepenultima, as _[Greek:
**misthotos]_, and that upon the audience immediately crying out, by way of
correction, _[Greek: **misthothos]_, with an emphasis, the orator continued
coolly,--_[Greek: **achoueis a legousi]_--"You yourself hear what they
say! " Demosthenes is also said, whether affectedly, or in ignorance, to
have sworn in some speech by _[Greek: Asklaepios]_, throwing the accent
falsely on the antepenultima, and that, upon being interrupted for it, he
declared, in his justification, that the pronunciation was proper, for that
the divinity was _[Greek: aepios]_, mild. The expressions in Plutarch are
very striking:--"[Greek: **Thozuxon ekinaesen, omnue dhe kahi thon'
Asklaepion, pzopasoxunon' Asklaepion, kai pazedeiknuen autohn ozthos
legonta' einai gahz tohn thehon aepion' kahi epi outo polakis
hethozuzaethae. " Dec. Orat. _--Ed. ]
[Footnote 2:
See his Chiliads. The sort of verses to which Mr. Coleridge alluded are the
following, which those who consider the scansion to be accentual, take for
tetrameter catalectic iambics, like--
[Greek: ----]
(
_Chil_. I.
I 'll climb the frost | y mountains high |, and there I 'll coin | the weather;
I'll tear the rain | bow from the sky |, and tie both ends | together.
Some critics, however, maintain these verses to be trochaics, although very
loose and faulty. See Foster, p. 113. A curious instance of the early
confusion of accent and quantity may be seen in Prudentius, who shortens
the penultima in _eremus_ and _idola_, from [Greek: ezaemos] and [Greek:
eidola].
Cui jejuna _eremi_ saxa loquacibus
Exundant scatebris, &c.
_Cathemer_. V. 89.
--cognatumque malum, pigmenta, Camoenas,
_Idola_, conflavit fallendi trina potestas.
_Cont. Symm_. 47. --ED. ]
_August 24. 1833. _
CONSOLATION IN DISTRESS. ---MOCK EVANGELICALS. --AUTUMN DAY.
I am never very forward in offering spiritual consolation to any one in
distress or disease. I believe that such resources, to be of any service,
must be self-evolved in the first instance. I am something of the Quaker's
mind in this, and am inclined to _wait_ for the spirit.
* * * * *
The most common effect of this mock evangelical spirit, especially with
young women, is self-inflation and busy-bodyism.
* * * * *
How strange and awful is the synthesis of life and death in the gusty winds
and falling leaves of an autumnal day!
August 25. 1833.
ROSETTI ON DANTE. --LAUGHTER: FARCE AND TRAGEDY.
Rosetti's view of Dante's meaning is in great part just, but he has pushed
it beyond all bounds of common sense. How could a poet--and such a poet as
Dante--have written the details of the allegory as conjectured by Rosetti?
The boundaries between his allegory and his pure picturesque are plain
enough, I think, at first reading.
* * * * *
To resolve laughter into an expression of contempt is contrary to fact, and
laughable enough. Laughter is a convulsion of the nerves; and it seems as
if nature cut short the rapid thrill of pleasure on the nerves by a sudden
convulsion of them, to prevent the sensation becoming painful. Aristotle's
definition is as good as can be:--surprise at perceiving any thing out of
its usual place, when the unusualness is not accompanied by a sense of
serious danger. _Such_ surprise is always pleasurable; and it is observable
that surprise accompanied with circumstances of danger becomes tragic.
Hence farce may often border on tragedy; indeed, farce is nearer tragedy in
its essence than comedy is.
August 28. 1833.
BARON VON HUMBOLDT. --MODERN DIPLOMATISTS.
Baron von Humboldt, brother of the great traveller, paid me the following
compliment at Rome:--"I confess, Mr. Coleridge, I had my suspicions that
you were here in a political capacity of some sort or other; but upon
reflection I acquit you. For in Germany and, I believe, elsewhere on the
Continent, it is generally understood that the English government, in order
to divert the envy and jealousy of the world at the power, wealth, and
ingenuity of your nation, makes a point, as a _ruse de guerre_, of sending
out none but fools of gentlemanly birth and connections as diplomatists to
the courts abroad. An exception is, perhaps, sometimes made for a clever
fellow, if sufficiently libertine and unprincipled. " Is the case much
altered now, do you know?
* * * * *
What dull coxcombs your diplomatists at home generally are. I remember
dining at Mr. Frere's once in company with Canning and a few other
interesting men. Just before dinner Lord ---- called on Frere, and asked
himself to dinner. From the moment of his entry he began to talk to the
whole party, and in French--all of us being genuine English--and I was told
his French was execrable. He had followed the Russian army into France, and
seen a good deal of the great men concerned in the war: of none of those
things did he say a word, but went on, sometimes in English and sometimes
in French, gabbling about cookery and dress and the like. At last he paused
for a little--and I said a few words remarking how a great image may be
reduced to the ridiculous and contemptible by bringing the constituent
parts into prominent detail, and mentioned the grandeur of the deluge and
the preservation of life in Genesis and the Paradise Lost [1], and the
ludicrous effect produced by Drayton's description in his Noah's Flood:--
"And now the beasts are walking from the wood,
As well of ravine, as that chew the cud.
The king of beasts his fury doth suppress,
And to the Ark leads down the lioness;
The bull for his beloved mate doth low,
And to the Ark brings on the fair-eyed cow," &c.
Hereupon Lord ---- resumed, and spoke in raptures of a picture which he
had lately seen of Noah's Ark, and said the animals were all marching two
and two, the little ones first, and that the elephants came last in great
majesty and filled up the fore-ground. "Ah! no doubt, my Lord," said
Canning; "your elephants, wise fellows! staid behind to pack up their
trunks! " This floored the ambassador for half an hour.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries almost all our ambassadors were
distinguished men. [2] Read Lloyd's State Worthies. The third-rate men of
those days possessed an infinity of knowledge, and were intimately versed
not only in the history, but even in the heraldry, of the countries in
which they were resident. Men were almost always, except for mere
compliments, chosen for their dexterity and experience--not, as now, by
parliamentary interest.
[Footnote 1: Genesis, c. vi. vii. Par. Lost, book xi. v. 728, &c. ]
[Footnote 2:
Yet Diego de Mendoza, the author of Lazarillo de Tormes, himself a veteran
diplomatist, describes his brethren of the craft, and their duties, in the
reigns of Charles the Emperor and Philip the Second, in the following
terms:--
O embajadores, puros majaderos,
Que si los reyes quieren enganar,
Comienzan por nosotros los primeros.
_Nuestro mayor negocio es, no danar,
Y jamas hacer cosa, ni dezilla,
Que no corramos riesgo de ensenar. _
What a pity it is that modern diplomatists, who, for the most part, very
carefully observe the precept contained in the last two lines of this
passage, should not equally bear in mind the importance of the preceding
remark--_that their principal business is just to do no mischief_. --ED. ]
* * * * *
The sure way to make a foolish ambassador is to bring him up to it. What
can an English minister abroad really want but an honest and bold heart, a
love for his country and the ten commandments? Your art diplomatic is
stuff:--no truly greatly man now would negotiate upon any such shallow
principles.
August 30. 1833.
MAN CANNOT BE STATIONARY. --FATALISM AND PROVIDENCE. --SYMPATHY IN JOY.
If a man is not rising upwards to be an angel, depend upon it, he is
sinking downwards to be a devil. He cannot stop at the beast. The most
savage of men are not beasts; they are worse, a great deal worse.
* * * * *
The conduct of the Mohammedan and Western nations on the subject of
contagious plague illustrates the two extremes of error on the nature of
God's moral government of the world. The Turk changes Providence into
fatalism; the Christian relies upon it--when he has nothing else to rely
on. He does not practically rely upon it at all.
* * * * *
For compassion a human heart suffices; but for full and adequate sympathy
with joy an angel's only. And ever remember, that the more exquisite and
delicate a flower of joy, the tenderer must be the hand that plucks it.
_September_ 2. 1833.
CHARACTERISTIC TEMPERAMENT OF NATIONS. --GREEK PARTICLES. --LATIN COMPOUNDS. -
-PROPERTIUS. --TIBULLUS. --LUCAN. --STATIUS. --VALERIUS FLACCUS. --CLAUDIAN. --
PERSIUS. ------PRUDENTIUS. --HERMESIANAX.
The English affect stimulant nourishment--beef and beer. The French,
excitants, irritants--nitrous oxide, alcohol, champagne. The Austrians,
sedatives--hyoscyamus. The Russians, narcotics--opium, tobacco, and beng.
* * * * *
It is worth particular notice how the style of Greek oratory, so full, in
the times of political independence, of connective particles, some of
passion, some of sensation only, and escaping the classification of mere
grammatical logic, became, in the hands of the declaimers and philosophers
of the Alexandrian era, and still later, entirely deprived of this
peculiarity. So it was with Homer as compared with Nonnus, Tryphiodorus,
and the like. In the latter there are in the same number of lines fewer
words by one half than in the Iliad. All the appoggiaturas of time are
lost.
All the Greek writers after Demosthenes and his contemporaries, what are
they but the leavings of tyranny, in which a few precious things seem
sheltered by the mass of rubbish! Yet, whenever liberty began but to hope
and strive, a Polybius appeared. Theocritus is almost the only instance I
know of a man of true poetic genius nourishing under a tyranny.
The old Latin poets attempted to compound as largely as the Greek; hence in
Ennius such words as _belligerentes_, &c. In nothing did Virgil show his
judgment more than in rejecting these, except just where common usage had
sanctioned them, as _omnipotens_ and a few more. He saw that the Latin was
too far advanced in its formation, and of too rigid a character, to admit
such composition or agglutination. In this particular respect Virgil's
Latin is very admirable and deserving preference. Compare it with the
language of Lucan or Statius, and count the number of words used in an
equal number of lines, and observe how many more short words Virgil has.
* * * * *
I cannot quite understand the grounds of the high admiration which the
ancients expressed for Propertius, and I own that Tibullus is rather
insipid to me. Lucan was a man of great powers; but what was to be made of
such a shapeless fragment of party warfare, and so recent too! He had fancy
rather than imagination, and passion rather than fancy. His taste was
wretched, to be sure; still the Pharsalia is in my judgment a very
wonderful work for such a youth as Lucan[1] was.
I think Statius a truer poet than Lucan, though he is very extravagant
sometimes. Valerius Flaccus is very pretty in particular passages. I am
ashamed to say, I have never read Silius Italicus. Claudian I recommend to
your careful perusal, in respect of his being properly the first of the
moderns, or at least the transitional link between the Classic and the
Gothic mode of thought.
I call Persius hard--not obscure. He had a bad style; but I dare say, if he
had lived[2], he would have learned to express himself in easier language.
There are many passages in him of exquisite felicity, and his vein of
thought is manly and pathetic.
Prudentius[3] is curious for this,--that you see how Christianity forced
allegory into the place of mythology. Mr. Frere [Greek: ho philokalos, ho
kalokagathos] used to esteem the Latin Christian poets of Italy very
highly, and no man in our times was a more competent judge than he.
[Footnote 1:
Lucan died by the command of Nero, A. D. 65, in his twenty-sixth year. I
think this should be printed at the beginning of every book of the
Pharsalia. --ED. ]
[Footnote 2:
Aulus Persius Flaccus died in the 30th year of his age, A. D. 62. --ED. ]
[Footnote 3:
Aurelius Prudentius Clemens was born A. D. 348, in Spain.
