EPISTLES TO THE
EPHESIANS
AND COLOSSIANS.
Coleridge - Table Talk
1830.
SHAKSPEARE. --MILTON. --HOMER.
Shakspeare is the Spinosistic deity--an omnipresent creativeness. Milton is
the deity of prescience; he stands _ab extra_, and drives a fiery chariot
and four, making the horses feel the iron curb which holds them in.
Shakspeare's poetry is characterless; that is, it does not reflect the
individual Shakspeare; but John Milton himself is in every line of the
Paradise Lost. Shakspeare's rhymed verses are excessively condensed,--
epigrams with the point every where; but in his blank dramatic verse he is
diffused, with a linked sweetness long drawn out. No one can understand
Shakspeare's superiority fully until he has ascertained, by comparison, all
that which he possessed in common with several other great dramatists of
his age, and has then calculated the surplus which is entirely Shakspeare's
own. His rhythm is so perfect, that you may be almost sure that you do not
understand the real force of a line, if it does not run well as you read
it. The necessary mental pause after every hemistich or imperfect line is
always equal to the time that would have been taken in reading the complete
verse.
* * * * *
I have no doubt whatever that Homer is a mere concrete name for the
rhapsodies of the Iliad. [1] Of course there was _a_ Homer, and twenty
besides. I will engage to compile twelve books with characters just as
distinct and consistent as those in the Iliad, from the metrical ballads,
and other chronicles of England, about Arthur and the Knights of the Round
Table. I say nothing about moral dignity, but the mere consistency of
character. The different qualities were traditional. Tristram is always
courteous, Lancelot invincible, and so on. The same might be done with the
Spanish romances of the Cid. There is no subjectivity whatever in the
Homeric poetry. There is a subjectivity of the poet, as of Milton, who is
himself before himself in everything he writes; and there is a subjectivity
of the _persona_, or dramatic character, as in all Shakspeare's great
creations, Hamlet, Lear, &c.
[Footnote 1:
Mr. Coleridge was a decided Wolfian in the Homeric question; but he had
never read a word of the famous Prolegomena, and knew nothing of Wolf's
reasoning, but what I told him of it in conversation. Mr. C. informed me,
that he adopted the conclusion contained in the text upon the first perusal
of Vico's Scienza Nuova; "not," he said, "that Vico has reasoned it out
with such learning and accuracy as you report of Wolf, but Vico struck out
all the leading hints, and I soon filled up the rest out of my own head. "--
ED. ]
_May_ 14. 1830.
REASON AND UNDERSTANDING. --WORDS AND NAMES OF THINGS.
Until you have mastered the fundamental difference, in kind, between the
reason and the understanding as faculties of the human mind, you cannot
escape a thousand difficulties in philosophy. It is pre-eminently the
_Gradus ad Philosophiam_.
* * * * *
The general harmony between the operations of the mind and heart, and the
words which express them in almost all languages, is wonderful; whilst the
endless discrepancies between the names of _things_ is very well deserving
notice. There are nearly a hundred names in the different German dialects
for the alder-tree. I believe many more remarkable instances are to be
found in Arabic. Indeed, you may take a very pregnant and useful
distinction between _words_ and mere arbitrary _names of things_.
_May 15. 1830. _
THE TRINITY. --IRVING.
The Trinity is, 1. the Will; 2. the Reason, or Word; 3. the Love, or Life.
As we distinguish these three, so we must unite them in one God. The union
must be as transcendant as the distinction.
Mr. Irving's notion is tritheism,--nay, rather in terms, tri-daemonism. His
opinion about the sinfulness of the humanity of our Lord is absurd, if
considered in one point of view; for body is not carcass. How can there be
a sinful carcass? But what he says is capable of a sounder interpretation.
Irving caught many things from me; but he would never attend to any thing
which he thought he could not use in the pulpit. I told him the certain
consequence would be, that he would fall into grievous errors. Sometimes he
has five or six pages together of the purest eloquence, and then an
outbreak of almost madman's babble. [1]
[Footnote 1:
The admiration and sympathy which Mr. Coleridge felt and expressed towards
the late Mr. Irving, at his first appearance in London, were great and
sincere; and his grief at the deplorable change which followed was in
proportion. But, long after the tongues shall have failed and been
forgotten, Irving's name will live in the splendid eulogies of his friend.
See _Church and State_, p. 180. n. --ED. ]
_May 16. 1830. _
ABRAHAM. --ISAAC. --JACOB.
How wonderfully beautiful is the delineation of the characters of the three
patriarchs in Genesis! To be sure, if ever man could, without impropriety,
be called, or supposed to be, "the friend of God," Abraham was that man. We
are not surprised that Abimelech and Ephron seem to reverence him so
profoundly. He was peaceful, because of his conscious relation to God; in
other respects, he takes fire, like an Arah sheikh, at the injuries
suffered by Lot, and goes to war with the combined kinglings immediately.
* * * * *
Isaac is, as it were, a faint shadow of his father Abraham. Born in
possession of the power and wealth which his father had acquired, he is
always peaceful and meditative; and it is curious to observe his timid and
almost childish imitation of Abraham's stratagem about his wife. [1] Isaac
does it before-hand, and without any apparent necessity.
[Footnote 1: Gen. xxvi. 6. ]
* * * * *
Jacob is a regular Jew, and practises all sorts of tricks and wiles, which,
according to our modern notions of honour, we cannot approve. But you will
observe that all these tricks are confined to matters of prudential
arrangement, to worldly success and prosperity (for such, in fact, was the
essence of the birthright); and I think we must not exact from men of an
imperfectly civilized age the same conduct as to mere temporal and bodily
abstinence which we have a right to demand from Christians. Jacob is always
careful not to commit any violence; he shudders at bloodshed. See his
demeanour after the vengeance taken on the Schechemites. [1] He is the
exact compound of the timidity and gentleness of Isaac, and of the
underhand craftiness of his mother Rebecca. No man could be a bad man who
loved as he loved Rachel. I dare say Laban thought none the worse of Jacob
for his plan of making the ewes bring forth ring-streaked lambs.
[Footnote 1: Gen. xxxiv. ]
_May 17. 1830. _
ORIGIN OF ACTS. --LOVE.
If a man's conduct cannot be ascribed to the angelic, nor to the bestial
within him, what is there left for us to refer to it, but the fiendish?
Passion without any appetite is fiendish.
* * * * *
The best way to bring a clever young man, who has become sceptical and
unsettled, to reason, is to make him _feel_ something in any way. Love, if
sincere and unworldly, will, in nine instances out of ten, bring him to a
sense and assurance of something real and actual; and that sense alone will
make him _think_ to a sound purpose, instead of dreaming that he is
thinking.
* * * * *
"Never marry but for love," says William Penn in his Reflexions and Maxims;
"but see that thou lovest what is lovely. "
_May 18. 1830. _
LORD ELDON'S DOCTRINE AS TO GRAMMAR SCHOOLS. --DEMOCRACY.
Lord Eldon's doctrine, that grammar schools, in the sense of the reign of
Edward VI. and Queen Elizabeth, must necessarily mean schools for teaching
Latin and Greek, is, I think, founded on an insufficient knowledge of the
history and literature of the sixteenth century. Ben Jonson uses the term
"grammar" without any reference to the learned languages.
* * * * *
It is intolerable when men, who have no other knowledge, have not even a
competent understanding of that world in which they are always living, and
to which they refer every thing.
* * * * *
Although contemporary events obscure past events in a living man's life,
yet as soon as he is dead, and his whole life is a matter of history, one
action stands out as conspicuously as another.
A democracy, according to the prescript of pure reason, would, in fact, be
a church. There would he focal points in it, but no superior.
_May 20. 1830. _
THE EUCHARIST. --ST. JOHN, xix. 11. --GENUINENESS OF BOOKS OF MOSES. --
DIVINITY OF CHRIST. --MOSAIC PROPHECIES.
No doubt, Chrysostom, and the other rhetorical fathers, contributed a good
deal, by their rash use of figurative language, to advance the
superstitious notion of the eucharist; but the beginning had been much
earlier. [1] In Clement, indeed, the mystery is treated as it was treated
by Saint John and Saint Paul; but in Hermas we see the seeds of the error,
and more clearly in Irenaeus; and so it went on till the idea was changed
into an idol.
[Footnote 1:
Mr. Coleridge made these remarks upon my quoting Selden's well-known saying
(Table Talk), "that transubstantiation was nothing but rhetoric turned into
logic. "--ED. ]
* * * * *
The errors of the Sacramentaries, on the one hand, and of the Romanists on
the other, are equally great. The first have volatilized the eucharist into
a metaphor; the last have condensed it into an idol.
Jeremy Taylor, in his zeal against transubstantiation, contends that the
latter part of the sixth chapter of St. John's Gospel has no reference to
the eucharist. If so, St. John wholly passes over this sacred mystery; for
he does not include it in his notice of the last supper. Would not a total
silence of this great apostle and evangelist upon this mystery be strange?
A mystery, I say; for it _is_ a mystery; it is the only mystery in our
religious worship. When many of the disciples left our Lord, and apparently
on the very ground that this saying was hard, he does not attempt to detain
them by any explanation, but simply adds the comment, that his words were
spirit. If he had really meant that the eucharist should he a mere
commemorative celebration of his death, is it conceivable that he would let
these disciples go away from him upon such a gross misunderstanding? Would
he not have said, "You need not make a difficulty; I only mean so and so? "
* * * * *
Arnauld, and the other learned Romanists, are irresistible against the low
sacramentary doctrine.
* * * * *
The sacrament of baptism applies itself, and has reference to the faith or
conviction, and is, therefore, only to be performed once;--it is the light
of man. The sacrament of the eucharist is a symbol of _all_ our religion;--
it is the life of man. It is commensurate with our will, and we must,
therefore, want it continually.
* * * * *
The meaning of the expression, [Greek: ei m_e _en soi didomenon an_othen],
"except it were given thee _from above_," in the 19th chapter of St. John,
ver. 11. , seems to me to have been generally and grossly mistaken. It is
commonly understood as importing that Pilate could have no power to deliver
Jesus to the Jews, unless it had been given him _by God_, which, no doubt,
is true; but if that is the meaning, where is the force or connection of
the following clause, [Greek: dia touto], "_therefore_ he that delivered me
unto thee hath the greater sin? " In what respect were the Jews more sinful
in delivering Jesus up, _because_ Pilate could do nothing except by God's
leave? The explanation of Erasmus and Clarke, and some others, is very dry-
footed. I conceive the meaning of our Lord to have been simply this, that
Pilate would have had no power or jurisdiction--[Greek: exousian]--over
him, if it had not been given by the Sanhedrin, the [Greek: an_o boul_e],
and _therefore_ it was that the Jews had the greater sin. There was also
this further peculiar baseness and malignity in the conduct of the Jews.
The mere assumption of Messiahship, as such, was no crime in the eyes of
the Jews; they hated Jesus, because he would not be _their sort_ of
Messiah: on the other hand, the Romans cared not for his declaration that
he was the Son of God; the crime in _their_ eyes was his assuming to be a
king. Now, here were the Jews accusing Jesus before the Roman governor of
_that_ which, in the first place, they knew that Jesus denied in the sense
in which they urged it, and which, in the next place, had the charge been
true, would have been so far from a crime in their eyes, that the very
gospel history itself, as well as all the history to the destruction of
Jerusalem, shows it would have been popular with the whole nation. They
wished to destroy him, and for that purpose charge him falsely with a crime
which yet was no crime in their own eyes, if it had been true; but only so
as against the Roman domination, which they hated with all their souls, and
against which they were themselves continually conspiring!
* * * * *
Observe, I pray, the manner and sense in which the high-priest understands
the plain declaration of our Lord, that he was the Son of God. [Footnote:
Matt. xxvi. v. 63. Mark, xiv. 61. ] "I adjure thee by the living God, that
thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God," or "the Son of
the Blessed," as it is in Mark. Jesus said, "I am,--and hereafter ye shall
see the Son of man (or me) sitting on the right hand of power, and coming
in the clouds of heaven. " Does Caiaphas take this explicit answer as if
Jesus meant that he was full of God's spirit, or was doing his commands, or
walking in his ways, in which sense Moses, the prophets, nay, all good men,
were and are the sons of God? No, no! He tears his robes in sunder, and
cries out, "He hath spoken blasphemy. What further need have we of
witnesses? Behold, now ye have heard his blasphemy. " What blasphemy, I
should like to know, unless the assuming to be the "Son of God" was
assuming to be of the _divine nature_?
* * * * *
One striking proof of the genuineness of the Mosaic books is this,--they
contain precise prohibitions--by way of predicting the consequences of
disobedience--of all those things which David and Solomon actually did, and
gloried in doing,--raising cavalry, making a treaty with Egypt, laying up
treasure, and polygamising. Now, would such prohibitions have been
fabricated in those kings' reigns, or afterwards? Impossible.
* * * * *
The manner of the predictions of Moses is very remarkable. He is like a man
standing on an eminence, and addressing people below him, and pointing to
things which he can, and they cannot, see. He does not say, You will act in
such and such a way, and the consequences will be so and so; but, So and so
will take place, because you will act in such a way!
May 21. 1830.
TALENT AND GENIUS. --MOTIVES AND IMPULSES.
Talent, lying in the understanding, is often inherited; genius, being the
action of reason and imagination, rarely or never.
* * * * *
Motives imply weakness, and the existence of evil and temptation. The
angelic nature would act from impulse alone. A due mean of motive and
impulse is the only practicable object of our moral philosophy.
_May_ 23. 1830.
CONSTITUTIONAL AND FUNCTIONAL LIFE. --HYSTERIA. --HYDRO-CARBONIC GAS. --
BITTERS AND TONICS. --SPECIFIC MEDICINES.
It is a great error in physiology not to distinguish between what may be
called the general or fundamental life--the _principium vitae_, and the
functional life--the life in the functions. Organization must presuppose
life as anterior to it: without life, there could not be or remain any
organization; but then there is also _a_ life in the organs, or functions,
distinct from the other. Thus, a flute presupposes,--demands the existence
of a musician as anterior to it, without whom no flute could ever have
existed; and yet again, without the instrument there can be no music.
* * * * *
It often happens that, on the one hand, the _principium vitae_, or
constitutional life, may be affected without any, or the least imaginable,
affection of the functions; as in inoculation, where one pustule only has
appeared, and no other perceptible symptom, and yet this has so entered
into the constitution, as to indispose it to infection under the most
accumulated and intense contagion; and, on the other hand, hysteria,
hydrophobia, and gout will disorder the functions to the most dreadful
degree, and yet often leave the life untouched. In hydrophobia, the mind is
quite sound; but the patient feels his muscular and cutaneous life forcibly
removed from under the control of his will.
* * * * *
Hysteria may be fitly called _mimosa_, from its counterfeiting so many
diseases,--even death itself.
* * * * *
Hydro-carbonic gas produces the most death-like exhaustion, without any
previous excitement. I think this gas should be inhaled by way of
experiment in cases of hydrophobia.
There is a great difference between bitters and tonics. Where weakness
proceeds from excess of irritability, there bitters act beneficially;
because all bitters are poisons, and operate by stilling, and depressing,
and lethargizing the irritability. But where weakness proceeds from the
opposite cause of relaxation, there tonics are good; because they brace up
and tighten the loosened string. Bracing is a correct metaphor. Bark goes
near to be a combination of a bitter and a tonic; but no perfect medical
combination of the two properties is yet known.
* * * * *
The study of specific medicines is too much disregarded now. No doubt the
hunting after specifics is a mark of ignorance and weakness in medicine,
yet the neglect of them is proof also of immaturity; for, in fact, all
medicines will be found specific in the perfection of the science.
_May_ 25. 1830.
EPISTLES TO THE EPHESIANS AND COLOSSIANS. --OATHS.
The Epistle to the Ephesians is evidently a catholic epistle, addressed to
the whole of what might be called St. Paul's diocese. It is one of the
divinest compositions of man. It embraces every doctrine of Christianity;--
first, those doctrines peculiar to Christianity, and then those precepts
common to it with natural religion. The Epistle to the Colossians is the
overflowing, as it were, of St. Paul's mind upon the same subject.
* * * * *
The present system of taking oaths is horrible. It is awfully absurd to
make a man invoke God's wrath upon himself, if he speaks false; it is, in
my judgment, a sin to do so. The Jews' oath is an adjuration by the judge
to the witness: "In the name of God, I ask you. " There is an express
instance of it in the high-priest's adjuring or exorcising Christ by the
living God, in the twenty-sixth chapter of Matthew, and you will observe
that our Lord answered the appeal. [1]
You may depend upon it, the more oath-taking, the more lying, generally
among the people.
[Footnote 1:
See this instance cited, and the whole history and moral policy of the
common system of judicial swearing examined with clearness and good
feeling, in Mr. Tyler's late work on Oaths. --ED. ]
May 27. 1830.
FLOGGING. --ELOQUENCE OF ABUSE.
I had _one_ just flogging. When I was about thirteen, I went to a
shoemaker, and begged him to take me as his apprentice. He, being an honest
man, immediately brought me to Bowyer, who got into a great rage, knocked
me down, and even pushed Crispin rudely out of the room. Bowyer asked me
why I had made myself such a fool? to which I answered, that I had a great
desire to be a shoemaker, and that I hated the thought of being a
clergyman. "Why so? " said he. --"Because, to tell you the truth, sir," said
I, "I am an infidel! " For this, without more ado, Bowyer flogged me,--
wisely, as I think,--soundly, as I know. Any whining or sermonizing would
have gratified my vanity, and confirmed me in my absurdity; as it was, I
was laughed at, and got heartily ashamed of my folly.
* * * * *
How rich the Aristophanic Greek is in the eloquence of abuse! --
[Greek:
'O Bdelyre, kanaischunte, kai tolmaere su,
Kai miare, kai pammiare, kai miarotate. ][1]
We are not behindhand in English. Fancy my calling you, upon a fitting
occasion,--Fool, sot, silly, simpleton, dunce, blockhead, jolterhead,
clumsy-pate, dullard, ninny, nincompoop, lackwit, numpskull, ass, owl,
loggerhead, coxcomb, monkey, shallow-brain, addle-head, tony, zany, fop,
fop-doodle; a maggot-pated, hare-brained, muddle-pated, muddle-headed,
Jackan-apes! Why I could go on for a minute more!
[Footnote 1: In The Frogs. --ED. ]
_May_ 28. 1830.
THE AMERICANS.
I deeply regret the anti-American articles of some of the leading reviews.
The Americans regard what is said of them in England a thousand times more
than they do any thing said of them in any other country. The Americans are
excessively pleased with any kind or favourable expressions, and never
forgive or forget any slight or abuse. It would be better for them if they
were a trifle thicker-skinned.
* * * * *
The last American war was to us only something to talk or read about; but
to the Americans it was the cause of misery in their own homes.
* * * * *
I, for one, do not call the sod under my feet my country. But language,
religion, laws, government, blood,--identity in these makes men of one
country.
_May_ 29. 1830.
BOOK OF JOB.
The Book of Job is an Arab poem, antecedent to the Mosaic dispensation. It
represents the mind of a good man not enlightened by an actual revelation,
but seeking about for one. In no other book is the desire and necessity for
a Mediator so intensely expressed. The personality of God, the I AM of the
Hebrews, is most vividly impressed on the book, in opposition to pantheism.
* * * * *
I now think, after many doubts, that the passage, "I know that my Redeemer
liveth," &c. may fairly be taken as a burst of determination, a _quasi_
prophecy. [1] "I know not _how_ this can be; but in spite of all my
difficulties, this I _do_ know, that I shall be recompensed. "
[Footnote 1: Chap. xix. 25, 26. ]
* * * * *
It should be observed, that all the imagery in the speeches of the men is
taken from the East, and is no more than a mere representation of the forms
of material nature. But when God speaks, the tone is exalted; and almost
all the images are taken from Egypt, the crocodile, the war-horse, and so
forth. Egypt was then the first monarchy that had a splendid court.
* * * * *
Satan, in the prologue, does not mean the devil, our Diabolus. There is no
calumny in his words. He is rather the _circuitor_, the accusing spirit, a
dramatic attorney-general. But after the prologue, which was necessary to
bring the imagination into a proper state for the dialogue, we hear no more
of this Satan.
* * * * *
Warburton's notion, that the Book of Job was of so late a date as Ezra, is
wholly groundless. His only reason is this appearance of Satan.
_May_ 30. 1830.
TRANSLATION OF THE PSALMS.
I wish the Psalms were translated afresh; or, rather, that the present
version were revised. Scores of passages are utterly incoherent as they now
stand. If the primary visual images had been oftener preserved, the
connection and force of the sentences would have been better perceived. [1]
[Footnote 1:
Mr. Coleridge, like so many of the elder divines of the Christian church,
had an _affectionate_ reverence for the moral and evangelical portion of
the Book of Psalms. He told me that, after having studied every page of the
Bible with the deepest attention, he had found no other part of Scripture
come home so closely to his inmost yearnings and necessities. During many
of his latter years he used to read ten or twelve verses every evening,
ascertaining (for his knowledge of Hebrew was enough for that) the exact
visual image or first radical meaning of every noun substantive; and he
repeatedly expressed to me his surprise and pleasure at finding that in
nine cases out of ten the bare primary sense, if literally rendered, threw
great additional light on the text. He was not disposed to allow the
prophetic or allusive character so largely as is done by Horne and others;
but he acknowledged it in some instances in the fullest manner. In
particular, he rejected the local and temporary reference which has been
given to the 110th Psalm, and declared his belief in its deep mystical
import with regard to the Messiah. Mr. C. once gave me the following note
upon the _22d_ Psalm written by him, I believe, many years previously, but
which, he said, he approved at that time. It will find as appropriate a
niche here as any where else:--
"I am much delighted and instructed by the hypothesis, which I think
probable, that our Lord in repeating _Eli, Eli, lama sabacthani_, really
recited the whole or a large part of the 22d Psalm. It is impossible to
read that psalm without the liveliest feelings of love, gratitude, and
sympathy. It is, indeed, a wonderful prophecy, whatever might or might not
have been David's notion when he composed it. Whether Christ did audibly
repeat the whole or not, it is certain. I think, that he did it mentally,
and said aloud what was sufficient to enable his followers to do the same.
Even at this day to repeat in the same manner but the first line of a
common hymn would be understood as a reference to the whole. Above all, I
am thankful for the thought which suggested itself to my mind, whilst I was
reading this beautiful psalm, namely, that we should not exclusively think
of Christ as the Logos united to human nature, but likewise as a perfect
man united to the Logos. This distinction is most important in order to
conceive, much more, appropriately to _feel_, the conduct and exertions of
Jesus. "--ED. ]
_May_ 31. 1830.
ANCIENT MARINER. --UNDINE. --MARTIN. --PILGRIM'S PROGRESS.
Mrs. Barbauld once told me that she admired the Ancient Mariner very much,
but that there were two faults in it,--it was improbable, and had no moral.
As for the probability, I owned that that might admit some question; but as
to the want of a moral, I told her that in my own judgment the poem had too
much; and that the only, or chief fault, if I might say so, was the
obtrusion of the moral sentiment so openly on the reader as a principle or
cause of action in a work of such pure imagination. It ought to have had no
more moral than the Arabian Nights' tale of the merchant's sitting down to
eat dates by the side of a well, and throwing the shells aside, and lo! a
genie starts up, and says he _must_ kill the aforesaid merchant, _because_
one of the date shells had, it seems, put out the eye of the genie's
son. [1]
I took the thought of "_grinning for joy_," in that poem, from my
companion's remark to me, when we had climbed to the top of Plinlimmon, and
were nearly dead with thirst. We could not speak from the constriction,
till we found a little puddle under a stone. He said to me,--"You grinned
like an idiot! " He had done the same.
[Footnote 1:
"There he found, at the foot of a great walnut-tree, a fountain of a very
clear running water, and alighting, tied his horse to a branch of a tree,
and sitting clown by the fountain, took some biscuits and dates out of his
portmanteau, and, as he ate his dates, threw the shells about on both sides
of him. When he had done eating, being a good Mussulman, he washed his
hands, his face, and his feet, and said his prayers. He had not made an
end, but was still on his knees, when he saw a genie appear, all white with
age, and of a monstrous bulk; who, advancing towards him with a cimetar in
his hand, spoke to him in a terrible voice thus:--'Rise up, that I may kill
thee with this cimetar as you have killed my son! ' and accompanied these
words with a frightful cry. The merchant being as much frightened at the
hideous shape of the monster as at these threatening words, answered him
trembling:--'Alas! my good lord, of what crime can I be guilty towards you
that you should take away my life? '--'I will,' replies the genie, 'kill
thee, as thou hast killed my son! '--'O heaven! ' says the merchant, 'how
should I kill your son? I did not know him, nor ever saw him. '--'Did not
you sit down when you came hither? ' replies the genie. 'Did not you take
dates out of your portmanteau, and, as you ate them, did not you throw the
shells about on both sides? '--'I did all that you say,' answers the
merchant, 'I cannot deny it. '--'If it be so,' replied the genie, 'I tell
thee that thou hast killed my son; and the way was thus: when you threw the
nutshells about, my son was passing by, and you threw one of them into his
eye, which killed him, _therefore_ I must kill thee. '--'Ah! my good lord,
pardon me! ' cried the merchant. --'No pardon,' answers the genie, 'no mercy!
Is it not just to kill him that has killed another? '--'I agree to it,' says
the merchant, 'but certainly I never killed your son, and if I have, it was
unknown to me, and I did it innocently; therefore I beg you to pardon me,
and suffer me to live. '--'No, no,' says the genie, persisting in his
resolution, 'I must kill thee, since thou hast killed my son;' and then
taking the merchant by the arm, threw him with his face upon the ground,
and lifted up his cimetar to cut off his head! "--The Merchant and the
Genie. First night. --Ed. ]
* * * * *
Undine is a most exquisite work. It shows the general want of any sense for
the fine and the subtle in the public taste, that this romance made no deep
impression. Undine's character, before she receives a soul, is marvellously
beautiful. [1]
[Footnote 1:
Mr. Coleridge's admiration of this little romance was unbounded. He read it
several times in German, and once in the English translation, made in
America, I believe; the latter he thought inadequately done. Mr. C. said
that there was something in Undine even beyond Scott,--that Scott's best
characters and conceptions were _composed_; by which I understood him to
mean that Baillie Nicol Jarvie, for example, was made up of old
particulars, and received its individuality from the author's power of
fusion, being in the result an admirable product, as Corinthian brass was
said to be the conflux of the spoils of a city. But Undine, he said, was
one and single in projection, and had presented to his imagination, what
Scott had never done, an absolutely new idea--ED. ]
* * * * *
It seems to me, that Martin never looks at nature except through bits of
stained glass. He is never satisfied with any appearance that is not
prodigious. He should endeavour to school his imagination into the
apprehension of the true idea of the Beautiful. [1]
The wood-cut of Slay-good[2] is admirable, to be sure; but this new edition
of the Pilgrim's Progress is too fine a book for it. It should be much
larger, and on sixpenny coarse paper.
The Pilgrim's Progress is composed in the lowest style of English, without
slang or false grammar. If you were to polish it, you would at once destroy
the reality of the vision. For works of imagination should be written in
very plain language; the more purely imaginative they are the more
necessary it is to be plain.
This wonderful work is one of the few books which may be read over
repeatedly at different times, and each time with a new and a different
pleasure. I read it once as a theologian--and let me assure you, that there
is great theological acumen in the work--once with devotional feelings--and
once as a poet. I could not have believed beforehand that Calvinism could
be painted in such exquisitely delightful colours. [3]
[Footnote 1:
Mr. Coleridge said this, after looking at the engravings of Mr. Martin's
two pictures of the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and the Celestial City,
published in the beautiful edition of the Pilgrim's Progress by Messrs.
Murray and Major, in 1830. I wish Mr. Martin could have heard the poet's
lecture: he would have been flattered, and at the same time, I believe,
instructed; for in the philosophy of painting Coleridge was a master. --ED. ]
[Footnote 2:
P. 350. , by S. Mosses from a design by Mr. W. Harvey. "When they came to
the place where he was, they found him with one _Feeble-mind_ in his hand,
whom his servants had brought unto him, having taken him in the way. Now
the giant was rifling him, with a purpose, after that, to pick his bones;
for he was of the nature of flesh eaters. "--ED. ]
[Footnote 3:
I find written on a blank leaf of my copy of this edition of the P. 's P.
the following note by Mr. C. :--"I know of no book, the Bible excepted as
above all comparison, which I, according to _my_ judgment and experience,
could so safely recommend as teaching and enforcing the whole saving truth
according to the mind that was in Christ Jesus, as the Pilgrim's Progress.
It is, in my conviction, incomparably the best _summa theologiae
evangalicae_ ever produced by a writer not miraculously inspired. " June 14.
1830. --ED. ]
_June_ 1. 1830.
PRAYER. --CHURCH-SINGING. --HOOKER. --DREAMS.
There are three sorts of prayer:--1. Public; 2. Domestic; 3. Solitary. Each
has its peculiar uses and character. I think the church ought to publish
and authorise a directory of forms for the latter two. Yet I fear the
execution would be inadequate. There is a great decay of devotional unction
in the numerous books of prayers put out now-a-days. I really think the
hawker was very happy, who blundered New Form of Prayer into New _former_
Prayers. [1]
I exceedingly regret that our church pays so little attention to the
subject of congregational singing. See how it is! In that particular part
of the public worship in which, more than in all the rest, the common
people might, and ought to, join,--which, by its association with music, is
meant to give a fitting vent and expression to the emotions,--in that part
we all sing as Jews; or, at best, as mere men, in the abstract, without a
Saviour. You know my veneration for the Book of Psalms, or most of it; but
with some half dozen exceptions, the Psalms are surely not adequate
vehicles of Christian thanksgiving and joy! Upon this deficiency in our
service, Wesley and Whitfield seized; and you know it is the hearty
congregational singing of Christian hymns which keeps the humbler
Methodists together. Luther did as much for the Reformation by his hymns as
by his translation of the Bible. In Germany, the hymns are known by heart
by every peasant: they advise, they argue from the hymns, and every soul in
the church praises God, like a Christian, with words which are natural and
yet sacred to his mind.
SHAKSPEARE. --MILTON. --HOMER.
Shakspeare is the Spinosistic deity--an omnipresent creativeness. Milton is
the deity of prescience; he stands _ab extra_, and drives a fiery chariot
and four, making the horses feel the iron curb which holds them in.
Shakspeare's poetry is characterless; that is, it does not reflect the
individual Shakspeare; but John Milton himself is in every line of the
Paradise Lost. Shakspeare's rhymed verses are excessively condensed,--
epigrams with the point every where; but in his blank dramatic verse he is
diffused, with a linked sweetness long drawn out. No one can understand
Shakspeare's superiority fully until he has ascertained, by comparison, all
that which he possessed in common with several other great dramatists of
his age, and has then calculated the surplus which is entirely Shakspeare's
own. His rhythm is so perfect, that you may be almost sure that you do not
understand the real force of a line, if it does not run well as you read
it. The necessary mental pause after every hemistich or imperfect line is
always equal to the time that would have been taken in reading the complete
verse.
* * * * *
I have no doubt whatever that Homer is a mere concrete name for the
rhapsodies of the Iliad. [1] Of course there was _a_ Homer, and twenty
besides. I will engage to compile twelve books with characters just as
distinct and consistent as those in the Iliad, from the metrical ballads,
and other chronicles of England, about Arthur and the Knights of the Round
Table. I say nothing about moral dignity, but the mere consistency of
character. The different qualities were traditional. Tristram is always
courteous, Lancelot invincible, and so on. The same might be done with the
Spanish romances of the Cid. There is no subjectivity whatever in the
Homeric poetry. There is a subjectivity of the poet, as of Milton, who is
himself before himself in everything he writes; and there is a subjectivity
of the _persona_, or dramatic character, as in all Shakspeare's great
creations, Hamlet, Lear, &c.
[Footnote 1:
Mr. Coleridge was a decided Wolfian in the Homeric question; but he had
never read a word of the famous Prolegomena, and knew nothing of Wolf's
reasoning, but what I told him of it in conversation. Mr. C. informed me,
that he adopted the conclusion contained in the text upon the first perusal
of Vico's Scienza Nuova; "not," he said, "that Vico has reasoned it out
with such learning and accuracy as you report of Wolf, but Vico struck out
all the leading hints, and I soon filled up the rest out of my own head. "--
ED. ]
_May_ 14. 1830.
REASON AND UNDERSTANDING. --WORDS AND NAMES OF THINGS.
Until you have mastered the fundamental difference, in kind, between the
reason and the understanding as faculties of the human mind, you cannot
escape a thousand difficulties in philosophy. It is pre-eminently the
_Gradus ad Philosophiam_.
* * * * *
The general harmony between the operations of the mind and heart, and the
words which express them in almost all languages, is wonderful; whilst the
endless discrepancies between the names of _things_ is very well deserving
notice. There are nearly a hundred names in the different German dialects
for the alder-tree. I believe many more remarkable instances are to be
found in Arabic. Indeed, you may take a very pregnant and useful
distinction between _words_ and mere arbitrary _names of things_.
_May 15. 1830. _
THE TRINITY. --IRVING.
The Trinity is, 1. the Will; 2. the Reason, or Word; 3. the Love, or Life.
As we distinguish these three, so we must unite them in one God. The union
must be as transcendant as the distinction.
Mr. Irving's notion is tritheism,--nay, rather in terms, tri-daemonism. His
opinion about the sinfulness of the humanity of our Lord is absurd, if
considered in one point of view; for body is not carcass. How can there be
a sinful carcass? But what he says is capable of a sounder interpretation.
Irving caught many things from me; but he would never attend to any thing
which he thought he could not use in the pulpit. I told him the certain
consequence would be, that he would fall into grievous errors. Sometimes he
has five or six pages together of the purest eloquence, and then an
outbreak of almost madman's babble. [1]
[Footnote 1:
The admiration and sympathy which Mr. Coleridge felt and expressed towards
the late Mr. Irving, at his first appearance in London, were great and
sincere; and his grief at the deplorable change which followed was in
proportion. But, long after the tongues shall have failed and been
forgotten, Irving's name will live in the splendid eulogies of his friend.
See _Church and State_, p. 180. n. --ED. ]
_May 16. 1830. _
ABRAHAM. --ISAAC. --JACOB.
How wonderfully beautiful is the delineation of the characters of the three
patriarchs in Genesis! To be sure, if ever man could, without impropriety,
be called, or supposed to be, "the friend of God," Abraham was that man. We
are not surprised that Abimelech and Ephron seem to reverence him so
profoundly. He was peaceful, because of his conscious relation to God; in
other respects, he takes fire, like an Arah sheikh, at the injuries
suffered by Lot, and goes to war with the combined kinglings immediately.
* * * * *
Isaac is, as it were, a faint shadow of his father Abraham. Born in
possession of the power and wealth which his father had acquired, he is
always peaceful and meditative; and it is curious to observe his timid and
almost childish imitation of Abraham's stratagem about his wife. [1] Isaac
does it before-hand, and without any apparent necessity.
[Footnote 1: Gen. xxvi. 6. ]
* * * * *
Jacob is a regular Jew, and practises all sorts of tricks and wiles, which,
according to our modern notions of honour, we cannot approve. But you will
observe that all these tricks are confined to matters of prudential
arrangement, to worldly success and prosperity (for such, in fact, was the
essence of the birthright); and I think we must not exact from men of an
imperfectly civilized age the same conduct as to mere temporal and bodily
abstinence which we have a right to demand from Christians. Jacob is always
careful not to commit any violence; he shudders at bloodshed. See his
demeanour after the vengeance taken on the Schechemites. [1] He is the
exact compound of the timidity and gentleness of Isaac, and of the
underhand craftiness of his mother Rebecca. No man could be a bad man who
loved as he loved Rachel. I dare say Laban thought none the worse of Jacob
for his plan of making the ewes bring forth ring-streaked lambs.
[Footnote 1: Gen. xxxiv. ]
_May 17. 1830. _
ORIGIN OF ACTS. --LOVE.
If a man's conduct cannot be ascribed to the angelic, nor to the bestial
within him, what is there left for us to refer to it, but the fiendish?
Passion without any appetite is fiendish.
* * * * *
The best way to bring a clever young man, who has become sceptical and
unsettled, to reason, is to make him _feel_ something in any way. Love, if
sincere and unworldly, will, in nine instances out of ten, bring him to a
sense and assurance of something real and actual; and that sense alone will
make him _think_ to a sound purpose, instead of dreaming that he is
thinking.
* * * * *
"Never marry but for love," says William Penn in his Reflexions and Maxims;
"but see that thou lovest what is lovely. "
_May 18. 1830. _
LORD ELDON'S DOCTRINE AS TO GRAMMAR SCHOOLS. --DEMOCRACY.
Lord Eldon's doctrine, that grammar schools, in the sense of the reign of
Edward VI. and Queen Elizabeth, must necessarily mean schools for teaching
Latin and Greek, is, I think, founded on an insufficient knowledge of the
history and literature of the sixteenth century. Ben Jonson uses the term
"grammar" without any reference to the learned languages.
* * * * *
It is intolerable when men, who have no other knowledge, have not even a
competent understanding of that world in which they are always living, and
to which they refer every thing.
* * * * *
Although contemporary events obscure past events in a living man's life,
yet as soon as he is dead, and his whole life is a matter of history, one
action stands out as conspicuously as another.
A democracy, according to the prescript of pure reason, would, in fact, be
a church. There would he focal points in it, but no superior.
_May 20. 1830. _
THE EUCHARIST. --ST. JOHN, xix. 11. --GENUINENESS OF BOOKS OF MOSES. --
DIVINITY OF CHRIST. --MOSAIC PROPHECIES.
No doubt, Chrysostom, and the other rhetorical fathers, contributed a good
deal, by their rash use of figurative language, to advance the
superstitious notion of the eucharist; but the beginning had been much
earlier. [1] In Clement, indeed, the mystery is treated as it was treated
by Saint John and Saint Paul; but in Hermas we see the seeds of the error,
and more clearly in Irenaeus; and so it went on till the idea was changed
into an idol.
[Footnote 1:
Mr. Coleridge made these remarks upon my quoting Selden's well-known saying
(Table Talk), "that transubstantiation was nothing but rhetoric turned into
logic. "--ED. ]
* * * * *
The errors of the Sacramentaries, on the one hand, and of the Romanists on
the other, are equally great. The first have volatilized the eucharist into
a metaphor; the last have condensed it into an idol.
Jeremy Taylor, in his zeal against transubstantiation, contends that the
latter part of the sixth chapter of St. John's Gospel has no reference to
the eucharist. If so, St. John wholly passes over this sacred mystery; for
he does not include it in his notice of the last supper. Would not a total
silence of this great apostle and evangelist upon this mystery be strange?
A mystery, I say; for it _is_ a mystery; it is the only mystery in our
religious worship. When many of the disciples left our Lord, and apparently
on the very ground that this saying was hard, he does not attempt to detain
them by any explanation, but simply adds the comment, that his words were
spirit. If he had really meant that the eucharist should he a mere
commemorative celebration of his death, is it conceivable that he would let
these disciples go away from him upon such a gross misunderstanding? Would
he not have said, "You need not make a difficulty; I only mean so and so? "
* * * * *
Arnauld, and the other learned Romanists, are irresistible against the low
sacramentary doctrine.
* * * * *
The sacrament of baptism applies itself, and has reference to the faith or
conviction, and is, therefore, only to be performed once;--it is the light
of man. The sacrament of the eucharist is a symbol of _all_ our religion;--
it is the life of man. It is commensurate with our will, and we must,
therefore, want it continually.
* * * * *
The meaning of the expression, [Greek: ei m_e _en soi didomenon an_othen],
"except it were given thee _from above_," in the 19th chapter of St. John,
ver. 11. , seems to me to have been generally and grossly mistaken. It is
commonly understood as importing that Pilate could have no power to deliver
Jesus to the Jews, unless it had been given him _by God_, which, no doubt,
is true; but if that is the meaning, where is the force or connection of
the following clause, [Greek: dia touto], "_therefore_ he that delivered me
unto thee hath the greater sin? " In what respect were the Jews more sinful
in delivering Jesus up, _because_ Pilate could do nothing except by God's
leave? The explanation of Erasmus and Clarke, and some others, is very dry-
footed. I conceive the meaning of our Lord to have been simply this, that
Pilate would have had no power or jurisdiction--[Greek: exousian]--over
him, if it had not been given by the Sanhedrin, the [Greek: an_o boul_e],
and _therefore_ it was that the Jews had the greater sin. There was also
this further peculiar baseness and malignity in the conduct of the Jews.
The mere assumption of Messiahship, as such, was no crime in the eyes of
the Jews; they hated Jesus, because he would not be _their sort_ of
Messiah: on the other hand, the Romans cared not for his declaration that
he was the Son of God; the crime in _their_ eyes was his assuming to be a
king. Now, here were the Jews accusing Jesus before the Roman governor of
_that_ which, in the first place, they knew that Jesus denied in the sense
in which they urged it, and which, in the next place, had the charge been
true, would have been so far from a crime in their eyes, that the very
gospel history itself, as well as all the history to the destruction of
Jerusalem, shows it would have been popular with the whole nation. They
wished to destroy him, and for that purpose charge him falsely with a crime
which yet was no crime in their own eyes, if it had been true; but only so
as against the Roman domination, which they hated with all their souls, and
against which they were themselves continually conspiring!
* * * * *
Observe, I pray, the manner and sense in which the high-priest understands
the plain declaration of our Lord, that he was the Son of God. [Footnote:
Matt. xxvi. v. 63. Mark, xiv. 61. ] "I adjure thee by the living God, that
thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God," or "the Son of
the Blessed," as it is in Mark. Jesus said, "I am,--and hereafter ye shall
see the Son of man (or me) sitting on the right hand of power, and coming
in the clouds of heaven. " Does Caiaphas take this explicit answer as if
Jesus meant that he was full of God's spirit, or was doing his commands, or
walking in his ways, in which sense Moses, the prophets, nay, all good men,
were and are the sons of God? No, no! He tears his robes in sunder, and
cries out, "He hath spoken blasphemy. What further need have we of
witnesses? Behold, now ye have heard his blasphemy. " What blasphemy, I
should like to know, unless the assuming to be the "Son of God" was
assuming to be of the _divine nature_?
* * * * *
One striking proof of the genuineness of the Mosaic books is this,--they
contain precise prohibitions--by way of predicting the consequences of
disobedience--of all those things which David and Solomon actually did, and
gloried in doing,--raising cavalry, making a treaty with Egypt, laying up
treasure, and polygamising. Now, would such prohibitions have been
fabricated in those kings' reigns, or afterwards? Impossible.
* * * * *
The manner of the predictions of Moses is very remarkable. He is like a man
standing on an eminence, and addressing people below him, and pointing to
things which he can, and they cannot, see. He does not say, You will act in
such and such a way, and the consequences will be so and so; but, So and so
will take place, because you will act in such a way!
May 21. 1830.
TALENT AND GENIUS. --MOTIVES AND IMPULSES.
Talent, lying in the understanding, is often inherited; genius, being the
action of reason and imagination, rarely or never.
* * * * *
Motives imply weakness, and the existence of evil and temptation. The
angelic nature would act from impulse alone. A due mean of motive and
impulse is the only practicable object of our moral philosophy.
_May_ 23. 1830.
CONSTITUTIONAL AND FUNCTIONAL LIFE. --HYSTERIA. --HYDRO-CARBONIC GAS. --
BITTERS AND TONICS. --SPECIFIC MEDICINES.
It is a great error in physiology not to distinguish between what may be
called the general or fundamental life--the _principium vitae_, and the
functional life--the life in the functions. Organization must presuppose
life as anterior to it: without life, there could not be or remain any
organization; but then there is also _a_ life in the organs, or functions,
distinct from the other. Thus, a flute presupposes,--demands the existence
of a musician as anterior to it, without whom no flute could ever have
existed; and yet again, without the instrument there can be no music.
* * * * *
It often happens that, on the one hand, the _principium vitae_, or
constitutional life, may be affected without any, or the least imaginable,
affection of the functions; as in inoculation, where one pustule only has
appeared, and no other perceptible symptom, and yet this has so entered
into the constitution, as to indispose it to infection under the most
accumulated and intense contagion; and, on the other hand, hysteria,
hydrophobia, and gout will disorder the functions to the most dreadful
degree, and yet often leave the life untouched. In hydrophobia, the mind is
quite sound; but the patient feels his muscular and cutaneous life forcibly
removed from under the control of his will.
* * * * *
Hysteria may be fitly called _mimosa_, from its counterfeiting so many
diseases,--even death itself.
* * * * *
Hydro-carbonic gas produces the most death-like exhaustion, without any
previous excitement. I think this gas should be inhaled by way of
experiment in cases of hydrophobia.
There is a great difference between bitters and tonics. Where weakness
proceeds from excess of irritability, there bitters act beneficially;
because all bitters are poisons, and operate by stilling, and depressing,
and lethargizing the irritability. But where weakness proceeds from the
opposite cause of relaxation, there tonics are good; because they brace up
and tighten the loosened string. Bracing is a correct metaphor. Bark goes
near to be a combination of a bitter and a tonic; but no perfect medical
combination of the two properties is yet known.
* * * * *
The study of specific medicines is too much disregarded now. No doubt the
hunting after specifics is a mark of ignorance and weakness in medicine,
yet the neglect of them is proof also of immaturity; for, in fact, all
medicines will be found specific in the perfection of the science.
_May_ 25. 1830.
EPISTLES TO THE EPHESIANS AND COLOSSIANS. --OATHS.
The Epistle to the Ephesians is evidently a catholic epistle, addressed to
the whole of what might be called St. Paul's diocese. It is one of the
divinest compositions of man. It embraces every doctrine of Christianity;--
first, those doctrines peculiar to Christianity, and then those precepts
common to it with natural religion. The Epistle to the Colossians is the
overflowing, as it were, of St. Paul's mind upon the same subject.
* * * * *
The present system of taking oaths is horrible. It is awfully absurd to
make a man invoke God's wrath upon himself, if he speaks false; it is, in
my judgment, a sin to do so. The Jews' oath is an adjuration by the judge
to the witness: "In the name of God, I ask you. " There is an express
instance of it in the high-priest's adjuring or exorcising Christ by the
living God, in the twenty-sixth chapter of Matthew, and you will observe
that our Lord answered the appeal. [1]
You may depend upon it, the more oath-taking, the more lying, generally
among the people.
[Footnote 1:
See this instance cited, and the whole history and moral policy of the
common system of judicial swearing examined with clearness and good
feeling, in Mr. Tyler's late work on Oaths. --ED. ]
May 27. 1830.
FLOGGING. --ELOQUENCE OF ABUSE.
I had _one_ just flogging. When I was about thirteen, I went to a
shoemaker, and begged him to take me as his apprentice. He, being an honest
man, immediately brought me to Bowyer, who got into a great rage, knocked
me down, and even pushed Crispin rudely out of the room. Bowyer asked me
why I had made myself such a fool? to which I answered, that I had a great
desire to be a shoemaker, and that I hated the thought of being a
clergyman. "Why so? " said he. --"Because, to tell you the truth, sir," said
I, "I am an infidel! " For this, without more ado, Bowyer flogged me,--
wisely, as I think,--soundly, as I know. Any whining or sermonizing would
have gratified my vanity, and confirmed me in my absurdity; as it was, I
was laughed at, and got heartily ashamed of my folly.
* * * * *
How rich the Aristophanic Greek is in the eloquence of abuse! --
[Greek:
'O Bdelyre, kanaischunte, kai tolmaere su,
Kai miare, kai pammiare, kai miarotate. ][1]
We are not behindhand in English. Fancy my calling you, upon a fitting
occasion,--Fool, sot, silly, simpleton, dunce, blockhead, jolterhead,
clumsy-pate, dullard, ninny, nincompoop, lackwit, numpskull, ass, owl,
loggerhead, coxcomb, monkey, shallow-brain, addle-head, tony, zany, fop,
fop-doodle; a maggot-pated, hare-brained, muddle-pated, muddle-headed,
Jackan-apes! Why I could go on for a minute more!
[Footnote 1: In The Frogs. --ED. ]
_May_ 28. 1830.
THE AMERICANS.
I deeply regret the anti-American articles of some of the leading reviews.
The Americans regard what is said of them in England a thousand times more
than they do any thing said of them in any other country. The Americans are
excessively pleased with any kind or favourable expressions, and never
forgive or forget any slight or abuse. It would be better for them if they
were a trifle thicker-skinned.
* * * * *
The last American war was to us only something to talk or read about; but
to the Americans it was the cause of misery in their own homes.
* * * * *
I, for one, do not call the sod under my feet my country. But language,
religion, laws, government, blood,--identity in these makes men of one
country.
_May_ 29. 1830.
BOOK OF JOB.
The Book of Job is an Arab poem, antecedent to the Mosaic dispensation. It
represents the mind of a good man not enlightened by an actual revelation,
but seeking about for one. In no other book is the desire and necessity for
a Mediator so intensely expressed. The personality of God, the I AM of the
Hebrews, is most vividly impressed on the book, in opposition to pantheism.
* * * * *
I now think, after many doubts, that the passage, "I know that my Redeemer
liveth," &c. may fairly be taken as a burst of determination, a _quasi_
prophecy. [1] "I know not _how_ this can be; but in spite of all my
difficulties, this I _do_ know, that I shall be recompensed. "
[Footnote 1: Chap. xix. 25, 26. ]
* * * * *
It should be observed, that all the imagery in the speeches of the men is
taken from the East, and is no more than a mere representation of the forms
of material nature. But when God speaks, the tone is exalted; and almost
all the images are taken from Egypt, the crocodile, the war-horse, and so
forth. Egypt was then the first monarchy that had a splendid court.
* * * * *
Satan, in the prologue, does not mean the devil, our Diabolus. There is no
calumny in his words. He is rather the _circuitor_, the accusing spirit, a
dramatic attorney-general. But after the prologue, which was necessary to
bring the imagination into a proper state for the dialogue, we hear no more
of this Satan.
* * * * *
Warburton's notion, that the Book of Job was of so late a date as Ezra, is
wholly groundless. His only reason is this appearance of Satan.
_May_ 30. 1830.
TRANSLATION OF THE PSALMS.
I wish the Psalms were translated afresh; or, rather, that the present
version were revised. Scores of passages are utterly incoherent as they now
stand. If the primary visual images had been oftener preserved, the
connection and force of the sentences would have been better perceived. [1]
[Footnote 1:
Mr. Coleridge, like so many of the elder divines of the Christian church,
had an _affectionate_ reverence for the moral and evangelical portion of
the Book of Psalms. He told me that, after having studied every page of the
Bible with the deepest attention, he had found no other part of Scripture
come home so closely to his inmost yearnings and necessities. During many
of his latter years he used to read ten or twelve verses every evening,
ascertaining (for his knowledge of Hebrew was enough for that) the exact
visual image or first radical meaning of every noun substantive; and he
repeatedly expressed to me his surprise and pleasure at finding that in
nine cases out of ten the bare primary sense, if literally rendered, threw
great additional light on the text. He was not disposed to allow the
prophetic or allusive character so largely as is done by Horne and others;
but he acknowledged it in some instances in the fullest manner. In
particular, he rejected the local and temporary reference which has been
given to the 110th Psalm, and declared his belief in its deep mystical
import with regard to the Messiah. Mr. C. once gave me the following note
upon the _22d_ Psalm written by him, I believe, many years previously, but
which, he said, he approved at that time. It will find as appropriate a
niche here as any where else:--
"I am much delighted and instructed by the hypothesis, which I think
probable, that our Lord in repeating _Eli, Eli, lama sabacthani_, really
recited the whole or a large part of the 22d Psalm. It is impossible to
read that psalm without the liveliest feelings of love, gratitude, and
sympathy. It is, indeed, a wonderful prophecy, whatever might or might not
have been David's notion when he composed it. Whether Christ did audibly
repeat the whole or not, it is certain. I think, that he did it mentally,
and said aloud what was sufficient to enable his followers to do the same.
Even at this day to repeat in the same manner but the first line of a
common hymn would be understood as a reference to the whole. Above all, I
am thankful for the thought which suggested itself to my mind, whilst I was
reading this beautiful psalm, namely, that we should not exclusively think
of Christ as the Logos united to human nature, but likewise as a perfect
man united to the Logos. This distinction is most important in order to
conceive, much more, appropriately to _feel_, the conduct and exertions of
Jesus. "--ED. ]
_May_ 31. 1830.
ANCIENT MARINER. --UNDINE. --MARTIN. --PILGRIM'S PROGRESS.
Mrs. Barbauld once told me that she admired the Ancient Mariner very much,
but that there were two faults in it,--it was improbable, and had no moral.
As for the probability, I owned that that might admit some question; but as
to the want of a moral, I told her that in my own judgment the poem had too
much; and that the only, or chief fault, if I might say so, was the
obtrusion of the moral sentiment so openly on the reader as a principle or
cause of action in a work of such pure imagination. It ought to have had no
more moral than the Arabian Nights' tale of the merchant's sitting down to
eat dates by the side of a well, and throwing the shells aside, and lo! a
genie starts up, and says he _must_ kill the aforesaid merchant, _because_
one of the date shells had, it seems, put out the eye of the genie's
son. [1]
I took the thought of "_grinning for joy_," in that poem, from my
companion's remark to me, when we had climbed to the top of Plinlimmon, and
were nearly dead with thirst. We could not speak from the constriction,
till we found a little puddle under a stone. He said to me,--"You grinned
like an idiot! " He had done the same.
[Footnote 1:
"There he found, at the foot of a great walnut-tree, a fountain of a very
clear running water, and alighting, tied his horse to a branch of a tree,
and sitting clown by the fountain, took some biscuits and dates out of his
portmanteau, and, as he ate his dates, threw the shells about on both sides
of him. When he had done eating, being a good Mussulman, he washed his
hands, his face, and his feet, and said his prayers. He had not made an
end, but was still on his knees, when he saw a genie appear, all white with
age, and of a monstrous bulk; who, advancing towards him with a cimetar in
his hand, spoke to him in a terrible voice thus:--'Rise up, that I may kill
thee with this cimetar as you have killed my son! ' and accompanied these
words with a frightful cry. The merchant being as much frightened at the
hideous shape of the monster as at these threatening words, answered him
trembling:--'Alas! my good lord, of what crime can I be guilty towards you
that you should take away my life? '--'I will,' replies the genie, 'kill
thee, as thou hast killed my son! '--'O heaven! ' says the merchant, 'how
should I kill your son? I did not know him, nor ever saw him. '--'Did not
you sit down when you came hither? ' replies the genie. 'Did not you take
dates out of your portmanteau, and, as you ate them, did not you throw the
shells about on both sides? '--'I did all that you say,' answers the
merchant, 'I cannot deny it. '--'If it be so,' replied the genie, 'I tell
thee that thou hast killed my son; and the way was thus: when you threw the
nutshells about, my son was passing by, and you threw one of them into his
eye, which killed him, _therefore_ I must kill thee. '--'Ah! my good lord,
pardon me! ' cried the merchant. --'No pardon,' answers the genie, 'no mercy!
Is it not just to kill him that has killed another? '--'I agree to it,' says
the merchant, 'but certainly I never killed your son, and if I have, it was
unknown to me, and I did it innocently; therefore I beg you to pardon me,
and suffer me to live. '--'No, no,' says the genie, persisting in his
resolution, 'I must kill thee, since thou hast killed my son;' and then
taking the merchant by the arm, threw him with his face upon the ground,
and lifted up his cimetar to cut off his head! "--The Merchant and the
Genie. First night. --Ed. ]
* * * * *
Undine is a most exquisite work. It shows the general want of any sense for
the fine and the subtle in the public taste, that this romance made no deep
impression. Undine's character, before she receives a soul, is marvellously
beautiful. [1]
[Footnote 1:
Mr. Coleridge's admiration of this little romance was unbounded. He read it
several times in German, and once in the English translation, made in
America, I believe; the latter he thought inadequately done. Mr. C. said
that there was something in Undine even beyond Scott,--that Scott's best
characters and conceptions were _composed_; by which I understood him to
mean that Baillie Nicol Jarvie, for example, was made up of old
particulars, and received its individuality from the author's power of
fusion, being in the result an admirable product, as Corinthian brass was
said to be the conflux of the spoils of a city. But Undine, he said, was
one and single in projection, and had presented to his imagination, what
Scott had never done, an absolutely new idea--ED. ]
* * * * *
It seems to me, that Martin never looks at nature except through bits of
stained glass. He is never satisfied with any appearance that is not
prodigious. He should endeavour to school his imagination into the
apprehension of the true idea of the Beautiful. [1]
The wood-cut of Slay-good[2] is admirable, to be sure; but this new edition
of the Pilgrim's Progress is too fine a book for it. It should be much
larger, and on sixpenny coarse paper.
The Pilgrim's Progress is composed in the lowest style of English, without
slang or false grammar. If you were to polish it, you would at once destroy
the reality of the vision. For works of imagination should be written in
very plain language; the more purely imaginative they are the more
necessary it is to be plain.
This wonderful work is one of the few books which may be read over
repeatedly at different times, and each time with a new and a different
pleasure. I read it once as a theologian--and let me assure you, that there
is great theological acumen in the work--once with devotional feelings--and
once as a poet. I could not have believed beforehand that Calvinism could
be painted in such exquisitely delightful colours. [3]
[Footnote 1:
Mr. Coleridge said this, after looking at the engravings of Mr. Martin's
two pictures of the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and the Celestial City,
published in the beautiful edition of the Pilgrim's Progress by Messrs.
Murray and Major, in 1830. I wish Mr. Martin could have heard the poet's
lecture: he would have been flattered, and at the same time, I believe,
instructed; for in the philosophy of painting Coleridge was a master. --ED. ]
[Footnote 2:
P. 350. , by S. Mosses from a design by Mr. W. Harvey. "When they came to
the place where he was, they found him with one _Feeble-mind_ in his hand,
whom his servants had brought unto him, having taken him in the way. Now
the giant was rifling him, with a purpose, after that, to pick his bones;
for he was of the nature of flesh eaters. "--ED. ]
[Footnote 3:
I find written on a blank leaf of my copy of this edition of the P. 's P.
the following note by Mr. C. :--"I know of no book, the Bible excepted as
above all comparison, which I, according to _my_ judgment and experience,
could so safely recommend as teaching and enforcing the whole saving truth
according to the mind that was in Christ Jesus, as the Pilgrim's Progress.
It is, in my conviction, incomparably the best _summa theologiae
evangalicae_ ever produced by a writer not miraculously inspired. " June 14.
1830. --ED. ]
_June_ 1. 1830.
PRAYER. --CHURCH-SINGING. --HOOKER. --DREAMS.
There are three sorts of prayer:--1. Public; 2. Domestic; 3. Solitary. Each
has its peculiar uses and character. I think the church ought to publish
and authorise a directory of forms for the latter two. Yet I fear the
execution would be inadequate. There is a great decay of devotional unction
in the numerous books of prayers put out now-a-days. I really think the
hawker was very happy, who blundered New Form of Prayer into New _former_
Prayers. [1]
I exceedingly regret that our church pays so little attention to the
subject of congregational singing. See how it is! In that particular part
of the public worship in which, more than in all the rest, the common
people might, and ought to, join,--which, by its association with music, is
meant to give a fitting vent and expression to the emotions,--in that part
we all sing as Jews; or, at best, as mere men, in the abstract, without a
Saviour. You know my veneration for the Book of Psalms, or most of it; but
with some half dozen exceptions, the Psalms are surely not adequate
vehicles of Christian thanksgiving and joy! Upon this deficiency in our
service, Wesley and Whitfield seized; and you know it is the hearty
congregational singing of Christian hymns which keeps the humbler
Methodists together. Luther did as much for the Reformation by his hymns as
by his translation of the Bible. In Germany, the hymns are known by heart
by every peasant: they advise, they argue from the hymns, and every soul in
the church praises God, like a Christian, with words which are natural and
yet sacred to his mind.
